¥ 
 
 Class _.. 
 
 Book 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN WHO 
 
 FELL IN GALLANT FIGHT DEFENDING A JUST 
 
 AND AN HONOURABLE CAUSE ON THE 
 
 . SHORES AND SLOPES OF 
 
 GALLIPOLI 
 
REFLECTIONS ON 
 THE WAR 
 
REFLECTIONS ON 
 THE WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 G. C. HENDERSON, M.A. ( cw) 
 ii 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE 
 
 ADELAIDE: G. HASSELL & SON 
 1916 
 

 i 
 
 <=£/£%>£$& 
 
PREFACE 
 
 During the past nine months I have delivered lectures 
 on the war in Adelaide and thirty of the country towns 
 in South Australia. The arrangements of a business 
 character were carried out willingly and efficiently by 
 Mr. C. R. Hodge, who acted in co-operation with the 
 local committees of the University Extension movement. 
 Of the courtesy and kindliness shown me in the country 
 districts I have very pleasing memories, and I would 
 like to express my thanks to the kind folk who enter- 
 tained me, and also to those who worked so assiduously 
 in many of the centres to make the lectures a success. 
 Upwards of 10,000 people did me the honour to come 
 and listen to what I had to say, and some of them have 
 expressed the wish that the lectures on The Chief Responsi- 
 bility for the War, British and German Imperialism, and 
 The War and Civilization, might be published in book 
 form. Though I have said nothing that has not been 
 said many a time, I have decided to comply with their 
 wish. I believe that the war in which Australia and 
 the Empire are engaged is a just and an honourable 
 war ; and I would fain put my reasons for thinking so 
 before as many of my fellow-countrymen as may be. 
 But besides that, the publication of these reflections on 
 the war gives me another opportunity of adding to the 
 amount I have already been instrumental in raising for 
 the relief of the stricken Belgians. They have proved 
 themselves to be brave men and women, who love 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 freedom and honour more than material aggrandisement. 
 Nobly have they fought and suffered, not only for them- 
 selves, but also for us. Any profits that may come to 
 me from the sale of this little book shall be devoted, as 
 the proceeds of my lectures were, to the Belgian Relief 
 Fund. 
 
 I am grateful to Professor W. Mitchell and Mr. F. W. 
 Eardley for reading through and emending my manuscript. 
 
 University of Adelaide, 
 South Australia. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 
 
 Chapter I. The White Books 
 
 The publication of the British and German White 
 Boo\s\ the one an historical document, the other a law- 
 yer's brief. Suppression of the correspondence between 
 Germany and Austria. Germany incurs grave responsi- 
 bility (i) by rejecting Sir Edward Grey's proposal for a 
 conference; reasons why the proposal was both practical 
 and fair; (2) for sending a peremptory ultimatum to 
 Russia on July 3 1 when Vienna and St. Petersburg were " in 
 conversation " on the terms of the Austrian note to Servia. 
 Was Germany working for war while professing peace ? 
 The suppressed correspondence would help to elucidate 
 this question. Italy remained neutral; the reason given 
 by the Marquis di San Giuliano. 
 
 Chapter II. The Neutrality and Independence 
 of Belgium 
 
 Great Britain went to war to defend the neutrality and 
 independence of Belgium. History of the neutrality and 
 independence of Belgium: the Treaty of London, 1839; 
 the Treaty of 1870; the Convention of 1907; the 
 Kaiser's promise in October, 1910; Herr von Jagow's 
 promise in the Reichstag in April, 191 3. "Infamous 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 proposals" by Germany to Great Britain. Importance 
 of the conversation between Sir Edward Goschen and 
 the German Chancellor on August 4. Reasons why 
 Great Britain could not afford to break her plighted 
 word. Scraps of paper, and the usages of civilization. 
 Honour a fundamental consideration in the business and 
 finance of great nations. Difference between the psycho- 
 logical climate of Potsdam and Westminster. 
 
