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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Armageddon--And After, by W. L. Courtney
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Armageddon--And After
+
+Author: W. L. Courtney
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2005 [EBook #17158]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMAGEDDON--AND AFTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Spehar, Christine D and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
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+
+
+
+
+         ARMAGEDDON--AND AFTER
+
+                  BY
+
+       W.L. COURTNEY, M.A., LL.D.
+
+                LONDON
+
+          CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
+
+                 1914
+
+
+
+
+              DEDICATED
+
+   WITH ALL HUMILITY AND ADMIRATION
+
+                 TO
+
+ THE YOUNG IDEALISTS OF ALL COUNTRIES
+
+WHO WILL NOT ALLOW THE DREAMS OF THEIR
+
+     YOUTH TO BE TARNISHED BY THE
+
+         EXPERIENCES OF AN
+
+            OUTWORN AGE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+I dedicate this little book to the young idealists of this and other
+countries, for several reasons. They must, obviously, be young, because
+their older contemporaries, with a large amount of experience of earlier
+conditions, will hardly have the courage to deal with the novel data. I
+take it that, after the conclusion of the present war, there will come an
+uneasy period of exhaustion and anxiety when we shall be told that those
+who hold military power in their hands are alone qualified to act as
+saviours of society. That conclusion, as I understand the matter, young
+idealists will strenuously oppose. They will be quite aware that all the
+conservative elements will be against them; they will appreciate also the
+eagerness with which a large number of people will point out that the
+safest way is to leave matters more or less alone, and to allow the
+situation to be controlled by soldiers and diplomatists. Of course there
+is obvious truth in the assertion that the immediate settlement of peace
+conditions must, to a large extent, be left in the hands of those who
+brought the war to a successful conclusion. But the relief from pressing
+anxiety when this horrible strife is over, and the feeling of gratitude to
+those who have delivered us must not be allowed to gild and consecrate, as
+it were, systems proved effete and policies which intelligent men
+recognise as bankrupt. The moment of deliverance will be too unique and
+too splendid to be left in the hands of men who have grown, if not
+cynical, at all events a little weary of the notorious defects of
+humanity, and who are, perhaps naturally, tempted to allow European
+progress to fall back into the old well-worn ruts. It is the young men who
+must take the matter in hand, with their ardent hopes and their keen
+imagination, and only so far as they believe in the possibility of a great
+amelioration will they have any chance of doing yeoman service for
+humanity.
+
+The dawn of a new era must be plenarily accepted as a wonderful
+opportunity for reform. If viewed in any other spirit, the splendours of
+the morning will soon give way before the obstinate clouds hanging on the
+horizon. In some fashion or other it must be acknowledged that older
+methods of dealing with international affairs have been tried and found
+wanting. It must be admitted that the ancient principles helped to bring
+about the tremendous catastrophe in which we are at present involved, and
+that a thorough re-organisation is required if the new Europe is to start
+under better auspices. That is why I appeal to the younger idealists,
+because they are not likely to be deterred by inveterate prejudices; they
+will be only too eager to examine things with a fresh intelligence of
+their own. Somehow or other we must get rid of the absurd idea that the
+nations of Europe are always on the look out to do each other an injury.
+We have to establish the doctrines of Right on a proper basis, and
+dethrone that ugly phantom of Might, which is the object of Potsdam
+worship. International law must be built up with its proper sanctions; and
+virtues, which are Christian and humane, must find their proper place in
+the ordinary dealings of states with one another. Much clever dialectics
+will probably be employed in order to prove that idealistic dreams are
+vain. Young men will not be afraid of such arguments; they will not be
+deterred by purely logical difficulties. Let us remember that this war has
+been waged in order to make war for the future impossible. If that be the
+presiding idea of men's minds, they will keep their reforming course
+steadily directed towards ideal ends, patiently working for the
+reconstruction of Europe and a better lot for humanity at large.
+
+Once more let me repeat that it is only young idealists who are sufficient
+for these things. They may call themselves democrats, or socialists, or
+futurists, or merely reformers. The name is unimportant: the main point is
+that they must thoroughly examine their creed in the light of their finest
+hopes and aspirations. They will not be the slaves of any formulae, and
+they will hold out their right hands to every man--whatever may be the
+label he puts on his theories--who is striving in single-minded devotion
+for a millennial peace. The new era will have to be of a spiritual,
+ethical type. Coarser forms of materialism, whether in thought or life,
+will have to be banished, because the scales have at last dropped from our
+eyes, and we intend to regard a human being no longer as a thing of
+luxury, or wealth, or greedy passions, but as the possessor of a living
+soul.
+
+W.L.C.
+
+_November 10, 1914._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+I wish to acknowledge my obligation to Mr. H.N. Brailsford's _The War of
+Steel and Gold_ (Bell). I do not pretend to agree with all that Mr.
+Brailsford says: but I have found his book always interesting, and
+sometimes inspiring.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+CHAPTER I
+PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE                             1
+
+CHAPTER II
+LESSONS OF THE PAST                               32
+
+CHAPTER III
+SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS                            63
+
+
+
+
+ARMAGEDDON--AND AFTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE
+
+
+The newspapers have lately been making large quotations from the poems of
+Mr. Rudyard Kipling. They might, if they had been so minded, have laid
+under similar contribution the Revelation of St. John the Divine. There,
+too, with all the imagery usual in Apocalyptic literature, is to be found
+a description of vague and confused fighting, when most of the Kings of
+the earth come together to fight a last and desperate battle. The Seven
+Angels go forth, each armed with a vial, the first poisoning the earth,
+the second the sea, the third the rivers and fountains of waters, the
+fourth the sun. Then out of the mouth of the dragon, of the beast, and of
+the Antichrist come the lying spirits which persuade the Kings of the
+earth to gather all the people for that great day of God Almighty "into a
+place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Translated into our
+language the account might very well serve for the modern assemblage of
+troops in which nearly all the kingdoms of the earth have to play their
+part, with few, and not very important, exceptions. It is almost absurd to
+speak of the events of the past three months as though they were merely
+incidents in a great and important campaign. There is nothing in history
+like them so far as we are aware. In the clash of the two great European
+organisations--the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente--we have all
+those wild features of universal chaos which the writer of the Apocalypse
+saw with prophetic eye as ushering in the great day of the Lord, and
+paving the way for a New Heaven and a New Earth.
+
+
+A COLOSSAL UPHEAVAL
+
+It is a colossal upheaval. But what sort of New Heaven and New Earth is it
+likely to usher in? This is a question which it is hardly too early to
+discuss, for it makes a vast difference, to us English in especial, if,
+fighting for what we deem to be a just cause, we can look forward to an
+issue in the long run beneficial to ourselves and the world. We know the
+character of the desperate conflict which has yet to be accomplished
+before our eyes. Everything points to a long stern war, which cannot be
+completed in a single campaign. Every one knows that Lord Kitchener is
+supposed to have prophesied a war of three years, and we can hardly ignore
+the opinion of so good a judge. If we ask why, the obvious answer is that
+every nation engaged is not fighting for mere victory in battle, nor yet
+for extension of territory; but for something more important than these.
+They fight for the triumph of their respective ideas, and it will make the
+greatest difference to Europe and the world which of the ideas is
+eventually conqueror. Supposing the German invasion of France ends in
+failure; that, clearly, will not finish the war. Supposing even that
+Berlin is taken by the Russians, we cannot affirm that so great an event
+will necessarily complete the campaign. The whole of Germany will have to
+be invaded and subdued, and that is a process which will take a very long
+time even under the most favourable auspices. Or take the opposite
+hypothesis. Let us suppose that the Germans capture Paris, and manage by
+forced marches to defend their country against the Muscovite incursion.
+Even so, nothing is accomplished of a lasting character. France will go on
+fighting as she did after 1870, and we shall be found at her side. Or,
+assuming the worst hypothesis of all, that France lies prostrate under the
+heel of her German conqueror, does any one suppose that Great Britain
+will desist from fighting? We know perfectly well that, with the aid of
+our Fleet, we shall still be in a position to defy the German invader and
+make use of our enormous reserves to wear out even Teutonic obstinacy. The
+great sign and seal of this battle to the death is the recent covenant
+entered into by the three members of the Triple Entente.[1] They have
+declared in the most formal fashion, over the signatures of their three
+representatives, Sir Edward Grey, M. Paul Cambon, and Count Benckendorff,
+that they will not make a separate peace, that they will continue to act
+in unison, and fight, not as three nations, but as one. Perhaps one of the
+least expected results of the present conjuncture is that the Triple
+Entente, which was supposed to possess less cohesive efficiency than the
+rival organisation, has proved, on the contrary, the stronger of the two.
+The Triple Alliance is not true to its name. Italy, the third and
+unwilling member, still preserves her neutrality, and declares that her
+interests are not immediately involved.
+
+[1] Subsequently joined by Japan.
+
+
+NEVER AGAIN!
+
+In order to attempt to discover the vast changes that are likely to come
+as a direct consequence of the present Armageddon, it is necessary to
+refer in brief retrospect to some of the main causes and features of the
+great European war. Meanwhile, I think the general feeling amongst all
+thoughtful men is best expressed in the phrase, "Never again." Never again
+must we have to face the possibility of such a world-wide catastrophe.
+Never again must it be possible for the pursuit of merely selfish
+interests to work such colossal havoc. Never again must we have war as the
+only solution of national differences. Never again must all the arts of
+peace be suspended while Europe rings to the tramp of armed millions.
+Never again must spiritual, moral, artistic culture be submerged under a
+wave of barbarism. Never again must the Ruler of this Universe be
+addressed as the "God of battles." Never again shall a new Wordsworth hail
+"carnage" as "God's daughter." The illogicality of it all is too patent.
+That everything which we respect and revere in the way of science or
+thought, or culture, or music, or poetry, or drama, should be cast into
+the melting-pot to satisfy dynastic ambition is a thing too puerile as
+well as too appalling to be even considered. And the horror of it all is
+something more than our nerves will stand. The best brains and intellects
+of Europe, the brightest and most promising youths, all the manhood
+everywhere in Europe to be shrivelled and consumed in a holocaust like
+this--it is such a reign of the Devil and Antichrist on earth that it must
+be banished in perpetuity if civilisation and progress are to endure.
+Never again!
+
+
+UNEXPECTED WAR
+
+How did we get into such a stupid and appalling calamity? Let us think for
+a moment. I do not suppose it would be wrong to say that no one ever
+expected war in our days. Take up any of the recent books. With the
+exception of the fiery martial pamphlets of Germany, the work of a von der
+Goltz or a Treitschke, or a Bernhardi, we shall find a general consensus
+of opinion that war on a large scale was impossible because too ruinous,
+that the very size of the European armaments made war impracticable. Or
+else, to take the extreme case of Mr. Norman Angell, the entanglements of
+modern finance were said to have put war out of count as an absurdity. We
+were a little too hasty in our judgments. It is clear that a single
+determined man, if he is powerful enough, may embroil Europe. However
+destructive modern armaments may be, and however costly a campaign may
+prove, yet there are men who will face the cost and confront the
+wholesale destruction of life that modern warfare entails. How pitiful it
+is, how strange also, to look back upon the solemn asseveration of the
+Kaiser and the Tsar, not so many months ago (Port Baltic, July 1912), that
+the division of Europe into the two great confederations known as the
+Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente provided a safeguard against
+hostilities! We were constantly assured that diplomats were working for a
+Balance of Power, such an equilibrium of rival forces that the total
+result would be stability and peace. Arbitration, too, was considered by
+many as the panacea, to say nothing of the Hague Palace of Peace. And now
+we discover that nations may possibly refer to arbitration points of small
+importance in their quarrels, but that the greater things which are
+supposed to touch national honour and the preservation of national life
+are tacitly, if not formally, exempted from the category of arbitrable
+disputes. Diplomacy, Arbitration, Palaces of Peace seem equally useless.
