Let us add to these judicious remarks that military service is a school of discipline, order, obedience, courage, patience, and as such, contributes to strengthening the mind and body, to developing personality, to forming good citizens.
The principal infractions of the duty of military service are: 1, mutilations by which some render themselves improper for service; 2, simulated infirmities by which one tries to escape from the obligation; 3, desertion in times of war, and what is more criminal still, passing over to the enemy; 4, insubordination or disobedience to superiors.
This latter vice is the most important to point out, the others being more or less rare; but insubordination is an evil most frequent in our armies, and a most dangerous evil. Military operations have become so complicated and difficult in these days, that nothing is possible without the strictest obedience on the part of soldiers. In times when individual valor was almost everything, insubordination might have presented fewer inconveniences; but in these days, all is done through masses, and if the men do not obey, the armies are necessarily beaten because they cannot oppose an equal force to the enemy. Suppose the enemy to be 50,000 men strong in a certain place, that you yourself belong to a body of 50,000, and that you all together reach the same place at the same time as the enemy: you are equal in numbers, one against one, and you have at least as many chances as they; and if, besides, you have other qualities which they have not, you will have more chances. But if in the corps you belong to, there is no discipline, if every one disobeys—if, for example, when the order for marching is given, each starts when he pleases, and marches but as he pleases, you will arrive too late, and the enemy will have taken the best positions; there is then one chance lost. If, moreover, through the disorder in your ranks, you do not all arrive together, if there are but 25,000 men in a line, the others remaining behind, these 25,000 will be overwhelmed. As for those who do not reach the spot, think you they will escape the consequences of the battle? By no means; the disorder will not save them; it will deliver them defenseless into the hands of the pursuing enemy. Now, all disorder is followed by similar consequences. On the other hand, the obedience of the soldier being sure, the army is as one man who lends himself to all the plans, all the combinations; who takes advantage of all the happy chances, who runs less dangers because the business proceeds more rapidly, and that with less means one obtains more results. Such are the reasons for the punctilious discipline required of soldiers. We are treated as machines, you will say. Yes; if you resist: for then constraint becomes indispensable; but if you understand the necessity of the discipline, if you submit to it on your own accord, then are you no longer machines: you are men. The only way of not being a machine is then precisely to obey freely.
It has often been asked, in these days, whether the soldier is always obliged to obey, even such orders as his conscience disapproves of. These are dangerous questions to raise, and they tend to imperil discipline without much profit to morality. No doubt if a soldier were ordered to commit a crime—as, for example, to go and kill a defenseless man—he would have the right to refuse doing it. At the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, an order was sent to all the provinces to follow the example of Paris. One of the governors, the Viscount Orthez, replied that his soldiers did not do executioner’s service; and this answer was admired by all the world. But these are very rare cases; and it is dangerous for such uncertain eventualities to inspire mistrust against order and discipline, which are the certain guaranties of the defense and independence of a country.
91. Educational obligation.—The duty to instruct children results from the natural relations between parents and children. The obligation to raise children implies, in fact, the obligation to instruct them. There is no more education without instruction than instruction without education. To-day educational obligation is inserted in the law, and has its sanction therein. But parents owe it to themselves to obey the law without constraint.
92. Civil courage.—We have already spoken above of civil courage as opposed to military courage. But here is the place to return to this subject. Let us recall a fine page by J. Barni in his book on Morality in Democracy:
The stoics defined courage admirably: Virtue combating for equity. Civil courage might be defined: virtue defending the liberty and rights of citizens against tyranny, whether this tyranny be that of the masses or a despot’s. As much courage, and perhaps more, is demanded in the first case as in the second; it is less easy to resist a crowd than a single man, were there nothing more to be feared than unpopularity, one of the disadvantages hardest to brave. How much more difficult when it comes to risking a popularity already acquired? Yet must one, if necessary, be able to make the sacrifice. True civil courage shows itself the same in all cases. Thus, Socrates, this type of civil virtue, as he was of all other virtues, refused, at the peril of his life, to obey the iniquitous orders of the tyrant Critias; and he resisted with no less courage the people, who, contrary to justice and law, asked for the death of the generals who conquered at Arginusæ. Another name presents itself to the memory, namely, that of Boissy d’Anglas, immortalized for the heroism he showed as president of the National Convention, the 1st Prairial, year II. (20 May, 1795). Assailed by the clamors of the crowd which had invaded the Assembly, threatened by the guns which were pointed at him, he remains impassible; and without even appearing to be aware of the danger he is running, he reminds the crowd of the respect due to national representatives. They cry: “We do not want thy Assembly; the people is here; thou art the president of the people; sign, says one, the decree shall be good, or I kill thee!” He quietly replied: “Life to me is a trifle; you speak of committing a great crime; I am a representative of the people; I am president of the convention;” and he refused to sign. The head of a representative of the people who had just been massacred by the populace for having attempted to prevent the invasion of the Convention, is presented to him on the end of a pike; he salutes it and remains firm at his post. This is a great example of civil courage.