IF THE SUBMARINES FAIL
The German people say the submarines will not fail. They seem to think
that what they call the highest achievement of the scientific mind of
Germany cannot fail. There is little doubt that they pin on this arm of
the service their last hope of securing a decision in actual warfare.
If it fails them they can look forward only to a long course of sheer
dogged resistance, hoping they can last longer than their adversaries.
Let us consider the probable results respectively of the success and
the failure of the submarine campaign.
If the under-sea boats do all the Germans expect of them the result is
soon told. Great Britain will be forced to make lame and inefficient
war, France will be unable to do more than hold on to the line that
she occupies, and the United States, unable to send her vast army
across the seas in large numbers, will not be able to repair the loss
of strength that her allies sustain. Under such circumstances Russia,
even if she should recover from her present state of weakness, could
hardly deliver the blows that would bring Germany to reason.
Under such conditions the war would end without the defeat of the
Teutons, and Mittel-Europa would still be impending. If the enthusiasm
of victory would stimulate such a union, the realization that Germany
and Austria-Hungary were pressed back to the wall and must fight
for their future existence might equally bring them to unite their
fortunes. In fact, if these two states wish to unite it is hard to see
how they are to be prevented, unless at the end of the war they are so
much weaker than their opponents that they can be forbidden to take
such a step, with assurance that the prohibition will be respected.
To form such a union would be, in fact, to snatch victory out of
sore distress; for the united empires, even though Serbia, Bulgaria,
and Turkey were left out of account, would have a population of
116,000,000, which is more than the population of the United States and
smaller only than that of Russia and China. Ten years’ breathing space
in which to reorganize the industrial and social life of so large a
body of men would work wonders with them; and when reorganized and
fired by a common ambition they would be able to dictate terms to any
two of the nations of Western Europe. It is the probable union of these
states rather than the power of either when acting alone, that makes it
necessary for the rest of the world to procure their defeat.
In two ways the union can be prevented. One is to inflict such a defeat
on the central allies that they will not dare run the risk of another
war through endeavoring to combine. Possibly such a defeat could be
inflicted by fighting long and winning great victories. It would have
to be a greater victory than was won by Prussia over France in 1871;
for after that victory France, fired with hatred for all that was
German, was so much feared by her conquerors that it became a chief
object of their diplomacy to keep her isolated by drawing possible
allies over to the German interest. The great military strength of
Germany at present hardly warrants the hope that she can be brought to
a lower state than France at the end of the siege of Paris.
The other method is to bring about such a situation that union shall
not be desired in the Teutonic states. For it is not to be disputed
that if ever a strong and competent group of states wish to become
an empire, nothing short of a great war by other states can stop
them. It behooves us, therefore, to make our appeal to the reasons of
the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians. It is not necessary to limit
our arguments to words merely; it is, however, essential that the
Teutonic mind shall understand what to threaten the equilibrium of
nations means. To show that such a preponderance cannot be established
practically would be an effective warning to those leaders who set up
to preach Germanic militarism in the future.
As this chapter is being printed, it seems that the submarines are not
a success. They have taken a great toll but not all the grist. Enough
ships are left on the sea to carry the minimum of food and war material
that our allies must have to maintain their grip on Germany. The war of
the central powers does not force their enemies to their knees, and it
seems that the best the kaiser can hope for is to hold out for a time
with the expectation that victory will be snatched by accident out of
the gloom that hangs over his cause.
When the war began it was essentially a contest between two groups of
powers, each of which had been pursuing policies of aggrandizement.
One group had progressively acquired territory in Africa and Asia,
and the other had a plan equally definite for acquiring territory in
Southeastern Europe and the Near East. If the war had been fought out
as begun it would probably have led to the realization of one or the
other of these desires. Either the _Entente_ powers would have fixed
their hold on their respective spheres of influence and broken the
schemes of Germany and Austria-Hungary, or Germany would have made a
great sweep forward and established herself in the keystone position of
Europe, with immense consequences for the future.
As the war progressed it became evident that it was becoming a supreme
test of the ability of one combination of nations to create a new
empire that would dominate Europe. It is no stretch of imagination
to say that the Germans dreamed of reëstablishing a modern Roman
Empire of the Germans. If the scheme had materialized--and the future
historian will probably conclude that it was near success at one
time--the fate of the rest of the world would have been far different
from what we wish it to be. A gigantic struggle would have been thrust
upon the United States to save the Western World from conquest. It was
the conviction that such a crisis actually menaced us that brought us
to join in the attempt to block the German plans.
