A Higher Form of Killing Read Online Free Page A

“a condition that the progress of civilisation will bring about by necessity.” The hotel in which she stayed for the conference flew a white flag in honor of her and her views.
    Even mild-mannered Andrew White complained that “the queer letters and crankish proposals which come in every day are amazing . . . The Quakers are out in full force . . . The number of people with plans, schemes, notions, nostrums, whimsies of all sorts who press upon us and try to take our time, is enormous and when this is added to the pest of interviewers and photographers, life becomes serious indeed.” To his regret the pressure of work imposed by the conference required that “for the first time in my life I have made Sunday a day of work.”
    White and the head of the British delegation, Sir Julian Pauncefote, both had members of their teams who were difficult to control and whose views were often at variance with their governmental instructions. Both the chief mavericks represented their country’s navy. The Briton was fifty-eight-year-old Admiral Jacky Fisher, destined to play an important part in the events of spring 1915. From relatively humble beginnings—his father was a failed coffee planter—he had made a spectacular rise through the navy for which he advocated less bureaucracy, less ship painting, and far fewer time-wasting drills and in their place far more training, far better gunnery, heavier armaments, a broader officer-recruitment base, and a new emphasis on torpedoes and defenses against them.
    Both charismatic and tactless, Fisher made friends and enemies equally quickly. He stood out at The Hague not only for his opinions but also for his white top hat and tireless skills on the dance floor. His language was colorful and exaggerated. The existence of politicians had “deepened his faith in Providence. How else could one explain Britain’s continued existence as a nation?” His bold scrawl, usually in green ink, was full of exclamation marks, and double and triple underlinings, and he frequently admonished his addressee to burn his letters after reading to protect his confidences. He signed letters “Yours till hell freezes” and “Yours till charcoal sprouts.”
    At every opportunity Fisher derided the objective of humanizing war as naive:
     
The humanising of war? You might as well talk about humanising Hell! The essence of war is violence! Moderation in war is imbecility! . . . I am not for war, I am for peace. That is why I am for a supreme Navy. The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for the peace of the world . . . If you rub it in both at home and abroad that you are ready for instant war . . . and intend to be first in and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any) . . . and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you.
     
    He believed all nations wanted peace “but a peace that suits them.” An enemy’s realization of the horrors of war coupled with conviction about Britain’s readiness to fight were the best deterrents of all. It was his duty, Fisher said, to see that his country, and in particular its navy, were prepared.
    He was similarly dismissive of the delegates’ debate about the freedom of the seas and the rights of “neutral shipping”:
     
Suppose that war breaks out, and I am expecting to fight a new Trafalgar on the morrow. Some neutral colliers try to steam past us into the enemy’s waters. If the enemy gets their coal into his bunkers, it may make all the difference in the coming fight. You tell me I must not seize these colliers. I tell you that nothing that you, or any power on earth, can say will stop me from sending them to the bottom, if I can in no other way keep their coal out of the enemy’s hands; for to-morrow I am to fight the battle which will save or wreck the Empire. If I win it, I shall be far too big a man to be effected by protests about the