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by R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
and Arthur Greenwood
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Title: The War and Democracy
Authors: R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
and Arthur Greenwood
Release Date: January 10, 2004 [EBook #10668]
Language: English
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THE WAR AND DEMOCRACY
by
R.W. SETON-WATSON, _D.Litt_.
J. DOVER WILSON
ALFRED E. ZIMMERN
and
ARTHUR GREENWOOD
1915
* * * * *
TO
The Workers' Educational Association
* * * * *
When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they;
Let them not pass, like weeds, away--
Their heritage a sunless day.
God save the people!
EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
"To remake the map of Europe, and to rearrange the peoples in accordance
with the special mission assigned to each of them by geographical, ethnical
and historical conditions--this is the first essential step for all."
MAZZINI (1832).
* * * * *
PREFACE
For many years past the prospect of universal war has haunted the dreams of
pacificists and militarists alike. Many of us, without denying its growing
menace, hoped against hope that it might be averted by the gradual
strengthening of international goodwill and mutual intercourse, and the
steady growth of democratic influences and political thought. But our
misgivings proved more prophetic than our hopes; and last August the great
war came upon us like a thief in the night. After four months of war we
feel that, in spite of the splendid response of the nation at large, in
spite of a unanimity which has no parallel in our previous history, there
are still large sections of the community who fail to realise the vastness
of the issues at stake, the formidable nature of the forces ranged against
us, and the true inner significance of the struggle. And yet all that is
worth living for depends upon the outcome of this war--for ourselves the
future of the democratic ideal in these islands and in the British Empire
at large, for the peoples of Europe deliverance from competing armaments
and the yoke of racial tyranny. But before our future can be secured,
sacrifices will be required of every citizen, and in a free community
sacrifice can only spring from knowledge. Moreover, if we are to put an end
to the intolerable situation of an unwilling Europe in arms, public opinion
must think out very carefully the great problems which have been thrown
into the melting-pot and be prepared for the day of settlement.
The present volume has been written as a guide to the study of the
underlying causes and issues of the war. It does not pretend to cover the
whole of so vast a field, and it will have attained its aim if it provides
the basis for future discussion. It originated in the experience of its
five writers at the Summer Schools for working-class students held in
connection with the Workers' Educational Associations. In the early days of
August, at the outbreak of the war, Summer Schools were in full swing
at Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, Bangor, and Durham, and it at once became
apparent, not merely that the word "citizen" had suddenly acquired a new
depth and significance for the men and women of our generation, but also
that for the individual citizen himself a large new field of study and
discussion had been opened up on subjects and issues hitherto unfamiliar.
This book was planned to meet the need there expressed, but it is hoped
that it may be found useful by a wider circle of readers.
We have called the book _The War and Democracy_, because our guiding idea
throughout has been the sense of the great new responsibilities, both of
thought and action, which the present situation lays upon British Democracy
and on believers in democracy throughout the world.
In devoting one chapter to a survey of the issues raised for settlement by
the war, we must disclaim most emphatically all idea of dividing the
lion's skin before the animal has been killed. Our object has not been to
prophesy, but merely to stimulate thought and discussion. The field is so
vast and complicated that unless public opinion begins to mobilise without
further delay and to form clear ideas as to how the principles laid down
by our statesmen are to be converted into practice, it may find itself
confronted, as it was confronted in 1814, with a situation which it can
neither understand nor control, and with a settlement which will perpetuate
many of the abuses which this war ought to remove. Our best excuse is
supplied by the attitude of many leaders of German political thought--men
like Franz von Liszt, Ostwald; and Paul Rohrbach--who are already mapping
out the world according to their victorious fancies.
_December 1914._
R.W.S.-W. J.D.W. A.E.Z. A.G.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
By ALFRED E. ZIMMERN, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford;
Author of _The Greek Commonwealth_
CHAPTER II
THE NATIONAL IDEA IN EUROPE, 1789-1914 By J. DOVER WILSON, M.A., Gonville
and Cains College, Cambridge, late Lecturer in the University of
Helsingfors, Finland
1. NATION AND NATIONALITY 2. THE BIRTH OF NATIONALISM: POLAND AND THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION 3. THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA AND THE INTERNATIONAL IDEA
4. THE NATIONAL IDEA IN BELGIUM AND THE PROBLEM OF SMALL NATIONS 5. THE
NATIONAL IDEA IN ITALY: THE IDEAL TYPE 6. THE NATIONAL IDEA IN GERMANY: A
CASE OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT 7. THE MAP OF EUROPE, 1814-1914
CHAPTER III
GERMANY By ALFRED E. ZIMMERN
1. THE GERMAN STATE 2. THE REAL GERMANY 3. PRUSSIA 4. GERMANY SINCE 1870
CHAPTER IV
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS By R.W. SETON-WATSON, D.Litt., New
College, Oxford, author of _Racial Problems in Hungary, The Southern Slav
Question_, etc.
INTRODUCTION
1. AUSTRIA AND THE HABSBURGS 2. HUNGARY AND MAGYAR MISRULE 3. THE DECAY OF
THE DUAL SYSTEM 4. THE GENESIS OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 5. THE RENAISSANCE
OF SERBIA 6. SERBO-CROAT UNITY 7. THE BALKAN WARS 8. THE MURDER OF THE
ARCHDUKE 9. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
CHAPTER V
RUSSIA By J. DOVER WILSON
1. THE RUSSIAN STATE 2. RELIGION 3. THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AND ITS
SIGNIFICANCE 4. THE SUBJECT NATIONALITIES
CHAPTER VI
FOREIGN POLICY [_Contributed_]
A. THE MEANING OF FOREIGN POLICY
1. THE FOREIGN OFFICE 2. THE WORK OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE 3. THE BALANCE OF
POWER 4. THE ESTIMATION OF NATIONAL FORCES
B. THE DEMOCRATISATION OF FOREIGN POLICY
1. DEMOCRACY AND PEACE 2. FOREIGN POLICY AND POPULAR FORCES 3. FOREIGN
POLICY AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER VII
THE ISSUES OF THE WAR By R.W. SETON-WATSON
1. IS THERE AN IDEA BEHIND THE WAR? 2. THE AIMS OF BRITISH STATESMANSHIP
3. BRITAIN AND GERMANY 4. NATIONALITY AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE (1)
ALSACE-LORRAINE, (2) SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, (3) POLAND 5. THE FUTURE OF
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM LOSSES 6. THE SOUTHERN SLAV QUESTION
7. THE ROUMANIAN QUESTION 8. CAN THE DUAL MONARCHY BE REPLACED? 9. BOHEMIA
AND HUNGARY 10. GERMANY AND AUSTRIA 11. ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS 12. THE BALKAN
SITUATION: BULGARIA AND GREECE 13. THE FUTURE OF TURKEY 14. RUSSIA AND
CONSTANTINOPLE 15. ASIATIC TURKEY 16. RUSSIA AND POLAND 17. GENERAL AIMS
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE WAR By ARTHUR GREENWOOD, B.Sc., Lecturer
in Economics at the University of Leeds
INTRODUCTION
A. STATE ACTION IN INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
B. IMMEDIATE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE WAR
1. FOREIGN TRADE 2. UNEMPLOYMENT AND SHORT TIME 3. TRADE UNIONS,
CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES, AND DISTRESS 4. THE NEW SPIRIT
C. AFTER THE WAR
1. GENERAL EFFECTS 2. POSSIBLE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENTS 3. SOCIAL EFFECTS
AND THE NEW OUTLOOK
CHAPTER IX
GERMAN CULTURE AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH By ALFRED E. ZIMMERN
1. THE TWO ISSUES 2. CULTURE 3. CULTURE AS A STATE PRODUCT 4. GERMAN AND
BRITISH IDEALS OF EDUCATION 5. GERMAN AND BRITISH IDEALS OF CIVILISATION 6.
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 7. THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 8. THE TWO
ROADS OF ADVANCE: INTER-STATE ACTION AND COMMON CITIZENSHIP
INDEX
MAPS
THE PARTITION OF POLAND
EUROPE IN 1815
GERMANY IN 1815
PRUSSIA SINCE THE ACCESSION OF FREDERICK THE GREAT
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: PHYSICAL
THE FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIER
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLITICAL DIVISIONS
RACIAL AND NATIONAL BOUNDARIES IN CENTRAL EUROPE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
"It seems to me that the amount of lawlessness and crime, the amount of
waste and futility, the amount of war and war possibility and war danger
in the world are just the measure of the present inadequacy of the world's
system of collective organisations to the purpose before them. It follows
from this very directly that only one thing can end war on the earth, and
that is a subtle mental development, an idea, the development of the idea
of the world commonweal in the collective mind."--H.G. WELLS in 1908.
THIS is a testing time for Democracy. The people of Great Britain and the
Dominions, to whom all the world looks as the trustees, together with
France and America, of the great democratic tradition, are brought face
to face, for the first time, with their full ultimate responsibility as
British citizens. Upon the way in which that responsibility is realised
and discharged depends the future of the democratic principle, not only in
these islands, but throughout the world.
Democracy is not a mere form of government. It does not depend on ballot
boxes or franchise laws or any constitutional machinery. These are but its
trappings. Democracy is a spirit and an atmosphere, and its essence is
trust in the moral instincts of the people. A tyrant is not a democrat, for
he believes in government by force; neither is a demagogue a democrat, for
he believes in government by flattery. A democratic country is a country
where the government has confidence in the people and the people in the
government and in itself, and where all are united in the faith that the
cause of their country is not a mere matter of individual or national
self-interest, but is in harmony with the great moral forces which rule the
destinies of mankind. No form of government is so feeble as a democracy
without faith. But a democracy armed with faith is not merely strong: it
is invincible; for its cause will live on, in defeat and disaster, in the
breast of every one of its citizens. Belgium is a living testimony to that
great truth.
British Democracy has carried this principle of confidence to the furthest
possible point. Alone among the States of Europe, Great Britain relies for
her existence and for the maintenance of her world-wide responsibilities
upon the free choice of her citizens. Her privileges are extended to all:
her active obligations are forced upon none. Trusting in the principle of
individual freedom, and upon the sound instinct and understanding of her
people, she leaves it to each citizen to make his choice whether, and in
what manner, he shall serve his country. Never have responsibilities so
arduous and so urgent been laid upon the citizens of any community: and
never have the citizens been so free to choose or to decline the burden.
The world will judge Great Britain, and judge Democracy, according to the
measure of our free response.
What is the nature of the responsibility cast upon us at this crisis?
It is threefold. It concerns the present, the past, and the future. There
are three questions which every citizen must needs ask, and try to answer,
for himself. The first and most urgent is a matter of present decision:
What is my duty here and now? The second involves a judgment of past
events: Why is it that we are at war? Are we fighting in a just cause? The
third involves an estimate of the future and of the part which British
public opinion can and should play in shaping it: What are the issues
involved in the various belligerent countries? What should be the
principles of a just settlement? How can Great Britain best use her
influence in the cause of human progress and for the welfare of the peoples
involved in the war?
It is with the second and especially with the third of these
responsibilities that this volume is concerned.
"What is the war about?" "Are we fighting in a just cause?" Every one by
now has asked himself this question, and most people have studied some at
least of the evidence, and tried to satisfy themselves as to the answer.
The Foreign Office White Paper and numberless books and pamphlets have
enlightened the public on many of the questions at issue. Yet the fact
remains that the necessity of this educative campaign involves a confession
of failure--or at least of grave neglect--on the part of British democracy.
Under our democratic constitution the people of Great Britain have assumed
the responsibility for the management of their own affairs. One great
department of those affairs, the most vital of all, they and their
representatives have systematically neglected. Deeply engaged and
interested in domestic problems, they have left the control of their
foreign relations in the hands of expert advisers. And so it was with
something like stupefaction that they discovered, one day in August, that
they were called upon to honour the obligations contracted in their name.
There has been no desire to evade those obligations. But there has been a
very real desire to understand them, and also a fixed determination never
again to allow such a lack of contact, on vital issues, between the mind of
the people and the activities of their ministers.
But no mere changes in the machinery of democratic control can avail to
save the people from the consequences of their own ignorance and neglect.
There is only one way in which we can achieve full Democracy in this
country, and that is through Education.
In the sphere of domestic affairs, particularly in connection with social
and industrial questions, the people have slowly realised this hard truth.
After a generation or more of attempts and failures and disillusionments
many thousands of workpeople have learnt the lesson that power without
knowledge is not power at all, and that knowledge, whether for public
affairs or for any other purpose, cannot be gained without effort and
discipline. They have come to realise that Democracy needs, for its full
working, not only schools in which to train its young, but also--what
no Democracy save those of the ancient world has ever possessed--such
facilities for the education for its adult citizens, engaged in the active
work of the community, as will enable them to maintain unimpaired their
intellectual freshness and vigour, and to face with wisdom and courage the
problems for which, as citizens, they have assumed responsibility. They
have come to think of Education, not as a time of tutelage or training, but
as a part of active life itself, woven of the same texture and concerned
with the same issues, as being, in fact, the effort to understand the world
in which they live. But they have naturally tended to confine those issues
within the limits of their own domestic interests and experience. They
are called upon now to widen their horizon, and to apply the democratic
conception of education to the new problems which have arisen owing to the
part which Great Britain is now playing in the affairs of Europe.
It is never easy to think things out clearly and coldly. But it is hardest
of all in the crisis of a great war, when men's minds are blurred by
passionate emotions of sorrow, anxiety, and indignation. Hence a time of
war is the heyday of fallacies and delusions, of misleading hopes and
premature disillusionments: men tend to live in an unreal world of phrases
and catchwords. Yet never is it more necessary than at such a period, in
the old Greek phrase, "to follow the argument whithersoe'er it leads,"
to look facts squarely in the face, and, particularly, the great ugly
outstanding fact of war itself, the survival of which democrats, especially
in Great Britain and the United States, have of recent years been so
greatly tempted to ignore.
People speak as if war were a new sudden and terrible phenomenon. There is
nothing new about the fact of war. What is new about this war is the scale
on which it is waged, the science and skill expended on it, and the fact
that it is being carried on by national armies, numbering millions, instead
of by professional bodies of soldiers. But war itself is as old as the
world: and if it surprises and shocks us this is due to our own blindness.
There are only two ways of settling disputes between nations, by law or
by war. As there is as yet no World-State, with the power to enforce
a World-law between the nations, the possibility of war, with all its
contingent horrors, should have been before our eyes all the time. The
_occasion_ of this war was no doubt a surprise. But that it could happen at
all should not be a surprise to us, still less a disillusionment. It does
not mark a backward step in human civilisation. It only registers the
fact that civilisation is still grievously incomplete and unconsolidated.
Terrible as this war is in its effect on individual lives and happiness, it
ought not to depress us--even if, in our blindness, we imagined the world
to be a far better organised place than it actually is. The fact that many
of the combatants regard war as an anachronism adds to the tragedy, but
also to the hope, of the struggle. It shows that civilised opinion is
gathering strength for that deepening and extension of the meaning and
range of citizenship which alone can make war between the nations of the
world as obsolete as it has become between the nations of the British
Empire or between the component parts of the United States.
It was perhaps inevitable that British citizens in particular, removed from
the storm centres of Continental Europe, and never very logical in their
thinking, should have failed to realise the possibility of another great
war, similar to the Napoleonic struggle of a hundred years ago. For nearly
half a century the great European States had been at peace: and we had come
to look upon their condition, and the attachment of their peoples, as being
as ancient and as stable as our own. We had grown used to the map of Europe
as it had been left by the great convulsions between 1848 and 1871. Upon
the basis of that map and of the governments represented on it, and in
response to the growing needs of the world as a whole, we had embarked on
every kind of international co-operation and cosmopolitan effort. The Hague
Congress, convened by the Tsar of Russia, looked forward to the day when
war, and the causes of war, should be obsolete. The Socialist Movement, a
growing force in all industrial communities, stood for the same ideal, and
for the international comradeship of the working class. Law and medicine,
science and scholarship followed suit; and every summer, in quest of
health and change, thousands of plain citizens have crossed international
frontiers with scarcely greater sense of change than in moving from
province to province in a single State. Commerce and industry, the greatest
material forces of our time, have become inextricably international, and
in the palpable injury in which a war would involve them some thinkers
of clear but limited vision saw the best hope of averting a European
conflagration.
And yet, throughout these two generations of economic and social
development, the fear of war has never been absent from the mind of Europe.
Her emperors and statesmen have talked of peace; but they have prepared for
war, more skilfully and more persistently than ever before in the history
of Europe or of the world. Almost the entire manhood of every European
nation but England has been trained to arms; and the annual war budget of
Europe rose, in time of peace, to over 300 million pounds. The States of
Europe, each afraid to stand alone against a coalition of possible rivals,
formed themselves into opposing groups; and each of the groups armed
feverishly against the other, fearful lest, by any change in the diplomatic
or political situation, they might be caught unawares and suffer loss.
Thus, it ought not to have surprised us that finally, through the accident
of a royal murder, the spark should be fired and the explosion ensue,
and that merchants and manufacturers, propagandists and philanthropists,
scholars and scientists, should find the ground shaken beneath their
feet and the projects patiently built up through years of international
co-operation shattered by the events of a few days.
Now that the war has come it is easy to see that they were mistaken. They
had built up the structure of a cosmopolitan society without looking to
the foundations. The economic activities of mankind have indeed brought a
World-Society and a World-Industry into being; but its political analogue,
a World-State, can only be formed, not through the co-operation of
individuals or groups of individuals, but through the union of nations and
the federation of national governments. The first task of our time for
Europe, as we shall try to show in the next chapter, is to lay firm the
foundations of those nations by carrying to victory the twin principles of
Nationality and Democracy--to secure that the peoples of Europe shall be
enabled to have governments corresponding to their national needs and
responsible to their own control, and to build up, under the care
and protection of those governments, the social institutions and the
civilisation of their choice. So long as there are peoples in Europe under
alien governments, curtailed in the use of their own language,[1] in the
propagation of their literature and ideas, in their social intercourse, in
their corporate life, in all that we in Great Britain understand by civil
liberty, so long will there be men who will mock at the very idea of
international peace, and look forward to war, not as an outworn instrument
of a barbarous age, but as a means to national freedom and self-expression.
Englishmen sometimes forget that there are worse evils than open war, both
in political and industrial relations, and that the political causes for
which their fathers fought and died have still to be carried to victory on
the Continent. Nationality and their national institutions are the very
life-blood of English people. They are as natural to them as the air
they breathe. That is what makes it sometimes so difficult for them to
understand, as the history of Ireland and even of Ulster shows, what
nationality means to other peoples. And that is why they have not realised,
not only that there are peoples in Europe living under alien governments,
but that there are governments in Europe so foolish as to think that men
and women deprived of their national institutions, humiliated in their
deepest feelings, and forced into an alien mould, can make good citizens,
trustworthy soldiers, or even obedient subjects.
[Footnote 1: The German official _communiqué_ on August 26, 1914, reports
as follows: "All the newspapers in Belgium, with the exception of those in
Antwerp, are printed in the German language." This, of course, is on the
model of the Prussian administration of Poland. The Magyars are more
repressive even than the Germans. See the bibliography given in _General
Books_ below.]
The political causes of the present war, then, and of the half century
of Armed Peace which preceded it are to be found, not in the particular
schemes and ambitions of any of the governments of Europe, nor in their
secret diplomacy, nor in the machinations of the great armament interests
allied to them, sinister though all these may have been, but in the nature
of some of those governments themselves, and in their relation to the
peoples over whom they rule.
"If it were possible," writes Prince Büllow, who directed German policy
as Imperial Chancellor from 1900 to 1909, "for members of different
nationalities, with different language and customs, and an intellectual
life of a different kind, to live side by side in one and the same State,
without succumbing to the temptation of each trying to force his own
nationality on the other, things on earth would look a good deal more
peaceful. But it is a law of life and development in history that where
two national civilisations meet they fight for ascendancy. In the struggle
between nationalities one nation is the hammer and the other the anvil; one
is the victor and the other the vanquished."[1] No words could indicate
more clearly the cause that is at stake in the present war. They show us
that there are still governments in Europe so ignorant as to believe that
the different nationalities of mankind are necessarily hostile to one
another, and so foolish and brutal as to think that national civilisation,
or, as the German Professors call it, "culture," can and indeed must be
propagated by the sword. It is this extraordinary conception which is at
the back of protests like that of Professor Haeckel and Professor Eucken
(men whom, in the field of their own studies, all Europe is proud to
honour) against "England fighting with a half-Asiatic power against
Germanism."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, by Prince Bernhard von Bülow, English
translation, 1st ed. pp. 245-6 (London, 1914).]
[Footnote 2: Protest of Professors Ernst Haeckel and Rudolf Eucken of Jena,
quoted in _The Times_ from the _Vossische Zeitung_ of August 20, 1914.]
There are not only half-Asiatics, there are real Asiatics side by side with
England; and England is not ashamed of it. For she does not reckon the
culture of Europe as higher than the culture of Asia, or regard herself as
the hammer upon the anvil of India.
Prince Bülow's words, and the theory of policy underlying them, really go
to the root of the whole trouble in European politics. They explain
the Balance of Power, the competition in armaments, the belief in the
inevitability and the moral value of war, and all those common European
shibboleths which seem so inexplicable to citizens of the more
modern-minded States and communities of the world. Why should Germany and
Austria arm against France and Russia when Canada does not arm against
the United States? Why should a Balance of Power be necessary to the
maintenance of European Peace when we do not consider the preponderance
of a single Power, such as the United States in North, Central and South
America, or Great Britain in the Pacific or Southern Asia dangerous to the
peace of the whole world? Why, finally, to press Prince Bülow's logic home,
if members of different nationalities cannot live side by side without
playing the game of Hammer and Anvil together, are not the English spending
the whole of their energy fighting the Welsh, the Scotch, and the Irish in
the United Kingdom, the Dutch in South Africa, and the French in Canada,
not to speak of the Jews in every part of the British Empire? The fact is
that the statesmen of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and of Russia also, have
missed the chief lesson of recent history and politics: that in the growing
complexity of world-relations power is falling more and more, of necessity,
into the hands of States which are not Nations but Commonwealths of
Nations, States composed, like the British Empire and the United States, of
a variety of nationalities and "cultures," living peacefully, each with its
own institutions, under a single law and a single central government.
But the time is not ripe yet for a Commonwealth of Europe. The peoples of
Europe have yet to win their liberties before they can be free to dream of
a United States of Europe. So long as the Emperors and statesmen of Central
Europe believe, like the Mahomedans of old, that propaganda can be imposed
by the sword, they can only be met by the sword, and controlled by the
sword. Not till they have been conquered and rendered harmless, or
displaced by the better mind of the peoples whom they have indoctrinated,
can Europe proceed along the natural course of her development.
So far we have been concerned--as we shall be concerned throughout this
book--with the _political_ causes underlying the war. But it would not be
right to ignore the fact that there are other deeper causes, unconnected
with the actions of governments, for which we in this country are jointly
responsible with the rest of the civilised world.
This war is not simply a conflict between governments and nations for the
attainment of certain political ends, Freedom and Nationality on the one
side and Conquest and Tyranny on the other. It is also a great outburst
of pent-up feeling, breaking like lava through the thin crust of European
civilisation. On the _political_ side, as we have said just now, the war
reveals the fact that civilisation is still incomplete and ill-organised.
But on the _moral_ side it reveals the fact that modern society has broken
down, that the forces and passions that divide and embitter mankind have
proved stronger, at the moment of strain, than those which bind them
together in fellowship and co-operation. "What we are suffering from,"
says one of the greatest of living democrats,[1] "is something far more
widespread than the German Empire. Is it not the case that what we are in
face of is nothing less than the breakdown in a certain idea and hope of
civilisation, which was associated with the liberal and industrial movement
of the last century? There was to be an inevitable and glorious progress
of humanity of which science, commerce, and education were to be the main
instruments, and which was to be crowned with a universal peace. Older
prophets like Thomas Carlyle expressed their contempt for the shallowness
of this prevailing ideal, and during this century we have been becoming
more and more doubtful of its value. But we are now witnessing its
downfall. Science, commerce, and education have done, and can do, much for
us. But they cannot expel the human spirit from human nature. What is
that? At bottom, love of self, self-interest, selfishness individual and
corporate. As a theory, the philosophy of selfishness has often been
exposed. But, to an extent that is difficult to exaggerate, it has been the
motive, acknowledged and relied upon without shame or apology in commerce,
in politics and in practical life. Our civilisation has been based on
selfishness, our commerce on competition and the unrestricted love of
wealth, our education on the motive of self-advancement. And science and
knowledge, made the instrument of selfishness and competition, have armed
man against man, class against class, and nation against nation, with
tenfold the power of destruction which belonged to a less educated and
highly organised age."
[Footnote 1: _The War and the Church_, by Charles Gore (Oxford, Mowbray,
1914).]
The civilised world has been shocked during the past months at the
spectacle of the open adoption by a great Power of this philosophy
of selfishness. Men had not realised that the methods and principles
underlying so much of our commercial and industrial life could be
transferred so completely to the field of politics or so ruthlessly pressed
home by military force. But it is well for us to remember that it is not
Prussia, even in the modern world, who invented the theory of Blood and
Iron or the philosophy of Force. The Iron Law of Wages is a generation
older than Bismarck: and "Business is Business" can be no less odious a
watchword than "War is War." Treitschke and Nietzsche may have furnished
Prussian ambitions with congenial ammunition; but Bentham with his purely
selfish interpretation of human nature and Marx with his doctrine of the
class-struggle--the high priest of Individualism and the high priest of
Socialism--cannot be acquitted of a similar charge. If the appeal has been
made in a less crude and brutal form, and if the instrument of domination
has been commercial and industrial rather than military, it is because
Militarism is not the besetting sin of the English-speaking peoples. Let
us beware, therefore, at this moment, of anything savouring of
self-righteousness.
"Some of us," says Bishop Gore, "see the chief security" against
this disease which has infected our civilisation "in the progress of
Democracy--the government of the people really by the people and for the
people. I am one of those who believe this and desire to serve towards the
realising of this end. But the answer does not satisfy me. I do not know
what evils we might find arising from a world of materialistic democracies.
But I am sure we shall not banish the evil spirits which destroy human
lives and nations and civilisations by any mere change in the methods
of government. Nothing can save civilisation except a new spirit in the
nations."
The task before Europe, then, is a double one--a task of development and
construction in the region of politics, and of purification and conversion
in the region of the spirit. "For the finer spirits of Europe," says the
great French writer, Romain Rolland, who is none the less a patriot because
he is also a lover of Germany, "there are two dwelling-places: our earthly
fatherland, and that other, the City of God. Of the one we are the guests,
of the other the builders. To the one let us give our lives and our
faithful hearts; but neither family, friend, nor fatherland, nor aught that
we love has power over the spirit which is the light. It is our duty to
rise above tempests and thrust aside the clouds which threaten to obscure
it; to build higher and stronger, dominating the injustice and hatred of
nations, the walls of that city wherein the souls, of the whole world may
assemble."[1]
[Footnote 1: Article in the _Journal de Genève_, translated in the
_Cambridge Magazine_ and reprinted in _Public Opinion_, Nov. 27, 1914.
Those who hold that Christianity and war are incompatible would seem to be
committed to a monastic and passively anarchist view of life, inconsistent
with membership in a political society. But whatever the relation between
Christianity and war, there can be no question of the relation between
Christianity and _hatred_. Hatred (which is not the same thing as moral
indignation) is a poison which corrodes and embitters, and so degrades, and
thereby weakens, the national spirit. It is a pity that some of our most
prominent newspaper-proprietors do not understand this.]
Internationalism as a political theory has broken down: for it was based on
a false conception of the nature of government and of the obligations of
citizenship. The true internationalism--a spirit of mutual understanding
and fellowship between men and nations, to replace the suspicions, the
competition, and the watchful selfishness of the past generation--is the
moral task that lies before Europe and America to-day. If Great Britain is
to lead the way in promoting "a new spirit between the nations" she needs a
new spirit also in the whole range of her corporate life. For what Britain
stands for in the world is, in the long run, what Britain is, and, when
thousands are dying for her, it is more than ever the duty of all of us to
try to make her worthier of their devotion.
CHAPTER II
THE NATIONAL IDEA IN EUROPE, 1789-1914
Europe, what of the night?--
Ask of heaven, and the sea,
And my babes on the bosom of me,
Nations of mine, but ungrown.
There is one who shall surely requite
All that endure or that err:
She can answer alone:
Ask not of me, but of her.
Liberty, what of the night?--
I feel not the red rains fall,
Hear not the tempest at all,
Nor thunder in heaven any more.
All the distance is white
With the soundless feet of the sun.
Night, with the woes that it wore,
Night is over and done.
A.C. SWINBURNE, _A Watch in the Night._
Sixty-two years ago reaction reigned supreme in Europe after the great
national and social uprisings of 1848, and England looked on passively
while the hopes of freedom were crushed in Bohemia, Hungary, and Italy.
Mazzini, the noblest of Italian patriots, the most prophetic soul among
nineteenth-century nationalists, selected this moment of profound despair
to publish an essay, entitled _Europe, Its Condition and Prospects_, which,
burning with the passion of an inextinguishable faith, pierced the veil of
the future and foreshadowed in an almost miraculous fashion the situation
which faces Europe and England to-day. Nothing printed in this country
since the war broke out expresses more clearly the real issues of the
mighty conflict and the part our country is called to play in it than the
following words, in reference to the unredeemed peoples of Europe, uttered
by the great Italian more than half a century ago:
"They struggled, they still struggle, for country and liberty; for a word
inscribed upon a banner, proclaiming to the world that they also live,
think, love, and labour for the benefit of all. They speak the same
language, they bear about them the impress of consanguinity, they kneel
beside the same tombs, they glory in the same tradition; and they demand to
associate freely, without obstacles, without foreign domination, in order
to elaborate and express their idea, to contribute their stone also to the
great pyramid of history. It is something moral which they are seeking;
and this moral something is in fact, even politically speaking, the most
important question in the present state of things. It is the organisation
of the European task. In principle, nationality ought to be to humanity
that which division of labour is in a workshop--the recognised symbol of
association; the assertion of the individuality of a human group called by
its geographical position, its traditions, and its language, to fulfill a
special function in the European work of civilisation.
"The map of Europe has to be re-made. This is the key to the present
movement; herein lies its initiative. Before acting, the instrument for
action must be organised; before building, the ground must be one's own.
The social idea cannot be realised under any form whatsoever before this
reorganisation of Europe is effected; before the peoples are free to
interrogate themselves, to express their vocation, and to assure its
accomplishment by an alliance capable of substituting itself for the
absolute league which now reigns supreme.
"If England persist in maintaining a neutral, passive, selfish part, she
will have to expiate it. A European transformation is inevitable. When it
shall take place, when the struggle shall burst forth at twenty places at
once, when the old combat between fact and right is decided, the peoples
will remember that England stood by, an inert, immovable, sceptical witness
of their sufferings and efforts. The nation must rouse herself and shake
off the torpor of her government. She must learn that we have arrived at
one of those supreme moments in which one world is destroyed and another
is to be created; in which, for the sake of others and for her own, it is
necessary to adopt a new policy."
England to-day has adopted this "new policy"; she has responded to
Mazzini's appeal by stepping into the arena and declaring herself ready to
take part in "the organisation of the European task"; her sons are dying on
the Continent in defence of the principle of nationality, in support of
the rights of other nations to that liberty which her insular position has
secured for herself for many centuries, the liberty "to associate freely,
without obstacles, without foreign domination, in order to elaborate and
express their idea." She is fighting, moreover, not only on behalf of the
threatened freedom of Belgium, France, and Serbia, on behalf of the
unborn freedom of Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, and the subject races of the
Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, but also on her own behalf. It is not
merely that she recognises that her Empire is in danger; she recognises
also that she is unable to work out her own salvation, unable to carry on
her industrial development and her schemes for the betterment of her people
in security, while the Continent at her doors remains in constant peril
of change. "The social idea cannot be realised under any form whatsoever
before this reorganisation of Europe is effected."
§1. _Nation and Nationality_.--The social idea and the national idea have
been for a century past the twin pivots of European development. The
political structure of the Continent has oscillated this way and that
according as these ideas have in turn assumed ascendancy over men's minds;
and when, as in 1848, both claimed attention at the same time, the whole
edifice was shaken to its very foundations. In England, on the other hand,
it is the social idea alone which has been a motive force in the nineteenth
century, although she has always had to reckon with the national idea
across the St. George's Channel. Owing to her fortunate geographical
situation, she acquired national unity many centuries ago and has always
been able to defend it successfully against the danger of external
aggression. The national idea, therefore, has long ceased to be an
aspiration, and consequently a revolutionary force, among us; it has
been realised in actual fact, we have grown as accustomed to it and as
unconscious of it as of the air we breathe. Thus Englishmen, as their
attitude towards Ireland has shown, find it difficult to understand exactly
what the principle of nationality means to those who have never possessed
national freedom or are in constant danger of losing it. This is perhaps
especially true of the English working classes, who grew to the full
stature of political consciousness some fifty years after the last serious
threat to our national existence was made by Napoleon, and upon whom the
burden of the social idea presses with peculiar weight. And yet, unless
the significance of the principle of nationality and the part which it has
played in the history of modern Europe be realised, it is impossible to
enter fully into the true meaning of the present tremendous conflict.
What then is nationality? The question is more difficult to answer than
appears at first sight. A nationality is not quite the same thing as a
nation. For example, there is a German nation, ruled by the Kaiser
Wilhelm II., but this does not include twelve million people of German
nationality who are the subjects of the Emperor of Austria; or again,
there is the Swiss nation, which is made up of no less than three distinct
nationalities. Still less are the terms state and nationality synonymous;
for, if they were, then the natives of India might claim to be of the same
nationality as ourselves, or, _vice versa_, the United States would be
regarded as part of the British Empire because a large proportion of their
inhabitants happen to be of British descent. The word "race" brings us
somewhat nearer to the point, but even this will not satisfy us when we
remember that the Slavonic race, for example, consists of a large number of
nationalities, such as the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Serbs, the
Montenegrins, etc., or that the English (as distinguished from the other
three nations of the United Kingdom) belong to the same Teutonic race as
the Germans. Nevertheless, a belief, whether well grounded or not, in
a common racial origin is one of the root principles of the idea of
nationality.
"What is a nation?" the great Magyar nationalist, Kossuth, asked a Serb
representative at the Hungarian Diet of 1848. The reply was: "A race
which possesses its own language, customs, and culture, and enough
self-consciousness to preserve them." "A nation must also have its own
government," objected Kossuth. "We do not go so far," explained his
interlocutor; "one nation can live under several different governments, and
again several nations can form a single state."[1] Both the Magyar and the
Serb wore right, though the latter was speaking of "nationality" and the
former of "nation." The conversation is in fact instructive in more
ways than one. It would be difficult to find a better definition of
_nationality_ than that given by the Serb speaker. A common language, a
common culture, and common customs: these are the outward and visible signs
which make a people conscious of its common race, which make it, in other
words, a nationality.
[Footnote 1: R.W. Seton-Watson, _The Southern Slav Question_, p. 46.]
The element of "consciousness" is all-important. There are, for example,
members of the Finnish race scattered all over northern Russia, but they
evince no consciousness of any kind that they are allied to the nationality
which inhabits the country of Finland. Again, it is only within recent
years that the Serbs and the Croats in the south-west corner of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire have begun to realise that the only things
which divide them one from the other are a difference of religion and a
difference of alphabet; and now that the realisation of this fact has
spread from the study to the market-place, we see the formation of a new
nationality, that of the Serbo-Croats. The researches of historians and
other learned men have done an immense deal to stimulate the development of
nationalities during the past century, but they are unable of themselves
to create them. The fact of kinship is not enough; community of language,
customs, and culture is not even enough; to be a real nationality a people
must be conscious of all these things, and not merely conscious, but
sufficiently conscious to preserve them and, if need be, to die for them.
Now the interesting thing for us about a nationality is that it is always
striving to become a _nation_. A nation, as we have seen, may be composed
of several nationalities; but such cases are rare, and are due to peculiar
geographical conditions, as for example in Switzerland and Great Britain,
or to external pressure, as in Belgium, which have as it were welded
together the different racial elements into a single whole. In general,
therefore, a nation is simply a nationality which has acquired
self-government; it is nationality _plus_ State. "Ireland a nation," the
warcry of the Irish Nationalist party, is a claim, not a statement of
fact; Ireland will become a nation when its desire for self-government
is satisfied. The case is instructive because it shows that it is not
necessary for a nationality to become a _sovereign_ State in order to be in
the full sense of the word a nation. It is perfectly possible, as our Serb
remarked, for several nations to form a single sovereign state; but as a
general rule all such nations will be allowed to manage their own internal
affairs. The self-governing Dominions of the British Empire and the Magyars
of Hungary are nations, though they are subordinate to their respective
imperial governments in questions of peace and war, treaty obligations,
etc.
The real test of national existence is ultimately a sentimental one. Does
the nationality inhabiting a given country regard the government under
which it lives as a true expression of its peculiar genius and will? Does
the State, of which it forms a part, exist by its consent, or has it been
imposed upon it by some alien authority or nationality? Is it a territorial
unity, or has it been split up into sections by artificial frontiers? All
these questions must be answered before we can say of any nationality that
it is also a nation. The "national idea," therefore, which has been one of
the chief factors in modern history, is essentially an idea of development.
Its root is the conception of nationality, that is of a people consciously
united by race, language, and culture; and from this springs the larger
conception of nationhood, that is of a nationality possessing its own
political institutions, governed by its own consent, and co-extensive with
its natural boundaries. As we shall see later, political development
does not always stop at the Nation-State. Further growth, however, is
extra-national in character; it may either take the parasitical form of one
nation imposing its will and its "culture" upon other nations, or it may
assume the proportions of that highest type of polity yet known to mankind,
a commonwealth of nations freely associating together within the confines
of a single sovereign State.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Chapter IX. for further treatment of this.]
§2. _The Birth of Nationalism: Poland and the French Revolution_.--With
these general principles in mind let us now consider the national idea at
work in the nineteenth century. Nations, in the sense just defined, have
of course long existed in Europe. England, Scotland, and Switzerland are
nations whose life-histories date right back to the Middle Ages. Joan of
Are was a nationalist, and France has been a nation since the end of the
Hundred Years' War in 1453. Spain became a nation a few years later by the
expulsion of the Moors and the union of Castille and Aragon under Ferdinand
and Isabella. Holland, again, acquired her national freedom in her great
struggle against Spain in the sixteenth century. But it was not until the
end of the eighteenth century that nationalism became a real force in
Europe, an idea for which men died and in whose name monarchies were
overthrown. "In the old European system," writes Lord Acton, "the rights of
nationalities were neither recognised by governments nor asserted by the
people. The interest of the reigning families, not those of the nations,
regulated the frontiers, and the administration was conducted generally
without any reference to popular desires. Where all liberties were
suppressed, the claims of national independence were necessarily ignored,
and a princess, in the words of Fénelon, carried a monarchy in her wedding
portion."[1] The State was, in short, regarded as a purely territorial
affair; it was the property, the _landed_ property, of the monarch, who in
his capacity of owner controlled the destinies of the people who happened
to live upon that territory. Conquest or marriage might unite in the hands
of a single monarch the most diverse peoples and countries, the notorious
case of the kind being that of the Emperor Charles V., who in the sixteenth
century managed to hold sway over Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Naples,
and a large part of the New World.
[Footnote 1: _History of Freedom_, p. 273.]
The golden age of the dynastic principle was, however, the eighteenth
century, and the long and tedious wars of that period were nearly all
occasioned by the aggrandisement of some royal house. The idea of a nation
as a living organism, as something more than a collection of people
dwelling in the same country, speaking the same language and obeying
the same ruler, had not yet dawned upon the world. Apart from England,
Scotland, Switzerland, and Holland, no European nation had really become
conscious of its personality as distinct from that of its hereditary
monarch. And as we have seen, until nationality becomes keenly
self-conscious, the national idea remains unborn. Only some great internal
cataclysm or an overwhelming disaster inflicted by a foreign power could
evoke this consciousness in a nation; and fate ordained that the two
methods should be tried simultaneously at opposite ends of Europe. France,
"standing on the top of golden hours," and Poland, crushed, dismembered,
downtrodden--it would be difficult to say which of these contributed the
more to the great national awakening in Europe.
Poland was the first and greatest martyr of the nationalist faith. By its
constitution, which was that of an oligarchical republic with an elective
king, Poland was placed beyond the pale of a Europe ruled upon dynastic
principles. Its very existence was an insult to the accepted ideals
of legitimacy and hereditary monarchy, and it was impossible for any
particular house to acquire it in the honest way of marriage. This was
particularly annoying to its immediate neighbours, Prussia, Russia, and
Austria, all of whom had grown into great powers while Poland, torn by
internal dissension, sank lower and lower in the political scale. It is
significant that the earliest suggestion of partition came from Frederick
the Great of Prussia, who was obliged to take Russia and Austria into his
counsels, as he knew that they would never allow him to annex the whole
country himself. Indeed, from first to last, the story of the Polish
partitions is a good example of Prussian _Realpolitik_. At length, after
much hesitation on the part of Russia and Austria, the Powers agreed among
themselves in 1772 to what is known as the First Partition, whereby the
three monarchs enriched their respective territories by peeling, as it
were, the unfortunate republic on all its frontiers. Perhaps the most
remarkable fact about the whole disgraceful concern is that it did not
appear in the least disgraceful, either morally or politically, to the
public opinion of the age. Meanwhile Poland by a heroic effort converted
herself in self-defence into a hereditary constitutional monarchy on the
model of England. Prussia, playing the part of Judas, pretended to welcome
these reforms at first and lent the Poles its encouragement; but when
Russia took up arms on behalf of the Polish reactionary party, and the
country turned to Prussia to aid it in defending the constitution, the
treacherous Frederick William not only declined to do so, but began to
send his troops to occupy Polish territory. The upshot was the further
dismemberment of Poland known as the Second Partition (1793). "No sophistry
in the world," writes Mr. Nisbet Bain, "can extenuate the villainy of the
Second Partition. The theft of territory is its least offensive feature. It
is the forcible suppression of a national movement of reform, the hurling
back into the abyss of anarchy and corruption of a people who, by
incredible efforts and sacrifices, had struggled back to liberty and order,
which makes this great political crime so wholly infamous. Yet here again
the methods of the Russian Empress were less vile than those of the
Prussian King. Catherine openly took the risk of a bandit who attacks an
enemy against whom he has a grudge; Frederick William II. came up, when the
fight was over, to help pillage a victim whom he had sworn to defend."[1]
After this the end came rapidly. The heroic patriot Kosciuszko headed a
popular rising against Russia; but after a remarkable resistance to the
combined forces of the three partitioning powers, the insurrection was
finally suppressed in torrents of blood. The crowned bandits nearly
quarrelled between themselves over the booty, but eventually in 1795
Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed a treaty which left nothing of Poland
on the map at all.
[Footnote 1: _Slavonic Europe_, p. 404.]
The effect upon the subsequent history of the world of this crime against
humanity, carried out by the three most absolute dynasties in Europe, was
incalculable. "The annihilation of the Polish nationality has probably
done more to endanger the monarchies of Europe than any one political act
accomplished since the monarchies of Europe were first founded. To trace
its effects in all their various ramifications would lead us a long way.
It is sufficient here to notice that the destruction of Poland, like the
destruction of Jerusalem, produced a "dispersion," and that as the Jews
of the dispersion have discharged a peculiar office in the economy of the
world as usurers and financiers, so, too, have the Poles of the dispersion
as agents and vectors of revolution. In all the republican movements of the
Continent the Poles have taken a leading part. They are to be found in
the Saxon riots of '48; in the Berlin barricades; in the struggle for the
Republic in Baden; in the Italian and Hungarian wars of liberation; in
the Chartist movement, and in the French Commune. Homeless and fearless,
schooled in war and made reckless by calamity, they have been the nerve
of revolution wherever they have been scattered by the winds of
misfortune."[1] And what Mr. Fisher, in this passage, puts in a concrete
fashion, Lord Acton has expressed with equal emphasis, if more abstractly.
"This famous measure," he writes of the final partition, "the most
revolutionary act of the old absolutism, awakened the theory of nationality
in Europe, converting a dormant right into an aspiration, and a sentiment
into a political claim. 'No wise or honest man,' wrote Edmund Burke, 'can
approve of that partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating
great mischief from it to all countries at some future date.' Thenceforward
there was a nation demanding to be united in a State--a soul, as it were,
wandering in search of a body in which to begin life over again; and
for the first time a cry was heard that the arrangement of States was
unjust--that their limits were unnatural, and that a whole people was
deprived of its right to constitute an independent community. Before that
claim could be efficiently asserted against the overwhelming power of its
opponents--before it gained energy, after the last partition, to overcome
the influence of long habits of submission, and of the contempt which
previous disorders had brought upon Poland--the ancient European system was
in ruins, and a new world was rising in its place."[2]
[Footnote 1: _The Republican Tradition in Europe_, pp. 212-213.]
[Footnote 2: _History of Freedom_, p. 276.]
[Illustration: _Present State Boundaries_--THE PARTITION OF POLAND.]
The last sentence reminds us that, while in the East the dynastic principle
was displaying with cynical indifference its true character to the world,
events were occurring in the West which threatened to shake its very
foundations. If Poland was the first martyr of the national idea,
Revolutionary France was its first evangelist, for the new gospel which
France preached was the gospel of Liberty, and nationalism is an extension,
a variant of this gospel. In France itself, at the time of the
Revolution, the doctrine of Liberty was interpreted in its individual and
constitutional sense, which involved the abolition of class privileges
and of political institutions that conflicted with or did not adequately
express what Rousseau called the "general will." There was no national
question to be settled in France, and she could therefore devote herself
exclusively to the development of the "social idea," the establishment of
democratic government, the foundation of a republic, and in general the
determination of what should be the relations between the individual and
the State, a question which in course of time led on to the problem of
Socialism.
But indirectly the French Revolution did an enormous deal to promote the
national idea in Europe. In the first place, the execution of Louis XVI.
and the proclamation of the Republic administered a blow to the theory of
legitimacy upon which the dynastic principle rested, from which it never
recovered. If the French nation could rise and abolish its native dynasty,
was there not hope that some day the Italian, Hungarian, and Polish nations
might also rise and throw off the still more objectionable yoke of their
foreign rulers? In the second place, the Revolution in and for itself
produced a tremendous effect upon the rest of Europe, and in every country
men awoke from the long sleep of feudalism to the desire of sweeping away
antiquated constitutions and rebuilding them upon a democratic basis.
It is, however, sufficient to glance at a map of Europe at the end of the
eighteenth century to see why these dreams could not be at once realised.
Of what real value were ideals of democratic reform to the peoples dwelling
in Italy, Germany, or the Austrian Empire? Look, for example, at Germany,
split up like a jig-saw puzzle into over three hundred different States,
each with its petty prince or grand-duke. Her poets and philosophers might
sing of liberty and dream Utopian dreams, and here and there an experiment
in popular government might be tried by some princeling who had caught
the liberal fashion; but her political fabric, together with the rivalry
between Prussia and Austria, kept her disunited and strangled all real
hopes of reform. In short, the first and most crying need of Europe was not
the abolition of antiquated constitutions, but the redrawing of anomalous
frontiers.
The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people proclaimed in France
presupposed the doctrine of the solidarity of the people proclaimed by the
dismembered nations of Europe. France could set its house in order; but
Belgium, Germany, Italy, Bohemia, Hungary, etc., had as yet no house of
their own. The house had to be built before it could be furnished on the
latest democratic lines; and before it could be even built, the ground had
to be wrested from the hands of absentee landlords or cleared of the little
dynastic State-shanties which cumbered it. The Polish nationalists became
the backbone of the republican movement in Europe; the French republicans
proclaimed the independence of nations as one of their cardinal principles.
Thus the social idea and the national idea were originally intimately
connected. They were the twin children of Poland and the French Revolution,
and in their cradle it was hard to tell them apart, so strongly were the
features of each stamped with the likeness of Liberty.
For a time it seemed that the new ideas would carry all before them. Even
before France had herself abolished the monarchy, Belgium threw off the
Austrian rule and declared for a republic. And when in 1792 France found
herself at war with the Austrian and Prussian governments, and in the
following year with practically all the governments of Europe, her
victorious armies were everywhere greeted as saviours by the subject
peoples. But the old dynastic states proved to be of tougher material than
was expected. Moreover, it was not long before France found herself in
conflict with the national aspirations which she had called into existence.
The various republics which France set up all over Europe soon discovered
that they were nothing but tributary states of their "deliverer"; and when
Napoleon began his career of undisguised conquest, he unwittingly did even
more than the Revolution to strengthen the national idea in Europe, for the
nationalities had now become thoroughly hostile to France and fought in
alliance with their old dynasties to throw off the yoke of the hated
foreign tyrant.
This strange change in France from liberator to despot is worthy of some
attention. It is not good for a nation, any more than for an individual,
to be too successful. Moreover, the doctrine of liberty, whether in the
individualist or nationalist sense, if carried to extreme, is liable to
abuse. All to-day are aware that sheer individualism in the economic sphere
is an almost unmitigated evil; sheer individualism in the political sphere
and sheer nationalism are equally evil. France at the beginning of last
century was suffering from too much success, too much political liberty,
too much nationalism. Having overthrown the old _régime_ within the State
quickly and easily, she began to think she could do without the State
altogether: the result was anarchy, for which the only remedy is despotism.
Having, again, suddenly become conscious of her power and mission as a
nation, she began to send her armies across her frontiers to carry the
gospel of her peculiar "culture" to other and more benighted nations: the
result was occupation, which degenerated into conquest. Despotism within
and conquest without, both being summed up in the one word Napoleon--such
was the fate of the Mother of Liberty, who had loved her child "not
wisely but too well." Yet Napoleonism was a very necessary stage in the
development of modern Europe. It was the tramp of the invader which
did more than anything else to awake sleeping nationalism all over the
Continent; it was before the roar of Napoleon's cannon that the artificial
boundaries which had divided peoples crumbled to dust. Napoleon cleared the
ground, and even did something toward laying the foundations of the great
modern Nation-States, Germany and Italy. What Napoleon did for Europe at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, Germany, the Napoleon-State among
nations to-day, is doing for Europe at the beginning of the twentieth
century.
§3. _The Congress of Vienna and the International Idea_.--The overthrow of
Napoleon was due in a large measure to the spirit of nationalism which his
conquests had evoked against him among the various peoples of Europe; the
rewards of that overthrow, however, were reaped not by the peoples, but by
the dynasties and State-systems of the old _régime_. The Congress of the
Powers which met at Vienna in 1814 to resettle the map of Europe, after
the upheavals and wars of the previous twenty-five years, was a terrible
disappointment; and we, who are now hopefully looking forward to a similar
Congress at the end of the present war, cannot do better than study the
great failure of 1814, and take warning from it. The phrases which heralded
the approaching Congress were curiously and disquietingly similar to those
on the lips of our public men and journalists to-day when they speak of
the "settlement" before us. "The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the
World," which had become a remote dream when Tennyson first coined the
expression in 1842, seemed in 1814 on the eve of accomplishment. The work
of the Congress was to be no less than "the reconstruction of the moral
order," "the regeneration of the political system of Europe," the
establishment of "an enduring peace founded on a just redistribution
of political forces," the institution of an effective and a permanent
international tribunal, the encouragement of the growth of representative
institutions, and, last but not least, an arrangement between the Powers
for a gradual and systematic disarmament. "It seemed," writes Sir A.W.
Ward, "as if the states composing the European family, free once more to
take counsel together on terms of independence, were also free to determine
their own destinies."[1] The Congress of Vienna was to inaugurate a
New Era. Such of these views, however, as pointed in a democratic or
nationalistic direction represented the expectations of the peoples,
not the intentions of the crowned heads and diplomatists who met at the
Austrian capital. Among the members of the Congress the only man who at
first voiced these aspirations of the world at large was the Russian Tsar,
Alexander I., and such concessions to popular opinion as were made were due
to what the English plenipotentiary, Lord Castlereagh, described as the
"sublime mysticism and nonsense" of the Emperor.
[Footnote 1: _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. ix. p. 577.]
Instead, therefore, of establishing a new era, the Congress did its utmost
to restore the old one. Everything which had happened in Europe since
the outbreak of the French Revolution was regarded as a bad dream, the
principles of popular freedom and national liberty were completely ignored,
and an attempt was made to rivet again on the limbs of Europe the shackles
of the antiquated frontiers which had been struck off by the hammer of
Napoleon. Everywhere the "national idea" was trampled upon. Germany and
Italy were put back again into the eighteenth century, Austria's territory
in the latter country being largely increased; Norway was unwillingly yoked
with Sweden, and Belgium with Holland; Switzerland was made to surrender
her democratic constitution and to return to the aristocratic cantonal
system of the past; and, lastly, Poland remained dismembered.
The Allies, while fighting Napoleon, had issued the following proclamation
to the world, couched in language almost identical with that used by the
Allies who are now fighting Germany: "Nations will henceforth respect their
mutual independence; no political edifices shall henceforth be erected on
the ruins of formerly independent States; the object of the war, and of the
peace, is to secure the rights, the freedom, and the independence of
all nations."[1] The Congress of Vienna failed to redeem these pledges:
firstly, because its members had not grasped the principle of nationality,
and used "nation" and "State" as if they were synonymous terms; secondly,
because they did not represent the peoples whose destinies they took it
upon them to determine, and made no attempt whatever to consult the
views of the various masses of population which they parcelled out among
themselves like so much butter. They honestly tried to lay the foundations
of a permanent peace; but their method of doing so was not to satisfy the
natural aspirations of the European nations and so leave them nothing to
fight about, but to establish such an exact equipoise among the great
States, by a nice distribution of the aforesaid butter in their respective
scales, that they would be afraid to go to war with each other, lest they
might upset the so-called "balance of power." The "settlement" of 1814,
therefore, left a heritage of future trouble behind it which has kept
Europe disturbed throughout the nineteenth century, and is directly
responsible for the present war. The real settlement is yet to come; and if
we of this generation are to make it a final one we must avoid the errors
committed by the Congress of a hundred years ago.
[Footnote 1: Alison Phillips, _Modern Europe_, p. 8.]
Yet, when all is said, the Congress of Vienna represents an important
milestone along the road of progress. It is a great precedent. As a
disillusioned contemporary admitted, it "prepared the world for a more
complete political structure; if ever the powers should meet again to
establish a political system by which wars of conquest would be rendered
impossible and the rights of all guaranteed, the Congress of Vienna, as
a preparatory assembly, will not have been without use."[1] There is a
prophetic ring about this, very welcome to us of the twentieth century.
We cannot think altogether unkindly of our great-grandfathers' ill-judged
attempt to avert the calamity which has now broken over us.
[Footnote 1: Friedrich von Gentz, quoted in _Camb. Mod. Hist._ vol. x. p.
2.]
Nor was the Congress altogether barren of positive result; for it gave
birth to that conception of a "Confederation of Europe," which, though
never realised, has been one of the guiding ideas of nineteenth-century
politics. As this solution of the world's problems is likely to be urged
upon us with great insistency at the conclusion of the present war, it will
be well to look a little more closely into it and to see why it failed to
secure the allegiance of Europe a hundred years ago. The Congress had met
at Vienna and settled all outstanding questions, to the satisfaction of
its members; why should it not meet periodically, and constitute itself
a supreme international tribunal? The question had only to be asked to
receive the approbation of all concerned. The dreamer, Alexander I., at
once saw the destinies of the world entrusted to a Holy Alliance, which
would rule according to "the sacred principles of the Christian religion";
and even the more practical mind of Castlereagh conceived that a council of
the great powers, "endowed with the efficiency and almost the simplicity of
a single State," was a possibility.
Yet, it is quite clear to-day that, at that time and under those
conditions, the establishment of a permanent and effective Confederation of
Europe would have proved disastrous to the world. The Congress of Vienna
was followed by further congresses in 1818, 1819, 1820, and 1822; and each
succeeding conference revealed to Europe more clearly the true character
of the new authority into whose hands the power was slipping. Certain very
dangerous tendencies became, for example, apparent. The first conference
had assembled to confer the blessings of order upon a continent ravaged by
the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars of France. Hence the Confederation of
Europe started life as a kind of anti-Jacobin society, whose main business
it was to suppress revolution, whether it took the nationalistic or
democratic form. Furthermore, the interference with the internal affairs of
France in 1814 and 1815 tended to establish a precedent for interference
with the internal affairs of any country. The Holy Alliance, therefore,
soon assumed the character of a "Trust" of absolute monarchs, determined
to aid each other when threatened by risings or agitations among their
peoples, and to crush liberal aspirations wherever they were to be found in
other parts of Europe. The popular desire for peace was exploited in the
interests of unpopular government; settlement by conference in regard
to international matters was extended to settlement by a cabal of
irresponsible crowned heads in regard to internal constitutional and
national questions; a clique of despots threatened the liberties of the
world and proposed to back up their decisions by using their armies as
police. One government, however, even in that period of reaction, refused
to lend its countenance to such proceedings. England at first protested and
at length took up an attitude of complete opposition, and it is due to her
that the Confederation never became really effective. She had to choose
between peace and liberty, and she chose the latter.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Alison Phillips, _The Confederation of Europe_, together
with his chapter on "The Congresses, 1815-1822" in vol. x. of the
_Cambridge Modern History_. The whole subject of the Concert of Europe,
which can only be touched upon here, is of great importance. It is again
referred to in Chap. VIII.; see pp. 374 ff.]
The truth is that there were three ideas in the air at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, all excellent in themselves, but quite impossible to be
realised at one and the same period. Two of these, the social or democratic
idea and the national idea, were made, as we have seen, living issues by
the French Revolution; the third, which may be called the international
idea, was raised by the Congress of Vienna. It was an old idea, of course,
for it had been embodied in that shadowy "Holy Roman Empire" which was the
medieval dream of Rome the Great; but its form was new, and now for the
first time it became a dream of the future rather than a dream of the past.
What men did not see then, and still for the most part fail to see, is that
the human race can only work out these three ideas properly in a certain
order. Democracy and nationhood may, as in the case of Italy, be acquired
by a people at the same moment; but without the realisation of the national
idea it is hardly possible to conceive of democratic government for any
country. The national idea, therefore, precedes the social idea, as Mazzini
rightly insists. Still more must it precede the international idea. By
this it is not meant that every nation in the world must have grown to
self-consciousness and have possessed itself of freedom before we come
within sight of a world-concert and world-peace. But certainly in Europe
itself the national question had to be settled before there could be any
chance of establishing an international tribunal. It is equally certain
that the social idea also claims preference of the international idea. The
great danger of setting up "an effective machine for regulating the affairs
of Europe" is that the machine may get into the wrong hands. The Holy
Alliance is a warning, which should not be forgotten. It became an
obstruction to progress, a strait-waistcoat which threatened to strangle
the liberties of Europe, because it got into the hands of a "vested
interest," the dynastic interest, which was hostile both to nationalism and
democracy.
Since 1814, however, there have been great strides along the paths both of
democracy and of nationalism. And if Germany loses this war, the congress
of the settlement will meet in a very different atmosphere from that in
which its predecessor assembled at Vienna. It will be a conference of
powers victorious over Reaction not Revolution, and pledged to the support
of a liberal programme. And yet if such a conference became a permanent
feature of European life, if, in other words, a new attempt were made to
set up an international tribunal, it might easily become as dangerous to
the liberties of the people as ever was the Holy Alliance. The dynastic
principle it is to be hoped, will never again threaten the world's peace or
progress; but there are other vested interests besides the dynastic one.
During the nineteenth century economic development has given an enormous
impetus to international movements and cosmopolitanism generally.
Unfortunately political development, though great, has not by any means
kept pace with the economic; in other words, it is still possible in most
countries, and in some more possible than in others, for a small oligarchy
to gain control of the political machine.
Again, if there is one thing in the world more international than Labour,
it is Capital; and, as Mr. Norman Angell has shown, it is the capitalist
who is hardest hit by international war and who stands to gain most from
its abolition. European capital is almost certain to have a large say in
the settlement, and considerable influence in the counsels of any new
Concert of Europe that might come into existence. Now suppose--a not
impossible contingency--that a ring of capitalists gained complete control
of some politically backward country like Russia, and suppose a grave
crisis arose in the Labour world in England or France, what would be easier
than for arrangements to be made at the international conference for the
transference of Russian troops to the west, "to preserve the sacred rights
of property and the peace of Europe"? This may seem a somewhat fantastic
supposition, yet it was precisely in this way and on grounds like these
that the Holy Alliance interfered with the internal affairs of European
countries during the second and third decade of last century, and even as
late as 1849 we have Russia, still faithful to the principles of thirty
years before, coming to the assistance of Austria in her suppression of the
liberties of Hungary. It was a healthy instinct in the English people that
led them to break up the Concert of Europe in 1818--"a system which not
only threatened the liberties of others, but might, in the language of
the orators of the Opposition, in time present the spectacle of Cossacks
encamped in Hyde Park to overawe the House of Commons";[1] and, if the
prevailing "internationalism" has not quite blinded their eyes to-day,
they will scrutinise with the greatest possible care any new proposals to
re-erect the Concert of Europe as a permanent and authoritative tribunal.
What the world needs at present is more nationalism and more democracy. And
it is only after these two great nineteenth-century movements have worked
themselves out to the full, at least on the continent of Europe, that
mankind will be able safely to make experiments towards the realisation of
the third and crowning principle, the principle of a European Commonwealth.
[Footnote 1: _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. x. p. 16.]
[Illustration: EUROPE IN 1815]
The national problems which the Congress of Vienna bequeathed to posterity
may be seen at a glance by looking at a political map of Europe in 1815.
The entire centre of the Continent from Ostend to Palermo, and from
Königsberg to Constantinople, was left a political chaos. And it is not too
much to say that the history of Europe from 1814 to 1914 is the history of
the settlement of this vast area. The only State whose frontiers have not
altered during this period is Switzerland, and even that country seized the
opportunity which a disturbed Europe offered her in 1848, to substitute a
unified federal system for the constitution imposed upon her in 1815.
The rest of the area falls into six sections: (1) The kingdom of the
Netherlands, containing the two distinct and often antagonistic nations,
Belgium and Holland; (2) the German nationality split up into no less
than thirty-eight[2] sovereign States, loosely held together in a
"confederation"; (3) the Italian nationality, distributed under eight
independent governments, including four duchies, two kingdoms, the Papal
States, and the provinces under Austrian rule; (4) the Polish nationality,
divided up between the three Powers, Prussia, Russia, and Austria; (5) the
Austrian Empire, comprising a dozen distinct nationalities; and (6) the
Ottoman Empire, in which at least five different Christian peoples groaned
beneath the sway of the Mohammedan Turk. Thus, if we may regard the
inhabitants of the southern Netherland provinces, for the moment, as of one
nationality, there were roughly ten great nationalities, the Germans, the
Italians, the Belgians, the Poles, the Bohemians, the Hungarians, the
Southern Slavs, the Rumanians, the Bulgarians, and the Greeks, all left
with national aspirations unsatisfied, all hampered by State frontiers
which had no correspondence with their natural boundaries. Can we wonder
that there have been wars in the nineteenth century? Should we not rather
wonder that those wars have not been greater and more numerous? For the
Congress of the Powers in 1814 having failed to give the nationalities what
they wanted, nothing remained for them but to seize it for themselves. The
only alternative to settlement by conference is "blood and iron," and it
is with "blood and iron" that nearly every nationality which has attained
nationhood in the last hundred years has cemented the structure of its
State.
[Footnote 2: Napoleon had succeeded in reducing the number from 360 to 38.]
It is not our purpose in the present chapter to deal with the whole of this
vast area; the three eastern sections, Poland, the Austrian Empire, and
Turkey, present special problems of their own, and therefore need special
treatment. Still less do we intend to write a history of the nineteenth
century, or even to adhere to a chronological treatment. Rather our object
is to exemplify the principle of nationality by watching it at work in
the three western sections of the central European area; to show how the
national idea has been moulded in Belgium, Italy, and Germany, by the
various problems which the nationalities in these countries have had to
face, and the forces which they have overcome; and, lastly, to indicate the
part which an over-developed nationalism in Germany has played in bringing
about the war of 1914.
§4. _The National Idea in Belgium and the Problem of Small Nations_.--The
problem of the Netherlands, which it will be convenient to deal with first,
introduces us to an aspect of nationhood which we have hitherto not touched
upon. "The chief forces which hold a community together and cause it
to constitute one state," wrote Sir John Seeley, "are three,--common
nationality, common religion, and common interest. These may act in various
degrees of intensity, and they may also act singly or in combination."[1]
In the Low Countries religion has up to the present been a stronger
nation-making force than nationality. Three nationalities, each with its
own language, live there side by side,--the Dutch, the Flemings, and the
Walloons; but of these the Dutch and the Flemings are very closely allied
racially, Flemish being only a slight variant of the Dutch language. It
would therefore seem natural on the face of it that these two sections
would amalgamate together, leaving the Walloons to attach themselves
to their French cousins. That it is not so is due to the fact that the
Flemings and the Dutch are adherents of two different and mutually hostile
creeds, and that this distinction in their faith has been stamped upon
the national memories by the whole history of their past. Holland, the
stronghold of Calvinism, had at the end of the sixteenth century thrown off
the yoke of Catholic Spain and asserted its independence, while the Belgic
provinces, after Alva had cruelly crushed out such Protestantism as existed
among their peoples, returned to the faith and the allegiance of their
fathers, and remained part of the Hapsburg inheritance until the Congress
of Vienna. Thus the cleavage between Protestantism and Catholicism has made
two nations out of one Low German nationality in the Netherlands, as it
threatens to do with one Celtic nationality in Ireland. On the other hand,
their common Catholic faith has welded Flemings and Walloons together,
making one nation out of two nationalities far more racially distinct than
the Flemings and the Dutch, and this amalgamation has acquired a certain
flavour of common nationality from the fact that the language of the upper
classes is French.
[Footnote 1: _Expansion of England_, p. 59.]
It is obvious therefore that the attempt of the diplomatists in 1814 to
ignore both historical and religious differences and to combine Holland
and Belgium into a single State was doomed at the outset. Fifteen years of
constant friction were followed in 1830 by a rising in Brussels against
"Dutch supremacy," which quickly spread to the rest of Belgium. The Great
Powers, recognising the inevitable, interfered on behalf of Belgium, she
was declared a neutral State, separate from Holland, and took to herself a
king in the person of Leopold I. It is, however, highly significant that
directly the Dutch menace was removed from Belgium the internal cleavage of
nationality began to be felt. "In 1815 the differences between Flemish and
Walloon were to a large extent concealed beneath a veneer of French culture
and French manners. Among the upper and commercial classes no language but
French was ever spoken; and in their dislike of Dutch supremacy the Flemish
Belgians took a sort of patriotic pride in their borrowed speech, and for a
time relegated their native tongue to the level of a rustic _patois_."[1]
And yet, on the other hand, "the separation of Belgium from Holland had no
sooner taken place than the newly aroused national spirit began to show
itself among the Flemish-speaking part of the people by a revival of
interest in their ancestral Teutonic language.... King William I.'s attempt
to make Dutch the official language had met with universal opposition; but
as early as 1840 a demand was put forward for the use of the Flemish tongue
(which is closely akin to the Dutch) on equal terms with French in the
Legislature, the Law Courts, and the Army. As the years passed by, the
movement gathered ever-increasing numbers of adherents, and the demand was
repeated with growing insistence."[2] In 1897 the Flemish party attained
its ambition, and Flemish became the official language of the country, side
by side with French. The remarkable thing about this Teutonising movement
is that its mainstay has always been the extreme Catholic party, which
on religious grounds had been the most violent opponent of the attempted
Teutonification by the Dutch. The opposition between Flemish and Walloon,
indeed, became so marked in recent years that many feared that the Belgian
nation was about to split into two. Germany has, however, postponed this
national calamity for generations if not for ever, and the Belgium
which arises like a phoenix from the ashes of this third attempt at
Teutonification will, we cannot doubt, be a Belgium indissolubly knit
together by common memories of a glorious struggle for freedom and cemented
by the blood and tears of the whole population. Germany, like Napoleon a
century ago, will call many nations into being; the first and not the least
of her creations is a transfigured and united Belgium.
[Footnote 1: _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. x. p. 521.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. vol. xi. p. 693.]
As a frontier State, a link between the Latin and Teutonic races to both of
which her peoples are akin, Belgium offers an extremely interesting study
of the national idea at work. The peoples of Germany and France, which have
been perpetually at war with each other since the times of Julius Caesar,
have almost always met on her fair and prosperous plains to fight their
battles, since she is geographically the gateway from one to the other.
Neither could afford to let the other occupy her territory, and so she
has won her independence as a State; both have constantly threatened her
existence in times past, and so have forced upon her bi-lingual population
that consciousness of common interests which if strong enough may become as
firm a basis for national unity as actual community of nationality.
It should be noticed further that it has become the practice in recent
times to guarantee the neutrality of small frontier States like Belgium
which lie at the mercy of their greater neighbours, a practice intended
not only to preserve the integrity of such States but also to prevent
the frequent occurrence of war by closing, as it were, the military gate
between the hostile countries.[1] It remains to be seen whether the
violation of these principles by Germany has the effect of strengthening
them in the future, rather than the reverse. In any case, we may expect to
see attempts to apply the same principles to other parts of Europe. Already
the northern and southern ends of the frontier between Germany and France
are neutralised by the existence of Belgium and Switzerland; why, it may
be asked, should not the whole frontier be treated in the same way by
neutralising the disputed territory of Alsace-Lorraine? Perhaps, too, a
neutral Poland would form a useful buffer between Germany and Russia. Such
neutralisation, it should be noted, need not necessarily carry with it
independence. Poland and Alsace-Lorraine might form part of Russia and
France respectively, and still be neutralised by a guarantee of other
powers. A precedent exists for this in the terms of the cession of the
Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864, while Savoy, though a province of France,
is technically neutralised territory.[2] Cases like these, however, it must
be admitted, are extremely anomalous and could hardly stand the strain of
a serious war. But, then, as recent experience has shown us, not even
independent neutralised States are safe when all Europe is aflame. The
truth is that the whole conception of neutrality implies the existence of
some power above and beyond the State, it may be simply a group of powerful
States who are able to impose their will upon the rest of Europe, it may
be a general Congress, like the Congress of Vienna. Since the Concert of
Europe disappeared and gradually gave place to the two opposing alliances
of great powers, there has been no such authority in the civilised world.
The results are before us in the ruined cities and starving population of
violated Belgium.
[Footnote 1: The neutralisation of sovereign States is very recent in
origin. Switzerland and Luxembourg are the only other instances. The former
was neutralised in 1815, the latter in 1867.]
