17. The Responsibility and the Moral.

     
     
      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.