THE NEW EUROPE
She has suffered grievously but will yet astonish the world by her powers of recuperation. The old indomitable spirit of the Crusades is in her — that of the Gesta Dei per Francos. The France of to-morrow will appear other than the France the world thought it knew before the war. The difference will be not one of quality but of consciousness of strength — the difference between a convalescent singer, not quite sure whether the old notes will still sound firm and clear, and a singer whom success has taught to rely upon his fullest tones. The perpetual menace of German aggression will be removed, the fear of isolation will be gone, and yet the memory of the suffering and loss through which redemption will have been achieved, will restrain for ever any wild cult of mere glory. Nations, like men, who have fought for their lives and have come living, though scarred, out of the fray, do not easily rid themselves of the half-wondering, half-reverent thought that a false step or ill-fortune might have laid them low, and are in no mood rashly to tempt Providence. France will be pacific and resolute. Neither in France nor in England is victory likely to intoxicate. Rather should it engender a resolve never again to stray so near to the verge of the abyss. Both in England and in France, the work of reconstruction should absorb all energies; and in peace, as in war, the two nations will need to go hand in hand, learning from, helping and respecting each other. England, indeed the whole British Commonwealth, will be under a perpetual obligation to France which it can scarcely hope and will hardly wish to repay. To the gallant spirit of France and to her tenacity in withstanding a foe crushingly superior in military preparedness, we owe it that we were given time to make ready in our turn, and to lend France the aid that has averted her and our own undoing. If ever we are tempted to glory in our achievements on land and sea, let us remember what France did for us, and be thankfully humble. Among the many debts which the war will leave us, this will be the lightest and the most salutary. It will be a perennial reminder of the supremacy of the spirit over the material and a constant check upon the worship of false gods.
Henry Wickham Steed.
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