_First published as one of the Oxford Pamphlets, October 1914_
It is now recognized in England that our enemy in this war is not a
tyrant military caste, but the united people of modern Germany. We have
to combat an armed doctrine which is virtually the creed of all Germany.
Saxony and Bavaria, it is true, would never have invented the doctrine;
but they have accepted it from Prussia, and they believe it. The
Prussian doctrine has paid the German people handsomely; it has given
them their place in the world. When it ceases to pay them, and not till
then, they will reconsider it. They will not think, till they are
compelled to think. When they find themselves face to face with a
greater and more enduring strength than their own, they will renounce
their idol. But they are a brave people, a faithful people, and a stupid
people, so that they will need rough proofs. They cannot be driven from
their position by a little paper shot. In their present mood, if they
hear an appeal to pity, sensibility, and sympathy, they take it for a
cry of weakness. I am reminded of what I once heard said by a genial and
humane Irish officer concerning a proposal to treat with the leaders of
a Zulu rebellion. 'Kill them all,' he said, 'it's the only thing they
understand.' He meant that the Zulu chiefs would mistake moderation for
a sign of fear. By the irony of human history this sentence has become
almost true of the great German people, who built up the structure of
modern metaphysics. They can be argued with only by those who have the
will and the power to punish them.
The doctrine that Might is Right, though it is true, is an unprofitable
doctrine, for it is true only in so broad and simple a sense that no one
would dream of denying it. If a single nation can conquer, depress, and
destroy all the other nations of the earth and acquire for itself a sole
dominion, there may be matter for question whether God approves that
dominion; what is certain is that He permits it. No earthly governor who
is conscious of his power will waste time in listening to arguments
concerning what his power ought to be. His right to wield the sword can
be challenged only by the sword. An all-powerful governor who feared no
assault would never trouble himself to assert that Might is Right. He
would smile and sit still. The doctrine, when it is propounded by weak
humanity, is never a statement of abstract truth; it is a declaration of
intention, a threat, a boast, an advertisement. It has no value except
when there is some one to be frightened. But it is a very dangerous
doctrine when it becomes the creed of a stupid people, for it flatters
their self-sufficiency, and distracts their attention from the
difficult, subtle, frail, and wavering conditions of human power. The
tragic question for Germany to-day is what she can do, not whether it is
right for her to do it. The buffaloes, it must be allowed, had a
perfect right to dominate the prairie of America, till the hunters came.
They moved in herds, they practised shock-tactics, they were violent,
and very cunning. There are but few of them now. A nation of men who
mistake violence for strength, and cunning for wisdom, may conceivably
suffer the fate of the buffaloes and perish without knowing why.
To the English mind the German political doctrine is so incredibly
stupid that for many long years, while men in high authority in the
German Empire, ministers, generals, and professors, expounded that
doctrine at great length and with perfect clearness, hardly any one
could be found in England to take it seriously, or to regard it as
anything but the vapourings of a crazy sect. England knows better now;
the scream of the guns has awakened her. The German doctrine is to be
put to the proof. Who dares to say what the result will be? To predict
certain failure to the German arms is only a kind of boasting. Yet there
are guarded beliefs which a modest man is free to hold till they are
seen to be groundless. The Germans have taken Antwerp; they may possibly
destroy the British fleet, overrun England and France, repel Russia,
establish themselves as the dictators of Europe--in short, fulfil their
dreams. What then? At an immense cost of human suffering they will have
achieved, as it seems to us, a colossal and agonizing failure. Their
engines of destruction will never serve them to create anything so fair
as the civilization of France. Their uneasy jealousy and self-assertion
is a miserable substitute for the old laws of chivalry and regard for
the weak, which they have renounced and forgotten. The will and high
permission of all-ruling Heaven may leave them at large for a time, to
seek evil to others. When they have finished with it, the world will
have to be remade.
We cannot be sure that the Ruler of the world will forbid this. We
cannot even be sure that the destroyers, in the peace that their
destruction will procure for them, may not themselves learn to rebuild.
The Goths, who destroyed the fabric of the Roman Empire, gave their
name, in time, to the greatest mediaeval art. Nature, it is well known,
loves the strong, and gives to them, and to them alone, the chance of
becoming civilized. Are the German people strong enough to earn that
chance? That is what we are to see. They have some admirable elements of
strength, above any other European people. No other European army can be
marched, in close order, regiment after regiment, up the slope of a
glacis, under the fire of machine guns, without flinching, to certain
death. This corporate courage and corporate discipline is so great and
impressive a thing that it may well contain a promise for the future.
