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+Project Gutenberg's Military Manners and Customs, by James Anson Farrer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Military Manners and Customs
+
+Author: James Anson Farrer
+
+Release Date: January 9, 2014 [EBook #44635]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Clark and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Transcriber's Note:
+
+ Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+ possible, including inconsistent hyphenation. Some changes have been
+ made. They are listed at the end of the text.
+
+ Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
+
+
+
+
+ LONDON: PRINTED BY
+ SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
+ AND PARLIAMENT STREET
+
+
+
+
+ MILITARY MANNERS
+ AND CUSTOMS
+
+ BY
+
+ JAMES ANSON FARRER
+
+ AUTHOR OF
+ ‘PRIMITIVE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS’ ‘CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS’ ETC.
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ _‘Homo homini res sacra’_--Seneca
+
+ London
+ CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
+ 1885
+
+ [_The right of translation is reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In the present volume I have attempted within the limits of the
+historical period and of our European civilisation, and without
+recognising any hard and fast line between ancient and modern,
+Christian and Pagan, to allude, in the places that seemed most
+appropriate, to all points in the history of war that appeared to be
+either of special interest or of essential importance. As examples
+of such points I may refer to the treatment of prisoners of war, or
+of surrendered garrisons; the rules about spies and surprises; the
+introduction of, and feeling about, new weapons; the meaning of parts
+of military dress; the origin of peculiar customs like the old one of
+kissing the earth before a charge; the prevalent rules of honour, as
+displayed in notions of justice in regard to reprisals, or of fairness
+in stratagems and deception. The necessity of observing in so vast a
+field the laws of proportion has enforced resort to such condensation,
+that on subjects which deserve or possess their tomes upon tomes, I
+have in many cases been unable to spend more than a page or a chapter.
+It is easier, however, to err on the side of length than of brevity,
+but on whichever side I have exceeded, I can only hope that others, who
+may feel the same interest with myself in the subject without having
+the same time to give to it, may derive a tithe of the pleasure from
+reading the following nine chapters that I have found in putting them
+together.
+
+The study, of course, is no new one, but there can be no objection
+to calling it by the new name of Bellology--a convenient term, quite
+capable of holding its own with Sociology or its congeners. The only
+novelty I have aimed at is one of treatment, and consists in never
+losing sight of the fact that to all military customs there is a moral
+and human side which has been only too generally ignored in this
+connection. To read books like Grose’s ‘Military Antiquities,’ one
+would think their writers were dealing with the manners, not of men but
+of ninepins, so utterly do they divest themselves of all human interest
+or moral feeling, in reference to the customs they describe with so
+laudable but toneless an accuracy.
+
+The starting-point of modern bellological studies will, undoubtedly,
+always be the Parliamentary Blue Book, containing the reports (less
+full than one might wish) of the Military International Conference
+that met at Brussels in 1874, to discuss the existing laws and customs
+of war, and to consider whether any modification of them were either
+possible or desirable. Most of the representatives appointed to attend
+by the several Powers were military men, so that we are carried by
+their conversation into the actual realities of modern warfare, with
+an authority and sense of truth that one is conscious of in no other
+military book. It is to be regretted that such a work, instructive as
+it is beyond any other on the subject, has never been printed in a
+form more popular than its official dress. It was from it that I first
+conceived the idea of the following pages, and in the sequel frequent
+reference will be made to it, as the source of the most trustworthy
+military information we possess, and as certain to be for some time
+to come the standard work on all the actual laws and customs of
+contemporary warfare.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+
+ THE LAWS OF WAR.
+
+ PAGE
+
+ The prohibition of explosive bullets in war 2
+
+ The importance of the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868 3
+
+ The ultimate triumph of more destructive methods 4
+
+ Illustrated by history of the crossbow or the musket 5
+
+ Or of cannons, torpedoes, red-hot shot, or the bayonet 5
+
+ Numbers slain in modern and earlier warfare 8
+
+ The laws of war at the Brussels Conference of 1874 10
+
+ Do the laws of war tend to improve? 13
+
+ A negative answer suggested from reference 13
+
+ 1. To the use of poison in war 14
+
+ 2. To the bombardment of towns 15
+
+ 3. To the destruction of public buildings 16
+
+ 4. To the destruction of crops and fruit-trees 16
+
+ 5. To the murder of prisoners or the wounded 17
+
+ 6. To the murder of surrendered garrisons 18
+
+ 7. To the destruction of fishing-boats 19
+
+ 8. To the disuse of the declaration of war 19
+
+ 9. To the torture and mutilation of combatants and
+ non-combatants 20
+
+ 10. To the custom of contributions 20
+
+ The futile attempts of Grotius and Vattel to humanise warfare 21
+
+ The rights of war in the time of Grotius 24
+
+ The futility of international law with regard to laws of war 26
+
+ The employment of barbarian troops 26
+
+ The taking of towns by assault 27
+
+ The laws of war contrasted with the practice 28
+
+ War easier to abolish than to humanise 30
+
+
+ CHAPTER II.
+
+ WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS TIMES.
+
+ Delusion about character of war in days of chivalry 32
+
+ The common slaughter of women and children 33
+
+ The Earl of Derby’s sack of Poitiers 34
+
+ The massacres of Grammont and Gravelines 35
+
+ The old poem of the Vow of the Heron 36
+
+ The massacre of Limoges by Edward the Black Prince 37
+
+ The imprisonment of ladies for ransom 38
+
+ Prisoners of war starved to death 39
+
+ Or massacred, if no prospect of ransom 41
+
+ Or blinded or otherwise mutilated 42
+
+ The meaning of a surrender at discretion 44
+
+ As illustrated by Edward III. at Calais 44
+
+ And by several instances in the same and the next century 45
+
+ The practice of burning in aid of war 47
+
+ And of destroying sacred buildings 47
+
+ The practice of poisoning the air 49
+
+ The use of barbarous weapons 50
+
+ The influence of religion on war 51
+
+ The Church in vain on the side of peace 52
+
+ Curious vows of the knights 54
+
+ The slight personal danger incurred in war by them 54
+
+ The explanation of their magnificent costume 55
+
+ Field sports in war-time 56
+
+ The desire of gain the chief motive of war 57
+
+ The identity of soldiers and brigands 57
+
+ The career and character of the Black Prince 59
+
+ The place of money in the history of chivalry 61
+
+ Its influence as a war-motive between England and France 62
+
+ General low character of chivalrous warfare 64
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+
+ NAVAL WARFARE.
+
+ Robbery the first object of maritime warfare 66
+
+ The piratical origin of European navies 67
+
+ Merciless character of wars at sea 69
+
+ Fortunes made by privateering in England 71
+
+ Privateers commissioned by the State 72
+
+ Privateers defended by the publicists 73
+
+ Distinction between privateering and piracy 73
+
+ Failure of the State to regulate privateering 74
+
+ Privateering condemned by Lord Nelson 77
+
+ Privateering abolished by the declaration of Paris in 1856 78
+
+ Modern feeling against seizure of private property at sea 79
+
+ Naval warfare in days of wooden ships 80
+
+ Unlawful methods of maritime war 81
+
+ The Emperor Leo VI.’s ‘Treatise on Tactics’ 83
+
+ The use of fire-ships 84
+
+ Death the penalty for serving in fire-ships 85
+
+ Torpedoes originally regarded as ‘bad’ war 85
+
+ English and French doctrine of rights of neutrals 86
+
+ Enemy’s property under neutral flag secured by Treaty of Paris 87
+
+ Shortcomings of the Treaty of Paris with regard to--
+
+ 1. A definition of what is contraband 88
+
+ 2. The right of search of vessels under convoy 88
+
+ 3. The practice of Embargoes 89
+
+ 4. The _Jus Angariæ_ 90
+
+ The International Marine Code of the future 91
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+
+ MILITARY REPRISALS.
+
+ International law on legitimate reprisals 93
+
+ The Brussels Conference on the subject 95
+
+ Illustrations of barbarous reprisals 97
+
+ Instances of non-retaliation 98
+
+ Savage reprisals in days of chivalry 100
+
+ Hanging the commonest reprisals for a brave defence 101
+
+ As illustrated by the warfare of the fifteenth century 102
+
+ Survival of the custom to our own times 104
+
+ The massacre of a conquered garrison still a law of war 105
+
+ The shelling of Strasburg by the Germans 106
+
+ Brutal warfare of Alexander the Great 107
+
+ The connection between bravery and cruelty 110
+
+ The abolition of slavery in its effects on war 112
+
+ The storming of Magdeburg, Brescia, and Rome 112
+
+ Cicero on Roman warfare 114
+
+ The reprisals of the Germans in France in 1870 115
+
+ Their revival of the custom of taking hostages 117
+
+ Their resort to robbery as a plea of reprisals 118
+
+ General Von Moltke on perpetual peace 119
+
+ The moral responsibility of the military profession 121
+
+ The Press as a potent cause of war 122
+
+ Plea for the abolition of demands for unconditional surrender 123
+
+ Such as led to the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 123
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+
+ MILITARY STRATAGEMS.
+
+ Grotius’ theory of fair stratagems 126
+
+ The teaching of international law 127
+
+ Ancient and modern naval stratagems 127
+
+ Early Roman dislike of such stratagems 132
+
+ As ambuscades, feigned retreats, or night attacks 132
+
+ The degenerate standard of Frontinus and Polyænus 135
+
+ The Conference stratagem of modern Europe 136
+
+ The distinction between perfidy and stratagem 139
+
+ The perfidy of Francis I. 140
+
+ Vattel’s theory about spies 141
+
+ Frederick the Great’s military instructions about spies 142
+
+ Lord Wolseley on spies and truth in war 144
+
+ The custom of hanging or shooting spies 145
+
+ Better to keep them as prisoners of war 146
+
+ Balloonists regarded as spies 147
+
+ The practice of military surprises 148
+
+ Death formerly the penalty for capture in a surprise 150
+
+ Stratagems of uncertain character 151
+
+ Such as forged despatches or false intelligence 151
+
+ The use of the telegraph in deceiving the enemy 151
+
+ May prisoners of war be compelled to propagate lies? 152
+
+ General character of the military code of fraud 153
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+
+ BARBARIAN WARFARE.
+
+ Variable notions of honour 156
+
+ Primitive ideas of a military life 156
+
+ What is civilised warfare? 158
+
+ Advanced laws of war among several savage tribes 159
+
+ Symbols of peace among savages 161
+
+ The Samoan form of surrender 162
+
+ Treaties of peace among savages 162
+
+ Abeyance of laws of war in hostilities with savages 163
+
+ Zulus blown up in caves with gun-cotton 165
+
+ Women and men kidnapped for transport service on the Gold Coast 166
+
+ Humane intentions of the Spaniards in the New World 167
+
+ Contrasted with the inhumanity of their actions 167
+
+ Wars with natives of English and French in America 170
+
+ High rewards offered for scalps 171
+
+ The use of bloodhounds in war 171
+
+ The use of poison and infected clothes 172
+
+ Penn’s treaty with the Indians 173
+
+ How Missionaries come to be a cause of war 176
+
+ Explanation of the failure of modern missions 178
+
+ The mission stations as centres of hostile intrigues 179
+
+ Plea for the State-regulation of missions 181
+
+ Depopulation under Protestant influences 181
+
+ The prevention of false rumours--_Tendenzlügen_ 182
+
+ Civilised and barbarian warfare 183
+
+ No real distinction between them 184
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+
+ WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.
+
+ The war question at the time of the Reformation 185
+
+ The remonstrances of Erasmus against the custom 186
+
+ Influence of Grotius on the side of war 187
+
+ The war question in the early Church 188
+
+ The Fathers against the lawfulness of war 190
+
+ Causes of the changed views of the Church 192
+
+ The clergy as active combatants for over a thousand years 193
+
+ Fighting bishops 193
+
+ Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment 196
+
+ Pope Julius II. at the siege of Mirandola 197
+
+ The last fighting bishop 197
+
+ Origin and meaning of the declaration of war 198
+
+ Superstition in the naming of weapons, ships, &c. 200
+
+ The custom of kissing the earth before a charge 201
+
+ Connection between religious and military ideas 202
+
+ The Church as a pacific agency 204
+
+ Her efforts to set limits to reprisals 207
+
+ The altered attitude of the modern Church 208
+
+ Early Reformers only sanctioned _just_ wars 208
+
+ Voltaire’s reproach against the Church 210
+
+ Canon Mozley’s sermon on war 212
+
+ The answer to his apology 214
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ CURIOSITIES OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.
+
+ Increased severity of discipline 218
+
+ Limitation of the right of matrimony 219
+
+ Compulsory Church parade and its origin 219
+
+ Atrocious military punishments 221
+
+ Reasons for the military love of red 223
+
+ The origin of bear-skin hats 223
+
+ Different qualities of bravery 225
+
+ Historical fears for the extinction of courage 225
+
+ The conquests of the cause of Peace 227
+
+ Causes of the unpopularity of military service 228
+
+ The dulness of life in the ranks 228
+
+ The prevalence of desertion 230
+
+ Articles of war against Malingering 231
+
+ Military artificial ophthalmia 233
+
+ The debasing influence of discipline 234
+
+ Illustrated from the old flogging system 235
+
+ The discipline of the Peninsular army 236
+
+ Attempts to make the service more popular 239
+
+ By raising the private’s wages 239
+
+ By shortening his term of service 240
+
+ The old recruiting system of France and Germany 241
+
+ The conscription imminent in England 242
+
+ The question of military service for women 242
+
+ The probable results of the conscription 243
+
+ Militarism answerable for Socialism 246
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+
+ THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTIES.
+
+ The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed 250
+
+ Military purificatory customs 250
+
+ Modern change of feeling about warfare 252
+
+ Descartes on the profession of arms 254
+
+ The old-world sentiment in favour of piracy 255
+
+ The central question of military ethics 257
+
+ May a soldier be indifferent to the cause of war? 257
+
+ The right to serve made conditional on a good cause 258
+
+ By St. Augustine, Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir James Turner 258
+
+ Old Greek feeling about mercenary service 260
+
+ Origin of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous service 260
+
+ Armies raised by military contractors 261
+
+ The value of the distinction between foreign and native
+ mercenaries 262
+
+ Original limitation of military duty 264
+
+ To the actual defence of the realm 264
+
+ Extension of the notion of allegiance 265
+
+ The connection of the military oath with the first Mutiny Act 265
+
+ Recognised limits to the claims on a soldier’s obedience 266
+
+ The falsity of the common doctrine of duty 266
+
+ Illustrated by the devastation of the Palatinate by the French 267
+
+ And by the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English 268
+
+ The example of Admiral Keppel 270
+
+ Justice between nations 271
+
+ Its observation in ancient India and Rome 271
+
+ St. Augustine and Bayard on justice in war 273
+
+ Grotius on good grounds of war 273
+
+ The military claim to exemption from moral responsibility 276
+
+ The soldier’s first duty to his conscience 279
+
+ The admission of this principle involves the end of war 280
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE LAWS OF WAR.
+
+ _Ce sont des lois de la guerre. Il faut estre bien cruel bien
+ souvent pour venir au bout de son ennemi; Dieu doit estre
+ bien miséricordieux en nostre endroict, qui faisons tant de
+ maux._--MARSHAL MONTLUC.
+
+ The prohibition of explosive bullets in war--The importance of the
+ Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868--The ultimate triumph of
+ more destructive methods--Illustrated by history of the cross-bow
+ or the musket; or of cannons, torpedoes, red-hot shot, or the
+ bayonet--Numbers slain in modern and earlier warfare--The laws of
+ war at the Brussels Conference of 1874--Do the laws of war tend to
+ improve?--A negative answer suggested from reference: (1) to the
+ use of poison in war; (2) to the bombardment of towns; (3) to the
+ destruction of public buildings; (4) to the destruction of crops
+ and fruit trees; (5) to the murder of prisoners or the wounded; (6)
+ to the murder of surrendered garrisons; (7) to the destruction of
+ fishing boats; (8) to the disuse of the declaration of war; (9) to
+ the torture and mutilation of combatants and non-combatants; (10)
+ to the custom of contributions--The futile attempts of Grotius
+ and Vattel to humanise warfare--The rights of war in the time of
+ Grotius--The futility of international law with regard to laws of
+ war--The employment of barbarian troops--The taking of towns by
+ assault--The laws of war contrasted with the practice--War easier
+ to abolish than to humanise.
+
+
+It is impossible to head a chapter ‘The Laws of War’ without thinking
+of that famous chapter on Iceland headed ‘The Snakes of Iceland,’
+wherein the writer simply informed his readers that there were none in
+the country. ‘The laws of war’ make one think of the snakes of Iceland.
+
+Nevertheless, a summary denial of their existence would deprive the
+history of the battle-field of one of its most interesting features;
+for there is surely nothing more surprising to an impartial observer of
+military manners and customs than to find that even in so just a cause
+as the defence of your own country limitations should be set to the
+right of injuring your aggressor in any manner you can.
+
+What, for instance, can be more obvious in such a case than that no
+suffering you can inflict is needless which is most likely permanently
+to disable your adversary? Yet, by virtue of the International
+Declaration of St. Petersburg, in 1868, you may not use explosive
+bullets against him, because it is held that they would cause him
+needless suffering. By the logic of war, what can be clearer than that,
+if the explosive bullet deals worse wounds, and therefore inflicts
+death more readily than other destructive agencies, it should be
+used? or else that those too should be excluded from the rules of the
+game--which might end in putting a stop to the game altogether?
+
+The history of the explosive bullet is worth recalling, for its
+prohibition is a straw to clutch at in these days of military revival.
+Like the plague, and perhaps gunpowder, it had an Eastern origin. It
+was used originally in India against elephants and tigers. In 1863 it
+was introduced into the Russian army, and subsequently into other
+European armies, for use against ammunition-waggons. But it was not
+till 1867 that a slight modification in its construction rendered it
+available for the destruction of mankind. The world owes it to the
+humanity of the Russian Minister of War, General Milutine, that at this
+point a pause was made; and as the Czar, Alexander II., was no less
+humane than his minister, the result was the famous Declaration, signed
+in 1868 by all the chief Powers (save the United States), mutually
+foregoing in their future wars by land or sea the use of projectiles
+weighing less than 400 grammes (to save their use for artillery),
+either explosive or filled with inflammable substances. The Court of
+Berlin wished at the time for some other destructive contrivances to be
+equally excluded, but the English Government was afraid to go further;
+as if requiring breathing time after so immense an effort to diminish
+human suffering, before proceeding in so perilous a direction.
+
+The Declaration of St. Petersburg, inasmuch as it is capable of
+indefinite expansion, is a somewhat awkward precedent for those who
+in their hearts love war and shield its continuance with apologetic
+platitudes. How, they ask, can you enforce agreements between nations?
+But this argument begins to totter when we remember that there is
+absolutely no superior power or tribunal in existence which can enforce
+the observance of the St. Petersburg Declaration beyond the conscience
+of the signatory Powers. It follows, therefore, that if international
+agreements are of value, there is no need to stop short at this or that
+bullet: which makes the arbitration-tribunal loom in the distance
+perceptibly nearer than it did before.
+
+At first sight, this agreement excluding the use of explosive bullets
+would seem to favour the theory of those who see in every increase in
+the peril of war the best hope of its ultimate cessation. A famous
+American statesman is reported to have said, and actually to have
+appealed to the invention of gunpowder in support of his statement,
+that every discovery in the art of war has, from this point of view,
+a life-saving and peace-promoting influence.[1] But it is difficult
+to conceive a greater delusion. The whole history of war is against
+it; for what has that history been but the steady increase of the
+pains and perils of war, as more effective weapons of destruction have
+succeeded one another? The delusion cannot be better dispelled than by
+consideration of the facts that follow.
+
+It has often seemed as if humanity were about to get the better of
+the logical tendency of the military art. The Lateran Council of 1139
+(a sort of European congress in its day) not only condemned Arnold of
+Brescia to be burnt for heresy, but anathematised the cross-bow for its
+inhumanity. It forbade its use in Christian warfare as alike hateful to
+God and destructive of mankind.[2] Several brave princes disdained to
+employ cross-bow shooters, and Innocent III. confirmed the prohibition
+on the ground that it was not fair to inflict on an enemy more than the
+least possible injury.[3] The long-bow consequently came into greater
+use. But Richard I., in spite of Popes or Councils or Chivalry, revived
+the use of the cross-bow in Europe; nor, though his death by one
+himself was regarded as a judgment from Heaven, did its use from that
+time decline till the arquebus and then the musket took its place.
+
+Cannons and bombs were at first called diabolical, because they
+suggested the malice of the enemy of mankind, or serpentines, because
+they seemed worse than the poison of serpents.[4] But even cannons were
+at first only used against fortified walls, and there is a tradition
+of the first occasion when they were directed against men.[5] And
+torpedoes, now used without scruple, were called infamous and infernal
+when, under the name of American Turtles, they were first tried by the
+American Colonies against the ships of their mother country.
+
+In the sixteenth century, that knight ‘without fear or reproach,’ the
+Chevalier Bayard, ordered all musketeers who fell into his hands to
+be slain without mercy, because he held the introduction of fire-arms
+to be an unfair innovation on the rules of lawful war. So red-hot
+shot (or balls made red hot before insertion in the cannon) were at
+first objected to, or only considered fair for purposes of defence,
+not of attack. Yet, what do we find?--that Louis XIV. fired some
+12,000 of them into Brussels in 1694; that the Austrians fired them
+into Lille in 1792; and that the English batteries fired them at the
+ships in Sebastopol harbour, which formed part of the Russian defences.
+Chain-shot and bar-shot were also disapproved of at first, or excluded
+from use by conventions applying only to particular wars; now there
+exists no agreement precluding their use, for they soon became common
+in battles at sea.
+
+The invention of the bayonet supplies another illustration. The
+accounts of its origin are little better than legends: that it was
+invented so long ago as 1323 by a woman of Bayonne in defence of the
+ramparts of that city against the English; or by Puséygur, of Bayonne,
+about 1650; or borrowed by the Dutch from the natives of Madagascar;
+or connected with a place called the Redoute de la Baïonnette in the
+Eastern Pyrenees, where the Basques, having exhausted their ammunition
+against the Spaniards, are said to have inserted their knives into
+the muzzles of their guns. But it is certain that as soon as the idea
+was perfected by fixing the blade by rings outside the muzzle (in
+the latter quarter of the seventeenth century), battles became more
+murderous than ever, though the destruction of infantry by cavalry
+was diminished. The battle of Neerwinden in 1693, in which the French
+general, Luxembourg, defeated the Prince of Orange, is said to have
+been the first battle that was decided by a charge with a bayonet, and
+the losses were enormous on both sides.[6]
+
+History, in fact, is full of such cases, in which the victory has
+uniformly lain ultimately with the legitimacy of the weapon or method
+that was at first rejected as inhumane. For the moment, the law of
+nations forbids the use of certain methods of destruction, such as
+bullets filled with glass or nails, or chemical compounds like kakodyl,
+which could convert in a moment the atmosphere round an army into one
+of deadly poison;[7] yet we have nothing like certainty--we have not
+even historical probability--that these forbidden means, or worse
+means, will not be resorted to in the wars of the future, or that
+reluctance to meet such forms of death will in the least degree affect
+either their frequency or their duration.
+
+It is easy to explain this law of history. The soldier’s courage, as he
+faces the mitrailleuse with the same indifference with which he would
+face snow-balls or bread-pellets, is a miracle of which discipline is
+the simple explanation; for whether the soldier be hired or coerced to
+face death, it is all one to him against what kind of bullet he rushes,
+so long as discipline remains--as Helvetius the French philosopher
+once defined it, the art of making soldiers more afraid of their own
+officers than of their enemy.[8] To Clearchus, the Lacedæmonian, is
+attributed the saying that a soldier should always fear his own general
+more than the enemy: a mental state easily produced in every system of
+military mechanism. Whatever form of death be in front of a man, it
+is less certain than that in his rear. The Ashantees as they march
+to battle sing a song which is the soldier’s philosophy all the world
+over: ‘If I go on, I shall die; if I stay behind I shall be killed; it
+is better to go on.’[9]
+
+How often is it said, in extenuation of modern warfare, that it is
+infinitely less destructive than that of ancient or even mediæval
+times; and that the actual loss of life in battle has not kept pace
+with the development of new and more effective life-taking implements!
+Yet it is difficult to imagine a stranger paradox, or a proposition
+that, if true, would reflect greater descredit on our mechanical
+science. If our Gatling guns, or Nordenfeldt 5-barrels capable of
+firing 600 rounds a minute, are less effective to destroy an enemy than
+all the paraphernalia of a mediæval army, why not in that case return
+to weapons that by the hypothesis better fulfilled the purposes of war?
+This question is a _reductio ad absurdum_ of this soothing delusion;
+but as a matter of fact, there is no comparison in destructiveness
+between our modern warfare and that of our ancestors. The apparent
+difference in our favour arises from a practice alluded to by Philip
+de Commines, which throws a flood of light upon the subject: ‘There
+were slain in this battle about 6,000 men, which, to people that are
+unwilling to lie, may seem very much; but in my time I have been in
+several actions, where for one man that was really slain they have
+reported a hundred, thinking by such an account to please their
+masters; and they sometimes deceive them with their lies.’ That is to
+say, as a rule the number of the slain should be divided by a hundred.
+
+This remark applies even to battles like Crecy or Agincourt, where the
+numbers slain were unusually high, and where they are said to have been
+accurately ascertained by counting after the victory. When Froissart on
+such authority quotes 1,291 as the total number of warriors of knightly
+or higher rank slain at Crecy, it is possible of course that he is not
+the victim of deception; but what of the 30,000 common soldiers for
+whose death he also vouches? A monk of St. Albans, also a contemporary,
+speaks only of an unknown number (_et vulgus cujus numerus ignoratur_);
+which in the account of the Abbot Hugo was put definitely at more than
+100,000. It is evident from this that the greatest laxity prevailed
+in reference to chronicling the numbers of the slain; so that if we
+take 3,000 instead of 30,000 as the sum total of common soldiers slain
+at Crecy, it is probable that we shall be nearer the truth than if we
+implicitly accept Froissart’s statement.
+
+The same scepticism will of course hold good of the battles of the
+ancient world. Is it likely, for instance, that in a battle in which
+the Romans are said only to have lost 100 men, the Macedonians should
+have lost 20,000?[10] Or again, is it possible, considering the
+difficulty of the commissariat of a large army, even in our own days
+of trains and telegraphs and improved agriculture, that Marius in one
+battle can have slain 200,000 Teutons, and taken 90,000 prisoners?
+But whilst no conclusion is possible but that the figures of the older
+histories are altogether too untrustworthy to afford any basis for
+comparison, the calculation rests on something more like fair evidence,
+that in the fortnight between August 4, 1870, the date of the battle
+of Wissembourg, and August 18, that of Gravelotte, including the
+battles of Woerth and Forbach on August 6, of Courcelles on the 14th,
+and of Vionville on the 16th more than 100,000 French and Germans
+met their death on the battle-field, to say nothing of those who
+perished afterwards in agonies in the hospitals. Recent wars have been
+undoubtedly shorter than they often were in olden times, but their
+brevity is founded on no reason that can ensure its recurrence: nor, if
+100,000 are to be miserably cast out of existence, is the gain so very
+great, if the task, instead of being spread over a number of years,
+requires only a fortnight for its accomplishment.
+
+For the nearest approach to a statement of what the laws of war in our
+own time really are, we must turn to the Brussels Conference, which
+met in 1874 at the summons of the same great Russian to whom the world
+owes the St. Petersburg Declaration, and which constituted a genuine
+attempt to mitigate the evils of war by an international agreement and
+definition of their limits. The idea of such a plan was originally
+suggested by the Instructions published in 1863 by President Lincoln
+for the government of the armies of the United States in the civil
+war.[11] The project for such an international agreement, originally
+submitted by the Russian Government for discussion, was very much
+modified before even a compromise of opinion could be arrived at on
+the several points it contained. And the project so modified, as a
+preliminary basis for future agreement, owing to the timid refusal
+of the English Government to take further part in the matter, never,
+unfortunately, reached its final stage of a definite code;[12] but it
+remains nevertheless the most authoritative utterance extant of the
+laws generally thought to be binding in modern warfare on the practices
+and passions of the combatants. The following articles from the project
+as finally modified are undoubtedly the most important:--
+
+_Art. 12._ The laws of war do not allow to belligerents an unlimited
+power as to the choice of means of injuring the enemy.
+
+_Art. 13._ According to this principle are strictly forbidden--
+
+ _a._ The use of poison or poisoned weapons.
+
+ _b._ Murder by treachery of individuals belonging to the hostile
+ nation or army.
+
+ _c._ Murder of an antagonist who, having laid down his arms, or having
+ no longer the means of defending himself, has surrendered at
+ discretion.
+
+ _d._ The declaration that no quarter will be given.
+
+
+ _e._ The use of arms, projectiles, or substances which may cause
+ unnecessary suffering, as well as of those prohibited by the
+ Declaration of St. Petersburg in 1868.
+
+ _f._ Abuse of the flag of truce, the national flag, or the military
+ insignia or uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges
+ of the Geneva Convention.
+
+ _g._ All destruction or seizure of the enemy’s property which is not
+ imperatively required by the necessity of war.
+
+_Art. 15._ Fortified places are alone liable to be besieged. Towns,
+agglomerations of houses or villages which are open or undefended,
+cannot be attacked or bombarded.
+
+_Art. 17._ ... All necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as
+possible buildings devoted to religion, arts, sciences, and charity,
+hospitals and places where sick and wounded are collected, on condition
+that they are not used at the same time for military purposes.
+
+_Art. 18._ A town taken by storm shall not be given up to the
+victorious troops for plunder.
+
+_Art. 23._ Prisoners of war ... should be treated with humanity.... All
+their personal effects except their arms are to be considered their own
+property.
+
+_Arts. 36, 37._ The population of an occupied territory cannot be
+compelled to take part in military operations against their own
+country, nor to swear allegiance to the enemy’s power.
+
+_Art. 38._ The honour and rights of the family, the life and property
+of individuals, as well as their religious convictions and the exercise
+of their religion, should be respected.
+
+Private property cannot be confiscated.
+
+_Art. 39._ Pillage is expressly forbidden.
+
+There is at first sight a pleasing ring of humanity in all this,
+though, as yet, it only represents the better military spirit, which is
+always far in advance of actual military practice. In the monotonous
+history of war there are always commanders who wage it with less
+ferocity than others, and writers who plead for the mitigation of
+its cruelties. As in modern history a Marlborough, a Wellington, or
+a Villars forms a pleasant contrast to a Feuquières, a Belleisle, or
+a Blücher, so in ancient history a Marcellus or a Lucullus helps us
+to forget a Marius or an Alexander; and the sentiments of a Cicero or
+Tacitus were as far in advance of their time as those of a Grotius or
+Vattel were of theirs. According to the accident of the existence of
+such men, the laws of war fluctuate from age to age; but, the question
+arises, Do they become perceptibly milder? do they ever permanently
+improve?
+
+It will be said that they do, because it will be said that they have;
+and that the annals of modern wars present nothing to resemble the
+atrocities that may be collected from ancient or mediæval history. Yet
+such statements carry no conviction. Deterioration seems as likely as
+improvement; and unless the custom is checked altogether, the wars of
+the twentieth century may be expected to exceed in barbarity anything
+of which we have any conception. A very brief inquiry will suffice to
+dispel the common assurances of improvement and progress.
+
+Poison is forbidden in war, says the Berlin Conference; but so it
+always was, even in the Institutes of Menu, and with perhaps less
+difference of opinion in ancient than in modern times. Grotius and
+Vattel and most of their followers disallow it, but two publicists
+of grave authority defend it, Bynkershoeck and Wolff. The latter
+published his ‘Jus Gentium’ as late as 1749, and his argument is worth
+translating, since it can only be met by arguments which equally apply
+to other modes of military slaughter. ‘Naturally it is lawful to kill
+an enemy by poison; for as long as he is our enemy, he resists the
+reparation of our right, so that we may exercise against his person
+whatever suffices to avert his power from ourselves or our possessions.
+Therefore it is not unfair to get rid of him. But, since it comes to
+the same thing whether you get rid of him by the sword or by poison
+(which is self-evident, because in either case you get rid of him, and
+he can no longer resist or injure you), it is naturally lawful to kill
+an enemy by poison.’ And so, he argues with equal force, of poisoned
+weapons.[13] That poison is not in use in our day we do not therefore
+owe to our international lawyers, but to the accident of tradition. In
+Roman history the theory appears to have been unanimous against it.
+‘Such conduct,’ says the Roman writer Florus of a general who poisoned
+some springs in order to bring some cities in Asia to a speedier
+surrender, ‘although it hastened his victory, rendered it infamous,
+since it was done not only against divine law, but against ancestral
+customs.’[14] Our statesman Fox refused indignantly to avail himself
+of an offer to poison Napoleon, but so did the Roman consuls refuse a
+similar proposal with regard to Pyrrhus; and Tiberius and the Roman
+senate replied to a plan for poisoning Arminius, that the Roman people
+punished their enemies not by fraud or in secret, but openly and in
+arms.
+
+The history of bombarding towns affords an instance of something
+like actual deterioration in the usages of modern warfare. Regular
+and simple bombardment, that is, of a town indiscriminately and not
+merely its fortresses, has now become the established practice. Yet,
+what did Vattel say in the middle of the last century? ‘At present we
+generally content ourselves with battering the ramparts and defences of
+a place. To destroy a town with bombs and red-hot balls is an extremity
+to which we do not proceed without cogent reasons.’ What said Vauban
+still earlier? ‘The fire must be directed simply at the defences and
+batteries of a place ... and not against the houses.’ Then what of the
+English bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, when the cathedral and some
+300 houses were destroyed; what of the German bombardment of Strasburg
+in 1870, where rifled mortars were used for the first time,[15] and the
+famous library and picture gallery destroyed; and what lastly of the
+German bombardment of Paris, about which, strangely enough, even the
+military conscience of the Germans was struck, so that in the highest
+circles doubts about the propriety of such a proceeding at one time
+prevailed from a moral no less than from a military point of view?[16]
+
+With respect again to sacred or public buildings, warfare tends to
+become increasingly destructive. It was the rule in Greek warfare to
+spare sacred buildings, and the Romans frequently spared sacred and
+other buildings, as Marcellus, for instance, at Syracuse.[17] Yet when
+the French ravaged the Palatinate in 1689 they not only set fire to the
+cathedrals, but sacked the tombs of the ancient Emperors at Spiers.
+Frederick II. destroyed some of the finest buildings at Dresden and
+Prague. In 1814 the English forces destroyed the Capitol at Washington,
+the President’s house, and other public buildings;[18] and in 1815 the
+Prussian general, Blücher, was with difficulty restrained from blowing
+up the Bridge of Jena at Paris and the Pillar of Austerlitz. Military
+men have always the excuse of reprisals or accident for these acts of
+Vandalism. Yet Vattel had said (in language which but repeated the
+language of Polybius and Cicero): ‘We ought to spare those edifices
+which do honour to human society, and do not contribute to the enemy’s
+strength, such as temples, tombs, public buildings, and all works of
+remarkable beauty.’
+
+Of as little avail has been the same writer’s observation that those
+who tear up vines and cut down fruit trees are to be looked upon
+as savage. The Fijian islanders were barbarians enough, but even
+they used as a rule to spare their enemies’ fruit trees; so did the
+ancient Indians; and the Koran forbids the wanton destruction of fruit
+trees, palm trees, corn and cattle. Then what shall we think of the
+armies of Louis XIV. in the Palatinate not only burning castles,
+country-houses, and villages, but ruthlessly destroying crops, vines,
+and fruit trees?[19] or of the Prussian warrior, Blücher, destroying
+the ornamental trees at Paris in 1815?
+
+It is said that the Germans refused to let the women and children leave
+Strasburg before they began to bombard it in 1870.[20] Yet Vattel
+himself tells us how Titus, at the siege of Jerusalem, suffered the
+women and children to depart, and how Henri IV., besieging Paris, had
+the humanity to let them pass through his lines.
+
+It was in a campaign of this century, 1815, that General Roquet
+collected the French officers, and bade them tell the grenadiers that
+the first man who should bring him in a Prussian prisoner should be
+shot; and it was in reprisals for this that a few days later the
+Prussians killed the French wounded at Genappe.[21]
+
+Grotius, after quoting the fact that a decree of the Amphictyons
+forbade the destruction of any Greek city in war, asserts the existence
+of a stronger bond between the nations of Christendom than between
+the states of ancient Greece. And then we remember how the Prussians
+bombarded the Danish town of Sönderborg, and almost utterly destroyed
+it, though it lay beyond the possibility of their possession; and we
+think of Peronne in France reduced to ruins, with the greater part of
+its fine cathedral, in 1870; and of the German shells directed against
+the French fire-engines that endeavoured to save the Strasburg Library
+from the flames that consumed it; and we wonder that so great a jurist
+could have been capable of so grievous a delusion.
+
+To murder a garrison that had made an obstinate defence, or in order
+to terrorise others from doing the same, was a right of modern war
+disputed by Grotius, but admitted by Vattel not to be totally exploded
+a century later. Yet they both quote cases which prove that to murder
+enemies who had made a gallant defence was regarded in ancient times as
+a violation of the laws of war.
+
+To murder enemies who had surrendered was as contrary to Greek or
+Roman as it ever was to Christian warfare. The general Greek and
+Roman practice was to allow quarter to an enemy who surrendered, and
+to redeem or exchange their prisoners.[22] There was indeed, by the
+laws of war, a right to slay or enslave them, and though both rights
+were sometimes exercised with great barbarity, the extent to which the
+former right was exercised has been very much exaggerated. Otherwise,
+why should Diodorus Siculus, in the century preceding our era, have
+spoken of mercy to prisoners as the common law (τὰ κοινὰ νόμιμα), and
+of the violation of such law as an act of exceptional barbarity?[23]
+It may be fairly doubted whether the French prisoners in the English
+hulks during the war with Napoleon suffered less than the Athenian
+prisoners in the mines of Syracuse; and as to quarter, what of the
+French volunteers or Franc-tireurs who in 1870 fell into the hands of
+the Germans, or of the French peasants, who, though levied and armed
+by the local authorities under the proclamation of Napoleon, were, if
+taken, put to death by the Allies in 1814?
+
+Some other illustrations tend further to show that there is no real
+progress in war, and that many of the fancied mitigations of it are
+merely accidental and ephemeral features.
+
+The French and English in olden time used to spare one another’s
+fishing boats and their crews. ‘Fishermen,’ said Froissart, ‘though
+there may be war between France and England, never injure one another;
+they remain friends, and assist each other in case of need, and buy
+and sell their fish whenever one has a larger quantity than the other,
+for if they were to fight we should have no fresh fish.’[24] Yet in
+the Crimean war, the English fleets in the Baltic seized or burnt the
+fishing boats of the Finns, and destroyed the cargoes of fish on which,
+having been salted in the summer months, they were dependent for their
+subsistence during the winter.[25]
+
+Polybius informs us that the Œtolians were regarded as the common
+outlaws of Greece, because they did not scruple to make war without
+declaring it. Invasions of that sort were regarded as robberies, not
+as lawful wars. Yet declarations of war may now be dispensed with, the
+first precedent for doing so having been set by Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, in 1627, issued some humane Articles of War, which
+forbade, among other things, injuries to old men, women, and children.
+Yet within a few years the Swedish soldiery, like other troops of their
+time, made the gratuitous torture and mutilation of combatants or
+non-combatants a common episode of their military proceedings.[26]
+
+When Henry V. of England invaded France, early in the fifteenth
+century, he forbade in his General Orders the wanton injury of
+property, insults to women, or gratuitous bloodshed. Yet four centuries
+later the character of war had so little changed that we find the Duke
+of Wellington, when invading the same country, lamenting in a General
+Order that, ‘according to all the information which the Commander
+of the Forces had received, outrages of all descriptions’ had been
+committed by his troops, ‘in presence even of their officers, who took
+no pains whatever to prevent them.’[27]
+
+The French complain that their last war with Germany was not war,
+but robbery; as if pillage and war had ever been distinct in fact
+or were distinguishable in thought. There appears to have been very
+little limit to the robbery that was committed under the name of
+contributions; yet Vattel tells us that, though in his time the
+practice had died out, the belligerent sovereigns, in the wars of Louis
+XIV., used to regulate by treaty the extent of hostile territory in
+which each might levy contributions, together with the amount which
+might be levied, and the manner in which the levying parties were to
+conduct themselves.[28]
+
+Is it not proved then by the above facts, that the laws of war
+rather fluctuate from age to age within somewhat narrow limits than
+permanently improve, and that they are apt to lose in one direction
+whatever they gain in another? Humanity in warfare now, as in
+antiquity, remains the exception, not the rule; and may be found now,
+as at all times, in books or in the finer imaginations of a few, far
+more often than in the real life of the battle-field. The plea of
+shortening the horrors of war is always the plea for carrying them to
+an extreme; as by Louvois for devastating the Palatinate, or by Suchet,
+the French general, for driving the helpless women and children into
+the citadel of Lerida, and for then shelling them all night with the
+humane object of bringing the governor to a speedier surrender.[29]
+
+Writers on the Law of Nations have in fact led us into a Fool’s
+Paradise about war (which has done more than anything else to keep
+the custom in existence), by representing it as something quite mild
+and almost refined in modern times. Vattel, the Swiss jurist, set the
+example. He published his work on the rights of nations two years
+after the Seven Years’ War had begun, and he speaks of the European
+nations in his time as waging their wars ‘with great moderation and
+generosity,’ the very year before Marshal Belleisle gave orders to
+make Westphalia a desert. Vattel too it was who first appealed to the
+amenities that occasionally interrupt hostilities in support of his
+theory of the generosity of modern warfare.
+
+But what after all does it come to, if rival generals address each
+other in terms of civility or interchange acceptable gifts? At
+Sebastopol, the English Sir Edmond Lyons sent the Russian Admiral
+Machinoff the present of a fat buck, the latter acknowledging the
+compliment with the return of a hard Dutch cheese. At Gibraltar, when
+the men of Elliot’s garrison were suffering severely from scurvy,
+Crillon sent them a cartload of carrots. These things have always
+occurred even in the fiercest times of military barbarism. At the
+siege of Orleans (1429) the Earl of Suffolk sent the French commander
+Dunois a present of dessert, consisting of figs, dates, and raisins;
+and Dunois in return sent Suffolk some fur for his cloak; yet there was
+little limit in those days to the ferocity shown in war by the French
+and English to one another. A ransom was extorted even for the bodies
+of the slain. The occasional gleams of humanity in the history of war
+count for nothing in the general picture of its savagery.
+
+The jurists in this way have helped to give a totally false colour to
+the real nature of war; and scarcely a day passes in a modern campaign
+that does not give the lie to the rules laid down in the ponderous
+tomes of the international-law writers. It is said that Gustavus
+Adolphus always had with him in camp a copy of ‘Grotius,’ as Alexander
+is said to have slept over Homer. The improbability of finding a copy
+of ‘Grotius’ in a modern camp may be taken as an illustration of the
+neglect that has long since fallen on the restraints with which our
+publicists have sought to fetter our generals, and of the futility of
+all such endeavours.
+
+All honour to Grotius for having sought to make warfare a few degrees
+less atrocious than he found it; but let us not therefore deceive
+ourselves into an extravagant belief in the efficacy of his labours.
+Kant, who lived later, and had the same problem to face, cherished no
+such delusion as to the possibility of humanising warfare, but went
+straight to the point of trying to stop it altogether; and Kant was in
+every point the better reasoner. Either would doubtless have regarded
+the other’s reasoning on the subject as Utopian; but which with the
+better reason?
+
+Grotius took the course of first stating what the extreme rights of
+war were, as proved by precedent and usage, and of then pleading for
+their mitigation on the ground of religion and humanity. In either case
+he appealed to precedent, and only set the better against the worse;
+leaving thereby the rights of war in utter confusion, and quite devoid
+of any principle of measurement.
+
+Let us take as an illustration of his method the question of the
+slaughter of women and children. This he began with admitting to be
+a strict right of war. Profane history supplied him with several
+instances of such massacres, and so more especially did Biblical
+history. He refrained, he expressly tells us, from adducing the slaying
+of the women and children of Heshbon by the Hebrews, or the command
+given to them to deal in the same way with the people of Canaan, for
+these were the works of God, whose rights over mankind were far greater
+than those of man over beasts. He preferred, as coming nearer to the
+practice of his own time, the testimony of that verse in the Psalms
+which says, ‘Blessed shall he be who shall dash thy children against a
+stone.’ Subsequently he withdrew this right of war, by reference to the
+better precedents of ancient times. It does not appear to have occurred
+to him that the precedents of history, if we go to them for our rules
+of war, will prove anything, according to the character of the actions
+we select. Camillus (in Livy) speaks of childhood as inviolable even
+in stormed cities; the Emperor Severus, on the other hand, ordered his
+soldiers to put all persons in Britain to the sword indiscriminately,
+and in his turn appealed to precedent, the order, namely, of Agamemnon,
+that of the Trojans not even children in their mothers’ womb should
+be spared from destruction. The children of Israel were forbidden in
+their wars to cut down fruit trees; yet when they warred against the
+Moabites, ‘they stopped all the wells of water and felled all the good
+trees.’ It was only possible in this way to distinguish the better
+custom from the worse, not the right from the wrong; either being
+equally justifiable on a mere appeal to historical instances.
+
+The rules of war which prevailed in the time of Grotius--the early
+time of the Thirty Years’ War--may be briefly summarised from his work
+as follows. The rights of war extended to _all_ persons within the
+hostile boundaries, the declaration of war being essentially directed
+against every individual of a belligerent nation. Any person of a
+hostile nation, therefore, might be slain wherever found, provided it
+were not on neutral territory. Women and children might be lawfully
+slain (as it will be shown that they were also liable to be in the
+best days of chivalry); and so might prisoners of war, suppliants for
+their lives, or those who surrendered unconditionally. It was lawful
+to assassinate an enemy, provided it involved no violation of a tacit
+or express agreement; but it was unlawful to use poison in any form,
+though fountains, if not poisoned, might be made undrinkable. Anything
+belonging to an enemy might be destroyed: his crops, his houses, his
+flocks, his trees, even his sacred edifices, or his places of burial.
+
+That these extreme rights of war were literally enforced in the
+seventeenth century admits of no doubt; nor if any of them have at all
+been mitigated, can we attribute it so much to the humane attempt of
+Grotius and his followers to set restrictions on the rightful exercise
+of predominant force, as to the accidental influence of individual
+commanders. It has been well remarked that the right of non-combatants
+to be unmolested in war was recognised by generals before it was ever
+proclaimed by the publicists.[30] And the same truth applies to many
+other changes in warfare, which have been oftener the result of a
+temporary military fashion, or of new ideas of military expediency,
+than of obedience to Grotius or Vattel. They set themselves to as
+futile a task as the proverbial impossibility of whitening the negro;
+with this result--that the destructiveness of war, its crimes, and
+its cruelties, are something new even to a world that cannot lose the
+recollection of the sack of Magdeburg in 1631, or the devastation of
+the Palatinate in 1689.[31]
+
+The publicists have but recognised and reflected the floating
+sentiments of their time, without giving us any definite principle by
+which to separate the permissible from the non-permissible practice in
+war. We have seen how much they are at issue on the use of poison. They
+are equally at issue as to the right of employing assassination; as to
+the extent of the legitimate use of fraud; as to the right of beginning
+a war without declaration; as to the limits of the invader’s rights of
+robbery; as to the right of the invaded to rise against his invader; or
+as to whether individuals so rising are to be treated as prisoners of
+war or hanged as assassins. Let us consider what they have done for us
+with regard to the right of using savages for allies, or with regard to
+the rights of the conqueror over the town he has taken by assault.
+
+The right to use barbarian troops on the Christian battle-field is
+unanimously denied by all the modern text-writers. Lord Chatham’s
+indignation against England’s employment of them against her revolted
+colonies in America availed as little. Towards the end of the Crimean
+war Russia prepared to arm some savage races within her empire, and
+brought Circassians into Hungary in 1848.[32] France employed African
+Turcos both against Austria in 1859 and against Prussia in 1870; and it
+is within the recollection of the youngest what came of the employment
+by Turkey of Bashi-Bazouks. Are they likely not to be used in future
+because Bluntschli, Heffter, or Wheaton prohibits them?
+
+To take a town by assault is the worst danger a soldier can have to
+face. The theory therefore had a show of reason, that without the
+reward of unlimited licence he could never be brought to the breach.
+Tilly is said to have replied, when he was entreated by some of his
+officers to check the rapine and bloodshed that has immortalised
+the sack of Magdeburg in 1631: ‘Three hours’ plundering is the
+shortest rule of war. The soldier must have something for his toil
+and trouble.’[33] It is on such occasions, therefore, that war shows
+itself in its true character, and that M. Girardin’s remark, ‘_La
+guerre c’est l’assassinat, la guerre c’est le vol,_’ reads like a
+revelation. The scene never varies from age to age; and the storming of
+Badajoz and San Sebastian by the English forces in the Peninsular War,
+or of Constantine in Algeria by the French in 1837, teaches us what
+we may expect to see in Europe when next a town is taken by assault,
+as Strasburg might have been in 1870. ‘No age, no nation,’ says Sir
+W. Napier, ‘ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who
+stormed Badajoz’ (April 1812). Yet for two days and nights there
+reigned in its streets, says the same writer, ‘shameless rapacity,
+brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty, and murder.’[34] And what
+says he of San Sebastian not a year and a half later? A thunderstorm
+that broke out ‘seemed to be a signal from hell for the perpetration
+of villany which would have shamed the most ferocious barbarians of
+antiquity.’ ... ‘The direst, the most revolting cruelty was added to
+the catalogue of crime: one atrocity ... staggers the mind by its
+enormous, incredible, indescribable barbarity.’[35] If officers lost
+their lives in trying to prevent such deeds--whose very atrocity, as
+some one has said, preserves them from our full execration, because it
+makes it impossible to describe them--is it likely that the gallant
+soldiers who crowned their bravery with such devilry would have been
+one whit restrained by the consideration that in refusing quarter, or
+in murdering, torturing, or mutilating non-combatants, they were acting
+contrary to the rules of modern warfare?
+
+If, then, we temper theory with practice, and desert our books for the
+facts of the battle-field (so far as they are ever told in full), we
+may perhaps lay down the following as the most important laws of modern
+warfare:
+
+1. You may not use explosive bullets; but you may use conical-shaped
+ones, which inflict far more mutilation than round ones, and even
+explosive bullets if they do not fall below a certain magnitude.
+
+2. You may not poison your enemy, because you thus take from him the
+chance of self-defence: but you may blow him up with a fougass or
+dynamite, from which he is equally incapable of defending himself.
+
+3. You may not poison your enemy’s drinking-water; but you may infect
+it with dead bodies or otherwise, because that is only equivalent to
+turning the stream.
+
+4. You may not kill helpless old men, women, or children with the sword
+or bayonet; but as much as you please with your Congreve rockets,
+howitzers, or mortars.
+
+5. You may not make war on the peaceable occupants of a country; but
+you may burn their houses if they resist your claims to rob them of
+their uttermost farthing.
+
+6. You may not refuse quarter to an enemy; but you may if he be not
+equipped in a particular outfit.
+
+7. You may not kill your prisoners of war; but you may order your
+soldiers not to take any.
+
+8. You may not ask a ransom for your prisoners; but you may more than
+cover their cost in the lump sum you exact for the expenses of the war.
+
+9. You may not purposely destroy churches, hospitals, museums, or
+libraries; but ‘military exigencies’ will cover your doing so, as they
+will almost anything else you choose to do in breach of any other
+restrictions on your conduct.
+
+And it is into these absurdities that the reasonings of Grotius and his
+followers have led us. The real dreamers, it appears, have been, not
+those who, like Henri IV., Sully, St. Pierre, or Kant, have dreamed of
+a world without wars, but those who have dreamed of wars waged without
+lawlessness, passion, or crime. On them be thrown back the taunts of
+Utopianism which they have showered so long on the only view of the
+matter which is really logical and consistent. On them, at least, rests
+the shadow, and must rest the reproach, of an egregious failure, unless
+recent wars are of no account and teach no lesson. And if their failure
+be real and signal, what remains for those who wish for better things,
+and for some check on deeds that threaten our civilisation, but to turn
+their backs on the instructors they once trusted; to light their fires
+rather than to load their shelves with Grotius, Vattel, and the rest;
+and to throw in their lot for the future with the opinion, hitherto
+despised, though it was Kant’s, and the endeavour hitherto discredited,
+though it was Henry the Great’s, Sully’s, and Elizabeth’s--the opinion,
+that is, that it were easier to abolish war than to humanise it, and
+that only in the growth of a spirit of international confidence lies
+any possible hope of its ultimate extinction?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS TIMES.
+
+ _Voi m’avete fatto tornare quest’arte del soldo quasi che nulla, ed
+ io ne l’aveva presupposta la più eccellente e la più onorevole che
+ si facesse._--MACHIAVELLI, _Dell’Arte della Guerra_.
+
+ Delusion about character of war in days of chivalry--The common
+ slaughter of women and children--The Earl of Derby’s sack of
+ Poitiers--The massacres of Grammont and Gravelines--The old poem
+ of the Vow of the Heron--The massacre of Limoges by Edward the
+ Black Prince--The imprisonment of ladies for ransom--Prisoners
+ of war starved to death; or massacred, if no prospect of ransom;
+ or blinded or otherwise mutilated--The meaning of a surrender at
+ discretion, as illustrated by Edward III. at Calais; and by several
+ instances in the same and the next century--The practice of burning
+ in aid of war; and of destroying sacred buildings--The practice of
+ poisoning the air--The use of barbarous weapons--The influence of
+ religion on war--The Church in vain on the side of peace--Curious
+ vows of the knights--The slight personal danger incurred in war by
+ them--The explanation of their magnificent costume--Field-sports
+ in war-time--The desire of gain the chief motive to war--The
+ identity of soldiers and brigands--The career and character of the
+ Black Prince--The place of money in the history of chivalry--Its
+ influence as a war-motive between England and France--General low
+ character of chivalrous warfare.
+
+
+For an impartial estimate of the custom of war, the best preparation
+is a study of its leading features in the days of chivalry. Not only
+are most of our modern military usages directly descended from that
+period, though many claim a far remoter ancestry, and go back to the
+days of primitive savagery, but it is the tradition of chivalry that
+chiefly keeps alive the delusion that it is possible for warfare to be
+conducted with humanity, generosity, and courtesy.
+
+Hallam, for instance, observes that in the wars of our Edward III.,
+‘the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards
+the foe seems to have arrived at its highest point;’ and he refers
+especially to the custom of ransoming a prisoner on his parole, and to
+the generous treatment by the Black Prince of the French king taken
+captive at Poitiers.
+
+In order to demonstrate the extreme exaggeration of this view, and to
+show that with war, as with the greater crimes, moral greatness is only
+connected accidentally, occasionally, or in romance, it is necessary
+to examine somewhat closely the warfare of the fourteenth century.
+Chivalry, according to certain historians, was during that century in
+process of decline; but the decline, if any, was rather in the nature
+of its forms and ceremonies than of its spirit or essence. It was
+the century of the most illustrious names in chivalry, in France of
+Bertrand du Guesclin, in England of the Black Prince, Sir Walter Manny,
+Sir John Chandos. It was the century of the battles of Crecy, Poitiers,
+Avray, and Navarette. It was the century of the Order of the Star in
+France, of the Garter and the Bath in England. Above all, it was the
+century of Froissart, who painted its manners and thoughts with a
+vividness so surpassing that to read his pages is almost to live in his
+time. So that the fourteenth century may fairly be taken as the period
+in which chivalry reached its highest perfection, and in which the
+military type of life and character attained its noblest development.
+It is the century of which we instinctively think when we would imagine
+a time when the rivalry of brave deeds gave birth to heroism, and the
+rivalry of military generosity invested even the cruelties of the
+battle-field with the halo of romance.
+
+Imagination, however, plays us false here as elsewhere. Froissart
+himself, who described wars and battles and noble feats of arms
+with a candour equal to his honest delight in them, is alone proof
+enough that there seldom was a period when war was more ferociously
+conducted; when the laws in restraint of it, imposed by the voice
+of morality or religion, were less felt; when the motives for it as
+well as the incentives of personal courage, were more mercenary; or
+when the demoralisation consequent upon it were more widely or more
+fatally spread. The facts that follow in support of this conclusion
+come, in default of any other special reference, solely from that
+charming chronicler; allusions to other sources being only necessary
+to prove the existence of a common usage, and to leave no room for the
+theory that the cases gathered from Froissart were but occasional or
+accidental occurrences.
+
+Even savage tribes, like the Zulus, spare the lives of women and
+children in war, and such a restraint is the first test of any warfare
+claiming to rank above the most barbarous. But in the fourteenth
+century such indiscriminate slaughter was the commonest episode of
+war: a fact not among the least surprising when we remember that the
+protection of women and the defenceless was one of the special clauses
+of the oath taken by knights at the ceremony of investiture. Five
+days after the death of Edward III., and actually during negotiations
+between France and England, the admirals of France and Spain, at the
+command of the King of France, sailed for Rye, which they burnt,
+slaying the inhabitants, whether men or women (1377); and it is a
+reasonable supposition that the same conduct marked their further
+progress of pillage and incendiarism in the Isle of Wight.
+
+Nor were such acts only the incidents of maritime warfare, and
+perpetrated merely by the pirates of either country; for they occurred
+as frequently in hostilities by land, and in connection with the
+noblest names of Christendom. At Taillebourg, in Saintonge, the Earl
+of Derby had all the inhabitants put to the sword, in reprisals for
+the death of one knight, who during the assault on the town had met
+with his death. So it fared during the same campaign with three other
+places in Poitou, the chronicler giving us more details with reference
+to the fate of Poitiers. There were no knights in the town accustomed
+to war and capable of organising a defence; and it was only people of
+the poorer sort who offered a brave but futile resistance to the army.
+When the town was won, 700 people were massacred; ‘for the Earl’s
+people put every one to the sword, men, women, and little children.’
+The Earl of Derby took no steps to stop the slaughter, but after many
+churches and houses had been destroyed, he forbade under pain of death
+any further incendiarism, apparently for no other reason than that he
+wished to stay there for ten or twelve days. A few years later, when
+the French had recovered Poitiers, the English knights, who had been
+there, marched away to Niort, which, on the refusal of the inhabitants
+to admit them, they forthwith attacked and speedily won, owing to the
+absence, as at Poitiers, of any knights to direct the defence. The male
+and female inhabitants alike were put to the sword. All these instances
+occur in one short chapter of Froissart.
+
+Sometimes this promiscuous slaughter even raised its perpetrators to
+higher esteem. An episode of this sort occurred in the famous war
+between the citizens of Ghent and the Earl of Flanders. The Lord
+d’Enghien, with 4,000 cavaliers and a large force of foot, besieged the
+town of Grammont, which was attached to Ghent. About four o’clock one
+fine Sunday in June, the besiegers gained the town, and the slaughter,
+says Froissart, was very great of men, women, and children, for to
+none was mercy shown. Upwards of 500 of the inhabitants were killed;
+numbers of old people and women were burnt in their beds; and the town
+being then set on fire in more than two hundred places, was speedily
+reduced to ashes. ‘Fair son,’ said the Earl of Flanders, greeting his
+returning relative, ‘you are a valiant man, and if it please God will
+be a gallant knight, for you have made a handsome beginning.’ History,
+however, may rejoice that so promising a career was checked in the bud;
+for the young nobleman’s death in a skirmish within a few days made his
+first feat of arms also his last.
+
+A similar story is connected with the memory of the fighting Bishop of
+Norwich, famous in those days. Having been authorised by Pope Urban
+VI. to make war on Pope Clement VII., he went and besieged the town of
+Gravelines with shot and wild-fire, ‘till in the end our men entered
+the town with their Bishop, when they at his commandment destroying
+both man, woman, and child, left not one alive of all those who
+remained in the town.’[36] This was in 1383; and it will be observed
+how then, just as in later days, the excuse of superior orders served
+as an excuse for the perpetration of any crime, provided only it were
+committed in war.
+
+It would be an error to suppose that these things were the mere
+accident of war, due to the passion of the moment, or to the feeble
+control of leaders over their men. In a very curious old French poem,
+called ‘The Vow of the Heron,’ indisputable evidence exists that the
+slaughter of women and children was not only often premeditated before
+the opening of hostilities, but that an oath binding a man to it was
+sometimes given and accepted as a token of commendable bravery. The
+poem in question deals with historical events and persons; and if not
+to be taken as literal history, undoubtedly keeps within the limits
+of probability, as proved by other testimony of the manners of those
+times. Robert, Count of Artois, exiled from France, comes to England,
+and bringing a roasted heron before Edward III. and his court, prays
+them to make vows by it before eating of it (in accordance with the
+custom which attached to such oaths peculiar sanctity) concerning the
+deeds of war they would undertake against the kingdom of France. Edward
+III., the Earl of Salisbury, Sir Walter Manny, the Earl of Derby,
+Lord Suffolk, having all sworn according to the Count’s wishes, Sir
+Fauquemont, striving to outdo them in the profession of military zeal,
+swore that if the king would cross the sea to invade France, he would
+always appear in the van of his troops, carrying devastation and fire
+and slaughter, and sparing not altars, nor relations, nor friends,
+neither helpless women nor children.[37]
+
+Let the reader reflect that these things occurred in war, not of
+Christians against infidels, but of Christians with one another, and
+in a period commonly belauded for its advance in chivalrous humanity.
+The incidents related were of too common occurrence to call for special
+remark by their chronicler; but the peculiar atrocities of the famous
+sack of Limoges, by the express orders of Edward the Black Prince,
+were too much even for Froissart. It is best to let him tell his own
+story from the moment of the entry of the besieging force: ‘The Prince,
+the Duke of Lancaster, the Earls of Cambridge and of Pembroke, Sir
+Guiscard d’Angle, and the others, with their men, rushed into the town.
+You would then have seen pillagers active to do mischief, running
+through the town, slaying men, women, and children, according to their
+commands. It was a most melancholy business, for all ranks, ages, and
+sexes cast themselves on their knees before the Prince, begging for
+mercy; but he was so inflamed with passion and revenge that he listened
+to none, but all were put to the sword, wherever they could be found,
+even those who were not guilty; for, I know not why, the poor were
+not spared, who could not have had any part in this treason; but they
+suffered for it, and indeed more than those who had been the leaders
+of the treachery. There was not that day in the city of Limoges any
+heart so hardened or that had any sense of religion, who did not deeply
+bewail the unfortunate events passing before their eyes; for upwards
+of 3,000 men, women, and children were put to death that day. God have
+mercy on their souls, for they were veritable martyrs.’ Yet the man
+whose memory is stained with this crime, among the blackest in history,
+was he whom not his own country alone, but the Europe of his day,
+dubbed the Mirror of Knighthood; and those who blindly but (according
+to the still prevalent sophistry of militarism) rightly carried out
+his orders counted among them at least three of the noblest names in
+England.
+
+The absence in chivalry of any feeling strong enough to save the lives
+of women from the sword of the warrior renders improbable _à priori_
+any keen scruples against making them prisoners of war. In France such
+scruples were stronger than in England. The soldiers of the Black
+Prince took captive the Duchess of Bourbon, mother to the King of
+France, and imprisoned her in the castle of Belleperche; whence she was
+afterwards conducted into Guyenne, and ransom exacted for her liberty.
+Similar facts mark the whole period from the twelfth to the fifteenth
+century. When the Crusaders under Richard I. took Messina by assault,
+they carried off with their other lawful spoils all the noblest women
+belonging to the Sicilians.[38] Edward I. made prisoners of the queen
+of Robert Bruce and her ladies, and of the Countess of Buchan, who had
+crowned Bruce. The latter, he said, as she had not used the sword,
+should not perish by it; but for her lawless conspiracy she should be
+shut up in a chamber of stone and iron, circular as the crown she gave;
+and at Berwick she should be suspended in the open air, a spectacle to
+travellers, and for her everlasting infamy. Accordingly, a turret was
+fitted up for her with a strong cage of lattice-work, made of strong
+posts and bars of iron.[39] In the fifteenth century, the English, in
+their war upon the French frontier, according to Monstrelet, ‘made many
+prisoners, and even carried off women, as well noble as not, whom they
+kept in close confinement until they ransomed themselves.’[40] The
+notion, therefore, that in those times any special courtesy was shown
+in war to the weaker sex must be received with extreme latitude. In
+1194, Henry, Emperor of the Romans, having taken Salerno in Apulia by
+storm, actually put up for auction to his troops the wives and children
+of the chief citizens whom he had slain and exiled.
+
+To pass to the treatment of prisoners of war, who, be it remembered,
+were only those who could promise ransom. The old historian Hoveden,
+speaking of a battle that was fought in 1173, says that there fell in
+it more than 10,000 Flemings; the remainder, who were taken captive,
+being thrown into prison in irons, and there starved to death. There
+is no evidence whether, or for how long, starving remained in vogue;
+but the iron chains were habitual, down even to the fourteenth century
+or later, among the Germans and Spaniards, the extortion of a heavier
+ransom being the motive for increasing the weight of chain and the
+general discomfort of prison. To let a prisoner go at large on parole
+for his ransom was an advance initiated by the French, that sprang
+naturally out of a state of hostilities in which most of the combatants
+became personally acquainted, but it was still conduct so exceptional
+that Froissart always speaks of it in terms of high eulogy. It was also
+an advance that often sprang out of the plainest necessities of the
+case, as when, after the battle of Poitiers, the English found their
+prisoners to be double their own numbers, wherefore in consideration of
+the risk they ran, they either received ransom from them on the spot
+or gave them their liberty in exchange for a promise to bring their
+ransom-money at Christmas to Bordeaux. Bertrand du Guesclin did the
+same by the English knights after their defeat at Pontvalin; and it was
+in reference to this last occasion that Froissart calls attention to
+the superiority of the French over the Germans in not shackling their
+prisoners with a view to a heavier ransom. ‘Curses on them for it,’ he
+exclaims of the Germans; ‘they are a people without pity or honour,
+and they ought never to receive quarter. The French entertained their
+prisoners well and ransomed them courteously, without being too hard
+upon them.’
+
+Nevertheless we must suspect that this sort of courtesy was rather
+occasional than habitual. Of this same Du Guesclin, whom St.-Palaye
+calls the flower of chivalry,[41] two stories are told that throw a
+different but curious light on the manners of those times. Having on
+one occasion defeated the English and taken many of them prisoners,
+Du Guesclin tried to observe the rules of distributive justice in
+the partition of the captives, but failing of success and unable to
+discover to whom the prisoners really belonged, he and Clisson (who
+were brothers in arms) in order to terminate the differences which the
+victorious French had with one another on the subject, conceived that
+the only fair solution was to have them all massacred, and accordingly
+more than 500 Englishmen were put to death in cold blood outside the
+gates of Bressière.[42] So, on a second occasion, such a quantity
+of English were taken that ‘there was not, down to the commonest
+soldier, anyone who had not some prisoner of whom he counted to win a
+good ransom; but as there was a dispute between the French to know to
+whom each prisoner belonged, Du Guesclin, to put them all on a level,
+ordered them to put all to the sword, and only the English chiefs were
+spared.’[43] This ferocious warrior, the product and pride of his
+time, and the favourite hero of French chivalry, was hideous in face
+and figure; and if we think of him, with his round brown face, his
+flat nose, his green eyes, his crisp hair, his short neck, his broad
+shoulders, his long arms, short body, and badly made legs, we have
+evidently one of the worst specimens of that type which was for so long
+the curse of humanity, the warrior of mediæval Europe.
+
+In respect, therefore, of Hallam’s statement that the courtesy of
+chivalry gradually introduced an indulgent treatment of prisoners which
+was almost unknown to antiquity, it is clear that it would be unwise to
+press too closely the comparison on this head between pre-Christian and
+post-Christian warfare. At the siege of Toledo, the Besque de Vilaines,
+a fellow-soldier of Du Guesclin in the Spanish war, in order to
+intimidate the besieged into a surrender, had as many gallows erected
+in front of the city as he had taken prisoners, and actually had more
+than two dozen hung by the executioner with that object. In the pages
+of Livy or Thucydides there may be many a bad deed recorded, but at
+least there is nothing worse than the deeds of the Besque de Vilaines,
+or of Du Guesclin, Constable of France, or of Edward the Black Prince
+of England.
+
+There is another point besides the fettering of prisoners in which
+attention is drawn in Froissart to the exceptional barbarity of
+the Spaniards; and in no estimate of the military type of life in
+the palmiest days of chivalry would it be reasonable to omit all
+consideration of Spain. In the war between Castile and Portugal,
+the forces under Don John of Castile laid siege to Lisbon, closely
+investing it; and if any Portuguese were taken prisoners in a skirmish
+or otherwise, their eyes were put out, their legs, arms, or other
+members torn off, and in such plight they were sent back to Lisbon with
+the message that when the town was taken mercy would be shown to none.
+Such was the story told by the Portuguese ambassador to the Duke of
+Lancaster, and repeated on his authority by Froissart. For the credit
+of humanity, to say nothing of chivalry, one would fain disbelieve
+the tale altogether, or regard it as an episode that stood by itself
+and apart from the general practice of the age, since it is the only
+one of the kind related by Froissart. But the frequency as much as
+the rarity of a practice may account for the silence of an annalist,
+and there is little doubt that mutilation of the kind described was
+common in the chivalrous period, even if obsolete or nearly so in the
+fourteenth century. Blinding and castration were not only punishments
+inflicted for offences against the forest laws of the Norman kings of
+England, but were the common fate of captive enemies in arms throughout
+Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This, for instance, was
+the treatment of their Welsh prisoners by the Earls of Shrewsbury
+and Chester in 1098; as also of William III., King of Sicily, at the
+hands of Henry, Emperor of the Romans, in 1194. At the close of the
+twelfth century, in the war between Richard I. of England and Philip
+Augustus of France, blinding was resorted to on both sides; for Hoveden
+expressly says: ‘The King of France had the eyes put out of many of the
+English king’s subjects whom he had made prisoners, and this provoked
+the King of England, unwilling as he was, to similar acts of impiety.’
+And to take a last instance, in 1225, the Milanese having taken
+prisoners 500 Genoese crossbowmen, deprived each of them of an eye and
+an arm, in revenge for the injury done by their bows.[44] So that it
+would be interesting, if possible, to learn from some historian the
+date and cause of the cessation of customs so profoundly barbarous and
+brutal.
+
+By the rules, again, of chivalrous warfare all persons found within
+a town taken by assault were liable, and all the male adults likely,
+to be killed. Bertrand du Guesclin made it a maxim before attacking a
+place to threaten its commander with the alternative of surrender or
+death; a military custom perhaps as old as war itself, and one that
+has descended unchanged to our own times. Only by a timely surrender
+could the besieged cherish any hope for their lives or fortunes; and
+even the offer of a surrender might be refused, and an unconditional
+surrender be insisted upon instead. This is proved by the well-known
+story of Edward III. at the siege of Calais, a story sometimes called
+in doubt merely for resting solely on the authority of Froissart. The
+governor of Calais offered to surrender the town and all things in it,
+in return for a simple permission to leave it in safety. Sir Walter
+Manny replied that the king was resolved that they should surrender
+themselves solely to his will, to ransom or kill them as he pleased.
+The Frenchman retorted that they would suffer the direst extremities
+rather than submit to the smallest boy in Calais faring worse than the
+rest. The king obstinately refused to change his mind, till Sir Walter
+Manny, pressing upon him the reluctance of his officers to garrison his
+castles with the prospect of reprisals which such an exercise of his
+war-right would render probable, Edward so far relented as to insist
+on having six citizens of Calais left to the absolute disposal of his
+revenge. When the six who offered themselves as a sacrifice for the
+rest of their fellow-citizens reached the presence of the king, the
+latter, though all the knights around him were moved even to tears,
+gave instant orders to behead them. All who were present pleaded for
+them, and above all, Sir Walter Manny, in accordance with his promise
+to the French governor; but it was all in vain, and but for the
+entreaties of the queen, those six citizens would have fallen victims
+to the savage wrath of the pitiless Edward.
+
+Two facts support the probable truth of the above narrative from
+Froissart. In the first place, it is in perfect keeping with the
+conduct of the same warrior at the taking of Caen. When the king heard
+what mischief the inhabitants had inflicted on his army by their
+vigorous defence, he gave orders that all the rest of the inhabitants
+should be slain and the town burnt;[45] and had it not been for the
+remonstrances of Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, there is little reason to
+doubt but that he would thus have glutted, as he craved to do, the
+intense native savagery of his soul. In the second place, the story is
+in perfect keeping with the common war-rule of that and later times, by
+virtue of which a conqueror might always avail himself of the distress
+of his enemy to insist upon a surrender at discretion, which of course
+was equivalent to a surrender to death or anything else.
+
+How commonly death was inflicted in such cases may be shown from
+some narratives of capitulations given by Monstrelet. When Meaux
+surrendered to Henry V., six of the defenders were reserved by name to
+be delivered up to justice (such was the common expression), and four
+were shortly after beheaded at Paris.[46] When Meulan surrendered to
+the regent, the Duke of Bedford, numbers were specially excepted from
+those to whom the Duke granted their lives, ‘to remain at the disposal
+of the lord regent.’[47] When some French soldiers having taken refuge
+in a fort were so closely besieged by the Earl Marshal of England as to
+be obliged to surrender at discretion, many of them were hanged.[48]
+When the garrison of Guise capitulated to Sir John de Luxembourg, a
+general pardon was granted to all, except to certain who were to be
+delivered up to justice.[49] When the same captain, with about one
+thousand men, besieged the castle of Guetron, wherein were some sixty
+or eighty Frenchmen, the latter proposed to surrender on condition
+of the safety of their lives and fortunes; ‘they were told they must
+surrender at discretion. In the end, however, it was agreed to by the
+governor that from four to six of his men should be spared by Sir
+John. When this agreement had been settled and pledges given for its
+performance, the governor re-entered the castle, and was careful not to
+tell his companions the whole that had passed at the conference, giving
+them to understand in general that they were to march away in safety;
+but when the castle was surrendered all within it were made prisoners.
+On the morrow, by the orders of Sir John de Luxembourg, they were all
+strangled and hung on trees hard by, except the four or six before
+mentioned--one of their companions serving for the executioner.’[50]
+One more of these black acts, so common among the warriors of chivalry,
+and this point perhaps will be accepted as proved. The French had
+gained possession of the castle of Rouen, but after twelve days were
+obliged to surrender at discretion to the English; ‘they were all made
+prisoners, and put under a good guard; and shortly after, one hundred
+and fifty were beheaded at Rouen.’[51]
+
+Let us pass next from the animate to the inanimate world as affected
+by warfare. The setting on fire of Grammont in more than two hundred
+places is a fair sample of the normal use of arson as a military weapon
+in the chivalrous period. To burn an undefended town or village was
+accounted no meanness; and was as frequent as the destruction of crops,
+fruit trees, or other sources of human subsistence. The custom of
+tearing up vines or fruit trees contrasts strongly with the command of
+Xerxes to his forces to spare the groves of trees upon their march; and
+any reader of ancient history will acknowledge the vast deterioration
+from the pagan laws of war which every page of the history of Christian
+chivalry reveals and exposes.
+
+But little as was the forbearance displayed in war towards defenceless
+women and children, or to the crops and houses that gave them food and
+shelter, it might perhaps have been expected that, at a time when no
+serious dissent had come to divide Christianity, and when the defence
+of religion and religious ceremonies were among the professed duties of
+knighthood, churches and sacred buildings should have enjoyed especial
+immunity from the ravages of war. Even in pagan warfare the temples
+of the enemy as a rule were spared; such an act as the destruction of
+the sacred edifices of the Marsi by the Romans under Germanicus being
+contrary to the better traditions of Roman military precedent.
+
+Permissible as it was by the rules of war, says Polybius, to destroy
+an enemy’s garrisons, cities, or crops, or anything else by which his
+power might be weakened, it was the part of mere rage and madness to
+destroy such things as their statues or temples, by which no benefit
+or injury accrued to one side or the other; nor are allusions to
+violations of this rule numerous in pre-Christian warfare.[52] The
+practice of the Romans and Macedonians to meet peaceably together in
+time of war on the island of Delos, on account of its sanctity as
+the reputed birthplace of Apollo,[53] has no parallel in the history
+of war among the nations of Christendom. The most that can be said
+for the fourteenth century in this respect is that slightly stronger
+scruples protected churches and monasteries than the lives of women and
+children. This is implied in Froissart’s account of the storming of
+Guerrande: ‘Men, women, and children were put to the sword, and fine
+churches sacrilegiously burnt; at which the Lord Lewis was so much
+enraged, that he immediately ordered twenty-four of the most active to
+be hanged on the spot.’
+
+But the slightest embitterment of feeling removed all scruples
+in favour of sacred buildings. Richard II., having with his army
+crossed the Tweed, took up his quarters in the beautiful abbey of
+Melrose; after which the monastery, though spared in all previous
+wars with Scotland, was burnt, because the English had determined,
+says Froissart, to ruin everything in Scotland before returning home,
+in revenge for the recent alliance entered into by that country with
+France. The abbey of Dunfermline, where the Scotch kings used to be
+buried, was also burnt in the same campaign; and so it fared with all
+other parts of Scotland that the English overran; for they ‘spared
+neither monasteries nor churches, but put all to fire and flame.’
+
+Neither did any greater degree of chivalry display itself in the
+matter of the modes and weapons of warfare. Although reason can urge
+no valid objection against the means of destruction resorted to
+by hostile forces, whether poisoned arrows, explosive bullets, or
+dynamite, yet certain things have been generally excluded from the
+category of fair military practices, as for example the poisoning of
+an enemy’s water. But the warriors of the fourteenth century, even if
+they stand acquitted of poisoning rivers and wells, had no scruples
+about poisoning the air: which perhaps is nearly equivalent. The great
+engines they called Sows or Muttons, like that one, 120 feet wide and
+40 feet long, from which Philip von Artefeld and the men of Ghent cast
+heavy stones, beams of wood, or bars of hot copper into Oudenarde, must
+have made life inside such a place unpleasant enough; but worse things
+could be injected than copper bars or missiles of wood. The Duke of
+Normandy, besieging the English garrison at Thin-l’Evêque, had dead
+horses and other carrion flung into the castle, to poison the garrison
+by the smell; and since the air was hot as in midsummer, it is small
+wonder that the dictates of reason soon triumphed over the spirit of
+resistance. And at the siege of Grave the chivalry of Brabant made a
+similar use of carrion to empoison the garrison into a surrender.
+
+Even in weapons different degrees of barbarity are clearly discernible,
+according as they are intended to effect a disabling wound, or a wound
+that will cause needless laceration and pain by the difficulty of their
+removal. A barbed arrow or spear betokens of course the latter object,
+and it is worth visiting the multi-barbed weapons in Kensington Museum
+from different parts of the world, to learn to what lengths military
+ingenuity may go in this direction. The spear heads of the Crusaders
+were barbed;[54] and so were the arrows used at Crecy and elsewhere,
+as may be seen on reference to the manuscript pictures, the object
+being to make it impossible to extract them without laceration of
+the flesh. The sarbacane or long hollow tube was in use for shooting
+poisoned arrows at the enemy;[55] and pictures remain of the vials
+of combustibles that were often attached to the end of arrows and
+lances.[56]
+
+The above facts clearly show the manner and spirit with which our
+ancestors waged war in the days of what Hallam calls chivalrous virtue:
+one of the most stupendous historical impostures that has ever become
+an accepted article of popular belief. The military usages of the
+Greeks and Romans were mild and polished, compared to the immeasurable
+savagery which marked those of the Christians of Froissart’s day. As
+for the redeeming features, the rare generosity or courtesy to a foe,
+they might be cited in almost equal abundance from the warfare of the
+Red Indians; but what sheds a peculiar stain on that of the Chevaliers
+is the ostentatious connection of religion with the atrocities of
+those blood-seeking marauders. The Church by a peculiar religious
+service blessed and sanctified both the knight and his sword; and the
+most solemn rite of the Christian faith was profaned to the level of
+a preliminary of battle. At Easter and Christmas, the great religious
+festivals of a professedly peace-loving worship, the Psalm that was
+deemed most appropriate to be sung in the chapels of the Pope and the
+King of France was that beginning, ‘Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, qui
+docet manus meas ad bellum et digitos meos ad prœlia.’
+
+It was a curious feature of this religion of war that, when Edward
+III.’s forces invaded France, so strict was the superstition that led
+them to observe the fast of Lent, that among other things conveyed
+into the country were vessels and boats of leather wherewith to obtain
+supplies of fish from the lakes and ponds of the enemy.
+
+It is indeed passing strange that Christianity, which could command so
+strict an observance of its ordinances as is implied in the transport
+of boats to catch fish for Lent, should have been powerless to place
+any check whatever on the ferocious militarism of the time; and the
+very little that was ever done by the Church to check or humanise
+warfare is an eternal reflection on the so-called conversion of Europe
+to Christianity. Nevertheless the Church, to do her justice, used what
+influence she possessed on the side of peace in a manner she has long
+since lost sight of; nor was the Papacy in its most distracted days
+ever so indifferent to the evils of war as the Protestant Church has
+been since, and is still. Clement VI. succeeded in making peace between
+France and England, just as Alexander III. averted a war between the
+two countries in 1161. Innocent VI. tried to do the same; and Urban V.
+returned from Rome to Avignon, hoping to effect the same good object.
+Gregory XI. was keenly distressed at the failure of efforts similar to
+those of his predecessors. The Popes indeed endeavoured to stop wars,
+as they endeavoured to stop tournaments, or the use of the crossbow;
+but they were defeated by the intense barbarism of chivalry; nor can it
+be laid to the charge of the Church of Rome, as it can to that of the
+Church of the Reformation, that she ever folded her hands in despairful
+apathy before a custom she admitted to be evil. The cardinals and
+archbishops of those days were constantly engaged in pacific, nor
+always futile, embassies. And the prelates would frequently preach to
+either side arguments of peace: a fact that contrasts badly with the
+almost universal silence and impotence of the modern pulpit, either to
+stay a war or to mitigate its barbarities.
+
+But it is true that they knew equally well how to play on the martial
+as on the pacific chord in their audiences; for the eloquence of an
+Archbishop of Toulouse turned sixty towns and castles to the interest
+and rights of the French king in his quarrel with England; and the
+preaching of prelates and lawyers in Picardy had a similar effect in
+other large towns. Nor were the English clergy slower than the French
+to assert the rights of their king and country, for Simon Tibald,
+Bishop of London, made several long and fine sermons to demonstrate (as
+always is demonstrated in such cases) that the King of France had acted
+most unjustly in renewing the war, and that his conduct was at total
+variance both with equity and reason.
+
+But these appeals to the judgment of their congregations by the clergy
+are also a proof that in the fourteenth century the opinion of the
+people did not count for so little as is often supposed in the making
+of peace and war. Yet the power of the people in this respect was
+doubtless as insignificant as it still is in our own days: nothing
+being more remarkable, even in the free government of modern England,
+than the influence of the people in theory and their influence in fact
+on the most important question that regards their destinies.
+
+Nor are the moral causes difficult to trace which in those times made
+wars break out so frequently and last so long, that those who now read
+of them can only marvel how civilisation ever emerged at all, even to
+the imperfect degree to which it is given to us to enjoy it. The love
+of adventure and the hope of fame were of course among the principal
+motives. The saying of Adam Smith, that the great secret of education
+is the direction of personal vanity to proper objects, contains the
+key to all advance that has ever been made in civilisation, and to
+every shortcoming. The savagery of the middle ages was due to the
+direction of personal vanity exclusively into military channels, so
+that the desire for distinction often displayed itself in forms of
+perfect absurdity, as in the case of the young English knights who went
+abroad with one eye veiled, binding themselves by a vow to their ladies
+neither to see with their eyes nor to reply to anything asked of them
+till they had signalised themselves by the performance of some wondrous
+deed in France. The gradual opening up in later days of other paths to
+distinction than that of arms has very much diminished the danger to
+the public peace involved in the worthless education of our ancestors.
+
+Nor was the personal distinction of the warrior gained at any great
+risk of personal danger. The personal danger in war decreased in
+exact ratio with the rank of the combatant, and it was only the lower
+orders of the social hierarchy who unreservedly risked their lives.
+In case of defeat they had no ransom to offer for mercy, and appear
+almost habitually to have been slain without any. If it was a common
+thing for either side to settle before a battle the names of those on
+the other who should be admitted to ransom, it was no uncommon thing
+to determine, as the English did before Crecy, to give no quarter to
+the enemy at all. But as a rule the battle-field was of little more
+peril to the knight than the tournament; and though many perished when
+powerless to avert the long thin dagger, called the _miséricorde_, from
+the interstices of their armour or the vizor of their helmets, yet the
+striking fact in Froissart is the great number of battles, skirmishes,
+and sieges in which the same names occur, proving how seldom their
+bearers were wounded, disabled, or killed. This of course was due
+mainly to the marvellous defensive armour they wore, which justifies
+the wonder not merely how they fought but even how they moved. Whether
+encased in coats of mail, sewn upon or worn over the gambeson or thick
+undergarment of cloth or leather, or in plates of solid steel, at first
+worn over the mail and then instead of it, and often with the plastron
+or breastplate of forged iron beneath both hauberk and gambeson, they
+evidently had little to fear from arrow, sword, or lance, unless
+when they neglected to let down the vizor of the helmet, as Sir John
+Chandos did, when he met with his death from a lance wound in the eye
+(1370). Their chief danger lay in the hammering of battle-axes on their
+helmets, which stunned or wounded, but seldom killed them. But the foot
+soldiers and light cavalry, though generally well equipped, were less
+well protected by armour than the knights, the hauberk or coat of mail
+being allowed in France only to persons possessed of a certain estate;
+so that the knights were formidable less to one another than to those
+who by the conditions of the combat could not be so formidable to
+themselves.
+
+The surcoat was also a defence to the knight, as indicating the ransom
+he could pay for his life. Otherwise it is impossible to account for
+his readiness to go into action with this long robe flowing over his
+plate of steel and all his other accoutrements. Had Sir John Chandos
+not been entangled in his long surcoat when he slipped, he might have
+lived to fight many another battle to the honour of English chivalry.
+Richness of armour served also the same purpose as the surcoat. At
+the battle of Nicopoli, when the flower of the French nobility met
+with so disastrous a defeat at the hands of the Turks, the lords of
+France were, says Froissart, so richly dressed out in their emblazoned
+surcoats as to look like little kings, and many for a time owed their
+lives to the extreme richness of their armour, which led the Saracens
+to suppose them greater lords than they could really boast to be. So
+again the elaborate gold necklaces worn by distinguished officers in
+the seventeenth century were probably rather symbols of the ransom
+their wearers could pay, than worn merely for ostentation and vanity.
+It was to carelessness on this score that the Scotch owed their great
+losses at the battle of Musselborough in 1548: for (to put the words of
+Patin in modern dress) their ‘vileness of port was the cause that so
+many of the great men and gentlemen were killed and so few saved. The
+outward show, the semblance and sign whereby a stranger might discern a
+villain from a gentleman, was not among them to be seen.’
+
+War under these conditions chiefly affected the lives of the great by
+pleasantly relieving the monotony of peaceful days. In time of peace
+they had few occupations but hawking, hunting, and tilting, and during
+hostilities those amusements continued. Field sports, sometimes spoken
+of by their eulogists as the image of war, were not absent during its
+reality. Edward III. hunted and fished daily during his campaign in
+France, having with him thirty falconers on horseback, sixty couples
+of staghounds, and as many greyhounds. And many of his nobles followed
+his example in taking their hawks and hounds across the Channel.
+
+But the preceding causes of the frequency of war in the days of
+chivalry are quite insignificant when compared with that motive
+which nowadays mainly finds vent in the peaceful channels of
+commerce--namely, the common desire of gain. The desire for glory had
+far less to do with it than the desire of lucre; nor is anything from
+the beginning to the end of Froissart more conspicuously displayed
+than the merely mercenary motive for war. The ransom of prisoners
+or of towns, or even ransom for the slain,[57] afforded a short and
+royal road to wealth, and was the chief incentive, as it was also the
+chief reward of bravery. The Chevalier Bayard made by ransoms in the
+course of his life a sum equal to 4,000_l._, which in those days must
+have been a fortune;[58] and Sir Walter Manny in a single campaign
+enriched himself by 8,000_l._ in the same way.[59] So that the story is
+perfectly credible of the old Scotch knight, who in a year of universal
+peace prayed, ‘Lord, turn the world upside down that gentlemen may make
+bread of it.’ Loot and rapine, the modern attractions of the brigand,
+were then in fact the main temptations of the knight or soldier; and
+the distinction between the latter and the brigand was far less than
+it had been in the pre-Christian period, or than it is in more modern
+times. Indeed the very word _brigand_ meant, originally, merely a
+foot-soldier who fought in a brigade, in which sense it was used by
+Froissart; and it was only the constant addiction of the former to
+the occupations of the highwayman that lent to the word brigand its
+subsequent evil connotation.
+
+But it was not merely the common soldier to whom the first question in
+a case of war was the profit to be gained by it; for men of the best
+families of the aristocracy were no less addicted to the land piracy
+which then constituted war, as is proved by such names as Calverly,
+Gournay, Albret, Hawkwood, and Guesclin. The noble who was a soldier
+in war often continued to fight as a robber after peace was made, nor
+thought it beneath him to make wretched villagers compound for their
+lives; and in spite of truces and treaties, pillage and ransom afforded
+his chief and often his sole source of livelihood. The story of Charles
+de Beaumont dying of regret for the ransom he had lost, because by
+mistake he had slain instead of capturing the Duke of Burgundy at the
+battle of Nancy, is a fair illustration of the dominion then exercised
+by the lowest mercenary feelings over the nobility of Europe.
+
+This mercenary side of chivalrous warfare has been so lost sight of in
+the conventional descriptions of it, that it is worth while to bring
+into prominence how very little the cause of war really concerned those
+who took part in it, and how unfounded is the idea that men troubled to
+fight for the weak or the oppressed under fine impulses of chivalry,
+and not simply in any place or for any object that held out to them
+the prospect of gain. How otherwise is it possible to account for the
+conduct of the Black Prince, in fighting to restore Pedro the Cruel
+to the throne of Castile, from which he had been displaced in favour
+of Henry of Trastamare not merely by the arms of Du Guesclin and the
+French freebooters, but by the wishes and consent of the people? Any
+thought for the people concerned, or of sympathy for their liberation,
+as little entered into the mind of the Black Prince as if the question
+had concerned toads or rabbits. Provided it afforded an occasion for
+fighting, it mattered nothing that Pedro had ruled oppressively; that
+he had murdered, or at least was believed to have murdered, his wife,
+the sister of the reigning King of France: nor that he had even been
+condemned by the Pope as an enemy to the Christian Church. Yet before
+the battle of Navarette (1367), in which Henry was completely defeated,
+the Prince did not hesitate in his prayers for victory to assert that
+he was waging war solely in the interests of justice and reason; and it
+was for his success in this iniquitous exploit (a success which only
+awaited his departure from the country to be followed by a rising in
+favour of the monarch he had deposed) that the Prince won his chief
+title to fame; that London exhausted itself in shows, triumphs, and
+festivals in his honour; and that Germans, English, and Flemish with
+one accord entitled him ‘the mirror of knighthood.’ The Prince was only
+thirteen when he fought at Crecy, and he fought with courage: he was
+only ten years older when he won the battle of Poitiers, and he behaved
+with courtesy to the captive French king, from whom he looked for an
+extortionate ransom: but the extravagant eulogies commonly heaped upon
+him prove how little exalted in reality was the military ideal of his
+age. His sack of Limoges, famous among military atrocities, has already
+been spoken of; nor should it be forgotten, as another indication of
+his character, that when two messengers brought him a summons from the
+King of France to answer the appeal of the Gascons of Aquitaine, he
+actually imprisoned them, showing himself however in this superior to
+his nobles and barons, who actually advised capital punishment as the
+fittest salary to the envoys for their pains.
+
+The Free Companies, or hordes of robbers, who ravaged Europe through
+all the period of chivalry and constituted the greatest social
+difficulty of the time, were simply formed of knights and men-at-arms,
+who, when a public war no longer justified them in robbing and
+murdering on behalf of the State, turned robbers and murderers on their
+own account. After the treaty of Bretigny had put a stop to hostilities
+between France and England (1360), 12,000 of these men, men of rank
+and family as well as needy adventurers, and under leaders of every
+nationality, resolved sooner than lay down their arms to march into
+Burgundy, there to relieve by the ransoms they might levy the poverty
+they could not otherwise avert. Many a war had no other justification
+than the liberation of one people from their outrages by turning them
+upon another. Thus Du Guesclin led his White Company into Spain on
+behalf of Henry the Bastard, less to avenge the cruelties of Pedro than
+to free France from the curse of her unemployed chivalry; and Henry the
+Bastard, when by such help he had wrested the kingdom of Castile from
+his brother Pedro, designed an invasion of Granada simply to divert
+from his own territories the allies who had placed him in possession of
+them. This was a constant source of war in those days, just as in our
+own the existence of large armies leads of necessity to wars for their
+employment; and even the Crusades derive some explanation from the
+operation of the motive indicated.
+
+No historical microscope, indeed, will detect any difference between
+the Free Companies and the regular troops, since not only the latter
+merged into the former, but both were actuated by the sole pursuit
+of gain, and equally indifferent to ideas of honour or patriotism.
+The creed of both was summed up in the following regretful speech,
+attributed to Aymerigot Marcel, a great captain of the pillaging
+bands: ‘There is no pleasure in the world like that which men such as
+ourselves enjoyed. How happy were we when, riding out in search of
+adventures, we met a rich abbot, a merchant, or a string of mules, well
+laden with draperies, furs, or spices, from Montpellier, Beziers, and
+other places! All was our own, or ransomed according to our will. Every
+day we gained money, ... we lived like kings, and when we went abroad
+the country trembled; everything was ours both in going and returning.’
+
+In the days of chivalry, this desire of gain, however gotten, pervaded
+and vitiated all classes of men from the lowest to the highest. Charles
+IV. of France, when his sister Isabella, queen of Edward II., fled to
+him, promised to help her with gold and silver, but secretly, lest
+it should bring him into war; and then when messengers from England
+came with gold and silver and jewels for himself and his ministers,
+both he and his council became in a short time as cold to the cause
+of Isabella as they had been warm, the king even going so far as to
+forbid any of his subjects under pain of banishment to help his sister
+in her projected return. And again, when Edward III. was about to make
+war with France, was he not told that his allies were men who loved to
+gain wealth, and whom it was necessary to pay beforehand? And did he
+not find that a judicious distribution of florins was as effective in
+winning over to his interests a duke, a marquis, an archbishop, and the
+lords of Germany, as the poorer citizens of the towns of Flanders?
+
+Money, therefore, or its equivalent, and not the title to the crown of
+France, was at the root of the wars waged abroad by the English under
+Edward III. The question of title simply served as pretext, covering
+the baser objects of the invasion. No historical fact is clearer,
+ignored though it has been in the popular histories of England, than
+that the unpopularity of his successor, Richard II., arose from his
+marriage with the daughter of the King of France, and from his desire
+for peace between the two kingdoms, of which the marriage was the
+proof and the security. When his wish for peace led to the formation
+of a war and a peace party among the English nobility, Froissart says:
+‘The poorer knights and archers were of course for war, as their sole
+livelihood depended upon it.[60] They had learnt idleness and looked to
+war as a means of support.’ In reference to the great peace conference
+held at Amiens in 1391, he observes: ‘Many persons will not readily
+believe what I am about to say, though it is strictly true, that the
+English are fonder of war than of peace. During the reign of Edward, of
+happy memory, and in the lifetime of his son the Prince of Wales, they
+made such grand conquests in France, and by their victories and ransoms
+of towns, castles, and men gained such wealth, that the poorest knights
+became rich; and those who were not gentlemen by birth, by gallantly
+hazarding themselves in these wars, were ennobled by their valour and
+worth. Those who came after them were desirous of following the same
+road.... Even the Duke of Gloucester, son of King Edward, inclined to
+the opinion of the commons, as did many other knights and squires who
+were desirous of war to enable them to support their state.’[61]
+
+No other country, indeed, pleased these English brigand knights so well
+as France for the purpose of military plunder. Hence the English who
+returned from the expedition to Castile complained bitterly that in the
+large towns where they expected to find everything, there was nothing
+but wines, lard, and empty coffers; but that it was quite otherwise
+in France, where they had often found in the cities taken in war such
+wealth and riches as astonished them; it was in a war with France
+therefore that it behoved them to hazard their lives, for it was very
+profitable, not in a war with Castile or Portugal, where there was
+nothing but poverty and loss to be suffered.[62]
+
+With this evidence from Froissart may be compared a passage from Philip
+de Commines, where he says, in speaking of Louis XI. towards the end of
+the following century: ‘Our master was well aware that the nobility,
+clergy, and commons of England are always ready to enter upon a war
+with France, not only on account of their old title to its crown, but
+by the desire of gain, for it pleased God to permit their predecessors
+to win several memorable battles in this kingdom, and to remain in
+possession of Normandy and Guienne for the space of 350 years, ...
+during which time they carried over enormous booty into England. Not
+only in plunder which they had taken in the several towns, but in the
+richness and quality of their prisoners, who were most of them great
+princes and lords, and paid them vast ransoms for their liberty; so
+that every Englishman afterwards hoped to do the same thereby and
+return home laden with spoils.’[63]
+
+Such, then, were the antecedents of the evil custom of war which has
+descended to our own time; and we shall have taken the first step to
+its abolition when we have thus learnt to read its real descent and
+place in history, and to reject as pure hallucination the idea that
+in the warfare of the past any more than of the present there was
+anything noble or great or glorious. That brave deeds were often done
+and noble conduct sometimes displayed in it must not blind us to its
+other and darker features. It was a warfare in which not even women and
+children were safe from the sword or lance of the knight or soldier;
+nor sacred buildings exempt from their rage. It was a warfare in
+which the occasional mercy shown had a mercenary taint; in which the
+defeated were only spared for their ransom; and in which prisoners were
+constantly liable to torture, mutilation, and fetters. Above all, it
+was a warfare in which men fought more from a sordid greed of gain than
+from any love or attachment to their king or country, so that all sense
+of loyalty would speedily evaporate if a king like Richard II. chanced
+to wish to live peaceably with his neighbours.
+
+It is not unimportant to have thus shown the warfare of chivalry in its
+true light. For it is the delusion with regard to it, which more than
+anything else keeps alive those romantic notions about war and warriors
+that are the most fatal hindrance to removing both from the face of the
+earth. We clearly drive militarism to its last defences, if we deprive
+it of every period and of almost every name on which it is wont to rely
+as entitling it to our admiration or esteem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+NAVAL WARFARE.
+
+ _Una et ea vetus causa bellandi est profunda cupido imperii et
+ divitiarum._--SALLUST.
+
+ Robbery the first object of maritime warfare--The piratical origin
+ of European navies--Merciless character of wars at sea--Fortunes
+ made by privateering in England--Privateers commissioned by
+ the State--Privateers defended by the publicists--Distinction
+ between privateering and piracy--Failure of the State to regulate
+ privateering--Privateering condemned by Lord Nelson--Privateering
+ abolished by the Declaration of Paris in 1856--Modern feeling
+ against seizure of private property at sea--Naval warfare in days
+ of wooden ships--Unlawful methods of maritime war--The Emperor
+ Leo VI.’s ‘Treatise on Tactics’--The use of fire-ships--Death
+ the penalty for serving in fire-ships--Torpedoes originally
+ regarded as ‘bad’ war--English and French doctrine of rights of
+ neutrals--Enemy’s property under neutral flag secured by Treaty of
+ Paris--Shortcomings of the Treaty of Paris with regard to:--(1)
+ A definition of what is contraband; (2) The right of search of
+ vessels under convoy; (3) The practice of embargoes; (4) The _jus
+ angariæ_--The International Marine Code of the future.
+
+
+The first striking difference between military and naval warfare is
+that, while--in theory, at least--the military forces of a country
+confine their attacks to the persons and power of their enemy, the
+naval forces devote themselves primarily to the plunder of his
+property and commerce. If on land the theory of modern war exempts
+from spoliation all of an enemy’s goods that do not contribute to his
+military strength, on sea such spoliation is the professed object of
+maritime warfare. And the difference, we are told, is ‘the necessary
+consequence of the state of war, which places the citizens or subject
+of the belligerent states in hostility to each other, and prohibits
+all intercourse between them,’[64] although the very reason for the
+immunity of private property on land is that war is a condition of
+hostility between the military forces of two countries, and not between
+their respective inhabitants.[64]
+
+Writers on public law have invented many ingenious theories to explain
+and justify, on rational grounds, so fundamental a difference between
+the two kinds of warfare. ‘To make prize of a merchant ship,’ says
+Dr. Whewell, ‘is an obvious way of showing (such a ship) that its own
+State is unable to protect it at sea, and thus is a mode of attacking
+the State;’[65] a reason that would equally justify the slaughter
+of nonagenarians. According to Hautefeuille, the differences flows
+naturally from the conditions of hostilities waged on different
+elements, and especially from the absence at sea of any fear of a
+rising _en masse_ which, as it may be the result of wholesale robbery
+on land, serves to some extent as a safeguard against it.[66]
+
+A simpler explanation may trace the difference to the maritime Piracy
+which for many centuries was the normal relation between the English
+and Continental coasts, and out of which the navies of Europe were
+gradually evolved. Sir H. Nicolas, describing the naval state of the
+thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century, proves by abundant
+facts the following picture of it: ‘During a truce or peace ships were
+boarded, plundered, and captured by vessels of a friendly Power as if
+there had been actual war. Even English merchant ships were attacked
+and robbed as well in port as at sea by English vessels, and especially
+by those of the Cinque Ports, which seem to have been nests of robbers;
+and, judging from the numerous complaints, it would appear that a
+general system of piracy existed which no government was strong enough
+to restrain.’[67]
+
+The governments of those days were, however, not only not strong
+enough to restrain, but, as a rule, only too glad to make use of these
+pirates as auxiliaries in their wars with foreign Powers. Some English
+ships carrying troops to France having been dispersed by a storm, the
+sailors of the Cinque Ports were ordered by Henry III., in revenge, to
+commit every possible injury on the French; a commission undertaken
+with such zeal on their part that they slew and plundered not only all
+the foreigners they could catch, but their own countrymen returning
+from their pilgrimages (1242). During the whole reign of Henry IV.
+(1399-1413), though there existed a truce between France and England,
+the ordinary incidents of hostilities continued at sea just as if the
+countries had been at open war.[68] The object on either side was
+plunder and wanton devastation; nor from their landing on each other’s
+coasts, burning each other’s towns and crops, and carrying off each
+other’s property, did the country of either derive the least benefit
+whatever. The monk of St. Denys shows that these pirates were really
+the mariners on whom the naval service of England chiefly depended in
+time of war, for he says, in speaking of this period: ‘The English
+pirates, discontented with the truce and unwilling to abandon their
+profitable pursuits, determined to infest the sea and attack merchant
+ships. Three thousand of the most skilful sailors of England and
+Bayonne had confederated for that purpose, and, as was supposed, with
+the approbation of their king.’ It was not till the year 1413 that
+Henry V. sought to put a stop to the piratical practices of the English
+marine, and he then did so without requiring a reciprocal endeavour on
+the part of the other countries of Europe.[69]
+
+Maritime warfare being thus simply an extension of maritime piracy, the
+usages of the one naturally became the usages of the other; the only
+difference being that in time of war it was with the licence and pay of
+the State, and with the help of knights and squires, that the pirates
+carried on their accustomed programme of incendiarism, massacres, and
+robberies.
+
+From this connection, therefore, a lower character of warfare prevailed
+from the first on sea than on land, and the spirit of piracy breathed
+over the waters. No more mercy was shown by the regular naval service
+than was shown by pirates to the crew of a captured or surrendered
+vessel, for wounded and unwounded alike were thrown into the sea. When
+the fleet of Breton pirates defeated the English pirates in July 1403,
+and took 2,000 of them prisoners, they threw overboard the greater
+part of them;[70] and in the great sea-fight between the English and
+Spanish fleets of 1350, the whole of the crew of a Spanish ship that
+surrendered to the Earl of Lancaster were thrown overboard, ‘according
+to the barbarous custom of the age.’[71]
+
+Two other stories of that time still further display the utter want
+of anything like chivalrous feeling in maritime usages. A Flemish
+ship, on its way to Scotland, having been driven by a storm on the
+English coast, near the Thames, and its crew having been slain by the
+inhabitants, the king rewarded the assassins with the whole of the
+cargo, and kept the ship and the rigging for himself (1318).[72] In
+1379, when a fleet of English knights, under Sir John Arundel, on its
+way to Brittany, was overtaken by a storm, and the jettison of other
+things failed to relieve the vessels, sixty women, many of whom had
+been forced to embark, were thrown into the sea.[73]
+
+The piratical origin, therefore, of the navies of Europe sufficiently
+explains the fact that plunder, which is less the rule than an incident
+of war on land, remains its chief object and feature at sea. The fact
+may further be explained by the survival of piracy long sanctioned by
+the States under the guise of Privateering. If we would understand the
+popularity of wars in England in the old privateering days, we must
+recall the magnificent fortunes which were often won as prize-money in
+the career of legalised piracy. During the war which was concluded in
+1748 by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, England captured of French and
+Spanish ships collectively 3,434, whilst she herself lost 3,238; but,
+small compensation as this balance of 196 ships in her favour may seem
+after a contest of some nine years, the pecuniary balance in her favour
+is said to have amounted to 2,000,000_l._[74]
+
+We now begin to see why our forefathers rang their church bells at the
+announcement of war, as they did at the declaration of this one against
+Spain. War represented to large classes what the gold mines of Peru
+represented to Spain--the best of all possible pecuniary speculations.