Assuming, therefore, that the anti-German allies are victorious, it is
unthinkable that the war shall be allowed to end as a mere check on
the plans of the central powers. To do so would be to grant that the
_Entente_ powers should be left to carry on their plans for national
aggrandizement with _carte blanche_ approval by the United States. It
would mean that we are fighting at a great sacrifice in order to enable
Great Britain to maintain her position as mistress of the sea and ruler
of a far distant empire. Now we do not object to British rule in the
distant parts of the earth: we have found it a tolerable thing that she
should be entrusted with the task of developing the backward races over
whom she has established her authority. But we have never meant to
save her toppling empire for her own comfort, as an act of grace merely.
If we are to contribute a material part to the suppression of
aggression in the world, we have a right to say in what way and
to what end our sacrifice will have been made. As the greatest of
the anti-German allies we shall have the largest burden to bear in
proportion to the time in which we are to fight. That we should
guarantee to Great Britain and our other allies the full existence
of their rights is but fair. It is equally reasonable that we shall
demand that the future does not inure to the special advantage of any
one of the group; but in fixing upon the terms under which it shall be
arranged the main end in view should be the good of all the nations in
the world.
This is a view which is likely to have the support of all the
anti-German allies, with the possible exception of Britain. France and
Russia, to say nothing of the smaller states, have the same interest as
we in making the common welfare the chief aim in peace negotiations.
If we were not in the group and if victory came to it, these nations
would perforce have to yield the lead to Great Britain, since she
would outclass them in strength by reason of her sea power. She might
well say that as the nation on which would fall the largest burden in
keeping Germany in a state of restraint, she should have the largest
influence in deciding what was to be done. She cannot make such a claim
under existing conditions.
Of course, there is the difficulty that the United States may not
be guided by statesmen who realize the importance of following a
thoroughly American policy. It has long been a practice with a great
many Americans to follow the lead of Great Britain. Unaccustomed to
take a normal share of responsibility in world problems, we may now be
inclined to hold back, leaving the game to hands that have acquired
greater skill in playing it. Such a course would be a misfortune. It
would mean that statesmen would be given charge of the situation who
derived all their ideas under the old system of Balance of Power, and
it would be strange if they did not try to carry on the world in the
future with a strong squint at the only principles of international
policy they know anything about. To break into this well crystallized
realm of so-called practical ideas, demands an unusually strong man,
a man well founded in principles and able to convince others of the
wisdom of his views.
It is true that the President of the United States now in office has
many of the traits that seem necessary to a correct conduct of the
situation. A man who had the training of a mere politician might well
be less than able to deal with the situation that faces us. President
Wilson’s knowledge of history enables him to think in terms of large
national movements. That is the chief value of historical training to
a statesman. If he knows the history of the attempts to settle the
affairs of the nations after the great world struggles of the past, he
is better able to understand how the various suggested plans will work
in the crisis that is to be passed through.
President Wilson has, also, the unusual faculty of doing what he wishes
to do. When he has formed a purpose it is not generally a compromise
with a number of men whose chief concern is how the result of action
will affect their party support. At least this is true in matters not
clearly within the bounds of party activity. Moreover, he has spoken
and written words which seem to show that he understands the need of
providing for such a course of conduct between the nations as will
assure us of coöperation for the elimination of future wars. In his
long delay in urging war and in his early pronouncement for a league of
peace, he gave us the assurance, if nothing else, that he understands
the situation and is capable of holding a firm course in accordance
with his principles.
If the submarines fail, therefore, and if we come to a settlement of
the largely new world problems that will confront us, and if our policy
is in the hands of wise men, what principles will guide our actions
and the actions of the rest of the world? This is a question that all
intelligent citizens should consider, since it cannot be answered
well unless there is a restrained and broad-minded public opinion to
support the leaders of the people. It is a matter for the consideration
of Germans as well as their opponents; for their attitude toward any
policy adopted will have a strong effect upon the continuation of the
policy.
The first question we should ask ourselves is: What are we to do to
the Germans? How shall we punish them for what they have done to make
the world miserable? My answer to that is: Let God punish them. For
us it is not a question of giving the Germans their deserts but a
question of coming out of this cataclysm with a clear gain for the
cause of human happiness. Let us look upon the Germans as suffering
from a kind of disease of the mind which produces bad results on those
with whom they are in contact. It is ours to prescribe a cure, both
for their sake and for ours. I suggest that we first put them on a
liquid diet to reduce their exuberant vitality and then give them the
rest cure. At any rate, that is better than cropping their ears or
putting them into strait-jackets. To treat an impassioned man you do
not kick and beat him but try to bring him to his senses. To bring the
Germans into a realization that this world is run on the principle of
live-and-let-live, we ourselves must show a willingness to let live.