 Chapter III. Military Dynamic in Germany 
 
 The influence of Prussia on Germany since 1870. 
 The " blood and iron" policy of Bismarck. The "speed- 
 ing up" of the army since 1870 and the navy since 
 1899. Military and naval strength of Germany on the 
 outbreak of the war. The worship of force and the reli- 
 gion of valour. The ascendancy of the " German spirit " 
 and the "will to conquer". 
 
 PART II 
 BRITISH AND GERMAN IMPERIALISM 
 
 Chapter IV. Germany's Imperial Ambitions 
 
 Bismarck's observations on the merits and defects in 
 the character of the Prussians; their swagger and their 
 desire for importance abroad. Germany's determination 
 to have "a better place in the sun"; her imperial ambi- 
 tions in Eastern Europe and Asia; her colonies beyond 
 the seas. Success of Bismarck's diplomacy. German 
 possessions in Africa and the Pacific. The failure of the 
 Kaiser's "mailed fist" diplomacy. The determination 
 to proceed by conquest. General von Bernhardi's book 
 Germany and the Next War. Germany infected by Prus- 
 sian military swagger, and intoxicated by success in 
 science, commerce, and war. 
 
CONTENTS 9 
 
 Chapter V. The Quality of German Imperialism 
 
 Success in science, commerce, and war does not prove 
 any real capacity for colonization. In political sense and 
 imperial method Germany is far behind the times. 
 Analysis of the German Federal Government: its essen- 
 tially despotic character. German experiments in colo- 
 nization and imperial control. Her overseas empire. 
 Success in minor matters, and failure in the greater. 
 German emigrants go to the United States and the 
 British colonies, not to German colonies; reasons for this. 
 Germany's imperial experiments in Poland and Alsace- 
 Lorraine; failure to elicit spontaneous loyalty in either. 
 The last word in German imperialism is domination; it 
 is essentially a military imperialism based upon force, not 
 persuasion. 
 
 Chapter VI. A Study in Contrast 
 
 German forecasts concerning the probable difficulties 
 in the British Empire on the outbreak of war; their 
 complete falsification. The splendid loyalty of India. 
 The whole-hearted co-operation of the self-governing 
 Dominions. Reasons for the remarkable display of loyalty. 
 Freedom the last word in British imperialism. Contrast 
 between British and German imperialism in aim and 
 method. 
 
 PART III 
 THE WAR AND CIVILIZATION 
 
 Chapter VII. The Policy of Frightfulness 
 
 King George's message to the Dominions at the 
 beginning of the war. The attack on the continuity 
 of civilization. Leading ideas in the political philosophy 
 
io CONTENTS 
 
 of Berlin. Bernhardi's application of biological law to 
 human development; what it involves. Huxley's repu- 
 diation of it in 1893; his substitution of an "ethical" 
 for the "cosmic" process in human development. Great 
 Britain stands for the one in this struggle, Germany for 
 the other. Germany has attacked the continuity of 
 civilization by her years of preparation for world con- 
 quest, by the abuses of a system of espionage in other 
 countries, and by the low estimate she has placed upon 
 human life. Her crimes against civilized feeling in 
 Belgium and on the Atlantic. The application of the 
 doctrines of Bernhardi by the German war-lords. 
 
 Chapter VIII. National Individualism v. 
 International Law 
 
 Treitschke's teaching on the final authority of the 
 State; its influence on the German mind. The doctrine 
 of the almightiness of the State a challenge to the 
 authority of the comity of nations and international 
 law. It is also against the stream of tendency in the 
 history of the past 400 years. Wolsey and the balance 
 of power. The settlement of disputes by international 
 arbitration in the last century. The influence of the 
 comity of nations in the Hague conferences and 
 conventions making for the supremacy of international 
 law and agreement. The need for an international 
 court of arbitration with sufficient force behind it to 
 repress national aggression. 
 
