In the midst of this plain there rises most abruptly1 a little market town. It stands upon a conical hill some 300 feet in height, and the impression it gives of being a rock or an island is enhanced by the height of its buildings, which, as is the case with nearly all mediæval work, are designed for a general effect, and are, whether consciously or unconsciously, as well planned and grouped as though one artist had sketched2 the whole and had left an inviolable design to posterity3.
In this little town I had business some years ago to stop for the night, and when the next morning I found that there were two hours between my [Pg 237]breakfast and my train I walked out on to the crest4 of the hill to see the view and to think about the past. It was autumn; the many artificially aligned5 trees which bordered the winding6, deserted7 avenues all round the edge of the height were losing their leaves; the air was singularly clear, and the effect of the small but isolated8 height upon which one stood was very strong. I came to the north-eastern corner of the huge ramparts which still surround the little place, and there I found a most interesting man. He was upon the border between what are called now-a-days middle age and old age; that is, he was an old man, and if he lived would soon be a very old man. He was erect9 and spare; he was short, and he had all the bearing of a man who has been perpetually trained, and, indeed, I found out when I got to know him better that he had seen service in Africa and in Russia and in Mexico, three very distant places. He had never, however, risen beyond the rank of colonel; he was a gunner, and exceedingly poor, and he was finishing his life alone in this little town. They gave him meals at the hotel for a sum agreed upon between them. Where he lodged10 he did not choose to tell me, but I fancy in some very cheap and ruinous little room under one of the big Flemish roofs of the place. His only pleasure was to take these walks about the town, to read his newspaper before it was twenty-four hours old, and to remember the trade in which he had been engaged.
[Pg 238]
We sat together on the very edge of the rampart, and I asked him, since it was his business to know so much about these things, whether the place would ever in his opinion enter once again into the scheme of European war.
He told me that this was absolutely certain; he said there was no field so small nor no village so forgotten, but in its cycle was swept by one or other of those armies which the peoples of Europe send out one against the other, pursuing various ends. This little town in which we sat had never seen an enemy for over two hundred years; yet there beneath us was the enormous evidence of its past. The trench11 was like a street fifty feet or sixty feet deep, as the house fronts of a street are, as wide at least as the narrow streets of any of these old towns, and on the further side the enormous heap of earth, and beyond it the level descent of the glacis. Here was a town not larger than some of our smaller English cathedral towns, Ely for instance, yet having round it such a mighty12 effort and proof of military determination as would to-day seem worthy13 of a great city. These fortifications ran all round the place, the two only gates in and out of it (through which ran the great road which linked the stronghold with the capital) were flanked by such works as the great modern forts occasionally show, and upon every point of its circumference14 one perceived the fixed15 will of a crushing Government responsible for all the destinies of a nation that this place should be inviolable.
[Pg 239]
My companion said to me: "Many men choose many things as their examples of the way in which nothing human can remain, and to most men the best example is the change of taste in art or letters. They point out how great buildings put up with infinite care by men who loved them with all their souls seem tawdry to an immediate16 posterity; and they wonder why verse which was supreme17 in their childhood is ridiculed19 in their old age. But to me the most formidable proof of our futility20 is to be found in works such as these. They succeed each other all over Europe. Long before our written record began you have the Cyclopæan Wars; what you can see in Tuscany and further east in the Mediterranean21. You have the Roman entrenchments, and the mediæval castles, and the new system of Vauban which the Italians created, and of which this earthquake before us is the finest work. And each in its turn bears on into its future the stamp of futility. Something changes in man: he makes a new weapon (or he forgets the old), he develops a new method of attack or a different mood in connection with war; nay22, his very desires in the matter of victory change, for he will desire in one generation glory, and in another profit, and in a third the mere23 occupation of a particular piece of sacred land. And as these human things change in him, so the fortification of his cities become like garments out of fashion and are useless for their purpose and are thrown aside."
"You might then say," said I, "that those who[Pg 240] fortify24 to-day are foolish; and, for that matter, you might add that those who have fortified25 in the past were foolish. For since each in turn is proved to be wrong with regard to the future, each generation might have spared itself this enormous labour."
"You are right when you call it enormous labour," said he, "but you are wrong when you say that it was ever futile26. What a labour it is only those know who have looked closely into and meditated27 upon the fortifications of the past. The chalk hills and ramparts thrown up upon them by men perhaps who could use no spade and who depended for carriage upon baskets, which we to-day, when we estimate them in a modern method, reckon in fantastic sums of money; and this was done to defend, we know not what, by men every record of whom has perished. The ancient walls of the cities are much the largest and the strongest buildings they can boast, and much the most enduring. The transformation28 of a city two hundred years ago and more, when hardly a frontier place of Europe but had its elaborate system of main and out works, proves the same labour. Consider little Bayonne, never other than a little town, and yet flanked with a work which must have meant more than the building of a modern railway. And then, lastly, consider to-day the great garrisons29 circled with forts: Spezia and Metz, and the French frontier garrisons, and Antwerp and the line of the Meuse. And even, at the far ends of the world, Port Arthur, which, though it was never finished,[Pg 241] was to have been among the greatest of all. Yes, it is a toil30 if you like, and that is why those who court defeat by boasting shirk it or ridicule18 it."
"But they are right to ridicule it," said I, "since time itself ridicules31 the walls of a city, and since it can be shown that no city has been made impregnable."
"You use a false argument," he insisted; "it is as though you were to say that because all men die therefore no man should live. These trenches32 and these walls and these circles of isolated forts to-day procure33 for men who fight under their shoulder a draft upon Time. That is what fortification is, and that is why all who have ever understood the art of war have fortified; and all who, upon the contrary, have in one way or another failed to understand the art of war, whether because they secretly desired to avoid arms or whether because they believed themselves invincible34 (which is the most unmilitary mood in the world!) have failed to fortify."
"I have heard it said," I answered him, "in the schools where such things are taught, that the Romans, as they were the chief masters of war, were also the most plodding35 in the use of the spade, and that not only would they fortify permanently36 every military post, but that they cast up a square fieldwork round them every night, wherever the army rested."
The little spare old gunner shrugged37 his shoulders. "They would have found it awkward," he said, "to[Pg 242] do that in the case of a single battery quartered during manœuvres in a country house. But in general you are right: the Romans, who were the great masters of the art of war, thought of the spade and of the sword as of twin brothers, only the sword was the more noble, and in a fashion the elder of the two. At any rate, certainly those who are in the tradition of the Romans perpetually fortify...." Then he asked me abruptly: "Since you are a foreigner and since you say that you have travelled (for I had told him of my travels when we made acquaintance), have you not noticed that wherever men are boastful or inept38 they despise fortifications, and that it is absent, and that the bases of their military action, their depots39, their political centres, their harbours and dockyards lie open?"
"I cannot tell," I answered, "for I have no knowledge of such things."
"Well, you find it is so," he said, and he walked away. He was much ruder and more long-winded than if he had been in the Cavalry40, but you cannot have everything at once.
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1
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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aligned
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| adj.对齐的，均衡的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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7
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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8
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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circumference
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| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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fortify
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| v.强化防御，为…设防；加强，强化 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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29
garrisons
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| 守备部队，卫戍部队( garrison的名词复数 ) | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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ridicules
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| n.嘲笑( ridicule的名词复数 )；奚落；嘲弄；戏弄v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的第三人称单数 ) | |
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32
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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37
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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inept
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| adj.不恰当的，荒谬的，拙劣的 | |
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depots
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| 仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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