out. Even to embarrass her financially would be a blow to England
herself, Germany being one of England's best customers and one of her
most frequently visited neighbors. The truth of this is unanswerable.
The great object must be to effect a peace with as little rancor as
possible.
Mr. Shaw does not say it, but there are going to be overwhelming
political reasons why the pride of Germany and Austria and still more
why their military power shall not be too much impaired in case of their
defeat.
Perhaps in the final settlement the Western Allies may be found to have
more in common with Berlin than with St. Petersburg. Germany has pointed
this out with much force.
Mr. Shaw's position is not admirable when he chooses their days of
tribulation for sticking pins into his own people, even though some of
the things he says may be unpleasantly true. But it cannot be denied
that he has some sane views on the situation. The pity is that he must
always impair the force of the useful things he has to say by
flippancies, impertinences, and out-of-place girdings at those whose
courage he should help to maintain. He reminds one of a man who insists
on wrangling over the mistaken construction of a chimney while the house
is burning down.
* * * * *
*Bernard Shaw as a Patriot.*
_From The New York World, Nov. 17, 1914._
Bernard Shaw has written for our neighbor THE TIMES an elaborate
three-page thesis to maintain:
1. That Great Britain was abundantly justified in making war with
Germany.
2. That the explanation given by the British Government for making war
against Germany was stupid, hypocritical, mendacious, and disgraceful.
3. That he alone is capable of interpreting the moral purpose of the
British people in undertaking this necessary work of civilization.
4. That the reason the British Government's justification of the war is
so inadequate is because no British Government is ever so clever as
Bernard Shaw.
5. That even in the midst of the most horrible calamity known to human
history it pays to advertise.
Various patriots have various ways of serving their country. Some go to
the firing line to be shot and others stay at home to be a source of
innocent merriment to the survivors.
*"Shaw Empty of Good Sense"*
By Christabel Pankhurst.
Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES.
His reputation for perversity and contrariety is fully maintained by
George Bernard Shaw in the ineptly-named article, "Common Sense About
the War." At home in Britain we all know that it is Mr. Shaw's habit to
oppose where he might be expected to support, and vice versa. For
example, should he speak at a prohibition meeting he would most likely
extol strong drink, or if asked to defend the sale of liquor declare
dramatically for prohibition.
He sees himself as the critic of everything and everybody--the one and
only man who knows what to do and how to do it.
Mr. Shaw charges his compatriots with intellectual laziness, but they
are not so lazy as to leave him to do their thinking for them. That he
sometimes--and oftener in the past than now--says illuminating things is
true, but firm reliance cannot be placed upon his freakish mental
processes, exemplified in his writings about the war. He has played with
effect the part of jester to the British public, but when, as now, his
jests are empty of the kernel of good sense, the matter gets beyond a
joke.
The truth is that in face of this great and tragic reality of war the
men of mere words, the literary theorists, are in danger of missing
their way. Certainly women of deeds are more likely to see things aright
than are men of words, and it is as a woman of deeds that I, a
suffragette, make answer to my irresponsible compatriot, Mr. Bernard
Shaw. And yet not a compatriot, for Mr. Shaw disclaims those feelings of
loyalty and enthusiasm for the national cause that fill the mass of us
who live under the British flag!
"Until Home Rule emerges from its present suspended animation," says Mr.
Shaw, "I shall retain my Irish capacity for criticising England with
something of the detachment of a foreigner." Now, these words are not a
little surprising, because Mr. Shaw's interest in the Home Rule cause
has hitherto been of a most restrained and well-nigh secret character,
and any one who imagines that Mr. Shaw is a strenuous campaigner for
Home Rule is greatly mistaken. If in the years preceding the war the
Horne Rule cause had depended upon Mr. Shaw's activities, it would have
been in a bad way. It is now, when a foreign enemy menaces our nation as
a whole, that Mr. Shaw manifests this enhanced interest in Home Rule.
