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THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY

In the great and tragic history of Europe there is a turning-point that marks the defeat of the ideal of a world-order and the definite acceptance of international anarchy. That turning-point is the emergence of the sovereign State at the end of the fifteenth century. And it is symbolical of all that was to follow that at that point stands, looking down the vista of the centuries, the brilliant and sinister figure of Machiavelli. From that date onwards international policy has meant Machiavellianism. Sometimes the masters of the craft, like Catherine de Medici or Napoleon, have avowed it; sometimes, like Frederick the Great, they have disclaimed it. But always they have practised it. They could not, indeed, practise anything else. For it is as true of an aggregation of States as of an aggregation of individuals that, whatever moral sentiments may prevail, if there is no common law and no common force the best intentions will be defeated by lack of confidence and security. Mutual fear and mutual suspicion, aggression masquerading as defence and defence masquerading as aggression, will be the protagonists in the bloody drama; and there will be, what Hobbes truly asserted to be the essence of such a situation, a chronic state of war, open or veiled. For peace itself will be a latent war; and the more the States arm to prevent a conflict the more certainly will it be provoked, since to one or another it will always seem a better chance to have it now than to have it on worse conditions later. Some one State at any moment may be the immediate offender; but the main and permanent offence is common to all States. It is the anarchy which they are all responsible for perpetuating.

While this anarchy continues the struggle between States will tend to assume a certain stereotyped form. One will endeavour to acquire supremacy over the others for motives at once of security and of domination, the others will combine to defeat it, and history will turn upon the two poles of empire and the balance of power. So it has been in Europe, and so it will continue to be, until either empire is achieved, as once it was achieved by Rome, or a common law and a common authority is established by agreement. In the past empire over Europe has been sought by Spain, by Austria, and by France; and soldiers, politicians, and professors in Germany have sought, and seek, to secure it now for Germany. On the other hand, Great Britain has long stood, as she stands now, for the balance of power. As ambitious, as quarrelsome, and as aggressive as other States, her geographical position has directed her aims overseas rather than toward the Continent of Europe. Since the fifteenth century her power has never menaced the Continent. On the contrary, her own interest has dictated that she should resist there the enterprise of empire, and join in the defensive efforts of the threatened States. To any State of Europe that has conceived the ambition to dominate the Continent this policy of England has seemed as contrary to the interests of civilization as the policy of the Papacy appeared in Italy to an Italian patriot like Machiavelli. He wanted Italy enslaved, in order that it might be united. And so do some Germans now want Europe enslaved, that it may have peace under Germany. They accuse England of perpetuating for egotistic ends the state of anarchy. But it was not thus that Germans viewed British policy when the Power that was to give peace to Europe was not Germany, but France. In this long and bloody game the partners are always changing, and as partners change so do views. One thing only does not change, the fundamental anarchy. International relations, it is agreed, can only turn upon force. It is the disposition and grouping of the forces alone that can or does vary.

But Europe is not the only scene of the conflict between empire and the balance. Since the sixteenth century the European States have been contending for mastery, not only over one another, but over the world. Colonial empires have risen and fallen. Portugal, Spain, Holland, in turn have won and lost. England and France have won, lost, and regained. In the twentieth century Great Britain reaps the reward of her European conflicts in the Empire on which the sun never sets. Next to her comes France, in Africa and the East; while Germany looks out with discontented eyes on a world already occupied, and, cherishing the same ambitions all great States have cherished before her, finds the time too mature for their accomplishment by the methods that availed in the past. Thus, not only in Europe but on the larger stage of the world the international rivalry is pursued. But it is the same rivalry and it proceeds from the same cause: the mutual aggression and defence of beings living in a "state of nature."

