When for slight reason a continent shakes with the tread of marching
battalions, it is easy to fall into moral despair. We seem to confront
a world-order that limits the sway of reason between nations, and
gives full scope only to the hatreds and destructive ingenuities of
mankind. In the wholesale deliberate slaughter of multitudes of men of
good will, workers, lovers, husbands, fathers suddenly dedicated to
systematic homicide of their fellows, piling up in blood and travail
grievous burdens for their own children’s children--in such a spectacle
the thoughtful mind at first finds only nightmare. And nightmare
intolerable it is, if to the end of time a few out of pride or fear or
sheer incapacity shall thus be able to decree the last sacrifice and
swift death to the many.
In such moments of natural dejection, the mind must rally to its own
defence. We live after all in a moral world. Intelligence has persisted
and grown through worse occultations. The future may hold out hopes
of a world-order in which the nightmare of the present cannot repeat
itself. Meanwhile if we face the thing steadily in the light of its
underlying causes, considering the moral issues involved, looking
forward to the just retributions that the world will surely require of
those who have shattered its peace, we may reëstablish in ourselves
the sense of an overruling moral order, toward which we may each in
his degree work. Such an inquiry into the responsibility for the war
will lift the obsession of universal, insensate violence. Even the
offenders are obeying race loyalty, and responding to certain obsolete
ideals which yet are deeply grounded in history, while the defenders
are vindicating the cause of the world’s peace by the only course left
open to them. Against the brute law of strongest battalions, they have
been forced to fight, that ideals of forbearance, comity, and honor may
still be held among nations.
On the broader moral issue of the war, mankind has already spoken.
The military isolation of Austria and Germany is no more marked than
their moral isolation. In the history of warfare, has there ever been
so uniform a verdict of the human race? Though instinctive and rapid,
the sentiment may also be rationally grounded. Let us test it by an
examination of the causes of the war.
What made the war possible is the fixed antipathy between impatient,
ruling Germans and restless, subject Slavs. Such racial discord is
naturally most acute in Austria, where a domineering Teuton minority
holds in uneasy subordination the Slavs of Bohemia, Austrian Poland,
and the Balkan and Adriatic range; but it is a distinct factor also
in Prussia, where an embittered and losing campaign against Polish
national feeling in the Posen region has long been waged. These
disharmonies are an inevitable incident of expansion without the
consent of the annexed peoples. The part of wise statesmanship is to
bear much of this sort of opposition, trusting to healing process
of just government and time. In Austria and Germany, however, these
antipathies, were deliberately fomented by the war clique. The surest
way of getting huge army appropriations is to show a foe or a rebel
in being. In 1908 the unrest of all the Balkan Slavs was increased by
Austria’s assuming permanent tenure of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where
by treaty she had been exercising a temporary, police jurisdiction.
The annexation extinguished national hopes, and while it undoubtedly
established order, did so in arbitrary and oppressive fashion. The fact
that Germany supported the annexation, intimidating the natural ally
of the Balkan Slavs, Russia, accentuated the racial feud. The recent
heroic struggle in the Balkans, which resulted in the aggrandizement
of the Slavic powers of Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, naturally
excited the Slavs under Austrian domination. Austria, on the other
hand, had maintained a persistent hostility to her southern neighbors,
and after the war, had by diplomatic means, and again aided by Germany,
frustrated many of the legitimate hopes of Servia and Montenegro.
An illogical and already derelict Albania, is the chief result of
Austria’s dog in the manger policy. Her smouldering resentment against
Servia was raised to an intense pitch by the deplorable assassination
of the Crown Prince and his wife. It was an act as foolish as heinous,
but it was also a natural product of arrogant and oppressive rule.
Though the deed was done on Austrian soil, the assassins were Slavs,
and the plot traceable to Belgrade, and this gave Austria the chance
to hold Servia nationally responsible for the crime. She issued an
ultimatum in which Servia was virtually required to avow responsibility
for the outrage, to investigate and punish anti-Austrian agitators, and
in such proceedings to admit Austrian officials. In effect, Servia was
asked to plead guilty, on penalty of invasion, and to place her case in
the hands of Austria as both prosecutor and judge.