+In the year 1747 alone the English ships took 644 prizes; and of what
+enormous value they often were! Here is a list of the values which the
+cargoes of these prizes not unfrequently reached:
+
+ That of the ‘Héron,’ a French ship, 140,000_l._
+ That of the ‘Conception,’ a French ship, 200,000_l._
+ That of ‘La Charmante,’ a French East Indiaman, 200,000_l._
+ That of the ‘Vestal,’ a Spanish ship, 140,000_l._
+ That of the ‘Hector,’ a Spanish ship, 300,000_l._
+ That of the ‘Concordia,’ a Spanish ship, 600,000_l._[75]
+
+Two Spanish register ships are recorded to have brought in 350_l._
+to every foremast man who took part in their capture. In 1745 three
+Spanish vessels returning from Peru having been captured by three
+privateersmen, the owners of the latter received to their separate
+shares the sum of 700,000_l._, and every common seaman 850_l._ Another
+Spanish galleon was taken by a British man-of-war with a million
+sterling in bullion on board.
+
+These facts suffice to dispel the wonder we might otherwise feel at
+the love our ancestors had for mixing themselves up, for any pretext
+or for none, in hostilities with Continental Powers. Our policy was
+naturally spirited, when it meant chances like these for all who lacked
+either the wit or the will to live honestly, and returns like these on
+the capital invested in the patriotic equipment of a few privateers.
+But what advantage ultimately accrued to either side, after deduction
+made for all losses and expenses, or how far these national piracies
+contributed to the speedier restoration of peace, were questions that
+apparently did not enter within the range of military reasoning to
+consider.
+
+Everything was done to make attractive a life of piracy spent in the
+service of the State. Originally every European State claimed some
+interest in the prizes it commissioned its privateers to take; but the
+fact that each in turn surrendered its claim proves the difficulty
+there was in getting these piratical servants to submit their plunder
+to the adjudication of the prize-courts. Originally all privateers
+were bound to deliver captured arms and ammunition to their sovereign,
+and to surrender a percentage of their gains to the State or the
+admiral; but it soon came to pass that sovereigns had to pay for the
+arms they might wish to keep, and that the percentage deducted was
+first diminished and then abolished altogether. At first 30 per cent.
+was deducted in Holland, which fell successively to 18 per cent., to
+10 per cent., to nothing; and in England the 10 per cent. originally
+due to the admiral was finally surrendered.[76] The crew also enjoyed
+an additional prize of money for every person slain or captured on an
+enemy’s man-of-war or privateer, and for every cannon in proportion to
+its bore.[77]
+
+Of all the changes of opinion that have occurred in the world’s
+history, none is more instructive than that which gradually took place
+concerning privateering, and which ended in its final renunciation by
+most of the maritime Powers in the Declaration of Paris in 1856.
+
+The weight of the publicists’ authority was for long in its favour.
+Vattel only made the proviso of a just cause of war the condition for
+reconciling privateering with the comfort of a good conscience.[78]
+Valin defended it as a patriotic service, in that it relieved the State
+from the expense of fitting out war-vessels. Emerigon denounced the
+vocation of pirates as infamous, while commending that of privateers
+as honest and even glorious. And for many generations the distinction
+between the two was held to be satisfactory, that the privateer acted
+under the commission of his sovereign, the pirate under no one’s but
+his own.
+
+Morally, this distinction of itself proved little. Take the story of
+the French general Crillon, who, when Henri III. proposed to him to
+assassinate the Duc de Guise, is said to have replied, ‘My life and my
+property are yours, Sire; but I should be unworthy of the French name
+were I false to the laws of honour.’ Had he accepted the commission,
+would the deed have been praiseworthy or infamous? Can a commission
+affect the moral quality of actions? The hangman has a commission,
+but neither honour nor distinction. Why, then, should a successful
+privateer have been often decorated with the title of nobility or
+presented with a sword by his king?[79]
+
+Historically, the distinction had even less foundation. In olden times
+individuals carried on their own robberies or reprisals at their own
+risk; but their actions did not become the least less piratical when,
+about the thirteenth century, reprisals were taken under State control,
+and became only lawful under letters of marque duly issued by a
+sovereign or his admirals. In their acts, conduct, and whole procedure,
+the commissioned privateers of later times differed in no discernible
+respects from the pirates of the middle ages, save in the fact of being
+utilised by the State for its supposed benefit: and this difference,
+only dating as it did from the time when the prohibition to fit out
+cruisers in time of war without public authority first became common,
+was evidently one of date rather than of nature.
+
+Moreover, the attempt of the State to regulate its piratical service
+failed utterly. In the fourteenth century it was customary to make
+the officers of a privateer swear not to plunder the subjects of the
+commissioning belligerent, or of friendly Powers, or of vessels
+sailing under safe-conducts; in the next century it became necessary,
+in addition to this oath, to insist on heavy pecuniary sureties;[80]
+and such sureties became common stipulations in treaties of peace.
+Nearly every treaty between the maritime Powers after about 1600
+contained stipulations in restraint of the abuses of privateering;
+on the value of which, the complaints that arose in every war that
+occurred of privateers exceeding their powers are a sufficient comment.
+The numerous ordinances of different countries threatening to punish
+as pirates all privateers who were found with commissions from _both_
+belligerents, give us a still further insight into the character of
+those servants of the State.
+
+In fact, so slight was the distinction founded on the possession of
+a commission, that even privateers with commissions were sometimes
+treated as actual pirates and not as legitimate belligerents. In the
+seventeenth century, the freebooters and buccaneers who ravaged the
+West Indies, and who consisted of the outcasts of England and the
+Continent, though they were duly commissioned by France to do their
+utmost damage to the Spanish colonies and commerce in the West Indies,
+were treated as no better than pirates if they happened to fall into
+the hands of the Spaniards. And especially was this distinction
+disallowed if there were any doubt concerning the legitimacy of the
+letters of marque. England, for instance, refused at first to treat
+as better than pirates the privateers of her revolted colonists in
+America; and in the French Revolution she tried to persuade the Powers
+of Europe so to deal with privateers commissioned by the republican
+government. Russia having consented to this plan, its execution was
+only hindered by the honourable refusal of Sweden and Denmark to accede
+to so retrograde an innovation.[81]
+
+An illusory distinction between the prize of a pirate and that of
+a privateer was further sustained by the judicial apparatus of the
+prize-court. The rights of a captor were not complete till a naval
+tribunal of his own country had settled his claims to the ships or
+cargo of an enemy or neutral. By this device confiscation was divested
+of its likeness to plunder, and a thin veneer of legality was laid on
+the fundamental lawlessness of the whole system. Were it left to the
+wolves to decide on their rights to the captured sheep, the latter
+would have much the same chance of release as vessels in a prize-court
+of the captor. A prize-court has never yet been equally representative
+of either belligerent, or been so constituted as to be absolutely
+impartial between either.
+
+But, even granted that a prize-court gave its verdicts with the
+strictest regard to the evidence, of what nature was that evidence
+likely to be when it came chiefly from the purser on board the
+privateer, whose duty it was to draw up a verbal process of the
+circumstances of every visit or capture, and who, as he was paid and
+nominated by the captain of the privateer, was dependent for his
+profits in the concern on the lawfulness of the prizes? How easy to
+represent that a defenceless merchant vessel had offered resistance to
+search, and that therefore by the law of nations she and her cargo
+were lawful prize! How tempting to falsify every circumstance that
+really attended the capture, or that legally affected the captors’
+rights to their plunder!
+
+These aspects of privateering soon led unbiassed minds to a sounder
+judgment about it than was discernible in received opinion. Molloy, an
+English writer, spoke of it, as long ago as 1769, as follows: ‘It were
+well they (the privateers) were restrained by consent of all princes,
+since all good men account them but one remove from pirates, who
+without any respect to the cause, or having any injury done them, or so
+much as hired for the service, spoil men and goods, making even a trade
+and calling of it.’[82] Martens, the German publicist, at the end of
+the same century, called privateering a privileged piracy; but Nelson’s
+opinion may fairly count for more than all; and of his opinion there
+remains no doubt whatever. In a letter dated August 7, 1804, he wrote:
+‘If I had the least authority in controlling the privateers, whose
+conduct is so disgraceful to the British nation, I would instantly take
+their commissions from them.’ In the same letter he spoke of them as
+a horde of sanctioned robbers;[83] and on another occasion he wrote:
+‘The conduct of all privateering is, as far as I have seen, so near
+piracy, that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them. The
+lawful as well as the unlawful commerce of the neutral flag is subject
+to every violation and spoliation.’[84] Yet it was for the sake of
+such spoliation, which England chose to regard as her maritime right
+and to identify with her maritime supremacy, that, under the pretext
+of solicitude for the liberties of Europe, she fought her long war
+with France, and made herself the enemy in turn of nearly every other
+civilised Power in the world.
+
+The Declaration of Paris, the first article of which abolished
+privateering between the signatory Powers, was signed by Lord Clarendon
+on behalf of England; but on the ground that it was not formally a
+treaty, never having been ratified by Parliament or the Crown, it has
+actually been several times proposed in the English Parliament to
+violate the honour of England by declaring that agreement null and
+void.[85] Lord Derby, in reference to such proposals, said in 1867:
+‘We have given a pledge, not merely to the Powers who signed with
+us, but to the whole civilised world.’ This was the language of real
+patriotism, which esteems a country’s honour its highest interest; the
+other was the language of the plainest perfidy. In November 1876, the
+Russian Government was also strongly urged, in the case of war with
+England, to issue letters of marque against British commerce, in spite
+of the international agreement to the contrary.[86] It is not likely
+that it would have done so; but these motions in different countries
+give vital interest to the history of privateering as one of the
+legitimate modes of waging war.
+
+Moreover, since neither Spain, the United States, nor Mexico signed
+the Declaration of Paris, war with any of them would revive all the
+atrocities and disputes that have embittered previous wars in which
+England has been engaged. The precedent of former treaties, such as
+that between Sweden and the United Provinces in 1675, the United States
+and Prussia in 1785, and the United States and Italy in 1871, by which
+either party agreed in the event of war not to employ privateers
+against the other, affords an obvious sample of what diplomacy might
+yet do to diminish the chances of war between the signatory and the
+non-signatory Powers.
+
+The United States would have signed the Declaration of Paris if it had
+exempted the merchant vessels of belligerents as well from public armed
+vessels as from privateers: and this must be looked to as the next
+conquest of law over lawlessness. Russia and several other Powers were
+ready to accept the American amendment, which, having at first only
+fallen through owing to the opposition of England, was subsequently
+withdrawn by America herself. Nevertheless, that amendment remains the
+wish not only of the civilised world, but of our own merchants, whose
+carrying trade, the largest in the world, is, in the event of England
+becoming a belligerent, in danger of falling into the hands of neutral
+countries. In 1858 the merchants of Bremen drew up a formal protest
+against the right of ships of war to seize the property and ships of
+merchants.[87] In the war of 1866 Prussia, Italy, and Austria agreed
+to forego this time-honoured right of mutual plunder; and the Emperor
+of Germany endeavoured to establish the same limitation in the war of
+1870. The old maxim of war, of which the custom is a survival, has
+long since been disproved by political economy--the doctrine, namely,
+that a loss to one country is a gain to another, or that one country
+profits by the exact extent of the injury that it effects against the
+property of its adversary. Having lost its basis in reason, it only
+remains to remove it from practice.
+
+If we turn for a moment from this aspect of naval warfare to the actual
+conduct of hostilities at sea, the desire to obtain forcible possession
+of an enemy’s vessels must clearly have had a beneficial effect in
+rendering the loss of life less extensive than it was in battles on
+land. To capture a ship, it was desirable, if possible, to disable
+without destroying it; so that the fire of each side was more generally
+directed against the masts and rigging than against the hull or lower
+parts of the vessel. In the case of the ‘Berwick,’ an English 74-gun
+ship, which struck her colours to the French frigate, the ‘Alceste,’
+only four sailors were wounded, and the captain, whose head was taken
+off by a bar-shot, was the only person slain; and ‘so small a loss was
+attributed to the high firing of the French, who, making sure of the
+‘Berwick’s’ capture, and wanting such a ship entire in their fleet,
+were wise enough to do as little injury as possible to her hull.’[88]
+The great battle between the English and Dutch fleets off Camperdown
+(1795) was exceptional both for the damage inflicted by both on the
+hulls of their adversaries, and consequently for the heavy loss of
+life on either side. ‘The appearance of the British ships at the close
+of the action was very unlike what it generally is when the French
+or Spaniards have been the opponents of the former. Not a single mast
+nor even a top-mast was shot away; nor were the rigging and sails of
+the ships in their usual tattered state. It was at the hulls of their
+adversaries that the Dutchmen had directed their shot.’[89] As the
+English naturally retaliated, though ‘as trophies the appearance of
+the Dutch prizes was gratifying,’ as ships of war ‘they were not the
+slightest acquisition to the navy of England.’[90]
+
+When this happened, as it could not but often do in pitched naval
+battles, the Government sometimes made good to the captors the value of
+the prizes that the serious nature of the conflict had caused them to
+lose. Thus in the case of the six French prizes made at the Battle of
+the Nile, only three of which ever reached Plymouth, the Government,
+‘in order that the captors might not suffer for the prowess they had
+displayed in riddling the hulls of the captured ships, paid for each of
+the destroyed 74s, the “Guerrier,” “Heureux,” and “Mercure,” the sum of
+20,000_l._, which was as much as the least valuable of the remaining
+74s had been valued at.’
+
+It is curious to notice distinctions in naval warfare between lawful
+and unlawful methods similar to those conspicuous on land. Such
+projectiles as bits of iron ore, pointed stones, nails, or glass, are
+excluded from the list of things that may be used in _good war_; and
+the Declaration of St. Petersburg condemns explosive bullets as much
+on one element as on the other. Unfounded charges by one belligerent
+against another are, however, always liable to bring the illicit
+method into actual use on both sides under the pretext of reprisals;
+as we see in the following order of the day, issued at Brest by the
+French Vice-Admiral Marshal Conflans (Nov. 8, 1759): ‘It is absolutely
+contrary to the law of nations to make bad war, and to shoot shells at
+the enemy, who must always be fought according to the rules of honour,
+with the arms generally employed by polite nations. Yet some captains
+have complained that the English have used such weapons against them.
+It is, therefore, only on these complaints, and with an extreme
+reluctance, that it has been resolved to embark hollow shells on
+vessels of the line, but it is expressly forbidden to use them unless
+the enemy begin.’[91]
+
+So the English in their turn charged the French with making bad
+war. The wound received by Nelson at Aboukir, on the forehead, was
+attributed to a piece of iron or a langridge shot.[92] And the wounds
+that the crew of the ‘Brunswick’ received from the ‘Vengeur’ in the
+famous battle between the French and English fleets in June 1794, are
+said to have been peculiarly distressing, owing to the French employing
+langridge shot of raw ore and old nails, and to their throwing
+stinkpots into the portholes, which caused most painful burnings and
+scaldings.[93] It is safest to discredit such accusations altogether,
+for there is no limit to the barbarities that may come into play, in
+consequence of too ready a credulity.
+
+Red-hot shot, legitimate for the defence of land forts against ships,
+used not to be considered good war in the contests of ships with one
+another. In the three hours’ action between the ‘Lively’ and the
+‘Tourterelle,’ a French privateer, the use by the latter of hot-shot,
+‘not usually deemed honourable warfare,’ was considered to be wrong,
+but a wrong on the part of those who equipped her for sea more than
+on the part of the captain who fired them.[94] The English assailing
+batteries that fired red-hot shot against Glückstadt in 1813 are said
+to have resorted to ‘a mode of warfare very unusual with us since the
+siege of Gibraltar.’[95]
+
+The ‘Treatise on Tactics,’ by the Emperor Leo VI., carries back the
+record of the means employed against an enemy in naval warfare to
+the ninth century. The things he recommends as most effective are:
+cranes, to let fall heavy weights on the enemy’s decks; caltrops,
+with iron spikes, to wound his feet;[96] jars full of quicklime,
+to suffocate him; jars containing combustibles, to burn him; jars
+containing poisonous reptiles, to bite him; and Greek fire with its
+noise like thunder, to frighten as well as burn him.[97] Many of these
+methods were of immemorial usage; for Scipio knew the merits of jars
+full of pitch, and Hannibal of jars full of vipers.[98] Nothing was
+too bad for use in those days; nor can it be ascertained when or why
+they ceased to be used. Greek fire was used with great effect in the
+sea-battles between the Saracens and Christians; and it is a fair cause
+for wonder that the invention of gunpowder should have so entirely
+superseded it as to cause its very manufacture to have been forgotten.
+Neither does history record the date of, nor the reason for, the disuse
+of quicklime, which in the famous fight off Dover in 1217 between
+the French and English contributed so greatly to the victory of the
+latter.[99]
+
+It is difficult to believe that sentiments of humanity should have
+caused these methods to be discarded from maritime hostilities; but
+that such motives led to a certain mitigation in the use of fire-ships
+appears from a passage in Captain Brenton’s ‘Naval History,’ where he
+says: ‘The use of fire-ships has long been laid aside, to the honour of
+the nation which first dispensed with this barbarous aggravation of the
+horrors of war.’ That is to say, as he explains it, though fire-ships
+continued to accompany the fleets, they were only used in an anchorage
+where there was a fair chance of the escape of the crew against which
+they were sent; they ceased to be used, as at one time, to burn or
+blow up disabled ships, which the conqueror dared not board and carry
+into port, and which were covered with the wounded and dying. The last
+instance in which they were so used by the English was in the fight
+off Toulon, in 1744; and their use on that occasion is said to have
+received merited reproach from an historian of the day.[100]
+
+As the service of a fire-ship was one that required the greatest
+bravery and coolness--since it was, of course, attacked in every
+possible way, and it was often difficult to escape by the boat chained
+behind it--it displays the extraordinary inconsistency of opinion about
+such matters that it should have been accounted rather a service of
+infamy than of honour. Molloy, in 1769, wrote of it as the practice of
+his day to put to death prisoners made from a fire-ship: ‘Generally
+the persons found in them are put to death if taken.’[101] And another
+writer says: ‘Whether it be from a refined idea, or from the most
+determined resentment towards those who act in fire-ships, may be
+difficult to judge; but there is rarely any quarter given to such as
+fall into the enemy’s power.’[102]
+
+Clock-machines, or torpedoes, were introduced into European warfare by
+the English, being intended to destroy Napoleon’s ships at Boulogne in
+1804. It is remarkable that the use of them was at first reprobated by
+Captain Brenton, and by Lord St. Vincent, who foresaw that other Powers
+would in turn adopt the innovation.[103] The French, who picked up some
+of them near Boulogne, called them infernal machines. But at present
+they seem fairly established as part of good warfare, in default of any
+international agreement against them, such as that which exists against
+explosive bullets.
+
+The same International Act which abolished privateering between the
+signatory Powers settled also between them two other disputed points
+which for centuries were a frequent cause of war and jealousy--namely,
+the liability of the property of neutrals to be seized when found in
+the ships of an enemy, and of the property of an enemy to be seized
+when found in the ships of a neutral.
+
+Over the abstract right of belligerents so to deal with the ships
+or property of neutral Powers the publicists for long fought a
+battle-royal, contending either that a neutral ship should be regarded
+as neutral territory, or that an enemy’s property was lawful prize
+anywhere. Whilst the French or Continental theory regarded the
+nationality of the vessel rather than of its cargo, so that the goods
+of a neutral might be fairly seized on an enemy’s vessel, but those
+of an enemy were safe even in a neutral ship; the English theory was
+diametrically the opposite, for the Admiralty restored a neutral’s
+property taken on an enemy’s vessel, but confiscated an enemy’s goods
+if found on a neutral vessel. This difference between the English
+rule and that of other countries was a source of endless contention.
+Frederick II. of Prussia, in 1753, first resisted the English claim to
+seize hostile property sailing under a neutral flag. Then came against
+the same claim the first Armed Neutrality of 1780, headed by Russia,
+and again in 1801 the second armed coalition of the Northern Powers.
+The difference of rule was, therefore, as such differences always must
+be, a source of real weakness to England, on account of the enemies it
+raised against her all over the world. Yet the Continental theory of
+free ships making free goods was considered for generations to be so
+adverse to the real interests of England, that Lord Nelson, in 1801,
+characterised it in the House of Lords as ‘a proposition so monstrous
+in itself, so contrary to the law of nations, and so injurious to the
+maritime interests of England, as to justify war with the advocates
+of such a doctrine, so long as a single man, a single shilling, or a
+single drop of blood remained in the country.’[104] The Treaty of Paris
+has made binding the Continental rule, and in spite of Lord Nelson free
+ships now make free goods.
+
+The fact, therefore, that if England were now at war with France she
+could not take French property (unless it were contraband) from a
+Russian or American ship, we owe not to the publicists who were divided
+about it, nor to naval opinion which was decided against it, but to the
+accidental alliance between France and England in the Crimean war. In
+order to co-operate together, each waived its old claim, according to
+which France would have been free to seize the property of a neutral
+found on Russian vessels, and England to seize Russian property on the
+vessels of a neutral. As the United States and other neutral Powers
+as well would probably have resisted by arms the claim of either so
+to interfere with their neutrality, the mutual concession was one of
+common prudence; and as the same opposition would have been perennial,
+it was no great sacrifice on the part of either to perpetuate and
+extend by a treaty at the close of the war the agreement that at first
+was only to last for its continuance.
+
+Much, however, as that treaty has done for the peace of the world, by
+assimilating in these respects the maritime law of nations, it has left
+many customs unchanged to challenge still the attention of reformers.
+It is therefore of some practical interest to consider of what nature
+future changes should be, inasmuch as, if we cannot agree to cease from
+fighting altogether, the next best thing we can do is to reduce the
+pretexts for it to as few as possible.
+
+The reservation, then, in favour of confiscating property that is
+contraband of war has left the right of visiting and searching neutral
+or hostile merchantmen for contraband untouched; though nothing has
+been a more fruitful source of quarrel than the want of a common
+definition of what constitutes contraband. Anything which, without
+further manipulation, adds directly to an enemy’s power, as weapons
+of war, are contraband by universal admission; but whether corn and
+provisions are, as some text-writers assert and others deny; whether
+coined money, horses, or saddles are, as was decided in 1863 between
+the Northern Powers of Europe; whether tar and pitch for ships are, as
+was disputed between England and Sweden for 200 years; whether coal
+should be, as Prince Bismarck claimed against England in 1870; or
+whether rice is a war-threatening point of difference between England
+and France in this very year of grace; these are questions that remain
+absolutely undecided, or are left to the treaties between the several
+Powers or the arbitrary caprice of belligerents.
+
+The Declaration of Paris was equally silent as to the right (demanded
+by all the Powers save England) for ships of war, which have always
+been exempt from search, to exempt from search also the merchant
+vessels sailing under their convoy. So fundamental a divergence between
+the maritime usages of different countries can only be sustained under
+the peril of incurring hostility and war, without any corresponding
+advantage in compensation.
+
+The Declaration of Paris has also left untouched the old usage of
+embargoes. A nation wronged by another may still seize the vessels of
+that other which may be in its ports, in order to secure attention to
+its claims; restoring them in the event of a peaceable settlement,
+but confiscating them if war ensues. The resemblance of this practice
+of hostile embargo to robbery, ‘occurring as it does in the midst of
+peace ... ought,’ says an American jurist, ‘to make it disgraceful and
+drive it into disuse.’[105] It would be as reasonable to seize the
+persons and property of all the merchants resident in the country, as
+used to be done by France and England. In 1795, Holland, having been
+conquered by France, became thereby an enemy of England. Accordingly,
+‘orders were issued to seize all Dutch vessels in British ports;’ in
+virtue of which, several gun-ships and between fifty and sixty merchant
+vessels in Plymouth Sound were detained by the port admiral.[106] It is
+difficult to conceive anything less defensible as a practice between
+civilised States.
+
+It equally descends from the barbarous origin of maritime law that all
+ships of an enemy wrecked on our coast, or forced to take refuge in our
+harbours by stress of weather or want of provisions, or in ignorance
+of the existence of hostilities, should become ours by right of war.
+There are generous instances to the contrary. The Spanish Governor of
+Havana in 1746, when an English vessel was driven into that hostile
+port by stress of weather, refused to seize the vessel and take the
+captain prisoner; and so did another Spanish governor in the case of
+an English vessel whose captain was ignorant that Honduras was hostile
+territory. But these cases are the exception; the rule being, that a
+hostile Power avails itself of a captain’s ignorance or distress to
+make him a prisoner and his ship a prize of war; another proof, if
+further needed, how very little magnanimity really enters into the
+conduct of hostilities.
+
+It is a still further abuse of the rights of war that a belligerent
+State may do what it pleases, not only with all the vessels of its
+own subjects, but with all those of neutrals as well which happen to
+be within its jurisdiction at the beginning of a war; that it may, on
+paying the owners the value of their freight beforehand, confiscate
+such vessels and compel them to serve in the transport of its troops
+or its munitions of war. Yet this is the so-called _jus angariæ_, to
+which Prince Bismarck appealed when in the war with France the Germans
+sank some British vessels at the mouth of the Seine.[107] It is true we
+received liberal compensation, but the right is none the less one which
+all the Powers are interested in abolishing.
+
+If, then, from the preceding retrospect it appears that whatever
+advance we have made on the maritime usages of our ancestors has been
+due solely to international agreement, and to a friendly concert
+between the chief Powers of the world, acting with a view to their
+permanent and collective interests, the inference is evidently in
+favour of any further advance being only possible in the same way. The
+renunciations of each Power redound to the benefit of each and all;
+nor can the gain of the world involve any real loss for the several
+nations that compose it. We shall therefore, perhaps, not err far from
+the truth, if we imagine the following articles, in complement of those
+formulated in Paris in 1856, to constitute the International Marine
+Code which will be found in the future to be most calculated to remove
+sources of contention between nations, and best adapted, therefore, to
+the permanent interests of the contracting parties:
+
+ 1. Privateering is and remains abolished.
+
+ 2. The merchant vessels and cargoes of belligerents shall be exempted
+ from seizure and confiscation.
+
+ 3. The colonies of either belligerent shall be excluded from the field
+ of legitimate hostilities, and the neutrality of their territory
+ shall extend to their ships and commerce.
+
+ 4. The right of visiting and searching neutral or hostile merchantmen
+ for contraband of war shall be abolished.
+
+ 5. Contraband of war shall be defined by international agreement; and
+ to deal in such contraband shall be made a breach of the civil
+ law, prohibited and punished by each State as a violation of its
+ proclamation of neutrality.
+
+ 6. Except in the case of contraband as aforesaid, all trade shall
+ be lawful between the subjects of either belligerent, since
+ individuals are no more involved in the quarrel between their
+ respective governments at sea than they are on land.
+
+ 7. The only limitation to commerce shall be so effective a blockade of
+ an enemy’s ports as shall render it impossible for ships to enter
+ or leave them; and the mere notification that a port is blockaded
+ shall not justify the seizure of ships that have sailed from, or
+ are sailing to, them in any part of the world.
+
+ 8. The right to lay hostile embargoes on the ships of a friendly
+ Power, by reason of a dispute arising between them, shall be
+ abolished.
+
+ 9. The right to confiscate or destroy the ships of a friendly Power
+ for the service of a belligerent State, the _jus angariæ_, shall be
+ abolished.
+
+What, then, would remain for the naval forces of maritime Powers to do?
+Everything, it may be replied, which constitutes legitimate warfare,
+and conforms to the elementary conception of a state of hostility; the
+blockading of hostile ports, and all the play of attack and defence
+that may be imagined between belligerent navies. Whatsoever is more
+than this--the plunder of an enemy’s commerce, embargoes on his ships,
+the search of neutral vessels--not only cometh of piracy, as has been
+shown, but is in fact piracy itself, without any necessary connection
+with the conduct of legitimate hostilities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MILITARY REPRISALS.
+
+ _Si quis clamet iniquum non dare pœnas qui peccavit, respondeo
+ multo esse iniquius tot innocentium millia citra meritum in
+ extremam vocari calamitatem._--ERASMUS.
+
+ International law on legitimate reprisals--The Brussels Conference
+ on the subject--Illustrations of barbarous reprisals--Instances
+ of non-retaliation--Savage reprisals in days of chivalry--Hanging
+ the commonest reprisals for a brave defence, as illustrated by the
+ warfare of the fifteenth century--Survival of the custom to our own
+ times--The massacre of a conquered garrison still a law of war--The
+ shelling of Strasburg by the Germans--Brutal warfare of Alexander
+ the Great--The connection between bravery and cruelty--The
+ abolition of slavery in its effects on war--The storming of
+ Magdeburg, Brescia, and Rome--Cicero on Roman warfare--The
+ reprisals of the Germans in France in 1870--Their revival of the
+ custom of taking hostages--Their resort to robbery as a plea
+ of reprisals--General Von Moltke on perpetual peace--The moral
+ responsibility of the military profession--The Press as a potent
+ cause of war--Plea for the abolition of demands for unconditional
+ surrender, such as led to the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882.
+
+
+On no subject connected with the operations of war has International
+Law come as yet to lamer conclusions than concerning Military
+Reprisals, or the revenge that may be fairly exacted by one belligerent
+from the other for violation of the canons of honourable warfare.
+
+General Halleck, for instance, whilst as against an enemy who puts in
+force the extreme rights of war he justifies a belligerent in following
+suit, denies the right of the latter to do so against an enemy who
+passes all bounds and conducts war in a downright savage fashion.
+Whilst therefore, according to him, the law of retaliation would never
+justify such acts as the massacre of prisoners, the use of poison, or
+promiscuous slaughter, he would consider as legitimate reprisals acts
+like the sequestration by Denmark of debts due from Danish to British
+subjects in retaliation for the confiscation by England of the Danish
+fleet in 1807, or Napoleon’s seizure of all English travellers in
+France in retaliation for England’s seizure and condemnation of French
+vessels in 1803.[108] And a French writer, in the same spirit, denies
+that the French Government would have been justified in retaliating on
+Russia, when the Czar had his French prisoners of war consigned to the
+mines of Siberia.[109]
+
+The distinction is clearly untenable on any rational theory of the laws
+of retributive justice. You may retaliate for the lesser, but not for
+the greater injury! You may check resort to infamous hostilities by the
+threat of reprisals, but must fold your hands and submit, if your enemy
+becomes utterly barbarous! You may restrain him from burning your crops
+by burning his, but must be content to go without redress if he slays
+your wives and children!
+
+How difficult the question really is appears from the attempt made
+to settle it at the Brussels Conference of 1874, when the following
+clauses formed part of the original Russian project submitted to the
+consideration of that meeting:
+
+_Section IV._ 69. ‘Reprisals are admissible in extreme cases only, due
+regard being paid as far as possible to the laws of humanity when it
+shall have been unquestionably proved that the laws and customs of war
+have been violated by the enemy, and that they have had recourse to
+measures condemned by the law of nations.’
+
+70. ‘The selection of the means and extent of the reprisals should be
+proportionate to the degree of the infraction of the law committed by
+the enemy. Reprisals that are disproportionately severe are contrary to
+the rules of international law.’
+
+71. ‘Reprisals should be allowed only on the authority of the
+commander-in-chief, who shall likewise determine the degree of their
+severity and their duration.’
+
+The delicacy of dealing with such a subject, when the memories of
+the Franco-German war were still fresh and green, led ultimately to
+a unanimous agreement to suppress these clauses altogether, and to
+leave the matter, as the Belgian deputy expressed it, in the domain
+of unwritten law till the progress of science and civilisation should
+bring about a completely satisfactory solution. Nevertheless, the
+majority of men will be inclined, in reference to this resolution,
+to say with the Russian Baron Jomini, the skilful President of that
+Military Council: ‘I regret that the uncertainty of silence is to
+prevail with respect to one of the most bitter necessities of war.
+If the practice could be suppressed by this reticence, I could not
+but approve of this course; but if it is still to exist among the
+necessities of war, this reticence and this obscurity may, it is to be
+feared, remove any limits to its existence.’
+
+The necessity of some regulation of reprisals, such as that contained
+in the clauses suggested at Brussels, is no less attested by the events
+of the war of 1870 than by the customs in this respect which have at
+all times prevailed, and which, as earlier in time, form a fitting
+introduction to those later occurrences.
+
+That the fear of reprisals should act as a certain check upon the
+character of hostilities is too obvious a consideration not to have
+always served as a wholesome restraint upon military licence. When, for
+instance, Philip II. of Spain in his war with the Netherlands ordered
+that no prisoners of war should be released or exchanged, nor any
+contributions be accepted as an immunity from confiscation, the threat
+of retaliation led to the withdrawal of his iniquitous proclamation.
+Nor would other similar instances be far to seek.
+
+Nevertheless, it is evident that, as seldom as war itself is prevented
+by consideration of the forces in opposition, will its peculiar
+excesses, which constitute its details, be restrained by the fear of
+retaliatory measures; and inasmuch as the primary offence is more
+often the creation of rumour than a proved fact, the usual result
+of reprisals is, not that one belligerent amends its ways, but that
+both belligerents become more savage and enter on a fatal career of
+competitive atrocities. In the wars of the fifteenth century between
+the Turks and Venetians, ‘Sultan Mahomet would not suffer his
+soldiers to give quarter, but allowed them a ducat for every head, and
+the Venetians did the same.’[110] When the Duke of Alva was in the
+Netherlands, the Spaniards, at the siege of Haarlem, threw the heads of
+two Dutch officers over the walls. The Dutch in return beheaded twelve
+Spanish prisoners, and sent their heads into the Spanish trenches.
+The Spaniards in revenge hung a number of prisoners in sight of the
+besieged; and the latter in return killed more prisoners; and so it
+went on during all the time that Alva was in the country, without the
+least improvement resulting from such sanguinary reprisals.[111] At
+the siege of Malta, the Grand Master, in revenge for some horrible
+Turkish barbarities, massacred all his prisoners and shot their heads
+from his cannon into the Turkish camp.[112] In one of the wars of Louis
+XIV., the Imperialist forces having put to death a French lieutenant
+and thirty troopers a few hours after having promised them quarter,
+Feuquières, for reprisals, slew the whole garrison of two towns that he
+won by surprise, though the number so slain in each instance amounted
+to 650 men (1689).[113]
+
+To all these cases the question asked by Vattel very pertinently
+applies: ‘What right have you to cut off the nose and ears of the
+ambassador of a barbarian who has treated your ambassador in that
+manner?’ The question is not an easy one to answer, for we have no more
+right in war than in civil life to punish the innocent for the guilty
+apart from the ordinary accidents of hostilities, even if otherwise
+we must dispense with redress altogether. To do so by intention and
+in cold blood is ferocious, whatever the pretext of justification,
+and is never worth the passing gratification it affords. The citizens
+of Ghent, in their famous war with the Earl of Flanders, not only
+destroyed his house, but the silver cradle and bathing tub he had used
+as a child and the very font in which he had been baptized; but such
+reprisals are soon regretted, and read very pitiably in the eyes of the
+after-world.
+
+It is pleasanter to record some instances where abstinence from
+reprisals has not been without its reward. It is said that Cæsar in
+Iberia, when, in spite of a truce, the enemy killed many of his men,
+instead of retaliating, released some of his prisoners and thereby
+brought the foe to regard him with favour. We read in Froissart that
+the Lisboners refrained from retaliating on the Castilians, when the
+latter mutilated their Portuguese prisoners; and the English Government
+acted nobly when it refused to reciprocate the decree of the French
+Convention (though that also was meant as a measure of reprisals) that
+no English or Hanoverian prisoner should be allowed any quarter.[114]
+But the best story of this kind is that told by Herodotus of Xerxes
+the Persian. The Spartans had thrown into a well the Persian envoys who
+had come to demand of them earth and water. In remorse they sent two of
+their nobles to Xerxes to be killed in atonement; but Xerxes, when he
+heard the purport of their visit, answered them that he would not act
+like the Spartans, who by killing his heralds had broken the laws that
+were regarded as sacred by all mankind, and that, of such conduct as he
+blamed in them, he would never be guilty himself.[115]
+
+But the most curious feature in the history of reprisals is the fact
+that they were once regarded as justly exacted for the mere offence
+of hostile opposition or self-defence. Grotius states that it was the
+almost constant practice of the Romans to kill the leaders of an enemy,
+whether they had surrendered or been captured, on the day of triumph.
+Jugurtha indeed was put to death in prison; but the more usual practice
+appears to have been to keep conquered potentates in custody, after
+they had been led in triumph before the consul’s chariot. This was the
+fate of Perseus, king of Macedonia, who was also allowed to retain
+his attendants, money, plate, and furniture;[116] of Gentius, king of
+Illyria;[117] of Bituitus, king of the Arvernians. Prisoners of less
+distinction were sold as slaves, or kept in custody till their friends
+paid their ransom.
+
+But in the mediæval history of Europe, in the so-called times of
+chivalry, a far worse spirit prevailed with regard to the treatment
+of captives. Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the brightest memories of
+chivalry, was responsible for the promiscuous slaughter of three days
+which the Crusaders exacted for the six weeks’ siege which it had cost
+them to take Jerusalem (1099). The Emperor Barbarossa had 1,190 Swabian
+prisoners delivered to the executioner at Milan, or shot from military
+engines.[118] Charles of Anjou reserved many prisoners, taken at the
+battle of Beneventum, to be killed as criminals on his entrance into
+Naples. When the French took the castle of Pesquière from the Venetians
+by storm, they slew all but three who surrendered to the pleasure of
+the king; and Louis XII., who counted for a humane monarch, though his
+victims offered 100,000 ducats for their lives, swore that he would
+neither eat nor drink till they were hanged (1509).[119]
+
+The indignation of the Roman Senate on one occasion with a consul
+who had sold as slaves 10,000 Ligurian prisoners, though they had
+surrendered at discretion,[120] was a sentiment that never affected the
+warriors of mediæval Christendom. A surrender at discretion ceased to
+constitute a claim for mercy. Where the pagan held it wrong to enslave,
+the Christian never hesitated to kill. Froissart’s story of the six
+citizens of Calais, whom Edward III. was with difficulty restrained
+from hanging for the obstinate siege which their town had resisted,
+throws a light over the war customs of that time, which other incidents
+of history abundantly confirm. The record of the capitulations of
+cities or garrisons is no pleasant one, but it is a record which must
+be touched upon, in order that war and its still prevalent maxims may
+be judged at their proper value. We need scarcely travel further than
+the fifteenth century alone in search of facts to place in its proper
+light this aspect of martial atrocities.
+
+When the town of Rouen surrendered to Henry V. of England, the latter
+stipulated for three of the citizens to be left to his disposal, of
+whom two purchased their lives, and the third was beheaded (1419).[121]
+When the same king the year following was besieging the castle of
+Montereau, he sent some twenty prisoners to treat with the governor
+for a surrender; but when the governor refused to treat, even to save
+their lives, and when, after a fearful leave-taking with their wives
+and relatives, they had been escorted back to the English army, ‘the
+King of England ordered a gallows to be erected and had them all hanged
+in sight of those within the castle.’[122] When the English took the
+castle of Rougemont by storm, and some sixty of its defenders alive,
+with the loss of only one Englishman, Henry V., in revenge for his
+death, caused all the prisoners to be drowned in the Loire.[123] When
+Meaux surrendered to the same king, it was stipulated that six of
+its bravest defenders should be delivered up to _justice_, four of
+whom were beheaded at Paris, and its commander at once hung to a tree
+outside the walls of the city (1422).[124]
+
+Not that there was any special cruelty in the English mode of warfare.
+They simply conformed to the customs of the time, as we may see by
+reference to the French and Burgundian wars into which they allowed
+themselves to be drawn. In 1434, the garrison of Chaumont ‘was soon
+so hardly pressed that it surrendered at discretion to the Duke of
+Burgundy (Philip the Good), who had upwards of 100 of them hanged;’ and
+as with the townsmen, so with those in the castle.[125] Bournonville,
+who commanded Soissons for the Duke of Burgundy, and whom Monstrelet
+calls ‘the flower of the warriors of all France,’ was beheaded at
+Paris, after the capture of the town, by order of the king and council,
+and his body hung to a gibbet, like a common malefactor’s (1414).[126]
+When Dinant was taken by storm by the Burgundians, the prisoners,
+about 800, were drowned before Bovines (1466).[127] When the town of
+Saint-frou surrendered to the Duke of Burgundy, ten men, left to the
+disposal of that warrior, were beheaded; and so it fared also with
+the town of Tongres (1467).[128] After the storming and slaughter at
+Liège, before the Duke of Burgundy (Charles the Bold) left the city,
+‘a great number of those poor creatures who had hid themselves in the
+houses when the town was taken and were afterwards made prisoners, were
+hanged’ (1468).[129] At Nesle, most of those who were taken alive were
+hung, and some had their hands cut off (1472).[130] After the battle
+of Granson, the Swiss retook two castles from the French, and hung
+all the Burgundians they found in them. They then retook the town and
+castle of Granson, and ordered 512 Germans whom the Burgundians had
+hung to be cut down, and as many of the Burgundians as were still in
+Granson to be suspended on the same halters (1476). In the skirmishes
+that occurred in a time of truce on the frontiers of Picardy, between
+the French king’s forces and those of the Duke of Austria, ‘all the
+prisoners that were taken on both sides were immediately hanged,
+without permitting any, of what degree or rank soever, to be ransomed’
+(1481). And as a climax to these facts, let us recall the decree of the
+Duke of Anjou, who, when Montpellier was taken by siege, condemned 600
+prisoners to be put to death, 200 by the sword, 200 by the halter, and
+200 by fire, and who, but for the remonstrances of a cardinal and a
+friar, would undoubtedly have executed his sentence.
+
+Ghastly facts enough these! and a strange insight they afford us into
+the real character of a profession which, in the days when these things
+were its commonest occurrences, was held to be the noblest of all, but
+of which it is only too patent that its mainsprings were simply the
+brigand’s love of plunder and of bloodshed. One story may be quoted
+to show that in this respect the sixteenth century was no improvement
+on the fifteenth. In the war between the Dutch and the Spaniards, the
+captain of Weerd Castle, having previously refused to surrender to Sir
+Francis de Vere, begged at last for a capitulation with the honours
+of war; Vere’s answer was, that the honours of war were halters for a
+garrison that had dared to defend such a hovel against artillery. The
+commandant was killed first, and the remaining 26 men, having been
+made to draw black and white straws, the 12 who drew the white straws
+were hanged, the thirteenth only escaping by consenting to act as
+executioner of the rest![131]
+
+It is clear, therefore, that in the wars of the past the axe and the
+halter have played as conspicuous a part as the sword or the lance;
+a fact to which its due prominence has not always been given in the
+standard histories of military antiquities. It is surprising to find
+how close to the glories of war lie the sickening vulgarities of murder.
+
+To the Duke of Somerset, the regent of England for Edward VI., appears
+to be due the credit of instituting a milder treatment of a besieged
+but surrendered garrison than had been previously customary. For De
+Thou, the historian, speaks of the admiration the Duke received for
+sparing the lives of a Scotch garrison, contrary to that ‘ancient maxim
+in war which declares that a weak garrison forfeits all claim to mercy
+on the part of the conquerors, when, with more courage than prudence,
+they obstinately persevere in defending an ill-fortified place against
+the royal army,’ or refuse reasonable conditions.
+
+But the ancient maxim lasted, in spite of this better example,
+throughout the seventeenth and till late into the eighteenth century,
+for we find Vattel even then thus protesting against it: ‘How could it
+be conceived in an enlightened age that it was lawful to punish with
+death a governor who has defended his town to the last extremity, or
+who in a weak place had the courage to hold out against a royal army?
+In the last century this notion still prevailed; it was looked upon as
+one of the laws of war, and is not even at present totally exploded.
+What an idea! to punish a brave man for having performed his duty.’[132]
+
+But not even yet is the notion definitely expunged from the unwritten
+code of martial etiquette. The original Russian project, submitted
+to the Brussels Conference, proposed to exclude, among other illicit
+means of war, ‘the threat of extermination towards a garrison that
+obstinately holds a fortress.’ The proposal was unanimously rejected,
+and that clause was carefully excluded from the published modified
+text! But as the execution of a threat is morally of the same value
+as the threat itself, it is evident that the massacre of a brave but
+conquered garrison still holds its place among the laws of Christian
+warfare!
+
+This peculiar and most sanguinary law of reprisals has always been
+defended by the common military sophism, that it shortens the horrors
+of war. The threat of capital punishment against the governor or
+defenders of a town should naturally dispose them to make a conditional
+surrender, and so spare both sides the miseries of a siege. But
+arguments in defence of atrocities, on the ground of their shortening
+a war, and coming from military quarters, must be viewed with the
+greatest suspicion, and, inasmuch as they provoke reprisals and so
+intensify passion, with the greatest distrust. It was to such an
+argument that the Germans resorted in defence of their shelling the
+town of Strasburg, in order to intimidate the inhabitants and drive
+them to force General Uhrich to a surrender. ‘The abbreviation,’ said
+a German writer, ‘of the period of actual fighting and of the war
+itself is an act of humanity towards both parties;’[133] although the
+savage act failed in its purpose and General Werder had to fall back,
+after his gratuitous destruction of life and property, on the slower
+process of a regular siege. If their tendency to shorten a war be the
+final justification of military proceedings, the ground begins to slip
+from under us against the use of aconitine or of clothes infected
+with the small-pox. Therefore such a pretext should meet with prompt
+condemnation, notwithstanding the efforts of the modern military school
+to render it popular upon the earth.
+
+In respect, therefore, to this law of reprisals, the comparison is
+not to the credit of modern times as compared with the pagan era. A
+surrender, which in Greek and Roman warfare involved as a rule personal
+security, came in Christianised Europe to involve capital punishment
+out of motives of pure vindictiveness. The chivalry so often associated
+with the battle-field as at least a redeeming feature fades on closer
+inspection into the veriest fiction of romance. Bravery under any form
+has been the constant pretext for capital reprisals. Edward I. had
+William Wallace, the brave Scotch leader, executed on Tower Hill;
+and it has been observed by one writer, as the facts already quoted
+prove, that the custom of thus killing defeated generals ‘may be traced
+through a series of years so connected and extensive that we are not
+able to point out the exact time when it ceased.’[134]
+
+A characteristic incident of this sort is connected with the famous
+pacification of Guienne by Montluc in 1562. Montluc had won Montsegur
+by storm, and its commander had been taken alive. The latter was a man
+of notorious valour, and in a previous campaign had been Montluc’s
+fellow-soldier and friend. For that reason many interceded for his
+life, but Montluc decided to hang him, and simply on account of his
+valour. ‘I well knew his courage,’ he says, ‘which made me hang him....
+I knew him to be valiant, but that made me the rather put him to
+death.’ What of your chivalry after that?
+
+But Alexander the Great, whose career has been the ideal of all
+succeeding aspirants to military fame, dealt even more severely than
+Montluc with Betis, the gallant defender of Gaza. When Gaza was at last
+taken by storm, Betis, after fighting heroically, had the misfortune to
+be taken alive and to be brought into the presence of the conqueror.
+Alexander addressed him thus: ‘You shall not die, Betis, in the manner
+you wished; but make up your mind to suffer whatever torture can be
+thought of against a prisoner;’ and when Betis for all answer returned
+him but the silence of disdain, Alexander had thongs fixed to his
+ankles, and, himself acting as charioteer, drove his yet living victim
+round the city, attached to his chariot wheels; priding himself that by
+such conduct he rivalled Achilles’ treatment of Hector.[135]
+
+A valiant resistance was with Alexander always a sufficient motive
+for the most sanguinary reprisals. Arimages, who defended a fortified
+rock in Sogdia, thought his position so strong that when summoned to
+surrender, he asked tauntingly whether Alexander could fly; and for
+this offence, when, unable to hold out any longer, Arimages and his
+relations descended to Alexander’s camp to beg for quarter, Alexander
+had them first of all flogged and then crucified at the foot of the
+rock they had so bravely defended.[136] After the long siege of Tyre,
+Alexander had 2,000 Tyrians, over and above the 6,000 who fell during
+the storming of that city, nailed to crosses along the shore,[137]
+perhaps in reprisal for a violation of the laws of war--for Quintus
+Curtius declares that the Tyrians had murdered some Macedonian
+ambassadors, and Arrian, who makes no mention of the crucifixion,
+declares that they slew some Macedonian prisoners and threw them from
+their walls--but more probably (since there were evidently different
+stories of the Tyrians’ offence) on account simply of the obstinate
+resistance they had offered to Alexander’s attack.
+
+The Macedonian conqueror regarded his whole expedition against Persia
+as an act of reprisals for the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, 150
+years before his own time. When he set fire to the Persian capital
+and palace, Persepolis, he justified himself against Parmenio’s
+remonstrances on the ground that it was in revenge for the destruction
+of the temples in Greece during the Persian invasion;[138] and this
+motive was constantly present with him, in justification both of the
+war itself and of particular atrocities connected with it. In the
+course of his expedition, he came to a city of the Branchidæ, whose
+ancestors at Miletus had betrayed the treasures of a temple in their
+charge to Xerxes, and had by him been removed from Miletus to Asia.
+As Greeks they met Alexander’s army with joy, and at once surrendered
+their city to him. The next day, after reflection given to the matter,
+Alexander had every single inhabitant of the city slain, in spite of
+their powerlessness, in spite of their supplications, in spite of their
+community of language and origin. He even had the walls of the city
+dug up from their foundation, and the trees of their sacred groves
+uprooted, that not a trace of their city might remain.[139]
+
+Nor can doubt be thrown on these deeds by the fact that they are
+only mentioned by Quintus Curtius and not by Arrian. The silence of
+the one is no proof of the falsity or credulity of the other. Both
+writers lived many centuries after Alexander, and were dependent for
+their knowledge on the writings, then extant but long since lost, of
+contemporaries and eye-witnesses of the expedition to Asia. That those
+witnesses often gave conflicting accounts of the same event we have the
+assurance of either writer; but since it is impossible to determine
+the degree of discretion with which each made their selections from
+the original authorities, it is only reasonable to regard them both as
+of the same and equal validity. Seneca, who lived before Arrian and
+who therefore was equally conversant with the original authorities,
+hardly ever mentions Alexander without expressions of the strongest
+reprobation.
+
+Cruelty, in fact, is revealed to us by history as the most conspicuous
+trait in the character of Alexander, though not in his case nor in
+others inconsistent with occasional acts of magnanimity and the gleams
+of a higher nature. This cruelty, however, taken in connection with
+his undoubted bravery, calls in question the truth of a remark made by
+Philip de Commines, and supported, he affirmed, by all historians, that
+no cruel man is ever courageous. The popular theory, that inhumanity is
+more likely to be the concomitant of a timid than of a daring nature,
+ignores altogether the teaching of history and the conclusions of _à
+priori_ reasoning. For if our regard for the sufferings of others is
+proportioned to our regard for our own sufferings, inasmuch as our
+self-love is the foundation and measure of our powers of sympathy,
+a man’s disregard for the sufferings of others--in other words his
+cruelty--is likely to be the exact reflection of his disregard for
+suffering in his own person, or, in other words, of his physical
+courage. Men, moreover, like Cicero, of whom it was said by Livy that
+he was better calculated for anything than for war, by their very
+incapacity for positions where their humanity is likely to be tested,
+are rarely exposed to those temptations of cruelty in which men of a
+more daring temperament naturally find themselves placed.
+
+And accordingly we find, by reference to instances which lie on the
+surface of history, that great bravery and great cruelty have more
+often been united than separate. In French history there is the cruelty
+of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; of Montluc and Des Adretz,
+the latter of whom made 30 soldiers and their captain leap from the
+precipice of a strong place they had defended, and of both of whom
+Brantôme remarks that they were very brave but very cruel.[140] In
+Scotch history, it was David I. who, though famed for his courage and
+humanity, suffered the sick and aged to be slain in their beds, even
+infants to be killed and priests murdered at the very altars.[141] In
+English history, it was Richard Cœur-de-Lion who had 5,000 Saracen
+prisoners led out to a large plain to be massacred (1191).[142] In
+Jewish history, it was King David who, when he took Rabbah of the
+Ammonites, ‘brought forth the people that were therein and put them
+under saws and harrows of iron and under axes of iron, and made them
+pass through the brick kiln; and thus did he unto all the cities of the
+children of Ammon.’[143] It is not therefore more probable that a man
+famed for his intrepidity will not lend himself to counsels or actions
+of cruelty than that another deficient in personal courage will not be
+humane.
+
+And here one cause is deserving of attention as helping to explain the
+greater barbarity practised by the modern nations in the matter of
+reprisals, than that which was permitted by the code of honour which
+acted in restraint of them in the better periods of pagan antiquity;
+and that is the change that has occurred with regard to slavery.
+
+The abolition of slavery, which in Western Europe has been the greatest
+achievement of modern civilisation, did not unfortunately tend to
+greater mildness in the customs of war. For in ancient times the sale
+of prisoners as slaves operated to restrain that indiscriminate and
+objectless slaughter which has been, even to cases within this century,
+the marked feature of the battle-field, and more especially where
+cities or places have been taken by storm. Avarice ceased to operate,
+as it once did, in favour of humanity. In one day the population of
+Magdeburg, taken by storm, was reduced from 25,000 to 2,700; and an
+English eye-witness of that event thus described it: ‘Of 25,000, some
+said 30,000 people, there was not a soul to be seen alive, till the
+flames drove those that were hid in vaults and secret places to seek
+death in the streets rather than perish in the fire; of these miserable
+creatures some were killed too by the furious soldiers, but at last
+they saved the lives of such as came out of their cellars and holes,
+and so about 2,000 poor desperate creatures were left.’[144] ‘There
+was little shooting, the execution was all cutting of throats and
+mere house murders.... We could see the poor people in crowds driven
+down the streets, flying from the fury of the soldiers, who followed
+butchering them as fast as they could, and refused mercy to anybody;
+till, driving them down to the river’s edge, the desperate wretches
+would throw themselves into the river, where thousands of them
+perished, especially women and children.’[145]
+
+It is difficult to read this graphic description of a stormed city
+without the suspicion arising in the mind that a sheer thirst for blood
+and love of murder is a much more potent sustainer of war than it is
+usual or agreeable to believe. The narratives of most victories and
+of taken cities support this theory. At Brescia, for instance, taken
+by the French from the Venetians in 1512, it is said that 20,000 of
+the latter fell to only 50 of the former.[146] When Rome was sacked in
+1527 by the Imperialist forces, we are told that ‘the soldiery threw
+themselves upon the unhappy multitude, and, without distinction of age
+or sex, massacred all who came in their way. Strangers were spared as
+little as Romans, for the murderers fired indiscriminately at everyone,
+from a mere thirst of blood.’[147]
+
+But this thirst of blood was checked in the days of slavery by the
+counteracting thirst of money; there having been an obvious motive
+for giving quarter when a prisoner of war represented something of
+tangible value, like any other article of booty. The sack of Thebes
+by Alexander, and its demolition to the sound of the lute, was bad
+enough; but after the first rage for slaughter was over, there remained
+30,000 persons of free birth to be sold as slaves. And in Roman
+warfare the rule was to sell as slaves those who were taken prisoners
+in a stormed city; and it must be remembered that many so sold were
+slaves already.[148] All who were unarmed or who laid down their arms
+were spared from destruction, as well as from plunder;[149] and for
+exceptions to this rule, as for instance for the indiscriminate and
+cruel massacre committed at Illiturji in Spain, there was always at
+least the pretext of reprisals, or some special military motive.[150]
+
+Cicero, who lived to see the Roman arms triumphant over the world and
+the conversion of the Roman republic into a military despotism, found
+occasion to deplore at the same time the debased standard of military
+honour. He believed that in cruel vindictiveness and rapacity his
+contemporaries had degenerated from the customs of their ancestors, and
+he contrasted regretfully the utter destruction of Carthage, Numantia,
+and Corinth, with the milder treatment of their earlier enemies, the
+Sabines, Tusculans, and others. He adduced as a proof of the greater
+ferocity of the war spirit of his day the fact that the only term
+for an enemy was originally the milder term of stranger, and that it
+was only by degrees that the word meaning stranger came to have the
+connotation of hostility. ‘What,’ he asks, ‘could have been added
+to this mildness, to call him with whom you are at war by so gentle
+a name as stranger? But now the progress of time has given a harder
+signification to the word; for it has ceased to apply to a stranger,
+and has remained the proper term for an actual enemy in arms.’[151]
+
+Is a similar process taking place in modern warfare with regard to
+the law of reprisals? It is a long leap from ancient Rome to modern
+Germany; but to Germany, as the chief military Power now in existence,
+we must turn, in order to understand the law of reprisals as it is
+interpreted by the practice of a country whose power and example will
+make her actions precedents in all wars that may occur in future.
+
+The worst feature in reprisals is that they are indiscriminate and
+more often directed against the innocent than the guilty. To murder
+women and children, old men, or any one else, on the ground of their
+connection with an enemy who has committed an action calling for
+retribution, can be justified by no theory that would not equally apply
+to a similar parody of justice in civil life. It is a return to the
+theory and practices of savages, who, if they cannot revenge themselves
+on a culprit, revenge themselves complacently on some one else. For
+bodies of peasants to resist a foreign invader by forming ambuscades or
+making surprises against him, though his advance is marked by fire and
+pillage and outrage, may be contrary to the laws of war (though that
+point has never been agreed upon); but to make such attacks the pretext
+for indiscriminate murder and robbery is an extension of the law of
+reprisals that was only definitely imported into the military code of
+Europe by the German invaders of France in 1870.
+
+The following facts, offered in proof of this statement, are taken
+from a small pamphlet, published during the war by the International
+Society for Help to the Wounded, and containing only such facts as were
+attested by the evidence of official documents or of persons whose
+positions gave them an exceptional title to credit.[152] At one place,
+where twenty-five francs-tireurs had hidden in a wood and received the
+Germans with a fusillade, reprisals were carried so far that the curé,
+rushing into the streets, seized the Prussian captain by the shoulders
+and entreated mercy for the women and children. ‘No mercy’ was the
+only reply.[153] At another place twenty-six young men had joined the
+francs-tireurs; the Baden troops took and shot their fathers.[154] At
+Nemours, where a body of Uhlans had been surprised and captured by
+some mobiles, the floors and furniture of several houses were first
+saturated with petroleum and then fired with shells.[155]
+
+The new theory also was imported into the military code, that a
+village, by the mere fact of trying to defend itself, constituted
+itself a place of war which might be legitimately bombarded and, when
+taken, subjected to the rights of war which still govern the fate of
+places taken by assault.[156] Nor let it be supposed that those rights
+were not exercised as rigorously as they ever have been by victorious
+troops. At Nogent-sur-Seine, the Wurtemburg troops carried their fury
+to the slaughter of women and children and even of the wounded. And if
+the belief still lingers that the German troops of the Emperor William
+behaved otherwise towards the weaker sex than their ancestors in Rome
+and Italy under the Constable of Bourbon, let the reader refer to the
+experiences of Clermont, Andernay, or Neuville.[157]
+
+Reprisals beget, of course, reprisals; and had the French and German
+war been by any accident prolonged, it is appalling to think of the
+barbarities that would have occurred. ‘Threat for threat,’ wrote
+Colonel R. Garibaldi to the Prussian commander at Châtillon, in
+reference to the latter’s resolve to punish the inhabitants of that
+place for the acts of some francs-tireurs; ‘I give you my assurance
+that I will not spare one of the 200 Prussians whom you know to be in
+my hands.’[158] ‘We will fight,’ wrote General Chanzy to the Prussian
+commander at Vendôme, ‘without truce or mercy, because it is a question
+now not of fighting loyal enemies, but hordes of devastators.’[159]
+
+Under the theory of legitimate reprisals, the Germans resuscitated
+the custom of taking hostages. The French having (in accordance with
+the still recognised but barbarous rule of war) taken prisoners the
+captains of some German merchant vessels, the Germans retaliated
+by taking twenty persons of respectable position at Dijon, and nine
+at Vesoul, and detaining them as hostages. Nor was this an uncommon
+episode in the campaign: though the sending to Germany as prisoners
+of war of French merchants, magistrates, lawyers, and doctors, and
+the making them answerable with their lives and fortunes for actions
+of their countrymen which they could neither prevent nor repress, was
+a revival in its worst form of the theory of vicarious punishment,
+and a direction of hostilities against non-combatants, which was a
+gross violation of the proclamation of the Prussian king, made at
+the beginning of the campaign (after the common cant of the leaders
+of armies), that his forces had no war to wage with the peaceable
+inhabitants of France.
+
+Even plunder enters into the German law of reprisals. Remiremont in
+the Vosges had to pay 8,000_l._ because two German engineers and one
+soldier had been taken prisoners by the French troops. The usual forced
+military contributions which the victors exacted did not exclude a
+system of pillage and devastation that the present age fondly believed
+to belong only to a past state of warfare. On December 5, 1870, a
+German soldier wrote to the _Cologne Gazette_: ‘Since the war has
+entered upon its present stage it is a real life of brigands we lead.
+For four weeks we have passed through districts entirely ravaged; the
+last eight days we have passed through towns and villages where there
+was absolutely nothing left to take.’ Nor was this plunder only the
+work of the common military serfs or conscripts, whose miserable
+poverty might have served as an excuse, but it was conducted by
+officers of the highest rank, who, for their own benefit, robbed farms
+and stables of their sheep and horses, and sacked country houses of
+their works of art, their plate, and even of their ladies’ jewels.[160]
+
+The world, therefore, at least owes this to the Germans, that they have
+taught us to see war in its true light, by removing it from the realm
+of romance, where it was decked with bright colours and noble actions,
+to the region of sober judgment, where the soldier, the thief, and
+the murderer are seen in scarcely distinguishable colours. They have
+withdrawn the veil which blinded our ancestors to the evils of war,
+and which led dreamy humanitarians to believe in the possibility of
+_civilised warfare_; so that now the deeds of shame threaten to obscure
+the deeds of glory. In the middle ages it was the custom to declare a
+war that was intended to be waged with special fury by sending a man
+with a naked sword in one hand and a burning torch in the other, to
+signify that the war so begun was to be one of blood and fire. We have
+since learnt that there is no need to typify by any peculiar ceremony
+the character of any particular war; for that the characteristics of
+all are the same.
+
+The German general Von Moltke, in a published letter wherein he
+maintained that Perpetual Peace was a dream and not even a beautiful
+one, went on to say, in defence of war, that in it the noblest virtues
+of mankind were developed--courage, self-abnegation, faithfulness to
+duty, the spirit of sacrifice; and that without wars the world would
+soon stagnate and lose itself in materialism.[161] We have no data from
+which to judge of the probable state of a warless world, but we do
+know that the brightest samples of these virtues have been ever given
+by those who in peace and obscurity, and without looking for lands, or
+titles, or medals for their reward, have laboured not to destroy life
+but to save it, not to lower the standard of morality but to raise it,
+not to preach revenge but mercy, not to spread misery and poverty and
+crime but to increase happiness, wealth, and virtue. Is there or will
+there be no scope for courage, for self-sacrifice, for duty, where
+fever and disease are the foes to be combated, where wounds and pain
+need to be cured or soothed, or where sin and ignorance and poverty are
+the forces to be assailed? But apart from this there is another side to
+the picture of war, of which Von Moltke says not a word, but of which,
+in the preceding pages, some indication has been given. Now that we are
+no longer satisfied with the dry narratives of strategical operations,
+but are beginning to search into the details of military proceedings;
+into the fate of the captured, of the wounded, of the pursued; into
+the treatment of hostages, of women, of children; into the statistics
+of massacre and spoliation that are the penalties of defeat; into the
+character of stratagems; and into the justice of reprisals, we see war
+in another mirror, and recognise that the old one gave but a distorted
+reflection of its realities. No one ever denied but that great
+qualities are displayed in war; but the doubt is spreading fast, not
+only whether it is the worthiest field for their display, but whether
+it is not also the principal nursing-bed of the crimes that are the
+greatest disgrace to our nature.
+
+It is idle to think that our humanity will fail to take its colouring
+from our calling. Marshal Montluc, the bravest yet most cruel of
+French soldiers, was fond of protesting that the inhumanity he was
+guilty of was in corruption of his original and better nature; and at
+the close of his book and of his life, he consoled himself for the
+blood he had caused to flow like water by the consideration, that the
+sovereigns whose servant he had been were (as he told one of them)
+really responsible for the misery he had caused. But does the excuse
+avail him, or the millions who have succeeded to his trade? A king or a
+government can commission men to execute its policy or its vengeance;
+but is a free agent, who accepts a commission that he believes to be
+iniquitous, morally acquitted of his share of culpability? Is his
+responsibility no greater than that of the sword, the axe, or the
+halter with which he carries out his orders; or does the plea of
+military discipline justify him in acting with no more moral restraint
+than a slave, or than a horse that has no understanding? The Prussian
+officer who at Dijon blew out his brains rather than execute some
+iniquitous order[162] showed that he understood the dignity of human
+nature as it was understood in the days of the bygone moral grandeur
+of Rome. Such a man deserved a monument far more than most to whom
+memorial monuments are raised.
+
+Recent events lend an additional interest to the question of
+reprisals, and add emphasis to the necessity of placing them, as it
+was sought to do at Brussels, on the footing of an International
+Agreement. It is sometimes said that dynastic wars belong to the past,
+and that kings have no longer the power to make war, as they once did,
+for their own pleasure or pastime. There may be truth in this, though
+the last great war in Europe but one had its immediate cause in an
+inter-dynastic jealousy; but a far more potent agency for war than
+ever existed in monarchical power is now wielded by the Press. War in
+every country is the direct pecuniary interest of the Daily Press. ‘I
+know proprietors of newspapers,’ said Cobden during the Crimean war,
+‘who have pocketed 3,000_l._ or 4,000_l._ a year through the war as
+directly as if the money had been voted to them in the Parliamentary
+estimates.’[163] The temptation, therefore, is great, first to justify
+any given war by irrelevant issues or by stories of the enormities
+committed by the enemy, or even by positive false statements (as when
+the English Press, with the _Times_ at its head, with almost one voice
+taught us that the Afghan ruler had insulted our ambassador, and left
+us to find out our mistake when a too ready credulity had cost us a
+war of some 20,000,000_l._); and then, when war has once begun, to fan
+the flame by demanding reprisals for atrocities that have generally
+never been committed nor established by anything like proof. In this
+way the French were charged at the beginning of the last German war
+with bombarding the open town of Saarbrück, and with firing explosive
+bullets from the mitrailleuse; and the belief, thus falsely and
+purposely propagated, covered of course with the cloak of reprisals a
+good deal of all that came afterwards.
+
+In this way has arisen the modern practice of justifying every resort
+to war, not as a trial of strength or test of justice between enemies,
+but as an act of virtuous and necessary chastisement against criminals.
+Charges of violated faith, of the abuse of flags of truce, of
+dishonourable stratagems, of the ill-treatment or torture of prisoners,
+are seized upon, regardless of any inquiry into their truth, and made
+the pretext for the indefinite prolongation of hostilities. The lawful
+enemy is denounced as a rebel or a criminal, whom it would be wicked to
+treat with or trust; and only an unconditional surrender, which drives
+him to desperation, and so embitters the war, is regarded as a possible
+preliminary to peace. The time has surely come when such a demand, on
+the ground of reprisals, should cease to operate as a bar to peace.
+One of the proposals at the Brussels Conference was that no commander
+should be forced to capitulate under dishonourable conditions, that
+is to say, without the customary honours of war. It should be one of
+the demands of civilisation that an unconditional surrender, such
+as was insisted upon from Arabi in 1882 and led to the bombardment
+of Alexandria with all the subsequent troubles, should under no
+circumstances be insisted on in treating with an enemy; and that no
+victorious belligerent should demand of a defeated one what under
+reversed conditions it would consider dishonourable to grant itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MILITARY STRATAGEMS.
+
+ _Hé! qu’il y a de tromperie au monde! et en nostre mestier plus
+ qu’en autre qui soit._--MARSHAL MONTLUC.
+
+ Grotius’ theory of fair stratagems--The teaching of international
+ law--Ancient and modern naval stratagems--Early Roman dislike
+ of such stratagems as ambuscades, feigned retreats, or night
+ attacks--The degenerate standard of Frontinus and Polyænus--The
+ conference-stratagem of modern Europe--The distinction between
+ perfidy and stratagem--The perfidy of Francis I.--Vattel’s
+ theory about spies--Frederick the Great’s military instructions
+ about spies--Lord Wolseley on spies and truth in war--The
+ custom of hanging or shooting spies--Better to keep them as
+ prisoners of war--Balloonists regarded as spies--The practice of
+ military surprises--Death formerly the penalty for capture in
+ a surprise--Stratagems of uncertain character, such as forged
+ despatches or false intelligence--The use of the telegraph in
+ deceiving the enemy--May prisoners of war be compelled to propagate
+ lies?--General character of the military code of fraud.
+
+
+One of the most interesting aspects of the state of war is that of its
+connection with fraud, deceit, and guile. If we may seek to obtain our
+ends by force, we may surely, it is argued, do so by fraud; for what is
+the moral difference between overcoming by superiority of muscle and
+the same result obtained by dint of brain? Lysander the Spartan went so
+far as to say that boys were to be cheated with dice, but an enemy with
+oaths; and if the world has professed horror at his sentiment, it has
+not altogether despised his authority.
+
+Among military stratagems the older writers used to include every kind
+of deception practised by generals in war, not only against the enemy,
+but against their own troops; as, for instance, devices for preventing
+or suppressing a mutiny, for stopping the spread of a panic, or for
+encouraging them with false news before or during an engagement.
+
+But in modern use the term stratagem has almost exclusive reference
+to artifices of deception practised against an enemy; and the greater
+interest that attaches to the latter kind of guile justifies the
+narrowed denotation of the word. No one, for instance, would now
+regard as a stratagem the clever behaviour of that Thracian general
+Cosingas, who, acting also as priest to his forces, brought them back
+to obedience by the report he artfully propagated that certain long
+ladders which he had caused to be made and fastened together were
+intended to enable him to climb to heaven, there to complain to Juno of
+their misconduct. The false pretence that is involved in a stratagem is
+addressed to the leaders of a hostile force, in order that their fear
+or confidence, unduly raised by it, may be played upon to the advantage
+of their more artful opponents. In the consideration, therefore, of
+military stratagems, or _ruses de guerre_, it is best to conform
+entirely to the more restricted sense in which they are understood in
+modern parlance.
+
+The following stratagem is a good one to start with. During the
+Franco-German War of 1870, twenty-five franc-tireurs clothed themselves
+in Prussian uniform, and by the help of that disguise killed several
+Prussians at Sennegy near Troyes; and the deed was made a subject of
+open boast in a French journal.[164] Was the boast a justifiable or a
+shameful one?
+
+Distinctly justifiable, if at least Grotius, the father of our
+international law, is of any authority. The reasoning of Grotius runs
+in this wise. There is a distinction between conventional signs that
+are established by the general consent of all the world and those
+which are only established by particular societies or by individuals;
+deception directed against the former involves the violation of a
+mutual obligation, and is therefore unlawful, whereas that against the
+latter is lawful, because it involves no such violation. Therefore,
+whilst it is wrong to deceive an enemy by words or signs which by
+general consent are universally understood in a given sense, it is not
+wrong to overcome an enemy by conduct which involves no violation of
+a generally recognised and universally binding custom. Under conduct
+of the latter type fall such acts as a simulated flight, or the use of
+an enemy’s arms, his standards, uniform, or sails. A flight is not an
+instituted sign of fear, nor have the arms or colours of a particular
+country any universally established meaning.[165]
+
+And in spite of the sound of sophistry that accompanies this reasoning,
+the teaching of international law has not substantially swerved on this
+point from the direction given to it by Grotius. In Cicero’s opinion,
+although both force and fraud were resources most unworthy of rational
+humanity, the one pertaining rather to the nature of the lion and the
+other to that of the fox, fraud was an expedient deserving of more
+hatred than the other.[166] But the teaching of later times has tended
+to overlook this distinction. Bynkershoek, that celebrated Dutch jurist
+who advocated the use of poison as one of the fair modes of employing
+force, declares it to be a matter of perfect indifference whether
+stratagem or open force be employed against an enemy, provided perfidy
+be absent from the former. And Bluntschli, who is the German publicist
+of greatest authority in our own day, expressly includes among the
+lawful stratagems of war the use of an enemy’s uniform or flag.[167]
+
+If, then, we test the received military theory by some actual
+experience, the following episodes of history must challenge rather our
+admiration than our blame, and stand justified by the most advanced
+theories of modern international law.
+
+Cimon, the Athenian admiral, having captured some Persian ships, made
+his own men step into them and dress themselves in the clothes of the
+Persians; and then, when the ships reached Cyprus, and the inhabitants
+of that island came out joyfully to welcome their friends, they were of
+course more easily defeated by their enemies.[168]
+
+Aristomachus, having taken some Cardian ships, placed his own rowers
+in them and towed his own ships behind them, as if they were being
+conducted in triumph. When the Cardians came out to greet their
+supposed victorious crews, Aristomachus and his men fell upon them and
+succeeded in committing great carnage.[169]
+
+Modern history supplies analogous cases. In September 1800 an English
+crew attacked two ships that lay at anchor at Barcelona, by forcing
+a Swedish vessel to take on board some English officers, soldiers,
+and sailors, and so obtaining a means of approach that was otherwise
+impossible.[170] And English naval historians tell with pride, rather
+than with shame, how in 1798 two English ships, the ‘Sibylle’ and the
+‘Fox,’ by sailing under false colours captured three Spanish gunboats
+in Manilla Roads. When the Spanish guard-boat was sent to inquire what
+the ships were, the pilot of the ‘Fox’ replied that they belonged to
+the French squadron, and that they wished to put into Manilla, for the
+recovery of the crews from sickness. The English Captain Cooke was
+introduced under the French name of Latour; and a conversation ensued
+in which the ceremony of wishing success to the united exertions of the
+Spaniards and French against the English was not forgotten. Two Spanish
+boats having then come to visit the vessels, their crews were quickly
+handed below; and a party of British sailors having changed clothes
+with them and got into their boat, advanced to the gunboats, which they
+captured without pulling a trigger.[171]
+
+On another occasion the same ‘Sibylle,’ which had been taken from the
+French by Romney in 1794, captured a large French vessel that lay at
+anchor, by standing in under French colours, and only hoisting her
+real ones when within a cable’s length of her prize;[172] the only
+limit to such a stratagem on the sea being the necessity for a ship to
+hoist her real flag before proceeding to actual hostilities. A state of
+war must surely play strange tricks with our minds to make it possible
+for us to approve such infamous actions as those quoted. There can be
+no greater proof of the utter demoralisation it causes than that such
+devices should have ever come to be thought honourable; and that no
+scruples should have ever intervened against the prostitution of a
+country’s flag, the symbol of her independence, her nationality, and
+her pride, to the shame of open falsehood. Antiquaries dispute the
+correctness of the statement of Polyænus that Artemisia, the Queen of
+Caria and ally of Xerxes against Greece, hoisted Persian colours when
+in pursuit of Greek ships, but a Greek flag to prevent Greek ships from
+pursuing herself, because they say that flags were not then in use; but
+undoubtedly the custom is a very old one on the seas of having a number
+of different flags on board a ship, for the purpose either of more
+easily capturing a weaker or of more easily escaping from a stronger
+vessel than herself. The French, for instance, in 1337 plundered and
+burnt Portsmouth, after having been suffered to land under the cover of
+English banners.[173] Not only the vessels of pirates and privateers,
+but the war vessels of the State, learned to sail under colours that
+belied their nationality.[174] The only limit to the stratagem of
+the false flag (to which international custom gradually came to give
+the force of law) came to be the necessity of hoisting the real flag
+before proceeding to fire, a limitation that was not of much moment
+after the successful deception had brought a defenceless merchant
+vessel within the reach of easy capture. And with regard to ships of
+war, the cannon-shot by which one vessel replied to the challenge of
+its suspected nationality by the other came to be equivalent to the
+captain’s word of honour that the flag which floated above the cannon
+he fired represented the nationality of which it professed to be the
+symbol. The flag itself might tell a lie, therefore the cannon-shot
+oath must redeem it from suspicion. Such are the extraordinary ideas of
+honour and morality that the system of universal fear, distrust, and
+hostility, by many thought to be so surpassingly glorious, has caused
+to become prevalent upon the ocean.
+
+In spite, therefore, of Grotius, the above stratagems must be
+considered as dishonourable; and that so they are beginning to be
+considered is indicated by the fact that at the Brussels Conference of
+1874 the use of an enemy’s flag or uniform was expressly rejected from
+the category of fair military stratagems. But the improvement is in
+spite of international law, not in consequence of it.
+
+There is an obvious distinction indeed between the above method of
+overcoming an enemy and such favourite devices as ambuscades, feigned
+retreats, night attacks, or the diversion of a defence to the wrong
+point. But perhaps nothing in the history of moral opinion is more
+curious than that even these modes of deceit should have been, not by
+one people or an unwarlike people, but by several people, and one among
+them the most warlike nation known to history, deliberately rejected as
+unfair and dishonourable modes of warfare. The historical evidence on
+this point appears to be quite conclusive, and is worth recalling for
+the interest that cannot but attach to one of the strangest but most
+neglected chapters in the history of human ethics.
+
+The Achæans, says Polybius, disdained even to subdue their enemies with
+the help of deceit. In their opinion a victory was neither honourable
+nor secure that was not obtained in open combat by superior courage.
+Therefore they esteemed it a kind of law among them never to use any
+concealed weapons, nor to throw darts from a distance, being persuaded
+that an open and close conflict was the only fair method of combat.
+For the same reason they not only made a declaration of war, but sent
+notice each to the other of their resolution to try the fortune of a
+battle, and of the place where they were determined to engage.[175]
+
+And in Ternate, one of the Molucca Islands, which suffered such
+untold miseries after the Europeans had discovered its spices and its
+heathenism, not only was war never begun without being first declared,
+but it was also customary to inform the enemy of the number of men and
+the amount and kind of weapons with which it was intended to conduct
+hostilities.[176]
+
+But the case of the Romans is by far the most remarkable. Polybius,
+Livy, and Ælian all agree in their testimony that for a long period
+of their history the Romans refrained from all kinds of stratagem as
+from a sort of military meanness; and their evidence is corroborated
+by Valerius Maximus, who says that the Romans, having no word in their
+language to express a military ruse, were forced to borrow the Greek
+word, from which our own word stratagem is derived.[177] Polybius, who
+lived and wrote as late as the second century before Christ, after
+complaining that artifice was then so prevalent among the Romans that
+their chief study was to deceive one another in war and in politics,
+adds that, in spite of this degeneracy, they still declared war
+solemnly beforehand, seldom formed ambuscades, and preferred to fight
+man to man in close engagement. So late as the year 172 B.C. the elder
+senators regretted the lost virtue of their ancestors, who refrained
+from such stratagems as night attacks, counterfeit flights, and sudden
+returns, and who sometimes even appointed the day of battle and fixed
+the field of combat, looking for victory not from fraud, but only from
+superiority in personal bravery.[178] Ælian, too, declares that the
+Romans never resorted to stratagems till about the end of the Second
+Punic War; and truly the great Roman general, Scipio, who took the
+name of Africanus, displayed a thorough African skill in the use he
+made of spies and surprises to bring that war to a successful issue.
+
+With regard to night attacks the Macedonians appear to have cherished
+similar feelings, since we find Alexander refusing to attack Darius
+by night on the ground that he did not wish to gain a stolen victory.
+And with regard to close combat, something of the old Roman and Achæan
+feeling was displayed in Europe when first the crossbow, and in later
+times the musket, rendered personal prowess of lesser importance.
+Before the time of Richard I., when the crossbow became the chief
+weapon in war, warriors, says the Abbé Velley, were so free and brave
+that they would only owe victory to their lance and their sword, and
+everybody detested those perfidious arms with which a coward under
+shelter was enabled to slay the bravest.[179] So said Montluc of the
+musket, which in 1523 had not yet, he says, superseded in France the
+use of the crossbow: ‘Would to God this accursed instrument had never
+been invented.... So many brave and valiant men would not have met
+their deaths at the hands very often of the greatest cowards, who
+would not so much as dare look at the man whom they knock down from
+a distance with their accursed balls.’[180] And in the same spirit
+Charles XII. of Sweden once bade his soldiers to come to close quarters
+with the enemy without shooting, on the ground that it was only for
+cowards to shoot.
+
+Such ideas are, of course, dead beyond the hope of recovery; but
+they are an odd commentary on our conceit in the improved tone of
+our military code of honour. We have long since learned to despise
+these old-world notions of honour and courage, and to make very few
+exceptions indeed to the newer doctrine of Christendom, that in war
+anything and everything is fair. But it is worth the pause of a moment
+to reflect that such moral sentiments in restraint of the use of fraud
+in war should have once had a real existence in the world; that they
+should once have swayed the minds of the most successful military
+nation that ever existed, and stood by them till they had attained that
+high degree of power which was theirs at the time of the Second Punic
+War (217-199 B.C.) In comparing the code of military honour prevalent
+in pagan antiquity with that of more recent times, it is but fair to
+remember that the pagan nations of old recognised some principles
+of action which were never dreamt of in the best days of Christian
+chivalry; and that the generals of the people who we are sometimes told
+were a mere robber community would have had as strong a feeling against
+the righteousness of a night attack, a feigned retreat, or a surprise,
+as our modern generals would have of an open violation of a truce or
+convention.
+
+The downward path in this matter is easy, and the history of Rome after
+Scipio Africanus is associated with a change of opinion concerning
+stratagems that in no degree fell short of that subtlety of the
+Greeks, Gauls, or Africans, which the Romans once regarded as perfidy.
+Frontinus, who wrote a book on stratagems in the reign of Trajan,
+and still more Polyænus, who wrote a large book on the same subject
+for the Emperors Verus and Antoninus, appear to have thought that no
+deceit was too bad to serve as a good precedent for the conduct of war.
+Polyænus not merely made a collection of some nine hundred stratagems,
+but collected them for the express purpose of their being of service to
+the Roman Emperors in the war then undertaken against Parthia. To the
+rulers of a people who had once regarded even an ambuscade as beneath
+their chivalry he brought as worthy of their recollection and study
+actions which are an eternal stain on the memory of those who committed
+them. Let us take for example the devices he records for obtaining
+possession of besieged places, remembering that from the moment the
+chamade has been beaten, or any other sign been given for a conference
+or parley between the contending forces, a truce by tacit agreement is
+held to suspend their mutual hostilities.
+
+1. Thibron persuaded the governor of a fort in Asia to come out to
+arrange terms, under an oath that he should return if they failed to
+agree. During the relaxation of guard that naturally ensued, Thibron’s
+men took the fort by assault: and Thibron, reconducting the governor
+according to his word, forthwith put him to death.[181]
+
+2. In the same way behaved Paches, the Athenian general at Notium.
+Having got Hippias, the governor, into his power under the same promise
+that Thibron made, he took the place by storm, massacred all he found
+in it, reconducted Hippias according to his oath, and had him killed
+upon the spot.[182]
+
+3. Autophrodates proposed a parley with the chiefs of the Ephesian
+army, having previously ordered his cavalry officers and other troops
+to attack the Ephesians during the conference. The result was a
+signal victory, and the capture or slaughter of a great number of
+Ephesians.[183]
+
+4. Philip of Macedon sent some envoys into a Thracian city, and whilst
+the people all met in assembly to hear the proposals of the enemy the
+King of Macedon attacked and took the city.[184]
+
+5. The Thracians, having been defeated by the Bœotians, made a truce
+with them, for a certain number of _days_, and attacked them one
+_night_, whilst the enemy were engaged in making sacrifices. And so
+dealt Cleomenes with the Argives; he made a truce with them for seven
+days, and attacked them the second night.
+
+All these things are told by Polyænus, not only without a word of
+disapproval, but apparently as good examples for the conduct of a war
+actually in progress. Such was the state of moral debasement in which
+their long career of military success ultimately landed the great Roman
+people.
+
+Nevertheless, it is not for modern history to cast stones at Paches or
+at Thibron. The Conference-stratagem attained its highest development
+in the practice of warfare in Christendom; so that Montaigne declares
+it to have become a fixed maxim among the military men of his time
+(the sixteenth century) never in time of siege to go out to a parley.
+That great French soldier Montluc, whose autobiography contained in
+his Commentaries displays so curious a mixture of bravery and cruelty,
+of loyalty and cunning, and is perhaps the best military book by a
+military man that has been written since Cæsar, tells us how once,
+whilst he was bargaining with the governor of Sarvenal about the terms
+of a capitulation, his men entered the place by a window on the other
+side and compelled the governor to surrender at discretion, and how on
+another occasion he sent his soldiers to enter Mont de Marsan and put
+all they met to the sword, whilst he himself was deluding the governor
+with a parley. ‘The moments of a parley are dangerous,’ he justly
+observes, ‘and then more than ever should the besieged be careful in
+guarding their walls, for it is the time when the besiegers, fearful
+of losing by a capitulation the booty that would be theirs if they
+took the place by storm, study to avail themselves of the relaxation
+of vigilance promoted by the truce to approach the walls with greater
+facility and success.’ And the man who wrote this as the experience of
+his time, and illustrated it by the above accounts of his own practice,
+rose to be a Marshal of France!
+
+Some other examples of the same stratagem prove how widely the custom
+entered into the warfare of the European nations. The governor of
+Terouanne, besieged by the forces of the Emperor Charles V., having
+forgotten in a negotiation for a capitulation to stipulate for a
+suspension of arms, the town was surprised during the conference,
+pillaged, and utterly destroyed.[185] And Feuquières, a French general
+of Louis XIV., and the writer of a book of military memoirs which ran
+through several editions, tells us how he surprised a place called
+Kreilsheim in 1688: ‘I could not have taken this place by force,
+surrounded as it was with a wall and a strong enough castle; but the
+colonel in command having been imbecile enough to come outside the
+place to parley with me, without exacting a promise from me to let
+him return, I retained him and compelled him to order his garrison to
+surrender itself prisoner of war.’[186] And he actually quotes this
+to show that when it is necessary to take a post, all sorts of means
+should be employed, provided they do not dishonour the general who
+resorts to them, as would the failure of his word to the colonel have
+dishonoured himself had the colonel demanded it of him.
+
+A sounder sense of military honour was displayed by the English
+general, Lord Peterborough, at the siege of Barcelona in 1705. Don
+Velasco had promised to capitulate within a certain number of days,
+in the event of no succour arriving, and he surrendered one gate as a
+proof of his sincerity. During the truce involved in this proceeding,
+the German and Catalonian allies of the English entered the town and
+began that career of plunder and outrage which is the constant reward
+and crown of such military successes. Lord Peterborough undertook to
+prevent disorder in the town, expel the allied soldiery, and return
+to his position. He was taken at his word, acted up to his word, and
+saved the honour of England. But what of that of his allies?
+
+It is a fine line that divides a stratagem from an act of perfidy.
+Valerius Maximus denounces as an act of perfidy the conduct of Cnæus
+Domitius, who, having received the King of the Arverni as a guest under
+the pretence of a colloquy, sent him by sea a prisoner to Rome;[187]
+but it is not easy to distinguish it from the actions of Montluc or
+Feuquières. Vattel lays down the following doctrine on the subject: As
+humanity compels us to prefer the gentlest means in the prosecution of
+our rights, if we can master a strong place, surprise or overcome an
+enemy by a stratagem or a feint void of perfidy, it is better to do so
+than to have resort to a bloody siege or the carnage of a battle. He
+expressly excludes perfidy; but might not Polyænus have defended it
+on precisely the same humanitarian grounds as those by which Vattel
+justifies the more ordinary stratagems? Might not an act of perfidy
+equally prevent a siege or a battle? If we are justified in contending
+for our rights by force, it is hard to say that we may not do so by
+fraud; but it is still harder to distinguish the kinds and the limits
+of such fraud, or to say where it ceases to be lawful.
+
+And to this length did Polyænus apparently go, as we see in the cases
+of downright perfidy which he includes in his collection of stratagems.
+The Locrians swore to observe a treaty with the Sicilians so long as
+they trod the earth they then walked on, or carried their heads on
+their shoulders: the next day they threw away the heads of garlic which
+they had carried under their cloaks on their shoulders, and the earth
+they had strewn in their shoes, and began a general massacre of the
+Sicilians.[188] The Campanians, having agreed to surrender half their
+arms, cut them in half, and so virtually surrendered nothing.[189]
+Paches, the Athenian, says Frontinus, having promised personal safety
+to his enemies on condition of their laying down their arms, or as he
+termed it, their _iron_, slew all those who, having laid down their
+arms, still retained the _iron_ clasps in their cloaks.[190]
+
+By these means it is undoubtedly possible to gain that advantage over
+your enemy which, according to every theory of war, it is the paramount
+object of hostilities to obtain; for it has been too often forgotten
+that a nation’s honour and character, which an enlightened patriotism
+should value higher than the mere earth on which it feeds and treads,
+are sacrificed and impaired whenever a treaty is taken by one of the
+parties to it to have been made in another sense from that which was
+clearly understood by both parties to have constituted its spirit at
+the time of making it. What a lasting stain rests, for instance, on the
+memory of Francis I., who before signing the Treaty of Madrid, by which
+he swore, in return for his liberty, to restore the Duchy of Burgundy,
+and to return a prisoner to Spain if he failed to do so, made a formal
+protest beforehand, in the presence of some friends, that the oath he
+was about to take was involuntary and therefore void, and broke it the
+moment he was free! And this was the man whose memory is associated
+with the famous saying after the battle of Pavia: ‘All is lost save
+honour.’ What he really said after that event, in a letter to his
+mother, was this: ‘All is lost save my honour and my life, which is
+safe,’ and the letter went on at length, much more in keeping with the
+character of that monarch.[191] His life indeed he saved; his honour he
+never recovered.
+
+It was agreed at the Brussels Conference that resort to every possible
+method of obtaining information about the forces or country of an
+enemy should count as a fair military stratagem; and, indeed, with the
+subject of the deceitful side of war the military theory and treatment
+of Spies occupies no inconsiderable place.
+
+Vattel is again as good an exponent as we can have of what international
+law teaches on this subject. His argument is as follows: It is not
+contrary to the law of nations to seduce one of the hostile side to
+turn spy, nor to bribe a governor to deliver a town, because such
+actions do not, like the use of poison or assassination, strike at
+the common welfare and safety of mankind. Such actions are the common
+episodes of every war. But that they are not in themselves honourable
+or compatible with a good conscience is proved by the fact that
+generals who resort to such means never boast of them; and, if they are
+at all excusable, it is only in the case of a very just war, when there
+is no other way of saving a country from ruin at the hands of lawless
+conquerors. A sovereign has no right to require the services of a spy
+from any of his subjects, but he may hold out the temptation of reward
+to mercenary souls; and if a governor is willing to sell himself and
+offer us a town for money, should we scruple to take advantage of his
+crime, and to get without danger what we have a right to get by force?
+At the same time a spy may rightly be put to death, because it is the
+only way we have of guarding against the mischief he may do us.[192]
+
+Frederick the Great of Prussia was a contemporary of Vattel, and in
+November 1760 he published some military instructions for the use
+of his generals which, in the matter of spies, was based on a wider
+practical knowledge of the matter than of course belonged to the more
+pacific publicist. He classified spies into ordinary spies, double
+spies, spies of distinction, and spies by compulsion. By double spies
+he meant spies who also pretended to be in the service of the side
+they betrayed. By spies of distinction he meant officers of hussars,
+whose services he had found useful under the peculiar circumstances of
+the Austrian campaign. When he could not procure himself spies among
+the Austrians, owing to the careful guard which their light troops
+kept round their camp, the idea occurred to him, and he acted on it
+with success, of utilising the suspension of arms that was customary
+after a skirmish between hussars to make those officers the means
+of conducting an epistolary correspondence with the officers on the
+other side. Spies by compulsion he explained in this way: ‘When you
+wish to convey false information to an enemy, you take a trustworthy
+soldier and compel him to pass to the enemy’s camp to report there
+all that you wish the enemy to believe; you also send by him letters
+to excite the troops to desertion.’ And in the event of its being
+impossible to obtain information about the enemy, this distinguished
+child of Mars prescribes the following: Choose some rich citizen,
+who has land and wife and children, and another man disguised as his
+servant or coachman, who understands the enemy’s language. Force the
+former to take the latter with him to the enemy’s camp to complain of
+injuries sustained, threatening him that if he fail to bring the man
+back with him after having stayed long enough for the desired object,
+his wife and children shall be hanged and his house burnt. ‘I was
+myself constrained,’ adds this great warrior, ‘to have recourse to this
+method, when we were encamped at ----, and it succeeded.’[193]
+
+Such were the military ethics of the great philosopher and king, whose
+character in the closer intimacy of biography proved so disagreeable a
+revelation to Carlyle. Pagan antiquity might be searched in vain for
+practice or sentiments more ignoble. Sertorius, the Roman captain,
+was one of the greatest masters of stratagem in the world, yet how
+different his language from that of the Great Frederick! ‘A man,’ he
+said, ‘who has any dignity of feeling should conquer with honour, and
+not use any base means even to save his life.’
+
+From the sentiments of Frederick the Great regarding spies, let us pass
+to those of our own time. From Lord Wolseley’s ‘Soldier’s Pocket-Book’
+may be gained some insight as to the manner in which a spy in an
+enemy’s camp may correspond with the hostile general. The best way,
+he suggests, is to send a peasant with a letter written on very thin
+paper, which may be rolled up so tightly as to be portable in a quill
+an inch and a half long, and this precious quill may be hidden in the
+hair or beard, or in a hollow made at the end of a walking-stick. It is
+also a good plan to write secret correspondence in lemon-juice across
+a newspaper or the leaves of a New Testament; it is then safe against
+discovery, and will become legible when held before a fire or near a
+red iron.
+
+‘As a nation,’ says Lord Wolseley, ‘we are bred up to feel it a
+disgrace even to succeed by falsehood; the word spy conveys something
+as repulsive as slave; we will keep hammering along with the conviction
+that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long
+run. These pretty little sentiments do well for a child’s copy-book,
+but a man who acts upon them had better sheathe his sword for
+ever.’[194] Was there ever such a confession of the incompatibility of
+the soldier’s calling with the precepts of ordinary honour? For how not
+so, if he must so far stoop from the ordinary level of moral rectitude
+as to be ready to scorn honesty and to trifle with truth? And then the
+question is, Had not a man better sheathe his sword for ever, or rather
+not enter at all upon a trade where he will have to regard the eternal
+principles of right and wrong as so much pretty sentiment only fit for
+the copy-book?
+
+Since, therefore, we have the authority of Vattel, of Frederick the
+Great, and of Lord Wolseley that spies may or even must be employed in
+war, and that, be the trickery or bribery never so mean that procures
+their services, no discredit reflects itself upon those generals
+who use them--it is impossible not to notice it as one of the chief
+anomalies in existing military usages that, although a general has an
+unlimited right to avail himself of the services of a spy or a traitor,
+the penalty for acting in either of the latter capacities is death.
+The capital penalty is not of itself any test of the moral character
+of the action to which it is affixed, for the service of a fire-ship,
+which demanded the most desperate bravery, used to be undertaken in the
+face of capital punishment. Moreover, some of the most famous names
+in military history have not hesitated to act as spies. Sertorius
+was honoured by Marius with the usual rewards of signal valour for
+having learnt the language of the Gauls and gone as a spy amongst them
+disguised in their dress. The French general Custine entered Mayence in
+the disguise of a butcher. Catinat spied out the strength of Luxembourg
+in the costume of a coal-heaver. Montluc entered Perpignan as a cook,
+and only resolved never again to act as a spy because the narrowness
+of his escape convinced him, not that it was a service of too much
+dishonour, but a service of too much danger.
+
+The custom of killing spies is an old Roman one,[195] and, indeed,
+seems to have prevailed all the world over. Nevertheless there have
+been exceptions even to that. Scipio Africanus had some Carthaginian
+spies who were brought before him led through the camp, and then
+dismissed under escort, and with the polite inquiry whether they had
+examined everything to their satisfaction.[196]
+
+The consul Lævinus is said to have dealt in the same way with some
+spies that were taken, and so did Xerxes by some Greek detectives. At
+the famous siege of Antwerp in 1584-5, when a Brabant spy was brought
+before the Prince of Parma, the latter gave orders that he should be
+shown all the works connected with the wonderful bridge that he was
+then constructing across the Scheldt, and then sent him back to the
+besieged city with these words: ‘Go and tell those who sent you what
+you have seen. Tell them that I firmly intend either to bury myself
+beneath the ruin of this bridge or by means of it to pass into your
+city.’
+
+There is a clear middle course between both extremes. Instead of being
+hung or shot or sent away scot free, a spy might fairly be made a
+prisoner of war. Suggestions in this sense were made at the Brussels
+Conference on the Laws of War. The Spanish delegate proposed that the
+custom of hanging or shooting detected spies should be abolished, and
+the custom be substituted of interning them as prisoners of war during
+the continuance of hostilities. The Belgian delegate proposed that in
+no case should they be put to death without trial; and it was even
+sought to establish a distinction between the deserts of the really
+patriotic and the merely mercenary spy. The feeling in fact made itself
+clearly visible, that an act of which a general might fairly avail
+himself could not in common justice be regarded as criminal in the
+agent. Between a general and a spy the common-law rule of principal and
+agent plainly holds good: ‘He who acts through another acts through
+himself.’ In a case of espionage either both principal and agent are
+guilty of a criminal act, or neither is. If the spy as such violates
+the laws of war, so does the general who employs him; and either
+deserves the same punishment. Were it not so, a general who should
+hire a bravo to assassinate an enemy would incur no moral blame, nor
+could be held to act outside the boundary of lawful and honourable
+hostilities.
+
+In some other respects the Brussels Conference displayed the vagueness
+of sentiment that prevails about the use of spies in war. It was
+agreed between all the Powers that no one should be considered as a
+spy but one who secretly or under false pretences sought to obtain
+information for the enemy in occupied districts; that military men
+collecting such information within the zone of hostile operations
+should not be regarded as spies if it were possible to recognise their
+military character; and that military men, and even civilians, if
+their proceedings were open, charged with despatches, should not, if
+captured, be treated as spies; nor individuals who carried despatches
+or kept up communications between different parts of an army through
+the air in balloons. The German delegate proposed, with regard to
+balloons, that those who sailed in them might be first of all summoned
+to descend, then fired at if they refused, and if captured be treated
+as prisoners, not as spies. The rejection of his proposal implies
+that by the laws of modern war a balloonist is liable to be shot as a
+spy; so that, from the point of view of personal danger, the service
+of a balloon becomes doubly heroic. The Brussels Conference settled
+nothing, owing to the withdrawal of England from that attempt to settle
+by agreement between the nations the laws that should govern their
+relations in war-time; but from what was on that occasion agreed to or
+rejected may be gathered the prevalent practice of European warfare.
+Is it not then a little remarkable that for the dangerous service of
+espionage a different justice should be meted out to civilians and to
+military men; and that a patriot who risks his life in a balloon should
+also risk it in the same way as a spy, a deserter, or a traitor?
+
+But whatever be the fate of a spy, and in spite of distinguished
+precedents to the contrary, men of honour will always instinctively
+shrink from a service which involves falsehood from beginning to
+end. The sentiment is doubtless praiseworthy: but what is the moral
+difference between entering a town as a spy and the military service
+of winning it by surprise? What, for instance, shall we think of
+the Spanish officers and soldiers who, dressed as peasants and with
+baskets of nuts and apples on their arms, gained possession of Amiens
+in 1597 by spilling the contents of their baskets and then slaying the
+sentinels as they scrambled to pick them up?[197] What of the officers
+who, in the disguise of peasants and women, and concealing daggers and
+pistols, got possession of Ulm for the Elector of Bavaria? What of
+the French who, in Dutch costume, and by supplications in Dutch to be
+granted a refuge from a pursuing enemy, surprised a fort in Holland in
+1672?[198] What of Prince Eugene, who took the fortress of Breysach by
+sending in a large force concealed in hay-carts under the conduct of
+two hundred officers disguised as peasants?[199] What of the Chevalier
+Bayard, that favourite of legendary chivalry, who, having learnt from a
+spy the whereabouts of a detachment of Venetian infantry, went by night
+to the village where they slept, and with his men slew all but three
+out of some three hundred men as they ran out of their houses?[200]
+What of Callicratidas the Cyrenæan, who begged the commander of a fort
+to receive four sick soldiers, and sent them in on their beds with
+an escort of sixteen soldiers, so that they easily overpowered the
+guards and won the place for their general?[201] What of Phalaris, who,
+having petitioned for the hand of a commandant’s daughter, overcame
+the garrison by sending in soldiers dressed as women servants, and
+purporting to bear presents to his betrothed?[202] What of Feuquières,
+who, whilst pretending to lead a German force and praying for shelter
+from a snowstorm, affixed his pétards to the gates of Neuborg, and,
+having taken the town, put the whole of the garrison of 650 men to the
+sword?[203]
+
+In what respect do such actions which are the everyday stratagems of a
+campaign, and count as perfectly fair, differ from the false pretences
+which constitute the iniquity of the spy? In this respect only--that
+whilst he bears his danger alone, in the case of a surprise the danger
+is distributed among numbers.
+
+And, in point of fact, there was a time when the service of a surprise
+and that of espionage were so far regarded as the same that by the laws
+of war death was not only the allotted portion of the captured spy but
+of all who were caught in an endeavour to take a place by surprise.
+The rule, according to Vattel, was not changed, nor the soldiers who
+were captured in a surprise regarded or treated as prisoners of war,
+till the year 1597, when, Prince Maurice having failed in an attempt to
+take Venloo by surprise, and having lost some of his men, who were put
+to death for that offence, the new rule that has since prevailed was
+agreed upon by both sides for the sake of their future mutual immunity
+from that peril.
+
+The usual rule laid down to distinguish a bad from a good stratagem is
+that in the latter there is no violation of an expressly or tacitly
+pledged faith. The violation of a conference, a truce, or a treaty
+has always therefore been reprobated, however commonly practised. But
+certain occurrences of history suggest the feasibility of corresponding
+stratagems which cannot be judged by so simple a formula and which
+therefore are of still uncertain right.
+
+The first stratagem of this kind that suggests itself is that of
+forgery. Hannibal, having defeated and slain the Roman general
+Marcellus, and thereby become possessed of his seal, the Romans found
+it necessary to despatch messages to all their garrison towns that
+no more attention should be paid to orders purporting to come from
+Marcellus. The precedent suggests the use of forged despatches as a
+weapon of war. To obtain in time of peace, for use in time of war, the
+signatures of men likely to be hostile commanders, would obviously
+be of immense military service for purposes either of defence or
+aggression. The stratagem would be dishonourable in the highest degree;
+but, unfortunately, the standard of measurement in such cases is rather
+their effectiveness than their abstract morality.
+
+The second stratagem of the sort is the stratagem of false intelligence.
+To what extent is it lawful to deceive an enemy by downright falsehood?
+The Chevalier Bayard, ‘without fear or reproach,’ when besieged by
+the Imperialists in Mézières, contrived to make the enemy raise the
+siege by sending a messenger with letters containing false information
+destined to fall into the hands of the enemy. The invention of the
+telegraph has increased the means of deceiving the enemy by false
+intelligence, and was freely so used in the Civil War of the United
+States. It is said to be better to secure the services of a few
+telegraph operators in a hostile country than to have dozens of
+ordinary spies; and for this reason, according to the eminent author of
+the ‘Soldier’s Pocket-Book’: ‘Before or during an action an enemy may
+be deceived to any extent by means of such men; messages can be sent
+ordering him to concentrate upon wrong points, or, by giving him false
+information, you may induce him to move as you wish.’
+
+Another stratagem is suggested by the conduct of the Prince of Orange,
+who, having detected in one of his own secretaries a spy in the
+service of the Prince of Luxembourg, forced him to write a letter to
+the latter containing such information as enabled himself to effect a
+march he wished to conceal. Might not, then, prisoners of war be used
+for the same compulsory service? For a spy just as much as a soldier
+is a recognised and accredited military agent, and, if the former
+may be made the channel of falsehood, why not the prisoner of war?
+The Romans made use of the latter to acquire information about their
+enemy’s plans, if in no other way, by torture or the threat of it;
+the Germans forced some of their French prisoners to perform certain
+military services connected with carrying on their campaign--would it
+be therefore unfair to make use of them as the Prince of Orange made
+use of his secretary?
