Some one, somewhere, appears to be laboring under a rather serious mistake, or we should not have been exposed so frequently during the last few weeks to the phrase “civilized warfare.” There is no such thing, of course, as civilized warfare. All war is necessarily barbaric in its methods, and ludicrous in its assumption of semi-decency. When nations go out, in the name of God, to mangle and destroy their fellow-creatures, they are reverting to the primitive profession of murder. The glory of war is the glory of murder, however it may be embellished by infantile brains.
We have heard much of atrocities and “uncivilized” outrages. Probably most of the stories are utterly false: but even if they were true, they would only be in full accord with the whole purpose, methods, and disgrace of war.
Let us realize, very clearly, that war is necessarily and always murderous and barbaric, and let us abandon the pretence that we are shocked at the annihilation of towns, the rape of women, the slaughter of children, the desolation of once-prosperous communities. These are the trimmings of war. If we order the feast, let us pay for it; but let us, in the name of all decency, give up the pretence that we are either civilized or Christianized.
Saintless Petrograd
The official change from St. Petersburg to Petrograd removes the intrusive saint from the Russian capital. The city
was named after Peter the Great, of somewhat uncouth memory, and the subsequent sanctification by the rest of Europe was perhaps a tribute to the religious reputation of Holy Russia.
Now that the Ice has been broken, such cities as Florence, for example, may begin to assert their right to be known, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, by their real and native names.
Thumbs Down
In his clever, whimsical and symbolistic play, Androcles and the Lion, Mr. George Bernard Shaw has fallen—or a zealous proof-reader has made it appear that he has fallen—into the usual error of “thumbs down,” as the death signal.
It is strange that this mistake should be so widely prevalent, and should even be repeated by the Encyclopædia Britannica. But the error, like ’round for round and laid for lay, will no doubt pass steadily through the years.