The suffragettes, who have fought and suffered for their cause as no
living man reformer in the British Isles has fought and suffered for
his, have during the present crisis subordinated their claim to the
urgent claims of national honor and safety. So Mr. Shaw, whose
campaigning is done generally in the armchair, and never in any place
more dangerous than the rostrum, ought surely to refrain from his
frivolous, inconsistent, destructive, and unprofitable criticism of our
country.
As for the question of lynching, Mr. Shaw is, the American public may be
assured, in no danger whatever of being lynched. He is in far more
danger of having the Iron Cross conferred upon him by the Kaiser in
recognition of his attempt to supplement the activities of the official
German Press Bureau. But if he were a German subject, writing on certain
points of German policy as he does upon certain points of British
policy, his fate can well be imagined. The only retribution that will
come upon this man, who exploits the freedom of speech and pen that
England gives him, is that his words lose now and henceforth the weight
they used to have. Oh, the conceit of the man, who in this dark hour,
when the English are dying on the battlefield, writes of "taking the
conceit out of England" by a stroke of his inconsequent pen!
*Admits England's Cause Is Just.*
But with all his will to "take the conceit" out of this England, so
fiercely menaced, her sons killed, her daughters widowed--yet needing,
so he thinks, his castigation into the bargain--the critic is
constrained to admit that our country is playing the part of "the
responsible policeman of the West" and that "for England to have
refrained from hurling herself into the fray, horse, foot, and
artillery, was impossible from every point of view." Then why preface
these statements by a series of attacks upon the country which is
admitted to be justly fighting in a just cause?
The sole importance of Mr. Shaw's criticism comes from this. He
unwarrantably indorses statements made by Germany in her attempt to put
the Allies in the wrong. Because he is known to the German people by his
dramatic work, extracts from his article will be circulated among them
as an expression of the views of a representative British citizen. And
how are the Germans to know that this is false, deprived as they are of
news of what is happening in the outside world and ignorant as they must
be of Mr. Shaw's real lack of influence at this serious time?
That their traffic in mere words disables some literary men from
comprehending facts is shown by Mr. Shaw's play upon the word
"Junkerism." He points to the dictionary definition of the word instead
of to the fact it represents, and by this verbal juggling tries to
convince his readers that the military autocracy that dominates and
misdirects Germany has its counterpart and equal in Great Britain.
Whereas, the conditions in the two countries are wholly different, and
it is this very difference that Germany has regarded as one of the signs
of British inferiority.
Mr. Shaw's suggestion that the British are posing as "Injured Innocence"
and as "Mild Gazelles" is neither funny nor true. We are simply a people
defending ourselves, resisting conquest and military despotism, and
fighting for the ideal of freedom and self-government. When our country
is no longer in danger we suffragettes, if it be still necessary, are
prepared to fight on and wage our civil war that we may win freedom and
self-government for women as well as men. But, in the meantime, we
support the men--yes, and even the Government do we in a sense
support--in fighting the common enemy who menaces the freedom of men and
women alike. Although the Government in the past have erred gravely in
their dealing with the woman question, they are for the purpose of this
war the instrument of the nation.
*Facts Belie Him.*
Mr. Shaw would seem to hold Britain responsible for German militarism,
but the facts he cites are against him there. "I am old enough," says
he, "to remember the beginnings of the anti-German phase of military
propaganda in England. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 left England
very much taken aback. Up to that date nobody was much afraid that
Prussia--suddenly Prussia beat France right down in the dust."
Precisely! It was this war on France, deliberately engineered by
Bismarck, and it was the defeat and despoilment of France that fed
Germany's militarism and encouraged Germany to make those plans of
military aggression which, after long and deliberate preparation, are
being carried into effect in the present war. Germany's plans of
military aggression have compelled other countries to prepare, however
inadequately, to defend themselves.
Mr. Shaw gives support to the Germans' contention that they are not the
aggressors but are menaced by Russia. Yet he does not explain why, if
that is so, Germany took French gold and territory in 1870 and has since
continued to alienate France; nor why Germany has chosen Britain as her
enemy of enemies to be supplanted and surpassed in power.
