THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
From what we have so far considered, two things are evident. First, it
is quite clear that in the world, as it is at this moment situated,
it is literally criminal, literally a crime against the nation, not
to be adequately and thoroughly prepared in advance, so as to guard
ourselves and hold our own in war. We should have a much better army
than at present, including especially a far larger reserve upon which
to draw in time of war. We should have first-class fortifications,
especially on the canal and in Hawaii. Most important of all, we should
not only have a good navy but should have it continually exercised
in manœuvring. For nearly two years our navy has totally lacked
the practice in manœuvring in fleet formation indispensable to its
efficiency.
Of all the lessons hitherto taught by the war, the most essential
for us to take to heart is that taught by the catastrophe that has
befallen Belgium. One side of this catastrophe, one lesson taught by
Belgium’s case, is the immense gain in the self-respect of a people
that has dared to fight heroically in the face of certain disaster and
possible defeat. Every Belgian throughout the world carries his head
higher now than he has ever carried it before, because of the proof
of virile strength that his people have given. In the world at large
there is not the slightest interest concerning Luxembourg’s ultimate
fate; there is nothing more than amusement as to the discussion whether
Japan or Germany is most to blame in connection with the infringement
of Chinese neutrality. This is because neither China nor Luxembourg has
been able and willing effectively to stand for her own rights. At this
moment Luxembourg is enjoying “peace”--the peace of death. But Belgium
has stood for her own rights. She has shown heroism, courage, and
self-sacrifice, and, great though the penalty, the ultimate reward will
be greater still.
If ever this country is attacked and drawn into war as Belgium, through
no fault of her own, was drawn into war, I hope most earnestly that
she will emulate Belgium’s courage; and this she cannot do unless she
is prepared in advance as Belgium was prepared. In one point, as I
have already stated, I very earnestly hope that she will go beyond
Belgium. If any great city, such as New York or San Francisco, Boston
or Seattle, is held for ransom by a foreign foe, I earnestly hope that
Americans, within the city and without, will insist that not one dollar
of ransom shall be paid, and will gladly acquiesce in the absolute
destruction of the city, by fire or in any other manner, rather than
see a dollar paid into the war chest of our foes for the further
prosecution of the war against us. Napoleon the Great made many regions
pay for their own conquest and the conquest of the nations to which
they belonged. But Spain and Russia would not pay, and the burning of
Moscow and the defense of Saragossa marked the two great stages in the
turn of the tide against him. The prime lesson of this war is that no
nation can preserve its own self-respect, or the good-will of other
nations, unless it keeps itself ready to exact justice from others,
precisely as it should keep itself eager and willing to do justice to
others.
The second lesson is the utter inadequacy in times of great crises of
existing peace and neutrality treaties, and of all treaties conceived
in the spirit of the all-inclusive arbitration treaties recently
adopted at Washington; and, in fact, of all treaties which do not put
potential force behind the treaty, which do not create some kind of
international police power to stand behind international sense of right
as expressed in some competent tribunal.
It remains to consider whether there is not--and I believe there
is--some method which will bring nearer the day when international
war of the kind hitherto waged and now waging between nations shall
be relegated to that past which contains the kind of private war that
was habitually waged between individuals up to the end of the Middle
Ages. By degrees the work of a national police has been substituted
for the exercise of the right of private war. The growth of sentiment
in favor of peace within each nation accomplished little until an
effective police force was put back of the sentiment. There are a few
communities where such a police force is almost non-existent, although
always latent in the shape of a sheriff’s posse or something of the
kind. In all big communities, however, in all big cities, law is
observed, innocent and law-abiding and peaceful people are protected
and the disorderly and violent classes prevented from a riot of
mischief and wrong-doing only by the presence of an efficient police
force. Some analogous international police force must be created if war
between nations is to be minimized as war between individuals has been
minimized.
It is, of course, essential that, if this end is to be accomplished, we
shall face facts with the understanding of what they really signify.
Not the slightest good is done by hysterical outcries for a peace which
would consecrate wrong or leave wrongs unredressed. Little or nothing
would be gained by a peace which merely stopped this war for the moment
and left untouched all the causes that have brought it about. A peace
which left the wrongs of Belgium unredressed, which did not leave her
independent and secured against further wrong-doing, and which did not
provide measures hereafter to safeguard all peaceful nations against
suffering the fate that Belgium has suffered, would be mischievous
rather than beneficial in its ultimate effects. If the United States
had any part in bringing about such a peace it would be deeply to our
discredit as a nation. Belgium has been terribly wronged, and the
civilized world owes it to itself to see that this wrong is redressed
and that steps are taken which will guarantee that hereafter conditions
shall not be permitted to become such as either to require or to permit
such action as that of Germany against Belgium. Surely all good and
honest men who are lovers of peace and who do not use the great words
“love of peace” to cloak their own folly and timidity must agree that
peace is to be made the handmaiden of righteousness or else that it is
worthless.
