“Drawing the hostile galley with them to the shore the victors exposed it to be destroyed by our people of both sexes who met it on land. Then our women seized and dragged the Turks by the hair, beheading them and treating them with every indignity and savagely stabbing them, and the weaker their hands so much the more protracted were the pains of death to the vanquished, for they cut off their heads not with swords but with knives.”
Dr. Macdonell has pointed out that the only notable survival of barbarism in respect to captives was the rule—abrogated apparently in some countries but retained by us for reasons never satisfactorily explained—that the crews of pirate vessels captured at sea were treated as prisoners of war.
In the next great fight on the seas, if a submarine boat should be hit by the quick-firing guns of a battleship she is endeavouring to destroy, her crew, provided they are not sunk like rats in a trap, will be picked up by the ironclad’s boats and kept as prisoners of war till hostilities are at an end.
We are reminded of some lines in Mr. Kipling’s poem, “Kitchener’s School”—
“They terribly carpet the earth with dead, and before their cannon cool
They walk unarmed by twos and threes and call the living to school.”
Those who argue in favour of the suppression of under-water warfare have pointed out that whereas the battleship can save the crew of the torpedo vessel, the latter owing to her small size can only steam away, sending the big ship to the bottom, and leave the unfortunate crew to drown or save themselves as best they can, which, with shell and shot flying about, would not be easy. A way out of the difficulty has not been found yet.
What then is the conclusion of the whole matter? It is this. Since the object of war is peace, make war as deadly as possible; since your goal is complete conquest, use all efforts to get it over as quickly as possible. We cannot do better than quote the following remarks made by a speaker during the discussion on Lord Dunsany’s lecture, above referred to.
“In conclusion I would say, save us from the cruel mercies of the weak. War—that splendid mistress for whose favours we have all longed since we reached man’s estate—must be given her full attributes and painted in her most deadly colours in order that the misery, which undoubtedly she brings to the majority of the population, may extend over as short a period as possible. Let us make her as deadly as we can, in the name of humanity and of every good feeling.”