THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR
If in the foregoing pages the Liberal party has come in for the larger
share of criticism, the reason is, that during the ten critical years,
while dangers were drawing to a head, a Liberal Government chanced to
be in power. That things would have been managed better and more
courageously had the Unionists been in power may be doubted; and
certainly it is no part of my present task to champion any such theory.
The special type of politician whose influence has wrought so much evil
of late is no peculiar product of the Liberal party. He is the product
of the party system in its corrupt decadence. You find him in the
ranks of the Opposition as well as in those of the Ministerialists,
just as you find good and true men in both. In this last lies our
hope. In our present trouble good and true men have a chance of taking
things into their own hands, which has been denied to them for many
generations.
This book has been written to establish the _Need_ for National
Service, in order that the British Empire may maintain itself securely
in the present {422} circumstances of the world. If this contention be
true it is obvious that a corresponding _Duty_ lies upon the whole
nation to accept the burden of military service.
Neither need nor duty has ever been made clear to the British people by
their leaders. Owing to the abuses of the party system, increasing
steadily over a considerable period of years, a certain type of
politician has been evolved, and has risen into great prominence--a
type which does not trust the people, but only fears them. In order to
maintain themselves and their parties in power, politicians of this
type have darkened the eyes and drugged the spirit of the nation.
It is no part of the plan of this volume to offer criticisms upon the
naval and military aspects of the present war, or upon the wisdom or
unwisdom of the operations which have been undertaken by land and sea.
All that need be said in this connection may be put into a very few
words.
As we read and re-read British history we cannot but be impressed with
the fact that our leading statesmen, misled by the very brilliancy of
their intellectual endowments, have always been prone to two errors of
policy, which the simpler mind of the soldier instinctively avoids.
They have ever been too ready to conclude prematurely that a certain
line of obstacles is so formidable that it cannot be forced; and they
have also ever been too ready to accept the notion, that there must
surely be some ingenious far way round, by which they may succeed in
circumventing the infinite.
[Sidenote: MAIN PRINCIPLE OF STRATEGY]
The defect of brilliant brains is not necessarily a {423} want of
courage--daring there has usually been in plenty--but they are apt to
lack fortitude. They are apt to abandon the assault upon positions
which are not really invulnerable, and to go off, chasing after
attractive butterflies, until they fall into quagmires. Dispersion of
effort has always been the besetting sin of British statesmen and the
curse of British policy. There is no clearer example of this than the
case of William Pitt the Younger, who went on picking up sugar islands
all over the world, when he ought to have been giving his whole
strength to beating Napoleon.
Very few obstacles are really insurmountable, and it is usually the
shortest and the safest course to stick to what has been already begun.
Especially is this the case when your resources in trained soldiers and
munitions of war are painfully restricted. At the one point, where you
have decided to attack, the motto is _push hard_; and at all others,
where you may be compelled to defend yourselves, the motto is _hold
fast_.
The peril of British war councils in the past has always been (and
maybe still is) the tendency of ingenious argument to get the better of
sound judgment. In the very opposite of this lies safety. We find the
true type of high policy, as well as of successful campaigning, in the
cool and patient inflexibility of Wellington, holding fast by one main
idea, forcing his way over one obstacle after another which had been
pronounced invincible--through walled cities; into the deep valleys of
the Pyrenees; across the Bidassoa--till from the crests of the Great
Rhune and the Little his soldiers looked down at last upon the plains
of France.
{424}
Our most urgent problem with regard to the present war, is how we may
win it most thoroughly; but, in addition to this, there are two
questions which have recently engaged a good deal of public attention.
There is a _Political_ question--what sort of European settlement is to
take place after the war? And there is also a _Criminal_
question--what sort of punishment shall be meted out, if crimes,
contrary to the practice of war among civilised and humane states, have
been committed by our antagonists?
I have not attempted to deal with either of these. They do not seem to
be of extreme urgency; for unless, and until, we win the war it is
somewhat idle to discuss the ultimate fate of Europe or the penalty of
evil deeds. You cannot restore stolen property until you have
recovered it, and you cannot punish a malefactor, nor is it very
convenient even to try him, while he is still at large. If that be
true, which was said of old by a great king--_I do not make peace with
barbarians but dictate the terms of their surrender_--we are still a
long way from that.
