One morning at dawn--it was at Amberieu--I saw the long trains go by
carrying the German wounded and the German prisoners, who had been taken
in the battles of the Vosges. There were 2,400 taken on toward the
south. There were French nurses with the wounded. I saw water and fruit
and chocolate given to the prisoners.
This was early in the war. The sheer lapse into barbarism had not yet
come. Soon the German newspapers announced:
"Great concern is expressed in press and public utterances lest
prisoners of war receive anything in the line of favored treatment.
Newspapers have conducted an angry campaign against women who have
ventured at the railway station to give coffee or food to prisoners of
war passing through; commanding officers have ordered that persons
'demeaning themselves by such unworthy conduct' are to be immediately
ejected from the stations, and in response to public clamor official
announcements have been issued that such prisoners in transport receive
only bread and water."
And the French followed suit; no "coddling" of prisoners; back to
barbarism, the lessons of humanity forgot and savagery come again.
Civilization in the old world is smashed. I have traversed the ruins;
and my feet are still dirty with mud and blood. But I can tell you what
is going to come out of that welter of ruin. There will come a sane and
righteous hatred of militarism. What will be surely destroyed is
Caesarism. Prophecy? This is not prophecy; I am stating an assured fact.
Even at this hour of hysterical and relentless warfare there lies deep
in the heart of the democracy of Europe a consuming hatred of
militarism.
Drops of water (or blood) do not more naturally flow into each than did
the English hatred of Caesarism blend with the high French hatred of the
evil thing; and when the palaces have done fighting, the cottages of
Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and from the Black Sea to
the Hebrides, will proclaim its destruction.
And you will see it; you will see Caesarism drowned in the very blood it
has shed. And the German, mark you, will not be the least bitter of the
foes of militarism. He will be indeed a relentless foe.
Reversal to barbarism, say you? A shuddering lapse into savagery?
Quite true; that is the state of Europe over the fairest and most highly
civilized provinces. The picture of Sir John French strolling up and
down the battle line smoking a cigarette does not give a fair idea of
it; nor do you get it from the Kaiser on a hilltop surveying his massed
war bullocks surging forth patiently to battle; all that belongs to the
picture books of war.
The real thing is dirtier.