Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/216

 And the true France, devoted to the establishment of a régime of world-peace, held out hospitable hands to every ideal of gracious import in science, religion and literature, wherever it arose. The essential sin of Prussia, on the contrary, was, that, worshipping only force, she planned the subjugation of all Europe. The goal of domination at which she aimed could be reached only through an ocean of blood. She willed war, she willed murder, and to prepare her way she sought to impose on the world a picture in which she appeared as a Knight of the Holy Ghost "in shining armour," and all the other non-Germanic nations as robber-empires, degenerates, incompetents.

These words of introduction were necessary in view of the systematic libelling of France which goes on in certain obscure papers, and which proceeds, as all the world knows, chiefly from German organisations in the United States. But the purpose of this article is not controversial, but positive. It is concerned merely to give a random glimpse of the heroism with which at this moment in the trenches, the camps, and the hospitals the priests of France are serving the tricolour of the transfigured Republic.

A literature on the subject is already in existence. The book of the Abbé Klein, well known for his luminous study of the United States, has been translated into English: for that reason, and also because it is less rich in detail, I do not draw