+
+To such questions there is no answer from the international law
+writers. Still less is there any authoritative military doctrine
+concerning them, and, if the stratagems in debate are excluded from
+‘good’ war by the military honour of to-day, the above study of warlike
+artifices has been made to little purpose if it has not taught us how
+changeable and capricious that standard is, and of what marvellous
+adjustment it is capable.
+
+It were a treat at which the gods themselves might smile to see and
+hear a moral philosopher and a military officer brought into conference
+together concerning the stratagems permissible in war. Let the reader
+imagine them trying to distribute in just and equal parts the due share
+of blame attaching severally to the following agents--to the man who
+betrays his country or his cause for gold, and the general who tempts
+him to his crime or accepts it gladly; to the man who serves as a spy,
+to the general who on the one side sends or employs him as a spy, and
+to the general who on the other side hangs him as a spy; to the man
+who discovers the strength of a town in the disguise of a butcher, and
+to his fellow-soldiers who enter it disguised as peasants or under the
+plea of shelter from sickness or a snowstorm; to the man who gains an
+advantage by propagating false intelligence, and the man who does so
+by the use of forged despatches; the man who, like Scipio, plays at
+negotiations for peace in order the better to spy out and avail himself
+of an enemy’s weakness, and the man who makes offers of treason to
+an enemy in order the more easily to take him at a disadvantage--and
+the conclusion will be not unlikely to occur to him, when he shudders
+at the possible length and futility of that imaginary disputation,
+that, whatever havoc is caused by a state of war to life, to property,
+to wealth, to family affections, to domestic honour, it is a havoc
+absolutely incomparable to that which it produces among the received
+moral principles of mankind. The military code regarding the fair and
+legitimate use of fraud and deception has nothing whatever in common
+with the ordinary moral code of civil life, the principles openly
+professed in it being so totally foreign to our simplest rules of
+upright and worthy conduct that in any other than the fighting classes
+of our civilised societies they would not be advocated for very shame,
+nor listened to for a moment without resentment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BARBARIAN WARFARE.
+
+ _Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit.... Quæ clam commissa
+ capite luerentur, quia paludati fecere laudamus._--SENECA.
+
+ Variable notions of honour--Primitive ideas of a military
+ life--What is civilised warfare--Advanced laws of war among
+ several savage tribes--Symbols of peace among savages--The Samoan
+ form of surrender--Treaties of peace among savages--Abeyance of
+ laws of war in hostilities with savages--Zulus blown up in caves
+ with gun-cotton--Women and men kidnapped for transport service
+ on the Gold Coast--Humane intentions of the Spaniards in the
+ New World contrasted with the inhumanity of their actions--Wars
+ with natives of English and French in America--High rewards
+ offered for scalps--The use of bloodhounds in war--The use of
+ poison and infected clothes--Penn’s treaty with the Indians--How
+ Missionaries come to be a cause of war--Explanation of the failure
+ of modern Missions--The Mission Stations as centres of hostile
+ intrigue--Plea for the State-regulation of Missions--Depopulation
+ under Protestant influences--The prevention of false rumours,
+ _Tendenzlügen_--Civilised and barbarian warfare--No real
+ distinction between them.
+
+
+A missionary, seeing once a negro furrowing his face with scars, asked
+him why he put himself to such needless pain, and the reply was: ‘For
+honour, and that people on seeing me may say, There goes a man of
+heart.’
+
+Ridiculous as this negro’s idea of honour must appear to us, it bears
+a sufficient resemblance to other notions of the same kind that have
+passed current in the world at different times to satisfy us of the
+extreme variability of the sentiment in question. Cæsar built with
+difficulty a bridge across the Rhine, chiefly because he held it
+beneath his own dignity, or the Roman people’s, for his army to cross
+it in boats. The Celts of old thought it as ignominious to fly from an
+inundation, or from a burning or falling house, as to retreat from an
+enemy. The Spartans considered it inglorious to pursue a flying foe, or
+to be killed in storming a besieged city. The same Gauls who gloried
+in broadsword-wounds would almost go mad with shame if wounded by an
+arrow or other missile that only left an imperceptible mark. The use
+of letters was once thought dishonourable by all the European nations.
+Marshal Montluc, in the sixteenth century, considered it a sign of
+abnormal overbookishness for a man to prefer to spend a night in his
+study than to spend it in the trenches, though, now, a contrary taste
+would be thought by most men the mark of a fool.
+
+Such are some of the curious ideas of honour that have prevailed at
+different times. Wherein we seem to recognise not merely change but
+advance; one chief difference between the savage and civilised state
+lying in the different estimates entertained in either of martial
+prowess and of military honour. We laugh nowadays at the ancient
+Britons who believed that the souls of all who had followed any other
+pursuit than that of arms, after a despised life and an unlamented
+death, hovered perforce over fens and marshes, unfit to mingle with
+those of warriors in the higher and brighter regions; or at the
+horsemen who used before death to wound themselves with their spears,
+in order to obtain that admission to Walhalla which was denied to all
+who failed to die upon a battle-field; or at the Spaniards, who, when
+Cato disarmed them, preferred a voluntary death to a life destined to
+be spent without arms.[204] No civilised warrior would pride himself,
+as Fijian warriors did, on being generally known as the ‘Waster’ or
+‘Devastator’ of such-and-such a district; the most he would look for
+would be a title and perhaps a perpetual pension for his descendants.
+We have nothing like the custom of the North American tribes, among
+whom different marks on a warrior’s robe told at a glance whether his
+fame rested on the slaughter of a man or a woman, or only on that of a
+boy or a girl. We are inferior in this respect to the Dacota tribes,
+among whom an eagle’s feather with a red spot on it denoted simply
+the slaughter of an enemy, the same feather with a notch and the
+sides painted red, that the said enemy had had his throat cut, whilst
+according as the notches were on one side or on both, or the feather
+partly denuded, anyone could tell after how many others the hero had
+succeeded in touching the dead body of a fallen foe. The stride is
+clearly a great one from Pyrrhus, the Epirot king, who, when asked
+which of two musicians he thought the better, only deigned to reply
+that Polysperchon was the general, to Napoleon, the French emperor, who
+conferred the cross of the Legion of Honour on Crescentini the singer.
+
+And as the pursuit of arms comes with advancing civilisation to occupy
+a lower level as compared with the arts of peace, so the belief is the
+mark of a more polished people that the rapacity and cruelty which
+belong to the war customs of a more backward nation, or of an earlier
+time, are absent from their own. They invent the expression _civilised
+warfare_ to emphasise a distinction they would fain think inherent
+in the nature of things; and look, by its help, even on the mode of
+killing an enemy, with a moral vision that is absurdly distorted. How
+few of us, for example, but see the utmost barbarity in sticking a man
+with an assegai, yet none whatever in doing so with a bayonet? And why
+should we pride ourselves on not mutilating the dead, while we have
+no scruples as to the extent to which we mutilate the living? We are
+shocked at the mention of barbarian tribes who poison their arrows,
+or barb their darts, yet ourselves think nothing of the frightful
+gangrenes caused by the copper cap in the Minié rifle-ball, and reject,
+on the score of the expense of the change, the proposal that bullets of
+soft lead, which cause needless pain, should no longer be used among
+the civilised Powers for small-arm ammunition.[205]
+
+But whilst the difference in these respects between barbarism and
+civilisation is thus one that rather touches the surface than the
+substance of war, the result is inevitably in either state a different
+code of military etiquette and sentiment, though the difference is
+far less than in any other points of comparison between them. When
+the nations of Christendom therefore came in contact with unknown
+and savage races, whose customs seemed different from their own and
+little worthy of attention, they assumed that the latter recognised
+no laws of war, much as some of the earlier travellers denied the
+possession or faculty of speech to people whose language they could not
+interpret. From which assumption the practical inference followed, that
+the restraints which were held sacred between enemies who inherited
+the same traditions of military honour had no need to be observed in
+hostilities with the heathen world. It is worth while, therefore, to
+show how baseless was the primary assumption, and how laws of war, in
+no way dissimilar to those of Europe, may be detected in the military
+usages of barbarism.
+
+To spare the weak and helpless was and is a common rule in the warfare
+of the less civilised races. The Guanches of the Canary Islands, says
+an old Spanish writer, ‘held it as base and mean to molest or injure
+the women and children of the enemy, considering them as weak and
+helpless, therefore improper objects of their resentment; neither
+did they throw down or damage houses of worship.’[206] The Samoans
+considered it cowardly to kill a woman:[207] and in America the Sioux
+Indians and Winnebagoes, though barbarous enough in other respects, are
+said to have shown the conventional respect to the weaker sex.[208]
+The Basutos of South Africa, whatever may be their customs now, are
+declared by Casalis, one of the first French Protestant missionaries
+to their country, to have respected in their wars the persons of
+women, children, and travellers, and to have spared all prisoners who
+surrendered, granting them their liberty on the payment of ransom.[209]
+
+Few savage races were of a wilder type than the Abipones of South
+America; yet Dobritzhoffer, the Jesuit missionary, assures us not only
+that they thought it unworthy of them to mangle the bodies of dead
+Spaniards, as other savages did, but that they generally spared the
+unwarlike, and carried away boys and girls uninjured. The Spaniards,
+Indians, negroes, or mulattoes whom they took in war they did not
+treat like captives, but with kindness and indulgence like children.
+Dobritzhoffer never saw a prisoner punished by so much as a word or a
+blow, but he bears testimony to the compassion and confidence often
+displayed to captives by their conquerors. It is common to read of the
+cruelty of the Red Indians to their captives; but Loskiel, another
+missionary, declares that prisoners were often adopted by the victors
+to supply the place of the slain, and that even Europeans, when it came
+to an exchange of prisoners, sometimes refused to return to their own
+countrymen. In Virginia notice was sent before war to the enemy, that
+in the event of their defeat, the lives of all should be spared who
+should submit within two days’ time.
+
+Loskiel gives some other rather curious testimony about the Red
+Indians. ‘When war was in contemplation they used to admonish each
+other to hearken to the good and not to the evil spirits, the former
+always recommending peace. They seem,’ he adds with surprise, ‘to
+have had no idea of the devil as the prince of darkness before the
+Europeans came into the country.’ The symbol of peace was the burial
+of the hatchet or war-club in the ground; and when the tribes renewed
+their covenants of peace, they exchanged certain belts of friendship
+which were singularly expressive. The principal belt was white, with
+black streaks down each side and a black spot at each end: the black
+spots represented the two people, and the white streak between them
+signified, that the road between them was now clear of all trees,
+brambles, and stones, and that every hindrance was therefore removed
+from the way of perfect harmony.
+
+The Athenians used the same language of symbolism when they declared
+war by letting a lamb loose into the enemy’s country: this being
+equivalent to saying, that a district full of the habitations of men
+should shortly be turned into a pasture for sheep.[210]
+
+The Fijians used to spare their enemy’s fruit trees; the Tongan
+islanders held it as sacrilege to fight within the precincts of the
+burial place of a chief, where the greatest enemies were obliged to
+meet as friends.
+
+Most of the lower races recognise the inviolability of ambassadors and
+heralds, and have well-established emblems of a truce or armistice.
+The wish for peace which the Zulu king in vain sought from his English
+invaders by the symbol of an elephant’s tusk (1879), was conveyed
+in the Fiji Islands by a whale’s tooth, in the Sandwich by a young
+plantain tree or green branch of the ti plant, and among most North
+American tribes by a white flag of skin or bark. The Samoan symbol
+for an act of submission in deprecation of further hostilities conveys
+some indication of the possible origin of these pacific symbols. The
+conquered Samoan would carry to his victor some bamboo sticks, some
+firewood, and some small stones; for as a piece of split bamboo was
+the original Samoan knife, and small stones and firewood were used for
+the purpose of roasting pigs, this symbol of submission was equivalent
+to saying: ‘Here we are, your pigs, to be cooked if you please, and
+here are the materials wherewith to do it.’[211] In the same way the
+elephant’s tusk or the whale’s tooth may be a short way of saying to
+the victor: ‘Yours is the strength of the elephant or the whale; we
+recognise the uselessness of fighting with you.’
+
+In the same way many savage tribes take the greatest pains to impress
+the terms of treaties as vividly as possible on the memory of the
+contracting parties by striking and intelligible ceremonies. In the
+Sandwich Islands a wreath woven conjointly by the leaders of either
+side and placed in a temple was the chief symbol of peace. On the Fiji
+Islands, the combatant forces would meet and throw down their weapons
+at one another’s feet. The Tahitians wove a wreath of green boughs,
+furnished by each side; exchanged two young dogs; and having also
+made a band of cloth together, deposited the wreath and the band in
+the temple, with imprecations on the side which should first violate
+so solemn a treaty of peace.[212] On the Hervey Islands, the token of
+the cessation of war was the breaking of a number of spears against
+a large chestnut tree; the almost imperishable coral tree was planted
+in the valleys to signify the hope that the peace might last as long
+as the tree; and after the drum of peace had been solemnly beaten
+round the island, it was unlawful for any man to carry a weapon, or
+to cut down any iron-wood, which he might turn into an implement of
+destruction.
+
+Even our custom of proclaiming that a war is not undertaken against
+a people but against its rulers is not unknown in savage life. The
+Ashantee army used to strew leaves on their march, to signify that
+their hostility was not with the country they passed through but only
+with the instigators of the war; they told the Fantees that they had
+no war with them collectively, but only with some of them.[213] How
+common a military custom this appeal to the treason of an enemy is,
+notwithstanding the rarity of its success, everybody knows. When,
+for instance, the Anglo-Zulu war began, it was solemnly proclaimed
+that the British Government had no quarrel with the Zulu people; it
+was a war against the Zulu king, not against the Zulu nation. (Jan.
+11, 1879.) So were the Ashantees told by the English invading force;
+so were the Afghans; so were the Egyptians; and so were the French
+by the Emperor William before his merciless hordes laid waste and
+desolate some of the fairest provinces of France; so, no doubt, will
+be told the Soudan Arabs. And yet this appeal to treason, this premium
+on a people’s disloyalty, is the regular precursor of wars, wherein
+destruction for its own sake, the burning of grain and villages for
+the mere pleasure of the flames, forms almost invariably the most
+prominent feature. The military view always prevails over the civil,
+of the meaning of hostilities that have no reference to a population
+but only to its government. In the Zulu war, for instance, in spite
+of the above proclamation, the lieutenant-general ordered raids to be
+made into Zululand for the express purpose of burning empty kraals or
+villages; defending such procedure by the usual military logic, that
+the more the natives at large felt the strain of the war, the more
+anxious they would be to see it concluded; and it was quite in vain for
+the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal to argue that the burning of empty
+kraals would neither do much harm to the Zulus nor good to the English;
+and that whereas the war had been begun on the ground that it was waged
+against the Zulu king and not against his nation, such conduct was
+calculated to alienate from the invaders the whole of the Zulu people,
+including those who were well disposed to them. Such arguments hardly
+ever prevail over that passion for wanton destruction and for often
+quite unnecessary slaughter, which finds a ready and comprehensive
+shelter under the wing of military exigencies.
+
+The assumption, therefore, that savage races are ignorant of all laws
+of war, or incapable of learning them, would seem to be based rather on
+our indifference about their customs than on the realities of the case,
+seeing that the preceding evidence to the contrary results from the
+most cursory inquiry. But whatever value there may be in our own laws
+of war, as helping to constitute a real difference between savage and
+civilised warfare, the best way to spread the blessing of a knowledge
+of them would clearly be for the more civilised races to adhere to
+them strictly in all wars waged with their less advanced neighbours.
+An English commander, for instance, should no more set fire to the
+capital of Ashantee or Zululand for so paltry a pretext as the display
+of British power than he would set fire to Paris or Berlin; he should
+no more have villages or granaries burnt in Africa or Afghanistan
+than he would in Normandy; and he should no more keep a Zulu envoy or
+truce-bearer in chains[214] than he would so deal with the bearer of a
+white flag from a Russian or Italian enemy.
+
+The reverse principle, which is yet in vogue, that with barbarians
+you must or may be barbarous, leads to some curious illustrations of
+civilised warfare when it comes in conflict with the less civilised
+races. In one of the Franco-Italian wars of the sixteenth century,
+more than 2,000 women and children took refuge in a large mountain
+cavern, and were there suffocated by a party of French soldiers, who
+set fire to a quantity of wood, straw, and hay, which they stacked
+at the mouth of the cave; but it was considered so shameful an act,
+that the Chevalier Bayard had two of the ringleaders hung at the
+cavern’s mouth.[215] Yet when the French General Pélissier in this
+century suffocated the unresisting Algerians in their caves, it was
+even defended as no worse than the shelling of a fortress; and there
+is evidence that gun-cotton was not unfrequently used to blast the
+entrance to caves in Zululand in which men, women, and children had
+hoped to find shelter against an army which professed only to be
+warring with their king.[216]
+
+The following description of the way in which, in the Ashantee war, the
+English forces obtained native carriers for their transport service is
+not without its instruction in this respect:--
+
+‘We took to kidnapping upon a grand scale. Raids were made on all
+the Assin villages within reach of the line of march, and the men,
+and sometimes the women, carried off and sent up the country under
+guard, with cases of provisions. Lieutenant Bolton, of the 1st West
+India Regiment, rendered immense service in this way. Having been
+for some time commandant of Accra, he knew the coast and many of the
+chiefs; and having a man-of-war placed at his disposal, he went up and
+down the coast, landing continually, having interviews with chiefs,
+and obtaining from them large numbers of men and women; or when
+this failed, landing at night with a party of soldiers, surrounding
+villages, and sweeping off the adult population, leaving only a few
+women to look after the children. In this way, in the course of a
+month, he obtained several thousands of carriers.’[217]
+
+And then a certain school of writers talks of the love and respect for
+the British Empire which these exhibitions of our might are calculated
+to win from the inferior races! The Ashantees are disgraced by the
+practice of human sacrifices, and the Zulus have many a barbarous
+usage; but no amount of righteous indignation on that account justifies
+such dealings with them as those above described. If it does, we can
+no longer condemn the proceedings of the Spaniards in the New World.
+For we have to remember that it was not only the Christianity of the
+Inquisition, or Spanish commerce that they wished to spread; not mere
+gold nor new lands that they coveted, but that they also strove for
+such humanitarian objects as the abolition of barbarous customs like
+the Mexican human sacrifices. ‘The Spaniards that saw these cruel
+sacrifices,’ wrote a contemporary, the Jesuit Acosta, ‘resolved with
+all their power to abolish so detestable and cursed a butchery of
+men.’ The Spaniards of the sixteenth century were in intention or
+expression every whit as humane as we English of the nineteenth. Yet
+their actions have been a reproach to their name ever since. Cortes
+subjected Guatamozin, king of Mexico, to torture. Pizarro had the Inca
+of Peru strangled at the stake. Alvarado invited a number of Mexicans
+to a festival, and made it an opportunity to massacre them. Sandoval
+had 60 caziques and 400 nobles burnt at one time, and compelled their
+relations and children to witness their punishment. The Pope Paul had
+very soon (1537) to issue a bull, to the effect that the Indians were
+really men and not brutes, as the Spaniards soon affected to regard
+them.
+
+The whole question was, moreover, argued out at that time between
+Las Casas and Sepulveda, historiographer to the Emperor Charles V.
+Sepulveda contended that more could be effected against barbarism by a
+month of war than by 100 years of preaching; and in his famous dispute
+with Las Casas at Valladolid in 1550, defended the justice of all wars
+undertaken against the natives of the New World, either on the ground
+of the latter’s sin and wickedness, or on the plea of protecting them
+from the cruelties of their own fellow-countrymen; the latter plea
+being one to which in recent English wars a prominent place has been
+always given. Las Casas replied--and his reply is unanswerable--that
+even human sacrifices are a smaller evil than indiscriminate warfare.
+He might have added that military contact between people unequally
+civilised does more to barbarise the civilised than to civilise the
+barbarous population. It is well worthy of notice and reflection
+that the European battle-fields became distinctly more barbarous
+after habits of greater ferocity had been acquired in wars beyond the
+Atlantic, in which the customary restraints were forgotten, and the
+ties of a common human nature dissolved by the differences of religion
+and race.
+
+The same effect resulted in Roman history, when the extended dominion
+of the Republic brought its armies into contact with foes beyond the
+sea. The Roman annalists bear witness to the deterioration that ensued
+both in their modes of waging war and in the national character.[218]
+It is in an Asiatic war that we first hear of a Roman general poisoning
+the springs;[219] in a war for the possession of Crete that the
+Cretan captives preferred to poison themselves rather than suffer the
+cruelties inflicted on them by Metellus;[220] in the Thracian war
+that the Romans cut off their prisoners’ hands, as Cæsar afterwards
+did those of the Gauls.[221] And we should remember that a practical
+English statesman like Cobden foresaw, as a possible evil result of the
+closer relations between England and the East, a similar deterioration
+in the national character of his countrymen. ‘With another war or
+two,’ he wrote, ‘in India and China, the English people would have an
+appetite for bull-fights if not for gladiators.’[222]
+
+Nor is there often any compensation for such results in the improved
+condition of the tribes whom it is sought to civilise after the method
+recommended by Sepulveda. The happiest fate of the populations he
+wished to see civilised by the sword was where they anticipated their
+extermination or slavery by a sort of voluntary suicide. In Cuba, we
+are told that ‘they put themselves to death, whole families doing
+so together, and villages inviting other villages to join them in a
+departure from a world that was no longer tolerable.’[223] And so it
+was in the other hemisphere; the Ladrone islanders, reduced by the
+sword and the diseases of the Spaniards, took measures intentionally to
+diminish their numbers and to check population, preferring voluntary
+extinction to the foul mercies of the Jesuits: till now a lepers’
+hospital is the only building left on what was once one of the most
+populous of their islands.
+
+It must, however, be admitted in justice to the Spaniards, that the
+principles which governed their dealings with heathen races infected
+more or less the conduct of colonists of all nationalities. A real
+or more often a pretended zeal for the welfare of native tribes came
+among all Christian nations to co-exist with the doctrine, that in
+case of conflict with them the common restraints of war might be put
+in abeyance. What, for instance, can be worse than this, told of the
+early English settlers in America by one of themselves? ‘The Plymouth
+men came in the mean time to Weymouth, and there pretended to feast
+the savages of those parts, bringing with them forks and things for
+the purpose, which they set before the savages. They ate thereof
+without any suspicion of any mischief, who were taken upon a watchword
+given, and with their own knives hanging about their necks were by the
+Plymouth planters stabbed and slain.’[224]
+
+Among the early English settlers it soon came to be thought, says
+Mather, a religious act to kill an Indian. In the latter half of the
+seventeenth century both the French and English authorities adopted
+the custom of scalping and of offering rewards for the scalps of their
+Indian enemies. In 1690 the most healthy and vigorous Indians taken
+by the French ‘were sold in Canada, the weaker were sacrificed and
+scalped, and for every scalp they had a premium.’[225] Caleb Lyman, who
+afterwards became an elder of a church at Boston, left an account of
+the way in which he himself and five Indians surprised a wigwam, and
+scalped six of the seven persons inside, so that each might receive
+the promised reward. On their petition to the great and general court
+they received 30_l._ each, and Penhallow says not only that they
+probably expected eight times as much, but that at the time of writing
+the province would have readily paid a sum of 800_l._ for a similar
+service.[226] Captain Lovewell, says the same contemporary eulogist of
+the war that lasted from July 1722 to December 1725, ‘from Dunstable
+with thirty volunteers went northward, who marching several miles up
+country came on a wigwam where were two Indians, one of whom they
+killed and the other took, for which they received the promised bounty
+of 100_l._ a scalp, and two shillings and sixpence a day besides.’
+(December 19, 1724.)[227] At the surprise of Norridjwock ‘the number of
+dead which we scalped were 26, besides Mr. Rasle the Jesuit, who was a
+bloody incendiary.’[228] It is evident that these very liberal rewards
+must have operated as a frequent cause of Indian wars, and made the
+colonists open-eared to tales of native outrages; indeed the whites
+sometimes disguised themselves like Indians, and robbed like Indians,
+in order, it would appear, the more effectually to raise the war-cry
+against them.[229]
+
+Since the Spaniards first trained bloodhounds in Cuba to hunt the
+Indians, the alliance between soldiers and dogs has been a favourite
+one in barbarian warfare. The Portuguese used them in Brazil when
+they hunted the natives for slaves.[230] And an English officer in
+a treatise he wrote in the last century as a sort of military guide
+to Indian warfare suggested coolly: ‘Every light horseman ought to
+be provided with a bloodhound, which would be useful to find out the
+enemy’s ambushes and to follow their tracks. They would seize the
+naked savages, and at least give time to the horsemen to come up with
+them.’[231] In the Molucca Islands the use of two bloodhounds against
+a native chief was the cause of a great confederacy between all the
+islands to shake off the Spanish and Portuguese yoke.[232] And even
+in the war waged by the United States in Florida from 1838 to 1840,
+General Taylor was authorised to send to Cuba for bloodhounds to scent
+out the Indians; nor, according to one account, was their aid resorted
+to in vain.[233]
+
+Poison too has been called in aid. Speaking of the Yuta Indians, a
+traveller assures us that ‘as in Australia, arsenic and corrosive
+sublimate in springs and provisions have diminished their number.’[234]
+And in the same way ‘poisoned rum helped to exterminate the
+Tasmanians.’[235]
+
+But there is worse yet in this direction. The Portuguese in Brazil,
+when the importation of slaves from Africa rendered the capture of the
+natives less desirable than their extermination, left the clothes
+of persons who had died of small-pox or scarlet fever to be found by
+them in the woods.[236] And the caravan traders from the Missouri to
+Santa Fé are said by the same method or in presents of tobacco to have
+communicated the small-pox to the Indian tribes of that district in
+1831.[237] The enormous depopulation of most tribes by the small-pox
+since their acquaintance with the whites is one of the most remarkable
+results in the history of their mutual connection; nor is it likely
+ever to be known to what extent the coincidence was accidental.
+
+It is pleasant to turn from these practical illustrations of the theory
+that no laws of war need be regarded in hostilities with savage tribes
+to the only recorded trial of a contrary system, and to find, not
+only that it is associated with one of the greatest names in English
+history, but also that the success it met with fully justifies the
+suspicion and disfavour with which the commoner usage is beginning to
+be regarded. The Indians with whom Penn made his famous treaty in 1682
+(of which Voltaire said that it was the only treaty that was never
+ratified by an oath, and the only treaty that was never broken), were
+of the same Algonquin race with whom the Dutch had scarcely ever kept
+at peace, and against whom they had warred in the customary ruthless
+fashion of those times. The treaty was based on the principle of an
+adjustment of differences by a tribunal of an equal number of Red
+men and of White. ‘Penn,’ says the historian, ‘came without arms;
+he declared his purpose to abstain from violence, he had no message
+but peace, and not one drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an
+Indian’[238] For more than seventy years, from 1682 to 1754, when the
+French war broke out, in short, during the whole time that the Quakers
+had the principal share in the government of Pennsylvania, the history
+of the Indians and Whites in that province was free from the tale of
+murders and hostilities that was so common in other districts; so
+that the single instance in which the experiment of equal laws and
+forbearance has been patiently persevered in, can at least boast of a
+success that in support of the contrary system it were very difficult
+to find for an equal number of years in any other part of the world.
+
+It may also be said against Sepulveda’s doctrine, that the habits of
+a higher civilisation, where they are really worth spreading, spread
+more easily and with more permanent effect among barbarous neighbours
+by the mere contagion of a better example than by the teaching of
+fire and sword. Some of the Dyak tribes in Borneo are said to have
+given up human sacrifices from the better influences of the Malays
+on the coast district.[239] The Peruvians, according to Prescott,
+spread their civilisation among their ruder neighbours more by
+example than by force. ‘Far from provoking hostilities, they allowed
+time for the salutary example of their own institutions to work its
+effect, trusting that their less civilised neighbours would submit to
+their sceptre from a conviction of the blessings it would secure to
+them.’ They exhorted them to lay aside their cannibalism, their human
+sacrifices, and their other barbarities; they employed negotiation,
+conciliatory treatment, and presents to leading men among the tribes;
+and only if all these means failed did they resort to war, but to war
+which at every stage was readily open to propositions of peace, and in
+which any unnecessary outrage on the persons or property of their enemy
+was punished with death.
+
+Something will have been done for the cause of this better method
+of civilising the lower races, if we forewarn and forearm ourselves
+against the symptoms of hostilities with them by a thorough
+understanding of the conditions which render such hostilities probable.
+For as an outbreak of fever is to some extent preventable by a
+knowledge of the conditions which make for fevers, so may the outbreak
+of war be averted by a knowledge of the laws which govern their
+appearance. The experience which we owe to history in this respect
+is amply sufficient to enable us to generalise with some degree of
+confidence and certainty as to the causes or steps which produce wars
+or precede them; and from the remembrance of our dealings with the
+savage races of South Africa we may forecast with some misgivings the
+probable course of our connection with a country like New Guinea.
+
+A colony of Europeans in proximity with barbarian neighbours naturally
+desires before long an increase of territory at the expense of
+the latter. The first sign of such a desire is the expedition of
+missionaries into the country, who not only serve to spy it out for
+the benefit of the colony, but invariably weaken the native political
+force by the creation of a division of feeling, and of an opposition
+between the love of old traditions and the temptation of novel customs
+and ideas. The innovating party, being at first the smaller, consisting
+of the feeblest and poorest members of the community, and of those who
+gladly flock to the mission-stations for refuge from their offences
+against tribal law, the missionaries soon perceive the impossibility of
+further success without the help of some external aid. The help of a
+friendly force can alone turn the balance of influence in their favour,
+and they soon learn to contemplate with complacency the advantages of
+a military conquest of the natives by the colony or mother-country.
+The evils of war are cancelled, in their eyes, by the delusive visions
+of ultimate benefit, and, in accordance with a not uncommon perversion
+of the moral sense, an end that is assumed to be religious is made to
+justify measures that are the reverse.
+
+When the views and interests of the colonial settlers and of the
+missionaries have thus, inevitably but without design, fallen into
+harmony, a war is certain to be not far distant. Apparently accidental,
+it is in reality as certain as the production of green from a mixture
+of blue and yellow. Some dispute about boundaries, some passing act of
+violence, will serve for a reason of quarrel, which will presently be
+supported by a fixed array of collateral pretexts. The Press readily
+lends its aid; and in a week the colony trembles or affects to tremble
+from a panic of invasion, and vials of virtue are expended on the vices
+of the barbarians which have been for years tolerated with equanimity
+or indifference. Their customs are painted in the blackest colours; the
+details of savage usages are raked up from old books of travel; rumours
+of massacres and injuries are sedulously propagated; and the whole
+country is represented as in such a state of anarchy, that the majority
+of the population, in their longing for deliverance from their own
+rulers, would gladly welcome even a foreign conqueror. In short, a war
+against them comes speedily to be regarded as a war in their behalf,
+as the last word of philanthropy and beneficence; and the atrocities
+that subsequently ensue are professedly undertaken, not against the
+unfortunate people who endure them, but to liberate them from the ruler
+of their choice or sufferance, in whose behalf however they fight to
+the death.
+
+To every country, therefore, which would fain be spared from these
+discreditable wars with barbarian tribes on the borders of its
+colonies, it is clear that the greatest caution is necessary against
+the abuses of missionary propagandism. The almost absolute failure of
+missions in recent centuries, and more especially in the nineteenth,
+is intimately associated with the greater political importance which
+the improved facilities of travel and intercourse have conferred upon
+them. Everyone has heard how Catholicism was persecuted in Japan, till
+at last the very profession of Christianity was made a capital crime in
+that part of the world. But a traveller, who knew the East intimately
+at the time, explains how it was that the Jesuits’ labours resulted
+so disastrously. On the outbreak of civil dissensions in Japan, ‘the
+Christian priests thought it a proper time for them to settle their
+religion on the same foundation that Mahomet did his, by establishing
+it in blood. Their thoughts ran on nothing less than extirpating the
+heathen out of the land, and they framed a conspiracy of raising an
+army of 50,000 Christians to murder their countrymen, that so the whole
+island might be illuminated by Christianity such as it was then.’[240]
+And in the same way, a modern writer, speaking of the very limited
+success of missions in India, has asserted frankly that ‘in despair
+many Christians in India are driven to wish and pray that some one, or
+some way, may arise for converting the Indians by the sword.’[241]
+
+Nor are the heathen themselves blind to the political dangers which
+are involved in the presence of missionaries among them. All over the
+world conversion is from the native point of view the same thing as
+disaffection, and war is dreaded as the certain consequence of the
+adoption of Christianity. The French bishop, Lefebvre, when asked by
+the mandarins of Cochin China, in 1847, the purpose of his visit, said
+that he read in their faces that they suspected him ‘of having come
+to excite some outbreak among the neophytes, and perhaps prepare the
+way for an European army;’ and the king was ‘afraid to see Christians
+multiply in his kingdom, and in case of war with European Powers,
+combine with his enemies.’[242] How right events have proved him to
+have been!
+
+The story is the same in Africa. ‘Not long after I entered the
+country,’ said the missionary, Mr. Calderwood, of Caffraria, ‘a leading
+chief once said to me, “When my people become Christians, they cease to
+be my people.”’[243] The Norwegian missionaries were for twenty years
+in Zululand without making any converts but a few destitute children,
+many of whom had been given to them out of pity by the chiefs,[244]
+and their failure was actually ascribed by the Zulu king to their
+having taught the incompatibility of Christianity with allegiance
+to a heathen ruler.[245] In 1877, a Zulu of authority expressed the
+prevalent native reasoning on this point in language which supplies
+the key to disappointments that extend much further than Zululand: ‘We
+will not allow the Zulus to become so-called Christians. It is not the
+king says so, but every man in Zululand. If a Zulu does anything wrong,
+he at once goes to a mission-station, and says he wants to become a
+Christian; if he wants to run away with a girl, he becomes a Christian;
+if he wishes to be exempt from serving the king, he puts on clothes,
+and is a Christian; if a man is an umtagati (evil-doer), he becomes a
+Christian.’[246]
+
+It is on this account that in wars with savage nations the destruction
+of mission-stations has always been so constant an episode. Nor can
+we wonder at this when we recollect that in the Caffre war of 1851,
+for instance, it was a subject of boast with the missionaries that
+it was Caffres trained on the mission-stations who had preserved the
+English posts along the frontiers, carried the English despatches, and
+fought against their own countrymen for the preservation and defence
+of the colony.[247] It is rather a poor result of all the money and
+labour that has been spent in the attempt to Christianise South Africa,
+that the Wesleyan mission-station at Edendale should have contributed
+an efficient force of cavalry to fight against their countrymen in
+the Zulu campaign; and we may hesitate whether most to despise the
+missionaries who count such a result as a triumph of their efforts, or
+the converts whom they reward with tea and cake for military service
+with the enemies of their countrymen.[248]
+
+It needs no great strain of intelligence to perceive that this use of
+mission-stations as military training-schools scarcely tends to enhance
+the advantages of conversion in the minds of the heathen among whom
+they are planted.
+
+For these reasons, and because it is becoming daily more apparent that
+wars are less a necessary evil than an optional misery of human life,
+the principal measure for a country which would fain improve, and
+live at peace with, the less civilised races which touch the numerous
+borders of its empire, would be the legal restraint or prevention
+of missionary enterprise: a proposal that will appear less startling
+if we reflect that in no quarter of the globe can that method of
+civilising barbarism point to more than local or ephemeral success.
+The Protestant missions of this century are in process of failure,
+as fatal and decided as that which befel the Catholic missions of
+the French, Portuguese, or Spanish, in the sixteenth and seventeenth
+centuries, and very much from the same causes. The English wars in
+South Africa, with which the Protestant missionaries have been so
+closely connected, have frustrated all attempts to Christianise that
+region, just as ‘the fearful wars occasioned directly or indirectly by
+the missionaries’ sent by the Portuguese to the kingdoms of Congo and
+Angola in the sixteenth century rendered futile similar attempts on the
+West Coast.[249]
+
+The same process of depopulation under Protestant influences may now
+be observed in the Sandwich Islands or New Zealand that reduced the
+population of Hispaniola, under Spanish Christianity, from a million to
+14,000 in a quarter of a century.[250] No Protestant missionary ever
+laboured with more zeal than Eliot did in America in the seventeenth
+century, but the tribes he taught have long since been extinct:
+‘like one of their own forest trees, they have withered from core to
+bark;’[251] and, in short, the history of both Catholic and Protestant
+missions alike may be summed up in this one general statement: either
+they have failed altogether of results on a sufficient scale to be
+worthy of notice, or the impartial page of history unfolds to us one
+uniform tale of civil war, persecution, conquest, and extirpation in
+whatever regions they can boast of more at least of the semblance of
+success.
+
+Another measure in the interests of peace would be the organisation of
+a class of well-paid officials whose duty it should be to examine on
+the spot into the truth of all rumours of outrages or atrocities which
+are circulated from time to time, in order to set the tide of public
+opinion in favour of hostile measures. Such rumours may, of course,
+have some foundation, but in nine cases out of ten they are false. So
+lately as the year 1882, the _Times_ and other English papers were
+so far deceived as to give their readers a horrible account of the
+sacrifice of 200 young girls to the spirits of the dead in Ashantee;
+and people were beginning to ask themselves whether such things could
+be suffered within reach of an English army, when it was happily
+discovered that the whole story was fictitious. Stories of this sort
+are what the Germans call _Tendenzlügen_, or lies invented to produce a
+certain effect. Their effect in rousing the war-spirit is undeniable;
+and, although the healthy scepticism which has of recent years been
+born of experience affords us some protection, no expenditure could be
+more economical than one which should aim at rendering them powerless
+by neutralising them at the fountain-head.
+
+In the preceding historical survey of the relations in war between
+communities standing on different levels of civilisation, the
+allusion, among some of the rudest tribes, to laws of war very similar
+to those supposed to be binding between more polished nations tends to
+discredit the distinction between civilised and barbarian warfare. The
+progress of knowledge threatens the overthrow of the distinction, just
+as it has already reduced that between organic and inorganic matter,
+or between animal and vegetable life, to a distinction founded rather
+on human thought than on the nature of things. And it is probable that
+the more the military side of savage life is studied, the fewer will be
+found to be the lines of demarcation which are thought to establish a
+difference in kind in the conduct of war by belligerents in different
+stages of progress. The difference in this respect is chiefly one of
+weapons, of strategy, and of tactics; and it would seem that whatever
+superiority the more civilised community may claim in its rules of
+war is more than compensated in savage life both by the less frequent
+occurrence of wars and by their far less fatal character.
+
+But, however much the frequency and ferocity of the wars waged by
+barbarian races as compared with those waged by civilised nations has
+been exaggerated, there is no doubt but that in warfare, more than
+in anything else, there is most in common between civilisation and
+savagery, and that the distinction between them most nearly disappears.
+In art and knowledge and religion the distinction between the two is so
+wide that the evolution of one from the other seems still to many minds
+incredible; but in war, and the thoughts which relate to it, the points
+of analogy cannot fail to strike the most indifferent. We see still
+in either condition, the same notions of the glory of fighting, the
+same belief in war as the only source of strength and honour, the same
+hope from it of personal advancement, the same readiness to seize any
+pretext for resorting to it, the same foolish sentiment that it is mean
+to live without it.
+
+Then only will the distinction between the two be final, complete,
+and real, when all fighting is relegated to barbarism, and regarded
+as unworthy of civilised humanity; when the enlightenment of
+opinion, which has freed us already from such curses as slavery, the
+torture-chamber, or duelling, shall demand instinctively the settlement
+of all causes of quarrel by peaceful arbitration, and leave to the
+lower races and the lower creation the old-fashioned resort to a trial
+of violence and might, to competition in fraud and ferocity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.
+
+ _Etsi adierant milites ad Joannem et formam observationis
+ acceperant, si etiam centurio crediderat, omnem postea militem
+ Dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit._--TERTULLIAN.
+
+ The war question at the time of the Reformation--The remonstrances
+ of Erasmus against the custom--Influence of Grotius on the side of
+ war--The war question in the early Church--The Fathers against the
+ lawfulness of war--Causes of the changed views of the Church--The
+ clergy as active combatants for over one thousand years--Fighting
+ Bishops--Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment--Pope Julius
+ II. at the siege of Mirandola--The last fighting Bishop--Origin
+ and meaning of the declaration of war--Superstition in the naming
+ of weapons, ships, &c.--The custom of kissing the earth before a
+ charge--Connection between religious and military ideas--The Church
+ as a pacific agency--Her efforts to set limits to reprisals--The
+ altered attitude of the modern Church--Early reformers only
+ sanctioned just wars--Voltaire’s reproach against the Church--Canon
+ Mozley’s sermon on war--The answer to his apology.
+
+
+Whether military service was lawful for a Christian at all was at the
+time of the Reformation one of the most keenly debated questions;
+and considering the force of opinion arrayed on the negative side,
+its ultimate decision in the affirmative is a matter of more wonder
+than is generally given to it. Sir Thomas More charges Luther and his
+disciples with carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits
+of non-resistance; and the views on this subject of the Mennonites
+and Quakers were but what at one time seemed not unlikely to have been
+those of the Reformed Church generally.
+
+By far the foremost champion on the negative side was Erasmus, who
+being at Rome at the time when the League of Cambray, under the
+auspices of Julius II., was meditating war against the Republic of
+Venice, wrote a book to the Pope, entitled ‘Antipolemus,’ which, though
+never completed, probably exists in part in his tract known under the
+title of ‘Dulce Bellum inexpertis,’ and printed among his ‘Adagia.’
+In it he complained, as one might complain still, that the custom of
+war was so recognised as an incident of life that men wondered there
+should be any to whom it was displeasing; and likewise so approved of
+generally, that to find any fault with it savoured not only of impiety,
+but of actual heresy. To speak of it, therefore, as he did in the
+following passage, required some courage: ‘If there be anything in the
+affairs of mortals which it is the interest of men not only to attack,
+but which ought by every possible means to be avoided, condemned, and
+abolished, it is of all things war, than which nothing is more impious,
+more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate, more base,
+or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian.’ In a
+letter to Francis I. on the same subject, he noticed as an astonishing
+fact, that out of such a multitude of abbots, bishops, archbishops, and
+cardinals as existed in the world, not one of them should step forward
+to do what he could, even at the risk of his life, to put an end to so
+deplorable a practice.
+
+The failure of this view of the custom of war, which is in its essence
+more opposed to Christianity than the custom of selling men for slaves
+or sacrificing them to idols, to take any root in men’s minds, is a
+misfortune on which the whole history of Europe since Erasmus forms
+a sufficient commentary. That failure is partly due to the unlucky
+accident which led Grotius in this matter to throw all his weight into
+the opposite scale. For this famous jurist, entering at much length
+into the question of the compatibility of war with the profession of
+Christianity (thereby proving the importance which in his day still
+attached to it), came to conclusions in favour of the received opinion,
+which are curiously characteristic both of the writer and his time.
+His general argument was, that if a sovereign was justified in putting
+his own subjects to death for crimes, much more was he justified in
+using the sword against people who were not his subjects, but strangers
+to him. And this absurd argument was enforced by considerations as
+feeble as the following: that laws of war were laid down in the Book
+of Deuteronomy; that John the Baptist did not bid the soldiers, who
+consulted him, to forsake their calling, but to abstain from extortion
+and be content with their wages; that Cornelius the centurion, whom St.
+Peter baptized, neither gave up his military life, nor was exhorted by
+the apostle to do so; that the Emperor Constantine had many Christians
+in his armies, and the name of Christ inscribed upon his banners; and
+that the military oath after his time was taken in the name of the
+Three Persons of the Trinity.
+
+One single reflection will suffice to display the utter shallowness of
+this reasoning, which was after all only borrowed from St. Augustine.
+For if Biblical texts are a justification of war, they are clearly a
+justification of slavery; whilst, on the other hand, the general spirit
+of the Christian religion, to say nothing of several positive passages,
+is at least equally opposed to one custom as to the other. If then the
+abolition of slavery is one of the services for which Christianity as
+an influence in history claims a large share of the credit, its failure
+to abolish the other custom must in fairness be set against it; for
+it were easier to defend slave-holding out of the language of the New
+Testament than to defend military service, far more being actually said
+there to inculcate the duty of peace than to inculcate the principles
+of social equality: and the same may be said of the writings of the
+Fathers.
+
+The different attitude of the Church towards these two customs in
+modern times, her vehement condemnation of the one, and her tolerance
+or encouragement of the other, appears all the more surprising when
+we remember that in the early centuries of our era her attitude was
+exactly the reverse, and that, whilst slavery was permitted, the
+unlawfulness of war was denounced with no uncertain or wavering voice.
+
+When Tertullian wrote his treatise ‘De Corona’ (201) concerning the
+right of Christian soldiers to wear laurel crowns, he used words on
+this subject which, even if at variance with some of his statements
+made in his ‘Apology’ thirty years earlier, may be taken to express his
+maturer judgment. ‘Shall the son of peace’ (that is, a Christian),
+he asks, ‘act in battle when it will not befit him even to go to
+law? Shall he administer bonds and imprisonments and tortures and
+punishments who may not avenge even his own injuries?... The very
+transference of his enrolment from the army of light to that of
+darkness is sin.’ And again: ‘What if the soldiers did go to John
+and receive the rule of their service, and what if the Centurion did
+believe; the Lord by his disarming of Peter disarmed every soldier
+from that time forward.’ Tertullian made an exception in favour of
+soldiers whose conversion was subsequent to their enrolment (as was
+implied in discussing their duty with regard to the laurel-wreath),
+though insisting even in their case that they ought either to leave the
+service, as many did, or to refuse participation in its acts, which
+were inconsistent with their Christian profession. So that at that time
+Christian opinion was clearly not only averse to a military life being
+entered upon after baptism (of which there are no instances on record),
+but in favour of its being forsaken, if the enrolment preceded the
+baptism. The Christians who served in the armies of Rome were not men
+who were converts or Christians at the time of enrolling, but men who
+remained with the colours after their conversion. If it is certain that
+some Christians _remained_ in the army, it appears equally certain that
+no Christian at that time thought of _entering_ it.
+
+This seems the best solution of the much-debated question, to what
+extent Christians served at all in the early centuries. Irenæus
+speaks of the Christians in the second century as not knowing how
+to fight, and Justin Martyr, his contemporary, considered Isaiah’s
+prophecy about the swords being turned into ploughshares as in part
+fulfilled, because his co-religionists, who in times past had killed
+one another, did not then know how to fight even with their enemies.
+The charge made by Celsus against the Christians, that they refused
+to bear arms even in case of necessity, was admitted by Origen, but
+justified on the ground of the unlawfulness of war. ‘We indeed,’ he
+says, ‘fight in a special way on the king’s behalf, but we do not go
+on campaigns with him, even should he press us to do so; we do battle
+on his behalf as a peculiar army of piety, prevailing by our prayers
+to God for him.’ And again: ‘We no longer take up the sword against
+people, nor learn to make war any more, having become through Jesus,
+who is our general, sons of peace.’ Nothing could be clearer nor more
+conclusive than this language; and the same attitude towards war was
+expressed or implied by the following Fathers in chronological order:
+Justin Martyr, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian,
+Lactantius, Archelaus, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Cyril. Eusebius
+says that many Christians in the third century laid aside the military
+life rather than abjure their religion. Of 10,050 pagan inscriptions
+that have been collected, 545 were found to belong to pagan soldiers,
+while of 4,734 Christian inscriptions of the same period, only 27 were
+those of soldiers; from which it seems rather absurd to infer, as a
+French writer has inferred, not that there was a great disproportion
+of Christian to pagan soldiers in the imperial armies, but that most
+Christian soldiers being soldiers of Christ did not like to have it
+recorded on their epitaphs that they had been in the service of any
+_man_.[252]
+
+On the other hand, there were certainly always some Christians who
+remained in the ranks after their conversion, in spite of the military
+oath in the names of the pagan deities and the quasi-worship of the
+standards which constituted some part of the early Christian antipathy
+to war. This is implied in the remarks of Tertullian, and stands in
+no need of the support of such legends as the Thundering Legion of
+Christians, whose prayers obtained rain, or of the Theban legion of
+6,000 Christians martyred under Maximian. It was left as a matter of
+individual conscience. In the story of the martyr Maximilian, when Dion
+the proconsul reminded him that there were Christian soldiers among the
+life-guards of the Emperors, the former replied, ‘They know what is
+best for them to do; but I am a Christian and cannot fight.’ Marcellus,
+the converted centurion, threw down his belt at the head of his legion,
+and suffered death rather than continue in the service; and the annals
+of the early Church abound in similar martyrdoms. Nor can there be
+much doubt but that a love of peace and dislike of bloodshed were the
+principal causes of this early Christian attitude towards the military
+profession, and that the idolatry and other pagan rites connected with
+it only acted as minor and secondary deterrents. Thus, in the Greek
+Church St. Basil would have excluded from communion for three years
+any one who had shed an enemy’s blood; and a similar feeling explains
+Theodosius’ refusal to partake of the Eucharist after his great victory
+over Eugenius. The canons of the Church excluded from ordination all
+who had served in an army after baptism; and in the fifth century
+Innocent I. blamed the Spanish churches for their laxity in admitting
+such persons into holy orders.[253]
+
+The anti-military tendency of opinion in the early period of
+Christianity appears therefore indisputable, and Tertullian would
+probably have smiled at the prophet who should have predicted that
+Christians would have ceased to keep slaves long before they should
+have ceased to commit murder and robbery under the fiction of
+hostilities. But it proves the strength of the original impetus, that
+Ulphilas, the first apostle to the Goths, should purposely, in his
+translation of the Scriptures, have omitted the Books of Kings, as too
+stimulative of a love of war.
+
+How utterly in this matter Christianity came to forsake its earlier
+ideal is known to all. This resulted partly from the frequent use of
+the sword for the purpose of conversion, and partly from the rise of
+the Mahometan power, which made wars with the infidel appear in the
+light of acts of faith, and changed the whole of Christendom into a
+kind of vast standing military order. But it resulted still more from
+that compromise effected in the fourth century between paganism and
+the new religion, in which the former retained more than it lost, and
+the latter gave less than it received. Considering that the Druid
+priests of ancient Gaul or Britain, like those of pagan Rome, were
+exempt from military service,[254] and often, according to Strabo, had
+such influence as to part combatants on the point of an engagement,
+nothing is more remarkable than the extent to which the Christian
+clergy, bishops, and abbots came to lead armies and fight in battle,
+in spite of canons and councils of the Church, at a time when that
+Church’s power was greater, and its influence wider, than it has ever
+been since. Historians have scarcely given due prominence to this
+fact, which covers a period of at least a thousand years; for Gregory
+of Tours mentions two bishops of the sixth century who had killed
+many enemies with their own hands, whilst Erasmus, in the sixteenth,
+complains of bishops taking more pride in leading three or four hundred
+dragoons, with swords and guns, than in a following of deacons and
+divinity students, and asks, with just sarcasm, why the trumpet and
+fife should sound sweeter in their ears than the singing of psalms or
+the words of the Bible.
+
+In the fourteenth century, when war and chivalry were at their
+height, occurred a remarkable protest against this state of things
+from Wycliffe, who, in this, as in other respects, anticipated the
+Reformation: ‘Friars now say that bishops can fight best of all men,
+and that it falleth most properly to them, since they are lords of
+all this world. They say, Christ bade his disciples sell their coats,
+and buy them swords; but whereto, if not to fight? Thus friars make
+a great array, and stir up men to fight. But Christ taught not his
+apostles to fight with a sword of iron, but with the sword of God’s
+word, which standeth in meekness of heart and in the prudence of man’s
+tongue.... If manslaying in others be odious to God, much more in
+priests who should be vicars of Christ.’ And Wycliffe proceeds not only
+to protest against this, but to advocate the general cause of peace on
+earth, on grounds which he is aware that men of the world will scorn
+and reject as fatal to the existence of kingdoms.[255]
+
+It was no occasional, but an inveterate practice, and, apparently,
+common in the world, long before the system of feudalism gave it
+some justification by the connection of military service with the
+enjoyment of lands. Yet it has now so completely disappeared that--as
+a proof of the possible change of thought which may ultimately render
+a Christian soldier as great an anomaly as a fighting bishop--it is
+worth recalling from history some instances of so curious a custom.
+‘The bishops themselves--not all, but many’--says a writer of King
+Stephen’s reign, ‘bound in iron, and completely furnished with arms,
+were accustomed to mount war-horses with the perverters of their
+country, to share in their spoil; to bind and torture the knights whom
+they took in the chance of war, or whom they met full of money.’[256]
+It was at the battle of Bouvines (1214) that the famous Bishop of
+Beauvais fought with a club instead of a sword, out of respect for
+the rule of the canon which forbade an ecclesiastic to shed blood.
+Matthew Paris tells the story how Richard I. took the said bishop
+prisoner, and when the Pope begged for his release as being his own
+son and a son of the Church, sent to Innocent III. the episcopal coat
+of mail, with the inquiry whether he recognised it as that of his son
+or of a son of the Church; to which the Pope had the wit to reply that
+he could not recognise it as belonging to either.[257] The story also
+bears repeating of the impatient knight who, sharing the command of a
+division at the battle of Falkirk with the Bishop of Durham, cried out
+to his slower colleague, before closing with the Scots, ‘It is not for
+you to teach us war; to your Mass, bishop!’ and therewith rushed with
+his followers into the fray (1298).[258]
+
+It is, however, needless to multiply instances, which, if Du Cange
+may be credited, became more common during the devastation of France
+by the Danes in the ninth century, when all the military aid that was
+available became a matter of national existence. That event rendered
+Charlemagne’s capitulary a dead letter, by which that monarch had
+forbidden any ecclesiastic to march against an enemy, save two or
+three bishops to bless the army or reconcile the combatants, and a few
+priests to give absolution and celebrate the Mass.[259] It appears that
+this law was made in response to an exhortation by Pope Adrian II.,
+similar to one addressed in the previous century by Pope Zachary to
+Charlemagne’s ancestor, King Pepin. But though military service and the
+tenure of ecclesiastical benefices became more common from the time of
+the Danish irruptions, instances are recorded of abbots and archbishops
+who chose rather to surrender their temporalities than to take part in
+active service; and for many centuries the whole question seems to have
+rested on a most uncertain footing, law and custom demanding as a duty
+that which public and ecclesiastical opinion condoned, but which the
+Church herself condemned.
+
+It is a signal mark of the degree to which religion became enveloped
+in the military spirit of those miserable days of chivalry, that
+ecclesiastical preferment was sometimes the reward of bravery on the
+field, as in the case of that chaplain to the Earl of Douglas who, for
+his courage displayed at the battle of Otterbourne, was, Froissart
+tells us, promoted the same year to a canonry and archdeaconry at
+Aberdeen.
+
+Vasari, in his ‘Life of Michael Angelo,’ has a good story which is
+not only highly typical of this martial Christianity, but may be also
+taken to mark the furthest point of divergence reached by the Church in
+this respect from the standpoint of her earlier teaching. Pope Julius
+II. went one day to see a statue of himself which Michael Angelo was
+executing. The right hand of the statue was raised in a dignified
+attitude, and the artist consulted the Pope as to whether he should
+place a book in the left. ‘Put a sword into it,’ quoth Julius, ‘for of
+letters I know but little.’ This was the Pope of whom Bayle says that
+never man had a more warlike soul, and of whom, with some doubt, he
+repeats the anecdote of his having thrown into the Tiber the keys of
+St. Peter, with the declaration that he would thenceforth use the sword
+of St. Paul. However this may be, he went in person to hasten the siege
+of Mirandola, in opposition to the protests of the cardinals and to
+the scandal of Christendom (1510). There it was that to encourage the
+soldiers he promised them, that if they exerted themselves valiantly
+he would make no terms with the town, but would suffer them to sack
+it;[260] and though this did not occur, and the town ultimately
+surrendered on terms, the head of the Christian Church had himself
+conveyed into it by the breach.
+
+The scandal of this proceeding contributed its share to the discontent
+which produced the Reformation; and that movement continued still
+further the disfavour with which many already viewed the connection of
+the clergy with actual warfare. It has, however, happened occasionally
+since that epoch that priests of martial tastes have been enabled
+to gratify them, the custom having become more and more rare as
+public opinion grew stronger against it. The last recorded instance
+of a fighting divine was, it would seem, the Bishop of Derry, who,
+having been raised to that see by William III. in gratitude for the
+distinguished bravery with which, though a clergyman, he had conducted
+the defence of Londonderry against the forces of James II., and for
+which the University of Oxford rewarded him with the title of Doctor
+of Divinity, was shot dead at the battle of the Boyne. He had, says
+Macaulay, ‘during the siege in which he had so highly distinguished
+himself, contracted a passion for war,’ but his zeal to gratify it on
+that second occasion cost him the favour of the king. It is, however,
+somewhat remarkable that history should have called no special
+attention to the last instance of a bishop who fought and died upon a
+battle-field, nor have sufficiently emphasised the great revolution of
+thought which first changed a common occurrence into something unusual,
+and finally into a memory that seems ridiculous. No historical fact
+affords a greater justification than this for the hope that, absurd as
+is the idea of a fighting bishop to our own age, that of a fighting
+Christian may be to our posterity.
+
+As bishops were in the middle ages warriors, so they were also the
+common bearers of declarations of war. The Bishop of Lincoln bore, for
+instance, the challenge of Edward III. and his allies to Charles V.
+at Paris; and greatly offended was the English king and his council
+when Charles returned the challenge by a common valet--they declared
+it indecent for a war between two such great lords to be declared by a
+mere servant, and not by a prelate or a knight of valour.
+
+The declaration of war in those times appears to have meant simply a
+challenge or defiance like that then and afterwards customary in a
+duel. It appears to have originated out of habits that governed the
+relations between the feudal barons. We learn from Froissart that when
+Edward was made Vicar of the German Empire an old statute was renewed
+which had before been made at the emperor’s court, to the effect that
+no one, intending to injure his neighbour, might do so without sending
+him a defiance three days beforehand. The following extract from the
+challenge of war sent by the Duke of Orleans, the brother of the King
+of France, to Henry IV. of England, testifies to the close resemblance
+between a declaration of war and a challenge to a deed of arms, and to
+the levity which often gave rise to either: ‘I, Louis, write and make
+known to you, that with the aid of God and the blessed Trinity, in the
+desire which I have to gain renown, and which you likewise should feel,
+considering idleness as the bane of lords of high birth who do not
+employ themselves in arms, and thinking I can no way better seek renown
+than by proposing to you to meet me at an appointed place, each of us
+accompanied with 100 knights and esquires, of name and arms without
+reproach, there to combat till one of the parties shall surrender; and
+he to whom God shall grant the victory shall do with his prisoners as
+he pleases. We will not employ any incantations that are forbidden by
+the Church, but make use of the bodily strength given us by God, with
+armour as may be most agreeable to everyone for the security of his
+person, and with the usual arms, that is lance, battle-axe, sword, and
+dagger ... without aiding himself by any bodkins, hooks, bearded darts,
+poisoned needles or razors, as may be done by persons unless they are
+positively ordered to the contrary....’[261] Henry IV. answered the
+challenge with some contempt, but expressed his readiness to meet
+the duke in single combat, whenever he should visit his possessions
+in France, in order to prevent any greater effusion of Christian
+blood, since a good shepherd, he said, should expose his own life for
+his flock. It even seemed at one time as if wars might have resolved
+themselves into this more rational mode of settlement. The Emperor
+Henry IV. challenged the Duke of Swabia to single combat. Philip
+Augustus of France is said to have proposed to Richard I. to settle
+their differences by a combat of five on each side; and when Edward
+III. challenged the realm of France, he offered to settle the question
+by a duel or a combat of 100 men on each side, with which the French
+king would, it appears, have complied, had Edward consented to stake
+the kingdom of England against that of France.
+
+In the custom of naming the implements of war after the most revered
+names of the Christian hagiology may be observed another trace of
+the close alliance that resulted between the military and spiritual
+sides of human life, somewhat like that which prevailed in the sort of
+worship paid to their lances, pikes, and battle-axes by the ancient
+Scandinavians.[262] Thus the two first forts which the Spaniards built
+in the Ladrone Islands they called respectively after St. Francis
+Xavier and the Virgin Mary. Twelve ships in the Armada were called
+after the Twelve Apostles, and so were twelve of his cannons by Henry
+VIII., one of which, St. John by name, was captured by the French in
+1513.[263] It is probable that mere irreverence had less to do with
+this custom than the hope thereby of obtaining favour in war, such as
+may also be traced in the ceremony of consecrating military banners,
+which has descended to our own times.[264]
+
+To the same order of superstition belongs the old custom of falling
+down and kissing the earth before starting on a charge or assault
+of battle. The practice is alluded to several times in Montluc’s
+Commentaries, but so little was it understood by a modern French editor
+that in one place he suggests the reading _baissèrent la tête_ (they
+lowered their heads) for _baisèrent la terre_ (they kissed the earth).
+But the latter reading is confirmed by passages elsewhere; as, for
+instance, in the ‘Memoirs of Fleurange,’ where it is stated that Gaston
+de Foix and his soldiers kissed the earth, according to custom, before
+proceeding to march against the enemy;[265] and, again, in the ‘Life
+of Bayard,’ by his secretary, who records it among the virtues of that
+knight that he would rise from his bed every night to prostrate himself
+at full length on the floor and kiss the earth.[266] This kissing of
+the earth was an abbreviated form of taking a particle of it in the
+mouth, as both Elmham and Livius mention to have been done by the
+English at Agincourt before attacking the French; and this again was an
+abbreviated form of receiving the sacrament, for Villani says of the
+Flemish at Cambray (1302) that they made a priest go all over the field
+with the sacred elements, and that, instead of communicating, each man
+took a little earth and put it into his mouth.[267] This seems a more
+likely explanation than that the custom was intended as a reminder to
+the soldier of his mortality, as if in a trade like his there could be
+any lack of testimony of that sort.
+
+It is curious to observe how war in every stage of civilisation has
+been the central interest of public religious supplication; and how,
+from the pagans of old to modern savages, the pettiest quarrels and
+conflicts have been deemed a matter of interest to the immortals. The
+Sandwich islanders and Tahitians sought the aid of their gods in war
+by human sacrifices. The Fijians before war were wont to present their
+gods with costly offerings and temples, and offer with their prayers
+the best they could of land crabs or whales’ teeth; being so convinced
+that they thereby ensured to themselves the victory, that once, when
+a missionary called the attention of a war party to the scantiness of
+their numbers, they only replied, with disdainful confidence, ‘Our
+allies are the gods.’ The prayer which the Roman pontifex addressed
+to Jupiter on behalf of the Republic at the opening of the war with
+Antiochus, king of Syria, is extremely curious: ‘If the war which the
+people has ordered to be waged with King Antiochus shall be finished
+after the wish of the Roman senate and people, then to thee, O Jupiter,
+will the Roman people exhibit the great games for ten successive days,
+and offerings shall be presented at all the shrines of such value as
+the senate shall decree.’[268] This rude state of theology, wherein
+a victory from the gods may be obtained for a fair consideration in
+exchange, tends to keep alive, if it did not originate, that sense of
+dependence on invisible powers which constitutes the most rudimentary
+form of religion; for it is a remarkable fact that the faintest
+notions of supernatural agencies are found precisely among tribes
+whose military organisation or love for war is the lowest and least
+developed. In proportion as the war-spirit is cultivated does the
+worship of war-presiding deities prevail; and since these are formed
+from the memories of warriors who have died or been slain, their
+attributes and wishes remain those of the former earthly potentate, who
+though no longer visible, may still be gratified by presents of fruit,
+or by slaughtered oxen or slaves.
+
+The Khonds of Orissa, in India, afford an instance of this close and
+pernicious association between religious and military ideas, which may
+be traced through the history of many far more advanced communities.
+For though they regard the joy of the peace dance as the very highest
+attainable upon earth, they attribute, not to their own will, but
+to that of their war god, Loha Pennu, the source of all their wars.
+The devastation of a fever or tiger is accepted as a hint from that
+divinity that his service has been too long neglected, and they acquit
+themselves of all blame for a war begun for no better reason, by the
+following philosophy of its origin: ‘Loha Pennu said to himself, Let
+there be war, and he forthwith entered into all weapons, so that from
+instruments of peace they became weapons of war; he gave edge to the
+axe and point to the arrow; he entered into all kinds of food and
+drink, so that men in eating and drinking were filled with rage, and
+women became instruments of discord instead of soothers of anger.’ And
+they address this prayer to Loha Pennu for aid against their enemies:
+‘Let our axes crush cloth and bones as the jaws of the hyæna crush
+its prey. Make the wounds we give to gape.... When the wounds of our
+enemies heal, let lameness remain. Let their stones and arrows fall
+on us as the flowers of the mowa-tree fall in the wind.... Make their
+weapons brittle as the long pods of the karta-tree.’
+
+In their belief that wars were of external causation to themselves,
+and in their endeavour to win by prayer a favourable issue to their
+appeal to arms, it could scarcely be maintained that the nations
+of Christendom have at all times shown any marked superiority over
+the modern Khonds. But in spite of this, and of the fierce military
+character that Christianity ultimately assumed, the Church always kept
+alive some of her earlier traditions about peace, and even in the
+darkest ages set some barriers to the common fury of the soldier. When
+the Roman Empire was overthrown, her influence in this direction was
+in marked contrast with what it has been ever since. Even Alaric when
+he sacked Rome (410) was so far affected by Christianity as to spare
+the churches and the Christians who fled to them. Leo the Great, Bishop
+of Rome, inspired even Attila with respect for his priestly authority,
+and averted his career of conquest from Rome; and the same bishop,
+three years later (455), pleaded with the victorious Genseric that
+his Vandals should spare the unresisting multitude and the buildings
+of Rome, nor allow torture to be inflicted on their prisoners. At the
+instance of Gregory II., Luitprand, the Lombard king, withdrew his
+troops from the same city, resigned his conquests, and offered his
+sword and dagger on the tomb of St. Peter (730).
+
+Yet more praiseworthy and perhaps more effective were the efforts of
+the Church from the tenth century onwards to check that system of
+private war which was then the bane of Europe, as the system of public
+and international wars has been since. In the south of France several
+bishops met and agreed to exclude from the privileges of a Christian
+in life and after death all who violated their ordinances directed
+against that custom (990). Only four years later the Council of Limoges
+exhorted men to swear by the bodies of the saints that they would cease
+to violate the public peace. Lent appears to have been to some extent
+a season of abstinence from fighting as from other pleasures, for one
+of the charges against Louis le Débonnaire was that he summoned an
+expedition for that time of the year.
+
+In 1032 a Bishop of Aquitaine declared himself the recipient of a
+message from heaven, ordering men to cease from fighting; and, not
+only did a peace, called the Truce of God, result for seven years,
+but it was resolved that such peace should always prevail during
+the great festivals of the Church, and from every Thursday evening
+to Monday morning. And the regulation for one kingdom was speedily
+extended over Christendom, confirmed by several Popes, and enforced by
+excommunication.[269] If such efforts were not altogether successful,
+and the wars of the barons continued till the royal power in every
+country was strong enough to suppress them, it must none the less be
+recognised that the Church fought, if she fought in vain, against the
+barbarism of a military society, and with an ardour that is in striking
+contrast with her apathy in more recent history.
+
+It must also be granted that the idea of what the Papacy might do
+for the peace of the world, as the supreme arbiter of disputes and
+mediator between contending Powers, gained possession of men’s minds,
+and entered into the definite policy of the Church about the twelfth
+century, in a manner that might suggest reflection for the nineteenth.
+The name of Gerohus de Reigersperg is connected with a plan for the
+pacification of the world, by which the Pope was to forbid war to
+all Christian princes, to settle all disputes between them, and to
+enforce his decisions by the greatest powers that have ever yet been
+devised for human authority--namely, by excommunication and deposition.
+And the Popes attempted something of this sort. When, for instance,
+Innocent III. bade the King of France to make peace with Richard I.,
+and was told that the dispute concerned a matter of feudal relationship
+with which the Pope had no right of interference, he replied that he
+interfered by right of his power to censure what he thought sin, and
+quite irrespective of feudal rights. He also refused to consider the
+destruction of places and the slaughter of Christians as a matter of no
+concern to him; and Honorius III. forbade an attack upon Denmark, on
+the ground that that kingdom lay under the special protection of the
+Papacy.[270]
+
+The clergy, moreover, were even in the most warlike times of history
+the chief agents in negotiations for peace, and in the attempt to
+set limits to military reprisals. When, for instance, the French and
+English were about to engage at Poitiers, the Cardinal of Perigord
+spent the whole of the Sunday that preceded the day of battle in
+laudable but ineffectual attempts to bring the two sides to an
+agreement without a battle. And when the Duke of Anjou was about to
+put 600 of the defenders of Montpellier to death by the sword, by the
+halter, and by fire, it was the Cardinal of Albany and a Dominican monk
+who saved him from the infamy of such a deed by reminding him of the
+duty of Christian forgiveness.
+
+In these respects it must be plain to every one that the attitude
+and power of the Church has entirely changed. She has stood apart
+more and more as time has gone on from her great opportunities as a
+promoter of peace. Her influence, it is notorious, no longer counts for
+anything, where it was once so powerful, in the field of negotiation
+and reconcilement. She lifts no voice to denounce the evils of war, nor
+to plead for greater restraint in the exercise of reprisals and the
+abuse of victory. She lends no aid to teach the duty of forbearance
+and friendship between nations, to diminish their idle jealousies, nor
+to explain the real identity of their interests. It may even be said
+without risk of contradiction, that whatever attempt has been made to
+further the cause of peace upon earth or to diminish the horror of the
+customs of war, has come, not from the Church, but from the school of
+thought to which she has been most opposed, and which she has studied
+most persistently to revile.
+
+In respect, too, of the justice of the cause of war, the Church within
+recent centuries has entirely vacated her position. It is noticeable
+that in the 37th article of the English Church, which is to the effect
+that a Christian at the command of the magistrate may wear weapons
+and serve in the wars, the word _justa_, which in the Latin form
+preceded the word _bella_ or wars, has been omitted.[271] The leaders
+of the Reformation decided on the whole in favour of the lawfulness of
+military service for a Christian, but with the distinct reservation
+that the cause of war should be just. Bullinger, who was Zwingli’s
+successor in the Reformed Church at Zurich, decided that though a
+Christian might take up arms at the command of the magistrate, it
+would be his duty to disobey the magistrate if he purposed to make
+war on the guiltless; and that only the death of those soldiers on
+the battle-field was glorious who fought for their religion or their
+country. Thomas Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, complained of
+the utter disregard of a just and patriotic motive for war in the code
+of military ethics then prevalent. Speaking of the fighters of his day,
+he thus characterised their position in the State: ‘The rapacity of
+wolves, the violence of lions, the fierceness of tigers is nothing in
+comparison of their furious and cruel tyranny; and yet do many of them
+this not for the safeguard of their country (for so it would be the
+more tolerable), but to satisfy their butcher-like affects, to boast
+another day of how many men they have been the death, and to bring
+home the more preys that they may live the fatter ever after for these
+spoils and stolen goods.’[272] From military service he maintained
+that all considerations of justice and humanity had been entirely
+banished, and their stead been taken by robbery and theft, ‘the
+insatiable spoiling of other men’s goods, and a whole sea of barbarous
+and beast-like manners.’ In this way the necessity of a just cause as
+a reason for taking part in actual warfare was reasserted at the time
+of the Reformation, and has only since then been allowed to drop out
+of sight altogether; so that now public opinion has no guide in the
+matter, and even less than it had in ancient Rome, the attitude of the
+Church towards the State on this point being rather that of Anaxarchus
+the philosopher to Alexander the Great, when, to console that conqueror
+for his murder of Clitus, he said to him: ‘Know you not that Jupiter is
+represented with Law and Justice at his side, to show that whatever is
+done by sovereign power is right?’
+
+Considering, therefore, that no human institution yet devised or
+actually in existence has had or has a moral influence or facilities
+for exercising it at all equal to that enjoyed by the Church, it is all
+the more to be regretted that she has never taken any real interest
+in the abolition of a custom which is at the root of half the crime
+and misery with which she has to contend. Whatever hopes might at
+one time have been reasonably entertained of the Reformed Church as
+an anti-military agency, the cause of peace soon sank into a sort
+of heresy, or what was worse, an unfashionable tenet, associated,
+condemned, and contemned with other articles of religious dissent.
+‘Those who condemn the profession or art of soldiery,’ said Sir James
+Turner, ‘smell rank of anabaptism and quakery.’[273]
+
+It would be difficult to find in the whole range of history any such
+example of wasted moral force. As Erasmus had cause to deplore it in
+the sixteenth century, so had Voltaire in the eighteenth. The latter
+complained that he did not remember a single page against war in the
+whole of Bourdaloue’s sermons, and he even suggested that the real
+explanation might be a literal want of courage on the part of the
+clergy. The passage is worth quoting from the original, both for its
+characteristic energy of expression and for its clear insight into
+the real character of the custom of war:--‘Pour les autres moralistes
+à gages que l’on nomme prédicateurs, ils n’ont jamais seulement osé
+prêcher contre la guerre.... Ils se gardent bien de décrier la guerre,
+qui réunit tout ce que la perfidie a de plus lâche dans les manifestes,
+tout ce que l’infâme friponnerie a de plus bas dans les fournitures des
+armées, tout ce que le brigandage a d’affreux dans le pillage, le viol,
+le larcin, l’homicide, la dévastation, la destruction. Au contraire,
+ces bons prêtres bénissent en cérémonie les étendards de meurtre; et
+leurs confrères chantent pour de l’argent des chansons juives, quand
+la terre a été inondée de sang.’[274]
+
+If Voltaire’s reproach is unjust, it can of course be easily refuted.
+The challenge is a fair one. Let him be convicted of overstating his
+charge, by the mention of any ecclesiastic of mark from either the
+Catholic or the Protestant school within the last two centuries whose
+name is associated with the advocacy of the mitigation or the abolition
+of contests of force; or any war in the same period which the clergy
+of either denomination have as a body resisted either on the ground
+of the injustice of its origin or of the ruthless cruelty with which
+it has been waged. Whatever has yet been attempted in this direction,
+or whatever anti-military stimulus has been given to civilisation,
+has come distinctly from men of the world or men of letters, not from
+men of distinction in the Church: not from Fénelon or Paley, but from
+William Penn, the Abbé St.-Pierre (whose connection with the Church
+was only nominal), from Vattel, Voltaire, and Kant. In other words,
+the Church has lost her old position of spiritual ascendency over
+the consciences of mankind, and has surrendered to other guides and
+teachers the influence she once exercised over the world.
+
+This is especially the case with our own Church; for before the most
+gigantic evil of our time, her pulpit stands mute, and colder than
+mute. Whatever sanction or support a body like the Peace Society has
+met with from the Church or churches of England during its seventy
+years’ struggle on behalf of humanity has been, not the general rule,
+but the rare exception; and recent events would even seem to show that
+the voice of the pulpit, so far from ever becoming a pacific agency, is
+destined to become in the future the great tocsin of war, the loudest
+clamourer for counsels of aggression.
+
+This attitude on the part of the Church having become more and more
+marked and conspicuous, as wars in recent centuries have become more
+frequent and more fierce, it was not unnatural that some attempt should
+at last have been made to give some sort of justification of a fact
+which has undoubtedly become an increasing source of perplexity and
+distress to all sincere and reflective Christians. In default of a
+better, let us take the justification offered by Canon Mozley in his
+sermon on ‘War,’ preached before the University of Oxford on March 12,
+1871, of which the following summary conveys a faithful, though of
+necessity an abbreviated, reflection. The main points dwelt upon in
+that explanation or apology are: That Christianity, by its original
+recognition of the division of the world into nations, with all their
+inherent rights, thereby recognised the right of war, which was plainly
+one of them; that the Church, never having been constituted a judge
+of national questions or motives, can only stand neutral between
+opposing sides, contemplating war as it were forensically, as a mode
+of international settlement that is amply justified by the want of
+any other; that a natural justice is inherent not only in wars of
+self-defence, but in wars for rectifying the political distribution of
+the world’s races or nationalities, and in wars that aim at progress
+and improvement; that the spirit of self-sacrifice inseparable from war
+confers upon it a moral character that is in special harmony with the
+Christian type; that as war is simply the working out of a problem by
+force, there is no more hatred between the individual combatants than
+there is in the working out of an argument by reasoning, ‘the enmity
+is in the two wholes--the abstractions--the individuals are at peace;’
+that the impossibility of a substitution of a universal empire for
+independent nations, or of a court of arbitration, bars all hope of the
+attainment of an era of peace through the natural progress of society;
+that the absence of any head to the nations of the world constitutes
+a defect or want of plan in its system, which as it has been given to
+it by nature cannot be remedied by other means; that it is no part
+of the mission of Christianity to reconstruct that system, or rather
+want of system, of the world, from which war flows, nor to provide
+another world for us to live in; but that, nevertheless, Christianity
+only sanctions it through the medium of natural society, and on the
+hypothesis of a world at discord with itself.
+
+One may well wonder that such a tissue of irrelevant arguments could
+have been addressed by any man in a spirit of seriousness to an
+assembly of his fellows. Imagine such utterances being the last word of
+Christianity! Surely a son of the Church were more recognisable under
+the fighting Bishop of Beauvais’ coat of mail than under the disguise
+of such language as this. Why should it be assumed, one might ask,
+that the existence of distinct nations, each enjoying the power, and
+therefore the right to make war upon its neighbours, is incompatible
+with the existence of an international morality which should render the
+exercise of the war-right impossible, or very difficult; or that the
+Church, had she tried, could have contributed nothing to so desirable
+a result? It is begging the question altogether to contend that a
+state of things is impossible which has never been attempted, when
+the very point at issue is whether, had it been attempted, it might
+not by this time have come to be realised. The right of the mediæval
+barons and their vassals to wage private war together belonged once
+as much to the system, or want of system, of the world as the right
+of nations to attack one another in our own or an earlier period of
+history; yet so far was the Church, even in those days, from shrinking
+from contact with so barbarous a custom as something beyond her power
+or her mission, that she was herself the main social instrument that
+brought it to an end. The great efforts made by the Church to abolish
+the custom of private war have already been mentioned: a point which
+Canon Mozley, perhaps, did wisely to ignore. Yet there is, surely, no
+sufficient reason why the peace of the world should be an object of
+less interest to the Church in these days than it was in those; or
+why her influence should be less as one chief element in the natural
+progress of society than it was when she fought to release human
+society from the depraving custom of the right of private war. It is
+impossible to contend that, had the Church inculcated the duties of
+the individual to other nations as well as to his own, in the way to
+which human reason would naturally respond, such a course would have
+had no effect in solving the problem of enabling separate nationalities
+to coexist in a state of peace as well as of independence. It is at
+least the reverse of self-evident that the promotion of feelings of
+international fraternity, the discouragement of habits of international
+jealousy, the exercise of acts of international friendship, the
+teaching of the real identity of international interests, in all of
+which the pulpit might have lent, or might yet lend, an invaluable
+aid, would have had, or would still have any detrimental effect on
+the political system of distinct nationalities, or on the motives and
+actions of a rational patriotism. It is difficult to believe that
+the denunciations of a Church whose religious teaching had power to
+restrain the military fury of an Alaric or a Genseric would have been
+altogether powerless over the conduct of those German hordes whose
+military excesses in France, in 1870, have left a lasting blot on
+their martial triumph and the character of their discipline; or that
+her efforts on behalf of peace, which more than a thousand years
+ago effectually reconciled the Angles and Mercians, the Franks and
+Lombards, would be wasted in helping to remove any standing causes of
+quarrel that may still exist between France and Germany, England and
+Russia, Italy and Austria.
+
+There are, indeed, hopeful signs, in spite of Canon Mozley’s apology
+of despair, that the priesthood of Christendom may yet reawake to a
+sense of its power and opportunities for removing from the world an
+evil custom which lies at the root of almost every other, and is the
+main cause and sustenance of crime and pauperism and disease. It is
+possible that we have already passed the worst period of indifference
+in this respect, or that it may some day prove only to have been
+connected with the animosities of rival sects, ever ready to avail
+themselves of the chances that war between different nations might
+severally bring to their several petty interests. With the subsidence
+of such animosities, it were reasonable to expect the Church to
+reassert the more genuine principle of her action and attitude--that no
+evil incident to human society is to be regarded as irremediable till
+every resource has been exhausted to cope with it, and every outlet of
+escape from it been proved to be a failure. Then, but not till then, is
+it becoming in Christian priests to utter the language of helplessness;
+then, but not till then, should the Church fold her hands in despair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CURIOSITIES OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.
+
+ _La discipline n’est que l’art d’inspirer aux soldats plus de peur
+ de leurs officiers que des ennemis._--HELVETIUS.
+
+ Increased severity of discipline--Limitation of the right of
+ matrimony--Compulsory Church parade, and its origin--Atrocious
+ military punishments--Reasons for the military love of
+ red--The origin of bear-skin hats--Different qualities of
+ bravery--Historical fears for the extinction of courage--The
+ conquests of the cause of peace--Causes of the unpopularity of
+ military service--The dulness of life in the ranks--The prevalence
+ of desertion--Articles of war against malingering--Military
+ artificial ophthalmia--The debasing influence of discipline
+ illustrated from the old flogging system--The discipline of the
+ Peninsular army--Attempts to make the service more popular,
+ by raising the private’s wages, by shortening his term of
+ service--The old recruiting system of France and Germany--The
+ conscription imminent in England--The question of military service
+ for women--The probable results of the conscription--Militarism
+ answerable for Socialism.
+
+
+Two widely different conceptions of military discipline are contained
+in the words of an English writer of the seventeenth century, and in
+those of the French philosopher, Helvetius, in the eighteenth century.
+There is a fine ring of the best English spirit in the sentence of
+Gittins: ‘A soldier ought to fear nothing but God and dishonour.’
+And there is the true French wit and insight in that of Helvetius:
+‘Discipline is but the art of inspiring soldiers with more fear for
+their own officers than they have for the enemy.’[275]
+
+But the difference involved lies less in the national character of the
+writers than in the lapse of time between them, discipline having by
+degrees gained so greatly in severity that a soldier had come to be
+regarded less as a moral free agent than as a mechanical instrument,
+who, if he had any fear left for God and dishonour, felt it in a very
+minor degree to that which he cherished for his colonel or commander.
+This is the broad fact which explains and justifies the proposition of
+Helvetius; though no one, recollecting the evils of the days of looser
+discipline, might see cause to regret the change which deprived a
+soldier almost entirely of the moral liberty that naturally belonged to
+him as a man.
+
+The tendency of discipline to become more and more severe has of course
+the effect of rendering military service less popular, and consequently
+recruiting more difficult, without, unhappily, any corresponding
+diminution in the frequency of wars, which are independent of the
+hirelings who fight them. Were it otherwise, something might be said
+for the military axiom, that a soldier enjoys none of the common rights
+of man. There is therefore no gain from any point of view in denying
+to the military class the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of
+ordinary humanity.
+
+The extent of this denial and its futility may be shown by reference
+to army regulations concerning marriage and religious worship. In the
+Prussian army, till 1870, marriages were legally null and void and the
+offspring of them illegitimate in the case of officers marrying without
+royal consent, or of subordinate officers without the consent of the
+commander of their regiments. But after the Franco-German war so great
+was the social disorder found to be consequent upon these restrictions,
+that a special law had to be made to remove the bar of illegitimacy
+from the marriages in question.[276] In the English army the inability
+of privates to marry before the completion of seven years’ service, and
+the possession of at least one badge, and then only with the consent
+of the commanding officer, is a custom so entirely contrary to the
+liberty enjoyed in other walks of life, that, whatever its incidental
+advantages, it can scarcely fail to act as a deterring motive when the
+choice of a career becomes a subject of reflection.
+
+The custom of what is known in the army as Church Parade affords
+another instance of the unreasonable curtailments of individual
+liberty that are still regarded as essential to discipline. A soldier
+is drummed to church just as he is drummed to the drill-ground or the
+battle-field. His presence in church is a matter of compulsion, not of
+choice or conviction; and the general principle that such attendance is
+valueless unless it is voluntary is waived in his case as in that of
+very young children, with whom, in this respect, he is placed on a par.
+If we inquire for the origin of the practice, we shall probably find it
+in certain old Saxon and imperial articles of war, which show that the
+prayers of the military were formerly regarded as equally efficacious
+with their swords in obtaining victories over their enemies; and
+therefore as a very necessary part of their duty.[277] The American
+articles of war, since 1806, enact that ‘it is earnestly recommended
+to all officers and soldiers to attend divine service,’ thus obviating
+in a reasonable way all the evils inevitably connected with a purely
+compulsory, and therefore humiliating, church parade.[278]
+
+It may be that these restrictions of a soldier’s liberty are necessary;
+but if they are, and if, as Lord Macaulay says, soldiers must, ‘for the
+sake of public freedom, in the midst of public freedom, be placed under
+a despotic rule,’ ‘must be subject to a sharper penal code and to a
+more stringent code of procedure than are administered by the ordinary
+tribunals,’ so that acts, innocent in the citizen or only punished
+slightly, become crimes, capitally punishable, when committed by them,
+then at least we need no longer be astonished that it should be almost
+as difficult to entrap a recruit as to catch a criminal.
+
+But over and above the intrinsic disadvantages of military service,
+it would almost seem as if the war-presiding genii had of set purpose
+essayed to make it as distasteful as possible to mankind. For they have
+made discipline not merely a curtailment of liberty and a forfeiture of
+rights, but, as it were, an experiment on the extreme limits of human
+endurance. There has been no tyranny in the world, political, judicial,
+or ecclesiastical, but has had its parent and pattern in some military
+system. It has been from its armies more than from its kings that
+our world has learnt its lesson of arbitrary tribunals, tortures, and
+cruel punishments. The Inquisition itself could scarcely have devised
+a more excruciating punishment than the old English military one of
+riding the Wooden Horse, when the victim was made to sit astride planks
+nailed together in a sharp ridge, so as roughly to resemble a horse,
+with his hands tied behind him, and muskets fixed to his legs to drag
+them downwards; or again, than the punishment of the Picket, in which
+the hand was fastened to a hook in a post above the head, and the
+man’s suspended body left to be supported by his bare heel resting on
+a wooden stump, of which the end was cut to the sharpness of a sword
+point.[279] The punishment of running the gauntlet (from the German
+_Gassenlaufen_, street running, because the victim ran through the
+street between two lines of soldiers who tormented him on his course)
+is said to have been invented by Gustavus Adolphus; and is perhaps,
+from the fact of thus bringing the cruelty of many men to bear on a
+single comrade, the most cowardly form of torture that has ever yet
+found favour among military authorities.[280]
+
+But the penal part of military discipline, with its red-hot irons,
+its floggings, and its various forms of death, is too repulsive to do
+more than glance at as testimony of the cruelty and despotism that
+have never been separated from the calling of arms. The art of the
+disciplinarian has ever been to bring such a series of miseries to
+bear upon a man’s life that the prospect of death upon the battle-field
+should have for him rather charms than terrors; and the tale of the
+soldier who, when his regiment was to be decimated, drew a blank
+without the fatal D upon it, and immediately offered it to a comrade,
+who had not yet drawn, for half-a-crown, shows at how cheap a rate men
+may be reduced to value their lives after experience of the realities
+of a military career.
+
+Many of the devices are curious by which this indifference to life has
+been matured and sustained. In ancient Athens the public temples were
+closed to those who refused military service, who deserted their ranks
+or lost their bucklers; whilst a law of Charondas of Catana constrained
+such offenders to sit for three days in the public forum dressed in the
+garments of women. Many a Spartan mother would stab her son who came
+back alive from a defeat; and such a man, if he escaped his mother, was
+debarred not only from public offices but from marriage; exposed to
+the blows of all who chose to strike him; compelled to dress in mean
+clothing, and to wear his beard negligently trimmed. And in the same
+way a Norse soldier who fled, or lost his shield, or received a wound
+in any save the front part of his body, was by law prevented from ever
+afterwards appearing in public.[281]
+
+There are, indeed, few military customs but have their origin and
+explanation in the artificial promotion of courage in the minds of
+the combatants. This is true even to the details and peculiarities
+of costume. English children are, perhaps, still taught that French
+soldiers wear red trousers in order that the sight of blood may not
+frighten them in war-time; and doubtless French children imbibe a
+similar theory regarding the red coats of the English. The same reason
+was given by Julius Ferretus in the middle of the sixteenth century
+for the short red frock then generally worn by the military.[282] The
+first mention of red as a special military colour in England is said to
+have been the order issued in 1526 for the coats of all yeomen of the
+household to be of red cloth.[283] But the colour goes, at least, as
+far back as Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, who chose it, according to
+Xenophon, because red is most easily taken by cloth and most lasting;
+according to Plutarch, that its brightness might help to raise the
+spirits of its wearers; or, according to Ælian and Valerius Maximus,
+in order to conceal the sight of blood, that raw soldiers might not be
+dispirited and the enemy proportionately encouraged.
+
+The bear-skin hats, which still make some English regiments so
+ridiculous and unsightly, were originally no doubt intended to inspire
+terror. Evelyn, writing of the year 1678, says: ‘Now were brought into
+service a new sort of soldiers called Grenadiers, who were dexterous
+in flinging hand-grenades, every man having a handful. They had furred
+caps with coped crowns like Janizaries, which made them look very
+fierce; and some had long hoods hanging down behind as we picture
+fools.’ We may fairly identify the motive of such headgear with the
+result; and the more so since the looking fierce with the borrowed
+skins of bears was a well-known artifice of the ancient Romans. Thus
+Vegetius speaks of helmets as covered with bear-skins in order to
+terrify the enemy,[284] and Virgil has a significant description of a
+warrior as
+
+ Horridus in jaculis et pelle Libystidis ursæ.
+
+We may trace the same motive again in the figures of fierce birds or
+beasts depicted on flags and shields and helmets, whence they have
+descended with less harmful purpose to crests and armorial bearings.
+Thus the Cimbri, whom Marius defeated, wore on their plume-covered
+helmets the head of some fierce animal with its mouth open, vainly
+hoping thereby to intimidate the Romans. The latter, before it became
+customary to display the images of their emperors on their standards,
+reared aloft the menacing representations of dragons, tigers, wolves,
+and such like; and the figure of a dragon in use among the Saxons
+at the time of the Conquest, and after that event retained by the
+early Norman princes among the ensigns of war,[285] may reasonably
+be attributed to the same motive. The legend of St. George killing
+the Dragon, if it is not a survival of Theseus and the Minotaur, very
+likely originated as a myth, intended to be explanatory of the custom.
+
+Lastly, under this head should be mentioned Villani’s account of the
+English armour worn in the thirteenth century, where he describes how
+the pages studied to keep it clean and bright, so that when their
+masters came to action their armour shone like looking glass and gave
+them a more terrifying appearance.[286] Was the result here again the
+motive, and must we look for the primary cause of the great solicitude
+still paid to the brightness of accoutrements to the hope thereby to
+add a pang the more to the terror desirable to instil into an enemy?
+
+Such were some of the artificial supports supplied to bravery in former
+times. But there is all the difference in the world between the bravery
+appealed to by our ancestors and that required since the revolution
+effected in warfare by the invention of gunpowder. Before that epoch,
+the use of catapults, bows, or other missiles did not deduct from the
+paramount importance of personal valour. The brave soldier of olden
+times displayed the bravery of a man who defied a force similar or
+equal to his own, and against which the use of his own right hand and
+intellect might help him to prevail; but his modern descendant pits his
+bravery mainly against hazard, and owes it to chance alone if he escape
+alive from a battle. However higher in kind may be the bravery required
+to face a shower of shrapnel than to contend against swords and spears,
+it is assuredly a bravery that involves rather a blind trust in luck
+than a rational trust in personal fortitude.
+
+So thoroughly indeed was this change foreseen and appreciated that at
+every successive advance in the methods of slaughter curious fears
+for the total extinction of military courage have haunted minds too
+readily apprehensive, and found sometimes remarkable expression.
+When the catapult[287] was first brought from Sicily to Greece, King
+Archidamus saw in it the grave of true valour; and the sentiment
+against firearms, which led Bayard to exclaim, ‘C’est une honte qu’un
+homme de cœur soit exposé à périr par une miserable friquenelle,’ was
+one that was traceable even down to the last century in the history of
+Europe. For Charles XII. of Sweden is declared by Berenhorst to have
+felt keenly the infamy of such a mode of fighting; and Marshal Saxe
+held musketry fire in such contempt that he even went so far as to
+advocate the reintroduction of the lance, and a return to the close
+combats customary in earlier times.[288]
+
+But our military codes contain no reflection of the different aspects
+under which personal bravery enters into modern, as compared with
+ancient, warfare; and this omission has tended to throw governments
+back upon pure force and compulsion, as the only possible way of
+recruiting their regiments. The old Roman military punishments, such as
+cruelly scourging a man before putting him to death, afford certainly
+no models of a lenient discipline; but when we read of companies who
+lost their colours being for punishment only reduced to feed on barley
+instead of wheat, and reflect that death by shooting would be the
+penalty under the discipline of most modern nations[289] for an action
+bearing any complexion of cowardice, it is impossible to admit that
+a rational adjustment of punishments to offences is at all better
+observed in the war articles of the moderns than in the military codes
+of pagan antiquity.
+
+This, at least, is clear, from the history of military discipline,
+that only by the most repressive laws, and by a tyranny subversive
+of the commonest rights of men, is it possible to retain men in the
+fighting service of a country, after forcing or cajoling them into
+it. And this consideration fully meets the theory of an inherent love
+of fighting dominating human nature, such as that contended for in a
+letter from Lord Palmerston to Cobden, wherein he argues that man is
+by nature a fighting and quarrelling animal. The proposition is true
+undoubtedly of some savage races, and of the idle knights of the days
+of chivalry, but, not even in those days, of the lower classes, who
+incurred the real dangers of war, and still less of the unfortunate
+privates or conscripts of modern armies. Fighting is only possible
+between civilised countries, because discipline first fits men for war
+and for nothing else, and then war again necessitates discipline. Nor
+is anything gained by ignoring the conquests that have already been
+won over the savage propensity to war. Single States no longer suffer
+private wars within their boundaries, like those customary between
+the feudal barons; we decide most of our quarrels in law courts, not
+upon battle-fields, and wisely prefer arguments to arms. A population
+as large as that of Ireland and about double as large as that of all
+our colonies in Australia put together lives in London alone, not only
+without weapons of defence in their hands, but with so little taste
+for blood-encounters that you may walk for whole days through its
+length and breadth without so much as seeing a single street-fight.
+If then this miracle of social order has been achieved, why not the
+wider one of that harmony between nations which requires but a little
+common-sense and determination on the part of those most concerned in
+order to become an accomplished reality?
+
+The limitations of personal liberty already alluded to would of
+themselves suffice in a country of free institutions to render the
+military profession distasteful and unpopular. The actual perils
+of war, at no time greater than those of mines, railways, or
+merchant-shipping, would never alone deter men from service; so that
+we must look for other causes to explain the difficulty of recruiting
+and the frequency of desertion, which are the perplexity of military
+systems still based, as our own is, on the principle of voluntary not
+compulsory enlistment.
+
+What then makes a military life so little an object of desire in
+countries where it can be avoided is more than its dangers, more even
+than its loss of liberty, its irredeemable and appalling dulness. The
+shades in point of cheerfulness must be few and fine which distinguish
+a barrack from a convict prison. In none of the employments of civil
+life is there anything to compare with the unspeakable monotony of
+parades, recurring three or four times every day, varied perhaps in
+wet weather by the military catechism, and with the intervals of time
+spent in occupations of neither interest nor dignity. The length of
+time devoted to the mere cleaning and polishing of accoutrements is
+such, that the task has actually come to have the name ‘soldiering’;
+and the work which comes next in importance to this soldiering is the
+humble one of peeling potatoes for dinner. Even military greatcoats
+require on a moderate estimate half a hour or more every day to be
+properly folded, the penalty of an additional hour’s drill being the
+probable result of any carelessness in this highly important military
+function. But for the attention thus given to military dress the author
+of the ‘Soldier’s Pocket Book’ supplies us with a reason: ‘The better
+you dress a soldier, the more highly he will be thought of by women and
+consequently by himself.’
+
+Still less calculated to lend attractiveness to the life of the ranks
+are the daily fatigue works, or extra duties which fall in turn on the
+men of every company, such as coal carrying, passage cleaning, gutter
+clearing, and other like menial works of necessity.
+
+But it is the long hours of sentry duty, popularly called ‘Sentry-go,’
+which constitute the soldier’s greatest bane. Guard duty in England,
+recurring at short periods, lasts a whole day and night, every four
+hours of the twenty-four being spent in full accoutrements in the
+guard-room, and every intervening two hours on active sentry, thus
+making in all--sixteen hours in the guard-room, and eight on the sentry
+post. The voluntary sufferings of the saints, the tortures devised by
+the religious orders of olden days, or the self-inflicted hardships of
+sport, pale before the two hours’ sentry-go on a winter’s night. This
+it is that kills our soldiers more fatally than an enemy’s cannon, and
+is borne with more admirable patience than even the hardships of a
+siege. ‘After about thirty-one or thirty-two years of age,’ says Sir
+F. Roberts, ‘the private soldier usually ages rapidly, and becomes a
+veteran both in looks and habits;’[290] and this distinguished military
+commander points to excessive sentry duty as the cause.
+
+But, possible as it thus is, by rigour of discipline, to produce in a
+soldier total indifference to death, by depriving him of everything
+that makes life desirable, it is impossible to produce indifference to
+tedium; and a policy is evidently self-destructive which, by aiming
+exclusively at producing a mechanical character, renders military
+service itself so unpopular that only the young, the inexperienced,
+or the ill-advised will join the colours at all; that 10 per cent. of
+those who do join them will desert; and that the rest will regard it as
+the gala day of their lives when they become legally entitled to their
+discharge from the ranks.
+
+In England about 10 per cent. of the recruits desert every year, as
+compared with 50 per cent. from the small army of the United States.
+The reason for so great a difference is probably not so much that the
+American discipline is more severe or dull than the English, as that in
+the newer country, where subsistence is easier, the counter-attractions
+of peaceful trades offer more plentiful inducements to desertion.
+
+Desertion from the English ranks has naturally diminished since the
+introduction of the short-service system has set a visible term to
+the hardships of a military life. Adherence to the colours for seven
+or eight years, or even for twelve, which is now the longest service
+possible at the time of enlistment, and adherence to them for life,
+clearly place a very different complexion on the desirability of an
+illegal escape from them. So that considering the reductions that
+have been made in the term of service, and the increase of pay made
+in 1867, and again in 1873, nothing more strongly demonstrates the
+national aversion of the English people to arms than the exceeding
+difficulty with which the ranks are recruited, and the high average
+of the percentage of desertions. If of recent years recruiting has
+been better, the explanation is simply that trade has been worse;
+statistics of recruiting being the best possible barometer of the state
+of the nation, since the scarcity or abundance of recruits varies
+concomitantly with the brisk or slack demand for labour in other
+employments.
+
+In few things has the world grown more tolerant than in its opinion and
+treatment of Desertion. Death was once its certain penalty, and death
+with every aggravation that brutal cruelty could add. Two of Rome’s
+most famous generals were Scipio Æmilianus and Paulus Æmilius; yet the
+former consigned deserters to fight wild beasts at the public games,
+and the latter had them trodden to death by elephants.
+
+A form of desertion, constituting one of the most curious but least
+noticed chapters in the history of military discipline, is that
+of Malingering, or the feigning of sickness, and self-mutilation,
+disabling from service. The practice goes far back into history.
+Cicero tells of a man who was sold for a slave for having cut off a
+finger, in order to escape from a campaign in Sicily. Vegetius, the
+great authority on Roman discipline, speaks of soldiers who simulated
+sickness being punished as traitors;[291] and an old English writer on
+the subject says of the Romans: ‘Whosoever mutilated their own or their
+children’s bodies so as thereby designedly to render them unfit to
+carry arms (a practice common enough in those elder times when all were
+pressed to the wars), were adjudicated to perpetual exile.’[292]
+
+The writer here referred to lived long before the days of the
+conscription, with which he fancied self-mutilation to be connected.
+And it certainly seems that whereas all the military codes of modern
+nations contain articles dealing with that offence, and decreeing
+penalties against it, there was less of it in the days before
+compulsory service. There is, for instance, no mention of it in the
+German articles of war of the seventeenth century, though the other
+military crimes were precisely those that are common enough still.[293]
+
+But even in England, where soldiers are not yet military slaves, it
+has been found necessary to deal, by specific clauses in the army
+regulations, with a set of facts of which there is no notice in the war
+articles of the seventeenth or eighteenth century.[294] The inference
+therefore is, that the conditions of military service have become
+universally more disagreeable. The clauses in the actual war articles
+deserve to be quoted, that it may appear, by the provisions against it,
+to what lengths the arts of self-mutilation are carried by despairing
+men. The 81st Article of War provides punishment against any soldier
+in Her Majesty’s army ‘who shall malinger, feign or produce disease or
+infirmity, or shall wilfully do any act or wilfully disobey any orders
+whether in hospital or otherwise, thereby producing or aggravating
+disease or infirmity or delaying his cure, ... or who shall maim or
+injure himself or any other soldier, whether at the instance of such
+other soldier or not, or cause himself to be maimed or injured by
+any other person with intent thereby to render himself or such other
+soldier unfit for service, ... or who shall tamper with his eyes with
+intent thereby to render himself unfit for service.’
+
+That it should be necessary thus to provide against self-inflicted
+injuries is surely commentary enough on the condition of life in the
+ranks. The allusion to tampering with the eyes may be illustrated from
+a passage in the ‘Life of Sir C. Napier,’ wherein we are told how in
+the year 1808 a private of the 28th Regiment taught his fellow-soldiers
+to produce artificial ophthalmia by holding their eyelids open, whilst
+a comrade in arms would scrape some lime from the barrack ceiling into
+their eyes.[295] For a profession of which such things are common
+incidents, surely the wonder is, not that it should be difficult, but
+that it should be possible at all, to make recruits. In the days of
+Mehemet Ali in Egypt, so numerous were the cases in which the natives
+voluntarily blinded themselves, and even their children, of one eye in
+order to escape the conscription, that Mehemet Ali is said to have
+found himself under the necessity of raising a one-eyed regiment.
+Others for the same purpose would chop off the trigger finger of the
+right hand, or disable themselves from biting cartridges by knocking
+out some of their upper teeth. Scarcely a peasant in the fields but
+bore the trace of some such voluntarily inflicted disfigurement. But
+with such facts it seems idle to talk of any inherent love for fighting
+dominating the vast majority of mankind.
+
+The severity of military discipline has even a worse effect than those
+yet alluded to in its tendency to demoralise those who are long subject
+to it, by inducing mental habits of servility and baseness. After
+Alexander the Great had killed Clitus in a fit of drunken rage, the
+Macedonian soldiery voted that Clitus had been justly slain, and prayed
+that he might not enjoy the rites of sepulture.[296] Military servility
+could scarcely go further than that, but such baseness is only possible
+under a state of discipline which, to make a soldier, unmakes a man,
+by depriving him of all that distinguishes his species. Under no other
+than military training, and in no other than the military class, would
+the atrocities have been possible which used to be perpetrated in the
+barrack riding-school in the old flogging days. Officers and privates
+needed the debasing influence of discipline to enable them to look on
+as patient spectators at the sufferings of a helpless comrade tortured
+by the cat-o’-nine tails. Sir C. Napier said that as a subaltern
+he ‘frequently saw 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1,000 lashes sentenced
+by regimental courts-martial and generally every lash inflicted;’
+a feeling of horror would run through the ranks at the first blows
+and some recruits would faint, but that was all.[297] Had they been
+men and not soldiers, they would not have stood such iniquities.
+A typical instance of this martial justice or law (to employ the
+conventional profanation of those words) was that of a sergeant who in
+1792 was sentenced to 1,000 lashes for having enlisted two drummers
+for the East India Company whom he knew to belong already to the Foot
+Guards; but the classical description of an English flogging will
+always be Somerville’s account of its infliction upon himself in his
+‘Autobiography of a Working Man.’[298] There you may read how the
+regiment was drawn up four-deep inside the riding-school; how the
+officers (men of gentle birth and breeding) stood within the lines of
+the men; how the basin of water and towels were ready prepared in case
+the victim should faint; how the hands and feet of the latter were
+fastened to a ladder by a rope; and how the regimental sergeant-major
+stood with book and pencil coolly counting each stroke as it was
+delivered with slow and deliberate torture till the full complement of
+a hundred lashes had been inflicted. The mere reading of it even now
+is enough to make the blood boil, but that men, brave and freeborn,
+should have stood by in their hundreds and seen the actual reality
+without stirring, proves how utterly all human feeling is eradicable by
+discipline, and how sure is the training it supplies in disregard for
+the common claims of humanity.
+
+Happily, floggings in the English army now count among the curiosities
+of military discipline, like the wooden horse or the thumb-screw;
+but the striking thing is that the discipline, in the sense of the
+good conduct of the army in the field, was never worse than in the
+days when 1,000 lashes were common sentences. It was precisely when
+courts-martial had the legal power to exercise such tyranny that
+the Duke of Wellington complained to Lord Castlereagh that the law
+was not strong enough to maintain discipline in an army upon actual
+service.[299] Speaking of the army in the Peninsula he says: ‘It is
+impossible to describe to you the irregularities and outrages committed
+by the troops; ... there is not an outrage of any description which
+has not been committed on a people who have received us as friends
+by soldiers who never yet for one moment suffered the slightest want
+or the smallest privation.... We are an excellent army on parade, an
+excellent one to fight, but we are worse than an enemy in a country.’
