es greater justice than former attempts to what is needed
in war. But even the acceptance of your regulations by the governments
would not ensure their observance. It has long been a universally
accepted rule of warfare that no messenger of peace should be shot at.
But in the last campaign we frequently saw this done.

No paragraph learned by heart will convince the soldier that the
unorganized natives who _spontanement_ (that is, of their own free
will) take up arms and threaten his life every moment of the day and
night should be recognized as lawful opponents.

Certain requests of the manual, I fear, cannot be put in force. The
identification, for instance, of the dead after a big battle. Others
are subject to doubt, unless you insert _"lorsque les circonstances le
permettent, s'il se peut, si possible, s'il-y-a necessite,"_ or the
like. This will give them that elasticity without which the bitter
severity of actual warfare will break through all restrictions.

In war, where everything must be treated individually, only those
regulations will work well which are primarily addressed to the
leaders. This includes everything that your manual has to say
concerning the wounded and the sick, the physicians and their
medicines. The general recognition of these principles, and also of
those which have to do with the prisoners of war, would mark a notable
step in advance and bring us nearer the end which the Institute of
International Law is pursuing with such admirable perseverance.

Very respectfully,

COUNT MOLTKE.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: From _Count Moltke's Letters from Russia_, permission
Harper & Brothers, New York.]

[Footnote 39: Kopecks are equal to about one cent each.]

[Footnote 40: A part of the castle in Marienburg, Prussia, containing
the hall where the knights of the German order, "Deutsche Ritter,"
held their conclaves; also the hall itself, one of the showplaces of
Eastern Prussia.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 41: A whip with short handle and long thong.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 42: Militia of the Emperor, but differently constituted from
the American militia or Prussian Landwehr.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 43: One of the summer palaces of the Emperor.]

FIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER[44]

TRANSLATED BY CLARA BELL AND HENRY W. FISCHER

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR

The days are gone by when, for dynastical ends, small armies of
professional soldiers went to war to conquer a city, or a provinc