Military glory
But I believe the greatest cause of the popularity of war, and of the facility with which we engage in it, consists in this: that an idea of glory is attached to military exploits, and of honour to the military profession.
Something of elevation is supposed to belong to the character of the soldier;
whether it is that we involuntarily presume his personal courage; or that he who makes it his business to defend the rest of the community, acquires the superiority of a protector;
or that the profession implies an exemption from the laborious and the “meaner” occupations of life.
There is something in war, whether phantom or reality, which glitters and allures;
and the allurement is powerful, since we see that it induces us to endure hardships and injuries, and expose life to a continual danger.
Men do not become soldiers because life is indifferent to them, but because of some extrinsic circumstances which attach to the profession;
and some of the most influential of these circumstances are the fame, the spirit, the honour, and the glory that, with the agreement of mankind, belong to the warrior.
The glories of battle, and of those who perish in it, or who return in triumph to their country, are favourite topics of declamation with the historian, the biographer, and the poet.
They have told us a thousand times of dying heroes, who “resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and filled with (their nation’s) glory, smile in death,”
and thus every excitement that eloquence and genius can command is employed to arouse that ambition of fame which can be gratified only at the expense of blood.
There are many ways in which a soldier derives pleasure from his profession:
A military officer when he walks the streets is an object of notice; he is a man of spirit, of honour, of gallantry; wherever he is, he is distinguished from ordinary men; he is an acknowledged gentleman.
If he engages in battle, he is brave, noble, and magnanimous. If he is killed, he has died for his country; he has closed his career with glory.
Now all this is agreeable to the mind; it flatters some of its strongest and most pervading passions; and the gratification that these passions derive from war is one of the great reasons why men so willingly engage in it.
Now we ask the question of a man of reason, what is the foundation of this fame and glory?
We profess that, according to the best of our powers of discovery, no solid foundation can be found.
Upon the foundation, whatever it may be, an immense structure is however raised –
a structure so vast, so brilliant, so attractive, that the greater portion of mankind is content to gaze in admiration, without any inquiry into its basis, or any solicitude for its durability.
If, however, it should be, that the gorgeous temple will be able to stand only until Christian truth and light become predominant, it surely will be wise of those who seek a niche in its apartments as their paramount and final good, to pause ere they proceed.
If they desire a reputation that shall outlive guilt and fiction, let them look to the basis of military fame:
If this fame should one day sink into oblivion and contempt, it will not be the first instance in which wide-spread glory has been found to be a glittering bubble that has burst and been forgotten.
Look at the days of chivalry:
Of the 10 thousand knights of the middle ages, where is now the honour or the name?
Yet poets once sang their praises, and the chronicler of their achievements believed he was recording an everlasting fame. Where are now the glories of the tournament? Glories…
“Of which all Europe rung from side to side.”
Where is the champion whom princes caressed and nobles envied? Where are now the triumphs of Duns Scotus, and where are the folios that perpetuated his fame?
The glories of war have indeed outlived these.
Human passions are less mutable than human follies; but I am willing to avow my conviction that these glories are alike destined to sink into forgetfulness;
and that the time is approaching when the applauses of heroism and the splendours of conquest will be remembered only as follies and iniquities that are past.
Let him who seeks for fame, other than that which an era of Christian purity will allow, make haste; for every hour that he delays its acquisition will shorten its duration. This is certain, if there is certainty in the promises of Heaven.
In inquiring into the foundation of military glory, it will be borne in mind that it is acknowledged by our adversaries that this glory is not recognized by Christianity:
No part of the heroic character, says one of the great advocates of war, is the subject of the “commendation, or precepts, or example” of Christ; but the character and dispositions most opposite to the heroic are the subject of them all.
This is a great concession; and it surely is the business of Christians, who are sincere in their profession, to doubt the purity of that “glory” and the rectitude of that “heroic character,” which it is acknowledged that their Great Instructor never in any shape countenanced, and often obliquely condemned.
If it may be attempted to define why glory is allotted to the soldier, we suppose that we shall be referred to his skill, bravery, or patriotism.
Of skill it is not necessary to speak, since very few have the opportunity of displaying it:
The business of the great majority is only obedience, and obedience of that sort which almost precludes the exercise of talent.
The rational and immortal being, who raises the edifice of his fame on simple bravery, has chosen an unworthy and frail foundation. Separate bravery from motives and purposes, and what will remain but that which is possessed by a mastiff or a gamecock?
All just, all rational, and, we will venture to affirm, all permanent reputation refers to the mind or to virtue; and what connection has animal power or animal hardihood with intellect or goodness?
I do not decry courage:
I know that He who was better acquainted than we are with the nature and worth of human actions attached much value to courage; but he attached none to bravery.
Courage He recommended by his precepts and enforced by his example; bravery He never recommended at all. The wisdom of this distinction, and its accordance with the principles of his religion, are plain.
Bravery requires the existence of many of those dispositions that he disallowed:
Animosity, resentment, the desire for retaliation, and the disposition to injure and destroy – all this is necessary to bravery, but all this is incompatible with Christianity.
The courage that Christianity requires is to bravery what fortitude is to daring – an effort of the mind rather than of the spirits. It is a calm, steady determinateness of purpose that will not be diverted by solicitation or awed by fear.
“Behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself.”
What resemblance has bravery to courage like this?
