Humanity had gone crazy. Was it possible that
war could happen in these days of so many railroads, so many merchant
marines, so many inventions, so much activity developed above and below
the earth? . . . The nations would ruin themselves forever. They were
now accustomed to luxuries and necessities unknown a century ago.
Capital was master of the world, and war was going to wipe it out. In
its turn, war would be wiped out in a few months' time through lack
of funds to sustain it. His soul of a business man revolted before the
hundreds of thousands of millions that this foolhardy event was going to
convert into smoke and slaughter.
As his indignation had to fix upon something close at hand, he made his
own countrymen responsible for this insanity. Too much talk about la
revanche! The very idea of worrying for forty-four years over the two
lost provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped
lands in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty
for such exasperating and clamorous foolishness.
For him war meant disaster writ large. He had no faith in his country.
France's day had passed. Now the victors were of the Northern peoples,
and especially that Germany which he had seen so close, admiring with a
certain terror its discipline and its rigorous organization. The former
working-man felt the conservative and selfish instinct of all those who
have amassed millions.
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