Our enemies talk too much about the League of Nations. There are furious “Wilsonites” of the latest kind in Austria and in Germany. Now I must say that seeing this kind of people bleating like lambs makes a certain impression on me. (The simile is that of a Republican German paper printed at Berne.) They are the same who burnt the cities of Belgium, who sank ships without leaving a trace, or gave orders to that effect; they are the same who carried off men and women in their retreat. They shout “League of Nations,” but we cannot be mixed up with them. There is evidently an underlying motive. But they will be unmasked by the victorious armies of the Entente.
Some people say, Would not this League of Nations be a substitute for victory? No! on the other hand, it presupposes victory. Wilson has talked of absolute victory.
It is said, in a Socialist review, that a League of Nations is impossible if the Allies gain a military victory, because the desire for revenge would lurk in the depths of the German mind. Now there are three hypotheses as regards the way in which the conflict may end. The first is the victory of the enemy, and this has already fallen through. If this had come about, there would not have been a League of Nations, but a master at Berlin and slaves in the rest of Europe, which would then have become a German colony. The second is a war which ends in neither victory nor defeat; and this is the most repugnant and inhuman of all, as it would leave all the problems unsolved, and give a peace which was only a truce. The third is the solution which is now shaping itself gloriously upon the horizon—our victory. There is no danger of the spirit of revenge being fostered by the Germans to-morrow, because we allies in war would remain allies in peace. Germany will find herself face to face with the same coalition which defeated her, and will have to resign herself to the fait accompli. The League of Nations will be formed without Germany, against Germany, or with Germany when she has expiated her crime by being defeated.
Some people say: “Does it not seem very dangerous to go back to universality, after the experiences of the past?” Ernest Renan must have been up against this problem when he wrote: “The nation which entertains problems of the religious and social order is always weak. Every country which dreams of a kingdom of God, lives on general ideas and carries out work in the interests of the universe, sacrifices through this its own particular destiny and weakens and destroys its efficiency as a territorial power. It was thus with Judea, Greece and Italy. It will, perhaps, be thus with France.”
Renan was a great man, but his prophecy has not been fulfilled. France during the nineteenth century entertained universal ideas, but with the outbreak of war she recovered her national spirit. Internationalism may be dangerous when a single nation advocates it, but to-day all the nations of the world are seeking each other, in order to lay the foundations of a lasting and pacific means of co-existence. Besides this, the racial, historical and moral sense of every nation has been developed by the war. It is not a paradox but a reality that the war, while it has made us find ourselves and exalted the national spirit, has, at the same time, carried us beyond those boundaries which we have defended and conquered.
There is no danger of the levelling of the national spirit as the result of contact with other nations. Solid foundations are needed for national unity, and for this reason the condition of the working classes must be raised. No nation can become greater in which there are enormous masses condemned to the conditions of life of prehistoric humanity.
Another paradox of this war is that the nations fighting against the Germans have not yet formed a peace alliance. The peace manifesto to the peoples of the world ought to have come from Versailles. This could help, among other things, to make the German crisis more acute. It has not been done yet. The people intuitively felt the necessity. Sometimes truths are arrived at more quickly by intuition than by reasoning, and the people felt that that was the path to follow. And we are upon that path to-day. Not long ago Clémenceau said that the liberation of France must be the liberation of humanity.
It is true that to put the idea of the League of Nations into practice would present difficulties, especially at first. According to me the problems which will have to be faced and solved are of a political, economic, military and colonial order. In a month’s time you will have reports upon these subjects, and I do not wish to tire you with hasty anticipations.
We have arrived at a decisive point in history. While we are gathered here the battle is raging; there are millions and millions of men who are fighting their last fight. Let us swear that all this has not been in vain, but that these sacrifices must mark a new phase in the history of humanity. Let us say to ourselves that all that can be tried will be tried, in order to make the purple flower of liberty spring from the blood shed in the cause of freedom, and that justice shall reign sovereign over all the peoples of the renewed world!