THE PRINCIPLE OF A SETTLEMENT.
War is like all great tragedies; it is not a simple struggle between evil and good. It is a conflict between two things that are good. To see in this war a mere trial of brute force would be to misunderstand it. Each side is inspired by its own idealism, for no Government can hope to-day to lead any free people into war unless it can convince it that it is fighting under dire necessity for the defence of right. The German popular attitude is, in brief, that this war came about by reason of a Russo-Servian plot against the Austrian ally, and its object is defined as the destruction of "Tsarism." What that means in detail, I do not know; but in the minds of German Socialists, and of men like Hauptmann, Haeckel, and Eucken, it answers to some honest and liberal thought. Finland is to be liberated; Russian Poland is to be restored to the ranks of the nations; and, in some undefined way, the autocracy is to be broken. We can see with the pitiless insight of enemies how facile and partisan is this idealism.
The Two Idealisms.
And what, meantime, of our own idealism? Each side in this war is bent on liberating its enemies. We aim at freeing Germany from "militarism," and we, too, have our plans, if not for Finland, at least for Poland. There is material in this shock of two idealisms for tragedy, and even for bitter comedy. But there is something else. If we could, for a moment, blot out from our thoughts the various Governments, whose collective bankruptcy in statesmanship made this war; if we could forget the long struggle for the Balance of Power, from the Moroccan affair to the Servian crisis; if we could somehow envisage the various nations fighting amid error, half-knowledge, and anger, should we find in their real purposes a serious disagreement? Each, by some strange sophistry, believes that it is waging a defensive war. Each is persuaded that its triumph will advance European liberty. There is in all the confusion, a general will among the bemused and deceived peoples for ideal ends. The problem for the world is to bring this general will to bear upon the settlement. The secret ends of the Governments are mutually destructive. The avowed ends of the peoples are not incompatible, and if we intend that a united Europe shall emerge from these horrors, we must see to it that the triumph of our arms is also a victory for the general will.
Crushing German Militarism.
The other programme is simpler. The Allies are to dictate peace in Berlin. It is to be a "fight to a finish," and the beaten Germans are to be crushed until they can resist no demand which the victors care to impose. They will lose by the law of conquest Alsace and Posen; Austria will be dismembered and may cease to exist, and some talk of destroying Essen and the Kiel Canal, and taking what is left of the German navy. A ring of Allied Powers will then surround a prostrate Germany, so that she can move neither in the East nor the West, except at their good pleasure. Then we hope German militarism will be crushed, and an angry people will depose the Hohenzollerns. This programme would cost, not months but years of warfare, for the German Government is no more tied to Berlin than was the French to Paris. It would decimate the whole manhood of Europe. In the effort to destroy the German Empire, it would certainly ruin France. But would it end as its partisans expect? So far from resulting in a German revolution, it would probably unite the German people as it never has been united since the Napoleonic wars, and everything that is virile in the race would rally, first, to resist, and then to wipe out the humiliation. German militarists, simply because they have been defeated, will not burn their copies of Bernhardi, and take to reading Tolstoy. They will merely say that several nations with a total population of over two hundred millions have with much difficulty beaten two nations who number one hundred millions. They will arm and plot and plan to renew the struggle under better conditions. No punishment could prevent the German people from remaining the best-organised, the best-educated, and one of the most prolific of European races. Disarmed and isolated it may be; but arms are quickly forged, and amid the shifting and conscienceless play of diplomacy, alliances are easily contracted. Napoleon was banished in 1815. The Napoleonic idea was once more triumphant in 1848. A settlement which left eighty millions of Germans angry, embittered, and cherishing revenge, might last for five, or ten, or twenty years. But it would perpetuate, even while it lasted, the armed peace, and so far from crushing militarism in Germany, it would impose it also on ourselves. Militarism is, primarily, the child of fear. The Bernhardis do, indeed, cherish a real aggressive ambition. But the masses of the German middle class consented to their naval and military programme, only because they feared the Russian millions and our Dreadnoughts.
The Principle of Reciprocity.
Can an alternative programme be drafted, which will make an end, not only of German, but of every other "militarism"? Armies may destroy armies, but no army ever broke militarism. It is a state of mind, and will vanish with the fears that made it. There is, it seems to me, one test by which a just and durable settlement may be distinguished from a settlement which merely registers the momentary triumph of one force over another. It is that the settlement, in all the changes which it lays down, shall apply a universal principle. A settlement may take two forms. A and B, because they are stronger, may force C to suffer certain things. But, also, A, B, and C, after a tragic struggle, may jointly decide that certain principles shall govern them all for the future, and these principles they may agree to apply to stated cases. One must come back to the elements of morality. The real question is whether we are going to impose by force on Germany principles which we will not apply to ourselves. One must in war strive to do the maximum of harm to the enemy. But the law of peace ought to rule from the moment that negotiations begin, and the law of peace is to seek the good of one's neighbour. If certain principles which are more or less held in common by enlightened men in all nations are applied impartially, then there is a hope that when the first sorrow of defeat is over, the better mind of Germany may feel that what has triumphed is not the arms of an enemy, but a common European idealism.
