"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?
Had we thrashed out the question of war and peace as we must finally, it
would hardly be necessary to explain that the apparent paradox in Answer
No. 4 (that war is futile, and that this war will have immense benefits)
is due to the inadequacy of our language, which compels us to use the
same word for two opposed purposes, not to any real contradiction of
fact.
We called the condition of the Balkan peninsula "Peace" until the other
day, merely because the respective Ambassadors still happened to be
resident in the capitals to which they were accredited.
Let us see what "Peace" under Turkish rule really meant, and who is the
real invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial
witness--Sir Charles Elliot--who paints for us the character of the
Turk as an "administrator":--
"The Turk in Europe has an overweening sense of his superiority,
and remains a nation apart, mixing little with the conquered
populations, whose customs and ideas he tolerates, but makes little
effort to understand. The expression indeed, 'Turkey in Europe'
means indeed no more than 'England in Asia,' if used as a
designation for India.... The Turks have done little to assimilate
the people whom they have conquered, and still less, been
assimilated by them. In the larger part of the Turkish dominions,
the Turks themselves are in a minority.... The Turks certainly
resent the dismemberment of their Empire, but not in the sense in
which the French resent the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany.
They would never use the word 'Turkey' or even its oriental
equivalent, 'The High Country' in ordinary conversation. They would
never say that Syria and Greece are parts of Turkey which have been
detached, but merely that they are tributaries which have become
independent, provinces once occupied by Turks where there are no
Turks now. As soon as a province passes under another Government,
the Turks find it the most natural thing in the world to leave it
and go somewhere else. In the same spirit the Turk talks quite
pleasantly of leaving Constantinople some day, he will go over to
Asia and found another capital. One can hardly imagine Englishmen
speaking like that of London, but they might conceivably speak so
of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror and nothing else. The
history of the Turk is a catalogue of battles. His contributions to
art, literature, science and religion, are practically nil. Their
desire has not been to instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern,
but simply to conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes
whatever he can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses
which he finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In
unfavourable circumstances he is a marauder. In favourable, a
_Grand Seigneur_ who thinks it his right to enjoy with grace and
dignity all that the world can hold, but who will not lower himself
by engaging in art, literature, trade or manufacture. Why should
he, when there are other people to do these things for him. Indeed,
it may be said that he takes from others even his religion,
clothes, language, customs; there is hardly anything which is
Turkish and not borrowed. The religion is Arabic; the language half
Arabic and Persian; the literature almost entirely imitative; the
art Persian or Byzantine; the costumes, in the Upper Classes and
Army mostly European. There is nothing characteristic in
manufacture or commerce, except an aversion to such pursuits. In
fact, all occupations, except agriculture and military service are
distasteful to the true Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant. He
may keep a stall in a bazaar, but his operations are rarely
undertaken on a scale which merits the name of commerce or finance.
It is strange to observe how, when trade becomes active in any
seaport, or upon the railway lines, the Osmanli retires and
disappears, while Greeks, Armenians and Levantines thrive in his
place. Neither does he much affect law, medicine or the learned
professions. Such callings are followed by Moslims but they are apt
to be of non-Turkish race. But though he does none of these things
... the Turk is a soldier. The moment a sword or rifle is put into
his hands, he instinctively knows how to use it with effect, and
feels at home in the ranks or on a horse. The Turkish Army is not
so much a profession or an institution necessitated by the fears
and aims of the Government as the quite normal state of the Turkish
nation.... Every Turk is a born soldier, and adopts other pursuits
chiefly because times are bad. When there is a question of
fighting, if only in a riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows
surprising power of finding organisation and expedients, and alas!
a surprising ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and
good-humoured soul, kind to children and animals, and very patient;
but when the fighting spirit comes on him, he becomes like the
terrible warriors of the Huns or Henghis Khan, and slays, burns and
ravages without mercy or discrimination."[1]
Such is the verdict of an instructed, travelled and observant English
author and diplomatist, who lived among these people for many years, and
who learned to like them, who studied them and their history. It does
not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student
of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. As a
nation, he has lived by the sword, and he is dying by the sword, because
the sword, the mere exercise of force by one man or group of men upon
another, conquest in other words, is an impossible form of human
relationship.
And in order to maintain this evil form of relationship--its evil and
futility is the whole basis of the principles I have attempted to
illustrate--he has not even observed the rough chivalry of the brigand.
The brigand, though he might knock men on the head, will refrain from
having his force take the form of butchering women and disembowelling
children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government will take the form
of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial ferocity which is not a
matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to which scores,
hundreds, thousands even of credible European, witnesses have testified.
"The finest gentleman, sir, that ever butchered a woman or burned a
village," is the phrase that _Punch_ most justly puts into the mouth of
the defender of our traditional Turcophil policy.
And this condition is "Peace," and the act which would put a stop to it
is "War." It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which
creates much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the
same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for a
counter-action destined to prevent it.