+
+
+PROXIMATE AND ULTIMATE CAUSES
+
+In attempting to understand how Europe has (to use Lord Rosebery's phrase)
+"rattled into barbarism" in the uncompromising fashion which we see
+before our eyes, we must distinguish between recent operative causes and
+those more slowly evolving antecedent conditions which play a
+considerable, though not necessarily an obvious part in the result. Recent
+operative causes are such things as the murder of the Archduke Franz
+Ferdinand at Serajevo, the consequent Austrian ultimatum to Servia, the
+hasty and intemperate action of the Kaiser in forcing war, and--from a
+more general point of view--the particular form of militarism prevalent in
+Germany. Ulterior antecedent conditions are to be found in the changing
+history of European States and their mutual relations in the last quarter
+of a century; the ambition of Germany to create an Imperial fleet; the
+ambition of Germany to have "a place in the sun" and become a large
+colonial power; the formation of a Triple Entente following on the
+formation of a Triple Alliance; the rivalry between Teuton and Slav; and
+the mutations of diplomacy and _Real-politik_. It is not always possible
+to keep the two sets of causes, the recent and the ulterior, separate, for
+they naturally tend either to overlap or to interpenetrate one another.
+German Militarism, for instance, is only a specific form of the general
+ambition of Germany, and the Austrian desire to avenge herself on Servia
+is a part of her secular animosity towards Slavdom and its protector,
+Russia. Nor yet, when we are considering the present _debacle_ of
+civilisation, need we interest ourselves overmuch in the immediate
+occasions and circumstances of the huge quarrel. We want to know not how
+Europe flared into war, but why. Our object is so to understand the
+present imbroglio as to prevent, if we can, the possibility for the future
+of any similar world-wide catastrophe.
+
+
+EUROPEAN DICTATORS
+
+Let us fix our attention on one or two salient points. Europe has often
+been accustomed to watch with anxiety the rise of some potent arbiter of
+her destinies who seems to arrogate to himself a large personal dominion.
+There was Philip II. There was Louis XIV. There was Napoleon a hundred
+years ago. Then, a mere shadow of his great ancestor, there was Napoleon
+III. Then, after the Franco-German war, there was Bismarck. Now it is
+Kaiser Wilhelm II. The emergence of some ambitious personality naturally
+makes Europe suspicious and watchful, and leads to the formation of
+leagues and confederations against him. The only thing, however, which
+seems to have any power of real resistance to the potential tyrant is not
+the manoeuvring of diplomats, but the steady growth of democracy in
+Europe, which, in virtue of its character and principles, steadily objects
+to the despotism of any given individual, and the arbitrary designs of a
+personal will. We had hoped that the spread of democracies in all European
+nations would progressively render dynastic wars an impossibility. The
+peoples would cry out, we hoped, against being butchered to make a holiday
+for any latter-day Caesar. But democracy is a slow growth, and exists in
+very varying degrees of strength in different parts of our continent.
+Evidently it has not yet discovered its own power. We have sadly to
+recognise that its range of influence and the new spirit which it seeks to
+introduce into the world are as yet impotent against the personal
+ascendancy of a monarch and the old conceptions of high politics. European
+democracy is still too vague, too dispersed, too unorganised, to prevent
+the breaking out of a bloody international conflict.
+
+
+THE PERSONAL FACTOR
+
+Europe then has still to reckon with the personal factor--with all its
+vagaries and its desolating ambitions. Let us see how this has worked in
+the case before us. In 1888 the present German Emperor ascended the
+throne. Two years afterwards, in March 1890, the Pilot was
+dropped--Bismarck resigned. The change was something more than a mere
+substitution of men like Caprivi and Hohenlohe for the Iron Chancellor.
+There was involved a radical alteration in policy. The Germany which was
+the ideal of Bismarck's dreams was an exceedingly prosperous
+self-contained country, which should flourish mainly because it developed
+its internal industries as well as paid attention to its agriculture, and
+secured its somewhat perilous position in the centre of Europe by skilful
+diplomatic means of sowing dissension amongst its neighbours. Thus
+Bismarck discouraged colonial extensions. He thought they might weaken
+Germany. On the other hand, he encouraged French colonial policy, because
+he thought it would divert the French from their preoccupation with the
+idea of _revanche_. He played, more or less successfully, with England,
+sometimes tempting her with plausible suggestions that she should join the
+Teutonic Empires on the Continent, sometimes thwarting her aims by sowing
+dissensions between her and her nearest neighbour, France. But there was
+one empire which, certainly, Bismarck dreaded not so much because she was
+actually of much importance, but because she might be. That empire was
+Russia. The last thing in the world Bismarck desired was precisely that
+approximation between France and Russia which ended in the strange
+phenomenon of an offensive and defensive alliance between a western
+republic and a semi-eastern despotic empire.
+
+
+KAISER WILHELM
+
+Kaiser Wilhelm II had very different ideals for Germany, and in many
+points he simply reversed the policy of Bismarck. He began to develop the
+German colonial empire, and in order that it might be protected he did all
+in his power to encourage the formation of a large German navy. He even
+allowed himself to say that "the future of Germany was on the sea." It was
+part of that peculiar form of personal autocracy which the Kaiser
+introduced that he should from time to time invent phrases suggestive of
+different principles of his policy. Side by side with the assertion that
+Germany's future was on the sea, we have the phrases "Germany wants her
+place in the sun" and that the "drag" of Teutonic development is "towards
+the East." The reality and imminence of "a yellow peril" was another of
+his devices for stimulating the efforts of his countrymen. Thus the new
+policy was expansion, evolution as a world-power, colonisation; and each
+in turn brought him up against the older arrangement of European Powers.
+His colonial policy, especially in Africa, led to collisions with both
+France and Great Britain. The building of the fleet, the Kiel Canal, and
+other details of maritime policy naturally made England very suspicious,
+while the steady drag towards the East rendered wholly unavoidable the
+conflict between Teutonism and the Slav races. Germany looked,
+undoubtedly, towards Asia Minor, and for this reason made great advances
+to and many professions of friendship for the Ottoman Empire. Turkey,
+indeed, in several phrases was declared to be "the natural ally" of
+Germany in the Near East. And if we ask why, the answer nowadays is
+obvious. Not only was Turkey to lend herself to the encouragement of
+German commercial enterprise in Asia Minor, but she was, in the judgment
+of the Emperor, the one power which could in time of trouble make herself
+especially obnoxious to Great Britain. She could encourage revolt in
+Egypt, and still more, through the influence of Mahommedanism, stir up
+disaffection in India.[2]
+
+[2] Turkey has now joined Germany.
+
+
+AN AGGRESSIVE POLICY
+
+And now let us watch this policy in action in recent events. In 1897
+Germany demanded reparation from China for the recent murder of two German
+missionaries. Troops were landed at Kiao-chau Bay, a large pecuniary
+indemnity of about L35,000 was refused, and Kiao-chau itself with the
+adjacent territory was ceded to Germany. That was a significant
+demonstration of the Emperor's determination to make his country a
+world-power, so that, as was stated afterwards, nothing should occur in
+the whole world in which Germany would not have her say. Meanwhile, in
+Europe itself event after event occurred to prove the persistent character
+of German aggressiveness. On March 31, 1905, the German Emperor landed at
+Tangier, in order to aid the Sultan of Morocco in his demand for a
+Conference of the Powers to check the military dispositions of France. M.
+Delcasse, France's Foreign Minister, demurred to this proposal, asserting
+that a Conference was wholly unnecessary. Thereupon Prince Buelow used
+menacing language, and Delcasse resigned in June 1905. The Conference of
+Algeciras was held in January 1906, in which Austria proved herself "a
+brilliant second" to Germany. Two years afterwards, in 1908, came still
+further proofs of Germany's ambition. Austria annexed Bosnia and
+Herzegovina. Russia immediately protested; so did most of the other Great
+Powers. But Germany at once took up the Austrian cause, and stood "in
+shining armour" side by side with her ally. Inasmuch as Russia was, in
+1908, only just recovering from the effects of her disastrous war with
+Japan, and was therefore in no condition to take the offensive, the Triple
+Alliance gained a distinct victory. Three years later occurred another
+striking event. In July 1911 the world was startled by the news that the
+German gunboat _Panther_, joined shortly afterwards by the cruiser
+_Berlin_, had been sent to Agadir. Clearly Berlin intended to reopen the
+whole Moroccan question, and the tension between the Powers was for some
+time acute. Nor did Mr. Lloyd George make it much better by a fiery speech
+at the Mansion House on July 21, which considerably fluttered the
+Continental dovecots. The immediate problem, however, was solved by the
+cession of about one hundred thousand square miles of territory in the
+Congo basin by France to Germany in compensation for German acquiescence
+in the French protectorate over Morocco. I need not, perhaps, refer to
+other more recent events. One point, however, must not be omitted. The
+issue of the Balkan wars in 1912 caused a distinct disappointment to both
+Germany and Austria. Turkey's defeat lessened the importance of the
+Ottoman Empire as an ally. Austria had to curb her desires in the
+direction of Salonica. And the enemies who had prevented the realisation
+of wide Teutonic schemes were Servia and her protector, Russia. From this
+time onwards Austria waited for an opportunity to avenge herself on
+Servia, while Germany, in close union with her ally, began to study the
+situation in relation to the Great Northern Empire in an eminently
+bellicose spirit.
+
+
+MILITARISM
+
+Now that we have the proper standpoint from which to watch the general
+tendency of events like these, we can form some estimate of the nature of
+German ambition and the results of the personal ascendancy of the Kaiser.
+We speak vaguely of militarism. Fortunately, we have a very valuable
+document to enable us to understand what precisely German militarism
+signifies. General von Bernhardi's _Germany and the Next War_ is one of
+the most interesting, as well as most suggestive, of books, intended to
+illustrate the spirit of German ambition. Bernhardi writes like a
+soldier. Such philosophy as he possesses he has taken from Nietzsche. His
+applications of history come from Treitschke. He has persuaded himself
+that the main object of human life is war, and the higher the nation the
+more persistently must it pursue preparations for war. Hence the best men
+in the State are the fighting men. Ethics and religion, so far as they
+deprecate fighting and plead for peace, are absolutely pernicious. Culture
+does not mean, as we hoped and thought, the best development of scientific
+and artistic enlightenment, but merely an all-absorbing will-power, an
+all-devouring ambition to be on the top and to crush every one else. The
+assumption throughout is that the German is the highest specimen of
+humanity. Germany is especially qualified to be the leader, and the only
+way in which it can become the leader is to have such overwhelming
+military power that no one has any chance of resisting. Moreover, all
+methods are justified in the sacred cause of German culture--duplicity,
+violence, the deliberate sowing of dissensions between possible rivals,
+incitements of Asiatics to rise against Europeans. All means are to be
+adopted to win the ultimate great victory, and, of course, when the
+struggle comes there must be no misplaced leniency to any of the inferior
+races who interpose between Germany and her legitimate place in the
+sun.[3] The ideal is almost too naive and too ferocious to be conceived by
+ordinary minds. Yet here it all stands in black and white. According to
+Bernhardi's volume German militarism means at least two things. First the
+suppression of every other nationality except the German; second the
+suppression of the whole civilian element in the population under the heel
+of the German drill-sergeant. Is it any wonder that the recent war has
+been conducted by Berlin with such appalling barbarism and ferocity?
+
+[3] _Germany and the Next War_, by F. von Bernhardi. See especially Chap.
+V, "World-Power or Downfall." Other works which may be consulted are
+Professor J.A. Cramb's _Germany and England_ (esp. pp. 111-112) and
+Professor Usher's _Pan-Germanism_.
+
+
+THE EVILS OF AUTOCRACY
+
+Our inquiry so far has led to two conclusions. We have discovered by
+bitter experience that a personal ascendancy, such as the German Emperor
+wields, is in the highest degree perilous to the interests of peace: and
+that a militarism such as that which holds in its thrall the German Empire
+is an open menace to intellectual culture and to Christian ethics. But we
+must not suppose that these conclusions are only true so far as they apply
+to the Teutonic race, and that the same phenomena observed elsewhere are
+comparatively innocuous. Alas! autocracy in any and every country seems to
+be inimical to the best and highest of social needs, and militarism,
+wherever found, is the enemy of pacific social development. Let us take a
+few instances at haphazard of the danger of the personal factor in
+European politics. There is hardly a person to be found nowadays who
+defends the Crimean war, or indeed thinks that it was in any sense
+inevitable. Yet if there was one man more than another whose personal will
+brought it about, it was--not Lord Aberdeen who ought to have been
+responsible--but Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. "The great Eltchi," as he
+was called, was our Ambassador at Constantinople, a man of uncommon
+strength of will, which, as is often the case with these powerful natures,
+not infrequently degenerated into sheer obstinacy. He had made up his mind
+that England was to support Turkey and fight with Russia, and inasmuch as
+Louis Napoleon, for the sake of personal glory, had similar opinions,
+France as well as England was dragged into a costly and quite useless war.
