Above the Battle

by Romain Rolland

VII. LETTER TO MY CRITICS[21]

November 17, 1914.

There has reached me, after much delay, at Geneva, where I am engaged on the International work of Prisoners of War, the echo of attacks against me in certain newspapers, roused by the articles that I have published in the Journal de Genève, or rather by two or three passages arbitrarily chosen from those articles (for they themselves are scarcely known to anybody in France). My best reply will be to collect what I have written and publish it in Paris. I would not add a word of explanation, for there is not a line that I did not think it my right and my duty to set down. Moreover, I think that there is better work to do at this moment than to defend oneself; there are others to defend, the[{98}] thousands of victims who are fighting in France. Time devoted to polemics is like a theft from these unfortunates, from these prisoners and families, whose hands seeking each other across space we are trying to unite at Geneva.

But not content with attacking me personally, they have attacked ideas and a cause which I believe to be that of the true France; and since my friends expect me to defend these thoughts which are also theirs, I profit by the hospitality which is offered me to reply distinctly and frankly in good French.

I have published four articles: a letter to Gerhart Hauptmann, written the day after the devastation of Louvain, "Above the Battle," "The Lesser of Two Evils," and "Inter Arma Caritas." In these four articles I have stated that of all the imperialisms which are the scourge of the world, Prussian Military Imperialism is the worst. I have declared that it is the enemy of European liberty, the enemy of Western civilization, the enemy of Germany herself, and that it must be destroyed. On this point I imagine we are agreed.

To what do my critics take exception? Without entering into the discussion of certain points of detail, such as the appeal made by the Allies to the[{99}] forces of Asia and Africa of which I disapprove, and still disapprove because I see in it a near and grave danger for Europe and for the Allies themselves, and because this danger is already materializing in threats of disturbance in the world of Islam—exception is taken essentially on two grounds:

1. My refusal to include the German people and its military and intellectual rulers in the same denunciation.

2. The esteem and friendship which I have for the individuals in the country with which we are at war.

I will reply first of all without ambiguity to this second reproach. Yes, I have German friends as I have French, Italian, and English friends, and friends of every race. They are my wealth: I am proud of it and keep it. When one has had the good fortune to meet in this world loyal souls with whom one shares one's most intimate thoughts, and with whom one has formed bonds of brotherly union, such bonds are sacred, and not to be broken asunder in the hour of trial. He would be a coward who timidly ceased to own them, in order to obey the insolent summons of a public opinion which has no right over the heart. Does the love of country demand this unkindness of thought which is associated[{100}] with the name Cornélienne? Cornéille himself has given the answer:

	—Albe vous a nommé, je ne vous connais plus.
	—Je vous connais encore, et c'est ce qui me tue.