The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1878-01-24
The Cruelties of the War.


Whenever great war arises, and the
combat between the opposing armies
thickens and becomes more intense,
charges Of cruelty, outrage and atrocity
are almost invariably made by each com
blatant against the other. This was the
case in our own civil war; and in the war
between France and Prussia in 1870, short
as it was, we had tales of cruelty and in
humanity, many of which, at least, are
known to have been exaggerated or
wholly false.
The same bitter complaints have been
constantly repeated almost from the
beginning Of the present contest between
the Russians and the Turks. Terrible
stories have come to us of outrages com
mitted on one side by the Circassians
and the Bashi Bazouks, and on the other
by the not less savage Cossacks. Indeed,
acts are said to have been committed, Of
which we never heard hint during the
other wars tn It have been mentioned.
Not only do we hear of villages burned
and the villagers, men, women and chill
dren, driven foodle.s and homeless out
into an open country or into the noun
tains, in the midst of districts where bat
tie is raging; not only of fields laid waste,
of towns destroyed by ruthless lombard
meut; of flags of truce fired upon; these
are horrors which war always brings in
its lurid train
Far worse than these are the enormi-
ties which it is much to be feared have
darkened even the tragedy of war in Bul-
gara and Roumelia. We are told horrible
stories of the ruthless massacre of old
men, women and children; of young girls
shot down without warning, of innocent
babes tossed on bayonets, of mothers com
PEELED to witness the murder of their
children, of fathers forced to stand help
less by and see their families sacrificed to
the passion and fury of savage soldiers;
of numbers of people driven into barns
aad there burned alive; of suffering
wounded men, tortured and mutilated as
they lie on the battle field; of rows Of
prisoners of war taken out morning after
morning and shot down by platoons Of
soldiers, in defiance not only of humanity,
but of every rule and custom of war.
We may believe that many of these re-
ports are highly colored, and many Of
them have existed only in the heated i'm
aginatiOn of the combatants; yet that
they have in some instances taken place
is too we'll proved to admit of doubt.
Nor is it possible to question that both
sides have been guilty Of shocking cruelty
and barbarism. There is as much proof
against one as against the other.
The truth is that neither the Russians
nor the Turks are sufficiently civilized to
have learned how to wage war with the
least violation of humanity, the least de-
structiun and sacrifice of the innocent and
defenseless. The old Asiatic and Moslem
ferocity still breaks out in the Turk aud
Circassisn. The Tartar blood of the Cos
sack and the Muscovite still boils, in con-
tlict, with savage and remorseless heat.
1t seems certain that the worst cruel
ties which have been committed have
been those which the Bulgarians and
the Turks have visited upon each other.
As soon as Russian army has occupied
Bulgarian district, the natives have
risen remorselessly upon their Turkish
neighbors, and have carried fire and mas
sacrs into their households. When the
Turks have regained the district, they
have retsliated on the Bulgarians with
equal ferocity.
Thus the present conflict exhibits to
us the horrors of war in all their ghastli-
ness and intensity. 1t shows how utterly
savage the instincts Of men are when I'M
restrained by the influences of civiliza-
TONY Youths Companion.