And now, with all this in our minds, let us turn to consider the
vexed question of the settlement after the war. There lies before the
Western world the greatest of all choices, the choice between
destruction and salvation. But that choice does not depend merely on
the issue of the war. It depends upon what is done or left undone by
the co-operation of all when the war does at last stop. Two conceptions
of the future are contending in all nations. One is the old bad one,
that which has presided hitherto at every peace and prepared every new
war. It assumes that the object of war is solely to win victory, and
the object of victory solely to acquire more power and territory. On
this view, if the Germans win, they are to annex territory east and
west: Belgium and half France, say the more violent; the Baltic
provinces of Russia, strategic points of advantage, say the more
moderate. On the other hand, if the Allies win, the Allies are to
divide the German colonies, the French are to regain Alsace-Lorraine,
and, as the jingoes add, they are to take the whole of the German
provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, and even territory beyond it.
The Italians are to have not only Italia Irredenta but hundreds of
thousands of reluctant Slavs in Dalmatia; the Russians Constantinople,
and perhaps Posen and Galicia. Further, such money indemnities are to
be taken as it may prove possible to exact from an already ruined foe;
trade and commerce with the enemy is to be discouraged or prohibited;
and, above all, a bitter and unforgiving hatred is to reign for ever
between the victor and the vanquished. This is the kind of view of the
settlement of Europe that is constantly appearing in the articles and
correspondence of the Press of all countries. Ministers are not as
careful as they should be to repudiate it. The nationalist and
imperialist cliques of all nations endorse it. It is, one could almost
fear, for something like this that the peoples are being kept at war,
and the very existence of civilization jeopardized.
Now, whether anything of this kind really can be achieved by the
war, whether there is the least probability that either group of Powers
can win such a victory as would make the programme on either side a
reality, I will not here discuss. The reader will have his own opinion.
What I am concerned with is the effect any such solution would have
upon the future of Europe. Those who desire such a close may be divided
into two classes. The one frankly believes in war, in domination, and
in power. It accepts as inevitable, and welcomes as desirable, the
perpetual armed conflict of nations for territory and trade. It does
not believe in, and it does not want, a durable peace. It holds that
all peace is, must be, and ought to be, a precarious and regrettable
interval between wars. I do not discuss this view. Those who hold it
are not accessible to argument, and can only be met by action. There
are others, however, who do think war an evil, who do want a durable
peace, but who genuinely believe that the way indicated is the best way
to achieve it. With them it is permitted to discuss, and it should be
possible to do so without bitterness or rage on either side. For as to
the end, there is agreement; the difference of opinion is as to the
means. The position taken is this: The enemy deliberately made this war
of aggression against us, without provocation, in order to destroy us.
If it had not been for this wickedness there would have been no war.
The enemy, therefore, must be punished; and his punishment must make
him permanently impotent to repeat the offence. That having been done,
Europe will have durable peace, for there will be no one left able to
break it who will also want to break it. Now, I believe all this to be
demonstrably a miscalculation. It is contradicted both by our knowledge
of the way human nature works and by the evidence of history. In the
first place, wars do not arise because only one nation or group of
nations is wicked, the others being good. For the actual outbreak of
this war, I believe, as I have already said, that a few powerful
individuals in Austria and in Germany were responsible. But the
ultimate causes of war lie much deeper. In them all States are
implicated. And the punishment, or even the annihilation, of any one
nation would leave those causes still subsisting. Wipe out Germany from
the map, and, if you do nothing else, the other nations will be at one
another's throats in the old way, for the old causes. They would be
quarrelling, if about nothing else, about the division of the spoil.
While nations continue to contend for power, while they refuse to
substitute law for force, there will continue to be wars. And while
they devote the best of their brains and the chief of their resources
to armaments and military and naval organization, each war will become
more terrible, more destructive, and more ruthless than the last. This
is irrefutable truth. I do not believe there is a man or woman able to
understand the statement who will deny it.