The ultimatum of July 23, was outrageous, such as no state ever dreams
of issuing to an equal. Weakened by two wars and apparently menaced by
overwhelming force, Servia drank the cup, hesitating only at the last
dregs. With the bulk of the Austrian demands she complied, demurring
only to the waiver of her own national estate implied in alien
interference with her police. Even this humiliating stipulation she
offered to arbitrate. The reply of Austria was to set 300,000 troops
across the Danube, and to shell the undefended city of Belgrade. The
history of war has shown few more baseless aggressions. Austria had
reckoned on Servia’s weakness, and on the willingness and ability of
Germany, as in 1908, to hold off Russia. Austria unwittingly reckoned
with forces to which Russia and Germany are small. The analogy of
the Bosnian annexation was false. There the deed had been carefully
prepared and delay had blunted the effect of the final move. This
time Austria suddenly and without preparation outraged the moral sense
of the world. The official plea is that in some mysterious way the
Austro-Hungarian Empire was threatened in its very existence by the
machinations of the Serbs at home and in the newly annexed Austrian
provinces. That plea is hollow. Austria was neither more nor less in
peril than she has been for sixty years; she was merely enduring a
slight, however sensational, exaggeration of the chronic difficulties
of dominion over alien and unwilling races. The reality is that Austria
was incensed by the prosperity of the new Slavic nations in possessions
that she had prospectively marked out as her own. To confuse ulterior
ambitions with immediate rights is characteristic of the mentality of
neo-Imperialism.
So far, for convenience, I have spoken of Austria and other powers as
units, and with the usual rhetorical personification. The practice is
misleading. When we say Austria, in the political sense, we mean a mere
handful of high administrative and military officers, a few diplomats
and journalists, a portion of a small and exclusive aristocracy, a
pack of manufacturers of arms and military contractors, a rabble
of speculators hoping out of troubled waters to fish extraordinary
profits--that is political Austria, that with slight differences is the
permanent war party in every nation. The peace of the world ultimately
hangs on the nod of a few hundred individuals--men at best of intense,
narrow, and backward-looking vision; at worst basely interested in the
destruction of their fellow beings, accustomed to regard carnage as
normal business. The problem of insuring the world’s peace is that of
putting such men out of control, and replacing them by men who think
the thoughts and feel the feelings of modern civilization. Incapacity
to grasp the modern man, is the defect of the war caste everywhere.
It indulges mediæval alarms, appeals to factitious loyalties, speaks
an obsolete tongue. Politically Austria is still very much where
Metternich left her. A crafty balancing off of the aspirations of new
nationalities has been the method of consolidating the artificial sway
of the Emperor. There has been a constant disregard, perhaps ignorance,
of the generous motives that move in modern society. The aged and
afflicted Emperor has many times shown himself to have an insight
superior to that of his counsellors. Had the present emergency not
caught him infirm in body and spirit, I believe the event would have
been very different. Free from his controlling hand, the war machine
has worked almost automatically its fitting product.
When we say Austria and Germany, we must distinguish clearly between
the peasants of many tongues, the thrifty tradesmen, the ingenious
manufacturers and hardy artisans, the scientists and scholars, the keen
students of public betterment, the artists and musicians,--between
these socially useful people with their women and children, upon
whom falls the actual burden of this war,--and a little, complacent,
opinionated minority, miseducated, aloof from the generous instincts
of humanity, dead to the kindling enthusiasms of the new century,--a
little complacent, pitiful, minority which from any outcome of the
worst war reaps its private harvest of profit, promotion, and prestige.
Any genuine representation of the real Austria and Germany would have
made this war impossible, any adjustment looking to permanent peace
must include the elimination of the misrepresentative administrators
who have frivolously plunged a continent into war.
In a moral analysis of the causes of the war, the single ambiguous term
is Russia. On the face of it she promptly rallied to the support of her
fellow Slavs in Servia, by diplomatic protests at Berlin and Vienna
and by mobilizing on the Austrian border. Humanitarian and political
motives combined to force some kind of intervention. Without denying
the bond of race, Russia could not permit any Slavic nation to be
ruthlessly overborne. Honor in the highest sense and policy combined
to dictate some such course as Russia actually took. The official
statements of Austria and Germany waver between two attitudes. On the
whole, the Austrian apologists condemn the Russian move as merely
defective and unhappy in form. Had Russia not mobilized, the Servian
situation might have been adjusted diplomatically. As things went,
the provocative moves of Russia, forced similar precautions first on
Austria, then on Germany, with the unforeseen result of a general
war. The speech of the German Chancellor, however, echoes that of the
Kaiser, in charging Russia with deliberately provoking Germany and
Austria into war.
