PEACE THEORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR
BY
NORMAN ANGELL
Author of "The Great Illusion"
1912
PEACE THEORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR
By NORMAN ANGELL,
Author of "The Great Illusion."
1912
THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK.
Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or sit in
sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no consequence at the
present moment....
We have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know that
the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is a war
which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and diplomatists
could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press has had no part, a
war which the whole force of the money power has been subtly and
steadfastly directed to prevent, which has come upon us, not through
the ignorance or credulity of the people, but, on the contrary,
through their knowledge of their history and their destiny, and
through their intense realisation of their wrongs and of their
duties, as they conceived them, a war which from all these causes
has burst upon us with all the force of a spontaneous explosion, and
which in strife and destruction has carried all before it. Face to
face with this manifestation, who is the man bold enough to say that
force is never a remedy? Who is the man who is foolish enough to say
that martial virtues do not play a vital part in the health and
honour of every people? (Cheers.) Who is the man who is vain enough
to suppose that the long antagonisms of history and of time can in
all circumstances be adjusted by the smooth and superficial
conventions of politicians and ambassadors?--MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL
at Sheffield.
Mr. Norman Angell's theory was one to enable the citizens of this
country to sleep quietly, and to lull into false security the
citizens of all great countries. That is undoubtedly the reason why
he met with so much success.... It was a very comfortable theory for
those nations which have grown rich and whose ideals and initiative
have been sapped by over much prosperity. But the great delusion of
Norman Angell, which led to the writing of "The Great Illusion," has
been dispelled for ever by the Balkan League. In this connection it
is of value to quote the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, which give
very adequately the reality as opposed to theory.--_The Review of
Reviews_, from an article on "The Débâcle of Norman Angell."
And an odd score of like pronouncements from newspapers and public men
since the outbreak of the Balkan War.
The interrogations they imply have been put definitely in the first
chapter of this book; the replies to those questions summarised in that
chapter and elaborated in the others.
_The "key" to this book and the summary of its arguments are contained
in Chapter I. (pp. 7-12)_
CONTENTS.
I. The Questions and their Answers
II. "Peace" and "War" in the Balkans
III. Economic Causes in the Balkan War
IV. Turkish Ideals in our Political Thought
V. Our Responsibility for Balkan Wars
VI. Pacifism, Defence, and the "Impossibility of War"
VII. "Theories" False and True; their Role in European Politics
VIII. What Shall we DO?
CHAPTER I.
THE QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWER.
CHAPTER II.
"PEACE" AND "WAR" IN THE BALKANS.
"Peace" in the Balkans under the Turkish System--The inadequacy of our
terms--The repulsion of the Turkish invasion--The Christian effort to
bring the reign of force and conquest to an end--The difference between
action designed to settle relationship on force and counter action
designed to prevent such settlement--The force of the policeman and the
force of the brigand--The failure of conquest as exemplified by the
Turk--Will the Balkan peoples prove Pacifist or Bellicist; adopt the
Turkish or the Christian System?
CHAPTER III.
ECONOMICS AND THE BALKAN WAR.
The "economic system" of the Turk--The Turkish "Trade of Conquest" as a
cause of this war--Racial and Religious hatred of primitive
societies--Industrialism as a solvent--Its operation in Europe--Balkans
geographically remote from main drift of European economic
development--The false economies of the Powers as a cause of their
jealousies and quarrels--- This has prevented settlement--What is the
"economic motive"?--Impossible to separate moral and
material--Nationality and the War System.
CHAPTER IV.
TURKISH IDEALS IN OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT.
This war and "the Turks of Britain and Prussia"--The Anglo-Saxon and
opposed ideals--Mr. C. Chesterton's case for "killing and being killed"
as the best method of settling differences--Its application to Civil
Conflicts--As in Spanish-America--The difference between Devonshire and
Venezuela--Will the Balkans adopt the Turco-Venezuelan political ideals
or the British?
CHAPTER V.
OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR BALKAN WARS.
Mr. Winston Churchill on the "Responsibility" of Diplomacy--What does he
mean?--An easy (and popular) philosophy--Can we neglect past if we would
avoid future errors?--British temper and policy in the Crimean War--What
are its lessons?--Why we fought a war to sustain the "integrity and
independence of the Turkish dominion in Europe"--Supporting the Turk
against his Christian victims--From fear of Russian growth which we are
now aiding--The commentary of events--Shall we back the wrong horse
again?
CHAPTER VI.
PACIFISM, DEFENCE, AND "THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF WAR."
Did the Crimean War prove Bright and Cobden wrong?--Our curious
reasoning--Mr. Churchill on "illusions"--The danger of war is not the
illusion but its benefits--We are all Pacifists now since we all desire
Peace--Will more armaments alone secure it?--The experience of
mankind--War "the failure of human wisdom"--Therefore more wisdom is the
remedy--But the Militarists only want more arms--The German Lord
Roberts--The military campaign against political Rationalism--How to
make war certain.
CHAPTER VII.
"THEORIES" FALSE AND TRUE: THEIR ROLE IN EUROPEAN PROGRESS.
