It will be seen from this brief account that so far as the published
evidence goes I agree with the general view outside Germany that the
responsibility for the war at the last moment rests with the Powers of
Central Europe. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can be
no reasonable doubt was known to and approved by the German Government,
was the first crime. And it is hardly palliated by the hope, which no
well-informed men ought to have entertained, that Russia could be kept
out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia. The second crime was the
German ultimatum to Russia and to France. I have no desire whatever to
explain away or palliate these clear facts. But it was not my object in
writing this pamphlet to reiterate a judgment which must already be that
of all my readers. What I have wanted to do is to set the tragic events of
those few days of diplomacy in their proper place in the whole complex of
international politics. And what I do dispute with full conviction is the
view which seems to be almost universally held in England, that Germany
had been pursuing for years past a policy of war, while all the other
Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace. The war finally provoked by
Germany was, I am convinced, conceived as a "preventive war." And that
means that it was due to the belief that if Germany did not fight then
she would be compelled to fight at a great disadvantage later. I have
written in vain if I have not convinced the reader that the European
anarchy inevitably provokes that state of mind in the Powers, and that
they all live constantly under the threat of war. To understand the
action of those who had power in Germany during the critical days it
is necessary to bear in mind all that I have brought into relief in
the preceding pages: the general situation, which grouped the Powers
of the Entente against those of the Triple Alliance; the armaments and
counter-armaments; the colonial and economic rivalry; the racial and
national problems in South-East Europe; and the long series of previous
crises, in each case tided over, but leaving behind, every one of them,
a legacy of fresh mistrust and fear, which made every new crisis worse
than the one before. I do not palliate the responsibility of Germany for
the outbreak of war. But that responsibility is embedded in and conditioned
by a responsibility deeper and more general--the responsibility of all the
Powers alike for the European anarchy.
If I have convinced the reader of this he will, I think, feel no difficulty
in following me to a further conclusion. Since the causes of this war, and
of all wars, lie so deep in the whole international system, they cannot be
permanently removed by the "punishment" or the "crushing" or any other
drastic treatment of any Power, let that Power be as guilty as you please.
Whatever be the issue of this war, one thing is certain: it will bring no
lasting peace to Europe unless it brings a radical change both in the
spirit and in the organization of international politics.
What that change must be may be deduced from the foregoing discussion of
the causes of the war. The war arose from the rivalry of States in the
pursuit of power and wealth. This is universally admitted. Whatever be the
diversities of opinion that prevail in the different countries concerned,
nobody pretends that the war arose out of any need of civilization, out of
any generous impulse or noble ambition. It arose, according to the popular
view in England, solely and exclusively out of the ambition of Germany to
seize territory and power. It arose, according to the popular German view,
out of the ambition of England to attack and destroy the rising power and
wealth of Germany. Thus to each set of belligerents the war appears as one
forced upon them by sheer wickedness, and from neither point of view has
it any kind of moral justification. These views, it is true, are both
too simple for the facts. But the account given in the preceding pages,
imperfect as it is, shows clearly, what further knowledge will only make
more explicit, that the war proceeded out of rivalry for empire between all
the Great Powers in every part of the world. The contention between France
and Germany for the control of Morocco, the contention between Russia and
Austria for the control of the Balkans, the contention between Germany and
the other Powers for the control of Turkey--these were the causes of the
war. And this contention for control is prompted at once by the desire for
power and the desire for wealth. In practice the two motives are found
conjoined. But to different minds they appeal in different proportions.
There is such a thing as the love of power for its own sake. It is known in
individuals, and it is known in States, and it is the most disastrous, if
not the most evil, of the human passions. The modern German philosophy of
the State turns almost exclusively upon this idea; and here, as elsewhere,
by giving to a passion an intellectual form, the Germans have magnified
its force and enhanced its monstrosity. But the passion itself is not
peculiar to Germans, nor is it only they to whom it is and has been a
motive of State. Power has been the fetish of kings and emperors from the
beginning of political history, and it remains to be seen whether it will
not continue to inspire democracies. The passion for empire ruined the
Athenian democracy, no less than the Spartan or the Venetian oligarchy,
or the Spain of Philip II, or the France of the Monarchy and the Empire.
But it still makes its appeal to the romantic imagination. Its intoxication
has lain behind this war, and it will prompt many others if it survives,
when the war is over, either in the defeated or the conquering nations.
It is not only the jingoism of Germany that Europe has to fear. It is
the jingoism that success may make supreme in any country that may be
victorious.
But while power may be sought for its own sake, it is commonly sought
by modern States as a means to wealth. It is the pursuit of markets and
concessions and outlets for capital that lies behind the colonial policy
that leads to wars. States compete for the right to exploit the weak, and
in this competition Governments are prompted or controlled by financial
interests. The British went to Egypt for the sake of the bondholders, the
French to Morocco for the sake of its minerals and wealth. In the Near East
and the Far it is commerce, concessions, loans that have led to the rivalry
of the Powers, to war after war, to "punitive expeditions" and--irony of
ironies!--to "indemnities" exacted as a new and special form of robbery
from peoples who rose in the endeavour to defend themselves against
robbery. The Powers combine for a moment to suppress the common victim,
the next they are at one another's throats over the spoil. That really is
the simple fact about the quarrels of States over colonial and commercial
policy. So long as the exploitation of undeveloped countries is directed by
companies having no object in view except dividends, so long as financiers
prompt the policy of Governments, so long as military expeditions, leading
up to annexations, are undertaken behind the back of the public for reasons
that cannot be avowed, so long will the nations end with war, where they
have begun by theft, and so long will thousands and millions of innocent
and generous lives, the best of Europe, be thrown away to no purpose,
because, in the dark, sinister interests have been risking the peace
of the world for the sake of money in their pockets.
It is these tremendous underlying facts and tendencies that suggest the
true moral of this war. It is these that have to be altered if we are to
avoid future wars on a scale as great.