Without this historical background no special study of the events that led up to the present war can be either just or intelligible. The feeling of every nation about itself and its neighbours is determined by the history of the past and by the way in which that history is regarded. The picture looks different from every point of view. Indeed, a comprehension of the causes of the war could only be fully attained by one who should know, not only the most secret thoughts of the few men who directly brought it about, but also the prejudices and preconceptions of the public opinion in each nation. There is nobody who possesses these qualifications. But in the absence of such a historian these imperfect notes are set down in the hope that they may offer a counterpoise to some of the wilder passions that sweep over all peoples in time of war and threaten to prepare for Europe a future even worse than its past has been.

First, let us remind ourselves in general of the situation that prevailed in Europe during the ten years preceding the war. It was in that period that the Entente between France, Russia, and England was formed and consolidated, over against the existing Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy. Neither of these combinations was in its origin and purpose aggressive.

On May 30, 1908, Baron Greindl, Belgian Ambassador at Berlin, writes as follows:--

On May 24, 1907, the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian Ambassador at London, writes:--

A certain section of the Press, called here the Yellow Press, bears to a great extent the responsibility for the hostile feeling between the two nations.... It is plain enough that official England is quietly pursuing a policy opposed to Germany and aimed at her isolation, and that King Edward has not hesitated to use his personal influence in the service of this scheme. But it is certainly exceedingly dangerous to poison public opinion in the open manner adopted by these irresponsible journals.

Again, on July 28, 1911, in the midst of the Morocco crisis, Baron Guillaume, Belgian Ambassador at Paris, writes:--

I have great confidence in the pacific sentiments of the Emperor William, in spite of the too frequent exaggeration of some of his gestures. He will not allow himself to be drawn on farther than he chooses by the exuberant temperament and clumsy manners of his very intelligent Minister of Foreign Affairs . I feel, in general, less faith in the desire of Great Britain for peace. She would not be sorry to see the others eat one another up.... As I thought from the beginning, it is in London that the key to the situation lies. It is there only that it can become grave. The French will yield on all the points for the sake of peace. It is not the same with the English, who will not compromise on certain principles and certain claims.

Having established this general fact that a state of mutual suspicion and fear prevailed between Germany and the Powers of the Triple Entente, let us next consider the positions and purposes of the various States involved. First, let us take Great Britain, of which we ought to know most. Great Britain is the head of an Empire, and of one, in point of territory and population, the greatest the world has ever seen. This Empire has been acquired by trade and settlement, backed or preceded by military force. And to acquire and hold it, it has been necessary to wage war after war, not only overseas but on the continent of Europe. It is, however, as we have already noticed, a fact, and a cardinal fact, that since the fifteenth century British ambitions have not been directed to extending empire over the continent of Europe. On the contrary, we have resisted by arms every attempt made by other Powers in that direction. That is what we have meant by maintaining the "balance of power." We have acted, no doubt, in our own interest, or in what we thought to be such; but in doing so we have made ourselves the champions of those European nations that have been threatened by the excessive power of their neighbours. British imperialism has thus, for four centuries, not endangered but guaranteed the independence of the European States. Further, our Empire is so large that we can hardly extend it without danger of being unable to administer and protect it. We claim, therefore, that we have neither the need nor the desire to wage wars of conquest. But we ought not to be surprised if this attitude is not accepted without reserve by other nations. For during the last half-century we have, in fact, waged wars to annex Egypt, the Soudan, the South African Republics, and Burmah, to say nothing of the succession of minor wars which have given us Zululand, Rhodesia, Nigeria, and Uganda. Odd as it does, I believe, genuinely seem to most Englishmen, we are regarded on the Continent as the most aggressive Power in the world, although our aggression is not upon Europe. We cannot expect, therefore, that our professions of peaceableness should be taken very seriously by outsiders. Nevertheless it is, I believe, true that, at any rate during the last fifteen-years, those professions have been genuine. Our statesmen, of both parties, have honestly desired and intended to keep the peace of the world. And they have been assisted in this by a genuine and increasing desire for peace in the nation. The Liberal Government in particular has encouraged projects of arbitration and of disarmament; and Sir Edward Grey is probably the most pacific Minister that ever held office in a great nation. But our past inevitably discredits, in this respect, our future. And when we profess peace it is not unnatural that other nations should suspect a snare.

