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FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Speeches and Articles 
 
 by / 
 
 GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 
 
 Premier of France 
 
 • Translated from the French 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST HUNTER WRIGHT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 681 Fifth Avenue 
 
,.f 
 
 \\e 
 
 Copyright, 1919 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 N 24 1913 
 
 ©GI.A5J 13D0 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 I. Alsace-Lorraine — Morocco — Peace with Germany. 
 
 Speech Delivered at the Dedication of the Monument to 
 
 Scheurer-Kestner 1 
 
 Speech Delivered in the Senate on the Franco-German 
 
 Agreement of November 14, 1911 8 
 
 II. The Three-year Law — the Conference op Berne — the 
 Zabern Affair — Hansi. 
 
 A Critical Hour 31 
 
 The Conference of Berne 32 
 
 A Plea for National Defense 33 
 
 Resolution or Death 34 
 
 The Effort Necessary 38 
 
 For the Delegates at Berne 38 
 
 The Question of Alsace-Lorraine 42 
 
 A Question of Life and Death 43 
 
 A Contrast 44 
 
 Call the Roll! 46 
 
 An Apology 48 
 
 The Zabern Affair , 49 
 
 Under the Great Saber . . , 52 
 
 News from Germany 54 
 
 Internationalism , 57 
 
 Bargaining for Life y . \ 62 
 
 Objectively 65 
 
 For Military Defense 69 
 
 A Question of Existence 71 
 
 That Will Not Be 76 
 
 A Problem of France 79 
 
 Triumph or Perish 82 
 
 v 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 At Thermopylae 86 
 
 Hansi! 89 
 
 Neither Defended Nor Governed 95 
 
 III. The War — The Declaration and the Preliminary 
 
 Operations. 
 
 On the Eve of Battle 101 
 
 The State of War 108 
 
 Before the Signal 114 
 
 We Must Win 119 
 
 The Two Flags 123 
 
 From the Other Side 130 
 
 A State of Mind 133 
 
 Miilhausen, Lidge, and the Right 137 
 
 Face to Face 139 
 
 The Unity of France 144 
 
 For Our Soldiers 146 
 
 All Goes Well 149 
 
 All Continues Well 150 
 
 The Great Battle 152 
 
 Ready 155 
 
 The Preliminary Silence 158 
 
 IV. From Charleroi to the Marne. 
 
 The Prime Duty 163 
 
 By Endurance 168 
 
 All Our Efforts 173 
 
 Into the Provinces for Victory 175 
 
 Toward the End of the Scourge 180 
 
 V. The First Winter Campaign — the Yser — the War 
 in the Trenches. 
 
 The Winter Campaign. ..;...• 183 
 
 In the Military Dispatches'. ' 185 
 
 For the Maintenance of Unity .- 192 
 
 All of France 195 
 
 Soldiers' Note Books 204 
 
 The First Balance-Sheet 205 
 
 The Answer of the French Universities 208 
 
 A Comparison 210 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 The Opinion of the Trenches 218 
 
 The Yellow Book ...,. 225 
 
 Those at the Front ( 231 
 
 Thoughts on the War 236 
 
 The Supreme Resistance 237 
 
 The Two Sides of the Shield 238 
 
 Garibaldi! 239 
 
 On the Arduous Path 244 
 
 Destiny 247 
 
 Our Men and Theirs 250 
 
 Messieurs, Faites Votre Jeu! 253 
 
 VI. The War of Endurance. 
 
 A Testimonial 255 
 
 Adieu, Brandes 260 
 
 From beyond the Mountains 267 
 
 As to Shirkers 269 
 
 European Revolution 272 
 
 They Are too Amusing 275 
 
 At Any Price 277 
 
 Without Hesitation 278 
 
 They and We 282 
 
 In Order to Win 286 
 
 Hold Out! 288 
 
 Patience Still 292 
 
 Impossible 295 
 
 Against the Theme of Passivity 300 
 
 Time to Breathe ; 302 
 
 The Only Question 305 
 
 VII. A Visit to the Trenches — the Champagne Offensive. 
 
 The*Smile of the Trenches 308 
 
 In Memoriam 311 
 
 At a Halting-place 317 
 
 We're Not Through Yet 322 
 
 The Languedoc Corridor 329 
 
 Sergeant Poissonnier 335 
 
 VIII. The Second Winter Campaign — the Loan. 
 
 Officers and Men 344 
 
 The War Loan 346 
 
vin CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBB PAGE 
 
 Chirping for Peace 354 
 
 On a Tour of Inspection 356 
 
 The Questions of the Hour 359 
 
 The Women 362 
 
 The Account 369 
 
 IX. Verdun. 
 
 The Cannon 374 
 
 Verdun! 377 
 
 Fifty Days Later 382 
 
 We Must 389 
 
/ 
 
 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
/ 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 France facing Germany! My friends Louis 
 Lumet and Jean Martet have brought together, 
 under this title, a series of speeches and articles, 
 sometimes condensed for the sake of avoiding 
 digressions, upon the origin of the present war as 
 well as upon the progress of hostilities. 
 
 The reader will understand, I hope, the 
 emotions and the ideas with which a patriotic 
 Frenchman must needs he animated by the vicis- 
 situdes of the deadly encounters in which law and 
 justice, and the honor and the very life of the 
 homeland are at stake. Is it not presumptuous to 
 besiege the public, in these terrible days, with 
 writings which were never meant to survive, and 
 which arrested attention only by their straight- 
 forward sincerity? But I have permitted myself 
 to be persuaded that there may be matters still 
 of interest in them, on account of the importance 
 and the universality of the principles involved as 
 well as of the results of the conflict. These 
 thoughts have prevailed upon me to bring out in 
 book form a series of disconnected opinions on the 
 roles of France and Germany in this stupendous 
 clash of human powers. Imperfections of coordi- 
 nation, in such a work, cannot be avoided. The 
 reader will, however, easily follow the thread of 
 
 xi 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 a general purpose in opinions which must funda- 
 mentally agree for the good reason that all were 
 written from a single point of view. 
 
 France facing Germany! It would he useful to 
 offer a searching study contrasting these two 
 " moral' 9 forces with each other — assuming that 
 such a term could, at this moment, be applied to 
 Teutonism. But far from any searching study, I 
 can only present to the reader, in these various 
 pieces, certain expressions of combative passion 
 which are and can be only unconnected partial 
 judgments boasting no objectivity. 
 
 It is obvious that my position on these issues is 
 not a disinterested one, and I should be sorry 
 indeed if anyone might think so. I understand 
 that no one will expect from me the verdict of a 
 judge, in his imposing ermine, or even the learned 
 decision of a Doctor at The Hague. If simple- 
 minded folk, too easily contented with appear- 
 ances, should come to look beyond what is shown 
 their eyes, they would quickly discover that the 
 judge, in his high seat, does nothing but formulate 
 the decrees of an elastic justice whose laws are 
 made out of common human judgments rendered, 
 in the accidents of circumstance, by those onlook- 
 ers who derive their authority from the free 
 exercise of an independent conscience. 
 
 Let me be permitted to be one of those onlook- 
 ers ; it is my title to a hearing. I have the temerity 
 to find it sufficient, since no one, if we consider 
 closely, can claim any other. I am a man, I think, 
 and I speak. Let anyone who can, do likewise, 
 and let the world decide. The sources of my in- 
 formation are limited, and so are my powers of 
 
/ 
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 understanding, my standards of value. I must 
 content myself with them, because against the 
 chance of a superior arbitrament I foresee only 
 centuries of debate. 
 
 What do we seek for here below! The best use 
 of a fleeting existence. Where shall we find it, if 
 not in a balance of forces, within us and around 
 us, which presupposes an equilibrium of activity 
 within us and without? A rule? — the limits of 
 liberty fixed by those conventions called the law, 
 which specify the prerogatives uniformly granted 
 to each one. Beyond this are the fatal facts of 
 man and of nature. Fortunate eventualities — 
 man sacrifices himself for his equals ; unfortunate 
 — he tries to sacrifice others, whenever he can, to 
 his own advantage. 
 
 All the efforts of righteousness and all the 
 crimes of selfishness are spread out in a long 
 series of benevolences on the one hand and of 
 abuses on the other, from the simplest kindness to 
 the noblest sacrifice, from the most specious rude- 
 ness to the most brutal atrocity. 
 
 In the social structure, for the maintenance of 
 an appearance of order, there are forms of re- 
 wards* and punishments fixed by the opinions of 
 official arbiters more or less skilful. They do their 
 work, or pretend to, by the sanction of force, 
 
 *The idea of reward is certainly the most widespread and the 
 most erroneous of all the principles that we have taken to guide 
 us. For a faultless man there is no reward except the satisfaction 
 of a disinterested ideal, and this is diminished by the ostentation 
 of a symbol. The notion of punishment is no less erroneous. 
 What gives us this right to punish? It suffices us, in the social 
 realm, to have the right to preserve, which involves the right of 
 putting the delinquent temporarily beyond the power to do harm, 
 and even of attempting to reform him. 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 which Is the ultimate reason of things. In the 
 vaster circle of the nations — since man remains 
 the same from whatever point of view he is ex- 
 amined, and since the domain of law is here much 
 less precise — there spring up at times crises of 
 brute force which up to our day the most lofty 
 idealism has tried in vain to repress or even to 
 regulate. 
 
 It is what we call war, that is to say, bloody 
 encounters in which peoples engage under various 
 pretexts of which the underlying cause is usually 
 the desire for aggrandizement at the expense of 
 others. Ancient or modern, all wars are of the 
 same nature, sprung from the same native desires, 
 and they follow the same summary course of re- 
 placing a gracious manner of life by a devastation 
 of the land and a frightful prostration of hu- 
 manity in the convulsions of death. For although 
 man has claimed divine creation he has gone on 
 destroying what he can of his fellow-creatures 
 even up to this moment of his high development. 
 
 Between the ignorant cannibal of primitive days 
 and the ninety-three intellectuals of Wilhelm II 
 there is only a difference of degree, in the desire 
 to increase the fortunes of certain people at the 
 expense of others. Supreme argument of the big 
 beast against the little! Only, big or little, man 
 is a kind of beast who, for good or evil, taxes his 
 wits to increase his means of attack and defense. 
 It is the philosophy of what is called civilization— 
 a general evolution of all selfish desires or efforts 
 at accommodation. I do not ask whither the fact 
 is leading us, since at this very hour the question 
 is in contest on the greatest battlefields where 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 men have ever met — an astonishing paroxysm of 
 human unrest, marking possibly a crisis out of 
 which will come men disposed to a new order. 
 
 Let us keep our eyes on the present moment in 
 which we see ripening the fruits of the labor of 
 the human mind during several thousand years. 
 What impresses me most, in the heinous event of 
 these days, is this: that, deceived by words, we 
 have been, and probably are still, the chief dupes 
 of a civilized verbalism which lets us live on a 
 humanitarian phraseology in cruel disaccord with 
 reality. 
 
 Where should we place the time when war 
 became different from peace, when man came to 
 distinguish between the reign of violence and a 
 state of security more or less durable, conditions 
 which have been but vaguely separated? Peace, 
 at first, was only a breathing-space between con- 
 flicts, whereas it seems to us to-day that war is 
 only an episode between periods of peace. It is 
 intelligible that the theorist has thus been led to 
 dream of a suppression of the use of force be- 
 tween human societies, without pausing before the 
 abyss that separates the man of words from the 
 man of action. 
 
 The man of words, it is true, sounds the word 
 of law , that magic formula of an ideal equity of 
 which nothing in the earth gives him a glimpse, 
 but from which each one, for that very reason, 
 may get inspiration, in the measure of his theo- 
 logical needs, for his dream of the absolute. The 
 man of action nourished a great pride of words, 
 but no more knew how to use them than a child 
 to wield an implement of toil beyond his strength. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 So the law took rank in the procession of our inac- 
 cessible divinities. When Dr. Le Bon said that 
 the law is only a force that endures, he cruelly dis- 
 sected one of our last gods. Sacrilege, to analyze 
 his divinity? The gods have passed, bearers of 
 good and evil, according to what the more or less 
 intelligent minds of the faithful can learn from 
 their oracles. The greatest of them have marked 
 off stages of history, splendid as long as the prin- 
 ciples were spoken, dark when it came to their 
 application. 
 
 Up to now the religion of the law has had a his- 
 tory nowise different. It has altars everywhere. 
 Each one offers itself as a sanctuary, so pro- 
 foundly convinced of the supremacy of its right 
 as to be forgetful of the right of others. Heapings 
 up of words, all this, rather than of realities. For 
 centuries long, men everywhere have spent their 
 treasures of verbalism to translate into massacres 
 the aspirations of righteousness, for in their eyes 
 there is no greater crime than to dispute their 
 ideology. The wise Socrates affirmed his god with- 
 out trying to give proof. None the less, in free 
 Hellas, he paid for his presumption with his life. 
 We know but too well what bloodshed the gospel 
 of love brought upon us. 
 
 Through many acts of free conscience brutally 
 misunderstood, the noble blood of innumerable 
 martyrs has given birth to a universal Law, su- 
 perior to our beliefs, and even to our powers of 
 reason ; that is to say, to an idea of humane equal- 
 ity amid the natural inequality of individuals. 
 This Law of the man of the future, is it other than 
 the god of the modern gospel which M. Gustave 
 
\ 
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 Le Bon only traces back to the single origin of all 
 the divinities of earth when he identifies it with 
 the permanent force of nature from which springs 
 all subordination of creatures? No more than in 
 other theologies have we been able in this new 
 doctrine to determine the indeterminable, to put 
 a finger on the intangible, to grasp and fix the fugi- 
 tive. Whatever name men may have given to 
 universal force, with whatever rites they may have 
 veiled its deceptive image, they have not come into 
 unison with it. For how can we reconcile the high 
 conceptions of our minds with the wayward forms 
 of things as they actually exist? God, or the "un- 
 written law," as says the Antigone of Sophocles, 
 manifests states of feeling which need a support 
 just as the Greek mythology needed Atlas to sup- 
 port "the world." Suspended in space, without 
 visible prop, our planet is none the less carried 
 on by a play of forces, balanced for the moment, 
 which gives it the proud office of a day's task in 
 the Infinite. So it is with us, products of contra- 
 dictory forces, suspended between being and non- 
 being by opposite powers of which we seek in 
 vain the secret in words which procure us the illu- 
 sion of a reason for existence. 
 
 The Law is the last to come of those invisible 
 gods, the one whose rule of universal equity does 
 not stop for any theoretical distinction between 
 various human groups. There is no Shibboleth 
 for its sacred power; this is a great advantage. 
 The reality is in our minds, as Abelard said. This 
 really can suffice us, since it is opposed to force 
 and tolerates it only in order to regulate it. 
 
 Nevertheless there remains this human phe- 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 nomenon, that tlie rites of worship, as in the case 
 of older divinities, too easily become more impor- 
 tant than the acceptance of the constraints of doc- 
 trine. How mnch easier it is to take part in 
 ceremonies than to practise this simple text, 
 "Love one another." In universal assent to this 
 noble maxim the highest intelligences are at one 
 with the spontaneous instinct of the obscure 
 masses. But in the difficult transformation of the 
 idea into action energies are consumed in mag- 
 nificent verbal edifices which crumble at the slight- 
 est contact with reality. The preachings of 
 Christianity proclaimed a great peace for hu- 
 manity. But man, unchanged in the depths of his 
 nature, maintained war and hatred, made worse 
 still by sectarian quarrels, and the French Revo- 
 lution itself simultaneously erected the altar to 
 liberty and the scaffold. Too far is the fall after 
 an ascent too dizzy. The honor and the misery of 
 man is that he cannot stay his climb into the 
 heights. 
 
 All the religions are beautiful considered as 
 products of hopes more and more lofty in propor- 
 tion as the progress of the mind enlarges the field 
 of aspiration. A little association of believers, as 
 formerly in Galilee, even though they seek to unite 
 men, will end only in dividing them, while the cult 
 of the haw, uniting all humanity without any 
 distinction of faith or of thought, must appear, 
 at first, as a supreme enlargement of our vision. 
 The existence of hope implies short-comings. 
 Nevertheless, out of the many successive hopes 
 the incessant flood of which has swept the world, 
 actual groups of better men have everywhere 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 emerged. And from this come the most solid cer- 
 tainties of our lives, the most noble of our 
 extravagant idealisms, and the wisest, also, of the 
 enterprises of our reason. 
 
 To-day we know that there is no social formula 
 for happiness ; we know that rules of justice, gen- 
 eral or individual, however efficacious they may 
 be, do no more than create for us more equitable 
 conditions of struggle, which is none the less an 
 estimable advantage. We know that universal 
 peace has not yet appeared except in phrases, 
 while without relief the bloody uproar of war is 
 overwhelming humanity. We have seen temples 
 built to the goddess Peace for ceremonies of ado- 
 ration which would be innocent if error were not 
 always concomitant with misconception of the real 
 state of things. We have not the slightest word 
 to say against the arbitration of the Law between 
 nations. But we must believe that faith in this 
 sovereign good is not immeasurable, since the civi- 
 lizations under the Law, those most fervent at the 
 oracle of The Hague, have not ceased their rivalry 
 in the fabrication of the engines of war, for which 
 we have ourselves, at this moment, an excellent 
 enough employment. 
 
 What has happened, then? Why, exactly what 
 has always happened since man appeared on the 
 earth; namely, under the regime of the Law ver- 
 bally established, as under the rites of all the 
 other cults, enterprises of violence have been pre- 
 pared and organized and set afoot in renewal of 
 the eternal history of fury. Where the Gospel had 
 failed, the code which only recommends the Law 
 under the threat of repressing the violation of it 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 has never succeeded in establishing other than 
 more or less accidental sanctions. In the absence 
 of a code of nations, the sanction of which could 
 not be other than armed constraint, there re- 
 mains to each one — international law or not — only 
 the prudent policy of self-preservation. It is the 
 regime under which we have lived since the first 
 two sons of Adam had misunderstandings. 
 
 While, given up to the metaphysics of their 
 theories, the internationalists of universal paci- 
 fism were neglecting the elementary precaution of 
 proportioning the powers of resistance to the 
 powers of the eventual offensive, a people of 
 Europe, " Christianized, ' ' ' f civilized, ' ' celebrated 
 by some as one of the highest embodiments of 
 idealism, fixed their purpose upon the dream of 
 conquering, not only according to universal tra- 
 dition, certain parcels of territory more or less 
 extensive, but of mastering, with the land, all the 
 means of independent life among peoples, near or 
 far, with whom they could satisfy the madness of 
 their ferocious egoism. It is a revival of mon- 
 strous appetites that have been known since the 
 world has had annals. Alexander, Caesar, Pyr- 
 rhus, Napoleon had hours of this madness, but 
 were promptly awakened to the resistance of 
 nature and of peoples, whose principle is that of a 
 compensation of forces under the rule of higher 
 destinies, from which our Law is not excluded. 
 
 In his modesty, Frederick II was content to be- 
 lieve that everything was permitted to him. In 
 the degeneracy of extravagant brutality Wilhelm 
 II came naively to the point of saying that every- 
 thing was commended to him, imposed on him, 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 even, by I know not what ancient German fetish 
 of barbarism. In his madness he saw nothing but 
 the yellow race to stop him and he could not re- 
 strain himself from addressing to them certain 
 abusive remarks on this subject. In regard to the 
 white race itself, for which he could not help hav- 
 ing some consideration, since it participated in 
 advance in Teutonic nobility because of its antici- 
 pated subjection, he could at least consent to make 
 distinctions. The Latin would amuse him and the 
 Slav would receive from him a feeling for organ- 
 ization and instruction in it; the English could 
 offer for German exploitation a fine set of ener- 
 gies; the "ancient God" of Germany would, by 
 way of Bagdad, cousin it with Mahomet and 
 Buddha and Vishnu. Properly hammered by the 
 famous mailed fist, the yellow man himself would 
 end by submitting to his destiny. America, pos- 
 sessing no army, could be gathered in on the way 
 back. And so ' ' the times would be accomplished, ' ' 
 since the insufficiency of means of communication 
 does not yet permit the extension of the benefits 
 of pan-Germanism beyond our sphere. 
 
 The instrument of this universal conquest? It 
 is the German people, penetrated with the spirit 
 of voluntary servitude for the fantastic conquests 
 of their masters, from which they will be allowed 
 profits. 
 
 The means? The restoration of the cult of 
 brute force, concentrated and unified in a violent 
 race, untrammeled by notions of human right. 
 And therefore there was needed the revival of 
 absolutism and slavery in efficacious coordination, 
 with a resurrection of all instinctive brutality sus- 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 tained by all "civilized" poltroonery, for the in- 
 stallation of the supreme rule of iron force over 
 the fallen Law. 
 
 And all this was said, avowed, proclaimed ; and 
 it would all come about, if brute force could rule 
 entirely over the destinies of men, by the impla- 
 cable decree of the German victory arrogantly pre- 
 dicted but not yet realized. 
 
 So there burst out the greatest and most furious 
 battle between men upon which the sun has ever 
 risen. A whole people ignobly trained to under- 
 stand nothing and to love nothing but the savage 
 force of which they consented to remain the vic- 
 tim for the joy of being the instrument of it 
 against others, was let loose upon Europe like an 
 irresistible army of machines of death prepared 
 to shatter all before them. 
 
 Let us do them the homage of saying that they 
 played their role to perfection. Cities, with their 
 finest historical monuments and their most 
 precious treasures of science and art, have gone 
 up in flames before the torch of destructive Kul- 
 tur. Destruction of the humblest home as well as 
 of the noblest edifices, pillage, robbery, assassina- 
 tion, massed murder following nameless tortures 
 of educated barbarism, the most execrable out- 
 rages upon human beings, the most revolting 
 shameless acts of beasts in delirium — such, in 
 plain terms, is the record of these brutes in their 
 work of " cultured" Teutonization. Have they 
 not martyred and butchered women and children? 
 Did they not mock with the retchings of their un- 
 speakable banter the passengers of the Lusitania 
 sinking under their piratical torpedo? In their 
 
L INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 record will be lacking no disgrace or degrada- 
 tion. 
 
 How should they understand when we reproach 
 them for having violated the neutrality of Bel- 
 gium and of Luxembourg, when we try to explain 
 to them that without respect for treaties, without 
 the observance of sworn faith, there is no longer 
 any law and justice between the nations, nor any 
 honor among men? They could find but one an- 
 swer : ' ' We were the strongest. ' ' Brutes that they 
 are, they know not even that brute force itself is 
 subject to reaction, as we are in the act of show- 
 ing them. 
 
 What other argument can bring conviction to 
 them except the argument of force? We must 
 needs accept this contradiction of our principles 
 for it is the only means of gaining access to their 
 "intelligence," which still puts its faith in the 
 primitive reign of unbridled force — a faith which 
 can only be excused in the savage. To the savage 
 supremacy of the club we must oppose the armed 
 forces of law and order. 
 
 Geography and history have assigned the role 
 of this opposing force to France, on whose land 
 the meeting and mingling of races halted by the 
 sea have brought the robust empiricism of the 
 North and the impulsive idealism of the South. Be- 
 tween the boundaries of Alps and Ehine and Ocean 
 lies a great flowery basin where has come about 
 a fusion of humanity out of which has arisen a 
 people of clear minds. An august history made 
 of this people in older times "the soldier of God," 
 and later "the champion of the rights of man" 
 — which the barbarism still surviving has not yet 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 forgiven. Everything designated this people to 
 meet the first blows of the organizations of vio- 
 lence devoted to the destruction of humanitarian 
 right seeking the ways of progress. 
 
 Only, from that time on, great allies came to 
 this people — allies pacified, after so many fratri- 
 cidal wars, by a high community of interests 
 among which is dominant the necessity of honor- 
 able independence. Thus France facing Germany 
 summarizes a rising of humanity so great that 
 from now on the formula expresses the revolt of 
 Europe, of the civilized world — of Europe, mother 
 of all the great advance in civilization, who has 
 risen against the full forces of savagery made 
 into science. It is the greatest battle of mankind, 
 greatest in the number of combatants, in the 
 ghastly power of their arms, in the diabolism of 
 the atrocities and devastations which delight a 
 barbarous Kultur proclaiming scorn for the rights 
 of individuals and of peoples, — greatest, finally, 
 in the stake at play, which is the exaltation or the 
 degradation of the human species. Is not this 
 what the words epitomize, France facing Ger- 
 many? Do they not signify the two historical 
 poles, the encounter of two nations representing 
 the good and the evil? 
 
 The bloody tragedy has followed its course. At 
 a time when our fathers believed that they had 
 dearly gained the happy privilege of hoping that 
 a general enough acceptance of the common rights 
 of all would assure henceforth the evolution of 
 peoples in independence, Germany decided that in 
 one mad game she would play, not only against 
 us, but against all the peoples of the earth, the 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 chances of the non-right pure and simple. With 
 a success due to the technical excellence of her 
 preparations, she has burned, ravaged, pillaged, 
 and destroyed all the homes of civilization that 
 fortune has offered to her devastating genius. She 
 has bestially violated and tortured and murdered 
 creatures who were weak without ever finding 
 satiation for her fury. She has proved false to 
 the written text of her faith, torn up the pact of 
 honor to which she had put her signature, in the 
 thought that the force of steel was to excuse all, 
 and terrorized the neutrals so far as to impose 
 on them sometimes a silence for which later they 
 may blush. 
 
 And for a supreme mockery, the men of 
 " science' ' — it is the name they give themselves — 
 having conquered, by their labor, an authoritative 
 prestige, create for us a philosophical doctrine, 
 fitted to the use of the higher banditry, to explain 
 to us that, in the necessary order of things, bestial 
 brutality is only the manifestation of a higher 
 harmony. They proclaim, in the forms of logic, 
 that by the virtue of the streaming sword-blade 
 the law of man must now go and sleep in the tomb 
 of antiquities. For a kind of German pity moves 
 them to show themselves pitiless in order to 
 abridge the sufferings of the man whose death 
 they have decreed in their purpose of abolishing, 
 without delay, the attachment of minds to that law 
 and justice for which so many fools have thought 
 it glory to live and die. 
 
 All this stands written, and registered in acts 
 which no one can undo, and, for a supreme burst 
 of humanitarian carnage, Germany has found the 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 continuous strength which has permitted her to 
 conduct, after half a century of preparation, the 
 greatest of enterprises for human debasement 
 under cover of a supremacy of "intellectuality." 
 The old despotisms of Asia had at least the excuse 
 that they were the beginnings of civilization. This 
 despotism aspires to put an end to the painful 
 work of the slow emancipation of the mind by a 
 regression to the bestialities of ferocious sav- 
 agery. 
 
 Man would have risen out of unthinking matter 
 only to experience the revolting sensation of an 
 effort at nobility rewarded by a debasement new 
 in the scale of degradations. So many centuries 
 of unremembered wretchedness and of glorious 
 sufferings would have passed in the uncertain 
 hope of higher things, only for men to see them- 
 selves cast back, at one blow, into bottomless gulfs. 
 The insolent command is addressed to us to re- 
 ceive, to solicit, as a benefaction, the stigma of a 
 supreme subjection for ourselves and for those 
 who will come after us. Give up all aspiration 
 for glory, for grandeur, for hope? We have not 
 consented : either the German must therefore bow 
 his head, or we must. Ours was not made for the 
 yoke. 
 
 If there were nothing more here than a collec- 
 tion of expressions of anger against a people with 
 whom France is at war, there would perhaps be 
 too little to tempt the reader, even in the worst 
 of our sufferings. But although the vehemence of 
 my passion as a Frenchman need make no excuse 
 for itself perhaps the reader will be good enough 
 to recognize that while I have remained a patriot 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 I have endeavored to adopt the point of view of 
 a citizen of humanity. I am, and whatever comes, 
 I shall remain a humanitarian, because I am a 
 Frenchman — as the German, whatever he may say, 
 will still be joined for a long time yet to the wor- 
 ship of primitive force, the only religion for which 
 his base ambition has yet prepared him. 
 
 It is from the French point of view that I judge 
 Germany. It is from my human conscience that 
 her condemnation comes, for according to the say- 
 ing of Pascal, whoever would put himself " above 
 all" puts himself below all. For who would claim 
 the privilege of establishing among the peoples a 
 hierarchy based on other foundations than those 
 of service rendered to the whole human family? 
 Our France holds an enviable position in this com- 
 petition. What savage, arrogating to himself a 
 primacy over the nations, will be willing or able 
 to eliminate her, to strike her from the list of 
 peoples, that is to say, from the history of the 
 future, on account of lack of achievement in her 
 history of the past? 
 
 It would be interesting to hear the worthy de- 
 scendant of the ancient Elector of Brandenburg — 
 who did not count, to my knowledge, among the 
 lights of his time — undertake to broach this ques- 
 tion at Eome, at London, at Petrograd, or at 
 Paris. Would the present Germany allege that 
 the coming of Bismarck has transformed her? 
 Was not the wrong-minded "transformer," on the 
 contrary, in legitimate descent from Frederick II, 
 with a less adaptable mind? We shall certainly 
 not be found to be of this lineage. Different roles 
 suit different minds. We have no need of sup- 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 pressing any people on the globe. It suffices us 
 to mark out and preserve our own place, to save 
 ourselves from suppression. This is all the right 
 that we claim, but this we want wholly, in the ful- 
 ness of national independence, in the complete pos- 
 session of liberties that constitute national honor. 
 
 For half a century I have seen the menace of 
 a bloodthirsty people rising against us. I have 
 uttered warnings without number against it to the 
 unseeing men who, up to the last hour, refused 
 to recognize the truth, and who, by the authority 
 which their lack of foresight gained for them, now 
 refuse me the right to point out the continuation 
 of the faults of yesterday in the faults of to-day. 
 And when the bloodthirsty people started the 
 actual slaughter and the violation of all human 
 rights, I pursued my task, I kept speaking, I kept 
 crying out. The cry of the victim is the first evi- 
 dence of the crime — it is the indictment and con- 
 demnation of the man still red with the blood he 
 has spilled. 
 
 They are attempting a death-blow against all 
 that I treasure in life, against my attachment to 
 the soil and my love and ideals for my country 
 — a death-blow to my worship of the glory of a 
 nation manifesting, in the dignity of fraternal 
 living, a legitimate pride in being a people of many 
 minds welded into unison. 
 
 They are attempting a death-blow against my 
 right to existence, against the virtue of the blood 
 in my race, against my irrepressible need to ad- 
 vance, through the course of the ages, following 
 the traditions and the principles of a history in 
 which, through my fathers, I have had a part — a 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 history which is not the least noble portion, per- 
 haps, of the deeds of the human race. 
 
 They are attempting a death-blow — in the most 
 radiant of the hopes that guide men through the 
 perilous mazes of a destiny the riddle of which 
 is possibly in the fact that it is only what it is — 
 but which is the more precious to me, nevertheless, 
 on account of my attempts to honor it. 
 
 They are attempting to deal a death-blow. And 
 I defend myself, to the displeasure of certain so- 
 called neutrals who are descanting on the most 
 decorous manner of agreeing to my destruction. 
 
 France defends herself, and others do so with 
 her — all those who have been the guides and sup- 
 porters of mankind, the leaders of thought, all 
 those who, because they are worthy to live the 
 highest life, cannot die a death which, together 
 with the early downfall of the neutrals, would 
 mean the extinction of civilized man. 
 
 G. Clemenceau. 
 
ALSACE-LOERAINE— MOEOCCO— PEACE 
 WITH GEEMANY 
 
 Speech Delivered at the Dedication of the 
 Monument to Scheurer-Kestner 
 
 Scheurer-Kestner took part in all the strug- 
 gles against the imperial regime. In fighting for 
 the Eepublic he was manifestly fighting for the 
 nation itself, for France might have been spared 
 the disaster of Sedan if the rule of absolutism 
 had succumbed beforehand. 
 
 It was a time of fresh enthusiasms. In our 
 hearts arose the radiant hope of the great days 
 that were to be reborn through our efforts. 
 Through our efforts France, once more become the 
 home of the rights of man, was to recover, amid 
 the applause of friendly peoples, the moral 
 grandeur of her former days. 
 
 To the trustful prayers of this beautiful dream 
 the answer was war; war and crushing defeat, war 
 and dismemberment. 
 
 From the day of Sedan on, Scheurer-Kestner 
 was at the side of Gambetta, and until the fall of 
 Paris he devoted all his powers to the develop- 
 ment of the manufacture of munitions. 
 
 When the armistice was concluded, Alsace, as 
 a supreme manifestation of her French spirit, 
 
2 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 chose Scheurer-Kestner as one of her representa- 
 tives in the National Assembly. I saw him again 
 at Bordeaux when the frightful honr of the 
 great dismemberment was striking. An Alsatian 
 Frenchman, he clung with every fiber of his being 
 to that cherished soil where, with changing for- 
 tunes, the tides from the east and the west meet 
 in struggle. With a peculiar poignancy of sor- 
 row, therefore, he felt the bitter agony of the 
 mutilation. He could not sever himself from 
 France. 
 
 Some months later I saw him again at Thann, 
 sad of heart but quietly stoical and confident for 
 the future. We called up the memory of the 
 peaceful life of AJsace in other days, when, in the 
 evening, I used to accompany the family, in the 
 silence of the snow, to the rehearsals of the choral 
 societies, in this country where the art of song is 
 traditional. At such times workers and em- 
 ployers, gathered in friendly intercourse, used to 
 express their common feeling in the art, and to 
 mingle emotion and thought in the love of their 
 common country. 
 
 Other times had come. With Scheurer-Kestner 
 I made the pilgrimage of Belfort, of Strassburg, 
 ravaged by the tempest of steel and fire. A prey 
 to what emotions? Ask your own hearts. 
 
 And yet, upon these smoking ruins, Scheurer- 
 Kestner gave full voice to his unconquerable hope 
 for the future. He foresaw that France- would 
 find herself again, would multiply her powers in 
 an industrious peace, in patient work from day 
 to day, would steadily bend herself to the repara- 
 tion of evils, of all evils, by the organization and 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 3 
 
 the development of a democracy of justice and 
 of fraternity. 
 
 . . . Gentlemen, I have not been afraid to call 
 up the memory of the bleeding past. Though 
 mindful of the responsibility which attaches to 
 my office,* I have allowed myself to speak with- 
 out constraint upon events which have entered 
 into history and to proclaim feelings which we 
 could not repudiate, nor even dissemble, without 
 degrading ourselves. What sort of men should 
 we be if, while we are doing homage to a noble 
 Alsatian, who was an honor to France, we were 
 capable of forgetting the story of Alsace? No 
 one has the right to demand that we do this. 
 
 Of course it has been said that silence, in such 
 a case, remains the best safeguard of a timorous 
 dignity. But it seems to me rather that our dig- 
 nity would be really impaired only if we should 
 seem to keep silence by our own will, when we 
 can, without fear of malicious interpretation, give 
 free voice to the feelings which this day suggests 
 to us. 
 
 Every people has experienced, turn by turn, the 
 pride of victory and the humiliation of defeat, 
 and it is perhaps in misfortune, rather than in 
 triumph, that the best in our nation has been 
 brought to life through the union and the fusion 
 of minds. The danger of victory lies in the 
 temptation to go wrong; it is in resistance to the 
 blows of fortune that courage is tempered, that 
 the energies of life are united. It is for every 
 individual to preserve himself in the fulness of 
 
 *M. Clemeneeau, at the time of this speech, was Premier and 
 Minister of the Interior. 
 
4 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Ms powers for the great struggle for moral pre- 
 eminence in which the strong and the weak of a 
 day will find ample work for the development of 
 their highest faculties. 
 
 To this noble contest, for which the first con- 
 dition is peace, we bring the good will of a people 
 and a government eager to carry to success an 
 arduous undertaking: the establishment of an 
 organized democracy. For this colossal task, 
 which requires the most difficult concentration of 
 ordered forces, all have the same need of peace. 
 And the democratic powers, because they are at 
 the most difficult part of their labor, are neces- 
 sarily less inclined than any others to risk ad- 
 ventures out of which war might arise. 
 
 It is agreed that the French policy is free from 
 threats and provocations; because it is founded 
 on the firm basis of a just reciprocity. As we ask 
 respect for treaties in which we are concerned, 
 so we expect to give an example ourselves by 
 faithfully observing the obligations to which we 
 are engaged. 
 
 We inherited France at the moment when she 
 emerged from a dreadful trial. In order to re- 
 store her to her rightful powers of expansion, 
 to her dignity of high moral eminence, we need 
 indulge no hatred nor deception; not even any 
 recrimination. Our eyes are upon the future. 
 Heirs of a glorious history, jealous of the splendid 
 native passions out of which grew the cultural 
 power of our country, we can look peacefully upon 
 the descendants of the strong races which for 
 centuries have measured themselves against the 
 men of our land, on fields of battle too numerous 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 5 
 
 to recount. Two great rival peoples, for the very- 
 honor of their rivalry, have the same interest in 
 maintaining respect each for the other. 
 
 What an impairment of our own self-respect, as 
 well as of the esteem of other peoples, if we dared 
 not give free voice to the sentiments that surge 
 up in our hearts when, before this monument, 
 we come face to face with the memories of a 
 glorious history of two hundred years in which 
 our fathers wrote the immortal epic of the French 
 Revolution! Two hundred years of fraternal 
 spirit, down to this latest moment of civilization, 
 have converted our manners, our emotions, our 
 ideas, and all else that makes for a firmer union 
 of mankind, into a structure different from that 
 of a day when the modern spirit was hardly yet 
 struggling to he born. We have received. We 
 have given. Common was the joy and the grief, 
 common the glories and the agonies, out of which 
 the magnificent movement of modern civilization 
 arose. 
 
 The heroic effort of the great liberation of man, 
 in which the genius of the French distinguished 
 itself so signally, and the epic tournament of arms, 
 which eventuated from it, wrought magnificently 
 in enthusiasm and in blood upon all the passionate 
 spirits of our country. 
 
 In every field of patriotic activity Alsace and 
 Lorraine had conquered an eminent position; in 
 war especially, for at all times the men of the 
 border provinces have been quick in combat. 
 Alsace gave birth even to sailors, as is still at- 
 tested by the statue of Admiral Bruat in the 
 public square at Colmar. Metz gave us Fabert, 
 
6 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 great soldier and great citizen. Under the marble 
 of Pigalle, Strassburg has preserved the victor of 
 Fontenoy, the most remarkable example of spon- 
 taneous French naturalization. 
 
 But it remained for the wars of the Eepublic 
 and of the Empire, in which modern France ex- 
 hibited herself in an incomparable series of deeds 
 of arms, to offer us a rare flowering of warriors 
 from Alsace and Lorraine. Many of them were 
 of the highest rank; their names are written on 
 the Arch of Triumph. Forty generals, and a 
 whole people in the field of arms ! 
 
 Grands cosurs, qui, de leur sang, nous ont fait 
 la patrie ! Could I only call the roll of them all ! 
 
 Kellermann, of Strassburg, at his death desires 
 that his heart may be placed beneath the obelisk 
 of Valmy, with this inscription: Here lie the 
 brave dead ivho saved France on September 
 20, 1792. 
 
 Westermann, of Molsheim, arraigned with 
 Danton before the revolutionary tribunal, cries: 
 At least wait, before you send me to the scaffold, 
 until my seven wounds, all received in front, have 
 closed! 
 
 Ihler, of Thann, excites the wonder of his com- 
 manders in the attack upon the lines at Wissem- 
 bourg; glorious ancestor of the young captain 
 recently fallen before the enemy, under the 
 French flag. 
 
 Bouchotte, of Metz, minister of war, powerfully 
 aids the Committee of Public Safety in the organ- 
 ization of the armies. 
 
 Lefebvre, of Rouffach, decides the victory of 
 Fleurus. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 7 
 
 Kleber, like an ancient hero, sleeps at Strass- 
 burg on the Place d'Armes, with the order of 
 supreme bravery which was to force the victory. 
 
 The son of Kellermann, of Metz, distinguishes 
 himself by the charge at Marengo. 
 
 Lasalle, of Metz, falls at Wagram, at the age of 
 thirty-four, full of glory. 
 
 Eble, of Rohrbach, saves the army crossing the 
 Berezina. 
 
 And Ney, finally, Ney of Sarrelouis, given to 
 France in 1814 by the fixing of the new frontier, 
 finds himself thrown back into Germany by the 
 treaties of 1815. And thus when he is brought 
 before the Chamber of Peers, his defender, Dupin, 
 can plead, without consulting him, that the 
 change in nationality removes him from the juris- 
 diction of the High Court. But the hero of the 
 Moskowa, trembling with emotion, rises and cries 
 out : No, gentlemen, I am French! I demand to die 
 as a Frenchman! From this spot we can see his 
 statue, a sister of the one that Metz has pre- 
 served. 
 
 And with these, let Scheurer-Kestner enjoy the 
 glory that is due him! He did not fall upon the 
 field of battle in one of those bursts of heroism 
 which, through the full sacrifice of self to a pre- 
 cious heritage of principle, will remain the honor 
 of a glorious few. A hero in civic courage, it was 
 without the excitement of murderous combat, but 
 in the painful silence of friendships that weaken 
 and of enmities that grow stronger, that without 
 bitterness, without complaint, he gave his life day 
 by day for the right, for justice, for the good name 
 of France. 
 
8 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 The French Bevolution had graven upon stone 
 the recognition by the country of its good ser- 
 vants. Our Eepublic has resumed the splendid 
 tradition. On the walls of the Pantheon, among 
 so many glorious names of Alsace and Lorraine, 
 we inscribe, in proud gratitude, the name of 
 Scheurer-Kestner. 
 
 February 11, 1908. 
 
 Speech Delivered in the Senate on the Franco- 
 German Agreement of November 14, 1911, 
 Eelative to Morocco 
 
 . . . What is the question before us 1 For me 
 it is a question whether the treaty of November 
 14th is an instrument of peace, and an instrument 
 of lasting peace. If so, I am inclined to forbear 
 certain criticisms. If I am offered proof that in 
 spite of very vexing negotiations, its clauses as- 
 sure us of normal relations, endurable and per- 
 manent, between the French and German nations, 
 perhaps I shall be able to make the concessions 
 that you request. 
 
 Only, gentlemen, there is one thing that no one 
 mentions but which is at the very heart of the 
 debate. This treaty, which we are told is a matter 
 of business, is no matter of business between two 
 traffickers trying to rob each other and to keep 
 a profit more or less honestly acquired. No, the 
 two contracting parties are two peoples, two gov- 
 ernments, two nations; they have behind them a 
 long history, moving them, exhorting them, guid- 
 ing them in paths determined by historical neces- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 9 
 
 sity, and forcing them, by virtue of the character 
 that history has given them, to pursue a fixed 
 purpose. {Hear! Hear!) 
 
 That is a truth that we must keep in mind. 
 
 The Minister of War said recently, when he was 
 only a Deputy, "The treaty will be what we make 
 it." I beg permission to say to him, as the 
 Premier has said already, that two parties are 
 needed for that purpose. 
 
 We shall devote all our efforts, I am sure, to 
 giving new proofs of our good will — we have 
 already given not a few of them in forty years — 
 in order that the results of the treaty may be 
 attained in ways compatible with the honor of 
 the two peoples; but we must understand the 
 position of the other party to it, we must know 
 what are his intentions, what he is thinking and 
 saying, what he purposes to do, and what evi- 
 dences of good will he has offered. That is the 
 question which we must have the courage to ask. 
 
 I broach this question, gentlemen, and I do it 
 at my own risk, and moreover without being 
 troubled by what I am about to say, because there 
 is no ill feeling in my heart, no hatred, to use 
 the exact word, toward the German people. I 
 would avoid the slightest provocation; for just 
 as I am firmly resolved to do nothing that might 
 injure, however slightly, our chances in case we 
 should be attacked, I am also convinced that peace 
 is not only desirable, but is essential, to the 
 furtherance of our plans for cultural progress. 
 {Hear! Hear!) 
 
 The German people, in 1866 and in 1870, won 
 two great victories which disturbed the stability 
 
10 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 of Europe, or rather, to use the correct word, its 
 instability. 
 
 I can hardly say whether, throughout the 
 Napoleonic drama, we were very gracious con- 
 querors. We have the Latin manner, we like 
 display and the flourishes of glory, but at heart 
 we are not bad fellows; there is proof enough 
 of it in the way our soldiers were received in 
 the capitals of Europe which they traversed. 
 {Hear! Hear!) 
 
 In this regard I recall a sentence of Bismarck's, 
 which is unpublished and unknown, but which I 
 had from the lips of Jules Favre on an anxious 
 day when he had returned from Versailles, where 
 he had been negotiating with Bismarck concern- 
 ing the surrender of Paris. 
 
 We were conquered, and we had evidence that 
 if the enemy claimed the right to occupy Paris, 
 the capital of France would be reduced to ashes ; 
 and I am sure that Jules Favre stated the situa- 
 tion to the conqueror in irreproachable words. 
 But Bismarck replied: i6 ~Nol Our troops must 
 invade at least one gate, because I am not willing, 
 once I am back at home in my own country, to 
 risk a meeting with some man who has lost an 
 arm or a leg, and who can tell his comrades, as 
 he points at me: 'You see that man? That is 
 the man that kept us out of Paris.' " 
 
 And when Jules Favre answered that the 
 German army had already won enough -glory, 
 Bismarck replied: " Glory! That word is not 
 impressive in our country." (Confused manifes- 
 tations.) 
 
 I have often thought about that remark. Cer- 
 
FKANCE FACING GERMANY 11 
 
 tainly the language of glory is not the same in 
 the two countries. 
 
 The German, so far as I can judge, is above 
 all enamored of force, and he rarely neglects an 
 opportunity to say so; but where he differs from 
 the Latin, is in the fact that his first thought is 
 to employ that force. As the great economic de- 
 velopment of the empire is a continuous tempta- 
 tion in this respect, he is unsatisfied, — the Post 
 repeated the fact some days ago, in regard to 
 Morocco, — he is unsatisfied unless the French 
 perceive that behind every German merchant 
 there is an army of five million men. 
 
 That is the heart of the matter; but that is not 
 all. Germany took from us (to use no stronger 
 word) an indemnity of five billions, and in so 
 doing robbed us of vital energy. It is the modern 
 form of ancient slavery. In older days warriors 
 took possession of men, to make them work and 
 to enjoy the fruit of their toil. Now the method 
 is changed; the victors force the vanquished to 
 pay them perpetual tribute. 
 
 That is what was done. We are free, we are 
 left in our country, we can work, but each year 
 we are losing the interest of the sum we paid. 
 
 The memory of those live billions, of the rapid- 
 ity with which we recovered our strength and 
 renewed our wealth, has made a strong impres- 
 sion, it seems to me, upon the German mind. I 
 am forced to believe that this is the case; for in 
 their newspapers I am constantly reading that 
 they are coming after us and that they will exact 
 an enormous indemnity with which they will re- 
 build the fleet which the English will destroy 
 
12 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 in the course of the war. If our time were not 
 so valuable, gentlemen, I could read you news- 
 paper articles in quantity, every one of them, 
 down to this very day, proclaiming that France 
 shall pay with her billions the expenses of con- 
 structing a new German fleet. That is Germany's 
 state of mind, that is the truth that appears so 
 clearly in your treaty. Germany is already think- 
 ing of using her glory and her might. 
 
 But this is not all. Germany gained her unity 
 by force, by blood and iron. She desired this 
 unity so much — and certainly there is no desire 
 more natural — that she intends to make use of it. 
 She wants to scatter through the world an enor- 
 mous surplus of population. She therefore finds 
 herself led, by a destiny which it is impossible 
 for her to escape, to bring to bear upon her 
 neighbors such pressure as to make them grant 
 her, at the very least, the economic favors that 
 she needs. 
 
 There has been established during the course of 
 the centuries, as a result of the invasions from 
 the east, an ebb and flow of conflicts on the banks 
 of the Ehine, and it is to the highest interest of 
 civilization that these conflicts cease, that a wise 
 settlement, which should be hailed with joy by 
 all civilized nations, should put an end to these 
 alterations of peace and massacre, resulting from 
 the victory of the one side or the other. 
 
 But this will not be possible until there shall 
 appear a conqueror superior to his conquest, a 
 victor who will be a hero in moderation. Napo- 
 leon was not such a conqueror; no more so is 
 Germany. We are still reminded of the dialogue 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 13 
 
 of Pyrrlms and Cineas. Pyrrhus wants to fare 
 forth to conquest, and since he is going to Borne, 
 Cineas contrives to notify him that from Eome 
 he will proceed to Sicily, from Sicily to Egypt, 
 from Egypt to India. There is always more land 
 in front of an owner who is trying to swell his 
 holdings. There are always more peoples before 
 the warrior whose aim is to conquer his fellow- 
 men. {Hear! Hear!) 
 
 I think I have spoken of the Germans with 
 discretion, with the respect to which their cul- 
 ture, their organization, their discipline, and their 
 learning entitle them ; and if I had faults in mind 
 to counterbalance the virtues just mentioned, I 
 should not speak of them. I am not here to 
 censure the German people ; I wish only to exhibit 
 their present state of feeling toward us. I know 
 that there is a party of social democracy among 
 them, very different from our revolutionary so- 
 cialism, which is for peace, and of that I shall 
 speak in a moment. But at the same time there is 
 in Germany a governmental organization and a 
 public opinion of active minorities which do not 
 permit the pacifists — I say it regretfully before 
 my honorable friend, M. d'Estournelles de Con- 
 stant — to make their will prevail. 
 
 M. Le Bon has said that "The law is a force 
 which endures." Very well, in order that the 
 force may endure, in order that the abuse of 
 force shall not lead to the destruction of force 
 itself, we must have, I repeat, a conqueror su- 
 perior to his conquest. That conqueror has not 
 appeared. 
 
 And now as to ourselves, the French people 1 
 
14 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 The French people is a people of idealism, 
 critical in spirit, restive under discipline, given 
 to wars and revolutions. (Confused manifesta- 
 tions.) 
 
 Its character is ill fitted for continuous action. 
 Indeed, the French people has flights of en- 
 thusiasm that are magnificent, but, as the poet 
 says, it is sometimes necessary to measure the 
 height of its flight by the depth of its fall. 
 
 We were at the darkest hour of one of those 
 intervals of somnolence, of torpor, when we were 
 assailed, struck down, and crushed. And what 
 surprised me most at the moment of that terrible 
 defeat was not that our soldiers had been van- 
 quished, because they found united against them 
 all the fatal errors that long carelessness had 
 allowed to mount up in the silence of the nation; 
 what impressed me most profoundly, at Bordeaux 
 especially, was the breaking of all political and 
 social ties that resulted when the master had dis- 
 appeared. There was a swarm of Frenchmen, but 
 there was no longer a France. Or at least, we 
 were searching for her, searching for something 
 that might represent her, something that would 
 bring her, alive and active, before our eyes. We 
 could not find her. Oh! Indeed I can say that 
 we could not find her, when we were dissentious 
 to such a degree that there were men who, all the 
 time that they were battling heroically against 
 the enemy, were crying and clamoring, on every 
 occasion, for peace. The people had chosen for 
 themselves the rulers that they had found. One 
 of them has a seat in this circle; I regret that I 
 do not see him in his chair. (Manifestations,) 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY IS 
 
 France has gratefully preserved the memory of 
 them, and to the end of time she will give them 
 the homage they deserve. (Applause.) 
 
 . . . Think, gentlemen, of all the accumulated 
 misfortunes of that day. Let your minds go back 
 to the time: The foreign war, the invasion, and 
 the Assembly, formed to make peace, which would 
 impose monarchy on the Republic; the revolts of 
 the Commune, Paris in flames, a reaction under 
 way in the heart of the Assembly directing the 
 Republic which meant to destroy the Republic, 
 struggles following one another without end. 
 Every social force was powerless; one force alone 
 remained intact, the Catholic Church, with a 
 power which arose from tradition, if I may say 
 it, rather than from lively faith, and which had 
 lost, in political struggles, the better part of its 
 influence. That was all; men in disaccord, going 
 their own ways, living in anarchy, asking them- 
 selves how this country could emerge from such 
 a crisis. 
 
 And out of all that comes the party for the 
 Republic, gaining the confidence of the country, 
 molding a public mind now reasserting itself and 
 endeavoring, from this moment, not only to repair 
 the military forces of France but to recreate 
 France herself, from the beginning, in her spirit, 
 for her future. 
 
 There is a difference between the two regimes. 
 A regime centralized, strong to all appearances, 
 which stifles every criticism, which seals the lips 
 of every man; the master falls and nothing re- 
 
16 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 mains, as I said a moment ago, but a swarm of 
 citizens. 
 
 It was no such edifice as this that the party for 
 the Kepuhlic wished to rebuild. The building had 
 to be undertaken from the foundation, from the 
 one foundation that is unshakable, namely, the 
 heart of every citizen. It was needful to make 
 French citizens in whose hearts and minds would 
 develop and prosper the France of the future. 
 
 Naturally, in the building of new institutions, 
 the military and administrative powers were to 
 be reconstituted; but the thing that needed to be 
 done first was to correct what had been the cause 
 of our weakness, to make it the cause of our great 
 strength for the future; in one word, to make 
 citizens. We had men, but we had no citizens, 
 and it was necessary to create them. It was nec- 
 essary to destroy that habit of the French mind, 
 cause of all our sorrows, that habit of frenzy, 
 of ecstasy in certain moments followed by torpor 
 or heedlessness in the next. No, it was not 
 necessary that the confidence granted to the re- 
 publican government be the same as that given 
 to the Empire; it was not enough to change the 
 government, it was indispensable that this gov- 
 ernment be capable of governing itself. (Ap- 
 plause on the left.) 
 
 This left us a difficult problem. We are still 
 struggling with the great work ; we hope to carry 
 it to success. The recent events of which some- 
 one spoke a while ago, the intervention of public 
 opinion in personal affairs, discussed calmly, 
 serenely, without a word of braggardism, all this 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 17 
 
 is one of the best tokens that France has yet ex- 
 hibited. {Hear! Rear!) 
 
 The work that we have done mast not be judged 
 by what is visible, but by the ideas and the senti- 
 ment that we have implanted in the hearts of 
 all French citizens. {Applause on the left.) 
 
 Since the French Revolution democracy has 
 found its way around the world. There is now 
 a parliament in China, in Turkey; the German 
 people have gained universal suffrage and a 
 Reichstag on the battlefields of France. 
 
 It is none the less true that their government 
 is one of a kind that we lack. The government 
 is powerful and has the advantage of immediate 
 action. And if it were force and victory, if it 
 were sword and steel and the mailed fist, to use 
 the word they love so much in the cafes beyond 
 the Rhine, which were destined to assure the 
 future of humanity, that government would have 
 every chance. 
 
 But it is not such things. Our work is not 
 spectacular, it does not care for show, it is 
 gradual. But when we look back over the events 
 that I have just been recounting, over the progress 
 of forty years, we see nevertheless that we have 
 availed for something, that indeed a great work 
 has been accomplished. 
 
 But what is finest is not visible. What is finest 
 is this new generation of ours, fervent in every 
 work of disinterested thought, this youth in 
 whose hearts are budding the hopes the realiza- 
 tion of which I shall not see — though I shall die 
 with the feeling that I had a modest share in 
 
18 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 them (Applause) — this youth on which we have 
 staked our hopes, who will be like us, who will 
 be misled. . . . We have done good things, fine, 
 useful things, and we have been misled a hundred 
 times, the public mind has been misled, and at a 
 certain moment, wanted to return to the vomit 
 of Csesarism. We have committed faults. Our 
 ministries, our parliaments have often been want- 
 ing in character, in will. Our people, good and 
 loyal, too often believe that violence could give 
 them the victory to which they aspire. 
 
 Yes, we have been misled, and possibly we shall 
 be misled again. But in spite of all, we have 
 undertaken to build a new France upon a new 
 foundation, a France who is already restored to 
 her economic power. I wish to give due credit 
 to the policy of expansion which has gained so 
 much honor in the world and which has ad- 
 vanced her flag amid the applause of peoples. 
 
 But on the actual field of battle, with the choice 
 of the hour left to the enemy, if that enemy were 
 the German government, perhaps we should not 
 have the advantage. 
 
 We must acknowledge that this situation is 
 capable of disturbing certain people. Neverthe- 
 less, if the public spirit has been remolded, if the 
 feeling of moral unity, so lacking to us under the 
 Empire, has restored our confidence in ourselves, 
 if we have become convinced that we have within 
 us, in the traditions of our history and in our 
 energetic wills, a force which craves to develop 
 normally and righteously, which craves to trample 
 on the rights of no one, but which also defends 
 its own rights, I say that we have taken a great 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 19 
 
 step forward and that we have sowed the seed 
 of the future. 
 
 I have had two peculiar proofs of it. Some 
 days ago the editor of a great English newspaper 
 wrote to ask me for an article on "The New 
 France." I asked him what he meant by "The 
 New France"; and in order that I might fully 
 understand, he wrote: "The new France is the 
 France that has just been manifesting that calm 
 strength of mind which up to now we have con- 
 sidered as the golden virtue of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race." 
 
 In his mind no higher praise could be con- 
 ceived. I accepted this praise for my country. 
 Yet I consider that we have, no less surely, pre- 
 served our daring; we see examples of it every 
 day, offered by those young men who fall in the 
 distressing accidents of aviation of which you 
 have heard, and by the tens and twenties who 
 present themselves to take up the work and to 
 return into the heavens where they may flash the 
 fire of French daring. (Applause.) 
 
 But if we may add to this the power of self- 
 control, the mastery of our nerves, the virtue of 
 repose, of cool and serene will, then we have our 
 reward, our real reward, that over which no vic- 
 tory is possible, that of a man reconstituted, a 
 man of energy, of strong will, who knows his 
 duty and his right path, who is capable of self- 
 discipline and of submission to a law freely ac- 
 cepted, who is ready to give himself as a sacrifice 
 to his country. It is easy to speak ill of one's 
 country; miserable speechmakers who do not 
 understand the words that they pronounce can 
 
20 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 
 
 slander the mother, the real mother, her for whom 
 they have a right to demand the respect of 
 everyone, but if the day comes when we must 
 march to war, these men without a country will 
 come to beg a rifle of us. (Applause.) 
 
 . . . Gentlemen, it must be evident that the 
 French people have never shown a less aggressive 
 mood than to-day. Why? Because they under- 
 stand that in order to develop their principles, in 
 order to live their full life, they have only to 
 invoke the right of all peoples so to live. Yes, 
 but it is just this right of all peoples so to live 
 their life which has been denied to us by Germany 
 since the day of our defeat. 
 
 You are well acquainted with the affair of 1875, 
 you know full well that because we had permitted 
 ourselves the right to create fourth battalions, we 
 were on the point of being invaded anew. You 
 will find the full story in the memoirs of M. de 
 Gontaut-Biron and in the correspondence of Bis- 
 marck. It is true that once the blow had mis- 
 carried, on account of the intervention of Queen 
 Victoria and of the Emperor Alexander II, the 
 affair was denied. Such things are always 
 denied ! But we have the proofs. It has been es- 
 tablished that General von Moltke had spoken, and 
 you will find, in the memoirs of M. de Gontaut- 
 Biron, a very strange and very critical conversa- 
 tion between our ambassador and Herr von Rado- 
 witz, who has just died. Allow me to quote a few 
 lines from it. It is Herr von Radowitz who 
 speaks : 
 
 "Can you give assurances that France, having 
 regained her former prosperity, and having reor- 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 21 
 
 ganized her military forces, will not find the 
 alliances which she lacks to-day, and that the 
 resentment which she cannot help nursing on ac- 
 count of the loss of her two provinces will not 
 force her inevitably to declare war on Germany? 
 And since the desire for revenge lies deep in the 
 heart of France, and is unalterable, ' ' concludes 
 Herr von Radowitz, "we have an interest, we 
 Germans, in not allowing her to recover, to grow 
 stronger, and to regain the force which she would 
 use against us; we have reason for rendering her 
 incapable, from now on, of injuring us." 
 
 There is but one word to describe such a policy: 
 it is the method which consists in dispatching the 
 wounded on the field of battle. {Hear! Hear!) 
 Because the sword is broken in a man's hand, 
 because he lies prone, let us kill him off, for he 
 might become an enemy later. 
 
 We cannot pass over these things. We never 
 speak of them, and it is better not to. But 
 nevertheless, in the French parliament, which de- 
 termines the policy of the government, is it not 
 necessary that these things be repeated from time 
 to time {Hear!) without malice to anyone, with- 
 out anger, without provocative intent, in order 
 that we may see clearly the course to which they 
 have led us {Applause), and in order that in the 
 light of these signs furnished by our adversaries, 
 — I would not call them our enemies, — we may 
 ourselves decide freely what course it behooves 
 us to adopt? 
 
 The blow miscarried, as I was saying. And 
 M. Ribot was entirely right, the other day, in 
 saying that it was not diplomacy that created 
 
22 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the Triple Entente. No, it sprang to life spon- 
 taneously, because it was in the interest of the 
 three powers; because, as Bismarck was never 
 weary of repeating, England and Russia were 
 wondering whether their neutrality had not led 
 to a bad result in enfeebling one continental 
 power at the expense of another and in establish- 
 ing the German hegemony. Yes, Bismarck abused 
 Gortschakoff, and could not even succeed with 
 Queen Victoria, whom he called, in a letter to his 
 sovereign, "That exalted old lady." (Laughter.) 
 But it is a fact that when the question came of 
 crushing Prance anew, Queen Victoria and Russia 
 rose of their free will, without entreaty and with- 
 out diplomatic overtures, to say: "One moment! 
 We must talk of this first!" 
 
 Well, gentlemen, the hegemony of Germany has 
 pursued its course; events have brought the 
 peoples together, and the Triple Entente has 
 arisen over against the Triple Alliance. Why? 
 That is the great subject of dispute between 
 France and Germany. To-day Germany says to 
 us, "I am at variance with England, and the 
 trouble may lead me a long way. Well, keep out 
 of the battle, or rather, come to my support." 
 We reply, " It is impossible. ' ' And then Germany 
 answers, "That is proof enough that you want 
 to bring on war." 
 
 But nothing i& farther from the fact. Peace 
 results from an equilibrium ; and this equilibrium 
 was established spontaneously, apart from any 
 diplomatic intervention, as I was showing a 
 moment ago. And in spite of that, five threats 
 of war since 1870, $nd without an act of provoca- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 23 
 
 tion on our part: the affair of 1875, the affair of 
 Schnoebele, in which the honesty of Kaiser Wil- 
 helm cut the Gordian knot of the quarrel; and 
 then, — I am coming back to Morocco, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, and I ask pardon for having gone so far 
 afield, — and then the three Moroccan affairs of 
 Tangiers, of Casablanca, and of Agadir. 
 
 This is the preparation for the work of peace 
 to which you now invite us. 
 
 . . . How will the German policy, the origins of 
 which I have just been indicating, manifest itself 
 in the observance of the Franco-German agree- 
 ment of November 4? 
 
 You must know, gentlemen, that so far as quo- 
 tations go, I could cite as many as I pleased; 
 from generals, for instance, say from Marshal 
 von der Goltz, who has great military renown in 
 Germany, and who is president of military 
 leagues in which men, women, and children are 
 invited to participate, as if their country were 
 in danger. Or I could speak of those new arma- 
 ments which cause so much uneasiness in various 
 parts of Europe, all of which is so disquieting, 
 so threatening. 
 
 And when M. Eibot and the Premier ask me, 
 "Would you take the responsibility of rejecting 
 the treaty! Have you thought of what may hap- 
 pen? 1 " I am obliged to ask them first of all 
 whether they themselves fully understand what 
 the vote on the treaty involves. 
 
 Out of all the quotations that I could offer, I 
 shall choose but one. In one of the most im- 
 portant reviews of North Germany — the Preus- 
 siches Jdhrbuch, edited by Professor Delbriick, 
 
24 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 former member of the Reichstag and a liberal 
 conservative — I have f onnd an article by a widely 
 known military author, Herr Daniels, which 
 speaks definitely on the question. If I had read 
 it in the beginning I might have refrained from 
 speaking, which would have been profitable to 
 the Senate. (No! No! Go on!) 
 
 Hear me, gentlemen. This is no ordinary quo- 
 tation ; not at all. For those who know who Herr 
 Daniels is, and what sort of review the Preus- 
 siches Jahrbuch is, and who see that the whole 
 idea of the author is to extol the treaty and to 
 show why it is good, the article possesses a 
 peculiar importance. Listen then to his argu- 
 ments to prove that the treaty is good and ought 
 to be ratified: 
 
 "As long as Germany is not determined to 
 plunge into an interminable series of wars, she 
 must content herself with gleanings in colonial 
 dominions. . . . We should be happy every time 
 we have a chance to acquire a piece of territory 
 in foreign lands. A more magnificent and more 
 dazzling colonial policy does not befit our interna- 
 tional situation, as Prince Bismarck justly recog- 
 nized. Such a policy may be possible some day, 
 if we can wait patiently until the hour has struck 
 for revenge upon our rivals. To attempt it at 
 the present time would bring Germany tumbling 
 from her high position." 
 
 After saying that the opposition in the Reichs- 
 tag would have been justified if "by the Moroc- 
 can agreement, Germany had really retired from 
 Morocco,' ' Herr Daniels continues: "But there 
 can be no question of that. Our economic develop- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 25 
 
 merit in Morocco under the French protectorate 
 is a question of time. But we are by no means 
 politically paralyzed there. If the French judged 
 the matter in as superficial a fashion as the 
 German parliament, and if they persuaded them- 
 selves that they are free forever from German 
 intervention in Morocco, a painful awakening 
 will "be inevitably assured to our amiable neigh- 
 bors. The Moroccan treaty creates in the North 
 African empire a state of things far more favor- 
 able to us than that offered by the act of Al- 
 geciras or by the Franco-German agreement of 
 February, 1909." 
 
 After having specified that it would be for 
 France to pacify the country by armed action in 
 the interest of German commerce, Herr Daniels 
 declares that "The surly critics of German 
 diplomacy" ought themselves to render justice 
 to the efforts of Kiderlen-Waechter, "if they are 
 not filled with the strongest mistrust as to the 
 sincerity of the intentions of France." He adds: 
 
 "We acknowledge that we fully share this 
 feeling. But the political value of the Moroccan 
 arrangement does not appear to be diminished 
 by it. A few years from now there will have 
 arisen plenty of subjects for dispute, created by 
 the non-application or the sophistical interpreta- 
 tion of the Moroccan treaty, due to the excessive 
 spirit of commercialism in the French colonial 
 policy. So much the better! People will know 
 by that time what profitable work a nation of 
 energetic colonizers, supported by a good admin- 
 istration, can do in the Congo, and it is to be 
 hoped that our diplomacy will then be still force- 
 
26 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ful enough to oblige the French who are impa- 
 tiently demanding a freer and freer hand in 
 Morocco, to cede to us new territories from their 
 rich equatorial domain. . . . 
 
 "If the French continue to be our diplomatic 
 adversaries, German diplomacy is worthy of all 
 praise for having been able to hold the Moroccan 
 question open." 
 
 And after quoting an article from the Figaro, 
 in which it is stated that the agreement of Novem- 
 ber 4 is "The beginning, and not the end, of 
 innumerable difficulties, ' ? Herr Daniels concludes : 
 
 "Morocco therefore continues — as the Figaro 
 says to all who do not yet realize it — to be an 
 instrument in the hands of German statecraft. 
 This confirmation, all the more agreeable because 
 we had doubted it for a moment, is at the heart 
 of the negotiations, if Germany, upon Atlas, 
 would keep one foot in the stirrup. The war with 
 France, which our superpatriots desire to-day, 
 can always be had as the result of a later stage 
 of the Moroccan question.' ' 
 
 This is how the other party is preparing for 
 the work of conciliation in the Franco-Moroccan 
 agreement. 
 
 It is true that certain orators have told us, in 
 the Chamber of Deputies, that this treaty was 
 full of snares and that a new statesmanship was 
 necessary for its observance. What is this new 
 statesmanship? It is not in the Chamber of 
 Deputies that these things should be said, but in 
 the Reichstag. (Approbation.) 
 
 This new statesmanship is a policy of rap- 
 prochement with Germany about which a great 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 27 
 
 deal has been said in recent times. This policy 
 of rapprochement was born in the circles of 
 finance. 
 
 I have nothing bad to say of the financiers, but 
 I think they are more useful in their place in 
 finance than in the foreign policy of France. 
 {Hear! Hear! Vigorous applause.) 
 
 M. he Provost de Launay. Or even in her in- 
 ternal policy. 
 
 M. Clemenceau. They have no scales for the 
 imponderable (Hear!), for the sentiments and the 
 passions and the ideas which make nations act; 
 they see only the things that are bought and sold. 
 This is not enough; and the principal vice of 
 financial agreements with Germany, we must not 
 blink our eyes to it, is the danger of increasing, 
 by profits which we leave with the other party, 
 the force which is directed against ourselves. 
 
 That is what financial pacifism is; and it bears 
 no good fruit. 
 
 . . . There is another kind of pacifism. It is an 
 intellectual pacifism, born of humanitarian ideal- 
 ism, which has an excellent representative here 
 in the person of M. d'Estournelles de Constant. 
 
 M. d'Estournelles de Constant. It is a patriotic 
 pacifism. 
 
 M. Clemenceau. My dear colleague, idealism 
 and patriotism cannot be contradictory. 
 
 You have spoken for it exceptionally well; only, 
 when you came to your conclusion, you told us 
 that we must replace the policy of antagonism by 
 the policy of conciliation. 
 
 But I repeat that it is not to us that this needs 
 
28 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 to be said. I know that you have gone about 
 advocating the doctrine in many places, and I 
 congratulate you upon it; but when you explain 
 to us that the interest of Germany is not in war, 
 I answer you, with the facts that I have cited, 
 that peoples are always moved by their immedi- 
 ate interest, and that, unfortunately for us, it is 
 not you who are charged with the interests of 
 Germany. (Hear! Hear! from various benches.) 
 
 M. d'Estoumelles de Constant. What is the 
 use of replying to you ? I did it in advance in my 
 speech. 
 
 M. Clemenceau. There is also a revolutionary 
 pacifism. I would not speak ill of it ; it belongs to 
 four million voices that have just made them- 
 selves heard on the other side of the Rhine. That 
 is a clarion call which you should hear after the 
 expressions with which I was acquainting you a 
 while ago. 
 
 M. Flaissieres. Very good ! 
 
 M. Clemenceau. Only, we must not be deceived 
 by it. All of those men, if their country were 
 menaced, would shoulder a gun. Bebel said so, 
 it is his honor to have said so, and it would be 
 dishonoring him not to believe him. (Hear! 
 Hear! Vigorous applause.) 
 
 I do not despise his way of thinking. I do not 
 underrate his good intentions; only, in practise, 
 I am obliged to admit that I have no means of 
 utilizing them. 
 
 And so much the less since revolutionary paci- 
 fism, arising in the masses, is still so impregnated 
 with ancient doctrines of violence that, though 
 these men preach peace between nations, they are 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 29 
 
 none the less prompt to preach violence at times 
 within the nation {Rear! Hear!), and that, in an 
 access of passion, a warlike movement might take 
 possession of them as of others. 
 
 And yet we are pacifists, in the sense that we 
 have no desire for aggression, that we will do our 
 utmost to maintain peace, that the work which 
 we have undertaken and of which I was speaking 
 a while ago aims too high, far too high, for us 
 to risk it, in a day of battle, in favor of one of 
 those pretexts which in France we call "German 
 quarrels. ' ' We aim too high and too far, I repeat 
 it, and since we are a party to a cordial under- 
 standing, since all peoples have an interest in 
 keeping peace, since war to-day offers to us so 
 horrible a spectacle that no man, in the future, 
 will have the heart to take up his pen to sign 
 the irrevocable declaration, we have still guar- 
 antees of peace. 
 
 In all good faith we want peace; we want it 
 because we have need of it to rebuild our country. 
 But in spite of all, if war is imposed on us, we 
 shall not be found wanting. {Loud applause from 
 all sides.) 
 
 This is the trouble between Germany and us: 
 Germany believes that the logical result of her 
 victory is domination, and we do not believe that 
 the logical result of our defeat is vassalage. 
 (Loud applause from all sides.) 
 
 We are pacifists, or rather we are pacific, but 
 we are not dependents. We do not subscribe to 
 the terms of abdication and the surrender of our 
 rights as our neighbors have drawn them up. 
 We are heirs of a noble history and we mean 
 
30 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 to preserve the tradition. (Unanimous approba- 
 tion.) 
 
