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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 Epilogue to Les Thibault (1940)
Translated by Stuart Gilbert
“As it happens, I’ve a Swiss paper here – Goiran passed it on to me. If we’re to believe the German communiqué, the British had over two hundred thousand casualties in one month, April, on the Yser front alone.
“The public in the Allied countries,” Bardot observed, “would be rather startled if they heard these figures.”
Antoine nodded; Mazet broke into a loud guffaw and, as he went out of the room, flung over his shoulder: “Don’t worry! The public only knows what it’s allowed to know. There’s a war on!”
He always gave the impression of regarding others as fools.
When he had left the room Bardot turned to Antoine. “Do you know what struck me this morning? That nowadays, in every country, the government has ceased to be a representative of public opinion. On neither side has anyone the least idea what the masses really are thinking; the voices of the rulers drown the voices of the ruled. Take France, for instance. Do you think there’s one Frenchman in twenty at the front who’s so keen on Alsace and Lorraine that he’d willingly prolong the war for a single month to get them back?”
“Not one in fifty.”
“And yet the whole world is firmly convinced that Clemenceau and Poincaré are the mouthpieces of public opinion in France! This war has bred an atmosphere of lies, officials lies, that’s wholly without precedent. And it’s the same thing everywhere. I wonder if they’ll ever come a time again when people are allowed to say what they really think, if the European press will ever again regain – “
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