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,