The World in Chains Part 6

German Responsibility for the War

Nor is it necessary to continue the slaughter while we argue about which belligerent must bear the chief responsibility for the outbreak. The dialectical exercises of the German Chancellor and Mr. Asquith are so futile that they remind us only of two naughty children who drag out their squabble with stubborn outcries of "He began it." The first consideration is to stop fighting. Such academic discussions are necessarily endless, for the simple reason that every nation has its faults, to which criminal motives can always be attached: every nation has its fools, whom its enemies can describe as typical representatives.

The question of responsibility for the Great War must be left to the historians of the future. I am quite confident (though even Viscount Grey or Professor Gilbert Murray cannot prove) that they will hold Germany responsible: but I am equally confident that the blame they throw on the nation responsible for the war will be less p.r.o.nounced than the praise they will reserve for the nation which first has the courage to speak of peace. My belief in Germany's responsibility is based largely on German apologetics and strengthened by the evidence of commercial conditions in Germany before the outbreak. Professor Millioud, for instance, has shown that "German industry was built up on a top-heavy system of credit, unable to keep solvent without expansion, and unable to expand sufficiently without war."[65] Or if a good working test of German responsibility were needed it would be sufficient to point out that no nation innocent of aggressive intentions would have drafted such an ultimatum as that which Austria, with German connivance, sent to Serbia; and that no nation anxious for war would have drafted such a conciliatory reply as that which Serbia returned to Austria by Russia's instructions. It is in fact clear that as long ago as 1913 Austria had determined to crush Serbia, and that in 1913 that determination was only postponed; and postponed not, as we thought at the time, by the tact of Lord Grey at the Conference of London, but only by Italy's refusal to join in the adventure, as we now know from the revelations of San Giuliano and Salandra. Similarly, knowing as we do that England is no exception to the rule that no imperial nation can be wholly compact of righteousness, we might hesitate to accept _The Times'_ version of British innocence, and we might hesitate to accept Lord Bryce's report on the German atrocities in Belgium, knowing as we do that it is based almost entirely on the hearsay evidence of refugees who would be anxious to distinguish themselves as witnesses from the general ruck of dest.i.tution; but it happens that the general charges of German aggressiveness and German brutality are fully corroborated by German literature.[66] Unfortunately these distinctions between brutal and chevaleresque methods of warfare remain only questions of method; they concern manners rather than morals, and are as irrelevant to our hopes for the abolition of war as the questions of diplomatic method already mentioned.[67] Equally irrelevant, in any discussion of the possibility of subst.i.tuting "compulsory arbitration" for war, is the attempt to distinguish between aggressive and defensive war, or to throw all the blame of aggression on either of the two belligerents; for the simple reason that each belligerent will perhaps never believe and will quite certainly never admit that his own intentions were anything but defensive or altruistic.[68] The _locus cla.s.sicus_ for such protestations of innocence occurs in the Italian Green Book, where Austrian diplomats may be found declaring, _with every appearance of sincerity_, that the invasion of Serbia was a purely defensive measure.

And in a sense, in such a well-armed continent, every aggression is indeed a fore-arming against the future. It might also be suggested that the crime of aggression is an offence not against an individual but against the peace of the community: and until the European community is const.i.tuted the guilt of such a crime cannot be brought home to either of the belligerents.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 65: _The Ruling Caste and Frenzied Trade in Germany_, by Maurice Millioud, Professor of Sociology in the University of Lausanne.

(1915.) Reviewed in the _Manchester Guardian_ by R. C. K. E.]

[Footnote 66: All that we need know, for instance, of German military conduct in Belgium is contained in the following communication made to the _Kolnische Zeitung_ by Captain Walter Brum, adjutant to the Governor-General of Belgium, who may be presumed to know the inner history of these appalling transactions:--

"The principle according to which the whole community must be punished for the fault of a single individual is justified by the theory of _terrorisation_. The innocent must suffer with the guilty; if the latter are unknown the innocent must even be punished in their place, and note that the punishment is applied not _because_ a misdeed has been committed, but _in order that_ no more shall be committed. To burn a neighbourhood, shoot hostages, decimate a population which has taken up arms against the army--all this is far less a reprisal than the sounding of a _note of warning_ for the territory not yet occupied. Do not doubt it; it was as a note of warning that Baltin, Herve, Louvain, and Dinant were burned. The burnings and bloodshed at the opening of the war showed the great cities of Belgium how perilous it was for them ..." etc.]

