THE LOST RULES OF WAR
BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FREDERICK MAURICE, K.C.M.G. THE Spectator has asked, in a recent issue, whether it is not possible to save anything from the ruins of the old codes which regulated the conduct of armed forces in war. The question is asked a propos of the Riff War. Now it is natural that the spectacle of the very gallant struggle which the Riffs are making against two European Powers, of which one has the most powerful army in the world, and both have the most deadly weapons which the experience of the Great War taught us to create, should have aroused sympathy. It is even more natural that this sympathy should be increased by the thought of the wounded, and of the old men, women and children, who are exposed to danger and are without, as far as we know, modern medical assistance. The Spectator suggests that it may be possible to come to some international agreement which may make wars between rich and scientific countries and backward peoples more humane than they are at present. This may be a possibility, but if it is achieved it would not require a gathering-up and re-knitting of the threads of old codes ; it would mean the creation of an entirely new code. What is happening now in the Riff is in the broad lines very similar to what has been happening at frequent intervals during the past fifty years, and up to quite recent times, on the North-West Frontier of India. Both the Riffs and the tribesmen are hardy warriors and both inhabit rugged mountainous country. Both are therefore difficult people to subjugate. In our numerous expeditions on the Indian frontier we have always felt it to be not only our right but our duty to our soldiers to use the most modem weapons available. The Afridis, the Waziris and the Orakzais have women and children, but we have never felt called upon to supply them with a Red Cross unit, and, indeed, from my experience of their habits and customs and of the nature of their country, I find it difficult to imagine what use they would have made of such a unit if one had been sent to them.
I have no knowledge of the Riff country, and it is possible that like difficulties do not exist there, but very little consideration will show that it will be a matter of considerable difficulty to draw up a code which can be made generally applicable to warfare with backward races in very varied stages of civilization, and inhabiting countries as different as are almost waterless deserts, rugged mountains and .dense jungle.. Special eases might be met • by special measures, but the question asked is whether a general code is not possible and necessary. As to that, it would seem to me to be more tactful on our part to begin by seeing whether from the result of our own long experience of small wars, we can prepare a code suitable for our own use. To use the French war with the Riffs as a pretext for taking the initiative in this matter might lay us open to a very obvious retort.
As Professor. Gilbert Murray points out in the Spectator of October 3rd, the question of the use of modern means of destruction against backward peoples came up in the very early discussions of the problem of disarmament. It was suggested that the League should be given a monopoly of-the most modern weapons, such as bombing aeroplanes, tanks and heavy artillery. To this the objection was at once raised that in the countries of those great Powers which had dependencies bordered by savage or semi-civilized races, neither public opinion nor the moral of the troops would stand men being sent to fight and expose their lives, if they were equipped with any but the best arms. We at least have always insisted upon that. We mowed down the Madhists in thousands at Omdurman with quick-firing rifles and sent against them what was then a very modern type of field howitzer.
It is said that the use of bombing aircraft is brutal. It is, but so are all methods of war. The villages of backward peoples are ordinarily forts ; for when they are not at war with a civilized Power they are often engaged in raiding each other, and like the barons of the Middle Ages they require keeps to protect their women and their property. Is it more brutal to drop bombs upon these forts from the air than to rain upon them shell discharged by artillery ? Is it more brutal to bomb than to blockade, an expedient to which we have often resorted ? If we arc to begin to make limits as to the use of weapons, where are we to stop ? What weapon can we pretend is more humane than others ? Are we to deny the use of artillery to troops sent to suppress tribes in revolt ? These are some of the difficult questions with which any attempt to regulate by code the use of force against backward peoples at once confronts us.
But the Spectator article raises a larger question than the conduct to be observed in war by civilized against less civilized peoples. It points to the disappearance of that chivalry which used to be a feature of war and asks if it cannot somehow be restored. I do not think that it can, nor do I think it desirable that it should be.
Chivalry in war disappeared, as the Spectator says, when the professional armies disappeared and the nations in arms took their place. Chivalry was a legacy handed on to the professional by his predecessor, the knight of old ; and, knighthood being international, had its international code. The modern version of that code lingered in our little professional army longer than in others, for it was not engaged in Europe between the Crimean War and the Great War. To the bulk of our officers of those days war was an exciting adventure rather than a business, and Kitchener complained of them that they treated the Boer War " like a game of polo with intervals for afternoon tea." It therefore came as a greater shock to us than to others to find war treated as a brutal business. It is the citizen, not the pro- fessional soldier, who has brought this to pass, and he has done so because he finds war in which he is now obliged to take part not an adventure at all but a very horrible interruption of the ordinary processes of his life. He wants to be done with it as quickly as may be. • It was Lincoln, whom few would dare to charge with inhumanity, who urged upon McClellan that he should bombard Richmond': it was the German public at home which pressed Moltke to begin what he considered to be a premature bombardment of Paris. This little rhyme went round Germany in the early winter of 1870 :-- " Outer Moltke geht so stumm
Immer urn des ding hertun.
Lieber Moltke sei nicht dumm !
Gieb doch einmal bourn ! bourn ! bourn
This pressure to use every means to bring war to an end has always come from behind the armies, and its tendency is to increase. No one to-day will put any confidence in agreements to restrict the use of particular weapons, the only real checks being the fear of reprisals and of creating such indignation amongst neutrals as will bring them into the field as enemies.
This being so, attempts to make war appear humane, which it can never be, can only lead to deception and disappointment, and by presenting war in a false light are likely to make it more frequent. We British are beginning to be alive to the fact that war is growing more and more brutal and more and more destructive, because we are also becoming alive to the fact that the application of aircraft to war has brought us militarily into the Continent. All our southern towns, and most of all London, will, with the women, children, aged and sick in them, be exposed to bombing if we are engaged in a Continental war, and no codes will remove that danger. If we understand that fact and its implications we are more likely to avoid war than if we bury our heads in codes.
This does not mean that codes are of no use. The Hague Conventions, in spite of the breaches made in them, were of real value during the World War in pre- venting avoidable suffering ; but I have no faith in conventions which attempt to prevent the use of the most deadly weapons when nations are fighting for their existence.
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