It will be seen from this brief account that so far as the published
evidence goes I agree with the general view outside Germany that the
responsibility for the war at the last moment rests with the Powers of
Central Europe. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can be no
reasonable doubt was known to and approved by the German Government,
was the first crime. And it is hardly palliated by the hope, which no
well-informed men ought to have entertained, that Russia could be kept
out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia. The second crime was the
German ultimatum to Russia and to France. I have no desire whatever to
explain away or palliate these clear facts. But it was not my object in
writing this pamphlet to reiterate a judgment which must already be
that of all my readers. What I have wanted to do is to set the tragic
events of those few days of diplomacy in their proper place in the
whole complex of international politics. And what I do dispute with
full conviction is the view which seems to be almost universally held
in England, that Germany had been pursuing for years past a policy of
war, while all the other Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace.
The war finally provoked by Germany was, I am convinced, conceived as a
“preventive war.” And that means that it was due to the belief that if
Germany did not fight then she would be compelled to fight at a great
disadvantage later. I have written in vain if I have not convinced the
reader that the European anarchy inevitably provokes that state of mind
in the Powers, and that they all live constantly under the threat of
war. To understand the action of those who had power in Germany during
the critical days it is necessary to bear in mind all that I have
brought into relief in the preceding pages: the general situation,
which grouped the Powers of the Entente against those of the Triple
Alliance; the armaments and counter-armaments; the colonial and
economic rivalry; the racial and national problems in South-East
Europe; and the long series of previous crises, in each case tided
over, but leaving behind, every one of them, a legacy of fresh mistrust
and fear, which made every new crisis worse than the one before. I do
not palliate the responsibility of Germany for the outbreak of war. But
that responsibility is embedded in and conditioned by a responsibility
deeper and more general—the responsibility of all the Powers alike for
the European anarchy.
If I have convinced the reader of this he will, I think, feel no
difficulty in following me to a further conclusion. Since the causes of
this war, and of all wars, lie so deep in the whole international
system, they cannot be permanently removed by the “punishment” or the
“crushing” or any other drastic treatment of any Power, let that Power
be as guilty as you please. Whatever be the issue of this war, one
thing is certain: it will bring no lasting peace to Europe unless it
brings a radical change both in the spirit and in the organization of
international politics.
What that change must be may be deduced from the foregoing
discussion of the causes of the war. The war arose from the rivalry of
States in the pursuit of power and wealth. This is universally
admitted. Whatever be the diversities of opinion that prevail in the
different countries concerned, nobody pretends that the war arose out
of any need of civilization, out of any generous impulse or noble
ambition. It arose, according to the popular view in England, solely
and exclusively out of the ambition of Germany to seize territory and
power. It arose, according to the popular German view, out of the
ambition of England to attack and destroy the rising power and wealth
of Germany. Thus to each set of belligerents the war appears as one
forced upon them by sheer wickedness, and from neither point of view
has it any kind of moral justification. These views, it is true, are
both too simple for the facts. But the account given in the preceding
pages, imperfect as it is, shows clearly, what further knowledge will
only make more explicit, that the war proceeded out of rivalry for
empire between all the Great Powers in every part of the world. The
contention between France and Germany for the control of Morocco, the
contention between Russia and Austria for the control of the Balkans,
the contention between Germany and the other Powers for the control of
Turkey—these were the causes of the war. And this contention for
control is prompted at once by the desire for power and the desire for
wealth. In practice the two motives are found conjoined. But to
different minds they appeal in different proportions. There is such a
thing as the love of power for its own sake. It is known in
individuals, and it is known in States, and it is the most disastrous,
if not the most evil, of the human passions. The modern German
philosophy of the State turns almost exclusively upon this idea; and
here, as elsewhere, by giving to a passion an intellectual form, the
Germans have magnified its force and enhanced its monstrosity. But the
passion itself is not peculiar to Germans, nor is it only they to whom
it is and has been a motive of State. Power has been the fetish of
kings and emperors from the beginning of political history, and it
remains to be seen whether it will not continue to inspire democracies.
The passion for empire ruined the Athenian democracy, no less than the
Spartan or the Venetian oligarchy, or the Spain of Philip II, or the
France of the Monarchy and the Empire. But it still makes its appeal to
the romantic imagination. Its intoxication has lain behind this war,
and it will prompt many others if it survives, when the war is over,
either in the defeated or the conquering nations. It is not only the
jingoism of Germany that Europe has to fear. It is the jingoism that
success may make supreme in any country that may be victorious.
But while power may be sought for its own sake, it is commonly
sought by modern States as a means to wealth. It is the pursuit of
markets and concessions and outlets for capital that lies behind the
colonial policy that leads to wars. States compete for the right to
exploit the weak, and in this competition Governments are prompted or
controlled by financial interests. The British went to Egypt for the
sake of the bondholders, the French to Morocco for the sake of its
minerals and wealth. In the Near East and the Far it is commerce,
concessions, loans that have led to the rivalry of the Powers, to war
after war, to “punitive expeditions” and—irony of ironies!—to
“indemnities” exacted as a new and special form of robbery from peoples
who rose in the endeavour to defend themselves against robbery. The
Powers combine for a moment to suppress the common victim, the next
they are at one another's throats over the spoil. That really is the
simple fact about the quarrels of States over colonial and commercial
policy. So long as the exploitation of undeveloped countries is
directed by companies having no object in view except dividends, so
long as financiers prompt the policy of Governments, so long as
military expeditions, leading up to annexations, are undertaken behind
the back of the public for reasons that cannot be avowed, so long will
the nations end with war, where they have begun by theft, and so long
will thousands and millions of innocent and generous lives, the best of
Europe, be thrown away to no purpose, because, in the dark, sinister
interests have been risking the peace of the world for the sake of
money in their pockets.
It is these tremendous underlying facts and tendencies that suggest
the true moral of this war. It is these that have to be altered if we
are to avoid future wars on a scale as great.