from the
front, are, of course, bursting with warlike enthusiasm. These
carpet-heroes welcome the two men as if they had just returned from a
wedding feast. No questions are asked concerning what goes on at the
front. The soldiers are told all about it. "It must be splendid, an
attack! These masses of men marching forward as to a revel; there's no
holding them; they die laughing!" All that our poilus can do is to hold
their tongues. One of them says resignedly to his companion: "_They_
know more than you do about war and all that goes on at the front. When
you get back, if you ever do, with your little bit of truth you will be
quite out of it amid that crowd of chatterers."

I do not believe that when the war is over, when all the soldiers have
returned home, they will so readily submit to being put in their places
by these braggarts of the rear. Already the real fighters are beginning
to speak in a singularly bitter and vengeful tone. Barbusse's book bears
powerful witness to the fact.

We have other testimonies from the front, less known but no less moving.
All of those to which I shall refer have been published. It is my rule,
as long as the war lasts, to make no use of personal confidences, oral
or written. Things I have been told by friends, known or unknown, are a
sacred trust. I shall not use them without special permission, nor until
the conditions make it safe. The testimonies I reproduce here have been
published in Paris, under a censorship which is extremely strict in the
case of the few newspapers that have remained independent. This proves
that they describe things that are widely known, things which it is
useless or impossible to conceal.

I leave the authors to speak for themselves. Comment is superfluous. The
tones are sufficiently clear.

* * * * *

Paul Husson, _L'Holocauste_ (a collection entitled _Vers et Prose_,
published by F. Lacroix, 19 rue de Tournon, Paris, January 10,
1917).--This is the note book of a soldier from the Ile de France. The
author "went to the front without enthusiasm, detesting war and devoid
of martial ardour. As a soldier he did what all the others did."

p. 19. "In the name of what superior moral principle are these struggles
imposed on us? Is it for the triumph of a race? What remains of the
glory of Alexander's soldiers or of Caesar's? To fight, one must have
faith. A man must have faith that he is fighting in God's cause, in the
cause