The Guaranty of Dismemberment, when brought to the touchstone of
the three essential conditions, is found wanting. Dismissing it as
unsatisfactory, I come to that other guaranty where these
conditions are all fulfilled, and we find security for Germany
without offence to the just sentiments of France, and also a new
safe-guard to civilization. Against the Guaranty of Dismemberment
I oppose the Guaranty of Disarmament. By Disarmament I mean the
razing of the French fortifications and the abolition of the
standing army, except that minimum of force required for purposes
of police. How completely this satisfies the conditions already
named is obvious. For Germany there would be on the side of France
absolute repose, so that Count Bismarck need not fear another
invasion,--while France, saved from intolerable humiliation, would
herself be free to profit by the new civilization.
Nor is this guaranty otherwise than practical in every respect,
and the more it is examined the more will its inestimable
advantage be apparent.
1. There is, first, its most obvious _economy_, which is so
glaring, that, according to a familiar French expression, "it
leaps into the eyes." Undertaking even briefly to set it forth, I
seem to follow the proverb and "show the sun with a lantern."
According to the "Almanach de Gotha," the appropriations for the
army of France, during the year of peace before the war, were
588,852, 970 francs, [Footnote: Almanach de Gotha, 1870, p. 599.]
or about one hundred and seventeen millions of dollars. Give up
the Standing Army and this considerable sum disappears from the
annual budget. But this retrenchment represents only partially the
prodigious economy. Beyond the annual outlay is the loss to the
nation by the change of producers into non-producers. Admitting
that in France the average production of a soldier usefully
employed would be only fifty dollars, and multiplying this small
allowance by the numbers of the Standing Army, you have another
amount to be piled upon the military appropriations. Is it too
much to expect that this surpassing waste shall be stopped? Must
the extravagance born of war, and nursed by long tradition,
continue to drain the resources of the land? Where is reason?
Where humanity? A decree abolishing the Standing Army would be
better for the French people, and more productive, than the
richest gold-mine discovered in every department of France. Nor
can imagination picture the fruitful result. I speak now only in
the light of economy. Relieved from intolerable burden, industry
would lift itself to unimagined labors, and society be quickened
anew.
2. Beyond this economy, winch need not be argued, is the positive
_advantage, if not necessity,_ of such change for France. I
do not speak on general grounds applicable to all nations, but on
grounds peculiar to France at the present moment. Emerging from a
most destructive war, she will be subjected to enormous and
unprecedented contributions of every kind. After satisfying
Germany, she will find other obligations at home,--some pressing
directly upon the nation, and others upon individuals. Beyond the
outstanding pay of soldiers, requisitions for supplies, pensions
for the wounded and the families of the dead, and other
extraordinary liabilities accumulating as never before in the same
time, there will be the duty of renewing that internal prosperity
which has received such a shock; and here the work of restoration
will be costly, whether to the nation or the individual. Revenue
must be regained, roads and bridges repaired, markets supplied;
nor can we omit the large and multitudinous losses from ravage of
fields, seizure of stock, suspension of business, stoppage of
manufactures, interference with agriculture, and the whole
terrible drain of war by which the people are impoverished and
disabled. If to the necessary appropriation and expenditure for
all these things is superadded the annual tax of a Standing Army,
and that other draft from the change of producers into non-producers,
plainly here is a supplementary burden of crushing weight.
Talk of the last feather breaking the back of the camel,--
but never was camel loaded down as France.
3. Beyond even these considerations of economy and advantage I put
the transcendent, priceless benefit of Disarmament in the
_assurance of peace_. Disarmament substitutes the constable
for the soldier, and reduces the Standing Army to a police. The
argument assumes, first, the needlessness of a Standing Army, and,
secondly, its evil influence. Both of these points were touched at
an early day by the wise Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More,
when, in his practical and personal Introduction to "Utopia," he
alludes to what he calls the "bad custom" of keeping many
servants, and then says: "In France there is yet a more
pestiferous sort of people; for the whole country is full of
soldiers, that are still kept up in time of peace,--if such a
state of a nation can be called a peace." Then, proceeding with
his judgment, the Chancellor holds up what he calls those
"pretended statesmen" whose maxim is that "it is necessary for the
public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in
readiness." And after saying that these pretended statesmen
"sometimes seek occasion for making war, that they may train up
their soldiers in the art of cutting throats," he adds, in words
soon to be tested, "But France has learned, to its cost, how
dangerous it is to feed such beasts." [Footnote: Utopia, tr.
Burnet, (London, 1845,) Book I. pp. 29, 30.] It will be well, if
France has learned this important lesson. The time has come to
practise it.