 M. Gaudin de Villaine. Those are the words 
 of a true Frenchman. 
 
 M. Clemenceau. The dead have created the 
 living; the living will remain faithful to the dead. 
 (Hear! Hear!) 
 
 And what should we say to this new generation 
 now coming to us, looking upon us with mistrust- 
 ing eyes, because we bequeathed to them a France 
 less worthy than we inherited her? Should we 
 tell them to disown their history, to forget it, to 
 abdicate, to sumbit themselves to the inevitable 
 fate of peoples who have ceased to live? 
 
 No. We have still something to say, something 
 to do, something to will. (Hear! Hear!) 
 
 February 10, 1912. 
 
n 
 
 THE THREE-YEAR LAW—THE CONFER- 
 ENCE OF BERNE— THE ZABERN 
 AFFAIR— HANSI 
 
 A Ceitical Hour 
 
 The affliction of past defeats, which still leave 
 a bleeding wound on both sides of the Vosges, has 
 placed our frontier under the permanent threat 
 of the greatest concentration of soldiers that the 
 world has ever seen. 
 
 Our first necessity is existence. Therefore it 
 is inconceivable that the French people, while 
 far from any idea of provocation, should hesitate 
 to make in self-defense sacrifices similar, if not 
 equal, to those so easily obtained, in the neigh- 
 boring empire, by a political policy which only too 
 deservedly arouses here and elsewhere the fears 
 of aggression. 
 
 The nation has the right to require, in return, 
 that the military command, which has often been 
 found in fault, should be able to turn their manly 
 effort into the most efficient channels. The obliga- 
 tion to provide for the necessities of an armed 
 peace such as Germany is forcing on us entails 
 an increase in effectives, not in order to maintain 
 an old routine such as magnificently led us to dis- 
 aster, but for a methodical plan of military edu- 
 
 31 
 
32 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 cation and preparation with a view to a superior 
 efficiency. 
 
 May 5, 1913. 
 
 The Confeeence of Beene 
 
 What is the good of so many empty words? 
 When the French and German delegates come 
 together at Berne, it will be necessary to open 
 conversations according to diplomatic nsage. 
 What will be the subject of discussion? 
 
 I read in the newspapers that, in the first place, 
 the question of Alsace-Lorraine has been ex- 
 cluded. This is the simplest act of prudence. 
 However, if, on both sides of the frontier, those 
 who say nothing of it are thinking about it all 
 the time, I wonder wherein lies the advantage of 
 bringing together persons who, holding conflicting 
 ideas upon a given question, can only agree not 
 to breathe a word about it. 
 
 There remains, as it happens, the question of 
 reducing armaments, which may give an opening 
 for oratory. Only (mark the misfortune) Ger- 
 many has just recently seen fit to increase her 
 military forces to such a formidable degree that 
 France, in turn, sees herself compelled to aug- 
 ment her own effectives. It is an unhappy point 
 of departure for a tilt of oratory which ought to 
 lead to quite the opposite conclusion. 
 
 I know well enough that many of our delegates 
 at Berne intend to vote against the projected 
 French law on the strengthening of effectives, but 
 misfortune has ordained that their German col- 
 leagues, in whatever concerns their country, 
 should be of quite the opposite mind. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 33 
 
 ... I do not know whether the members of 
 the Keichstag who will make the journey to 
 Berne will be those who enjoy a considerable in- 
 fluence over their colleagues, but it appears to 
 me that the most influential one among them 
 could offer no interpretation capable of palliating 
 to the slightest degree the force of an argument 
 thus conceived: "We shall be able to talk of 
 the reduction of armaments when we shall have 
 augmented them." 
 
 May 10, 1913. 
 
 Foe National Defense 
 
 The thing that too many people among us will 
 not yet understand is that Germany, organized 
 primarily for the exercise of military domination, 
 could not, even if she would — and certainly she 
 has no appearance of desiring to— escape the fate 
 of a growing passion for war. 
 
 All Europe knows that we are on the defensive 
 against her, and on that point she herself can 
 have no doubt. Under pretext of guaranteeing 
 herself against our agression, she will only con- 
 tinue her programs of super-armament up to the 
 day that she considers propitious for destroying 
 us. For one must be wilfully blind not to see that 
 her rage for domination, the explosion of which 
 will one day shake the whole continent of Europe, 
 commits her to the policy of the extermination 
 of France. 
 
 If the catastrophe is inevitable we must then 
 prepare ourselves to face it with all our energy. 
 That is the reason why I am, in general, disposed 
 
34 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 to refuse nothing to the government, whatever it 
 may be, for those defensive measures which it 
 requests from parliament. Those who saw 1870- 
 71 can no longer let slip a single opportunity, 
 however small, to avoid a return of those terrible 
 days, the horror of which could only be increased 
 a hundredfold. At least, if fate inflicts on me 
 again, with aggravated horror, that indescribable 
 anguish, the memory of which still haunts me, 
 I have firmly resolved never to lay to my own 
 account the slightest responsibility for anything 
 that can enfeeble my country when she engages 
 in the supreme combat for existence. 
 
 I wish all deputies were inspired with that 
 sentiment which caused an illustrious man, who 
 played an eminent part in the war of 1870, and 
 whom I do not believe to be enthusiastic for the 
 three-year law, to say the other day: "Service 
 for five years would be absurd. Yet I should vote 
 for it if the government asked it of me, for I do 
 not wish to reproach myself on my death-bed with 
 having contributed, even in part, to a catastrophe 
 from which France would never recover." 
 
 May 21, 1913. 
 
 Eesolution ob Death 
 
 ... At Eeuilly, at Toul, at Belfort, announce- 
 ment is made of mutinous acts, which must not 
 be exaggerated, for the most turbulent would be, 
 perhaps, the most ardent in times of war, but 
 which are making a most unfortunate impression 
 abroad (read the comments in the German press) 
 and in France itself. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 35 
 
 ... At Macon, at Nancy, troops of soldiers 
 have sung the International and have cried Vive 
 la Sociale! 
 
 ... Is it then possible that these sons of the 
 vanquished, rinding their country dismembered, 
 intend, at the very frontier and under the insults 
 of the Pan-German press, to add the outrage of 
 their revolt to the wounds of their mutiliated 
 country, as though better to prepare the way fbr 
 the execution of the threats of the enemy? Their 
 fathers, fallen on the field of battle to safeguard 
 the land of their forebears, could not prevent 
 their fellow Frenchmen from being severed from 
 France by the blade of the victorious sword. A 
 whole people cried out to heaven that France 
 would one day find herself again. Happy the 
 dead who have not seen reparation for outraged 
 justice denied them by those very ones who, at 
 the bar of history, owed it to them most! 
 
 What then has happened! You have been told, 
 poor fools, that all men are brothers and that 
 there are no frontiers in nature. It is the truth. 
 But ever since Cain and Abel, the lower passions 
 — the common lot of all! — have armed brothers 
 against brothers, and when my brother comes to 
 me with blade unsheathed I intend to protect 
 against the hand of Cain the land where my people 
 have lived or will live after me. 
 
 Say there be no frontiers in nature; neither are 
 there any cities or monuments or any of those 
 productions of art and of science by which civil- 
 ization is glorified, with all the brilliant proces- 
 sion of history, whose noblest culture has made 
 
36 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 a miracle out of humanity. All that, however, 
 is, by justice and common consent, the heritage 
 of every man. 
 
 But greed is inflamed — sooner or later — at the 
 sight of treasure, and walls are raised and battle- 
 ments and bastions are arrayed for legitimate 
 defense. And sentinels watch on the ramparts to 
 protect the fruit of righteous toil. And just as 
 to-day you mount guard for yourself and others, 
 others to-morrow will mount guard for you. 
 
 Shame to you, if you gave over to irreparable 
 devastation the last retreat of all beauty and of 
 all nobility. You think you have an idea, poor 
 wretch, you are only feebleness run mad. 
 
 Someone has to begin, say you? Not at all. 
 There must be two at least for a beginning. 
 While you are disarming, do you hear the thunder 
 of cannon across the Vosges? Take care. You 
 might weep your very heart's blood without being 
 able to expiate your crime. Athens, Borne — the 
 grandest monuments of the past — were swept 
 from the earth on the day when the sentinel 
 failed, as you have begun to do. And you, your 
 France, your Paris, your village, your field, your 
 high-road, your little rill, all of that tumult of 
 history from which you emerge, since it is the 
 work of your forefathers, is it, then, nothing to 
 you, and will you, without emotion, hand over 
 that soul, from which your soul is sprung, to the 
 fury of the foreigner? Yes! Say then that it is 
 that which you wish ; dare to say it and be cursed 
 by those who made you man and be dishonored 
 forever. 
 
 You stop, you did not understand, you did not 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 37 
 
 know. A heavier sacrifice than you had thought 
 was required of you ! It is true. It is an increase 
 of effort which has been demanded of you, as of 
 many others, who would have believed them- 
 selves unworthy of France if they had murmured. 
 Very well! Remember that it is not yet enough 
 for your country. Some day, at the most beauti- 
 ful moment, when your hopes are flowering, you 
 will leave your parents, your wife, your children, 
 all that you cherish, all that your heart clings 
 to, and you will go away, singing, as to-day, but 
 another song, with your brothers — blood brothers, 
 those — to face a fearful death, which will wipe 
 out the lives of men in an appalling tempest of 
 steel. And it will be in that supreme moment 
 that you will see again, with sudden clearness, all 
 that is meant by the one loved word, my country; 
 and your cause will seem to you so beautiful, you 
 will be so proud to give your all for it, that 
 wounded or stricken to death, you will die content. 
 
 And your name will be honored, and your son 
 will walk proudly, for, happier than you, he will 
 have understood from childhood the beauty of 
 sacrifice for the nobility of the home, and his 
 heart will beat faster at memory of you, and you 
 will have lived, and, dead, you will continue to 
 live in the hearts of your own. 
 
 Say nothing. I see that now you understand. 
 Go, expiate your fault and return to us absolved, 
 to find again among us the happy place which 
 you thenceforth may claim as your right. 
 
 May 21, 22, 24, 1913. 
 
38 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 The Effort 
 
 ... It is no less than the life or the death of 
 France that will he the stake of the terrible game 
 the horror of which, to-day or to-morrow, may be 
 inflicted upon us. If the French people have not 
 realized this it is because their representatives 
 have not fulfilled their duty. But since they 
 understand it very well — I cannot do them the 
 injustice of doubting it — it is for them to show 
 that they are ready to make that supreme effort 
 of will which is necessary to prevent their being 
 struck out of history. It is not a question, then, 
 of preparing for some fine, triumphal Ther- 
 mopylae to make a beautiful page of history. It 
 is a question, in the long and difficult prepara- 
 tions which must be made, of leaving to the enemy 
 not an atom, not a single atom, of the chances 
 which we can take away from him. 
 
 May 25, 1913. 
 
 To the People of Berne 
 
 I am a little vexed at our eastern neighbors 
 for obliging me to talk of them continually, for 
 I could find other subjects of reflection. But 
 when a man possesses a small estate for which he 
 has a weakness, and when, on the other side of 
 the hedge, he daily sees appear the face of 
 Polyphemus, framed in two menacing arms, at the 
 extremities of which gleam blades of steel, he is 
 inevitably constrained to seek for his neighbor's 
 secret thought. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 39 
 
 I say secret thought, for the public thought, at 
 least according to the words in which it is ex- 
 pressed, might be rather reassuring. If Poly- 
 phemus sharpens his knife it is in the interest 
 of good order and because he suspects, in all 
 frankness, that I may eat him raw. The fear that 
 I inspire in him is so real that he accumulates 
 "dry powder" in his basement and trains on my 
 garden a panoply of arms such as was never seen 
 before. From time to time, to calm his fright, 
 he emits a war-cry and belabors me with raucous 
 words which would fill me with terror in my turn 
 did I not know that he only does it to quiet his 
 nerves. 
 
 The good Cyclops, moreover, is at times a 
 philosopher and does not fear to engage in con- 
 versation on the pleasures of our neighborly re- 
 lations. At heart he likes me, his natural good 
 humor leads him to confess it to me, and if I 
 would simply enter into his service, the whole 
 universe would envy me my lot. Besides, he does 
 not hide from me the fact that he has received 
 from heaven the mission of appropriating what- 
 ever is necessary to permit him to further, in his 
 own way, the good of humanity. It is even thus 
 that the good of humanity is found to be un- 
 detachable from the great sword of Polyphemus. 
 If I do not look out Polyphemus will find himself 
 placed under the necessity of conquering his 
 innate weakness for the delights of peace, and 
 the lot of the base Ulysses can teach me what to 
 expect. 
 
 All this talk, accompanied by the clangor of 
 arms with which the abode of the giant resounds 
 
40 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 night and morning, might have occasioned some 
 uncertainty as to the underlying intentions of my 
 redoubtable interlocutor. 
 
 For centuries we have had "squabbles," as we 
 say. It appears to be inevitable when people are 
 such near neighbors. Strange! There had re- 
 mained no ill feeling between us. We used to 
 exchange visits and even to find, at times, a 
 certain pleasure in each other's society. He used 
 to pour out for me long draughts of mead, of 
 which he is very fond. I used to hear him talk 
 about his little blue flower or sing of Gretchen 
 with the golden locks for whom the villainous 
 demon lies in wait, of the revels of the witches, 
 or the cavalcades of the Walkyries. He had 
 learned everything and knew how to make the 
 most of it. It was only in my thoughts, too re- 
 mote for him, perhaps, that he could never share. 
 
 I interested him, however, for one day, profiting 
 by my defenselessness, he tore up the hedge from 
 my garden to enlarge his park, saying that every- 
 thing would be better thus. And as I could not 
 resist, he took my purse at the same time, for 
 the reason, he explained, that good accounts make 
 good friends. 
 
 The matter did not turn out, however, just 
 exactly as he had predicted. What he had left 
 me of my garden soon appeared to him much too 
 large to suit his taste. Just where I plant flowers 
 he would like a border of cabbages and he swears 
 that my rose-trees are an offense to his potatoes. 
 My virtue is not his virtue: it appears that it is 
 a great vice. And in his good intention of teach- 
 ing me how to live, he sometimes cries out to me 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 41 
 
 that he would like to cut me in four, to look at 
 my works. This kind of neighborliness is very- 
 fatiguing. One can neither sleep nor wake in 
 peace. 
 
 ... It is not three months ago that I paid a 
 visit, in Paris, at the home of a foreign lady 
 whose husband fills an eminent position in his 
 country. The governess of her children, a charm- 
 ing young lady with rosy cheeks, "blue eyes, and 
 yellow curls, entered the drawing-room and came 
 directly to me. 
 
 "I know you very well," she said, as she shook 
 my hand in a friendly way. "You are our enemy, 
 for I am from Dantzig. You detest us." 
 
 I protested that she gravely misjudged me. 
 
 "At most," I explained, "I have sometimes 
 said, like Diogenes to Alexander, that you shut 
 off part of my sun." 
 
 "No, no, you hate us. I have nothing against 
 you. I detest the English dreadfully and I live 
 in England. We'll fight them one of these days. 
 You see, Monsieur, people can be regenerated and 
 grow powerful only through war. They have to 
 have blood. It is the law. Believe me, the safety 
 of humanity is in war, in war only. ' ' 
 
 And the lovely child laughed, highly amused 
 at my expression. 
 
 Polyphemus, Polyphemus, such are thy chil- 
 dren! 
 
 June 2, 1913, 
 
42 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 The Question of Alsace-Lorraine 
 
 The Germans proclaim that there is no question 
 of Alsace-Lorraine. In that case, how comes it 
 that for them it is a permanent subject of dis- 
 cussion? 
 
 It is certain that, if you ask the chancelleries, 
 everyone from the minister to the lowest clerk, 
 will tell you, without even being obliged to consult 
 the daily records, that no ambassador's report, 
 no diplomatic document, discusses the German 
 regime in the annexed provinces. 
 
 It would be none the less a great piece of stu- 
 pidity if the diplomats were to believe that a 
 question which they did not discuss was nonex- 
 istent. I have reason to believe, moreover, that 
 even though they never open their mouths on 
 the subject — which is not certain — the question 
 of Alsace-Lorraine is none the less present in their 
 thoughts when they discuss the relations of people 
 to people, or the causes of dissension which array 
 nations one against the other and foster in them 
 a spirit of hostility. 
 
 It cannot be otherwise, for the question of 
 Alsace-Lorraine flourishes, not in the flowery 
 fields of diplomacy, but in a nook from which no 
 German police force could uproot it — I mean in 
 the inviolable refuge of the human conscience. 
 There is not a law of the Eeichstag, not even a 
 decree of the Emperor of Germany, that can pre- 
 vent people from thinking and of thinking ac- 
 cording to the dictates of right and of morality 
 that they have learned from universal teaching. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 43 
 
 . . . The Republic of Miilhausen was German 
 in language when she gave herself to France in 
 1798. Can one be surprised that she had not fore- 
 seen that to give herself to France was to give 
 herself to Germany? All through the course of 
 time there was no " question of Miilhausen " for 
 Miilhausen 's thought was French though her 
 language was German, and she felt that France 
 allowed her to follow her own conscience. There 
 is a "question of Alsace-Lorraine" for there is a 
 difference in thought, much greater than that of 
 language, between the annexed provinces and our 
 conquerors. 
 
 Can one come at that thought, by force or by 
 kindness, in the most remote fastnesses of its 
 impregnable retreat ? I allow myself to raise cer- 
 tain doubts in the matter. 
 
 . . . Germany can choose. The Poles of Prussia 
 will tell her the same story as the people of 
 Alsace-Lorraine; namely, that the fate of a land 
 can be decided, for a time, upon the battlefield, 
 but not the mastery of souls, which escape the 
 might of the sword. 
 
 June 3, 1913. 
 
 A Question of Existence 
 
 If I am told that "the people " recoil before 
 the three-year law reduced to thirty- three months, 
 I answer that "the people " has, as yet, charged 
 no one to tell us so, but that if it is their will, 
 we must without delay renounce our independence 
 and go beg on bended knee for "the friendship" 
 of Germany, who demands only to make use of 
 
44 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 us to burst forth over the rest of the world — in 
 exchange for which she will permit us, perhaps, 
 to keep Burgundy and Champagne. 
 
 I wonder, indeed, why we are bent on pre- 
 serving just enough military power to attract the 
 shock of the German thunderbolts, to see our- 
 selves again carved in pieces, slashed up, ground 
 down, despoiled of our goods, our dignity, our 
 reason for existence, falling to the lowest depths 
 of servitude, and crowning the deeds of our great 
 ancestors with an ignoble surrender of ourselves. 
 
 I have already said what that argument as to 
 the supposed will of the country is worth. Every 
 man who works for himself and his family natur- 
 ally desires to be removed from his labor only 
 for that period of time which is absolutely nec- 
 essary. And when he is asked what term seems 
 to him preferable he will always answer, "The 
 shortest possible/' 
 
 But can one, in good faith, argue that the terms 
 of the question are such ! This workman does not 
 wish to become German, I assure you. He clings 
 to his home and his country with all that is in 
 him. If he had been able to foresee, before the 
 war of 1870, what danger threatened him, he 
 would have lavished his sacrifices without count- 
 ing them and from the financial point of view 
 only — subordinated here — he would have made a 
 wise transaction. 
 
 June 8, 1913. 
 
 The Two Sides 
 
 . . . Bismarck found us one day at his mercy, 
 as he had already found Vienna, and there oc- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 45 
 
 curred to him the evil idea of wounding us, of 
 mutilating us irreparably, in order to render us 
 forever incapable of a return to strength. Of 
 Austria, whom he had spared, he made himself 
 a willing or unwilling friend. As to France, his 
 idea was to crush her out of all possible rivalry 
 by leaving her panting on the battlefield, dis- 
 membered, ruined, bled white, incapable, it 
 seemed to him, of gathering together the strength 
 to live. And all this is so true that five years 
 afterward, when he believed he discerned, from 
 our first movements towards reconstruction, that 
 we might be able to stand erect some day, it re- 
 quired the rest of Europe to prevent him from 
 hurling himself upon us to bring us to our end. 
 In the end, the worst was that all Germany, in- 
 sanely intoxicated with her victory, made Bis- 
 marck's sentiments her own, believing that it was 
 enough to silence the demands of the commonest 
 generosity in order to seize upon the empire of 
 the world. 
 
 That is what we are all expiating to-day. For 
 when a man, or a people, has thus cast aside the 
 mask and allowed the world to see, in the depths 
 of his soul, sentiments that he cannot avow with- 
 out blushing, how is he to pardon in others the 
 pangs of conscience for which he dares not openly 
 accept the responsibility? To finish us, to finish 
 us, it is the obsession of his thoughts. In what- 
 ever form the avowal of it may escape her, Ger- 
 many has but one thought: to finish us, that is 
 to say, to reduce us to such a state of servitude 
 that she can, according to the confidences of 
 Pyrrhus to Cineas, proceed to new conquests 
 
46 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 which will give her the hegemony of Europe, 
 while she awaits the rest. 
 
 . . . Meanwhile, pray, what are we doing 1 The 
 Republican party, without a head, without disci- 
 pline, without method, without resolution, with- 
 out determination, without government, wears 
 itself out, dissipates itself into minute and im- 
 potent organisms in order to endeavor to institute 
 the reign of minorities, and hands over the power 
 to its adversaries. 
 
 And when Germany, in her cynical candor, 
 claims on all sides that her neighbors are taking 
 the off ensive against her, in preparing themselves 
 to resist the aggressions that her super-armaments 
 foretell, when there occurs on our frontiers an 
 amassment of soldiers such as the world has never 
 seen before, do you know what is the action of 
 the Republican majority? It spends days and 
 weeks discussing how to arrange for the victory 
 with the least possible inconvenience to the 
 French people. 
 
 June 4, 1913. 
 
 Call the Roll ! 
 
 . . . On the merits of the question* the argu- 
 ments have been exhausted. Is it not enough to 
 state that in these last two years Germany has 
 made, for the increase of her effectives, an. effort 
 equal to that which a methodical plan had allowed 
 her to carry out between 1873 and 1910, that is 
 
 *The debate in the Chamber of Deputies was on the three-year 
 law. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 47 
 
 to say, in thirty-seven years of interrupted 
 growth? 870,000 men in the standing army of 
 Germany, better trained, better furnished, better 
 organized than ours, and 480,000 in the army of 
 France: is this not enough to say! 
 
 As to the manner of making up this deficit, so 
 far as possible, one can debate indefinitely; the 
 Chamber has not failed to show the fact. But 
 it is time to come to some decision, and as soon 
 as possible, unless we would be thought of as no 
 more than a people of debaters. 
 
 The radical objection is to tell us that a de- 
 clining birth-rate condemns us to an inferiority 
 to which we must resign ourselves. This I refuse 
 absolutely to accept. If our movement of growth 
 has relaxed, the duty to herself of the France 
 still subsisting is to make a greater effort toward 
 reestablishment, not to veil her face and abandon 
 herself. 
 
 Surely no one dreams of proposing to us not 
 to defend ourselves. But the question is not 
 whether we shall defend ourselves. Abandoned, 
 betrayed, without resources, trodden under foot, 
 we have proved that we could make a valiant 
 enough defense. There were explanations, on that 
 occasion, for our defeat. There would no longer 
 be any to-day. For it is not enough to fight well 
 to make a fine page in history. Our business 
 now would be to repel the invader, to roll him 
 back beyond our frontiers, and this under pain of 
 being cut to pieces, enslaved, reduced to a state 
 little better than death, delivered, in the last con- 
 vulsions of agony, to the ironical compassion of 
 the conqueror — more cruel than his barbarism. 
 
48 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 If a people confronted with this implacable 
 dilemma is not capable of arising at a bound to 
 assemble all its forces, without reserve, to protect 
 its right to life, its end is written in the book of 
 fate. And further, those of our friends who, in 
 the excellent intention of reducing the expenses 
 of the country, exert themselves to lessen the 
 three-year period of service, month by month, or 
 man by man, or in whatever way their ingenuity 
 permits them to shorten it, are in my opinion on 
 the highway toward the result indicated. 
 
 In order to reach the goal, one must be capable 
 of passing it. Is not this the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of athletic training, as in the training of 
 soldiers? And is there not, in equal truth, an 
 athletic and moral training for a people to fit it 
 to meet, not only the foreseen, which is calculable, 
 but also the inevitable surprises of the unfore- 
 seen! 
 
 June 29, 1913. 
 
 Apology 
 
 . . . We have an enthusiasm which nothing can 
 dampen, faith in the country, courage, fortitude; 
 our soldier is the best. We need preparation and, 
 in this respect, our eventual adversaries are in- 
 comparably superior to us. Well! The prepa- 
 ration will come to us only from a government, 
 and from a government that knows its mind. 
 
 . . . Those who, seeing the evil, resign them- 
 selves to it or make themselves accomplices of it, 
 $o a wicked work, and I will combat them with 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 49 
 
 all the force that is left to me. Questions of per- 
 sonal interest are nothing to me. I ask nothing 
 of the Republic but the liberty to say what I think, 
 all that I think. And I shall continue to say it 
 in the interest of my country. I know that I am 
 out of fashion. I take pride in it, because I have 
 no need either of criticism or of praise to continue 
 straight upon my way. 
 
 This unhappy country, troubled, disunited by 
 the sorry parliamentarians whom power irresist- 
 ibly attracts and terrifies at the same time because 
 they are lacking in will, has need of those of her 
 sons whose hearts are still brave and who will 
 dare to say, in order to awaken energies now dor- 
 mant, what too many feeble consciences are bent 
 upon concealing. The role is fine enough for any 
 good Frenchman to be happy to play it. 
 
 July 4, 1913. 
 
 The Zabekn Affair 
 
 I do not know why there has been so much talk 
 about the Zabern affair. What is there that can 
 astonish those who know the German rule? 
 
 The affair was Alsatian before becoming Ger- 
 man. That is the first point to consider. 
 
 Germany took Alsace-Lorraine away from us, 
 Vvdth five billions to defray expenses of original 
 establishment, and the first of thanks was that 
 the conquered country must be Germanized by 
 any and all means. No sooner said than done. 
 Immigration and shrewd policies, these were the 
 two methods that seemed surest to inculcate in 
 French heads a love of Teutonism. From the 
 
50 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Prussian land and neighboring territories there 
 came streaming a starveling crowd, attracted by 
 the hire of favors which, by the aid of the admin- 
 istration and of the army, it would scarcely fail 
 to obtain. 
 
 Professors, administrators, and soldiers pre- 
 sented themselves first; the ones instructed to 
 speak, the others to act, according to the good 
 German method. Under their wing there soon 
 arrived a flood of immigrants instructed to play 
 the role of those tame elephants in India which 
 are sent out among their wild fellows in order that 
 they may lead the latter quietly into the enclosure 
 of stout pickets. Furnished with glory and a good 
 appetite, this band, quite as well disciplined for 
 their civil roles as for the military, installed them- 
 selves in the lands of others, and said "We are 
 at home." Those who were really at home there 
 looked at the newcomers, listened to them, and did 
 not understand that they had become the property 
 of the foreigner ; a mute misunderstanding, but a 
 deep one, which was bound to have consequences, 
 which has had them and will have them. 
 
 Under the Empire, when I went to visit my 
 friends in Alsace, I used to be naively astounded 
 by the remarks which, in public and private, dem- 
 onstrated an unceasing reprobation of Germany. 
 The reason was that they already knew each other 
 across the banks of the Rhine. It needed no more 
 to explain the feelings of both parties — which the 
 conquest would soon have carried to the point of 
 exasperation. 
 
 Here, to be just, I must make a distinction be- 
 tween the cultivated classes of immigrants and 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 51 
 
 the simple occupants more or less directly placed 
 under administrative tutelage. Had someone 
 shrewdly distributed the roles, or may we believe 
 in the mitigating influence of culture of whatever 
 kind? At any rate, the truth obliges me to say 
 that the processes were different. One party 
 utilized brute force in its naked reality and the 
 other made an effort to mask it by persuasion. 
 What a surprise for the two comrades when their 
 contrary methods led them to similar results! 
 
 The German could say "We are at home" to 
 the Alsatian as long as he pleased, but none the 
 less there remained two populations side by side. 
 The words " native" and "immigrant" tell the 
 whole story. The Alsatian heart is tender, but 
 terribly obstinate. There is something tragi- 
 comical in the testimony of those witnesses who 
 appeared the other day in the court at Strassburg 
 and began with the words, "As for me, I am a 
 German." Well, well! And the others, what is 
 their nationality, then? What an avowal, in the 
 necessity of that distinction! 
 
 Nevertheless, the agents of graciousness spare 
 themselves no less than the agents of Brutality. 
 At the head of the government in Alsace sits a 
 man who, under the surveillance of a brute, exer- 
 cises, in the cause of Teutonization, the very finest 
 gifts of the amenities. And the thing that must 
 stir the amiable irony of the Alsatian mind to its 
 depths, is that the brutal and the gracious, equally 
 powerless to conquer the hearts of the people, 
 should get to reproaching each other for their 
 respective methods, to accusing each other of their 
 common defeat, and to fighting each other even 
 
52 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 at the risk of provoking in the " natives' ' that 
 smile which Lieutenant Schadt, half drunk when 
 he stopped the passers-by, could not endure, any 
 more than could the immortal von Forstner when 
 he was forced to have himself escorted by four 
 men, with fixed bayonets, when he went to buy a 
 bar of chocolate. 
 
 Yes, all this story of Zabern is the conflict of 
 two methods for an identical result. And how 
 instructive ! 
 
 January 12, 1914. 
 
 Under the Great Saber 
 
 It cannot be contested in good faith that, in the 
 race for armaments, it is Germany who is leading. 
 She has acquired a military hegemony, and she 
 means to develop it. The history of Europe since 
 1870 is the history of the growth of the German 
 military power. Nothing has been done around 
 us except by or with the will of the Kaiser, and 
 as his will had necessarily to leap the barriers 
 of continental boundaries, a stupendous game, 
 with Asia for a stake, has been opened among the 
 powers under the saber of Wilhelm II. 
 
 Such a state of things cannot continue without 
 arousing apprehensions about the balance of 
 power, and this is exactly the triumph of the 
 policy of Germany, who is pleased to remind us 
 from time to time, the better to impress her might 
 upon us, that it is in her power to upset every- 
 thing. Proposing peace, she is preparing for a war 
 on such stupendous lines that imagination revolts 
 at the mere occurrence of the picture. What 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 53 
 
 mightier instrument of moral coercion than this 
 monstrous threat hanging eternally over our 
 heads! Berlin has made us feel too often its 
 efficacy. 
 
 The masterpiece of Bismarck was to harness a 
 vanquished Austria to his fortunes. Italy was 
 admitted only by favor to the company in which 
 the German government reserved the high com- 
 mand. For the other powers the situation became 
 so intolerable that Russia, France, and England 
 came together, by common consent, to save what 
 might remain of independence on the continent. 
 
 This was a great disappointment for Germany, 
 who would have been glad to complete the work 
 of dismemberment in 1871 by the moral conquest 
 of an annexed France, after the fashion of Aus- 
 tria-Hungary. After that she would have been 
 able, with her formidable fleet, created in all its 
 effectives by Wilhelm II, to crush England, with 
 our aid (Eussia being pushed back toward the 
 Orient by persuasive methods), and to rejoice in 
 the glory of a Teutonized Europe. It is in this 
 sense that we must understand the professions of 
 love for France with which the Kaiser amused 
 himself when he said to certain Frenchmen, "If 
 you were willing, we could be the masters of the 
 world, we two." 
 
 The Triple Entente is made, and it will continue 
 in spite of the kindnesses, sharpened by threats, 
 with which the German sovereign, from time to 
 time, pleases to annoy us. If one of the three 
 powers allowed herself to be caught in the snares 
 of the tempter, nothing less than an epoch of 
 Europe would come to an end. But there is noth- 
 
54 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ing that leads me to suspect — it does not even 
 appear possible — that such an event is in a way 
 to happen. Thus the German power finds itself 
 met by an equal power, which, without threatening 
 Germany — for there is no desire for agression at 
 London or Paris or St. Petersburg — arrests her, 
 nevertheless, on the threshold of the formidable 
 enterprise to which she is feverishly tempted. 
 
 Whence comes that bad humor, as of ill-bred 
 people, which inspires in our excellent brethren 
 across the Rhine the unpolished phrases about us 
 with which they appease themselves when they 
 find — and even when they do not find — an occa- 
 sion. The amusement of these great warriors of 
 the pen is to play giant-killer and to make Europe 
 tremble at the glowering of their brows. Yet I 
 have seen a day when, without a word of reply 
 to their threats, France did not tremble. 
 
 . . . Let Germany choose her hour. She will 
 discover the moral might of a just cause, sup- 
 ported by courage and military preparedness. 
 
 March 6, 1914. 
 
 News from Germany 
 
 ... I have often recalled the admirable pro- 
 test of Bebel, Liebknecht, Sonneman, and their 
 friends in 1871 against the annexation of Alsace- 
 Lorraine and have made it a point of honor to 
 express my thanks to them. But the times have 
 changed, and we cannot help it on one side or 
 on the other. The number of socialists has grown 
 beyond all expectation. I cannot declare that the 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 55 
 
 chances of maintaining peace are improved by it. 
 What is taking place at this very hour is a strik- 
 ing demonstration of the fact. It is not the social- 
 ists who have stirred np the Post, the Cologne 
 Gazette, the LoJcal Anzeiger, and even the Ber- 
 liner Tageblatt, which is suddenly breaking, as 
 by a given signal, with its moderate policy. The 
 socialists have not been consulted, they are not 
 to be consulted; but when the match has been 
 touched to the powder, the men of the socialist 
 party, like those of all other parties, will accept 
 or submit to the Kaiser's offensive ivar and will 
 arrive at the frontier of France with their outfit 
 of cannon and rifles. 
 
 If the German people themselves were freely 
 consulted, I can easily believe that this war would 
 not take place. But by the analogy of what I saw 
 in 1870, when not a Frenchman was dreaming of 
 war with Germany, a fatality against which we 
 shall all be powerless to resist will plunge us, if 
 the envoys of God on earth so decide, into the 
 yawning gulf before us. 
 
 . . . How could I fail to draw these inferences 
 when I see all the German press suddenly turned 
 loose, as if by military order, against Russia, and 
 arriving cynically at the conclusion of a preven- 
 tive war? 
 
 . . . What security can there be in Europe 
 when the fate of peoples depends on the will of a 
 single man who, according to what he believes 
 to be the interest of the moment, can with one 
 word throw his millions of soldiers in arms across 
 
56 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the frontiers of his neighbors? His power is one 
 of aggression. His most accredited interpreters 
 avow it, they scientifically display the reasons 
 which oblige the German government to decree 
 universal massacre in the interest of the German 
 nation. It is a significant thing that the turpitude 
 of the "masters of the world" and of their faith- 
 ful servitors has come to making such avowals 
 without revolting the opinion of the country. 
 
 If all of a sudden this tempest of menaces has 
 fallen upon us, there must be some sort of reason. 
 The newspapers would not be newspapers if they 
 stopped short of explanations. It means very 
 little to tell us that all this is preliminary to the 
 renewal of a commercial treaty too unfavorable to 
 Russia, in which German commerce will renounce 
 some of its advantages. 
 
 Germany has great designs on all parts of the 
 world. Her economic interests make this neces- 
 sary, and it would be childish to complain of it. 
 What is intolerable is her intention to keep Europe 
 living under the terror of her arms and to replace, 
 by the perpetual menace of a general war, the free 
 international debates in which even selfish interest 
 sometimes gives way to a feeling of justice. 
 
 Nothing has happened, so far as we know, to 
 justify the violent explosion the spectacle of which 
 angry Germany is giving to the peoples who, up 
 to the present, have claimed the honor of being 
 civilized. A fit of indignation, of vexation, even 
 though founded on poor pretexts, might be under- 
 stood. But even that is lacking. Are we to be- 
 lieve that we are perpetually condemned to in- 
 terrogate, each morning, the physiognomy of the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 57 
 
 Kaiser in order to know whether we shall be 
 allowed to live in peace a whole new day, rejoicing 
 that the moment has not yet come when this very 
 gracious prince will judge it the interest of his 
 dynasty to twist our necks? No such regime can 
 be installed in Europe. If the whole world to- 
 gether has more wit than Voltaire, the whole world 
 is stronger than the strongest emperor, who, more- 
 over, may quite possibly find himself a wretched 
 commander-in-chief. 
 
 March 11, 1914. 
 
 Internationalism 
 
 The world is enlarging. There no longer exists 
 a country which can live a life apart. Every 
 morning a printed sheet comes to it in which it 
 may find, if fancy prompts it to take note, the 
 news of the whole world, with the movement of 
 prices in neighboring markets or beyond the seas. 
 And this is no empty amusement. Out of the mass 
 of information which pursues a man and sub- 
 merges him from morning to night, by telegraph 
 and telephone, he draws, for his affairs, for his 
 economic or political or social interests, certain 
 conclusions, more or less true, which may be 
 profitable to him if he takes the trouble to give 
 them his attention. An international mind is de- 
 veloping on all the continents of the earth, for 
 on coming to know various lands and various peo- 
 ples with different manners and customs, we dis- 
 cover between them and ourselves relationships of 
 every kind with which we must make our reckon- 
 
58 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ing, with an eye to our present course and equally 
 to our preparations for the future. 
 
 The world is enlarging, in the sense that the 
 individual is becoming more and more a citizen of 
 the earth, and one might equally well say that it 
 is growing smaller, in the sense that people are 
 coming nearer together, whether to hate or to es- 
 teem each other, to fight or to cooperate. Our 
 pacifists base magnificent hopes upon "the love 
 that is stronger than hatred," because, in my 
 opinion, they have failed to notice that all life 
 is a conflict of opposing forces always manifested 
 in the fulness of their powers. The fact that the 
 reason of man, and a sentiment of justice which 
 is his distinction — accompanied, to make it 
 stronger, by an interest well understood — inspires 
 him to a better regulation of these forces, is only 
 a demonstration of the law of social evolution 
 which no one can transgress. But as for carrying 
 this process of voluntary moderation to the ex- 
 treme of pure pacifism — a thing which a verbal 
 idealism at the disposition of every man often 
 takes pleasure in dreaming of — it is to this that 
 my mind, considering the realities of life, and dis- 
 trusting the abstractions which substitute meta- 
 physical creatures for actual human beings, can- 
 not accommodate itself. If, nevertheless, the 
 great day of universal love should ever come, in- 
 calculable years after my death, I shall certainly 
 not refuse to rise from the grave to pay my tribute 
 of enthusiasm to a new human nature, and I shall 
 be glad indeed to know that I was deceived. 
 
 But in the present case, since it is the fate of 
 man to share the life of his own time, I would 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 59 
 
 ask indulgence for my inability to advise my fel- 
 low men to attempt, from this day forth, to realize 
 in their concerns the sublimities which heaven has 
 reserved as a possibility for a time as yet un- 
 specified. That is what leads me, when my neigh- 
 bor is arming himself, to arm myself in turn, to 
 the best of my ability. That is what leads me, also, 
 — for there are many ways of being strong, — to 
 wish for my country a government of good order, 
 compatible with liberty, which, by authoritative 
 regulation, may promote the best development of 
 all our energies. That is what leads me, finally, 
 to watch very closely the governments that show 
 aggressive spirit, and the state of mind among the 
 peoples who submit to their domination, while 
 every sign of weakness among independent nations 
 capable of offering resistance to hegemony arouses 
 in me a continuous anxiety. 
 
 In the situation we have occupied since the war 
 of 1870 every Frenchman ought to understand 
 that the questions called "foreign' ? concern Mm 
 for so many reasons that it is madness for him 
 to decline to be interested in them. All the men 
 who have erected their want of energy into an easy 
 philosophy have extolled the happy days when 
 peoples passively submitted to the law of the 
 strongest without ever worrying themselves about 
 the consequences, for themselves or for their chil- 
 dren. If such was the golden age, we must resign 
 ourselves to the fact that we shall never see it 
 again, for the soul once delivered does not return 
 to its fetters. At the cost of great exertions, the 
 nations are more and more working out their own 
 destinies, and this in the measure in which the 
 
60 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 men who compose them accept the duty of per- 
 petually assisting the common cause with wise and 
 prudent labor. 
 
 . . . The Frenchman cannot without difficulty 
 bring himself to admit that modern life requires a 
 redoubling of efforts from every man in every 
 field of work. Does he not begin to discover that 
 all around him there is rising a mighty cry from 
 mankind demanding energy at all costs, every- 
 where and at all times'? Is not being the first 
 necessity for doing, is it not necessary to stand 
 erect, physically and morally, to hold one's own 
 against every hostile enterprise, if one would de- 
 velop and grow, if one would not fall headlong? 
 Is not this the very law of life? 
 
 The Germans made this discovery immediately 
 after the treaty of Frankfort and I have never 
 concealed the fact that the unanimity with which 
 they gave themselves to their work enlisted my 
 admiration. I should have been glad to see a simi- 
 lar enthusiasm among my fellow-citizens. It is 
 true that in Europe, where so many frontiers are 
 so indefinite, we must first of all give our attention, 
 like too many other peoples, to the defense of our 
 territory — a task far from pleasant for a people 
 who have for a neighbor a conqueror whom vic- 
 tories have intoxicated with the spirit of mastery. 
 
 M. Charles Eichet, who is now at Berlin— 
 whither he has gone to recommend the adoption, 
 by the next convention at The Hague, of the prin- 
 ciple of obligatory arbitration — is by no means 
 embarrassed by all these considerations. He is 
 one of those who from the first understood the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 61 
 
 necessity of the three-year law. But he also pro- 
 poses to us the formula of M. Leon Bourgeois: 
 behind a screen of bayonets, an established prin- 
 ciple of obligatory arbitration. I read that he has 
 had a friendly welcome in university circles, and 
 that does not at all astonish me. But he will soon 
 learn that although private individuals cannot but 
 be gracious to him, the ideas which he advances 
 cannot find a fertile soil in Berlin. Possibly it 
 has occurred to him to attend a lecture in which 
 Dr. Walter Bloem treats of war as the necessary 
 means for developing the highest moral virtues in 
 mankind. He went to Berlin to teach ; there is no 
 harm done if he finds an opportunity to learn. 
 Ah ! if he could arrange a fine lecture in rebuttal, 
 it would be well worth the trouble necessary. 
 
 I do not know what impression those private 
 conversations will make upon him. When the 
 Teuton is not brutal he can very easily be a sham 
 good fellow. But the rule has exceptions numer- 
 ous enough to allow M. Charles Eichet to bring 
 back from across the Rhine a great lot of useful 
 information. We know already what he is going 
 to say at Berlin, and the people there have known 
 it too, for a long time. The replies which he will 
 receive, — for his trip has obviously two purposes, 
 — will be very instructive, if they are sincere, on 
 account of the position of his interlocutors — 
 especially if they are willing to put their real 
 thoughts before him. He will surely be willing to 
 enlighten us on these matters as soon as he re- 
 turns. Whatever he may have to say, we shall 
 find in his report an assemblage of the signs of 
 
62 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the times from which, for my own part, I am ready 
 to secure what benefit I may. 
 
 But let it be clearly understood that we must 
 see straight. The question to ask the men at Ber- 
 lin is necessarily this : will you agree to establish 
 between peoples, and particularly with the French 
 people, a rule of obligatory arbitration for all dis- 
 putes that may arise? In case a providential 
 miracle should incline them to answer in an un- 
 conditional affirmative, perhaps it would be well 
 to ask them whether they observe any disposition 
 in the German people (I say nothing of the gov- 
 ernment, which, nevertheless, must be considered) 
 to agree in this opinion, and at what date, approx- 
 imately, it seems to them possible to realize such 
 a revolution. 
 
 In my desire to discourage no one, I dare not 
 carry the interrogation further and seek informa- 
 tion as to what our neighbors might think about 
 disbanding the army. It still remains to be dis- 
 covered how we should establish the military sanc- 
 tion — that is to say, war for the suppression of 
 war — in the absence of which obligatory arbitra- 
 tion would be shorn of obligation, 
 
 April 1, 1914. 
 
 Bargaining for Life 
 
 There are certain times when a breath of reso- 
 lution passes through a people and inspires them, 
 in individual and in national action, to vast ever- 
 sions the history of which gives little comfort to 
 reactionaries. We have known such moments, 
 and I think I can say that the civilization of the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 63 
 
 world is the better for them. What good would 
 it do us to blind ourselves to the hours of weak- 
 ness which rival nations do not fail to make the 
 most of? I hope I may be correctly understood, 
 for this word of " weakness" would be very mis- 
 takenly interpreted if anyone should think that I 
 mean it in the sense of decadence. 
 
 Alas, history teaches us but too well that, in 
 the conflicts of races in which mysterious blends 
 are working, peoples, like individuals, have their 
 curve of evolution. The races that have reached 
 the highest civilization have come to the w r orst 
 ends. And yet the great discoveries which have 
 so powerfully changed and hurried human life by 
 the use of steam, oil, and electricity have undoubt- 
 edly furnished us with new conditions in which the 
 phenomena of human development can and must 
 be modified. It is therefore by no means neces- 
 sary to conclude, from the fact that we have al- 
 ready done a great work for humanity, that we 
 must undergo a continuous weakening of energy 
 as a result. 
 
 When I compare the France of to-day, in her 
 activity of all kinds, with the France of former 
 times, the tradition of whose thought we have in- 
 herited, I do not feel that we are really unworthy 
 of our ancestors. In all the fields of intellect there 
 is nothing to show that we have declined. What 
 were the problems of Athens or Rome in compari- 
 son with those that press us for solution? Grad- 
 ually, all mankind is rising in the scale of intelli- 
 gence, and, to tell the real truth, there are even 
 in our scandalous party quarrels certain elements 
 of greatness. For there is no people worthy of 
 
64 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the name which develops more incessantly than 
 we those general ideas which will amplify the 
 future of all mankind. 
 
 It is just this which places us in a different 
 position from that of our fathers. The scale of 
 relationships is altered. Formerly a very small 
 number of nations occupied the theater of civiliza- 
 tion and pompously entitled themselves "the 
 World. ' ' That time is past. The great races have 
 swarmed, creating in every country a tumult of 
 activity and thought, and on every continent a 
 buzzing of hives stirring notifies us that the im- 
 mense workshop of the human species is resound- 
 ing from the encounters of men and of ideas out 
 of which will be born the world of to-morrow. 
 
 Our ambition to make a mark in the history 
 of this noble labor is assuredly not beyond our 
 strength. But, rolled back by Germany from con- 
 tinental frontiers which since the defeats of Na- 
 poleon we had considered impregnable, we are 
 painfully trying to reconcile two problems: the 
 maintenance of our territory at any price, and the 
 evolution of political liberty and social justice in 
 a France which shall be mistress of her fate. 
 
 The defeat of Varus could not take away from 
 Koine, face to face with the German hordes, her 
 crown of human culture ; and so with us after the 
 defeat of MacMahon. The great difference is that 
 the German tribes have taken a place, in their 
 turn, in the ranks of civilization, and open against 
 us every day, during the peace, a battle in its own 
 way as fearsome as those that took place in the 
 encounters of a war whose memory is still alive in 
 our hearts. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 65 
 
 When we reopen, since we must, the discussion 
 of the three-year service, I wish that every French- 
 man might be possessed, first of all, with this idea : 
 that if the conflict comes about for which all the 
 German race is madly preparing, our defeat would 
 mean the final enslaving of our people, the very 
 termination of our history. This is where we 
 stand, and since we stand here, it would be the 
 height of crime to leave to evil fortune any chance 
 of which our foresight might deprive her. I am 
 quite willing to give too much for national defense. 
 I decline the right to give less than is necessary, 
 however little. 
 
 May 14, 1914. 
 
 Objectively 
 
 M. Boutroux has given a lecture at the Univer- 
 sity of Berlin on French thought and German 
 thought in their relation to the development of 
 human culture. M. Hansi has been sent on from 
 the tribunal of Colmar to the court of Leipsig to 
 be tried for high treason. 
 
 M. Boutroux tried to reconcile German idealism 
 with German realism, which seem to oppose each 
 other with equal forces. He said that the German 
 subordinates man to society, while in French 
 thought the idea of the individual is dominant. 
 He expressed the hope that each one of the two 
 peoples might continue to develop its own per- 
 sonality, without declining, however, to seek in the 
 principles of its neighbor the sources of new en- 
 thusiasm. Professor Eiehl, of the faculty of phi- 
 losophy, thanked the French orator, in the name of 
 
66 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 his colleagues, and concluded in these words: "A 
 spiritual bond has been welded here to-day; this 
 hour has seen an event in our life." 
 
 At this same time the idealism and the realism 
 of the German tribunal at Colmar united to pro- 
 nounce an unfavorable verdict upon the traces of 
 French sentiment recognized by expert magis- 
 trates in the album of Hansi entitled My Village, 
 for the use of French children. The ideal spirit- 
 ual bond invocated by Professor Riehl in terms 
 to which we are happy to render homage is thus 
 found put to the proof before the realism of the 
 Herr Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine. The hour 
 which marks an event in the life of the professor 
 of philosophy in Berlin brings another tocsin call 
 to the city of Colmar, which sees Hansi, sur- 
 rounded by police officers, on his way to jail, pre- 
 paratory to appearing at Leipsig to be tried for 
 the crime of high treason. 
 
 And what has Hansi done ? He felt and thought 
 freely, in a country which is his own, where the 
 supremacy of the "All," as M. Boutroux says, 
 seems irreconcilable with the liberty of a part ; so 
 much so that in the character of one part Hansi 
 must make his reckoning with the domination of 
 the "All," as represented by the judges at Leip- 
 sig. To translate all this from German into 
 French, I may tell you quite simply that Hansi 
 is accused of having publicly defamed the police 
 and the school-teachers of Alsace-Lorraine, by 
 writing that the ones had thick heads and that the 
 others had heavy hands for their Alsatian pupils ; 
 all of which tends to disturb the public peace, it 
 is alleged in the territory of the Empire, by means 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 67 
 
 of pictures which I made the mistake of finding 
 charming, and in which the little children of Alsace 
 are presented as " Those who do not forget," to 
 the little children on the other side of the Vosges. 
 
 . . . If it were permitted to me to take the 
 floor, I should say a word, not for Hansi, who 
 will know how to plead his cause, but for his ac- 
 cusers. Yes, in the same spirit that inspired the 
 discourse of M. Boutroux, I would defend, against 
 themselves, the men whose passions for idealism 
 and realism, variously combined, impel them to 
 acts which are insulting to the mind of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Come, men of Germany, since it is said beyond 
 the Rhine that I have judged you wrong, here is 
 the best of opportunities to confound me. Do I 
 not do you honor in hoping that you are minded 
 to profit by it? 
 
 Hansi made fun of the police and the school- 
 teachers. He did not tell the truth, you pretend? 
 In that case, where may the danger be? Every- 
 one will give him the answer that is proper by a 
 simple shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 . . . Acknowledge it frankly, the phrase, the 
 only phrase, that you really fear is " Those who 
 do not forget." Very well! Why shouldn't we 
 talk about it? — objectively, according to a method 
 that you love. Not as Frenchman to German, but 
 as man to man, as if I were Monegasque and you 
 were Dutch, for example? I suggest that we try 
 it. I shall not need to use any effort to confuse 
 you ; just the facts, without comment. 
 
68 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 By force of arms yon took Alsace-Lorraine. 
 Such events are as old as history. People take 
 territory, people also take men, without caring 
 whether they will or not. If fortune had been 
 against you, the problem might have been re- 
 versed, I acknowledge that. I shouldn't fail to 
 blame my country if it had acted as yours did. 
 That doesn't prove that Hansi was wrong; it 
 doesn't prove that you are right. 
 
 In a speech that I delivered, as Premier, at a 
 dedication of a monument to my friend Scheurer- 
 Kestner, I made a clear claim for ourselves, as for 
 Alsace-Lorraine, to the right not to forget* And 
 since, in my office as head of the government, I 
 had made it clear in the beginning that the ques- 
 tion of legal right was not under discussion at 
 the time, Prince Radolin, the ambassador of Ger- 
 many, whose perfect courtesy deserves my admi- 
 ration, came to thank me, in the name of his gov- 
 ernment, not for the sentiments I had expressed, 
 of course, but for having looked at the question 
 from a point of view from which a man should 
 regard it if he spoke, in the circumstances, in the 
 name of the French state. 
 
 Well! what has Hansi done more than I did? 
 Absolutely nothing. He has said that those of 
 Alsace will never forget, any more than those of 
 France, and not a word escaped his lips which 
 will permit the court at Leipsig to seize upon a 
 statement of hopes in which there can be honestly 
 discovered the guilt of high treason. 
 
 Now I, coming from Monaco, I ask you from 
 Amsterdam, would you think better of the ac- 
 cused if he had — in his personal interests, this 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 69 
 
 time — repudiated his mother country, from which 
 the force of arms had torn him, than if he had 
 retained his love for her! And since your reply 
 cannot be in doubt, tell me, my good man, if it 
 seems right to you to send a man to prison because 
 you think well of him? 
 
 Nay, rather did the honest Hansi, in expressing 
 himself with a noble freedom, render honor to 
 the masters of the day, by supposing them capable 
 of the respect which every act of noble sincerity 
 commands. If warlike violence has continued to 
 rule over men, just as in the times of primitive 
 humanity, the human conscience has remained no 
 less, since the origin of the race, the inviolable 
 asylum of all worth. And the most certain prog- 
 ress surely consists in the fact that every day 
 the number of men grows who rigorously respect 
 this supreme refuge of humanity. 
 
 Can it be denied that a government degrades 
 itself in the eyes of the civilized world when it 
 feels that it cannot exist in the presence of upright 
 consciences enjoying a just measure of liberty? 
 
 May 21, 1914. 
 
 For Military Defense 
 
 When we are told that we must live in peace 
 with our neighbors, I am very far from objecting. 
 We have shown well enough that, though we do 
 not put peace above honor — a sentiment without 
 which life is no more than bestial — we are firmly 
 in favor of anything that may steady the stag- 
 gering edifice of European peace. But let us not 
 forget that it needs at least two to keep peace, 
 
70 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 and that all the skill of the best driver of an 
 automobile is vain in case a driver coming from 
 the opposite direction gives the wrong twist to 
 his wheel. Civilization, just as savagery itself, is 
 made of appetites, more or less legitimate, which 
 rnn in opposite directions. And there is not al- 
 ways an infallible driver. And all drivers are 
 capable of making mistakes. The accident is the 
 more fearsome in that here it is the life or death 
 of peoples which may be in question. 
 
 As a remedy for evils so great, the puerility of 
 pacifism is obvious. As a proof, consider the 
 men who, actuated by the best motives on both 
 sides, came together at Berne, the other day, 
 from Paris and from Berlin, with the express 
 purpose not to say a word of the principal ques- 
 tion that occupies their thoughts. There was not 
 one who was not thinking of Alsace-Lorraine. 
 There was not one who did not present himself 
 with a finger on his lips to signify that they could 
 speak freely about everything except the question 
 that had brought them together. 
 
 Take note that the men whose minds remain 
 closed to the evidences that attest the irresistible 
 force of deep-rooted conflict are the same who 
 serenely adopt the principle of defending our 
 frontiers by the power of infallible formulas, to 
 the humanitarian splendor of which I am by no 
 means indifferent, but which I deem irritatingly 
 weak in practical value. The capital mistake of 
 the revolutionary socialists is to believe that they 
 are superior to the rest of men because they do 
 not yield a point of their idealism in the face of 
 the indestructible realities of human nature. The 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 71 
 
 non-existent is an immense empire, as someone 
 has said. They might reign over it in peace if 
 they were alone in it. 
 
 ... I do not know whether it is easier to or- 
 ganize the society of the future in the military 
 sphere than in the economic. What is certain 
 is that an organization of armed force is the first 
 general notion which the revolutionary extreme 
 left has thought itself able to present to us. I 
 am very far from underestimating the value of it. 
 I am only preoccupied with attending to the first 
 necessity, and the first necessity is to have a 
 frontier decently protected, even though we may 
 be contented with forces inferior to those on the 
 other side. 
 
 June 4, 1914. 
 
 A Question of Existence 
 
 Oh, yes, I fear equivocation about the question 
 of service for three years as much as on any other 
 matter. It is not that I consider the period of 
 three years as irreducible. I simply believe that 
 this is not really the time to dispute about it, when 
 the law is still no more than a written text, not 
 yet in operation, since it has not yet been pro- 
 vided for financially, and since we are still eigh- 
 teen months distant from the day when our 
 soldiers will enter upon their third year of service. 
 
 Let the advocates of the militia system defend 
 their theory, since the parliamentary rule gives 
 them full liberty to do so, and, far from being 
 inimical to them for it, I think that their argu- 
 
72 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ment should be carefully examined. But what I 
 demand emphatically is that we may be told what 
 are the frank and final aims of one party and of 
 the other. We have already had a three-year 
 service, and I did not feel anv more "reaction- 
 ary" than I do now. 
 
 ... Is it now, when the law is not yet really 
 operating, that we must start to consider chang- 
 ing it, without having put it to a test? I cannot 
 admit that. Not that I oppose the advocates of 
 a reduction of military service in their wish to 
 employ, in their way, the total effort of the armed 
 nation, which is one of our own hopes. But I 
 notice that the majority of those who are willing 
 now to reduce the period of service under the 
 colors, thus accepting such risks of moral and 
 military weakening as I am not ready to run, 
 make no secret of their intention to bring us 
 back, by an easy descent, to the militia system of 
 the citizen-soldier. 
 
 Let no one think that this word presents itself, 
 under my pen, with a smile of disdain. It means 
 for me, on the contrary, the highest development 
 of social man. But when forty years of the Be- 
 public have as yet given us only faint gleams of 
 civic education, can we sincerely believe that the 
 voting of a law will cause to spring from the 
 ground a new man, who will exemplify virtues 
 of every kind harmoniously combined in the en- 
 thusiasm of disinterested social activity! 
 
 I am quite aware that we decreed such a man 
 in 1871, but, to consider only the realm of civic 
 duty, I should not like to argue that we have 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 73 
 
 realized him. I have a profound conviction that 
 such a citizen will come. At what time will it be 
 given to our children to see him? I have no means 
 of specifying. Time is needed, undoubtedly, a 
 great deal of time, with a powerful effort of con- 
 science to achieve full mastery of self, before a 
 notable majority of Frenchmen will be able, not 
 merely to make fine professions, as to-day, but 
 to justify to the full their pretensions to the en- 
 viable nobility of that highest title. I say this 
 without depreciating in the least the fine quali- 
 ties of our people, for whom I have a very lively 
 admiration. 
 
 As for our civic preparedness, we can wait (at 
 the price of many risks) until it be furnished by 
 progressive education and by the daily enjoyment 
 of common liberties. As for individual super- 
 education in the military sphere which the militia 
 system presupposes, if we want to confront the 
 mass formations of the German army, one in soul 
 and body, with militia, we shall be required to 
 bring to the work such a unison of wills, in their 
 highest resolution, that I cannot hope to see the 
 sight before the questions which will decide the 
 fate of Europe shall have been answered by the 
 sovereign argument of steel. It is not our busi- 
 ness, therefore, to argue as to what an army of 
 democracy can be or ought to be. The problem 
 which fate imposes on us is simply to find out 
 whether we shall be capable of meeting, at any 
 moment, the struggle to which the increases of 
 armament may condemn us any day. 
 
 We see, therefore, that it is permissible to dis- 
 course at our ease upon the comparative merits 
 
74 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 of three years or of two years of service, but that 
 this is a purely academic debate as long as no 
 other system but the three-year law will furnish 
 us enough soldiers, sufficiently trained to resist 
 effectively, from the first hour, the onrush of the 
 enemy. The choice, in fact, is not so much be- 
 tween two years or three as between the three- 
 year law and the militia law to which those who 
 begin by demanding an initial reduction of mili- 
 tary service wish to lead us. I have said upon 
 what grounds I have made my choice. 
 
 We are told that this choice condemns us to a 
 majority on the right if we do not agree to make 
 to the monster of parliamentarianism the sacrifice 
 that a policy of the slightest strength exacts of 
 feeble hearts. I have already said that in a ques- 
 tion of the national defense we cannot exclude 
 the participation of all Frenchmen any more than 
 in the enrollment under the common flag. But I 
 am very far from denying the terrible conse- 
 quences of such a situation for the Eepublican 
 party if it took sides, in a majority, with those 
 who, to resist an aggressive power already for- 
 midably superior to our defensive forces, are first 
 considering a decrease of some months of service. 
 If it is true that the Eepublican party has already 
 come to this, let it have the courage to say so. 
 The consequences, for itself and for our country, 
 will follow only too cruelly. 
 
 When France was given into our keeping, 
 Napoleon III had already capitulated at Sedan. 
 Gambetta, glorified by the second war — useless in 
 a military sense, but morally necessary — would 
 have been rejected as an unworthy Frenchman if 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 75 
 
 lie had not risen to the height of duty. Daringly 
 he consecrated the Bepublicans once more as a 
 party of patriotic fervor. Whoever seeks the end 
 must not neglect the means. Choice is necessary. 
 
 We cannot deliberate forever, in the manner of 
 Byzantium, over modes of action that mean in- 
 definite delay, in the hope that to-morrow will 
 be better than to-day. Our duty is to act, not to 
 make phrases. Open your eyes, orators, and en- 
 deavor to learn from your own neighbors what 
 the expressive silence of the ' 'pacifiers" of Berne 
 suggests. Look at Europe, whose peoples, under 
 the hands of their governors, are feverishly get- 
 ting ready for the wholesale work of destruction 
 under the threat of which fate requires us to lead 
 our life. Think of those who will be at our side 
 when the terrible day comes and do not forget 
 that we owe them a good example. And also 
 think of our own people, the French nation, after 
 a long and glorious history of which they now 
 begin to carry the burden heavily. Observe them 
 in thought and in action. See in what momen- 
 tary anguish they accomplish their daily labor, 
 seeking to respond to the problem, demanding 
 leaders who shall be real leaders and finding but 
 ostentatious automatons who exhaust in words 
 the resolution which should live in vigorous ac- 
 tion. Are we advancing in the same measure as 
 those who conquered us but yesterday and who 
 do not conceal their passionate resolution to 
 conquer us again to-morrow I There are many 
 indications in the body social which may give 
 cause for fear. 
 
 The Eoman church offers us its support, which 
 
76 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 but for the French Eevolution, would have ruined 
 us. This would mean reaction, a king of shreds 
 and patches, or his apprentice dictator. For my- 
 self, I put my trust only in men, in Frenchmen 
 within whom the fire of their great race is still 
 burning. I call to them. Let them know them- 
 selves, let them join together, let them throw 
 themselves into action, following words that are 
 clear and straightforward. There is a large Be- 
 publican majority to acclaim them and to give 
 them confidence. For France the problem is of 
 death or life. Let us live! 
 
 June 5, 1914. 
 
 That Will Not Be 
 
 . . . What is the danger, to the strongest minds, 
 of an internal convulsion in comparison with the 
 imminent menaces from without, against which, 
 on account of the faults of her leaders, France 
 might have neglected to assure herself? We have 
 already known such a disaster. Shame to the 
 political party in which the sense of the national 
 safety should be so enfeebled that, for the easy 
 pleasure of vacillating among schemes for the 
 future, it would neglect, with a far too facile 
 conscience, to provide the guarantees necessary 
 for the present. Whatever it might have done 
 in the past, it would thus bring irreparable con- 
 demnation upon itself, and the nation, seriously 
 enough weakened already in its moral vitality to 
 be heedless, would perish. 
 
 This, my radical friends, is what lies concealed 
 
FRANCE PACING GERMANY 77 
 
 under the confusion of arguments for and against 
 service for three years. Our country had ac- 
 cepted the heavy burden, without showing a 
 moment of weakness. The revolutionary opposi- 
 tion, which cannot even aid in the maintenance 
 of our i ' infamous bourgeois Republic' ' by so much 
 as voting for the budget because it might give 
 them the appearance of an abominable com- 
 promise, spurns our military organization just as 
 they do our civil organization — both of them, cer- 
 tainly, not without their defects. And in order 
 not to lose their own self-respect, with that of 
 those who profess an idealism foreign to our 
 humble, terrestrial condition, too many radicals 
 whose intentions must remain above suspicion, 
 have allowed themselves to be seduced by the 
 mirages of the miserable policy of the least effort. 
 And many people, as was easily to be foreseen, 
 have rushed to the poisoned bait which promised 
 them the delights of a pleasant somnolence. And 
 you have led us, doing this, all in good humor, 
 to what is perhaps the gravest crisis since the 
 French Revolution, for, with MacMahon and 
 Bazaine, it was material power only, never the 
 heart, that suddenly failed. 
 
 Against these words I hear already the pro- 
 testations of your unwavering patriotism. Your 
 hearts have conserved, you say, all the qualities 
 of strength that have made the history of France. 
 I know it. I have never doubted it. For if a 
 mere doubt were permissible we might as well 
 place a tombstone above our glorious past. But 
 since the heart is still strong, it must show itself, 
 instead of allowing itself to be paralyzed by sorry 
 
78 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 notions that arise from fear of doing too much 
 for the defense of our country when perhaps* it 
 is not enough to do all that we can. We must 
 look straight, without fear of dizziness, at the 
 abyss upon which we are running, and by a rare 
 effort of patriotic strength gain the courage to 
 resume the broad highway when the path across 
 the fields offers so many dangers. 
 
 For the Republican party, which is ours, is it 
 an acceptable alternative to keep tossing back and 
 forth between the revolutionists and the reaction- 
 aries, without even having the courage to choose ? 
 Is it really impossible to remain ourselves except 
 by compromises of principle, now to the right, 
 and now to the left, according to the fortune of 
 the moment? France is at stake, the life of 
 France in the pride of her liberty; the noble 
 heritages of national virtues handed down by our 
 fathers to be transmitted to our children, the 
 treasure of thought and achievement which is in- 
 ferior to none of the greatest that humanity 
 boasts — all that we love, all that inspires us, all 
 that we live for, is at stake, and you are deliberat- 
 ing. . . . Alas, you are doing worse! For you 
 had deliberated, and you had concluded that 
 France would not be untrue to herself. And hav- 
 ing done this, when all the peoples, thrilled with 
 the memory of the great deeds done by your 
 fathers, are beginning again to lift their eyes 
 toward the children of the French Revolution, 
 conquered once but still fired with the high in- 
 spiration of their race, you would disown your- 
 selves, and your fathers and children with you; 
 you would not even be of those who fall in the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 79 
 
 path of reason, but of those who shamefully give 
 up for a cowardly need of repose. 
 
 Until I have seen that, I shall proclaim that it 
 will not be. 
 
 June 8, 1914. 
 
 Concerns of Fkance 
 
 . . . Peoples, like individuals, have their curve 
 of evolution concerning which, in the uncertainty 
 of time, we can only advance hypotheses. What 
 we can prove is that there are, for racial groups, 
 certain periods of irresistible enthusiasm, others 
 of weakening. Athens and Borne show us that 
 the most noble, the greatest, do not escape the 
 inflexible law of action and reaction against which 
 our pride battles in vain. They left upon man 
 marks that are ineffaceable. But they are dead. 
 
 We have fallen once. We have stood erect 
 again. Germany, long slumbering like her Bar- 
 barossa under the legendary mountain above 
 which ravens circled, awakened in the clash of 
 arms and, at first astonished herself, rediscovered 
 herself more brutally domineering, more scien- 
 tifically overbearing, than ever before. And a 
 great burst of ambition has come to her. The 
 work of ancient Borne shows her the task which 
 she deems worthy of herself. With Varus anni- 
 hilated, Arminius aspires to no less than that 
 conquest of the world which tempted those whom 
 he has just overwhelmed. 
 
 However, this is no longer an enterprise of 
 barbarian warfare in which numbers and weight 
 of steel count for all. For civilization has come, 
 and the implacable way of every hour has as- 
 
80 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 sumed forms which antiquity had no way of 
 knowing. Science without conscience is the two- 
 edged ax whose symbolical cult came to us from 
 the East. It clears the plains and valleys to make 
 great meeting-places for men and, as soon as men 
 approach, it turns the other edge to decimate 
 them. So comes a development without known 
 limit, of the work of life and death, when from 
 all those discoveries so justly celebrated as the 
 triumph of man over hostile nature, man himself 
 derives marvels of murdering power to arrest the 
 course of the work on which he founds his pride. 
 Whether the law is fatal or not, the German 
 people accept it without weakening. No amount 
 of science, or of patient, rigid discipline, or of 
 determination, or of activity, is too much for 
 them. Deutschland uber Alles. They do not by 
 any means conceal their designs. In olden times 
 the development of the intellect implied, it was 
 thought, the necessity of reducing to a second 
 place the care for the muscular man. The soldier 
 was the doryphorus of Polyclitus; the scholar, 
 the emaciated Erasmus of Basle in which Hol- 
 bein has concentrated all the thought that a face 
 can contain. Now, the full life of soul and body 
 is requisite for an effort of total humanity such 
 as history has never seen. Of intellect and 
 sinews, the maximum development for action is 
 necessary. And whoever feels himself capable of 
 furnishing everything from his own resources, in 
 peace or in war, to the great work, is the master 
 of the planet given to his dominating activities. 
 Every day it is the hymn of conquest that the 
 German press intones, and the children in the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 81 
 
 schools, the young men in the universities, their 
 aged professors, and the pretty young girls who 
 come to Paris to preach to me, to me personally, 
 the virtue and the beauty of German war, send 
 a chorus to the army that is quivering in excite- 
 ment in its ramparts of steel. 
 
 What forces will be necessary to sustain the 
 battle? 
 
 ... In the measure in which our country is 
 being depopulated, the German invader, during 
 peace, prepares his path toward the other. Cer- 
 tain victory, thinks the conqueror, without the 
 disquieting vision of the Slavic swarm bursting 
 over Germany. But what could be expected? Is 
 it not necessary, seeing the menace, that France 
 and Russia oppose total aggression with the total 
 resistance they can offer in material force and 
 moral power together? France has her enthusi- 
 asms, her passing bursts of ardor, her passions 
 followed by renouncements. If she stands firm 
 in her determination to purge herself and to 
 recreate herself worthy to continue her noble his- 
 tory, there is no offensive from beyond the Rhine 
 against which she is not assured of holding her 
 ground. If not . . . 
 
 But it is not permissible that she spare any- 
 thing of herself. Not anything. And in all this 
 sickening uproar about service for three years, 
 what can we do about it if we do not understand 
 that our army itself is but one part of the total 
 dedication of ourselves, demanded by a long pro- 
 cession of ancestors who made the France of 
 history and who call to us to conduct her onward? 
 
 June 16, 1914. 
 
82 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Triumph or Perish 
 
 :•• . . The immense effort of the masses of 
 people in every country for the acquirement of 
 knowledge is the most remarkable characteristic 
 of our time. It does not seem to me to be doubt- 
 ful that the conditions of life among each people 
 will be profoundly altered by it, internally and 
 externally. If books could make men, schools 
 would be enough to insure that "revolution," 
 but the teachings of experience must also be 
 added; that is to say, time is necessary. I am 
 by no means one of those who run the risk of 
 tracing — even somewhat vaguely — the main lines 
 of our felicity to come. My role for the moment 
 is simply to advise our ideologues that the great 
 struggles of history, of which the prophets of 
 The Hague are announcing the impending end, 
 may yet bring about fearsome accidents in the 
 democratic evolution of Europe. Let them kindly 
 think of the catastrophes with which the amiable 
 German press is pleased to threaten us day by 
 day, relying on a formidable military organiza- 
 tion from which it hopes for something altogether 
 different from developments of justice and liberty. 
 
 No one can say what will be the outcome of 
 these menaces. But it would be contrary to the 
 simplest prudence to take no note of them, and 
 to allow ourselves to dream of an abrupt return, 
 without obvious cause, to sentiments of humani- 
 tarian fraternity. It needs but the smallest dose 
 of common sense to understand that the more and 
 more rapid growth of armaments can lead to 
 nothing else than the employment of those en- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 83 
 
 gines of destruction which are not accumulated 
 and perfected day by day for the purpose of a 
 love-feast of the kind that took place at Berne 
 in the silence of deliberate equivocation. 
 
 Simultaneous disarmament? Who in the world 
 of the ruling classes could approach the proposal, 
 if it were made, even with apparent gravity? 
 Maintenance of the status quo? England, in the 
 naval realm, attempted an exchange of views 
 with Germany on this subject. The two parties 
 came away from the conversation more defiant 
 than ever. What then? Disarmament of a single 
 power? Whoever should risk this play, in obedi- 
 ence to a fool's suggestion, would receive at most 
 the satisfaction of bowing in servitude without 
 even having tried to save his independence. I 
 do not believe that this can tempt us. 
 