The improvement of ideas the foundation of all improvement--Shooting
straight and thinking straight; the one as important as the
other--Pacifism and the Millennium--How we got rid of wars of
religion--A few ideas have changed the face of the world--The simple
ideas the most important--The "theories" which have led to war--The work
of the reformer to destroy old and false theories--The intellectual
interdependence of nations--Europe at unity in this matter--New ideas
cannot be confined to one people--No fear of ourselves or any nation
being ahead of the rest.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT MUST WE _DO_?
We must have the right political faith--Then we must give effect to
it--Good intention not enough--The organization of the great forces of
modern life--Our indifference as to the foundations of the evil--The
only hope.
CHAPTER I.
THE QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWER.
What has Pacifism, Old or New, to say now?
Is War impossible?
Is it unlikely?
Is it futile?
Is not force a remedy, and at times the only remedy?
Could any remedy have been devised on the whole so conclusive and
complete as that used by the Balkan peoples?
Have not the Balkan peoples redeemed War from the charges too readily
brought against it as simply an instrument of barbarism?
Have questions of profit and loss, economic considerations, anything
whatever to do with this war?
Would the demonstration of its economic futility have kept the peace?
Are theories and logic of the slightest use, since force alone can
determine the issue?
Is not war therefore inevitable, and must we not prepare diligently for
it? I will answer all these questions quite simply and directly without
casuistry and logic-chopping, and honestly desiring to avoid paradox and
"cleverness." And these quite simple answers will not be in
contradiction with anything that I have written, nor will they
invalidate any of the principles I have attempted to explain.
And my answers may be summarised thus:--
(1) This war has justified both the Old Pacifism and the New. By
universal admission events have proved that the Pacifists who opposed
the Crimean War were right and their opponents wrong. Had public opinion
given more consideration to those Pacifist principles, this country
would not have "backed the wrong horse," and this war, two wars which
have preceded it, and many of the abominations of which the Balkan
peninsular has been the scene during the last 60 years might have been
avoided, and in any case Great Britain would not now carry upon her
shoulders the responsibility of having during half a century supported
the Turk against the Christian and of having tried uselessly to prevent
what has now taken place--the break-up of the Turk's rule in Europe.
(2) War is not impossible, and no responsible Pacifist ever said it was;
it is not the likelihood of war which is the illusion, but its benefits.
(3) It is likely or unlikely according as the parties to a dispute are
guided by wisdom or folly.
(4) It _is_ futile; and force is no remedy.
(5) Its futility is proven by the war waged daily by the Turks as
conquerors, during the last 400 years. And because the Balkan peoples
have chosen the less evil of two kinds of war, and will use their
victory to bring a system based on force and conquest to an end, we who
do not believe in force and conquest rejoice in their action, and
believe it will achieve immense benefits. But if instead of using their
victory to eliminate force, they in their turn pin their faith to it,
continue to use it the one against the other, exploiting by its means
the populations they rule, and become not the organisers of social
co-operation among the Balkan populations, but merely, like the Turks,
their conquerors and "owners," then they in their turn will share the
fate of the Turk.
(6) The fundamental causes of this war are economic in the narrower, as
well as in the larger sense of the term; in the first because conquest
was the Turk's only trade--he desired to live out of taxes wrung from a
conquered people, to exploit them as a means of livelihood, and this
conception was at the bottom of most of Turkish misgovernment. And in
the larger sense its cause is economic because in the Balkans, remote
geographically from the main drift of European economic development,
there has not grown up that interdependent social life, the innumerable
contacts which in the rest of Europe have done so much to attenuate
primitive religious and racial hatreds.
(7) A better understanding by the Turk of the real nature of civilised
government, of the economic futility of conquest of the fact that a
means of livelihood (an economic system), based upon having more force
than someone else and using it ruthlessly against him, is an impossible
form of human relationship bound to break down, _would_ have kept the
peace.
(8) If European statecraft had not been animated by false conceptions,
largely economic in origin, based upon a belief in the necessary rivalry
of states, the advantages of preponderant force and conquest, the
Western nations could have composed their quarrels and ended the
abominations of the Balkan peninsula long ago--even in the opinion of
the _Times_. And it is our own false statecraft--that of Great
Britain--which has a large part of the responsibility for this failure
of European civilisation. It has caused us to sustain the Turk in
Europe, to fight a great and popular war with that aim, and led us into
treaties which had they been kept, would have obliged us to fight to-day
on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States.
(9) If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and interest
in principles, the ideas that govern human relationship, they are the
only things that can prevent future wars, just as they were the only
things that brought religious wars to an end--a preponderant power
"imposing" peace playing no role therein. Just as it was false religious
theories which made the religious wars, so it is false political
theories which make the political wars.
(10) War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of error and
passion--religious persecution for instance--are inevitable; they cease
with better understanding, as the attempt to impose religious belief by
force has ceased in Europe.
(11) We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to prevent war;
and though that preparation may include battleships and conscription,
those elements will quite obviously make the tension and danger greater
unless there is also a better European opinion.
These summarised replies need a little expansion.