DOC.
68
MARCH
1915 81
68. From
Romain
Rolland
Beauséjour, Genève-Champel, Sunday,
28
March
1915
Dear
Sir,
Your
generous
letter[1]
touched
me
profoundly.
This terrible
crisis has
probably
been
a
harsh
lesson for all
of
us
Europeans,
writers, thinkers,
and scholars
alike. We
ought
never
to have
permitted
it
to catch
us
so
unprepared.
In the future
we
have to be better
armed
against a
recurrence
of such
a scourge: (for we
cannot delude ourselves
that
this
folly
of humanity
was
the
last;
but
at least
we
should
see
to
it
that
the
intellectual élite does
not
participate
in
it
anymore). Right
after the
announcement of
this
upheaval,
those
of
us
whose
age
excused
them from
military
service should at
the
outset have
delegated some
from
among
themselves
to meet
in
a
neutral
country
and
there
together
endeavored
to
shed
light
on
the
facts,
in
their
own
spirit
of
tempering
the
impassioned
assertions
by
both
camps
and
offering
the
voice of
reason: remaining,
in
a
word,
the lucid and
steadfast
conscience of
their
nations.
Yes, we
have erred.
We
have lived too much in
the
carefree
or
arrogant
illusion
that
we
would
always
be
strong enough
to
resist
the
derangements
of
the
community
as a
whole. The events of these last months
demonstrate
to
us our
error
and
impose upon
us our
mission. This
indispensable
task
will
be to
organize
ourselves
later
in
a more
European-that
is to
say, a
truly
universal-manner.
And
undoubtedly
this
will
be
more
difficult after
the
war
than
before: because
misunderstandings,
grudges,
and
bitterness
will
subsist for
a
long
time.
But
to
start
with,
it
suffices
for
a
small
group
from all
the
nations to have
the
will
to
create
this
union.
The
others will follow
bit
by
bit.-Besides,
I
retain the
hope
that after the
immense
sufferings
and delirium of these
months,
a
reaction
will
follow
and
the nations
will
reawaken
ashamed, bruised,
and
repentant.
In
the
meantime,
we can
only
maintain
our
composure
in
the
storm and
our
belief.
Little
by
little
it
will
make itself felt.
You
have
my
greatest
and sincere
sympathy,
Romain Rolland.
I
believe
that
one
of
our
most
effective
tasks must be to disseminate documents
that
can
oppose
the
spirit of
hatred.-In this
sense
I
take
the
liberty of
draw-
ing your
attention
to
the
report
(which
will
be
published) by
the
Swiss
Lieu-
tenant Colonel de
Marval, delegate
of
the International
Red
Cross,
about the
German
prisoner camps
he has
just
been
visiting
in
France, Corsica, Algeria,
and
Tunisia.[2]
Yesterday
I
listened to
a
lecture
by
him
(including
slide
projections),
and I would
like
it
if
many
Germans could listen
to
it
as
well.[3]
It
would be
very
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