g the Hague Conference was "a military necessity" to us; or that
the rules of the Conference were only a scrap of paper. He would be quite
pained if we said that dum-dum bullets, "by their very frightfulness,"
would be very useful to keep conquered Germans in order. Do what he will,
he cannot get outside the idea that he, because he is he and not you, is
free to break the law; and also to appeal to the law. It is said that the
Prussian officers play at a game called Kriegsspiel, or the War Game. But
in truth they could not play at any game; for the essence of every game is
that the rules are the same on both sides.

But taking every German institution in turn, the case is the same; and
it is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for
example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing; but the word is
here used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are
in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever
there are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time-tables, and all the
curses of civilisation; except in England and a corner of America. You
may happen to regard the duel as an historic relic of the more barbaric
States on which these modern States were built. It might equally well be
maintained that the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilisation;
being the sign of its more delicate sense of honour, its more vulnerable
vanity, or its greater dread of social disrepute. But whichever of the two
views you take, you must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed
equality. I should not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using
it, to the duels of German officers or even to the broadsword combats
that are conventional among the German students. I do not see why a young
Prussian should not have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay,
they are often the redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat
unenlightening countenance. The duel may be defended; the sham duel may be
defended.

What cannot be defended is something really peculiar to Prussia, of which
we hear numberless stories, some of them certainly true. It might be called
the one-sided duel. I mean the idea that there is some sort of dignity
in drawing the sword upon a man who has not got a sword; a waiter, or a
shop assistant, or even a schoolboy. One of the officers of the Kaiser
in the affair at Saberne was found industriously hacking at a cripple. In
all these matters