the time the source of Germany's success, it is a question whether it is
not even now becoming something quite different, and the likely cause of
a serious downfall. It would seem hardly probable that the amalgamation
between elements so utterly dissimilar can permanently endure. The
kindly, studious, sociable, rather naïvely innocent German mass-people
dragged by the scruff of the neck into the arena of militarism and
world-politics, may for a time have had their heads turned by the
exalted position in which they found themselves; but it is not likely
that they will continue for long to enjoy the situation. With no great
instinct for politics, nor any marked gift of tact and discernment,
unsuccessful as a rule as colonists,[17] and with no understanding of
how to govern--except on the Prussian lines, which are every day
becoming more obsolete and less adapted to the modern world--the rôle
which their empire-building philosophers set out for them is one which
they are eminently unfitted to fulfil. It is sad, but we cannot blame
them for the defect. They blame the world in general for siding against
them in this affair, but do not see that in most cases it has been their
own want of perception which has left them on the wrong side of the
hedge.
Bismarck, with his "Blood and Iron" policy, made a huge blunder in not
perceiving that in the modern world spiritual forces are arising which
must for ever discredit the same. He emphasized the blunder by wresting
Alsace-Lorraine from France, and again by crippling Russia in the treaty
of 1878--thus making enemies where generosity might have brought him
friends. The German Executive in July of last year (1914) showed
extraordinary want of tact in not seeing that Russia, rebuffed in 1908
over Bosnia and Herzegovina, would never put up with a _second_ insult
of the same kind over Servia. The same Government was strangely unable
to perceive that whatever it might tactically gain by the invasion and
devastation of Belgium would be more than lost by the moral effect of
such action on the whole world; and notwithstanding its army of spies,
it had not the sense to see that England, whether morally bound to or
not, was certain, at all costs, to fight in defence of Belgium's
neutrality. So true it is that without the understanding which comes
from the heart, all the paraphernalia of science and learning and the
material results of organization and discipline are of little good.
But however we choose to apportion the blame or at least the
responsibility for the situation among the various Governments
concerned, the main point and the main lesson of it all is to see that
any such apportionment does not much matter! As long as our Governments
are constructed as they are--that is, on the principle of representing,
not the real masses of their respective peoples, but the interests of
certain classes, especially the commercial, financial, and military
classes--so long will such wars be inevitable. The real blame rests,
not with the particular Foreign policy of this or that country but with
the fact that Europe, already rising through her mass-peoples into a far
finer and more human and spiritual life than of old, still lies bound in
the chains of an almost Feudal social order.
When the great German mass-peoples find this out, when they discover the
little rift in the lute which now separates their real quality from the
false standards of their own dominant military and commercial folk, then
their true rôle in the world will begin, and a glorious rôle it will be.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] "A German," he said, "could not live long in the atmosphere of
England--an atmosphere of sham, prudery, conventionality, and
hollowness"! See article on "Treitschke," by W.H. Dawson, in the
_Nineteenth Century_ for January 1915.
[14] The influence, however, of Bernhardi in his own country has been
somewhat exaggerated in England.
[15] It seems that the same remark is made about the Germans in the
U.S.A., that they take little interest in politics there.
[16] This attitude is exactly corroborated by Herr Maximilian Harden's
manifesto, originally published in _Die Zukunft,_ and lately reprinted
in the _New York Times_.
[17] Though this is only, perhaps, true of their State colonies. In
their individual and missionary colonizing groups, and as pioneer
settlers, they seem to have succeeded well.
VI
THE HEALING OF, NATIONS[18]
It is quite possible that the little rift within the lute, alluded to in
the concluding paragraph of last chapter, may widen so far as to cause
before long great internal changes and reconstructions in Germany
herself; but short of that happening, it would seem that there is no
alternative for the Allies but to continue the war until her Militarism
can be put out of court, and that for long years to come. There is no
alternative, because she has revealed her hand too clearly as a
menace--if she should prevail--of barbarous force to the whole world. It
is this menace which has roused practically the whole world against her.