If Germany is simply on the defensive against Russia and has no desire
to attack and cripple France and Britain, then why has she antagonized
these countries and driven one after the other into a Russian alliance?
When he affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the
security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe
and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not
otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object is
to seize Belgium and to make it part of the German Empire, also to seize
at least the northern coast of France and to make this seizure the means
of dominating Britain.
Indeed, the point at which German ambition for conquest ceases would be
hard to fix. And yet Mr. Shaw pictures for us an injured-innocent,
mild-gazelle Germany on the defensive! Quite in this picture is his
assertion that "the ultimatum to Servia was the escapade of a dotard,"
whereas, everybody knows that the ultimatum was dictated at Berlin. It
is plain as a pikestaff that in order to bring on the Great War of
conquest for which her rulers thought The Day had arrived. Germany
dictated the issue and terms of the ultimatum to Servia and then urged
Austria to refuse any compromise and arbitration which might have
averted war.
Mr. Shaw has assumed the impossible task of trying to blind the American
public to these and other facts that prove Germany to be the aggressor
in this war, but he will fail in his attempt at white-washing German
policy because it is one of the characteristics of the American people
that they have a strong feeling for reality and that no twisting and
combining of words can prevent them from getting at the facts beneath.
Bernhardi's writings are generally believed to be an inspiration, and in
part a statement of German policy. But Mr. Shaw differs. In trying to
prove that Bernhardism has nothing to do with the case, he maintains
that Germany has neglected the Bernhardi programme, and says:
"He warned Germany to make an alliance with Italy, Austria, Turkey, and
America before undertaking the subjugation of France, then of England."
Mr. Shaw then asserts that Germany disregarded this advice and allowed
herself to be caught between Russia and a Franco-British combination
with no ally save Austria. But here again facts are against him. For
Germany has followed with marvelous precision the line drawn by
Bernhardi.
She is actually fighting in partnership with Austria. She allied herself
with Italy--though Italy has refused to fight with her in this present
war of aggression. Germany has also bent Turkey to her purpose, and has
dragged the Turks into the war. An alliance with America! Well, to have
gained the help of America in crushing France and crippling England, and
ravaging and conquering Belgium was quite beyond the power of German
diplomacy and intrigue! Still Germany's attempts to win at least
America's moral support in this war are vigorous, if unsuccessful.
And with what quotable matter Mr. Shaw provides the German rulers for
the further deluding of their subjects when he writes of the German
people being "stirred to their depths by the apparent treachery and
duplicity of the attack made upon them in their extrernest peril from
France and Russia," when he writes of the Kaiser doing "all a Kaiser
could do without unbearable ignominy to induce the British not to fight
him and give him fair play with Russia," and when he writes of "taking
the Kaiser at a disadvantage." As though we ought meekly to have agreed
to the Kaiser's plan of defeating France and using her defeat as a
bridge to England and a means of conquering England! Uncommon nonsense
about the war--so we must rename Mr. Shaw's production!
And what is all this that flows from the pen of Mr. Shaw about Belgium
and "obsolete treaties," "rights of way," "necessities that know no
international law," "circumstances that alter treaties"? Made in Germany
such statements are, and yet even the Imperial German Chancellor is not
so contemptuous as Bernard Shaw is of Belgium's charter of existence,
the treaty now violated by Germany.
That is a treaty that cannot become obsolete until the powers who made
it release Belgium from the restrictions and obligations which the
treaty imposes. Germany pleads guilty in this matter of the violation of
Belgian neutrality, though Mr. Shaw attempts to show her innocent, for
the German Chancellor has said: "This is an infraction of international
law--we are compelled to overrule the legitimate protests of the
Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are
doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved." And again the
Chancellor said the invasion of Belgium "is contrary to the law of
nature." To Mr. Bernard Shaw's peculiar sense of international morality
such dealing is not, however, repugnant.
