And now, with all this in our minds, let us turn to consider the vexed
question of the settlement after the war. There lies before the Western
world the greatest of all choices, the choice between destruction and
salvation. But that choice does not depend merely on the issue of the
war. It depends upon what is done or left undone by the co-operation of
all when the war does at last stop. Two conceptions of the future are
contending in all nations. One is the old bad one, that which has presided
hitherto at every peace and prepared every new war. It assumes that the
object of war is solely to win victory, and the object of victory solely
to acquire more power and territory. On this view, if the Germans win, they
are to annex territory east and west: Belgium and half France, say the more
violent; the Baltic provinces of Russia, strategic points of advantage, say
the more moderate. On the other hand, if the Allies win, the Allies are to
divide the German colonies, the French are to regain Alsace-Lorraine, and,
as the jingoes add, they are to take the whole of the German provinces on
the left bank of the Rhine, and even territory beyond it. The Italians are
to have not only Italia Irredenta but hundreds of thousands of reluctant
Slavs in Dalmatia; the Russians Constantinople, and perhaps Posen and
Galicia. Further, such money indemnities are to be taken as it may prove
possible to exact from an already ruined foe; trade and commerce with
the enemy is to be discouraged or prohibited; and, above all, a bitter
and unforgiving hatred is to reign for ever between the victor and the
vanquished. This is the kind of view of the settlement of Europe that is
constantly appearing in the articles and correspondence of the Press of all
countries. Ministers are not as careful as they should be to repudiate it.
The nationalist and imperialist cliques of all nations endorse it. It is,
one could almost fear, for something like this that the peoples are being
kept at war, and the very existence of civilization jeopardized.
Now, whether anything of this kind really can be achieved by the war,
whether there is the least probability that either group of Powers can
win such a victory as would make the programme on either side a reality,
I will not here discuss. The reader will have his own opinion. What I am
concerned with is the effect any such solution would have upon the future
of Europe. Those who desire such a close may be divided into two classes.
The one frankly believes in war, in domination, and in power. It accepts
as inevitable, and welcomes as desirable, the perpetual armed conflict of
nations for territory and trade. It does not believe in, and it does not
want, a durable peace. It holds that all peace is, must be, and ought to
be, a precarious and regrettable interval between wars. I do not discuss
this view. Those who hold it are not accessible to argument, and can only
be met by action. There are others, however, who do think war an evil, who
do want a durable peace, but who genuinely believe that the way indicated
is the best way to achieve it. With them it is permitted to discuss, and it
should be possible to do so without bitterness or rage on either side. For
as to the end, there is agreement; the difference of opinion is as to the
means. The position taken is this: The enemy deliberately made this war of
aggression against us, without provocation, in order to destroy us. If it
had not been for this wickedness there would have been no war. The enemy,
therefore, must be punished; and his punishment must make him permanently
impotent to repeat the offence. That having been done, Europe will have
durable peace, for there will be no one left able to break it who will
also want to break it. Now, I believe all this to be demonstrably a
miscalculation. It is contradicted both by our knowledge of the way
human nature works and by the evidence of history. In the first place,
wars do not arise because only one nation or group of nations is wicked,
the others being good. For the actual outbreak of this war, I believe, as
I have already said, that a few powerful individuals in Austria and in
Germany were responsible. But the ultimate causes of war lie much deeper.
In them all States are implicated. And the punishment, or even the
annihilation, of any one nation would leave those causes still subsisting.
Wipe out Germany from the map, and, if you do nothing else, the other
nations will be at one another's throats in the old way, for the old
causes. They would be quarrelling, if about nothing else, about the
division of the spoil. While nations continue to contend for power,
while they refuse to substitute law for force, there will continue to
be wars. And while they devote the best of their brains and the chief
of their resources to armaments and military and naval organization,
each war will become more terrible, more destructive, and more ruthless
than the last. This is irrefutable truth. I do not believe there is a
man or woman able to understand the statement who will deny it.