We had a large amount of the opposite spirit in the United States from
1865 to 1875. The South, passionately convinced that slavery was no
evil, had made as good a fight to preserve her cause as Germany has
made or can make. She held out to the last with what her own people
called a stout heart, but her foes said with a stiff neck. For a year
and a half after the outside world concluded that she could never win,
she held on in the hope that her adversaries would tire of war and make
peace without victory. Now all this was exasperating, and the mass
of the Northern people felt in 1865 that some punishment should be
inflicted on the perverse people who had inflicted so much unnecessary
misery on the country. But Lincoln did not feel that way. There is no
reason to think that he gave a moment’s thought to making the South
suffer for her course. For him all thought was how to smooth the
wrinkles out of the present, and how to make the Southern people cast
out their hatred of the union and come back to their former loyalty.
The Lincoln spirit should guide the world at the end of the present
struggle.
War lives on hatred. To make your people put all their energy into
the fight make them hate the other people; and you may rest in the
assurance that the leaders of the others are striving to make their
followers hate the men on your side. The mill of hate grinds steadily
and at a high speed while war lasts. In Germany in these days is a vast
amount of industrious abusing of England. That makes the German people
support the war. In Great Britain is a great activity in describing
atrocities in Belgium and Armenia, and it exists in order to make the
British people mad for war. When you see a new crop of the testimony
concerning the torturing horrors of the first month of war in Belgium,
you may know that the war spirit is running low in Britain. Unhappily,
such propaganda is a necessary feature of war. We are naturally
good-hearted, and we do not go out to kill men until we are made to
hate them.
The moment war ends all this kind of thing should cease. The time will
then have come for the propaganda of peace. Unfortunately there are few
men whose mission it is to spread such ideas. Merchants and tourists
may do what is their nature to do, but they are not sufficient; and it
generally takes years for the fires to cool off.
The aftermath of our civil war was as unhappy a series of events as we
have encountered within our national history. Undertaken as a means
of making sure of the gains of the civil war, it became a procession
of passion in which stalked all the worst feelings that divided the
people in actual warfare. There are still men in the North who have
Andersonville in mind when they vote, and men in the South who can
never respect the republican party because it was responsible for the
reconstruction acts of 1867. It will be extremely unfortunate if we
take up the problems that are soon to be upon us in the spirit with
which we assumed the duties of reconstructing the South.
During the civil war the South was possessed of a fixed idea: the same
thing is true of Germany today. The South was committed to a position
that the rest of the world had abandoned: Germany is committed to a
type of bureaucratic government which is as much out of date in a
modern world as slavery. No ordinary system of reasoning could show
fair and honest Southern men in what respect they had the sentiment
of civilization against them: the German is thoroughly convinced that
he is fighting for the preservation of the most efficient type of
government the world has seen. The South went to her defeat after
a long and astonishingly effective resistance: Germany seems to be
destined to a similarly long and steady process of reduction into
complete prostration. The South was ruled by a small but able class of
landed proprietors who refused to see the plain truth of the situation
before them and prolonged the struggle until they were exhausted,
although by making a favorable adjustment in accordance with the logic
of the conditions before them they might have ended the war in 1864
and saved their people from the uttermost bitterness of defeat: the
Germans, ruled by their Junkers, are equally deaf to argument, equally
determined to die at their posts, and equally opposed to a compromise
by which they will have to give up their antiquated “institution,”
relinquish their special privileges, and make their country like
the rest of the world. There are so many parallels between the two
countries that we wonder if there will not also be a disposition of the
victorious opposing allies to degrade Germany in her defeat.
Probably her best adjusted punishment will be the reflection that her
“peculiar institution” proved a failure in time of need. For a century
she has been training an army, but it is not the army that has failed
her. It has done all that could have been expected of it. Nor did the
Southern army fail the South. It is not the sense of loyalty, nor the
scientific efficiency, nor the unity of purpose within the empire,
that have failed her. They are all splendid and have done what could
be demanded of them. The thing that has failed is the peculiar way in
which the German ruling classes have made use of these forces. They
have used army, scientific efficiency, loyalty, and unity of purpose to
promote the ends of an aggressive ruling class. Now the best treatment
is to defeat them in the war and allow them plenty of time, with no
unnecessary antagonisms, to learn that their system does not pay, and
that any attempt to revive it in the future will be followed by another
punishment as severe as that which this war brought. The support of
a military caste and the training of all the men in a great army are
heavy burdens on the economic life of the state. Will any nation
continue to bear them if they come to nothing in the day of trial?