For if, in France, the current for peace ran strong in these latter years, so did the current for war. French chauvinism had waxed and waned, but it was never extinguished. After 1870 it centred not only about Alsace-Lorraine, but also about the colonial expansion which took from that date a new lease of life in France, as it had done in England after the loss of the American colonies. Directly encouraged by Bismarck, France annexed Tunis in 1881. The annexation of Tunis led up at last to that of Morocco. Other territory had been seized in the Far East, and France became, next to ourselves, the greatest colonial Power. This policy could not be pursued without friction, and the principal friction at the beginning was with ourselves. Once at least, in the Fashoda crisis, the two countries were on the verge of war, and it was not till the Entente of 1904 that their relations were adjusted on a basis of give-and-take. But by that time Germany had come into the colonial field, and the Entente with England meant new friction with Germany, turning upon French designs in Morocco. In this matter Great Britain supported her ally, and the incident of Agadir in 1911 showed the solidity of the Entente. This demonstration no doubt strengthened the hands of the aggressive elements in France, and later on the influence of M. Delcass? and M. Poincar? was believed in certain quarters to have given new energy to this direction of French policy. This tendency to chauvinism was recognized as a menace to peace, and we find reflections of that feeling in the Belgian dispatches. Thus, for instance, Baron Guillaume, Belgian minister at Paris, writes on February, 21, 1913, of M. Poincar?:--

It is under his Ministry that the military and slightly chauvinistic instincts of the French people have awakened. His hand can be seen in this modification; it is to be hoped that his political intelligence, practical and cool, will save him from all exaggeration in this course. The notable increase of German armaments which supervenes at the moment of M. Poincar?'s entrance at the Elys?e will increase the danger of a too nationalistic orientation of the policy of France.

Again, on March 3, 1913:--

The German Ambassador said to me on Saturday: "The political situation is much improved in the last forty-eight hours; the tension is generally relaxed; one may hope for a return to peace in the near future. But what does not improve is the state of public opinion in France and Germany with regard to the relations between the two countries. We are persuaded in Germany that a spirit of chauvinism having revived, we have to fear an attack by the Republic. In France they express the same fear with regard to us. The consequence of these misunderstandings is to ruin us both. I do not know where we are going on this perilous route. Will not a man appear of sufficient goodwill and prestige to recall every one to reason? All this is the more ridiculous because, during the crisis we are traversing, the two Governments have given proof of the most pacific sentiments, and have continually relied upon one another to avoid conflicts."

On this Baron Guillaume comments:--

Baron Schoen is perfectly right, I am not in a position to examine German opinion, but I note every day how public opinion in France becomes more suspicious and chauvinistic. One meets people who assure one that a war with Germany in the near future is certain and inevitable. People regret it, but make up their minds to it.... They demand, almost by acclamation, an immediate vote for every means of increasing the defensive power of France. The most reasonable men assert that it is necessary to arm to the teeth to frighten the enemy and prevent war.

On April 16th he reports a conversation with M. Pichon, in which the latter says:--

Among us, too, there is a spirit of chauvinism which is increasing, which I deplore, and against which we ought to react. Half the theatres in Paris now play chauvinistic and nationalistic pieces.

The note of alarm becomes more urgent as the days go on. On January 16, 1914, the Baron writes:--

I have already had the honour to tell you that it is MM. Poincar?, Delcass?, Millerand and their friends who have invented and pursued the nationalistic and chauvinistic policy which menaces to-day the peace of Europe, and of which we have noted the renaissance. It is a danger for Europe and for Belgium. I see in it the greatest peril, which menaces the peace of Europe to-day; not that I have the right to suppose that the Government of the Republic is disposed deliberately to trouble the peace, rather I believe the contrary; but the attitude that the Barthou Cabinet has taken up is, in my judgment, the determining cause of an excess of militaristic tendencies in Germany.

