FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1930, this anti-war book had the misfortune to run into a new one.[1] In 1939, its author and publisher freely agreed to suspend sales. Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture with unforeseeable consequences. That is something that must be understood earlier, and acted on accordingly.
When I was young we were taught – when we were at the front – that war was edifying, purifying and redemptive. We have all seen the repercussions of such twaddle: profiteers, arms dealers, the black market, denunciations, betrayals, firing squads, torture; not to mention famine, tuberculosis, typhus, terror, sadism. And heroism, I agree. But the small, exceptional amount of heroism does not make up for the immensity of evil. Besides, few people are cut out for true heroism. Let those of us who came back have the honesty to admit it.[2]
The great novelty of this book, whose title was intended as a challenge, is that its narrator declared: I am afraid. In all the ‘war books’ I had read, fear was indeed sometimes mentioned, but it was other people’s fear. The authors themselves were always phlegmatic characters who were so busy jotting down their impressions that they calmly greeted incoming shells with a happy smile.
The author of the present book believed that it would be dishonest to speak of his comrades’ fear without mentioning his. That is why he decided to admit, indeed to proclaim, his own fear. To have written about the war without writing about fear, without emphasising it, would have been a farce. You do not spend time in places where at any moment you may be blown to pieces without experiencing a degree of apprehension.
Responses to the book varied widely and its author was sometimes taken to task. But two points are worth noting. Some of those who had attacked him would later come to grief, their valour having chosen the wrong camp. And since then some proud pens have avowed that shameful little word, fear.
As for those who fought as infantrymen, they wrote: ‘True! This is what we experienced but could not express.’ Their opinion is worth a great deal. [ . . . ]
I should add two other points. I have not looked at these pages for fifteen years and have just reread them. It is always a surprise for an author to confront a text to which he once put his name. A surprise and a test. For men like to think they learn something as they grow older, That, at least, is how they console themselves.
The tone of Fear is extremely scornful and arrogant in places. It is the arrogance of youth and nothing in it could be changed without eliminating youth itself. The young Dartemont thinks what cannot be thought officially. He is still naïve enough to believe that everything is susceptible to reason. He fiercely asserts weighty and unpalatable truths. It is a matter of choosing whether to speak these truths or keep quiet about them. But he is too angry to be cautious. And acquiescence is often a mark of decrepitude.
A second point. Today I would not write this book in exactly the same way. But should I alter it, and to what extent? I am aware that former readers would take me to task if I changed the original text, that they would see it as a concession or capitulation. So, apart from some rare replacements of words or epithets, the text remains that of the first edition. I have even resisted the temptation to add more artistry, reminding myself that literary embellishments to a finished book only weaken it and there is no going back on the risk I took at the start.
One last thing. How will this book be ‘used’, for what propaganda? My answer is simply that it stood apart from all propaganda, and was not written to serve any.
G.C.