By THOMAS HARDY.

By Cyril Brown.

[Staff Correspondent of The New York Times.]

I.

GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Dec. 1.—There is a certain monotony about the "scientific murder" of the firing line—a routine repetition of artillery duels, alarums, and excursions which can be (and are being) vividly described by "war correspondents" from the safe vantage ground of comfortable cafés miles away. The real human interest end of this ultra-modern war is to be gleaned from rambling around the operating zone in a thoroughly irresponsible American manner, trusting in Providence and the red American eagle sealed on your emergency passport and a letter from Charles Lesimple, the genial Consul at Cologne, to keep you from being shot.

For instance, you get some interesting first-hand knowledge as to how spies can "get away with it," in spite of the perfect German military system of controls and passes. There is no "spy hysteria" in Germany as there apparently is in England, judging from the London papers, but none the less the German authorities know perfectly well that there are swarms of spies in their midst and are hunting them down with quiet, typically Teutonic thoroughness.

But the very perfection of the German military machine is its weak spot, and on this, my second visit to the German Great Headquarters, I was able to give the astonished authorities a personal demonstration as to how any smooth-tongued stranger could turn up at even this "holy of holies." The nocturnal trail led in a military train from Luxemburg over Longwy to Longuyon, where at 3 o'clock in the morning I met an old reader of The New York Times, Herman Herzberger, a wealthy glove leather manufacturer of Berlin, well known to the trade in New York and Gloversville.

"What a coincidence," Mr. Herzberger remarked in good American. "I am going to the front with my wife to see my 18-year-old son, who is in a hospital at Vonziers. My son, who was in the high school, enlisted as a volunteer, with practically the whole school, at the outbreak of the war."

With "constant reader," I boarded a troop transport at Longuyon and crawled on through the night to the front. It was a reserve battalion of a Prussian infantry regiment of the line, and a little research work produced the interesting discovery that it was composed of men who had been wounded, were recovered, and going back for the second time. They were delighted to have an American in their midst, and promptly made me an honorary member. They had no idea where they were going, but eagerly hoped "they would be back in the trenches by evening."

"Many of us," said a Sergeant, "did not need to come back because owing to having received serious wounds the first time we were excused from further military service—but they all came back none the less. Here's one man who had nine wounds, from bullets and shell splinters, and this one was shot through the lungs, but you're all right again, aren't you? and this one is going back, although he has a wife and six children at home."

It was an interesting revelation as to the morale of the German reinforcements.

At 9 o'clock in the morning the troop transport stopped for refreshments at the French village of X, and here a funny phenomenon was witnessed. From all sides the shrewd inhabitants of the village came running, scores of them, with bottles of wine. The laughing German soldiers got out and, negotiating over a picket fence, returned with the refreshments while the inhabitants made off with German coin. I saw bottles of champagne change hands here for the sum of 25 cents. In spite of the cheapness of wine, however, the German soldier is well disciplined and does not "go the limit"; I have never seen an intoxicated specimen afield.

One of the soldiers told the following story to illustrate the iron discipline enforced in the Kaiser's army in the case of the inevitable black sheep: "A Frenchwoman, who kept a small tavern, came to our commandant and complained because a Bavarian soldier had wantonly turned the spigot and allowed a whole cask of red wine to run out on the ground. After an investigation the offender was found guilty and for punishment tied to a tree for two hours. To be tied fast by your head and legs is the most dreaded punishment, because you are disgraced before all your comrades."

From X I started out on a foot tour, and entered the Grosses Hauptquartier (Great Headquarters) unchallenged, by the back door. Journalistically it was disappointing at first, for it was Sunday morning, and apparently Prussian militarism keeps the Sabbath holy. There was no interviewing the Kaiser, for he had gone "way down East" and with him his War Minister, Gen. von Falkenhayn. The courteous commandant, Col. von Hahnke, was not on the job. Even the brilliant chief of the press division, Major Nikolai, was out of town when I called on the Great General Staff.

But there were compensations, for at a turn of the road I saw a more impressive sight than even the motoring Kaiser—a mile of German cavalry coming down the straight chaussé, gray horsemen as far as the eye could see and more constantly coming over the brow of the distant hill, with batteries of field artillery sandwiched between, while on the railroad track, paralleling the highway, infantry and heavy artillery troop trains crawled past in endless succession, as closely together as subway trains during the rush hour at home. An allied aeroplane, hovering overhead, would have learned something to its advantage.

I had innocently blundered into one of the most important troop movements of the war, but how many and where they were coming from or where they were going to I pledged myself not to disclose. The inevitable company of cyclists rode at the head of the long column that was still passing when I went to bed. Next came an imposing staff—then a mounted band blaring away, then a crack guard cavalry regiment, proud standard flying, then cavalry less élite, here and there a palefaced spectacled trooper who looked like a converted theological student. Whole regiments came riding down the pike singing "The Red, White, and Black" in unison—a stirring, marching song, which for patriotic fervor and fighting spirit "puts it all over" the British "It's a Long Way from Tipperary."

It was a Roman holiday for the French inhabitants of the town of ——, who lined the roads en masse quivering with suppressed emotion and happiness, thinking they were eyewitnessing a great German retreat. "Our French soldiers will soon be here again," they whispered to one another. But it wasn't a retreat—it was one of those mysterious strategic shifts you read about in the papers without really realizing what it means till you see it—great masses being rushed from one battlefield to another on the long line.

For weeks these same regiments had been daily "decimated," "cut to pieces," and otherwise badly mauled by English war correspondents, but you would never have suspected it. Bearded dragoons and Uhlans were still able to sit up and smoke big Hamburg cigars as they rode along, the horses looked fresh, the guns of the batteries were spick and span, the men seemed to have "morale" to spare; they looked as if they were just going for the first time—and not coming from the scrimmage.

