law with its ferocious threats for the slightest resistance against the so-called military spirit, in the military judiciary with its semi-mediæval procedure, with its habit of meting out the most inhuman and barbaric punishments for the slightest insubordination and its mild treatment of the transgressions committed by superiors against their subordinates, with its habit of juggling away, almost on principle, the soldier's right of self-defence against his superiors. Nothing can arouse more bitter feeling against militarism and nothing can at the same time be more instructive than a simple perusal of the articles of war and the records of the military penal cases.
This chapter also includes the maltreatment of soldiers, which will be specially dealt with on a
tenciers and the travaux forcés (penal companies, penitentiaries and hard labor) in the French Foreign Legion and the victims of these institutions can be found in Däumig's article in the Neue Zeit, vol. 99–100, p. 365, and especially p. 369. At this writing energetic attempts are being made to suppress the "biribiri," (Debates of the French Chamber, December 8 and 10, 1906).
The disciplinary beatings (ragging) to which the officers of English grenadier guard regiments are wont to regale each other with a laudable democratic zeal deserve to be mentioned as a curiosity.
