Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/53

 French army. No, the German General Staff wanted simply to weaken France permanently, to make that part which they did not seize in their proposed German peace a subject nation commercially. The collapse of the Germans in 1918 was so sudden that the Allies did not enter her territory while in a state of war and it is impossible to say that they would not, in other circumstances, have followed the general rule of war and replied in kind.

Let me go no further with all this, but summarize: “The Code,” a merciful though artificial body of ethics, built up by Christianity and all other humanitarian forces through two thousand years of warfare, had collapsed. In most respects, we were back to the ethics of the barbarian hordes. The barbarians of the twentieth century B. C. killed in any manner which their imaginations suggested; so now did civilized men of the twentieth century A. D. The barbarian of the twentieth century B. C. killed the women and children of the enemy as tribal self-interest seemed to dictate; as now did the civilized men of the twentieth century A. D. The barbarians of the twentieth century B. C. made slaves of the conquered people or forced them to pay tribute; so virtually—in such acts as the destruction of the French mines—did civilized men of the twentieth century A. D.

In only two important respects did the code still stand when we emerged from the Great War of 1914–18. We were generally sparing prisoners,