The Duel Between France and Germany Part 5

ABOLITION OF THE WAR SYSTEM.

Such is the statement, with its many proofs, by which war is exhibited as the Duel of Nations, being the Trial by Battle of the Dark Ages. You have seen how nations, under existing International Law, to which all are parties, refer their differences to this insensate arbitrament,--and then how, in our day and before our own eyes, two nations eminent in civilization have furnished an instance of this incredible folly, waging together a world- convulsing, soul-harrowing, and most barbarous contest. All ask how long the direful duel will be continued. Better ask, How long will be continued that War System by which such a duel is authorized and regulated among nations? When will this legalized, organized crime be abolished? When at last will it be confessed that the Law of Right is the same for nations as for individuals, so that, if Trial by Battle be impious for individuals, it is so for nations likewise? Against it are Reason and Humanity, pleading as never before,--Economy, asking for mighty help,--Peace, with softest voice praying for safeguard,--and then the authority of Philosophy, speaking by some of its greatest masters,--all reinforced by the irrepressible, irresistible protest of working- men in different nations.

Precedents exist for the abolition of this duel, so completely in point, that, according to the lawyer's phrase, they "go on all fours" with the new case. Two of these have been already mentioned: first, when, at the Diet of Worms, in 1495, the Emperor Maximilian proclaimed a permanent peace throughout Germany, and abolished the "liberty" of Private War; and, secondly, when, in 1815, the German Princ.i.p.alities stipulated "under no pretext to make war upon one another, or to pursue their differences by force of arms." [Footnote: See, _ante_, p. 247.] But first in time, and perhaps in importance, was the great Ordinance of St. Louis, King of France, promulgated at a Parliament in 1260, where he says: "_We forbid battles [i. e. TRIALS BY BATTLE] to all persons throughout our dominions,... and in place of battles we put proofs by witnesses_... AND THESE BATTLES WE ABOLISH IN OUR DOMINIONS FOREVER." [Footnote: "Nous deffendons a tous les batailles par tout, nostre demengne,.... et on lieu des batailles nous meton prueves de tesmoins..... Et ces batailles nous ostons en nostre demaigne a toujours."----_Recueil General des Anciennes Lois Francaises_, par Jourdan, etc., (Paris, 1822- 33,) Tom. I. pp. 283-90.] These at the time were great words, and they continue great as an example. Their acceptance by any two nations would begin the work of abolition, which would be completed on their adoption by a Congress of Nations, taking from war its existing sanction.

THE WORLD A GLADIATORIAL AMPHITHEATRE.

The growing tendencies of mankind have been quickened by the character of the present war, and the unexampled publicity with which it has been waged. Never before were all nations, even those separated by great s.p.a.ces, whether of land or ocean, the daily and excited spectators of the combat. The vast amphitheatre within which the battle is fought, with the whole heavens for its roof, is coextensive with civilization itself. The scene in that great Flavian Amphitheatre, the famous Colosseum, is a faint type of what we are witnessing; but that is not without its lesson. b.l.o.o.d.y games, where human beings contended with lions and tigers, imported for the purpose, or with each other, const.i.tuted an inst.i.tution of ancient Rome, only mildly rebuked by Cicero, [Footnote: "Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis videri solet: et hand scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit."_--Tusculanae Quaestiones_, Lib. II. Cap. XVII. 41.] and adopted even by t.i.tus, in that short reign so much praised as unspotted by the blood of the citizen. [Footnote: Suetonius: _t.i.tus_, Cap. IX.

Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, (London, 1862,) Ch. LX., Vol. VII. p. 56.] One hundred thousand spectators looked on, while gladiators from Germany and Gaul joined in ferocious combat; and then, as blood began to flow, and victim after victim sank upon the sand, the people caught the fierce contagion. A common ferocity ruled the scene. As Christianity prevailed, the incongruity of such an inst.i.tution was widely felt; but still it continued. At last an Eastern monk, moved only by report, journeyed a long way to protest against the impiety. With n.o.ble enthusiasm he leaped into the arena, where the battle raged, in order to separate the combatants. He was unsuccessful, and paid with life the penalty of his humanity. [Footnote: St. Telemachus, A. D. 401. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed.

Milman, (London, 1846,) Ch. x.x.x., Vol. III. p. 70. Smith, Dict.

Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Myth., art. TELEMACHUS.] But the martyr triumphed where the monk had failed. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor Honorius, by solemn decree, put an end to this horrid custom. "The first Christian Emperor," says Gibbon, "may claim the honor of the first edict which condemned the art and amus.e.m.e.nt of shedding human blood." [Footnote: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, _ubi supra_.] Our amphitheatre is larger than that of Rome; but it witnesses scenes not less revolting; nor need any monk journey a long way to protest against the impiety. That protest can be uttered by every one here at home. We are all spectators; and since by human craft the civilized world has become one mighty Colosseum, with place for everybody, may we not insist that the b.l.o.o.d.y games by which it is yet polluted shall cease, and that, instead of mutual-murdering gladiators filling the near-brought scene with death, there shall be a harmonious people, of different nations, but one fellowship, vying together only in works of industry and art, inspired and exalted by a divine beneficence?

In presenting this picture I exaggerate nothing. How feeble is language to depict the stupendous barbarism! How small by its side the b.l.o.o.d.y games which degraded ancient Rome! How pygmy the one, how colossal the other! Would you know how the combat is conducted? Here is the briefest picture of the arena by a looker- on:--

"Let your readers fancy ma.s.ses of colored rags glued together with blood and brains, and pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones,--let them conceive men's bodies without heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached to red and blue cloth, and disembowelled corpses in uniform, bodies lying about in all att.i.tudes, with skulls shattered, faces blown off, hips smashed, bones, flesh, and gay clothing all pounded together as if brayed in a mortar extending for miles, not very thick in any one place, but recurring perpetually for weary hours,--and then they cannot, with the most vivid imagination, come up to the sickening reality of that butchery." [Footnote: Scene after the Battle of Sedan: Herald of Peace for 1870, October 1st, p. 121] Such a sight would have shocked the Heathen of Rome. They could not have looked on while the brave gladiator was thus changed into a b.l.o.o.d.y hash; least of all could they have seen the work of slaughter done by machinery. Nor could any German gladiator have written the letter I proceed to quote from a German soldier:--

"I do not know how it is, but one wholly forgets the danger one is in, and thinks only of the effect of one's own bullets, rejoicing like a child at the sight of the enemy falling like skittles, and having scarcely a compa.s.sionate glance to spare for the comrade falling at one's side. One ceases to be a human being, and turns into a brute, a complete brute."

Plain confession! And yet the duel continues. Nor is there death for the armed man only. Fire mingles with slaughter, as at Bazeilles. Women and children are roasted alive, filling the air with suffocating odor, while the maddened combatants rage against each other. All this is but part of the prolonged and various spectacle, where the scene shifts only for some other horror.

Meanwhile the sovereigns of the world sit in their boxes, and the people everywhere occupy the benches.

PERIL FROM THE WAR SYSTEM.

The duel now pending teaches the peril from continuance of the present system. If France and Germany can be brought so suddenly into collision on a mere pretext, what two nations are entirely safe? Where is the talisman for their protection? None, surely, except Disarmament, which, therefore, for the interest of all nations, should be commenced. Prussia is now an acknowledged military power, armed "in complete steel,"--but at what cost to her people, if not to mankind! Military citizenship, according to Prussian rule, is military serfdom, and on this is elevated a military despotism of singular grasp and power, operating throughout the whole nation, like martial law or a state of siege.

In Prussia the law tyrannically seizes every youth of twenty, and, no matter what his calling or profession, compels him to military service for seven years. Three years he spends in active service in the regular army, where his life is surrendered to the trade of blood; then for four years he pa.s.ses to the reserve, where he is subject to periodic military drills; then for five years longer to the _Landwehr_, or militia, with liability to service in the _Landsturm_, in case of war, until sixty. Wherever he may be in foreign lands, his military duty is paramount.

But if this system be good for Prussia, then must it be equally good for other nations. If this economical government, with education for all, subordinates the business of life to the military drill, other nations will find too much reason for doing the same. Unless the War System is abandoned, all must follow the successful example, while the civilized world becomes a busy camp, with every citizen a soldier, and with all sounds swallowed up in the tocsin of war. Where, then, are the people? Where are popular rights? Montesquieu has not hesitated to declare that the peril to free governments proceeds from armies, and that this peril is not corrected even by making them depend directly on the legislative power. This is not enough. The armies must be reduced in number and force. [Footnote: De l'Esprit des Lois, Liv. XI. Ch. 6.] Among his papers, found since his death, is the prediction, "France will be ruined by the military." [Footnote: "La France se perdra par les gens de guerre."_--Pensees Diverses,--Varietes_: (Oeuvres Melees et Posthumes, (Paris, 1807, Didot,) Tom. II. p. 138.)]