It is clear from these quotations, and it is for this reason alone that I give them, that France, supported by the other members of the Triple Entente, could appear, and did appear, as much a menace to Germany as Germany appeared a menace to France; that in France, as in other countries, there was jingoism as well as pacifism; and that the inability of French public opinion to acquiesce in the loss of Alsace-Lorraine was an active factor in the unrest of Europe. Once more I state these facts, I do not criticize them. They are essential to the comprehension of the international situation.

We have spoken so far of the West. But the Entente between France and Russia, dating from 1894, brought the latter into direct contact with Eastern policy. The motives and even the terms of the Dual Alliance are imperfectly known. Considerations of high finance are supposed to have been an important factor in it. But the main intention, no doubt, was to strengthen both Powers in the case of a possible conflict with Germany. The chances of war between Germany and France were thus definitely increased, for now there could hardly be an Eastern war without a Western one. Germany must therefore regard herself as compelled to wage war, if war should come, on both fronts; and in all her fears or her ambitions this consideration must play a principal part. Friction in the East must involve friction in the West, and vice versa. What were the causes of friction in the West we have seen. Let us now consider the cause of friction in the East.

The relations of Russia to Germany have been and are of a confused and complicated character, changing as circumstances and personalities change. But one permanent factor has been the sympathy between the governing elements in the two countries. The governing class in Russia, indeed, has not only been inspired by German ideas, it has been largely recruited from men of German stock; and it has manifested all the contempt and hatred which is characteristic of the German bureaucracy for the ideals of democracy, liberty, and free thought. The two Governments have always been ready to combine against popular insurrections, and in particular against every attempt of the Poles to recover their liberty. They have been drawn and held together by a common interest in tyranny, and the renewal of that co-operation is one of the dangers of the future. On the other hand, apart from and in opposition to this common political interest, there exists between the two nations a strong racial antagonism. The Russian temperament is radically opposed to the German. The one expresses itself in Panslavism, the other in Pangermanism. And this opposition of temperament is likely to be deeper and more enduring than the sympathy of the one autocracy with the other. But apart from this racial factor, there is in the south-east an opposition of political ambition. Primarily, the Balkan question is an Austro-Russian rather than a Russo-German one. Bismarck professed himself indifferent to the fate of the Balkan peoples, and even avowed a willingness to see Russia at Constantinople. But recent years have seen, in this respect, a great change. The alliance between Germany and Austria, dating from 1879, has become closer and closer as the Powers of the Entente have drawn together in what appeared to be a menacing combination. It has been, for some time past, a cardinal principle of German policy to support her ally in the Balkans, and this determination has been increased by German ambitions in the East. The ancient dream of Russia to possess Constantinople has been countered by the new German dream of a hegemony over the near East based upon the through route from Berlin via Vienna and Constantinople to Bagdad; and this political opposition has been of late years the determining factor in the relationship of the two Powers. The danger of a Russo-German conflict has thus been very great, and since the Russo-French Entente Germany, as we have already pointed out, has seen herself menaced on either front by a war which would immediately endanger both.

Turning once more to the Belgian dispatches, we find such hints as the following. On October 24, 1912, the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian Ambassador to London, writes as follows:--

The French Ambassador, who must have special reasons for speaking thus, has repeated to me several times that the greatest danger for the maintenance of the peace of Europe consists in the indiscipline and the personal policy of the Russian agents. They are almost all ardent Panslavists, and it is to them that must be imputed the responsibility for the events that are occurring. Beyond a doubt they will make themselves the secret instigators for an intervention of their country in the Balkan conflict.

On November 30, 1912, Baron de Beyens writes from Berlin:--

At the end of last week a report was spread in the chancelleries of Europe that M. Sazonov had abandoned the struggle against the Court party which wishes to drag Russia into war.