[Footnote 67: Chapter I, ---- 9-11.]

[Footnote 68: See below, note on p. 113; and compare Brailsford, _The War of Steel and Gold_, p. 22, on "preparations which are always supposed to be defensive," and p. 264, on the methods used to support the plea that large navies are purely "defensive."]

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The Value of German Culture

The question whether Germany is actually attempting or would be justified in attempting to impose her culture on the rest of Europe; or whether England has good reasons for the limitation or suppression of German culture, is another side-issue. German culture (in Matthew Arnold's correct use of the word, meaning, that is, the average of intellectual and social civilisation), has not on a general inspection much to be proud of. The modern literature of Germany is largely a transcription of Russian, French and English authors, and it is significant that among foreign authors the widest success is reserved for purveyors of _le faux bon_, writers whose work is distinguished by its spirited failure quite to attain the first-cla.s.s.[69] The most promising of modern authors writing in the German language, Schnitzler, is an Austrian Jew. Hauptmann, the most distinguished and original of German dramatists, has for thirty years been writing plays which would pa.s.s for imitations of Mr. John Galsworthy's failures. Sudermann's style reminds one of a snail crawling over the Indian lilies which he describes.... Germany, it is true, has reason to be proud of her theatres, but that is a matter of State enterprise, rather than an indication of national culture. The German State has been efficient enough to perceive that good theatres are a fundamental necessity of national education, and that good theatres, owing to the excessive rents they have to pay, can never be kept going without a State subsidy. But these admirable theatres can hardly be called the vehicles of a high native culture. Their famous Reinhardts are more efficient only because more acquisitive than our own Jewish impresarios. The ideas they have acquired are chiefly Russian or English: and they have profited by the ideas of Granville Barker and Gordon Craig in order to produce the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw--(just as industrial Germany profited by the ideas of Bessemer[70] and Perkins). Germany's claim to artistic vitality, to genuinely original culture, can be supported only by a certain distinct excellence in sculpture and caricature, two arts which often seem to go hand in hand, perhaps because both are based on a precise simplification of form. But for the activity of a small band of sculptors and caricaturists centred for the most part in Munich,[71] we might be content to regard Germany not as a fount of culture but rather as one of the world's workshops, a well-organised _ergastulum_ for dealing with the drudgery of modern civilisation, for manipulating secondary products and extracting derivatives, a large factory for the production of dictionaries, drugs and electrical machinery.[72]

The extraordinary efficiency of Germany, _as a workshop_, is not due to any intellectual pre-eminence of the nation as a whole. It is most clearly and emphatically due to the fact that the German autocracy, whatever its political iniquity, has had the intelligence and the national solidarity to choose its business men from among the brains of the community. In Germany any man of conspicuous intellectual capacity may be picked out, roughly speaking, and a.s.signed to the direction of a particular industry. In England we achieve inefficiency by the contrary process, and are only willing to regard a man as capable and revere him as an "expert" if he happens to have been occupied exclusively for a certain number of years in the narrow routine of a particular subject.

This pernicious fallacy of the "Expert" is actually preached in England as a means to the very Efficiency which in fact it almost invariably excludes. It is commonly a.s.sumed that no man can write a good play unless he has been a bad actor, or that a retired admiral, quite incapable of grasping any general idea that was not popular in the Navy twenty years ago or in the smoking-room of his club, would be better able to direct the affairs of the Navy than Mr. Winston Churchill or Mr.

Balfour.[73] There is a similar outcry for a government of "Business Men," although anyone who happens to have heard a couple of average business men discuss a problem of their own business in one of their own offices will hardly be able to deny that a capable poet and a capable painter would have settled the question in a quarter of the time.

Instead of superst.i.tiously believing that only "Business Men" can be efficient, Germany picks out her business men (and her bureaucrats) for their general efficiency. She has attained efficiency by abandoning the fallacy of the Expert in favour of the maxim of Confucius--"the Higher type of man is not like a vessel which is designed for some special use."[74]

But from the fact that German industry and German theatres are better managed than our own it does not follow that there is any natural or national antagonism between England and Germany. The real hatred of Germany if it exists in England at all should be found among what it is becoming the fashion to call "the intelligentsia." Such a purely intellectual hatred of the sentimental melodrama of _Faust_ and of the semitic luxuriance of Wagner and Reinhardt is not likely to become a democratic motive in England. Here brains are always unpopular, and Park Lane will never be stormed by the mob until it is inhabited by the Bernard Shaws, the Lowes d.i.c.kinsons and the Bertrand Russells, instead of by German financiers.

