... Yes, we know that it is
contrary to international law; but we were compelled by necessity. And
necessity knows no law." What international tribunal's verdict could
have the force of this avowal from the lips of the guilty man?
However, the world has not moved, the world has not trembled, the
world is not now up in arms. And who would guarantee that another time
when the case will be perhaps less flagrant, the crime more obscure,
the aggressor less cynical, the world will tremble and rise in arms?
Moreover, is it always possible to determine the responsibility for
war's origin? Is it always possible, before an international tribunal
of arbitration, to throw the proper light and all the light on the
course events have taken? Will the judges always be unanimous?
Take the case of the last Balkan War in 1912. Is it possible today,
from a six years' perspective, to establish with any degree of
certitude the reasons for its outbreak and determine without
hesitation the responsibility for it? Can you affirm with any degree
of certainty that a court composed of American, European and Asiatic
jurists would be unanimous in condemning Turkey and exonerating
Bulgaria? And tomorrow, if the Ukraine should suddenly hurl itself
against the Republic of the Don, or if Finland invaded Great Russia,
with your international court would you be really in a way to
pronounce a verdict within five days? And if Sweden took Finland's
part and Germany took Great Russia's, could you guarantee that
Argentina, Japan, Australia and even France would consent to mobilize
their fleets and their armies to settle the question of a frontier on
the banks of the Neva? Can you guarantee that every war of every Slav
republic would have for a correlative the mobilization of the entire
world?
And then are you certain that the idea of a society of nations is
exactly a new one? Are you certain that there did not exist a society
of nations before the outbreak of the present war? Have you never
heard that, on the fifteenth of June, 1907, at The Hague, forty-four
nations of the civilized world (and Germany was one of the number)
assembled and met together to form such a league? Have you never heard
of the treaty that was signed then which, according to the wording at
the treaty's head, had for its object "fixing the laws and usages at
war on the land"? Have you never read the terms of this convention,
have you never glanced through the sixty-odd articles which today, in
the presence of the nameless horrors in which we lend a hand, offer a
prodigious interest to actuality?
Glance over these articles--and let us see how they have been applied:
ARTICLE 4 provides that "_prisoners of war must be humanely
treated.
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