 Chapter IX. The Need of the Hour 
 
 Too much made of the influence of finance and trade 
 on Germany's capacity to carry on the struggle. Ordinary 
 economic principles do not apply in the present condition 
 of things, provided Germany can produce all she wants. 
 Explanation and reservation. The maintenance of a 
 
CONTENTS 1 1 
 
 fighting force the ultimate thing. Bulgaria's intervention 
 unfortunate for the Allies; but there is still much greater 
 reserve power in the allied nations than in the Central 
 Powers; the great need is to organize these resources as 
 speedily and effectively as possible. Will the democratic 
 governments of the Empire rise to the greatness of the 
 occasion as France has done ? 
 
Part I 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY 
 FOR THE WAR 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WHITE BOOKS 
 
 HERE are many questions con- 
 cerning the conduct of this great 
 war upon which experts in finance 
 and the art of war are alone cap- 
 able of expressing an opinion. 
 But there are others of general and almost 
 universal interest which any man of common 
 sense and average intelligence may answer for 
 himself after a study of the evidence already 
 available. Where lies the chief responsibility 
 for the war ? How is it likely to affect us as 
 members of the British Empire ? What bear- 
 ing has it upon the continuity and progress of 
 civilization ? These are questions of first-rate 
 importance. 
 
 And, fortunately, in dealing with the first 
 of them, evidence of the most valuable kind is 
 available. Great Britain, Germany, Russia, 
 Austria, and France have issued books contain- 
 ing in some cases all, in others a part, of the 
 
1 6 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 correspondence that passed between the diffe- 
 rent European powers up to the time of the 
 outbreak of hostilities. This is original evi- 
 dence, and every intelligent man or woman 
 in the world may study it and make up his or 
 her mind concerning the question of responsi- 
 bility for the war. Members of the British 
 Empire are naturally more directly interested 
 in the British and German publications than 
 any other, and the first thing that makes a deep 
 impression on the mind of the student is the 
 radically different way in which the two great 
 powers have addressed themselves to the world. 
 In the British White Book the British govern- 
 ment published in full, and without comment, 
 every message that passed between Sir Edward 
 Grey and the continental powers. Not so the 
 German government. They have published 
 an argument defending their own position, and 
 the argument is supplemented by a selection 
 of the correspondence only. Not one of the 
 messages that passed from Germany to Austria 
 concerning the terms of the Austrian ultima- 
 tum to Servia has been printed. The British 
 White Book is an historical document; the Ger- 
 man White Book is a lawyer's brief. The one 
 takes the world fully and fearlessly into its 
 confidence ; the other suppresses evidence 
 and takes refuge in special pleading. The British 
 government have treated the world at large 
 
THE WHITE BOOKS 17 
 
 as they have been accustomed to treat their 
 own people, through the medium of a free and 
 outspoken press ; the German government 
 have treated the world at large as they have 
 been accustomed to treat their own people 
 through an official and censored press. 
 
 The methods are quite characteristic, and 
 the difference, so far as it affects the honest 
 seeker after truth, has not been lost upon 
 neutral nations. In its issue for August 23, 
 1 9 14, the New York Times says: "Sir Edward 
 Grey puts all his cards upon the table face 
 upward, and every inquirer into the truth of 
 the negotiations for peace may acquaint him- 
 self with every detail of Sir Edward's unre- 
 mitting efforts to avert the disaster of war. . . . 
 Germany presents a lawyer's brief, a special 
 pleading in which, with such skill as its authors 
 could command, the attempt is made to present 
 her part in the negotiations that preceded war 
 in a light most favourable to herself. Between 
 these two an impartial world will judge". 
 
 An impartial world has already come to the 
 conclusion that Germany suppressed the evi- 
 dence because she could not afford to let the 
 world discover the truth for itself. 
 
 But though the suppression of this corres- 
 pondence between Germany and Austria 
 leaves some gaps in our knowledge, there is 
 evidence available in the publications by the 
 
1 8 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 other governments which helps to fill the gaps, 
 and settle this question of responsibility for 
 the outbreak of the war. 
 
