But it was not the concluding one. French
militarism, in that affair, was scotched but not killed, and the contest
was never fiercer than in the years immediately preceding the war. The
fighters for peace were the Socialists, under their leader, Jaures, the one
great man in the public life of Europe. While recognizing the urgent need
for adequate national defence, Jaures laboured so to organize it that it
could not be mistaken for nor converted into aggression. He laboured, at
the same time, to remove the cause of the danger. In the year 1913, under
Swiss auspices, a meeting of French and German pacifists was arranged at
Berne. To this meeting there proceeded 167 French deputies and 48 senators.
The Baron d'Estournelles de Constant was president of the French bureau,
and Jaures one of the vice-presidents. The result was disappointing. The
German participation was small and less influential than the French, and
no agreement could be reached on the burning question of Alsace-Lorraine.
But the French Socialists continued, up to the eve of the war, to fight
for peace with an energy, an intelligence, and a determination shown
in no other country. The assassination of Jaures was a symbol of the
assassination of peace; but the assassin was a Frenchman.
For if, in France, the current for peace ran strong in these latter
years, so did the current for war.
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