[Footnote 2: _Cambridge Modern History_, xi. 642. See for the whole
question of neutralised States, Lawrence, _Principles of International
Law_, §§ 246-248.]
As independent States, therefore, small nations can only survive, in
the long run, if their neutrality is permanently guaranteed by some
international authority, which is itself permanently capable of enforcing
its decrees upon recalcitrant States. Sovereignty and independence,
however, are not, as we have seen, essential to full nationhood, provided
the nation possesses a certain amount of "home-rule" and regards the
government under which it lives as a true expression of its genius and
will. For example, from 1809 till the setting in of Russian reaction in
1899, the Finnish nation enjoyed all the privileges of complete nationhood
except actual sovereignty. There is, therefore, a future for small nations,
either as autonomous protégés of great powers, like Russia, or as partners
in some commonwealth of nations, like the British Empire.
But there is yet another consideration to be faced. Why, it is asked,
should we trouble ourselves about the preservation of small nationalities
at all? "The State is power," and it is only the really powerful State,
therefore, that can and ought to survive. There is something laughable in
the idea of a small State; it is weakness trying to pose as strength. And
as for nations which have lost their independence and have bowed to the
yoke of the conqueror, their fate is incorporation. How can they hope or
expect to retain their separate existence and their peculiar culture when
they have surrendered the power upon which these privileges depend? "No
nation can permit the Jews to have a double nationality"; and the same
applies to Poles, Finns, Alsatians, Irishmen, and Belgians.[1] This is the
point of view of Bernhardi, Treitschke, and the German Government. This
is the theory which is said to justify the practice of Prussianisation,
Russianisation, Magyarisation, and so on. It raises the whole question
of the value and significance to civilisation of the existence of small
nations. Treitschke, of course, and his school are convinced that they
possess neither value nor significance. In small States there is developed
that beggarly frame of mind which judges the State by the taxes that it
raises; there is completely lacking in small States the ability of the
great State to be just; all real masterpieces of poetry and art arose upon
the soil of great nationalities--such are a few of Treitschke's dogmatic
utterances on this subject.[2] But it is not merely the Germans who think
small beer of small nationalities. Listen to Sir John Seeley: "The question
whether large states or small states are best is not one which can be
answered or ought to be discussed absolutely. We often hear abstract
panegyrics upon the happiness of small states. But observe that a small
state among small states is one thing, and a small state among large states
quite another. Nothing is more delightful to read of than the bright days
of Athens and Florence, but those bright days lasted only so long as the
states with which Athens and Florence had to do were states on a similar
scale of magnitude. Both states sank at once as soon as large country
states of consolidated strength grew up in their neighbourhood. The lustre
of Athens grew pale as soon as Macedonia arose, and Charles V. speedily
brought to an end the great days of Florence. Now if it be true that a
larger type of state than any hitherto known is springing up in the world,
is not this a serious consideration for those states which rise only to the
old level of magnitude?"[3] The answer to which is, "Yes, indeed, if
the good old plan
That he should take who has the power,
And he should keep who can
is to be the guiding principle in European politics of the future." But
surely Sir John Seeley's argument, though undoubtedly telling as regards
the sovereign independence of small _States_, tells for and not against the
preservation of small _nations_. Was it to the interest of the world as a
whole that Athens and Florence should be crushed? Is it not true, in spite
of Treitschke, that the great things of earth have been the product of
small peoples? We owe our conceptions of law to a city called Rome, our
finest output of literature and art to small communities like Athens,
Florence, Holland, and Elizabethan England, our religion to an
insignificant people who inhabited a narrow strip of land in the Eastern
Mediterranean. And small nations are as valuable to the world to-day as
they have ever been. Denmark has enriched our educational experience by the
establishment of her famous high schools, which we can hardly imagine her
doing had she been a province of Prussia; Norway has given us the greatest
of modern dramatists, Henrik Ibsen; and Belgium has not only produced
Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, but is industrially the most highly developed
country on the continent. The world cannot afford to do without her small
peoples, who must be either independent or autonomous if they are to find
adequate expression for their national genius, if they are to obtain proper
conditions in which "to live, think, love, and labour for the benefit of
all." Can we guarantee to them this freedom? That is one of the great
questions which this war will settle.[4]
[Footnote 1: See _Selections from Treitschke_, translated by A.L. Gowans,
pp. 17-20, 58-61.]
[Footnote 2: See _Selections from Treitschke_, pp. 17-20, 58-61.]
[Footnote 3: _The Expansion of England_, p. 349. See also p. 1, "Some
countries, such as Holland and Sweden, might pardonably regard their
history as in a manner wound up."]
[Footnote 4: See J.M. Robertson, _Introduction to English Politics_, pp.
251-390; Mr. H.A.L. Fisher's pamphlet on _The Value of Small States_, in
which, however, the distinction between _states_ and _nations_ is not
made clear; and the article on "Nationalism and Liberalism" in _The Round
Table_, December 1914.]
§5. _The National Idea in Italy: The Ideal Type_.--Let us now turn to
Italy, a country which has in the past been as much of a European Tom
Tiddler's ground as Belgium, though for rather different reasons. Italy
is inhabited by a race speaking a common language and observing a common
religion, she has historical memories as glorious as those of any other
country in the world, and her natural boundaries are almost as well-defined
as those of Great Britain; yet it was not until the latter half of the
nineteenth century that she managed to become a nation. The chief reason
why she remained a "geographical expression" long after England, France,
and Spain had acquired national unity was the fact that she was until
comparatively recent times an example of the less containing the greater.
Throughout the Middle Ages she was a suburb, not a country. Rome was the
capital of the world, Italy only its environs. Moreover, since all roads
lead to Rome, and the lord of Rome was the master of Europe, the roads
Romeward were worn by the tramp of the armies of all nations. Thus Italy
was constantly subject to invasion, and the state-systems with which the
Congress of Vienna resaddled her in 1814 were little more than relics of
past military occupations of her soil by foreign armies. The main problem,
therefore, in the making of modern Italy was how to get rid of the heavy
burden of the past, how to deal with Rome and all that Rome stood for.
The problem would have been insoluble had not the prestige of Rome declined
considerably since the Middle Ages, a prestige which sprang from the fact
that she was the capital of two Empires--the spiritual Empire of the
Papacy, and the secular Empire founded by Charles the Great. The former had
suffered from the Reformation and the rise of the great Protestant nations,
the latter had been growing feebler and feebler for centuries, until it
was abolished as an institution by Napoleon. Yet Italy in 1814 still lay
helpless and divided at the feet of Rome. The Pope held under his immediate
sway a large zigzag-shaped territory running across the centre from sea to
sea, and, as spiritual leader of half Europe, he could at any moment summon
to his assistance the Catholic chivalry of the world. "The Roman emperor"
no longer existed, but "the Austrian emperor" was another title for the
same man, holding much the same territory; and the fact that he had
renounced his vague suzerainty over the rest of Europe did not prevent him
exercising a very real suzerainty in Italy, not merely over the eastern
half of the Lombard Plain which definitely belonged to Austria, but also
over the other States of the peninsula which were, in theory at least,
independent. The kingdom of the two Sicilies in the South, the grand duchy
of Tuscany on the West, and the smaller duchies of Parma, Modena, and
Lucca were only stable in so far as Austria bolstered up their corrupt and
unpopular governments. Even the Papal States themselves, equally undermined
with corruption and unpopularity, ultimately rested upon the same support.
Thus Austria represented for Italy all that evil past of which she wanted
to be rid: the foreign yoke against which her newly conscious spirit of
nationality revolted, the dynastic frontiers which were abhorrent to her
desire for unity, the absolute _régime_ under which her soul, after feeding
on the principles of the French Revolution, lay gagged and bound. The first
step to be taken towards the creation of Italy was the expulsion of the
Austrians.
This fact in itself purified the struggle for Italian freedom and raised
Italian nationalism to heights of nobility and heroism almost unparalleled
in history. The nation had not merely to be unified, but _delivered_, and
delivered from the oppression of that power which was the mainstay of
reaction in Europe. Nor was it simply a question of national freedom;
Austria had declared war upon individual and constitutional liberty also,
and used all her power to suppress them wherever they dared to raise their
head. From beginning to end of her fight for national existence, Italy
never forgot that she was also fighting for individual liberty, or ceased
to be conscious that the downfall of Austria in Italy would mean the
downfall of reaction in Europe. The banner which Mazzini raised in 1831 had
the words "Unity and Independence" on the one side and "Liberty, Equality,
and Humanity" on the other. Italy was indeed greatly blessed, inasmuch as
in seeking her own deliverance she could not help bursting the bands of
brass which bound the whole world in captivity.
It is not possible here to tell the glorious story of the resurrection
of Italy, or even to say anything of the three heroes at whose hands she
received her freedom--Cavour who gave her the service of his brain, Mazzini
who devoted to her the love and passion of his great heart, and Garibaldi
who fought for her with the strength of his own right arm. It must suffice
to indicate very briefly the various stages in the development of her
national idea, and the manner in which she finally realised it. Liberal
principles took root in Italy at the time of the French Revolution, and
the first glimmerings of nationalism were due to Napoleon, who bundled the
princes out of the peninsula and even for a time exiled the Pope himself.
But it was constitutional rather than national freedom which seemed most
urgent to the generation which succeeded Napoleon. The Carbonari, as the
early Italian revolutionaries were called, confined themselves almost
entirely to the demand for a constitution in the various existing States,
and though they eagerly desired the expulsion of Austria, they did so not
because she prevented Italian unity, but because she forbade political
reform. Their risings, therefore, local and disunited in character, were
bound to fail; the first fifteen years after the Congress of Vienna were
occupied by a series of attempts to substitute a constitutional for an
absolute _régime_ in different parts of Italy, attempts which Austria
crushed with a heavy hand.
The period which followed, 1830-1848, belongs to Mazzini and his "Young
Italy" party. His task was to fire Italy for the first time with the ideal
of national unity and independence. The conception of unity was a difficult
one for Italians to grasp; all history seemed to fight against it. There
were, for example, not only the traditions connected with Rome to be
reckoned with, but there was also the difference between north and south,
and, perhaps most important of all, the local spirit of independence
associated with the great cities like Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, etc.
Thus, over against Mazzini's ideal of a single unified State there arose
the counter-ideal of a federal system. In this, however, later events
proved Mazzini to be right. Where he failed in foresight was in regard to
the constitutional character of the State he dreamed of. He wished not
only to abolish all existing frontiers in Italy, but to do away with all
existing state-systems. The only Italy he could conceive was a republic,
and Italy was not ripe for a republic, which was, for the rest, a form
of government too much bound up with the disruptive traditions of the
City-States to be acceptable.[1] But if Italy was not to be a republic, she
must be a monarchy, and where could she find a prince to put at the head of
her united State? Clearly, she would accept no one who was not the declared
enemy of Austria and the declared friend of constitutional reform. For a
month or so in 1846 it seemed that the Pope himself might be prevailed upon
to undertake the rôle; and the elevation of Pius IX. to the Chair of St.
Peter was greeted with wild enthusiasm in Italy because he was believed to
be a Liberal. These hopes proved illusory, however, and so the eyes of all
patriots turned more and more in the direction of Piedmont.
[Footnote 1: It is noticeable that Greece also played with the idea of a
republic at first and eventually selected a monarchical form of government.
As a matter of fact, not a single nation-State, formed in Europe since the
Congress of Vienna, has adopted the republican principle.]
This principality, which was part of the kingdom of Sardinia, ruled over
by the semi-French house of Savoy, shared the northern plain of Italy
with Austria, and at first showed neither anti-Austrian nor Liberal
proclivities. Victor Emmanuel came back smiling in 1814, saying that he had
been asleep for fifteen years; the old _régime_ was restored as though
the Revolution had never been; and a rising of the Carbonari in 1821 was
suppressed with the aid of Austrian troops. But in 1831 a king, Charles
Albert, came to the throne, who realised that it was the mission of his
house to drive the Austrians from Italy, and who was enlightened enough to
begin to institute reforms, as unostentatiously as possible, so as not to
attract the unwelcome attention of Vienna. Then came the great outburst
of 1848, which was the culmination of Mazzini's propaganda for the past
sixteen years. At first all went well. The Austrian army was almost
expelled from the peninsula; constitutions were granted in Rome, Naples,
Tuscany, and Piedmont; Venice and Rome declared themselves republics.
But no real scheme for all Italy emerged; the Mazzinians were heroic but
unpractical; and next year Austria returned once more, dealt as before
piecemeal with the revolted provinces, and finally crushed the hopes of
Italy again at the battle of Novara. Yet all was not lost. The republican
dreams of Mazzini were, it is true, at an end. But Piedmont had stepped
into Mazzini's shoes; she had championed the cause of freedom against
Austria; and, when the latter reasserted her sway, she alone of the various
States refused to abrogate the newly-acquired constitution.
Thus began the third period in the emancipation of Italy, the period of
Cavour, who became head of the Piedmontese cabinet in 1850. His aim was
first to make Piedmont the model State and champion of all Italy. He
believed fervently in liberty--"Italy," he said, "must make herself by
means of liberty, or we must give up trying to make her"--and he was at
the same time one of the ablest and most practical statesmen who have ever
guided the destinies of a nation. In ten years he made the State of the
north-west an oasis of freedom and good government which attracted the best
intellects of Italy to its service, and henceforth Piedmont became the
centre of Italian aspirations. A new propaganda movement was set on
foot, called the National Society, which rejected both federalism and
republicanism and declared in favour of a united Italy under the crown of
Victor Emmanuel of Savoy; and when the chance of French support came in
1858, Cavour felt it was time to act. This time the end crowned the work.
Austria was deprived of everything but Venice; Tuscany and Romagna declared
for incorporation by plebiscite; Garibaldi conquered Sicily and the south;
and by the end of 1860 the King of Sardinia was king of practically the
whole of Italy. All that still remained to be won was Venice, which Austria
ceded in 1866; Rome, which the French had occupied in the name of the Pope,
and were forced to evacuate in 1870; and the Italia Irredenta of to-day,
viz. the Trentino, Trieste, and Istria, which may be recovered as a result
of the present war. It is worthy of note also that the trans-Alpine
provinces, Savoy and Nice, which had been part of the dominions of the
Sardinian kingdom, were ceded to France in 1858-1859 as a return for her
aid, thus rounding off the western frontier of the new kingdom of Italy so
as to correspond fairly closely with the boundary of nationality.
The foundation of modern Italy shows us the "national idea" at its best;
it was accomplished by noble means and by noble minds; and the latter, in
their perpetual struggle against the forces of reaction, were never allowed
to forget the claims of individual as well as of national freedom. Three
tests of true nationhood, it will be remembered, were suggested at
the beginning of this chapter: a state-frontier co-extensive with the
nationality-frontier, a unitary state-system, and a form of government
recognised by the inhabitants as an expression of their general will.
Italy fulfils all these conditions; for, though the first has not yet been
perfectly realised as regards Italia Irredenta, the exception is after
all a trifling one. Thus the development of the national idea in Italy is
almost a model of what such a development should be, and we have dwelt
somewhat at length upon it for that very reason. The work of Mazzini and
Cavour provides us with a standard of comparison which should be found very
useful in dealing with the national idea in other countries.
§6. _The National Idea in Germany: a Case of Arrested
Development_.[1]--Nothing, for example, could be more instructive, both as
a study in nationalism and as an aid to the understanding of the present
situation in Europe, than a comparison between the making of modern Italy
and the making of modern Germany. At first sight the German Empire, with
its marvellous progress, its vast resources, and its world-wide ambitions,
would appear to be an even more successful example of national development
than the kingdom of Italy. Its demand for "a place in the sun," its
hustling diplomacy, its military spirit, its obvious intention to expand
territorially, if not in Europe itself then in Asia or Africa, are all
taken as symptoms of this success. No doubt there is a certain amount of
truth in this view. The truculence of German foreign policy is to be partly
attributed to that form of swollen self-consciousness and self-complacency
to which all nations are subject more or less, and which is most likely,
one would suppose, to be found in countries where a nationality had
recently succeeded in making itself into a nation. The natural instinct to
regard one's own nation as the peculiar people of God and to look down on
other nations as "lesser breeds without the law" is a phenomenon which must
be constantly reckoned with in any comprehensive treatment of nationalism.
Every nation has its own variety of it; in England it is Jingoism, in
France Chauvinism, in Italy Irredentism, in Russia Pan-Slavism, and so on.
These are instances of over-development of the national idea, due either
to some confusion between race and nationality, or to simple national
megalomania, which usually subsides after a healthy humiliation, such as we
suffered in England, for example, in the Boer War or as Russia suffered in
her struggle with the Japanese.
[Footnote 1: The student is advised to read the chapter on Germany before
beginning this section.]
Yet a careful examination of the German body-politic will reveal symptoms
unlike those to be found in any other nation. German nationalism is
over-developed in one direction because it is under-developed and imperfect
in other directions. Apply our three tests to the German nation, and it
will be found to fail in them all. National boundary and State frontier do
not coincide because there are still some twelve million Germans living
outside Germany, in Austria-Hungary;[1] Germany is a State, but not a
unitary State, for she still retains the obsolete "particularism" of the
eighteenth century, with its petty princes and dynastic frontiers; and
lastly, the government of Germany cannot claim to express the general will,
while more than a third of the voters in the empire are sworn to overthrow
the whole system at the earliest opportunity. The German nation, in
fact, is suffering from some form of arrested development, and arrested
development, as the criminologists tell us, is almost invariably
accompanied by morbid psychology. That Germany at the present moment, and
for some time past, has been the victim of a morbid state of mind, few
impartial observers will deny. It has, however, not been so generally
recognised that this disease--for it is nothing less--is due not to any
national depravity but to constitutional and structural defects, which are
themselves the result of an unfortunate series of historical accidents. Let
us look a little closer into this matter, considering the three defects in
German nationalism one by one, and using the story of Italy as an aid to
our investigation.
[Footnote 1: There are also Germans living in Switzerland, the Baltic
Provinces of Russia, and the United States of America; but these may be
regarded as lost to the German nation as the French Canadians are lost to
France.]
First, then, why was it that, while the unification of Italy led to the
inclusion of the whole Italian nationality within the State frontiers, with
the trifling exceptions above referred to, the unification of Germany was
only brought about, or even made possible, by the _exclusion_ of a large
section of the nationality? Germany, like Italy, was hampered by traditions
inherited from the mediaeval Roman Empire, represented by an ancient
capital which stood in the path of unity. Why was it that, while Italy
could not and would not do without Rome, Germany was compelled to surrender
Vienna and to exclude Austria? The answer is: because the unification of
Germany was only possible through the instrumentality of Prussia, which
would not brook the rivalry of Austria, and therefore the latter had to go.
The problem of the making of Germany as it presented itself to the mind
of Bismarck was first of all a problem as to which should be _supreme_ in
Germany, Prussia or Austria; in other words Bismarck cared more for the
aggrandisement of Prussia than for the unity of Germany.[1] To the mind
of Cavour the problem of the unification of Italy presented itself in
a totally different light. For him there was no question of the
aggrandisement of Piedmont, though he no doubt felt pride in the thought
that the House of Savoy was to possess the throne of Italy. Austria was
expelled from Italy in 1860, not that Piedmont might take her place as
ruler of the peninsula, but that Piedmont might disappear in the larger
whole of an emancipated Italy. Austria was expelled from Germany in 1866 in
order that Prussia might rule undisturbed. Thus, though the Austro-Prussian
War of 1866 was an essential step in the foundation of the modern German
State, its motives and results were not in the least comparable to those
which inspired and followed the Italian War of Liberation in 1859-60. In
the first place the Austrians were not foreigners but Germans, whom it was
necessary for reasons of State not of nationality to place outside the rest
of Germany. Germany had, in fact, to choose between national unity and
State unity; and she chose the latter, partly because Prussia really
decided the matter for her, partly because she realised that the
establishment of a strong German State was the essential prelude to the
creation of a strong united nation. Austria had to be shut out in 1866 in
order that she might be received back again at some later date on Germany's
own terms. In the second place Austria was in no sense the oppressor of
Germany as she had been of Italy. She was simply the presiding member of
the German Confederation who, as the rival of Prussia, as the inheritor of
the mediaeval imperial tradition, as the ruler of millions of non-Germanic
people, would have rendered the problem of German unification almost
insoluble. It was therefore necessary to get rid of her as gently and as
politely as possible. After the crushing victory at Königgrätz, Bismarck
treated Prussia's ancient foe with extraordinary leniency; for he had
already planned the Dual Alliance in his mind; knowing as he did that,
though in Germany Austria might be an inconvenient rival to Prussia, in
Europe she was the indispensable ally of Germany. And so, though the
ramshackle old German imperial castle was divided in two, and the northern
portion, at any rate, brought thoroughly up to date, the neighbours still
lived side by side in a "semi-detached" kind of way. It would be a mistake
then to call the war of 1866 a war of deliverance. Indeed, since the defeat
of Napoleon at Leipzig, Germany has had no such war. That is in a great
measure her national tragedy. Italian nationalism was spiritualised by the
very fact that it had to struggle for decades against a foreign oppressor,
and the foundations of her unity were laid on the heroic memories of her
efforts to expel the intruder. This spiritualisation, these heroic memories
were Germany's also in 1813-14, but the opportunity of unification was
allowed to slip by, and when the task was performed fifty years later it
was through quite other means and in a very different spirit. And yet,
though there was no one to expel, Germany could only hope to attain unity
by fighting. In 1848 she made an attempt to do so by peaceable means, and a
national Parliament actually assembled at Frankfurt to frame a constitution
for the whole country. But the attempt, noble as it was in conception,
proved a dismal failure, and it became clear that national unity in Germany
was to be won "not by speeches and majority resolutions, but by blood and
iron." The words are Bismarck's, and the task was his also. Set them beside
the words of Cavour about Italy and liberty, quoted above, or compare the
harsh unscrupulous spirit of the great German master-builder with the
spirit of Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi, and you get a measure of the
difference between the developments of the national idea in Germany and in
Italy. Yet Bismarck's famous sentence expressed the truth of the matter for
Germany. Austria had been put outside the German pale, and Germany north of
the Main had accepted unity under the hegemony of Prussia, but there still
remained the four great States of South Germany to bring in. They had been
the allies of Austria in 1866, and Prussia, had she willed it, might
have incorporated them by conquest. But Bismarck saw that they must put
themselves willingly under Prussia if the German Empire was to be a stable
concern; he therefore left them alone to think it over for a while. Sooner
or later they would have to come in, since now that Austria had been
excluded there remained only the choice between dependence on France and
union with Prussia. Bismarck deliberately played upon South Germany's fear
of France, and Napoleon III's restless foreign policy admirably seconded
his efforts. But a war was necessary to bring matters to a head. The
opportunity came in 1870, and Bismarck was able to make it appear a war not
of his own choosing. The Southern States threw themselves into the arms of
Prussia; France was crushed, and Alsace-Lorraine annexed; the German Empire
was proclaimed, and modern Germany came into being. There had been no
foreigner to expel from German soil, but Bismarck found that an attack upon
France served his purpose equally well.
[Footnote 1: Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he was incapable of
distinguishing between them. See his _Reflections_, i. pp. 315, 316.]
Germany was made by a war of aggression, resulting in territorial expansion
at the expense of another nation; Italy by a war of liberation, driving
the alien from her soil. And the subsequent history of the two nations is
eloquent of this difference in their origins. Since 1860 Italy has in the
main occupied herself with domestic reforms, with the working out of the
"social idea" which had had to wait upon the realisation of the "national
idea." She has had, it is true, her "adventures," more especially in
Africa, and her Jingoism, which has taken the natural form of Irredentism
or the demand for the recovery of Italian provinces still left in Austrian
hands; but she has never threatened the peace of Europe, or sought power at
the expense of other nationalities. Since 1870, on the other hand, Germany
has had to sit armed to defend the booty taken from France. "We have earned
in the late war respect, but hardly love," said General von Moltke soon
after the conclusion of peace. "What we have gained by arms in six months
we shall have to defend by arms for fifty years." At the beginning of 1914
more than forty out of the fifty years named by Moltke had passed by and
the situation had undergone no material change. "The irreconcilability of
France," writes the late Imperial Chancellor of Germany, "is a factor that
we must reckon with in our political calculations. It seems to me weakness
to entertain the hope of a real and sincere reconciliation with France, so
long as we have no intention of giving up Alsace-Lorraine. And there is no
such intention in Germany."[1] The annexation of two small provinces has
thus made a permanent breach between two great nations, a breach which has
poisoned the whole of European policy during the past half century, which
has widened until it has split Europe into two huge armed camps, and
which has at last involved the entire world in one of the most terrible
calamities that mankind has ever known.
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, von Bülow, p. 69.]
Why did Bismarck annex Alsace-Lorraine? To strengthen, he said, the German
frontier against France. But there was another reason. Fear of France had
brought the Southern States into the Empire; fear of France should keep
them there. The permanent hostility of France was necessary to assure the
continuance of Prussia's position as the supreme military power in Germany.
And so the plundered provinces became the very corner-stone of the German
imperial system. There is surely something very strange about all this. Why
should it be necessary to retain the loyalty of nearly half Germany by what
practically amounts to terrorisation? The answer is that Germany is not a
single national State but a number of _dynastic_ States, federated together
under the control of one predominant partner. In other words, the problem
of Alsace-Lorraine has led us to the consideration of the second flaw in
the development of the national idea in Germany.
The union of Italy meant a clean sweep of all the old dynastic frontiers
and States which had strangled the country for so long; the union of
Germany, on the contrary, riveted these obsolete chains still more firmly
than ever on the country's limbs. Bismarck claimed that this was necessary,
inasmuch as the Germans, unlike all other nations, were more alive to
dynastic than to national loyalty; that, in short, Germany was not really
ready in 1870 for true unity.[1] The chief reason, however, for the
retention of the old frontiers was that they suited the aims of Prussia.
The reformers of 1848, as Professor Erich Marcks somewhat naïvely says,
"had wanted to place Prussia at the head, but only as the servant of the
nation; Prussia was also to cease to be a State by itself, a power on its
own account. She was to create the nation's ideal--complete unity--and then
to merge herself in the nation. But Prussia would not and could not do
this. She was far too great a power herself; _she could very well rule
Germany, but not serve_."[2] Both Germany and Italy at first played with
the idea of a Confederation, but each was eventually forced to look to one
of its existing States to give it the unity it desired. There was only one
possible choice for each: for Germany, Prussia; for Italy, Piedmont; but
while Piedmont was content to serve, Prussia was too proud to do anything
but rule. The dynastic State frontiers were therefore retained because
Prussia refused to sacrifice her own State frontiers. The "unification of
Germany," in short, was an episode in the gradual expansion of the Prussian
dynastic State, which had begun far away back in the thirteenth century.[3]
It assumed the air of a national movement, because Prussia cleverly availed
herself of the prevailing nationalistic sentiment for her own ends. The
German Empire is therefore something unique in the annals of the world; it
is at once a nation-State, like Italy, France, and Great Britain, and also
a military Empire, like Rome under Augustus, Europe under Napoleon, Austria
under Joseph II., _i.e._ a State in which the territory that commands the
army holds political sway over the rest of the country. It is not mere
accident of geographical proximity, or even the kinship between Austrians
and Germans, which has led to the long and unshakable alliance of Germany
with the Hapsburg dominions. They are associated by common political
interests and by similarity of political structure. Each stands for the
supremacy of one dynastic State over a number of subordinate States or
nationalities.
[Footnote 1: The chapter entitled "Dynasties and Stocks" in the
_Reflections_ should be carefully studied on this point. Bismarck was
obviously uncomfortable about the old frontiers.]
[Footnote 2: _Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 104.]
[Footnote 3: See Chap. III. p. 95.]
Her common nationality leads us to forget that the German Empire should
more rightly be called the Prussian Empire.[1] Nor is there any reason at
all why the Empire of Prussia should stop its process of expansion at the
national boundaries; it has indeed already stepped beyond them, into Poland
in the east, into Denmark in the north, into France in the west. Why should
not the process be carried farther still and Germany become in Europe, nay,
in the world, what Prussia is in Germany? By preserving her identity as
a State, and by establishing her hegemony, Prussia, in the name of the
national idea of Germany, has been able to spread her own ideals throughout
the Empire, in other words to undertake that Prussianisation of Germany
which is the most striking fact in her history since 1870. Piedmont was
swallowed up in Italy, Germany has been swallowed up in Prussia; she has
become the sharer of her victories and the accomplice of her crimes. And so
under the tutelage of the spirit of Bismarck the docile German people have
adopted the Prussian faith; and the policy of aggression and conquest once
entered upon, there was no drawing back. Bismarck fed the youthful nation
upon a diet of blood and iron, and its appetite has grown by what it
fed on. The success of 1870 turned the nation's head; the annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine gave it the first taste of conquest. Germany began to
imagine that German character and German culture possessed some magical
and unique quality which would alone account for this success. Dreams of a
European Empire, of infinite expansion, of world-power, floated before the
national consciousness. The German people were no longer content, to use
Mazzini's words, "to elaborate and express their idea, to contribute their
stone also to the pyramid of history"; they now craved to impose their
idea upon the world at large, and to place their stone on the top of the
pyramid. Modern Germany is an example of nationalism "gone wrong," just as
Napoleon was an example of democratic individualism "gone wrong." The Man
of Destiny has been followed by the Nation of Destiny, the "super-man" by
the "super-nation." Both have had to face a world in arms arrayed against
them.
[Footnote 1: German writers are fond of calling it "Prussia-Germany"
(_Preussen-Deutschland_), a phrase of Treitschke's.]
Thus the national idea in Germany has been cramped, contorted, and
perverted by the Prussian system and the dynastic frontiers. Had the dreams
of 1848 been realised, there might have been no Franco-German War, no
Alsace-Lorraine question, no war of 1914. And what of our third test of
nationhood? Do the people of Germany feel that their government adequately
expresses their general will, that it is truly representative, by which is
not necessarily meant that it is democratic in form?[1] There is no
doubt that in 1848 the educated classes of Germany did actually desire a
democratic form of polity. In that year Germany was as liberal as Italy;
she also had risings in almost every State, not excluding Prussia itself,
which were everywhere answered with promises of a "constitution." But when
reaction came in Germany, as in Italy, Prussia did not, like Piedmont,
stand out for freedom and make itself the model State of Germany; on
the contrary she reverted to her old military absolutism at the first
opportunity. And so the dreams of German liberty, like the dreams of
complete German unity, disappeared before the stern necessity of accepting
the supremacy of a politically reactionary State; and the Prussianisation
which followed did much to neutralise altogether the liberalising
influences of the south. It is therefore possible to maintain that the
political institutions of Germany have come to represent more and more the
genius and will of the population. "The Germany of the twentieth century,"
maintains a recent writer, "is not two but one. The currents have mingled
their waters, and the Prussian torrent now has the depth and volume of the
whole main-stream of German thought."[2]
[Footnote 1: _e.g._ Russia has a representative government in this sense,
though she is without "representative institutions" in the democratic
sense.]
[Footnote 2: _Round Table_, Sept. 1914, p. 628.]
It may be so; it may be that the Germany of Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven
has been absorbed by the Germany of Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon; but it
must not be forgotten at the same time that, since their day, yet another
Germany has come into being, the Germany of Marx, Engels, and Bebel, a
Germany which is represented by more than a third of the voters in the
Empire. The old line of cleavage had barely closed up when a new and much
more fundamental schism appeared in the State, that between imperialism and
social democracy. The existence of this tremendous revolutionary force in
Germany, determined to overthrow the militarist _régime_ of Prussia and to
re-establish the State on a democratic basis, is an unanswerable proof
that the government of the Empire is not in any true sense representative.
Prussia has in this direction also impeded the development of the national
idea and given mechanical unity at the expense of spiritual unity. It has
created a vast political party of irreconcilables in the country, men
who have been led to feel that they have neither part nor promise in the
national life, and who therefore elect to stand outside it. "Our Social
Democratic party," writes von Bülow, "lacks a national basis. It will have
nothing to do with German patriotic memories which bear a monarchical
and military character. It is not like the French and Italian parties, a
precipitate of the process of national historical development, but since
its beginning it has been in determined opposition to our past history as a
nation. It has placed itself outside our national life."[1] And again: "In
the German Empire, Prussia is the leading State. The Social Democratic
party is the antithesis of the Prussian state."[2] Nevertheless, the
Imperial Government, not finding it possible to suppress the social
democrats, does its best to employ them for its own ends. It uses them
in fact as it uses irreconcilable France, namely, for the purpose of
terrorisation, since it has discovered that the spectre of socialism is as
effective to keep the middle classes loyal as the spectre of French
revenge is to keep the Southern States loyal. But it also hopes in time to
eradicate socialism from the State. "A vigorous national policy" Prince
von Bülow declares to be "the true remedy against the Social Democratic
Movement"; and though he makes no specific mention of war, it is obvious
that a war like that in which Germany is at present engaged is the most
vigorous form a national policy could possibly take. Was the outbreak of
war last August in part occasioned by the desire on the side of the German
Government to win over the workers of Germany? If so, it had yet another
spectre ready to its hand for the purpose--the spectre of Russia.
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, p. 184.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. p. 186.]
In any case, with Germany in this condition, Europe could hardly have
avoided a great war at some time or other; and 1914 follows naturally,
almost inevitably, from 1870. The unification of 1870 was far from
complete. The German national idea still awaits development in the
direction of racial unity, political unity, and constitutional freedom. It
is Prussia that bars the way in all these directions, Prussia, which, in
itself not a nation but a military bureaucracy, a survival of the old
territorial dynastic principle which the world has largely outgrown, has
stamped its character and system upon the German people. "Prussia," says
one of its apologists, "has put an iron girdle round the whole of German
life."[1] But in the end life proves itself stronger than iron bands.
Germany was bound to make another attempt to reach complete nationhood. She
is doing so now. Prussia fights for conquest, for world-power, and makes
docile Germany imagine that she is fighting for these also; but what
Germany is really fighting for, blindly and gropingly, is freedom and
unity. She has indeed "to hack her way through." But it is not, as she
supposes, hostile Europe which hems her in and keeps her from her "place in
the sun"; it is the Prussian girdle and the Prussian chains which hamper
the free movements of her limbs and hold her close prisoner in the shadow
of the Hohenzollern castle. The overthrow of Prussia means the release of
Germany; and France, who gave Germany greatness in 1870, may with the help
of the Allies be able in the near future to give her an even greater gift,
the gift of liberty.
[Footnote 1: _Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 106.]
§7. _The Map of Europe, 1814-1914_.--We have now watched the national idea
at work in the three western countries of that Central European area which
the Congress of Vienna left unsettled in 1814, and in a later chapter
we shall see the same principle acting in the two great divisions of
South-East Europe, Austria-Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula. Let us, then,
use this opportunity to pause for a moment, take a general survey of the
map, and consider in broad outline what has actually been accomplished
during the past century and what still remains to do.
From 1814 to 1848, exhausted by the effort of the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars and disillusioned by reactionary statesmanship, the larger
nations slumbered: but Belgium and Greece secured their present liberties,
and outside Europe the national movement spread throughout the South
American Continent. Then came 1848, the "wonderful year" of modern history.
"There is no more remarkable example in history of the contagious quality
of ideas than the sudden spread of revolutionary excitement through
Europe in 1848. In the course of a few weeks the established order seemed
everywhere to be crumbling to pieces. The Revolution began in Palermo,
crossed the Straits of Messina, and passed in successive waves of
convulsion through Central Italy to Paris, Vienna, Milan, and Berlin. It
has often been remarked that the Latin races are of all the peoples of
Europe most prone to revolution; but this proposition did not hold good
in 1848. The Czechs in Bohemia, the Magyars in Hungary, the Germans in
Austria, rose against the paralysing encumbrance of the Hapsburg autocracy.
The Southern Slavs dreamed of an Illyrian kingdom; the Germans of a united
Germany; the Bohemians of a union of all the Slavonic peoples of Europe.
The authority of the Austrian Empire, the pivot of the European autocracy,
had never been so rudely challenged, and if the Crown succeeded in
recovering its shattered authority it was due to the dumb and unintelligent
loyalty of its Slavonic troops."[1]
[Footnote 1: H.A.L. Fisher, _The Republican Tradition in Europe_, p. 193.]
Many of these risings were doomed to failure, but between 1848 and 1871 the
alien governments in the Italian peninsula were abolished, making way for
a unitary government, in the form of a constitutional monarchy, which
embraces with small exceptions the whole of the Italian population of
Europe. In 1871, after three successful wars in seven years against
Denmark, Austria, and France, a Federal Government was established in
Germany, with the kingdom of Prussia as its leading State and the King of
Prussia as its monarch, with the title of German Emperor. This was a step
forward, though the new Germany was neither a unitary nor a constitutional
State. The Austrian territories have also come in for their share of the
general ferment, and Francis Joseph came to the throne in 1848 amid the
uprisings of his subject peoples; but these were successfully tided over,
though the Hungarian portion of the Austrian dominion achieved national
recognition and institutions in 1867.
After 1871 the national movement moved farther east. In 1878 Roumania and
Serbia, both national States, were declared sovereign powers independent
of Turkey; Bulgaria achieved its recognition as a principality; and
Montenegro, a small mountain community, which had never submitted to the
Turks, increased its territory and became a recognised European State.
In 1908 and 1910 Bulgaria and Montenegro became kingdoms like their
neighbours; and in 1913, after the two Balkan Wars, all the five Balkan
States--Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro--obtained
accession of territory, and the principality of Albania was constituted
out of the Albanian portion of the old Turkish dominion. Finally, in quite
another region of Europe, Norway, which had been joined in an anomalous
union with Sweden since 1814, satisfied her national aspirations unopposed
by becoming an independent Constitutional Monarchy in 1905.
All this represents a considerable clearing up of the Central European
problem. Nevertheless, much still remains to be done. Poland is as she was
in 1814, a dismembered nation. The Czechs of Bohemia, the Roumanians of
Transylvania, and the Southern Slavs, not to mention other and smaller
subject races, continue to demand their freedom from the joint tyranny of
Vienna and Budapest. Russia has not yet solved the problem of Finland, nor
England the problem of Ireland. The Turk still occupies Constantinople. And
finally, the Prussianised nationalism of Germany has created new questions
of nationality in Alsace-Lorraine and Schleswig. All these problems
together were as so much tinder ready to take fire directly the spark fell.
They were the cause of the "armed peace" of the past forty-three years;
they are the cause of the war to-day. The conflagration of 1914 is a proof
of a profound dissatisfaction among civilised nations with the existing
political structure of the Continent. Alsatians, Poles, Czechs, Finns,
Serbo-Croats, Roumanians, and the rest "still struggle for country and
liberty; for a word inscribed upon a banner, proclaiming to the world
that they also live, think, love, and labour for the benefit of all." The
framework of society does not fit the facts of nationality, and so the
framework has gone to pieces. "The map of Europe has to be re-made. That is
the key to the present movement."
BOOKS
I. NATIONALITY
MAZZINI. _Essays_. The Scott Library. 1s.
MAZZINI. _Duties of Man_, etc. Everyman Library. 1s.
Anything written by Mazzini, the prophet of the national idea, can be
recommended.
LORD ACTON. _History of Freedom and other Essays_. 1907. 10s. net.
Contains an acute historical analysis of nationality in the nineteenth
century. The conclusion reached is that "the theory of nationality is more
absurd and more criminal than the theory of socialism," but though the
summing up is unfavourable, the whole essay is a masterly exposition of the
national idea by one of the greatest of historical students. It forms a
very useful foil to Mazzini.
HENRY SIDGWICK. _The Elements of Politics_. 1897. 14s. net.
Chapter xiv., on "The Area of Government," contains useful paragraphs
on the distinction between Nation, State, and Nationality; see esp. pp.
222-225.
SIR JOHN SEELEY. _The Expansion of England_. First published in 1883. 4s.
net.
SIR JOHN SEELEY. _Introduction to Political Science_. 1896. 4s. net.
Both these books, the first in particular, are important in this
connection. There is no one chapter or section devoted exclusively to the
consideration of nationality, but there are constant references to the
subject. The point of view is, moreover, instructive. Seeley is, perhaps,
the nearest English approach to Treitschke.
J.M. ROBERTSON. _Introduction to English Politics_. 1900. 10s. 6d. net.
Critical from the Rationalistic as Acton is from the Catholic point of
view. See esp. Part V., "The Fortunes of the Lesser European States," which
after a preliminary essay on Nationality, which the author declares to be
"essentially a metaphysical dream," while "the motive spirit in it partakes
much of the nature of superstition," goes on to give a valuable account of
the development of the "small nations," Holland, Switzerland, Portugal,
etc., by way of showing their value to civilisation as a whole.
P. MILYOUKOV. _Russia and its Crisis_. 1905. 13s. 6d.
Chap. ii. contains some interesting matter on Nationalism, especially of
course as it has been developed in Russia.
J.S. MILL. _On Representative Government_. 2s.
Chap, xvi., "Of Nationality as connected with Representative Government."
II. GENERAL HISTORICAL WORKS, ETC.
ALISON PHILLIPS. _Modern Europe. 1815-1899_. 1903. 6s. net.
An excellent general history of Europe, 1815-1899.
SEIGNOBOS. _A Political History of Contemporary Europe since 1814_. 2 vols.
1901. 5s. net each.
One of the best general histories of this scope available. It is a
translation from the French, with good bibliographies.
_Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_. Cambridge. 1902. 4s.
6d. net.
A series of studies, by recognised authorities, of various aspects of
modern European history. Chap. ii., on "The International History of
Europe during the Nineteenth Century," by the late Professor Westlake, is
suggestive on the topic of nationality; chaps. v. and vi., on Germany, by a
German professor, are interesting as giving the German view of unification
by Bismarck; and chaps. ix. and x., on "The Struggle for Italian Unity,"
and "Mazzini," by Mr. Bolton King, are especially valuable.
H.A.L. FISHER. _The Republican Tradition in Europe_. 1911. 6s. net.
Traces the development of the republican, as distinct from the nationalist
tradition, in modern Europe, and therefore forms a useful complement
to other writers. Chap. ix., on "Italy," and chap. x., on "The German
Revolution," are excellent accounts of "1848" in those two countries.
H.A.L. FISHER. _The Value of Small States_. Oxford Pamphlets. 2d.
E. LEVETT. _Europe since Napoleon_. 1913. Blackie. 3s. 6d.
A useful little text-book.
_The Cambridge Modern History_. Vols. ix., x., xi., xii. 16s. net per vol.
Indispensable for knowledge of the facts of the period.
R. NISBET BAIN. _Slavonic Europe, 1447-1796_. 1908. 5s. 6d. net.
Chap. xviii. gives a good account of the partitions of Poland.
BOLTON KING. _A History of Italian Unity_. 2 vols. 1899. 24s. net.
BOLTON KING. _Mazzini_. 1903. Dent, Temple Biographies. 4s. 6d. net.
BISMARCK. _Reflections and Reminiscences_. 2 vols. 1898. Smith Elder.
Out of print. To be bought second-hand.
BÜLOW. _Imperial Germany_. 1914. Cassell. 2s. net.
The last two are indispensable for a true understanding of the principles
which underlie the German Empire.
T.J. LAWRENCE. _Principles of International Law_. 1910. 12s. 6d. net.
A useful text-book. See also _Cambridge Mod. Hist_. vol. xii. chap. xxii.
CHAPTER III
GERMANY
"The Germans are vigorously submissive. They employ philosophical
reasonings to explain what is the least philosophic thing in the world,
respect for force and the fear which transforms that respect into
admiration."--MADAME DE STAËL (1810).
"Greatness and weakness are both inseparable from the race whose powerful
and turbid thought rolls on--the largest stream of music and poetry at
which Europe comes to drink."--ROMAIN ROLLAND (_Jean Christophe_).
§1. _The German State_.--The German Nation is one of the oldest in Europe:
the German State is almost the youngest--of the great States quite the
youngest.
Englishmen sometimes wonder why there are so many Royal princes in
Germany--why it is that when a vacant throne has to be filled, or a husband
to be found for a princess of royal standing, Germany seems to provide
such an inexhaustible choice. The reason is that Germany consisted, until
recently, not of one State but of a multitude of States, each of which had
a court and a dynasty and sovereign prerogatives of its own. In 1789, at
the outbreak of the French Revolution, there were 360 of these States of
every sort and size and variety. Some were Kingdoms, like Prussia, some
were Electorates, like Hanover (under our English George III.), some were
Grand Duchies, some were Bishoprics, some were Free Cities, and some
were simply feudal estates in which, owing to the absence of a central
authority, noble families had risen to the rank of independent powers.
These families were the descendants of those "robber-barons" whose castles
on the Rhine and all over South and West Germany the tourist finds so
picturesque. Prince William of Wied, the first Prince of Albania, is a
member of one of them, and is thus entitled to rank with the royalties of
Europe: the father-in-law of ex-King Manoel of Portugal, the Prince of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a branch of the Kaiser's own family, is another
familiar recent instance. And every one remembers Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the husband of Queen Victoria.
In 1789 the possibility of a German National State was so remote that
Germans had not even begun to dream of one. Each little Principality was
jealously tenacious of its local rights, or, as we should say, of its
vested interests, as against the common interests of Germany. Most of
them were narrow and parochial in their outlook; and the others, the
more broad-minded, were not national but cosmopolitan in spirit. To the
tradition of municipal thinking, which had lasted on uninterruptedly in the
Free Cities of Germany from the Middle Ages, Germany owes the excellence of
her municipal government to-day. To the broad and tolerant humanism of
her more enlightened courts, such as Weimar and Brunswick, we owe the
influences that shaped the work of Goethe and of Lessing, two of the
greatest figures in European thought and letters.
Into these peaceful haunts of culture and parochialism Napoleon, with the
armies and the ideas of Revolutionary France, swept like a whirlwind,
breaking up the old settled comfortable life of the cities and countryside.
One of the greatest of German writers, the Jew Heine, has described in a
wonderful passage what the coming of Napoleon meant to the inhabitants of a
little German Principality. It is worth transcribing at some length, for
it gives the whole colour and atmosphere of the old local life in Western
Germany, which has not even yet entirely passed away. The speaker is an old
soldier giving reminiscences of his boyhood:
"Our Elector was a fine gentleman, a great lover of the arts, and himself
very clever with his fingers. He founded the picture gallery at Düsseldorf,
and in the Observatory in that city they still show a very artistic set of
wooden boxes, one inside the other, made by himself in his leisure hours,
of which he had twenty-four every day.
"In those days the Princes were not overworked mortals as they are to-day.
Their crowns sat very firmly on their heads, and at night they just drew
their nightcaps over them, and slept in peace, while peacefully at their
feet slept their peoples; and when these woke up in the morning they said,
'Good morning, Father,' and the Princes replied, 'Good morning, dear
children.'
"But suddenly there came a change. One morning when we woke up in
Düsseldorf and wanted to say, 'Good morning, Father,' we found our Father
gone, and a kind of stupefaction over the whole city. Everybody felt as
though they were going to a funeral, and people crept silently to the
market-place and read a long proclamation on the door of the City Hall. It
was grey weather, and yet thin old tailor Kilian stood in his alpaca coat,
which he kept for indoor use only, and his blue woollen stockings hung down
so that his miserable little bare legs were visible above them and his thin
lips were trembling, while he murmured the words of the proclamation. A
veteran soldier at his side read somewhat louder, and at every few words a
tear trickled down into his honest white beard. I Stood by him and cried
too, and asked him why we were crying. And then he told me: 'The Elector
expresses you his gratitude'--then he went on reading, and at the words
'for your loyal and trusted obedience, and releases you from your duties,'
his tears broke out afresh.... While we were reading, the Elector's arms
were being taken down from the City Hall, the whole place became as
terrifyingly quiet as though there were going to be an eclipse of the sun,
and all the City Councillors went about hanging their heads as though no
one had any more use for them...
"When I woke up next morning, the sun was shining as usual, drums were
beating in the streets, and when I came down to breakfast and said
good-morning to my father I heard how the barber had whispered to him while
he was shaving him that the new Grand Duke Joachim was to receive the
homage of his subjects at the City Hall to-day, that he came of a very good
family and had been given the Emperor Napoleon's sister in marriage, and
had really a very good presence, and wore his fine black hair in curls, and
would shortly enter the city in state and would certainly please all the
ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming continued in the street, and I went and
stood outside the door and watched the French troops marching in, those
glorious happy Frenchmen, who marched through the world with songs and
shining sabres, the gay firm-set faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skins,
the tricolour cockades, the gleaming bayonets, the merry skilful horsemen,
and the huge great drum-major with his silver-embroidered uniform, who
could throw his drum-stick with its gilt button up to the first floor, and
his eyes up even to the girls in the second floor windows. I was pleased
that we were to have soldiers billeted on us--my mother was not--and I
hurried to the market-place. There everything was quite different now. The
world looked as if it had had a new coat of paint. A new coat-of-arms was
hanging on the City Hall, the iron railings on the balcony were covered
with tapestry hangings, French Grenadiers were standing sentry, the old
City Councillors had put on new faces, and were wearing Sunday clothes, and
looked at one another in French and said 'Bon jour,' ladies were looking
out of all the windows, curious bystanders and smart soldiers thronged
the square, and I and the other boys climbed on to the big horse of the
Elector's statue and looked down on the gay crowd."[1]
[Footnote 1: Heine, _Collected Works_, i. 228 (Book _Le Grand_).]
Napoleon and his French soldiers, "marching through the world with songs
and shining sabres," brought the Germans more than this happy thrill of
excitement and a supply of new and more elegant princes. They brought them
that which gave strength to their own right arm--the spirit of Nationality.
"The soul of the German people," says a recent German writer, "has always
lain very deep down, and has seldom come to the surface to become the
spirit of the time and to inspire the movements of the world. Hardly ever
except in times of the deepest adversity has it come to the surface: but
then it has claimed its rights, or rather, discovered its duties."[1]
Napoleon, by humiliating her, laid bare the soul of Germany, as Germany
herself has laid bare the soul of Belgium to-day. His arrogant pretensions
roused the Germans as they had never been roused since the days of the
Reformation; while at the same time his attempts to secure the support of
the bigger German principalities by enlarging them at the expense of the
smaller, simplified the map and laid the foundations of a United Germany.
The thinkers and dreamers of Germany, stung at last into a sense of
political reality, awoke from their dreams of cosmopolitanism and devoted
their powers to the needs of the German nation.
[Footnote 1: Daab's Preface to Paul de Lagarde, _German Faith, German
Fatherland, German Culture_, p. vi. (Jena, 1913).]
The years between 1806 and 1813, between the disastrous battle of Jena
and the overwhelming victory of Leipzig, are the greatest years in German
history. Shaking off the torpor and the prejudices of centuries the German
nation arose and vanquished its oppressors.
But with the twilight of that glorious day the bats returned. The defeat of
Napoleon was not only the defeat of French domination but the defeat of the
French Revolution, and of the principles of Democracy and Nationality which
inspired it. The unity of spirit which the Germans had achieved on the
battlefield they were unable to transform after the victory into a unity of
government or institutions. The Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map
of Europe after the Revolutionary wars, did so, not in accordance with
the principle of nationality or the wishes of the peoples of Europe but
according to what was called "legitimacy," that is to say, the interests
of the princes. There was only one idealist at the Conference, the Russian
Emperor Alexander, and he was put off with empty phrases.
[Illustration: Germany of 1815.]
For Germany the result of the Conference was the reestablishment, in
smaller numbers and with larger units of territory, of the old undemocratic
principalities, and of a Confederation embodying their dynastic interests.
Several of the larger States, such as Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, and
Hanover, which Napoleon had raised to the status of kingdoms, were
confirmed in their new dignities, and the kingdom of Prussia, the largest
of them all, acquired, out of the debris of the old Archbishopric of
Cologne and other small ecclesiastical and temporal States, the important
provinces of Westphalia and the Rhineland, which have made possible for
her the industrial growth of the last half century. Cologne, Düsseldorf,
Elberfeld, Essen, and other great industrial centres of Western Germany
will next year be celebrating the centenary of their Prussian connection.
But the chief State in the Confederation and its undisputed head was
Austria, which had for centuries enjoyed the prestige of supremacy over the
German States; and it was the Austrian statesman Metternich who was mainly
responsible for the Vienna settlement.
The German Confederation of 1815-1866 went far outside the boundaries of
modern Germany. It included lands belonging to three non-German monarchs.
The King of Holland was a member of it in virtue of the Dutch provinces of
Limburg and Luxemburg; the King of Denmark for the Duchies of Schleswig and
Holstein; and the Emperor of Austria (who, then as now, ruled over Hungary,
Austrian Poland, and the Southern Slav provinces) for Bohemia, Moravia, and
German-speaking Austria up to and beyond Vienna. The Confederation was in
fact in no sense a national State, and was never intended to be so. It was
a loosely knit assortment of principalities and free cities. Germany
was still broken up and divided in a manner almost inconceivable to the
inhabitants of an old-established unity like Great Britain or France. At
least five different kinds of money, for instance, were in use in the
different States of the Confederation, and, as stamp-collectors know, the
postal system was bewildering in its complexity. More important was
the deep gulf between different parts of the country due to religious
divisions. The Reformation, which left England with a National Church, left
Germany hopelessly divided; and the division between the Protestants in the
north and east, and the Catholics in the west and south, is still, half
a century after the establishment of the United Empire, a source of
difficulty.
Yet the Confederation has one undeniable achievement to its credit. It
paved the way for German unity by facilitating the Zollverein, or Customs
Union, which was extended between 1830 and 1844 to practically all the
German States except those under Austrian rule. But the far-reaching
importance of this development was not at that time appreciated. Western
Europe was tired after the great Napoleonic struggle and was not in a mood
for big designs. To all outward appearance Germany seemed to have relapsed,
after the thrill and glamour of the Wars of Liberation, into the stuffy
atmosphere of the old eighteenth century life. Only a very patient, a very
docile, and a very philosophic and law-abiding people would have endured
such an anti-climax; and it is these qualities, together with a certain
clumsiness and helplessness due to their complete inexperience of the
responsibilities of a larger citizenship, which go far to explain the
subsequent history of Germany.
But in the evil days after the Congress of Vienna the _idea_ of German
unity lived on, and formed a constant theme of discussion and speculation,
like the idea of the unity of Poland and of the Southern Slavs in the
present generation. The stirring memories of the Great Revolution were like
a constant refrain at the back of men's minds all through that dreary time.
In 1830, when the French established a Liberal Monarchy and the Belgians
freed themselves from the unwelcome supremacy of Holland, there was much
excitement throughout Germany. But nothing serious occurred until 1848,
when the Liberal and Nationalist movement, which had been gathering force
throughout the educated classes of Western Europe for a generation, at
length came to a head. The whole of Germany was in a ferment, a strong
Republican movement manifested itself, and in almost every one of the many
capital cities there was a rising with a demand for a free constitution
and parliamentary government, and for the consolidation of German national
unity in accordance with the same democratic ideals. The princes had no
alternative but to give way, and, as a result, local Constitutions were
granted, and a national Parliament was summoned to meet at Frankfurt, to
draw up a national German Constitution on democratic lines.
The task before the Frankfurt Parliament was similar to that which has
confronted British statesmen several times during the last century, in
framing the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the
Union of South Africa--the task of welding a number of separate State
governments with the free consent of their populations into a homogeneous
and democratic central authority. But in the case of an old and still
largely feudal country like Germany the task was infinitely more difficult,
for it could not be successful without a levelling-up of the political
ideals of the backward States, such as Prussia, and the elimination of many
ancient associations and dynastic interests. The Frankfurt Constitution did
actually come into being, and it was nobly planned. It guaranteed to every
German citizen the rights of civil liberty, equality before the law, and
responsible parliamentary government, both central and local. But the mind
of the German nation was not yet equal to its new responsibilities. The
Frankfurt Parliament, like the first Russian Duma, was out of touch with
realities; it wasted precious time on the discussion of abstract questions
of principle, and failed to meet the practical needs of the moment.
While it sat and talked, the enthusiasm which had created it gradually
evaporated. Meanwhile the more reactionary States, and the princes whose
prerogatives were endangered, became more and more openly hostile. All
through 1849 the Parliament was losing members by defection, and by the end
of the year its influence had sunk to vanishing point.
The movement which collapsed thus ignominiously was not a popular agitation
in the English sense of the term: like other movements of its generation it
sprang, not from the people but from the well-to-do, and its strength lay
among the professional and educated classes. The Frankfurt Parliament was
a predominantly middle-class assembly: lawyers and professors, always an
important element in German national life, were strongly represented in
it and largely responsible for its failure. Its collapse was a bitter
disappointment, and drove many of its leaders into exile abroad, more
particularly to the United States, where some of them, such as Carl
Schurz, lived to play a noteworthy part under more democratic political
institutions.
After the failure of the Frankfurt Constitution it slowly became clear to
far-sighted Germans that there was only one way in which German unity could
come about. If, unlike the separate provinces of Canada and South Africa,
the German States would not voluntarily sink their identity in a larger
whole, unity could only come through their acceptance of the supremacy of
one of the existing States.
There were only two possible candidates for the supremacy, Austria and
Prussia. Austria was still, at that time, as she had been for centuries,
in a position of undisputed headship. But her German policy was always
hampered because she had also to consider her non-German subjects.
Prussia, a younger and more homogeneous State, with a better organised
administration and a better disciplined people, was preparing to assert
herself. In 1862, at a moment when liberalism was gathering strength in
Prussia, Count Bismarck became chief Minister of the Prussian Crown and
the dominating force in Prussian policy. Bismarck was a Conservative and a
reactionary, wholly out of sympathy with the ideals of 1848. His immediate
object was to secure the supremacy of Prussia among the German States.
In the very first months of his leadership he made it clear, in a famous
sentence, by what methods he hoped to achieve his end. "The great questions
are to be settled," he told the Prussian Diet, with a scornful hit at the
Confederation, "not by speeches and majority resolutions, but by blood and
iron."
He was not long in translating words into action. In 1864 the King of
Denmark died, and difficulties at once arose as to the succession to the
Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which still belonged to the German
Confederation. Austria and Prussia intervened jointly in the name of the
Confederation, and, as a result, the Duchies were separated from Denmark,
Schleswig being administered by Austria and Holstein by Prussia. The object
of this rather clumsy plan, which originated with Bismarck, was to create
difficulties which would enable him to pick a quarrel with Austria. In 1866
this manoeuvre proved successful. Bismarck goaded Austria into war and
succeeded, after a six weeks' campaign, in expelling her from the German
State system, following this up by rounding off her own dominions with the
annexation of a number of the smaller pro-Austrian States, amongst them the
kingdom of Hanover. His victory also had the effect of completely checking
the growing agitation for the establishment of responsible government in
Prussia.[1]
[Footnote 1: On this point see Bismarck's _Recollections_, and the good
short account in Powicke's _Bismarck_.]
Having made Prussia supreme in Germany, Bismarck was now in a position
to solve the problem of German unity. He resolved to employ the same
well-tried method. In 1870 the somewhat high-handed manner of Napoleon III.
made it possible for him to bring about a war between the German States
and France, in which Germany, under Prussian leadership, was completely
victorious. In the flush of their success, after the capture of Paris in
January 1871, the lesser States of Germany agreed to enter into a Federal
Union under Prussian supremacy and to accept the King of Prussia as its
head, with the title of Emperor.
Thus, at length, Germany became a National State, with a national
constitution. The term Empire is misleading, for to English ears it
suggests the government of dependencies. Germany is not an Empire in that
sense: she is a Federation, like the United States and Switzerland, of
independent States which have agreed to merge some of their prerogatives,
notably the conduct of foreign affairs and of defence, in a central
authority. Since some of these independent States were, and still are,
monarchies, a higher title had to be provided for the Chief of the
Federation. An ace, as it were, was needed to trump the kings. After much
deliberation the title Emperor was agreed upon; but it is noteworthy that
the Kaiser is not "the Emperor of Germany": he bears the more non-committal
title of "German Emperor."
The German Imperial Constitution, devised by Bismarck in 1871, falls far
short of the Frankfurt experiment of 1848. It does indeed provide for
the creation of a Reichstag, or Imperial Parliament, elected by all
male citizens over twenty-five. But the Reichstag can neither initiate
legislation nor secure the appointment or dismissal of Ministers. In
the absence of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, which is the
mainspring of our English Constitutional system, the Reichstag might be
described as little more than an advisory body armed with the power of
veto. Like the English Parliament in the days of Charles I.'s ship-money,
the Reichstag could in the last resort refuse supplies, and so bring the
machinery of government to a standstill. But this situation has never yet
arisen or seemed likely to arise. The Government has ridden the Reichstag
with a strong hand, turning awkward corners by concessions to the various
groups in turn, and the Reichstag has responded to this treatment. Bismarck
"took his majorities where he could get them"; and Prince Bülow's book
contains some illuminating pages about the clever methods which that
statesman adopted to "manage" his Parliaments.
Above the Reichstag is the Bundesrat or Federal Council, on which all the
Federated States are represented, Prussia having seventeen members as
against forty-two from the other States. The Bundesrat sits in secret; its
members are selected by the different State Governments and vote according
to instructions received. All Bills originate in the Bundesrat before they
are submitted to the Reichstag, and are re-submitted to the Bundesrat, to
be passed or vetoed, after alteration in the Reichstag. The twenty-six
members of the German Federation represented in the Bundesrat comprise four
kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony), a number of Grand
Duchies and smaller ducal States, three Free Cities (Hamburg, Lübeck, and
Bremen), and the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine. All these (except
the last named) preserve their own local Parliaments and institutions, and
the second largest, Bavaria, even preserves in peace-time, like the British
self-governing Dominions, her own military organisation and has also her
own postal system. But Prussia in size, influence, and military strength
is by far the most important, and for practical purposes her power
preponderates over that of all the other States combined. The real control
of legislation naturally lies with the State which controls two-fifths
of the votes in the Bundesrat, where legislation is initiated and can
be vetoed; it is wielded by the Kaiser, as King of Prussia, and by his
Imperial Chancellor, President of the Bundesrat and always a Prussian
Minister. The Imperial Chancellor, who is the only Imperial Minister, is
chosen by the Kaiser and is responsible to him alone: he countersigns all
the Kaiser's orders and edicts, and has the function, it may be added, of
explaining away his indiscretions.
It is inevitable, under these circumstances, that the policy and
legislation of the central government should largely reflect Prussian views
and ideals. On the other hand, the temper of the rest of Germany must
always be kept in mind. As Prince Büllow, the late Imperial Chancellor,
says: "If the Empire is governed without reference to Prussia, ill-will
towards the Empire will grow in that country. If Prussia is governed
without reference to the Empire, then there is the danger that mistrust and
dislike of the leading State will gain ground in non-Prussian Germany....
The art of governing in our country will always have to be directed chiefly
towards maintaining the harmony between Germany and Prussia, in the spirit
as well as in the letter."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, pp. 191-192.]
Why should the government of Germany be such an "art"? And why should there
be any difficulty in maintaining a harmonious spirit between Prussia and
non-Prussian Germany? To answer these questions we must widen the scope of
our inquiry. So far we have considered only the growth and development
of the German State. It is now time to turn from the German State to the
German people.
§2. _The Real Germany_.--The difficulty of establishing German Unity
has lain in the fact that there have really always been two Germanies,
different in history, in temper, in ideals, and in their stages of
development in civilisation. There has been Prussia, or North-Eastern
Germany; and there has been the real Germany, the Germany of the South and
West. It is only since 1870, and especially within the reign of the present
Kaiser, that, through education and common experience; the two have become
fused into one; but even now, beneath the uniform surface of German life
and public opinion, there is a great inner distinction.
Let us take what we have called the real Germany first. This Germany, the
Germany of the Rhine country, of Frankfurt and Heidelberg and Cologne and
Nüremberg, is the Germany which so many Englishmen know and admire. This
Germany is an integral part of the civilisation of Western Europe, and is
closely akin to ourselves. It has grown and developed alongside with France
and the Netherlands and England, sharing in all the great spiritual and
social movements of the West. It has passed, with them, through the Middle
Ages, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, and the long struggle
against the domination of France. Its famous cities with their Cathedrals
and Town Halls breathe the same proud, free, municipal spirit as those of
their great neighbours in the Netherlands, Ghent, Antwerp, Louvain, Bruges,
Ypres and the rest. Its scholars and teachers, poets, painters, and
musicians, from Luther to Goethe, have made their special German
contribution to the civilised life of the West--a contribution as great and
as unique as that of Renaissance Italy or Elizabethan England. Its people
are very similar in character to their neighbours of kindred stock. As
industrious as the Dutch, as persevering as the Scotch, as steady and
good-hearted as the English, good workers, good citizens, devoted in their
family relations, they have found it easy to live at peace and on a good
understanding with their neighbours, and when they have migrated abroad,
they have by common confession made the best of settlers, both in the
United States and in the British Dominions.
Yet they have developed certain characteristic qualities in their social
and political life, which distinguish them sharply from their western
neighbours. History, which has deprived them, until recently, of a wider
citizenship, has left them timid, docile, dreamy and unpractical in just
that sphere of action where Englishmen have learnt for centuries to think
and to act for themselves. Patriotism with Englishmen is an instinct. We
do not much care to wave flags or make speeches or sing songs about it: we
assume it as the permanent background of our national life and our national
consciousness. With the Germans this is not so. In Germany, partly owing
to German history, partly owing to the constitution of the German mind,
patriotism is not an instinct but an _idea_. Now ideas do not grow up in
men's minds by a natural process. They have to be implanted. The Germans
have needed to be _taught_ to be patriotic. The makers of German patriotism
a century ago were teachers and philosophers. They did not simply appeal to
their patriotic instincts, as Englishmen would have done: they argued the
point and _proved_ that Germany was worth fighting for: they founded a
school of patriotic German philosophy. There are few more curious documents
in history, or more instructive for the light they shed on future
events, than the famous _Speeches to the German Nation_ addressed to his
fellow-countrymen by the philosopher Fichte in 1808, when his country was
under the heel of Napoleon. They are not speeches at all, but philosophical
lucubrations, discussing in abstract terms the whole subject of the nature
of patriotism and of Germany's right to exist as a nation. One argument,
for instance, on which he lays great stress, is that Germany is marked out
to be a great political power because of the peculiar excellence of the
German language, which he shows to his satisfaction to be superior to
French, Italian, and other Latin languages. Again, he points out that there
is no word in the German language for "character" (_Karakter_), a word
borrowed from the Greek; the reason is, he explains, that there is no need
for one, because to have character and to be German are the same thing--a
curious foretaste of the German arrogance of to-day. Yet these speeches,
which, issued in England at such a crisis, would have found no readers,
reverberated through Germany and helped to create the self-confident spirit
which freed her from the invader. Then, as now, under the inspiration of
ideas which they had accepted from professors and philosophers, Germans
fought for the German language and for German culture. But whereas in 1814
they fought to preserve them, in 1914 they are fighting to impose them.
Just as patriotism in Germany is wholly different from what it is in
England, so also is democracy, and all those elements in the national life
which feed and sustain it. British democracy does not depend upon our
popular franchise or on any legal rights or enactments. It depends upon the
free spirit and self-respect of the British people. We have been accustomed
for centuries to the unrestrained discussion of public affairs; and we
treat our governors as being in fact, as they are in name, our "ministers"
or servants. There is a force called public opinion which, slow though it
may be to assert itself, British statesmen have been taught by experience
to respect. It is as true of British as it is of American democracy that
"you can fool half the people all the time; and you can fool all the people
half the time; but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But the
German people, as a people, lacks this irreplaceable heritage of political
self-respect. It has never yet dared to tread the path of democracy without
leading strings. It has not yet learned to think for itself in politics,
or formed the habit of free discussion and practical criticism of public
affairs. This is the vital fact which must be borne in mind in all
comparisons between German and British democracy. The Germans have a
Parliament, elected by Universal Male Suffrage. But this Parliament is
powerless to control policy, because the nation behind it does not give it
sufficient support. It is because of the absence of the driving force of a
public opinion in Germany that the German people submit complacently to the
infringements on political liberty which form part of the normal _régime_
of German life--the domineering arrogance of officers and officials,
the restraints upon the Press and the shameless manufacture of news
and inspiration of opinion from official sources, the control of the
Universities, the schools, and the public services by the State in the
interest of "orthodox" political opinions, and the ridiculous laws which
have sent editors and cartoonists to prison in scores for criticising the
behaviour and utterances of the Emperor or the Crown Prince. In England and
in America underground attempts are sometimes made to injure the careers of
men whose opinions are considered "dangerous" by those who employ them.
In Germany such interference with freedom of political thought is not the
exception: it has become the rule. No man can make a successful career
in the public service (and education is a public service) unless he is
considered politically "orthodox" (_gesinnungstüchtig_); and orthodoxy does
not simply mean abstention from damaging criticism or dangerous opinions:
it means, in practice, deference to the opinions of those who "know
better," that is, to the clique of Prussian generals and bureaucrats who,
together with the Kaiser, control the policy of the country.
British readers who do not know Germany may think the foregoing indictment
of German political incapacity severe. It is not so severe as Prince
Büllow's. The portion of the late Imperial Chancellor's book which deals
with domestic policy opens with these crushing sentences: "The history of
our home policy, with the exception of a few bright spots, is a history of
political mistakes. Despite the abundance of merits and great qualities
with which the German nation is endowed, political talent has been denied
it.... We are not a political people." A page or two later he goes even
further and quotes with approval a dictum that the Germans are
"political donkeys." That a modern statesman should think this of his
fellow-countrymen is remarkable enough; that he should say it outright is
a still more remarkable proof of his unshakeable belief in their
submissiveness. Therein lies the whole tragedy of the present situation.
The German people, so kindly and, alas! so docile, is suffering, not for
its sins, but for its deficiencies; not for its own characteristic acts or
natural ambitions, but for what it has too tamely allowed others, Prussian
statesmen and soldiers, with alien ideals and an alien temper, to foist
upon it, until it has become an integral part of its natural life and
consciousness. Germany has been indoctrinated and Prussianised not only
into acquiescence, but into sympathy with the policy of its rulers.
