Helot

“ And for this reason, that if civilisation brings with it the power to impose helotry, it also automatically generates forces which in course of time acquire a sufficient strength to destroy helotry. The helots of to-day become the rebels of to-morrow, but rebels of a very different calibre to the primitives whose opposition to the original injustice was so easily overcome. The truth is so obvious that it requires no labouring. The human mind cannot be permanently chained, least of all in Africa, where it functions in a vigorous physical tenement, is highly adaptable and imitative ”

“ The ancient Spartans spent a certain amount in making their helots .or slaves drunk, that their children from seeing them might learn to be thrifty and sober. Alas, history repeats itself in our days, for the English-speaking race have become the helots of the world. ”

“ The officers of yeomanry and militia saw before them a bright perspective of lawlessness, wherein the Helots would be handed over to their mercy--to smite, and revile, and torture, and kill--wherein their daughters would become a legitimate prey, their flocks and herds a booty, their household gods an appanage. Now was the time come when it behoved them to display their zeal. So thought the squireens, so also thought the lords their leaders, who hoped that they might earn extra pensions by accepting the bait that was held out. ”

“ In addition to this, those amongst them who, either by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves above the condition of a slave, are condemned to death; and the masters who do not destroy the most manly of them are liable to punishment.” The partiality and ignorance of this writer is evident from his very first statement. The Helots wore the leathern cap with a broad band, and the covering of sheep's skin, simply because it was the original dress of the natives ”

“ Death at the hands of Arab women! The légionnaire does not count the Bedouin or the Arab as a personal enemy; he is rather grateful to the robber of the desert for being the cause of a little change and excitement in the terribly monotonous life on the border stations. But upon the Arab woman the old légionnaire looks as upon a devil. He thinks of the hellish tortures that wounded men have suffered at the hands of Arab women, he remembers the mutilated bodies of légionnaires who had died an awful death after being tortured for many hours. ”

“ In every barrack-room there hung unspeakably ghastly photographs of the mangled bodies of Legionaries who had fallen into the hands of the Arabs and been tortured by their women. He had himself seen wretched deserters dragged back by Goums, [#] a mass of rags, filth, blood and bruises; their manacled hands fastened to the end of a rope attached to an Arab's saddle. Inasmuch as the captor got twenty-five francs for returning a deserter, alive or dead, he merely tied the wounded, or starved and half-dead wretch to the end of a rope and galloped with him to the nearest outpost or barracks. ”

“ The soldier of the foreign regiment puts out the fires which break out in Sidi-bel-Abbès, he saves the citizens and their goods when the stream of the Mekerra becomes a roaring torrent in the rainy season, and he protects the helpless townspeople when the descendants of the Beni Amer try to institute the Jewish persecutions they are so fond of.... He does all that. But the poor devil of a mercenary has no money, and this is the Mortal Sin. ”

“ Those inhuman devils with their boasted German culture—a disgrace to everything that God has created—would drag these poor quivering, fainting creatures, pleading for mercy—right up to those red-hot ovens, and at the point of a bayonet force them to stand in that withering heat till they fell unconscious. Then the guard would drag them away and make two of the other prisoners carry them back to the barracks. ”

“ This barbarous custom applied to every soldier slain in honorable warfare, as fully as to the victim of the assassin’s dagger; and the wholesome dread of the consequences of a hard-fought conflict, where a score of lives might be exacted in return for every fallen enemy, usually rendered the encounters of the Arab comparatively bloodless. ”

“ Then the sound of a horn was heard on the hillside, and the whole of the Jews instantly relinquished their work and took to the mountains, just as a large body of cavalry, headed by Titus, came thundering up.
At night, the Romans were disturbed by constant alarms. Men crept up to the sentries, and slew them in the darkness. Numbers of the enemy penetrated into the camp; killing the soldiers as they slept, hocking the horses, and setting fire to the camp in several places; and it was not until the whole army got under arms that the attack ceased. ”

“ Yet they are not cowards; if they are, why did they not run like the Black Flags? And they will charge wounded men with spirit, if I may use the word in that connection; and with just as much steady calmness they will await the onset of the foreign devils when they rush the mound, get into the ditch and slay, and, not yet slaked with blood, rush out at the rear of the entrenchments with bloody bayonets, and loot and murder and rapine in their minds. ”

“ Long and fierce was the [Pg 24] struggle which followed; the Helvetians fighting like lions till the evening, never once turning their backs on the enemy. This is Cæsar's own report. But barbarian heroism was no match for the regular, well-organized, and highly-trained Roman army, and once more driven back, they withdrew to the hill where had been left their wives and children with the baggage. From this place they ventured to make a last resistance, and they drew up their carts in the form of a deep square, leaving room in the middle for the non-combatants and the baggage. ”

“ Alf forcibly seized the uplifted spear. 'Thou hast appointed me to be the leader of the forces, brother Matthias,' said he, earnestly, 'and I dare not allow that thou shouldst give my troops an evil example by the murder of these defenceless boys, whom we had better take prisoners and keep as hostages, preparing their souls for heaven through our holy baptism. Besides, we have not a moment to lose. The flying men have carried the alarm to the other camp, and new multitudes will soon be thronging here to oppose us. ”

“ Round their camp, and round the unfortunates upon their march, the Gallas swarm in great numbers, robbing, driving-off their cattle and donkeys, carrying-off their women and children into captivity, and wounding, and sometimes killing, all who oppose them. Sometimes, too, they attempt to rob our mules and stores. We do all we can to protect the defenceless people, and detachments are constantly going out to drive the robbers off. The infantry, the rocket-train, and the guns have several times had to fire, and several of the plunderers have been killed. ”