To me the issue, though evidently a crucial one,--for if Russia is
deliberately making a war, most of the European world is being dragged
into devil’s work,--is set in such technical fashion by the German
manifestoes, that their own sincerity is open to doubt. It remains a
somewhat interesting academic question what a Russian protest without
mobilization might have effected. The obduracy of Germany in the face
of more formidable military preparations by France and England, seems
to indicate that a wholly pacific intervention by Russia would have
effected little. On an alternative theory, Germany and Austria are
fighting solely on a point of technical honor. They couldn’t “take a
dare” from a threatening neighbor. Doubtless some of the arbiters of
war in Germany and Austria did honestly so feel. But in so feeling they
were parrotting the phrases and indulging the alarms of forty years ago.
The figment of a ruthlessly expansive Russia has today little reality
behind it, but for militaristic ends it is still a most useful bugbear.
Twice in a generation Russia has tasted the bitter fruits of heedless
aggression. Today she is overtaxed, not merely by the arrears of these
wars, but also by the great task of assimilating her present subjects.
Her political situation at home is one of instability. Direct gain
from venturing to support Servia, Russia had none to hope for. Twice
she has stood aside while her sphere of influence in the Balkans was
being repartitioned. In short, there is no conceivable reason why
Russia should have invited war at this time, and every reason why she
should have desired peace. Her mobilization must be interpreted in that
light. Ostensibly it was done _pari passu_ with similar preparations in
Austria and Germany, but suppose she began first. Mobilization means
just what those who order it mean. It is not _per se_ an offence, much
less a cause of war. Russia made most solemn protestations that she
would fight only in the last resort. All the world except the Germans
and Austrians believed these assurances.
What weakens the Austrian case is the unduly spectacular demonstration
she made on the Danube. Ostensibly she was engaged in a punitive
expedition which might have been satisfied with the occupation of the
offending capital, and an indemnity. It is probable that Russia and
the world, rather than hazard a general war, would have tolerated a
reprisal, which however inherently excessive, did not transcend the
usual bounds of such enterprises. But Austria hurled half her effective
force into Servian territory. Surely she had given ground for the
inference that no argument unaccompanied by show of force would deter
her. In our day we shall probably not know what Austria actually
intended towards Servia, but it is plain enough that, granting the
whole thing was a merely punitive move, it was exaggerated with the
insolent thick-headedness characteristic of military bureaucracies.
At best it can only be said that Austria needlessly blundered into a
demonstration that must be alarming to Europe and most offensive to
Russia, without correctly calculating either the moral reaction of
Europe or the limits of Russia’s forbearance. It must be conceded,
however, that the Austrian militarists had been grievously exasperated
by the murder of their Prince, and the impulse to seek somewhere some
sort of vengeance was, however mistaken, entirely natural.
So much cannot be said for the conduct of Germany. Her grievance
was remote and indirect, her public sentiment relatively calm and
tractable. A word from her would have checked Austria at any time.
Accordingly upon Germany falls the heaviest responsibility for the
war. From her power and detachment she was doubly in a position to
play the peacemaker. There are those who think that the Kaiser and his
counsellors foresaw the whole outcome and deliberately hastened it. I
am unwilling to think such baseness of any human being, and find the
evidence for such a suspicion as yet lacking; the whole transaction
seems to show a blundering from step to step, making each decision
not on principles of common sense, but under some esoteric code of
military honor, honor soon being forgotten in the pursuit of military
success. Germany’s official attitude, as voiced by her Chancellor, is
that she was forced to mobilize under menace at her Russian and French
borders. This is the best construction that can be put on her case.
Whether one accepts this plea or not, will depend on his view of the
motives that prompted the Russian and French mobilization. Would France
and Russia have waited quietly during long negotiations, or were they
awaiting the favorable moment for an invasion? Did they want peace or
war? Considering the little advantage and the certain sacrifice that
each nation finds in this war, the answer can hardly be in doubt.