Moreover, they are, within the circle of their own kin, affectionate and
dutiful beyond the average of human society. If they succeed in their
worldly ambitions, it will be a triumph of plain brute morality over all
the subtler movements of the mind and heart.
On the other hand, it is true to say that history shows no precedent for
the attainment of world-wide power by a people so politically stupid as
the German people are to-day. There is no mistake about this; the
instances of German stupidity are so numerous that they make something
like a complete history of German international relations. Here is one.
Any time during the last twenty years it has been matter of common
knowledge in England that one event, and one only, would make it
impossible for England to remain a spectator in a European war--that
event being the violation of the neutrality of Holland or Belgium. There
was never any secret about this, it was quite well known to many people
who took no special interest in foreign politics. Germany has maintained
in this country, for many years, an army of spies and secret agents; yet
not one of them informed her of this important truth. Perhaps the
radical difference between the German and the English political systems
blinded the astute agents. In England nothing really important is a
secret, and the amount of privileged political information to be gleaned
in barbers' shops, even when they are patronized by Civil servants, is
distressingly small. Two hours of sympathetic conversation with an
ordinary Englishman would have told the German Chancellor more about
English politics than ever he heard in his life. For some reason or
other he was unable to make use of this source of intelligence, so that
he remained in complete ignorance of what every one in England knew and
said.
Here is another instance. The programme of German ambition has been
voluminously published for the benefit of the world. France was first to
be crushed; then Russia; then, by means of the indemnities procured from
these conquests, after some years of recuperation and effort, the naval
power of England was to be challenged and destroyed. This programme was
set forth by high authorities, and was generally accepted; there was no
criticism, and no demur. The crime against the civilization of the world
foreshadowed in the horrible words 'France is to be crushed' is before a
high tribunal; it would be idle to condemn it here. What happened is
this. The French and Russian part of the programme was put into action
last July. England, who had been told that her turn was not yet, that
Germany would be ready for her in a matter of five or ten years, very
naturally refused to wait her turn. She crowded up on to the scaffold,
which even now is in peril of breaking down under the weight of its
victims, and of burying the executioner in its ruins. But because
England would not wait her turn, she is overwhelmed with accusations of
treachery and inhumanity by a sincerely indignant Germany. Could
stupidity, the stupidity of the wise men of Gotham, be more fantastic or
more monstrous?
German stupidity was even more monstrous. A part of the accusation
against England is that she has raised her hand against the nation
nearest to her in blood. The alleged close kinship of England and
Germany is based on bad history and doubtful theory. The English are a
mixed race, with enormous infusions of Celtic and Roman blood. The Roman
sculpture gallery at Naples is full of English faces. If the German
agents would turn their attention to hatters' shops, and give the
barbers a rest, they would find that no English hat fits any German
head. But suppose we were cousins, or brothers even, what kind of
argument is that on the lips of those who but a short time before were
explaining, with a good deal of zest and with absolute frankness, how
they intended to compass our ruin? There is something almost amiable in
fatuity like this. A touch of the fool softens the brute.
The Germans have a magnificent war-machine which rolls on its way,
crushing all that it touches. We shall break it if we can. If we fail,
the German nation is at the beginning, not the end, of its troubles.
With the making of peace, even an armed peace, the war-machine has
served its turn; some other instrument of government must then be
invented. There is no trace of a design for this new instrument in any
of the German shops. The governors of Alsace-Lorraine offer no
suggestions. The bald fact is that there is no spot in the world where
the Germans govern another race and are not hated. They know this, and
are disquieted; they meet with coldness on all hands, and their remedy
for the coldness is self-assertion and brag. The Russian statesman was
right who remarked that modern Germany has been too early admitted into
the comity of European nations. Her behaviour, in her new international
relations, is like the behaviour of an uneasy, jealous upstart in an
old-fashioned quiet drawing-room. She has no genius for equality; her
manners are a compound of threatening and flattery. When she wishes to
assert herself, she bullies; when she wishes to endear herself, she
crawls; and the one device is no more successful than the other.