+And again a few months later: ‘I really believe that more plunder and
+outrage have been committed by this army than by any other that was
+ever in the field.’ In the general order of May 19, 1809, are these
+words: ‘The officers of companies must attend to the men in their
+quarters as well as on the march, or the army will soon be no better
+than a banditti.’[300]
+
+Whence it is fair to infer that severity of discipline has no necessary
+connection with the good behaviour or easy control of troops in
+the field, such discipline under the Iron Duke himself having been
+conspicuous for so lamentable a failure. The real fact would seem
+to be, that troops are difficult to manage just in proportion to the
+rigour, the monotony, and the dulness of the discipline imposed upon
+them in time of peace; the rebound corresponding to the compression,
+by a moral law that seems to follow the physical one. This fact is
+nowhere better noticed than in Lord Wolseley’s narrative of the China
+war of 1860, where he says, in allusion to the general love of pillage
+and destruction that characterises soldiers and was so conspicuously
+displayed at the shameful burning of the beautiful palaces in and
+round Pekin: ‘Soldiers are nothing more than grown-up schoolboys.
+The wild moments of enjoyment passed in the pillage of a place live
+long in a soldier’s memory.... Such a time forms so marked a contrast
+with the ordinary routine of existence passed under the tight hand of
+discipline that it becomes a remarkable event in life and is remembered
+accordingly.’[301]
+
+The experience of the Peninsular war proves how slender is the
+link between a well-drilled and a well-disciplined army. The best
+disciplined army is the one which conducts itself with least excess
+in the field and is least demoralised by victory. It is the hour of
+victory that is the great test of the value of military regulations;
+and so well aware of this was the best disciplined State of antiquity,
+that the soldiers of Sparta desisted from pursuit as soon as victory
+was assured to them, partly because it was deemed ungenerous to destroy
+those who could make no further resistance (a sentiment absolutely
+wanting from the boasted chivalry of Christian warfare), and partly
+that the enemy might be tempted to prefer flight to resistance. It is a
+reproach to modern generalship that it has been powerless to restrain
+such excesses as those which have made the successful storming of
+cities rather a disgrace than an honour to those who have won them.
+The only way to check them is to make the officers responsible for
+what occurs, as might be done, for instance, by punishing a general
+capitally for storming a city with forces so badly disciplined as
+to nullify the advantages of success. An English military writer,
+speaking of the storming of Ismail and Praga by the Russians under
+Suwarrow, says truly that ‘posterity will hold the fame and honour of
+the commander responsible for the life of every human being sacrificed
+by disciplined armies beyond the fair verge of battle;’ but it is idle
+to speak as if only Russian armies were guilty of such excesses, or
+to say that nothing but the prospect of them could tempt the Russian
+soldier to mount the breach or the scaling-ladder. The Russian soldier
+in history yields not one whit to the English or French in bravery, nor
+is there a grain of difference between the Russian storming of Ismail
+and Praga and the English storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, or San
+Sebastian, that tarnished the lustre of the British arms in the famous
+Peninsular war.
+
+And should we be tempted to think that successes like these associated
+with the names of these places may be so important in war as to
+outweigh all other considerations, we must also not forget that the
+permanent military character of nations, for humanity or the reverse,
+counts for more in the long run of a people’s history than any
+advantage that can possibly be gained in a single campaign.
+
+Enough has, perhaps, been said of the unpopularity of military service,
+and of the obvious causes thereof, to make it credible that, had the
+system of conscription never been resorted to in Europe, and the
+principle of voluntary enlistment remained intact and universal, the
+difficulty of procuring the human fighting material in sufficient
+quantities would in course of time have rendered warfare impossible. As
+other industries than mere fighting have won their way in the world,
+the difficulty of hiring recruits to sell their lives to their country
+has kept even pace with the facility of obtaining livelihoods in more
+regular and more lucrative as well as less miserable avocations. In the
+fourteenth century soldiers were very highly paid compared with other
+classes, and the humblest private received a daily wage equivalent to
+that of a skilled mechanic;[302] but the historical process has so
+far reversed matters that now the pay of the humblest mechanic would
+compare favourably with that of all the fighting grades lower than
+the commissioned and warrant ranks. Consequently, every attempt to
+make the service popular has as yet been futile, no amelioration of
+it enabling it to compete with pacific occupations. The private’s pay
+was raised from sixpence to a shilling during the wars of the French
+Revolution;[303] and before that it was found necessary, about the
+time of the war with the American colonies, to bribe men to enlist
+by the system (since abolished) of giving bounties at the time of
+enlistment. Previous to the introduction of the bounty system, a guinea
+to provide the recruit with necessaries and a crown wherewith to drink
+the king’s health was all that was given upon enlistment, the service
+itself (with the chances of loot and the allied pleasures) having been
+bounty enough.[304] Even the system of bounties proved attractive only
+to boys; for as the English statesman said, whose name is honourably
+associated with the first change in our system from enlistment for
+life to enlistment for a limited period, ‘men grown up with all the
+grossness and ignorance and consequent want of consideration incident
+to the lower classes’ were too wary to accept the offers of the
+recruiting department.[305]
+
+The shortening of the term of service in 1806 and subsequently
+the increase of pay, the mitigation of punishments, must all be
+understood as attempts to render the military life more attractive
+and more capable of competing with other trades; but that they have
+all signally failed is proved by the chronic and ever-increasing
+difficulty of decoying recruits. The little pamphlet, published by
+authority and distributed gratis at every post-office in the kingdom,
+showing forth ‘the Advantages of the Army’ in their rosiest colours,
+cannot counteract the influence of the oral evidence of men, who,
+after a short period of service, are dispersed to all corners of the
+country, with their tales of military misery to tell, confirming and
+propagating that popular theory of a soldier’s life which sees in it a
+sort of earthly purgatory for faults of character acquired in youth, a
+calling only to be adopted by those whose antecedents render industry
+distasteful to them, and unfit them for more useful pursuits.
+
+The same difficulty of recruiting was felt in France and Germany in the
+last century, when voluntary enlistment was still the rule. In that
+curious old military book, Fleming’s ‘Volkommene Teutsche Soldat,’ is a
+picture of the recruiting officer, followed by trumpeters and drummers,
+parading the streets, and shaking a hat full of silver coins near a
+table spread with the additional temptations of wine and beer.[306] But
+it soon became necessary to supplement this system by coercive methods;
+and when the habitual neglect of the wounded and the great number of
+needless wars made it difficult or impossible to fill up the ranks with
+fresh recruits, the German authorities resorted to a regular system of
+kidnapping, taking men as they could get them from their ploughs, their
+churches, or even from their very beds.
+
+In France, too, Louis XIV. had to resort to force for filling his ranks
+in the war of the Spanish Succession; although the system of recruiting
+remained nominally voluntary till very much later. The total cost of
+a French recruit amounted to ninety-two livres; but the length of his
+service, though it was changed from time to time from periods varying
+from three to eight years, never exceeded the latter limit, nor came to
+be for life as it did practically in England.
+
+The experience of other countries proves, therefore, that England
+will sooner or later adopt the principle of conscription or cease to
+waste blood and money in Continental quarrels. The conscription will
+be for her the only possible way of obtaining an army at all, or one
+at all commensurate with those of her possible European rivals. We
+should not forget that in 1878, when we were on the verge of a war with
+Russia (and we live always on the verge of a war with Russia), our
+best military experts met and agreed that only by means of compulsory
+service could we hope to cope with our enemy with any chance of
+success. And the conscription, whether under a free government or
+not, means a tyranny compared to which the tyrannies of the Tudors
+or Stuarts were as a yoke of silk to a yoke of iron. It would matter
+little that it should lead to or involve a political despotism, for
+the greater despotism would ever be the military one, crushing out
+all individuality, moral liberty, and independence, and consigning to
+the soul-destroying routine of petty military details all the talent,
+taste, knowledge, and wealth of our country, which have hitherto given
+it a distinctive character in history, and a foremost place among the
+nations of the earth.
+
+In the year 1702 a woman served as a captain in the French army with
+such signal bravery that she was rewarded with the Order of St. Louis.
+Nor was this the only result; for the episode roused a serious debate
+in the world, whether, or not, military service might be expected of,
+or exacted from, the female sex generally.[307] Why, then, should the
+conscription be confined to one half only of a population, in the face
+of so many historical instances of women who have shown pre-eminent,
+or at least average, military capacity? And if military service is so
+ennobling and excellent a thing, as it is said to be, for the male
+population of a country, why not also for the female? Or as we may be
+sure that it would be to the last degree debasing for the latter half
+of the community, may we not suspect that the reasoning is altogether
+sophistical which claims other effects as the consequence of its
+operation on the stronger sex?
+
+What those effects are likely to be on the further development of
+European civilisation, we are as yet scarcely in a position to judge.
+We are still living only on the threshold of the change, and can
+hardly estimate the ultimate effect on human life of the transference
+to the whole male population of a country of the habits and vices
+previously confined to only a section of it. But this at least is
+certain, that at present every prediction which ushered in the change
+is being falsified from year to year. This universal service which
+we call the conscription was, we were told, to usher in a sort of
+millennium; it was to have the effect of humanising warfare; of
+raising the moral tone of armies; and of securing peace, by making
+the prospect of its alternative too appalling to mankind. Not only
+has it done none of these things, but there are even indications of
+consequences the very reverse. The amenities that cast occasional
+gleams over the professional hostilities of the eighteenth century, as
+when, for instance, Crillon besieging Gibraltar sent a cart-load of
+carrots to the English governor, whose men were dying of scurvy, have
+passed altogether out of the pale of possibility, and given place to
+a hatred between the combatant forces that is tempered by no courtesy
+nor restrained by the shadow of humanity. Whole nations, instead of
+a particular class, have been familiarised with deeds of robbery and
+bloodshed, and parted with a large part of their leisure once available
+for progress in industry. War itself is at any given moment infinitely
+more probable than it used to be, from the constant expectation of it
+which comes of constant preparation; nothing having been proved falser
+by history than the popular paradox which has descended to us from
+Vegetius that the preparation for war is the high road to peace.[308]
+When, one may ask, has the world not been prepared for war, and how
+then has it had so much of it? And as to the higher moral tone likely
+to spring from universal militarism, of what kind may we expect it to
+be, when we read in a work by the greatest living English general,
+destined, Carlyle hoped, one day to make short work of Parliament, such
+an exposition as the following of the relation between the moral duties
+of a soldier and those of a civilian: ‘He (the soldier) must be taught
+to believe that his duties are the noblest which fall to a man’s lot.
+He must be taught to despise all those of civil life. Soldiers, like
+missionaries, must be fanatics.’[309]
+
+Erasmus once observed in a letter to a friend how little it mattered
+to most men to what nationality they belonged, seeing that it was only
+a question of paying taxes to Thomas instead of to John, or to John
+instead of to Thomas; but it becomes a matter of even less importance
+when it is only a question of being trained for murder and bloodshed in
+the drill-yards of this or that government. What is it to a conscript
+whether it is for France or Germany that he is forced to undergo drill
+and discipline, when the insipidity of the drill and the tyranny of the
+discipline is the same in either case? If the old definition of a man
+as a reasoning animal is to be exchanged for that of a fighting animal,
+and the claims of a country upon a man are to be solely or mainly in
+respect of his fighting utility, it is evident that the relation is
+altered between the individual and his country, and that there is no
+longer any tie of affection between them, nor anything to make one
+nationality different from or preferable to another. This is clearly
+the tendency of the conscription; and it is already remarkable how it
+has lessened those earlier and narrower views of patriotism which were
+the pretext formerly for so many trials of strength between nations.
+What, then, are the probable ultimate effects of this innovation on the
+development and maintenance of the peace in Europe?
+
+The conscription, by reducing the idea of a country to that merely of
+a military despotism, has naturally caused the differences between
+nations to sink into a secondary place, and to be superseded by those
+differences of class, opinions, and interests which are altogether
+independent of nationality, and regardless of the barriers of language
+or geography. Thus the artisan of one country has learnt to regard
+his fellow-worker of another country as in a much truer sense his
+countryman than the priest or noble who, because he lives in the same
+geographical area as himself, pays his taxes to the same central
+government; and the different political schools in the several
+countries of Europe have far more in common with one another than with
+the opposite party of their own nationality. So that the first effect
+of that great military engine, the conscription, has been to unloosen
+the bonds of the idea of nationality which has so long usurped the
+title to patriotism; to free us from that notion of our duty towards
+our neighbour which bids us hate him because he is our neighbour; and
+to diminish to that extent the chances of war by the undermining of the
+prejudice which has ever been its mainstay.
+
+But the conscription in laying one spectre has raised another; for over
+against Nationalism, the jealousy of nations, it has reared Socialism,
+the jealousy of classes. It has done so, not only by weakening the old
+national idea which kept the rivalry of classes in abeyance, but by
+the pauperism, misery, and discontent which are necessarily involved
+in the addition it causes to military expenditure. The increase caused
+by it is so enormous as to be almost incredible. In France the annual
+military expenditure is now about twenty-five million pounds, whereas
+in 1869, before the new law of universal liability to service, the
+total annual cost of the army was little over fifteen millions, or the
+average annual cost of the present army of Great Britain. ‘Nothing,’
+said Froissart, ‘drains a treasury like men-at-arms;’ and it is
+probably below the truth to say that a country is the poorer by a
+pound for every shilling it expends upon its army. Thus by the nature
+of things is Socialism seen to flow from the conscription; and we have
+only to look at the recent history of Europe to see how the former has
+grown and spread in exact ratio to the extension of the latter. That it
+does not yet prevail so widely in England as in France, or Germany, or
+Russia is because as yet we have not that compulsory military service
+for which our military advisers are beginning to clamour.
+
+The growth of Socialism in its turn is not without an effect that
+may prove highly beneficial as a solvent of the militarism which is
+the uncompensated evil of modern times. For it tends to compel the
+governments of our different nationalities to draw closer together,
+and, adopting some of the cosmopolitanism of their common foe, to enter
+into league and union against those enemies to actual institutions for
+whom militarism itself is primarily responsible, owing to the example
+so long set by it in methods of lawlessness, to the sanction so long
+given by it to crime. With Socialistic theories permeating every
+country, but more especially those that groan under the conscription,
+international jealousies are smothered and kept down, and must, if the
+cause continues, ultimately die out. Hence the curious result, but
+a result fraught with hopefulness for the future, that the peace of
+the world should owe itself now, in an indirect but clearly traceable
+manner, to the military system which of all others that was ever
+invented is the best calculated to prevent and endanger it. But since
+this is merely to say that the danger of foreign war is lessened by
+the imminent fear of civil war, little is gained by the exchange of
+one peril for another. Socialism can only be averted by removing the
+cause which gives birth to it--namely, that unproductive expenditure on
+military forces which intensifies and perpetuates pauperism. So that
+the problem of the times for us in England is not how we may obtain
+a more liberal military expenditure, still less how we may compass
+compulsory service; but rather how most speedily we can disband our
+army--an ever-growing danger to our peace and liberty--and how we can
+advance elsewhere the cause of universal disarmament.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTY.
+
+ _‘I confess when I went into arms at the beginning of this war,
+ I never troubled myself to examine sides; I was glad to hear the
+ drums beat for soldiers, as if I had been a mere Swiss, that had
+ not cared which side went up or down, so I had my pay.’_--MEMOIRS
+ OF A CAVALIER.
+
+ The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed--Military
+ purificatory customs--Modern change of feeling about
+ warfare--Descartes on the profession of arms--The old-world
+ sentiment in favour of piracy--The central question of military
+ ethics--May a soldier be indifferent to the cause of war?--The
+ right to serve made conditional on a good cause, by St. Augustine,
+ Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir James Turner--Old Greek feeling about
+ mercenary service--Origin of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous
+ service--Armies raised by military contractors--The value of the
+ distinction between foreign and native mercenaries--Original
+ limitation of military duty to the actual defence of the
+ realm--Extension of the notion of allegiance--The connection of the
+ military oath with the first Mutiny Act--Recognised limits to the
+ claims on a soldier’s obedience--The falsity of the common doctrine
+ of duty illustrated by the devastation of the Palatinate by the
+ French and by the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English--The
+ example of Admiral Keppel--Justice between nations--Its observation
+ in ancient India and Rome--St. Augustine and Bayard on justice
+ in war--Grotius on good grounds of war--The military claim to
+ exemption from moral responsibility--The soldier’s first duty to
+ his conscience--The admission of this principle involves the end of
+ war.
+
+
+It must needs be that new questions arise, or old perplexities in
+a fresh form; and of these one that has risen again in our time is
+this: Does any moral stain attach to bloodshed committed upon the
+battle-field? Or is the difference between military and ordinary
+homicide a real one, and does the plea of duty sanction any act,
+however atrocious in the abstract, provided it be committed under the
+uniform of the State?
+
+The general opinion is, of course, that no soldier in his military
+capacity can be guilty of crime; but opinion has not always been so
+fixed, and it is worth noticing that in the forms of civilisation that
+preceded our own, and in some existing modern races of lower type
+than our own, traces clearly appear of a sense of wrong attaching to
+any form of bloodshed whatever, whether of fair battle or of base
+treachery, calling alike for the purifying influences of expiation and
+cleansing. In South Africa, for instance, the Basuto returning from
+war proceeds with all his arms to the nearest stream, to purify not
+only his own person but his javelins and his battle-axe. The Zulu, too,
+practises ablutions on the same occasion; and the Bechuana warrior
+wears a rude kind of necklace, to remind him of the expiation due from
+him to the slain, and to disperse the dreams that might otherwise
+trouble him, and perhaps even drive him to die of remorse.[310]
+
+The same feelings may be detected in the old world. The Macedonians
+had a peculiar form of sacrificatory purification, which consisted
+in cutting a dog in half and leading the whole army, arrayed in full
+armour, between the two parts.[311] As the Bœotians had the same
+custom, it was probably for the same reason. At Rome, for the same
+purpose, a sheep, and a bull, and a pig or boar, were every year led
+three times round the army and then sacrificed to Mars. In Jewish
+history the prohibition to King David to build the temple was expressly
+connected with the blood he had shed in battle. In old Greek mythology
+Theseus held himself unfit, without expiation, to be admitted to the
+mysteries of Ceres, though the blood that stained his hands was only
+that of thieves and robbers. And in the same spirit Hector refused to
+make a libation to the gods before he had purified his hands after
+battle. ‘With unwashen hands,’ he said, ‘to pour out sparkling wine
+to Zeus I dare not, nor is it ever the custom for one soiled with the
+blood and dust of battle to offer prayers to the god whose seat is in
+the clouds.’[312]
+
+For the cause of this feeling we may perhaps choose between an almost
+instinctive reluctance to take human life, and some such superstition
+as explains the necessity for purification among the Basutos,--the
+idea, namely, of escaping the revenge of the slain by the medium of
+water.[313] The latter explanation would be in keeping with the not
+uncommon notion in savage life of the inability of a spirit to cross
+running water, and would help to account for the necessity there was
+for a Hebrew to flee, or for a Greek to make some expiation, even
+though only guilty of an act of unintentional homicide. And in this way
+it is possible that the sanctity of human life, which is one of the
+chief marks, and should be one of the chief objects, of civilisation,
+originated in the very same fear of a post-mortem vengeance, which
+leads some savage tribes to entreat pardon of the bear or elephant
+they have slain after a successful chase.
+
+But, account as we like for the origin of the feeling, its undoubted
+existence is the point of interest, for it is easy to see that under
+slightly more favourable conditions of history it might have ripened
+into a state of thought which would have held the soldier and the
+manslayer in equal abhorrence. Christianity in its primitive form
+certainly aimed at and very nearly effected the transition. In the
+Greek Church a Christian soldier was debarred from the Eucharist for
+three years if he had slain an enemy in battle; and the Christian
+Church of the first three centuries would have echoed the sentiment
+expressed by St. Cyprian in his letter to Donatus: ‘Homicide when
+committed by an individual is a crime, but a virtue when committed in
+a public war; yet in the latter case it derives its impunity, not from
+its abstract harmlessness, but solely from the scale of its enormity.’
+
+The education of centuries has long since effaced the earlier scruple;
+but there are tens of thousands of Englishmen to whom the military
+profession is the last they would voluntarily adopt, and it would be
+rash to predict the impossibility of the revival of the older feeling,
+or the dimensions it may ultimately assume. The greatest poet of our
+time, who more than any other living man has helped to lead European
+opinion into new channels, may, perhaps, in the following lines have
+anticipated the verdict of the coming time, and divined an undercurrent
+of thought that is beginning to flow even now amongst us with no
+inconsiderable force of feeling:--
+
+ La phrase, cette altière et vile courtisane,
+ Dore le meurtre en grand, fourbit la pertuisane,
+ Protège les soudards contre le sens commun,
+ Persuade les niais que tous sont faits pour un,
+ Prouve que la tuerie est glorieuse et bonne,
+ Déroute la logique et l’évidence, et donne
+ Un sauf-conduit au crime à travers la raison.[314]
+
+The destruction of the romance of war by the greater publicity given to
+its details through the medium of the press clearly tends to strengthen
+this feeling, by tempering popular admiration for military success
+with a cooling admixture of horror and disgust. Take, for instance,
+the following description of the storming of the Egyptian trenches at
+Tel-el-Kebir, by an eye-witness of it:--‘In the redoubts into which
+our men were swarming the Egyptians, throwing away their arms, were
+found cowering, terror-stricken, in the corners of the works, to hide
+themselves from our men. Although they had made such a contemptible
+exhibition, from a soldierly point of view, it was impossible to help
+pitying the poor wretches as they huddled together; _it seemed so much
+like rats in a pit when the terrier has set to work_.’ And some 2,500
+of them were afterwards buried on the spot, most of them killed by
+bayonet wounds in the back.
+
+This is an instance of the _tuerie_ that Victor Hugo speaks of, which
+we all call glorious when we meet in the streets, reserving, some of
+us, another opinion for the secret chamber. Still, when it comes to
+comparing the work of a victory to that of a terrier in a rat-pit, it
+must be admitted that the realism of war threatens to become more
+repellent than its romance was once attractive, and to deter men more
+and more from the choice of a profession of which similar disgusting
+scenes are the common and the probable episodes.
+
+Descartes, the father of modern philosophy and of free thought, who,
+from a youthful love for arms and camp-life, which he attributed to a
+certain heat of liver, began life in the army, actually gave up his
+military career for the reasons which he thus expressed in a letter
+to a friend: ‘Although custom and example render the profession of
+arms the noblest of all, I, for my own part, who only regard it like a
+philosopher, value it at its proper worth, and, indeed, I find it very
+difficult to give it a place among the honourable professions, seeing
+that idleness and licentiousness are the two principal motives which
+now attract most men to it.’[315]
+
+Of course no one in modern times would come to the same conclusions
+as Descartes for the same reasons, the discipline of our armies being
+somewhat more serious than it was in the first half of the seventeenth
+century. Nevertheless, it is impossible to read of the German campaign
+in France without hoping, for the good of the world, that the
+inevitable association of war with the most revolting forms of crime
+therein displayed, may some day produce a general state of sentiment
+similar to that anticipated by Descartes.
+
+It may be, said that the example of Descartes proves and indicates
+nothing; and we may feel pretty sure that his scruples seemed
+extravagantly absurd to his contemporaries, if he suffered them to
+know them. Nevertheless, he might have appealed to several well-known
+historical facts as a reason against too hasty a condemnation of his
+apparent super-sensitiveness. He might have argued that the profession
+of a pirate once reflected no more moral discredit than that of a
+soldier did in his days; that the pirate’s reply to Alexander, that he
+infested the seas by the same right wherewith the conqueror devastated
+the land, conveyed a moral sentiment once generally accepted, nor even
+then quite extinct; that in the days of Homer it was as natural to ask
+a seafarer whether he were a freebooter as whether he were a merchant;
+that so late in Greek history as the time of Thucydides, several tribes
+on the mainland of Greece still gloried in piracy, and accounted their
+plunder honourably won; and that at Rome the Cilician pirates, whom
+it devolved on Pompey to disperse, were joined by persons of wealth,
+birth, and education, ‘as if,’ says Plutarch, ‘their employment were
+worthy of the ambition of men of honour.’
+
+Remembering, therefore, these things, and the fact that not so very
+many centuries ago public opinion was so lenient to the practice of
+bishops and ecclesiastics taking an active part in warfare that they
+commonly did so in spite of canons and councils to the contrary, it is
+a fair subject for speculation whether the moral opinion of the future
+may not come to coincide with the feeling of Descartes, and it behoves
+us to keep our minds alive to possibilities of change in this matter,
+already it would seem in process of formation. Who will venture to
+predict what may be the effect of the rise of the general level of
+education, and of the higher moral life of our time, on the popular
+judgment of even fifty years hence regarding a voluntarily adopted
+military life?
+
+We may, perhaps, attribute it to the extreme position taken up with
+regard to military service by the Quakers and Mennonites that the
+example of Descartes had so slight a following. That thick phalanx of
+our kind who fondly mistake their own mental timidity for moderation,
+perpetually make use of the doctrines of extremists as an excuse for
+tolerating or even defending what in the abstract they admit to be
+evil; and it was unfortunately with this moderate party that Grotius
+elected to throw in his lot. No one admitted more strongly the evils
+of war. The reason he himself gave for writing his ‘De Jure Pacis et
+Belli’ was the licence he saw prevailing throughout Christendom in
+resorting to hostilities; recourse had to arms for slight motives
+or for none; and when war was once begun an utter rejection of all
+reverence for divine or human law, just as if the unrestrained
+commission of every crime became thenceforth legitimate. Yet, instead
+of throwing the weight of his judgment into the scale of opinion which
+opposed the custom altogether (though he did advocate an international
+tribunal that should decide differences and compel obedience to its
+decisions), he only tried to shackle it with rules of decency that are
+absolutely foreign to it, with the result, after all, that he did very
+little to humanise wars, and nothing to make them less frequent.
+
+Nevertheless, though Grotius admitted the abstract lawfulness of
+military service, he made it conditional on a thorough conviction
+of the righteousness of the cause at issue. This is the great and
+permanent merit of his work, and it is here that we touch on the pivot
+or central question of military ethics. The orthodox theory is, that
+with the cause of war a soldier has no concern, and that since the
+matter in contention is always too complicated for him to judge of
+its merits, his only duty is to blindfold his reason and conscience,
+and rush whithersoever his services are commanded. Perhaps the best
+exposition of this simple military philosophy is that given by
+Shakespeare in his scene of the eve of Agincourt, where Henry V., in
+disguise, converses with some soldiers of the English army. ‘Methinks,’
+says the king, ‘I could not die anywhere so contented as in the king’s
+company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.’
+
+_William._ ‘That’s more than we know.’
+
+_Bates._ ‘Ay, or more than we should seek after, for we know enough
+if we know we are the king’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our
+obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.’
+
+Yet the whisper of our own day is, Does it? For a soldier, nowadays,
+enjoys equally with the civilian, who by his vote contributes to
+prevent or promote hostilities, the greater facilities afforded by
+the spread of knowledge for the exercise of his judgment; and it is
+to subject him to undeserved ignominy to debar him from the free use
+of his intellect, as if he were a minor or an imbecile, incompetent
+to think for himself. Putting even the difficulty of decision at its
+worst, it can never be greater for the soldier than it is for the
+voter; and if the former is incompetent to form an opinion, whence does
+the peasant or mechanic derive his ability? Moreover, the existence
+of a just and good cause has always been the condition insisted on as
+alone capable of sanctioning military service by writers of every shade
+of thought--by St. Augustine as representing the early Catholic Church,
+by Bullinger or Becon as representatives of the early Reformed Church,
+and by Grotius as representative of the modern school of publicists.
+Grotius contends that no citizen or subject ought to take part in an
+unjust war, even if he be commanded to do so. He openly maintains
+that disobedience to orders is in such a case a lesser evil than the
+guilt of homicide that would be incurred by fighting. He inclines to
+the opinion that, where the cause of war seems doubtful, a man would
+do better to refrain from service, and to leave the king to employ
+those whose readiness to fight might be less hampered by questions of
+right and wrong, and of whom there would always be a plentiful supply.
+Without these reservations he regards the soldier’s task as so much the
+more detestable than the executioner’s, as manslaughter without a cause
+is more heinous than manslaughter with one,[316] and thinks no kind of
+life more wicked than that of men who, without regard for the cause of
+war, fight for hire, and to whom the question of right is equivalent to
+the question of the highest wage.[317]
+
+These are strong opinions and expressions, and as their general
+acceptance would logically render war impossible, it is no small gain
+to have in their favour so great an authority as Grotius. But it is
+an even greater gain to be able to quote on the same side an actual
+soldier. Sir James Turner at the end of his military treatise called
+‘Pallas Armata,’ published in 1683, came to conclusions which, though
+adverse to Grotius, contain some remarkable admissions and show the
+difference that two centuries have made on military maxims with regard
+to this subject. ‘It is no sin for a mere soldier,’ he says, ‘to serve
+for wages, unless his conscience tells him he fights in an unjust
+cause.’ Again, ‘That soldier who serves or fights for any prince or
+State for wages in a cause he knows to be unjust, sins damnably.’ He
+even argues that soldiers whose original service began for a just
+cause, and who are constrained by their military oaths to continue
+in service for a new and unjust cause of war, ought to ‘desert their
+employment and suffer anything that could be done to them before they
+draw their swords against their own conscience and judgments in an
+unjust quarrel.’[318]
+
+These moral sentiments of a military man of the seventeenth century
+are absolutely alien to the military doctrines of the present day;
+and his remarks on wages recall yet another important landmark of
+ancient thought that has been removed by the progress of time. Early
+Greek opinion justly made no distinction between the mercenary who
+served a foreign country and the mercenary who served his own. All
+hired military service was regarded as disgraceful, nor would anyone
+of good birth have dreamt of serving his own country save at his own
+expense. The Carians rendered their names infamous as the first of the
+Greek race who served for pay; whilst at Athens Pericles introduced the
+custom of supporting the poorer defenders of their country out of the
+exchequer.[319] Afterwards, of course, no people ever committed itself
+more eagerly to the pursuit of mercenary warfare.
+
+In England also gratuitous military service was originally the
+condition of the feudal tenure of land, nor was anyone bound to serve
+the king for more than a certain number of days in the year, forty
+being generally the longest term. For all service in excess of the
+legal limit the king was obliged to pay; and in this way, and by
+the scutage tax, by which many tenants bought themselves off from
+their strict obligations, the principle of a paid military force was
+recognised from the time of the Conquest. But the chief stipendiary
+forces appear to have been foreign mercenaries, supported, not out
+of the commutation tax, but out of the king’s privy purse, and still
+more out of the loot won from their victims in war. These were those
+soldiers of fortune, chiefly from Flanders, Brabançons, or Routers,
+whose excesses as brigands led to their excommunication by the Third
+Lateran Council (1179), and to their destruction by a crusade three
+years later.[320]
+
+But the germ of our modern recruiting system must rather be looked for
+in those military contracts or indentures, by which from about the time
+of Edward III. it became customary to raise our forces: some powerful
+subject contracting with the king, in consideration of a certain sum,
+to provide soldiers for a certain time and task. Thus in 1382 the
+war-loving Bishop of Norwich contracted with Richard II. to provide
+2,500 men-at-arms and 2,500 archers for a year’s service in France, in
+consideration of the whole fifteenth that had been voted by Parliament
+for the war.[321] In the same way several bishops indented to raise
+soldiers for Henry V. And thus a foreign war became a mere matter
+of business and hire, and armies to fight the French were raised by
+speculative contractors, very much as men are raised nowadays to make
+railways or take part in other works needful for the public at large.
+The engagement was purely pecuniary and commercial, and was entirely
+divested of any connection with conscience or patriotism. On the other
+hand, the most obviously just cause of war, that of national defence in
+case of invasion, continued to be altogether disconnected with pay, and
+remained so much the duty of the militia or capable male population of
+the country, that both Edward III. and Richard II. directed writs even
+to archbishops and bishops to arm and array all abbots, priors, and
+monks, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, for the defence of the
+kingdom.[322]
+
+Originally, therefore, the paid army of England, as opposed to the
+militia, implied the introduction of a strictly mercenary force
+consisting indifferently of natives or foreigners, into our military
+system. But clearly there was no moral difference between the two
+classes of mercenaries so engaged. The hire, and not the cause, being
+the main consideration of both, the Englishman and the Brabançon were
+equally mercenaries in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The
+prejudice against mercenaries either goes too far or not far enough.
+If a Swiss or an Italian hiring himself to fight for a cause about
+which he was ignorant or indifferent was a mercenary soldier, so was
+an Englishman who with equal ignorance and indifference accepted the
+wages offered him by a military contractor of his own nation. Either
+the conduct of the Swiss was blameless, or the Englishman’s moral
+delinquency was the same as his.
+
+The public opinion of former times regarded both, of course, as equally
+blameless, or rather as equally meritorious. And it is worth noticing
+that the word _mercenary_ was applied alike to the hired military
+servant of his own as of another country. Shakespeare, for instance,
+applies the term mercenary to the 1,600 Frenchmen of low degree slain
+at Agincourt, whom Monstrelet distinguishes from the 10,000 Frenchmen
+of position who lost their lives on that memorable day--
+
+ In this ten thousand they have lost,
+ There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries.
+
+And even so late as 1756, the original signification of the word had so
+little changed, that in the great debate in the House of Lords on the
+Militia Bill of that year Lord Temple and several other orators spoke
+of the national standing army as an army of _mercenaries_, without
+making any distinction between the Englishmen and the Hessians who
+served in it.[323]
+
+The moral distinction that now prevails between the paid service of
+natives and of foreigners is, therefore, of comparatively recent
+origin. It was one of the features of the Reformation in Switzerland
+that its leaders insisted for the first time on a moral difference
+between Swiss soldiers who served their own country for pay, and those
+who with equal bravery and credit sold their strength to the service of
+the highest foreign bidder.
+
+Zwingli, and after him his disciple Bullinger, effected a change in the
+moral sentiment of Switzerland equivalent to that which a man would
+effect nowadays who should persuade men to discountenance or abandon
+military service of any kind for pay. One of the great obstacles to
+Zwingli’s success was his decided protest against the right of any
+Swiss to sell himself to foreign governments for the commission of
+bloodshed, regardless of any injury in justification; and it was
+mainly on that account that Bullinger succeeded in 1549 in preventing
+a renewal of the alliance or military contract between the cantons
+and Henry II. of France. ‘When a private individual,’ he said, ‘is
+free to enrol himself or not, and engages himself to fight against the
+friends and allies of his sovereign, I know not whether he does not
+hire himself to commit homicide, and whether he does not act like the
+gladiators, who, to amuse the Roman people, let themselves to the first
+comer to kill one another.’
+
+But it is evident that, except with a reservation limiting a man’s
+service to a just national cause, Bullinger’s argument will also apply
+to the case of a hired soldier of his own country. The duty of every
+man to defend his country in case of invasion is intelligible enough;
+and it is very important to notice that originally in no country did
+the duty of military obedience mean more. In 1297 the High Constable
+and Marshal of England refused to muster the forces to serve Edward I.
+in Flanders, on the plea that neither they nor their ancestors were
+obliged to serve the king outside his dominions;[324] and Sir E. Coke’s
+ruling in Calvin’s case,[325] that Englishmen are bound to attend the
+king in his wars as well without as within the realm, and that their
+allegiance is not local but indefinite, was not accepted by writers
+on the constitution of the country. The existing militia oath, which
+strictly limits obedience to the defence of the realm, covered the
+whole military duty of our ancestors; and it was only the innovation of
+the military contract that prepared the way for our modern idea of the
+soldier’s duty as unqualified and unlimited with regard to cause and
+place and time. The very word _soldier_ meant originally stipendiary,
+his pay or _solde_ (from the Latin _solidum_) coming to constitute
+his chief characteristic. From a servant hired for a certain task
+for a certain time the steps were easy to a servant whose hire bound
+him to any task and for the whole of his life. The existing military
+oath, which binds a recruit and practically compels him as much to a
+war of aggression as of defence at the bidding of the executive, owes
+its origin to the revolution of 1689, when the refusal of Dumbarton’s
+famous Scotch regiment to serve their new master, William III., in the
+defence of Holland against France, rendered it advisable to pass the
+Mutiny Act, containing a more stringent definition of military duty by
+an oath couched in extremely general terms. Such has been the effect
+of time in confirming this newer doctrine of the contract implied by
+the military status, that the defence of the monarch ‘in person, crown,
+and dignity against all enemies,’ to which the modern recruit pledges
+himself at his attestation, would be held to bind the soldier not to
+withhold his services were he called upon to exercise them in the
+planet Mars itself.
+
+Hence it appears to be an indisputable fact of history that the
+modern military theory of Europe, which demands complete spiritual
+self-abandonment and unqualified obedience on the part of a soldier,
+is a distinct trespass outside the bounds of the original and, so
+to speak, constitutional idea of military duty; and that in our own
+country it is as much an encroachment on the rights of Englishmen as it
+is on the wider rights of man.
+
+But what is the value of the theory itself, even if we take no account
+of the history of its growth? If military service precludes a man from
+discussing the justice of the end pursued in a war, it can hardly be
+disputed that it equally precludes him from inquiries about the means,
+and that if he is bound to consider himself as fighting in any case
+for a lawful cause he has no right to bring his moral sense to bear
+upon the details of the service required of him. But here occurs a
+loophole, a flaw, in the argument; for no subject nor soldier can be
+compelled to serve as a spy, however needful such service may be. That
+proves that a limit does exist to the claims on a soldier’s obedience.
+And Vattel mentions as a common occurrence the refusal of troops to
+act when the cruelty of the deeds commanded of them exposed them to
+the danger of savage reprisals. ‘Officers,’ he says, ‘who had the
+highest sense of honour, though ready to shed their blood in a field
+of battle for their prince’s service, have not thought it any part of
+their duty to run the hazard of an ignominious death,’ such as was
+involved in the execution of such behests. Yet why not, if their prince
+or general commanded them? By what principle of morality or common
+sense were they justified in declining a particular service as too
+iniquitous for them and yet in holding themselves bound to the larger
+iniquity of an aggressive war? What right has a machine to choose or
+decide between good and bad any more than between just and unjust? Its
+moral incompetence must be thoroughgoing, or else in no case afford an
+extenuating plea. You must either grant it everything or nothing, or
+else offer a rational explanation for your rule of distinction. For it
+clearly needs explaining, why, if there are orders which a soldier is
+not bound to obey, if there are cases where he is competent to discuss
+the moral nature of the services required of him, it should not also
+be open to him to discuss the justice of the war itself of which those
+services are merely incidents.
+
+Let us turn from the abstract to the concrete, and take two instances
+as a test of the principle. In 1689, Marshal Duras, commander of the
+French army of the Rhine, received orders to destroy the Palatinate,
+and make a desert between France and Germany, though neither the
+Elector nor his people had done the least injury to France. Did a
+single soldier, did a single officer quail or hesitate? Voltaire tells
+us that many officers felt shame in acting as the instrument of this
+iniquity of Louis XIV., but they acted nevertheless in accordance with
+their supposed honour, and with the still orthodox theory of military
+duty. They stopped short at no atrocity. They cut down the fruit-trees,
+they tore down the vines, they burnt the granaries; they set fire to
+villages, to country-houses, to castles; they desecrated the tombs of
+the ancient German emperors at Spiers; they plundered the churches;
+they reduced well-nigh to ashes Oppenheim, Spiers, Worms, Mannheim,
+Heidelberg, and other flourishing cities; they reduced 400,000 human
+beings to homelessness and destruction--and all in the name of military
+duty and military honour! Yet, of a truth, those were dastardly deeds
+if ever dastardly deeds have been done beneath the sun; and it is the
+sheerest sophistry to maintain that the men who so implicitly carried
+out their orders would not have done more for their miserable honour,
+would not have had a higher conception of duty, had they followed the
+dictates of their reason and conscience rather than those of their
+military superiors, and refused to sacrifice their humanity to an
+overstrained theory of their military obligation, and their memory to
+everlasting execration.
+
+In the case of these destroyers military duty meant simply military
+servility, and it was this reckless servility that led Voltaire in his
+‘Candide’ to put into the mouth of his inimitable philosopher, Martin,
+that definition of an army which tales like the foregoing suggested and
+justified: ‘A million of assassins, in regiments, traversing Europe
+from end to end, and committing murder and brigandage by rules of
+discipline for the sake of bread, because incompetent to exercise any
+more honest calling.’[326]
+
+An English case of this century may be taken as a parallel one to the
+French of the seventeenth, and as an additional test of the orthodox
+military dogma that with the cause of war a soldier has no concern.
+It is the Copenhagen expedition of 1807, than which no act of might
+within this century was more strongly reprobated by the public opinion
+of Europe, and by all but the Tory opinion of England. A fleet and
+army having been sent to the Danish capital, and the Danish Government
+having refused to surrender their fleet, which was demanded as the
+alternative of bombardment, the English military officials proceeded
+to bombard the city, with infinite destruction and slaughter, which
+were only stayed at last by the surrender of the fleet as originally
+demanded. There was no quarrel with Denmark at the time, there was no
+complaint of injury; only the surrender of the fleet was demanded.
+English public opinion was both excited and divided about the morality
+of this act, which was only justified on the plea that the Government
+was in possession of a secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit between
+Napoleon and the Czar of Russia, by which the Danish fleet was to be
+made use of in an attack upon England. But this secret article was
+not divulged, according to Alison, till ten years afterwards,[327]
+and many disbelieved in its existence altogether, even supposing that
+its existence would have been a good case for war. Many military men
+therefore shared in the feeling that condemned the act, yet they
+scrupled not to contribute their aid to it. Were they right? Read Sir
+C. Napier’s opinion of it at the time, and then say where, in the
+case of a man so thinking, would have lain his duty: ‘This Copenhagen
+expedition--is it an unjust action for the general good? Who can say
+that such a precedent is pardonable? When once the line of justice has
+been passed, there is no shame left. England has been unjust.... Was
+not our high honour worth the danger we might perhaps have risked in
+maintaining that honour inviolate?’[328]
+
+These opinions, whether right or wrong, were shared by many men in
+both services. Sir C. Napier himself says: ‘Were there not plenty of
+soldiers who thought these things wrong? ... but would it have been
+possible to allow the army and navy ... to decide upon the propriety of
+such attacks?’[329] The answer is, that if they did, whether allowed or
+not, such things would be impossible, or, at all events, less probable:
+which is the best reason possible for the contention that they should.
+Had they done so in this very instance, our historians would have been
+spared the explanation of an episode that is a dark blot upon our
+annals.
+
+A more pleasing precedent, therefore, than that of the French officers
+in the Palatinate, or of the English at Copenhagen, is the case of
+Admiral Keppel, who, whilst numbers of naval officers flocked to the
+Admiralty to offer their services or to request employment, steadily
+declined to take part in the war of England against her American
+colonies, because he deemed her cause a bad one.[330] He did no
+violence to his reason or conscience nor tarnished his fame by acting a
+part, of which in his individual capacity he disapproved. His example
+is here held up as illustrating the only true doctrine, and the only
+one that at all accords with the most rudimentary principles of either
+religion or morality. The contrary doctrine bids a man to forswear the
+use of both his reason and his conscience in consideration for his pay,
+and deprives him of that liberty of thought and moral action compared
+with which his civil and political liberty are nothing worth. For what
+indeed is this contrary time-honoured doctrine when stripped of all
+superfluities, and displayed in the outfit of common sense and common
+words? What is it but that the duty of military obedience overrides
+all duty of a man towards himself; that, though he may not voluntarily
+destroy his body, he cannot do too much violence to his soul; that it
+is his duty to annihilate his moral and intellectual being, to commit
+spiritual suicide, to forego the use of the noblest faculties which
+belong to him as a man; that to do all this is a just cause of pride
+to him, and that he is in all respects the nobler and better for
+assimilating himself to that brainless and heartless condition which is
+that also of his charger or his rifle?
+
+If this doctrine is true and sound, then it may be asked whether there
+has ever been or exists upon the earth any tyranny, ecclesiastical or
+political, comparable to this military one; whether any but the baser
+forms of priestcraft have ever sought to deprive a man so completely
+of the enjoyment of his highest human attributes, or to absolve him so
+utterly from all moral responsibility for his actions.
+
+This position can scarcely be disputed, save by denying the reality
+of any distinction between just and unjust in international conduct;
+and against this denial may be set not only the evidence of every age,
+but of every language above the stage of mere barbarism. Disregard of
+the difference is one of the best measures of the civilisation of a
+people or epoch. We at once, for instance, form a higher estimate of
+the civilisation of ancient India, when we read in Arrian that her
+kings were so apprehensive of committing an unjust aggression that
+they would not lead their armies out of India for the conquest of
+other nations.[331] One of the best features in the old pagan world
+was the importance attached to the justice of the motives for breaking
+the peace. The Romans appear never to have begun a war without a
+previous consultation with the College of Fecials as to its justice;
+and in the same way, and for the same purpose, the early Christian
+emperors consulted the opinion of the bishops. If a Roman general made
+an unjust attack upon a people his triumph was refused, or at least
+resisted; nor are the instances infrequent in which the senate decreed
+restitution where a consul, acting on his own responsibility, had
+deprived a population of its arms, its lands, or its liberties.[332]
+Hence the Romans, with all their apparent aggressiveness, won the
+character of a strict regard to justice, which was no small part of the
+secret of their power. ‘You boast,’ the Rhodians said to them, ‘that
+your wars are successful because they are just, and plume yourselves
+not so much on the victory which concludes them as on the fact that
+you never begin them without good cause.’[333] Conquest corrupted the
+Romans in these respects as it has done many another people; but even
+to the end of the Republic the tradition of justice survived; nor is
+there anything finer in the history of that people than the attempt
+of the party headed by Ateius the tribune to prevent Crassus leaving
+Rome when he was setting out to make war upon the Parthians, who not
+only had committed no injury, but were the allies of the Republic; or
+than the vote of Cato, that Cæsar, who, in time of peace, had slain or
+routed 300,000 Germans, should be given up to the people he had injured
+in atonement for the wrong he had done to them.
+
+The idea of the importance of a just cause of war may be traced, of
+course, in history, after the extinction of the grand pagan philosophy
+in which it had its origin. It was insisted on even by Christian
+writers who, like St. Augustine, did not regard all military service
+as wicked. What, he asked, were kingdoms but robberies on a vast scale,
+if their justice were put out of the reckoning.[334] A French writer
+of the time of Charles V. concluded that while soldiers who fell in a
+just cause were saved, those who died for an unjust cause perished in
+a state of mortal sin.[335] Even the Chevalier Bayard, who accompanied
+Charles VIII. without any scruple in his conquest of Naples, was fond
+of saying that all empires, kingdoms, and provinces were, if without
+the principle of justice, no better than forests full of brigands;[336]
+and the fine saying is attributed to him, that the strength of arms
+should only be employed for the establishment of right and equity. But
+on the whole the justice of the cause of war became of less and less
+importance as time went on; nor have our modern Christian societies
+ever derived benefit in that respect from the instruction or guidance
+of their churches at all equal to that which the society of pagan Rome
+derived from the institution of its Fecials, as the guardians of the
+national conscience.
+
+It was among the humane endeavours of Grotius to try to remedy this
+defect in modern States by establishing certain general principles by
+which it might be possible to test the pretext of any given war from
+the side of its justice. At first sight it appears obvious that a
+definite injury is the only justification for a resort to hostilities,
+or, in other words, that only a defensive war is just; but then the
+question arises how far defence may be anticipatory, and an injury
+feared or probable give the same rights as one actually sustained.
+The majority of wars, that have not been merely wars of conquest and
+robbery, may be traced to that principle in history, so well expressed
+by Livy, that men’s anxiety not to be afraid of others causes them
+to become objects of dread themselves.[337] For this reason Grotius
+refused to admit as a good _casus belli_ the fact that another nation
+was making warlike preparations, building garrisons and fortresses,
+or that its power might, if unchecked, grow to be dangerous. He also
+rejected the pretext of mere utility as a good ground for war, or such
+pleas as the need of better territory, the right of first discovery, or
+the improvement or punishment of barbarous nations.
+
+A strict adherence to these principles, vague as they are, would
+have prevented most of the bloodshed that has occurred in Europe
+since Grotius wrote. The difficulty, however, is, that, as between
+nations, the principle of utility easily overshadows that of justice;
+and although the two are related as the temporary to the permanent
+expediency, and therefore as the lesser to the greater expediency,
+the relation between them is seldom obvious at the time of choice,
+and it is easy beforehand to demonstrate the expediency of a war of
+which time alone can show both the inexpediency and the injustice.
+Any war, therefore, however unjust it may seem, when judged by the
+canons of Grotius, is easily construed as just when measured by the
+light of an imperious and magnified passing interest; and the absence
+of any recognised definition or standard of just dealing between
+nations affords a salve to many a conscience that in the matters of
+private life would be sensitive and scrupulous enough. The story of
+King Agesilaus is a mirror in which very few ages or countries may not
+see their own history reflected. When Phœbidas, the Spartan general,
+seized the Cadmeia of Thebes in the time of peace, the greater part
+of Greece and many Spartans condemned it as a most iniquitous act of
+war; but Agesilaus, who at other times was wont to talk of justice
+as the greatest of all the virtues, and of valour without it as of
+little worth, defended his officer’s action, on the plea that it was
+necessary to regard the tendency of the action, and to account it even
+as glorious if it resulted in an advantage to Sparta.
+
+But when every allowance is made for wars of which the justice is not
+clearly defined from the expediency, many wars have occurred of so
+palpably unjust a character, that they could not have been possible
+but for the existence of the loosest sentiments with regard to the
+responsibility of those who took part in them. We read of wars or the
+pretexts of wars in history of which we all, whether military men or
+civilians, readily recognise the injustice; and by applying the same
+principles of judgment to the wars of our own country and time we are
+each and all of us furnished for the direction of our conscience
+with a standard which, if not absolutely scientific or consistent, is
+sufficient for all the practical purposes of life, and is completely
+subversive of the excuse which is afforded by occasional instances of
+difficult and doubtful decision. The same facilities which exist for
+the civilian when he votes for or against taxation for a given war,
+or in approval or disapproval of the government which undertakes it,
+exist also for the soldier who lends his active aid to it; nor is it
+unreasonable to claim for the action of the one the same responsibility
+to his own conscience which by general admission attaches to the other.
+
+It is surely something like a degradation to the soldier that he
+should not enjoy in this respect the same rights as the civilian; that
+his merit alone should be tested by no higher a theory of duty than
+that which is applied to the merit of a horse; and that his capacity
+for blind and unreasoning obedience should be accounted his highest
+attainable virtue. The transition from the idea of military vassalage
+to that of military allegiance has surely produced a strange conception
+of honour, and one fitter for conscripts than for free men, when a
+man is held as by a vice to take part in a course of action which he
+believes to be wrong. Not only does no other profession enforce such an
+obligation, but in every other walk of life a man’s assertion of his
+own personal responsibility is a source rather of credit to him than of
+infamy. That in the performance of any social function a man should be
+called upon to make an unconditional surrender of his free will, and
+yield an obedience as thoughtless as a dummy’s to superior orders,
+would seem to be a principle of conduct pilfered from the Society of
+Jesus, and utterly unworthy of the nobility of a soldier. As a matter
+of history, the priestly organisation took the military one for its
+model: which should lead us to suspect that the tyranny we find fault
+with in the copy is equally present in the original, and that the
+latter is marked by the same vices that it transmitted to the borrowed
+organisation.
+
+The principle here contended for, that the soldier should be fully
+satisfied in his own mind of the justice of the cause he fights for, is
+the condition that Christian writers, from Augustine to Grotius, have
+placed on the lawfulness of military service. The objection to it, that
+its adoption would mean the ruin of military discipline, will appear
+the greatest argument of all in its favour when we reflect that its
+universal adoption would make war itself, which is the only reason for
+discipline, altogether impossible. Where would have been the wars of
+the last two hundred years had it been in force? Or where the English
+wars of the last six, with their thousands of lives and their millions
+of money spent for no visible good nor glory in fighting with Afghans,
+Zulus, Egyptians, and Arabs? Once restrict legitimate warfare to the
+limits of national defence, and it is evident that the refusal of men
+to take part in a war of aggression would equally put an end to the
+necessity of defensive exertion. If no government could rely on its
+subjects for the purposes of aggression and injustice, it goes without
+saying that the just cause of war would perish simultaneously. It is
+therefore altogether to be wished that that reliance should be weakened
+and destroyed.
+
+The reasoning, then, which contains the key that is alone capable of
+closing permanently the portals of Janus is this: that there exists a
+distinction between a just and an unjust war, between a good and a bad
+cause, and that no man has a right either to take part knowingly and
+wilfully in a cause he believes to be unjust, nor to commit himself
+servilely to a theory of duty which deprives him, at the very outset,
+of his inalienable human birthright of free thought and free will. This
+is the principle of personal responsibility which has long since won
+admission everywhere save in the service of Mars, and which requires
+but to be extended there to free the world from the custom that has
+longest and most ruinously afflicted it. For it attacks that custom
+where it has never yet been seriously attacked before, at its real
+source--namely, in the heart, the brain, and the conscience, that,
+in spite of all warping and training, still belong to the individual
+units who alone make it possible. It behoves all of us, therefore,
+who are interested in abolishing military barbarism, not merely to
+yield a passive assent to it ourselves, but to claim for it assent and
+assertion from others. We must ask and reask the question: What is the
+title by which a man, through the mere fact of his military cloth,
+claims exemption from the moral law that is universally binding upon
+his fellows?
+
+For this principle of individual military responsibility is of such
+power, that if carried to its consequences, it must ultimately prove
+fatal to militarism; and if it has not yet the prescription of time
+and common opinion in its favour, it is sealed nevertheless with the
+authority of many of the best intellects that have helped to enlighten
+the past, and is indissolubly contained in the teaching alike of our
+religious as of our moral code. It can, in fact, only be gainsaid by a
+denial of the fundamental maxims of those two guides of our conduct,
+and for that reason stands absolutely proof against the assaults
+of argument. Try to reconcile with the ordinary conceptions of the
+duties of a man or a Christian the duty of doing what his conscience
+condemns, and it may be safely predicted that you will try in vain.
+The considerations that may occur of utility and expediency beat in
+vain against the far greater expediency of a world at peace, freed from
+the curse of the warrior’s destructiveness; nor can the whole armoury
+of military logic supply a single counter-argument which does not
+resolve itself into an argument of supposed expediency, and which may
+not therefore be effectually parried, even on this narrower debating
+ground, by the consideration of the overwhelming advantages which could
+not but flow from the universal acceptance of the contrary and higher
+principle--the principle that for a soldier, as for anyone else, his
+first duty is to his conscience.
+
+Or, to put the conclusion in the fewest words: The soldier claims to
+be a non-moral agent. That is the corner-stone of the whole military
+system. Challenge then the claimant to justify his first principle,
+and the custom of war will shake to its foundation, and in time go the
+way that other evil customs have gone before it, when once their moral
+support has been undermined or shattered.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+[1] Halleck’s _International Law_, ii. 21. Yet within three weeks of
+the beginning of the war with France 60,000 Prussians were _hors de
+combat_.
+
+[2] ‘Artem illam _mortiferam et Deo odibilem_ balistrariorum et
+sagittariorum adversus Christianos et Catholicos exerceri de cætero sub
+anathemate prohibemus.’
+
+[3] Fauchet’s _Origines des Chevaliers_, &c. &c., ii. 56; Grose’s
+_Military Antiquities_, i. 142; and Demmin’s _Encyclopédie d’Armurerie_,
+57, 496.
+
+[4] Fauchet, ii. 57. ‘Lequel engin, pour le mal qu’il faisait (pire que
+le venin des serpens), fut nommé serpentine,’ &c.
+
+[5] Grose, ii. 331.
+
+[6] Dyer, _Modern Europe_, iii. 158.
+
+[7] Scoffern’s _Projectile Weapons_, &c., 66.
+
+[8] _Sur l’Esprit_, i. 562.
+
+[9] Reade, _Ashantee Campaign_, 52.
+
+[10] Livy, xliv. 42.
+
+[11] These Instructions are published in Halleck’s _International Law_,
+ii. 36-51; and at the end of Edwards’s _Germans in France_.
+
+[12] ‘It would have been desirable,’ said the Russian Government,
+‘that the voice of a great nation like England should have been heard
+at an inquiry of which the object would appear to have met with its
+sympathies.’
+
+[13] _Jus Gentium_, art. 887, 878.
+
+[14] Florus, ii. 20.
+
+[15] Edwards’s _Germans in France_, 164.
+
+[16] This remarkable fact is certified by Mr. Russell, in his _Diary in
+the last Great War_, 398, 399.
+
+[17] Cicero, _In Verrem_, iv. 54.
+
+[18] See even the _Annual Register_, lvi. 184, for a denunciation of
+this proceeding.
+
+[19] Sismondi’s _Hist. des Français_, xxv.
+
+[20] Edwards’s _Germans in France_, 171.
+
+[21] Lieut-Col. Charras, _La Campagne de 1815_, i. 211, ii. 88.
+
+[22] Woolsey’s _International Law_, p. 223.
+
+[23] Cf. lib. xii. 81, and xiii. 25, 26; quoted by Grotius, iii. xi.
+xiii.
+
+[24] iii. 41.
+
+[25] _Cambridge Essays_, 1855, ‘Limitations to Severity in War,’ by C.
+Buxton.
+
+[26] See Raumer’s _Geschichte Europa’s_, iii. 509-603, if any doubt is
+felt about the fact.
+
+[27] General Order of October 9, 1813. Compare those of May 29, 1809,
+March 25, 1810, June 10, 1812, and July 9, 1813.
+
+[28] Vattel, iii. ix. 165.
+
+[29] Sir W. Napier (_Peninsular War_, ii. 322) says of the proceeding
+that it was ‘politic indeed, yet scarcely to be admitted within the
+pale of civilised warfare.’ It occurred in May 1810.
+
+[30] Bluntschli’s _Modernes Völkerrecht_, art. 573.
+
+[31] For the character of modern war see the account of the
+Franco-German war in the _Quarterly Review_ for April 1871.
+
+[32] Halleck, ii. 22.
+
+[33] Vehse’s _Austria_, i. 369. Yet, as usual on such occasions, the
+excesses were committed in the teeth of Tilly’s efforts to oppose them.
+
+‘Imperavit Tillius a devictorum cædibus et corporum castimonia
+abstinerent, quod imperium a quibusdam furentibus male servatum annales
+aliqui fuere conquesti.’--Adlzreiter’s _Annales Boicæ Gentis_, Part
+iii. l. 16, c. 38.
+
+[34] _Battles in the Peninsular War_, 181, 182.
+
+[35] _Ibid._ 396.
+
+[36] Foxe’s _Actes and Monuments_, iii. 52.
+
+[37] Saint-Palaye, _Mémoires sur la Chevalerie_, iii. 10, 133.
+
+[38] Vinsauf’s _Itinerary of Richard I._, ii. 16.
+
+[39] Matthew of Westminster, 460; Grose, ii. 348.
+
+[40] Monstrelet, ii. 115.
+
+[41] _Mémoires sur la Chevalerie_, i. 322.
+
+[42] Petitot, v. 102; and Ménard, _Vie de B. du Guesclin_, 440.
+
+[43] Petitot, v. 134.
+
+[44] Meyrick, _Ancient Armour_, ii. 5.
+
+[45] i. 123.
+
+[46] Monstrelet, i. 259.
+
+[47] ii. 5.
+
+[48] ii. 11.
+
+[49] ii. 22, compare ii. 56.
+
+[50] Monstrelet, ii. 111.
+
+[51] ii. 113.
+
+[52] See for some, Livy, xxix. 8, xxxi. 26, 30, xxxvii. 21, xliii. 7,
+xliv. 29.
+
+[53] Livy, xliv. 29.
+
+[54] Meyrick, i. 41.
+
+[55] Demmin, _Encyclopédie d’Armurerie_, 490.
+
+[56] Meyrick, ii. 204.
+
+[57] Grose, ii. 114.
+
+[58] Petitot, xvi. 134.
+
+[59] Grose, ii. 343.
+
+[60] iv. 27.
+
+[61] iv. 36.
+
+[62] iii. 109.
+
+[63] _Mémoires_, vi. 1.
+
+[64] Halleck, _International Law_, ii. 154.
+
+[65] _Elements of Morality_, sec. 1068.
+
+[66] _Des Droits et Devoirs des Nations neutres_, ii. 321-323.
+
+[67] _History of the Royal Navy_, i. 357.
+
+[68] Nicolas, ii. 341.
+
+[69] Nicolas, ii. 405.
+
+[70] Monstrelet, i. 12.
+
+[71] Nicolas, ii. 108.
+
+[72] _Ibid._ i. 333.
+
+[73] Froissart, ii. 85.
+
+[74] Entick, _New Naval History_ (1757), 823. ‘Some of the Spanish
+prizes were immensely rich, a great many of the French were of
+considerable value, and so were many of the English; but the balance
+was about two millions in favour of the latter.’
+
+[75] From Entick’s _New Naval History_ (1757), 801-817.
+
+[76] Martens, _Essai sur les Corsaires_ (Horne’s translation), 86, 87.
+
+[77] _Ibid._ 93.
+
+[78] III. xv. 229.
+
+[79] Emerigon, _On Insurances_ (translation), 442.
+
+[80] Martens, 19.
+
+[81] Hautfeuille, _Des Droits et Devoirs des Nations neutres_, ii. 349.
+
+[82] _De Jure Maritimo_, i. 72.
+
+[83] _Despatches_, vi. 145.
+
+[84] _Despatches_, vi. 79.
+
+[85] The last occasion was on April 13, 1875.
+
+[86] Halleck, _International Law_, ii. 316.
+
+[87] Bluntschli, _Modernes Völkerrecht_, art. 665.
+
+[88] James, _Naval History_, i. 255.
+
+[89] James, ii. 71.
+
+[90] _Ibid._ ii. 77.
+
+[91] Ortolan, _Diplomatie de la Mer_, ii. 32.
+
+[92] Campbell’s _Admirals_, viii. 40.
+
+[93] _Campbell_, vii. 21. _James_, i. 161. Stinkpots are jars or shells
+charged with powder, grenades, &c.
+
+[94] James, i. 283.
+
+[95] Brenton, ii. 471.
+
+[96] Caltrops, or crows’-feet, are bits of iron with four spikes so
+arranged that however they fall one spike always remains upwards.
+Darius planted the ground with caltrops before Arbela.
+
+[97] Chapter xix. of the _Tactica_.
+
+[98] Frontinus, _Strategematicon_, IV. vii. 9, 10. ‘Amphoras pice et
+tæda plenas; ... vascula viperis plena.’
+
+[99] Roger de Wendover, _Chronica_. ‘Calcem vivam, et in pulverem
+subtilem redactam, in altum projicientes, vento illam ferente,
+Francorum oculos excæcaverunt.’
+
+[100] Brenton, i. 635.
+
+[101] _De Jure Maritimo_, i. 265.
+
+[102] Rees’s _Cyclopædia_, ‘Fire-ship.’
+
+[103] Brenton, ii. 493, 494.
+
+[104] Halleck, ii. 317.
+
+[105] Woolsey, _International Law_, 187.
+
+[106] James, i. 277.
+
+[107] Phillimore, _International Law_, iii. 50-52.
+
+[108] _International Law_, ii. 95.
+
+[109] Villiaumé, _L’Esprit de la Guerre_, 56.
+
+[110] De Commines, viii. 8.
+
+[111] Watson’s _Philip II._, ii. 74.
+
+[112] _Ibid._ i. 213.
+
+[113] _Memoirs_, c. 19.
+
+[114] Villiaumé (_L’Esprit de la Guerre_, 71) gives the following
+version: ‘En 1793 et en 1794, le gouvernement anglais ayant violé le
+droit des gens contre la République Française, la Convention, dans
+un accès de brutale colère, décréta qu’il ne serait plus fait aucun
+prisonnier anglais ou hanovrien, c’est-à-dire que les vaincus seraient
+mis à mort, encore qu’ils se rendissent. Mais ce décret fut simplement
+comminatoire; le Comité de Salut Public, sachant très-bien que de
+misérables soldats n’étaient point coupables, donna l’ordre secret de
+faire grâce à tous les vaincus.’
+
+[115] Herodotus, vii. 136.
+
+[116] Livy, xlv. 42.
+
+[117] _Ibid._ xlv. 43.
+
+[118] Ward, _Law of Nations_, i. 250.
+
+[119] Petitot’s _Mémoires_, xvi. 177.
+
+[120] Livy, xlii. 8, 9.
+
+[121] Monstrelet, _Chronicles_, i. 200.
+
+[122] _Ibid._ i. 224.
+
+[123] _Ibid._ i. 249.
+
+[124] _Ibid._ i. 259.
+
+[125] Monstrelet, ii. 156.
+
+[126] _Ibid._ 120.
+
+[127] Philip de Commines, ii. 1.
+
+[128] _Ibid._ ii. 2.
+
+[129] _Ibid._ ii. 14.
+
+[130] Philip de Commines, iii. 9.
+
+[131] Motley’s _United Netherlands_, iii. 323.
+
+[132] Vattel, iii. 8, 143.
+
+[133] Borbstaedt, _Franco-German War_ (translation), 662.
+
+[134] Ward, i. 223.
+
+[135] Quintus Curtius, iv. 6, and Grote, viii. 368.
+
+[136] Quintus Curtius, vii. 11.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ iv. 15.
+
+[138] Arrian, iii. 18.
+
+[139] Quintus Curtius, vii. 5.
+
+[140] ‘Tous deux furent très braves, très vaillants, fort bizarres et
+cruels.’
+
+[141] Lyttleton, _Henry II._, i. 183.
+
+[142] Hoveden, 697.
+
+[143] 2 Samuel xii. 31.
+
+[144] _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, i. 47.
+
+[145] _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, 49.
+
+[146] ‘Life of Bayard’ in Petitot’s _Mémoires_, xvi. 9.
+
+[147] Major-General Mitchell’s _Biographies of Eminent Soldiers_, 92.
+
+[148] Livy, xxxi. 40. When Pelium was taken by storm, only the slaves
+were taken as spoil; the freemen were even let off without ransom.
+
+[149] _Ibid._ xxviii. 3.
+
+[150] _Ibid._ xxviii. 20, xxvii. 16, xxxi. 27.
+
+[151] _De Officiis_, i. 12. Yet on this passage is founded the common
+assertion that among the Romans ‘the word which signified stranger was
+the same with that which in its original denoted an enemy’ (Ward, ii.
+174); implying that in their eyes a stranger and an enemy were one and
+the same thing. Cicero says exactly the reverse.
+
+[152] _Recueil de Documents sur les exactions, vols, et cruautés des
+armées prussiennes en France._ The book is out of print, but may be
+seen at the British Museum, under the title, ‘Prussia--Army of.’ It is
+to be regretted that, whilst every book, however dull, relating to that
+war has been translated into English, this record has hitherto escaped
+the publicity it so well deserves.
+
+[153] _Ibid._ 19.
+
+[154] _Ibid._ 8.
+
+[155] _Ibid._ 13.
+
+[156] Chaudordy’s Circular of November 29, 1870, in the _Recueil_.
+
+[157] _Recueil_, 12, 15, 67, 119.
+
+[158] _Ibid._ 56.
+
+[159] _Ibid._ 54.
+
+[160] _Recueil_, 33-37, and Lady Bloomfield’s _Reminiscences_, ii. 235,
+8, 9.
+
+[161] The _Times_, March 7, 1881.
+
+[162] _Recueil_, 29; compare 91.
+
+[163] Morley’s _Cobden_, ii. 177.
+
+[164] Professor Sheldon Amos quotes the fact, but refrains from naming
+the paper, in his preface to Manning’s _Commentaries on the Law of
+Nations_, xl. Was it not the _Journal de France_ for Nov. 21, 1871?
+
+[165] iii. i. viii. 4.
+
+[166] _De Officiis_, i. 13.
+
+[167] _Modernes Völkerrecht_, Art. 565.
+
+[168] Polyænus, _Strategematum libri octo_, i. 34.
+
+[169] Polyænus, v. 41.
+
+[170] Ortolan’s _Diplomatie de la mer_, ii. 31, 375-7.
+
+[171] James’s _Naval History_, ii. 211; Campbell’s _Admirals_, vii. 132.
+
+[172] James, _Naval History_, ii. 225.
+
+[173] Nicolas, _Royal Navy_, ii. 27.
+
+[174] Hautefeuille, _Droit Maritime_, iii. 433. ‘Les vaisseaux de
+l’Etat eux-mêmes ne rougissent pas de ces grossiers mensonges qui
+prennent le nom de ruses de guerre.’
+
+[175] xiii. 1.
+
+[176] Montaigne, ch. v.
+
+[177] vii. 4. ‘Quia appellatione nostra vix apte exprimi possunt, Græca
+pronuntiatione Stratagemata dicuntur.’
+
+[178] Livy, xlii. 47.
+
+[179] _Histoire de la France_, iii. 401.
+
+[180] The word musket is from _muschetto_, a kind of hawk, implying
+that its attack was equally destructive and unforeseen.
+
+[181] Polyænus, ii. 19.
+
+[182] Polyænus, iii. 2; from Thucydides, iii. 34.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ vii. 27, 2.
+
+[184] _Ibid._ iv. 2-4.
+
+[185] Liskenne, _Bibliothèque Historique et Militaire_, iii. 845.
+
+[186] _Memoirs_, ch. xix.
+
+[187] ix. 6, 3.
+
+[188] vi. 22.
+
+[189] vi. 15.
+
+[190] iv. 7, 17.
+
+[191] E. Fournier, _L’Esprit dans l’Histoire_, 145-150.
+
+[192] iii. 10.
+
+[193] Liskenne, v. 233-4.
+
+[194] _Soldier’s Pocket-Book_, 81.
+
+[195] Polyænus, viii. 16, 8. ‘Lege Romanorum jubente hostium
+exploratores interficere.’
+
+[196] Livy, xxx. 29. According to Polyænus, he gave them a dinner and
+sent them back with instructions to tell what they had seen; viii. 16,
+8.
+
+[197] Watson’s _Philip II._ iii. 311.
+
+[198] Liskenne, iii. 840.
+
+[199] Hoffman, _Kriegslist_, 15.
+
+[200] Petitot’s _Mémoires de la France_, xv. 317.
+
+[201] Polyænus, ii. 27.
+
+[202] _Ibid._ v. 1, 4.
+
+[203] _Memoirs_, ch. xix.
+
+[204] Livy, xxxiv. 17.
+
+[205] As at the Brussels Conference, 1874, when such a proposal was
+made by the member for Sweden and Norway.
+
+[206] In Pinkerton, xvi. 817.
+
+[207] Turner’s _Nineteen Years in Samoa_, 304.
+
+[208] Schoolcraft’s _Indian Tribes_, iv. 52.
+
+[209] _The Basutos_, 223.
+
+[210] Potter’s _Grecian Antiquities_, ii. 69.
+
+[211] Turner’s _Samoa_, 298.
+
+[212] Ellis’s _Polynesian Researches_, i. 275.
+
+[213] Hutton’s _Voyage to Africa_, 1821, 337.
+
+[214] Colenso and Durnford’s _Zulu War_, 364, 379.
+
+[215] Petitot’s _Mémoires_, xv. 329.
+
+[216] The evidence is collected in _Cetschwayo’s Dutchman_, 99-103.
+
+[217] Henty’s _March to Coomassie_, 443. Compare Reade’s _Ashantee
+Campaign_, 241-2.
+
+[218] Florus, ii. 19; iii. 4; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 1.
+
+[219] Florus, ii. 20.
+
+[220] _Ibid._ iii. 7.
+
+[221] Florus, iii. 4; Cæsar, _De Bello Gallico_, ix. 44.
+
+[222] Morley’s _Cobden_, ii. 355.
+
+[223] Sir A. Helps’ _Las Casas_, 29.
+
+[224] T. Morton’s _New England Canaan_, 1637, iii.
+
+[225] Belknap’s _New Hampshire_, i. 262.
+
+[226] Penhallow’s _Indian Wars_, 1826, republished 1859, 31-3.
+
+[227] _Ibid._ 105, 6.
+
+[228] _Ibid._ 103. For further details of this debased military
+practice, see Adair’s _History of American Indians_, 245; Kercheval’s
+_History of the Valley of Virginia_, 263; Drake’s _Biography and
+History of the Indians_, 210, 373; Sullivan’s _History of Maine_, 251.
+
+[229] Kercheval’s _Virginia_, 113.
+
+[230] Eschwege’s _Brazil_, i. 186; Tschudi’s _Reisen durch Südamerika_,
+i. 262.
+
+[231] Parkman’s _Expedition against Ohio Indians_, 1764, 117.
+
+[232] Argensola, _Les Isles Molucques_, i. 60.
+
+[233] Drake’s _Biography and History of the Indians_, 489, 490.
+
+[234] R. C. Burton’s _City of the Saints_, 576; Eyre’s _Central
+Australia_, i. 175-9.
+
+[235] Borwick’s _Last of the Tasmanians_, 58.
+
+[236] Tschudi’s _Reisen_, ii. 262.
+
+[237] Maccoy’s _Baptist Indian Missions_, 441; Froebel’s _Seven Years
+in Central America_, 272; Wallace’s _Travels on the Amazon_, 326.
+
+[238] Bancroft’s _United States_, ii. 383-5; and compare Clarkson’s
+_Life of Penn_, chaps. 45 and 46.
+
+[239] Brooke’s _Ten Years in Sarawak_, i. 74.
+
+[240] Captain Hamilton’s _East Indies_, in Pinkerton, viii. 514.
+
+[241] W. H. Russell’s _My Diary in India_, 150.
+
+[242] _Annals of the Propagation of the Faith_, viii. 280-6.
+
+[243] _Caffres and Caffre Missions_, 210.
+
+[244] _Memorials of Henrietta Robertson_, 259, 308, 353.
+
+[245] _Ibid._ 353.
+
+[246] Colenso and Durnford’s _Zulu War_, 215.
+
+[247] Holden’s _History of Natal_, 210, 211.
+
+[248] Moister’s _Africa, Past and Present_, 310, 311.
+
+[249] Tams’s _Visit to Portuguese Possessions_, i. 181, ii. 28, 179.
+
+[250] Robertson’s _America_; Works, vi. 177, 205.
+
+[251] Thomson’s _Great Missionaries_, 30; Halkett’s _Indians of North
+America_, 247, 249, 256.
+
+[252] Le Blant, _Inscriptions Chrétiennes_, i. 86.
+
+[253] Bingham, _Christian Antiquities_, i. 486.
+
+[254] Cæsar, _De Bello Gallico_, vi. 14. ‘Druides a bello abesse
+consuerunt ... militiæ vacationem habent;’ and Origen, _In Celsum_,
+viii. 73, for the Romans.
+
+[255] Vaughan’s _Life of Wycliffe_, ii. 212-3.
+
+[256] Turner’s _England_, iv. 458, from Duchesne, _Gesta Stephani_.
+
+[257] ‘Non filius meus est vel ecclesiæ; ad regis autem voluntatem
+redimetur, quia potius Martis quam Christi miles judicatur.’
+
+[258] Turner’s _England_, v. 92.
+
+[259] ‘Sanxit ut nullus in posterum sacerdos in hostem pergeret,
+nisi duo vel tres episcopi electione cæterorum propter benedictionem
+populique reconciliationem, et cum illis electi sacerdotes qui bene
+scirent populis pœnitentias dare, missas celebrare, etc.’ (in _Du
+Cange_, ‘Hostis’).
+
+[260] Guicciardini. ‘Prometteva che se i soldati procedevano
+virilmente, che non accetterebbe la Mirandola con alcuno patto: ma
+lascierebbe in potestà loro il saccheggiarla.’
+
+[261] Monstrelet, i. 9.
+
+[262] Crichton’s _Scandinavia_, i. 170.
+
+[263] _Mémoires du Fleurange._ Petitot, xvi. 253.
+
+[264] See Palmer, _Origines Liturgicæ_, ii. 362-65, for the form of
+service.
+
+[265] _Petitot_, xvi. 229.
+
+[266] _Ibid._ 135.
+
+[267] Petitot, viii. 55. ‘Feciono venire per tutto il campo un prete
+parato col corpo di Christo, e in luogo di communicarsi ciascuno prese
+uno poco di terra, e la si mise in boca.’
+
+[268] Livy, xxxvi. 2.
+
+[269] Robertson, _Charles V._, note 21. Ryan, _History of Effects of
+Religion on Mankind_, 124.
+
+[270] M. J, Schmidt, _Histoire des Allemands traduite, etc._, iv. 232,
+3.
+
+[271] ‘Christianis licet ex mandato magistratus arma portare et _justa_
+bella administrare.’
+
+[272] _Policy of War a True Defence of Peace_, 1543.
+
+[273] _Pallas Armata_, 369, 1683.
+
+[274] In his treatise _Du droit de la guerre_.
+
+[275] _L’Esprit_, i. 562.
+
+[276] _Strafgesetzbuch_, Jan. 20, 1872, 15, 75, 150.
+
+[277] Fleming’s _Volkommene Teutsche Soldat_, 96.
+
+[278] Benet’s _United States Articles of War_, 391.
+
+[279] Grose, ii. 199.
+
+[280] See Turner’s _Pallas Armata_, 349, for these and similar military
+tortures.
+
+[281] Crichton’s _Scandinavia_, i. 168.
+
+[282] Grose, ii. 6.
+
+[283] Sir S. Scott’s _History of the British Army_, ii. 436.
+
+[284] ii. 16. ‘Omnes autem signarii vel signiferi quamvis pedites
+loricas minores accipiebant, et _galeas ad terrorem hostium ursinis
+pellibus tectas_.’
+
+[285] Scott, ii. 9.
+
+[286] Scott, i. 311.
+
+[287] Said to have been invented about 400 B.C. by Dionysius, tyrant of
+Syracuse.
+
+[288] Mitchell’s _Biographies of Eminent Soldiers_, 208, 287.
+
+[289] Compare article 14 of the German _Strafgesetzbuch_ of January 20,
+1872.
+
+[290] _Nineteenth Century_, November 1882: ‘The Present State of the
+Army.’
+
+[291] _De Re Militari_, vi. 5.
+
+[292] Bruce’s _Military Law_ (1717), 254.
+
+[293] See Fleming’s _Teutsche Soldat_, ch. 29.
+
+[294] See the War Articles for 1673, 1749, 1794.
+
+[295] 82.
+
+[296] Quintus Curtius, viii. 2.
+
+[297] _Military Law_, 163.
+
+[298] 286, 290.
+
+[299] _Despatches_, iii. 302, June 17, 1809.
+
+[300] Compare also _Despatches_, iv. 457; v. 583, 704, 5.
+
+[301] _China War_, 225.
+
+[302] Scott’s _British Army_, ii. 411.
+
+[303] _Wellington’s Despatches_, v. 705.
+
+[304] See Windham’s Speech in the House of Commons. April 3, 1806.
+
+[305] _Ibid._
+
+[306] P. 122.
+
+[307] Fleming, 109.
+
+[308] Preface to b. iii. ‘Ergo qui desiderat pacem, præparet bellum.’
+
+[309] Lord Wolseley’s _Soldier’s Pocket Book_, 5.
+
+[310] Arbousset’s _Exploratory Tour_, 397-9.
+
+[311] Livy, xl. 6.
+
+[312] _Iliad_, vi. 266-8; and comp. _Æneid_, ii. 717-20.
+
+[313] Casalis’s _Basutos_, 258.
+
+[314] Victor Hugo’s _L’Ane_, 124.
+
+[315] Baillat’s _Vie de Descartes_, i. 41.
+
+[316] ii. 25, 9, 1. ‘Tanto carnifice detestabiliores quanto pejus est
+sine causâ quam ex causâ occidere.’
+
+[317] _Ibid._ 2. ‘Nullum vitæ genus est improbius quam eorum qui sine
+causæ respectu mercede conducti militant, et quibus ibi fas ubi plurima
+merces.’ Both the sentiment and the expression are borrowed from
+Lucan’s _Pharsalia_, x. 408: ‘Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra
+sequuntur Venalesque manus; ibi fas ubi plurima merces.’
+
+[318] 364.
+
+[319] Potter’s _Greek Antiquities_, ii. 9.
+
+[320] Henry’s _Britain_, iii. 5, 1; Grose i. 56.
+
+[321] Grose, i. 58.
+
+[322] _Ibid._, i. 67.
+
+[323] _Parliamentary Debates_, May 24, 1756.
+
+[324] Sir S. Scott’s _British Army_, ii. 333.
+
+[325] N. Bacon’s Notes to _Selden’s Laws_, ii. 60.
+
+[326] _Candide_, c. xx.
+
+[327] Alison’s _Europe_, vi. 491.
+
+[328] _Life of Sir C. Napier_, i. 77.
+
+[329] _Military Law_, 17.
+
+[330] _Keppel’s Life_, by T. Keppel, ii. 1.
+
+[331] _Indian Expedition_, ix.
+
+[332] Livy, 39, 3; 42, 21; 43, 5.
+
+[333] Livy, xlv. 22. ‘Certe quidem vos estis Romani, qui ideo felicia
+bella vestra esse, quia justa sint, præ vobis fertis, nec tam exitu
+eorum, quod vincatis, quam principiis quod non sine causâ suscipiatis,
+gloriamini.’
+
+[334] _De Civitate Dei_, iv. 4 and 6.
+
+[335] _Arbre des Batailles_, quoted in Kennedy’s _Influence of
+Christianity on International Law_.
+
+[336] Petitot, xvi. 137.
+
+[337] III. 65. ‘Cavendo ne metuant, homines metuendos ultro se
+efficiunt, et injuriam ab nobis repulsam, tamquam aut facere aut pati
+necesse sit, injungimus aliis.’
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+ Achæan, curious mode of warfare, 131
+
+ Alexander II. of Russia, 3, 10
+
+ Armed neutrality, the, 86
+
+ Armour, 55, 224
+
+ Ashantee battle song, 86
+
+
+ Balloonists in war, 148
+
+ Battles, allusions to:
+ Agincourt, 201, 262
+ Bouvines, 194
+ Camperdown, 80
+ Crecy, 9, 54
+ Dover, 84
+ Musselborough, 56
+ Navarette, 59
+ Neerwinden, 6
+ Nicopoli, 56
+ Nile, 81
+ Otterbourne, 196
+ Pavia, 141
+ Poitiers, 207
+ Tel-el-Kebir, 253
+
+ Bearskin hats, 223, 224
+
+ Becon, Thomas, on military service in the sixteenth century, 208
+
+ Bishops in war, 35, 52-3, 193-8, 261
+
+ Blinding of prisoners, 42-3
+
+ Blockade, effective, 92
+
+ Bloodhounds used in war, 171-2
+
+ Bombardment, theory and practice of, 12, 15, 17, 106, 116
+
+ Bounties for scalps, 156
+
+ Brigand, meaning of, 57
+
+ Britons, love for military life, 156
+
+ Brussels Conference on laws of war, 10, 94, 95, 105, 123, 130,
+ 141-6-7-8, 158
+
+ Bullinger, limits to right of military service, 208, 263
+
+
+ Cannons, 5
+
+ Cannon-shot oath, 130
+
+ Capitulations, 100-1
+
+ Chain-shot, 6
+
+ Chivalry, age of, 32
+
+ Church, influence of, on war, 52, 185-193, 204-16, 252
+
+ Churches, destruction of, 48
+
+ Church parade, 219
+
+ Cities, fate of, in war:
+ Amiens, surprise of, 148
+ Badajoz, storming of, 27
+ Barcelona, siege of, 138
+ Brescia, storming of, 103
+ Calais, siege of, 44
+ Constantine, storming of, 27
+ Copenhagen, bombardment of, 15, 268
+ Dinant, storming of, 102
+ Gaza, storming of, 107
+ Grammont, massacre at, 35
+ Gravelines, massacre at, 36
+ Haarlem, siege of, 97
+ Liège, storming of, 102
+ Limoges, massacre at, 37
+ Londonderry, siege of, 197-8
+ Magdeburg, massacre at, 27, 112
+ Malta, siege of, 97
+ Meaux, surrender of, 45, 101
+ Mirandola, siege of, 197
+ Oudenarde, siege of, 47
+ Pekin, English at, 237
+ Persepolis, burning of, 108
+ Poitiers, massacre at, 34
+ Rome, sack of, 103
+ Rouen, surrender of, 47, 101
+ San Sebastian, storming of, 28
+ Strasburg, bombardment of 15, 17, 106
+ Terouanne, destruction of, 137
+ Thebes, sack of, 103
+ Toledo, siege of, 42
+ Tyre, siege of, 108
+ Ulm, surprise of, 149
+ Washington, English in, 16
+
+ Conference stratagem, 136
+
+ Conscription, the, 242-8
+
+ Consecration of banners, 201
+
+ Contraband, 88
+
+ Contributions, military, 20, 118
+
+ Costume, military, 222-3
+
+ Crossbow, 4, 133
+
+ Cruelty and courage, 110
+
+ Custom of war, character of, 186, 210
+
+
+ Decimation, story of, 222
+
+ Declaration of Paris, 73, 78, 86-9
+
+ Declaration of St. Petersburg, 2, 3, 81
+
+ Declaration of war, 19, 198
+
+ Desertion, 230-1
+
+ Discipline, 7, 218, 234, 236
+
+ Dress, philosophy of military, 229
+
+ Duty, 74, 121, 264
+
+
+ Embargoes, 89
+
+ Explosive bullets, 1-2, 81
+
+
+ False flag, stratagem of the, 128-130
+
+ False information in war, 152
+
+ Fecials, Roman, 271
+
+ Firearms, feeling against, 5, 226
+
+ Fireships, 84-5
+
+ Flogging, 234-5
+
+ Forged despatches, 151
+
+ Free Companies, 60, 260
+
+ Free ships, free goods, 87
+
+ Fruit-trees, 16, 17, 47, 161
+
+
+ Germans, the, in war, 40, 106, 115-9
+
+ Greek fire, 83-4
+
+ Grenadiers, 223
+
+
+ Hanging in war, 44-7
+
+ Honour, variable notions of, 155-6, 267
+
+ Hostages, taking of, revived, 117
+
+
+ Innocent III., 206
+
+ Invention of the bayonet, 6
+
+
+ Jomini, Baron, President of Brussels Conference, 95
+
+ Julius II., story of, 196
+
+ Jus Angariæ, 90
+
+ Justice in war, 208, 258-9, 271, 273-80
+
+
+ Khonds, theory of war, 203
+
+ Kidnapping soldiers in Germany, 241
+
+ Kissing the earth, custom of, 201
+
+
+ Lateran Council, Third, 4
+
+ Laws of war among savages, 159
+
+ Lent, observation of, in war, 51, 205
+
+ Leo the Great, 204
+
+ Letters of marque, 74, 78
+
+ Letters, military contempt for, 156
+
+ Limoges, Council of, 203
+
+ Loha Pennu, an Indian war-god, 203
+
+
+ Macedonian warfare, 133
+
+ Magic, use of, in war, 199
+
+ Malingering, 231-4
+
+ Marriage, restrictions on, 218-9
+
+ Mercenary service, 260-3
+
+ Military cant, 21, 105-6, 118, 163
+
+ -- vandalism, 16, 48, 163, 237
+
+ Missionaries, 176-182
+
+ -- failure of, 177
+
+ -- legal control of, 181
+
+ Missionaries, Norwegian, in Zululand, 179
+
+ Mission stations destroyed, 180
+
+ Mozley, Canon, on war, 212
+
+ Musket, 5, 133
+
+ Mutiny Act, first, 265
+
+
+ Names of weapons, 200
+
+ Neutral ships and property, 86
+
+ Night attacks, 133
+
+ Numbers slain in war, 8-10
+
+
+ Oath, military, 264-5
+
+ Oath by cannon-shot, 130
+
+ Ophthalmia, artificial, 233
+
+
+ Palatinate, devastation of the, 17, 267
+
+ Pay, soldiers’, 239, 261
+
+ Perfidy, cases of, 135
+
+ Perjury, cases of, 139
+
+ Perpetual peace, Von Moltke on, 119
+
+ Piracy, 67-70, 255
+
+ Plunder of property at sea, 67-70
+
+ Plunder of property on land, 61-3, 66, 118
+
+ Poison, use of, in war, 13, 14, 172-3
+
+ Poisoning the air, 49
+
+ Poisoning water, 14, 29
+
+ Press, influence of, in war, 112, 177, 182, 253
+
+ Prisoners, treatment of, 17, 18, 40, 85, 99, 113
+
+ Prisoners, beheaded, 97, 106
+
+ -- blinded, 43
+
+ -- burnt, 103, 111
+
+ -- drowned, 101-2-6
+
+ -- hung, 46, 101-3
+
+ -- maimed, 43, 103
+
+ -- massacred, 41, 111
+
+ -- tortured, 194
+
+ Privateering, 70-9
+
+ -- Lord Nelson on, 77
+
+ Prizes and prize-money, 70
+
+ Prize Court, 76
+
+ Punishments, military, 221-6
+
+ Purificatory battle rites, 250
+
+ Pursers on privateers, 76
+
+
+ Recruiting, difficulty of, 240
+
+ -- former system of, in France and Germany, 241
+
+ Red, the military colour, 223
+
+ Red-hot shot, 5, 83
+
+ Reprisals, 93-118
+
+ -- savage German, 117-8
+
+ Right of search, 88
+
+ Right of wreck, 89
+
+ Roman warfare, 114, 132, 271-2
+
+
+ Sacred buildings in war, 16, 48-9
+
+ Sea battles, 80, 83
+
+ Scalping enemies, 170
+
+ Sentry-go, 229
+
+ Slavery, influence of its cessation on war, 112
+
+ Socialism, chief cause of, 245-8
+
+ Soldiers of mark:
+ Alaric, 204
+ Alexander the Great, 107-10, 133
+ Barbarossa, 100
+ Bayard, 6, 57, 149, 151, 165, 201, 226, 273
+ Bertrand du Guesclin, 40-1, 44
+ Black Prince, the, 37, 59
+ Blücher, 16, 17
+ Cæsar, 98, 156, 169, 272
+ Catinat, 145
+ Chandos, Sir John, 55
+ Charles of Anjou, 100
+ Charles the Bold, 111
+ Charles XII. of Sweden, 133, 226
+ Crillon, 22, 73, 243
+ Custine, 145
+ David, king of the Jews, 111, 251
+ David I. of Scotland, 111
+ Des Adretz, 111
+ Edward I., 106
+ Edward III., 44
+ Eugene, Prince, 149
+ Feuquières, 97, 138, 149
+ Francis I., 140
+ Francis de Vere, 104
+ Frederick the Great, 16, 142
+ Genseric, 205
+ Godfrey de Bouillon, 100
+ Gustavus Adolphus, 19-20, 22, 221
+ Henri Quatre, 30
+ Henry V., 101
+ Keppel, Admiral, 270
+ Manny, Sir Walter, 44, 57
+ Maurice, Prince, 150
+ Montluc, 107, 121, 133, 137, 145, 156
+ Moltke, 119
+ Orange, Prince of, 152
+ Parma, Prince of, 146
+ Pélissier, 165
+ Peterborough, Lord, 138
+ Pyrrhus, 157
+ Richard I., 111, 195
+ Saxe, Marshal, 226
+ Scipio, 146
+ Sertorius, 143, 145
+ Sully, 30
+ Suwarrow, 238
+ Wellington, Duke of, 20, 236
+ Wolseley, Lord, 143-4, 151, 244
+ Xerxes, 47, 99, 146
+
+ Spaniards in war, 40, 42, 97, 167-9, 200
+
+ Spies, 141-8
+ Vattel on, 141
+ Frederick the Great on, 142
+ Lord Wolseley on, 143-4
+
+ Storming cities, 27, 238
+
+ Surprises, 148-9
+
+ Surrender at discretion, 45, 100, 123
+
+
+ Ternate, island of, 131
+
+ Torpedoes, first use of, 5
+
+ -- introduced into European warfare, 85
+
+ Treatise on Tactics by Leo VI., 83
+
+ Truce of God, 205
+
+
+ War, real character of, 27, 186, 210
+
+ Wars, abolition of private, 205, 227
+
+ Weapons, 50
+
+ Women, imprisoned in war, 38
+
+ Women and children, slaughter of, 23, 33-8, 117
+
+ Women as soldiers, 242
+
+ Writers, &c.:
+ Arrian, 109
+ Bluntschli, 127
+ Bynkershoeck, 14, 127
+ Cicero, 114, 126
+ Descartes, 254
+ Dobritzhoffer, 160
+ Emerigon, 73
+ Erasmus, 186, 244
+ Froissart, 23
+ Frontinus, 134
+ Grotius, 14, 17, 23, 126, 187, 256, 258, 273
+ Hallam, 32, 50
+ Hautefeuille, 67
+ Kant, 23, 30
+ Las Casas, 167
+ Molloy, 77
+ Origen, 190
+ Palmerston, Lord, 227
+ Penn, 173
+ Polyænus, 135
+ Quintus Curtius, 109
+ St. Pierre, Abbé, 30
+ Sepulveda, 167
+ Tertullian, 189
+ Turner, Sir James, 259
+ Valin, 73
+ Vattel, 14, 18, 21, 73, 104-5, 139, 141, 266
+ Vauban, 15
+ Victor Hugo, 252
+ Voltaire, 210, 267-8
+ Whewell, 67
+ Wycliffe, 193
+ Zwingli, 263
+
+
+_Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London._
+
+
+
+
+ Transcriber's notes:
+
+ The following is a list of changes made to the original.
+ The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
+
+ Page 11, footnote:
+
+ like England should have been heard an inquiry of which
+ like England should have been heard at an inquiry of which
+
+ Page 78:
+
+ which abolished privateering beween the signatory Powers,
+ which abolished privateering between the signatory Powers,
+
+ Page 244:
+
+ such an expositon as the following of the relation between
+ such an exposition as the following of the relation between
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Military Manners and Customs, by James Anson Farrer
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+Project Gutenberg's Military Manners and Customs, by James Anson Farrer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
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+Title: Military Manners and Customs
+
+Author: James Anson Farrer
+
+Release Date: January 9, 2014 [EBook #44635]
+
+Language: English
+
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS ***
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+</pre>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p>Transcriber's Note:</p>
+
+<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including inconsistent hyphenation. Some changes have been
+made. They are listed at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+<h1>Military Manners and
+Customs</h1>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON: PRINTED BY<br />
+SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br />
+AND PARLIAMENT STREET
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center xlarge">MILITARY MANNERS<br />
+AND CUSTOMS</p>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center large">JAMES ANSON FARRER</p>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF<br />
+‘PRIMITIVE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS’ ‘CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS’ ETC.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<img src="images/i003.png" width="219" height="255" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><i>‘Homo homini res sacra’</i>&mdash;Seneca</p>
+
+<p class="center">London<br />
+CHATTO &amp; WINDUS, PICCADILLY<br />
+1885</p>
+
+<p class="center">[<i>The right of translation is reserved.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a><br /><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</a></h2>
+
+<p>In the present volume I have attempted within the
+limits of the historical period and of our European
+civilisation, and without recognising any hard and
+fast line between ancient and modern, Christian and
+Pagan, to allude, in the places that seemed most
+appropriate, to all points in the history of war that
+appeared to be either of special interest or of essential
+importance. As examples of such points I may refer
+to the treatment of prisoners of war, or of surrendered
+garrisons; the rules about spies and surprises; the introduction
+of, and feeling about, new weapons; the
+meaning of parts of military dress; the origin of
+peculiar customs like the old one of kissing the earth
+before a charge; the prevalent rules of honour, as displayed
+in notions of justice in regard to reprisals, or of
+fairness in stratagems and deception. The necessity
+of observing in so vast a field the laws of proportion
+has enforced resort to such condensation, that on
+subjects which deserve or possess their tomes upon
+tomes, I have in many cases been unable to spend
+more than a page or a chapter. It is easier, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>ever,
+to err on the side of length than of brevity, but
+on whichever side I have exceeded, I can only hope
+that others, who may feel the same interest with
+myself in the subject without having the same time to
+give to it, may derive a tithe of the pleasure from
+reading the following nine chapters that I have found
+in putting them together.</p>
+
+<p>The study, of course, is no new one, but there can
+be no objection to calling it by the new name of
+Bellology&mdash;a convenient term, quite capable of holding
+its own with Sociology or its congeners. The
+only novelty I have aimed at is one of treatment, and
+consists in never losing sight of the fact that to all
+military customs there is a moral and human side
+which has been only too generally ignored in this
+connection. To read books like Grose’s ‘Military
+Antiquities,’ one would think their writers were
+dealing with the manners, not of men but of ninepins,
+so utterly do they divest themselves of all human
+interest or moral feeling, in reference to the customs
+they describe with so laudable but toneless an
+accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>The starting-point of modern bellological studies
+will, undoubtedly, always be the Parliamentary Blue
+Book, containing the reports (less full than one might
+wish) of the Military International Conference that
+met at Brussels in 1874, to discuss the existing laws
+and customs of war, and to consider whether any
+modification of them were either possible or desirable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>
+Most of the representatives appointed to attend by
+the several Powers were military men, so that we are
+carried by their conversation into the actual realities
+of modern warfare, with an authority and sense of
+truth that one is conscious of in no other military
+book. It is to be regretted that such a work, instructive
+as it is beyond any other on the subject, has
+never been printed in a form more popular than its
+official dress. It was from it that I first conceived
+the idea of the following pages, and in the sequel
+frequent reference will be made to it, as the source of
+the most trustworthy military information we possess,
+and as certain to be for some time to come
+the standard work on all the actual laws and customs
+of contemporary warfare.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a><br /><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</a></h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h3>
+THE LAWS OF WAR.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdr small">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The prohibition of explosive bullets in war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_2">2</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The importance of the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The ultimate triumph of more destructive methods</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Illustrated by history of the crossbow or the musket</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Or of cannons, torpedoes, red-hot shot, or the bayonet</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Numbers slain in modern and earlier warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The laws of war at the Brussels Conference of 1874</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Do the laws of war tend to improve?</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">A negative answer suggested from reference</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;1. To the use of poison in war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;2. To the bombardment of towns</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;3. To the destruction of public buildings</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;4. To the destruction of crops and fruit-trees</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;5. To the murder of prisoners or the wounded</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;6. To the murder of surrendered garrisons</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;7. To the destruction of fishing-boats</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;8. To the disuse of the declaration of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;9. To the torture and mutilation of combatants and non-combatants</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">10. To the custom of contributions</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The futile attempts of Grotius and Vattel to humanise warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The rights of war in the time of Grotius</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_24">24</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The futility of international law with regard to laws of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The employment of barbarian troops</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The taking of towns by assault</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The laws of war contrasted with the practice</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">War easier to abolish than to humanise</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h3>
+WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS TIMES.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Delusion about character of war in days of chivalry</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The common slaughter of women and children</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Earl of Derby’s sack of Poitiers</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The massacres of Grammont and Gravelines</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The old poem of the Vow of the Heron</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The massacre of Limoges by Edward the Black Prince</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The imprisonment of ladies for ransom</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Prisoners of war starved to death</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Or massacred, if no prospect of ransom</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Or blinded or otherwise mutilated</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The meaning of a surrender at discretion</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">As illustrated by Edward III. at Calais</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">And by several instances in the same and the next century</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The practice of burning in aid of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">And of destroying sacred buildings</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The practice of poisoning the air</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The use of barbarous weapons</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The influence of religion on war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Church in vain on the side of peace</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Curious vows of the knights</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The slight personal danger incurred in war by them</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The explanation of their magnificent costume</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Field sports in war-time</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The desire of gain the chief motive of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The identity of soldiers and brigands</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_57">57</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The career and character of the Black Prince</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The place of money in the history of chivalry</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Its influence as a war-motive between England and France</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">General low character of chivalrous warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h3>
+NAVAL WARFARE.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Robbery the first object of maritime warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The piratical origin of European navies</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Merciless character of wars at sea</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Fortunes made by privateering in England</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Privateers commissioned by the State</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Privateers defended by the publicists</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Distinction between privateering and piracy</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Failure of the State to regulate privateering</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Privateering condemned by Lord Nelson</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Privateering abolished by the declaration of Paris in 1856</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Modern feeling against seizure of private property at sea</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Naval warfare in days of wooden ships</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Unlawful methods of maritime war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Emperor Leo VI.’s ‘Treatise on Tactics’</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The use of fire-ships</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Death the penalty for serving in fire-ships</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Torpedoes originally regarded as ‘bad’ war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">English and French doctrine of rights of neutrals</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Enemy’s property under neutral flag secured by Treaty of Paris</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Shortcomings of the Treaty of Paris with regard to&mdash;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;1. A definition of what is contraband</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;2. The right of search of vessels under convoy</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;3. The practice of Embargoes</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdsub">&#8199;4. The <i>Jus Angariæ</i></td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The International Marine Code of the future</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_91">91</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h3>
+MILITARY REPRISALS.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">International law on legitimate reprisals</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Brussels Conference on the subject</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Illustrations of barbarous reprisals</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Instances of non-retaliation</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Savage reprisals in days of chivalry</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Hanging the commonest reprisals for a brave defence</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">As illustrated by the warfare of the fifteenth century</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Survival of the custom to our own times</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The massacre of a conquered garrison still a law of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The shelling of Strasburg by the Germans</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Brutal warfare of Alexander the Great</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The connection between bravery and cruelty</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The abolition of slavery in its effects on war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The storming of Magdeburg, Brescia, and Rome</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Cicero on Roman warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The reprisals of the Germans in France in 1870</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Their revival of the custom of taking hostages</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Their resort to robbery as a plea of reprisals</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">General Von Moltke on perpetual peace</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The moral responsibility of the military profession</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Press as a potent cause of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Plea for the abolition of demands for unconditional surrender</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Such as led to the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h3>
+MILITARY STRATAGEMS.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Grotius’ theory of fair stratagems</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The teaching of international law</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Ancient and modern naval stratagems</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Early Roman dislike of such stratagems</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_132">132</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">As ambuscades, feigned retreats, or night attacks</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The degenerate standard of Frontinus and Polyænus</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Conference stratagem of modern Europe</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The distinction between perfidy and stratagem</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The perfidy of Francis I.</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Vattel’s theory about spies</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Frederick the Great’s military instructions about spies</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Lord Wolseley on spies and truth in war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The custom of hanging or shooting spies</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Better to keep them as prisoners of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Balloonists regarded as spies</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The practice of military surprises</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Death formerly the penalty for capture in a surprise</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Stratagems of uncertain character</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Such as forged despatches or false intelligence</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The use of the telegraph in deceiving the enemy</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">May prisoners of war be compelled to propagate lies?</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">General character of the military code of fraud</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h3>
+BARBARIAN WARFARE.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Variable notions of honour</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Primitive ideas of a military life</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">What is civilised warfare?</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Advanced laws of war among several savage tribes</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Symbols of peace among savages</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Samoan form of surrender</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Treaties of peace among savages</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Abeyance of laws of war in hostilities with savages</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Zulus blown up in caves with gun-cotton</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Women and men kidnapped for transport service on the Gold Coast</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Humane intentions of the Spaniards in the New World</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Contrasted with the inhumanity of their actions</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_167">167</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Wars with natives of English and French in America</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">High rewards offered for scalps</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The use of bloodhounds in war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The use of poison and infected clothes</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Penn’s treaty with the Indians</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">How Missionaries come to be a cause of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Explanation of the failure of modern missions</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The mission stations as centres of hostile intrigues</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Plea for the State-regulation of missions</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Depopulation under Protestant influences</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The prevention of false rumours&mdash;<i>Tendenzlügen</i></td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Civilised and barbarian warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">No real distinction between them</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h3>
+WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The war question at the time of the Reformation</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The remonstrances of Erasmus against the custom</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Influence of Grotius on the side of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The war question in the early Church</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Fathers against the lawfulness of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Causes of the changed views of the Church</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The clergy as active combatants for over a thousand years</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Fighting bishops</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Pope Julius II. at the siege of Mirandola</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The last fighting bishop</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Origin and meaning of the declaration of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Superstition in the naming of weapons, ships, &amp;c.</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The custom of kissing the earth before a charge</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Connection between religious and military ideas</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The Church as a pacific agency</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Her efforts to set limits to reprisals</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The altered attitude of the modern Church</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_208">208</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Early Reformers only sanctioned <i>just</i> wars</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Voltaire’s reproach against the Church</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Canon Mozley’s sermon on war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The answer to his apology</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h3>
+CURIOSITIES OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Increased severity of discipline</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Limitation of the right of matrimony</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Compulsory Church parade and its origin</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Atrocious military punishments</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Reasons for the military love of red</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The origin of bear-skin hats</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Different qualities of bravery</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Historical fears for the extinction of courage</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The conquests of the cause of Peace</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Causes of the unpopularity of military service</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The dulness of life in the ranks</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The prevalence of desertion</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Articles of war against Malingering</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Military artificial ophthalmia</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The debasing influence of discipline</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Illustrated from the old flogging system</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The discipline of the Peninsular army</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Attempts to make the service more popular</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">By raising the private’s wages</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">By shortening his term of service</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The old recruiting system of France and Germany</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The conscription imminent in England</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The question of military service for women</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The probable results of the conscription</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Militarism answerable for Socialism</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_246">246</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdhead"><h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h3>
+THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTIES.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Military purificatory customs</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Modern change of feeling about warfare</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Descartes on the profession of arms</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The old-world sentiment in favour of piracy</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The central question of military ethics</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">May a soldier be indifferent to the cause of war?</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The right to serve made conditional on a good cause</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">By St. Augustine, Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir James Turner</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Old Greek feeling about mercenary service</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Origin of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous service</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Armies raised by military contractors</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The value of the distinction between foreign and native mercenaries</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Original limitation of military duty</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">To the actual defence of the realm</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Extension of the notion of allegiance</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The connection of the military oath with the first Mutiny Act</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Recognised limits to the claims on a soldier’s obedience</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The falsity of the common doctrine of duty</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Illustrated by the devastation of the Palatinate by the French</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">And by the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The example of Admiral Keppel</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Justice between nations</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Its observation in ancient India and Rome</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">St. Augustine and Bayard on justice in war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">Grotius on good grounds of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The military claim to exemption from moral responsibility</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The soldier’s first duty to his conscience</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdh">The admission of this principle involves the end of war</td>
+<td class="tdp"><a href="#Page_280">280</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="MILITARY" id="MILITARY">MILITARY
+MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.</a></h2>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">THE LAWS OF WAR.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Ce sont des lois de la guerre. Il faut estre bien cruel bien
+souvent pour venir au bout de son ennemi; Dieu doit estre bien
+miséricordieux en nostre endroict, qui faisons tant de maux.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Marshal
+Montluc.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">The prohibition of explosive bullets in war&mdash;The importance of the
+Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868&mdash;The ultimate triumph of
+more destructive methods&mdash;Illustrated by history of the cross-bow
+or the musket; or of cannons, torpedoes, red-hot shot, or the
+bayonet&mdash;Numbers slain in modern and earlier warfare&mdash;The
+laws of war at the Brussels Conference of 1874&mdash;Do the laws of
+war tend to improve?&mdash;A negative answer suggested from reference:
+(1) to the use of poison in war; (2) to the bombardment
+of towns; (3) to the destruction of public buildings; (4) to the
+destruction of crops and fruit trees; (5) to the murder of prisoners
+or the wounded; (6) to the murder of surrendered garrisons; (7)
+to the destruction of fishing boats; (8) to the disuse of the
+declaration of war; (9) to the torture and mutilation of combatants
+and non-combatants; (10) to the custom of contributions&mdash;The
+futile attempts of Grotius and Vattel to humanise warfare&mdash;The
+rights of war in the time of Grotius&mdash;The futility of international
+law with regard to laws of war&mdash;The employment of
+barbarian troops&mdash;The taking of towns by assault&mdash;The laws of
+war contrasted with the practice&mdash;War easier to abolish than to
+humanise.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to head a chapter ‘The Laws of War’
+without thinking of that famous chapter on Iceland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+headed ‘The Snakes of Iceland,’ wherein the writer
+simply informed his readers that there were none in
+the country. ‘The laws of war’ make one think of
+the snakes of Iceland.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, a summary denial of their existence
+would deprive the history of the battle-field of one
+of its most interesting features; for there is surely
+nothing more surprising to an impartial observer of
+military manners and customs than to find that even
+in so just a cause as the defence of your own country
+limitations should be set to the right of injuring your
+aggressor in any manner you can.</p>
+
+<p>What, for instance, can be more obvious in such a
+case than that no suffering you can inflict is needless
+which is most likely permanently to disable your
+adversary? Yet, by virtue of the International
+Declaration of St. Petersburg, in 1868, you may not
+use explosive bullets against him, because it is held
+that they would cause him needless suffering. By the
+logic of war, what can be clearer than that, if the
+explosive bullet deals worse wounds, and therefore
+inflicts death more readily than other destructive
+agencies, it should be used? or else that those too
+should be excluded from the rules of the game&mdash;which
+might end in putting a stop to the game altogether?</p>
+
+<p>The history of the explosive bullet is worth recalling,
+for its prohibition is a straw to clutch at in
+these days of military revival. Like the plague, and
+perhaps gunpowder, it had an Eastern origin. It was
+used originally in India against elephants and tigers.