There is not the slightest indication that either had any intention
of invading Germany, or anything to gain by it. But the militaristic
mind is trained to see in every movement of foreign troops a direct
threat, and it is credible enough that the Kaiser’s counsellors were
intellectually incapable of grasping the idea of a mobilization in the
interest of peace. For years they have propounded the axiom that to
negotiate without show of force, is fruitless waste of time, and now
they add the paradoxical corollary, “But Germany will not treat with
any nation that makes a show of force.” Obviously Germany could have
mobilized while continuing to treat. There were evidences that Austria,
had her face been saved, would have reconsidered her rash move. From
the British “White Paper” it is plain that, had Germany effected any
slight modification of the Austrian demands, England would have stood
out of the war. The fact that three weeks after the declaration of
war Russia was hardly ready for an advance shows that Germany was not
immediately menaced by the Russian mobilization. The German ultimatum
which cut short both the direct negotiations between Vienna and St.
Petersburg and Lord Grey’s promising plan of mediation was a crime
against civilization--and stupid military policy as well.
The German attitude may again and most simply be construed as blindly
loyal support of an ally right or wrong. It is a purely technical duty
that Italy very sensibly repudiated. In the sense that Germany had
unquestionably countenanced the ultimatum to Servia, she would seem
committed. But such committals are subject, after all, to humanity
and common sense, and to the conduct of the ally to whom support has
been engaged. No nation is bound to risk its very existence for a rash
ally. Yet on the theory of _pundonor_, that is where Germany finds
herself today. The stern unreasoning maxims of a military caste must
have counted for much in Germany’s obduracy. No motive of interest,
immediate or remote, would at all justify or account for the assumption
of a hazard involving the continuance and integrity of the Empire
itself.
It is certain that Germany underestimated the hazard. A dynastic
war with Russia she was willing to accept and almost courted. The
contingent hostility of France she apparently did not fear. For
securing the neutrality of England she had a most plausible programme.
The explicit warnings from London she believed to be bluff. She
probably counted on a servile Belgium. How badly she had misconceived
her world, the event promptly proved. England and France were as ready
to make the last sacrifice for ideals of international moderation and
good faith as Germany for mediæval punctilio; industrial Belgium was
capable of heroic resistance.
All the official statements of Germany abound in technicalities which
to common sense are negligible. The precise amount and chronology
of French and Russian provocation at the border, the amount of
infraction of Belgian neutrality implied in the secret presence of
French officers--all these matters are weighed with the solemnity and
exactness of the seven degrees of the lie. The very language is that
of the tiltyard or fencing floor. Such a move implies another; to the
thrusts of Russia and France, Germany always parries in the forms.
This was throughout the temper of the Wilhelmstrasse and of the German
ambassadors at the danger points, Vienna and St. Petersburg. Had the
Germans wanted the war, they could not have acted a whit otherwise. It
is entirely possible that the secret memoirs of the future, will show
that the whole clumsy transaction was merely the Kaiser’s parody of the
astute machinations of Bismarck in 1870.
The position of France was in all main regards a defensive one,
although she was bound as well by treaty to support Russia. Against
unavowed German military movements, France openly reinforced her
frontier, meanwhile seeking a diplomatic solution. Germany once more
took the ground that she would not negotiate with a foe in process of
mobilization, and precipitated the rupture by an ultimatum. In a larger
sense France is defending her own civilization and her own influence
among nations against the pretension of Teutonic preponderancy in
Europe.
England’s participation in the war was required, first, by her naval
agreement with France; next, by her determination to maintain the
neutrality of the small nations Luxembourg and Belgium. For several
years the English in the North Sea and Channel and the French in the
Mediterranean, have mutually engaged to defend each other’s interests
in those respective waters. This meant that imminent war found the
French fleet in southern waters, and her northern and western coast
open to Germany’s attack. Sir Edward Grey in his first statement before
Parliament promised that England would live up to her bargain, and if
necessary undertake the naval defense of the French coast. This was
the frank acknowledgment of a minimum obligation, to break which, Mr.
Asquith later justly remarked, would have utterly discredited a private
individual. England’s next move was determined by the appeal for aid
of neutralized Belgium. England demanded a statement of Germany’s
intentions as regards Belgium and the other neutralized powers, and
when the note was answered by the hastening of the invasion of Belgium,
declared war.
