A Higher Form of Killing (48 page)

“every animal function.”: Quoted D. T. Thomas,
Cochrane
, p. 194.

“accord . . . warfare”: Ibid., p. 326.

“No conduct . . . inhuman . . . the most . . .at all.”: Quoted J.F.C. Fuller,
Machine Warfare
, p. 232.

“so horrible . . . no honourable combatant”: Quoted W. Moore,
Gas Attack!
, p. 5.

“Four or . . . coke . . . a couple . . . barrels . . . igniting . . . potassium.”: Quoted Thomas,
Cochrane
, p. 338.

 
“smoked . . . blown up”: Quoted Moore,
Gas Attack!
, p. 4.

 
“thousands of lives”: Quoted Thomas,
Cochrane
, p. 337.

 
Palmerston wrote cynically to his secretary for war that provided Cochrane was prepared to go to the Crimea to oversee his scheme in person they should accept his offer: “If it succeeds, it will, as you say, save a great number of English and French lives; if it fails in his hands we shall be exempt from blame, and if we come in for a small share of the ridicule, we can bear it and the greater part will fall on him.” (Thomas,
Cochrane
, p. 338.)

 
“such . . . guns.”: Quoted W. D. Miles, “The Idea of Chemical Warfare in Modern Times,”
Journal of the History of Ideas
, vol. 31. no. 2, p. 299.

“It is . . . incomprehensible.”: Ibid.

“a scheme . . . destructive . . . such a . . . world.”: Ibid. p. 303.

 
A geologist, Forrest Shepherd of Connecticut, urged President Lincoln to use hydrogen chloride to force Confederate troops from their entrenchments: “By mingling strong sulphuric acid with strong hydrochloric . . . a dense white cloud is at once formed . . . When the cloud strikes a man it sets him to coughing, sneezing etc., but does not kill him, while it would effectually prevent him from firing a gun . . . It has occurred to me that Gen. Burnside, with his colored troops might, on a dark night, with a gentle breeze favorable, surprise and capture the strongholds of Petersburg or Fort Darling, perhaps, without loss or shedding of blood.”

 
“Chlorine . . . gas.”: “The Idea of Chemical Warfare,” p. 300.

“genius . . . in inventing . . . war”: Quoted A. A. Roberts,
The Poison War
, p. 20.

 
“What would . . . region”: Dr. S. Johnson,
Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
, chapter 6 (
A Dissertation on the Art of Flying
).

 
“Of what . . . baby?”: Quoted E. Dudley,
Monsters of the Purple Twilight
, p.11.

“must have . . . engine.”: Ibid.

 
“as the . . . life”: Ibid., p. 12.

 
“dirigible balloons . . . a very . . . warfare”: Dr. Hugo Eckener, Count Zeppelin’s business partner, reporting the count’s views, ibid., p. 13.

CHAPTER THREE—“THE LAW OF FACTS”

 
“A small . . . experience.”:
Life Magazine
, November 15, 1900.

 
“agitation . . . notoriety”: Quoted Moorehead,
Dunant’s Dream
, p. 145.

 
“When . . . a war? . . . When . . . barbarism”: Ibid.

 
The first defensive military use of barbed wire was during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

 
The kaiser had also coined the phrase “The Yellow Peril” for the Japanese five years previously after Japan’s victory in another war against China.

 
“Every Chinaman . . . revolting.”: R. Keyes,
Adventures Ashore and Afloat
, p. 296.

 
“the frequent . . . women” . . . It is . . . French soldier.”: G. Lynch,
The War of the Civilisations
, p. 140.

 
By then . . . “further serious study.”: Quotes are from B. Tuchman,
The Proud Tower
, pp. 278 and 285.

 
“a great government”: Quoted S. Budiansky,
Air Power
, p. 24.

 
“wonderful . . . advance”: Quoted H. G. Castle,
Fire over England
, p. 5.

 
Japan . . . compensation: The extracts from the convention on neutral rights are from Roberts and Guelff, eds.,
Documents on the Law of War
, p. 63.