+Napoleon III has already figured among those aspiring monarchs who wish
+"to sit in the chair of Europe." It was his personal will once more which
+sent the unhappy Maximilian to his death in Mexico, and his personal
+jealousy of Prussia which launched him in the fatal enterprise "a Berlin"
+in 1870. In the latter case we find another personal influence, still more
+sinister--that of the Empress Eugenie, whose capricious ambition and
+interference in military matters directly led to the ruinous disaster of
+Sedan. The French people, who had to suffer, discovered it too late.
+"Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi." Or take another more recent
+instance. Who was responsible for the Russo-Japanese war? Not Kuropatkin,
+assuredly, nor yet the Russian Prime Minister, but certain of the Grand
+Dukes and probably the Tsar himself, who were interested in the forests of
+the Yalu district and had no mind to lose the money they had invested in a
+purely financial operation. The truth is that modern Europe has no room
+for "prancing Pro-consuls," and no longer takes stock in autocrats. They
+are, or ought to be, superannuated, out of date. To use an expressive
+colloquialism they are "a back number." The progress of the world demands
+the development of peoples; it has no use for mediaeval monarchies like
+that of Potsdam. One of the things we ought to banish for ever is the
+horrible idea that whole nations can be massacred and civilisation
+indefinitely postponed to suit the individual caprice of a bragging and
+self-opinionated despot who calls himself God's elect. Now that we know
+the ruin he can cause, let us fight shy of the Superman, and the whole
+range of ideas which he connotes.
+
+
+THE MILITARY CASTE
+
+Militarism is another of our maladies. Here we must distinguish with some
+care. A military spirit is one thing: militarism is another. It is
+probable that no nation is worthy to survive which does not possess a
+military spirit, or, in other words, the instinct to defend itself and its
+liberties against an aggressor. It is a virtue which is closely interfused
+with high moral qualities--self-respect, a proper pride,
+self-reliance--and is compatible with real modesty and sobriety of mind.
+But militarism has nothing ethical about it. It is not courage, but sheer
+pugnacity and quarrelsomeness, and as exemplified in our modern history it
+means the dominion of a clique, the reign of a few self-opinionated
+officials. That these individuals should possess only a limited
+intelligence is almost inevitable. Existing for the purposes of war, they
+naturally look at everything from an oblique and perverted point of view.
+They regard nations, not as peaceful communities of citizens, but as
+material to be worked up into armies. Their assumption is that war, being
+an indelible feature in the history of our common humanity, must be
+ceaselessly prepared for by the piling up of huge armaments and weapons of
+destruction. Their invariable motto is that if you wish for peace you must
+prepare for war--"si vis pacem, para bellum"--a notoriously false
+apophthegm, because armaments are provocative, not soothing, and the man
+who is a swash-buckler invites attack. It is needless to say that
+thousands of military men do not belong to this category: no one dreads
+war so much as the man who knows what it means. I am not speaking of
+individuals, I am speaking of a particular caste, military officials in
+the abstract, if you like to put it so, who, because their business is
+war, have not the slightest idea what the pacific social development of a
+people really means. Militarism is simply a one-sided, partial point of
+view, and to enforce that upon a nation is as though a man with a
+pronounced squint were to be accepted as a man of normal vision. We have
+seen what it involves in Germany. In a less offensive form, however, it
+exists in most states, and its root idea is usually that the civilian as
+such belongs to a lower order of humanity, and is not so important to the
+State as the officer who discharges vague and for the most part useless
+functions in the War Office.[4] It is a swollen, over-developed militarism
+that has got us into the present mess, and one of our earliest concerns,
+when the storm is over, must be to put it into its proper place. Let him
+who uses the sword perish by the sword.
+
+[4] Thus it was the Military party in Bulgaria which drove her to the
+disastrous second Balkan war, and the Military party in Austria which
+insisted on the ultimatum to Servia.
+
+
+DIPLOMACY
+
+And I fear that there is another ancient piece of our international
+strategy which has been found wanting. I approach with some hesitation the
+subject of diplomacy, because it contains so many elements of value to a
+state, and has given so many opportunities for active and original minds.
+Its worst feature is that its operations have to be conducted in secret:
+its best is that it affords a fine exemplification of the way in which the
+history and fortunes of states are--to their advantage--dependent upon
+the initiative of gifted and patriotic individuals. But if we look back
+over the history of recent years, we shall discover that diplomacy has not
+fulfilled its especial mission. According to a well-known cynical dictum a
+diplomatist is a man who is paid to lie for his country. And, indeed, it
+is one of the least gracious aspects of the diplomatic career that it
+seems necessarily to involve the use of a certain amount of chicanery and
+falsehood, the object being to jockey opponents by means of skilful ruses
+into a position in which they find themselves at a disadvantage. Clearly,
+however, there are better aims than these for diplomacy--one aim in
+particular, which is the preservation of peace. A diplomat is supposed to
+have failed if the result of his work leads to war. It is not his business
+to bring about war. Any king or prime minister or general can do that,
+very often with conspicuous ease. A diplomat is a skilful statesman
+versed in international politics, who makes the best provision he can for
+the interests of his country, carefully steering it away from those rocks
+of angry hostility on which possibly his good ship may founder.
+
+
+BALANCE OF POWER
+
+Now what has diplomacy done for us during the last few years? It has
+formed certain understandings and alliances between different states; it
+has tried to safeguard our position by creating sympathetic bonds with
+those nations who are allied to us in policy. It has also attempted to
+produce that kind of "Balance of Power" in Europe which on its own showing
+makes for peace. This Balance of Power, so often and so mysteriously
+alluded to by the diplomatic world, has become a veritable fetish. Perhaps
+its supreme achievement was reached when two autocratic monarchs--the Tsar
+of Russia and the German Emperor--solemnly propounded a statement, as we
+have seen, at Port Baltic that the Balance of Power, as distributed
+between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, had proved itself
+valuable in the interests of European peace. That was only two years ago,
+and the thing seems a mockery now. If we examine precisely what is meant
+by a Balance of Power, we shall see that it presupposes certain conditions
+of animosity and attempts to neutralise them by the exhibition of superior
+or, at all events, equivalent forces. A Balance of Power in the
+continental system assumes, for all practical purposes, that the nations
+of Europe are ready to fly at each other's throats, and that the only way
+to deter them is to make them realise how extremely perilous to themselves
+would be any such military enterprise. Can any one doubt that this is the
+real meaning of the phrase? If we listen to the Delphic oracles of
+diplomacy on this subject of the Balance of Power, we shall understand
+that in nine cases out of ten a man invoking this phrase means that he
+wants the Balance of Power to be favourable to himself. It is not so much
+an exact equipoise that he desires, as a certain tendency of the scales to
+dip in his direction. If Germany feels herself weak she not only
+associates Austria and Italy with herself, but looks eastward to get the
+assistance of Turkey, or, perhaps, attempts--as it so happens without any
+success--to create sympathy for herself in the United States of America.
+If, on the other hand, France feels herself in danger, she not only forms
+an alliance with Russia, but also an entente with England and, on the
+principle that the friends of one's friends ought to be accepted, produces
+a further entente between England and Russia. England, on her part, if for
+whatever reason she feels that she is liable to attack, goes even so far
+as to make an alliance with an Asiatic nation--Japan--in order to
+safeguard her Asiatic interests in India. Thus, when diplomatists invoke
+the necessity of a Balance of Power, they are really trying to work for a
+preponderance of power on their side. It is inevitable that this should be
+so. An exact Balance of Power must result in a stalemate.
+
+
+CHANGE OF POLICY
+
+Observe what has happened to Great Britain during recent years. When she
+was ruled by that extremely clear-headed though obstinate statesman, Lord
+Salisbury, she remained, at his advice, outside the circle of continental
+entanglements and rejoiced in what was known as a policy of "Splendid
+Isolation." It was, of course, a selfish policy. It rested on sound
+geographical grounds, because, making use of the fortunate accident that
+Great Britain is an island, it suggested that she could pursue her own
+commercial career and, thanks to the English Channel, let the whole of the
+rest of the world go hang. Such a position could not possibly last, partly
+because Great Britain is not only an island, but also an empire scattered
+over the seven seas; partly because we could not remain alien from those
+social and economic interests which necessarily link our career with
+continental nations. So we became part of the continental system, and it
+became necessary for us to choose friends and partners and mark off other
+peoples as our enemies. It might have been possible a certain number of
+years ago for us to join the Triple Alliance. At one time Prince Buelow
+seemed anxious that we should do so, and Mr. Chamberlain on our side was
+by no means unwilling. But gradually we discovered that Germany was
+intensely jealous of us as a colonial power and as a great sea-power, and
+for this reason, as well as for others, we preferred to compose our
+ancient differences with France and promote an understanding between
+English and French as the nearest of neighbours and the most convenient of
+allies. Observe, however, that every step in the process was a challenge,
+and a challenge which the rival aimed at could not possibly ignore. The
+conclusion of the French Entente Cordiale in 1904, the launching of the
+_Dreadnought_ in 1906, the formation of the Russian agreement in 1907, and
+certain changes which we made in our own army were obviously intended as
+warnings to Germany that we were dangerous people to attack.[5] Germany
+naturally sought reprisals in her fashion, and gradually Europe was
+transformed into a huge armed camp, divided into two powerful
+organisations which necessarily watched each other with no friendly gaze.
+
+[5] See _The War of Steel and Gold_, by H.N. Brailsford (Bell)--opening
+chapter on "The Balance of Power."
+
+
+BALANCE OR CONCERT?
+
+I do not say that the course of events could possibly have been altered.
+When once we became part of the continental system, it was necessary for
+us to choose between friends and enemies. I only say that if diplomacy
+calls itself an agency for preventing war, it cannot be said to be
+altogether successful. Its famous doctrine of a Balance of Power is in
+reality a mere phrase. If one combination be represented as X and the
+other as Y, and X increases itself up to X^2, it becomes necessary that Y
+should similarly increase itself to Y^2, a process which, clearly, does
+not make for peace. I should imagine that the best of diplomatists are
+quite aware of this. Indeed, there seems reason to suppose that Sir Edward
+Grey, owing to definite experience in the last two years, not only
+discovered the uselessness of the principle of a Balance of Power, but did
+his best to substitute something entirely different--the Concert of
+Europe. All the negotiations he conducted during and after the two Balkan
+wars, his constant effort to summon London Conferences and other things,
+were intended to create a Concert of European Powers, discussing amongst
+themselves the best measures to secure the peace of the world. Alas! the
+whole of the fabric was destroyed, the fair prospects hopelessly clouded
+over, by the intemperate ambition of the Kaiser, who, just because he
+believed that the Balance of Power was favourable to himself, that Russia
+was unready, that France was involved in serious domestic trouble, that
+England was on the brink of civil war, set fire to the magazine and
+engineered the present colossal explosion.
+
+
+CONTROL OF FOREIGN POLICY
+
+One cannot feel sure that diplomacy as hitherto recognised will be able,
+or, indeed, ought to be able, to survive the shock. In this country, as in
+others, diplomacy has been considered a highly specialised science, which
+can only be conducted by trained men and by methods of entire secrecy. As
+a mere matter of fact, England has far less control over her foreign
+policy than any of the continental Powers. In Germany foreign affairs come
+before the Reichstag, in France they are surveyed by the Senate, in
+America there is a special department of the Senate empowered to deal
+with foreign concerns. In Great Britain there is nothing of the kind.
