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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Roger Martin du Gard: Selections on war
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Roger Martin du Gard
From Summer 1914 (1936)
Translated by Stuart Gilbert
Antoine shook his head. “Interests at stake, I grant you,” he said. “But however acute it may be, competition between those interests might quite easily go on for ages without leading to a war! I’m a believer in peace, and yet to my mind conflict is an essential factor of life. Fortunately we have other forms of conflict available for the nations than a recourse to arms. That sort of thing may be all right in the Balkans, but every government – I am thinking of the great powers – even in the countries which spend most money on armaments, obviously agrees that war is the worst thing that could happen. I’m only repeating what responsible statesmen themselves declare in their speeches.”
“Oh, of course, when talking to their own people, they’re bound to pay lip-service to peace. But most of them are still convinced that war’s a political necessity, something that’s bound to happen now and again, and which, when it does come, must be turned to the best account, and made as profitable as possible. For it’s always the same old story: the root of the whole evil is profit.
Antoine was deep in thought. Just as he was about to voice a further objection, his brother spoke again.
“You see, Europe is just now under control of half a dozen of those poisonous ‘eminent patriots,’ who under the noxious influence of their General Staffs are shepherding their several countries straight toward war. That’s what everyone should realize. Some of them, the more cynical-minded, know perfectly well what they’re about; they want war, and they’re preparing for it, like criminals plotting a new exploit, because they’re convinced that, sooner or later, events will play into their hands. This is notably the case with Berchtold, in Austria. With Isvolsky and Sazanov in St. Petersburg. As for the rest of them, I won’t go so far as to say they actually want war; in fact, they’re mostly scared of it. But they’re resigned to war, because they think it’s bound to come. And no more dangerous belief can take root in the mind of a statesman than the belief that war’s inevitable. Those who hold that belief, instead of moving heaven and earth to avert it, can think of one thing only: how best to increase their chances of victory, at all risks and as rapidly as may be. Such, no doubt, is the case with the Kaiser and his ministers. It may be the case with the British government. It is certainly the case with France, under Poincaré.”
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“Do you suppose a man like Delcassé, a pawn in the hands of the English diplomats, was working for peace when he schemed to encircle Germany? The result was simply to bolster up, to develop, to intensify that Prussian militarism you talked of. The other result was a cut-throat competition throughout Europe in preparing for war, putting up fortifications, building battleships and strategic railways, and all the rest of it. In France, ten billion francs have been voted for war credits in the last four years. In Germany, the equivalent of eight billions. In Russia, six hundred millions, borrowed from France for the purpose of building railways that will enable her one day to move her armies westward against Germany.”
“‘One day,’” Antoine murmured. “Yes, one day, perhaps. But a very distant day.”
Jacques took no notice of the interruption. “All over the Continent,” he went on, “these competitive armaments are being piled up in frantic haste, and they’re ruining every country, causing the vast sums that ought to be devoted to social welfare to be spent on preparations for war. It’s sheer madness, and bound to end in disaster. And we Frenchmen bear our share of responsibility. Yes, we make no secret of it! Was it in order to satisfy the world of our good intentions that we sent to the Elysée that stubborn patriot of a Lorrainer, Poincaré, whom every nationalist trouble-maker at once set up as a symbol of jingoism; whose election promptly started our ‘revenge’-mongers off on a ‘lost provinces’ crusade and roused mercenary hopes across the Channel, where the British shopkeepers would love to see their German competitors laid by the heels, and in Russia whetted the appetite of the imperialists, whose everlasting dream is to annex Constantinople?”
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