"And imagine me doing him the honor of comparing him to a Lieutenant! I considered him man enough at least to blow his brains out!
"For thirty years he has been frightening the world with the rattle of his saber, and with his boastful mustache; for thirty years he has been calling himself war lord, making whole races tremble at his frown, his heroic attitudinizing, and his melodramatic speeches; for thirty years he has been preparing millions of men for slaughter, obliging peoples of the world to live under arms in the midst of peace. And now, when misfortune seeks him for her own, when he considers his life in danger, he shamefully flees to a foreign country and deserts his supporters, like a merchant going into a fraudulent bankruptcy."
"It is the greatest lie humanity has ever known," the Colonel shouts indignantly. "The greatest swindle in history."
It does not prove anything to kill one's self; Don Marcos is well aware of that. But in this life there are so many things that do not prove anything and which nevertheless are beautiful and logical! The despair of those who commit suicide through love does not prove anything either, and yet it has inspired the greatest works of poetry and other arts. The sailor, who wrecks his ship, kills himself; every man of honor who considers his fault irreparable appeals to death, in order that when he falls, he may fall in a dignified manner.
"And that Emperor," Toledo continued, "who planned an organized slaughter of ten million men, wants to live to a ripe old age. It's the most shameless thing I ever heard of!
"Military honor, such as it had come to be understood through the various centuries, was unknown likewise to his generals. Those specialists in burning towns, those technicians in executing peasants, those artisans of terror, on seeing disaster coming, tranquilly returned to their castles, like office boys leaving their work.
"Of all these companions of the 'war lord,' the only one worthy of respect was a civilian, a manufacturer, a Jew, the munition maker Ballin, of Hamburg, who on seeing the Empire ruined, did not want to survive it and shot himself. In the meantime the Marshals of the strategy that failed, tranquilly begin to devote themselves to training their dogs, writing their memoirs, and looking after their health.
"Napoleon, in one of his last battles, stopped his horse over a lighted bomb; later he tried to poison himself at Fontainebleau. He courted death, and resigned himself to living, like a fatalist, only on becoming convinced that death would have nothing to do with him. The other Napoleon, the one of Sedan, may have taken refuge in Belgium, abandoning his troops much as the sad German Cæsar had done; but ill and fainting, on his horse, he nevertheless preferred to gallop along a high road swept by gun fire, hoping that a shell would tear him to pieces."
That is the way Toledo understands military honor. That is the way it has been accepted in all ages.
Against the Imperial generals, recreants, ready to run in the hour of danger, like comedians thinking only of their reputations, his anger is implacable. Hemmed in by the Allies, with their lines broken, they might have fallen nobly fighting until the last moment. But they preferred to beg for an armistice and hand over their weapons, in order that the imbeciles who had admired them so greatly might go on believing in their divine invincibility, and be sure that if they were retiring to their estates it was only out of consideration for internal politics.