In the second place, the enemy nation cannot, in fact, be annihilated,
nor even so far weakened, relatively to the rest, as to be incapable of
recovering and putting up another fight. The notions of dividing up Germany
among the Allies, or of adding France and the British Empire to Germany,
are sheerly fantastic. There will remain, when all is done, the defeated
nations--if, indeed, any nation be defeated. Their territories cannot be
permanently occupied by enemy troops; they themselves cannot be permanently
prevented by physical force from building up new armaments. So long as they
want their revenge, they will be able sooner or later to take it. If
evidence of this were wanted, the often-quoted case of Prussia after
Jena will suffice.
And, in the third place, the defeated nations, so treated, will, in fact,
want their revenge. There seems to be a curious illusion abroad, among the
English and their allies, that not only is Germany guilty of the war, but
that all Germans know it in their hearts; that, being guilty, they will
fully accept punishment, bow patiently beneath the yoke, and become in
future good, harmonious members of the European family. The illusion is
grotesque. There is hardly a German who does not believe that the war was
made by Russia and by England; that Germany is the innocent victim; that
all right is on her side, and all wrong on that of the Allies. If, indeed,
she were beaten, and treated as her "punishers" desire, this belief would
be strengthened, not weakened. In every German heart would abide, deep and
strong, the sense of an iniquitous triumph of what they believe to be wrong
over right, and of a duty to redress that iniquity. Outraged national pride
would be reinforced by the sense of injustice; and the next war, the war of
revenge, would be prepared for, not only by every consideration of interest
and of passion, but by every cogency of righteousness. The fact that the
Germans are mistaken in their view of the origin of the war has really
nothing to do with the case. It is not the truth, it is what men believe
to be the truth, that influences their action. And I do not think any
study of dispatches is going to alter the German view of the facts.
But it is sometimes urged that the war was made by the German militarists,
that it is unpopular with the mass of the people, and that if Germany is
utterly defeated the people will rise and depose their rulers, become a
true democracy, and join fraternal hands with the other nations of Europe.
That Germany should become a true democracy might, indeed, be as great a
guarantee of peace as it might be that other nations, called democratic,
should really become so in their foreign policy as well as in their
domestic affairs. But what proud nation will accept democracy as a
gift from insolent conquerors? One thing that the war has done, and
one of the worst, is to make of the Kaiser, to every German, a symbol
of their national unity and national force. Just because we abuse their
militarism, they affirm and acclaim it; just because we attack their
governing class, they rally round it. Nothing could be better calculated
than this war to strengthen the hold of militarism in Germany, unless it
be the attempt of her enemies to destroy her militarism by force. For
consider--! In the view we are examining it is proposed, first to kill
the greater part of her combatants, next to invade her territory, destroy
her towns and villages, and exact (for there are those who demand it)
penalties in kind, actual tit for tat, for what Germans have done in
Belgium. It is proposed to enter the capital in triumph. It is proposed
to shear away huge pieces of German territory. And then, when all this
has been done, the conquerors are to turn to the German nation and say:
"Now, all this we have done for your good! Depose your wicked rulers!
Become a democracy! Shake hands and be a good fellow!" Does it not
sound grotesque? But, really, that is what is proposed.
I have spoken about British and French proposals for the treatment of
Germany. But all that I have said applies, of course, equally to German
proposals of the same kind for the treatment of the conquered Allies. That
way is no way towards a durable peace. If it be replied that a durable
peace is not intended or desired, I have no more to say. If it be replied
that punishment for its own sake is more important than civilization, and
must be performed at all costs--_fiat justitia, ruat coelum_--then, once
more, I have nothing to say. I speak to those, and to those only, who do
desire a durable peace, and who have the courage and the imagination to
believe it to be possible, and the determination to work for it. And to
them I urge that the course I have been discussing cannot lead to their
goal. What can?