Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1882-02-23
Modern Bravery.

WI1t6r IL DtuchUOOU 1HuyuzST6
believes that the invention of long
range fighting has brought into the
world type of fortitude, which has
been hitherto totally unknown Except
ing in occasional isolated cases,) which
is just as much product of our century
as railways or electric telegraphs, and
which is as distinguishable from the
animal courage required for sword work
as is prophecy from fortune-telling. In
stead of dashing at the enemy in fierce
excitement, instead Of the hot emotion
OF savage struggle, instead of furious
muscular evaporation, instead of the
intensest development of combative
faculties, our soldiers have now to ex-
hibit their intrepidity by remaining
placid, motionless, undisturbed amidst
a hail of death and wounds. They have
to stay quiet under constant fire, to let
themselves be knocked to pieces, with
out the chance or even the possibility
of doing anything to defend themselves
in an eager, efficient, satisfactory form
the one solution open to them is to
treat the other people in the same
fashion, and to pelt impersonaI missiles
at them from afar. Not man on either
side has the pleasure of identifying the
particular opponent who slaughters
him. There IS scarcely any of that
individuality of carnage which is so
contenting in hand to-hand fight
And, worse than all, there is none of
the output of effort, of the bitter strain,
which necessarily accompanies the ex-
hibition Of brute hardihood. The BRAY
cry Of to day is nervous, contemplative
process there is no action, no move
ment, no tug about it. It prin-
cipally consists in waiting obedience
until you are hit by a stray shot.
Troops do not like it. They are al
ways wanting to get out of it, to rush
ahead, to strike, to do something vic.
nt.and comforting on their own be.
half. They feel that it is absolutely
unnatural to stand still to be killed;
that it is totally anomalous to rest un-
aggressive under tempest of ambient
peril, that it is contrary to all the ten
denotes of humanity to make no vigor-
GUS attempt to ward off destruction
and yet that is precisely what they have
learned to do. They may use shelter,
if they can find it lit is no longer COW
ardly to hide) but they may not use ac-
tion. In one of Raffet's caricatures,
regiment is halted in the middle of the
river, with the water up to the mems
necks. The colonel says TO them !:
''My children, forbid you to smoke,
but T permit you to sit down" and
that is very much the situation / in
which European soldiers are placed in
battle now it is permitted them to be
killed, but it is forbidden them to fight.
In Asia, il is true. there is still 6
chance Of getting to close quarters, and
Of using the right arm-as good many
Englishmen who have been in Afghan
istan can testify. But in modern
fighting on tho continent. the rule is
that the foe is SO far off that no fight
ing can reach him. The consequence
is that ourlnew shape Of courage is based
upon the suppression Of direct ef-
fort. + has become passive process.
in which we endure, instead Of acting.
The old sword daring was impetuous,
emotional and intuitive. The new gun
courage is deliberate, logical and sub
jective. The one was material and sub
stantial; the other is abstract and theo-
retical. They are as different from each
other as credulity and faith, as astron-
omy and astrologyas dreams andthought