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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
French writers on war and peace
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André Maurois
From The Family Circle
Translated by Hamish Miles
The killing machine started up with pitiless smoothness. Just as the aprons of the cards slowly and steadily bore the flocks of wool to the hard-pointed rollers that gripped and tore them, so did courage and fear draw this peaceable town into war and carry out the smooth sifting of death. In one single day all the young men vanished. The red-eyed women came back alone to silent houses. The the older men appeared in uniform…
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