co-ordination, economic as well as military, between the Allies for
the speeding on of victory. That exists, and has existed in greater or
less measure since the beginning; whatever strengthens it is plainly
sound and desirable. What is spoken of is the attempt to encumber
purely military issues with a whole new economic programme, and to make
the length of the war turn as much on the latter as on the former. It
is time for somebody to say quite brutally that this is a struggle to
destroy Prussian militarism, not to establish British Protectionism.
To this last we may come, but blood and more especially the blood
of men enrolled on another appeal, must not be the argument of the
innovators. Nor is it suggested that the influence of economic on
military resources should be overlooked. The economic factor has indeed
proved to be far less decisive, or far less rapidly decisive, than many
forecasters of events had anticipated, and for two very valid reasons.
For one thing the enemy has at his command the whole centre of Europe,
a vast geographical _bloc_ interknit in almost all its parts by an
uninterrupted system of intercourse which so far remains intact. For
another the operation of the economic motive turns on the assumption of
a minimum standard of life below which man will not consent to fall,
willingly or at all. In normal times of peace this is rigid, and any
serious depression of it will produce widespread commotion and revolt.
But in war, when the struggle is or is conceived to be for national
existence, belligerent peoples will agree to the lopping away of luxury
after luxury and conventional necessary after conventional necessary.
For a considerable part of the process they find the society in which
they live actually stronger and not weaker. Even when the weakening
pinch comes it is countered by a spirit of sacrifice, altogether
abnormal and not easily to be measured. So long as the army has a rag
to its back, a crust of bread, and a cartridge, economic exhaustion
is not complete. The end will probably come sooner, and defeat will
be accepted out of calculation before it is accepted out of sheer
necessity. What is much more probable is that a military decision will
have been obtained at a much earlier stage, but with all this said
there remains a perfectly clear distinction between assigning their
due rôle to economic conditions on the one hand, and transforming an
honour-war into a trade-war on the other hand.
The worst sin of those who desire or seem to desire such a change is
that of effecting a deterioration of the moral ideal of the Allies.
This is no affair of fine words but of abiding realities. Either
this is on our part a war into which we were forced by aggressive
militarism--come to overt baseness in the Prussian breach of faith
with Belgium and assault on peaceful France, and the Austrian blow of
destruction at Serbia--or else it is a mere struggle for domination
between greedy Powers. If it were the latter it would be wise to say
no more of the antithesis between barbarism and civilisation. It would
be wise to finish the nightmare of blood as well as we could, to
pouch the spoils, and be silent. But since it is the former we must
resist any debasement of purpose. Since it is a war for the ending
of militarism it must include in its ultimate historical sweep the
liberation of all peoples who desire liberation, even the Germans. So
long as it continues unwarped from its original intention that hope may
be fulfilled. Not only is a _locus pœnitentiæ_ left for the democracy
which must one day arise even in Prussia, but much more is involved. An
opportunity is given for that immediate repudiation of a government by
a people which in the past has always taken the form of a revolution.
Nobody is able to say dogmatically that there is any prospect of such
a development within the Central Powers, and nobody is able to say
dogmatically that there is not: we are not allowed to know. It is the
habit of those countries to surround their frontiers with a wall of
brass. We do catch, through the species of man like Liebknecht and
Haase, certain rumblings and rumours of discontent, but cannot even
guess at their significance. When certain writers profess to find the
solidarity in crime of the whole body of the Germanic populations
established by the absence of protest against notorious outrages they
show little acquaintance with the condition of public opinion in these
countries. Prussian militarism and intellectualism begin by lying to
and mentally debauching their own citizens. Every German newspaper
has represented the Zeppelin raids as successful attacks on purely
military and naval establishments, any other damage being incidental
and not designed. Till the end of the war the average ignorant peasant
and mechanic will have heard no other story than that the _Lusitania_
was a war-ship treacherously disguised. One has only to read the German
White Book on Belgium, as translated by Professor Morgan, to understand
the sort of scientific denigration of that little people that has
been invoked to justify so much of the tale of Louvain and Aerschot
and the rest as has been allowed to penetrate to the masses. Penny
editions of the Bryce Report do not circulate under either Habsburgs
or Hohenzollerns. If fragments of the truth do find a surreptitious
way in, the police are there to see that natural indignation shall not
express itself. We gather from Liebknecht that the official shepherding
of opinion in this regard goes as far as penal servitude and even
capital punishment. The actual state of mind of a democratic remnant
that may exist is, therefore, to us a clasped and sealed book.
