The peace spirit which is pervading the mentality of the British Empire
and the United States is beginning to work in the mind of individuals
and groups even among those European peoples who are closest to the
danger zone and most tempted by reactionary tendencies in favour of
force for defence or vengeance.
Even in France, which is reasonably afraid of what may happen when
Germany gets strong again, there is an increasing desire to obtain
security by justice and conciliation rather than by military domination
and a policy of coercion.
Even in Germany, resentful, bitter, brooding over “injustice,” inflamed
to dreams of vengeance by old and new leaders who believe only in force
and hatred, there are groups of idealists, societies of youth, bodies
of working men, who are putting up a spiritual resistance to their
Junkers and Nationalists. In spite of all their military parades in
Bavaria, their secret drillings, their harking back to the sentiment of
the old Imperialism, their hatred of France—most dangerous, as I have
said—millions of working men and women in Germany have a loathing of
war (its horror is in their souls) which would make them revolt against
any attempts to prepare for a war of vengeance. Those people—convinced
pacifists—are, I think, in a minority. The French adventure in the
Ruhr weakened and almost destroyed, for the time, pacifist sentiment
in Germany by causing an outburst of fury which has left smouldering
fires of resentment and rage. But some of that will pass if the London
Agreement is carried out by France in a generous spirit, and especially
if the Ruhr is evacuated before another year has gone. It is my
personal belief that the Nationalists will not have general support in
the country for a revival of militarism if France relieves the pressure
on Germany and makes a working agreement with her industrialists for
their mutual benefit.
If Germany asks for war again she will get revolution first.