"
In all the wars in which Ug has engaged in historic times that with Wug
was the most destructive of life. Excepting among the comparatively few
troops that had the hygienic and preservative advantage of personal
collision with the enemy, the mortality was appalling. Regiments exposed
to the fatal conditions of camp life in their own country died like flies
in a frost. So pathetic were the pleas of the sufferers to be led against
the enemy and have a chance to live that none hearing them could forbear
to weep. Finally a considerable number of them went to the seat of war,
where they began an immediate attack upon a fortified city, for their
health; but the enemy's resistance was too brief materially to reduce the
death rate and the men were again in the hands of their officers. On their
return to Ug they were so few that the public executioners charged with
the duty of reducing the army to a peace footing were themselves made ill
by inactivity.
As to the navy, the war with Wug having shown the Uggard sailors to be
immortal, their government knows not how to get rid of them, and remains a
great sea power in spite of itself. I ventured to suggest mustering out,
but neither the King nor any Minister of State was able to form a
conception of any method of reduction and retrenchment but that of the
public headsman.
It is said--I do not know with how much truth--that the defeat of Wug was
made easy by a certain malicious prevision of the Wuggards themselves:
something of the nature of heroic self-sacrifice, the surrender of a
present advantage for a terrible revenge in the future.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105