 Then what else can we do but prepare in every 
 way to defend ourselves? The evidence is so 
 strong on this point that Frenchmen find them- 
 selves inevitably brought, miracle! to unanim- 
 ity. In revenge, the free fancy of each one has 
 quickly succeeded in recovering its rights, when 
 it came to the question of ways and means. The 
 athlete who wants to win the prize does not scant 
 any effort. This is a prize, too, a prize of all 
 worth, the independence, the honor of a people, 
 without which the life of the individual, as that 
 of the nation, cannot be otherwise than shame- 
 fully base. Why should a nation that desires to 
 live seek first of all to spare the utmost possible 
 of her resources, when the stake in the combat 
 is no less than her own life? Counselors are not 
 lacking to turn her aside from the trouble of a 
 
84 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 too great effort, and our ears are filled with sug- 
 gestions favoring the policy of the smallest 
 sacrifice of self, supported by the fallacious argu- 
 ments which have led the peoples fatigued with 
 a too fine history to supreme repose in the shroud 
 of memories. 
 
 The history of Athens is inferior to none. 
 What a sudden breaking up after the great 
 splendor of Pericles, who contributed so power- 
 fully, by his own hand, to prepare the irrepar- 
 able decline! Philip, Alexander arrived. People 
 refused to give themselves to the appeals of 
 Demosthenes, whom the poison of Calauria 
 awaited. England has anglicized immense con- 
 tinents, with the sea itself which surrounds them. 
 What will it profit her, if in the face of military 
 force which may bring her to her knees to-morrow 
 she is able only to lull herself with the eternal 
 sophisms of the man who puts the softness of 
 repose above the trouble of exertion? 
 
 As for us, dismembered but yesterday, who 
 painfully behold a long line of German frontier 
 well within the territory of the France of history, 
 it is literally impossible for us to close our eyes 
 and contemplate, like Great Britain, the chances 
 of a splendid geographical isolation against the 
 doors of which the tide of German domination 
 might come to beat. No, the illusion of this dream 
 is not permitted to us. We are still held by too 
 many bonds io the heart of the old Europe for 
 us to be able to disregard our interests in her, 
 or for her to be able, even in the future which 
 she fears, to detach herself from us. 
 
 Not a day which does not bring us the news 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 85 
 
 of some achievement in the number or the qual- 
 ity of the engines of murder. Every day a 
 new effort comes to complete the effort of the 
 day before, directed toward a better execution of 
 aggressive plans of which no mystery is any 
 longer made. In view of all this we cannot any 
 longer discuss the necessity of defending our- 
 selves. The sole anxiety in this regard, among 
 too many people, is that we might do more than 
 was necessary. I profess that my fear is not that 
 we may see ourselves too well defended — espe- 
 cially when I reflect that, as we are firmly re- 
 solved never to attack, our adversary will have 
 the very great advantage of choosing the hour 
 and the place of the offensive. 
 
 When I consider all the difficulties that we 
 meet in trying to impress upon so many parlia- 
 mentary brains the idea of an immediate estab- 
 lishment of forces sufficient to preserve us from 
 the mortal catastrophe that might result from a 
 surprise, I begin to wonder in what measure the 
 institutions of democracy favor or thwart the 
 disposition to military resistance which is im- 
 posed on every country by the primordial law 
 of self-preservation. The democratic progress of 
 Germany, whatever the aged Bebel may have 
 said to M. Jaures about it, is still far enough 
 behind ours. But without pausing for a criticism 
 of German Csesarism, it is enough to show that 
 all the vital forces of the Empire are advancing, 
 in a formidable coordination of regulated activi- 
 ties, toward an end of domination — pacific if the 
 world resigns itself in submission, violent if it 
 manifests resistance to the will of Germania as 
 
86 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 inscribed in the book of fate. Emperor and im- 
 perial oligarchy are marching arm in arm, and 
 leading the populace which, in this respect, seizes 
 every opportunity to manifest its enthusiastic 
 approval. Of what good are the fine phrases of 
 the Vorwaerts when the social democracy permits 
 representatives — if it does not oblige them — to 
 vote the war-tax at a time when our socialists 
 refuse their voices for the budget? 
 
 June 25, 1914. 
 
 At Theemopylab 
 
 . . . There is no tax-payer who does not wel- 
 come a diminution of his rates. Taxes of blood 
 and taxes of money weigh upon us in the most 
 cruel manner in all our active pursuits. At the 
 moment when we are summoned to find without 
 delay six hundred millions in new taxes (we 
 should need eight hundred millions with Mo- 
 rocco) why is no one proposing that the state 
 content itself with four hundred or two hundred 
 millions and pay the difference by good mort- 
 gages on moonshine! Because the case is too 
 clear. We must have good money and nothing 
 else. Louis made out of gilt cardboard will not 
 pass. So we are very much vexed. There is 
 much recrimination, without willingness to ac- 
 knowledge that if electors and representatives 
 had been more watchful much wastefulness might 
 have been avoided. There is lusty wrangling 
 over the problem of discovering by what theory 
 and practise of taxation we shall raise the tax, 
 but, when all is done, we get ready to pay it, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 87 
 
 and that is all that is necessary. What big or 
 little veins will be opened by the fiscal lancet 
 we do not yet know. What is sure is that certain 
 elements of life will be drawn off from us. We 
 shall not run away from the operation. 
 
 In the sphere of military service it is again life 
 that is demanded of us, in a manner not less pal- 
 pable, since we must pay with our flesh and 
 muscle, the force of which, turned aside from 
 private activity, is alienated to the profit of the 
 public service. Though we cannot honestly quar- 
 rel over the sums of money written in the ac- 
 count-books, any doctrine of slighter effort may 
 freely find a hearing as soon as the question is 
 only to compute the product of an enterprise of 
 military education. Here the mind can indulge 
 itself at its pleasure. What more proper for 
 discussion than the correct amount of training 
 necessary? Magical virtue of words! Verbalism 
 is a courser who can smile at the wings of Pegasus. 
 With words one builds empires. With words 
 might also destroy them. Can one ask of men 
 not to let themselves be deceived by seductions 
 with which they are themselves thus tempted? 
 The country will be just as well defended — better 
 even, the promise costs nothing — and at a smaller 
 sacrifice! And who would resist the temptation 
 to try, when insidious arguments, offered to the 
 uncritical faculties of the masses, illumine in their 
 minds the hope of acquiring quite as much force, 
 or even more, by paying less? Nothing is dearer 
 than the cheap things, certain people profess. The 
 saying might find its application here. 
 
 Nevertheless the human mind does not find re- 
 
88 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 pose in one-sided reasoning. How many men 
 whose patriotism is above suspicion allow them- 
 selves to be carried away by the mirage of a lesser 
 effort! Nature has made us so. But reflection 
 does its work. We reflect that it is not solely a 
 question of giving each Frenchman a certain 
 amount of military training in preparation for 
 action at an indeterminate time. It is also nec- 
 essary that this military establishment, which 
 requires a considerable gathering of men into a 
 single organization, shall be able to enter into 
 action at a given moment, for whatever event. 
 That could not be avoided, since, in the period of 
 civilization to which we have advanced, nations 
 may be required, at a signal, to throw themselves 
 like thunderbolts upon one another. 
 
 That is what must be understood, and it is not 
 really so difficult as one might believe, since one 
 need only open his eyes to discover that the as- 
 sassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, 
 at Serajevo, is occasioning concentrations of 
 troops on the frontiers of Serbia as well as mani- 
 festations of violence even in Vienna itself, while 
 angry threats against the Serbian people are mak- 
 ing themselves heard in the press as well as in 
 the notes from the government of the Dual Mon- 
 archy. Have we not seen the German press 
 employ all its ardor to fan the fire in the too 
 evident design of exciting Teutonic opinion 
 against Russia, whose newspapers have found 
 themselves obliged to reply in energetic protests? 
 Is it not a fact that all Europe has taken pains 
 to prepare, among the Albanian tribes, a per- 
 petual center of incendiarism which will flame 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 89 
 
 out according to the order of the moment! Who 
 will preserve ns from the dangers of a spark? 
 
 July 6, 1914. 
 
 Hansi ! 
 
 And now Hansi is condemned to a year in prison 
 for not having given lines sufficiently esthetic to 
 the German police represented in his charming 
 album, My Village, in which the insufficiently 
 Teutonic exploits of Alsatian youth seem to re- 
 veal, it is said, certain sympathies with France 
 beneath the weight of which the " unshakable 
 Empire" of the Kaiser might stagger. Poor 
 Germany, I should have thought it slander to 
 suppose that a witty stroke of a pencil was 
 enough to derange your reason. 
 
 What! The largest army in the world, and the 
 best trained, an accumulation of riches which 
 repays a marvelous labor, a development of 
 thought which has held and still holds one of the 
 highest places in European civilization — mother 
 of the great movement which is in a way to ap- 
 propriate the planet for the needs of humanity 
 — the mastery of force in peace and war, with 
 England threatened on the sea and the continent 
 ready to succumb under the crushing weight of 
 armaments, with the peoples of the earth, tradi- 
 tionally turning their eyes toward the center of 
 power, wondering every morning what fate will 
 be reserved to them in the cataclysm of Europe 
 which is in monstrous preparation, since a cyclone 
 may be launched from Berlin capable, possibly of 
 changing the fate of the world for centuries to 
 
90 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 
 
 come: how can one believe that all this remains 
 at the mercy of a humorist making sketches? 
 
 If I were a German, the spectacle would set 
 me thinking. But the law of compensation which 
 reigns throughout the universe has not ordained 
 that the fine qualities which command action 
 should be always supplemented by meditation. 
 A deep revenge for spirits capable of observation. 
 The men and the peoples who get infatuated with 
 action to the point of vertigo come too soon to 
 believe, since they can rule in brutality, that they 
 are capable also of determining thought. 
 
 Rome, who was in her time the conquering 
 model, had enough self-control sometimes to im- 
 pose a curb upon herself when no one was resist- 
 ing her. Greece was abominably ravaged by her. 
 Never again will be seen, probably, a more com- 
 plete triumph of barbarous intelligence over 
 superior forms of civilization which had lost the 
 force of life. Not only the masterpieces of art, 
 torn from pedestals to which a splendid history 
 had consecrated them, took the road, at the risk 
 of mutilation, toward Roman villas, but the land 
 of Phidias covered itself with base productions of 
 decadence for the delectation of the conquerors. 
 The lucky wreck of one of the vessels of Sulla 
 on the coast of Cytherea gave us the finished 
 masterpiece of one of the great Corinthian artists 
 in bronze. Go and see in the museum of Athens 
 what pitiful pieces the pillagers, ignorant of their 
 crime, were fearlessly content to place with it. 
 It is a striking commentary on the famous words 
 in which the Roman general notified the carter 
 who was carrying his Grecian plunder, that if 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 91 
 
 he broke the statues he would have to furnish 
 new ones. And all this to come to the end told 
 in the resounding sentence of the poet proclaim- 
 ing that Greece had conquered her ferocious 
 victor. For it was at the feet of the victim that 
 conqueror soon wished to sit, and Rome would 
 not have been Eome without the infusion of Hel- 
 lenism which she tried, more or less successfully, 
 to effect. 
 
 Alsace is by no means Attica, and Berlin will 
 meet, on the road of her determination, resistance 
 more obstinate than that of the onrushing legions 
 of Varus. The moral problem is none the less 
 of the same order. At Strassburg, Germany has 
 respected the statue of Kleber with the beautiful 
 military inscription on its pedestal. That is well. 
 She is beginning to set up, when occasion offers, 
 the products of her own art. That is less to be 
 recommended. One is welcomed to the threshold 
 of the library at Strassburg by a great statue of 
 Wilhelm I. What a surprising commentary I 
 heard from the mouth of a German functionary: 
 "It cost us 60,000 marks; they would have done 
 better to spend the money on books." At least 
 this man had a notion of the best instrument of 
 conquest — for it is to this matter that we must 
 return. 
 
 If Hansi had been condemned to a hundred 
 years and more of prison ; if he were bound to the 
 walls of his cell by steel hooks, in order that even 
 when he was dead he might not escape; if, when 
 he was dust, doors and windows were walled up 
 to keep him there for centuries without end, for 
 fear that an infinitesimal part of him might gain, 
 
92 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 on the wings of the wind, the route across the 
 Vosges, in what respect would the Teutonization 
 of Alsace have been further advanced! 
 
 Brutal force, it must be acknowledged, has very 
 great advantages, since it rules all the external 
 world. But the most German of the Germans, in 
 his armor-clad soul, cannot be ignorant of the fact 
 that there is, after all, an impalpable barrier 
 around the inner man against which the sharpest 
 sword will break in pieces. And if he is not 
 ignorant of that, perhaps he knows, also, that with 
 the aid of time, equitably dispensed to all the 
 world, it is the inner man who finally determines 
 the outer. The history of all times is there to 
 attest the fact. Moral force and material vio- 
 lence: unequal duel in which victory for the 
 apparent weakness is assured. 
 
 What can the judges of Leipsig believe, and 
 all of Germany who celebrates them? They know 
 well enough that their power is arrested at the 
 threshold of the thought of Alsace. Their hope 
 is not to suppress the sentiments that displease 
 them but to hinder the propagation of them by 
 forbidding their expression. It is the imbecile 
 pretension of all tyrannies, and their failures are 
 written on every page of human history. There 
 will be possibly in Alsace — though it is doubtful 
 enough — souls devoid of nobility, in whom the 
 thought may come forward, "Let us be Germans 
 so as not to go to prison, like Hansi, and so that 
 we may even obtain positive favors. " Those, 
 even before the trial at Leipsig, have had time 
 and occasion to consider the argument, in the 
 silence of their departed honor. I cannot see that 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 93 
 
 so far the cause of Teutonization is much ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 And then there are the others, the others who 
 say nothing, since it is forbidden to say anything, 
 but who, as long as they have not been all gagged, 
 mummified, buried in catacombs sealed on all 
 sides, will find hearts and minds, without the per- 
 mission of Leipsig, to whom they may pour out 
 their feelings. And those, I am very sorry to 
 tell their pretended masters, are the men who, 
 by the word or the gesture of a revolted con- 
 science, are surely preparing for the coming rup- 
 ture of the bonds of a day, bonds which the 
 silence of the enslaved cannot strengthen. 
 
 And such was the power of Hansi. Only, this 
 time, the judges at Leipsig make themselves his 
 collaborators, and each day of the long year of 
 imprisonment, which will pass so slowly for the 
 prisoner in his cell, will be like a living appeal 
 from the man whose voice has been stifled to the 
 men whose conscience cannot be stifled. And 
 when the little children of "My Village" ask why 
 Hansi is in prison, Germany, unfortunately for 
 her, must tell them why. Terrible, these chil- 
 dren, because they reason so straight. And if 
 one of them said: 
 
 "Well, when Alsace became French, were there 
 men like Hansi who regretted Germany and who 
 said so and who suffered for their idea, as he 
 does for France to-day?" 
 
 "No. There were not any." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Ah, the questions of children, impossible to 
 escape them. The children must be told that 
 
94 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 France let the Alsatians be Alsatians to their 
 hearts' content, while Prussia undertook to Teu- 
 tonize them. Why should they have revolted 
 against France, when France did not oppress 
 them! How can they help protesting against 
 Germany, when the predominate idea of Ger- 
 many in Alsace is oppression? Thanks to Hansi 
 and the court at Leipsig these ideas will make 
 their way more and more. And the angrier 
 the Teutons grow in the vanity of their combat 
 with the impossible, the more they employ vio- 
 lence against an immovable obstacle, the more 
 they will thrust into the soul of Alsace the inde- 
 structible idea of its right. And since, as history 
 shows, the right must finally triumph . . . fata 
 viam invenient. The destinies will be fulfilled. 
 
 Was there ever a more cruel fate than that of 
 Prussian Poland! The worst acts of violence 
 continue to occur. Constraint has taken the ap- 
 pearance of a civil war from moment to moment. 
 The little school-children are the first victims of 
 it when they forget themselves so far as to say a 
 prayer in the Polish language. Teuton to the 
 marrow, the God of Luther in the belted uniform 
 of a gendarme gives them the full force of his fist. 
 The Teutons expropriate, despoil, hunt, and 
 murder all who offer resistance, and the German 
 colonist, with his pot of beer, his wife and his 
 children, comes to install himself at the expense 
 of the state upon the "estates without masters,'' 
 in the name of the right which every individual 
 has to take possession of his neighbor's property 
 when those whose function it is to restrain him 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 95 
 
 from it give him their assistance at the point of 
 the sword. 
 
 Alsace is under the eye of Europe. Spectacles 
 like those which are still taking place on the con- 
 fines of the Slavic world would not be tolerated 
 here. Germany is compelled here to take more 
 care. Therefore she cannot unveil herself to us 
 between the Rhine and the Vosges except under 
 the aspect of momentary brutalities. This is the 
 whole philosophy of the Hansi affair, as comfort- 
 ing for Alsace, who intends to remain mistress of 
 her thoughts, as for France herself, who has never 
 done anything to foment agitation on her frontier 
 but who tenderly preserves the memory of a com- 
 mon history whose continuity is reaffirmed, in 
 spite of conquests, in the happy or unhappy 
 proofs of common sentiment. 
 
 A salutation to the prisoner of Leipsig. There 
 will remain something of him outside the walls 
 of his prison. 
 
 July 13, 1914. 
 
 Neithee Defended nob Goveened 
 
 At the early hour in which I write these lines 
 the little troopers are marching to Longchamp 
 led by the joyous notes of the bugle; a jolly crowd 
 is following or preceding them which, in a little 
 while, will be saluting them with acclamations 
 in its joy of patriotic fervor; the cannon will 
 thunder, the president of the Republic and the 
 minister of war, erect and attentive, will review 
 the ranks, saluting the flag which will be lowered 
 
96 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 before the image, more or less faithful, of the 
 sovereign power; and with a measured tread, 
 which makes one living organism out of a troop 
 of men aspiring to something more than human, 
 the alert infantrymen, who decide the fate of 
 combats, the cavalrymen, in their resounding 
 trappings of metal, and the swarthy artillerymen, 
 followed by their serpents of steel, will file past, 
 lowering splendid standards before the man who 
 represents the flag. And just at this time a mon- 
 strous cloud appears on the horizon, bringing the 
 memory, cruel or joyous, but always proud, of 
 the supreme action of the great days, suddenly 
 stopped short, in the expectation of the order 
 which will send them to the frontier to tell the 
 enemy: "We are here!" 
 
 It is a spectacle sublimely grand for whoever 
 seeks in it the national achievement of a noble 
 force in the service of an idea. The idea is the 
 country of our fathers, whose figure stands erect 
 in her determination to live for the cause of 
 glory, while there hovers in the air the heroic 
 warrior-woman of Rude who calls on men to die 
 in order that others may live in the splendid 
 union of those who have been and those who are 
 to be. But, when one is intoxicated with this 
 dizzy dream of force, which is mistress of the 
 world, crushing, as she does, all the resistance 
 of savage brutality in order to make justice 
 triumph, the time comes to reflect and to ask one 's 
 self at the price of what efforts, of what inces- 
 sant sacrifices, this conjunction of might and 
 right, which ancient barbarism proclaims chimer- 
 ical, can enter into the realm of living realities, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 97 
 
 by the cooperation of the energies of civilization. 
 
 It is the first law of peoples that they must 
 defend the heritage of their past, and for this 
 mast establish a force which inspires serious 
 thoughts in the invader of yesterday whom fate 
 urges to begin to-morrow — a force capable of an 
 invincible resistance to any aggression from the 
 outer world. We have been vanquished, but we 
 are victims who are resolved to live, not in sub- 
 jection to the conqueror, but in the honorable 
 independence of thought and action of which our 
 ancestors made the history of France. It is on 
 the effective force of the armed nation that is 
 founded the hope that is father to our resolution. 
 If we are incapable of realizing that organization 
 of energies which protects all that is of value in 
 life, then all else that we may say or do about 
 it is but vain appearance. The country calls for 
 men ; we should have given her nothing but talkers. 
 
 What! we applaud the martial music at Long- 
 champ, we bare our heads together when the 
 Marseillaise bursts upon the air, and yet we 
 should not ask ourselves by what stupendous and 
 incessant collaboration arises that great French 
 army, of which we have just saluted certain bat- 
 talions as they passed? Out of the fields, out of 
 the workshops, out of the very streets, as out of 
 the most elegant drawing-rooms, we take all these 
 men, united by the words which they respect 
 without always understanding them, though so 
 often separated by the strongest selfish interests. 
 And working a way through all diversities and 
 contradictions we succeed, for a time, in arousing 
 in all these men a common spirit which moves 
 
98 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 them in unison to the highest impulses of our 
 earthly nature. Each one of them alone is in- 
 significant; the cause makes them grand beyond 
 comparison and, however brief may have been 
 the ineffable moment when it was given to them 
 to feel the cause, they will guard the inspiration 
 of it until death. We take them, we train them 
 into living machines, we put into their hands in- 
 struments of murderous power which multiply a 
 hundredfold the strength of their brains and their 
 arms. Their captains exhaust themselves (at 
 least, so it is said) in endless researches in the 
 art of employing to the best these units of war 
 in which the least of soldiers brings as a stake, 
 upon the field of battle, his body and his soul, 
 ready to sacrifice all that he hopes for, all that 
 he loves, all that his will is fixed upon. 
 
 This, gentlemen of the government, is a bit of 
 theory, of theory on which it is always easy to 
 erect verbal edifices by means of which so many 
 people are able, without great effort, to rise above 
 the common level of every day and give them- 
 selves the illusion of momentary grandeur. But 
 the day arrives when the theory rises out of the 
 ground in frightful reality, for the decisive test 
 of the true value of disinterested patriotism which 
 expends itself, in time of peace, under the veil 
 of sonorous phrases with which the populace is 
 wonder-struck. Yes, the day has come in which 
 the true manhood of the minds inflexibly bent 
 upon preparation for this day may be judged 
 justly, according to the result accomplished. 
 What have they done, during half a century of 
 peace, all those great patriots to whom was con- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 99 
 
 fided the power of creating a superior organiza- 
 tion out of our armed forces? France has given 
 all her men. With what training for action have 
 they been provided? 
 
 . . . M. Charles Humbert, reporting for the 
 senatorial commission for the army, mounted the 
 tribune yesterday to tell us that, in the race for 
 the scientific employment of modern armament, 
 we have been left so far behind by Germany that 
 our situation, in comparison with that of our 
 eventual enemy, was far too similar to that of 
 1870. Yes, that is what was not only said to us, 
 but demonstrated to us, if I may say so, since 
 the minister of war allowed to escape him the 
 acknowledgment that the majority of the facts 
 alleged by M. Humbert were probably correct. 
 And did not M. Humbert announce that he was 
 prepared to bring forward all the official docu- 
 ments for his support? 
 
 And then, what did the minister say? Simply 
 this, that moral force outweighs all other kinds, 
 and that with poor arms one may accomplish 
 astounding exploits. "Then buy cross-bows/ ? I 
 cried to him from my place. He defended the of- 
 ficials of the War Office, neither more nor less zeal- 
 ous than those of 1870, but whose good sense we 
 can estimate by the fact that the manufacturers 
 of shells and guns are reduced to recommending 
 moral force to silence an artillery to which certain 
 of our machines of war would not even permit us 
 to reply. I remarked to him that moral force 
 results, in very large measure, from confidence in 
 leaders, whose first duty is to put their men into 
 
100 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 condition to face the enemy. What will become 
 of that moral force when, at the first thunder of 
 the cannon, the troop finds itself thrown into a 
 battle which can only end in its being crushed? 
 The arms did not fall, for that reason, from the 
 hands of the men of 1870. They fought to the 
 death, showing that they were worthy of another 
 destiny. But as for ourselves, cramped up in 
 what remains to us of France, we will not, we 
 cannot, undergo the same trial a second time. It 
 is not enough to be heroes. We must be victors. 
 
 July 15, 1914, 
 
Ill 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 DECLARATION— PRELIMINARY OPERA- 
 TIONS 
 
 On the Eve of Action 
 
 It is the hour of grave decision. For France, 
 indeed, the question is one of life or death. 
 
 In 1871 we were vanquished, dismembered, all 
 but annihilated. Bled to the last drops, we en- 
 deavored to regain our life, and for forty years 
 we have continued, well or ill, to maintain our 
 existence. But that very existence is a crime in 
 the eyes of our conquerors, who believed they had 
 finished with us forever. Less than four years 
 after the peace of Frankfort the man who con- 
 ceived himself to be the master of Europe was 
 attempting to complete our ruin. He would have 
 done it in cold blood, as his successor is executing 
 the Serbs to-day, if Russia and England had not 
 intervened. The civilized world must bear wit- 
 ness for us that for these forty years we have 
 been a force for peace in the continent of Europe. 
 In spite of those human faults and errors which 
 exist in every land, we have endeavored, with tire- 
 less good will, to organize and permanently to 
 establish among us a democratic rule which, 
 founded upon liberty, might be able to maintain 
 
 101 
 
102 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 order in the nation, in the hope that untiring 
 labor might keep for us among the peoples that 
 place to which our history tells us we have the 
 right. 
 
 In this work we must set aside at this moment 
 all considerations of party. Whatever may have 
 been our bitter enmities in the past, the peril in 
 this critical hour is so great that all Frenchmen, 
 no matter whence they come nor what thek party, 
 must rush, with one accord, to the frontiers, 
 united heart and soul in one supreme exertion of 
 our determination. In this and this only lies the 
 moral force which can render us superior to any 
 fortune. When the country, through us, shall have 
 regained complete possession of herself, we shall 
 once more engage in those strugles which are the 
 honor of French thought, since they attest our im- 
 passioned search for an ideal of human ennoble- 
 ment. But under what changed conditions, when 
 the complete sacrifice of ourselves and our all will 
 have so well hammered and forged the metal of 
 the French soul that we shall no longer wish or 
 be able to be divided, save as friends. But that 
 is for to-morrow. We must face to-day. 
 
 To-day there must not be two Frenchmen who 
 hate each other. It is time that we knew the joy 
 of loving each other. Of loving each other for 
 what is greatest in us, the duty of bearing wit- 
 ness before men that we have not degenerated 
 from our fathers and that our children shall not 
 be obliged to hang their heads at mention of our 
 name. Even our faults, of which the futile appor- 
 tionment is a task for history, can only arouse in 
 our hearts the stern desire to crown them with 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 103 
 
 that civil and military virtue which may yet dis- 
 close in them an element of grandeur. No recrim- 
 inations, nor grandiloquent phrases, nor promises 
 to die. Enough of words. Acts, thoughtful acts 
 of measured prudence, and action, once and for all. 
 
 At five different times since we saw the German 
 soldiers in Paris the order of Europe has been 
 deliberately disturbed by the menace of the Ger- 
 man sword, without the slightest provocation on 
 our part to excuse it. We have remained masters 
 of ourselves, and when honor commanded us to 
 resist, we have fulfilled that duty with the sim- 
 plicity of men in whose hearts beats the blood of 
 a great race. To-day, what do they want of us! 
 We were living in peace. Attentive to the organ- 
 ization of our defense, nothing came from our side 
 which could suggest a thought of offense. And 
 how many times, nevertheless, have we been 
 obliged, in stubborn impassivity, to remain silent 
 and motionless while from across the Vosges came 
 the voice of our tortured people. 
 
 Over there across the Rhine a strong and great 
 nation, which has the right to live but which has 
 not the right to destroy all independent life in 
 Europe, carries the mania of might to the point 
 of no longer permitting France to raise her head 
 when addressed. Intoxicated with power, the 
 German Emperor, who leads his blinded people 
 to exploits whose outcome no one can foresee, is 
 dealing without excuse and as though haunted by 
 the example of the barbaric invasions, the most 
 cruel blow against all that is the pride of civili- 
 zation. He wishes to finish with France, with 
 England, with Russia, not realizing that you can 
 
104 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 never finish with peoples that you can neither wipe 
 out nor assimilate. Relying on the heterogeneous 
 assemblage of enemy races which the scepter at 
 Vienna has never been able to keep in subjection, 
 the Kaiser aspires to hurl together the two halves 
 of Europe, that he may set up his bloody throne 
 upon the loftiest heap of ruins that the wretched- 
 ness of man will ever have contemplated. 
 
 He has chosen his hour and has thrown his 
 obedient ally against a defenseless little Slavic 
 people, through whom it is his desire to cut Eussia 
 to the quick in her dignity of race and her tra- 
 ditions of Slavic solidarity. Let her ignore the 
 outstretched hand of Serbia and her authority, 
 her historical traditions, her hopes most deeply 
 anchored in the hearts of the highest and the low- 
 est — all will collapse in a day, and the Balkanic 
 nations, those mixtures of Orient and Occident, 
 which form the bridge between Europe and Asia, 
 will fall into the lap of the German Emperor, who 
 is ready to turn against the older civilizations, 
 from which even his own power is derived, the 
 young peoples who have placed their hopes for 
 the future in the country of the French Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Serbia, brutally summoned to surrender, has 
 abandoned everything that is hers, even to the 
 point of submitting to the arbitration of her right 
 to existence, and yet this has not disarmed the in- 
 satiable autocrat. Because a faint appeal to law 
 still made itself heard, the Teuton, who wished to 
 reduce the Slav to helpless prostration, has an- 
 swered by an appeal to the force of arms. And 
 yet Wilhelm II notified us that if we dared to allow 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 105 
 
 ourselves to appeal to justice, his sword would be 
 raised against us. Later, London and St. Peters- 
 burg received the same warning. So be it. Such 
 a series of aggressive machinations is without pre- 
 cedent. 
 
 But of what use is it to exclaim? In an un- 
 believably short space of time, under the exi- 
 gencies of circumstances which we cannot escape, 
 we are placed under the necessity of forming a 
 resolution which, be it yes or no, is going to sub- 
 ject our country's very existence to unknown 
 vicissitudes. Eussia has the choice of suicide or 
 resistance. Our case is not different. With a skil- 
 ful arrangement of dates, at most, with Austria 
 and France successively vanquished — Austria 
 doubly vanquished, for the worst defeat is sub- 
 jection — Germany is condemned by the irrevo- 
 cable law which was the ruin of Napoleon to covet 
 perpetual aggrandizement. Eussia 's turn has 
 come, and if Eussia alone had to be driven back 
 it would only be a question of choosing the time 
 to make an end of France. Finally, the hour would 
 strike for England, who, having no continental 
 army, would find herself reduced to submitting, 
 at the hands of the German Emperor, to what she 
 would not accept from Napoleon. 
 
 The moment which we shall not be accused of 
 having sought is therefore decisive for all Europe. 
 For the same question is placed before every peo- 
 ple, even before those who struggle against them- 
 selves while fighting us : submission or independ- 
 ence. It is not enough that we should lament. 
 If we are really the men whom we pretend to be, 
 the hour has come to show it. 
 
106 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Is the struggle equal? Serbia did not ask that 
 question when she bravely held to her ultimate 
 right of independent existence. We have more 
 freedom of deliberation. We possess, also, an as- 
 semblage of forces and martial inspiration with 
 which it seems to me this madness of the enemy 
 has not sufficiently reckoned. In spite of negli- 
 gence, and in this respect England and Russia 
 have been almost as lax as we, we can put upon 
 the field of battle a considerable aggregation of 
 forces. Germany has the superiority of a train- 
 ing which no mishap can disturb. In every way 
 in which ceaseless preparation can avail she has 
 the advantage over us. But if we showed her in 
 1870 what we could do when we were taken by the 
 throat, stripped of all means of defense, we can 
 make her see, this time, what we are capable of 
 doing when fortune has not disarmed us before- 
 hand. It is but just that our thought should go 
 back to Gambetta. He saw, he made, the days 
 when victors were' all but ready to hesitate, at the 
 moment when the terrible destitution of our 
 armies seemed to deliver them to the enemy. 
 These victors have forgotten that, to remember 
 only the surprises of Sedan and Metz, which will 
 not occur again because misfortune has made for 
 us, not a new soul, but new powers of will. 
 
 Look at this smiling and gentle people, in our 
 streets, in our fields, seeming scarcely disturbed 
 in the routine of their work by their preoccupa- 
 tion, as they leave, of assuring the comfort of 
 their homes, of which their country is to receive 
 the charge. They push forward in their task with 
 a new energy, ready to give themselves entirely 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 107 
 
 for the glorious legacy of a supreme sacrifice to 
 those who will learn from them that there are, in 
 the depths of the human soul, things more price- 
 less than life. A farmer's boy whom I met the 
 other day said to me in passing, "We must hurry 
 up, the women will finish the harvest," and he 
 laughed at the idea of the spectacle. That was 
 all. In Paris, not a cry, not a sign of disturbance 
 in the crowd. Nothing but the gravity of a deter- 
 mination. 
 
 Yesterday a miserable fool assassinated Jaures 
 at the moment when he was rendering, with a mag- 
 nificent energy, a double service to his country by 
 persisting in the effort to assure the maintenance 
 of peace and by calling all the French proletariat 
 to the defense of the land. Whatever opinion we 
 may have of his doctrines, no one would be willing 
 to deny, at this hour when all dissension should 
 hold silence, that he has honored his country by 
 his talents, devoted to the service of a high ideal, 
 and by the noble elevation of his views. The pre- 
 mier, moved by a generous inspiration for which 
 all good citizens will be thankful to him, has gra- 
 ciously rendered homage, in the name of France 
 herself, to the great figure who has disappeared. 
 
 The fate of Jaures was to preach the brother- 
 hood of peoples, and to have so firm a faith in 
 this great idea that he could not be discouraged 
 even by the brutal evidence of facts. He falls 
 at the very hour when his idealism found it neces- 
 sary to descend from the serene heights of thought 
 to call all his friends to the combat for his coun- 
 try, which was at the same time a combat for an 
 idea. A great power is taken away from us, at 
 
108 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the moment when he was preparing for supreme 
 efforts from which the French cause would have 
 benefited splendidly. Let us close the ranks, we 
 who are left, of all the parties, and if peace shall 
 ever bring back the hour for honor due, let us not 
 fail to repay, in social justice, the devotion of 
 those who took for their sublime aim the great 
 reconciliation of humanity. 
 
 A dream from which the cannon of Wilhelm, 
 in a moment, are going to awaken us. 
 
 August 2, 1914. 
 
 The State of Wae 
 
 Let us now lift up our hearts, and take care 
 that materially by our labor, and morally by our 
 civic virtue, the non-combatants may vigorously 
 second the men who face the enemy. All those 
 who have a part, great or little, in the work of 
 furnishing necessities, be it in producing food or 
 equipment or arms, will be possessed with the idea 
 that their efforts are not less necessary than those 
 of the soldiers of the line, and will spare nothing, 
 nothing, that they may do more than will be asked 
 of them. 
 
 As for aid to the Eed Cross, we know well that 
 our brave women will be worthy of those whom 
 they have given to their country. I saw some of 
 them yesterday, animated by the most noble ardor. 
 They have better things to do than to weep for 
 those who depart. They are going to follow. 
 Many of them are already at their post near the 
 battle. As for us, civilians, who serve in the ex- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 109 
 
 treme rear, we shall not fail to furnish them 
 abundantly with all that can be asked of us. In 
 this also there is not one of us who cannot lend 
 his aid to all those who, in whatever service, are 
 at the frontiers to offer themselves against the 
 first onrush of the invader. 
 
 This first onrush will be violent, for the forces 
 of the enemy have been able to assemble in num- 
 ber, in very great number, even before the mobili- 
 zation had been openly decreed. During this time, 
 doubtless, we have been able considerably to rein- 
 force our units, in order to avoid every surprise. 
 But it was of the highest importance that we 
 should not, in the eyes of Europe, seem the ag- 
 gressors, and while Germany was effecting her 
 mobilization before announcing it, thanks to her 
 decree on the state of war, the French govern- 
 ment, justly considering the consequences, was 
 proceeding with all the necessary precautions in 
 order that no one might be able untruthfully to 
 attribute to her an aggressive initiative. 
 
 To-day the evidence is overwhelming. We have 
 said nothing, demanded nothing, done nothing 
 touching Germany, and already our frontier has 
 been forced. Although there is still no declara- 
 tion of war, although the German ambassador is 
 still at Paris, armed troops have penetrated to our 
 soil, torn up our rails, stopped trains which ran 
 under the protection of treaties, stolen the locomo- 
 tives, and accomplished such depredations as are 
 their ordinary pleasure. Worse still, they are now 
 violating the neutrality of Luxembourg, guaran- 
 teed, in company with all the great powers of 
 Europe, by Prussia herself. They are passing the 
 
110 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 frontier, on the way to Longwy and Nancy. In 
 the meanwhile Austria is accepting Sir Edward 
 Grey's proposal of mediation, and the ambassador 
 of Franz-Joseph, like the German ambassador, re- 
 mains at Paris to demonstrate that war has not 
 been declared. We must expect anything from 
 these people. 
 
 If they have, as is possible, the temporary ad- 
 vantage of aggression over us, for the reason 
 which I have just explained, we must suppose that 
 they have concentrated themselves to strike us a 
 great blow at the point which Ihey judge to be 
 weakest. This supposition may not dismay us. 
 In war the advantage of numbers is found in turn 
 on one side and then on the other. We cannot 
 hope to resist victoriously at all points at once. 
 Enthusiasm in the forward march, stubborn reso- 
 lution when we have to give ground for the mo- 
 ment, these are the two qualities that determine 
 the final victory, and it is on the final victory that 
 the very life of our country depends. 
 
 It is to this sole end that we should strain all 
 our efforts in unison, those who are in the battle 
 and those of us as well who owe to them the best 
 organization of the national resources from which 
 they will need incessantly to draw. To provide 
 material resources everyone will offer himself 
 with all good will. But we must let ourselves be 
 possessed with the idea that the moral resources 
 are not of slighter weight in the scales of war, 
 since there is no greater aid to the soldier than to 
 feel himself sustained by the unanimity of his 
 country. It has been said that the vanquished 
 man is he whose morale the enemy can influence 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 111 
 
 sufficiently to put him in a state of mind which 
 makes him look upon his defeat as certain. In 
 other words, one is not beaten until he thinks he 
 is beaten. In that case our state to-day is that of 
 a people who cannot he beaten, for another treaty 
 of Frankfort would be incompatible with the self- 
 respect of France. 
 
 At the Assembly of Bordeaux it was Chanzy 
 who, from the moral point of view, was right in re- 
 fusing to treat with the enemy because the enemy 
 could not really occupy the whole country and 
 resistance, even in forlorn hope, if it was resolute, 
 would have brought about his exhaustion. But 
 Thiers naturally gained a general assent when he 
 showed how the country, stripped of resources, 
 was in a state of depression which a ghastly series 
 of catastrophes explained only too well. To-day, 
 with the aid of England, we cannot lack resources 
 of any kind. On the contrary, it is the enemy, cut 
 off from the ocean, who will find himself grappling 
 with problems of provisioning which he will have 
 some trouble in solving. Neither equipment nor 
 armament can fail us, and certainly we shall not 
 fail ourselves. Well, if our morale is as high as 
 our circumstances warrant, we cannot be defeated. 
 Even admitting that certain parts of the Russian 
 organization may show defects, the Eussian army 
 itself, fighting adversaries than whom there are 
 none more redoubtable, has given examples of 
 heroism before which the present enemy herself 
 has bowed. And now behold, in a sudden surprise, 
 there issues out of Japan, for the ear of England 
 and consequently of France and Russia, a cry of 
 unexpected aid which notifies us that the highest 
 
112 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 civilization of Asia is moved at the thought of 
 the civilization of Europe under the heel of a con- 
 queror without heart and without faith. 
 
 In these conditions, in order that our full self- 
 control may be revealed in its irresistible force 
 to our friends and allies and to our enemies, also, 
 that they may learn who is confronting them, it 
 is necessary that all the moral energy of our 
 civilian population — from Paris to the smallest 
 village — declare itself proudly by that quiet disci- 
 pline which it is our first duty to impose upon our- 
 selves. Every enemy of the public order is an 
 enemy of the country. When France is invaded 
 there is no longer any room for doubtful hearts. 
 This is no longer the hour for dreams which might 
 excuse brave people. As for those who attempt 
 to raise discord among us, even if it cannot be 
 established that they are agents of the foreigner, 
 good Frenchmen will not be able to see in them 
 anything but public enemies who ought to be 
 legally deprived of their power to injure the en- 
 dangered country. 
 
 The capital should be policed. That is elemen- 
 tary prudence. But each citizen, even the most 
 humble, can be of service if he aids in the main- 
 tenance of civil peace by giving a good example 
 of it himself and by recommending it to others. 
 Remember that if order could be maintained auto- 
 matically, all the agents of public security could 
 be at the front. It is for us so to conduct our- 
 selves that only the smallest number will be held 
 back. And let us have no useless recriminations ! 
 No manifestations, always dangerous. No at- 
 tempts to substitute the street for the government. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 113 
 
 The present cabinet was not made with a view 
 to the events which have come. No one has a right 
 to doubt that it will be animated by the single 
 desire to dedicate itself entirely to its duty. To 
 the stoicism of the populace — in the test of re- 
 verses — our ministers must respond by a self- 
 sacrifice and a devotion which, if they were less 
 than complete, would be equivalent to treason. 
 They recommend to us in a manifesto i i not to let 
 ourselves be carried away by ill-founded pas- 
 sions." Their thought is one of excellent good 
 sense. Even if the emotion of the country is but 
 too well founded, what we must ask of Frenchmen 
 at a time like this is not to allow any more of it 
 to escape than is necessary to strengthen the reso- 
 lution of each one and to increase the confidence 
 of all in final success. 
 
 We are in a very honeymoon, so far as concerns 
 the agreement of the executive power with popu- 
 lar sentiment. As in every war, there will be dark 
 days. In order to surmount the inevitable dis- 
 agreements a moral authority is necessary to sup- 
 plement the authority of the law. It is for those 
 of the government to gain this authority in the 
 trial. The good will of everyone is at their dis- 
 position. It is for them to employ it. There is 
 no one who does not ask that he may offer them 
 his assistance without other thought than to bring 
 together all Frenchmen in one burst of enthusiasm 
 for the material and moral good of the country, 
 on the soil which our ancestors made their own by 
 grand exploits of nobility. 
 
 August 3, 1914. 
 
114 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Before the Signal 
 
 What we are seeing to-day has never been seen 
 before. The German armies are marching from 
 every direction upon our frontiers. Enemy troops 
 are spread along the boundary line, while our 
 own are wisely kept back at a distance of ten 
 kilometers in order that action may not be en- 
 gaged, on our side, until after the act of German 
 aggression can no longer be contested. To pro- 
 voke us, small detachments penetrate our terri- 
 tory, throw down telegraph poles, tear up rails, 
 seize railway supplies and horses, take away 
 conscripts, kill soldiers, advance more than ten 
 kilometers into the country, offer violence to the 
 inhabitants, commit all the acts customary among 
 highway robbers in the hope that we will reply 
 by opening a military action, which would permit 
 them to attribute to us, untruthfully, the role of 
 aggressors. 
 
 We shall never realize all the vile hypocrisy 
 which can ally itself with the savage brutality of 
 these beasts of prey. The manifesto of Wilhelm 
 II, in this respect, is the shame of shames. In all 
 of his organs, through all of his agents, even 
 through French journalists, he has had it pro- 
 claimed to us that he did not desire war, although 
 no one could ever wring out of him a word or an 
 act in favor of peace. Yesterday his ambassador 
 at Paris, who could not attempt to explain why 
 he remains at his post while the armies of his 
 master are making war upon us, said to one of my 
 friends, "Be sure to repeat to everybody that 
 we do not want war. Unfortunately, we do not 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 115 
 
 know the desires of Austria, to whom we are 
 bound to remain inseparably attached, as you are 
 to Eussia. But we do not want war and we will 
 do all that is possible to avoid it." 
 
 What facts answered these words? The dec- 
 laration of war on Russia, because she had taken 
 the liberty to respond by a mobilization on the 
 other side of the line — the declaration of war on 
 Russia at the moment when Austria is accepting 
 Sir Edward Grey's proposal of mediation, that is 
 to say, at the precise moment when the conflict 
 was disappearing which had been given as the 
 cause for preparations for war. Where is the 
 disturber of the peace ? Where is the aggressor? 
 Who, indeed, would dare to discuss the question 
 seriously? The Kaiser is declaring war on Russia 
 and he is violating the neutrality of Luxembourg 
 and Belgium, to march against us. 
 
 And yet his ambassadors at St. Petersburg and 
 at Paris remain at their posts to impose upon the 
 powers and to make them believe that the final 
 rupture is not accomplished. The simplest laws 
 of honor brand these deceptions. These inferior 
 creatures find in them material only for low pur- 
 poses of rude pleasure or for invocations to the 
 god of brigandage in armed troops. 
 
 So it is that Wilhelm II addresses his people 
 and tells them that ''envious persons" force him 
 "to a just defense" and that he will show his 
 enemies what it is to " provoke Germany. ' ' From 
 another person such impudence would appear that 
 of a madman, since it would be impossible to cite 
 either an act of provocation or a word which 
 could inspire in anyone the idea of putting him- 
 
116 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 self in defense. But from a robber chief who 
 wants to throw his hordes upon France, as their 
 ancestors hurled themselves upon Rome for 
 grandiose enterprises of pillage, crowned with a 
 stupid joy of murderous domination, it is only 
 the Teutonic formula of an enterprise of war, in 
 which are whetted all the appetites of a pious 
 savagery which goes so far as to take the God 
 of the gospels as an accomplice in the greatest 
 crime of history against humanity. For he recom- 
 mends to his men to enter into the churches to 
 obtain from the God of love abundant pillage 
 for the return. When one has a conscience fabri- 
 cated in such a way that a thought like this 
 cannot revolt him, we may expect anything from 
 his inhumanity. 
 
 The state of things created by the treaty of 
 Frankfort could endure no longer as soon as Bis- 
 marck, and after him Wilhelm II, showed that 
 they would only make it an instrument of hege- 
 mony by which they have condemned Europe, 
 under the menace of their cannon, to the policy of 
 superarmaments. The day on which Germany has 
 brought us, by premeditated purpose, to the 
 supreme crisis, has come sooner than I expected, 
 but it has come. When I used to prophesy it, 
 when I used to oppose the foolish waste of men 
 and money in enterprises of colonial vanity, I 
 was often told that I was deceiving myself about 
 the German peril. It is not long ago that this was 
 repeated to me in regard to the treaty with Ger- 
 many about Morocco, against which I was almost 
 alone in voting. I have no desire for recrimina- 
 tion, but when I was told, as late as yesterday, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 117 
 
 that certain of our most famous public men were 
 persisting in declaring that Germany would not 
 make war on us, I could not restrain a feeling of 
 sadness at the thought of what systematic short- 
 sightedness had too often governed us. But at 
 this hour we must forget, in order to assemble 
 in support of the government and stand beside it 
 facing the invader. 
 
 In the enormous game now beginning it is not 
 France only, any more than Eussia alone, or 
 England, that must be considered. No, it is the 
 destiny of all European civilization on which the 
 fortune of battle is going to pronounce the main- 
 tenance of a fine diversity of culture among in- 
 dependent peoples, or the execrable attempt at a 
 mechanical unity of Teutonization under the iron 
 heel. Thus our cause has become that of all the 
 nations, of all the governments who do not 
 separate the sentiment of national honor from the 
 conception of a common life according to the main 
 lines of the tradition of nationality. 
 
 Many will be silent, will attempt to conceal the 
 trembling of their hearts at the thought that they 
 are looking on, with folded arms, while the 
 soldiers of France fall on the fields of battle where 
 is at stake, along with the life of the French 
 nation, that also of little peoples whose hearts 
 are feeble enough to consent to succumb without 
 fighting. And we who send our sons to the bloody 
 conflict, we who are treacherously menaced at 
 the deepest roots of our life, we are resolved to 
 save all that can be saved of our splendid con- 
 tributions to civilization, to which it is our high- 
 est ambition to add continually. 
 
118 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 In defending ourselves we are championing the 
 cause of all. If in the past we have committed 
 sins against Europe, misfortunes enough have 
 made us cruelly expiate them. And we present 
 ourselves at the side of England, she who, also, 
 in the age of iron, conceived the ambition to 
 dominate us. A hundred years of war were nec- 
 essary for us to gain the independence of our 
 land, and when the men had been defeated it was 
 a woman, a poor Lorraine peasant, simple- 
 hearted but grand in her simplicity, who spoke 
 the words and did the things whence came the 
 victory. England launched forth for the economic 
 conquest of the world, and has erected by her 
 labor, by her daring, and by a perseverance 
 which nothing could impair, an immense empire 
 which forms her just pride and which is indeed 
 the pride of civilization. To-day she has nobly 
 drawn her sword, for the honor, in freedom, of 
 the peoples of Europe. She enters with us into 
 the noble drama, an enemy of the overlordship 
 of Napoleon or of Bismarck, a friend of ,the 
 modern France, who asks nothing of Europe but 
 an equilibrium in freedom. Italy remains neutral, 
 and I do not believe it hazardous to predict that 
 this grand spectacle will soon shed a bright light 
 upon the mind of the Italian people, whom short- 
 sighted governments had foolishly engaged in the 
 service of Teutonism against all that remains of 
 Latin tradition. 
 
 And finally, behold Eussia arriving first upon 
 the battle-line, the Russia who, even yesterday, ap- 
 peared to be the last asylum in Europe of Asiatic 
 despotism, the Russia who, on the initiative of her 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 119 
 
 latest Czars, has made place for freedom, the 
 Russia whom an incomparable intellectual move- 
 ment has already placed in the first rank of 
 civilized culture, Eussia, the magnificent bridge 
 of idealism and determination over which move- 
 ments born in Asia will bring to us, with a renewal 
 of strength, new forms of inspiration. It is just 
 this which the feudal Germans fear, as they 
 hold the people under the oppression of their 
 bureaucracy and look askance at nothing so much 
 as a change of mental discipline which might 
 destroy the great basis of their government — 
 obedience. Thus, even to the German soldiers, 
 in spite of themselves, Russia and France and 
 England will bring intellectual deliverance. 
 
 Our fathers, before 1870, had met the German 
 soldiers on many fields of battle where fortune 
 was often enough unfavorable to the German side. 
 To-morrow the great account-books will once 
 more open; we shall have to resist, perhaps, a 
 colossal onrush upon all the fronts at once. The 
 shock will be terrible. The men of Germany will 
 be received as they should be by the soldiers of 
 France. 
 
 August 4, 1914. 
 
 We Must Win 
 
 Wilhelm II has willed it. The cannon must 
 speak. The German ambassador has decided to 
 depart, tired of waiting in Paris for acts of 
 violence which do not occur. Do you know the 
 official reasons for his departure? It is that a 
 French aviator is alleged to have thrown bombs 
 
120 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 on Nuremberg. In courteous language M. Viviani 
 replied that this was an untruth, although it was 
 only too true that a German troop had come into 
 our territory and killed a French soldier; and 
 the ambassador, finding nothing to say, slipped 
 away only to return a few minutes later to repair 
 a slight omission. He had forgotten to deliver 
 to the minister a declaration of war. One cannot 
 think of everything at once. 
 
 . . . England, be it said to her honor, did not 
 hesitate. Germany has had many friends, even 
 in important places, in the British government, 
 and she has not recoiled before any method of 
 impressing public opinion in the United Kingdom. 
 Nevertheless, the statesmen of England, and the 
 English people themselves, have too clear a vision 
 of their own interests, coinciding at every point 
 with those of European civilization, for them to 
 entertain the thought of taking miserable refuge 
 in a waiting policy. This whole nation is com- 
 posed of men who possess peculiarly that superior 
 quality of knowing their own wills and of acting 
 when once they have spoken. They do not give 
 themselves up to enthusiasms, as sometimes hap- 
 pens to us, but they advance carefully step by 
 step and they are easier to kill than to drive back. 
 Moreover it was impossible for them to do, in so 
 little time, more than they have done in the time 
 since all dissimulation disappeared from Ger- 
 many's intentions. 
 
 With a prudence for which no one can reproach 
 them they painfully exhausted the last chances 
 of peace, without ever letting themselves be en- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 121 
 
 trapped by the fallacious proposals of the German 
 ambassador. They carefully guarded their liberty 
 of action in case of developments of which no 
 one can calculate the consequences. But Germany 
 has not left them the chance to preserve this 
 liberty long, and they have quickly shown that 
 their decision, once it was necessary, would not 
 be delayed. 
 
 . . . Italy has issued her formal declaration of 
 neutrality. By the way in which French opinion 
 received it, our brothers beyond Piedmont can 
 see that the absurd quarrels of governments in- 
 sufficiently authoritative have left no trace in our 
 hearts. They had often told us that the Triple 
 Alliance could not act together, in whatever con- 
 cerned the Italians, unless we were the aggressors, 
 and that they refused to believe that such would 
 ever be the case, since our policy was wholly 
 defensive. They have shown that they were 
 wholly sincere. We cannot but be thankful to 
 them for it. 
 
 It is for the Latin cause, for the independence 
 of nationalities in Europe, that we are going to 
 fight, for the greatest ideas that have honored the 
 thought of mankind, ideas that have come to us 
 from Athens and Borne and of which we have 
 made the crowning work of that civilization which 
 the Germany of Arminius pretends to monopolize, 
 like those barbarians who melted into ingots the 
 marvels of ancient art after the pillaging of Eome 
 in order to make savage ornaments out of them. 
 
 Anticipating the time which possibly is near, 
 I proclaim to the men who have revived Italy and 
 
122 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 who have had the glory to bring Rome back to 
 her destiny that they have themselves marked out 
 their place in this great struggle. I am not afraid 
 to say that, without them, we shall conquer, be- 
 cause we are resolved to dare and endure any- 
 thing, because a peace resulting from our defeat 
 could not be made except over the corpses of all 
 the men worthy of the name of France. But what 
 supreme joy would overflow our hearts if the 
 name of the great Italy of history should be asso- 
 ciated with ours in a heroic adventure in which 
 the greatest men of Rome would have been proud 
 to claim an important part. Whenever their sons 
 wish it we shall be able to make a place of honor 
 for them at our side. Behold Belgium in action, 
 Holland with arms in hand, Russia pregnant with 
 new purpose to revive our fatigued hopes, the 
 peoples of the Balkans being born anew, the 
 American republics, with the greatest in the lead, 
 incapable by tradition of seconding a brutal at- 
 tack upon liberty, all Europe indignant at mon- 
 strous treachery, and even Asia, in astonishment, 
 speaking of lending her redoubtable legions to 
 the cause. 
 
 Against what is this revolt of all, this rebellion 
 of human conscience, this insurrection of ideas? 
 Against a Teutonism delirious in megalomania, 
 ambitious to realize what Alexander, Caesar, 
 Napoleon could not accomplish: to impose upon 
 a world that desires to be free the supremacy of 
 steel. It is not a thing for our age; men have 
 too much suffered from it. The modern idea is 
 the right of all, and victory for us could not mean 
 oppression, even for those who fought against us, 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 123 
 
 since Germany has valiantly conquered, like so 
 many other states, her rightful place in the world, 
 and since, if we are fighting the arrogance of 
 tyranny, it is not in order to embrace it in our 
 turn. 
 
 And now to arms, all of us ! I have seen weep- 
 ing among those who cannot go first. Everyone 's 
 turn will come. There will not be a child of 
 our land who will not have a part in the enormous 
 struggle. To die is nothing. We must win. And 
 for that we need all men's power. The weakest 
 will have his share of glory. There come times, 
 in the lives of peoples, when there passes over 
 them a tempest of heroic action. 
 
 August 5, 1914. 
 
 The Two Flags 
 
 A whole people stands erect. From the depths 
 of its traditional life, of its sensations, of its 
 thoughts, all the manifestations of its being, there 
 springs up a common power to will and to do 
 which nothing can overcome. They have had 
 faults which were not slight. They would not 
 have conquered, by their enthusiastic idealism, by 
 their self-sacrifice in the service of grand ideas 
 for the betterment of men, one of the highest 
 positions of the world, unless they had risen, by 
 higher and higher bounds, above their periods of 
 weakness in which the representatives of human 
 baseness had saluted the precursory signs of their 
 decadence. 
 
 A whole people stands erect, and it is the 
 French people, against whom all the invasions of 
 
124 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 hostile peoples have "been hurled only to be ab- 
 sorbed for the creation of a race, vigorous and 
 productive, which is the execration of men who 
 do not live nobly enough to understand it, and 
 the hope of those who dream of increasing human 
 grandeur. By its faults, and sometimes also by 
 movements not always wisely controlled but still 
 praiseworthy, this people has made itself many 
 enemies in the world. Having called men to de- 
 liverance before being itself capable of freedom, 
 it abandoned itself under an iron will to the giddy 
 dream of domination — survival of those notions 
 of the past which were beginning to succumb 
 under its blows — and this error, redeemed by so 
 much native heroism and conquering generosity, 
 it has dearly paid for, without ever forfeiting its 
 own esteem, without ever permitting a blot to 
 remain upon its name. What is still more, it has 
 paid for the unpardonable folly of the irrespon- 
 sible government of a daj with a part of its living 
 flesh cut off by the saber of the conqueror. 
 
 It has borne its misfortune nobly. During 
 forty years it has kept silence while from the 
 crests of the Vosges there came the groans of 
 its mutilated land, during forty years it has re- 
 pressed the but too lively beatings of its heart, 
 during forty years it has created for itself, by 
 hard toil, a new right to life, and by painful 
 patience a new right to honor. It has submitted 
 to every insult, to every provocation, with its 
 head high, without quailing. Like old swords of 
 an unalterable temper in which the hammer of the 
 forge reawakens a disdained virtue, it has laid its 
 soul upon the anvil for the tests which destiny 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 125 
 
 announced, and behold, at the day appointed, the 
 new man arises in the pure simplicity of grand 
 resolution. 
 
 Out of the obscure strife of parties the French- 
 man of this hour has leaped forward incorrupt, 
 greater and stronger, silent, smiling, with an eye 
 charged with invincible energy which proclaims 
 that the history of France shall not come to an 
 end. Women have seen him depart and have not 
 wept. Little children have grown grave. Youth 
 anticipates its call, and those whose age betrays 
 them will find a way to reach the post of danger. 
 It is the mysterious hour when something is pass- 
 ing within us which casts away all dross to make 
 room for the great molding of metal which 
 neither steel nor diamond can cut. And on the 
 day when, after superhuman trials, all these souls, 
 weary of heroism, shall meet again under the 
 great blue vault of a reborn country, many hearts 
 that were inimical to us must become friendly 
 to the France in which the elements of dissension, 
 which are in the nature of life, will be gathered 
 together, firmly anchored in a fundamental una- 
 nimity so strong that nothing can shake it. A more 
 glorious country shall come out of the crucible. 
 
 The same news from every point in the country. 
 Everywhere the mobilization is taking place in 
 admirable order, on which we congratulate the 
 minister of war and especially General Joff re, who 
 prepared it. There comes to us from this strong 
 organization, so perfect in its method, a comfort 
 for to-day, a hope for to-morrow. Blessed are the 
 dissensions of the past if they have done nothing 
 but arouse in us a more lively emulation for the 
 
126 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 great cause which must render us superior to our- 
 selves. 
 
 But if the administration of the system is good, 
 what of the individuals? What heart, at sight 
 of our youths so simple in their heroism, does not 
 leap up before these noble makers of history? 
 All the representatives of France, momentarily 
 united yesterday, had but one voice. Happy in 
 their pride, to give them their due honor, and 
 with smiles like children: these are the sons that 
 we dedicate to our country. Yesterday, meeting 
 a troop of them, I could not restrain myself from 
 silently removing my hat. And I had the honor 
 of a fine military salute, without a word, without 
 a gesture of French gaiety, a salute that spoke— 
 * 'forward!" 
 
 The soldiers of the year II, those of whom 
 . . . Fame chantait dans leurs clairons d'arain," 
 were not finer, were not grander. A sublime folly 
 possessed them. These of to-day, mute and 
 gentle, are imposing. How has it been communi- 
 cated from one end of France to the other, this 
 spontaneous inspiration which has suddenly 
 steeled all these young souls in the simplicity of 
 duty? How have they all come to know at once 
 that there was nothing more to say, since the hour 
 was one for action? Men of Brittany, of Gironde, 
 of Gascony, of Provence, of Auvergne, of Nor- 
 mandy, of Savoy, of Flanders with one motion 
 came together, all welded into one, with a high 
 gesture which would express a thought and a 
 will beyond the reach of human power. There 
 is nothing more beautiful in our history, nor in 
 that of any people. Simplicity in heroism has 
 
 a 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 127 
 
 usually been the rare privilege of the few. To- 
 day it is the miraculous gift of a whole people, 
 ready to offer their life that France may live. 
 Hail, noble children! Pass on your way in a 
 train of glory! Die, and you will have lived what 
 is highest in life; live and you will uplift your 
 land, whom it is your dream to make more 
 beautiful than the France of your ancestors! 
 
 A nation is a soul, a soul of varied flowering, 
 springing from one aged trunk twisted by the 
 ages, embossed by the scars of steel, with bare 
 roots that plunge, in search of life into the night of 
 things. Men have tried to annihilate peoples by 
 systematic massacre, to sell them like herds of 
 beasts, men have dismembered them, torn them 
 in pieces, rent them asunder, dispersed them, 
 buried them. As long as men have not extirpated 
 every source of life there will be a sprig shooting 
 from the ground, and then a crop of others to 
 testify that above the savage will of individuals 
 there are forces in mankind which do not accept 
 death. 
 
 In truth we are of those who will not and can- 
 not disappear, because we carry in the harmony 
 or the discord of the world a note of thought and 
 of action which has been and still is of consider- 
 able value to mankind. We should all have to 
 be annihilated before some sprout of the French 
 soul, revivified by the blood of the dead, should 
 fail to rise again from the ancient soil. That is 
 what is in the depths of consciences from which 
 men draw their firmness, valor, and hope in the 
 hour when they go to stand immovable under 
 the hostile hail of shot. 
 
128 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 They have a cause to defend, a cause which 
 ennobles them and for which no sacrifice is too 
 great. What could our prisoners of war say if 
 we asked them why they went into combat? 
 What thought inspires them? 
 
 Who is hurling them against us? After the 
 conclusion of peace, in 1871, I went to Strassburg 
 with Scheurer-Kestner. When I arrived at the 
 house of my friend, Louis Durr, the good citizen 
 of Strassburg who could not hear the name of 
 German without shivering, I found him rudely 
 haranguing one of the soldiers of Wilhelm to 
 whom, against his will, he was giving lodgment. 
 "Yes, it is you," he was saying, "who are the 
 authors of this wretched work. You have come 
 here among us where you are not wanted. You 
 want to live among us. You will not be able to 
 do it, for we cannot endure it. What have you 
 come to do in Alsace? Say why you are here!" 
 All of them listened, stupidly, and one of them 
 pitifully murmured: "It is not my fault. I did 
 nothing but obey." 
 
 Durr, who was afraid of nothing, was running 
 the risk of being shot, but he had forced upon the 
 enemy the acknowledgment that he was nothing 
 but a machine of murder, without conscience. If 
 he were still in the world and could repeat the 
 question, how much more decisive would be the 
 manifestation on both sides. At that time it was 
 but a question of dismembering France. Now the 
 design is to assassinate her! 
 
 What do you say of it, soldiers of Germany, 
 who came upon our territory, without having any 
 complaint against us, to accomplish this high act 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 129 
 
 of civilization? Tell us, I beg of you, what wrong 
 we can have done to yon, beyond living reproach 
 which the people of Alsace and Lorraine cast npon 
 yon, throngh the single fact that they are on the 
 earth by the same title that yon enjoy. Yon, 
 the philosophers, who classify all yonr notions 
 of the world in hard and fast categories ; yon, the 
 scholars, who desire laborious methods to pene- 
 trate into the night of the unknown; you, the men 
 of affairs, who can make and unmake the ma- 
 chinery of things ; you, artists of ideals with wings 
 of lead; you, the social democrats who want 
 justice among men: come into full session, all of 
 you, and tell us, if you can find it, the name of 
 your cause against us. You do not fight for your 
 fatherland. We have endured all your outrages, 
 all your aggressiveness for forty-four years with- 
 out attacking you. You are not even defending 
 your ally Austria, since up to this hour she is 
 still not at war with us, and since she was ac- 
 cepting the mediation of England on the very day 
 when you declared war on Russia. Try to search 
 out an honorable pretext, a decent lie which may 
 give an illusion to the most obtuse minds, and you 
 are in such a parlous state that you cannot find 
 one. That is the judgment of a people, in very 
 truth. You are fighting to obey, and not to be 
 free. 
 
 Also behold how from every side assistance is 
 coming to us in arms and sympathies! England 
 is rising against you, Italy will not follow you. 
 You menace Holland and Switzerland, you out- 
 rage Belgium, because the map of the world 
 would be more beautiful in your eyes if you could 
 
130 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 swell yourselves with the domains of others, like 
 the gamester who, even when he has won a good 
 prize, tries to appropriate the stakes of those near 
 him. That has a name in the French language, 
 and even in yonrs, but you would not dare to 
 inscribe it on your banners. History will have 
 less scruple, and when your fighters, who are 
 doubtful in their darkened conscience, of the jus- 
 tice of their cause, shall feel their courage weak- 
 ening at the idea of dying for the achievement 
 of designs which you dare not formulate, the 
 banners will tremble in their hands, while ours 
 will rule the battle, calling all hearts to sublime 
 sacrifice for the soul and body of their nation. 
 
 August 6, 1914. 
 
 Fkom the Othee Side 
 
 ... It is a great day which is dawning, one of 
 the greatest which can inspire mankind, for we 
 are to see what the force of human conscience 
 can avail against those who glory in outraging it. 
 It is the most evident sign of progress in human 
 society that the right of men and of peoples is 
 beginning to draw the fire, against which, con- 
 trary to what we have seen in the past, it must 
 defend itself. Yes, force of arms is going to clash 
 with force of arms, but on one side there will be 
 the highest moral power, and on the other only 
 the lowest shamelessness of brutality. 
 
 The victory will be decided on the field of 
 battle, not only by the number of artillery pieces 
 or the sum of men engaged, but by the weight, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 131 
 
 above all, of the sentiments which have put arms 
 into the hands of the combatants. One man is not 
 equal to another, selected at random. There is 
 in each one an individual soul, of strength or 
 weakness, with the expansion of energy that 
 derives therefrom. The strength is in the con- 
 sciousness of a superior nobility; the weak- 
 ness, in the unworthiness of the sentiments 
 which have led the man into battle. That is why 
 we are strong, we Belgians, we French, we Rus- 
 sians, we Britons. That is why, Germans, we 
 know that Destiny has already pronounced the 
 supreme verdict against you. 
 
 . . . Even if you are to drive us back, on cer- 
 tain days, the higher laws, which for our honor, 
 govern human history, decree that we shall repel 
 you, by an accumulation of irresistible efforts, 
 beyond your frontiers and bring you to bay. You 
 despised the Belgians, and they have held you in 
 check, in your first onrush, while your cruel losses 
 tell you clearly enough against what arms and 
 hearts you have hurled yourselves. The Mexico 
 of Maximilian of Austria, the Spain of Napoleon 
 have shown what men can do when they fear 
 nothing but that they may not do enough for the 
 defense of their country. The Belgians are add- 
 ing a new page to this noble history and all of 
 them know well that they will not be abandoned. 
 
 So far as concerns us, I am going to tell you 
 where you have erred, men of Germany. You 
 have childishly thought to honor yourselves by 
 humbling us in the sight of Europe. You have 
 basely slandered us, outraged us, vilified us, 
 
132 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 taunted us, and because we remained calm under 
 provocation, you have foolishly concluded that our 
 hearts are weak. And because in our great un- 
 dertaking of the construction of a democracy in 
 justice and freedom we have too often calum- 
 niated one another, you have thought, in your 
 native stupidity, that our dissensions would 
 cause weakness in our resistance. And you have 
 been the first dupes of your own lies, of your 
 infamous calumnies against the French nation. 
 Since you once succeeded in surprising us, you 
 said that we had degenerated from our ancestors, 
 who so many times had hurled you back on the 
 field of battle, and having said it you believed it, 
 and perhaps to-day you are still waiting for the 
 sword to fail in our hands. I should be mortally 
 ashamed to pronounce, at this hour, a word of 
 boasting. You will soon be able to judge us in 
 the test. 
 
 Meantime I behold you held in check by the 
 Belgian army, before reaching us in the north; 
 I see Austria ridiculously arrested before the open 
 city of Belgrade, while 500,000 Serbs, who have 
 forced the admiration of their Balkan allies, will 
 let the world hear of them before long; to say 
 nothing of England, whose cannon will not be 
 delayed. Send us some of your parliamentarians 
 and let us uncover their eyes at the door of our 
 recruiting offices. They will see our most fero- 
 cious socialists there demanding their place in 
 the battle, they will see long lines of men of every 
 age and every country, who are come to take 
 service in order to rid the world of the oppressive 
 power that has held Europe, for more than half 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 133 
 
 a century, under the menace of its armaments. 
 They will see monks there; yes, monks that we 
 chased out of the country, as they say, with some 
 exaggeration. And this act of simple nobility, 
 and the oppressing memory of the poor village 
 priest whose cassock you rifled with your bullets, 
 and the two children whom you shot at Morfon- 
 taine, and the non-commissioned French officer, 
 wounded, whom you dispatched in your coward- 
 ice, all that is welding more firmly together the 
 hearts that you thought divided. We are con- 
 strained to adjourn all engagements until the 
 mobilization is completed, and our men are in 
 despair because they cannot yet depart. All of 
 independent Europe is on our side. Who is with 
 you? Whose sympathy remains to you except 
 that of Austria, expelled from the German con- 
 federacy and subjected after Sadowa? The birth- 
 rate of the French has decreased? We shall have 
 too many soldiers. I was mistaken, really, in 
 inviting you to come and see them leaving; you 
 will meet them on your arrival. 
 
 August 7, 1914. 
 
 A State of Mind 
 
 It is revolting to think that these barbarous 
 acts of the Germans, which leave an eternal 
 stain on their name, are accomplished according 
 to a premeditated plan. Open the book of von der 
 Goltz on the Nation in Arms and you will see, on 
 one of the first pages, that it is necessary by the 
 use of every means to exercise terror* upon a 
 populace in order to reduce them more quickly 
 
134 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 and with a view to shortening the war in the 
 interest of humanity. I have not the vohime at 
 my hand, but I make affirmation that this stands 
 written by the man whom the Germans consider 
 one of their greatest war-lords, and I defy any 
 contradiction. It is just the kind of thing that 
 marks the German mind, the reduction of all 
 questions to problems in mechanics in which man 
 appears only as an insensible element, to whom 
 no more attention need be given than to the ore 
 in the mold. The barbarians of the age of bar- 
 barism were children of nature, in whom the in- 
 stinct of murder and destruction knew no check. 
 Our civilized barbarians are creatures of meta- 
 physical refinement who intend, in virtue of a 
 logic from which all human consideration is ex- 
 cluded, to lead us by the worst atrocities of 
 savagery, made into a doctrinal system, to the 
 heights of their civilization. 
 
 As long as this was a mere aberration in theory, 
 an objective study of man would hardly allow 
 us to be astonished at it. For there is no line 
 of reasoning which, projected into infinity, with- 
 out taking account of contingencies which are 
 part of the unknown, does not lead to derange- 
 ment of the intellect. It is thus that so many 
 religions have resulted in bloody sacrifices, glori- 
 fications of our native cruelty, and that the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of love came to accommodate itself 
 to an eternal hell. 
 
 . . . Well, let the experiment in bloody philan- 
 thropy follow its course. As for us, we shall not 
 dispatch the wounded. On the contrary, our 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 135 
 
 women will proudly make all efforts to save them, 
 and when we are on enemy territory we shall aid 
 the weak instead of shooting them. Only on the 
 field of battle do we accept the war of extermina- 
 tion which is imposed on us. Since the people 
 who assume the right to rule the world by force 
 of arms know no other right than that of supe- 
 riority in murder, we shall pursue the battle in 
 the conditions which they have themselves laid 
 down, reserving for ourselves only the advantage 
 over them of a higher morality which commands 
 fair play. Yes, it is the benefit of a higher 
 morality which I entreat for the men of the 
 "modern Babylon," as the austere degenerates 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah used to call it in 1870. 
 I have seen their Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, roll- 
 ing all the night in a filthy torrent of nameless 
 animality sodden with beer, tobacco, and bestial 
 lewdness, and I rejoiced — though knowing only 
 too well our own faults — in affirming that riches 
 too easily acquired had never degraded us to that. 
 I rejoiced because I saw in that degeneracy of 
 our conquerors the beginning of the revenge. 
 
