The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-10-08 00:00:00

tit Atourbrittge elistrinr.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1870.

IS TEN WAR TO GO ON?

The snore we read about this awful war, the
sere We think of its honors and atrocities, of
the miserly it has caused, is causing, and will
mot perhaps for generations to come, the more
we ere inclined to doubt our boasted civilisation
and Christianity. The art and science of war-
fare has certainly made great strides since our
forefathers fought with pikes, or bow and arrow,
sir dabs, and were bedaubed with war paint; but
the half-naked savage with his club and his war.
whoop was influenced by much the same passions
all the soldiery of to-day; the war of one wild
tribe against another was quite as noble and as
reasonable as is the war of one modern nation
against another. War in any age and by any
nation is a erne', bloodthirsty, savage thing, and
always utterly inexcusable except when it is
solely in defence; but war in this highly civi-
lised nineteenth century—war with the accom-
paniment of prayers and hymns and appeals to
the God of battles—is more horrible than the
wars of the old-world isavagus, inasmuch a., tm,
engines of destruction are more effective than
ever they were. Nor do we appear to have made
any real progress in putting a stop to the war
when once it has begun. That the mass of in-
dividuals forming one nation should go out to
fight and slay the individuals of another nation,
and this for no better reason than that two sove
reigns have quarrelled, or two or three diploma-
tist' have misunderstood one another, or one
potentate wants a bit of another potentate's land,
is in itself absolutely stupid and absurd, and it
is but the intensity of this wholesale murder
that prevents us from seeing how stupid and ab-
surd war really is. But equally absurd it is that
the individuals forming the masses of combat-
sole have DU voice in the cessation of war--that
the negotiations for peace, like the incentives to
war, should be the affair of a few of the great
ones of the earth, while thousands and tens of
thousands of immortal souls are hurried into
dimity while indulging the fiercest passions of
hatred and revenge. This uaing of men as mere
engines of mutual destruetieu, and us food for
powder, and the docility with which nations sub-
mit to it at the biddmg of rulers in the back-
ground. Is one of the marvels of warfare.
It is therefore with supreme satisfaction that
we observe signs of the French at least, if not
of the tietivaus, Legiuumg to &dare that the
war has lasted long enough, end that to continue
it is only to add misery to misery, with no com-
pensating good. At Tours, we see told, the
Frame-Tirane. recently rose against their offi-
sere and menaced them with death, mingling
114WSIWASIS shoat the failure of their pay, of

which they have had none for a month, with
charges of cowardice against their colonel, who
bad brought them away from Orleans because
the people there, not believing that these guer-
rillas could effectually defend them, did not want
their town made the scene of hostilities. At
Macon the Gardes Mobiles have unmistakeably
shown their opposition to the continuance of the
war. When the train moved off it was found
that they had hung from the windows emblems
of bleeding hearts, and the men shouted out a
song, " Nous Partons cumme des moutons,- part
of which we will freely translate. " We are going
away," they sang, 'like sheep to the slaughter;
we love life, but we are leaving for the shambles.
They will massacre us like rate; and oh! how
Bismarck will laugh ! " News from some of the
large towns—Havre, Bordeaux, Lille, and Lyons
—shows that the inhabitants are becoming in-
creasingly opposed to the war, and that the en-
thusiasm of the soldiery is considerably lessen-
ing. And as to the peasantry, the small farmers
and cottagers, the women and children—tens of
thousands of them made widows and fatherless
by this accursed war—their condition is becom-
ing awful. Their fields ravaged, their crops des-
troyed, their cattle slaughtered and carried away,
their houses pillaged ; why should they wish for
the continuance of war ? Had their country-
men been successful it would have brought them
no advantage ; as France has been defeated the
war has brought them misery, starvation, and
ruin. And the capital of France, what of this
erewhile gay sod proud city? Beleaguering
hosts of the enemy have marked it out for their
prey. So to speak the Prussians are sitting
down all round it, watching the gradual process
of starvation ; for, if Bismarck is to be believed
it is to be " starved out." And she has to con-
tend against disorder and riot within, while there
are even signs of an uncontrollable spirit of
plunder. Look, indeed, where we may, we can
find no cause for the belief that France has it in
her power, or will have it in her power to repulse
the Prussians. Her military system, like her
Imperial Government has collapsed, and it seems
to be madness to continue an utterly hopeless
contest. Would that France in her hour of ad-
versity would learn wisdasa. It is now clearer
than over that she was wholly wrong in refusing
as she did reasonable terms of armistice so that
peace might be negotiated. We cannot believe
that any terms of peace to which she would
have to ki n bui t would be so disastrous as will be
the continuance of war.