第36章 THE MITIGATION OF WAR.(5)

I have further to remark on these portions of the Manuals before usthatone of the most curious passages of the history of armament is the strongdetestation which certain inventions of warlike implements have in all centuriesprovokedand the repeated attempts to throw them out of use by denying quarterto the soldiers who use themThe most unpopular and detested of weaponswas once the crossbowwhich was really a very ingenious scientific invention.

The crossbow had an anathema put on itin 1139by the Lateran Council,which anathematized artem illam mortiferam et Leo odibilemThe anathemawas not without effectMany princes ceased to give the crossbow to theirsoldiersand it is said that our Richard Irevived its use with the resultthat his death by a crossbow bolt was regarded by a great part of Europeas a judgmentIt seems quite certain that the condemnation of the weaponby the Lateran Council had much to do with the continued English employmentof the older weaponthe longbowand thus to the English successes in thewars with FranceBut both crossbow and longbow were before long driven outof employment by the musketwhich is in reality a smaller and much improvedform of the cannon that at an earlier date were used against fortified walls.

During two or three centuries all musketeers were most severelyand as weshould now think most unjustlytreatedThe Chevalier Bayard thanked Godin his last days that he had ordered all musketeers who fell into his handsto be slain without mercyHe states expressly that he held the introductionof firearms to be an unfair innovation on the rules of lawful warRed-hotshot was also at first objected tobut it was long doubtful whether infantrysoldiers carrying the musket were entitled to quarterMarshal Mont Luc,who has left Memoirs behind himexpressly declares that it was the usageof his day that no musketeer should be spared.

The bayonet also has a curious historyNo doubt it must be connectedby origin in some way with the town of Bayonnebut the stories ordinarilytold about its invention and early use seem to be merely fablesNo inventionadded more to the destructiveness of waras the bayonet turns the musketinto a weapon which is at once a firearm and a lanceThe remarkable thingabout it isthat though known it remained for so long unusedIt was Frederickthe Great who is said first to have used it generally or even universallyamong his soldiersThe probability is that the fear of exposing infantryto deprivation of quarter if taken prisoners caused this hesitation in usingitIn our own army we have an example of the feeling which the old usageof war on the subject of certain weapons createdin the green uniform ofthe Rifle BrigadeIt seems to have been long doubted whether foot soldiersarmed with the early form of rifle would have their lives granted to themif they were taken prisonersand the green uniformfirst used among theolive foliage of Spain and Portugalwas supposedit is now said untruly,to give a greater protection than clothes of any other colour at a longerdistance.

Looking back on this long-continued state of feeling on the subjects ofnew and destructive inventionsone may perhaps wonder that mines and torpedoes,and particularly the torpedo of our dayhave not met with harsher feeling.

But the reason why no such attempts as were formerly tried to drive out ofuse especial weapons are likely hereafter to be seenis thatin the firstplaceany artand especially an art of destructionis in our day likelyto see rapid improvementsWe know of no limit to the power of destroyinghuman lifeand when the extension of the area of this power by a professionalclass has once set init is impossible for us to lay down to what lengthsit may go or over what time it may extendThe invention proceeds so rapidlythat a peculiarly objectionable form of it can rarely be noted and specified.

On the other handit is a more satisfactory reflection that wars have onthe whole become less frequentand they have also become shorterHencethe opportunities of observing the widespread and cruel destruction causedby the most formidable class of new warlike inventions are much rarer thanthey were.

I will proceed to say something on the history of the torpedoes whichoccupy so much of our attentionI may remark that when it was first inventedthe torpedo was received with downright execrationIt first made its appearancein the war between the revolted coloniesnow forming the United States,and the mother countryand it was then known as the 'American Turtle.Manyattempts to obtain an improved form of it were made during the war betweenEngland and Francewhen Napoleon and his armies were hanging on the coast.

The principle of using clockwork had already been inventedbut the peaceof 181put an end for the time to that method of inventionand it was longbefore the world heard again of the catamaranas the torpedo was next called.

The epochs in the period of humanitarian progress and voluntary codificationwhich deserve to be identified with the name of the Emperor Alexander IIof Russia arethe Convention of Geneva as to woundedacceded to by allthe European Powers in the course of the years 18641865and 1866theDeclaration of StPetersburg in 1868and the Conference at Brusselswhichfilled the greater part of the year 1874I refer you for the results ofboth to Halleck's excellent book.