+In 1863 it was introduced into the Russian army, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+subsequently into other European armies, for use
+against ammunition-waggons. But it was not till
+1867 that a slight modification in its construction
+rendered it available for the destruction of mankind.
+The world owes it to the humanity of the Russian
+Minister of War, General Milutine, that at this point
+a pause was made; and as the Czar, Alexander II.,
+was no less humane than his minister, the result was
+the famous Declaration, signed in 1868 by all the
+chief Powers (save the United States), mutually foregoing
+in their future wars by land or sea the use of
+projectiles weighing less than 400 grammes (to save
+their use for artillery), either explosive or filled with
+inflammable substances. The Court of Berlin wished
+at the time for some other destructive contrivances
+to be equally excluded, but the English Government
+was afraid to go further; as if requiring breathing
+time after so immense an effort to diminish human
+suffering, before proceeding in so perilous a direction.</p>
+
+<p>The Declaration of St. Petersburg, inasmuch as it
+is capable of indefinite expansion, is a somewhat
+awkward precedent for those who in their hearts love
+war and shield its continuance with apologetic platitudes.
+How, they ask, can you enforce agreements
+between nations? But this argument begins to totter
+when we remember that there is absolutely no superior
+power or tribunal in existence which can enforce the
+observance of the St. Petersburg Declaration beyond
+the conscience of the signatory Powers. It follows,
+therefore, that if international agreements are of value,
+there is no need to stop short at this or that bullet:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+which makes the arbitration-tribunal loom in the
+distance perceptibly nearer than it did before.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight, this agreement excluding the use
+of explosive bullets would seem to favour the theory
+of those who see in every increase in the peril of war
+the best hope of its ultimate cessation. A famous
+American statesman is reported to have said, and
+actually to have appealed to the invention of gunpowder
+in support of his statement, that every discovery
+in the art of war has, from this point of view,
+a life-saving and peace-promoting influence.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> But it
+is difficult to conceive a greater delusion. The whole
+history of war is against it; for what has that history
+been but the steady increase of the pains and perils of
+war, as more effective weapons of destruction have
+succeeded one another? The delusion cannot be
+better dispelled than by consideration of the facts
+that follow.</p>
+
+<p>It has often seemed as if humanity were about to
+get the better of the logical tendency of the military
+art. The Lateran Council of 1139 (a sort of European
+congress in its day) not only condemned Arnold of
+Brescia to be burnt for heresy, but anathematised the
+cross-bow for its inhumanity. It forbade its use in
+Christian warfare as alike hateful to God and destructive
+of mankind.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Several brave princes disdained
+to employ cross-bow shooters, and Innocent III. con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>firmed
+the prohibition on the ground that it was not
+fair to inflict on an enemy more than the least possible
+injury.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The long-bow consequently came into
+greater use. But Richard I., in spite of Popes or
+Councils or Chivalry, revived the use of the cross-bow
+in Europe; nor, though his death by one himself
+was regarded as a judgment from Heaven, did its use
+from that time decline till the arquebus and then the
+musket took its place.</p>
+
+<p>Cannons and bombs were at first called diabolical,
+because they suggested the malice of the enemy of
+mankind, or serpentines, because they seemed worse
+than the poison of serpents.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But even cannons were
+at first only used against fortified walls, and there is a
+tradition of the first occasion when they were directed
+against men.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> And torpedoes, now used without
+scruple, were called infamous and infernal when, under
+the name of American Turtles, they were first tried
+by the American Colonies against the ships of their
+mother country.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixteenth century, that knight ‘without fear
+or reproach,’ the Chevalier Bayard, ordered all musketeers
+who fell into his hands to be slain without mercy,
+because he held the introduction of fire-arms to be an
+unfair innovation on the rules of lawful war. So red-hot
+shot (or balls made red hot before insertion in
+the cannon) were at first objected to, or only considered
+fair for purposes of defence, not of attack.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+Yet, what do we find?&mdash;that Louis XIV. fired some
+12,000 of them into Brussels in 1694; that the Austrians
+fired them into Lille in 1792; and that the English
+batteries fired them at the ships in Sebastopol
+harbour, which formed part of the Russian defences.
+Chain-shot and bar-shot were also disapproved of at
+first, or excluded from use by conventions applying
+only to particular wars; now there exists no agreement
+precluding their use, for they soon became
+common in battles at sea.</p>
+
+<p>The invention of the bayonet supplies another
+illustration. The accounts of its origin are little
+better than legends: that it was invented so long ago
+as 1323 by a woman of Bayonne in defence of the
+ramparts of that city against the English; or by
+Puséygur, of Bayonne, about 1650; or borrowed by
+the Dutch from the natives of Madagascar; or connected
+with a place called the Redoute de la Baïonnette
+in the Eastern Pyrenees, where the Basques, having
+exhausted their ammunition against the Spaniards,
+are said to have inserted their knives into the muzzles
+of their guns. But it is certain that as soon as the
+idea was perfected by fixing the blade by rings outside
+the muzzle (in the latter quarter of the seventeenth
+century), battles became more murderous than ever,
+though the destruction of infantry by cavalry was
+diminished. The battle of Neerwinden in 1693,
+in which the French general, Luxembourg, defeated
+the Prince of Orange, is said to have been the first
+battle that was decided by a charge with a bayonet,
+and the losses were enormous on both sides.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>History, in fact, is full of such cases, in which the
+victory has uniformly lain ultimately with the legitimacy
+of the weapon or method that was at first
+rejected as inhumane. For the moment, the law of
+nations forbids the use of certain methods of destruction,
+such as bullets filled with glass or nails, or
+chemical compounds like kakodyl, which could convert
+in a moment the atmosphere round an army into
+one of deadly poison;<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> yet we have nothing like
+certainty&mdash;we have not even historical probability&mdash;that
+these forbidden means, or worse means, will not
+be resorted to in the wars of the future, or that
+reluctance to meet such forms of death will in the
+least degree affect either their frequency or their
+duration.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to explain this law of history. The
+soldier’s courage, as he faces the mitrailleuse with the
+same indifference with which he would face snow-balls
+or bread-pellets, is a miracle of which discipline is the
+simple explanation; for whether the soldier be hired
+or coerced to face death, it is all one to him against
+what kind of bullet he rushes, so long as discipline
+remains&mdash;as Helvetius the French philosopher once
+defined it, the art of making soldiers more afraid of
+their own officers than of their enemy.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> To Clearchus,
+the Lacedæmonian, is attributed the saying that a
+soldier should always fear his own general more
+than the enemy: a mental state easily produced
+in every system of military mechanism. Whatever
+form of death be in front of a man, it is less certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+than that in his rear. The Ashantees as they march
+to battle sing a song which is the soldier’s philosophy
+all the world over: ‘If I go on, I shall die;
+if I stay behind I shall be killed; it is better to
+go on.’<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>How often is it said, in extenuation of modern
+warfare, that it is infinitely less destructive than that
+of ancient or even mediæval times; and that the
+actual loss of life in battle has not kept pace with
+the development of new and more effective life-taking
+implements! Yet it is difficult to imagine a stranger
+paradox, or a proposition that, if true, would reflect
+greater descredit on our mechanical science. If our
+Gatling guns, or Nordenfeldt 5-barrels capable of
+firing 600 rounds a minute, are less effective to
+destroy an enemy than all the paraphernalia of a
+mediæval army, why not in that case return to
+weapons that by the hypothesis better fulfilled the
+purposes of war? This question is a <i>reductio ad
+absurdum</i> of this soothing delusion; but as a matter
+of fact, there is no comparison in destructiveness
+between our modern warfare and that of our ancestors.
+The apparent difference in our favour arises
+from a practice alluded to by Philip de Commines,
+which throws a flood of light upon the subject:
+‘There were slain in this battle about 6,000 men,
+which, to people that are unwilling to lie, may seem
+very much; but in my time I have been in several
+actions, where for one man that was really slain they
+have reported a hundred, thinking by such an account
+to please their masters; and they sometimes deceive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+them with their lies.’ That is to say, as a rule
+the number of the slain should be divided by a
+hundred.</p>
+
+<p>This remark applies even to battles like Crecy
+or Agincourt, where the numbers slain were unusually
+high, and where they are said to have been accurately
+ascertained by counting after the victory. When
+Froissart on such authority quotes 1,291 as the total
+number of warriors of knightly or higher rank slain
+at Crecy, it is possible of course that he is not the
+victim of deception; but what of the 30,000 common
+soldiers for whose death he also vouches? A monk of
+St. Albans, also a contemporary, speaks only of an
+unknown number (<i>et vulgus cujus numerus ignoratur</i>);
+which in the account of the Abbot Hugo was put
+definitely at more than 100,000. It is evident from
+this that the greatest laxity prevailed in reference to
+chronicling the numbers of the slain; so that if we
+take 3,000 instead of 30,000 as the sum total of
+common soldiers slain at Crecy, it is probable that
+we shall be nearer the truth than if we implicitly
+accept Froissart’s statement.</p>
+
+<p>The same scepticism will of course hold good of
+the battles of the ancient world. Is it likely, for
+instance, that in a battle in which the Romans are
+said only to have lost 100 men, the Macedonians
+should have lost 20,000?<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Or again, is it possible,
+considering the difficulty of the commissariat of a
+large army, even in our own days of trains and telegraphs
+and improved agriculture, that Marius in one
+battle can have slain 200,000 Teutons, and taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+90,000 prisoners? But whilst no conclusion is possible
+but that the figures of the older histories are
+altogether too untrustworthy to afford any basis for
+comparison, the calculation rests on something more
+like fair evidence, that in the fortnight between
+August 4, 1870, the date of the battle of Wissembourg,
+and August 18, that of Gravelotte, including
+the battles of Woerth and Forbach on August 6, of
+Courcelles on the 14th, and of Vionville on the 16th
+more than 100,000 French and Germans met their
+death on the battle-field, to say nothing of those
+who perished afterwards in agonies in the hospitals.
+Recent wars have been undoubtedly shorter than
+they often were in olden times, but their brevity is
+founded on no reason that can ensure its recurrence:
+nor, if 100,000 are to be miserably cast out of existence,
+is the gain so very great, if the task, instead of
+being spread over a number of years, requires only a
+fortnight for its accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p>For the nearest approach to a statement of what
+the laws of war in our own time really are, we must
+turn to the Brussels Conference, which met in 1874 at
+the summons of the same great Russian to whom the
+world owes the St. Petersburg Declaration, and which
+constituted a genuine attempt to mitigate the evils of
+war by an international agreement and definition of
+their limits. The idea of such a plan was originally
+suggested by the Instructions published in 1863 by
+President Lincoln for the government of the armies of
+the United States in the civil war.<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The project for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+such an international agreement, originally submitted
+by the Russian Government for discussion, was very
+much modified before even a compromise of opinion
+could be arrived at on the several points it contained.
+And the project so modified, as a preliminary basis for
+future agreement, owing to the timid refusal of the
+English Government to take further part in the matter,
+never, unfortunately, reached its final stage of a definite
+code;<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> but it remains nevertheless the most
+authoritative utterance extant of the laws generally
+thought to be binding in modern warfare on the
+practices and passions of the combatants. The following
+articles from the project as finally modified
+are undoubtedly the most important:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 12.</i> The laws of war do not allow to belligerents
+an unlimited power as to the choice of means
+of injuring the enemy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 13.</i> According to this principle are strictly
+forbidden&mdash;</p>
+
+<ul class="like_p">
+
+<li><i>a.</i> The use of poison or poisoned weapons.</li>
+
+<li><i>b.</i> Murder by treachery of individuals belonging
+to the hostile nation or army.</li>
+
+<li><i>c.</i> Murder of an antagonist who, having laid
+down his arms, or having no longer the
+means of defending himself, has surrendered
+at discretion.</li>
+
+<li><i>d.</i> The declaration that no quarter will be given.</li>
+
+<li><i>e.</i> The use of arms, projectiles, or substances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+which may cause unnecessary suffering, as
+well as of those prohibited by the Declaration
+of St. Petersburg in 1868.</li>
+
+<li><i>f.</i> Abuse of the flag of truce, the national flag,
+or the military insignia or uniform of the
+enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of
+the Geneva Convention.</li>
+
+<li><i>g.</i> All destruction or seizure of the enemy’s
+property which is not imperatively required
+by the necessity of war.</li></ul>
+
+<p><i>Art. 15.</i> Fortified places are alone liable to be
+besieged. Towns, agglomerations of houses or villages
+which are open or undefended, cannot be attacked or
+bombarded.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 17.</i> ... All necessary steps should be taken
+to spare as far as possible buildings devoted to religion,
+arts, sciences, and charity, hospitals and places where
+sick and wounded are collected, on condition that they
+are not used at the same time for military purposes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 18.</i> A town taken by storm shall not be given
+up to the victorious troops for plunder.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 23.</i> Prisoners of war ... should be treated
+with humanity.... All their personal effects except
+their arms are to be considered their own property.</p>
+
+<p><i>Arts. 36, 37.</i> The population of an occupied territory
+cannot be compelled to take part in military
+operations against their own country, nor to swear
+allegiance to the enemy’s power.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 38.</i> The honour and rights of the family, the
+life and property of individuals, as well as their religious
+convictions and the exercise of their religion,
+should be respected.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Private property cannot be confiscated.</p>
+
+<p><i>Art. 39.</i> Pillage is expressly forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>There is at first sight a pleasing ring of humanity
+in all this, though, as yet, it only represents the better
+military spirit, which is always far in advance of actual
+military practice. In the monotonous history of war
+there are always commanders who wage it with less
+ferocity than others, and writers who plead for the
+mitigation of its cruelties. As in modern history
+a Marlborough, a Wellington, or a Villars forms a
+pleasant contrast to a Feuquières, a Belleisle, or a Blücher,
+so in ancient history a Marcellus or a Lucullus
+helps us to forget a Marius or an Alexander; and the
+sentiments of a Cicero or Tacitus were as far in advance
+of their time as those of a Grotius or Vattel were of
+theirs. According to the accident of the existence of
+such men, the laws of war fluctuate from age to age;
+but, the question arises, Do they become perceptibly
+milder? do they ever permanently improve?</p>
+
+<p>It will be said that they do, because it will be said
+that they have; and that the annals of modern wars
+present nothing to resemble the atrocities that may be
+collected from ancient or mediæval history. Yet such
+statements carry no conviction. Deterioration seems
+as likely as improvement; and unless the custom is
+checked altogether, the wars of the twentieth century
+may be expected to exceed in barbarity anything of
+which we have any conception. A very brief inquiry
+will suffice to dispel the common assurances of improvement
+and progress.</p>
+
+<p>Poison is forbidden in war, says the Berlin Conference;
+but so it always was, even in the Institutes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+Menu, and with perhaps less difference of opinion in
+ancient than in modern times. Grotius and Vattel and
+most of their followers disallow it, but two publicists
+of grave authority defend it, Bynkershoeck and Wolff.
+The latter published his ‘Jus Gentium’ as late as 1749,
+and his argument is worth translating, since it can only
+be met by arguments which equally apply to other
+modes of military slaughter. ‘Naturally it is lawful to
+kill an enemy by poison; for as long as he is our enemy,
+he resists the reparation of our right, so that we may
+exercise against his person whatever suffices to avert
+his power from ourselves or our possessions. Therefore
+it is not unfair to get rid of him. But, since it comes
+to the same thing whether you get rid of him by the
+sword or by poison (which is self-evident, because in
+either case you get rid of him, and he can no longer
+resist or injure you), it is naturally lawful to kill an
+enemy by poison.’ And so, he argues with equal force,
+of poisoned weapons.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> That poison is not in use in
+our day we do not therefore owe to our international
+lawyers, but to the accident of tradition. In Roman
+history the theory appears to have been unanimous
+against it. ‘Such conduct,’ says the Roman writer
+Florus of a general who poisoned some springs in order
+to bring some cities in Asia to a speedier surrender,
+‘although it hastened his victory, rendered it infamous,
+since it was done not only against divine law, but
+against ancestral customs.’<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Our statesman Fox refused
+indignantly to avail himself of an offer to poison
+Napoleon, but so did the Roman consuls refuse a
+similar proposal with regard to Pyrrhus; and Tiberius<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+and the Roman senate replied to a plan for poisoning
+Arminius, that the Roman people punished their
+enemies not by fraud or in secret, but openly and in
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>The history of bombarding towns affords an instance
+of something like actual deterioration in the
+usages of modern warfare. Regular and simple bombardment,
+that is, of a town indiscriminately and not
+merely its fortresses, has now become the established
+practice. Yet, what did Vattel say in the middle of
+the last century? ‘At present we generally content
+ourselves with battering the ramparts and defences of
+a place. To destroy a town with bombs and red-hot
+balls is an extremity to which we do not proceed
+without cogent reasons.’ What said Vauban still
+earlier? ‘The fire must be directed simply at the
+defences and batteries of a place ... and not
+against the houses.’ Then what of the English bombardment
+of Copenhagen in 1807, when the cathedral
+and some 300 houses were destroyed; what of the
+German bombardment of Strasburg in 1870, where
+rifled mortars were used for the first time,<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and the
+famous library and picture gallery destroyed; and
+what lastly of the German bombardment of Paris,
+about which, strangely enough, even the military conscience
+of the Germans was struck, so that in the
+highest circles doubts about the propriety of such
+a proceeding at one time prevailed from a moral no
+less than from a military point of view?<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With respect again to sacred or public buildings,
+warfare tends to become increasingly destructive. It
+was the rule in Greek warfare to spare sacred buildings,
+and the Romans frequently spared sacred and other
+buildings, as Marcellus, for instance, at Syracuse.<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Yet
+when the French ravaged the Palatinate in 1689 they
+not only set fire to the cathedrals, but sacked the
+tombs of the ancient Emperors at Spiers. Frederick
+II. destroyed some of the finest buildings at Dresden
+and Prague. In 1814 the English forces destroyed
+the Capitol at Washington, the President’s house, and
+other public buildings;<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and in 1815 the Prussian
+general, Blücher, was with difficulty restrained from
+blowing up the Bridge of Jena at Paris and the Pillar
+of Austerlitz. Military men have always the excuse
+of reprisals or accident for these acts of Vandalism. Yet
+Vattel had said (in language which but repeated the
+language of Polybius and Cicero): ‘We ought to spare
+those edifices which do honour to human society, and
+do not contribute to the enemy’s strength, such as
+temples, tombs, public buildings, and all works of
+remarkable beauty.’</p>
+
+<p>Of as little avail has been the same writer’s observation
+that those who tear up vines and cut down
+fruit trees are to be looked upon as savage. The Fijian
+islanders were barbarians enough, but even they used
+as a rule to spare their enemies’ fruit trees; so did the
+ancient Indians; and the Koran forbids the wanton
+destruction of fruit trees, palm trees, corn and cattle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Then what shall we think of the armies of Louis XIV.
+in the Palatinate not only burning castles, country-houses,
+and villages, but ruthlessly destroying crops,
+vines, and fruit trees?<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> or of the Prussian warrior,
+Blücher, destroying the ornamental trees at Paris in
+1815?</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the Germans refused to let the
+women and children leave Strasburg before they began
+to bombard it in 1870.<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Yet Vattel himself tells us
+how Titus, at the siege of Jerusalem, suffered the
+women and children to depart, and how Henri IV.,
+besieging Paris, had the humanity to let them pass
+through his lines.</p>
+
+<p>It was in a campaign of this century, 1815, that
+General Roquet collected the French officers, and bade
+them tell the grenadiers that the first man who should
+bring him in a Prussian prisoner should be shot;
+and it was in reprisals for this that a few days later the
+Prussians killed the French wounded at Genappe.<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>Grotius, after quoting the fact that a decree of the
+Amphictyons forbade the destruction of any Greek
+city in war, asserts the existence of a stronger bond
+between the nations of Christendom than between
+the states of ancient Greece. And then we remember
+how the Prussians bombarded the Danish town of
+Sönderborg, and almost utterly destroyed it, though
+it lay beyond the possibility of their possession; and
+we think of Peronne in France reduced to ruins, with
+the greater part of its fine cathedral, in 1870; and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+the German shells directed against the French fire-engines
+that endeavoured to save the Strasburg
+Library from the flames that consumed it; and we
+wonder that so great a jurist could have been capable
+of so grievous a delusion.</p>
+
+<p>To murder a garrison that had made an obstinate
+defence, or in order to terrorise others from doing the
+same, was a right of modern war disputed by Grotius,
+but admitted by Vattel not to be totally exploded
+a century later. Yet they both quote cases which
+prove that to murder enemies who had made a gallant
+defence was regarded in ancient times as a violation
+of the laws of war.</p>
+
+<p>To murder enemies who had surrendered was as
+contrary to Greek or Roman as it ever was to Christian
+warfare. The general Greek and Roman practice
+was to allow quarter to an enemy who surrendered,
+and to redeem or exchange their prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> There
+was indeed, by the laws of war, a right to slay or
+enslave them, and though both rights were sometimes
+exercised with great barbarity, the extent to which
+the former right was exercised has been very much
+exaggerated. Otherwise, why should Diodorus Siculus,
+in the century preceding our era, have spoken
+of mercy to prisoners as the common law (τὰ κοινὰ
+νόμιμα), and of the violation of such law as an act of
+exceptional barbarity?<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> It may be fairly doubted
+whether the French prisoners in the English hulks
+during the war with Napoleon suffered less than the
+Athenian prisoners in the mines of Syracuse; and as
+to quarter, what of the French volunteers or Franc-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>tireurs
+who in 1870 fell into the hands of the Germans,
+or of the French peasants, who, though levied and
+armed by the local authorities under the proclamation
+of Napoleon, were, if taken, put to death by the Allies
+in 1814?</p>
+
+<p>Some other illustrations tend further to show that
+there is no real progress in war, and that many of the
+fancied mitigations of it are merely accidental and
+ephemeral features.</p>
+
+<p>The French and English in olden time used to
+spare one another’s fishing boats and their crews.
+‘Fishermen,’ said Froissart, ‘though there may be war
+between France and England, never injure one another;
+they remain friends, and assist each other in case of
+need, and buy and sell their fish whenever one has a
+larger quantity than the other, for if they were to fight
+we should have no fresh fish.’<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Yet in the Crimean
+war, the English fleets in the Baltic seized or burnt
+the fishing boats of the Finns, and destroyed the
+cargoes of fish on which, having been salted in the
+summer months, they were dependent for their subsistence
+during the winter.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>Polybius informs us that the Œtolians were regarded
+as the common outlaws of Greece, because they
+did not scruple to make war without declaring it. Invasions
+of that sort were regarded as robberies, not as
+lawful wars. Yet declarations of war may now be
+dispensed with, the first precedent for doing so having
+been set by Gustavus Adolphus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gustavus Adolphus, in 1627, issued some humane
+Articles of War, which forbade, among other things,
+injuries to old men, women, and children. Yet within
+a few years the Swedish soldiery, like other troops of
+their time, made the gratuitous torture and mutilation
+of combatants or non-combatants a common episode
+of their military proceedings.<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>When Henry V. of England invaded France,
+early in the fifteenth century, he forbade in his
+General Orders the wanton injury of property, insults
+to women, or gratuitous bloodshed. Yet four centuries
+later the character of war had so little changed
+that we find the Duke of Wellington, when invading
+the same country, lamenting in a General Order that,
+‘according to all the information which the Commander
+of the Forces had received, outrages of all
+descriptions’ had been committed by his troops, ‘in
+presence even of their officers, who took no pains
+whatever to prevent them.’<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>The French complain that their last war with
+Germany was not war, but robbery; as if pillage and
+war had ever been distinct in fact or were distinguishable
+in thought. There appears to have been very little
+limit to the robbery that was committed under the
+name of contributions; yet Vattel tells us that, though
+in his time the practice had died out, the belligerent
+sovereigns, in the wars of Louis XIV., used to regulate
+by treaty the extent of hostile territory in which each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+might levy contributions, together with the amount
+which might be levied, and the manner in which the
+levying parties were to conduct themselves.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>Is it not proved then by the above facts, that the
+laws of war rather fluctuate from age to age within
+somewhat narrow limits than permanently improve,
+and that they are apt to lose in one direction whatever
+they gain in another? Humanity in warfare now,
+as in antiquity, remains the exception, not the rule;
+and may be found now, as at all times, in books or in
+the finer imaginations of a few, far more often than
+in the real life of the battle-field. The plea of
+shortening the horrors of war is always the plea for
+carrying them to an extreme; as by Louvois for
+devastating the Palatinate, or by Suchet, the French
+general, for driving the helpless women and children
+into the citadel of Lerida, and for then shelling them
+all night with the humane object of bringing the
+governor to a speedier surrender.<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>Writers on the Law of Nations have in fact led us
+into a Fool’s Paradise about war (which has done
+more than anything else to keep the custom in existence),
+by representing it as something quite mild and
+almost refined in modern times. Vattel, the Swiss
+jurist, set the example. He published his work on the
+rights of nations two years after the Seven Years’ War
+had begun, and he speaks of the European nations in
+his time as waging their wars ‘with great moderation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+and generosity,’ the very year before Marshal Belleisle
+gave orders to make Westphalia a desert. Vattel too it
+was who first appealed to the amenities that occasionally
+interrupt hostilities in support of his theory of the
+generosity of modern warfare.</p>
+
+<p>But what after all does it come to, if rival generals
+address each other in terms of civility or interchange
+acceptable gifts? At Sebastopol, the English Sir
+Edmond Lyons sent the Russian Admiral Machinoff
+the present of a fat buck, the latter acknowledging the
+compliment with the return of a hard Dutch cheese.
+At Gibraltar, when the men of Elliot’s garrison were
+suffering severely from scurvy, Crillon sent them a
+cartload of carrots. These things have always occurred
+even in the fiercest times of military barbarism. At
+the siege of Orleans (1429) the Earl of Suffolk sent the
+French commander Dunois a present of dessert, consisting
+of figs, dates, and raisins; and Dunois in return
+sent Suffolk some fur for his cloak; yet there was
+little limit in those days to the ferocity shown in war
+by the French and English to one another. A ransom
+was extorted even for the bodies of the slain. The
+occasional gleams of humanity in the history of war
+count for nothing in the general picture of its savagery.</p>
+
+<p>The jurists in this way have helped to give a
+totally false colour to the real nature of war; and
+scarcely a day passes in a modern campaign that does
+not give the lie to the rules laid down in the ponderous
+tomes of the international-law writers. It is said that
+Gustavus Adolphus always had with him in camp
+a copy of ‘Grotius,’ as Alexander is said to have slept
+over Homer. The improbability of finding a copy of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+‘Grotius’ in a modern camp may be taken as an
+illustration of the neglect that has long since fallen on
+the restraints with which our publicists have sought
+to fetter our generals, and of the futility of all such
+endeavours.</p>
+
+<p>All honour to Grotius for having sought to make
+warfare a few degrees less atrocious than he found it;
+but let us not therefore deceive ourselves into an
+extravagant belief in the efficacy of his labours. Kant,
+who lived later, and had the same problem to face,
+cherished no such delusion as to the possibility of
+humanising warfare, but went straight to the point of
+trying to stop it altogether; and Kant was in every
+point the better reasoner. Either would doubtless
+have regarded the other’s reasoning on the subject as
+Utopian; but which with the better reason?</p>
+
+<p>Grotius took the course of first stating what the
+extreme rights of war were, as proved by precedent
+and usage, and of then pleading for their mitigation on
+the ground of religion and humanity. In either case
+he appealed to precedent, and only set the better
+against the worse; leaving thereby the rights of war
+in utter confusion, and quite devoid of any principle
+of measurement.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take as an illustration of his method the
+question of the slaughter of women and children.
+This he began with admitting to be a strict right of
+war. Profane history supplied him with several instances
+of such massacres, and so more especially did
+Biblical history. He refrained, he expressly tells us,
+from adducing the slaying of the women and children
+of Heshbon by the Hebrews, or the command given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+to them to deal in the same way with the people
+of Canaan, for these were the works of God, whose
+rights over mankind were far greater than those of man
+over beasts. He preferred, as coming nearer to the
+practice of his own time, the testimony of that verse
+in the Psalms which says, ‘Blessed shall he be who
+shall dash thy children against a stone.’ Subsequently
+he withdrew this right of war, by reference to the
+better precedents of ancient times. It does not appear
+to have occurred to him that the precedents of
+history, if we go to them for our rules of war, will
+prove anything, according to the character of the
+actions we select. Camillus (in Livy) speaks of
+childhood as inviolable even in stormed cities; the
+Emperor Severus, on the other hand, ordered his
+soldiers to put all persons in Britain to the sword
+indiscriminately, and in his turn appealed to precedent,
+the order, namely, of Agamemnon, that of the Trojans
+not even children in their mothers’ womb should be
+spared from destruction. The children of Israel were
+forbidden in their wars to cut down fruit trees; yet
+when they warred against the Moabites, ‘they stopped
+all the wells of water and felled all the good trees.’
+It was only possible in this way to distinguish the
+better custom from the worse, not the right from the
+wrong; either being equally justifiable on a mere
+appeal to historical instances.</p>
+
+<p>The rules of war which prevailed in the time
+of Grotius&mdash;the early time of the Thirty Years’ War&mdash;may
+be briefly summarised from his work as follows.
+The rights of war extended to <i>all</i> persons within
+the hostile boundaries, the declaration of war being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+essentially directed against every individual of a
+belligerent nation. Any person of a hostile nation,
+therefore, might be slain wherever found, provided it
+were not on neutral territory. Women and children
+might be lawfully slain (as it will be shown that they
+were also liable to be in the best days of chivalry);
+and so might prisoners of war, suppliants for their
+lives, or those who surrendered unconditionally. It
+was lawful to assassinate an enemy, provided it involved
+no violation of a tacit or express agreement;
+but it was unlawful to use poison in any form, though
+fountains, if not poisoned, might be made undrinkable.
+Anything belonging to an enemy might be destroyed:
+his crops, his houses, his flocks, his trees, even his
+sacred edifices, or his places of burial.</p>
+
+<p>That these extreme rights of war were literally
+enforced in the seventeenth century admits of no
+doubt; nor if any of them have at all been mitigated,
+can we attribute it so much to the humane attempt
+of Grotius and his followers to set restrictions on the
+rightful exercise of predominant force, as to the accidental
+influence of individual commanders. It has
+been well remarked that the right of non-combatants
+to be unmolested in war was recognised by generals
+before it was ever proclaimed by the publicists.<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> And
+the same truth applies to many other changes in warfare,
+which have been oftener the result of a temporary
+military fashion, or of new ideas of military expediency,
+than of obedience to Grotius or Vattel. They
+set themselves to as futile a task as the proverbial
+impossibility of whitening the negro; with this result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>&mdash;that
+the destructiveness of war, its crimes, and
+its cruelties, are something new even to a world that
+cannot lose the recollection of the sack of Magdeburg
+in 1631, or the devastation of the Palatinate in 1689.<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>The publicists have but recognised and reflected
+the floating sentiments of their time, without giving
+us any definite principle by which to separate the
+permissible from the non-permissible practice in war.
+We have seen how much they are at issue on the use
+of poison. They are equally at issue as to the right
+of employing assassination; as to the extent of the
+legitimate use of fraud; as to the right of beginning a
+war without declaration; as to the limits of the invader’s
+rights of robbery; as to the right of the
+invaded to rise against his invader; or as to whether
+individuals so rising are to be treated as prisoners of
+war or hanged as assassins. Let us consider what
+they have done for us with regard to the right of
+using savages for allies, or with regard to the rights
+of the conqueror over the town he has taken by
+assault.</p>
+
+<p>The right to use barbarian troops on the Christian
+battle-field is unanimously denied by all the modern
+text-writers. Lord Chatham’s indignation against
+England’s employment of them against her revolted
+colonies in America availed as little. Towards the
+end of the Crimean war Russia prepared to arm some
+savage races within her empire, and brought Circassians
+into Hungary in 1848.<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> France employed African<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+Turcos both against Austria in 1859 and against
+Prussia in 1870; and it is within the recollection of
+the youngest what came of the employment by Turkey
+of Bashi-Bazouks. Are they likely not to be used in
+future because Bluntschli, Heffter, or Wheaton prohibits
+them?</p>
+
+<p>To take a town by assault is the worst danger a
+soldier can have to face. The theory therefore had a
+show of reason, that without the reward of unlimited
+licence he could never be brought to the breach. Tilly
+is said to have replied, when he was entreated by
+some of his officers to check the rapine and bloodshed
+that has immortalised the sack of Magdeburg in 1631:
+‘Three hours’ plundering is the shortest rule of war.
+The soldier must have something for his toil and
+trouble.’<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> It is on such occasions, therefore, that
+war shows itself in its true character, and that M.
+Girardin’s remark, ‘<i>La guerre c’est l’assassinat, la guerre
+c’est le vol,</i>’ reads like a revelation. The scene never
+varies from age to age; and the storming of Badajoz
+and San Sebastian by the English forces in the
+Peninsular War, or of Constantine in Algeria by the
+French in 1837, teaches us what we may expect to
+see in Europe when next a town is taken by assault,
+as Strasburg might have been in 1870. ‘No age, no
+nation,’ says Sir W. Napier, ‘ever sent forth braver
+troops to battle than those who stormed Badajoz’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+(April 1812). Yet for two days and nights there
+reigned in its streets, says the same writer, ‘shameless
+rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty,
+and murder.’<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> And what says he of San Sebastian
+not a year and a half later? A thunderstorm that
+broke out ‘seemed to be a signal from hell for the
+perpetration of villany which would have shamed the
+most ferocious barbarians of antiquity.’ ... ‘The
+direst, the most revolting cruelty was added to the
+catalogue of crime: one atrocity ... staggers the
+mind by its enormous, incredible, indescribable barbarity.’<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>
+If officers lost their lives in trying to prevent
+such deeds&mdash;whose very atrocity, as some one has
+said, preserves them from our full execration, because
+it makes it impossible to describe them&mdash;is it likely
+that the gallant soldiers who crowned their bravery
+with such devilry would have been one whit restrained
+by the consideration that in refusing quarter, or in
+murdering, torturing, or mutilating non-combatants,
+they were acting contrary to the rules of modern
+warfare?</p>
+
+<p>If, then, we temper theory with practice, and desert
+our books for the facts of the battle-field (so far as
+they are ever told in full), we may perhaps lay down
+the following as the most important laws of modern
+warfare:</p>
+
+<p>1. You may not use explosive bullets; but you
+may use conical-shaped ones, which inflict far more
+mutilation than round ones, and even explosive bullets
+if they do not fall below a certain magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>2. You may not poison your enemy, because you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+thus take from him the chance of self-defence: but
+you may blow him up with a fougass or dynamite,
+from which he is equally incapable of defending himself.</p>
+
+<p>3. You may not poison your enemy’s drinking-water;
+but you may infect it with dead bodies or
+otherwise, because that is only equivalent to turning
+the stream.</p>
+
+<p>4. You may not kill helpless old men, women, or
+children with the sword or bayonet; but as much as
+you please with your Congreve rockets, howitzers, or
+mortars.</p>
+
+<p>5. You may not make war on the peaceable occupants
+of a country; but you may burn their houses if
+they resist your claims to rob them of their uttermost
+farthing.</p>
+
+<p>6. You may not refuse quarter to an enemy;
+but you may if he be not equipped in a particular
+outfit.</p>
+
+<p>7. You may not kill your prisoners of war; but
+you may order your soldiers not to take any.</p>
+
+<p>8. You may not ask a ransom for your prisoners;
+but you may more than cover their cost in the lump
+sum you exact for the expenses of the war.</p>
+
+<p>9. You may not purposely destroy churches,
+hospitals, museums, or libraries; but ‘military exigencies’
+will cover your doing so, as they will almost
+anything else you choose to do in breach of any
+other restrictions on your conduct.</p>
+
+<p>And it is into these absurdities that the reasonings
+of Grotius and his followers have led us. The
+real dreamers, it appears, have been, not those who,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+like Henri IV., Sully, St. Pierre, or Kant, have
+dreamed of a world without wars, but those who have
+dreamed of wars waged without lawlessness, passion,
+or crime. On them be thrown back the taunts of
+Utopianism which they have showered so long on
+the only view of the matter which is really logical and
+consistent. On them, at least, rests the shadow, and
+must rest the reproach, of an egregious failure, unless
+recent wars are of no account and teach no lesson.
+And if their failure be real and signal, what remains
+for those who wish for better things, and for some
+check on deeds that threaten our civilisation, but to
+turn their backs on the instructors they once trusted;
+to light their fires rather than to load their shelves
+with Grotius, Vattel, and the rest; and to throw in
+their lot for the future with the opinion, hitherto
+despised, though it was Kant’s, and the endeavour
+hitherto discredited, though it was Henry the Great’s,
+Sully’s, and Elizabeth’s&mdash;the opinion, that is, that it
+were easier to abolish war than to humanise it, and
+that only in the growth of a spirit of international
+confidence lies any possible hope of its ultimate
+extinction?</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS TIMES.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Voi m’avete fatto tornare quest’arte del soldo quasi che nulla,
+ed io ne l’aveva presupposta la più eccellente e la più onorevole che si
+facesse.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Machiavelli</span>, <i>Dell’Arte della Guerra</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">Delusion about character of war in days of chivalry&mdash;The common
+slaughter of women and children&mdash;The Earl of Derby’s sack of
+Poitiers&mdash;The massacres of Grammont and Gravelines&mdash;The old
+poem of the Vow of the Heron&mdash;The massacre of Limoges by
+Edward the Black Prince&mdash;The imprisonment of ladies for ransom&mdash;Prisoners
+of war starved to death; or massacred, if no prospect
+of ransom; or blinded or otherwise mutilated&mdash;The meaning of a
+surrender at discretion, as illustrated by Edward III. at Calais;
+and by several instances in the same and the next century&mdash;The
+practice of burning in aid of war; and of destroying sacred buildings&mdash;The
+practice of poisoning the air&mdash;The use of barbarous
+weapons&mdash;The influence of religion on war&mdash;The Church in vain
+on the side of peace&mdash;Curious vows of the knights&mdash;The slight
+personal danger incurred in war by them&mdash;The explanation of their
+magnificent costume&mdash;Field-sports in war-time&mdash;The desire of gain
+the chief motive to war&mdash;The identity of soldiers and brigands&mdash;The
+career and character of the Black Prince&mdash;The place of money
+in the history of chivalry&mdash;Its influence as a war-motive between
+England and France&mdash;General low character of chivalrous warfare.</p>
+
+<p>For an impartial estimate of the custom of war, the
+best preparation is a study of its leading features
+in the days of chivalry. Not only are most of our
+modern military usages directly descended from that
+period, though many claim a far remoter ancestry, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+go back to the days of primitive savagery, but it is
+the tradition of chivalry that chiefly keeps alive the
+delusion that it is possible for warfare to be conducted
+with humanity, generosity, and courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Hallam, for instance, observes that in the wars of
+our Edward III., ‘the spirit of honourable as well as
+courteous behaviour towards the foe seems to have
+arrived at its highest point;’ and he refers especially
+to the custom of ransoming a prisoner on his parole,
+and to the generous treatment by the Black Prince of
+the French king taken captive at Poitiers.</p>
+
+<p>In order to demonstrate the extreme exaggeration
+of this view, and to show that with war, as with the
+greater crimes, moral greatness is only connected accidentally,
+occasionally, or in romance, it is necessary
+to examine somewhat closely the warfare of the fourteenth
+century. Chivalry, according to certain historians,
+was during that century in process of decline;
+but the decline, if any, was rather in the nature of its
+forms and ceremonies than of its spirit or essence.
+It was the century of the most illustrious names in
+chivalry, in France of Bertrand du Guesclin, in
+England of the Black Prince, Sir Walter Manny, Sir
+John Chandos. It was the century of the battles of
+Crecy, Poitiers, Avray, and Navarette. It was the
+century of the Order of the Star in France, of the
+Garter and the Bath in England. Above all, it was
+the century of Froissart, who painted its manners and
+thoughts with a vividness so surpassing that to read
+his pages is almost to live in his time. So that the
+fourteenth century may fairly be taken as the period
+in which chivalry reached its highest perfection, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+in which the military type of life and character attained
+its noblest development. It is the century of which
+we instinctively think when we would imagine a time
+when the rivalry of brave deeds gave birth to heroism,
+and the rivalry of military generosity invested even
+the cruelties of the battle-field with the halo of
+romance.</p>
+
+<p>Imagination, however, plays us false here as elsewhere.
+Froissart himself, who described wars and
+battles and noble feats of arms with a candour equal
+to his honest delight in them, is alone proof enough
+that there seldom was a period when war was more
+ferociously conducted; when the laws in restraint of
+it, imposed by the voice of morality or religion, were
+less felt; when the motives for it as well as the incentives
+of personal courage, were more mercenary; or
+when the demoralisation consequent upon it were
+more widely or more fatally spread. The facts that
+follow in support of this conclusion come, in default
+of any other special reference, solely from that charming
+chronicler; allusions to other sources being only
+necessary to prove the existence of a common usage,
+and to leave no room for the theory that the cases
+gathered from Froissart were but occasional or accidental
+occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>Even savage tribes, like the Zulus, spare the lives
+of women and children in war, and such a restraint is
+the first test of any warfare claiming to rank above the
+most barbarous. But in the fourteenth century such
+indiscriminate slaughter was the commonest episode
+of war: a fact not among the least surprising when
+we remember that the protection of women and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+defenceless was one of the special clauses of the oath
+taken by knights at the ceremony of investiture.
+Five days after the death of Edward III., and actually
+during negotiations between France and England, the
+admirals of France and Spain, at the command of
+the King of France, sailed for Rye, which they burnt,
+slaying the inhabitants, whether men or women
+(1377); and it is a reasonable supposition that the
+same conduct marked their further progress of pillage
+and incendiarism in the Isle of Wight.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were such acts only the incidents of maritime
+warfare, and perpetrated merely by the pirates of
+either country; for they occurred as frequently in
+hostilities by land, and in connection with the noblest
+names of Christendom. At Taillebourg, in Saintonge,
+the Earl of Derby had all the inhabitants put to the
+sword, in reprisals for the death of one knight, who
+during the assault on the town had met with his
+death. So it fared during the same campaign with
+three other places in Poitou, the chronicler giving us
+more details with reference to the fate of Poitiers.
+There were no knights in the town accustomed to
+war and capable of organising a defence; and it was
+only people of the poorer sort who offered a brave but
+futile resistance to the army. When the town was
+won, 700 people were massacred; ‘for the Earl’s
+people put every one to the sword, men, women, and
+little children.’ The Earl of Derby took no steps to
+stop the slaughter, but after many churches and
+houses had been destroyed, he forbade under pain of
+death any further incendiarism, apparently for no
+other reason than that he wished to stay there for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+ten or twelve days. A few years later, when the
+French had recovered Poitiers, the English knights,
+who had been there, marched away to Niort, which,
+on the refusal of the inhabitants to admit them, they
+forthwith attacked and speedily won, owing to the
+absence, as at Poitiers, of any knights to direct the
+defence. The male and female inhabitants alike were
+put to the sword. All these instances occur in one
+short chapter of Froissart.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes this promiscuous slaughter even raised
+its perpetrators to higher esteem. An episode of this
+sort occurred in the famous war between the citizens of
+Ghent and the Earl of Flanders. The Lord d’Enghien,
+with 4,000 cavaliers and a large force of foot, besieged
+the town of Grammont, which was attached to Ghent.
+About four o’clock one fine Sunday in June, the
+besiegers gained the town, and the slaughter, says
+Froissart, was very great of men, women, and children,
+for to none was mercy shown. Upwards of 500 of
+the inhabitants were killed; numbers of old people
+and women were burnt in their beds; and the town
+being then set on fire in more than two hundred places,
+was speedily reduced to ashes. ‘Fair son,’ said the Earl
+of Flanders, greeting his returning relative, ‘you are
+a valiant man, and if it please God will be a gallant
+knight, for you have made a handsome beginning.’
+History, however, may rejoice that so promising a
+career was checked in the bud; for the young nobleman’s
+death in a skirmish within a few days made his
+first feat of arms also his last.</p>
+
+<p>A similar story is connected with the memory of
+the fighting Bishop of Norwich, famous in those days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+Having been authorised by Pope Urban VI. to make
+war on Pope Clement VII., he went and besieged the
+town of Gravelines with shot and wild-fire, ‘till in the
+end our men entered the town with their Bishop, when
+they at his commandment destroying both man,
+woman, and child, left not one alive of all those who
+remained in the town.’<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> This was in 1383; and it
+will be observed how then, just as in later days, the
+excuse of superior orders served as an excuse for the
+perpetration of any crime, provided only it were committed
+in war.</p>
+
+<p>It would be an error to suppose that these things
+were the mere accident of war, due to the passion of
+the moment, or to the feeble control of leaders over
+their men. In a very curious old French poem, called
+‘The Vow of the Heron,’ indisputable evidence exists
+that the slaughter of women and children was not
+only often premeditated before the opening of hostilities,
+but that an oath binding a man to it was sometimes
+given and accepted as a token of commendable
+bravery. The poem in question deals with historical
+events and persons; and if not to be taken as literal
+history, undoubtedly keeps within the limits of probability,
+as proved by other testimony of the manners
+of those times. Robert, Count of Artois, exiled from
+France, comes to England, and bringing a roasted
+heron before Edward III. and his court, prays them to
+make vows by it before eating of it (in accordance
+with the custom which attached to such oaths peculiar
+sanctity) concerning the deeds of war they would undertake
+against the kingdom of France. Edward III., the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+Earl of Salisbury, Sir Walter Manny, the Earl of Derby,
+Lord Suffolk, having all sworn according to the Count’s
+wishes, Sir Fauquemont, striving to outdo them in
+the profession of military zeal, swore that if the king
+would cross the sea to invade France, he would always
+appear in the van of his troops, carrying devastation
+and fire and slaughter, and sparing not altars, nor
+relations, nor friends, neither helpless women nor
+children.<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let the reader reflect that these things occurred in
+war, not of Christians against infidels, but of Christians
+with one another, and in a period commonly belauded
+for its advance in chivalrous humanity. The incidents
+related were of too common occurrence to call for
+special remark by their chronicler; but the peculiar
+atrocities of the famous sack of Limoges, by the
+express orders of Edward the Black Prince, were too
+much even for Froissart. It is best to let him tell his
+own story from the moment of the entry of the
+besieging force: ‘The Prince, the Duke of Lancaster,
+the Earls of Cambridge and of Pembroke, Sir
+Guiscard d’Angle, and the others, with their men,
+rushed into the town. You would then have seen
+pillagers active to do mischief, running through the
+town, slaying men, women, and children, according to
+their commands. It was a most melancholy business,
+for all ranks, ages, and sexes cast themselves on their
+knees before the Prince, begging for mercy; but he
+was so inflamed with passion and revenge that he
+listened to none, but all were put to the sword, wherever
+they could be found, even those who were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+guilty; for, I know not why, the poor were not spared,
+who could not have had any part in this treason; but
+they suffered for it, and indeed more than those who
+had been the leaders of the treachery. There was not
+that day in the city of Limoges any heart so hardened
+or that had any sense of religion, who did not
+deeply bewail the unfortunate events passing before
+their eyes; for upwards of 3,000 men, women, and
+children were put to death that day. God have
+mercy on their souls, for they were veritable martyrs.’
+Yet the man whose memory is stained with this crime,
+among the blackest in history, was he whom not his
+own country alone, but the Europe of his day, dubbed
+the Mirror of Knighthood; and those who blindly
+but (according to the still prevalent sophistry of
+militarism) rightly carried out his orders counted
+among them at least three of the noblest names in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>The absence in chivalry of any feeling strong
+enough to save the lives of women from the sword
+of the warrior renders improbable <i>à priori</i> any keen
+scruples against making them prisoners of war. In
+France such scruples were stronger than in England.
+The soldiers of the Black Prince took captive the
+Duchess of Bourbon, mother to the King of France,
+and imprisoned her in the castle of Belleperche;
+whence she was afterwards conducted into Guyenne,
+and ransom exacted for her liberty. Similar facts
+mark the whole period from the twelfth to the fifteenth
+century. When the Crusaders under Richard I. took
+Messina by assault, they carried off with their other
+lawful spoils all the noblest women belonging to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+Sicilians.<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Edward I. made prisoners of the queen of
+Robert Bruce and her ladies, and of the Countess of
+Buchan, who had crowned Bruce. The latter, he said, as
+she had not used the sword, should not perish by it;
+but for her lawless conspiracy she should be shut up in
+a chamber of stone and iron, circular as the crown she
+gave; and at Berwick she should be suspended in the
+open air, a spectacle to travellers, and for her everlasting
+infamy. Accordingly, a turret was fitted up
+for her with a strong cage of lattice-work, made of
+strong posts and bars of iron.<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> In the fifteenth century,
+the English, in their war upon the French frontier,
+according to Monstrelet, ‘made many prisoners, and
+even carried off women, as well noble as not, whom
+they kept in close confinement until they ransomed
+themselves.’<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> The notion, therefore, that in those
+times any special courtesy was shown in war to the
+weaker sex must be received with extreme latitude.
+In 1194, Henry, Emperor of the Romans, having taken
+Salerno in Apulia by storm, actually put up for
+auction to his troops the wives and children of the
+chief citizens whom he had slain and exiled.</p>
+
+<p>To pass to the treatment of prisoners of war,
+who, be it remembered, were only those who could
+promise ransom. The old historian Hoveden, speaking
+of a battle that was fought in 1173, says that
+there fell in it more than 10,000 Flemings; the remainder,
+who were taken captive, being thrown into
+prison in irons, and there starved to death. There is
+no evidence whether, or for how long, starving re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>mained
+in vogue; but the iron chains were habitual,
+down even to the fourteenth century or later, among
+the Germans and Spaniards, the extortion of a heavier
+ransom being the motive for increasing the weight of
+chain and the general discomfort of prison. To let
+a prisoner go at large on parole for his ransom was
+an advance initiated by the French, that sprang
+naturally out of a state of hostilities in which most of
+the combatants became personally acquainted, but it
+was still conduct so exceptional that Froissart always
+speaks of it in terms of high eulogy. It was also an
+advance that often sprang out of the plainest necessities
+of the case, as when, after the battle of Poitiers,
+the English found their prisoners to be double their
+own numbers, wherefore in consideration of the risk
+they ran, they either received ransom from them on
+the spot or gave them their liberty in exchange for a
+promise to bring their ransom-money at Christmas
+to Bordeaux. Bertrand du Guesclin did the same by
+the English knights after their defeat at Pontvalin;
+and it was in reference to this last occasion that
+Froissart calls attention to the superiority of the French
+over the Germans in not shackling their prisoners
+with a view to a heavier ransom. ‘Curses on them
+for it,’ he exclaims of the Germans; ‘they are a people
+without pity or honour, and they ought never to receive
+quarter. The French entertained their prisoners
+well and ransomed them courteously, without being
+too hard upon them.’</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless we must suspect that this sort of
+courtesy was rather occasional than habitual. Of this
+same Du Guesclin, whom St.-Palaye calls the flower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+of chivalry,<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> two stories are told that throw a different
+but curious light on the manners of those times.
+Having on one occasion defeated the English and
+taken many of them prisoners, Du Guesclin tried to
+observe the rules of distributive justice in the partition
+of the captives, but failing of success and unable to
+discover to whom the prisoners really belonged, he
+and Clisson (who were brothers in arms) in order to
+terminate the differences which the victorious French
+had with one another on the subject, conceived that
+the only fair solution was to have them all massacred,
+and accordingly more than 500 Englishmen were put
+to death in cold blood outside the gates of Bressière.<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
+So, on a second occasion, such a quantity of English
+were taken that ‘there was not, down to the commonest
+soldier, anyone who had not some prisoner of
+whom he counted to win a good ransom; but as there
+was a dispute between the French to know to whom
+each prisoner belonged, Du Guesclin, to put them
+all on a level, ordered them to put all to the sword,
+and only the English chiefs were spared.’<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> This
+ferocious warrior, the product and pride of his time,
+and the favourite hero of French chivalry, was hideous in
+face and figure; and if we think of him, with his round
+brown face, his flat nose, his green eyes, his crisp hair,
+his short neck, his broad shoulders, his long arms, short
+body, and badly made legs, we have evidently one of the
+worst specimens of that type which was for so long the
+curse of humanity, the warrior of mediæval Europe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In respect, therefore, of Hallam’s statement that
+the courtesy of chivalry gradually introduced an indulgent
+treatment of prisoners which was almost
+unknown to antiquity, it is clear that it would be
+unwise to press too closely the comparison on this head
+between pre-Christian and post-Christian warfare.
+At the siege of Toledo, the Besque de Vilaines, a
+fellow-soldier of Du Guesclin in the Spanish war, in
+order to intimidate the besieged into a surrender,
+had as many gallows erected in front of the city as
+he had taken prisoners, and actually had more than
+two dozen hung by the executioner with that object.
+In the pages of Livy or Thucydides there may be
+many a bad deed recorded, but at least there is nothing
+worse than the deeds of the Besque de Vilaines, or
+of Du Guesclin, Constable of France, or of Edward
+the Black Prince of England.</p>
+
+<p>There is another point besides the fettering of
+prisoners in which attention is drawn in Froissart to
+the exceptional barbarity of the Spaniards; and in no
+estimate of the military type of life in the palmiest
+days of chivalry would it be reasonable to omit all
+consideration of Spain. In the war between Castile
+and Portugal, the forces under Don John of Castile
+laid siege to Lisbon, closely investing it; and if any
+Portuguese were taken prisoners in a skirmish or otherwise,
+their eyes were put out, their legs, arms, or other
+members torn off, and in such plight they were sent
+back to Lisbon with the message that when the town
+was taken mercy would be shown to none. Such
+was the story told by the Portuguese ambassador to
+the Duke of Lancaster, and repeated on his authority<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+by Froissart. For the credit of humanity, to say
+nothing of chivalry, one would fain disbelieve the tale
+altogether, or regard it as an episode that stood by
+itself and apart from the general practice of the
+age, since it is the only one of the kind related by
+Froissart. But the frequency as much as the rarity
+of a practice may account for the silence of an annalist,
+and there is little doubt that mutilation of the
+kind described was common in the chivalrous period,
+even if obsolete or nearly so in the fourteenth century.
+Blinding and castration were not only punishments
+inflicted for offences against the forest laws of the
+Norman kings of England, but were the common fate
+of captive enemies in arms throughout Europe in the
+eleventh and twelfth centuries. This, for instance,
+was the treatment of their Welsh prisoners by the
+Earls of Shrewsbury and Chester in 1098; as also of
+William III., King of Sicily, at the hands of Henry,
+Emperor of the Romans, in 1194. At the close of
+the twelfth century, in the war between Richard I. of
+England and Philip Augustus of France, blinding was
+resorted to on both sides; for Hoveden expressly
+says: ‘The King of France had the eyes put out of
+many of the English king’s subjects whom he had
+made prisoners, and this provoked the King of England,
+unwilling as he was, to similar acts of impiety.’ And
+to take a last instance, in 1225, the Milanese having
+taken prisoners 500 Genoese crossbowmen, deprived
+each of them of an eye and an arm, in revenge for the
+injury done by their bows.<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> So that it would be interesting,
+if possible, to learn from some historian the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+date and cause of the cessation of customs so profoundly
+barbarous and brutal.</p>
+
+<p>By the rules, again, of chivalrous warfare all
+persons found within a town taken by assault were
+liable, and all the male adults likely, to be killed.
+Bertrand du Guesclin made it a maxim before attacking
+a place to threaten its commander with the
+alternative of surrender or death; a military custom
+perhaps as old as war itself, and one that has descended
+unchanged to our own times. Only by a
+timely surrender could the besieged cherish any hope
+for their lives or fortunes; and even the offer of a
+surrender might be refused, and an unconditional surrender
+be insisted upon instead. This is proved by
+the well-known story of Edward III. at the siege of
+Calais, a story sometimes called in doubt merely for
+resting solely on the authority of Froissart. The
+governor of Calais offered to surrender the town and
+all things in it, in return for a simple permission to
+leave it in safety. Sir Walter Manny replied that
+the king was resolved that they should surrender
+themselves solely to his will, to ransom or kill them
+as he pleased. The Frenchman retorted that they
+would suffer the direst extremities rather than submit
+to the smallest boy in Calais faring worse than the
+rest. The king obstinately refused to change his
+mind, till Sir Walter Manny, pressing upon him the
+reluctance of his officers to garrison his castles with
+the prospect of reprisals which such an exercise of
+his war-right would render probable, Edward so far
+relented as to insist on having six citizens of Calais
+left to the absolute disposal of his revenge. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+the six who offered themselves as a sacrifice for the
+rest of their fellow-citizens reached the presence of
+the king, the latter, though all the knights around
+him were moved even to tears, gave instant orders to
+behead them. All who were present pleaded for them,
+and above all, Sir Walter Manny, in accordance with
+his promise to the French governor; but it was all
+in vain, and but for the entreaties of the queen, those
+six citizens would have fallen victims to the savage
+wrath of the pitiless Edward.</p>
+
+<p>Two facts support the probable truth of the above
+narrative from Froissart. In the first place, it is in
+perfect keeping with the conduct of the same warrior
+at the taking of Caen. When the king heard what
+mischief the inhabitants had inflicted on his army by
+their vigorous defence, he gave orders that all the rest
+of the inhabitants should be slain and the town burnt;<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>
+and had it not been for the remonstrances of Sir
+Godfrey de Harcourt, there is little reason to doubt but
+that he would thus have glutted, as he craved to do, the
+intense native savagery of his soul. In the second
+place, the story is in perfect keeping with the common
+war-rule of that and later times, by virtue of which a
+conqueror might always avail himself of the distress of
+his enemy to insist upon a surrender at discretion,
+which of course was equivalent to a surrender to death
+or anything else.</p>
+
+<p>How commonly death was inflicted in such cases
+may be shown from some narratives of capitulations
+given by Monstrelet. When Meaux surrendered to
+Henry V., six of the defenders were reserved by name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+to be delivered up to justice (such was the common
+expression), and four were shortly after beheaded at
+Paris.<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> When Meulan surrendered to the regent, the
+Duke of Bedford, numbers were specially excepted
+from those to whom the Duke granted their lives, ‘to
+remain at the disposal of the lord regent.’<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> When
+some French soldiers having taken refuge in a fort
+were so closely besieged by the Earl Marshal of
+England as to be obliged to surrender at discretion,
+many of them were hanged.<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> When the garrison of
+Guise capitulated to Sir John de Luxembourg, a
+general pardon was granted to all, except to certain
+who were to be delivered up to justice.<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> When the
+same captain, with about one thousand men, besieged
+the castle of Guetron, wherein were some sixty or
+eighty Frenchmen, the latter proposed to surrender
+on condition of the safety of their lives and fortunes;
+‘they were told they must surrender at discretion. In
+the end, however, it was agreed to by the governor that
+from four to six of his men should be spared by Sir
+John. When this agreement had been settled and
+pledges given for its performance, the governor re-entered
+the castle, and was careful not to tell his companions
+the whole that had passed at the conference,
+giving them to understand in general that they were to
+march away in safety; but when the castle was surrendered
+all within it were made prisoners. On the
+morrow, by the orders of Sir John de Luxembourg, they
+were all strangled and hung on trees hard by, except
+the four or six before mentioned&mdash;one of their com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>panions
+serving for the executioner.’<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> One more of
+these black acts, so common among the warriors of
+chivalry, and this point perhaps will be accepted as
+proved. The French had gained possession of the castle
+of Rouen, but after twelve days were obliged to surrender
+at discretion to the English; ‘they were all made
+prisoners, and put under a good guard; and shortly
+after, one hundred and fifty were beheaded at Rouen.’<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us pass next from the animate to the inanimate
+world as affected by warfare. The setting on
+fire of Grammont in more than two hundred places is
+a fair sample of the normal use of arson as a military
+weapon in the chivalrous period. To burn an undefended
+town or village was accounted no meanness;
+and was as frequent as the destruction of crops, fruit
+trees, or other sources of human subsistence. The
+custom of tearing up vines or fruit trees contrasts
+strongly with the command of Xerxes to his forces to
+spare the groves of trees upon their march; and any
+reader of ancient history will acknowledge the vast
+deterioration from the pagan laws of war which every
+page of the history of Christian chivalry reveals and
+exposes.</p>
+
+<p>But little as was the forbearance displayed in war
+towards defenceless women and children, or to the
+crops and houses that gave them food and shelter, it
+might perhaps have been expected that, at a time
+when no serious dissent had come to divide Christianity,
+and when the defence of religion and religious
+ceremonies were among the professed duties of knighthood,
+churches and sacred buildings should have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+enjoyed especial immunity from the ravages of war.
+Even in pagan warfare the temples of the enemy as a
+rule were spared; such an act as the destruction of
+the sacred edifices of the Marsi by the Romans under
+Germanicus being contrary to the better traditions of
+Roman military precedent.</p>
+
+<p>Permissible as it was by the rules of war, says
+Polybius, to destroy an enemy’s garrisons, cities, or
+crops, or anything else by which his power might be
+weakened, it was the part of mere rage and madness
+to destroy such things as their statues or temples,
+by which no benefit or injury accrued to one side or
+the other; nor are allusions to violations of this rule
+numerous in pre-Christian warfare.<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> The practice of
+the Romans and Macedonians to meet peaceably
+together in time of war on the island of Delos, on
+account of its sanctity as the reputed birthplace of
+Apollo,<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> has no parallel in the history of war among
+the nations of Christendom. The most that can be
+said for the fourteenth century in this respect is that
+slightly stronger scruples protected churches and
+monasteries than the lives of women and children.
+This is implied in Froissart’s account of the storming
+of Guerrande: ‘Men, women, and children were put
+to the sword, and fine churches sacrilegiously burnt;
+at which the Lord Lewis was so much enraged, that
+he immediately ordered twenty-four of the most active
+to be hanged on the spot.’</p>
+
+<p>But the slightest embitterment of feeling removed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+all scruples in favour of sacred buildings. Richard II.,
+having with his army crossed the Tweed, took up his
+quarters in the beautiful abbey of Melrose; after which
+the monastery, though spared in all previous wars with
+Scotland, was burnt, because the English had determined,
+says Froissart, to ruin everything in Scotland
+before returning home, in revenge for the recent alliance
+entered into by that country with France. The
+abbey of Dunfermline, where the Scotch kings used to
+be buried, was also burnt in the same campaign; and
+so it fared with all other parts of Scotland that the
+English overran; for they ‘spared neither monasteries
+nor churches, but put all to fire and flame.’</p>
+
+<p>Neither did any greater degree of chivalry display
+itself in the matter of the modes and weapons of
+warfare. Although reason can urge no valid objection
+against the means of destruction resorted to by hostile
+forces, whether poisoned arrows, explosive bullets, or
+dynamite, yet certain things have been generally
+excluded from the category of fair military practices,
+as for example the poisoning of an enemy’s water.
+But the warriors of the fourteenth century, even if they
+stand acquitted of poisoning rivers and wells, had no
+scruples about poisoning the air: which perhaps is
+nearly equivalent. The great engines they called
+Sows or Muttons, like that one, 120 feet wide and 40
+feet long, from which Philip von Artefeld and the men
+of Ghent cast heavy stones, beams of wood, or bars of
+hot copper into Oudenarde, must have made life inside
+such a place unpleasant enough; but worse things
+could be injected than copper bars or missiles of
+wood. The Duke of Normandy, besieging the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+garrison at Thin-l’Evêque, had dead horses and other
+carrion flung into the castle, to poison the garrison by
+the smell; and since the air was hot as in midsummer,
+it is small wonder that the dictates of reason soon
+triumphed over the spirit of resistance. And at the
+siege of Grave the chivalry of Brabant made a similar
+use of carrion to empoison the garrison into a surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Even in weapons different degrees of barbarity are
+clearly discernible, according as they are intended to
+effect a disabling wound, or a wound that will cause
+needless laceration and pain by the difficulty of their
+removal. A barbed arrow or spear betokens of course
+the latter object, and it is worth visiting the multi-barbed
+weapons in Kensington Museum from different
+parts of the world, to learn to what lengths military
+ingenuity may go in this direction. The spear heads
+of the Crusaders were barbed;<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> and so were the arrows
+used at Crecy and elsewhere, as may be seen on reference
+to the manuscript pictures, the object being to
+make it impossible to extract them without laceration
+of the flesh. The sarbacane or long hollow tube was in
+use for shooting poisoned arrows at the enemy;<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> and
+pictures remain of the vials of combustibles that were
+often attached to the end of arrows and lances.<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>The above facts clearly show the manner and spirit
+with which our ancestors waged war in the days
+of what Hallam calls chivalrous virtue: one of the
+most stupendous historical impostures that has ever
+become an accepted article of popular belief. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+military usages of the Greeks and Romans were mild
+and polished, compared to the immeasurable savagery
+which marked those of the Christians of Froissart’s
+day. As for the redeeming features, the rare generosity
+or courtesy to a foe, they might be cited in
+almost equal abundance from the warfare of the Red
+Indians; but what sheds a peculiar stain on that of
+the Chevaliers is the ostentatious connection of religion
+with the atrocities of those blood-seeking marauders.
+The Church by a peculiar religious service blessed and
+sanctified both the knight and his sword; and the
+most solemn rite of the Christian faith was profaned to
+the level of a preliminary of battle. At Easter and
+Christmas, the great religious festivals of a professedly
+peace-loving worship, the Psalm that was deemed most
+appropriate to be sung in the chapels of the Pope and
+the King of France was that beginning, ‘Benedictus
+Dominus Deus meus, qui docet manus meas ad bellum
+et digitos meos ad prœlia.’</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious feature of this religion of war that,
+when Edward III.’s forces invaded France, so strict
+was the superstition that led them to observe the fast
+of Lent, that among other things conveyed into the
+country were vessels and boats of leather wherewith to
+obtain supplies of fish from the lakes and ponds of
+the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed passing strange that Christianity,
+which could command so strict an observance of its
+ordinances as is implied in the transport of boats to
+catch fish for Lent, should have been powerless to
+place any check whatever on the ferocious militarism
+of the time; and the very little that was ever done by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+the Church to check or humanise warfare is an eternal
+reflection on the so-called conversion of Europe
+to Christianity. Nevertheless the Church, to do her
+justice, used what influence she possessed on the side
+of peace in a manner she has long since lost sight of;
+nor was the Papacy in its most distracted days ever
+so indifferent to the evils of war as the Protestant
+Church has been since, and is still. Clement VI.
+succeeded in making peace between France and
+England, just as Alexander III. averted a war between
+the two countries in 1161. Innocent VI. tried
+to do the same; and Urban V. returned from Rome
+to Avignon, hoping to effect the same good object.
+Gregory XI. was keenly distressed at the failure of
+efforts similar to those of his predecessors. The Popes
+indeed endeavoured to stop wars, as they endeavoured
+to stop tournaments, or the use of the crossbow; but
+they were defeated by the intense barbarism of
+chivalry; nor can it be laid to the charge of the
+Church of Rome, as it can to that of the Church of
+the Reformation, that she ever folded her hands
+in despairful apathy before a custom she admitted to
+be evil. The cardinals and archbishops of those days
+were constantly engaged in pacific, nor always futile,
+embassies. And the prelates would frequently preach
+to either side arguments of peace: a fact that contrasts
+badly with the almost universal silence and impotence
+of the modern pulpit, either to stay a war or to
+mitigate its barbarities.</p>
+
+<p>But it is true that they knew equally well how to
+play on the martial as on the pacific chord in their
+audiences; for the eloquence of an Archbishop of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+Toulouse turned sixty towns and castles to the interest
+and rights of the French king in his quarrel with
+England; and the preaching of prelates and lawyers
+in Picardy had a similar effect in other large towns.
+Nor were the English clergy slower than the French
+to assert the rights of their king and country, for
+Simon Tibald, Bishop of London, made several long
+and fine sermons to demonstrate (as always is
+demonstrated in such cases) that the King of France
+had acted most unjustly in renewing the war, and that
+his conduct was at total variance both with equity
+and reason.</p>
+
+<p>But these appeals to the judgment of their
+congregations by the clergy are also a proof that
+in the fourteenth century the opinion of the people
+did not count for so little as is often supposed in the
+making of peace and war. Yet the power of the
+people in this respect was doubtless as insignificant as
+it still is in our own days: nothing being more remarkable,
+even in the free government of modern England,
+than the influence of the people in theory and their
+influence in fact on the most important question that
+regards their destinies.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are the moral causes difficult to trace which
+in those times made wars break out so frequently and
+last so long, that those who now read of them can only
+marvel how civilisation ever emerged at all, even to the
+imperfect degree to which it is given to us to enjoy it.
+The love of adventure and the hope of fame were of
+course among the principal motives. The saying of
+Adam Smith, that the great secret of education is the
+direction of personal vanity to proper objects, contains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+the key to all advance that has ever been made in
+civilisation, and to every shortcoming. The savagery
+of the middle ages was due to the direction of personal
+vanity exclusively into military channels, so that the
+desire for distinction often displayed itself in forms of
+perfect absurdity, as in the case of the young English
+knights who went abroad with one eye veiled, binding
+themselves by a vow to their ladies neither to see
+with their eyes nor to reply to anything asked of them
+till they had signalised themselves by the performance
+of some wondrous deed in France. The gradual
+opening up in later days of other paths to distinction
+than that of arms has very much diminished the
+danger to the public peace involved in the worthless
+education of our ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the personal distinction of the warrior
+gained at any great risk of personal danger. The
+personal danger in war decreased in exact ratio with
+the rank of the combatant, and it was only the lower
+orders of the social hierarchy who unreservedly risked
+their lives. In case of defeat they had no ransom to
+offer for mercy, and appear almost habitually to have
+been slain without any. If it was a common thing for
+either side to settle before a battle the names of those
+on the other who should be admitted to ransom, it was
+no uncommon thing to determine, as the English did
+before Crecy, to give no quarter to the enemy at all.
+But as a rule the battle-field was of little more peril to
+the knight than the tournament; and though many
+perished when powerless to avert the long thin dagger,
+called the <i>miséricorde</i>, from the interstices of their
+armour or the vizor of their helmets, yet the striking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+fact in Froissart is the great number of battles,
+skirmishes, and sieges in which the same names occur,
+proving how seldom their bearers were wounded,
+disabled, or killed. This of course was due mainly
+to the marvellous defensive armour they wore, which
+justifies the wonder not merely how they fought but
+even how they moved. Whether encased in coats of
+mail, sewn upon or worn over the gambeson or thick
+undergarment of cloth or leather, or in plates of solid
+steel, at first worn over the mail and then instead
+of it, and often with the plastron or breastplate of
+forged iron beneath both hauberk and gambeson,
+they evidently had little to fear from arrow, sword,
+or lance, unless when they neglected to let down
+the vizor of the helmet, as Sir John Chandos did,
+when he met with his death from a lance wound
+in the eye (1370). Their chief danger lay in the
+hammering of battle-axes on their helmets, which
+stunned or wounded, but seldom killed them. But
+the foot soldiers and light cavalry, though generally
+well equipped, were less well protected by armour than
+the knights, the hauberk or coat of mail being allowed
+in France only to persons possessed of a certain
+estate; so that the knights were formidable less
+to one another than to those who by the conditions of
+the combat could not be so formidable to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The surcoat was also a defence to the knight, as
+indicating the ransom he could pay for his life.
+Otherwise it is impossible to account for his readiness
+to go into action with this long robe flowing over his
+plate of steel and all his other accoutrements. Had
+Sir John Chandos not been entangled in his long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+surcoat when he slipped, he might have lived to fight
+many another battle to the honour of English chivalry.
+Richness of armour served also the same purpose as
+the surcoat. At the battle of Nicopoli, when the
+flower of the French nobility met with so disastrous a
+defeat at the hands of the Turks, the lords of France
+were, says Froissart, so richly dressed out in their
+emblazoned surcoats as to look like little kings, and
+many for a time owed their lives to the extreme richness
+of their armour, which led the Saracens to suppose
+them greater lords than they could really boast to be.
+So again the elaborate gold necklaces worn by distinguished
+officers in the seventeenth century were
+probably rather symbols of the ransom their wearers
+could pay, than worn merely for ostentation and vanity.
+It was to carelessness on this score that the Scotch
+owed their great losses at the battle of Musselborough
+in 1548: for (to put the words of Patin in modern
+dress) their ‘vileness of port was the cause that so
+many of the great men and gentlemen were killed and
+so few saved. The outward show, the semblance and
+sign whereby a stranger might discern a villain from
+a gentleman, was not among them to be seen.’</p>
+
+<p>War under these conditions chiefly affected the
+lives of the great by pleasantly relieving the monotony
+of peaceful days. In time of peace they had few
+occupations but hawking, hunting, and tilting, and
+during hostilities those amusements continued. Field
+sports, sometimes spoken of by their eulogists as the
+image of war, were not absent during its reality.
+Edward III. hunted and fished daily during his campaign
+in France, having with him thirty falconers on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+horseback, sixty couples of staghounds, and as many
+greyhounds. And many of his nobles followed his
+example in taking their hawks and hounds across the
+Channel.</p>
+
+<p>But the preceding causes of the frequency of war
+in the days of chivalry are quite insignificant when
+compared with that motive which nowadays mainly
+finds vent in the peaceful channels of commerce&mdash;namely,
+the common desire of gain. The desire for
+glory had far less to do with it than the desire of
+lucre; nor is anything from the beginning to the
+end of Froissart more conspicuously displayed than
+the merely mercenary motive for war. The ransom
+of prisoners or of towns, or even ransom for the
+slain,<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> afforded a short and royal road to wealth,
+and was the chief incentive, as it was also the chief
+reward of bravery. The Chevalier Bayard made by
+ransoms in the course of his life a sum equal to
+4,000<i>l.</i>, which in those days must have been a fortune;<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a>
+and Sir Walter Manny in a single campaign enriched
+himself by 8,000<i>l.</i> in the same way.<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> So that the
+story is perfectly credible of the old Scotch knight, who
+in a year of universal peace prayed, ‘Lord, turn the
+world upside down that gentlemen may make bread
+of it.’ Loot and rapine, the modern attractions of the
+brigand, were then in fact the main temptations of
+the knight or soldier; and the distinction between
+the latter and the brigand was far less than it had
+been in the pre-Christian period, or than it is in more
+modern times. Indeed the very word <i>brigand</i> meant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+originally, merely a foot-soldier who fought in a
+brigade, in which sense it was used by Froissart;
+and it was only the constant addiction of the former
+to the occupations of the highwayman that lent to
+the word brigand its subsequent evil connotation.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not merely the common soldier to whom
+the first question in a case of war was the profit
+to be gained by it; for men of the best families of
+the aristocracy were no less addicted to the land
+piracy which then constituted war, as is proved by such
+names as Calverly, Gournay, Albret, Hawkwood, and
+Guesclin. The noble who was a soldier in war often
+continued to fight as a robber after peace was made,
+nor thought it beneath him to make wretched villagers
+compound for their lives; and in spite of truces and
+treaties, pillage and ransom afforded his chief and
+often his sole source of livelihood. The story of
+Charles de Beaumont dying of regret for the ransom
+he had lost, because by mistake he had slain instead
+of capturing the Duke of Burgundy at the battle of
+Nancy, is a fair illustration of the dominion then
+exercised by the lowest mercenary feelings over the
+nobility of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>This mercenary side of chivalrous warfare has been
+so lost sight of in the conventional descriptions of
+it, that it is worth while to bring into prominence
+how very little the cause of war really concerned
+those who took part in it, and how unfounded is
+the idea that men troubled to fight for the weak or
+the oppressed under fine impulses of chivalry, and
+not simply in any place or for any object that held
+out to them the prospect of gain. How otherwise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+is it possible to account for the conduct of the Black
+Prince, in fighting to restore Pedro the Cruel to the
+throne of Castile, from which he had been displaced
+in favour of Henry of Trastamare not merely by the
+arms of Du Guesclin and the French freebooters, but
+by the wishes and consent of the people? Any
+thought for the people concerned, or of sympathy for
+their liberation, as little entered into the mind of the
+Black Prince as if the question had concerned toads
+or rabbits. Provided it afforded an occasion for fighting,
+it mattered nothing that Pedro had ruled oppressively;
+that he had murdered, or at least was believed to
+have murdered, his wife, the sister of the reigning King
+of France: nor that he had even been condemned by
+the Pope as an enemy to the Christian Church. Yet
+before the battle of Navarette (1367), in which Henry
+was completely defeated, the Prince did not hesitate
+in his prayers for victory to assert that he was waging
+war solely in the interests of justice and reason; and
+it was for his success in this iniquitous exploit (a
+success which only awaited his departure from the
+country to be followed by a rising in favour of the
+monarch he had deposed) that the Prince won his
+chief title to fame; that London exhausted itself in
+shows, triumphs, and festivals in his honour; and
+that Germans, English, and Flemish with one accord
+entitled him ‘the mirror of knighthood.’ The Prince
+was only thirteen when he fought at Crecy, and he
+fought with courage: he was only ten years older
+when he won the battle of Poitiers, and he behaved
+with courtesy to the captive French king, from whom
+he looked for an extortionate ransom: but the ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>travagant
+eulogies commonly heaped upon him prove
+how little exalted in reality was the military ideal of
+his age. His sack of Limoges, famous among military
+atrocities, has already been spoken of; nor should it
+be forgotten, as another indication of his character,
+that when two messengers brought him a summons
+from the King of France to answer the appeal of the
+Gascons of Aquitaine, he actually imprisoned them,
+showing himself however in this superior to his nobles
+and barons, who actually advised capital punishment
+as the fittest salary to the envoys for their pains.</p>
+
+<p>The Free Companies, or hordes of robbers, who
+ravaged Europe through all the period of chivalry
+and constituted the greatest social difficulty of the
+time, were simply formed of knights and men-at-arms,
+who, when a public war no longer justified them in
+robbing and murdering on behalf of the State, turned
+robbers and murderers on their own account. After
+the treaty of Bretigny had put a stop to hostilities
+between France and England (1360), 12,000 of these
+men, men of rank and family as well as needy adventurers,
+and under leaders of every nationality, resolved
+sooner than lay down their arms to march into Burgundy,
+there to relieve by the ransoms they might
+levy the poverty they could not otherwise avert.
+Many a war had no other justification than the
+liberation of one people from their outrages by turning
+them upon another. Thus Du Guesclin led his
+White Company into Spain on behalf of Henry the
+Bastard, less to avenge the cruelties of Pedro than to
+free France from the curse of her unemployed chivalry;
+and Henry the Bastard, when by such help he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+wrested the kingdom of Castile from his brother
+Pedro, designed an invasion of Granada simply to
+divert from his own territories the allies who had placed
+him in possession of them. This was a constant
+source of war in those days, just as in our own the
+existence of large armies leads of necessity to wars
+for their employment; and even the Crusades derive
+some explanation from the operation of the motive
+indicated.</p>
+
+<p>No historical microscope, indeed, will detect any
+difference between the Free Companies and the regular
+troops, since not only the latter merged into the
+former, but both were actuated by the sole pursuit of
+gain, and equally indifferent to ideas of honour or
+patriotism. The creed of both was summed up in the
+following regretful speech, attributed to Aymerigot
+Marcel, a great captain of the pillaging bands: ‘There
+is no pleasure in the world like that which men such
+as ourselves enjoyed. How happy were we when,
+riding out in search of adventures, we met a rich
+abbot, a merchant, or a string of mules, well laden
+with draperies, furs, or spices, from Montpellier, Beziers,
+and other places! All was our own, or ransomed
+according to our will. Every day we gained money,
+... we lived like kings, and when we went abroad
+the country trembled; everything was ours both in
+going and returning.’</p>
+
+<p>In the days of chivalry, this desire of gain, however
+gotten, pervaded and vitiated all classes of men
+from the lowest to the highest. Charles IV. of France,
+when his sister Isabella, queen of Edward II., fled
+to him, promised to help her with gold and silver, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+secretly, lest it should bring him into war; and then
+when messengers from England came with gold and
+silver and jewels for himself and his ministers, both
+he and his council became in a short time as cold to
+the cause of Isabella as they had been warm, the king
+even going so far as to forbid any of his subjects
+under pain of banishment to help his sister in her
+projected return. And again, when Edward III. was
+about to make war with France, was he not told that
+his allies were men who loved to gain wealth, and
+whom it was necessary to pay beforehand? And did
+he not find that a judicious distribution of florins was
+as effective in winning over to his interests a duke, a
+marquis, an archbishop, and the lords of Germany, as
+the poorer citizens of the towns of Flanders?</p>
+
+<p>Money, therefore, or its equivalent, and not the
+title to the crown of France, was at the root of the
+wars waged abroad by the English under Edward III.
+The question of title simply served as pretext, covering
+the baser objects of the invasion. No historical fact
+is clearer, ignored though it has been in the popular
+histories of England, than that the unpopularity of his
+successor, Richard II., arose from his marriage with
+the daughter of the King of France, and from his
+desire for peace between the two kingdoms, of which
+the marriage was the proof and the security. When
+his wish for peace led to the formation of a war and
+a peace party among the English nobility, Froissart
+says: ‘The poorer knights and archers were of course
+for war, as their sole livelihood depended upon it.<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>
+They had learnt idleness and looked to war as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+means of support.’ In reference to the great peace
+conference held at Amiens in 1391, he observes:
+‘Many persons will not readily believe what I am
+about to say, though it is strictly true, that the English
+are fonder of war than of peace. During the reign of
+Edward, of happy memory, and in the lifetime of his
+son the Prince of Wales, they made such grand conquests
+in France, and by their victories and ransoms
+of towns, castles, and men gained such wealth, that
+the poorest knights became rich; and those who were
+not gentlemen by birth, by gallantly hazarding themselves
+in these wars, were ennobled by their valour
+and worth. Those who came after them were desirous
+of following the same road.... Even the Duke of
+Gloucester, son of King Edward, inclined to the opinion
+of the commons, as did many other knights and
+squires who were desirous of war to enable them to
+support their state.’<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>No other country, indeed, pleased these English
+brigand knights so well as France for the purpose of
+military plunder. Hence the English who returned
+from the expedition to Castile complained bitterly that
+in the large towns where they expected to find everything,
+there was nothing but wines, lard, and empty
+coffers; but that it was quite otherwise in France,
+where they had often found in the cities taken in war
+such wealth and riches as astonished them; it was in
+a war with France therefore that it behoved them to
+hazard their lives, for it was very profitable, not in a
+war with Castile or Portugal, where there was nothing
+but poverty and loss to be suffered.<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With this evidence from Froissart may be compared
+a passage from Philip de Commines, where he
+says, in speaking of Louis XI. towards the end of the
+following century: ‘Our master was well aware that
+the nobility, clergy, and commons of England are
+always ready to enter upon a war with France, not
+only on account of their old title to its crown, but by
+the desire of gain, for it pleased God to permit their
+predecessors to win several memorable battles in this
+kingdom, and to remain in possession of Normandy
+and Guienne for the space of 350 years, ... during
+which time they carried over enormous booty into
+England. Not only in plunder which they had taken
+in the several towns, but in the richness and quality
+of their prisoners, who were most of them great princes
+and lords, and paid them vast ransoms for their
+liberty; so that every Englishman afterwards hoped
+to do the same thereby and return home laden with
+spoils.’<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such, then, were the antecedents of the evil custom
+of war which has descended to our own time; and
+we shall have taken the first step to its abolition when
+we have thus learnt to read its real descent and place
+in history, and to reject as pure hallucination the idea
+that in the warfare of the past any more than of the
+present there was anything noble or great or glorious.
+That brave deeds were often done and noble conduct
+sometimes displayed in it must not blind us to its
+other and darker features. It was a warfare in which
+not even women and children were safe from the
+sword or lance of the knight or soldier; nor sacred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+buildings exempt from their rage. It was a warfare
+in which the occasional mercy shown had a mercenary
+taint; in which the defeated were only spared
+for their ransom; and in which prisoners were constantly
+liable to torture, mutilation, and fetters.
+Above all, it was a warfare in which men fought more
+from a sordid greed of gain than from any love or
+attachment to their king or country, so that all sense
+of loyalty would speedily evaporate if a king like
+Richard II. chanced to wish to live peaceably with his
+neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>It is not unimportant to have thus shown the
+warfare of chivalry in its true light. For it is the
+delusion with regard to it, which more than anything
+else keeps alive those romantic notions about
+war and warriors that are the most fatal hindrance to
+removing both from the face of the earth. We clearly
+drive militarism to its last defences, if we deprive it
+of every period and of almost every name on which
+it is wont to rely as entitling it to our admiration or
+esteem.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">NAVAL WARFARE.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Una et ea vetus causa bellandi est profunda cupido imperii et
+divitiarum.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sallust.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">Robbery the first object of maritime warfare&mdash;The piratical origin of
+European navies&mdash;Merciless character of wars at sea&mdash;Fortunes
+made by privateering in England&mdash;Privateers commissioned by the
+State&mdash;Privateers defended by the publicists&mdash;Distinction between
+privateering and piracy&mdash;Failure of the State to regulate privateering&mdash;Privateering
+condemned by Lord Nelson&mdash;Privateering abolished
+by the Declaration of Paris in 1856&mdash;Modern feeling against
+seizure of private property at sea&mdash;Naval warfare in days of wooden
+ships&mdash;Unlawful methods of maritime war&mdash;The Emperor Leo VI.’s
+‘Treatise on Tactics’&mdash;The use of fire-ships&mdash;Death the penalty for
+serving in fire-ships&mdash;Torpedoes originally regarded as ‘bad’ war&mdash;English
+and French doctrine of rights of neutrals&mdash;Enemy’s property
+under neutral flag secured by Treaty of Paris&mdash;Shortcomings of the
+Treaty of Paris with regard to:&mdash;(1) A definition of what is contraband;
+(2) The right of search of vessels under convoy; (3) The
+practice of embargoes; (4) The <i>jus angariæ</i>&mdash;The International
+Marine Code of the future.</p>
+
+<p>The first striking difference between military and
+naval warfare is that, while&mdash;in theory, at least&mdash;the
+military forces of a country confine their attacks to
+the persons and power of their enemy, the naval
+forces devote themselves primarily to the plunder
+of his property and commerce. If on land the
+theory of modern war exempts from spoliation all
+of an enemy’s goods that do not contribute to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+military strength, on sea such spoliation is the professed
+object of maritime warfare. And the difference,
+we are told, is ‘the necessary consequence of the
+state of war, which places the citizens or subject of
+the belligerent states in hostility to each other, and
+prohibits all intercourse between them,’<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> although the
+very reason for the immunity of private property on
+land is that war is a condition of hostility between
+the military forces of two countries, and not between
+their respective inhabitants.<a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<p>Writers on public law have invented many ingenious
+theories to explain and justify, on rational
+grounds, so fundamental a difference between the
+two kinds of warfare. ‘To make prize of a merchant
+ship,’ says Dr. Whewell, ‘is an obvious way of showing
+(such a ship) that its own State is unable to protect
+it at sea, and thus is a mode of attacking the State;’<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>
+a reason that would equally justify the slaughter of
+nonagenarians. According to Hautefeuille, the differences
+flows naturally from the conditions of hostilities
+waged on different elements, and especially from the
+absence at sea of any fear of a rising <i>en masse</i> which,
+as it may be the result of wholesale robbery on land,
+serves to some extent as a safeguard against it.<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>A simpler explanation may trace the difference
+to the maritime Piracy which for many centuries
+was the normal relation between the English and
+Continental coasts, and out of which the navies of
+Europe were gradually evolved. Sir H. Nicolas, de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>scribing
+the naval state of the thirteenth and early
+part of the fourteenth century, proves by abundant
+facts the following picture of it: ‘During a truce or
+peace ships were boarded, plundered, and captured
+by vessels of a friendly Power as if there had been
+actual war. Even English merchant ships were attacked
+and robbed as well in port as at sea by English
+vessels, and especially by those of the Cinque Ports,
+which seem to have been nests of robbers; and,
+judging from the numerous complaints, it would
+appear that a general system of piracy existed which
+no government was strong enough to restrain.’<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>The governments of those days were, however, not
+only not strong enough to restrain, but, as a rule, only
+too glad to make use of these pirates as auxiliaries in
+their wars with foreign Powers. Some English ships
+carrying troops to France having been dispersed by a
+storm, the sailors of the Cinque Ports were ordered
+by Henry III., in revenge, to commit every possible
+injury on the French; a commission undertaken with
+such zeal on their part that they slew and plundered
+not only all the foreigners they could catch, but their
+own countrymen returning from their pilgrimages
+(1242). During the whole reign of Henry IV. (1399-1413),
+though there existed a truce between France
+and England, the ordinary incidents of hostilities
+continued at sea just as if the countries had been at
+open war.<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The object on either side was plunder
+and wanton devastation; nor from their landing on
+each other’s coasts, burning each other’s towns and
+crops, and carrying off each other’s property, did the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+country of either derive the least benefit whatever.
+The monk of St. Denys shows that these pirates
+were really the mariners on whom the naval service
+of England chiefly depended in time of war, for he
+says, in speaking of this period: ‘The English pirates,
+discontented with the truce and unwilling to abandon
+their profitable pursuits, determined to infest the sea
+and attack merchant ships. Three thousand of the
+most skilful sailors of England and Bayonne had confederated
+for that purpose, and, as was supposed, with
+the approbation of their king.’ It was not till the
+year 1413 that Henry V. sought to put a stop to the
+piratical practices of the English marine, and he then
+did so without requiring a reciprocal endeavour on
+the part of the other countries of Europe.<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<p>Maritime warfare being thus simply an extension
+of maritime piracy, the usages of the one naturally
+became the usages of the other; the only difference
+being that in time of war it was with the licence and
+pay of the State, and with the help of knights and
+squires, that the pirates carried on their accustomed
+programme of incendiarism, massacres, and robberies.</p>
+
+<p>From this connection, therefore, a lower character
+of warfare prevailed from the first on sea than on
+land, and the spirit of piracy breathed over the waters.
+No more mercy was shown by the regular naval
+service than was shown by pirates to the crew of a
+captured or surrendered vessel, for wounded and unwounded
+alike were thrown into the sea. When the
+fleet of Breton pirates defeated the English pirates
+in July 1403, and took 2,000 of them prisoners,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+they threw overboard the greater part of them;<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>
+and in the great sea-fight between the English and
+Spanish fleets of 1350, the whole of the crew of a
+Spanish ship that surrendered to the Earl of Lancaster
+were thrown overboard, ‘according to the barbarous
+custom of the age.’<a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>Two other stories of that time still further display
+the utter want of anything like chivalrous feeling in
+maritime usages. A Flemish ship, on its way to
+Scotland, having been driven by a storm on the English
+coast, near the Thames, and its crew having been
+slain by the inhabitants, the king rewarded the assassins
+with the whole of the cargo, and kept the ship and
+the rigging for himself (1318).<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> In 1379, when a fleet
+of English knights, under Sir John Arundel, on its
+way to Brittany, was overtaken by a storm, and the
+jettison of other things failed to relieve the vessels,
+sixty women, many of whom had been forced to
+embark, were thrown into the sea.<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p>
+
+<p>The piratical origin, therefore, of the navies of
+Europe sufficiently explains the fact that plunder,
+which is less the rule than an incident of war on land,
+remains its chief object and feature at sea. The fact
+may further be explained by the survival of piracy
+long sanctioned by the States under the guise of
+Privateering. If we would understand the popularity
+of wars in England in the old privateering days,
+we must recall the magnificent fortunes which were
+often won as prize-money in the career of legalised
+piracy. During the war which was concluded in 1748<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, England captured
+of French and Spanish ships collectively 3,434, whilst
+she herself lost 3,238; but, small compensation as this
+balance of 196 ships in her favour may seem after a
+contest of some nine years, the pecuniary balance in
+her favour is said to have amounted to 2,000,000<i>l.</i><a name="FNanchor_74" id="FNanchor_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>We now begin to see why our forefathers rang
+their church bells at the announcement of war, as they
+did at the declaration of this one against Spain. War
+represented to large classes what the gold mines of
+Peru represented to Spain&mdash;the best of all possible
+pecuniary speculations. In the year 1747 alone the
+English ships took 644 prizes; and of what enormous
+value they often were! Here is a list of the values
+which the cargoes of these prizes not unfrequently
+reached:</p>
+
+<ul><li>That of the ‘Héron,’ a French ship, 140,000<i>l.</i></li>
+<li>That of the ‘Conception,’ a French ship, 200,000<i>l.</i></li>
+<li>That of ‘La Charmante,’ a French East Indiaman, 200,000<i>l.</i></li>
+<li>That of the ‘Vestal,’ a Spanish ship, 140,000<i>l.</i></li>
+<li>That of the ‘Hector,’ a Spanish ship, 300,000<i>l.</i></li>
+<li>That of the ‘Concordia,’ a Spanish ship, 600,000<i>l.</i><a name="FNanchor_75" id="FNanchor_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Two Spanish register ships are recorded to have
+brought in 350<i>l.</i> to every foremast man who took
+part in their capture. In 1745 three Spanish vessels
+returning from Peru having been captured by three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+privateersmen, the owners of the latter received to
+their separate shares the sum of 700,000<i>l.</i>, and every
+common seaman 850<i>l.</i> Another Spanish galleon was
+taken by a British man-of-war with a million sterling
+in bullion on board.</p>
+
+<p>These facts suffice to dispel the wonder we might
+otherwise feel at the love our ancestors had for mixing
+themselves up, for any pretext or for none, in hostilities
+with Continental Powers. Our policy was naturally
+spirited, when it meant chances like these for all
+who lacked either the wit or the will to live honestly,
+and returns like these on the capital invested in the
+patriotic equipment of a few privateers. But what
+advantage ultimately accrued to either side, after
+deduction made for all losses and expenses, or how far
+these national piracies contributed to the speedier
+restoration of peace, were questions that apparently
+did not enter within the range of military reasoning
+to consider.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was done to make attractive a life of
+piracy spent in the service of the State. Originally
+every European State claimed some interest in the
+prizes it commissioned its privateers to take; but the
+fact that each in turn surrendered its claim proves the
+difficulty there was in getting these piratical servants
+to submit their plunder to the adjudication of the
+prize-courts. Originally all privateers were bound to
+deliver captured arms and ammunition to their sovereign,
+and to surrender a percentage of their gains to
+the State or the admiral; but it soon came to pass
+that sovereigns had to pay for the arms they might
+wish to keep, and that the percentage deducted was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+first diminished and then abolished altogether. At
+first 30 per cent. was deducted in Holland, which fell
+successively to 18 per cent., to 10 per cent., to nothing;
+and in England the 10 per cent. originally due to the
+admiral was finally surrendered.<a name="FNanchor_76" id="FNanchor_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> The crew also enjoyed
+an additional prize of money for every person
+slain or captured on an enemy’s man-of-war or privateer,
+and for every cannon in proportion to its bore.<a name="FNanchor_77" id="FNanchor_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of all the changes of opinion that have occurred in
+the world’s history, none is more instructive than that
+which gradually took place concerning privateering,
+and which ended in its final renunciation by most of
+the maritime Powers in the Declaration of Paris in
+1856.</p>
+
+<p>The weight of the publicists’ authority was for
+long in its favour. Vattel only made the proviso of
+a just cause of war the condition for reconciling privateering
+with the comfort of a good conscience.<a name="FNanchor_78" id="FNanchor_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
+Valin defended it as a patriotic service, in that it relieved
+the State from the expense of fitting out war-vessels.
+Emerigon denounced the vocation of pirates
+as infamous, while commending that of privateers as
+honest and even glorious. And for many generations
+the distinction between the two was held to be satisfactory,
+that the privateer acted under the commission
+of his sovereign, the pirate under no one’s but his
+own.</p>
+
+<p>Morally, this distinction of itself proved little.
+Take the story of the French general Crillon, who,
+when Henri III. proposed to him to assassinate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+Duc de Guise, is said to have replied, ‘My life and
+my property are yours, Sire; but I should be unworthy
+of the French name were I false to the laws
+of honour.’ Had he accepted the commission, would
+the deed have been praiseworthy or infamous? Can
+a commission affect the moral quality of actions?
+The hangman has a commission, but neither honour
+nor distinction. Why, then, should a successful privateer
+have been often decorated with the title of
+nobility or presented with a sword by his king?<a name="FNanchor_79" id="FNanchor_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>Historically, the distinction had even less foundation.
+In olden times individuals carried on their own
+robberies or reprisals at their own risk; but their
+actions did not become the least less piratical when,
+about the thirteenth century, reprisals were taken
+under State control, and became only lawful under
+letters of marque duly issued by a sovereign or his
+admirals. In their acts, conduct, and whole procedure,
+the commissioned privateers of later times differed in
+no discernible respects from the pirates of the middle
+ages, save in the fact of being utilised by the State for
+its supposed benefit: and this difference, only dating
+as it did from the time when the prohibition to fit out
+cruisers in time of war without public authority first
+became common, was evidently one of date rather
+than of nature.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the attempt of the State to regulate
+its piratical service failed utterly. In the fourteenth
+century it was customary to make the officers of a
+privateer swear not to plunder the subjects of the
+commissioning belligerent, or of friendly Powers, or of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+vessels sailing under safe-conducts; in the next century
+it became necessary, in addition to this oath, to
+insist on heavy pecuniary sureties;<a name="FNanchor_80" id="FNanchor_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> and such sureties
+became common stipulations in treaties of peace.
+Nearly every treaty between the maritime Powers
+after about 1600 contained stipulations in restraint of
+the abuses of privateering; on the value of which,
+the complaints that arose in every war that occurred
+of privateers exceeding their powers are a sufficient
+comment. The numerous ordinances of different
+countries threatening to punish as pirates all privateers
+who were found with commissions from <i>both</i>
+belligerents, give us a still further insight into the
+character of those servants of the State.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, so slight was the distinction founded on
+the possession of a commission, that even privateers
+with commissions were sometimes treated as actual
+pirates and not as legitimate belligerents. In the
+seventeenth century, the freebooters and buccaneers
+who ravaged the West Indies, and who consisted of
+the outcasts of England and the Continent, though
+they were duly commissioned by France to do their
+utmost damage to the Spanish colonies and commerce
+in the West Indies, were treated as no better than
+pirates if they happened to fall into the hands of the
+Spaniards. And especially was this distinction disallowed
+if there were any doubt concerning the legitimacy
+of the letters of marque. England, for instance,
+refused at first to treat as better than pirates the
+privateers of her revolted colonists in America; and
+in the French Revolution she tried to persuade the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+Powers of Europe so to deal with privateers commissioned
+by the republican government. Russia
+having consented to this plan, its execution was only
+hindered by the honourable refusal of Sweden and
+Denmark to accede to so retrograde an innovation.<a name="FNanchor_81" id="FNanchor_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p>An illusory distinction between the prize of a pirate
+and that of a privateer was further sustained by the
+judicial apparatus of the prize-court. The rights of a
+captor were not complete till a naval tribunal of his
+own country had settled his claims to the ships or
+cargo of an enemy or neutral. By this device confiscation
+was divested of its likeness to plunder, and a
+thin veneer of legality was laid on the fundamental
+lawlessness of the whole system. Were it left to
+the wolves to decide on their rights to the captured
+sheep, the latter would have much the same chance
+of release as vessels in a prize-court of the captor.
+A prize-court has never yet been equally representative
+of either belligerent, or been so constituted as to be
+absolutely impartial between either.</p>
+
+<p>But, even granted that a prize-court gave its verdicts
+with the strictest regard to the evidence, of what
+nature was that evidence likely to be when it came
+chiefly from the purser on board the privateer, whose
+duty it was to draw up a verbal process of the circumstances
+of every visit or capture, and who, as he was
+paid and nominated by the captain of the privateer,
+was dependent for his profits in the concern on the
+lawfulness of the prizes? How easy to represent that
+a defenceless merchant vessel had offered resistance
+to search, and that therefore by the law of nations she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+and her cargo were lawful prize! How tempting to
+falsify every circumstance that really attended the
+capture, or that legally affected the captors’ rights to
+their plunder!</p>
+
+<p>These aspects of privateering soon led unbiassed
+minds to a sounder judgment about it than was discernible
+in received opinion. Molloy, an English
+writer, spoke of it, as long ago as 1769, as follows:
+‘It were well they (the privateers) were restrained by
+consent of all princes, since all good men account
+them but one remove from pirates, who without any
+respect to the cause, or having any injury done
+them, or so much as hired for the service, spoil men
+and goods, making even a trade and calling of it.’<a name="FNanchor_82" id="FNanchor_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a>
+Martens, the German publicist, at the end of the same
+century, called privateering a privileged piracy; but
+Nelson’s opinion may fairly count for more than all;
+and of his opinion there remains no doubt whatever.
+In a letter dated August 7, 1804, he wrote: ‘If I had
+the least authority in controlling the privateers, whose
+conduct is so disgraceful to the British nation, I
+would instantly take their commissions from them.’