+Parliament has practically no control whatsoever over foreign affairs, it
+is not even consulted in the formation of treaties and arrangements with
+other nations. Nor yet has the Cabinet any real control, because it must
+act together as a whole, and a determined criticism of a foreign secretary
+means the resignation of the Government. Fortunately, our diplomacy has
+been left for the most part in very able hands. Nevertheless, it is surely
+a paradox that the English people should know so little about foreign
+affairs as to be absolutely incapable of any control in questions that
+affect their life or death. Democracy, though it is supposed to be
+incompetent to manage foreign relations, could hardly have made a worse
+mess of it than the highly-trained Chancelleries. When the new Europe
+arises out of the ashes of the old, it is not very hazardous to prophesy
+that diplomacy, with its secret methods, its belief in phrases and
+abstract principles, and its assumption of a special professional
+knowledge, will find the range of its powers and the sphere of its
+authority sensibly curtailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LESSONS OF THE PAST
+
+
+The problems that lie before us in the reconstitution of Europe are so
+many and so various that we can only hope to take a few separately,
+especially those which seem to throw most light on a possible future. I
+have used the phrase "reconstitution of Europe," because I do not know how
+otherwise to characterise the general trend of the ideas germinating in
+many men's minds as they survey the present crisis and its probable
+outcome. Europe will have to be reconstituted in more respects than one.
+At the present moment, or rather before the present war broke out, it was
+governed by phrases and conceptions which had become superannuated. An
+uneasy equipoise between the Great Powers represented the highest
+culmination of our diplomatic efforts. Something must clearly be
+substituted for this uneasy equipoise. It is not enough that after
+tremendous efforts the relative balance of forces between great states
+should, on the whole, dissuade them from war. As a matter of fact, it has
+not done so. The underlying conception has been that nations are so
+ardently bellicose that they require to be restrained from headlong
+conflicts by the doubtful and dangerous character of such military efforts
+as might be practicable. Hence Europe, as divided into armed camps,
+represents one of the old-fashioned ideas that we want to abolish. We wish
+to put in its stead something like a Concert of Europe. We have before our
+eyes a vague, but inspiring vision not of tremendous and rival armaments,
+but of a United States of Europe, each component element striving for the
+public weal, and for further advances in general cultivation and welfare
+rather than commercial prosperity. The last is a vital point, for it does
+not require much knowledge of modern history to discover that the race for
+commercial advantage is exactly one of the reasons why Europe is at war at
+the present moment. A vast increase in the commercial prosperity of any
+one state means a frantic effort on the part of its rivals to pull down
+this advantage. In some fashion, therefore, we have to substitute for
+endless competition the principle of co-operation, national welfare being
+construed at the same time not in terms of overwhelming wealth, but of
+thorough sanity and health in the body corporate.
+
+
+NAKED STRENGTH
+
+All this sounds shadowy and abstruse until it is translated into something
+concrete and definite. What is it we want to dispossess and banish from
+the Europe of to-day? We have to find something to take the place of what
+is called militarism. I dealt with the general features of militarism in
+my last essay; I will therefore content myself with saying that militarism
+in Europe has meant two things above all. First, the worship of might, as
+expressed in formidable armaments; next, the corresponding worship of
+wealth to enable the burden of armaments to be borne with comparative
+ease. The worship of naked strength involves several deductions. Right
+disappears, or rather is translated in terms of might. International
+morality equally disappears. Individuals, it is true, seek to be governed
+by the consciousness of universal moral laws. But a nation, as such, has
+no conscience, and is not bound to recognise the supremacy of anything
+higher than itself. Morality, though it may bind the individual, does not
+bind the State, or, as General von Bernhardi has expressed it, "political
+morality differs from individual morality because there is no power above
+the State." In similar fashion the worship of wealth carries numerous
+consequences with it, which are well worthy of consideration. But the main
+point, so far as it affects my present argument, is that it substitutes
+materialistic objects of endeavour for ethical and spiritual aims. Once
+more morality is defeated. The ideal is not the supremacy of good, but the
+supremacy of that range and sphere of material efficiency that is
+procurable by wealth.
+
+
+PUBLIC RIGHT
+
+Let us try to be more concrete still, and in this context let us turn to
+such definite statements as are available of the views entertained by our
+chief statesmen, politicians, and leaders of public opinion. I turn to the
+speech which Mr. Asquith delivered on Friday evening, September 25, in
+Dublin, as part of the crusade which he and others are undertaking for the
+general enlightenment of the country. "I should like," said Mr. Asquith,
+"to ask your attention and that of my fellow-countrymen to the end which,
+in this war, we ought to keep in view. Forty-four years ago, at the time
+of the war of 1870, Mr. Gladstone used these words. He said: 'The greatest
+triumph of our time will be the enthronement of the idea of public right
+as the governing idea of European politics.' Nearly fifty years have
+passed. Little progress, it seems, has as yet been made towards that good
+and beneficent change, but it seems to me to be now at this moment as good
+a definition as we can have of our European policy--the idea of public
+right. What does it mean when translated into concrete terms? It means,
+first and foremost, the clearing of the ground by the definite repudiation
+of militarism as the governing factor in the relation of states and of the
+future moulding of the European world. It means next that room must be
+found and kept for the independent existence and the free development of
+the smaller nationalities, each with a corporate consciousness of its
+own.... And it means, finally, or it ought to mean, perhaps, by a slow and
+gradual process, the substitution for force, for the clash of competing
+ambition, for groupings and alliances, of a real European partnership
+based on the recognition of equal right and established and enforced by a
+common will."[6]
+
+Much the same language has been used by Sir Edward Grey and by Mr. Winston
+Churchill.
+
+[6] _The Times_, September 26.
+
+
+A COMMON WILL
+
+Observe that there are three points here. In the first place--if I do not
+misapprehend Mr. Asquith's drift--in working for the abolition of
+militarism, we are working for a great diminution in those armaments which
+have become a nightmare to the modern world. The second point is that we
+have to help in every fashion small nationalities, or, in other words,
+that we have to see that countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, the
+Scandinavian countries, Greece and the Balkan States, and, perhaps, more
+specially, the Slav nationalities shall have a free chance in Europe,
+shall "have their place in the sun," and not be browbeaten and raided and
+overwhelmed by their powerful neighbours. And the third point, perhaps
+more important than all, is the creation of what Mr. Asquith calls a
+"European partnership based on the recognition of equal right and
+established and enforced by a common will." We have to recognise that
+there is such a thing as public right; that there is such a thing as
+international morality, and that the United States of Europe have to keep
+as their ideal the affirmation of this public right, and to enforce it by
+a common will. That creation of a common will is at once the most
+difficult and the most imperative thing of all. Every one must be aware
+how difficult it is. We know, for instance, how the common law is enforced
+in any specified state, because it has a "sanction," or, in other words,
+because those who break it can be punished. But the weakness for a long
+time past of international law, from the time of Grotius onwards, is that
+it apparently has no real sanction. How are we to punish an offending
+state? It can only be done by the gradual development of a public
+conscience in Europe, and by means of definite agreements so that the rest
+of the civilised world shall compel a recalcitrant member to abide by the
+common decrees. If only this common will of Europe ever came into
+existence, we should have solved most, if not all, our troubles. But the
+question is: How?
+
+
+A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
+
+It may be depressing, but it certainly is an instructive lesson to go back
+just a hundred years ago, when the condition of Europe was in many
+respects similar to that which prevails now. The problems that unrolled
+themselves before the nations afford useful points of comparison. The
+great enemy was then Napoleon and France. Napoleon's views of empire were
+precisely of that universal predatory type which we have learnt to
+associate with the Kaiser and the German Empire. The autocratic rule of
+the single personal will was weighing heavily on nearly every quarter of
+the globe. Then came a time when the principle of nationality, which
+Napoleon had everywhere defied, gradually grew in strength until it was
+able to shake off the yoke of the conqueror. In Germany, and Spain, and
+Italy the principle of nationality steadily grew, while in England there
+had always been a steady opposition to the tyranny of Napoleon on the
+precise ground that it interfered with the independent existence of
+nations. The defeat of Napoleon, therefore, was hailed by our forefathers
+a hundred years ago as the dawn of a new era. Four great Powers--Great
+Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia--had before them as their task the
+settlement of Europe, one of the noblest tasks that could possibly be
+assigned to those who, having suffered under the old regime, were desirous
+to secure peace and base it on just and equitable foundations. There is
+thus an obvious parallelism between the conditions of affairs in 1815 and
+those which will, as we hope, obtain if and when the German tyrant is
+defeated and the nations of Europe commence their solemn task of
+reconstituting Europe. Of course, we must not press the analogy too far.
+The dawn of a new era might have been welcomed in 1815, but the proviso
+was always kept in the background that most of the older traditions should
+be preserved. Diplomacy was still inspired by its traditional watchwords.
+Above all, the transformation so keenly and so vaguely desired was in the
+hands of sovereigns who were more anxious about their own interests than
+perhaps was consistent with the common weal.
+
+
+EQUILIBRIUM
+
+At first the four Great Powers proceeded very tentatively. They wished to
+confine France--the dangerous element in Europe--within her legitimate
+boundaries. Next, they desired to arrange an equilibrium of Powers
+(observe, in passing, the old doctrine of the Balance of Power) so that no
+individual state should for the future be in a position to upset the
+general tranquillity. Revolutionary France was to be held under by the
+re-establishment of its ancient dynasty. Hence Louis XVIII was to be
+restored. The other object was to be obtained by a careful parcelling out
+of the various territories of Europe, on the basis, so far as possible, of
+old rights consecrated by treaties. It is unnecessary to go into detail in
+this matter. We may say summarily that Germany was reconstituted as a
+Confederation of Sovereign States; Austria received the Presidency of the
+Federal Diet; in Italy Lombardo-Venetia was erected into a kingdom under
+Austrian hegemony, while the Low Countries were annexed to the crown of
+Holland so as to form, under the title of the United Netherlands, an
+efficient barrier against French aggression northwards. It was troublesome
+to satisfy Alexander I of Russia because of his ambition to secure for
+himself the kingdom of Poland. Indeed, as we shall see presently, the
+personality of Alexander was a permanent stumbling-block to most of the
+projects of European statesmen. As a whole, it cannot be denied that this
+particular period of history, between Napoleon's abdication in 1814 and
+the meeting of the European Congress at Verona in 1882, presented a
+profoundly distressing picture of international egotism. The ruin of their
+common enemy, relieving the members of the European family from the
+necessity of maintaining concord, also released their individual
+selfishnesses and their long-suppressed mutual jealousies.[7]
+
+[7] See _The Confederation of Europe_, by Walter Alison Phillips
+(Longmans), esp. Chapters V and VI. Cf. also _Political and Literary
+Essays_, by the Earl of Cromer, 2nd series (Macmillan), on _The
+Confederation of Europe_.
+
+
+THE HOLY ALLIANCE
+
+The figure of Alexander I dominates this epoch. His character exhibits a
+very curious mixture of autocratic ambition and a mystical vein of sheer
+undiluted idealism. Probably it would be true to say that he began by
+being an idealist, and was forced by the pressure of events to adopt
+reactionary tactics. Perhaps also, deeply embedded in the Russian nature
+we generally find a certain unpracticalness and a tendency to mystical
+dreams, far remote from the ordinary necessities of every day. It was
+Alexander's dream to found a Union of Europe, and to consecrate its
+political by its spiritual aims. He retained various nebulous thinkers
+around his throne; he also derived much of his crusade from the
+inspiration of a woman--Baroness von Kruedener, who is supposed to have
+owed her own conversion to the teaching of a pious cobbler. Even if we
+have to describe Alexander's dream as futile, we cannot afford to dismiss
+it as wholly inoperative. For it had as its fruit the so-called Holy
+Alliance, which was in a sense the direct ancestor of the peace programmes
+of the Hague, and, through a different chain of ideas, the Monroe Doctrine
+of the United States. We are apt sometimes to confuse the Holy Alliance
+with the Grand Alliance. The second, however, was a union of the four
+Great Powers, to which France was ultimately admitted. The first was not
+an alliance at all, hardly, perhaps, even a treaty. It was in its original
+conception a single-hearted attempt to arrange Europe on the principles of
+the Christian religion, the various nations being regarded as brothers who
+ought to have proper brotherly affection for one another. We know that,
+eventually, the Holy Alliance became an instrument of something like
+autocratic despotism, but in its essence it was so far from being
+reactionary that, according to the Emperor Alexander, it involved the
+grant of liberal constitutions by princes to their subjects.
