In the present volume I have attempted within the limits of the historical period and of our European civilisation, and without recognising any hard and fast line between ancient and modern, Christian and Pagan, to allude, in the places that seemed most appropriate, to all points in the history of war that appeared to be either of special interest or of essential importance. As examples of such points I may refer to the treatment of prisoners of war, or of surrendered garrisons; the rules about spies and surprises; the introduction of, and feeling about, new weapons; the meaning of parts of military dress; the origin of peculiar customs like the old one of kissing the earth before a charge; the prevalent rules of honour, as displayed in notions of justice in regard to reprisals, or of fairness in stratagems and deception. The necessity of observing in so vast a field the laws of proportion has enforced resort to such condensation, that on subjects which deserve or possess their tomes upon tomes, I have in many cases been unable to spend more than a page or a chapter. It is easier, however, to err on the side of length than of brevity, but on whichever side I have exceeded, I can only hope that others, who may feel the same interest with myself in the subject without having the same time to give to it, may derive a tithe of the pleasure from reading the following nine chapters that I have found in putting them together.

The study, of course, is no new one, but there can be no objection to calling it by the new name of Bellology—a convenient term, quite capable of holding its own with Sociology or its congeners. The only novelty I have aimed at is one of treatment, and consists in never losing sight of the fact that to all military customs there is a moral and human side which has been only too generally ignored in this connection. To read books like Grose’s ‘Military Antiquities,’ one would think their writers were dealing with the manners, not of men but of ninepins, so utterly do they divest themselves of all human interest or moral feeling, in reference to the customs they describe with so laudable but toneless an accuracy.

The starting-point of modern bellological studies will, undoubtedly, always be the Parliamentary Blue Book, containing the reports (less full than one might wish) of the Military International Conference that met at Brussels in 1874, to discuss the existing laws and customs of war, and to consider whether any modification of them were either possible or desirable. Most of the representatives appointed to attend by the several Powers were military men, so that we are carried by their conversation into the actual realities of modern warfare, with an authority and sense of truth that one is conscious of in no other military book. It is to be regretted that such a work, instructive as it is beyond any other on the subject, has never been printed in a form more popular than its official dress. It was from it that I first conceived the idea of the following pages, and in the sequel frequent reference will be made to it, as the source of the most trustworthy military information we possess, and as certain to be for some time to come the standard work on all the actual laws and customs of contemporary warfare.

[CONTENTS.]

[CHAPTER I.]

THE LAWS OF WAR.
PAGE
The prohibition of explosive bullets in war[2]
The importance of the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868[3]
The ultimate triumph of more destructive methods[4]
Illustrated by history of the crossbow or the musket[5]
Or of cannons, torpedoes, red-hot shot, or the bayonet[5]
Numbers slain in modern and earlier warfare[8]
The laws of war at the Brussels Conference of 1874[10]
Do the laws of war tend to improve?[13]
A negative answer suggested from reference[13]
 1. To the use of poison in war[14]
 2. To the bombardment of towns[15]
 3. To the destruction of public buildings[16]
 4. To the destruction of crops and fruit-trees[16]
 5. To the murder of prisoners or the wounded[17]
 6. To the murder of surrendered garrisons[18]
 7. To the destruction of fishing-boats[19]
 8. To the disuse of the declaration of war[19]
 9. To the torture and mutilation of combatants and non-combatants[20]
10. To the custom of contributions[20]
The futile attempts of Grotius and Vattel to humanise warfare[21]
The rights of war in the time of Grotius[24]
The futility of international law with regard to laws of war[26]
The employment of barbarian troops[26]
The taking of towns by assault[27]
The laws of war contrasted with the practice[28]
War easier to abolish than to humanise[30]

[CHAPTER II.]

WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS TIMES.
Delusion about character of war in days of chivalry[32]
The common slaughter of women and children[33]
The Earl of Derby’s sack of Poitiers[34]
The massacres of Grammont and Gravelines[35]
The old poem of the Vow of the Heron[36]
The massacre of Limoges by Edward the Black Prince[37]
The imprisonment of ladies for ransom[38]
Prisoners of war starved to death[39]
Or massacred, if no prospect of ransom[41]
Or blinded or otherwise mutilated[42]
The meaning of a surrender at discretion[44]
As illustrated by Edward III. at Calais[44]
And by several instances in the same and the next century[45]
The practice of burning in aid of war[47]
And of destroying sacred buildings[47]
The practice of poisoning the air[49]
The use of barbarous weapons[50]
The influence of religion on war[51]
The Church in vain on the side of peace[52]
Curious vows of the knights[54]
The slight personal danger incurred in war by them[54]
The explanation of their magnificent costume[55]
Field sports in war-time[56]
The desire of gain the chief motive of war[57]
The identity of soldiers and brigands[57]
The career and character of the Black Prince[59]
The place of money in the history of chivalry[61]
Its influence as a war-motive between England and France[62]
General low character of chivalrous warfare[64]

[CHAPTER III.]

NAVAL WARFARE.
Robbery the first object of maritime warfare[66]
The piratical origin of European navies[67]
Merciless character of wars at sea[69]
Fortunes made by privateering in England[71]
Privateers commissioned by the State[72]
Privateers defended by the publicists[73]
Distinction between privateering and piracy[73]
Failure of the State to regulate privateering[74]
Privateering condemned by Lord Nelson[77]
Privateering abolished by the declaration of Paris in 1856[78]
Modern feeling against seizure of private property at sea[79]
Naval warfare in days of wooden ships[80]
Unlawful methods of maritime war[81]
The Emperor Leo VI.’s ‘Treatise on Tactics’[83]
The use of fire-ships[84]
Death the penalty for serving in fire-ships[85]
Torpedoes originally regarded as ‘bad’ war[85]
English and French doctrine of rights of neutrals[86]
Enemy’s property under neutral flag secured by Treaty of Paris[87]
Shortcomings of the Treaty of Paris with regard to—
 1. A definition of what is contraband[88]
 2. The right of search of vessels under convoy[88]
 3. The practice of Embargoes[89]
 4. The Jus Angariæ[90]
The International Marine Code of the future[91]

[CHAPTER IV.]

MILITARY REPRISALS.
International law on legitimate reprisals[93]
The Brussels Conference on the subject[95]
Illustrations of barbarous reprisals[97]
Instances of non-retaliation[98]
Savage reprisals in days of chivalry[100]
Hanging the commonest reprisals for a brave defence[101]
As illustrated by the warfare of the fifteenth century[102]
Survival of the custom to our own times[104]
The massacre of a conquered garrison still a law of war[105]
The shelling of Strasburg by the Germans[106]
Brutal warfare of Alexander the Great[107]
The connection between bravery and cruelty[110]
The abolition of slavery in its effects on war[112]
The storming of Magdeburg, Brescia, and Rome[112]
Cicero on Roman warfare[114]
The reprisals of the Germans in France in 1870[115]
Their revival of the custom of taking hostages[117]
Their resort to robbery as a plea of reprisals[118]
General Von Moltke on perpetual peace[119]
The moral responsibility of the military profession[121]
The Press as a potent cause of war[122]
Plea for the abolition of demands for unconditional surrender[123]
Such as led to the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882[123]

[CHAPTER V.]

MILITARY STRATAGEMS.
Grotius’ theory of fair stratagems[126]
The teaching of international law[127]
Ancient and modern naval stratagems[127]
Early Roman dislike of such stratagems[132]
As ambuscades, feigned retreats, or night attacks[132]
The degenerate standard of Frontinus and Polyænus[135]
The Conference stratagem of modern Europe[136]
The distinction between perfidy and stratagem[139]
The perfidy of Francis I.[140]
Vattel’s theory about spies[141]
Frederick the Great’s military instructions about spies[142]
Lord Wolseley on spies and truth in war[144]
The custom of hanging or shooting spies[145]
Better to keep them as prisoners of war[146]
Balloonists regarded as spies[147]
The practice of military surprises[148]
Death formerly the penalty for capture in a surprise[150]
Stratagems of uncertain character[151]
Such as forged despatches or false intelligence[151]
The use of the telegraph in deceiving the enemy[151]
May prisoners of war be compelled to propagate lies?[152]
General character of the military code of fraud[153]

[CHAPTER VI.]