+In the same letter he spoke of them as a horde of
+sanctioned robbers;<a name="FNanchor_83" id="FNanchor_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> and on another occasion he
+wrote: ‘The conduct of all privateering is, as far as
+I have seen, so near piracy, that I only wonder any
+civilised nation can allow them. The lawful as well
+as the unlawful commerce of the neutral flag is subject
+to every violation and spoliation.’<a name="FNanchor_84" id="FNanchor_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> Yet it was for
+the sake of such spoliation, which England chose to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+regard as her maritime right and to identify with her
+maritime supremacy, that, under the pretext of solicitude
+for the liberties of Europe, she fought her long
+war with France, and made herself the enemy in turn
+of nearly every other civilised Power in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Declaration of Paris, the first article of which
+abolished privateering between the signatory Powers,
+was signed by Lord Clarendon on behalf of England;
+but on the ground that it was not formally a treaty,
+never having been ratified by Parliament or the Crown,
+it has actually been several times proposed in the
+English Parliament to violate the honour of England
+by declaring that agreement null and void.<a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> Lord
+Derby, in reference to such proposals, said in 1867:
+‘We have given a pledge, not merely to the Powers
+who signed with us, but to the whole civilised world.’
+This was the language of real patriotism, which
+esteems a country’s honour its highest interest; the
+other was the language of the plainest perfidy. In
+November 1876, the Russian Government was also
+strongly urged, in the case of war with England, to
+issue letters of marque against British commerce, in
+spite of the international agreement to the contrary.<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a>
+It is not likely that it would have done so; but these
+motions in different countries give vital interest to
+the history of privateering as one of the legitimate
+modes of waging war.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, since neither Spain, the United States,
+nor Mexico signed the Declaration of Paris, war with
+any of them would revive all the atrocities and disputes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+that have embittered previous wars in which England
+has been engaged. The precedent of former treaties,
+such as that between Sweden and the United Provinces
+in 1675, the United States and Prussia in 1785, and
+the United States and Italy in 1871, by which either
+party agreed in the event of war not to employ privateers
+against the other, affords an obvious sample
+of what diplomacy might yet do to diminish the
+chances of war between the signatory and the non-signatory
+Powers.</p>
+
+<p>The United States would have signed the Declaration
+of Paris if it had exempted the merchant
+vessels of belligerents as well from public armed vessels
+as from privateers: and this must be looked to as the
+next conquest of law over lawlessness. Russia and
+several other Powers were ready to accept the American
+amendment, which, having at first only fallen
+through owing to the opposition of England, was
+subsequently withdrawn by America herself. Nevertheless,
+that amendment remains the wish not only of
+the civilised world, but of our own merchants, whose
+carrying trade, the largest in the world, is, in the event
+of England becoming a belligerent, in danger of
+falling into the hands of neutral countries. In 1858
+the merchants of Bremen drew up a formal protest
+against the right of ships of war to seize the property
+and ships of merchants.<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> In the war of 1866
+Prussia, Italy, and Austria agreed to forego this time-honoured
+right of mutual plunder; and the Emperor
+of Germany endeavoured to establish the same limitation
+in the war of 1870. The old maxim of war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+of which the custom is a survival, has long since
+been disproved by political economy&mdash;the doctrine,
+namely, that a loss to one country is a gain to
+another, or that one country profits by the exact extent
+of the injury that it effects against the property
+of its adversary. Having lost its basis in reason, it
+only remains to remove it from practice.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn for a moment from this aspect of naval
+warfare to the actual conduct of hostilities at sea, the
+desire to obtain forcible possession of an enemy’s
+vessels must clearly have had a beneficial effect in
+rendering the loss of life less extensive than it was in
+battles on land. To capture a ship, it was desirable, if
+possible, to disable without destroying it; so that the
+fire of each side was more generally directed against
+the masts and rigging than against the hull or lower
+parts of the vessel. In the case of the ‘Berwick,’ an
+English 74-gun ship, which struck her colours to the
+French frigate, the ‘Alceste,’ only four sailors were
+wounded, and the captain, whose head was taken off by
+a bar-shot, was the only person slain; and ‘so small a
+loss was attributed to the high firing of the French,
+who, making sure of the ‘Berwick’s’ capture, and
+wanting such a ship entire in their fleet, were wise
+enough to do as little injury as possible to her hull.’<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>
+The great battle between the English and Dutch
+fleets off Camperdown (1795) was exceptional both
+for the damage inflicted by both on the hulls of
+their adversaries, and consequently for the heavy
+loss of life on either side. ‘The appearance of the
+British ships at the close of the action was very unlike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+what it generally is when the French or Spaniards
+have been the opponents of the former. Not a single
+mast nor even a top-mast was shot away; nor were
+the rigging and sails of the ships in their usual tattered
+state. It was at the hulls of their adversaries that the
+Dutchmen had directed their shot.’<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> As the English
+naturally retaliated, though ‘as trophies the appearance
+of the Dutch prizes was gratifying,’ as ships of
+war ‘they were not the slightest acquisition to the
+navy of England.’<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p>
+
+<p>When this happened, as it could not but often do
+in pitched naval battles, the Government sometimes
+made good to the captors the value of the prizes that
+the serious nature of the conflict had caused them to
+lose. Thus in the case of the six French prizes made
+at the Battle of the Nile, only three of which ever
+reached Plymouth, the Government, ‘in order that
+the captors might not suffer for the prowess they had
+displayed in riddling the hulls of the captured ships,
+paid for each of the destroyed 74s, the “Guerrier,”
+“Heureux,” and “Mercure,” the sum of 20,000<i>l.</i>, which
+was as much as the least valuable of the remaining
+74s had been valued at.’</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to notice distinctions in naval warfare
+between lawful and unlawful methods similar to those
+conspicuous on land. Such projectiles as bits of iron
+ore, pointed stones, nails, or glass, are excluded from
+the list of things that may be used in <i>good war</i>; and
+the Declaration of St. Petersburg condemns explosive
+bullets as much on one element as on the other. Unfounded
+charges by one belligerent against another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+are, however, always liable to bring the illicit method
+into actual use on both sides under the pretext of
+reprisals; as we see in the following order of the day,
+issued at Brest by the French Vice-Admiral Marshal
+Conflans (Nov. 8, 1759): ‘It is absolutely contrary to
+the law of nations to make bad war, and to shoot
+shells at the enemy, who must always be fought
+according to the rules of honour, with the arms generally
+employed by polite nations. Yet some captains
+have complained that the English have used such
+weapons against them. It is, therefore, only on these
+complaints, and with an extreme reluctance, that it
+has been resolved to embark hollow shells on vessels
+of the line, but it is expressly forbidden to use them
+unless the enemy begin.’<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p>
+
+<p>So the English in their turn charged the French
+with making bad war. The wound received by
+Nelson at Aboukir, on the forehead, was attributed
+to a piece of iron or a langridge shot.<a name="FNanchor_92" id="FNanchor_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> And the
+wounds that the crew of the ‘Brunswick’ received
+from the ‘Vengeur’ in the famous battle between
+the French and English fleets in June 1794, are said
+to have been peculiarly distressing, owing to the French
+employing langridge shot of raw ore and old nails,
+and to their throwing stinkpots into the portholes,
+which caused most painful burnings and scaldings.<a name="FNanchor_93" id="FNanchor_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>
+It is safest to discredit such accusations altogether,
+for there is no limit to the barbarities that may come
+into play, in consequence of too ready a credulity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Red-hot shot, legitimate for the defence of land
+forts against ships, used not to be considered good
+war in the contests of ships with one another. In the
+three hours’ action between the ‘Lively’ and the ‘Tourterelle,’
+a French privateer, the use by the latter of
+hot-shot, ‘not usually deemed honourable warfare,’
+was considered to be wrong, but a wrong on the part
+of those who equipped her for sea more than on the
+part of the captain who fired them.<a name="FNanchor_94" id="FNanchor_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> The English
+assailing batteries that fired red-hot shot against
+Glückstadt in 1813 are said to have resorted to ‘a
+mode of warfare very unusual with us since the siege
+of Gibraltar.’<a name="FNanchor_95" id="FNanchor_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p>The ‘Treatise on Tactics,’ by the Emperor Leo
+VI., carries back the record of the means employed
+against an enemy in naval warfare to the ninth century.
+The things he recommends as most effective
+are: cranes, to let fall heavy weights on the enemy’s
+decks; caltrops, with iron spikes, to wound his feet;<a name="FNanchor_96" id="FNanchor_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a>
+jars full of quicklime, to suffocate him; jars containing
+combustibles, to burn him; jars containing
+poisonous reptiles, to bite him; and Greek fire with
+its noise like thunder, to frighten as well as burn him.<a name="FNanchor_97" id="FNanchor_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>
+Many of these methods were of immemorial usage;
+for Scipio knew the merits of jars full of pitch, and
+Hannibal of jars full of vipers.<a name="FNanchor_98" id="FNanchor_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Nothing was too bad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+for use in those days; nor can it be ascertained when
+or why they ceased to be used. Greek fire was used
+with great effect in the sea-battles between the Saracens
+and Christians; and it is a fair cause for wonder
+that the invention of gunpowder should have so
+entirely superseded it as to cause its very manufacture
+to have been forgotten. Neither does history record
+the date of, nor the reason for, the disuse of quicklime,
+which in the famous fight off Dover in 1217
+between the French and English contributed so greatly
+to the victory of the latter.<a name="FNanchor_99" id="FNanchor_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to believe that sentiments of humanity
+should have caused these methods to be discarded
+from maritime hostilities; but that such motives led
+to a certain mitigation in the use of fire-ships appears
+from a passage in Captain Brenton’s ‘Naval
+History,’ where he says: ‘The use of fire-ships has
+long been laid aside, to the honour of the nation which
+first dispensed with this barbarous aggravation of the
+horrors of war.’ That is to say, as he explains it,
+though fire-ships continued to accompany the fleets,
+they were only used in an anchorage where there was
+a fair chance of the escape of the crew against which
+they were sent; they ceased to be used, as at one
+time, to burn or blow up disabled ships, which the
+conqueror dared not board and carry into port, and
+which were covered with the wounded and dying.
+The last instance in which they were so used by
+the English was in the fight off Toulon, in 1744; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+their use on that occasion is said to have received
+merited reproach from an historian of the day.<a name="FNanchor_100" id="FNanchor_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p>
+
+<p>As the service of a fire-ship was one that required
+the greatest bravery and coolness&mdash;since it was, of
+course, attacked in every possible way, and it was
+often difficult to escape by the boat chained behind
+it&mdash;it displays the extraordinary inconsistency of
+opinion about such matters that it should have been
+accounted rather a service of infamy than of honour.
+Molloy, in 1769, wrote of it as the practice of his day
+to put to death prisoners made from a fire-ship:
+‘Generally the persons found in them are put to death
+if taken.’<a name="FNanchor_101" id="FNanchor_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> And another writer says: ‘Whether it be
+from a refined idea, or from the most determined
+resentment towards those who act in fire-ships, may
+be difficult to judge; but there is rarely any quarter
+given to such as fall into the enemy’s power.’<a name="FNanchor_102" id="FNanchor_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p>Clock-machines, or torpedoes, were introduced into
+European warfare by the English, being intended to
+destroy Napoleon’s ships at Boulogne in 1804. It is
+remarkable that the use of them was at first reprobated
+by Captain Brenton, and by Lord St. Vincent,
+who foresaw that other Powers would in turn adopt
+the innovation.<a name="FNanchor_103" id="FNanchor_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> The French, who picked up some of
+them near Boulogne, called them infernal machines.
+But at present they seem fairly established as part of
+good warfare, in default of any international agreement
+against them, such as that which exists against explosive
+bullets.</p>
+
+<p>The same International Act which abolished pri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>vateering
+between the signatory Powers settled also
+between them two other disputed points which for
+centuries were a frequent cause of war and jealousy&mdash;namely,
+the liability of the property of neutrals to
+be seized when found in the ships of an enemy, and
+of the property of an enemy to be seized when found
+in the ships of a neutral.</p>
+
+<p>Over the abstract right of belligerents so to deal
+with the ships or property of neutral Powers the publicists
+for long fought a battle-royal, contending either
+that a neutral ship should be regarded as neutral
+territory, or that an enemy’s property was lawful prize
+anywhere. Whilst the French or Continental theory
+regarded the nationality of the vessel rather than of its
+cargo, so that the goods of a neutral might be fairly
+seized on an enemy’s vessel, but those of an enemy
+were safe even in a neutral ship; the English theory
+was diametrically the opposite, for the Admiralty restored
+a neutral’s property taken on an enemy’s vessel,
+but confiscated an enemy’s goods if found on a neutral
+vessel. This difference between the English rule and
+that of other countries was a source of endless contention.
+Frederick II. of Prussia, in 1753, first resisted
+the English claim to seize hostile property sailing
+under a neutral flag. Then came against the same
+claim the first Armed Neutrality of 1780, headed by
+Russia, and again in 1801 the second armed coalition
+of the Northern Powers. The difference of rule was,
+therefore, as such differences always must be, a source
+of real weakness to England, on account of the enemies
+it raised against her all over the world. Yet the
+Continental theory of free ships making free goods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+was considered for generations to be so adverse to the
+real interests of England, that Lord Nelson, in 1801,
+characterised it in the House of Lords as ‘a proposition
+so monstrous in itself, so contrary to the law of
+nations, and so injurious to the maritime interests of
+England, as to justify war with the advocates of such
+a doctrine, so long as a single man, a single shilling,
+or a single drop of blood remained in the country.’<a name="FNanchor_104" id="FNanchor_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>
+The Treaty of Paris has made binding the Continental
+rule, and in spite of Lord Nelson free ships now make
+free goods.</p>
+
+<p>The fact, therefore, that if England were now at
+war with France she could not take French property
+(unless it were contraband) from a Russian or American
+ship, we owe not to the publicists who were
+divided about it, nor to naval opinion which was
+decided against it, but to the accidental alliance
+between France and England in the Crimean war.
+In order to co-operate together, each waived its old
+claim, according to which France would have been
+free to seize the property of a neutral found on Russian
+vessels, and England to seize Russian property on the
+vessels of a neutral. As the United States and other
+neutral Powers as well would probably have resisted
+by arms the claim of either so to interfere with their
+neutrality, the mutual concession was one of common
+prudence; and as the same opposition would have
+been perennial, it was no great sacrifice on the part of
+either to perpetuate and extend by a treaty at the
+close of the war the agreement that at first was only
+to last for its continuance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Much, however, as that treaty has done for the
+peace of the world, by assimilating in these respects
+the maritime law of nations, it has left many customs
+unchanged to challenge still the attention of reformers.
+It is therefore of some practical interest to consider of
+what nature future changes should be, inasmuch as, if
+we cannot agree to cease from fighting altogether, the
+next best thing we can do is to reduce the pretexts for
+it to as few as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The reservation, then, in favour of confiscating
+property that is contraband of war has left the right
+of visiting and searching neutral or hostile merchantmen
+for contraband untouched; though nothing has
+been a more fruitful source of quarrel than the want
+of a common definition of what constitutes contraband.
+Anything which, without further manipulation,
+adds directly to an enemy’s power, as weapons of war,
+are contraband by universal admission; but whether
+corn and provisions are, as some text-writers assert
+and others deny; whether coined money, horses, or
+saddles are, as was decided in 1863 between the
+Northern Powers of Europe; whether tar and pitch
+for ships are, as was disputed between England and
+Sweden for 200 years; whether coal should be, as
+Prince Bismarck claimed against England in 1870; or
+whether rice is a war-threatening point of difference
+between England and France in this very year of
+grace; these are questions that remain absolutely undecided,
+or are left to the treaties between the several
+Powers or the arbitrary caprice of belligerents.</p>
+
+<p>The Declaration of Paris was equally silent as to
+the right (demanded by all the Powers save England)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+for ships of war, which have always been exempt from
+search, to exempt from search also the merchant vessels
+sailing under their convoy. So fundamental a divergence
+between the maritime usages of different countries
+can only be sustained under the peril of incurring
+hostility and war, without any corresponding advantage
+in compensation.</p>
+
+<p>The Declaration of Paris has also left untouched
+the old usage of embargoes. A nation wronged by
+another may still seize the vessels of that other which
+may be in its ports, in order to secure attention to its
+claims; restoring them in the event of a peaceable
+settlement, but confiscating them if war ensues. The
+resemblance of this practice of hostile embargo to
+robbery, ‘occurring as it does in the midst of peace
+... ought,’ says an American jurist, ‘to make it
+disgraceful and drive it into disuse.’<a name="FNanchor_105" id="FNanchor_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> It would be as
+reasonable to seize the persons and property of all the
+merchants resident in the country, as used to be done
+by France and England. In 1795, Holland, having
+been conquered by France, became thereby an enemy
+of England. Accordingly, ‘orders were issued to seize
+all Dutch vessels in British ports;’ in virtue of which,
+several gun-ships and between fifty and sixty merchant
+vessels in Plymouth Sound were detained by the port
+admiral.<a name="FNanchor_106" id="FNanchor_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> It is difficult to conceive anything less defensible
+as a practice between civilised States.</p>
+
+<p>It equally descends from the barbarous origin
+of maritime law that all ships of an enemy wrecked on
+our coast, or forced to take refuge in our harbours by
+stress of weather or want of provisions, or in ignorance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+of the existence of hostilities, should become ours by
+right of war. There are generous instances to the
+contrary. The Spanish Governor of Havana in 1746,
+when an English vessel was driven into that hostile
+port by stress of weather, refused to seize the vessel
+and take the captain prisoner; and so did another
+Spanish governor in the case of an English vessel
+whose captain was ignorant that Honduras was hostile
+territory. But these cases are the exception; the rule
+being, that a hostile Power avails itself of a captain’s
+ignorance or distress to make him a prisoner and his
+ship a prize of war; another proof, if further needed,
+how very little magnanimity really enters into the
+conduct of hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>It is a still further abuse of the rights of war that
+a belligerent State may do what it pleases, not only
+with all the vessels of its own subjects, but with all
+those of neutrals as well which happen to be within
+its jurisdiction at the beginning of a war; that it may,
+on paying the owners the value of their freight beforehand,
+confiscate such vessels and compel them to
+serve in the transport of its troops or its munitions of
+war. Yet this is the so-called <i>jus angariæ</i>, to which
+Prince Bismarck appealed when in the war with France
+the Germans sank some British vessels at the mouth
+of the Seine.<a name="FNanchor_107" id="FNanchor_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> It is true we received liberal compensation,
+but the right is none the less one which all the
+Powers are interested in abolishing.</p>
+
+<p>If, then, from the preceding retrospect it appears
+that whatever advance we have made on the maritime
+usages of our ancestors has been due solely to inter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>national
+agreement, and to a friendly concert between
+the chief Powers of the world, acting with
+a view to their permanent and collective interests,
+the inference is evidently in favour of any further
+advance being only possible in the same way. The
+renunciations of each Power redound to the benefit
+of each and all; nor can the gain of the world involve
+any real loss for the several nations that compose
+it. We shall therefore, perhaps, not err far from the
+truth, if we imagine the following articles, in complement
+of those formulated in Paris in 1856, to constitute
+the International Marine Code which will be
+found in the future to be most calculated to remove
+sources of contention between nations, and best
+adapted, therefore, to the permanent interests of the
+contracting parties:</p>
+
+<ol>
+
+<li>Privateering is and remains abolished.</li>
+
+<li>The merchant vessels and cargoes of belligerents
+shall be exempted from seizure and confiscation.</li>
+
+<li>The colonies of either belligerent shall be excluded
+from the field of legitimate hostilities,
+and the neutrality of their territory shall
+extend to their ships and commerce.</li>
+
+<li>The right of visiting and searching neutral or
+hostile merchantmen for contraband of war
+shall be abolished.</li>
+
+<li>Contraband of war shall be defined by international
+agreement; and to deal in such contraband
+shall be made a breach of the civil law,
+prohibited and punished by each State as a
+violation of its proclamation of neutrality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></li>
+
+<li>Except in the case of contraband as aforesaid,
+all trade shall be lawful between the subjects
+of either belligerent, since individuals are no
+more involved in the quarrel between their
+respective governments at sea than they are
+on land.</li>
+
+<li>The only limitation to commerce shall be so
+effective a blockade of an enemy’s ports as
+shall render it impossible for ships to enter or
+leave them; and the mere notification that a
+port is blockaded shall not justify the seizure
+of ships that have sailed from, or are sailing
+to, them in any part of the world.</li>
+
+<li>The right to lay hostile embargoes on the ships
+of a friendly Power, by reason of a dispute
+arising between them, shall be abolished.</li>
+
+<li>The right to confiscate or destroy the ships
+of a friendly Power for the service of a
+belligerent State, the <i>jus angariæ</i>, shall be
+abolished.</li></ol>
+
+<p>What, then, would remain for the naval forces of
+maritime Powers to do? Everything, it may be
+replied, which constitutes legitimate warfare, and
+conforms to the elementary conception of a state
+of hostility; the blockading of hostile ports, and all
+the play of attack and defence that may be imagined
+between belligerent navies. Whatsoever is more
+than this&mdash;the plunder of an enemy’s commerce,
+embargoes on his ships, the search of neutral vessels&mdash;not
+only cometh of piracy, as has been shown, but
+is in fact piracy itself, without any necessary connection
+with the conduct of legitimate hostilities.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">MILITARY REPRISALS.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Si quis clamet iniquum non dare pœnas qui peccavit, respondeo
+multo esse iniquius tot innocentium millia citra meritum in extremam
+vocari calamitatem.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Erasmus.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">International law on legitimate reprisals&mdash;The Brussels Conference on
+the subject&mdash;Illustrations of barbarous reprisals&mdash;Instances of non-retaliation&mdash;Savage
+reprisals in days of chivalry&mdash;Hanging the
+commonest reprisals for a brave defence, as illustrated by the warfare
+of the fifteenth century&mdash;Survival of the custom to our own
+times&mdash;The massacre of a conquered garrison still a law of war&mdash;The
+shelling of Strasburg by the Germans&mdash;Brutal warfare of
+Alexander the Great&mdash;The connection between bravery and cruelty&mdash;The
+abolition of slavery in its effects on war&mdash;The storming of
+Magdeburg, Brescia, and Rome&mdash;Cicero on Roman warfare&mdash;The
+reprisals of the Germans in France in 1870&mdash;Their revival of the
+custom of taking hostages&mdash;Their resort to robbery as a plea of
+reprisals&mdash;General Von Moltke on perpetual peace&mdash;The moral
+responsibility of the military profession&mdash;The Press as a potent
+cause of war&mdash;Plea for the abolition of demands for unconditional
+surrender, such as led to the bombardment of Alexandria in
+1882.</p>
+
+<p>On no subject connected with the operations of war
+has International Law come as yet to lamer conclusions
+than concerning Military Reprisals, or the
+revenge that may be fairly exacted by one belligerent
+from the other for violation of the canons of honourable
+warfare.</p>
+
+<p>General Halleck, for instance, whilst as against an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+enemy who puts in force the extreme rights of war
+he justifies a belligerent in following suit, denies the
+right of the latter to do so against an enemy who
+passes all bounds and conducts war in a downright
+savage fashion. Whilst therefore, according to him,
+the law of retaliation would never justify such acts as
+the massacre of prisoners, the use of poison, or promiscuous
+slaughter, he would consider as legitimate
+reprisals acts like the sequestration by Denmark of
+debts due from Danish to British subjects in retaliation
+for the confiscation by England of the Danish fleet
+in 1807, or Napoleon’s seizure of all English travellers
+in France in retaliation for England’s seizure and
+condemnation of French vessels in 1803.<a name="FNanchor_108" id="FNanchor_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> And a
+French writer, in the same spirit, denies that the
+French Government would have been justified in retaliating
+on Russia, when the Czar had his French
+prisoners of war consigned to the mines of Siberia.<a name="FNanchor_109" id="FNanchor_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p>
+
+<p>The distinction is clearly untenable on any rational
+theory of the laws of retributive justice. You
+may retaliate for the lesser, but not for the greater
+injury! You may check resort to infamous hostilities
+by the threat of reprisals, but must fold your hands
+and submit, if your enemy becomes utterly barbarous!
+You may restrain him from burning your crops by
+burning his, but must be content to go without redress
+if he slays your wives and children!</p>
+
+<p>How difficult the question really is appears from
+the attempt made to settle it at the Brussels Conference
+of 1874, when the following clauses formed part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+of the original Russian project submitted to the consideration
+of that meeting:</p>
+
+<p><i>Section IV.</i> 69. ‘Reprisals are admissible in extreme
+cases only, due regard being paid as far as
+possible to the laws of humanity when it shall have
+been unquestionably proved that the laws and customs
+of war have been violated by the enemy, and
+that they have had recourse to measures condemned
+by the law of nations.’</p>
+
+<p>70. ‘The selection of the means and extent of the
+reprisals should be proportionate to the degree of
+the infraction of the law committed by the enemy.
+Reprisals that are disproportionately severe are contrary
+to the rules of international law.’</p>
+
+<p>71. ‘Reprisals should be allowed only on the
+authority of the commander-in-chief, who shall likewise
+determine the degree of their severity and their
+duration.’</p>
+
+<p>The delicacy of dealing with such a subject, when
+the memories of the Franco-German war were still
+fresh and green, led ultimately to a unanimous
+agreement to suppress these clauses altogether, and
+to leave the matter, as the Belgian deputy expressed
+it, in the domain of unwritten law till the progress of
+science and civilisation should bring about a completely
+satisfactory solution. Nevertheless, the majority
+of men will be inclined, in reference to this
+resolution, to say with the Russian Baron Jomini, the
+skilful President of that Military Council: ‘I regret
+that the uncertainty of silence is to prevail with respect
+to one of the most bitter necessities of war. If the
+practice could be suppressed by this reticence, I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+not but approve of this course; but if it is still to exist
+among the necessities of war, this reticence and this
+obscurity may, it is to be feared, remove any limits to
+its existence.’</p>
+
+<p>The necessity of some regulation of reprisals, such
+as that contained in the clauses suggested at Brussels,
+is no less attested by the events of the war of 1870
+than by the customs in this respect which have at all
+times prevailed, and which, as earlier in time, form a
+fitting introduction to those later occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>That the fear of reprisals should act as a certain
+check upon the character of hostilities is too obvious
+a consideration not to have always served as a wholesome
+restraint upon military licence. When, for instance,
+Philip II. of Spain in his war with the Netherlands
+ordered that no prisoners of war should
+be released or exchanged, nor any contributions be
+accepted as an immunity from confiscation, the threat
+of retaliation led to the withdrawal of his iniquitous
+proclamation. Nor would other similar instances be
+far to seek.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it is evident that, as seldom as war
+itself is prevented by consideration of the forces in
+opposition, will its peculiar excesses, which constitute
+its details, be restrained by the fear of retaliatory
+measures; and inasmuch as the primary offence is more
+often the creation of rumour than a proved fact, the
+usual result of reprisals is, not that one belligerent
+amends its ways, but that both belligerents become
+more savage and enter on a fatal career of competitive
+atrocities. In the wars of the fifteenth century
+between the Turks and Venetians, ‘Sultan Mahomet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+would not suffer his soldiers to give quarter, but
+allowed them a ducat for every head, and the Venetians
+did the same.’<a name="FNanchor_110" id="FNanchor_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> When the Duke of Alva was in
+the Netherlands, the Spaniards, at the siege of Haarlem,
+threw the heads of two Dutch officers over the
+walls. The Dutch in return beheaded twelve Spanish
+prisoners, and sent their heads into the Spanish
+trenches. The Spaniards in revenge hung a number of
+prisoners in sight of the besieged; and the latter in
+return killed more prisoners; and so it went on
+during all the time that Alva was in the country,
+without the least improvement resulting from such
+sanguinary reprisals.<a name="FNanchor_111" id="FNanchor_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> At the siege of Malta, the
+Grand Master, in revenge for some horrible Turkish
+barbarities, massacred all his prisoners and shot their
+heads from his cannon into the Turkish camp.<a name="FNanchor_112" id="FNanchor_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> In
+one of the wars of Louis XIV., the Imperialist forces
+having put to death a French lieutenant and thirty
+troopers a few hours after having promised them
+quarter, Feuquières, for reprisals, slew the whole
+garrison of two towns that he won by surprise, though
+the number so slain in each instance amounted to 650
+men (1689).<a name="FNanchor_113" id="FNanchor_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p>
+
+<p>To all these cases the question asked by Vattel
+very pertinently applies: ‘What right have you to
+cut off the nose and ears of the ambassador of a barbarian
+who has treated your ambassador in that manner?’
+The question is not an easy one to answer,
+for we have no more right in war than in civil life to
+punish the innocent for the guilty apart from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+ordinary accidents of hostilities, even if otherwise we
+must dispense with redress altogether. To do so by
+intention and in cold blood is ferocious, whatever the
+pretext of justification, and is never worth the passing
+gratification it affords. The citizens of Ghent, in
+their famous war with the Earl of Flanders, not only
+destroyed his house, but the silver cradle and bathing
+tub he had used as a child and the very font in which
+he had been baptized; but such reprisals are soon regretted,
+and read very pitiably in the eyes of the
+after-world.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasanter to record some instances where
+abstinence from reprisals has not been without its
+reward. It is said that Cæsar in Iberia, when, in spite
+of a truce, the enemy killed many of his men, instead
+of retaliating, released some of his prisoners and
+thereby brought the foe to regard him with favour.
+We read in Froissart that the Lisboners refrained
+from retaliating on the Castilians, when the latter
+mutilated their Portuguese prisoners; and the English
+Government acted nobly when it refused to reciprocate
+the decree of the French Convention (though that
+also was meant as a measure of reprisals) that no
+English or Hanoverian prisoner should be allowed
+any quarter.<a name="FNanchor_114" id="FNanchor_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> But the best story of this kind is that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+told by Herodotus of Xerxes the Persian. The Spartans
+had thrown into a well the Persian envoys who
+had come to demand of them earth and water. In
+remorse they sent two of their nobles to Xerxes to
+be killed in atonement; but Xerxes, when he heard
+the purport of their visit, answered them that he
+would not act like the Spartans, who by killing his
+heralds had broken the laws that were regarded as
+sacred by all mankind, and that, of such conduct as
+he blamed in them, he would never be guilty himself.<a name="FNanchor_115" id="FNanchor_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the most curious feature in the history of
+reprisals is the fact that they were once regarded as
+justly exacted for the mere offence of hostile opposition
+or self-defence. Grotius states that it was the
+almost constant practice of the Romans to kill the
+leaders of an enemy, whether they had surrendered or
+been captured, on the day of triumph. Jugurtha
+indeed was put to death in prison; but the more
+usual practice appears to have been to keep conquered
+potentates in custody, after they had been led in
+triumph before the consul’s chariot. This was the
+fate of Perseus, king of Macedonia, who was also
+allowed to retain his attendants, money, plate, and
+furniture;<a name="FNanchor_116" id="FNanchor_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> of Gentius, king of Illyria;<a name="FNanchor_117" id="FNanchor_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> of Bituitus,
+king of the Arvernians. Prisoners of less distinction
+were sold as slaves, or kept in custody till their friends
+paid their ransom.</p>
+
+<p>But in the mediæval history of Europe, in the
+so-called times of chivalry, a far worse spirit prevailed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+with regard to the treatment of captives. Godfrey of
+Bouillon, one of the brightest memories of chivalry,
+was responsible for the promiscuous slaughter of three
+days which the Crusaders exacted for the six weeks’
+siege which it had cost them to take Jerusalem (1099).
+The Emperor Barbarossa had 1,190 Swabian prisoners
+delivered to the executioner at Milan, or shot from
+military engines.<a name="FNanchor_118" id="FNanchor_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> Charles of Anjou reserved many
+prisoners, taken at the battle of Beneventum, to be
+killed as criminals on his entrance into Naples. When
+the French took the castle of Pesquière from the
+Venetians by storm, they slew all but three who
+surrendered to the pleasure of the king; and Louis
+XII., who counted for a humane monarch, though his
+victims offered 100,000 ducats for their lives, swore
+that he would neither eat nor drink till they were
+hanged (1509).<a name="FNanchor_119" id="FNanchor_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p>
+
+<p>The indignation of the Roman Senate on one
+occasion with a consul who had sold as slaves
+10,000 Ligurian prisoners, though they had surrendered
+at discretion,<a name="FNanchor_120" id="FNanchor_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> was a sentiment that never
+affected the warriors of mediæval Christendom. A
+surrender at discretion ceased to constitute a claim
+for mercy. Where the pagan held it wrong to enslave,
+the Christian never hesitated to kill. Froissart’s story
+of the six citizens of Calais, whom Edward III. was
+with difficulty restrained from hanging for the obstinate
+siege which their town had resisted, throws a
+light over the war customs of that time, which other
+incidents of history abundantly confirm. The record<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+of the capitulations of cities or garrisons is no pleasant
+one, but it is a record which must be touched upon,
+in order that war and its still prevalent maxims may
+be judged at their proper value. We need scarcely
+travel further than the fifteenth century alone in
+search of facts to place in its proper light this aspect
+of martial atrocities.</p>
+
+<p>When the town of Rouen surrendered to Henry
+V. of England, the latter stipulated for three of the
+citizens to be left to his disposal, of whom two
+purchased their lives, and the third was beheaded
+(1419).<a name="FNanchor_121" id="FNanchor_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> When the same king the year following
+was besieging the castle of Montereau, he sent some
+twenty prisoners to treat with the governor for a
+surrender; but when the governor refused to treat,
+even to save their lives, and when, after a fearful
+leave-taking with their wives and relatives, they had
+been escorted back to the English army, ‘the King
+of England ordered a gallows to be erected and
+had them all hanged in sight of those within the
+castle.’<a name="FNanchor_122" id="FNanchor_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> When the English took the castle of
+Rougemont by storm, and some sixty of its defenders
+alive, with the loss of only one Englishman, Henry V.,
+in revenge for his death, caused all the prisoners
+to be drowned in the Loire.<a name="FNanchor_123" id="FNanchor_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> When Meaux surrendered
+to the same king, it was stipulated that six
+of its bravest defenders should be delivered up to
+<i>justice</i>, four of whom were beheaded at Paris, and
+its commander at once hung to a tree outside the
+walls of the city (1422).<a name="FNanchor_124" id="FNanchor_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not that there was any special cruelty in the
+English mode of warfare. They simply conformed to
+the customs of the time, as we may see by reference
+to the French and Burgundian wars into which they
+allowed themselves to be drawn. In 1434, the garrison
+of Chaumont ‘was soon so hardly pressed that
+it surrendered at discretion to the Duke of Burgundy
+(Philip the Good), who had upwards of 100
+of them hanged;’ and as with the townsmen, so with
+those in the castle.<a name="FNanchor_125" id="FNanchor_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> Bournonville, who commanded
+Soissons for the Duke of Burgundy, and whom Monstrelet
+calls ‘the flower of the warriors of all France,’ was
+beheaded at Paris, after the capture of the town, by
+order of the king and council, and his body hung
+to a gibbet, like a common malefactor’s (1414).<a name="FNanchor_126" id="FNanchor_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a>
+When Dinant was taken by storm by the Burgundians,
+the prisoners, about 800, were drowned before
+Bovines (1466).<a name="FNanchor_127" id="FNanchor_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> When the town of Saint-frou surrendered
+to the Duke of Burgundy, ten men, left to
+the disposal of that warrior, were beheaded; and so
+it fared also with the town of Tongres (1467).<a name="FNanchor_128" id="FNanchor_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a>
+After the storming and slaughter at Liège, before the
+Duke of Burgundy (Charles the Bold) left the city,
+‘a great number of those poor creatures who had hid
+themselves in the houses when the town was taken
+and were afterwards made prisoners, were hanged’
+(1468).<a name="FNanchor_129" id="FNanchor_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> At Nesle, most of those who were taken
+alive were hung, and some had their hands cut off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+(1472).<a name="FNanchor_130" id="FNanchor_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> After the battle of Granson, the Swiss retook
+two castles from the French, and hung all the Burgundians
+they found in them. They then retook the
+town and castle of Granson, and ordered 512 Germans
+whom the Burgundians had hung to be cut down,
+and as many of the Burgundians as were still in
+Granson to be suspended on the same halters (1476).
+In the skirmishes that occurred in a time of truce on
+the frontiers of Picardy, between the French king’s
+forces and those of the Duke of Austria, ‘all the
+prisoners that were taken on both sides were immediately
+hanged, without permitting any, of what degree
+or rank soever, to be ransomed’ (1481). And as a
+climax to these facts, let us recall the decree of the
+Duke of Anjou, who, when Montpellier was taken by
+siege, condemned 600 prisoners to be put to death,
+200 by the sword, 200 by the halter, and 200 by fire,
+and who, but for the remonstrances of a cardinal and
+a friar, would undoubtedly have executed his sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Ghastly facts enough these! and a strange insight
+they afford us into the real character of a profession
+which, in the days when these things were its commonest
+occurrences, was held to be the noblest of all,
+but of which it is only too patent that its mainsprings
+were simply the brigand’s love of plunder and of bloodshed.
+One story may be quoted to show that in this
+respect the sixteenth century was no improvement on
+the fifteenth. In the war between the Dutch and the
+Spaniards, the captain of Weerd Castle, having previously
+refused to surrender to Sir Francis de Vere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+begged at last for a capitulation with the honours
+of war; Vere’s answer was, that the honours of war
+were halters for a garrison that had dared to defend
+such a hovel against artillery. The commandant was
+killed first, and the remaining 26 men, having been
+made to draw black and white straws, the 12 who
+drew the white straws were hanged, the thirteenth
+only escaping by consenting to act as executioner of
+the rest!<a name="FNanchor_131" id="FNanchor_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is clear, therefore, that in the wars of the past
+the axe and the halter have played as conspicuous a
+part as the sword or the lance; a fact to which its
+due prominence has not always been given in the
+standard histories of military antiquities. It is surprising
+to find how close to the glories of war lie the
+sickening vulgarities of murder.</p>
+
+<p>To the Duke of Somerset, the regent of England
+for Edward VI., appears to be due the credit of instituting
+a milder treatment of a besieged but surrendered
+garrison than had been previously customary. For
+De Thou, the historian, speaks of the admiration the
+Duke received for sparing the lives of a Scotch garrison,
+contrary to that ‘ancient maxim in war which declares
+that a weak garrison forfeits all claim to mercy on
+the part of the conquerors, when, with more courage
+than prudence, they obstinately persevere in defending
+an ill-fortified place against the royal army,’ or refuse
+reasonable conditions.</p>
+
+<p>But the ancient maxim lasted, in spite of this
+better example, throughout the seventeenth and till late
+into the eighteenth century, for we find Vattel even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+then thus protesting against it: ‘How could it be
+conceived in an enlightened age that it was lawful to
+punish with death a governor who has defended his
+town to the last extremity, or who in a weak place
+had the courage to hold out against a royal army?
+In the last century this notion still prevailed; it was
+looked upon as one of the laws of war, and is not
+even at present totally exploded. What an idea! to
+punish a brave man for having performed his duty.’<a name="FNanchor_132" id="FNanchor_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p>
+
+<p>But not even yet is the notion definitely expunged
+from the unwritten code of martial etiquette. The
+original Russian project, submitted to the Brussels
+Conference, proposed to exclude, among other illicit
+means of war, ‘the threat of extermination towards
+a garrison that obstinately holds a fortress.’ The
+proposal was unanimously rejected, and that clause
+was carefully excluded from the published modified
+text! But as the execution of a threat is morally
+of the same value as the threat itself, it is evident
+that the massacre of a brave but conquered garrison
+still holds its place among the laws of Christian
+warfare!</p>
+
+<p>This peculiar and most sanguinary law of reprisals
+has always been defended by the common military
+sophism, that it shortens the horrors of war. The
+threat of capital punishment against the governor or
+defenders of a town should naturally dispose them to
+make a conditional surrender, and so spare both sides
+the miseries of a siege. But arguments in defence of
+atrocities, on the ground of their shortening a war,
+and coming from military quarters, must be viewed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+with the greatest suspicion, and, inasmuch as they
+provoke reprisals and so intensify passion, with the
+greatest distrust. It was to such an argument that
+the Germans resorted in defence of their shelling the
+town of Strasburg, in order to intimidate the inhabitants
+and drive them to force General Uhrich to a
+surrender. ‘The abbreviation,’ said a German writer,
+‘of the period of actual fighting and of the war itself is
+an act of humanity towards both parties;’<a name="FNanchor_133" id="FNanchor_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> although
+the savage act failed in its purpose and General
+Werder had to fall back, after his gratuitous destruction
+of life and property, on the slower process of a
+regular siege. If their tendency to shorten a war be
+the final justification of military proceedings, the
+ground begins to slip from under us against the use
+of aconitine or of clothes infected with the small-pox.
+Therefore such a pretext should meet with prompt condemnation,
+notwithstanding the efforts of the modern
+military school to render it popular upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>In respect, therefore, to this law of reprisals, the
+comparison is not to the credit of modern times as
+compared with the pagan era. A surrender, which
+in Greek and Roman warfare involved as a rule
+personal security, came in Christianised Europe to
+involve capital punishment out of motives of pure
+vindictiveness. The chivalry so often associated
+with the battle-field as at least a redeeming feature
+fades on closer inspection into the veriest fiction
+of romance. Bravery under any form has been the
+constant pretext for capital reprisals. Edward I.
+had William Wallace, the brave Scotch leader, exe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>cuted
+on Tower Hill; and it has been observed by
+one writer, as the facts already quoted prove, that the
+custom of thus killing defeated generals ‘may be
+traced through a series of years so connected and
+extensive that we are not able to point out the exact
+time when it ceased.’<a name="FNanchor_134" id="FNanchor_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p>
+
+<p>A characteristic incident of this sort is connected
+with the famous pacification of Guienne by Montluc
+in 1562. Montluc had won Montsegur by storm,
+and its commander had been taken alive. The latter
+was a man of notorious valour, and in a previous
+campaign had been Montluc’s fellow-soldier and
+friend. For that reason many interceded for his life,
+but Montluc decided to hang him, and simply on
+account of his valour. ‘I well knew his courage,’ he
+says, ‘which made me hang him.... I knew him
+to be valiant, but that made me the rather put him
+to death.’ What of your chivalry after that?</p>
+
+<p>But Alexander the Great, whose career has been
+the ideal of all succeeding aspirants to military fame,
+dealt even more severely than Montluc with Betis,
+the gallant defender of Gaza. When Gaza was at
+last taken by storm, Betis, after fighting heroically,
+had the misfortune to be taken alive and to be
+brought into the presence of the conqueror. Alexander
+addressed him thus: ‘You shall not die, Betis,
+in the manner you wished; but make up your mind
+to suffer whatever torture can be thought of against a
+prisoner;’ and when Betis for all answer returned him
+but the silence of disdain, Alexander had thongs fixed
+to his ankles, and, himself acting as charioteer, drove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+his yet living victim round the city, attached to his
+chariot wheels; priding himself that by such conduct
+he rivalled Achilles’ treatment of Hector.<a name="FNanchor_135" id="FNanchor_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p>
+
+<p>A valiant resistance was with Alexander always a
+sufficient motive for the most sanguinary reprisals.
+Arimages, who defended a fortified rock in Sogdia,
+thought his position so strong that when summoned
+to surrender, he asked tauntingly whether Alexander
+could fly; and for this offence, when, unable to hold
+out any longer, Arimages and his relations descended
+to Alexander’s camp to beg for quarter, Alexander
+had them first of all flogged and then crucified at the
+foot of the rock they had so bravely defended.<a name="FNanchor_136" id="FNanchor_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>
+After the long siege of Tyre, Alexander had 2,000
+Tyrians, over and above the 6,000 who fell during the
+storming of that city, nailed to crosses along the
+shore,<a name="FNanchor_137" id="FNanchor_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> perhaps in reprisal for a violation of the laws
+of war&mdash;for Quintus Curtius declares that the Tyrians
+had murdered some Macedonian ambassadors, and
+Arrian, who makes no mention of the crucifixion,
+declares that they slew some Macedonian prisoners
+and threw them from their walls&mdash;but more probably
+(since there were evidently different stories of the
+Tyrians’ offence) on account simply of the obstinate
+resistance they had offered to Alexander’s attack.</p>
+
+<p>The Macedonian conqueror regarded his whole
+expedition against Persia as an act of reprisals for the
+invasion of Greece by Xerxes, 150 years before his
+own time. When he set fire to the Persian capital
+and palace, Persepolis, he justified himself against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+Parmenio’s remonstrances on the ground that it was
+in revenge for the destruction of the temples in Greece
+during the Persian invasion;<a name="FNanchor_138" id="FNanchor_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> and this motive was
+constantly present with him, in justification both of
+the war itself and of particular atrocities connected
+with it. In the course of his expedition, he came to
+a city of the Branchidæ, whose ancestors at Miletus
+had betrayed the treasures of a temple in their charge
+to Xerxes, and had by him been removed from
+Miletus to Asia. As Greeks they met Alexander’s
+army with joy, and at once surrendered their city to
+him. The next day, after reflection given to the
+matter, Alexander had every single inhabitant of the
+city slain, in spite of their powerlessness, in spite of
+their supplications, in spite of their community of
+language and origin. He even had the walls of the
+city dug up from their foundation, and the trees of
+their sacred groves uprooted, that not a trace of their
+city might remain.<a name="FNanchor_139" id="FNanchor_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor can doubt be thrown on these deeds by the
+fact that they are only mentioned by Quintus Curtius
+and not by Arrian. The silence of the one is no proof
+of the falsity or credulity of the other. Both writers
+lived many centuries after Alexander, and were dependent
+for their knowledge on the writings, then
+extant but long since lost, of contemporaries and
+eye-witnesses of the expedition to Asia. That those
+witnesses often gave conflicting accounts of the same
+event we have the assurance of either writer; but
+since it is impossible to determine the degree of discretion
+with which each made their selections from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+the original authorities, it is only reasonable to regard
+them both as of the same and equal validity.
+Seneca, who lived before Arrian and who therefore
+was equally conversant with the original authorities,
+hardly ever mentions Alexander without expressions
+of the strongest reprobation.</p>
+
+<p>Cruelty, in fact, is revealed to us by history as the
+most conspicuous trait in the character of Alexander,
+though not in his case nor in others inconsistent with
+occasional acts of magnanimity and the gleams of a
+higher nature. This cruelty, however, taken in connection
+with his undoubted bravery, calls in question
+the truth of a remark made by Philip de Commines,
+and supported, he affirmed, by all historians, that no
+cruel man is ever courageous. The popular theory,
+that inhumanity is more likely to be the concomitant
+of a timid than of a daring nature, ignores altogether
+the teaching of history and the conclusions of <i>à priori</i>
+reasoning. For if our regard for the sufferings of
+others is proportioned to our regard for our own
+sufferings, inasmuch as our self-love is the foundation
+and measure of our powers of sympathy, a man’s disregard
+for the sufferings of others&mdash;in other words his
+cruelty&mdash;is likely to be the exact reflection of his disregard
+for suffering in his own person, or, in other
+words, of his physical courage. Men, moreover, like
+Cicero, of whom it was said by Livy that he was
+better calculated for anything than for war, by their
+very incapacity for positions where their humanity is
+likely to be tested, are rarely exposed to those temptations
+of cruelty in which men of a more daring temperament
+naturally find themselves placed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And accordingly we find, by reference to instances
+which lie on the surface of history, that great bravery
+and great cruelty have more often been united than
+separate. In French history there is the cruelty of
+Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; of Montluc
+and Des Adretz, the latter of whom made 30 soldiers
+and their captain leap from the precipice of a strong
+place they had defended, and of both of whom
+Brantôme remarks that they were very brave but very
+cruel.<a name="FNanchor_140" id="FNanchor_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> In Scotch history, it was David I. who, though
+famed for his courage and humanity, suffered the sick
+and aged to be slain in their beds, even infants to be
+killed and priests murdered at the very altars.<a name="FNanchor_141" id="FNanchor_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> In
+English history, it was Richard Cœur-de-Lion who had
+5,000 Saracen prisoners led out to a large plain to be
+massacred (1191).<a name="FNanchor_142" id="FNanchor_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> In Jewish history, it was King
+David who, when he took Rabbah of the Ammonites,
+‘brought forth the people that were therein and put
+them under saws and harrows of iron and under axes
+of iron, and made them pass through the brick kiln;
+and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of
+Ammon.’<a name="FNanchor_143" id="FNanchor_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> It is not therefore more probable that a
+man famed for his intrepidity will not lend himself
+to counsels or actions of cruelty than that another
+deficient in personal courage will not be humane.</p>
+
+<p>And here one cause is deserving of attention as
+helping to explain the greater barbarity practised by
+the modern nations in the matter of reprisals, than
+that which was permitted by the code of honour which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+acted in restraint of them in the better periods of
+pagan antiquity; and that is the change that has
+occurred with regard to slavery.</p>
+
+<p>The abolition of slavery, which in Western Europe
+has been the greatest achievement of modern
+civilisation, did not unfortunately tend to greater
+mildness in the customs of war. For in ancient times
+the sale of prisoners as slaves operated to restrain that
+indiscriminate and objectless slaughter which has been,
+even to cases within this century, the marked feature
+of the battle-field, and more especially where cities or
+places have been taken by storm. Avarice ceased to
+operate, as it once did, in favour of humanity. In
+one day the population of Magdeburg, taken by
+storm, was reduced from 25,000 to 2,700; and an
+English eye-witness of that event thus described it:
+‘Of 25,000, some said 30,000 people, there was not a
+soul to be seen alive, till the flames drove those that
+were hid in vaults and secret places to seek death in
+the streets rather than perish in the fire; of these
+miserable creatures some were killed too by the
+furious soldiers, but at last they saved the lives of
+such as came out of their cellars and holes, and
+so about 2,000 poor desperate creatures were left.’<a name="FNanchor_144" id="FNanchor_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a>
+‘There was little shooting, the execution was all
+cutting of throats and mere house murders.... We
+could see the poor people in crowds driven down the
+streets, flying from the fury of the soldiers, who
+followed butchering them as fast as they could,
+and refused mercy to anybody; till, driving them
+down to the river’s edge, the desperate wretches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+would throw themselves into the river, where thousands
+of them perished, especially women and children.’<a name="FNanchor_145" id="FNanchor_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to read this graphic description of a
+stormed city without the suspicion arising in the mind
+that a sheer thirst for blood and love of murder is a
+much more potent sustainer of war than it is usual or
+agreeable to believe. The narratives of most victories
+and of taken cities support this theory. At Brescia,
+for instance, taken by the French from the Venetians
+in 1512, it is said that 20,000 of the latter fell to only
+50 of the former.<a name="FNanchor_146" id="FNanchor_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> When Rome was sacked in 1527
+by the Imperialist forces, we are told that ‘the soldiery
+threw themselves upon the unhappy multitude,
+and, without distinction of age or sex, massacred all
+who came in their way. Strangers were spared as
+little as Romans, for the murderers fired indiscriminately
+at everyone, from a mere thirst of blood.’<a name="FNanchor_147" id="FNanchor_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p>
+
+<p>But this thirst of blood was checked in the days
+of slavery by the counteracting thirst of money; there
+having been an obvious motive for giving quarter
+when a prisoner of war represented something of
+tangible value, like any other article of booty. The
+sack of Thebes by Alexander, and its demolition
+to the sound of the lute, was bad enough; but after
+the first rage for slaughter was over, there remained
+30,000 persons of free birth to be sold as slaves.
+And in Roman warfare the rule was to sell as slaves
+those who were taken prisoners in a stormed city;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+and it must be remembered that many so sold were
+slaves already.<a name="FNanchor_148" id="FNanchor_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> All who were unarmed or who laid
+down their arms were spared from destruction, as well
+as from plunder;<a name="FNanchor_149" id="FNanchor_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> and for exceptions to this rule, as
+for instance for the indiscriminate and cruel massacre
+committed at Illiturji in Spain, there was always at
+least the pretext of reprisals, or some special military
+motive.<a name="FNanchor_150" id="FNanchor_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p>
+
+<p>Cicero, who lived to see the Roman arms triumphant
+over the world and the conversion of the
+Roman republic into a military despotism, found
+occasion to deplore at the same time the debased standard
+of military honour. He believed that in cruel
+vindictiveness and rapacity his contemporaries had
+degenerated from the customs of their ancestors, and
+he contrasted regretfully the utter destruction of
+Carthage, Numantia, and Corinth, with the milder
+treatment of their earlier enemies, the Sabines,
+Tusculans, and others. He adduced as a proof of
+the greater ferocity of the war spirit of his day
+the fact that the only term for an enemy was originally
+the milder term of stranger, and that it was
+only by degrees that the word meaning stranger came
+to have the connotation of hostility. ‘What,’ he
+asks, ‘could have been added to this mildness, to
+call him with whom you are at war by so gentle
+a name as stranger? But now the progress of time
+has given a harder signification to the word; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+it has ceased to apply to a stranger, and has remained
+the proper term for an actual enemy in arms.’<a name="FNanchor_151" id="FNanchor_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p>
+
+<p>Is a similar process taking place in modern warfare
+with regard to the law of reprisals? It is a long
+leap from ancient Rome to modern Germany; but to
+Germany, as the chief military Power now in existence,
+we must turn, in order to understand the law of reprisals
+as it is interpreted by the practice of a country
+whose power and example will make her actions
+precedents in all wars that may occur in future.</p>
+
+<p>The worst feature in reprisals is that they are indiscriminate
+and more often directed against the innocent
+than the guilty. To murder women and children, old
+men, or any one else, on the ground of their connection
+with an enemy who has committed an action
+calling for retribution, can be justified by no theory
+that would not equally apply to a similar parody of
+justice in civil life. It is a return to the theory and
+practices of savages, who, if they cannot revenge
+themselves on a culprit, revenge themselves complacently
+on some one else. For bodies of peasants to
+resist a foreign invader by forming ambuscades or
+making surprises against him, though his advance
+is marked by fire and pillage and outrage, may be contrary
+to the laws of war (though that point has never
+been agreed upon); but to make such attacks the
+pretext for indiscriminate murder and robbery is an
+extension of the law of reprisals that was only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+definitely imported into the military code of Europe
+by the German invaders of France in 1870.</p>
+
+<p>The following facts, offered in proof of this statement,
+are taken from a small pamphlet, published
+during the war by the International Society for Help
+to the Wounded, and containing only such facts as
+were attested by the evidence of official documents or
+of persons whose positions gave them an exceptional
+title to credit.<a name="FNanchor_152" id="FNanchor_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> At one place, where twenty-five francs-tireurs
+had hidden in a wood and received the Germans
+with a fusillade, reprisals were carried so far that
+the curé, rushing into the streets, seized the Prussian
+captain by the shoulders and entreated mercy for the
+women and children. ‘No mercy’ was the only
+reply.<a name="FNanchor_153" id="FNanchor_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> At another place twenty-six young men had
+joined the francs-tireurs; the Baden troops took and
+shot their fathers.<a name="FNanchor_154" id="FNanchor_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> At Nemours, where a body of
+Uhlans had been surprised and captured by some
+mobiles, the floors and furniture of several houses
+were first saturated with petroleum and then fired
+with shells.<a name="FNanchor_155" id="FNanchor_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p>
+
+<p>The new theory also was imported into the military
+code, that a village, by the mere fact of trying to
+defend itself, constituted itself a place of war which
+might be legitimately bombarded and, when taken,
+subjected to the rights of war which still govern the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+fate of places taken by assault.<a name="FNanchor_156" id="FNanchor_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> Nor let it be supposed
+that those rights were not exercised as rigorously
+as they ever have been by victorious troops.
+At Nogent-sur-Seine, the Wurtemburg troops carried
+their fury to the slaughter of women and children and
+even of the wounded. And if the belief still lingers
+that the German troops of the Emperor William
+behaved otherwise towards the weaker sex than
+their ancestors in Rome and Italy under the Constable
+of Bourbon, let the reader refer to the experiences
+of Clermont, Andernay, or Neuville.<a name="FNanchor_157" id="FNanchor_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p>
+
+<p>Reprisals beget, of course, reprisals; and had the
+French and German war been by any accident prolonged,
+it is appalling to think of the barbarities that
+would have occurred. ‘Threat for threat,’ wrote
+Colonel R. Garibaldi to the Prussian commander at
+Châtillon, in reference to the latter’s resolve to punish
+the inhabitants of that place for the acts of some
+francs-tireurs; ‘I give you my assurance that I will not
+spare one of the 200 Prussians whom you know
+to be in my hands.’<a name="FNanchor_158" id="FNanchor_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> ‘We will fight,’ wrote General
+Chanzy to the Prussian commander at Vendôme,
+‘without truce or mercy, because it is a question now
+not of fighting loyal enemies, but hordes of devastators.’<a name="FNanchor_159" id="FNanchor_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p>
+
+<p>Under the theory of legitimate reprisals, the Germans
+resuscitated the custom of taking hostages.
+The French having (in accordance with the still recognised
+but barbarous rule of war) taken prisoners
+the captains of some German merchant vessels, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+Germans retaliated by taking twenty persons of respectable
+position at Dijon, and nine at Vesoul, and
+detaining them as hostages. Nor was this an uncommon
+episode in the campaign: though the sending to
+Germany as prisoners of war of French merchants,
+magistrates, lawyers, and doctors, and the making
+them answerable with their lives and fortunes for
+actions of their countrymen which they could neither
+prevent nor repress, was a revival in its worst form of
+the theory of vicarious punishment, and a direction of
+hostilities against non-combatants, which was a gross
+violation of the proclamation of the Prussian king,
+made at the beginning of the campaign (after the
+common cant of the leaders of armies), that his forces
+had no war to wage with the peaceable inhabitants of
+France.</p>
+
+<p>Even plunder enters into the German law of reprisals.
+Remiremont in the Vosges had to pay
+8,000<i>l.</i> because two German engineers and one soldier
+had been taken prisoners by the French troops. The
+usual forced military contributions which the victors
+exacted did not exclude a system of pillage and
+devastation that the present age fondly believed to
+belong only to a past state of warfare. On December
+5, 1870, a German soldier wrote to the <i>Cologne
+Gazette</i>: ‘Since the war has entered upon its present
+stage it is a real life of brigands we lead. For four
+weeks we have passed through districts entirely
+ravaged; the last eight days we have passed through
+towns and villages where there was absolutely nothing
+left to take.’ Nor was this plunder only the work
+of the common military serfs or conscripts, whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+miserable poverty might have served as an excuse,
+but it was conducted by officers of the highest rank,
+who, for their own benefit, robbed farms and stables
+of their sheep and horses, and sacked country houses
+of their works of art, their plate, and even of their
+ladies’ jewels.<a name="FNanchor_160" id="FNanchor_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p>
+
+<p>The world, therefore, at least owes this to the
+Germans, that they have taught us to see war in
+its true light, by removing it from the realm of romance,
+where it was decked with bright colours and
+noble actions, to the region of sober judgment, where
+the soldier, the thief, and the murderer are seen in
+scarcely distinguishable colours. They have withdrawn
+the veil which blinded our ancestors to the
+evils of war, and which led dreamy humanitarians to
+believe in the possibility of <i>civilised warfare</i>; so that
+now the deeds of shame threaten to obscure the deeds
+of glory. In the middle ages it was the custom to declare
+a war that was intended to be waged with special
+fury by sending a man with a naked sword in one hand
+and a burning torch in the other, to signify that the
+war so begun was to be one of blood and fire. We
+have since learnt that there is no need to typify by
+any peculiar ceremony the character of any particular
+war; for that the characteristics of all are the same.</p>
+
+<p>The German general Von Moltke, in a published
+letter wherein he maintained that Perpetual Peace
+was a dream and not even a beautiful one, went on to
+say, in defence of war, that in it the noblest virtues of
+mankind were developed&mdash;courage, self-abnegation,
+faithfulness to duty, the spirit of sacrifice; and that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+without wars the world would soon stagnate and lose
+itself in materialism.<a name="FNanchor_161" id="FNanchor_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> We have no data from which
+to judge of the probable state of a warless world, but
+we do know that the brightest samples of these virtues
+have been ever given by those who in peace and
+obscurity, and without looking for lands, or titles, or
+medals for their reward, have laboured not to destroy
+life but to save it, not to lower the standard of morality
+but to raise it, not to preach revenge but mercy, not to
+spread misery and poverty and crime but to increase
+happiness, wealth, and virtue. Is there or will there
+be no scope for courage, for self-sacrifice, for duty,
+where fever and disease are the foes to be combated,
+where wounds and pain need to be cured or soothed,
+or where sin and ignorance and poverty are the
+forces to be assailed? But apart from this there is
+another side to the picture of war, of which Von
+Moltke says not a word, but of which, in the preceding
+pages, some indication has been given. Now
+that we are no longer satisfied with the dry narratives
+of strategical operations, but are beginning to search
+into the details of military proceedings; into the fate
+of the captured, of the wounded, of the pursued;
+into the treatment of hostages, of women, of children;
+into the statistics of massacre and spoliation that are
+the penalties of defeat; into the character of stratagems;
+and into the justice of reprisals, we see war in
+another mirror, and recognise that the old one gave
+but a distorted reflection of its realities. No one ever
+denied but that great qualities are displayed in war;
+but the doubt is spreading fast, not only whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+it is the worthiest field for their display, but whether
+it is not also the principal nursing-bed of the crimes
+that are the greatest disgrace to our nature.</p>
+
+<p>It is idle to think that our humanity will fail to
+take its colouring from our calling. Marshal Montluc,
+the bravest yet most cruel of French soldiers, was
+fond of protesting that the inhumanity he was guilty
+of was in corruption of his original and better nature;
+and at the close of his book and of his life, he consoled
+himself for the blood he had caused to flow like water
+by the consideration, that the sovereigns whose servant
+he had been were (as he told one of them) really
+responsible for the misery he had caused. But does
+the excuse avail him, or the millions who have succeeded
+to his trade? A king or a government can
+commission men to execute its policy or its vengeance;
+but is a free agent, who accepts a commission that he
+believes to be iniquitous, morally acquitted of his
+share of culpability? Is his responsibility no greater
+than that of the sword, the axe, or the halter with
+which he carries out his orders; or does the plea
+of military discipline justify him in acting with no
+more moral restraint than a slave, or than a horse that
+has no understanding? The Prussian officer who
+at Dijon blew out his brains rather than execute some
+iniquitous order<a name="FNanchor_162" id="FNanchor_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> showed that he understood the dignity
+of human nature as it was understood in the days
+of the bygone moral grandeur of Rome. Such a man
+deserved a monument far more than most to whom
+memorial monuments are raised.</p>
+
+<p>Recent events lend an additional interest to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+question of reprisals, and add emphasis to the necessity
+of placing them, as it was sought to do at
+Brussels, on the footing of an International Agreement.
+It is sometimes said that dynastic wars belong
+to the past, and that kings have no longer the power
+to make war, as they once did, for their own pleasure
+or pastime. There may be truth in this, though the
+last great war in Europe but one had its immediate
+cause in an inter-dynastic jealousy; but a far more
+potent agency for war than ever existed in monarchical
+power is now wielded by the Press. War in every
+country is the direct pecuniary interest of the Daily
+Press. ‘I know proprietors of newspapers,’ said
+Cobden during the Crimean war, ‘who have pocketed
+3,000<i>l.</i> or 4,000<i>l.</i> a year through the war as directly as
+if the money had been voted to them in the Parliamentary
+estimates.’<a name="FNanchor_163" id="FNanchor_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> The temptation, therefore, is
+great, first to justify any given war by irrelevant
+issues or by stories of the enormities committed by
+the enemy, or even by positive false statements (as
+when the English Press, with the <i>Times</i> at its head,
+with almost one voice taught us that the Afghan ruler
+had insulted our ambassador, and left us to find out
+our mistake when a too ready credulity had cost us a
+war of some 20,000,000<i>l.</i>); and then, when war has once
+begun, to fan the flame by demanding reprisals for
+atrocities that have generally never been committed
+nor established by anything like proof. In this way
+the French were charged at the beginning of the last
+German war with bombarding the open town of
+Saarbrück, and with firing explosive bullets from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+mitrailleuse; and the belief, thus falsely and purposely
+propagated, covered of course with the cloak of reprisals
+a good deal of all that came afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>In this way has arisen the modern practice of justifying
+every resort to war, not as a trial of strength
+or test of justice between enemies, but as an act of
+virtuous and necessary chastisement against criminals.
+Charges of violated faith, of the abuse of flags of truce,
+of dishonourable stratagems, of the ill-treatment or
+torture of prisoners, are seized upon, regardless of any
+inquiry into their truth, and made the pretext for
+the indefinite prolongation of hostilities. The lawful
+enemy is denounced as a rebel or a criminal, whom
+it would be wicked to treat with or trust; and only
+an unconditional surrender, which drives him to desperation,
+and so embitters the war, is regarded as a
+possible preliminary to peace. The time has surely
+come when such a demand, on the ground of reprisals,
+should cease to operate as a bar to peace. One of the
+proposals at the Brussels Conference was that no
+commander should be forced to capitulate under
+dishonourable conditions, that is to say, without the
+customary honours of war. It should be one of the
+demands of civilisation that an unconditional surrender,
+such as was insisted upon from Arabi in 1882
+and led to the bombardment of Alexandria with all the
+subsequent troubles, should under no circumstances be
+insisted on in treating with an enemy; and that no
+victorious belligerent should demand of a defeated
+one what under reversed conditions it would consider
+dishonourable to grant itself.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">MILITARY STRATAGEMS.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Hé! qu’il y a de tromperie au monde! et en nostre mestier plus
+qu’en autre qui soit.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Marshal Montluc.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">Grotius’ theory of fair stratagems&mdash;The teaching of international law&mdash;Ancient
+and modern naval stratagems&mdash;Early Roman dislike of
+such stratagems as ambuscades, feigned retreats, or night attacks&mdash;The
+degenerate standard of Frontinus and Polyænus&mdash;The conference-stratagem
+of modern Europe&mdash;The distinction between
+perfidy and stratagem&mdash;The perfidy of Francis I.&mdash;Vattel’s theory
+about spies&mdash;Frederick the Great’s military instructions about spies&mdash;Lord
+Wolseley on spies and truth in war&mdash;The custom of hanging
+or shooting spies&mdash;Better to keep them as prisoners of war&mdash;Balloonists
+regarded as spies&mdash;The practice of military surprises&mdash;Death
+formerly the penalty for capture in a surprise&mdash;Stratagems of uncertain
+character, such as forged despatches or false intelligence&mdash;The
+use of the telegraph in deceiving the enemy&mdash;May prisoners of
+war be compelled to propagate lies?&mdash;General character of the military
+code of fraud.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most interesting aspects of the state
+of war is that of its connection with fraud, deceit, and
+guile. If we may seek to obtain our ends by force,
+we may surely, it is argued, do so by fraud; for what
+is the moral difference between overcoming by superiority
+of muscle and the same result obtained by dint
+of brain? Lysander the Spartan went so far as to
+say that boys were to be cheated with dice, but an
+enemy with oaths; and if the world has professed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+horror at his sentiment, it has not altogether despised
+his authority.</p>
+
+<p>Among military stratagems the older writers used
+to include every kind of deception practised by
+generals in war, not only against the enemy, but
+against their own troops; as, for instance, devices for
+preventing or suppressing a mutiny, for stopping the
+spread of a panic, or for encouraging them with false
+news before or during an engagement.</p>
+
+<p>But in modern use the term stratagem has almost
+exclusive reference to artifices of deception practised
+against an enemy; and the greater interest that attaches
+to the latter kind of guile justifies the narrowed
+denotation of the word. No one, for instance, would
+now regard as a stratagem the clever behaviour of
+that Thracian general Cosingas, who, acting also as
+priest to his forces, brought them back to obedience
+by the report he artfully propagated that certain long
+ladders which he had caused to be made and fastened
+together were intended to enable him to climb to
+heaven, there to complain to Juno of their misconduct.
+The false pretence that is involved in a stratagem is
+addressed to the leaders of a hostile force, in order that
+their fear or confidence, unduly raised by it, may be
+played upon to the advantage of their more artful
+opponents. In the consideration, therefore, of military
+stratagems, or <i>ruses de guerre</i>, it is best to conform
+entirely to the more restricted sense in which they are
+understood in modern parlance.</p>
+
+<p>The following stratagem is a good one to start
+with. During the Franco-German War of 1870,
+twenty-five franc-tireurs clothed themselves in Prussian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+uniform, and by the help of that disguise killed several
+Prussians at Sennegy near Troyes; and the deed was
+made a subject of open boast in a French journal.<a name="FNanchor_164" id="FNanchor_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>
+Was the boast a justifiable or a shameful one?</p>
+
+<p>Distinctly justifiable, if at least Grotius, the father
+of our international law, is of any authority. The
+reasoning of Grotius runs in this wise. There is a
+distinction between conventional signs that are established
+by the general consent of all the world and
+those which are only established by particular societies
+or by individuals; deception directed against the
+former involves the violation of a mutual obligation,
+and is therefore unlawful, whereas that against the
+latter is lawful, because it involves no such violation.
+Therefore, whilst it is wrong to deceive an enemy by
+words or signs which by general consent are universally
+understood in a given sense, it is not wrong to
+overcome an enemy by conduct which involves no
+violation of a generally recognised and universally
+binding custom. Under conduct of the latter type
+fall such acts as a simulated flight, or the use of an
+enemy’s arms, his standards, uniform, or sails. A
+flight is not an instituted sign of fear, nor have the
+arms or colours of a particular country any universally
+established meaning.<a name="FNanchor_165" id="FNanchor_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p>
+
+<p>And in spite of the sound of sophistry that accompanies
+this reasoning, the teaching of international
+law has not substantially swerved on this point from
+the direction given to it by Grotius. In Cicero’s
+opinion, although both force and fraud were resources<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+most unworthy of rational humanity, the one pertaining
+rather to the nature of the lion and the other
+to that of the fox, fraud was an expedient deserving
+of more hatred than the other.<a name="FNanchor_166" id="FNanchor_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> But the teaching of
+later times has tended to overlook this distinction.
+Bynkershoek, that celebrated Dutch jurist who advocated
+the use of poison as one of the fair modes of
+employing force, declares it to be a matter of perfect
+indifference whether stratagem or open force be employed
+against an enemy, provided perfidy be absent
+from the former. And Bluntschli, who is the German
+publicist of greatest authority in our own day, expressly
+includes among the lawful stratagems of war
+the use of an enemy’s uniform or flag.<a name="FNanchor_167" id="FNanchor_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p>
+
+<p>If, then, we test the received military theory by
+some actual experience, the following episodes of
+history must challenge rather our admiration than
+our blame, and stand justified by the most advanced
+theories of modern international law.</p>
+
+<p>Cimon, the Athenian admiral, having captured
+some Persian ships, made his own men step into them
+and dress themselves in the clothes of the Persians;
+and then, when the ships reached Cyprus, and the
+inhabitants of that island came out joyfully to welcome
+their friends, they were of course more easily
+defeated by their enemies.<a name="FNanchor_168" id="FNanchor_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a></p>
+
+<p>Aristomachus, having taken some Cardian ships,
+placed his own rowers in them and towed his own
+ships behind them, as if they were being conducted
+in triumph. When the Cardians came out to greet
+their supposed victorious crews, Aristomachus and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+his men fell upon them and succeeded in committing
+great carnage.<a name="FNanchor_169" id="FNanchor_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p>
+
+<p>Modern history supplies analogous cases. In
+September 1800 an English crew attacked two ships
+that lay at anchor at Barcelona, by forcing a Swedish
+vessel to take on board some English officers, soldiers,
+and sailors, and so obtaining a means of approach that
+was otherwise impossible.<a name="FNanchor_170" id="FNanchor_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> And English naval historians
+tell with pride, rather than with shame, how
+in 1798 two English ships, the ‘Sibylle’ and the
+‘Fox,’ by sailing under false colours captured three
+Spanish gunboats in Manilla Roads. When the
+Spanish guard-boat was sent to inquire what the
+ships were, the pilot of the ‘Fox’ replied that they belonged
+to the French squadron, and that they wished
+to put into Manilla, for the recovery of the crews from
+sickness. The English Captain Cooke was introduced
+under the French name of Latour; and a conversation
+ensued in which the ceremony of wishing success to
+the united exertions of the Spaniards and French
+against the English was not forgotten. Two Spanish
+boats having then come to visit the vessels, their
+crews were quickly handed below; and a party of
+British sailors having changed clothes with them and
+got into their boat, advanced to the gunboats, which
+they captured without pulling a trigger.<a name="FNanchor_171" id="FNanchor_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p>
+
+<p>On another occasion the same ‘Sibylle,’ which had
+been taken from the French by Romney in 1794,
+captured a large French vessel that lay at anchor, by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+standing in under French colours, and only hoisting
+her real ones when within a cable’s length of her
+prize;<a name="FNanchor_172" id="FNanchor_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> the only limit to such a stratagem on the sea
+being the necessity for a ship to hoist her real flag
+before proceeding to actual hostilities. A state of
+war must surely play strange tricks with our minds
+to make it possible for us to approve such infamous
+actions as those quoted. There can be no greater
+proof of the utter demoralisation it causes than that
+such devices should have ever come to be thought
+honourable; and that no scruples should have ever
+intervened against the prostitution of a country’s flag,
+the symbol of her independence, her nationality, and
+her pride, to the shame of open falsehood. Antiquaries
+dispute the correctness of the statement of
+Polyænus that Artemisia, the Queen of Caria and
+ally of Xerxes against Greece, hoisted Persian colours
+when in pursuit of Greek ships, but a Greek flag to
+prevent Greek ships from pursuing herself, because
+they say that flags were not then in use; but undoubtedly
+the custom is a very old one on the seas
+of having a number of different flags on board a ship,
+for the purpose either of more easily capturing a
+weaker or of more easily escaping from a stronger
+vessel than herself. The French, for instance, in
+1337 plundered and burnt Portsmouth, after having
+been suffered to land under the cover of English
+banners.<a name="FNanchor_173" id="FNanchor_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Not only the vessels of pirates and privateers,
+but the war vessels of the State, learned to sail<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+under colours that belied their nationality.<a name="FNanchor_174" id="FNanchor_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> The
+only limit to the stratagem of the false flag (to which
+international custom gradually came to give the force
+of law) came to be the necessity of hoisting the real
+flag before proceeding to fire, a limitation that was
+not of much moment after the successful deception
+had brought a defenceless merchant vessel within the
+reach of easy capture. And with regard to ships of
+war, the cannon-shot by which one vessel replied to
+the challenge of its suspected nationality by the other
+came to be equivalent to the captain’s word of honour
+that the flag which floated above the cannon he fired
+represented the nationality of which it professed to
+be the symbol. The flag itself might tell a lie, therefore
+the cannon-shot oath must redeem it from suspicion.
+Such are the extraordinary ideas of honour
+and morality that the system of universal fear, distrust,
+and hostility, by many thought to be so surpassingly
+glorious, has caused to become prevalent upon the
+ocean.</p>
+
+<p>In spite, therefore, of Grotius, the above stratagems
+must be considered as dishonourable; and that so
+they are beginning to be considered is indicated by
+the fact that at the Brussels Conference of 1874 the
+use of an enemy’s flag or uniform was expressly
+rejected from the category of fair military stratagems.
+But the improvement is in spite of international law,
+not in consequence of it.</p>
+
+<p>There is an obvious distinction indeed between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+the above method of overcoming an enemy and
+such favourite devices as ambuscades, feigned retreats,
+night attacks, or the diversion of a defence to the
+wrong point. But perhaps nothing in the history of
+moral opinion is more curious than that even these
+modes of deceit should have been, not by one people
+or an unwarlike people, but by several people, and
+one among them the most warlike nation known to
+history, deliberately rejected as unfair and dishonourable
+modes of warfare. The historical evidence on
+this point appears to be quite conclusive, and is worth
+recalling for the interest that cannot but attach to
+one of the strangest but most neglected chapters in
+the history of human ethics.</p>
+
+<p>The Achæans, says Polybius, disdained even to
+subdue their enemies with the help of deceit. In their
+opinion a victory was neither honourable nor secure
+that was not obtained in open combat by superior
+courage. Therefore they esteemed it a kind of law
+among them never to use any concealed weapons, nor
+to throw darts from a distance, being persuaded that
+an open and close conflict was the only fair method of
+combat. For the same reason they not only made a
+declaration of war, but sent notice each to the other
+of their resolution to try the fortune of a battle, and
+of the place where they were determined to engage.<a name="FNanchor_175" id="FNanchor_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a></p>
+
+<p>And in Ternate, one of the Molucca Islands, which
+suffered such untold miseries after the Europeans had
+discovered its spices and its heathenism, not only was
+war never begun without being first declared, but
+it was also customary to inform the enemy of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+number of men and the amount and kind of weapons
+with which it was intended to conduct hostilities.<a name="FNanchor_176" id="FNanchor_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the case of the Romans is by far the most
+remarkable. Polybius, Livy, and Ælian all agree in
+their testimony that for a long period of their history
+the Romans refrained from all kinds of stratagem as
+from a sort of military meanness; and their evidence
+is corroborated by Valerius Maximus, who says that
+the Romans, having no word in their language to
+express a military ruse, were forced to borrow the
+Greek word, from which our own word stratagem is
+derived.<a name="FNanchor_177" id="FNanchor_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> Polybius, who lived and wrote as late as
+the second century before Christ, after complaining
+that artifice was then so prevalent among the Romans
+that their chief study was to deceive one another in
+war and in politics, adds that, in spite of this degeneracy,
+they still declared war solemnly beforehand,
+seldom formed ambuscades, and preferred to fight man
+to man in close engagement. So late as the year 172
+<span class="small">B.C.</span> the elder senators regretted the lost virtue of their
+ancestors, who refrained from such stratagems as night
+attacks, counterfeit flights, and sudden returns, and
+who sometimes even appointed the day of battle and
+fixed the field of combat, looking for victory not from
+fraud, but only from superiority in personal bravery.<a name="FNanchor_178" id="FNanchor_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a>
+Ælian, too, declares that the Romans never resorted
+to stratagems till about the end of the Second Punic
+War; and truly the great Roman general, Scipio, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+took the name of Africanus, displayed a thorough
+African skill in the use he made of spies and surprises
+to bring that war to a successful issue.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to night attacks the Macedonians
+appear to have cherished similar feelings, since we find
+Alexander refusing to attack Darius by night on the
+ground that he did not wish to gain a stolen victory.
+And with regard to close combat, something of the
+old Roman and Achæan feeling was displayed in
+Europe when first the crossbow, and in later times the
+musket, rendered personal prowess of lesser importance.
+Before the time of Richard I., when the crossbow
+became the chief weapon in war, warriors, says
+the Abbé Velley, were so free and brave that they
+would only owe victory to their lance and their sword,
+and everybody detested those perfidious arms with
+which a coward under shelter was enabled to slay the
+bravest.<a name="FNanchor_179" id="FNanchor_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> So said Montluc of the musket, which in
+1523 had not yet, he says, superseded in France the
+use of the crossbow: ‘Would to God this accursed
+instrument had never been invented.... So many
+brave and valiant men would not have met their
+deaths at the hands very often of the greatest cowards,
+who would not so much as dare look at the man whom
+they knock down from a distance with their accursed
+balls.’<a name="FNanchor_180" id="FNanchor_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> And in the same spirit Charles XII. of
+Sweden once bade his soldiers to come to close quarters
+with the enemy without shooting, on the ground
+that it was only for cowards to shoot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such ideas are, of course, dead beyond the hope of
+recovery; but they are an odd commentary on our
+conceit in the improved tone of our military code of
+honour. We have long since learned to despise these
+old-world notions of honour and courage, and to make
+very few exceptions indeed to the newer doctrine of
+Christendom, that in war anything and everything is
+fair. But it is worth the pause of a moment to reflect
+that such moral sentiments in restraint of the use of
+fraud in war should have once had a real existence in
+the world; that they should once have swayed the
+minds of the most successful military nation that ever
+existed, and stood by them till they had attained that
+high degree of power which was theirs at the time of
+the Second Punic War (217-199 <span class="small">B.C.</span>) In comparing
+the code of military honour prevalent in pagan antiquity
+with that of more recent times, it is but fair to
+remember that the pagan nations of old recognised
+some principles of action which were never dreamt of
+in the best days of Christian chivalry; and that the
+generals of the people who we are sometimes told
+were a mere robber community would have had as
+strong a feeling against the righteousness of a night
+attack, a feigned retreat, or a surprise, as our modern
+generals would have of an open violation of a truce or
+convention.</p>
+
+<p>The downward path in this matter is easy, and the
+history of Rome after Scipio Africanus is associated
+with a change of opinion concerning stratagems that
+in no degree fell short of that subtlety of the Greeks,
+Gauls, or Africans, which the Romans once regarded
+as perfidy. Frontinus, who wrote a book on strata<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>gems
+in the reign of Trajan, and still more Polyænus,
+who wrote a large book on the same subject for the
+Emperors Verus and Antoninus, appear to have
+thought that no deceit was too bad to serve as a
+good precedent for the conduct of war. Polyænus
+not merely made a collection of some nine hundred
+stratagems, but collected them for the express purpose
+of their being of service to the Roman Emperors
+in the war then undertaken against Parthia.
+To the rulers of a people who had once regarded
+even an ambuscade as beneath their chivalry he
+brought as worthy of their recollection and study actions
+which are an eternal stain on the memory of
+those who committed them. Let us take for example
+the devices he records for obtaining possession of
+besieged places, remembering that from the moment
+the chamade has been beaten, or any other sign been
+given for a conference or parley between the contending
+forces, a truce by tacit agreement is held to
+suspend their mutual hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>1. Thibron persuaded the governor of a fort in
+Asia to come out to arrange terms, under an oath
+that he should return if they failed to agree. During
+the relaxation of guard that naturally ensued, Thibron’s
+men took the fort by assault: and Thibron, reconducting
+the governor according to his word, forthwith put
+him to death.<a name="FNanchor_181" id="FNanchor_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. In the same way behaved Paches, the Athenian
+general at Notium. Having got Hippias, the governor,
+into his power under the same promise that
+Thibron made, he took the place by storm, massacred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+all he found in it, reconducted Hippias according to
+his oath, and had him killed upon the spot.<a name="FNanchor_182" id="FNanchor_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. Autophrodates proposed a parley with the chiefs
+of the Ephesian army, having previously ordered his
+cavalry officers and other troops to attack the Ephesians
+during the conference. The result was a signal
+victory, and the capture or slaughter of a great number
+of Ephesians.<a name="FNanchor_183" id="FNanchor_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p>
+
+<p>4. Philip of Macedon sent some envoys into a
+Thracian city, and whilst the people all met in assembly
+to hear the proposals of the enemy the King
+of Macedon attacked and took the city.<a name="FNanchor_184" id="FNanchor_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p>
+
+<p>5. The Thracians, having been defeated by the
+Bœotians, made a truce with them, for a certain
+number of <i>days</i>, and attacked them one <i>night</i>, whilst
+the enemy were engaged in making sacrifices. And
+so dealt Cleomenes with the Argives; he made a
+truce with them for seven days, and attacked them
+the second night.</p>
+
+<p>All these things are told by Polyænus, not only
+without a word of disapproval, but apparently as
+good examples for the conduct of a war actually in
+progress. Such was the state of moral debasement
+in which their long career of military success ultimately
+landed the great Roman people.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it is not for modern history to cast
+stones at Paches or at Thibron. The Conference-stratagem
+attained its highest development in the
+practice of warfare in Christendom; so that Montaigne
+declares it to have become a fixed maxim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+among the military men of his time (the sixteenth
+century) never in time of siege to go out to a parley.
+That great French soldier Montluc, whose autobiography
+contained in his Commentaries displays so
+curious a mixture of bravery and cruelty, of loyalty
+and cunning, and is perhaps the best military book
+by a military man that has been written since Cæsar,
+tells us how once, whilst he was bargaining with the
+governor of Sarvenal about the terms of a capitulation,
+his men entered the place by a window on the other
+side and compelled the governor to surrender at
+discretion, and how on another occasion he sent his
+soldiers to enter Mont de Marsan and put all they
+met to the sword, whilst he himself was deluding the
+governor with a parley. ‘The moments of a parley
+are dangerous,’ he justly observes, ‘and then more
+than ever should the besieged be careful in guarding
+their walls, for it is the time when the besiegers,
+fearful of losing by a capitulation the booty that
+would be theirs if they took the place by storm, study
+to avail themselves of the relaxation of vigilance
+promoted by the truce to approach the walls with
+greater facility and success.’ And the man who
+wrote this as the experience of his time, and illustrated
+it by the above accounts of his own practice,
+rose to be a Marshal of France!</p>
+
+<p>Some other examples of the same stratagem prove
+how widely the custom entered into the warfare of
+the European nations. The governor of Terouanne,
+besieged by the forces of the Emperor Charles V.,
+having forgotten in a negotiation for a capitulation
+to stipulate for a suspension of arms, the town was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+surprised during the conference, pillaged, and utterly
+destroyed.<a name="FNanchor_185" id="FNanchor_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> And Feuquières, a French general of
+Louis XIV., and the writer of a book of military
+memoirs which ran through several editions, tells us
+how he surprised a place called Kreilsheim in 1688:
+‘I could not have taken this place by force, surrounded
+as it was with a wall and a strong enough castle; but
+the colonel in command having been imbecile enough
+to come outside the place to parley with me, without
+exacting a promise from me to let him return, I
+retained him and compelled him to order his garrison
+to surrender itself prisoner of war.’<a name="FNanchor_186" id="FNanchor_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> And he actually
+quotes this to show that when it is necessary to take
+a post, all sorts of means should be employed, provided
+they do not dishonour the general who resorts
+to them, as would the failure of his word to the
+colonel have dishonoured himself had the colonel
+demanded it of him.</p>
+
+<p>A sounder sense of military honour was displayed
+by the English general, Lord Peterborough, at the
+siege of Barcelona in 1705. Don Velasco had promised
+to capitulate within a certain number of days,
+in the event of no succour arriving, and he surrendered
+one gate as a proof of his sincerity. During the truce
+involved in this proceeding, the German and Catalonian
+allies of the English entered the town and
+began that career of plunder and outrage which is the
+constant reward and crown of such military successes.
+Lord Peterborough undertook to prevent disorder in
+the town, expel the allied soldiery, and return to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+position. He was taken at his word, acted up to his
+word, and saved the honour of England. But what
+of that of his allies?</p>
+
+<p>It is a fine line that divides a stratagem from an
+act of perfidy. Valerius Maximus denounces as an
+act of perfidy the conduct of Cnæus Domitius, who,
+having received the King of the Arverni as a guest
+under the pretence of a colloquy, sent him by sea a
+prisoner to Rome;<a name="FNanchor_187" id="FNanchor_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> but it is not easy to distinguish
+it from the actions of Montluc or Feuquières. Vattel
+lays down the following doctrine on the subject: As
+humanity compels us to prefer the gentlest means in
+the prosecution of our rights, if we can master a
+strong place, surprise or overcome an enemy by a
+stratagem or a feint void of perfidy, it is better to
+do so than to have resort to a bloody siege or the
+carnage of a battle. He expressly excludes perfidy;
+but might not Polyænus have defended it on precisely
+the same humanitarian grounds as those by
+which Vattel justifies the more ordinary stratagems?
+Might not an act of perfidy equally prevent a siege or
+a battle? If we are justified in contending for our
+rights by force, it is hard to say that we may not do so
+by fraud; but it is still harder to distinguish the kinds
+and the limits of such fraud, or to say where it ceases
+to be lawful.</p>
+
+<p>And to this length did Polyænus apparently go, as
+we see in the cases of downright perfidy which he
+includes in his collection of stratagems. The Locrians
+swore to observe a treaty with the Sicilians so long as
+they trod the earth they then walked on, or carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+their heads on their shoulders: the next day they
+threw away the heads of garlic which they had
+carried under their cloaks on their shoulders, and the
+earth they had strewn in their shoes, and began a
+general massacre of the Sicilians.<a name="FNanchor_188" id="FNanchor_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> The Campanians,
+having agreed to surrender half their arms, cut them
+in half, and so virtually surrendered nothing.<a name="FNanchor_189" id="FNanchor_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> Paches,
+the Athenian, says Frontinus, having promised personal
+safety to his enemies on condition of their
+laying down their arms, or as he termed it, their <i>iron</i>,
+slew all those who, having laid down their arms, still
+retained the <i>iron</i> clasps in their cloaks.<a name="FNanchor_190" id="FNanchor_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p>
+
+<p>By these means it is undoubtedly possible to gain
+that advantage over your enemy which, according to
+every theory of war, it is the paramount object of
+hostilities to obtain; for it has been too often forgotten
+that a nation’s honour and character, which an
+enlightened patriotism should value higher than the
+mere earth on which it feeds and treads, are sacrificed
+and impaired whenever a treaty is taken by one of
+the parties to it to have been made in another sense
+from that which was clearly understood by both
+parties to have constituted its spirit at the time of
+making it. What a lasting stain rests, for instance,
+on the memory of Francis I., who before signing the
+Treaty of Madrid, by which he swore, in return for his
+liberty, to restore the Duchy of Burgundy, and to
+return a prisoner to Spain if he failed to do so, made
+a formal protest beforehand, in the presence of some
+friends, that the oath he was about to take was involuntary
+and therefore void, and broke it the moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+he was free! And this was the man whose memory
+is associated with the famous saying after the battle
+of Pavia: ‘All is lost save honour.’ What he really
+said after that event, in a letter to his mother, was
+this: ‘All is lost save my honour and my life, which
+is safe,’ and the letter went on at length, much more
+in keeping with the character of that monarch.<a name="FNanchor_191" id="FNanchor_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> His
+life indeed he saved; his honour he never recovered.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed at the Brussels Conference that
+resort to every possible method of obtaining information
+about the forces or country of an enemy should
+count as a fair military stratagem; and, indeed, with
+the subject of the deceitful side of war the military
+theory and treatment of Spies occupies no inconsiderable
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Vattel is again as good an exponent as we can
+have of what international law teaches on this subject.
+His argument is as follows: It is not contrary to the
+law of nations to seduce one of the hostile side to
+turn spy, nor to bribe a governor to deliver a town,
+because such actions do not, like the use of poison or
+assassination, strike at the common welfare and safety
+of mankind. Such actions are the common episodes
+of every war. But that they are not in themselves
+honourable or compatible with a good conscience is
+proved by the fact that generals who resort to such
+means never boast of them; and, if they are at all
+excusable, it is only in the case of a very just war,
+when there is no other way of saving a country from
+ruin at the hands of lawless conquerors. A sovereign
+has no right to require the services of a spy from any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+of his subjects, but he may hold out the temptation of
+reward to mercenary souls; and if a governor is willing
+to sell himself and offer us a town for money,
+should we scruple to take advantage of his crime,
+and to get without danger what we have a right to
+get by force? At the same time a spy may rightly
+be put to death, because it is the only way we have of
+guarding against the mischief he may do us.<a name="FNanchor_192" id="FNanchor_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p>
+
+<p>Frederick the Great of Prussia was a contemporary
+of Vattel, and in November 1760 he published
+some military instructions for the use of his generals
+which, in the matter of spies, was based on a wider
+practical knowledge of the matter than of course
+belonged to the more pacific publicist. He classified
+spies into ordinary spies, double spies, spies of distinction,
+and spies by compulsion. By double spies he
+meant spies who also pretended to be in the service
+of the side they betrayed. By spies of distinction
+he meant officers of hussars, whose services he had
+found useful under the peculiar circumstances of the
+Austrian campaign. When he could not procure
+himself spies among the Austrians, owing to the careful
+guard which their light troops kept round their
+camp, the idea occurred to him, and he acted on it
+with success, of utilising the suspension of arms that
+was customary after a skirmish between hussars
+to make those officers the means of conducting an
+epistolary correspondence with the officers on the
+other side. Spies by compulsion he explained in this
+way: ‘When you wish to convey false information
+to an enemy, you take a trustworthy soldier and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+compel him to pass to the enemy’s camp to report
+there all that you wish the enemy to believe; you also
+send by him letters to excite the troops to desertion.’
+And in the event of its being impossible to obtain
+information about the enemy, this distinguished child
+of Mars prescribes the following: Choose some rich
+citizen, who has land and wife and children, and
+another man disguised as his servant or coachman,
+who understands the enemy’s language. Force the
+former to take the latter with him to the enemy’s camp
+to complain of injuries sustained, threatening him that
+if he fail to bring the man back with him after having
+stayed long enough for the desired object, his wife
+and children shall be hanged and his house burnt.
+‘I was myself constrained,’ adds this great warrior,
+‘to have recourse to this method, when we were
+encamped at &mdash;&mdash;, and it succeeded.’<a name="FNanchor_193" id="FNanchor_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such were the military ethics of the great philosopher
+and king, whose character in the closer intimacy
+of biography proved so disagreeable a revelation to
+Carlyle. Pagan antiquity might be searched in vain
+for practice or sentiments more ignoble. Sertorius,
+the Roman captain, was one of the greatest masters of
+stratagem in the world, yet how different his language
+from that of the Great Frederick! ‘A man,’ he said,
+‘who has any dignity of feeling should conquer with
+honour, and not use any base means even to save his
+life.’</p>
+
+<p>From the sentiments of Frederick the Great regarding
+spies, let us pass to those of our own time.
+From Lord Wolseley’s ‘Soldier’s Pocket-Book’ may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+gained some insight as to the manner in which a spy
+in an enemy’s camp may correspond with the hostile
+general. The best way, he suggests, is to send a
+peasant with a letter written on very thin paper,
+which may be rolled up so tightly as to be portable
+in a quill an inch and a half long, and this precious
+quill may be hidden in the hair or beard, or in a
+hollow made at the end of a walking-stick. It is
+also a good plan to write secret correspondence in
+lemon-juice across a newspaper or the leaves of a
+New Testament; it is then safe against discovery,
+and will become legible when held before a fire or
+near a red iron.</p>
+
+<p>‘As a nation,’ says Lord Wolseley, ‘we are bred
+up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed by falsehood;
+the word spy conveys something as repulsive as slave;
+we will keep hammering along with the conviction
+that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always
+wins in the long run. These pretty little sentiments
+do well for a child’s copy-book, but a man who acts
+upon them had better sheathe his sword for ever.’<a name="FNanchor_194" id="FNanchor_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a>
+Was there ever such a confession of the incompatibility
+of the soldier’s calling with the precepts of
+ordinary honour? For how not so, if he must so far
+stoop from the ordinary level of moral rectitude as
+to be ready to scorn honesty and to trifle with truth?
+And then the question is, Had not a man better
+sheathe his sword for ever, or rather not enter at all
+upon a trade where he will have to regard the eternal
+principles of right and wrong as so much pretty
+sentiment only fit for the copy-book?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Since, therefore, we have the authority of Vattel,
+of Frederick the Great, and of Lord Wolseley that
+spies may or even must be employed in war, and
+that, be the trickery or bribery never so mean that
+procures their services, no discredit reflects itself upon
+those generals who use them&mdash;it is impossible not to
+notice it as one of the chief anomalies in existing
+military usages that, although a general has an unlimited
+right to avail himself of the services of a spy
+or a traitor, the penalty for acting in either of the
+latter capacities is death. The capital penalty is not
+of itself any test of the moral character of the action
+to which it is affixed, for the service of a fire-ship,
+which demanded the most desperate bravery, used to
+be undertaken in the face of capital punishment.
+Moreover, some of the most famous names in military
+history have not hesitated to act as spies. Sertorius
+was honoured by Marius with the usual rewards of
+signal valour for having learnt the language of the
+Gauls and gone as a spy amongst them disguised in
+their dress. The French general Custine entered
+Mayence in the disguise of a butcher. Catinat spied
+out the strength of Luxembourg in the costume of a
+coal-heaver. Montluc entered Perpignan as a cook,
+and only resolved never again to act as a spy because
+the narrowness of his escape convinced him, not that
+it was a service of too much dishonour, but a service
+of too much danger.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of killing spies is an old Roman
+one,<a name="FNanchor_195" id="FNanchor_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> and, indeed, seems to have prevailed all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+world over. Nevertheless there have been exceptions
+even to that. Scipio Africanus had some Carthaginian
+spies who were brought before him led through
+the camp, and then dismissed under escort, and with
+the polite inquiry whether they had examined everything
+to their satisfaction.<a name="FNanchor_196" id="FNanchor_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p>
+
+<p>The consul Lævinus is said to have dealt in the
+same way with some spies that were taken, and so
+did Xerxes by some Greek detectives. At the famous
+siege of Antwerp in 1584-5, when a Brabant spy was
+brought before the Prince of Parma, the latter gave
+orders that he should be shown all the works connected
+with the wonderful bridge that he was then
+constructing across the Scheldt, and then sent him
+back to the besieged city with these words: ‘Go and
+tell those who sent you what you have seen. Tell
+them that I firmly intend either to bury myself
+beneath the ruin of this bridge or by means of it to
+pass into your city.’</p>
+
+<p>There is a clear middle course between both
+extremes. Instead of being hung or shot or sent
+away scot free, a spy might fairly be made a prisoner
+of war. Suggestions in this sense were made at the
+Brussels Conference on the Laws of War. The
+Spanish delegate proposed that the custom of hanging
+or shooting detected spies should be abolished,
+and the custom be substituted of interning them as
+prisoners of war during the continuance of hostilities.
+The Belgian delegate proposed that in no case should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+they be put to death without trial; and it was even
+sought to establish a distinction between the deserts
+of the really patriotic and the merely mercenary spy.
+The feeling in fact made itself clearly visible, that an
+act of which a general might fairly avail himself
+could not in common justice be regarded as criminal
+in the agent. Between a general and a spy the
+common-law rule of principal and agent plainly holds
+good: ‘He who acts through another acts through
+himself.’ In a case of espionage either both principal
+and agent are guilty of a criminal act, or neither is.
+If the spy as such violates the laws of war, so does
+the general who employs him; and either deserves
+the same punishment. Were it not so, a general who
+should hire a bravo to assassinate an enemy would
+incur no moral blame, nor could be held to act outside
+the boundary of lawful and honourable hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>In some other respects the Brussels Conference
+displayed the vagueness of sentiment that prevails
+about the use of spies in war. It was agreed between
+all the Powers that no one should be considered as a
+spy but one who secretly or under false pretences
+sought to obtain information for the enemy in occupied
+districts; that military men collecting such information
+within the zone of hostile operations should
+not be regarded as spies if it were possible to recognise
+their military character; and that military men, and
+even civilians, if their proceedings were open, charged
+with despatches, should not, if captured, be treated as
+spies; nor individuals who carried despatches or kept
+up communications between different parts of an
+army through the air in balloons. The German dele<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>gate
+proposed, with regard to balloons, that those
+who sailed in them might be first of all summoned
+to descend, then fired at if they refused, and if captured
+be treated as prisoners, not as spies. The
+rejection of his proposal implies that by the laws of
+modern war a balloonist is liable to be shot as a spy;
+so that, from the point of view of personal danger,
+the service of a balloon becomes doubly heroic. The
+Brussels Conference settled nothing, owing to the
+withdrawal of England from that attempt to settle
+by agreement between the nations the laws that
+should govern their relations in war-time; but from
+what was on that occasion agreed to or rejected may
+be gathered the prevalent practice of European warfare.
+Is it not then a little remarkable that for the
+dangerous service of espionage a different justice
+should be meted out to civilians and to military men;
+and that a patriot who risks his life in a balloon
+should also risk it in the same way as a spy, a
+deserter, or a traitor?</p>
+
+<p>But whatever be the fate of a spy, and in spite
+of distinguished precedents to the contrary, men of
+honour will always instinctively shrink from a service
+which involves falsehood from beginning to end. The
+sentiment is doubtless praiseworthy: but what is the
+moral difference between entering a town as a spy
+and the military service of winning it by surprise?
+What, for instance, shall we think of the Spanish
+officers and soldiers who, dressed as peasants and
+with baskets of nuts and apples on their arms, gained
+possession of Amiens in 1597 by spilling the contents
+of their baskets and then slaying the sentinels as they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+scrambled to pick them up?<a name="FNanchor_197" id="FNanchor_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> What of the officers
+who, in the disguise of peasants and women, and
+concealing daggers and pistols, got possession of Ulm
+for the Elector of Bavaria? What of the French
+who, in Dutch costume, and by supplications in Dutch
+to be granted a refuge from a pursuing enemy, surprised
+a fort in Holland in 1672?<a name="FNanchor_198" id="FNanchor_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> What of Prince
+Eugene, who took the fortress of Breysach by sending
+in a large force concealed in hay-carts under the conduct
+of two hundred officers disguised as peasants?<a name="FNanchor_199" id="FNanchor_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>
+What of the Chevalier Bayard, that favourite of legendary
+chivalry, who, having learnt from a spy the whereabouts
+of a detachment of Venetian infantry, went by
+night to the village where they slept, and with his
+men slew all but three out of some three hundred
+men as they ran out of their houses?<a name="FNanchor_200" id="FNanchor_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> What of
+Callicratidas the Cyrenæan, who begged the commander
+of a fort to receive four sick soldiers, and
+sent them in on their beds with an escort of sixteen
+soldiers, so that they easily overpowered the guards
+and won the place for their general?<a name="FNanchor_201" id="FNanchor_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> What of
+Phalaris, who, having petitioned for the hand of a
+commandant’s daughter, overcame the garrison by
+sending in soldiers dressed as women servants, and
+purporting to bear presents to his betrothed?<a name="FNanchor_202" id="FNanchor_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> What
+of Feuquières, who, whilst pretending to lead a German
+force and praying for shelter from a snowstorm, affixed
+his pétards to the gates of Neuborg, and, having taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+the town, put the whole of the garrison of 650 men
+to the sword?<a name="FNanchor_203" id="FNanchor_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p>
+
+<p>In what respect do such actions which are the
+everyday stratagems of a campaign, and count as
+perfectly fair, differ from the false pretences which constitute
+the iniquity of the spy? In this respect only&mdash;that
+whilst he bears his danger alone, in the case of
+a surprise the danger is distributed among numbers.</p>
+
+<p>And, in point of fact, there was a time when the
+service of a surprise and that of espionage were so far
+regarded as the same that by the laws of war death
+was not only the allotted portion of the captured spy
+but of all who were caught in an endeavour to take a
+place by surprise. The rule, according to Vattel, was
+not changed, nor the soldiers who were captured in a
+surprise regarded or treated as prisoners of war, till
+the year 1597, when, Prince Maurice having failed in
+an attempt to take Venloo by surprise, and having
+lost some of his men, who were put to death for that
+offence, the new rule that has since prevailed was
+agreed upon by both sides for the sake of their future
+mutual immunity from that peril.</p>
+
+<p>The usual rule laid down to distinguish a bad
+from a good stratagem is that in the latter there is
+no violation of an expressly or tacitly pledged faith.
+The violation of a conference, a truce, or a treaty has
+always therefore been reprobated, however commonly
+practised. But certain occurrences of history suggest
+the feasibility of corresponding stratagems which
+cannot be judged by so simple a formula and which
+therefore are of still uncertain right.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first stratagem of this kind that suggests
+itself is that of forgery. Hannibal, having defeated
+and slain the Roman general Marcellus, and thereby
+become possessed of his seal, the Romans found it
+necessary to despatch messages to all their garrison
+towns that no more attention should be paid to orders
+purporting to come from Marcellus. The precedent
+suggests the use of forged despatches as a weapon of
+war. To obtain in time of peace, for use in time of
+war, the signatures of men likely to be hostile commanders,
+would obviously be of immense military
+service for purposes either of defence or aggression.
+The stratagem would be dishonourable in the highest
+degree; but, unfortunately, the standard of measurement
+in such cases is rather their effectiveness than
+their abstract morality.</p>
+
+<p>The second stratagem of the sort is the stratagem
+of false intelligence. To what extent is it lawful to
+deceive an enemy by downright falsehood? The
+Chevalier Bayard, ‘without fear or reproach,’ when
+besieged by the Imperialists in Mézières, contrived
+to make the enemy raise the siege by sending a
+messenger with letters containing false information
+destined to fall into the hands of the enemy. The
+invention of the telegraph has increased the means of
+deceiving the enemy by false intelligence, and was
+freely so used in the Civil War of the United States.
