Most Wars Needless and Unjust.
What are the teachings of history to which Gen. Bernhardi is fond of
appealing? That war has been the constant handmaid of tyranny and the
source of more than half the miseries of man; that, although some wars
have been necessary and have given occasion for a display of splendid
heroism--wars of defense against aggression or to succor the
oppressed--most wars have been needless or unjust; that the mark of an
advancing civilization has been the substitution of friendship for
hatred and of peaceful for warlike ideals; that small peoples have done
and can do as much for the common good of humanity as large peoples;
that treaties must be observed, (for what are they but records of
national faith, solemnly pledged, and what could bring mankind more
surely and swiftly back to that reign of violence and terror from which
it has been slowly rising for the last ten centuries than the
destruction of trust in the plighted faith of nations?)
No event has brought out that essential unity which now exists in the
world so forcibly as this war has done, for no event has ever so
affected every part of the world. Four continents are involved, the
whole of the Old World, and the New World suffers grievously in its
trade, industry, and finances.
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