France's Great Sacrifices.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 8, 1913:
Nation Accepts the Task Made Necessary by Germany's Measures. Special Cable to The New York Times.    PARIS, March 7.— When, in introducing the Three Years' Military Service bill in the Chamber or Deputies yesterday, Eugène Etienne, the Minister of War, made use or the expression that it was "the immutable purpose of the great and noble democracy of France to live strong and free and to remain mistress of its own destinies," he crystallized in one terse phrase the republic's attitude toward the titanic sacrifices she is now called upon to make.
    The new spirit in France is rightly regarded as the most remarkable manifestation in European public life for a generation. The first great expression which this sentiment found was the selection or M. Poincaré as President. It may be said, however, that this action, epoch-making though it was, cost the country nothing. Only now, by the proposal to keep all citizens without exception for three years with the colors, will a test be applied by which the new spirit either proves to be a tangible, reliable sentiment, capable of permanently lifting France from the slough in which she fell forty years ago, or a bubble pricked in the first hour of trial.
    The present moment, therefore, is fraught with the gravest possibilities for France, and all public-spirited men here frankly confess that her destinies are now in the lap of the gods.
    I have made the closest scrutiny of all present indications in the press and Parliament, and feel full justification in the belief that France may be relied upon to do the right thing. From the Pas de Calais to the Pyrenees, the sentiment seems to be that great sacrifices for the army are now inevitable if France is to remain a great power. Therefore, distasteful though it be, the three years' military service will be accepted with the minimum of grumbling.
    How eloquent is this self-abnegation of the national spirit animating Young France can only be realized when it is borne in mind that not twelve months ago no statesman susceptible of ridicule would have cared even to hint at the possibility of a reversion to the three years' military service, which France thought she had definitely done with eight years ago. Since the beginning of the year, however, it had begun to be realized that some great sacrifice must be demanded of all Frenchmen if Germany's colossal military expenditure were to be met in an efficacious manner, and, under the iron law of necessity, the people are now prepared not only to submit to additional taxation in order to provide the War Office with the extra sum of $100,000,000, but also to serve an extra twelve months under the colors in order that France may be able to put in the field 750,000 troops should an appeal to arms prove inevitable.
    But cheerfully though the citizens are prepared to make this sacrifice, the necessity for it has profoundly embittered the feeling against Germany. Nothing which Teuton diplomacy has done in the last five years has provoked more resentment — all the more deep-seated because France finds little to gain by this entry into the mad race for armaments. The official press of Paris never tires of emphasizing the fact that France's proposed new military measures have no aggressive character in regard to Germany, and it may be accepted as a fact that they are purely defensive and only occasioned by Germany's colossal effort. It is only natural that the anti-German feeling here shoud be greatly intensified by the resultant necessity for French sacrifices, and in the near future Europe is likely to be more of an armed camp than ever.
    Nothing could better demonstrate the cost of peace to Europe than the figures showing the military expenditures of the six great powers drawn up by Edmond Thery. Figures like these, taken in conjunction with the rivalry arising from commercial antagonisms, to say nothing of the memory of 1870, convince every Frenchman that the hour of words has passed, and that the time for actual sacrifices has now arrived.
    Because of the inevitability of these sacrifices it is generally thought that the necessary credits and the Three Years' Service bill will go through Parliament rapidly.