The European Anarchy Part 2

And though, being men, with the long animal inheritance of men behind them, their pa.s.sions may be roused by any cry of battle, though they are the fore-ordained dupes of those who direct the policy of nations, yet it is not their initiative that originates wars. They do not desire conquest, they do not trouble about "race" or chatter about the "survival of the fittest." It is their own needs, which are also the vital needs of society, that preoccupy their thoughts; and it is real goods that direct and inspire their genuine idealism.

We must, then, disabuse ourselves of the notion so naturally produced by reading, and especially by reading in time of war, that the German Jingoes are typical of Germany. They are there, they are a force, they have to be reckoned with. But exactly how great a force? Exactly how influential on policy? That is a question which I imagine can only be answered by guesses.

Would the reader, for instance, undertake to estimate the influence during the last fifteen years on British policy and opinion of the imperialist minority in this country? No two men, I think, would agree about it. And few men would agree with themselves from one day or one week to another.

We are reduced to conjecture. But the conjectures of some people are of more value than those of others, for they are based on a wider converse.

I think it therefore not without importance to recall to the reader the accounts of the state of opinion in Germany given by well-qualified foreign observers in the years immediately preceding the war.

[Footnote 1: As I write I come across the following, cited from a book of songs composed for German combatants under the t.i.tle "Der deutsche Zorn":--

Wir sind die Meister aller Welt In allen ernsten Dingen, * * * * *

Was Man als fremd euch hochlichst preist Um eurer Einfalt Willen, Ist deutschen Ursprungs allermeist, Und tragt nur fremde Hullen.]

9. _Opinion about Germany_.

After the crisis of Agadir, M. Georges Bourdon visited Germany to make an inquiry for the _Figaro_ newspaper into the state of opinion there. His mission belongs to the period between Agadir and the outbreak of the first Balkan war. He interviewed a large number of people, statesmen, publicists, professors, politicians. He does not sum up his impressions, and such summary as I can give here is no doubt affected by the emphasis of my own mind. His book,[1] however, is now translated into English, and the reader has the opportunity of correcting the impression I give him.

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

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

They want, he replies, part of Austria, Switzerland, Flanders, Luxemburg, Denmark, Holland, for all these are "Germanic" countries! They want colonies. They want a bigger army and a bigger navy. "An execrable race, these Pangermans!" "They have the yellow skin, the dry mouth, the green complexion of the bilious. They do not live under the sky, they avoid the light. Hidden in their cellars, they pore over treaties, cite newspaper articles, grow pale over maps, measure angles, quibble over texts or traces of frontiers." "The Pangerman is a propagandist and a revivalist." "But,"

M. Bourdon adds, "when he shouts we must not think we hear in his tones the reverberations of the German soul." The organs of the party seemed few and unimportant. The party itself was spoken of with contempt. "They talk loud," M. Bourdon was told, "but have no real following; it is only in France that people attend to them." Nevertheless, M. Bourdon concluded they were not negligible. For, in the first place, they have power to evoke the jingoism of the German public--a jingoism which the violent patriotism of the people, their tradition of victorious force, their education, their dogma of race, continually keep alive. And, secondly, the Government, when it thinks it useful, turns to the Pangermans for a.s.sistance, and lets loose their propaganda in the press. Their influence thus waxes and wanes, as it is favoured, or not, by authority. "Like the giant Antaeus," a correspondent wrote to M. Bourdon, "Pangermanism loses its force when it quits the soil of government."

It is interesting to note, however, that the Pangerman propaganda purports to be based upon fear. If they urge increased armaments, it is with a view to defence. "I considered it a patriotic duty," wrote General Keim, "in my quality of president of the German League for Defence, to demand an increase of effectives such that France should find it out of the question to dream of a victorious war against us, even with the help of other nations." "To the awakening of the national sentiment in France there is only one reply--the increase of the German forces." "I have the impression," said Count Reventlow, "that a warlike spirit which is new is developing in France. There is the danger." Thus in Germany, as elsewhere, even jingoism took the mask of necessary precaution. And so it must be, and will be everywhere, as long as the European anarchy continues. For what nation has ever admitted an intention or desire to make aggressive war?

M. Bourdon, then, takes full account of Pangermanism. Nor does he neglect the general militaristic tendencies of German opinion. He found pride in the army, a determination to be strong, and that belief that it is in war that the State expresses itself at the highest and the best, which is part of the tradition of German education since the days of Treitschke.

