of the illiberal programmes of groups within the Allied countries
and a sympathetic attitude toward the most democratic programmes
of groups within the enemy Powers. Anything which weakened either
this disavowal or this sympathy would imperil our American case. As
potential allies in this strategy the American government had within
the enemies’ gates the followers of Scheidemann who said at the last
sitting of the Reichstag: “If the Entente Powers should renounce all
claims for annexation and indemnity and if the Central Powers should
insist on continuing the war, a revolution will certainly result in
Germany.” It is not inconceivable that the American government and the
German socialists had at the back of their minds the same kind of a
just peace. The fact that the German socialists were not opposing the
German government did not mean that any peace move in which the former
were interested was necessarily a sinister Hohenzollern intrigue. The
bitterest enemies of Hollweg were not the radicals but the Pan-Germans
themselves. It is they who were said to be circulating manifestoes
through the army threatening revolution unless their programme of
wholesale annexations is carried out. Whatever liberal reservoir
of power there is in Germany, therefore, remains in the socialist
ranks. If there is any chance of liberal headway against the sinister
Pan-German campaign it is through this nucleus of liberal power.
American strategy, if it has to find a liberal leverage in Germany,
will have to choose the socialist group as against the Pan-Germans.
It is not absolutely necessary to assume that the support of the
Chancellor by the socialist majority is permanent. It is unplausible
that the Scheidemann group coöperates with the Government for peace
merely to consolidate the Junker and military class in power after
the war. It is quite conceivable that the socialist majority desires
peace in order to have a safe basis for a liberal overturn. Revolution,
impossible while the Fatherland is in danger, becomes a practicable
issue as soon as war is ended. A policy of aiding the Government in its
pressure toward peace, in order to be in a tactical position to control
the Government when the war-peril was ended, would be an extremely
astute piece of statesmanship. There is no evidence that the German
socialists are incapable of such far-sighted strategy. Certainly the
“German peace” of a Scheidemann is bound to be entirely different from
the “German peace” of a Hindenburg. This difference is one of the
decisive factors of the American strategy. To ignore it is to run the
risk of postponing and perhaps obstructing the settlement of the war.
It is these considerations that make the refusal of passports to
the American socialists seem a serious weakening of the American
strategy. A conference of responsible socialists from the different
countries might have clarified the question how far a Russian peace or
a Scheidemann peace differed from the structure of a Wilson peace. By
denying American participation in the conference, the Administration
apparently renounced the opportunity to make contact with liberal
leverage in Germany. It refused to take that aggressive step in
cleaving German opinion which was demanded by its own strategy. It
tended to discourage liberal opinion in Germany and particularly
it discouraged the Russian democracy which was enthusiastic for a
socialist conference.
This incident was symptomatic of the lessened adjustment which the
Administration has shown toward the changing situation. It was the
hope of the American liberals who advocated American entrance into
the war that this country would not lose thereby its initiative for
peace. They believed that our entrance would make our mediating
power actually stronger. That hope has been disappointed through the
unexpected radicalism of the new Russian government. The initiative for
peace was bound to lie with the people that most wanted peace and was
willing to make the most peremptory demands upon the Allied governments
that they state the war-aims that would bring it. This tactic was an
integral part of the original American strategy. The American liberals
trusted the President to use American participation as an instrument in
liberalizing the war-aims of all the Allied governments. In the event,
however, it has not been America that has wanted peace sufficiently to
be peremptory about it. It has been Russia. The initiative for peace
has passed from President Wilson into the hands of the Council of
Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies. It is the latter who have brought the
pressure to declare democratic war-aims. It is their dissatisfaction
with the original Allied statement that has brought these new, if
scarcely more satisfactory, declarations. In this discussion between
the Governments regarding the restatement of war-aims, it was not upon
Russia’s side that this country found itself. The President’s note to
Russia had all the tone of a rebuke. It sounded like the reaction of
a Government which--supposedly itself the leader in the campaign for
a just peace--found itself uncomfortably challenged to state its own
sincerity. The key to our American strategy has been surrendered to
Russia. The plain fact is that the President has lost that position of
leader which a Russian candor would have retained for him.
What is more serious is that the note to Russia implied not only his
loss of the initiative for a negotiated peace but even the desire for
it. “The day has come when we must conquer or submit.” This has a
very strange ring coming from a President who in his very war-message
still insisted that he had not altered in any way the principles of
his “peace without victory” note. The note to Russia did not attempt
to explain how “peace without victory” was to be reconciled with
“conquer or submit,” nor has any such explanation been forthcoming.
