ECHOS

La Quotidienne:

The gendarmerie has just arrested, in Neuilly-sur-Marne, an individual named Planson, who, having deserted at the beginning of the war, had been living for ten years in a small house, in the company of his old mother. This abominable coward having been reported as missing in September 1914, his name appeared on one of the sides of the monument erected, last year, by the commune, to his children who died for their country.
Reporting the fact, a newspaper seems to be surprised by this arrest, the deserter should benefit from the amnesty law. Because here we are, ten years after the beginning of the terrible conflict and six years after the armistice, that we are wiping the slate clean on the most odious of crimes and that we are assimilating to the best soldiers the vile beings who have shirked duty and danger! To the heroic fighters who spent many months on the front, in the mud of the trenches and under a hail of machine-gun fire, to those who returned mutilated from the war, their faces slashed, limbs missing, their health forever ruined by fatigue, deprivation or toxic gases, to all of them is inflicted the affront of seeing the villainous cowardice of the deserters henceforth placed on the same level as the sublime heroism of those who cheerfully sacrificed themselves for the defense of the fatherland!...
Before the court martial of the fifth region, sitting in Clermont-Ferrand, appeared last Wednesday a man named Lemenier, sentenced to death, in absentia, in December 1915, for having deserted before the enemy and surrendered to the Germans. The military judges sentenced this rascal to the minimum, namely five years of public works; a derisory sentence, if one considers the gravity without mitigation of the act committed; illusory punishment if we consider that Mr. Lemenier will benefit from amnesty tomorrow, just like the miserable Planson of Neuilly-sur-Marne. It is for this last reason, no doubt, that the War Council considered it useless to pronounce a more severe sanction and wanted to condemn only on principle!
Before long, moreover, individuals like the Plansons and the Lemeniers will obtain more consideration than the combatants who behaved valiantly. They will be said to have been clever, since they knew how to save their skin, by skillfully sheltering it from shells, bullets, gas and explosions. Their ingenuity, their malice and their know-how will be praised. Their character, both resourceful and prudent, will be appreciated. On the other hand, those who had the candor to believe that duty commanded them to leave and immolate themselves for the salvation of the fatherland will be treated as suckers. Is this not, moreover, the logical conclusion that must be drawn from the paradoxical situation created by the will of a minority and the cowardice of the majority?