IRELAND, GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR
In the February, 1913, _Fortnightly Review_, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at
the end of an article, "Great Britain and the Next War," thus appeals
to Ireland to recognize that her interests are one with those of Great
Britain in the eventual defeat of the latter:
"I would venture to say one word here to my Irish fellow-countrymen
of all political persuasions. If they imagine that they can stand
politically or economically while Britain falls they are woefully
mistaken. The British fleet is their one shield. If it be broken
Ireland will go down. They may well throw themselves heartily into the
common defence, for no sword can transfix England without the point
reaching Ireland behind her...."
I propose to briefly show that Ireland, far from sharing the
calamities that must necessarily fall on Great Britain from defeat
by a great power, might conceivably thereby emerge into a position of
much prosperity.
I will agree with Sir A. Conan Doyle up to this--that the defeat of
Great Britain by Germany must be the cause of a momentous change to
Ireland: but I differ from him in believing that that change must
necessarily be disastrous to Ireland. On the contrary, I believe that
the defeat of Great Britain by Germany might conceivably (save in one
possible condition) result in great gain to Ireland.
The conclusion that Ireland must suffer all the disasters and eventual
losses defeat would entail on Great Britain is based on what may be
termed the fundamental maxim that has governed British dealings with
Ireland throughout at least three centuries. That maxim may be given
in the phrase, "Separation is unthinkable." Englishmen have come to
invincibly believe that no matter what they may do or what may betide
them, Ireland must inseparably be theirs, linked to them as surely
as Wales or Scotland, and forming an eternal and integral part of a
whole whose fate is indissolubly in their hands. While Great Britain,
they admit, might well live apart (and happily) from an Ireland
safely "sunk under the sea" they have never conceived of an Ireland,
still afloat, that could possibly exist, apart from Great Britain.
Sometimes, as a sort of bogey, they hold out to Ireland the fate that
would be hers if, England defeated, somebody else should "take" her.
For it is a necessary corollary to the fundamental maxim already
stated, that Ireland, if not owned by England, must necessarily be
"owned" by someone else than her own inhabitants.
The British view of the fate of Ireland in the event of British defeat
may be stated as twofold. Either Ireland would remain after the war as
she is to-day, tied to Great Britain, or she _might_ be (this is not
very seriously entertained) annexed by the victor. No other solution,
I think, has ever been suggested. Let us first discuss No. I.
This, the ordinary man in the street view, is that as Ireland would
be as much a part and belonging to Great Britain after a war as before
it, whatever the termination of that war might be, she could not
fail to share the losses defeat must bring to a common realm. The
partnership being indissoluble, if the credit of the house were
damaged and its properties depreciated, all members of the firm must
suffer. In this view, an Ireland weaker, poorer, and less recuperative
than Great Britain, would stand to lose even more from a British
defeat than the predominant partner itself. Let us at once admit that
this view is correct. If on the condition of a great war Ireland were
still to remain, as she is to-day, an integral portion of a defeated
United Kingdom, it is plain she would suffer, and might be made to
suffer possibly more even than fell to the share of Great Britain.
But that is not the only ending defeat might bring to the two islands.
We must proceed then to discuss No. 2, the alternative fate reserved
for Ireland in the unlikely event of a great British overthrow. This
is, that if the existing partnership were to be forcibly dissolved, by
external shock, it would mean for Ireland "out of the frying pan into
the fire." The idea here is that I have earlier designated as the
"bogey man" idea. Germany, or the other victor in the great conflict,
would proceed to "take" Ireland. An Ireland administered, say,
by Prussians would soon bitterly regret the milder manners of
the Anglo-Saxon and pine for the good old days of "doles" from
Westminster. I know many Irishmen who admit that as between England
and Germany they would prefer to remain in the hands of the former--on
the principle that it is better to keep the devil you know than fall
into the hands of a new devil.
German rule, you are asked to believe, would be so bad, so stern, that
under it Ireland, however much she might have suffered from England in
the past, would soon yearn to be restored to the arms of her sorrowing
sister. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Germany "annexed"
Ireland, is it at all clear that she would (or even could) injure
Ireland more than Great Britain has done? To what purpose and with
what end in view? "Innate brutality"--the Englishman replied--"the
Prussian always ill-treats those he lays hands on--witness the poor
Poles." Without entering into the Polish language question, or the
Polish agrarian question, it is permissible for an Irishman to reply
that nothing by Prussia in those respects has at all equalled English
handling of the Irish language or England land dealings in Ireland.
