28
DOC.
8
MANIFESTO TO
THE
EUROPEANS
[2]
[1]
Doc.
8
Manifesto
to
the
Europeans
(mid-October
1914)
While
technology
and traffic
clearly
drive
us
toward
a
factual
recognition
of
international
relations,
and thus toward
a
common
world
civilization,
it is also true
that
no
war
has
ever so intensively interrupted
the cultural
communalism
of
cooperative
work
as
this
present war
does.
Perhaps we
have
come
to
such
a
salient
awareness only on
account
of
the
numerous
erstwhile
common bonds,
whose
interruption we
now sense so painfully.
Even
if
this state of affairs should not
surprise us,
those whose heart is in the
{1}
least concerned about
common
world
civilization,
would have
a
doubled
obligation
to
fight
for the
upholding
of
those
principles.
Those, however,
of
whom
one
should
expect
such
convictions-that
is, principally
scientists
and artists-have
thus far
almost
exclusively
uttered statements which would
suggest
that
their desire for the
maintenance
of
these
relations has
evaporated concurrently
with the
interruption
of
the
relations.
They
have
spoken
with
explainable
martial
spirit-but
spoken
least of
{2}
all
of
peace.
Such
a
mood cannot be excused
by any
national
passion;
it is
unworthy
of all
that which the world has to date understood
by
the
name
of
culture.
Should this mood
achieve
a
certain
universality among
the
educated,
this would be
a
disaster.
It
would not
only
be
a
disaster for
civilization,
but-and
we are firmly
convinced
of this-a
disaster for the national survival
of
individual
states-the
very cause
for
which, ultimately,
all this
barbarity
has been unleashed.
Through technology
the world has become
smaller;
the states
of
the
large
peninsula
of
Europe appear
today
as
close
to
each other
as
the cities
of
each small
Mediterranean
peninsula
appeared
in ancient times. In the needs and
experiences
of
every
individual,
based
on
his
awareness
of
a
manifold
of
relations,
Europe-one
could almost
say
the
world-already
outlines itself
as an
element
of
unity.
It would
consequently
be
a
duty
of
the educated and
well-meaning Europeans
to
at least make the
attempt
to
prevent
Europe-on account of
its
deficient
organization
as
a
whole-from
suffering
the
same tragic
fate
as
ancient Greece
once
did. Should
Europe
too
gradually
exhaust itself and thus
perish
from fratricidal war?
The
struggle raging today
will
likely produce no
victor;
it
will
leave
probably
only
the
vanquished.
Therefore,
it
seems
not
only good,
but
rather
bitterly necessary,
that
educated
men
of
all
nations marshall their influence such
that-whatever
the still
uncertain end of
the
war may
be-the
terms of
peace
shall
not
become the
wellspring
of
future
wars.
The evident fact that
through
this
war
all
European
relational