On June 9, 1914, Baron Guillaume writes from Paris:--

Is it true that the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has imposed upon this country the adoption of the law of three years, and would now bring to bear the whole weight of its influence to ensure its maintenance? I have not been able to obtain light upon this delicate point, but it would be all the more serious, inasmuch as the men who direct the Empire of the Tsars cannot be unaware that the effort thus demanded of the French nation is excessive, and cannot be long sustained. Is, then, the attitude of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg based upon the conviction that events are so imminent that it will be possible to use the tool it intends to put into the hands of its ally?

What a sinister vista is opened up by this passage! I have no wish to insinuate that the suspicion here expressed was justified. It is the suspicion itself that is the point. Dimly we see, as through a mist, the figures of the architects of war. We see that the forces they wield are ambition and pride, jealousy and fear; that these are all-pervasive; that they affect all Governments and all nations, and are fostered by conditions for which all alike are responsible.

It will be understood, of course, that in bringing out the fact that there was national chauvinism in Russia and that this found its excuse in the unstable equilibrium of Europe, I am making no attack on Russian policy. I do not pretend to know whether these elements of opinion actually influenced the policy of the Government. But they certainly influenced German fears, and without a knowledge of them it is impossible to understand German policy. The reader must bear in mind this source of friction along with the others when we come to consider that policy in detail.

Turning now to Austria-Hungary, we find in her the Power to whom the immediate occasion of the war was due, the Power, moreover, who contributed in large measure to its remoter causes. Austria-Hungary is a State, but not a nation. It has no natural bond to hold its populations together, and it continues its political existence by force and fraud, by the connivance and the self-interest of other States, rather than by any inherent principle of vitality. It is in relation to the Balkan States that this instability has been most marked and most dangerous. Since the kingdom of Serbia acquired its independent existence it has been a centre drawing to itself the discontent and the ambitions of the Slav populations under the Dual Monarchy. The realization of those ambitions implies the disruption of the Austro-Hungarian State. But behind the Southern Slavs stands Russia, and any attempt to change the political status in the Balkans has thus meant, for years past, acute risk of war between the two Empires that border them. This political rivalry has accentuated the racial antagonism between German and Slav, and was the immediate origin of the war which presents itself to Englishmen as one primarily between Germany and the Western Powers.

On the position of Italy it is not necessary to dwell. It had long been suspected that she was a doubtful factor in the Triple Alliance, and the event has proved that this suspicion was correct. But though Italy has participated in the war, her action had no part in producing it. And we need not here indicate the course and the motives of her policy.

Having thus indicated briefly the position, the perils, and the ambitions of the other Great Powers of Europe, let us turn to consider the proper subject of this essay, the policy of Germany. And first let us dwell on the all-important fact that Germany, as a Great Power, is a creation of the last fifty years. Before 1866 there was a loose confederation of German States, after 1870 there was an Empire of the Germans. The transformation was the work of Bismarck, and it was accomplished by "blood and iron." Whether it could have been accomplished otherwise is matter of speculation. That it was accomplished so is a fact, and a fact of tragic significance. For it established among Germans the prestige of force and fraud, and gave them as their national hero the man whose most characteristic act was the falsification of the Ems telegram. If the unification could have been achieved in 1848 instead of in 1870, if the free and generous idealism of that epoch could have triumphed, as it deserved to, if Germans had not bartered away their souls for the sake of the kingdom of this world, we might have been spared this last and most terrible act in the bloody drama of European history. If even, after 1866, 1870 had not been provoked, the catastrophe that is destroying Europe before our eyes might never have overwhelmed us. In the crisis of 1870 the French minister who fought so long and with such tenacity, for peace saw and expressed, with the lucidity of his nation, what the real issue was for Germany and for Europe:--

