Page:America in the war -by Louis Raemaekers. (IA americainwarbylo00raem).pdf/156

 "We Must so Destroy France That She can Never Again Resist Us"  Heine, when he warned the world that the real God of Germany was Thor and that when the Christian veneer wore off the old pagan god would with his hammer break in pieces the Gothic Cathedrals, especially warned France, whom above all the Beast hated. The warning has been justified by history. Before the war I have heard Germans speak gloatingly of what they did to France in 1870, and of what they meant to do next time. The phrase "bleed France white" had become a commonplace of German speech. This hatred is rather mysterious. England fought France many times during five hundred years, but whenever peace was declared Paris would be full of Englishmen to celebrate, to shake hands and be friends. There never was this ferocious hate, and France has always been generous and chivalrous and human. Germany hates Great Britain and America with her head, but she hates France with her soul. It must be that the modern Hun feels that there is something in his hated enemy which he does not possess and never can possess. And because the rest of the world loves France, he hates her all the more, with a cold and cruel and scientific hatred, as our artist depicts it in his terrible cartoon. Perhaps some light is thrown on the problem by a typical piece of Gallic wit. A French writer commenting on the wanton destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims declared it to be the greatest single calamity to art that was conceivable, and then added that there could be another greater calamity—to allow the Germans to restore it! It adds fuel to the flame to know that the only great period of German literature—the period of Heine himself—was when it was under the complete influence and inspiration of France. In a true sense the whole civilized world is fighting for France, to decide whether it is to lose all that France stands for, or whether the future is to be dominated by the ugly bestial force, without conscience and without heart, which Germany represents. The world knows that if it is a case of alternatives, civilization can do without Germany, but would be eternally poor without la belle France.

HUGH BLACK.