The People’s Struggle
“Let no free country be alien to the freedom of another country.”
“Portugal is going solemnly to affirm on the field of battle her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. Were it necessary to appeal to a motive less disinterested than the noble ideal proclaimed by Schiller, we have this: the payment of an ancient debt to which our honor binds us. Let us go forward to defend territories of those who defended ours, let us maintain the independence of nations who contributed to the salvation of our own independence.
“But the objective is a higher one, I repeat. This has been made quite clear within the last few months, through the revolution in Russia, the participation of the United States, and the solidarity, more or less effective, of all the democracies. It is the people’s struggle for right, for liberty, for civilization against the dark forces of despotism and barbarism. Portugal would betray her historic mission were she now to fold her arms, the arms which discovered worlds. When the earth was given to man, it was not that it should be peopled by slaves. The sails of Portuguese ships surrounded the globe like a diadem of stars, not as a collar of darkness to strangle it.”
Henrique Lopes De Mendonca of the Academy of Science of Lisbon, speaking at Lisbon in May, 1917.
Translation by L. E. Elliott.