"
Death, their own or other people's, does not mean very much to some
who, in the trenches, sat within a few yards of stinking corpses,
knowing that the next shell might make such of them. Life was cheap in
war. Is it not cheap in peace? . . .
The discipline of military life is mainly an imposed discipline--
mechanical, and enforced in the last resort not by reason, but by
field punishment or by a firing platoon. Whereas many men were made
brisk and alert by discipline and saw the need of it for the general
good, others were always in secret rebellion against its restraints of
the individual will, and as soon as they were liberated broke away
from it as slaves from their chains, and did not substitute self-
discipline for that which had weighed heavy on them. With all its
discipline, army life was full of lounging, hanging about, waste of
time, waiting for things to happen. It was an irresponsible life for
the rank and file. Food was brought to them, clothes were given to
them, entertainments were provided behind the line, sports organized,
their day ordered by high powers.
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