The implication is that the entire strategy of the negotiated peace
has passed out of American hands into those of Russia, and that this
country is committed to the new strategy of the “knockout blow.” If
this is true, then we have the virtual collapse of the strategy, and
with it the justification, of our entrance into the war.
Whether American strategy has changed or not, the effect upon opinion
in the Allied countries seems to be as if it had. Each pronouncement of
America’s war-aims is received with disconcerting unanimity in England,
France and Italy as ratifying their own aspirations and policies. Any
hint that Allied policies disagree with ours is received with marked
disfavor by our own loyal press. When we entered the war, the Allied
aims stood as stated in their reply to the President’s December note.
This reply was then interpreted by American liberals as a diplomatic
programme of maximum demands. They have therefore called repeatedly
upon the President to secure from the Allied governments a resolution
of the ambiguities and a revision of the more extreme terms, in order
that we might make common cause with them toward a just peace. In this
campaign the American liberals have put themselves squarely on the side
of the new Russia, which has also clamored for a clear and liberal
statement of what the war is being fought for. Unfortunately the
Administration has been unable or unwilling to secure from the Allies
any such resolution or revision. The Russian pressure has elicited
certain statements, which, however, proved little more satisfactory to
the Russian radicals than the original statement. Our own war-aims have
been stated in terms as ambiguous and unsatisfactory as those of the
Allies. Illiberal opinion in the other countries has not been slow in
seizing upon President Wilson’s pronouncements as confirming all that
their hearts could wish. Most significant has been the satisfaction of
Italian imperialistic opinion, the most predatory and illiberal force
in any Allied country. The President has done nothing to disabuse
Italian minds of their belief. He has made no disavowal of the Allied
reactionary ratification. The sharp divergence of interpretation
between the Allied governments and the Russian radicals persists. In
lieu of any clear statement to the contrary, opinion in the Allied
countries has good ground for believing that the American government
will back up whatever of their original programme can be carried
through. Particularly is this true after the President’s chiding of
Russia. The animus behind the enthusiasm for Pershing in France is
the conviction that American force will be the decisive factor in the
winning back of Alsace-Lorraine. It is no mere sentimental pleasure at
American alliance. It is an immense stiffening of the determination to
hold out to the uttermost, to the “peace with victory” of which Ribot
speaks. Deluded France carries on the war to complete exhaustion on
the strength of the American millions who are supposedly rushing to
save her. The immediate effect of American participation in England and
Italy as well has been an intense will to hold out not for the “peace
without victory” but _pour la victoire intégrale_, for the conquest so
crushing that Germany will never be feared again.
Now the crux of American strategy was the liberalization of Allied
policy in order that that peace might be obtained which was a hopeful
basis for a League of Nations. American participation has evidently not
gone one inch toward liberalizing the Allies. We are further from the
negotiated peace than we were in December, though the only change in
the military and political situation is the Russian revolution which
immensely increased the plausibility of that peace. As Allied hope of
victory grows, the covenant of nations fades into the background. And
it is Allied hope of victory that our participation has inflamed and
augmented.
The President’s Flag Day address marks without a doubt the collapse of
American strategy. That address, coupled with the hints of “effective
readjustments” in the note to Russia, implies that America is ready to
pour out endless blood and treasure, not to the end of a negotiated
peace, but to the utter crushing of the Central Powers, to their
dismemberment and political annihilation. The war is pictured in that
address as a struggle to the death against the military empire of
Mittel-Europa. The American rôle changes from that of mediator in the
interest of international organization to that of formidable support
to the breaking of this menace to the peace and liberty of Europe. It
will be remembered that American liberals interpreted our entrance into
the war as primarily defensive, an enterprise to prevent Germany’s
threatened victory on the sea. We came in, not to secure an Allied
“peace with victory,” but to prevent a German “peace with victory,” and
so restore the situation favorable to a negotiated peace. The strategy
of the negotiated peace depended largely on the belief that a military
decision was either impossible or was not worth the colossal sacrifice
it demanded. But it is only as the result of a sweeping military
decision that any assured destruction of Mittel-Europa could come. In
basing his case on Mittel-Europa, therefore, the President has clearly
swung from a strategy of “peace without victory” to a strategy of “war
to exhaustion for the sake of a military decision.” He implies that a
country which came only after hesitation to the defense of the seas
and the Atlantic world will contentedly pour out its indefinite blood
and treasure for the sake of spoiling the coalition of Mittel-Europa
and of making readjustments in the map of Europe effective against
German influence on the Continent. Such an implication means the “end
of American isolation” with a vengeance. No one can be blamed who sees
in the Flag Day Address the almost unlimited countersigning of Allied
designs and territorial schemes.