+
+
+DIPLOMATIC CRITICISM
+
+But just because it bound its signatories to act on certain vague
+principles for no well-defined ends, it was bound to become the mockery
+of diplomatists trained in an older school. Metternich, for instance,
+called it a "loud sounding nothing"; Castlereagh "a piece of sublime
+mysticism and nonsense," while Canning declared that for his part he
+wanted no more of "Areopagus and the like of that." What happened on this
+occasion is what ordinarily happens with well-intentioned idealists who
+happen also to be amateur statesmen. Trying to regulate practical
+politics, the Holy Alliance was deflected from its original purpose
+because its chief author, Alexander I, came under the influence of
+Metternich and was frightened by revolutionary movements in Italy and
+within his own dominions. Thus the instrument originally intended to
+preserve nationalities and secure the constitutional rights of people was
+converted into a weapon for the use of autocrats only anxious to preserve
+their own thrones. Nevertheless, though it may have been a failure, the
+Holy Alliance did not leave itself without witness in the modern world. It
+tried to regulate ordinary diplomacy in accordance with ethical and
+spiritual principles; and the dreaming mind of its first founder was
+reproduced in that later descendant of his who initiated the Hague
+propaganda of peace.
+
+
+FAILURE
+
+"These things were written for our ensamples," and we should be foolish
+indeed if we did not take stock of them with an anxious eye to the future.
+The main and startling fact is that with every apparent desire for the
+re-establishment of Europe on better lines, Europe, as a matter of fact,
+drifted back into the old welter of conflicting nationalities, while the
+very instrument of peace--the Holy Alliance--was used by autocratic
+governments for the subjection of smaller nationalities and the
+destruction of popular freedom. It is accordingly very necessary that we
+should study the conditions under which so startling a transformation took
+place. Even in England herself it cannot be said that the people were in
+any sense benefited by the conclusions of the war. They had borne its
+burdens, but at its end found themselves hampered as before in the free
+development of a democracy. Meanwhile, Europe at large presented a
+spectacle of despotism tempered by occasional popular outbreaks, while in
+the majority of cases the old fetters were riveted anew by cunning and by
+no means disinterested hands.
+
+
+A DECEPTIVE PARALLEL
+
+What we have to ask ourselves is whether the conditions a hundred years
+ago have any real similarity with those likely to obtain when Europe
+begins anew to set its house in order. To this, fortunately, we can return
+a decided negative. We have already shown that the general outlines
+present a certain similarity, but the parallelism is at most superficial,
+and in many respects deceptive. A despot has to be overthrown, an end has
+to be put to a particular form of autocratic regime, and smaller states
+have to be protected against the exactions of their stronger
+neighbours--that is the extent of the analogy. But it is to be hoped that
+we shall commence our labours under much better auspices. The personal
+forces involved, for instance, are wholly different. Amongst those who
+took upon themselves to solve the problems of the time is to be found the
+widest possible divergence in character and aims. On the one side we have
+a sheer mystic and idealist in the person of Alexander I, with all kinds
+of visionary characters at his side--La Harpe, who was his tutor, a
+Jacobin pure and simple, and a fervent apostle of the teachings of Jean
+Jacques Rousseau; Czartoryski, a Pole, sincerely anxious for the
+regeneration of his kingdom; and Capo d'Istria, a champion of Greek
+nationality. To these we have to add the curious figure of the Baroness
+von Kruedener, an admirable representative of the religious sickliness of
+the age. "I have immense things to say to him," she said, referring to the
+Emperor, "the Lord alone can prepare his heart to receive them." She had,
+indeed, many things to say to him, but her influence was evanescent and
+his Imperial heart was hardened eventually to quite different issues.
+
+
+METTERNICH
+
+Absolutely at the other extreme was a man like Metternich, trained in the
+old school of politics, wily with the wiliness of a practised diplomatic
+training, naturally impatient of speculative dreamers, thoroughly
+practical in the only sense in which he understood the term, that is to
+say, determined to preserve Austrian supremacy. To a reactionary of this
+kind the Holy Alliance represented nothing but words. He knew, with the
+cynicism bred of long experience of mankind, that the rivalries and
+jealousies between different states would prevent their union in any
+common purpose, and in the long run the intensity with which he pursued
+his objects, narrow and limited as it was, prevailed over the large and
+vague generosity of Alexander's nature. To the same type belonged both
+Talleyrand and Richelieu, who concentrated themselves on the single task
+of winning back for France her older position in the European
+commonwealth--a laudable aim for patriots to espouse, but one which was
+not likely to help the cause of the Holy Alliance.
+
+
+CASTLEREAGH AND CANNING
+
+Half-way between these two extremes of unpractical idealists and extremely
+practical but narrow-minded reactionaries come the English statesmen,
+Castlereagh, Wellington, and Canning. Much injustice has been done to the
+first of these. For many critics have been misled by Byron's denunciation
+of Castlereagh, just as others have spoken lightly of the stubborn
+conservatism of Wellington, or the easy and half-cynical insouciance of
+the author of the _Anti-Jacobin_. As a matter of fact, Castlereagh was by
+no means an opponent of the principles of the Holy Alliance. He joined
+with Russia, Austria, and Prussia as a not unwilling member of the
+successive Congresses, but both he and Wellington, true to their national
+instincts, sought to subordinate all proposals to the interests of Great
+Britain, and to confine discussions to immediate objects, such as the
+limitation of French power and the suppression of dangerous revolutionary
+ideas. They were not, it is true, idealists in the sense in which
+Alexander I understood the term. And yet, on the whole, both Castlereagh
+and Canning did more for the principle of nationality than any of the
+other diplomatists of the time. The reason why Canning broke with the Holy
+Alliance, after Troppau, Laibach, and Verona, was because he discerned
+something more than a tendency on the part of Continental States to crush
+the free development of peoples, especially in reference to the
+Latin-American States of South America. It is true that in these matters
+he and his successor were guided by a shrewd notion of British interest,
+but it would be hardly just to blame them on this account. "You know my
+politics well enough," wrote Canning in 1822 to the British Ambassador in
+St. Petersburg, "to know what I mean when I say that for Europe I should
+be desirous now and then to read England." Castlereagh was, no doubt, more
+conciliatory than Canning, but he saw the fundamental difficulty of
+organising an international system and yet holding the balance between
+conflicting nations. And thus we get to a result such as seems to have
+rejoiced the heart of Canning, when he said in 1823 that "the issue of
+Verona has split the one and indivisible alliance into three parts as
+distinct as the constitutions of England, France, and Muscovy." "Things
+are getting back," he added, "to a wholesome state again. Every nation for
+itself and God for us all. Only bid your Emperor (Alexander I) be quiet,
+for the time for Areopagus and the like of that is gone by."[8]
+
+[8] _The Confederation of Europe_, by W.A. Phillips, p. 280.
+
+
+EARTHEN VESSELS
+
+If, then, the ardent hopes of a regenerated Europe in the early years of
+the nineteenth century failed, the result was due in large measure to the
+fact that the business was committed to wrong hands. The organs for
+working the change were for the most part autocratic monarchs and
+old-world diplomatists--the last people in the world likely to bring about
+a workable millennium. A great crisis demands very careful manipulation.
+Cynicism must not be allowed to play any part in it. Traditional
+watchwords are not of much use. Theoretical idealism itself may turn out
+to be a most formidable stumbling-block. Yet no one can doubt that a
+solution of the problem, whenever it is arrived at, must come along the
+path of idealism. Long ago a man of the world was defined as a man who in
+every serious crisis is invariably wrong. He is wrong because he applies
+old-fashioned experience to a novel situation--old wine in new
+bottles--and because he has no faith in generous aspirations, having noted
+their continuous failure in the past. Yet, after all, it is only faith
+which can move mountains, and the Holy Alliance itself was not so much
+wrong in the principles to which it appealed as it was in the personages
+who signed it. We have noticed already that, like all other great ideas,
+it did not wholly die. The propaganda of peace, however futile may be some
+of the discussions of pacifists, is the heritage which even so
+wrong-headed a man as Alexander I has left to the world. The idea of
+arbitration between nations, the solution of difficulties by arguments
+rather than by swords, the power which democracies hold in their hands for
+guiding the future destinies of the world--all these in their various
+forms remain with us as legacies of that splendid, though ineffective,
+idealism which lay at the root of the Holy Alliance.
+
+
+SMALL NATIONALITIES
+
+And now after this digression, which has been necessary to clear the
+ground, and also to suggest apt parallels, let us return to what Mr.
+Asquith said in Dublin on the ultimate objects of the present war. He
+borrowed from Mr. Gladstone the phrase "the enthronement of the idea of
+public right as the governing idea of European politics," and in
+developing it as applicable to the present situation he pointed out that
+for us three definite objects are involved. The first, assented to by
+every publicist of the day, apart from those educated in Germany, is the
+wholesale obliteration of the notion that states exist simply for the sake
+of going to war. This kind of militarism, in all its different aspects,
+will have to be abolished. The next point brings us at once to the heart
+of some of the controversies raised in 1815 and onwards. "Room," said Mr.
+Asquith--agreeing in this matter with Mr. Winston Churchill--"room must be
+found, and kept, for the independent existence and the free development of
+the smaller nationalities, each with a corporate consciousness of its
+own." Now this is a plain issue which every one can understand. Not only
+did we go to war in order to help a small nationality--Belgium--but the
+very principle of nationality is one of the familiar phrases which have
+characterised British policy through the greater part of the nineteenth
+century. Our principle is to live and let live, to allow smaller states to
+exist and thrive by the side of their large neighbours without undue
+interference on the part of the latter. Each distinct nationality is to
+have its voice, at all events, in the free direction of its own future.
+And, above all, its present and future position must be determined not by
+the interests of the big Powers, but by a sort of plebiscite of the whole
+nationality.
+
+
+SOME PLAIN ISSUES
+
+Applying such principles to Europe as it exists to-day, and as it is
+likely to exist to-morrow, we arrive at certain very definite conclusions.
+The independence of Belgium must be secured, so also must the independence
+of Holland and Denmark. Alsace and Lorraine must, if the inhabitants so
+wish, be restored to France, and there can be little doubt that Alsace at
+all events will be only too glad to resume her old allegiance to the
+French nation. The Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein must also decide whether
+they would like to be reunited to Denmark. And we are already aware that
+the Tsar has promised to give independence to the country of Poland--a
+point which forms a curious analogy with the same offer originally
+proposed by the Tsar's ancestor, Alexander I. Of course, these do not
+exhaust by any means the changes that must be forthcoming. Finland will
+have to be liberated; those portions of Transylvania which are akin to
+Roumania must be allowed to gravitate towards their own stock. Italy must
+arrogate to herself--if she is wise enough to join her forces with those
+of the Triple Entente--those territories which come under the general
+title of "unredeemed Italy"--the Trentino and Trieste, to say nothing of
+what Italy claims on the Adriatic littoral. Possibly the greatest changes
+of all will take place in reference to the Slavs. Servia and Montenegro
+will clearly wish to incorporate in a great Slav kingdom a great many of
+their kinsmen who at present are held in uneasy subjection by Austria.[9]
+Nor must we forget how these same principles apply to the Teutonic States.
+If the principle of nationality is to guide us, we must preserve the
+German nation, even though we desire to reduce its dangerous elements to
+impotence. Prussia must remain the home of all those Germans who accept
+the hegemony of Berlin, but it does not follow that the southern states of
+the German Empire--who have not been particularly fond of their northern
+neighbours--should have to endure any longer the Prussian yoke. Lastly,
+the German colonies can hardly be permitted to remain under the dominion
+of the Kaiser.[10] Here are only a few of the changes which may
+metamorphose the face of Europe as a direct result of enforcing the
+principle of nationalities.
+
+[9] The entrance of Turkey into the quarrel of course brings new factors
+into the ultimate settlement.
+
+[10] Cf. _Who is Responsible?_ by Cloudesley Brereton (Harrap), Chapter
+IV, "The Settlement."
