h
with their jaws, gnawing at their windpipes. This is modern war in the
twentieth century--or one scene in it--and it is only afterwards, if one
escapes with life, that one is stricken with the thought of all that horror
which has debased us as low as the beasts--lower than beasts,
because we have an intelligence and a soul to teach us better
things."

The soldiers of France have an intelligence which makes them, or
most of them, revolt from the hideous work they have to do and cry
out against this infamy which has been thrust upon them by a nation
which compelled the war. Again and again, for nine months and
more, I have heard French soldiers ask the question, "Why are such
things allowed by God? What is the use of civilization if it leads to
this?" And, upon my soul, I could not answer them.

18

The mobilization of all the manhood of France, from boys of eighteen
and nineteen to men of forty-five, was a demonstration of national
unity and of a great people rising as one man in self-defence,
which to the Englishman was an astounding and overwhelming
phenomenon. Though I knew the meaning of it and it had no real
surprises for me, I could never avoid the sense of wonderment when
I met young aristocrats marching in the ranks as common soldiers,
professors, poets, priests and painters, as hairy and dirty as the
poilus who had come from the farms and the meat markets,
millionaires and the sons of millionaires driving automobiles as
military chauffeurs or as orderlies to officers upon whom they waited
respectfully, forbidden to sit at table with them in public places, and
having to "keep their place" at all times. Even now I am astonished at
a system which makes young merchants abandon their businesses
at a moment's notice to serve in the ranks, and great employers of
labour go marching with their own labourers, giving only a backward
glance at the ruin of their property and their trade. There is something
magnificent in this, but all one's admiration of a universal military
service which abolishes all distinctions of class and wealth--after all
there were not many embusques, or privileged exemptes--need not
blind one to abuses and unnecessary hardships inflicted upon large
numbers of men.

Abuses there have been in France, as was inevitable in a system like
this, and this general call to the colours inflicted an enormous amount
of suffering upon men who would have suffered more willingly if it had
been to serve