"It's sad, but it is war."

"No," I replied, "it isn't war. It's pure barbarism and it's
abominable."

Some few paces away from us French Zouaves were sitting beside some
wounded Germans. In their own glasses they poured out a little cordial
for their prisoners; they gave them their last cigarettes. One of them
had even taken, as if he were his brother, the head of a wounded
German in his left hand to support it. With his right hand, very
carefully, he was giving him a drink. I pointed that out to the German
major, saying:

"There! That is war--at least it's war as we understand it."

This time he made no answer.

But all the German prisoners repeated what he had said to me as a set
phrase. On the whole, when you have seen ten German prisoners you
have seen a thousand; when you have questioned one German officer you
have questioned fifty. The characteristic of the race is that they
have abolished all individuality. You find yourself in an amorphous
mass, cast in a uniform mold, not in the presence of human beings who
think their own thoughts.

I often saw trains stop in what is called a _gare regulatrice_, where
the prisoners are questioned and distributed. These trains bring in
prisoners and their officers. The commandant of the station, in
accordance with his duty, has the officers appear before him so that