The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought

Chapter Ten: The Intervention of the Intellectuals

63 At the beginning of autumn 1935 when it was certain that Italy would not avoid the application of the sanctions provided for in the Covenant, or at least of the more mild among them, French opinion was deeply affected by a sharp uneasiness. The Italian government’s arrogant attitude, the challenges launched by the Italian press toward Great Britain and the League of Nations created fear of a mad and desperate gesture by a country abrogating the Covenant against the nations faithful to the Covenant. What would Germany’s attitude be then? The threat of a new European war, always hanging overhead ever since Chapter Ten T h e I n t e rv e n tion of t h e I n t e l l e c t ua l s 64 | The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought the peace treaties, impressed itself more than ever on many minds. Without question the Fascist press and its French allies liberally used the threat of war as blackmail to assure the ineffectiveness of the Covenant, but the other side of the anti-Fascist crusade, as we have already noted, sometimes gave the impression of being led by men determined to make an end, no matter what the cost, to the Mussolini regime. We know where such resolutions can lead, rooted in the absolutes of an ideology and swollen with blind resentments . It was useful to recall that the European peace ought to be maintained in any case and that the application of the Covenant had to be regarded as impossible to the extent that it risked evils disproportionate to the injustice that it sought to prevent.1 Human societies, whether national or international, must tolerate evil when they are incapable of repressing it without causing still greater evils. But the potential duty to tolerate one evil to avoid an even worse one does not dispense us from the primary duty to refuse evil. Indeed, the refusal of any interior adherence to evil is the indispensable point of departure for every effective action in favor of the good. Thus we can grant to the adversaries of sanctions without hidden motives that while applying sanctions might have threatened the general peace, and it was necessary to affirm before all else the absolute desire to save the general peace, should one for all that reject just sanctions in principle? In expressing ourselves this way, we do not in the least wish to assert that every sanction imposed by the League of Nations against Italy would have compromised or later risked compromising peace in Europe; we simply want to recall that an action, just in principle, may become criminal because of circumstances . The statesmen and their counselors, whether intellectuals or not, need to judge the circumstances. The Intervention of the Intellectuals | 65 Didn’t the Manifesto for the Defense of the West propose the affirmation of a resolute desire to avoid the worst evil and to preserve peace in Europe? It was in that spirit that several of the signers approved it.2 It would be difficult to contest that its writers, as sincere as they were in their desire for peace, made out of it something quite different than a simple peace declaration. The title itself is already surprising. If it were only a matter of peace, why not call it by its rightful name? Peace is neither Eastern nor Western, and the Prince of Peace arose in the East. The text opens with a massive affirmation , excluding at the outset the spirit of discernment which is part of every impartial politics: “At a time when Italy is threatened with sanctions that may very well unleash a war without precedent, we, as French intellectuals, insist on declaring before the entire world that we wish to have nothing to do with these sanctions or this war.” It seems that afterward, the sanctions with which Italy was threatened were repudiated, and not solely as a potential cause of war, but also condemned in themselves. That was not long in becoming entirely clear: “They do not hesitate to declare Italy guilty and, before all the world, to point to it as the common enemy. . . .” If it was wrong to treat Italy as guilty, then Italy was innocent. The Italian undertaking was then likened, in the clearest way, to a just war, and the certainty of tone indicates with what scorn the violated...