A modern democracy was not semifeudal Prussia, or Bourbon France, or Whig England, where soldiers could be swept from taverns, pressed from the ranks of the unskilled and unemployed, the disadvantaged put under the rod of iron, to be broken into grenadiers, to voyage and die for the realm, while the stable and fortunate citizenry said good riddance. The war would touch every metropolis, every town, almost every field. It would touch many hearts, for sons and fathers would suffer mutilation and death. And many, not hearing the angel’s trumpet that they had come to associate with the grandeur
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