War Letters of a Public-School Boy Part 9

Frederick the Great has had a far stronger and better influence on history than a selfish, callous person like Louis XIV.

Of all the benevolent despots there is only one, Frederick the Great, to whom can be fitly applied what Johnson said of Goldsmith: "Let not his faults be remembered: he was a very great man."

Under a despotism the aristocracy loses all its powers, and, except for the bureaucracy and "King's friends," there is no privileged cla.s.s unless the King is a weak man and under the thumb of his court (e.g., contrast the France of Louis XIV with that of Louis XV).

Carlyle in his "French Revolution" paints a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle, voluptuous n.o.blesse of the eighteenth century: compare the views of de Tocqueville.

Carlyle in his grim account of the death-bed of Louis XV writes: "We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's death-bed." Paul's comment: "cf. the episode of the death of Front-de-Boeuf in 'Ivanhoe.'"

Lord Chesterfield saw clearly the symptoms of the coming Revolution in France. Only two other men in Europe foresaw that immense event: Goldsmith and Arthur Young. Note Gibbon's complacent att.i.tude _in re_ France to ill.u.s.trate the general lack of vision on the subject.

Voltaire's summing up of the consequences of Turgot's fall may be expressed in Sir Edward Grey's phrase: "Death, disaster and d.a.m.nation."

If Louis XVI had been wiser and more capable, would he have averted the French Revolution? I think not. It is to be doubted whether even a strong king, after so many years of tyranny which had generated such hatred of the ancient regime, could have checked the flow of forces making for the Revolution. Apart from the effect of the old tyranny, new ideas of democracy were arising. Witness the contemporary failure of a great benevolent despot in Joseph II.

There was no idea of nationality in the foreign policy of the younger Pitt.

Hilaire Belloc's description of the guillotining of the Dantonists forms a picture among the most thrilling, enthralling and agonising that I know.

Fox stands out as one of the most brilliant failures and one of the most ineffective geniuses in history.

Before war broke out in 1870 the world believed in the military superiority of France. Only that grim trio, Bismarck, Moltke and Roon, knew the contrary.

William the First, grandfather of the present Kaiser, was an absurdly overestimated character. He owed all his success to his great Ministers.

Treitschke writes: "The territories drained by great rivers are usually centres of civilisation.... Our Rhine remains the king of all rivers, but what great thing has ever happened on the Danube?" Paul's comment on this:

"I know of only three great events on the Danube. One, the capture of Vienna by the Turks; two, the Battle of Blenheim; three, the Battle of Ulm."

The Jews are a truly extraordinary race. Though they have for centuries been persecuted, despised, outcast, so far from being crushed by their sufferings, they seem actually to have been toughened in fibre, and to-day they exercise a commanding influence in the world.

England's geographical position does not fit her for the role of a Continental Power. Her home is on the sea; her empire world-wide.

Each race, each nation, has its own characteristics, its own peculiar type of civilisation. Attempts to destroy these inherent qualities have time and time again been baffled--as the examples of the Jews, Poland and Alsace-Lorraine clearly demonstrate....

As Treitschke puts it: "The idea of a world-State is odious. The whole content of civilisation cannot be realised in a single State. Every people has the right to believe that certain powers of the Divine Reason display themselves in it at their highest."

Patriotism may indeed be but a larger form of selfishness, but it is a larger form. It does involve devotion to others. As long as men are men, it is so unlikely as almost to be impossible that patriotism will ever be replaced by cosmopolitanism.

A great point in favour of the rule of democracy is its character-building power.

It is customary in a certain cla.s.s of society to abuse trade-unionism. People talk of the tyranny of trade-unionism; it would be as easy, perhaps more justifiable, to talk of the tyranny of Capital. The trade union has its counterpart in what are termed the "upper cla.s.ses." For example, the British Medical a.s.sociation is nothing but a trade union under another name. The trade union is an absolute necessity to the worker in modern society.