And there is this amount of good in the situation, namely, that while
with the victory of Germany a German "terror" might be established
through the world, with the victory of the Allies neither England, nor
France, nor Russia, nor little Belgium, nor any other country, could
claim a final credit and supremacy. With the latter victory we shall be
freed from the nightmare claim of any one nation's world-empire.
But in order to substantiate this result England must also abdicate her
claim. She must abdicate her mere crass insistence on commercial
supremacy. The "Nation of Shopkeepers" theory, which has in the past
made her the hated of other nations, which has created within her
borders a vulgar and unpleasant class--the repository of much arrogant
wealth--must cease to be the standard of her life. I have before me at
this moment a manifesto of "The British Empire League," patronized by
royalty and the dukes, and of which Lord Rothschild is treasurer. The
constitution of the League was framed in 1895; and I note with regret
that positively the five "principal objects of the League" mentioned
therein have solely to do with the extension and facilitation of
Britain's trade, and the "co-operation of the military and naval forces
of the Empire with a special view to the due protection of the trade
routes." Not a word is said _in the whole manifesto_ about the human and
social responsibilities of this vast Empire; not a word about the
guardianship and nurture of native races, their guidance and assistance
among the pitfalls of civilization; not a word about the principles of
honour and just dealing with regard to our civilized neighbour-nations
in Europe and elsewhere; not a word about the political freedom and
welfare of all classes at home. One rubs one's eyes, and looks at the
document again; but it is so. Its one inspiration is--Trade. Seeing
that, I confess to a sinking of the heart. Can we blame Germany for
struggling at all costs to enlarge her borders, when _that_ is what the
British Empire means?
Until we rise, as a nation, to a conception of what we mean by our
national life, finer and grander than a mere counting of trade-returns,
what can we expect save failure and ill-success?
Possibly in the conviction that she is fighting for a worthy object (the
ending of militarism), and in the determination (if sincerely carried
out) of once more playing her part in the world as the protector of
small nations, Britain may find her salvation, and a cause which will
save her soul. It is certainly encouraging to find that there is a
growing feeling in favour of the recognition and rehabilitation of the
small peoples of the world. If it is true that Britain by her grasping
Imperial Commercialism in the past (and let us hope that period _is_
past) has roused jealousy and hatred among the other nations, equally is
it true that Germany to-day, by her dreams of world-conquest, has been
rousing hatred and fear. But the day has gone by of world-empires
founded on the lust of conquest, whether that conquest be military or
commercial. The modern peoples surely are growing out of dreams so
childish as that. The world-empire of Goethe and Beethoven is even now
far more extensive, far more powerful, than that which Wilhelm II and
his Junkers are seeking to encompass. There is something common,
unworthy, in the effort of domination; and while the Great Powers have
thus vulgarized themselves, it is the little countries who have gone
forward in the path of progress. "In modern Europe what do we not owe to
little Switzerland, lighting the torch of freedom six hundred years ago,
and keeping it alight through all the centuries when despotic monarchies
held the rest of the European Continent? And what to free Holland, with
her great men of learning and her painters surpassing those of all other
countries save Italy? So the small Scandinavian nations have given to
the world famous men of science, from Linnaeus downwards, poets like
Tegner and Björnson, scholars like Madvig, dauntless explorers like
Fridthiof Nansen. England had, in the age of Shakespeare, Bacon, and
Milton, a population little larger than that of Bulgaria to-day. The
United States, in the days of Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and
Hamilton and Marshall, counted fewer inhabitants than Denmark or
Greece."[19]
In all their internal politics and social advancement, Switzerland,
Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Finland (until the paw of the Bear
was on her) and Belgium (till the claw of the Spread-Eagle) have been
well to the fore. It is they who have carried on the banner of idealism
which Germany herself uplifted when she was a small people or a group of
small peoples. It is they who have really had prosperous, healthy,