All history is a vain word, and all experience is at fault, if
large War Preparations, of which the Standing Army is the type,
have not been constant provocatives of war. Pretended protectors
against war, they have been real instigators to war. They have
excited the evil against which they were to guard. The habit of
wearing arms in private life exercised a kindred influence. So
long as this habit continued, society was darkened by personal
combat, street-fight, duel, and assassination. The Standing Army
is to the nation what the sword was to the modern gentleman, the
stiletto to the Italian, the knife to the Spaniard, the pistol to
our slave-master,--furnishing, like these, the means of death; and
its possessor is not slow to use it. In stating the operation of
this system we are not left to inference. As France, according to
Sir Thomas More, shows "how dangerous it is to feed such beasts,"
so does Prussia, in ever-memorable instance, which speaks now with
more than ordinary authority, show precisely how the Standing Army
may become the incentive to war. Frederick, the warrior king, is
our witness. With honesty or impudence beyond parallel, he did not
hesitate to record in his Memoirs, among the reasons for his war
upon Maria Theresa, that, on coming to the throne, he found
himself with "troops always ready to act." Voltaire, when called
to revise the royal memoirs, erased this confession, but preserved
a copy;[Footnote: Brougham, Lives of Men of Letters, (London and
Glasgow, 1856,) p. 59,--_Voltaire_. See also Voltaire, _Memoires
pour servir a la Vie de, ecrits par lui-meme, (edit/ 1784-89,)
Tom. LXX. p. 279; also Frederic II., _Histoire de mini Temps_,
OEuvres Posthumes, (Berlin, 1789,) Tom. I. Part. I. p. 78.]
so that by his literary activity we have this kingly authority
for the mischief from a Standing Army. How complete a weapon
was that army may be learned from Lafayette, who, in a letter
to Washington, in 1786, after a visit to the King, described it thus:---
"Nothing can be compared to the beauty of the troops, to the
discipline which reigns in all their ranks, to the simplicity of
their movements, to the uniformity of their regiments..... All the
situations which can be supposed in war, all the movements which
these must necessitate, have been by constant habit so inculcated
in their heads, that all these operations are done almost
mechanically." [Footnote: Memoires, Tom. II. p. 133.]
Nothing better has been devised since the Macedonian phalanx or
the Roman legion. With such a weapon ready to his hands, the King
struck Maria Theresa. And think you that the present duel between
France and Germany could have been waged, had not both nations
found themselves, like Frederick of Prussia, with "troops always
ready to act"? It was the possession of these troops which made
the two parties rush so swiftly to the combat. Is not the lesson
perfect? Already individuals have disarmed. Civilization requires
that nations shall do likewise.
Thus is Disarmament enforced on three several grounds: first,
economy; secondly, positive advantage, if not necessity, for
France; and, thirdly, assurance of peace. No other guaranty
promises so much. Does any other guaranty promise anything beyond
the accident of force? Nor would France be alone. Dismissing to
the arts of peace the large army victorious over Slavery, our
Republic has shown how disarmament can be accomplished. The
example of France, so entirely reasonable, so profitable, so
pacific, and so harmonious with ours, would spread. Conquering
Germany could not resist its influence. Nations are taught by
example more than by precept, and either is better than force.
Other nations would follow; nor would Russia, elevated by her
great act of Enfranchisement, fail to seize her sublime
opportunity. Popular rights, which are strongest always in assured
peace, would have new triumphs. Instead of Trial by Battle for the
decision of differences between nations, there would be peaceful
substitutes, as Arbitration, or, it may be, a Congress of Nations,
and the United States of Europe would appear above the subsiding
waters. The old juggle of Balance of Power, which has rested like
a nightmare on Europe, would disappear, like that other less
bloody fiction of Balance of Trade, and nations, like individuals,
would all be equal before the law. Here our own country furnishes
an illustration. So long as slavery prevailed among us, there was
an attempt to preserve what was designated balance of power
between the North and South, pivoting on Slavery,--just as in
Europe there has been an attempt to preserve balance of power
among nations pivoting on War. Too tardily is it seen that this
famous balance, which has played such a part at home and abroad,
is but an artificial contrivance instituted by power, which must
give place to a simple accord derived from the natural condition
of things. Why should not the harmony which has begun at home be
extended abroad? Practicable and beneficent here, it must be the
same there. Then would nations exist without perpetual and
reciprocal watchfulness. But the first step is to discard the
wasteful, oppressive, and pernicious provocative to war, which is
yet maintained at such terrible cost. To-day this glorious advance
is presented to France and Germany.