victory, which might cost us the staggering price of defeat, or result in the danger threatened by General Maurice, that war may become intolerable? A plan which would serve in any way to prevent such a disaster is justified on the highest ethical grounds.

It might be argued, indeed, that, far from being too barbarous for a civilized state to undertake, the project I suggest is too mild to be of any effect. The Spaniards, it might be said, do as much in sport, pitting the bull instead of the field gun against the horse, and even against man himself, the object being the same as in my plan — that is, to observe the results of tossing and goring. Yet I believe that the feelings of soldiers and the testimony of our common imagination as human beings are sufficient evidence that my proposal would be of real help in preparing an unwarlike population for frightfulness.

III

We have now found means of inoculation against the horrors of warfare, considered emotionally. But I am of the opinion that the preparation of a democratic people for war will be incomplete and liable to shipwreck when tested by the facts unless it is carried out to the ultimate trial which war can exact. This trial is the hand-to-hand combat.

We have seen the dangers to which cities and industrial centres will be exposed through bombing and through the landing of troops in raiding parties or even in large bodies in the rear of the battle lines by fleets of airplanes used for transport. Not every city can be protected by a garrison sufficient to repel such attacks if men are to be maintained at the front in the usual numbers. But it would be unthinkable to abandon all attempts at resistance, to relinquish our strongholds and sources

of supply without so much as a contrary effort! If this is true, the population which will be left in our cities ought to be prepared to oppose the enemy. And in such an event the value of training in hand-to-hand combat, in resistance to the last torn fibre of flesh and nerve, is obvious.

The difficulty appears when we begin to see the difference between direct fighting, man to man, in war, and all other degrees and types of contest of which the public has any experience or can form any idea. Perhaps we can arrive at the matter most simply and immediately by glancing at a few words from a Manual of Military Training, a work designed for the use of young reserve officers, by Colonel Moss and Major Lang of the United States Army. The authors are speaking of bayonet fighting, and of course I must leave the technical education of the people in military exercises and use of their weapons to the experts, who are equipped to deal with the problems offered by such training. I cite the Manual only for the light it may throw on morale, believing that this is a study not yet sufficiently explored by experts to make the tentative investigations of the layman of no avail. Bayonet fighting of course disregards æsthetic and moral restraints, since its object is to dispose of the enemy's life by the most effective and the promptest means. "The principles of sportsmanship and consideration for your opponent,' say the authors of the Manual, ‘have no place in the practical application of this work. To finish an opponent who hangs on,' they further advise, ‘or attempts to pull you to the ground, always try to break his hold by driving the knee or foot to his crotch and gouging his eyes with your thumbs.'

A good deal of thoughtless criticism has been visited upon these words, which indeed seem to occur only in a

two-volume work of the title given above, and to be absent from other manuals, or forms and editions of the manual, which bear Colonel Moss's name as author or collaborator. The official book of instructions of the Army, published by the United States, is a model of delicacy on the point in question, and gives no hint that bayonet fighting is other than a formal and rather dull ceremonial of thrusts and parries, carried out according to a sportsmanlike etiquette. But why should reticence be required of a writer on this valuable subject which touches the public interest so nearly? The words of Colonel Moss and Major Lang merely express without affectation, but with a perfect regard for decency, what is necessary to be done in war. It is idle to expect men engaged for their lives to observe too great a nicety in the parts of the body which they find it convenient and effective to attack, or in the means used to attack them. It is well for the country to believe that its general policy obeys the rules of international law, rules which soar far above the range of such practical movements of the foot or the thumbs as the Manual describes; but it is not well for citizens who may be objects of attack to imagine that the fig leaf is any fit symbol for the thick of the fight, or that a ritual of decorum is solemnized in each blow and counter. To allow such ignorance is to encourage weakness and laxity, and a state of supine dullness which could only be regarded as a serious danger to the national morale.

The armies, of course, learn soon enough to knee a crotch or to gouge an eye with the proper degree of efficiency and impersonal skill. But again I wonder about the civilians. What of our old men? What of our factory workers who have had no experience of trench life or of military discipline? What of our

women and children? I am afraid that any course except a real acquaintance with such combat will leave the inhabitants of our cities defenseless against any vigorous attack to which they may be subjected.

