" They told me so. It
was they who said: "German militarism must be killed so that all
militarism shall be abolished. This is a war for liberty." So soldiers
of France spoke to me on a night when Paris was mobilized and the
tragedy began. It is a Frenchman--Henri Barbusse--who, in spite of the
German invasion, the outrages against his people, the agony of France,
has the courage to say that all peoples in Europe were involved in the
guilt of that war because of their adherence to that old barbaric
creed of brute force and the superstitious servitude of their souls to
symbols of national pride based upon military tradition. He even
denounces the salute to the flag, instinctive and sacred in the heart
of every Frenchman, as a fetish worship in which the narrow bigotry of
national arrogance is raised above the rights of the common masses of
men. He draws no distinction between a war of defense and a war of
aggression, because attack is the best means of defense, and all
peoples who go to war dupe themselves into the belief that they do so
in defense of their liberties, and rights, and power, and property.
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