 But this was not enough. We had a right to 
 receive the comfort of their deeper degradation. 
 And the campaign had not yet opened before 
 virtuous Germany was hastening to put herself 
 beyond the pale of civilization. In the full view 
 of a watching world she lied impudently, through 
 the mouths of her Emperor, her ambassadors, and 
 her agents of every rank, when she proclaimed 
 that she desired to keep the peace and was in- 
 volved in the conflict only to the degree in which 
 her interests were attached to the cause of 
 
136 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Austria by the alliance. She lied, because she 
 began the hostilities, at the very hour when 
 Austria was accepting Sir Edward Grey's pro- 
 posals of mediation. She lied, because Austria 
 only yesterday declared war on Eussia, and has 
 not even yet declared it against France at the 
 moment when the German army is shattering 
 Liege with its bombs, in cynical violation of 
 treaties. She lied when she argued that she was 
 coming to defend Belgium against us. She lied, 
 and she had ordered her soldiers to lie, when, 
 entering Luxembourg, they cried to the inhab- 
 itants: "We have come to defend you. Where 
 are the French?" 
 
 She lies because she sees in lying a means of 
 power, and because no qualm of conscience serves 
 notice on her of the infamy of dishonesty. She 
 lies, as she assassinates, because it seems advan- 
 tageous to her. And she is not capable of the 
 idea that a nausea of man and nations is pre- 
 paring against her a general insurrection of all 
 outraged consciences. She has a presentiment of 
 it, perhaps, because it is in the scientific data of 
 human experience, but she repeats to herself, in 
 travesty, the phrase of Mazarin: "They will cry, 
 but I will kill." Even here she deceives herself. 
 She cannot kill enough, for she would have to 
 destroy, even in her children, the last vestige of 
 the conscience in which the anguish of remorse, 
 even in victory, would finally arise. 
 
 August 8, 1914. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 137 
 
 Mulhausen, Liege, and the Right 
 
 The charm is broken. All our people have 
 thrilled. The French are at Miilhausen. I had 
 been awaiting the news, like everybody else, for 
 forty-eight hours. And yet when it came, my 
 stupid eyes remained fixed on the letters which 
 I spelled out one by one to make sure that I was 
 not deceiving myself. Yet, it was true, Miil- 
 hausen, that sterling French city had, after 
 Altkirch, seen the French soldiers entering. Only, 
 at Altkirch it was the battle — an intrenched 
 German brigade put to rout, at the point of the 
 bayonet, by a French brigade — while at Miil- 
 hausen it was the celebration. I was there less 
 than two years ago. Everywhere were out- 
 stretched hands and beating hearts. I looked in 
 silence on those ancient stones of France and said 
 to them, without daring to fix my hope, "When 
 will you see them again, those little soldiers who, 
 all the way from Brittany to Provence, only await 
 the signal to come back to you 1 ' ' Well, they have 
 come, caps on their ears, laughing, weeping, do- 
 ing all manner of unreasonable things, but wild 
 with joy at the idea that they are there, with only 
 the one sorrow that they did not come sooner. 
 And I see them again, all those good people of 
 Miilhausen, trembling with an emotion which 
 strains at their throats and stretching infatuated 
 hands toward the tricolor which is passing, though 
 they cannot find the strength to utter a sound. 
 
 I know that this is not a great military action, 
 I know that this pretty French escapade is no 
 important part of our plan of strategy, and that 
 
138 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 we must not expect any military consequences 
 from it. But all the same it was a joy that was 
 due us before the curtain should rise on the great 
 tragedy. And if our young army had contracted 
 this debt to us, it has paid it in good fashion, 
 at the right moment. 
 
 . . . Whatever may be the issue of that little 
 promenade, which was only an adventure of war, it 
 will none the less uplift hearts all over France, and 
 nowhere more than among our troops in line at 
 the frontier. It is a sign. We have taken the 
 offensive, even in Alsace, and the enemy, although 
 intrenched, could not hold against us. That 
 means that something is changed. What better 
 introduction to the great operations which will 
 soon be in the foreground! Repulse of the Ger- 
 mans before Liege, at Altkirch, at Miilhausen; if 
 that is part of the famous plan of Wilhelm II, 
 I have nothing to say unless it is that one does 
 not gain ground ahead by running backward. 
 
 . . . Without saying as yet that the resistance 
 of Liege has shaken the whole plan of Wilhelm II 
 — which, nevertheless, is very near the truth — 
 anyone can be sure, before the time has arrived 
 for great deployments, that the Germans, in un- 
 certainty, find themselves thrown out in the prepa- 
 rations they had so carefully made. A moral 
 effect, and a military advantage; the two results 
 combine to put them off the path. 
 
 ... In chatting with a friend from Belgium 
 the other day, I said to him: 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 139 
 
 C6 
 
 We liad not foreseen, in France, that your 
 compatriots, so calm, could become so violent. " 
 
 "Neither had we," he answered, smiling, "and 
 no more did they. They have been wounded to 
 the quick. They have taken fire, and that is all." 
 
 Our error of foresight was of little importance, 
 since we asked nothing of the Belgians. Ger- 
 many's was more grave, since she needed their 
 territory to be in a better position to strike us 
 a treacherous blow. She deceived herself about 
 them, she deceived herself about us. The Bel- 
 gians have had only one day to curse her. We 
 have had forty-four years. For forty-four years, 
 day by day, she has reopened our wounds, bruised 
 our hearts, and made our blood flow, drop by 
 drop. And then, like Shylock, because she needs 
 her pound of flesh, she resolved to dispatch us. 
 Only, our will was lacking to her plan, and we 
 shall prove to her that our will counts. Finally, 
 since she has threatened and outraged the con- 
 science of Europe we see all Europe that is worthy 
 of the name arising, and her own soldiers, who 
 fight in mere obedience, are bending while ours 
 stand firm because they fight for liberty. 
 
 August 10, 1914. 
 
 Face to Face 
 
 Encounters of patrols. Concentration is being 
 accomplished on both sides. More or less hesi- 
 tant still, strategic preparations are dictating 
 movements of units according to plans that will 
 decide the issue of the imminent combats. Each 
 soldier, with his hand on his weapon, lives from 
 
140 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 moment to moment through the terrible silence 
 which will be broken in a little while by the 
 dreadful thunder of a tempest of artillery. Secure 
 in mind, we wait. 
 
 We had but too many reasons for anxiety as 
 to the famous hammer-stroke of the brusque at- 
 tack, the peril of which the heroism of the Bel- 
 gians had arrested even though, for reasons 
 beyond our control, the French mobilization was 
 notably slower than the German. To-day we can 
 already say that this first part of the plan of the 
 German general staff has definitely failed. While 
 the Kaiser is endeavoring to maintain the morale 
 of his country by gross lies about conditions in 
 Paris and throughout France, as well as about 
 the results of the first encounters, our forces are 
 methodically growing from hour to hour with 
 fresh additions of men and armament. Doubtless 
 this is true also on the other side of the frontier, 
 but the Germans are losing more and more the 
 advantages of early concentrations of troops 
 which were permitted to them by the underhand 
 devices of their maneuvers prior to the decree of 
 mobilization. 
 
 It is not easy to predict as yet the form in 
 which will take shape, if it is to take shape, the 
 great movement along the Meuse, or whether 
 some great strategic change of plan will not call 
 our attention to another sector. The dice are 
 shaking in the hand of Destiny. My complete 
 incompetence in the art of war, reinforced by the 
 conviction that no science is independent of the 
 higher laws of common sense, relieves me of all 
 hesitation in freely expressing opinions which 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 141 
 
 need influence no one, but in which the reader 
 will find traces of meditation. 
 
 Well, in the simple virtue of my own reasoning, 
 I feel that although the brusque attach seems now 
 to have miscarried, we remain none the less face 
 to face with the great plan of the German general 
 staff. That plan is known. It has long ago been 
 printed in all the gazettes, in all the magazines. 
 We have always been told that the great Russian 
 Empire was weak in the slowness with which it 
 must effect its mobilization. That is the reason 
 for the idea of the Jominis at Berlin, an idea 
 possibly a little too simple, of hurling their masses 
 against the French frontier, of breaking through 
 in a torrent of steel, and of cutting a path, at 
 whatever cost, to the heart of our country, before 
 the Russian army could be in condition to threaten 
 seriously the other border of the country. 
 
 The idea looks well upon paper. They will 
 have three army corps on the Russian frontier, 
 with certain divisions in reserve. They will hurl 
 twenty-three corps, increased, if possible, with an 
 Austrian complement, against our twenty corps, 
 who will be magically outflanked and annihilated; 
 they will enter Paris like a cannon-ball; they will 
 return and rush to the Vistula to strike down 
 Russia with a back-hand blow. Not long ago 
 they were even arguing that we would have 
 capitulated before Russia could have opened her 
 campaign, and that they might spare her the 
 horrors of a useless war. 
 
 ... In a word, the problem of the German 
 army is to break through our frontier at several 
 
142 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 points at once. Even if we suppose that she suc- 
 ceeds in obtaining temporarily certain partial 
 successes, we are assured from now on that we 
 can guard such strategic points as will more than 
 embarrass her march forward. Only, to guard 
 these advantages, if I may be permitted to hold 
 an opinion in such matters, it is necessary to 
 forego our offensive for the moment. We are 
 holding at this moment, before Russia has begun 
 to take active part in the war, certain impreg- 
 nable positions in which, up to the present, the 
 enemy who was to fly like an arrow from Longwy 
 and Nancy to Paris does not dare to attack us. 
 Every day adds to the concentration of our 
 forces and those of Russia, with whom it is of 
 the highest importance for us to cooperate at one 
 moment. That is why I wish we could abate a 
 little of our French fury, since in strategy, as in 
 all other things, skill lies in doing everything at 
 the right time. This should not hinder us, let 
 it be understood, from doing our full duty with 
 our brothers in arms in Belgium, if the Meuse, 
 as is announced, continues to tempt Germany. 
 
 But the inexcusable mistake of the Kaiser's 
 general staff was to reckon as of equal value the 
 French of 1914 and those of 1870. It is this, more 
 than their errors in the art of war (though these 
 are numerous enough up to the present) which 
 shows us that our invaders to come are destined 
 to certain defeat. Forty years of sterile quarrels, 
 they thought in their folly, condemned us to im- 
 potence. They were insensate in their lack of 
 vision. A wound is necessary that muscle may 
 be grafted to muscle, and skin upon skin. Out- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 143 
 
 side of Italy, we have probably carried dissension 
 further than any people in the world, but the 
 blood of our race is but the more prepared for a 
 union of all hearts when the foreigner threatens 
 the existence of our country. 
 
 Little by little, without our knowing exactly how, 
 the great vitality of our race has been exerting 
 itself, and already a remarkable network of vigor- 
 ous roots has grown up in our minds, distributing 
 the healthy sap of older days. How many times, 
 with all the strength of my voice, have I called 
 to the youth of the land, who did not seem to 
 me to respond. They held their silence, searching 
 themselves, under the blows of misfortune. Know- 
 ing well enough what would be asked of them, 
 perhaps they did not yet know themselves. Per- 
 haps, also, confident in some irresistible power, 
 they were simply waiting their day. 
 
 The day has come, and at a bound France has 
 found herself again, joyously proud to see rising 
 to her aid, along with so many valiant women, 
 along with a whole population of children in 
 attitude of combat like the young David of 
 Michelangelo, her soldiers, her captains, her gen- 
 erals, — hundreds of thousands, millions of men 
 who are but one. Ah, it is no longer 1870, when 
 we were surprised in our stupid indolence, heed- 
 less of our condition, disorganized, without power 
 and without virtue. 
 
 I begin to wonder, indeed, if it is not the hour 
 for Germany to expiate her too easy victories. 
 Her signal errors in the beginning make me doubt 
 her power more than I had hoped. Full of dis- 
 dain and self-infatuation, the Germans have not 
 
144 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ■understood that their successes of forty years ago 
 were due principally to the fact that that genera- 
 tion of Frenchmen did not deserve victory. 
 Drunk with blood, knowing no scruple, always 
 ready with lies and treacherous snares, always 
 prepared to violate treaties and assassinate the 
 weak, — which, in the night of their conscience, 
 they sought to justify on grounds of " utility,' ' — 
 they believed themselves masters because they 
 saw no defense against the flood of their fury. 
 They were mistaken. Man derives an irresistible 
 power from the sentiment of right, a power that 
 lifts him above himself, while under his eye all 
 this evil mass of humanity goes to destruction. 
 Strong or weak, our soldiers await the German 
 onrush, in that redoubtable serenity which be- 
 speaks an invincible resolution, and behind those 
 who fall others are already advancing, and 
 others, and yet others; and there will come so 
 many that these murderers of wounded and of 
 children will be weary unto death before we shall 
 have ceased to call to the combat their reluctant 
 companions. 
 
 August 13, 1914. 
 
 The Unity of France 
 
 . . . No error in the mobilization. "Universal 
 enthusiasm, perfect order/ 1 someone telegraphs 
 me from the front line. What better can we ask? 
 Undoubtedly the main force of the German army 
 is not yet engaged, nor the main force of the 
 French. All the same it is a considerable ad- 
 vantage to register, up to the present, a series 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 145 
 
 of notable successes. If the morale of the troops 
 is excellent, no less can be said of the country 
 itself, which, without a single gesture of disorder, 
 but in perfect discipline, is organizing its activi- 
 ties by work for which all people, without dis- 
 tinction of age or sex, are enthusiastically offering 
 their devoted aid. It is another phenomenon of 
 national psychology which the great German ob- 
 servers had not foreseen. 
 
 "The French will quarrel forever," they had 
 thought, "and while they are at each other's 
 throats we shall put through our business." 
 What say you now, you famous psychologists who 
 behold the non-combatants fighting in their own 
 way by dedicating their efforts to the maintenance 
 of the public life in all its activities in order to 
 place all the resources of the country at the dis- 
 position of our soldiers? "We shall be saved by 
 the Commune/ 9 Szecsen would have said on the 
 eve of his departure. If Germany and her ally 
 have no other prospect of safety but this, they are 
 in a bad way. Never were situations more unlike, 
 never were the French people of all regions, of 
 all cities and provinces, further from the spirit 
 of dissension. It is because they understood in- 
 stinctively, as Szecsen himself did, that civil 
 discord would mean the end of France, would 
 offer the determining aid to the hordes who need 
 to annihilate the French mind in order to enjoy 
 their mastery in savagery. 
 
 I search our history for a comparable hour. 
 When were we more calm, more united, more 
 literally brethren, more sure of ourselves because 
 each of us feels that the sovereign power is in the 
 
146 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 unity of all and that not a man, not a woman, 
 not a child even, is lacking to the unity of France 1 
 Let thanks be given to the German Emperor, the 
 hatred of whom has brought us this miracle of 
 self-revelation, when for so many centuries we 
 had not known ourselves. A people that dis- 
 covers, in the extremity of misfortune, a tireless 
 power of regeneration, a people that is tempered 
 anew by trial, that gains a new soul and a new 
 will — that people, since it must be, may con- 
 fidently meet the test of a terrible war on which 
 it would be our highest glory to found peace. 
 
 August 15, 1914. 
 
 j 
 
 Foe Ouk Soldiers 
 
 At his frontier the soldier of France is equipped, 
 armed with alert mind and warm heart, ready for 
 the supreme exertion of all his energies. I saw 
 him depart, with a grave hope in his eyes, with 
 a joy inspired by the song in his heart proclaim- 
 ing his entrance upon the magnificent field of 
 French glory where he would add his name to the 
 annals of his ancestors. Smiling and resolute, he 
 now awaits the adversary sent by a Master to 
 conquer the land of France for the use of Germans, 
 the adversary who is pleased with the massacre of 
 unarmed populations, who burns and pillages and 
 knows no other law than the bestial instinct of 
 cruelty. 
 
 Our forefathers lived through centuries of mis- 
 ery seeking in grievous suffering the obscure paths 
 toward a better world. One cannot describe the 
 mute desolation of the generations that passed. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 147 
 
 And then there broke forth from France, more 
 than a hundred years ago, a great cry for justice 
 and liberty. And the peoples arose at this new 
 voice, and the civilization of modern man was 
 founded; not without terrible civil struggles and 
 great battles against the foreigner. 
 
 Then the fathers of those who are to-day facing 
 you were seen quitting their Germany, wretched 
 in its servitude, in the attempt to force under their 
 own yoke that France which their chief threatened 
 with summary execution because she announced 
 the hope of a new humanity. It was the peasants, 
 the French peasants, great of heart and noble in 
 idea, who, badly equipped, and often badly com- 
 manded, rushed into arms and, without anyone's 
 really knowing how, drove back the best soldiers 
 of Europe, the flower of the enemy armies. 
 
 Yes, we really do not know how it happened. 
 Authors argue about it and certain of them even 
 affirm that by all the rules it was wrong to declare 
 the victory for our side against the authorities 
 in the art of war. Right or wrong, the foreigner 
 nevertheless turned his back to us, and France, 
 delivered, could proclaim that she owed her safety, 
 with the salvation of many great humanitarian 
 doctrines, to the bravery of her children. 
 
 Such is the history of our ancestors, which 
 would be too beautiful if so much heroism at the 
 frontier had not been accompanied by the most 
 sinister violence of civil war that the world has 
 ever seen. 
 
 And now it comes about that an incredible repe- 
 tition of fate puts us again face to face with these 
 same men of Germany who, having surprised us 
 
148 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 without arms forty years ago, judge that the hour 
 has come to have done with us. It is to maintain 
 the right of France to life that all the men of 
 France find themselves standing side by side, foody 
 and soul intent on the arm that is going to deliver 
 us anew from the foreigner. 
 
 All united, this time; and consequently all un- 
 conquerable in their might. All hatred is abol- 
 ished. The tradition of past dissensions we no 
 longer know. We know nothing now but that we 
 are children of one France, and that this mother 
 of beauty, of grandeur, and of valor has need of 
 us. She cried for our help, and we found that 
 we were brothers, stupid to have believed that we 
 were enemies. And the ardor of our first enthu- 
 siasm is such that we seem to find ourselves 
 changed, though all the while the same men we 
 were, and that we can never again be suspicious 
 of ourselves as we had been before. 
 
 Happy soldiers, who represent a France that is 
 one! Happier than those of the year II, who 
 dreamed that she was such but to whom was never 
 granted the joy of realizing that dream. Happy 
 soldiers, who see, who are, a France united for 
 a new beginning in history, in which the immemo- 
 rial branches, sprung from the ancient trunk, are 
 soon to receive the adornment of new foliage from 
 your triumphant hands. That France you are 
 yourselves creating, happy soldiers of this great 
 hour. You reveal her in her splendor when you 
 give her your bodies, your hearts, all that you 
 have received of her; all that is your life. And 
 because she is great immortally, and noble, and 
 radiant, and because you are of her flesh, of her 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 149 
 
 will, of lier flame, the sacrifice which you make to 
 her will lift you into the company of the highest. 
 You reserve nothing, you give all for the perpet- 
 uation of France. Let him who can, do more. 
 Your children will know that having received the 
 charge of a great past of labor and of blood, it 
 was your nobility to offer labor and blood in your 
 turn. 
 
 On the day of Valmy a great intellect, lost in 
 the German army, struck with a ray of light at 
 the incredible sight of the French victory, an- 
 nounced that a new kind of world would emerge 
 from that decisive day. And it was true. Happy 
 soldiers, who with your strong hands, are forging 
 a day still more splendid, since from this France, 
 tender and strong, whom you will save from the 
 outrages of barbarity, there must arise through 
 the high virtue of your fraternal union, a better 
 mother-land for Frenchmen and for all men, a 
 blessing for humanity. 
 
 August 17, 1914. 
 
 All Goes Well 
 
 . . . Their hearts are in it, their arms are 
 good, and the men are strong. What more can 
 we desire 1 Everywhere I go I hear only the com- 
 plaints of men not yet called who besiege the min- 
 istry with their demands to be sent at the first 
 moment to meet the enemy. Every day my cor- 
 respondence is full of the same thing. And the 
 troopers of Algiers who have strained their mus- 
 cles and their nerves for twenty years in expec- 
 tation of this day are struggling at the leash, on 
 
150 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the soil of Africa, desperate at the thought that 
 the French are going to fight for France and that 
 they, the soldiers, will not be there. An officer 
 writes me that if this keeps up he will desert in 
 order to enlist. To such a point spirits are 
 mounting. 
 
 Yesterday a hasty journey in Normandy demon- 
 strated to me the admirable calm of the country. 
 Calm and good humor also, I should have said; 
 founded on the unshakable confidence of all 
 France in her soldiers. The harvest is delayed, as 
 we know. Everybody is hurrying. Women and 
 children are at the work, their hearts filled with 
 thoughts of those who, in another field with other 
 scythes, are harvesting the growths of savagery. 
 They cry courage to those other harvesters, and 
 all their discourse is directed to the frontier, to 
 the cannon's mouth. There is but one heart and 
 one will in our people. 
 
 All that can be done will be done, and if need 
 be, even more. They are off, this time, our 
 Frenchmen; no one will stop them. 
 
 . . . I do not know the state of the bellicose 
 passions of the people of Berlin. As for us, mod- 
 est Frenchmen, we are doing well, and I have rea- 
 son to believe that our decadence, proclaimed by 
 pan-Germanism at every cross-roads in the world, 
 finds itself for the moment adjourned. 
 
 All Continues Well 
 
 Along the whole front the two adversaries con- 
 tinue to measure each other, to try out their of- 
 
PRANCE FACING GERMANY 151 
 
 fensive in skirmishes more or less fortunate, with 
 the purpose not so much of obtaining a marked 
 advantage as of strengthening the morale of their 
 troops and of preparing the blow that may arise 
 from a flash of strategic inspiration with dexterity 
 of execution. It may seem surprising if I say 
 that the morale even of our troops needs to be 
 tempered on the field of battle. This is never- 
 theless true. Our men have too much enthusiasm ; 
 it sometimes happens that their officers have a 
 great deal of trouble in holding them back. There 
 are cases in which, because they have rushed for- 
 ward without waiting for the order to come, they 
 have suffered heavy losses which ought to have 
 
 been spared us. " At X -," says a letter which 
 
 I have seen, "we lost too many men by our own 
 fault. We were in such a hurry to get through 
 our business that some of us rushed forward at 
 four hundred meters from the enemy ; all the rest 
 unfortunately followed. We shall not do it 
 again." 
 
 I am told that this has been the case at several 
 points. The genius of war, for the general as for 
 the private, is in knowing how to combine daring 
 and prudence, according to occasion. Too valor- 
 ous, if we may dare to make this fine reproach 
 to him, our trooper needs to be more careful, to 
 be governed in action by the hands of his leaders. 
 It is in this sense that his morale will be fashioned 
 by the test of battle. 
 
 The Germans, on the other hand, in spite of 
 their reputation for endurance, have shown them- 
 selves quick to relax. An education of cowardice 
 cannot produce daring. We have all read the note, 
 
152 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 found in the pocket-book of a dead German, in 
 which it was stated that a false pretext had been 
 invoked to assassinate civilians. Those who thus 
 degrade themselves bring dishonor to their army 
 and to the government which encourages them by 
 not punishing them. Cowards who mistreat and 
 kill prisoners, who shoot young girls and children, 
 may be expected to take flight when they see men 
 rising to confront them. 
 
 We need not fear that our soldier will let his 
 ardor cool. The ascendency that he has gained 
 over the adversary he will maintain. I believe that 
 he will be able even to heighten it. 
 
 i 
 
 The Gkeat Battle 
 
 All minds are beginning to be fixed anxiously 
 on one idea : the great battle ! The preliminaries 
 have been favorable to us beyond what we could 
 reasonably hope. But now is coming the first 
 grand shock in which the German masses — a mil- 
 lion men, perhaps — must hurl themselves against 
 the stone wall of our frontier guarded by all our 
 youths in arms. It is a great hour in history that 
 is about to strike, for out of the battles of this 
 war must come a complete change, for European 
 servitude or liberty. 
 
 Whatever may be the extent of it, and whatever 
 the number of men engaged, no one would main- 
 tain that the first great battle can allow us to pre- 
 judge the issue. And yet, in the condition in which 
 this vast operation of war will take place, the 
 moral advantage which we have conquered, the 
 ground gained without really taking the offensive, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 153 
 
 and the disarray in which the simple resistance 
 of the Belgians has thrown the enemy, make it a 
 fact that already the value of success or of defeat 
 is not the same for the two sides. 
 
 If our frontier were broken at certain points — 
 and there is nothing at present to make us fear it 
 — our troops of the second line are ready for im- 
 mediate effort to repel the invader. And then, 
 behind those there are others, until the last boy 
 and the last old man have succumbed, with the last 
 man of England, also, as the Times tells us, while 
 the inexhaustible masses of the Slavic world will 
 take the enemy in the rear. The planet has never 
 before seen a military enterprise of this extent. 
 
 On the other side of the barricade a warlike 
 power swollen with the easy victories of 1870- 
 1871, strengthened by all the weaknesses of the 
 great powers during forty years, has thought to 
 defy all civilization by the most insolent aggres- 
 sion that history has ever seen. But the very 
 nature of human societies brings it about that the 
 madness of brutal tyranny must infallibly expiate 
 its sins by the inevitable internal decomposition of 
 the forces accumulated for the monstrous abuses 
 of power of which the conqueror may dream, 
 but which always succumb before the great revolts 
 of liberty. In the case of Germany it appears that 
 the disorganization of the forces intended for the 
 oppression of Europe is not less rapid, at this 
 moment, than was their inordinate growth. At 
 the first rush of Belgians impudently provoked, at 
 the first assault of those who lost Sedan, the odious 
 colossus staggered on its base, and the fierce beast 
 who was going to devour all has already had to 
 
154 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 retire in so many encounters that the magic fear 
 of his tusks already seems no more than the 
 shadow of a cloud. 
 
 This is what our soldiers have accomplished, 
 with the brave Belgians, even before the first 
 pitched battle, — those French soldiers who are 
 waiting at the frontier, in the silence of united 
 strength, for a formidable explosion of fury. The 
 best troops of the German Empire are coming 
 against us with a preliminary loss of military 
 prestige. If they do not succeed, as I believe they 
 will not, in breaking through our boundaries, the 
 blow struck at the renown of the Prussian soldier 
 and the semi-infallibility of German plans, as well 
 as the moral disaster which will be the conse- 
 quence, will come very near having, for our im- 
 pulsive souls, as for the hopes of peoples weary 
 of servitude, the significance of a definitive 
 victory. 
 
 So already the stake is not the same. A defeat 
 of our soldiers — which our generals are very far 
 from foreseeing — would only be one of those pre- 
 liminary checks promptly reparable, while for 
 Germany to be repulsed from our frontiers would 
 be, for her, a wound which many would believe 
 incurable and which would quickly spread discour- 
 agement among her people as well as in her army. 
 Undoubtedly the war would be far from finished, 
 for everything indicates that it will last until 
 great resources are exhausted, but it is one thing 
 to fight, like us, with full confidence in final suc- 
 cess, and another to fight in the daily anguish of 
 seeing one's hopes betrayed. 
 
 We have no grounds to-day for predicting the 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 155 
 
 consequences, but if this misfortune, which I wish 
 them with all my heart, is to be the lot of our 
 enemies, perhaps they will then understand too 
 late the strength of that magnificent rebuilding of 
 our forces which we knew how to accomplish in 
 a day when armies, government, administration, 
 and all organized means of action were lacking to 
 us. Let them try in their turn to renew, at their 
 expense, a "war in the provinces." Where will 
 be their men? Where their Gambetta, their Frey- 
 cinet? If they had been able to understand it, 
 they might have felt then that there was a re- 
 doubtable force which, if pushed to the extreme, 
 would confront them dangerously some day, and 
 our defeats, in that case, might have appeared to 
 them the presage of their own. 
 
 But they would not understand, and, just as 
 they dared yesterday to shoot a woman ivlio was 
 nursing her baby, the brutes made it their pleas- 
 ure to trample upon France, making gay as they 
 counted each new drop of blood. Then they 
 thought they could do what they pleased, and I 
 believe they are now in the way to find out their 
 mistake. "To the last horse," said Wilhelm II, 
 esthete of war. "To the last man," England and 
 Russia answered in a breath. And as for us, if 
 we said nothing, it is because we were already 
 preparing to speak in action. 
 
 August 20 y 1914 
 
 Ready 
 
 . . . The great blow! All the military forces 
 that can be concentrated, all the engines of de- 
 
156 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 struction and fury that can be collected are to be 
 hurled in a supreme effort against the French 
 lines, which the enemy has sworn to break at any 
 price. The Germans know that they are in such 
 a situation as to give the world the impression of 
 a game almost irretrievably compromised if this 
 attack does not succeed. To overbalance all these 
 checks, one after another, all these prisoners — 
 we have already more than 6,000— all these guns 
 captured by the Bussians as well as by the French, 
 it is necessary that a battle in which carnage shall 
 rage in unmeasured proportions throw the peoples 
 of the world into a stupor that will make them for- 
 get everything. We have agreed to meet the on- 
 rush, we who are not obliged, for the opening of 
 the campaign, to stake all our chances on one blow. 
 We cannot hope to offer equal resistance all 
 along such a vast front. The frightful combat, 
 which perhaps will not exhaust itself in three or 
 four days, will have its successes and reverses. 
 But in what different conditions for the two 
 parties! Are we driven back at certain points! 
 Our soldiers have all the country in arms behind 
 them. The army of the second line is eager, in 
 its turn, to engage in battle. Youths, grown to 
 man's estate, only await the hour to face the 
 enemy. Everybody knows that our reserve sol- 
 diers equal those of the active army, while the 
 German reservist, portly from his beer and easily 
 fatigued by marches, is not in condition to "sustain 
 a bold offensive. For us it is a struggle of endur- 
 ance. There is not a man of France in reasonable 
 health who will not demand a place in the firing 
 line. Whatever happens we will not yield. The 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 157 
 
 British have said so with us. We have no need 
 to speak. We shall act. 
 
 We have not, like the German army, good sol- 
 diers and bad ones. All our men are willing to 
 give up everything to make a final reckoning with 
 the brutes whom the French government, in a pro- 
 test that has already become history, has just 
 fastened in the pillory as dishonoring mankind. 
 The Germans will find before them all our men 
 from the greatest to the smallest, while at the 
 other border of their country the Eussian armies 
 will push on their heavy columns toward Berlin. 
 
 What they have seen of the French recently was 
 enough to give them warning. They will see no 
 better ones, but they will see none worse. It has 
 been their will that the hour should come when, 
 under the insolence of their threats and the bru- 
 tality of their blows, France should be inspired to 
 pour out her blood to the last man for the right 
 of surviving in whatever may remain of her little 
 children. And all civilized Europe is with us. 
 You have ill calculated your strength. You can- 
 not efface France, England, and Eussia from the 
 map of the world. 
 
 I have adopted the supposition that is least 
 favorable to us. What fate awaits the Germans 
 on the ground to which they will be driven back? 
 A generous and proud people whom they have 
 driven to the extremities of fury, a country which, 
 in several regions, offers numerous obstacles, — is 
 it on these that they can rely in reorganizing them- 
 selves, at a time when we have every reason to 
 believe that they will have certain troops cutting 
 in upon their flanks? 
 
158 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Let the terrible days come, then, when France 
 must sacrifice to the dark Moloch of destiny the 
 purest of her blood. She is resolved to live. She 
 is resolved to live, not for the pleasure of mas- 
 sacre, like her enemies, but that she may bring 
 them to a peace founded on that justice which is 
 the sole source of human grandeur. We stand 
 rifle to rifle, cannon to cannon, and this time at 
 least — all Frenchmen stand forth to guarantee it 
 — it is courage which will gain the victory. 
 
 August 22, 1914. 
 
 The Preliminary Silence 
 
 What more terrible than the silence that pre- 
 cedes the great battle ! How much more terrible 
 still when it presages the uproar of war in which 
 the two halves of what was European civilization 
 are coming to clash in bloodshed such as the dark- 
 est days of savagery could not even dream of! 
 Just as we have never been able historically to 
 determine the occasion of the Peloponnesian War, 
 but are only too certain that even without the ad- 
 venture of the courtesans of Megara, the Doric and 
 the Attic states would have been tempted to come 
 to conclusions with each other, so no one will ever 
 believe that the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia is 
 the real cause of the armed march of all the Ger- 
 man people against the eastern and northern 
 frontiers of France. 
 
 The subjection to Prussia of Saxony, of Ba- 
 varia, and of the Germans in Austria, after Sa- 
 dowa, built up in the heart of Europe a confeder- 
 
FEANCB FACING GERMANY 159 
 
 ation of Teutonic powers which, for forty years, 
 has been holding Europe under the threat of a ter- 
 rible explosion. I have said this often, indeed, 
 in the tribune and in the press, without ever being 
 able to obtain for my somber predictions the 
 credit which might have been of benefit to France. 
 I did not base my statements on personal infor- 
 mation. No one had entrusted me with confi- 
 dences. I was reasoning merely from the obvious 
 phenomena of the German mind, for to foresee the 
 future clearly it was necessary only to note the 
 growth of the appetite for omnipotence which the 
 Kaiser and his subjects proclaimed in every 
 quarter. 
 
 As early as 1875 the logical Bismarck, as- 
 tounded to see that we were not dead, put himself 
 to the task of completing our ruin. Eussia and 
 England interposed their veto, and the old Em- 
 peror, content to slumber in the glory of his un- 
 expected successes, did not dare to risk a new 
 battle. But the scheme was patent, and German 
 policy has never departed from it. I have no need 
 to tell over the provocations and aggressive acts, 
 known to all, which sometimes, so great was our 
 shortsightedness, took us unawares. We were 
 saved, then, in spite of ourselves, and in order 
 that the premeditation of the inexpressible design 
 might be manifest to all eyes, it was necessary that 
 by means of a quarrel sought by Austria against 
 Serbia, in the course of which Serbia conceded 
 everything except her right to life, Wilhelm II 
 should light the universal conflagration that he 
 needed to exhibit himself to all men as the master 
 of the world. 
 
160 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 The aiidacity of the proceeding surpasses all 
 that has been seen hitherto. The error of tyrants 
 is not to reckon with the facts of human conscience 
 — to believe, in the weakness of their intelligence, 
 that they can subject the soul with the body. The 
 subjects of Wilhelm II have slavishly submitted 
 to him. He can make them fight, on whatever 
 day suits him, against whatever people he desires, 
 without owing them an explanation, without giv- 
 ing them a reason. He has grossly manufactured 
 his pretexts for war. Even the Socialists have fol- 
 lowed him. It is by their submission that he 
 judges the rest of humanity. And just as he can- 
 not intend to heighten the honor of his own people, 
 since to govern them as he does he needs to de- 
 grade them under iron rule, the wretch would be 
 unable to conceive a higher ambition than to sub- 
 ject, on his way round the world, all the men whom 
 he may encounter on his path. The Germans fol- 
 low him, proud to serve a master capable of im- 
 posing servitude on every continent, content to 
 return, in their attempt to beat down the free 
 peoples, to the primitive cruelties of savagery. 
 
 To turn all the discoveries of civilization 
 against civilization itself, to become the instru- 
 ment of the highest development of brute force in 
 the world — that is what Germany hopes and dares 
 to attempt. Sprung from the Eevolution, the con- 
 quering Napoleon represented in spite of himself 
 certain doctrines of liberation. The Kaiser prob- 
 ably expects to honor us by crushing us under a 
 tyranny that has no other title than the might of 
 his sword. For having resisted a similar ava- 
 lanche of reaction, the Greeks immortalized them- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 161 
 
 selves at Marathon and Salamis, but here we can- 
 not count upon the panic of terror that miracu- 
 lously dispersed the enemy. The most formidable 
 mass of armed men that has ever been assembled 
 on earth is marching against our frontier to put 
 an end to us; to put an end to France and Bel- 
 gium, to England, to Russia, to the Slavic peoples, 
 to Poland, to the peoples of the Balkans, who, at 
 the price of their blood, believed themselves liber- 
 ated. Such an enterprise has never been seen. 
 
 To take Paris, London, and Moscow requires 
 powers that even Berlin does not possess. They 
 had tried to conciliate England in order to turn 
 her against France by appeasing her with a share 
 of the spoils. They failed. Then they promised 
 themselves to obtain at least the neutrality of Eng- 
 land while they proceeded to swallow up the 
 France thus isolated. They failed. They thought 
 they could count on the supposed weakness of 
 Russia, because she was slow to move. They were 
 much deceived. They were all prepared to hurl 
 Italy against us. Italy, from the first day, has let 
 them know that they had no right to count on her 
 for the accomplishment of such a design. 
 
 Well, let destiny be fulfilled. After all, with the 
 door of Belgium broken in, it is France which 
 must meet the great onrush of the German 
 masses everywhere at once. Let them strike 
 her down, let them destroy her, let them 
 scatter fire and steel everywhere, let them kill 
 the old men and women and children in her 
 villages, let them put the torch to her cities, 
 let the whole life of this people be crushed under 
 the sledge-hammer of the hordes that have revived 
 
162 FBANCB FACING GERMANY 
 
 the tradition of Attila. England guards the seas, 
 but cannot engage the German squadrons shel- 
 tered by the lines of undersea mines. A hundred 
 thousand Englishmen are by the side of the 
 French in Belgium. The German army, before 
 gaining the French frontier, is trying to envelop 
 them. In the meantime Russia, at the other ex- 
 tremity of the Empire, is in action against three 
 army corps, and as many reserve divisions, with 
 which Germany opposes her, with all the forces of 
 Austria to sustain them. The Belgian resistance 
 has made the armies of the Kaiser lose precious 
 time. It only remains to see whether the invader 
 will have the time to disorganize the French re- 
 sistance sufficiently before the great Russian 
 masses menace Berlin too directly. As for us, we 
 know that Wilhelm II will not succeed. 
 
 He has gathered together all his enormous mili- 
 tary forces to strike one blow. This blow must be 
 decisive, the first and the last at once, a blow from 
 which we cannot rearise. Can he believe that? 
 Can he know us no better than that? We shall 
 take up the fight again after the battle. Since he 
 is not willing to judge us by our operations at the 
 opening, we will give him the opportunity of ap- 
 praising us all together. 
 
 August 23, 1914. 
 
IV 
 FEOM CHARLEEOI TO THE MAENE 
 
 The Prime Duty 
 
 The day of the test is coming. I have never 
 dissimulated the fact that it would come inevi- 
 tably. I did not know the moment, I did not know 
 the circumstance. It seemed to me impossible that 
 serious checks should not come to us at certain 
 moments. Although the disappointment is great, 
 we must not exaggerate it. Salvation is in our- 
 selves, if we clearly see our duty and show our- 
 selves capable of fulfilling it to the end. 
 
 . . . The French people is not vanquished. 
 Their strength and their endurance are not ex- 
 hausted. They cannot be exhausted as long as 
 there remains of France enough for a man to set 
 foot on. No boasting — enough of phrases ! It is 
 acts that must speak for us. 
 
 ... To sustain this terrible onrush valiantly, 
 to hold back the aggressor on our territory in a 
 heroic hand to hand combat that surpasses all the 
 energy that our historical development has per- 
 mitted us to accumulate, is to aid those who are 
 aiding us. For each French soldier struck mor- 
 tally but still clutching the enemy in a grip from 
 
 163 
 
164 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 which the pretended victor cannot free himself, 
 there is a Kussian over there, saved from defeat, 
 who will bring us the victory. All to the work 
 of defense, then, with no arm and no heart miss- 
 ing ! All ! Let him go and beg his charter of Ger- 
 man servitude, the wretch who would hide when 
 it is the hour to show himself. We have shown 
 enough complacence to cowardice more or less 
 gilded. Let us have the rigor of the law for all. 
 It is not monuments that are needed for the heroes 
 of these great days. It is the unwavering support 
 of a government which offers work to all in the 
 nation's cause, and nails to the pillar of infamy 
 the vicious herd of degenerates who, knowing not 
 how to live, would show themselves unworthy to 
 die in grace. 
 
 As for us, we demand a government of steel, 
 indefectible, the inflexible armature of one of the 
 noblest races of history, which insists on nothing 
 except its right to live in independence that it may 
 continue its good work in the field of liberty. For 
 this is not a war of governments for conquests of 
 territory or the exploitation of subjects. It is not 
 even a war of peoples who do not know each other 
 and who manage even in fratricidal combats, such 
 as have occurred between us and England, to keep 
 open avenues more or less circuitous to the happy 
 relief of reconciliation. 
 
 No, Wilhelm II and his unanimous subjects can 
 no longer be contented with less than our exter- 
 mination. We did not want this war. We said 
 and did all that was possible to avoid it. Wilhelm 
 II could not even now remember all the mass of 
 lies that were told to bring it on. As soon as it 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 165 
 
 seemed to him that his machine of murder was 
 ready, that machine that was prepared day by 
 day, hour by hour, for forty years, he gave the 
 august signal for his grand steam-roller which 
 was to level the ground of civilized Europe for the 
 use of barbarism. He left Berlin swearing to put 
 an end, this time, to the people from whom there 
 came an influence for the freedom to which his 
 reign of force can give no quarter. And now, with 
 his formidable army, he is before us. 
 
 We have made mistakes, many and serious mis- 
 takes, which leave us open to-day to cruel blows 
 which it would have been easy, in the course of a 
 long peace, to prepare against. In 1870 we were 
 surprised. What we are seeing to-day could only 
 come from the combination of our heedlessness 
 and our inconstancy. I am far from any thought 
 of recrimination. It is not the time to judge. I 
 no longer know the names of those who have been 
 at fault. I am willing to say that all, in different 
 ways, have been at fault. All of us, without a 
 word of reproach which would only be a loss of 
 force, all of us will put our shoulders to the wheel 
 to accomplish the arduous work of national re- 
 habilitation. 
 
 The rehabilitation must come from the union 
 of all energies put at the service of the country 
 in a common movement of inflexible discipline; 
 from sacrifice, and since the event requires it, the 
 sacrifice of blood. The rehabilitation must come, 
 not by phrases which are the feeble instrument of 
 a degenerate romanticism, but by the acts of su- 
 perhuman effort which fate and the traditions of 
 our history demand of us and which we have no 
 
166 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 longer the right to refuse. All of us to our duty 
 until death,- — and afterward, indeed, by that power 
 of example which makes the dead rise from their 
 native ground to tell the living that this is no 
 longer the time to be in love with life, when those 
 who will be the France of to-morrow require of 
 us the glory of having lived for something more 
 than to remain alive without reason for living. 
 If we are capable of rising to this, France will be 
 saved through us. If not, all the land of France, 
 over which will crawl creatures without souls, will 
 become a province of Germany. We can choose. 
 
 This even Germany has understood. At the 
 very hour when she is outflanking our army of 
 defense to enter like a thunderbolt upon our ter- 
 ritory, she has heard passing through the air the 
 great cry of invisible powers which announce to 
 the peoples that a tragic hour has struck. Against 
 whom is the verdict of destiny? Justice is noth- 
 ing without force at its command. It is a ques- 
 tion as to who will have the greatest force on his 
 side. Great Britain, France, and Eussia are too 
 powerful against Germany, even leading behind 
 the supposed support of the army vanquished at 
 Sadowa. So we see that the settling of such a 
 great account frightens her at the moment when, 
 without having yet met on our soil the second 
 blow of our armies of defense, she is announcing 
 beforehand a triumphant advance which presup- 
 poses that men have submitted who, whatever may 
 happen, will not submit. Therefore from our own 
 frontier is issued the order to mobilize all the men 
 of Germany down to boys of sixteen. 
 
 It is well. Send us the last of your children 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 167 
 
 to finish the slaughter of ours whom you shoot at 
 the mother's breast. Doubtless your little ones, 
 in their turn, must feast on blood. What! have 
 you come to this, that you must get ready to 
 throw your budding youths into the slaughter of 
 the battle-field, because you already feel that your 
 men will be too few against us? On our side, 
 though we are less numerous than you, we shall 
 not have need of this supreme effort. For you 
 fight only to put Europe under the yoke of your 
 savage race, while we are the soldiers of Western 
 civilization, and any man who feels his right to 
 liberty, to the honor of a free life, betrays himself 
 if he does not come to take his place in our ranks 
 in this uproar of battle. No Frenchman will be 
 missing. We have no need to call them to their 
 posts of combat. You had prepared everything, 
 foreseen everything. We are going to show you 
 something that you were not expecting. You will 
 see nothing but men welded into one by a single 
 thought, by a single will — the thought of France 
 and the will to maintain her throughout all. And 
 -since someone has said that for every man France 
 is a second fatherland, all those who expect im- 
 mortal deeds of us and of our comrades in arms 
 will wish to be in the battle where the greatest 
 cause of mankind is at stake. Also, against the 
 children of Germany, whom you are tearing from 
 their schools to make them fight against the idea 
 from which their liberation must some day come, 
 the men of France stand in combat, in the hope of 
 directing them, more or less tenderly, according 
 as is necessary, into the right path. 
 And with this said, let each Frenchman gird up 
 
168 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 his loins for the great duty. No boasting — no 
 weakness. It is grand enough to be yourselves. 
 The country has need of all of you. 
 
 August 23, 28, 1914. 
 
 By Endueance 
 
 ... A violent action near Mezieres; victorious 
 near Guise, we are yielding around La Fere; in 
 Lorraine we are said to be advancing. At least 
 we have now certain guiding indications, such as 
 we have lacked too long. All these battles which 
 bring no decisive results are none the less of the 
 highest importance, since they retard just so much 
 the march of the German armies on Paris. 
 
 After the surrender of Sedan and the invest- 
 ment of Metz, France was without an army. 
 There is nothing comparable in her situation to- 
 day. The French army keeps the field. It has 
 suffered severely, but it has inflicted no less heavy 
 losses on the enemy, and our own o eight to be 
 more easily reparable. It is resisting indef atigably 
 everywhere, with varying fortune, as in the his- 
 tory of every war. It has had to retreat at certain 
 points. It has advanced at others. And the battle 
 is so closely joined that even if we give ground 
 in certain places, the Germans do not always 
 easily regain their freedom in the offensive. 
 
 It appears that so long as we have all the forces 
 of Germany against us we cannot hope to drive 
 them back quickly to the frontier. To worry the 
 invading troops, to dispute the ground against 
 them, to cut them off from their base when this 
 becomes possible, these are appreciable achieve- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 169 
 
 ments until the day when the risk of an offensive 
 operation might be taken. All the combats of 
 which we hear are so many efforts in this direc- 
 tion. They are, indeed, the opening of a cam- 
 paign which must not end otherwise than in the 
 common victory of France, Great Britain, and Eus- 
 sia, when they shall have closed in their pincers on 
 the two sides of Germany. To accomplish this, 
 as I have not feared to announce beforehand, will 
 require time, a great deal of time, and a great 
 deal of suffering. Already our unfortunate popu- 
 lation in the North has experienced it. Let us 
 remember this saying of a Japanese general: 
 "Victory comes to the man who is capable of 
 suffering a quarter of an hour longer than his 
 adversary." We have come to the hour when 
 we must begin the practise of this great lesson. 
 
 News comes from all directions of bands of 
 refugees who are leaving their burning villages 
 under the hail of German shells. All of us are 
 under great obligations to them. I have no doubt 
 that the government and individuals will do their 
 duty by them. And what can we say of those 
 unfortunate cities, flourishing yesterday, in heaps 
 of ruins to-day! All the factories have been sys- 
 tematically destroyed by shells and incendiary 
 bombs. The land is being ravaged in all the 
 horror of scientific method. In the crumbled 
 walls, taken and retaken turn by turn, are raging 
 the battles that must continue over a great stretch 
 of our territory for an unknown length of time. 
 
 The enemy has not yet managed to reach the 
 Somme, and although he has approached it at 
 several points we have forced him back from it 
 
170 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 at others. We have even heard occasionally that 
 his offensive was losing force, although his troops 
 continue to fight fiercely. I admit that this seems 
 doubtful to me. Unfortunately the territories he 
 has occupied are very rich in wheat. He will 
 therefore have no trouble in provisioning himself. 
 Nevertheless, his soldiers have had to endure 
 great fatigue since their entry into Belgium, and 
 the further they advance the more possible be- 
 comes a diminution of their vigor. But this has 
 not been observed in the recent battles. 
 
 Let us indulge no delusion. The Germans still 
 have a great superiority of numbers (we have 
 never been told why) and in the automatic func- 
 tioning of every officer and every soldier, with 
 an astonishing sureness in the employment and 
 maneuvering of armament. Let us not therefore 
 abandon ourselves to hopes that might be pre- 
 mature. It does not by any means appear that 
 the German offensive has weakened. It will con- 
 tinue in its stupendous force, but in each event 
 of the war, of whatever kind, it must encounter, 
 everywhere and incessantly, an unconquerable 
 defensive that is ready to turn into an offensive 
 at the proper moment. We have inexhaustible 
 resources, and in our hearts there can be no 
 weakening. 
 
 The role of Paris at this juncture is perhaps 
 rather difficult to determine. Everything seems 
 to indicate that the intrenched camp cannot be 
 invested, and the intelligent employment of avi- 
 ators on such a long perimeter will give us de- 
 cided advantage for defensive operations. More- 
 over, like Antwerp, from which we shall probably 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 171 
 
 have early news, Paris possesses a highly mobile 
 army, which can choose the moment to strike its 
 blow according to the movements of the enemy. 
 I think there is no reason, at the moment, for 
 carrying to greater lengths predictions that would 
 be principally based on supposition. 
 
 It is clear that, reasoning from the results of 
 the first engagements, we have easily built up 
 hopes that were too beautiful. Our soldiers were 
 then attacking troops less redoubtable than those 
 which had been reserved for the gigantic effort 
 of the great drive on Paris. At that time we 
 thought that it would be necessary for them to 
 shatter our line of defense in order to enter the 
 country. We were given to understand that in- 
 vasion from the direction of Lille was not very 
 dangerous. Opinion has probably changed on 
 this point. The enormous tide has overflowed us 
 from a direction where it was not expected and 
 as a result has more easily ravaged the country. 
 It has spread further and more rapidly than we 
 should have thought possible in so short a time. 
 Every day is marked by combats in which we 
 sometimes give ground, to renew incessantly the 
 effort that may give us the advantage on the 
 morrow. This much, beyond dispute, is gained 
 already, that the difficulties of the march across 
 Belgium are now complicated by the uninter- 
 rupted battle that must be fought up to Paris, 
 and when they are here, if that must be, it will 
 be the turn of the armies of the provinces and of 
 Paris to combine their efforts in the aim to strike 
 the enemy on a line so long that he cannot suc- 
 cessfully resist. 
 
172 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 It has not come to that, but we must have the 
 courage to consider every possibility, especially 
 when final success depends on a power of endur- 
 ance that ought to be unlimited. We are aiding 
 our Russian allies at this moment by drawing on 
 ourselves all the desperate force of the blows of 
 an enemy who will have to turn back against our 
 allies at the very moment when our resistance 
 will have exhausted the best of his strength. Our 
 British friends have come to our aid with the 
 comfort of an immovable stoicism in this most 
 cruel part of our common task. They have en- 
 dured the fire without flinching and as fast as 
 they fall we see them replaced. Those reverses 
 which they have made glorious, in company with 
 us, are so many acts of aid to Russia, who is 
 advancing with the stride of a giant — making her 
 way while Germany finds herself, from moment 
 to moment, held in check on her march to Paris. 
 
 Though the task that rests upon us is so mani- 
 fest, so difficult, so long, so incomparably agoniz- 
 ing, who will dare to say that we must not accept 
 it? And it is not enough to accept the infliction; 
 we invoke it, we run to meet it, we offer ourselves 
 to its blows, we pray that they may be redoubled, 
 in order that the day may be hastened when 
 fortune, weary of scourging us, will come to know 
 that there is a soul in us that cannot be destroyed, 
 that nothing can force to yield. If there were 
 no Russia, if there were no England, as long as 
 there remained a Frenchman he would have no 
 right to surrender. But there is a Russia and 
 an England who have sworn, as we have, never 
 to surrender, never to accept the law of the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 173 
 
 Kaiser. They have said it and they will keep 
 their word, knowing well that our resolution 
 is no less unwavering than theirs. What! A 
 German Empire from the Pyrenees to the Ural 
 Mountains? That surpasses the very bounds of 
 madness. What will happen, then? It will hap- 
 pen, if the worst must come, that our country 
 will endure trials even worse than she has known 
 in the evil hours of our history, but that thus 
 we shall make way, through our endurance, for 
 the day when Europe will be fully delivered, by 
 us and by our friends and allies, from a power 
 of murderous tyranny that cannot coexist with 
 independence or with honor in civilized society. 
 
 August 31, 1914. 
 
 All Our Efforts 
 
 ... I know that the greatest sacrifices are 
 made easily in words, and in the best of faith, 
 and that very brave men cannot escape a moment 
 of trembling when the hour comes to pay the 
 inexorable debt. But the needs of France are 
 such that even the most timid cannot hesitate. 
 The government of the National Defense, in 1870, 
 had said, "Not an inch of our territory, not a 
 stone of our fortresses." We know but too well 
 what followed. This is no longer the time to 
 pronounce heroic words the purpose of which 
 weakens under the terrible affliction of the suf- 
 ferings from invasion. We are at the point where 
 we must act, where we must live our heroism 
 without even needing to put it into words, and 
 
174 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 from this point of view there is not a Frenchman, 
 whether old man, woman, or child, who is not a 
 soldier. It is for each one to search himself and 
 to promise himself in silence to lend all his sup- 
 port. What need we of external manifestations 
 which are only vain expenditures of energy? Let 
 us subordinate everything to the salvation of 
 France. The rest can count no longer. 
 
 France is a history, a life, an idea which has 
 taken its place in the world, and the bit of soil 
 whence this history, this life, this idea has radi- 
 ated cannot be sacrificed without sealing the tomb 
 over ourselves and our children and the genera- 
 tions that shall be born of them. And since no 
 man of France could accept this ghastly end of 
 so great a destiny, it remains for the men to 
 fight to the last, and for the others to accept their 
 trials and to offer all that they have, in order 
 to sustain and aid and hearten each one of our 
 soldiers facing the enemy. To what should we 
 be first attached, of all that our ancestors have 
 bequeathed to us, if not to the land itself which 
 their valor and their labor made to blossom? 
 What interest could we put above the very soil 
 out of which what we call France has sprung? 
 And if this is so, why encumber ourselves with 
 concerns, from now on secondary, which, unre- 
 lated to the salvation of France, had held our 
 interest ? 
 
 Such are the thoughts that haunt me at the 
 hour when it is announced that the German 
 hordes may soon be approaching the intrenched 
 camp of Paris. Paris is the capital of France, 
 as well as one of the capitals of humanity. It is 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 175 
 
 a noble meeting-place for the powers of the human 
 mind. But it is a camp of war at the same time. 
 Its role in war is of high importance, but its 
 role in the present war is by no means what it 
 was in 1870. In the first place, this is true be- 
 cause, as I said a moment since, our armies are 
 operating freely on our territory; and second, be- 
 cause we have a great reserve of men who have 
 not yet been employed, and because it is only 
 necessary to send them into the battle in order 
 that, with the aid of our allies, final victory may 
 crown our efforts. 
 
 September 2, 1914. 
 
 Into the Provinces for Victoey 
 
 • . . With the government at Bordeaux, we 
 begin a new phase of the war as it follows its 
 course— a renewal of the war in the Provinces, 
 as in the time of Gambetta and Freycinet. The 
 same struggle against the same German invasion, 
 with the capital of France reduced to a simple 
 war-camp, with France herself — the Provinces, as 
 we say — taking defense into her own hands, con- 
 trary to the traditional method of political and 
 administrative concentration under which she has 
 lived. 
 
 How changed the men and the times! Then 
 we were defending our honor, because the tradi- 
 tion of the race necessitated it. We were fighting 
 to save the integrity of our territory, since our 
 complete defeat forced us to abandon two French 
 provinces which the peace to come must give back 
 
176 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 to us at the price of whatever suffering and sacri- 
 fice and blood fate may demand. 
 
 And here after forty-four years I am at Bor- 
 deaux again, in front of the same theater that 
 I had not seen since 1871, looking for the men 
 to whom was reserved the sorrow of surviving, 
 and not finding them. Who remembers that Jules 
 Simon had in his pocket, on his arrival, an order 
 for the arrest of Gambetta? In the provinces as 
 at Paris, foreign war and civil war raged together. 
 I call up these sad memories of past dissensions 
 only that I may contrast them with the magnifi- 
 cent comfort that animates our hearts at sight 
 of the truly fraternal union of all Frenchmen 
 of to-day. Gambetta maintained the war against 
 the invasion under the most grievous blows from 
 an opposition without mercy. Contrast the pres- 
 ent attitude of all the parties in the presence of 
 a government of which no one demands anything 
 except that it exhaust all means for the defense 
 and show itself capable of the most efficacious 
 employment of them. 
 
 ... If the National Assembly of 1871 was 
 forced to submit to the peace of Frankfort, it 
 was because the distressing diminution in our 
 territory left us still enough of the land for us 
 to find it possible, under the strain of terrible 
 misfortunes, to restore our France, to give her 
 life again, to see her flourish once more in the 
 grace and nobility and beauty which have given 
 her the charm she has as a great home of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Too often we ourselves, divided in the hasty 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 177 
 
 pursuit of an unselfish ideal, neglected in favor 
 of secondary considerations the higher interests 
 to which it was our first duty to devote ourselves. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of so many efforts that were 
 feeble, in spite of much noble blood that was 
 lost, France still remained, and we could leave to 
 generations to come the great task of the just 
 fulfilment of our hopes. It was in our thought 
 that France had been, that France was, and that 
 France must be. There was with us, whatever 
 terrible blows we may have passed through, a 
 hope confident enough to enable the men who 
 have given something of themselves to the en- 
 nobling work of perpetuating France to go to 
 their rest in the peaceful conviction of a for- 
 tunate part of their duty accomplished. 
 
 And this, it appears, is precisely what the Ger- 
 man race can tolerate no longer. We exist, and 
 it is an unpardonable crime. Day and night they 
 demand, for the expansion of their oppressive 
 thought, the fields of peoples neighboring and far 
 away in the desire of Germanizing them. What 
 is France doing there, when the Teuton might 
 there indulge his low pleasure of the flesh ? What ! 
 The great blow of Bismarck did not make her 
 vanish? In 1875 the man of iron had a feeling 
 that he must put an end to us without longer 
 delay. Why did he not go on against the op- 
 position of Great Britain and Russia? He did not 
 dare. "I do dare," says Wilhelm II; by order of 
 the giant Germany it is forbidden to the pigmies 
 of Gaul to live and to think as they will. 
 
 The Kaiser has spoken, under the inspiration 
 of his "ancient God," as he dares to say in tragi- 
 
178 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 comic phrase — for lie is still in the service of 
 the dark divinities who thirst for human blood — 
 and without the need of even a mendacious pre- 
 text, the Hegelian philosophers, Wagnerian poets, 
 erudite professors, thinkers of every depth and 
 every breadth, Marxian socialists, workers of all 
 ranks and of every kind of sentimentality, de- 
 generate sons of Goethe and Schiller, who curse 
 them from their tombs, have come obediently to 
 line up with their rifles and cannon and machine- 
 guns, under the swords of their exalted Junkers, 
 to go over the Vosges and kill the hope of living 
 in justice and liberty. 
 
 Victory! They have already razed cities like 
 Louvain, burned villages, tortured and murdered 
 old men and women and children, and this with 
 no hatred in their hearts, they say, in virtue of 
 the scientific method of von der Goltz which 
 commands the infliction of misery in order that 
 the struggle may be abbreviated in the interest 
 of humanity. Down on your knees, peoples of 
 the earth, it is the great breath of pan-Germanism 
 which passes over you. 
 
 So, whatever may come, we can no longer say 
 that we shall have the choice between peace, more 
 or less burdensome, and the continuation of the 
 war, since it is between the life and death of 
 France that we have to choose, that we shall have 
 to choose until the end. One single question: can 
 we sanction the end of our race on the soil its 
 history has made sacred? 
 
 In Germany there have been forty years of 
 frenzied preparation. As for us, have we always 
 lent an ear to the many warnings that were given 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 179 
 
 us? This is not the time to open the question, 
 although the past is sounding in our ears at this 
 moment. Always heedless, always confident in 
 sudden appeals to the springs of our energy, we 
 have talked a great deal and sometimes done too 
 little. Vacillation, negligence, delay over ways 
 and means, adjournment of decisions, easy ac- 
 ceptance of approximate solutions, disdain of 
 rigorous methods, love of improvisation — there 
 have sometimes been, perhaps, too many short- 
 comings in us, while an implacable enemy was 
 sharpening his steel against us. 
 
 Very brilliant in the first encounters, but often 
 very imprudent, also, from excess of valor, our 
 decimated soldiers, though not ceasing to impose 
 heavy losses on the enemy, have had to give 
 ground on the left wing, without ever ceasing to 
 fight, under the stupendous drive of numbers 
 automatically disciplined. In this retreat foot by 
 foot, where partial successes were mingled with 
 reverses, the ground was fiercely disputed, so 
 much so that at the first contact with the en- 
 trenched camp of Paris the German advance- 
 guards had to turn to face an adversary beaten 
 back but not vanquished. 
 
 Here ends, one might say, the first part of the 
 campaign, in which the Germans may claim the 
 advantage over us of ground gained, at the price 
 of incalculable losses, but without dealing us such 
 a blow as might have seriously hampered us in 
 our military resources. Our armies of the front 
 line have not at any time been broken, but have 
 refilled their ranks according to their needs, while 
 the armies of the second line are moving to aid 
 
180 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 tliem. The army assembled at Paris having al- 
 ready announced its presence by offensive tactics 
 and General Joffre having succeeded in disen- 
 gaging himself from a threatening situation, the 
 enemy, who was pushing on by forced marches to 
 direct his efforts against our capital, has seen 
 lined up before him a mighty battle-front which 
 he had to attack at any cost. For four days the 
 battle has been in progress, and important suc- 
 cesses announce that the admirable tenacity of 
 our troops has almost broken the driving force 
 of the invader. We must not exaggerate, but the 
 mere fact of a considerable retreat of the Germans 
 on the sector of Paris is an event of which the 
 military and moral importance is manifest. 
 
 Nowhere are we in retreat. The "French 
 fury," aided by the marvelous resistance of the 
 British soldier, has everywhere reappeared. Let 
 us accept these successes, which are still only 
 signs of ultimate victory, with calm and confi- 
 dence, as we have accepted the reverses. Victory 
 is on its way. We are not at the end of our trials, 
 since fate has willed it that once more Europe 
 should take the soil of France for her battle- 
 ground. But the Allies have promised one another 
 never to make a separate peace. It is the certain 
 earnest of success. 
 
 September 11, 1914. 
 
 TOWAKDS THE END OF THE SCOTJKGE 
 
 The retreat of the invading armies, under the 
 pressure of Anglo-French troops, is certainly be- 
 ing effected with the precipitation of a rout. 
 
FKANCE FACING GERMANY 181 
 
 Everywhere the enemy is retiring in disorder, 
 leaving behind everything that impedes his flight, 
 though we cannot determine precisely the full 
 causes of his disarray. 
 
 The seven-day battle is a great Anglo-French 
 victory, the consequences of which cannot yet be 
 fully judged. 
 
 . . . Let us be careful, nevertheless, not to think 
 that we can count on an interrupted series of suc- 
 cesses leading straight to the final crushing of 
 the aggressor. The curtain is falling on the 
 horrible scenes of foreign invasion in Belgium and 
 in France. A mortal blow has been dealt to the 
 prestige of the "invincible" Kaiser who had 
 never fought a battle. We have made him recoil, 
 dislodged his army all along the line, and our 
 indefatigable soldiers, in hot pursuit, are forcing 
 him back at the point of the bayonet. But it 
 would be madness to imagine that we have fin- 
 ished with an adversary who is going to find new 
 forces, and even powerful ones, on his uninvaded 
 territory. A great part of his military stores are 
 still intact. Automatic discipline will soon regain 
 its power. The struggle will still be long and full 
 of unforeseen fluctuations. The stake is too great 
 for the German Emperor suddenly to make up his 
 mind to abandon the game. I do him the honor 
 to believe that he will offer a desperate resistance, 
 but destiny holds him by the throat. He is in 
 the hands of the inevitable. 
 
 The German is not so quick as the Frenchman 
 to recover under a blow of misfortune, but he has 
 military discipline in his blood and a natural 
 
182 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 spirit of submission to his leaders. He can be 
 made, in tragic hours, into a redoubtable machine. 
 The forces of the Empire, still intact, offer enor- 
 mous resources for resistance and even, it may 
 be, for the offensive. Let us make ready for the 
 great efforts which are still to be demanded of 
 us. Serious mistakes have been made on our side. 
 We might have paid dearly for them; but fortune, 
 who owed us a revenge, has allowed us to repair 
 them in an astonishing fashion. Let us try to 
 leave nothing more to the unforeseen. Our mili- 
 tary leaders have just undergone the most severe 
 trials victoriously. It is for us to give them 
 confidence by granting them the benefit of the 
 patience and fortitude of which they will have 
 inevitable need. 
 
 September 15, 1914. 
 
V 
 
 THE FIRST WINTER CAMPAIGN 
 THE YSER— THE WAR IN THE TRENCHES 
 
 The Winter Campaign 
 
 "To my last horse," said Willielm II. "Until 
 the end/' we have gravely announced. And Mr. 
 Winston Churchill said yesterday: "We are re- 
 solved to win if it should cost the last pound 
 sterling and the last man." These words are 
 pledges, especially when they are pronounced in 
 full knowledge of the cause. 
 
 . . . Let us prepare to maintain, in patience and 
 fortitude, the desperate struggle which the arro- 
 gance of the Kaiser imposes on the people who 
 intend to save on the fields of battle, the right 
 of all Europe to independence with honor. He 
 announces, as do we, that nothing will make him 
 give up. But the conditions of the struggle con- 
 demn him to the exhaustion of his forces within 
 a period which I am not capable of calculating, 
 while our advantages, thanks to the increasing 
 aid of our allies, can only be augmented. He will 
 persist as long as it is possible for him, his only 
 chance being to weary and dishearten us. It is 
 for us to show him that we are of too hard a metal 
 for him to nurse the hope of wearing us down. 
 
 183 
 
184 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 I wish lie could come and go about incognito 
 among us; could visit the cities, the little towns, 
 and the fields; could interrogate all sorts of 
 people and look into their minds; and compare 
 our feelings with those of his subjects. We have 
 been disappointed in our first hopes, which, before 
 the great battles, were for a relatively easy vic- 
 tory. From the north there came upon us an 
 avalanche of steel which pulverized everything 
 in its way to Paris. An important part of the 
 French territory is still under the feet of the 
 raging hordes who go about scattering fire and 
 death. From the invaded districts there arrive 
 among us every day bands of pitiable refugees 
 still stupefied with horror. We listen to stories 
 from them such as freeze the blood in our veins, 
 and, fraternal duty accomplished, all of them, 
 men and women, lift up their heads and calmly 
 speak the word of the day: ' ' Forward. ' ' Their 
 sons, their brothers, and their husbands are back 
 there in the field in the tornado of steel. The 
 refugees think only of them. They call them to 
 memory. They see them. If their soldiers come 
 back they will be mad with joy. If they do not 
 come back, they will be firm, without a word, and 
 they will hold always, always, until there does 
 not remain a soldier. 
 
 To this great calmness of resolute minds, to this 
 quiet perseverance in strength in which all the 
 energies of our being are combined, what does the 
 enemy oppose? Scenes of mad savagery, mur- 
 ders, punishments that spare not even infancy, 
 summary executions of civilians, a furnace from 
 which emerge the towers of the cathedral of 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 185 
 
 Rheims — such are the manifestations of German 
 chivalry among us. We are forced to look on, 
 with tortured hearts, but we have in our breasts 
 a flame of hope that will not be extinguished. 
 We cannot be vanquished since we shall never 
 accept our defeat, for in this battle for the very 
 life of France we have made up our minds to 
 save at least her honor. Our endurance must 
 therefore outlast the German terror, until Russia 
 and England, who are still very far from having 
 furnished all the forces that they will be able to 
 raise, shall enable us in common to complete the 
 work of defeating savagery. We must recognize 
 and prepare ourselves for whatever this work 
 may require in sufferings patiently and nobly 
 borne. The long and hard winter campaign will 
 bring us only too many trials. From this moment 
 let us lift up our hearts and let us act in all things 
 so that we may deserve the victory before we 
 conquer it. 
 
 September 28, 1914. 
 
 In the Militaky Dispatches 
 
 A fine school-book could be made by merely 
 representing episodes from this war as they ap- 
 pear in the citations in military dispatches. 
 
 It is there, in reality, that we see the heroic soul 
 of our French soldier appear in its splendor. 
 
 To make a hero, transport to the field of battle 
 any unknown Frenchman, one of those whom you 
 elbow day by day without pausing to let your 
 glance rest on them. You do not know him; he 
 does not know himself. He may be an average 
 
186 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 man in his virtues and faults. He! will pass 
 through life, unknown to the public, with only the 
 value of a figure for the statistician, and none 
 of those who have elbowed him will suspect that 
 in certain tragic circumstances something will be 
 aroused in this modest soul that will lift him into 
 the highest rank. How many such are there 
 among us 1 ? I do not know. No one can know. 
 What the facts show is that as soon as the event 
 requires it, upon this ground, fertile in the glory 
 of our ancestors, heroism will spring into view. 
 
 I say heroism because it is not enough to call 
 it courage. Courage is the lot of all brave men 
 who have to choose between duty and dishonor. 
 It is only the very brave men who can acknowl- 
 edge that they have been afraid. Thus Turenne 
 is often cited. Just yesterday I was reading in 
 the memoirs of Agrippa d'Aubigne the story of 
 an affair in which the soldier-author took to flight 
 with a speed which he was possibly pleased to 
 exaggerate. The next day his prowess in the 
 thickest of the fight gained the admiration of all 
 who beheld. And he philosophizes, "God does 
 not give us courage; He only lends it to us." 
 That is to say, a set of conditions, external and 
 internal, is necessary to determine the moment. 
 
 Among such conditions, the love of a just and 
 great cause, the passion for it, is the prime basis 
 of action. Agrippa in flight surely did not give 
 up his devotion to a noble cause. There had 
 come a moment when his muscles and his nerves 
 turned traitor to his thought, and the very fact 
 that he sets it down against himself shows 
 clearly enough that in his eyes that moment had 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 187 
 
 the appearance of only a vulgar accident. Such 
 are the fluctuations in military action, such as 
 may come to many a combatant, and even, as 
 may be seen in the example above, to the most 
 strictly trained. Courage is, in one word, the 
 master virtue of the human soul because it is 
 the active expression ofi one's self-respect, a 
 supreme effort of honor. 
 
 Does the intermittent peace of our civilization 
 have the effect of favoring and strengthening 
 military courage, or of softening and enervating 
 it? It has wholly created civic courage, one of 
 the most noble traits of the man who is called 
 upon, in the silence of the office, without witnesses, 
 to make a decision on which may depend a whole 
 future of misery or of happiness. He who, to 
 follow the strict precepts of conscience, calmly 
 sacrifices, along with all the social rewards of 
 the day, the interests of the beings who are dear 
 to him, is a hero who will be surpassed by no 
 other, but who may be equaled. 
 
 For military courage remains in all its grandeur 
 and beauty. Is it not the greatest sacrifice to 
 give all of one's self for a noble cause? And 
 when w^ould the sacrifice be more complete than 
 in the flower of youth, when all the sensations of 
 one's being are expanding, in quivering expecta- 
 tion, to the throng of radiant hopes of which the 
 adolescent does not yet know the secret? He 
 believes, he hopes, he waits. Whatever life may 
 give him, this is a sacred moment, most beautiful 
 in its promises, still without the shortcomings of 
 reality. All is bloom, all is song, everything in- 
 vites him to live. What of the young man who 
 
188 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 is summoned to throw away all his dreams of 
 fragile beauty more precious than the known 
 truth of things, because a cause superior to all 
 others commands it? 
 
