But upon whom falls the stress of war?
In a time of barbarism those who suffer are always the weak. War is in its essence (as said Nietzsche, the German philosopher of "world power") an attack upon weakness. The weakest suffer most.
I saw children born on cinder heaps, and I saw them die; and the mothers die gasping like she dogs in a smother of flies.
Some day the story of what was done in Alsace will be written and the stories of Visé and Aerschot and Onsmael and Louvain will seem pale and negligible; but not now—five generations to come will whisper them in the Vosges.
What I would emphasize is that in the natural state of barbarism induced by the war the woman falls back to her antique state of she animal. In thousands of years she has been made into a thing of exquisite and mysterious femininity; in a day she is thrown back to kinship with the she dog. Slashed with sabres, pricked with lances, she is a mere thing of prey.
Surely not the dear Countess and Baroness? Of course not. War is made in the palaces, but it does not attack the palaces. The worth of every nation dwells in the cottage; and it is upon the cottage that war works its worst infamy. Go to Alsace and see.
Pillage, loot, incendiarism, "indemnity"—you can read that in the records of the invasion of Belgium; that is war; it is all right if war is to be, for all this talk of chivalrous consideration for foes and regard for international law is all nonsense; necessity, as Bethmann-Hollweg said, knows no law, and necessity has always been the tyrant's plea; it is the business of a soldier to kill and terrify; if he restricts his killing and terrifying he is a bad soldier and bad at his work of barbarism; but—
There is a more sinister side to Europe's lapse into barbarism. The women are paying too dear. And to make them pay dear is not really the business of a soldier, not even a bad soldier. Yet the woman is paying, God knows. A tragic payment.