Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-08-10
EUROPE'S ARMED PEACE.
The Terrible Strain on the Nations-The
Next War.


The whole continent seems to be under
some horrible enchantment. The armed
peace sits like a vampire at the bedside
of the people, draining their life blood
while they sleep. Hence, say some, wal
is certain. The nations cannot stand the
strain much longer. Sooner or later,
and sooner rather than later, they will
rush to war rather than wait to be slowly
suffocated by the sheer weight of their
armor.
As the armed peace is a nightmare
fouler than the world has vet suffered, so
the next war is an appalling catastrophe
from which imagination shrinks aghast.
Fol there is nothing in modern history
that it will resemble. Hitherto, down
even to the last wars, when empires have
gone to battle it has been a war of SOL
diers. The next wal will be a war of
peoples. In the Russo Turkish war it was
an army framed on the old system which
was repulsed at Plevna, and ultimately
swept in triumph to Constantinople. In
the Franco-G German war the French army
was largely professional, and it was be-
cause the standing army of professional
soldiers e down like ninepins before
the irresistible rush of an armed nation
that all military systems have been revo-
lu%tionized. Now every nationhas armed
all its able bodied adults.
In former days the mastering of a half
million of soldiers was regarded as a
mighty feat. Today Prince Bismarck
adds to the ranks of the army of the
fatherlsnd, with one stroke Of his pen,
100000 fathers of families, and not
a single voice is raised even in passing
protest. Germany ia tbs center Of
available host of 5000, 900 trained sol
1bjeTs: FF9nse Yill haze between 1000
600 and 5000, 900 ready to hand. Rus.
STA before long will be able to put 5000,
| 900 into line. Austria and Italy we need
not count. The blast Of the trumpets
that proclaims the beginning of wal will
summon the manhood Of Europe to the
work of slaughter.
Not Only will the number of the com
batahts be far beyond those which were
raised even in the days of the First Ma.
poleon-the grand army with which he
crossed the frontier on his march tc
Moscow only consisted of the same mum.
~ VI I'LL tIut hto DtCh ttlttu llllS veal
to the German army-but the spirit in
which it will be brought out will differ
for the worse. Prince Bismarck has
frankly told us what kind of wal it will
be. We shall fight, he said, if we dc
fight, until we are bled as white as veal.
1t will be a duel to the death-a wal in
which the avowed object of the com
batants is the utter destruction of their
adversary.
'Saigner a blanc" to drain the very
life blood Of your enemy until you leave
his carcass as white as that of the calf
from which the butcher seeks to drain
every ruddy drop of gore-that is the
declared ideal of the foremost nation of
the continent in the year of grace 1888.
The imagination refuses to picture what
it means. All our recent wars were
short. The longest was that of the Cri.
mea, which was little more than the
siege and the defense of a single fortress
Italian wal was almost an affair OF
weeks. The Danish wal was over al
most before it began. The Austro-Prus
sian-Italian war lasted just six weeks.
The Franco German var was over in six
months. The conquest OF Turkey was
completed in about the same time.
But the next wal will not be over in
six weeks or six months. To bleed each
other white, when both combatants are
pretty well matched, and when there are
millions of men in reserve, is an affair
of years. But when all the business is
suspended, and the reapers have been
summoned from the farm t the battle
fields, it will be impossible to carry on
war on this scale for years without utter
collape and CHASTITY famine. Hence the
embattled millions will fight with the
grim and desperate energy of men who
know that, like Judas, what they dc
they must do quickly. They will strike
terror. All the tourney rules of civil
lied wal will be in danger of going by
the board. 1t will be a contest of titan:
waged with the ruthlessness Of fends
The next war will be in danger of de
generating into the Nineteenth century
version of the horrors of the thirty years
war, on a scale far more gigantic, ant
therefore characterized by crimes fal
more colossal. Pail Mall Gazette.