 It is his native land which asks the sacrifice, 
 and hesitation is all but crime when she has 
 spoken. His native land — mysterious words 
 which hold a man charmed in a magic circle of 
 emotions, of ideas, of traditions, written or 
 merely felt, from which he cannot and would not 
 escape, for such nobility descends to him from 
 his great ancestors that it would be criminal not 
 to preserve the funds of it for the generations to 
 come. The defense of the family home is right 
 and natural. Every man will give himself up to 
 it entirely, but there is still some selfishness, even 
 in the most complete sacrifice for something 
 touching him so closely. The native land is a 
 glory to all of us and has been so since time im- 
 memorial, a common ideal in which all can and 
 must participate in the collaborated effort beyond 
 estimate which we have received the splendid 
 duty of continuing. 
 
 In peace, labor in all its forms is an aid. Every 
 effort does something for the country. In war, 
 there is demanded the total effort of a life-time 
 concentrated in one day, in one hour, in one dizzy 
 moment of superhuman grandeur! And this is 
 honor, this is death more beautiful than life, this 
 is the feeling of transport that, under the hail of 
 grape-shot and in the thunder of shells, a silent 
 will is master throughout all the uproar and that 
 one is writing a beautiful page of history when 
 one says simply to the cannon, "I will not yield." 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 189 
 
 Eest assured that lie feels this, our French 
 trooper crouching on the bare ground, where, 
 rifle in hand, he awaits the moment to leap for- 
 ward. What regrets of the good days when he 
 could see the enemy! Now the enemy is over there 
 hidden in his trench, showing no haste to come 
 out of it. When he thinks that he has shattered 
 everything with his artillery, perhaps he will 
 take the risk. Our trooper must stay at his post, 
 under bursting shrapnel and exploding shells. It 
 is a time of agonizing immobility, cruel to live 
 through. There are those who look at the leader, 
 as if seeking a manifestation of fortitude. Others 
 interrogate their neighbor, sometimes to be stupe- 
 fied, like one of my friends recently, at finding 
 him dead from a ball in the temple, dead without 
 cry or movement. The greater number think of 
 what is going to happen in a little while and 
 tell themselves, with set teeth, that the earliest 
 possible moment will be the best. It is said that 
 the Germans do not understand our language. 
 Well, when they hear the command, "Charge with 
 the bayonet!" they know well enough what that 
 means, for they do not take long to show us, by 
 their backs, that they have understood. 
 
 But the hour of passive courage is past. The 
 order has resounded: Forward! It is the French 
 soldier's moment. The German rabbit's hole is 
 not to his liking. He needs the open air, with a 
 good weapon and one or more Bodies to look at. 
 Everybody has rushed forward. The drama, the 
 real drama, is beginning, for the worth of man- 
 hood and the courage of action, heated by the 
 fluctuations of the combat, is going, in flashes of 
 
190 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 individual bravery, to be manifested by astonish- 
 ing feats of arms, the memory of which unfor- 
 tunately will be lost, for the good reason that 
 everyone is at his task and that there are no 
 spectators. 
 
 We have no need to depreciate our enemy. He 
 exposes himself sufficiently, by his own deeds, to 
 the reprobation of the civilized world. As for me, 
 I am content to say merely that murderers of 
 women and children may look like fine soldiers, 
 but that they are inevitably cowards. I am not at 
 all astonished, therefore, to know that they are 
 afraid of the bayonet and that they take flight 
 when they must meet us man to man and look 
 straight into our eyes. But in the frays in con- 
 fused masses all sorts of things happen and the 
 varied fortunes of encounters result in groups of 
 fighters among whom appalling dramas are 
 played. 
 
 In these the Frenchman is at his best. In him 
 there will suddenly come into action, evoked by 
 the tumult of violence, unequaled qualities of 
 prowess such as will call forth from the depth 
 of his being heroic virtues which, in the sim- 
 plicity of his heart, he did not know he possessed. 
 There was needed the revealing fire of this un- 
 precedented drama in which all his energies are 
 concentrated in one instant of time, like those of 
 the god crashing in the thunderbolt, in order that 
 there should be born in his heart the will and the 
 power of a Titan. It is a power before which 
 everything gives way. He wills, and he acts : the 
 rest is not in his reckoning. The word danger 
 has no longer a meaning to him. If his comrades 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 191 
 
 weaken, this man, possibly a timid one in ordinary 
 life, stops the fugitives with a word or gesture 
 or act which dominates them all, imbues them 
 with the sensation of a power against which noth- 
 ing can prevail, leads them back into combat full 
 of a new courage, and never relaxes until they 
 have won the victory. 
 
 And one might almost think that death is afraid 
 of this unconquerable being, for, when he defies 
 her, in the thickest of the hail of steel, he some- 
 times seems to bear a charmed life. If wounded, 
 he continues to fight, saving his comrade or his 
 officer already lying on the ground, drags him to 
 the nearest place of aid, and, to exhaust the last 
 drop of his heroism, returns sometimes to his own 
 death. Dead or living, he is truly to be envied; 
 he has lived through all that life can give him. 
 Let him have the noblest place in our memories. 
 Perhaps he wished to die, because he felt that 
 no reward could recompense his sacrifice. If he 
 lives we cannot honor him better than by saying 
 simply what he has done, without spoiling it by 
 comment. 
 
 This, reader, is why I recommend to you the 
 noble and solemn pride which the list of citations 
 in the army dispatches invokes. In them you 
 will find the high lesson of the painful days in 
 which we are living. I am unwilling to mention 
 any name because that would be an injustice to 
 all the others. Eead them, I repeat, and say 
 whether your pride does not burn within you for 
 being of the same blood from which so many 
 uncelebrated heroes have sprung. Eead them; 
 once you have begun, you will not pause. Here 
 
192 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 is a man who stayed by his gun and met death 
 when his soldiers were giving way, and by the 
 miracle of mute example brought them back. 
 Here is another who, with his knife, extracted 
 the ball that had struck him, and went back into 
 the fire until the end. A third, when the shells 
 gave out for his guns, leaped into the trenches 
 to fight with the infantry; and another with a 
 broken arm or a shoulder torn away kept on 
 urging his men against the enemy. Still another 
 leads his company into the hottest of the fight 
 and when they are obliged to retire remains to 
 carry back the wounded and receives the ball 
 which he had so gloriously won. I should never 
 finish with the chronicle. 
 
 Unknown yesterday, these men will be unknown 
 to-morrow. To-day is their brief day. Let it be 
 theirs in full. A lofty salutation to those lofty 
 hearts! They have not waited for the final vic- 
 tory to make us again into one nation. They have 
 lived, and they have allowed us to live, through 
 the history of France condensed in a soldier's day, 
 
 October 9, 1914. 
 
 To Maintain Unity 
 
 ... In the sphere of spontaneous action we 
 enjoy a considerable superiority over Germany. 
 There is no public opinion in the Empire of 
 Wilhelm II. The German people, trained in 
 servility, is composed of men who allowed them- 
 selves to be molded to all purposes. They can be 
 accommodated to anything except independence. 
 They receive full profit from their servitude when 
 they are under masters like Frederick II or Bis- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 193 
 
 marck, but in the absence of the conductor's 
 baton, we must expect nothing from them except 
 flat subjection. More especially, we must not be 
 surprised at the insolent arrogance of their 
 leaders. To produce an excess of tyranny in one 
 group there is required an excess of debasement 
 in the other. No one in the popular masses of 
 Germany would probably have been willing to 
 take the initiative in the war, but the implacable 
 feudal system which drives them in herds, having 
 carefully developed in the depths of their dark- 
 ened minds the germs of the fury of conquest 
 which was the heritage of primitive hordes, each 
 of them rushes to his fate with songs that are 
 not very much superior to the bellowing of the 
 beast led to the slaughter-house. Before suc- 
 cumbing, the German will offer himself the 
 supreme joy of trampling and tearing and slash- 
 ing everything he finds on his path, and for this, 
 license is given him; it is the sole manifestation 
 of individualism that is left to him. And even so 
 he has more pleasure in giving himself up to it 
 Toy order, and scientifically. 
 
 Surely we must be of another race, since our 
 natural inclination is to look men in the face, and 
 for this purpose to hold ourselves erect. This 
 was the source of great trouble for the govern- 
 ments of the past. In revenge, when the highest 
 interests of the endangered country and the great 
 inspiration of a noble idea has welded together 
 our individual desires, recently so diverse, into 
 one solid will, there is now no power that can 
 withstand the formidable sledge-hammer that 
 falls with the might of an entire people behind it. 
 
194 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 It is herein that we discover, in spite of too 
 many shortcomings in methodical preparation, 
 the superiority of voluntary unity in action over 
 the purely mechanical organization of the German 
 people. Mistakes of the past, too often evident, 
 may to-day leave our administration to struggle 
 with immeasurable difficulties. The administra- 
 tion will deal well or ill with them according as 
 it has the courage to break from its ancient paths 
 or as, under the eye of a minister more prompt 
 to follow than to lead, it continues obstinately in 
 the methods which, having caused the damage, 
 cannot effect its reparation. 
 
 In either case there is something that will save 
 the cause; it is the admirable unity of minds and 
 hearts for the salvation of the countrv. And in 
 regard to this spontaneous unity of all the ener- 
 gies of a people concentrated in one will for the 
 simultaneous exertion of all arms and all hearts, 
 we may be permitted to say with pride that no 
 person has imposed it on us, and that no person 
 would have had the power to do so, as Gambetta 
 learned to his sorrow in a day when civil discords 
 so cruelly aggravated the terrible wounds of 
 foreign war. 
 
 No, the hard lesson has brought its rewards, 
 and it is from the hearts of all that has suddenly 
 mounted the splendid flame which has melted 
 quickly all our souls and all our wills into one 
 thunderbolt which will win the undisputed vic- 
 tory of to-morrow. No man, no government, no 
 party can claim exclusive credit for it. The 
 French people has taken its cause into its own 
 hands. Placed under the necessity of saving 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 195 
 
 itself, it has shown that self-confidence, like the 
 power of action, springs from the depths of the 
 heart. It has made its soldiers, having breathed 
 the pnrest of its sonl into them and the "best of 
 that invincible resolution which renders them 
 superior to any misfortune. It knows that its 
 work will be long and hard. It knows also that 
 the work will not be above its powers. It wills, 
 and it acts. Aided by the unselfish assistance 
 of some, and hindered by the misunderstanding 
 of others, it pursues its task without weakening, 
 hoping for no other recompense than the main- 
 tenance of the life of France in the heart of 
 civilization. 
 
 I say the life of France, all the life of France, 
 in the multiple aspects of its thought and action. 
 That is what is represented in the obscure 
 trooper, our son or brother in the mud of the 
 trenches, risking his life twenty-four hours a day 
 against the chance of a bit of shrapnel in order 
 that the radiance of France may not be ex- 
 tinguished. That is what is represented, in every 
 kind of public activity for the common cause, by 
 all those who, with their hearts turned toward 
 the field where the stupendous tragedy is being 
 played, do nothing and say nothing, in their for- 
 getfulness of self, that is not meant solely to 
 increase the physical and moral force of that good 
 soldier. 
 
 October 20, 1914. 
 
 All of Feance 
 
 I cannot take my mind from those men who 
 are under fire. On a wavering line extending 
 
196 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 from the North Sea to tlie end of the Vosges, 
 night and day, they are burrowing in mud-holes, 
 shivering, benumbed, but with hearts armored 
 with an ardent bravery that makes them smile 
 at cold, or hunger, or death. They do not pause 
 to contemplate themselves, to analyze their feel- 
 ings, to pronounce philosophic judgments on 
 themselves or on those who send them out to the 
 sufferings and dangers of the soldier's calling. 
 They have aged parents whom they love, wives 
 and children who cling to their hearts with fibers 
 of painful sensitiveness, they have a city or a 
 town where they were born and where they hoped 
 to die, a countryside tender in their memory, 
 where their childhood and youth were passed, 
 they have a great mother-country above all, ever 
 present in their thoughts, whose history gives 
 birth in them to devoted respect and love, and to 
 hopes of grandeur. More or less cultured, more 
 or less thoughtful, more or less quick to be moved 
 or to grow hardened or to withstand trial, more 
 or less impassive when the somber reaper takes 
 his red harvest, they are in the action to which 
 they are called by the poetry of the higher life, 
 by the superhuman impulse of everyone who hurls 
 his will into the battle like a cannon-ball. 
 
 At one moment they are heroes, and in the next 
 but children amused among perils that have 
 aspects of romance in them. For in a single day 
 they must, according to the luck of the hour, run 
 the gamut from the fierce strain of surcharged 
 energy to the soft release of tender sensations. 
 We think of the soldier as always at grips with 
 the enemy. It would be but too glorious if he 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 197 
 
 could settle his account in one furious plunge of 
 battle. How much more difficult is the courage 
 of imperturbable passivity under the hail of ex- 
 ploding shells! How much harder is the trial of 
 suffering in unrelaxing suspense designed to 
 weaken the resistance, bit by bit, of body and of 
 will! Even outside of the battle there is no 
 moment which is not one of real action, since 
 there is nothing that has not its relation to the 
 desired end. And if the happy chance of a brief 
 moment of rest may come, the momentary repos- 
 session of one's self, the temporary return to the 
 quiet of gay conversation, the relaxation of mak- 
 ing fun of the enemy in anecdotes of the war, 
 will all be quickly given up without complaint, 
 and thrown into the list of things abolished, as 
 soon as the tranquil peace in his heart is sum- 
 moned to make way for the violence of warlike 
 virtue, to respond to the demands of the great 
 tragedy. It is thus that is forged, on the im- 
 placable anvil of the hours, the firm metal of 
 unconquerable will. It is thus that characters are 
 tempered. Have you seen, at the good armorer's 
 in Toledo, how a blade of friable steel becomes 
 instantly unbreakable when plunged for one mo- 
 ment into the marvelous vat of water? It is like 
 the soul of our soldier under fire. 
 
 . . . The Boche, who is but a piece of mechan- 
 ism in the hands of a skilled mechanic, has come 
 to recognize him very well, our French soldier, — 
 enough not to seek for conversation at close 
 quarters, — but he will never really understand 
 him. Yesterday a letter from the front told me 
 
198 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 how our troopers made gay one evening by shak- 
 ing lanterns from the end of a high stick, by 
 means of strings attached, in order to make the 
 Bodies throw away their artillery munitions. 
 How could we explain to those people the state 
 of mind that produces this carelessness of amused 
 youth, this playing with peril for a revenge in 
 advance over the shells of to-morrow 1 The 
 placid Boche, who knows only the pleasures of 
 unreasoned obedience, will make a good appear- 
 ance under fire, like the others, but he is too scien- 
 tifically machine-like to live the full, intense life 
 of the battle, to throw into the action, like his 
 adversary, all the eager joys of the life which he 
 proudly brings as an offering to death. 
 
 Some of them, it is true, are capable of or- 
 ganized daring. Under the lead of a resolute 
 captain they will make audacious dashes, though 
 without the enthusiasm that characterizes our 
 men; but once the captain is missing, the re- 
 sources of their energy are quickly exhausted. 
 With us, if the leader falls, someone comes for- 
 ward to set things right immediately, to supply 
 on the moment what is lacking, to change the 
 course of the adventure by some stroke of daring 
 fancy which disconcerts the adversary. With 
 such soldiers one is never at the end of his sur- 
 prises. No one among them claims to know any- 
 thing, for their greatest joy is to improvise a 
 way of warfare as the moment requires. What a 
 pleasure to astonish the leader, who, knowing 
 them well, is ready for almost anything, but who 
 nevertheless cannot stifle, once in a while, at 
 perilous moments, a cry of admiration! And yet 
 
FRANCE FACING' GERMANY 199 
 
 a person who should not discover anything be- 
 yond that, on our present battlefront, would 
 prove that he has not looked closely enough at 
 the Frenchman fighting to-day. 
 
 Daring and gay at once, the man whose an- 
 cestors ran over all Europe singing the Marseil- 
 laise without losing an opportunity to fall upon 
 the enemy, does not appear, perhaps, very dif- 
 ferent from the soldier of the Crimea, of Italy, 
 or of 1870, when other leaders would have 
 assured him the victory. But circumstances have 
 profoundly changed the hearts and souls of our 
 fighters. At the "beginning of the war of 1870 
 it was not yet the safety of the country that was 
 at stake, and later we were fighting at such a 
 disadvantage that it is a miracle that our im- 
 provised armies could do otherwise than glori- 
 ously succumb. We shall never praise enough 
 the revival of resolution, that miracle accom- 
 plished by Gambetta and M. de Freycinet that 
 was necessary to lead to the victory of Coulmiers. 
 I have heard it said that Wilhelm I, who had 
 seen the French soldier in the worst of disasters, 
 said one day to the man who was going to succeed 
 him, "Remember, my son, that though in the 
 course of the great war our successes, by the grace 
 of God, astonished the world, there were never- 
 theless hours when, in spite of all our favorable 
 chances, I was in doubt of the final issue. " It is 
 probably the highest pfaise that has ever been 
 given to the French soldier. Perhaps we have 
 the right to invoke this high testimony at the 
 hour when Wilhelm II, having madly tempted 
 fortune, after the completion of preparations 
 
200 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 which were not answered by his adversary with 
 equal foresight, is hurling himself against so 
 many resisting obstacles in his path, and among 
 them the smile of the French soldier. 
 
 Three months ago no one thought of the war 
 so soon to come, neither those who were charged 
 with preparing to meet it nor those who, at the 
 present hour, are falling like heroes as they 
 drive back the enemy foot by foot from our rav- 
 aged plains. There was a national army on paper, 
 where it made a fairly fine appearance. What 
 was really the exact state of preparation this is 
 not the hour to determine. I mention the question 
 only as a reminder. If there are leaders who did 
 not do their full duty, the soldiers themselves, 
 who, with the great majority of Frenchmen, did 
 not believe the war was possible, did not devote 
 an extreme ardor to their period of military ser- 
 vice from which the leaders — as I have said in the 
 tribune before the Senate — were often unable to 
 give more than a mediocre advantage. The pub- 
 lic powers let them alone— always in the belief 
 that that would never happen — and now what 
 was never going to happen has suddenly come to 
 pass. 
 
 The mobilization was accomplished in perfect 
 regularity which showed no ground for suspecting 
 miscalculations. The soldiers of France, from all 
 of France, took their places in line at the front, 
 with tranquil hearts interrogating the horizon 
 where the others were to appear. Yes, the sol- 
 diers from all of France this time. It is really 
 the armed nation, all of France in arms, that 
 stands before the enemy. A new fact in history 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 201 
 
 — every Frenchman called to the defense of his 
 land! An immense rendez-vous of a people who 
 had often sought to know themselves in peace 
 and who came to discover themselves in war. Side 
 by side, in the trenches, they look at each other, 
 interrogate each other, already proud of the feats 
 of arms w T ith which they are going to astound the 
 mechanical Teuton. What they know best of their 
 trade, in which many are novices, is that they have 
 courage and will know how to use it. Because they 
 have confidence in themselves to begin with, they 
 soon feel that they can count on one another until 
 the last. And there they are, glad to find them- 
 selves all together in danger, close companions in 
 the great battle for France, brothers in every 
 thought and feeling, laughing and weeping to- 
 gether in the same inspiration for their native 
 land, living the life of their France, each for him- 
 self and all together, without having ever under- 
 stood her so well — there they are to give her their 
 lives and disappointed only that they cannot do 
 more. 
 
 These are the soldiers of the new France, of that 
 Republic which they have desired, without always 
 knowing their desires exactly, but which they are 
 now creating with their hands and with their wills. 
 Yes, better than many an orator they have under- 
 stood that rhetoric had had its day, and that des- 
 tiny had reserved for them the hour to act. They 
 enter into action happy and strong, proud indeed 
 that they will withhold nothing of themselves. No 
 machine-made butchers among them, nothing but 
 noble hearts who can conceive nothing higher than 
 the joy of self-sacrifice ! The soldiers of France 
 
202 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 have recovered their right place in history, by the 
 side of their great ancestors. Like those of the 
 year II, they bring to the combat, with the impro- 
 visations of their valor, the sublime pride of men 
 who will never surrender. 
 
 Too ardent, they will learn — sometimes dearly 
 — to calculate, and to moderate and restrain the 
 enthusiasm of a bravery which needs to be con- 
 trolled by wisdom. Their officers told them this 
 from the beginning. They were not willing to 
 listen, but were too much given to believe that they 
 would do better following their own enthusiasm. 
 Brought back by the voice of experience, they have 
 learned their lessons, and have adapted them- 
 selves with admirable ease to conditions of battle 
 which they had not dreamed of before. They have 
 drawn nearer to their leaders through understand- 
 ing them. In the common effort they must like 
 each other in order to be of mutual aid. Gone are 
 the prejudices of former days. No more mistrust, 
 no more of those differences of opinion which are 
 but the more serious if not put into words. There 
 are priests who are officers, and priests who are 
 privates. All men are of one thought, under the 
 uniform of the French Eepublic, who does not 
 make distinctions between her children. 
 
 The soldiers need to feel, first, that their leader 
 knows his profession; then that he can command 
 his men, by personal power, and that he is good 
 to them. After that, a word of command suffices. 
 They will emulate each other in patience or in 
 energy, as occasion demands. Alas, the officers 
 themselves have sometimes the brilliant faults of 
 the trooper. It is in the blood. They push the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 203 
 
 curiosity of the enemy too far, and the moment 
 they rise, expert marksmen have for their single 
 function the task of putting them out of the com- 
 bat. Thus our corps of officers, in which there 
 were so many vacancies at the beginning of the 
 war, has come to find itself, in certain units, pain- 
 fully decreased. Nevertheless the soldier who 
 has trained himself makes it a point of pride to 
 ignore the fact. He will find his own way, will 
 set right the comrades who arrive from the con- 
 centration camp, will check one, and encourage 
 another, will keep everybody in good humor, and 
 will inspire such enthusiasm that when the mo- 
 ment comes to go "over the top" each one will 
 make it a point of honor to follow him — since it is 
 impossible to get ahead of him. 
 
 Go on in your good deeds, great unknown 
 Frenchmen who will have no name in the glorious 
 annals of your country; you have no need of his- 
 torians to make you a place in the history of 
 France. The place that you fill will be so large 
 that perhaps there will be men some day who will 
 be jealous because you have left no room. You 
 who have believed, in the ranks, under the shell, 
 that you could do nothing but give up your lives, 
 know that beyond death even, you will remain liv- 
 ing, and cherished, in the hearts of us whom you 
 have saved. For it is you who truly are saving 
 France, at this moment, or, if you prefer, it is 
 France herself who, through you, is creating her 
 destiny — France revived, regenerated, made 
 young again, France better and more beautiful, 
 into whom you are transfusing the purest of your 
 life. Hail to you, good makers of the good new 
 
204 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 France! A greater and nobler land will witness 
 that you have lived. 
 
 October 27, 1914. 
 
 War Note-Books 
 
 . . . The other day a lieutenant-colonel, in 
 front of his men crouching on the ground, was 
 seriously wounded. The shells were raging. But 
 three men instantly rushed forward and, with 
 three rifles for a stretcher, tried to take the officer 
 to a place of safety, without giving attention, for 
 themselves, to the shells that were exploding. This 
 is nothing as yet. Wait. They had to pass before 
 the lines of soldiers who had orders not to quit 
 their prone position. You must know that in these 
 hearts there is something that is even superior to 
 military orders. And all together, in a spontane- 
 ous movement, these men arose, under the volleys 
 of bursting steel, to present arms to their wounded 
 colonel. And he himself, with his heart touched 
 by an emotion which the pain of his wound could 
 not overcome, endeavored to raise himself for the 
 military salute ; but the paralyzed hand fell, and 
 the gesture was more beautiful than if he had been 
 able to finish it. Let us salute those men, more 
 brave than the heroes of Plutarch, too often ideal- 
 ized. These are noble Frenchmen, not selected, 
 but assembled there by chance, to manifest spon- 
 taneously, all together, and without a useless 
 word, the splendid spirit of their native land. 
 
 October 29, 1914. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 205 
 
 The Fikst Balance-Sheet 
 
 One of my friends who is at the front, and whom 
 I have reason to consider a very good judge, 
 writes me that "in general all goes very well" and 
 that he is "more confident than ever." I am too 
 happy in receiving the good news from an authori- 
 tative person not to share it immediately with my 
 readers. 
 
 ... On the Yser the enemy seems definitely 
 to have abandoned his effort to pass at any price. 
 It is an impressive check which closes, with for- 
 tune on our side, the murderous encounter which 
 is called the battle of Flanders. To prepare Ger- 
 man opinion for it, the newspapers of Wilhelm II 
 are beginning to make avowals, with infinite pre- 
 cautions as to their language. The Frankfort 
 Gazette sets an example in terms which are good 
 to remember. The former journal of Sonnemann, 
 that protestant of 1870 — how the times are 
 changed! — declares that it "is not disquieted to 
 admit that the French army is not a bad one, that 
 the Russians have at their disposal more men 
 than the Germans, and that the English have a 
 larger fleet than Wilhelm II. ' ' It has taken three 
 months of war to inject these facts into the ob- 
 stinately closed brains of the Teutonic publicists. 
 We must count it a considerable victory to have 
 brought them simply to this point. Other discov- 
 eries are yet reserved for them. We shall do our 
 best to help in their enlightenment. 
 
 The Frankfort Gazette, having already received 
 the benefit of certain rays of light, does not hesi- 
 
206 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 tate to prepare the way for further explanations 
 to its readers. It understands quite clearly now 
 that one cannot demolish enemy fortresses every 
 day amid a tumult of hurrahs. It even admits 
 that the Germans, like all the other powers of the 
 world, are exposed to losses. So we are already 
 very far from the feeling of warlike infallibility 
 which was so loudly proclaimed at the beginning 
 of hostilities. They have grown more modest at 
 Frankfort. The attitude befits the real state of 
 things. They will do well to persevere in it. 
 Happily there is something that reassures the 
 Frankfort Gazette. What will give Germany the 
 superiority over her adversaries is "the excellent 
 spirit of the people, which exhibits incalculable 
 resources of patience and endurance.' ' What is 
 this? Patience, endurance! That is what is being 
 demanded after three months of war from this 
 German people, scientifically regimented, who 
 were to seize Paris in two weeks, strike France to 
 her knees, turn at a bound to shatter the Eussians, 
 while England, bombarded from Zeppelins, over- 
 whelmed on the sea, stripped of her colonies, 
 should see herself reduced to imploring pity from 
 her conquerer. A fine dream of too short dura- 
 tion, since after engagements which for us are still 
 preliminary, they are beginning to recommend 
 patience, endurance — which are virtues of defeat 
 — to the invincible conquerors who were to crush 
 all before them. 
 
 Must they then recognize that they had madly 
 abandoned themselves to hopes too high? They 
 were to cross Belgium in a promenade ; they were 
 hampered by blood. They were to take Paris by 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 207 
 
 storm ; they had to retreat on arriving there. For 
 interminable weeks they have exhausted them- 
 selves in renewed offensives, not one of which has 
 threatened for a moment to bring the end. Feel- 
 ing their way at every point, changing their plan 
 from hour to hour, they were now trying to break 
 through our lines to regain the road to Paris, now 
 announcing the grandiose project of marching on 
 Dunkirk and taking Calais, from which they would 
 place England, encircled by floating mines, crum- 
 bling from the fantastic projectiles of a miracu- 
 lous artillery, under the necessity of sending citi- 
 zens of Dover to Calais, with ropes around their 
 necks, to give revenge to Eustache de Saint-Pierre 
 by imploring the favor of surrendering. Alas! 
 They crossed the first obstacle, the canal of the 
 Yser, only to encumber it with corpses and once 
 more to find defeat in the eternal renewal of that 
 massed offensive that was to shatter all before it. 
 Afterward they attempted, and still attempt, the 
 road to Boulogne through La Bassee, and then 
 they tried to push through at Soissons on the way 
 to Paris. Nothing remains but to begin over again 
 in the East, where they have already tried vainly 
 to pass. Where is the plan of all this? Where 
 is the directing thought, the system of those who 
 boasted that they had foreseen everything, pre- 
 pared everything, for ends determined by experi- 
 ment? 
 
 The roles are reversed when patience and en- 
 durance are demanded of the aggressors. Seduced 
 to the defensive, they are exhausting themselves 
 in counter-offensives no one of which has yet led 
 to a result. And as for us, camped for a defensive 
 
208 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 which has not failed at any point, we shall choose 
 the day for the grand offensive for which we have 
 prepared in patience and endurance, which are 
 the conditions we accepted for it. The Germans 
 write every day that we are standing still. "What 
 of them? They try to pass and cannot. Is this 
 to their advantage ? The military efficiency of our 
 troops, and those of our allies as well, keeps in- 
 creasing from day to day. Can they say as much, 
 when we are finding their units in confusion — 
 some of them of inferior quality — and the prison- 
 ers that we take dying of hunger? It is our turn 
 to get ready for an offensive. We shall not take 
 counsel with them on the choice of the moment. 
 
 November 7, 1914. 
 
 The Answer of the French Universities 
 
 The French Universities have had the very good 
 idea of responding to the manifesto of the Ger- 
 man universities. They have done it in terms of 
 a simplicity and sobriety really disconcerting for 
 the edifice of lies and artifices so painfully erected 
 by the clumsy scholars of militaristic German cul- 
 ture. In order more surely to enlighten the minds 
 of the men, prejudiced or not, whom they thought 
 best to address, our Frenchmen, with great good 
 sense, have not judged that disputation was neces- 
 sary. No argumentation in the classic sense of 
 the word, no trace of dialectic, no debate. The 
 facts, quite naked, are such convincing evidence 
 that there is no room for discussion. I do not 
 think that the French mind has ever more fully 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 209 
 
 clarified in a few lines a set of questions which so 
 many confused brains had toiled with so much 
 ardor to render obscure. 
 
 It is not enough, truly, to have received the gift 
 of a darkened intellect and to stand firm in the 
 determination to lie, in order to carry conviction 
 to all minds. Even the Germans, perhaps, are be- 
 ginning to discover that this may turn out to their 
 disadvantage when they find themselves in the 
 presence of people who do not allow themselves 
 to be imposed on by violent assertions that turn 
 pale under the slightest ray of truth. A cousin 
 of Ex-President Roosevelt, arriving from New 
 York, told me recently that what has done most 
 harm to Germany, in the minds of the Americans, 
 since the beginning of the war, is the attitude of 
 her apologists, who presume that they can force 
 acceptance of their views without examination and 
 do not admit that their assertions, like all others, 
 need to be verified. The American mind, positive 
 above all, takes pleasure in the free investigation 
 which is the first condition of all knowledge. Noth- 
 ing could shock it, therefore, more violently than 
 the insolent folly of the representatives of Ger- 
 many when they proclaim that there is nothing 
 more to say when they have spoken. 
 
 It is not thus that our "intellectuals" of the 
 French universities proceed. Not alone do they 
 feel that there is something to be said after they 
 speak, but they solicit this something from any 
 person whatever, claiming for themselves, accord- 
 ing to the Socratic method, only the right to open 
 the discussion by putting in the simplest possible 
 way certain elementary questions. . . . When they 
 
210 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ask, for example, "Who willed this war?" and 
 later, ' ' Who exerted himself to find means of con- 
 ciliation ?" and, "Who, on the other hand, refused 
 all those successively proposed by Great Britain, 
 Russia, France, and Italy?" we may leave to all 
 honest minds — and only such count — the trouble 
 of answering. 
 
 When our friends are satisfied to ask, without 
 any comment: 
 
 "Who violated the neutrality of Belgium, after 
 having guaranteed it? 
 
 "Who declared, in regard to this, that neu- 
 trality is but a word, that treaties are scraps of 
 paper, and that in time of war one does as one 
 canf 
 
 "Who holds as void the international agree- 
 ments by which the powers signatory engaged 
 themselves not to use, in the conduct of war, any 
 kind of force constituting an atrocity or a perfidy, 
 and to respect historical monuments, the edifices 
 of religion, of science, of art, and of philanthropy, 
 except in the case where the enemy, changing the 
 nature of them beforehand, should employ them 
 for military purposes? 
 
 "Under what conditions was the university of 
 Louvain destroyed? 
 
 "Under what conditions was the cathedral of 
 Rheims set on fire? 
 
 "Under what conditions were incendiary. bombs 
 dropped on Notre-Dame at Paris?" 
 
 We need only let the facts reply to confound irre- 
 vocably the pretended "intellectuals" of Germany 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 211 
 
 who invoke, to excuse a crime against sworn faith, 
 the hypothetical danger resulting from the fact 
 that the adversary might have found himself capa- 
 ble of the same outrage. To such allegations, even 
 children in school could only shrug their shoulders. 
 
 But the decisive point which the manifesto of 
 the French universities throws admirably into re- 
 lief is the full agreement claimed by the worthy 
 representatives of German thought with the Prus- 
 sian militarists, the avowed purpose of whom is 
 the brutal domination of the world. Foreign pub- 
 licists had endeavored, in the interest of the Ger- 
 man scholars themselves, to distinguish their cause 
 from that of the brutal military party whose 
 chosen mission is to impose its will, by fire and 
 sword, on the rest of mankind. The response came 
 without delay. Clear and categorical, it is the 
 worst condemnation that the men of Kultur could 
 pronounce against themselves: "We are shocked 
 to note that the enemies of Germany, with Eng- 
 land leading, are exerting themselves to create 
 dissension, to our disadvantage, between the spirit 
 of German science and what they call Prussian 
 militarism. The spirit which reigns in the army 
 is the same as that which reigns in the German 
 people/' 
 
 And here is the reply of the French universi- 
 ties: 
 
 < < The French universities continue to think that 
 civilization is the work, not of a single people, but 
 of all peoples, that the intellectual and moral 
 wealth of mankind is created by the variety and 
 necessary independence in their principles of all 
 nations. 
 
212 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 "Like the allied armies, they defend, for their 
 part, the liberty of the world." 
 
 There is a striking contrast between the two 
 ways of thinking and understanding. The one con- 
 ceives the life of peoples only in terms of the uni- 
 versal subjection of individuality to the unen- 
 lightened rigid standard of the German world. 
 The other demands for the human mind the right 
 to diversity and liberty which has already shown, 
 in comparison with the one German achievement, 
 results of which all humanity may justly be proud. 
 
 November te } 1914. 
 
 A Comparison 
 
 One of my friends at Geneva has been meeting 
 in his city a man from Berlin who was very merry 
 at the moment of the fall of Antwerp, but who, 
 since the arrest of the German armies on the 
 Yser, has had less fire sparkling in his eyes. A 
 conversation took place in the course of which my 
 friend experienced the surprise of learning that 
 Wilhelm II "is at least the equal of Napoleon" — 
 whereupon he asked the names of the victories 
 of this great warrior, but without succeeding in 
 obtaining exact details on that delicate point. The 
 great deeds of the Kaiser are evidently less known 
 than Austerlitz or Marengo. But if the list is 
 somewhat brief for the past, anyone may keep an 
 open field for hopes for the future. Surely his 
 German friend will not fail to do this, for while 
 waiting for success to come, he concluded in these 
 words: "We have a hundred army corps intact, 
 fully equipped, armed, provided with every neces- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 213 
 
 sity. The French are at the end of their resisting 
 power. They can no longer sustain the struggle. 
 Our Emperor will finish his work with them." 
 
 It seems to me that we can take this boasting 
 as an epitome of the state of mind at Berlin. The 
 first thought of the German being to depend less 
 on himself than on organization, on executive prep- 
 aration that has for its keystone an all-powerful 
 imperialism before which it is his pride to be as 
 nothing, he lives in the childish faith that such a 
 combination of forces is irresistible and that any 
 plan to utilize those forces is assured, by a sort of 
 cosmic destiny, of final triumph. That there are 
 in the world other forces than those of shot and 
 shell is something that escapes his comprehension. 
 He speaks arrogantly of his "Kultur," as of an 
 ornament produced exclusively in Germany, 
 which, through the mastery of conquering arms, 
 will make a splendid garment for the rest of man- 
 kind. The thing which excels all others, which is 
 the raison d'etre of the German people, is the 
 possession of that highest virtue, a mastery in 
 arms which inspires the final verdict of destiny. 
 Thus is explained the imperturbable confidence of 
 the men who will not see, in the continued check 
 of the German arms, anything but a delay in the 
 execution of their design. To doubt the triumph 
 of the Kaiser would be to blaspheme the "ancient 
 German God," the radiant beams of whose glory 
 are mingled and confused with those of Germania. 
 The sword of Prussia must rule the peoples of the 
 earth as the sun orders the progress of the sea- 
 sons. 
 
 Therefore when the men of Berlin proclaim that 
 
214 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Wilhelm II, after deducting all losses, can dis- 
 pose of a hundred army corps who are to be 
 thrown upon a Europe combating for liberty, in 
 order to achieve for humanity a universal peace 
 in subjection, they think they are pronouncing 
 the final word against which nothing can prevail. 
 But here stand the allied peoples whose re- 
 sistance, up to this day, has victoriously barred 
 the way to the accomplishment of the designs 
 of Providence. These fantastic millions of men 
 whom the Kaiser pretends to dispose of were all 
 in his possession yesterday when the thick masses 
 of his best troops came to failure, with enormous 
 losses, before the immovable wall of the allied 
 soldiers. If he brings them into the line to renew, 
 under less favorable conditions, the fruitless ef- 
 forts of the weeks just passed, it is because our 
 soldiers have cleared the ground of their pre- 
 decessors. These new forces whose entry into 
 battle is loudly heralded will not be more power- 
 ful than those who have fallen in masses under 
 our blows. They will have no greater number of 
 cannon and shells and incendiary bombs. They 
 will shatter no more cathedrals, they will bom- 
 bard no more cities or towns, they will shoot no 
 more non-combatants, they will saber no more 
 women and children, than did their forerunners. 
 And even if they did accomplish that miracle, 
 whom would it benefit? There would always be 
 before them the French and British soldiers, with 
 the heroic Belgians, whom they will no more put 
 to flight than did their predecessors. We know 
 what military supplies have, at certain moments, 
 been lacking to us. We know that now we shall 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 215 
 
 lack no stores of equipment or of armament. We 
 have patience, we nave courage; and, as for men, 
 we do not count the number. 
 
 For reasons that this is not the moment to 
 explain, we have never put into the line as many 
 troops as our invaders. Our number has been 
 sufficient, not to drive them out at one blow, but 
 to repulse them magnificently at the Marne and 
 on the sea-coast in the north, and to push them 
 back foot by foot. It is not man against man 
 that we must count when the opposing forces are 
 French and German. We have made this evident. 
 Thus we have been able to overcome certain 
 temporary disadvantages ; thus we have found the 
 way to hold out. As for the superiority of num- 
 bers, it appears formidable on the side of the 
 Russians, whose millions of soldiers exist in 
 reality and not in boasting, and who, if they are 
 slower to get into the battle than the Germans, 
 will be but the more irresistible when the moment 
 comes. Superiority of numbers will also be ours 
 even on the western battle-front, since our losses 
 are not comparable to those of Germany, who has 
 seen her best soldiers succumb; since we are still 
 far from utilizing all the reserves that are fully 
 ready; since our concentration camps can put at 
 the disposition of General Joffre, when necessary, 
 the number of combatants that he may ask for; 
 and last of all, since Great Britain is raising and 
 equipping armies and has already announced that 
 her first million men will be followed by a second 
 million. 
 
 If, then, we were reduced to weigh in the same 
 scales the fighting prowess of the adversaries f ac- 
 
216 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ing each other, we could still shrug our shoulders 
 at German rhodomontade. But the Germans have 
 only too many reasons to know that they cannot 
 be measured individually against us. Their 
 method is that of masses. Just as they attack 
 our lines in close formation only to be slaughtered 
 in droves by our artillery, so what they have of 
 moral force, instead of springing from depth of 
 conviction, is dictated first of all by those in com- 
 mand who hold them massed in herds for attack 
 and for defense. 
 
 With us, on the contrary, the power of the mass 
 is only the sum of individual wills freely exerted. 
 They have machines for war; we have soldiers. 
 Search among our men for a wretch degraded 
 enough to say, as did one of theirs the other day, 
 "I'd as lief be German, Eussian, English or 
 French." Our men are very sure in their con- 
 sciences as to what binds them to their native, 
 land. This mother France, to whom they offer 
 their complete sacrifice — they feel her, they live 
 her, she speaks through their actions and their 
 words of joyous valor at every moment of the 
 combat and in every hour of toil. They are 
 France, in reality, for they are creating her hour 
 by hour. It is on them that all eyes are fixed, it 
 is toward them that all our hearts are turned. 
 In them is our hope, our power, of salvation. 
 They are our immovable rock against which all 
 the forces of the German cohorts may dash them- 
 selves to their destruction. In the past our 
 leaders, civil and military, have not been without 
 their failings. But the people has always been 
 able, in some manner, to make amends. 
 
FRANCE PACING GERMANY 21? 
 
 To-day, in the mud and water of the trenches, 
 every Frenchman is giving himself wholly, in 
 spontaneous exaltation, to any act of heroism, nor 
 can he discover anything in his own bravery be- 
 yond the natural fulfilment of the simplest duty. 
 From the battle of the Marne, which was his real 
 entrance into the line, he has made the enemy 
 feel his presence, and since that day there has 
 been no massed attack, succeeding artillery fire 
 however violent, that has been able to shake him. 
 Everywhere he has stood fast. At every point 
 where chance has given him the opportunity he 
 has forced the enemy back. What are the German 
 strategists to do on the two fronts in Poland and 
 France, where for weeks past they have been able 
 to gain nothing 1 The answer is simple. They 
 are going to begin over again. Already formid- 
 able attacks are announced to us, as if we did not 
 know the full strength of German aggression 
 from having repulsed it. We hear of heavy artil- 
 lery that is being painfully brought up to the 
 Yser for the purpose of renewing the enterprise 
 of the famous drive which was to take the Kaiser 
 to Calais, but which left him dangerously em- 
 barrassed at Nieuport. Arras, Soissons, Roye, 
 Vailly, we are told, are again to witness furious 
 offensives such as we were able to arrest defi- 
 nitively. So be it. 
 
 On both these sectors, and on others also, if 
 necessary, the onrush will be met as has been the 
 case before, and the French lines, far from break- 
 ing, will continue, slowly perhaps, but irresistibly, 
 to advance. Despatches from Belgium announce, 
 moreover, that great movements of troops are 
 
218 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 taking place toward Eastern Prussia, where Kus- 
 sia is energetically pressing upon the enemy. 
 The military forces with which Wilhelm II is 
 trying to dazzle us will have abundant work. 
 
 November 27, 1914. 
 
 The Opinion of the Trenches 
 
 The Germans do not know us. If they have 
 proposals of peace to make, why have they not 
 sought to know, first of all, whom to address? I 
 have informed them very frequently in my 
 articles, when I have written that the French 
 people have taken their own affairs in hand and 
 are on their way to save themselves without 
 troubling themselves overmuch as to the measure 
 in which they will be aided in the work. As 
 Professor Ostwald repeats, the people of Wilhelm 
 II are an "organized" people, in the sense that 
 they are distributed, regimented, ticketed, in 
 categories of subordination in which is mani- 
 fested a series of mechanical motions which they 
 call their life, and beyond which they understand 
 nothing. 
 
 What they call their "Kultur" being nothing 
 but mechanical method automatically functioning 
 through the parts of a hierarchic whole, these 
 men, or mannikins, cannot conceive a higher 
 ideal for the human species than to make itself, 
 in turn, into a Teutonic machine. It is this that 
 possibly explains the ingenuousness of their 
 scientists, who, considering men as the inert sub- 
 stances of their dreams, declare that their com- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 219 
 
 patriots liave reached a high stage of chemical 
 combination in which it seems good to crystallize 
 them. And since they are crystallizing them- 
 selves according to plans predetermined, the good 
 order of the universe requires that all mankind 
 do likewise. From minds so profound this idea 
 may seem to be of a simplicity rather discon- 
 certing, but we must understand our enemy if 
 we would conquer him completely. 
 
 Whatever in our eyes constitutes the worth of 
 human nature, — the independence of conscience, 
 the freedom of the ego, the liberty of personality 
 under the sanction of a corresponding responsi- 
 bility, — -all this is, in their eyes, only " individual- 
 ism," that is to say, an evidence of social weak- 
 ness. What is beautiful to them, what is grand 
 and noblest, is for the individual to efface himself 
 in order to glorify himself by falling to the rank 
 of an insensible particle in a whole that is " colos- 
 sal,' ' pompously so called. Thus the servant is 
 seen swelling with pride at the grandeur of the 
 master who holds him under the law. 
 
 The phenomenon is as old as the world. When 
 M. Lintilhac, in the tribune of the Senate, tried 
 to convert me to the suppression of the right to 
 teach by citing Aristotle's doctrine that every 
 citizen is the property of the state, he was carry- 
 ing back considerably the origins of the great 
 discovery that the Germans have made in the 
 last fifty years (that is to say, since Sedan), 
 according to Professor Ostwald, to whom the 
 child's toy of a Nobel prize seems the supreme 
 achievement of mankind. And as I am fairly 
 sure that Aristotle did nothing but reproduce, in 
 
220 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the opinion mentioned, the fundamental idea of 
 the aged Asiatic despotisms in which his mad 
 Macedonian pupil had gone to seek intoxication 
 as far as the hanks of the Indus, this miracle of 
 intellect, in which German "Kultur" is epito- 
 mized, might easily bring us nothing but a return 
 to the primitive brutality which could see in man 
 only a passive instrument of higher wills whose 
 sole title to rule is in the sword which rules over 
 an organized militarism. 
 
 When, by virtue solely of the fact that they 
 had annihilated the army of Napoleon III at 
 Sedan, the peoples of Germania had once accom- 
 plished this incredible marvel of spontaneously 
 returning to the ideas of barbarous autocracy 
 which stunned and paralyzed and condemned to 
 lasting weakness the admirable intellectual im- 
 pulse of the ancient civilizations of Asia, it was 
 but a little thing, surely, that, so proud of the 
 triumphant reaction which led them back several 
 thousands of years behind the European idea of 
 social progress as coming from the ennoblement 
 of each individual, our pan-Germans should judge 
 that their mission here below was the pan-Ger- 
 manizing of humanity. 
 
 The difficulty is that the Greco-Eoman civiliza- 
 tion, from which we issued, has turned us 
 unwaveringly, after dramatic vacillations, to- 
 ward the endowment of that personality which 
 Professor Ostwald scornfully denominates the 
 "individual," and which we respectfully call 
 "man," with an enlarging number of rights, 
 through which, ceasing to be the property of one 
 or more masters (or even of the state), men form 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 221 
 
 and establish a unity in independence of a higher 
 worth than all the combinations of brute will 
 which have aspired to place them under subjec- 
 tion. 
 
 I am setting theory against theory, and with- 
 out forgetting — for history reminds us but too 
 cruelly — that the distance is often very great be- 
 tween the noblest aspirations and the pitiful ac- 
 complishments which incapable human nature 
 permits us to realize. There was no more justice 
 in the French Eevolution than in any battle. But 
 in the gigantic upheaval there appeared the 
 formidable force of a popular explosion which, in 
 the total overthrow of Europe, succeeded in build- 
 ing the first foundations of a new order. And 
 this is something that the peoples of the world, 
 except, we must believe, the Germans, have not 
 yet forgotten. 
 
 It is the peculiar mark of our nation that the 
 ruling classes, at all times, have failed them. Our 
 warlike nobility failed in their historical duties 
 in many a battle. Louis XIV ruined and enslaved 
 them. Louis XV sank a marvelous movement of 
 thought into the quicksands of demoralization 
 which on the morrow were to throw up before 
 the army of Coblentz the debris of a vanished 
 grandeur. There remained, and remain still, the 
 soldiers of the year II, who, aroused in mass by 
 the devastating tempest, were inspired to gain, 
 and in the universal battle did gain, a victory 
 for freedom. Their bourgeoisie failed them, as 
 the nobles had failed their fathers; to understand 
 the failure, only compare this story with that of 
 the English governing classes. But they fought 
 
222 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 battles which are decisive dates in the history 
 of man. If a conqueror, haunted by the history 
 of Borne, did try to rebuild, with these same men, 
 and with forms bearing new names, the edifice 
 of the past, this enterprise, which no genius could 
 have saved from failure, has only the importance 
 of a magnificent episode. The French armies, as 
 all the world has said, were the direct expression 
 of the French people. The unchangeable hero 
 of the Revolution was that peasant in wooden 
 shoes who rushed to the frontiers to cry to 
 Brunswick, while gnawing at his cartridge, * ' You 
 shall not pass!" He simply stood and died, but 
 they did not pass. And because he was dead, 
 we thought he could not reappear. Unpardon- 
 able misunderstanding of our race! The soldier 
 of the year II had left children. 
 
 Legitimate children, the true heirs of his in- 
 stincts, of his mind, of his great heart, who can- 
 not bargain about any sacrifice for their country! 
 In the Vendee the whites used to insult the blues 
 with the epithet of patriot; it is our title of 
 honor. In this glorious hour they are all there, 
 whites and blues, mingling in the trenches. The 
 new soldier of the year II finds himself supported 
 by those of his brothers whom an unhappy destiny 
 had made his enemies. There is but one people 
 now, one life in action, one force of feeling and 
 of will, against which all the assaults of the 
 German masses, made into a military machine, 
 must shatter themselves. 
 
 There is great advantage, yes, in methodical 
 science, in incessant foresight, in meticulous 
 preparation of everything for the achievement of 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 223 
 
 a single plan, in omitting nothing in calculations 
 . . . except the force of the incalculable. And 
 it is exactly the incalculable that springs to view 
 on the Gallic soil, in the form of the bantering 
 little soldier who, in the mud of the trenches, 
 sometimes envies his ancestor those wooden shoes, 
 but would refuse to admit that he cannot do 
 even greater deeds than his ancestor. Toward 
 him also, as toward his brothers of former days, 
 the rulers have been at fault. He feels it, he 
 sees it more or less clearly, but he does not pause 
 for such unworthy thoughts. He has seen his 
 duty so clearly that all the rest of the picture 
 has vanished. That implacable duty requires, 
 from moment to moment, the sacrifice of All. 
 And putting aside, with many precious realities, 
 illusions without number, hopes without end, 
 affections unweakened, everything which en- 
 lightens and warms and inflames his life, he 
 proudly asks himself if this will be enough. For 
 he needs still more to satisfy his superhuman 
 ardor, and from his way of speaking and acting 
 you may be sure that he will find something to 
 express the inexpressible with which his heart 
 is fired. Let us take pity on the man who burns 
 the midnight oil to find phrases for such heroic 
 simplicity, and restrain ourselves in wonder at 
 the sublime deed from which men will reap their 
 profit to-morrow. 
 
 Yesterday, in the saddest hospital of Bordeaux, 
 a Eed Cross nurse was entertaining the soldiers 
 with a phonograph. The Marseillaise, the Chant 
 du Depart, and the Marche de Sambre-et-Meuse 
 
224 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 aroused the enthusiasm of all, and one of them 
 suddenly cried out: 
 
 "Ah! Thank you, madame; that makes a man 
 understand why he is here!" 
 
 Tell me, phrase-making lovers of tradition, 
 whether this fellow has not found the path his 
 fathers trod. He felt, he understood, he spoke: 
 and all these noble cripples, waving stiff arms 
 under formless bandages, cried out: 
 
 "That's it — that's it! That makes a man un- 
 derstand!" 
 
 Out under the shells they had made it clear 
 enough that they understood. But in the tortur- 
 ing monotony of the hospitals, far from the field 
 of sacrifice that they long for with all their 
 hearts, they burn with the enthusiasm of those 
 ancestors who had shown them the way! 
 
 Such are our Frenchmen, professionals in 
 German butchery! They know how to kill, in 
 their own way, and to die, since you require it of 
 them, but in contrast with your master, and with 
 you yourselves, unfortunately, they fight to let 
 live, to set free, to bring to men more liberty. 
 When you want peace it is to them that your 
 Excellencies must speak. On peace and on war 
 they will have conquered the right to speak, for 
 they are France militant. They have not exerted 
 more than human virtues in order to serve as a 
 theme for popular speech-making. They have de- 
 termined to do something that counts. They are 
 inspired by the idea that aroused their ancestors 
 ■ — the creation of a new Europe for the better uses 
 of humanity, and a higher life. They will accept 
 no German peace and leave behind them condi- 
 
FRANCE FACING GEEMANY 225 
 
 tions pregnant with disaster. A French peace, 
 a peace that will establish a lasting destiny for 
 Europe by reducing to impotence the leaders of 
 savagery, that is the peace desired by our soldiers. 
 That is the opinion of the trenches. 
 
 December 2, 1914. 
 
 The Yellow Book 
 
 . . . Already the treatment of the events 
 which led to the declaration of war has become a 
 task for history. We were too familiar with them 
 to need to revive them. The Yellow Booh may 
 confirm the French in what they know already, 
 whether from the Blue Booh or from the daily 
 reading of the papers. It is for foreigners to 
 search here for authoritative documents on which 
 they may be able to found a definitive opinion. 
 
 ... Of the military preparations of the 
 Kaiser, in which he had obtained the complicity 
 even of the socialists, pretended friends of peace, 
 we have nothing to say. The story of them has 
 been told us many times. In exciting at every 
 opportunity the extravagant Chauvinism which 
 takes the place of public opinion in Germany, in 
 invoking the memory of 1813 and 1814, it was easy 
 to influence men to let themselves be drawn into 
 the adventure of war which was to place all the 
 peoples under the rule of the Kaiser. In this, 
 Wilhelm II was assured of a too facile success. 
 An official and secret report of which we had a 
 communication in March, 1913, insisted on the ne- 
 
226 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 cessity of preparing for the war, without awaken- 
 ing distrust, in such a way that "A declaration 
 of it would seem like a deliverance. . . . We must 
 imbue the people with the idea that our armaments 
 are an answer to the armaments and the policy 
 of the French. We must accustom them to think 
 that an offensive war on our side is necessary to 
 withstand the threats of the adversary." From 
 that date, therefore, the rulers of France had their 
 warning. In that document there was a study of 
 ways and means to excite uprisings in Egypt, at 
 Tunis, at Algiers, in Morocco, and the principle 
 was formulated that small states must be forced 
 to follow Germany or be subjected. To begin, 
 an ultimatum with a short time-limit must be fol- 
 lowed immediately by invasion. They could not 
 hesitate, because, "The provinces of the ancient 
 German Empire, Burgundy, and a good part of 
 Lorraine, are still in the hands of the Franks, and 
 thousands of our German brothers in the Baltic 
 provinces are groaning under the Slavic yoke." 
 
 In the month of May, 1913, M. Jules Cambon, 
 renewing the former warning, notified us that 
 General von Moltke, chief of the German general 
 staff, had, in a gathering of Germans, uttered the 
 following words: "We must ignore the common- 
 places about the responsibility of the aggressor. 
 . . . We must get ahead of our principal adver- 
 sary, and as soon as there are nine chances in ten 
 of having war we must begin it, without more 
 delay, in order to beat down all resistance by brute 
 force." 
 
 Six months later, on November 22, 1913, our 
 ambassador at Berlin addressed to his minister a 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 227 
 
 critical letter, the importance of which is so great 
 that I think it should be given here in its entirety. 
 
 M. Jules Cambon, Ambassador of the French 
 Republic at Berlin, to M. Stephen Pichon, 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Berlin, November 22, 1913. 
 
 I have obtained, from an absolutely trustworthy 
 source, the account of a conversation which the 
 German Emperor is said to have had with the 
 King of the Belgians in the presence of General 
 von Moltke, Chief of Staff, a fortnight ago, a con- 
 versation which, it appears, strongly impressed 
 King Albert. I am by no means surprised at his 
 impression, for it corresponds to what I have 
 myself felt for some time : the hostility against us 
 is increasing, and the Emperor has ceased to be 
 an advocate of peace. 
 
 The interlocutor of the German Emperor had 
 thought until now, as did everyone, that Wilhelm 
 II, whose personal influence has been often ex- 
 erted, in critical circumstances, for the mainte- 
 nance of the peace, was still in the same frame of 
 mind. This time he seems to have found him 
 completely changed. The German Emperor is no 
 longer, to his mind, the champion of peace against 
 the bellicose tendencies of certain parties in Ger- 
 many. Wilhelm II has come to think that war 
 with France is inevitable and that he must come 
 to it sooner or later. Naturally he believes in the 
 overwhelming superiority of the German army 
 and in its certain success. 
 
 General von Moltke spoke exactly like his sover- 
 
228 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 eign. He also declared that the war was neces- 
 sary and inevitable, but lie displayed even more 
 certainty of success, for, he said to the King, 
 ' ' This time we must make an end of it, and your 
 Majesty cannot doubt the irresistible enthusiasm 
 which, when the day comes, will inspire the whole 
 German people." 
 
 The King of the Belgians protested that it was 
 a travesty of the intentions of the French govern- 
 ment to interpret them as the Germans did, and 
 to be misled concerning the sentiments of the 
 French nation by the manifestations of certain 
 excited minds or of unscrupulous intriguers. 
 
 The Emperor and his Chief of Staff persisted 
 none the less in their opinion. 
 
 In the course of their conversation the Emperor 
 had appeared, moreover, tired and irritable. In 
 proportion as the years weigh upon Wilhelm II, 
 the family traditions, the reactionary sentiments 
 of the court, and above all, the impatience of the 
 military party, gain greater empire over his mind. 
 Perhaps he feels some jealousy of the popularity 
 that has been acquired by his son, who flatters the 
 passions of the pan-Germans and thinks that the 
 situation of the Empire in the world is not equal 
 to its power. Perhaps, also, the reply of France 
 to the last increase in the German army, the object 
 of which was to establish an incontestable German 
 superiority, has something to do with his bitter- 
 ness, for, whatever may be said, it is felt that 
 things cannot go on as they are much longer. 
 
 One naturally wonders what was the object of 
 this conversation. The Emperor and his Chief of 
 Staff may have had the intention of impressing 
 
FEANCB FACING GERMANY 229 
 
 the King of the Belgians and of influencing him 
 against opposing his resistance in case a conflict 
 with us should come about. Perhaps, also, it is 
 desired that Belgium should be less hostile to cer- 
 tain ambitions which are manifested here in 
 regard to the Belgian Congo, but this last hypoth- 
 esis does not seem to me to explain the presence 
 of General von Moltke. 
 
 It should be added that Emperor Wilhelm is less 
 fully master of his fits of impatience than is com- 
 monly believed. More than once I have seen him 
 allow his secret thought to escape him. Whatever 
 may have been the object of the conversation 
 which has been reported to me, the confidence is 
 none the less of the most serious nature. It cor- 
 responds to the precariousness of the general sit- 
 uation and to the condition of a certain section of 
 opinion in France and in Germany. 
 
 If I were allowed to draw conclusions, I should 
 say that it is well to keep in mind the new fact 
 that the Emperor is growing favorable to certain 
 ideas which were formerly repugnant to him, and 
 that, to borroiv from him an expression which he 
 is fond of using, we should keep our powder dry. 
 
 Jules Gambol. 
 
 ... There was no need of these irrefutable 
 documents to establish the premeditation that is 
 demonstrated by forty years of methodical prep- 
 aration. None the less, the documents prophesied, 
 a short time ahead, the fatal culmination of a long 
 series of incessant efforts carried on with remark- 
 able perseverance toward the single end of a Euro- 
 pean conquest which should open for Germany; 
 
230 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the gate to universal domination. AH the rest is 
 but a logical development of an enterprise as to 
 which one hardly knows whether to wonder most 
 at the folly of its conception or at the coolness 
 of its execution. 
 
 If we had leisure to consider these things from 
 the purely objective point of view, we could give 
 ourselves up to an interesting study of a phenome- 
 non of national psychology for which I can find 
 no precedent. But since we are the first victims 
 of it, we are under the necessity of looking at the 
 problem from quite another angle. The power of 
 will that was capable of assembling, organizing, 
 and developing the greatest stores of instruments 
 of war that history mentions, needed, in order to 
 bring on the present catastrophe, the concurrence 
 of a no less stupefying series of faults and errors 
 among those who have been able to live for half a 
 century under the menace -of a crushing blow 
 without rising to the resolution to improve all 
 chances for success upon their side. 
 
 Let me be permitted to say that this phenome- 
 non is not less disconcerting than the other. Pos- 
 sibly it is more so, for if it is the nature of man 
 to attempt incessantly to master others, a natural 
 law also opposes to this irrepressible fatality a 
 response in concerted defense. The miracle is 
 that so much premeditation on one side could be 
 answered by so much systematic unpreparedness 
 on the side of three great peoples whose annals 
 are in no wise inferior to those of Germany. This 
 will be the marvel that will arrest the attention 
 of the historians. 
 
 To consider only our own case, our soldiers are 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 231 
 
 on the way to redeem so marvelously the faults 
 which are not theirs, that the flame of French 
 ardor will but appear perhaps the purer and more 
 beautiful for it. At the price of how much blood ! 
 At the price of what ruin, and suffering, and de- 
 spair ! How could we forget it, when ten Depart- 
 ments of France are still under the German heel? 
 If it seems good to me to recall these things, it is 
 because I wish everyone to understand that the 
 salvation of France will come by abandoning our 
 old ways of carelessness, which have brought us 
 so much suffering, and by bringing our governors 
 to such noble deeds of bravery and in devotion as 
 those of which the humble children of the people, 
 whom history will not know, are giving the world 
 a miraculous exhibition to the glory of the French 
 blood. 
 
 December 4, 1914. 
 
 Those at the Fkont 
 
 . . . The man who is under fire lives a multi- 
 plied life, necessitated as much by the imminence 
 of danger as by the necessity of exacting hourly 
 from his physical and moral resources a maximum 
 of result. Civilized life prepares us in an imper- 
 fect way for the sudden exertions of supreme 
 energy. Our private crises are those of personal 
 feeling far more often than of external violence, 
 and in the lands of "individualism," as the Ger- 
 mans say — that is, in the lands where man is con- 
 sidered the social reality, not a metaphysical en- 
 tity in the imperialized state — the effective prepa- 
 ration for war is lightened of its cares because one 
 
232 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 counts too freely on the resources of personal 
 force which will spring up in the individual who 
 has grown strong from a superior gymnastics of 
 liberty and free will. 
 
 The idea of the great sacrifice remains dim to 
 us. The frenzy of living does not permit us to 
 pause over it. And then, all of a sudden, because 
 Austria and Serbia have said certain things, in- 
 stead of certain others, the country, endangered, 
 calls its children to the guns, and there comes the 
 spectacle of men eager to offer their lives for a 
 cause higher than that to which, until this mo- 
 ment, they held themselves attached. 
 
 From day to day the springs of our emotions 
 and our actions are changing. Things and beings 
 that once filled our hearts, that still hold them by 
 so many strong ties, are becoming dimmer to us. 
 Nothing of the past is abolished. But the im- 
 portance of the hour has become so great that its 
 shadow is on everything, obscuring, without pos- 
 sible remedy, what is not of the present. Out of 
 the man has sprung the soldier, purified in soul, 
 firm, in whom is summarily filtered all the flood of 
 former sentimentalities, leaving only an un- 
 changeable residue of will resolved on action in 
 which shall be summed up all the inspiration of a 
 life. 
 
 For rushing into the shellfire, for entire f orget- 
 fulness of self, and, alas! of those to whom one 
 has given the best of his being (and who thus are 
 in their own right a part of the total sacrifice), 
 because it is imperative before all else to sweep 
 the earth clear of the barbarians whose violence 
 is turned against the right to one's home, to his 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 233 
 
 free speech, to the august history of his ancestors, 
 turned against the right of a noble race to its tra- 
 ditions, its thought, its age-long hopes, against its 
 right to its native land, to put all in one word — 
 for this, it had seemed, the ease and soft solici- 
 tudes of modern society had insufficiently pre- 
 pared the men of to-day. Undoubtedly they knew 
 that there was something above the common com- 
 forts of a civilization more or less refined. They 
 had been told so from infancy, they had repeated 
 it on every occasion, but what a difference when 
 voices from within and from without brusquely 
 arrested them in the monotony of every day to 
 proclaim to them that the moment had come to 
 follow the examples of the great! The examples 
 of the great, what was more beautiful in the books ! 
 It is a long way from books to action, the call 
 to which resounds everywhere in thrilling words : 
 it is to-day! 
 
 To-day ! France cries out her need for her chil- 
 dren to give their lives that she may live. It is 
 the great cry that descends from the hills and re- 
 sounds through the valleys and fills the plain over 
 beyond the horizon. And the young men rush to 
 answer, proud to think they are going to make 
 history, are going to condense in a moment of 
 time sensations higher and nobler than centuries 
 of numberless commonplace lives could give them ; 
 proud in their youth with the secret thought that 
 they will do better than their ancestors. 
 
 They did not say it. They have done it. A noble 
 answer to those who had been able to doubt them. 
 Possessed with their duty, they had even shown 
 themselves capable of silence. And some persons 
 
234 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 wretchedly misunderstood them. Look at them 
 now. No common fellows fixing their eyes on the 
 ground — it is with heads high that they face you. 
 Never a complaint from them — nothing but mes- 
 sages of hope and gaiety. From the pedestal of 
 Rude bursts forth the miracle of Galatea. The 
 stone has taken life for the achievement of mar- 
 vels that our sorry skepticism never expected to 
 see again. The heroes of older times have sprung 
 forth from the conquering arch to show the path 
 to the heroes of to-day. They have found each 
 other, they have joined arms and weapons, wills 
 and hearts. In the night, in the trenches, they 
 hold silent communion with the motherland. In 
 the day their confident daring renders her splen- 
 did. Enraptured with great deeds, certain that 
 they will expend the utmost of their forces, and 
 happy to feel that one must do more than kill 
 them in order to conquer them, they rush into the 
 field of battle forcing a frightened Fortune to fol- 
 low in their steps. 
 
 Through the endless centuries of history there 
 have been others who have known how to give 
 up their lives nobly — lives that were rich in 
 hopes, though but too poor in realization. To 
 the generations of the present has been be- 
 queathed the magnificent heritage of all the 
 treasures of the past; and if the first human 
 hordes, in dying, lost nothing but their life of 
 savagery, the man who inherits all the labor of 
 the centuries has seen growing, along with the 
 value of his own life, the grandeur of the causes 
 which, to ennoble generations still to come, exact 
 of him a larger sacrifice. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 235 
 
 What a sorry lot was that of the Philip of 
 Macedon whom Demosthenes shows us, with an 
 eye gone, a shoulder broken, and a thigh slashed, 
 throwing his members to Fortune in order that 
 with what remained he might live gloriously! 
 The glory of the conqueror is not glorious enough 
 for the humblest of our French soldiers, who 
 leave to lesser breeds the atavistic hunger for 
 the lands of other men. For their honor, for the 
 glory of their work, they would make of the 
 country that they have saved and liberated, the 
 most noble force for conquests of benevolence and 
 culture, and I am none too certain that if the 
 task is rendered harder by the indolence of in- 
 capable administrators, they do not experience 
 a prouder satisfaction in feeling that there was 
 need of them to be all-sufficient. 
 
 Such a superhuman sentiment, though it is 
 judged by them, in their simplicity, to be quite 
 natural, is what transports them beyond the com- 
 mon nature of man and causes them, at the very 
 moment when many of them, perhaps, are yet 
 ignorant of their glory, to appear to us so mag- 
 nificent; just as if the long silhouette that 
 stretches across the field at sunset had suddenly 
 stood up alive while the real object, shrinking, 
 had taken its place in the dust. Such I see them. 
 Such they are. They are saving France, saving 
 her with their blood, consecrated by a force 
 within them that makes them capable of every 
 transport. One and all, fraternally devoted to 
 the leader as to the humblest of their comrades, 
 laughing at the cold of the trenches or cutting 
 their path at the point of the bayonet, through 
 
236 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the strongest masses of the human avalanche be- 
 fore them, they reveal to us the fact that the 
 most miraculous legends of the great combats of 
 our race were no more than simple truths. 
 
 December 15, 1914. 
 
 Thoughts on the War 
 
 ... I have said it very often. We also, we of 
 the rear, have our part in this enormous adven- 
 ture. It is to suffice in everything. It is to rise 
 above all considerations of party, without allow- 
 ing the partizans of an older school, under the 
 favor of our disinterestedness, to seek to profit 
 by the opportunity to lead us back into reaction- 
 ary ways. It is to discipline ourselves strictly, 
 that we may do nothing to diminish in the 
 slightest degree the full force of our military 
 effort. It is to allow nothing to be injured in 
 our republican institutions, for which so much 
 excellent blood has been sacrificed, to see that 
 nothing of our liberty is proscribed or of our 
 right to full parliamentary control; and these 
 we must hold fast only that our soldiers may 
 fully profit by them. If, in a word, the magnitude 
 of this tragedy is beyond the powers of the minds 
 in our government, we must hold fast always for 
 the law and the right in the aim of materially 
 and morally strengthening our military forces — 
 by saving precious lives threatened by our in- 
 capability; by keeping high the morale of men 
 who will go to the sacrifice with good will only 
 if they feel that the equality of all in the face 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 237 
 
 of danger has ceased to be betrayed by the 
 caprices of special favor; and by seeking to make 
 certain the unity of all Frenchmen, not in bursts 
 of rhetoric, but in the confidence, necessary to 
 every man who would do his duty, that his neigh- 
 bor, whether great or small, whether cabinet 
 minister or private in the ranks, cannot shirk his 
 own. 
 
 January 17, 1915. 
 
 The Supeeme Eesistance 
 
 . . . The supreme importance of this terrible 
 war — the most overwhelming barbarity that the 
 world has ever seen — lies in the certainty, al- 
 ready established, that no continent will ever have 
 to submit, after our victory, to the domination 
 of a conqueror, of a master-people, peace with 
 whom would entail a series of new dangers for 
 a future more or less near at hand. No tri- 
 umphant victor imposing his will even on his 
 auxiliaries, whose mistrust might already have 
 been aroused! Only the victory of the higher 
 principles of civilization! Whoever wishes to 
 share the struggle may do so. We call all the 
 peoples to a glorious cause— the greatest with 
 which history has yet tempted them. Let him 
 who wishes to be great rise. The more they are, 
 the greater will be the chances, from this day, for 
 a higher society of mankind. Italians, Greeks, 
 Eoumanians, let them come, if they have the 
 proud feeling that the high aspiration of their 
 race destines them for a place in the terrible and 
 supreme conflict; and so all neutral peoples, who 
 
238 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 must be weary of standing with folded arms 
 while, in the greatest of terrestrial struggles, 
 their dearest interests — it is not possible for them 
 to be ignorant of it — are manifestly at stake. 
 All! A common front against the devastating 
 monster who sees nothing in man except an auto- 
 matic machine for the crushing of his fellow- 
 man! 
 
 January 30, 1915. 
 
 The Two Sides of the Shield 
 
 The vista of history is extensive enough to 
 show that the evolution of peoples toward a 
 liberation from their ancestral chains is incon- 
 testable. With all her scientists regimented, 
 with all the forces of an admirable economic de- 
 velopment, with the sovereign efficiency of an 
 absolute government bent on setting all those 
 forces at work, Germany has made one mistake, — 
 one only, but one that is irreparable, — that of 
 proclaiming herself enemy to the irresistible 
 movement of men toward a greater freedom and, 
 with it, a higher dignity. She is great, she is 
 strong; against the union of modern nations she 
 is but feeble. Sadowa and Sedan were fortunate 
 strokes of victory. It is another thing to stand 
 as an obstacle, in the path of their historical de- 
 velopment, against all men and all assembled 
 peoples. Where Napoleon himself came to ruin, 
 neither von Kluck nor von Hindenburg, with 
 their Kaiser and their Crown Prince, is great 
 enough to succeed. Against a law of nature the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 239 
 
 greatest of human forces can but dash itself to 
 pieces. 
 
 As for us, with our territory invaded, we have, 
 besides a far superior moral force, certain mili- 
 tary advantages which have demonstrated them- 
 selves rather remarkably — soldiers whom nothing 
 can beat down, and generals who have not yet 
 shown their full powers, although some of them 
 have already done remarkable things. We have 
 confidence in them, leaders and men. We have 
 forgotten whatever may have divided us. We 
 shall continue to uphold all of them, in the dark- 
 est days of their trial, strong in the great his- 
 torical lessons of the traditions of the year II. 
 On all the fronts at once we are seeing the soldiers 
 of the Kaiser straining in an unprecedented effort 
 to submerge us. To the might of their attempts 
 we oppose an unconquerable resistance. Like the 
 symbolic Blucher, which, ripped open by the 
 British cannon, ordered her last batteries to thun- 
 der, while her last men clamored, until the moment 
 of foundering. Germany is firing from every port- 
 hole, but a relentless fate is already raising the 
 great waves that will engulf her. 
 
 January 31, 1915. 
 
 Gaeibaldi ! 
 