 
“by the . . . facts.”: Quoted Tuchman,
The Proud Tower
, p. 284.

CHAPTER FOUR—“A SCRAP OF PAPER”

 
“the battleships . . . future.”: Quoted R. K. Massie,
Castles of Steel
, p. 123.

 
“a mode . . . deprive us of it.”: Quoted H. C. Fyfe,
Submarine Warfare, Past, Present and Future
, p. 14.

“As to . . . progress.”: Quoted P. R. Compton-Hall,
Submarine Boats
, p. 50.

 
“not our concern.”: Quoted Fyfe,
Submarine Warfare
, p. xiii.

 
“submarines . . . defensive.”: Response to parliamentary question asked on April 6, 1900, by Captain Norton, MP. (
Hansard
). Lord Goschen was the eldest brother of Sir Edward Goschen, British ambassador to Berlin on the eve of the First World War.

 
“The Admiralty . . . nation . . . Underwater . . . crews.”: Quoted D. van der Vat,
Stealth at Sea
, p. 33.

 
“the immense . . . war”: Letter from Fisher to Admiral May, April 24, 1904, in Marder,
Fear God and Dread Nought,
vol. 1, p. 308.

 
“any maritime . . . defence”: Quoted Compton-Hall,
Submarine Boats
, p. 129.

 
“would . . . wars . . . the constant . . . destruction”: Quoted in R. Hough,
First Sea Lord
,
p. 5.

 
“an utterly . . . box . . . a coffin . . . like . . . plaster . . . into . . . pot . . . Read . . . perseveringly . . . Not . . . to be.”: Charles Dickens’s comments are from his
American
Notes
(chapter 2, “The Passage Out”), to be found, inter alia, on the Internet at www. people.virginia.edu (edited by J. L. Griffith, University of Virginia).

 
“we must . . . these.”: Quoted T. Coleman,
The Liners
, p. 41.

 
“Morganization . . . Atlantic”: Quoted ibid., p. 48.

 
“restless . . . originality”: Quoted R. K. Massie,
Dreadnought
, p. 766.

 
“For Germany . . . possible.”: The full memorandum is quoted in J. Steinberg,
Yesterday’s Deterrent—Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet
, pp. 209–21.

 
“I could . . . kaleidoscope.”: Von Tirpitz,
My Memoirs
, vol. 1, p. 99.

 
“already . . . Belgium . . . Our invasion . . . reached.”: The full text is in R. H. Lutz,
Fall of the German Empire, Documents 1914–18
,
vol. 1.

 
“excited . . . very agitated . . . unthinkable . . . like . . . assailants . . . just . . . nation.”: These quotes are from the “
Blue Book” of British Government
, no. 160, Goschen to Grey.

“of quite . . . women . . . seemed . . . treason.”: The sources for these quotes are Sir H. Rumbold,
The War Crisis in Berlin, July–August 1914
, p. 323, and M. Gilbert,
The First World
War
, p. 33.

 
“My blood . . . war.”: T. Bethmann Hollweg,
Reflections
,
p. 159.

 
“He is Satan . . . he is.”: R. Zedlitz-Trützschler,
Twelve Years at the Imperial German Court
, p. 178.

 
“a very . . . foreigners.”: Quoted Massie,
Castles of Steel
, p. 7.

 
“I have . . . for me.”: Von Tirpitz,
My Memoirs
, vol. 1, p. 275.

 
“to think . . . allowed it . . . only . . . Georgie.”: Quoted Blücher,
An English Wife in Berlin
, p. 14.

 
“the two Teutonic nations”: Quoted G. MacDonogh,
The Last Kaiser
, p. 252.

 
“with such . . . armaments.”: Ibid.

 
“I have . . . liked by us.”: Quoted Massie,
Dreadnought
, p. 167.

 
“the English . . . Portugal.”: Von Tirpitz,
My Memoirs
, vol. II, p. 235.

 
“All is . . . lost.”: Quoted M. Gilbert,
The First World War
, p. 32.