The Polish language still lives in Prussian Poland and much more
vigorously than the Irish language survives in Ireland.
But it is not necessary to obscure the issue by reference to the
Prussian Polish problem. An Ireland annexed to the German Empire
(supposing this to be internationally possible) as one of the fruits
of a German victory over Great Britain would clearly be administered
as a common possession of the German people, and not as a Prussian
province. The analogy, if one can be set up in conditions so
dissimilar, would lie not between Prussia and her Polish provinces,
but between the German Empire and Alsace-Lorraine. What, then,
would be the paramount object of Germany in her administration of an
overseas Reichsland of such extraordinary geographical importance to
her future as Ireland would be?
Clearly not to impoverish and depress that new-won possession but
to enhance its exceeding strategic importance by vigorous and wise
administration, so as to make it the main counterpoise to any possible
recovery of British maritime supremacy, so largely due as this was in
the past to Great Britain's own possession of this island.
A prosperous and flourishing Ireland, recognizing that her own
interests lie with those of the new Administration, would assuredly be
the first and chief aim of German statesmanship.
The very geographical situation of Ireland would alone ensure wise and
able administration by her new rulers had Germany no other and special
interest in advancing Irish well-being; for to rule from Hamburg
and Berlin a remote island and a discontented people, with a highly
discontented and separated Britain intervening, by methods of
exploitation and centralization, would be a task beyond the capacity
of German statecraft. German effort, then, would be plainly directed
to creating an Ireland satisfied with the change, and fully determined
to maintain it.
And it might be remembered that Germany is possibly better equipped,
intellectually and educationally, for the task of developing Ireland
than even 20th century England. She has already faced a remarkable
problem, and largely solved it in her forty years' administration of
Alsace-Lorraine. There is a province torn by force from the bleeding
side of France and alien in sentiment to her new masters to a degree
that Ireland could not be to any changes of authority imposed upon her
from without, has, within a short lifetime, doubled in prosperity and
greatly increased her population, despite the open arms and insistent
call of France, and despite a rule denounced from the first as
hateful.
However hateful, the Prussian has proved himself an able administrator
and an honest and most capable instructor. In his strong hands
Strasburg has expanded from being an ill-kept, pent-in French garrison
town to a great and beautiful city. Already a local Parliament
gives to the population a sense of autonomy, while the palace and
constant presence of an Imperial prince affirms the fact that German
Imperialism, far from engrossing and centralizing all the activities
and powers of the empire in Berlin, recognizes that German nationality
is large enough and great enough to admit of many capitals, many
individualities, and many separate State growths within the sure
compass of one great organism.
That an Ireland severed by force of arms from the British Empire and
annexed to the German Empire would be ill-governed by her new masters
is inconceivable. On the contrary, the ablest brains in Germany,
scientific, commercial, and financial, no less than military and
strategic, would be devoted to the great task of making sure the
conquest not only of an island but of the intelligence of a not
unintelligent people, and by wisely developing so priceless a
possession to reconcile its inhabitants through growing prosperity and
an excellent administration, to so great a change in their political
environment. Can it be said that England, even in her most lucid
intervals, has brought to the Government of Ireland her best efforts,
her most capable men, or her highest purpose? The answer may be given
by Li Hung Chang, whose diary we have so lately read. Recording his
interview with Mr. Gladstone, the Chinese statesman says: "He spoke
about ... Ireland; and I was certain that he hoped to see that unhappy
country governed better before he died. 'They have given their best
to England,' he said, 'and in return have been given only England's
worst.'" It is certain that Germany, once in possession of Ireland,
would assuredly not give to that country only Germany's worst.
In a score of ways Ireland would stand to gain from the change of
direction, of purpose, of intention, and, I will add, of inspiration
and capacity in her newly-imposed rulers.
Whether she liked them or not, at the outset, would be beside the
question. In this they would differ but little from those she had so
long and wearily had measure of, and if they brought to their new task
a new spirit and a new intellectual equipment Irishmen would not be
slow to realize that if they themselves were never to rule their own
country, they had, at least, found in their new masters something more
than emigration agents.
