The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1915-03-08
GREAT CONFL AGRA11ON
EXHAUST ADJECTIVES
But Atrociy Stories Generally Have Been RELOCATED Scrap
Pile Along With Circumstantial Accounts
of Great Bayonet Engagements


Irvine Cobb. war correspondent and
humorist, has brought back with him
from the battlefields of Belgium and
Northern France the chief Impression
that It Is hopeless for any man to at.
tempt 60 describe the war. The Eng.
1ish language cannot do It, he says
nor any other language, and It Ia In.
teresting to hear Cobb, who is one OF
the best reporters who ever covered q
story. tell why this war cannot be
written.
I'VE have used up all our adjectives
on fire-aiarm fires. gang murders
Slocum disasters, political conven-
tons" Cobb said today. I'VE haven,
got anything left for such n war. and
1t seems pitifully inadequate to fall
back on the stock phrases. It's too
ano aiBls noA 'pueuaLduoo Oh SIq
home In the evening dazed and brow
beaten. There never has been any
think like it. Here you get q Gettys-
burg for breakfast. a Chanceliorsv,lle
for lunch. Waterloo for supper. and
to make good measure, they throw
in Sedan around tea-time.
1T In simply impossible, for In
stance, to tell how 100000 men
died. You can't write 1t. and the
people who read 1t couldn't realize
the horror OF It. They would be too
staggered. too amazed by the proper
tons OF the statement. What you can
do. though, Is to pick out the story
of how one man died, and tell that,
making him typical OF the hundred
thousand or the million or whatever
the figures may be. AZ for casual
ties, I'm convinced they have been
much greater than any Of the com
batants has admitted. should not
attempt to guess them, because IL
would be absurd to hazard a venture
In figures so large. You could only
sands.
'One thing that impressed me was
the way in which you become habit
uated to the terrible side of war. The
first time / saw Germans enter cap
tured town. ] thrilled all over: the
first time I saw dead soldier I felt
that could write a whole story around
that one fact. But after a little time
/ found that the most distressing
scenes OF ruin. death and desolation
made very little concrete impression
upon me. AS a matter OF fact. one
dead man Is great deal more dis
tressing than several hundred or IA
thousand. and the most appalling
FitHSS 1 "ttUSS6Su were not NHbSN OH
the battlefield. but in the base hos
pitfalls, where poor chaps were dying
out OF sound OF the guns
Anyhow the worst thing about a
battlefield isn't how II looks. but how
II xmells---the awful stencil OF un-
buried bodies. Of stale gunpowder
fumes. of human sweat, df rotting
corn, OF damp. ruined houses. That
Is he way 1t affected me. Yet 1t In
remarkable how efficiently nature
works to cover up the traces of war.
Visit the same scenes few weeks
later. and you'll find grass growing In
the ruts made by the cannon, new
foliage burgeoning on trees that were
agreeable traces Of death removed.
1t takes very little time for nature
to obliterate the track OF an army
Even so. however. I am convinced
that the after-effects OF this war will
be tncalculable. should not care
TO try TO estimate the time 1t viii take
the winner TO recover from It: fifty
years L. a moderate guess and means
comparatively little except in a sug-
gesttve sense. The loser. / am con-
WINGED. will scarcely ever recover from
IT, Belgium. It Is true, Is simply the
wreck Of a land today, but am in
habilitate themselves a great deal
faster than people think. There IL
fecund little country; their houses
are all Of stone. and even those burned
"a a general rule have walls and
ga nds still standing"
Mr.. Cobb dismissed the question of
atrocities.
Investigated Atrocity Stories.
THE party OF newspaper CORES
pondents 1 was with made a careful
investigation of every atrocity story
that reached u.s." he said. They were
almost invariably false. and In the
few cases that were true. exaggcration
was the rule. This applies to the
stories told by the RelgiAns Of the
Germans and by the Germans Of the
Belgians and French. or course.
whether In war or In peace, you will
find among them o ceftain percent
age OF detectives and degenerAteH We
have atrocities In New York city. 30
far "A that Is concerned. am con-
WINGED that there has been nothing
unusually brutal about the conduct OF
this war--at least. In the way OF
atrocities. War. itself, is absolutely
brutal. There IN no picturesqueness
about 1t.
II have relegated the atrocity story