Sound national policy as well as honor forced the decision. England
could not take the risk of Germany at Antwerp. And German assurances to
respect the sovereignty of Belgium had been proved worthless in advance
by Germany’s violating the neutrality she was pledged to maintain.
It is significant that the bullying sophisms with which Germany had
confronted her Continental neighbors were not even hinted at in the
case of England. There was no longer any disinclination to confer
with a power in a state of martial preparation. There were numerous
suggestions by which England might defend France passively, there was
even a hint that the violated neutralities would be respected, for a
consideration. In any case the evident preparedness of the British
fleet was not regarded as disqualifying England as a negotiatory power,
though as a matter of fact the bounds of Germany were never more
effectively attacked than when sealed orders were issued to Admiral
Jellicoe. Germany could, when she wished, deal with a potential foe in
arms,--deal patiently and at length. The point of honor raised against
France and Russia should be interpreted in the light of the repeated
offers to buy off England.
England had the good fortune to take the clearest and most
disinterested stand of all the embroiled powers. She was bound by a
special obligation, which she could not dishonor, but which, had the
Germans engaged not to attack France or her colonies by sea, might
have left England a neutral. She was driven to arms by the ruthless
molestation of neutral Belgium. It was the cause of civilization. In no
particular have international law and world peace been more developed
than in the neutralization of states. To attack this is to attack in
perhaps its most vital spot the progress of the world. It is at best
the act of a barbarian and an outlaw, and when committed upon a people
who have offended in nothing but in asserting the right that the
aggressor himself has guaranteed, it is the act of a savage. That there
is a penalty for violating a neutralized state, the presence of England
in this war is most exemplary evidence. She has truly taken up arms in
the cause of peace.
Reviewing the motives of the combatants, Austria and Germany are
fighting for the prerogatives and ideals of a politico-military
hierarchy; Russia is fighting for a little nation of kindred blood
and identical faith which had been outrageously attacked; France is
fighting in self defense and for her treaty obligations; England is
explicitly fighting for the principle of neutralization. In a larger
sense the various motives of the powers embattled against Austria and
Germany merge in the need of a gigantic police enterprise. We have on
a tremendous scale the attempt to chastise two criminally aggressive
powers, which Mr. Norman Angell proposed, on a smaller and less ruinous
scale, as a means towards securing peace. The spirit that animates the
European coalition against the two central Empires is that a small
nation should not be brutally entreated by a stronger by reason of its
greater strength, nor a neutralized nation be molested by violation of
its soil and slaying of its citizens. If we hold clearly in mind this
police aspect of the war, we are in a position to weigh some of the
possibilities.
The success of Austria and Germany would mean the extinction of what
little international law and morality has been painfully built up
through the centuries, the impact of the mailed fist throughout Europe,
the rigid rule of a pedantic and tyrannical bureaucracy, the diminution
of the variety and vitality of western civilization, the clamping
upon the world for an indefinite future the most unendurable bonds
of militarism. Fortunately there is small reason to dread so dire a
disaster for humanity. The stars fight in their courses against those
who would undo the work of time.
The success of the _Triple Entente_, may, as it is directed, take
us far towards permanent peace, or once more establish a military
tension that in its turn must produce new wars. What is all important
is that the police character of this war should not be lost sight of.
It is always easy for the most generous causes to sink to a level of
immediate small interests--the Crusaders forgetting the Holy Sepulchre
while Constantinople is being looted. Such temptations will beset the
_Triple Entente_ in the event of a triumph. Meanwhile, it may be the
part of France and England to restrain the bitterness of Russia, who is
engaged in a war essentially racial. It is necessary that the lesson
administered to Germany and Austria be complete and convincing. Their
best wishers can only desire for them a prompt and sharp chastisement.
The peace of the world requires either the reduction of Germany to
military impotence or a change in the arrogant temper of her ruling
class.
Since the war has been occasioned by the stubborn folly of a military
and diplomatic caste, the minimum of reform, is that that caste should
be deposed in Austria and Germany. France set an example over forty
years ago. Such deposition to be effective would apparently involve
such constitutional changes that it is difficult to see how either
the Hapsburg or Hohenzollern dynasty could logically survive the
revolution. In the light of history neither would be missed.
