"
As a matter of fact, this charge of "barbarism" against those methods
of warfare which shock our moral sense must not be taken too literally.
The methods of real barbarians in war are not especially "barbarous."
They have sometimes committed acts of cruelty which are revolting to us
to-day, but for the most part the excesses of barbarous warfare have
been looting and burning, together with more or less raping of women,
and these excesses have been so frequent within the last century, and
still to-day, that they may as well be called "civilised" as
"barbarous." The sack of Rome by the Goths at the beginning of the
fifth century made an immense impression on the ancient world, as an
unparalleled outrage. St. Augustine in his _City of God_, written
shortly afterwards, eloquently described the horrors of that time. Yet
to-day, in the new light of our own knowledge of what war may involve,
the ways of the ancient Goths seem very innocent. We are expressly told
that they spared the sacred Christian places, and the chief offences
brought against them seem to be looting and burning; yet the treasure
they left untouched was vast and incalculable and we should be thankful
indeed if any belligerent in the war of to-day inflicted as little
injury on a conquered city as the Goths on Rome. The vague rhetoric
which this invasion inspired scarcely seems to be supported by
definitely recorded facts, and there can be very little doubt that the
devastation wrought in many old wars exists chiefly in the writings of
rhetorical chroniclers whose imaginations were excited, as we may so
often see among the journalists of to-day, by the rumour of atrocities
which have never been committed.
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