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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Arthur Schnitzler: Political reaction is the consequence of victorious wars; revolution the consequence of lost ones
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Arthur Schnitzler
From Some Day Peace Will Return (Und einmal wird der Friede wiederkommen)
Translated by Robert O. Weiss
1914
I never believed that the age of perpetual peace had arrived, and I do not believe that this monstrous war – were it to last seven or even thirty years – is the last one that civilized nations will conduct against one another.
But let us not forget in the depth of our souls that the enemies against whom our troops are fighting also have fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, wives and children; that they all have a country, which almost all of them serve in the firm belief that its cause is just; and that even those have to serve their country who may doubt the justice of its cause. Let us remember that our enemies too, the foes of our soldiers, are sent into battle by their governments or their kings; that – willingly or unwillingly – they are obligated, indeed forced, to use their weapons against us, regardless of the degree of enthusiasm they have for that task.
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There are neutral states, so-called neutral states that is, and among these may be one or another that will yet take sides in this monstrous war…Not one among those hundreds of thousands will be guided by his personal feelings and decide for or against us in opposition to his government. If, however, one of these soldiers obligated to fight should inwardly arrive at a conclusion other than that of his government or his king, and should he act in accordance with that conclusion – which may possibly be a much more sensible one than that at which his king has arrived – he will probably have to pay for that action with his life.
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And those who are able to make an accounting in their own minds would realize in a flash of enlightenment: “We don’t want to kill at all, we don’t want to bleed to death at all! We want to breathe, live, eat our daily bread, have a bit of land to live on, and work.” At that great moment, with peace spreading over the land, all of them would know that they never did want anything else – even those who a minute ago were aiming at the hearts of their enemies and who were ready to die for their country.
Not the most shocking but perhaps the most saddening fact is that this time the intellectuals, who, we had hoped, would make it possible for us to extend our hands to them across the abyss of this war, are failing us almost entirely, that they either will not or cannot see the real facts.
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This war is unprecedented for the heroism with which it is being fought by the armies, and for the malice with which it is being waged by the countries, especially by some governments, and by the journalists.
The respect of the armies for each other is growing; the bitterness between the nations is increasing.
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It will not do, however, on the one hand to praise war as a grandiose, a colossal, and in a certain sense a divine, necessity that causes everything noble as well as everything evil in man to attain magnificent heights; to declare that a long peace renders nations sluggish and cowardly; to claim that war cleanses and purifies – and on the other hand to curse those who unleash the war and to hold them responsible for the fact that they were handily available at the proper time, so to speak, for the divine necessity.
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