It is the privilege of genius like that of Montesquieu to lift the curtain of the future; but even he did not see the vastness of suffering in store for his country through those armies against which he warned. For years the engine of despotism at home, they became the sudden instrument of war abroad. Without them Louis Napoleon could not have made himself Emperor, nor could he have hurried France into the present duel. If needed in other days, they are not needed now. The War System, always barbarous, is an anachronism, full of peril both to peace and liberal inst.i.tutions.

PEACE.

An army is a despotism; military service is a bondage; nor can the pa.s.sion for arms be reconciled with a true civilization. The present failure to acknowledge this incompatibility is only another ill.u.s.tration how the clear light of truth is discolored and refracted by an atmosphere where the cloud of war still lingers. Soon must this cloud be dispersed. From war to peace is a change indeed; but Nature herself testifies to change. Sirius, brightest of all the fixed stars, was noted by Ptolemy as of reddish hue, [Footnote: Almagest, ed. et tr. Halma, (Paris, 1816- 20,) Tom. II. pp. 72, 73.] and by Seneca as redder than Mars; [Footnote: Naturales Quaestiones, Lib. I. Cap. 1.] but since then it has changed to white. To the morose remark, whether in the philosophy of Hobbes or the apology of the soldier, that man is a fighting animal and that war is natural, I reply,--Natural for savages rejoicing in the tattoo, natural for barbarians rejoicing in violence, but not natural for man in a true civilization, which I insist is the natural state to which he tends by a sure progression. The true state of Nature is not war, but peace. Not only every war, but every recognition of war as the mode of determining international differences, is evidence that we are yet barbarians,--and so also is every ambition for empire founded on force, and not on the consent of the people. A ghastly, bleeding, human head was discovered by the early Romans, as they dug the foundations of that Capitol which finally swayed the world.

[Footnote: Dionysius Halicarna.s.sensis, Antiquitates Romanae, Lib.

IV. Capp. 59-61.] That ghastly, bleeding, human head is the fit symbol of military power.

Let the War System be abolished, and, in the glory of this consummation, how vulgar all that comes from battle! By the side of this serene, beneficent civilization, how petty in its pretensions is military power! how vain its triumphs! At this moment the great general who has organized victory for Germany is veiled, and his name does not appear even in the military bulletins. Time is the glory of arms pa.s.sing from sight, and battle losing its ancient renown. Peace does not arrest the mind like war. It does not glare like battle. Its operations, like those of Nature, are gentle, yet sure. It is not the tumbling, sounding cataract, but the tranquil, fruitful river. Even the majestic Niagara, with thunder like war, cannot compare with the peaceful plains of water which it divides. How easy to see that the repose of nations, like the repose of Nature, is the great parent of the most precious bounties vouchsafed by Providence! Add Peace to Liberty,--

"And with that virtue, every virtue lives."

As peace is a.s.sured, the traditional sensibilities of nations will disappear. Their frontiers will no longer frown with hostile cannon, nor will their people be nursed to hate each other. By ties of constant fellowship will they be interwoven together, no sudden trumpet waking to arms, no sharp summons disturbing the uniform repose. By steam, by telegraph, by the press, have they already conquered time, subdued s.p.a.ce,--thus breaking down old walls of part.i.tion by which they have been separated. Ancient example loses its influence. The prejudices of another generation are removed, and the old geography gives place to a new. The heavens are divided into constellations, with names from beasts, or from some form of brute force,--as Leo, Taurus, Sagittarius, and Orion with his club; but this is human device. By similar scheme is the earth divided. But in the sight of G.o.d there is one Human Family without division, where all are equal in rights; and the attempt to set up distinctions, keeping men asunder, or in barbarous groups, is a practical denial of that great truth, religious and political, the Brotherhood of Man. The Christian's Fatherland is not merely the nation in which he was born, but the whole earth appointed by the Heavenly Father for his home. In this Fatherland there can be no place for unfriendly boundaries set up by any,--least of all, place for the War System, making nations as hostile camps.

At La.s.sa, in Thibet, there is a venerable stone in memory of the treaty between the courts of Thibet and China, as long ago as 821, bearing an inscription worthy of a true civilization. From Eastern story learn now the beauty of peace. After the t.i.tles of the two august sovereigns, the monument proceeds: "These two wise, holy, spiritual, and accomplished princes, foreseeing the changes hidden in the most distant futurity, touched with sentiments of compa.s.sion towards their people, and not knowing, in their beneficent protection, any difference between their subjects and strangers, have, after mature reflection and by mutual consent, resolved to give peace to their people... In perfect harmony with each other, they will henceforth be good neighbors, and will do their utmost to draw still closer the bonds of union and friendship. Henceforward the two empires of Han (China) and Pho (Thibet) shall have fixed boundaries... In preserving these limits, the respective parties shall not endeavor to injure each other; they shall not attack each other in arms, or make any more incursions beyond the frontiers now determined." Then declaring that the two "must reciprocally exalt their virtues and banish forever all mistrust between them, that travellers may be without uneasiness, that the inhabitants of the villages and fields may live at peace, and that nothing may happen to cause a misunderstanding,"