+
+
+EUROPEAN PARTNERSHIP
+
+But there is a further point to which Mr. Asquith referred, one which is
+more important than anything else, because it represents the far-off ideal
+of European peace and the peace of the world. "We have got to substitute
+by a slow and gradual process," said Mr. Asquith, "instead of force,
+instead of the clash of compelling ambition, instead of groupings and
+alliances, a real European partnership, based on the recognition of equal
+right and established and enforced by a common will." There we have the
+whole crux of the situation, and, unfortunately, we are forced to add, its
+main difficulty. For if we desire to summarise in a single sentence the
+rock on which European negotiations from 1815 to 1829 ultimately split, it
+was the union of two such contradictory things as independent
+nationalities and an international committee or system of public law.
+Intrinsically the two ideas are opposed, for one suggests absolute
+freedom, and the other suggests control, superintendence, interference. If
+the one recognises the entire independence of a nationality within its own
+limits, the other seeks to enforce something of the nature of a European
+police to see that every nation does its duty. It is true, of course, that
+this public will of Europe must be incorporated in a kind of parliament,
+to which the separate nations must send their representatives, and that
+thus in a fashion each nation will have its proper say in any of the
+conclusions arrived at. But here the difficulty starts anew owing to the
+relative size, and therefore the relative importance of the different
+states constituting the union. If all alike are given an equivalent vote,
+it is rather hard on the big states, which represent larger numbers and
+therefore control larger destinies. If, on the other hand, we adopt the
+principle of proportional representation, we may be pretty certain that
+the larger states will press somewhat heavily on the smaller. For
+instance, suppose that some state violates, or threatens to violate, the
+public law of the world. In that case the Universal Union must, of course,
+try to bring it to reason by peaceful means first, but if that should
+fail, the only other alternative is by force of arms. If once we admit the
+right of the world-organisation to coerce its recalcitrant members, what
+becomes of the sovereign independence of nations? That, as we have said,
+was the main difficulty confronting the European peace-maker of a hundred
+years ago, and, however we may choose to regard it, it remains a
+difficulty, we will not say insuperable, but at all events exceedingly
+formidable, for the European peace-makers of the twentieth century. The
+antithesis is the old antithesis between order and progress; between
+coercion and independence; between the public voice, or, if we like to
+phrase it so, the public conscience, and the arbitrariness and
+irresponsibility of individual units. Or we might put the problem in a
+still wider form. A patriot is a man who believes intensely in the rights
+of his own nationality. But if we have to form a United States of Europe
+we shall have gradually to soften, diminish, or perhaps even destroy the
+narrower conceptions of patriotism. The ultimate evolution of democracy in
+the various peoples means the mutual recognition of their common
+interests, as against despotism and autocracy. It is clear that such a
+process must gradually wipe out the distinction between the different
+peoples, and substitute for particularism something of universal import.
+In such a process what, we ask once more, becomes of the principle of
+nationality, which is one of our immediate aims? In point of fact, it is
+obvious that, from a strictly logical standpoint, the will of Europe, or
+the public right of Europe, and the free independence of nationalities are
+antithetical terms, and will continue to remain so, however cunningly, by
+a series of compromises, we may conceal their essential divergence. That
+is the real problem which confronts us quite as obstinately as it did our
+forefathers after the destruction of the Napoleonic power. And it will
+have to be faced by all reformers, whether they are pacifists or
+idealists, on ethical or political grounds.
+
+
+A MORAL FOR PACIFISTS
+
+What is the outcome of the foregoing considerations? The only moral at
+present which I am disposed to draw is one which may be addressed to
+pacifists in general, and to all those who avail themselves of large and
+generous phrases, such as "the public will of Europe," or "the common
+consciousness of civilised states." The solution of the problem before us
+is not to be gained by the use of abstract terms, but by very definite and
+concrete experience used in the most practical way to secure immediate
+reforms. We demand, for instance, the creation of what is to all intents
+and purposes an international federal system applied to Europe at large.
+Now it is obvious that a federal system can be created amongst nations
+more or less at the same level of civilisation, inspired by much the same
+ideals, acknowledging the same end of their political and social activity.
+But in what sense is this true of Europe as we know it? There is every
+kind of diversity between the constituent elements of the suggested
+federation. There is no real uniformity of political institutions and
+ideals. But in order that our object may be realised it is precisely this
+uniformity of political institutions and ideals amongst the nations which
+we require. How is a public opinion formed in any given state? It comes
+into being owing to a certain community of sentiments, opinions, and
+prejudices, and without such community it cannot develop. The same thing
+holds true of international affairs. If we desiderate the public voice of
+Europe, or the public conscience of Europe, Europe must grow to be far
+more concordant than it is at present, both in actual political
+institutions and in those inspiring ideals which form the life-blood of
+institutions. How many states, for instance, recognise or put into
+practice a really representative system of government?
+
+
+COMPULSORY ARBITRATION
+
+If we turn to the programme of the pacifists, we shall be confronted by
+similar difficulties. Pacifism, as such, involves an appeal to all the
+democracies, asking them to come into line, as it were, for the execution
+of certain definite projects intended to seek peace and ensure it. The
+first stage of the peace movement is the general recognition of the
+principle of arbitration between states. That first period has, we may
+take it, been already realised. The second stage is the recognition of
+compulsory arbitration. When, in 1907, the second Hague Conference was
+held, this principle was supported by thirty-two different states,
+representing more than a thousand million human beings. Something like
+three or four hundred millions remained not yet prepared to admit the
+principle in its entirety. I may remark in passing that the verbal
+acceptance of a general principle is one thing, the application, as we
+have lately had much reason to discover, is quite another. We may
+recognise, however, that this second stage of the pacifist programme has,
+undoubtedly, made large advances. But of course it must necessarily be
+followed by its consequence, a third stage which shall ensure respect for,
+and obedience to arbitration verdicts. Recalcitrant states will have to be
+coerced, and the one thing that can coerce them is an international police
+administered by an international executive power. That is to say, we must
+have a parliament of parliaments, a universal parliament, the
+representatives of which must be selected by the different constituent
+members of the United States of Europe. When this has been done, and only
+when this has been done, can we arrive at a fourth stage, that of a
+general disarmament. In the millennium that is to be it is only the
+international police which shall be allowed to use weapons of war in order
+to execute the decrees of the central parliament representing the common
+European will.
+
+
+DEMOCRATIC UNANIMITY
+
+Here we have all the old difficulties starting anew, and especially the
+main one--democratic unanimity. How far the democracies of the European
+Commonwealth can work in unison is one of the problems which the future
+will have to solve. At present they, obviously, do not do so. The Social
+Democrats of Germany agreed to make war on the democrats of other
+countries. Old instincts were too strong for them. For it must always be
+remembered that only so far as a cosmopolitan spirit takes the place of
+narrow national prejudices can we hope to reach the level of a common
+conscience, or a common will of Europe. And are we prepared to say that
+national prejudices _ought_ to be obliterated and ignored? The very
+principle of nationality forbids it.
+
+I do not wish, however, to end on a note of pessimism. The mistake of the
+pacifist has all along been the assumption that bellicose impulses have
+died away. They have done nothing of the kind, and are not likely to do
+so. But, happily, all past experience in the world's history shows us that
+ideas in a real sense govern the world, and that a logical difficulty is
+not necessarily a practical impossibility. In this case, as in others, a
+noble and generous idea of European peace will gradually work its own
+fulfilment, if we are not in too much of a hurry to force the pace, or
+imagine that the ideal has been reached even before the preliminary
+foundations have been laid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS
+
+
+It is an obvious criticism on the considerations which have been occupying
+us in the preceding chapters that they are too purely theoretical to be of
+any value. They are indeed speculative, and, perhaps, from one point of
+view come under the edge of the usual condemnation of prophecy. Prophecy
+is, of course, if one of the most interesting, also one of the most
+dangerous of human ingenuities, and the usual fate of prophets is, in nine
+cases out of ten, to be proved wrong. Moreover, it is possible that there
+may come an issue to the present war which would be by far the worst which
+the human mind can conceive. It may end in a deadlock, a stalemate, an
+impasse, because the two opposing forces are so equal that neither side
+can get the better of the other. If peace has to be made because of such a
+balance between the opposing forces as this, it would be a calamity almost
+worse than the original war. German militarism would still be unsubdued,
+the Kaiser's pretensions to universal sovereignty, although clipped, would
+not be wiped out, and we should find remaining in all the nations of the
+earth a sort of sullen resentment which could not possibly lead to
+anything else than a purely temporary truce. The only logical object of
+war is to make war impossible, and if merely an indecisive result were
+achieved in the present war, it would be as certain as anything human can
+be that a fresh war would soon arise. At the present moment we confess
+that there is an ugly possibility of this kind, and that it is one of the
+most formidable perils of future civilisation.
+
+
+AN IGNOBLE PACIFICATION
+
+It is so immensely important, however, that the cause of the Allies should
+prevail not for their own sakes alone, but for the sake of the world, that
+it is difficult to imagine their consenting to an ignoble pacification.
+The Allies have signed an important document, in order to prove their
+solidarity, that no one of them will sign peace without the sanction of
+the other partners. Let us suppose that the rival armies have fought each
+other to a standstill; let us suppose that France is exhausted; let us
+further suppose that the German troops, by their mobility and their
+tactical skill, are able to hold the Russians in the eastern sphere of
+war. We can suppose all these things, but what we cannot imagine even for
+a moment is that Great Britain--to confine ourselves only to our own
+case--will ever consent to stop until she has achieved her object. America
+may strive to make the combatants desist from hostilities, partly because
+she is a great pacific power herself, and partly because it is a practical
+object with her as a commercial nation to secure tranquil conditions. Yet,
+even so, there would be no answer to the question which most thoughtful
+minds would propound: Why did we go to war, and what have we gained by the
+war? If we went to war for large cosmic purposes, then we cannot consent
+to a peace which leaves those ultimate purposes unfulfilled. I think,
+therefore, we can put aside this extremely uncomfortable suggestion that
+the war may possibly end in a deadlock, because, in the last resort, Great
+Britain, with her fleet, her sister dominions over the seas, her colonies,
+and her eastern ally Japan, will always, to use the familiar phrase, have
+"something up her sleeve," even though continental nations should reach a
+pitch of absolute exhaustion.
+
+
+A NEW EUROPE
+
+It follows then that, even if we admit the purely speculative character of
+our argument, it is not only right and proper, but absolutely necessary
+that we should prepare ourselves for something which we can really
+describe as a new Europe. Thoughtful minds ought imaginatively to put
+themselves in the position of a spectator of a reconstituted world, or
+rather of a world that waits to be reconstituted. It is necessary that
+this should be done, because so many older prejudices have to be swept
+away, so many novel conceptions have to be entertained. Let us take only a
+single example. If we look back over history, we shall see that all the
+great nations have made themselves great by war. There is a possible
+exception in the case of Italy, whose present greatness has flowed from
+loyal help rendered her by other kindred nations, and by realising for
+herself certain large patriotic ideals entertained by great minds. But for
+the majority of nations it is certainly true that they have fought their
+way into the ranks of supreme powers. From this the deduction is easy that
+greatness depends on the possession of formidable military power. Indeed,
+all the arguments of those who are very anxious that we should not reduce
+our armaments is entirely based on this supposition. The strong man armed
+keepeth his goods in peace; his only fear is that a stronger man may come
+with better arms and take away his possessions. Now if the new Europe
+dawns not indeed for those who are past middle age--for they will have
+died before its realisation--but for the younger generation for whose sake
+we are bearing the toil and burden of the day, the one thing which is
+absolutely necessary is that the index of greatness must no longer be
+found in armies and navies. Clearly it will take a long time for men to
+get used to this novel conception. Inveterate prejudices will stand in the
+way. We shall be told over and over again that peace-lovers are no
+patriots; that imperialism demands the possible sacrifice of our manhood
+to the exigencies of war; and that the only class of men who are ever
+respected in this world are those who can fight. And so, even though we
+have had ocular demonstration of the appalling ruin which militarism can
+produce, we may yet, if we are not careful, forget all our experience and
+drift back into notions which are not really separable from precisely
+those ideas which we are at present reprobating in the German nation. The
+real test is this: Is, or is not, war a supreme evil? It is no answer to
+this question to suggest that war educes many splendid qualities. Of
+course it does. And so, too, does exploration of Polar solitudes, or even
+climbing Alpine or Himalayan heights. Either war is a detestable solution
+of our difficulties, or it is not. If it is not, then we have no right
+whatsoever to object to the Prussian ideal. But if it is, let us call it
+by its proper name. Let us say that it is devil's work, and have done with
+it.
