It must no longer be possible for any madman who happens to sit upon a throne to wreak worldwide destruction. Whatever the cost, the peace of the world demands that Germany shall not hereafter be left in a condition to strike the first blow—that she shall not be permitted to keep an army large enough to give the military class the control of the nation, and that for her crimes against International Law she shall be made to bear proper penalties.
The next step to the limitation of her armies will be the limitation of all, and the uniting of them ostensibly, as they are now in reality, as the police force of the world.
It may be a relief to turn from the barbarity of the war to its absurdity. All its conditions are of course heritages from the barbarous past, and the only process of doing away with them is the slow complexity of human progress. Not the least element of that progress is the development of a sense of humor. If everybody felt the supreme ridiculousness of these conditions, they could not stand a year.
Another ridiculous element in the situation is the shortsightedness of capital. The force of the fighting world is in its wealth—directed by its brains. An army is proverbially a monster that crawls upon its belly. Now how long are the brains of the world going to permit its wealth to feed this monster, and leave industry and exchange paralyzed? Yet though those in control of the world’s wealth have not prevented the war, they must have learned that it will pay to devote a good percentage of the wealth to perfecting the machinery for peace which centers at The Hague. That the capitalists have not already taken hold of those agencies, is as little creditable to their sense of their own interests as to their sense of the interests of mankind—and of the ridiculous.
The nations are still in the stage of civilization that individuals were when every man carried a sword, and impromptu fights were matters of course. The first step out of that stage was the organization of the premeditated duel, with its “code of honor.” The next stage was the leaving of quarrels to arbitration and the courts, and the prohibition of individual fights and of carrying weapons to facilitate them.
The nations have lately made rapid progress toward the second stage. Yet International Law, though rapidly growing before Germany’s attack on it, is, so far, nothing but a “code of honor.” It prescribes rules for the conduct of international duels, both for the principals and for neutrals, but, like the code of the duello, it has no sanctions to enforce the rules but public opinion.
Among the most important of these rules is respect of combatants for the peace and independence of neutral states, especially when the neutrality has been specifically guaranteed by the warring states. Another very important rule is that unfortified towns shall not be bombarded, and that to fortified towns twenty-four hours’ notice shall be given, to permit the removal of non-combatants. The military oligarchy who have corrupted and misrepresented the German people, have not attained to, or have fallen from, the stage of civilization needed for the observance of these rules. They invaded Belgium and Luxemburg, and dropped bombs into Antwerp without notice.