rights of humanity, who will decline to believe that after the present war Nation will need to defend itself against Nation by brute force. To these the destruction of a city of 5,000,000 peaceable inhabitants by fire with the scenes of horror that would inevitably ensue, will be looked upon as the figment of a diseased imagination, to these the author does not address himself;[1] he regards the possibility as one which it behoves us to consider and meet as a matter of ordinary military precaution, not regarding it as any more improbable or unexpected than any other hostile act of which an enemy might be capable.
§ 122. Justification for Attack upon Capital City. It is futile to attempt to disguise the self-evident fact that a serious attack on the capital city of an enemy, containing in its heart the administrative centre both of his Army and Navy, in addition to the headquarters of his Government, cannot be regarded other than as a legitimate act of warfare. No international agreement or convention can make it otherwise. Once war is declared the successful waging of war becomes the first duty of a belligerent Government, it obviously cannot do or countenance any act, or the neglect of any act, which could by any possibility compromise the issue, without thereby proving false to its trust. There is really no escape from this. Unquestionably, the destruction of a capital city such as London, with the administrative centres aforesaid, would be a military achievement of the first order of magnitude; it would be, from an enemy standpoint, an achievement of far greater potential value than any ordinary success or victory in the field of battle.
We may then disabuse our minds of the popular notion that the raiding or attacking of London by aircraft is to be regarded as something contrary to the
- ↑ A certain cynic once defined a fool as a man who could only learn by experience. The author prefers the more benevolent definition that a fool is one to whom the teaching of experience is of no avail.
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