Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

FRANCE IS TO BLAME 681Actually this great peace of all with all was an impossible figment ofthe brain, unrealizable in the world of reality. To be true and possible, itshould have penetrated far deeper than the outer edges where thepeoples touched one another; it presupposed a certain intimacy in thesocial relations between the nations; the London Economic Conferencehad tried to achieve such an intimacy, but with inadequate means. Whatwas needed was a new form of life among the nations; what was offeredwas at best diplomatic agreements in which no two diplomats meant thesame thing. To most of its English proponents, for example, collectivesecurity meant a system in which England would not have to give muchhelp, since her responsibility was shared with so many others. But forFrance collective security was a condition in which everyone wouldhave to help her with all his forces.In French internal politics, rearmament and collective security becameopposed, hostile concepts. Collective security meant: no necessity torearm; no necessity for a larger army; hence no necessity for going backto the system of two years' service.Without doubt, the military spirit had an even harder time in Francethan in the Germany of the twenties, combating the opposition of themasses; the struggle of the armed intellectuals for the working classseemed utterly hopeless. In Au fil de l'epee, a book dedicated to MarshalPetain, Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Gaulle had written in 1932:'Could we, indeed, conceive of life without force? ... It is the medium ofthought, the instrument of action, the prerequisite for movement, themidwife of progress. . . . Cradle of cities, scepter of empires,gravedigger of decadence, force gives law to peoples and controls theirdestiny. . . .' It was a summons to the national elite to understand, notthe inevitability, but the creative necessity, of violence and war; 'thisabnegation of individuals for the benefit of the whole, this glorifiedsuffering — of which troops are made — correspond most perfectly toour aesthetic and moral concepts: the highest philosophical andreligious doctrines have chosen no other ideal. ... It is time for themilitary elite to regain consciousness of its pre-eminent role, for it toconcentrate on its objective which is, quite simply, war. . . .'Collective security or rearmament — this seemed to be the choice