Ámes de Guerre [The Souls of War]; A Handwritten Manuscript

1904. Near fine. 3pp, 4to. Holograph manuscript in pen (in French), writing on the rectos only, the first two pages are filled with text, the last page is trimmed, with only 4 lines and Mirbeau’s signature. Creases, stains, smudges, offsetting, but cleanly written, legible and very good. An article for the left-wing newspaper L’Humanité, published 25/Sept/1904. The newspaper was founded only a few months earlier by SFIO leader Jean Jaures, who also served as editor. In the article, Mirbeau criticizes France for its refusal to intervene in the Russo-Japanese war. With biting irony, he mimics the indifferent French attitude: "Let's wait two, five, ten (truncated) twenty years, if we have to... We'll keep on slaughtering each other over there... But what are we risking?... Life is good, our restaurants are still the best in the world... There are still the prettiest girls in the theaters of Paris." He exposes the hypocrisy of French foreign policy: "as allies, not of the Russian people, whose infinite sufferings, like those of all peoples, are of absolutely no concern to us, but as allies of the czar, whose glory alone is important to us, let us be no less faithful czarists than the czar himself is." Drawing a powerful parallel, Mirbeau connects the mounting casualties of the Russo-Japanese conflict with the Armenian massacres—which had already reached devastating proportions by 1904. A different but contemporary newspaper clipping is laid in (seemingly part 2 by Mirbeau): it records a conversation with a merchant marine captain recently returned from the Far East who, despite personally witnessing naval battles, admits he comprehends little of the war's true nature beyond scattered, disturbing details he finds too horrific to fully describe.

The early 1900s, particularly 1904-1905, marked a transformative period in the development of anti-imperialist critique within European leftist thought. The Russo-Japanese conflict illuminated the contradictions within Western powers' foreign policies, particularly France's relationship with Tsarist Russia. The French left's growing disillusionment with the Franco-Russian alliance exemplified broader ideological shifts that would shape socialist internationalism for decades. As ordinary Russians died for imperial ambitions while French elites remained indifferent behind a facade of nationalist solidarity, socialist thinkers increasingly recognized patterns linking capitalist interests to colonial violence. This period also witnessed the emergence of more sophisticated leftist analyses connecting imperial competition abroad with class exploitation at home. The juxtaposition of European indifference toward both the Russo-Japanese War casualties and the Armenian massacres demonstrated how Western powers selectively applied humanitarian concerns based on strategic interests—a critique that would become central to anti-colonial movements throughout the 20th century and presage the internationalist anti-war position that would later fracture the European left during World War I.

Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) emerged as one of France's most incisive social critics during the Belle Époque, developing a literary voice defined by moral outrage and stylistic innovation that transcended conventional boundaries between journalism and literature. His artistic sensibilities were profoundly shaped by traumatic experiences—including abuse at a Jesuit school and service in the Franco-Prussian War—which fostered his lifelong commitments to anarchism, pacifism, and the defense of individual dignity against institutional power. Beyond his novels exposing societal hypocrisy, including the controversial "Le Jardin des supplices" (1899) and "Le Journal d'une femme de chambre" (1900), Mirbeau distinguished himself as a prescient art critic who championed misunderstood avant-garde figures like Van Gogh, Rodin, and Monet, recognizing artistic genius that his contemporaries often dismissed. His prolific output—spanning over twelve hundred works across multiple genres—consistently demonstrated his willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about violence, sexuality, and power that bourgeois society preferred to ignore, establishing him as an intellectual forerunner to modernist aesthetic and political movements of the twentieth century. (Inventory #: 1146)