But in order to be restored to hope and cheerful confidence, it is sufficient to turn back along the communication trenches, where the men are just finishing their supper in the pleasant twilight. As soon as our soldiers are far enough away from those others to talk freely and laugh freely, there is suddenly a wave of healthy gaiety and of perfect and reassuring confidence.
Here is the true fountain-head of our irresistible strength; from this source we draw that marvellous energy which characterises our attacks and will secure the final victory. Very striking at first sight in the groups around these tables is the excellent understanding, a kind of affectionate familiarity, that unites officers and men. For a long time this spirit has existed in the Navy, where protracted exile from home and dangers shared in the close association of life on board ship necessarily draw men nearer together; but I do not think my comrades of the land forces will be angry with me if I say that this familiarity, so compatible with discipline, is a more recent development with them than with us. One of the benefits conferred upon them by trench warfare is the necessity of living thus nearer to their soldiers, and this gives them an opportunity of winning their affection. At present they know nearly all those comrades of theirs who are simple privates; they call them by name and talk to them like friends. And so, when the solemn moment comes for the attack, when, instead of driving them in front of them with whips, after the fashion of the savages over there, they lead them, after the manner of the French, it is hardly necessary for them to turn round to see if everyone is following them.
Moreover, they are very sure that, if they fall, their humble comrades will not fail to hasten to their side, and, at the risk of their own lives, defend them, or carry them tenderly away.
Now it is to this superhuman war, and especially to the common existence in the trenches, that we owe the ennobling influence of this concord, those sublime acts of mutual devotion, at which we are tempted to bend the knee. And in part is it not likewise owing to life in the trenches, to long and more intimate conversations between officers and men, that these gleams of beauty have penetrated into the minds of all, even of those whose intelligence seemed in the last degree unimpressionable and jaded. They know now, our soldiers, even the least of them, that France has never been so worthy of admiration, and that its glory casts a light upon them all. They know that a race is imperishable in which the hearts of all awaken thus to life, and that Neutral Countries, even those whose eyes seem blinded by the most impenetrable scales, will in the end see clearly and bestow upon us the glorious name of liberators.
Oh let us bless these trenches of ours, where all ranks of society intermingle, where friendships have been formed which yesterday would not have seemed possible, where men of the world will have learnt that the soul of a peasant, an artisan, a common workman may prove itself as great and good as that of a very fine gentleman, and of even deeper interest, being more impulsive, more transparent and with less veneer upon it.
In trenches, communication trenches, little dark labyrinths, little tunnels where men suffer and sacrifice themselves, there will be found established our best and purest school of socialism. But by this term socialism, a term too often profaned, I mean true socialism, be it understood, which is synonymous with tolerance and brotherhood, that socialism, in a word, which Christ came to teach us in that clear formula, which in its adorable simplicity sums up all formulæ, "Love one another."