We disarm

It had to happen. For too long, we have been talking, everywhere, and in an inconsiderate way, about universal peace, disarmament, the end of massacres, etc. By dint of talking nonsense, we have ended up turning the understanding of the people and those who lead them upside down. And now governments, taking these fantasies seriously, are today deciding to put them into practice.

According to the plan of the Danish Prime Minister, the army and navy are abolished. Only a sort of police militia, composed of volunteers and half a dozen small vessels, will be kept. Plus two aeroplanes. Profit: nearly fifty million crowns. Denmark will become the land of plenty.

Only, this gesture, which cannot fail to arouse, in the civilized universe, a deep emotion, will provoke, at the same time, a holy emulation. Neighboring nations will say to themselves that, since we have begun, there is no reason not to continue. The people will put pressure on their leaders. And you will see that, from one end of Europe to the other, there will be no question of anything but disarmament. I say that the project of Mr. Stauning, President of the Council of Ministers of Denmark, risks calling down on our heads the most terrible catastrophes.

It is not in vain that the foundations of the Society are undermined. The army is the keystone that it is forbidden to touch. Without an army, everything collapses. France, our glorious country, holds its rank in the world above all by the prestige of its army, its valiant soldiers, its brave officers, its brilliant generals, its remarkable marshals whose strategic genius is exercised as much on the battlefield as in the tight columns of the academic dictionary.
And they would like to suppress that! And France, our glorious country, would be reduced to the sad state of the Principality of Monaco, which has only firefighters, croupiers and palace hunters or dowry hunters!
And we would no longer have military bands, no more flamboyant reviews under the sun, no more heroism poured into the hearts of city dwellers!

We can't imagine that without shuddering. And then... let's see... What are we going to do with the generals, officers, career non-commissioned officers? As for the soldiers, it will be easy: they only ask to swap their greatcoat for a suit. But the others? What will we use them for? Will we make bureaucrats of them, at a time when civil servants are complaining, protesting, rebelling because they are paid too badly? What are they capable of, anyway? What job can they do? No, no, it is not possible to throw thousands of brave people with stripes, entitled to their pensions, out onto the street like this, and who tomorrow, new Belisarii, will hold out their caps in the public square.

There are no more Du Guesclins to train and swarm the next big companies.
You say that we could compensate them? What would become of the balance of the budget then?

The more I think about it, the more I find that the initiative taken by Denmark is serious with terrible consequences.
No more wars! No more armies! Oh! is the world suffering from madness?
Fortunately, not far from the Danes, there are the Russians. Revolutionary Russia is in charge of the international proletariat. Red Russia will not disarm.
And, I am still thinking about it... What will the League of Nations say? It is now or never the moment to bring sanctions into play.
I ask that the League of Nations intervene; that it forces Denmark to take back its soldiers, its sailors, its cannons, its munitions.

There is not a minute to lose. We must, as quickly as possible, smother this dangerous hotbed of antimilitarism that threatens to set the world on fire!

SIRIUS.