My daily personal intercourse with hundreds of my French Canadian compatriots allowed me to realize that many of them, even amongst the leading classes, were over-confident that the Allies representing at the beginning the united effort of England, France and Russia, soon to be reinforced by Italy, breaking away from the Central Powers, would certainly be equal to the task of being victorious over German militarism. Repeatedly, before public meetings and in very numerous private conversations, I urgently implored my hearers not to be so deluded, doing my best to convince them that it would be a fatal error to shut our eyes from the truth, that the military power of Central Europe, comprising the two great Empires of Germany and Austria, Bulgaria, with the help of Asiatic Turkey, and the undisguised support of baneful teutonic influences and intrigues at the courts of Petrograd and Athens, was gigantic, and that the terrible conflict would surely develop into a struggle for life and death between human freedom and barbarism. This feeling of over-confidence was passing away, when it became evident that to triumph over the modern huns and their associates was no easy task; that the goal of freeing humanity from the threatening universal domination would require the most determined effort of the nations who had heroically undertaken to reach it. CHAPTER V. INTERVENTION OF NATIONALISM. The great struggle being waged with increased intensity, it was daily becoming more and more evident that the Allied nations were bound to muster all their courage, perseverance and resources to successfully fight their determined foe. It was just at the thick of this critical situation, calling forth the devotion and patriotism of all, that the "Nationalist" campaign of false theories and principles was launched with renewed activity in the Province of Quebec. Mr. Henri Bourassa, ex-member of Labelle in the House of Commons, was, and still is, the recognized leader of the "Nationalist School" in our Province, and wherever it finds adherents. His personal organ, "_Le Devoir_," is daily expounding the doctrines of that School. In October, 1915, Mr. Bourassa issued a pamphlet of over four hundred pages entitled:--"_What do we owe England?_"--in French:--"_Que devons-nous a l'Angleterre?_" In the long overdrawn and farfetched argumentation of this volume, the author's effort is to try and prove that Canada owes nothing to England, that all those who favour the Canadian participation in the war are "revolutionists," that we are unduly paying a large tribute to the Empire. In 1916, Mr. Bourassa supplemented his first book with a second pamphlet, entitled:--"_Yesterday, To-day, To-morrow_," in French:--"_Hier, Aujourd'hui, Demain_," in which he amplified the views expressed in the preceding volume.