There is no national hatred between England and Germany. The two peoples are natural friends. Even the men in the trenches (or perhaps I should say particularly the men in the trenches), fraternise with their opponents whenever they get the chance.[75] Even now a press campaign of a few months would suffice to make Germany popular in England; and if that were ever to happen, which is not improbable, only the "intellectuals," who are most strongly opposed to this war, would still find much to dislike, but not to fight about, in the national culture produced by the German character.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 69: E.g. Oscar Wilde and Artzibashev.]

[Footnote 70: "The whole industrial expansion of Germany dates from the introduction of the Bessemer process in 1879, by which its supplies of iron became possible to work at a profit."--_Bertrand Russell_.]

[Footnote 71: It is unnecessary to refer at length to the world-famous caricaturists of _Simplicissimus_, although it may be noted that the best of them, Gulbrannson, is a Norwegian, while his chief rival, Heine, is a Jew. Munich sculptors whose names might be mentioned are Hildebrand, Taschner, Hahn, and Wrba.]

[Footnote 72: Even such scientific achievements as those of Ehrlich and Ostwald should be regarded as results of regulated industry and diligent experiment.]

[Footnote 73: Another instance of the fallacy is the quite unjustified prejudice in the Army in favour of "Regular" officers.]

[Footnote 74: The foundation of German business efficiency not on the practical science of the specialist but on theoretic and general mental exercise is further ill.u.s.trated by the great and increasing prevalence of Latin and Greek in German education ... while again our own "Business Experts" are reversing the process. The pa.s.sages that follow are quoted from a letter of Dr. Rice Holmes in _The Times_ of August 11, 1916.

"In German schools not only are cla.s.sics taught more systematically and more thoroughly than in all but a few of our own, but they are learned by a greater proportion of the population; and, moreover, the hours devoted to natural science in those schools in which it is taught are fewer than in our public schools.... Since 1903 the number of German boys receiving a cla.s.sical education has steadily increased. In 1904 there were 196,175 pupils in schools (_Gymnasien_ and _Realgymnasien_) where Latin is compulsory, of whom 153,680 belonged to the cla.s.sical schools (_Gymnasien_), and therefore learned Greek as well (W. Lexis, _Unterrichtswesen im Deutschen Reich_, ii. 218); in 1911, as Mr. R. W.

Livingstone has shown (_The Times Educational Supplement_, April 4, p.

49, col. 2), the corresponding figures were 240,000 and 170,000; and in 1908, 'out of a total of 31,622 students entering 18 out of 21 German universities (Munich, Erlangen, and Wurzburg not reporting), ... only 7-1/2 per cent entered without Latin or Greek' (Professor Francis W.

Kelsey, _Latin and Greek in American Education_, 1911, p. 43). "Moge das Studium der griechischen und romischen Literatur immerfort die Basis der hoheren Bildung bleiben." So wrote the greatest of the Germans; and the countrymen of Goethe, whose genius was scientific as well as poetical, have not forgotten his words. On the other hand, in the modern schools (_Realgymnasien_ and _Oberrealschulen_) only a small fraction of the time-table--from two hours a week (out of twenty-five) to six (out of thirty-one)--is devoted to natural science. To anyone who has read Matthew Arnold's _Higher Schools and Universities in Germany_, or Dr. M.

E. Sadler's _The Realschulen in Berlin_, or who is acquainted with the opinions expressed by Helmholtz, A. W. Hofmann, Bauer, and other 'eminent scientific professors,' it will not appear paradoxical that the object of thus restricting the hours devoted to the teaching of natural science in schools is to promote the scientific efficiency of the German nation. It was with this object that by the regulations published in 1901 the time devoted to Latin in the _Realgymnasien_ was increased. And those who do not learn natural science learn what for the nation is equally important--the value of scientific method."]

[Footnote 75: The Daily News, October 20, 1915:--

"A pathetic story is told in the _Vorwarts_ by Herr Adolf Koster (who acts as war correspondent for the German Socialist Press) in connection with the recent fighting at Hooge. A German soldier told him of a young Scotsman whom he had killed with a hand-grenade in whose pocket he had found a little pocket-book:--

"'We looked through the booklet. It contained postcards from the front, from home, from a sister and from a sweetheart--photographs from the battlefields of brave soldiers and from home. There was also a small amateur photograph, rather badly made, of a young girl sitting at a typewriter. She had blonde hair and on the back of the photo she had written: "Look at the waves of my hair and note also how very diligent I am" (English in the original). One of us asked the soldier to give him this photograph. But he replied: "You can take the whole book, photos, postcards, etc. But this picture I will keep in memory of my friend." By "his friend" he meant the Scotsman whom he had killed by his hand-grenade.'"]

