A famous and epigrammatic author said that life copied literature; it
seems clear that life really caricatures it. I suggested recently that
the Germans submitted to, and even admired, a solemn and theatrical
assertion of authority. A few hours after I had sent up my “copy,” I
saw the first announcement of the affair of the comic Captain at
Koepenick. The most absurd part of this absurd fraud (at least, to
English eyes) is one which, oddly enough, has received comparatively
little comment. I mean the point at which the Mayor asked for a
warrant, and the Captain pointed to the bayonets of his soldiery and
said. “These are my authority.” One would have thought any one would
have known that no soldier would talk like that. The dupes were blamed
for not knowing that the man wore the wrong cap or the wrong sash, or
had his sword buckled on the wrong way; but these are technicalities
which they might surely be excused for not knowing. I certainly should
not know if a soldier’s sash were on inside out or his cap on behind
before. But I should know uncommonly well that genuine professional
soldiers do not talk like Adelphi villains and utter theatrical
epigrams in praise of abstract violence.
We can see this more clearly, perhaps, if we suppose it to be the case
of any other dignified and clearly distinguishable profession. Suppose
a Bishop called upon me. My great modesty and my rather distant
reverence for the higher clergy might lead me certainly to a strong
suspicion that any Bishop who called on me was a bogus Bishop. But if I
wished to test his genuineness I should not dream of attempting to do
so by examining the shape of his apron or the way his gaiters were done
up. I have not the remotest idea of the way his gaiters ought to be
done up. A very vague approximation to an apron would probably take me
in; and if he behaved like an approximately Christian gentleman he
would be safe enough from my detection. But suppose the Bishop, the
moment he entered the room, fell on his knees on the mat, clasped his
hands, and poured out a flood of passionate and somewhat hysterical
extempore prayer, I should say at once and without the smallest
hesitation, “Whatever else this man is, he is not an elderly and
wealthy cleric of the Church of England. They don’t do such things.” Or
suppose a man came to me pretending to be a qualified doctor, and
flourished a stethoscope, or what he said was a stethoscope. I am glad
to say that I have not even the remotest notion of what a stethoscope
looks like; so that if he flourished a musical-box or a coffee-mill it
would be all one to me. But I do think that I am not exaggerating my
own sagacity if I say that I should begin to suspect the doctor if on
entering my room he flung his legs and arms about, crying wildly,
“Health! Health! priceless gift of Nature! I possess it! I overflow
with it! I yearn to impart it! Oh, the sacred rapture of imparting
health!” In that case I should suspect him of being rather in a
position to receive than to offer medical superintendence.
Now, it is no exaggeration at all to say that any one who has ever
known any soldiers (I can only answer for English and Irish and Scotch
soldiers) would find it just as easy to believe that a real Bishop
would grovel on the carpet in a religious ecstasy, or that a real
doctor would dance about the drawing-room to show the invigorating
effects of his own medicine, as to believe that a soldier, when asked
for his authority, would point to a lot of shining weapons and declare
symbolically that might was right. Of course, a real soldier would go
rather red in the face and huskily repeat the proper formula, whatever
it was, as that he came in the King’s name.
Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are
never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught
severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is
obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what
is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them. They learn to
obey symbols, arbitrary things, stripes on an arm, buttons on a coat, a
title, a flag. These may be artificial things; they may be unreasonable
things; they may, if you will, be wicked things; but they are weak
things. They are not Force, and they do not look like Force. They are
parts of an idea: of the idea of discipline; if you will, of the idea
of tyranny; but still an idea. No soldier could possibly say that his
own bayonets were his authority. No soldier could possibly say that he
came in the name of his own bayonets. It would be as absurd as if a
postman said that he came inside his bag. I do not, as I have said,
underrate the evils that really do arise from militarism and the
military ethic. It tends to give people wooden faces and sometimes
wooden heads. It tends moreover (both through its specialisation and
through its constant obedience) to a certain loss of real independence
and strength of character. This has almost always been found when
people made the mistake of turning the soldier into a statesman, under
the mistaken impression that he was a strong man. The Duke of
Wellington, for instance, was a strong soldier and therefore a weak
statesman. But the soldier is always, by the nature of things, loyal to
something. And as long as one is loyal to something one can never be a
worshipper of mere force. For mere force, violence in the abstract, is
the enemy of anything we love. To love anything is to see it at once
under lowering skies of danger. Loyalty implies loyalty in misfortune;
and when a soldier has accepted any nation’s uniform he has already
accepted its defeat.