By way of digression and as illustrating the military "discipline" on which the Germans pride themselves so, the following whimsical interlude took place in front of the sacred portals of the Great German Staff: A famous German professor of philosophy, adorned in civil life with the high title of Privy Councilor, 65 years old, white-haired, white-bearded, and with big yellow horn-rimmed spectacles, incongruously wearing the field gray uniform whose collar and shoulder straps indicated that he was an unterofficier of the reserve regiment of a German university town well known to Americans, was waiting patiently outside of the guarded gate in company with a young Feldwebel (a non-commissioned officer of higher rank.) The old philosophy professor had enlisted with practically his whole class at the outbreak of the war, but on account of his age was not sent to the front with them at the time, but finally was allowed to go with a transport of four automobile loads of gifts and supplies for the regiment. He and the Feldwebel had to hang around outside while the Lieutenant in charge went inside to do the talking in the Great General Staff Building. Presently the old philosophy professor ransacked his pockets, produced an apple, clicked his heels together in regulation fashion and, saluting his young superior, (infinitely inferior in the civil social scale,) said: "Am I permitted to offer you an apple, Herr Feldwebel?"

His ranking superior acknowledged the gift with curt military punctilio, then added respectfully, "I thank you, Herr Privy Councilor."

In the afternoon a forced march of two miles brought me to the handsome villa occupied by the foreign military attachés, where Major Langhorne, the American expert, was again found in good health and spirits, and particularly happy because in a couple of days he was again to see some real fighting. The Great General Staff continues to give our military attaché every possible opportunity to see things for himself and give Uncle Sam the benefit of the military lessons to be learned from the big scrap, no matter which way it goes.

Today I again dropped in on the Great General Staff and found it not only at home, but very much interested on discovering that I had no pass to come or go or be there at that time. The wartime mind of Prussian militarism is keen and right to the point. It saw not the chance of getting publicity in America, but the certainty that other more dangerous spies could come through the same way. By all the rules of the war game, Prussian militarism would have been thoroughly justified in treating me as a common spy in possession of vital military secrets, but it courteously contented itself in insisting on plucking out the heart of the journalistic mystery. All attempts at evasion and humor were vain—here was the ruthless reality of war. It was the mailed Prussian eagle against the bluff American bird of the same species, and the unequal contest was soon ended when Major Nikolai, Chief of Division III. of the Great General Staff, stood up very straight and dignified and said: "I am a German officer. What German violated his duty? I ask you as a man of honor, how was it possible for you to come here?"

The answer was quite simple: "The German military machine was so perfect that it covered every contingency except the most obvious and guarded every road except the easiest way. All you have to do is to take a passenger train to Luxemburg, and hang around the platform until the next military train pulls out for Belgium or France, hop aboard, and keep on going. In case of doubt utter the magic phrase, 'I am an American,' and flash the open sesame, the red seal of the United States of America—to which bearded Landsturm guards pay the tribute of regarding it as equally authoritative as the purple Prussian eagle stamped on a military pass."

Followed a two-hour dialogue in the private office of the chief of the Kaiser's secret field police, as a result of which future historians will find in the Kaiser's secret archives the following unique document, couched in Berlin "detectivese" and signed and subscribed to by The Times correspondent:

The lot of the professional spy will be harder in the future. Meanwhile, I expect to shake the dust of the German Great Headquarters from my reportorial feet early tomorrow morning, for pedestrianism is not a safe pastime in the war zone.

II.

W ITH THE GERMAN ARMY BEFORE RHEIMS, Dec. 5.—Eating a ham sandwich while squinting through an artillery telescope at the cathedral and hearing the man who fired the famous shots tell all about it was the unique combination I experienced today, and in retrospect the ham sandwich stands out as the most important feature, for it symbolizes the morale of the men before Rheims.

The post of observation was in a sometime French fort, now riddled by French shells, on the crest of a hill affording a fine panoramic view of the city, and my sightseeing predecessors here had included the Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg; Muktar Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador to Berlin; Major Langhorne, the American Military Attaché, and other celebrities.

Rheims Cathedral was said to be about four miles away, but through the powerful magnifying telescope (of the scissors type and so contrived that only its two eyes peered over the breastworks while the observer was completely hidden from view) it showed up as clearly as Caruso through an opera glass. The top of one of the two towers had a decidedly moth-eaten appearance—it looked as if one of the corners had been shot away, and the roof was evidently gone, but otherwise the exterior of the cathedral looked—through the telescope—to be in a good state of preservation and likely to enjoy a ripe old age. No French observer was seen on the cathedral towers, and I was informed by First Lieut. Wengler of the Heavy Artillery that none had been since his admonitory shells had carried their iron warning to climb down. A staff officer of the —— Division had introduced him to me as "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral," explaining that it probably wouldn't be standing today but for him.

Vice Admiral Sturdee

VICE ADMIRAL FREDERICK STURDEE,
Commander of the British Squadron Which Destroyed the German Fleet Off the Falkland Islands.

(Photo © American Press Assn.)

Admiral Sir John Fisher

ADMIRAL SIR JOHN FISHER,
First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Who Holds the Guardianship of the English Coast.

(Photo from Underwood & Underwood.)

"So you are the vandal?" "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral" was asked.

"Yes, I am the 'barbarian,'" he laughed modestly. He wears the Iron Cross of the first and second class, and, although still only a Lieutenant, commands two batteries. A most picturesque but paradoxical "barbarian," with a soft-spoken lisp, mild blue eyes, boyish face in spite of a tawny-reddish full beard of long standing, and slightly bowed legs, it required a most rigorous reportorial inquisition as practiced on millionaires and politicians at home to extract these details from the modest "friend of the Rheims Cathedral":

"The French observer on the cathedral was first noticed on Sept. 13. After that the French artillery fire became uncomfortably accurate. Eighty shells fell here in one day alone—killing only one cow," he added, with a plaintive note of reminiscence. He pointed to three big holes in the ground close by and all within a circle of ten yards' radius, where three French shells had dropped in quick succession, as further evidence of how well they had got the range.

"The fellow continued 'on the job' quite shamelessly until the 18th," he went on, "when I aimed two shots at the cathedral, and only two. No more were needed to dislodge him. One from a 15-centimeter howitzer struck the top of the 'observation tower,' the other, from a 21-centimeter mortar, hit the roof and set it on fire. I used both howitzers and mortars so as to let the French know that we could shoot well with both kinds. I wanted to dislodge the observer with the least possible damage to the fine old cathedral, and the result shows that it is possible to shoot just as accurately with heavy artillery as with field artillery. The French also had a battery planted about 100 yards from the cathedral. It isn't there any more," he added laconically.

