War of aggression

“ But behind the whites themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword which alone can deliver them? ”

“ That, since as between the advanced peoples we are dealing with in this matter, one party is as able in the long run to pile up armaments as the other, we cannot get nearer to solution by armaments alone; we must get at the original provoking cause—the motive making for aggression.
4. That if that motive results from a true judgment of the facts; if the determining factor in a nation's well-being and progress is really its power to obtain by force advantage over others, the present situation of armament rivalry tempered by war is a natural and inevitable one. ”

“ And thus I prove to your majesty that to change our plan now, without warning our allies, would be at once unskillful and dishonest. We should make war with the aggression on our side; we should make it, deserving to have it made against us; and we should have the appearance of fearing it whilst provoking it, for a permission granted to five hundred men, to two hundred men, to fifty men, to ten men, is still a permission. ”

“ In the meantime envoys extraordinary may be sent to other powers by each party to enlist their aid,—most of whom are already prepared for war,—and each one selects his side according to his interests and feelings. At length the ultimatum is given and refused, and the dreadful conflict commences. Few wars, however, begin in this slow and progressive mode; a trifling aggression is sufficient to blow up the flame with nations already prepared. ”

“ A war founded on unjust aggression can never expect God's blessing upon it. A [Pg 293] calm produced by concession to unjust aggression can never end in lasting peace.
"'If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter, for he that is higher than the highest regardeth." ”

“ But in no case could individual and absolutely exceptional acts of aggression justify the wholesale measures of repression which have been adopted against the persons and the property of the inhabitants of our towns and villages—the shooting, the burning, the pillaging which has proceeded pretty well everywhere in our country, not only by way of reprisals but with a refinement of cruelty. ”

“ These factors must no doubt be added to the moral need for aggression, the exhaustion consequent upon forced offensives, and the specific intolerance of failure and retreat that combined to bring down the strongest example of the predaceous led society that history records. ”

“ But in that case we shall want an army for foreign service as well as for home defence.
The other point needs rather more explanation because it is constantly misunderstood by people who will not try to comprehend the nature of war. Such persons are always confusing aggression in the political sense as the cause of war with aggression in the strategic sense as a method of conducting it. A war may be waged solely for defensive [Pg 81] purposes, yet it may be the right course from a military point of view to take the offensive. ”

“ In the ordinary course of affairs the invasion of the territory of one Empire by the troops of another is, and can be nothing else than, an act of war, necessitating hostilities as a measure of defence on the part of the Power invaded. ”

“ If so, we breathe eternal war; if so, we convert the aggressor into the sufferer, and transfer all the dignity and authority of justice to the enemy against whom we arm!”’ Yes, against whom we arm for the avowed purpose of his destruction. ”

“ For, according to modern militarism, war aims at annihilation of the enemy, and the enemy includes not only the combatants—these are the least offensive element—but the non-combatants, the men who represent the rival commerce, the women who represent the rival culture, and the men and women who represent codes of honour and humanity which are the beacons of the rival civilisation—at one and all of these, is aimed the blow which is delivered through the medium of the proxies in the field. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”

“ Indeed every nation, of a military disposition, and addicted to warlike pursuits, considers war not merely as a means of repelling the attacks of [pg 262] enemies, or of gaining plunder or territory by being itself the invader. ”

“ When two civilized nations go to war, each strains every nerve to mow the other down, to cut his throat, to mutilate and kill him,—by fair means or foul,—and when the battle is lost and won, they commiserate and sympathize with them, and grieve to see so many hundreds of their fellowmen writhing in agony on the battlefield. ”

“ We are in the discussion of this question, sir, to consider that we are engaged in a war against a nation from which insults, depredations, oppressions, and cruelties, have been long complained of, and against which we are, therefore, to act with a resolution proportioned to the injuries which we have suffered, and to our desire of vengeance. We are to practice every method of distressing them, and to promote the success of our arms even at the expense of present gain, and the interest of private men. ”

“ Today force is called violence, and is being brought to judgment, he said. War has been put on its trial. At the plea of the human race, civilization arraigns warfare, and draws up the great list of crimes laid at the charge of conquerors and generals. ”

“ This war cry had the effect not only to stop the enemy's firing but its advance, thinking probably it was a counter-assault to meet theirs, and it saved many a poor fellow from being captured, as the enemy ceased its aggressive tactics in order to reform and be prepared to meet our anticipated assault. ”

“ The destruction even of an army momentarily shocks; but in the one breath the people will cry, 'war is hell; let us have war, for peace sake.' And when war comes it never affects the cowards, the usurers, the rogues; they stay at a safe distance from the scenes of action, and, with the instinct of the hyena, they profit on the nation's calamity. ”

“ Besides that, each side are convinced they are waging a purely defensive war. So it is that hostility subsides, once the sense of danger is removed, and each side sees in its captives not devils or barbarians, but fellow-men. ”

“ Demonstrate to us”, they must say, “that this is a just war, and we will then enter into the battlefield otherwise we will not take one step.... Come forth from your hiding-places, enter into the battlefield if you like to attack each other and tear each other to pieces if you desire to air your so-called contentions. The discord and feud are between you; why do you make us, innocent people, a party to it? If fighting and bloodshed are good things, then lead us into the fray by your presence!” ”