+It is said to be better to secure the services of a few
+telegraph operators in a hostile country than to have
+dozens of ordinary spies; and for this reason, according
+to the eminent author of the ‘Soldier’s Pocket-Book’:
+‘Before or during an action an enemy may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+be deceived to any extent by means of such men;
+messages can be sent ordering him to concentrate
+upon wrong points, or, by giving him false information,
+you may induce him to move as you wish.’</p>
+
+<p>Another stratagem is suggested by the conduct of
+the Prince of Orange, who, having detected in one of
+his own secretaries a spy in the service of the Prince
+of Luxembourg, forced him to write a letter to the
+latter containing such information as enabled himself
+to effect a march he wished to conceal. Might
+not, then, prisoners of war be used for the same
+compulsory service? For a spy just as much as a
+soldier is a recognised and accredited military agent,
+and, if the former may be made the channel of falsehood,
+why not the prisoner of war? The Romans
+made use of the latter to acquire information about
+their enemy’s plans, if in no other way, by torture or
+the threat of it; the Germans forced some of their
+French prisoners to perform certain military services
+connected with carrying on their campaign&mdash;would
+it be therefore unfair to make use of them as the
+Prince of Orange made use of his secretary?</p>
+
+<p>To such questions there is no answer from the
+international law writers. Still less is there any authoritative
+military doctrine concerning them, and,
+if the stratagems in debate are excluded from ‘good’
+war by the military honour of to-day, the above study
+of warlike artifices has been made to little purpose if
+it has not taught us how changeable and capricious
+that standard is, and of what marvellous adjustment
+it is capable.</p>
+
+<p>It were a treat at which the gods themselves might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+smile to see and hear a moral philosopher and a
+military officer brought into conference together concerning
+the stratagems permissible in war. Let the
+reader imagine them trying to distribute in just and
+equal parts the due share of blame attaching severally
+to the following agents&mdash;to the man who betrays his
+country or his cause for gold, and the general who
+tempts him to his crime or accepts it gladly; to the
+man who serves as a spy, to the general who on the
+one side sends or employs him as a spy, and to the
+general who on the other side hangs him as a spy; to
+the man who discovers the strength of a town in the
+disguise of a butcher, and to his fellow-soldiers who
+enter it disguised as peasants or under the plea of
+shelter from sickness or a snowstorm; to the man
+who gains an advantage by propagating false intelligence,
+and the man who does so by the use of forged
+despatches; the man who, like Scipio, plays at negotiations
+for peace in order the better to spy out and
+avail himself of an enemy’s weakness, and the man
+who makes offers of treason to an enemy in order the
+more easily to take him at a disadvantage&mdash;and the
+conclusion will be not unlikely to occur to him, when
+he shudders at the possible length and futility of that
+imaginary disputation, that, whatever havoc is caused
+by a state of war to life, to property, to wealth, to
+family affections, to domestic honour, it is a havoc
+absolutely incomparable to that which it produces
+among the received moral principles of mankind.
+The military code regarding the fair and legitimate
+use of fraud and deception has nothing whatever in
+common with the ordinary moral code of civil life, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+principles openly professed in it being so totally foreign
+to our simplest rules of upright and worthy conduct
+that in any other than the fighting classes of our
+civilised societies they would not be advocated for
+very shame, nor listened to for a moment without
+resentment.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">BARBARIAN WARFARE.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit.... Quæ clam commissa
+capite luerentur, quia paludati fecere laudamus.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Seneca.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">Variable notions of honour&mdash;Primitive ideas of a military life&mdash;What
+is civilised warfare&mdash;Advanced laws of war among several savage
+tribes&mdash;Symbols of peace among savages&mdash;The Samoan form of
+surrender&mdash;Treaties of peace among savages&mdash;Abeyance of laws of
+war in hostilities with savages&mdash;Zulus blown up in caves with gun-cotton&mdash;Women
+and men kidnapped for transport service on the
+Gold Coast&mdash;Humane intentions of the Spaniards in the New World
+contrasted with the inhumanity of their actions&mdash;Wars with natives
+of English and French in America&mdash;High rewards offered for scalps&mdash;The
+use of bloodhounds in war&mdash;The use of poison and infected
+clothes&mdash;Penn’s treaty with the Indians&mdash;How Missionaries come
+to be a cause of war&mdash;Explanation of the failure of modern Missions&mdash;The
+Mission Stations as centres of hostile intrigue&mdash;Plea for the
+State-regulation of Missions&mdash;Depopulation under Protestant influences&mdash;The
+prevention of false rumours, <i>Tendenzlügen</i>&mdash;Civilised
+and barbarian warfare&mdash;No real distinction between them.</p>
+
+<p>A missionary, seeing once a negro furrowing his
+face with scars, asked him why he put himself to such
+needless pain, and the reply was: ‘For honour, and
+that people on seeing me may say, There goes a man
+of heart.’</p>
+
+<p>Ridiculous as this negro’s idea of honour must
+appear to us, it bears a sufficient resemblance to other
+notions of the same kind that have passed current in
+the world at different times to satisfy us of the extreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+variability of the sentiment in question. Cæsar built
+with difficulty a bridge across the Rhine, chiefly
+because he held it beneath his own dignity, or the
+Roman people’s, for his army to cross it in boats. The
+Celts of old thought it as ignominious to fly from an
+inundation, or from a burning or falling house, as to
+retreat from an enemy. The Spartans considered it
+inglorious to pursue a flying foe, or to be killed in
+storming a besieged city. The same Gauls who
+gloried in broadsword-wounds would almost go mad
+with shame if wounded by an arrow or other missile
+that only left an imperceptible mark. The use of
+letters was once thought dishonourable by all the
+European nations. Marshal Montluc, in the sixteenth
+century, considered it a sign of abnormal overbookishness
+for a man to prefer to spend a night in his study
+than to spend it in the trenches, though, now, a contrary
+taste would be thought by most men the mark
+of a fool.</p>
+
+<p>Such are some of the curious ideas of honour that
+have prevailed at different times. Wherein we seem
+to recognise not merely change but advance; one
+chief difference between the savage and civilised state
+lying in the different estimates entertained in either
+of martial prowess and of military honour. We laugh
+nowadays at the ancient Britons who believed that the
+souls of all who had followed any other pursuit than
+that of arms, after a despised life and an unlamented
+death, hovered perforce over fens and marshes, unfit
+to mingle with those of warriors in the higher and
+brighter regions; or at the horsemen who used before
+death to wound themselves with their spears, in order<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+to obtain that admission to Walhalla which was denied
+to all who failed to die upon a battle-field; or at the
+Spaniards, who, when Cato disarmed them, preferred
+a voluntary death to a life destined to be spent without
+arms.<a name="FNanchor_204" id="FNanchor_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> No civilised warrior would pride himself, as
+Fijian warriors did, on being generally known as the
+‘Waster’ or ‘Devastator’ of such-and-such a district;
+the most he would look for would be a title and perhaps
+a perpetual pension for his descendants. We
+have nothing like the custom of the North American
+tribes, among whom different marks on a warrior’s
+robe told at a glance whether his fame rested on the
+slaughter of a man or a woman, or only on that of a
+boy or a girl. We are inferior in this respect to the
+Dacota tribes, among whom an eagle’s feather with a
+red spot on it denoted simply the slaughter of an
+enemy, the same feather with a notch and the sides
+painted red, that the said enemy had had his throat
+cut, whilst according as the notches were on one side
+or on both, or the feather partly denuded, anyone
+could tell after how many others the hero had succeeded
+in touching the dead body of a fallen foe. The stride
+is clearly a great one from Pyrrhus, the Epirot king,
+who, when asked which of two musicians he thought
+the better, only deigned to reply that Polysperchon
+was the general, to Napoleon, the French emperor,
+who conferred the cross of the Legion of Honour on
+Crescentini the singer.</p>
+
+<p>And as the pursuit of arms comes with advancing
+civilisation to occupy a lower level as compared with
+the arts of peace, so the belief is the mark of a more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+polished people that the rapacity and cruelty which
+belong to the war customs of a more backward nation,
+or of an earlier time, are absent from their own. They
+invent the expression <i>civilised warfare</i> to emphasise a
+distinction they would fain think inherent in the nature
+of things; and look, by its help, even on the mode of
+killing an enemy, with a moral vision that is absurdly
+distorted. How few of us, for example, but see the
+utmost barbarity in sticking a man with an assegai,
+yet none whatever in doing so with a bayonet? And
+why should we pride ourselves on not mutilating the
+dead, while we have no scruples as to the extent to
+which we mutilate the living? We are shocked at
+the mention of barbarian tribes who poison their
+arrows, or barb their darts, yet ourselves think nothing
+of the frightful gangrenes caused by the copper cap in
+the Minié rifle-ball, and reject, on the score of the
+expense of the change, the proposal that bullets of
+soft lead, which cause needless pain, should no longer
+be used among the civilised Powers for small-arm
+ammunition.<a name="FNanchor_205" id="FNanchor_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p>
+
+<p>But whilst the difference in these respects between
+barbarism and civilisation is thus one that rather
+touches the surface than the substance of war, the result
+is inevitably in either state a different code of
+military etiquette and sentiment, though the difference
+is far less than in any other points of comparison
+between them. When the nations of Christendom therefore
+came in contact with unknown and savage races,
+whose customs seemed different from their own and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+little worthy of attention, they assumed that the latter
+recognised no laws of war, much as some of the
+earlier travellers denied the possession or faculty of
+speech to people whose language they could not
+interpret. From which assumption the practical inference
+followed, that the restraints which were held
+sacred between enemies who inherited the same traditions
+of military honour had no need to be observed
+in hostilities with the heathen world. It is worth
+while, therefore, to show how baseless was the primary
+assumption, and how laws of war, in no way dissimilar
+to those of Europe, may be detected in the military
+usages of barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>To spare the weak and helpless was and is a common
+rule in the warfare of the less civilised races.
+The Guanches of the Canary Islands, says an old
+Spanish writer, ‘held it as base and mean to molest or
+injure the women and children of the enemy, considering
+them as weak and helpless, therefore improper
+objects of their resentment; neither did they throw
+down or damage houses of worship.’<a name="FNanchor_206" id="FNanchor_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> The Samoans
+considered it cowardly to kill a woman:<a name="FNanchor_207" id="FNanchor_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> and in
+America the Sioux Indians and Winnebagoes, though
+barbarous enough in other respects, are said to have
+shown the conventional respect to the weaker sex.<a name="FNanchor_208" id="FNanchor_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a>
+The Basutos of South Africa, whatever may be their
+customs now, are declared by Casalis, one of the
+first French Protestant missionaries to their country,
+to have respected in their wars the persons of women,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+children, and travellers, and to have spared all prisoners
+who surrendered, granting them their liberty on the
+payment of ransom.<a name="FNanchor_209" id="FNanchor_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p>
+
+<p>Few savage races were of a wilder type than the
+Abipones of South America; yet Dobritzhoffer, the
+Jesuit missionary, assures us not only that they thought
+it unworthy of them to mangle the bodies of dead
+Spaniards, as other savages did, but that they generally
+spared the unwarlike, and carried away boys and
+girls uninjured. The Spaniards, Indians, negroes, or
+mulattoes whom they took in war they did not
+treat like captives, but with kindness and indulgence
+like children. Dobritzhoffer never saw a prisoner
+punished by so much as a word or a blow, but he
+bears testimony to the compassion and confidence
+often displayed to captives by their conquerors. It
+is common to read of the cruelty of the Red Indians
+to their captives; but Loskiel, another missionary,
+declares that prisoners were often adopted by the
+victors to supply the place of the slain, and that even
+Europeans, when it came to an exchange of prisoners,
+sometimes refused to return to their own countrymen.
+In Virginia notice was sent before war to the enemy,
+that in the event of their defeat, the lives of all should
+be spared who should submit within two days’ time.</p>
+
+<p>Loskiel gives some other rather curious testimony
+about the Red Indians. ‘When war was in contemplation
+they used to admonish each other to hearken
+to the good and not to the evil spirits, the former
+always recommending peace. They seem,’ he adds
+with surprise, ‘to have had no idea of the devil as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+the prince of darkness before the Europeans came
+into the country.’ The symbol of peace was the
+burial of the hatchet or war-club in the ground; and
+when the tribes renewed their covenants of peace,
+they exchanged certain belts of friendship which were
+singularly expressive. The principal belt was white,
+with black streaks down each side and a black spot
+at each end: the black spots represented the two
+people, and the white streak between them signified,
+that the road between them was now clear of all trees,
+brambles, and stones, and that every hindrance was
+therefore removed from the way of perfect harmony.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians used the same language of symbolism
+when they declared war by letting a lamb
+loose into the enemy’s country: this being equivalent
+to saying, that a district full of the habitations of men
+should shortly be turned into a pasture for sheep.<a name="FNanchor_210" id="FNanchor_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Fijians used to spare their enemy’s fruit trees;
+the Tongan islanders held it as sacrilege to fight
+within the precincts of the burial place of a chief,
+where the greatest enemies were obliged to meet as
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the lower races recognise the inviolability
+of ambassadors and heralds, and have well-established
+emblems of a truce or armistice. The wish for peace
+which the Zulu king in vain sought from his English
+invaders by the symbol of an elephant’s tusk (1879),
+was conveyed in the Fiji Islands by a whale’s tooth,
+in the Sandwich by a young plantain tree or green
+branch of the ti plant, and among most North
+American tribes by a white flag of skin or bark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+The Samoan symbol for an act of submission in
+deprecation of further hostilities conveys some indication
+of the possible origin of these pacific symbols.
+The conquered Samoan would carry to his victor
+some bamboo sticks, some firewood, and some small
+stones; for as a piece of split bamboo was the original
+Samoan knife, and small stones and firewood
+were used for the purpose of roasting pigs, this symbol
+of submission was equivalent to saying: ‘Here
+we are, your pigs, to be cooked if you please, and
+here are the materials wherewith to do it.’<a name="FNanchor_211" id="FNanchor_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> In the
+same way the elephant’s tusk or the whale’s tooth
+may be a short way of saying to the victor: ‘Yours
+is the strength of the elephant or the whale; we recognise
+the uselessness of fighting with you.’</p>
+
+<p>In the same way many savage tribes take the
+greatest pains to impress the terms of treaties as
+vividly as possible on the memory of the contracting
+parties by striking and intelligible ceremonies. In
+the Sandwich Islands a wreath woven conjointly by
+the leaders of either side and placed in a temple was
+the chief symbol of peace. On the Fiji Islands, the
+combatant forces would meet and throw down their
+weapons at one another’s feet. The Tahitians wove
+a wreath of green boughs, furnished by each side;
+exchanged two young dogs; and having also made
+a band of cloth together, deposited the wreath and
+the band in the temple, with imprecations on the side
+which should first violate so solemn a treaty of peace.<a name="FNanchor_212" id="FNanchor_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a>
+On the Hervey Islands, the token of the cessation of
+war was the breaking of a number of spears against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+a large chestnut tree; the almost imperishable coral
+tree was planted in the valleys to signify the hope
+that the peace might last as long as the tree; and
+after the drum of peace had been solemnly beaten
+round the island, it was unlawful for any man to carry
+a weapon, or to cut down any iron-wood, which he
+might turn into an implement of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>Even our custom of proclaiming that a war is not
+undertaken against a people but against its rulers is
+not unknown in savage life. The Ashantee army
+used to strew leaves on their march, to signify that
+their hostility was not with the country they passed
+through but only with the instigators of the war;
+they told the Fantees that they had no war with them
+collectively, but only with some of them.<a name="FNanchor_213" id="FNanchor_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> How
+common a military custom this appeal to the treason
+of an enemy is, notwithstanding the rarity of its
+success, everybody knows. When, for instance, the
+Anglo-Zulu war began, it was solemnly proclaimed
+that the British Government had no quarrel with the
+Zulu people; it was a war against the Zulu king, not
+against the Zulu nation. (Jan. 11, 1879.) So were
+the Ashantees told by the English invading force; so
+were the Afghans; so were the Egyptians; and so
+were the French by the Emperor William before his
+merciless hordes laid waste and desolate some of the
+fairest provinces of France; so, no doubt, will be
+told the Soudan Arabs. And yet this appeal to
+treason, this premium on a people’s disloyalty, is the
+regular precursor of wars, wherein destruction for its
+own sake, the burning of grain and villages for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+mere pleasure of the flames, forms almost invariably
+the most prominent feature. The military view
+always prevails over the civil, of the meaning of hostilities
+that have no reference to a population but
+only to its government. In the Zulu war, for instance,
+in spite of the above proclamation, the lieutenant-general
+ordered raids to be made into Zululand
+for the express purpose of burning empty kraals or
+villages; defending such procedure by the usual
+military logic, that the more the natives at large felt
+the strain of the war, the more anxious they would be
+to see it concluded; and it was quite in vain for the
+Lieutenant-Governor of Natal to argue that the burning
+of empty kraals would neither do much harm to
+the Zulus nor good to the English; and that whereas
+the war had been begun on the ground that it was
+waged against the Zulu king and not against his
+nation, such conduct was calculated to alienate from
+the invaders the whole of the Zulu people, including
+those who were well disposed to them. Such arguments
+hardly ever prevail over that passion for
+wanton destruction and for often quite unnecessary
+slaughter, which finds a ready and comprehensive
+shelter under the wing of military exigencies.</p>
+
+<p>The assumption, therefore, that savage races are
+ignorant of all laws of war, or incapable of learning
+them, would seem to be based rather on our indifference
+about their customs than on the realities of the
+case, seeing that the preceding evidence to the contrary
+results from the most cursory inquiry. But
+whatever value there may be in our own laws of war,
+as helping to constitute a real difference between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+savage and civilised warfare, the best way to spread
+the blessing of a knowledge of them would clearly be
+for the more civilised races to adhere to them strictly
+in all wars waged with their less advanced neighbours.
+An English commander, for instance, should no more
+set fire to the capital of Ashantee or Zululand for so
+paltry a pretext as the display of British power than
+he would set fire to Paris or Berlin; he should no
+more have villages or granaries burnt in Africa or
+Afghanistan than he would in Normandy; and he
+should no more keep a Zulu envoy or truce-bearer in
+chains<a name="FNanchor_214" id="FNanchor_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> than he would so deal with the bearer of a
+white flag from a Russian or Italian enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The reverse principle, which is yet in vogue, that
+with barbarians you must or may be barbarous, leads
+to some curious illustrations of civilised warfare when
+it comes in conflict with the less civilised races. In
+one of the Franco-Italian wars of the sixteenth century,
+more than 2,000 women and children took refuge
+in a large mountain cavern, and were there suffocated
+by a party of French soldiers, who set fire to a
+quantity of wood, straw, and hay, which they stacked
+at the mouth of the cave; but it was considered so
+shameful an act, that the Chevalier Bayard had two
+of the ringleaders hung at the cavern’s mouth.<a name="FNanchor_215" id="FNanchor_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> Yet
+when the French General Pélissier in this century
+suffocated the unresisting Algerians in their caves, it
+was even defended as no worse than the shelling of a
+fortress; and there is evidence that gun-cotton was
+not unfrequently used to blast the entrance to caves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+in Zululand in which men, women, and children had
+hoped to find shelter against an army which professed
+only to be warring with their king.<a name="FNanchor_216" id="FNanchor_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p>
+
+<p>The following description of the way in which, in
+the Ashantee war, the English forces obtained native
+carriers for their transport service is not without its
+instruction in this respect:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>‘We took to kidnapping upon a grand scale.
+Raids were made on all the Assin villages within
+reach of the line of march, and the men, and sometimes
+the women, carried off and sent up the country under
+guard, with cases of provisions. Lieutenant Bolton,
+of the 1st West India Regiment, rendered immense
+service in this way. Having been for some time
+commandant of Accra, he knew the coast and many
+of the chiefs; and having a man-of-war placed at his
+disposal, he went up and down the coast, landing
+continually, having interviews with chiefs, and obtaining
+from them large numbers of men and women; or
+when this failed, landing at night with a party of
+soldiers, surrounding villages, and sweeping off the
+adult population, leaving only a few women to look
+after the children. In this way, in the course of a
+month, he obtained several thousands of carriers.’<a name="FNanchor_217" id="FNanchor_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p>
+
+<p>And then a certain school of writers talks of the
+love and respect for the British Empire which these
+exhibitions of our might are calculated to win from the
+inferior races! The Ashantees are disgraced by the
+practice of human sacrifices, and the Zulus have many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+a barbarous usage; but no amount of righteous indignation
+on that account justifies such dealings with them as
+those above described. If it does, we can no longer condemn
+the proceedings of the Spaniards in the New
+World. For we have to remember that it was not only
+the Christianity of the Inquisition, or Spanish commerce
+that they wished to spread; not mere gold nor
+new lands that they coveted, but that they also strove
+for such humanitarian objects as the abolition of barbarous
+customs like the Mexican human sacrifices. ‘The
+Spaniards that saw these cruel sacrifices,’ wrote a
+contemporary, the Jesuit Acosta, ‘resolved with all
+their power to abolish so detestable and cursed a
+butchery of men.’ The Spaniards of the sixteenth
+century were in intention or expression every whit as
+humane as we English of the nineteenth. Yet their
+actions have been a reproach to their name ever since.
+Cortes subjected Guatamozin, king of Mexico, to
+torture. Pizarro had the Inca of Peru strangled at
+the stake. Alvarado invited a number of Mexicans to
+a festival, and made it an opportunity to massacre
+them. Sandoval had 60 caziques and 400 nobles
+burnt at one time, and compelled their relations and
+children to witness their punishment. The Pope
+Paul had very soon (1537) to issue a bull, to the effect
+that the Indians were really men and not brutes, as
+the Spaniards soon affected to regard them.</p>
+
+<p>The whole question was, moreover, argued out at
+that time between Las Casas and Sepulveda, historiographer
+to the Emperor Charles V. Sepulveda contended
+that more could be effected against barbarism
+by a month of war than by 100 years of preaching;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+and in his famous dispute with Las Casas at Valladolid
+in 1550, defended the justice of all wars undertaken
+against the natives of the New World, either on
+the ground of the latter’s sin and wickedness, or on
+the plea of protecting them from the cruelties of their
+own fellow-countrymen; the latter plea being one
+to which in recent English wars a prominent place
+has been always given. Las Casas replied&mdash;and his
+reply is unanswerable&mdash;that even human sacrifices
+are a smaller evil than indiscriminate warfare. He
+might have added that military contact between
+people unequally civilised does more to barbarise the
+civilised than to civilise the barbarous population. It
+is well worthy of notice and reflection that the European
+battle-fields became distinctly more barbarous
+after habits of greater ferocity had been acquired in
+wars beyond the Atlantic, in which the customary
+restraints were forgotten, and the ties of a common
+human nature dissolved by the differences of religion
+and race.</p>
+
+<p>The same effect resulted in Roman history, when
+the extended dominion of the Republic brought its
+armies into contact with foes beyond the sea. The
+Roman annalists bear witness to the deterioration that
+ensued both in their modes of waging war and in the
+national character.<a name="FNanchor_218" id="FNanchor_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> It is in an Asiatic war that we first
+hear of a Roman general poisoning the springs;<a name="FNanchor_219" id="FNanchor_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> in a
+war for the possession of Crete that the Cretan captives
+preferred to poison themselves rather than suffer
+the cruelties inflicted on them by Metellus;<a name="FNanchor_220" id="FNanchor_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+Thracian war that the Romans cut off their prisoners’
+hands, as Cæsar afterwards did those of the Gauls.<a name="FNanchor_221" id="FNanchor_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>
+And we should remember that a practical English
+statesman like Cobden foresaw, as a possible evil
+result of the closer relations between England and the
+East, a similar deterioration in the national character
+of his countrymen. ‘With another war or two,’ he
+wrote, ‘in India and China, the English people would
+have an appetite for bull-fights if not for gladiators.’<a name="FNanchor_222" id="FNanchor_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor is there often any compensation for such
+results in the improved condition of the tribes whom
+it is sought to civilise after the method recommended
+by Sepulveda. The happiest fate of the populations
+he wished to see civilised by the sword was where they
+anticipated their extermination or slavery by a sort of
+voluntary suicide. In Cuba, we are told that ‘they
+put themselves to death, whole families doing so
+together, and villages inviting other villages to join
+them in a departure from a world that was no longer
+tolerable.’<a name="FNanchor_223" id="FNanchor_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> And so it was in the other hemisphere;
+the Ladrone islanders, reduced by the sword and the
+diseases of the Spaniards, took measures intentionally
+to diminish their numbers and to check population,
+preferring voluntary extinction to the foul mercies of
+the Jesuits: till now a lepers’ hospital is the only
+building left on what was once one of the most
+populous of their islands.</p>
+
+<p>It must, however, be admitted in justice to the
+Spaniards, that the principles which governed their
+dealings with heathen races infected more or less the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+conduct of colonists of all nationalities. A real or
+more often a pretended zeal for the welfare of native
+tribes came among all Christian nations to co-exist
+with the doctrine, that in case of conflict with them
+the common restraints of war might be put in abeyance.
+What, for instance, can be worse than this, told
+of the early English settlers in America by one of
+themselves? ‘The Plymouth men came in the mean
+time to Weymouth, and there pretended to feast the
+savages of those parts, bringing with them forks and
+things for the purpose, which they set before the
+savages. They ate thereof without any suspicion of
+any mischief, who were taken upon a watchword
+given, and with their own knives hanging about their
+necks were by the Plymouth planters stabbed and
+slain.’<a name="FNanchor_224" id="FNanchor_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p>Among the early English settlers it soon came to
+be thought, says Mather, a religious act to kill an
+Indian. In the latter half of the seventeenth century
+both the French and English authorities adopted the
+custom of scalping and of offering rewards for the
+scalps of their Indian enemies. In 1690 the most
+healthy and vigorous Indians taken by the French
+‘were sold in Canada, the weaker were sacrificed and
+scalped, and for every scalp they had a premium.’<a name="FNanchor_225" id="FNanchor_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a>
+Caleb Lyman, who afterwards became an elder of a
+church at Boston, left an account of the way in which
+he himself and five Indians surprised a wigwam, and
+scalped six of the seven persons inside, so that each
+might receive the promised reward. On their petition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+to the great and general court they received 30<i>l.</i>
+each, and Penhallow says not only that they probably
+expected eight times as much, but that at the time of
+writing the province would have readily paid a sum
+of 800<i>l.</i> for a similar service.<a name="FNanchor_226" id="FNanchor_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> Captain Lovewell, says
+the same contemporary eulogist of the war that lasted
+from July 1722 to December 1725, ‘from Dunstable
+with thirty volunteers went northward, who marching
+several miles up country came on a wigwam where
+were two Indians, one of whom they killed and the
+other took, for which they received the promised
+bounty of 100<i>l.</i> a scalp, and two shillings and sixpence
+a day besides.’ (December 19, 1724.)<a name="FNanchor_227" id="FNanchor_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> At the surprise
+of Norridjwock ‘the number of dead which
+we scalped were 26, besides Mr. Rasle the Jesuit, who
+was a bloody incendiary.’<a name="FNanchor_228" id="FNanchor_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> It is evident that these
+very liberal rewards must have operated as a frequent
+cause of Indian wars, and made the colonists open-eared
+to tales of native outrages; indeed the whites
+sometimes disguised themselves like Indians, and
+robbed like Indians, in order, it would appear, the
+more effectually to raise the war-cry against them.<a name="FNanchor_229" id="FNanchor_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>
+
+<p>Since the Spaniards first trained bloodhounds
+in Cuba to hunt the Indians, the alliance between
+soldiers and dogs has been a favourite one in barbarian
+warfare. The Portuguese used them in Brazil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+when they hunted the natives for slaves.<a name="FNanchor_230" id="FNanchor_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> And
+an English officer in a treatise he wrote in the last
+century as a sort of military guide to Indian warfare
+suggested coolly: ‘Every light horseman ought to be
+provided with a bloodhound, which would be useful
+to find out the enemy’s ambushes and to follow their
+tracks. They would seize the naked savages, and
+at least give time to the horsemen to come up with
+them.’<a name="FNanchor_231" id="FNanchor_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> In the Molucca Islands the use of two bloodhounds
+against a native chief was the cause of a great
+confederacy between all the islands to shake off the
+Spanish and Portuguese yoke.<a name="FNanchor_232" id="FNanchor_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> And even in the war
+waged by the United States in Florida from 1838 to
+1840, General Taylor was authorised to send to Cuba
+for bloodhounds to scent out the Indians; nor, according
+to one account, was their aid resorted to in vain.<a name="FNanchor_233" id="FNanchor_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></p>
+
+<p>Poison too has been called in aid. Speaking of
+the Yuta Indians, a traveller assures us that ‘as in
+Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in springs
+and provisions have diminished their number.’<a name="FNanchor_234" id="FNanchor_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> And
+in the same way ‘poisoned rum helped to exterminate
+the Tasmanians.’<a name="FNanchor_235" id="FNanchor_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a></p>
+
+<p>But there is worse yet in this direction. The
+Portuguese in Brazil, when the importation of slaves
+from Africa rendered the capture of the natives less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+desirable than their extermination, left the clothes of
+persons who had died of small-pox or scarlet fever to
+be found by them in the woods.<a name="FNanchor_236" id="FNanchor_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> And the caravan
+traders from the Missouri to Santa Fé are said by the
+same method or in presents of tobacco to have communicated
+the small-pox to the Indian tribes of that
+district in 1831.<a name="FNanchor_237" id="FNanchor_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> The enormous depopulation of
+most tribes by the small-pox since their acquaintance
+with the whites is one of the most remarkable results
+in the history of their mutual connection; nor is it
+likely ever to be known to what extent the coincidence
+was accidental.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to turn from these practical illustrations
+of the theory that no laws of war need be regarded
+in hostilities with savage tribes to the only recorded
+trial of a contrary system, and to find, not only that it
+is associated with one of the greatest names in English
+history, but also that the success it met with fully
+justifies the suspicion and disfavour with which the
+commoner usage is beginning to be regarded. The
+Indians with whom Penn made his famous treaty in
+1682 (of which Voltaire said that it was the only treaty
+that was never ratified by an oath, and the only treaty
+that was never broken), were of the same Algonquin
+race with whom the Dutch had scarcely ever kept at
+peace, and against whom they had warred in the
+customary ruthless fashion of those times. The
+treaty was based on the principle of an adjustment
+of differences by a tribunal of an equal number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+Red men and of White. ‘Penn,’ says the historian,
+‘came without arms; he declared his purpose to
+abstain from violence, he had no message but peace,
+and not one drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by
+an Indian’<a name="FNanchor_238" id="FNanchor_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> For more than seventy years, from 1682
+to 1754, when the French war broke out, in short,
+during the whole time that the Quakers had the principal
+share in the government of Pennsylvania, the
+history of the Indians and Whites in that province
+was free from the tale of murders and hostilities that
+was so common in other districts; so that the single
+instance in which the experiment of equal laws and
+forbearance has been patiently persevered in, can at
+least boast of a success that in support of the contrary
+system it were very difficult to find for an equal
+number of years in any other part of the world.</p>
+
+<p>It may also be said against Sepulveda’s doctrine,
+that the habits of a higher civilisation, where they are
+really worth spreading, spread more easily and with
+more permanent effect among barbarous neighbours
+by the mere contagion of a better example than by
+the teaching of fire and sword. Some of the Dyak
+tribes in Borneo are said to have given up human
+sacrifices from the better influences of the Malays
+on the coast district.<a name="FNanchor_239" id="FNanchor_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> The Peruvians, according to
+Prescott, spread their civilisation among their ruder
+neighbours more by example than by force. ‘Far
+from provoking hostilities, they allowed time for the
+salutary example of their own institutions to work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+its effect, trusting that their less civilised neighbours
+would submit to their sceptre from a conviction of
+the blessings it would secure to them.’ They exhorted
+them to lay aside their cannibalism, their human
+sacrifices, and their other barbarities; they employed
+negotiation, conciliatory treatment, and presents to
+leading men among the tribes; and only if all these
+means failed did they resort to war, but to war which
+at every stage was readily open to propositions of
+peace, and in which any unnecessary outrage on the
+persons or property of their enemy was punished with
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Something will have been done for the cause of
+this better method of civilising the lower races, if we
+forewarn and forearm ourselves against the symptoms
+of hostilities with them by a thorough understanding
+of the conditions which render such hostilities probable.
+For as an outbreak of fever is to some extent
+preventable by a knowledge of the conditions which
+make for fevers, so may the outbreak of war be
+averted by a knowledge of the laws which govern
+their appearance. The experience which we owe to
+history in this respect is amply sufficient to enable us
+to generalise with some degree of confidence and
+certainty as to the causes or steps which produce
+wars or precede them; and from the remembrance of
+our dealings with the savage races of South Africa
+we may forecast with some misgivings the probable
+course of our connection with a country like New
+Guinea.</p>
+
+<p>A colony of Europeans in proximity with barbarian
+neighbours naturally desires before long an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+increase of territory at the expense of the latter.
+The first sign of such a desire is the expedition of
+missionaries into the country, who not only serve to
+spy it out for the benefit of the colony, but invariably
+weaken the native political force by the creation of a
+division of feeling, and of an opposition between the
+love of old traditions and the temptation of novel
+customs and ideas. The innovating party, being at
+first the smaller, consisting of the feeblest and poorest
+members of the community, and of those who gladly
+flock to the mission-stations for refuge from their
+offences against tribal law, the missionaries soon perceive
+the impossibility of further success without the
+help of some external aid. The help of a friendly
+force can alone turn the balance of influence in their
+favour, and they soon learn to contemplate with complacency
+the advantages of a military conquest of the
+natives by the colony or mother-country. The evils
+of war are cancelled, in their eyes, by the delusive
+visions of ultimate benefit, and, in accordance with a
+not uncommon perversion of the moral sense, an end
+that is assumed to be religious is made to justify
+measures that are the reverse.</p>
+
+<p>When the views and interests of the colonial
+settlers and of the missionaries have thus, inevitably
+but without design, fallen into harmony, a war is
+certain to be not far distant. Apparently accidental,
+it is in reality as certain as the production of green
+from a mixture of blue and yellow. Some dispute
+about boundaries, some passing act of violence, will
+serve for a reason of quarrel, which will presently
+be supported by a fixed array of collateral pretexts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+The Press readily lends its aid; and in a week the
+colony trembles or affects to tremble from a panic
+of invasion, and vials of virtue are expended on the
+vices of the barbarians which have been for years
+tolerated with equanimity or indifference. Their customs
+are painted in the blackest colours; the details
+of savage usages are raked up from old books of
+travel; rumours of massacres and injuries are sedulously
+propagated; and the whole country is represented
+as in such a state of anarchy, that the majority
+of the population, in their longing for deliverance
+from their own rulers, would gladly welcome even a
+foreign conqueror. In short, a war against them
+comes speedily to be regarded as a war in their behalf,
+as the last word of philanthropy and beneficence;
+and the atrocities that subsequently ensue are professedly
+undertaken, not against the unfortunate people
+who endure them, but to liberate them from the ruler
+of their choice or sufferance, in whose behalf however
+they fight to the death.</p>
+
+<p>To every country, therefore, which would fain be
+spared from these discreditable wars with barbarian
+tribes on the borders of its colonies, it is clear that
+the greatest caution is necessary against the abuses
+of missionary propagandism. The almost absolute
+failure of missions in recent centuries, and more especially
+in the nineteenth, is intimately associated with
+the greater political importance which the improved
+facilities of travel and intercourse have conferred upon
+them. Everyone has heard how Catholicism was
+persecuted in Japan, till at last the very profession of
+Christianity was made a capital crime in that part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+the world. But a traveller, who knew the East intimately
+at the time, explains how it was that the
+Jesuits’ labours resulted so disastrously. On the outbreak
+of civil dissensions in Japan, ‘the Christian
+priests thought it a proper time for them to settle
+their religion on the same foundation that Mahomet
+did his, by establishing it in blood. Their thoughts
+ran on nothing less than extirpating the heathen out
+of the land, and they framed a conspiracy of raising
+an army of 50,000 Christians to murder their countrymen,
+that so the whole island might be illuminated
+by Christianity such as it was then.’<a name="FNanchor_240" id="FNanchor_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> And in the
+same way, a modern writer, speaking of the very
+limited success of missions in India, has asserted
+frankly that ‘in despair many Christians in India are
+driven to wish and pray that some one, or some
+way, may arise for converting the Indians by the
+sword.’<a name="FNanchor_241" id="FNanchor_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor are the heathen themselves blind to the political
+dangers which are involved in the presence of missionaries
+among them. All over the world conversion
+is from the native point of view the same thing as
+disaffection, and war is dreaded as the certain consequence
+of the adoption of Christianity. The French
+bishop, Lefebvre, when asked by the mandarins of
+Cochin China, in 1847, the purpose of his visit, said
+that he read in their faces that they suspected him
+‘of having come to excite some outbreak among
+the neophytes, and perhaps prepare the way for an
+European army;’ and the king was ‘afraid to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+Christians multiply in his kingdom, and in case of
+war with European Powers, combine with his enemies.’<a name="FNanchor_242" id="FNanchor_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a>
+How right events have proved him to have
+been!</p>
+
+<p>The story is the same in Africa. ‘Not long after
+I entered the country,’ said the missionary, Mr. Calderwood,
+of Caffraria, ‘a leading chief once said to me,
+“When my people become Christians, they cease to be
+my people.”’<a name="FNanchor_243" id="FNanchor_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> The Norwegian missionaries were for
+twenty years in Zululand without making any converts
+but a few destitute children, many of whom had been
+given to them out of pity by the chiefs,<a name="FNanchor_244" id="FNanchor_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> and their
+failure was actually ascribed by the Zulu king to their
+having taught the incompatibility of Christianity with
+allegiance to a heathen ruler.<a name="FNanchor_245" id="FNanchor_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> In 1877, a Zulu of
+authority expressed the prevalent native reasoning on
+this point in language which supplies the key to disappointments
+that extend much further than Zululand:
+‘We will not allow the Zulus to become so-called
+Christians. It is not the king says so, but every man
+in Zululand. If a Zulu does anything wrong, he at
+once goes to a mission-station, and says he wants to
+become a Christian; if he wants to run away with a
+girl, he becomes a Christian; if he wishes to be
+exempt from serving the king, he puts on clothes, and
+is a Christian; if a man is an umtagati (evil-doer), he
+becomes a Christian.’<a name="FNanchor_246" id="FNanchor_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is on this account that in wars with savage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+nations the destruction of mission-stations has always
+been so constant an episode. Nor can we wonder at
+this when we recollect that in the Caffre war of 1851,
+for instance, it was a subject of boast with the missionaries
+that it was Caffres trained on the mission-stations
+who had preserved the English posts along
+the frontiers, carried the English despatches, and
+fought against their own countrymen for the preservation
+and defence of the colony.<a name="FNanchor_247" id="FNanchor_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> It is rather a poor
+result of all the money and labour that has been spent
+in the attempt to Christianise South Africa, that the
+Wesleyan mission-station at Edendale should have
+contributed an efficient force of cavalry to fight against
+their countrymen in the Zulu campaign; and we may
+hesitate whether most to despise the missionaries who
+count such a result as a triumph of their efforts, or
+the converts whom they reward with tea and cake for
+military service with the enemies of their countrymen.<a name="FNanchor_248" id="FNanchor_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p>
+
+<p>It needs no great strain of intelligence to perceive
+that this use of mission-stations as military training-schools
+scarcely tends to enhance the advantages of
+conversion in the minds of the heathen among whom
+they are planted.</p>
+
+<p>For these reasons, and because it is becoming daily
+more apparent that wars are less a necessary evil than
+an optional misery of human life, the principal measure
+for a country which would fain improve, and live at
+peace with, the less civilised races which touch the
+numerous borders of its empire, would be the legal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+restraint or prevention of missionary enterprise: a
+proposal that will appear less startling if we reflect that
+in no quarter of the globe can that method of civilising
+barbarism point to more than local or ephemeral
+success. The Protestant missions of this century are
+in process of failure, as fatal and decided as that which
+befel the Catholic missions of the French, Portuguese,
+or Spanish, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+and very much from the same causes. The English
+wars in South Africa, with which the Protestant
+missionaries have been so closely connected, have
+frustrated all attempts to Christianise that region, just
+as ‘the fearful wars occasioned directly or indirectly
+by the missionaries’ sent by the Portuguese to the
+kingdoms of Congo and Angola in the sixteenth century
+rendered futile similar attempts on the West
+Coast.<a name="FNanchor_249" id="FNanchor_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p>
+
+<p>The same process of depopulation under Protestant
+influences may now be observed in the Sandwich
+Islands or New Zealand that reduced the population
+of Hispaniola, under Spanish Christianity, from a
+million to 14,000 in a quarter of a century.<a name="FNanchor_250" id="FNanchor_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> No
+Protestant missionary ever laboured with more zeal
+than Eliot did in America in the seventeenth century,
+but the tribes he taught have long since been extinct:
+‘like one of their own forest trees, they have withered
+from core to bark;’<a name="FNanchor_251" id="FNanchor_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> and, in short, the history of both
+Catholic and Protestant missions alike may be summed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+up in this one general statement: either they have
+failed altogether of results on a sufficient scale to be
+worthy of notice, or the impartial page of history
+unfolds to us one uniform tale of civil war, persecution,
+conquest, and extirpation in whatever regions they
+can boast of more at least of the semblance of success.</p>
+
+<p>Another measure in the interests of peace would
+be the organisation of a class of well-paid officials
+whose duty it should be to examine on the spot into
+the truth of all rumours of outrages or atrocities
+which are circulated from time to time, in order to set
+the tide of public opinion in favour of hostile measures.
+Such rumours may, of course, have some foundation,
+but in nine cases out of ten they are false. So lately
+as the year 1882, the <i>Times</i> and other English papers
+were so far deceived as to give their readers a horrible
+account of the sacrifice of 200 young girls to the
+spirits of the dead in Ashantee; and people were
+beginning to ask themselves whether such things
+could be suffered within reach of an English army,
+when it was happily discovered that the whole story
+was fictitious. Stories of this sort are what the
+Germans call <i>Tendenzlügen</i>, or lies invented to produce
+a certain effect. Their effect in rousing the war-spirit
+is undeniable; and, although the healthy scepticism
+which has of recent years been born of experience
+affords us some protection, no expenditure could be
+more economical than one which should aim at rendering
+them powerless by neutralising them at the
+fountain-head.</p>
+
+<p>In the preceding historical survey of the relations
+in war between communities standing on different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+levels of civilisation, the allusion, among some of the
+rudest tribes, to laws of war very similar to those
+supposed to be binding between more polished nations
+tends to discredit the distinction between civilised
+and barbarian warfare. The progress of knowledge
+threatens the overthrow of the distinction, just
+as it has already reduced that between organic and
+inorganic matter, or between animal and vegetable life,
+to a distinction founded rather on human thought than
+on the nature of things. And it is probable that the
+more the military side of savage life is studied, the
+fewer will be found to be the lines of demarcation
+which are thought to establish a difference in kind in
+the conduct of war by belligerents in different stages
+of progress. The difference in this respect is chiefly
+one of weapons, of strategy, and of tactics; and it
+would seem that whatever superiority the more civilised
+community may claim in its rules of war is more
+than compensated in savage life both by the less
+frequent occurrence of wars and by their far less fatal
+character.</p>
+
+<p>But, however much the frequency and ferocity of
+the wars waged by barbarian races as compared with
+those waged by civilised nations has been exaggerated,
+there is no doubt but that in warfare, more than in
+anything else, there is most in common between civilisation
+and savagery, and that the distinction between
+them most nearly disappears. In art and knowledge
+and religion the distinction between the two is so
+wide that the evolution of one from the other seems
+still to many minds incredible; but in war, and the
+thoughts which relate to it, the points of analogy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+cannot fail to strike the most indifferent. We see
+still in either condition, the same notions of the glory
+of fighting, the same belief in war as the only source
+of strength and honour, the same hope from it of
+personal advancement, the same readiness to seize
+any pretext for resorting to it, the same foolish
+sentiment that it is mean to live without it.</p>
+
+<p>Then only will the distinction between the two be
+final, complete, and real, when all fighting is relegated
+to barbarism, and regarded as unworthy of civilised
+humanity; when the enlightenment of opinion, which
+has freed us already from such curses as slavery, the
+torture-chamber, or duelling, shall demand instinctively
+the settlement of all causes of quarrel by peaceful
+arbitration, and leave to the lower races and the
+lower creation the old-fashioned resort to a trial of
+violence and might, to competition in fraud and
+ferocity.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Etsi adierant milites ad Joannem et formam observationis
+acceperant, si etiam centurio crediderat, omnem postea militem
+Dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tertullian.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">The war question at the time of the Reformation&mdash;The remonstrances
+of Erasmus against the custom&mdash;Influence of Grotius on the side of
+war&mdash;The war question in the early Church&mdash;The Fathers against
+the lawfulness of war&mdash;Causes of the changed views of the Church&mdash;The
+clergy as active combatants for over one thousand years&mdash;Fighting
+Bishops&mdash;Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment&mdash;Pope
+Julius II. at the siege of Mirandola&mdash;The last fighting Bishop&mdash;Origin
+and meaning of the declaration of war&mdash;Superstition in
+the naming of weapons, ships, &amp;c.&mdash;The custom of kissing the earth
+before a charge&mdash;Connection between religious and military ideas&mdash;The
+Church as a pacific agency&mdash;Her efforts to set limits to reprisals&mdash;The
+altered attitude of the modern Church&mdash;Early reformers only
+sanctioned just wars&mdash;Voltaire’s reproach against the Church&mdash;Canon
+Mozley’s sermon on war&mdash;The answer to his apology.</p>
+
+<p>Whether military service was lawful for a Christian
+at all was at the time of the Reformation one of the
+most keenly debated questions; and considering the
+force of opinion arrayed on the negative side, its
+ultimate decision in the affirmative is a matter of
+more wonder than is generally given to it. Sir
+Thomas More charges Luther and his disciples with
+carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits
+of non-resistance; and the views on this subject of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+the Mennonites and Quakers were but what at one
+time seemed not unlikely to have been those of the
+Reformed Church generally.</p>
+
+<p>By far the foremost champion on the negative
+side was Erasmus, who being at Rome at the time
+when the League of Cambray, under the auspices of
+Julius II., was meditating war against the Republic of
+Venice, wrote a book to the Pope, entitled ‘Antipolemus,’
+which, though never completed, probably exists
+in part in his tract known under the title of ‘Dulce
+Bellum inexpertis,’ and printed among his ‘Adagia.’
+In it he complained, as one might complain still, that
+the custom of war was so recognised as an incident
+of life that men wondered there should be any to
+whom it was displeasing; and likewise so approved
+of generally, that to find any fault with it savoured
+not only of impiety, but of actual heresy. To speak
+of it, therefore, as he did in the following passage,
+required some courage: ‘If there be anything in the
+affairs of mortals which it is the interest of men not
+only to attack, but which ought by every possible
+means to be avoided, condemned, and abolished, it is
+of all things war, than which nothing is more impious,
+more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate,
+more base, or in sum more unworthy of a
+man, not to say of a Christian.’ In a letter to
+Francis I. on the same subject, he noticed as an
+astonishing fact, that out of such a multitude of
+abbots, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals as existed
+in the world, not one of them should step forward to
+do what he could, even at the risk of his life, to put
+an end to so deplorable a practice.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The failure of this view of the custom of war,
+which is in its essence more opposed to Christianity
+than the custom of selling men for slaves or sacrificing
+them to idols, to take any root in men’s minds,
+is a misfortune on which the whole history of Europe
+since Erasmus forms a sufficient commentary. That
+failure is partly due to the unlucky accident which led
+Grotius in this matter to throw all his weight into the
+opposite scale. For this famous jurist, entering at
+much length into the question of the compatibility
+of war with the profession of Christianity (thereby
+proving the importance which in his day still attached
+to it), came to conclusions in favour of the received
+opinion, which are curiously characteristic both of the
+writer and his time. His general argument was, that
+if a sovereign was justified in putting his own subjects
+to death for crimes, much more was he justified
+in using the sword against people who were not his
+subjects, but strangers to him. And this absurd
+argument was enforced by considerations as feeble as
+the following: that laws of war were laid down in
+the Book of Deuteronomy; that John the Baptist did
+not bid the soldiers, who consulted him, to forsake
+their calling, but to abstain from extortion and be
+content with their wages; that Cornelius the centurion,
+whom St. Peter baptized, neither gave up his
+military life, nor was exhorted by the apostle to do
+so; that the Emperor Constantine had many Christians
+in his armies, and the name of Christ inscribed
+upon his banners; and that the military oath after
+his time was taken in the name of the Three Persons
+of the Trinity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One single reflection will suffice to display the
+utter shallowness of this reasoning, which was after
+all only borrowed from St. Augustine. For if Biblical
+texts are a justification of war, they are clearly a
+justification of slavery; whilst, on the other hand, the
+general spirit of the Christian religion, to say nothing
+of several positive passages, is at least equally opposed
+to one custom as to the other. If then the
+abolition of slavery is one of the services for which
+Christianity as an influence in history claims a large
+share of the credit, its failure to abolish the other
+custom must in fairness be set against it; for it were
+easier to defend slave-holding out of the language of
+the New Testament than to defend military service,
+far more being actually said there to inculcate the
+duty of peace than to inculcate the principles of
+social equality: and the same may be said of the
+writings of the Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>The different attitude of the Church towards these
+two customs in modern times, her vehement condemnation
+of the one, and her tolerance or encouragement
+of the other, appears all the more surprising
+when we remember that in the early centuries of our
+era her attitude was exactly the reverse, and that,
+whilst slavery was permitted, the unlawfulness of war
+was denounced with no uncertain or wavering voice.</p>
+
+<p>When Tertullian wrote his treatise ‘De Corona’
+(201) concerning the right of Christian soldiers to
+wear laurel crowns, he used words on this subject
+which, even if at variance with some of his statements
+made in his ‘Apology’ thirty years earlier, may be
+taken to express his maturer judgment. ‘Shall the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+son of peace’ (that is, a Christian), he asks, ‘act in
+battle when it will not befit him even to go to
+law? Shall he administer bonds and imprisonments
+and tortures and punishments who may not avenge
+even his own injuries?... The very transference of
+his enrolment from the army of light to that of
+darkness is sin.’ And again: ‘What if the soldiers
+did go to John and receive the rule of their service,
+and what if the Centurion did believe; the Lord by
+his disarming of Peter disarmed every soldier from
+that time forward.’ Tertullian made an exception in
+favour of soldiers whose conversion was subsequent
+to their enrolment (as was implied in discussing their
+duty with regard to the laurel-wreath), though insisting
+even in their case that they ought either to
+leave the service, as many did, or to refuse participation
+in its acts, which were inconsistent with their
+Christian profession. So that at that time Christian
+opinion was clearly not only averse to a military life
+being entered upon after baptism (of which there are
+no instances on record), but in favour of its being
+forsaken, if the enrolment preceded the baptism.
+The Christians who served in the armies of Rome
+were not men who were converts or Christians at the
+time of enrolling, but men who remained with the
+colours after their conversion. If it is certain that
+some Christians <i>remained</i> in the army, it appears
+equally certain that no Christian at that time thought
+of <i>entering</i> it.</p>
+
+<p>This seems the best solution of the much-debated
+question, to what extent Christians served at all in the
+early centuries. Irenæus speaks of the Christians in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+the second century as not knowing how to fight, and
+Justin Martyr, his contemporary, considered Isaiah’s
+prophecy about the swords being turned into ploughshares
+as in part fulfilled, because his co-religionists,
+who in times past had killed one another, did not
+then know how to fight even with their enemies. The
+charge made by Celsus against the Christians, that
+they refused to bear arms even in case of necessity,
+was admitted by Origen, but justified on the ground
+of the unlawfulness of war. ‘We indeed,’ he says,
+‘fight in a special way on the king’s behalf, but we
+do not go on campaigns with him, even should he
+press us to do so; we do battle on his behalf as
+a peculiar army of piety, prevailing by our prayers to
+God for him.’ And again: ‘We no longer take up
+the sword against people, nor learn to make war
+any more, having become through Jesus, who is our
+general, sons of peace.’ Nothing could be clearer
+nor more conclusive than this language; and the
+same attitude towards war was expressed or implied
+by the following Fathers in chronological order:
+Justin Martyr, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian,
+Cyprian, Lactantius, Archelaus, Ambrose,
+Chrysostom, Jerome, and Cyril. Eusebius says that
+many Christians in the third century laid aside the
+military life rather than abjure their religion. Of
+10,050 pagan inscriptions that have been collected,
+545 were found to belong to pagan soldiers, while of
+4,734 Christian inscriptions of the same period, only
+27 were those of soldiers; from which it seems rather
+absurd to infer, as a French writer has inferred, not
+that there was a great disproportion of Christian to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+pagan soldiers in the imperial armies, but that most
+Christian soldiers being soldiers of Christ did not like
+to have it recorded on their epitaphs that they had
+been in the service of any <i>man</i>.<a name="FNanchor_252" id="FNanchor_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, there were certainly always
+some Christians who remained in the ranks after
+their conversion, in spite of the military oath in the
+names of the pagan deities and the quasi-worship of
+the standards which constituted some part of the
+early Christian antipathy to war. This is implied in
+the remarks of Tertullian, and stands in no need of
+the support of such legends as the Thundering Legion
+of Christians, whose prayers obtained rain, or of the
+Theban legion of 6,000 Christians martyred under
+Maximian. It was left as a matter of individual
+conscience. In the story of the martyr Maximilian,
+when Dion the proconsul reminded him that there
+were Christian soldiers among the life-guards of the
+Emperors, the former replied, ‘They know what is
+best for them to do; but I am a Christian and cannot
+fight.’ Marcellus, the converted centurion, threw
+down his belt at the head of his legion, and suffered
+death rather than continue in the service; and the
+annals of the early Church abound in similar martyrdoms.
+Nor can there be much doubt but that a love
+of peace and dislike of bloodshed were the principal
+causes of this early Christian attitude towards the
+military profession, and that the idolatry and other
+pagan rites connected with it only acted as minor and
+secondary deterrents. Thus, in the Greek Church
+St. Basil would have excluded from communion for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+three years any one who had shed an enemy’s blood;
+and a similar feeling explains Theodosius’ refusal to
+partake of the Eucharist after his great victory over
+Eugenius. The canons of the Church excluded from
+ordination all who had served in an army after
+baptism; and in the fifth century Innocent I. blamed
+the Spanish churches for their laxity in admitting
+such persons into holy orders.<a name="FNanchor_253" id="FNanchor_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></p>
+
+<p>The anti-military tendency of opinion in the early
+period of Christianity appears therefore indisputable,
+and Tertullian would probably have smiled at the
+prophet who should have predicted that Christians
+would have ceased to keep slaves long before they
+should have ceased to commit murder and robbery
+under the fiction of hostilities. But it proves the
+strength of the original impetus, that Ulphilas, the
+first apostle to the Goths, should purposely, in his
+translation of the Scriptures, have omitted the Books
+of Kings, as too stimulative of a love of war.</p>
+
+<p>How utterly in this matter Christianity came to
+forsake its earlier ideal is known to all. This resulted
+partly from the frequent use of the sword for the
+purpose of conversion, and partly from the rise of the
+Mahometan power, which made wars with the infidel
+appear in the light of acts of faith, and changed the
+whole of Christendom into a kind of vast standing
+military order. But it resulted still more from that
+compromise effected in the fourth century between
+paganism and the new religion, in which the former
+retained more than it lost, and the latter gave less
+than it received. Considering that the Druid priests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+of ancient Gaul or Britain, like those of pagan Rome,
+were exempt from military service,<a name="FNanchor_254" id="FNanchor_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> and often, according
+to Strabo, had such influence as to part combatants
+on the point of an engagement, nothing is more remarkable
+than the extent to which the Christian
+clergy, bishops, and abbots came to lead armies and
+fight in battle, in spite of canons and councils of the
+Church, at a time when that Church’s power was
+greater, and its influence wider, than it has ever been
+since. Historians have scarcely given due prominence
+to this fact, which covers a period of at least a thousand
+years; for Gregory of Tours mentions two
+bishops of the sixth century who had killed many
+enemies with their own hands, whilst Erasmus, in the
+sixteenth, complains of bishops taking more pride in
+leading three or four hundred dragoons, with swords
+and guns, than in a following of deacons and divinity
+students, and asks, with just sarcasm, why the trumpet
+and fife should sound sweeter in their ears than the
+singing of psalms or the words of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>In the fourteenth century, when war and chivalry
+were at their height, occurred a remarkable protest
+against this state of things from Wycliffe, who, in
+this, as in other respects, anticipated the Reformation:
+‘Friars now say that bishops can fight best of all
+men, and that it falleth most properly to them, since
+they are lords of all this world. They say, Christ
+bade his disciples sell their coats, and buy them
+swords; but whereto, if not to fight? Thus friars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+make a great array, and stir up men to fight. But
+Christ taught not his apostles to fight with a sword of
+iron, but with the sword of God’s word, which standeth
+in meekness of heart and in the prudence of man’s
+tongue.... If manslaying in others be odious to
+God, much more in priests who should be vicars
+of Christ.’ And Wycliffe proceeds not only to protest
+against this, but to advocate the general cause of
+peace on earth, on grounds which he is aware that
+men of the world will scorn and reject as fatal to the
+existence of kingdoms.<a name="FNanchor_255" id="FNanchor_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was no occasional, but an inveterate practice,
+and, apparently, common in the world, long before
+the system of feudalism gave it some justification by
+the connection of military service with the enjoyment
+of lands. Yet it has now so completely disappeared
+that&mdash;as a proof of the possible change of thought
+which may ultimately render a Christian soldier as
+great an anomaly as a fighting bishop&mdash;it is worth
+recalling from history some instances of so curious
+a custom. ‘The bishops themselves&mdash;not all, but
+many’&mdash;says a writer of King Stephen’s reign,
+‘bound in iron, and completely furnished with arms,
+were accustomed to mount war-horses with the perverters
+of their country, to share in their spoil; to
+bind and torture the knights whom they took in the
+chance of war, or whom they met full of money.’<a name="FNanchor_256" id="FNanchor_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>
+It was at the battle of Bouvines (1214) that the
+famous Bishop of Beauvais fought with a club instead
+of a sword, out of respect for the rule of the canon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+which forbade an ecclesiastic to shed blood. Matthew
+Paris tells the story how Richard I. took the said
+bishop prisoner, and when the Pope begged for his
+release as being his own son and a son of the Church,
+sent to Innocent III. the episcopal coat of mail, with
+the inquiry whether he recognised it as that of his son
+or of a son of the Church; to which the Pope had the
+wit to reply that he could not recognise it as belonging
+to either.<a name="FNanchor_257" id="FNanchor_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> The story also bears repeating of the
+impatient knight who, sharing the command of a
+division at the battle of Falkirk with the Bishop of
+Durham, cried out to his slower colleague, before
+closing with the Scots, ‘It is not for you to teach us
+war; to your Mass, bishop!’ and therewith rushed
+with his followers into the fray (1298).<a name="FNanchor_258" id="FNanchor_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is, however, needless to multiply instances,
+which, if Du Cange may be credited, became more common
+during the devastation of France by the Danes
+in the ninth century, when all the military aid that
+was available became a matter of national existence.
+That event rendered Charlemagne’s capitulary a dead
+letter, by which that monarch had forbidden any
+ecclesiastic to march against an enemy, save two or
+three bishops to bless the army or reconcile the
+combatants, and a few priests to give absolution and
+celebrate the Mass.<a name="FNanchor_259" id="FNanchor_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> It appears that this law was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+made in response to an exhortation by Pope Adrian II.,
+similar to one addressed in the previous century by
+Pope Zachary to Charlemagne’s ancestor, King Pepin.
+But though military service and the tenure of ecclesiastical
+benefices became more common from the time
+of the Danish irruptions, instances are recorded of
+abbots and archbishops who chose rather to surrender
+their temporalities than to take part in active service;
+and for many centuries the whole question seems to
+have rested on a most uncertain footing, law and
+custom demanding as a duty that which public and
+ecclesiastical opinion condoned, but which the Church
+herself condemned.</p>
+
+<p>It is a signal mark of the degree to which religion
+became enveloped in the military spirit of those miserable
+days of chivalry, that ecclesiastical preferment
+was sometimes the reward of bravery on the field, as
+in the case of that chaplain to the Earl of Douglas
+who, for his courage displayed at the battle of Otterbourne,
+was, Froissart tells us, promoted the same
+year to a canonry and archdeaconry at Aberdeen.</p>
+
+<p>Vasari, in his ‘Life of Michael Angelo,’ has a good
+story which is not only highly typical of this martial
+Christianity, but may be also taken to mark the
+furthest point of divergence reached by the Church
+in this respect from the standpoint of her earlier
+teaching. Pope Julius II. went one day to see a
+statue of himself which Michael Angelo was executing.
+The right hand of the statue was raised in a dignified
+attitude, and the artist consulted the Pope as to
+whether he should place a book in the left. ‘Put a
+sword into it,’ quoth Julius, ‘for of letters I know but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+little.’ This was the Pope of whom Bayle says that
+never man had a more warlike soul, and of whom,
+with some doubt, he repeats the anecdote of his
+having thrown into the Tiber the keys of St. Peter,
+with the declaration that he would thenceforth use
+the sword of St. Paul. However this may be, he
+went in person to hasten the siege of Mirandola, in
+opposition to the protests of the cardinals and to the
+scandal of Christendom (1510). There it was that
+to encourage the soldiers he promised them, that if
+they exerted themselves valiantly he would make no
+terms with the town, but would suffer them to sack
+it;<a name="FNanchor_260" id="FNanchor_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> and though this did not occur, and the town ultimately
+surrendered on terms, the head of the Christian
+Church had himself conveyed into it by the breach.</p>
+
+<p>The scandal of this proceeding contributed its
+share to the discontent which produced the Reformation;
+and that movement continued still further the
+disfavour with which many already viewed the connection
+of the clergy with actual warfare. It has,
+however, happened occasionally since that epoch that
+priests of martial tastes have been enabled to gratify
+them, the custom having become more and more rare
+as public opinion grew stronger against it. The last
+recorded instance of a fighting divine was, it would
+seem, the Bishop of Derry, who, having been raised to
+that see by William III. in gratitude for the distinguished
+bravery with which, though a clergyman, he
+had conducted the defence of Londonderry against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+forces of James II., and for which the University of
+Oxford rewarded him with the title of Doctor of
+Divinity, was shot dead at the battle of the Boyne.
+He had, says Macaulay, ‘during the siege in which he
+had so highly distinguished himself, contracted a passion
+for war,’ but his zeal to gratify it on that second
+occasion cost him the favour of the king. It is, however,
+somewhat remarkable that history should have
+called no special attention to the last instance of a
+bishop who fought and died upon a battle-field, nor have
+sufficiently emphasised the great revolution of thought
+which first changed a common occurrence into something
+unusual, and finally into a memory that seems
+ridiculous. No historical fact affords a greater justification
+than this for the hope that, absurd as is the idea
+of a fighting bishop to our own age, that of a fighting
+Christian may be to our posterity.</p>
+
+<p>As bishops were in the middle ages warriors, so
+they were also the common bearers of declarations of
+war. The Bishop of Lincoln bore, for instance, the
+challenge of Edward III. and his allies to Charles V.
+at Paris; and greatly offended was the English king
+and his council when Charles returned the challenge
+by a common valet&mdash;they declared it indecent for a
+war between two such great lords to be declared by a
+mere servant, and not by a prelate or a knight of valour.</p>
+
+<p>The declaration of war in those times appears to
+have meant simply a challenge or defiance like that
+then and afterwards customary in a duel. It appears to
+have originated out of habits that governed the relations
+between the feudal barons. We learn from Froissart
+that when Edward was made Vicar of the German<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+Empire an old statute was renewed which had before
+been made at the emperor’s court, to the effect that
+no one, intending to injure his neighbour, might do
+so without sending him a defiance three days beforehand.
+The following extract from the challenge of
+war sent by the Duke of Orleans, the brother of the
+King of France, to Henry IV. of England, testifies to
+the close resemblance between a declaration of war
+and a challenge to a deed of arms, and to the levity
+which often gave rise to either: ‘I, Louis, write and
+make known to you, that with the aid of God and
+the blessed Trinity, in the desire which I have to gain
+renown, and which you likewise should feel, considering
+idleness as the bane of lords of high birth who do not
+employ themselves in arms, and thinking I can no
+way better seek renown than by proposing to you to
+meet me at an appointed place, each of us accompanied
+with 100 knights and esquires, of name and
+arms without reproach, there to combat till one of the
+parties shall surrender; and he to whom God shall grant
+the victory shall do with his prisoners as he pleases.
+We will not employ any incantations that are forbidden
+by the Church, but make use of the bodily strength
+given us by God, with armour as may be most agreeable
+to everyone for the security of his person,
+and with the usual arms, that is lance, battle-axe,
+sword, and dagger ... without aiding himself by any
+bodkins, hooks, bearded darts, poisoned needles or
+razors, as may be done by persons unless they are
+positively ordered to the contrary....’<a name="FNanchor_261" id="FNanchor_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> Henry IV.
+answered the challenge with some contempt, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+expressed his readiness to meet the duke in single
+combat, whenever he should visit his possessions in
+France, in order to prevent any greater effusion of
+Christian blood, since a good shepherd, he said, should
+expose his own life for his flock. It even seemed at one
+time as if wars might have resolved themselves into
+this more rational mode of settlement. The Emperor
+Henry IV. challenged the Duke of Swabia to single
+combat. Philip Augustus of France is said to have
+proposed to Richard I. to settle their differences by a
+combat of five on each side; and when Edward III.
+challenged the realm of France, he offered to settle
+the question by a duel or a combat of 100 men on
+each side, with which the French king would, it appears,
+have complied, had Edward consented to stake the
+kingdom of England against that of France.</p>
+
+<p>In the custom of naming the implements of war
+after the most revered names of the Christian hagiology
+may be observed another trace of the close alliance
+that resulted between the military and spiritual sides
+of human life, somewhat like that which prevailed in
+the sort of worship paid to their lances, pikes, and
+battle-axes by the ancient Scandinavians.<a name="FNanchor_262" id="FNanchor_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> Thus the
+two first forts which the Spaniards built in the Ladrone
+Islands they called respectively after St. Francis
+Xavier and the Virgin Mary. Twelve ships in the
+Armada were called after the Twelve Apostles, and
+so were twelve of his cannons by Henry VIII., one
+of which, St. John by name, was captured by the
+French in 1513.<a name="FNanchor_263" id="FNanchor_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> It is probable that mere irreverence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+had less to do with this custom than the hope thereby
+of obtaining favour in war, such as may also be
+traced in the ceremony of consecrating military banners,
+which has descended to our own times.<a name="FNanchor_264" id="FNanchor_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a></p>
+
+<p>To the same order of superstition belongs the old
+custom of falling down and kissing the earth before
+starting on a charge or assault of battle. The practice
+is alluded to several times in Montluc’s Commentaries,
+but so little was it understood by a modern
+French editor that in one place he suggests the reading
+<i>baissèrent la tête</i> (they lowered their heads) for <i>baisèrent
+la terre</i> (they kissed the earth). But the latter
+reading is confirmed by passages elsewhere; as, for
+instance, in the ‘Memoirs of Fleurange,’ where it is
+stated that Gaston de Foix and his soldiers kissed
+the earth, according to custom, before proceeding to
+march against the enemy;<a name="FNanchor_265" id="FNanchor_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> and, again, in the ‘Life
+of Bayard,’ by his secretary, who records it among
+the virtues of that knight that he would rise from his
+bed every night to prostrate himself at full length on
+the floor and kiss the earth.<a name="FNanchor_266" id="FNanchor_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> This kissing of the
+earth was an abbreviated form of taking a particle of
+it in the mouth, as both Elmham and Livius mention
+to have been done by the English at Agincourt before
+attacking the French; and this again was an
+abbreviated form of receiving the sacrament, for
+Villani says of the Flemish at Cambray (1302) that
+they made a priest go all over the field with the
+sacred elements, and that, instead of communicating,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+each man took a little earth and put it into his
+mouth.<a name="FNanchor_267" id="FNanchor_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> This seems a more likely explanation than
+that the custom was intended as a reminder to the
+soldier of his mortality, as if in a trade like his there
+could be any lack of testimony of that sort.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to observe how war in every stage of
+civilisation has been the central interest of public
+religious supplication; and how, from the pagans of
+old to modern savages, the pettiest quarrels and conflicts
+have been deemed a matter of interest to the
+immortals. The Sandwich islanders and Tahitians
+sought the aid of their gods in war by human sacrifices.
+The Fijians before war were wont to present
+their gods with costly offerings and temples, and offer
+with their prayers the best they could of land crabs
+or whales’ teeth; being so convinced that they thereby
+ensured to themselves the victory, that once, when
+a missionary called the attention of a war party to the
+scantiness of their numbers, they only replied, with
+disdainful confidence, ‘Our allies are the gods.’ The
+prayer which the Roman pontifex addressed to Jupiter
+on behalf of the Republic at the opening of the war
+with Antiochus, king of Syria, is extremely curious:
+‘If the war which the people has ordered to be waged
+with King Antiochus shall be finished after the wish of
+the Roman senate and people, then to thee, O Jupiter,
+will the Roman people exhibit the great games for
+ten successive days, and offerings shall be presented
+at all the shrines of such value as the senate shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+decree.’<a name="FNanchor_268" id="FNanchor_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> This rude state of theology, wherein a
+victory from the gods may be obtained for a fair consideration
+in exchange, tends to keep alive, if it did
+not originate, that sense of dependence on invisible
+powers which constitutes the most rudimentary form of
+religion; for it is a remarkable fact that the faintest
+notions of supernatural agencies are found precisely
+among tribes whose military organisation or love for
+war is the lowest and least developed. In proportion
+as the war-spirit is cultivated does the worship of war-presiding
+deities prevail; and since these are formed
+from the memories of warriors who have died or
+been slain, their attributes and wishes remain those of
+the former earthly potentate, who though no longer
+visible, may still be gratified by presents of fruit, or by
+slaughtered oxen or slaves.</p>
+
+<p>The Khonds of Orissa, in India, afford an instance
+of this close and pernicious association between religious
+and military ideas, which may be traced
+through the history of many far more advanced communities.
+For though they regard the joy of the
+peace dance as the very highest attainable upon earth,
+they attribute, not to their own will, but to that of
+their war god, Loha Pennu, the source of all their
+wars. The devastation of a fever or tiger is accepted
+as a hint from that divinity that his service has been
+too long neglected, and they acquit themselves of all
+blame for a war begun for no better reason, by the
+following philosophy of its origin: ‘Loha Pennu said
+to himself, Let there be war, and he forthwith entered
+into all weapons, so that from instruments of peace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+they became weapons of war; he gave edge to the
+axe and point to the arrow; he entered into all kinds
+of food and drink, so that men in eating and drinking
+were filled with rage, and women became instruments
+of discord instead of soothers of anger.’ And they
+address this prayer to Loha Pennu for aid against
+their enemies: ‘Let our axes crush cloth and bones
+as the jaws of the hyæna crush its prey. Make the
+wounds we give to gape.... When the wounds of
+our enemies heal, let lameness remain. Let their
+stones and arrows fall on us as the flowers of the
+mowa-tree fall in the wind.... Make their weapons
+brittle as the long pods of the karta-tree.’</p>
+
+<p>In their belief that wars were of external causation
+to themselves, and in their endeavour to win by
+prayer a favourable issue to their appeal to arms, it
+could scarcely be maintained that the nations of
+Christendom have at all times shown any marked
+superiority over the modern Khonds. But in spite of
+this, and of the fierce military character that Christianity
+ultimately assumed, the Church always kept
+alive some of her earlier traditions about peace, and
+even in the darkest ages set some barriers to the
+common fury of the soldier. When the Roman
+Empire was overthrown, her influence in this direction
+was in marked contrast with what it has been ever
+since. Even Alaric when he sacked Rome (410) was
+so far affected by Christianity as to spare the churches
+and the Christians who fled to them. Leo the Great,
+Bishop of Rome, inspired even Attila with respect for
+his priestly authority, and averted his career of conquest
+from Rome; and the same bishop, three years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+later (455), pleaded with the victorious Genseric that
+his Vandals should spare the unresisting multitude
+and the buildings of Rome, nor allow torture to be
+inflicted on their prisoners. At the instance of Gregory
+II., Luitprand, the Lombard king, withdrew
+his troops from the same city, resigned his conquests,
+and offered his sword and dagger on the tomb of St.
+Peter (730).</p>
+
+<p>Yet more praiseworthy and perhaps more effective
+were the efforts of the Church from the tenth century
+onwards to check that system of private war which
+was then the bane of Europe, as the system of public
+and international wars has been since. In the south
+of France several bishops met and agreed to exclude
+from the privileges of a Christian in life and after
+death all who violated their ordinances directed
+against that custom (990). Only four years later the
+Council of Limoges exhorted men to swear by the
+bodies of the saints that they would cease to violate
+the public peace. Lent appears to have been to some
+extent a season of abstinence from fighting as from
+other pleasures, for one of the charges against Louis
+le Débonnaire was that he summoned an expedition
+for that time of the year.</p>
+
+<p>In 1032 a Bishop of Aquitaine declared himself
+the recipient of a message from heaven, ordering men
+to cease from fighting; and, not only did a peace,
+called the Truce of God, result for seven years, but it
+was resolved that such peace should always prevail
+during the great festivals of the Church, and from
+every Thursday evening to Monday morning. And
+the regulation for one kingdom was speedily extended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+over Christendom, confirmed by several Popes, and
+enforced by excommunication.<a name="FNanchor_269" id="FNanchor_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> If such efforts were
+not altogether successful, and the wars of the barons
+continued till the royal power in every country was
+strong enough to suppress them, it must none the
+less be recognised that the Church fought, if she
+fought in vain, against the barbarism of a military
+society, and with an ardour that is in striking contrast
+with her apathy in more recent history.</p>
+
+<p>It must also be granted that the idea of what the
+Papacy might do for the peace of the world, as the
+supreme arbiter of disputes and mediator between
+contending Powers, gained possession of men’s minds,
+and entered into the definite policy of the Church
+about the twelfth century, in a manner that might
+suggest reflection for the nineteenth. The name of
+Gerohus de Reigersperg is connected with a plan for
+the pacification of the world, by which the Pope was
+to forbid war to all Christian princes, to settle all
+disputes between them, and to enforce his decisions
+by the greatest powers that have ever yet been devised
+for human authority&mdash;namely, by excommunication
+and deposition. And the Popes attempted something
+of this sort. When, for instance, Innocent III. bade
+the King of France to make peace with Richard I.,
+and was told that the dispute concerned a matter of
+feudal relationship with which the Pope had no right
+of interference, he replied that he interfered by right
+of his power to censure what he thought sin, and
+quite irrespective of feudal rights. He also refused to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+consider the destruction of places and the slaughter
+of Christians as a matter of no concern to him; and
+Honorius III. forbade an attack upon Denmark, on
+the ground that that kingdom lay under the special
+protection of the Papacy.<a name="FNanchor_270" id="FNanchor_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a></p>
+
+<p>The clergy, moreover, were even in the most warlike
+times of history the chief agents in negotiations
+for peace, and in the attempt to set limits to military
+reprisals. When, for instance, the French and English
+were about to engage at Poitiers, the Cardinal of
+Perigord spent the whole of the Sunday that preceded
+the day of battle in laudable but ineffectual attempts
+to bring the two sides to an agreement without a
+battle. And when the Duke of Anjou was about to
+put 600 of the defenders of Montpellier to death by
+the sword, by the halter, and by fire, it was the Cardinal
+of Albany and a Dominican monk who saved
+him from the infamy of such a deed by reminding him
+of the duty of Christian forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>In these respects it must be plain to every one that
+the attitude and power of the Church has entirely
+changed. She has stood apart more and more as time
+has gone on from her great opportunities as a promoter
+of peace. Her influence, it is notorious, no longer
+counts for anything, where it was once so powerful, in
+the field of negotiation and reconcilement. She lifts
+no voice to denounce the evils of war, nor to plead for
+greater restraint in the exercise of reprisals and the
+abuse of victory. She lends no aid to teach the duty
+of forbearance and friendship between nations, to
+diminish their idle jealousies, nor to explain the real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+identity of their interests. It may even be said
+without risk of contradiction, that whatever attempt
+has been made to further the cause of peace upon earth
+or to diminish the horror of the customs of war, has
+come, not from the Church, but from the school of
+thought to which she has been most opposed, and
+which she has studied most persistently to revile.</p>
+
+<p>In respect, too, of the justice of the cause of war,
+the Church within recent centuries has entirely vacated
+her position. It is noticeable that in the 37th article
+of the English Church, which is to the effect that a
+Christian at the command of the magistrate may wear
+weapons and serve in the wars, the word <i>justa</i>, which
+in the Latin form preceded the word <i>bella</i> or wars, has
+been omitted.<a name="FNanchor_271" id="FNanchor_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> The leaders of the Reformation decided
+on the whole in favour of the lawfulness of military
+service for a Christian, but with the distinct
+reservation that the cause of war should be just.
+Bullinger, who was Zwingli’s successor in the Reformed
+Church at Zurich, decided that though a Christian
+might take up arms at the command of the magistrate,
+it would be his duty to disobey the magistrate if he
+purposed to make war on the guiltless; and that only
+the death of those soldiers on the battle-field was
+glorious who fought for their religion or their country.
+Thomas Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer,
+complained of the utter disregard of a just and patriotic
+motive for war in the code of military ethics then
+prevalent. Speaking of the fighters of his day, he thus
+characterised their position in the State: ‘The rapacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+of wolves, the violence of lions, the fierceness of tigers
+is nothing in comparison of their furious and cruel
+tyranny; and yet do many of them this not for the
+safeguard of their country (for so it would be the more
+tolerable), but to satisfy their butcher-like affects, to
+boast another day of how many men they have been
+the death, and to bring home the more preys that they
+may live the fatter ever after for these spoils and stolen
+goods.’<a name="FNanchor_272" id="FNanchor_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> From military service he maintained that all
+considerations of justice and humanity had been entirely
+banished, and their stead been taken by robbery
+and theft, ‘the insatiable spoiling of other men’s goods,
+and a whole sea of barbarous and beast-like manners.’
+In this way the necessity of a just cause as a reason
+for taking part in actual warfare was reasserted at the
+time of the Reformation, and has only since then been
+allowed to drop out of sight altogether; so that now
+public opinion has no guide in the matter, and even less
+than it had in ancient Rome, the attitude of the Church
+towards the State on this point being rather that of
+Anaxarchus the philosopher to Alexander the Great,
+when, to console that conqueror for his murder of Clitus,
+he said to him: ‘Know you not that Jupiter is represented
+with Law and Justice at his side, to show that
+whatever is done by sovereign power is right?’</p>
+
+<p>Considering, therefore, that no human institution
+yet devised or actually in existence has had or has a
+moral influence or facilities for exercising it at all
+equal to that enjoyed by the Church, it is all the
+more to be regretted that she has never taken any
+real interest in the abolition of a custom which is at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+the root of half the crime and misery with which she
+has to contend. Whatever hopes might at one time
+have been reasonably entertained of the Reformed
+Church as an anti-military agency, the cause of peace
+soon sank into a sort of heresy, or what was worse, an
+unfashionable tenet, associated, condemned, and contemned
+with other articles of religious dissent. ‘Those
+who condemn the profession or art of soldiery,’ said
+Sir James Turner, ‘smell rank of anabaptism and
+quakery.’<a name="FNanchor_273" id="FNanchor_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to find in the whole range of
+history any such example of wasted moral force. As
+Erasmus had cause to deplore it in the sixteenth
+century, so had Voltaire in the eighteenth. The
+latter complained that he did not remember a single
+page against war in the whole of Bourdaloue’s sermons,
+and he even suggested that the real explanation
+might be a literal want of courage on the part of the
+clergy. The passage is worth quoting from the original,
+both for its characteristic energy of expression and for
+its clear insight into the real character of the custom
+of war:&mdash;‘Pour les autres moralistes à gages que l’on
+nomme prédicateurs, ils n’ont jamais seulement osé
+prêcher contre la guerre.... Ils se gardent bien de
+décrier la guerre, qui réunit tout ce que la perfidie a
+de plus lâche dans les manifestes, tout ce que l’infâme
+friponnerie a de plus bas dans les fournitures des
+armées, tout ce que le brigandage a d’affreux dans le
+pillage, le viol, le larcin, l’homicide, la dévastation, la
+destruction. Au contraire, ces bons prêtres bénissent
+en cérémonie les étendards de meurtre; et leurs con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>frères
+chantent pour de l’argent des chansons juives,
+quand la terre a été inondée de sang.’<a name="FNanchor_274" id="FNanchor_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a></p>
+
+<p>If Voltaire’s reproach is unjust, it can of course be
+easily refuted. The challenge is a fair one. Let him
+be convicted of overstating his charge, by the mention
+of any ecclesiastic of mark from either the Catholic or
+the Protestant school within the last two centuries
+whose name is associated with the advocacy of the
+mitigation or the abolition of contests of force; or
+any war in the same period which the clergy of either
+denomination have as a body resisted either on the
+ground of the injustice of its origin or of the ruthless
+cruelty with which it has been waged. Whatever has
+yet been attempted in this direction, or whatever
+anti-military stimulus has been given to civilisation,
+has come distinctly from men of the world or men of
+letters, not from men of distinction in the Church:
+not from Fénelon or Paley, but from William Penn,
+the Abbé St.-Pierre (whose connection with the
+Church was only nominal), from Vattel, Voltaire, and
+Kant. In other words, the Church has lost her old
+position of spiritual ascendency over the consciences
+of mankind, and has surrendered to other guides and
+teachers the influence she once exercised over the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>This is especially the case with our own Church;
+for before the most gigantic evil of our time, her
+pulpit stands mute, and colder than mute. Whatever
+sanction or support a body like the Peace Society has
+met with from the Church or churches of England
+during its seventy years’ struggle on behalf of humanity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+has been, not the general rule, but the rare exception;
+and recent events would even seem to show that the
+voice of the pulpit, so far from ever becoming a
+pacific agency, is destined to become in the future the
+great tocsin of war, the loudest clamourer for counsels
+of aggression.</p>
+
+<p>This attitude on the part of the Church having
+become more and more marked and conspicuous, as
+wars in recent centuries have become more frequent
+and more fierce, it was not unnatural that some attempt
+should at last have been made to give some
+sort of justification of a fact which has undoubtedly
+become an increasing source of perplexity and distress
+to all sincere and reflective Christians. In
+default of a better, let us take the justification offered
+by Canon Mozley in his sermon on ‘War,’ preached
+before the University of Oxford on March 12, 1871,
+of which the following summary conveys a faithful,
+though of necessity an abbreviated, reflection. The
+main points dwelt upon in that explanation or
+apology are: That Christianity, by its original recognition
+of the division of the world into nations, with
+all their inherent rights, thereby recognised the right
+of war, which was plainly one of them; that the
+Church, never having been constituted a judge of
+national questions or motives, can only stand neutral
+between opposing sides, contemplating war as it were
+forensically, as a mode of international settlement
+that is amply justified by the want of any other; that
+a natural justice is inherent not only in wars of self-defence,
+but in wars for rectifying the political distribution
+of the world’s races or nationalities, and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+wars that aim at progress and improvement; that
+the spirit of self-sacrifice inseparable from war confers
+upon it a moral character that is in special harmony
+with the Christian type; that as war is simply the
+working out of a problem by force, there is no more
+hatred between the individual combatants than there
+is in the working out of an argument by reasoning,
+‘the enmity is in the two wholes&mdash;the abstractions&mdash;the
+individuals are at peace;’ that the impossibility
+of a substitution of a universal empire for independent
+nations, or of a court of arbitration, bars all
+hope of the attainment of an era of peace through
+the natural progress of society; that the absence of
+any head to the nations of the world constitutes a
+defect or want of plan in its system, which as it has
+been given to it by nature cannot be remedied by
+other means; that it is no part of the mission of
+Christianity to reconstruct that system, or rather
+want of system, of the world, from which war flows,
+nor to provide another world for us to live in; but
+that, nevertheless, Christianity only sanctions it
+through the medium of natural society, and on the
+hypothesis of a world at discord with itself.</p>
+
+<p>One may well wonder that such a tissue of irrelevant
+arguments could have been addressed by any
+man in a spirit of seriousness to an assembly of his
+fellows. Imagine such utterances being the last word
+of Christianity! Surely a son of the Church were
+more recognisable under the fighting Bishop of Beauvais’
+coat of mail than under the disguise of such
+language as this. Why should it be assumed, one
+might ask, that the existence of distinct nations,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+each enjoying the power, and therefore the right to
+make war upon its neighbours, is incompatible with
+the existence of an international morality which should
+render the exercise of the war-right impossible, or
+very difficult; or that the Church, had she tried, could
+have contributed nothing to so desirable a result? It
+is begging the question altogether to contend that a
+state of things is impossible which has never been
+attempted, when the very point at issue is whether,
+had it been attempted, it might not by this time have
+come to be realised. The right of the mediæval
+barons and their vassals to wage private war together
+belonged once as much to the system, or want of system,
+of the world as the right of nations to attack one another
+in our own or an earlier period of history; yet so far
+was the Church, even in those days, from shrinking
+from contact with so barbarous a custom as something
+beyond her power or her mission, that she was herself
+the main social instrument that brought it to an end.
+The great efforts made by the Church to abolish the
+custom of private war have already been mentioned:
+a point which Canon Mozley, perhaps, did wisely to
+ignore. Yet there is, surely, no sufficient reason why
+the peace of the world should be an object of less
+interest to the Church in these days than it was in
+those; or why her influence should be less as one
+chief element in the natural progress of society than
+it was when she fought to release human society from
+the depraving custom of the right of private war. It
+is impossible to contend that, had the Church inculcated
+the duties of the individual to other nations as
+well as to his own, in the way to which human reason<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+would naturally respond, such a course would have
+had no effect in solving the problem of enabling separate
+nationalities to coexist in a state of peace as well
+as of independence. It is at least the reverse of self-evident
+that the promotion of feelings of international
+fraternity, the discouragement of habits of international
+jealousy, the exercise of acts of international
+friendship, the teaching of the real identity of international
+interests, in all of which the pulpit might
+have lent, or might yet lend, an invaluable aid, would
+have had, or would still have any detrimental effect
+on the political system of distinct nationalities, or on
+the motives and actions of a rational patriotism. It
+is difficult to believe that the denunciations of a Church
+whose religious teaching had power to restrain the
+military fury of an Alaric or a Genseric would have
+been altogether powerless over the conduct of those
+German hordes whose military excesses in France, in
+1870, have left a lasting blot on their martial triumph
+and the character of their discipline; or that her
+efforts on behalf of peace, which more than a thousand
+years ago effectually reconciled the Angles and
+Mercians, the Franks and Lombards, would be wasted
+in helping to remove any standing causes of quarrel
+that may still exist between France and Germany,
+England and Russia, Italy and Austria.</p>
+
+<p>There are, indeed, hopeful signs, in spite of Canon
+Mozley’s apology of despair, that the priesthood of
+Christendom may yet reawake to a sense of its
+power and opportunities for removing from the world
+an evil custom which lies at the root of almost every
+other, and is the main cause and sustenance of crime<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+and pauperism and disease. It is possible that we
+have already passed the worst period of indifference
+in this respect, or that it may some day prove only to
+have been connected with the animosities of rival
+sects, ever ready to avail themselves of the chances
+that war between different nations might severally
+bring to their several petty interests. With the
+subsidence of such animosities, it were reasonable to
+expect the Church to reassert the more genuine
+principle of her action and attitude&mdash;that no evil
+incident to human society is to be regarded as irremediable
+till every resource has been exhausted to
+cope with it, and every outlet of escape from it been
+proved to be a failure. Then, but not till then, is it
+becoming in Christian priests to utter the language
+of helplessness; then, but not till then, should the
+Church fold her hands in despair.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">CURIOSITIES OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>La discipline n’est que l’art d’inspirer aux soldats plus de peur
+de leurs officiers que des ennemis.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Helvetius.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">Increased severity of discipline&mdash;Limitation of the right of matrimony&mdash;Compulsory
+Church parade, and its origin&mdash;Atrocious military
+punishments&mdash;Reasons for the military love of red&mdash;The origin of
+bear-skin hats&mdash;Different qualities of bravery&mdash;Historical fears for
+the extinction of courage&mdash;The conquests of the cause of peace&mdash;Causes
+of the unpopularity of military service&mdash;The dulness of life
+in the ranks&mdash;The prevalence of desertion&mdash;Articles of war against
+malingering&mdash;Military artificial ophthalmia&mdash;The debasing influence
+of discipline illustrated from the old flogging system&mdash;The discipline
+of the Peninsular army&mdash;Attempts to make the service more
+popular, by raising the private’s wages, by shortening his term of
+service&mdash;The old recruiting system of France and Germany&mdash;The
+conscription imminent in England&mdash;The question of military service
+for women&mdash;The probable results of the conscription&mdash;Militarism
+answerable for Socialism.</p>
+
+<p>Two widely different conceptions of military discipline
+are contained in the words of an English writer
+of the seventeenth century, and in those of the French
+philosopher, Helvetius, in the eighteenth century.
+There is a fine ring of the best English spirit in the
+sentence of Gittins: ‘A soldier ought to fear nothing
+but God and dishonour.’ And there is the true
+French wit and insight in that of Helvetius: ‘Discipline
+is but the art of inspiring soldiers with more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+fear for their own officers than they have for the
+enemy.’<a name="FNanchor_275" id="FNanchor_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the difference involved lies less in the national
+character of the writers than in the lapse of time
+between them, discipline having by degrees gained
+so greatly in severity that a soldier had come to be
+regarded less as a moral free agent than as a mechanical
+instrument, who, if he had any fear left for God
+and dishonour, felt it in a very minor degree to that
+which he cherished for his colonel or commander. This
+is the broad fact which explains and justifies the proposition
+of Helvetius; though no one, recollecting the
+evils of the days of looser discipline, might see cause
+to regret the change which deprived a soldier almost
+entirely of the moral liberty that naturally belonged
+to him as a man.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency of discipline to become more and
+more severe has of course the effect of rendering
+military service less popular, and consequently recruiting
+more difficult, without, unhappily, any corresponding
+diminution in the frequency of wars, which
+are independent of the hirelings who fight them.
+Were it otherwise, something might be said for the
+military axiom, that a soldier enjoys none of the
+common rights of man. There is therefore no gain
+from any point of view in denying to the military
+class the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of
+ordinary humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The extent of this denial and its futility may be
+shown by reference to army regulations concerning
+marriage and religious worship. In the Prussian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+army, till 1870, marriages were legally null and void
+and the offspring of them illegitimate in the case of
+officers marrying without royal consent, or of subordinate
+officers without the consent of the commander
+of their regiments. But after the Franco-German
+war so great was the social disorder found to be
+consequent upon these restrictions, that a special law
+had to be made to remove the bar of illegitimacy from
+the marriages in question.<a name="FNanchor_276" id="FNanchor_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> In the English army the
+inability of privates to marry before the completion of
+seven years’ service, and the possession of at least one
+badge, and then only with the consent of the commanding
+officer, is a custom so entirely contrary to
+the liberty enjoyed in other walks of life, that, whatever
+its incidental advantages, it can scarcely fail to
+act as a deterring motive when the choice of a career
+becomes a subject of reflection.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of what is known in the army as
+Church Parade affords another instance of the unreasonable
+curtailments of individual liberty that are
+still regarded as essential to discipline. A soldier is
+drummed to church just as he is drummed to the
+drill-ground or the battle-field. His presence in church
+is a matter of compulsion, not of choice or conviction;
+and the general principle that such attendance is
+valueless unless it is voluntary is waived in his case
+as in that of very young children, with whom, in this
+respect, he is placed on a par. If we inquire for the
+origin of the practice, we shall probably find it in
+certain old Saxon and imperial articles of war, which
+show that the prayers of the military were formerly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+regarded as equally efficacious with their swords in
+obtaining victories over their enemies; and therefore
+as a very necessary part of their duty.<a name="FNanchor_277" id="FNanchor_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> The American
+articles of war, since 1806, enact that ‘it is earnestly
+recommended to all officers and soldiers to attend
+divine service,’ thus obviating in a reasonable way all
+the evils inevitably connected with a purely compulsory,
+and therefore humiliating, church parade.<a name="FNanchor_278" id="FNanchor_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></p>
+
+<p>It may be that these restrictions of a soldier’s
+liberty are necessary; but if they are, and if, as Lord
+Macaulay says, soldiers must, ‘for the sake of public
+freedom, in the midst of public freedom, be placed
+under a despotic rule,’ ‘must be subject to a sharper
+penal code and to a more stringent code of procedure
+than are administered by the ordinary tribunals,’ so
+that acts, innocent in the citizen or only punished
+slightly, become crimes, capitally punishable, when
+committed by them, then at least we need no longer
+be astonished that it should be almost as difficult to
+entrap a recruit as to catch a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>But over and above the intrinsic disadvantages of
+military service, it would almost seem as if the war-presiding
+genii had of set purpose essayed to make it
+as distasteful as possible to mankind. For they have
+made discipline not merely a curtailment of liberty
+and a forfeiture of rights, but, as it were, an experiment
+on the extreme limits of human endurance. There has
+been no tyranny in the world, political, judicial, or
+ecclesiastical, but has had its parent and pattern in some
+military system. It has been from its armies more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+than from its kings that our world has learnt its lesson
+of arbitrary tribunals, tortures, and cruel punishments.
+The Inquisition itself could scarcely have devised a
+more excruciating punishment than the old English
+military one of riding the Wooden Horse, when the
+victim was made to sit astride planks nailed together
+in a sharp ridge, so as roughly to resemble a horse,
+with his hands tied behind him, and muskets fixed to
+his legs to drag them downwards; or again, than the
+punishment of the Picket, in which the hand was
+fastened to a hook in a post above the head, and the
+man’s suspended body left to be supported by his
+bare heel resting on a wooden stump, of which the
+end was cut to the sharpness of a sword point.<a name="FNanchor_279" id="FNanchor_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> The
+punishment of running the gauntlet (from the German
+<i>Gassenlaufen</i>, street running, because the victim ran
+through the street between two lines of soldiers who
+tormented him on his course) is said to have been
+invented by Gustavus Adolphus; and is perhaps,
+from the fact of thus bringing the cruelty of many
+men to bear on a single comrade, the most cowardly
+form of torture that has ever yet found favour among
+military authorities.<a name="FNanchor_280" id="FNanchor_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the penal part of military discipline, with its
+red-hot irons, its floggings, and its various forms of
+death, is too repulsive to do more than glance at as
+testimony of the cruelty and despotism that have
+never been separated from the calling of arms. The
+art of the disciplinarian has ever been to bring such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+series of miseries to bear upon a man’s life that the
+prospect of death upon the battle-field should have
+for him rather charms than terrors; and the tale of
+the soldier who, when his regiment was to be decimated,
+drew a blank without the fatal D upon it, and immediately
+offered it to a comrade, who had not yet drawn,
+for half-a-crown, shows at how cheap a rate men may
+be reduced to value their lives after experience of the
+realities of a military career.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the devices are curious by which this
+indifference to life has been matured and sustained.
+In ancient Athens the public temples were closed to
+those who refused military service, who deserted their
+ranks or lost their bucklers; whilst a law of Charondas
+of Catana constrained such offenders to sit for three
+days in the public forum dressed in the garments of
+women. Many a Spartan mother would stab her son
+who came back alive from a defeat; and such a man,
+if he escaped his mother, was debarred not only from
+public offices but from marriage; exposed to the
+blows of all who chose to strike him; compelled to
+dress in mean clothing, and to wear his beard negligently
+trimmed. And in the same way a Norse
+soldier who fled, or lost his shield, or received a wound
+in any save the front part of his body, was by law
+prevented from ever afterwards appearing in public.<a name="FNanchor_281" id="FNanchor_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p>
+
+<p>There are, indeed, few military customs but have
+their origin and explanation in the artificial promotion
+of courage in the minds of the combatants. This is
+true even to the details and peculiarities of costume.
+English children are, perhaps, still taught that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+French soldiers wear red trousers in order that the
+sight of blood may not frighten them in war-time;
+and doubtless French children imbibe a similar theory
+regarding the red coats of the English. The same
+reason was given by Julius Ferretus in the middle of
+the sixteenth century for the short red frock then
+generally worn by the military.<a name="FNanchor_282" id="FNanchor_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> The first mention
+of red as a special military colour in England is said
+to have been the order issued in 1526 for the coats of
+all yeomen of the household to be of red cloth.<a name="FNanchor_283" id="FNanchor_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> But
+the colour goes, at least, as far back as Lycurgus,
+the Spartan lawgiver, who chose it, according to
+Xenophon, because red is most easily taken by cloth
+and most lasting; according to Plutarch, that its
+brightness might help to raise the spirits of its
+wearers; or, according to Ælian and Valerius Maximus,
+in order to conceal the sight of blood, that raw
+soldiers might not be dispirited and the enemy proportionately
+encouraged.</p>
+
+<p>The bear-skin hats, which still make some English
+regiments so ridiculous and unsightly, were originally
+no doubt intended to inspire terror. Evelyn, writing
+of the year 1678, says: ‘Now were brought into
+service a new sort of soldiers called Grenadiers,
+who were dexterous in flinging hand-grenades, every
+man having a handful. They had furred caps with
+coped crowns like Janizaries, which made them look
+very fierce; and some had long hoods hanging down
+behind as we picture fools.’ We may fairly identify
+the motive of such headgear with the result; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+the more so since the looking fierce with the borrowed
+skins of bears was a well-known artifice of the
+ancient Romans. Thus Vegetius speaks of helmets
+as covered with bear-skins in order to terrify the
+enemy,<a name="FNanchor_284" id="FNanchor_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> and Virgil has a significant description of a
+warrior as</p>
+
+<p class="center">Horridus in jaculis et pelle Libystidis ursæ.</p>
+
+<p>We may trace the same motive again in the figures
+of fierce birds or beasts depicted on flags and shields
+and helmets, whence they have descended with less
+harmful purpose to crests and armorial bearings.
+Thus the Cimbri, whom Marius defeated, wore on
+their plume-covered helmets the head of some fierce
+animal with its mouth open, vainly hoping thereby to
+intimidate the Romans. The latter, before it became
+customary to display the images of their emperors
+on their standards, reared aloft the menacing representations
+of dragons, tigers, wolves, and such like;
+and the figure of a dragon in use among the Saxons
+at the time of the Conquest, and after that event retained
+by the early Norman princes among the ensigns
+of war,<a name="FNanchor_285" id="FNanchor_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> may reasonably be attributed to the same
+motive. The legend of St. George killing the Dragon,
+if it is not a survival of Theseus and the Minotaur,
+very likely originated as a myth, intended to be explanatory
+of the custom.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, under this head should be mentioned
+Villani’s account of the English armour worn in the
+thirteenth century, where he describes how the pages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+studied to keep it clean and bright, so that when their
+masters came to action their armour shone like
+looking glass and gave them a more terrifying appearance.<a name="FNanchor_286" id="FNanchor_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a>
+Was the result here again the motive, and
+must we look for the primary cause of the great solicitude
+still paid to the brightness of accoutrements
+to the hope thereby to add a pang the more to the
+terror desirable to instil into an enemy?</p>
+
+<p>Such were some of the artificial supports supplied
+to bravery in former times. But there is all the
+difference in the world between the bravery appealed
+to by our ancestors and that required since the revolution
+effected in warfare by the invention of gunpowder.
+Before that epoch, the use of catapults,
+bows, or other missiles did not deduct from the paramount
+importance of personal valour. The brave
+soldier of olden times displayed the bravery of a man
+who defied a force similar or equal to his own, and
+against which the use of his own right hand and intellect
+might help him to prevail; but his modern
+descendant pits his bravery mainly against hazard,
+and owes it to chance alone if he escape alive from a
+battle. However higher in kind may be the bravery
+required to face a shower of shrapnel than to contend
+against swords and spears, it is assuredly a bravery
+that involves rather a blind trust in luck than a
+rational trust in personal fortitude.</p>
+
+<p>So thoroughly indeed was this change foreseen and
+appreciated that at every successive advance in the
+methods of slaughter curious fears for the total extinction
+of military courage have haunted minds too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+readily apprehensive, and found sometimes remarkable
+expression. When the catapult<a name="FNanchor_287" id="FNanchor_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> was first
+brought from Sicily to Greece, King Archidamus saw
+in it the grave of true valour; and the sentiment
+against firearms, which led Bayard to exclaim, ‘C’est
+une honte qu’un homme de cœur soit exposé à périr par
+une miserable friquenelle,’ was one that was traceable
+even down to the last century in the history of
+Europe. For Charles XII. of Sweden is declared by
+Berenhorst to have felt keenly the infamy of such a
+mode of fighting; and Marshal Saxe held musketry
+fire in such contempt that he even went so far as to
+advocate the reintroduction of the lance, and a return
+to the close combats customary in earlier times.<a name="FNanchor_288" id="FNanchor_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a></p>
+
+<p>But our military codes contain no reflection of the
+different aspects under which personal bravery enters
+into modern, as compared with ancient, warfare; and
+this omission has tended to throw governments back
+upon pure force and compulsion, as the only possible
+way of recruiting their regiments. The old Roman
+military punishments, such as cruelly scourging a man
+before putting him to death, afford certainly no models
+of a lenient discipline; but when we read of companies
+who lost their colours being for punishment only
+reduced to feed on barley instead of wheat, and reflect
+that death by shooting would be the penalty under
+the discipline of most modern nations<a name="FNanchor_289" id="FNanchor_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> for an action
+bearing any complexion of cowardice, it is impossible
+to admit that a rational adjustment of punishments to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+offences is at all better observed in the war articles
+of the moderns than in the military codes of pagan
+antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>This, at least, is clear, from the history of military
+discipline, that only by the most repressive laws, and
+by a tyranny subversive of the commonest rights of
+men, is it possible to retain men in the fighting
+service of a country, after forcing or cajoling them into
+it. And this consideration fully meets the theory of
+an inherent love of fighting dominating human
+nature, such as that contended for in a letter from
+Lord Palmerston to Cobden, wherein he argues that
+man is by nature a fighting and quarrelling animal.
+The proposition is true undoubtedly of some savage
+races, and of the idle knights of the days of chivalry,
+but, not even in those days, of the lower classes, who
+incurred the real dangers of war, and still less of the
+unfortunate privates or conscripts of modern armies.
+Fighting is only possible between civilised countries,
+because discipline first fits men for war and for nothing
+else, and then war again necessitates discipline.
+Nor is anything gained by ignoring the conquests that
+have already been won over the savage propensity
+to war. Single States no longer suffer private wars
+within their boundaries, like those customary between
+the feudal barons; we decide most of our quarrels
+in law courts, not upon battle-fields, and wisely prefer
+arguments to arms. A population as large as
+that of Ireland and about double as large as that
+of all our colonies in Australia put together lives
+in London alone, not only without weapons of defence
+in their hands, but with so little taste for blood-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>encounters
+that you may walk for whole days through
+its length and breadth without so much as seeing a
+single street-fight. If then this miracle of social order
+has been achieved, why not the wider one of that
+harmony between nations which requires but a little
+common-sense and determination on the part of those
+most concerned in order to become an accomplished
+reality?</p>
+
+<p>The limitations of personal liberty already alluded
+to would of themselves suffice in a country of free
+institutions to render the military profession distasteful
+and unpopular. The actual perils of war,
+at no time greater than those of mines, railways,
+or merchant-shipping, would never alone deter men
+from service; so that we must look for other causes
+to explain the difficulty of recruiting and the frequency
+of desertion, which are the perplexity of military
+systems still based, as our own is, on the principle of
+voluntary not compulsory enlistment.</p>
+
+<p>What then makes a military life so little an object
+of desire in countries where it can be avoided is more
+than its dangers, more even than its loss of liberty, its
+irredeemable and appalling dulness. The shades in
+point of cheerfulness must be few and fine which distinguish
+a barrack from a convict prison. In none of
+the employments of civil life is there anything to compare
+with the unspeakable monotony of parades, recurring
+three or four times every day, varied perhaps
+in wet weather by the military catechism, and with
+the intervals of time spent in occupations of neither
+interest nor dignity. The length of time devoted
+to the mere cleaning and polishing of accoutrements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+is such, that the task has actually come to have the
+name ‘soldiering’; and the work which comes next
+in importance to this soldiering is the humble one of
+peeling potatoes for dinner. Even military greatcoats
+require on a moderate estimate half a hour or more
+every day to be properly folded, the penalty of an
+additional hour’s drill being the probable result of
+any carelessness in this highly important military
+function. But for the attention thus given to military
+dress the author of the ‘Soldier’s Pocket Book’
+supplies us with a reason: ‘The better you dress a
+soldier, the more highly he will be thought of by
+women and consequently by himself.’</p>
+
+<p>Still less calculated to lend attractiveness to the
+life of the ranks are the daily fatigue works, or extra
+duties which fall in turn on the men of every company,
+such as coal carrying, passage cleaning, gutter clearing,
+and other like menial works of necessity.</p>
+
+<p>But it is the long hours of sentry duty, popularly
+called ‘Sentry-go,’ which constitute the soldier’s
+greatest bane. Guard duty in England, recurring at
+short periods, lasts a whole day and night, every four
+hours of the twenty-four being spent in full accoutrements
+in the guard-room, and every intervening two
+hours on active sentry, thus making in all&mdash;sixteen
+hours in the guard-room, and eight on the sentry post.