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The Manufacture of Hatred

But if there is no natural hatred between the two belligerent protagonists, there is a feverish production of the artificial variety.

Indeed this diligent manufacture of hatred is probably the most demoralising result of warfare, particularly disastrous in its ethical effect on the individual. It proceeds by the ordinary methods of deceit, suppression of the true and suggestion of the untrue, and by means of the newspapers this process of moral degeneration is sometimes actively directed, sometimes only permitted or encouraged by the Governments concerned. The London press is always ready to swallow the pathetic fabrications of unscrupulous refugees, and publishes with joy any Rotterdam rumour about German b.e.s.t.i.a.lity; but refuses to print any report however authentic which ventures to suggest that the Germans are as human as ourselves. There was, for instance, a Canadian woman, Dr.

Scarlett-Synge, who under the aegis of her medical diploma, returned from Serbia through Germany, and discovered that some of the German internment camps are not as bad as they are commonly believed to be.

Whatever her qualifications and opportunities for forming a correct opinion, and they happen to have been particularly good, there is no doubt that this woman's report was of the highest interest. Yet not a single daily paper in England would consider its publication, on the ground presumably that it might reduce the national inflammation and thereby "prejudice recruiting." As if true patriotism, sane and lovely, had anything to do with the pathological condition of hatred.

"Recruiting be d.a.m.ned," says the patriotic philosopher, "_odium nunquam potest esse bonum_."[76] The method of distortion is also abundantly used by journalists of both parties. German hatred of England has often been stoked up by isolated mistranslations of sentences from _The Times_, and English and French journalists have not been slow in following the German example. It is said that after the fall of Antwerp the _Koelnische Zeitung_ announced that "as soon as the fall of Antwerp was known the church bells in Germany were rung," a harmless message which was successively distorted by the _Matin_, the _Daily Mail_, and the _Corriere della Sera_, until it finally reappeared in the _Matin_ in the following form: "According to the information of the _Corriere della Sera_ from London and Cologne it is confirmed that the barbaric conquerors of Antwerp punished the unfortunate Belgian priests for their heroic refusal to ring the church bells by hanging them as living clappers to the bells with their heads downwards."[77]

The Manufacture of Hatred is unfortunately become a part of the Nationalist Movement in nearly all modern European States. The spurious Nationalism which is the result not of race but of education, depends for its existence almost entirely on so-called ethnological propaganda and continues to thrive by the cultivation of two propositions, neither of which is true: that all the members of one national group are racially different from all the members of the neighbouring group; and that this racial difference naturally and necessarily and properly implies the mutual hatred of the two nations. They proclaim, in fact, that certain nations are the "natural enemies " of certain others, by hating which they are only fulfilling the national function of self-realisation. By such arguments, which have no genuine ethnological foundation, the false prophets of nationalism are filling Europe with the racial prejudice of artificial Kelts, artificial Poles, and artificial Teutons. Of course race hatred between Slav and Teuton is no more "natural" than family hatred between Jones and Robinson; and even if it were, even that is if the cultures of two neighbouring races were mutually exclusive, it could still be argued--as it must in any case be argued--that no nation is racially pure. The last "Pole" I met proudly professed that the hatred of Russia was _in his blood_. Yet he was born in Bessarabia, and it was therefore not surprising that his facial type was distinctly Roumanian; he came, that is, if race means anything at all, of a Graeco-Latin stock, and his hatred of Russia, which seemed to be the beginning and the end of his programme of "Polish nationalism,"

was the result of a few years of neglected education. Half the conflicting "Nationalisms" of Europe are programmes of artificial hatred, the propagandists of which may actually be of the same blood as their opponents; a single generation suffices for the manufacture of the racial enthusiast, which is often completed by a modification of the family name. Even Greeks and Bulgars are frequently of common descent.

When a Macedonian village changes hands the Greek Karagiozes has been known to develop into the Bulgarian Karagiozoff; and a Mazarakis will boast a racial incompatibility with his second cousin Madjarieff. The same process for the manufacture of nationalism may be detected at the other end of Europe: at Mons of glorious memory there was a Walloon with the good old Walloon name of Le Grand, whose grandfather had been an equally enthusiastic Fleming with the good old Flemish name of De Groodt.