 To begin with, Germany incurred very 
 grave responsibility by rejecting Sir Edward 
 Grey's proposal to submit the differences be- 
 tween Austria and Servia to the consideration 
 of a conference. That proposal was both fair 
 and practical. It was fair because in that con- 
 ference two powers belonging to the Triple 
 Alliance — Germany and Italy — were to be 
 represented, while England and France were 
 to represent the Triple Entente. Russia 
 agreed to stand aside and abide by the deci- 
 sion of the conference. It was therefore a fair 
 proposal. And it was also a practical proposal. 
 It was by means of a conference that the Bal- 
 kan war, two or three years before, was pre- 
 vented from becoming a European war; and 
 Sir Edward Grey has stated publicly that it 
 would have been easier to prevent this Austro- 
 Servian dispute developing into a European 
 war than it was to restrict the Balkan con- 
 flict. England, France, and Italy agreed to 
 take part in the conference; Germany declined, 
 and gave as her reason that, as it was a quar- 
 rel between Austria and Russia, Vienna and 
 St. Petersburg should try to settle it between 
 themselves; and in the event of their agreeing 
 to do so she promised to "press the button 
 
THE WHITE BOOKS 19 
 
 as hard as she could" at Vienna to make 
 Austria more conciliatory about the terms of 
 her note to Servia. For some time Austria 
 remained inflexible, and the possibility of a 
 European war passed into a probability. To- 
 ward the close of July, however, Austria 
 began to realize that Russia was in earnest, 
 and that her obstinacy about the terms of the 
 Servian note was likely to precipitate a Euro- 
 pean crisis. She then signified her willingness 
 to enter into conversation with the Russian 
 government on the terms of the Austrian 
 note, and on July 3 1 Sir Edward learnt " with 
 great satisfaction " that discussion between 
 Austria and Russia had been resumed. It 
 was on the morning of that day that Sir 
 Edward appealed to Germany to put forward 
 "any reasonable proposal" for the preserva- 
 tion of European peace, and promised to go 
 to the length of saying that "if Russia and 
 France would not accept it His Majesty's 
 government would have nothing more to 
 do with the consequences." But, instead of 
 making any reasonable proposal, Germany, 
 on that very night at 12 o'clock, sent a very 
 unreasonable ultimatum to Russia demanding 
 that she should demobilize on the Austrian 
 as well as the German frontier, and do so 
 within twelve hours. Even if it were techni- 
 cally possible for any great country to cease all 
 
20 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 warlike preparation in so short a time (and 
 that is doubtful), how could Russia be ex- 
 pected to comply with such a peremptory 
 demand when the Austrian forces were in the 
 field, and no limit had been put by Austria 
 to the advance of her troops into Servia ? 
 
 That day, July 31, was one of the most 
 fateful in the history of mankind. It began 
 with promise of reconciliation between Austria 
 and Russia ; it ended with an ultimatum from 
 Germany that put an end to all negotiation, 
 and made a European war inevitable. And 
 Germany had promised to "press the button" 
 at Vienna as hard as she could ! Was Ger- 
 many really determined to force war while 
 outwardly professing to urge Austria in the 
 direction of conciliation ? If the correspon- 
 dence that passed between Germany and Aus- 
 tria had been published in the German White 
 Book this question could be answered. But 
 it has not, and so we are obliged to suspend 
 final judgment on the point. But only final 
 judgment; because, in the British White Book y 
 there is one communication from Sir Edward 
 Grey to Sir F. Bertie which contains a state- 
 ment made by the Foreign Secretary in Italy 
 which is most damaging to Germany and 
 Austria. It is the message No. 152 in the 
 correspondence, dated August 3, 19 14, and 
 must be quoted word for word: 
 
THE WHITE BOOKS 21 
 
 Sir, — On the 1 st instant the French ambassador made 
 the following communication: 
 
