Slashed with sabres, pricked with lances, she is a mere thing
of prey.
Surely not the dear Countess and Baroness? Of course not. War is made
in the palaces, but it does not attack the palaces. The worth of every
nation dwells in the cottage; and it is upon the cottage that war works
its worst infamy. Go to Alsace and see.
Pillage, loot, incendiarism, "indemnity"--you can read that in the
records of the invasion of Belgium; that is war; it is all right if war
is to be, for all this talk of chivalrous consideration for foes and
regard for international law is all nonsense; necessity, as
Bethmann-Hollweg said, knows no law, and necessity has always been the
tyrant's plea; it is the business of a soldier to kill and terrify; if
he restricts his killing and terrifying he is a bad soldier and bad at
his work of barbarism; but--
There is a more sinister side to Europe's lapse into barbarism. The
women are paying too dear. And to make them pay dear is not really the
business of a soldier, not even a bad soldier. Yet the woman is paying,
God knows. A tragic payment.
IV.
AFTER BARBARISM, WHAT?
One morning at dawn--it was at Amberieu--I saw the long trains go by
carrying the German wounded and the German prisoners, who had been taken
in the battles of the Vosges. There were 2,400 taken on toward the
south. There were French nurses with the wounded.
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