the inscription announces, in terms doubtless Oriental: "This benefit will be extended to future generations, and the voice of love (towards its authors) will be heard wherever the splendor of the sun and the moon is seen. The Pho will be tranquil in their kingdom, and the Han will be joyful in their empire." [Footnote: Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia to China, and Residence in Peking, in 1820-21, by George Timkowski, Vol. I. pp. 460-64.] Such is the benediction which from early times has spoken from one of the monuments erected by the G.o.d Terminus. Call it Oriental; would it were universal! While recognizing a frontier, there is equal recognition of peace as the rule of international life.

THE REPUBLIC.

In the abolition of the War System the will of the people must become all-powerful, exalting the Republic to its just place as the natural expression of citizenship. Napoleon has been credited with the utterance at St. Helena of the prophecy, that "in fifty years Europe would be Republican or Cossack." [Footnote: See the _New York Times_ of August 11, 1870, where the reputed prophecy is cited in these terms, in a letter of the 27th July from the London correspondent of that journal, with remarks indicating an expectation of its fulfilment in the results of the present war.]

This famous saying has been variously represented; but the following are its original terms, as recorded at the time by Las Cases, to whom it was addressed in conversation, and as authenticated by the Commission appointed by Louis Napoleon for the collection and publication of the matters now composing the magnificent work ent.i.tled "Correspondance de Napoleon Ier":---

_"Dans Petat actuel des choses, avant dix ans_, toute l'Europe peut etre cosaque, ou toute en republique."--LAS CASES, _Memorial de Sainte-h.e.l.lene_, (Reimpression de 1823 et 1824,) Tom. III. p. 111,--Journal, 18 Avril 1816. _Correspondence de Napoleon I_, (Paris, 1858-69,) Tom. x.x.xIL p. 326.] Evidently Europe will not be Cossack, unless the Cossack is already changed to Republican,--as well may be, when it is known, that, since the great act of Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, in February, 1861, by which twenty- three millions of serfs were raised to citizenship, with the right to vote, fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty public schools have been opened in Russia. A better than Napoleon, who saw mankind with truer insight, Lafayette, has recorded a clearer prophecy. At the foundation of the monument on Bunker Hill, on the semi-centennial anniversary of the battle, 17th June, 1825, our much-honored national guest gave this toast: "Bunker Hill, and the holy resistance to oppression, which has already enfranchised the American hemisphere. The next half-century Jubilee's toast shall be,--To _Enfranchised Europe_."[Footnote: Columbian Centinel, June 18, 1825.] The close of that half-century, already so prolific, is at hand. Shall it behold the great Jubilee with all its vastness of promise accomplished? Enfranchised Europe, foretold by Lafayette, means not only the Republic for all, but Peace for all; it means the United States of Europe, with the War System abolished. Against that little faith through which so much fails in life, I declare my unalterable conviction, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"-- thus simply described by Abraham Lincoln [Footnote: Address at the Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863: McPherson's Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, p. 606.]--is a necessity of civilization, not only because of that republican equality without distinction of birth which it establishes, but for its a.s.surance of permanent peace. All privilege is usurpation, and, like Slavery, a state of war, relieved only by truce, to be broken by the people in their might. To the people alone can mankind look for the repose of nations; but the Republic is the embodied people. All hail to the Republic, equal guardian of all, and angel of peace!

Our own part is simple. It is, first, to keep out of war,--and, next, to stand firm in those ideas which are the life of the Republic. Peace is our supreme vocation. To this we are called. By this we succeed. Our example is more than an army. But not on this account can we be indifferent, when Human Rights are a.s.sailed or republican inst.i.tutions are in question. Garibaldi asks for a "word," [Footnote: "The cause of Liberty in Italy needs the word of the United States Government, which would be more powerful in its behalf than that of any other."--Message to Mr. Sumner from Caprera, May 24,1869.] that easiest expression of power. Strange will it be, when that is not given. To the Republic, and to all struggling for Human Rights, I give word, with heart on the lips.

Word and heart I give. Nor would I have my country forget at any time, in the discharge of its transcendent duties, that, since the rule of conduct and of honor is the same for nations as for individuals, the greatest nation is that which does most for Humanity.