Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/134

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102
MILITARISM

which proved of too great an advantage to the socialist propaganda, and though they did not believe in any substantial success, they yet wanted to arouse the impression of dislike for the institution and readiness to try their best to abolish it. They began to hunt down with a certain amount of severity those guilty of maltreating soldiers, but militarism has after all a greater interest in maintaining military discipline, in training the people in arms to be docile fighters in the struggle against their own international and national interests, than in attacking the maltreatment of soldiers. It is instructive to compare the sentences passed upon the basest tormentors of soldiers with those pronounced almost daily upon soldiers for often quite petty offences against their superiors, or for offences committed in a state of excitement or intoxication by soldiers against their superiors. For the soldier there is a blood-thirsty, Draconic punishment for the smallest sin against the holy ghost of militarism; for the other offender there is, in spite of all, a relatively mild indulgence and understanding. Thus the campaign of the military