independent, and alert populations. How much more interesting, we may
say, would Europe be under the variety of such a regime than under the
monotonous bureaucracy and officialism of any Great Power! And to some
such scheme we must adhere. It would mean, of course, the alliance of
all the States of Western Europe, large and small (and including both a
remodelled Germany and a largely remodelled Austria) in one great
Federation--whose purpose would be partly to unite and preserve Europe
against any common foe, from the East or elsewhere, and partly to
regulate any overweening ambition of a member of the Federation, such as
might easily become a menace to the other members. A secondary but most
important result of the formation of such a United States of Europe
would be that while each State would probably preserve a small military
establishment of its own, the enormous and fatal incubus of the present
armaments system would be rendered unnecessary, and so at last the
threat of national bankruptcy and ruin, which has of late pursued the
nations Like an evil dream, might pass away. But in that matter of
finance it cannot be disguised that a terrible period still awaits the
European peoples. Already the moneylenders sitting on their chests form
a veritable nightmare; but with fresh debts by the thousand million
sterling being contracted, there is great danger that the mass-peoples
beneath will be worse paralysed and broken even than they are
now--unless, indeed, with a great effort they rouse themselves and throw
off the evil burden.
That the world is waking up to a recognition of _racial_ rights--that
is, the right of each race to have as far as possible its own
Government, instead of being lorded over by an alien race--is a good
sign; and a European settlement along that line must be pressed for. At
last, after centuries of discomfort, we at home are finding our solution
of the Irish question in this very obvious way; and it may be that
Europe, tired of war, may finally have the sense to adopt the same
principle. Of course, there are cases where populations are so mixed,
as, for instance, the Czechs and Slovaks and Germans in Bohemia and
Moravia, or where small colonies of one race are so embedded in the
midst of another race, as are the Germans among the Roumanians of
Transylvania, that this solution may be difficult. That is no reason,
however, why the general principle should not be applied. It _must_,
indeed, be applied if Europe is not to return to barbarism.
And it interests us--having regard to what I have said about _class_
rule being so fruitful a cause of war--to remember that the rule of one
race by another always does mean class rule. The alien conquerors who
descend upon a country become the military and landlord caste there.
Thus the Norman barons in England, the English squires in Ireland, the
Magyars in Hungary, the German barons in East Prussia and the Baltic
provinces, and so forth. They make their profit and maintain themselves
out of the labour and the taxation of the subject peoples.
In the earlier forms of social life, when men lived in tribes, a rude
equality and democracy prevailed; there was nothing that could well be
called class-government; there was simply custom and the leadership of
the elders of the tribe. Then with the oncoming of what we call
civilization, and the growth of the sense of property, differences
arose--accumulations of wealth and power by individuals, enslavements of
tribes by other tribes; and classes sprang up, and class-government, and
so the material of endless suffering and oppression and hatred and
warfare. I have already explained (in the Introduction) that Class in
itself as the mere formation within a nation of groups of similar
occupation and activity--working harmoniously with each other and with
the nation--is a perfectly natural and healthy phenomenon; it is only
when it means groups pursuing their own interests counter to each other
and to the nation that it becomes diseased. There will come a time when
the class-element in this latter sense will be ejected from society, and
society will return again to its democratic form and structure. There
will be no want, in that time, of variety of occupation and talent, or
of differentiation in the social organism; quite the contrary; but
simply there will be no predatory or parasitical groups within such
organism, whose, interests will run counter to the whole, and which will
act (as such classes act now) as foci and seedbeds of disease and strife
within the whole. With a return to the recognition of racial rights and
autonomies over the world, it is clear that one great cause of strife
will be removed, and we shall be one step nearer to the ending of the
preposterous absurdity of war.