In the second place, the enemy nation cannot, in fact, be
annihilated, nor even so far weakened, relatively to the rest, as to be
incapable of recovering and putting up another fight. The notions of
dividing up Germany among the Allies, or of adding France and the
British Empire to Germany, are sheerly fantastic. There will remain,
when all is done, the defeated nations—if, indeed, any nation be
defeated. Their territories cannot be permanently occupied by enemy
troops; they themselves cannot be permanently prevented by physical
force from building up new armaments. So long as they want their
revenge, they will be able sooner or later to take it. If evidence of
this were wanted, the often-quoted case of Prussia after Jena will
suffice.
And, in the third place, the defeated nations, so treated, will, in
fact, want their revenge. There seems to be a curious illusion abroad,
among the English and their allies, that not only is Germany guilty of
the war, but that all Germans know it in their hearts; that, being
guilty, they will fully accept punishment, bow patiently beneath the
yoke, and become in future good, harmonious members of the European
family. The illusion is grotesque. There is hardly a German who does
not believe that the war was made by Russia and by England; that
Germany is the innocent victim; that all right is on her side, and all
wrong on that of the Allies. If, indeed, she were beaten, and treated
as her “punishers” desire, this belief would be strengthened, not
weakened. In every German heart would abide, deep and strong, the sense
of an iniquitous triumph of what they believe to be wrong over right,
and of a duty to redress that iniquity. Outraged national pride would
be reinforced by the sense of injustice; and the next war, the war of
revenge, would be prepared for, not only by every consideration of
interest and of passion, but by every cogency of righteousness. The
fact that the Germans are mistaken in their view of the origin of the
war has really nothing to do with the case. It is not the truth, it is
what men believe to be the truth, that influences their action. And I
do not think any study of dispatches is going to alter the German view
of the facts.
But it is sometimes urged that the war was made by the German
militarists, that it is unpopular with the mass of the people, and that
if Germany is utterly defeated the people will rise and depose their
rulers, become a true democracy, and join fraternal hands with the
other nations of Europe. That Germany should become a true democracy
might, indeed, be as great a guarantee of peace as it might be that
other nations, called democratic, should really become so in their
foreign policy as well as in their domestic affairs. But what proud
nation will accept democracy as a gift from insolent conquerors? One
thing that the war has done, and one of the worst, is to make of the
Kaiser, to every German, a symbol of their national unity and national
force. Just because we abuse their militarism, they affirm and acclaim
it; just because we attack their governing class, they rally round it.
Nothing could be better calculated than this war to strengthen the hold
of militarism in Germany, unless it be the attempt of her enemies to
destroy her militarism by force. For consider—! In the view we are
examining it is proposed, first to kill the greater part of her
combatants, next to invade her territory, destroy her towns and
villages, and exact (for there are those who demand it) penalties in
kind, actual tit for tat, for what Germans have done in Belgium. It is
proposed to enter the capital in triumph. It is proposed to shear away
huge pieces of German territory. And then, when all this has been done,
the conquerors are to turn to the German nation and say: “Now, all this
we have done for your good! Depose your wicked rulers! Become a
democracy! Shake hands and be a good fellow!” Does it not sound
grotesque? But, really, that is what is proposed.
I have spoken about British and French proposals for the treatment
of Germany. But all that I have said applies, of course, equally to
German proposals of the same kind for the treatment of the conquered
Allies. That way is no way towards a durable peace. If it be replied
that a durable peace is not intended or desired, I have no more to say.
If it be replied that punishment for its own sake is more important
than civilization, and must be performed at all costs—fiat
justitia, ruat coelum—then, once more, I have nothing to say. I
speak to those, and to those only, who do desire a durable peace, and
who have the courage and the imagination to believe it to be possible,
and the determination to work for it. And to them I urge that the
course I have been discussing cannot lead to their goal. What can?