A few turns of the screw brought a row of trees marking a boulevard into the field of vision. "There is a French battery there at the present time," he said.

"How do you know?" For I saw trees but no guns.

"Aeroplanes," "the friend of the Cathedral" explained. Another turn of the screw brought a church steeple into view.

"The French are now using this church steeple for observation purposes," the battery commander said. "The observer is reported to me every morning. He is getting to be too shameless. I shall take a shot at that steeple this afternoon in all probability. And then I suppose they will again call us barbarians. I saw the fellow myself this morning. He sits in that little arched window there." I saw the window quite distinctly, and only regret that the culprit had climbed down for the luncheon intermission, which is religiously kept by both the French and German artillery.

A tour of the wrecked fort followed and among other interesting sights the guide pointed out the trail of the famous freak shot that killed the cow. The shell went first through a glass window, then through the wall at the back of the room, into a second chamber, where, without exploding, it had amputated a hind leg of the milch cow whose loss is still mourned by two batteries of heavy artillery.

Up to now, war as experienced from the vantage ground of a high hill overlooking Rheims seemed a pleasant picnic, for the German arsenal was well stocked with plenty of good food, while the Chief of the Division Staff, with typical German hospitality, had sent along his adjutant armed with two baskets of Teuton sandwiches, which added to the picnic illusion and claimed far more attention than the Cathedral of Rheims. The frequent sight of Generals down to high privates taking hearty nourishment all along the front in France with the same comfortable enjoyment as in their own homes was more convincing than all official bulletins that they are not worrying about the outcome in the West, for morale and meals are synonyms.

The luncheon interval over, the French batteries woke up and began sending over shells with Gallic prodigality, the Germans replying sparingly, and as if in invitation, for my benefit, a French aeroplane no bigger than a Jersey mosquito appeared and circled over the German positions trying to locate the cleverly concealed heavy batteries, while down on the plain back of the hills a German motor aeroplane gun popped away for dear life trying to connect with the inquisitive visitor. Little cottonball clouds of white smoke, like daylight fireworks, hung high in the air, where the French flier had been, also black "smoke pots" to help the gunners in getting the range, but the Frenchman managed to dodge all the shrapnel that came his way, and escaped.

By request, "the friend of the cathedral" led the way (a long and strenuous one) to his 15-centimeter howitzer battery, concealed with amazing cleverness even against the observation of aviators, and pointed out the gun that had fired "the shot heard round the world." He would gladly have fired a sample shot, but the guns of the battery were already set for the night (although it was only noon!) that is, aimed at certain portions of the landscape which French troops would have to cross if they attempted to make a night attack on certain of the German trenches, so that no time would be lost in aiming the guns—all they had to do was to fire the moment the telephone bell rang a night alarm.

"Was there any connection between his iron crosses and the Rheims Cathedral?" he was tactfully asked. There was not, but modest heroes are a nuisance journalistically, and "the friend of the cathedral" required a lot of coaxing before he told that he had won both the first and second class sometime before and elsewhere, the second for galloping his heavy howitzer battery into action like field artillery and by getting it to work at close range, "smearing" a desperate French attack; first class for continuing to direct the fire of his battery from the roof of a building until it was literally shot from under his feet. "The friend of the cathedral," is also an experienced aviator and when business is dull in the howitzer line around Rheims, kills time by aerial reconnoitring. "Be sure and send me a copy of your paper," he laughed, when I beat a hasty strategic retreat to the rear to keep the Wilsonian neutrality from being violated, for after lunch French shells have a habit of raining alike on the just and the unjust.

The strategic retreat led through a village where in a farmyard was seen one of the most curious freaks of the war. A French shell had exploded here, and the terrific air pressure had lifted a farm wagon bodily and deposited it on the roof of the stable, where it still perches.

Half a mile beyond was something even more curious—a subterranean village built in the woods by German pioneers, and consisting of many small block houses of fir logs, sunk three-quarters of the way into the ground, the rest covered over with mounds of dirt and laid with sod. The idea, it was explained, was to have a cozy and safe place of retreat when the French batteries, as occasionally happened, took the village ahead under fire.

My retreat ended at Château Mumm, well out of the firing zone, where Gen. Count von Waldersee did the honors in the unavoidable absence of the owner, said to be related to a well-known brand of champagne. On inquiry, I learned that the champagne cellars of Château Mumm were quite empty, but the retreating French were said to have caused the vacuum, not the Germans. Château Mumm's absentee owner will be glad to learn that his property is being well cared for, pending his return. I was interested to note quite recent issues of The London Times, Daily Mail, and London Daily Telegraph on the drawing room table.

"It's very interesting, you know, to read what our enemies are saying about us," a staff officer explained.

Two other items of miscellaneous interest were picked up. From a well informed source I learned that at one stage of the game, the English "Long Toms" were posted to good advantage back of Rheims out of range of the German heavy artillery. Although their lyddite shells were alleged to have been comparatively harmless and did little damage, they were nevertheless silenced on general principles and by a very simple expedient. Every time the "Long Toms" were fired, a few answering shells were sent their way and, of course, falling short, dropped into the city. This gave rise to stories of "furious bombardment of Rheims," but also caused the withdrawal of the "Long Toms" to spare the city.

A General whose name is familiar to every reader of The New York Times said:

"I could take Rheims with my corps in twenty-four hours."

But there was no present advantage in storming it at this time, and certain disadvantages, for in addition to certain strategic reasons, it was explained, the Germans would be saddled with the burden of having to administer and feed the large city.

The "battle of Rheims" looked to me very much like a put-up job, a game of trying to silence one another's batteries and nothing more. A heavy artillery duel is essentially a contest between trained observers trying to get a line on the whereabouts of the enemy's guns, and looking down on Rheims from the German hills, even a lay correspondent could sense the military necessity which would drive the French to make use of the only high spots in town from which you could see anything for observation purposes, and the equally grim necessity for the Germans to dislodge them. I came away with the impression that the world owes a real debt of gratitude to "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral."