Might is Right; but the sort of might which enables one nation to govern
another in time of peace is very unlike the armoured thrust of the
war-engine. It is a power compounded of sympathy and justice. The
English (it is admitted by many foreign critics) have studied justice
and desired justice. They have inquired into and protected rights that
were unfamiliar, and even grotesque, to their own ideas, because they
believed them to be rights. In the matter of sympathy their reputation
does not stand so high; they are chill in manner, and dislike all
effusive demonstrations of feeling. Yet those who come to know them know
that they are not unimaginative; they have a genius for equality; and
they do try to put themselves in the other fellow's place, to see how
the position looks from that side. What has happened in India may
perhaps be taken to prove, among many other things, that the inhabitants
of India begin to know that England has done her best, and does feel a
disinterested solicitude for the peoples under her charge. She has long
been a mother of nations, and is not frightened by the problems of
adolescence.
The Germans have as yet shown no sign of skill in governing other
peoples. Might is Right; and it is quite conceivable that they may
acquire colonies by violence. If they want to keep them they will have
to shut their own professors' books, and study the intimate history of
the British Empire. We are old hands at the business; we have lost more
colonies than ever they owned, and we begin to think that we have learnt
the secret of success. At any rate, our experience has done much for us,
and has helped us to avoid failure. Yet the German colonial party stare
at us with bovine malevolence. In all the library of German theorizing
you will look in vain for any explanation of the fact that the Boers
are, in the main, loyal to the British Empire. If German political
thinkers could understand that political situation, which seems to
English minds so simple, there might yet be hope for them. But they
regard it all as a piece of black magic, and refuse to reason about it.
How should a herd of cattle be driven without goads? Witchcraft,
witchcraft!
Their world-wide experience it is, perhaps, which has made the English
quick to appreciate the virtues of other peoples. I have never known an
Englishman who travelled in Russia without falling in love with the
Russian people. I have never heard a German speak of the Russian people
without contempt and dislike. Indeed the Germans are so unable to see
any charm in that profound and humane people that they believe that the
English liking for them must be an insincere pretence, put forward for
wicked or selfish reasons. What would they say if they saw a sight that
is common in Indian towns, a British soldier and a Gurkha arm in arm,
rolling down the street in cheerful brotherhood? And how is it that it
has never occurred to any of them that this sort of brotherhood has its
value in Empire-building? The new German political doctrine has bidden
farewell to Christianity, but there are some political advantages in
Christianity which should not be overlooked. It teaches human beings to
think of one another and to care for one another. It is an antidote to
the worst and most poisonous kind of political stupidity.
Another thing that the Germans will have to learn for the welfare of
their much-talked Empire is the value of the lone man. The architects
and builders of the British Empire were all lone men. Might is Right;
but when a young Englishman is set down at an outpost of Empire to
govern a warlike tribe, he has to do a good deal of hard thinking on the
problem of political power and its foundations. He has to trust to
himself, to form his own conclusions, and to choose his own line of
action. He has to try to find out what is in the mind of others. A young
German, inured to skilled slavery, does not shine in such a position.
Man for man, in all that asks for initiative and self-dependence,
Englishmen are the better men, and some Germans know it. There is an old
jest that if you settle an Englishman and a German together in a new
country, at the end of a year you will find the Englishman governor, and
the German his head clerk. A German must know the rules before he can
get to work.
More than three hundred years ago a book was written in England which is
in some ways a very exact counterpart to General von Bernhardi's
notorious treatise. It is called _Tamburlaine_, and, unlike its
successor, is full of poetry and beauty. Our own colonization began with
a great deal of violent work, and much wrong done to others. We suffered
for our misdeeds, and we learned our lesson, in part at least. Why, it
may be asked, should not the Germans begin in the same manner, and by
degrees adapt themselves to the new task? Perhaps they may, but if they
do, they cannot claim the Elizabethans for their model. Of all men on
earth the German is least like the undisciplined, exuberant Elizabethan
adventurer. He is reluctant to go anywhere without a copy of the rules,
a guarantee of support, and a regular pension. His outlook is as prosaic
as General von Bernhardi's or General von der Golt's own, and that is
saying a great deal. In all the German political treatises there is an
immeasurable dreariness. They lay down rules for life, and if they be
asked what makes such a life worth living they are without any hint of
an answer. Their world is a workhouse, tyrannically ordered, and full of
pusillanimous jealousies.
