FEAR DOMINATES OUR WORLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23525, 9 December 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

FEAR DOMINATES OUR WORLD

A Challen&e to Youth

By G.G.H,

THE literature dealing with Napoleon is now so extensive that any new book must have particular claims to attention if it is going to justify publication. The latest woi,k by the distinguished Italian historian, Professor Ferrero, undoubtedly has. His subject is a period of, great importance in Napoleon's career —the campaigns in Italy in 1796-7. Two now facts have been unearthed bv Professor Ferrero's researches. They explain more fully Napoleon's own attitudo during tliese early years. First, there is the "Essai goueralo de tactique," by a French military officer, Jacques Guibert, published in 1773. This treatise attacks the antiquated and cumbrous war machine of the eighteenth century, proposing instead of huge armies difficult aud slow to manoeuvre, the small mobile force which could ,outilank positions and even take them by surprise. Numerous quotations in Napoleon's correspondence show a very careful study of these views. The real secret of force, according to Guibert, -was sne&L The young revolutionary general, by its aid, found a way out of the cul-de-sac of the Italian adventure. All the second part of the campaign of Italy, right up to / the battle of Rivoli, was inspired by this book.

Key to History The preliminaries of peace were signed near Locben by Bonaparte on behalf of France—an action which was hitherto thought to bo clue to his npprehensiveriess for the co nun u nidations in his rear and supposed inaction of Hoche on the Rhine. Professor Ferrero has, however, produced a very, important fetter of April 7 (three days before the Loeben agreement) from the directors to the general dictating their changed views on terms of peace.. This letter, reproduced in hill, is one of the keys to the history of the nineteenth' century. The author shows that Bonaparte remained in Italy only for the time strictly necessary to sign the peace treaty of Campo Forinio, and was ohly interested in the internal affairs of Italy as far as they concerned the war and the conclusion of poace.y The" lengthy letter shows that the Cisalpine Republic was planned and conceived in the offices of the Directory —that Bonaparte was nothing but the executor. , He was ordered to create a State in Northern Italy, in which the people would be sovereign, as in France, but "we do ndt consider it useful that you y should establish the legislative body now. The Government should function in all sections, but the legislative will, bo long as we are there, must be manifested by you alone." The power which camSgfrom the people, was to fall on . him.'vwho had at his back a victorious armyl' the explanation of this v revolutionary innovation—a new State based on a sham —be it l'emembit is not an example of the despotic ijenius of f Napoleon, but merely directions from > Paris', or .-> Study in Transition In addition to its being a military chronicle,''the book is in a larger-sense a study- of the transition from, democracy to dictatorship. For the author points out that it' was the armies of the Revolution, not its ideas that penetrated throughout the whole of Europe. Warfare without rules, the letter ot April 7, Fructidor and Boumaire, the travesty of the consecration of Notre Paine, the Napoleonic despotism with its train of, mystification, its monarchical falsification of the Revolution, and its revolutionary falsification of the monarchy, these were the examples from which Europe drew its inspiration, much more than from the letter apd spirit of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. 'And these were but abuses of forces under different forms, that is, the means which men use to inspire fear. "Fear is the original sin of life." Active passive, fear is the sovereign force which''dominates the world of living beings. "Fascism, Nazism. Bolshevism, ' have all sprung from that letter of April 7"; their civilisations are merely the struggle against fear and consequently against the abuse of force. Civilisation must be a school for courage ,which teaches men to master their terrors, real or imaginary, and by making them courageous, impels them not to abuse the fear that thev may inspire. Such is the message that looms large throughout the pages of this book. Dedicated to his dead son; it embraces a challenge to the world's youth—to struggle against the fear neurosis of the present age. Crammed though it is with the minutial of Avar manoeuvres, its lively and provocative style and thought, coupled with its extreme topicality, are calculated to make this an exciting book for all. "The Gamble—Bonaparte in Italy, 1790-7," by Guglielmo Ferrero. (Bell.)