 "In reply to the German government's intimation of 
 the fact that ultimatums had been presented to France 
 and Russia, and to the question as to what were the in- 
 tentions of Italy, the Marquis di San Giuliano replied: 
 'The war undertaken by Austria, and the consequences 
 which might result, had, in the words of the German 
 ambassador himself, an aggressive object. Both were 
 therefore in conflict with the purely defensive character 
 of the Triple Alliance, and in such circumstances Italy 
 would remain neutral.' " 
 
 Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, 
 and the Marquis di San Giuliano was the 
 Foreign Secretary in the Italian government. 
 The Marquis was therefore in a position to 
 know more than the member of any govern- 
 ment outside the Triple Alliance was likely 
 to know about the conduct of Germany and 
 Austria. The indictment offers a simple and 
 reasonable explanation for the suppression of 
 the correspondence from Germany to Austria 
 before the outbreak of the European War, 
 and it also helps us to understand why Ger- 
 many issued her ultimatum to Russia on the 
 very day on which Vienna and St. Petersburg 
 had resumed conversations on the terms of 
 Austria's ultimatum to Servia. The evidence 
 is not absolutely conclusive against Germany; 
 but the German authorities cannot complain 
 if, with such evidence before him, the histori- 
 cal student says that he finds it very difficult 
 
22 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 to avoid the conclusion that, while making 
 professions of peace, she precipitated war by 
 her unreasonable demands upon an ill-prepared 
 Russia. If this conclusion is in any way 
 unjust to Germany the remedy is in the hands 
 of the German government. All they have 
 to do is to publish the suppressed correspon- 
 dence. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NEUTRALITY AND 
 INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM 
 
 UT the question that affects us 
 most nearly is the responsibility 
 for the declaration of war be- 
 tween Great Britain and Ger- 
 many; and here, happily, there 
 is no want of evidence, and no ground for 
 reasonable doubt. Whether Great Britain 
 would have been forced into war by the deci- 
 sion of France to support Russia is a question 
 that need not detain us. It was the invasion 
 of Belgium by the German army in defiance 
 of treaties to which Britain herself was a 
 signatory, that made the British ultimatum 
 to Germany inevitable. The German govern- 
 ment are of the opinion that Great Britain dealt 
 a felon's blow by entering the war ; a hymn 
 of hate has been composed, and children 
 in the schools have been instructed to learn it. 
 The British government are of the opinion 
 that they would have betrayed vital national 
 and imperial interests, and covered them- 
 selves with everlasting dishonour, if Germany 
 
24 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 had been allowed to proceed without challenge ; 
 and some of them are inclined to think that, 
 on August 4, 1 9 14, in the conversation of Sir 
 Edward Goschen with the German Imperial 
 Chancellor, Great Britain established the 
 greatest of all her traditions, and showed the 
 civilized world the only way by which inter- 
 national law could be made effective, and the 
 more enduring peace of the world maintained 
 in the future. How great is the difference 
 between the psychological climate of Potsdam 
 and Westminster! How different the sensi- 
 tiveness of questions of national honour! 
 
 The White Book shows this clearly enough ; 
 but a brief outline of the history of Belgian 
 neutrality and independence is essential to 
 a full appreciation of the magnitude of the 
 moral issue involved. In 1839 the Treaty 
 of London was drawn up between Prussia, 
 England, and France guaranteeing the 
 neutrality and independence of Belgium in 
 the interests of European peace, and Bel- 
 gium was pledged to defend her neutrality 
 with all her resources. In 1870 Germany 
 became a nation, and then a treaty to 
 the same effect was signed by Germany, 
 England, and France. A treaty is the most 
 solemn engagement by which nations can 
 pledge themselves ; but Germany and England 
 were pledged in another way. The great 
 powers of the world met in conference at the 
 
NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 25 
 
 Hague in 1907, and agreed upon a number 
 of resolutions. In the second of these it is 
 set down that "belligerents are forbidden to 
 move across the territory of a neutral power 
 troops or convoys or munitions of war or 
 supplies". England signed, so did Germany. 
 But this does not end the responsibility so 
 far as Germany is concerned. In October, 
 1 9 10, the present Kaiser made a speech in 
 Belgium in which he promised that the 
 neutrality of the country , should never be 
 violated by him. As late as April, 1913, 
 Herr von Jagow, the present German Foreign 
 Secretary, went down to the Reichstag, and 
 made an official pronouncement upon the 
 same matter: "Belgian neutrality," he said, 
 "is defined by international treaties, and these 
 treaties Germany will maintain." 
 