*No "Right of Way" in Belgium.*
In his letter to President Wilson Mr. Shaw, either willfully or
ignorantly, seeks to confuse the neutrality of a neutralized State such
as Belgium and the neutrality of an ordinary State such as Italy, and he
pretends that violation of the first sort of neutrality creates a
situation in no way different from that created by the violation of the
second and normal sort of neutrality. I would refer Mr. Shaw to "The
Case for Belgium" issued by the Belgian delegates to the United States
wherein they point out that "the peculiarity about Belgian neutrality is
that it has been imposed upon her by the powers as the one condition
upon which they recognized her national existence."
The consequence of this is that whereas Italy and the United States and
other powers having a similar status can, subject to the risk of attack
from an affronted belligerent, please themselves whether or not they
condone a violation of their neutrality, Belgium and the other
neutralized States cannot condone such violation, but must either resist
all breaches of their neutrality or surrender their right to existence.
And further a neutralized State, putting faith in the treaty that
guarantees its existence and its neutrality, refrains naturally from
that preparation for war which would be deemed necessary in the absence
of such a treaty.
There is no such thing as the "right of way" through neutralized Belgium
which Mr. Shaw claims on behalf of belligerent Germany. Far from
exercising a right of way Germany has violently committed a trespass,
offering a German promise, a mere "scrap of paper," as reparation. "A
right of way," argues Bernard Shaw, "is not a right of conquest"; but
the truth is that in passing through Belgium Germany assumed dominion
over Belgium, which dominion she has since formally asserted and is
seeking forcibly to maintain.
*A New Shavian Theory.*
No comprehension does Mr. Shaw display of the hurt to the Belgians'
sense of honor involved in Germany's use of their territory for purposes
hostile to their friendly neighbor, France. To be forced into injuring a
friend is an outrage, indeed, and Mr. Shaw surely knows too much of
matters military to be unaware that to permit a right of way to one
combatant amounts to making an attack upon the other, and that Germany,
by the very fact of crossing Belgium soil, was forcing Belgium to be the
enemy of France. Only by their great heroism were the Belgians able to
escape this infamy that had been planned for them.
To be conquered does not really matter! There we have another Shavian
theory. How grateful would the would-be world-ruling Kaiser feel to Mr.
Shaw were he to succeed in inoculating the peoples of Europe and of
America with that theory! So would the task of putting the peoples under
the German yoke (otherwise known as German culture) be made easier--and
cheaper. But the spirit of national freedom, which is as precious to
humanity as is the spirit of individual freedom, cannot be driven out by
words any more than it can be driven out by blows. The most unlettered
Belgian soldier, fighting for a truth that is at the very heart and
depth of all things true, puts the mere wordmonger to shame.
That Great Britain does not fight only for Belgium is certainly a fact,
though Belgium's plight alone would have been enough to bring us into
the conflict. We fight also for France, because she is wrongfully
attacked, and because she is by her civilization and culture one of the
world's treasures. We fight for the all-sufficient reason of
self-defense.
There is the case for Britain, and despite his special pleading for
Germany, Mr. Shaw can show no flaw in it. He does say, however, that the
British Government, instead of first seeking a mild way of preserving
peace, ought to have said point blank to Germany: "If you attack France
we shall attack you." I also think that such a declaration would have
been the right one. To me and to many others the thought that our
country might stand by and watch inactively an attack upon France was
intolerable. Great was our relief when this apprehension was removed by
the British Government's declaration of war. Why did not the British
Government say to Germany before the war cloud burst that Britain would
fight to defend France, and why did the Government delay so long in
declaring war? Mr. Shaw does not give the reason, but I will give it.
It was that the Government feared opposition to our entering into the
war would come from a Radico-Socialist literary clique in London, from a
section of the Liberal press, and from certain Liberal and Labor
politicians who had been deceived by German professors and other
missionaries of the Kaiser into thinking the German peril did not exist.
