Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/267

 It is this same sovereignty which increases the power of the demonstration of which it has already given an example. In order to conquer, heroism at the frontier is not sufficient, unity at home is required. Let us continue to preserve from every attack this unity. To-day, as it was yesterday, as it will be to-morrow, let there be but one cry: Victory—one object: our country—one ideal: the Right. [Hear, hear.] It is for the Right that we fight, for it Belgium still fights, she who has given for this ideal all the blood of her veins—[all the deputies and senators rise and cheer loudly]—and others who are fighting for the Right are:—Unshaken England, faithful Russia, brave Servia, the bold Japanese Navy, the heroic Montenegrins. If this war be the greatest history has ever known, it is not because countries are fighting to conquer territories, water-ways, to gain increase of commerce, political and economic advantages, it is because they fight to determine the fate of the world. Nothing grander has ever appeared to the eyes of men than to fight against barbarism and despotism, against the system of provocations and threats which Germany called peace, against the system of murder and wholesale pillage which Germany calls war, [Loud cheers.] And it is against the insolent supremacy of a military caste that France and her Allies have flung themselves as emancipators and avengers. That is what is at stake. Let us then continue to be united in heart and soul, and shortly in the peace of victory, our opinions once more free which we have now voluntarily enchained, we shall remember with pride these tragic days, because they will have made us worthier and better men. [Renewed and prolonged cheers.]