It is not impious to be hopeful. A Germanized world would be a
nightmare. We have never attempted or desired to govern them, and we
must not think that God will so far forget them as to permit them to
attempt to govern us. Now they hate us, but they do not know for how
many years the cheerful brutality of their political talk has shocked
and disgusted us. I remember meeting, in one of the French Mediterranean
dependencies, with a Prussian nobleman, a well-bred and pleasant man,
who was fond of expounding the Prussian creed. He was said to be a
political agent of sorts, but he certainly learned nothing in
conversation. He talked all the time, and propounded the most monstrous
paradoxes with an air of mathematical precision. Now it was the
character of Sir Edward Grey, a cunning Machiavel, whose only aim was to
set Europe by the ears and make neighbours fall out. A friend who was
with me, an American, laughed aloud at this, and protested, without
producing the smallest effect. The stream of talk went on. The error of
the Germans, we were told, was always that they are too humane; their
dislike of cruelty amounts to a weakness in them. They let France escape
with a paltry fine, next time France must be beaten to the dust. Always
with a pleasant outward courtesy, he passed on to England. England was
decadent and powerless, her rule must pass to the Germans. 'But we shall
treat England rather less severely than France,' said this bland apostle
of Prussian culture, 'for we wish to make it possible for ourselves to
remain in friendly relations with other English-speaking peoples.' And
so on--the whole of the Bernhardi doctrine, explained in quiet fashion
by a man whose very debility of mind made his talk the more impressive,
for he was simply parroting what he had often heard. No one criticized
his proposals, nor did we dislike him. It all seemed too mad; a rather
clumsy jest. His world of ideas did not touch our world at any point, so
that real talk between us was impossible. He came to see us several
times, and always gave the same kind of mesmerized recital of Germany's
policy. The grossness of the whole thing was in curious contrast with
the polite and quiet voice with which he uttered his insolences. When I
remember his talk I find it easy to believe that the German Emperor and
the German Chancellor have also talked in such a manner that they have
never had the smallest opportunity of learning what Englishmen think and
mean.
While the German doctrine was the plaything merely of hysterical and
supersensitive persons, like Carlyle and Nietzsche, it mattered little
to the world of politics. An excitable man, of vivid imagination and
invalid constitution, like Carlyle, feels a natural predilection for the
cult of the healthy brute. Carlyle's English style is itself a kind of
epilepsy. Nietzsche was so nervously sensitive that everyday life was an
anguish to him, and broke his strength. Both were poets, as Marlowe was
a poet, and both sang the song of Power. The brutes of the swamp and the
field, who gathered round them and listened, found nothing new or
unfamiliar in the message of the poets. 'This', they said, 'is what we
have always known, but we did not know that it is poetry. Now that great
poets teach it, we need no longer be ashamed of it.' So they went away
resolved to be twice the brutes that they were before, and they named
themselves Culture-brutes.
It is difficult to see how the world, or any considerable part of it,
can belong to Germany, till she changes her mind. If she can do that,
she might make a good ruler, for she has solid virtues and good
instincts. It is her intellect that has gone wrong. Bishop Butler was
one day found pondering the problem whether, a whole nation can go mad.
If he had lived to-day what would he have said about it? Would he have
admitted that that strangest of grim fancies is realized?
It would be vain for Germany to take the world; she could not keep it;
nor, though she can make a vast number of people miserable for a long
time, could she ever hope to make all the inhabitants of the world
miserable for all time. She has a giant's power, and does not think it
infamous to use it like a giant. She can make a winter hideous, but she
cannot prohibit the return of spring, or annul the cleansing power of
water. Sanity is not only better than insanity; it is much stronger, and
Might is Right.
Meantime, it is a delight and a consolation to Englishmen that England
is herself again. She has a cause that it is good to fight for, whether
it succeed or fail. The hope that uplifts her is the hope of a better
world, which our children shall see. She has wonderful friends. From
what self-governing nations in the world can Germany hear such messages
as came to England from the Dominions oversea? 'When England is at war,
Canada is at war.' 'To the last man and the last shilling, Australia
will support the cause of the Empire.' These are simple words, and
sufficient; having said them, Canada and Australia said no more. In the
company of such friends, and for the creed that she holds, England might
be proud to die; but surely her time is not yet.
Our faith is ours, and comes not on a tide;
And whether Earth's great offspring by decree
Must rot if they abjure rapacity,
Not argument, but effort shall decide.
They number many heads in that hard flock,
Trim swordsmen they push forth, yet try thy steel;
Thou, fighting for poor human kind, shalt feel
The strength of Roland in thy wrist to hew
A chasm sheer into the barrier rock,
And bring the army of the faithful through.