I have not occupied myself therefore with what are termed 'German
atrocities.' So far as this matter is concerned, I am satisfied to let
it rest for the present upon the German statement of intentions before
war began,[1] and upon the proclamations which {425} have been issued
subsequently, with the object of justifying their mode of operations by
sea and land. The case against Germany on her own admission, is quite
strong enough without opening a further inquisition under this
heading.[2]
[Sidenote: WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING ABOUT]
It is essential, however, to realise the falsities and perversities
upon which the great fabric of German policy is founded; for otherwise
we shall never understand either the nature of the enemy with whom we
are at present engaged, or the full extent of the danger by which, not
only we, but civilisation itself is now threatened. It is essential
that the whole British race should understand the nature of the evils
_against_ which they are fighting--the ambitions of Germany--the
ruthless despotism of the Prussian system--the new theories of right
and wrong which have been evolved by thinkers who have been paid,
promoted, and inspired by the State, in order to sanctify the imperial
policy of spoliation.
It is also essential for us to realise the nature of those things _for_
which we are fighting--what we shall save and secure for our posterity
in case of victory; what we stand to lose in event of defeat. The
preservation or ruin of our inheritance, spiritual and material--the
maintenance or overthrow of our {426} institutions, traditions, and
ideas--the triumph, of these, or the supplanting of them by a wholly
different order, which to our eyes wears the appearance of a vast
machine under the control of savages--are the main issues of the
present war. And when now at last, we face them squarely, we begin to
wonder, why of late years, we have been wont to treat problems of
national defence and imperial security with so much levity and
indifference.
It is profitable to turn our eyes from the contemplation of German
shortcomings inwards upon our own. If we have been guilty as a people
during recent times of weakness, blindness, indolence, or cowardice, we
should face these facts squarely, otherwise there is but a poor chance
of arriving at better conditions. If we have refused to listen to
unpleasant truths, and to exchange a drowsy and dangerous comfort
against sacrifices which were necessary for security, it is foolish to
lay the whole blame upon this or that public man, this or that
government. For, after all, both public men and governments were our
own creation; we chose them because we liked them; because it gave us
pleasure and consolation to listen to their sayings; because their
doings and their non-doings, their un-doings and their mis-doings were
regarded with approval or indifference by the great bulk of our people.
It would be wise also to take to heart the lesson, plainly written
across the record of the last nine months, that the present confusion
of our political system is responsible, as much as anything--perhaps
more than anything--for the depreciated currency of public character.
The need is obvious for a Parliament and a Government chosen by the
Empire, {427} responsible to the Empire, and charged with the security
of the Empire, and with no other task.
[Sidenote: CAUSES OF WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH]
Why we are fighting at all is one of our problems; why we are finding
it so hard to win is another. In what does the main strength of our
enemies consist? And in what does our own chief weakness consist?
To say that our weakness is to be sought in our own vices, and the
strength of our enemies in their virtues, is of course a commonplace.
But one has only to open the average newspaper to realise the need for
restating the obvious. For there the contrary doctrine is set forth
daily and weekly with a lachrymose insistency--that our hands are
weakened because we are so good; that the Germans fight at an enormous
advantage because they are so wicked and unscrupulous.
But the things which we are finding hardest to overcome in our foes are
not the immoral gibberings of professors, or the blundering cynicism of
the German Foreign Office, or the methodical savagery of the General
Staff, whether in Belgium or on the High Seas. These are sources of
weakness and not of strength; and even at the present stage it is clear
that, although they have inflicted immeasurable suffering, they have
done the German cause much more harm than good.
Our real obstacles are the loyalty, the self-sacrifice, and the
endurance of the German people.
The causes of British weakness are equally plain. Our indolence and
factiousness; our foolish confidence in cleverness, manoeuvres, and
debate for overcoming obstacles which lie altogether outside that
region of human endeavour; our absorption as {428} thrilled spectators
in the technical game of British politics[3]--these vices and others of
a similar character, which, since the beginning of the war we have been
struggling--like a man awakening from a nightmare--to shake off, are
still our chief difficulties. It is a hard job to get rid of them, and
we are not yet anything like halfway through with it.
It must be clear to every detached observer, that the moral strength of
England in the present struggle--like that of France--does not lie in
Government or Opposition, but in the spirit of the people; that this
spirit has drawn but little support, in the case of either country,
from the leadership and example of the politicians; and that there is
little cause in either case to bless or praise them for the fidelity of
their previous stewardship. In the case of France this national spirit
was assured at the beginning; in our own case the process of awakening
has proceeded much more slowly.