And talking about the difficulty of sorting out mixed populations, or of
dealing with small colonies of one race embedded in the midst of another
race, it is evident that once you get rid of autocratic or military or
class-government of any kind, and return to democratic forms, this
difficulty will be much reduced or disappear. Small democratic communes
are perfectly simple to form in groups of any magnitude or minuteness
which may be desirable; and such groups would easily federate or ally
themselves with surrounding democracies of alien race, whereas if
lorded over by alien conquerors they would be in a state of chronic
rebellion. Of such democratic alliance and federation of peoples of
totally different race, Switzerland supplies a well-recognized and
far-acclaimed example.
* * * * *
That in the future there will be an outcry in favour of Conscription
made by certain parties in Britain goes without saying; but that must be
persistently opposed. The nation says it is fighting to put down
Militarism. Why, then, make compulsory militarism foundational in our
national life? To abolish militarism _by_ militarism is like "putting
down Drink" by swallowing it! The whole lesson of this war is against
conscription. Germany could never have "imposed herself" on Europe
without it. And yet her soldiers, brave as they naturally are, and
skilfully as they have fought, have not done themselves justice. How
could they under such conditions--forced into battle by their officers,
flung in heaps on the enemy's guns? The voluntary response in Britain to
the call to arms has been inspiriting; and if voluntaryism means
momentary delay in a crisis, still it means success in the end. No
troops have fought more finely than the British. Said Surgeon-General
Evatt, speaking in London in October--and General Evatt's word in such a
matter ought to carry weight: "After long experience in studying
Russian, German, Bavarian, Saxon, French, Spanish, and American fighting
units, my verdict is unhesitatingly in favour of the British.... What
has occurred lately has been a splendid triumph of citizenship, because
people were allowed their proper liberty and the consciousness of
freely, sharing in a great Empire."
Besides it must always be remembered that conscription gives a
Government power to initiate an iniquitous war, whereas voluntaryism
keeps the national life clean and healthy. A free people will not fight
for the trumped-up schemes and selfish machinations of a class--not,
indeed, unless they are grossly deceived by, Press and Class plots.
Anyhow, to force men to fight in causes which they do not approve, to
compel them to adopt a military career when their temperaments are
utterly unsuited to such a thing, or when their consciences or their
religion forbid them--these things are both foolish and wicked.
If the nation wants soldiers it must pay for them. England, for example,
is rolling in wealth; and it is simply a scandal that the wealthy
classes should sit at home in comfort and security and pay to the man in
the trenches--who is risking his life at every moment, and often living
in such exhaustion and misery as actually to wish for the bullet which
will _end_ his life--no more than the minimum wage of an ordinary
day-labourer; and that they should begrudge every penny paid to his
dependents--whether he be living or dead--or to himself when he returns,
a lifelong cripple, to his home. To starve and stint your own soldiers,
to discourage recruiting, and then to make the consequent failure of men
to come forward into an excuse for conscription is the meanest of
policies. As a matter of fact, the circumstances of the present war show
that with anything like decent reward for their services there is an
abundant, an almost over-abundant, supply of men ready to flock to the
standard of their country in a time of necessity. Nor must it be
forgotten, in this matter of pay, that the general type and average of
our forces to-day, whether naval or military, is far higher than it was
fifty, years ago. The men are just as plucky, and more educated, more
alert, more competent in every way. To keep them up to this high
standard of efficiency they need a high standard of care and
consideration.
It may, however, be said--in view of our present industrial conditions,
and the low standard of physical health and vitality prevailing among
the young folk of our large towns--that physical drill and scout
training, including ambulance and other work, and qualification in
_some_ useful trade, might very well be made a part of our general
educational system, for rich and poor alike, say, between the ages of
sixteen and eighteen. Such a training would to each individual boy be
immensely valuable, and by providing some rudimentary understanding of
military, affairs and the duties of public service and citizenship,
would enable him to choose _how_ he could be helpful to the
nation--provided always he were not forced to make his choice in a
direction distasteful or repugnant to him. In any good cause, as in a
war of _defence_ against a foreign enemy, it is obvious enough, as I
have said, that there would be plenty of native enthusiasm forthcoming
without legal or official pressure. However, I have enlarged a little on
the subject of Conscription in a later chapter, and will say no more
here.
