' His reply will be: '_Avant tout, restez unis avec la
France_.'"
I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cordial sentiments
toward France. We have gone through so much suffering and anxiety
together that it would be impossible to tear asunder links firmly
welded by common danger and pain. France will always remember with a
sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which proclaimed her
neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without that proclamation the destinies
of the War might have taken a very different turn.
But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the interest of France
herself. She has hated too deeply to render a sudden cessation of her
hate-storm possible, and the treaties have been begotten in rancour
and applied with violence. Even as the life of men, the life of
peoples has days of joy and days of grief: sunshine follows the storm.
The whole history of European peoples is one of alternate victories
and defeats. It is the business of civilization to create such
conditions as will render victory less brutal and defeat more
bearable.
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