[Sidenote: ILLUSIONS OF SUCCESS]
It is essential to put certain notions out of our heads and certain
other notions into them. From the beginning of the war, a large part
of the press--acting, we are entitled to suppose, in patriotic
obedience to the directions of the Press Bureau--has fostered ideas
which do not correspond with the facts. Information has been doled out
and presented in such a way as to destroy all sense of proportion in
the public mind.
It is not an uncommon belief,[4] for example, that we with our
Allies--ever since the first onset, when, {429} being virtuously
unprepared, we were pushed back some little distance--have been doing
much better than the Germans; that for months past our adversaries have
been in a desperate plight--lacking ammunition, on the verge of
bankruptcy and starvation, and thoroughly discouraged.
There is also a tendency to assume--despite Lord Kitchener's grave and
repeated warnings to the contrary--that the war is drawing rapidly to a
conclusion, and that, even if we may have to submit to some
interruption of our usual summer holidays, at any rate we shall eat our
Christmas dinners in an atmosphere of peace and goodwill.
The magnitude of the German victories, both in the East and West,
during the earlier stages of the war, is not realised even now by the
great majority of our fellow-countrymen; while the ruinous consequences
of these victories to our Allies--the occupation of Belgium, of a large
part of northern France, and of Western Poland--is dwelt on far too
lightly. Nor is it understood by one man in a hundred, that up to the
end of last year, British troops were never holding more than thirty
miles, out of that line of nearly five hundred which winds, like a
great snake, from Nieuport to the Swiss frontier. On the contrary, it
is quite commonly believed that we have been doing our fair share of
the fighting--or even more--by land as well as sea.
A misleading emphasis of type and comment, together with a dangerous
selection of items of news, are responsible for these illusions; while
the prevalence of these illusions is largely responsible for many of
our labour difficulties.
Such dreams of inevitable and speedy victory {430} are no doubt very
soothing to indolent and timid minds, but they do not make for a
vigorous and resolute spirit in the nation, upon which, more than upon
anything else, the winning of this war depends.
In some quarters there appears still to linger a ridiculous idea that
we went into this war, out of pure chivalry, to defend Belgium.[5] We
went into it to defend our own existence, and for no other reason. We
made common cause with Allies who were menaced by the same danger as
ourselves; but these, most fortunately, had made their preparations
with greater foresight than we had done. The actual fighting has taken
place, so far, in their territories and not in ours; but the issue of
this war is not one whit less a matter of life-or-death for us, than it
is for them.
[Sidenote: DEMOCRACY NOT INVINCIBLE]
Quite recently I have seen our present situation described glowingly
and self-complacently as the 'triumph of the voluntary system.' I must
be blind of both eyes, for I can perceive no 'triumph' and no
'voluntary' system. I have seen the territories of our Allies seized,
wasted, and held fast by an undefeated enemy. I have seen our small
army driven back; fighting with as much skill and bravery as ever in
its history; suffering losses unparalleled in its history; holding its
own in the end, but against what overwhelming numbers and by what
sacrifices! The human triumph is apparent enough; but not that of any
system, voluntary or otherwise. Neither in this record of nine months'
'hard and hot fighting' on land, nor in {431} the state of things which
now exists at the end of it all, is there a triumph for anything, or
any one, save for a few thousands of brave men, who were left to hold
fast as best they could against intolerable odds.
Certain contemporary writers appear to claim more for that form of
representative government, which we are in the habit of calling
'democracy,' than it is either safe to count on, or true to assert. In
their eyes democracy seems to possess a superiority in all the higher
virtuous qualities--'freedom,' in particular--and also an inherent
strength which--whatever may be the result of the present war--makes
the final predominance of British institutions only a matter of time.[6]
I do not hold with either of these doctrines. Universal superiority in
virtue and strength is too wide a claim to put forward for any system
of government. And 'freedom' is a very hard thing to define.
It is not merely that the form of constitution, which we call
'democracy,' is obviously not the best fitted for governing an
uncivilised or half-civilised people. There are considerations which
go much deeper than that--considerations of race, religion,
temperament, and tradition. As it has been in the past, so conceivably
it may be again in the future, that a people, which is in the highest
degree civilised and humane, will seek to realise its ideals of freedom
in some other sphere than the control of policy and legislation
according to the electoral verdicts of its {432} citizens. It is even
possible that its national aspirations may regard some other end as a
higher good even than freedom. We cannot speak with certainty as to
the whole human race, but only with regard to ourselves and certain
others, who have been bred in the same traditions.
