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"In the minds of other races,"
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would write the Governor General of Indochina in 1931,
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"in the minds of other races the war dealt a terrible blow
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to the moral standing of a civilization
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which Europeans claimed with pride to be superior, yet in whose name
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Europeans spent more than four years savagely killing each other.
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Europe's prestige had been greatly compromised.
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It has long been commonplace to contrast European greatness
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with Asian or African decadence.
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The contrast now seems to be reversed."
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Indeed empire would have a very different relationship to
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national identity in the years after World War I.