 Yet, in the face of all these pledges and 
 promises, confirmed as late as July 31, 19 14, 
 by Herr von Bulow, the German minister in 
 Brussels, the German government not only 
 decided to invade France through Belgium, 
 but the German Chancellor failed to under- 
 stand why Great Britain could place so much 
 importance on "a scrap of paper"! That 
 last conversation between Sir Edward Goschen, 
 the British ambassador in Berlin, and the 
 German Chancellor, shows what a wide, deep 
 gulf there is on questions of national honour 
 
26 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 between the opinions of the British and the 
 German governments. Both Great Britain 
 and Germany were pledged up to the hilt to 
 defend the neutrality and independence of 
 Belgium. At the last moment a supreme 
 appeal was made by the King of the Bel- 
 gians to the King of Great Britain to safe- 
 guard the integrity of Belgium. How could 
 Great Britain leave Belgium to her fate with- 
 out covering herself with eternal dishonour, 
 and endangering the future peace of the world 
 by acquiescing in the monstrous doctrine 
 that might is right? How could she have 
 remained neutral without conceding that strong 
 nations may trample at will upon the weak; 
 that international agreements may be torn up 
 when the time for testing them has arrived; 
 and that the comity of nations must be at the 
 mercy of individual national aggression? 
 
 There is no need to deny that it was to 
 Great Britain's material interest to defend the 
 neutrality and independence of Belgium. That 
 is obvious enough. Germany is an ambitious 
 imperial power, and avowedly aggressive. 
 Great Britain stands in the way of the realiza- 
 tion of her ambitions; and there is no part 
 of the continent from which such a power 
 could strike so effectively at England as from 
 the coast of Belgium and the north of France. 
 If Germany had ports there, her attacks upon 
 
NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 27 
 
 British ships of war and commerce would be 
 much more formidable than they are now; 
 and raids by aircraft would be more frequent 
 and dangerous. But it was not only or 
 mainly because of these material safeguards 
 that Britain went to war ; it was for more 
 important reasons, involving her own honour 
 and the welfare of civilization. When the 
 German Chancellor argued that " for strategi- 
 cal reasons" it was a matter of life and death 
 to advance through Belgium, Sir Edward 
 Goschen replied that it was a matter of life 
 and death for the honour of Great Britain 
 that she should keep her solemn engagement 
 to do her utmost to defend Belgium's neu- 
 trality if attacked. "That solemn compact," 
 continued Sir Edward Goschen, "simply had 
 to be kept, or what confidence could anyone 
 have in engagements given by Great Britain 
 in the future?" The British ambassador 
 spoke as a man of business, as well as a man 
 of honour. What great business would not 
 be imperilled, if the man who held the posi- 
 tion of supreme director were known to play 
 tricks with his honour and his plighted word, 
 when the time for testing them came ? It is 
 well known that bills of exchange are drawn 
 upon London, and why ? Not only because 
 London is the biggest city in the world; but 
 also because business men throughout the 
 
28 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 world have confidence in the integrity of the 
 British merchant, and believe that he will do 
 all he can to meet his obligations when the 
 time for discharging them has arrived. Take 
 away that conviction, and it is probable 
 enough that the financial centre of the world 
 will change to some other place. The 
 possibility of carrying on large business trans- 
 actions in the modern world implies a con- 
 siderable measure of confidence between man 
 and man. 
 
