Justitia with blood stain on her hand

Britain’s bombshells rained on the French’s trenches. The artilleries fired bombs relentlessly along the trench line. The aiming was surprisingly accurate, making more victims from every bomb dropped on the field. Five officers and eighty soldiers lost their lives until the British army ceased fire and began advancement.

This is not a scene from a modern warfare, but from a battle between the French and British armies, which took place in Germany during the war of the Spanish Succession. On the day, General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and an ancestor of Winston Churchill was leading the British troops. The bronze cannon used then had much weaker power and performances compared to those used in contemporary war.

Still, the artillery’s aiming was highly accurate. The real reason, however, that it could take such a huge toll was the soldiers on the other side had to be in standing position with holding their head up high. The officers in 1700s believed they needed to be ready in attention position to take nimble responses when the enemies made dash. Under this belief, the troops had to face up and could not take their eyes off from the battle field. The officers’ rationale was, crouching like a coward – when the enemy is approaching- would make their armed forces would lose their confidence, become fearful and confused, thus would fail to aim their guns toward the enemy. It is not that officers in those days were heartless people who would treat the lives of soldiers as nothing. However, they were at fault for easily falling in to the trap of ‘rationale of bluffing’ which led them to fail at taking different approaches when fighting back. They would have mumbled themselves the same spells over and over again, “we needed that sacrifice to avoid even bigger catastrophe (defeat)”.

Some people would express frantic anger and lash out criticism upon hearing the story. What is ironical is that those people tend to have even stronger obsession on simple statements and dogmas. Not all, but mostly they are. If asked whether their dogma has been validated, they would answer it was. If they fail to validate, they would say it is the justice.

All the injustices and cruel acts in the world are committed under the name of justice. The most preposterous acts of humankind are nicely wrapped up with the pretty name of justice.