But the burning and pressing question is: Why should we--we, the
"enlightened and civilized" nations of Europe--get involved in these
senseless wars at all? And surely _this_ war will, of all wars, force an
answer to the question. Here, for the last twenty years, have these
so-called Great Powers been standing round, all professing that their
one desire is peace, and all meanwhile arming to the teeth; each
accusing the others of militant intentions, and all lamenting that "war
is inevitable." Here they have been forming their _Ententes_ and
Alliances, carrying on their diplomatic cabals and intrigues, studying
the map and adjusting the Balance of Power--all, of course, with the
best intentions--and lo! with the present result! What nonsense! What
humbug! What an utter bankruptcy of so-called diplomacy! When will the
peoples themselves arise and put a stop to this fooling--the people who
give their lives and pay the cost of it all? If the present-day,
diplomats and Foreign Ministers have sincerely striven for peace, then
their utter incapacity and futility have been proved to the hilt, and
they must be swept away. If they have not sincerely striven for peace,
but only pretended to so strive, then also they must be swept away, for
deceit in such a matter is unpardonable.
And no doubt the latter alternative is the true one. There has been a
pretence of the Governments all round--a pretence of deep concern for
humanity and the welfare of the mass-peoples committed to their charge;
but the real moving power beneath has been _class_-interest--the
interest of the great commercial class in each nation, with its acolyte
and attendant, the military or aristocratic. It is this class, with its
greeds and vanities and suspicions and jealousies, which is the cause of
strife; the working-masses of the various nations have no desire to
quarrel with each other. Nay, they are animated by a very different
spirit.
In an interesting article published by the German Socialist paper
_Vorwärts_, on September 27, 1914, and reproduced in our Press, occurred
the following passage, in which the war is traced to its commercial
sources: "Germany has enjoyed an economical prosperity such as no other
country has experienced during the last decade. That meant with the
capitalist class a revival of strong Imperialist tendencies, which have
been evident enough. This, again, gave rise to mistrust abroad, at
least in capitalist circles, who did their best to communicate their
feelings to the great masses, ... and so the German people as a whole
has been made responsible for what has been the work of a small
class.... The comrades abroad can be assured that though German workmen
are ready to defend their country they will, above all, not forget that
their interests are the same as those of the proletariat in other
countries, who also against their will were forced into the war and now
do their duty. They can rest assured that the German people are not less
humane than others--a result to which education through workmen's
organizations has greatly contributed. If German soldiers in the
excitement of war should commit atrocities, it can be said that among
us--and also in other circles--there will not be a single person to
approve of them."
Reading this statement--so infinitely more sensible and human than
anything to be found in the ordinary Capitalist Press of England and
Germany--one cannot help feeling that there is practically little hope
for the future _until_ the international working masses throughout
Europe come forward and, joining hands with each other, take charge of
the foolish old Governments (who represent the remains of the decadent
feudal and commercial systems), and shape the Western world at last to
the heart's desire of the peoples that inhabit it.
"The peoples of the world desire peace," said Bourtzeff, the Russian
exile[20]--and he, who has been in many lands, ought to know. But they
also--if they would obtain peace--must exercise an eternal vigilance
lest they fall into the hands of class-schemers and be betrayed into
that which they do _not_ desire. The example of Germany--which we have
considered above--shows how easily a good and friendly and pacific
people may, by mere political inattention and ignorance, and by a
quasi-scientific philosophy, which imposes on its political ignorance,
be led into a disastrous situation. It shows how preposterous it is that
Governments generally--as at present constituted--should set themselves
up as the representatives of the mass-peoples' wishes, and as the
arbiters of national destinies. And it shows how vitally necessary it is
that the people, even the working masses and the peasants, should have
some sort of political education and understanding.