John Buchan: That night I realized the crazy folly of war
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
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John Buchan
From Greenmantle
That night I realized the crazy folly of war. When I saw the splintered shell of Ypres and heard hideous tales of German doings, I used to want to see the whole land of the Boche given up to fire and sword. I thought we could never end the war properly without giving the Huns some of their own medicine. But that woodcutter’s cottage cured me of such nightmares. I was for punishing the guilty but letting the innocent go free….What good would it do Christian folk to burn poor little huts like this and leave children’s bodies by the wayside? To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beasts.
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Citizens need to wake up and pursue the Criminalisation of All Military Establishments worldwide…release all military personnel into civilian life.
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Amen.
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