The tranquil expanses of the valley, adorned with soft and smooth
pastures and hamlets rosy as the rose, with the sable shadow-stains
of the majestic mountains and the black lace and white of pines and
eternal snow, become alive with the movements of men, whose
multitudes swarm in distinct masses. Attacks develop, wave by wave,
across the fields and then stand still. Houses are eviscerated like
human beings and towns like houses. Villages appear in crumpled
whiteness as though fallen from heaven to earth. The very shape of
the plain is changed by the frightful heaps of wounded and slain.
Each country whose frontiers are consumed by carnage is seen tearing
from its heart ever more warriors of full blood and force. One's
eyes follow the flow of these living tributaries to the River of
Death. To north and south and west ajar there are battles on every
side. Turn where you will, there is war in every corner of that
vastness.
One of the pale-faced clairvoyants lifts himself on his elbow,
reckons and numbers the fighters present and to come--thirty
millions of soldiers. Another stammers, his eyes full of slaughter,
"Two armies at death-grips--that is one great army committing
suicide."
"It should not have been," says the deep and hollow voice of the
first in the line. But another says, "It is the French Revolution
beginning again." "Let thrones beware!" says another's undertone.
The third adds, "Perhaps it is the last war of all.
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