Portugal
Lisbon, 18th August, 1917
I have received your letter of August 2nd, in which you ask me, as representing Portugal, to send a message to the American people to be printed in the book “Defenders of Democracy,” and state that a distinguished Portuguese official has been good enough to mention my name to you as that of “an authoritative writer on Portuguese affairs.”
I am sensible of the honor done me, but not being a citizen of Portugal, I dare not presume to speak for that country.
A foreigner however, with friends in both the camps in which Portuguese society is divided, may perhaps be able to state some facts unknown to the American public and of interest at the present time.
And first let me remark that the entry of America into the war, which is a pledge of victory for the Allies, has been a surprise and a relief to the Portuguese, who are by nature pessimists. We Anglo-Saxons are considered to be mainly guided in our conduct by material considerations—did not Napoleon call the English “a nation of shopkeepers”?—and the saying “Time is money” is frequently quoted against us; hence hardly any Portuguese imagined that America would abandon the neutrality which seemed commercially profitable, and even after the decision had been taken, few though that the United States were capable of raising a large army and of transporting it overseas.
Now that America and Portugal are fighting side by side, in a common cause, it is well that they should understand one another. For all their differences of race, religion and language, their ideas are similar. The Portuguese being kindly, easy-going folk, hate militarism and the reign of brute force which is identified with German “Kultur.” As they prize their independence and know their weakness, both inclination and necessity lead them to the side of the powers who may be supposed to favor the continuance of their separate existence and the retention by them of their colonies; as they have a keen sense of justice, and respect their engagements, they feel and have shown their sympathy with violated and outraged Belgium and with the other victims of German aggression. Why then, it may be asked, did they not support whole-heartedly the Government of the Republic when it determined to take part in the war? The answer is simple.
They felt that their first duty was to protect their colonies, threatened by the enemy, and that in a war where the combatants are counted by millions, the small contingent that Portugal could furnish would be of little weight on the battlefields of Europe. Unless treaty obligations and considerations of honor forced them to be belligerents, they considered that as Portugal was poor and had relatively to population almost the heaviest public debt of any European Country, they ought to remain neutral—that this view was mistaken is daily becoming clearer to them, thanks in part to the propaganda of the Catholic paper “Ordem” and the official Monarchist journal “Diario Nacional,” which have insisted as strongly as the Republican press on the necessity of Portuguese participation in the war, in accord with her ancient traditions. He who risks nothing, gains nothing. By her present heavy sacrifices for a great ideal, Portugal wins a fresh title to universal consideration, and by helping to vanquish Germany she defends her oversea patrimony, which the Germans proposed to annex.
I have said that the ideas of the United States and Portugal are similar. But the pressing needs of Portugal are a competent administration, public order and social discipline, which Germany possesses to a remarkable degree, and admiration of these has laid Portuguese Conservatives open to the charge of being pro-German. Many of them judge from experience that the desiderata I refer to cannot be secured in a democracy, while a few of them have gone so far as to desire a German triumph, because they foolishly thought that the Kaiser would restore the monarchy. None of them, I think, sympathize with German methods; but they have suffered from a century of revolutions, dating from 1820, and attribute these disasters to the anti-Christian ideas of the French Revolution. In America that great movement had beneficent results, as I understand, which only shows that one man’s drink is another’s poison.
Divergent ideals and other considerations led Portuguese Conservatives to throw their influence into the scale in favor of neutrality, but now that their country is at war they have accepted the fact and can be trusted to do their duty. At the front political and other differences are forgotten and the soldiers, whatever their creed, are honoring the warlike traditions of their race and reminding us of the days when Wellington spoke of Portuguese troops as the “fighting-cocks” of his army.
By organizing with great efforts and sending a properly trained and equipped expeditionary force to France, the Government of the Republic has deserved well of the country and the Allies, and I believe that it has unconsciously been the agent of Divine Providence. The men, when they return will bring with them a firmer religious faith, the foundation of national well-being, and a higher standard of conduct than prevails here at present; they may well prove the regenerators of a land which all who know it learn to love, a land, the past achievements of whose sons in the cause of Christianity and civilization are inscribed on the ample page of history. Portugal which produced so many saints and heroes, which founded the sea road to India and discovered and colonized Brazil, cannot be allowed longer to vegetate, for this in the case of a country means to die.
[signed] Edgar Prestage