The Refusal of Reciprocity - Page 2

in the ordinary way to
take a great deal off the tales of German atrocities; to doubt this story
or deny that. But there is one thing that we cannot doubt or deny: the seal
and authority of the Emperor. In the Imperial proclamation the fact that
certain "frightful" things have been done is admitted; and justified on the
ground of their frightfulness. It was a military necessity to terrify the
peaceful populations with something that was not civilised, something that
was hardly human. Very well. That is an intelligible policy: and in that
sense an intelligible argument. An army endangered by foreigners may do the
most frightful things. But then we turn the next page of the Kaiser's
public diary, and we find him writing to the President of the United
States, to complain that the English are using Dum-dum bullets and
violating various regulations of the Hague Conference. I pass for the
present the question of whether there is a word of truth in these charges.
I am content to gaze rapturously at the blinking eyes of the True, or
Positive, Barbarian. I suppose he would be quite puzzled if we said that
violating the Hague Conference was "a military necessity" to us; or that
the rules of the Conference were only a scrap of paper. He would be quite
pained if we said that Dum-dum bullets, "by their very frightfulness,"
would be very useful to keep conquered Germans in order. Do what he will,
he cannot get outside the idea that he, because he is he and not you, is
free to break the law; and also to appeal to the law. It is said that the
Prussian officers play at a game called Kriegsspiel, or the War Game. But
in truth they could not play at any game; for the essence of every game is
that the rules are the same on both sides.

But taking every German institution in turn, the case is the same; and it
is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for
example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing; but the word is here
used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are in
France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there
are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time-tables, and all the curses of
civilisation; except in England and a corner of America. You may happen to
regard the duel as a historic relic of the more barbaric States on which
these modern States were built. It might equally well be maintained that
the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilisation; being the sign of its
more delicate sense of honour, its more vulnerable vanity, or its greater
dread of social disrepute. But whichever of the two views you take, you
must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should
not, therefore, apply the word