Training--"askesis"--with either death, or the loss of all that makes
honourable life, as the ultimate sanction behind the process, that is
the present preoccupation of this nation in arms. Even the football
games I saw going on in the course of our drive to Albert were all part
of this training. They are no mere amusement, though they are amusement.
They are part of the system by which men are persuaded--not driven--to
submit themselves to a scheme of careful physical training, even in
their times of rest; by which they find themselves so invigorated that
they end by demanding it.
As for the elaboration of everything else in this frightful art of war,
the ever-multiplying staff courses, the bombing and bayonet schools, the
special musketry and gas schools, the daily and weekly development of
aviation, the technical industry and skill, both among the gunners
abroad and the factory workers at home, which has now made our artillery
the terror of the German army: a woman can only realise it with a
shudder, and find comfort in two beliefs.
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