+
+
+EVIL OF ARMAMENTS
+
+We are trying not only to understand what Europe will be like if, as we
+hope, this war ends successfully for the Allies, but what sort of new
+Europe it will be in the hands of the conquerors to frame. Those who come
+after us are to find in that new Europe real possibilities of advance in
+all the higher kinds of civilisation. Not only are the various states to
+contain sane and healthy people who desire to live in peace with their
+neighbours, but people who will desire to realise themselves in science,
+in philosophic thought, in art, in literature. What is an indispensable
+condition for an evolution of this sort? It must be the absence of all
+uneasiness, the growth of a serene confidence and trust, the obliteration
+of envy, jealousy, and every kind of unreasonableness. The cause, above
+all others, which has produced an opposite condition of things, which has
+created the unfortunate Europe in which we have hitherto had to live, is
+the growth and extension of armaments. The main factor, then, in our
+problem is the existence of such swollen armaments as have wasted the
+resources of every nation and embittered the minds of rival peoples. How
+are we to meet this intolerable evil of armaments?
+
+
+ABSENCE OF PROVOCATION
+
+In the first place, let us remark that on our supposition--the eventual
+victory of the Allies--one of the great disturbing elements will have been
+put out of the field. Europe has hitherto been lulled into an uneasy and
+fractious sleep by the balance of two great organisations. Under the
+happiest hypothesis the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente will have
+disappeared into the deep backward and abysm of time. For all practical
+purposes there will be no Triple Alliance, and therefore no Triple Entente
+to confront it. With Austria wiped out of the map for all purposes of
+offence, and Germany restricted within modest dimensions, the three powers
+of the Triple Entente--Great Britain, France, and Russia--can do what they
+like, and as they are sworn friends and allies they can take their own
+steps undisturbed by fears of hostile combinations. Why should these
+three allies consent any further to keep up bloated armaments? It is
+against their own interests and against the interests of the world. So
+long as Germany existed as a power and developed her own ambitions, we
+were always on the edge of a catastrophe. With the conquest of Germany
+that nightmare will have gone. And observe some of the consequences which
+must inevitably follow. It was against the menace of Germany that France
+had to pass her three years' law of military service: in the absence of
+the German army France can reduce as she pleases her military
+establishment. It was against the menace of a German fleet that we had to
+incur an outlay of millions of pounds: in the absence of the German fleet
+we, too, can do what we please. It is certain also that Russia, so long as
+the deep-seated antagonism between Teuton and Slav remained, was under
+strong compulsion to reform and reinforce her army.
+
+
+FEAR OF RUSSIA
+
+There may, it is true, remain in some minds a certain fear about Russia,
+because it is difficult to dispel the old conception of a great despotic
+Russian autocracy, or, if we like to say so, a semi-eastern and
+half-barbarous power biding her time to push her conquests both towards
+the rising and the setting sun. But many happy signs of quite a new spirit
+in Russia have helped to allay our fears. It looks as if a reformed Russia
+might arise, with ideas of constitutionalism and liberty and a much truer
+conception of what the evolution of a state means. At the very beginning
+of the war the Tsar issued a striking proclamation to the Poles, promising
+them a restoration of the national freedom which they had lost a century
+and a half previously. This doubtless was a good stroke of policy, but
+also it seemed something more--a proof of that benevolent idealism which
+belongs to the Russian nature, and of which the Tsar himself has given
+many signs. Of the three nations who control the Poles, the Austrians have
+done most for their subjects: at all events, the Poles under Austrian
+control are supposed to be the most happy and contented. Then come the
+Russian Poles. But the Poles under German government are the most
+miserable of all, mainly because all German administration is so
+mechanical, so hard, in a real sense so inhuman. But this determination of
+the Tsar to do some justice to the Polish subjects is not the only sign of
+a newer spirit we have to deal with. There was also a proclamation
+promising liberty to the Jews--a very necessary piece of reform--and
+giving, as an earnest of the good intentions of the Government,
+commissions to Jews in the army. Better than all other evidence is the
+extraordinary outburst of patriotic feeling in all sections of the Russian
+people. It looks as if this war has really united Russia in a sense in
+which it has never been united before. When we see voluntary service
+offered on the part of those who hitherto have felt themselves the victims
+of Russian autocracy, we may be pretty certain that even the reformers in
+the great northern kingdom have satisfied themselves that their
+long-deferred hopes may at length gain fulfilment. Nor ought we to forget
+that splendid act of reform which has abolished the Imperial monopoly of
+the sale of vodka. If by one stroke of the pen the Tsar can sacrifice
+ninety-three millions of revenue in order that Russia may be sober, it is
+not very extravagant to hope that in virtue of the same kind of benevolent
+despotism Russia may secure a liberal constitution and the Russian people
+be set free.[11]
+
+[11] See _Our Russian Ally_, by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (Macmillan).
+
+
+MILITARY AUTOCRACY
+
+The end of a great war, however, has one inevitable result, that it leaves
+a military autocracy in supreme control of affairs. The armies which have
+won the various campaigns, the generals who have led them, the
+Commanders-in-Chief who have carried out the successful strategy, these
+are naturally left with almost complete authority in their hands.
+Wellington, for instance, a hundred years ago, held an extraordinarily
+strong position in deciding the fate of Europe. And so, too, did the
+Russian Tsar, whose armies had done so much to destroy the legend of
+Napoleonic invincibility. Similar conditions must be expected on the
+present occasion. And, perhaps, the real use of diplomats, if they are
+prudent and level-headed men, is to control the ambitions of the military
+element, to adopt a wider outlook, to consider the ultimate consequences
+rather than the immediate effects of things. It would indeed be a
+lamentable result if a war which was intended to destroy militarism in
+Europe should end by setting up militarism in high places.
+
+
+LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS
+
+Thus we seem to see still more clearly than before that the size of
+armaments in Europe constitutes a fundamental problem with which we have
+to grapple. Every soldier, as a matter of course, believes in military
+armaments, and is inclined to exaggerate their social and not merely their
+offensive value. Those of us who are not soldiers, but who are interested
+in the social and economic development of the nation, know, on the
+contrary, that the most destructive and wasteful form of expenditure is
+that which is occupied with armaments grown so bloated that they go far to
+render the most pressing domestic reforms absolutely impossible. How,
+then, can we limit the size of armaments? What provision can we make to
+keep in check that desire to fortify itself, to entrench itself in an
+absolutely commanding position, which inherently belongs to the military
+mind? In the case of both navies and armies something depends on
+geographical conditions, and something on financial possibilities. The
+first represents, as it were, the minimum required for safety; the second
+the maximum burden which a state can endure without going into
+bankruptcy.[12] Our own country, we should say, requires fleets, so far as
+geographical conditions are concerned, for the protection of her shores,
+and, inasmuch as she is a scattered empire, we must have our warships in
+all the Seven Seas. France, in her turn, requires a navy which shall
+protect her in the Mediterranean, and especially render access easy to
+her North African possessions. On the supposition that she is good friends
+with England, she does not require ships in the North Sea or in the
+English Channel, while, vice versa, England, so long as France is strong
+in the Mediterranean, need only keep quite small detachments at Gibraltar,
+Malta, and elsewhere. Russia must have a fleet for the Baltic, and also a
+fleet in the Black Sea. Beyond that her requirements assuredly do not go.
+Italy's activities are mainly in the Mediterranean. Under the supposition
+that she is conquered, Germany stands in some danger of losing her navy
+altogether.
+
+[12] Brailsford's _War of Steel and Gold_: Chap. IX.
+
+
+PROTECTION OF COMMERCE
+
+It is obvious, therefore, that if we confine ourselves purely to
+geographical conditions, and adhere to the principle that navies are
+required for the protection of coasts, we can at once reduce, within
+relatively small limits, the building of armoured ships. The reason why
+large navies have hitherto been necessary is because it has been assumed
+that they do not merely protect coasts, but protect lines of commerce. We
+have been told, for instance, that inasmuch as we cannot feed our own
+population, and our national food comes to us from Canada, America, the
+Argentine, Russia, and elsewhere, we must possess a very large amount of
+cruisers to safeguard the ships that are conveying to us our daily bread.
+If we ask why our ships must not only protect our shores, but our
+merchandise--the latter being for the most part a commercial enterprise
+worked by individual companies--the answer turns on that much-discussed
+principle, the Right of Capture at Sea, which was debated at the last
+Hague Conference, and as a matter of fact stoutly defended both by Germany
+and ourselves. If we look at this doctrine--the supposed right that a
+power possesses to capture the merchandise of private individuals who
+belong to an enemy country in times of war--we shall perhaps feel some
+surprise that a principle which is not admitted in land warfare should
+still prevail at sea. According to the more benevolent notions of
+conducting a campaign suggested, and indeed enforced by Hague Conventions
+and such like, an army has no right to steal the food of a country which
+it has invaded. It must pay for what it takes. Well-conducted armies, as a
+matter of fact, behave in this fashion: the necessity of paying for what
+they take is very strictly enforced by responsible officers. Why,
+therefore, at sea an opposite state of affairs should prevail is really
+not easy to understand. Most of the enemy's merchant ships which have been
+captured in the recent war belong to private individuals, or private
+companies. But they are taken, subject to the decision of Prize Courts, as
+part of the spoils of a successful maritime power. I am aware that the
+question is an exceedingly controversial one, and that Great Britain has
+hitherto been very firm, or, perhaps, I might be allowed to say, obstinate
+in upholding the law of capture at sea. But I also know that a great many
+competent lawyers and politicians do not believe in the validity of such a
+principle, and would not be sorry to have it abolished.[13] At all events,
+it is clear enough that if it were abolished one of the main arguments for
+keeping up a strong navy would fall to the ground. We should then require
+no patrol of cruisers in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in the
+Mediterranean. One thing at least is certain, that if we can ever arrive
+at a time when a real Concert of Europe prevails, one of the first things
+which it must take in hand is a thorough examination of the extent of
+defensive force which a nation requires as a minimum for the preservation
+of its independence and liberty.
+
+[13] Notably Lord Loreburn, in his _Capture at Sea_ (Methuen).
+
+
+TRADE IN ARMAMENTS
+
+Certainly one crying evil exists which ought to be dealt with promptly and
+effectively in accordance with the dictates of common sense as well as
+common morality. I refer to the trade in armaments carried on by private
+companies, whose only interest it is to foment, or perhaps actually to
+produce, war scares in order that munitions of war may be greedily
+purchased. A notorious example is furnished by the great works at Essen
+owned by Krupp. In the same position are the great French works at
+Creusot, owned by Schneider, and those of our own English firms,
+Armstrongs, Vickers, John Brown, and Cammell Laird. These are all
+successful concerns, and the shareholders have reaped large profits. I
+believe that at Creusot the dividends have reached twenty per cent., and
+Armstrongs yield rarely less than ten per cent. It is necessary to speak
+very plainly about industries of this kind, because, however we like to
+phrase it, they represent the realisation of private profit through the
+instruments of death and slaughter. It would be bad enough if they
+remained purely private companies, but they really represent the most
+solid public organisations in the world. We know the intimate relations
+between Krupp and the German Government, and doubtless also between
+Messrs. Schneider and the French Government. This sordid manufacture of
+the instruments of death constitutes a vast business, with all kinds of
+ramifications, and the main and deadly stigma on it is that it is bound to
+encourage and promote war. Let me quote some energetic sentences from Mr.
+H.G. Wells on this point: "Kings and Kaisers must cease to be commercial
+travellers of monstrous armament concerns.... I do not need to argue, what
+is manifest, what every German knows, what every intelligent educated man
+in the world knows. The Krupp concern and the tawdry Imperialism of Berlin
+are linked like thief and receiver; the hands of the German princes are
+dirty with the trade. All over the world statecraft and royalty have been
+approached and touched and tainted by these vast firms, but it is in
+Berlin that the corruption is centred, it is from Berlin that the
+intolerable pressure to arm and still to arm has come."[14]
+
+What is the obvious cure for this state of things? It stares us in the
+face. Governments alone should be allowed to manufacture weapons. This
+ought not to be an industry left in private hands. If a nation, through
+its accredited representatives, thinks it is necessary to arm itself, it
+must keep in its own hands this lethal industry. Beyond the Government
+factories there clearly ought to be no making of weapons all over Europe
+and the world.