 And the same is true ultimately of nations 
 in their dealings with one another, especially 
 in regard to the solemn obligations of a treaty. 
 In time of stress and danger it is highly im- 
 portant for any nation to be able to attract the 
 support of allies, and her power of attraction 
 will depend to a great extent upon advantages 
 likely to be secured. Germany may make 
 lavish promises, but what confidence can any 
 nation have in her engagements after what 
 she has done in Belgium? Are they not 
 bound to ask: Will she keep her pledge when 
 it is no longer convenient for her to do so? 
 Germany offered the Boers their freedom if 
 they would rebel; but how many of the Boers 
 felt they could trust her after the violation of 
 Belgian neutrality? Italy was offered bribes 
 to remain neutral, but what value was set 
 upon German promises by the Italians? 
 
NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 29 
 
 It would have paid Germany better to 
 have gone into France across the frontier 
 between Luxemburg and Switzerland, not- 
 withstanding the mountainous country and 
 the strength of its fortifications. A decent 
 respect for the opinions and feelings of man- 
 kind is essential to the welfare of any nation. 
 For these opinions and feelings Germany has 
 shown contempt rather than respect, and 
 already she has suffered for it by forcing 
 Great Britain into the war and alienating the 
 sympathy of neutral nations and especially 
 of the United States. She is likely to suffer 
 a good deal more when the heat of strife has 
 given place to calmer reflection, and men 
 have time to think about the true proportion 
 of things in human life. Already the civil- 
 ized world has had time to read the corres- 
 pondence of the different governments, and 
 think about the question of responsibility, 
 and its mind is made up on two important 
 points: that Great Britain and the Allies 
 have secured a moral victory over Germany 
 in regard to the responsibility for the out- 
 break of this war; and that, if persuasion is 
 to prevail over force as a means of settling 
 disputes between nations in this world, trea- 
 ties must be respected, and national indivi- 
 dualism restrained by a decent respect for 
 international usage, law, and treaty. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MILITARY DYNAMIC IN 
 GERMANY 
 
 STUDY of the correspondence 
 will leave little doubt in the 
 mind of any impartial student 
 that the chief responsibility for 
 the European war, as distinct 
 from the quarrel between Austria and Servia, 
 lies with Germany; and the history of the 
 war since August, 19 14, shows clearly enough 
 that the public opinion of Germany is behind 
 the government. Nobody who has studied 
 the history of Germany since 1870 will be 
 surprised at this. The Germany of to-day 
 is very different from the Germany of Beet- 
 hoven, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Fichte; 
 and the difference is due, for the most part, 
 to the influence of Prussia in the schools, the 
 universities, and, above all, in the army. An 
 attempt will be made in the chapter on The 
 War and Civilization to explain the nature of 
 this influence in the development of the 
 "German spirit"; it is sufficient to point out 
 
MILITARY DYNAMIC IN GERMANY 31 
 
 here that the most outstanding feature in the 
 history of Germany since 1870 has been the 
 speeding up of the army both in numbers 
 and efficiency in accordance with the "blood 
 and iron" policy of Bismarck, which had been 
 successful in the aggressive wars against 
 Denmark, Austria, and France. The result 
 was that, on the outbreak of the present war, 
 Germany had an army of 5-I million men, 
 well disciplined, and well equipped. She had, 
 too, a system of railways admirably constructed 
 for making the best use of her troops; and 
 the transference of civil into military depart- 
 ments was the work of a few hours. The 
 organizing ability of the Germans is marvel- 
 lous. Furthermore, since 1899 Germany has 
 built the second strongest navy in the world 
 at a cost of ^300,000,000, and powerful socie- 
 ties have been formed to strengthen public 
 opinion in its favour. Here are the outward 
 and visible signs of that worship of force, and 
 the will to conquer, which are the most 
 striking characteristics of the German spirit 
 to-day. The result of it all has been the 
 generation of a military dynamic so powerful 
 that no other force in Germany is able to 
 compete with it. 
 
