Formerly, a soldier was a man of daring and adventure, brave and audacious, preferring an irregular life to the narrowing restraints of civil existence. The old time soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without fear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies that he masters the laws of chance. Valour, recklessness, together with a certain rough eloquence, a certain itch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were pay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was filled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he roamed through unknown lands. Until a few years ago, the soldier might have been summed up in three words: he was brave, ignorant and adventurous. The warrior of this school passed out of Europe about the middle of the 19th Century. He became extinct in Spain at the conclusion of our Second Civil War. Since that day there has been a fundamental change in the life of the soldier. War has taken on greater magnitude, while the soldier has become more refined, and it is not to be denied that both war and the fighting man are losing their traditional prestige. |