There exists, it is true, a barbarous Germany, greedy of battles and conquest, the Germany of the country squires; there exists a Germany pharisaic and iniquitous, the Germany of all the unintelligible pedants whose empty lucubrations and microscopic researches have been so unduly vaunted. But these two Germanies are not the great Germany, that of the artists, the poets, the thinkers, that of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Liebig. This latter Germany is good, generous, humane, pacific; it finds expression in the touching phrase of Goethe, who when asked to write against us replied that he could not find it in his heart to hate the French. If we do not oppose the natural movement of German unity, if we allow it to complete itself quietly by successive stages, it will not give supremacy to the barbarous and sophistical Germany, it will assure it to the Germany of intellect and culture. War, on the other hand, would establish, during a time impossible to calculate, the domination of the Germany of the squires and the pedants.

The generous dream was not to be realized. French chauvinism fell into the trap Bismarck had prepared for it. Yet even at the last moment his war would have escaped him had he not recaptured it by fraud. The publication of the Ems telegram made the conflict inevitable, and one of the most hideous and sinister scenes in all history is that in which the three conspirators, Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon, "suddenly recovered their pleasure in eating and drinking," because, by publishing a lie, they had secured the certain death in battle of hundreds and thousands of young men. The spirit of Bismarck has infected the whole public life of Germany and of Europe. It has given a new lease to the political philosophy of Machiavelli; and made of every budding statesman and historian a solemn or a cynical defender of the gospel of force. But, though this be true, we have no right therefore to assume that there is some peculiar wickedness which marks off German policy from that of all other nations. Machiavellianism is the common heritage of Europe. It is the translation into idea of the fact of international anarchy. Germans have been more candid and brutal than others in their expression and application of it, but statesmen, politicians, publicists, and historians in every nation accept it, under a thicker or thinner veil of plausible sophisms. It is everywhere the iron hand within the silken glove. It is the great European tradition.

Although, moreover, it was by these methods that Bismarck accomplished the unification of Germany, his later policy was, by common consent, a policy of peace. War had done its part, and the new Germany required all its energies to build up its internal prosperity and strength. In 1875, it is true, Bismarck was credited with the intention to fall once more upon France. The fact does not seem to be clearly established. At any rate, if such was his intention, it was frustrated by the intervention of Russia and of Great Britain. During the thirty-nine years that followed Germany kept the peace.

While France, England, and Russia waged wars on a great scale, and while the former Powers acquired enormous extensions of territory, the only military operations undertaken by Germany were against African natives in her dependencies and against China in 1900. The conduct of the German troops appears, it is true, to have been distinguished, in this latter expedition, by a brutality which stood out in relief even in that orgy of slaughter and loot. But we must remember that they were specially ordered by their Imperial master, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show no mercy and give no quarter. Apart from this, it will not be disputed, by any one who knows the facts, that during the first twenty years or so after 1875 Germany was the Power whose diplomacy was the least disturbing to Europe. The chief friction during that period was between Russia and France and Great Britain, and it was one or other of these Powers, according to the angle of vision, which was regarded as offering the menace of aggression. If there has been a German plot against the peace of the world, it does not date from before the decade 1890-1900. The close of that decade marks, in fact, a new epoch in German policy. The years of peace had been distinguished by the development of industry and trade and internal organization. The population increased from forty millions in 1870 to over sixty-five millions at the present date. Foreign trade increased more than ten-fold. National pride and ambition grew with the growth of prosperity and force, and sentiment as well as need impelled German policy to claim a share of influence outside Europe in that greater world for the control of which the other nations were struggling. Already Bismarck, though with reluctance and scepticism, had acquired for his country by negotiation large areas in Africa. But that did not satisfy the ambitions of the colonial party. The new Kaiser put himself at the head of the new movement, and announced that henceforth nothing must be done in any part of the world without the cognizance and acquiescence of Germany.

