Louis Raemakers knows his own countrymen better than we can, and this
satire at the expense of the peace at any price brigade is doubtless
well deserved. The attitude might have been pardoned two years ago,
but it is merely insane to-day. And none knows that fact better than
Holland. Like America, she is taking care of herself; indeed, no nation
has better reason to do so with a neighbour at her elbow unamenable to
reason and uncontrolled by conscience.
Historians to come, however, will argue that our blindness was
unpardonable, and our surprise and unpreparedness before the advent
of war must cast a heavy slur on the future credit of our past
diplomacy. For what could be clearer than Germany’s attitude or
brighter than the beacons which had directed and were still directing
her course? Bernhardi tells us all there is to know; Frederick the
Great established the Prussian tradition on a basis of fraud and
force; Bismarck sustained it and William II. has striven to reap the
harvest of their sowing. It has needed the united might of Europe to
prevent him from doing so. But to cry out against Teutonic principle
and practice, as though it were a thing of yesterday sprung upon us in
these wars, is absurd. Every politician worthy the name had the pages
of history open for his perusal. Frederick pointed out that alliances
in which each contracting party has different interests must never hold
good under all conditions, or represent a permanent political system.
He declared that no alliance or agreement in the world can be effective
after the bond of common and reciprocal interest is broken.
Why then marvel at the Belgian “Scrap of paper,” or any number of them?
It was a political commonplace with the German Chancellor and his
Master that oaths should be broken at the moment it became inconvenient
to keep them. Bernhardi himself says that political agreements must
always be concluded with a tacit reservation and can only hold as long
as the interests of both contracting parties are satisfied.
“La guerre,” said Mirabeau, “est l’industrie nationale de la Prusse.”
She came into existence by that industry and no other; and until
civilisation can crush that industry, peace terms with Prussia must not
depend upon her promise to fulfil them but upon our power to make her
do so. To cry “Down with militarism!” therefore is emphatically to play
the German game, and she will always support that cry in other mouths,
just as she applauds our “Free Trade” and other traditions that have
played into her hands so long.
Holland at least is alive to danger, and since the artist drew this
picture we have learned by _communiqué_ from Dutch General Headquarters
that the army is equipped in every possible respect, and able to
face the prospect of war with confidence. The nation as a whole has
supported Parliament with enthusiasm, and the preparations have been
directed and inspired by the spectacle of modern warfare and its
highest needs.