Moreover, to Germany there would be no "Irish question," no "haggard
and haunting problem" to palsy her brain and miscredit her hand with
its old tags and jibes and sordid impulses to deny the obvious.
To Germany there would be only an English question. To prevent that
from ever again imperilling her world future would be the first
purpose of German overseas statesmanship. And it is clear that a wise
and capable Irish Administration, designed to build up and strengthen
from within and not to belittle and exploit from without, would be the
sure and certain purpose of a victorious Germany.
I have now outlined the two possible dispositions of Ireland that up
to this British opinion admits as conceivable in die improbable event
of a British defeat by Germany. Only these two contingencies are
ever admitted. First that Ireland, sharing the common disaster, must
endure with her defeated partner all the evils that a great overthrow
must inflict upon the United Kingdom. Second, that Ireland, if Great
Britain should be completely defeated, might conceivably be "taken" or
annexed by the victor and held as a conquered territory, and in this
guise would bitterly regret the days of her union with Great Britain.
I have sought to show, in answer to the latter argument, that were
annexation by the victor indeed to follow a British defeat Ireland
might very conceivably find the changed circumstances greatly to her
advantage.
But there is a third contingency I have nowhere seen discussed or
hinted at, and yet it is at least as likely as No. 1, and far more
probable than No. 2--for I do not think that the annexation of Ireland
by a European power is internationally possible, however decisive
might be the overthrow of England. It is admitted (and it is upon this
hypothesis that the discussion is proceeding) that Great Britain might
be defeated by Germany, and that the British fleet might be broken and
an enemy's sword might transfix England. Such an overthrow would be
of enormous import to Europe and to the whole world. The trident would
have changed hands, for the defeat of England could only be brought
about by the destruction of her sea supremacy. Unless help came
from without, a blockaded Britain would be more at the mercy of the
victor than France was after Sedan and Paris. It would lie with the
victor to see that the conditions of peace he imposed were such as,
while ensuring to him the objects for which he had fought, would be
the least likely conditions to provoke external intervention or a
combination of alarmed world interests. Now, putting aside lesser
consideration, the chief end Germany would have in a war with England
would be to ensure her own free future on the seas. For with that
assured and guaranteed by a victory over England, all else that she
seeks must in the end be hers. To annex resisting British colonies
would be in itself an impossible task--physically a much more
impossible task than to annex Ireland.
To annex Ireland would be, as a military measure, once command of the
seas was gained, a comparatively easy task. No practical resistance
to one German army corps even could be offered by any force Ireland
contains, or could of herself, put into the field. No arsenal or means
of manufacturing arms exists. The population has been disarmed for a
century, and by bitter experience has been driven to regard the use
of arms as a criminal offence. Patriotism has been treated as felony.
Volunteers and Territorials are not for Ireland. To expect that a
disarmed and demoralized population who have been sedulously batoned
into a state of physical and moral dejection, should develop military
virtues in face of a disciplined army is to attribute to Irishmen
the very qualities their critics unite in denying them. "The
Irishman fights well everywhere except in Ireland," has passed into a
commonplace: and since every effort of government has been directed
to ensuring the abiding application of the sneer, Englishmen would
find, in the end, the emasculating success of their rule completely
justified in the physical submission of Ireland to the new force that
held her down. With Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea held by
German squadrons, no power from within could maintain any effective
resistance to a German occupation of Dublin and a military
administration of the island. To convert that into permanent
administration could not be opposed from within, and with Great
Britain down and severed from Ireland by a victorious German navy, it
is obvious that opposition to the permanent retention of Ireland by
the victor must come from without, and it is for this international
reason that I think a German annexation of any part of a defeated
United Kingdom need not be seriously considered. Such a complete
change in the geography of Europe as a German-owned Ireland could not
but provoke universal alarm and a widespread combination to forbid its
realization. The bogey that Ireland, if not John Bull's other island,
must necessarily be somebody else's other island will not really bear
inspection at close quarters.
