If we were able--at this hour, when, through the act of the Teutonic
Empire, the world may witness unnamable deeds--if we were able to cite
the most odious of them, we should say that, after the massacre of
innocent people and all the assaults on the rights of mankind
committed by the German armies, the worst has seemed to us the
shameless manner in which the superior intellects beyond the Rhine
have dared to cover up these crimes. It is not that we ever believed
that from any corner of Germany there could come to us an appearance
of fellow-feeling, in these circumstances wherein no one has any other
right than that of giving himself body and soul to his native land. We
know that, before speaking for the universe, men threatened by the
enemy should be faithful to their flag, in the face of everything and
against everything--and with resolution. At no hour, therefore, have
we thought that German savants and artists could raise their voice to
repudiate their armies, when the latter were going to war with the
object of further extending their empire. But, at least, they should
keep silence, and before the horror of crimes to be judged especially
by the tribunal of the elite they should not have shown their
miserable enthusiasm. "You see," as a clear-sighted Dutch professor[5]
has well written on this point, "if these intellectuals were not
blinded they would rather have asked themselves if, in this war that
stains Europe with blood, the Prussian military authorities were not
losing for centuries the reputation of the great name of Germany." And
suppose it were even a small matter if they had lost only the great
name of Germany, that the epoch of Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven had
covered with glory. But with it they have vilified as well the noble
role of the philosopher, of the historian, of the savant, and of the
artist. In truth they have betrayed their own gods, and the
professions to which they belong can no longer be honored by them--so
far as the question of conscience goes, at least. And as for the
sacred thing called civilization, which is above our interests and our
vanities of an hour, they may have served it usefully by their
personal work in the past, but they were unequal to the task of
remaining its protectors when their mere silence would perhaps have
helped to save it.[6] They have thus shown that, with their more or
less sparkling black eagles and under the bedizenment of their Court
costumes, they are for the most part narrow fanatics or paid scribes
whose pen is only a tool in the hands of their master of a day. It is
not even sure whether through their cult of this "militarism," to
which they have given the most shameful blind-signature, they have not
hopelessly condemned it, by testifying that under the rule of the
German sabre human thought has no other course than to humiliate
itself!... But on the score of what they are worth in professional
morality and courage, agreement is certain today, everywhere.
[Footnote 5: Professor Dake.]
[Footnote 6: On the score of certain names important in Germany--names
not found under the manifesto of the Intellectuals--a question arises:
Were they not solicited as well to cover up these crimes, or did they
refuse? If the question were one of a simple memorial, carrying with
it no abdication of conscience, this point would be without
importance, for it would simply mean that a list, however long, could
not bring together all the men of renown of a country, and omissions
would often have to be laid to chance. But here a venomous manifesto
was to be signed, made up of violent lies and of arbitrary theories;
and with this in mind one may see a meaning in certain abstentions.
Without any possible doubt they are the act of courageous men, who,
feeling deeply where the truth is, will not ally themselves against
it; and by their resistance they do it honor.]
Their great affair--and that of every thinking German--is to object,
when spoken to of their crimes, either that they were born of
necessity or that they did not take place. As against these
allegations, unsupported by any proof, the most formal denials have
officially been given. But to the latter we shall now add the true
description of the facts. And we think that, in spite of the power and
the dogmatic authority of its elite, the activity of its emissaries in
all parts of the world, and, finally, all its vast apparatus of
conquest--military and civil--Germany cannot long make its stand
against the humble little truth, which advances, noiselessly but also
fearlessly, with the tenacious light in its hand that it received from
Reality--from unquenchable and ardent Reality.
We come to you armed with the facts. It is only these unanswerable
witnesses that we have wished to oppose to the gratuitous affirmations
of our colleagues beyond the Rhine. We might have taken you into the
mazes of twenty frightful dramas, for _at every place where the German
troops have advanced they have trodden under foot the rights of
mankind and counted as nothing the civilization and the patrimony of
nations_. We have thought it wiser to limit ourselves to the relation
of certain events bearing the seal of certainty.
Not all the cities which may have suffered have as yet opened their
gates to our brothers. Not being able to collect authentic testimony
there we prefer, then, not to speak of them--for the moment. But in
all those evacuated by the enemy, commissions[7] have hurried to
ascertain the losses on the spot. It is from these legal examinations
that we have written this report, which, in impartial fashion, makes
you the judges.
[Footnote 7: Throughout this work we shall often have recourse to the
reports of these commissions. At the end of the present volume will be
found certain of these documents, unpublished till now.]
Unhappy cities have been tortured in body and soul, that is to say, in
their population and in the works built by their hands, the immortal
relics of the dead. Of the miseries the people have suffered it is not
permitted us to speak. But as to those noble houses built with art
which have been destroyed, as to those constructions erected by our
ancestors for the edification of men of all classes, of all times, and
all countries, which are today but ruins; as to those masterpieces in
which all the elegant poetry of our race was realized and that
belonged to the civilized world, of which they were a glory and an
ornament, and which subsist as nothing but a mournful heap of
debris--of these we are not bound to keep silent. But not one
exaggerated word shall be uttered by us. The account we shall give is
established by high testimony and by irrefutable documents.
But let us cease all this preparation and come to the events of
Rheims.
(Page 59 of the book.)