Historically, the notion of a central European Empire has meant
nothing but harm. Through the Middle Ages the cheap parodists of the
Cæsars trafficked when they might, and fought when they must, claiming
territory at large, setting race against race, and pontiff against
king, raiding and looting rich neighboring lands rather than waging
war, fomenting religious persecution, opposing by trickery and force
the development of the new races and nationalities. Such was for
centuries the record of the Holy Roman Empire. For Europe its legend
has ever been baleful. Everybody knows that the House of Hapsburg
inherits by direct descent this tradition, and Austria with its loose
hold over many races is today a simulacrum of the Mediæval Empire,
owing her new lease of life, after the Imperial idea had discredited
itself, to the suppression of Hungary with the aid of Imperial Russia.
In the Emperor Franz Josef we have an individual superior to his
origins, but he inevitably inherited the diplomatic and military caste
of advisors and administrators who have brought Austria to the present
pass. The mentality of this hierarchy was fixed after the Napoleonic
wars, at the moment when reaction was exaggerated, and has not changed
with changing times.
At least the Austrian Empire and its ruling caste had the warrant of
tradition. In Germany the tradition was recently made to order by the
genius of Bismarck. The mediæval caste which Austria inherited, Germany
deliberately created for herself. The Empire rose out of no instinctive
need of the race, from no demand of the numerous small states and free
cities, but as the clever utilization of a brilliant military triumph.
What war gave, war could take away. The Empire that was proclaimed at
Versailles might be terminated at Potsdam. The offence of the Empire
is not its title and form but in the changing for the worse of the
German character. Governments are worth just what they produce in
national character. The German temper is naturally genial, thrifty,
deliberate, patient, scholarly and musical. Official Germany has
developed an intolerable arrogance that threatens the whole world. The
Kaiser has mediævalized Germany’s ruling caste, and is the symbol of
that process.
Personally I do not believe that the _Triple Entente_ will be called
upon to dispose of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties, any more
than in 1871, Germany was burdened with the disposition of Napoleon
III. Like causes produce like effects, and when Austria and Germany
shall have awakened from red dreams of conquest, to the gray reality of
defeat, they may be trusted to call to account these responsible for
their humiliation.
With an Imperial Austria and Germany, the _Triple Entente_ could only
deal most sternly, always along those modern lines of penology which do
not avenge the offence, but see to it that the offender be not allowed
to repeat it. On the theory that the present administration of Germany
and Austria is to be perpetuated, nothing less than the crippling
of those powers could guarantee even a few years of peace. With a
reorganized Germany and Austria, the allies could and should deal far
more generously than Germany did with the bantling French Republic.
Belgium, for violated neutrality should obviously be made Germany’s
preferred creditor.
Into more speculative matters I will only briefly inquire. There
will naturally be some readjustment of the central European map to
make political and racial lines more nearly coincident. Many of the
historic states which have been whipped or cajoled into the two Empires
may reëmerge. A number of small neutralized states in central Europe
is among the possibilities. How much of such a process the loosely
articulated Austrian Empire can stand is problematical. Some kind of a
coherent Germany should emerge from the disaster, and all that is most
certainly and valuably German will be preserved. German victory would
overwhelm it under militarism. The intellectual primacy of Germany has
never depended on the legend of the Empire. It was acknowledged before
the Empire was dreamed of, and would survive if the Empire were only an
unblest memory. The real Germany has today only friends in the world.
To many of us she is an intellectual foster mother and very dear. We
hope to see her relieved of disguising mediæval frippery, and once more
her radiant and edifying self. In the Kaiser’s proclamation he protests
against world wide jealousy and hatred of Germany. Without mincing
words, it may be admitted that the world is justly hostile to him and
what he represents. He identifies himself and what he represents with
Germany. When she shall have set that misunderstanding straight, she
will find in the world only friends and sympathizers.
Looking to the future, and especially to the cause of peace, the war
suggests certain reflections. If the war results only in a consciously
suppressed Germany and Austria kept in order by the armies of the
_Triple Entente_, nothing much will have been done. If the ruffian
temper of German officialdom persists, Europe will merely have lavished
once more her treasure, tears and blood in the old inconclusive way.