+
+[14] There are one or two pamphlets on this subject which are worth
+consulting, especially _The War Traders_, by G.H. Perris (National Peace
+Council, St. Stephen's House, Westminster), and _The War Trust Exposed_,
+by J.F. Walton Newbold (the National Leader Press, Manchester). See also
+_The War of Steel and Gold_, by H.N. Brailsford, Chapter II, "Real
+Politics," p. 89. The sentences quoted from Mr. Wells come from _The War
+that will end War_ (F. and C. Palmer), p. 39.
+
+
+FINANCIAL INTERESTS
+
+It has already been remarked that the conditions which limit and control
+the size of armaments are partly geographical and partly financial, and
+that while the former represent the minimum, the latter stand for the
+maximum of protective force. I need say nothing further about the
+geographical conditions. Every one who studies a map can see for himself
+what is required by a country anxious to protect its shores or its
+boundaries. If we suppose that armaments are strictly limited to the needs
+of self-defence, and if we further assume that in the new Europe countries
+are not animated by the strongest dislikes against one another, but are
+prepared to live and let live (a tolerably large assumption, I am aware),
+we can readily imagine a steady process of curtailment in the absolutely
+necessary armament. Further, if Great Britain gave up its doctrine of the
+Right of Capture at Sea (and if Great Britain surrendered it, we may be
+pretty sure that, after Germany has been made powerless, no other country
+would wish to retain it), the supposed necessity of protecting lines of
+commerce would disappear and a further reduction in cruisers would take
+place. I cannot imagine that either America or Japan would wish to revive
+the Right of Capture theory if we ourselves had given it up. And they are
+the most important maritime and commercial nations after ourselves.[15]
+
+The financial conditions, however, deserve study because they lead
+straight to the very heart of the modern bellicose tendencies. In an
+obvious and superficial sense, financial conditions represent the maximum
+in the provision of armaments, because ultimately it becomes a question of
+how much a nation can afford to spend without going bankrupt or being
+fatally hampered in its expenditure on necessary social reforms. This,
+however, is not perhaps the most significant point. Financial conditions
+act much more subtly than this. Why has it grown so imperative on states
+to have large armies or large navies, or both? Because--so we have been
+told over and over again--diplomacy cannot speak with effect unless it is
+backed by power. And what are the main occasions on which diplomacy has to
+speak effectively? We should be inclined to answer off-hand that it must
+possess this stentorian power when there is any question about national
+honour--when the country for whom it speaks is insulted or bullied, or
+defrauded of its just rights; when treaties are torn up and disregarded;
+when its plighted word has been given and another nation acts as though no
+such pledge had been made; when its territory is menaced with invasion and
+so forth.
+
+[15] As a matter of fact, the United States are opposed to the Capture at
+Sea principle.
+
+
+PROTECTION OF FINANCIERS
+
+But these justifiable occasions do not exhaust the whole field. Sometimes
+diplomacy is brought to bear on much more doubtful issues. It is used to
+support the concession-hunter, and to coerce a relatively powerless nation
+to grant concessions. It backs up a bank which has financed a company to
+build railroads or develop the internal resources of a country; or to
+exploit mines or oil-fields, or to do those thousand-and-one things which
+constitute what is called "peaceful penetration." Think of the recent
+dealings with Turkey,[16] and the international rivalry, always suspicious
+and inflammatory, which has practically divided up her Asiatic dominions
+between European States--so that Armenia is to belong to Russia, Syria to
+France, Arabia to Great Britain, and Anatolia and I know not what besides
+to Germany! Think of the competition for the carrying out of railways in
+Asia Minor and the constant friction as to which power has obtained, by
+fair means or foul, the greatest influence! Or let us remember the recent
+disputes as to the proper floating of a loan to China and the bickering
+about the Five-Power Group and the determination on the part of the last
+named that no one else should share the spoil! Or shall we transfer our
+attention to Mexico, where the severe struggle between the two rival Oil
+Companies--the Cowdray group and the American group--threw into the shade
+the quarrel between Huerta and Carranza? These are only a few instances
+taken at random to illustrate the dealings of modern finance. Relatively
+small harm would be done if financiers were allowed to fight out their own
+quarrels. Unfortunately, however, diplomacy is brought in to support this
+side or that: and ambassadors have to speak in severe terms if a Chinese
+mandarin does not favour our so-called "nationals," or if corrupt Turkish
+officials are not sufficiently squeezable to suit our "patriotic"
+purposes. Our armaments are big not merely to protect the nation's honour,
+but to provide large dividends for speculative concerns held in private
+hands.
+
+[16] Turkey has now thrown in her lot with Germany.
+
+
+INVESTING MONEY ABROAD
+
+The truth is, of course, that the honourable name of commerce is now used
+to cover very different kinds of enterprise. We used to export goods; now
+we export cash. Wealthy men, not being content with the sound, but not
+magnificent interest on home securities, take their money abroad and
+invest in extremely remunerative--though of course speculative--businesses
+in South Africa, or South America, concerned with rubber, petroleum, or
+whatnot. Often they subscribe to a foreign loan--in itself a perfectly
+legitimate and harmless operation, but not harmless or legitimate if one
+of the conditions of the loan is that the country to which it is lent
+should purchase its artillery from Essen or Creusot, or its battleships
+from our yards. For that is precisely one of the ways in which the traffic
+in munitions of war goes on increasing and itself helps to bring about a
+conflagration. Financial enterprise is, of course, the life-blood of
+modern states. But why should our army and navy be brought in to protect
+financiers? Let them take their own risks, like every other man who
+pursues a hazardous path for his own private gain. Private investment in
+foreign securities does not increase the volume of a nation's commerce.
+The individual may make a colossal fortune, but the nation pays much too
+dearly for the enrichment of financiers if it allows itself to be dragged
+into war on account of their "_beaux yeux_."
+
+
+IDEAL AIMS
+
+It is time to gather together in a summary fashion some of the
+considerations which have been presented to us in the course of our
+inquiry. We have gone to war partly for direct, partly for indirect
+objects. The direct objects are the protection of small nationalities, the
+destruction of a particularly offensive kind of militarism in Germany, the
+securing of respect for treaties, and the preservation of our own and
+European liberty. But there are also indirect objects at which we have to
+aim, and it is here, of course, that the speculative character of our
+inquiry is most clearly revealed. Apart from the preservation of the
+smaller nationalities, Mr. Asquith has himself told us that we should aim
+at the organisation of a Public Will of Europe, a sort of Collective
+Conscience which should act as a corrective of national defects and as a
+support of international morality. Nothing could well be more speculative
+or vague than this, and we have already seen the kind of difficulties
+which surround the conception, especially the conflict between a
+collective European constraint and an eager and energetic patriotism. We
+must not, however, be deterred by the nebulous character of some of the
+ideals which are floating through our minds. Ideals are always nebulous,
+and always resisted by the narrow sort of practical men who suggest that
+we are metaphysical dreamers unaware of the stern facts of life.
+Nevertheless, the actual progress of the world depends on the visions of
+idealists, and when the time comes for the reconstitution of Europe on a
+new basis we must already have imaginatively thought out some of the ends
+towards which we are striving. We must also be careful not to narrow our
+conceptions to the level of immediate needs--that is not the right way of
+any reform. Our conceptions must be as large and as wide and as
+philanthropical as imagination can make them; otherwise Europe will miss
+one of the greatest opportunities that it has ever had to deal with, and
+we shall incur the bitterest of all disappointments--not to be awake when
+the dawn appears.
+
+
+GREATNESS OF STATES
+
+What, then, are some of those nebulous visions which come before the minds
+of eager idealists? We have got to envisage for ourselves a new idea of
+what constitutes greatness in a state. Hitherto we have measured national
+greatness by military strength, because most of the European nations have
+attained their present position through successful war. So long as we
+cherish a notion like this, so long shall we be under the heel of a
+grinding militarism. We have set out as crusaders to destroy Prussian
+militarism, and in pursuit of this quest we have invoked, as a matter of
+necessity, the aid of our militarists. But when their work is done, all
+peoples who value freedom and independence will refuse to be under the
+heel of any military party. To be great is not, necessarily, to be strong
+for war. There are other qualities which ought to enter into the
+definition, a high standard of civilisation and culture--not culture in
+the Prussian sense, but that which we understand by the term--the great
+development and extension of knowledge, room for the discoveries of
+science, quick susceptibility in the domain of art, the organisation of
+literature--all these things are part and parcel of greatness, as we want
+to understand it in the future. It is precisely these things that
+militarism, as such, cares nothing for. Therefore, if we are out for war
+against militarism, the whole end and object of our endeavour must be by
+means of war to make war impossible. Hence it follows, as a matter of
+course, that the new Europe must take very serious and energetic steps to
+diminish military establishments and to limit the size of armaments. If
+once the new masters of Europe understand the immense importance of
+reducing their military equipment, they have it in their power to relieve
+nations of one of the greatest burdens which have ever checked the social
+and economic development of the world. Suggestions have already been made
+as to the reduction of armaments, and, although such schemes as have been
+set forward are, in the truest sense, speculative, it does not follow that
+they, or something like them, cannot hereafter be realised. Nor yet in
+our conception of greatness must we include another false idea of the
+past. If a nation is not necessarily great because it is strong for war,
+neither is it necessarily great because it contains a number of
+cosmopolitan financiers trying to exploit for their own purposes various
+undeveloped tracts of the world's surface. These financiers are certainly
+not patriots because, amongst other things, they take particular care to
+invest in foreign securities, the interest of home investments not being
+sufficient for their financial greed. It will not be the least of the many
+benefits which may accrue to us after the end of this disastrous war if a
+vulgar and crude materialism, based on the notion of wealth, is dethroned
+from its present sovereignty over men's minds. The more we study the
+courses of this world's history, the more certainly do we discover that a
+love of money is the root of most of the evils which beset humanity.
+
+
+APOSTLES OF THE NEW ERA
+
+As we survey the possible reforms which are to set up a new and better
+Europe on the ruin of the old, we naturally ask ourselves with some
+disquietude: Who are the personalities, and what are the forces required
+for so tremendous a change? Who are sufficient for these things? Are kings
+likely to be saviours of society? Past experience hardly favours this
+suggestion. Will soldiers and great generals help us? Here, again, we may
+be pardoned for a very natural suspicion. Every one knows that a
+benevolent despotism has much to recommend it. But, unfortunately, the
+benevolent are not usually despotic, nor are despots as a rule benevolent.
+Can diplomatists help us? Not so far as they continue to mumble the
+watchwords of their ancient mystery: they will have to learn a new set of
+formulae, or more likely, perhaps, they will find that ordinary people, who
+have seen to what a pass diplomacy has brought us, may work out for
+themselves some better system. Clearly the tasks of the future will depend
+on the co-operation of intelligent, far-sighted philanthropic reformers in
+the various states of the world, who will recognise that at critical
+periods of the world's history they must set to work with a new ardour to
+think out problems from the very beginning. We want fresh and intelligent
+minds, specially of the younger idealists, keen, ardent, and energetic
+souls, touched with the sacred fire, erecting the fabric of humanity on a
+novel basis. Democracy will have a great deal to do in the new Europe.
+It, too, had better refurbish its old watchwords. It has got to set itself
+patiently to the business of preventing future wars by the extension of
+its sympathies and its clear discernment of all that imperils its future
+development and progress. Above all, it has got to solve that most
+difficult problem of creating a Public Will and a Common Conscience in
+Europe, a conscience sensitive to the demands of a higher ethics, and a
+will to enforce its decrees against obstructives and recalcitrants. We do
+not see our way clear as yet, it is true. But we have a dim idea of the
+far-seen peaks towards which we must lift up our eyes. It is the greatest
+enterprise which humanity has ever been called upon to face, and, however
+difficult, it is also the most splendid.
+
+
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