To the Editor of The New York Times:

I HAVE just seen a letter in The Times from a correspondent in the German trenches outside of Rheims. He reports a statement made to him by Lieut. Wengler of the Heavy Artillery, who claims he is the officer who shelled the cathedral, at which he fired two shots, and "only two."

Wengler says, "The French observer on the cathedral was first noticed on Sept. 13 ... the fellow continued 'on the job' quite shamelessly until the 18th, when I aimed two shots at the cathedral and only two. No more were needed to dislodge him. One from a 15-centimeter howitzer struck the top of the 'observation tower,' the other, from a 21-centimeter mortar, hit the roof and set it on fire. I wanted to dislodge the observer with the least possible damage to the fine old cathedral ... the French also had a battery placed about 100 yards from the cathedral."

Editorially The Times says such a statement may prove of "value as evidence." May I also, as evidence, tell what I saw? I arrived at the cathedral at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the day Lieut. Wengler says he fired two shells, one of which hit the observation tower and one of which set fire to the roof. Up to the hour of 3, howitzer shells had passed through the southern wall of the cathedral, killing two of the German wounded inside, had wrecked the Grand Hotel opposite the cathedral, knocked down four houses immediately facing it, and in a dozen places torn up immense holes in the cathedral square. Twenty-four hours after Lieut. Wengler claims he ceased firing shells set fire to the roof and utterly wrecked the chapel of the cathedral and the Archbishop's palace, which is joined to the cathedral by a yard no wider than Fifth Avenue, and in the direction of the German guns the two shells fired by Lieut. Wengler had already wrecked all that part of the city surrounding the cathedral for a quarter of a mile.

To get an idea of the destruction, suppose St. Patrick's Cathedral, on Fifth Avenue, to be the Rheims Cathedral, the Union Club, and the Vanderbilt houses, the chapel and Archbishop's palace, and all the buildings running north from St. Patrick's Cathedral to Central Park and east and west to Madison Avenue and Sixth Avenue, that part of Rheims that was utterly wrecked. That gives you some idea of the effectiveness of Lieut. Wengler's fire.

"Father," he says, "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with only two shells!"

The statement of Lieut. Wengler that the French placed a battery a hundred yards from the cathedral also is interesting. The cathedral stands in a maze of twisting narrow lanes. From no spot within a quarter of a mile of it could you drive a golf ball without smashing a window a hundred feet distant. To place a battery of artillery a hundred yards from the Rheims Cathedral with the intent of firing upon the German position would be like placing a battery in Wall Street with the idea of shelling Germans in the Bronx. Before your shells reached the Bronx you first would have to destroy all of Northern New York.

Wengler says the only shells aimed at the cathedral were fired by him on the 18th, and that after that date neither he nor any other officer fired a shot. On the 22d I was in the cathedral. It was then being shelled. I was with the Abbé Chinot, Gerald Morgan of this city, Capt. Granville Fortescue of Washington, and on the steps of the cathedral was Robert Bacon, our ex-Ambassador to France.

The "evidence" of Lieut. Wengler is a question of veracity. It lies between him and these gentlemen. I am content to let it go at that.

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.

New York, Jan. 7, 1915.

III.

HEADQUARTERS OF GERMAN NTH ARMY, "Somewhere" in France, Dec. 6.—Sensational duels between hostile aeroplanes are regular occurrences now, and not infrequently aerial battles take place between whole squadrons. I heard this from the chief of an aeroplane squadron, who was returning from a reconnoitring flight around Rheims. When I met him he was traveling in his luxurious private limousine which he had brought with him into the field from Berlin. My military motor car had executed a flank attack on the road embankment with disastrous results, and the aviator kindly gave me a lift into town and some interesting information.

"We are all eagerly awaiting orders for a raid on England," the Captain led off. "Yes, I have flown over Paris. Going to Paris is mere chauffeur's work. The six machines of my squadron have covered 15,000 miles since the war began. The French machines are about twenty miles an hour faster than ours; but there is no advantage in going so fast, for you can't make good observations. At a height of 6,000 feet, you are quite safe against fire from below. We also find the safest thing to do is to circle right over a battery. They can't get at you then.

"Fights in the air are regular occurrences now. We attack every chance we get in spite of the fact that we have only our revolvers against the machine guns which they have mounted on their aeroplanes. We find the best defense against their machine-gun fire is to get up close to the French aeroplane and then dodge and twist in sharp dips and curves, spoiling the aim of their mounted machine gun, and giving us an advantage with our revolvers.

"One of the most interesting engagements was between a squadron of four of our aeroplanes armed with revolvers and a big and a little 'Bauerschreck,' [the German nickname for the armored French aeroplanes armed with machine guns.] The fight lasted for nearly an hour at an altitude ranging from 5,000 to 6,000 feet, the big 'Bauerschreck' being finally forced to land, while the little one flew off. One of our aviators did a fine piece of work recently, landing behind the French lines, destroying the railway at that point and flying off again. The French are magnificent fliers, and so are the English, but we Germans have the training. Especially in trained observers we have a big advantage."

I saw one of the German flier heroes in a base hospital. To the nurse's chart over his cot were pinned the Iron Cross of the second and first class and a bunch of flowers, and the Surgeon General coaxed him to give the details of the winning of his decorations.

Sergt. Luchs and his observer were returning from an aerial reconnoissance when they were overtaken and attacked by a fast French aeroplane. The effectiveness of the French machine gun fire was later shown by seventy holes in the wings of the German aeroplane. For forty-five minutes the battle in the air lasted—6,000 feet up—revolver against machine gun, ending only when Luchs was shot through the lungs and liver. He was able to guide his machine safely to the ground within the German lines before he lost consciousness. But one of his revolver bullets had gone home, probably puncturing the gasoline tank, for the French aeroplane was also seen making a forced landing.

Gen. von Heeringen, Commander in Chief of the Nth Army, told me a similar story about two officers who fought with revolver against machine gun until their motor and tank were shot to pieces, forcing them to glide to earth. The General said he had learned about their bravery only by accident, as they had reported only the results of their reconnoissance.

That the German aviators are at a disadvantage in fighting against the Allies' aeroplanes armed with machine guns was freely admitted by Gen. von Heeringen, who said significantly that that would be attended to in the near future.

