THE essential part of the German doctrine of war is
contained in the following passages from Clausewitz:--

Whoever uses force, without any consideration and without
sparing blood, has sooner or later the advantage if the enemy
does not proceed in the same way. One cannot introduce a
principle of moderation into the philosophy of war without
committing an absurdity.

It is a vain and erroneous tendency to wish to neglect the
element of brutality in war merely because we dislike it.

Half a century afterwards his pupil Von Hartmann
annotates his teaching for the benefit of our con-
temporaries:--

It would be giving ourselves up lightheartedly to a chimera
not to realize that war in the present day will have to be
conducted more recklessly, less scrupulously, more violently,
more ruthlessly, than ever in the past. . . .

The official "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege" says:--

But since the tendency of thought of the last century was
dominated essentially by humanitarian considerations which
not infrequently degenerated into sentimentality and flabby
emotion there have not been wanting attempts to influence
the development of the usages of war in a way which was in
fundamental contradiction with the nature of war and its
object. Attempts of this kind will also not be wanting in the
future, the more so as these agitations have found a kind of
moral recognition in some provisions of the Geneva Conven-
tion and the Brussels and Hague Conferences.

Moreover, the officer is a child of his time. He is subject

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