If a personal and autocratic government--the German for example--is
able to arouse and maintain among its people a more ardent loyalty, a
firmer confidence, a more constant spirit of self-sacrifice (in time of
peace as well as war), I can see no good reason for the hope, that
democracy, merely because, in our eyes, it approaches more nearly to
the ideal of the Christian Commonwealth, will be able to maintain
itself against the other. A highly centralised system of government
has great natural advantages both for attack and defence; and if in
addition it be supported by a more enduring fortitude, and a more
self-denying devotion, on the part of the people, it seems almost
incredible that, in the end, it will not prevail over other forms of
government which have failed to enlist the same support.
The strength of all forms of government alike, whether against foreign
attack or internal disintegration, must depend in the long last upon
the spirit of the people; upon their determination to maintain their
own institutions; upon their willingness to undertake beforehand, as
well as during the excitement of war, those labours and sacrifices
which are necessary for security. The spirit is everything. And in
the end that spirit which is strongest is likely to become predominant,
and to impose its own forms, systems, and ideas upon civilised and
uncivilised nations alike.
{433}
A considerable part of the world--though it may have adopted patterns
of government which are either avowedly democratic or else are
monarchies of the constitutional sort (in essence the same)--is by no
means wedded to popular institutions; has no deep-rooted traditions to
give them support; could easily, therefore, and without much loss of
self-respect, abandon them and submit to follow new fashions. But with
the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions, and the United States
it is altogether different.
To exchange voluntarily, merely because circumstances rendered it
expedient to do so, a system which is the only one consistent with our
notions of freedom would be an apostasy. It would mean our immediate
spiritual ruin, and for that reason also our ultimate material ruin.
On the other hand, to continue to exist on sufferance, without a voice
in the destinies of the world, would be an even deeper degradation. To
be conquered outright, and absorbed, would be an infinitely preferable
fate to either of these.
[Sidenote: NEED OF LEADERSHIP]
The nations of the world have one need in common--Leadership. The
spirit of the people can do much, but it cannot do everything. In the
end that form of government is likely to prevail which produces the
best and most constant supply of leaders. On its own theories,
democracy of the modern type ought to out-distance all competitors;
under this system capacity, probity, and vigour should rise most easily
to the top.
In practice, however, democracy has come under the thumb of the Party
System, and the Party System has reached a very high point of
efficiency. It has {434} bettered the example of the hugest mammoth
store in existence. It has elaborated machinery for crushing out
independent opinion and for cramping the characters of public men. In
commending its wares it has become as regardless of truth as a vendor
of quack medicines. It pursues corruption as an end, and it freely
uses corruption--both direct and indirect--as the means by which it may
attain its end. If the Party System continues to develop along its
present lines, it may ultimately prove as fatal to the principle of
democracy as the ivy which covers and strangles the elm-trees in our
hedgerows.
Leadership is our greatest present need, and it is there that the Party
System has played us false. To manipulate its vast and intricate
machinery there arose a great demand for expert mechanicians, and these
have been evolved in a rich profusion. But in a crisis like the
present, mechanicians will not serve our purpose. The real need is a
Man, who by the example of his own courage, vigour, certainty, and
steadfastness will draw out the highest qualities of the people; whose
resolute sense of duty will brush opportunism aside; whose sympathy and
truthfulness will stir the heart and hold fast the conscience of the
nation. Leadership of this sort we have lacked.
The Newcastle speech with its soft words and soothing optimism was not
leadership. It does not give confidence to a horse to know that he has
a rider on his back who is afraid of him.
[Sidenote: NEED FOR FRANKNESS]
It is idle at this stage to forecast the issue of the present war.
Nevertheless we seem at last to have begun to understand that there is
but a poor chance of winning it under rulers who are content to wait
and see if by some miracle the war will win itself; {435} or if by
another miracle our resources of men and material will organise
themselves. Since the battle of the Marne many sanguine expectations
of a speedy and victorious peace have fallen to the ground. The
constant burden of letters from soldiers at the front is that the
war--so far as England is concerned--is only just beginning. And yet,
in spite of all these disappointments and warnings, the predominant
opinion in official circles is still, apparently, as determined as ever
to wait and see _what the people will stand_, although it is
transparently clear what they ought to stand, and must stand, if they
are to remain a people.
