, is, of course,
legal. But the bomb dropping adopted in Belgium and France, and
threatened in England, if the opportunity arises, is undisguised
terrorism, and not war.
It is important to note also that at Brussels in 1874 Antwerp addressed
a petition to the conference praying that any bombardment should be
limited to fortifications only. The commission of the conference, which
included three well-known German Generals and two professors, recognized
the justice of this plea and recommended Generals to conform to it.
But the one point that should appeal most strongly to the patriotism as
well as the idealism of America is the fact that the instructions of
1863 for armies in campaign, drawn up by the United States Government
in the height of the civil war, first codified the laws for the conduct
of war, and have been the source and starting point of all these later
international agreements.
And it should be remembered that both Germany and America signed the
Fourth Convention of The Hague with its annexed regulations as to sieges
and bombardments (Articles 22 to 28) and the further provision which may
even yet be applied punitively to the proceedings of the present war.
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