File No. 763.72/2388
The perusal of this address has been of interest to me, as I feel sure it
will be to you.
[Enclosure—Translation]
Message of the President of the French
Republic (Poincaré) to
the Officers and Soldiers of France
As you, my noble friends, I have perused with emotion, in the Bulletin des Armées, the messages that have
been addressed to you, on the eve of the New Year, by the mayors of
our large cities. The same language, hardly varied by
[Page 15]
some slight difference in
tone, has been spoken to you by all the French cities, and it is
easy for me, to-day, to extract from these numerous attestations the
unanimous thought of the country.
Everywhere, you have seen the sacred union that established itself
spontaneously seventeen months ago kept up without effort, under the
enemy’s threat.
How could the civilian population not follow the example of concord
and harmony that is set by you?
In the trenches and on the battle fields you do not think, do you, of
reviewing your mutual political opinions? The troublesome memory of
civil discords does not come and mar the fellowship in arms that
binds you to each other in a feeling of common danger and a
consciousness of the same duty.
You have your eyes fixed on an ideal that constantly diverts your
attention from any secondary objects, and you know that your
patriotic mission suffers no division. While you are thus
sacrificing yourselves so wholly to the safety of the nation, is it
not natural that the Frenchmen whose age, health, or functions
prevent from facing, by your sides, the fatigues and perils of the
war, should at least endeavor to drive away the evil suggestions of
hatred and preserve jealously the public peace?
The mayors of France have told you of some of the charitable works
that have risen from that happy reconciliation of hearts. Most of
those institutions are destined to help you and your aged parents,
and your children, and your wives, and your brothers, either wounded
or prisoners. In the towns the farthest removed from the front, you
are thus continually present in the minds of all and concentrate, if
needed, on the tragical realities of the moment the thoughts of
those who would be inclined to forget them. The bereavements that
have darkened so many homes impose, besides, to [upon] the families that have the privilege of being less
cruelly stricken a pious obligation of meditation and gravity. All
Frenchmen now reconciled commune in the same trials, and there is
not one that does not listen with respect to the manly lesson of the
dead. Lesson of courage, patience, and will; a lesson of calm,
confidence, and serenity.
You have seen pass before you the long procession of the departments
and of the towns. You have heard their acclamations; not one
discordant voice was heard. It is everywhere the same resolution,
cold and reflected, to hold firm, to endure and conquer.
Everyone understands that the war stake is formidable, and that not
only our dignity is called in question, but also our life. Shall we
be to-morrow the resigned vassals of a foreign empire? Shall our
industry, our commerce, our agriculture, become the tributaries of a
power that flatters herself openly to aspire to universal
domination? Or shall we safeguard our economical independence and
our national self-government? A terrible problem that cannot be
solved by compromise.
Any peace that would come to us in a suspicious figure or in
equivocal terms, any peace that would offer suspicious transactions
and bastard combinations, would only bring us, under deceiving
appearances, disgrace, ruin, and slavery. The free and pure genius
of our race, our most venerable traditions, our most dear ideas, our
most delicate tastes, the interests of our fellow citizens, the
fortune of our country, the soul of our native land, all that our
ancestors have left us, all that belongs to us, all that makes us
ourselves, would be a prey to German brutality. Who would like, by
impatience or by fatigue, to sell thus to Germany both the past and
the future of France?
Yes, certainly, the war lasts long, and it is hard and bloody. But
how many future sufferings will be spared to us by the present
sufferings. This war-not one Frenchman desired it, not one would
have committed the crime to desire. All the governments that have
succeeded each other in France since 1871 have striven to avoid it
Now that, in spite of us, it has been declared, we must carry it on,
with out [our] faithful allies, until
victory, until the utter destruction of Prussian militarism, and
until the total reconstitution of France. If we yielded to a
momentary weakness, we should be ungrateful to our dead and betray
posterity.
Is not the obstinate perseverance in the will to conquer the surest
way to chain down victory? In the war that you are keeping up so
valiantly in France, in Belgium, and in the east, the part of the
destructive engines has taken an essential importance, and the
imperious duty of the public powers is to provide you, every day,
with more powerful material and more abundant
[Page 16]
munitions. But moral strength is also an
essential condition of the final success. The vanquished country
will not be necessarily the one that will have endured the most
losses; it will not be the one that will have endured the most
miseries; it will be the one that will grow tired the first.
We will not grow tired. France has confidence because you are there.
How many times have I heard your officers repeat: “Never, in any
time, have we had a finer army; never have the men been better
trained, braver, more heroical.” Whenever I see you, I feel a thrill
of admiration and hope. You must conquer. The year that begins will
bring you, my friends, the pride of ending with the defeat of the
enemy, the joy of going back to your homes and welcoming victory
with those you love.
