midst of abundance, on account of military respect for civilian
property. Von der Goltz remarks that "there was a time when the troops
camped in the cornfields and yet starved," and states that in 1806 the
Prussian main army camped close to huge piles of wood and yet had no
fires to warm themselves or cook their food.[3]

The legend, if legend it is, of the French officer who politely
requested the English officer opposite him to "fire first" shows how
something of the ancient spirit of chivalry was still regarded as the
accompaniment of warfare. It was an occupation which only incidentally
concerned the ordinary citizen. The English, especially, protected by
the sea and always living in open undefended cities, have usually been
able to preserve this indifference to the continental wars in which
their kings have constantly been engaged, and, as we see, even in the
most unprotected European countries, and the most profoundly warlike,
the Great Frederick set forth precisely the same ideal of war.

The fact seems to be that while war is nowadays less chronic than of
old, less prolonged, and less easily provoked, it is a serious fallacy
to suppose that it is also less barbarous. We imagine that it must be
so simply because we believe, on more or less plausible grounds, that
our life generally is growing less barbarous and more civilised. But
war, by its very nature, always means a relapse from civilisation into
barbarism, if not savagery.[4] We may sympathise with the endeavour of
the European soldiers of old to civilise warfare, and we may admire the
remarkable extent to which they succeeded in doing so. But we cannot
help feeling that their romantic and chivalrous notions of warfare were
absurdly incongruous.

The world in general might have been content with that incongruity. But