Thus there entered a new competitor upon the stage of the world, and his advent of necessity was disconcerting and annoying to the earlier comers. But is there reason to suppose that, from that moment, German policy was definitely aiming at empire, and was prepared to provoke war to achieve it? Strictly, no answer can be given to this question. The remoter intentions of statesmen are rarely avowed to others, and, perhaps, rarely to themselves. Their policy is, indeed, less continuous, less definite, and more at the mercy of events than observers or critics are apt to suppose. It is not probable that Germany, any more than any other country in Europe, was pursuing during those years a definite plan, thought out and predetermined in every point.

In Germany, as elsewhere, both in home and foreign affairs, there was an intense and unceasing conflict of competing forces and ideas. In Germany, as elsewhere, policy must have adapted itself to circumstances, different personalities must have given it different directions at different times. We have not the information at our disposal which would enable us to trace in detail the devious course of diplomacy in any of the countries of Europe. What we know something about is the general situation, and the action, in fact, taken at certain moments. The rest must be, for the present, mainly matter of conjecture. With this word of caution, let us now proceed to examine the policy of Germany.

The general situation we have already indicated. We have shown how the armed peace, which is the chronic malady of Europe, had assumed during the ten years from 1904 to 1914 that specially dangerous form which grouped the Great Powers in two opposite camps--the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. We have seen, in the case of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, how they came to take their places in that constellation. We have now to put Germany in its setting in the picture.

Germany, then, in the first place, like the other Powers, had occasion to anticipate war. It might be made from the West, on the question of Alsace-Lorraine; it might be made from the East, on the question of the Balkans. In either case, the system of alliances was likely to bring into play other States than those immediately involved, and the German Powers might find themselves attacked on all fronts, while they knew in the latter years that they could not count upon the support of Italy.

A reasonable prudence, if nothing else, must keep Germany armed and apprehensive. But besides the maintenance of what she had, Germany was now ambitious to secure her share of "world-power." Let us examine in what spirit and by what acts she endeavoured to make her claim good.

First, what was the tone of public opinion in Germany during these critical years?

Since the outbreak of the war the pamphlet literature in the countries of the Entente has been full of citations from German political writers. In England, in particular, the names and works of Bernhardi and of Treitschke have become more familiar than they appear to have been in Germany prior to the war. This method of selecting for polemical purposes certain tendencies of sentiment and theory, and ignoring all others, is one which could be applied, with damaging results, to any country in the world. Mr. Angell has shown in his "Prussianism in England" how it might be applied to ourselves; and a German, no doubt, into whose hands that book might fall would draw conclusions about public opinion here similar to those which we have drawn about public opinion in Germany. There is jingoism in all countries, as there is pacifism in all countries. Nevertheless, I think it is true to say that the jingoism of Germany has been peculiar both in its intensity and in its character. This special quality appears to be due both to the temperament and to the recent history of the German nation. The Germans are romantic, as the French are impulsive, the English sentimental, and the Russians religious. There is some real meaning in these generalisations. They are easily to be felt when one comes into contact with a nation, though they may be hard to establish or define. When I say that the Germans are romantic, I mean that they do not easily or willingly see things as they are. Their temperament is like a medium of coloured glass. It magnifies, distorts, conceals, transmutes. And this is as true when their intellectual attitude is realistic as when it is idealistic. In the Germany of the past, the Germany of small States, to which all non-Germans look back with such sympathy and such regret, their thinkers and poets were inspired by grandiose intellectual abstractions. They saw ideas, like gods, moving the world, and actual men and women, actual events and things, were but the passing symbols of these supernatural powers; 1866 and 1870 ended all that. The unification of Germany, in the way we have discussed, diverted all their interest from speculation about the universe, life, and mankind, to the material interests of their new country. Germany became the preoccupation of all Germans. From abstractions they turned with a new intoxication to what they conceived to be the concrete. Entering thus late upon the stage of national politics, they devoted themselves, with their accustomed thoroughness, to learning and bettering what they conceived to be the principles and the practice which had given success to other nations. In this quest no scruples should deter them, no sentimentality hamper, no universal ideals distract. Yet this, after all, was but German romanticism assuming another form. The objects, it is true, were different. "Actuality" had taken the place of ideals, Germany of Humanity. But by the German vision the new objects were no less distorted than the old. In dealing with "Real-politik" , with "expansion," with "survival of the fittest," and all the other shibboleths of world-policy, their outlook remained as absolute and abstract as before, as contemptuous of temperament and measure, as blind to those compromises and qualifications, those decencies, so to speak, of nature, by which reality is constituted. The Germans now saw men instead of gods, but they saw them as trees walking.

