They are, after all, details. The spirit matters more than the letter.
I think that in the spirit of the world, almost everywhere, there
is a growing consciousness that the perils of new conflict are so
frightful that civilisation might actually go down in chaos if the
forces of evil are not subdued. At the back of many minds is the awful
thought that machinery threatens to become the master of men and that
science threatens to destroy humanity unless it is controlled. What
were human valour, spiritual courage, superb physique, in that last
war, up against long-range guns, aerial torpedoes, high explosives
in concentrated fire, poison gas? At a distance of forty miles a
platoon of men might be wiped out by a casual shell loosed from a
fifteen-inch howitzer. What was the value of discipline, ardour, human
strength, centuries of character building to produce the fine flower
of civilisation, in the face of that explosive force which tore men’s
bodies to bits far from the sight of their enemy, without means of
resistance on their part, with no more defence than if a thunderbolt
had struck them? That is not war between human forces. It is war with
engines constructed by men but overpowering. Or, of what use were fair
physique, athletic youth, soldierly qualities, heroic human stuff, when
suddenly they were enveloped in a vapour which choked them, burnt their
lungs, blinded them, stupefied them? All the discoveries of science
which made men proud of the knowledge they had wrested from nature’s
most hidden secrets, like gods, were used for this devilish purpose
of increasing the efficiency of human slaughter. Even the victory of
flight which had baffled humanity since men first walked on earth and
envied the birds for their liberty of the sky was achieved in time to
increase the terrors and range of war.
Yet we know that if there is a next war it will be worse than the last
because the poison gases are more deadly, the guns have longer range,
the aeroplanes will be more crowded in the sky, the cities will be
more at the mercy of falling bombs. In many laboratories scientists
are searching for new forms of destruction which may even make those
weapons obsolete because so limited in their power of slaughter. It is
not only possible but likely that some “death ray” projecting wireless
force may sweep a countryside with a heat that would turn everything
to flame and then to dust and ashes. Is mankind going to risk such an
infernal ending to all its dreams of beauty and order and more perfect
life? Is it going to allow its stupid brawls, its national ambitions,
its little points of honour and argument, to be settled by this latest
type of warfare which does not spare women or children, but, indeed,
makes them the victims of its worst cruelties? With all its passionate
follies, humanity can hardly be as mad as that.