§3. _Prussia_.--This brings us to the consideration of the second and more
powerful of the two Germanies--namely, Prussia. In order to understand
Prussia and the Prussian spirit we must plunge ourselves into an atmosphere
wholly different from that of the Germany that has just been described. The
very names of the two countries mark the measure of the difference. Germany
means the country of the Germans, as England means the country of the
English. But the name Prussia commemorates the subjugation and extinction
by German conquerors and crusaders from the west of the Prussians or
Bo-Russians, a tribe akin to the Letts and Lithuanians. The old Duchy of
Prussia, which now forms the provinces of East and West Prussia at the
extreme North-East of the present German Empire, consisted of heathen lands
colonised or conquered, between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, by
a great religious and military organisation known as the "Knights of the
Teutonic Order." While Southern and Western Germany was passing, with the
rest of Western Europe, through the transition between mediaeval and modern
Europe, what is now North-Eastern Germany was still in a wholly primitive
stage of development, and the Knights of the Teutonic Order, with crusading
fervour, were spreading Christianity and German "culture" by force of
arms, converting or repelling the Slavonic population and settling German
colonists in the territory thus reclaimed for civilisation. The great
British admirer of Prussia, Thomas Carlyle, in the first volume of his
_Frederick the Great_, gives a vivid account of their activities in their
forts or "burgs" of wood and stone, and helps us to realise what memories
lie behind the struggle between German and Slav to-day, and why the word
"Petersburg" has become so odious to the Russians as the name of their
capital. "The Teutsch Ritters build a Burg for headquarters, spread
themselves this way and that, and begin their great task. The Prussians
were a fierce fighting people, fanatically anti-Christian: the Teutsch
Ritters had a perilous never-resting time of it.... They built and burnt
innumerable stockades for and against: built wooden Forts which are now
stone Towns. They fought much and prevalently, galloped desperately to and
fro, ever on the alert. How many Burgs of wood and stone they built in
different parts, what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody, boggy
places they had, no man counted; their life, read in Dryasdust's newest
chaotic Books (which are of endless length, among other ill qualities) is
like a dim nightmare of unintelligible marching and fighting: one feels
as if the mere amount of galloping they had would have carried the Order
several times round the Globe.... But always some preaching, by zealous
monks, accompanies the chivalrous fighting. And colonists come in from
Germany; trickling in, or at times streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers
terms to the beaten Heathen; terms not of tolerant nature, but which will
be punctually kept by Ritterdom." Here we see the strange stern, medieval,
crusading atmosphere which lies behind the unpleasant combinations, so
familiar to us to-day in France and Belgium, of Uhlans and religion, of
culture and violence, of "Germanisation" and devastation. When we hear the
German professors of to-day preaching of the spread of German culture by
the German arms, and when we feel disgust at the exaggerated religious
phraseology which pervades the Kaiser's oratory and seems to accord so ill
with his policy and ambitions, we must remember the peculiar origins of the
Prussian State and how comparatively recent those origins are. "I have once
before had occasion," said the Kaiser at Marienburg in East Prussia on June
5, 1902, "to say in this place how Marienburg, this unique Eastern bulwark,
the point of departure for the culture of the lands east of the Vistula,
will always be a symbol for our German mission. There is work for us
again to-day. Polish arrogance wishes to lay hands on Germanism, and I am
constrained to call my people to the defence of its national possessions.
Here in Marienburg I proclaim that I expect all the brothers of the Order
of St. John to be at my service when I call upon them to protect German
ways and German customs." The Kaiser's crusading appeals are not
hypocritical or consciously insincere: they are simply many centuries out
of date--a grotesque medley of medieval romanticism and royal megalomania.
What was possible for the warrior knights in North-East Germany five or six
centuries ago is a tragic absurdity and an outrageous crime to-day among
a spirited and sensitive people like the Poles--still more so in a highly
civilised national State such as Belgium or France. It is an absurdity that
only a theatrical monarch could conceive and a crime that only a military
autocracy could attempt to enforce.
In the sixteenth century the Reformation, spreading throughout the North of
Europe, undermined the basis of the Teutonic Order. The Grand Master of
the time transformed himself into a Lutheran Prince holding the hereditary
Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the King of the neighbouring Slavonic
State of Poland. In 1611 the Duchy was amalgamated with the territory of
Brandenburg farther west, and in 1647 the enlarged Prussian territories
won their emancipation from Poland. Prussia now became a distinct State,
essentially German in character (as opposed to the Poles and Lithuanians on
its Eastern border), but still remaining for a time outside the community
of the other German States.
The union between Prussia and Brandenburg had brought Prussia under the
rule of the House of Hohenzollern, which, although originally a South
German family, had borne rule in Brandenburg since 1415. Under the
Hohenzollerns Prussia rapidly increased in territory and influence until in
1701 the ruler of the day, the grandfather of Frederick the Great, took on
himself the title of King. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia's career of
conquest and aggrandisement continued. Seizing a convenient opportunity, he
invaded and annexed the Austrian province of Silesia, and later joined with
Austria and Russia in promoting the shameful Partition of Poland. The old
conquering and "civilising" policy of the Teutonic Knights was continued,
but under new conditions and in a brutal and cynical spirit which rendered
it impossible of success. "The surest means of giving this oppressed nation
better ideas and morals," wrote Frederick the Great, in words quoted
with approval by Prince Bülow, "will always be gradually to get them to
intermarry with Germans, even if at first it is only two or three of them
in every village." This spirit in Prussian policy may have extinguished the
ancient Prussians, but it has not yet begun to Germanise the Poles, and has
gone far to de-Germanise the Alsatians. But it explains the utterances and
justifies the sincerity of those who believe that to-day, as in the early
days of her history, Prussia is fighting on behalf of "culture."
Prussia remains to-day, what she has been for the last two centuries, an
aggressive military monarchy. "Prussia attained her greatness," says Prince
Bülow, "as a country of soldiers and officials, and as such she was able
to accomplish the work of German union; to this day she is still, in all
essentials, a State of soldiers and officials." Power rests in the hands
of the monarch and of a bureaucracy of military and civil officials,
responsible to him alone, and traditionally and fanatically loyal to the
monarch who is, before all things, their War Lord.
The Prussian outlook is so foreign to Western habits of thought that it is
well that we should try to understand it at its best. Prussia proper has
not been rich, like the rest of Germany, in poets and imaginative writers;
but she is fortunate to-day in possessing in the greatest living Greek
scholar, Professor von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, a man who by birth and
breeding is able to put the highest interpretation upon the aims and spirit
of the Prussian State. To Wilamowitz Prussia is not only nearer and dearer
than Athens. She is better, and more advanced. At the close of a wonderful
address on "the glory of the Athenian Empire," in which he has employed all
the resources of his wide learning to paint a picture of Ancient Greece
at her best, Wilamowitz breaks into this impassioned peroration: "But one
element in life, the best of all, ye lacked, noble burghers of Athens.
Your sages tell us of that highest love which, freed from all bodily
entanglements, spends itself on institutions, on laws, on ideas. We
Prussians, a rough, much-enduring tribe of Northerners, may be compacted
of harder stuff; but we believe that love is on a higher level when the
fullest devotion to an institution and an idea is inseparably linked with
an entirely personal devotion to a human being; and at least we know how
warm such a love can make a loyal heart. When our children have scarce
learned to fold their hands before God, we set a picture before them, we
teach them to recognise the noble features; we tell them, 'This is our good
King.' Our young men, when they are of age to bear arms, look with joy and
pride on the trim garb of war, and say, 'I go in the King's coat.' And when
the nation assembles to a common political celebration, the occasion is no
Feast of the Constitution, no Day of the Bastille, no Panathenaic Festival.
It is then that we bow in reverence and loyalty before him who has allowed
us to see with our own eyes that for which our Fathers dreamed and
yearned, before him who ever extends the bounds of the Kingdom in Freedom,
Prosperity, and Righteousness, before his Majesty the Emperor and King."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Speeches and Lectures_, 3rd edition, Berlin, 1913, p. 65. The
"good King" referred to is the old Emperor William, as the address dates
from 1877.]
Here, far better expressed than in the Kaiser's speeches, we see the spirit
of the Prussian Junker at its best. It is narrow, old-fashioned, and, to
democratic ears, almost grotesque. Yet, if it survives uncorrupted by the
dangers to which progress always exposes a military caste, it will not be
easy either to crush by defeat or to transform by humiliation.
It is among the old Prussian nobility and the large landed proprietors
in the original Prussian provinces, who have come to be known as the
"Junkers," that this spirit prevails. They stand for the old stern
repressive military discipline and unchanging Conservatism in its extremest
form, regarding with well-founded suspicion and misgiving symptoms of
development in any direction whatsoever. No party in Germany acquiesced
more unwillingly in the changes necessitated by her commercial and
industrial development. Even their militarism stopped short at the
Army, and it required a substantial increase in the protective tariff
safeguarding their agricultural interests to purchase their reluctant
adhesion to the Kaiser's policy of naval expansion. Even now the German
Navy, the pride of the commercial and industrial classes throughout the
German Empire, is regarded by them with uneasy suspicion as a parvenu
service, in which the old Prussian influences count for less in promotion
than technical skill and practical efficiency.
The institutions of the Prussian State represent the spirit of its ruling
caste. If the German Empire is not democratic, Prussia lags far behind it.
The electoral system in use for the Prussian Lower House is too complicated
to explain here. Its injustice may be gauged from the fact that in 1900
the Social Democrats, who actually polled a majority of the votes, secured
seven seats out of nearly 400. The whole spirit and practice of the
Government is inimical to inborn British conceptions of civil liberty and
personal rights. There is one law and code of conduct for officers and
another for civilians, and woe betide the civilian who resists the military
pretensions. The incidents at Zabern in Alsace in 1913 are still fresh
in public memory, reinforced by evidence of a similar spirit in German
military proclamations in France and Belgium. But it is important to
realise that these incidents are not exceptional outbursts but common
Prussian practice, upheld, as the sequel to the Zabern events proved, by
the highest authority.
Prussia, and through Prussia Germany, is in effect ruled in accordance with
the wishes of the official caste: and short of a popular rising nothing but
defeat can dethrone it. "Any one who has any familiarity at all with our
officers and generals," says an authoritative German writer, in words that
we may hope will be prophetic, "knows that it would take another Sedan,
inflicted on us instead of by us, before they would acquiesce in the
control of the Army by the German Parliament."[1] No clearer statement
could be given as to where the real power lies in Germany, and how stern
will be the task of displacing it.
[Footnote 1: Professor Delbrück (who succeeded to the chair of history
in Berlin held so long by Treitschke), in a book published early in 1914
(_Government and the Popular Will_, p. 136).]
The foreign policy of Prussia has reflected the same domineering spirit.
Its object has been the increase of its power and territory by conquest or
cunning: and by the successful prosecution of this policy it has extended
Prussian authority and Prussian influence over a large part of Western
Germany. The best way of illustrating this will be to quote a passage from
the _Recollections of Prince Bismarck,_ who directed Prussian policy from
1862 to 1890. In 1864 trouble arose as to the succession to the Duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein on the Danish border. Prussia had no claim whatever
to the Duchies; but she coveted Holstein because it would give her a
Western sea-board, with the results that we all know. Bismarck describes
the arguments which he used to persuade his Royal Master to assert
his claim. "I reminded him," he writes, "that each of his immediate
predecessors had won an addition to the Monarchy": he then went through the
history of the six previous reigns, and ended by encouraging King
William to be worthy of his ancestors. His advice, as we have seen, was
successfully adopted.
[Illustration: PRUSSIA SINCE THE ACCESSION OF FREDERICK THE GREAT]
The conquest of France in 1870, by means of the military power of Germany
under Prussian leadership, made Prussia supreme in Germany, and the German
army supreme in Central Europe. The Treaty of Frankfurt in May 1871, by
which the new French Republic ceded to the German Empire the two French
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, marked the opening of a new epoch in
European history, the period of the Armed Peace, which ended in 1914. It
marked also the opening of a new epoch in Germany, some features of which
we must now examine.
§4. _Germany since 1870_.--German history from 1871 to 1914 falls into two
well-defined periods. During the first period, from 1871 to 1888, Germany
was ruled by her Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bismarck. But the accession of
the present Kaiser led to a change, not in the letter, but in the spirit of
the new constitution, and since 1890, when William II. "dropped the pilot"
and selected a more amenable successor, the real control of policy has lain
with the Emperor.
The relations between Prince Bismarck and the old Emperor, who was over
ninety when he died in 1888, form a touching passage in modern history.
Although his grandson has publicly claimed for him a peculiar measure of
divine inspiration, his strength lay in his implicit confidence in his
great minister. Bismarck's attitude to him, as described in his _Memoirs_,
is rather like that of an old family retainer who has earned by long and
faithful service the right to assert his views and to pit his judgment
against his master's. His one formidable antagonist was the Empress; and
long experience, he tells us, enabled him to judge whether difficulties in
persuading the old Kaiser to adopt a given line of policy were due to
his own judgment or conceived "in the interests of domestic peace." The
faithful servant had his own appropriate methods of winning his way in
either case.
But with the new Kaiser the old minister's astuteness availed nothing,
and the story of Bismarck's curt dismissal, after thirty-eight years
of continuous service, from the post which he had created for himself,
illustrates the danger of framing a constitution to meet a particular
temporary situation. Bismarck, put out of action by his own machinery,
retired growling to his country seat, and lived to see the reversal of his
foreign policy and the exposure of Germany, through the Franco-Russian
Alliance, to the one danger he always dreaded, an attack on both flanks.
Like Germany's present rulers, Bismarck was not a scrupulous man; but
unlike them he was shrewd and far-sighted, and understood the statesmen and
the peoples with whom he had to deal. The main object of his foreign policy
was to preserve the prestige of the German army as the chief instrument of
power in Central Europe, and to allow the new Germany, after three wars in
seven years, time to develop in peace and to consolidate her position as
one of the Great Powers.
The situation was not an easy one; for Germany's rapid rise to power,
and the methods by which she had acquired it, had not made her popular.
Bismarck's foreign policy was defensive throughout, and he pursued it along
two lines. He sought to strengthen Germany by alliances, and to weaken her
rivals by embroiling them with one another. The great fruit of his policy
was the formation, completed in 1882, of the Triple Alliance between
Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
There was nothing sentimental about the Triple Alliance. The Italians hate
the Austrians, whom they drove out of Venice as recently as 1866, while
neither the German Austrians nor the other races in the Dual Monarchy have
any love lost for the Prussians. But Bismarck decided that this combination
was the safest in Germany's interest: so he set to work to play upon
Austria's fear of Russia, and to embroil Italy with France in North Africa;
and his manoeuvres were duly rewarded.
But this was not sufficient. Faced with the implacable hostility of France,
on account of the lost provinces, Bismarck saw danger of trouble from a
French Coalition with the two remaining Great Powers, Britain and Russia.
Bismarck never liked England; but he never made his successors' mistake of
despising her. He cultivated good relations, but he rejected the idea of an
alliance, because, as he said, "the English constitution is not compatible
with treaties of assured continuity." In other words, he fought shy of
British democracy, which he felt to be an incalculable factor. This threw
him back upon Russia.
The relations between the German and the Russian peoples have never been
cordial. But between the reactionary bureaucracies of the Prussian and
Russian governments there was a strong bond of mutual interest, which
Bismarck exploited to the full. Both had popular movements to hold in
check, both had stolen goods to guard in the shape of their Polish
possessions, and both had an interest in the preservation of reactionary
institutions. The influence of Prussia upon Russia, and of the efficient,
highly-organised, relentless Prussian machine upon the arbitrary,
tyrannical, but far less efficient and inhuman bureaucracy of Russia, has
been wholly sinister[1], both for Russia and for Europe. Bismarck's object,
of course, was not so much to keep down the Russian revolutionaries as to
check the aspirations of the Panslavists, whose designs for the liberation
of the Slav nationalities, as we now see them unfolding, threaten the
stability both of Prussia and of Austria-Hungary.
[Footnote 1: The same remark applies to the influence of Germany on
Turkey.]
Throughout the 'eighties Bismarck succeeded in keeping on foot a secret
understanding with Russia. How deeply he had implanted the necessity of
this policy in the mind of William I. is brought home by the fact that it
was the thought uppermost in the old man's mind as he lay on his deathbed.
"Never lose touch with the Tsar," whispered the old man to his grandson,
when he was almost too weak to speak. "There is no cause for quarrel."
The old Emperor died in 1888. In 1890 the young Emperor "dropped the
pilot." In the same year Russia refused to renew her secret treaty. In 1891
the first Franco-Russian Treaty was signed, and the diplomatic supremacy
of Europe passed from the Triple Alliance to be shared between the two
opposing groups with which we have been familiar in recent years.
The disappearance of Prince Bismarck marked the beginning of a new phase in
German policy and in German life. The younger generation, which had come
to maturity, like the Kaiser, since 1870, had never known the old divided
Germany, or realised the difficulties of her statesmen. Every one wondered
what use the young Kaiser would make of the great Army bequeathed to him.
He was believed to be a firebrand. Few believed that, imbued with Prussian
traditions, he would keep the peace for twenty-five years; fewer still
that, when he broke it, Germany would have the second Navy in the world.
But we are not now concerned with the baffling personality of the Kaiser
himself. What is important for us here is the general attitude of mind
among the German public of the Kaiser's generation, which has rendered
possible the prosecution of the cherished ideas of their ruler.
The school of thought which has been steadily gaining force, under official
encouragement, during the last twenty-five years is best summed up in
the popular watchwords, "Germany's place in the sun" and "World-Policy"
(_Weltpolitik_). These phrases embody, for Germans, who always tend to be
abstract in their thinking, not only a practical policy, but a philosophy
of human society and government.
This is not the place in which to analyse in detail the outlook upon life
(_Weltanschauung_) of the man in the street in modern Germany. It is a
confused and patchwork philosophy, drawn, consciously or unconsciously,
from many quarters--from the old cosmopolitan tradition of German culture,
dating from Goethe and Leasing; from the brave and arrogant claims
of Fichte and the prophets and poets of the Napoleonic era; from the
far-reaching influence of Hegel and his idealisation of the Prussian State;
from the reaction to "realism" in politics after 1848; from the prestige
of Bismarck and the deep impression made by the apparent success of his
methods and principles; from the gifted Prussian historians, Treitschke and
Sybel, who set their own interpretation upon Bismarck's work and imprinted
it, by speech and pen, upon the mind of the German nation; and from a
hasty interpretation of the theories of writers like Nietzsche and
Thomas Carlyle, with their exaltation of "heroes" and "supermen," their
encouragements to "live dangerously," their admiration for will-power
as against reason and feeling, and their tirades against legal shams,
"ballot-box democracy," and flabby humanitarianism.
The practical object of the policy of _Weltpolitik_ can be simply stated.
It is to extend to the other continents, and to the world as a whole,
the power and the prestige secured for Germany in Europe by the work of
Bismarck. "When Germany had won a mighty position on a level with the older
Great Powers," says Prince Bülow, "the path of international politics
lay open to her ... In the Emperor William II. the nation found a
clear-sighted, strong-willed guide who led them along the new road."
Some such expansion of German influence was inevitable from the facts of
her economic development since 1871. The population of the Empire, which
in 1871 was 41,000,000, has now risen to 65,000,000. The resources of the
country, the neglect of which during the days of disunion had forced
so many Germans to emigrate for a livelihood, have been rapidly and
scientifically developed. Already in the 'eighties "Made in Germany" had
become a familiar talisman, and, before the outbreak of the present war,
Germany ranked with the United States as the second greatest commercial
power in the world.
Simultaneously, of course, there has been a great change in the
distribution of the population. In the year 1850 65 per cent, and in 1870
47 per cent of the working population were engaged in agriculture. By 1912
the proportion had sunk to 28.6 per cent.
It was inevitable also that Germany should share with the other Great
Powers in the work of colonial government. The adjustment of the relations
between the advanced and backward races of mankind is the greatest
political task of our age; it is a responsibility shared jointly between
all the civilised States, and when in the 'eighties and 'nineties the vast
regions of Africa were partitioned amongst them, Germany, late in the
field, asserted her claims and received her share in the responsibility.
Rapid economic development and a colonial empire--what was there in these
to cause hostility between Germany and Great Britain? The United States
have passed through a similar development and have accepted a similar
extension of responsibility far outside their own continent. America is a
great, a growing, and a self-respecting Power; yet Americans see no ground
for that inevitable conflict of interests between their country and Great
Britain which forms the theme of so many German books, from Prince Bülow's
candid self-revelations down to less responsible writers like Bernhardi.
The explanation lies in the nature of German thought and ambitions. When
Germans speak of "a place in the sun," they are not thinking of the spread
of German trade, the success of German adventure or enterprise, or of
the achievements of Germans in distant lands. They are thinking of the
extension of the German State. British influence beyond the seas has been
built up during the last four centuries by the character and achievements
of British pioneers. Downing Street has seldom helped, often hindered, and
generally only ratified the accomplished facts of British settlement and
influence. That is not the Prussian theory or the Prussian method. It is
for the State to win the territory, and then to set the people to work
there, on lines laid down from above. The individual Englishman, when
he goes out to colonise, carries England with him, as a part of his
personality. Not so the German, at least on the Prussian theory. "The _rare
case_ supervened," says Prince Bülow,[1] of an instance typical of the
building up of the British Empire, "that the establishment of State rule
_followed and did not precede_ the tasks of colonising and civilisation."
The State itself, on this theory, has a civilising mission of expansion
towards which it directs the activities of its citizens.
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, 1st ed., p. 249.]
Under the influence of ideas such as these, Germany, since the accession of
William II., has built a Navy second to that of Great Britain alone.
What was the purpose of the building of the German Navy? The German
official answer is that its purpose was the protection of German trade. "We
are now vulnerable at sea," says Prince Bülow. "We have entrusted millions
to the ocean, and with these millions, the weal and woe of many of our
countrymen. If we had not in good time provided protection for them ...
we should have been exposed to the danger of having one day to look on
defencelessly while we were deprived of them. We should have been placed in
the position of being unable to employ and support a considerable number of
our millions of inhabitants at home. The result would have been an
economic crisis which might easily attain the proportions of a national
catastrophe."
These words may yet prove prophetic. But the catastrophe will not be the
result of Germany's lack of a Navy; it will be the result of challenging
the naval supremacy of Great Britain.
Prince Bülow's argument assumes, as a basis, the hostility of Great
Britain. This assumption, as we know, was unjustified; and its persistence
in the German mind can only be set down to an uneasy conscience. The hard
fact of the matter is that it is impossible for Germany or for any other
Power successfully to defend her foreign trade in case of war with Great
Britain. No other Power thinks it necessary to attempt to do so, for no
other Power has reason to desire or to foresee a naval conflict with Great
Britain.
Ever since 1493, when the Pope divided the monopoly of traffic on the ocean
between Spain and Portugal, and English mariners flouted his edict,
Great Britain has stood for the policy of the Open Sea, and there is no
likelihood of our abandoning it. The German official theory of the purpose
of their Navy, with its suspicious attitude towards British sea-power, was,
in effect, a bid for supremacy, inspired by the same ideas which made
the German army, under Bismarck, supreme in Central Europe. The Kaiser's
speeches on naval matters, notably his famous declaration that "our future
is on the water," provide an official confirmation, if one were needed, of
the real nature of Germany's naval ambitions.
But what right, it may be asked, has Great Britain to this naval supremacy?
Why should we, more than any other Power, claim one of the elements for our
own? Has not Germany some reason to be jealous? Why should we not allow
her, together with ourselves, "a place on the Ocean"?
The answer to this lies in the character of the British Empire. One quarter
of the human race live under the Union Jack, scattered throughout the
oceans and controlled from a small island in the Western seas. For Great
Britain, alone among the States of the world, naval supremacy, and nothing
less, is a daily and hourly necessity. India realised this truth recently
in a flash when, after generations of silent protection by British
sea-power, German shells fell one night at Madras. Any Power that
challenges the naval supremacy of Great Britain is quarrelling, not with
the British Government or the British people, but with the facts of
history, of geography, and of the political evolution of the world. The
British Empire has not been built up, like the German, by the work of
statesmen and thinkers; it is not the result, as Germans think, of
far-seeing national policy or persistent ambition and "greed." It has
slowly taken shape, during the last four centuries, since intercourse was
opened up by sea between the different races of mankind, in accordance with
the needs of the world as a whole. Its collapse, at the hands of Germany or
any other Power, would not mean the substitution of a non-British Empire
for a British. It would inaugurate a period of chaos in all five continents
of the world.
The rulers and people of Germany, who counted on the "decadence" of Great
Britain and the disintegration of her unorganised Empire, did not realise
these simple facts. Their lack of perception was due partly to their
political inexperience; but a deeper reason for it lies in their wholly
false estimate as to what "world-policy" and "world-empire" mean. Trained
in the Prussian school, they thought of them, like soldiers, in terms of
conquest, glory, and prestige. That way lies Napoleonism. None of the great
Powers is wholly free from blame on this score. But until Germans realise,
as the other Powers are slowly realising, that the true basis of Empire is
not a love of glory but a sense of responsibility towards backward peoples,
it will be hard to readmit them into the comity of the Great Powers. Only
a sense of common purposes and ideals, and of joint responsibility for
world-problems, can make the Concert of Europe a reality.
Such is the general attitude of mind among the German public of the younger
generation. Let us now turn to the effect of this new outlook upon the
political parties and groupings.
The chief result has been the extinction in Germany, as a political force,
of the great liberal movement of the mid-nineteenth century which in
England, France, and other Western countries has grown and developed during
the last generation along lines corresponding to the needs of the new
century. The younger generation of middle-class Germans, indoctrinated
with "orthodox" and "national" opinions at school and on military service,
eschew the ideals which attracted their fathers and grandfathers in 1848;
and, although so-called "liberal," "free-thinking," and Radical parties
still exist, they have steadily been growing more militarist. Militarism in
its new guise, bound up with ideas of industrial and commercial expansion,
is far more attractive to them than in the form of the Prussian Army. The
Emperor's Navy Bills were from the first more popular in commercial and
industrial circles than with the old Prussian Conservatives. But as the
years went on the Kaiser succeeded in converting both the Junkers to his
Navy Bills and the middle classes to his Army Bills, so that by 1913, when
he demanded the "great national sacrifice" of a levy of 50 million pounds
by a tax, not on income, but on property, there was no difficulty whatever
about "managing" the Reichstag. "The Army Bill of 1913," says Prince Bülow,
"met with such a willing reception from all parties as had never been
accorded to any requisition for armaments on land and sea.... So far as man
can tell, every necessary and justifiable Army and Navy Bill will always be
able to count on a safe Parliamentary majority."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, p. 169.]
Prince Bülow's "safe Parliamentary majority" means, of course, a majority
sufficient to outvote the Social Democrats, with whom every German
Government has to reckon as a permanent opposition.
So far we have left the Social Democrats out of the picture. It was
necessary to do this, in discussing German policy and the relation between
the German Government and Reichstag opinion; for the German Government
itself habitually leaves them out of the picture. Hitherto in Germany, so
far as opinion on political questions has mattered at all, it is upper-and
middle-class opinion that has counted, as it counted in England up to fifty
years ago. To the German Government and to the ordinary educated German
the Social Democratic party, though it numbers in its voting ranks over 4
million German workmen and others, does not represent German opinion at
all: it represents something un-German and anti-German--a public enemy.
Between the Social Democrats and the rest of society a great gulf is fixed,
across which no intercourse is possible: as the pioneers who attempted to
introduce the Workers' Educational Association into Germany found, such
intercourse is forbidden from either direction. The Social Democrats are
the "Red Danger," "men who," in the Kaiser's words, are "the enemies of
Empire and Fatherland," and "unworthy" (except, of course, in war-time)
"to bear the name of Germans." We must go back a hundred years in English
history to realise the depth of the animosity between the Social Democratic
party and the rest of German society. "The word Radical," says an English
historian, "conveyed a very different meaning in 1816 to what it does
now.... The hands of the Radicals were supposed to be against every man,
and every man's hand was against them. Scott, when he talks of rebels in
arms, always styles them Radicals. 'Radicalism is a spirit,' wrote the
Vicar of Harrow in 1820, 'of which the first elements are a rejection of
Scripture, and a contempt of all the institutions of your country, and
of which the results, unless averted by a merciful Providence, must be
anarchy, atheism, and universal ruin.'"[1] The Vicar of Harrow in 1820 very
fairly sums up the substance of innumerable German speeches, pamphlets, and
election addresses in 1912 on the subject of the Social Democrats.
[Footnote 1: Spencer Walpole, _History of England_, vol. i. p. 348.]
How is this extraordinary position maintained? How is it possible that in a
modern, largely industrial community, the representatives of working-class
opinion should be regarded as public enemies?
The chief reason lies, of course, in the fact that the German Empire is not
a democracy and is not governed by ministers responsible to Parliament. The
immense numbers and rapid growth of the Social Democrats have therefore not
really been a menace to the Government. In fact, it has even been held in
some quarters that it has been to the interest of the German Government,
which is based on the Prussian military caste, to manoeuvre the Social
Democrats into an extreme position and then to hold them up as a terrible
example of what democracy means. "This," they can tell the German people,
"is the alternative to Prussian rule." A dangerous policy, it may be
argued, for the Social Democrats may some day secure a majority in the
Reichstag. The Prussian answer to this is that, without a redistribution
of seats, this is barely conceivable; and that, were it to take place,
the Reichstag would promptly be dissolved for new elections on a narrower
franchise. Bismarck himself contemplated this course, and his successors
would not shrink from it.
Another reason why it has been possible for the Government to ignore the
Social Democrats has been the absence of a practical alternative programme
on the part of the Social Democrats themselves. "If I had to make out a
school report for the Social Democratic Movement," said Prince Bülow in
the Reichstag on one occasion, "I should say, 'Criticism, agitation,
discipline, and self-sacrifice, I. _a_; positive achievements, lucidity of
programme, V. _b._'" The taunt is not undeserved. The Socialist Movement
in Germany has suffered, like so many German movements, through a rigid
adherence to logical theories. Under the leadership of old revolutionary
thinkers like Bebel it has failed to adapt itself to the facts of modern
German life. The vague phrases of its republican programme, survivals from
a past epoch of European thought, have attracted to it a large mass of
inarticulate discontent which it has never been able to weld into a party
of practical reformers. In the municipal sphere and in the field of Trade
Unionism, under the education of responsibility, German Socialism can show
great achievements; but in national policy it has been as helpless as the
rest of the German nation.
What effect, it will be asked, is the war of 1914 likely to have on the
German working-class movement? In 1848 middle-class Germany made its stand
for democracy. May we hope for a similar and more successful movement,
in the direction of Western ideals and methods of government, from
working-class Germany as a result of 1914?
It is a tempting prophecy; but the outlook is not propitious. Germany,
Prussian and South German, noble, bourgeois, and working class, has rallied
round the Emperor in this crisis of national history, as the brutal and
cynical directors of German policy calculated that she would. For the
Social Democratic Movement the war comes with a peculiar appeal. It is a
war against Russia, a country about which the German workman knows little
and understands less, but which he considers to be the home of a reaction
far blacker than that of his own country. A war of aggression against
the Western Powers would have found the Social Democrats divided. By
representing Russia as the aggressor and the Western Powers as the
shameless allies of the "Mongol," German diplomacy, more successful within
than without, made certain of enlisting Socialist support.
Moreover, the Socialists too have to pass through a natural reaction from
their refusal to recognise the forces of Nationality--from Utopian dreams
of international action by the peoples across the barriers of separate
governments. For the first time in the history of the party, German
Socialism has been allowed to be patriotic. It is an exhilarating and
heartening experience, and it is certain to leave an indelible mark upon
the spirit of the movement. The great party organisation, hitherto confined
to the sterile work of agitation, is being used to cope with the many
problems created by the war; and this work, rather than revolutionary
agitation, is likely to occupy it for some time to come.
A veil has fallen upon Germany: German books and papers are stopped at our
ports: we cannot know through what thoughts the German nation is passing.
But as we look with the mind's eye across the North Sea, past devastated
Belgium to the populous towns of industrial Germany, we see a people
skilful, highly instructed, and mechanically intelligent, yet equally
devoid either of personal initiative or of great and inspiring leadership.
Two generations of Prussian education have left German public life
practically empty of names of more than local reputation. Great changes are
needed--a change of institutions and a change of spirit; yet whence this
will come we cannot divine. Only, as democrats, we can say with confidence
that if the true spirit of the German people is to be liberated from its
long imprisonment, its freedom must be won, not from without, but from
within. Not Europe but only the Germans can make Germany herself again.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
1. GERMAN HISTORY
BRYCE. _Holy Roman Empire_. (Deals with mediaeval Germany, but also
contains a most interesting final chapter on Germany in the Nineteenth
Century, written in 1873.) 1904. (7s. 6d.)
CARLYLE. _Frederick the Great_, vol. i. (Best account in English of the
earlier history of Prussia.) (2s. 6d.)
H.A.L. FISHER. _Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany_. 1903. (12s. 6d.)
(Germany in the Napoleonic era.)
SEELEY. _Life of Stein_. 1878. 3 vols. (30s.) (The standard work in English
on reorganisation of Prussia after Napoleon.)
BISMARCK. _Reflections and Reminiscences_. (The guiding mind in Germany,
1862-1888.) 2 vols. 1898. (Can only be bought second-hand.)
HEADLAM. _Life of Bismarck_. 1899. (6s.) (Heroes of the Nations.)
HOLLAND. _Germany to the Present Day_. 1913. (2s. net.) A useful short
history if supplemented by other books.
POWICKE. _Bismarck_. 1914. (6d.) (People's Books.) (Excellent.) The two
great modern German historians are Treitschke and Sybel, for whom see
Gooch's _History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century_, pp. 140-53.
Treitschke's history is not available in English: Sybel's has been
translated under the title, _The Founding of the German Empire by William
I._ vols., New York, 1890-1891.
2. GERMANY UNDER WILLIAM II.
BÜLOW. _Imperial Germany_. 1914. (2s. net.) (The mind of the German
Government.)
SAUNDERS. _The Last of the Huns_. 1914. (1s. net.) (In spite of its
objectionable title this volume, by the late correspondent of the _Times_
in Berlin, is written with fairness and lucidity, and contains much
valuable information.)
HENRI LICHTENBERGER. _Germany and its Evolution in Modern Times._ 1913.
(10s. 6d net.) (Translated from the French: suggestive, especially on
economic questions and on the movements of German thought.)
W.H. DAWSON. _The Evolution of Modern Germany_. 1908. (5s. net.) (The best
general account of modern Germany in English.)
C. TOWER. _Germany of To-day._ 1913. Home University Library. (Is.) (Good.)
C. SAROLEA. _The Anglo-German Problem_. (2s.) (A useful popular account of
German political conditions and German policy.)
_Board of Education Special Reports_, vols. iii. and ix. (3s. 3d. and 2s.
7d.) Articles by Dr. M.E. Sadler on German Education.
_Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe_. (Imperial Chancellor, 1894-1900.) 2 vols.
1906. (24s. net.)
The Britannica War Books. _Germany_. (2s. 6d. net.) By W. Alison Phillips
and J.W. Headlam. (A somewhat carelessly abridged reprint from the standard
article in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.)
3. GENERAL BOOKS
H.S. CHAMBERLAIN. _The foundations of the Nineteenth Century_. English
translation. 2 vols. 1910. (25s. net.) (This book had an immense vogue in
Germany, and was particularly recommended by the Kaiser to his subjects.
It is full of interesting, if ill-founded, generalisations tending to
emphasise the importance of Race and to glorify the German race.)
THOMAS. _German Literature_. (6s.)
ROBERTSON. _German Literature_. 1914. Home University Library. (1s.)
HERFORD AND OTHERS. _Germany in the Nineteenth Century_. Manchester. 1912.
(2s. 6d.) Essays on different aspects of German development.
BERNHARDT. _Germany and the Next War_. 1912. (2s. net.) (The philosophy and
aims of Gorman militarism worked out.)
CRAMB. _Germany and England_. 1914. (2s. 6d. net.) (An account of
Treitschke and his school of thought: interesting for the light it throws
on German misconceptions about Great Britain.)
TREITSCHKE. _Selections from his Lectures on Politics_. 1914.
Translated by A.L. Gowans. (2s. net.)
The writings of the following German professors will be found interesting
if procurable: Oncken, Meinecke (both contributors to the _Cambridge Modern
History_), Delbrück, Sombart, Erich Marcks (see his lectures on Germany in
_Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_, edited by Kirkpatrick,
Cambridge, 1900, 4s. 6d.), Schiemann, Lamprecht, Schmoller, and F. von
Liszt.
_Note_.--Such considered German writings as have come to hand since the
outbreak of the war show little tendency to cope with the real facts of the
situation, or even to seek to understand them. They seem to indicate two
developments in German opinion.
(1) A great consolidation of German national unity (except, of course, in
Poland and Alsace-Lorraine).
(2) A tendency to forgo the consideration of the immediate issues and to
hark back in thought to 1870 or even to the Wars of Liberation. It
is difficult to judge of a nation in arms from the writings of its
stay-at-homes; but no one can read recent articles by the leaders of German
thought without feeling that the Germans are still, before all things and
incurably, "the people of poets and philosophers," and that, by a tragic
irony, it is the best and most characteristic qualities of the race which
are sustaining and will continue to sustain it in the conflict in which its
dreams have involved it.
CHAPTER IV
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
"For a century past attempts have been made to solve the Eastern Question.
On the day when it appears to have been solved Europe will inevitably be
confronted by the Austrian Question."--ALBERT SOREL (1902).
In April 1909, a week after the international crisis evoked by Austria's
annexation of Bosnia had come to an end, I paid my first visit to Cetinje,
the tiny mountain-capital of Montenegro, and was assured by the Premier,
Dr. Tomanovi, that the conflict had merely been postponed, not averted--a
fact which even then was obvious enough. "But remember," he said, "it is
a question of _Aut aut_ (either, or)--either Serbia and Montenegro or
Austria-Hungary. One or other has got to go, and you may rest assured that
in four, or at most five, years from now there will be a European war over
this very question." At the time I merely regarded his prophecy as a proof
of Serb megalomania, but it has been literally fulfilled.
In 1908-1909 Austria-Hungary, with the aid of her German ally, enforced
her wishes in respect of Bosnia upon a reluctant Europe; but instead of
following up this success by a determined effort to solve the Southern Slav
question on an Austrian basis, she allowed the confusion to grow yearly
worse confounded, and gradually created an intolerable situation from
which a peaceful exit was well-nigh impossible. The actual event which
precipitated the struggle, the event from which the diplomatic contest of
last July, and thus the great war, first proceeded, was the assassination
of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo on June 28 and
the consequent acute friction between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. But the
murder, as will be shown later, was merely made the pretext for Austria's
declaration of war. The real causes lie far deeper, and can only be
properly understood on the basis of an historical survey.
My apology for inflicting so many unfamiliar details upon the reader is
that the key to the whole situation lies in Austria-Hungary, and that upon
the fate of its provinces and races in this war depends to a very great
extent the question whether the new Europe which is to issue from this
fiery ordeal is to be better than the old Europe which is crumbling in
ruins before our eyes. For the moment a thick fog of war obscures this
point of view; but the time will assuredly come when it will emerge in its
true perspective.
In recent years it had become a cheap journalistic commonplace to refer to
the coming "inevitable" struggle between Teuton and Slav, and the present
war is no doubt widely regarded as proving the correctness of this theory,
despite the fact that the two chief groups of Teutons are ranged on
opposite sides, and that the Slavs enjoy the active support of Celts and
Latins also. That such a struggle has come, is in the last resort due to
the false conceptions of Nationality which underly the policy of the two
central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The freedom from foreign
oppression which the Germans so nobly vindicated against Napoleon has not
been extended to their own subject races, the Poles, Danes, and Lorrainers;
and recent years have seen the accentuation of a conflict the germs
of which may be detected as far back as the fatal crime of the Polish
Partition in the eighteenth century. The policy of Germanisation in Austria
has been gradually undermined by causes which it would take too long to
enumerate, but its sting has survived in the maintenance of a foreign
policy which treats 26,000,000 Slavs as a mere _annexe_ of militant
Germanism and as "gun-fodder" for the designs of Berlin; while in Hungary
the parallel policy of Magyarisation has increased in violence from year
to year, poisoning the wells of public opinion, creating a gulf of hatred
between the Magyars and their subject races (the Slovaks, Roumanians,
Croats, Serbs, etc.), and rendering cordial relations with the neighbouring
Balkan States impossible. Nor is it a mere accident that official Germany
and official Hungary should have pursued an actively Turcophil policy; for
the same tendencies have been noticeable in Turkey, though naturally in a
somewhat cruder form than farther west. Just as the Young Turk policy
of Turkification rendered a war between Turkey and the Balkan States
inevitable, so the policy of Magyarisation pursued by two generations of
Hungarian statesmen sowed the seeds of war between Austria and the Southern
Slavs. In the former case it was possible to isolate the conflict, in the
latter it has involved the greater part of Europe in a common disaster.
The struggle centres round the Austro-Serbian dispute. Let us then attempt
a brief survey of the two countries.
§1. _Austria and the Habsburgs_.--Let us begin with Austria-Hungary. In
this country many misconceptions prevail regarding Austria-Hungary; nor is
this surprising, for it is unique among States, and whether we regard it
from a political, a constitutional, a racial, or a social point of view,
the issues are equally complicated and difficult to sum up. With the aid
of a good gazetteer it is easy enough to elicit the facts that the
Austria-Hungary of to-day is a state of fifty-two million inhabitants,
divided into three component parts: _(a)_ the Empire of Austria, _(b)_ the
Kingdom of Hungary, each with subdivisions which will be referred to later,
and _(c)_ the annexed provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, jointly administered
by the two Governments. But this bald fact is meaningless except in
connection with the historical genesis of the Habsburg State.
[Illustration: AUSTRIA-HUNGARY; PHYSICAL]
Austria--_Oesterreich_--is the ancient Eastmark or frontier province, the
outpost of Carlovingian power against the tribes of the east, then of
the mediaeval German Empire against Slav and Magyar. Under the House of
Habsburg, which first rose to greatness on the ruins of a Greater Bohemia,
Austria grew steadily stronger as a distinct unit. Two famous mottoes sum
up the policy of that dynasty in the earlier centuries of its existence.
_Austriae est Imperare Orbi Universo_ (Austria's it is to Rule the
Universe) ran the device of that canny Frederick III., who, amid much
adversity, laid the plans which prompted an equally striking epigram about
his son and successor Maximilian, the "Last of the Knights"--_Bella gerant
alii, tu, felix Austria, nube_ (Let others wage war; do thou marry, O
fortunate Austria!). There were three great stages in Habsburg marriage
policy. In 1479 Maximilian married the heiress of Charles the Bold, thus
acquiring the priceless dowry of the Low Countries (what are now Belgium
and Holland). In 1506 his son Philip added the crown of Spain and the
Indies by his marriage with the heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella. In
1526, when the battle of Mohács placed Hungary at the mercy of the Turks,
Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand, in his wife's name, united Bohemia,
Hungary, and Croatia with the Austrian duchies.
Henceforth for over two centuries Austria and Habsburg became the bulwark
of Christendom against the Turks; though delayed by wars of religion and by
the excesses of religious bigotry, they yet never lost sight of the final
goal. Twice--at the beginning and at the end of this period, in 1527 and
1683--the Turks were before the very walls of Vienna, but the second of
these occasions represents their final effort. In the closing years of the
seventeenth and the first two decades of the eighteenth centuries the tide
finally rolled back against them. Foremost among the victors stands out the
great name of Prince Eugene, comrade-in-arms of our own Marlborough, whose
song, "Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter" (Prince Eugene, the noble Knight),
has been sung in July and August 1914 on the streets of Vienna, just as
"Marlbrook s'en va-t-en guerre" might be sung by our Belgian allies. The
peace of 1718 represents Habsburg's farthest advance southwards; Belgrade
and half of present-day Serbia owned allegiance to Vienna. Then came the
check of 1739, when these conquests were restored to the Sultan. Due merely
to incompetent generals, it need not have been permanent, had not Frederick
the Great created a diversion from the north. By the time that the War of
Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War were over, that expansion
southwards which had seemed so certain was irrevocably postponed. The
organisation of fresh "Military Frontiers," the colonisation of waste lands
in South Hungary--all was admirable so far as it went, but was already a
defensive rather than an offensive measure. Meanwhile a formidable rival
appeared in the shape of the Russian colossus, and the history of two
centuries is dominated by Austro-Russian rivalry in the Balkans. Here
we are confronted by the first of those lost opportunities in which the
history of modern Austria is unhappily so rich.
During the eighteenth century Austria became, as it were, the chief home
of bureaucratic government, first under Maria Theresa, one of the greatest
women-sovereigns, then under her son Joseph II. A series of "enlightened
experiments" in government, typical of the age of Voltaire and of
Frederick, and honestly conducted _for_ the people, though never _by_ the
people, ended as such experiments are apt to end, in failure. The most that
can be said is that the bureaucratic machine had become more firmly fixed
in the groove which it was henceforth to occupy.
The failure of Joseph II. was above all due to his inability to recognise
the meaning of Nationality, to his attempt to apply Germanisation as the
one infallible remedy for all internal difficulties in his dominions. The
idea of Nationality, already gaining strength, obtained a fresh impetus
from the French Revolution. While in the west it sowed the seeds of United
Italy and United Germany, which the nineteenth century was to bring to
fruition, in the Balkans it stirred waters which had seemed dead for
centuries, and led to the uprising of the Serbs and Greeks, then of the
Roumanians, and finally a generation later of the Bulgarians. In the
Habsburg dominions the same movement revealed itself in the revival of
national feeling in Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia, but nowhere more
strongly than in Hungary, where it was accompanied by a remarkable literary
revival and the appearance of a group of Magyar poets of real genius.
The Kingdom of Hungary, which from 1526 to 1687 had been partially under
Turkish rule, led a vegetable existence during the eighteenth century. This
lull was a necessary period of recuperation after exhausting wars.
The ancient Hungarian constitution, dating in its essentials from the
thirteenth century, but fallen on evil days during the Turkish era, now
came more and more out of abeyance. Its fundamental principles were
reaffirmed by the famous laws of Leopold II. (1790-92), and after a further
relapse due to the Napoleonic wars, a long series of constitutional and
linguistic reforms were introduced by successive parliaments between 1825
and 1848.
Without entering into a discussion of the Hungarian constitution, it is
well to point out one factor which lies at the root of all political and
constitutional development in Hungary and explains the Magyar outlook
for centuries past, even up to the present day. Till 1840 Latin was the
official language of the country, and in that Latin the term for the
political nation was _Populus_, which we would naturally translate as
people. But populus contrasted in Hungarian law with plebs, the _misera
plebs contribuens,_ that phrase of ominous meaning to describe the mass of
the oppressed and unenfranchised people, the populus being the nobles, a
caste which was relatively very wide, but none the less a caste, and which
enjoyed a monopoly of all political power. Till 1848 only the populus could
vote, only the plebs could pay taxes--a delightful application of the
principle, "Heads I win, tails you lose!" In 1848 the distinction was
broken down in theory, the franchise being extended beyond the privileged
class by the initiative of that class itself. But in effect the distinction
has survived to the present day in a veiled form. Political power, and,
above all, the parliamentary franchise and the county elective bodies,
continued to be a monopoly--henceforth a monopoly of the Magyar nobility,
_plus_ those classes whom they had assimilated and attached to their
cause, _against_ the other races, forming more than half the population of
Hungary. This point of populus and plebs may seem at first sight somewhat
pedantic and technical; but in reality it is the key which explains the
whole social structure of Hungary, even its economic and agrarian problems.
The period from the death of Joseph II. to the great revolutionary movement
of 1848 may be regarded, so far as eastern Europe is concerned, as a period
when nationality is simmering everywhere. It is a period of preparation for
the rise of national States--ushered in by the great crime of the Polish
Partition, to which so many modern evils may be traced, and closed by a
sudden explosion which shook Europe from Paris to Budapest, from Palermo to
Berlin. The first stage was of course the long Napoleonic war, during which
the seed was sown broadcast; the second, the era of reaction and political
exhaustion (1815-1848), when all that was best in Europe concentrated in
the Romantic movement in literature, art, and music.
For Austria this period was bound up with the name of Metternich, who
personified the old hide-bound methods of the bureaucracy, the diplomacy of
a past age, to which the nations were mere pawns on a chessboard. Under him
the "Police-State" assumed its most perfect form, a form not even surpassed
by Russia from 1881 to 1905.
Then came the year 1848, when the dams burst. The Hungarian constitution,
restored in its entirety, became for a time the watchword and inspirer
of the movement, while Austria for the first time received a serious
constitution. Unhappily the issue between Reaction and Progress was not
a clear one. The Magyars in Hungary unquestionably stood for historic
development and constitutional rights, but they also stood for racial
hegemony, for the forcible assimilation of all the other races, for a
unitary Magyar State instead of the old polyglot Hungary. They thus
drove all the other races to coalesce with the dynasty and the forces of
reaction. The result was a violent racial war, with all kinds of excesses.
Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Roumanians, Saxons, all fought against the Magyars,
and finally the scale was turned by the Russian troops who poured across
the Carpathians in the name of outraged autocracy.
There followed the inevitable reaction, which again can be best summed up
in two phrases--that of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, "Austria will astonish
the world by her ingratitude," so strikingly fulfilled in the Crimean War,
when Austria left Russia in the lurch; and that of a Hungarian patriot,
"The other races have received as reward what we Magyars receive as
punishment." In short, the statesmen of Vienna, untaught by experience,
reverted to the old bureaucratic and absolutist _régime_.
For ten years (1849-1859) this endured--Clericalism rampant, financial
ruin, stagnation everywhere. Then Nationality burst its bonds once more.
The war with Napoleon III. ended in Austria's loss of Lombardy and the
creation of the Italian kingdom. Faced by the bankruptcy of the whole
political and financial system, Francis Joseph launched into a period of
constitutional experiment. Following the line of least resistance,
as throughout his long reign, he inclined now to federalism, now to
centralism, and he was still experimenting when the war of 1866 broke out.
For Austria this war was decisive, for its results were her final expulsion
both from Germany and from Italy, and the creation of that fatal Dual
System which has distorted her whole subsequent development.
Under the Ausgleich or Compromise of 1867 the Dual Monarchy is composed of
two equal and separate States, the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of
Hungary, each possessing a distinct parliament and cabinet of its own, but
both sharing between them the three Joint Ministries of Foreign Affairs,
War, and Finance. The chiefs of these three offices are equally responsible
to both Delegations, which are committees of the two Parliaments, sitting
alternately in Vienna and Budapest, but acting quite independently of each
other.
This system really secured the political power in Austria and Hungary to
two races--the Germans and the Magyars, and they, as the strongest in each
country, bought off the two next strongest, the Poles and the Croats, by
the grant of autonomy to Galicia and Croatia. The remaining eight were not
considered at all. At first this ingenious device seemed to offer fair
prospects of success. But ere long--for reasons which would lead us too
far--the German hegemony broke down in Austria, and the whole balance was
disturbed. It gradually became clear that the system was only workable when
one scale was high in the air. The history of the past forty-seven years is
the history of the gradual decay of the Dual System. Austria has progressed
in many ways; her institutions have steadily grown freer, her political
sense has developed, universal suffrage has been introduced, racial
inequalities have been reduced though not abolished, industry, art, and
general culture have advanced steadily. But she has been continually
hampered by Hungary, where racial monopoly has grown worse and worse. The
Magyar Chauvinists attempted the impossible--the assimilation by seven
million people of twelve million others. Yet in spite of every imaginable
trick--a corrupt and oppressive administration, gross manipulation of the
franchise, press persecution, the suppression of schools and ruthless
restriction of every form of culture--the non-Magyar races are stronger
to-day than in 1867. And the result of the struggle has been in Hungary a
decay of political standards, a corruption of public life, such as fills
even the greatest optimists with despair.
§2. _Hungary and Magyar Misrule_.--Such an assertion may seem to run
counter to the common idea of Hungary as the home of liberty and the
vanguard of popular uprisings against despotism, and it is certainly
incompatible with the arrogant claim of Magyar Statesmen that "nowhere
in the world is there so much freedom as in Hungary." At the risk of
disturbing the proportion of this chapter, I propose to give a few classic
illustrations of Magyar methods, selected almost at random from an
overwhelming mass of damning evidence.
On paper Hungary possesses a most admirable and enlightened law
guaranteeing "the Equal Rights of Nationalities" (1868); in practice, it
has remained almost from the very first a dead letter. Let us take the
field of education. Every effort, legal and illegal, has been made to
Magyarise the educational system, with the result that in all the primary
and secondary schools under State control Magyar is the exclusive language
of instruction, while the number of denominational schools has been
steadily diminished and their sphere of action, as more favourable to the
non-Magyar races, materially restricted. Fifty years ago the Slovaks, who
even then numbered over two millions, possessed three gymnasia (middle
schools) which they had founded and maintained by their own exertions.
In 1875 all three were arbitrarily closed by orders of the Hungarian
Government, and since that date the unhappy Slovaks have not been allowed
a single secondary school in which their own language is taught, while the
number of their primary schools has been reduced from 1821 in 1869 to 440
in 1911. The deliberate aim is, of course, to prevent the growth of a
Slovak middle class. It is quite a common thing for schoolboys to be
persecuted or even dismissed for showing Slovak proclivities or even
talking their mother--tongue "ostentatiously" on the street. Only last year
a brilliant young Slovak student, known to me personally, was deprived by
the Magyar authorities of a scholarship in Oriental languages, for no
other reason than that he was "untrustworthy in a national sense"![1]
Such instances are even more frequent among the Roumanians of Hungary.
A specially notorious case occurred in March 1912 at Grosswardein, when
sixteen Roumanian theological students were expelled from the Catholic
seminary for the "demonstrative use" of their language, which was regarded
as offensive by their fellow-students and professors!
[Footnote 1: This document is in my possession.]
Linguistic restrictions are carried to outrageous lengths. There is not
a single inscription in any language save Magyar in any post office or
railway station throughout Hungary. Slovak medals and stamps, produced
in America and bearing such treasonable inscriptions as "For our Slovak
language" and "I am proud to be a Slovak," have been confiscated in
Hungary. Only Magyar inscriptions are tolerated on the tombstones of the
Budapest cemeteries. The erection of monuments to Roumanian or Slovak
patriots has more than once been prohibited, and the funds collected have
been arbitrarily seized and applied to Magyar purposes. National colours,
other than the Magyar, are strictly forbidden. Two years ago, at the
funeral of a Roumanian poet at Kronstadt (Transylvania) gendarmes pressed
up to the hearse and clipped off the colours from a wreath which had been
sent by the Society of Journalists in Bucarest. About the same time a nurse
was sent to prison because a child of three was found wearing a Roumanian
tricolor bow, and its parents were reprimanded and fined. Last July on the
very eve of war, fifteen theological students, returning to Bucarest from
an excursion into Transylvania, were arrested at the frontier by Hungarian
gendarmes, hauled by main force out of the train, sent back to Hermannstadt
and kept for days in gaol; their offence consisted in waving some Roumanian
tricolors from the train windows as they steamed out of the last station in
Hungary!
No law of association exists in Hungary, and the government uses its
arbitrary powers to prohibit or suppress even such harmless organisations
as temperance societies, choral unions, or women's leagues. Perhaps the
most notorious examples are the dissolution of the Slovak Academy in
1875 and of the Roumanian National Party's organisation in 1894; but the
treatment meted out to trades unions and working-class organisations, both
Magyar and non-Magyar, for years past, has been equally scandalous. The
right of assembly is no less precarious in a country where parliamentary
candidates are arrested or expelled from their constituencies, where
deputies are prevented from addressing their constituents, where an
electoral address is often treated as a penal offence.
As for Hungary's electoral system, the less said the better.
Gerrymandering, a narrow and complicated franchise, bribery and corruption
on a gigantic scale, the wholesale use of troops and gendarmes to prevent
opposition voters from reaching the polls, the cooking of electoral rolls,
illegal disqualifications, sham counts, official terrorism, and in many
cases actual bloodshed--such are but a few of the methods which preserve a
political monopoly in the hands of a corrupt and increasingly inefficient
racial oligarchy, in a country where the absence of the ballot places the
peasant peculiarly at the mercy of the authorities. Small wonder, then, if
the non-Magyar races of Hungary, who on a basis of population would have
had 198 deputies, never were allowed to elect more than 25, and if even
this scanty number was at the infamous elections of 1910 reduced by
terrorism and corruption to eight!
In judicial matters the situation is no less galling. Petitions are
not accepted in the courts, unless drawn up in Magyar, and the whole
proceedings are invariably conducted in the same language. The non-Magyar
"stands like an ox" before the courts of his native land, and a whole
series of provisions exists for his repression, notably the monstrous
paragraphs dealing with "action hostile to the State," with the "incitement
of one nationality against another" and with the "glorification of a
criminal action"--applied with rigorous severity to all political opponents
of Magyarisation but never to its advocates. Let me cite one classic
example of the latter. In 1898 a well-known Slovak editor was sentenced
to eight months' imprisonment for two articles severely criticising the
Magyarisation of place-names in Hungary. On his return from prison he
was met at the railway station of the little county town by a crowd of
admirers: songs were sung, a short speech of welcome was delivered and a
bouquet of flowers was presented. The sequel of this perfectly orderly
incident was that no fewer than twenty-four persons, including Mr. Hurban
the leading Slovak poet, were sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying
from fourteen days to six months. The three girls who had presented the
flowers were let off with a fine of £16.
Perhaps the reader will regard me as a very dangerous conspirator, when I
tell him that in June 1910 an old lady of seventy-three, the widow of a
high-school headmaster, was fined £4 because I had called at her house for
twenty minutes on election day without its being notified to the police,
and that in June 1914 an enquiry was instituted by the local authorities
against some Slovak friends who had entertained me to luncheon! And yet I
can honestly assert that I have never been guilty of any worse crime than
Captain Grose, of whom Burns warned my countrymen a hundred years ago in
the famous line:
A chiel's amang ye takin' notes!
The fabric of Magyar rule is far too rotten and corrupt to regard with
equanimity any extensive note-taking on the part of the outer world.
Whole books might be written to illustrate the contention that in matters
of education, administration, and justice, of association and assembly, of
the franchise and the press, the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary have
long been the victims of a policy of repression which is without any
parallel in civilised Europe. It is this Magyar system, from which I have
lifted but a corner of the veil, that is one of the mainsprings of the
present war, and if there is to be a new and healthy Europe in the future,
this system must be swept away root, branch and stock. To such lengths has
national fanaticism driven the Magyars that in 1906 it was possible for an
ex-Premier of Hungary, speaking in open Parliament amid the applause of the
majority, to lay down the following axiom: "The legal State is the aim:
but with this question we can only concern ourselves when we have already
assured the national State.... Hungary's interests demand its erection on
the most extreme Chauvinist lines." Men who applaud such a sentiment
are worthy allies of those so-called statesmen who regard international
treaties as "a mere scrap of paper."
§3. _The Decay of the Dual System_.--The radical divergence of political
development in Austria and in Hungary, its paralysing effect upon the
foreign policy of the Monarchy as a whole, coupled with the growth
of national feeling among the minor nationalities and their steady
emancipation from the economic thraldom of the German and the Jew--all this
has slowly but surely undermined the Dual System and rendered its final
collapse inevitable. Indeed for some time past it has merely owed its
survival to the old age of the Emperor, who has a natural reluctance to
destroy his own creation. For some years it has been known that his heir,
Francis Ferdinand, was the advocate of far-reaching changes, which would
have taken the form of a compromise between a federalist and a centralist
system. His abrupt removal from the scene was secretly welcomed by all
those whose political and racial monopoly was bound up with the existing
_régime_.
German dominance in Austria, it should be added, meant a close alliance
with the German Empire; and every fresh effort of the subject races to
emancipate themselves from Germanising or Magyarising tendencies forged the
chains of the alliance closer and increased the dependence of the Magyar
oligarchy upon Berlin. As in mediaeval times, so in the twentieth century
Habsburg policy is explained by two famous Latin mottoes--_Viribus unitis_
("Union is strength") and _Divide et impera_ ("Divide and rule"). Between
these two watchwords Francis Joseph and his advisers have wavered for
sixty-five years.
What then are the forces which have held Austria-Hungary together under
Francis Joseph? First unquestionably comes the dynasty; for it would be
difficult to over-estimate the power exercised by the dynastic tradition on
the many races under Habsburg sway. Next comes the Joint Army; for there is
no finer body of men in Europe than the Austrian officers' corps, poorly
paid, hard-worked, but inspired to the last man with unbounded devotion to
the Imperial house, and to a large extent immune from that spirit of caste
which is the most offensive feature of the allied German army.[1] Hardly
less important are the Catholic Church, with its vast material resources
and its powerful influence on peasant, small tradesman and court alike,
and the bureaucracy, with its traditions of red tape, small-mindedness,
slowness of movement and genial _Gemütlichkeit_ ("easy-goingness"). It is
only _after_ these forces that we can fairly count the parliaments and
representative government. And yet there are no fewer than twenty-three
legislative bodies in the Monarchy--the two central parliaments of Vienna
and Budapest, entirely distinct from each other; the two Delegations; the
provincial Diets, seventeen in Austria, one in Croatia; and the Diet of
Bosnia, whose every legislative act requires the ratification of the Joint
Minister of Finance and of the Austrian and Hungarian Governments.
[Footnote 1: It is in no way a "preserve" of the aristocracy, being largely
recruited from the middle and even lower-middle class.]
Against all this there is one supremely disintegrating force--the principle
of Nationality. Only a map can make clear the racial complications of
the Dual Monarchy, and even the largest scale map fails to show how
inextricably the various races are interwoven in many districts of Hungary
or Bohemia. The following table offers at least a statistical survey:
(1) Racial-- Austria. Hungary. Bosnia.
Germans 9,950,266 2,037,435 ..
Czechs {6,435,983 .. ..
Slovaks { 1,967,970 ..
Poles 4,967,984 .. ..
Ruthenes 3,518,854 472,587 ..
Magyars (including
900,000 Jews) .. 10,050,575 ..
Croats } 783,334 1,833,162 {1,875,000
Serbs } 1,106,471 {
Slovenes 1,252,940 .. ..
Roumanians 275,422 2,949,032 ..
Italians 768,422 27,307 ..
Others .. 374,105 ..
(2) Religious--
Roman Catholic 22,530,000 10,888,138 451,686
Uniate Catholic 3,417,000 2,025,508 ..
Orthodox 660,000 2,987,163 856,158
Calvinist } 589,000 2,621,329 ..
Lutheran } 1,340,143 ..
Mohammedan .. .. 626,649
Jewish 1,314,000 932,458 ..
Minor Sects 56,000 91,748 ..
Total population 28,324,940 20,886,487 1,898,044
§4. _The Genesis of the Southern Slavs._--The foregoing survey of
tendencies in Austria-Hungary is utterly incomplete and inadequate, but it
may perhaps serve as a basis for further study. Let us now consider her
rival in the dispute which has led to the great war--Serbia.
Here, at the outset, it cannot be emphasised too strongly that those who
regard the problem merely as a dispute between the government of Vienna and
the government of Belgrade have not grasped even its elements. The Southern
Slav question goes far deeper and wider than that; it must be treated as a
whole, and of it Serbia is only a part. In any study of the Slavonic races
the first fact which emerges is that they fall naturally into two main
groups--the northern and the southern--divided by a solid wedge of three
non-Slavonic races, the German, the Magyar, and the Roumanian, stretching
from the Kiel Canal to the Black Sea. It is with the southern group that we
are concerned.
The Southern Slavs fall into four sections--the Slovenes, Croats, Serbs,
and Bulgars, who between them occupy the whole country from southern
Carinthia to central Thrace. The significance of the Bulgars will be dealt
with elsewhere, and of the Slovenes it will suffice for our present purpose
to say that they are a small and ancient race, of vigorous stock and
clerical leanings, whose true importance lies in their geographical
position and its latent possibilities for the future. The Croats and Serbs
occupy the border-line between West and East, between Rome and Byzantium,
between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Broadly speaking, every Croat is a
Catholic, every Serb an Orthodox. Broadly speaking again, the Croat
language is Serb written with Latin characters, the Serb language Croat
written in the Cyrilline alphabet.
Despite their common language, the two kindred races have never all been
united under a single ruler. From the ninth to the end of the eleventh
century the Duchy, then Kingdom, of Croatia was governed by native princes,
upon whose extinction it was conquered by Hungary. For eight centuries
Croatia has enjoyed an autonomous position under the Holy Crown of St.
Stephen; its scope has varied according to the political constellation,
but till 1912 its constant tradition had remained unbroken. Meanwhile the
Dalmatian coast towns remained a bone of contention between Venice and
Hungary; but the marble Lions on their battered walls are still the best
proof of the triumph of Italian culture within them. Ragusa alone resisted
both Venetians and Turks, and preserved herself inviolate as the home of
commerce and the muses, until her tiny Republic was destroyed by Napoleon
in 1808. The Kingdom of Serbia developed on more distinctively Slavonic
lines. During its great days in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
under the Nemanja dynasty it dominated the Balkan Peninsula, produced a
code of law which is unique in mediaeval records, developed a prosperous
commerce and mining industries, and seemed on the point of striking a new
note in architecture. Her greatest Tsar, Stephen Dushan, died mysteriously
of poison, when his hosts were already thundering at the gates of
Constantinople (1356). But the greatness of his empire did not survive him,
and only a generation later Serbian independence received its death-blow
on the fatal field of Kosovo--the Flodden of the Balkans, but an event
far direr in its consequences than Flodden was to Scotland. Bosnia and a
fragment of Serbia lingered on under more or less independent rulers till
the middle of the fifteenth century. Then the Turkish night replaced the
Turkish twilight. From 1463 to 1804 the national life of the Serbs lay
utterly crushed. In Serbia their nobility was literally wiped out, in
Bosnia it accepted Islam in order to save its lands. The relations of
conqueror and conquered are best characterised by the single fact that
a Christian who failed to dismount from his horse on meeting a Turk was
liable to be killed on the spot.
Throughout this period of utter gloom only two things served to keep alive
the Serb tradition--their splendid popular ballads, unequalled in Europe
for directness and imagination, save, perhaps, by the ballads of the
Anglo-Scottish Border; and the clergy of the Orthodox Church, poor ignorant
despised peasants like their flock, yet bravely keeping the national flame
burning. The one bright spot was the tiny mountain eyrie of Montenegro,
which stubbornly maintained its freedom under a long succession of
warrior-priests.
The Serb Patriarchate, which had long had its seat in Ipek, migrated to
Austria in 1690, at the special invitation of the Emperor Leopold I., and
has ever since been established (though the title of patriarch lapsed for a
time) at Karlowitz on the Danube. Large settlements of refugee Serbs from
Turkey followed their spiritual chief to Croatia, Slavonia and the southern
plains of Hungary between 1690 and 1740. The special privileges granted to
them by the emperor were, however, gradually undermined and revoked by the
Hungarian Estates. Meanwhile the "Military Frontiers" were extended on
essentially democratic lines: a land-tenure subject to military service
bred a hereditary race of soldiers and officers devoted to the Imperial
idea, and it has taken many long long years of bungling on the part of
Viennese and Magyar diplomacy to efface that devotion.
Thus the Habsburg dominions became the centre of culture for the Serbs,
whose literary revival came from Neusatz, Karlowitz and even Buda. It was
not only under Prince Eugene that they looked to the Habsburgs for aid.
Kara George, who led their first serious rising in 1804 more than once
offered himself to Vienna.
In the Balkans the Serbs were the first to revolt, and won their own
freedom, with less help than Greeks, Roumanians or Bulgarians, and under
far less favourable circumstances. Thus Serbia is essentially a self-made
man among States, built from the foundations upwards, and possessing no
aristocracy and hardly even a middle class. Her curse has been the rivalry
of two, or rather three native dynasties, the Karageorgevitch, the
Obrenovitch and the Petrovitch; and this rivalry has borne fruit in three
dastardly political crimes--the murder of the heroic Black George in 1817,
by order of his rival Milosh Obrenovitch; of Prince Michael, Serbia's
wisest ruler, by the adherents of George's son; and finally of King
Alexander and his wife in June 1903. The history of the Southern Slavs
for the last century has been a slow movement towards national unity,
overshadowed, sometimes hastened, sometimes paralysed, by the rivalry of
Austria and Russia for the hegemony of the Balkan Peninsula. Till 1875 the
influence of the two Powers alternated in Belgrade, and there was nothing
definite to suggest which influence would win, though of course Russia may
be said to have possessed an advantage in her position as the foremost
Orthodox power and as the greatest among the Slavonic brotherhood of races.
That year, however, brought a fresh rising of Bosnia and Herzegovina
against Turkish rule, and in defence of this purely Serbo-Croat province
public opinion in Serbia and Montenegro rose. Side by side the two little
principalities fought the Turks and risked their all upon the issue. The
provinces were to the last man friendly and welcomed their action. Then,
when the battle seemed won, Austria-Hungary at the Congress of Berlin
stepped in and occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina--with the active approval
of Disraeli and Salisbury. The inhabitants resisted stoutly, but were
overcome. Thus was realised the first stage upon the road of the Austrian
advance towards Salonica. Serbia received compensation at Nia, Pirot, and
Vranja; Montenegro acquired the open roadstead of Antivari and a scrap of
barren coast-line; but the hearts of both still clung to Bosnia.
Henceforth the friction between Vienna and Belgrade has been permanent,
though often latent. It was accentuated by the fact that King Milan was
little better than an Austrian agent, the most notorious example of this
being the ill-considered and ill-managed war with Bulgaria into which he
plunged Serbia at the instigation of the Ballplatz[1](1885). Afterwards, it
is true, Vienna intervened to rob the Bulgarians of the fruits of victory
and argued that Serbia was thus under her debt; but this crass application
of the principle of _divide et impera_ could not deceive any one. Milan was
a man of great ability, but vicious and corrupt. The ceaseless scandals
of his private life, the frequent political _coups d'etat_ in which
he indulged, tended to confirm the dislike of his subjects for the
Austrophilism with which he was identified. Alexander, his son and
successor, was even worse; indeed, it is not too much to say that he was
the most "impossible" monarch whom Europe has known since the days of the
Tsar Paul. His court was characterised by gross favouritism and arbitrary
revisions of the constitution; and his position became finally untenable
when he committed the fatal error of marrying Draga Mashin, a woman of no
position and notorious private character. Two incidents in her tragic story
remind us of similar scandals in English history--the fond delusion of Mary
Tudor and the legend of Mary of Modena's warming-pan. The last straw was
the design, widely attributed to her and the infatuated king, for securing
the succession to her brother, who had as little claim to the throne as
any other Serbian subject. On June 10, 1903, Alexander and Draga were
assassinated by a gang of Serbian officers, under circumstances of the
utmost brutality such as nothing can excuse. In the light of recent events,
however, it is important to note that both Austria and Russia knew of the
plot at least ten days before the murder and did nothing to stop it.[2]
On the day after the crime the _Fremdenblatt_, the organ of the
Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, published a leading article couched in
terms of the utmost cynicism, and declaring that it mattered little to
Austria-Hungary which dynasty reigned in Serbia. The Serbian Government
might have been excused for enclosing a copy of this article in its reply
to the Austrian Note of July 23, 1914!
[Footnote 1: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office.]
