ery or sharpshooters were bested in the trenches, like a lot of
mad dogs they turned their guns on the farm houses at their extreme
range hoping to kill or destroy somebody. The poor peasants suffer.
The old men, boys, women and children who try their best to till the
soil are caught unawares by the deadly shrapnel and are killed. The
courage of these people is wonderful. I have seen a young girl driving
a single horse in front of a hand-made wooden harrow all afternoon
with the shells falling within two hundred yards of her. The dastardly
German gunners were trying to kill her and her horse but an all-wise
Providence destroyed the aim of the cowards and she escaped unhurt.

These doctrines of "frightfulness" are laid down by two of the
foremost German writers on the Art of War. Clausewitz, who is always
quoted in the war schools dealing with the question, says,
"Philanthropists may think it possible that the disarmament or
subjection of the enemy can be effected by some artificial means
without causing too many wounds and that this is the true aim of
military science. Pretty as this looks we must refute this error, for
in such dangerous matters as war, errors arising from good nature are
the worst of all. As the employment of physical force to its fullest
extent in no wise excludes the co-operation of intelligence, it
follows that he who makes use of this force ruthlessly and without
sparing blood must obtain an ascendancy if the enemy does not do
likewise. By so doing he frames a law for the other and thus both
strain every nerve without finding any other limitation but their own
natural counterpoise." Von Der Goltz, the tutor of the Turks and the
author of a German textbook on war, "The Nation in Arms," says, "If
from humanitarian principles a nation decided not to resort to
extremities, but to employ its strength up to a given point only, it
would soon find itself swept onward against its will. No enemy would
consider itself bound to observe a similar limitation. So far from
this being the case each would immediately avail himself of the
voluntary moderation of the other to outstrip him at once in
activity."

In other words, according to the German conception, war is a game
without an umpire or a referee. The boast of civilization that it has
ameliorated the conditions of war, and of chivalry that the old, the
women and children shall be protected in the zone of military
activity, have ceased to be of any value.