Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/27

. A divine institution applied by imperfect men, it did not strike at the roots of war; nor indeed did it seem clearly to recognize them. It established, however, the principle that an unjust war was wicked; and it did strive to ameliorate the unnecessary horrors and to fix the tradition of chivalrous warfare. The Truce of God, by which it became wicked to fight on certain days of the week, was an attempt in this direction.

The movement collapsed in the great religious or half-religious wars of the sixteenth century, and for a reason quite logical and understandable. Both sides were fighting heresy, a sin and crime—they thought—which did not merely injure men in this life as do most ordinary crimes, but which condemned their souls to an eternity of misery. No punishment was too severe for heresy. Hence such massacres as those of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, and the sack of Antwerp in the Low Countries.

When mankind came out of this madness, the drift toward chivalrous warfare was resumed. The code, by the twentieth century, had become definite; it was a chapter in every general military text book, a course in the education of every professional soldier; finally it was sanctioned almost as international law by the Hague Peace Conference. In principle, war must rest as easily as possible on non-combatants such as women and children; nor might even an armed enemy be killed unnecessarily. In detail,