[Footnote 2: In 1908 this was confirmed to me by a distinguished member of
the then Austrian Cabinet, since dead, who was certainly in a position to
know.]
The Obrenovitch dynasty was thus at an end. Its rival, the Karageorgevitch
dynasty, returned to power--naturally under a black cloud of European
disgust and suspicion. King Peter is not, however, as black as he has
sometimes been painted. He fought gallantly in 1870 as a French officer; as
a young man he translated Stuart Mill's _Essay on Liberty_ into Serb, and
for a generation he lived by preference in democratic Geneva and in Paris.
Under him Serbia has for the first time enjoyed real constitutional
government. Quietly, as occasion arose, the regicides were removed to the
background, the old methods of favouritism were steadily discouraged, and
it is not too much to say that an entirely new atmosphere has been created
in Belgrade since 1903. Among the younger politicians in Serbia, as in
other Slavonic countries, the moral influence of Professor Masaryk, the
great Czech philosopher and politician, has grown more and more marked.
The depth of Serb aspirations in Bosnia has two obvious grounds--on the one
hand, pure national sentiment of the best kind; on the other, the urgent
economic need for a seaboard, Serbia being the only inland country in
Europe save Switzerland, and not enjoying the latter's favoured position
in the immediate vicinity of great world-markets. Austria-Hungary, on her
part, set herself deliberately not merely to block this access to the sea,
but also to keep Serbia in complete economic dependence. Under the new
dynasty the little kingdom showed a keener desire to shake off its
vassalage and find new markets. The so-called "Pig War"--the breeding
of swine is Serbia's staple industry, and the founders of her two rival
dynasties were wealthy pig-breeders--proved an unexpected success, for new
trade outlets were found in Egypt and elsewhere. But the initial strain
hit every peasant in his pocket and thus greatly accentuated the feeling
against Austria-Hungary. At this stage came the Young Turk revolution and
its sequel, the annexation of Bosnia. To any impartial observer it had been
obvious from the first that those who dreamt of Austria-Hungary's voluntary
withdrawal from the two provinces were living in a fool's paradise. The
formal act of annexation merely set a seal to thirty years of effective
Austrian administration, during which the Sultan's rule had been confined
to the official celebration of his birthday. Educational and agrarian
problems had been neglected, popular discontent had smouldered, but at
least great material progress had been made. Roads, railways, public
buildings had been created out of nothing, capital had been sunk, a new
machine of government had been constructed. Austria had come to stay, and
Aehrenthal, in annexing the provinces, felt himself to be merely setting
the seal to a document which had been signed a generation earlier. He
had failed to reckon with the outcry which this technical breach of
international law evoked: like Bethmann-Hollweg, he had no blind faith in
"scraps of paper," and had no scruple in tearing up the Treaty of Berlin on
which the whole Balkan settlement had rested. Nowhere was the outburst of
feeling so violent as in Serbia and Montenegro, who had never ceased to
dream of the lost Serb provinces. For some months the two little States
challenged the accomplished fact, and seemed bent on staking their very
existence upon war with the great neighbouring Monarchy. Aehrenthal
remained unmoved by their cries of impotent fury and settled down to a
trial of strength with his rival Izvolsky, the Russian Foreign Minister,
who encouraged the sister Slavonic States in their resistance. At length
in March 1909 Germany stepped forward in "shining armour" to support her
Austrian ally, and Russia, to avoid European war, gave way and abandoned
the Serbs to their fate. Nothing was left but a humiliating submission:
the Serbian Government was obliged to address a Note to the Great Powers,
declaring that the annexation and internal condition of Bosnia did not in
any way concern her.[1]
[Footnote 1: This declaration was made the basis of the Austrian Note to
Serbia in July 1914.]
§5. _The Renaissance of Serbia._--From this diplomatic defeat dates the
renaissance of Serbia. It restored her to a sense of hard realities, and
taught her to substitute hard work for loud talk. So rough a challenge put
the national spirit on its mettle. The brief period between 1908 and 1912
worked a real transformation in Belgrade, which could not fail to impress
those who took the trouble to look beneath the surface. Nowhere was the
change more marked than in the Serbian army, from which the regicide
elements had been slowly but steadily eliminated. The two Balkan wars of
1912-1913 revealed Serbia to the outside world as a military power, notable
alike for the élan of its infantry, the high efficiency of its artillery,
the close camaraderie of officers and men. The first use made of her
victories over the Turks was the occupation of northern Albania, her only
possible outlet to the sea so long as Dalmatia remains in Austrian hands.
Austria-Hungary, who had only remained inactive because she had taken a
Turkish victory for granted, now intervened, and by the creation of an
artificial Albanian State vetoed Serbia's expansion to the Adriatic. The
Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, short-sighted and indolent then
as now, failed to realise that the North Albanian harbours, for obvious
reasons of physical geography, could never be converted into naval bases,
save at a prohibitive cost, and that their possession by Serbia, so far
from being a menace to Austria, would involve the policing of a mountainous
tract of country, inhabited by a turbulent and hostile population. It ought
to have been obvious to him that the moment had arrived for tempting
the Serbs into the Austrian sphere of influence by the bait of generous
commercial concessions through Bosnia and Dalmatia. Several far-sighted
politicians in Austria urged this course upon him, and the Serbian Premier
actually approached Vienna with far-reaching proposals in this very sense.
Their contemptuous rejection by Berchtold and the little clique of Foreign
Office officials who controlled his puppet figure, naturally strengthened
still further the bonds which united Belgrade and Petrograd. Serbia, shut
out from the Adriatic, had no alternative save to seek her economic outlet
down the valley of the Vardar towards the Aegean, and in so doing she came
into violent conflict with Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia. These facts
alone would justify the assertion that the war between the Balkan allies
was directly due to Austro-Hungarian initiative; but it has also transpired
that the dissensions between Sofia and Belgrade were actively encouraged
from Vienna, that Magyar influences were brought to bear upon King
Ferdinand, and that war material was sent down the Danube from Hungary to
Bulgaria. The outward and visible sign of these intrigues was a speech of
the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza, opposing the Tsar's intervention in
favour of peace and virtually inciting Bulgaria to fight it out. The
break-up of the Balkan League was the first condition to that Austrian
advance on Salonica which has always remained the ideal of the advocates
of a forward policy in Vienna and Budapest, and which lies at the root of
Austria-Hungary's action in provoking the present war.
Serbia and Montenegro, however, are but one half of the problem. The issues
involved are wider and deeper than the quarrels of Vienna and Budapest with
Belgrade. Even if every man in Serbia were willingly prostrate before the
Habsburg throne, there could be no real peace until the internal problem of
Austria-Hungary's Southern Slav provinces is solved. What is at stake is
the future of eleven million people, inhabiting the whole tract of country
from sixty miles north of Trieste to the centre of Macedonia, from the
southern plains of Hungary to the North Albanian frontier. Of these,
roughly four millions are in the two independent kingdoms; the remaining
seven millions are divided between Austria (the provinces of Dalmatia,
Istria, and Carniola) and Hungary (the autonomous kingdom of
Croatia-Slavonia), while Bosnia-Herzegovina are governed jointly by Austria
and Hungary. The history of these provinces during the past generation is
one of neglect and misgovernment. Croatia has been exploited economically
by the Magyars, and the narrow interests of Budapest have prevented railway
development and hampered local industries by skilful manipulation of
tariffs and taxation. A further result is that even to-day Dalmatia (with
the exception of Ragusa) has no railway connections with the rest of
Europe, and those of Bosnia are artificially directed towards Budapest
rather than towards Agram, Vienna, and Western Europe. It is not too much
to say that the situation of those provinces had become less favourable
(if compared with surrounding standards) than it was at earlier periods of
their history; for the old system of trade-routes had broken down there as
elsewhere in Europe, but had not been replaced by modern communications.
§6. _Serbo-Croat Unity._--Parallel with the new era instituted in Serbia
since 1903, a strong movement in favour of national unity took root among
her kinsmen across the Austro-Hungarian frontier. The disruptive tendencies
which had hitherto been so marked in Croatian politics began to weaken.
The so-called Serbo-Croat Coalition round which all the younger elements
speedily rallied, put forward an ambitious programme of constructive
democratic reform as the basis of joint political action on the part of
both races, and held stubbornly together when the inevitable breach with
the Magyar oligarchy occurred. The Magyar Government felt that every effort
must be made to restore that discord between Croat and Serb which had been
for a generation one of the main pillars of their racial hegemony. These
designs happened to coincide with the aims of the Foreign Office in Vienna
in connection with the annexation of Bosnia, and Budapest and Vienna
combined in a systematic campaign of persecution against the Serbs of
Croatia. "Wholesale arrests and charges of treason led up to the monster
trial at Agram, which dragged on for seven months amid scandals worthy of
the days of Judge Jeffreys. The Diet ceased to meet, the constitution of
Croatia was in abeyance, the elections were characterised by corruption and
violence such as eclipsed even the infamous Hungarian elections of 1910;
the Press and the political leaders were singled out for special acts of
persecution and intimidation." These tactics were revealed to the outside
world in the notorious Friedjung Trial (December 1909), resulting out of
a libel action brought by the Serbo-Croat Coalition leaders against Dr.
Friedjung, the distinguished Austrian historian. The documents, on the
basis of which he had publicly accused them of being paid agents of the
Serbian Government, had been supplied to him by the Austro-Hungarian
Foreign Office, and the trial revealed them as impudent forgeries,
concocted in the Austro-Hungarian Legation in Belgrade! The moral
responsibility for these forgeries was subsequently brought home to Count
Forgách, the Minister in Belgrade, and indirectly, of course, to Count
Aehrenthal himself as Foreign Minister. But Forgách, though publicly
denounced as "Count Azev,"[1] was not allowed to fall into disgrace; on
the contrary, he had become within two years of his exposure permanent
Under-Secretary at the Ballplatz, and inspirer of new plots to discredit
and ruin Serbia.
[Footnote 1: An allusion to the notorious Russian _agent provocateur _who
was at one and the same time a member of the secret police and of the
revolutionary organisation.]
The scandals of the Friedjung Trial led to the fall of the Governor of
Croatia, but there was no change of system. After a temporary truce the old
conflict revived, and within eighteen months the friction between Magyars
and Croats was as acute as ever. The Magyar Government employed every
possible device of administrative pressure in order to create dissensions
between the Croat and Serb parties--repeated elections, wholesale
corruption and violence, persecution of the Press and of the political
leaders. Yet so far from languishing under such a system, the movement for
unity gained fresh strength and extended to the kindred Slovenes, striking
root even among the extreme Clericals, who had hitherto regarded the
Orthodox Serbs with distrust and suspicion.
In the spring of 1912 the conflict culminated in the abolition of the
Croatian constitution by the arbitrary decree of the Hungarian Premier, in
the appointment of a reactionary official as dictator, and a few months
later in the suspension of the charter of the Serb Orthodox Church.
§7. _The Balkan Wars._--Never in history had a more inopportune moment
been chosen for such crying illegalities. For close upon the heels of the
demonstrations and unrest which they evoked, came the dramatic events of
the Balkan War, the crushing victories of the allies, the resurrection of
the lost Serb Empire, the long-deferred revenge for the defeat of Kosovo.
The whole Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary were carried off their
feet by a wave of enthusiasm for the allies, and an impossibly strained
situation was reached when the Government of Vienna placed itself in
violent conflict with Serbia, vetoed her expansion to the sea, insisted
upon creating a phantom Albanian State, egged on Bulgaria against her
allies, and finally mobilised in order to impose its will upon the Serbs.
Every peasant in the Slavonic South naturally contrasted Magyar misrule
in Croatia with the splendid achievements of his Serb kinsmen across
the frontier. I know of poor villagers in the mountainous hinterland of
Dalmatia who, having no money to give to the cause of the Balkan Red Cross,
offered casks of country wine or even such clothes and shoes as they could
spare from their scanty belongings. The total subscriptions raised among
the Southern Slavs of the Monarchy in aid of the allies far exceeded any
sums previously raised for charitable purposes among so poor a population.
"In the Balkan sun," said a prominent Croat Clerical, "we see the dawn of
our day."
The national rejoicings which "the avenging of Kosovo" evoked among the
Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes of Austria-Hungary were accompanied by lively
protests against the bare idea of an Austro-Serbian war, which, so far as
the Southern Slavs on both sides of the frontier were concerned, would have
been a civil war in the most literal sense of the word (and this civil
war, it must be remembered, is now actually being waged). The politicians,
however, though well-nigh unanimous in their enthusiasm for the cause
of the Balkan allies, could not at one breath throw off the habits of a
lifetime. Petty jealousies still divided them and were skilfully played
upon by the Magyar Government. The strain of five years of opposition and
persecution had produced its effect upon the Coalition leaders and rendered
them all too prone to further concessions. But the younger generation had
been profoundly affected by the Croatian dictatorship and the Balkan wars;
at an age when our youth think of nothing but cricket and football, the
students and even the schoolboys of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia became
engrossed in political speculation, brooded over the wrongs of their
disunited race, and dreamt of Serbia as the new Piedmont of the Balkans. To
all alike even the most advanced politician seemed no better than an old
fogey, and it is no exaggeration to assert that the existing parties had
lost all hold upon the overwhelming majority of those who in ten years'
time will represent the manhood and the intellect of the race. The
widespread nature of the movement may be illustrated by the school strike
of the spring of 1912, during which every boy and girl above the age of
fourteen in most of the primary and secondary schools of Croatia, Dalmatia,
and Bosnia played truant as a protest against the misgovernment of Croatia.
On that occasion a crowd of 5000 school children paraded the streets of
Agram shouting "Down with Cuvaj" (the Ban or Governor of Croatia), and
cheering the police when they tried to intervene!
As in all such movements, the views of individuals varied in intensity:
some merely gave a theoretical adherence to the ideals of Mazzini or of
Mill, others swallowed the Nihilist doctrine of Bakunin and dreamt of
revolution, ushered in by terrorist propaganda. Out of this milieu came the
two young assassins who murdered the Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
§8. _The Murder of the Archduke_.--By a hideous irony of fate Francis
Ferdinand was the one man capable of restoring order to an already
desperate internal situation. His very person was a programme and a
watchword, and it had long been an open secret that his accession would be
the signal for drastic reforms. It was his ambition to supersede the effete
Dual system by a blend of centralism and federalism such as would reconcile
the national sentiment of individual races with the consciousness of a
common citizenship and would at the same time restore to foreign policy the
possibility of initiative. This programme involved the emancipation of the
non-Magyar races of Hungary from the intolerable racial tyranny of the
Magyars, and at the same time a serious attempt to solve the Southern Slav
question by unifying the race under Habsburg rule. As his Imperial uncle
grew older and feebler, Francis Ferdinand is known to have elaborated his
designs, and a regular staff of able lieutenants had grouped themselves
round him. But on the very eve of action the strong man was removed, to the
scarcely veiled relief of all those elements in the State whose political
and racial monopoly was threatened by such far-reaching and beneficial
changes.
The circumstances of the murder are still shrouded in mystery. It is known
that no proper measures were taken for the protection of the Archduke
and his wife in Bosnia, though it is still impossible to assign the
responsibility for such criminal negligence. It is notorious that in a
country like Bosnia, which has for years been infested with police spies
and informers, and where every movement of every stranger is strictly under
control, so elaborate and ramified a plot could hardly hope to escape the
notice of the authorities. It has even been asserted that Princip and
Cabrinovic, the two assassins, were _agents provocateurs_ in the pay of
the police, and though no proof is as yet forthcoming, there is nothing
inherently improbable in the idea.[1] Certain it is that the gravest
suspicion rests upon those who connived at the disgraceful anti-Serb riots
of which Sarajevo was the scene for nearly forty-eight hours after the
murder.
[Footnote 1: The fact that they have only been sentenced to terms of
imprisonment, while some of their accomplices have been condemned to death,
has a much simpler explanation. Both men are under the age of twenty, and
therefore by Austrian law immune from the death penalty.]
The murder provided an admirable pretext for aggression against Serbia, and
at the same time tended to revive all the latent prejudice with which the
country of the regicides was still regarded in the West. Yet those who seek
to establish a connection between the crime of Sarajevo and the Serbian
Government are on an utterly false scent. I have tried to describe
the atmosphere of universal and growing discontent which produced the
explosion. Those who know the Slavonic South are well aware that Bosnia,
Dalmatia, and Croatia are a seething pot which needs no stirring from the
outside, and that the assassins are but the natural successors of the wild
young students who during the last five years fired upon the Governors
of Croatia and Bosnia.[1] But quite apart from this, the complicity of
official Belgrade is rendered incredible by urgent considerations of
internal Serbian politics. After a long and delicate negotiation the
Concordat with the Vatican had just been concluded: the Orient railway
question had reached the critical stage: above all, a customs and military
union between Serbia and Montenegro was on the point of being concluded.
But, of course, quite apart from such considerations, Serbia was suffering
from the extreme exhaustion consequent upon waging two wars within a year,
and her statesmen, despite the rebuffs administered by Count Berchtold,
were genuinely anxious for a _modus vivendi_ with the neighbouring
Monarchy, as an essential condition to a period of quiet internal
consolidation. But this was the very thing which the controllers of
Austrian foreign policy--the phantom Minister Berchtold, the sinister
clique in the Foreign Office, and the Magyar oligarchy, led by that
masterful reactionary, Count Tisza, the Hungarian Premier--were anxious to
avoid. They had never reconciled themselves to the new situation in the
Balkans; and having twice backed the wrong horse (Turkey in the first
war, Bulgaria in the second) still continued to plot against the Bucarest
settlement of August 1913. Salonica still remained the secret Austrian
objective, and Serbia the main obstacle to the realisation of this dream.
Not for the first time, the interests of Vienna and Constantinople
coincided, and the occult interests which link Budapest with Salonica
played their part in the game.
[Footnote 1: June 1910, June and November 1912, June 1913.]
The crime of Sarajevo removed the chief restraining force in the councils
of the Monarchy and placed the fate of Europe at the mercy of a group of
gamblers in Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin. The military party, under Konrad
von Hoetzendorf, chief of the Austrian General Staff (who a year ago was
seriously speculating as to the collapse of Austria-Hungary), joined hands
with the Magyar extremists, whose political monopoly was threatened by the
advancing Slavonic tide, and with the inner ring of Prussian diplomacy,
which believed the psychological moment to have arrived for measuring
swords with Russia. The murder served as an admirable pretext to veil
grossly aggressive tactics. It was hoped that Russia might be manoeuvred
into a position where autocracy would rather abandon the Slav cause than
seem to condone assassination; and it was confidently believed that Britain
would hold aloof from a quarrel whose origin was so questionable. Stripped
of all outward seeming, the true issues of the conflict were very
different. Just as the policy of violent Turkification adopted by the Young
Turks inevitably provoked the Balkan War, so the policy of Magyarisation,
which has dominated Hungarian affairs for forty-five years and poisoned the
relations of Austria-Hungary with her southern neighbours, has led directly
to the present conflagration.
§9. _The Future of the Southern Slavs_.--There have always been two fatal
obstacles to an Austrian solution of the Southern Slav problem,--Magyar
hegemony and the Dual System, to which alone that hegemony owed its
survival; and it is these two worn-out and reactionary ideas (if they can
be described as "ideas") that are at present fighting their death-struggle.
It was the ambition of Francis Ferdinand to achieve Serbo-Croat unity
within the Monarchy, and thus simultaneously to counteract the attractions
of Pan-Serb propaganda and to remove the most fertile source of friction
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. His death destroyed the last chance of
such a solution; for the statesmen of Vienna and Budapest were not merely
incapable but openly hostile. An appeal was to be made to the arbitrament
of the sword.
Long before war broke out it had become a commonplace of political theory
that the Southern Slav question could be solved in one of two ways--either
inside the Habsburg Monarchy or outside it--either with its help and under
its aegis, or against it and despite its resistance. With the outbreak of
war the problem assumed a new form; the alternatives are the absorption
of the two independent Serb States in the neighbouring Monarchy--in other
words, the union of the entire Southern Slav race under Habsburg rule--or
the liberation of her kinsmen in the Monarchy by Serbia as the Southern
Slav Piedmont. This latter ideal, it has always been obvious, could only be
achieved through the medium of a general European war, and it is in this
manner that it is actually in process of achievement.
The Austrian Note to Serbia was deliberately framed in such a manner as to
be unacceptable by any State which valued its self-respect or prestige. The
military leaders desired war, while the Foreign Office, already committed
for years to a violently Serbophobe policy, was working hand in glove with
the German Ambassador Tschirschky, and with the very highest quarters in
Berlin. The German Government in its official case admits having given
Austria "a free hand against Serbia," while there are good grounds for
believing that the text of the Note was submitted to the German Emperor
and that the latter fully approved of (if he did not actually suggest) the
fatal time-limit of forty-eight hours, which rendered all efforts towards
peace hopeless from the outset.
The Austrian case against Serbia, as embodied in this Note, rested upon a
secret investigation in the prison of Sarajevo. The persistent rumours that
the assassins are _agents-provocateurs_, and that pressure of a somewhat
drastic kind was brought to bear upon them after their arrest, cannot of
course be accepted as proved. But the essential point to bear in mind
is the fact that the details of the Austrian "case," as embodied in the
notorious Note of July 23, originated in the same quarter as the previous
attempts to slander and discredit Serbia. Count Forgách, the arch-forger
of the Austrian Legation in Belgrade, was permanent Under-secretary in the
Foreign Office, and as Count Berchtold's right hand and prompter in Balkan
affairs, was directly responsible for the pronounced anti-Serb tendencies
which have dominated the foreign policy of the Dual Monarchy since the
rise of the Balkan League. As a Magyar nobleman with intimate Jewish
connections, Forgách was an invaluable link between Magyar extremist policy
and Berlin on the one hand and Salonica and Constantinople on the other.
In view of his record as the inspirer of the Vasic forgeries, we are amply
justified in declining to accept any "evidence" prepared by him and his
subordinates, and insisting upon a full and open trial of the murderers as
the only conceivable foundation for charges of complicity.
When all is said and done, however, the murder of the Archduke, though an
event of world-importance so far as the internal development and future
of the Dual Monarchy is concerned, is none the less a side-issue in the
Southern Slav question. This seeming paradox will not surprise those who
consider the currents of national life among the Southern Slavs. The
diplomatic conflict between Belgrade and Vienna or Budapest is but
the outcome of a far deeper and wider movement. We are witnessing the
birth-throes of a new nation, the rise of a new national consciousness,
the triumph of the idea of National Unity among the three Southern Slav
sisters--the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes. Fate has assigned to Britain and
to France an important share in the solution of the problem, and it is our
duty to insist that this solution shall be radical and permanent, based
upon the principle of Nationality and the wishes of the Southern Slav race.
Only by treating the problem as an organic whole, by avoiding patchwork
remedies and by building for a distant future, can we hope to remove one of
the chief danger-centres in Europe.
BOOKS
Unfortunately some of the indispensable books are in German or French, but
the following list offers a very considerable choice:--
(A) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
_Austria-Hungary and Poland_, by H.W. Steed, W. Alison Phillips, and D.
Hannay. (Britannica War Books.) 2s. 6d. net. Uncritical reprint of very
valuable articles from the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
LOUIS LEGER. _History of Austria-Hungary_. 1889 (from French) (out of
print).
GEOFFREY DRAGE. _Austria-Hungary_. 21s. net. 1909. A mine of economic
facts.
H.W. STEED. _The Habsburg Monarchy_. 1914. (3rd ed.) 7s. 6d. net. Far the
best summary of tendencies, on the lines of Bodley's _France_ and Bryce's
_American Commonwealth_.
R.W. SETON-WATSON (SCOTUS VIATOR). _Racial Problems in Hungary_. 1908. 16s.
net.
R.W. SETON-WATSON. _Corruption and Reform in Hungary_. 1911. 4s. 6d. net.
HON.C.N. KNATCHRULL-HUGESSON. _The Political Development of the Hungarian
Nation_. 1910. 2 vols. 14s. net. A good exposition of the extreme Magyar
Chauvinist point of view.
R. MAHAFFY. _The Emperor Francis Joseph_. 1910. 2s. 6d. A useful
character-sketch.
C.E. MAURICE. _Bohemia_. (Story of the Nations.) 1896. 5s. An admirable
text-book.
C.E. MAURICE. _The Revolutionary Movement of_ 1848-49. 1887. 16s. The best
epitome in English.
COUNT FRANCIS LUTZOW. _Bohemia_. 1896. (Everyman Library.) 1s.
EMILY G. BALCH. _Our Slavic Fellow Citizens_. New York. 1910. The best book
on emigration. 10s. 6d. net.
(B) SERBIA AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
W. MILLER. _The Balkans_. 1896. (Story of the Nations.) The best general
text-book. 5s.
W. MILLER. _The Ottoman Empire, 1801-1913_. 1913. (Cambridge Historical
Series.) An excellent book, with a misleading title; it is really a history
of the Balkan Christians, with special reference to the Greeks. Turkish
history is only introduced incidentally. 7s. 6d. net.
EMILE DE LAVELEYE. _The Balkan Peninsula_. 1887. (Out of print,) By a
distinguished Belgian professor, who was in his day recognised as an
authority on Balkan questions.
LEOPOLD VON RANKE. _History of Servia_. 3s. 6d. (Bohn's Library.) This
brilliant and sympathetic study by the greatest of German historians is of
permanent value.
SIR ARTHUR J. EVANS. _Through Bosnia on Foot_. 1877. (Out of print.) The
distinguished archaeologist took part, as a young man, in the Bosnian
rising against the Turks.
R.W. SETON-WATSON. _The Southern Slav Question and the Habsburg Monarchy._
1911. 12s. 0d. net. (Greatly modified and extended in a German edition
published in 1913.)
R.W. SETON-WATSON. _Absolutism in Croatia_. 1912. 2s. net.
CEDO MIJATOVIC. _Servia of the Servians_. 1911. 16s. net.
ELODIE MIJATOVIC. _Serbian Folklore._. 1874.
(C) THREE OTHER BOOKS DEALING WITH THE BALKANS ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED
SIR CHARLES ELIOT (ODYSSEUS). _Turkey in Europe_. 2nd ed. 7s. 6d. net.
H.N. BRAILSFORD. _Macedonia_. 1906. 12s. 6d. net.
LUIGI VILLARI AND OTHERS. _The Balkan Question_. 1905. 10s. 6d. net.
CHAPTER V
RUSSIA
"God will save Russia as He has saved her many times. Salvation will come
from the people, from their faith and their meekness. Fathers and teachers,
watch over the people's faith, and this will not be a dream. I have been
amazed all my life in our great people by their dignity, their true and
seemly dignity. I have seen it myself, I can testify to it; I have seen
it and marvelled at it; I have seen it in spite of the degraded sins and
poverty-stricken appearance of our peasantry. They are not servile;
and, even after two centuries of serfdom, they are free in manner and
bearing,--yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious. 'You
are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well be so, God bless you.
I respect you, but I know that I too am a man. By the very fact that I
respect you without envy I prove my dignity as a man....'
"God will save His people, for Russia is great in her humility. I dream of
seeing, and seem to see clearly already, our future. It will come to pass
that even the most corrupt of our rich will end by being ashamed of his
riches before the poor; and the poor, seeing his humility, will understand
and give way before him, will respond joyfully and kindly to his honourable
shame. Believe me that it will end in that; things are moving to that.
Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man, and that
will only be understood among us. If we were brothers, there would be
fraternity; but before that they will never agree about the division of
wealth. We preserve the image of Christ, and it will shine forth like a
precious diamond to the whole world. So be it, so be it!"--DOSTOIEFFSKY,
_The Brothers Karamazov._
"The French are a decent civilised lot of people; but I wish we were not
allies of Russia." This, or something very like it, is the spoken or
unspoken thought of a very large number of persons, especially among the
working-classes in England at the present time. English suspicion of Russia
is no new thing, though there is no doubt that the suppression of the
revolution during the years 1906-1909 made it more general than ever
before. It was responsible, for example, for the Crimean War, and the
"crafty Russian" has become a catch-word almost as widely accepted in
England as the phrase "perfidious Albion" is upon the Continent. I have
seen Russia at her worst: I saw the revolution stamped out cruelly and
relentlessly; I have lived three years in Finland, and know the weariness
of spirit and aching bitterness of heart that comes to a fine and cultured
race in its perpetual struggle for liberty against an alien Government to
whom the word liberty means nothing but rebellion. And yet I am firmly
persuaded of the innate soundness of the Russian people, and of the
tremendous future which lies before it in the history of the world. I
believe too that the English are suspicious of Russia, not because Russia
is crafty or evil or barbaric, but because English people find it very
difficult to understand a race which is so extraordinarily different from
themselves. We fear the unknown; we suspect what is unlike ourselves; yet
we shall do well, in the present crisis, whether we are thinking of our
enemy Germany or our ally Russia, to remember the axiom laid down by Edmund
Burke, the greatest of English political thinkers: "It is impossible to
bring an indictment against a whole nation."
In any case, for good or ill, Russia is our ally, and if Germany is beaten,
Russia seems likely to play as great a part in the settlement as she did in
1815. It therefore behoves us, in our own self-interest if for no higher
motive, to try and understand the spirit and ideals of a great people, who,
as they did a century ago at the time of Napoleon, are once again coming
forward to assist Europe in ridding herself of a military despotism.
§1. _The Russian State._--Many of us do not realise the most obvious facts
about Russia. For example, our atlases, which give us Europe on one page
and Asia on another, prevent us from grasping the most elementary fact of
all--her vastness. Mr. Kipling has told us that "East is East and West
is West, and never the twain shall meet." But Russia confounds both Mr.
Kipling and the map-makers by stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific.
For her there is not Europe and Asia but one continent, and she is the
whole _inside_ of it. All Europe between the four inland seas, and all Asia
north of lat. 50° (and a good deal south of it too)--that is Russia, a
total area of 8-1/4 million square miles! This enormous country, which
comprises one-sixth of the land-surface of the globe, is at present thinly
populated; it has roughly 20 persons to the square mile as against 618 to
the square mile in England and Wales. Yet for all that it contains the
largest white population of any single state on earth, numbering in all
171 million souls. Moreover, this population is increasing rapidly; it
has quadrupled itself during the last century, and with the advent of
industrialism the increase is likely to be still more rapid. Many among us
alive to-day may see Russia's population reach and perhaps pass that of
teeming China. As yet, however, industrialism is only at its beginning in
Russia; more than 85 per cent of the inhabitants live in the country, as
tillers of the soil.
It will be at once evident that this fact gives her an immense advantage
over industrial nations in time of war. She has, on the one hand, an almost
inexhaustible supply of men to draw upon, while, on the other hand, her
simple economic structure is hardly at all affected. A great European war
may mean for a Western country dislocation of trade, hundreds of mills and
pits standing idle, vast masses of unemployed, leading to distress, poverty
and in the end starvation; for Russia it means little more than that the
peasants grow fat on the corn and food-stuffs which in normal times they
would have exported to the West. Furthermore, her geographical and economic
circumstances render Russia ultimately invincible from the military point
of view, as Napoleon found to his cost in 1812. She has no vital parts,
such as France has in Paris or Germany has in Silesia or Westphalia, upon
which the life of the whole State organism depends; she is like some vast
multi-cellular invertebrate animal which it is possible to wound but not
to destroy. Russia has much to gain from a great European war and hardly
anything to lose.
At first sight, therefore, there seems to be a great deal in favour of
the theory, somewhat widely held at the moment, that to crush Germany and
Austria will be to lay Europe at the feet of Russia, and that when Germany
has been driven out of France and Belgium, the Allies in the West might
have to patch up a peace with her in order to drive the Russians out
of Germany. Behind this theory lies the assumption that Russia is an
aggressive military state, inspired by the same ideals as have led Germany
to deluge the world with blood. This is an assumption which is, I believe,
absolutely unwarranted by anything in the history or character of the
nation.
Historically speaking, the Russian Empire is an extension of the old Roman
Empire; it is the direct heir of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had its
capital at Constantinople, as the mediaeval "Holy Roman Empire," founded by
Charlemagne in A.D. 800, was the heir of the Western Roman Empire, which
had its capital at Rome itself. But the Eastern Empire survived its Western
twin by a thousand years; the Goths deposed the last Roman emperor in 476,
the Turks took Constantinople in 1453. The Russian Empire, therefore,
which did not begin its political development until after the fall of
Constantinople, entered the field some six and a half centuries later than
the mediaeval empire of Charlemagne, which was indeed already falling
to pieces in the end of the fifteenth century. Thus Russia presents the
strange spectacle of a mediaeval State existing in the twentieth century,
and she is still in some particulars what Western Europe was in the Middle
Ages. She has, however, attained a unity, a strength and a centralisation
which the Holy Roman Empire never succeeded in acquiring. There is nothing
corresponding to the feudal system, with all the disruptive tendencies
which that system carried with it, in modern Russia; partly owing to the
constant danger of Mongolian invasion which threatened Russia for so many
centuries, partly as a result of Ivan the Terrible's destruction of the
_boyars_, who were analogous to the mediaeval barons, and of Peter the
Great's substitution of a nobility of service for that of rank, Russia
is politically more centralised than any mediaeval, and socially more
democratic than any modern, country. Russia has also solved that other
great problem which perpetually agitated the mediaeval world--the conflict
between the secular and the spiritual power. She is the most religious
nation in the world, but she has no Papacy; Peter the Great subordinated
the Church to the State by placing the Holy Synod, which controls the
former, under the authority of a layman, a minister appointed by the Tsar.
Yet, while she appears united and centralised when we think of her nebulous
prototype, the Holy Roman Empire, we have only to compare her with her
Western neighbours, and especially with that triumph of State-organisation,
Germany, to see how amorphous, how inefficient, how loose, how mediaeval is
the structure of this enormous State.
Peter the Great, who was more than any other man the creator of modern
Russia, saw clearly that the only way of holding this inchoate State-mass
together was to call into existence a huge administrative machine, and he
saw equally clearly that, if such a machine was not itself to become a
disruptive force through the personal ambition and self-aggrandisement
of its members, it must be framed on democratic and not aristocratic
principles. As Mr. Maurice Baring puts it, "Peter the Great introduced
the democratic idea that service was everything, rank nothing. He had it
proclaimed to the whole gentry that any gentleman, in any circumstances
whatsoever and to whatever family he belonged, should salute and yield
place to any officer. The gentleman served as a private soldier and became
an officer, but a private soldier who did not belong to the nobility, and
who attained the rank of a commissioned officer, became, _ipso facto_, a
member of the hereditary nobility.... In the civil service he introduced
the same democratic system. He divided it into three sections: military,
civil, and court. Every section was divided into fourteen ranks, or
_Chins_; the attainment of the eighth class conferred the privilege of
hereditary nobility, even though those who received it might have been
of the humblest origin. He hereby replaced the aristocratic hierarchy of
pedigree by a democratic hierachy of service. Promotion was made solely
according to service; lineage counted for nothing. There was no social
difference, however wide, which could not be levelled by means of State
service." This is partly what was meant when it was stated in the last
paragraph that Russia was socially the most democratic of modern countries.
The system established by Peter the Great exists to-day. Russia is
governed, not by a feudal nobility like that which ground the faces of
the poor in France before the revolution of 1789, nor by a number of
capitalists who live by exploiting the workers; for neither feudal nobility
nor capitalism (as yet) has any real power in Russia. She is governed by a
civil service, and by a civil service more democratic than our own, where
the higher posts are as a rule only open to members of the upper and middle
classes, less exclusive than that of India, where the higher officials are
nearly all recruited from the members of an alien race--a civil service,
in short, whose only close parallel is the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic
Church. Imagine the Roman Church as a secular institution, with a monarch
at its head ruling by hereditary right instead of an elected president like
the Pope, and you get a very fair idea of the Russian Government machine.
All that we associate with the word aristocracy in the West, the hereditary
principle, primo-geniture, the accumulation of the land and capital of the
country in the hands of a small class, the spirit of caste, the traditions
of nobility handed down with the title-deeds from father to son, are either
non-existent or of comparative unimportance in Russian society.
There is also none of the keen sensitiveness to minute social distinctions
and to the social proprieties which mark them that is so striking a feature
of the life in "democratic" England and to which we have given the name
"snobbery." There are of course social strata in Russia, but they are
broadly marked and there is no sense of competition between them. A peasant
is not ashamed of being a peasant, and when he meets a nobleman he meets
him on terms of spiritual equality while acknowledging his superior
position in the social scale. A twin-brother of English "snobbery" is
English "hypocrisy." This, as has been well said, is a kind of "social
cement," for it is a tribute to a standard of social conduct set up by the
dominant class in a nation. And since there exists no dominant class in
Russia, but only a dominant hierarchy drawn from all classes, hypocrisy is
absent from the Russian character. Mr. Stephen Graham, who was, I believe,
at one time a clerk in a London office, found our civilisation so
intolerable that one day he flung it off and escaped to Russia, where he
has lived as a peasant tramp for many years. To revolutionaries who met him
and expressed their astonishment that an Englishman should choose Russia of
all places to live in, he replied, "I came to Russia because it is the only
free country left in the world." There is, in truth, much to be said for
this startling remark. In no country on earth is there such unaffected
good-will, such open hospitality, such an instinctive respect for personal
liberty--liberty of thought and of manners--such tolerance for the
frailties of human nature, such an abundance of what the great Russian
novelist Dostoieffsky called "all-humanness" and St. Paul called "charity,"
as in Russia. All this, of course, did not come about as a result of
the bureaucratic system; it springs like that system itself from the
fundamentally democratic spirit of the Russian people.
§2. _Religion_.--The last paragraph will read strangely to those people
whose only ideas about Russia are gleaned from newspaper accounts of
the revolution of 1905. We shall come back to the revolution and its
significance later; but meanwhile we must notice another very striking fact
about Russian life--its all-pervading religious atmosphere. Russia is a
land of peasants. In England and Wales 78 per cent of the population live
in towns and the remaining 22 per cent in the country; in Russia something
like 87 per cent live in the country as against 13 per cent in the towns.
These figures are enough to show where the real centre of gravity of the
Russian nation lies. The peasant, or _moujik_, is a primitive and generally
an entirely illiterate person, but he possesses qualities which his more
sophisticated brothers in the West may well envy and admire, a profound
common-sense, a grand simplicity of life and outlook, and an unshakable
faith in the unseen world.
The interior of Russia is almost wholly unknown in the West; until a few
years back it was as much of a _terra incognita_ as Central Africa. But the
revolution led English writers and journalists to explore it, and when the
dust and smoke of that upheaval, which had obscured the truth from the eyes
of Europe, passed away, an astonished world perceived the real Russia for
the first time. "Russia," writes Mr. Stephen Graham, who has done more
than any other man to bring the truth home to us, "is not a land of
bomb-throwers, is not a land of intolerable tyranny and unhappiness, of
a languishing and decayed peasantry, of a corrupt and ugly church; the
Russians are an agricultural nation, bred to the soil, illiterate as the
savages, and having as yet no ambition to live in the towns; they are as
strong as giants, simple as children, mystically superstitious by reason
of their unexplained mystery." Russia is in fact 145 million
peasants--ploughing and praying. And here once again one is reminded of the
Middle Ages. Cross the Russian frontier and you enter the mediaeval world.
Miracles are believed in, holy men are revered as saints, thousands of
pilgrims journey on foot every year to Jerusalem, which is to every true
believer the centre of the universe and therefore becomes at Easter almost
a Russian city. Russia is the most Christian country in the world, and her
people are the most Christ-like. The turbulence and violence, so contrary
to the Christian spirit, which was an inseparable feature of mediaeval
feudalism is absent from Russia; and the gospel of non-resistance, of
brotherly love, of patience under affliction, of pity and mercy, which
Tolstoi preached so eloquently to the world at large, he learnt from
two teachers--the peasant of modern Russia and the Peasant of ancient
Palestine, who was crucified upon the Cross.
Yet it is a mistake to talk, as some do, of the power of the Russian
Church, or of "priestcraft." The Church has little political power or
social prestige. It is the power of religion, not that of ecclesiastical
institutions, which is the arresting fact about modern Russia. It is not
so much that Russia has a church, as that she _is_ a church. In England
we have narrowed religion down to one day of the week and shut it up in
special buildings which we call churches; in Russia it is impossible to
avoid religion. As you pass out of the gangway of the ticket-office at the
railway station, you find yourself in front of a sacred picture with a
lamp burning continually before it, and you are expected to utter a prayer
before beginning your journey. Every room in Russia has its _eikon_--is in
fact a chapel, every enterprise is sanctified by prayer and ceremony. All
English travellers in Russia have acknowledged this profound national sense
of religion, and contrasted it with the religious formalism of the West.
"Italy," wrote Mr. H.G. Wells, on his recent visit to Russia, "abounds
in noble churches because the Italians are artists and architects, and a
church is an essential part of the old English social system, but Moscow
glitters with two thousand crosses because the people are organically
Christian. I feel in Russia that for the first time in my life I am in a
country where Christianity is alive. The people I saw crossing themselves
whenever they passed a church, the bearded men who kissed the relics in the
Church of the Assumption, the unkempt grave-eyed pilgrim, with his ragged
bundle on his back and his little tea-kettle slung in front of him, who was
standing quite still beside a pillar in the same church, have no parallels
in England." Mr. Rothay Reynolds, in his interesting and sympathetic book
_My Russian Year_, writes in much the same strain: "In Russia God and His
Mother, saints and angels, seem near; men rejoice or stand ashamed beneath
their gaze. The people of the land have made it a vast sanctuary, perfumed
with prayer and filled with the memories of heroes of the faith. Saints and
sinners, believers and infidels, are affected by its atmosphere; and so it
has come about that Russia is the land of lofty ideals." And Mr. Stephen
Graham, again, in his _Undiscovered Russia_, speaks with glowing admiration
of the Russian Church. "The Holy Church," he says, "is wonderful. It is the
only fervid living church in Europe. It lives by virtue of the people
who compose it. If the priests were wood, it would still be great. The
worshippers are always there with one accord. There are always strangers in
the churches, always pilgrims. God is the Word that writes all men brothers
in Russia and all women sisters. The fact behind that word is the fountain
of hospitality and friendship."
The religious aspect of Russian life has been dwelt upon at some length,
because it is the key to everything in Russia and has a direct bearing upon
the present war. "Religion in Russia," writes Mr. Maurice Baring, "is a
part of patriotism. The Russian considers that a man who is not Orthodox
is not a Russian. He divides humanity, roughly, into two categories--the
Orthodox and the heathen--just as the Greeks divided humanity into Greeks
and Barbarians. Not only is the Church of Russia a national church, owing
to the large part which the State, the Emperor, and the civil authority
play in it, but in Russia religion itself becomes a question of
nationality, nationalism, and patriotism." Russian Christianity, like
Russian Tsardom, is derived from the old Roman empire of Constantinople.
The Russian Church is a branch, and far the most important branch, of the
Greek Orthodox Church, which drifted apart from the Catholic Church, which
had its centre at Rome, and finally separated from it in the eleventh
century. As the greatest Orthodox Christian power in the world, Russia
naturally regards herself as the rightful protector of all Orthodox
Christians. Her mortal enemy, with whom so long as he remains in Europe any
lasting peace is impossible, is the Turk; and her eyes are ever directed
towards Constantinople, as the ancient capital of her faith. The spirit of
the Crusades is far from dead in the Russian people; the Crimean War, for
example, was fought in that spirit.
It will be at once apparent that Russia takes and must continue to take
a profound interest in the Christian peoples of the Balkans. Greeks,
Roumanians, Servians, Bulgarians and Montenegrins all belong to the
Orthodox Church; all have been engaged throughout the nineteenth century
in a struggle for existence against the common foe, Islam. Moreover, all
except the two first-mentioned peoples are allied to Russia by ties of race
as well as by religion, since they are members of the Slavonic stock. To
the average Russian, therefore, the bulk of the Balkan peninsula is as
much Russia Irredenta, as the north-east coast of the Adriatic is Italia
Irredenta to the average Italian; and as a matter of fact there is a good
deal more to be said for Russia's case than for Italy's. There is, however,
another great power which possesses interests in the Balkans and which
is viewed by Russia with a suspicion and dislike hardly inferior to that
entertained towards Turkey--I mean the empire of Austria-Hungary. A
Catholic state, controlled by Germans and Magyars, Austria-Hungary contains
in its southern portion a population of over seven million Slavs, some
three millions of whom are of the Orthodox faith. The Dual Monarchy has
constantly outraged national and religious feeling in Russia by her
treatment of this Slavonic population, and her annexation in 1908 of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, both of them Slavonic countries, was regarded as an open
challenge to Russia.
It is not therefore surprising that the Tsar has intervened in the present
crisis. Had it refused to come to the assistance of Servia when Austria
attacked her, the Russian Government would have been unable to face public
opinion. Even those who know Russia best are amazed at the complete
unanimity of the country in the matter of this war; and proof that it is
not merely a war of aggression inspired by Pan-Slavist sentiment may
be found in the fact that all political parties, revolutionaries,
constitutionalists and reactionaries, have enthusiastically approved it.
How far Germany misunderstood (or affected to misunderstand) the real state
of feeling in Russia may be seen in the despatch of July 26 by the British
Ambassador in Vienna, who, in talking the crisis over with the German
Ambassador and asking "whether the Russian Government might not be
compelled by public opinion to intervene on behalf of a kindred
nationality," was told that "everything depended on the personality of the
Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who could resist easily, if he
chose, _the pressure of a few newspapers._" England drew her sword in this
struggle on behalf of Belgium and in the name of civilisation and treaty
rights; Russia has done the same on behalf of Serbia and in the name of
common blood and a common altar. I, for one, firmly believe that her hands
are as clean as ours.
§3. _The Revolutionary Movement and its Significance._--It is now time to
say something of the revolutionary movement of 1905 and of its ruthless
suppression which gave Russia so evil a reputation in the eyes of Western
Europe. It was my good fortune to be a resident in the dominions of the
Tsar during the critical years of 1906-9, to be present at a session of the
first Duma and to mingle with the members of that historic assembly in the
lobby of the Parliament House, to catch something of the extraordinary
belief in the coming of the millennium which was prevalent among all
classes in Petrograd in the first charmed months of 1906, and finally
to have been acquainted with active revolutionaries and their friends
throughout the whole of my period of residence. I can therefore speak with
a certain amount of inner knowledge of the revolution; and though I do not
wish to claim any particular authority for the opinions stated below, which
are after all nothing but the opinions of a single individual who has lived
for three years in a corner of the Russian Empire, yet they have at least
this advantage over those entertained on the subject by the average
Englishmen, viz. that they are based not on newspaper reports but on
actual experience, and that they were arrived at gradually and--it may be
added--with considerable reluctance, since they had, as it were, to win
their way through a number of my own personal sympathies and political
prejudices. There is, of course, no room here for any detailed treatment of
a movement upon which a big book might be written, and I shall therefore
have to limit myself to a few rather bald generalisations which I must
ask the reader to accept not as the truth, but as what one man of limited
experience and vision conceives to be the truth about the Russian
revolution.
The main reason why English people get mistaken ideas about Russia is that
they imagine Russians to be nothing but Englishmen picturesquely disguised
in furs and top-boots, and because they interpret the political situation
in Russia in terms of English history and politics. As I have already tried
to show, Russians are built differently from English people, _from the soul
outwards_, while the political and social condition of the Russian Empire
is totally unlike anything that has ever existed in this country. If
therefore the real causes of the movement of 1905 and of its failure are to
be rightly understood, we must put away from our minds the desire to find
analogies in the English revolutions of 1642 and 1688, or the French
Revolution of 1789, or the social revolution of which Karl Marx dreamed;
Russia can only be interpreted in terms of Russian history and Russian
conditions. In one thing, however, the Russian revolution was like all
revolutions which have ever been or are ever likely to be, viz. that it was
concerned with two distinct issues, one a narrow question of political and
constitutional reform, and the other a far wider question involving an
attempt to reconstruct not merely the institutions of society but also to
transform the ideals and conceptions upon which society rested.
Let us first of all consider the narrower political issue. This was simple
enough; the outbreak of 1905 had as its primary object the setting up of
some form of representative government which would control the bureaucratic
machine. It has been already pointed out that the constitution of modern
Russia was largely due to the genius of Peter the Great. During the
nineteenth century, however, it became apparent to thinking Russians that
the constitution, for the sake both of stability and efficiency, needed
development in the direction of popular representation. The plea of
efficiency was really far the stronger of the two. Had Peter the Great been
eternal, he might possibly have continued to exercise an effective control
over the administrative system which he created; for he was a man of
superhuman energy and will-power. But most Tsars, who are men of ordinary
capacity, found it impossible to do so. The consequence was that
the bureaucracy acquired what amounted in practice to absolute
irresponsibility. Now irresponsibility is demoralising to any
administration, however democratic be the principles upon which its
officials are selected. A bureaucracy, ruling without proper external
control, becomes a prey to the demons of red tape, routine, officialdom and
place-hunting; it tends to stifle individual initiative and the sense
of moral responsibility, since it forgets the real object of its
existence--the good government of the country--in its passion for
self-preservation and its desire to secure the smooth-working of the
machine; it becomes inhuman, intensely conservative and corrupt. Above all
it develops a hyper-sensitiveness to lay criticism, which compels it to do
all in its power--and in Russia that power is unlimited--to crush freedom
of speech and freedom of the press. The problem, however, of devising some
popular check upon its action was an extremely difficult one for the simple
reason that the mass of the Russian people never have taken, and even
to-day do not take, any interest in political questions. Nevertheless the
Tsar, Alexander II., who was one of the most enlightened monarchs that
ever sat upon the Russian throne, determined to attempt a solution.
Unfortunately on March 1, 1881, the very day when Alexander had given his
approval to a scheme of constitutional reform, involving the establishment
of representative institutions, he was assassinated by revolutionaries.
This fatal act put back the clock for twenty-five years, the court and the
nation were thrown into the arms of the bureaucracy as their only protector
against terrorism, and reaction reigned supreme. Meanwhile the bureaucracy
grew more corrupt, more tyrannical, more inefficient every day, while on
the other hand the party of reform, thrust as it were underground and
hunted like rats, became more and more bitter in spirit and more and more
extreme in theory.
It is important to bear in mind that the struggle has never from beginning
to end been one which divided the nation as a whole into two hostile camps.
Public opinion, when it has not been indifferent, has swayed now to one
side and now to the other, according as it was stirred by some flagrant
act of oppression on the part of the bureaucracy or some outrageous act of
terrorism on the part of the revolutionaries. The truth is that the civil
war in Russia--for it was nothing less--was confined to quite a narrow
section of society. It has been said that there are practically speaking no
class distinctions in the English sense of the word, in Russia; there is,
however, a very real distinction between the _intelligentsia_ and the
peasants. The _intelligentsia_ are the few million educated Russians who
control, or seek to control, the destinies of the 145 million uneducated
tillers of the soil. There is nothing quite like them in this country,
though the expression "the professional class" describes them in part.
Broadly speaking, they are people who have passed through school and
university, and can therefore lay claim to a certain amount of culture;
their birth is a matter of no moment, they may be the children of peasants
or of noblemen. It is from this "class," if we can call it so, that both
the bureaucracy and the revolutionary movement draw their recruits. The
real tragedy of Russia is that neither the party of reform nor the party of
reaction shares, or even understands, the outlook and ideals of the people.
Russian culture is still so comparatively recent that it has not yet passed
out of the imitative stage; and, in spite of the work of Pushkin, Gogol,
and Dostoieffsky, the books that are read and studied in Russia are for
the most part translations from foreign authors. The result is that the
political and social ideas of the _intelligentsia_ are almost wholly
derived from countries whose structure is totally different from their
own. We shall presently see that this fact had an important bearing on the
development of the outbreak of 1905. It is sufficient here to notice
that the struggle was one between two sections of the _intelligentsia_,
political idealism against political stagnation, the Red Flag _versus_ Red
Tape.
After twenty years of bureaucratic government the country as a whole began
to grow once again restless. In this period a proletariate had come into
being. It was a mere drop in the bucket of 145 millions of peasants,
but its voice was heard in the towns, and it was steeped in the Marxian
doctrines of Social Democracy. Moreover the peasants themselves had their
grievances. They cared nothing and understood less of the political
theories which the revolutionaries assiduously preached among them, but
they pricked up their ears when the agitators began to talk about land and
taxation. Up to 1861 the peasants had been serfs, the property, with the
land on which they lived, of the landowner. At their emancipation it was
necessary to provide them with land of their own; the State, therefore,
bought what was considered sufficient for the purpose from the landowners,
handed it over to the peasants, and recouped itself by imposing a land-tax
on the peasants to expire after a period of forty-nine years. This tax was
felt to be exceedingly onerous, and in addition to this by the beginning of
the twentieth century it became clear that the land acquired in 1861 was
not nearly enough to support a growing population. These factors, together
with the disastrous Russo-Japanese war, which revealed an appalling state
of corruption and incompetency in the government of the country, furnished
the revolutionaries with an opportunity which was not to be missed. A rapid
series of military and naval mutinies, agrarian disorders, assassinations
of obnoxious officials, socialist risings in the towns, during the
year 1905, culminating in the universal strike of October, brought the
Government to its knees, and on the 17th of the same month the Tsar issued
his manifesto granting freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and a
representative assembly. The revolution had, apparently, won on the
constitutional issue.
Yet what looked like the end of bureaucratic absolutism proved to be
the destruction of the revolutionary party. Had the reformers of 1905
concentrated their energies upon the task of turning the new legislature
into an adequate check upon the bureaucratic system, there is little doubt
they would have succeeded. As it was their success in this direction was
only partial. It is true that a Duma still sits at the Taurida Palace
at Petrograd, but it is elected on a narrow property franchise, and
its relations with the bureaucracy are as yet not properly defined; it
criticises but it possesses no real control. This failure of the revolution
was almost wholly due to the revolutionaries themselves, who, instead of
confining their attacks to the Government machine, sought to undermine the
entire structure of society and to overthrow the moral and religious ideals
of the nation. Moreover, their attitude was entirely negative, and they
possessed little or no constructive ability of any kind. Even the first
Duma, which contained the ablest politicians among the reformers, did
not succeed in passing acts of parliament, affirming the most elementary
principles of civil liberty; and it damaged itself irreparably in the
eyes of the country by refusing to condemn "terrorism" while demanding an
amnesty for all political offenders. The unique opportunity which the first
Duma afforded was frittered away in futile bickerings and wordy attacks
upon the Government.
Meanwhile, though a temporary truce was observed during the Duma's
sessions, its dissolution on July 21, 1906, two and a half months after
opening, was the signal for a fresh outburst of outrages on both sides. The
country was fast drifting into anarchy; agrarian risings, indiscriminate
bomb-throwing, _pogroms_, highway robberies carried out in the name of the
"social revolution" and euphemistically entitled expropriation, outbreaks
of a horrible kind of blood-lust which delighted in motiveless murder for
the sake of murder, were the order of the day. The revolution was
strong enough neither to crush the reactionaries nor to control the
revolutionaries themselves. The foundations of the social structure seemed
to be dissolving in a welter of blood and crime, and public opinion, which
in its hatred of bureaucracy had hitherto sided with the revolution,
suddenly drew back in horror from the abyss which opened out in front of
it. Stolypin, the Strafford of modern Russia, who condemned the extremists
of both sides, was called to the helm of the State; his watchword, "Order
first, reform afterwards," was backed by the force of public opinion; and,
as he stamped out the revolution with a heel of iron, the country shuddered
but approved. The peasants were pacified by the remission of the hated tax,
and by measures for providing them with more land; and Russia sank once
more into her normal condition.
But political incompetency is not a reason sufficiently weighty in itself
to account for the remarkable revulsion of public feeling against the
revolutionary party. Behind the narrow political issue lay the larger
philosophical and moral one; and it was the discovery by the country of the
real character and ultimate aims of the party which for a few months
in 1906 seized the reins of power that will alone provide a sufficient
explanation of one of the most astonishing political debacles of modern
history. The revolution was nothing less than an attempt by a small
minority of theorists and moral anarchists to force Western civilisation
upon Russia, and not Western civilisation as it actually is but a sort of
abstract "Westernism" derived from books. For the revolutionaries were far
more Western than the Westerns. They had not merely swallowed wholesale
the latest and most extreme political and social fads, picked up from the
literature of England, France, and Germany, but they possessed a courage of
their convictions and a will to carry them out to the logical conclusion
which many "advanced thinkers" of the West lack. They were not modernists
or new theologians but atheists, not Fabians or social reformers but
revolutionary socialists armed with bombs, not radicals but republicans,
not divorce-law-reformers but "free lovers." A remarkable book was
published in 1910 called _Landmarks_. It was written by a number of
disillusioned revolutionaries, and gives a vivid picture of the effect
which the foregoing principles had upon the lives of those who upheld them.
Here is one extract:
"In general, the whole manner of life of the _intelligentsia_ was terrible;
a long abomination of desolation, without any kind or sort of discipline,
without the slightest consecutiveness, even on the surface. The day passes
in doing nobody knows what, to-day in one manner, and to-morrow, as a
result of a sudden inspiration, entirely contrariwise--everyone lives his
life in idleness, slovenliness, and a measureless disorder--chaos and
squalor reign in his matrimonial and sexual relations--a naïve absence of
conscientiousness distinguishes his work; in public affairs he shows an
irrepressible inclination towards despotism, and an utter absence of
consideration towards his fellow-creatures; and his attitude towards the
authorities of the State is marked at times by a proud defiance, and at
others (individually and not collectively) by compliance."
As a set-off to this picture of moral chaos, it should be remembered that
these people when called upon to die for their revolutionary faith did so
with the greatest heroism. Nor is the picture true of all revolutionaries;
some of the noblest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet were
Russian revolutionaries. But these were the product of an earlier and
sterner school, the puritanical "Nihilism" of the 'eighties; and it is
impossible to deny the substantial truth of the above description as far as
the rank and file of the modern revolutionary school are concerned.[1] Such
people were divided by a whole universe from the peasants to whom they
offered themselves as leaders and saviours; and the schemes of regeneration
which they preached were not merely useless, because purely negative, but
were exotic plants which could never flourish on Russian soil. Thus the
revolution triumphed for about twelve months as a purely destructive force,
but when the necessity for construction arose its adherents found that they
were entirely ignorant of the elements of the problem before them.
This problem was the peasant, and the revolutionaries, though they had
worshipped the People (with a capital P) for years and had done their best
to convert them, had never made any attempt to understand them. And when
the peasant discovered what the revolutionary was like, he loathed and
detested him. "They hate us," a writer in _Landmarks_ confesses, "because
they fail to recognise that we are men. We are, in their eyes, monsters in
human shape, men without God in their soul; and they are right."
[Footnote 1: It is confirmed by all impartial observers, see _e.g._
Professor Pares' _Russia and Reform_, chap. ix., entitled "Lives of the
Intelligents."]
There is a characteristic story told by Mr. Maurice Baring about a certain
revolutionary who one day arrived at a village to convert the inhabitants
to socialism. "He thought he would begin by disproving the existence of
God, because if he proved that there was no God, it would naturally follow
that there should be no Emperor and no policeman. So he took a holy picture
and said, 'There is no God, and I will prove it immediately. I will spit
upon this _eikon_ and break it in pieces, and if there is a God He will
send fire from heaven and kill me, and if there is no God nothing will
happen to me at all.' Then he took the _eikon_ and spat upon it and broke
it to bits, and he said to the peasants, 'You see, God has not killed me.'
'No,' said the peasants, 'God has not killed you, but we will'; and they
killed him."
This story, whether true or not, is a parable, in which one may read the
whole meaning of the failure of the Russian revolution. It shows how an
attack upon what they hold sacred may rouse to acts of fury a people
who are admitted by all who know them to be the most tolerant, most
tender-hearted, and most humane in Europe. The notion that Russia is a
humane country may sound strange in English ears. Yet capital punishment,
which is still part of our legal system, was abolished in Russia as long
ago as 1753, except for cases of high treason. From 1855 to 1876 only one
man was executed in the whole of that vast empire; and from 1876 to 1903
only 114. On the other hand between the years 1905 and 1908 the total of
executions reached the appalling figure of 3629. This is but to translate
into criminal statistics the story just quoted; for the years 1905-8 were
the years when martial law reigned in Russia, the years of revolution.
The Tsar, it is true, wore the black cap, and the hangman's rope was
manipulated by the bureaucracy, but the jury who brought in the verdict was
a jury of 145 million peasants.
Such, in broad outline, is the history of the revolutionary movement which
is still so greatly misunderstood in England. It was not the uprising of an
oppressed nation, which successful for a brief while was finally crushed by
the brute force of reaction; it was a civil war between two sections of
a small educated class, in which the sympathies of the nation after
fluctuating for a time eventually came down heavily against the
revolutionaries. There is in truth every excuse for misunderstanding
amongst English people, especially if they belong to the party of progress
in English politics; for the obvious things about Russia are so deceptive.
All that one saw on the surface were, on the one hand, an irresponsible
bureaucracy using the knout, the secret agent, the _pogrom_, and Siberia
for the suppression of anything suspected of threatening existing
conditions; and, on the other, a band of devoted reformers and
revolutionaries risking all in the cause of political liberty, and dying,
the "Marseillaise" on their lips, with the fortitude of Christian martyrs.
But, beneath all this, something immensely bigger was in progress,
which can only be described as a conflict of two philosophies of life
diametrically opposed or, if you like, a life-and-death struggle between
two civilisations, so different that they can hardly understand each
other's language; it is a renewal of the Titanic contest, which was decided
in the West by the Renaissance and the Reformation, the contest between
the mediaeval and the modern world. To the modern mind no period is so
difficult to grasp as the Middle Ages; our dreams are of progress which is
another word for process, of success which implies perpetual change, in
either case of "getting on" somewhere, somehow, we know not where or how;
our very universe, from which we have carefully excluded the supernatural,
has become a development machine, a huge spinning-mill, and our religion,
if we have one, a matter of "progressive revelation." We look before and
after, forwards to some dim utopia, backwards to some ape-like ancestor who
links us with the animal world. Our outlook is horizontal, the mediaeval
outlook perpendicular. The mediaeval man looked upward and downward, to
heaven and hell, when he thought of the future, to sun and cloud, land
and crops, when he thought of the present. He lived in the presence of
perpetual miracle, the daily miracle of sunrise, sunset, and shower; and in
the constant faith in resurrection, whether of the corn which he sowed in
the furrow or of his body which his friends would reverently sow in that
deeper furrow, the grave. And his life was as simple and static as his
universe; the seasons determined his labours, the Church his holidays.
Books did not disturb his faith in the unseen world, for he was illiterate;
nor the lust of gold his contentment with his existence, for commerce was
still confined to a few towns. Russia to-day is in spirit what Europe was
in the Middle Ages.[1] The revolutionaries offered her Western civilisation
and Western philosophy, and she rejected the gift with horror.
[Footnote 1: This, of course, by no means implies that she is _behind_ the
West, or that she is of necessity bound to pass through the same process of
development. The problem of modern Russia is not to imitate the West but
to discover some way of coming to terms with Western ideals without
surrendering her own.]
Will she continue to maintain this attitude? "The Russian peasant," says
Mr. Maurice Baring, "as long as he tills the ground will never abandon his
religion or the observance of it.... Because the religion of the peasant is
the working hypothesis taught him by life; and by his observance of it he
follows what he conceives to be the dictates of common sense consecrated by
immemorial custom." The crucial point of this passage is the conditional
clause: "as long as he tills the ground." Of course, Russia, the granary of
Europe, must always be predominantly an agricultural country; yet she is at
the present moment threatened in many parts with an Industrial Revolution,
the ultimate effects of which may prove far more subversive than the
attempted revolution of 1905. For beneath her soil lie explosive materials
more deadly than any dynamite manufactured by _intelligentsia_. Her mineral
wealth, at present almost untouched, is incalculable in quantity and
amazing in variety. When her mines are opened up Russia will become,
according to the judgment of Dr. Kennard, editor of _The Russian
Year-Book,_ "without a doubt the richest Empire the world has ever seen."
Attracted by her vast mining possibilities, by her enormous virgin forests,
by her practically unlimited capacity for grain-production, the capital
of Europe is knocking at the doors of Russia. Factories are rising, mines
being started all over the country. Russia is about to be exploited by
European business enterprise, just as America and Africa have been. The
world has need of her raw materials, and is only interested in her people
as potential cheap labour. Thus within the last few years something
analogous to the proletariat and the bourgeoisie of Europe has come into
existence in Russia. We may catch a glimpse of what these new classes are
like from a recent book by Mr. Stephen Graham, called _Changing Russia_. He
writes:
"The Russian bourgeois is of this sort; he wants to know the price of
everything. Of things which are independent of price he knows nothing,
or, if he knows of them, he sneers at them and hates them. Talk to him of
religion, and show that you believe the mystery of Christ; talk to him
of life, and show that you believe in love and happiness; talk to him of
woman, and show that you understand anything about her unsexually; talk
to him of work, and show that though you are poor you have no regard for
money--and the bourgeois is uneasy.... Instead of opera, the gramophone;
instead of the theatre, the kinematograph; instead of national literature,
the cheap translation; instead of national life, a miserable imitation of
modern English life.... It may be thought that there is little harm in the
commercialisation of the Russian, the secularising of his life; and that
after all the bourgeois population of England, France, and Germany is not
so bad as not to be on the way to something better. But that would be a
mistake; if once the Russian nation becomes thoroughly perverted, it will
be the most treacherous, most vile, most dangerous in Europe. For the
perverted Russian all is possible; it is indeed his favourite maxim,
borrowed, he thinks, from Nietzsche, that 'all is permitted,' and by 'all'
he means all abomination, all fearful and unheard-of bestiality, all
cruelty, all falsity, all debauch.... Selfish as it is possible to be,
crass, heavy, ugly, unfaithful in marriage, unclean, impure, incapable
apparently of understanding the good and the true in their neighbours and
in life--such is the Russian bourgeois."
Mr. Graham's picture of the new proletariat in the Ural mines is an equally
horrible one:
"Gold mining is a sort of rape and incest, a crime by which earth and man
are made viler. If I had doubted of its influence on man I needed but to
go to the Ural goldfields. A more drunken, murderous, brother-hating
population than that of this district I have not seen in all Russia. It was
a great sorrow to see such a delightful peasantry all in debauchery....
The miner has no culture, no taste, not even a taste for property and
squiredom, so that when at a stroke he gains a hundred or a thousand
pounds, it is rather difficult to know how to spend it. His ideal of
happiness has been vodka, and all the bliss that money can obtain for him
lies in that.... Mias is a gold-mining village of twenty-five thousand
inhabitants. It has two churches, four electric theatres, fifteen vodka
shops, a score of beer-houses, and many dens where cards are played and
women bought and sold to the strains of the gramophone. It is situated in a
most lovely hollow among the hills, and, seen from the distance, it is one
of the most beautiful villages of North Russia; but seen from within, it is
a veritable inferno."
Mr. Graham writes as a poet rather than as an economist or a sociologist,
but there is no doubt a grave danger to Russia in a sudden adoption of
industrial life.
_Intelligentsia_, bourgeoisie, and proletariate are all products of the
same forces, all belong to the same family; they are westernised Russians;
they have passed from the fourteenth to the twentieth century at one
stride, and the violent transition has cut them completely adrift from
tradition and from all moral and religious standards; books, commerce,
and industry, the three boasted instruments of our civilisation, have
not civilised such Russians, they have _de-civilised_ them. But, as yet,
Russians of this character form only a tiny fraction of the nation; and
there are happily signs that the dangers of an exotic culture are being
realised even by the _intelligentsia_ themselves. Since the failure of the
revolution there has been a remarkable revival of interest among Russian
thinkers in the native institutions, habits, and even the religion of the
country; and it may be that in time there will emerge from this chaos of
ideals a culture and a civilisation which will "make the best of both
worlds" by adopting Western methods without surrendering an inch of the
nation's spiritual territory, above which floats the standard of religion,
simplicity, and brotherly love. The present war, terrible as it is, may do
something towards bringing this about, for the Russian people, faced by a
common danger and united in a common purpose, are now of one mind and one
heart, in a way that they have not been since a century ago Napoleon was
thundering at the gates of Moscow.
And let this be said: if Russia should ever cease to be Russia, if she ever
loses those grand national characteristics which make her so different from
the West, and therefore so difficult for us Westerns to understand, the
world as a whole will be infinitely the poorer for that loss. We need
Russia even more than Russia needs us; for, while we have grasped the
trappings, she possesses the real spirit of democracy. Of the three
democratic ideals, proclaimed by France in 1789, the mystical trinity:
Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, how much has yet been realised by the
peoples of the West? And Russia is in the way of realising them all!
Fraternity and equality are, as we have seen, the distinctive features of
her national spirit and social structure, and, if her liberty is as yet
imperfect on the political side, it is far more complete than ours on the
side of moral tolerance and respect for the sanctity of human personality.
After all, the reason why Russia has not got complete political freedom is
because, as a nation, she has hitherto taken no interest in politics; for
the first time in 1905 she discovered the use of political action, and she
got out of it a solution of the agrarian distress and a representative
assembly; when she _wants_ more liberty in this direction, she will have no
difficulty in securing it.
§4. _The Subject Nationalities_.--It may fairly be objected at this
point that while Russia may possess these excellent qualities, she has
consistently refused to allow liberty to other peoples, to the Jews,
for example, the Poles, and the Finns. It is necessary therefore to say
something on the matter of Russia's subject nationalities before bringing
these remarks to a conclusion.
Out of the six or seven million Jews in the world, over five million live
within the boundaries of the Russian Empire. Russia is therefore the
motherland of the Children of Israel; though, perhaps, the phrase
step-motherland would express more truly the actual relationship, both
in its origin and its character. Russia has inherited her tremendous
responsibilities towards the Hebrew race from Poland, and her vexed "Jewish
question" is in part a just punishment for her complicity in the wicked
partitions of that country in the eighteenth century. The matter, however,
goes back much farther than the eighteenth century. In the Middle Ages
Poland was a more powerful state than Russia, and comprised territory
stretching from the Gulf of Riga to the Black Sea and from the Oder to the
Dnieper. She was also the one country in Europe which offered to the Jews
security from persecution and an opportunity of developing the commercial
instincts of the race without interference. The result was that Jews
settled in large numbers all over the King of Poland's possessions, and the
presence of Jews in any part of modern Russia is almost a sure sign that
that particular town or province has been Polish territory in former times.
The Russian Government has never, except for a short period, allowed the
Jews to live in Russia proper, and it is very rare to find Jews in north
or central Russia. Even in large cities like Petrograd and Moscow their
numbers are small, while it is interesting to note that the Finns have
copied the rest of Russia in this respect at least that they have always
resolutely refused to admit the Hebrew. Where Russia found Jews among the
new subjects which she acquired by her gradual encroachments upon Poland,
she had of course to let them remain, but she has confined them strictly to
these districts. The existence of this Jewish pale is one of the grievances
of the Jews of Russia, but it is not the heaviest. The liberal-minded
Alexander II. had shown himself lenient to them; but his assassination
in 1881 at the hands of terrorists and the accession of the reactionary
Alexander III. began a period of persecution which has continued until the
present day.
