The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1911-04-04
Instead of Extending Influence and
Language It's Efforts We're
Lost on Battlefields
Of Europe
FRENCH PEACE ADVOCATE HERE
Missionary in Cause Of information !
Arbitration is Making Tour of
This Country. Talks in
San Francisco.

| tournelles de Constant. the French
missionary i'm the cause of internation-
, al peace, who is making a tour of the
country, spoke here today, taking as
his text The Campaign i'm Russia"
The Baron said. i'm part
General ignorance has been slngu-
larry useful to governments in con-
cealing the consequence Of their wars
from the eyes of the public opinion.
For a long time l have been en-
deavoring In vain to find out what the
wars during the Revolution and the
First Empire cost France in men, ex-
elusive of anything else. The figures
vary from 100000 to 5000, 900. TAX
ing only the minimum and multiplying
IL by several generations. | find that
Frances population has been reduced
10y 20,000.000 in the course of a centu-
ry. But for these wars we should now
in all probability have a population OF
sixty million inhabitants instead of
forty who would, moreover. be pny-
sically stronger, inasmuch as-without
attempting to calculate the conse-
quences of drink, which has a close
connection with the matter-these
wars eliminated the men best fitted to
perpetuate their kind.
Lost Opportunities.
1--WE must also take into account the
immense opportunities lost by French
men in all parts of the world and es-
pecially in America. The courage and
heroism displayed during quarter of
century of war were not called into
being by it, as some people imagine.
but were already i'm existence and
ready to be utilized. i'm France and
abroad, to further enterprises already
begun. Though 1t was abandoned af-
ter the Seven Years War the work ac-
complshed by Cartier, Champlain and
La Sale, and later on by Lafayette and
Rochambeau-none the less great
though in a different order of Ideas
sowed the seeds of an abundant har-
vest that Frenchmen. in spite of all
obstacles, might have reaped. Here
were openings for other enterprises
and our commerce, salvation for our
shipping. our seaports and river-ports
Our influence and our language would
have extended i'm all directions. We Sc
vered all these ties, and instead of
vivifying the New World with French
blood, we watered the battlefields of
Europe with it.
Under the head of losses, let me
atively optimistic estimate given by
Napoleon himself. According to Taine,
Napoleon said angrily to Metternich.
In the course of their eight hour inter
view at Dresden on June 2S. 1913:
What do you want of me? Do you eX-
pect me to dishonor myself?' Meter
mich was bold enough to reply: L have
seen your soldiers they are mere chill
dren. What will you do when your
army of youths has gomez Napoleon
replied hotly: You are not a soldier
and you do not know what passes I'm a
soldiers mind. / have grown up on
the battlefield, and a man like l am
does not care a - for the lives of
million men,
ION another occasion. Napoleon re-
marked to NJ. de Narbonne according
to the Due de Broglie, quoted by
Taine): After all the Russian cam
paign only cost me 100000 men, and a
great many of them were Germans
"cHis imperial chimera devoured
great many more than this adds
Taine. From 1904 to 1914 the num-
Der of killed amounted to more than
T.. 700, 900 F'renchmen born in France it.
self, to which we can probably add
100000 men from outside its boun-
daries. killed while fighting for him as
allies or against him as enemies"