"French aeroplanes have paid me a number of visits," the commanding General said with a laugh, "Our aviation camp seems to be an attraction for them. We have shot down six of them in the last few weeks. Our gunners are really only just beginning to get the hang of it, with practice. The trouble in peace time was always to find some sort of a target to train our gunners in the use of the new motor gun. We couldn't very well ask of our own aviators to go up and let themselves be shot at. But now the French are affording us just the moving target we have been looking for, and our shooting is improving splendidly."

Gen. von Haenisch, von Heeringen's brilliant Chief of Staff, who as former Inspector General of the aviation arm had more to do than any other one individual with bringing German military aviation to its present high pitch of efficiency, supplemented his chief's remarks by saying:

"We recently brought down a French aeroplane from an altitude of 8,100 feet. Our new gun can shoot four miles high."

I had the interesting experience of visiting an aviation camp in the field, inspecting a full sample line of aero bombs, and looking over the very latest thing in German military aeroplanes, a big new Aviatik biplane. For the benefit of The New York Times readers, who have grown accustomed to headlines about "German Taubes over Paris," it must be explained that, just as all German cavalry are not Uhlans, so all German aeroplanes are not Taubes. "Taube" is the name of the German military monoplane, of which there are comparatively few in use; and I am informed that hardly any Taubes have flown over Paris, the bomb-throwing visitors having been the more practical double-decker Aviatiks. The new model which I inspected had a monoplane body, observer and pilot sitting tandem fashion, the Mercedes motor (several cylinders) being in front. It was designed, not for speed but for weight-lifting, as indicated by its formidable arsenal of bombs.

The beauty of workmanship and finish of these infernal machines was interesting. The forty-pounders and twenty-pounders looked like miniature torpedoes, with slightly bulb-shaped bodies and tapering rounded noses, with a tiny three-bladed propeller for a tail and a steel ring to serve as a hand grip. When the aviator is ready to drop a bomb all he has to do is to make a simple adjustment, taking not more than a second, which releases the propeller, and then throw the bomb overboard. As it drops the propeller is set into rapid motion and drives the clockwork mechanism inside the bomb. After a hundred-yard drop it is all ready to explode when it strikes. There are also round cannon-ball-shaped bombs, and special bombs for starting a conflagration when they strike.

Following the lead of the French, the Germans have also adopted the "silent death," and half a dozen of the German aerial darts were given me for souvenirs. They are of steel, about three inches long, with one end pointed and the other flanged, so as to give a rotary motion as they whizz through the air. They look more murderous than they really are, for I was told by one of the aviator officers that they were not very effective. The Germans, methodical in everything, wanted no doubt left in any one's mind that the "silent death" was introduced by the French and only copied by them in self-defense; so every one of the steel darts—a touch of grim humor—bears on one side of the point, in French, the legend "French invention" and on the other side "German manufacture."

IV.

GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Dec. 9.—I have just eaten my way along the German front in France, for a second visit to the German Great Headquarters. This week's lunch and dinner "bag" included Gen. von Heeringen, "the Victor of Saarburg"; Gen. von Emmich, "the Conqueror of Liége"; Gen. von Zwehl, "the Hero of Maubeuge"; Gen. von Wild, the new Quartermaster General, who before his appointment fought a twenty-round draw with the English at Ypres, though he thinks he won on points, and hosts of coming champions.

It is literally necessary for an American correspondent on this side of the fence to eat his way to the firing line and back again, for the German afield is as hospitable as the tented Arab, and, thanks to their wonderful field telephone service, they "have you." The A.O.K. (Armee Ober Kommando) telephones to the Corps Kommando that you are on the way, the Corps Kommando relays the news to the Division Staff, the Division Staff rings up the Regimental Commander, who 'phones the Battalion or Battery Chief. To reach the firing line you have to run the gauntlet of anywhere from three to six meals, and if you happen to be one of those "amazing Americans" and insist on being shown to an orchestra seat in the first trench, you will be sure to find some sort of a table spread for you in the very shadow of death, for their habit of hospitality is fireproof.

But while robbing war corresponding of all its old-time romance, the German, gastronomic way has the great advantage of giving you the maximum of information in the minimum of time and of letting you meet the masters of modern warfare, the men who have done big things, under ideal conditions, for over after-dinner coffee and cigars you can and will—if you are an American—ask the most imprudent questions with the certainty of getting a good-natured and courteous answer.

Von Emmich makes the most instant appeal to an American. Short and stockily built and looking every inch a fighter, he gives you the impression of possessing tremendous, almost Rooseveltian vitality, with a saving sense of humor. Von Emmich is the General with a winning smile. He could have been a successful machine politician if he had emigrated to America instead of remaining in Germany and becoming the most popular General in the German Army, among the men, for he has the rare gift of inspiring his followers with a sense of personal loyalty. His troops idolize him. They break out into hearty hurrahs at the slightest provocation when they see him. It is lèse-majesté, but none the less true, to say that they think as much of their General as of their Kaiser. They tell you proudly that he rode at their head when the City of Liége was taken by storm, and after seeing him you could never picture von Emmich bringing up the rear in a motor car, after the manner that more prudent Generals use. He has iron-gray hair and a bristly, close-cropped mustache to match, and a very florid complexion, and looks absolutely unlike the sleek individual whose photograph was published with his obituary notice in the London press while the forts of Liége were still "holding out" on paper.

Asked point blank, Gen. von Emmich stoutly and with great good humor denied that he had ever committed suicide or even contemplated the step.

"But you know, Excellency, that you were reported to have lost something like 120,000 men before Liége," it was suggested.

"That's three times as many as I had," he answered with the "winning smile."

Gen. von Emmich will talk quite freely about anything but himself and military matters, but a few odds and ends were snapped up. It was interesting to learn that he was in Liége only a day and a half, then pushed on ahead in the direction of Namur with the bulk of his corps, leaving only his heavy artillery behind to finish up the remaining forts. He did not even know that Zeppelins had taken part in the bombardment of these forts until he heard about it afterward. Later he turned up at Mons and had a hand in beating the British or expediting their strategic retreat, according to the point of view. His subsequent movements and present whereabouts are interesting, but would never pass the German censor.