Alexander III. was much influenced by his tutor, Pobiedonostsev, who for
the next thirty years was the most prominent exponent of the philosophy of
Slavophilism. This, which in its modern form may be traced back to 1835,
was in fact nothing else than a perverted glorification of the Russian
national characteristics which have been dwelt upon above. The Slavophils
declared not only that the Russians were a great and admirable nation,
which few who really know them will be disposed to deny, but that their
institutions--and in particular, of course, autocracy and bureaucracy--were
a perfect expression of the national genius which could hardly be improved
upon. Furthermore, it was maintained that, since all other countries but
Russia had taken a wrong turn and fallen into decadence and libertinism, it
was Russia's mission to bring the world back into the paths of rectitude
and virtue by extending the influence of her peculiar culture--and in
particular again, of course, its special manifestations, autocracy
and bureaucracy--as widely as possible. A variant of Slavophilism is
Panslavism, which works for the day when all members of one great Slav race
will be united in one nation, presumably under the Russian crown. Both
these movements are examples of that nationalism run mad to which reference
has been made in the second chapter.[1] But the Slavophils, who are of
course ardent supporters of the Orthodox Church, were faced at the outset
with a great difficulty; the western provinces of Russia, from the Arctic
to the Black Sea, contained masses of population which were neither Russian
nor Orthodox. The Finns in the north were Lutherans; the Poles in the
centre, though Slavs, were Roman Catholic in religion and anti-Russian in
sentiment; and the Jews in the centre and south were--Jews. The first
step, therefore, towards the Slavophil goal was the "Russification" of the
subject peoples of Russia. In theory "Russification" means conferring the
benefits of Russian customs, speech, and culture upon those who do not
already possess them; in practice it amounts to the suppression of local
liberties and traditions.
[Footnote 1: See p. 57.]
It is obvious that it is no easier to make a Jew into a Russian by force
than to change the skin of the proverbial Ethiopian; nor is it likely that
the Russian Government ever entertained the idea of making such an
attempt. If it had any definite plan at all, it was to render things so
uncomfortable to the unfortunate Hebrews that they would gradually leave
the country. Real persecution began at the accession of Alexander III. in
1881, when it spread into Russia, significantly enough, from Germany, where
a violent anti-Semite agitation had sprung up at the beginning of the year.
Riots directed against the Jews, and winked at if not encouraged by the
authorities, broke out in the towns of Southern Russia. Edicts followed
which excluded the Jews from all direct share in local government, refused
to allow more than a small percentage of Jews to attend the schools and
universities, forbade them to acquire property outside the towns, laid
special taxes upon their backs, and so on. This attitude of the Government
encouraged the populace of the towns to believe that they might attack the
Jews with impunity. The Jews are regarded in modern Russia in much the same
light as they were regarded by our forefathers in the Middle Ages. They are
hated, that is to say, on two counts: as unbelievers and as usurers. The
condition of affairs in a township where the population is half-Jewish,
half-Christian, and where the Christians are financially and commercially
in the hands of the Jews, and the Jews are politically and administratively
in the hands of the Christians, is obviously an extremely dangerous one.
Add to this the presence of a large hooligan section which is found in
almost every Russian town of any size, the open disfavour shown towards
the Jews by the Government, and the secret intrigues and incitement of the
police, and you get a train of circumstances which lead inevitably to those
violent anti-Semitic explosions, known as _pogroms_, which have stained the
pages of modern Russian history. The revolutionary movement has complicated
matters still further; for Jews are naturally to be found in the
revolutionary ranks, and the bureaucracy and its hooligan supporters have
tended to identify the Jewish race with the Revolutionary Party. Nothing
can excuse the treatment of the Jews in Russia during the last thirty-five
years, and the guilt lies almost entirely upon the Government, which,
instead of leading the people and educating them by initiating an
enlightened policy towards the Jews, a policy which might in fact have done
more than anything else to "Russify" the latter, has persistently aided and
abetted the worst elements of the population in their acts of violence.
It has reaped its reward in the rise of one of the most formidable of the
revolutionary parties in modern Russia, the so-called Jewish "Bund." The
Governor of Vilna, in a confidential report written in 1903, declared that
"this political movement is undoubtedly a result of the abnormal position
of the Jews, legal and economic, which has been created by our legislation.
A revision of the laws concerning the Jews is absolutely urgent, and every
postponement of it is pregnant with the most dangerous consequences."
Yet when we condemn Russia for her _pogroms_ and her Jew-baitings, we must
not forget two facts: first, that these occurrences are the work, not of
the real Russian people, the peasantry which has been described above, but
of the dregs of the population which are to be found at the base of the
social structure in the towns of Russia as in towns nearer home; second,
that Russia is not the only country in the world that has these racial
problems to face. I once heard a Russian and an American discussing the
comparative demerits of their respective lands, and I am bound to say that
the former held his own very well. When, for example, the American said,
"What about the Jews?" the other answered, "Well, what about the negroes?"
and he parried the further question, "What about _pogroms_?" with another
of his own, "What about lynching?" The problems are not, of course, quite
on all fours, nor do two wrongs make a right, but a reminder that similar
problems exist in other parts of the world will perhaps be enough to show
that the Jewish question in Russia is neither unique nor at all easy to
solve. Let us, instead of visiting the sins of a few townships upon the
heads of the entire Russian nation, be thankful that we have no such
problems in our own islands. Recent riots outside the shops of German
pork-butchers in different parts of the country do not, it must be
confessed, lead one to hope that our people would behave much more calmly
and discreetly than the Whites of the Southern States or the Christians of
South-West Russia, were they placed in the same circumstances.
The Polish question is at once simpler and its story less damaging to the
Russian Government than that of the Jews. The partitions, an account of
which has already been given,[1] were of course iniquitous, but, as we have
seen, Prussia must bear the chief blame for them. In any case, the Tsar
Alexander I. did his utmost for Poland at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
He pleaded eloquently for a reunited Poland, and he almost won over Prussia
by making arrangements to compensate her for her Polish territory at the
expense of Saxony. But France, England, and Austria opposed his project,
and he was obliged to yield to the combined pressure of these powers.
Russia is, therefore, not more but less guilty of the present dismembered
state of Poland than her Western neighbours, among whom we must not forget
ourselves;[2] and she is to-day only attempting to carry out the promise
which she made, but was not allowed to fulfill, a century ago. Disappointed
as he was, Alexander I. made the best of a bad job by granting a liberal
constitution to that part of Poland which the Congress assigned to
Russia. Indeed he did everything possible, short of a grant of absolute
independence, which at that time would have been absurd, to conciliate
public opinion in the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw. Unfortunately the experiment
proved a complete failure, largely owing to the factious and self-seeking
Polish nobility who have always been the worst enemy of their country.
Alexander after a time lost patience, and in 1820 he felt compelled to
withdraw some of the liberties which he had conferred in 1815. After this
the breach between the Russian Government and the Polish people began to
widen, partly owing to stupid and clumsy actions on the side of Russia,
partly to the incurable lack of political common-sense on the side of the
upper classes in Poland, partly to the fact that the country could never
be anything but restless and unsatisfied while it remained divided. The
history of Russian Poland since the time of Alexander is the history of two
great failures to throw off the Russian yoke, the failure of 1830 and of
1863. These risings were marked by heroism, disunion, and incapacity on the
one side, and by relentless repression on the other. The upshot was that
Poland was deprived of her constitutional rights one by one, until finally
she became nothing more than so many provinces of Russia itself. To some
extent, however, the failure of 1863 proved a blessing in disguise. The
rising had been almost entirely confined to the nobility; Russia therefore
turned to the peasants of Poland, released them from all obligations to
work upon the estates of the large landowners, and handed over to them at
least half the land of the country as freehold property. The result of
this measure, and of the removal of the customs barrier between the two
countries in 1877, was twofold: the power of the factious nobility was
shattered for ever, and a marvellous development of industry took place in
Poland which has united her to Russia "with chains of self-interest
likely to prove a serious obstacle to the realisation of Polish hopes of
independence."[3] It is indeed doubtful whether at this date the
Poles cherish any such hopes. What they desire is national unity and
self-government rather than sovereign independence, and they know that they
are at least as likely to receive these from Russia as from Prussia.
[Footnote 1: Pp. 24-27.]
[Footnote 2: As a matter of fact our representative, Lord Castlereagh, was
Alexander's chief opponent at the Congress in the question of Poland. See
_Camb. Mod. Hist._ vol. x. p. 445.]
[Footnote 1: _Camb. Mod. Hist._ vol. xi. p. 629.]
While of late years the relations between Russia and Poland have steadily
improved, those between Russia and Finland, on the contrary, have grown
rapidly worse. Until 1809 Finland was a Grand-Duchy under the Swedish
crown, but in that year, owing to a war which had broken out between Russia
and Sweden, she passed into the control of the nearer and more powerful
State, after putting up a stubborn resistance to annexation which will
always figure as the most glorious episode in the annals of the country.
Alexander I., who was at that time Tsar, adopted the same policy towards
Finland as he did towards Poland. He refused to incorporate the new
province into the Russian State-system, he took the title of Grand-Duke
of Finland (thereby implying that she lay outside the Empire), and he
confirmed the ancient liberties of the Finns. Later on they even secured
greater liberty than they had possessed under Sweden by the grant of a
Finnish Diet, on the lines of the Swedish Diet in Stockholm, which should
have full control of all internal Finnish affairs. Finland, therefore,
gained much from the transfer; she possessed for the first time in her
history complete internal autonomy. This state of things lasted for
practically ninety years, during which period Finland made wonderful
progress both economic and intellectual, so that by the end of the
nineteenth century she was one of the happiest, most enlightened, and most
prosperous countries in Northern Europe. "As regards the condition of
Finland," Alexander I. had declared, "my intention has been to give
this people a political existence, so that they may not feel themselves
conquered by Russia, but united to her for their own clear advantage;
therefore, not only their civil but their political laws have been
maintained." This liberal policy was continued by the various Tsars
throughout the century, the reformer Alexander II. taking particular
interest in the development of the Grand-Duchy, which he evidently regarded
as a place where experiments in political liberty were being worked
out that might later be applied to the rest of Russia. The weakness of
Finland's position lay in the fact that her liberties really depended upon
the personal whim of the Grand-Duke: in theory her constitutional laws were
only alterable by the joint sanction of monarch and people; in practice the
small but courageous nation had no means of redress should the Tsar,
swayed by bureaucratic reaction, choose to go back upon the policy of his
ancestors. And in 1894 a Tsar mounted the throne, Nicholas II., who did so
choose.
The word went forth for the "Russification" of Finland. After picking a
quarrel with the Diet on the military question, the Tsar on February 18,
1899, issued a manifesto suspending the Finnish Constitution and abolishing
the Diet. Finland became with a stroke of the pen a department of the
Russian Empire. A rigorous Press censorship was established, the hated
governor-general Bobrikoff filled the country with gendarmes and spies,
native officials were dismissed or driven to resign, an attempt was made
to introduce the Russian language into the schools, and, though the Finns
could only oppose a campaign of passive resistance to these wicked and
short-sighted measures, at the end of seven years the nation which had for
almost a century been the most contented portion of the Tsar's dominions
was seething with ill-feeling and disloyalty. The inevitable outcome was
the assassination of General Bobrikoff by a young student in June 1904; and
when the Russian universal strike took place in October 1905, the entire
Finnish nation joined in as one man. Finland regained her liberties for
a time, and immediately set to work putting her house in order by
substituting for her old mediaeval constitution a brand new one, based on
universal suffrage, male and female, and employing such up-to-date
devices as proportional representation. The only result of seven years'
"Russification" was the creation of a united democracy, with a strong
socialistic leaven, in place of a nation governed by an antiquated
aristocratic Diet, and divided into two hostile political camps on the
question whether Swedish or Finnish should be the language of the national
culture. But the fortunes of Finland were accidentally but inextricably
bound up with those of the party of reform in Russia, and when the
bureaucracy, after the downfall of the revolutionaries, found itself once
more firmly seated in the saddle, it returned to the attack on the Finnish
Constitution, not indeed with the open and brutal methods of Bobrikoff, but
by gradual and insidious means no less effective. And it must be admitted
that the Russian Duma, as "reformed" by Stolypin, so far from being of
any help to Finland in the struggle, has been made the instrument of the
destruction of her liberties.
Finland is in a very unfortunate position. Geographically she is bound to
form part of the Russian Empire; even the extremest Russophobes in the
country have long ago given up hopes of re-union with Sweden; and yet the
frontier between Finland and Russia is one which divides two worlds, as all
who have made the journey from Helsingfors to Petrograd must have noticed.
In literature, art, education, politics, commerce, industry, and social
reform Finland is as much alive as any of the Scandinavian States from
whom she first derived her culture. In many ways indeed she is the most
progressive country in Europe, and it is her proud boast that she is
"Framtidsland," the land of the future. Lutheran in religion, non-Slavonic
in race, without army, court, or aristocracy, and consequently without
the traditions which these institutions carry with them, she presents the
greatest imaginable contrast to the Empire with which she is irrevocably
linked. Finland is Western of the Westerns, and keenly conscious of the
fact just because of this irrevocable link; Russia is--Russia! And yet, as
part of the Russian system, she must come to terms sooner or later with the
Empire; she cannot receive the protection of the Russian military forces, a
protection to the value of which, if reports be true, she is at the present
moment very much alive, and yet retain her claims to be what is virtually
an independent State. That these claims have been pitched on a high note
is no doubt largely the fault of the blundering and cruel policy of the
Russian bureaucracy. But it must be admitted that Finland has never tried
in the very least to understand her mighty neighbour; she has always sat,
as it were, with her back to Russia, looking westwards, and her statesmen
have not even taken the trouble to learn the Russian language. There has,
in fact, been something a little "priggish" in her superior attitude, in
her perpetually drawn comparison between Russian "barbarism" and Finnish
"culture." Though her capital, Helsingfors, is but twelve hours by rail
from Petrograd, Finland knows as little of the interior of Russia as people
do in England.
The policy of the Russian Government, on the other hand, has been marked
by that inconsistency, political blindness, and arbitrariness which one
expects from an irresponsible bureaucracy. For ninety years Finland was
left alone to work out her own salvation, entirely apart from that of the
rest of the Empire; and then suddenly it was discovered that her coasts
were of the highest strategical importance, and that she was developing a
commercial and industrial system in dangerous competition with the tender
plant of commerce and industry in Russia itself. The Slavophils raised an
outcry, and the decree went out that the Russian whale should swallow this
active and prosperous little Jonah. The former policy was really as stupid,
though less cruel, than the latter. Had there been anything like that
steady political tradition and wide political experience in Russia which we
can draw upon in England, the Imperial Government would have from the first
endeavoured to draw Finland closer to the Empire, not by bands of steel and
iron but by the more delicate and more permanent ties of considerateness,
affection, and self-interest. It is political stupidity, based upon
ignorance and inexperience, and not inhumanity, which is the real
explanation of Russia's unfortunate relations with her subject peoples
during the past century. Moreover, the political machinery which has
hitherto served her own internal needs is the worst possible instrument for
dealing with provinces which possess a full measure of Western political
consciousness together with the traditions of political liberty. Russia,
therefore, requires representative institutions not merely for the
political education of her own people and as a check upon bureaucratic
tyranny and incompetency, but also in order that she may adopt some fair
and _consistent_ policy towards her subject nationalities.
It may be optimistic, but I cannot help feeling that the present war will
do much for Russia, much for Finland, much for Poland. Russia is
fighting to defend a small nation against oppression, she is fighting
a life-and-death struggle with the military bureaucracy which we call
"Germany" for the moment, she is fighting on behalf of "liberty" and of the
"scraps of paper" upon which the freedom of States and individuals depends.
All this will leave a profound effect upon the national consciousness, and
may even bring home for the first time to the people at large the meaning
of political freedom. Russia is so vast, so loose in structure, so
undeveloped in those means of intercommunication such as roads, railways,
newspapers, etc., which make England like a small village-community in
comparison, that it takes the shock of a great war to draw the whole people
together. That it has done so, no one who has read the papers during the
last two months can doubt. War, as a historical fact, has always been
beneficial to Russia; the Crimean War led to the emancipation of the serfs,
the Japanese War led to the establishment of a Duma, and the present war
has already led to surprising results. The consumption of alcohol has been
abolished, concessions have been promised to a reunited Poland, and,
except against the unhappy Jews in the Polish war-area, there has been a
subsidence throughout the Empire of racial antagonism. It is the hope of
all who love Russia, and no one who really knows her can help loving her,
that these beginnings may be crowned not only with victory over Germany in
the field of battle but with victory over the German spirit in the world of
ideas, a victory of which the first-fruits would be the firm establishment
of representative government, a cleansing of the bureaucratic Augean
stables, and a settlement of the problem of subject nationalities upon
lines of justice and moderation.
But whatever the outcome may be, let us in England be fair to Russia.
The road to fairness lies through understanding; and we have grossly
misunderstood Russia because we have not taken the trouble to acquaint
ourselves with the facts, the real facts as distinct from the newspaper
facts, of her situation. When those facts are realised, is it for us to
cast the first stone? Russia needs political reform, the tremendous task
of Peter the Great needs completing, the bureaucracy must be crowned
with representative institutions; but is Russia's need in the sphere of
political reform greater than ours in the sphere of social reform?
Look at our vast miserable slums, our sprawling, ugly, aimless industrial
centres, inhabited by millions who have just enough education to be able to
buy their thinking ready-made through the halfpenny Press and just enough
leisure for a weekly attendance at the local football match and an annual
excursion to Blackpool or Ramsgate; who seldom, if ever, see the glorious
face of Nature and, when they do, gaze into it with blank unrecognising
eyes; whose whole life is one long round of monotony--monotonous toil,
monotonous amusements, monotonous clothes, monotonous bricks and
mortar;--until the very heaven itself, with its trailing cloud-armadas and
its eternal stars, is forgotten, and the whole universe becomes a cowl of
hodden grey, "where-under crawling cooped they live and die." And then look
at those other millions--the millions of Russia--look at the grand simple
life they lead in the fields, a life of toil indeed, but of toil sweet and
infinitely varied; Russia is their country, not merely because they live
there but because they--the peasants--now actually possess by far the
greater part of the arable land; God is their God, not because they have
heard of Him as some remote Being in the Sunday School, but because He
is very near to them--in their homes, in their sacraments, and in their
hearts; and so contentment of mind and soul is theirs, not because they
have climbed higher than their fellows, whether by the accumulation of
knowledge or wealth, but because they have discovered the secret of
existence, which is to want little, to live in close communion with nature,
and to die in close communion with God.
BOOKS
MAURICE BARING. _The Mainsprings of Russia._ 1914. Nelson. 2s. net.
This is an excellent introduction to the subject, recording as it does the
general impressions of an acute and sympathetic observer; it does not, of
course, pretend to be comprehensive, and says nothing, for example, of the
Jews, Poles, Finns, etc.
BERNARD PARES. _Russia and Reform._ 1907. 10s. 6d. net.
MILYOUKOV. _Russia and its Crisis._ 1905. 13s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING. _The Russian People._ 1911. 15s. net.
These three books may be consulted for the Revolution of 1905 and the
events which led up to it. Professor Milyoukov's book was actually
published before the Revolution, but its author was leader of the Cadet
party in the First Duma, and it is therefore something in the nature of
a liberal manifesto. Professor Pares' book, which is perhaps the most
penetrating and well-balanced of all and contains most valuable chapters
on the _Intelligentsia,_ does not, unfortunately, deal with the years of
reaction which followed the dissolution of the First Duma. Mr. Baring's
book may be recommended especially for the later chapters which deal with
the causes of the failure of the Revolution. All three contain a good deal
of sound historical matter.
H.W. WILLIAMS. _Russia of the Russians._ 1914. 6s. net.
ROTHAY REYNOLDS. _My Russian Year_. 1913. 10s. 6d. net.
Two good books dealing with life in contemporary Russia. The first is the
best and most comprehensive treatment of the new Russia which has emerged
from the revolutionary period, and gives one not merely the political
but also the social and artistic aspect. The other book is lightly and
entertainingly written.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. _Undiscovered Russia_. 1911. 12s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. _Changing Russia_. 1913. 7s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. _With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem_. 1913. 7s. 6d.
net.
Mr. Stephen Graham may be said to have discovered the Russian peasant for
English people, and his books give an extraordinarily vivid and sympathetic
picture of Russian peasant-life by one who knows it from the inside. They
afford also the best account of religion in Russia as a living force, while
those who wish to know more of the Orthodox Church as an institution may be
referred to chaps. xxvi. and xxvii. of Mr. Baring's _Russian People_; chap.
viii. of the same writer's _Mainsprings of Russia_; and chap. vi. of Sir
C. Eliot's (Odysseus) _Turkey in Europe_ (7s. 6d. net). The second of Mr.
Graham's books deals with the threatening industrial changes in Russia. The
third is a fine piece of literature as well as being the only account in
any language of one of the most characteristic figures in modern Russian
life--the peasant-pilgrim.
SIR D.M. WALLACE. _Russia_. 2 vols. 1905. 24s. net.
_Russia and the Balkan States._ Reprinted from the _Encyclopedia
Britannica._ 2s. 6d. net.
Both these accounts, though written many years ago, have now been brought
up to date in view of present events.
R. NISBET BAIN. _Slavonic Europe, 1447-1796_. 1908. 5s. 6d. net.
F.H. SKRINE. _The Expansion of Russia, 1815-1900._ 1903. 4s. 6d. net.
W.R. MORFILL. _Russia_. 1890. 5s.
W.R. MORFILL. _Poland_. 1893. 5s.
Are all useful for the history of Russia, and of her relations with Poland,
and Finland. Readers may also be referred to the _Cambridge Modern History_
(vol. ix. chap. xvi.; vol. x. chaps. xiii., xiv.; vol. xi. chaps. ix.,
xxii.; vol. xii. chaps. xii., xiii.).
V O. KLUCHEFFSKY. _A History of Russia._ 3 vols. 1913. Dent. 7s. 6d. net
each.
The standard economic and social history of Russia up to the reign of Peter
the Great.
H.P. KENNARD. _The Russian Year-Book._ Eyre and Spottiswoode. 10s. 6d. net.
Excellent for facts and figures.
E. SÉMÉNOFF. _The Russian Government and the Massacres._ 1907. 2s. 6d. net.
An account of the _pogroms_ in Russia from the Jewish point of view.
J.R. FISHER. _Finland and the Tsars, 1800-1899._ 1899. 12s. 6d.
The best account in English of the history of Finland's relations with
Russia up to the beginning of the reactionary period.
K.P. POBIEDONOSTSEV. _Reflections of a Russian Statesman._ 1898. 6s. For
Slavophilism.
P. KHOPOTKIN. _Memoirs of a Revolutionist._ 1907. 6s.
MAURICE BARING. _Russian Literature._ (Home University Library.) 1s.
A. BRÜCKNER. _A Literary History of Russia._ 1908. 12s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING. _Landmarks in Russian Literature._ 1910. 6s. net.
The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian
literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to
English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading
the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations
are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are
beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading
novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:--
TOURGENIEV. _Fathers and Children._ Heinemann. 2s. net.
A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and
compared with Kropotkin's _Memoirs_.
TOLSTOI. _War and Peace._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. _Anna Karenin._
Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern
literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No
other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of
the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit.
DOSTOIEFFSKY. _The Brothers Karamazov._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once
relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has
agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past.
JOSEPH CONRAD. _Under Western Eyes._ 6s.
A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not a
Russian novelist, but he is of Polish origin.
GOGOL. _The Inspector-General._ Walter Scott. 1s. net.
A comedy first produced in Petrograd in 1836. Gogol is one of Russia's
classics. This play is a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and
inefficiency.
CHAPTER VI
FOREIGN POLICY
The present war has raised in the minds of many men a question which we as
a people will soon be called upon to answer. Was this war necessary? Or was
it caused by the ambitions and foolishness of statesmen? Might it not have
been averted if the peoples of Europe had had more control over the way in
which foreign policy was carried on?
Out of these questions has arisen a demand for the "democratisation of
foreign policy"; that is, for greater popular control over diplomatic
negotiations. In view of this, it becomes necessary for every British
citizen to gain some idea of what foreign policy is and by what principles
it should be governed.
It is the purpose of this chapter to give, first, some account of the
actual meaning of the words "foreign policy," and then, secondly, to
consider how foreign policy may best be controlled in the interests of the
whole population of the British Empire, and in the interests of the world
at large.
A. THE MEANING OF FOREIGN POLICY
§1. _The Foreign Office._--To the ordinary man foreign policy is an affair
of mystery, and it not unnaturally rouses his suspicions. He does not
realise, what is nevertheless the simple truth, that he himself is both the
material and the object of all foreign policy.
The business of the Government of a country is to maintain and further the
interests of the individual citizen. That is the starting-point of all
political institutions. The business of the Foreign Office is a part of
this work of Government, and consists in the protection of the interests of
the individual citizen where those interests depend upon the goodwill of a
foreign Government.
But just as in domestic politics the individual citizen is inclined to
suspect--too often with truth--that the Government does not give impartial
attention to the interests of all the citizens, but is preoccupied in
protecting the interests of powerful and privileged persons or groups, so
in foreign policy the individual citizen is particularly prone to believe
that the time of the Foreign Office is taken up in furthering the interests
of rich bondholders or powerful capitalists. Moreover, the charge is
sometimes heard that some of the most powerful of these capitalists are
engaged in the manufacture of armaments, and that the Foreign Office
aims at securing orders from foreign Governments for these firms, thus
encouraging the nations of the world to provide themselves with means of
destruction.
Now, just as no sensible man will say that Governments do not often oppress
the people under their care, so no sensible man will contend that Foreign
Offices do not sometimes sin in the same way. But let us try to give an
accurate picture of the work on which the British Foreign Office spends its
time.
The organisation of the Foreign Office consists of:
(1) An office, situated in Downing Street, manned by a number of clerks,
under the direction of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
(2) The Diplomatic Service--that is to say, from three to eight officials
residing in the capital of each foreign country. In the more important
countries these officials are called an Embassy, and are under the
direction of an Ambassador; in the smaller countries they are called a
Legation, and are under the direction of a Minister. These Ambassadors and
Ministers receive instructions from and report to the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, and are the mouthpiece of the British Government in
all business which Great Britain transacts with foreign countries.
(3) The Consular Service--that is to say, a large number of officials,
called Consuls, distributed over all the towns of the world where British
subjects have important trade connections or where there are a considerable
number of British subjects. These Consuls are under the direction of the
Foreign Office and of the Embassy or Legation in the country where they
reside, and their business is to assist British trade and protect British
subjects.
§2. _The Work of the Foreign Office._--The work of this whole organisation
may be divided into four classes:
(1) The protection of individual British subjects. This protection often
extends to the most petty matters. Through the offices of a Consul and
of an Embassy or Legation flows day by day a continual stream of British
subjects who are in small difficulties or have small grievances against the
officials of the country. One old lady has lost her luggage; a working man
is stranded without work and wants to get back to England; a commercial
traveller has got into trouble with the customs officials and asks for
redress. But the protection thus given is often concerned with very
important matters, and is constantly employed on behalf of the poorest and
the most helpless. For instance, our officials in the United States are
constantly occupied, in assisting British immigrant working men and women
who are suffering hardships under the stringent provisions of the United
States immigration laws.
(2) The furthering of British trade. It is the duty of the whole Foreign
Office organisation, but especially of the Consuls, to give advice to the
representatives of commercial firms, to report openings for the sale of
British goods abroad, and generally to give assistance to British trade
in its competition with foreign trade. Enquiries will, for instance, be
received by a Consul at a Chinese port from a manufacturer of pottery or
harness or tin-tacks, asking what type of goods will be likely to find
a market in that locality. The Consul will then enquire and give such
information as his local knowledge enables him to supply. Or again,
a foreign country will sometimes make regulations which hinder the
importation of English products. English oats may, for instance, be
affected with a blight which Italy fears may infect her crops if she allows
their importation. It may then become the duty of the British Embassy at
Rome to make arrangements with the Italian Government in order that English
farmers may not suffer by losing the market for their produce. But one
important point must be remembered, because it is too often forgotten by
those who criticise the Foreign Office. There is one general restriction on
the activities of the Foreign Office in assisting British trade: no British
official is allowed to invite, or try to persuade, any foreign Government
to give orders to British firms, whether for war material or for any other
article.
What we have already said applies to the relations between civilised
countries. But the relations between civilised countries on the one hand,
and uncivilised or semi-civilised countries on the other hand, are very
much more difficult in many ways. Difficulties especially arise with regard
to commerce. Many of the less-developed countries of the world, such
as some South American countries and China, cannot, like their richer
neighbours, undertake the development of their own resources. They lack
money, scientific training, business ability, and so on. They therefore
give what are called "concessions" to foreign companies or capitalists;
that is, the Government of the country leases some industry for a term of
years to the foreign company. The Mexican Government, for instance, has
leased its oil-wells to English, American, and Dutch companies, and the
Chinese Government has largely confided the construction and management of
its railroads to English, French, and German companies.
Now, in many countries where this happens, the Government is not strong
enough or permanent enough to guarantee proper security of tenure to the
foreign company to which it grants a concession; very likely some official
is bribed to grant the concession to one company and then bribed by another
company to cancel it, or the Government is overthrown by a revolution
and its successor cancels the concessions it has granted. By this means,
British workmen may be thrown out of work and their employment may pass
to workmen in the United States or Germany. Consequently, foreign
Governments--the Governments of civilised countries--gradually begin to
intervene and give protection to their subjects who have concessions in
such countries, provided that they have obtained their concessions in a
respectable and proper manner. Competition between the different foreign
companies then grows up; their Governments gradually begin to support them
against each other in this competition, until at last it becomes necessary
for the different Governments, if bad feeling is to be avoided, to try to
arrive at some arrangement among themselves, fixing the way in which
the concessions granted by this or that semi-civilised country shall be
distributed among the subjects of the Great Powers. Something like this has
been recently happening in China.
To a certain extent this line of action seems to be necessary in dealing
with backward countries, and it may be made mutually beneficial both to
those countries themselves and to the commerce of the Great Powers, but,
on the other hand, the whole policy is obviously liable to great abuse.
Consequently, every self-respecting Government knows that all matters
relating to concessions must be treated with the greatest caution and
forbearance, and that the interests of all concerned will be best served
in the long run by gradually helping backward countries along the path of
civilisation and strengthening their Governments so that they may be able
to assume complete control of their own finance and commercial enterprises.
We have now described roughly the personal and the commercial work of the
Foreign Office. This work covers all the immediate interests of individual
British citizens in regard to foreign countries. If each British subject
is protected when abroad, and if the trade and industry of the country on
which the welfare and livelihood of every individual citizen ultimately
depends is fostered and safe-guarded, then the primary duties of the
British Government in relation to other Governments have been discharged.
But this is not enough. If the interests of the individual citizen of Great
Britain are to be permanently secured in relation to foreign countries, we
must be assured that the policy of foreign Governments is civilised and
generally friendly to British subjects. There must be a general rule of law
throughout the world on which British subjects can count with assurance of
safety. And so the Foreign Office has a third and even more important class
of work:
(3) The maintenance of permanent good relations with foreign countries.
These good relations are secured, not only by continually friendly
communication with foreign Governments over innumerable questions of
policy, but also by the conclusion of a network of treaties, some of them
designed to establish international co-operation in particular social or
economic questions such, for instance, as the existing treaty between Great
Britain and France providing for the mutual payment of compensation under
the Workmen's Compensation Laws of the two countries, and others concluded
with the object of defining the mutual policy of different countries in
general matters such as the regulation of trade. The newest and most
important class of treaties are those which, like the Hague Conventions and
the treaties guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, attempt
to lay down general rules of law which all countries agree to observe.
In other words, the office of diplomacy is to secure _certainty_ in the
government of the world, so that every man may know what to expect in
dealing with his fellow-man of a different nationality.
It is difficult to describe adequately the complexity of this diplomatic
work. The economic and social systems of the world have become so involved
and intertwined that there is hardly anything one country can do which does
not react in some way on the interests of the subjects of another country.
In every European country, and in the United States, the Government is
being more and more called upon to regulate the delicate economic and
social machinery on which modern life depends. Each Government adopts an
attitude towards such problems which is determined partly by the thought
and the beliefs of its public men, and partly by the course of historical
development through which each country has passed. There thus arises
gradually in each country a more or less definite policy with which the
country becomes identified. Formerly the policy of most European countries
was mainly confined to questions arising in Europe itself, but in these
days of industrial expansion the real aims of their policy generally lie
outside Europe.
There are vast regions of the world where civilised government does not
exist, or is only beginning to exist, but where the citizens of civilised
countries travel and carry on trade. No civilised country can prevent its
traders going where they please--indeed, the prosperity of every great
country now depends to some extent at least upon its traders finding
new markets for the sale of their goods--but if these traders go to an
uncivilised country like Central Africa or the interior of China or the
South Sea Islands the civilised country not only feels obliged to protect
them there, but it must also, by every claim of justice and humanity,
prevent them from ill-using the uncivilised and helpless natives.
The horrors which accompany the unregulated activity of foreign traders in
a savage country may be seen from the _Life of John G. Paton,_ a missionary
in the New Hebrides Islands of the Southern Pacific. These islands, before
they came under the government of any civilised Power, were visited by
European and American traders, especially traders in sandalwood. "The
sandalwood traders," wrote Paton, "are as a class the most godless of
men.... By them the poor defenceless natives are oppressed and robbed on
every hand; and if they offer the slightest resistance they are ruthlessly
silenced by the musket or revolver.... The sale of intoxicants, opium,
fire-arms, and ammunition by the traders among the New Hebrideans, had
become a terrible and intolerable evil." It became necessary for the
civilised Powers to prohibit, by international regulation, the sale of
fire-arms and intoxicants in the islands. Such international regulations
are always very difficult to enforce, and finally the administration of the
islands was taken over by Great Britain and France, who now govern them
jointly.
Hence the civilised countries of the world have gradually been led to
assume jurisdiction in uncivilised regions, and have converted many of them
into colonies or "protectorates" or "spheres of influence." By this process
the interests of the nations of Europe reach out into all the far corners
of the earth, and constant care and arrangement is needed to prevent those
interests clashing. Where the interests of the different Powers do clash in
an uncivilised or semi-civilised part of the world a general international
agreement is often necessary to put things straight; for instance, during
recent years the interests of Germany, France, and Spain--and to a less
degree those of many other countries--were continually clashing in Morocco,
till it became necessary in 1906 to conclude a general international treaty
called the Algeciras Act, whereby the relations of all the Powers with
regard to Morocco were defined in great detail.
§3. _The Balance of Power._--It is this continual attempt to arrange
matters and to keep the different Powers clear of each other in order that
their interests may not clash, which is the real underlying cause to-day of
what is known as the "Balance of Power." The doctrine of the "Balance
of Power" grew up at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth century when Europe was threatened by the policy of aggression
and conquest undertaken by Louis XIV. of France. From that day onward,
European statesmen have sought to establish a definite European system and
to limit the growth of the European States in such a way as to ensure that
no State should be so strong as to threaten its neighbours.
The history of this attempt has been somewhat as follows. A coalition of
the States of Europe was formed against the aggressions of Louis XIV.
After a series of wars a peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713 defining the
boundaries of the European States in such a way as to establish equality
and a balance of power between them. For about ten years European statesmen
attempted to maintain the system thus set up by means of what has since
come to be known as the "Concert of Europe"--that is, by means of a series
of international congresses where opportunity was given for the settlement
of disputes between the different States. Soon, however, it became
impossible to satisfy the ambitions of the rulers and peoples of Europe by
this means, and the Concert of Europe broke up. Wars followed, during which
those statesmen, especially in England, who believed in the "Balance of
Power" sought to prevent any European nation from being overwhelmed by its
enemies. To this end, England supported Austria against the attacks of
Prussia, and then later supported Prussia against a coalition formed by the
rest of Europe to crush her. Unfortunately neither England nor France had
sufficient strength or courage to prevent the partition of Poland between
Prussia, Russia and Austria, which constituted a fatal violation of the
Balance of Power. Peace did not return to Europe till 1815, when the whole
continent had been driven to combine for the overthrow of Napoleon. At the
Congress of Vienna in that year the "Concert of Europe" was revived, and
for more than thirty years it practically succeeded by means of a series
of international congresses in maintaining a stable and balanced system in
Europe.
But this "Concert of Europe" was the very thing against which the
democratic forces on the continent finally rebelled, for the "Concert" took
the form of the so-called "Holy Alliance" between the rulers of Europe,
whose object was to prevent popular movements from disturbing the neat and
orderly peace which they had created. The system created by the Congress of
Vienna began to break down in 1848. Since then the warlike nationalist and
democratic movements in Europe, followed by the tremendous economic growth
of the European nations, have made it almost impossible to secure any
stable balance of power, though a more or less successful attempt to
establish such a balance in the affairs of south-eastern Europe was made at
the Congress of Berlin in 1878. The two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907
did little but reveal the mutual fears and suspicions of the European
nations, though many statesmen, especially English and American, laboured
sincerely to make the Hague Conventions the guarantee of a lasting peace.
But it must be observed that the "Balance of Power," which was originally a
distinctly European conception, has now become a world-wide conception. In
order to secure a balance of power between the European States it is no
longer sufficient to settle European frontiers; it is necessary to settle
and, as it were, dovetail into each other the economic interests of the
European countries in Africa, Asia, and the Southern Pacific. It is also
necessary to define the relations of European countries to the States in
North and South America.
What is the conclusion to be drawn from this history? The idea of the
Balance of Power is unsatisfactory. You cannot really "balance" living
forces. Nations are not dead masses which can be weighed against each
other, but living growths which expand according to obscure natural laws.
Human laws can never stop natural growth; growth can only be stopped by
death, and so the Balance of Power seems to necessitate continual conflict.
And so, at least twice in the last two centuries, the attempt to maintain a
stable European system by a peaceful "Concert of Europe" has broken down.
Once, in the Holy Alliance, that Concert itself became an intolerable
tyranny. Many men to-day hope to secure peace by re-establishing the
Concert of Europe on a democratic basis, but it may well be doubted whether
any such system can be permanent, unless there be a radical reform in the
mind and character not only of European statesmen but of the European
peoples. We shall discuss this later, but meanwhile we may say this at
least. A balance of power is an imperfect conception. It is a rough and
ready--almost barbarous--policy. The best that can be said for it is that
no alternative policy has been devised, or at least none has succeeded.
Every one of us who has a spark of idealism believes that the day will come
when it shall give place to some more perfect system. But at the present
day not only international politics but also home politics are governed
by this idea of a balance of power. No democracy has yet been able to
establish itself in any country except by virtue of a continual conflict
between class and class, between interest and interest, between capital and
labour, and international conflicts are but the reflection of the domestic
conflicts within each State; both are continual unsuccessful attempts to
reach a stable equilibrium, and they can only be ended by a true fusion of
hearts and wills.
§4. _The Estimation of National Forces._--It has been necessary to
undertake this long discussion in order to give a more or less clear idea
of the work done by diplomacy in maintaining a stable international system.
Arising out of this we have now to consider the fourth class of work--and
the most difficult--which the Foreign Office has to perform. For want of a
better name we may call it--
(4) The estimation of national forces. Nations are not mere agglomerations
of individuals; they have each their own character, their own feelings,
and their own life. Science has done little to determine the laws of
their growth, but, as we have seen, each nation does grow, reaches out
slowly--almost insensibly--in this or that direction, and gathers to itself
new interests which in their turn give new impulse to its growth. Perhaps
the best simile that we can use for the foreign policy of the world is that
of a rather tangled garden, where creepers are continually growing and
taking root in new soil and where life is therefore always threatening
and being threatened by new life. The point is that we are dealing with
_life_--with its growth and decay; not with the movements of pieces on a
chequer-board.
Now, the Foreign Office largely exists in order to watch this growth and,
like a gardener, to train and lead it in directions where it can
expand without danger. But for this work intimate knowledge is
necessary--knowledge not so much of the personal character or policy of
those who govern the different nations, but knowledge of the character,
the economic needs, the beliefs, the feelings, and the aspirations of the
half-dumb millions who form and ultimately determine the life of each
nation. The diplomatist must study every political and social movement
which goes on in a nation; he must estimate the effect which the national
system of education is having on the mind of the nation; he must form an
idea of the lessons which the Government of his own country should learn
from the government of other countries, whether it be, for instance,
lessons in constitutional government or in municipal sanitation; and he
must above all be able to warn his Government of the dangers to his own
country which the growth of foreign countries seems to entail, in order
that peaceful measures may be taken in time to prevent a collision.
This, then, is a rough account of the actual work of diplomacy. It is not a
full account. There are many wrong things done which deserve criticism, but
which we have not had space to mention. There is also much self-sacrificing
and thankless work done by diplomatists and consuls in distant parts of the
world--much seeming drudgery which can hope for no reward--many honourable
services rendered to the public of which the public never hears. But the
above account will suffice to give a rough idea of the organisation with
which we are dealing, and we may now pass on to consider the question of
how this organisation should be managed and controlled.
B. THE DEMOCRATISATION OF FOREIGN POLICY
This phrase is rapidly becoming a political catchword. As such it requires
to be approached with the utmost caution. Before going further it is
necessary to test the assumptions underlying it and to inquire how far they
really correspond to the facts.
§1. _Democracy and Peace._--First of all, the main assumption made by
Englishmen who advocate the democratisation of foreign policy is that
international peace would thereby be assured. True, the extension of the
democratic principle is to many men an end in itself, quite apart from the
question whether it tends to peace. But great masses of men are not moved
to make political demands merely by theoretical considerations; it is the
pressure of definite and imminent evils which arouses them to action. In
the case of England the demand for greater democratic control in the sphere
of foreign policy arose in large measure from the sudden realisation, in
the late summer of 1911, at the time of the so-called Agadir crisis, that
war between this country and Germany was a possibility with which English
statesmen and the English people had to reckon. We had felt the breath
of war actually on our cheek, and a large section of English sentiment
revolted from it. A demand was raised for a democratic policy of peace.
Three years later, on August 3, 1914, when Parliament met to decide the
happiness or sufferings of the quarter of the human race comprised in the
British Empire, the same demand was voiced in a series of speeches which
accurately expressed the belief that peace was the policy of the people,
while war was the secret aim of their rulers. Mr. T. Edmund Harvey, M.P.,
spoke as follows:
"I am convinced that this war, for the great masses of the countries of
Europe, and not for our own country alone, is no people's war. It is a war
that has been made ... by men in high places, by diplomatists working in
secret, by bureaucrats who are out of touch with the peoples of the world,
who are the remnant of an older evil civilisation which is disappearing by
gradual and peaceful methods."
Mr. Ponsonby, M.P., spoke in the same sense:
"I trust that, even though it may be late, the Foreign Secretary will use
every endeavour to the very last moment, disregarding the tone of messages
and the manner of Ambassadors, but looking to the great central interests
of humanity and civilisation to keep this country in a state of peace."
Democracy means peace;--can we accept this assumption? Contrasts are
sometimes illuminating, and it may be well to turn from the Parliamentary
debate of August 3 to an article written sixty-two years ago in an English
review by the greatest democrat of his time. In April 1852 Mazzini
published in the _Westminster Review_ an appeal to England to intervene on
the Continent in favour of the revolutionary movements in progress there
since 1848. The following is an extract from that article:
"The menace of the foreigner weighs upon the smaller States; the last
sparks of European liberty are extinguished under the dictatorial veto of
the retrograde powers. England--the country of Elizabeth and Cromwell--has
not a word to say in favour of the principle to which she owes her
existence. If England persist in maintaining this neutral, passive, selfish
part, she will have to expiate it. A European transformation is inevitable.
When it shall take place, when the struggle shall burst forth at twenty
places at once, when the old combat between fact and right is decided,
the peoples will remember that England had stood by, an inert, immovable,
sceptical witness of their sufferings and efforts.... England will find
herself some day a third-rate power, and to this she is being brought by a
want of foresight in her statesmen. The nation must rouse herself and shake
off the torpor of her Government."
Mr. Ponsonby appealing in the name of the people to Sir Edward Grey to
stand aloof from European war; Mazzini appealing in the name of the people
to the respectable, peaceable, middle classes of England to forsake
Cobden's pacifist doctrines and throw England's sword into the scale of
European revolution--it is a strange contrast which serves to remind us
that the word "democracy," so lightly bandied about by political parties,
has many different meanings and has stood for many different policies. It
may be roughly said that it stood for internationalism in 1792, when France
claimed as her mission the liberation of all nations under the tricolor;
it stood for nationalism in 1848 in the mouth of Mazzini, Kossuth and the
German constitutional party; to-day it again stands for internationalism
in the more advanced countries of Europe, but are we justified as yet in
calling this more than a phase in the development of democratic doctrine?
It is a very difficult question, which it would be presumptuous to try to
answer offhand; all we have tried to show here is that, on the whole, the
assumption as to the peaceful tendencies of a democratic foreign policy is
a doubtful one, on which we must to some extent reserve our judgment.
§2. _Foreign Policy and Popular Forces._--The above considerations will
help us to appreciate at its true value the second main assumption which
lies behind the demand for increased democratic control of foreign
policy--namely, the assumption that the stuff of international politics
is at present spun from the designs of individual statesmen, and has no
relation to the needs of the peoples they govern. Stated thus, this idea
will not bear examination for a moment. The doctrine of the "economic
interpretation of history," which has received perhaps its most emphatic
expression in the teaching of Marxian socialists, is now in one form or
another accepted by all thinking men. But "economics" is after all a rough
name for the sum of the ordinary needs and efforts of every single human
being, and the economic interpretation of history means that the history of
the world is in the long run determined by the cumulative force of these
humble needs and efforts. This and this alone is the real stuff of
international politics. Statesmen may attempt to found systems, but the
only real force in international as in domestic politics is the education
of the individual man's desires. It is indeed open to any critic to say
that our present capitalist economic system is responsible for war because
it dams up and diverts from their true channels the needs and the efforts
of the mass of mankind. But to this an Englishman may fairly answer that
the free trade system under which our capitalist organisation has reached
its greatest development was built up by the Manchester School with the
sincere and avowed object of introducing universal peace. Cobden avowed
this object clearly:
"I see," he said, "in free trade that which shall act on the moral world
as the law of gravitation in the universe, drawing men together, thrusting
aside the antagonism of race and creed and language and uniting us in the
bonds of eternal peace... I believe that the desire and motive for large
and mighty empires, for gigantic armies and mighty navies ... will die
away."
Yet, in spite of these aspirations, great wars have come to England,
not once, but at least three times, since these words were spoken, and
armaments are immeasurably larger than ever before.
Let us understand one thing clearly in connection with the present war. Mr.
Ponsonby, in the words already quoted, implored Sir E. Grey to "look to the
great central interests of humanity and civilisation," and to preserve the
neutrality of England in those interests. But at the moment at which he
spoke the eyes of English statesmen were looking at one thing alone. It was
not a question of what French statesmen expected them to do. The British
Government had explained quite clearly to French statesmen that they must
not expect armed support from England. This fact had been made clear to the
French Foreign Office long before in a series of conversations between the
statesmen, and it had been embodied in a letter from Sir E. Grey to the
French Ambassador. But when the shadow of war actually fell on France these
conversations and this letter faded into the background. It was no longer a
question of what the French President expected from the King of England. It
was a question of what Jacques Roturier, artisan in the streets of Paris,
knowing that the Germans were on the frontier and might be dropping their
shells into Paris in a fortnight, expected from John Smith, shopkeeper in
the East India Dock Road, London, safe behind the English Channel from all
the horrors of war. That was, not rhetorically but in all soberness of
fact, the real "international obligation" on August 3, 1914; for though
treaties are made by statesmen they are in the long run interpreted, not
by statesmen, but by the public opinion which becomes slowly centred on
them--by the hopes and fears of millions of working men and women who have
never read the terms of the treaty but to whom it has become the symbol of
a friendship on which they can draw in case of need. The magistrate may
write the marriage lines, but the marriage becomes what the husband and
wife make it--a thing far deeper and more binding than any legal contract.
In the light of these considerations, we can establish one point of supreme
importance in dealing with foreign policy--namely, that the causes of war
are very different from the immediate occasions of war. When the British
Government, at the outbreak of the present war, published a White Paper
containing the diplomatic correspondence between July 20 and August 4,
1914, they were publishing evidence as to the immediate occasion of
war--namely the Austrian ultimatum of July 23 to Serbia which brought on
the war. In the twelve days which intervened between the delivery of that
ultimatum and the declaration of war between England and Germany, the
negotiations on which hung the immediate fate of Europe were, it is true,
conducted by a few leading statesmen. But it is of little use to argue
whether or not these negotiations were conducted ill or well, for they were
not the real _cause_ of the war. The cause of the war must be sought in the
slow development of forces which can be traced back for years, and even for
centuries. It was comparatively futile for Parliament to discuss whether
this or that despatch or telegram was wise or unwise; the real questions to
be asked were--What produced the crowds in Vienna surging round the Serbian
Legation at the end of June, and round the Russian Embassy at the end of
July; what produced the slow, patient sympathy for the Balkan peoples and
hatred for Austria in the heart of millions of Russian peasants; what
produced the Servian nationalist movement; above all, what produced that
strange sentiment throughout Germany which could honestly regard the
invasion of Belgium as justifiable? To answer those questions we have to
estimate the force of the most heterogeneous factors in history:--for
instance, on the one hand, the slow break-up of the Turkish Empire,
extending over more than two centuries, which has allowed the cauldron of
the Slavonic Balkan peoples to boil up through the thin crust of foreign
domination; and on the other hand, the gradual development of the whole
system of German State education, and the character of the German
newspapers, which have turned the eyes of German public opinion in upon
itself and have excluded from public teaching and from the formation of
thought every breath of fresh air from the outside world, until at last
German public sentiment, through extreme and incessant self-contemplation,
has lost the calmness and simplicity which were once the strength of the
German character. No man can allot the responsibility for these things,
spreading as they do over generations; but assuredly the responsibility
does not rest with the half-dozen Ministers for Foreign Affairs who were in
power in July 1914.
If we are right in what we have said above, then the phrase "the
democratization of foreign policy" takes on a new meaning. It does not
mean merely the introduction into foreign policy of any set of democratic
institutions; it means the realisation by both statesmen and people that
foreign policy is already in its essence a fundamentally democratic thing,
and that the success or failure of any line of action depends not upon the
desires of politicians but upon the mighty forces which move and determine
the life of peoples.
At present the statesmen do not realise this sufficiently, and hence comes
much futile and aimless talking and writing among politicians who fancy
that what they say or write to each other in their studies can determine
the course of the world. In order to enable diplomatists to discharge all
the duties we have already enumerated under the heading of "the estimation
of national forces," they need to have a better training and a fuller
knowledge of the life and social movements both of their own country and
of foreign countries. The Royal Commission on the Civil Service was still
considering, when war broke out, how this could be accomplished. It is too
long a question to enter on here, but it may safely be said that the more
the problem is examined the more does it appear to be, like the wider
problem of the whole body of 200,000 civil servants in the United Kingdom,
a question of national education, and not a mere matter of Government
regulations and democratic institutions. What is required, in the Foreign
Office, as in the whole British civil service, has been well expressed by
Mr. Graham Wallas in his book _Human Nature in Politics_:
"However able our officials are and however varied their origin, the danger
of the narrowness and rigidity which has hitherto so generally resulted
from official life would still remain and must be guarded against by every
kind of encouragement to free intellectual development."
§3. _Foreign Policy and Education_.--But if statesmen do not sufficiently
realise the strength of existing popular forces in foreign policy, it is
equally true that the people themselves do not realise it. The people of
every country are inclined to think that they can alter the destiny of
nations by ousting one foreign minister from power and setting up another;
they think that speeches and the resolutions passed by congresses can
change fundamental economic facts. They think that mere expressions of
mutual goodwill can take the place of knowledge, and they forget that no
nation can shake itself free in a moment from the historical development
which has formed it, just as no man can wholly shake himself free from
the character which he has inherited from his ancestors. Indeed all our
phrases--our whole attitude of mind--shows how little we, as a people,
realise popular forces. We commonly speak, for instance, of Russia as if
nothing in that vast country had any influence on foreign affairs except
the opinions of a few bureaucrats in Petrograd. Our sympathy for
or hostility to Russia is determined by our opinion of the Russian
bureaucracy, and we never spare a thought for the hopes and fears and the
dumb but ardent beliefs of millions of Russian peasants. We are apt to
dismiss them from our minds as ignorant and superstitious villagers
tyrannised over by the Tsar, without troubling to enquire narrowly into the
real facts of Russian life. We thus make precisely the same mistake that
diplomatists too often make. We forget that the masses of peasants who flow
every year on pilgrimage to the shrines of their religion constitute a more
vital fact in the history of the world than the deliberations of the Duma
or the decisions of police magistrates.
Here we have a lesson to learn from Germany, for German statesmen,
strangely enough, have taken immense trouble to make their policy a
democratic one. The whole German nation is behind them because for
years and years they have taught the nation through the schools, the
universities, and the press, their own reading of history and their own
idea of what true civilisation is. They have adapted their teaching to the
fundamental characteristics and to the history of the German people. They
have taken pains to ally the interests alike of capital and labour to their
policy, and to fuse the whole nation by a uniform national education and by
a series of paternal social reforms imposed from above. The real strength
and danger of Germany is not what her statesmen or soldiers _do_, but what
Germans themselves _believe_. We are fighting not an army but a false idea;
and nothing will defeat a false idea but the knowledge of the truth.
When this war is over, whatever its outcome may be, we must try to
introduce a new era into the history of the world. But our fathers and our
fathers' fathers have tried to do this same thing, and we shall not succeed
if we go about the work in a spirit of self-sufficiency and hasty pride.
Only knowledge of the truth will enable us to succeed. Knowledge of the
truth is not an easy thing; it is a question of laborious thought, mental
discipline, the humility which is content to learn and the moral courage
which can face the truth when it is learnt. How are we to gain these
things?
First of all, by schools, universities, classes--all the machinery of our
national and private education.
Then, by the same means as popular government employs in other matters--by
discussion, by debates in Parliament, by criticism of the Government. Now,
these means are not employed at present partly because it is feared that
criticism of the Government in matters of foreign policy will weaken its
hands in dealing with foreign nations. This is a just fear if criticism
merely springs from the critics' personal likings or prejudices, but
no such evil effects need be feared if the criticism springs from deep
thought, from knowledge of the facts and from the patience and wisdom
which thought and knowledge bring. But partly also effective discussion
of foreign politics does not exist because we are more interested in home
politics. We really have, if we cared to use it, as much democratic control
over the Foreign Office under our constitution as over any Government
Department, for the Foreign Office, like every other Department, is under
the control of a member of Parliament, elected by the people. But we
are more interested in social reform, in labour legislation, and in
constitutional reform than in foreign politics; and so it is on questions
of home policy that we make and unmake Governments, and when we discuss
whether a Conservative or a Liberal Government ought to be in power, we
never think what effect the change would have on foreign policy. If the
democracy is to take a real part in foreign politics, it must recognise
that great responsibilities mean great sacrifices. We must be content to
think a little less of our internal social reform, and give more of our
attention to the very difficult questions which arise beyond the Channel
and beyond the Atlantic Ocean. We must live constantly in the consciousness
that the world to-day is one community, and that in everything we do as
a people we bear a responsibility not to ourselves alone but to the
population of the British Empire as a whole and to the family of nations.
But when we have really set ourselves to understand and discharge the
responsibilities of foreign policy, how shall we, the people of this
country, make our opinions effective? How can we be sure that the Foreign
Office will carry out a policy corresponding to the considered convictions
which we as a people have formed?
As already stated, we have in our hands the same means of Parliamentary
control over foreign policy as over internal policy. Parliament can
overthrow a Government whose policy it disapproves, and it can refuse to
grant supplies for the carrying out of such a policy. Short of this, the
people can express through Parliament its views as to the way in which
foreign policy should be conducted, and generally Ministers will bow, in
this as in other matters, to the clearly expressed views of Parliament. We
have, in fact, recently seen a striking example of this. When after the
international crisis of 1911 the country clearly expressed the opinion that
no secret engagements should be entered into with any Power which would
force Great Britain to go to war in support of that Power, the Prime
Minister stated, and has repeated his statement emphatically on several
subsequent occasions, that the Government of this country neither had
entered, nor would enter, into any such secret engagements, and that any
treaty entailing warlike obligations on this country would be laid before
Parliament. This has now become a fixed and recognised fact in British
policy, and it is not too much to say that, like other constitutional
changes under the British system of government, it is rapidly becoming a
part of the unwritten constitution of the country.
But many people would like to go beyond this, and lay down that no treaty
between Great Britain and another country shall be valid until it has been
voted by Parliament. Many countries have provisions of this kind in their
constitutions; for instance, the constitution of the United States provides
that all treaties must be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate,
and the French constitution contains the following provision:
"The President of the Republic negotiates and ratifies treaties. He brings
them to the knowledge of the Chamber so soon as the interests and the
safety of the State permit.
"Treaties of peace and of commerce, treaties which impose a claim on the
finances of the State, those which relate to the personal status and
property rights of French subjects abroad, do not become valid until they
have been voted by the two Chambers. No cession, exchange, or increase of
territory can take place except by virtue of a law."
Such constitutional provisions may be good in their way, and it may be
that we should copy them. But the question is one of secondary importance.
Whether treaties must actually be ratified by Parliament, or merely laid
before Parliament for an expression of its opinion, as is commonly done in
this country, the Parliament and people of Great Britain will have control
over foreign policy just in the measure that they take a keen interest in
it. If they take a keen interest no statesman dependent for his position
on the votes of the electorate will dare to embody in a treaty a policy of
which they disapprove; while if they do not take an adequate interest,
no amount of constitutional provisions will enable them to exercise an
intelligent control over the actions of statesmen.
The same may be said of another expedient adopted in many countries;
namely, the appointment by Parliament of Committees on Foreign Affairs,
with power to call for papers and examine Ministers on their policy.
Democratic government both in foreign and internal affairs has hitherto
rested on the idea that Parliament should have adequate control over the
principles on which policy is conducted, but must to a large extent leave
the details of administration to the executive departments which are
controlled by the Ministers of the Crown. Parliament, whether through
committees or otherwise, will never be able to follow or control all
diplomatic negotiations, any more than it can control all the details
of the administration necessary to carry out a complicated law like the
Insurance Act; and Committees of Parliament, however useful, will have
no influence unless the people of the country so recognise their
responsibilities in foreign politics that they will demand from the men
whom they elect to Parliament a judgment and a knowledge of foreign
affairs, at least as sound and well based as they now require in the case
of internal affairs.
It will be seen that this imposes a very difficult task on the British
electorate. How are they to weigh foreign affairs and internal affairs
against each other? What are they to do if they approve the internal policy
of a Government, but disapprove of its foreign policy, or _vice versa_? Are
we, for instance, to sacrifice what we believe to be our duty in foreign
affairs in order that we may keep in power a Government which is carrying
out what we believe to be a sound policy of internal social reform? It
is here, it would seem, that some reform is really needed. There is one
solution: namely, to separate the control of domestic affairs on the one
hand and foreign affairs on the other, placing domestic affairs in the
hands of a Parliament and and a Cabinet who will stand or fall by their
internal policy alone, and entrusting foreign affairs to an Imperial
Parliament and an Imperial Cabinet formed of representatives not of Great
Britain alone but of the whole British Empire. This is an idea which merits
the most careful consideration by the people of the United Kingdom, for it
may well be doubted whether any real popular control of foreign policy is
possible until some such division of functions takes place. One word in
conclusion. If it is true that domestic policy and foreign policy are
separate functions of Government, it is also true that the domestic policy
of a country in the long run determines its foreign policy. International
peace can never be attained between nations torn with internal dissensions;
international justice will remain a dream so long as political parties and
schools of thought dispute over the meaning of justice in domestic
affairs. A true ideal of peace must embrace the class struggle as well as
international war. If we desire a "Concert of Europe" which shall be based
on true freedom and not on tyranny, it behoves us to realise our ideal
first in England, and to raise our country itself above the political and
social conflicts and hatreds which have formed so large and so sordid a
part of our domestic history for the last decade.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
It is difficult to give a list of books illustrating foreign policy in
general. The lists given in other chapters sufficiently illustrate the
various problems with which foreign policy to-day has to deal.
The diplomacy of a century ago is well illustrated by the _Diaries and
Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury_. 4 vols. 1844. (Out of print.)
For the diplomacy of the middle of the nineteenth century, when the present
national forces of Europe were being created, the following biographies are
useful:
_Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe_, by Lane-Poole. 2 vols. 1888.
_Life of Lord Granville_, by Lord Fitzmaurice. 2 vols. 1905.
_Life of Lord Clarendon_, by Sir Herbert Maxwell. 2 vols. 1913.
_Life of Lord Lyons_, by Lord Newton. 2 vols. 1898.
_Life of Cavour_, by Roscoe Thayer. 2 vols. 1911.
_Bismarck's Reflections_.
There are many studies of the diplomatic problems of the present day, but
as they deal with history in the making they are to be read for the general
survey they give of forces at work rather than as authoritative statements.
A very comprehensive survey of all the complexities of international
politics will be found in Fullerton's _Problems of Power_ (1913). 7s. 6d.
net.
The actual workings of diplomacy may best be seen in the "White Books" of
diplomatic correspondence, periodically published by the Foreign Office,
such, for instance, as the successive volumes of _Correspondence Respecting
the Affairs of Persia_. Perhaps the best idea of the actual labour of
foreign relations can be gained by consulting such compilations as
Hertslet's _Commercial Treaties_--23 vols. 1827-1905--which are a record of
work actually completed.
On the staffing of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service, see the
fifth Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service (Cd. 7748), just
published (5-1/2 d.).
CHAPTER VII
THE ISSUES OF THE WAR
"March ahead of the ideas of your age, and it will follow you: go
with them, and you can feel at ease: remain behind them, and you are
lost."--NAPOLEON III.
§1. _Is there an Idea behind the War?_--The object of the preceding
chapters has been to provide the historic background without which it is
impossible to understand either the motives of our opponents or the events
which led up to their quarrel. It is now necessary to attempt a survey of
the issues raised by the war, both as concerns Europe as a whole and the
individual nations which form its component parts. This is a task of no
small difficulty, for just as it is true to say that no war in the previous
history of mankind has ever been waged on so huge a scale as this, so it is
also true to say that the issues raised by it are vaster and more varied
than those of any previous European conflict. It is as though by the
pressure of an electric button some giant sluice had been opened,
unchaining forces over which mortal men can hardly hope to recover control
and whose action it is wellnigh impossible to foresee.
Yet complex as is the problem before us, it is essential that we should
face it bravely. There is grave danger lest, just as we have been "rushed
into" this war (through no fault of ours, as the diplomatic correspondence
abundantly proves), so we may at a given moment be "rushed out" of it,
without having reached any very clear idea as to what issues are involved,
and how far our vital interests have been affected.
The essence of the problem before us is to discover whether there is an
Idea behind this war--whether on our own side or on that of the enemy. A
dangerous question, this!--a question posed again and again by the jingoes
and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the
dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not
shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not
have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true
that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy,
for progress in Europe and the world at large? And if this be really true
to-day, how can we best ensure that it shall still be true at the close
of this long war, if, as we hope and pray, victory crowns the arms of
the Allies? It was an Idea that nerved Britain for the struggle against
Napoleon. It was an Idea that inspired Germany in the great uprising of
1813 against Napoleon. It was an Idea that brought the Balkan League
into being and carried its armies in triumph to Salonica and Adrianople.
Freedom, Unity, Liberation, such were the forms which that Idea took: the
determination of a free people to resist an upstart despot's designs
of world-dominion; the enthusiasm of a divided nation for the dream of
national unity; the longing of races which had but recently won their own
freedom, to emancipate their kinsmen from an alien and oppressive yoke.
In each of these struggles error and even crimes were committed by the
victors, and yet it is a thousand times true to assert that the victorious
Idea represented in each case the triumph of civilisation. To-day the
position is equally clear. In opposing Germany's claim to override
international treaty obligations to suit the convenience of her military
strategists, in associating ourselves with Belgium and Serbia in their
vindication of the rights of the smaller nations, we are not merely
resisting a fresh bid for world-dominion on the part of a single power, but
are challenging the theory that Might is superior to Right in the political
world.
§2. _The Aims of British Statesmanship._--Mr. Asquith on September 19
defined as follows the three main aims of British statesmanship in entering
upon war: "(1) To vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations and what is
properly called the public law of Europe, (2) to assert and to enforce
the independence of free States, relatively small and weak, against the
encroachments and the violence of the strong, and (3) to withstand, as
we believe in the best interests not only of our own Empire, but of
civilisation at large, the arrogant claim of a single Power to dominate the
development of the destinies of Europe." In speaking thus, Mr. Asquith had
no intention of placing Britain upon a moral pedestal or of suggesting that
we have ever enjoyed a monopoly of political right dealing. Every nation
has blots upon its scutcheon; and the cynic may point to the Irish Union,
the destruction of the Danish fleet, the Cyprus Convention, as proofs that
we have richly earned the name of "Perfidious Albion." Let us forego the
patriotic retort which would fling in Prussia's teeth such incidents as the
conquest of Silesia, the partition of Poland, the Ems telegram, the seizure
of Kiaochau. But let us, while admitting our shortcomings in the past, nail
our colours to the mast and insist that this war shall never degenerate
into one of mere revenge or aggrandisement, that the fate of the nations of
Europe shall be decided, so far as possible, in accordance with their own
aspirations rather than the territorial ambitions of dynasties or racial
cliques.
Is it, then, possible, when considering the lines of settlement, to lay
down any general principles? The Europe which we have known has gone
beyond recall; the new Europe which is coming to birth will be scarcely
recognisable to those who have known its predecessor. Its political,
racial, social, economic outlook will be radically changed. Let us then
meet fate halfway and admit boldly that we _want_ a new Europe. But let us
bear in mind the fiery process by which a huge bell is forged and the fate
which befell the impatient apprentice who opened the furnace doors too
soon. The Prussian leaders, to whom war is an ideal and a programme, are
entitled, if fortune should desert them, to manoeuvre for a "draw"; for
they would console themselves with the hope of winning a subsequent match.
But to us, who regard war as a hateful necessity, from which we do not
shrink, but which we did everything in our power to avert--to us there
can be no thought of relinquishing our task, until there is a reasonable
prospect of a really lasting settlement. We should need no prompting from
our statesmen to realise that this must be "a fight to a finish." There
must be no reversion to the _status quo_, that accursed device of a
worn-out diplomacy, with its inevitable seeds of new quarrels and yet
another Armageddon.
Public Law, Nationality, and a general reduction of armaments (as
distinguished from complete disarmament) are the three foundation stones
of the new era, as already envisaged in the public utterances of those who
have some right to speak for the Triple Entente. Let us then endeavour to
apply these principles to the various problems raised by the war. It is
obvious that their application depends upon the victory of the Allies. If
we are defeated, public law will have lost its value, for the Germans will
have asserted their right to violate its fundamental provisions. The idea
of Nationality will have received its death-blow; for not only will the
independence of several of the smaller nations have been destroyed,
but Germany will have reasserted her right to dominate her own minor
nationalities, and to drain the life-blood of the 26 million Slavs of
Austria-Hungary in a conflict with their own Slavonic kinsmen. Finally,
all hope of reduced armaments will have been exploded, since the theory of
Blood and Iron will have attained its fullest expression in the virtual
domination of a single power on land and sea. Regrets or misgivings we may
have, but the time for their utterance has long since passed. The British
nation must have no illusions; defeat means the downfall of the Empire, and
the reduction of Britain to the position of a second-rate power. Either we
shall emerge victorious, or for all practical purposes we shall not emerge
at all. Even if _we_ shrink from a "fight to a finish," our enemies can be
relied upon to persist to the bitter end. It is for this reason only, and
not because I underestimate for a moment the vast resources, the splendid
organisation, the military valour of Germany, that I restrict myself in
the following pages to a consideration of the possible effects of victory
rather than of defeat. It would be the height of folly to anticipate
victory before it is achieved; but it is essential that we should be
prepared for all possible contingencies, and this involves a careful survey
of the various factors in an extraordinarily complicated situation.
§3. _Britain and Germany._--In the forefront of the discussion stands our
quarrel with Germany. What are to be our future relations with Germany
after the war? If there is anything in the assertion that we are fighting
for the cause of liberty and progress, it can only mean that we are
fighting a system rather than a nation--Prussian militarism and
bureaucracy, but not German civilisation. We have to go still further and
consider the motive powers behind that iron system. Sitting in our little
island, we are apt to forget what it means to possess a purely artificial
frontier of 400 miles, and to see just beyond it a neighbour numbering
171,000,000 inhabitants, in an earlier stage of civilisation and capable of
being set in motion by causes which no longer operate in the western world.
If the final settlement is to be just and lasting, the demands of the
victors must be adjusted to the minimum, not the maximum, of their own
vital interests. For Britain the central problem must inevitably be: What
is to be the position of the German Navy if we are successful in this war?
Is anything even remotely resembling disarmament to be attained unless that
Navy is rendered innocuous? Is it conceivable that even if Britain accepted
the _status quo_, a victorious Russia could ever tolerate a situation which
secured to Germany the naval supremacy of the Baltic, and the possibility
of bottling Russian sea-trade? Even the opening months of the war have
shown what ought always to have been obvious, that sea-power differs from
land-power in one vital respect: military supremacy can be shared between
several powerful States, but naval supremacy is one and indivisible. In
this war we shall either maintain and reassert our command of the sea, or
we shall lose it: share it with Germany we shall not, because we cannot.
Again, what is to be the fate of German shipping and German colonies? Can
we not curtail Germany's war navy, while respecting her mercantile marine?
Is it either expedient or necessary to exact the uttermost farthing in the
colonial sphere in the event of victory? It is obvious that just as Germany
offered to respect French territory in Europe at the expense of the French
colonial empire, so the Allies, if victorious, might divide the German
colonies between them. By so doing, however, we shall provide, in the eyes
of the German nation, a complete justification of William II.'s naval
policy. One of the most widespread arguments among educated Germans
(including those friendly to this country) has always been that German
colonies and shipping are at the mercy of a stronger sea-power, and that
therefore Germany only holds her sea-trade on sufferance. If, as a result
of the war, we take from her all that we can, we shall ingrain this
point of view in every German. We should thus tend to perpetuate the old
situation, with its intolerable competition of armaments, unless indeed
we could reduce Germany to complete bankruptcy--a thing which is almost
inconceivable to those who know her resources and which would deprive us of
one of our most valuable customers.
