OPPONENTS
From the first, Rolland knew perfectly well that in a time when party
feeling runs high, no task can be more ungrateful than that of one who
advocates impartiality. "The combatants are to-day united in one thing
only, in their hatred for those who refuse to join in any hymn of hate.
Whoever does not share the common delirium, is suspect. And nowadays,
when justice cannot spare the time for thorough investigation, every
suspect is considered tantamount to a traitor. He who undertakes in
wartime to defend peace on earth, must realize that he is staking his
faith, his name, his tranquillity, his repute, and even his friendships.
But of what value would be a conviction on behalf of which a man would
take no risks?" Rolland was likewise aware that the most dangerous of
all positions is that between the fronts, but this certainty of danger
was but a tonic to his conscience. "If it be really needful, as the
proverb assures us, to prepare for war in time of peace, it is no less
needful to prepare for peace in time of war. In my view, the latter role
is assigned to those who stand outside the struggle, and whose mental
life has brought them into unusually close contact with the world-all. I
speak of the members of that little lay church, of those who have been
exceptionally well able to maintain their faith in the unity of human
thought, of those for whom all men are sons of the same father. If it
should chance that we are reviled for holding this conviction, the
reviling is in truth an honor to us, and we may be satisfied to know
that we shall earn the approbation of posterity."
It is plain that Rolland is forearmed against opposition. Nevertheless,
the fierceness of the onslaughts exceeded all expectation. The first
rumblings of the storm came from Germany. The passage in the _Letter to
Gerhart Hauptmann_, "are you the sons of Goethe or of Attila," and
similar utterances, aroused angry echoes. A dozen or so professors and
scribblers hastened to "chastise" French arrogance. In the columns of
"_Die Deutsche Rundschau_," a narrow-minded pangerman disclosed the
great secret that under the mask of neutrality _Jean Christophe_ had
been a most dangerous French attack upon the German spirit.
French champions were no less eager to enter the lists as soon as the
publication of the essay _Au-dessus de la mêlée_ was reported. Difficult
as it seems to realize the fact to-day, the French newspapers were
forbidden to reprint this manifesto, but fragments became known to the
public in the attacks wherein Rolland was pilloried as an antipatriot.
Professors at the Sorbonne and historians of renown did not shrink from
leveling such accusations. Soon the campaign was systematized. Newspaper
articles were followed by pamphlets, and ultimately by a large volume
from the pen of a carpet hero. This book was furnished with a thousand
proofs, with photographs, and quotations; it was a complete dossier,
avowedly intended to supply materials for a prosecution. There was no
lack of the basest calumnies. It was asserted that since the beginning
of the war Rolland had joined the German society "Neues Vaterland"; that
he was a contributor to German newspapers; that his American publisher
was a German agent. In one pamphlet he was accused of deliberately
falsifying dates. Yet more incriminatory charges could be read between
the lines. With the exception of a few newspapers of advanced tendencies
and comparatively small circulation, the whole of the French press
combined to boycott Rolland. Not one of the Parisian journals ventured
to publish a reply to the charges. A professor triumphantly announced:
"Cet auteur ne se lit plus en France." His former associates withdrew in
alarm from the tainted member of the flock. One of his oldest friends,
the "ami de la première heure," to whom Rolland had dedicated an earlier
work, deserted at this decisive hour, and canceled the publication of a
book upon Rolland which was already in type. The French government
likewise began to watch Rolland closely, dispatching agents to collect
"materials." A number of "defeatist" trails were obviously aimed in part
at Rolland, whose essay was publicly stigmatized as "abominable" by
Lieutenant Mornet, the tiger of these prosecutions. Nothing but the
authority of his name, the inviolability of his public life, and the
fact that he was a lonely fighter (this making it impossible to show
that he had any suspect associations), frustrated the well-prepared plan
to put Rolland in the dock among adventurers and petty spies.
All this lunacy is incomprehensible unless we reconstruct the
forcing-house atmosphere of that year. It is difficult to-day, even from
a study of all the pamphlets and books bearing on the question, to grasp
the way in which Rolland's fellow-countrymen had become convinced that
he was an antipatriot. From his own writings, it is impossible for the
most fanciful brain to extract the ingredients for a "cas Rolland." From
a study of his own writings alone it is impossible to understand the
frenzy felt by all the intellectuals of France towards this lonely
exile, who tranquilly and with a full sense of responsibility continued
to develop his ideas.