This courage is a virtue, and a virtue that it is difficult to acquire or to practice;
and we have, therefore, heedlessly or ingeniously transferred its praise to another quality, which is inferior in its nature and easier to acquire, in order that we may obtain the reputation of virtue at a cheap rate.
That simple bravery implies much merit, it will be difficult to show – at least, if it is meritorious,
we think it will not always be easy, in awarding the honours of a battle, to determine the preponderance of virtue between the soldier and the horse that carries him.
But patriotism is the great foundation of the soldier’s glory. Patriotism is the universal theme:
To “fight nobly for our country;”
to “fall, covered with glory, in our country’s cause;”
to “sacrifice our lives for the liberties, laws, and religion of our country”
- are phrases in the mouth of every man.
What do they mean, and to whom do they apply?
We contend that to say generally of those who perish in war, that “they have died for their country,” is simply untrue; and for this simple reason, that they did not fight for it.
To impugn the notion of ages, is perhaps a hardy task – but we wish to employ, not dogmatism, but argument; and we maintain that men have commonly no such purity of motive, that they have no such patriotism.
What is the officer’s motive for entering the army?
We appeal to himself. Is it not that he may obtain an income?
And what is the motive of the private?
Is it not that he prefers a life of idleness to industry, or that he had no wish but the wish for change?
Having entered the army, what, again, is the soldier’s motive to fight?
Is it not that fighting is a part of his business – that it is one of the conditions of his servitude?
We are not now saying that these motives are bad, but we are saying that they are the motives, and that patriotism is not.
Of those who fall in battle, is there one in a hundred who even thinks of his country’s good?
He thinks, perhaps, of its glory, and of the honour of his regiment, but for his country’s advantage or welfare, he has no care and no thought.
He fights because fighting is a matter of course to a soldier, because his personal reputation is at stake, because he is compelled to fight, or because he thinks nothing at all of the matter, but seldom, indeed, because he wishes to benefit his country.
He fights in battle as a horse draws a carriage - because he is compelled to do it or because he has done it before –
but he seldom thinks more of his country’s good than the same horse, if he were carrying corn to a granary, would think he was providing for the comforts of his master.
And, indeed, if the soldier speculates on his country’s good, he often cannot tell how it is affected by the quarrel. Nor is it to be expected of him that he should know this.
When there is a rumour of a war, there is an endless diversity of opinions as to its expediency, and endless oppositions of conclusion, whether it will tend more to the good of the country, to prosecute or avoid it.
If senators and statesmen cannot calculate the good or evil of a war, if one promises advantages and another predicts ruin, how is the soldier to decide? And without deciding and promoting the good, how is he to be patriotic?
Nor will much be gained by saying that questions of policy form no part of his business, and that he has no other duty than obedience;
since this is to reduce his agency to the agency of a machine; and moreover, by this rule, his arms might be directed, indifferently, to the annoyance of another country, or to the oppression of his own.
The truth is that we give to the soldier that of which we are wont to be sufficiently sparing – a gratuitous concession of merit.
In ordinary life, an individual maintains his individual opinions and pursues correspondent conduct, with the approbation of one set of men, and the censures of another:
One party says he is benefiting his country, and another maintains that he is ruining it.
But the soldier, for whatever he fights, and whether really in promotion of his country’s good or in opposition to it, is always a patriot, and is always secure of his praise.
If the war is a national calamity, and was foreseen to be such, still he fights for his country.
If his judgment has decided against the war and against its justice or expediency, still he fights for his country. He is always virtuous. If he but uses a bayonet, he is always a patriot.
“To sacrifice our lives for the liberties, and laws, and religion of our native land” are undoubtedly high-sounding words,
but who are they that will do it?
Who is it who will sacrifice his life for his country?
Will the senator who supports a war?
Will the writer who declaims upon patriotism?
Will the minister of religion who recommends the sacrifice?
Take away glory – take away war – and there is not a man of them who will do it:
Will you sacrifice your life at home?
If the loss of your life in London or at York would procure just so much benefit to your country as the loss of one soldier in the field, would you be willing to lay your head upon the block?
Are you willing to die without notice and without remembrance, and for the sake of this little undiscoverable contribution to your country’s good?
You would, perhaps, die to save your country, but this is not the question. A soldier’s death does not save his country.
The question is, whether, without any of the circumstances of war, without any of its glory or its pomp, you are willing to resign yourself to the executioner. If you are not, you are not willing to die for your country.
And there is not an individual among the thousands who declaim upon patriotism who is willing to do it. He will lay down his life, indeed – but it must be in war. He is willing to die – but it is for glory, not patriotism.
The argument we think is clear—that patriotism is not the motive; and that in no rational use of language can it be said that the soldier “dies for his country.”
Men will not sacrifice their lives at all, unless it is in war, and they do not sacrifice them in war from motives of patriotism.
What then is the foundation of military fame? Is it bravery?
Bravery has little connection with reason, and less with religion. Intellect may despise it, and Christianity condemns it.
Is it patriotism? Do we refer to the soldier’s motives and purposes?
If we do, he is not necessarily or often a patriot.
It was a common expression among sailors, and perhaps may be so still: “I hate the French, because they are slaves, and wear wooden shoes.” This was the sum of their reasoning and their patriotism; and I do not think the mass of those who fight on land possess greater.