Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-13
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

No event so fully illustrates the ad-
vance in the standards of civilization as
does the action of the eight nations
led by the United States, In the read
justment of the terms of settlement by
Germany for the greatest war--the
greatest defeat-in the history of man.
kind.
Put in place of Marshal Foch and
the commanding generals of the several
allied armies any of the famous con-
querors of history. Then where we find
the Kaiser and his subjects, defeated
after years of bloody, unprovoked ag-
erosion, consider the "barbarians" who
dared face defeat by Xerxes, Cyrus
Darius, Alexander the Great, Caesar, or
down to Napoleon Bonaparte. Even
down to the end of the feudal ages, the
masses had nothing to do with the con-
ficts of the rulers except to fight as
ordered, and suffer as defeat decreed
But nobody expected mercy from con-
queror.
Says Fustel de Coulanges in his book
1.-THE Ancient City" study Of ancient
Greece and Rome:
THE conqueror as he pleased. Nc
human or divine law restrained his
vengeance or his cupidity. The day on
which the Athenians decreed that all
Mitylenaeans, without distinction OF
age or sex, should be exterminated, they
did not dream of tranScending their
rights; and when, on the next day, they
revoked their decree, and contented
themselves with putting a thousand
citizens to death and confiscating al
the lands, they thought themselves hui
name and tndulgent. After the taking
of Plataea, the men were put to death
and the women sold; and yet no one &C.
cused the conquerors of having violated
| any law.
"These men. made war not only upon
soldiers, but upon an entire population
men, women, children and slaves. They
| waged it not only against human beings
but against fields and crops. They
burned houses and cut down trees; the
harvest Of the enemy was almost always
devoted to the internal gods, and con-
sequently burned. They exterminatec
the cattle: they even destroyed the seed
which might produce crop the follow
| ing year. A war might cause the name
| and race of an entire people to disap-
pear at a single blow and change a fer
tile country into desert.
"It was by virtue of this law that the
Romans extended a solitude around
their city; of the territory where the
Volscians had % cities, it made the
Pontine marshes; the SO cities OF
Latium have disappeared: in Samnium
the places where the Roman armies had
passed could long be recognized, less
by the vestiges of their camps than by
the solitude which reigned IN the
| neighborhood."
X \ 4 Il
Modern peace makers are horrified-
| and Justly so-by the cruelties and
atrocities of modern war, which they
declare has become so terrible by the
use of wholesale means of destruction
that, unless it be modified by humane
measures of prevention, it will extermi-
nate humanity. More than 100000
casualties and nearly 100000 deaths
in the recent World War stagger civil
lization and 1t has been declared that
| ever fought. There must never be an
other, for war has become intolerably
| destructive" Become?
Yet it is not so cruel today as 1t wa;
in the savage days of ancient times
when cruelty was the main objective
and humiliation of the enemy the
usual expectation and aim.
In our day, every nation engaged ir
| the World War has created shrine Of
| AT a OOiIiD VA d1A O1lhIlOWL
Soldier" IMPLYING the bravery and love
of country of all its defenders
In ancient days, it was not so;
the supreme sacrifice" about which
our orators grow eloquent was not
| the ideal of slaves or of con-
scripts; there was not the spirit Of vol
unteer, but the obedience only of mer
who had no option except obedience oil
death Yet there was the equivalent Of
the Unknown Soldier" since there
| could be no legal treaty of peace ending
| hostilitieg without the sacrifice of {
man-slain by priest to seal the peace
whether that treaty gave life TO the de,
keAte6 or decreed their humiliation