“ And even in the field—for they will have recourse to arms in their own defence—and what nation would not?-ye are still bound by the usages of war, by every principle of honor and humanity, to spare their lives when they surrender and call for mercy. In short, whether ye reckon them enemies or British subjects, ye have no right to hunt them down and kill them, as if they were so many wild beasts. ”

“ The history of the world proves that every great nation which has been founded by aggression and the sword has ultimately fallen, notwithstanding its power and grandeur, through the exercise of the same illegal violence against itself. ”

“ Let a new leader or an untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to 203 say anything common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let 204 us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. ”

“ But as the powerful princes failed to support him he was compelled to subsist his troops by pillage, an example which was followed by all the leaders during that dreadful contest.
And now began a frightful struggle, a game of war on the chess-board of a nation, in which the people were the helpless pawns and suffered alike from friends and foes. Neither side gained any decisive victory, but both sides plundered and ravaged, the savage soldiery, unrestrained and unrestrainable, committing cruel excesses wherever they came. ”

“ All would have been silenced, while crying that the country, right or wrong, must be carried through the war.
Here is a gross confusion of opposite duties in cases of defence and of offence. When a country is invaded, its soil pressed by hostile footsteps, its churches desecrated, its inhabitants despoiled of homes, its national life assailed, then the indignant spirit of a free people rises to repel the aggressor. Such an occasion challenges all the energies of self-defence. It has about it all that dismal glory [379] which can be earned in scenes of human strife. ”

“ Not content with rejecting all proposals for a peaceful settlement of the controversy, a cruel war of invasion was commenced, which, in its progress, has been marked by a brutality and disregard of the rules of civilized warfare that stand out in unexampled barbarity in the history of modern wars. ”

“ This same irreconcilable opposition which appears in moral principles, shows itself again in the political foundation of the assizes. Originating in the clash of arms, grown up in the contests and necessities of war, on a soil where nothing but constant war could save it from annihilation, the system is purely martial—made for conflict and strife. ”

“ If you shoot your neighbor, you will be committing mere murder; but if you gather twenty or thirty friends, together, tie a red handkerchief around the left arm of each man, announce that you are out to overthrow the government of the United States, and then shoot your neighbor as a counterrevolutionary impediment to the new order of things, you can have the satisfaction of having waged war. ”

“ With these differences, prejudices grow, animosities spring up, contact easily produces quarrels, aggression begets aggression, and wrong kindles revenge. [45] And so between these separate social aggregates arises the feeling of Ishmael and the spirit of Cain, warfare becomes the chronic and seemingly natural relation of societies to each other, and the powers of men are expended in attack or defense, in mutual slaughter and mutual destruction of wealth, or in warlike preparations. ”

“ They very much approve of this way of corrupting their enemies, though it appears to others to be base and cruel; but they look on it as a wise course, to make an end of what would be otherwise a long war, without so much as hazarding one battle to decide it. ”

“ All nations picture their side as defensive. Previous peace movements accepted this attitude. Accordingly, when a conflict arose, these opponents of war usually yielded to the pressure because they thought their nation was being attacked by an aggressor. ”

“ After this war, deep-planted in the heart of every people, whether fighting or looking on, will be the loathing of national aggressiveness! Such a feeling has never existed before because men have never before been so stirred, so injured, and so frightened. ”

“ Now, unhappily, there arises a conflict in our own country, which presents the case of an armed military rebellion—a revolt of certain portions of population, maintaining, if you please, to a certain extent, the mastery over a certain portion of our soil, using against us the actual means and processes of war, and compelling from our Government, in maintaining dominion against their aggressive assaults, the means of military power, naval and land forces, and all the authority and violence of war. ”

“ Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war. ”

“ The overthrow of the enemy is the aim in war; destruction of the hostile military forces, the means both in attack and defence. By the destruction of the enemy’s military force, the defensive is led on to the offensive, the offensive is led by it to the conquest of territory. ”

“ If we may shoot rebel enemies in battle, if we may shut them up in fortresses or prisons, if we may bombard their forts, if we may occupy their fields, if we may appropriate their crops, if we may blockade their ports, if we may seize their vessels, if we may capture their cities, it is vain to say that we may not exercise against them the other associate prerogatives of war. ”

“ Are not pride, avarice, and revenge the seeds of all kinds of carnal warfare? From these grow all the quarreling among children, the discord among families, the bickerings, law suits, and broils among neighbors, the boxing among bullies, the dueling among modern gentlemen, and wars among nations. They all originate from one and the same spirit.
Now, is the mild, meek, and peaceable man, unarmed, more liable to inspire jealousy in others that he is about to insult and abuse them than the high-toned duelist who constantly carries with him deathly weapons? ”

“ The increase in armies, the frightful implements of slaughter, the total failure of the peace propaganda—they have all defied civilization!
“And then, too, the old, red-blooded emotions of battle have all been eliminated by the mechanical conditions of modern warfare in which men and women are just so many units, automata. ”