BARBARIAN WARFARE.
Variable notions of honour[156]
Primitive ideas of a military life[156]
What is civilised warfare?[158]
Advanced laws of war among several savage tribes[159]
Symbols of peace among savages[161]
The Samoan form of surrender[162]
Treaties of peace among savages[162]
Abeyance of laws of war in hostilities with savages[163]
Zulus blown up in caves with gun-cotton[165]
Women and men kidnapped for transport service on the Gold Coast[166]
Humane intentions of the Spaniards in the New World[167]
Contrasted with the inhumanity of their actions[167]
Wars with natives of English and French in America[170]
High rewards offered for scalps[171]
The use of bloodhounds in war[171]
The use of poison and infected clothes[172]
Penn’s treaty with the Indians[173]
How Missionaries come to be a cause of war[176]
Explanation of the failure of modern missions[178]
The mission stations as centres of hostile intrigues[179]
Plea for the State-regulation of missions[181]
Depopulation under Protestant influences[181]
The prevention of false rumours—Tendenzlügen[182]
Civilised and barbarian warfare[183]
No real distinction between them[184]

[CHAPTER VII.]

WAR AND CHRISTIANITY.
The war question at the time of the Reformation[185]
The remonstrances of Erasmus against the custom[186]
Influence of Grotius on the side of war[187]
The war question in the early Church[188]
The Fathers against the lawfulness of war[190]
Causes of the changed views of the Church[192]
The clergy as active combatants for over a thousand years[193]
Fighting bishops[193]
Bravery in war and ecclesiastical preferment[196]
Pope Julius II. at the siege of Mirandola[197]
The last fighting bishop[197]
Origin and meaning of the declaration of war[198]
Superstition in the naming of weapons, ships, &c.[200]
The custom of kissing the earth before a charge[201]
Connection between religious and military ideas[202]
The Church as a pacific agency[204]
Her efforts to set limits to reprisals[207]
The altered attitude of the modern Church[208]
Early Reformers only sanctioned just wars[208]
Voltaire’s reproach against the Church[210]
Canon Mozley’s sermon on war[212]
The answer to his apology[214]

[CHAPTER VIII.]

CURIOSITIES OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.
Increased severity of discipline[218]
Limitation of the right of matrimony[219]
Compulsory Church parade and its origin[219]
Atrocious military punishments[221]
Reasons for the military love of red[223]
The origin of bear-skin hats[223]
Different qualities of bravery[225]
Historical fears for the extinction of courage[225]
The conquests of the cause of Peace[227]
Causes of the unpopularity of military service[228]
The dulness of life in the ranks[228]
The prevalence of desertion[230]
Articles of war against Malingering[231]
Military artificial ophthalmia[233]
The debasing influence of discipline[234]
Illustrated from the old flogging system[235]
The discipline of the Peninsular army[236]
Attempts to make the service more popular[239]
By raising the private’s wages[239]
By shortening his term of service[240]
The old recruiting system of France and Germany[241]
The conscription imminent in England[242]
The question of military service for women[242]
The probable results of the conscription[243]
Militarism answerable for Socialism[246]

[CHAPTER IX.]

THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTIES.
The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed[250]
Military purificatory customs[250]
Modern change of feeling about warfare[252]
Descartes on the profession of arms[254]
The old-world sentiment in favour of piracy[255]
The central question of military ethics[257]
May a soldier be indifferent to the cause of war?[257]
The right to serve made conditional on a good cause[258]
By St. Augustine, Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir James Turner[258]
Old Greek feeling about mercenary service[260]
Origin of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous service[260]
Armies raised by military contractors[261]
The value of the distinction between foreign and native mercenaries[262]
Original limitation of military duty[264]
To the actual defence of the realm[264]
Extension of the notion of allegiance[265]
The connection of the military oath with the first Mutiny Act[265]
Recognised limits to the claims on a soldier’s obedience[266]
The falsity of the common doctrine of duty[266]
Illustrated by the devastation of the Palatinate by the French[267]
And by the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English[268]
The example of Admiral Keppel[270]
Justice between nations[271]
Its observation in ancient India and Rome[271]
St. Augustine and Bayard on justice in war[273]
Grotius on good grounds of war[273]
The military claim to exemption from moral responsibility[276]
The soldier’s first duty to his conscience[279]
The admission of this principle involves the end of war[280]

[MILITARY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.]