Yet, in spite of all this, to which M. Bourdon does full justice, the general impression made by the conversations he records is that the bulk of opinion in Germany was strongly pacific. There was apprehension indeed, apprehension of France and apprehension of England. "England certainly preoccupies opinion more than France. People are alarmed by her movements and her armaments." "The constant interventions of England have undoubtedly irritated the public." Germany, therefore, must arm and arm again. "A great war may be delayed, but not prevented, unless German armaments are such as to put fear into the heart of every possible adversary."

Germany feared that war might come, but she did not want it--that, in sum, was M. Bourdon's impression. From soldiers, statesmen, professors, business men, again and again, the same a.s.surance. "The sentiment you will find most generally held is undoubtedly that of peace." "Few think about war. We need peace too much." "War! War between us! What an idea! Why, it would mean a European war, something monstrous, something which would surpa.s.s in horror anything the world has ever seen! My dear sir, only madmen could desire or conceive such a calamity! It must be avoided at all costs." "What counts above all here is commercial interest. All who live by it are, here as elsewhere, almost too pacific." "Under the economic conditions prevailing in Germany, the most glorious victory she can aspire to--it is a soldier who says it--is peace!"

The impression thus gathered from M. Bourdon's observations is confirmed at every point by those of Baron Beyens, who went to Berlin as Belgian minister after the crisis of Agadir.[2] Of the world of business he says:--

All these gentlemen appeared to be convinced partisans of peace....

According to them, the tranquillity of Europe had not been for a moment seriously menaced during the crisis of Agadir.... Industrial Germany required to live on good terms with France. Peace was necessary to business, and German finance in particular had every interest in the maintenance of its profitable relations with French finance.[3] At the end of a few months I had the impression that these pacifists personified then--in 1912--the most common, the most widely spread, though the least noisy, opinion, the opinion of the majority, understanding by the majority, not that of the governing cla.s.ses but that of the nation as a whole (p. 172).

The ma.s.s of the people, Beyens held, loved peace, and dreaded war. That was the case, not only with all the common people, but also with the managers and owners of businesses and the wholesale and retail merchants. Even in Berlin society and among the ancient German n.o.bility there were to be found sincere pacifists. On the other hand, there was certainly a bellicose minority. It was composed largely of soldiers, both active and retired; the latter especially looking with envy and disgust on the increasing prosperity of the commercial cla.s.ses, and holding that a "blood-letting would be wholesome to purge and regenerate the social body"--a view not confined to Germany, and one which has received cla.s.sical expression in Tennyson's "Maud." To this movement belonged also the high officials, the Conservative parties, patriots and journalists, and of course the armament firms, deliberate fomenters of war in Germany, as everywhere else, in order to put money into their pockets. To these must be added the "intellectual flower of the universities and the schools." "The professors at the universities, taken _en bloc_, were one of the most violent elements in the nation." "Almost all the young people from one end of the Empire to the other have had brought before them in the course of their studies the dilemma which Bernhardi summed up to his readers in the three words 'world-power or decadence.' Yet with all this, the resolute partisans of war formed as I thought a very small minority in the nation. That is the impression I obstinately retain of my sojourn in Berlin and my excursions into the provinces of the Empire, rich or poor. When I recall the image of this peaceful population, journeying to business every week-day with a movement so regular, or seated at table on Sundays in the cafes in the open air before a gla.s.s of beer, I can find in my memories nothing but placid faces where there was no trace of violent pa.s.sions, no thought hostile to foreigners, not even that feverish concern with the struggle for existence which the spectacle of the human crowd has sometimes shown me elsewhere."

A similar impression is given by the dispatch from M. Cambon, French Amba.s.sador to Berlin, written on July 30, 1913.[4] He, too, finds elements working for war, and a.n.a.lyses them much as Baron Beyens does. There are first the "junkers," or country squires, naturally military by all their traditions, but also afraid of the death-duties "which are bound to come if peace continues." Secondly, the "higher bourgeoisie"--that is, the great manufacturers and financiers, and, of course, in particular the armament firms. Both these social cla.s.ses are influenced, not only by direct pecuniary motives but by the fear of the rising democracy, which is beginning to swamp their representatives in the Reichstag. Thirdly, the officials, the "party of the pensioned." Fourthly, the universities, the "historians, philosophers, political pamphleteers, and other apologists of German Kultur." Fifthly, rancorous diplomatists, with a sense that they had been duped. On the other hand, there were, as M. Cambon insists, other forces in the country making for peace. What were these? In numbers the great bulk, in Germany as in all countries. "The ma.s.s of the workmen, artisans and peasants, who are peace-loving by instinct." Such of the great n.o.bles as were intelligent enough to recognize the "disastrous political and social consequences of war." "Numerous manufacturers, merchants, and financiers in a moderate way of business." The non-German elements of the Empire. Finally, the Government and the governing cla.s.ses in the large southern States. A goodly array of peace forces! According to M. Cambon, however, all these latter elements "are only a sort of make-weight in political matters with limited influence on public opinion, or they are silent social forces, pa.s.sive and defenceless against the infection of a wave of warlike feeling." This last sentence is pregnant. It describes the state of affairs existing, more or less, in all countries; a few individuals, a few groups or cliques, making for war more or less deliberately; the ma.s.s of the people ignorant and unconcerned, but also defenceless against suggestion, and ready to respond to the call to war, with submission or with enthusiasm, as soon as the call is made by their Government.

