ABOVE THE BATTLE
ROMAN ROLLAND
ABOVE THE BATTLE
"The fire smouldering in the forest of Europe was beginning to burst into flames. In vain did they try to put it out in one place: it only broke out in another. With gusts of smoke and a shower of sparks it swept from one point to another, burning the dry brushwood. Already in the East there were skirmishes as the prelude to the great war of the nations. All Europe, Europe that only yesterday was sceptical and apathetic, like a dead wood, was swept by the flames. All men were possessed by the desire for battle. War was ever on the point of breaking out. It was stamped out, but it sprang to life again. The world felt that it was at the mercy of an accident that might let loose the dogs of war. The world lay in wait. The feeling of inevitability weighed heavily even upon the most pacifically minded. And ideologues, sheltered beneath the massive shadows of the cyclops, Proudhon, hymned in war man's fairest title of nobility.…"
"This, then, was to be the end of the physical and moral resurrection of the races of the West! To such butchery they were to be borne along by the currents of action and Passionate faith! Only a Napoleonic genius could have marked out a chosen, deliberate aim for this blind, onward rush. But nowhere in Europe was there any genius for action. It was as though the world had chosen the most mediocre to be its governors. The force of the human mind was in other things—so there was nothing to be done but to trust to the declivity down which they were moving. This both governors and governed were doing. Europe looked like a vast armed vigil."
[English translation by Gilbert Cannan, vol. iv, p. 504.]
ABOVE THE BATTLE
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
TRANSLATED BY
C. K. OGDEN, M.A.
(Editor of The Cambridge Magazine)
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM ST, W.C.
First published on Feb. 28, 1916.
Second Edition, April, 1916.
(All rights reserved.)
| page | ||
| Introduction by the Translator | 7 | |
| Preface | 15 | |
| I. | An Open Letter to Gerhart Hauptmann | 19 |
| II. | Pro Aris | 23 |
| III. | Above the Battle | 37 |
| IV. | The Lesser of Two Evils | 56 |
| V. | Inter Arma Caritas | 75 |
| VI. | To the People That is Suffering for Justice | 92 |
| VII. | Letter to My Critics | 96 |
| VIII. | The Idols | 106 |
| IX. | For Europe (Spain) | 121 |
| X. | For Europe (Holland) | 126 |
| XI. | Letter to Frederik Van Eeden | 135 |
| XII. | Our Neighbour the Enemy | 141 |
| XIII. | Letter to the “Svenska Dagbladet” | 150 |
| XIV. | War Literature | 152 |
| XV. | The Murder of the Élite | 167 |
| XVI. | Jaurès | 180 |
It is my pleasant duty to thank the brave friends who have defended me during the past year, in the Parisian press:—at the end of October 1914, Amédée Dunois, in l'Humanité, and Henri Guilbeaux, in the Bataille syndicaliste; in the same paper, Fernand Deprès; Georges Pioch, in the Hommes du Jour; J. M. Renaitour, in the Bonnet Rouge; Rouanet, in l'Humanité; Jacques Mesnil, in the Mercure de France, and Gaston Thiesson, in the Guerre Sociale. To these faithful comrades in the struggle I express my affectionate gratitude.
October 1915.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1916, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
|---|---|
| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1916, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1957, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 66 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