_Laissez-faire_ has advantages up to a point; State control has advantages up to a point. The most successful nation will be that one which succeeds in making a judicious mixture of the two systems.

The Englishman in his devil-may-care way does not trouble to persecute or oppress; his tolerant spirit, aided by the splendid devotion of a few great men, has, in the words of Seeley, built up a glorious free Empire "in a fit of absence of mind."

You will never make the English people idealistic, but you will never conquer them on that very account.

While the German talks and dreams of world-Empire, the Englishman smiles, puts his pipe in his mouth and goes off to found it by accident.

The modern system of diplomacy is as vile as anything can be.

Even in England it is the negation of popular government.

Man's duty to his neighbour ought to be observed as well as the harsh and pitiless laws of trade and compet.i.tion.

The social conditions of our industrial towns to-day are a standing indictment of the _laissez-faire_ system.

The great warrior is no more important than the humble toiler.

Gladstone's finance was governed by the determination to spend as little as possible. It does not seem to be so good as that of Lloyd George, viz., to be prepared to spend a great deal provided you are sure it is for the benefit of the people.

On a remark of Dr. Sarolea's _in re_ the alleged inherent antagonism between Europe and America on the one side and Asia and Africa on the other: "Absurd! If we are to be good Europeans we must first of all be good world citizens. The Asiatic is as much our brother as is the Belgian or the American."

It is not the case that England has checked Germany's Colonial development. Germany has herself to blame--herself and destiny.

But I must say that Germany had to some extent right on her side in the Morocco dispute.

The Germans ignore the fact that wherever we British go we throw our ports open to the commerce of the world.

In the autumn of 1914 my son read General von Bernhardi's book, "Germany and the Next War." In his notes on this book he drew attention to Bernhardi's frequent self-contradictions and his false philosophy. From these notes the following excerpts are taken:

Here Bernhardi flatly contradicts the biological argument he uses earlier in the chapter. Biology knows nothing of States; it sees only human beings.

Look at the intimate connection between Darwinism and the political and economic views of the Individualist Radicals of the mid-Victorian era.

Bernhardi a.s.sumes that mere material existence is always to be man's destiny. But the perpetuation of existence beyond the immediate present cannot be guided by the instinct of grabbing.

The modern theory is that good and bad as abstract considerations do not exist, but that they are what experience shows to be best for us in the end. The animal knows this subconsciously; man consciously to a certain extent.

Emphatically No; mere brute force is not the law of the universe.

Bernhardi may as well talk of conquering the moon as of conquering the U.S.A.

Man's true development consists above all in the negation of his selfish elements for the good of humanity.

Bernhardi's proposition, "Only the State which strives after an enlarged sphere of influence can create the conditions under which mankind develops into the most splendid perfection," Paul counters by asking: "How does this theory fit in with the case of the Greeks, who, politically so weak, were yet intellectually so great that to-day, after 2,000 years, their influence in Europe is as great as ever? Which would you rather have been, tiny Greece or vast Persia?"

On Bernhardi's remark: "No excuse for revolutionary agitation in Germany now exists."

No excuse? When the people have no power at all, and can at any moment be led to the slaughter by a pack of Junkers--"all for the good of the State"; in other words, to give the military caste more wealth and dignity. In a few years Bernhardi will see whether the people have any cause for revolution or not.

The Germany of philosophy, poetry and song will rescue the German people from the abyss into which the War Lords have plunged them.

Germany was indeed unfortunate in entering the world as a great Power so late. But she will not make any progress by perpetually brandishing a sword before Europe.

I do think that Prussia's policy in the past was largely determined by her geographical situation.

The Entente with France was the price we paid for Egypt. Germany never entered our thoughts at all.

On Bernhardi's allusion to India, Paul wrote: "Curiously enough, the very day I read this I heard in the House of Commons the wonderful story of the gifts presented to the British Government for war purposes by the Indian princes. Such a pa.s.sionate outburst of loyalty has never been equalled. This grat.i.tude and devotion we have won not by the rule of force, but by that of justice and kindness."