This is just my wishful thinking, and I'm fully aware of it... however, since I'm reading Philip Haythornthwaite's the Armies of Wellington (a rather intimate study of the British army/land campaigns of the 1794-1815 period), please indulge me.
1 - When was the last remotely civilised war? And by civilised, I mean when for all that you tried killing your enemy, you only did so when he (or she) had a gun/weapon in their hands. [footnote]regarding George Napier - 'He recorded an incident which epitomized the 'live and let live' system which obtained: "One fine moonlight night our advanced sentry called the attention of Colonel Alexander to the French sentry at his front, who was distinctly seen in the moonlight leaning against a tree, and fast asleep with his musket by his side. Alexander went quietly up to him, and took possession of the musket, and then awoke him. The man at first was much frightened upon finding himself disarmed, and in the hands of an English officer. Alexander gave him back his firelock, merely remarking, that it was fortunate for him that he had found him asleep on his post, instead of one of his own officers."'[/footnote]
2 - When was the last war during which the belligerents genuinely respected each other? As people, not just as combatants.[footnote]'Those taken prisoner might expect some ill-treatment in the immediate stress and rage of battle; but when tempers cooled both British and French generally treated their captives with humanity. For example, Major Charles Napier was bayoneted as he lay wounded at Corunna, and would have been murdered had he not been saved by a French drummer; but after the action, Marshal Soult sent his own surgeon to dress his wounds, gave him money and fed him from his own table; and Marshal Ney arranged for Napier to go home even before an official exchange of prisoners had been agreed. As his brother George Napier remarked: "To treat your enemy when in your power with every respect and kindness is the true characteristic of a brave man. None but the worthless coward insults or maltreats his prisoner; and, as the French officers are as brave as any men upon earth, so their conduct was human and generous."'[/footnote]
3 - When was the last war during which the soldiers of one side considered the plight of the civilians of the other?[footnote]The behaviour of British prisoners was generally good; indeed, a story concerning some 300 en route to repatriation in 1814 told how they complained to the French authorities about being billetted upon French civilians, not because the French begrudged them food, but because the privision of such food left the civilians and their children short which, according to one of the prisoners "we take to be a greater hardship than any we found in prison."[/footnote]
4 - When was the last time a victorious commander was self-effacing in glory?[footnote]regarding Arthur Wellesley - 'When in 1836 Lady Salisbury remarked that Waterloo had raised his fame above that of any other person, he replied, without false modesty that he had never considered it, for that would be "a feeling of vanity; one's first thought is for the public service... I come constantly into contact with other persons on equal or inferior terms. Perhaps there is no man now existing who would like to meet me on a field of battle; in that line I am superior. But when the war is over and the troops disbanded, what is your great general more than anybody else? I am necessarily inferior to every man in his own line, though I may excel him in others. I cannot saw and plane like a carpenter, or make shoes like a shoemaker, or understand cultivation like a farmer. Each of hese, one his own ground, meets me on terms of superiority. I feel I am but a man." A somewhat similar remark was said to have been made at the closing stages of the Battle of Waterloo, when the Duke rode forward in pursuit of the French. An aide begger him not to risk his life unnecessarily; "Let them fire away," he replied, "The battle's won; my life is of no consequence now."'[/footnote]
As I say... wishful thinking...
1 - When was the last remotely civilised war? And by civilised, I mean when for all that you tried killing your enemy, you only did so when he (or she) had a gun/weapon in their hands. [footnote]regarding George Napier - 'He recorded an incident which epitomized the 'live and let live' system which obtained: "One fine moonlight night our advanced sentry called the attention of Colonel Alexander to the French sentry at his front, who was distinctly seen in the moonlight leaning against a tree, and fast asleep with his musket by his side. Alexander went quietly up to him, and took possession of the musket, and then awoke him. The man at first was much frightened upon finding himself disarmed, and in the hands of an English officer. Alexander gave him back his firelock, merely remarking, that it was fortunate for him that he had found him asleep on his post, instead of one of his own officers."'[/footnote]
2 - When was the last war during which the belligerents genuinely respected each other? As people, not just as combatants.[footnote]'Those taken prisoner might expect some ill-treatment in the immediate stress and rage of battle; but when tempers cooled both British and French generally treated their captives with humanity. For example, Major Charles Napier was bayoneted as he lay wounded at Corunna, and would have been murdered had he not been saved by a French drummer; but after the action, Marshal Soult sent his own surgeon to dress his wounds, gave him money and fed him from his own table; and Marshal Ney arranged for Napier to go home even before an official exchange of prisoners had been agreed. As his brother George Napier remarked: "To treat your enemy when in your power with every respect and kindness is the true characteristic of a brave man. None but the worthless coward insults or maltreats his prisoner; and, as the French officers are as brave as any men upon earth, so their conduct was human and generous."'[/footnote]
3 - When was the last war during which the soldiers of one side considered the plight of the civilians of the other?[footnote]The behaviour of British prisoners was generally good; indeed, a story concerning some 300 en route to repatriation in 1814 told how they complained to the French authorities about being billetted upon French civilians, not because the French begrudged them food, but because the privision of such food left the civilians and their children short which, according to one of the prisoners "we take to be a greater hardship than any we found in prison."[/footnote]
4 - When was the last time a victorious commander was self-effacing in glory?[footnote]regarding Arthur Wellesley - 'When in 1836 Lady Salisbury remarked that Waterloo had raised his fame above that of any other person, he replied, without false modesty that he had never considered it, for that would be "a feeling of vanity; one's first thought is for the public service... I come constantly into contact with other persons on equal or inferior terms. Perhaps there is no man now existing who would like to meet me on a field of battle; in that line I am superior. But when the war is over and the troops disbanded, what is your great general more than anybody else? I am necessarily inferior to every man in his own line, though I may excel him in others. I cannot saw and plane like a carpenter, or make shoes like a shoemaker, or understand cultivation like a farmer. Each of hese, one his own ground, meets me on terms of superiority. I feel I am but a man." A somewhat similar remark was said to have been made at the closing stages of the Battle of Waterloo, when the Duke rode forward in pursuit of the French. An aide begger him not to risk his life unnecessarily; "Let them fire away," he replied, "The battle's won; my life is of no consequence now."'[/footnote]
...the Morning Chronicle said:
As I say... wishful thinking...
