He
talked of the game of spellicans among the Balkan nationalities. How was
that difficulty to be met? In Macedonia there were Turkish villages that
were Christian and Bulgarians that were Moslem. There were families that
changed the termination of their names from _ski_ to _off_ as Serbian or
Bulgarian prevailed. I remarked that that showed a certain passion for
peace, and that much of the mischief might be due to the propaganda
of the great Powers. I have a prejudice against that blessed Whig
"principle of nationality," but the King of Italy was not to be drawn
into any statement about that. He left the question with his admission
of its extreme complexity.
He went on to talk of the strange contrasts of war, of such things as
the indifference of the birds to gunfire and desolation. One day on
the Carso he had been near the newly captured Austrian trenches, and
suddenly from amidst a scattered mass of Austrian bodies a quail had
risen that had struck him as odd, and so too had the sight of a pack of
cards and a wine flask on some newly-made graves. The ordinary life was
a very _obstinate_ thing....
He talked of the courage of modern men. He was astonished at the
quickness with which they came to disregard shrapnel. And they were
so quietly enduring when they were wounded. He had seen a lot of the
wounded, and he had expected much groaning and crying out.
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