On the testimony, then, of these witnesses, all shrewd and competent observers, it may be permitted to sum up somewhat as follows:--

In the years immediately preceding the war the ma.s.s of the people in Germany, rich and poor, were attached to peace and dreaded war. But there was there also a powerful minority either desiring war or expecting it, and, in either case, preparing it by their agitation. And this minority could appeal to the peculiarly aggressive form of patriotism inculcated by the public schools and universities. The war party based its appeal for ever fresh armaments on the hostile preparations of the Powers of the Entente. Its aggressive ambition masqueraded, perhaps even to itself, as a patriotism apprehensively concerned with defence. It was supported by powerful moneyed interests; and the ma.s.s of the people, pa.s.sive, ill-informed, preoccupied, were defenceless against its agitation. The German Government found the Pangermans embarra.s.sing or convenient according as the direction of its policy and the European situation changed from crisis to crisis. They were thus at one moment negligible, at another powerful. For long they agitated vainly, and they might long have continued to do so. But if the moment should come at which the Government should make the fatal plunge, their efforts would have contributed to the result, their warnings would seem to have been justified, and they would triumph as the party of patriots that had foretold in vain the coming crash to an unbelieving nation.

[Footnote 1: "L'Enigme Allemande," 1914.]

[Footnote 2: See "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," pp. 97 seq. and 170 seq.

Bruxelles, 1915.]

[Footnote 3: A Frenchman, M. Maurice Ajam, who made an inquiry among business men in 1913 came to the same conclusion. "Peace! I write that all the Germans without exception, when they belong to the world of business, are fanatical partisans of the maintenance of European peace." See Yves Guyot, "Les causes et les consequences de la guerre," p. 226.]

[Footnote 4: See French Yellow Book, No. 5.]

10. _German Policy, from 1890-1900_.

Having thus examined the atmosphere of opinion in which the German Government moved, let us proceed to consider the actual course of their policy during the critical years, fifteen or so, that preceded the war.

The policy admittedly and openly was one of "expansion." But "expansion"

where? It seems to be rather widely supposed that Germany was preparing war in order to annex territory in Europe. The contempt of German imperialists, from Treitschke onward, for the rights of small States, the racial theories which included in "German" territory Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries, may seem to give colour to this idea. But it would be hazardous to a.s.sume that German statesmen were seriously influenced for years by the lucubrations of Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his followers. Nor can a long-prepared policy of annexation in Europe be inferred from the fact that Belgium and France were invaded after the war broke out, or even from the present demand among German parties that the territories occupied should be retained. If it could be maintained that the seizure of territory during war, or even its retention after it, is evidence that the territory was the object of the war, it would be legitimate also to infer that the British Empire has gone to war to annex German colonies, a conclusion which Englishmen would probably reject with indignation. In truth, before the war, the view that it was the object of German policy to annex European territory would have found, I think, few, if any, supporters among well-informed and unprejudiced observers. I note, for instance, that Mr. Dawson, whose opinion on such a point is probably better worth having than that of any other Englishman, in his book, "The Evolution of Modern Germany,"[1] when discussing the aims of German policy does not even refer to the idea that annexations in Europe are contemplated.

So far as the evidence at present goes, I do not think a case can be made out for the view that German policy was aiming during these years at securing the hegemony of Europe by annexing European territory. The expansion Germany was seeking was that of trade and markets. And her statesmen and people, like those of other countries, were under the belief that, to secure this, it was necessary to acquire colonies. This ambition, up to a point, she was able, in fact, to fulfil, not by force but by agreement with the other Powers. The Berlin Act of 1885 was one of the wisest and most far-seeing achievements of European policy. By it the part.i.tion of a great part of the African continent between the Powers was peaceably accomplished, and Germany emerged with possessions to the extent of 377,000 square miles and an estimated population of 1,700,000.