Armaments.
These are vague words. Let me attempt to illustrate them. They apply alike to the question of armaments, to changes of territory, and to alliances: (1) The first point is the simplest, and needs few words. Every democracy in Europe, including that of Germany, desires to make an end of the armed peace. If we impose disarmament on Germany by taking her ships, destroying the Kiel Canal, dismantling her fortresses, or by the indirect method of a crushing indemnity, we must not expect even her Socialists to welcome the change. Let us take neither money nor colonies for ourselves—to Belgium, however, a special indemnity by way of fine and compensation must certainly be paid. One-sided disarmament would come not as deliverance, but as humiliation. The disarmament in form as well as effect must be general. All the Powers, without exception, must bind themselves either to reduce their future military and naval expenditure to some fraction of the figure that it had reached before the war, or else to accept a militia system with six or twelve months' service. Such a provision would be a triumph for German as well as for French democracy.
Nationality and the Plebiscite.
(2) The difficult question is that of territory. No "war-proof map" of Europe can be constructed which rests upon the right of conquest. We are told that the principle of nationality will govern the settlement. To take bits of Poland from one Empire and give them to another is not an honest application of the principle of nationality. That principle might be satisfied if all the Powers pledged themselves in the treaty of peace to accept federalism. The benefit would fall in that case to Ireland, Finland, and the Caucasus, as well as to Alsace and Poland. But, probably, territorial changes are inevitable. There is one way by which such changes may receive a nationaland democratic sanction. In the last resort, the fate of provinces must be decided not by the fortunes of alien armies, but by the votes of their own inhabitants. Then, and then only, will the principle of nationality be satisfied. Let Alsace and Posen, Galicia, and the Servian and Italian lands of Austria settle their own fate by a plébiscite. It must be, moreover, an honest plébiscite, conducted with full liberty for discussion, and by neutral commissioners. Is this an idle formality? I do not think so. In the first place, it would compel Russia to define clearly what sort of autonomy she offers to the Poles. In the second place, it would enable the democratic parties of the defeated Powers to acquiesce, without loss of honour, in the sacrifice of territory. They would be yielding not to the brute force of the allied armies, but to the expressed will of the population concerned. No honest German Radical or Socialist, however much he might regret such a settlement, could regard it as the mere triumph of violence, or scheme to upset it by a future war of re-conquest. But if it is to mean anything, the plébiscite must be honest. Alsace, for example, must be free it a to choose between full Home Rule within the German Empire, neutralisation, or annexation to France.
Alliances.
(3) The last point is not the least important. The future of Europe will be no brighter if it relapses once more into two armed camps, knit by military alliances. There will be no rest while the Allies "pen" Germany in, and she hunts for associates among dissatisfied and ambitious Powers. I am not among the optimists who imagine that a true Concert is going to emerge by miracle from the hatreds of this war. One cannot call the Germans "Goths, Vandals, and Huns" today and embrace them cordially in a Concert to-morrow. But we can at least avoid the mistake which the Allies made a century ago, when they isolated and ostracised France. The first step is that each and all the Powers should, at the peace, renounce their existing alliances. The next step is to erect some barrier against aggression, by a general defensive understanding among all the Great Powers, by which each should agree to defend another if menaced by an enemy who, in any quarrel had rejected the arbitrament of neutrals; This may seem a Utopian programme; The war has taught us that we must choose between Utopia and Hell.
When to Make Peace.
Any settlement will be good which legislates for Europe in a sense which the general will for freedom, speaking to-day in the sundered and hostile idealisms of the warring nations, can uphold and defend. Any settlement is bad which will have against it the whole force of the united German race. If our aim is a one-sided disarmament, a tearing away by violence of conquered provinces, and, to crown all, a coalition against the vanquished, then, indeed, we must fight to the bitter end, and dictate peace over burned villages to a nation of refugees. A peace that rests on principles common to all democracies may be reached the sooner and will last the longer. It would be intolerable that this war should end in a half-peace. Worse even than bloodshed would be the shedding of blood to no purpose. We must fight till our end is attained. But what is our central end? If at any point in the struggle Germany is ready to consider a general disarmament, then German militarism has been broken. That, and not the splendour of our victories or the arrival of the Allied Armies in Berlin, is the test by which we may distinguish a durable peace from a half-peace. The moment will have come to think of such a peace, and to welcome it through the mediation of neutrals, when the German invasion is hurled back from France and Belgium, and the German armies are fighting no longer to overwhelm their rivals, but to defend their own homes.
September 17th, 1914.