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