+The voluntary sufferings of the saints, the tortures
+devised by the religious orders of olden days, or the
+self-inflicted hardships of sport, pale before the two
+hours’ sentry-go on a winter’s night. This it is that
+kills our soldiers more fatally than an enemy’s cannon,
+and is borne with more admirable patience than even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+the hardships of a siege. ‘After about thirty-one
+or thirty-two years of age,’ says Sir F. Roberts, ‘the
+private soldier usually ages rapidly, and becomes a
+veteran both in looks and habits;’<a name="FNanchor_290" id="FNanchor_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> and this distinguished
+military commander points to excessive sentry
+duty as the cause.</p>
+
+<p>But, possible as it thus is, by rigour of discipline,
+to produce in a soldier total indifference to death, by
+depriving him of everything that makes life desirable,
+it is impossible to produce indifference to tedium;
+and a policy is evidently self-destructive which, by
+aiming exclusively at producing a mechanical character,
+renders military service itself so unpopular that only
+the young, the inexperienced, or the ill-advised will
+join the colours at all; that 10 per cent. of those who
+do join them will desert; and that the rest will regard
+it as the gala day of their lives when they become
+legally entitled to their discharge from the ranks.</p>
+
+<p>In England about 10 per cent. of the recruits
+desert every year, as compared with 50 per cent. from
+the small army of the United States. The reason
+for so great a difference is probably not so much that
+the American discipline is more severe or dull than
+the English, as that in the newer country, where subsistence
+is easier, the counter-attractions of peaceful
+trades offer more plentiful inducements to desertion.</p>
+
+<p>Desertion from the English ranks has naturally
+diminished since the introduction of the short-service
+system has set a visible term to the hardships of a military
+life. Adherence to the colours for seven or eight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+years, or even for twelve, which is now the longest service
+possible at the time of enlistment, and adherence to
+them for life, clearly place a very different complexion
+on the desirability of an illegal escape from them. So
+that considering the reductions that have been made
+in the term of service, and the increase of pay made
+in 1867, and again in 1873, nothing more strongly
+demonstrates the national aversion of the English
+people to arms than the exceeding difficulty with
+which the ranks are recruited, and the high average
+of the percentage of desertions. If of recent years
+recruiting has been better, the explanation is simply
+that trade has been worse; statistics of recruiting
+being the best possible barometer of the state of the
+nation, since the scarcity or abundance of recruits
+varies concomitantly with the brisk or slack demand
+for labour in other employments.</p>
+
+<p>In few things has the world grown more tolerant
+than in its opinion and treatment of Desertion.
+Death was once its certain penalty, and death with
+every aggravation that brutal cruelty could add.
+Two of Rome’s most famous generals were Scipio
+Æmilianus and Paulus Æmilius; yet the former consigned
+deserters to fight wild beasts at the public
+games, and the latter had them trodden to death by
+elephants.</p>
+
+<p>A form of desertion, constituting one of the most
+curious but least noticed chapters in the history of
+military discipline, is that of Malingering, or the
+feigning of sickness, and self-mutilation, disabling
+from service. The practice goes far back into history.
+Cicero tells of a man who was sold for a slave for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+having cut off a finger, in order to escape from a
+campaign in Sicily. Vegetius, the great authority
+on Roman discipline, speaks of soldiers who simulated
+sickness being punished as traitors;<a name="FNanchor_291" id="FNanchor_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> and an
+old English writer on the subject says of the Romans:
+‘Whosoever mutilated their own or their children’s
+bodies so as thereby designedly to render them unfit
+to carry arms (a practice common enough in those
+elder times when all were pressed to the wars), were
+adjudicated to perpetual exile.’<a name="FNanchor_292" id="FNanchor_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p>
+
+<p>The writer here referred to lived long before the
+days of the conscription, with which he fancied self-mutilation
+to be connected. And it certainly seems
+that whereas all the military codes of modern nations
+contain articles dealing with that offence, and decreeing
+penalties against it, there was less of it in the
+days before compulsory service. There is, for instance,
+no mention of it in the German articles of war of the
+seventeenth century, though the other military crimes
+were precisely those that are common enough still.<a name="FNanchor_293" id="FNanchor_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></p>
+
+<p>But even in England, where soldiers are not yet
+military slaves, it has been found necessary to deal,
+by specific clauses in the army regulations, with a
+set of facts of which there is no notice in the war
+articles of the seventeenth or eighteenth century.<a name="FNanchor_294" id="FNanchor_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a>
+The inference therefore is, that the conditions of
+military service have become universally more disagreeable.
+The clauses in the actual war articles
+deserve to be quoted, that it may appear, by the
+provisions against it, to what lengths the arts of self-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>mutilation
+are carried by despairing men. The 81st
+Article of War provides punishment against any
+soldier in Her Majesty’s army ‘who shall malinger,
+feign or produce disease or infirmity, or shall wilfully
+do any act or wilfully disobey any orders whether in
+hospital or otherwise, thereby producing or aggravating
+disease or infirmity or delaying his cure, ...
+or who shall maim or injure himself or any other
+soldier, whether at the instance of such other soldier
+or not, or cause himself to be maimed or injured by
+any other person with intent thereby to render himself
+or such other soldier unfit for service, ... or who
+shall tamper with his eyes with intent thereby to
+render himself unfit for service.’</p>
+
+<p>That it should be necessary thus to provide against
+self-inflicted injuries is surely commentary enough on
+the condition of life in the ranks. The allusion to
+tampering with the eyes may be illustrated from a
+passage in the ‘Life of Sir C. Napier,’ wherein we are
+told how in the year 1808 a private of the 28th Regiment
+taught his fellow-soldiers to produce artificial
+ophthalmia by holding their eyelids open, whilst a
+comrade in arms would scrape some lime from the
+barrack ceiling into their eyes.<a name="FNanchor_295" id="FNanchor_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> For a profession of
+which such things are common incidents, surely the
+wonder is, not that it should be difficult, but that it
+should be possible at all, to make recruits. In the days
+of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, so numerous were the cases
+in which the natives voluntarily blinded themselves,
+and even their children, of one eye in order to escape
+the conscription, that Mehemet Ali is said to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+found himself under the necessity of raising a one-eyed
+regiment. Others for the same purpose would chop
+off the trigger finger of the right hand, or disable
+themselves from biting cartridges by knocking out
+some of their upper teeth. Scarcely a peasant in the
+fields but bore the trace of some such voluntarily
+inflicted disfigurement. But with such facts it seems
+idle to talk of any inherent love for fighting dominating
+the vast majority of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The severity of military discipline has even a
+worse effect than those yet alluded to in its tendency
+to demoralise those who are long subject to it, by inducing
+mental habits of servility and baseness. After
+Alexander the Great had killed Clitus in a fit of
+drunken rage, the Macedonian soldiery voted that
+Clitus had been justly slain, and prayed that he might
+not enjoy the rites of sepulture.<a name="FNanchor_296" id="FNanchor_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> Military servility
+could scarcely go further than that, but such baseness
+is only possible under a state of discipline which, to
+make a soldier, unmakes a man, by depriving him of
+all that distinguishes his species. Under no other than
+military training, and in no other than the military
+class, would the atrocities have been possible which
+used to be perpetrated in the barrack riding-school
+in the old flogging days. Officers and privates needed
+the debasing influence of discipline to enable them to
+look on as patient spectators at the sufferings of a
+helpless comrade tortured by the cat-o’-nine tails. Sir
+C. Napier said that as a subaltern he ‘frequently saw
+600, 700, 800, 900, and 1,000 lashes sentenced by
+regimental courts-martial and generally every lash<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+inflicted;’ a feeling of horror would run through the
+ranks at the first blows and some recruits would faint,
+but that was all.<a name="FNanchor_297" id="FNanchor_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> Had they been men and not
+soldiers, they would not have stood such iniquities.
+A typical instance of this martial justice or law (to
+employ the conventional profanation of those words)
+was that of a sergeant who in 1792 was sentenced to
+1,000 lashes for having enlisted two drummers for
+the East India Company whom he knew to belong
+already to the Foot Guards; but the classical description
+of an English flogging will always be Somerville’s
+account of its infliction upon himself in his ‘Autobiography
+of a Working Man.’<a name="FNanchor_298" id="FNanchor_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> There you may
+read how the regiment was drawn up four-deep inside
+the riding-school; how the officers (men of gentle
+birth and breeding) stood within the lines of the men;
+how the basin of water and towels were ready prepared
+in case the victim should faint; how the hands
+and feet of the latter were fastened to a ladder by a
+rope; and how the regimental sergeant-major stood
+with book and pencil coolly counting each stroke as it
+was delivered with slow and deliberate torture till the
+full complement of a hundred lashes had been inflicted.
+The mere reading of it even now is enough to make
+the blood boil, but that men, brave and freeborn,
+should have stood by in their hundreds and seen the
+actual reality without stirring, proves how utterly all
+human feeling is eradicable by discipline, and how
+sure is the training it supplies in disregard for the
+common claims of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Happily, floggings in the English army now count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+among the curiosities of military discipline, like the
+wooden horse or the thumb-screw; but the striking
+thing is that the discipline, in the sense of the good
+conduct of the army in the field, was never worse
+than in the days when 1,000 lashes were common
+sentences. It was precisely when courts-martial had
+the legal power to exercise such tyranny that the Duke
+of Wellington complained to Lord Castlereagh that
+the law was not strong enough to maintain discipline
+in an army upon actual service.<a name="FNanchor_299" id="FNanchor_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> Speaking of the
+army in the Peninsula he says: ‘It is impossible to
+describe to you the irregularities and outrages committed
+by the troops; ... there is not an outrage of
+any description which has not been committed on a
+people who have received us as friends by soldiers
+who never yet for one moment suffered the slightest
+want or the smallest privation.... We are an excellent
+army on parade, an excellent one to fight, but
+we are worse than an enemy in a country.’ And again
+a few months later: ‘I really believe that more plunder
+and outrage have been committed by this army than
+by any other that was ever in the field.’ In the
+general order of May 19, 1809, are these words: ‘The
+officers of companies must attend to the men in their
+quarters as well as on the march, or the army will
+soon be no better than a banditti.’<a name="FNanchor_300" id="FNanchor_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p>
+
+<p>Whence it is fair to infer that severity of discipline
+has no necessary connection with the good behaviour
+or easy control of troops in the field, such discipline
+under the Iron Duke himself having been conspicuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+for so lamentable a failure. The real fact would seem
+to be, that troops are difficult to manage just in proportion
+to the rigour, the monotony, and the dulness
+of the discipline imposed upon them in time of peace;
+the rebound corresponding to the compression, by a
+moral law that seems to follow the physical one. This
+fact is nowhere better noticed than in Lord Wolseley’s
+narrative of the China war of 1860, where he says, in
+allusion to the general love of pillage and destruction
+that characterises soldiers and was so conspicuously
+displayed at the shameful burning of the beautiful
+palaces in and round Pekin: ‘Soldiers are nothing
+more than grown-up schoolboys. The wild moments
+of enjoyment passed in the pillage of a place live long
+in a soldier’s memory.... Such a time forms so
+marked a contrast with the ordinary routine of existence
+passed under the tight hand of discipline that it
+becomes a remarkable event in life and is remembered
+accordingly.’<a name="FNanchor_301" id="FNanchor_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a></p>
+
+<p>The experience of the Peninsular war proves how
+slender is the link between a well-drilled and a well-disciplined
+army. The best disciplined army is the
+one which conducts itself with least excess in the field
+and is least demoralised by victory. It is the hour of
+victory that is the great test of the value of military
+regulations; and so well aware of this was the best
+disciplined State of antiquity, that the soldiers of
+Sparta desisted from pursuit as soon as victory was
+assured to them, partly because it was deemed ungenerous
+to destroy those who could make no further
+resistance (a sentiment absolutely wanting from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+boasted chivalry of Christian warfare), and partly that
+the enemy might be tempted to prefer flight to resistance.
+It is a reproach to modern generalship that it
+has been powerless to restrain such excesses as those
+which have made the successful storming of cities
+rather a disgrace than an honour to those who have
+won them. The only way to check them is to make
+the officers responsible for what occurs, as might be
+done, for instance, by punishing a general capitally
+for storming a city with forces so badly disciplined
+as to nullify the advantages of success. An English
+military writer, speaking of the storming of Ismail
+and Praga by the Russians under Suwarrow, says
+truly that ‘posterity will hold the fame and honour
+of the commander responsible for the life of every
+human being sacrificed by disciplined armies beyond
+the fair verge of battle;’ but it is idle to speak as if
+only Russian armies were guilty of such excesses, or
+to say that nothing but the prospect of them could
+tempt the Russian soldier to mount the breach or
+the scaling-ladder. The Russian soldier in history
+yields not one whit to the English or French in
+bravery, nor is there a grain of difference between
+the Russian storming of Ismail and Praga and the
+English storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, or San
+Sebastian, that tarnished the lustre of the British arms
+in the famous Peninsular war.</p>
+
+<p>And should we be tempted to think that successes
+like these associated with the names of these places
+may be so important in war as to outweigh all other
+considerations, we must also not forget that the permanent
+military character of nations, for humanity or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+the reverse, counts for more in the long run of a
+people’s history than any advantage that can possibly
+be gained in a single campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Enough has, perhaps, been said of the unpopularity
+of military service, and of the obvious causes
+thereof, to make it credible that, had the system of
+conscription never been resorted to in Europe, and the
+principle of voluntary enlistment remained intact and
+universal, the difficulty of procuring the human fighting
+material in sufficient quantities would in course
+of time have rendered warfare impossible. As other
+industries than mere fighting have won their way in
+the world, the difficulty of hiring recruits to sell their
+lives to their country has kept even pace with the
+facility of obtaining livelihoods in more regular and
+more lucrative as well as less miserable avocations.
+In the fourteenth century soldiers were very highly
+paid compared with other classes, and the humblest
+private received a daily wage equivalent to that of a
+skilled mechanic;<a name="FNanchor_302" id="FNanchor_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> but the historical process has so
+far reversed matters that now the pay of the humblest
+mechanic would compare favourably with that of all
+the fighting grades lower than the commissioned and
+warrant ranks. Consequently, every attempt to make
+the service popular has as yet been futile, no amelioration
+of it enabling it to compete with pacific occupations.
+The private’s pay was raised from sixpence
+to a shilling during the wars of the French Revolution;<a name="FNanchor_303" id="FNanchor_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a>
+and before that it was found necessary, about
+the time of the war with the American colonies, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+bribe men to enlist by the system (since abolished) of
+giving bounties at the time of enlistment. Previous
+to the introduction of the bounty system, a guinea to
+provide the recruit with necessaries and a crown
+wherewith to drink the king’s health was all that was
+given upon enlistment, the service itself (with the
+chances of loot and the allied pleasures) having been
+bounty enough.<a name="FNanchor_304" id="FNanchor_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> Even the system of bounties proved
+attractive only to boys; for as the English statesman
+said, whose name is honourably associated with the first
+change in our system from enlistment for life to enlistment
+for a limited period, ‘men grown up with all the
+grossness and ignorance and consequent want of consideration
+incident to the lower classes’ were too wary
+to accept the offers of the recruiting department.<a name="FNanchor_305" id="FNanchor_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a></p>
+
+<p>The shortening of the term of service in 1806 and
+subsequently the increase of pay, the mitigation of
+punishments, must all be understood as attempts to
+render the military life more attractive and more capable
+of competing with other trades; but that they
+have all signally failed is proved by the chronic and
+ever-increasing difficulty of decoying recruits. The
+little pamphlet, published by authority and distributed
+gratis at every post-office in the kingdom, showing
+forth ‘the Advantages of the Army’ in their rosiest
+colours, cannot counteract the influence of the oral
+evidence of men, who, after a short period of service,
+are dispersed to all corners of the country, with their
+tales of military misery to tell, confirming and propagating
+that popular theory of a soldier’s life which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+sees in it a sort of earthly purgatory for faults of
+character acquired in youth, a calling only to be
+adopted by those whose antecedents render industry
+distasteful to them, and unfit them for more useful
+pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>The same difficulty of recruiting was felt in France
+and Germany in the last century, when voluntary
+enlistment was still the rule. In that curious old
+military book, Fleming’s ‘Volkommene Teutsche
+Soldat,’ is a picture of the recruiting officer, followed
+by trumpeters and drummers, parading the streets,
+and shaking a hat full of silver coins near a table
+spread with the additional temptations of wine and
+beer.<a name="FNanchor_306" id="FNanchor_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> But it soon became necessary to supplement
+this system by coercive methods; and when the
+habitual neglect of the wounded and the great
+number of needless wars made it difficult or impossible
+to fill up the ranks with fresh recruits, the
+German authorities resorted to a regular system of
+kidnapping, taking men as they could get them from
+their ploughs, their churches, or even from their very
+beds.</p>
+
+<p>In France, too, Louis XIV. had to resort to force
+for filling his ranks in the war of the Spanish Succession;
+although the system of recruiting remained
+nominally voluntary till very much later. The total
+cost of a French recruit amounted to ninety-two
+livres; but the length of his service, though it was
+changed from time to time from periods varying from
+three to eight years, never exceeded the latter limit, nor
+came to be for life as it did practically in England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The experience of other countries proves, therefore,
+that England will sooner or later adopt the
+principle of conscription or cease to waste blood and
+money in Continental quarrels. The conscription
+will be for her the only possible way of obtaining an
+army at all, or one at all commensurate with those of
+her possible European rivals. We should not forget
+that in 1878, when we were on the verge of a war
+with Russia (and we live always on the verge of a war
+with Russia), our best military experts met and agreed
+that only by means of compulsory service could we
+hope to cope with our enemy with any chance of
+success. And the conscription, whether under a free
+government or not, means a tyranny compared to which
+the tyrannies of the Tudors or Stuarts were as a yoke
+of silk to a yoke of iron. It would matter little that
+it should lead to or involve a political despotism,
+for the greater despotism would ever be the military
+one, crushing out all individuality, moral liberty, and
+independence, and consigning to the soul-destroying
+routine of petty military details all the talent, taste,
+knowledge, and wealth of our country, which have
+hitherto given it a distinctive character in history, and
+a foremost place among the nations of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1702 a woman served as a captain in
+the French army with such signal bravery that she
+was rewarded with the Order of St. Louis. Nor was
+this the only result; for the episode roused a serious
+debate in the world, whether, or not, military service
+might be expected of, or exacted from, the female sex
+generally.<a name="FNanchor_307" id="FNanchor_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> Why, then, should the conscription be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+confined to one half only of a population, in the face
+of so many historical instances of women who have
+shown pre-eminent, or at least average, military capacity?
+And if military service is so ennobling and
+excellent a thing, as it is said to be, for the male
+population of a country, why not also for the female?
+Or as we may be sure that it would be to the last
+degree debasing for the latter half of the community,
+may we not suspect that the reasoning is altogether
+sophistical which claims other effects as the consequence
+of its operation on the stronger sex?</p>
+
+<p>What those effects are likely to be on the further
+development of European civilisation, we are as yet
+scarcely in a position to judge. We are still living
+only on the threshold of the change, and can hardly
+estimate the ultimate effect on human life of the
+transference to the whole male population of a country
+of the habits and vices previously confined to only a
+section of it. But this at least is certain, that at
+present every prediction which ushered in the change
+is being falsified from year to year. This universal
+service which we call the conscription was, we were
+told, to usher in a sort of millennium; it was to
+have the effect of humanising warfare; of raising the
+moral tone of armies; and of securing peace, by
+making the prospect of its alternative too appalling
+to mankind. Not only has it done none of these
+things, but there are even indications of consequences
+the very reverse. The amenities that cast occasional
+gleams over the professional hostilities of the eighteenth
+century, as when, for instance, Crillon besieging
+Gibraltar sent a cart-load of carrots to the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+governor, whose men were dying of scurvy, have
+passed altogether out of the pale of possibility, and
+given place to a hatred between the combatant forces
+that is tempered by no courtesy nor restrained by the
+shadow of humanity. Whole nations, instead of a
+particular class, have been familiarised with deeds of
+robbery and bloodshed, and parted with a large part
+of their leisure once available for progress in industry.
+War itself is at any given moment infinitely more
+probable than it used to be, from the constant expectation
+of it which comes of constant preparation;
+nothing having been proved falser by history than
+the popular paradox which has descended to us from
+Vegetius that the preparation for war is the high road
+to peace.<a name="FNanchor_308" id="FNanchor_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> When, one may ask, has the world not
+been prepared for war, and how then has it had so
+much of it? And as to the higher moral tone likely
+to spring from universal militarism, of what kind may
+we expect it to be, when we read in a work by the
+greatest living English general, destined, Carlyle
+hoped, one day to make short work of Parliament,
+such an exposition as the following of the relation
+between the moral duties of a soldier and those of a
+civilian: ‘He (the soldier) must be taught to believe
+that his duties are the noblest which fall to a man’s
+lot. He must be taught to despise all those of civil
+life. Soldiers, like missionaries, must be fanatics.’<a name="FNanchor_309" id="FNanchor_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></p>
+
+<p>Erasmus once observed in a letter to a friend how
+little it mattered to most men to what nationality they
+belonged, seeing that it was only a question of paying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+taxes to Thomas instead of to John, or to John
+instead of to Thomas; but it becomes a matter of
+even less importance when it is only a question of
+being trained for murder and bloodshed in the drill-yards
+of this or that government. What is it to a
+conscript whether it is for France or Germany that
+he is forced to undergo drill and discipline, when the
+insipidity of the drill and the tyranny of the discipline
+is the same in either case? If the old definition
+of a man as a reasoning animal is to be exchanged
+for that of a fighting animal, and the claims of a
+country upon a man are to be solely or mainly in
+respect of his fighting utility, it is evident that the
+relation is altered between the individual and his
+country, and that there is no longer any tie of affection
+between them, nor anything to make one nationality
+different from or preferable to another. This is
+clearly the tendency of the conscription; and it is
+already remarkable how it has lessened those earlier
+and narrower views of patriotism which were the
+pretext formerly for so many trials of strength between
+nations. What, then, are the probable ultimate
+effects of this innovation on the development and
+maintenance of the peace in Europe?</p>
+
+<p>The conscription, by reducing the idea of a country
+to that merely of a military despotism, has naturally
+caused the differences between nations to sink into a
+secondary place, and to be superseded by those differences
+of class, opinions, and interests which are
+altogether independent of nationality, and regardless
+of the barriers of language or geography. Thus the
+artisan of one country has learnt to regard his fellow-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>worker
+of another country as in a much truer sense
+his countryman than the priest or noble who, because
+he lives in the same geographical area as himself, pays
+his taxes to the same central government; and the
+different political schools in the several countries of
+Europe have far more in common with one another
+than with the opposite party of their own nationality.
+So that the first effect of that great military engine,
+the conscription, has been to unloosen the bonds of
+the idea of nationality which has so long usurped the
+title to patriotism; to free us from that notion of our
+duty towards our neighbour which bids us hate him
+because he is our neighbour; and to diminish to that
+extent the chances of war by the undermining of the
+prejudice which has ever been its mainstay.</p>
+
+<p>But the conscription in laying one spectre has
+raised another; for over against Nationalism, the
+jealousy of nations, it has reared Socialism, the
+jealousy of classes. It has done so, not only by
+weakening the old national idea which kept the
+rivalry of classes in abeyance, but by the pauperism,
+misery, and discontent which are necessarily involved
+in the addition it causes to military expenditure. The
+increase caused by it is so enormous as to be almost
+incredible. In France the annual military expenditure
+is now about twenty-five million pounds, whereas
+in 1869, before the new law of universal liability to
+service, the total annual cost of the army was little
+over fifteen millions, or the average annual cost of
+the present army of Great Britain. ‘Nothing,’ said
+Froissart, ‘drains a treasury like men-at-arms;’
+and it is probably below the truth to say that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+country is the poorer by a pound for every shilling
+it expends upon its army. Thus by the nature of
+things is Socialism seen to flow from the conscription;
+and we have only to look at the recent history of
+Europe to see how the former has grown and spread
+in exact ratio to the extension of the latter. That
+it does not yet prevail so widely in England as in
+France, or Germany, or Russia is because as yet we
+have not that compulsory military service for which
+our military advisers are beginning to clamour.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of Socialism in its turn is not without
+an effect that may prove highly beneficial as a solvent
+of the militarism which is the uncompensated evil of
+modern times. For it tends to compel the governments
+of our different nationalities to draw closer together,
+and, adopting some of the cosmopolitanism of their
+common foe, to enter into league and union against
+those enemies to actual institutions for whom militarism
+itself is primarily responsible, owing to the
+example so long set by it in methods of lawlessness,
+to the sanction so long given by it to crime. With
+Socialistic theories permeating every country, but
+more especially those that groan under the conscription,
+international jealousies are smothered and kept
+down, and must, if the cause continues, ultimately die
+out. Hence the curious result, but a result fraught
+with hopefulness for the future, that the peace of the
+world should owe itself now, in an indirect but clearly
+traceable manner, to the military system which of all
+others that was ever invented is the best calculated
+to prevent and endanger it. But since this is merely
+to say that the danger of foreign war is lessened by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+the imminent fear of civil war, little is gained by
+the exchange of one peril for another. Socialism can
+only be averted by removing the cause which gives
+birth to it&mdash;namely, that unproductive expenditure
+on military forces which intensifies and perpetuates
+pauperism. So that the problem of the times for us
+in England is not how we may obtain a more liberal
+military expenditure, still less how we may compass
+compulsory service; but rather how most speedily we
+can disband our army&mdash;an ever-growing danger to
+our peace and liberty&mdash;and how we can advance elsewhere
+the cause of universal disarmament.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br />
+<span class="smaller">THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTY.</span></h2>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>‘I confess when I went into arms at the beginning of this war,
+I never troubled myself to examine sides; I was glad to hear the
+drums beat for soldiers, as if I had been a mere Swiss, that had
+not cared which side went up or down, so I had my pay.’</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Memoirs
+of a Cavalier.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="summary">The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed&mdash;Military purificatory
+customs&mdash;Modern change of feeling about warfare&mdash;Descartes on
+the profession of arms&mdash;The old-world sentiment in favour of piracy&mdash;The
+central question of military ethics&mdash;May a soldier be indifferent
+to the cause of war?&mdash;The right to serve made conditional
+on a good cause, by St. Augustine, Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir
+James Turner&mdash;Old Greek feeling about mercenary service&mdash;Origin
+of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous service&mdash;Armies raised by
+military contractors&mdash;The value of the distinction between foreign
+and native mercenaries&mdash;Original limitation of military duty to the
+actual defence of the realm&mdash;Extension of the notion of allegiance&mdash;The
+connection of the military oath with the first Mutiny Act&mdash;Recognised
+limits to the claims on a soldier’s obedience&mdash;The falsity
+of the common doctrine of duty illustrated by the devastation of
+the Palatinate by the French and by the bombardment of Copenhagen
+by the English&mdash;The example of Admiral Keppel&mdash;Justice
+between nations&mdash;Its observation in ancient India and Rome&mdash;St.
+Augustine and Bayard on justice in war&mdash;Grotius on good grounds
+of war&mdash;The military claim to exemption from moral responsibility&mdash;The
+soldier’s first duty to his conscience&mdash;The admission of this
+principle involves the end of war.</p>
+
+<p>It must needs be that new questions arise, or old
+perplexities in a fresh form; and of these one that has
+risen again in our time is this: Does any moral stain
+attach to bloodshed committed upon the battle-field?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+Or is the difference between military and ordinary
+homicide a real one, and does the plea of duty sanction
+any act, however atrocious in the abstract, provided it
+be committed under the uniform of the State?</p>
+
+<p>The general opinion is, of course, that no soldier
+in his military capacity can be guilty of crime; but
+opinion has not always been so fixed, and it is worth
+noticing that in the forms of civilisation that preceded
+our own, and in some existing modern races of lower
+type than our own, traces clearly appear of a sense of
+wrong attaching to any form of bloodshed whatever,
+whether of fair battle or of base treachery, calling alike
+for the purifying influences of expiation and cleansing.
+In South Africa, for instance, the Basuto returning from
+war proceeds with all his arms to the nearest stream,
+to purify not only his own person but his javelins and
+his battle-axe. The Zulu, too, practises ablutions on
+the same occasion; and the Bechuana warrior wears a
+rude kind of necklace, to remind him of the expiation
+due from him to the slain, and to disperse the dreams
+that might otherwise trouble him, and perhaps even
+drive him to die of remorse.<a name="FNanchor_310" id="FNanchor_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p>
+
+<p>The same feelings may be detected in the old world.
+The Macedonians had a peculiar form of sacrificatory
+purification, which consisted in cutting a dog in half
+and leading the whole army, arrayed in full armour,
+between the two parts.<a name="FNanchor_311" id="FNanchor_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> As the Bœotians had the
+same custom, it was probably for the same reason. At
+Rome, for the same purpose, a sheep, and a bull, and a
+pig or boar, were every year led three times round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+army and then sacrificed to Mars. In Jewish history
+the prohibition to King David to build the temple was
+expressly connected with the blood he had shed in
+battle. In old Greek mythology Theseus held himself
+unfit, without expiation, to be admitted to the mysteries
+of Ceres, though the blood that stained his hands was
+only that of thieves and robbers. And in the same
+spirit Hector refused to make a libation to the gods
+before he had purified his hands after battle. ‘With
+unwashen hands,’ he said, ‘to pour out sparkling wine
+to Zeus I dare not, nor is it ever the custom for one
+soiled with the blood and dust of battle to offer prayers
+to the god whose seat is in the clouds.’<a name="FNanchor_312" id="FNanchor_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a></p>
+
+<p>For the cause of this feeling we may perhaps choose
+between an almost instinctive reluctance to take human
+life, and some such superstition as explains the necessity
+for purification among the Basutos,&mdash;the idea,
+namely, of escaping the revenge of the slain by the
+medium of water.<a name="FNanchor_313" id="FNanchor_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> The latter explanation would be
+in keeping with the not uncommon notion in savage
+life of the inability of a spirit to cross running water,
+and would help to account for the necessity there was
+for a Hebrew to flee, or for a Greek to make some
+expiation, even though only guilty of an act of unintentional
+homicide. And in this way it is possible
+that the sanctity of human life, which is one of the chief
+marks, and should be one of the chief objects, of civilisation,
+originated in the very same fear of a post-mortem
+vengeance, which leads some savage tribes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+to entreat pardon of the bear or elephant they have
+slain after a successful chase.</p>
+
+<p>But, account as we like for the origin of the feeling,
+its undoubted existence is the point of interest, for it is
+easy to see that under slightly more favourable conditions
+of history it might have ripened into a state
+of thought which would have held the soldier and the
+manslayer in equal abhorrence. Christianity in its
+primitive form certainly aimed at and very nearly
+effected the transition. In the Greek Church a Christian
+soldier was debarred from the Eucharist for three
+years if he had slain an enemy in battle; and the
+Christian Church of the first three centuries would have
+echoed the sentiment expressed by St. Cyprian in his
+letter to Donatus: ‘Homicide when committed by an
+individual is a crime, but a virtue when committed in
+a public war; yet in the latter case it derives its impunity,
+not from its abstract harmlessness, but solely
+from the scale of its enormity.’</p>
+
+<p>The education of centuries has long since effaced
+the earlier scruple; but there are tens of thousands of
+Englishmen to whom the military profession is the last
+they would voluntarily adopt, and it would be rash to
+predict the impossibility of the revival of the older feeling,
+or the dimensions it may ultimately assume. The
+greatest poet of our time, who more than any other
+living man has helped to lead European opinion into
+new channels, may, perhaps, in the following lines
+have anticipated the verdict of the coming time, and
+divined an undercurrent of thought that is beginning
+to flow even now amongst us with no inconsiderable
+force of feeling:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">La phrase, cette altière et vile courtisane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dore le meurtre en grand, fourbit la pertuisane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Protège les soudards contre le sens commun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Persuade les niais que tous sont faits pour un,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prouve que la tuerie est glorieuse et bonne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Déroute la logique et l’évidence, et donne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Un sauf-conduit au crime à travers la raison.<a name="FNanchor_314" id="FNanchor_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The destruction of the romance of war by the
+greater publicity given to its details through the
+medium of the press clearly tends to strengthen this
+feeling, by tempering popular admiration for military
+success with a cooling admixture of horror and disgust.
+Take, for instance, the following description of the
+storming of the Egyptian trenches at Tel-el-Kebir, by
+an eye-witness of it:&mdash;‘In the redoubts into which
+our men were swarming the Egyptians, throwing
+away their arms, were found cowering, terror-stricken,
+in the corners of the works, to hide themselves from
+our men. Although they had made such a contemptible
+exhibition, from a soldierly point of view, it
+was impossible to help pitying the poor wretches as
+they huddled together; <i>it seemed so much like rats in
+a pit when the terrier has set to work</i>.’ And some
+2,500 of them were afterwards buried on the spot,
+most of them killed by bayonet wounds in the back.</p>
+
+<p>This is an instance of the <i>tuerie</i> that Victor Hugo
+speaks of, which we all call glorious when we meet in
+the streets, reserving, some of us, another opinion for
+the secret chamber. Still, when it comes to comparing
+the work of a victory to that of a terrier in a rat-pit,
+it must be admitted that the realism of war threatens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+to become more repellent than its romance was once
+attractive, and to deter men more and more from the
+choice of a profession of which similar disgusting
+scenes are the common and the probable episodes.</p>
+
+<p>Descartes, the father of modern philosophy and of
+free thought, who, from a youthful love for arms and
+camp-life, which he attributed to a certain heat of liver,
+began life in the army, actually gave up his military
+career for the reasons which he thus expressed in a letter
+to a friend: ‘Although custom and example render the
+profession of arms the noblest of all, I, for my own
+part, who only regard it like a philosopher, value it at
+its proper worth, and, indeed, I find it very difficult
+to give it a place among the honourable professions,
+seeing that idleness and licentiousness are the two
+principal motives which now attract most men to
+it.’<a name="FNanchor_315" id="FNanchor_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of course no one in modern times would come
+to the same conclusions as Descartes for the same
+reasons, the discipline of our armies being somewhat
+more serious than it was in the first half of the seventeenth
+century. Nevertheless, it is impossible to
+read of the German campaign in France without
+hoping, for the good of the world, that the inevitable
+association of war with the most revolting forms of
+crime therein displayed, may some day produce a
+general state of sentiment similar to that anticipated
+by Descartes.</p>
+
+<p>It may be, said that the example of Descartes
+proves and indicates nothing; and we may feel
+pretty sure that his scruples seemed extravagantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+absurd to his contemporaries, if he suffered them to
+know them. Nevertheless, he might have appealed
+to several well-known historical facts as a reason
+against too hasty a condemnation of his apparent
+super-sensitiveness. He might have argued that the
+profession of a pirate once reflected no more moral
+discredit than that of a soldier did in his days; that
+the pirate’s reply to Alexander, that he infested the
+seas by the same right wherewith the conqueror
+devastated the land, conveyed a moral sentiment
+once generally accepted, nor even then quite extinct;
+that in the days of Homer it was as natural to ask a
+seafarer whether he were a freebooter as whether he
+were a merchant; that so late in Greek history as
+the time of Thucydides, several tribes on the mainland
+of Greece still gloried in piracy, and accounted
+their plunder honourably won; and that at Rome
+the Cilician pirates, whom it devolved on Pompey to
+disperse, were joined by persons of wealth, birth, and
+education, ‘as if,’ says Plutarch, ‘their employment
+were worthy of the ambition of men of honour.’</p>
+
+<p>Remembering, therefore, these things, and the
+fact that not so very many centuries ago public
+opinion was so lenient to the practice of bishops
+and ecclesiastics taking an active part in warfare that
+they commonly did so in spite of canons and councils
+to the contrary, it is a fair subject for speculation
+whether the moral opinion of the future may not
+come to coincide with the feeling of Descartes, and it
+behoves us to keep our minds alive to possibilities of
+change in this matter, already it would seem in process
+of formation. Who will venture to predict what may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+be the effect of the rise of the general level of education,
+and of the higher moral life of our time, on
+the popular judgment of even fifty years hence regarding
+a voluntarily adopted military life?</p>
+
+<p>We may, perhaps, attribute it to the extreme
+position taken up with regard to military service by
+the Quakers and Mennonites that the example of
+Descartes had so slight a following. That thick
+phalanx of our kind who fondly mistake their own
+mental timidity for moderation, perpetually make use
+of the doctrines of extremists as an excuse for tolerating
+or even defending what in the abstract they
+admit to be evil; and it was unfortunately with this
+moderate party that Grotius elected to throw in his
+lot. No one admitted more strongly the evils of war.
+The reason he himself gave for writing his ‘De Jure
+Pacis et Belli’ was the licence he saw prevailing
+throughout Christendom in resorting to hostilities;
+recourse had to arms for slight motives or for none;
+and when war was once begun an utter rejection of
+all reverence for divine or human law, just as if the
+unrestrained commission of every crime became
+thenceforth legitimate. Yet, instead of throwing the
+weight of his judgment into the scale of opinion
+which opposed the custom altogether (though he did
+advocate an international tribunal that should decide
+differences and compel obedience to its decisions), he
+only tried to shackle it with rules of decency that are
+absolutely foreign to it, with the result, after all, that
+he did very little to humanise wars, and nothing to
+make them less frequent.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, though Grotius admitted the abstract<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+lawfulness of military service, he made it conditional
+on a thorough conviction of the righteousness of the
+cause at issue. This is the great and permanent
+merit of his work, and it is here that we touch on the
+pivot or central question of military ethics. The
+orthodox theory is, that with the cause of war a
+soldier has no concern, and that since the matter in
+contention is always too complicated for him to judge
+of its merits, his only duty is to blindfold his reason
+and conscience, and rush whithersoever his services
+are commanded. Perhaps the best exposition of this
+simple military philosophy is that given by Shakespeare
+in his scene of the eve of Agincourt, where
+Henry V., in disguise, converses with some soldiers of
+the English army. ‘Methinks,’ says the king, ‘I could
+not die anywhere so contented as in the king’s company,
+his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.’</p>
+
+<p><i>William.</i> ‘That’s more than we know.’</p>
+
+<p><i>Bates.</i> ‘Ay, or more than we should seek after,
+for we know enough if we know we are the king’s
+subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to
+the king wipes the crime of it out of us.’</p>
+
+<p>Yet the whisper of our own day is, Does it? For
+a soldier, nowadays, enjoys equally with the civilian,
+who by his vote contributes to prevent or promote
+hostilities, the greater facilities afforded by the spread
+of knowledge for the exercise of his judgment; and
+it is to subject him to undeserved ignominy to debar
+him from the free use of his intellect, as if he were a
+minor or an imbecile, incompetent to think for himself.
+Putting even the difficulty of decision at its
+worst, it can never be greater for the soldier than it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+for the voter; and if the former is incompetent to
+form an opinion, whence does the peasant or mechanic
+derive his ability? Moreover, the existence of a just
+and good cause has always been the condition insisted
+on as alone capable of sanctioning military service by
+writers of every shade of thought&mdash;by St. Augustine
+as representing the early Catholic Church, by Bullinger
+or Becon as representatives of the early Reformed
+Church, and by Grotius as representative of
+the modern school of publicists. Grotius contends
+that no citizen or subject ought to take part in an
+unjust war, even if he be commanded to do so. He
+openly maintains that disobedience to orders is in
+such a case a lesser evil than the guilt of homicide
+that would be incurred by fighting. He inclines to
+the opinion that, where the cause of war seems
+doubtful, a man would do better to refrain from
+service, and to leave the king to employ those whose
+readiness to fight might be less hampered by questions
+of right and wrong, and of whom there would
+always be a plentiful supply. Without these reservations
+he regards the soldier’s task as so much the
+more detestable than the executioner’s, as manslaughter
+without a cause is more heinous than manslaughter
+with one,<a name="FNanchor_316" id="FNanchor_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> and thinks no kind of life more
+wicked than that of men who, without regard for the
+cause of war, fight for hire, and to whom the question of
+right is equivalent to the question of the highest wage.<a name="FNanchor_317" id="FNanchor_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These are strong opinions and expressions, and
+as their general acceptance would logically render
+war impossible, it is no small gain to have in their
+favour so great an authority as Grotius. But it is an
+even greater gain to be able to quote on the same
+side an actual soldier. Sir James Turner at the end
+of his military treatise called ‘Pallas Armata,’ published
+in 1683, came to conclusions which, though
+adverse to Grotius, contain some remarkable admissions
+and show the difference that two centuries have
+made on military maxims with regard to this subject.
+‘It is no sin for a mere soldier,’ he says, ‘to serve for
+wages, unless his conscience tells him he fights in an
+unjust cause.’ Again, ‘That soldier who serves or
+fights for any prince or State for wages in a cause he
+knows to be unjust, sins damnably.’ He even argues
+that soldiers whose original service began for a just
+cause, and who are constrained by their military
+oaths to continue in service for a new and unjust
+cause of war, ought to ‘desert their employment and
+suffer anything that could be done to them before
+they draw their swords against their own conscience
+and judgments in an unjust quarrel.’<a name="FNanchor_318" id="FNanchor_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a></p>
+
+<p>These moral sentiments of a military man of the
+seventeenth century are absolutely alien to the military
+doctrines of the present day; and his remarks
+on wages recall yet another important landmark of
+ancient thought that has been removed by the progress
+of time. Early Greek opinion justly made
+no distinction between the mercenary who served<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+a foreign country and the mercenary who served his
+own. All hired military service was regarded as
+disgraceful, nor would anyone of good birth have
+dreamt of serving his own country save at his own
+expense. The Carians rendered their names infamous
+as the first of the Greek race who served for
+pay; whilst at Athens Pericles introduced the custom
+of supporting the poorer defenders of their country out
+of the exchequer.<a name="FNanchor_319" id="FNanchor_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> Afterwards, of course, no people
+ever committed itself more eagerly to the pursuit
+of mercenary warfare.</p>
+
+<p>In England also gratuitous military service was
+originally the condition of the feudal tenure of land,
+nor was anyone bound to serve the king for more
+than a certain number of days in the year, forty being
+generally the longest term. For all service in excess
+of the legal limit the king was obliged to pay; and
+in this way, and by the scutage tax, by which many
+tenants bought themselves off from their strict obligations,
+the principle of a paid military force was
+recognised from the time of the Conquest. But the
+chief stipendiary forces appear to have been foreign
+mercenaries, supported, not out of the commutation
+tax, but out of the king’s privy purse, and still more
+out of the loot won from their victims in war. These
+were those soldiers of fortune, chiefly from Flanders,
+Brabançons, or Routers, whose excesses as brigands
+led to their excommunication by the Third Lateran
+Council (1179), and to their destruction by a crusade
+three years later.<a name="FNanchor_320" id="FNanchor_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the germ of our modern recruiting system must
+rather be looked for in those military contracts or indentures,
+by which from about the time of Edward III.
+it became customary to raise our forces: some powerful
+subject contracting with the king, in consideration of a
+certain sum, to provide soldiers for a certain time and
+task. Thus in 1382 the war-loving Bishop of Norwich
+contracted with Richard II. to provide 2,500 men-at-arms
+and 2,500 archers for a year’s service in France,
+in consideration of the whole fifteenth that had been
+voted by Parliament for the war.<a name="FNanchor_321" id="FNanchor_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> In the same way
+several bishops indented to raise soldiers for Henry V.
+And thus a foreign war became a mere matter of
+business and hire, and armies to fight the French were
+raised by speculative contractors, very much as men
+are raised nowadays to make railways or take part
+in other works needful for the public at large. The
+engagement was purely pecuniary and commercial,
+and was entirely divested of any connection with
+conscience or patriotism. On the other hand, the
+most obviously just cause of war, that of national
+defence in case of invasion, continued to be altogether
+disconnected with pay, and remained so much the
+duty of the militia or capable male population of the
+country, that both Edward III. and Richard II. directed
+writs even to archbishops and bishops to arm and array
+all abbots, priors, and monks, between the ages of
+sixteen and sixty, for the defence of the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_322" id="FNanchor_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a></p>
+
+<p>Originally, therefore, the paid army of England,
+as opposed to the militia, implied the introduction of
+a strictly mercenary force consisting indifferently of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+natives or foreigners, into our military system. But
+clearly there was no moral difference between the
+two classes of mercenaries so engaged. The hire, and
+not the cause, being the main consideration of both,
+the Englishman and the Brabançon were equally mercenaries
+in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The
+prejudice against mercenaries either goes too far or
+not far enough. If a Swiss or an Italian hiring himself
+to fight for a cause about which he was ignorant
+or indifferent was a mercenary soldier, so was an
+Englishman who with equal ignorance and indifference
+accepted the wages offered him by a military
+contractor of his own nation. Either the conduct of
+the Swiss was blameless, or the Englishman’s moral
+delinquency was the same as his.</p>
+
+<p>The public opinion of former times regarded
+both, of course, as equally blameless, or rather as
+equally meritorious. And it is worth noticing that
+the word <i>mercenary</i> was applied alike to the hired
+military servant of his own as of another country.
+Shakespeare, for instance, applies the term mercenary
+to the 1,600 Frenchmen of low degree slain at
+Agincourt, whom Monstrelet distinguishes from the
+10,000 Frenchmen of position who lost their lives on
+that memorable day&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">In this ten thousand they have lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries.<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>And even so late as 1756, the original signification
+of the word had so little changed, that in the
+great debate in the House of Lords on the Militia Bill
+of that year Lord Temple and several other orators<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+spoke of the national standing army as an army of
+<i>mercenaries</i>, without making any distinction between
+the Englishmen and the Hessians who served in it.<a name="FNanchor_323" id="FNanchor_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a></p>
+
+<p>The moral distinction that now prevails between
+the paid service of natives and of foreigners is, therefore,
+of comparatively recent origin. It was one of
+the features of the Reformation in Switzerland that
+its leaders insisted for the first time on a moral difference
+between Swiss soldiers who served their own
+country for pay, and those who with equal bravery and
+credit sold their strength to the service of the highest
+foreign bidder.</p>
+
+<p>Zwingli, and after him his disciple Bullinger,
+effected a change in the moral sentiment of Switzerland
+equivalent to that which a man would effect
+nowadays who should persuade men to discountenance
+or abandon military service of any kind for pay. One
+of the great obstacles to Zwingli’s success was his
+decided protest against the right of any Swiss to sell
+himself to foreign governments for the commission of
+bloodshed, regardless of any injury in justification;
+and it was mainly on that account that Bullinger
+succeeded in 1549 in preventing a renewal of the
+alliance or military contract between the cantons and
+Henry II. of France. ‘When a private individual,’
+he said, ‘is free to enrol himself or not, and engages
+himself to fight against the friends and allies of his
+sovereign, I know not whether he does not hire himself
+to commit homicide, and whether he does not act
+like the gladiators, who, to amuse the Roman people,
+let themselves to the first comer to kill one another.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But it is evident that, except with a reservation
+limiting a man’s service to a just national cause,
+Bullinger’s argument will also apply to the case of a
+hired soldier of his own country. The duty of every
+man to defend his country in case of invasion is intelligible
+enough; and it is very important to notice
+that originally in no country did the duty of military
+obedience mean more. In 1297 the High Constable
+and Marshal of England refused to muster the forces
+to serve Edward I. in Flanders, on the plea that
+neither they nor their ancestors were obliged to serve
+the king outside his dominions;<a name="FNanchor_324" id="FNanchor_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> and Sir E. Coke’s
+ruling in Calvin’s case,<a name="FNanchor_325" id="FNanchor_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> that Englishmen are bound to
+attend the king in his wars as well without as within
+the realm, and that their allegiance is not local but
+indefinite, was not accepted by writers on the constitution
+of the country. The existing militia oath, which
+strictly limits obedience to the defence of the realm,
+covered the whole military duty of our ancestors;
+and it was only the innovation of the military contract
+that prepared the way for our modern idea of
+the soldier’s duty as unqualified and unlimited with
+regard to cause and place and time. The very word
+<i>soldier</i> meant originally stipendiary, his pay or <i>solde</i>
+(from the Latin <i>solidum</i>) coming to constitute his
+chief characteristic. From a servant hired for a certain
+task for a certain time the steps were easy to a
+servant whose hire bound him to any task and for the
+whole of his life. The existing military oath, which
+binds a recruit and practically compels him as much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+to a war of aggression as of defence at the bidding
+of the executive, owes its origin to the revolution of
+1689, when the refusal of Dumbarton’s famous Scotch
+regiment to serve their new master, William III., in
+the defence of Holland against France, rendered it
+advisable to pass the Mutiny Act, containing a more
+stringent definition of military duty by an oath
+couched in extremely general terms. Such has been
+the effect of time in confirming this newer doctrine of
+the contract implied by the military status, that the
+defence of the monarch ‘in person, crown, and dignity
+against all enemies,’ to which the modern recruit
+pledges himself at his attestation, would be held to
+bind the soldier not to withhold his services were he
+called upon to exercise them in the planet Mars itself.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it appears to be an indisputable fact of
+history that the modern military theory of Europe,
+which demands complete spiritual self-abandonment
+and unqualified obedience on the part of a soldier, is
+a distinct trespass outside the bounds of the original
+and, so to speak, constitutional idea of military duty;
+and that in our own country it is as much an encroachment
+on the rights of Englishmen as it is on the wider
+rights of man.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the value of the theory itself, even if
+we take no account of the history of its growth? If
+military service precludes a man from discussing the
+justice of the end pursued in a war, it can hardly be
+disputed that it equally precludes him from inquiries
+about the means, and that if he is bound to consider
+himself as fighting in any case for a lawful cause he
+has no right to bring his moral sense to bear upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+details of the service required of him. But here occurs
+a loophole, a flaw, in the argument; for no subject
+nor soldier can be compelled to serve as a spy, however
+needful such service may be. That proves that
+a limit does exist to the claims on a soldier’s obedience.
+And Vattel mentions as a common occurrence the
+refusal of troops to act when the cruelty of the deeds
+commanded of them exposed them to the danger of
+savage reprisals. ‘Officers,’ he says, ‘who had the
+highest sense of honour, though ready to shed their
+blood in a field of battle for their prince’s service, have
+not thought it any part of their duty to run the
+hazard of an ignominious death,’ such as was involved
+in the execution of such behests. Yet why not, if
+their prince or general commanded them? By what
+principle of morality or common sense were they
+justified in declining a particular service as too
+iniquitous for them and yet in holding themselves
+bound to the larger iniquity of an aggressive war?
+What right has a machine to choose or decide between
+good and bad any more than between just and unjust?
+Its moral incompetence must be thoroughgoing, or
+else in no case afford an extenuating plea. You
+must either grant it everything or nothing, or else
+offer a rational explanation for your rule of distinction.
+For it clearly needs explaining, why, if there
+are orders which a soldier is not bound to obey, if
+there are cases where he is competent to discuss the
+moral nature of the services required of him, it should
+not also be open to him to discuss the justice of the
+war itself of which those services are merely incidents.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn from the abstract to the concrete,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+and take two instances as a test of the principle.
+In 1689, Marshal Duras, commander of the French
+army of the Rhine, received orders to destroy the
+Palatinate, and make a desert between France and
+Germany, though neither the Elector nor his people
+had done the least injury to France. Did a single
+soldier, did a single officer quail or hesitate? Voltaire
+tells us that many officers felt shame in acting as the
+instrument of this iniquity of Louis XIV., but they
+acted nevertheless in accordance with their supposed
+honour, and with the still orthodox theory of military
+duty. They stopped short at no atrocity. They cut
+down the fruit-trees, they tore down the vines, they
+burnt the granaries; they set fire to villages, to
+country-houses, to castles; they desecrated the tombs
+of the ancient German emperors at Spiers; they plundered
+the churches; they reduced well-nigh to ashes
+Oppenheim, Spiers, Worms, Mannheim, Heidelberg,
+and other flourishing cities; they reduced 400,000
+human beings to homelessness and destruction&mdash;and
+all in the name of military duty and military honour!
+Yet, of a truth, those were dastardly deeds if ever
+dastardly deeds have been done beneath the sun; and
+it is the sheerest sophistry to maintain that the men
+who so implicitly carried out their orders would not
+have done more for their miserable honour, would
+not have had a higher conception of duty, had they
+followed the dictates of their reason and conscience
+rather than those of their military superiors, and refused
+to sacrifice their humanity to an overstrained
+theory of their military obligation, and their memory
+to everlasting execration.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the case of these destroyers military duty
+meant simply military servility, and it was this reckless
+servility that led Voltaire in his ‘Candide’ to
+put into the mouth of his inimitable philosopher,
+Martin, that definition of an army which tales like
+the foregoing suggested and justified: ‘A million of
+assassins, in regiments, traversing Europe from end
+to end, and committing murder and brigandage by
+rules of discipline for the sake of bread, because incompetent
+to exercise any more honest calling.’<a name="FNanchor_326" id="FNanchor_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a></p>
+
+<p>An English case of this century may be taken as
+a parallel one to the French of the seventeenth, and as
+an additional test of the orthodox military dogma
+that with the cause of war a soldier has no concern.
+It is the Copenhagen expedition of 1807, than which
+no act of might within this century was more strongly
+reprobated by the public opinion of Europe, and by
+all but the Tory opinion of England. A fleet and
+army having been sent to the Danish capital, and
+the Danish Government having refused to surrender
+their fleet, which was demanded as the alternative of
+bombardment, the English military officials proceeded
+to bombard the city, with infinite destruction and
+slaughter, which were only stayed at last by the surrender
+of the fleet as originally demanded. There was
+no quarrel with Denmark at the time, there was no
+complaint of injury; only the surrender of the fleet was
+demanded. English public opinion was both excited
+and divided about the morality of this act, which was
+only justified on the plea that the Government was
+in possession of a secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+between Napoleon and the Czar of Russia, by which
+the Danish fleet was to be made use of in an attack
+upon England. But this secret article was not divulged,
+according to Alison, till ten years afterwards,<a name="FNanchor_327" id="FNanchor_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a>
+and many disbelieved in its existence altogether, even
+supposing that its existence would have been a good
+case for war. Many military men therefore shared
+in the feeling that condemned the act, yet they
+scrupled not to contribute their aid to it. Were they
+right? Read Sir C. Napier’s opinion of it at the
+time, and then say where, in the case of a man so
+thinking, would have lain his duty: ‘This Copenhagen
+expedition&mdash;is it an unjust action for the general
+good? Who can say that such a precedent is pardonable?
+When once the line of justice has been
+passed, there is no shame left. England has been
+unjust.... Was not our high honour worth the
+danger we might perhaps have risked in maintaining
+that honour inviolate?’<a name="FNanchor_328" id="FNanchor_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a></p>
+
+<p>These opinions, whether right or wrong, were
+shared by many men in both services. Sir C. Napier
+himself says: ‘Were there not plenty of soldiers who
+thought these things wrong? ... but would it have
+been possible to allow the army and navy ... to
+decide upon the propriety of such attacks?’<a name="FNanchor_329" id="FNanchor_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> The
+answer is, that if they did, whether allowed or not,
+such things would be impossible, or, at all events, less
+probable: which is the best reason possible for the
+contention that they should. Had they done so in
+this very instance, our historians would have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+spared the explanation of an episode that is a dark blot
+upon our annals.</p>
+
+<p>A more pleasing precedent, therefore, than that of
+the French officers in the Palatinate, or of the English
+at Copenhagen, is the case of Admiral Keppel, who,
+whilst numbers of naval officers flocked to the Admiralty
+to offer their services or to request employment,
+steadily declined to take part in the war of England
+against her American colonies, because he deemed
+her cause a bad one.<a name="FNanchor_330" id="FNanchor_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> He did no violence to his reason
+or conscience nor tarnished his fame by acting a part,
+of which in his individual capacity he disapproved.
+His example is here held up as illustrating the only
+true doctrine, and the only one that at all accords with
+the most rudimentary principles of either religion or
+morality. The contrary doctrine bids a man to forswear
+the use of both his reason and his conscience in
+consideration for his pay, and deprives him of that
+liberty of thought and moral action compared with
+which his civil and political liberty are nothing worth.
+For what indeed is this contrary time-honoured doctrine
+when stripped of all superfluities, and displayed
+in the outfit of common sense and common words?
+What is it but that the duty of military obedience
+overrides all duty of a man towards himself; that,
+though he may not voluntarily destroy his body, he
+cannot do too much violence to his soul; that it is his
+duty to annihilate his moral and intellectual being, to
+commit spiritual suicide, to forego the use of the noblest
+faculties which belong to him as a man; that to do all
+this is a just cause of pride to him, and that he is in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+respects the nobler and better for assimilating himself
+to that brainless and heartless condition which is that
+also of his charger or his rifle?</p>
+
+<p>If this doctrine is true and sound, then it may be
+asked whether there has ever been or exists upon
+the earth any tyranny, ecclesiastical or political, comparable
+to this military one; whether any but the baser
+forms of priestcraft have ever sought to deprive a man
+so completely of the enjoyment of his highest human
+attributes, or to absolve him so utterly from all moral
+responsibility for his actions.</p>
+
+<p>This position can scarcely be disputed, save by
+denying the reality of any distinction between just and
+unjust in international conduct; and against this denial
+may be set not only the evidence of every age, but of
+every language above the stage of mere barbarism.
+Disregard of the difference is one of the best measures
+of the civilisation of a people or epoch. We at once,
+for instance, form a higher estimate of the civilisation
+of ancient India, when we read in Arrian that her kings
+were so apprehensive of committing an unjust aggression
+that they would not lead their armies out of India
+for the conquest of other nations.<a name="FNanchor_331" id="FNanchor_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> One of the best
+features in the old pagan world was the importance
+attached to the justice of the motives for breaking the
+peace. The Romans appear never to have begun a
+war without a previous consultation with the College
+of Fecials as to its justice; and in the same way, and
+for the same purpose, the early Christian emperors
+consulted the opinion of the bishops. If a Roman
+general made an unjust attack upon a people his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+triumph was refused, or at least resisted; nor are the
+instances infrequent in which the senate decreed restitution
+where a consul, acting on his own responsibility,
+had deprived a population of its arms, its lands,
+or its liberties.<a name="FNanchor_332" id="FNanchor_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> Hence the Romans, with all their
+apparent aggressiveness, won the character of a strict
+regard to justice, which was no small part of the secret
+of their power. ‘You boast,’ the Rhodians said to
+them, ‘that your wars are successful because they are
+just, and plume yourselves not so much on the victory
+which concludes them as on the fact that you never
+begin them without good cause.’<a name="FNanchor_333" id="FNanchor_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> Conquest corrupted
+the Romans in these respects as it has done many
+another people; but even to the end of the Republic
+the tradition of justice survived; nor is there anything
+finer in the history of that people than the attempt of
+the party headed by Ateius the tribune to prevent
+Crassus leaving Rome when he was setting out to make
+war upon the Parthians, who not only had committed
+no injury, but were the allies of the Republic; or than
+the vote of Cato, that Cæsar, who, in time of peace,
+had slain or routed 300,000 Germans, should be given
+up to the people he had injured in atonement for the
+wrong he had done to them.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of the importance of a just cause of war
+may be traced, of course, in history, after the extinction
+of the grand pagan philosophy in which it had its
+origin. It was insisted on even by Christian writers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+who, like St. Augustine, did not regard all military
+service as wicked. What, he asked, were kingdoms
+but robberies on a vast scale, if their justice were put
+out of the reckoning.<a name="FNanchor_334" id="FNanchor_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> A French writer of the time of
+Charles V. concluded that while soldiers who fell in a
+just cause were saved, those who died for an unjust
+cause perished in a state of mortal sin.<a name="FNanchor_335" id="FNanchor_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> Even the
+Chevalier Bayard, who accompanied Charles VIII.
+without any scruple in his conquest of Naples, was
+fond of saying that all empires, kingdoms, and provinces
+were, if without the principle of justice, no better
+than forests full of brigands;<a name="FNanchor_336" id="FNanchor_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> and the fine saying is
+attributed to him, that the strength of arms should
+only be employed for the establishment of right and
+equity. But on the whole the justice of the cause of
+war became of less and less importance as time went
+on; nor have our modern Christian societies ever derived
+benefit in that respect from the instruction or
+guidance of their churches at all equal to that which
+the society of pagan Rome derived from the institution
+of its Fecials, as the guardians of the national conscience.</p>
+
+<p>It was among the humane endeavours of Grotius
+to try to remedy this defect in modern States by
+establishing certain general principles by which it
+might be possible to test the pretext of any given
+war from the side of its justice. At first sight it
+appears obvious that a definite injury is the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+justification for a resort to hostilities, or, in other
+words, that only a defensive war is just; but then
+the question arises how far defence may be anticipatory,
+and an injury feared or probable give the
+same rights as one actually sustained. The majority
+of wars, that have not been merely wars of conquest
+and robbery, may be traced to that principle in history,
+so well expressed by Livy, that men’s anxiety
+not to be afraid of others causes them to become
+objects of dread themselves.<a name="FNanchor_337" id="FNanchor_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> For this reason Grotius
+refused to admit as a good <i>casus belli</i> the fact that
+another nation was making warlike preparations,
+building garrisons and fortresses, or that its power
+might, if unchecked, grow to be dangerous. He also
+rejected the pretext of mere utility as a good ground
+for war, or such pleas as the need of better territory,
+the right of first discovery, or the improvement or
+punishment of barbarous nations.</p>
+
+<p>A strict adherence to these principles, vague as
+they are, would have prevented most of the bloodshed
+that has occurred in Europe since Grotius wrote.
+The difficulty, however, is, that, as between nations,
+the principle of utility easily overshadows that of
+justice; and although the two are related as the
+temporary to the permanent expediency, and therefore
+as the lesser to the greater expediency, the
+relation between them is seldom obvious at the time
+of choice, and it is easy beforehand to demonstrate
+the expediency of a war of which time alone can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+show both the inexpediency and the injustice. Any
+war, therefore, however unjust it may seem, when
+judged by the canons of Grotius, is easily construed
+as just when measured by the light of an imperious
+and magnified passing interest; and the absence of
+any recognised definition or standard of just dealing
+between nations affords a salve to many a conscience
+that in the matters of private life would be sensitive
+and scrupulous enough. The story of King Agesilaus
+is a mirror in which very few ages or countries may
+not see their own history reflected. When Phœbidas,
+the Spartan general, seized the Cadmeia of Thebes in
+the time of peace, the greater part of Greece and
+many Spartans condemned it as a most iniquitous
+act of war; but Agesilaus, who at other times was
+wont to talk of justice as the greatest of all the
+virtues, and of valour without it as of little worth,
+defended his officer’s action, on the plea that it was
+necessary to regard the tendency of the action, and
+to account it even as glorious if it resulted in an
+advantage to Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>But when every allowance is made for wars of
+which the justice is not clearly defined from the
+expediency, many wars have occurred of so palpably
+unjust a character, that they could not have been
+possible but for the existence of the loosest sentiments
+with regard to the responsibility of those who
+took part in them. We read of wars or the pretexts
+of wars in history of which we all, whether military
+men or civilians, readily recognise the injustice; and
+by applying the same principles of judgment to the
+wars of our own country and time we are each and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+all of us furnished for the direction of our conscience
+with a standard which, if not absolutely scientific or
+consistent, is sufficient for all the practical purposes
+of life, and is completely subversive of the excuse
+which is afforded by occasional instances of difficult
+and doubtful decision. The same facilities which
+exist for the civilian when he votes for or against
+taxation for a given war, or in approval or disapproval
+of the government which undertakes it, exist
+also for the soldier who lends his active aid to it;
+nor is it unreasonable to claim for the action of the
+one the same responsibility to his own conscience
+which by general admission attaches to the other.</p>
+
+<p>It is surely something like a degradation to the
+soldier that he should not enjoy in this respect the
+same rights as the civilian; that his merit alone
+should be tested by no higher a theory of duty than
+that which is applied to the merit of a horse; and
+that his capacity for blind and unreasoning obedience
+should be accounted his highest attainable virtue.
+The transition from the idea of military vassalage to
+that of military allegiance has surely produced a
+strange conception of honour, and one fitter for conscripts
+than for free men, when a man is held as by a
+vice to take part in a course of action which he
+believes to be wrong. Not only does no other profession
+enforce such an obligation, but in every other
+walk of life a man’s assertion of his own personal
+responsibility is a source rather of credit to him than
+of infamy. That in the performance of any social
+function a man should be called upon to make an unconditional
+surrender of his free will, and yield an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+obedience as thoughtless as a dummy’s to superior
+orders, would seem to be a principle of conduct
+pilfered from the Society of Jesus, and utterly unworthy
+of the nobility of a soldier. As a matter of
+history, the priestly organisation took the military
+one for its model: which should lead us to suspect
+that the tyranny we find fault with in the copy is
+equally present in the original, and that the latter is
+marked by the same vices that it transmitted to the
+borrowed organisation.</p>
+
+<p>The principle here contended for, that the soldier
+should be fully satisfied in his own mind of the justice
+of the cause he fights for, is the condition that
+Christian writers, from Augustine to Grotius, have
+placed on the lawfulness of military service. The
+objection to it, that its adoption would mean the ruin
+of military discipline, will appear the greatest argument
+of all in its favour when we reflect that its
+universal adoption would make war itself, which is
+the only reason for discipline, altogether impossible.
+Where would have been the wars of the last two
+hundred years had it been in force? Or where the
+English wars of the last six, with their thousands of
+lives and their millions of money spent for no visible
+good nor glory in fighting with Afghans, Zulus,
+Egyptians, and Arabs? Once restrict legitimate
+warfare to the limits of national defence, and it is
+evident that the refusal of men to take part in a war
+of aggression would equally put an end to the necessity
+of defensive exertion. If no government could
+rely on its subjects for the purposes of aggression and
+injustice, it goes without saying that the just cause of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+war would perish simultaneously. It is therefore
+altogether to be wished that that reliance should be
+weakened and destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The reasoning, then, which contains the key that
+is alone capable of closing permanently the portals of
+Janus is this: that there exists a distinction between
+a just and an unjust war, between a good and a bad
+cause, and that no man has a right either to take part
+knowingly and wilfully in a cause he believes to be
+unjust, nor to commit himself servilely to a theory
+of duty which deprives him, at the very outset, of
+his inalienable human birthright of free thought and
+free will. This is the principle of personal responsibility
+which has long since won admission everywhere
+save in the service of Mars, and which requires
+but to be extended there to free the world from the
+custom that has longest and most ruinously afflicted
+it. For it attacks that custom where it has never yet
+been seriously attacked before, at its real source&mdash;namely,
+in the heart, the brain, and the conscience,
+that, in spite of all warping and training, still belong
+to the individual units who alone make it possible.
+It behoves all of us, therefore, who are interested in
+abolishing military barbarism, not merely to yield a
+passive assent to it ourselves, but to claim for it assent
+and assertion from others. We must ask and reask
+the question: What is the title by which a man,
+through the mere fact of his military cloth, claims
+exemption from the moral law that is universally
+binding upon his fellows?</p>
+
+<p>For this principle of individual military responsi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>bility
+is of such power, that if carried to its consequences,
+it must ultimately prove fatal to militarism;
+and if it has not yet the prescription of time and
+common opinion in its favour, it is sealed nevertheless
+with the authority of many of the best intellects that
+have helped to enlighten the past, and is indissolubly
+contained in the teaching alike of our religious as of
+our moral code. It can, in fact, only be gainsaid by
+a denial of the fundamental maxims of those two
+guides of our conduct, and for that reason stands
+absolutely proof against the assaults of argument.
+Try to reconcile with the ordinary conceptions of the
+duties of a man or a Christian the duty of doing what
+his conscience condemns, and it may be safely predicted
+that you will try in vain. The considerations
+that may occur of utility and expediency beat in vain
+against the far greater expediency of a world at
+peace, freed from the curse of the warrior’s destructiveness;
+nor can the whole armoury of military logic
+supply a single counter-argument which does not resolve
+itself into an argument of supposed expediency,
+and which may not therefore be effectually parried,
+even on this narrower debating ground, by the consideration
+of the overwhelming advantages which
+could not but flow from the universal acceptance of the
+contrary and higher principle&mdash;the principle that for
+a soldier, as for anyone else, his first duty is to his
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Or, to put the conclusion in the fewest words: The
+soldier claims to be a non-moral agent. That is the
+corner-stone of the whole military system. Challenge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+then the claimant to justify his first principle, and the
+custom of war will shake to its foundation, and in
+time go the way that other evil customs have gone
+before it, when once their moral support has been
+undermined or shattered.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Halleck’s <i>International Law</i>, ii. 21. Yet within three weeks of
+the beginning of the war with France 60,000 Prussians were <i>hors de
+combat</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> ‘Artem illam <i>mortiferam et Deo odibilem</i> balistrariorum et sagittariorum
+adversus Christianos et Catholicos exerceri de cætero sub
+anathemate prohibemus.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Fauchet’s <i>Origines des Chevaliers</i>, &amp;c. &amp;c., ii. 56; Grose’s <i>Military
+Antiquities</i>, i. 142; and Demmin’s <i>Encyclopédie d’Armurerie</i>, 57, 496.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Fauchet, ii. 57. ‘Lequel engin, pour le mal qu’il faisait (pire
+que le venin des serpens), fut nommé serpentine,’ &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Grose, ii. 331.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Dyer, <i>Modern Europe</i>, iii. 158.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Scoffern’s <i>Projectile Weapons</i>, &amp;c., 66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Sur l’Esprit</i>, i. 562.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Reade, <i>Ashantee Campaign</i>, 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Livy, xliv. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> These Instructions are published in Halleck’s <i>International Law</i>,
+ii. 36-51; and at the end of Edwards’s <i>Germans in France</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> ‘It would have been desirable,’ said the Russian Government,
+‘that the voice of a great nation like England should have been heard at
+an inquiry of which the object would appear to have met with its
+sympathies.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Jus Gentium</i>, art. 887, 878.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Florus, ii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Edwards’s <i>Germans in France</i>, 164.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This remarkable fact is certified by Mr. Russell, in his <i>Diary in
+the last Great War</i>, 398, 399.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Cicero, <i>In Verrem</i>, iv. 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See even the <i>Annual Register</i>, lvi. 184, for a denunciation of this
+proceeding.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Sismondi’s <i>Hist. des Français</i>, xxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Edwards’s <i>Germans in France</i>, 171.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Lieut-Col. Charras, <i>La Campagne de 1815</i>, i. 211, ii. 88.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Woolsey’s <i>International Law</i>, p. 223.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Cf. lib. xii. 81, and xiii. 25, 26; quoted by Grotius, iii. xi. xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> iii. 41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Cambridge Essays</i>, 1855, ‘Limitations to Severity in War,’ by
+C. Buxton.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See Raumer’s <i>Geschichte Europa’s</i>, iii. 509-603, if any doubt is
+felt about the fact.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> General Order of October 9, 1813. Compare those of May 29,
+1809, March 25, 1810, June 10, 1812, and July 9, 1813.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Vattel, iii. ix. 165.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Sir W. Napier (<i>Peninsular War</i>, ii. 322) says of the proceeding
+that it was ‘politic indeed, yet scarcely to be admitted within the pale
+of civilised warfare.’ It occurred in May 1810.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Bluntschli’s <i>Modernes Völkerrecht</i>, art. 573.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> For the character of modern war see the account of the Franco-German
+war in the <i>Quarterly Review</i> for April 1871.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Halleck, ii. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Vehse’s <i>Austria</i>, i. 369. Yet, as usual on such occasions, the
+excesses were committed in the teeth of Tilly’s efforts to oppose them.
+</p>
+<p>
+‘Imperavit Tillius a devictorum cædibus et corporum castimonia
+abstinerent, quod imperium a quibusdam furentibus male servatum
+annales aliqui fuere conquesti.’&mdash;Adlzreiter’s <i>Annales Boicæ Gentis</i>,
+Part iii. l. 16, c. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Battles in the Peninsular War</i>, 181, 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 396.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Foxe’s <i>Actes and Monuments</i>, iii. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Saint-Palaye, <i>Mémoires sur la Chevalerie</i>, iii. 10, 133.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Vinsauf’s <i>Itinerary of Richard I.</i>, ii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Matthew of Westminster, 460; Grose, ii. 348.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Monstrelet, ii. 115.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Mémoires sur la Chevalerie</i>, i. 322.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Petitot, v. 102; and Ménard, <i>Vie de B. du Guesclin</i>, 440.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Petitot, v. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Meyrick, <i>Ancient Armour</i>, ii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> i. 123.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Monstrelet, i. 259.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> ii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> ii. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> ii. 22, compare ii. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Monstrelet, ii. 111.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> ii. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> See for some, Livy, xxix. 8, xxxi. 26, 30, xxxvii. 21, xliii. 7,
+xliv. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Livy, xliv. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Meyrick, i. 41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Demmin, <i>Encyclopédie d’Armurerie</i>, 490.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Meyrick, ii. 204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Grose, ii. 114.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Petitot, xvi. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Grose, ii. 343.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> iv. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> iv. 36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> iii. 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>Mémoires</i>, vi. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Halleck, <i>International Law</i>, ii. 154.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Elements of Morality</i>, sec. 1068.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <i>Des Droits et Devoirs des Nations neutres</i>, ii. 321-323.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>History of the Royal Navy</i>, i. 357.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Nicolas, ii. 341.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Nicolas, ii. 405.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Monstrelet, i. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Nicolas, ii. 108.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 333.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Froissart, ii. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Entick, <i>New Naval History</i> (1757), 823. ‘Some of the Spanish
+prizes were immensely rich, a great many of the French were of considerable
+value, and so were many of the English; but the balance was
+about two millions in favour of the latter.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> From Entick’s <i>New Naval History</i> (1757), 801-817.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Martens, <i>Essai sur les Corsaires</i> (Horne’s translation), 86, 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> III. xv. 229.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Emerigon, <i>On Insurances</i> (translation), 442.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Martens, 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Hautfeuille, <i>Des Droits et Devoirs des Nations neutres</i>, ii. 349.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>De Jure Maritimo</i>, i. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> <i>Despatches</i>, vi. 145.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> <i>Despatches</i>, vi. 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> The last occasion was on April 13, 1875.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Halleck, <i>International Law</i>, ii. 316.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Bluntschli, <i>Modernes Völkerrecht</i>, art. 665.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> James, <i>Naval History</i>, i. 255.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> James, ii. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Ortolan, <i>Diplomatie de la Mer</i>, ii. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Campbell’s <i>Admirals</i>, viii. 40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> <i>Campbell</i>, vii. 21. <i>James</i>, i. 161. Stinkpots are jars or shells
+charged with powder, grenades, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> James, i. 283.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Brenton, ii. 471.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Caltrops, or crows’-feet, are bits of iron with four spikes so
+arranged that however they fall one spike always remains upwards.
+Darius planted the ground with caltrops before Arbela.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Chapter xix. of the <i>Tactica</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Frontinus, <i>Strategematicon</i>, IV. vii. 9, 10. ‘Amphoras pice et
+tæda plenas; ... vascula viperis plena.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Roger de Wendover, <i>Chronica</i>. ‘Calcem vivam, et in pulverem
+subtilem redactam, in altum projicientes, vento illam ferente, Francorum
+oculos excæcaverunt.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_100" id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Brenton, i. 635.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_101" id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <i>De Jure Maritimo</i>, i. 265.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_102" id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Rees’s <i>Cyclopædia</i>, ‘Fire-ship.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_103" id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Brenton, ii. 493, 494.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_104" id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Halleck, ii. 317.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_105" id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Woolsey, <i>International Law</i>, 187.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_106" id="Footnote_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> James, i. 277.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_107" id="Footnote_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Phillimore, <i>International Law</i>, iii. 50-52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_108" id="Footnote_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <i>International Law</i>, ii. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_109" id="Footnote_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Villiaumé, <i>L’Esprit de la Guerre</i>, 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_110" id="Footnote_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> De Commines, viii. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_111" id="Footnote_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Watson’s <i>Philip II.</i>, ii. 74.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_112" id="Footnote_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 213.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_113" id="Footnote_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>Memoirs</i>, c. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_114" id="Footnote_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Villiaumé (<i>L’Esprit de la Guerre</i>, 71) gives the following version:
+‘En 1793 et en 1794, le gouvernement anglais ayant violé le droit des
+gens contre la République Française, la Convention, dans un accès de
+brutale colère, décréta qu’il ne serait plus fait aucun prisonnier anglais
+ou hanovrien, c’est-à-dire que les vaincus seraient mis à mort, encore
+qu’ils se rendissent. Mais ce décret fut simplement comminatoire; le
+Comité de Salut Public, sachant très-bien que de misérables soldats
+n’étaient point coupables, donna l’ordre secret de faire grâce à tous les
+vaincus.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_115" id="Footnote_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Herodotus, vii. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_116" id="Footnote_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Livy, xlv. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_117" id="Footnote_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xlv. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_118" id="Footnote_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Ward, <i>Law of Nations</i>, i. 250.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_119" id="Footnote_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Petitot’s <i>Mémoires</i>, xvi. 177.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_120" id="Footnote_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Livy, xlii. 8, 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_121" id="Footnote_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> Monstrelet, <i>Chronicles</i>, i. 200.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_122" id="Footnote_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 224.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_123" id="Footnote_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 249.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_124" id="Footnote_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> i. 259.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_125" id="Footnote_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Monstrelet, ii. 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_126" id="Footnote_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_127" id="Footnote_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Philip de Commines, ii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_128" id="Footnote_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_129" id="Footnote_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_130" id="Footnote_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Philip de Commines, iii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_131" id="Footnote_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Motley’s <i>United Netherlands</i>, iii. 323.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_132" id="Footnote_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Vattel, iii. 8, 143.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_133" id="Footnote_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Borbstaedt, <i>Franco-German War</i> (translation), 662.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_134" id="Footnote_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Ward, i. 223.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_135" id="Footnote_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Quintus Curtius, iv. 6, and Grote, viii. 368.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_136" id="Footnote_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Quintus Curtius, vii. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_137" id="Footnote_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iv. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_138" id="Footnote_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Arrian, iii. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_139" id="Footnote_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Quintus Curtius, vii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_140" id="Footnote_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> ‘Tous deux furent très braves, très vaillants, fort bizarres et cruels.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_141" id="Footnote_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Lyttleton, <i>Henry II.</i>, i. 183.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_142" id="Footnote_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Hoveden, 697.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_143" id="Footnote_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> 2 Samuel xii. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_144" id="Footnote_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <i>Memoirs of a Cavalier</i>, i. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_145" id="Footnote_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <i>Memoirs of a Cavalier</i>, 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_146" id="Footnote_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> ‘Life of Bayard’ in Petitot’s <i>Mémoires</i>, xvi. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_147" id="Footnote_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Major-General Mitchell’s <i>Biographies of Eminent Soldiers</i>, 92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_148" id="Footnote_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Livy, xxxi. 40. When Pelium was taken by storm, only the
+slaves were taken as spoil; the freemen were even let off without
+ransom.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_149" id="Footnote_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xxviii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_150" id="Footnote_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xxviii. 20, xxvii. 16, xxxi. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_151" id="Footnote_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> <i>De Officiis</i>, i. 12. Yet on this passage is founded the common
+assertion that among the Romans ‘the word which signified stranger
+was the same with that which in its original denoted an enemy’ (Ward,
+ii. 174); implying that in their eyes a stranger and an enemy were one
+and the same thing. Cicero says exactly the reverse.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_152" id="Footnote_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <i>Recueil de Documents sur les exactions, vols, et cruautés des armées
+prussiennes en France.</i> The book is out of print, but may be seen at
+the British Museum, under the title, ‘Prussia&mdash;Army of.’ It is to be regretted
+that, whilst every book, however dull, relating to that war has
+been translated into English, this record has hitherto escaped the publicity
+it so well deserves.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_153" id="Footnote_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_154" id="Footnote_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_155" id="Footnote_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_156" id="Footnote_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Chaudordy’s Circular of November 29, 1870, in the <i>Recueil</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_157" id="Footnote_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> <i>Recueil</i>, 12, 15, 67, 119.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_158" id="Footnote_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_159" id="Footnote_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_160" id="Footnote_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> <i>Recueil</i>, 33-37, and Lady Bloomfield’s <i>Reminiscences</i>, ii. 235, 8, 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_161" id="Footnote_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> The <i>Times</i>, March 7, 1881.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_162" id="Footnote_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> <i>Recueil</i>, 29; compare 91.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_163" id="Footnote_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Morley’s <i>Cobden</i>, ii. 177.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_164" id="Footnote_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Professor Sheldon Amos quotes the fact, but refrains from naming
+the paper, in his preface to Manning’s <i>Commentaries on the Law of
+Nations</i>, xl. Was it not the <i>Journal de France</i> for Nov. 21, 1871?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_165" id="Footnote_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> iii. i. viii. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_166" id="Footnote_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> <i>De Officiis</i>, i. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_167" id="Footnote_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <i>Modernes Völkerrecht</i>, Art. 565.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_168" id="Footnote_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Polyænus, <i>Strategematum libri octo</i>, i. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_169" id="Footnote_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Polyænus, v. 41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_170" id="Footnote_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Ortolan’s <i>Diplomatie de la mer</i>, ii. 31, 375-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_171" id="Footnote_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> James’s <i>Naval History</i>, ii. 211; Campbell’s <i>Admirals</i>, vii. 132.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_172" id="Footnote_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> James, <i>Naval History</i>, ii. 225.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_173" id="Footnote_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Nicolas, <i>Royal Navy</i>, ii. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_174" id="Footnote_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Hautefeuille, <i>Droit Maritime</i>, iii. 433. ‘Les vaisseaux de l’Etat
+eux-mêmes ne rougissent pas de ces grossiers mensonges qui prennent
+le nom de ruses de guerre.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_175" id="Footnote_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> xiii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_176" id="Footnote_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Montaigne, ch. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_177" id="Footnote_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> vii. 4. ‘Quia appellatione nostra vix apte exprimi possunt, Græca
+pronuntiatione Stratagemata dicuntur.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_178" id="Footnote_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Livy, xlii. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_179" id="Footnote_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> <i>Histoire de la France</i>, iii. 401.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_180" id="Footnote_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> The word musket is from <i>muschetto</i>, a kind of hawk, implying
+that its attack was equally destructive and unforeseen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_181" id="Footnote_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Polyænus, ii. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_182" id="Footnote_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Polyænus, iii. 2; from Thucydides, iii. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_183" id="Footnote_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> vii. 27, 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_184" id="Footnote_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iv. 2-4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_185" id="Footnote_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Liskenne, <i>Bibliothèque Historique et Militaire</i>, iii. 845.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_186" id="Footnote_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> <i>Memoirs</i>, ch. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_187" id="Footnote_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> ix. 6, 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_188" id="Footnote_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> vi. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_189" id="Footnote_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> vi. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_190" id="Footnote_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> iv. 7, 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_191" id="Footnote_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> E. Fournier, <i>L’Esprit dans l’Histoire</i>, 145-150.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_192" id="Footnote_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> iii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_193" id="Footnote_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Liskenne, v. 233-4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_194" id="Footnote_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> <i>Soldier’s Pocket-Book</i>, 81.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_195" id="Footnote_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Polyænus, viii. 16, 8. ‘Lege Romanorum jubente hostium exploratores
+interficere.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_196" id="Footnote_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> Livy, xxx. 29. According to Polyænus, he gave them a dinner
+and sent them back with instructions to tell what they had seen;
+viii. 16, 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_197" id="Footnote_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Watson’s <i>Philip II.</i> iii. 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_198" id="Footnote_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> Liskenne, iii. 840.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_199" id="Footnote_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Hoffman, <i>Kriegslist</i>, 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_200" id="Footnote_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Petitot’s <i>Mémoires de la France</i>, xv. 317.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_201" id="Footnote_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Polyænus, ii. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_202" id="Footnote_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> v. 1, 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_203" id="Footnote_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> <i>Memoirs</i>, ch. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_204" id="Footnote_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Livy, xxxiv. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_205" id="Footnote_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> As at the Brussels Conference, 1874, when such a proposal was
+made by the member for Sweden and Norway.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_206" id="Footnote_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> In Pinkerton, xvi. 817.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_207" id="Footnote_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Turner’s <i>Nineteen Years in Samoa</i>, 304.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_208" id="Footnote_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Schoolcraft’s <i>Indian Tribes</i>, iv. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_209" id="Footnote_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <i>The Basutos</i>, 223.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_210" id="Footnote_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Potter’s <i>Grecian Antiquities</i>, ii. 69.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_211" id="Footnote_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Turner’s <i>Samoa</i>, 298.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_212" id="Footnote_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Ellis’s <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, i. 275.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_213" id="Footnote_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> Hutton’s <i>Voyage to Africa</i>, 1821, 337.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_214" id="Footnote_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> Colenso and Durnford’s <i>Zulu War</i>, 364, 379.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_215" id="Footnote_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Petitot’s <i>Mémoires</i>, xv. 329.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_216" id="Footnote_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> The evidence is collected in <i>Cetschwayo’s Dutchman</i>, 99-103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_217" id="Footnote_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Henty’s <i>March to Coomassie</i>, 443. Compare Reade’s <i>Ashantee
+Campaign</i>, 241-2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_218" id="Footnote_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Florus, ii. 19; iii. 4; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_219" id="Footnote_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> Florus, ii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_220" id="Footnote_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iii. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_221" id="Footnote_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Florus, iii. 4; Cæsar, <i>De Bello Gallico</i>, ix. 44.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_222" id="Footnote_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Morley’s <i>Cobden</i>, ii. 355.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_223" id="Footnote_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Sir A. Helps’ <i>Las Casas</i>, 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_224" id="Footnote_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> T. Morton’s <i>New England Canaan</i>, 1637, iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_225" id="Footnote_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Belknap’s <i>New Hampshire</i>, i. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_226" id="Footnote_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Penhallow’s <i>Indian Wars</i>, 1826, republished 1859, 31-3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_227" id="Footnote_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 105, 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_228" id="Footnote_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 103. For further details of this debased military practice,
+see Adair’s <i>History of American Indians</i>, 245; Kercheval’s <i>History of
+the Valley of Virginia</i>, 263; Drake’s <i>Biography and History of the
+Indians</i>, 210, 373; Sullivan’s <i>History of Maine</i>, 251.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_229" id="Footnote_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Kercheval’s <i>Virginia</i>, 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_230" id="Footnote_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> Eschwege’s <i>Brazil</i>, i. 186; Tschudi’s <i>Reisen durch Südamerika</i>,
+i. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_231" id="Footnote_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> Parkman’s <i>Expedition against Ohio Indians</i>, 1764, 117.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_232" id="Footnote_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> Argensola, <i>Les Isles Molucques</i>, i. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_233" id="Footnote_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> Drake’s <i>Biography and History of the Indians</i>, 489, 490.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_234" id="Footnote_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> R. C. Burton’s <i>City of the Saints</i>, 576; Eyre’s <i>Central Australia</i>,
+i. 175-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_235" id="Footnote_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Borwick’s <i>Last of the Tasmanians</i>, 58.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_236" id="Footnote_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Tschudi’s <i>Reisen</i>, ii. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_237" id="Footnote_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Maccoy’s <i>Baptist Indian Missions</i>, 441; Froebel’s <i>Seven Years
+in Central America</i>, 272; Wallace’s <i>Travels on the Amazon</i>, 326.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_238" id="Footnote_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> Bancroft’s <i>United States</i>, ii. 383-5; and compare Clarkson’s <i>Life
+of Penn</i>, chaps. 45 and 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_239" id="Footnote_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Brooke’s <i>Ten Years in Sarawak</i>, i. 74.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_240" id="Footnote_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Captain Hamilton’s <i>East Indies</i>, in Pinkerton, viii. 514.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_241" id="Footnote_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> W. H. Russell’s <i>My Diary in India</i>, 150.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_242" id="Footnote_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> <i>Annals of the Propagation of the Faith</i>, viii. 280-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_243" id="Footnote_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <i>Caffres and Caffre Missions</i>, 210.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_244" id="Footnote_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> <i>Memorials of Henrietta Robertson</i>, 259, 308, 353.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_245" id="Footnote_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 353.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_246" id="Footnote_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Colenso and Durnford’s <i>Zulu War</i>, 215.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_247" id="Footnote_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Holden’s <i>History of Natal</i>, 210, 211.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_248" id="Footnote_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Moister’s <i>Africa, Past and Present</i>, 310, 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_249" id="Footnote_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> Tams’s <i>Visit to Portuguese Possessions</i>, i. 181, ii. 28, 179.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_250" id="Footnote_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Robertson’s <i>America</i>; Works, vi. 177, 205.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_251" id="Footnote_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Thomson’s <i>Great Missionaries</i>, 30; Halkett’s <i>Indians of North
+America</i>, 247, 249, 256.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_252" id="Footnote_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Le Blant, <i>Inscriptions Chrétiennes</i>, i. 86.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_253" id="Footnote_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Bingham, <i>Christian Antiquities</i>, i. 486.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_254" id="Footnote_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Cæsar, <i>De Bello Gallico</i>, vi. 14. ‘Druides a bello abesse consuerunt
+... militiæ vacationem habent;’ and Origen, <i>In Celsum</i>, viii.
+73, for the Romans.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_255" id="Footnote_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Vaughan’s <i>Life of Wycliffe</i>, ii. 212-3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_256" id="Footnote_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Turner’s <i>England</i>, iv. 458, from Duchesne, <i>Gesta Stephani</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_257" id="Footnote_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> ‘Non filius meus est vel ecclesiæ; ad regis autem voluntatem
+redimetur, quia potius Martis quam Christi miles judicatur.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_258" id="Footnote_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Turner’s <i>England</i>, v. 92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_259" id="Footnote_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> ‘Sanxit ut nullus in posterum sacerdos in hostem pergeret, nisi
+duo vel tres episcopi electione cæterorum propter benedictionem
+populique reconciliationem, et cum illis electi sacerdotes qui bene
+scirent populis pœnitentias dare, missas celebrare, etc.’ (in <i>Du Cange</i>,
+‘Hostis’).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_260" id="Footnote_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> Guicciardini. ‘Prometteva che se i soldati procedevano virilmente,
+che non accetterebbe la Mirandola con alcuno patto: ma
+lascierebbe in potestà loro il saccheggiarla.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_261" id="Footnote_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> Monstrelet, i. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_262" id="Footnote_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Crichton’s <i>Scandinavia</i>, i. 170.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_263" id="Footnote_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> <i>Mémoires du Fleurange.</i> Petitot, xvi. 253.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_264" id="Footnote_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> See Palmer, <i>Origines Liturgicæ</i>, ii. 362-65, for the form of service.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_265" id="Footnote_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>Petitot</i>, xvi. 229.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_266" id="Footnote_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_267" id="Footnote_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Petitot, viii. 55. ‘Feciono venire per tutto il campo un prete parato
+col corpo di Christo, e in luogo di communicarsi ciascuno prese uno
+poco di terra, e la si mise in boca.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_268" id="Footnote_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Livy, xxxvi. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_269" id="Footnote_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Robertson, <i>Charles V.</i>, note 21. Ryan, <i>History of Effects of
+Religion on Mankind</i>, 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_270" id="Footnote_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> M. J, Schmidt, <i>Histoire des Allemands traduite, etc.</i>, iv. 232, 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_271" id="Footnote_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> ‘Christianis licet ex mandato magistratus arma portare et <i>justa</i>
+bella administrare.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_272" id="Footnote_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <i>Policy of War a True Defence of Peace</i>, 1543.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_273" id="Footnote_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> <i>Pallas Armata</i>, 369, 1683.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_274" id="Footnote_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> In his treatise <i>Du droit de la guerre</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_275" id="Footnote_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> <i>L’Esprit</i>, i. 562.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_276" id="Footnote_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> <i>Strafgesetzbuch</i>, Jan. 20, 1872, 15, 75, 150.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_277" id="Footnote_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> Fleming’s <i>Volkommene Teutsche Soldat</i>, 96.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_278" id="Footnote_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Benet’s <i>United States Articles of War</i>, 391.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_279" id="Footnote_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Grose, ii. 199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_280" id="Footnote_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> See Turner’s <i>Pallas Armata</i>, 349, for these and similar military
+tortures.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_281" id="Footnote_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> Crichton’s <i>Scandinavia</i>, i. 168.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_282" id="Footnote_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> Grose, ii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_283" id="Footnote_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> Sir S. Scott’s <i>History of the British Army</i>, ii. 436.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_284" id="Footnote_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> ii. 16. ‘Omnes autem signarii vel signiferi quamvis pedites
+loricas minores accipiebant, et <i>galeas ad terrorem hostium ursinis
+pellibus tectas</i>.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_285" id="Footnote_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> Scott, ii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_286" id="Footnote_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> Scott, i. 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_287" id="Footnote_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> Said to have been invented about 400 <span class="small">B.C.</span> by Dionysius, tyrant of
+Syracuse.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_288" id="Footnote_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Mitchell’s <i>Biographies of Eminent Soldiers</i>, 208, 287.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_289" id="Footnote_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> Compare article 14 of the German <i>Strafgesetzbuch</i> of January 20,
+1872.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_290" id="Footnote_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, November 1882: ‘The Present State of the
+Army.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_291" id="Footnote_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> <i>De Re Militari</i>, vi. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_292" id="Footnote_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> Bruce’s <i>Military Law</i> (1717), 254.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_293" id="Footnote_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> See Fleming’s <i>Teutsche Soldat</i>, ch. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_294" id="Footnote_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> See the War Articles for 1673, 1749, 1794.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_295" id="Footnote_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> 82.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_296" id="Footnote_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> Quintus Curtius, viii. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_297" id="Footnote_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> <i>Military Law</i>, 163.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_298" id="Footnote_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> 286, 290.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_299" id="Footnote_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> <i>Despatches</i>, iii. 302, June 17, 1809.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_300" id="Footnote_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Compare also <i>Despatches</i>, iv. 457; v. 583, 704, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_301" id="Footnote_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <i>China War</i>, 225.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_302" id="Footnote_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> Scott’s <i>British Army</i>, ii. 411.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_303" id="Footnote_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> <i>Wellington’s Despatches</i>, v. 705.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_304" id="Footnote_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> See Windham’s Speech in the House of Commons. April 3, 1806.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_305" id="Footnote_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_306" id="Footnote_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> P. 122.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_307" id="Footnote_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> Fleming, 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_308" id="Footnote_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Preface to b. iii. ‘Ergo qui desiderat pacem, præparet bellum.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_309" id="Footnote_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> Lord Wolseley’s <i>Soldier’s Pocket Book</i>, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_310" id="Footnote_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> Arbousset’s <i>Exploratory Tour</i>, 397-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_311" id="Footnote_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> Livy, xl. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_312" id="Footnote_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <i>Iliad</i>, vi. 266-8; and comp. <i>Æneid</i>, ii. 717-20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_313" id="Footnote_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> Casalis’s <i>Basutos</i>, 258.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_314" id="Footnote_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Victor Hugo’s <i>L’Ane</i>, 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_315" id="Footnote_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> Baillat’s <i>Vie de Descartes</i>, i. 41.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_316" id="Footnote_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> ii. 25, 9, 1. ‘Tanto carnifice detestabiliores quanto pejus est sine
+causâ quam ex causâ occidere.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_317" id="Footnote_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 2. ‘Nullum vitæ genus est improbius quam eorum qui sine
+causæ respectu mercede conducti militant, et quibus ibi fas ubi plurima
+merces.’ Both the sentiment and the expression are borrowed from
+Lucan’s <i>Pharsalia</i>, x. 408: ‘Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur
+Venalesque manus; ibi fas ubi plurima merces.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_318" id="Footnote_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> 364.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_319" id="Footnote_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> Potter’s <i>Greek Antiquities</i>, ii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_320" id="Footnote_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> Henry’s <i>Britain</i>, iii. 5, 1; Grose i. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_321" id="Footnote_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> Grose, i. 58.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_322" id="Footnote_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i. 67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_323" id="Footnote_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Debates</i>, May 24, 1756.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_324" id="Footnote_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> Sir S. Scott’s <i>British Army</i>, ii. 333.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_325" id="Footnote_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> N. Bacon’s Notes to <i>Selden’s Laws</i>, ii. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_326" id="Footnote_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <i>Candide</i>, c. xx.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_327" id="Footnote_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> Alison’s <i>Europe</i>, vi. 491.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_328" id="Footnote_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> <i>Life of Sir C. Napier</i>, i. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_329" id="Footnote_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> <i>Military Law</i>, 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_330" id="Footnote_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> <i>Keppel’s Life</i>, by T. Keppel, ii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_331" id="Footnote_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> <i>Indian Expedition</i>, ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_332" id="Footnote_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> Livy, 39, 3; 42, 21; 43, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_333" id="Footnote_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> Livy, xlv. 22. ‘Certe quidem vos estis Romani, qui ideo felicia
+bella vestra esse, quia justa sint, præ vobis fertis, nec tam exitu
+eorum, quod vincatis, quam principiis quod non sine causâ suscipiatis,
+gloriamini.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_334" id="Footnote_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> <i>De Civitate Dei</i>, iv. 4 and 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_335" id="Footnote_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> <i>Arbre des Batailles</i>, quoted in Kennedy’s <i>Influence of Christianity
+on International Law</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_336" id="Footnote_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> Petitot, xvi. 137.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_337" id="Footnote_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> III. 65. ‘Cavendo ne metuant, homines metuendos ultro se
+efficiunt, et injuriam ab nobis repulsam, tamquam aut facere aut pati
+necesse sit, injungimus aliis.’</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX">INDEX.</a></h2>
+
+<ul class="index"><li class="ifrst">Achæan, curious mode of warfare, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alexander II. of Russia, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Armed neutrality, the, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Armour, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ashantee battle song, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Balloonists in war, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Battles, allusions to:</li>
+<li class="isub1">Agincourt, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Bouvines, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Camperdown, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Crecy, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dover, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Musselborough, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Navarette, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Neerwinden, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Nicopoli, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Nile, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Otterbourne, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pavia, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Poitiers, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Tel-el-Kebir, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bearskin hats, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Becon, Thomas, on military service in the sixteenth century, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bishops in war, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52-3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-8</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blinding of prisoners, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blockade, effective, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bloodhounds used in war, <a href="#Page_171">171-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bombardment, theory and practice of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bounties for scalps, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Brigand, meaning of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Britons, love for military life, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Brussels Conference on laws of war, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141-6</a>-<a href="#Page_7">7-8</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bullinger, limits to right of military service, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Cannons, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cannon-shot oath, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Capitulations, <a href="#Page_100">100-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chain-shot, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chivalry, age of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Church, influence of, on war, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185-193</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204-16</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Churches, destruction of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Church parade, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cities, fate of, in war:</li>
+<li class="isub1">Amiens, surprise of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Badajoz, storming of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Barcelona, siege of, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Brescia, storming of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Calais, siege of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Constantine, storming of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Copenhagen, bombardment of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dinant, storming of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gaza, storming of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Grammont, massacre at, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gravelines, massacre at, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Haarlem, siege of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Liège, storming of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Limoges, massacre at, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Londonderry, siege of, <a href="#Page_197">197-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Magdeburg, massacre at, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Malta, siege of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Meaux, surrender of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Mirandola, siege of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Oudenarde, siege of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pekin, English at, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Persepolis, burning of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Poitiers, massacre at, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Rome, sack of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Rouen, surrender of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">San Sebastian, storming of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Strasburg, bombardment of <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, 106<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></li>
+<li class="isub1">Terouanne, destruction of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Thebes, sack of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Toledo, siege of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Tyre, siege of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Ulm, surprise of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Washington, English in, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Conference stratagem, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Conscription, the, <a href="#Page_242">242-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Consecration of banners, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Contraband, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Contributions, military, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Costume, military, <a href="#Page_222">222-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Crossbow, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cruelty and courage, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Custom of war, character of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Decimation, story of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Declaration of Paris, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Declaration of St. Petersburg, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Declaration of war, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Desertion, <a href="#Page_230">230-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Discipline, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dress, philosophy of military, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Duty, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Embargoes, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Explosive bullets, <a href="#Page_1">1-2</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">False flag, stratagem of the, <a href="#Page_128">128-130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">False information in war, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fecials, Roman, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Firearms, feeling against, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fireships, <a href="#Page_84">84-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Flogging, <a href="#Page_234">234-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Forged despatches, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Free Companies, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Free ships, free goods, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fruit-trees, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Germans, the, in war, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Greek fire, <a href="#Page_83">83-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grenadiers, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Hanging in war, <a href="#Page_44">44-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Honour, variable notions of, <a href="#Page_155">155-6</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hostages, taking of, revived, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Innocent III., <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Invention of the bayonet, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Jomini, Baron, President of Brussels Conference, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Julius II., story of, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jus Angariæ, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Justice in war, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258-9</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Khonds, theory of war, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kidnapping soldiers in Germany, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kissing the earth, custom of, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Lateran Council, Third, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Laws of war among savages, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lent, observation of, in war, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Leo the Great, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Letters of marque, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Letters, military contempt for, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Limoges, Council of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Loha Pennu, an Indian war-god, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Macedonian warfare, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Magic, use of, in war, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Malingering, <a href="#Page_231">231-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marriage, restrictions on, <a href="#Page_218">218-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mercenary service, <a href="#Page_260">260-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Military cant, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; vandalism, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Missionaries, <a href="#Page_176">176-182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; failure of, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; legal control of, 181<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Missionaries, Norwegian, in Zululand, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mission stations destroyed, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mozley, Canon, on war, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Musket, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mutiny Act, first, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Names of weapons, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Neutral ships and property, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Night attacks, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Numbers slain in war, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Oath, military, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oath by cannon-shot, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ophthalmia, artificial, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Palatinate, devastation of the, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pay, soldiers’, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Perfidy, cases of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Perjury, cases of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Perpetual peace, Von Moltke on, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Piracy, <a href="#Page_67">67-70</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Plunder of property at sea, <a href="#Page_67">67-70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Plunder of property on land, <a href="#Page_61">61-3</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Poison, use of, in war, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Poisoning the air, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Poisoning water, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Press, influence of, in war, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prisoners, treatment of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prisoners, beheaded, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; blinded, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; burnt, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; drowned, <a href="#Page_101">101-2</a>-<a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; hung, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; maimed, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; massacred, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; tortured, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Privateering, <a href="#Page_70">70-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; Lord Nelson on, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prizes and prize-money, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prize Court, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Punishments, military, <a href="#Page_221">221-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Purificatory battle rites, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pursers on privateers, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Recruiting, difficulty of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; former system of, in France and Germany, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Red, the military colour, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Red-hot shot, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Reprisals, <a href="#Page_93">93-118</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; savage German, <a href="#Page_117">117-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Right of search, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Right of wreck, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roman warfare, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Sacred buildings in war, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sea battles, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scalping enemies, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sentry-go, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Slavery, influence of its cessation on war, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Socialism, chief cause of, <a href="#Page_245">245-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Soldiers of mark:</li>
+<li class="isub1">Alaric, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Alexander the Great, <a href="#Page_107">107-10</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Bayard, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Bertrand du Guesclin, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Black Prince, the, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Blücher, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Cæsar, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Catinat, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Chandos, Sir John, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Charles of Anjou, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Charles the Bold, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Charles XII. of Sweden, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Crillon, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Custine, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">David, king of the Jews, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">David I. of Scotland, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Des Adretz, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Edward I., <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Edward III., 44<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></li>
+<li class="isub1">Eugene, Prince, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Feuquières, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Francis I., <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Francis de Vere, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Frederick the Great, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Genseric, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Godfrey de Bouillon, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gustavus Adolphus, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Henri Quatre, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Henry V., <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Keppel, Admiral, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Manny, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Maurice, Prince, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Montluc, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Moltke, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Orange, Prince of, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Parma, Prince of, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pélissier, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Peterborough, Lord, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pyrrhus, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Richard I., <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Saxe, Marshal, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Scipio, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Sertorius, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Sully, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Suwarrow, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Wolseley, Lord, <a href="#Page_143">143-4</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Xerxes, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spaniards in war, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-9</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spies, <a href="#Page_141">141-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Vattel on, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Frederick the Great on, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Lord Wolseley on, <a href="#Page_143">143-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Storming cities, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Surprises, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Surrender at discretion, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Ternate, island of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Torpedoes, first use of, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">&mdash; introduced into European warfare, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Treatise on Tactics by Leo VI., <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Truce of God, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">War, real character of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wars, abolition of private, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Weapons, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Women, imprisoned in war, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Women and children, slaughter of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-8</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Women as soldiers, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Writers, &amp;c.:</li>
+<li class="isub1">Arrian, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Bluntschli, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Bynkershoeck, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Cicero, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Descartes, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dobritzhoffer, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Emerigon, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Erasmus, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Froissart, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Frontinus, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Grotius, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Hallam, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Hautefeuille, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Kant, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Las Casas, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Molloy, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Origen, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Penn, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Polyænus, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Quintus Curtius, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">St. Pierre, Abbé, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Sepulveda, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Tertullian, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Turner, Sir James, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Valin, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Vattel, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104-5</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Vauban, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Victor Hugo, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Voltaire, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Whewell, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Wycliffe, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Zwingli, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li></ul>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p class="center small"><i>Spottiswoode &amp; Co., Printers, New-street Square, London.</i></p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p>Transcriber's notes:</p>
+
+<p>The following is a list of changes made to the original.
+The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.</p>
+
+<p>Page 11, footnote:</p>
+<p>
+like England should have been heard an inquiry of which<br />
+like England should have been heard <span class="u">at</span> an inquiry of which</p>
+
+<p>Page 78:</p>
+<p>
+which abolished privateering <span class="u">beween</span> the signatory Powers,<br />
+which abolished privateering <span class="u">between</span> the signatory Powers,</p>
+
+<p>Page 244:</p>
+<p>
+such an <span class="u">expositon</span> as the following of the relation between<br />
+such an <span class="u">exposition</span> as the following of the relation between</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Military Manners and Customs, by James Anson Farrer
+
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