accompanied mine for the time being. Thus, one who settles in the town
of A absorbs its local feeling of rivalry against the town of B in
athletic games or character of citizenship. To A, B is never quite
sportsmanlike; B is provincial and bigoted and generally inferior. But
settle in B and your prejudices reverse their favor from A to B.

Yet in the midst of battle, with the detachment of a non-combatant
marvelling at the irony of two lines of men engaged in an effort at
mutual extermination, I have caught myself thinking with the other side.
I knew why my side was busy at killing. Why was the other? For the same
reasons as ours.

I was seeing humanity against humanity. A man killed was a man killed,
courage was courage, sacrifice was sacrifice, romance was romance, a
heart-broken mother was a heart-broken mother, a village burned was a
village burned, regardless of race or nation. Every war became a story
in a certain set form: the rise of the war passion; the conflict;
victory and defeat; and then peace, in joyous relief, which the nations
enjoyed before they took the trouble to fight for it.

But such thoughts have been a familiar theme to the poet, the novelist,
the dramatist, the satirist, the dreamer, and the peace propagandist,
while the world goes on arming. In want of their talent, I offer
experience of the monstrous object of their gibes and imagination. To
me, the old war novels have the atmosphere of smoke powder and
antiquated tactics which still survived when I went on my first campaign
sixteen years ago. These classic masterpieces endure through their
genius; the excuse of any plodder who chooses their theme to-day is that
he deals with the material of to-day.