We cannot forecast with certainty the issue of the present war, but
hope nevertheless refuses to be bound. There is a false hope and a
true one. There may be consolation for certain minds, but there is no
safety for the nation, in the simple faith that democracy is in its
nature invincible. Democracy is by no means invincible. On the
contrary, it fights at a disadvantage, both by reason of its
inferiority in central control, and because it shrinks from
ruthlessness. Nevertheless we may believe as firmly as those who hold
this other opinion that in the end it will conquer. Before this can
happen it must find a leader who is worthy of its trust.
Since August 1914 we have learned many things from experience which we
previously refused to credit upon any human authority. We are not
altogether done with the past; for it contains lessons and
warnings--about men as well as things--which it would be wasteful to
forget. But our main concern is with the present. And we are also
treading very {436} close on the heels of the future, when--as we
trust--the resistance of our enemies will be beginning to flag; when
the war will be drawing to an end; afterwards through anxious years
(how many we cannot guess) when the war has ended, and when the object
of our policy will be to keep the peace which has been so dearly bought.
Lord Roberts was right in his forecast of the danger; nor was he less
right in his perception of England's military weakness and general
unpreparedness for war. But was he also right as to the principle of
the remedy which he proposed? And even if he were right as things
stood when he uttered his warnings, is his former counsel still right
in our present circumstances, and as we look forward into the future?
Is it now necessary for us to accept in practice what has always been
admitted in the vague region of theory--that an obligation lies upon
every citizen, during the vigour of his age, to place his services, and
if need be his life, at the disposal of that state under whose shelter
he and all those who are most dear to him have lived?
[Sidenote: THE PEOPLE WILL NOT FLINCH]
There is always danger in treating a free people like children; in
humouring them, and coaxing them, and wheedling them with half-truths;
in asking for something less than is really needed, from fear that to
ask for the whole would alarm them too much; with the foolish hope that
when the first demand has been granted it will then be easy enough to
make them understand how much more is still necessary to complete the
fabric of security; that having deceived them once, it will be all the
easier to deceive them again.
As we look back over our country's history we {437} find that it was
those men who told the people the whole truth--or what, at least, they
themselves honestly believed to be the whole truth--who most often
succeeded in carrying their proposals through. In these matters, which
touch the very life and soul of the nation, all artifice is out of
place. The power of persuasion lies in the truthfulness of the
advocate, no less than in the truth of his plea. If the would-be
reformer is only half sincere, if from timidity or regard for popular
opinion he chooses to tell but half his tale--selecting this,
suppressing that, postponing the other to a more propitious season--he
loses by his misplaced caution far more than half his strength. When
there is a case to be laid before the British People it is folly to do
it piecemeal, by astute stages of pleading, and with subtle
reservations. If the whole case can be put unflinchingly it is not the
People who will flinch. The issue may be left with safety to a
tribunal which has never yet failed in its duty, when rulers have had
the courage to say where its duty lay.
[1] "A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the
combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it
will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and
material resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims, such as the
protection of men and their goods, can only be taken into consideration
in so far as the nature and object of the war permit.
"International Law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the
crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery, and the
like) to the prejudice of the enemy.... The necessary aim of war gives
the belligerent the right and imposes on him the duty, according to
circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be the
decisive advantages to be gained by such means."--_The German War
Book_, issued by the Great General Staff.
[2] Clearly, however, when it comes to the discussion of terms of
peace, not only the political question, but also the criminal question,
will have to be remembered. Oddly enough the 'pacifist' section, which
has already been clamorous for putting forward peace proposals, seems
very anxious that we should forget, or at any rate ignore, the criminal
question--odd, because 'humanity' is the stuff they have set up their
bills to trade in.
[3] In reality, as regards party politics, we have been for years past
very like those shouting, cigarette-smoking, Saturday crowds at
football matches whom we have lately been engaged in reproving so
virtuously.
[4] Certainly up to April 1915 it was not an uncommon belief.
[5] Mr. Lloyd George, _Pearson's Magazine_, March 1915.
[6] These views are very prevalent among Liberal writers, and they are
clearly implied, if not quite so openly expressed, by Conservatives.
They seem to be assumed in one of the ablest articles which has yet
been written upon the causes of the present war--'The Schism of Europe'
(_Round Table_, March 1915).
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Ordeal by Battle, by Frederick Scott Oliver