But we do know by the mere inner light of our own principles a great
deal that is relevant. The decree of democracy to a whole nation,
however bedevilled and misled, can never be one of unconditional
destruction. It is not our message to the Germans. So long as their
populations identify themselves with the policy of their present
miscreant governments they must share their fate. Defeat and, after
defeat, outlawry will be their portion. That outlawry will continue
until the historical crime of 1914 is purged by chastisement. But
the moment the first internal fissure appears a new order has begun.
A Germany that has punished her own crowned and helmeted criminals
will come before Europe in a very different guise from one that has
naturally adopted them. The breaking away of Austria from Prussia--an
unnatural alliance--will fix for us a very wide gulf between Austrian
and Prussian. There have been wars in which the greatest internal
changes took place without influencing the course of the conflict. The
fall of Napoleon III did not bring the struggle of 1870 to an end. But
the fall of Wilhelm II would undoubtedly bring this war to an end. If
the Teutonic masses desire an early peace, and an early re-entry into
the fabric of civilisation, they have but to destroy the false gods
they adored. The diplomatist of the old pattern will tell us that these
are fantastic suggestions. But the truth is that nothing could seem
to our awakened eyes half as fantastic as the old diplomacy, with its
suave blindness and sham omniscience. The new diplomacy should help to
release imprisoned forces. The inner disruption of the Central Alliance
is never very far from practical politics. When the full toll of blood
and disillusionment, exacted by Hohenzollernism, comes to be realised,
strange births may issue into being. So many men have died for liberty
that we have no right to disbelieve in any of its possibilities. And so
long as we adhere, as we must adhere, with a loyalty even meticulous,
to the true cause and first spirit of the Allies, no such possibility
is ruled out.
But consent to the substitution of “trade” for “honour” as our device,
and mark the malign transformation. Some of our less well-inspired
publicists have already done something to communicate to the _bloc_
of enemy countries a unity which does not inhere in its nature.
Things breaking up from within may be held together by pressure from
without, and such pressure has been in some measure supplied by
those to whom reference is made. By steadily ignoring every impulse
of disintegration, racial, economic and moral, they have plastered
over although they have not sealed up the structural cracks. The new
programme, if adopted, will, however, go far to harden the plaster
into cement. The spokesmen of Prussianism will be presented with a
complete triumph over any faint voice of civilisation that may still
be lifted within the enemy realms. They will say quite legitimately:
“Our opponents babbled of honour, and moral ideas. We said that that
was all hypocrisy, and that their real aim was to isolate, impoverish,
and if possible destroy the whole Germanic race. Who now is right? The
shopkeepers’ programme has now been openly proclaimed. The struggle
of the Germanies is now a struggle for the mere right to exist. What
have you to say now in reply to the Kaiser’s resolve to arm every man
and boy and woman, aye, and every cat and dog in the Fatherland before
submitting to extinction?”
In truth there would be nothing to say. Our ideal would have fallen in
the common mud, the last hope of humanity would have perished, and the
war must be indefinitely prolonged. If you have driven an enemy into a
corner and hold your bayonet pointed at his breast; if he asks on what
terms you will accept his surrender and your answer is that in that
case he will be not bayoneted but hanged, you must expect resistance _à
outrance_. It will become an affair not of courage but of mere sanity.
Whatever the divagations of their statesmanship, the Allies will,
of course, win. The nations, however stampeded, will not sacrifice
the least element of their unity, and the armies, to whatever new
deflection their inspiration be submitted, will fight their unwavering
way to victory. But it will be a victory tainted with ambiguous and
selfish ends. History will write of us that we began nobly, but that
our purpose corrupted. The Great War for freedom will not, indeed, have
been waged in vain; that is already decided: but it will have but half
kept its promises. Blood and iron will have been once more established
as the veritable masters of men, and nothing will open before the world
save a vista of new wars.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Two unclosed parentheses were silently corrected.
In the original book, multi-section chapter headings (with Roman
Numerals) included repetitions of the chapter title. In this eBook,
those chapter titles only appear above the first section.