The Wrack of the Storm | Page 9

of reasoning, of appreciating danger and of
picturing in their imagination the dreadful abyss that separates this life
from the life unknown. We were even almost persuaded that war would
one day cease for lack of soldiers, that is to say, of men foolish enough
or unhappy enough to risk the only absolute realities--health, physical
comfort, an unimpaired body and, above all, life, the greatest of earthly
possessions--for the sake of an ideal which, like all ideals, is more or
less invisible.
And this argument seemed the more natural and convincing because, as
existence grew gentler and men's nerves more sensitive, the means of
destruction by war showed themselves more cruel, ruthless and
irresistible. It seemed more and more probable that no man would ever
again endure the infernal horrors of a battlefield and that, after the first
slaughter, the opposing armies, officers and men alike, all seized with
insuppressible panic, would turn their backs upon one another, in
simultaneous, supernatural affright, and flee from unearthly terrors
exceeding the most monstrous anticipations of those who had let them
loose.
2
To our great astonishment the very opposite is now proclaimed.

We realize with amazement that until to-day we had but an incomplete
and inaccurate conception of man's courage. We looked upon it as an
exceptional virtue and one which is the more admired as being also the
rarer the farther we go back in history. Remember, for instance,
Homer's heroes, the ancestors of all the heroes of our day. Study them
closely. These models of antiquity, the first professors, the first masters
of bravery, are not really very brave. They have a wholesome dread of
being hit or wounded and an ingenuous and manifest fear of death.
Their mighty conflicts are declamatory and decorative but not so very
bloody; they inflict more noise than pain upon their adversaries, they
deliver many more words than blows. Their defensive weapons--and
this is characteristic--are greatly superior to their arms of offence; and
death is an unusual, unforeseen and almost indecorous event which
throws the ranks into disorder and most often puts a stop to the combat
or provokes a headlong flight that seems quite natural. As for the
wounds, these are enumerated and described, sung and deplored as so
many remarkable phenomena. On the other hand, the most discreditable
routs, the most shameful panics are frequent; and the old poet relates
them, without condemning them, as ordinary incidents to be ascribed to
the gods and inevitable in any warfare.
This kind of courage is that of all antiquity, more or less. We will not
linger over it, nor delay to consider the battles of the Middle Ages or
the Renascence, in which the fiercest hand-to-hand encounters of the
mercenaries often left not more than half-a-dozen victims on the field.
Let us rather come straight to the great wars of the Empire. Here the
courage displayed begins to resemble our own, but with notable
differences. In the first place, those concerned were solely professionals.
We see not a whole nation fighting, but a delegation, a martial selection,
which, it is true, becomes gradually more extensive, but never, as in our
time, embraces every man between eighteen and fifty years of age
capable of shouldering a weapon. Again--and above all--every war was
reduced to two or three pitched battles, that is to say, two or three
culminating moments; immense efforts, but efforts of a few hours, or a
day at most, towards which the combatants directed all the vigour and
all the heroism accumulated during long weeks or months of
preparation and waiting. Afterwards, whether the result was victory or

defeat, the fighting was over; relaxation, respite and rest followed; men
went back to their homes. Destiny must not be defied more than once;
and they knew that in the most terrible affray the chances of escaping
death were as twenty to one.
3
Nowadays, everything is changed; and death itself is no longer what it
was. Formerly, you looked it in the face, you knew whence it came and
who sent it to you. It had a dreadful aspect, but one that remained
human. Its ways were not unknown: its long spells of sleep, its brief
awakenings, its bad days and dangerous hours. At present, to all these
horrors it adds the great, intolerable fear of mystery. It no longer has
any aspect, no longer has habits or spells of sleep and it is never still. It
is always ready, always on the watch, everywhere present, scattered,
intangible and dense, stealthy and cowardly, diffuse, all-encompassing,
innumerous, looming at every point of the horizon, rising from the
waters and falling from the skies, indefatigable, inevitable, filling the
whole of space and time for days, weeks and months without a minute's
lull, without a second's intermission. Men live,