True nationalism may indeed be differentiated by the absence of this artificial element of ethnological hatred. True nationalism is simply the feeling for the small independent community, a movement for the autonomy of the local group. No true manifestation of the nationalist movement in Europe is ever opposed to other nationalisms; but all alike are involved in a desperate political conflict with their common enemy Imperialism.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 76: Spinoza, _Ethica_, IV, 45.]

[Footnote 77: _Labour Leader_, March 30, 1916, quoting an address by Mr.

Arthur Ponsonby, M.P.--I have not been able to verify these references, so I give the story only as an example of the method of progressive distortion, and not as one that actually occurred, though it may have done so.]

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Imperialism the Enemy

Imperialism, on the other hand, is the feeling for large dominions and is very often only an unreasoning l.u.s.t for the possession of territory:[78] surviving perhaps from the time when the land of the community was regarded as the reserved hunting-ground of the tribal chief, or at least as the private estate of the national monarch. But in so far as this pa.s.sionate desire for extending the superficial territory under the central government is a reasoning desire, in so far that is as attempts have been made to justify by retrospective theories the almost instinctive achievements of painting the map red, it is fairly clear (although the issues have been confused by altruistic and Kiplingesque but not by any means unfounded views about the White Man's Burden) that Imperialism is based on the insatiable claims of over-productive commerce. Commerce at any rate is the _ex post facto_ excuse for the foundation of the British Empire, and if it can no longer be pleaded as a reason for the maintenance of the British Empire, it is simply because the British Empire is no longer an empire, but for the most part a federation of autonomous states.[79] But Imperialism has only been scotched by the unconscious wisdom of English political development. It still unhappily survives not only in the intermittent demand for the acquisition of fresh colonial territory, but also, in its crudest form, without even the shadow of an excuse commercial or altruistic, in the continued subjection of Ireland to English rule. We must not be surprised if the imperialistic elements of the State receive after the war a new lease of life from the mutual encouragement of commerce and militarism.

The commercial cla.s.ses of course support Imperialism because, with an obtuseness permitted only to our "business men," they believe that the acquisition of more colonies still means the discovery of new markets.[80] They have not yet realised that nowadays all markets are practically open markets, and that no tariff can effectively exclude goods for which there is any demand, for the simple reason that an effective demand cheerfully pays an increased price. All nations in fact stand to share fairly the commercial advantage of each other's colonial markets: and it might even be shown by a little simple book-keeping that the particular balance any nation gains from trading with a colony of its own must be debited with the expense of governing that colony. In short, the commercial excuse for Imperialism is actually obsolete. Yet commerce continues to support Imperialism, and although the original reason for this support is no longer valid, it is still, unconsciously perhaps but very methodically, serving its own interests by this support, in so far as Imperialism involves militarism (or "navalism") and so leads to the probability of war. But even if the commercial reasons which const.i.tute the only possible excuse for Imperialism were still valid, it would still remain equally valid and much more important that Imperialism is bad in itself, the enemy of liberty and the begetter of arrogance.

Imperialism is bad on general grounds because it implies a centralisation of authority which violates the natural rights of nationalities. A nationality, as has already been suggested, means not necessarily a pure racial enclave, but simply a small local group, in the formation of which similarity of "race," religion, and culture will not be ignored but will naturally be considered as modifications of primarily geographical boundaries. The right of nationalities to local autonomy, to deal again only with the simplest general reason, is based on the idea of democracy, the exercise of a political voice being regarded as a natural and inalienable right of the free citizen.

Democracy means representative government, and representative government simply does not work in a large and mixed community of more than twenty millions.[81] Hence the right of nationalities to local autonomy is fundamental, and is inconsistent with Imperialism as such.

Imperialism is bad because it is based on conquest, implies a "subject race," and sooner or later will have to be maintained by war. It breeds a conquering and commercial spirit, which is never satisfied unless it is carrying some one else's burden (at a high freight). The imperialist plutocracy will then find itself so much occupied with other people's affairs that it will be neglecting domestic politics altogether: and this neglect will be the more disastrous in so far as poverty and servitude will have increased at the same rate as luxury. The citizens of an Imperialist state will be unable to control their commercial masters, and, as Rousseau said of the English, will soon find themselves a nation of slaves[82]: and that not only because a policy of conquest is incompatible with democracy; but also because the l.u.s.t of conquest and the arrogance of