England’s attitude in going to war in defense of Belgium’s rights,
according to its guarantee, was not only strictly proper but represents
the only kind of action that ever will make a neutrality treaty or
peace treaty or arbitration treaty worth the paper on which it is
written. The published despatches of the British government show that
Sir Edward Grey clearly, emphatically, and scrupulously declined to
commit his government to war until it became imperative to do so if
Great Britain was to fulfil, as her honor and interest alike demanded,
her engagements on behalf of the neutrality of Belgium. Of course, as
far as Great Britain is concerned, she would not be honorably justified
in making peace unless this object of her going to war was achieved.
Our hearty sympathy should go out to her in this attitude.
The case of Belgium in this war stands by itself. As regards all the
other powers, it is not only possible to make out a real case in favor
of every nation on each side, but it is also quite possible to show
that, under existing conditions, each nation was driven by its vital
interests to do what it did. The real nature of the problem we have
ahead of us can only be grasped if this attitude of the several powers
is thoroughly understood. To paint the Kaiser as a devil, merely bent
on gratifying a wicked thirst for bloodshed, is an absurdity, and
worse than an absurdity. I believe that history will declare that the
Kaiser acted in conformity with the feelings of the German people and
as he sincerely believed the interests of his people demanded; and, as
so often before in his personal and family life, he and his family
have given honorable proof that they possess the qualities that are
characteristic of the German people. Every one of his sons went to
the war, not nominally, but to face every danger and hardship. Two of
his sons hastily married the girls to whom they were betrothed and
immediately afterward left for the front.
This was a fresh illustration of one of the most striking features
of the outbreak of the war in Germany. In tens of thousands of cases
the officers and enlisted men, who were engaged, married immediately
before starting for the front. In many of the churches there were
long queues of brides waiting for the ceremony, so as to enable their
lovers to marry them just before they responded to the order that meant
that they might have to sacrifice everything, including life, for the
nation. A nation that shows such a spirit is assuredly a great nation.
The efficiency of the German organization, the results of the German
preparation in advance, were strikingly shown in the powerful forward
movement of the first six weeks of the war and in the steady endurance
and resolute resourcefulness displayed in the following months.
Not only is the German organization, the German preparedness, highly
creditable to Germany, but even more creditable is the spirit lying
behind the organization. The men and women of Germany, from the
highest to the lowest, have shown a splendid patriotism and abnegation
of self. In reading of their attitude, it is impossible not to feel a
thrill of admiration for the stern courage and lofty disinterestedness
which this great crisis laid bare in the souls of the people. I most
earnestly hope that we Americans, if ever the need may arise, will show
similar qualities.
It is idle to say that this is not a people’s war. The intensity of
conviction in the righteousness of their several causes shown by the
several peoples is a prime factor for consideration, if we are to take
efficient means to try to prevent a repetition of this incredible world
tragedy. History may decide in any war that one or the other party was
wrong, and yet also decide that the highest qualities and powers of the
human soul were shown by that party. We here in the United States have
now grown practically to accept this view as regards our own Civil War,
and we feel an equal pride in the high devotion to the right, as it was
given each man to see the right, shown alike by the men who wore the
blue and the men who wore the gray.
The English feel that in this war they fight not only for themselves
but for principle, for justice, for civilization, for a real and
lasting world peace. Great Britain is backed by the great free
democracies that under her flag have grown up in Canada, in Australia,
in South Africa. She feels that she stands for the liberties and rights
of weak nations everywhere. One of the most striking features of the
war is the way in which the varied peoples of India have sprung to arms
to defend the British Empire.
The Russians regard the welfare of their whole people as at stake.
The Russian Liberals believe that success for Russia means an end of
militarism in Europe. They believe that the Pole, the Jew, the Finn,
the man of the Caucasus will each and all be enfranchised, that the
advance of justice and right in Russia will be immeasurably furthered
by the triumph of the Russian people in this contest, and that the
conflict was essential, not only to Russian national life but to the
growth of freedom and justice within her boundaries.
The people of Germany believe that they are engaged primarily in a
fight for life of the Teuton against the Slav, of civilization against
what they regard as a vast menacing flood of barbarism. They went to
war because they believed the war was an absolute necessity, not merely
to German well-being but to German national existence. They sincerely
feel that the nations of western Europe are traitors to the cause of
Occidental civilization, and that they themselves are fighting, each
man for his own hearthstone, for his own wife and children, and all
for the future existence of the generations yet to come.