“ As he neared the trenches he raised his head to look for his company. Not a soldier was in sight. As he stood in wonderment it seemed that the gates of the infernal regions were standing ajar and the inmates escaping toward him. Two hundred black devils, every imp of them screaming and yelling at each leap forward, were coming for him, armed with bolos and other death-dealing weapons, to mince him in a thousand pieces. He knew his men had been massacred to a man. He alone remained to face this mass of uncivilized warriors eager for every drop of his blood. ”

“ Rarely did the Turks and their Bedouin allies come out and fight, but confined themselves to sniping and harassing our cavalry-patrols at night. Every day these would return to camp bearing the body of a comrade, killed without seeing the hand that killed him; and once, saddest of all, two riderless horses, famished and almost mad [28] with thirst, dashed up to the watering-troughs in camp. Their riders were never found. ”

“ These were irregular troops, the scum and offscouring of the Oriental cities, gathered from the prisons, jails and slums: the vilest wretches to be found on the face of the earth without military knowledge, ability, courage or discipline—men fit only for the work of murder, lust, rapine and cruelty on which they were sent by the Sublime Porte, the Infernal Tyrant. ”

“ When I emerged I had smeared my face with blood, and my uniform was also blood-stained. The street was full of corpses, all English, except a single German here and there. A fresh regiment of the enemy was just hurrying past, eager to get to the front, or join in the loot, to judge by their excited faces. ”

“ Huge litters of wounded men, on their way back to Strasbourg, were drawn by six or eight horses, their jolting motion increasing the agony of sufferings that found their vent in terrific cries and screams; oaths, yells, and blasphemies, the ravings of madness, and the wild shouts of infuriated suffering, filled the air on every side. As if to give the force of contrast to this uproar of misery, two regiments of Swabian infantry marched past as prisoners. ”

“ From that time we made no difference between men and women in fighting, but shot down every one. How did we know that it had really been women who had tortured the corporal? The dead man clutched a piece of a glass bracelet in his hand, which he must have torn off the arm of his tormentor in the struggle. Such bangles are only worn by the Bedouin women."
That is the reason why the légionnaire has come to look upon the Arab woman as the incarnation of the Devil. ”

“ The terrors of invasion are things which now-a-days imagination can scarcely compass. But then, it was rugged reality. The unbridled passions of a mercenary soldiery, compounded not only of the brutal element that forms the vigor of every army, but of the ferocity of Hessians, hired and paid for violence and rapine, were let loose on the land. ”

“ A moment later, all helmets, German and French alike, disappeared behind the trenches. Silence rested on No Man's Land, and events went on as before. But for France the world will never be the same again. German crimes have lighted a flame of sacred anger that will never burn out until German cruelty has been utterly consumed. That is why the fire sparkles in the eyes of the Allied soldiers whenever you suggest peace by negotiation, or a peace without victory. ”

“ When the lance was broken, the knife was the weapon; when the knife failed, they tore with their hands and teeth. Masses of stone, torches, even dead bodies, everything that could minister to destruction, were hurled from the roofs on the assailants, who were often repulsed with deadly havoc. But they still made way; the courts of the Gentiles, of the Israelites, and of the priests were successively stormed; and the legions at length established themselves in front of the Sanctuary. A howl of wrath, at the possible profanation of the Holy of Holies, rose from the multitude. ”

“ The costume of the poor straggling fishermen and woodcutters around them is scarcely altered; and, indeed, one cannot look upon their own walls, blackened by fire and crumbling in the blast, without conjuring up the form of their ancient lord newly returned from Palestine, and finding his mountain-fastness burnt and pillaged by some neighbouring knight or prelate, with whom he was at feud, and on whom he now stands meditating swift and bloody retribution. ”

“ By incredible efforts, and by encroachment on the military chest, this sum was sent with certain messengers, who, by a previously concerted scheme, were waylaid and robbed of it by men sent by Ackbar Khan, who, seizing the thirty Europeans, added them to the other hostages whose lives or liberties were to pay for the surrender of Jellalabad!
The poor soldiers had given all they possessed in the world, save their kits and ammunition, to save their comrades from perilous bondage, and had given it in vain. ”

“ Meanwhile, the fifth, fifteenth, and the twelfth or Syrian legions have done the work, together with the auxiliaries. Poor devils! we have often pitied them, and there have been times when it was difficult to say whether we were attacking the town or the town was attacking us. They broke down our tortoises with their stones, burned our turrets with their fire, and dashed right through our whole camp to destroy the supplies in the rear. If any man says a Jew is not a good soldier, you may be sure that he has never been in Judæa. ”

“ There were hand-to-hand fights in many parts of the battlefield, which, owing to the fanatical rage of the combatants, degenerated into horrible butchery. Those falling into the hands of the Afghans were most to be pitied. For these devils in human shape cut off the heads of all their prisoners and all wounded, whether Mohammedans, Hindus, or English, without any further ado, and in their rapacity tore the valuables from the bodies of the dead and wounded. ”

“ The magazine blew up and destroyed numbers of the enemy, and their traitorous leader, who had induced the attack by representing his countrymen to be infidels and apostates from the true religion, falling into the hands of the garrison, had his head exalted on a pole in the market-place, after the brains had been dashed out with an iron club. Death is now the portion of every fool-hardy wanderer from the shores of Araby, and whilst the Galla is compelled to relinquish his arms at the gate, every precaution is taken to exclude from the land the foreigner of whatever nation. ”

“ Does your Excellency realize that your troops have not been ashamed to fire (in the full knowledge of what they were doing) with guns and small arms on our helpless ones when they, to avoid capture, had taken flight, either alone or with their waggons, and thus many women and children have been killed and wounded. I will give you an instance. Not long ago, on the 6th of June, at Graspan, near Reitz, a camp of women, falsely reported as a convoy to your Excellency, was taken by your troops. ”