" Yes, it is war,
but war such as was never made by the soldiers of Marceau, such as never
will be made by the soldiers of Joffre, such as never has been made and
never will be made by France--"Mother of Arts, of Arms, and of Laws."
Yes, it is war, but war such as Attila would not have carried on if he
had subscribed to certain stipulations; for, in subscribing them, he
would have awakened to the notion, which _alone_ distinguishes the
civilized man from the barbarian, distinguishes a nation from a
horde--respect for the word once given. Yes, it is war, but war the
theory of which could only be made up by such pedant megalomaniacs as
the Julius von Hartmanns, the Bernhardis, and the Treitschkes; the
theory which accords to the elect people the right to uproot from the
laws and customs of war what centuries of humanity, of Christianity, and
chivalry have at great pains injected into it; the theory of systematic
and organized ferocity; today exposed to public reprobation, not only as
an odious thing, but no less silly and absurd. For have we not reached
the ridiculous when the incendiaries of Louvain, and Malines, and
Rheims, the assassins of women and children, and of the wounded, already
find it necessary to repudiate their actions, at least in words, and to
impose upon the servility of their ninety-three Kulturtraeger such
denials as this: "It is not true that we are making war in contempt of
the law of nations, nor that our soldiers are committing acts of
cruelty, or of insubordination, or indiscipline.
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