On the other hand, we must of course remember that any extra-European
territorial changes depend not merely upon the attitude of Britain and her
Allies, but upon the wishes of the Dominions. Even in the event of victory,
it is still not London alone that will decide the fate of New Guinea, of
Samoa, or of German South-West Africa. The last word will probably be
spoken by Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and it is improbable
that any one of the three will consent to the restoration of territory
which they have occupied. It is only in the case of German colonies which
border upon British Crown colonies _(e.g._ Togoland, Cameroon, or East
Africa) that the decision will rest entirely with the European governments.
At this stage it would be absurd to suggest even the bare outlines of a
settlement; but it is well to emphasize the fact that it involves not only
the United Kingdom but the Dominions, and that on its solution depends the
future development of the British Empire. In other words, the war can only
result in the downfall of the Empire or in the achievement of Imperial
Federation and a further democratisation of the central government.
§4. _Nationality and the German Empire._--Finally, there is a still graver
question. Is Germany, if defeated, to lose territory _in Europe_? and if
so, would it be either possible or expedient to compensate her in other
directions for such a loss? The application of the principle of
Nationality to the German Empire would affect its territory in three
directions--Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and Posen. Let us very
briefly consider these three problems.
[Illustration: THE FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIER _Boundary of France 1815-1871_
and _Boundary of France 1871-1914_]
(1) The population of the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine is mainly
German by race and language, but none the less it had become by 1870 almost
entirely French in feeling, as the result of its long union with France.
The Germans, in reannexing the provinces after the war, were actuated
almost equally by reasons of sentiment and strategy. They welcomed the
recovery of a section of their race which had been wrested from them by the
brutal aggression of Louis XIV. and the dynastic policy of his successor;
they also desired to secure their western frontier against the possible
attacks of France, which, under the Third Empire, was still most
emphatically an aggressive power. In drawing the new frontier they included
for purely strategic reasons a small portion of western Lorraine, round the
fortress of Metz, which was admittedly as French as Champagne or Picardy.
From 1871 till 1911, Alsace-Lorraine was governed as a direct appanage of
the Imperial Crown; in the latter year it received a constitution,
but nothing even remotely resembling self-government. Contrary to the
expectation of most Germans, the two provinces have not become German in
sentiment; indeed the unconciliatory methods of Prussia have steadily
increased their estrangement, despite their share in the commercial
prosperity of the Empire. Those who know intimately the undercurrents of
feeling in Alsace-Lorraine are unanimous in asserting that if before last
July an impartial plebiscite, without fear of the consequences, could have
been taken among the inhabitants, an overwhelming majority would have voted
for reunion with France. But having once been the battleground of the two
nations and living in permanent dread of a repetition of the tragedy, the
leaders of political thought in Alsace and Lorraine favoured a less drastic
solution. They knew that Germany would not relinquish her hold nor France
renounce her aspirations without another armed struggle; but they believed
that the grant of real autonomy within the Empire, such as would place them
on an equal footing with Würtemberg or Baden, would render their position
tolerable, and by removing the chief source of friction between France
and Germany, create the groundwork for more cordial and lasting relations
between Germany and the two Western Powers.[1] Now that the nightmare of
war has once more fallen upon them, the situation has radically changed,
and there can be no question that in the event of a French victory the
provinces would elect to return to France. The fact that several of their
leading politicians have fled to France and identified themselves with the
French cause, is symptomatic, though doubtless not conclusive. That the
government of the Republic, if victorious, will make the retrocession of
Alsace-Lorraine its prime condition of peace, is as certain as anything can
be certain in the seething pot to which triumphant militarism has reduced
unhappy Europe. It may, then, seem merely pedantic to refer to an
alternative solution; and yet there is unquestionably a great deal to be
said in favour of forming the two provinces into an independent State, or
better still, uniting them in federal union with Luxemburg and Belgium.
Thus would be realised that "Middle Kingdom" which so many efforts have
been made to create, from the days of Charlemagne onwards. Henceforward
the fate of Alsace-Lorraine would be neither French nor German; they would
become a neutral clearing-house for the two cultures which have both come
to be so inextricably bound up with the life and traditions of the border
race. At the same time the most fertile source of friction between France
and Germany would be removed, and the two countries would no longer glare
at each other across a frontier bristling with fortifications.
[Footnote 1: This ideal was being actively pursued by many thoughtful
people on both sides of the frontier. Only last June I was discussing it at
some length with a prominent Alsatian deputy and various other friends in
Berlin.]
(2) The problem of Schleswig-Holstein presents far less difficulty, if
treated on a basis of nationality. Much has been written about the enormity
of Prussia's treatment of Denmark in 1848 and 1863; but the plain truth
is that the great majority of the population of the two duchies was as
enthusiastic in favour of union with their German kinsmen farther south, as
the population of Alsace-Lorraine was reluctant to be torn from France. The
whole of Holstein and much the greater part of Schleswig always was, and
is, pure German by race. Unfortunately Prussia, in annexing territory
which is as German as Kent is English, also acquired a portion of North
Schleswig, which is as unquestionably Danish, alike by blood and by
sentiment. Hence a complete revision of frontiers on a racial basis would
certainly involve the cession to Denmark of the extreme eastern portions of
Schleswig, as far as and including the port of Flensburg.
To-day, however, this question is complicated by strategic considerations,
due to the creation of the Kiel Canal as an almost impregnable naval base.
The suggestion has already been seriously put forward, that Denmark should
be allowed, in the event of Germany's defeat, to extend her territory
as far as the north bank of the Canal, which would thus become an
international highway for peaceful commerce, possibly under a general
guarantee of neutrality. Whether such a present might not prove a very
grave embarrassment to Denmark, and whether the guarantee would be more
effectual than the treaty which secured Belgian independence, are questions
which depend mainly upon the mood of the peoples of Europe after they are
tired of shedding each other's blood. But it is well to realise that
the question of the Kiel Canal is one which may very possibly lead to a
prolongation of the war, and which, as I have already hinted, Russia will
not allow to rest, even if Britain should hesitate to complete the work.
(3) The third point at which, on a basis of racial redistribution, a
defeated Germany must inevitably suffer territorial loss, is the Polish
district on her eastern frontier. The present kingdom of Prussia includes
3,328,750 Poles among its subjects, mainly in the former duchy of Posen,
but also in Silesia and along the southern edge of West and East Prussia
(known as Mazurians and Kasubians). The pronouncedly anti-Polish policy
pursued by the German Government for over twenty years past has aroused
deep and insurmountable hatred against Prussia in the heart of the Poles,
who even in the days when Berlin was relatively conciliatory towards them
had never relinquished their passionate belief in the resurrection of their
country. Above all, the attempt to denationalise the eastern marches by
expropriation, colonisation of Germans, and other still cruder methods,
has not only been in the main unsuccessful, but it has roused the Poles
to formidable counter-efforts in the sphere of finance and agrarian
co-operation. This coincided with remarkable changes in Russian Poland,
which has rapidly become the chief industrial centre of the Russian Empire.
Economic causes have toned down the bitterness which Russia's cruel
repression of Polish aspirations had inspired, and to-day Prussia is
unquestionably regarded by every Pole as a far more deadly enemy than even
the Russian autocracy, the more so as the conviction has steadily gained
ground that the Polish policy of Petrograd has been unduly subject to the
directions of Berlin. While, then, the Poles look upon the promises from
either of these two capitals with pardonable suspicion and reserve, it
is certain that to-day such hopes as they may entertain from foreign aid
centre more and more upon Russia.
Any attempt to reconstruct the kingdom of Poland, whether as an independent
State or, as seems more practicable, as an autonomous unit within the
Empire of the Tsar, would inevitably deprive Prussia of the greater part of
the Duchy of Posen (except the three or four western "Kreise" or districts,
in which the German element predominates), a strip of eastern Silesia
from the upper reaches of the Vistula northwards, and a further strip of
territory in East Prussia, extending from near the fortress of Thorn along
the Mazurian lakes (in fact, the scene of the opening battles of the
present war). Polish extremists, however, not content with these
indubitably Polish districts, are already laying claim to the lower reaches
of the Vistula and to Danzig as the port of the historical Poland; and
there is a further tendency in certain Russian circles to regard the whole
province of East Prussia as part of the natural spoils of war. And yet it
is obvious that the annexation of Danzig,[1] one of the bulwarks of the old
Hanseatic League, and of Königsberg, the cradle of the Prussian Crown
and of modern German philosophy, would be a flagrant violation of that
principle of Nationality which the Allies have inscribed upon their banner.
The province of which Königsberg is the capital is to-day, whatever it may
have been in the twelfth century, as German as any portion of the German
Empire. Moreover, it is the stronghold of Junkerdom, that arrogant but
virile squirearchy which still forms the backbone of the old Prussian
system; and while it is doubtless the desire to undermine this caste
by robbing it of hearth and home that prompts such drastic schemes of
conquest, it cannot be too clearly realised that we should not only be
guilty of a monstrous injustice in lending our support, but should
be sowing the seeds of a new and even thornier problem than that of
Alsace-Lorraine. It would, moreover, be a superfluous injustice, since it
is perfectly possible to create on broad racial lines a new frontier at
least as natural as that which divides Russia and Germany to-day.
[Footnote 1: Strictly speaking, Danzig, though under Polish suzerainty till
1772, has always been a German town enjoying complete autonomy. It shares
the fame of Hamburg and Lübeck as one of the greatest of the mediaeval
Hansa towns.]
Such are the changes which an application of the principle of Nationality
involves. Let us then be under no illusions; they are changes such as can
only be extracted from a Germany which has virtually ceased to exist as a
military power--a contingency which is still remote to-day, and which can
only be attained by enormous sacrifices in blood and resources. It is only
by readjustment and compensation in other directions that the German nation
could be induced even to consider a revision of frontier, and from the
nature of things such compensation can only have one meaning--the break-up
of Austria-Hungary.
§5. _The Future of Austria-Hungary._--For many years this break-up has been
foretold by political pessimists inside and outside the Habsburg dominions,
and by many interested agitators both in Central and in Western Europe. The
present writer, on the other hand, has always regarded Austria-Hungary as
an organism full of infinite possibilities of progress and culture, a State
modelled upon that diversity of type which Lord Acton held to be the
surest guarantee of liberty. Those who affected to treat it as moribund
under-estimated both the underlying geographical bases of its existence and
its great natural resources; they emphasised what separates rather than
what unites. In short, they saw the rivalry between the two mottoes "Divide
et Impera" and "Viribus Unitis," and laid undue stress upon the former.
Just because they realised the extraordinarily complicated nature of the
racial problems involved, they tended to overlook the steady advance
made in recent years by Austria in the conceptions of political and
constitutional freedom. But at every turn Hungary has been Austria's evil
genius: the influence of the Magyar oligarchy has given a reactionary
flavour alike to internal and to foreign policy, has hampered every reform,
and poisoned the relations of the State with its southern neighbours.
[Illustration: AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLITICAL DIVISIONS]
For a short time the aggressive Balkan policy of Count Aehrenthal, as
exemplified in the annexation of Bosnia and the diplomatic duel with
Russia, was hailed as worthy of the Bismarckian tradition; but it soon
became clear that he was far from being the genius whose advent the
Monarchy was so anxiously awaiting. In recent years, then, despite many
hopeful signs, and despite increasing activity in almost every sphere of
life, a kind of progressive paralysis has taken hold upon the body-politic.
Three main causes may be noted--the lack of any great men capable of
counteracting the Emperor's lack of initiative, which was always very
marked, but has been accentuated by advancing old age; the superficial and
malicious outlook of the capital and the classes which control it; the
alliance between the Magyar oligarchy and the Jewish press and Haute
Finance, working in a pronouncedly anti-Slav direction. The wheels
still went round, but the machine of State made less and less progress:
stagnation and aimlessness were everywhere apparent. On all sides it was
recognised that the existing system had become unworkable, and that a
catastrophe could only be averted by speedy reforms. To many far-seeing
patriots the last hope of salvation for the State seemed to lie with the
late Heir-Apparent, not perhaps as the ideal Prince, but as a man of
courage and force of character, possessing the necessary energy to carry
through drastic political changes. His removal was a crushing blow to all
who still hoped against hope in the regeneration of the Monarchy. His place
was filled by a young man, lacking both experience and prestige; never was
there less sign of the heaven-born genius who alone could save a desperate
situation.
In the life of nations and States, as in that of individuals, there
sometimes comes a moment when it is possible to make the "Great Refusal"
of which Dante sang; and "History teaches that those who decline, or
prove unworthy of, the leading rôle which is offered to them, are trodden
mercilessly underfoot." In closing the German edition of my book with these
words, I expressed the conviction that "for a State such as Austria there
could only be one choice"; but unhappily her statesmen have preferred the
fatal alternative.[1] "The historic mission of the House of Habsburg is the
vindication of equal rights and liberties for all races committed to its
charge. The abandonment of this mission would endanger the very existence
of a Great Power upon the Middle Danube."[2] Austria has proved untrue to
this mission, and the inexorable forces of history seem at this moment to
be working her destruction. Nations, like individuals, sometimes commit
suicide; and those who have most earnestly warned them against such a crime
are left as mourners in the funeral procession.
[Footnote 1: In July 1911 I dedicated _The Southern Slav Question_ to "that
Austrian statesman who shall have the courage and the genius necessary to
solve the Southern Slav Question." In April 1913, in publishing a German
edition, I added the words, "At the twelfth hour this dedication is
repeated." In November 1914 it is unhappily only too evident that that hour
has already struck.]
[Footnote 2: See _Racial Problems in Hungary_, concluding sentence.]
The war-fever which seized upon the populace of Vienna and Budapest last
July typified the feelings of the three dominant races in the Monarchy, the
Germans, the Magyars, and the Jews; but it is no criterion for the attitude
of large masses of the population. In fact, the war has accentuated the
centrifugal tendencies which were so marked a feature of recent years, and
which the introduction of Universal Suffrage and the annexation of Bosnia
arrested but failed to eradicate; a stringent censorship may conceal, but
cannot alter, this fact. Disaffection is rife in portions of the army and
affects its powers of resistance, while the financial and economic crisis
grows from week to week. Cynics have tried to define the mutual relations
of Germany and Austria-Hungary by comparing the former to a strong man
carrying a corpse upon his shoulders, and the course of the war during
the first three months would seem to confirm this view. So far as
Austria-Hungary is concerned, its two outstanding features have been the
signal failure of the "punitive expedition" against Serbia and the debacle
of Auffenberg's army in Galicia. Friendly observers were prepared for a
break-down in the higher command and were aware that many Slav regiments
could not be relied upon, but they had expected more from the German and
Magyar sections of the army and from the very efficient officers' corps, as
a stiffening element. It is now known that despite the aggressive policy
of its chiefs, the Austro-Hungarian army was far from ready, and that its
commissariat and sanitary arrangements utterly broke down.
The evident failure to profit by the experience of two general
mobilisations within the previous six years is in itself a proof that there
is "something rotten in the state," and it is already obvious that only a
complete and crushing victory of Germany can extricate Austria-Hungary from
the war without loss of prestige and actual territory. Unless the Russians
can be not merely defeated but driven out, it is absolutely certain that
they will retain the province of Galicia, or at least the eastern portion,
with its Ruthene or Ukrainian population; unless the Serbian army can be
overwhelmed, Bosnia and at least some portion of Dalmatia will fall into
the hands of Serbia. This would be an eminently unsatisfactory solution
or rather it would be no solution at all, for it would solve neither the
Polish, the Ukraine, nor the Southern Slav questions. I merely refer to it
as a possible outcome of one form of stalemate; it is hardly necessary to
add that from every point of view stalemate is the result which is most
to be dreaded, since it inevitably involves fresh wars in the immediate
future. Whatever happens, the effete Dual System in its present form is
doomed, for while an Austrian defeat means dissolution, an Austrian victory
means the absorption of Serbia and Montenegro, and in either case the
balance between Austria and Hungary will be fatally disturbed and a new
constitutional arrangement rendered inevitable. It is thus a tragic paradox
that while the attempt to bolster up the Dual System was undoubtedly one of
the great underlying causes of the war, its first effect is likely to be
the collapse of that very system.
The Dual System once abolished, it might seem reasonable to aim at a
reconstruction of Austria-Hungary on a modified federal basis. But this was
essentially a peace-ideal. The war, far from kindling a common patriotism
which in Austria-Hungary was so conspicuous by its absence, has placed a
gulf of blood between race and race, and rendered their continued existence
under the same roof not only difficult but undesirable. Even in the event
of only relative failure on the part of Austria-Hungary a much more radical
solution may be expected, while the effect of her complete defeat would be
to place the solution of the whole "Austrian problem" in the hands of the
Entente Powers and of her own disaffected populations. In that case there
are two probable alternatives, one more radical than the other. Both depend
to a large extent upon the development of the military situation and upon
as yet incalculable economic influences, but it is possible to indicate
their broad outlines. Indeed, this is the best means of illustrating the
conflicting fears and aspirations which the great conflict has still
further intensified in the racial whirlpool of Central Europe. Let us
consider the less drastic of the two first.
Austria, as distinguished from Hungary, consists of seventeen provinces,
of which Galicia is the largest and most populous; yet there are many
Austrians who have long regarded its possession as anything but an unmixed
blessing for the Monarchy as a whole, and would scarcely regret its loss.
It has always occupied a peculiar autonomous position of its own; its
political, social, and economic conditions are at least a century behind
those of the neighbouring provinces, and have given rise to many gross
scandals. It has been a hot-bed of agrarian unrest, electoral corruption,
and international espionage. Instead of paying its own way, it has been
financially a heavy drag upon the State, while racially it provides, in the
Polish-Ruthene conflict, an object-lesson on the disagreeable fact that
an oppressed race can become an oppressor when occasion arises. But the
argument which weighs most with the Germans of Austria is that the Poles
of Galicia have for a whole generation held in their hands the political
balance in the Austrian Parliament, and that the disappearance of
the Polish and Ruthene deputies would destroy the Slav majority and
correspondingly strengthen the Germans. The Magyars in their turn would no
doubt view with some alarm the extension of the Russian frontier to the
line of the Carpathians; but the change would bring to them certain obvious
compensations, since it would greatly increase the relative importance of
Hungary inside what was left of the Habsburg Monarchy. In short, it is
by no means impossible that if the Russians succeed in holding Galicia,
Austria-Hungary may show a sudden alacrity to buy peace by disgorging a
province which has never wholly fitted into her geographical or political
system.
It is obvious that the fate of the small province of Bukovina is bound up
with that of Galicia; and in such circumstances as we have just indicated,
it would doubtless be divided between Russia and Roumania on broad
ethnographical lines, the northern districts being Ruthene, the southern
Roumanian. This, however, must depend upon the attitude of the kingdom of
Roumania, to which reference will be made later.
There is one other direction in which Austria could afford to surrender
territory, without serious loss save that of prestige. The southern portion
of Tirol--the so-called Trentino, the district round the town of Trent--is
purely Italian by race, and its union with the kingdom of Italy has long
been the chief point in the programme of the Italian Irredentists or
extreme Nationalists. It is a poor and mountainous country, which belongs
geographically to its southern rather than to its northern neighbour. The
pronouncedly Italian sympathies of its inhabitants have complicated the
problem of government and have been a permanent source of friction between
Austria and Italy. The elaborate fortifications along the existing frontier
would have to be sacrificed, but the new racial frontier could soon be made
equally satisfactory from a strategic point of view. It should then be
borne in mind that at a later stage of the war an attempt may be made by
Austria to buy off Italy with the offer of the Trentino. Whether the latter
would seriously consider such an offer, if made, will doubtless depend
upon future events, but it is clear that Italy, if her diplomatists are
sufficiently adroit, has a fair prospect of acquiring the Trentino,
whichever side wins, and consequently that a much more tempting bait will
be required in order to induce her to abandon her neutrality. These two
losses, the one already probable, the other hypothetical, would still leave
Austria in the unquestioned position of a Great Power. The problem of her
future relations with her Balkan neighbours raises an infinitely more
complicated issue. Let us consider the Southern Slav and Roumanian
questions, first separately, and then in their bearing upon each other.
§6. _The Southern Slav Question_.--The Southern Slav question, as
has already been argued in an earlier chapter, can only be treated
satisfactorily as an organic whole; and it may be taken for granted that
Austria-Hungary, in the event of victory, will annex the two independent
Serb kingdoms, and unite the whole Serbo-Croat race under Habsburg rule.
The task of governing them, when once she has overcome their resistance,
will be one of extraordinary difficulty, and will involve a complete
revision of her own standards of government and administration. Her record
and that of Hungary in the Slavonic South does not inspire one with
confidence as to the result. Moreover, it is not too much to assert that
the destruction of Serb independence--a task which the present writer
unhesitatingly regards as beyond the powers of Austria--will in no way
solve the Southern Slav problem, but merely transfer its centre of
gravity. The task of Southern Slav liberation would pass to Bulgaria, and
Austria-Hungary would be involved in an ever-widening field of hostilities.
Hence, even if Serbia's independence were not now inextricably bound up
with the success of the British arms, it would still be essential that
every effort should be made to heal what has long been an open sore upon
the face of Europe. People in this country are only too apt to ignore the
question altogether, or at best to say, "Oh yes, of course, if the Allies
win, the Serbs will get Bosnia." Those who talk thus have not grasped the
elements of the great problem, of which Bosnia, like Serbia itself, is only
one section. The idea that to transfer Bosnia alone from Austro-Hungarian
to Serbian hands would settle anything whatever, fatally ignores alike the
laws of geography and those considerations of national sentiment
which dominate politics in South-Eastern Europe. In every respect
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia complement each other. So long as there
were no railways in the Balkans and Bosnia stagnated under Turkish rule, so
long as the national consciousness of the Serbo-Croats slumbered or ran in
purely provincial channels, the separation between coast and hinterland
was possible, though even then unnatural. But with the advent of modern
economic ideas the situation radically changed. It was above all the
possession of the Dalmatian seaboard that tempted Austria to occupy Bosnia,
and so conversely the acquisition of Bosnia by Serbia would at once
compel the latter, willy-nilly (quite apart from all racial affinities or
sentiments), to aspire to Dalmatia as well.
Geographically, it is inconceivable that to-day Dalmatia should be in
different hands from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Herzegovina does actually touch
the sea at two places--for a few miles at the swampy mouth of the Narenta
below Metkovié, and for a mile at Castelnuovo-Zelenika, inside the Bocche
di Cattaro. It is obvious that to allow Serbia these two outlets, while
leaving their surroundings to another State, would create immediate and
intolerable friction; whereas to assign the southern half of Dalmatia to
Bosnia, but to leave the northern half in other hands, would be keenly
resented by the Dalmatians themselves, as an outrage alike upon their
national and their local traditions.
When we consider the population of Dalmatia we must apply the rival tests
of history and of race. On the grounds of historical sentiment Italy might
claim Dalmatia; for its chief towns (Zara, Sebenico, Trau, Spalato, Lesina,
Curzola)[1] were Venetian colonies, and not only they but even the Republic
of Ragusa, which always maintained an independent existence, were saturated
with Italian culture and ideals. But on ethnical grounds Dalmatia is now
overwhelmingly Slavonic. In 1900 only 3.1 per cent of its population--in
other words, about 15,000 out of a total of 584,000--were Italians, the
remaining 97 per cent being Serbo-Croats. The census of 1910 is even more
unfavourable to the Italians, probably unduly so. It is, of course, true
that the Italian element, though numerically negligible, represents a
higher percentage of the educated and cultured class; but while this would
entitle Italy to demand guarantees for the maintenance of existing Italian
schools and institutions, it cannot conceivably be employed as an argument
in favour of an Italian occupation. Not only would it bring her inevitably
into collision with the Southern Slavs who already are, and are likely to
remain, a military power of no mean order; it would lead her on into the
false and hopeless path of attempting to assimilate a hostile population
by the aid of an insignificant minority which only exists in half a dozen
towns, and in all the rest of the province is simply non-existent. The
price paid would be the eternal enmity of all Slavs, the jeopardising of
Italian interests in the Balkans, the sacrifice of many of the
benefits which the new Trans-Balkan railway route
(Odessa-Bucarest-Kladovo-Sarajevo-Spalato) would naturally bring to Italy,
a challenge to one of the finest maritime races in Europe--the Croats of
Dalmatia, Croatia and Istria--a challenge which would sooner or later
involve the creation of a Southern Slav navy against Italy. So far as
Britain is concerned, to separate Dalmatia from Bosnia is not only to
prevent even the beginnings of a solution of the Southern Slav question,
but to obscure the naval situation in the Mediterranean, to alienate Russia
in a matter in which we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by
accommodating her. But even when Bosnia and Dalmatia have been united to
Serbia and Montenegro, the Southern Slav problem will still be far from
solution. Dalmatia is alike in constitutional theory and in political
fantasy, though not in sober fact, an integral portion of the Triune
Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, and it is unthinkable that
Serbo-Croat opinion could ever consent to the liberation of the one without
the other. No solution has any chance of permanence which ignores Agram as
the centre of Croat political and religious life, of education, art and
historic memories. The Dalmatian Croats, as the most virile and stubborn
element in the race, have always formed the vanguard of political thought,
but it is to Agram that they have always turned for the necessary backing,
and it is the peasantry of Croatia who have always borne the brunt of every
attempt at repression. Latterly the Dalmatians have been the soul of
the student movement, which plays so vital a part in recent political
development.
[Footnote 1: In the West they are only known under their Italian names, but
at home they are known as Zadar, Sibenik, Trogir, Split, Hvar, Korcula,
and Dubrovnik (Ragusa).]
Croatia-Slavonia is a vital part of the problem, indeed from a national
point of view perhaps more vital than Bosnia and Dalmatia. But even this is
not enough. No settlement will be complete which ignores the Slovenes of
eastern Istria, Carniola, and southern Carinthia and Styria: they must
share the fate of their Croat and Serb kinsmen.
So far, then, as the Southern Slavs are concerned, the triumph of the
Allies ought to mean the creation of a new State on the Eastern Adriatic,
the expansion of gallant Serbia into Jugoslavia (Jug is the Slav word for
south), and the achievement of Unity by the three kindred races, Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes. On the north it would be comparatively easy to draw
a new frontier corresponding to the main requirements of ethnography,
geography, and strategy. With only very slight deviations, this would
follow the racial line between Slovenes and Germans from the present
Italian frontier as far as the little town of Radkersburg in Styria;
thence, the course of the rivers Mur and Drave as far as the latter's
junction with the Danube. It is only in the Banat--that portion of the
great Hungarian plain which faces Belgrade across the Danube--that an
artificial frontier will be inevitable, if the Serb districts of Hungary
are to be included in the new State and if the Serb capital is to be
rendered immune from the dangers of future bombardment. The weak spot in
so drastic a solution is the inclusion of the Slovene districts, which--in
view of their geographical position, cutting off the German provinces of
Austria from the sea--is unthinkable, save in the event of a complete
collapse of the Monarchy. All depends upon the number of leaves which are
pulled off the artichoke. If only a few of the outer rows are taken,
a situation may arise in which it would be necessary to sacrifice the
Slovenes and to rest satisfied with the acquisition of Bosnia, Dalmatia,
and Croatia--in other words, with the frontier which at present divides
Croatia from Austria and from Hungary proper. But this, it must be
remembered, would leave the work of Southern Slav Unity incomplete, and is
only to be regarded as a _pis aller._
The Slovene section of the Southern Slav problem is further complicated by
the attitude of Italy, who cannot be indifferent to the fate of Trieste and
Pola. On historic grounds Italy cannot lay claim to Trieste, which has been
a possession of the House of Habsburg since 1386 (400 years longer than
Dalmatia). But if as before we apply the principle of nationality, it is
indisputable that Trieste is an Italian town, though the whole surrounding
country up to the very suburbs is purely Slovene. On the other hand, the
commercial interests of Trieste are entirely bound up with its hinterland,
by which is meant not only the Alpine provinces, but Upper and Lower
Austria and Bohemia on the one hand and even south Germany (Bavaria) on
the other. Any settlement, then, must be a compromise between national and
economic interests. As an ancient centre of Italian culture, Trieste
would welcome the flag of the Regno upon its municipality, as the surest
guarantee that the town would remain Italian in character to all time. But
any attempt to include Trieste within the tariff system of the kingdom of
Italy would produce fatal results, and the obvious solution is to proclaim
the city as a free commercial port. Of course, from a purely Southern
Slav point of view, the fate of the town of Trieste (as distinct from the
district) ought to be a matter of complete indifference, though of course
the extremists claim it. It is, however, well to bear in mind that the
inclusion of Trieste in Italy's tariff system would mean the speedy
economic ruin of a great and flourishing commercial centre. Commercially,
then, Trieste is unthinkable save either as the port of Austria or as a
_porto franco_ under Italian suzerainty. So far as Istria is concerned,
there would be no insurmountable difficulty in drawing a satisfactory
frontier on ethnographical lines; the western portions, including
Capodistria, Rovigno, and Pola, are overwhelmingly Italian, while the
interior of the little province and the eastern shore (with Abbazia,
Lovrana, etc.) is as overwhelmingly Slavonic (Croat and Slovene mixed).
Any redistribution of territory on the basis of nationality must therefore
inevitably assign western Istria to Italy, and no reasonable Southern Slav
would raise any valid objection. Once more the essential fact to consider
is that the acquisition of Trieste and Pola by Italy presupposes the
disappearance of Austria-Hungary; otherwise it is not even remotely
possible. Hence it is no exaggeration to assert that the fate of Trieste
is one of the central issues in the whole European settlement. Once
make Trieste a free port, under the Italian flag, and _ipso facto_ the
Austro-Hungarian navy ceases to exist, and with it all need for Italian
naval activity in the Adriatic. In other words, such a settlement would
lead to an almost idyllic reduction of naval armaments in the Adriatic,
since both Italy and the new Jugoslavia could afford to restrict
themselves to a minimum of coast defence. It is obvious, however, that the
dismantlement of Pola--to-day an almost impregnable fortress--would be an
essential condition to neighbourly relations between the two, the more so
since under such altered circumstances an Italian naval base at Pola could
only have one objective.
There is an unfortunate tendency in Italy to misread the whole situation
on the eastern Adriatic, to ignore the transformation which the revival
of Southern Slav consciousness has wrought in lands which once owned the
supremacy of Venice. A short-sighted distrust of the Slav blinds many
Italians to the double fact that he has come to stay, and that his
friendship is to be had for the asking. The commercial future of Dalmatia,
Bosnia, and Serbia is intimately bound up with Italy, and Italy herself
will be the chief loser if she closes her eyes to so patent a truth.
The fate of Trieste and Istria is a triangular issue between Teuton, Slav,
and Latin. The Italian, if his claims are too ambitious or exacting, may
succeed in preventing the Slav from obtaining his share of the spoils, but
only by leaving them all in the hands of a still more dangerous rival, in
other words, by a crude policy of dog-in-the-manger.
One thing is certain in all this interplay of forces--that it is too late
in the day to suppress Southern Slav national consciousness, and that there
can never be durable peace and contentment on the eastern Adriatic until
the unity of the race has been achieved. It would be premature to discuss
the exact forms which the new State would assume; but when the time
comes it will be found that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia,
Croatia-Slavonia, Istria and Carniola, will acclaim their liberation at the
hands of free Serbia and Montenegro. Their watchword, however, will be not
conquest from without, but free and voluntary union from within--a union
which will preserve their existing political institutions and culture as a
worthy contribution to the common Southern Slav fund. The natural solution
is a federal union under which the sovereign would be crowned not only as
King of Serbia but with the crown of Zvonomir as King of the Triune Kingdom
of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, thus reviving historic traditions dating from
the tenth century and never abandoned or forgotten. The Croatian Parliament
would continue in Agrani, parallel with the Serb Parliament in Belgrade,
but both would be represented in a central federal Parliament. The only
question is whether the existing provincial divisions should be allowed to
survive, the Diets of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Istria, and Carniola thus forming
conjointly with the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Croatian Parliaments
the units on which the new constitution is based, or whether complete
unification should be attempted. The latter would be the ideal arrangement,
but in view of the great divergence of local customs and institutions it
would probably be premature, and it might therefore be wiser to preserve
the smaller units until they were ripe for fusion, rather than to
compromise by creating a dual State of Serbia and Croatia.
§7. _The Roumanian Question._--I have dwelt at some length upon the
Southern Slav problem, because it is as complicated as it is unfamiliar
to public opinion in this country. It has been the _causa causans_ of the
present struggle, and if neglected or mismanaged at the final settlement,
may again plunge Europe into trouble at some future date. Parallel with
any solution of the Southern Slav question must come the solution of the
Roumanian question, which represents the other half of Austria-Hungary's
Balkan policy. The Kingdom of Roumania is, alike in territory, population,
and resources, the leading power in the Balkan peninsula, but over five
million Roumanians, including the very cream of the race, still live under
foreign domination. Of these at least 3,500,000 are in Austria-Hungary, the
great majority under the grossly oppressive rule of the Magyars; and the
redemption of Transylvania and the neighbouring counties of Hungary has
always been the ideal of all patriotic Roumanians, even of those who looked
to a distant future for its realisation. Russia's short-sighted policy in
1878, in annexing the Roumanian province of Bessarabia as a reward for
their valiant support at Plevna, drove the Roumanians into the arms of
Austria-Hungary, and for a whole generation not even the perpetual irritant
of Magyar tyranny in Transylvania could avail to shake the _entente_
between Vienna and Bucarest, strengthened as it was by the personal
friendship of the Emperor Francis Joseph and King Charles. But the spell
was broken by Austria's attitude during the Balkan War. The imperious force
of circumstances brought the interests of Roumania and Serbia into line;
for it was obvious that any blow aimed against Serbia's independent
existence must threaten Roumania also, just as any weakening of the
Serbo-Croat element in the Monarchy must react unfavourably on that of
the Roumanians and other nationalities of Hungary. The growth of national
feeling within the two neighbour races has proceeded for some time past on
parallel lines, and even before the war there were manifest signs that
the Roumanians of Hungary, whose economic and cultural progress since the
beginning of the century has been very rapid, were at length nearing the
end of their patience. The bomb outrage at Debreczen last February--an
event which is without parallel in Roumanian history--was the first
muttering of the gathering storm. Roumania occupies a position of extreme
delicacy. Her natural tendency would be to espouse the cause of the Allies,
since they obviously have more to offer her than their rivals. But the
somewhat equivocal attitude of her statesmen has been determined not merely
by an astute desire to win the spoils of war without making the necessary
sacrifice--a policy which is apt to overreach itself--but also by a very
pardonable anxiety as to the attitude of Bulgaria and Turkey. Roumania has
hitherto been the foremost upholder of the Treaty of Bucarest, and it is
only in the event of drastic territorial changes farther west that she is
likely to consent to its being torn up. She has made no secret of the fact
that she would not tolerate naked aggression against the Greeks, whether
from the Turkish or Bulgarian side. In view of the political record of King
Ferdinand of Bulgaria and his present Prime Minister, the Roumanians may
perhaps be excused for adopting an attitude of vigilant reserve; for their
statesmen suspect that Bulgaria is only waiting until the Roumanian army
has crossed the Carpathians in order to reoccupy the southern Dobrudja.
Certain it is that Roumania, while declining all temptations to join the
central powers, has also rejected the Russian invitation to occupy the
Bukovina, and has actually approached Hungary with a view to securing the
restoration of Transylvanian autonomy. The Magyars on their part have tried
to buy off Roumania by introducing the Roumanian language of instruction in
many of the State schools of Transylvania--a wholly inadequate concession
which would none the less have been inconceivable four short months ago.
Unfortunately the realisation of Roumanian unity inevitably involves the
inclusion in the new State of considerable Magyar and Saxon minorities,
amounting in all to not less than 600,000 inhabitants. There are no means
of overcoming the hard facts of geography, but it is essential that
Roumania, while incorporating Magyar and Saxon islets in the Roumanian
racial sea, should guarantee the existing institutions of the two races,
and the fullest possible linguistic freedom in church,[1] school, and
press. The Saxons in particular have preserved their identity for over
seven centuries in this little corner of the Carpathians, and have
contributed far more than their share to the cause of culture and progress
in Hungary. It would be a crying irony of fate if they were allowed to
perish in the twentieth century at the hands of those who have pledged
themselves to vindicate the rights of smaller nationalities.
[Footnote 1: The Szekel (Magyar) districts of Transylvania are mainly
Calvinist, the Saxons Lutheran to a man, while the Roumanians are divided
between the Orthodox and the Roumanian Uniate Churches. Transylvania is
also the centre of an interesting sect of Unitarians, who are for the most
part Magyar by race.]
It must not be forgotten that the dream of Roumanian Unity can only be
fully realised if Russia restores at least a portion of Bessarabia, which
contains not less than a million and a quarter Roumanians. A victorious
Russia might well afford such a concession; for it would involve no
strategic dangers and would, especially if conveyed in the graceful form of
a wedding dowry, triumphantly efface the last traces of Russophobe feeling
that still linger in Roumania. But it would be absurd to expect such
magnanimity on the part of Russia unless Roumania's action is prompt and
vigorous. The abstract theory of nationality must be reinforced by the more
practical argument of sterling services rendered to a common cause.
§8. _Can the Dual Monarchy be replaced?_--The result of applying the
principle of nationality to the Southern Slavs and Roumanians would thus
be to create two powerful national States at the expense of the Habsburg
Monarchy; and here it is well to repeat that such drastic territorial
changes are only possible if the military power of Austria suffers
an almost complete eclipse. But even the loss of Galicia, Bukovina,
Transylvania, the Trentino, and the Serbo-Croat provinces would still leave
Austria-Hungary a State of very considerable area, with a population of 32
millions. There is no reason why such a State should not continue to exist,
provided that it retained the necessary access to the sea at Trieste and
Pola, and this would involve the exclusion of the Slovenes from the
new Jugo-Slav State. Under such circumstances it would be possible to
reconstruct the State on a federal basis, with five main racial units,
the Germans, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Magyars, the Slovenes, and the
Italians. Certain unimportant racial minorities would still be left, but
these could unquestionably be dealt with by a law of guarantees, similar to
those which have played so conspicuous a part in the theory, but sometimes
also in the practice, of the Dual Monarchy. So many severe amputations
might, however, prove too much for the vitality of the patient; and in any
case we may assume that either Austria-Hungary will be able to prevent the
operation, or that the Allies, if they can once bring matters thus far,
will insist upon completing the process by a drastic post-mortem inquiry.
Any sympathetic qualms are likely to be outweighed by the consideration
that a State of this hybrid nature would tend to be more than ever a vassal
of Germany. Moreover, there can be no doubt that one of the surest means of
bringing Germany to her knees is by crushing her most formidable ally, and
thus tapping some of the sources of her own military and economic strength.
It is safe to assume that this consideration plays an important part in the
military plans of Russia; and for many reasons--political, strategic, and
economic--a Russian occupation of Bohemia must be regarded as the essential
prelude to a decisive victory of the Allies. The war has thrown the
Dual Monarchy into the melting-pot; but it is not enough to accept the
possibility of its disappearance from the map, it is also necessary to
consider what new organisms would take its place. A complete partition
would, as we have seen, remove the last obstacle to a unified Southern
Slav State. The dreams of Italia Irredenta and Greater Roumania would
be realised. Western Galicia and a part of Silesia would be united to
autonomous Poland as reconstituted by the Russian Tsar. Eastern Galicia,
Northern Bukovina, and the Ruthene districts of Hungary as far as Ungvár
and Munkács, would be incorporated in the Russian Empire, though it is
to be hoped that an early result of this change would be the grant of a
certain modified autonomy, or at least of special linguistic and religious
privileges, to the Ukraine population, thus united after centuries of
partition in a single body politic.
§9. _Bohemia and Hungary._--But the most striking result of the partition
would be the revival of the famous mediaeval kingdoms of Bohemia and
Hungary as independent States. Thus would be realised the dream of two
races, the Czechs and Magyars, whose national revival forms one of the
most romantic incidents of the nineteenth century. But it is difficult to
imagine a greater contrast than their respective development. In Bohemia
the Czechs, after losing their religious and civic liberty and enduring for
two centuries the domination of the Germans, raised themselves once more
in the course of two generations, by sheer force of character and tireless
industry, to a position of equality, and reorganised their national life on
an essentially democratic basis. In Hungary the Magyars, thanks to their
central position, their superior political sense, and their possession of
a powerful aristocracy, succeeded in concentrating all government and
administration in their own hands and reducing the other races of the
country, who have always formed a majority of the population, to a state of
veritable political helotry. And just as their evolution has been on very
different lines, so must be their future fate. In Bohemia all is activity
and political progress, in Hungary the sterility of a corrupt and
reactionary system, staking the future upon the hollow credit of
a long-vanished past. The Czechs are beyond all question the most
progressive, the most highly civilised, the most democratic of all Slavonic
nations. The stubborn spirit of John Hus is still alive among them to-day,
and their recent achievements in music, art, and industry are in every way
worthy of the nation which has produced Comenius and Dvorák and first
lit the torch of Reformation in Europe. The ancient city of Prague contains
all the elements of culture necessary for the regeneration of Bohemia, and
the mineral riches and industrial resources of the country are infinitely
greater than those of many European States which have successfully led a
separate national existence.
But the liberation of the Czechs would not be complete unless their close
kinsmen the Slovaks were included in the new Bohemian State; and every
reason alike of politics, race, and geography tells overwhelmingly in
favour of such an arrangement. The Slovaks, who would to the last man
welcome the change, have long suffered from the gross tyranny of Magyar
rule. Their schools and institutions have been ruthlessly suppressed or
reduced in numbers, their press muzzled, their political development
arrested, their culture and traditions--far more truly autochthonous than
those of the conquering Magyar invaders--have been discouraged and hampered
at every turn. The Slovaks are a race whose artistic and musical gifts,
whose innate sense of colour and poetry have won the sympathy and
admiration of all who know them; and their systematic oppression at the
hands of the Magyar oligarchy is one of the greatest infamies of the last
fifty years. In this war Britain has proclaimed herself the champion of
the small nations, and none are more deserving of her sympathy than the
Slovaks. Unless our statesmen renounce that principle of nationality which
they have so loudly proclaimed, the Slovaks cannot be abandoned to their
fate; for they form an essential part of the Bohemian problem. Without
them the new kingdom could not stand alone, isolated as it would be among
hostile or indifferent neighbours. In every way the Slovak districts form
the natural continuation of Bohemia and are the necessary link between it
and Russia, upon whose moral support the new State must rely in the first
critical years of its existence.
The main difficulty would be the fate of racial minorities; for minorities
there still must be, no matter how the frontiers may be drawn. At first
sight the natural solution would be to pare down Bohemia by assigning
to the neighbouring provinces of Germany the German fringe which almost
completely surrounds the Czech kernel. So far as the south-west and
north-east districts of Bohemia (near Budweis and along the German Silesian
border) are concerned, the historic boundaries might fairly be revised on
ethnographic lines, and in the same way the line of demarcation between
Bohemia and Hungary could in the main be made to follow the racial boundary
between Slovak and Magyar and later between Slovak and Ruthene. But in the
north of Bohemia there are insurmountable objections to any revision of the
historic frontier of the kingdom; for not merely is its industrial life
concentrated to a very considerable degree in the German districts, but
this fact is responsible for the existence of important Czech industrial
minorities, which it would be difficult to sacrifice. So far as there is to
be any sacrifice, it must be made by the losers rather than by the winners
in this war. But it ought to be possible, under the rule of some
carefully selected western prince as ruler of Bohemia, to devise proper
administrative guarantees for the linguistic rights of minorities in every
mixed district of Bohemia, whether it be Czech or German. The case of
Hungary is different. That the Allies, if victorious, should perpetuate the
racial hegemony of the Magyars, and with it many of the abuses which have
contributed towards the present war, is as unthinkable as that they should
once more bolster up the Turkish régime. If the Habsburg Monarchy should
break up, Hungary is fully entitled to her independence. She will become a
national Magyar State, but in a sense very different from that which her
Jingo politicians have intended--not by assimilating the non-Magyar races
of the country, but by losing to the other national States by which she
will be surrounded all but the purely Magyar districts of the central
plains. Hungary will then be more fully than before a Danubian State; her
rich alluvial lands will be developed, and a check will be put upon the
unnecessary streams of Magyar emigration which the present political and
economic situation favours. The chief gainer by the change will be the
Magyar peasantry, who have in their own way been exploited by the ruling
oligarchy as cruelly as their non-Magyar neighbours. One result of the war
will be to discredit the policy and methods of this oligarchy and to hasten
the break-up of the vast latifundia of the great magnates and the Church,
and those other drastic land reforms without which Hungary cannot hope to
attain her full economic value as the granary of central Europe. Hitherto
the government of the day has secured a parliamentary majority by
corrupting and terrorising the non-Magyar constituencies of the periphery
and thus out-voting the radical Magyar stalwarts of the great plain; and
with the loss of the Slovak, Ruthene and Roumanian districts this system
would automatically collapse. The result might be a genuine strengthening
of democratic elements and the dawn of a new era for the Magyar race.
§10. _Germany and Austria._--One final problem connected with
Austria-Hungary remains. What is to be the fate of the German provinces of
Austria? If the map of Europe is to be recast on a basis of nationality, we
obviously cannot withhold from the great German nation that right to racial
unity which we accord to the Czechs, the Poles and many minor races. The
seven German provinces--Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Tirol,
Salzburg and Vorarlberg--reconstituted perhaps as a kingdom of Austria
under the House of Habsburg and augmented by the German population of
western Hungary, would then become an additional federal unit in the German
Empire. Such an event, it cannot be too often repeated, is inconceivable
except as the result of a complete defeat of the central powers, but if on
that assumption Germany loses Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, the loss would be
made good by the incorporation of German Austria. The result of this
in figures would be the subtraction of six million inhabitants and the
addition of eight million others--a transaction which need not unduly alarm
the British Jingo, and at the same time might render defeat less galling to
the German patriot.
Whether this fulfillment of the Pan-German aspiration would meet with
unqualified enthusiasm on either side of the present frontier, is a
question on which it is not altogether easy to answer. The idea of
admitting eight million additional Catholic subjects into Germany would
certainly arouse misgivings in Prussia, both among the stricter Protestants
and among the far more active section of "intellectuals" who merely regard
Protestantism as a political asset in the struggle against Latin and
Slavonic influences. From a political point of view their admission would
unquestionably transform the whole parliamentary situation and force the
Imperial Government to revise its whole attitude; for the Austrian voters
would greatly strengthen the two parties to whose existence Prussia has
never become reconciled--the Clerical Centre and the Social Democratic
Left,--while contributing little or nothing to the parties of the
Conservative Junkers or the middle-class "Liberals." In other words, the
new element might prove to be an effective leaven which would permeate the
whole lump. All the arguments which induced Bismarck to expel Austria
from Germany in 1868 would still be upheld by the advocates of
"Preussen-Deutschland" (see p. 65), and the Prussian hegemony; but after an
unsuccessful war and territorial losses the chance of making these good
by the achievement of national unity would probably sweep away the
dissentients, who would no longer represent a triumphant system, but a
beaten and discredited caste. The old idea of the "seventy-million Empire,"
which appealed so strongly to the Liberals of Frankfurt in 1848, should
prove irresistible under these circumstances. The influence of Austrian
Germans, already so marked in literature, art, music, and above all in
political theory, might make itself felt in other spheres also.
Meanwhile, in view of the wild talk in which certain sections of the Press
are already indulging, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that only the
Germans can reform their political institutions, and that any attempt at
external interference will not merely fail lamentably, but produce the very
opposite effect from that which is intended. If the German Emperor insists
upon confusing the relative positions of the Deity and some of his
self-styled vicegerents upon earth, only the German people can restore him
to a sense of proportion and modesty. All believers in human progress hope
that after this war the monstrous theories of divine right propounded
by the House of Hohenzollern will be relegated to the lumber-room of a
vanished past. But the sooner references to St. Helena as a residence for
deposed emperors are dismissed as arrant nonsense, the better. The future
of German dynasties, as of German Unity, rests with the German people
itself; and those who challenge this statement repudiate _ipso facto_
the two principles of Nationality and International Law, which we have
officially adopted as our programme for the future.
The fate of the German provinces of Austria is one of the central problems
raised by this war, since it is the link between the fate of two Empires.
The present writer most emphatically disclaims all idea of prophecy; but
he feels that the time has come for outlining some of the possible
alternatives which confront the statesmen of "the new Europe." So far as
Austria-Hungary is concerned, it is clear that the splendid dream of "a
monarchical Switzerland," as conceived by many serious political thinkers,
has already died a violent death; but it would be quite premature to
dogmatise on the future grouping of the races of the Dual Monarchy at a
moment when its ultimate fate has still to be decided on the field of
battle.
§11. _Italian Aspirations._--We have already alluded to Italy's position,
in connection with the Southern Slav question, and have pointed out that a
settlement which follows even approximately the lines of nationality would
assign the Trentino, the town of Trieste (as a free port), and a strip
of Western Istria to Italy, but the remainder of the coast from Cape
Promontore to the Bojana river to the new "Jugoslavia." There are, however,
other directions in which Italy may claim compensation for her friendly
attitude towards the Triple Entente. She has already occupied the rocky
islet of Saseno, opposite Valona, and in the event of the collapse of
Austria-Hungary, she may demand the whole bay of Valona, as the strategic
key to the Adriatic, and even a general protectorate of the embryo Albanian
State. The establishment of a miniature Gibraltar on the eastern side of
the Straits of Otranto is a step which neither France nor Britain would
oppose, if Italy should insist upon it; but it may be questioned whether
she would not thereby be laying up stores of trouble for a distant future,
altogether incommensurate with any possible advantages which might accrue.
Indeed, Italy would probably be well advised to abandon all idea of an
Albanian adventure (which, originally conceived as a counterstroke to
Austrian aggression, would lose its point if Austria disappeared from the
scene), to leave the Greeks a free hand in south Epirus, to cede to them
Rhodes and the other islands occupied during the Tripolitan War, and then
to secure, during the partition of Turkey, the reversion of Cilicia and the
Gulf of Alexandretta. It is in any case clear that the Powers of the Triple
Entente will raise no objections to such action on the part of Italy, and
are resolved to show every consideration to a power whose great and vital
interests in the Mediterranean in no way conflict with their own.
§12. _The Balkan Situation: Bulgaria and Greece._--The creation of a
Greater Roumania and of a new Southern Slav State would transform the whole
Balkan situation, and therefore obviously involves material concessions to
Bulgaria and Greece.
(A) If Roumania succeeds in redeeming her kinsmen across the northern
frontiers, she cannot be so ungenerous as to insist upon retaining
territory whose population is overwhelmingly Bulgarian, and the least which
might be expected from her would be the retrocession to Bulgaria of her
bloodless acquisition during the second Balkan War. This means a reversion
to the boundary defined under Russian arbitration at Petrograd in January
1913--except outside the fortress of Silistria, where strategic reasons
demand its rectification.
It is in the relations of Bulgaria and Serbia, however, that the key to the
Balkan situation is to be found. The Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of February
1912, which formed the groundwork of the Balkan alliance, had limited
Serbia's sphere of influence to northern Macedonia and referred to the
arbitration of the Russian Tsar any disputes arising from conquests to the
south of a certain specified line. Serbia was tacitly given a free hand
in her attempt to reach the sea in Northern Albania. The action of
Austria-Hungary in vetoing her access to the Adriatic forced Serbia to turn
her eyes from west to south and to seek her economic outlet to the sea
down the valley of the Vardar to Salonica and the Aegean. The cession of
Monastir, Ochrida, and the Vardar Valley to Bulgaria would have rendered
this impossible, for it would not merely have driven a wedge between Serbia
and Greece, but would have placed two customs frontiers, the Bulgarian and
the Greek, between Serbia and the sea, instead of only one, the Turkish, as
hitherto. Shut in upon all sides, with all hope of expansion blocked by the
powerful Dual Monarchy to north and west and by a big Bulgaria to east and
south, Serbia would have found herself in a worse position than before the
war. The Bulgarians, intoxicated by their victories over the Turks and
seduced by the promptings of the Austrian tempter, turned a deaf ear to the
arguments of their Serbian allies, and insisted upon their pound of flesh.
They failed to realise that the most effective way of inducing the Serbs to
evacuate Macedonia was to give them adequate backing in their demand for an
Adriatic port. Every fresh intrigue of Sofia with Vienna confirmed Belgrade
in its view of the vital necessity for retaining the Vardar Valley. The
hoary argument that "circumstances alter cases," appeared anew in the garb
of the Bismarckian theory that all treaties are subject to the provision
"_rebus sic stantibus_"--a theory which many great international lawyers
have unhesitatingly endorsed. In this form it appealed as irresistibly to
the Serbs as did the rival shibboleth of "The treaty, the whole treaty,
and nothing but the treaty" to the Bulgarians. It is impossible to absolve
either side from blame; for the Serbs, in formally denouncing a treaty into
which they had voluntarily entered, were doing exactly what they had so
bitterly resented in Austria-Hungary's treatment of Bosnia, while the
Bulgarians, in flouting the Tsar whom they had named as arbiter and in
attempting to uphold the treaty by brute force and treachery, abandoned the
ground of law, and placed themselves openly in the wrong.
The events of the great war have already modified the problem. The one
unanswerable argument of the Serbs in declining to surrender Macedonia
was the plea that they would then have nothing to offer Bulgaria for her
neutrality or her support when their own inevitable day of reckoning with
Austria should arrive. In short, Veles, Monastir and Ochrida were widely
regarded as a pledge to be held until Bosnia and Dalmatia could be
redeemed, but then to be handed over to the Bulgarians. It is true that the
Serbo-Bulgar War of 1913 and the passions which it aroused have converted
this feeling into one of reluctance to sacrifice what was bought at such a
fearful price. But the moment has now arrived to translate an instinct into
a reality. If Southern Slav Unity is to be achieved, a binding promise,
under the guarantee of the Entente Powers, must be given to Bulgaria, that,
in proportion as the work of Serbo-Croat unification is achieved, the
Macedonian frontier will be revised in favour of Bulgaria. It is possible
that Bulgaria may prefer a different formula, according to which the Tsar
with the approval of his Western Allies should arbitrate upon the original
Serbo-Bulgar treaty. Any such concession to Bulgarian sentiment ought not
to be resented in Serbia, in view of the great issues involved. It is
obvious that Serbia cannot hope to achieve her national unity unless
Bulgaria abstains from hostile action, or to consolidate her new position
when won unless she can win Bulgaria's active friendship. The latter by her
intervention could at any moment turn the scales against Turkey or against
Serbia, and it is thus essential that the Allies should treat her now with
a generosity proportionate to the callous neglect with which Europe left
her to her fate in September 1913.
The tendency to look down upon the Balkan States from the fancied heights
of a superior "culture" has never been so marked in France or Britain as
in Germany, where the Press is now engaged in comparing their own cultural
exploits in Belgium with the lack of culture displayed by the "bandits" and
"assassins" of Serbia, and where a man of such scientific distinction as
Werner Sombart can describe the heroic kingdom of Montenegro as "nothing
but a bad joke in the history of the world!"[1] But even here the habit
of condescension lingers, and amidst the threatened collapse of Western
civilisation it is well to remember the essential distinction between
primitive and savage. The Balkan nations have grown to manhood while
we slept, and must henceforth be regarded as equals in the European
commonwealth.
[Footnote 1: _Berliner Tageblatt,_ cited by _Observer_, November 8, 1914.]
(B) Such territorial changes as have been outlined above would vitally
affect the position of Greece, who is also fully entitled to claim
compensation for any serious disturbance of the balance of power. The first
and most obvious form which compensation would take is the final occupation
of southern Epirus; no objections will be raised to this by the Entente
Powers, and it is probable that Italy has already made her own bargain with
the Cabinet of Athens on this very point. It is to be hoped that Italy may
also consent to hand over Rhodes and the neighbouring islands to Greece, in
return for a free hand in Southern Asia Minor in the event of the Turkish
Empire breaking up. By far the thorniest problem is provided by the future
ownership of Kavala, which the Treaty of Bucarest assigned to Greece in
August 1913, but which from an economic point of view is Bulgaria's port on
the Aegean, and as vital a necessity for her future development as it is a
superfluous luxury to Greece. The statesmen of Petrograd were not blind to
these considerations, but the scale was turned at Bucarest by the active
intervention of the German Emperor, who, under the plea of seconding his
brother-in-law, King Constantine, skilfully provided a permanent bone of
contention between Bulgaria and Greece. His action may not unfairly be
compared to that of the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza, in fomenting the
quarrel between Serbia and Bulgaria two months earlier.
Serbia's cession of Central Macedonia to Bulgaria could not fail to be
distasteful to the Greeks, for it would automatically render their tenure
of Kavala highly precarious. It is to be hoped, however, that they may be
brought to realise that its surrender and the consequent improvement of
Greco-Bulgarian relations are in the highest interests of Greece and the
whole Hellenic race. Here again, the break-up of the Turkish Empire may
enable the Greeks to compensate themselves on the shores of Asia Minor. But
the real key to the problem of Kavala, and thus indirectly to the revival
of the Balkan League and all the far-reaching effects which that would have
upon the fate of Europe, lies in the hands of Britain. It could instantly
be solved by the cession of Cyprus to Greece, on condition that Kavala and
the valley of the Strymon were restored to Bulgaria. Neither strategically
nor economically is Cyprus of any value to Britain; thirty-five years ago
it was taken over by Disraeli "as a sort of fee for opposing Russia," a
foolish habit which we had abandoned long before the present war with
Turkey. Its population is predominantly Greek, and the Hellenic national
movement is steadily gaining ground. Anything that we might gain by its
retention is more than counterbalanced by its value as an instrument of
barter.
§13. _The Future of Turkey._--The entry of Turkey into the great war
marks a further stage in the winnowing process from which we hope that a
regenerated Europe will emerge. Two of the main causes of the war are the
Turk and the Magyar, whose effete and tyrannous systems have each in its
own manner and degree long kept South-Eastern Europe in a ferment of unrest
and reaction. It is a matter of profound regret that two infinitely more
virile and progressive races, the German and the Jew, should be fighting
their battles for them, and indeed bolstering up causes which would
otherwise speedily collapse by reason of their own inward rottenness. It is
the Triple Alliance which has made it possible for the iniquitous racial
hegemony of the Magyars to survive in Hungary; it is the joint policy of
Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin which has hampered the progress of the Balkan
States, and above all the development of every Slavonic nation; and in this
their most valuable allies have been the Jewish Press and the Jewish _haute
finance_ of Germany, Austria and Hungary. Just as we hope and believe that
one result of this war will be the emancipation of Germany and German
"culture" from the corroding influences of militarist doctrine, so there
are good grounds for hoping that it will also give a new and healthy
impetus to Jewish national policy, grant freer play to their many splendid
qualities, and enable them to shake off the false shame which has led
men who ought to be proud of their Jewish race to assume so many alien
disguises and to accuse of anti-Semitism those who refuse to be deceived
by mere appearances. It is high time that the Jews should realise that few
things do more to foster anti-Semite feeling than this very tendency to
sail under false colours and conceal their true identity. The Zionist
and the orthodox Jewish nationalist have long ago won the respect and
admiration of the world. No race has ever defied assimilation so stubbornly
and so successfully, and the modern tendency of individual Jews to
repudiate what is one of their chief glories suggests an almost comic
resolve to fight against the course of nature.
These cryptic tendencies of pseudo-national as opposed to national Judaism
have played a great part in the Young Turkish movement and the destruction
which it is bringing upon Turkey. The Committee of Union and Progress at
first enjoyed the moral and financial support of many men, both Christians
and Jews, to whom its methods and secret currents were a sealed book. For
a time the Young Turks, like the Magyars farther west, deceived foreign
opinion by claptrap phrases from the repertory of modern democracy. But
"murder will out," and the Committee--despite the tiny group of able, and
in certain cases honourable, men who control its destinies--has gradually
been revealed in its true colours, as a parasitic growth upon the body
politic, preserving the worst faults of the old régime and blending with it
much of the decadence which lies like froth along the backwaters of Western
civilisation.
Since 1908, then, the fate of Turkey has passed from the control of the
Turk and is being decided by an alien clique of infidels, renegades,
political freemasons[1] and Jews, in whose hands the Caliph is a helpless
tool, and to whom the teachings of Christ and of Mohammed are mere worn-out
superstitions. In fact, the Committee is in its essence non-Turkish
and non-Moslem. In the name of a secret society, based openly upon the
subversive ideas of the wilder French Jacobins, and not shrinking from
assassination as a convenient political weapon, a Jehad or Holy War is to
be preached against the British Empire, and the most sacred interests of
Islam are to be exploited in the interests of Germany. What bitter irony is
in the fact that William II., who risked universal war to avenge the murder
of his friend, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, should now find himself
closely allied with Enver Pasha, the military adventurer who barely two
years ago foully assassinated his own commander-in-chief, Nazim Pasha, and
who therefore represents everything that is anathema to the Prussian
War Lord with his exaggerated ideas of military discipline and personal
loyalty!
[Footnote 1: Not to be confused for a moment with the very different form
of freemasonry which prevails in this country.]
The die has been cast, and even those who most regret Turkey's action
cannot shut their eyes to the fact that it inevitably raises the whole
question of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. If Germany should emerge
victorious, Turkey is likely to fall under a more or less veiled German
protectorate. In the event of the victory of the Allies, Turkey may
continue to exist as an Asiatic power, but there is little doubt that
she will be eliminated from Europe. The only real question is, Who is to
replace her? Bulgaria will, it is to be hoped, recover Adrianople and the
Enos-Midia line, of which she was so cruelly robbed last year. The fact
that the Turks on their re-entry systematically wiped out the entire
Bulgarian population of northern Thrace does not weaken, but enormously
strengthens, the case for its restoration. But to offer Constantinople to
Bulgaria would be a fatal gift. She has absolutely no historic claim to
the great city of the Caesars (Tsarigrad, as it is rightly known to every
Slav); nor is there even any considerable Bulgarian population which could
rally round the new government. The administrative task is obviously far
beyond the powers of a small peasant state, most of whose present leaders
were born under a foreign yoke. Nor is Greece a serious candidate for the
vacant post. The Greeks, of course, unlike the Bulgarians, have a definite
claim, based on the traditions of the Byzantine Empire, and there is a
large Greek population in the city--at present close upon 350,000, though
their numbers are likely to be materially reduced before this war is over.
But in their case also Constantinople would be a fatal gift. The resources
even of the enlarged Hellenic kingdom would inevitably prove unequal to the
task. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that a Greek occupation would be
opposed on many grounds by the entire commercial community of every other
nation in Europe.
In some ways the ideal arrangement would be that Roumania should assume the
administration of the city, as trustee for a reconstituted Balkan League,
with proper guarantees for the commercial rights of all the Powers. But it
is to be feared that such a solution would please nobody, perhaps not even
Roumania herself. A league of the five Balkan kings, with Roumania as
_primus inter pares_, is the dream of a remote future, and until it can be
realised, Constantinople cannot assume its natural position as capital of
the Balkan peninsula.
§14. _Russia and Constantinople._--In short, as matters stand to-day, there
is only one power which can replace the Turks as master of Constantinople,
and that power is Russia. The Russians could not of course incorporate the
city in their empire for reasons of geography; and this fundamental fact
destroys at a blow the numerous objections which might have told against
the occupation, if Constantinople had been contiguous to the Russian
dominions. It would obviously be necessary to establish a special
autonomous administration under a Russian governor. It is by no means
impossible that Russia would be satisfied with the expulsion of the Turks
and the internationalisation of Constantinople as a free port under a
Christian prince or a commission of the Powers. But, though admirable
in theory, such a solution would give rise to endless complications and
disputes. Unless the Western Powers can trust Russia sufficiently to leave
her in full possession, they must make up their minds to bolstering up the
impossible Turk for a further period of years. Such a surrender to the
unreasoning and ignorant prejudices of a previous generation would be a
sure prelude to the collapse of our alliance with Russia, which it is the
vital interest of all British patriots to uphold at all costs. Happily,
"the fear of Russia," as of a strange and unknown colossus, is dying out,
vague fancies inevitably yielding to the hard logic of facts. The Disraeli
policy in the Near East must give place once and for all to the broader
conceptions of Gladstone, tempered by the cautious statesmanship of
Salisbury. The greatest of the Christian Powers must be allowed to replace
the cross upon the dome of Saint Sofia. The religious appeal of such a
change is clear enough, nor need there be any anxiety on economic grounds.
There is nothing to prevent Constantinople from becoming a free port under
the Russian flag, and filling a similar place to that which the free port
of Trieste would occupy under the flag of United Italy. Indeed it may be
confidently assumed that the change would give an extraordinary impetus to
trade in the whole eastern Mediterranean. The recent history of Batum and
Baku is a faint indication of what might be expected.
The fate of the Dardanelles cannot be separated from that of the capital;
both must be in the same hands. At the same time a reasonable compensation
for their cession to Russia would be the dismantlement of their forts. In
any case, whatever their fate may be, it is clear that an end must be put
to the galling restrictions upon Russia's Black Sea fleet. The essential
point to bear in mind is that if the war goes well with the Allies, and
if Russia expresses a definite desire to occupy Constantinople and the
straits, resistance on our part would be alike difficult, pointless, and
undesirable. Those who oppose have no arguments, so long as the special
international needs and conditions of the city are properly recognised and
guaranteed. With true Oriental fatalism, the Turk has always regarded his
ultimate disappearance from Europe as a certainty; the superstition which
led the inhabitants of Stamboul to prefer burial across the straits in Asia
has its parallel in the alarm aroused in the bazaars by the Young Turks'
decision to exterminate the pariah dogs which have for centuries supplied
the place of scavengers in the streets of the capital. To-day the prophecy
which made their removal the prelude to the departure of their masters
seems on the point of fulfillment, and all who believe in the retributive
justice of history will re-echo Mr. Asquith's hope that the fall of Ottoman
rule will remove "the blight which for generations has withered some of the
fairest regions of the world."
§15. _Asiatic Turkey._--What then will be the subsequent fate of the Turks
if they are once driven "bag and baggage" across the straits. The Sultan
will doubtless transfer his capital to Brussa, or even to Konieh. But can
the Khalifate survive such a loss of prestige on the part of the Ottoman
dynasty? It would be altogether premature to discuss in anything
approaching detail the vast issues of the fate of Turkey's Asiatic
dominions, but it is necessary to indicate that even after settling the
fate of the straits we shall still be confronted by issues of appalling
magnitude. It is the conjunction of the spiritual and temporal power in
a single person which has given the Khalifate its importance, and its
expulsion from the Golden Horn would transform its whole political status.
Above all, it is necessary to reckon with the Arab nationalist movement
which is already a reality and a factor of permanent importance. Here, too,
the principle of nationality must be applied, though in a very different
sense, for national feeling is of course at a much earlier stage of
development among the Arabs than in Central Europe. Hitherto they have
accepted the Khalifate of the House of Othman, though without enthusiasm;
but recent events are likely to bring to a head the resentment with which
they view the spectacle of the Khalif as the helpless tool of a clique
which in no way represents Islam. Will they repudiate him and restore the
Khalifate to some more authentic descendant of the Prophet? Is there to
be an independent Arab power? Will it be practicable to create a central
authority amid the virtual anarchy of so vast and primitive a country? Or
will Britain, as the chief Mahommedan power, be obliged to assume a loose
protectorate over Arabia and Mesopotamia? If so, will she share this with
the French in Syria, and will Lebanon be able to preserve its autonomy?
Only the course of events can provide an answer to such questions; only one
fixed point emerges from the surrounding uncertainty--the firm pledge of
the British Government that the Holy Places of Islam shall be respected.
Even this does not exhaust the possibilities of the immediate future. Is
Palestine to become a Jewish land? In recent years there has been a
steady emigration of Moslem and Christian and an equally marked Jewish
immigration, and among other factors in the movement the potentialities of
Jewish nationalism in the United States deserve especial notice. America
is full of nationalities which, while accepting with enthusiasm their new
American citizenship, none the less look to some centre in the Old World as
the source and inspiration of their national culture and traditions. The
most typical instance is the feeling of the American Jew for Palestine,
which may well become a focus for his _déclassé_ kinsmen in other parts of
the world. The Jews quite realise that they can have no exclusive claim to
the possession of such a religious centre as Jerusalem, and it is clear
that whatever happens to the Holy Land as a whole, the city itself must
be subject to an impartial administration, which would be neither Jewish,
Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant nor Moslem in any exclusive sense, but would
secure free play to the religious and educational aspirations of them all.
Herzl himself, the founder of modern Zionism, dreamt of Jerusalem as the
shrine of all religions and never looked forward to the day when it would
be a purely Jewish city.
Lastly, what is to be the fate of Asia Minor? There can be no question that
the Russians must be allowed to occupy and retain the whole of Turkish
Armenia. They will thus be conferring a benefit upon humanity and ending
one of the most grinding and barbarous tyrannies that the modern world has
ever seen; the progress made by the Armenians under Russian rule during the
past twenty years is a happy augury for the future of this race when once
united in common allegiance to the Tsar, under a wise system of local
autonomy. But will the Ottoman Empire be able to survive when shorn of its
European possessions, of its Armenian and Arab populations? Will not Italy
demand her share of the spoils, and side by side with the French in Syria,
assume in friendly rivalry the protectorate of Cilicia from a point east of
Adalia as far as the gulf of Alexandretta? Will it be possible to arrest
the process of disintegration even at this stage? Will not Greece attempt
to annex Smyrna and at least a portion of its hinterland, or has she not
at least as good a title as any other competitor? Here, again, it would
be absurd to attempt any answer for the present, but we must at least
be prepared for the possibility of a transformation as rapid and as
overwhelming in Asiatic Turkey as that which freed the Balkans from the
Turkish nightmare two short years ago. In Asia, as in Europe, the war is
the prelude to a new era, and Britain is faced with the alternative
of weakly abandoning her Imperial mission or assuming still greater
responsibilities. "The Turkish Empire has committed suicide, and dug with
its own hand its grave," and to Britain will fall more fully than ever
before the leadership of the Mahommedan world. The loyalty and devotion of
the Moslem community in India can best be repaid by the most scrupulous and
sympathetic attention to the interests of Islam throughout the world.