The change of American strategy to a will for a military decision would
explain the creation of the vast American army which in the original
policy was required only “as a reserve and a precaution.” It explains
our close coöperation with the Allied governments following the visits
of the Missions. An American army of millions would undoubtedly
be a decisive factor in the remaking of the map of Europe and the
permanent garrisoning of strategic points bearing upon Germany. But
this change of strategy does not explain itself. The continental
military and political situation has not altered in any way which
justifies so fundamental an alteration in American strategy. American
liberals justified our entrance into the war as a response to a sudden
exigency. But the menace of Mittel-Europa has existed ever since the
entrance of Bulgaria in 1915. If it now challenges us and justifies
our change of strategy, it challenged us and justified our assault a
full two years ago. American shudders at its bogey are doubly curious
because it is probably less of a menace now than it has ever been.
President Wilson ignores the effect of a democratic Russia on the
success of such a military coalition. Such heterogeneous states could
be held together only through the pressure of a strong external fear.
But the passing of predatory Russia removes that fear. Furthermore,
Bulgaria, the most democratic of the Balkan States, would always be
an uncertain partner in such a coalition. Bagdad has long been in
British hands. There are strong democratic and federalistic forces at
work in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The materials seem less ready
than ever for the creation of any such predatory and subjugated Empire
as the Flag Day Address describes. Whatever the outcome of the war,
there is likely to result an economic union which could bring needed
civilization to neglected and primitive lands. But such a union would
be a blessing to Europe rather than a curse. It was such a union that
England was on the point of granting to Germany when the war broke out.
The Balkans and Asia Minor need German science, German organization,
German industrial development. We can hardly be fighting to prevent
such German influence in these lands. The irony of the President’s
words lies in the fact that the hopes of Mittel-Europa as a military
coalition seem to grow dimmer rather than brighter. He must know that
this “enslavement” of the peoples of which he speaks can only be
destroyed by the peoples themselves and not at the imposition of a
military conqueror. The will to resist this Prussian enslavement seems
to have been generated in Austro-Hungary. The President’s perspective
is belated. If our fighting to crush this amazing plot is justified
now, it was more than justified as soon as Rumania was defeated. The
President convicts himself of criminal negligence in not urging us into
the war at that time. If our rôle was to aid in conquest, we could not
have begun our work too soon.
The new strategy is announced by the President in no uncertain
terms--“The day has come when we must conquer or submit.” But the
strategy of conquest implies the necessity of means for consolidating
the conquest. If the world is to be made safe for democracy, democracy
must to a certain extent be imposed on the world. There is little
point in conquering unless you carry through the purposes for which
you have conquered. The earlier American strategy sought to bring
democracy to Germany by appealing directly to the democratic forces
in Germany itself. We relied on a self-motivated regeneration on the
part of our enemy. We believed that democracy could be imposed only
from within. If the German people cannot effect their own political
reorganization, nobody can do it for them. They would continue to
prefer the native Hohenzollerns to the most liberal government imposed
by their conquering enemies. A Germany forced to be democratic under
the tutelage of a watchful and victorious Entente would indeed be
a constant menace to the peace of Europe. Just so far then as our
changed American strategy contributes toward a conquest over Germany,
it will work against our desire to see that country spontaneously
democratized. There is reason for hope that democracy will not have to
be forced on Germany. From the present submission of the German people
to the war-régime nothing can be deduced as to their subserviency after
the war. Prodigious slaughter will effect profound social changes.
There may be going on a progressive selection in favor of democratic
elements. The Russian army was transformed into a democratic instrument
by the wiping-out in battle of the upper-class officers. Men of
democratic and revolutionary sympathies took their places. A similar
process may happen in the German army. The end of the war may leave
the German “army of the people” a genuine popular army intent upon
securing control of the civil government. Furthermore, the continuance
of Pan-German predatory imperialism depends on a younger generation
of Junkers to replace the veterans now in control. The most daring
of those aristocrats will almost certainly have been destroyed in
battle. The mortality in upper-class leadership will certainly have
proved far larger than the mortality in lower-class leadership. The
maturing of these tendencies is the hope of German democracy. A speedy
ending of the war, before the country is exhausted and the popular
morale destroyed, is likely best to mature these tendencies. In this
light it is almost immaterial what terms are made. Winning or losing,
Germany cannot replace her younger generation of the ruling class. And
without a ruling class to continue the imperial tradition, democracy
could scarcely be delayed. An enfeebled ruling class could neither hold
a vast world military Empire together nor resist the revolutionary
elements at home. The prolongation of the war delays democracy in
Germany by convincing the German people that they are fighting for
their very existence and thereby forcing them to cling even more
desperately to their military leaders. In announcing an American
strategy of “conquer or submit,” the President virtually urges the
German people to prolong the war. And not only are the German people,
at the apparent price of their existence, tacitly urged to continue the
fight to the uttermost, but the Allied governments are tacitly urged to
wield the “knockout blow.” All those reactionary elements in England,
France and Italy, whose spirits drooped at the President’s original
bid for a negotiated peace, now take heart again at this apparent
countersigning of their most extreme programmes.