Let us imagine the events of such an attack. The enemy first bombards from the air to hit such of his objectives as he can and to lay a foundation of terror to expedite more detailed work when he descends to the ground. Then the troops enter the streets. The untrained citizens cower helplessly in corners or snatch up weapons as futile as the sword of Priam against Pyrrhus. They are butchered or herded harmlessly out of the way, and the city is lost. Once let the enemy disable the cities which are the nerve centres of industry, and the best armies in the world will throw down their rifles for lack of ammunition or rot miserably in the field from starvation. It behooves us then to consider whether by any device we can prepare our 'noncombatants' for the final exigency of personal combat. Failing to solve this problem, we must confess that we have carried the task of preparing the nation for war but little farther than it stood when we took it up. All other progress will be worth the effort only if this greatest need is adequately met.

Again at first sight the problem seems impossible of solution. And it offers, beyond doubt, more serious obstructions than the aspect of frightfulness which we met by suggesting the use of horses to inure our people to the emotional inconveniences of war. It will not do to propose the revival of gladiatorial games. It was not the gladiators who made a conquering nation of the Romans, and if we may judge by the analogy of a contemporary prize fight, many a bawling tradesman watched them who would not have changed his seat in the amphitheatre

as

unexpect

for their bloody stance before the lions if the throne of the Cæsars had been his reward. No, the problem is not easily solved. But, in a finite and perilous existence, dangers and difficulties which threaten life itself are dissolved they are called into being edly, and by circumstances or lucky thoughts which change the face of the world in the twinkling of an eye, and seem to accomplish the impossible. If one lesson emerges from the experience of all mankind alike, it is not to despair too early. Even this problem may find an adequate answer; and indeed I am about to suggest one which, after long consideration, seems to me not unsatisfying. If others agree with this conclusion, the country may well congratulate itself on possessing the power to train its citizens for the last test which warfare can exact of them.

When I outlined my plan for the conscription of horses, I was able to propose a scheme which had the great advantage of not wasting human life. And in this instance, too, I hope to avoid wasting human life, according to any farsighted understanding of the term 'waste.' I cannot, however, see that injury and suffering for brief periods may be escaped, though they are such as any citizen, especially that class of citizens which I have in mind, would be glad to endure for the country, and would welcome, I feel sure, if he thought that as a result of his fortitude the people would be better prepared to preserve the safety and glory of the nation in war. My scheme, again briefly outlined and left for wiser heads to elaborate in detail, follows.

It must be accepted as axiomatic that no substitute for actual fighting can be adequate to the case. This principle understood, I propose that a retiring age adapted to the purposes of my plan be established for all officers of the regular army except those of the

General Staff and such others as may be useful for service at an advanced age. Retired officers automatically become eligible to be called out for service as objects for the practice of the citizens in disposing of the enemy according to the methods described in the Manual of Military Training. The full significance of this scheme may not at once appear; but, let it be adopted, and I promise that our wives and striplings will soon be able to knee a crotch or gouge an eye as effectively as only the privileged veteran can under the present plan.

A word in explanation of my system. I choose officers for two reasons: the first, that they are the instructors in military training and therefore the stronger in self-command and the more expert in defense; the second, that men do not usually enlist for life, and that a man who remains a private at the retiring age, while he may be of use in war, is hardly to be trusted in the difficult and responsible exercise which I propose. Again there would be stated periods for the citizens to present themselves at the battle areas of the various military districts, and, for periods of time which would be agreed upon by the military authorities, they would fight one by one with the officers, doing their utmost to dispatch them, either by weapons, or by gouging and kicking, or by whatever methods occurred to them before the concluding signal brought the bout to an end. The duties of the officer would be to arouse in the citizen the desire to kill,1 and to compel the most furious use of all the citizen's powers and resources of combat. But no officer would ever injure by more than a casual bruise any citizen with whom he was engaged, as

1 'The inherent desire to fight and kill must be carefully watched for and encouraged by the instructor.' Moss and Lang, Manual of Military Training, Vol. I.

the citizen is the soldier of the future, and his life must be protected. Fighting only on the defense, and inspired by the pride of his profession, which would remove any temptation for the officer to make the citizen's work easy, and so to expire before he had served his country to the utmost, we might reasonably expect that one officer would last out as many as twenty short bouts with men, and a good many more with women and children, before becoming useless for further practice. In this way we could hope that there would be enough officers to supply most of the population other than the bedridden and the males eligible for service at the front.

