Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/59

 —hence the unprecedented death-list of this war.

When we came to the vital element of property —the accumulated wealth of the world—we find the disparity between cost and effect much greater.

Let us reason here by example: the battle of Waterloo, whose glories and horrors Europe sang for a hundred years, resolved itself at one stage into a struggle for Hougoumont Château. All through the battle, French and British regiments, supported by artillery, were fighting for that group of buildings. The guide to the Château points out to the tourist the existing marks of artillery fire and the restorations. A corner knocked off from the chapel, a tiny outhouse battered down, a few holes in the walls no bigger at most than a wash-tubthat is the extent of the damage. Now while it is impossible to make an accurate estimate, it is still quite certain that the damage to Hougoumont Château was smaller in money value than the cost of the cannon-balls, shells and gun-powder which caused it. By contrast: during 1916, the Germans dropped into the town of Nancy some of their 380-millimetre shells—the largest and most expensive generally used in the war. The cost of such shells was probably between three and four thousand dollars. I was in Nancy during one such bombardment, when a big school house was hit directly. It seemed literally to have melted. In restoring it after the war, the French had to rebuild from the ground. And that school house cost more than two hundred thousand dollars. As a