American liberals who urged the nation to war are therefore suffering
the humiliation of seeing their liberal strategy for peace transformed
into a strategy for prolonged war. This government was to announce such
war-aims as should persuade the peoples of the Central Powers to make
an irresistible demand for a democratic peace. Our initiative with the
Allied governments was to make this peace the basis of an international
covenant, “the creation of a community of limited independencies,” of
which Norman Angell speaks. Those Americans who opposed our entrance
into the war believed that this object could best be worked for by
a strategy of continued neutrality and the constant pressure of
mediation. They believed that war would defeat the strategy for a
liberal peace. The liberal intellectuals who supported the President
felt that only by active participation on an independent basis could
their purposes be achieved. The event has signally betrayed them.
We have not ended the submarine menace. We have lost all power for
mediation. We have not even retained the democratic leadership among
the Allied nations. We have surrendered the initiative for peace. We
have involved ourselves in a moral obligation to send large armies to
Europe to secure a military decision for the Allies. We have prolonged
the war. We have encouraged the reactionary elements in every Allied
country to hold out for extreme demands. We have discouraged the German
democratic forces. Our strategy has gradually become indistinguishable
from that of the Allies. With the arrival of the British Mission our
“independent basis” became a polite fiction. The President’s Flag
Day Address merely registers the collapse of American strategy. All
this the realistic pacifists foresaw when they held out so bitterly
and unaccountably against our entering the war. The liberals felt a
naïve faith in the sagacity of the President to make their strategy
prevail. They looked to him single-handedly to liberalize the liberal
nations. They trusted him to use a war-technique which should consist
of an olive-branch in one hand and a sword in the other. They have
had to see their strategy collapse under the very weight of that
war-technique. Guarding neutrality, we might have counted toward a
speedy and democratic peace. In the war, we are a rudderless nation, to
be exploited as the Allies wish, politically and materially, and towed,
to their aggrandizement, in any direction which they may desire.
V
A WAR DIARY
(September, 1917)
I
Time brings a better adjustment to the war. There had been so many
times when, to those who had energetically resisted its coming, it
seemed the last intolerable outrage. In one’s wilder moments one
expected revolt against the impressment of unwilling men and the
suppression of unorthodox opinion. One conceived the war as breaking
down through a kind of intellectual sabotage diffused through the
country. But as one talks to people outside the cities and away from
ruling currents of opinion, one finds the prevailing apathy shot
everywhere with acquiescence. The war is a bad business, which somehow
got fastened on us. They don’t want to go, but they’ve got to go.
One decides that nothing generally obstructive is going to happen
and that it would make little difference if it did. The kind of war
which we are conducting is an enterprise which the American government
does not have to carry on with the hearty coöperation of the American
people but only with their acquiescence. And that acquiescence seems
sufficient to float an indefinitely protracted war for vague or even
largely uncomprehended and unaccepted purposes. Our resources in men
and materials are vast enough to organize the war-technique without
enlisting more than a fraction of the people’s conscious energy. Many
men will not like being sucked into the actual fighting organism, but
as the war goes on they will be sucked in as individuals and they
will yield. There is likely to be no element in the country with the
effective will to help them resist. They are not likely to resist of
themselves concertedly. They will be licked grudgingly into military
shape, and their lack of enthusiasm will in no way unfit them for use
in the hecatombs necessary for the military decision upon which Allied
political wisdom still apparently insists. It is unlikely that enough
men will be taken from the potentially revolting classes seriously
to embitter their spirit. Losses in the well-to-do classes will be
sustained by a sense of duty and of reputable sacrifice. From the point
of view of the worker, it will make little difference whether his
work contributes to annihilation overseas or to construction at home.
Temporarily, his condition is better if it contributes to the former.
We of the middle-classes will be progressively poorer than we should
otherwise have been. Our lives will be slowly drained by clumsily
levied taxes and the robberies of imperfectly controlled private
enterprises. But this will not cause us to revolt. There are not likely
to be enough hungry stomachs to make a revolution. The materials seem
generally absent from the country, and as long as a government wants to
use the war-technique in its realization of great ideas, it can count
serenely on the human resources of the country, regardless of popular
mandate or understanding.
II