 After many years I once more saw, yesterday, 
 my noble friend General Bicciotti Garibaldi, 
 whose name alone calls up so many memories of 
 glory, dear to France and Italy alike. For 
 modern Europe, the life of his great ancestor 
 
240 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 will remain a landmark in history. Should we be 
 surprised if, in the terrible days when the Latin 
 idea and the civilization of the world which is- 
 sued from it are menaced anew by the Teuton 
 hordes, ail those among us who remain faithful 
 to the ancestral tradition of high Roman virtue 
 turn spontaneously towards the simple and gen- 
 erous hero whose valor and grandeur encourage 
 us to all the sacrifices which the honored race of 
 our ancestors demands of us? 
 
 Giuseppe Garibaldi was one of those magicians 
 who give the word of command to peoples, as 
 to their pretended sovereigns. Such men are the 
 real workers of miracles, for they do not reckon 
 upon human powers when a superhuman force 
 urges them to deeds of mad audacity which come 
 to be, through them, those of perfect reason. 
 
 It is insensate of anyone to speak ill of the 
 laborious creators of ideal doctrines which are 
 the very foundations of our civilization. Re- 
 ligion, science, philosophy are among the in- 
 credible marvels of constructive thought. Only, 
 no amount of labor will give life to them without 
 an enthusiasm of the heart, informing the in- 
 tellect, and a resolution of the will, animating all 
 our machinery of thought. 
 
 Those who know, or think they know, will 
 speak. But words are not life. It is human 
 nature to follow, by instinct, the men who rise, 
 in the junctures of history for which we know 
 no rule, to accomplish in heroic simplicity just 
 those things that "reason" had not foreseen. 
 Prophets, leaders of men lifted above the crowd 
 by an irresistible force which makes them seem 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 241 
 
 like creatures of a higher sphere, such men leave 
 behind them, as it were, a great trail of light 
 through the chaotic ruins of the past. And all 
 those who trembled with fear or joy at the wind 
 of the meteor that nothing stops find that they 
 have lived a life more strenuous, in a moment 
 of time, than the many other lives whose forces 
 are wasted away in carelessly following the cur- 
 rents of the day. 
 
 To achieve this marvel, the man is necessary. 
 Change the places in the centuries of Christ and 
 Mohamet, and there is another page of history to 
 turn. Garibaldi appeared at his moment, but of 
 that moment he was, in the highest degree, the 
 lofty expression. Ingenuously tormented by an 
 idea, he was never willing to see an obstacle or 
 to recognize an impossibility. He merely said 
 to himself, "I shall succeed," and he did suc- 
 ceed. It seems simple enough to us to-day. Why 
 had not others come to do it before him? He 
 passed, giving the crown to those who begged 
 for royalty, and went away to hide himself in his 
 island, fleeing the importunity of glory in the 
 charm of the azured vault of his rapturous Medi- 
 terranean. 
 
 He had set free; it was for freedom to do her 
 work. It did not please him to have another 
 reason for existence. And yet, if a cloud on the 
 horizon announced to him some tempest at large, 
 if a great cry came through the air to him, if 
 the waves brought to him the plaints of a tor- 
 tured people, his clear and tender eye suddenly 
 showed fire again. 
 
 "Let us go," said his calm voice. And the 
 
242 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 bark, of its own will, carried him off, confident, 
 to the unknown. 
 
 It was thus that we saw him appear in our 
 France on the battlefield of Dijon, gathering from 
 the ancient soil new laurels of victory when 
 feeble hearts had thought the garland was ex- 
 hausted. You were there, my good Eicciotti, 
 worthy son of a hero, with the noble phalanx 
 which lavished its generous blood to make a mock 
 of destiny. The decision, alas, could not be re- 
 versed. . . . 
 
 Proudly persevering in his smiling pursuit of 
 oblivion, the man who would not accept defeat 
 entered gaily into history, like the divine figure 
 of the Parthenon whose glorious chariot sinks 
 with its dazzling equipage into the waves of 
 ocean, but only to prepare for the renewal of the 
 next dawning. 
 
 And fifty years have not yet passed before 
 there comes about, again upon our soil, on the 
 same pediment, that renewal of which the vision 
 gave us the image. Again the same enemy — still 
 the same combat ! If we look at it closely, perhaps 
 it is but a continuation of the last. On our dev- 
 astated plains the star whose coursers rise from 
 the eternal gulf finds again these same French- 
 men, sons of Athens and Eome, and these same 
 Germans in their dark barbarism, who were not 
 capable of conquering Athens and Kome without 
 falling fatally under the invincible law of the 
 Greco-Roman genius. 
 
 France and Germany face each other once more 
 on the tired soil of the Gauls. Every man is at 
 his post. Garibaldi is there also. Six young 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 243 
 
 soldiers from Italy and France together answer 
 the call of the great name, and the heroic ardor 
 in their blood sends them into the thickest of the 
 battle. Two have fallen on the field of honor, and 
 Ricciotti, who is going to receive them in his 
 sacred Rome, for a triumphant funeral, says to 
 them : ' ' It is well ; I am pleased with yon. ' ' And 
 the four survivors look on them with an eye of 
 envy. 
 
 . . . Garibaldi gave all he possessed without 
 ever thinking of a recompense. He who gave so 
 much was not capable of seeking an equivalent 
 return. His highest joy came from receiving 
 nothing and lavishing his all. Make them un- 
 derstand that, if you can, those stunted little 
 creatures who are ambitious solely to shine by 
 the foolishness of others. 
 
 . . . But if Garibaldi could have survived, the 
 finest of rewards would have been reserved to 
 him in the ineffable joy of seeing his blood con- 
 tinue to flow in a heroic race whose monuments 
 we shall add, some day, to his statue in Nice. 
 We may marvel at the power of an ideal force 
 which the great acts of such a life were not suffi- 
 cient to exhaust — at the admirable prolongation 
 of one of the most beautiful manifestations of an 
 age gone by. 
 
 . . . France was the "soldier of God" — a fine 
 title, for it was the name of the ideal of the age 
 of history when it was current. Her thinkers 
 and her Revolution maintained her, or, if you will, 
 
244 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 confirmed her, through her development, in the 
 role of the champion of ideas. That is why all 
 the rage of these savage hordes is turned against 
 us. The Garibaldis are at our side, as a presage 
 of Italy. A salutation to them! Their place was 
 clear in such a combat. They bring us their 
 hearts ; they bring us their swords. May sad days 
 be shortened by their efforts! Italy must come 
 into being, as well in her Latin conscience as in 
 her territorial integrity. Is it not so, Rieciotti? 
 
 February 20, 1915. 
 
 On the Arduous Path 
 
 Since this war is one of the entire world, on 
 account of the universality of the principles in- 
 volved in it, there has been unprecedented activity 
 in the diplomatic sphere during the full tide of 
 hostilities. 
 
 Of course, it has always been questions of 
 supremacy which have thrown peoples and 
 sovereigns into bloody conflicts. The peculiarity 
 of the present case is that at the point of world- 
 wide civilization to which we have come, with all 
 the peoples, even of the most distant continents, 
 living in the same ideas and under a plan of 
 organization very nearly common, that one of 
 them who launches upon an enterprise of general 
 domination, with the effect of bringing the great 
 powers to swords' points, at once appears as a 
 universal menace to the industrious peace which 
 is the righteous aspiration of the entire world. 
 
 I say nothing of the grand conquerors of Asia, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 245 
 
 whose impulse to conquest was destroyed by the 
 resistance, more or less passive, of amorphous 
 tribes between whom no bond of solidarity was 
 as yet manifested. Moreover, they lacked fer- 
 tile lands, since they were barred by moun- 
 tains or oceans which, in those times, were 
 insuperable obstacles. Alexander was stopped 
 by the Indus, so easy to-day for us to reach. 
 The work of the great Eoman conquests, sym- 
 bolized in Caesar, however far it might ex- 
 tend, found itself held in cheek by strict bound- 
 aries which the indolent traveler of to-day may 
 cross without even giving a thought to those who 
 have opened a path for him. The Orient closed 
 itself to Alexander, and Europe opened itself to 
 Csesar, but already it was no longer for the 
 uncontrolled domination of a master, but for early 
 organizations of civilized society which were go- 
 ing to live and grow at the expense even of Some, 
 herself the generating force of the law and 
 justice on which modern societies were to be 
 founded. 
 
 After long centuries during which the passion 
 for oppression was ingloriously exalted above the 
 obscure need of honoring and liberating the in- 
 dividual, there appeared the marvel of the wars 
 for freedom of the French Revolution, which it 
 was Napoleon's supreme error to misunderstand 
 so fully that he sought in them only the occasion 
 to reestablish, in new forms, the power of domina- 
 tion that was irretrievably condemned. He was 
 magnificently capable of turning his people into 
 machines for slaughter, but it was a personal 
 enterprise far more than one of the French spirit; 
 
246 FEANCE FACING GEEMANY 
 
 though the French mind was long enthusiastic 
 over the military tradition and unwilling to un- 
 derstand how far astray from its original purpose 
 the great Corsican oppressor had led it. 
 
 After that enormous earthquake, the leaders of 
 nations and the nations themselves sought an 
 equilibrium, more or less, without succeeding in 
 obtaining it. Wrapped in her great memories, 
 France above all was dreaming, Britain was or- 
 ganizing continents for her own prosperity, and 
 Germany was advancing vigorously in militarism. 
 It was from this tangle of ambitions for economic 
 and military conquest that the great conflict of 
 Europe, and through Europe of all the world, 
 was inevitably to burst forth. Everyone felt it 
 vaguely, but very rare were the men who dared 
 to submit the problem as it stood to public con- 
 sideration. For my own modest part, obsessed 
 by the growing menace since the peace of Frank- 
 fort, I fearlessly faced the pathetic anger of those 
 politicians enamored of colonization who, without 
 discoverable colonists, wasted, in money and in 
 men, more than it would have been necessary, from 
 the first, to assemble, concentrate, and utilize to 
 high efficiency, in order to be able to meet the 
 formidable drive which so many signs showed to 
 be in preparation against us. 
 
 Far from that, a few days before the declara- 
 tion of war, we were loftily discussing the ques- 
 tion as to how far it might be well to weaken 
 our troops of first resistance while still preserving 
 a proper appearance of military organization on 
 paper. 
 
 February 24, 1915. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 247 
 
 Destiny 
 
 ... It is obvious enough, at the end of seven 
 terrible months, that this war is one of endurance, 
 in which great surprises will probably remain 
 impossible. To judge objectively, it is unde- 
 niable that Germany, with soldiers from whom 
 much can be required, and with an accumulation 
 of military resources beyond precedent, is evin- 
 cing a remarkably obstinate resistance. But what- 
 ever the supreme convulsions of mad ambition 
 in disappointment may do, whatever damages 
 they may still inflict on us, we have and are 
 developing each day, over Germany, the superior- 
 ity of a cause in which all the interests of justice 
 and even of existence are combined. The sudden 
 change at the Marne, which was above all one 
 that took place in the soldiers, that is to say, in 
 a people armed, has given us, for a definitive ad- 
 vantage, such complete confidence in our military 
 and moral forces that we should find, in a tempo- 
 rary reverse, only an occasion for sacrifice even 
 greater yet than we have made so far. 
 
 If it were not an injustice to our soldiers of 
 the first hour, I should say that our young recruits 
 surpass, in the impulses of their irresistible dar- 
 ing, all the renown that our greatest soldiers had 
 gained up to this day. All the soul of the France 
 of history is in them. In brief moments of hero- 
 ism incessantly renewed, they epitomize the 
 legendary nobility of a people whose impress upon 
 civilization could not be effaced except by a uni- 
 versal return of the human species to savagery. 
 Glory to this young generation in whom we have 
 
248 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 put tlie best of ourselves, and who are unspar- 
 ingly giving the fulness of their lives before they 
 have even lived! These men know what they 
 desire, what they do, and what they will leave 
 imperishable behind them. They would per- 
 petuate France — France living and beautiful, in 
 that life and beauty which she has inherited from 
 the great names of her past. 
 
 We had made enough mistakes to disunite her 
 when she appeared. We do not deny our many 
 divergent efforts towards the high ideal, on the 
 paths to which the noblest conscience may go 
 astray. France is such as we inherited her, such 
 as we have preserved her,- — extreme in enthusi- 
 asms, for which the very first condition is that 
 cold calculation is excluded. More fruitful are 
 these fragmentary efforts at liberty than full 
 unity in a servitude 6f passive weakness, — but on 
 condition, only, that on the day when fate wills 
 it, the nation, the entire nation, recover its power 
 of undivided will. That day has finally come, 
 brought on by the treacherous aggression of 
 Germany, and from seeing us at our task Germany 
 must surely learn that when she wished to destroy 
 us she was able only to incite us to the full realiza- 
 tion of combined energy that we had lacked. 
 
 In proportion as our young recruits arrive at 
 the front, their increasing ardor will make way 
 against a diminished young generation in spiked 
 helmets, not one of whom could give reason for 
 his being in the trenches, except that he has been 
 told that Germany must rule the world and that 
 this could not come to pass without the destruc- 
 tion of enormous masses of humanity. 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 249 
 
 As for yon, feeble creatures, who perhaps will 
 be partly liberated from your masters by the 
 defeat which we are getting ready to inflict on 
 you, you can oppose us only with the pitiful power 
 of your muscles, while each day that dawns brings 
 to us ever more of purpose and determination. 
 Come out of your burrow, poor slaves to your 
 own infirmity. Our children, to whom treachery 
 is unknown, will ground their arms to give you 
 the time to look around. Cast your eyes on your 
 leaders, all these Junkers tamed to imperialism 
 like yourself, who drive you on to murders and 
 atrocities unknown to the savage beast. They 
 dare not confess as yet that the inevitable defeat 
 is on its way, but they have no longer the excuse 
 of even a barbarian's good faith, for hurling you 
 like cannon-fodder, without possible hope, into 
 monstrous and henceforth useless butcheries. 
 
 Look at the horizon, see all the peoples of the 
 world, many of them indifferent at first, now 
 turning their backs on your master, who bears on 
 his forehead the mark of the damned. We are 
 fighting, we British and French and Eussians 
 who have so often fought one another, we are 
 fighting for our right to live in Freedom, which 
 implies your right also, though you have not yet 
 been able to understand it. Of friends you have 
 none; you are aided solely by an enslaved 
 Austria, and feared by the feeble hearts whom 
 you threaten or whom you have despoiled. But 
 behold how, by our efforts, fear is disappearing 
 from the peoples, and those who used to tremble 
 before you are now looking into your eyes and 
 taking your measure, whereas your own people, 
 
250 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 back behind you, while awaiting the annihilation 
 of England and the sack of Paris, are quarreling 
 over bits of black bread or a few potatoes. 
 
 That is enough. You have seen. Now plunge 
 into the mud of your trench, and then meditate, 
 if you can, upon yourself and those who brought 
 you to this pass. Look out, the eyes of our little 
 soldiers are showing fire. Cannoneers, to your 
 guns! Let Destiny speak. 
 
 Our Men and Theirs 
 
 ... In the life of peoples, as of individuals, 
 there come tragic hours which must determine 
 their nobility or baseness according to the force 
 of their wills. (Fortune offers herself to man 
 encircled by a higher destiny.) If he allows her 
 to pass, she will have disappeared from the 
 horizon before he has ceased taking counsel with 
 himself. If, at the first impulse, he attempts to 
 conquer her, the spirit that moves him is worthy 
 of victory, and in this lies the first requisite for 
 triumph. By the same right as Miltiades and 
 Themistocles, Leonidas became a victor. Al- 
 though mankind has made much progress, since 
 their age, the moral problem has in nowise 
 changed. It is still a question of the development 
 in man of a superhuman power which cannot 
 exist without painful sacrifices to the common 
 wretchedness of our feeble human nature. Ani- 
 mated by the spirit of a shop-keeper, Miltiades 
 would never have known the plain of Marathon. 
 
 The hero commands his destiny. 
 
 Thus did the Belgians, when the German 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 251 
 
 served on them his insolent summons to submit, 
 for they had no other protection but that of the 
 right, no guarantee but that of sworn faith. 
 
 . . . Our information about the great deeds of 
 the Russian army arrives in a very irregular 
 fashion. We have learned enough to render 
 homage to the brilliance of an unconquerable and 
 unsurpassable valor. With their tendency to 
 look upon war as only a higher form of sport, the 
 British soldiers have inscribed upon their annals 
 such deeds as without subtracting from the glory 
 of their ancestors, give them claim to a renown 
 which perhaps only the greatest of those an- 
 cestors can share. If I dared, I should call them 
 preeminent among their peers. 
 
 As for us, there is no more to say. The Ger- 
 mans themselves, whose effort, it must be under- 
 stood, has not diminished on account of the 
 multiple dangers that press upon them, pause in 
 their reports to testify to their stupefaction. Our 
 young men are simply intoxicated with joyous 
 courage and each incident of battle only 
 strengthens it, and strengthens it beyond measure. 
 Some day a lucky man who will not have known, 
 as we do, the anxiety of these dark hours, will 
 write the history of them, and, dazzled by so many 
 marvels, will wonder if really such boys ever 
 lived. 
 
 There is no way of praising them. To render 
 them immortal in the memory of men, it is only 
 needful to describe them. Permit me the privilege 
 of a single example, the day's work of a little 
 soldier of eight jen years, who, in a furious of- 
 
252 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 fensive, saw his entire company cut down. He 
 remained alone ; with the flag, to fall quickly, un- 
 wounded, into a trench. The hours passed in 
 the tumult of battle, and, when night had finally 
 come, the trooper climbed out with his flag and 
 began to crawl toward the French lines — with an 
 uncertain sense of direction. For three kilometers 
 he was still doubtful about his way. He was at 
 the end of his strength when he saw a hut, to 
 which he went to seek a little rest. He entered. 
 Five German officers were there, killed by a shell 
 that had just exploded. A sixth, with his entrails 
 laid bare, was groaning in agony. Caught under 
 the corpses, he could not disengage himself, 
 and begged the new arrival to lend him aid. 
 The little Frenchman came to his help, and the 
 German, who was on the point of death, surprised 
 at the sight of this boy draped in his flag, de- 
 manded what he was doing there. The boy told 
 of his adventure, and the German, forgetting 
 himself, cried out in admiration. Tears came to 
 his eyes. "You are a brave boy!" he cried. "I 
 am going to die in a moment. Come and kiss 
 me first and then get away from here. Not in 
 the direction you were going — our men would 
 take you. Yours are on the other side." 
 
 The two men kissed each other, and the little 
 soldier began to crawl again. How long it lasted 
 he does not know himself. The next day our 
 men found him unconscious, still rolled up in his 
 flag. A day of rest, and little Sergeant Bourgoin 
 was again in his place in the trenches, with the 
 medaille militaire in memory of an unforgetable 
 day. He is but one. There are many others. I 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 253 
 
 tell you one could never count to the end of them. 
 How he must be envied by the good soldier of 
 some neutral country who rises every morning 
 wondering whether the bargaining of his gov- 
 ernment will make of him a hero, or a fine parade 
 soldier profiting by the bravery of others ! 
 
 March 14, 1915. 
 
 Messieubs, Faites Votke Jeu! 
 
 . . . We are in the process of pushing back — 
 slowly, it is true, but very surely — the soldiers 
 of Wilhelm II out of our land. It will take much 
 more time, undoubtedly, than would have been 
 necessary if new assistance had come to us. But 
 we feel that we have great strength of patience 
 and courage, we have at our disposal resources 
 that keep increasing every day, and success is 
 not a thing to dishearten men whose morale was 
 never higher than during our first reverses. 
 Finally, we have admirable allies, who are fight- 
 ing, as we are, for the right to life, and, like us, 
 will spare no effort up to their last breath. Never 
 was France more calm, because she was never 
 more resolute. 
 
 Shall we say it all! For the honor of our 
 history, were it not for the sad harvest of human 
 lives, we might perhaps blame ourselves for 
 desiring other friends. Everyone, in this enor- 
 mous upheaval of peoples, has chosen his place 
 as he sees fit. With the Germans at Lille, at 
 Arras, at Rheims, at Soissons, at Noyon, our 
 pride is so great that even the situation which 
 
254 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 we are maintaining appears to ns enviable, be- 
 cause we know better than anyone what we are 
 still capable of accomplishing. Let destiny fol- 
 low its course. With allies who have historically 
 been our adversaries, and in spite of friends be- 
 come neutral, we shall make our place in the 
 sun, without stooping to ill-feeling, which might 
 be transformed into ill-will. Our cause is that 
 of all, even that of the indifferent, even that of 
 those who feign not to know that we are fight- 
 ing for them in fighting for ourselves, even of 
 those who see nothing in the greatest upheaval 
 of civilization but an opportunity to add personal 
 profits to the general benefit of a victory which, 
 through us, will be that of mankind. 
 
 For the stake is not the same for the two sides, 
 since Germany is fighting to oppress the peoples 
 of the earth, while our victory will mean her own 
 deliverance as well as that of her intended victims. 
 
 March 16, 1915. 
 
VI 
 
 THE WAR OF ENDUEANCE 
 A Testimonial 
 
 . . . With a mute simplicity that disconcerts 
 admiration, with a tireless and heroic resolution 
 that astonishes everyone except themselves, chil- 
 dren and old men have undertaken great sacrifices 
 and are dedicating their strength at every hour 
 of the day without ever complaining that too 
 much is asked of them. Therefore a foreigner 
 gives us very great pleasure when, in order to 
 praise our men worthily, he thinks it sufficient 
 to describe with entire impartiality the exhibi- 
 tions of daily exertion which he had the privilege 
 of seeing among us. This is what Mr. Wythe 
 Williams has done in the New York Times, with 
 an abundance of detail which marks a scrupu- 
 lously exact observer. 
 
 I acknowledge that concerning the material 
 furnishings of the trenches his optimism, cor- 
 roborated, moreover, by copious evidence, has not 
 ceased to surprise me at the mention of unex- 
 pected refinements of comfort. Without the 
 danger which is the principal charm amid those 
 furnishings, perhaps residence among them would 
 lose its most powerful attraction. Even in such 
 things, however, the agreeable addition of a very 
 
 255 
 
256 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 modest superfluity to what is the first necessity 
 is the touching evidence of a state of mind of 
 which neither the calm nor the gaiety can he 
 altered by the omnipresent menace of death. In 
 the foreshortened picture which the American 
 journalist has been pleased to draw we have 
 recognized our actual living men — those boys 
 who, like Bourgoin, at eighteen, unconsciously 
 awaken the affectionate admiration of the most 
 professionally hardened hearts among an im- 
 placable enemy, or those "old fellows'' like 
 Collignon, very near to his declining years, who 
 died with the flag around his breast, having de- 
 cided that, for him, there was no honor higher 
 than that of a simple private. How shall one ever 
 tell of them, all those stout hearts whose aspira- 
 tion surpasses the ordinary measures of our com- 
 mon judgments! We shall never tell their story. 
 We shall take one or another of them at hazard 
 and say, ' ' They were all like that. ' ' And the fine 
 thing, the surpassing thing, is that this will be 
 literally true. 
 
 In it all there are marvels which no one seemed 
 to expect and which can be produced only among 
 peoples capable of maintaining, in the worst ex- 
 tremities of fortune, resources of will superior to 
 any circumstances. Such are the French of to-day. 
 Such must be the French of to-morrow. These 
 silent heroes speak more eloquently than all the 
 legal hair-splitters of the government. In them 
 has France recognized herself, re-discovered her- 
 self. With the same enthusiasm in which their 
 great ancestors created her, they are creating her 
 anew, whether they live or die, inspired by a 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 257 
 
 tireless, heroic resolution in which their splendid 
 ingenuous natures see nothing but simple duty. 
 
 That is why Mr. Wythe Williams, after passing 
 the day going from trench to trench, chatting with 
 the officers, paternal and good-natured, and with 
 the men clinging to the wall of the trench or 
 resting on the straw — a little chilly, whatever he 
 may say of it — of the " redoubt, " delivered an 
 opinion that is sufficient to make us proud of our 
 friends and brothers and children: 
 
 ' * After giving full consideration to the numer- 
 ous statements that the German army is the 
 greatest righting machine that the world has ever 
 seen, all I can say is that the greatest fighting 
 machine that I have ever seen is the French army. 
 
 "To me it seems invincible, from the point of 
 view of its power, of its intelligence, and of its 
 ' humanity. ' It is this last trait, above all, that 
 impressed me." 
 
 Is not this something like a decoration for 
 France before the assembled peoples? Our "new 
 spirit of organization" struck Mr. Wythe Wil- 
 liams in his visit to the armies. This laudation 
 would be still more grateful to us if we might 
 extend it to the civilians. Let us accept it as 
 the hope of a beginning, coming from the thick 
 of the action itself. 
 
 I am surprised, I admit, that the glance of a 
 foreigner should have penetrated so profoundly 
 as when our friendly visitor associates the idea 
 of an invincible army with the high moral con- 
 sideration of its humanity. The whole spirit of 
 the French is verily represented in this, equally 
 prompt to show the excess of its faults and of 
 
258 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 its virtues, but always ready, under the influence 
 of a high moral cause, for sacrifice beyond what 
 it seemed possible to ask. Mr. Wythe Williams 
 is right in proclaiming it, although it is almost 
 a stroke of genius for a foreigner to have been 
 able to discover it. Assuredly we want our right- 
 ful place, great and glorious, — we should not be 
 men if we could feel otherwise, — but we desire 
 it for the advantage of all as much as those who 
 shall have won it. 
 
 We have often been especially reproached as 
 thinkers of general thoughts, but general 
 thoughts, which must of necessity be generous 
 thoughts, carry with them, if one can avoid the 
 danger of living in more abstraction, great and 
 noble compensations. That is what brings to the 
 lips of Mr. Wythe Williams the words about our 
 army being "invincible from the point of view 
 of its power, of its intelligence, and of its human- 
 ity," with the final remark that "it is this last 
 trait, above all, that impressed me." Ah, yes! 
 These are not machines of murder, these soldiers 
 whom bursting shells enliven and to whom the 
 bayonet alone gives a sudden flash of fury, these 
 are not the artistically forged and refined pieces 
 of a machine for butchery, these are men, imper- 
 fect, indeed, but capable of the heroic fulfilment 
 of their nature in the supreme glory of full sacri- 
 fice for an idea— that is to say, for a glimpse of 
 an ideal to be realized. 
 
 Herein Mr. Wythe Williams will find the true 
 reason for that natural and touching fraternal 
 spirit between officers and men. All, with the same 
 impulse, are giving themselves for that France 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 259 
 
 which they have resolved to save, but all, from the 
 extreme socialist to the extreme reactionary of the 
 Syllabus, derive a higher power, an invincible 
 power, from this claim, the grandeur of which is 
 incontestable^ that France constitutes in their eyes 
 an inexhaustible reservoir of "intelligence' ' and 
 of "humanity." It is at once the tradition of the 
 French Eevolution and of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence of the United States. 
 
 And in that case, what becomes, it may be asked, 
 of the difference in ideals? Is it necessary to rise 
 as high as Sirius in order to reduce it to its true 
 proportion! The absolute ideal is not given to 
 man ; we know that but too well. The most igno- 
 rant among us has received assurances that what 
 we call truth is only an elimination, more or less 
 complete, of errors. In the hours of crisis, mod- 
 esty is imposed upon our declarations. Do you 
 not admire the way in which everyone, at the first 
 sign of the general peril, tacitly took for his domi- 
 nant principle the obligation to subordinate every- 
 thing to duties so all-important that they pass 
 even beyond the interest of the country, since the 
 future of the race is involved in them? 
 
 We shall come back to ourselves, calmed, al- 
 tered, transformed. Of the various ideals we 
 shall retain especially those which can exist to- 
 gether and cooperate. For when we have united 
 our ranks against the enemy we shall less easily 
 be willing to disunite them. Of course parties in 
 power will seek to regain advantages. The instinct 
 of national safety will rise above all. Look at 
 what came of the political undertaking of a pre- 
 tended ' ' religious renaissance. ' ■ When it became 
 
260 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 apparent that the Pope was not willing to condemn 
 Austria, the last support of his temporal power, 
 and that his benevolence toward devastated Bel- 
 gium was a matter of pure form, while the dark 
 Eomist circle of the Osservatore Romano, a Vati- 
 can newspaper, was exerting all its zeal to keep 
 Italy from intervening in favor of the Triple 
 Entente, silence quickly followed here as to the 
 revival of Catholicism. A fine enough lesson on 
 which everyone may mediate when, in spite of 
 so much feebleness in high places, our great and 
 good people, with their resolution and their cour- 
 age and their blood, shall have created France 
 anew, the France of humanity! 
 
 March 26, 1915. 
 
 Adieu, Bkandes 
 
 Adieu, Brandes. In order that conversation 
 may be anything more than mere clatter of words, 
 certain common traits of feeling and of thought 
 are necessary. I discover nothing like this between 
 us. I will agree that it is my fault if I have been 
 able to disdain your character and intelligence so 
 deeply. There is no other way for me to expiate 
 my error than to confess it in all sincerity and to 
 renounce, without reproach, all useless efforts at 
 conciliation between minds that can no longer be 
 conciliated. 
 
 When I have said, indeed, that I do not under- 
 stand you, I have not sufficiently shown the 
 irremediable disagreement between us. I should 
 have to find formulas in words not yet invented, 
 to express the absolute alienation between our 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 261 
 
 ways of seeing and understanding, during the 
 frightful tempest of fire and blood which human 
 wills have set loose upon Europe and which ap- 
 pears to be the greatest terrestrial catastrophe 
 that history has ever known. 
 
 In this irreducible conflict for which a solution 
 cannot be found except in the military success of 
 one side or the other, I believe it true that there 
 is no continent, no people, no man, even among 
 those most obscurely traveling in the paths of 
 civilization, who does not find himself interested. 
 And since I try, at least, to seek an explanation 
 for what I do not understand, I have come to 
 reconstruct the psychology of the human proc- 
 esses which have engulfed Europe and Asia in 
 this unspeakable adventure. I may thus, in good 
 faith, reach a classification and an interpretation 
 of the phenomena of nature which produce, in 
 legitimate descent from a Bismarck, a Wilhelm 
 II, worthy chief of a German people. 
 
 Of a truth, the Germans show us nothing new 
 under the sun, for, since the appearance of the 
 first human beings, the rule of brutal violence 
 has endeavored to institute itself among us. 
 What is novel in their case, in the enterprise of 
 universal mastery to which they pretend that 
 their peculiar Kultur gives them the right, is that 
 they philosophically arrogate to themselves the 
 distinction of a providential superhuman nature 
 which confers on them a power of ruling over 
 all peoples, and which legalizes the worst out- 
 rages. Down at bottom there was doubtless 
 something of this mental teratology in the dark 
 brain of Attila. The great weakness of the vol- 
 
262 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 canic explosion is that it has no consciousness 
 of the human misery that it causes. Whether it 
 is superior or inferior to the men — since we must 
 give them this name — of Louvain, of Dinant, or 
 of Rheims, each of us is free to judge as long 
 as he has not the saber of Wilhelm II over his 
 head. 
 
 In any case, the manifestations of brute force 
 in the world, and the resistance of the feeble 
 in coalition, in the name of a rule of law and 
 justice which everyone admits in words on con- 
 dition of being able to violate it more or less in 
 deeds, is the very substance of history. I should 
 be unpardonable, therefore, if I had discovered 
 in the Kaiser and his people in arms anything 
 fundamentally different from earlier exhibitions 
 of humanity. The "ancient German God," even, 
 shows no advance over the fetish of the savage. 
 
 What does not fail at present to disconcert the 
 majority of civilized minds, outside of Berlin and 
 Copenhagen, is that so many centuries of intel- 
 lectual and moral culture should suddenly come 
 to a climax in the explosion of primitive instincts. 
 But what is this in comparison with the spectacle 
 given us by a man, assuredly free from all base 
 motives, who is yet led by I know not what secret 
 paths of superculture to take sides furtively 
 against the elementary rights of nations and of 
 individuals, in favor of the brutal power from 
 which his own country and he himself have suf- 
 fered so cruelly! 
 
 Yes, I say "take sides," O Brandes, in spite 
 of all the trouble you are at in order to seem not 
 to do so. For you will catch no one in the net 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 263 
 
 of your artful reticence on certain points, the 
 puerility of which is obvious to every eye. Do 
 you think that those of our men who are giving 
 their lives, day by day, for the defense of the 
 native soil have not gained the right to judge 
 you — you who renounce so easily your duties as 
 a judge? They proclaim that in the presence of 
 an outrage, private or public, he who does not 
 take sides is by that fact declaring himself, and 
 with the additional shame of questionable sin- 
 cerity. In the present case there stand before the 
 victim the party who holds the knife, the party 
 who assists him, and the party who, capable of 
 interceding by word or act, lifts his eyes to 
 heaven in order that he may be able to say, "I 
 have seen nothing.'' 
 
 Yes, Brandes, but you are not even that party, 
 for, behold, there come over you scruples in favor 
 of those who are repeating against us the crime 
 from which you have suffered. You do not desire 
 the humiliation of Germany. Whatever might 
 happen, your name would doubtless be preserved 
 from oblivion (if that word has a meaning before 
 the eternity of time and space). But this par- 
 ticular phrase which you have spoken, in the 
 circumstances in which it escaped you, perhaps 
 assures you a place still more permanent in the 
 memory of man by its attestation of a state of 
 mind quite fitted to justify all the great public 
 evil-doers in the annals of mankind. 
 
 What, indeed, could better reinforce outrages 
 against the right than the submission of servile 
 minds, or the alacrity of " thinkers" to put them- 
 selves in the service of the force that oppresses 
 
264 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 them? To enslave mankind there must doubtless 
 be Kaisers and Treitschkes and Bernhardis. 
 There must also be Ostwalds (who have the ex- 
 cuse of their nationality) and men like Brandes, 
 playing the role of wounded soldier on the field 
 of battle who should rise to fight against the 
 cause of which they were the honor. This I am 
 obliged to admit, since I have the spectacle be- 
 fore my eyes, but we may be permitted to infer 
 the glory of the men by the novelty of the act. 
 
 Yes, remember it, reader, the fear of Mr. 
 Brandes, in the present circumstances, is that 
 Germany may be "humiliated." Denmark was 
 humiliated by the race of masters who compose 
 the German people; France also, I believe, and 
 even Belgium. Perhaps Brandes will admit so 
 much. He did not protest. He even refuses to 
 express himself upon these matters, alleging that 
 his silence (verbose enough) is golden — a kind of 
 gold that would not show well against the touch- 
 stone. But his supreme fear is that the plotters 
 of the greatest outrage against civilization, 
 against the freedom of peoples, against the honor 
 of the human race, the authors of the appalling 
 crimes from which Belgium and France are still 
 bleeding, should undergo a humiliation. Let my 
 country be conquered, torn to shreds, blown to 
 bits by German cannon before a Frenchman finds 
 himself of that sentiment! 
 
 Yes, I know your apology, Georg Brandes, for 
 something warns you, in spite of yourself, that 
 possibly you accept this " humiliation, ' ' which 
 you do not desire for Germany, with a rather easy 
 resignation for your own country, as for yourself. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 265 
 
 What do yon say, then! That France did not 
 come to your aid when yon were dismembered. 
 I am sorry for it. But since dismemberments are 
 increasing, is there not the more canse for anxiety 
 among those who may have preserved some re- 
 gard for national independence, or even for the 
 most elementary honor of individuals? Don't 
 scream, Brandes ! I do not claim that this should 
 bring you into the war. You say that you are 
 neutral because the neutrality of Denmark has 
 been proclaimed in an official notice placarded 
 by your king. I did not know that this monarch 
 had the power of abolition over conscience. 
 
 No one would ever have asked you to do any- 
 thing in contravention of Danish neutrality. 
 But you are a man, just as you are a Dane, 
 and it was your judgment as a man that I asked 
 for, and which you refuse to make known, not for 
 the reason that you give, but because, man to man, 
 what remains to you of critical power does not 
 permit you to brave it. Allow me to present to 
 you an eminent Spanish journalist, M. C. Ibanez 
 de Ibero, who recently wrote : ' ' My country is neu- 
 tral, and I approve its neutrality, but as for me, 
 I am not neutral.' ' Excellent words — but a hard 
 lesson. 
 
 Make yourself easy, moreover. France has 
 truly been punished enough for not having recog- 
 nized her duty toward your country. Our chil- 
 dren, on the field of battle, are expiating the fault 
 of their fathers, without even asking help. But I 
 think you would search vainly in the world, out- 
 side of the parts involved, for someone to under- 
 stand why, because a nation which is victimized 
 
266 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 as you were did not help you, you should be 
 obliged to take pity on the common executioner. 
 
 That has seemed to me the last possible word 
 of your abdication. But you were saving for me 
 a still greater surprise. I learn from you now 
 that even if we should offer to replace your Danish 
 compatriots of Schleswig in the lap of the mother 
 country, you would hesitate at an acceptance 
 which might make Germany unfriendly to you. 
 That is the last word. Seek no deeper abyss under 
 your feet. There is none. The idea of driving 
 back Danes from their native land because those 
 who had torn them away from it might be dis- 
 pleased seems to me so near to dementia (to em- 
 ploy too soft a word) that men have not yet cre- 
 ated an epithet worthy to qualify it. 
 
 I stop here, Brandes, for you cannot suppose 
 that I shall pause over the minor issues with which 
 you have the innocence to tempt me. You bring 
 charges against Russia. You will never do so 
 more severely than I have pursued the criticism 
 of the republican rule in my own country. All 
 peoples and all governments have their faults. I 
 must avow that this does not prevent the Slavic 
 mind from appearing very glorious to me, or me 
 from expecting from it a strong influence toward 
 a revival of the European conscience which your 
 Germany is making a methodical and implacable 
 effort to annihilate. I have the ambition to be and 
 to remain a defender of the Poles. How can you 
 forget to say a single word about the German rule 
 that makes the Poles in Posen bleed so cruelly? 
 Our victory, as I have written, would free the Ger- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 267 
 
 mans themselves from servitude — supposing that 
 their temperament permits it. 
 
 Russia, England, and France, whose union must 
 be maintained indissolubly, after the war, are 
 fighting against Germany to maintain their right 
 to independence, that is to say, to maintain con- 
 ditions of existence without which life is but deg- 
 radation. The small states, whether they have 
 fought or not, will profit like all the others. So 
 much the worse for those that do not understand 
 it. You remind me, with a delectable irony, that 
 we are not yet victors. It is the truth. Give us 
 time. It is not enough to have passed through our 
 country to know it. There is a power in us that 
 your intelligence could not grasp unless something 
 of the heart was combined with it. A month before 
 the war I wrote to a journalist at Vienna, "I 
 should rather see France annihilated than sub- 
 jected." Everyone can choose for his own coun- 
 try. Our choice is irrevocable. If fortune were 
 adverse to us, you would learn what that means. 
 You see that conversation between us is hence- 
 forth without object. Adieu, Brandes. 
 
 March 29, 1915, 
 
 Feom the Mountains 
 
 ... I should like to acknowledge the excellent 
 article in which M. Scarfoglio, of the Mattino of 
 Naples, has had the kindness to attest his good- 
 will for us in the present circumstances. Not to 
 mention his aid in enlightening his own country- 
 men, I thank him for the comfort he has brought 
 
268 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 to the brave men who are ready to give their all 
 in silence for a great and noble canse bnt who are 
 gratified to feel that their racial brothers remain 
 faithful to them in thought and are able to judge 
 them as their common ancestors would have done. 
 
 Of the marvelous recovery of courage and 
 strength of which the battle of the Marne gave 
 evidence, M. Scarfoglio speaks without ostenta- 
 tion, but with the simple sobriety of a writer who 
 needs only to contrast the false picture of the al- 
 leged degeneracy of France with the moving spec- 
 tacle of reality. All the men are at the front, all 
 the French are devoted to self-sacrifice. The sol- 
 diers astonish with their joyous valor an enemy 
 who thought them beaten; the women, in their 
 proud serenity, give up their sons in one accord 
 of mute heroism; the entire nation is calmly re- 
 solved upon the last sacrifice for duty to their 
 country: that is what he has seen and what he 
 tells with the simplicity of expression which the 
 mere glory of the events required. 
 
 The icy winter, the wind, rain, snow, and the 
 mud of the trenches have been equally incapable 
 with the tempest of steel and fire to affect for a 
 moment the unchangeable good humor of the 
 heroes who make game of danger. With smiles on 
 their lips, with eyes shining in joyous promise, our 
 noble wounded soldiers, cane or crutch in hand, 
 fill our boulevards with invincible hope, and all 
 that crowd, clad, alas, in mourning, but among 
 whom one would seek in vain for the drawn faces, 
 the brusque gestures, and the shrill words, which 
 are the precursive signs of enervation — that is the 
 French people who are marching, sustained by a 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 269 
 
 tranquil resolution such as in the greatest days 
 of their history they have probably not known. 
 
 In the peaceful vales of Normandy we see 
 women busy cultivating the fields, with children 
 proud to offer the aid of their little hands, while 
 aged men are driving the plow. Placid at their 
 work, the housewives in all the villages are taking 
 care of the cattle or are knitting for the soldiers. 
 Not a cry arises to break the dramatic silence 
 which those who are absent have left behind them. 
 All these people are silent, but not even from re- 
 pressed sorrow or anger; they are silent in a se- 
 erene resolution which has become incarnate in all 
 their feelings and thoughts and actions, and above 
 which they consider no interest of their own or of 
 others. So it is with our Parisians whom I meet 
 promenading every Sunday, in the park at Saint- 
 Cloud and as far as the forest of Saint-Germain. 
 This is what has impressed M. Scarfoglio above 
 all, and with reason. They are silent, with the 
 quiet look of satisfaction belonging to people who 
 have given themselves entirely to a single duty 
 and who are living, at peace, in a single thought. 
 
 March 30, 1915. 
 
 As to Shirkers 
 
 Death is leaving terrible gaps. We must fill the 
 empty places in the ranks. Resolved on any sac- 
 rifice, the French cannot think of bargaining about 
 this. In the Chambers, not a voice has been heard 
 which could be interpreted as a sigh. There is no 
 sorrow that can force a cry of pain from us. We 
 
270 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 must win at any price; we have no other law; we 
 can know no other. With hope in our hearts we 
 have seen departing those whom France called 
 first. With the same inspiration of hope invin- 
 cible we shall send into the battle, in which we will 
 not accept defeat for our country, those whom we 
 were saving for the France of to-morrow, and 
 who, at the dawn of life, will rush gladly into the 
 terrible conflict for the France of to-day. There- 
 fore, no partial reservation, no vain discussion! 
 We are told that the hour has come. And with 
 one voice we answer : let destiny be fulfilled. 
 
 Nevertheless there is no need to say that such 
 sacrifices cannot be agreed to except in the spirit 
 in which they are demanded ; that is to say, on the 
 express condition that they cannot be avoided. 
 What kind of men should we be if, when we are 
 asked to throw the budding flower of our youth 
 into the furnace, we were not moved solely by a 
 conviction of unescapable necessity? Yes, we will 
 give all of those whom the country asks of us, all, 
 as many as may be required. We will give them 
 with an impassive countenance, without voicing 
 the feeblest murmur which might let our friends 
 or enemies know that our hearts have bled. We 
 will give them, as they will go, in the transport of 
 an inward inspiration in which all French hearts 
 are united to make, out of their purest blood, what 
 is strongest and grandest in our country. 
 
 We have seen the recruits of 1915 and of 1916 
 leaving with the pride of an adolescence which is 
 making for itself, at this very hour, a place worthy 
 of their great ancestors in a history in which the 
 nobility of a race has been magnificently demon- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 271 
 
 strated. Far from frightening them, the grandeur 
 of their predecessors only excites in them the irre- 
 sistible desire to surpass their forefathers. Their 
 sublime idea is the wish to be greater than the 
 greatest, and if I did not fear that it would be a 
 blasphemy I should say that some of them could 
 already boast an ability to excite the jealousy of 
 ancestors who would not have admitted that they 
 could be surpassed. 
 
 The recruits of 1917, who are to follow, are of 
 the same lineage. On the triumphal monument of 
 Rude, to which I refer repeatedly, you will find the 
 image of their predecessors offering themselves, 
 in a Hellenic nudity, at the call of the great, 
 frenzied goddess whose arm is opening, with her 
 sword, the grand path to glory on which they are 
 to launch forth. Their eyes wandering in the in- 
 toxication of a dream, their hands repressing the 
 beatings of hearts charged with irresistible force, 
 they are going, proud and serene, to the highest 
 destiny of humanity. The immortal Phidias of 
 the Parthenon could only bring forth marvelous 
 fictions out of his Pentelic marble even after Mara- 
 thon, Salamis, and Plataea. Under the inspired 
 hand of our creator in stone we see passing old 
 men, young men, and boys, who are going to real- 
 ize and live the legend which art will exhaust its 
 genius in celebrating. And with these children, 
 who have become our fathers, carrying in their 
 hearts all the France of the past, all the France 
 of the future — with all our people, with the his- 
 tory which they have made by their creative will, 
 we ourselves are entering, in our turn, in the eager 
 procession of a mad Panathena&a to which is given 
 
272 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 all that we have of life for the struggle to preserve 
 what is purest in the country of our ideal. 
 
 We gave yesterday all that the war demanded, 
 we are giving to-day all that it demands, and we 
 shall give to-morrow also all that it may require. 
 Nevertheless, it cannot be permitted that our peo- 
 ple should be regarded only as an inexhaustible 
 source of noble blood which any imprudent hand 
 might waste indefinitely. No one proposes this, it 
 is true. But it must not be possible for imprudent 
 practices to lead to the same results as might an 
 ill-ordered method such as no one could entertain 
 in thought. 
 
 When the French people is giving all, who 
 among them would furtively arrogate the right to 
 refuse himself? Has the thing happened? Have 
 we seen proof of it? It is not denied. It could 
 not be denied without rousing unanimous protes- 
 tations from indignant families. Fathers, mothers, 
 brothers, and sisters, with their hearts on the ab- 
 sent one, keep their eyes fixed on his vacant place. 
 How should they repress an explosion of scorn 
 and anger when they find themselves affronted by 
 the strutting ostentation of idle youths? 
 
 'April 6, 1915. 
 
 European Revolution 
 
 The present war offers, in itself, a revolution 
 such as the earth has never seen. This word of 
 " revolution' ' has always exercised a magic power 
 over minds which the miseries of man have only 
 driven into the vast fields of abstract theory. More 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 273 
 
 or less, everyone suffers from a condition which 
 he often has the right to consider an unhappy one. 
 A change, a revolution, is a chance of respite, and, 
 provided that imagination is given wing, it is, for 
 the suffering masses, the hope of that chimerical 
 state which perhaps only the humble can approach 
 — the state of happiness. 
 
 The French Eevolution, which filled Europe 
 with a stir not yet exhausted, was one of the most 
 violent cataclysms of mankind that history knows. 
 But however it may have aimed to involve all 
 Europe, and indeed all humanity, however much 
 it may have done so, in its final results, it re- 
 mained so profoundly French in idea and in action 
 that neither England nor Germany, for different 
 reasons, has ever been able to understand it, much 
 less to profit by its results. Both of them fought 
 it with an extreme violence, but without succeed- 
 ing in arresting its course. 
 
 . . . The liberation of peoples is the true pur- 
 pose of the great European revolution which is 
 being accomplished, at this moment, under our 
 eyes. The independence of all through the equi- 
 table partition of the powers of peace according 
 to their legitimate affinities is the program for the 
 triumph of which are fighting the allied armies 
 which, to-morrow, will have put an end to the last 
 convulsions of the madness of tyranny. Napoleon 
 brought back from Moscow this famous phrase: 
 "Europe will be Republican or Cossack.' ' In 
 either case, it was the presage of his defeat — a 
 sort of revenge, also, on Germany, in the true 
 prophecy of a Slavic intervention in which, con- 
 
274 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 trary to his expectation, the rights of peoples 
 must finally manifest itself. 
 
 In her enterprises of distant conquest, Great 
 JBritain had scattered over all the continents the 
 fruitful seed of free government founded on au- 
 thority and liberty in happy balance. Her role was 
 indicated in advance. She prepared herself for it 
 resolutely, in the diplomatic sphere, by her agree- 
 ment with Russia. But the obstinacy of an ill- 
 formed public opinion did not permit her to realize 
 the* military preparation which she is exerting 
 herself so magnificently to supply to-day. 
 
 Now we are in the thick of the battle, and Great 
 Britain, Eussia, and France can proudly pay them- 
 selves the tribute that they have done all that could 
 be done with honor to turn aside this horrible 
 catastrophe from the peoples of the earth. The 
 day has come — sooner than many short-sighted 
 politicians had expected — when Europe finds her- 
 self forced, in order to preserve peace, either to 
 surrender her last guarantees of independence or 
 to defend by right of arms her rights to liberty. 
 The choice was made without ostentation, in the 
 calm conviction that above the care even for its 
 own existence a people worthy of the name must 
 place respect for its historical heritage, its civil- 
 ization, and its rightful place in humanity. 
 
 On the plains where death is reaping its fright- 
 ful harvest the silent soldiers of free and inde- 
 pendent Europe, of the Europe of justice and 
 humanity, are falling under the blows of a bar- 
 barian tyranny which the age-long progress of 
 mankind has condemned forever. They are fall- 
 ing, but like the heroes of the legend, they fight 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 275 
 
 on, living or dead, because it is the honor, and 
 consequently the life itself, of the civilized peoples 
 of Europe, which their heroism must decide. 
 What greater revolution could be conceived? To 
 be or not to be — shall we show ourselves worthy 
 or unworthy to live? 
 
 May 10, 1915. 
 
 They Aee Too Amusing 
 
 . . . From being the primitive weapon of the 
 feeble, slander has remained, among us, the last 
 resource of those who are not sure that their 
 power is sufficient, or who think themselves in a 
 position to abuse their power without being 
 called to a reckoning. In 1871 we were abundantly 
 insulted by all Germany at a time when she 
 had nothing more to fear from our arms. Gen- 
 erosity is by no means one of those " weaknesses' ' 
 of which a good German could fear an excess. 
 He must have his scalp-dance around his ad- 
 versary tied to the post. Then he can allow him- 
 self every license for outrage ; in this his splendid 
 soul finds a worthy field for his magnanimity. 
 The pitiful creatures of a lower order need to 
 hate basely, as other men need to love. During 
 a hundred years our Germans have never been 
 able to forgive us the victories of Napoleon, which 
 were free from the insolence with which they 
 gilded their success forty years ago. 
 
 All that time we were the people of all peoples 
 to be hated. No one could be admitted to the 
 honor of their heavy courtesy without seeing 
 stones thrown at the French. Like the hero of 
 
276 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Ibsen we could make ourselves a monument of 
 them. Then there came the worst outrage — that 
 of the puerile blandishments intended to lull us 
 into the false security of a secret admiration 
 which the German, in his good nature, could not 
 help feeling for us. At bottom, said he, what was 
 there between us anyhow, except a great miscon- 
 ception of each other's purpose? The fortune 
 of battle had decided on which side of the 
 boundary the arrow of Strassburg ought to be. 
 What was the use of the empty satisfaction of 
 pride in comparison with our common duties to- 
 ward civilization? We had once been beaten. 
 They had had their turn. Let's forget all that. 
 There are plenty of other things to talk about. 
 "France and Germany as friends would be 
 masters of the world" — so ran the talk at Berlin. 
 
 It was then that pacifist yachts took their way 
 toward Kiel for manifestations in which the 
 least of the dangers was that they might lead the 
 Kaiser to think that our simple-mindedness 
 would end in our letting ourselves be caught in 
 his childish snares. Did I not hear, from the 
 very mouth of a principal in the conversation, 
 that a man who had held an important post in 
 one of our cabinets had even permitted himself, 
 in a familiar interview, good-naturedly to ask the 
 Kaiser whether there might not be a day for 
 Alsace-Lorraine ? 
 
 ' ' That, never ! ' ' cried the Kaiser on the instant, 
 shocked to see that he had so far misled his ultra- 
 simple interlocutor. 
 
 May 24, 1915. 
 
FRANCE PACING GERMANY 277 
 
 At Any Pbicb 
 
 . . . Germany, who has taken nearly fifty years 
 to plan and complete an incomparably extensive 
 scheme of aggression, has succeeded in bringing 
 systematically together an aggregation of ma- 
 chines for slaughter such as the human mind has 
 never hitherto dreamed of. 
 
 . . . Complaints about the war-bread are no 
 longer heard; following official orders, people 
 carefully utilize the peelings of potatoes; the 
 armies of the coalition hold their lines on four 
 fronts at once; and yesterday a little soldier of 
 my acquaintance, who was at Eparges, saw with 
 his own eyes a troop of Boches, four ranks deep 
 with six in a rank, charging in parade step, with 
 savage yells, under the urging of officers, re- 
 volvers in hand, behind them. It is true that 
 the spectacle changes as soon as the French 
 bayonet appears, and that the same witness, leap- 
 ing into a German trench, could not help feeling 
 acute disgust at the sight of men throwing down 
 their arms and crawling to his ~knees, with tears 
 and groans, to beg their lives, while others, stupe- 
 fied with terror, were awaiting their fate, silently 
 seated on their wounded comrades who were 
 screaming with pain. 
 
 Very different, our own men, — grumblers and 
 sometimes even indolent when it comes to digging 
 trenches, — but rather disposed to get ahead of 
 the order when they hear the cry, "Forward!" 
 Did not the same soldier see one of his comrades 
 charging in bare feet because the order had sur- 
 
278 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 prised him with his shoes off? These are little 
 signs which say a great deal, and which are not 
 invented. 
 
 June 7, 1915. 
 
 Without Hesitation 
 
 There are Frenchmen who are asking whether 
 we are not in some measure exceeding our rights 
 in responding to asphyxiating and incendiary 
 bombs by destructive engines of the same kind, 
 and to the aerial bombardment of Paris and the 
 English coast by the bombardment of Karlsruhe. 
 In all simplicity of mind, it is impossible for me 
 to see in this puerile debate anything but an 
 absolute misunderstanding of the causes, the pro- 
 portions, the eventual results, and, therefore, of 
 the basic nature of the vastest and most bloody 
 conflict which has ever torn its path through the 
 racial assemblages of human beings. 
 
 . . . The famous doctrine of universal evolu- 
 tion is complicated as we know, by partial or 
 general regressions, more or less lasting, which 
 have often misled the most careful observers. 
 Out of the fall of Athens, out of the decay of 
 Eome, there came, in the course of centuries, a 
 renewal of progress. But we have not centuries 
 at our disposal, and we are perhaps excusable in 
 resisting, so far as in us lies, the regressive forces 
 whose violence is raised up against our most 
 timid efforts at humanitarian idealism. It re- 
 mains only to decide whether we are resisting for 
 the form of the thing, "to save our honor," as 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 279 
 
 people are pleased to say, or because we have 
 made an unalterable resolution to conquer at any 
 price. 
 
 In a cliivalric duel each party piques himself 
 on observing all the rules of reciprocal gener- 
 osity. But when a regressive assassin plunges 
 into the rooms where I am slumbering, to sur- 
 prise me with his implements of murder, I have 
 no recourse but to reply to him with any means 
 of defense that I can lay hand on. I have no 
 thought but to kill him, if that is in my power. 
 I cannot discover how wholesale assassination 
 would at all change the problem of frightful de- 
 fense which the assassin insists, from time to 
 time, in forcing on us. Of course there have been 
 established for the encounters of armies a certain 
 number of rules which the men of that attenuated 
 violence which we call civilization take pride in 
 observing, but it is only too clear that if one of 
 the two parties systematically violates them, his 
 adversary, if he does not accept his defeat as 
 inevitable, has no recourse but to conform in turn 
 to the methods practised against him. 
 
 What would the moral restraints which we im- 
 pose on ourselves become without reciprocal 
 return! Where would they be found if those who 
 are the best representatives of them should begin 
 by delivering themselves, tied hand and foot, to 
 the base creatures who are not capable of exer- 
 cising any constraint over their savage impulses? 
 I understand that doubts may still be troubling 
 the hearts of certain patriots as yet incompletely 
 delivered from the mists of pacifism. We who 
 never sought the war, but who accepted it be- 
 
280 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 cause a clearer sight showed us that it was in- 
 evitable ; we who voted for military preparedness ; 
 we to whom France owes the means of defense, 
 such as they are, which it was possible to ac- 
 cumulate; we who have desired defense for the 
 sake of conquering and of conquering at what- 
 ever price, if we have not known hesitation even 
 before the opening of hostilities, why should we 
 weaken now, in our high resolution for safety, 
 because it pleases the enemy to change the ac- 
 cepted conditions of a combat to which we have 
 submitted? 
 
 Against the bayonet, against the rifle, against 
 the cannon, against the mine, against the bomb, 
 we fight as our enemy fights. He invents other 
 weapons. So shall we. He throws liquid fire 
 upon our men. So shall we upon his. He tries 
 to asphyxiate us. In turn we shall gas him. And 
 if his barbaric ingenuity discovers yet other 
 means to murder Frenchmen we shall let him see 
 that we can find new processes for murdering 
 Germans. Moreover, there is no choice. If we 
 did not feel in our souls the power to fight fire 
 with fire in every way, we might as well go to 
 meet the invader with our hands stretched out 
 for his chains and with hymns of thanks on our 
 lips. 
 
 But, it is objected, we have bombarded Karls- 
 ruhe, an open city? To say nothing of our open 
 cities (Compiegne is the latest, I believe) where 
 women and children have found death under the 
 bombs of German aviators, what were the Taubes 
 of the Kaiser intending to do when they dropped 
 their projectiles on Scarborough, a bathing resort 
 
FKANCE FACING GERMANY 281 
 
 on the English coast, or on the suburbs of Lon- 
 don — an open city, it seems? Was it not only 
 yesterday that a premeditated torpedo sent to the 
 bottom the Lusitania, an unarmed merchant ship, 
 drowning, with a criminal determination that our 
 last Bonnot would have repudiated, twelve hun- 
 dred non-combatants, with a hundred babies 
 among them? 
 
 And people wish that we should answer other- 
 wise than by shrugging our shoulders at the ex- 
 plosions of "German fury" under the bombs of 
 Karlsruhe! Belgium has seen plenty of bombs, 
 and the north of France also. We shall never 
 do too much. We shall never do enough. Let it 
 be fulfilled, the work of death which was loosed 
 against us in spite of forty years of our per- 
 severing efforts to turn aside this frightful trial 
 from Europe. 
 
 You willed the war. You have it, and you shall 
 have it to the last drop of our blood. You wish 
 war of every kind. It will be given you. Never 
 shall we commit those savagely refined atrocities 
 in which your soldiers have found their highest 
 glory. But, to save civilization from your ig- 
 nominious tyranny, we reply to a war of ex- 
 termination with a war of extermination, since 
 you know no other. The law of brute force which 
 you pride yourself on establishing, that law we 
 shall teach you to submit to. Patience yet a 
 while. The war, it is said, will be long. This 
 is only a beginning. 
 
 June 23, 1915. 
 
282 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 They and We 
 
 . . . Our thought and our resolution in unanim- 
 ity are concentrated solely on the development of 
 our military power, and if the results have not 
 always been such as the indefatigable patience of 
 some and the magnificent heroism of others gave 
 us the right to expect, there has not been a mo- 
 ment when the tranquil fortitude of our hearts 
 has been capable of being shaken. 
 
 We shall win because we have resolved to win, 
 and because our resolution will endure to the 
 end, whatever may come. We shall win because 
 we feel that the sum of sacrifices is inexhaustible 
 to which our resolution to win will be unfailingly 
 exalted. We shall win because we have no choice 
 except to win if we would leave the ancient land 
 of the Gauls to the sons of those who fashioned 
 it into a France of grandeur and of glory. We 
 shall win because, if we have made great mis- 
 takes, we are worthy of redeeming them. We 
 shall win because Germany can offer us nothing 
 but the annihilation of the French conscience as 
 the first and sole condition of peace. We shall 
 win because the last Frenchman left standing on 
 what his feet may still occupy of French ground 
 must fall before our women and children shall 
 be carried away to the slavery of another Baby- 
 lonian captivity, from which they would not 
 escape for a renewal, worse than death, of the 
 dispersion of Israel. We shall win because from 
 living Frenchmen it is not possible that the world 
 should hear these words : ' ' France has been. ' ? In 
 the breasts of our very children the heart of our 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 283 
 
 race beats with inexhaustible force. If the best 
 employment is not always made of our will, we 
 shall be able to furnish enough of it to com- 
 pensate, and to repair the errors of thought and 
 action under the weight of which neither the 
 force of others nor feebleness among ourselves 
 will succeed in overwhelming us. 
 
 We are battling against a delirious power 
 which dares to aim at the universal exploitation 
 of the human race. We feel ourselves strong 
 enough to make resistance. We have allies who 
 have occupied and who still occupy no mean 
 place in the world, nobly acquired by the action 
 of their arms, by their painstaking and persever- 
 ing toil, and by historic manifestations to which 
 one cannot but proclaim that civilization is 
 heavily indebted. Who but a madman could 
 predict that all these are going to die? 
 
 It is true that the genius of mankind can be 
 turned against itself, the conscience of the world 
 can be ignominiously turned aside from its pur- 
 pose, corrupted in its august mission of ameliora- 
 tion, perverted in its processes. Instead of 
 aiding man onward to a higher destiny, it may, 
 in the hands of a people of hypocritical savants, 
 be perverted even into an instrument for the 
 degradation of human societies which, trusting 
 our thinkers, we had believed to be progressing 
 toward a higher justice and a higher glory, and 
 which would no longer have any ideal except the 
 progress of industrialized barbarism. 
 
 Yes. They have not feared to manifest such 
 an enterprise to our eyes. I do not know what 
 
 ancient God" appeared from the horizon to de- 
 
 a 
 
284 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 mand ever more of blood and ever more of savage 
 ferocity because the good of a single race could 
 arise only out of universal ill. The innocent 
 Moloch of ancient times desired, for the salvation 
 of all, the sacrifice of a few only. This idol, for 
 the pleasure of a few, exacts the punishment of 
 all. 
 
 Well — so be it ! Let the question be fought out 
 on the fields of battle, since it is by fire and sword 
 that the Kaiser and his people have willed that 
 it should be decided. Let them perfect by learned 
 calculation all manner of engines of murder and 
 destruction. The childish stone which the heroes 
 hurled on Trojan fields has become the shell of 
 steel a yard and a half long which carries to 
 a precise point twenty miles away a ton of ex- 
 plosive such as will destroy in a few seconds, 
 along with all the work of civilization, an inno- 
 cent population which it would have been neces- 
 sary troublesomely to put to the sword in an 
 older day. Salutations! It is the progress of 
 Germany that passes. Vessels loaded with women 
 and children are sent in hundreds to the bottom 
 by torpedoes. And behold the machines for 
 asphyxiation that appear, with others to sprinkle 
 men with flaming oil. Patience, ambitious Caesar 
 of a Eome already ended, the time will come 
 when, as you asked it of the gods, some means 
 will be found to put an end to all human kind at 
 one blow! 
 
 What is to be done? What other answer to the 
 argument of thunderbolts than to launch our 
 own, if we can? And that is what we are busy 
 doing. And we may do it well or ill, but we do 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 285 
 
 it, and we shall do as long as we must, because 
 we cannot do otherwise. At Waterloo, Grouchy 
 did not come. It was Bllicher. History changes. 
 To-day it is Grouchy who is arriving. 
 
 Italy, after hesitating, has come to know that 
 her history does not permit her to be absent from 
 a combat which is that of all humanity. In every 
 land where palpitate hearts moved by nobility 
 and independence, peoples wish to come to our 
 aid, though yet held back by jealous care for 
 commercial gain, or by lack of understanding, or 
 by the fear of their rulers — to say nothing of 
 those who see nothing in the most noble struggle 
 in the history of man but an opportunity to ac- 
 quire something at the expense of another. Let 
 everyone choose his place of glory or of dishonor. 
 
 But we French, to whom the chance of waiting 
 is refused, are in the thickest of the bloody con- 
 flict, and we are not complaining. Our heroic 
 boys are giving their lives day by day with this 
 great shout in their hearts: "Mother-land, those 
 who are about to die for thee, salute thee!" We 
 saw them depart, knowing, as they did, that some 
 would not return, and they have hardly fallen 
 before another shout arises: "Take us! Give us 
 the honor of following them!" And no one is 
 surprised, for it is the inflexible law of our 
 resolution that is being fulfilled. After those, 
 others, and then others, and always others. Let 
 the peoples who may, perhaps, owe something 
 to us, learn this new lesson of us. One is not 
 worthy to live when one does not feel himself 
 worthy to die. 
 
 June 25, 1915. 
 
286 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 In Obdee to Win 
 
 . . . Our wonderful soldier is doing his work 
 and, as all the world admits, he is doing it to 
 the stupefaction of those who, in order not to 
 fear him, had to forget his history. But this is 
 not enough. The people, whose spirit and force 
 he represents, must sustain him by their moral 
 support and furnish him with the means for an 
 offensive. It is a supreme exertion of our hearts 
 and our sinews that the country asks of us in 
 this hour when, on our invaded territory, the 
 fate of the French race is being decided. Ir- 
 remediable failure or radiant new grandeur: fate 
 has offered us only this alternative, obliging us, 
 after a life of too-protracted dreams, to show 
 ourselves men of obstinate endurance and resolute 
 will. We have and we shall have all the valor 
 that is necessary if, instead of being lured by 
 the deceptive bait of an easy victory, we are 
 allowed to study the obstacle truly in its many 
 aspects, in order that we may, in the utmost 
 frankness with ourselves, take thought as to 
 whether we are great enough to surmount it. 
 
 ... In spite of the coat of mail which stiffens 
 into constancy the inbred passivity of the Teutonic 
 mind, we have struck it a fatal blow. The failure 
 of their aggression is manifest, and, as the Ger- 
 man has not found for himself any other raison 
 d'etre except his function of crushing the rest of 
 mankind, if such crushing is from now on im- 
 possible the result must be that their failure 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 287 
 
 leaves to the Kaiser and his people no choice but 
 to succumb. 
 
 What takes the place of public opinion in Ger- 
 many — that is to say, of aspiration toward in- 
 dividual thinking, which never goes so far as to 
 show independence of judgment — has already 
 shown so many signs of weakening that it would 
 be superfluous to recount them. The men fought 
 because they could not do otherwise, and hurled 
 themselves upon us with the unworthy rage of 
 the mastiff led by a chain. "When they attack 
 us, " a wounded man was saying to me yesterday, 
 "they come forward crawling right up to our 
 trenches. But we stand up and we rush upon 
 them with heads erect." What could better in- 
 dicate the difference in combat? Their leaders, 
 fully reorganized, as are ours, still succeed in 
 making their powerful machinery work because 
 they themselves work like machines. With us 
 it is the heart that makes a hero and force of 
 will a captain. Our enemies are pushed on by 
 officers behind them. We are pressing onward 
 and the whole fear of those in command is to see 
 themselves out-distanced. 
 
 . . . All the problems of civilization call for 
 solution at once upon a line stretching from the 
 North Sea to the Euphrates. It would be mad- 
 ness to think that a fortunate military stroke 
 could solve them all at once. Destiny has prom- 
 ised us increasing honor. It wills greater things 
 for us. Let us rise to the full duties of our 
 enormous task. Our sons are giving their lives 
 with a smile. Let us calmly give air that remains 
 
288 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 of our strength. Let our contribution of endur- 
 ance be added with unchanging zeal to the tax of 
 blood. 
 
 July 7, 1915. 
 
 Hold Out ! 
 
 Ah, yes! "Hard and long!" Can we fail to 
 see that it is the fatal condition of a war that 
 raises questions of life and death for the most 
 numerous peoples, the peoples best furnished with 
 resources, and the most war-like peoples of the 
 civilized world? The barbarian invasions, the 
 Attilas and the Genghis Khans, left on the pages 
 of history such legendary shudders of terror as 
 might seem the last measure of what suffering 
 humanity could endure. Is it not apparent now 
 that the famous advance of civilization, with 
 which the men of theory cradled our infancy, 
 towards better means of resistance against the 
 brutality of nature is accomplished by an ad- 
 vance in destruction due to the fact that enlarging 
 knowledge has given human beings, themselves 
 unchanged, power over forces of which they may 
 make, for good or for ill, an ever-increasing em- 
 ployment. 
 
 . . . The fatal law of men being that they hate 
 each other as much as they love each other, — 
 or even a little more, one might believe, since, 
 if the formulas of love are multiplying, the 
 slaughter of men nevertheless is surpassing all 
 measure, — the annals of mankind up to this day 
 have hardly been more than a history of blood- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 289 
 
 shed. At school the books which were put into 
 my hand spoke of nothing else, and since that 
 time I have seen that this was, indeed, the 
 principal consideration. Only, as I have come to 
 experience some indnlgence for the wretch who 
 commits only one mnrder, I cannot help looking 
 with some disdain on those timid conquerors of 
 ancient epochs who were satisfied with one city 
 to raze or one people to carry off into slavery or 
 with a few flocks of women and children to put 
 to the sword. 
 
 What an ado over little deeds, sometimes 
 rather lively, of our divine humanity! We know 
 to-day what food our appetite for grandiosity 
 may feed upon. The poor Africans, unfitted for 
 civilization, never offered us more than slight 
 exhibitions of bloodshed. Asia, the mother of 
 men, gave us the finest spectacle of slaughter on 
 the grand scale. Europe did her best to follow 
 the example, making even peace agreeable with 
 wretched shows of circus and colisseum. What 
 was the aim? To push boundaries across a river 
 or beyond a mountain? To exact tribute in bul- 
 lion or in human flesh? A paltry ambition com- 
 pared with that of a day when a chosen people 
 of ' ' Kultur ' ' came forward with the sole doctrine 
 of its own profit in the attempt to do what no 
 conqueror or group of men had ever dreamed of — 
 to appropriate the whole planet for its uses 
 through the subjection of all mankind. 
 
 This is a program indeed, and, while waiting 
 for the day when, through the progress of 
 science, we shall travel freely from planet to 
 planet, the modesty of our organizations for 
 
290 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 slaughter may remain content with it. Germany 
 is, in reality, demanding all the lands of other 
 peoples. Nothing less will satisfy her zeal for 
 the interest of the human species. Her philos- 
 ophers, her scientists, her men of industry, all 
 of them warriors, modestly acknowledge it. It 
 is for our good that they are condemned by the 
 law of an ancient God, or Devil, at enmity with 
 civilization, to seize upon our persons with the 
 purpose of reconstructing us more Germanico. 
 
 Nevertheless, it happens that people who have 
 a history of their own do not understand their 
 interest as it is understood at Berlin. Our folly 
 is to remain ourselves, such as the immemorial 
 will of our ancestors has made us. It is for this 
 reason that we are in arms, it is for this reason 
 that a destiny from which we are inseparable 
 decrees that we shall fight until the last. The 
 struggle is altogether different from those of 
 which the least scrupulous historians have given 
 us the chronicle. For never was the stake, as 
 now, one of all the continents of the inhabited 
 globe with their girdle of oceans. 
 
 The glory of the past is a justification for living 
 only if the sons of great ancestors are of a stature 
 to equal their fathers. Kheims, and many other 
 things, make a splendid chapter in history. The 
 Greeks had Phidias, the greatest creator in stone 
 who will ever exist, and Pericles, and a prodigious 
 inheritance of minds and hearts down to the 
 greatest of all — that Demosthenes over whom the 
 Macedonian could triumph only because Hellen- 
 ism was no longer more than a memory. Sad 
 prolongation in the history of punishments down 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 291 
 
 to the Teuto-Scandinavian dynasty and its 
 worthy product, Gounaris! 
 
 Of what use is it to say, in this universal agita- 
 tion, that one man or another has not been all 
 that he should have been, that one leader or 
 another has shown himself inferior to his task? 
 Under whatever system, especially when people 
 have made so much ado as we have about the 
 verbal conquests of freedom, the rulers are not 
 feeble except when the people themselves begin 
 to fail. Let us take thought of these things, let 
 us gird our loins for trials and have the courage 
 to sound our hearts. If we are firm, victory will 
 come, and no intervention of German butchery 
 can prevent it. What are the sufferings of a day 
 if old men and women and children take their 
 stand in silence and strength behind those who 
 are offering themselves to die for what is greatest 
 in the human soul? A whole people in action — 
 it is a fine phrase. But the reality is still finer — 
 a supreme honor to those who are capable of 
 realizing it. 
 