It may shock some readers that I should think of including women in this exercise. But I do not see that they should be deprived of any legitimate means of learning to protect themselves, such as this experience would provide. Indeed, it is the problem of the unarmed population, of whom women form the part most in need of military instruction, which we have all along been endeavoring to study. Consider the value of a few such contests as I have described to a woman who wished to defend herself against the attentions which might be offered her by some visiting member of the enemy's troops. There are always some women to whom the proximity of soldiers offers professional opportunities, whether they wear the uniforms of the enemy or of the native cause. Others, of greater social restraint, but perhaps of similar inclinations, may ask, as did the Turkish ladies in the battle described by Lord Byron,

Wherefore the ravishing did not begin! But still others would prefer death to such thoughts, and suffer a thousand torments rather than contemplate such acts. These are the women whom, I

imagine, most of the masculine sex would consider examples of the first principle of feminine virtue. Why then deny them the right to defend for themselves their title to the respect of society and the approbation of its male members? They are likely to need all possible powers of self-protection if the predictions of experts about the warfare of the future have any meaning.

If I were asked to argue in support of my proposal, its merits would seem so obvious to me that I should stammer out the least evident and the least commendable first. Yet it is a real merit. Since all officers who reached the retiring age would automatically be destroyed, it would not be possible to reward their services with pensions. Most of them would be unlikely to have dependents at the age to which they would have attained; any surviving widows could not be expected to survive long. Thus a small but ponderable item of the vast bill of expense which is one of the chief inconveniences of war would be canceled outright.

For the rest, the officers would be glad, I am sure, to lay upon the altars of their country this last holy sacrifice of their lives, which they stand always ready to give in war, and which there is no reason to suppose they would withhold in peace. And I am not sure that the occasions on which the lives of so many brave men were consummated would be wholly unconnected with the more tender feelings. Fancy can picture some of the appropriate ceremony which the emotions of the people would suggest to close the scene. When the lust of battle had subsided, and the sacred thought that what they had done was for the country's good had found its way into the minds of the citizens, they would feel the solemn responsibility which their acts entailed. An hour of grief and consecration like that after a great war would ensue.

Reverently and gently the bleeding remains would be gathered together (here our stretcher-bearers and fieldhospital units might obtain useful practice) and laid upon catafalques draped with the country's flags. To the flags would be pinned the medals and decorations for valor which any of the dead officers had received. As the sobbing concourse of people marched behind, a low, keening thrill of military music would usher the faithful soldiers to their last bivouac. The catafalques would move forward to a stadium or open-air theatre near which ground would be dedicated to serve as the last resting place of the dispatched heroes. But before the rows of open graves with their barrows of loose earth were leveled above the dead, the people would take their places on the seats of the stadium to become spectators of the final sacred rites of commemoration and respect. On the stage or field in view of the vast and solemn audience, the next of kin to the dead officers would form a queue, and marching forward in triumphant line, each would receive a pin or decoration recognizing for the country their loss and their loyalty. If the mother of any officer were still alive, how tenderly the hands of willing supporters would guide her to the place where the President of the Republic, the Chief of Staff, or some other notable official stood, that she might hear his words of comfort with a trembling smile, bravely fighting back her tears and shining with a more than earthly pride. Surely some badge of especial distinction would be reserved for such an one!

At last the national anthem would be solemnly sung by all the multitude with bared heads, and some venerable minister of the Gospel, raising his hands in trembling benediction, would offer thanks to God in the name of the people of the country for the lives and examples of the brave men ranged on their biers beneath his outstretched palms.

'O God, the Father of all mercies,' he might proclaim, 'we thank thee for thine everlasting beneficence. It has pleased thee to set us in a world where he that comes with a sword comes often in thy name; but, placing us amid war and peril, thou hast given us such men as lie here, who counted death in thy cause better than life in any other. They died lest one of thy little ones or the mothers of thy lambs should be lacking in the preparation meet and necessary for war. They have laid upon their countrymen the obligation of being ready to follow in their footsteps, as all followers of thy son Jesus Christ should not shrink if thy call leads them to the crown of martyrdom. Grant that the lives of these men shall not be wasted. Grant that we may learn the lessons they strove to teach. Continue to bless our glorious land. May our people obey thy laws and carry thy message to all the earth. May they prosper and enjoy thy favor for as long as nations shall endure or peoples bow beneath thy throne. Cease not to bless us with men of such courage and ideals. Comfort the hearts that have sacrificed them to thy glory and their country's might by the mysterious workings of thy peace. Amen.'