Nevertheless, it does appear to be possible in Germany for a man to
point to fixed bayonets and say, “These are my authority,” and yet to
convince ordinarily sane men that he is a soldier. If this is so, it
does really seem to point to some habit of high-falutin’ in the German
nation, such as that of which I spoke previously. It almost looks as if
the advisers, and even the officials, of the German Army had become
infected in some degree with the false and feeble doctrine that might
is right. As this doctrine is invariably preached by physical weaklings
like Nietzsche it is a very serious thing even to entertain the
supposition that it is affecting men who have really to do military
work. It would be the end of German soldiers to be affected by German
philosophy. Energetic people use energy as a means, but only very tired
people ever use energy as a reason. Athletes go in for games, because
athletes desire glory. Invalids go in for calisthenics; for invalids
(alone of all human beings) desire strength. So long as the German Army
points to its heraldic eagle and says, “I come in the name of this
fierce but fabulous animal,” the German Army will be all right. If ever
it says, “I come in the name of bayonets,” the bayonets will break like
glass, for only the weak exhibit strength without an aim.
At the same time, as I said before, do not let us forget our own
faults. Do not let us forget them any the more easily because they are
the opposite to the German faults. Modern England is too prone to
present the spectacle of a person who is enormously delighted because
he has not got the contrary disadvantages to his own. The Englishman is
always saying “My house is not damp” at the moment when his house is on
fire. The Englishman is always saying, “I have thrown off all traces of
anæmia” in the middle of a fit of apoplexy. Let us always remember that
if an Englishman wants to swindle English people, he does not dress up
in the uniform of a soldier. If an Englishman wants to swindle English
people he would as soon think of dressing up in the uniform of a
messenger boy. Everything in England is done unofficially, casually, by
conversations and cliques. The one Parliament that really does rule
England is a secret Parliament; the debates of which must not be
published—the Cabinet. The debates of the Commons are sometimes
important; but only the debates in the Lobby, never the debates in the
House. Journalists do control public opinion; but it is not controlled
by the arguments they publish—it is controlled by the arguments between
the editor and sub-editor, which they do not publish. This casualness
is our English vice. It is at once casual and secret. Our public life
is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler
wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be
to put on a uniform. He would put on a polite slouching air and a
careless, expensive suit of clothes; he would stroll up to the Mayor,
be so awfully sorry to disturb him, find he had forgotten his
card-case, mention, as if he were ashamed of it, that he was the Duke
of Mercia, and carry the whole thing through with the air of a man who
could get two hundred witnesses and two thousand retainers, but who was
too tired to call any of them. And if he did it very well I strongly
suspect that he would be as successful as the indefensible Captain at
Koepenick.
Our tendency for many centuries past has been, not so much towards
creating an aristocracy (which may or may not be a good thing in
itself), as towards substituting an aristocracy for everything else. In
England we have an aristocracy instead of a religion. The nobility are
to the English poor what the saints and the fairies are to the Irish
poor, what the large devil with a black face was to the Scotch poor—the
poetry of life. In the same way in England we have an aristocracy
instead of a Government. We rely on a certain good humour and education
in the upper class to interpret to us our contradictory Constitution.
No educated man born of woman will be quite so absurd as the system
that he has to administer. In short, we do not get good laws to
restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws. And last
of all we in England have an aristocracy instead of an Army. We have an
Army of which the officers are proud of their families and ashamed of
their uniforms. If I were a king of any country whatever, and one of my
officers were ashamed of my uniform, I should be ashamed of my officer.
Beware, then, of the really well-bred and apologetic gentleman whose
clothes are at once quiet and fashionable, whose manner is at once
diffident and frank. Beware how you admit him into your domestic
secrets, for he may be a bogus Earl. Or, worse still, a real one.