Germany would have to attain her end, the permanent disabling of the
maritime supremacy of Great Britain, by another and less provocative
measure. It is here and in just these circumstances that the third
contingency, and one no Englishman I venture to think, has ever
dreamed of, would be born on the field of battle and baptized a
Germanic godchild with European diplomacy as sponsor. Germany, for
her own imperial ends and in pursuit of a great world policy, might
successfully accomplish what Louis XIV and Napoleon only contemplated.
An Ireland, already severed by a sea held by German warships, and
temporarily occupied by a German army, might well be permanently and
irrevocably severed from Great Britain, and with common assent erected
into a neutralized, independent European State under international
guarantees. An independent Ireland would, of itself, be no threat or
hurt to any European interest. On the contrary, to make of Ireland an
Atlantic Holland, a maritime Belgium, would be an act of restoration
to Europe of this the most naturally favoured of European islands that
a Peace Congress should, in the end, be glad to ratify at the instance
of a victorious Germany. That Germany should propose this form of
dissolution of the United Kingdom in any interests but her own, or
for the _beaux yeux_ of Ireland I do not for a moment assert. Her main
object would be the opening of the seas and their permanent freeing
from that overwhelming control Great Britain has exercised since
the destruction of the French navy, largely based, as all naval
strategists must perceive on the unchallenged possession of Ireland.
That Ireland is primarily a European island inhabited by a European
people who are not English, and who have for centuries appealed
to Europe and the world to aid them in ceasing to be politically
controlled by England, is historic fact. And since the translation of
this historic fact into practice European politics would undoubtedly
effect the main object of the victorious power, it is evident that,
Great Britain once defeated, Germany would carry the Irish question to
a European solution in harmony with her maritime interests, and could
count on the support of the great bulk of European opinion to support
the settlement those interests imposed. And if politically and
commercially an independent and neutral Irish State commended itself
to Europe, on moral and intellectual grounds the claim could be put
still higher. Nothing advanced on behalf of England could meet the
case for a free Ireland as stated by Germany. Germany would attain her
ends as the champion of national liberty and could destroy England's
naval supremacy for all time by an act of irreproachable morality.
The United States, however distasteful from one point of view the
defeat of England might be, could do nothing to oppose a European
decision that could dearly win an instant support from influential
circles--Irish and German--within her own borders.
In any case the Monroe Doctrine cuts both ways, and unless at the
outset the United States could be drawn into an Anglo-Teutonic
conflict, it is clear that the decision of a European Congress to
create a new European State out of a very old European people could
not furnish ground for American interference.
I need not further labour the question. If Englishmen will but awaken
from the dream that Ireland "belongs" to them and not to the Irish
people, and that that great and fertile island, inhabited by a brave,
a chivalrous and an intellectual race (qualities they have alas! done
their utmost to expel from the island) is a piece of real estate they
own and can dispose of as they will, they cannot fail to perceive that
the Irish question cannot much longer be mishandled with impunity,
and that far from being, as they now think it, merely a party
question--and not even a "domestic question" or one the colonies have
a voice in--it may in a brief epoch become a European question.
With the approaching disappearance of the Near Eastern question (which
England is hastening to the detriment of Turkey) a more and more
pent-in Central Europe may discover that there is a Near Western
question, and that Ireland--a free Ireland--restored to Europe is the
key to unlock the western ocean and open the seaways of the world.
Again it is Mr. Gladstone who comes to remind Englishmen that Ireland,
after all, is a European island, and that Europe has some distant
standing in the issue.
"I would beseech Englishmen to consider how they would behave to
Ireland, if instead of having 5,000,000 of people, she had 25,000,000;
or if instead of being placed between us and the ocean she were placed
between us and the Continent." (Notes and queries on the Irish Demand,
February, 1887.) While the geographical positions of the islands
to each other and to Europe have not changed, and cannot change,
the political relation of one to the other, and so the political
and economical relation of both to Europe, to the world and to the
carrying trade of the world and the naval policies of the powers may
be gravely altered by agencies beyond the control of Great Britain.
The changes wrought in the speed and capacity of steam shipping, the
growth and visible trend of German naval power, and the increasing
possibilities of aerial navigation, all unite to emphasize the
historian Niebuhr's warning, and to indicate for Ireland a possible
future of restored communion with Europe, and less and less the
continued wrong of that artificial exclusion in which British policy
has sought to maintain her--"an island beyond an island."