Read Ebook: Peace Theories and the Balkan War by Angell Norman

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THE QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWER.

"PEACE" AND "WAR" IN THE BALKANS.

"Peace" in the Balkans under the Turkish System--The inadequacy of our terms--The repulsion of the Turkish invasion--The Christian effort to bring the reign of force and conquest to an end--The difference between action designed to settle relationship on force and counter action designed to prevent such settlement--The force of the policeman and the force of the brigand--The failure of conquest as exemplified by the Turk--Will the Balkan peoples prove Pacifist or Bellicist; adopt the Turkish or the Christian System?

ECONOMICS AND THE BALKAN WAR.

TURKISH IDEALS IN OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT.

This war and "the Turks of Britain and Prussia"--The Anglo-Saxon and opposed ideals--Mr. C. Chesterton's case for "killing and being killed" as the best method of settling differences--Its application to Civil Conflicts--As in Spanish-America--The difference between Devonshire and Venezuela--Will the Balkans adopt the Turco-Venezuelan political ideals or the British?

OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR BALKAN WARS.

Mr. Winston Churchill on the "Responsibility" of Diplomacy--What does he mean?--An easy philosophy--Can we neglect past if we would avoid future errors?--British temper and policy in the Crimean War--What are its lessons?--Why we fought a war to sustain the "integrity and independence of the Turkish dominion in Europe"--Supporting the Turk against his Christian victims--From fear of Russian growth which we are now aiding--The commentary of events--Shall we back the wrong horse again?

PACIFISM, DEFENCE, AND "THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF WAR."

Did the Crimean War prove Bright and Cobden wrong?--Our curious reasoning--Mr. Churchill on "illusions"--The danger of war is not the illusion but its benefits--We are all Pacifists now since we all desire Peace--Will more armaments alone secure it?--The experience of mankind--War "the failure of human wisdom"--Therefore more wisdom is the remedy--But the Militarists only want more arms--The German Lord Roberts--The military campaign against political Rationalism--How to make war certain.

"THEORIES" FALSE AND TRUE: THEIR ROLE IN EUROPEAN PROGRESS.

The improvement of ideas the foundation of all improvement--Shooting straight and thinking straight; the one as important as the other--Pacifism and the Millennium--How we got rid of wars of religion--A few ideas have changed the face of the world--The simple ideas the most important--The "theories" which have led to war--The work of the reformer to destroy old and false theories--The intellectual interdependence of nations--Europe at unity in this matter--New ideas cannot be confined to one people--No fear of ourselves or any nation being ahead of the rest.

We must have the right political faith--Then we must give effect to it--Good intention not enough--The organization of the great forces of modern life--Our indifference as to the foundations of the evil--The only hope.

THE QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWER.

What has Pacifism, Old or New, to say now?

Is War impossible?

Is it unlikely?

Is it futile?

Is not force a remedy, and at times the only remedy?

Could any remedy have been devised on the whole so conclusive and complete as that used by the Balkan peoples?

Have not the Balkan peoples redeemed War from the charges too readily brought against it as simply an instrument of barbarism?

Have questions of profit and loss, economic considerations, anything whatever to do with this war?

Would the demonstration of its economic futility have kept the peace?

Are theories and logic of the slightest use, since force alone can determine the issue?

Is not war therefore inevitable, and must we not prepare diligently for it? I will answer all these questions quite simply and directly without casuistry and logic-chopping, and honestly desiring to avoid paradox and "cleverness." And these quite simple answers will not be in contradiction with anything that I have written, nor will they invalidate any of the principles I have attempted to explain.

And my answers may be summarised thus:--

War is not impossible, and no responsible Pacifist ever said it was; it is not the likelihood of war which is the illusion, but its benefits.

It is likely or unlikely according as the parties to a dispute are guided by wisdom or folly.

Its futility is proven by the war waged daily by the Turks as conquerors, during the last 400 years. And because the Balkan peoples have chosen the less evil of two kinds of war, and will use their victory to bring a system based on force and conquest to an end, we who do not believe in force and conquest rejoice in their action, and believe it will achieve immense benefits. But if instead of using their victory to eliminate force, they in their turn pin their faith to it, continue to use it the one against the other, exploiting by its means the populations they rule, and become not the organisers of social co-operation among the Balkan populations, but merely, like the Turks, their conquerors and "owners," then they in their turn will share the fate of the Turk.

The fundamental causes of this war are economic in the narrower, as well as in the larger sense of the term; in the first because conquest was the Turk's only trade--he desired to live out of taxes wrung from a conquered people, to exploit them as a means of livelihood, and this conception was at the bottom of most of Turkish misgovernment. And in the larger sense its cause is economic because in the Balkans, remote geographically from the main drift of European economic development, there has not grown up that interdependent social life, the innumerable contacts which in the rest of Europe have done so much to attenuate primitive religious and racial hatreds.

