Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/159

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  • imum of suffering, so that they may become sick

of the struggle, and may bring pressure to bear on their Government to discontinue it. You must leave the people through whom you march only their eyes to weep with.

"In every case the principle which guided our general was that war must be made terrible to the civil population, so that it may sue for peace."

And so on, and so on. Little Belgium—her gallant soldiers and her laborious peasants alike—has been mashed to a bloody pulp where the heel of the Prussian, shod with iron and with this damnable philosophy, has passed. And all the time the Belgians kept on asking in hope, in despair, "Where are the English? Where are the French?" Can you wonder if in the end they began to ask it in anger? Would it be a contradiction of all the laws of human nature to suppose that the panic terror which swept over the undefended land may have penetrated through the steel blinds of the forts of Namur, taken the heart out of the troops, impelled to surrender?

Let us examine our consciences. What have we done to show our appreciation of Belgium? There was the Royal message. There was Lord Sydenham's noble letter in The Times which has been quoted everywhere. There is a subscription on foot. There is the promised loan. So far so good. But it is not enough. The stunned sense of having been delivered to Armageddon is no-