Page:Justice in war time by Russell, Bertrand.djvu/42

16 for the hospital or the asylum. This is what the German military authorities mean when they say that the war will be decided by nervous endurance. They hope that a smaller percentage of the Germans than of the Allies will be broken by the strain. Militarists on both sides look forward cheerfully to the extinction, for all purposes of national life, of most of the men now between twenty and forty. And yet they continue to pretend that the victory of their side is more important than an early peace. And in this infamy their professorial parasites support them and egg them on.

The worst disasters would have been averted if either side had won a rapid victory, and are even now not inevitable if the war comes to an end during this year. But if peace is not made soon, if no military decision is reached, there will have to be an increasing passionate concentration of will in all countries upon the one common purpose of mutual destruction. As the effort of will required grows greater and more difficult through weariness, the vital force of the nations will be more and more weakened. When at last peace comes, it is to be feared that no stimulus will be adequate to rouse men to action. After the fierce tension of combat, nothing will seem important; a weak and relaxed dissipation will succeed the terrible unnatural concentration. There is no parallel in history to the conflict in which the world is now engaged. Never before have so large a proportion of the population been engaged in fighting, and never before has the fighting been so murderous. All that science and organisation have done to increase the efficiency of labour has been utilised to set free more