It is in this intoxicating atmosphere of temperament and mood that the ideas and ambitions of German imperialists work and move. They are essentially the same as those of imperialists in other countries. Their philosophy of history assumes an endless series of wars, due to the inevitable expansion of rival States. Their ethics means a belief in force and a disbelief in everything else. Their science is a crude misapplication of Darwinism, combined with invincible ignorance of the true bearings of science upon life, and especially of those facts and deductions about biological heredity which, once they are understood, will make it plain that war degrades the stock of all nations, victorious and vanquished alike, and that the decline of civilizations is far more plausibly to be attributed to this cause than to the moral decadence of which history is always ready, after the event, to accuse the defeated Power. One peculiarity, perhaps, there is in the outlook of German imperialism, and that is its emphasis on an unintelligible and unreal abstraction of "race." Germans, it is thought, are by biological quality the salt of the earth. Every really great man in Europe, since the break-up of the Roman Empire, has been a German, even though it might appear, at first sight, to an uninstructed observer, that he was an Italian or a Frenchman or a Spaniard. Not all Germans, however, are, they hold, as yet included in the German Empire, or even in the German-Austrian combination. The Flemish are Germans, the Dutch are Germans, the English even are Germans, or were before the war had made them, in Germany's eyes, the offscouring of mankind. Thus, a great task lies before the German Empire: on the one hand, to bring within its fold the German stocks that have strayed from it in the wanderings of history; on the other, to reduce under German authority those other stocks that are not worthy to share directly in the citizenship of the Fatherland. The dreams of conquest which are the real essence of all imperialism are thus supported in Germany by arguments peculiar to Germans. But the arguments put forward are not the real determinants of the attitude. The attitude, in any country, whatever it may be called, rests at bottom on sheer national vanity. It is the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own civilization, and the desire to extend it, by force if need be, throughout the world. It matters little what arguments in its support this passion to dominate may garner from that twilight region in which the advanced guard of science is labouring patiently to comprehend Nature and mankind. Men take from the treasury of truth what they are able to take. And what imperialists take is a mirror to their own ambition and pride.

We must, then, disabuse ourselves of the notion so naturally produced by reading, and especially by reading in time of war, that the German Jingoes are typical of Germany. They are there, they are a force, they have to be reckoned with. But exactly how great a force? Exactly how influential on policy? That is a question which I imagine can only be answered by guesses. Would the reader, for instance, undertake to estimate the influence during the last fifteen years on British policy and opinion of the imperialist minority in this country? No two men, I think, would agree about it. And few men would agree with themselves from one day or one week to another. We are reduced to conjecture. But the conjectures of some people are of more value than those of others, for they are based on a wider converse. I think it therefore not without importance to recall to the reader the accounts of the state of opinion in Germany given by well-qualified foreign observers in the years immediately preceding the war.

Let us begin with Pangermanism, on which M. Bourdon has a very interesting chapter. He feels for the propaganda of that sect the repulsion that must be felt by every sane and liberal-minded man:--

Wretched, choleric Pangermans, exasperated and unbalanced, brothers of all the exasperated, wretched windbags whose tirades, in all countries, answer to yours, and whom you are wrong to count your enemies! Pangermans of the Spree and the Main, who, on the other side of the frontier, receive the fraternal effusions of Russian Pan-Slavism, Italian irredentism, English imperialism, French nationalism! What is it that you want?

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