The hope lies in a solution so just that the defeated nations may
accept it, so wise that it may safely include a general reduction of
armaments. The cause of peace is already the gainer by a sensational
demonstration of the fallacy of the stock sophism that the only
guarantee of peace is competitive arming. The way in which the little
spark struck on the Danube overran Europe proves that competitive
arming is not merely the ready occasion of war, but of war on the most
costly and disastrous terms.
But pacificists should not press their momentary advantage beyond the
bounds of common sense. There is already a fanatical tendency to
denounce war as such, instead of seeking out and denouncing those who
have made war without just cause. Of course war abstractly is just as
much and just as little moral or immoral as a cyclone. It would be
quite as logical to meet and pass resolutions against the earthquake
that filled peaceful Messina with human carrion, as to denounce
wholesale this or any war. The case of Belgium suggests that it is
not the moment for any sensible person to waste his time in working
for complete disarmament. Had she trusted solely to the treaties that
protected her, how complete would have been her humiliation! Belgium
also shows most instructively that the maintenance of an effective
military _morale_ does not imply militarism. None of the Belgian
officers who held the cordon of Liege had been taught that his honor as
a soldier might at any moment require him to sabre an unarmed civilian.
Yet the Belgian officers gave a sufficiently good account of themselves
against those who had been trained in the bullying tradition. With
Belgium still in view, and recalling what would have been her fate had
she trusted solely in the treaties that protected her, no sensible
person could now advise any nation to disarm below the reasonable
requirements of defense. It is possible however that these limits
may be greatly reduced by right thinking among nations. Already the
individual is measurably free to criticise his own country when engaged
in a war that he deems unjust. How great a liberty that is few of us
realize. The next step is freedom for large bodies of individuals to
refuse to serve their country in a war waged without popular consent
and palpably unjust. A people thus minded would be the greatest check
on that interested bureaucracy that any military establishment,
however, moderate, involves. How far we still are from that, the
rallying of the socialists to all the colors shows plainly.
Perhaps the most fertile notion arising from the situation is that
of an international police function to be exercised by the most
enlightened nations. Something of this there was, though motives were
badly mixed, in the Spanish-American war; the notion has plainly
governed President Wilson’s Mexican policy. Indeed this police right
has at all times been pretty freely claimed by strong powers against
weak. It is a tremendous moral gain to see the principle asserted
against strong powers who are imperilling the good order of the
world,--and this irrespective of the outcome of the war.
A most valuable demonstration has been made of the validity of the
principle of neutralization. Since small neutralized states are not for
the future to be abandoned to any strong aggressor, they may safely be
multiplied. Here may be a solution of the problem of racially varied
central Europe. Everything depends upon England and France holding
their representative function loyally to the end, and avoiding the
national egotism that war in the past has usually aroused. If they are
faithful to the charge they have explicitly undertaken, a new era may
open for humanity.
The part of pacificists is to avoid phrases, and deal with facts.
In the long run there can be no peace so long as individuals put
their lives at the disposal of any kind of leader who waves the flag
in any kind of cause. So long as nations are unreasoning mobs the
moment the trumpet sounds, it will be idle to depose military castes;
others will promptly form, and in their turn prevail. Accordingly the
educational campaign of the pacificists must continue,--continue,
however, with the frank admission that the sword has often in the
past been drawn for ulterior righteousness and peace, and that if the
time ever comes when from mere horror of war men decline to draw the
sword in a clearly righteous cause, so exanimate a world will enjoy
precisely the peace it deserves. We must beware of considering peace
and war as respectively _bonum_ and _malum in se_. In the present
case, to have yielded to Germany would, in the lowering of the moral
tone of Europe, have been more disastrous than the unhappy war that
has resulted from a single outrageous move: for submission would have
meant that the world was content to continue in the twentieth century
the ethics of Metternich and Bismarck, while the fact of the war means
that the twentieth century world is prepared, at whatever cost, to
repudiate the neo-mediævalism that paradoxically imposed itself upon
the international politics of the nineteenth century--prepared to work
out a better ethics and politics, looking to a more peaceful future.
Meanwhile the present task of civilization is to avert an imminent
Prussian Peril, and to humble the new Tamerlane who has thrust a
continent into war. Should he win, no nation is safe.