Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/83

 telling even to begin. It is the part of wisdom to see that it is not slurred over, but written and remembered.

We shall have the usual fluttered imputations of "rhetoric" and "extravagance," the usual "scientific historians" with their deprecating gesture, against "the introduction of feeling" into any narrative. Such people, I suppose, have their place in the world. This is a scientific age, and the function of science may be exhausted when it has counted the corpses on a battlefield, unless indeed it goes on to append an estimate of their manurial value. It can render both these accounts without admitting a hint of emotion into its voice. But to the conscience the killing of men remains the most terrible of all acts. A mutilated corpse not only overwhelms it with horror, but also suggests at once that there is a murderer somewhere on the earth who must be sought out and punished. Passion will break into the voice, and anger into the veins at such a confrontation, for to be above passion is to be below humanity. I have no apology, then, to make for any "emotional" phrase or sentence in this book. It is in the main a narrative of facts—verified by evidence which stands unshaken by criticism—but I confess that, being no more than human, I have slipped into the luxury of occasional indignation.

When I call this war a crime I use the word in its fullest and simplest sense, an evil act issuing