“Before answering, gentlemen, we must understand each other. As I have already said, M. Zola’s letter is an act, a resounding act, a brilliant act; but it was committed deliberately. From what everybody has known, from what everybody has seen and from what they have not seen, and also from what he knows and has been able to tell you, as well as from what he knows but has been prevented by his patriotism from telling you, he has come to a conclusion which forced itself upon his mind. And what is this conclusion? Does it fill him with a feeling of anger towards certain army commanders? No, gentlemen. That he leaves to the friends, to the actual supporters, I do not say of the army, for they insult the army, but of the staff. Listen to what ‘L’Intransigeant’ said on March 3, 1897. I quote from a letter attributed to a superior officer in active service, to ‘a person well informed,’ as they say of people to whom they wish to attribute certain infamies, to give them credit and authority. This article says:
It is monstrous to see the chief command of the army in the hands of a septuagenarian....
“The reference here is to General Saussier, and it reminds one of the opinions of Major Esterhazy.
A septuagenarian who, in peace as in war, was long ago judged at his true value,—nothing. As for Boisdeffre, stupidly tainted with a nobility which has not even the merit of being serious, he is, as you say so precisely, a loafer, an ignoramus, full of assurance, so rossard that he has never had the courage to learn a word of German, wherefore the chief of staff of the army, in order to read the slightest note in this language, is obliged to summon an interpreter. How the Prussians must laugh at us! Moreover, thanks to these commanders,—like masters, like subordinates,—this staff is so singular that the superior officer at the head of the famous S. R. [Service de Renseignements, Service of Information]—the reference here must be to Colonel Henry—knows not a word of any foreign language. As for the generalissimo, Saussier, he was a brave captain in the old African army, who afterwards became a general and a detestable tactician, today completely foundered. From these chief commanders we may not judge of all the others,—for fortunately there are some good ones,—but we may judge of the new and terrible wasps’ nest in which we should find ourselves, in case of a coup de torchon.
“If you continue, you will find the same language and the same expressions. Here is an unsigned article that appeared in ‘L’Intransigeant’ October 3, 1897.
Military justice, as lame as the other justice, but blinder and more crying. These crying injustices are revolting, and create revolt in the minds of the soldiers,—moreover, a legitimate revolt.
“And, on July 14, 1896, we find this, over the signature of M. Rochefort:
One embraces the military profession only in the hope of killing men, and, when one is not strong enough to kill those of the others, one exterminates his own. The grand belief of the idiots who have succeeded one another in the war department is that, if we were beaten in 1870, it is because our troops were insufficiently disciplined.
“And in the same newspaper, on September 7, 1897, I find this:
Passive obedience, ferocious egoism and brutality, those are the great principles that they try to beat into the hearts and brains of the soldiers. If the army were really a great family; if it were the school of honor, dignity, and duty; if it were the democratic institution which befits the French people,—it would be invincible, and there would be no deserters from it. But the truth is that they try to make mercenaries of our soldiers, and that the proudest, the most enlightened, the most ardent, the best among them, are those who feel the most imperative need of avoiding so odious a rôle.