their security, their wealth, their
comfort, all that they possessed and loved down to their very life, in
order to accomplish what they believed to be their duty. Never before
had nations been seen that were able as a whole to understand and
admit that the happiness of each of those who live in this time of
trial is of no consequence compared with the honour of those who live
no more or the happiness of those who are not yet alive. We stand on
heights that had not been attained before. And if, on the enemies'
side, this unexampled renunciation had not been poisoned at its
source; if the war which they are waging against us had been as fine,
as loyal, as generous, as chivalrous as that which we are waging
against them, we may well believe that it would have been the last and
that it would have ended, not in battle, but, like the awakening from
an evil dream, in a noble and fraternal amazement. They have made that
impossible; and this, we may be sure, is the disappointment which the
future will find it most difficult to forgive them.

2

What are we to do now? Must we hate the enemy to the end of time? The
burden of hatred is the heaviest that man can bear upon this earth;
and we should faint under the weight of it. On the other hand, we do
not wish once more to be the dupes and victims of confidence and love.
Here again our soldiers, in their simplicity, which is so clear-seeing
and so close to the truth, anticipate the future and teach us what to
admit and what to avoid. We have seen that they do not hate the man;
but they do not trust him at all. They discover the human being in him
only when he is unarmed. They know, from bitter experience, that, so
long as he possesses weapons, he cannot resist the frenzy of
destruction, treachery and slaughter; and that he does not become
kindly until he is rendered powerless.

Is he thus by nature, or has he been perverted by those who lead him?
Have the rulers dragged the whole nation after them, or has the whole
nation driven its rulers on? Did the rulers make the nation like unto
themselves, or did the nation select and support them because they
resembled itself? Did the evil come from above or below, or was it
everywhere? Here we have the great and obscure point of this terrible
adventure. It is not easy to throw light upon it and still less easy
to find excuses for it. If our enemies prove that they were deceived
and corrupted by their masters, they prove, at the same ti