Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/185

 there. I look across the long grass, lush with disintegrating corpses, and imagine that Prussia may have laid hold of you for other pursuits than philology. Perhaps it is you whose machine-gun taps every night like a devil-ridden typewriter against this particular area of our parapet?

You will agree with me, even now, that war, if not Hell, is cousin to it, cousin German. To condemn humanity to pass through that chamber of torture is a decision so grave and terrible that even emperors might well tremble before it. In the lineaments of the obscurest man slain in battle stands written the judgment of the rulers of the earth. Can your Austria face her conscience? I know that at the question you will be disposed to parry with a gibe at "English self-righteousness." But, as it happens, I am not English, and mere self-righteousness does not survive the ordeal of battle. Living through this nightmare of blood you cannot but ask yourself how it began. The diplomatic correspondence is there to answer the question. These documents, the most memorable in secular history, are the charter of justification behind every decree of death that passes from the Allied lines to yours. Your Austria had grounds, tragical grounds, of complaint against some Serbians: you sought not justice, but the destruction of Serbian independence. You leagued yourself with Prussia—that blood-and-iron-monger—to break the faith of Europe and the homes of Belgium. You have