"Did you feel proud at being selected to lead the way into Belgium, Excellency?" I inquired.

"Yes, of course I did," he replied.

"Would you like to lead your corps into England?" For just an instant what looked very much like the light of battle was in his eye.

"I will go anywhere I am ordered to go—anywhere," he replied with smiling emphasis.

I was interested to discover that the staff of the Nth Army Corps had also been racking its brains about quite other than tactical problems when Gen. von Emmich led the way into the dining room of the very modest so-called "château" of the French village, where he and his staff were quartered, and pointed to the extensive but quite mongrel art collection on the walls. "The absent owner does not appear to have been much of a connoisseur," he laughed, "That picture over there worried and puzzled us for a long time," pointing out a large impressionistic canvas over the mantelpiece representing a nude male and female figure kneeling on the seashore and looking out over the impressionistic water at what looked like an island. "Finally my Chief of Staff hit upon a satisfactory solution, suggested that it represented 'Adam and Eve Discovering Heligoland.'"

Gen. von Emmich's headquarters produced another interesting story. At 3 P.M. a general alarm was sent out to the reserve troops to prepare for immediate retreat, as the French were coming. Every bit of baggage was picked up and loaded on wagons, the infantry in full marching kit lined up—everything ready in record-breaking time without rush or confusion to withdraw on the word of command. But no command to march came—instead a "well done" from the General as he rode down the long column. It was just a little "fire-alarm drill" to keep the reserve troops up to the high-water mark of efficiency.

Gen. von Zwehl, nicknamed Zwehl-Maubeuge, is probably almost unknown in America, though the dark blue enamel maltese cross of the Pour le Merite order at his throat tags him at once as worth while. Von Zwehl is the outward antithesis of von Emmich. He looks like anything but a fighter—a quiet, gentle-looking soul with kind and a bit tired eyes, soft silverly hair, and a whimsical sense of humor, a gentleman of the old school. "But you should just see him in the field during a fight—he's a regular whirlwind," one of his staff said.

He confirmed the fact that Maubeuge had fallen on schedule time in ten days and that he had taken over 40,000 French prisoners, that he had given the French commandant till 7 P.M. (German time) to surrender, and that the appointment was kept with great promptness, also that the French were a bit chagrined when they learned they had been "taken in" by a single corps. I also learned that he and his corps had arrived in time to stop the first English corps which had crossed the Aisne and was marching on X.

Gen. von Zwehl praised the English troops against whom he had successfully fought, and who are now in the North, saying, "The English soldier is a splendid fighter, especially on the defensive." Asked if the remark of one of his staff that "the English can't attack" was a fact, von Zwehl said: "I can only speak as far as my own experience goes, and that is that the English never were able to carry through a bayonet charge with success against my troops. They came on bravely enough, but when our troops would open fire on them at 50 yards and follow it up with a counter attack, the English would invariably go over into the defensive, at which they are at their best. They are particularly experienced in 'bush warfare,' and display the utmost skill in making the most of every bit of cover."

The commanding General confirmed the following gruesome story which one of his staff officers had told me:

"The English apparently do not bother to bury their dead, but let them lie. We are still burying English who fell on Sept. 14 and later. We found and buried two only yesterday. That the abandonment of their dead is deliberate is indicated by the fact that we have found the bodies of dead English soldiers in corners and nooks of the approaches to the English trenches, where the wounded had evidently crawled to die, and where their comrades must constantly have passed them and seem them."

More Generals were met during a visit to the "office building" of the Great General Staff in the Great Headquarters. Here, too, I was allowed to examine the historic room where around a large mahogany table the chiefs of the staff hold their daily conferences, at which the Kaiser himself is often present. A huge map of France and a slice of Belgium covered the table and hung down to the floor on either side. I noted with interest that it was a French General Staff map. On one wall hung another map showing the exact location of all the armies in the West.

In the unavoidable absence of the combination Chief of Staff and War Minister von Falkenhayn, the new Quartermaster General von Wild did the honors in the long Louis XIV. Room where the Great General Staff eats together—an interesting sight, for it represents the round-up of the brains of the German Army. Gen. von Wild, until his promotion, commanded a division against the English at Ypres and spoke in generous terms of his opponents.

"The English are excellent fighters," he said. "I have walked over many of the battlefields in the North—gruesome sights, beyond words to describe. From what I saw, I am convinced that the English losses have been much heavier than ours."

Gen. von Wild said that a puzzling and unexplainable feature of these battlefields was that so many of the dead were found lying on their backs with rigid arms stretched straight up toward heaven—a ghastly spectacle.

Here, too, was a German General who knew more about the American Army than most Americans, the Bavarian General, Zoellner, the great General Staff's specialist on Americana, and it was interesting to note that, in spite of its own pressing problems, the General Staff is still taking a keen interest in those of America and deriving valuable lessons.

"I have been particularly interested in the Mexican troubles," Gen. Zoellner said. "To my mind, the lesson for America is the need of a larger standing army. I was particularly impressed by the speed of your mobilization and your dispatch in landing your expeditionary force at Vera Cruz. I was also especially interested in your splendid Texas cavalry division. We have nothing like it in the German Army, because such a body of men could not be developed in a closely settled country. You may not know that only a short time before being sent to Mexico the Texas cavalry had received brand-new drill and exercise instructions, but in spite of this they acquitted themselves splendidly, showing the remarkable adaptability of your soldiers.

"In sending your coast artillery as infantry regiments to Mexico you anticipated us in a rather similar use of our marine divisions on the coast. The most valuable lesson we have learned from you is typhus vaccination. This we owe to the American Army. I believe it goes back to the fact that your Gen. Wood was a medical man before becoming Chief of Staff."

Gen. Zoellner intimated that the whole German Army either had been or was being vaccinated against typhoid on the American plan. "And there is also a very American flavor about our volunteer automobile corps—their dash and speed they have learned that from you Americans," he concluded.

My previously formed suspicion that the Germans were making war on the American plan, managing their armies like so many subsidiary companies of a big trust, was fully confirmed by my second visit to the office of the Great General Staff. Instead of a picturesque bunch of Generals spending anxious days and sleepless nights over their maps with faithful attendants trying to coax them to leave off dispatch writing long enough to eat a sandwich, I found a live lot of army officials, keeping regular office hours and taking ample time out for meals. The staff was quartered in a handsome old municipal building; the ground floor, devoted to living purposes, quite like an exclusive club; the business offices upstairs.