When Belgium was invaded most of these misguided ones were unable to
cling any longer to their "keep out of it" policy, and then the
Government felt free to act. Yet the Government need not have waited,
because with the facts before them the people as a whole would perfectly
have understood the necessity of fighting even had Belgium not been
invaded.
Henceforward the general public must be kept informed of what is
happening in the international world. Foreign politics must be conducted
with greater publicity. There, at least, Bernard Shaw is right, but this
is a reform which he and his fellow-men have failed to effect, whereas
women, had they been voters, would have demanded and secured it long
ago.
Now, although undue diplomatic secrecy, always wrong, will be especially
wrong when the terms of peace come to be made, sentimentality will
certainly be more mischievous still. It is difficult to resist the
conclusion that Bernard Shaw's writings on the war are intended as an
appeal to sentimentality--an appeal that Germany at the close of the war
shall have treatment which, by being more than just to her, would be
less than just to the countries whom she has attacked, and would mean a
recurrence of this appalling war in after years.
Before the war specious words were used to cloak the German policy of
aggression which has plunged the world in horror and is martyrizing
peoples. In view of the coming victory of the Allies, the same tactics
will be adopted by the German militarists, and it behooves Bernard Shaw
to beware lest even without intent he serve as their tool. Men such as
he who believe that while they can never be in the wrong, their country
can never be in the right, are just the men who are in danger of
stumbling at this time.
[Illustration: CHRISTABEL PANKHURST.
_Photo (C) by Underwood & Underwood._
_See Page 68_]
[Illustration: JAMES M. BARRIE. _See Page 100_]
*Comment by Readers of Shaw*
*Shaw Has Made Minister von Jagow's Remark on a "Scrap of Paper"
Understandable.*
_To the Editor of The New York Times_:
Most hearty thanks for that masterly "common-sense" article of Bernard
Shaw. How clearly he expresses the much that many of us have felt way
down inside and have not been able to formulate even to ourselves!
He has made at least one woman--and one of German parentage at
that--understand what reams of public and private communications from
all over the Fatherland could not make clear: just why the blunt,
impetuous, shocked, and astounded Kaiser dared give utterance to that
disgraceful "scrap of paper" remark--inexcusable but also very
understandable in the light of his knowledge of and confidence in a more
astute miscreant; why France and Germany have always considered England
more or less of a Tartuffe and a "Scheinheilige" (one who seems holy);
and why every German--man, woman and child--so execrates Sir Edward Grey
and colleagues.
Nothing in all the sickening present conditions, the future long-lasting
woe and misery, the barbarous neutrality violations has so made me blush
for my mother's country as the "scrap of paper" incident; and it has
been most bitter to listen to the extravagant, fantastic eulogies on
England, with which we've been so favored without feeling honestly able
to make any excuses whatever for Germany.
But now--thanks to that article--I can understand what I may not
condone, and, though abhorring the Kaiser and my mother's compatriots
for their share in that horror going on abroad, I can also pity the
hot-headed, imperfect mere man going to war under a carefully incited
and fostered misapprehension, and need no longer glorify the
cool-headed, sapient policy which so cleverly duped ruler and people.
Not since the war began have I felt so undepressed, so free to
sympathize where I so love, so free from having to commend those for
whom I feel no love whatever. For all of which accept the warmest thanks
of
KATE HUDSON.
New York, Nov. 17.
* * * * *
*Shaw Article Work of "Farceur."*
_To the Editor of The New York Times_:
"Common sense and Shaw!" Shaw begins his article by saying, "I am giving
my views for what they are worth, with a malicious bias." Later on he
says: "I am writing history." Toward the end, after having obscured with
words many things which had hitherto been clear to most people, he says:
"Now that we begin to see where we really are, &c." How Shavian!
There are at least two sides to all questions, and so long as they are
reasonably presented one is glad to hear them even if they fail to
convince, but when a farceur is allowed to occupy three whole pages
usually filled by serious and interesting writers it seems time to
protest. The subject itself is not one for easy paradox or false and
flippant epigram.