This is a grave difference; yet it would be wrong to suppose that we can
treat it adequately by condemning the whole German nation as a nation of
confessed criminals. It is the paradox of war that there is always right
on both sides. When a man is ready and willing to sacrifice his life,
you cannot deny him the right to choose what he will die for. The most
beautiful virtues, faith and courage and devotion, grow like weeds upon
the battle-field. The fighters recognize these virtues in each other,
and the front lines, for all their mud and slaughter, are breathed on by
the airs of heaven. Hate and pusillanimity have little there to nourish
them. To find the meaner passions you must seek further back. Johnson,
speaking in the _Idler_ of the calamities produced by war, admits that
he does not know 'whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with
soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers
accustomed to lie'. Now that our army is the nation in arms, the danger
from a lawless soldiery has become less, or has vanished; but the other
danger has increased.
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