§16. _Russia and Poland._--It is no mere accident that Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Turkey should be ranged on the same side in the great
European struggle; for they represent, each in its own way, those false
conceptions of nationality which have so long envenomed the public life
of Europe, and which, for want of better words, have been described as
Germanisation, Magyarisation, and Turkification. It would, however, be
flagrantly untrue to suggest that those three States enjoyed a monopoly of
racial intolerance; for the ideas on nationality which dominated official
Russia under the old absolutist régime and which so rapidly regained the
upper hand under Stolypin and the triumphant bureaucracy, struck at the
very root of tolerance and political liberty. But recent years have
revealed a subtle change of attitude. The policy of Russification had not
been abandoned; indeed in Finland and the Ukraine it survived in its most
odious form. But it was none the less possible to detect a growing note
of interrogation even among the bureaucracy, and still more an increasing
movement of impatient protest on the part of thinking Russians. Without in
any way ignoring what has happened in Persia, we have every right to point
to the essential fact that Russia has of her own accord raised the question
of nationality and thus set in motion vast forces which are already shaking
Europe to its foundations. In proclaiming as one of her foremost aims the
restoration of Polish Unity, Russia did not, it is true, commit herself to
any concrete project of autonomy. But whether her action represents genuine
feeling on the part of the Tsar and his advisers, as M. Gabriel Hanotaux
so positively asserts, or whether it was originally a mere manoeuvre to
prevent the Polish question being raised against her, it is at least
certain that Russia has entered upon a new path from which it will be
very difficult if not impossible to recede. The Russian Poles, under the
leadership of M. Dmowski, have rallied loyally round the Tsar; and there
are many signs that the long-deferred Russo-Polish _rapprochement_ is at
length on the point of fulfillment. Here economic interests play their
part, for in recent years the district between Warsaw and Lodz has become
one of the chief industrial centres of the Russian Empire, and its
annexation to Austria or to Prussia would place a tariff wall between it
and the South Russian markets upon which it chiefly depends. The Poles
of Galicia, having enjoyed the utmost liberty under Austrian rule, have
naturally been almost immune from the discontent so noticeable among their
kinsmen in Russia and Prussia, and have indeed for a generation past formed
the backbone of all parliamentary majorities in the Austrian Reichsrat.
But even among them the first faint signs of Russophil feeling have
been noticeable in the last two years. This is partially due to the
encouragement given by the Austrian Government to the Ruthenes in Galicia,
but also to the disintegrating effect of universal suffrage upon the Polish
political parties, the growth of democratic tendencies at the expense of
the Austrophil nobility, and the consequent increased influence of the
Poles of Warsaw. Though the Polish parties in Galicia issued declarations
of loyalty to Austria at the beginning of the war, and though their
_franc-tireurs_ are fighting in the Austrian ranks, there is a growing
perception of the fact that the only serious prospect of attaining Polish
Unity lies in a Russian victory. Austria, they argue, might, if successful,
unite the Russian and Austrian sections (at the expense of the former's
economic future!), but never the Prussian; and Prussia, out of loyalty to
her ally, could at best add _Russian_ Poland to her own territory: Russia
alone can hope, in the event of a victory, to unite all three fragments in
a single whole. However profoundly they may differ on points of detail,
all Poles agree that the first essential is the attainment of that unity
without which they may at any moment become, as now, the battleground of
three great Empires, and which provides the key with which they themselves
can unlock the portals of their future destiny. Should their dream be
fulfilled, the valley of the Vistula, restored to geographical unity, may
soon play an important part in the political and economic life of Europe.
Russia, then, is faced by one of the greatest choices in history. An
opportunity will present itself after this war, for solving her own racial
question which has in the past presented scarcely less grave embarrassment
than the parallel problem of Austria-Hungary, and which, if left unsolved,
may at no distant date endanger the unity and welfare of the Empire. The
grant of Polish autonomy, the restoration of the Finnish constitution, the
recognition of the special position of the Ukraine or Ruthene language and
cultural traditions, the relaxation of linguistic restrictions among the
lesser races of the Empire, and the adoption of a humaner attitude towards
the Jews of the Pale--these are steps which follow logically from the
proclamation of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and indeed from the alliance with
the Western Powers. Incidentally much will depend upon the attitude adopted
by the Russian Government towards its new Catholic subjects. Its relations
with the Vatican will require to be placed upon an entirely new footing,
and due respect must be accorded to the Uniate Catholic Church of the four
million Ruthenes of Galicia. In this respect the Concordat signed a few
weeks before the outbreak of war between Serbia and the Vatican should form
a very valuable precedent for the whole future relations of the Catholic
and Orthodox Churches, relations which are likely to assume increasing
importance in the not too far distant future. And here it is worth while to
emphasise, for the benefit of those who still regard Russia with misgiving
or dislike, the indisputable fact that it is just the most democratic and
enlightened of the smaller Slavonic States, and the most intellectual and
enlightened politicians and thinkers in those States, who have always
looked with the greatest confidence and enthusiasm to Russia, and who
to-day are most unanimous in welcoming her as the herald of a new era of
humanity and progress.
§17. _General Aims._--It would lead us much too far afield to consider
the possible effects of the war upon colonial development and upon the
political and commercial development of the Far East. Here again, the
central fact to remember is that we may, indeed, that we must, defeat
Germany or perish in the attempt, but that a nation of 65 million
inhabitants cannot be effaced or permanently reduced to impotence. After
the war the two nations will have to live peaceably side by side once more,
and repair so far as possible the wreckage to which this gigantic struggle
has reduced their political, social, and commercial intercourse. Any peace
settlement will be good only so far as it avoids placing obstacles in the
path of so difficult an achievement. It will be the first duty of our
statesmen to watch over the alliance between Russia and the Western Powers,
sealed as it is by the fiery ordeal of war, and to neutralise the occult
influences which are even now working to undermine it, to the advantage of
interests which are anything but British. But it will also be their duty to
create a situation which, while safeguarding the Empire's vital interests,
shall not render improved relations with the central European Powers
impossible from the very outset. It is one thing to abandon our allies
and friends, it is quite another thing to perpetuate a feud which, though
converted by circumstances into a struggle between two unanimous nations,
was in the first instance the work of mischievous if powerful minorities.
The final settlement will inevitably bring many disappointments and
errors in its train. We can best guard against such a result by preparing
ourselves for all eventualities and giving the most careful consideration
to each of the many problems at issue. Our obvious aim must be a settlement
which shows some reasonable prospect of permanence, and this can best be
achieved if we respect so far as possible the wishes of the populations
concerned. The principle of Nationality is not a talisman which will
open all gates, for in some parts of Europe the different races are so
inextricably intermingled as to defy all efforts to create ethnographic
boundaries. This does not, however, affect the central fact that
Nationality is the best salve for existing wounds, and that its application
will enormously reduce the infected area. But if the peoples are to make
their wishes felt there must be a regeneration of diplomatic methods
throughout Europe. Attempts will be made to revive the pernicious
principles of the Congress of Vienna, by which a few autocrats and
aristocrats carved out the fate of millions according to their dynastic
appetites or fancies, and thus tied a whole series of unnecessary knots for
subsequent wars to sever. A healthy and informed public opinion--especially
in the West--must watch over the doings of those who represent it at the
fateful Congress, according loyal support to their declared policy, but
promptly checking the reactionary tendencies which are certain to reveal
themselves. It is still unhappily possible for the arrogant impatience of
a single ruler or the persistent intrigue and misrepresentation of an
ambassador to embroil the European situation. Unless the nations in council
can devise some practical checks upon irresponsible meddling, the flower of
their manhood will have massacred each other in vain. The antecedents of
Sir Edward Grey, and more especially his attitude during the crisis which
led to war, justify us in the hope that his entire influence will be
employed in the right direction when the decisive moment arrives, and that
he will insist upon such crucial questions as the reduction of armaments,
the substitution of "citizen" for "conscript" armies, the control of
armament firms and their occult influence, the effective extension of
arbitration and the elimination of impossible time-limits, being discussed
in all seriousness, and not merely dismissed with a few ironic platitudes
and expressions of hypocritical goodwill. We must not be unduly discouraged
if some of these ideals prove impossible of realisation, for it would be
childish to suppose that when the great war is over the nations will at
once convert their swords into ploughshares and proclaim for the first time
in history the sway of Right over Might. But it is obvious that in a world
which has long ceased to be merely European, the European Powers cannot
long continue with impunity such internecine strife, and that unless some
real shape and substance can be given to the Concert of Europe--so long and
so justly a byword among all thinking men--our continent (and with it these
islands) will inevitably forfeit the leadership which has hitherto been
theirs and surrender the direction of the world's affairs into the hands of
the extra-European powers. It will be remembered that Sir Edward Grey, in
a last despairing effort to preserve peace,[1] broached the idea of "some
more definite rapprochement between the Powers," and though admittedly
"hitherto too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals," it may
be hoped that the enormous difficulty of the task will not deter him from
pleading before the future Congress the outraged cause of international
goodwill.
[Footnote 1: White Paper, No. 101.]
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE WAR
"And the economic ravages of war are also much greater with civilised
nations than with barbarians. A war nowadays may have stern, fearful
consequences, especially through the destruction of the ingenious credit
system."--TREITSCHKE.
"Those who have fallen have consecrated deaths. They have taken their part
in the making of a new Europe, a new world. I can see signs of its coming
in the glare of the battlefield. The people will gain more by this struggle
in all lands than they comprehend at the present moment.... A great flood
of luxury and of sloth which had submerged the land is receding, and a new
Britain is appearing. We can see for the first time the fundamental things
that matter in life and that have been obscured from our vision by the
tropical growth of prosperity."--MR.D. LLOYD GEORGE.
It is obvious that a great war must profoundly disturb every side of the
national life of the peoples taking part in it, and that these disturbances
must react upon neutral States. The exact character and extent of these
changes, however, are by no means easy to understand, and the present
chapter does not pretend to offer an exhaustive treatment of them. It is
impossible to appreciate the full significance of the immediate social and
economic reactions of the war, whilst an attempt to state the ultimate
effects of the war leads us along the slippery paths of prophecy.
Nevertheless, we are not likely to grasp the importance of the various
phenomena which have followed so closely upon the heels of the declaration
of war, nor to adapt ourselves to the new situation which will arise out
of the war, unless we give our attention to the things which are happening
around us.
Unfortunately we can gain little guidance from the past. The South African
War inevitably disturbed the normal course of our industrial life, but it
involved us in conflict with a nation of relatively little general economic
importance; and so, costly and prolonged though it was, it bears no
comparison in its magnitude and in the character of its main issues to the
present war in Europe. The Crimean War of sixty years ago, though waged
between four European nations--Great Britain, France, Turkey, and
Russia--cost Great Britain much less in money than the Boer War; the issues
so far as this country was concerned were not so momentous; and industry
and commerce, though important, were not then nearly so highly developed
and complicated as they are now. The Napoleonic wars, though comparable to
the present war in fundamental importance, lasted for a generation, which
the war of to-day can hardly do; the effects of the wars with Napoleon were
complicated by the Industrial Revolution; the industrial system and the
commercial fabric erected on it were then only in process of formation and
the power of the people was small.
These differences enable us to see the new factors which have come into
play during the past century. The present war is being fought
under conditions which were non-existent during the struggle with
Napoleon--conditions which on the one hand add to the waste and loss and
misery of war, but on the other give rise to the hope that many of its evil
consequences may be averted. Firstly, industry and commerce are world-wide;
the remotest countries are bound together by economic ties; invisible
cords link the Belgian iron worker with the London docker and the Clyde
shipwright, the Californian fruit grower with the Malay tin miner and the
German dye worker. The economic effects of modern warfare, therefore,
reverberate throughout the whole world, and widespread dislocation ensues.
In the next place, the gigantic scale on which war between great powers is
conducted, though it tends to shorten the duration of wars, increases the
intensity of the shock to human society.
But besides these new material conditions, modern warfare is carried on
under the eyes of more enlightened peoples than in the past. The struggle
which is now being pursued is the first great war watched by a conscious or
at any rate partly conscious democracy. It is the first modern war waged
(except in our own case) by national armies constituting practically the
entire fit male population. The masses of the people have in most civilised
countries some measure of political power. And though to the elector
diplomacy and the conduct of foreign affairs are a closed book, war once
declared is war by the people; and their voice must be heard in matters
connected with it and arising out of it. Then, further, in the past the
aftermath of war was in many ways as horrible as war itself, whilst the
period during war witnessed an enormous amount of privation and suffering
among non-combatants almost as ghastly as that of the battlefield. This was
due not so much to inaction resulting from callousness as to unwise action
and ignorance. During the past century political science and economic
inquiry have made vast strides, and consequently the injurious social
effects of warfare may be minimised, though not averted; and a considerable
body of public opinion, far more enlightened than during any previous
European war, is almost certain to exercise some pressure in the direction
of wise and far-reaching action both during the war and after it is ended.
These considerations must be borne in mind in discussing both the present
position and possible future developments.
It is clear that four great European Powers and some smaller ones cannot
engage in war without shaking the fabric of European civilisation to its
foundations. The tramp of fifteen million armed men is the greatest social
and economic fact of the present day, and indeed of the present generation.
These millions of combatants have to be clothed, fed, armed, transported,
and tended in health and in sickness; they are non-producers for the time,
consuming in large quantities the staple commodities of life, and calling
in addition for all the paraphernalia of war; sooner or later, they will
desire to return to the plough and the mine, the factory and the railroad.
These two facts alone are of tremendous importance. But besides this,
the activity of those who stay at home is called into play in a thousand
different ways, and economic and social life leave their well-trodden paths
in answer to the imperious call of national necessity. Social institutions
of all kinds are inevitably led into new fields of thought and action, and
States are driven to untried experiments in communal activity. The usual
channels of thought dry up, the flood of new ideas and of old ideas
throbbing with a new life rushes on unconfined, here in the shallows, there
in the deeps, presently to overflow into the old channels, cleansing their
beds and giving them a new direction, and linking up in fruitful union but
remotely connected streams. When fighting ceases and there comes the calm
of peace, society will tend to revert to its normal functions, based on
peace; but the society of yesterday can never return. Social life cannot be
the same as it was before, not merely because those activities called forth
by the war may persist in some form, but because of the growth of new ideas
under the stimulus of the war. The struggle will almost certainly set in
progress trains of thought not only connected with questions of war and
peace, but with the wider questions of human destiny.
Coming to a closer view of the question, we must distinguish between the
immediate effects of the war which are already in evidence and the ultimate
effects which will but begin to unfold themselves after the return of
peace. Some of the latter results will grow out of the immediate effects;
others will be more directly due to the events following on the conclusion
of the war. It will also be advisable to distinguish between the economic
reactions of the war, and the broader social consequences. At such an
early stage it would be presumptuous and tempting Providence to attempt to
forecast the future in any detail or to try to trace the play and interplay
of the various forces going towards the making of the future. This chapter
will be concerned with broad tentative generalisations on quite simple
lines.
One of the things which struck the intelligent working man during the early
days of the war was the rapidity with which the State acted in the face of
the crisis. In next to no time large measures of State control and
action were put successfully into operation and those who had advocated
co-operative action in the past with but indifferent success were amazed
at the swiftness with which the nation can act in the hour of need. The
drastic action of the State cannot be better illustrated than by the steps
which were taken to meet the sudden commercial deadlock which the war
precipitated. A discussion of these financial measures will at the same
time enable us to understand how, through credit, war strikes at the
industry and trade of the modern world.
A. STATE ACTION IN INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
The Austrian ultimatum to Servia was followed by the paralysis of the
world's international system of finance. Before the end of July many
important stock exchanges were closed, and by the 31st the London Stock
Exchange for the first time in its history was also compelled to close. The
remittance market collapsed and with it the fabric of international trade.
Widespread bankruptcy and ruin seemed imminent; so serious did the state of
affairs become that moratoria were declared not only in several European
countries but in parts of America, and in many continental countries specie
payments were suspended. In a word, the possibility of war had thrown the
delicately poised credit system of the commercial world out of gear; the
declaration of war had brought it to a standstill. Into an explanation of
its working it is not possible to enter; it is sufficient for our immediate
purpose to realise that the foreign exchange machinery by which the supply
of commodities from other countries becomes practicable on a large scale
was for a time altogether unworkable. London as the financial centre of the
world has immense sums owing to it and in its turn owes large sums. The
ultimate effect of the collapse of credit, which depends on confidence, was
that London could neither receive nor make payment. The big finance houses,
who had "accepted" bills of exchange and rendered themselves liable to meet
the payments for the things they represented, on the understanding that the
means to pay them were to be promptly despatched, found that these means
were not forthcoming; their own resources were far from sufficient to meet
these payments. Utter ruin stared them in the face. At home also a run on
the banks seemed probable, which would have meant ruin to large numbers of
people. In this grave crisis the State acted with commendable promptness.
The bank holiday was extended; State notes for 10s. and £1 were issued; a
moratorium was declared, legalising the postponement of the due payment of
debts, with certain exceptions; the Bank of England under a guarantee from
the Government that the latter would meet the loss, began discounting,
or buying for cash, approved bills of exchange accepted before war was
declared, many of which are hardly likely to be met by the people liable
for payment. These steps were taken swiftly and boldly and allayed the
panic. But more was needed; such measures were not in themselves sufficient
to put the machinery of foreign exchange into operation again and the
suspension of this method of settling international indebtedness was having
serious effects. To carry on international trade, and to supply ourselves
with the produce on which the very existence of the community depends,
without the machinery, is a thousand times more difficult than to conduct
our home trade by means of direct barter. Without going into technical
details, it may be said that the purchase of bills by the Bank of England,
whilst relieving the last holder from loss, did not extinguish the
liability of persons whose names had appeared on the bills as acceptors,
endorsers and drawers. This was true of traders and commercial people not
only in this country but also in other parts of the world. In the face of
these liabilities, in most cases unexpected, it was hardly likely that
they would increase their liabilities under new bills. Consequently the
remittances coming to London shrank to next to nothing. As bills of
exchange--or their equivalent--are the means by which both importers
and exporters get paid for their goods, the difficulty of getting paid
naturally began to have a serious effect on trade. As the figures of
foreign trade during August show, cargoes were being held up. It was clear,
therefore, that if this country were to continue to receive supplies of
corn and meat, of cotton and wool, of hides and timber, something further
must be done. The question the Government had to decide was what steps
could be taken to safeguard the food of the people, and to avoid a crushing
volume of unemployment through the lack of the raw materials of industry.
The produce was there; what was needed was to start the flow of the
particular kind of currency--"credit money"--which would expedite exchange.
The course taken by the State was to advance money to the large bill
bankers or "accepting houses" in London to allow of the due payment of the
enormous number of bills falling due in the three months succeeding the
outbreak of war. The audacity of the step will be understood when it is
realised that probably something like £300,000,000 of bills fall due over a
period of three months.[1] The necessary money was lent without security,
the Government promising not to demand repayment until twelve months after
the end of the war. A proportion of this advance will be in the nature of
a loss, though how much it is quite impossible to say. By this measure,
in the event of the bills not being met by those who have promised to pay
them--the acceptors--the liability which would ordinarily have fallen upon
the drawers and endorsers through whose hands the bills had passed has been
removed. The State has advanced to the commercial community a huge sum of
money, risking the total loss of some part of it, in order to set in motion
the machinery of international exchange. Further steps, however, were
taken. The general moratorium expired on November 4. Useful as it had
been, it still left many traders in financial difficulties because of
the impossibility of collecting debts owing to them in enemy and other
countries. The Government, therefore, appointed a committee representing
the Treasury, the Bank of England, the Joint Stock Banks, and the
Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom to authorise
advances in approved cases to British traders carrying on an export
business in respect of debts outstanding in foreign countries and colonies,
including unpaid foreign and colonial accepted bills which cannot be
collected for the time being. It is safe to say that no Government ever
took such gigantic measures to meet a great crisis.[2] The Prime Minister,
speaking at the Guildhall on November 9, 1914, summarised as follows the
effects of the steps taken: "The foreign exchanges are working in the case
of most countries quite satisfactorily, and the gold reserves at the Bank
of England, which were 40 millions on July 22, and which had fallen on
August 7 to 27 millions, now stand at the unprecedented figure of 69-1/2
millions. The central gold reserve of the country after three months of the
war amounts to £80,000,000, almost exactly twice the amount at which it
stood at the beginning of the crisis. The bank rate, which rose, as you
know, to 10 per cent, has now come down to 5, a figure, I think, not in
excess of that at which it stood this time last year. Food prices have been
kept at a fairly normal level, and though trade has been curtailed in some
directions, unemployment has been rather below than above the average."
[Footnote 1: Mr. J.M. Keynes (_Economic Journal,_ Sept. 1914) estimates the
aggregate value of outstanding bills in London at £350,000,000.]
[Footnote 2: In addition to these various financial measures, the State has
lent Belgium £10,000,000 and the Union of South Africa £7,000,000, whilst
it has also guaranteed £5,000,000 of the new Egyptian cotton loan.]
But this is by no means the only example of State action. The Government
has established temporarily a State-aided system of marine insurance, by
undertaking 80 per cent of the war risk, in order to encourage overseas
trade. It has given substantial aid to the joint-stock banks "for the sole
purpose that they might be fit to aid in every way possible the country's
trade and finance."[1] It made arrangements for the direct purchase of
forage and vegetables, etc., from farmers.[2] It took over the control of
the railways. When, owing to panic, there was a rush for the purchase of
food-stuffs, which was used to force up prices unduly, the Government
intervened to prevent exorbitant charges. Particularly interesting is the
action of the State regarding sugar, two-thirds of our supply of which
comes from Germany and Austria. In the days immediately following the
declaration of war wholesale prices were trebled. The Government,
therefore, decided to take upon itself the task of ensuring an adequate
supply of sugar, and a Royal Commission was appointed. The leading refiners
were approached and an arrangement was made with the whole body of refiners
that they should stand aside from the market for raw sugars, leaving it
free for the operations of the Government. The Royal Commission pledged the
refiners to buy their sugar from the Commission, _i.e._ from the State;
sugar was to be offered to them at a fixed price, and the refiners were to
sell the refined product to the dealers also at a fixed price sufficient to
yield the refiners a fair profit on manufacture. As a result of the corner,
a big rise in the price of sugar, which is not only an important domestic
commodity but the raw material of several industries, was averted. This
merits the description given of it in _The Nation_--"a really dashing
experiment in State Socialism." [3] On the other hand, it has done nothing
to increase the world's supply of sugar, but has merely commandeered a
part of the existing stock. The aid of the State has been invoked in other
directions. Already the Government has assisted experimental cultivation of
beet in this country. The suggestion has been made that the State should
build two beet-sugar factories, which would cost about £200,000 each; in
this way it is suggested that our home supply of sugar would in the future
be assured, and that agriculture would benefit considerably.[4]
[Footnote 1: _Round Table_, Sept. 1914, p. 705.]
[Footnote 2: This was done through the Board of Agriculture for the War
Office. On the other hand, in the purchase of clothing, boots, blankets,
etc., the War Office approached the producers directly instead of through
the Board of Trade.]
[Footnote 3: It was reported in the Press on October 8, 1914, that the Home
Secretary had purchased 900,000 tons of sugar at about £20 per ton, the
transaction involving an outlay of about £18,000,000.]
[Footnote 4: See an article by Mr. Robertson Scott in _The Nineteenth
Century_, October 1914.]
Sir Charles Macara has put forward a scheme of State aid for the cotton
industry. Owing to the war, a third of the total cotton crop (usually taken
by the continental countries) was thrown on the market. Prices naturally
fell, and there was a danger that the cotton planters might not be able to
pay the debts they had contracted to enable them to grow their crops, in
which case there would be a likelihood of the land being used for other
saleable commodities, and the efforts which have been made in the past to
increase the cotton crop would be nullified. In the meantime, the surplus
cotton on the market created an uncertainty regarding prices, and buying
came to a standstill, with the result that the position of the industry as
a whole became very critical. The suggestion of Sir Charles Macara is
that the Governments of this country and the United States, acting in
conjunction, should take the temporarily unsaleable surplus of raw cotton
off the market and store it for use in years when the crop is short. In
other words, it is proposed to establish a permanent national cotton
reserve. It is estimated that the cost of the scheme would mean an outlay
of sixty to seventy millions sterling. If the plan were put into operation,
however, it is claimed that it would restore confidence, prevent the
wholesale stoppage of mills, and at the same time establish a cotton
reserve to counteract the fluctuations of crops in the future.[1] These
matters need but to be stated as examples of the remarkable adaptability
of the State and the possibility of drastic action under the pressure of
imperative needs.[2]
[Footnote 1: It should be pointed out that the serious condition of the
cotton industry is not due to the war. The overstocking of the Eastern and
Indian markets during the trade boom of 1913, together with the financial
crisis in India last year, has reduced the demand for cotton goods. The
war has merely emphasised a depression which had already fallen on the
industry. Sir Charles Macara's scheme, whilst it may be desirable on other
grounds, cannot compensate for the shrinkage in the demand for Lancashire
products. The Government, it is interesting to note, have commissioned
certain firms in Alexandria "to buy cotton extensively from small
proprietors at a reasonable rate, on Government account, to be stored until
the arrival of more prosperous times." (Press Association Telegram, _Daily
Press,_ Nov. 2, 1914).]
[Footnote 2: The voluntary gifts of different parts of the Empire should
not be overlooked. Besides these other steps have been taken. The
Australian Government, for example, in order to induce farmers to extend
the area of cultivation, has guaranteed "a fixed minimum price of 4s." for
all wheat grown on the newly cultivated land. (Reuter's Correspondent,
_Daily Press_, Oct. 27, 1914).]
The course of events has shown the temporary collapse of economic
individualism in the face of the European crisis. The economic system,
which works during times of peace, could not meet successfully the crushing
effects of a European war. It lacked not only adequate resources but the
necessary power of corporate action and co-ordination. Immediate State
action seemed to be the only way to avert disaster. In a month, Britain
came nearer than ever before to being a co-operative commonwealth. It has
been realised that industry and commerce are not primarily intended as a
field for exploitation and profit, but are essential national services in
as true a sense as the army and navy. The complexity of the modern economic
world and the large individual gains which have been made in it have
obscured the fact that the economic structure exists to serve the needs of
the community. It was recognised by the Government, at any rate to some
extent, that the success of our armies in the field would be nullified if,
in the economic sphere, the production of commodities and services were
seriously diminished and if their interchange were hampered in a large
degree. People have felt that the spinner, the miner, the weaver, the
machinist, are all by following their occupations performing a valuable
service to the community. How far this attitude of mind will persist after
the war, when normal conditions in industry and commerce gradually return,
remains to be seen.
B. IMMEDIATE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE WAR
1. _Foreign Trade_.--The effects of the war on industry and commerce will
be complicated and far reaching. The British and German Empires together
transact about two-fifths of the international trade of the world, the
British Empire doing over a quarter and Germany almost exactly an eighth.
Between them they own over half the merchant shipping of the world. A war
in which they are both engaged, therefore, must have serious consequences
not only to these countries themselves but to the countries with whom they
carry on business relations, and through them, in a lesser degree, to all
other commercial countries. But this is not all: France has a foreign trade
amounting to £615,000,000 a year; Belgium's is valued at £326,000,000,
Russia's at £275,000,000, and Austria-Hungary's at £256,000,000. Besides
a gigantic foreign trade there is a domestic trade, which is on a larger
scale than the external trade of these countries. Let us consider in more
detail the case of Germany. Half her foreign trade is transacted with the
nations now engaged in the great war. The trade of Britain, Russia, and
France with the German Empire is now at a standstill, except possibly for
a very small amount transacted via neutral countries; her trade with
Austria-Hungary must seriously decline. Moreover, her imports from neutral
countries and her exports to them have dwindled very considerably, and must
remain small as long as British naval supremacy continues. More than one
half of Germany's total imports are raw materials for manufactures, about
two-thirds of her exports being manufactured goods. Assuming that she
continues o conduct foreign trade through Norway and Sweden, Denmark,
Holland, Switzerland, and Austria-Hungary, the volume will be small, and
even if her whole trade with neutral countries could be maintained she
would still be without the trade of her enemies. For example, in 1913 this
country sold goods to the value of £40,000,000 to Germany and purchased
from her goods to the value of £80,000,000.[1]
[Footnote 1: The following list indicates some of the chief articles of
trade between the two countries:
German Imports into the United | British Exports to Germany, 1912
Kingdom, 1912. |
|
£ million. | £ million.
Sugar 6·2 | Cottons and yarn 8·3
Cottons and yarn 5·9 | Woollens and yarn 6·6
Iron and steel and | Coal, coke, etc. 4·4
manufactures 5·7 | Herrings 2·4
Woollens and yarn 2·6 | Ironwork 2·1
Machinery 2·4 | Machinery 2·1
Glass and Manufactures 1·1 |
It is not true, as Dr. R.G. Usher says, that Germany is "literally
self-sufficing" (_Pan Germanism_, p. 65).]
In Great Britain, economic activity has been developed on the assumption
of continued peace. In Germany, however, though there were those who
would "base all economic policy on an imaginary permanent peace,"[1] the
Government has had in view the possibility of war. "Every conscientious
Government," writes von Bülow, "seeks to avoid [war] so long as the honour
and vital interests of the nation permit of so doing. But every State
department should be organised as if war were going to break out tomorrow.
This applies to economic policy as well."[2] It is with this idea in mind
that the German Government has striven to maintain the importance of
agriculture. "Economic policy must foster peaceful development; but it must
keep in view the possibility of war, and, for this reason above all, must
be agrarian in the best sense of the word."[3] It is held that in the
event of war the home market in Germany would be an important factor in
maintaining intact the fabric of industry. "The home market," we are told,
"is ... of very great importance. It would be called upon to replace the
foreign market if in time of war our national frontiers should be wholly
or partly closed. But in the home market agriculture is by far the most
important customer of industry; only if agriculture is able to buy, if
it earns enough itself to enable others to earn too, will it be able, in
critical times, to consume a part of the products which cannot be disposed
of abroad. The old proverb, "If the peasant has money then every one else
has too," is literally true, as soon as industry is forced, to a greater
extent than is necessary in times of peace, to find its customers at
home."[4] "As in time of war industry is dependent on the buying power of
agriculture, the productive power of agriculture is a vital question for
the nation."[5]
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, by Prince Bernhard von Bülow, p. 221.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 220. See also Bernhardi, _Germany and the Next
War_, pp. 157-159 and 260 _et seq._]
[Footnote 3: _Imperial Germany_, pp. 220-221.]
[Footnote 4: _Imperial Germany_, p. 219.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid_. p. 221.]
The importance of agriculture in Germany is undoubtedly great; it may be,
as Bülow says, that "the value of its produce is equal to that of the
produce of industry, or even surpasses it."[1] But if the demand for it
were to shrink because the industrial population lost their work through
a shortage of raw materials or in any other way, agriculture would also
suffer. The population at present engaged in agriculture will in times of
peace buy up to the practical limits of its purchasing power, and is hardly
likely, especially in the early stages of a war, to "consume a part of the
products which cannot be disposed of abroad," except in so far as they buy
German goods (the production of which the declaration of the war may have
seriously impeded), instead of commodities produced abroad. But it is
questionable whether they will be able to maintain their aggregate
purchasing power. Prince Bülow ignores the fact that production for the
home market will be hampered by the possible non-arrival of foreign raw
materials in war time; yet Germany imported raw cotton to the value of over
£29,000,000 in 1913. Her foreign purchases of hides and skins amounted to
over £22,500,000 and of wool to £10,000,000. With even a partial suspension
of imports of these and similar commodities, industries dependent on
foreign products must be severely hit; unemployment must increase and the
purchasing power of the urban workers diminish. The agricultural community
must suffer also, and in all likelihood will not be able to take their
normal share of goods off the market. It is true, of course, that Germany
buys large quantities of food-stuffs from abroad, and that home produce
will be required to take their place; but they cannot be grown immediately;
in the interval, industrial disorganisation must result, and before
agriculture can begin to profit by the lack of foreign supplies the harm
will have been done. Moreover, agriculture must be impeded, as, owing to
the size of the German Empire, the transport of troops must seriously
interfere with the conveyance of goods to the larger centres of population.
It would seem, therefore, that the policy of developing German agriculture
at the same time that her dependence on foreign commerce is increasing is
not an effective reply to the British Navy. The position in Germany then is
that she must for the present be satisfied with a much smaller amount of
imported food-stuffs and of the raw materials of industry; and that in any
case, even if the industrial machine could be kept at work, there will be
practically no outlet for goods abroad. Commercially isolated, she must,
therefore, suffer an industrial and commercial collapse. On the other hand,
the total volume of unemployment, which would have been enormous during
the first weeks of the war, has of course been considerably reduced by the
withdrawal of great masses of men to join the colours, and by the stimulus
which the war has given to industries supplying the needs of the German
armies. Then also Rotterdam, through which Germany does a great deal of
its trade, remains open, whilst a fraction of her foreign trade is being
carried on through Denmark, Scandinavia, and Switzerland. Nevertheless, the
amount of economic distress within a very few weeks after the outbreak of
war, especially in the large towns, was considerable even on the showing of
German newspapers.[2] The amount of distress was increased and intensified
by steadily rising prices. As the rise has taken place not only in
commodities of which there is a shortage, but in others such as sugar, it
may be concluded that it is due largely to the inflation of the currency,
owing to the adoption of the fatally easy expedient of issuing large masses
of paper money.
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_. p. 217.]
[Footnote 2: "Let us imagine," says Bernhardi, "the endless misery which
a protracted stoppage or definite destruction of our oversea trade would
bring upon the whole nation, and in particular on the masses of the
industrial classes who live on our export trade" _(Germany and the Next
War,_ p. 232).
According to _The Times_ (Sept. 18, 1914) the German nautical newspaper
_Hansa_ on Sept. 12 admitted that England had captured many millions of
marks worth of German shipping, and that "the cessation of business will
cost our shipowners many millions more." "It will hold up the development
of our shipping trade for years." The _Neue Freie Presse_ of Vienna on
Sept. 11 admitted that the activity of the exporters in Germany had been
crippled. According to _The Times_ (Oct. 7), the German Socialist paper
_Vorwaerts_, stated that "the state of want has reached an alarming extent,
even though we are now only at the beginning of the catastrophe which has
befallen the people of Europe." "Masses of unemployment grow every month."]
Austria-Hungary, which is not an advanced industrial country, will not
suffer quite so keenly, though even here the German newspapers admit that
trade has come almost to a standstill.[1] In the western theatre of war the
fighting has centred largely round the Franco-Belgian Coalfield, on or near
which stand on both sides of the frontier many industrial towns. Lille,
Nancy, Epinal, Belfort, Reims, Amiens, and Valenciennes on one side, and
Liège and Charleroi on the other, are all of economic importance. Even
apart from the actual destruction due to the war which in some of these
towns has been serious, the mere presence of the contending armies will
have a more or less paralysing effect on industrial and commercial life in
both France and Belgium.[2] The position in Belgium, however, is much more
serious than in France. It may best be described in the words of Professor
Sarolea, written after a visit of five weeks to his native country. "Other
belligerent nations may suffer from unemployment. In Belgium alone there
has been created a whole nation of unemployed. In other countries trade
and industry are dislocated. In Belgium they have come to a complete
standstill. Out of a population of eight millions, seven millions are under
the heel of the invader. Railwaymen are starving, for railways have ceased
to work. Office clerks are starving, for banks and offices are closed.
Public officials are starving, for no salaries can be paid.... Journalists
and printers are starving, for newspapers and books have ceased to appear.
Mill hands and coal miners and ironworkers are starving, for mills and
coal mines and iron works are closed."[3] Bad as this is, the condition of
affairs is somewhat relieved so far as France and Belgium are concerned by
the fact that the seas are open to them, but even then we must add these
areas to Germany and Austria-Hungary as regions where industry and trade
are at the best severely hampered, regions all of which are important
factors in the markets of Europe, and whose commercial paralysis will
re-echo through the whole commercial world.
[Footnote 1: "The shortage of raw materials, notably cotton, wool, jute,
and petroleum, is greatly restricting production in many branches of
manufacture in Austria-Hungary. According to official estimates, the
supplies of some of the most necessary raw products are barely sufficient
for two more months. Factories are closing down, and the number of
unemployed is steadily increasing" (Reuter's telegram from Venice, Oct. 21,
1914).]
[Footnote 2: For example, the probable number of French factories in a
position to produce sugar in 1914-15, will be 82 or 83 as against 206
during the year 1913-14 _(Times_, Nov. 3, 1914).]
[Footnote 3: Letter to the Press dated Sept. 12, 1914. Mr. J.H. Whitehouse,
M.P., who visited Belgium says, "The whole life of the nation has been
arrested."]
The most fortunately situated combatants in Europe are Russia and Great
Britain. The former, covering half the area of Europe, has almost limitless
resources, and is much more easily capable of being self-supporting than
any of the other Great Powers engaged in the war. This country still
has the seas open to it.[1] The State subsidy to marine insurance has
encouraged overseas trade, and the re-establishment of the remittance
market has removed an obstacle to the flow of exports and imports. Still,
it is true that the financial world cannot recover all at once. "It is like
a man whose nervous system has been shattered by a great shock. Tonics and
stimulants may save him from complete collapse, but real recovery is a
matter of months and even years."[2] Further, the work hitherto done and
the services performed for Germany and Austria are now no longer called
for; our allies in the west of Europe are suffering acutely from the
immediate economic effects of the war and the large destruction of capital;
our neutral customers have not escaped scot-free. It would seem, therefore,
that in spite of the British command of the seas, production must
necessarily be seriously curtailed and that, therefore, the volume
of unemployment must be very considerable. On the other hand, though
production in France, Belgium and Russia may diminish in many directions,
what goods they do produce for export will find no market in Germany and
Austria-Hungary and a proportion of them will find their way to this
country. Such commodities will not only be valuable as food and raw
material for industry, but will set up a flow of British goods in payment
for them. Further, the production of commodities needed for the prosecution
of the war, will increase the volume of employment. Goods of all kinds are
required not only for the British armies but for the Allies generally. The
manner and extent to which these factors have influenced unemployment will
be considered presently.
[Footnote 1: According to an Admiralty statement, corrected up to Sept. 23,
1914, 12 British ships had been sunk by German cruisers, 8 had been sunk
by mines, whilst a few fishing boats had been destroyed. British ships
detained and captured by Germany numbered 86, with a total tonnage of
229,000. On the other hand, 387 German vessels had been detained or
captured, the total tonnage being 1,140,000. According to _The Times_ (Oct.
9, 1914), up to date 1.6 per cent of the tonnage registered in the United
Kingdom had been lost. The figures for Germany and Austria were 18 and 13
per cent respectively. The Committee which prepared the State War Insurance
Scheme estimated that the loss during the first six months of the war might
be about 10 per cent of all British steamers employed in foreign trade.]
[Footnote 2: _Round Table_, Sept. 1914, p. 704.]
Now the demand for the goods hitherto supplied by Germany to her foreign
customers, though abated, will still continue. As we have seen, she cannot
for the present supply them. By whom will she be superseded?[1] The
Government of this country early in the war took steps to co-operate with
British traders in an attempt to obtain some share of this trade, and the
United States also strove to make the fullest use of the opportunity. In
this country goods previously imported from Germany will, if still needed,
either be bought from the next cheapest importer or produced at home.
Commodities which we have in the past produced for German consumption are
not now required from us. If they continue to be made, it must be for other
countries. In other words, whether the volume of British foreign trade
remains the same or not, a proportion of it will be diverted into new
channels during the progress of the war. In a less degree, the trade of
other states will be deflected from its accustomed channels. Beyond this,
special influences will be felt in the case of certain new countries, as
for example Canada. "Canada's annual balance of trade is probably about
£60,000,000 against her: £30,000,000 being the excess of her trade imports
over her trade exports and the remaining £30,000,000 representing her
annual payment on money borrowed. She has balanced her account hitherto by
borrowing very large sums of money. Now she will be unable to do that any
longer. Nor will she at present, at any rate, obtain the immigrants on
which she is counting to enable her to pay her interest. She cannot redeem
the balance due by the export of gold. The burden would be too great in any
case, and moreover she has suspended specie payments. A part of the balance
due may be covered by the higher value of her exports, such as wheat. The
remainder she can only meet either by increasing her exports or by
reducing her imports. The latter she has already begun to do."[2] This new
readjustment may be accompanied by great economic loss; in any case the
dislocation will be harmful for the time, not only to the new countries,
but to the countries with whom they trade. It is clear that foreign trade
generally will during the war gradually be readjusted to the new conditions
of the times. To what extent the various streams of the world's trade will
be directed into new channels it is impossible to say; the readjustment
will be partly temporary, and partly permanent.[3] This redistribution of
production, if it leads to production under less favourable conditions than
before, will tend to raise prices, and thereby probably diminish the
power to buy other commodities. If it leads to the substitution of a well
organised and well paid industry by an industry of a less skilled kind,
there will be in effect a net lowering of wages. The widespread effects of
the war on industry and commerce must, therefore, have a profound effect on
the whole of the economic world.
[Footnote 1: Towards the end of August, the tin-plate and steel-sheet trade
in this country which had suffered badly on the outbreak of war revived,
and "several mills were reopened, owing to the obtaining of orders which
formerly went to Germany" (_Board of Trade Labour Gazette_, Sept. 1914, p.
330).]
[Footnote 2: _Round Table_, Sept. 1914, pp. 708-9.]
[Footnote 3: This, of course, does not mean that Great Britain will
"capture" German trade and increase its foreign commerce by the amount of
its value.]
2. _Unemployment and Short Time_.--We are now able to understand how the
war has affected the individual workman. As we have seen, the panic caused
by the outbreak of war and the collapse of the remittance market meant
in many industries the holding up of production and the stoppage of the
workman's wages. If it had not been possible to restart the machinery of
exchange, starvation would have walked through the land, and the industries
dependent on foreign raw material would have closed down altogether. As it
was, the inevitable dislocation increased the amount of unemployment.[1]
Whereas the trade union percentage[2] of unemployment amongst their members
was only 2.8 at the end of July, it had reached 7.1 by the end of August.
This figure, however, is considerably below the percentage of unemployed
during many periods of trade depression; the average for the whole of 1908
was 7.8 and for 1909, 7.7, whilst during the month of March 1912 it rose to
11.3 as a result of the coal strike.
[Footnote 1: Note that unemployment prior to the war was showing a tendency
to increase.]
[Footnote 2: It should be observed that these figures relate only to about
a million trade unionists, no non-unionists being included. Further, they
ignore short time.]
The volume of unemployment during August varied considerably from trade to
trade. In the cotton industry, which, however, appeared to be in for a bad
time anyhow, 17.7 per cent of the trade union members were returned as
unemployed during August 1914, whilst in coal mining the percentage was
1.3. As compared with the previous month of July, there was a general
decline in all industries except shipbuilding, which benefited by increased
activity on Government work. The contraction in the volume of employment
was specially marked in the case of tin-plate works and in the textile,
furnishing and woodworking, and pottery trades. Again, in the trades where
the Government scheme of compulsory unemployment insurance applies, the
volume of unemployment at the end of July was 3.6 per cent, but at the end
of August it had reached 6.2 per cent or double the volume recorded in
August 1913.[1] Beyond this, there was during the month of August, an
enormous amount of short time; in several industries for which particulars
are available, thousands of workpeople were working half-time or less.[2]
The rise which took place in the price of certain food-stuffs especially
during the first part of August intensified the evil by reducing "real"
wages.
[Footnote 1: The gradual increase during the month may be observed from the
weekly returns:--Aug. 7, 4.0 per cent; Aug. 14, 5.1 per cent; Aug. 21, 5.8
per cent; Aug. 28, 6.2 per cent.]
[Footnote 2: The Board of Trade receives monthly reports from employers and
others in different industries. These returns, though they do not cover
the whole of the industries, are sufficiently reliable to indicate the
widespread character of short time. During August 1914, in slate quarries
and china clay works, "there was a good deal of short time and some
unemployment in consequence of the war"; in tin-plate and sheet-steel
works, "short time was very general. In some cases discharges were obviated
by the sharing of work at the mills remaining open. The decrease in
employment is to be attributed to the effects of the war, and in particular
to the general restriction of the European market"; some branches of the
engineering trade, particularly agricultural and textile machinery, and the
motor car and cycle trades, were "disorganised by the war; many discharges
took place and a large amount of short time was worked." In the
miscellaneous metal trades, except in the manufacture of articles required
for military and naval purposes, "much short time was reported." In the
cotton industry, "the trade as a whole was working less than three days a
week, and large numbers of workpeople were entirely unemployed." In the
woollen trade, "about 60 per cent of the workpeople covered by the returns
received were on short time, including over 20 per cent who were working
half-time or less." The returns showed a decrease of "21.5 per cent in the
amount of wages paid compared with a month ago." In the worsted industry,
"about 65 per cent of the workpeople covered by the returns were working
short time during the month, including over 30 per cent who were working
only half time or less." The returns showed a decrease "of 26.5 per cent
in the amount of wages paid compared with a month ago." In the linen trade
"short time was reported generally." In the hosiery industry, "short time
was reported by firms employing over 40 per cent of the operatives covered
by the returns." In the silk trade "a great deal of short time was worked
in all the districts." In the levers and curtains branches of the lace
industry "the majority of the operatives ... were only working half time,
and large numbers were altogether unemployed." In the carpet trade "short
time was general, most districts working only half the usual hours." In the
furnishing trades "short time was worked in almost every district." "Short
time was very generally reported" in printing. In the glass trades "short
time was reported in several districts." In the potteries "most of the
firms" were running short time (see the _Board of Trade Labour Gazette_,
Sept. 1914).]
During the month of September, however, employment revived.[1] Besides
Government work in shipbuilding yards, certain branches of the woollen
industry were working at full pressure on the production of blankets and
cloth for uniforms; the leather and boot and shoe industries on some sides
received an impetus from the large orders placed for army boots; hosiery
and knitted goods were required in large quantities. Speaking generally,
industries whose products were required for the army and navy were strained
to the extent of their resources. But each industry supplies a large
variety of goods of many different grades, and machinery and works
equipment cannot always be easily converted to the production of other
classes of commodities; so that even in the woollen and boot trades, for
example, the whole industries were not uniformly busy. The many industries,
however, to which the war brought no orders, enjoyed but a slight recovery,
and in some cases none at all. As the month of September proceeded,
the newspapers triumphantly referred to the fall in the percentage of
unemployment. The truth is that the decline was by no means general or
uniform, but was brought about, not so much by the gradual revival of
normal activity, but by the rush of Government orders. For instance, the
cotton industry remained in the trough of a deep depression, and the
furniture and piano making trades profited little. Further, no account was
taken of the prevalence of short time, though over a large field it was
widespread especially amongst women. What the real position of the labour
market was after we had been at war two months, cannot be precisely
determined, but it was certainly more serious than the Board of Trade
percentage would seem to indicate.[2]
[Footnote 1: The percentage of unemployment at the beginning of October in
the trades compulsorily insured against unemployment was 5.1, as compared
with 6.3 at the beginning of the previous month.]
[Footnote 2: "Certain confidential statistical enquiries on a large scale
are said to support the inference to be drawn from the figures published
by the Board of Trade, that at least 10 per cent of the fifteen million
wage-earners in the United Kingdom are not at work at all, whilst quite as
large a proportion are on short time. But out of more than a million men
whose services the employers have thus temporarily dispensed with, some
nine hundred thousand are being clothed, or are going to be clothed, in
khaki, and given Government pay. Thus the actual unemployment among men is,
except in (certain) black patches, only sporadic and scarcely more than
we are accustomed to. Very different is the situation of the women
wage-earners. Of these apparently half a million are now unemployed, and
twice as many are working only short time. Though the industrial situation
is considerably better than would have been predicted for the end of the
second month of a world war, it was, in fact, worse than it has been at
any time during the past quarter of a century" _(New Statesman,_ Oct. 3,
1914).]
The month of October saw a further recovery and a more normal state of
affairs. The percentage of unemployment in insured trades continued to
decline;[1] but whilst the number of men on the Labour Exchange registers
fell (from 28,664 on October 2 to 24,690 on October 30), the number of
women registered remained almost stationary. At the end of three months
from the beginning of the war the condition of men's employment was about
normal; but women were suffering from excessive unemployment, whilst
short time was still common in many industries in which women are largely
employed.
[Footnote 1: The percentages are as follows: Oct. 2, 5.11; Oct. 9, 4.80;
Oct. 16, 4.46; Oct. 23, 4.29; Oct. 30, 4.16.]
The large volume of unemployment, which it had been anticipated would
accompany a great war, was avoided, partly because of prompt State action
in maintaining the fabric of commerce and finance, and therefore the supply
of raw materials, and partly because of the large demand for commodities
for the Army and Navy--a war demand vastly in excess of that in any
previous war. In other words, State intervention and the Navy have
placed Great Britain in a much superior economic position to that of her
adversaries.
3. _Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies and Distress_.--Before the
outbreak of the war there were signs that the wave of industrial activity
which reached a high point in 1913 was receding, and that unemployment was
beginning to increase; but the trade unions did not anticipate that the
ordinary ebb and flow of trade was to be disturbed by a great war. Within a
very short time after the declaration of war, the trade unions experienced
a heavy drain on their funds in respect of unemployment benefit. It is,
of course, obvious that the accumulated funds of trade unions were never
intended as a subsidy to the community during a time of war, which is what,
in point of fact, they became. It is true that the unions made efforts
to conserve their resources in various ways, not least by advising their
younger members without dependants to join the army; it is true also that
most of them profited under Section 106 of the National Insurance Act
by the State refund of one-sixth of their payments to their unemployed
members; but these measures--and others--were inadequate to maintain the
unions in a sound financial condition, and many unions trembled on the
verge of bankruptcy.[1] Such a condition of affairs was viewed with
apprehension not only by the trade union movement, but by the State, with
the result that at the beginning of October the Government subsidy of
one-sixth was under certain conditions increased.[2] But even with this
assistance, many unions will undoubtedly experience considerable difficulty
in avoiding financial disaster. Speaking generally, the trade union
movement as a whole will emerge from the war in straitened circumstances.
Some unions may have collapsed, and amongst others the movement in
favour of amalgamation may have received an impetus owing to financial
embarrassments.
[Footnote 1: Speaking generally, it cannot be said that the trade unions
faced the crisis with either wisdom or courage. Their attitude, on the
whole, was one of utter bewilderment. The lack of the power of adaptability
to new circumstances, together with the fact that sufficient pressure was
not brought to bear upon the Government in the first weeks of the war,
accounts for the unfortunate position in which the trade unions found
themselves.]
[Footnote 2: The scheme applies only to unions suffering from abnormal
unemployment. There are also conditions that they "should not pay
unemployment benefit above a maximum rate of 17s. per week, including any
sum paid by way of State unemployment benefit," and that they "should agree
while in receipt of the emergency grant to impose levies over and above the
ordinary contributions upon those members who remain fully employed."
The amount of the emergency grant in addition to the refund of one-sixth
already payable will be either one-third or one-sixth of the expenditure
on out-of-work pay, depending on the amount of the trade union levy. Under
special conditions the grant is to be retrospective. It is, therefore,
possible for trade unions to be subsidised so far as unemployment benefit
is concerned, to the extent of one-half their payments. But this scheme
does nothing to assist trade unions (of which there are many) which get no
unemployment benefit.]
The decrease in earnings accompanying short time, and their total stoppage
in the case of unemployment, mean amongst the workers a restriction of
purchasing power. The shrinkage in the total wages bill, especially in
Lancashire, must lead to a diminution in the income of small traders and
the co-operative societies. Where trade is very bad the societies will be
severely hit; smaller purchases will mean smaller profits, which, where
there is no large reserve to fall back upon, will in turn mean the
declaration of a smaller dividend. The "divi" received by the workers will
be less, and the purchases which the thrifty housewife of the north usually
makes with it in the way of clothing and replacement of household articles
will be less also; where the "divi" has been left in the society, it will
in a large number of cases be used to supplement the scanty wages earned on
short time, or to provide the necessaries of life where the breadwinner
is altogether unemployed. In places where times become very bad, the
co-operative societies during the war, and for some time after, will suffer
because of the conversion of the cash orders which ordinarily go to the
"co-op" into credit orders at the shop round the corner. On the whole,
however, the co-operative societies will probably come better out of the
war than many classes of small shop-keepers. The small tailors, drapers,
earthenware dealers, etc., and others who sell all but indispensable
commodities, will see a shrinkage in their sales, especially if prices
rise. The co-operative societies will also lose in this respect, but they
will lose less on the whole, owing to the fact that a good deal of their
capital is used in the sale of food-stuffs, the consumption of which will
be restricted last. But admitting this, they cannot expect to escape
unscathed, and the blow they suffer will be felt on other sides of their
activity, such as their educational work, the income for which usually
fluctuates with the prosperity of the societies.
The diminution of the purchasing power of the working people because of the
restriction of the national wages bill, however, may be minimised by common
action. The National Relief Fund and the Women's Employment Fund are
intended really for this purpose. The establishment of women's training
workshops and of maintenance grants on condition of attendance at schools
and classes are steps in the same direction. The Government has increased
the disgracefully low payments made to dependants of soldiers on active
service, and its scale of pensions for widows of soldiers and sailors and
for those totally or partially disabled in the performance of military or
naval duties. Arrangements have been made for the payment of allowances of
half wages up to a maximum of £1 a week to dependants of sailors employed
on insured British merchant ships captured or detained by the enemy. More
important from the point of view of industry as a whole are the steps which
have been taken to minimise the effects of a diminution in the volume of
employment by the development of new openings. The Government through the
Board of Trade took the lead in the attempt to secure a share of the trade
hitherto done by Germany and Austria. Special efforts were made to develop
the manufacture of toys, and other industrial experiments were begun by
the Central Committee on Women's Employment. The Government appointed
a Chemical Products Supply Committee with a view to stimulating the
production of dyes and drugs at home. These proposals are in the main an
attempt to divert the trade of foreign countries, especially Germany, into
British channels. The second line of action is fuller provision of home
needs which cannot be satisfied by foreign producers, but are essentially
domestic. Such needs are housing, public parks, roads, etc. Between August
4 and September 21, 1914, the Local Government Board received over 600
applications from local authorities for powers to borrow money amounting
in all to over £2,500,000. About a fifth of this amount it was intended to
expend on housing. During this period the Board sanctioned loans amounting
in the aggregate to more than £3,500,000, as compared with rather under
£2,000,000 in the same period in 1913. The Road Board arranged to put in
hand the construction of certain new highways arranged for before the
beginning of the war. In addition, in the first seven weeks of the war, the
Board arranged to make grants amounting to about £450,000 in aid of new
road construction and road improvements in many different parts of the
country, which will involve a total expenditure of about a million
sterling. The Development Commission began to consider schemes for the
construction of light railways, for the improvement of the navigation of
rivers, etc., in order that work of this kind should be ready to be put
into operation when the necessity arose. The Board of Agriculture has urged
that where practicable the acreage under wheat should be increased. This
suggestion is, of course, valuable, but will not greatly affect the
industrial situation. Even if the schemes sanctioned by the Local
Government Board and those adopted by the Road Board were put into
operation immediately, which is almost impossible, they would not make a
very appreciable difference to the total wages bill of the country. But
perhaps it is thought by the Government that the state of employment is not
sufficiently grave to warrant a greater expenditure at the present time. In
spite of the insistence on forestalling destitution, there is still
among local authorities much confusion of charity and relief work with
anticipation of future needs calling for employment through the ordinary
channels of trade. On the whole the Government has not met the domestic
problems of the war with the unanimity and boldness which has characterised
its actions in the actual prosecution of the war and in dealing with the
financial crisis.
4. _The New Spirit._--The broader social effects which showed themselves in
the early days of the war are illustrated by the remarkable growth of State
Socialism. The nation became a community, united in a single purpose;
breaches which many imagined to be permanent, cleavages which were thought
to be fundamental, no longer existed. None was for a party; all were for
the State. The three political parties formed a Parliamentary Recruiting
Committee, and altogether impossible teams of people appeared on public
platforms with a common aim; Mr. Ben Tillett, in words that might have
fallen from the lips of a Tory ex-Cabinet minister, declared that "every
resource at our command must be utilised for the purpose of preserving our
country and nation"; the anti-militarist trade union movement earnestly
appealed to those of its members who were ex-non-commissioned officers
to re-enlist; the Queen and Miss Mary MacArthur were members of the same
committee. This unanimity, which has pushed into the background for the
present causes of difference, has led the vast majority of people to submit
cheerfully to the will of the State. The unity of to-day must necessarily
make its influence felt even when the reason of its existence has passed
away. In the meantime it is assisting in the growth of a new spirit which
the war itself has fostered. The social outlook of the people and their
attitude towards the larger problems of life is changing, and patriotism
has taken a deeper meaning.
So far we have devoted our attention to some of the immediate effects of
the war. But on the return of peace there will be new influences at work,
the immediate and ultimate effects of which will powerfully affect the
course of future development. The European War will mark an era in
international politics. It may also stand as a landmark in the history of
the social and economic life of Western Europe. It is not unlikely that in
this respect it will surpass in its importance all the wars of the past.
The reasons are to be found in the magnitude and costliness of the war, the
highly developed character and the inter-relatedness of foreign commerce,
the possibility of new industrial forces coming into play, and the
influence of the war on the political and social ideas of the European
peoples. It may be that in this country the war will let loose economic
forces destined to modify industrial organisation very profoundly; and
that social forces, especially on the Continent, will be liberated to work
towards fuller political freedom. These things lie in the veiled future,
and prophecy is dangerous. We may, however, turn to consider some of the
probable effects the war will leave behind it.
C. AFTER THE WAR
1. _General Effects_.--When the war comes to an end, an immediate revival
of commercial relations between the combatant States and a general revival
of foreign trade cannot be reasonably expected. After the Napoleonic Wars,
English manufacturers, assuming the eagerness of continental peoples to buy
their goods, were met with the obvious fact that impoverished nations are
not good customers. When peaceful relations are resumed in Europe, we shall
recognise very vividly the extent to which industry and commerce on the
Continent have been closed down. Even assuming that British production
continues, Germany, Belgium and Austria will have little to send us
in exchange. The closing of the overseas markets of Germany, and the
consequent shrinkage in production, the disruption of normal industrial
life by the withdrawal of millions of men to join the colours, and the
abnormal character of existing trade, due to the needs of the armies in
the field, are not conditions favourable to the easy resumption of normal
commercial relations. The dislocation of the mechanism of industry and
commerce in Europe, on a much larger scale than ever before--a mechanism
which has with growing international relations and interdependence become
more complicated and more sensitive in recent years--cannot be immediately
remedied by a stroke of the pen or the fiat of an emperor. The credit
system upon which modern industry and commerce are built depends upon
mutual confidence. This confidence will not be restored among the combatant
nations immediately on the cessation of war; it will require time to grow.
Further, Europe during the war has been spending its substance and must
emerge much poorer. This applies not only to combatant States, but to
neutral countries, some of which have floated loans to meet the abnormal
expenditure thrown upon them by prolonged mobilisation. The capital and
credit of a large number of people will have suffered great loss or have
vanished into thin air. Houses, shops, and buildings of all kinds, produce
manufactured and unmanufactured, bridges, ships, railway stations and stock
of enormous value will have been destroyed. The community will have
been impoverished, not only by the expenditure of great armies and the
destruction of wealth, but by the utilisation for immediate consumption of
wealth which would have been used as new capital, and by the withdrawal of
probably close upon fifteen million men from production during the period
of the war. Even if we assume that the world has lost the production of
only twelve million men[1], the loss is enormous. If each man were capable
of producing, on the average, wealth to the value of £100 per year, the
loss of production per year during the continuance of the war would be
about £1,200,000,000. The effect of these factors will be heightened by
the fact that the millions of men whose needs during the war have been
satisfied by their non-combatant fellow-countrymen will be thrown upon
their own resources. And though Europe will still need to be fed and clad
and housed, the effectual demand of the population for the goods and
services it needs, a demand which it is able to satisfy because of its
possession of exchangeable wealth, will be smaller than before the war.
The demand will be more or less stifled until the credit system is
re-established and mutual confidence restored, and until industry and
commerce have adjusted themselves to the new situation. The volume of
employment in this country during the war will have been swollen by
temporary demands for war supplies which will cease when the war ends;
foreign trade will be uncertain; a larger number of soldiers will be thrown
on the labour market than ever before. It would seem, therefore, that in
the absence of special steps, the volume of unemployment at the close of
the war will be a good deal greater than during the progress of the war[2].
[Footnote 1: The number must be larger than this, as the mobilisation of
the armies of neutral states should be taken into account.]
[Footnote 2: It is thought by some that the war will be followed by a short
boom, when Europe will make good the necessities of industry and
civilised life, but it is at least doubtful whether there will be a rapid
reproduction of these commodities, owing to the conditions, already
described, which will obtain at the close of the war. In any case, however,
it will be merely a flash in the pan, and there will follow the gloom of a
deep depression, unless there is clear-sighted State action.]
It is just conceivable, though one hopes not probable, that the economic
effects of the war will be complicated by the imposition of war
indemnities. The indemnity is really a means of obtaining booty from a
vanquished State, and has been looked upon as a justifiable means of
further humiliating an already beaten enemy. It has been pointed out[1],
however, that the advantages derived from an indemnity are not an unmixed
gain. The indemnity recoils on the heads of those who impose it. It is
unnecessary here to enter into a consideration of the detailed effects
of huge payments by defeated nations; though it may be remarked that the
ramifications of such payments are so intricate and often so incapable of
measurement, whilst other economic influences are at work at the same
time, that it is impossible to draw an accurate conclusion as to the net
advantage or disadvantage of indemnities to the State which levies them.
But the point to be borne in mind is that the addition of a great debt to
the already large burden of an unsuccessful war reacts upon all countries
with which the defeated state enters into business relations. The losses
due to this cause will not necessarily be counterbalanced by gains from
increased trade with the country receiving the indemnity; and even if they
were, the latter trade might be of a different character. In any case,
countries not parties to the indemnity will be affected by it in some way
or other; war indemnities, like wars, do not pass by neutral countries and
leave them untouched.
[Footnote 1: See Norman Angell, _The Great Illusion_, Part I. chap. vi.]
It is important to remember that, though modern warfare is much more costly
and more exhausting than in the past, there is another side to the matter.
Society has also gained remarkably in its powers of recuperation. The
blight of war is not as terrible as might be expected. The accumulated
knowledge, the vastly increased productivity of industry, and the high
organising ability, which have made the modern industrial and commercial
world, will not be obliterated by the war. And though there will be
difficulties in the way of their full operation when peace returns, they
will aid powerfully in shortening the period of recovery. The forces which
have transformed mediaeval into modern cities in a few short years will
still exist. Though they can hardly be expected to overcome all the many
factors likely to restrain economic activity, they may be relied on to
stimulate the revival of normal economic life. Indeed, the knowledge of
science and the faculty of organisation are likely to be applied more
extensively than in the past to productive processes.
After the war, when the States of Europe begin to tread the paths of peace
again, one of the first things to be done will be to repair as far as
possible the damage done by the war. Take Belgium as an extreme example;
leaving aside the irreparable destruction of historic buildings and
priceless treasures, there are many million pounds' worth of houses and
farm buildings, shops, warehouses, factories, public buildings, ships,
railway stations, and bridges to be replaced. This work will take
precedence over other kinds of production. Sugar, motor cars, glass, etc.,
will still be manufactured, but chiefly in order to buy the requisite raw
materials and finished goods for the replacement of the wealth destroyed by
the ravages of the war. Speaking generally, Belgium will probably consume
less food than ordinarily, wear less clothes, and consume less luxuries.
Savings, which would normally have been devoted to new industrial
developments, will be needed to make good the losses in existing industrial
establishments. It is clear, therefore, that the economic growth of Belgium
will be retarded in a great degree.[1] The same holds good of Germany,
though probably not to the same extent unless the theatre of war is
extended to cover a considerable part of the Empire. In the case of our own
country, provided it remains free from invasion, there will not be such a
large replacement of lost wealth and capital destroyed by the war, except
in the case of shipping; but in common with other States there will be the
war to pay for, and certain obligations to meet regarding the maimed and
the relatives of the slain. Taxation will be heavy, and therefore, on this
ground alone the accumulation of new capital will be retarded. Industrial
organisation, having been re-arranged and modified to meet the requirements
of the war period, will not resume its old form without a good deal of
creaking and jolting. And even if it could, it will not be able to face
the new conditions arising out of the war at all rapidly. There is every
prospect, therefore, of a time of great difficulty after the war is over,
before the normal course of industrial and commercial activity is fully
resumed. In all likelihood, we shall find that the relative importance
of our various industries will have altered to some extent, and that the
nature of our trade will have been modified also. Then also the relative
positions of our home and foreign trade may shift; in other words, if
the war lasts sufficiently long for new industries to develop and become
efficient, they may survive the competition of foreign goods after the
war; in which case, the goods which have hitherto been produced to buy the
foreign goods will not now be required for foreign trade. It may be that
on the return of peace, some European States, in order to give their
industries an opportunity to recover from the effects of the war, will
inaugurate new tariffs; there is, indeed, a strong possibility that on
these grounds, and because of the dependence of the United Kingdom on the
products of Germany, the Tariff Reform Movement here may be electrified
into life.
[Footnote 1: If Germany be required to compensate Belgium for the damage
done, these effects will in large part disappear; though the burden
would still remain. The difference would be that it would be more widely
distributed.]
2. _Possible Industrial Developments_.--But industrial changes will not be
confined to the direction and form which economic activity will take. As
has been suggested above, there may be far-reaching changes in the methods
of production. It has been said that "there is only one way by which the
wealth of the world will be quickly replaced after the war and that is
by work. The country whose workers show the greatest capacity for
productiveness will be the country which will most rapidly recuperate."[1]
The question goes deeper than the replacement of wealth. The position after
the war will be that production will be retarded because of the diminution
in the rate of accumulation of new capital since the beginning of the war;
there will be a certain amount of leeway to make up. Consequently, there
will be every incentive towards the greatest possible efficiency in
production. It is here that the workers are likely to be affected. Has
labour reached its maximum efficiency? It has been shown by the application
of what is called "scientific management," that the output of labour can be
increased to a remarkable extent. For instance, instead of shovelling 16
tons a day, a man can shovel 59 tons; a man loading pig-iron increased his
total load per day from 12-1/2 to 47-1/2 tons; the day's tale of bricks
laid has been raised from 1000 to 2700. The list could be extended to cover
operatives working at machines. In the endeavour to screw up industry to a
maximum of production, it is not likely that the expedients of "scientific
management" will long remain untried. Already the system is making
considerable headway in the United States, and it is not altogether unknown
in this country. It is not possible to enter into a full explanation of the
methods of "scientific management." Briefly, by a process of scientific
selection it puts each worker in the job for which he is best fitted, and
teaches him exactly how to use the most efficient tools with which he
would be provided. The method of teaching may be illustrated from Mr. F.W.
Taylor's own example: "Schmidt started to work, and all day long and at
regular intervals, was told by the man who stood over him with a watch,
'Now, pick up a pig and walk. Now sit down and rest. Now walk--now rest,'
etc. He worked when he was told to work, and rested when he was told to
rest, and at half-past five in the afternoon had his 47-1/2 tons loaded on
the car."[2] By elaborate experiments the exact shape and size of a shovel
is determined; by long observation useless and awkward movements of a
workman are eliminated or replaced by the correct movements giving the
maximum return for the minimum of effort. In this way, and by a bonus
on wages, a largely increased output is obtained. It is clear that the
adoption of such methods gives the "scientific manager" great power; it
also seems inevitable that the workman should degenerate into an automaton;
it is obvious that in the hands of employers ignorant of the principles
underlying it, and seeing merely a new and highly profitable method of
exploitation, it will be open to serious abuse, as experience has already
shown in America.
[Footnote 1: _Round Table_, Sept. 1914, p. 708.]
[Footnote 2: _Scientific Management_, by F.W. Taylor, p. 47.]
So far the tremendous significance of "scientific management" has not
been fully recognised. Properly understood, it is the complement to the
industrial revolution, which by the more extensive use of machinery, etc.,
increased the efficiency of capital. The present movement aims at a similar
increase in the efficiency of labour as an agent of production. The new
revolution in industry has as yet merely begun, because employers, in spite
of the motive of self-interest, are conservative; but it will receive an
enormous impetus from the conditions arising out of the war. Like the
introduction of machinery and factory industry a century and a half ago and
onward, it may be accompanied by widespread evils and cruel exploitation.
Indeed, there is every likelihood that the methods will be distorted and
misused. By their careful application there is no doubt that the output of
the labourer can be increased without the expenditure of greater effort
than before, but even then there would be the tendency towards becoming
de-humanised. This, however, might be overcome by shorter hours and higher
wages, which would raise the standard of comfort and widen the worker's
interests. Unwisely used, "scientific management" will become an instrument
for shackling the worker, and increasing at a great rate the wealth of the
capitalist. It will be freely admitted that anything that will increase the
productivity of the labourer, and therefore the wealth of the community, is
advantageous, provided there is an equitable distribution of the product,
and that the effects on the working members of the State are not socially
injurious. But the hidden evils that may manifest themselves are very real,
and it is important that not only the workers, but the State should be
prepared to save the good and prevent the evil. There will, however, be
large numbers of employers of labour who will not avail themselves of the
new-fangled methods, and who will endeavour to increase production by the
old policy of "driving." And even without driving, wage-earning labour
under present conditions may be carried on under circumstances unfavourable
to industrial efficiency, and for hours inimical to the welfare of the
community and actually injurious to industrial productivity. In the future
the State will be more closely concerned with industry and commerce than
hitherto; there will probably be a more clearly defined State policy aimed
at the encouragement of production. Its view will be wider than that of the
individual employer, and we may expect therefore, providing there is no
serious reaction after the strain of the war, that the State will impose
working conditions which will favour maximum production in the long run. It
will be to the interest of the community to maximise the efficiency of the
industrial system; and enlightened statesmanship will overhaul our existing
code of industrial laws to achieve this object as far as possible, as well
as to guard the community against the evils inherent in a misapplication of
the principles of "scientific management."[1]
[Footnote 1: See an article on "Next Steps in Factory and Workshop Reform,"
by Arthur Greenwood, in the _Political Quarterly_ for September 1914.]
After the war, unemployment is likely to increase. The work of new
production will be put into operation only gradually; there will be every
inducement to economise the use of labour as far as possible; wages during
the depression will most probably fall; there will be disaffection in the
ranks of the trade unionists; the possible consolidation of industries into
the hands of fewer employers will increase the strength of the masters; the
funds of the trade unions will be depleted by the heavy strain on their
resources, and subject to a further drain after the war. The outlook of the
trade union movement is, therefore, far from bright. It will be generally
agreed that the bankruptcy or serious impoverishment of the unions of this
country would be nothing less than a national disaster; but unless action
of some kind is taken, they will become greatly weakened and almost
impotent, and one great bulwark against unjust encroachments upon the
rights of labour will be removed.
