n I think of France I am tempted to
see no greater thing than such patriotism as that to justify the gospel
of hate against such an enemy, to uphold vengeance as a sweet virtue.
Yet if I did so I should deny the truth that has been revealed to many
men and women by the agony of the war--that if civilization may continue
patriotism is "not enough," that international hatred will produce other
wars worse than this, in which civilization will be submerged, and that
vengeance, even for dreadful crimes, cannot be taken of a nation without
punishing the innocent more than the guilty, so that out of its cruelty
and injustice new fires of hatred are lighted, the demand for vengeance
passes to the other side, and the devil finds another vicious circle in
which to trap the souls of men and "catch 'em all alive O!"

To deny that would also be a denial of the faith with which millions of
young Frenchmen rushed to the colors in the first days of the war. It
was they who said, "This is a war to end war." They told me so. It was
they who said: "German militarism must be killed so that all militarism
shall be abolished. This is a war for liberty." So soldiers of France
spoke to me on a night when Paris was mobilized and the tragedy began.
It is a Frenchman--Henri Barbusse--who, in spite of the German invasion,
the outrages against his people, the agony of France, has the courage
to say that all peoples in Europe were involved in the guilt of that war
because of their adherence to that old barbaric creed of brute force and
the superstitious servitude of their souls to symbols of national pride
based upon military tradition. He even denounces the salute to the flag,
instinctive and sacred in the heart of every Frenchman, as a fetish
worship in which the narrow bigotry of national arrogance is raised
above the rights of the common masses of men. He draws no distinction
between a war of defense and a war of aggression, because attack is the
best means of defense, and all peoples who go to war dupe themselves
into the belief that they do so in defense of their liberties, and
rights, and power, and property. Germany attacked France first because
she was ready first and sure of her strength. France would have attacked
Germany first to get back Alsace-Lorraine, to wipe out 1870, if she also
had been ready and sure of her strength. The political philosophy on
both sides of the Rhine was the same. It was based on military power and
rivalry of sec