 Nothing has moved me more profoundly and 
 given me more confidence in the blood of the race 
 than the letters of a fifteen-year-old boy, the son 
 of a teacher, who begs me, without a word of 
 sentimentality or of boasting, to have a place 
 made for him in the trenches. Inexorable law 
 declines his arm and his good- will. "Well, then, 
 Monsieur, let them send me to Serbia, or any- 
 where you like! I want to fight — I want to 
 fight !" And this was all. The men who have 
 begotten such children will not know a Cheronsea. 
 
 Patience then, but a patience of force, a patience 
 
292 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 of resolution which nothing can weaken, neither 
 the decimating methods of an enemy who, in any 
 case, cannot conquer unless we abandon our- 
 selves, nor the shortcomings in organization or 
 armament arising from mistakes past or present, 
 mistakes which it is our business to redeem by 
 sacrifices which will recreate, more beautiful and 
 more truly our own, the France of ancient 
 grandeur. 
 
 July 9, 1915. 
 
 Patience Still 
 
 Certainly it is easier to recommend patience 
 than to put it into practise, for this high virtue 
 may at certain times require a rare force of will. 
 But we are obligated, if the resolution that we 
 have made is firm, to make every effort which 
 the hour requires in whatever form and for what- 
 ever period of time may be prescribed by the 
 issues of which we must be master. As to our 
 sacrifices there is no choice: we accept or we 
 refuse the requirements of fate. Is France worth 
 our giving all of ourselves and all that we hold 
 dear? There is no other question. 
 
 I have often heard it said that the soldier's 
 sacrifice, at least, was made in one single act. 
 This is a profound misunderstanding of soldier's 
 work, for it requires a maximum of exertion pro- 
 longed until its culmination in the final explosion 
 of all the forces one possesses. If less is re- 
 quired of those in civil life, it is still true that, 
 though age or physical weakness may have 
 lessened one's value in action, the surrender of 
 personal aims is not the less meritorious, since, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 293 
 
 following the example of the man in the trenches, 
 each one in civil life must give all that he pos- 
 sesses. 
 
 Only, he must really expend this all in absolute 
 unselfishness — something that is very beautiful 
 to say, but sometimes very hard to practise. Far 
 from the excitement of the battle, without sight 
 of the adversary representing the execrable cause 
 and rising to confront him, everyone is required 
 silently to endure, one after another, the smaller 
 and greater sufferings of each hour and each day, 
 sufferings which, in sum, will make a sublime 
 sacrifice, the grandeur of which will probably 
 remain unrecognized — even if those who are in- 
 capable of such splendid heroism do not find occa- 
 sion to depreciate it. Who would not consent to 
 give his all to a cause so superior to himself? 
 
 The most wretched man among us is not with- 
 out certain aspirations toward greatness. Those 
 only count who are capable of living at least 
 some part of their aspiration. To the call of 
 events which they had neither foreseen nor pre- 
 pared for, heroes have arisen on our soil to 
 exhibit a nobility such as France must always 
 find present to complete the deeds of nobility in 
 our past. And those " civilians " of every age 
 and of both sexes who are not normally under 
 shell-fire — though they may be under it to-mor- 
 row, thanks to the Zeppelins, the perfected aero- 
 planes, and the monsters of artillery that shoot 
 twenty miles — may still live a higher and nobler 
 life. For they will not be called to know the 
 glorious inspiration which, if it comes only at 
 the very hour when life is vanishing, is felt by 
 
294 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 tlie majority of men as the sovereign expression 
 of public gratitude to one who has generously 
 paid his debt to his native land — paid even more, 
 often, than he has received. 
 
 Yes, those who shall have suffered without a 
 word, without allowing anyone to see their suf- 
 fering, those who shall have enjoyed I know not 
 what strange pleasure in concealing an honorable 
 wound as others might conceal a shameful canker, 
 those will not know the glory of a ribbon, or a 
 mention in dispatches, or an article in a news- 
 paper. Perhaps there will not even remain after 
 them the testimonial of a friendly word meant 
 to gain for them a slight tribute of homage or 
 of common sympathy. 
 
 Little it matters to them, if they know that the 
 higher law of things is in the impassive indif- 
 ference of the universe, in which neither suns 
 nor planets nor atoms can be made to pause, in 
 their never-ending courses, by the cries of pain 
 or triumph from the meanest insect or the great- 
 est genius! They did not choose their lot, but 
 they have accepted it, and it may well be that 
 this is the highest virtue of our mundane nature. 
 They made no demands on others, because they 
 found all that was needed in themselves. It 
 cannot be that the mass of men will consciously 
 be lifted to the fulfilment of this ideal. And 
 yet it may well be that every day we are. passing 
 haughtily by unknown silent heroes proud of 
 their obscurity, whose only shortcoming is to 
 refuse us the comfort of examples of virtue above 
 the ordinary. 
 
 July 10, 1915, 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 295 
 
 Impossible 
 
 The Frankfort Gazette said the other day that 
 Germany was waiting for the superiority of Ger- 
 man arms to bring us to the point of suing for 
 peace. With all the respect due to such eminent 
 psychologists, I take the liberty of stating that 
 there does not exist enough heavy artillery and 
 asphyxiating bombs to bring about that result. 
 
 Our friends the Boches, who must inevitably 
 judge us only by themselves, finding themselves 
 such creatures as submit without a pang to any 
 operation upon what they call their national 
 character, were capable of believing that we 
 should magically turn Teuton in spirit after their 
 prospective victory, just as they themselves 
 would change, in no matter what way, if only 
 the heel of the conqueror were heavy enough upon 
 their faces. And this is exactly what cannot be, 
 whatever happens. For want of a psychology 
 sufficiently objective, their Frankfort Gazette 
 expects of us precisely the thing which it is 
 impossible for us to grant them — our own col- 
 laboration for the ultimate dishonor of the French 
 name. 
 
 They wish from us more than it is in our power 
 to give. There ought to be, in Sancho's bag, a 
 proverb saying, "Whoever opens his mouth too 
 wide will see it closed.' ' It is exactly what is 
 happening to them. When we lost Alsace-Lor- 
 raine, though our hearts were bleeding, France, 
 as someone said so well, still remained. France! 
 That is to say, all the power of her past, all the 
 
296 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 power of her hopes, from which we could expect 
 a continuation, ever splendid, of the glory of our 
 ancestors, manifested in a revival of our great- 
 ness. 
 
 We were not dead, and we saw before us the 
 opportunity to regain — for the happy fulfilment 
 to which our history called us — the high tradi- 
 tions of French thought. It is another matter 
 to-day, for nothing more can now be demanded 
 of us without requiring the repudiation of all our 
 racial existence in the disavowal of our very 
 selves. Macbeth killed only sleep. What is such 
 a punishment in comparison with one that would 
 leave us alive after killing all hope in us, after 
 drying up the springs of every aspiration of our 
 lives 1 This time we could no longer conceive the 
 idea of renewing our life, since we should have 
 ourselves proclaimed to all the world that France 
 had no longer a justification for existence. 
 
 Bismarck, Treitschke, Bernhardi, and their 
 assistants among the "intellectuals," came to ex- 
 plain to us scientifically their theory of the 
 Teutonization of the universe, and the Kaiser, 
 aided by his two million socialists, appears on the 
 French and Belgian fields of battle to put the 
 theory into action. Into action against whom! 
 Not only against the French people, as in 1870, 
 when Austria, just swallowed, had given Germany 
 a taste for bloody feasts. No! Against all that 
 remains, this time, neutral or combatant, of in- 
 dependent Europe. Even if we were destined to 
 annihilation, there wculd remain to us the honor 
 of having been the fii^st to confront the enemy. 
 
 It was because we had recognized instinctively 
 
FRANCE PACING GERMANY 297 
 
 (not soon enough, unfortunately, to prepare our- 
 selves for it as we should have) the enormous size 
 of the stake that the German Emperor, in the name 
 of his people, was going to throw upon the board — 
 upon the plains of France, covered with lakes of 
 blood. And as we foresaw, the great imperial 
 game is now in progress. We won at the Marne. 
 Our power to win is not yet exhausted. It can- 
 not be exhausted, because the French soldier — 
 who remained until the fatal moment silently at 
 his machine or his plow — has understood that 
 a supreme honor has magnificently fallen to 
 him: that of representing in this unprecedented 
 struggle, besides his own cause, glorious enough, 
 the cause of mankind itself. In older days he had 
 been told that he was the "Soldier of God." He 
 feels that he is the soldier of man, in this hour, 
 and does not think his title less noble. We may 
 therefore wonder at the power he can derive from 
 the two strongest motives of the human race : the 
 concrete feeling that he is defending his home, 
 his country, his beliefs, his language, his history — 
 all the glory of France which would sink into ob- 
 livion if he were capable of defection ; and the en- 
 thusiasm descending with increasing power from 
 his fathers, of an idealism which makes him the 
 champion of mankind. 
 
 The German has taken it as his mission to rule ; 
 our mission is to set free. To disappear from the 
 world or to save it, with the help of our great 
 Allies (among whom I forget neither Belgium nor 
 Serbia), such is the prodigious alternative which 
 fortune submits to our choice. That is what 
 brings together in French fraternity, at last re- 
 
298 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 discovered, all our social classes which but yes- 
 terday believed they hated one another because 
 so many disastrous differences of ideal had sepa- 
 rated them. That is what carries our youths to 
 the trenches, our youths who were looking for 
 their way amid our sorry quarrels and who, 
 thanks to Germany, have suddenly found it. That 
 is why all the peoples are awakening, as in the 
 great days of the past, to the voice of the terrible 
 warrior-woman whom Rude has launched scream- 
 ing over Paris, that the peoples may hear her in 
 every place. We and our companions in arms 
 know where she leads. She leads us to efforts 
 for liberty, for justice, for the right, for glory, 
 which, if they remain but efforts, will still leave 
 a noble indication of our passage. 
 
 . . . Behold the field that you have made, that 
 you have willed, prophets of Germany! Like 
 the soldiers of Cambyses swallowed up in the sand, 
 you may rush forward with all your engines of 
 death to be buried in the end under the mountains 
 of corpses that you have built up. You cannot 
 win because you are endeavoring to turn back the 
 course of the history of man, which advances from 
 the rule of force to progressive liberations. 
 
 You cannot win because behind our armies as 
 you see them in the line there are forces of his- 
 toric destiny, of reasoned resolution, and of in- 
 defectible conscience, which impel us, weak or 
 brave, to the supreme virtues of a heroism ever 
 growing, which the ever growing excess of your 
 savagery will but strengthen. 
 
 You cannot win because the force of a day can- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 299 
 
 not last more than a day when it seeks to fortify 
 itself by the violation of the right. 
 
 You cannot win because your force is one of 
 servitude organized to infect human societies with 
 your corruption of culture. 
 
 However powerful it may be, what is the most 
 marvelous machine worth, if the man is not at the 
 lever? The handle of the lever is not for your 
 servile grasp ; an education in manhood is needed 
 for it. 
 
 You cannot win because all your wise organiza- 
 tions of servitude make out of you only automa- 
 tons, which may imitate the motions of a free life, 
 but which know not freedom. The nations are 
 coming to an equilibrium in liberty ; and what the 
 despots of genius could not do, will not be for 
 Wilhelm II to realize. 
 
 No. You will not win, you cannot win, because 
 we are resolved — under pain of seeing ourselves 
 insulted by our past, by our fathers and our chil- 
 dren — to follow one another to the front until the 
 last man is exhausted, to take more and more of 
 your base lives while generously giving of our 
 own all that the nobility of our blood shall de- 
 mand. You will not win because you can never 
 bring it to pass that everyone who is worthy of 
 the name of man on the inhabited earth shall not 
 be alarmed if we are forced to yield, and because, 
 in case of reverses that we deem impossible, you 
 would see rising before you, by the side of Great 
 Britain and Eussia — themselves inexhaustible in 
 men and money — allies whom we feel to be already 
 trembling, and who, if the greatness of the danger 
 suddenly appeared, would throw irresistible rein- 
 
300 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 f orcements against your last soldiers overcome by 
 exhaustion. Victory cannot be yours, I say. 
 There may be some among you who can still be- 
 lieve in it, because, like educated Titans, you have 
 built new machines for piling Pelion upon Ossa. 
 Don't you know that the giant divinities did not 
 succeed in scaling Olympus in this way? We are 
 too high, and you are too low. 
 
 And you expect, madly trusting in your mon- 
 strous shells and your clouds of gas, that they will 
 bring us to dishonorable suicide? You have not 
 observed us well. On our side, Boches, we know 
 you ; as for you, you will come to know us. 
 
 July 11, 1915. 
 
 Against the Theme of Passivity 
 
 ... I was quite aware that this people had 
 accomplished great things. But our romantic 
 nature had made such a stir over them that I won- 
 dered sometimes at what exact point reality and 
 imagination had met. Nevertheless the incredible 
 fortune has been reserved for us to see our sons 
 greater, greater in ultimate devotion with ultimate 
 simplicity, than they could have been imagined by 
 their inspired fathers, carried away by hatred of 
 tyranny even to the point of accepting Napoleon, 
 as the ancients of the Roman republic accepted 
 Csesar. 
 
 The soldiers of the year II were astonishing 
 products of French nature. Our silent sons whom, 
 even yesterday, I could not look at without having 
 words of pity rising sometimes to my lips, have 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 301 
 
 reached and passed them at one bound. The great 
 artist Meheut, coming from his trench on a fur- 
 lough of four days, gave me a brief glimpse of 
 some tragic sketches the sight of which will cause 
 a shudder from these great hours to pass through 
 the souls of our descendants. All display is absent. 
 There is no place for pose in this mass of unas- 
 suming men that spring fantastically from the 
 ground in a furious offensive before which no 
 enemy could hold. Not a family that has not its 
 page of heroism. Not a mother, not a widow, not 
 a child, who does not wear the mourning like a 
 flag. It seems as if our wounded men ask pardon 
 for an incomplete sacrifice. Shirkers have been 
 seen to blush and demand to be sent to the front 
 in order to spare themselves the kick which is 
 going to impel them thither soon. 
 
 The whole people of France is in arms, proud 
 to have thrown off the heavy weight of the com- 
 mon things of life for the magnificent enthusiasms 
 of disinterested ardor. The cause ennobles them 
 and, indeed, by the beauty of total sacrifice they 
 ennoble the cause in turn. Men of sovereign will 
 with their strong arms are holding back the scien- 
 tific might of German machinery. On the great 
 American prairie, in the days of the first railroad, 
 innocent Eed-skins tried to stop the course of the 
 locomotives with their bodies. To-day they might 
 see white men turning back the German engine of 
 death which was to crush upon its passage, like 
 the car of the bloody Hindu cult, a whole mass of 
 humanity. 
 
 August 1, 1915. 
 
302 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Time to Beeathe 
 
 "Time to breathe," says the Times. Bussia, it 
 remarks, has given us the "time to breathe." I 
 am unable to determine how much truth there is 
 in the metaphor, for one would have to know 
 exactly how far we have advanced in the manufac- 
 ture of arms and munitions in France and Great 
 Britain — and more especially one would have to be 
 qualified to judge the military operations. 
 
 Our Frenchmen had no need to take breath, any 
 more than did our Allies. After a year of the 
 most severe tests, I am bold to say that their mo- 
 rale was never better. The enthusiasm of the first 
 days has been transformed, among us, into a quiet 
 resolution to see the business through at any 
 price, and that resolution goes hand in hand with 
 a certain gaiety of spirit that is Gallic. The 
 British are more grave, though they, also, are not 
 without a bit of banter on their lips. But the same 
 feeling unfailingly animates all men— namely, 
 that an hour has come which demands of them the 
 full exertion of which they are capable, rather 
 than to yield. Doubtless they have neither the 
 time nor the means for determining precisely the 
 full reasons for this state of things, but they are 
 abundantly certain that defeat would mean the 
 end of a history in which they take pride, while 
 victory would mark for them, in the fortress of 
 their rights, and for all civilized peoples pursuing 
 a free and peaceful development, a nobler renewal 
 of glory. 
 
 And what of the other side? There we see 
 oligarchic tyranny cooperating with popular ser- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 303 
 
 vitude for the purpose of mastery which must im- 
 pose on all the nations the yoke by means of which 
 the German feels that he gets revenge for his base- 
 ness by crushing peoples who are superior to him 
 but less powerfully organized. The only question 
 remaining is as to which of the two forces is capa- 
 ble of offering the longest continued effort. 
 
 If we look at the matter closely enough, there 
 is no need of a great effort of mind to understand 
 that in all this we have a continuation of the series 
 of wars of the French Revolution, in which, as 
 now, France and Germany faced each other in 
 epic combats for and against freedom. The de- 
 centralized character of the political and social 
 institutions of Great Britain did not permit a 
 world-wide influence for her doctrines, and the 
 proclamation of rights which accompanied the 
 American Declaration of Independence aroused 
 peoples at that time too far distant for Europe 
 to be unsettled by them. The ideal doctrines of 
 the French Revolution were the more inspiring 
 to minds still incompletely awakened because of 
 the fact that even the protagonists of the great 
 battle did not have the time to lose themselves in 
 disquieting dreams about the distance that sepa- 
 rates phrases from living reality. All this ap- 
 peared to be engulfed by the Napoleonic catas- 
 trophe, which was an unsuccessful counter-attack 
 against personal liberty — an attack that Bismarck 
 anew was powerless to bring to success. 
 
 A power for freedom — but for a freedom in 
 which mere abstract theory had no part — Great 
 Britain, already extending her influence through- 
 out the world, turned against the nation that had 
 
304 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 sowed over all the continents the seeds of inde- 
 pendence. Victorious, with Germany, at Water- 
 loo, she was already only a spectator at Sedan, and 
 my eminent friend, Admiral Max, at that time 
 vainly upheld, with a tireless courage, the cause 
 of France among his fellow-citizens. After half 
 a century, we see how great still was the strength 
 of the resistance, on the other side of the channel, 
 against the abandonment of the haughty theory of 
 ' ' splendid isolation. ' ' 
 
 Ah, no! There is no longer a people isolated. 
 The machinery which has multiplied rapid com- 
 munications on every side, has so securely bound 
 us with that easy girdle with which the Puck of 
 Shakespeare encircled the globe in the turn of 
 a hand, that we can no longer slip out of it — bound 
 us so securely that, in spite of themselves, the 
 mutual responsibility of men is established equally 
 in the sphere of rights and in that of interests. 
 Is this not an evident and inescapable fact, when 
 destiny is pronouncing that it is Eussia who shall 
 liberate Poland, and when the Czar, whose father 
 had already risen to listen to the Marseillaise, is 
 favorably receiving the Duma when it pleads for 
 freedom, while below the equator the Eepublic of 
 Uruguay is choosing July 14 as the date of its 
 national holiday? 
 
 ... Is it not apparent, in a word, that all 
 humanity is drawing together? And since it can 
 only be united by a principle of law and justice— 
 that is to say, a human approximation of justice — 
 we enjoy the good fortune of being workers in the 
 greatest task that men have ever known. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 305 
 
 Doubtless our soldiers do not trouble themselves 
 with analysis like this, but, not less clearly than 
 their fathers of the year II, they have the convic- 
 tion that they are the bearers of a treasure of doc- 
 trines and purposes, and, not less valiantly than 
 their forebears, they have resolved to see that 
 through their efforts the peoples shall be defini- 
 tively enriched out of that treasure. They pre- 
 serve a full consciousness that they are the cham- 
 pions of the greatest cause that was ever fought 
 out by our people, and, their pride of race and love 
 of home not permitting them to weaken, they are 
 required to be the first among men or the last. 
 
 I am trying to say all this as simply as is pos- 
 sible for me. But why assume a deceitful humility 
 at an hour of supreme crisis when the nobility of 
 our cause, even in the defection of certain leaders, 
 must be our firmest support? 
 
 Therefore when there is talk of "time to 
 breathe," the question cannot be of a recovery of 
 moral force, since at no moment has our energy 
 been of greater vigor. Vires acquirit eundo. Con- 
 trary to what has been the case up to the present, 
 never have the French people been less inclined 
 to external manifestations, never has one seen 
 them more deeply resolved. 
 
 August 10, 1915i 
 
 The Only Question 
 
 . . . It is not only the land of France — moun- 
 tains, valleys, and plains — that must be saved 
 from the unclean Boche reeking with contamina- 
 tion. It is the fruits of this generous soil, which 
 
306 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 has given birth to so many noble men of thought 
 and men of action in all the fields in which the 
 highest aspirations call for the most nnselfish 
 exertions. Our dead, our great dead, that illus- 
 trious dust that gave us life — it is for them, for 
 those of the past as for those of the future, that 
 our sons are in battle. 
 
 On account of theories and phrases which we 
 did not always understand very clearly, we had 
 separated from one another, hated one another, 
 killed one another. Even in these implacable dis- 
 agreements there was rivalry for the construction 
 of a higher France. In this ambition, daring, 
 doubtless, but noble indeed, is it not time to unite 
 ourselves anew, no longer under the weak hand 
 of a pretended master of chance but in the ful- 
 ness and the honor of our free will? When our 
 panting country calls to us, accursed be he who 
 can hesitate ! And when our land demands every 
 effort of every Frenchman and Frenchwoman, 
 accursed, thrice accursed, be that one who can 
 limit the full gift of his powers of thought and 
 action in behalf of the noble soil of which we do 
 not agree to be degenerate children! 
 
 This is the question, the only question; there 
 can be no other, or rather, if there are others, we 
 do not want to know them. For France we will 
 give all of our efforts, of our wealth, and of our 
 lives that may be required, and above those who 
 have fallen or who are still to fall upon the battle- 
 field of glory, we take our oath that, whatever 
 comes, we shall never surrender to the enemy. We 
 shall make every sacrifice of blood and treasure 
 to save the sacred earth where sleep those men of 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 307 
 
 France whom our sons will bring to life again. 
 For if the declaration of war, by some miracle, 
 mobilized a whole people of heroes, we may await, 
 in our victorious peace, a mobilization no less 
 splendid of the French genius. 
 
 . . . We have but one idea now. All those sol- 
 diers, whom it is easy to celebrate but whom it is 
 much more necessary to aid, will some day come 
 back to us in glory, after new trials without num- 
 ber. That will be the noblest day of our history. 
 It is for us to make it so, by meriting it. Our sons, 
 then, in the pride of their sacrifice, in the noble- 
 ness of sublime duty done, in the overthrow of 
 boundless hope, though they may yet be quivering 
 from pitiful sufferings, will look us in the face. 
 Which of us would want to be forced to lower his 
 eyes? Which of us could listen to the terrible 
 words, "Why did you not do more?" 
 
 August 25, 1915. 
 
VII 
 
 A VISIT TO THE TRENCHES 
 THE CHAMPAGNE OFFENSIVE 
 
 The Smile of the Teenches 
 
 I have just been to see our soldiers at the front. 
 As luck would have it, my trip coincided with the 
 great and fortunate offensive which is still in 
 progress, and therefore I was able to observe all 
 the branches of the service in full action. I did 
 not by any means go there to seek materials for 
 literature. Judgments founded on fact, in so far 
 as a necessarily brief visit gives opportunity for 
 them — that is what I went to seek. I am there- 
 fore very happy to say that everything that I saw 
 afforded me ample satisfaction. Opportunities for 
 which I was more than grateful allowed me to go 
 about everywhere, to observe the operation of all 
 parts of the service, to talk with everybody, in 
 the rear and at the front, and to obtain, in general 
 and in detail, something that was more than a 
 mere series of impressions. 
 
 ... I was not an investigator obliged to make 
 a detailed inquiry into things in order to be able 
 to render a verdict on the fashion in which each 
 man is fulfilling his duty. I did not have to make 
 a scrutinizing examination. I had received no mis- 
 sion of that kind, but, following the work of the 
 
 308 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 309 
 
 senatorial commission on the army, I believe I was 
 able to cast a sharp enongh eye npon our present 
 forces at the very moment when they were com- 
 bined for the greatest task that war assigns them 
 — an offensive campaign. 
 
 ... Of his enormous task, the soldier in the 
 trench, under falling shells, sees only that part 
 that is directly in front of him. He knows that he 
 has dislodged the Boche from this bit of woods, 
 from this ravine, from that plain or that hill. He 
 knows that such and such a plateau must be taken 
 to-morrow. He placidly looks at his comrades 
 still lying stiff on the ground for which they have 
 given their lives, as he prepares, in an unspeakable 
 scorn of the enemy, for the attack against the next 
 obstacles. 
 
 "Monsieur, have you any news from Boubaix?" 
 says one. 
 
 "Shall we soon get Lille! " asks another. 
 
 "Do you know how far we have advanced V 9 
 
 "Ah! if to-morrow we could. . . " 
 
 And each one begins to explain his plan of 
 strategy. 
 
 "And back there, they are satisfied with us, eh? 
 It was pretty hard, but we didn 't do so badly. ' 9 
 
 "And the Eoumanians and Greeks? What about 
 them?" 
 
 And for each one of these people comes an ap- 
 propriate epithet, with a bantering pucker of the 
 lips to signify that they can get along without 
 help. 
 
 There is only one question that you will not 
 hear : 
 
310 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 >> 
 
 "Is this going to last long? 
 
 The rain is falling. Our feet are sticking in the 
 mud, and, under his blue helmet, exactly like the 
 casque of Mambrino, a little knight, of the color 
 of the ground, who has over the knight of the sad 
 countenance the advantage of not knowing his 
 grandeur, while incessantly guessing at the direc- 
 tion of the shells that are passing, is demanding 
 to know about everything from his unhoped-for 
 visitor. How could the visitor deceive him? It 
 would be shameful to do so. He wants to know 
 because he needs to know in order to be at peace 
 with himself. But he is beyond the need of en- 
 couragement, given up as he is to unbending reso- 
 lution, silent but inexorable. Ill-clad, ill-kempt, 
 dirty, sparing of words — for there is no one less 
 talkative — he speaks in a low voice amid the stri- 
 dent clangor of earth and air, and all you notice 
 about him is a very happy smile which tells of 
 his quiet exaltation in being what he is and where 
 he is, in behalf of a great cause to the height of 
 which he rose at the first bound. Friendly reader, 
 I bring you the smile of the trenches of Cham- 
 pagne, which is also that of Artois and of the 
 Argonne; it is something more than a smile of 
 confidence, it is a smile of certainty. 
 
 Since everything comes down to the question of 
 the soldier, as I said a moment ago, it is this little 
 soldier that I should like briefly to show you in 
 the course of my trip. I shall try to let him pass 
 rapidly before your eyes in his daily life, of mili- 
 tary action. You will excuse me if I have not been 
 able to keep from anticipating my conclusion at 
 the beginning — namely, by faith in the well-con- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 311 
 
 trolled smile of the trenches, which surpasses hope 
 because it is the serene and undoubting affirmation 
 of an immovable will. 
 
 October 1, 1915. 
 
 In Memoeiam 
 
 Since all questions of preparedness, of organi- 
 zation, and of actual engagement in battle come 
 down to the question of the soldier, it is on the 
 soldier that the duty falls of the supreme exertion 
 in which is epitomized, with his own valor, that 
 of the entire nation. My mind was intent upon 
 the latent character of man, who still retains so 
 many traces of former defects, and who can only 
 counteract these shortcomings by an excess of 
 valor; it was in this mood that I approached the 
 mystery of this simple and traditionally obstinate 
 soul of the French soldier, who has written with 
 his blood, on our Gallic soil, so many glorious 
 pages of history. 
 
 Is our race at the end of its effort? It is the 
 cruel question which all the events of our public 
 life for half a century have put before us daily, 
 when, driven back to the foot of the Vosges, we 
 saw the ancient power of the Germans rising and 
 threatening the world, ready to overthrow again 
 the Greco-Roman civilization in order to seize 
 upon the destinies of peoples and to mold them, 
 according to its iron plan, to the primitive pur- 
 poses of violence organized against all the aspi- 
 rations for individual liberty which are the honor 
 of mankind. 
 
 Under the weight of this dreadful nightmare, 
 
312 FBANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 repelling the vision in so many troubled hours, 
 I used to invoke the support of that Frenchman, 
 unknown to fame, who, from generation to gener- 
 ation, has paid in unutterable sufferings and in 
 lavish streams of generous blood for passing 
 faults, which he redeemed so nobly that he re- 
 mained the hope of every victim of force exerted 
 against the right to live in justice. 
 
 I traversed the battle-field of the Marne; and 
 there I found him, this anonymous hero, who asks 
 for none of our empty-sounding, conventional 
 eulogies, being content in the green mound beneath 
 which he has gone to sleep in the vision of a glori- 
 ous exertion which even death could not weaken. 
 This soil which has taken him back was his pity- 
 ing step-mother, tender and rough at once. Per- 
 haps he cherished her no less for her rigors than 
 for her sweet charity in his last hour. 
 
 From the sea to the mountains he enveloped 
 her in an immense robe of inexpressible love on 
 which were founded all the enterprises of a soil 
 generous and miserly by turns, all the lively hopes 
 of home, all the aspirations of that infinite heaven 
 which, even though deceptive, had none the less 
 guided his soul in its march toward the star which 
 it may be more beautiful to travel toward than to 
 attain. From the misty horizons of the ocean, 
 from the limpid blue of the Mediterranean, mother 
 of high civilizations, from the rugged summits of 
 the Pyrenees and the Alps, from the smiling val- 
 leys of his beautiful rivers, lavishing their gener- 
 ous harvests, he came here to fall with his face 
 toward the invader. An irresistible power brought 
 him to this place, to which the fierce resolution of 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 313 
 
 those who loved him agreed that he should come, 
 to prove, even in death, the honor of a sacrifice 
 superior to love. If the earth could speak she 
 would tell us of all those great deeds in history 
 from which she is still quivering, and which we 
 coldly embalm in lifeless pages. Fate wills it that 
 she should conceal her processes from us within 
 the bottomless gulfs of her infinite teeming. She 
 is silent, but the little we know of what has been 
 is enough to lift us above ourselves and to make 
 for us a life higher than our own by attaching us 
 to the great chain, of iron and gold together, in 
 which we are like a link, fragile yet durable, be- 
 tween the things that were and the things which, 
 through us, are to be. 
 
 These eloquent graves are of yesterday. The 
 soul took flight in the twinkling of an eye. But 
 by the roadside, in the hollow of the valley, on 
 the slope of the wooded hill, the body, slower to 
 vanish, has remained in the place where it fell to 
 express the inflexible will of the country under 
 supreme danger, and to cry to the passer-by that 
 the noblest impulse of a life was arrested there. 
 We do pious homage — homage of all to a single 
 one who knew how to embody, in a crucial moment, 
 the highest moral energies of a people worthy to 
 live, in the conviction that they who must carry on 
 the task will do so. And we pass on, going from 
 those who have given their lives, without a word 
 or gesture that was spectacular, to those who havo 
 been for a year in the battle. We wish to derive 
 new strength from the sight of the fighters whose 
 own strength will never be exhausted, and since 
 our living soldiers are no less glorious than our 
 
314 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 dead, it is needful that France, at least, to re- 
 main sure of herself, hear it proclaimed. 
 
 She is there, all the great mother-land. See her 
 quivering in the seeming passivity of those old 
 men and women and children, tragically serene, 
 content to live in the ruins of the villages where 
 barbarism has passed. A crumbled church, pieces 
 of walls, shafts of blackened stone, and all else 
 is twisted iron and piles of rubbish in which, under 
 certain props, vague niches have sometimes been 
 hollowed out. 
 
 Here is a town or a village where yesterday 
 the modest and happy toilers were pursuing their 
 peaceful course, when the base enemy, beaten, 
 conceived the dishonorable thought of taking 
 vengeance for his defeat on populations that were 
 defenseless, by wholesale slaughter, by fire, and 
 by a visitation of ferocities to the details of which 
 the tongue refuses to lend itself. 
 
 Not far from here are camps of refugees bid- 
 ing their time for the next renewal of the life 
 of France. And in good testimony of the im- 
 passive resolution whose roots cling irremovably 
 to the scattered stones, children are playing amid 
 the ruins; women are knitting seated on a flag- 
 stone before the threshold of what was their 
 home; with a graceful, swinging step, young girls, 
 who have not renounced the ways of innocent 
 coquetry, are going to the fountain or taking care 
 of I know not what households in the little 
 wooden cabins among which we find inscriptions 
 like town-hall, bakery, grocery, and displays of 
 goods that my hat would hold. On the public 
 square, as yet but vaguely apparent, of this 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 315 
 
 charming little town, which was Sermaize, a 
 fountain continues to tinkle in its metal basin, 
 just as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Likewise, on the visages of the wandering forms 
 no emotion from the past is written. Outhouses 
 of wood make a habitation behind which faces are 
 smiling, and if some house, one knows not how, 
 has remained standing, the windows, often 
 adorned with flowers, are opened in good evidence 
 that life still goes on. And here are old men, 
 heavy of step, accompanied by women with de- 
 termined mien, taking their way toward the field 
 or garden, whither they are called by the re- 
 mainder of the crops among the graves, the sole 
 monuments where the thought of those who still 
 live can still be revived. This simple and serene 
 courage of those whom the tempest has spared 
 seemed to me more affecting than were perhaps 
 the dreadful convulsions of the first despair, the 
 memory of which seems so far away that the 
 heaps of stone are needed to proclaim what the 
 impassive pride of their eyes will not say, until 
 the right has been revenged. 
 
 Life must be begun again, and they are be- 
 ginning it. The present and the future are cut 
 off from the past — the past of misfortune, not the 
 past of history, on which the soul founds an un- 
 changing pride. Yes! There is a past which 
 remains present, and it is at the tombs of the 
 great dead that the silent meditation of the living 
 has made it perpetual. They are there, the august 
 protectors of a land already sanctified by the 
 sacrifices of ancestors which their heroism is 
 continuing and of which they must, above all, 
 
316 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 bequeath the example to the young minds who, 
 to-morrow, will receive the burden of the future. 
 
 And thus care is multiplied in a rivalry of 
 ardor around the turfy mounds whither each one 
 wants to bring the homage of a rustic decoration, 
 the grace of a flower, often the tribute of a flag. 
 There is no trench, however small, that does not 
 have its decoration, its white crosses with in- 
 scriptions affecting in simplicity. Altars of the 
 religion of the sacred mother-land, the dead and 
 the living commune before them. Borders of box- 
 wood are set in line, and all the rustic decoration, 
 in which lies concealed, here and there, a rusted 
 weapon or a noble piece of ruin, testifies to such 
 unceasing care that one has the sensation that 
 the dead and the living have not been sundered. 
 And this is but the literal truth. All these people 
 are continuing, in the intimate relation between 
 those who have lived and those who wish to pre- 
 serve for their children the right to live, the 
 nobility of a face worthy of all glory. 
 
 And that the picture may be complete, white 
 shafts decorated with the crescent express our 
 thanks to our Mohammedan friends. Finally, not 
 far away, the black and white escutcheon, with 
 suitable inscription, stands over the enemy fallen 
 at the end of his savagery. 
 
 Peace to these dead! Peace, but not oblivion. 
 For there is under these verdurous mounds a 
 living history to be preserved and devotedly en- 
 larged, and the cult of those who survive pro- 
 claims that there remains, for the work of the 
 centuries, a France of unshakable resolution. 
 This is the sermon of our dead, ranged along the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 317 
 
 side of the road which led me to the encounters 
 of war where were awaiting me, in the fire of 
 action, the companions in arms of the good sol- 
 diers whose task is finished. It is the sermon of 
 the silent French people, of both sexes and all 
 ages, who come daily to bring something of them- 
 selves to the modest monument of earth by which 
 is attested, beyond death, the continuity of an 
 incomparable grandeur. 
 
 October 2, 1915. 
 
 At a Halting-Place 
 
 . . . Providence was kind enough to put on my 
 road, one morning, a certain battalion in which 
 there was a young sergeant who occupies a warm 
 place in my friendship. Just as it will happen 
 in life I had passed by him in my haste, without 
 any possible notion that we had been so near to 
 meeting. 
 
 The men, stretched voluptuously on stone heaps 
 or in the mud, offered a fine sight of soldierly 
 nonchalance. The officers were talking together. 
 The conversation among the troops was probably 
 of a nice twenty-mile ribbon of a road offering 
 itself to their legs refreshed from the wet grass. 
 I kept my eyes on the impassive young troopers, 
 or on the disposition of the impedimenta, without 
 pausing to look at faces — and this only to learn, 
 some hours later, that if I desired to find my 
 sergeant I had only to retrace my course. 
 
 I soon turned back, and, fortune being decidedly 
 favorable to me, I found the men again at halt. 
 This time we were not long in recognizing each 
 
318 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 other. With a leap of joy the little fellow, with 
 a chevron on his arm, rushed forward to receive 
 us. And then: 
 
 "I may catch the deuce for this," he said. "I 
 left my company and that's not allowed, even at 
 rest. I forgot." 
 
 A few feet away, the smiling officer was giving 
 a sufficient sign, with his amused glance, that at 
 the proper time he could make concessions to 
 human nature. And so we stood talking of the 
 distance they had come and of the distance that 
 was left to cover. They knew about where they 
 were going and their great preoccupation was to 
 relate their own movement to the general military 
 operation. They insisted absolutely on my telling 
 them things that I did not know. The day before, 
 from Mount Yvron, a northern spur of the plateau 
 of Valmy, I had had before my eyes the spectacle 
 of the artillery in action on both sides. At the 
 next village of Courtemont, riddled with shells, 
 I learned on the morrow that I should have had 
 the surprise of an agreeable encounter. I had 
 stayed on the height in order to be able to see, 
 thanks to which fact, precisely, I did not see 
 what I desired. 
 
 My sergeant required me to tell him what I 
 had seen, to deliver judgments like a master of 
 strategy, and above all to prophesy things to 
 come as we want them to come. I did not make 
 him ask twice before I predicted a victory. 
 Through all the conversation I kept my eyes on 
 the men before me. They were taking their ease 
 on some soft bed of loam, on the terrace at the 
 roadside, or in the nice fresh grass, with the ex- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 319 
 
 ception of the delicate ones, who were gravely 
 seated on some big sharp rock. They were chat- 
 ting in little groups, each one ready to reach 
 his place in the ranks at one bound. 
 
 This reserve, this discreet attitude of men far 
 away from actual combat, at a halting-place 
 where their energies might have been relaxed, 
 vividly impressed one's mind with the unity of 
 power which, even in repose, remained under the 
 commanding suggestion of the full effort ex- 
 pected. I shall come back to this aspect of our 
 soldier on his campaigns, for the same impression 
 will follow us from the high- way to the plain and 
 in the trenches. The officers and men do not take 
 their eyes off each other, though they are not 
 without an amusing affectation of indifference. 
 The moderate relaxation of a half hour is only 
 a means for renewing strength for action, the 
 constant object of all thought. 
 
 By imperceptible signs it was understood that 
 the command to march was coming. The order 
 and the obedience to it were simultaneous, and 
 we stood looking on while this good little troop 
 of warm-hearted, beardless poilus filed away, 
 these poilus who had already made havoc in the 
 enemy trenches and who were eager for nothing 
 but the relief of their native land from the un- 
 speakable Boche. They were not far from their 
 thirtieth kilometer and I will not conceal the fact 
 that some of them were dragging their feet. I 
 even saw three of them limping. To do them 
 justice it must be said, however, that the ones 
 who limped did not cover any less ground than 
 the others. 
 
320 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 We had gone in front of the battalion to the 
 halting-place, where already the cantonment was 
 being arranged. Non-commissioned officers were 
 chalking on the doors numbers which would bring 
 order out of confusion when the time came. 
 
 And now, indeed, the troop was announced at 
 the entrance to the village. There was a brief 
 rest, in order to put themselves in condition to 
 make an entrance worthy of French soldiers. 
 The night was coming, but the two or three dozen 
 people who composed the population of the village 
 must not be allowed to think that the th bat- 
 talion of the th regiment was not capable 
 
 of giving a lesson to any other troop. Sacks were 
 adjusted, backs were straightened, arms were 
 pressed against ribs, guns were fixed firmly on 
 shoulders, feet beat rhythmically in fine military 
 fashion, and, with drum and bugle blowing, the 
 splendid troop of war, in which my heart had 
 already enlisted, made its entrance under the 
 happy gaze of children and housewives. I saw 
 my limpers again, but the rascals were no longer 
 limping. I wanted to embrace them. We saluted 
 with full hearts, we wanted to cry out, for it was 
 France that was moving by — all of France, her 
 glorious past that made this present itself, not 
 unworthy in turn to give birth to her future: 
 all the mother-land, in a sublime procession of 
 hopes. ... 
 
 Immobile, silent, clad all in black on his high 
 charger, the commander watched his men pass 
 before him. A signal, and without even the sound 
 of a command reaching our ears, without a wrong 
 movement, or an exclamation, among the slow- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 321 
 
 moving trucks and the strings of horses being 
 led to water, onr poilus, like water gliding 
 through channels in the sand, spread out through 
 the open spaces of an ordered crowd, and nowhere 
 was discovered anything forgotten or unpro- 
 vided. There was no confusion, no raising of 
 voices. In passing each other, they were ex- 
 changing remarks about their lodgings; some of 
 them were already promenading arm in arm, 
 while so-called shops were filling with visitors. 
 There was quiet gaiety, and the firm resolution 
 to make a good night of it on the straw once they 
 had satisfied the appetite of men of twenty. 
 
 Among the first, our sergeant had rejoined us, 
 his face illumined. 
 
 "We are pursuit troops. We are going to have 
 a good time. Everybody's happy." 
 
 And immediately there began the story of a 
 colonel or a major or a captain such as never was, 
 whom our jolly warriors had for leader. They 
 loved them, they were proud of them. The stories 
 were never exhausted, and I saw clearly that the 
 captain especially had a certain way of quietly 
 leading his men into fire, cigarette between his 
 lips, a way which was bound to make them want 
 to follow him everywhere. At the risk of dis- 
 turbing him, I ventured to offer my congratula- 
 tions on the fine bearing of his men, but he turned 
 the tables, in a few brief words (as if he wanted 
 to pay back the compliment which, unknown to 
 him, had been given him a moment before), by 
 extolling his men to me, with his eyes sparkling 
 in pride. 
 
 "It is they who do it all. We do our best to 
 
322 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 second them. What they are capable of, I do not 
 even know myself. They are always good, always 
 ready, always contented. It is the finest thing 
 that has ever been seen. I couldn't tell yon how 
 happy I am to command them." 
 
 In certain confused phrases I tried, without 
 wounding his modesty, to tell him how fully his 
 feelings of affectionate admiration were returned. 
 I remarked that the day before a general had told 
 me that if our boys had thus been changed into 
 figures of gay heroism such as history had doubt- 
 less never seen before they were quick to admit 
 that a great part of the credit for this magnificent 
 transformation belonged to the officers of the line. 
 The face of my interlocutor lighted up: 
 
 "Well, since you have said it, I am glad that 
 justice is done us. We have done the best that 
 is in us. As for me, I have thought of nothing 
 else. But, what fellows! Where would you find 
 young men of such good- will, such complete for- 
 getfulness of themselves, so ardent in their desire 
 to do their duty to perfection, so ingenious in a 
 zeal that nothing tires, so generous in eager 
 friendship, so quiet and so strong?" 
 
 What could I answer? The words stuck in my 
 throat. I pressed a noble hand, and we separated. 
 
 Each one to his destiny. 
 
 October 3, 1915. 
 
 We're Not Through Yet 
 
 The quiet march to the halting-place is only 
 the prelude to the lively spectacle which will be 
 offered to us by the road which leads to the front 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 323 
 
 — that is to say, to the actual battle, the living 
 drama. 
 
 As far as Suippes the wagons are moving, at 
 a rate that seems slow in comparison with our 
 speed, but which neither hastens nor pauses at 
 any time. Men are perched on the tops, and 
 others are following, pipes in their mouths. Tied 
 to one another, horses with their riders move 
 along, as if pushed by some irresistible thing to- 
 ward an inexorable destiny. There are strings 
 of mules that go on tirelessly. There are tractors 
 of every form and of every capacity for carrying 
 supplies of every nature — cases of munitions, 
 surgical materials, forage, and things without 
 name in bales without shape, in which system is 
 nevertheless evident. 
 
 Little detachments led by non-commissioned 
 officers circulate with ease in this incongruous 
 crowd, which is ruled by common agreement on 
 the common necessity of reaching the destination 
 at the hour fixed. Over all this multitude silence 
 reigns. The universal trait of these men is that 
 they do not talk. No oaths from drivers, no ex- 
 clamations, no recriminations over some unfore- 
 seen collision. They incline to one side to let 
 us pass, at the continuous call of a trumpet which 
 itself is blown discreetly. There is no inter- 
 rogatory staring. An accidental glance some- 
 times brings the automatic gesture of a military 
 salute. All thoughts are bent on another object. 
 Each man is intent on the order that was given 
 him, his approach to the completion of which 
 makes its particular importance stand out in re- 
 lief. Whatever happens, in this hour in which 
 
324 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 each individual is responsible, the order must be 
 fulfilled. Not an instant is lost in words or acts 
 that do not lead directly toward the goal. In 
 small things and great ones, both aiding toward 
 the same end, there is not a man who is not under 
 the spell of a single intention — namely, in the 
 conditions given, to execute a prescribed task in 
 the time accorded. That is the reason for the 
 impressive unanimity of silent attentiveness, in 
 a moving crowd that is carried along, as it were, 
 like a flowing river, by natural necessities which 
 nothing can arrest. 
 
 The picturesque appearance of certain groups 
 in which are revealed unexpected sights in uni- 
 forms which the mud of the road and varied 
 accidents have diversified, may strike the eye of 
 the civilian, but could not hold the glance of those 
 unastonishable coryphaei of the great tragedy to- 
 ward which they all are hurrying, for the support 
 of the protagonists in the action. Far away, lines 
 of horses show in profile against the horizon, like 
 transparencies against the luminous background 
 of a clear sky, and take on, in the absence of a 
 perspective which would show their true propor- 
 tion, the importance of such a military mass in 
 motion as, perhaps, might bring a decision. 
 
 In the plain the parks of materials and muni- 
 tions are scattered about. There are picketed 
 horses, assemblages of vehicles awaiting- the hour 
 for moving, tents, with an indescribable swarming 
 of life inside and outside the enclosure — a distant 
 vision of the gypsy camps that Gallot liked — 
 while at a few yards from us there sit three 
 Moroccans majestically robed in saffron, motion- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 325 
 
 less and grave, in the muddy trough of the gutter 
 which they have taken for a resting-place, and 
 where they are conversing doubtless about the 
 things of eternity. In the distance cannon are 
 sounding. 
 
 I look on and wonder, struck to the heart by 
 the moving spectacle of this assemblage of forces 
 so completely melted into one that the Islamic 
 immobility of an ideal meditation seems to crown 
 with a higher and intangible resolution this 
 multitude of men and beasts slowly but irre- 
 sistibly moving toward the action. 
 
 And it is old pictures indeed out of history 
 which, in varied aspects, the cycle of ethnic strug- 
 gles brings back in recurring periods of time to 
 the sight of fleeting men. In these same fields, 
 the great highways of the invasions which the 
 longing for the Occident launched against the 
 Gauls, what hordes of fierce savagery have passed, 
 in prophecy of their legitimate descendants — 
 these atrocious tribes of the Boches, greedy for 
 all the brutalities of bloodshed, for all the refine- 
 ments of torture and destruction! 
 
 Then, as now, our men were rushing to the 
 defense of their home. We are thus living over 
 again a very old history, which our wars of the 
 Revolution so magnificently continued. And if the 
 folly of some men was to believe that, since the 
 treasure of civilization was growing in propor- 
 tion with the grand evolution of high ideas of jus- 
 tice governing the movements of men in blissful 
 peace, the irreducible barbarism of the human 
 beasts beyond the Ehine would cease to hold over 
 us the menace of immemorial violence in which 
 
326 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 progress was, for them, only an opportunity to 
 introduce perfected methods of barbarity, I love 
 to think that these tender mystics of eternal peace 
 have left, at The Hague, as at Berne, the last 
 vestiges of an innocence finally disillusioned. 
 
 In older days these good Huns, whose saddles 
 were adorned with human heads, but who perhaps 
 had fits of tenderness in their hours of fatigue, 
 assembled in revolting bloody heaps the products 
 of the pillages in which their clouded primitive 
 minds could discern nothing but the legitimate 
 exercise of a force of nature. To-day the " intel- 
 lectuals' ' of Deutschland Hber Alles look in the 
 flaming shop-windows of Berlin at the furniture, 
 and objets d'art, and the fine textiles of France, 
 the use of which must appear strange to them — 
 all of it nearly cleansed of the red stains the 
 traces of which are precious certificates of its 
 origin. The sweet Frau brightens up, and the 
 children demand a bit of something for a souvenir. 
 No useless blushing; " scientists,' ' "artists," 
 "thinkers" of all categories, let your good nature 
 enjoy itself fully. This only cost the trouble of 
 killing women and children, after some prelim- 
 inary tortures at which German modesty need 
 not be alarmed. Enrich your family home with 
 a proud lot of these souvenirs. You are the race 
 that takes pleasure in these things — progressive 
 only in the "system of organization" which per- 
 mits you to increase and multiply the horror of 
 them. Take them without false timidity. These 
 remains are worthy of your sentiments, of your 
 character, of your Teutonic idealism. 
 
 Nevertheless,, we are at Suippes, which is 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 327 
 
 riddled with shells, shattered, devastated. Ambu- 
 lances are everywhere, even in unbelievable ' 1 shel- 
 ters" constructed under the ruins. There is the 
 miracle of certain houses still intact, and the 
 higher miracle of the serenity of the inhabitants. 
 It is the dominant note of all in this cataclysm 
 inflicted on civilization. No one is astonished. In 
 this collapse of everything, there seems to be noth- 
 ing that can provoke a nervous start. As, from 
 his window, one used to see peaceful humanity 
 passing, so now, from the same balcony, one con- 
 templates all the accumulations of horror, and 
 eyes and lips accept, immovably, the passage of 
 destiny. 
 
 Soldiers at rest — a rest well earned — are chat- 
 ting, without gestures, with an air of content, as 
 they might do in garrison. Ambulances are pro- 
 ceeding to their destinations, going to receive their 
 charge of wounded or to deliver them in the rear. 
 Provisions are being distributed. All seems sim- 
 ple and normal. Everything is in its place, and 
 every man. Everything is the reverse of what it 
 was once ; but this is inevitable. One must admit 
 that all is as it should be; that is to say, all is 
 well. 
 
 Groups of Moroccans, always sumptuously clad, 
 seem to have forgotten, in a smiling rigidity that 
 shows sharp teeth, that yesterday their furious 
 rush carried away all resistance at the price of 
 cruel losses. It is said that a strong party of 
 Germans, surrounded, refused to surrender, but 
 that on learning that we were going to send them 
 the Moroccans, they could not raise their hands 
 fast enough in capitulation. Moroccans or little 
 
328 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 poilus with, bayonet ready — our Bodies may hesi- 
 tate as to their choice. It is all one. 
 
 We desired to see General Marchand and con- 
 gratulate him, for everyone is saying that he made 
 a plunge forward such as the maddest imagination 
 would not have predicted. There is a veritable 
 explosion of admiring epithets. The major has 
 just announced a little fever. We shall not trouble 
 the wounded hero, whose life, fortunately, is not 
 in danger. We shall have our congratulations and 
 good wishes communicated to him. 
 
 We are conducted to the church, totally gutted, 
 where structures of planks permitted the organ- 
 izing of sheltered parties. The floor is covered 
 with straw, with heaps of broken statues and of 
 religious objects. Everywhere are wounded men 
 stretched out, among whom nurses and surgeons 
 are noiselessly circulating. We have here only 
 " small wounds" — that is, men who have come 
 from the first-aid stations for a relatively short 
 stay in the rear. For lack of room some of them 
 have taken seats on broken shafts of columns, 
 others even on wood crossed in the form of chairs. 
 What a change of scene ! 
 
 Always the same impassive faces — one would 
 say they were proof against emotional expression. 
 An effect of traumatism, says the scientist. That 
 is a name for it. What I see in it is a combina- 
 tion of the memory of the shock that halted them 
 with the eager thought of the renewal that must 
 follow. Coming out, I approach a little chap, of 
 inexpressive countenance, with beard and hair 
 rumpled, under a helmet pierced by shrapnel. 
 Seated on a real chair, at the door, he bursts into 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 329 
 
 a smile, and his disordered face brightens at the 
 recital of his "accident." The helmet had saved 
 him. He laughs good-hnmoredly while telling 
 about it. 
 
 "I'm not through yet," he growls, half beneath 
 his breath. 
 
 That is the word that is continually on the lips 
 of them all. No, we are not through yet ; the little 
 wounded poilu is right, biding his time for the 
 Boche even amid the straw of the ambulance — 
 and we shall not be through until we, of our own 
 will, have agreed upon the end — an end that fits 
 our idea of right. 
 
 October 4, 1915, 
 
 The Langtjedoc Corridor 
 
 And now oif to Souain. It is the most hazard- 
 ous part of the trip, for one does not know any 
 too well what is happening a short distance away, 
 and the course of this mute and willing crowd is 
 such as suffers no delay. As in a double slide bar, 
 we are caught between two opposite currents. One 
 is returning from the front, its mission accom- 
 plished. The other is pushed forward by the 
 force of pressing duty. There are the same spec- 
 tacles of regulated tumult under the rule of a 
 silence still more imposing in proportion as the 
 goal is approached. Blocks occur in the traffic; 
 one waits without a word, until the two streams 
 resume, without eddies, their courses in opposite 
 directions. 
 
 The road has suffered, but everywhere I found 
 road and bridge machines ready to repair it. One 
 
330 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 cannot demand that a load of stone follow oppor- 
 tunely the explosion of each shell, to fill up the 
 hole — which is wider than it is deep. We are 
 therefore tossed and jolted, but we cannot but 
 be astonished that the jolting is not worse. Some 
 horsemen have crossed over beyond the ditch, to 
 get along as they can. In clumps of pine we catch 
 sight of groups at rest, unless indeed these are 
 waiting-posts. Horses are luxuriously chewing 
 the resinous shoots — a war-time appetite ! 
 
 Soon our ranks are thinning. At the approaches 
 to the front, deploying at right angles to the high- 
 way, men, beasts, and vehicles have slowly dis- 
 persed, each toward his proper destination, and 
 when our guide declares that we must abandon 
 the automobile for the excellent exercise of the 
 pedestrian, we are able to make our way without 
 much trouble. One could even get along without 
 great fatigue but for the worry of getting over 
 the mounds without end thrown up by the shells. 
 You have the help of the good mule behind you, 
 who pushes you on gently with his head, and of 
 the good mule in front, whose rump is a support 
 to you. But the mule has other things to do. Of 
 his own accord he leaves the road for the park 
 where he is awaited. The space now becomes open 
 enough for wagons to pass at a slow trot. 
 
 The plain is disclosed — a somber, chalky stretch 
 dominated by the knoll of the Navarin farm. My 
 glance darts forward, frightened at not being able 
 to stop at anything. In the hollow, at our feet, 
 is what was Souain — that is to say, slabs of walls 
 with the debris of beams which look as if scattered 
 about by volcanic explosion. Spots of black, here 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 331 
 
 and there, indicate that the work of the grave- 
 diggers is not yet completed. In the ditch itself, 
 bodies that have gripped each other in death lie 
 side by side, some of them tragically stretched out 
 with their eyes to the vast vault above, others bent 
 or distorted, with their hands over their faces, as 
 if in meditation — an eternal meditation. And 
 there are dead horses lying in convulsive attitudes. 
 
 The shells have all of a sudden broken the peace 
 on the horizon, some of them aimed at the road 
 along which the throngs of Souain may serve as 
 target. No one pays attention to them. These 
 men, whose impassivity seemed natural a while 
 ago, now exhibit an immovable calm under the ex- 
 plosions out of which mount high columns of 
 smoke streaked with screaming fragments of steel. 
 But no one turns his head. The soldiers pass on, 
 indifferent, isolated. 
 
 The height of Navarin, in front of us, is a desert, 
 plowed by projectiles from every direction, fur- 
 rowed everywhere by invisible trenches under our 
 batteries of 75 's, which, from time to time, break 
 out with sharp detonations. People are risking 
 prophecies as to a renewal of the offensive. There 
 is no sign to indicate the presence of the Boche. 
 On our side, black formations on the horizon seem 
 to indicate troops getting ready. 
 
 The shells are tearing down the trees on the 
 road. Nevertheless our guide says we can climb 
 to the Navarin farm, from which we shall certainly 
 see things. The sequel will show that this hope 
 was far from being realized. 
 
 We start out across fields, and soon come up to 
 our 75 's, the fire of which is growing decidedly 
 
332 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 hotter. We find the mute artillerymen going 
 through automatic movements just where one 
 might have expected a bustling activity of combat. 
 In the vast expanse where every man is charged 
 with the supreme resolution of a mortal moment, 
 one sees nothing, hears nothing. An exploding 
 shell brings a shrug of shoulders, and the shrapnel 
 with its little white smoke seems like a plaything. 
 It is fine to note that the voice of the 75 gives a 
 joyous impression of something decisive, like a 
 loud snapping of a flag. Everywhere one has the 
 impression of formidable power working, but con- 
 cealing its deepest designs, like our classic Provi- 
 dence, only to have them burst into view more 
 magnificently. 
 
 The single individual, in this tragic universe, 
 is but a lost atom. A while ago, at the sight of 
 the military torrent rolling on toward this plain 
 in irresistible waves, I seemed to see all of France 
 at work, in an impassable wall, on all the roads 
 from the Vosges to the ocean, where she has driven 
 back the invasion. And now, suddenly, all this 
 swarm is dispersed, in orderly movements, and 
 made ready for the releasing of energies which 
 must carry all before them at the chosen moment. 
 What is an imperceptible man in the infinite 
 drama in which the peoples, in which mankind 
 itself, struggles with the aid of all the forces that 
 have been afforded by the energies of the great 
 globe, upon which even the most terrible cata- 
 clysms make hardly the pleasant sensation of a 
 momentary thrill? 
 
 We have passed our 75 's, which are resounding 
 merrily behind us. Shrapnel and shell pass so far 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 333 
 
 over our heads that, in spite of appearances, we 
 are almost in a zone of safety. Above our heads 
 the detonations, which are growing more numer- 
 ous, accompany us like a glad salute. And all 
 would have been well enough if the Boche had not 
 thought, as it seemed, that they discerned a cer- 
 tain banter in our shadows spotting the white 
 plain. They are seeking us out with their ignoble 
 guns, and would possibly have found us if the 
 order had not come to take to the trenches. A 
 leap into the nearest hole, and we are in a good 
 defile in the ground, in which, by going sidewise 
 at the right places, a man may easily make his 
 way. The trench twists and turns no end of times, 
 so as not to allow a projectile an enfilading line, 
 and then there are hillocks which make the pedes- 
 trian jump above ground for a moment only to 
 plunge immediately back — arrangements well 
 fitt*ed to avoid a tedious monotony. 
 
 We are still persevering on our way toward 
 Navarin when an official warning comes that it 
 will not be possible to go further. Navarin is full 
 of snares. All of a sudden, in fact, there bursts 
 over our heads a din of artillery in which the 
 explosions are mingled into one continuous roar. 
 Even our inexperienced ears easily distinguish 
 shots on either side. I do not know what we 
 should look like stretched close to the ground, but 
 in the comfortable trench there is no need of effort 
 to keep an expression of quiet equanimity. 
 
 Our good little 75 is making havoc merrily and 
 we want to keep on demanding more than it can 
 do. The great awkward shell from the other side 
 comes stupidly along with its sound as of some- 
 
334 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 thing frying which assures one of its destination. 
 My friend Poissonnier, whom I will present to 
 you in a moment, loses no occasion to show his 
 scorn of this ridiculous implement, on which he 
 tirelessly showers his most disdainful invectives, 
 to say nothing of what he feels about the natural 
 imbecility of the gunner, who excels in missing 
 his target. 
 
 Leaning against the side of the trench, which 
 trembles with the nearby explosions, we are won- 
 dering whether chance has not thrown us into a 
 bombardment preparatory to the famous attack 
 of which there was talk at Souain, or whether this 
 is merely a passing fit of fury. We are not in the 
 first line. Everything is therefore going on in 
 normal fashion. In single file each one of us 
 seems to take up too much room, for, to make us 
 give way, soldiers who pass by us throw us the 
 laconic words — "We have an errand." 
 
 It is queer that in the immediate presence of 
 the man in the trenches, the chance comer has the 
 strange surprise of being embarrassed for some- 
 thing to say. In any circumstances one does not 
 approach the laborer at his work without respect 
 and timidity. What can one say when the work 
 into which the laborer has plunged is of such im- 
 portance that he has given his all to it, staked 
 upon it the dearest things in life? What supreme 
 tactlessness to trouble him with a foolish question, 
 when the hour is and can be only for action ! One 
 wants to compress into one word some expression 
 of fraternal good- will, but before anything is said 
 one feels that encouragement comes rather from 
 the man whom one wants to encourage. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 335 
 
 We go about reasoning and philosophizing and 
 seeking means of action. He, from the first mo- 
 ment, has found his way, in the one thought of 
 putting the enemy out of battle. He and we have 
 lived, thus, at less than a hundred kilometers from 
 each other, and we felt ourselves very near each 
 other, but although moved by the same impulse 
 when we meet, we are astonished at having been 
 so far apart. 
 
 The brutal revelation came to me when Ser- 
 geant Poissonnier, from Roubaix, inspecting his 
 trench in a nonchalant manner, obliged us in pass- 
 ing with this profitable information: 
 
 " Where are you going? For Souain you only 
 have to take the Languedoc Corridor." 
 
 And as we were unable to restrain a look of 
 ignorance, the boy smiled indulgently, as might 
 a Parisian if he met someone on the Place de la 
 Concorde asking for the Rue de Rivoli. 
 
 Where could we have come from, that we did 
 not know the Languedoc Corridor? The idea is 
 amusing enough to make Poissonnier burst out 
 laughing. He restrains himself, however, so as 
 not to hurt our feelings. 
 
 ' ' I '11 show you the way, ■ ' he says. * ' Come on. ' ' 
 
 And we follow meekly, charmed by the pleasant 
 encounter. 
 
 October 5, 1915. 
 
 Seegeant Poissonnxeb 
 
 I said that the trench in which chance had 
 thrown me was no longer in the first line, for our 
 soldiers had taken over the premises of the 
 
336 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Boches somewhere in the neighborhood of the 
 Navarin farm. Without speaking of the dead who 
 lie here and there on the field, we can see plenty 
 of signs indicating that yesterday the battle raged 
 between the two ramparts of earth where I find 
 myself temporarily sheltered. Everywhere are 
 ruined weapons, splinters of shell, fragments of 
 things which it is useless to specify. A cyclone 
 has passed. 
 
 The corridor, nevertheless, has retained its re- 
 cent aspect of life. Everything in it still bears the 
 mark of a habitation ingeniously arranged. Niches 
 cut as deep as the hand can reach serve as shelves, 
 where grenades ready for throwing, scattered 
 cartridges, and on the ground, sometimes, ma- 
 chines of steel which we are recommended to step 
 over without disturbing, remain in memory of the 
 struggle the noise of which is still continuing over 
 our heads. I shall not describe the trenches as 
 delightful, but it is easily apparent that the men 
 fighting have made themselves resolutely at home 
 here. Some are lying here still, in the last im- 
 mobility. Their comrades have gone ahead, into 
 the German trenches conquered around Navarin, 
 which are but a point of departure for a new push- 
 ing back of the enemy. 
 
 It is in coming from those trenches that, one by 
 one, or grouped by order of an officer, they ap- 
 pear suddenly in front of us from time to time, 
 at the turn of the corridor, without even an excla- 
 mation of surprise escaping them at sight of us, 
 because they have long been beyond astonishment. 
 They are silent passers-by, whose clothing un- 
 doubtedly needs the play of stiff brushes, but who 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 337 
 
 are not nondescript like those whom one can elbow 
 in the Eue de Eivoli. In this place, at this hour, 
 all necessarily friends, sbme of them slip by, 
 busily, without taking time for a "Good morn- 
 ing." Others, for reasons of which they owe us 
 no explanation, stop for brief bits of idle conver- 
 sation, asking questions without waiting for an 
 answer, or explaining things about which no one 
 has asked a question. 
 
 Without tragic expression — on the contrary, 
 since their faces are more given to smiling — their 
 eyes, sometimes, seem to say something different 
 from their words. It is because the words are 
 imprisoned between walls of earth, whereas their 
 glances, seeking the unforeseen, dart beyond the 
 embankment of the ditch overhung by an open 
 sky — where pass, nevertheless, some storms. 
 
 Would one believe it? It is when the uproar 
 of the artillery is at its height that our party feels 
 the need of stopping for a moment of rest and con- 
 versation. 
 
 "Here's a shelter right now," says the good 
 Sergeant Poissonnier. i i This won 't last long. Sit 
 down and wait. It will be all over soon." 
 
 I look at the shelter. It is a step as high as 
 one 's waist, where, by squeezing, two men may sit 
 down. Hollowed into the side of the trench near- 
 est the Boches, it may be, in fact, of some protec- 
 tion. Something tells me that I have waded long 
 enough in this labyrinth of mud and that a pause 
 will not be without its charms. For the ground, 
 where one finds neither stepping-stones nor 
 planks, is either covered with muddy pools or 
 soiled with inexpressible things, and does not 
 
338 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 exactly invite one to the familiarities of sitting 
 down. I therefore crouch upon the tempting 
 step, propped against a comfortable neighbor, and 
 I will not conceal the fact that the place seemed to 
 me divinely appropriate to playful conversation. 
 The poilus, who are afraid of nothing, stretch 
 themselves comfortably on the ground, in such 
 positions as suit them. A calm and peaceful well- 
 being invades us. Never was easy chair or sofa 
 so comfortable. 
 
 These men are no talkers. They manifestly 
 delight in the pleasures of horizontal extension, 
 and experience a contentment too profound for 
 expression. There are smiles of good will for 
 intruders such as we, and running comments, 
 suited to our limited intelligence, about the life 
 of the trenches. I listen, with occasional ex- 
 clamations intended to manifest a willingness to 
 share the common feeling. In my heart I want 
 to question them about everything, to feed upon 
 their stories, to get at their sensations, their 
 thought, the states of mind which possibly escape 
 their own analysis. You may be surprised if, be- 
 tween two explosions, I recoil before the unap- 
 proachable task. Following the example of my 
 companions, moreover, I am more desirous of 
 making myself easy in the place than of wearying 
 my reposeful spirits. 
 
 Leaning against his homelike wall of earth, 
 Sergeant Poissonnier, with his ruddy, healthy 
 face framed by his blond hair, leads in the con- 
 versation. With great blue eyes full of bantering 
 good-humor, a boyish smile in the enjoyment of 
 an active life, and a well-modulated voice which 
 
FRANCE PACING GERMANY 339 
 
 enunciates his syllables with a nice articulation 
 such as a pupil of the Conservatory might envy, 
 Poissonnier of Boubaix, like an august ephebe 
 modeled in the school of Polyclitus, dominates the 
 assembly by virtue of a moral superiority of 
 which he is ignorant. He exhales I know not 
 what placid contentment which hovers around his 
 ruddy cheeks as a light zephyr might hover over 
 a limpid pool under a July heaven. He is a boy 
 having fun, having fun in his heart, and a great 
 deal of it, all the while employing all his tact in 
 order not to manifest the fact too clearly. 
 
 "Who is that civilian I " he asks us in a whisper. 
 
 At the name, his eye sparkles, and with a grand 
 gesture that embraces the heaven and the earth 
 he says: 
 
 ' ' Well ! Here 's stuff for some nice articles ! ' ' 
 
 "Nice" seemed a little feeble to me, but the 
 thought was large enough, though doubtless a 
 bit disdainful; for as to those articles, it is better 
 to live them than to sit down and write them. 
 But Poissonnier is free from condescension. He 
 takes kindly to my weakness, and, to encourage 
 me, even explains to me, with a view to necessary 
 precautions, the art of interpreting the uproar 
 without. In the whistling of the most ordinary 
 shell there are, it appears, qualities of sound 
 which it is important to analyze and distinguish, 
 with a view to the measures that must be taken 
 for security. Prompt judgment, followed by im- 
 mediate action for safety— that is the main 
 thing. 
 
 "You don't have very long to tell which of the 
 crowd of shells are coming your way. But there 
 
340 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 is still enough time to throw yourself flat on the 
 ground. Only, you mustn't hesitate." 
 
 It is easy to see that Poissonnier knows all 
 about the business. He knows the value of an 
 instant. Never did a man seem better adapted 
 to this muddy trench — one would say he was 
 born to it. To tell the truth, my feeling is that 
 Poissonnier would not be out of place anywhere. 
 But here he seems to be most completely at his 
 ease. It is as if fortune had sent him to me as 
 an example of the French soldier engaged in the 
 good game of military action, of which he cares 
 to know nothing except that victory is beyond 
 question, since he has given himself up wholly to 
 the defense of the land. 
 
 For, if I do not dare to ask questions, Pois- 
 sonnier, on his side, has nothing to ask of me. 
 He tells me about things in a spirit of friendly 
 banter, but my opinion as to what he has done 
 or will do is the last thing that would trouble 
 him. I must have some need of him, he feels, 
 since I have come to seek him. But I am outside 
 of his sphere of action. Before him there is a 
 clear road. He goes right ahead. Nothing would 
 be strong enough to make him waver. Happy 
 youth, illuminated by the light of duty, marching 
 on in the inexpressible joy of finding, at the dawn 
 of life, a supreme fulfilment of glory ! 
 
 Even in the scornful silence of Poissonnier 
 about the war, about its conditions and its 
 hazards, about calculations as to its duration, 
 about its miseries, which do not seem to affect 
 him, about even the resistance of the enemy, there 
 is apparent a grandeur of soul superior to any- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 341 
 
 thing that may happen. He is willing to do 
 anything, without even understanding how he 
 could be otherwise. 
 
 That is just why, since my brief stay in the 
 Navarin trench, I cannot help measuring men and 
 events by the standard of the sentiments that 
 radiated from Sergeant Poissonnier — that noble 
 model of French youth in the full flower of its 
 ardor for service to the country, the race, the 
 history, the home. " Honor to Roubaix!" I 
 should say, but for the fact that, as we all know, 
 there are as many Roubaix as there are cities and 
 villages on our soil, bringing forth as many 
 Sergeant Poissonniers as may be necessary for 
 the defense of the native land. 
 
 Yesterday a good citizen of French Switzer- 
 land, who had completed his studies in Germany, 
 told me he had received letters from his former 
 companions at the university who condemned the 
 madness of the Kaiser and who now reject the 
 monstrous notion of Deutschland uber Alles, 
 What a contrast between this weariness of the 
 Germans and the resolute and tireless serenity 
 which exalts the soul of my lovable Sergeant 
 Poissonnier! 
 
 With the boy from Roubaix we finished our in- 
 terminable trip through the ground, plunging 
 against sacks of earth at deadly craters which 
 bore witness of the ravages of artillery or of 
 hand-to-hand fights that had left bloody ruins to 
 tell their dark story. There were shelves dug into 
 the side of the embankment, covered with rem- 
 nants of coarse goods which we did not dare 
 to lift. And in the depths there were subter- 
 
342 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ranean rooms, rudely furnished, where the 
 wounded are dragged down to die. Imposing 
 hypogea from the history of yesterday out of 
 which will follow new and historic developments 
 of mingled misery and grandeur ! I pause on the 
 threshold of them, as if held back by fear of 
 profanation. 
 
 Sergeant Poissonnier, with all his attention 
 directed upon the cannonade on which his hope 
 was fixed, saw nothing, thought of nothing except 
 the thunder of the artillery which offered him the 
 vision of German trenches torn to pieces and of 
 ground prepared for the coming advance. I 
 really think he had only one idea left — to get rid 
 of us. Why had our foolish, prosaic apparition 
 come to trouble the dream in which he was going 
 along so happily, and from whose enchantment, 
 until after its final fulfilment, he will refuse to 
 be delivered? He was hastening his pace in his 
 sinuous Languedoc Corridor, distancing us, and 
 forgetting us, until a rallying cry came from one 
 of our party who attempted to moderate the 
 speed. We were two hundred paces from the 
 sheds of Souain when the signal was given for 
 a parting which may have brought to him some 
 little relief. 
 
 We ought doubtless to have expressed to him 
 our lively thanks for hospitality in such moving 
 circumstances. And as for him, would he not 
 have been glad to entrust us with some message 
 for Eoubaix? But on both sides we had too many 
 things to express in our leave-taking. That is 
 why we could only press hands in silence, with 
 vague expressions of restrained emotion half re- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 343 
 
 vealing things in our hearts that were so much 
 the more precious in that one is unable to put 
 them into cold words. 
 