Gen. von Haenisch took me aloft and explained to me how business was done. A good telephone operator, it developed, was almost as important as a competent General—the telephone "central" the most vital spot of an army. Here were three large switchboards with soldiers playing telephone girl, while other soldiers, with receivers fastened over their heads, sat at desks busy taking down messages on printed "business" forms. In the next room sat the staff officers on duty, waiting for the telephone bell to jingle with latest reports from the front. There was no waiting because numbers were "engaged" or operators gossiping; you could get Berlin or Vienna without once having to swear at "long distance." Gen. von Haenisch had his chief of field telephone and telegraph trot out what looked like a huge family tree, but turned out to be a most minute chart of the entire telephone system of the —nth Army. It showed the position of every corps and division headquarters' regiment, battalion, and company, and all the telephone lines connecting them, even to the single trenches and batteries.

Gen. von Haenisch suggested having some fun with Gen. von X., commanding the army next door on the right, and I was made Acting Chief of Staff for two minutes, getting von X.'s Chief of Staff on the phone and inquiring if there was "anything doing."

"No; everything quiet here," came the reassuring answer.

An art exhibition within sound of the guns at the front by the well-known Munich artist, Ernst Vollbehr, the Kaiser's own war painter with the —nth army, was another real novelty. The long-haired painter, wearing the regulation field gray uniform, brought his portfolio of sketches into the billiard hall of the headquarters and showed them with sprightly running comment:

"Here is the library of Brimont. You can see most of the books lying on the ground. It wasn't a comfortable place to paint because there were too many shells flying around loose. Here is the Cathedral of Dinant. Very much improved aesthetically by the shells knocking the ugly points of the towers off. Here is a picture of Rheims Cathedral looming through the fog, as seen from the German lines. I painted this picture of the battle of the Aisne from a captive balloon. Here is a picture of the surrender of Maubeuge, showing two of the 40,000 French prisoners. I can usually paint better during a battle because there's nobody looking on over my shoulder to distract my attention. I have about 140 sketches done in all. His Majesty has most of them now, to pick out those he wants painted. This sketch of a pretty young Frenchwoman is 'Mlle. Nix zu Macken,' so nicknamed by some sixty-odd hungry but good-natured Landsturm men quartered in a tavern of a French village, where she was the only woman left. Every time they made signs indicative of a desire for food she would laugh and say in near-German, 'Nix zu macken,' and that's how she got her name."

Painter Vollbehr was authority for the following Kaiser anecdote:

"One day as the Kaiser was motoring along a chaussée he met a herd of swine under the guardianship of a bearded Landsturm man, who drove them rapidly to one side to keep them from being prematurely slaughtered by the imperial auto. As the motor slowed up the Kaiser asked him if he was a farmer by profession. 'No; professor of the University of Tubingen,' came the answer, to the great amusement of the Over War Lord."

Swift Reversal to Barbarism

By Vance Thompson.

[From The New York Sun, Sept. 13, 1914.]

I.

THERE is in Brussels—if the Uhlans have spared it—a mad and monstrous picture. It is called "A Scene in Hell," and hangs in the Musée Wiertz. And what you see on the canvas are the fierce and blinding flames of hell; and amid them looms the dark figure of Napoleon, and around him the wives and mothers and maids of Belgium scream and surge and clutch and curse—taking their posthumous vengeance.

And since Napoleon was a notable Emperor in his time, the picture is not without significance today. Paint in another face; and let it go at that.

War is a bad thing. Even hell is the worse for it.

War is a bad thing; it is a reversal, sudden and complete, to barbarism. That is what I would get at in this article. One day there is civilization, authentic, complex, triumphant; comes war, and in a moment the entire fabric sinks down into a slime of mud and blood. In a day, in an hour, a cycle of civilization is canceled. What you saw in the morning was suave and ordered life; and the sun sets on howling savagery. In the morning black-coated men lifted their hats to women. Ere nightfall they are slashing them with sabres and burning the houses over their heads. And, the grave old professors who were droning platitudes of peace and progress and humanitarianism are screaming, ere today is done, shrill senile clamors for blood and ravage and rapine. (Not less shrill than others is the senile yawp of that good old man Ernst Haeckel, under whom I studied in my youth.)

A reversal to barbarism.

Here; it is in the tearoom of the smartest hotel in Munich; war has come; high-voiced women of title chatter over their teacups; comes swaggering in the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria; he has just had his sabre sharpened and has girt his abdomen for war. His wife runs to him. And she kisses the sabre and shouts: "Bring it back to me covered with blood—that I may kiss it again!" And the other high-voiced women flock to kiss the sword.

A reversal to barbarism.

It has taken place in an hour; but yesterday these were sweet patrician ladies, who prattled of humanity and love and the fair graces of life; and now they would fain wet their mouths with blood—laughingly as harlots wet their mouths with wine.

The unclean and vampirish spirit of war has swept them back to the habits of the cave-dwelling ages of the race. In an hour the culture so painfully acquired in slow generations has been swept away. Royalty, in the tearoom of the "Four Seasons," is one with the blonde nude female who romped and fought in the dark Teutonic forests ere Caesar came through Gaul.

Reversal to barbarism.

War is declared; and in Berlin the Emperor of Germany rides in an open motor car down Unter den Linden; he is in full uniform, sworded, erect, hieratic; and at his side sits the Empress—she the good mother, the housewife, the fond grandmother—garmented from head to foot in cloth the color of blood.

Theatricalism? No. The symbolism is more significant. The symbol bears a savage significance. It marks, as a red sunset, the going down of civilization and the coming of the dark barbarism of war.

II.

BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION.

There was war; and the whole machinery of civilization stopped.

Modern civilization is the most complex machine imaginable; its infinite cogged wheels turn endlessly upon each other; and perfectly it accomplishes its multifarious purposes; but smash one wheel and it all falls apart into muddle and ruin. The declaration of war was like thrusting a mailed fist into the intricate works of a clock. There was an end of the perfected machine of civilization. Everything stopped.