By 1906 her colonial domain had been increased to over two and a half million square miles, and its population to over twelve millions; and all of this had been acquired without war with any civilized nation. In spite of her late arrival on the scene as a colonial Power, Germany had thus secured without war an empire overseas, not comparable, indeed, to that of Great Britain or of France, but still considerable in extent and (as Germans believed) in economic promise, and sufficient to give them the opportunity they desired to show their capacity as pioneers of civilization. How they have succeeded or failed in this we need not here consider. But when Germans demand a "place in the sun," the considerable place they have in fact acquired, with the acquiescence of the other colonial Powers, should, in fairness to those Powers, be remembered.

But, notoriously, they were not satisfied, and the extent of their dissatisfaction was shown by their determination to create a navy. This new departure, dating from the close of the decade 1890-1900, marks the beginning of that friction between Great Britain and Germany which was a main cause of the war. It is therefore important to form some just idea of the motives that inspired German policy to take this momentous step.

The reasons given by Prince Bulow, the founder of the policy, and often repeated by German statesmen and publicists,[2] are, first, the need of a strong navy, to protect German commerce; secondly, the need, as well as the ambition, of Germany to play a part proportional to her real strength in the determination of policy beyond the seas. These reasons, according to the ideas that govern European statesmanship, are valid and sufficient.

They are the same that have influenced all great Powers; and if Germany was influenced by them we need not infer any specially sinister intentions on her part. The fact that during the present war German trade has been swept from the seas, and that she is in the position of a blockaded Power, will certainly convince any German patriot, not that she did not need a navy, but that she needed a much stronger one; and the retort that there need have been no war if Germany had not provoked it by building a fleet is not one that can be expected to appeal to any nation so long as the European anarchy endures. For, of course, every nation regards itself as menaced perpetually by aggression from some other Power. Defence was certainly a legitimate motive for the building of the fleet, even if there had been no other. There was, however, in fact, another reason avowed. Germany, as we have said, desired to have a voice in policy beyond the seas. Here, too, the reason is good, as reasons go in a world of competing States. A great manufacturing and trading Power cannot be indifferent to the parcelling out of the world among its rivals. Wherever, in countries economically undeveloped, there were projects of protectorates or annexations, or of any kind of monopoly to be established in the interest of any Power, there German interests were directly affected. She had to speak, and to speak with a loud voice, if she was to be attended to. And a loud voice meant a navy. So, at least, the matter naturally presented itself to German imperialists, as, indeed, it would to imperialists of any other country.

The reasons given by German statesmen for building their fleet were in this sense valid. But were they the only reasons? In the beginning most probably they were. But the formation and strengthening of the Entente, and Germany's consequent fear that war might be made upon her jointly by France and Great Britain, gave a new stimulus to her naval ambition. She could not now be content with a navy only as big as that of France, for she might have to meet those of France and England conjoined. This defensive reason is good. But no doubt, as always, there must have lurked behind it ideas of aggression. Ambition, in the philosophy of States, goes hand in hand with fear. "The war may come," says one party. "Yes," says the other; and secretly mutters, "May the war come!" To ask whether armaments are for offence or for defence must always be an idle inquiry. They will be for either, or both, according to circ.u.mstances, according to the personalities that are in power, according to the mood that politicians and journalists, and the interests that suborn them, have been able to infuse into a nation.

But what may be said with clear conviction is, that to attempt to account for the clash of war by the ambition and armaments of a single Power is to think far too simply of how these catastrophes originate. The truth, in this case, is that German ambition developed in relation to the whole European situation, and that, just as on land their policy was conditioned by their relation to France and Russia, so at sea it was conditioned by their relation to Great Britain. They knew that their determination to become a great Power at sea would arouse the suspicion and alarm of the English. Prince Bulow is perfectly frank about that. He says that the difficulty was to get on with the shipbuilding programme without giving Great Britain an opportunity to intervene by force and nip the enterprise in the bud. He attributes here to the British Government a policy which is all in the Bismarckian tradition. It was, in fact, a policy urged by some voices here, voices which, as is always the case, were carried to Germany and magnified by the mega-phone of the Press.[3] That no British Government, in fact, contemplated picking a quarrel with Germany in order to prevent her becoming a naval Power I am myself as much convinced as any other Englishman, and I count the fact as righteousness to our statesmen.

On the other hand, I think it an unfounded conjecture that Prince Bulow was deliberately building with a view to attacking the British Empire. I see no reason to doubt his sincerity when he says that he looked forward to a peaceful solution of the rivalry between Germany and ourselves, and that France, in his view, not Great Britain, was the irreconcilable enemy.[4]

In building her navy, no doubt, Germany deliberately took the risk of incurring a quarrel with England in the pursuit of a policy which she regarded as essential to her development. It is quite another thing, and would require much evidence to prove that she was working up to a war with the object of destroying the British Empire.