Yet we manage, in other than the international field, in civil matters,
to make the thing clear enough.
Once an American town was set light to by incendiaries, and was
threatened with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it, the
authorities deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the pathway
of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town
authorities were incendiaries also, and "believed in setting light to
towns?" Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax
Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed at
bringing it to an end.
Put it another way. You do not believe that force should determine the
transfer of property or conformity to a creed, and I say to you: "Hand
me your purse and conform to my creed or I kill you." You say: "Because
I do not believe that force should settle these matters, I shall try and
prevent it settling them, and therefore if you attack I shall resist; if
I did not I should be allowing force to settle them." I attack; you
resist and disarm me and say: "My force having neutralised yours, and
the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may
have to urge for my paying you money; or any argument in favour of your
creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be
a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance,
though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an
anti-Bellicist to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the
discussion of this matter. If, however, you said: "Having disarmed you
and established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in my favour by
taking your weapon and using it against you unless you hand me _your_
purse and subscribe to _my_ creed. I do this because force alone can
determine issues, and because it is a law of life that the strong should
eat up the weak." You would then be a Bellicist.
In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his
trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as
a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in
preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to
knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's
brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade,
or a nation, or a government, or make it the basis of human
relationship?
In every civilised country, the basis of the relationship on which the
community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his
differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one
threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it?
That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the
individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by
force?" It is _because_ of that, because the act of self-defence is an
attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law
justifies it.[2]
But the law would not justify me, if having disarmed my opponent, having
neutralised his force by my own, and re-established the social
equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it, by asking him for his
purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by
force--I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist, and have become a
Bellicist.
For that is the difference between the two conceptions: the Bellicist
says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal;
therefore fight it out. Let the best man win. When you have preponderant
strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not
because it is right, but because you are able to do so." It is the
"excellent policy" which Lord Roberts attributes to Germany and
approves.
We anti-Bellicists take an exactly contrary view. We say: "To fight it
out settles nothing, since it is not a question of who is stronger, but
of whose view is best, and as that is not always easy to establish, it
is of the utmost importance in the interest of all parties, in the long
run, to keep force out of it."
The former is the policy of the Turks. They have been obsessed with the
idea that if only they had enough of physical force, ruthlessly
exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of
existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjustment,
understanding, equity, law, commerce; "blood and iron" were all that was
needed. The success of that policy can now be judged.
And whether good or evil comes of the present war will depend upon
whether the Balkan States are on the whole guided by the Bellicist
principle or the opposed one. If having now momentarily eliminated force
as between themselves, they re-introduce it, if the strongest,
presumably Bulgaria, adopts Lord Roberts' "excellent policy" of striking
because she has the preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest
of other members of the Balkan League, and the populations of the
conquered territories, using them for exploitation by military
force--why then there will be no settlement and this war will have
accomplished nothing save futile waste and slaughter. For they will have
taken under a new flag, the pathway of the Turk to savagery,
degeneration, death.
But if on the other hand they are guided more by the Pacifist principle,
if they believe that co-operation between States is better than conflict
between them, if they believe that the common interest of all in good
Government is greater than the special interest of any one in conquest,
that the understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the
organisation of society are the means by which men progress, and not the
imposition of force by one man or group upon another, why, they will
have taken the pathway to better civilisation. But then they will have
disregarded Lord Roberts' advice.
And this distinction between the two systems, far from being a matter of
abstract theory of metaphysics or logic chopping, is just the difference
which distinguishes the Briton from the Turk, which distinguishes
Britain from Turkey. The Turk has just as much physical vigour as the
Briton, is just as virile, manly and military. The Turk has the same raw
materials of Nature, soil and water. There is no difference in the
capacity for the exercise of physical force--or if there is, the
difference is in favour of the Turk. The real difference is a difference
of ideas, of mind and outlook on the part of the individuals composing
the respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human
society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a
militarist one; and the Englishman has another, mainly a Pacifist one.
And whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the
Turkish ideal or towards the English ideal will depend upon whether it
is animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine;
if the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to
barbarism; if the latter, it will take a better road.
[Footnote 1: "Turkey in Europe," pp. 88-9 and 91-2.
It is significant, by the way, that the "born soldier" has now been
crushed by a non-military race whom he has always despised as having no
military tradition. Capt. F.W. von Herbert ("Bye Paths in the Balkans")
wrote (some years before the present war): "The Bulgars as Christian
subjects of Turkey exempt from military service, have tilled the ground
under stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions, and the profession of
arms is new to them."
"Stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions" is, in view of subsequent
events distinctly good.]
[Footnote 2: I dislike to weary the reader with such damnable iteration,
but when a Cabinet Minister is unable in this discussion to distinguish
between the folly of a thing and its possibility, one _must_ make the
fundamental point clear.]