 Sergeant Poissonnier has other things to do 
 than to keep us in mind. But I shall not forget 
 him. It may be that he will have no chance to 
 write his name on some glorious monument. But 
 he will have lived his life, and, by the gift of 
 noble lives like his, France will live. 
 
 October 6, 1915. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE SECOND WINTER CAMPAIGN 
 THE LOAN 
 
 Officers and Men 
 
 ... I have great pleasure in speaking of the 
 relations between our officers and their men, be- 
 cause the former professional arrogance, foolishly 
 imitated from the Prussians, has completely dis- 
 appeared. All are in the same service. All are 
 of the same will. All are fraternally united in 
 the single purpose of safeguarding the home, of 
 preserving the native land. Every creed or 
 doctrine has united men, or pretended to unite 
 them, in every period. The Christians them- 
 selves, bearers of a religion of love, have not 
 ceased from killing one another, — which attests a 
 faulty bond of unison, — while the rally for the 
 defense of the land of our fathers, of the history 
 it has made, and of the persevering effort of gen- 
 erations for an ideal of national life, has every- 
 where brought about the grandest and noblest 
 expansions of energy. 
 
 That is why I am happy to affirm that, without 
 any harm to discipline, the privates and the 
 officers of the French army are intimately and 
 completely united as never before. They are re- 
 
 344 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 345 
 
 solved on the same thing and in the same way. 
 They are resolved to obtain, through the same 
 nobility of unreserved sacrifice, the deliverance 
 of the French soil, which is happily bound up 
 with all that represents the honor of man's spirit 
 and the independence of his will, not only in 
 Europe but throughout the civilized world. 
 Truly such a cause is worth the sacrifice of war, 
 for the soldier thus lives a life above that of 
 mean mortality, when he goes, under such a flag, 
 to keep his rendez-vous with death. 
 
 Such is our case and it is indeed this that 
 causes our infinite superiority to those butcherers 
 of women and torturers of children who devote 
 themselves, according to method, to all the 
 crimes of beastliness in order that their abjectly 
 servile Germany may be " above all," including 
 the moral sense of civilized man. These brutes 
 exert themselves against unfortunate defenseless 
 creatures for the right of spreading and increasing 
 their ignominy. And since we are fighting for 
 what is highest in humanity, knowing that cen- 
 turies of noble combats cannot end in what is 
 lowest, we are able to put forth exertions of 
 physical and moral force which no enemy, though 
 he were a pure miracle of organized power, is 
 capable of overcoming. All these little experi- 
 ments to see wiiether conversations can be opened 
 for a German peace show well enough that these 
 magnificent "victors" have preserved enough 
 good sense to understand to what humiliation we 
 shall certainly reduce them. 
 
 It is our little soldier and his officers of every 
 rank, who, having accomplished this first part of 
 
346 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the work, are getting ready, in the serene sim- 
 plicity of great hearts, to bring it to full com- 
 pletion. 
 
 ... I have told of the unity in heart and soul 
 which indefectibly welds our men and their 
 leaders together in the combat. Whatever their 
 number, they are one. Ask General Marchand 
 how, in Champagne, he was able to achieve, at 
 one prodigious effort, a task that seemed all but 
 impossible. He fell, and too many of his officers 
 with him. But ask those who remain of his 
 soldiers, ask the whole army whether there will 
 be lacking men to follow him when he is restored 
 from the wound which was meant to be mortal 
 to the fulness of his active powers. Listen to 
 the soldiers as they speak of the officers who lead 
 them into the fire. Listen to the officers when 
 they talk of their soldiers. These noble connois- 
 seurs in valor respect each other, admire and love 
 each other, under a heroic conception of duty 
 which no people of any epoch will be able to 
 surpass. 
 
 November 7, 1915. 
 
 The War Loan 
 
 On the eve of our great war loan I desire to 
 respond, for my own part, to the appeal that 
 M. Ribot has just addressed to all Frenchmen. 
 This implacable struggle, which tests the moral 
 and physical strength of the people of our time 
 beyond anything that was the lot of our fore- 
 fathers, demands of us the noble sacrifice of blood 
 
FKANCE PACING GERMANY 347 
 
 which our old territorials, sometimes somber of 
 countenance and silently resolute, are proud to 
 offer to their country, side by side with this 
 glorious younger generation who are giving their 
 all, and who only regret, when they fall on the 
 field of battle, that they have not given enough. 
 
 We see some of them passing us every day, 
 adorned with bandages, who seem to ask pardon 
 for not having done better and who rage against 
 doctors and relatives and friends because they 
 want yet to satisfy that appetite for glory which 
 no act of heroic valor can appease. These men 
 are the ones that we have given, as the most 
 precious possessions of our souls, as the highest 
 expression of our resolution, as the purest blood 
 from our hearts, and our only sorrow is that, in 
 these great hours of tragedy, we cannot enter the 
 overwhelming struggle with them, and dedicate 
 to it the last days of our declining life, from now 
 on without value. 
 
 To excuse ourselves, in our own eyes, for such 
 a painful absence, we send to them, in every way 
 that is open, whatever we can of material as- 
 sistance. Though this is never enough it is still 
 precious to them because the best of our feeling 
 and affection accompanied it, and because the 
 message of the home, so near and still so far away, 
 carries to its height the sublime joy of condensing 
 all that is glorious in life into one sudden flash 
 of superhuman feeling. 
 
 The heroes, old and young, still robed in 
 modesty, who have found a way to glorify the 
 history of France beyond the heights reached by 
 those ancestors who had confidently promised 
 
348 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 themselves that tliey would never be surpassed — 
 these heroes we welcome, and care for, and en- 
 deavor to provide, between two heroic efforts of 
 sublime devotion, with a moment of the gentle 
 joy of home, in which is retempered, like the 
 sword-blade by the magic virtue of a chosen 
 spring, the loftiest energy of the human being — 
 love made into resolution. 
 
 But while these men are giving so much that 
 our weak hearts are perhaps tempted even to 
 whisper to them that they must not give too 
 much, can we look upon ourselves with steady 
 eye and silently take credit to ourselves for giving 
 enough? No. If age or the accidents of life 
 have deprived us of the means of being equal 
 to those whom we accompany only with our hopes, 
 a duty no less imperious has fallen to us in the 
 immense exertion of a whole people, from the 
 strongest to the feeblest, for all that we are re- 
 solved to save of the sacred images of our home 
 from the furies of barbarism. 
 
 Yes, the old man who is soon to die, before 
 having received the anxiously awaited reward of 
 the glorious news, the immeasurable joy of which 
 will make us bow first in tears over cherished 
 tombs; yes, these women who knit with trembling 
 fingers, dreaming of that magnificent parade of 
 the return in which will pass before us, — amid 
 tattered flags unfurled to the winds filled with 
 martial music, amid acclamations mingled with 
 sobs of joy, amid cries and clapping of hands, and 
 flowers, and gestures that express an irresistible 
 desire to love and to be loved, to be united, — a 
 procession of youths old in victories, and of 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 349 
 
 men intoxicated with grandeur, with contracted 
 brows, and glances charged with lightning, limp- 
 ing behind officers dazzled with prospects, who, 
 for this moment, would like to be in the ranks, 
 in order not to lose any part of the glory of the 
 soldier; yes, those children who, without under- 
 standing anything of what this enormous prodigy 
 has cost in tears and blood and ruin, will clap 
 their little hands at the sublime sorrows of which 
 they can only see the sumptuous lining of radiant 
 joy — all these are of the battle in this hour, all, 
 without any exception, even if they cannot un- 
 derstand it, even if they cannot feel it. 
 
 They are of the murderous combat, because 
 they experience its wounds in privations, in 
 wretchedness, in sickness, in grief; because they 
 are falling no less certainly than those who stand 
 under shellfire, and are marking out in their turn 
 the great highway of France by their premature 
 graves. All of them have suffered alike, all of 
 them have gained glory alike — the men who file 
 past in military order with eyes straining toward 
 the great press of French souls, and the inex- 
 pressibly tumultuous crowd which has rushed 
 hither to marvel at its own embodiment in this 
 mass of soldiery — in this moving, rustling, prodi- 
 gious river of steel, where are reflected hopes 
 too noble to be capable of expression in mere 
 words. 
 
 Frenchmen, if you would see that day, you must 
 deserve it, you must pay the price for it, you 
 must purchase it. At this moment they are 
 paying without keeping count, those pale men 
 covered with mud, under the symbolic blue helmet 
 
350 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 which sits upon their heads like a miniature of 
 the great azured vault. They are paying without 
 keeping count, always gay, always proud, always 
 brightened by that indescribable smile of con- 
 fidence, that eternal mark of souls that cannot 
 bow. 
 
 I have seen some of them, covered with bloody 
 bandages, heaped up indescribably in tractors that 
 carried them from the field of battle, darting 
 swift glances of tranquil gaiety at the men who 
 with the precautions of careful mothers were ex- 
 erting themselves to extract them, from a ghastly 
 entanglement of their wounded fellows. They 
 were laughing; yes, I tell you they were laugh- 
 ing, and one of them, so cruelly torn that one 
 did not know how to take hold of him, turned 
 toward me as I dared to approach him with a 
 word of sympathy and threw me this word, in 
 a burst of laughter: 
 
 "Believe me, it's all right. The Boches are 
 done for." 
 
 I could not have answered without seizing him 
 in my arms. Those are our Frenchmen — our 
 soldiers, our brothers and sons, in front of whom, 
 once they meet man to man, the Boche kneels and 
 throws up his hands to beg mercy. From the dis- 
 tance the machine gun mows down our men, when 
 a clear path has not been made for them. But 
 the moment they meet the enemy face to face, 
 and it must always come to that, weakness 
 crumbles before the invincible force of full man- 
 hood. 
 
 Well, I repeat it, we must pay for that. We 
 must pay for it with the vile money which fate 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 351 
 
 does not always distribute equitably, and which 
 can to-day atone for many things through the 
 generous contribution, from rich and poor in full 
 partnership, of all that prudence, from now on 
 too base, might inspire us to reserve. We must 
 give money in order that our men may have the 
 right to pour out their blood. Who would dare 
 to risk the shame of saying, "I shall wait, I'll 
 do it some other time!" For such a man would 
 be a traitor to his race, to his people, to his very 
 home, since, according to the just and impressive 
 words of M. Eibot, his dishonorable parsimony 
 could only be the ransom of defeat instead of the 
 price of that victory of which a high fortune 
 offers him the chance at this time. 
 
 I wish that this admirable speech of M. Eibot 
 could be condensed into a little poster placarded 
 in all public places instead of those stupid and 
 timid words, "Taisez-vous, mefiez-vous!" No, 
 no; speak, speak, O Frenchmen, as loud as you 
 care to, and let all Bochery rush up to hear you! 
 Say fearlessly what you have in your hearts, for 
 it is necessary, in the first place, that those who 
 pretend to impose silence on you hear you and 
 be capable of understanding you — and all the 
 retinue of the Kaiser in their turn. You have 
 nothing to conceal, for not less proudly than 
 those on the field of battle you believe in your- 
 selves and you will find great joy in saying so 
 out loud. Do not be afraid, for the enemy can 
 learn nothing from you that is not noble and 
 good, and reassuring for France, though threaten- 
 ing and fatal for unspeakable Bochery. 
 
 And when you have spoken the words of 
 
352 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 
 
 France, you must live her life by giving her the 
 means to live. You have already furnished her 
 with more than a billion in gold of your free 
 will. This is but a beginning. You must keep 
 up the work; you must finish it. One does not 
 stop half-way on the path to full nobility, pro- 
 claiming that he feels weak, that he is getting 
 tired. (The glory of the strong has, for counter- 
 balance, the degradation of the feeble.) Either 
 France will cease to be or she will be a land of 
 strong men. Everyone to the loan window, be 
 it to subscribe little or much. He who gives the 
 least is perhaps the most meritorious. There is a 
 story of an old woman, who, bringing in her gold, 
 was surprised to receive bank-notes and cried out : 
 "How is this? Are you giving back money?" 
 It was the sublime expression of a heart that 
 wanted to reserve nothing. That is the example 
 to follow. There are those among us who are 
 gaining great sums of money in this appalling 
 crisis of universal misery. Let them secure their 
 pardon. I would whisper in their ear that it is 
 time they did so. There is a grand bourgeoisie 
 in France. It is time for them to impose silence 
 on their adversaries. And let the lesser bour- 
 geoisie who have already contributed search in 
 the bottom of their safety-boxes; they will still 
 find a little packet of coins or notes, kept for the 
 unforeseen. Well, my friends, to-day i& the un- 
 foreseen. What could there be more unforeseen 
 than that France should be threatened for her 
 life, than that our country, our race, our terri- 
 tory should be in danger of perishing. Beyond 
 this there is nothing more to say. 
 
PRANCE FACING GERMANY 353 
 
 The Frenchman is given to saving. And the 
 danger of this is that it may change the saver, 
 fully bent on his economy, into a hoarder. Even 
 this, perhaps, does not deserve to be condemned, 
 but only on condition that each one can choose 
 the moment when this laboriously amassed ac- 
 cumulation of resources, great or small, shall find 
 its true employment in the aid of a cause which 
 raises a natural feeling of foresight into a higher 
 virtue. Since there would be nothing for us to 
 foresee if France were destroyed, the supreme 
 day of payment has arrived for the saver. Let 
 him pay with his gold as others do with their 
 blood, and France is saved. As to the terms of 
 the investment (!) I shall not say a word, for 
 the Minister of Finance has the duty of making 
 them known, and if the natural condition of 
 things is such that one cannot be disinterested in 
 them, it is enough to be able to say that lenders 
 great and small will not make a bad business 
 deal for themselves personally. The financial 
 point of view is not negligible. I only ask my 
 fellow citizens to forget, for the moment, that 
 a correct calculation of profit would show well 
 in their favor, and to lift themselves to the 
 height of a disinterested act. I wish that there 
 might not be a single family in which there was 
 not preserved like one of those ancient titles of 
 knighthood, a receipt, however modest, permitting 
 them to proclaim: "I was in the war loan of 
 1915." Readers, friends or enemies, subscribe! 
 
 November 14, 1915. 
 
354 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Chirping for Peace 
 
 . . . What is this! Have they launched them- 
 selves against the world; have they violated in 
 all men's eyes every agreement that honor is 
 obligated to respect; have they overwhelmed de- 
 fenseless Belgium; have they shed so much in- 
 nocent blood that the Duke of Alva is almost 
 regretted ; have they murdered more old men and 
 women and children ; have they pillaged, ravaged, 
 and destroyed more cities than the most terrible 
 devastators ; have they made more mothers weep 
 than were dreamed of by that romantic butcher, 
 Attila, from now on moderate, who was stunned 
 into respect before an embryonic Paris ; have they 
 found a way to condense and epitomize all these 
 things in that most typically German murder of 
 a woman before whose grave all humanity stands 
 bareheaded — have they done all this only to stop 
 half-way on the trip from Riga to Bagdad and 
 say to us, the armed men of Belgium and France, 
 of Great Britain and Italy and Russia, not "This 
 is my will," but, quite modestly, "Are you will- 
 ing!" 
 
 By no means, Sire; we are not willing. We 
 have never been willing, and we shall never be 
 so: that is the whole of the matter. Take this 
 for our declaration. We were not willing when 
 you were on the Marne. We continue to be un- 
 willing now that you are no longer there. Your 
 proposals? We do not even want to know them. 
 They do not interest us. We do not desire any- 
 thing that you desire. Do you see how simple 
 it is 1 And to complete the statement, understand 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 355 
 
 that we do desire, in our inflexible determination, 
 all that you do not; namely, justice, independence 
 with honor, freedom for peoples as for indi- 
 viduals — all things that could have no meaning 
 in your mind. You see fully that discussion is 
 not worth while. Therefore kindly spare us your 
 theatrical display and your warlike exaggera- 
 tions. The only purpose in our minds is to shatter 
 the monstrous dream that you represent, the 
 dream of humanity bleeding under the brutal 
 folly of a race capable of learning all that can 
 be known but incapable of putting their learning 
 to other uses than those of degradation and 
 death. 
 
 .... I make this avowal that with our splendid 
 soldiers, whose scorn of your own I cannot ex- 
 press to you, we should have been able, but for 
 mistakes only the least of which are as yet known, 
 to repel you long ago from our territory. But 
 we have other things to do just at present than 
 to sit as judges over destiny and its lieutenants. 
 We are what we are, and, such as we are, knowing 
 full well that you will yet kill many of our 
 children, and that you will impose terrible suf- 
 ferings upon us, we shall go on to the last limit 
 of endurance because we are worthier than you, 
 because we have a higher conscience, a stronger 
 courage, a firmer will; because we shall kill more 
 of your men, as we have so far, than you of ours ; 
 because we shall shatter all the embattlements 
 of your resistance — because something that can- 
 not lie tells us that we shall finally bring you 
 to your knees. 
 
356 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ... A riot of premeditated violence, and a 
 superior power of unlimited resistance— these are 
 the two principles that have joined battle. To 
 your miracles in the offensive we shall oppose, in 
 default of a better fortune, an active resistance 
 that will never give way. Yesterday a soldier 
 who was describing to me his first sufferings from 
 the cold of one winter concluded with these words : 
 "I take it all as I must, because we will not 
 yield." That is the best answer to your proposals 
 of peace. Our soldiers will not yield. Their gov- 
 ernors follow them. In the lack of anything better 
 we can be content with that. This will have to 
 be enough. You have taken much time and pains, 
 but you have ended by maddening us in war, in 
 our turn. 
 
 Like those dead men whom Ulysses saw drink- 
 ing blood in order to revive, we have drunk of 
 our own blood, in the fashion of the legendary 
 Beaumanior, and we shall also shed such lakes 
 of your own that you will be drowned in it: 
 Instead of scattering our men foolishly, we are 
 content to preserve them carefully for this work 
 on the Franco-British front, the only point where 
 the issue of the war can be decided. After that, 
 but only after that, Chief of the Boches, we shall 
 consent to talk. 
 
 November 22, 1915. 
 
 On a Toue of Inspection 
 
 ... If General Joffre were a humorist, he 
 would send a nice safe-conduct, with the fasces 
 and the axe of the Republic, to the Chief of all 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 357 
 
 Bochery, whom I would undertake to go and seek 
 at Chalons, to conduct him to the trench at Souain, 
 where he could make the acquaintance of my good 
 friend Sergeant Poissonnier. 
 
 Poissonnier is not tired. You will find him fresh 
 and rosy, your Majesty, as smiling and merry as 
 could be desired. I should recommend patience 
 to him, as you have to your own men, but only to 
 hold him back, not to urge him on. He is trying 
 to sleep, like your own men, under the fire of 
 machine-gun and cannon, in the muddy pools of 
 the trenches, and he sleeps and wakes contented, 
 because the enormous catastrophe which you in- 
 augurated has given him the firm consciousness 
 of a magnificent destiny for which he and his com- 
 rades had not believed they were born. Under 
 the bombs and among the corpses I could say 
 nothing to him, because he inspired in me the 
 respect of great things simple in their grandeur. 
 Foolish encouragement, even at the moment of 
 leave-taking, would have lighted a flame of indig- 
 nation in his eyes. Above all, he would have been 
 convulsed with laughter at the mere question, 
 "Aren't you tired?" 
 
 He does not know how to be tired, even when 
 he is staining the parapet with his blood, because 
 nothing less than death, in its finality, is necessary 
 to give him pause. He would still preserve, up to 
 his last gasp, an unconquerable resolution. For 
 the contrast, one must see filing before him the 
 Boches from the opposing trenches who come rush- 
 ing up with their arms aloft, crying, "We're glad 
 enough to be through with this!" I might offer 
 you a chance to read them a lecture, Sire, if it were 
 
358 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 not always too late and if I could save you from 
 the too lively testimonials of their execration. 
 
 And when you have interrogated Sergeant Pois- 
 sonnier, from Eoubaix, out of my presence if you 
 like, we shall take the road from Souain to 
 Suippes, without dropping your incognito, and 
 you will admire, as I do, that impressive stream 
 of men whom shells never cause to waver in their 
 line, and who go on at a steady pace, their smiles 
 wreathed in blue smoke, toward the Navarin 
 farm, where there are Boches to kill. 
 
 I should like you also to pause at the first-aid 
 stations and before the ambulances to see your 
 exponents of Deutschland uber Alles with their 
 faces distorted in dumb rage at the sight of our 
 men, bleeding freely but debating with each other 
 as to the moment, longed for with their power of 
 hope, when they will 1 be able to get back to their 
 trench. 
 
 And when you have seen that, and plenty of 
 other things besides, I will offer you a tour of 
 inspection in our land of France. You certainly 
 owe a visit of courtesy to our Englishmen at 
 Calais, at Eouen, at Brest, and at Nantes. Oh, 
 they don't look tired, those fellows! In fact, I 
 think they are having a good time. Ajid then Cler- 
 mont-Ferrand, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons 
 are worthy of a glimpse, with many other towns, 
 and also our countrysides, where I will show you 
 women following the plow, quite as impervious 
 to fatigue as the men bent with age and the laugh- 
 ing little ones who accompany them as merry 
 moral supporters. 
 
 You will seek to solve the riddle of the fire that 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 359 
 
 flames in all these eyes and if you do not guess 
 right I will tell you in plain words that your men 
 are weary because your " organization' ' has left 
 them nothing but bodily strength, whereas our 
 " levity "-T- blameworthy enough at certain times — 
 has nevertheless allowed us to keep full possession 
 of the higher powers of conscience and of will. 
 Finally you will not refuse to pause with me at 
 the window of our banks; and I will let you see 
 how these Frenchmen, so much detested, excel in 
 building up, out of mountains of sous, pyramids 
 of billions of francs at sight of which I shall be 
 happy to see you go into raptures. 
 
 I shall whisper in your ear, in conclusion, these 
 words of General Alexiefr*: "We are just begin- 
 ning to fight.' ' Then you will understand quite 
 fully this opinion from the Hamburger Volks- 
 zeitung: "Germany must take advantage of the 
 present favorable situation to open conversations 
 looking toward peace. If she allows this moment 
 to pass, it will be too late." 
 
 After which I shall offer you my finest military 
 salute, and we shall wait to see what happens. 
 
 November 29, 1915. 
 
 The Questions of the Houb 
 
 . . . Is it from the superiority of our arma- 
 ment that we can expect the final decision? Cer- 
 tainly not, for the German industrialization of 
 war permits them to manufacture rifles, cannon, 
 and munitions in quantities far superior to any- 
 thing that we can accomplish. 
 
 What, then? Well, there are the men, the 
 
360 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Frenchmen, the soldiers, the poilus — call them by 
 what name you will. It is they whose marvelous 
 exertions have enabled us slowly to gain, from 
 day to day, some advantage over an enemy whose 
 defenses in the field are marvels of art, and to 
 inspire confidence abroad in the success of our 
 arms, as well as to make the shudder of death 
 pass in advance through the hearts of our 
 enemies. 
 
 This reservoir of unconquerable heroes is the 
 treasure vault of our military Bank of France, to 
 which the most generous blood is offered lavishly. 
 We guard it not less jealously than the other treas- 
 ure. Gold and the most valuable paper are but 
 means to an end. Those heroes constitute, for at 
 certain times they actually are, a torrent which 
 carries everything before it. That is understood. 
 We have given all our men. Their blood flows day 
 by day, and we cannot grudge it. Take them, O 
 native land, if thou hast need of them. Plunge 
 them, thrilling with the courage of youth, into the 
 ghastly furnace if they must die in order that thou 
 mayest live. We bleed with them, and with thee, 
 but no cowardly trembling shall betray our wound, 
 and our weeping mothers will accept the destiny 
 that is theirs. 
 
 But you, men who stand forth as the expression 
 of the great and sacred idol, do not forget that 
 we have need of this generous blood until the 
 end — until the very end. You say this easily in 
 your exuberant perorations. That is not enough. 
 You must put the words into action— that is to 
 say, you must know how to lavish and to save at 
 once. Since we shall have need of every sacrifice 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 361 
 
 that is useful, yon would be criminal if you asked 
 a sacrifice that was vain. Germany is already 
 finding it necessary to husband her effectives, 
 which are ill-proportioned to the length of the 
 front which her madness has imposed on her. 
 The day is not very far off, perhaps, when we shall 
 perform such marvels as shall lead to a decision. 
 
 A puny little poilu, who nevertheless has eyes 
 of fire and a soul of steel, will not be less precious 
 in our last cohorts than the heaviest cannon of 
 our heaviest artillery. Guard the soldiers, pre- 
 serve them, like the magic jewels of the ornaments 
 of France, since it is in beauty that our country 
 must be reborn. France will need them in her 
 victory, and in her peace will be no less ardent 
 to acclaim them, since it is the peace of the France 
 of to-morrow that we are making by giving our 
 lives in the war of to-day. Yes, we shall have 
 before our eyes a population of wounded men, 
 some with half their bodies gone, others with 
 twisted limbs, and contracted muscles, and move- 
 ments half-made but suddenly arrested, but our 
 women will love them thus, for the most noble 
 halo of grandeur will be about their pale counte- 
 nances, and if their bodies have shrunk, their 
 souls will be enlarged — shame being reserved for 
 those who will not be able to answer when some- 
 one asks them: "Where were you!" 
 
 The women who will have nursed them, and 
 dressed their wounds, and consoled them in their 
 bloody bandages will still desire to serve as a 
 crutch for them in life, after having saved them 
 from the jaws of death. And we shall be a greater 
 people, because we shall have come out of the 
 
362 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 formidable trial with a higher training. And the 
 least one among us will be proud to have served 
 some purpose in one of humanity's most noble 
 works. 
 
 November 30, 1915. 
 
 The Women 
 
 The Figaro ridicules the idea which is making 
 progress at Berlin and at Vienna of an actual 
 mobilization of women, whether to augment the 
 forces of industrial labor or to replace men in the 
 work in which they can be replaced. Alas, my 
 good co-worker, we have something else to think 
 of than a satire on ' ' The Follies of 1915. ' ' There 
 is a time for laughing. There is another for 
 measuring one's forces unflinchingly against the 
 realities of a merciless struggle. If one will but 
 reflect fully on the deep meaning of the term 
 "universal military service," which is to say, the 
 employment with reservation of all the national 
 energies in the service of the country, one will 
 very quickly understand that our cause, thus 
 conceived, is thus ennobled with a higher dignity 
 in its aim and in its means. 
 
 I should hold myself a madman if I thought 
 that the present war would be the last that men 
 should see. The extent of the battlefield, the 
 ever-increasing value of the stakes, no longer 
 solely for conquering chiefs, but more especially 
 for the ethnic groups of the civilized world, would 
 seem to bear witness rather to a redoubtable 
 evolution of engines of might than to a relaxa- 
 tion in the desire to take the offensive or in 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 363 
 
 exertions for defense at any price. Let ns not 
 lose ourselves in prophecies, always easy to make, 
 and let us hold, as necessity invites us to do in 
 a fashion pressing enough, to the bloody realities 
 of the present. 
 
 The reality of the present is that the four great- 
 est peoples of the ancient continent of civilization 
 are at swords y points in a mortal struggle for 
 the conquest or the defense of principles which 
 they esteem highly enough to sacrifice everything 
 for them. Germany wants mastery — Beutschland 
 fiber Alles — and is totally lacking in scruples as 
 to the means for achieving it. The Latin, the 
 Englishman, and the Russian (and their history 
 has been also one of more or less fortunate at- 
 tempts at mastery) have promised themselves to 
 perish sooner than to stretch out dishonored hands 
 in servitude to a barbarism in which the develop- 
 ment of the human spirit no longer appears ex- 
 cept as an organized power of decivilization. 
 
 It is the most splendid and most noble battle 
 of man, to which the wars of the French Revolu- 
 tion and of the Empire appear to-day as no more 
 than an agitated prelude. Armed for the con- 
 quest of the right, the Revolution was engulfed 
 in other enterprises of conquest on which nothing 
 stable could be founded. It is our good fortune 
 to-day that never were the questions so clearly 
 put — the subjection of all under the saber of a 
 master, or independence of nation and of man. 
 
 There are some neutrals, near and far away, 
 whose destiny (and I do not envy it) is to look 
 on. Perhaps they will soon come to discover that 
 they are no less interested than the combatants 
 
364 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 themselves in saving human honor from the 
 shameless brutalities of savagery. Liberated by 
 us, or subjected (without a combat) by Wilhelm, 
 they will have been, indeed they are now, among 
 the stakes of the tragic game to which we are 
 giving our lives and our goods, for ourselves and 
 for all. We have counted too much upon some 
 of them. Let each one guard the part of honor 
 as he has seen fit to choose it. We have no longer 
 any time for recrimination or for dispute as to 
 the measure of our effort for liberation when the 
 noblest destiny demands our all. 
 
 Ah, yes! All the effort of all men, that is the 
 full contribution of blood and of gold which is 
 required of us by the high fortune to which the 
 long- continued sacrifices of our fathers have edu- 
 cated us. All— that means that no person must 
 be lacking. Is it enough, then, for women and 
 children and aged men to perish from privations 
 or fall under the sufferings of cold and hunger, 
 like those who are strewn along the roads of 
 Serbia? No. If destiny wills it that they must 
 perish, they owe it to their native land to refuse 
 no effort — none whatever — that is within their 
 power. This they owe to that native land which 
 unites us all and offers us a cause that calls for 
 undivided duty. 
 
 I was not afraid to say it long ago — the old 
 men and the children will have their turn. The 
 blood of our men is flowing in a great river — a 
 river of hope which will fructify our future. Our 
 smiling wounded soldiers ask nothing of us but 
 to restore to them their strength for the combat. 
 At their bedsides mothers, wives, sisters, and 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 365 
 
 daughters, are at work, claiming their part in the 
 common duty. Is it enough? I say no, since 
 France wants no less than the total sacrifice of 
 every person. 
 
 The philosophers have painfully come, after 
 passing through the entanglements of meta- 
 physical discussion, to the point of believing and 
 even of saying that the dignity of woman is 
 possibly not inferior to that of man. Without 
 waiting for this laborious demonstration, some 
 modest creatures have begun by taking, of their 
 own motion, the place to which they have proved 
 their right by filling it. 
 
 Because she was of a soul at once tender and 
 valorous, full of idealism and of force, Joan of 
 Arc deserved the reward of high achievement. 
 Yesterdav Miss Edith Cavell, whom we shall not 
 allow the Germans to forget, gained for herself, 
 without a spoken word, a page of immortality. 
 And think of those heroic nurses of the New 
 Zealand steamer Marquette or of the transport 
 Amalia in the Channel, who, seeing their ship 
 torpedoed, refused to take their places in the life- 
 boats, saying to the men who wanted to save 
 them, "No, men first! England needs soldiers/' 
 And think of the men, magnificently accepting 
 life, and the women, in the highest expression of 
 human nobility, watching them depart, thanking 
 them for their sacrifice of manly honor, at the 
 moment of sinking. 
 
 After such an example, an example that can 
 never be surpassed, who will dispute the right 
 and the duty of the "weaker sex" to develop, 
 for the salvation of a land that is theirs as fully 
 
366 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 as it is ours, the full moral and physical strength 
 that is given to them? In a war to the last ex- 
 tremity, in which all the powers of the human 
 creature are required to expend themselves be- 
 yond measure, we must lavish all the gifts we 
 have, regretting only that we can never do 
 enough. 
 
 Proudly we watch our beardless little soldiers 
 departing, erect under their packs, intoxicated 
 with their lofty mission of going forth to great 
 deeds which they have hardly begun to imagine. 
 The pride of their grandmother, their mother, 
 their sister, is of some availing influence upon the 
 nobility of their valor. The highest of human 
 emotions transports them beyond the common 
 cares of human creatures, because they are going 
 to give themselves for the most magnificent ideal 
 of unselfish love. They feel that their day has 
 come. High purpose tempts their happy youth, 
 and their brisk step, which makes the earth re- 
 sound as if under the stroke of an inflexible will, 
 proclaims to us that they will go, joyously, to the 
 summits of glory. Go on, children of ours, the 
 honor of the blood of your race, the high glory of 
 your native land, go on to rejoin your fathers and 
 brothers who signal to tell you that there are 
 places of heroism by their sides. 
 
 The class of 1916 is going to take the path to 
 the front, the class of 1917 will soon be called. 
 And you of 1918, does it not seem to you that the 
 delay is very long? To gain patience I notice that 
 many of you are preparing yourselves through 
 military exercises. Keep it up, my friends, you 
 will be stronger and better men for it. Let it not 
 
FEANCE FACING GERMANY 367 
 
 be said that you were less worthy than your 
 elders. Would you agree to be placed in the sec- 
 ond rank because of inferior physical develop- 
 ment? The fire in your eyes tells me that you 
 are wondering whether it is enough, for you, to 
 be in the first. Take your rightful rank, therefore. 
 By you, as by all the others, France will be saved, 
 and the greatest of your ancestors will smile to 
 see themselves equaled by their children. 
 
 And who will dispute the right and the duty of 
 the women to take their own true place in the army 
 of the workers for France, that she may be saved 
 from death? All the vast domain of the services 
 of the rear is open to their zeal and to their in- 
 cessant devotion. As yet they have occupied but 
 a slight part of it. It is very well to care for the 
 wounded, to knit woolen garments, to economize 
 upon necessities in order that something may be 
 saved for the little packet for the soldier. But 
 more must be done. What would be the use of 
 expending force in silent suffering? France has 
 need of all Frenchmen, of all Frenchwomen. Who 
 would hold back when France has called? 
 
 In the valleys of Normandy one may see women, 
 children, and aged men bent over their labors in 
 the field. Through their efforts the crops have 
 been raised, by their work our people have been 
 able to live to-day and will be able to live to- 
 morrow. They have thus instinctively shown the 
 path to duty. Is it known that in their need of 
 effectives, which presages the beginning of their 
 end, the Germans have already 20,000 women 
 miners, at work underground, in the basin of the 
 
368 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 Buhr? It seems as if our destiny is to be always 
 behindhand. But we have shown that we know 
 how to make up for lost time. Let us get to work, 
 everywhere. The program is simple indeed. Let 
 not a man of the rear occupy a place — not one, 
 I say — in which a woman, in the employment of 
 her full strength, could replace him. 
 
 . . . Let those of the rear not w^ait until they 
 are pushed, by a scornful feminine hand, to posts 
 nearer the front. There are places that may be 
 filled even in public and private administrative 
 ranks. The good workers in the factories are at 
 their post of combat. I am one of those who 
 called them thither. Having nothing in common 
 with the slacker, they themselves proclaim that 
 in every position where strength and technical 
 skill are not required a reliable woman can replace 
 a man whom his age calls to the colors. 
 
 I know that nothing is urgent in all this as 
 yet. None the less, it is time to be thinking. (The 
 moment will soon be here for considering the 
 details of the matter.) The fine ladies themselves, 
 who are the ornament, but not the vital substance 
 of the French nation, may make themselves use- 
 ful washing and dressing the children of working 
 women who are at their tasks. Everybody to 
 arms ! France must not be less proud of its women 
 than of their sons. 
 
 December 21, 1915. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 369 
 
 The Account 
 
 The commission appointed to investigate the 
 principal acts of German barbarism has just 
 presented a new report, which, in company with 
 the preceding ones, makes a most formidable in- 
 dictment of the ways of Bochery. 
 
 ... As to the mere fact of the German atroci- 
 ties there is not much left to say. The opinion 
 of all the peoples of the earth is already settled. 
 The immortal phrase in which the men of so- 
 called high culture defended their compatriots by 
 saying that they had committed no other acts 
 than those of disciplined cruelty will remain in 
 the annals of history as the innocently cynical 
 avowal of the most abominable crimes against 
 civilization and humanity. 
 
 If it were necessary to enlighten men's minds 
 as to the future result of that universal conquest 
 by Germany which would set loose upon us a 
 ghastly tempest of steel and fire, the mere recital 
 of these first deeds, in the districts where it was 
 possible for the Germans to exert their power, 
 would suffice to bring against that project of 
 conquest the unanimous verdict of human con- 
 science. The stories of infamies which can only 
 be repeated in vague terms is no longer necessary, 
 since the means for the brute's nourishment have 
 been found limited. When one has outraged 
 women with the inventions of drunken perversion, 
 massacred aged men, dispatched the wounded, 
 killed little children, pillaged, stolen, and burned, 
 it becomes obligatory on the human beast, gorged 
 
370 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 with wine and blood, to come to a halt, since he 
 has exhausted his gifts for sinking to the lowest 
 abysses of shame. 
 
 . . . All that is undeniably established. There 
 is no need of reverting to it. The criminals who 
 have found a w^ay to reach a lower level in the 
 scale of human degradation began at first by im- 
 pudently denying the fact, like all bandits caught 
 in the act, and then they alleged that it was the 
 fault of the victims, whom they blamed for re- 
 sisting. And now, having receded further and 
 further in their position, they no longer contest 
 the incidents, but are reduced to inculcating the 
 worst infamies of brute force as the quickest 
 means for imposing their civilization on people. 
 
 I have even heard from the invaded districts 
 that, trying to make people forget the unfor- 
 getable, the soldiers of the Boche Landsturm are 
 trying to show themselves good fellows, playing 
 with the little children and affecting a chivalrous 
 and humanitarian deference toward those who 
 survived the earlier shameless bestiality. One of 
 our men was given this message at his repatria- 
 tion: "Please tell the French that we are not 
 such bad fellows." A little unclean beast would 
 be offering to defile us with his friendship. Down 
 with your feet! The irreparable has been com- 
 mitted. 
 
 Between all the peoples of the earth there is 
 some bad humor left over from wars, but a civili- 
 zation in which Christianity and philosophy were 
 contending for the place of first importance had 
 brought us to the point of believing that man 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 371 
 
 was beginning to rise out of the condition of 
 barbarism in which a Creator who had the power 
 to give him all good things had preferred to 
 leave him. And we were very proud of the fact. 
 The ideal world which we were beginning to con- 
 struct was very beautiful in books, and we took 
 our place before the peoples full of foolish con- 
 fidence in the fine words which we pompously 
 proclaimed as great realities. What the spirit of 
 the purest religions had not been able to do — 
 because they left the human being unchanged 
 under a new set of formulas — the "culture of 
 civilization" had promised to accomplish, and the 
 external appearance of life having been modified 
 we were ready to decree that the inner man was 
 in a way to transcend his humanity. 
 
 ... In 1870 Germany had dismembered and 
 robbed us, but many Frenchmen who stand re- 
 vealed to-day as unimpeachable patriots were 
 doing their best to forget it. Neutral peoples said 
 to themselves that after all it was only France 
 that had suffered, and some persons even re- 
 proached us for our regrets. And anyhow, the 
 universal reconciliation of men was coming in a 
 "scientific" organization of human activities, 
 bringing happiness with mathematical infalli- 
 bility. 
 
 And then the war exploded. It burst upon us 
 like a thunderbolt. It is a war of emperors, 
 doubtless, with the age-long ambition to advance 
 the boundaries of their empire and enlarge the 
 number of their subjects. But it is a war of 
 peoples also, for all Germany is behind its Kaiser 
 
372 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 — arrogant Junkers, clinging to the trappings of 
 medievalism, greater and lesser Bourgeois, half- 
 paralyzed in their ancestral servitude, and the 
 laboring population of Bochedom, incapable of 
 understanding liberty as anything but a form of 
 obedience. Yes, the Social Democracy which was 
 getting ready to revolutionize the universe 
 through a just redistribution of economic re- 
 sources enlists in an enterprise of military domina- 
 tion. And all this people in arms suddenly start 
 hurrying their cannon in our direction, very 
 proud of having scientifically prepared for this 
 day, down to the smallest details. 
 
 And with what exploits does the murderous 
 rabble begin its work! With the violation of 
 their sworn faith — with the most cynical assault 
 on international law, the foundation of all the 
 treaties without which there would be nothing 
 but brute force to reign among the tribes of suf- 
 fering mankind. All the rest followed from that. 
 Crime en masse, or crimes by individuals, it is all 
 one system. The hideous beast of prey was run- 
 ning wild. The Kaiser had renounced the ele- 
 mentary laws of the human conscience. His 
 subjects could do nothing except imitate him. 
 Let us do them the justice to say that they have 
 done their best to surpass him. How they must 
 suffer at not being able to do more than the 
 ancient barbarian invaders! Better armed than 
 Attila, Wilhelm II can in a shorter space of time 
 inflict more sufferings on mankind. But when 
 he has murdered, violated, mutilated, and burned, 
 he can do no more. 
 
 Nevertheless we inscribe in our registers the 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 373 
 
 true account of his atrocities, and since a sudden 
 explosion of the savage fury of ancient days has 
 come to light in the forests of Germany, the ques- 
 tion is now resolved into these terms: Which 
 will prevail among the men of the earth, the 
 ancestral ferocity of the brute or our late but 
 mitigating civilization? 
 
 ... A beast running wild, did I say? Let the 
 hunters come with us. Let the men worthy of 
 the name join us against the last mad struggles 
 of human bestiality. After his capture, his claws 
 and teeth will be filed. This is the lesson of the 
 moral account presented by our commission ap- 
 pointed to draw up a partial memorandum of 
 the German atrocities. It is an affair of debit 
 and credit. The final settlement is the business 
 of our soldiers. 
 
 December 23, 1915. 
 
IX 
 VEBDUN 
 
 The Cannon of Veedtjn 
 
 . . . Foe ourselves, and in the name of our 
 land and of its history, we are defending those 
 famons rights of man the mere proclamation of 
 which bronght Europe into upheaval, in spite of 
 Brunswick and its manifesto of German servitude. 
 For this reason our principles are those of all the 
 peoples worthy of the name in history, and we 
 ourselves are the representatives of the civilized 
 world. This is what the men of the English par- 
 liament said so eloquently the other day, when, 
 rendering to "the heroine of ancient France" the 
 homage that marks a definitive reconciliation, they 
 called her to witness that the two great peoples 
 were at last united "for the common defense of 
 the freedom of the world. ' ' How many explosions 
 of mines, how much asphyxiating gas, and how 
 much heavy artillery will be required to develop 
 a force equivalent to that aroused in the massed 
 peoples of humanity? 
 
 England and France, so obstinately hostile 
 through long centuries of bloodshed, have now 
 come to a reconciliation that is final, to a public 
 agreement of high principles, no longer over ques- 
 
 374 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 375 
 
 tions of territory, but "for the common defense 
 of the freedom of the world." Whoever can re- 
 main deaf to the appeal of such a purpose proves 
 merely that he is a stranger to the high ideals of 
 the community of mankind. The neutral peoples, 
 whom I may be permitted to pity, would not 
 officially accept this judgment ; of that I am quite 
 sure. But the best of their citizens, those who 
 are the honor of their states, will understand what 
 my words mean, and will ask themselves and their 
 fellow-citizens what monstrous disaster to civili- 
 zation would ensue if it should be possible that 
 with the aid of their inertia humanity could be 
 turned backward in its path of progress. No more 
 than the stars of heaven can the organizations of 
 the earth change their courses. Our purpose is 
 very simple : we wish that mankind shall continue 
 its advance, while Germany is exhausting her 
 strength in the maddest of efforts for a reaction 
 contrary to the laws of human nature. 
 
 To establish this fact will not, of course, supply 
 us with the munitions of war. Nevertheless it as- 
 sures to us, from all the continents of the globe, 
 the ever-increasing assistance offered by the con- 
 science and the will-power of our friends. And 
 out of conscience and power of will the history of 
 man, more and more fully, will be created. It is 
 for these reasons that there will arise in us all 
 the powers of endurance that we need to repair 
 great mistakes of the past and to wrest victory 
 from the enemy in spite of weaknesses in govern- 
 mental direction for which our people are not 
 themselves responsible. We can hold out, and 
 we shall hold out, because we represent not only 
 
376 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 the visible coalition of the greatest and most 
 powerful peoples of the earth, but also the higher 
 concert of the most noble principles of humanity. 
 With such resources of strength, what could fail 
 us? Our successes will bring their natural fruits. 
 Our reverses, if we must undergo them, will only 
 arouse for us, on every side, new accessions of aid. 
 
 We control the sea, we have money, and we shall 
 have, in greater and greater numbers, all the men 
 that are needed — whose decisive blow will only be 
 possible when we shall have adopted the idea, too 
 simple for certain intellects among us, that we 
 must concentrate our men for effective action on 
 a front that is too extensive — on which the Kaiser, 
 at least, knows how to maneuver. Too many of 
 our men will yet fall. But France, Great Britain, 
 Eussia, and Italy, with the goodly support of vast 
 colonies, are at hand to furnish men to take their 
 places — more and more men, without stint. If we 
 had been better prepared we might have saved 
 many human lives — I know not how many. We 
 shall count them later, for our lesson in the future. 
 Our sons have come forth with smiles on their 
 lips to make the payment. And we too shall pay, 
 we the civilians, of both sexes and of all ages. We 
 shall pay our tribute in sufferings and with im- 
 movable courage, thanks to which our sons and 
 brothers will not have fallen in vain. 
 
 That is why, confident of ourselves, and sure of 
 controlling our destiny, we are listening with the 
 calmness of fixed resolution to the cannon of 
 Verdun. 
 
 February 27, 1916. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 377 
 
 Verdun ! 
 
 Verdun ! Verdun ! At this moment we can think 
 of nothing else. Every mind and every heart goes 
 out toward those fields of tragedy on which, day 
 and night, and with an inexhaustible display of 
 French heroism, is raging a battle never inter- 
 rupted except to renew its fury. 
 
 Awe-struck by the bravery of our defense, the 
 official reporters of the enemy cannot help telling 
 of their wonder at our unshakable resistance to 
 the mad destruction of their heavy artillery. At 
 certain points their monstrous shells have so com- 
 pletely churned the ground to atoms that the eye 
 can discover nothing in its range but a return 
 to primeval chaos. Then suddenly there is silence, 
 and serried columns appear — of men marching 
 shoulder to shoulder, with the officers in the rear, 
 revolver in hand to shoot down those who flee. 
 Thus the black battalions of the Kaiser advance, 
 in their massed formations, to complete the con- 
 quest of a soil on which nothing could apparently 
 have survived. They advance, and for the moment 
 the illusion of a deserted terrain may comfort 
 them. But though the eye can discover nothing, 
 they have lessons in plenty to teach them that, in 
 this mortal silence following upon the most 
 ghastly uproar of all the engines of destruction 
 they have turned loose, there remain mute and 
 resolute men to give an answer to them that is 
 unexampled. 
 
 "Forward! Forward!" cry their officers, from 
 the rear. And every man knows that death would 
 answer any faltering in their feverishly brisk step. 
 
378 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 So they come on, the men who are to conquer the 
 world in behalf of the ruling sword of Germany. 
 They come on, marching with an automatic spring, 
 because they can do no other thing than march 
 on. They come on in thick files, into the jaws 
 of the tornado which will rage in a moment from 
 the cannon's mouth. They come on in masses 
 so dense, so molded into one, that, according to 
 an expressive legend of our own men, a whole 
 troop of them, shot at one moment as they ad- 
 vance in unrelaxing rigidity and are caught in a 
 hail of steel, will all die at one blow, and will so 
 prop one another up that they cannot fall. They 
 come on to the hecatomb in human blocks to meet 
 the inevitable blow awaiting them, and this in the 
 distant hope that some survivors may possibly 
 penetrate to the "hereditary enemy" who dares 
 to defend his soil against the master for whose 
 supremacy the earth was created by a god of fury. 
 To live and die for such an end is not a very 
 high manifestation of principle. These human 
 machines do not even imagine that another em- 
 ployment might have been offered to their efforts. 
 Machines of murder, it is impossible for their 
 vision to rise above the level of the murderous. 
 As for the atrocities which have forever dishon- 
 ored the name of these murderers before the 
 world, it is possible that at this moment of terror 
 the memory of such things is foreign to them. It 
 is not theirs to feel or to reason. They go on in 
 their implacable offensive with forced passivity, 
 trusting in the providential power of violence, 
 without that flame of nobility in their breasts, or 
 that illumination of unconquerable hope, or that 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 379 
 
 strong will to do more than die, which give to our 
 soldiers a principle of life superior to death itself 
 because there is transmitted from man to man an 
 inspiration to which the rudest tempest, at the 
 very point of extinguishing it, can only lend 
 flame. 
 
 And now behold our soldiers appearing, for 
 their little cannon are at last starting suddenly 
 to sweep the field. In our turn we let loose a 
 dreadful tempest of devastating shell. Horror 
 answers horror, and the slow masses of the enemy 
 fall in the storm of steel that mows to the ground 
 anything that tries to face it. Great black holes, 
 in which convulsive things are tossing, mark the 
 place where the formidable human catapult was 
 mechanically advancing. Hardly have they been 
 reduced to scattered remnants when another mass 
 appears, and still others and others, and always 
 others. What is the life of men, of their men, 
 for the leaders of butchery who represent nothing 
 in life but an organization for wholesale mas- 
 sacre for the profit of a Moloch commissioned to 
 derive, out of a prodigious mountain of corpses 
 a supreme formula for "civilized" barbarism! 
 With a sad eye their men look on as their dark 
 files are falling, and they fall when their turn 
 comes, in the arrogance of their stupidity. And 
 the torrents of the offensive keep following each 
 other until parties of their troops, escaping the 
 prodigious harvest of death, penetrate, by good 
 luck, to our lines. 
 
 By good luck! But it does not long seem so to 
 them. For if the men of Germany are now face to 
 face with the men of France, the fate of the Ger- 
 
380 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 man is sealed. After twenty months of a war in 
 which the Boches have really had the time to come 
 to know our poilus, young and old, they have met 
 them before Verdun only to find themselves con- 
 strained to avow that they had not yet learned 
 to know them well. That is why they have been 
 proclaiming in their newspapers, since the com- 
 bats of this unprecedented battle began, that this 
 time they have hurled themselves against an 
 unexpected power of resistance. 
 
 Thus they have come to be unanimous in their 
 frightened eulogies of these Frenchmen at whose 
 expense, for half a century, their heavy Teutonic 
 mockery has been so fully exerted. Yes, it is in 
 the newspapers of pan- Germany that we are find- 
 ing our irresistible valor celebrated to-day, that 
 irresistible valor of our soldiers which the Ger- 
 mans had only too well tested, but which they 
 avoided acknowledging in order to spare them- 
 selves the avowal that the Kaiser had presumed 
 too far upon the might of savagery. Now, they 
 are under the necessity of getting their advantage 
 from it, because it is the only excuse they can 
 find to explain the exhaustion of their organized 
 hordes, and also because, when the survivors of 
 their decimated columns see the blue helmets 
 rising out of the shell-holes that have been their 
 shelter, they can do nothing but bow the head, 
 overcome by the presentiment of a destiny that 
 is about to be fulfilled. 
 
 I am endeavoring to make clear the psychology 
 of the combat, since I lack ability to speak freely 
 of a general situation of which the moderate 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 381 
 
 estimate that I might allow myself would only 
 illuminate, with brighter colors, the incomparable 
 valor of our sublime French soldiers. Some days 
 ago I was present at a friendly conversation 
 between a captain and a sergeant, both wounded, 
 whose regiment had cruelly suffered in the 
 battle. The sergeant, wounded some time ago, 
 was questioning the officer, recently brought back, 
 on the fate of his friends and comrades left in 
 the thick of the battle, in which he was certain 
 that they were happy to do more than their duty. 
 The captain had no end of letters. In a half- 
 whisper, with straining throat, not without 
 trembling, he was telling of the fate of one man 
 or the happy adventure of another. Paul? They 
 had given him up for dead. And what do you 
 think! He had plunged into a trench and with 
 his good rifle had done for no less than twenty 
 or thirty Boches in one day's work. After which, 
 he had reappeared to complain because nobody 
 had sent him his dinner. And Louis 1 Fallen on 
 the heap of men that he had beaten down. And 
 the others! What heroic stories sprang, in sad 
 pride, from those lips! 
 
 We have not the time, alas, to pause over these 
 acts of incomparable valor. The battle holds our 
 minds in thrall. It is on the great combat, the 
 end of which is not yet in sight, that we must 
 fix our eyes. The Bois des Corbeaux has been 
 taken and retaken time after time, submerged 
 under human waves that break over it in clashes 
 of flesh and steel, under the formidable roar from 
 the cannon's mouth. Every hillock, every valley 
 
382 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 adds to the bellowing of earth and heaven the 
 cry or the act of a hero. If heroism were all that 
 is needed in these epic straggles. . . . 
 
 Fifty Days Later 
 
 After a series of desperate offensives, which 
 have lasted all font two months and a half, the 
 attack on Verdnn is expiring in cannonades, 
 sometimes still very lively, which are now 
 directed against our lines solely for the sake of 
 honor. It is a military feat the value of which 
 cannot be estimated until the facilities for defense 
 possessed by our fortress, at the beginning of the 
 offensive, are known to the public. If the estimate 
 is not yet possible, even from the German side, 
 on which great pains have been taken not to 
 explain how the first advantages were gained, 
 the great public of the world is sufficiently in- 
 formed to be in a situation to give a judgment 
 on the results. 
 
 What is quite certain is that the operation, 
 proclaimed as "the most grandiose" of the war, 
 was theoretically confided to the Crown Prince, 
 in order that the prestige of the discounted suc- 
 cess might redound to the dynasty, and that the 
 imperial minus Ihdbens, to whom had been given 
 as tutor the general considered as the most ex- 
 perienced of the whole German army, was only 
 able to play a deplorable role in the enormous 
 drama in which there was no exertion of what 
 only the courtiers still call his great qualities. 
 
 He had been placed there like a historical 
 figurehead, to pronounce words that might im- 
 
FBANCE FACING GERMANY 383 
 
 passion the world, to assume heroic attitudes in 
 places of safety, — while the aged von Haeseler 
 did the work, — and, finally, to make a solemn 
 entrance, for the embellishment of chromolitho- 
 graphs the world over, amid the piles of stones 
 which would have marked, for archaeologists, the 
 site of Verdun. Such was the Teutonically regu- 
 lated plan of the ceremony which was to be, but 
 which has not come to pass owing to lack of 
 consent on the part of those incomparable French 
 poilus, those dictators of a grand veto before 
 which all Bochery thirsting for blood had to 
 recoil. 
 
 This is the brutal fact, and before the evidence 
 of it even the eminent Teutonic custom of falsify- 
 ing had to surrender, having no other refuge 
 than the truth. The young booby who some day 
 will be — or won't be — crowned, has had to store 
 away in his chests of finery the pompous apparel 
 of the triumph, for the joy of which he hurled 
 his soldiers to death in monstrous holocausts. 
 The lurid paintings, made in advance, which were 
 to represent his magnificent entrance will remain 
 sorrowfully turned to the wall until the day, pos- 
 sibly far enough distant still, when certain 
 modifications in details will give them another 
 destination, in the unforeseen event of some in- 
 conceivable victory yet to come. Hope is denied 
 to no one, especially when one is reduced to that 
 alone. 
 
 While waiting for victories of which there is 
 little likelihood, the old von Haeseler, in cruel 
 disappointment, has had to desert the imperial 
 manikin from whom he had not been able to 
 
384 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 elicit, even approximately, deeds such as would 
 give so much as an illusion of success. Indeed, 
 before being relegated to the company of the un- 
 essential, he was not able to restrain upon his 
 lips the bitter words which disclaimed his per- 
 sonal responsibility and transferred the whole 
 blame for the vexatious adventure to the General 
 Staff, to whom had been committed this imperial 
 order: The Crown Prince will take possession 
 of Verdun, "the strongest fortress in the world." 
 
 Alas, no! Verdun was not "the strongest 
 fortress in the world. ' ? To make up for that there 
 was to come into action a force of men urgently 
 brought thither, such as, up to that day, had 
 probably never been known. It was men, nothing 
 but men, those whom you passed by in the street, 
 yesterday, going about their affairs, now suddenly 
 transformed into invincible heroes, because they 
 had silently resolved that the thing which they 
 were told was to be should not come to pass. 
 
 Without protection at times, scattered over the 
 field, far from the eyes of their great leaders, 
 often beyond the reach of food, clinging to little 
 hummocks in the ground from which nothing 
 could dislodge them, they kept themselves snug 
 under the tempests of a heavy artillery whose 
 shells fell around them in hundreds and made the 
 earth itself groan and pant. Nothing had ever 
 been seen similar either to the attack or to the 
 defense. At no other time had it been possible 
 to accumulate such masses of instruments for 
 destruction. In no country could one foresee that 
 beardless little fellows, sustained by older poilus 
 grown gray, would stand forth, with laughing 
 
PRANCE FACING GERMANY 385 
 
 eyes and souls transcending human nature, to 
 breast such a demoniacal avalanche of steel. 
 
 But this is what was done, and when the 
 formidable thrust of the Crown Prince finally 
 brought within the reach of the French arms the 
 deep masses of those brutes who have been able 
 to triumph only over victims who had no de- 
 fense, the little fellows in blue helmets somehow 
 sprang out of the earth, as did formerly the sol- 
 diers born of the dragon's teeth, and before the 
 barrier that knew no yielding the monstrous 
 might of the "irresistible" drive was stopped. 
 
 It was no longer the famous "French fury" of 
 other days. No; nothing but the imposing im- 
 passiveness, as if sculptured, of an immovable 
 human wall against which the most furious as- 
 sault could only break itself in madness. They 
 were there, the truly great men of our France, 
 clinging to the furrow to which they had com- 
 mitted themselves, ready for the decisive leap in 
 expectation of which the aggressors stood in awe. 
 They were there, living, wounded, or dead, re- 
 vealing in the convulsions of their desperate 
 might such energy that neither the strategy nor 
 the sacrifices of the aggressor could prevail 
 against them. Nothing was spared by the enemy 
 in resources such as, till then, had never been 
 known, and on our side the stoicism of the re- 
 sistance was so little theatrical, so fully free from 
 all empty display, that the simplicity of the 
 noblest spectacle in our annals of war prevents 
 us as yet from beholding its grandeur. 
 
 Later on, eloquent historians of the war will 
 laboriously descant upon these things, after hav- 
 
386 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ing done all they can to darken their clarity. 
 They will offer ns massive volumes to demon- 
 strate by quotations without number that what 
 happened really happened. And men who will 
 still be young, with their eye-lids half-closed as 
 they recall the memory, will lift their heads up 
 and, with smiles impeded by their glorious scars, 
 will make our hearts bound with the grand if 
 simple words, "I was there!" 
 
 All honor to the dead and to the survivors, to 
 all those, great and small, who have found in 
 their unconquerable hearts the strength to in- 
 scribe, in the history of France, a page of nobility 
 so perfect that, in a world which already seemed 
 to bend under the weight of Germany, a tre- 
 mendous shout of admiration, restrained by re- 
 spect, is rising to our children as a splendid 
 testimonial in which is voiced the eternal thanks- 
 giving of mankind. To our great ancestors in 
 every epoch, from whom are sprung our men of 
 to-day, the just measure of this glory may well 
 remain. France has done much, she is doing and 
 will do much, not contented with what is merely 
 possible. Her purpose is not conquest; it is not 
 to dominate or to enslave. France is fighting for 
 her right to live, to live according to her prin- 
 ciples, and hand in hand with all the peoples 
 worthy to follow the right, worthy to live in 
 freedom, she is giving all her blood in the con- 
 fident surety of an infinite power always to 
 renew it. 
 
 When all the conditions of the struggle can be 
 determined, Verdun will probably be the most 
 illustrious event in her history, because the great 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 387 
 
 inspiration of her revival has come less from 
 leaders of any kind than from the unconscious 
 depths of a race splendidly moved by instinctive 
 energies which incited it to new efforts for the 
 glory of its own name and for the welfare of a 
 nobler humanity. 
 
 My friends, let us not pause at this point. We 
 are in the midst of our work. On the Marne, on 
 the Yser, and at Verdun, we have, by exertions 
 of will that are unsurpassable, recovered chances 
 which unbelievable combinations of defection 
 seemed to have turned implacably against us. All 
 the might of ancient guilt has been amassed in 
 one encounter, unforeseen by the theorists, for a 
 monstrous blow of tremendous energy organized 
 for the final defeat of the noblest ideal of human- 
 ity. Without the aid of military genius, in the 
 lack even of the capable administrators to whom 
 our people had a right, but by the mere virtue 
 of the most generous blood, by the unconquerable 
 strength of unanimous minds, young and old, we 
 have stopped and held the great flood of barbar- 
 ism. It remains for us to drive it back. Salamis 
 was a great event. It was still only the prepara- 
 tion for Plataea. At Thermopylae there was the 
 protection of a pass. It is on their plains that 
 the Marne, the Yser and Verdun saw us put a 
 stop to organized savagery. There remains to 
 us who yet live the heavy, the overwhelming duty 
 of showing ourselves worthy of our dead. Not 
 for an hour, not for a minute, have we the right 
 to forget it. 
 
 ... To the work, then, all of us, for the repa- 
 
388 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 ration of our mistakes, of all our mistakes, in 
 order that our great dead may be initiators, and 
 not the heroic witnesses of the end of a great 
 tragedy. Verdun is the greatest act of the great- 
 est drama of resistance. This would not be 
 enough if we could not pass to the offensive — 
 by no means to those kinds of offensive the for- 
 tunes of which need official interpretation, but to 
 offensives that need no comment, those which do 
 not consist solely in throwing ourselves headlong 
 on the enemy. Preparation is necessary for this. 
 Science, system, strategy are necessary. Eemem- 
 ber these words well, for nothing would be worse 
 than to forget them. Our allies are making 
 marvelous exertions. Manufactures and men will 
 all be ready at the hour desired, not too soon, and 
 not too late. There is needed a power capable of 
 putting the enormous machine to work, to effica- 
 cious action. This is the gravest problem of the 
 day, for with what price should we have to pay, 
 in our turn, for a stroke that miscarried? 
 
 Too many warnings have been given us that 
 we have not understood. It is time for getting 
 possession of ourselves definitively, for measur- 
 ing our forces, and for making up our minds, not 
 to send better soldiers to the field of battle, for 
 that cannot be, but for a more perfect utilization 
 of our means; and the urgency of this increases 
 in proportion as all the forces in the struggle ad- 
 vance toward the final decision. The neutrals 
 themselves — who have taken so much trouble to 
 convince themselves that the thing that interests 
 them in the highest degree must and could be 
 of no importance to them — the neutrals are awak- 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 389 
 
 ening to the fact that a decisive hour is soon to 
 strike. There are signs that Switzerland, Hol- 
 land, and Scandinavia are beginning to consider 
 questions that they had resolved to ignore. 
 
 Every people worthy of a future is preparing 
 for a new kind of life. We have taken no little 
 lead, in having been able to gain an increase of 
 glory in spite of mistakes which might pos- 
 sibly have proved irreparable if our cause had 
 not lifted us to an effort of higher understanding 
 for an exertion of will which may permit us mag- 
 nificently to achieve our highest work, toward 
 which the French Eevolution itself was only the 
 first, halting step. That is our duty, the last, 
 perhaps the easiest, coming as it does after so 
 many marvelous achievements of our glorious 
 children on the battlefield. The hour is on us 
 when we can no longer be content to keep say- 
 ing, "That will be for to-morrow." Our sons 
 and brothers were not, they are not, heroes of 
 some to-morrow. In whatever form it may be, 
 when the clock shall strike the prophetic strokes, 
 shame to the man who has refused to open his 
 eyes to the real necessities for final victory. For 
 on that day, to the call of civic service as well 
 as military duty the true patriot must be able 
 to say: "I am here." 
 
 March 13 and May 1, 1916, 
 
 We Must 
 
 I have just been visiting the front, from the 
 Pas-de-Calais to the Swiss frontier, and for the 
 first time, after twenty- two months of war, I have 
 
390 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 been able to see everything, to come to conclusions 
 about everything, to interrogate officers and men 
 freely about matters of all sorts, and to receive 
 answers given in full liberty of expression. 
 
 . . . There are many kinds of visits to the 
 army. No kind of ceremony interrupted the ex- 
 treme simplicity of mine. I was able to go about 
 everywhere, accompanied by men who were able 
 to give me technical information and enlighten- 
 ment. / ivanted to see, and I saw. For to-day I 
 must content myself with a summary opinion, 
 for which I shall give the reasons now or at 
 another time, as may be most fitting. 
 
 The first thought that occurs to my interlocu- 
 tors, naturally, is to ask me for my conclusions 
 after an investigation which carried me over 
 more than two thousand kilometers in an auto- 
 mobile, with rests of three or four hours a day 
 spent walking in the mud of the trenches — all 
 this concomitant with conversations which were 
 the more instructive in that they led, on every 
 point, to unanimous conclusions. 
 
 The opinion which I am able to present to the 
 public to-day is not such as to disquiet them. 
 Far from that, it is one of absolute confidence 
 in the final victory of our arms, provided that 
 certain requirements in organization be not only 
 discussed, but effectively brought about. Whether 
 I was interrogating the heroic soldiers who were 
 returning, with smiling faces, from the Inferno 
 of Verdun, whether at Verdun itself I was 
 watching them at work, under a cannonade such 
 as had never been heard before, whether I was 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 391 
 
 following to their very last haunts of mud and 
 stones and wreckage the detachments lost in the 
 inextricable upheaval of the soil churned and 
 pulverized by the formidable shells of the German 
 artillery, I have seen no men who were not im- 
 movably steadfast in their moral strength and 
 heroism. 
 
 I cannot resist the temptation to offer certain 
 foreshortened views of them, because the facts 
 will always be more eloquent than phrases, and 
 because the conciseness of words that issue from 
 the mouths of heroes who do not know their 
 heroism adds to the most noble -actions a magnifi- 
 cent supplement of grandeur. Perhaps I have 
 penetrated deeper, this time, into the soul of the 
 soldier than I had before, because he was given 
 full freedom of speech, whether in the presence 
 of his officers or in private conversations. The 
 truth is that I have not heard one word that 
 could not have been repeated in the presence of 
 the regimental officers or of the general himself, 
 when I invited confidences of every sort in words 
 like these: "What have you to complain of? 
 What do you need? Tell me what you desire. " 
 
 Oh, the answers were not long. One might say 
 that they were all the same. They mentioned the 
 work in the trenches, not less arduous than 
 battle. They mentioned wives and children, and 
 talked of anticipations of returning home — but 
 never thought of it as possible until after their 
 great work was accomplished. Some men as old 
 as forty-four complained of certain marches, 
 carrying packs, the necessity of which was not 
 entirely clear to them, since they came back, 
 
392 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 after several days, to their point of departure. 
 There was talk of temporary fatigue of the body 
 - — but never of fatigue of purpose. And concern- 
 ing certain of the men who gave the fullest rein 
 to their tongues, the officer, far from wishing to 
 restrict their liberty of speech, would whisper 
 gaily in my ear: "That's one of our best men." 
 And the man, who did not hear, would burst into 
 a great laugh, because he knew in advance what 
 could be said about him. Even the bad soldier — I 
 saw just one — however weakened by alcoholism, 
 emaciated, short-winded, lack-luster of eye, as he 
 stood leaning against a tree as if from fear of 
 falling, even he had come there of his own will, 
 instead of claiming, as he might have done, the 
 excuse of his ill-health. He whined, because he 
 had been given a chance to whine, but he was at 
 his post, having declined an invitation to the 
 hospital. And the captain said : 
 
 "When I arrive in cantonment there are some- 
 times, very suddenly, a lot of men ill. But when 
 we are going into the trenches, there is never a 
 single one — never. The men don't want to leave 
 additional work to their comrades.' ' 
 
 That was said in the simplest manner, in a low 
 voice, as if this supreme abnegation hardly 
 merited a word of praise. It is the universal 
 spirit of noble comradeship, man to man, soldier 
 to officer and officer to soldier. There are no more 
 punishments. That is the rule throughout the 
 army, and the French spirit of banter is every- 
 where regaining its rights. The complaints that 
 we solicited were received amid good-natured 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 393 
 
 bursts of laughter from the very men who prof- 
 fered them. 
 
 And there was this unanimous conclusion, 
 quietly spoken: "We'll carry on. We must." Ah, 
 those words, "We must," how many times have 
 you not heard them hurled by an implacable 
 voice at the invisible enemy, quite near to your 
 trench, in the tragic silence of the underground 
 Boche, beyond the barbed wire and the chevaux- 
 de-frise! "We must"; it is the God wills it in 
 this great last crusade of civilization against sav- 
 agery. This man awkwardly bundled up in a 
 muddy tunic, but with two eyes of flame under 
 the visor of his blue helmet, assures you in one 
 word that he has full consciousness of what he 
 is doing and of what his will is. "We must" — 
 that expresses it all. The soldier has agreed to 
 the terrible sacrifices demanded of him by the 
 destiny of France, whose history, so heavy to 
 bear, but so grand and beautiful, requires an 
 heroic redoubling of continuous sacrifice in this 
 decisive hour. He knows it, and he says it with 
 a joyous start of thoughtful gaiety in which the 
 flood of a higher nobility of soul washes away for 
 the future the wreckage left by errors in which he 
 was nevertheless able to exhibit flashes of glory. 
 
 We must! Let us keep the words nearest our 
 hearts. It is the word of command that I bring 
 back from the trenches. It is the supreme 
 phrase of those who are battling for the grandest 
 country which it was ever given to man to build 
 up for the attainment of the highest aims of 
 humanity. "We must" is the cry of the man who 
 
394 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 falls. "We must" is the sole thought of the 
 soldier who stays crouching in the pit of a shell- 
 crater when he has lost everything, even his 
 demolished trench, and when, in the infernal 
 thundering of monstrous masses of steel, he is 
 stupefied by terrors in earth and air turned loose 
 against him, and can expect nothing but death, 
 and that without even the comfort of a personal 
 deed in battle — it is his sole thought because if 
 he retreated one step it would be one step that 
 the enemy would advance. "We must! We 
 must!" In this expression of the inexorable 
 necessity of rising above himself is condensed 
 all that he is capable of thinking and feeling. 
 And he grips at the crumbling pebbles, which let 
 him sink deeper into his earth instead of repelling 
 him. 
 
 And we admire, marveling at this miracle of 
 French courage. But that is not enough. "We 
 must" is the word of command of the soldier and 
 that of his chiefs also, in all the grades of the 
 service. Modest in their roles, the lieutenants 
 and captains and majors are worthy to command 
 such soldiers. This was not told me; I saw it. 
 I know what they say about each other. And 
 there is no need to ask them. It is enough to hear 
 the words that they exchange, or even merely 
 to take note of the glances that pass between 
 them. One sees the sublime familiarities of the 
 epopee. At this point of dizzy sublimity, a signal 
 or a moment of silence has an incomparable ac- 
 cent of tragedy. If I have the time, some day, 
 I will tell you about some captain or colonel 
 among his men, away from the post of command. 
 
FRANCE FACING GERMANY 395 
 
 Or still better, of a general. Certain officers, 
 whom I know well, have deserved, in a measure 
 which it is not my business to specify here, cer- 
 tain criticisms which have been voiced even in 
 the Chambers. I do not think that this is the 
 moment to settle such accounts, in which we must 
 desire nothing but strict justice for all parties. 
 What must be said, at present, because it is true, 
 is that it is impossible for a race to have pro- 
 duced such soldiers, to engage in a battle of men 
 and material such as was never seen before, 
 without having latent within it the productive 
 forces for a corresponding power of command. 
 
 We have military leaders, real ones, because 
 they sprang from our race, as did our soldiers. I 
 say it after three visits to the front, of which this 
 latest has permitted me to judge amply with my 
 own eyes, in complete independence of mind, and 
 with a view solely to the interest of the nation — 
 I say that the French army, as a whole, possesses 
 leaders worthy to command it and capable of put- 
 ting it to its best work, provided that, as is in- 
 dispensable, they are in turn worthily commanded. 
 Their civic virtues are by no means lower than 
 their military qualities. I speak of the greater 
 number, and it will be agreed that the number 
 is great enough. They are wise, they are able, 
 and they are willing; and since they are one with 
 their soldiers we can truly say that we have in our 
 hands the instrument necessary, if the organiza- 
 tion is completed by a perfected coordination 
 under the command of one will. 
 
 I shall say no more. I have come back from 
 this long trip with a very clear vision of what we 
 
396 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 
 
 need and of what we must secure. For those in 
 the rear, as for those at the front, there is a great 
 duty to fulfil. Our word of command is the same. 
 "We must/' I received it from men who are 
 under the shells and with whom it is our task 
 to remain at one by doing all the duty of citizens 
 as they are doing all the duty of soldiers. "We 
 must." Shame to the man who does not under- 
 stand the words. 
 
 May 14, 1916. 
 
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