What we have to bear in mind, in estimating the meaning of the German naval policy, is a complex series of motives and conditions: the genuine need of a navy, and a strong one, to protect trade in the event of war, and to secure a voice in overseas policy; the genuine fear of an attack by the Powers of the Entente, an attack to be provoked by British jealousy; and also that indeterminate ambition of any great Power which may be influencing the policy of statesmen even while they have not avowed it to themselves, and which, expressed by men less responsible and less discreet, becomes part of that "public opinion" of which policy takes account.

[Footnote 1: Published in 1908.]

[Footnote 2: See, e.g., Dawson, "Evolution of Modern Germany," p. 348.]

[Footnote 3: Some of these are cited in Bulow's "Imperial Germany," p. 36.]

[Footnote 4: See "Imperial Germany," pp. 48, 71, English translation.]

11. _Vain Attempts at Harmony_.

It may, however, be reasonably urged that unless the Germans had had aggressive ambitions they would have agreed to some of the many proposals made by Great Britain to arrest on both sides the constantly expanding programmes of naval constructions. It is true that Germany has always opposed the policy of limiting armaments, whether on land or sea. This is consonant with that whole militarist view of international politics which, as I have already indicated, is held in a more extreme and violent form in Germany than in any other country, but which is the creed of jingoes and imperialists everywhere. If the British Government had succeeded in coming to an agreement with Germany on this question, they would have been bitterly a.s.sailed by that party at home. Still, the Government did make the attempt. It was comparatively easy for them, for any basis to which they could have agreed must have left intact, legitimately and necessarily, as we all agree, the British supremacy at sea. The Germans would not a.s.sent to this. They did not choose to limit beforehand their efforts to rival us at sea. Probably they did not think it possible to equal, still less to outstrip us. But they wanted to do all they could. And that of course could have only one meaning. They thought a war with England possible, and they wanted to be as well prepared as they could be. It is part of the irony that attaches to the whole system of the armed peace that the preparations made against war are themselves the princ.i.p.al cause of war.

For if there had been no rival shipbuilding, there need have been no friction between the two countries.

"But why did Germany fear war? It must have been because she meant to make it." So the English argue. But imagine the Germans saying to us, "Why do you fear war? There will be no war unless you provoke it. We are quite pacific. You need not be alarmed about us." Would such a promise have induced us to relax our preparations for a moment? No! Under the armed peace there can be no confidence. And that alone is sufficient to account for the breakdown of the Anglo-German negotiations, without supposing on either side a wish or an intention to make war. Each suspected, and was bound to suspect, the purpose of the other. Let us take, for example, the negotiations of 1912, and put them back in their setting.

The Triple Alliance was confronting the Triple Entente. On both sides were fear and suspicion. Each believed in the possibility of the others springing a war upon them. Each suspected the others of wanting to lull them into a false security, and then take them unprepared. In that atmosphere, what hope was there of successful negotiations? The essential condition--mutual confidence--was lacking. What, accordingly, do we find?

The Germans offer to reduce their naval programme, first, if England will promise an unconditional neutrality; secondly, when that was rejected, if England will promise neutrality in a war which should be "forced upon"

Germany. Thereupon the British Foreign Office scents a snare. Germany will get Austria to provoke a war, while making it appear that the war was provoked by Russia, and she will then come in under the terms of her alliance with Austria, smash France, and claim that England must look on pa.s.sively under the neutrality agreement! "No, thank you!" Sir Edward Grey, accordingly, makes a counter-proposal. England will neither make nor partic.i.p.ate in an "unprovoked" attack upon Germany. This time it is the German Chancellor's turn to hang back. "Unprovoked! Hm! What does that mean? Russia, let us suppose, makes war upon Austria, while making it appear that Austria is the aggressor. France comes in on the side of Russia. And England? Will she admit that the war was 'unprovoked' and remain neutral? Hardly, we think!" The Chancellor thereupon proposes the addition: "England, of course, will remain neutral if war is forced upon Germany? That follows, I presume?" "No!" from the British Foreign Office.

Reason as before. And the negotiations fall through. How should they not under the conditions? There could be no understanding, because there was no confidence. There could be no confidence because there was mutual fear.

There was mutual fear because the Triple Alliance stood in arms against the Triple Entente. What was wrong? Germany? England? No. The European tradition and system.