My dear Professor:
You have been good enough to send me the manual published by the Institute of International Law, and you ask for my approval. In the first place, I fully recognize your humane endeavors to lessen the sufferings which war brings in its train.
Eternal peace, however, is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream, for war is part of God's scheme of the world. In war the noblest virtues of man develop courage and renunciation, the sense of duty and abnegation, and all at the risk of his life. Without war the world would be swallowed up in the morass of materialism.
With the principle stated in the preface, that the gradual advance of civilization should be reflected in the conduct of war, I fully agree; but I go further, and believe that civilization alone, and no codified laws of warfare, can have the desired result.
Every law necessitates an authority to watch over it and to direct its execution, but there is no power which can enforce obedience to international agreements. Which third state will take up arms because one—or both—of two powers at war with each other have broken the loi de la guerre? The human judge is lacking. In these matters we can hope for success only from the religious and moral education of the individuals, and the honor and sense of right of the leaders, who make their own laws and act according to them, at least to the extent to which the abnormal conditions of war permit it.
Nobody, I think, can deny that the general softening of men's manners has been followed by a more humane way of waging war.
Compare, if you will, the coarseness of the Thirty Years' War with the battles of recent dates.
The introduction in our generation of universal service in the army has marked a long step in the direction of the desired aim, for it has brought also the educated classes into the army. Some rough and violent elements have survived, it is true, but the army no longer consists of them exclusively.
The governments, moreover, have two means at hand to prevent the worst excesses. A strong discipline, practiced and perfected in times of peace, and a commissariat equipped to provide for the troops in the field.
Without careful provision, discipline itself can be only moderately well enforced. The soldier who suffers pain and hunger, fatigue and danger, cannot take merely en proportion avec les ressources du pays, but he must take whatever he needs. You must not ask of him superhuman things.