That was a queer world we woke in. A world that seemed new, so old it was.

Money had ceased to exist. It seemed at that moment an appalling thing. I was on the edge and frontier of a neutral State. I had money in a bank. It ceased to be money. A thousand-franc note was paper. A hundred-mark note was rubbish. British sovereigns were refused at the railway station. The Swiss shopkeeper would not change a Swiss note. What had seemed money was not money.

Values were told in terms of bread.

It was a swift and immediate return to the economic conditions of barbarism. Metals were hoarded; and where there had been trade there was barter. And it all happened in an hour, in that first fierce panic of war.

Traffic stopped with a clang as of rusty iron. The mailed fist had dislocated the complex machinery of European traffic. Frontiers which had been mere landmarks of travel became suddenly formidable and impassable barriers, guarded by harsh, hysterical men with bayonets.

War makes men brave and courageous? Rubbish! It fills them with the cruelty of hysteria and the panic of the unknown. I am not talking of battle, which is a different thing. But I say the men who guarded the German frontier—and I dare say every other frontier—in the first stress of war, were wrenched and shaken with veritable hysteria. At St. Ludwig and Constance those husky soldiers in ironmongery, with shaved heads and beards and outstanding ears, fell into sheer savagery, not because they were bad and savage men, but simply because they were hysterical. The fact is worth noting.

It explains many a bloody and infamous deed in the tragic history of sad Alsace and of little Belgium. The war-begotten reversal to savagery brought with it all the hysteria of the savage man. The sentries at St. Ludwig struck with muskets and sabres because they were hysterical with terror of the new, unknown state into which they had been plunged, not because they were not men like you and me. Surely the savage Uhlan who ravaged the cottages of Alsace was your brother and mine, and the Magyar beyond the Danube and the Cossack at Kovna. Only they had gone back to the terrors of the man who dwelt in a cave.

Traffic stopped; and when it stopped civilization fell away from the travelers. That was strange. Take the afternoon of the day war was declared, the date being Aug. 1, in the year of our Lord 1914, and the hour 7:30 P.M., Berlin time. It was the last train that reached the frontier from Paris. Between Delle and Bicourt lies a neutral zone about three kilometers—say, nearly two and a half miles—in extent. On one side France and invasion and terror and war; on the other side of the zone the relative safety of Switzerland. Six hundred passengers poured out of the French train at noon into that neutral zone and started to walk to Swiss safety. A blazing August sun; a road of pebbles and stinging, upblown dust.

The passengers had been permitted to bring on the train only what luggage they could carry; so they were laden with bags and coats, dressing bags and jewel cases—all they had deemed most valuable. Mostly women. German ladies fleeing for refuge; Russian ladies; English, American; and a crowd of men, urgent to reach their armies, German, Swiss, Russian, Austrian, Servian, Italian; withal many of the kind of American men who go to Switzerland in August.

And the caravan started in the dust and heat of a desert. A woman let fall her heavy bag and plodded on. Another threw away her coats. Men shook off their bundles. The heat was stifling. And through the clouds of dust a panic terror crept. It was the antique terror of the God Pan—the God All; it was a fear as immense as the sky.

A woman screamed and began to run, throwing away everything she had safeguarded so she might run with empty hands. A score followed her. Men began to run. They thrust the women aside, cursing; and ran. And for over two miles the road was covered thick with coats and bags, with packages and jewel cases. The greed of possession died out in the causeless fear.

These hoarse, pushing men, these sweating, shameless women had gone back 10,000 years into prehistoric savagery. Lightly they threw away all the baubles and gewgaws civilization had fashioned for adorning and disguising their raw humanity, and the habits of civilization as well.

They had touched but the outermost edge of war, and their very clothes fell off them.

III.

BARBARISM AND WOMEN.

War; and it takes eighty-four hours to make a twelve-hour journey from the Alps to Paris; the cable is dead; the telegraph is dumb; letters go only when smuggled over the frontiers by couriers; you look about you and find you are in a mediaeval and mysterious world. You stand amid the melancholy ruins of canceled cycles. The mailed fist of war has smashed your world to pieces. You do not know it.

The man you thought of as a brother looks at you with eyes of passionate hatred; you have eaten bread and salt together; you have drunk together; you have been uplifted by the same books; you have been sublimed by the same music; but he is a German, and your blood was made in another land, and he looks at you with suspicion and hate—perhaps you are a spy. (The spy mania! Dear Lord, what absurd, bloody, and abominable stories I could write of this madness which has Europe by the throat, this madness which is only another form of war hysteria.) A reversal to barbarism; you and the man who was your friend have gone back to the fear and hatred of primitive savages, meeting at the corner of a dark wood. All of humanity we have acquired in the slow way of evolution sloughs off us.

We are savages once more. For science is dead. All the laboratories are shut, save those where poison is brewed and destruction is put up in packages. Education has ceased, save that fierce Nietzschean education which declares: "The weak and helpless must go to the wall; and we shall help them go." All that made life humanly fair is hidden in the fetid clouds of war where savages (in terror and hysteria) grope for each other's throats.

The glory of war—rot! The heroism of war—rot! The scarlet and beneficent energies of war—rot! When you look at it close what you see are hulking masses of brutes with fear behind them prodding them on, or wild and splendid savages, hysterical with hate, battling to save their hearth fires and women from the oncoming horde. Reversal to barbarism.

Think it over. Upon whom falls the stress of war? Not upon the soldier. He is killed and fattens the soil where he falls; or he is maimed and hobbles off toward a pension or beggary—both tolerable things; anyway he has drunk deep of cruelty and terror and may go his way. By rare good grace he may have been a hero. In other words, he may have been a Belgian—which is a word like a decoration, a name to make one strut like a Greek of Thermopylae—and become thus a permanent part of the world's finest history.

I would like to write here the name of a friend, Charles Flamache of Brussels. He was 21 years old. He was an artist who had already tasted fame. He had known the love of woman. That his destiny might be fulfilled he died, the blithe, brave boy, in front of Liége. It was the right death at the right time—ere yet the massed Prussians had rolled in fire and blood over his fair small land. Wherefore, hail and farewell, young hero!

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.