In a word, there are two victories equally difficult for the Allies to win:  the first over Germany, the second over themselves.  Let us prepare ourselves to the uttermost and with all the authority which we can husband to facilitate the first here, and from your side as well as from ours, the second.  To make war there is the first difficulty; but to finish well, that is what makes me anxious for the future.

Sixth Letter.

PARIS, Sept. 24, 1914.

In spite of all, unity of purpose is maintained among the Allies as well as among Frenchmen.  I say in spite of all, because at Berlin this was hardly believed possible at the beginning of the war.

* * * All the men have left Creans; my farm is empty, and as I told you, the work is accomplished just the same.  Means are found to feed the wounded English, becoming more and more numerous, the wounded Belgians and the prisoners.  At the mill the miller’s wife has four sons and a son-in-law in the army.  I went to see her; not a tear, she looked straight before her absorbed in her work and said only “It is necessary.”  She continues her work as yesterday, as always, only with more energy and seriousness than formerly, with the purpose to accomplish double.

Meanwhile in spite of lack of news, we are beginning to learn that many sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers whom we saw go away will never return.  Each day a few of the wounded are buried, and so it is in all the communities in the country which are not occupied by the Germans.  In every town, village, home, and heart the national tribulations have their local echo.

If all France were victim of a catastrophe of nature, an earthquake, a conflagration, or a flood, the country would be crushed; but, no, the contrary is now true, for the present catastrophe has been brought about by an evil will and each one comprehends that this will, if left free to act, will continue to do evil until it has been crushed.  We have neither the time nor the wish to complain; we fight. * * *

The people, all those who are now devoted to my policy, to our policy, remain more faithful than ever.  They keep silent awaiting the end of the war and knowing well that in fact it is not so much a question of Germany as of German reaction, German imperialism, and German militarism.  They know also that if the German reaction might have been crushed sooner, the war would not have broken out.  Thus, far from being blind, public opinion is alive to the truth.  The grandeur, and to speak the whole truth, alas, the beauty of the atrocious war is that it is a war of liberation. * * *

It is impossible that the New World should remain a simple spectator before the gigantic struggle which is progressing in Europe.  I do not ask that the New World intervene by armed force, but that it shall not conceal its opinion, its aversion for that horror which is called reaction and which truly is only death; that it shall not conceal its indignation for the abominable calculation of that reaction which is incapable of comprehending anything of the life, the work, the science and the art of human genius.  I ask that the New World shall not remain skeptical before the senile attacks of those armies which respect nothing, neither women, children, old men, unfortified cities, museums, nor cathedrals. * * *