It is not improbable, however, that the community will indirectly assist
the trade unions by the steps taken to mitigate the evils which the war
will leave in its train. The army instead of being immediately disbanded
may be gradually dismissed over a period of, say, five years; the widows
and dependants of soldiers and sailors, and those who have returned maimed
and crippled from the war, may be adequately provided for, and, together
with children of twelve and thirteen, kept off the labour market; the
larger schemes of the Development Commission may be put into operation; the
legal minimum wage may be extended to all low-paid trades. In these and
other ways the community may deal comprehensively with the problems it
has to face. The difficulties of the aftermath period will call for both
clear-sighted action and public spirit; and if it is to be bridged over
successfully, the transition from a war to a peace footing must be gradual;
the community must continue its state of mobilisation in order to meet the
enemy within the gates. Provided the united wisdom of the nation is thrown
into the task, the evil after-effects of the war may be, if not altogether
avoided, restricted within narrow limits. At the bottom, therefore, the
future course of events depends upon the temper and spirit of the people at
the close of the war.
3. _Social Effects and the New Outlook_.--The European conflict will
probably exercise a strong sobering influence upon the minds of the people.
The gravity of the crisis, whatever victories may crown our arms, will
be reflected in the gravity of the people. A new dignity, a greater
self-respect, a deeper earnestness may arise among the mass of the people,
to which the conduct of our soldiers in the field will contribute. High
qualities of leadership win their admiration; but for them they claim no
credit. The army is officered for the most part by people of a higher
social standing, whose qualities they will willingly admit; but the social
gulf debars them from gaining inspiration from their achievements. In the
case of the rank and file, largely drawn from their own class, the effect
is different. The Tommy is flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood.
The qualities he displays reflect credit upon his class. The working man
is not unmindful of the high opinion in which the British private has been
held by a line of continental soldiers from Napoleon to Bernhardi. The
exploits of his fellows in the field have given the lie to stories of
deterioration; and working people are experiencing a sense of pride in
their class which may have no inconsiderable effect on their attitude
regarding social developments in the future.
Already the national temper has not submitted without protest to the
disgraceful sweating of our troops merely because their patriotism has led
them to sacrifice their lives, which are beyond all money payment. But the
feeling in favour of the war and the spirit of trust in the Government has,
up to the present, overridden serious criticism. The result has been that
the Government has often remained inactive when action was needed and has
acted unwisely and ignorantly at times; for example, in the case of the
Local Government Board circular, stating that the Army Council are prepared
to issue allowances through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association
or the Local Representation Committees. It has been said that "the whole
system is an outrage on democratic principles. The State sweats its
servants and then compels them to take the niggardly wages it allows them
from a charitable society[1]." This type of action may pass muster during a
time of stress, but whether the spirit of the people will accept it after
the war is over and there are the dependants of the slain to be maintained
and the permanently crippled to be provided for is a different matter. Not
merely justice, but the new pride of the people will rebel against it.
These are but phases of the larger social problem. There is the question of
poverty in all its ramifications. For the moment, economic injustices and
social evils have fallen into the back of people's minds, and the new
and abnormal causes of destitution are calling forth special measures
of assistance. After the war, the ever-present deep-seated poverty will
reassert its presence, and in the hearts of many people the question will
arise as to whether the community which courageously and whole-heartedly
fought the enemy without the gates will turn with equal courage and
determination when the time comes to fight the enemy within the gates. The
experiences of the war time, the willingness to embark on great projects
in face of a national crisis, will not be forgotten, but will inspire in
social reformers the hope that the country may also face the internal
national peril in a similar spirit. The national--as opposed to the
individual--poverty which the war will cause may itself be a force making
for good. As Mr. Lloyd George well said, "A great flood of luxury and
of sloth which had submerged the land is receding and a new Britain is
appearing. We can see for the first time the fundamental things that matter
in life, and that have been obscured from our vision by the tropical growth
of prosperity."[2] There seems a prospect of an era of social growth and
regeneration following the war. In other European countries there may be
equally important developments. It may well be that in the event of German
defeat the democratic movements of that country will gain a great impetus
from the blow given to the Prussian hegemony. In Russia there is an
expectation of a new freedom. At the first meeting of the Duma after the
opening of hostilities the Labour Party declared its opinion that "through
the agony of the battlefield the brotherhood of the Russian people will be
strengthened and a common desire created to free the land from its terrible
internal troubles."
[Footnote 1: _The Nation,_ Sept. 19, 1914.]
[Footnote 2: Speech at the Queen's Hall, London, Sept. 19, 1914.]
It must be admitted, on the other hand, that there is a possibility of a
period of reaction and torpor after the strain of the war; the country will
be seriously impoverished, and there will be a heavy burden of taxation in
spite of some probable relief from the burden of armaments. Still, social
evils and injustices will be more obvious than ever. There will be many new
national and imperial problems clamouring to be faced. The intellectual
ferment which has had its source in the war will remain at work to widen
the mental outlook and deepen the social consciousness. On the whole, it
will probably be true to say that, though circumstances may postpone it,
there will sooner or later arise a great movement pledged to cleanse our
national life of those features which bar the way to human freedom and
happiness.
It also seems undeniable that the deep interest taken by large numbers of
people in the war will rouse them to a sense of the importance of problems
of government and of foreign policy. The working men's committees on
foreign affairs of half a century ago, which have left no trace behind
them, may be revived in a new form, and the differentiation of economic and
social questions from political and foreign problems may be obliterated.
The importance of the gradually widening area of vision among the more
thoughtful section of the people can hardly be exaggerated. In no respect
is the broadening of outlook more discernible than in the sphere of
imperial affairs. Hitherto the Empire to the working man has been regarded
as almost mythical. In so far as it did exist, it was conceived as a happy
hunting ground for the capitalist exploiter. The spontaneous assistance
given to the mother country by the colonies and dependencies has convinced
him of the reality of the Empire, and vaguely inspired him with a vision of
its possibilities as a federation of free commonwealths. In other words,
the British Empire, contrasted with that of Germany, is gradually being
recognised as standing for Democracy, however imperfect its achievements
may be up to the present. Consequently, the return of peace will see a
deeper interest in imperial questions; indeed, it is not too much to say
that there will be an imperial renaissance, born of a new patriotism, "clad
in glittering white." The change of heart which is taking place in the
people of this country, through the opening of the flood-gates of feeling
and thought by the unsuspecting warrior in shining armour, may bring a new
age comparable in its influence on civilisation with the great epochs of
the past. To-day is seed-time. But the harvest will not be gathered without
sweat and toil. The times are pregnant with great possibilities, but their
realisation depends upon the united wisdom of the people.
BOOKS
In order to understand the machinery of international trade, reference
should be made to Hartiey Withers' _Money Changing_ (5s.), or Clare's
_A.B.C. of the Foreign Exchanges_ (3s.); an outline of the subject will
be found in any good general text-book on Economics. On the financial
situation, see articles on "Lombard Street in War" and "The War and
Financial Exhaustion" (_Round Table,_ September and December 1914); "War
and the Financial System, August 1914," by J.M. Keynes (_Economic Journal_,
September 1914); and articles in the _New Statesman_ on "Why a Moratorium?"
(August 15,1914), and "The Restoration of the Remittance Market" (August
29, 1914). Norman Angell's _The Great Illusion_ (2s. 6d.) should be
consulted for an examination of the relations between war and trade.
The most accessible book dealing with the foreign trade of the European
countries is the _Statesman's Year-Book_, published annually at 10s. 6d.
The chapters reprinted from the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ are also useful.
A valuable article on "The Economic Relations of the British and German
Empires," by E. Crammond, appeared in the _Journal of the Royal Statistical
Society_, July 1914. The same writer published an article on "The Economic
Aspects of the War" in _The Quarterly Review_ for October 1914 (6s.). A
grasp of the economic development of Germany may be obtained from W.H.
Dawson's _Evolution of Modern Germany_ (5s.) and the same writer's
_Industrial Germany_ (Nation's Library, 1s.). Mr. F.W. Taylor's _Scientific
Management_ (5s.) and Miss J. Goldmark's _Fatigue and Efficiency_ (8s.)
explain scientific management. A short account is also given in Layton's
_Capital and Labour_ (Nation's Library, 1s.).
The course of unemployment in this country may be traced from the returns
published each month in the _Board of Trade Labour Gazette_ (monthly, 1d.).
Proposals for dealing with possible and existing distress during the war
are to be found in a pamphlet on _The War and the Workers,_ by Sidney Webb
(Fabian Society, 1d.). For the possible use of trade unions as a channel
for the distribution of public assistance, see an article in _The Nation_
for September 5, 1914, and Mr. G.D.H. Cole's article on "How to help the
Cotton Operative" in _The Nation_ for November 7, 1914. The same paper
published two suggestive articles on "Relief or Maintenance?" (September 19
and October 3). The situation which has arisen in the woollen and worsted
industries owing to the large demand for cloth for the troops is dealt with
in an article on "The Government and Khaki," by Arthur Greenwood in _The
Nation_ for November 28, 1914. Reference may be made to the official White
Paper on Distress; other official documents of note are the following:
"Separation allowances to the Wives and Children of Seamen,
Marines, and Reservists." Cd. 7619. 1914. 1/2d.
"Increased Rates of Separation Allowance for the Wives and
Children of Soldiers." Cd. 7255. 1914. 1/2d.
"Return of Papers relating to the Assistance rendered by the
Treasury to Banks and Discount Houses since the Outbreak of
War on August 4, 1914, and to the Questions of the Advisability
of continuing or ending the Moratorium and of the Nature of
the Banking Facilities now available." H.C. 457 of 1914. 1d.
"Report, dated April 30, 1914, of a Sub-Committee of the Committee
of Imperial Defence on the Insurance of British Shipping in
Time of War, to devise a scheme to ensure that, in case of war,
British Steamships should not be generally laid up, and that
Oversea Commerce should not be interrupted by reason of
inability to cover war risks of Ships and Cargoes by Insurance,
and which would also secure that the insurance rates should not
be so high as to cause an excessive rise in prices." Cd. 7560.
1914. 2 1/2d.
The Government has issued a _Manual of Emergency Legislation_ (3s.
6d.) containing the statutes, proclamations, orders in council, rules,
regulations, and notifications used in consequence of the war; the
appendices contain other documents (the Declarations of Paris and of
London, the Hague Convention, etc.).
CHAPTER IX
GERMAN CULTURE AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
"Peace cannot become a law of human society, except by passing through the
struggle which will ground life and association on foundations of justice
and liberty, on the wreck of every power which exists not for a principle
but for a dynastic interest."--MAZZINI in 1867.
"The greatest triumph of our time, a triumph in a region loftier than that
of electricity or steam, will be the enthronement of this idea of Public
Right as the governing idea of European policy; as the common and precious
inheritance of all lands, but superior to the passing opinion of any. The
foremost among the nations will be that one which, by its conduct, shall
gradually engender in the minds of the others a fixed belief that it is
just."--GLADSTONE.
§1. _The Two Issues._--The War of 1914 is not simply a war between the
Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente: it is, for Great Britain and
Germany especially, a war of ideas--a conflict between two different and
irreconcilable conceptions of government, society, and progress. An attempt
will be made in this chapter to make clear what these conceptions are, and
to discuss the issue between them as impartially as possible, from the
point of view, not of either of the combatant Powers, but of human
civilisation as a whole.
There are really two great controversies being fought out between Great
Britain and Germany: one about the ends of national policy, and another
about the means to be adopted towards those or any other ends. The latter
is the issue raised by the German Chancellor's plea--not so unfamiliar
on the lips of our own countrymen as we are now tempted to believe--that
"Necessity knows no law." It is the issue of Law and "scraps of paper"
against Force, against what some apologists have called "the Philosophy of
Violence," but which, in its latest form, the French Ambassador has more
aptly christened "the Pedantry of Barbarism." That issue has lately been
brought home, in its full reality, to the British public from the course of
events in Belgium and elsewhere, and need not here be elaborated. Further
words would be wasted. A Power which recognises no obligation but force,
and no law but the sword, which marks the path of its advance by organised
terrorism and devastation, is the public enemy of the civilised world.
But it is a remarkable and significant fact that the policy in which this
ruthless theory is embodied commands the enthusiastic and united support of
the German nation. How can this be explained?
It must be remembered in the first place that the German public does
not see the facts of the situation as we do. On the question of Belgian
neutrality and the events which precipitated the British ultimatum, what
we know to be a false version of the facts is current in Germany, as is
evident from the published statements of the leaders of German thought and
opinion, and it may be many years before its currency is displaced.
This difficulty should serve to remind us how defective the machinery of
civilisation still is. One of the chief functions of law is, not merely to
settle disputes and to enforce its decisions, but to ascertain the true
facts on which alone a settlement can be based. The fact that no tribunal
exists for ascertaining the true facts in disputes between sovereign
governments shows how far mankind still is from an established "rule of
law" in international affairs. Not only is the Hague powerless to give and,
still more, to enforce its decision on the questions at issue between the
European Powers. It has not even the machinery for ascertaining the facts
of the case and bringing them to the notice of neutral governments and
peoples in the name of civilisation as a whole.
But apart from divergent beliefs as to the facts, it is remarkable that
thinking Germany should be in sympathy with the spirit and tone of German
policy, which led, as it appears to us, by an inexorable logic to the
violation of Belgian neutrality and the collision with Great Britain.
But the fact, we are told, admits of easy explanation. Thinking Germany has
fallen a victim to the teachings of Treitschke and Nietzsche--Treitschke
with his Macchiavellian doctrine that "Power is the end-all and be-all of a
State," Nietzsche with his contempt for pity and the gentler virtues, his
admiration for "valour," and his disdain for Christianity.
This explanation is too simple to fit the facts. It may satisfy those who
know no more of Treitschke's brilliant and careful work than the extracts
culled from his occasional writings by General von Bernhardi and the late
Professor Cramb. It may gratify those who, with so many young German
students, forget that Nietzsche, like many other prophets, wrote in
allegory, and that when he spoke of valour he was thinking, not of "shining
armour," but of spiritual conflicts. But careful enquirers, who would
disdain to condemn Macaulay on passages selected by undiscriminating
admirers from his _Essays_, or Carlyle for his frank admiration of Thor
and Odin and the virtues of Valhalla, will ask for a more satisfying
explanation. Even if all that were said about Treitschke and Nietzsche were
true, it would still remain an unsolved question why they and their ideas
should have taken intellectual Germany by storm. But it is not true. What
is true, and what is far more serious, both for Great Britain and for
Europe, is that men like Harnack, Eucken, and Wilamowitz, who would
repudiate all intellectual kinship with Macchiavelli and Nietzsche--men who
are leaders of European thought, and with whom and whose ideas we shall
have to go on living in Europe--publicly support and encourage the policy
and standpoint of a Government which, according to British ideas, has
acted with criminal wickedness and folly, and so totally misunderstood
the conduct and attitude of Great Britain as honestly to regard us as
hypocritically treacherous to the highest interests of civilisation.
That is the real problem; and it is a far more complex and difficult one
than if we had to do with a people which had consciously abandoned the
Christian virtues or consciously embarked on a conspiracy against Belgium
or Great Britain. The utter failure of even the most eminent Germans to
grasp British politics, British institutions, and the British point of
view points to a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental divergence
of outlook, between the political ideals of the two countries. It is the
conflict between these ideals which forms the second great issue between
Germany and Great Britain; and on its outcome depends the future of human
civilisation.
§2. _Culture_.--What is the German ideal? What do German thinkers regard
as Germany's contribution to human progress? The answer comes back with a
monotonous reiteration which has already sickened us of the word. It is
_Kultur_, or, as we translate it, culture. Germany's contribution to
progress consists in the spread of her culture.
_Kultur_ is a difficult word to interpret. It means "culture" and a
great deal more besides. Its primary meaning, like that of "culture," is
intellectual and aesthetic: when a German speaks of "Kultur" he is thinking
of such things as language, literature, philosophy, education, art,
science, and the like. Children in German schools are taught a subject
called _Kulturgeschichte_ (culture-history), and under that heading they
are told about German literature, German philosophy and religion, German
painting, German music and so on.
So far, the English and the German uses of the word roughly correspond. We
should probably be surprised if we heard it said that Shakespeare had made
a contribution to English "culture": but, on consideration, we should admit
that he had, though we should not have chosen that way of speaking about
him. But there is a further meaning in the word _Kultur_, which explains
why it is so often on German lips. It means, not only the product of the
intellect or imagination, but the product of the disciplined intellect and
the disciplined imagination. _Kultur_ has in it an element of order, of
organisation, of civilisation. That is why the Germans regard the study of
the "culture" of a country as part of the study of its history. English
school children are beginning to be taught social and industrial history in
addition to the kings and queens and battles and constitutions which used
to form the staple of history lessons. They are being taught, that is, to
see the history of their country, and of its civilisation, in the light
of the life and livelihood of its common people. The German outlook is
different. They look at their history in the light of the achievements of
its great minds, which are regarded as being at once the proof and the
justification of its civilisation. To the question, "What right have you to
call yourselves a civilised country?" an Englishman would reply, "Look at
the sort of people we are, and at the things we have done," and would point
perhaps to the extracts from the letters of private soldiers printed in the
newspapers, or to the story of the growth of the British Empire; a German
would reply (as Germans are indeed replying now), "Look at our achievements
in scholarship and science, at our universities, at our systems of
education, at our literature, our music, and our painting; at our great men
of thought and imagination: at Luther, Dürer, Goethe, Beethoven, Kant."
_Kultur_ then means more than "culture": it means _culture considered as
the most important element in civilisation._ It implies the disciplined
education which alone, in the German view, makes the difference between
the savage and the civilised man. It implies the heritage of intellectual
possessions which, thanks to ordered institutions, a nation is able to hand
down from generation to generation.
We are now beginning to see where the British and German attitudes towards
society and civilisation diverge. Broadly, we may say that the first
difference is that Germany thinks of civilisation in terms of intellect
while we think of it in terms of character. Germany asks, "What do you
know?" "What have you learnt?" and regards our prisoners as uncivilised
because they cannot speak German, and Great Britain as a traitor to
civilisation because she is allied with Russia, a people of ignorant
peasants. We ask, "What have you done?" "What can you do?" and tend
to undervalue the importance of systematic knowledge and intellectual
application.
But we have found no reason as yet for a conflict of ideals. Many English
writers, such as Matthew Arnold, have emphasised the importance of culture
as against character; yet Matthew Arnold's views were widely different from
those of the German professors of to-day. If their sense of the importance
of culture stopped short at this point, we should have much to learn from
Germany, as indeed we have, and no reason to oppose her. What is there then
in the German admiration for culture which involves her in a conflict with
British ideals?
§3. _Culture as a State Product._--The conflict arises out of the alliance
between German culture and the German Government. What British public
opinion resents, in the German attitude, is not culture in itself, about
which it is little concerned, but what we feel to be its unnatural
alliance with military power. It seems to us wicked and hypocritical for a
government which proclaims the doctrine of the "mailed fist" and, like the
ancient Spartans, glories in the perfecting of the machinery of war, to be
at the same time protesting its devotion to culture, and posing as a patron
of the peaceful arts. It is the Kaiser's speeches and the behaviour of the
German Government which have put all of us out of heart with German talk
about culture.
This brings us to a fundamental point of difference between the two
peoples. The close association between culture and militarism, between the
best minds of the nation and the mind of the Government, does not seem
unnatural to a modern German at all. On the contrary, it seems the most
natural thing in the world. It is the bedrock of the German system of
national education. Culture to a German is not only a national possession;
it is also, to a degree difficult for us to appreciate, a State product.
It is a national possession deliberately handed on by the State from
generation to generation, hall-marked and guaranteed, as it were, for the
use of its citizens. When we use the word "culture" we speak of it as an
attribute of individual men and women. Germans, on the other hand, think
of it as belonging to nations as a whole, in virtue of their system of
national education. That is why they are so sure that all Germans possess
culture. They have all had it at school. And it is all the same brand of
culture, because no other is taught. It is the culture with which the
Government wishes its citizens to be equipped. That is why all Germans
tend, not only to know the same facts (and a great many facts too), but
to have a similar outlook on life and similar opinions about Goethe,
Shakespeare and the German Navy. Culture, like military service, is a part
of the State machinery.
Here we come upon the connecting link between culture and militarism. Both
are parts of the great German system of State education. "Side by side with
the influences of German education," wrote Dr. Sadler in 1901,[1] "are
to be traced the influences of German military service. The two sets
of influence interact on one another and intermingle. German education
impregnates the German army with science. The German army predisposes
German education to ideas of organisation and discipline. Military and
educational discipline go hand in hand.... Both are preserved and fortified
by law and custom, and by administrative arrangements skilfully devised
to attain that end. But behind all the forms of organisation (which would
quickly crumble away unless upheld by and expressing some spiritual force),
behind both military and educational discipline, lies the fundamental
principle adopted by Scharnhorst's Committee on Military organisation in
Prussia in 1807: 'All the inhabitants of the State are its defenders by
birth.'"
[Footnote 1: _Board of Education Special Reports,_ vol. ix. p. 43.]
At last we have reached the root of the matter. It is not German culture
which is the source and centre of the ideas to which Great Britain is
opposed: nor yet is it German militarism. Our real opponent is the system
of training and education, out of which both German culture and German
militarism spring. It is the organisation of German public life, and the
"spiritual force" of which that organisation is the outward and visible
expression.
§4. _German and British Ideals of Education._--Let us look at the German
ideal more closely, for it is worthy of careful study. It is perhaps best
expressed in words written in 1830 by Coleridge, who, like other well-known
Englishmen of his day (and our own) was much under the influence of German
ideas. Coleridge, in words quoted by Dr. Sadler, defines the purpose of
national education as "to form and train up the people of the country to
obedient, free, useful, and organisable subjects, citizens and patriots,
living to the benefit of the State and prepared to die in its defence." In
accordance with this conception Prussia was the first of the larger States
in Europe to adopt a universal compulsory system of State education, and
the first also to establish a universal system of military service for its
young men. The rest of Europe perforce followed suit. Nearly every State in
Europe has or professes to have a universal system of education, and every
State except England has a system of universal military service. The Europe
of schools and camps which we have known during the last half century is
the most striking of all the victories of German "culture."
Discipline, efficiency, duty, obedience, public service; these are
qualities that excite admiration everywhere--in the classroom, in the camp,
and in the wider field of life. There is something almost monumentally
impressive to the outsider in the German alliance of School and Army in the
service of the State. Since the days of Sparta and Rome, there has been no
such wonderful governmental disciplinary machine. It is not surprising that
"German organisation" and "German methods" should have stimulated interest
and emulation throughout the civilised world. Discipline seems to many to
be just the one quality of which our drifting world is in need. "If this
war had been postponed a hundred or even fifty years," writes a philosophic
English observer in a private letter, "Prussia would have become our Rome,
worshipping Shakespeare and Byron as Pompey or Tiberius worshipped Greek
literature, and disciplining us. Hasn't it ever struck you what a close
parallel there is between Germany and Rome?" (Here follows a list of
bad qualities which is better omitted.) ... "The good side of it is the
discipline; and the modern world, not having any power external to itself
which it acknowledges, and no men (in masses) having yet succeeded in being
a law to themselves, needs discipline above everything. I don't see where
you will get it under these conditions unless you find some one with an
abstract love of discipline for itself. And where will you find him except
in Prussia? After all, it is a testimony to her that, unlovely as she is,
she gives the law to Germany, and that the South German, though he dislikes
her, accepts the law as good for him." And to show that he appreciates the
full consequences of his words he adds: "If I had to live under Ramsay
MacDonald (provided that he acted as he talks), or under Lieutenant von
Förstner" (the hero of Zabern), "odious as the latter is, for my soul's
good I would choose him: for I think that in the end, I should be less
likely to be irretrievably ruined."
Here is the Prussian point of view, expressed by a thoughtful Englishman
with a wide experience of education, and a deep concern for the moral
welfare of the nation. What have we, on the British side, to set up against
his arguments?
In the first place we must draw attention to the writer's candour in
admitting that a nation cannot adopt Prussianism piecemeal. It must take
it as a whole, its lieutenants included, or not at all. Lieutenant von
Förstner is as typical a product of the Prussian system as the London
policeman is of our own; and if we adopt Prussian or Spartan methods,
we must run the risk of being ruled by him. "No other nation," says Dr.
Sadler, "by imitating a little bit of German organisation can hope thus
to achieve a true reproduction of the spirit of German institutions. The
fabric of its organisation practically forms one whole. That is its merit
and its danger. It must be taken all in all or else left unimitated. And
it is not a mere matter of external organisation.... National institutions
must grow out of the needs and character (and not least out of the
weakness) of the nation which possesses them."
But, taking the system as a whole, there are, it seems to me, three great
flaws in it--flaws so serious and vital as to make the word "education" as
applied to it almost a misnomer. The Prussian system is unsatisfactory,
firstly, because it confuses external discipline with self-control;
secondly, because it confuses regimentation with corporate spirit; thirdly,
because it conceives the nation's duty in terms of "culture" rather than of
character.
Let us take these three points in detail.
The first object of national education is--not anything national at all,
but simply education. It is the training of individual young people. It is
the gradual leading-out (e-ducation), unfolding, expanding, of their
mental and bodily powers, the helping of them to become, not soldiers, or
missionaries of culture, or pioneers of Empire, or even British citizens,
but simply human personalities. "The purpose of the Public Elementary
School," say the opening words of our English code, "is to form and
strengthen the character and to develop the intelligence of the children
entrusted to it." In the performance of this task external discipline is no
doubt necessary. Obedience and consideration for others are not learnt in
a day. But the object of external discipline is to form habits of
self-control which will enable their possessor to become an independent and
self-respecting human being--and incidentally, a good citizen. "If I had
to _live under_ Ramsay MacDonald, or the Prussian Lieutenant," says our
writer, "I would choose the latter, for my soul's good." But our British
system of education does not proceed on the assumption that its pupils
are destined to "live under" any one. Our ideal is that of the free man,
trained in the exercise of his powers and in the command and control of his
faculties, who, like Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior" (a poem which embodies
the best British educational tradition):
... Through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Neglect for the claims of human personality both amongst pupils and
teachers is the chief danger of a State system of education. The State
is always tempted to put its own claims first and those of its citizens
second--to regard the citizen as existing for the State, instead of the
State for its citizens. It is one of the ironies of history that no man was
more alive to this danger than Wilhelm von Humboldt, the gifted creator of
the Prussian system of education. As the motto of one of his writings he
adopted the words, "_Against the governmental mania, the most fatal disease
of modern governments_," and when, contrary to his own early principles,
he undertook the organisation of Prussian education he insisted that
"headmasters should be left as free a hand as possible in all matters of
teaching and organisation." But the Prussian system was too strong for him
and his successors, and his excellent principles now survive as no more
than pious opinions. The fact is that in an undemocratic and feudal State
such as Germany then was, and still largely is, respect for the personality
of the individual is confined to the upper ranks of society.
"I do not know how it is in foreign countries," says one of Goethe's
heroes,[1] "but in Germany it is only the nobleman who can secure a certain
amount of universal or, if I may say so, _personal_ education. An ordinary
citizen can learn to earn his living and, at the most, train his intellect;
but, do what he will, he loses his personality.... He is not asked, 'What
are you?' but only, 'What have you? what attainments, what knowledge, what
capacities, what fortune?' ... The nobleman is to act and to achieve.
The common citizen is to carry out orders. He is to develop individual
faculties, in order to become useful, and it is a fundamental assumption
that there is no harmony in his being, nor indeed is any permissible,
because, in order to make himself serviceable in one way, he is forced
to neglect everything else. The blame for this distinction is not to be
attributed to the adaptability of the nobleman or the weakness of the
common citizen. It is due to the constitution of society itself." Much has
changed in Germany since Goethe wrote these words, but they still ring
true. And they have not been entirely without their echo in Great Britain
itself.[2]
[Footnote 1: Wilhelm Meister's _Lehrjahre_, Book v. chapter iii.]
[Footnote 2: The contrast which has been drawn in the preceding pages, as
working-class readers in particular will understand, is between the _aims_,
not the achievements, of German and British education. The German aims are
far more perfectly achieved in practice than the British. Neither the law
nor the administration of British education can be acquitted of "neglect
for the claims of human personality." The opening words of the English
code, quoted on p. 359 above, are, alas! not a statement of fact but
an aspiration. We have hardly yet begun in England to realise the
possibilities of educational development along the lines of the British
ideal, both as regards young people and adults. If we learn the lesson
of the present crisis aright, the war, so far from being a set-back
to educational progress, should provide a new stimulus for effort and
development.]
But man cannot live for himself alone. He is a corporate being; and,
personality or no personality, he has to fit into a world of fellow-men
with similar human claims. The second charge against the German system is
that it ignores the value of human fellowship. It regards the citizens of a
country as "useful and organisable subjects" rather than as fellow-members
of a democracy, bound together by all the various social ties of
comradeship and intercourse.
The Prussian system, with its elaborate control and direction from above,
dislikes the free play of human groupings, and discourages all spontaneous
or unauthorised associations. Schoolboy "societies," for instance, are in
Germany an evil to be deplored and extirpated, not, as with us, a symptom
of health and vigour, to be sympathetically watched and encouraged.
Instead, there is a direct inculcation of patriotism, a strenuous and
methodical training of each unit for his place in the great State machine.
We do not so read human nature. Our British tendency is to develop habits
of service and responsibility through a devotion to smaller and more
intimate associations, to build on a foundation of lesser loyalties and
duties. We do not conceive it to be the function of the school to _teach_
patriotism or to _teach_ fellowship. Rather we hold that good education
_is_ fellowship, _is_ citizenship, in the deepest meaning of those words;
that to discover and to exercise the responsibilities of membership in a
smaller body is the best training for a larger citizenship. A school, a
ship, a club, a Trade Union, any free association of Englishmen, is all
England in miniature. "To be attached to the subdivision, to love the
little platoon we belong to in society," said Burke long ago, "is the first
principle, the germ, as it were, of public affections. It is the first
link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country
and mankind.... We begin our public affections in our families. No cold
relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighbourhoods, to our
habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places... so
many images of the great country, in which the heart found something which
it could fill."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Reflections on the French Revolution_, pp. 292, 494 (of vol.
iii. of _Collected Works_, ed. 1899).]
There is one fairly safe test for a system of education: What do its
victims think of it? "In Prussia," says Dr. Sadler, "a schoolboy seems to
regard his school as he might regard a railway station--a convenient and
necessary establishment, generally ugly to look at, but also, for its
purpose efficient." The illustration is an apt one: for a Prussian school
is too often, like a railway station, simply a point of departure,
something to be got away from as soon as possible. "In England a boy who
is at a good secondary school cares for it as an officer cares for his
regiment or as a sailor cares for his ship," or, we may add, as a Boy Scout
cares for his Troop.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Special Reports_, ix. p. 113. Dr. Sadler's article deals with
secondary schools only. Unfortunately, no one can claim that the idea of
fellowship is as prominent in English elementary schools, or even in all
secondary schools, as the quotation might suggest.]
Democracy and discipline, fellowship and freedom, are in fact not
incompatible at all. They are complementary: and each can only be at
its best when it is sustained by the other. Only a disciplined and
self-controlled people can be free to rule itself, and only a free people
can know the full meaning and happiness of fellowship.
§5. _German and British Ideals of Civilisation._--Lastly, the German system
regards national "culture" rather than national character as the chief
element in civilisation and the justification of its claim to a dominant
place in the world. This view is so strange to those who are used to
present-day British institutions that it is hard to make clear what it
means. Civilisation is a word which, with us, is often misused and often
misunderstood. Sometimes we lightly identify it with motor cars and
gramophones and other Western contrivances with which individual traders
and travellers dazzle and bewilder the untutored savage. Yet we are seldom
tempted to identify it, like the Germans, with anything narrowly national;
and in our serious moments we recognise that it is too universal a force to
be the appanage of either nations or individuals. For to us, when we ask
ourselves its real meaning, civilisation stands for neither language nor
culture nor anything intellectual at all. It stands for something moral and
social and political. It means, in the first place, the establishment and
enforcement of the Rule of Law, as against anarchy on the one hand and
tyranny on the other; and, secondly, on the basis of order and justice,
the task of making men fit for free institutions, the work of guiding and
training them to recognise the obligations of citizenship, to subordinate
their own personal interests or inclinations to the common welfare, the
"commonwealth." That is what is meant when it is claimed that Great Britain
has done a "civilising" work both in India and in backward Africa. The
Germans reproach and despise us, we are told,[1] for our failure to spread
"English culture" in India. That has not been the purpose of British rule,
and Englishmen have been foolish in so far as they have presumed to attempt
it: England has to learn from Indian culture as India from ours. But to
have laid for India the foundations on which alone a stable society could
rest, to have given her peace from foes without and security within, to
have taught her, by example, the kinship of Power and Responsibility, to
have awakened the social conscience and claimed the public services of
Indians in the village, the district, the province, the nation, towards the
community of which they feel themselves to be members, to have found India
a continent, a chaos of tribes and castes, and to have helped her to
become a nation--that is not a task of English culture: it is a task of
civilisation.
[Footnote 1: For evidence of this see Cramb's _Germany and England_, p.
25.]
Law, Justice, Responsibility, Liberty, Citizenship--the words are
abstractions, philosophers' phrases, destitute, it might seem, of living
meaning and reality. There is no such thing as English Justice, English
Liberty, English Responsibility. The qualities that go to the making of
free and ordered institutions are not national but universal. They are no
monopoly of Great Britain. They are free to be the attributes of any race
or any nation. They belong to civilised humanity as a whole. They are part
of the higher life of the human race.
As such the Germans, if they recognised them at all, probably regarded
them. They could not see in them the binding power to keep a great
community of nations together. They could not realise that Justice and
Responsibility, if they rightly typify the character of British rule,
must also typify the character of British rulers; and that community of
character expressed in their institutions and worked into the fibre
of their life may be a stronger bond between nations than any mere
considerations of interest. Educated Indians would find it hard to explain
exactly why, on the outbreak of the war, they found themselves eager to
help to defend British rule. But it seems clear that what stirred them most
was not any consideration of English as against German culture, or any
merely material calculations, but a sudden realisation of the character of
that new India which the union between Great Britain and India, between
Western civilisation and Eastern culture, is bringing into being, and a
sense of the indispensable need for the continuance of that partnership.[1]
[Footnote 1: The reader will again understand that it is British aims
rather than British achievements which are spoken of. That British rule
is indispensable to Indian civilisation is indeed a literal fact to which
Indian opinion bears testimony; and it is the conduct and character of
generations of British administrators which have helped to bring this sense
of partnership about. But individual Englishmen in India are often far
from understanding, or realising in practice, the purpose of British rule.
Similarly, the growth of a sense of Indian nationality, particularly in the
last few years, is a striking and important fact. But it would be unwise to
underestimate the gigantic difficulties with which this growing national
consciousness has to contend. The greatest of these is the prevalence
of caste-divisions, rendering impossible the free fellowship and social
intercourse which alone can be the foundation of a sense of common
citizenship. Apart from this there are, according to the census,
forty-three races in India, and twenty-three languages in ordinary use.]
It is just this intimate union between different nations for the
furtherance of the tasks of civilisation which it seems so difficult
for the German mind to understand. "Culture," with all its intimate
associations, its appeal to language, to national history and traditions,
and to instinctive patriotism, is so much simpler and warmer a conception:
it seems so much easier to fight for Germany than to fight for Justice in
the abstract, or for Justice embodied in the British Commonwealth. That is
why even serious German thinkers, blinded by the idea of culture, expected
the break-up of the British Empire. They could imagine Indians giving their
lives for India, Boers for a Dutch South Africa, Irishmen for Ireland
or Ulstermen for Ulster; but the deeper moral appeal which has thrilled
through the whole Empire, down to its remotest island dependency, lay
beyond their ken.
Let us look a little more closely at the German idea of national culture
rather than national character as the chief element in civilisation. We
shall see that it is directly contrary to the ideals which inspire
and sustain the British Commonwealth, and practically prohibits that
association of races and peoples at varying levels of social progress which
is its peculiar task.
"Culture," in the German idea, is the justification of a nation's
existence. Nationality has no other claim. Goethe, Luther, Kant, and
Beethoven are Germany's title-deeds. A nation without a culture has no
right to a "place in the sun." "History," says Wilamowitz in a lecture
delivered in 1898, "knows nothing of any right to exist on the part of a
people or a language without a culture. If a people becomes dependent on a
foreign culture" (_i.e._ in the German idea, on a foreign civilisation) "it
matters little if its lower classes speak a different language: they, too
... must eventually go over to the dominant language.... Wisely to further
this necessary organic process is a blessing to all parties; violent
haste will only curb it and cause reactions. Importunate insistence on
Nationality has never anywhere brought true vitality into being, and often
destroyed vitality; but the superior Culture which, sure of its inner
strength, throws her doors wide open, can win men's hearts."[1] In the
light of a passage like this, from the most distinguished representative of
German humanism, it is easier to grasp the failure of educated Germany to
understand the sequel of the South African War, or the aspirations of the
Slav peoples, or to stigmatise the folly of their statesmen in Poland,
Denmark, Alsace-Lorraine, and Belgium. "Importunate insistence on
Nationality"--the words come home to us now with a new meaning when we
learn that in Belgium, now perforce "dependent on a foreign culture,"
babies are registered under German names and newspapers printed in "the
dominant language," and that already "forty newspaper vendors in Brussels
have been sentenced to long terms of hard labour in German prisons for
selling English, French, and Belgian newspapers."[2] "Our fearless German
warriors," writes the leading German dramatist, Gerhart Hauptmann,[3]
"are _well aware of the reasons for which they have taken the field_. No
illiterates will be found among them. Many of them, besides shouldering
their muskets, carry their Goethe's _Faust_, some work of Schopenhauer, a
Bible, or a Homer in their knapsacks." Such is a serious German writer's
idea of the way in which civilisation is diffused!
[Footnote 1: _Speeches and Lectures_, pp. 147-148 (1913 edition).]
[Footnote 2: Daily Papers, October 12, 1914 (Exchange Telegram from
Rotterdam).]
[Footnote 3: Letter quoted in the _Westminster Gazette._]
With such a philosophy of human progress as this, German thinkers and
statesmen look out into the future and behold nothing but conflict--eternal
conflict between rival national "cultures," each seeking to impose its
domination. "In the struggle between Nationalities," writes Prince
Bülow,[1] in defence of his Polish policy, putting into a cruder form the
philosophy of Wilamowitz, "one nation is the hammer and the other the
anvil; one is the victor and the other the vanquished. It is a law of life
and development in history that where two national civilisations meet they
fight for supremacy."
[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, p. 245 (1st ed.).]
Here we have the necessary and logical result of the philosophy of culture.
In the struggle between cultures no collaboration, no compromise even, is
possible. German is German: Flemish is Flemish: Polish is Polish: French is
French. Who is to decide which is the "more civilised," which is the fitter
to survive? Force alone can settle the issue. A Luther and Goethe may be
the puppets pitted in a contest of culture against Maeterlinck and Victor
Hugo. But it is Krupp and Zeppelin and the War-Lord that pull the strings.
As Wilamowitz reminds us, it was the Roman legions, not Virgil and Horace,
that stamped out the Celtic languages and romanised Western Europe. It is
the German army, two thousand years later, that is to germanise it. It is
an old, old theory; Prussia did not invent it, nor even Rome. "You know as
well as we do," said the Athenians in 416 B.C. to the representatives of
a small people of that day,[1] "that right, as the world goes, is only in
question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the
weak suffer what they must"; and they went on, like the Kaiser, to claim
the favour of the gods, "neither our pretensions nor our conduct being
in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise amongst
themselves." There is, in fact, to be no Law between Nations but the Rule
of the Stronger.
[Footnote 1: _Thucydides_, Book v. 89 and 105.]
§6. _The Principle of the Commonwealth_.--Such seems to many the meaning
of the present European situation--a stern conflict between nations and
cultures, to be decided by force of arms. The bridges between the nations
seem broken down, and no one can tell when they will be repaired. The hopes
that had gathered round international movements, the cosmopolitan dreams
of common action between the peoples across the barriers of States and
Governments, seem to have vanished into limbo; and the enthusiastic
dreamers of yesterday are the disillusioned soldiers and spectators of
to-day. Nationality, that strange, inarticulate, unanalysable force that
can call all men to her tents in the hour of crisis and danger, seems to
have overthrown the international forces of to-day, the Socialists, the
Pacifists, and, strongest of all, the Capitalists, as it overthrew Napoleon
and his dreams of Empire a hundred years ago. What Law is there but force
that can decide the issue between nation and nation? And, in the absence
of a Law, what becomes of all our hopes for international action, for the
future of civilisation and the higher life of the human race?
But in truth the disillusionment is as premature as the hopes that preceded
it. We are still far off from the World-State and the World-Law which
formed the misty ideal of cosmopolitan thinkers. But only those who are
blind to the true course of human progress can fail to see that the day of
the Nation-State is even now drawing to a close in the West. There is in
fact at present working in the world a higher Law and a better patriotism
than that of single nations and cultures, a Law and a patriotism that
override and transcend the claims of Nationality in a greater, a more
compelling, and a more universal appeal. The great States or Powers of
to-day, Great Britain, the United States, France, and (if they had eyes
to sec it) Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, are not Nation-States but
composite States--States compacted of many nationalities united together by
a common citizenship and a common law. Great Britain, the United States,
the German Empire, and Austria-Hungary bear in their very names the
reminder of the diverse elements of which they are composed; but France
with her great African Empire, and Russia with her multitudinous
populations, from Poland to the Pacific, from Finland to the Caucasus, are
equally composite. In each of these great States nations have been united
under a common law; and where the wisdom of the central government has not
"broken the bruised reed or quenched the smoking flax" of national life,
the nations have been not only willing but anxious to join in the work
of their State. Nations, like men, were made not to compete but to work
together; and it is so easy, so simple, to win their good-hearted devotion.
It takes all sorts of men, says the old proverb, to make a world. It takes
all sorts of nations to make a modern State. "The combination of different
nations in one State is as necessary a condition of civilised life as the
combination of men in society. ... It is in the cauldron of the State that
the fusion takes place by which the vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity
of one portion of mankind may be communicated to another.... If we take the
establishment of liberty for the realisation of moral duties to be the end
of civil society, we must conclude that those States are substantially the
most perfect which, like the British and Austrian Empires, include various
distinct nationalities without oppressing them." So wrote Lord Acton,
the great Catholic historian, fifty years ago, when the watchwords of
Nationality were on all men's lips, adding, in words that were prophetic of
the failure of the Austrian and the progress of the British Commonwealth
of Nations: "The coexistence of several nations under the same State _is a
test_ as well as the best security _of its freedom_. It is also one of the
chief instruments of civilisation; and, as such, it is in the natural and
providential order, and indicates a state of greater advancement than the
national unity which is the ideal of modern liberalism."[1]
[Footnote 1: Essay on Nationality, in _The History of Freedom and other
Essays_, pp. 290, 298.]
Of the Great Powers which between them control the destinies of
civilisation Great Britain is at once the freest, the largest, and the
most various. If the State is a "cauldron" for mingling "the vigour, the
knowledge, and the capacity" of the portions of mankind--or if, to use an
apter metaphor, it is a body whose perfection consists in the very variety
of the functions of its several members--there has never been on the earth
a political organism like the British Empire. Its 433 million inhabitants,
from Great Britain to Polynesia, from India and Egypt to Central Africa,
are drawn from every division of the human race. Cut a section through
mankind, and in every layer there will be British citizens, living under
the jurisdiction of British law. Here is something to hearten those who
have looked in vain to the Hague. While international law has been
brought to a standstill through the absence of a common will and a common
executive, Great Britain has thrown a girdle of law around the globe.
§7. _The Future of Civilisation_.--What hopes dare we cherish, in this hour
of conflict, for the future of civilisation?
The great, the supreme task of human politics and statesmanship is to
extend the sphere of Law. Let others labour to make men cultured or
virtuous or happy. These are the tasks of the teacher, the priest, and the
common man. The statesman's task is simpler. It is to enfold them in a
jurisdiction which will enable them to live the life of their souls'
choice. The State, said the Greek philosophers, is the foundation of the
good life; but its crown rises far above mere citizenship. "There where the
State ends," cries Nietzsche,[1] echoing Aristotle and the great tradition
of civilised political thought, "there _men begin_. There, where the State
ends, look thither, my brothers! Do you not see the rainbow and the bridge
to the Overman?" Ever since organised society began, the standards of the
individual, the ideals of priest and teacher, the doctrines of religion and
morality, have outstripped the practice of statesmanship. For the polestar
of the statesman has not been love, but law. His not the task of exhorting
men to love one another, but the simpler duty of enforcing the law, "Thou
shalt not kill." And in that simple, strenuous, necessary task statesmen
and political thinkers have watched the slow extension of the power of Law,
from the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the city, from the city to
the nation, from the nation to the Commonwealth. When will Law take its
next extension? When will warfare, which is murder between individuals and
"rebellion" between groups of citizens, be equally preventable between
nations by the common law of the world?
[Footnote 1: _Also sprach Zarathustra_, Speech xi. (end).]
The answer is simple. When the world has a common will, and has created a
common government to express and enforce that will.
In the sphere of science and invention, of industry and economics, as
Norman Angell and others have taught us, the world is already one Great
Society. For the merchant, the banker, and the stockbroker political
frontiers have been broken down. Trade and industry respond to the
reactions of a single, world-wide, nervous system. Shocks and panics pass
as freely as airmen over borders and custom-houses. And not "big business"
only, but the humblest citizen, in his search for a livelihood, finds
himself caught in the meshes of the same world-wide network. "The widow
who takes in washing," says Graham Wallas,[1] in his deep and searching
analysis of our contemporary life, "fails or succeeds according to her
skill in choosing starch or soda or a wringing machine under the influence
of half a dozen competing world-schemes of advertisement.... The English
factory girl who is urged to join her Union, the tired old Scotch
gatekeeper with a few pounds to invest, the Galician peasant when the
emigration agent calls, the artisan in a French provincial town whose
industry is threatened by a new invention, all know that unless they find
their way among world-wide facts, which only reach them through misleading
words, they will be crushed." The Industrial Revolution of the past
century, steam-power and electricity, the railway and the telegraph, have
knit mankind together, and made the world one place.
[Footnote 1: _The Great Society_ (1914), p. 4.]
But this new Great Society is as yet formless and inarticulate. It is not
only devoid of common leadership and a common government; it lacks even the
beginnings of a common will, a common emotion, and a common consciousness.
Of the Great Society, consciously or unconsciously, we must all perforce be
members; but of the Great State, the great World-Commonwealth, we do not
yet discern the rudiments. The economic organisation of the world has
outstripped the development of its citizenship and government: the economic
man, with his farsighted vision and scientific control of the resources
of the world, must sit by and see the work of his hands laid in ashes by
contending governments and peoples. No man can say how many generations
must pass before the platitudes of the market and the exchange pass into
the current language of politics.
§8. _The Two Roads of Advance: Inter-State Action and Common
Citizenship_.--In the great work which lies before the statesmen and
peoples of the world for the extension of law and common citizenship and
the prevention of war there are two parallel lines of advance.
One road lies through the development of what is known as International,
but should more properly be called _Inter-State Law_, through the revival,
on a firmer and broader foundation, of the Concert of Europe conceived by
the Congress of Vienna just a hundred years ago--itself a revival, on
a secular basis, of the great mediaeval ideal of an international
Christendom, held together by Christian Law and Christian ideals. That
ideal faded away for ever at the Reformation, which grouped Europe into
independent sovereign States ruled by men responsible to no one outside
their own borders. It will never be revived on an ecclesiastical basis. Can
we hope for its revival on a basis of modern democracy, modern nationality,
and modern educated public opinion? Can Inter-State Law, hitherto a mere
shadow of the majestic name it bears, almost a matter of convention and
etiquette, with no permanent tribunal to interpret it, and no government
to enforce it, be enthroned with the necessary powers to maintain justice
between the peoples and governments of the world?
Such a Law the statesmen of Great Britain and Russia sought to impose on
Europe in 1815, to maintain a state of affairs which history has shown to
have been intolerable to the European peoples. There are those who hope
that the task can be resumed, on a better basis, at the next Congress.
"Shall we try again," writes Professor Gilbert Murray,[1] "to achieve
Castlereagh's and Alexander's ideal of a permanent Concert, pledged to make
collective war upon the peace-breaker? Surely we must. We must, at all
costs and in spite of all difficulties, because the alternative means
such unspeakable failure. We must learn to agree, we civilised nations of
Europe, or else we must perish. I believe that the chief council of wisdom
here is to be sure to go far enough. We need a permanent Concert, perhaps a
permanent Common Council, in which every awkward problem can be dealt with
before it has time to grow dangerous, and in which outvoted minorities must
accustom themselves to giving way."
[Footnote 1: _Hibbert Journal,_ Oct. 1914, p. 77.]
Other utterances by public men, such as Mr. Roosevelt and our own Prime
Minister, might be cited in the same sense; but Professor Murray's has been
chosen because he has had the courage to grasp the nettle. In his words the
true position is quite clearly set forth. If Inter-State Law is to become
a reality we must "be sure to go far enough." There is no half-way house
between Law and no Law, between Government and no Government, between
Responsibility and no Responsibility. If the new Concert is to be effective
it must be able to compel the submission of all "awkward problems" and
causes of quarrel to its permanent Tribunal at the Hague or elsewhere; and
it must be able to enforce the decision of its tribunal, employing for
the purpose, if necessary, the armed forces of the signatory Powers as an
international police. "Out-voted minorities must accustom themselves to
giving way." It is a bland and easy phrase; but it involves the whole
question of world-government. "Men must accustom themselves not to demand
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," the earliest law-givers might
have said, when the State first intervened between individuals to make
itself responsible for public order. Peace between the Powers, as between
individuals, is, no doubt, a habit to which cantankerous Powers "must
accustom themselves." But they will be sure to do so if there is a Law,
armed with the force to be their schoolmaster towards peaceable habits. In
other words, they will do so because they have surrendered one of the most
vital elements in the independent life of a State--the right of conducting
its own policy--to the jurisdiction of a higher Power. An Inter-State
Concert, with a Judiciary of its own and an Army and Navy under its own
orders, is, in fact, not an Inter-State Concert at all; it is a new State:
it is, in fact, the World-State. There is no middle course between Law and
no Law: and the essence of Statehood, as we have seen, is a Common Law.
Will this new State have the other attributes of Government--a Common
Legislature and a Common Executive--as well as a Common Judiciary? Let us
go back to Professor Murray's words. He speaks of "outvoted minorities."
Let us suppose the refractory country to be Great Britain, outvoted on some
question relating to sea-power. Of whom will the outvoted minority consist?
Of the British members on the "Common Council" of the Concert. But the
question at once arises, what are the credentials of these British members?
Whom do they represent? To whom are they responsible? If they are the
representatives of the British people and responsible to the democracy
which sent them, how can they be expected to "accustom themselves to giving
way"--perhaps to a majority composed of the representatives of undemocratic
governments? Their responsibility is, not to the Concert, but to their
own Government and people. They are not the minority members of a
democratically-elected Council of their own fellow-citizens. They are the
minority members of a heterogeneous Council towards which they owe no
allegiance and recognise no binding responsibility. There is no half-way
house between Citizenship and no Citizenship, between Responsibility and
no Responsibility. No man and no community can serve two masters. When the
point of conflict arises men and nations have to make the choice where
their duty lies. Not the representatives of Great Britain on the
International Concert, but the people of Great Britain themselves would
have to decide whether their real allegiance, as citizens, was due to the
World-State or to their own Commonwealth: they would find themselves at the
same awful parting of the ways which confronted the people of the Southern
States in 1861. When at the outbreak of the Civil War General Lee was
offered by Lincoln the Commandership of the Northern armies and refused
it, to become the Commander-in-Chief on the side of the South, he did so
because "he believed," as he told Congress after the war, "that the act of
Virginia in withdrawing herself from the United States carried him along
with it as a citizen of Virginia, and that _her_ laws and acts were binding
on him." In other words, unless the proposed Common Council is to be made
something more than a Council of the delegates of sovereign States (as the
Southern States believed themselves to be till 1861), a deadlock sooner or
later is almost inevitable, and the terrible and difficult question--so
familiar to Americans and recently to ourselves on the smaller stage of
Ulster--of the right of secession and the coercion of minorities
will arise. But if the Common Council is framed in accordance with a
Constitution which binds its representatives to accept its decisions and
obey its government, then the World-State, with a World-Executive, will
already have come into being. There will be no more war, but only Rebellion
and Treason.
Such is the real meaning of proposals to give a binding sanction to the
decisions of an Inter-State Concert. Anything short of this--treaties and
arbitration-agreements based upon inter-State arrangements without any
executive to enforce them--may give relief for a time and pave the way
for further progress, but can in itself provide no permanent security, no
satisfactory justification for the neglect of defensive measures by the
various sovereign governments on behalf of their peoples. Mr. Bryan, for
the United States, has within the last eighteen months concluded twenty-six
general arbitration treaties with different Governments, and may yet
succeed in his ambition of signing treaties with all the remainder. Yet no
one imagines that, when the immunity of the United States from attack is
guaranteed by the promise of every Government in the world, America will
rely for her defence upon those promises alone.
In discussing proposals for a European Council, then, we must be quite
sure to face all that it means. But let us not reject Professor Murray's
suggestion off-hand because of its inherent difficulties: for that men
should be discussing such schemes at all marks a significant advance in our
political thought. Only let us be quite clear as to what they presuppose.
They presuppose the supremacy, in the collective mind of civilised mankind,
of Law over Force, a definite supremacy of what may be called the civilian
as against the military ideal, not in a majority of States, but in every
State powerful enough to defy coercion. They presuppose a world map
definitely settled on lines satisfactory to the national aspirations of the
peoples. They presuppose a _status quo_ which is not simply maintained,
like that after 1815, because it is a legal fact and its disturbance would
be inconvenient to the existing rulers, but because it is inherently
equitable.[1] They presuppose a similar democratic basis of citizenship
and representation among the component States. They presuppose, lastly,
an educated public opinion incomparably less selfish, less ignorant, less
unsteady, less materialistic, and less narrowly national than has been
prevalent hitherto. Let us work and hope for these things: let us use our
best efforts to remove misunderstandings and promote a sense of common
responsibilities and common trusteeship for civilisation between the
peoples of all the various sovereign States; but meanwhile let us work
also, with better hopes of immediate if less ambitious successes, along the
other parallel road of advance.
[Footnote 1: The same applies to proposals for ensuring permanent peace in
the industrial sphere. Neither capital nor labour will abide by "scraps
of paper" if they do not feel the _status quo (i.e._ the conditions under
which wage-contracts are made) to be equitable and inherently just.]
The other road may seem, in this hour of dreams and disaster, of extremes
of hope and disillusionment, a long and tedious track: it is the old slow
high road of civilisation, not the short cut across the fields. It looks
forward to abiding results, not through the mechanical co-operation of
governments, but through the growth of an organic citizenship, through the
education of the nations themselves to a sense of common duty and a common
life. It looks forward, not to the definite establishment, in our day, of
the World-State, but only to the definite refutation of the wicked
theory of the mutual incompatibility of nations. It looks forward to the
expression in the outward order of the world's government of what we may
call "the Principle of the Commonwealth," of Lord Acton's great principle
of the State composed of free nations, of the State as a living body which
lives through the organic union and free activity of its several national
members. And it finds its immediate field of action in the deepening and
extension of the obligations of citizenship among the peoples of the great,
free, just, peace-loving, supra-national Commonwealths whose patriotism has
been built up, not by precept and doctrine, but on a firm foundation of
older loyalties.
The principle of the Commonwealth is not a European principle: it is a
world-principle. It does not proceed upon the expectation of a United
States of Europe; for all the Great Powers of Europe except Austria-Hungary
(and some of the smaller, such as Holland, Belgium, and Portugal) are
extra-European Powers also. Indeed if we contract our view, with Gladstone
and Bismarck and the statesmen of the last generation, to European issues
alone, we shall be ignoring the chief political problem of our age--the
contact of races and nations with wide varieties of social experience and
at different levels of civilisation. It is this great and insistent problem
(call it the problem of East and West, or the problem of the colour-line)
in all its difficult ramifications, political, social, and, above all,
economic, which makes the development of the principle of the Commonwealth
the most pressing political need of our age. For the problems arising out
of the contact of races and nations can never be adjusted either by the
wise action of individuals or by conflict and warfare; they can only be
solved by fair and deliberate statesmanship within the bosom of a single
State, through the recognition by both parties of a higher claim than their
own sectional interest--the claim of a common citizenship and the interest
of civilisation.[1] It is here, in the union and collaboration of diverse
races and peoples, that the principle of the Commonwealth finds its
peculiar field of operation. Without this principle, and without its
expression, however imperfect, in the British Empire, the world would be in
chaos to-day.
[Footnote 1: The most recent example of this is the settlement of the very
difficult dispute between India and South Africa.]
We cannot predict the political development of the various Great Powers who
between them control the destinies of civilisation. We cannot estimate
the degree or the manner in which France, freed at last from nearer
preoccupations, will seek to embody in her vast dominion the great
civilising principles for which her republic stands. We cannot foretell
the issue of the conflict of ideas which has swayed to and fro in Russia
between the British and the Prussian method of dealing with the problem of
nationality. Germany, Italy, Japan--here, too, we are faced by enigmas.
One other great Commonwealth remains besides the British. Upon the United
States already lies the responsibility, voluntarily assumed and, except
during a time of internal crisis,[1] successfully discharged, of securing
peace from external foes for scores of millions of inhabitants of the
American continent. Yet with the progress of events her responsibilities
must yearly enlarge: for both the immigrant nationalities within and the
world-problems without her borders seem to summon her to a deeper education
and to wider obligations.
[Footnote 1: French occupation of Mexico, 1862, during the American Civil
War, when the Monroe Doctrine was temporarily in abeyance.]
But upon the vast, ramifying, and inchoate Commonwealth of Great Britain
lies the heaviest responsibility. It is a task unequally shared between
those of her citizens who are capable of discharging it. Her task within
the Commonwealth is to maintain the common character and ideals and to
adjust the mutual relations of one quarter of the human race. Her task
without is to throw her weight into the scales of peace, and to uphold and
develop the standard and validity of inter-State agreements. It is a task
which requires, even at this time of crisis, when, by the common sentiment
of her citizens, the real nature and purpose of the Commonwealth have
become clear to us, the active thoughts of all political students. For to
bring home to all within her borders who bear rule and responsibility, from
the village headman in India and Nigeria, the Basutu chief and the
South Sea potentate, to the public opinion of Great Britain and the
self-governing Dominions, the nature of the British Commonwealth, and the
character of its citizenship and ideals, and to study how those ideals
may be better expressed in its working institutions and executive
government--that is a task to which the present crisis beckons the minds
of British citizens, a task which Britain owes not only to herself but to
mankind.
_Note_.--A friendly critic who saw this chapter in MS. remarked: "I think
the author has been very successful in ignoring some of the shady methods
by which the British Empire has been extended." The criticism is not
strictly relevant to the subject of the chapter, but as it may occur to
other readers it may be well to deal with it in a brief note. I would
answer:
(1) The "shady methods" of which he speaks were not the result of British
Imperialism, or of a desire for conquest on the part of the British
State. They were the result, melancholy but inevitable, of the contact of
individuals and races at different levels of development. This contact
between the stronger and the weaker (which can be illustrated from what is
said about the sandalwood traders in the New Hebrides on p. 215 above) was
the direct result of the explorations of the sixteenth century, which threw
the seas of the world open to Western pioneers and traders. The extension
of the authority of Western _governments_ (Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
French, and British), and the collisions between them, followed inevitably
on the activities of their citizens, as has been pointed out on p. 216
above. All the Western governments have made mistakes in dealing with this
unfamiliar situation; but the wise course for democratic public opinion,
instead of railing at "Imperialism," would seem to be to familiarise itself
with its problems and control its injurious tendencies.
(2) In any case, the mistakes of the past do not entitle us to wash our
hands of responsibilities in the present. This war has shown that the
non-self-governing parts of the Commonwealth are not, as our enemies
supposed, a weakness to Great Britain in time of trouble, but a strength.
In other words, whatever may have happened in the past, Great Britain
has now won the consent of the ruled to the fact--not necessarily to the
methods--of British rule. To use what is doubtless unduly constitutional
language, we are now faced in India and elsewhere, not with a Revolutionary
Movement, but with an Opposition. That is a great incentive to further
development.
BOOKS
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLENCE
BERNHARDI, _Germany and the Next War_ (2s.), has become familiar. But this
is only one _application_ of a doctrine which has found expression in many
spheres, as, for example, in the writings of the French Syndicalists, who
claim to be copying the _methods_ of Capitalism, and the _principles_ of
Bergson's philosophy--with what justification must be left to the reader
to determine. See G. SOREL, _Reflexions sur la Violence_ (Paris, Marcel
Rivière, 1910, 5 francs), and Sorel's other writings. "Bernhardi-ism" is,
in fact, not a German product: it has been before the public for some years
under the name of "militancy," in connection with various causes, though
it has never been put into execution on so tremendous a scale as by the
Prussian Government. Nor is its philosophical basis to be found only, if at
all, in Nietzsche.
KULTUR
The insistence on "Culture" as the main factor in the life and development
of peoples is to be found in practically every German history, and in a
great many non-German writers. It has received an additional vogue from
the development of the study of _Sociology_, which naturally seeks out, in
tracing the development of societies in the past, the elements which lend
themselves to measurement and description, and these are inevitably, from
the nature of the evidence, rather "cultural" than moral. It would be
invidious to mention instances.
EDUCATION
For Dr. SADLER'S articles see p. 119, above. See also PAULSEN, _German
Education: Past and Present._ 1908. 5s. net.
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH
The best philosophical book on the relations of advanced and backward races
is _The Basis of Ascendancy: a Discussion of certain Principles of Public
Policy involved in the Development of the Southern States,_ by EDGAR
GARDNER MURPHY (a clergyman living at Montgomery, Alabama) (1909, 6s. net).
Though written with reference to the peculiar American problem, the book
has a far wider significance. There is no good book which covers the ground
either on India or the British Empire. E.R. BEVAN'S little volume on
_Indian Nationalism_ (2s. 6d. net) may be mentioned. An article on _India
and the Empire_ in the _Round Table_ for September 1912 is also worth
mention (and worth reprinting).
THE GREAT SOCIETY
WALLAS, _The Great Society_ (1914, 7s. 6d. net), and NORMAN ANGELL, _The
Great Illusion_ (1910, 2s. 6d. net), are the standard works--the former as
a psychologist and a philosopher, the latter as a pamphleteer with a very
acute vision within a limited field.
INTERNATIONAL LAW
See LINDSAY, _The War against War_ (Oxford pamphlets, 2d.), a model of
clear argument, so far as it goes. Also ALISON PHILLIPS, _The Confederation
of Europe: A Study of the European Alliance, 1813-1823, as an Experiment
in the International Organisation of Peace,_ (1914, 7s. 6d. net), the
best book on the Congress of Vienna and the problems connected with it,
especially on the subject of an International Tribunal and Universal Peace.
The Prime Minister's speeches will be familiar. See also Mr. Roosevelt's
pamphlet on the United States and the Hague Convention (Newnes, 2d.).
MONROE DOCTRINE
See an article by L.S. ROWE in the _Political Quarterly,_ October 1914.
INDEX
Accepting houses
Acton, Lord
Adalia
Adrianople
Adriatic, Serb access to
Aegean
Aehrenthal, Count
Agadir crisis
Agram
Agriculture, German
Albania
Albion, perfidious
Alexander I., Tsar
Alexander II.
Alexander III.
Alexander, King of Serbia
Alexandretta
Alsace-Lorraine
American Jews
Angell, Mr. Norman
Antivari
Arab movement
Armaments
Army, Austro-Hungarian
Arnold, Matthew
Asia Minor
Asquith, Mr.
Athenians
Auffenberg, General
Australia
Austria, genesis of
Austrian Note to Serbia
Austrian Question
Azev
Baden
Balance of Power
Balkan League
situation
wars
Ballads, Serb
Ballplatz
Banat of Temesvár
Bank of England
Baring, Maurice
Bebel, August
Belgium
Belgrade
Berchtold, Count
Berlin, Congress of
Bernhardi, General
Bessarabia
Bethmann-Hollveg
Bismarck
Bobrikoff, General
Bohemia
Bojana river
Bosnia
Bosnian annexation
Brandenburg
Britain, aims of
Britain and Germany
Brunswick
Brussa
Bucarest, Treaty of
Budapest
Bukovina
Bulgaria
Bülow, Prince
Bund, Jewish
Byzantium
Cabrinovic
Canadian trade
Carbonari
Carinthia
Carlyle
Carniola
Castlereagh
Catherine II.
Catholic Church
Cattaro
Cavour
Centre party
Cetinje
Charlemagne
Charles Albert
Charles V.
Charles the Bold
Charles, King of Roumania
Cilicia
Civil War, American
Coalition, Serbo-Croat
Cobden
Coleridge
Colonies, German
Comenius
Committee of Union and Progress
Commonwealth, a European
Concert of Europe
Conscription
Constantine, King
Constantinople
Constitution, German
Consular service
Cotton industry
Cramb, Professor
Credit
Crimean War
Croatia
Culture
Cuvaj
Cyprus
Czechs
Dalmatia
Danzig
Dardanelles
Debreczen
Delegations
Democracy
Denmark
Diplomatic Service
Disraeli
Dmowski, M.
Dobrudja
Dostoieffsky
Downing Street
Draga, Queen
Dual System
Duma
Dvorák
Economic policy
Education
Enver Pasha
Epirus
Eucken, Rudolf
Eugene, Prince
Europe, map of
Federalism in Austria
Fénelon
Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria
Fichte
_Finance, Haute_
Finland
Flemings
Flensburg
Florence
Foreign Office
Foreign Policy
Forgách, Count
Förstner, Lieutenant von
Francis Ferdinand, Archduke
assassination,
Francis Joseph
Frankfurt, Diet of
Frederick III.
Frederick the Great
_Fremdenblatt_, article
French Revolution
Constitution
Friedjung Trial
Galicia
Garibaldi
German Confederation
Germanisation
German Navy
Germans in Austria
Goethe
Gogol
Gold reserve
Gore, Bishop
Graham, Stephen
Greece
Grey, Sir Edward
Grosswardein
Habsburg, House of
Haeckel
Hague Congress
Conventions
Hanotaux, Gabriel
Hanover
Hanseatic League
Harnack
Harvey, T.E.
Hauptmann, Gerhart
Heine
Hermannstadt
Herzl, Theodor
Hohenzollern, House of
Holland
Holy Alliance
Synod
Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Hungarian Constitution
electoral system
Hungary, kingdom of
Hurban, Svetozar
Hus, John
Ibsen
Industry and war
Inter-State Law
Ionian Islands
Ipek
Ireland
Irredentism, Italian
Islam
Istria,
Italian culture in Dalmatia
Italy
Ivan the Terrible
Izvolsky
Jena, battle of
Jerusalem
Jews
Joseph II.
Jugoslavia
Junkers
Kara George
Karageorgevitch dynasty
Karlowitz
Kavala
Kennard, Dr.
Khalifate
Kiel Canal
Konieh
Königgrätz
Königsberg
Konrad von Hoetzendorf
Kosovo, battle of
Kossuth
Kosziusko
_Landmarks_
Lebanon
Legitimacy
Leipzig, battle of
Leopold I., Emperor
Leopold II
Leopold I. of Belgium
Lessing
Lloyd George, Mr.
Lodz
Louis XIV.
Luxemburg
Macara, Sir Charles
Macedonia
Magyarisation
Magyars
Maria Theresa
Marienburg
Marx, Karl
Masaryk, Professor
Maximilian I
Mazurian lakes
Mazzini
Metkovic
Metternich
Metz
Michael, Prince
Milan, King
Militarism
Military Frontiers
Mill, _On Liberty_
Milosh Obrenovitch
Mohács
Moltke
Monastir
Montenegro
Moscow
Murray, Gilbert
Napoleon
Napoleon III.
Napoleonic Wars
Nationalities, Hungarian Law of
Nationality, idea of
false conceptions of
Nazim Pasha
Nemanja dynasty
Neusatz (Novi Sad)
New Guinea
Nicholas II.
Nicholas, Grand Duke
Nietzsche
Nihilism
Norway
Novara
Obrenovitch dynasty
Orthodox Church
Palermo
Palestine
Pan-Germans
Panslavism
Peter the Great
Peter, King of Serbia
Petrograd
Piedmont
Pig War
Pius IX.
Plevna
Pobiedonostsev
Pola
Poland
Poles, Austrian
Prussian
Police state
Polish Partition
Ponsonby, Mr. A.
Posen
Prague
Princip, murderer
Protestantism in Germany
Prussia
Prussian education
Pushkin
Radicalism
Radkersburg
Ragusa
Ramsay MacDonald, Mr.
Reichstag, German
Relief Fund, National
Revolution, French
of 1848
Russian
Reynolds, Rothay
Rhodes
Rolland, Romain
Roosevelt, President
Roumania
Roumanians of Hungary
Rousseau
Russia and Prussia
Russian Church
Russification
Russo-Japanese War
Ruthenes
Sadler, Dr.
Salonica
Samoa
Sarajevo
Sarolea, Dr.
Savoy, House of
Saxons in Transylvania
Schleswig-Holstein
School strikes
Schurz, Carl
Scotland
Scott
Serbia
Serbo-Croat unity
Serb Patriarchate
Sicilies, Two
Silesia
Silistria
Slav and Teuton
Slavophilism
Slavs of Austria
Slovak Academy
Slovaks
Slovenes
Smyrna
Social effects of war
Socialism, State
Socialists, German
Sombart, Professor
Southern Slavs
State aid
Stephen Dushan
Stock Exchange
Stolypin
Sugar Commission
Sweden
Swinburne
Switzerland
Sybel
Syria
Szekels
Teutonic Knights
Tirol
Tisza, Count
Tomanovic, Dr.
Trade effects of war
Traders, South Sea
Trade Unions and war
Transylvania
Treitschke
Trentino
Trieste
Triple Alliance
Entente
Tripoli
Tschirschky
Turkification
Turks
Ukraine
Ulster
Unemployment
Ungvár
Uniate Church
Universal Suffrage
Valona
Vardar valley
Vatican
Venice
Victor Emanuel II.
Vienna
Congress of
Violence, Philosophy of
Virginia
Vistula
Voltaire
Wallas, Graham
Walloons
Warsaw, Grand-Duchy of
Weimar
Wells, H.G.
Westphalia
Wied, William of
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
William I.
William II.
William I. of Holland
W.E.A.
World-Policy, German
Wordsworth
Würtemberg
Young Turks
Zabern
Zionism
Zollverein
Zvonomir
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