Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-06-14

4 IeECA lZ,VUO. nc Ndin VI Tic
French Revolution and First Empire
cost France between two million and
/ five million men. Napoleon's Grand
Army entered Russia 100000 strong;
scarcely 5000 recrossed the Niemen.
Prince Eugene crossed the same river
with $1,000 and returned fourteen days
ilater with a paltry twelve hundred.
After Wellington and Butcher met IN
| the Waterloo Campaign, 1900 killed
and wounded lay on an area Of about
three square miles. Here, indeed,
was a sea of sacrificial blood! Thus.
we could go on citing war after war,
battle after battle, In which men,
peasants, merchants. statesmen, gen.
fuses, heroes all, were moved down
like beasts in a gigantic slaughter
lpen.
In too many instances. we find this
|sacred young life being sacrificed
lrecklessly, wanton1y. Too often in
history, the great war captains have
shown practically no respect for life.
Napoleon, chief among warriors, re-
garded the men of his army as mere
machines keyed to do his will. He
counted his dead as he totaled his
loss of ammunition. A great loss to
him was regrettable. not because so
many individual lives had been sacri-
feed, but simply because they reduced
his ranks by Just so many. He was
credited with having killed in the
bloody eleven years from 1904 to
1915, 100000 Frenchmen, and about
two million outlanders. His cold cal
|culating disregard for life even arous-
ed indignation among his associates.
Once, Metternich, desperate in his de-
sire to prevent an inevitable slaugh-
ter, attempted to persuade Napoleon
not to take his army of "adolescents"
against the Russians and met with the
egotistical reply, you are no soldier
and you do not know what passes in
a soldiers soul. grew up on battle
fields, and man like me doesn't give
"a tinker's damn for the life of mil
lion"
Often the very Cruelty of military
tactics themselves, demands this hOr-
rible recklessness in regard to human
life. For instance, during the second
day Of the battle of Chancellorville,
General Pleasanton was trying to get
TWENTY-FIVE guns into. vital position
as Stonewall Jackson made a sudden
advance. Time had to be bought.
There was only one thing to. be done,
and that thing General Pleasanton
did. AS result, Major Peter keenan,,
at the head Of the four hundred men.
of the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry,
rode forth to meet the advancing TO-
600 men of the enemy. Each one of
that four hundred knew that his
Geath sentence had been pronounced
and yet, when Keenan's clear voice
rang out with the sharp command,
Cavalry Charge not a man of them
5hrank. They rode until there was
none left to ride. They fought until
there were none left to fight. Four
hundred heroes were butchered on the
altar of sacrifice, but the army was
saved.
And what is the heritage of all this
carnage and bloodshed? From. the
Rhine to Moscow, from the Alps to
Calabria, from the Pyrenees to Gibral-
tar. a century and half of warfare
has sowed the soil of Europe thick
with. the skulls of Frenchmen. Kip
ling reminds us that England has
seeded her empire with the bones of
her sons, leaving many of them be-
You'd the seas. These are the re-
wards. the only remaining evidences
which show that the bill of war has
been receipted. And the price-the
multitude of victims stretched upon
the fields beneath the bloody glare
of the battle sun-this is the price of
war.
"Of all the men
Whom days departing beam saw
blooming there.
In proud and vigorous health; of all
the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sun,
set there,
How few survive. how few are beat
ing now!"