The French feel with passionate conviction that this is the last stand
of France, and that if she does not now succeed and is again trampled
under foot, her people will lose for all time their place in the
forefront of that great modern civilization of which the debt to France
is literally incalculable. It would be impossible too highly to admire
the way in which the men and women of France have borne themselves in
this nerve-shattering time of awful struggle and awful suspense. They
have risen level to the hour’s need, whereas in 1870 they failed so to
rise. The high valor of the French soldiers has been matched by the
poise, the self-restraint, the dignity and the resolution with which
the French people and the French government have behaved.
Of Austria and Hungary, of Servia and Montenegro, exactly the same is
true, and the people of each of these countries have shown the sternest
and most heroic courage and the loftiest and most patriotic willingness
for self-sacrifice.
To each of these peoples the war seems a crusade against threatening
wrong, and each man fervently believes in the justice of his cause.
Moreover, each combatant fights with that terrible determination to
destroy the opponent which springs from fear. It is not the fear
which any one of these powers has inspired that offers the difficult
problem. It is the fear which each of them genuinely feels. Russia
believes that a quarter of the Slav people will be trodden under the
heel of the Germans, unless she succeeds. France and England believe
that their very existence depends on the destruction of the German
menace. Germany believes that unless she can so cripple, and, if
possible, destroy her western foes, as to make them harmless in the
future, she will be unable hereafter to protect herself against the
mighty Slav people on her eastern boundary and will be reduced to a
condition of international impotence. Some of her leaders are doubtless
influenced by worse motives; but the motives above given are, I
believe, those that influence the great mass of Germans, and these are
in their essence merely the motives of patriotism, of devotion to one’s
people and one’s native land.
We nations who are outside ought to recognize both the reality of
this fear felt by each nation for others, together with the real
justification for its existence. Yet we cannot sympathize with that
fear-born anger which would vent itself in the annihilation of the
conquered. The right attitude is to limit militarism, to destroy the
menace of militarism, but to preserve the national integrity of each
nation. The contestants are the great civilized peoples of Europe and
Asia.
Japan’s part in the war has been slight. She has borne herself with
scrupulous regard not only to the rights but to the feelings of the
people of the United States. Japan’s progress should be welcomed by
every enlightened friend of humanity because of the promise it contains
for the regeneration of Asia. All that is necessary in order to remove
every particle of apprehension caused by this progress is to do what
ought to be done in reference to her no less than in reference to
European and American powers, namely, to develop a world policy which
shall guarantee each nation against any menace that might otherwise be
held for it in the growth and progress of another nation.
The destruction of Russia is not thinkable, but if it were, it would
be a most frightful calamity. The Slavs are a young people, of
limitless possibilities, who from various causes have not been able
to develop as rapidly as the peoples of central and western Europe.
They have grown in civilization until their further advance has become
something greatly to be desired, because it will be a factor of immense
importance in the welfare of the world. All that is necessary is
for Russia to throw aside the spirit of absolutism developed in her
during the centuries of Mongol dominion. She will then be found doing
what no other race can do and what it is of peculiar advantage to the
English-speaking peoples that she should do.
As for crushing Germany or crippling her and reducing her to political
impotence, such an action would be a disaster to mankind. The Germans
are not merely brothers; they are largely ourselves. The debt we owe
to German blood is great; the debt we owe to German thought and to
German example, not only in governmental administration but in all the
practical work of life, is even greater. Every generous heart and every
far-seeing mind throughout the world should rejoice in the existence of
a stable, united, and powerful Germany, too strong to fear aggression
and too just to be a source of fear to its neighbors.
As for France, she has occupied, in the modern world, a position as
unique as Greece in the world of antiquity. To have her broken or cowed
would mean a loss to-day as great as the loss that was suffered by
the world when the creative genius of the Greek passed away with his
loss of political power and material greatness. The world cannot spare
France.
Now, the danger to each of these great and splendid civilizations
arises far more from the fear that each feels than from the fear that
each inspires. Belgium’s case stands apart. She inspired no fear.
No peace should be made until her wrongs have been redressed, and
the likelihood of the repetition of such wrongs provided against.
She has suffered incredibly because the fear among the plain German
people, among the Socialists, for instance, of the combined strength
of France and Russia made them acquiesce in and support the policy of
the military party, which was to disregard the laws of international
morality and the plain and simple rights of the Belgian people.
It is idle merely to make speeches and write essays against this fear,
because at present the fear has a real basis. At present each nation
has cause for the fear it feels. Each nation has cause to believe that
its national life is in peril unless it is able to take the national
life of one or more of its foes or at least hopelessly to cripple
that foe. The causes of the fear must be removed or, no matter what
peace may be patched up to-day or what new treaties may be negotiated
to-morrow, these causes will at some future day bring about the same
results, bring about a repetition of this same awful tragedy.