What is our object?
Is it to incite our soldiers to commit, if chance arises, atrocities
like theirs? We repudiate with horror a thought such as that.
_Defensive_ reprisals (asphyxiating gas, liquid fire, etc.) are
sometimes indispensable. Reprisals for _revenge_ would be unworthy of
us. But--without speaking of personal punishments, demanded by outraged
conscience, and essential in order that the two indivisible principles
of right and of responsibility may still exist in the world--we must
make it absolutely impossible for the Wild Beast to break out again. And
how, when the settling time draws near, and, in spite of weariness, a
new effort is needed to realise conditions of peace with guarantees for
the future--how could the Allied Nations accept the sacrifices still
demanded of them, if they remained in ignorance?
It is not enough for these crimes to be known by Governments and by a
few hundred people with leisure and inclination to read collections of
great volumes. They must be known by everybody, by the entire people, by
the People, who--in our proud and free countries--control, support,
direct their Governments and are the sole masters of their own destiny.
Our peoples ought to know the crimes committed in the name of "Kultur,"
in order, at all costs, to take the precautions necessary to prevent for
ever their return. That is our first object. The second is this: to all
our martyrs we have a sacred duty--that of remembrance. There, where
they fell, we shall doubtless carve their names in stone or bronze. But
what of a time further away? When, after the long sufferings of this
war, freed humanity takes up again its works of peace, we shall see the
Germans reappear in every land, at every cross-road--men of commerce,
industry, finance, science, men of the people and of society--in every
place where those of all countries, all races and all colours meet and
rub elbows. And what is our attitude to be? Our answer is this: So long
as the nation in whose name and by whose hands these atrocities have
been committed has not herself solemnly cast from her the scoundrels who
dragged her into such decadence, we shall consider that it would betray
our martyrs for us even to rub shoulders with their executioners, and
that until the day arrives--if it ever does arrive--of a striking moral
repentance, to _forget_ would be to _condone_.