Armies for defense do not demand the great expenditures that Germany
has made in the last decades.
No penalty that the victors could lay on Germany would be permanently
effective in reducing her. So great are her economic energies that they
would restore her to prosperity within a short time, and she would
be ready to take advantage of any favorable combination to strike in
revenge. Disarmament would not be a guaranty that she would cease to be
troublesome to her neighbors; for she would still have her excellently
trained soldiers who could be reassembled in a great army at short
notice. She might well be required to dismantle her great armament
factories; and since they are essential to the re-arming of a great
army some check on her restoration would come from such dismantling.
But it would be a temporary check. It is only necessary to remember
that the beginning of the present German army was the attempt of one
conqueror, Napoleon, to limit the Prussian army to 42,000 men.
Moreover, what nations could be expected to agree among themselves
while standing guard over Germany? Under the Balance of Power, we
might expect a fair amount of mobility of alliances. We have just
seen that not even the Triple Alliance was proof against the skillful
hands of Delcassé. If Italy could be withdrawn by France from that
powerful combination, how can we doubt that a humiliated Germany
would find means of weakening the combination against her? She would
have the greatest inducement to do so; and it is not probable that
complete harmony would prevail long between the victors, if they were
held together only by the bonds of mutual friendship. The history of
diplomacy is the record of broken friendships.
To see what readjustment might occur with respect to a humiliated
Germany, it is only necessary to recall the position of France after
the Napoleonic wars. Beaten beyond resistance, suspected of carrying
the germs of bad government from which all other nations felt that they
must be protected as from deadly disease, and held down by great armies
of occupation, her situation would seem to have been most deplorable.
But her isolation lasted for only a moment. She was admitted to
the Congress of Vienna,--called to pass on the future arrangements
of Europe,--because there was division among her conquerors. From
that time she was suspected less and less, and at the Conference of
Aix-la-Chapelle, 1818, she was admitted to the Concert of Europe,
but not with full fellowship; for the other powers made a secret
agreement to watch her for a while longer. She progressed so rapidly
in eliminating the republican virus in her system that in 1823 she was
entrusted with the task of suppressing the constitution of Spain. Thus
in eight years after the battle of Waterloo France was again in full
accord with the other powers. Probably few people would have said in
1815 that her restoration would come about so rapidly. It would be no
more singular if within ten years after the end of the present struggle
a conquered Germany were to forget her antipathies of 1918 and be ready
to give and be given in diplomatic alliances with as little regard for
the past.
If, for example, a restored and highly nationalized Russia becomes a
threat against Western Europe some years hence, the antagonisms of
today would be forgotten and Germany, France, and Great Britain would
probably be found fighting side by side to restrain the Muscovite
giant. The old system is intensely selfish and it lends itself to
rapid changes in policies. But it is an expensive thing to keep up the
system. Large armies are necessary, great debts are created, and a
vast amount of nervous strength is diverted from the normal activities
of humanity. It is small hope for him who longs to see war put down
permanently that only by fighting a war like that now raging may we
expect the nations to defeat any future aspirant for universal power.
Finally, if the submarines fail and the anti-German allies break down
the defenses of their enemies and thus are able to determine the kind
of peace that is to be made, the treaty of peace should not have for
its end the prolongation of the power of the _Entente_ group. The
history of the first half of the nineteenth century shows how easy it
is for such a group to be re-arranged with the result that new wars
threaten. We must trust the fair mindedness of human nature and the
logic of the situation to do much for the Germans. It is on their
acceptance of the issue that we must rest our hopes for a peaceful
future.
These truths are especially pertinent to the interests of the United
States. We are not fighting Europe’s war, but the world’s. We are the
only nation in the struggle that has not a special interest at stake.
We are the only member of our group of allies that has a right to take
the side of the weakest member of that group against the desire of
the strongest. If any one member should in a moment of more or less
pardonable forgetfulness of the common good advance claims that would
be based on a desire to recoup herself for her sufferings, we best
of all could demand equal treatment and see that the seed of future
discord are not sown. These are principles that every American citizen
should understand.