When I went about Europe I was dismayed by the denial of all mental
progress towards a state of peace. Physically there was a slow recovery
from war. Morally there was a reaction in many countries to black
passion, militarism, and ideas of Force. Austria-Hungary and Germany
were swinging right back to the old traditions of nationalism. They saw
no way of freedom except by future war. They desired vengeance—against
the French. They were talking of calling back their Emperors. In
Germany the Crown Prince came home as a “private citizen” ready for
a call to the throne at some not distant date. The war which was to
make the world safe for democracy had been followed by a peace in which
democracy was repudiated by many leaders and by public opinion in
many countries. “I do not believe in democracy,” Herr Streseman told
me in Berlin. The Italian Fascists under Mussolini did not believe in
democracy, nor in Parliamentary institutions, nor in free speech. They
bludgeoned men who disagreed with their ideas and methods or poured
castor oil down their throats. They saved Italy from anarchy, which was
a good deed, but Mussolini, the autocrat, was quite willing to play
the anarchist against international laws, and did so when he flouted
the League of Nations and bombarded Corfu. Students of world affairs,
thoughtful observers like Sir Edward Grey and General Smuts, men not
given to exaggerated speech and morbid fears, expressed their alarm
at the state of Europe ten years after the outbreak of the world war,
and confessed that it seemed to be slipping downhill towards general
catastrophe.