... But the most
insidious and worst effect of this so highly organized falsity is on
the generals themselves: modest and patriotic as they mostly are, and
as most men must be to take up and follow the noble profession of
arms, they themselves are ultimately affected by these universal
illusions, and reading it every morning in the paper, they also grow
persuaded they are thunderbolts of war and infallible, however much
they fail, and that their maintenance in command is an end so sacred
that it justifies the use of any means.... These various conditions,
of which this great deceit is the greatest, at last emancipate all
General Staffs from all control. They no longer live for the nation:
the nation lives, or rather dies, for them. Victory or defeat ceases
to be the prime interest. What matters to these semi-sovereign
corporations is whether dear old Willie or poor old Harry is going to
be at their head, or the Chantilly party prevail over the Boulevard
des Invalides party." [Footnote: _Op. cit._, pp. 98, 101-105.]
Yet Captain Wright who can be so eloquent and so discerning about the
dangers of silence is forced nevertheless to approve the silence of
Foch in not publicly destroying the illusions. There is here a
complicated paradox, arising as we shall see more fully later on,
because the traditional democratic view of life is conceived, not for
emergencies and dangers, but for tranquillity and harmony.
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