Evening star., 1898-05-21

| HxMNIN N motived solely by dis
! !. ! !: !: !" !: !. !:
| WEEx& IN like for our Anglo
| ~ NxH MA Saxon selves and
NM HM 1N sympathy for our
M FZp&s W) Latin adversary. 1t
| 9MAGS@ is a cry against war
| ~MA A&NA in the fact, a cry
| 4xIS9 that starts involun-
| tarily from the ter
rifed Europeans at the naturalization OF
| the nightmare under which, all war pre-
pared, they have been laboring so long
| They have prepared for war with such in
| tricacy, with such minuteness and such
| awful ingenuity, ehat they now stand
| aghast at their own work. In the words
of a thoughtful Frenchman, We have SO
complicated the machine that no one dares
| to put 1t into motion"
| The United States of America has dared
to put it into motion Hence the great dis
turbance of the European heart. 1t is i'm
possible to live in Paris and be ignorant Of
| the fact that the directing modern thought
| of war-bristiing France is the love of peace;
| or, to speak more exactly. the horror of
| war and the wish not to see it provoked.
| The French-and their ferocous-looking
| neighbors-are. at bottom sincerely pacific
| -furiousy pacific, and the two principal
| reasons for this state of soul are the iol-
| lowing:
To begin with, every European is today
| soldier; and, to follow, every one lmagines
| that wars In the future will be simply unen-
| durable.
One Soldier In Thirty.
| Heretofore, and even during the period
| that closed with 1870, the greatest European
| armies represented, at the maximum, 30o,-
| 900 or 100000 men. This is not speaking of
the Napoleonic epoch, it is understood, be-
cause from 1904 to 1914 the French senate
| put at the disposition of Napoleon more
| than 2,00U, 900 conscriptS. / am now speak
| ing of the armies of Louis Philippe and
| those of the second empire. When they call
| ed out the reserves, when IL was necessary TO
| start them off to war. they sent off scarcely
| one valid man in thirty. There We're, then,
| twenty-nine citizens to take upon them
| selves the '.jollying' of one; or, in the Ian
| guage of peace-loving revolutionary social
| lists, ''twenty-nine butchers ready to con-
| duct each sheep out to the abattor."
| They got around these sheep, repre-
| sented to each the grandeur of his mission,
exalted his vanity. They overwhelmed him
| with hand-shakings, brotherly hurrahing
| and friendly drinks And so the devoted
| conscript went out, with his head high. per-
| suaded that he was about to save the pa
| tEie, and already dreaming OF the oNatonS
! that should welcome his triumphant return.
| And had he hestated? Each one of those
| twenty mine friendly, fiattering faces would
have instantly transformed itself into d
| scornful, threatening accuser.
| Coward the great mass of his fellow
| citizens would cry. And il was thus, re-
| signed or enthusiastic, that the drafted
| soldier was projected to the field of battle
| by an irresistible force
| Armies Of Fancy.
Today, in case of mobilization, Europe
| imagines that 1t will have different pro-
| gram to go through. The proportion be-
| tween those who are forced out and those
| who force them out will not be the same.
| The propeller will be much more numer-
| Gus, and the ''propulsers'' will be much less
| numerous. OF course there are popular eX-
| aggerationS over this dreaded matter OF
| mobilization. If are to believe the theo-
| ries of lively magination when the Euro
| pean war breaks out there will remain at
| home scarcely enough males TO prepare
| provisions for the armies in the field. This
| is fancy. France, for iluStra ton, contains
| 12,00o,oo0 voters. Yet in 1870, when they
| We're saying that all Germany was throw
| ing itself into the country, scarcely more
| than 100000 Germans crossed the Rhine.
| 1t must be remembered also that in 1Sl3,
| on the plains of SaXony, Napoleon, at the
| age of forty-three, sorrowfully declared
| himself too old to keep his forces in hand,
| and added that he did not know three gem
| erals capable of commanding 100000 men
| apiece. The natural reflection is that mod
| ern generalissimos are regularly older than
| Napoleon at forty-three, and with, perhaps,
| no greater genius for the game of strategy.
| 1t is therefore, to be concluded that if they
| are given million men TO command they
| will be embarrassed sufficiently and beg
| the government to wait a little while be
| fore the second million be sent out
| In this way it is easy to foresee that all
| the men at the disposition of the military
| authorities of each European nation will
not be called out, nor can be. But the pos
| sibility is always present in the popular
| mind, and every one reflects that one in six
| mot one in thirty-may be called to fight.
| This is already too much for those who are
| to stay at home. The five older men will
| md 1t difficult to charge their
| fellow up with the old-tme hurrahing mag
| netism and project him, singing to the
| front. The number Of Europeans who may
| De called to hight each other has now be-
| come too great to encourage the gathering
OF crowds around each one of them de-
| manding that he go out to kill and be
| killed. To form such crowds would require
| that they be made up, in great part of men
| Habie to service in their own persons. And
| this is a consideration that may be counted
| on nowadays to temper the ferocity of war
| like manifestations in conscript- ridden Eu-
| rope.
The Era of Peace.
This Is only the beginning. In the march
OF progress toward universal peace and the
| reign of brotherly consideration there are
| being adopted, year by year and month by
| month, the most awful discoveries destined
to make war devastating to a degree hith-
| erto undreamed of. Specialists and space
| writers have done their work in acouaint-
| ing the public with the names and attri-
butes or the terrible machines and process
| es with whose aid humanity is to be man
| gled wholesale in the next meetings Story
| writers ana lftterateurs have followed un-
III today the material of war may be Iken
ed TO sort of bood-curdling popular brio
a-brac. The savant Denaynouze has gone
TO the length of proposing seriously the
| moblllzation of microbes against the
russians. 1t is true that the project is
not complete 1t lacks the chapter on uni
forms. because If they employ naked mi
4 tAlls
from the French?
| Ihe popular mind is never left at REST
In Paris 1t is known, for example. thar for
the second time within four years the mill
tary authorities are about to remodel tho
field artillery. At ChaIons there renoses
under q guarded tent the first of the new
engines OF war. Sub-off1cers d'elite have
It's workings explained to them, in the