In the eyes of the patriots, Rolland's first crime was that he openly
discussed the moral problems of the war. "On ne discute pas la patrie."
The first axiom of war ethics is that those who cannot or will not shout
with the crowd must hold their peace. Soldiers must never be taught to
think; they must only be incited to hate. A lie which promotes
enthusiasm is worth more in wartime than the best of truths. In
imitation of the principles of the Catholic church, reflection, doubt,
is deemed a crime against the infallible dogma of the fatherland. It was
enough that Rolland should wish to turn things over in his mind, instead
of unquestioningly affirming the current political theses. Thereby he
abandoned the "attitude française"; thereby he was stamped as "neutre."
In those days "neutre" was a good rime to "traître."
Rolland's second crime was that he desired to be just to all mankind,
that he continued to regard the enemy as human beings, that among them
he distinguished between guilty and not guilty, that he had as much
compassion for German sufferers as for French, that he did not hesitate
to refer to the Germans as brothers. The dogma of patriotism prescribed
that for the duration of the war the feelings of humanitarianism should
be stifled. Justice should be put away on the top shelf, to keep company
there, until victory had been secured, with the divine command, Thou
shalt not kill. One of the pamphlets against Rolland bears as its motto,
"Pendant une guerre tout ce qu'on donne de l'amour à l'humanité, on le
vole à la patrie"--though it must be observed that from the outlook of
those who share Rolland's views, the order of the terms might well be
inverted.
The third crime, the offense which seemed most unpardonable of all, and
the one most dangerous to the state, was that Rolland refused to regard
a military victory as likely to furnish the elixir of morality, to
promote spiritual regeneration, to bring justice upon earth. Rolland's
sin lay in holding that a just and bloodless peace, a complete
reconciliation, a fraternal union of the European nations, would be more
fruitful of blessing than an enforced peace, which could only sow the
dragon's teeth of hatred and of new wars. In France at this date, those
who wished to fight the war to a finish, to fight until the enemy had
been utterly crushed, coined the term "defeatist" for those who desired
peace to be based upon a reasonable understanding. Thus was paralleled
the German terminology, which spoke of "Flaumachern" (slackers) and of
"Schmachfriede" (shameful peace). Rolland, who had devoted the whole of
his life to the elucidation of moral laws higher than those of force,
was stigmatized as one who would poison the morale of the armies, as
"l'initiateur du défaitisme." To the militarists, he seemed to be the
last representative of "dying Renanism," to be the center of a moral
power, and for this reason they endeavored to represent his ideas as
nonsensical, to depict him as a Frenchman who desired the defeat of
France. Yet his words stood unchallenged: "I wish France to be loved. I
wish France to be victorious, not through force; not solely through
right (even that would be too harsh); but through the superiority of a
great heart. I wish that France were strong enough to fight without
hatred; strong enough to regard even those whom she must strike down, as
her brothers, as erring brothers, to whom she must extend her fullest
sympathy as soon as she has put it beyond their power to injure her."
Rolland made no attempt to answer even the most calumnious of attacks.
He quietly let the invectives pass, knowing that the thought which he
felt himself commissioned to announce, was inviolable and imperishable.
Never had he fought men, but only ideas. The hostile ideas, in this
case, had long since been answered by the figures of his own creation.
They had been answered by Olivier, the free Frenchman who hated hatred;
by Faber, the Girondist, to whom conscience stood higher than the
arguments of the patriots; by Adam Lux, who compassionately asked his
fanatical opponent, "N'es tu pas fatigué de ta baine"; by Teulier, and
by all the great characters through whom during more than two decades he
had been giving expression to his outlook upon the struggle of the day.
He was unperturbed at standing alone against almost the entire nation.
He recalled Chamfort's saying, "There are times when public opinion is
the worst of all possible opinions." The immeasurable wrath, the
hysterical frenzy of his opponents, confirmed his conviction that he was
right, for he felt that their clamor for force betrayed their sense of
the weakness of their own arguments. Smilingly he contemplated their
artificially inflamed anger, addressing them in the words of his own
Clerambault: "You say that yours is the better way? The only good way?
Very well, take your own path, and leave me to take mine. I make no
attempt to compel you to follow me. I merely show you which way I am
going. What are you so excited about? Perhaps at the bottom of your
hearts you are afraid that my way is the right one?"