The General beside me, with that look
in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work,
says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and
then we discuss a problem which one of the party--not a soldier--starts.
Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting
of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend
with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return
to civil life? Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a
while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future? The
General denies it strongly. "I see no signs of it. The kindness of the
men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the
French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it
ever was. It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these
French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint."
I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army "runs"
the French towns and villages in our zone.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89