If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and interest in principles, the ideas that govern human relationship, they are the only things that can prevent future wars, just as they were the only things that brought religious wars to an end--a preponderant power "imposing" peace playing no role therein. Just as it was false religious theories which made the religious wars, so it is false political theories which make the political wars.

War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of error and passion--religious persecution for instance--are inevitable; they cease with better understanding, as the attempt to impose religious belief by force has ceased in Europe.

We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to prevent war; and though that preparation may include battleships and conscription, those elements will quite obviously make the tension and danger greater unless there is also a better European opinion.

These summarised replies need a little expansion.

"PEACE" AND "WAR" IN THE BALKANS.

"Peace" in the Balkans under the Turkish System--The inadequacy of our terms--The repulsion of the Turkish invasion--The Christian effort to bring the reign of force and conquest to an end--The difference between action designed to settle relationship on force and counter action designed to prevent such settlement--The force of the policeman and the force of the brigand--The failure of conquest as exemplified by the Turk--Will the Balkan peoples prove Pacifist or Bellicist; adopt the Turkish or the Christian System?

Had we thrashed out the question of war and peace as we must finally, it would hardly be necessary to explain that the apparent paradox in Answer No. 4 is due to the inadequacy of our language, which compels us to use the same word for two opposed purposes, not to any real contradiction of fact.

We called the condition of the Balkan peninsula "Peace" until the other day, merely because the respective Ambassadors still happened to be resident in the capitals to which they were accredited.

Let us see what "Peace" under Turkish rule really meant, and who is the real invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial witness--Sir Charles Elliot--who paints for us the character of the Turk as an "administrator":--

Such is the verdict of an instructed, travelled and observant English author and diplomatist, who lived among these people for many years, and who learned to like them, who studied them and their history. It does not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. As a nation, he has lived by the sword, and he is dying by the sword, because the sword, the mere exercise of force by one man or group of men upon another, conquest in other words, is an impossible form of human relationship.

And this condition is "Peace," and the act which would put a stop to it is "War." It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which creates much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for a counter-action destined to prevent it.

Yet we manage, in other than the international field, in civil matters, to make the thing clear enough.

Once an American town was set light to by incendiaries, and was threatened with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it, the authorities deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the pathway of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town authorities were incendiaries also, and "believed in setting light to towns?" Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed at bringing it to an end.

In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade, or a nation, or a government, or make it the basis of human relationship?

But the law would not justify me, if having disarmed my opponent, having neutralised his force by my own, and re-established the social equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it, by asking him for his purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by force--I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist, and have become a Bellicist.

For that is the difference between the two conceptions: the Bellicist says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal; therefore fight it out. Let the best man win. When you have preponderant strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not because it is right, but because you are able to do so." It is the "excellent policy" which Lord Roberts attributes to Germany and approves.

We anti-Bellicists take an exactly contrary view. We say: "To fight it out settles nothing, since it is not a question of who is stronger, but of whose view is best, and as that is not always easy to establish, it is of the utmost importance in the interest of all parties, in the long run, to keep force out of it."

The former is the policy of the Turks. They have been obsessed with the idea that if only they had enough of physical force, ruthlessly exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjustment, understanding, equity, law, commerce; "blood and iron" were all that was needed. The success of that policy can now be judged.

And whether good or evil comes of the present war will depend upon whether the Balkan States are on the whole guided by the Bellicist principle or the opposed one. If having now momentarily eliminated force as between themselves, they re-introduce it, if the strongest, presumably Bulgaria, adopts Lord Roberts' "excellent policy" of striking because she has the preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest of other members of the Balkan League, and the populations of the conquered territories, using them for exploitation by military force--why then there will be no settlement and this war will have accomplished nothing save futile waste and slaughter. For they will have taken under a new flag, the pathway of the Turk to savagery, degeneration, death.

But if on the other hand they are guided more by the Pacifist principle, if they believe that co-operation between States is better than conflict between them, if they believe that the common interest of all in good Government is greater than the special interest of any one in conquest, that the understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the organisation of society are the means by which men progress, and not the imposition of force by one man or group upon another, why, they will have taken the pathway to better civilisation. But then they will have disregarded Lord Roberts' advice.

And this distinction between the two systems, far from being a matter of abstract theory of metaphysics or logic chopping, is just the difference which distinguishes the Briton from the Turk, which distinguishes Britain from Turkey. The Turk has just as much physical vigour as the Briton, is just as virile, manly and military. The Turk has the same raw materials of Nature, soil and water. There is no difference in the capacity for the exercise of physical force--or if there is, the difference is in favour of the Turk. The real difference is a difference of ideas, of mind and outlook on the part of the individuals composing the respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a militarist one; and the Englishman has another, mainly a Pacifist one. And whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the Turkish ideal or towards the English ideal will depend upon whether it is animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine; if the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to barbarism; if the latter, it will take a better road.

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