 In modern Germany the belief in force 
 has become an obsession, a form of madness. 
 "The origin of the present conflict," says 
 
32 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 Professor Arthur Schuster, F.R.S., "may be 
 found in the worship of material success 
 which has maddened the German nation and 
 plunged Europe into war". Germany is in 
 the grips of a strenuous and strident material- 
 ism, and the very branches of learning in 
 which she maintains her pre-eminence are 
 those that make for material strength. That 
 way war was bound to come: it was only a 
 question of time. 
 
 And, when the war did break out, the 
 ethics of the war party — the ethics of Prussia 
 — became at once apparent. The German 
 Chancellor went down to the Reichstag with 
 a confession of wrong-doing, trying to justify 
 the invasion of Belgium on the ground of 
 "military necessity". What crime may not 
 be justified on such grounds? The Prussian 
 government had already established a reputa- 
 tion for bad faith. The invasion of Belgium 
 has set a seal upon it. Germany complains, 
 as Bismarck complained long ago, of a want 
 of trust on the part of other European powers. 
 But what right has a nation to complain with 
 the treachery of Frederick the Great, and 
 even of Bismarck himself, written large in 
 the diplomatic history of Prussia? And that 
 Germany has been prussianized in this, as in 
 other ways, became manifest in the invasion 
 of Belgium contrary to treaty, convention, 
 
MILITARY DYNAMIC IN GERMANY 33 
 
 imperial and ministerial promise. The reve- 
 lations of the White Books, shocking as they 
 are to any people who believe that knowledge 
 and power without conscience are damnable, 
 only prove to the student of German history 
 that the German spirit has at last found 
 expression in the way that was natural and 
 inevitable. People who worship force as con- 
 sistently and ardently as the Germans have 
 done in the past 50 years need to have level 
 heads, big souls, and a good deal of chasten- 
 ing sorrow if they are to rise in practice and 
 in theory above the conviction that might is 
 right. 
 
Part II 
 
 BRITISH AND GERMAN 
 IMPERIALISM 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 GERMAN IMPERIAL 
 AMBITIONS 
 
 OBODY will doubt the bravery 
 and patriotism of the Prussian 
 soldiers; they have proved it in 
 the course of this war as they 
 have proved it in the past. 
 These are the qualities that militarism may 
 be expected to develope, and they are great 
 and valuable qualities. But militarism, when 
 it is not rigorously controlled, has also great 
 defects, and one of them is swagger. Bismarck 
 understood his Prussians thoroughly, and 
 published his opinions on their leading 
 characteristics in his Reflections and "Reminis- 
 cences. "We are a vain nation", he says; "we 
 feel hurt directly we cannot swagger, and much 
 even in regard to our pockets is forgiven and 
 permitted a government which gives us im- 
 portance abroad". This is notable. Germany 
 has served the world in matters of education, 
 and the world was grateful to Germany. She 
 has made wonderful progress in matters of 
 trade and commerce, and that was a legitimate 
 
3 8 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 way of exercising world-power. But with 
 these achievements she was not satisfied. She 
 wanted to swagger in the world as a ruling 
 power, and dominate the countries of Europe 
 politically and imperially. But for that she 
 had shown no real qualification. She was, 
 in fact, far behind some of the other nations 
 of Europe in political sense and imperial 
 method. She was not allowed to swagger, 
 and she was hurt. She tried the diplomacy 
 of the mailed fist, but it failed; and then, 
 throwing diplomacy to the winds, she drew 
 her mighty sword and challenged the nations 
 of Europe to a struggle for World-power or 
 Downfall. 
 
 Germany went to war because, as her lead- 
 ing men and politicians have so often reminded 
 the world, she was determined to have "a 
 better place in the sun". By this they meant 
 that they wanted more territory in temperate 
 regions of the globe, so that Germany's actual 
 dominion might bear some more reasonable 
 relation to her national strength, and her 
 proved capacity for service. Outside Ger- 
 many proper, Germany has possessions on 
 her borders consisting of Alsace-Lorraine on 
 the West and Poland on the East; and, in 
 accordance with her traditional imperial policy, 
 she has been trying to extend her influence 
 eastwards through the Balkan States and 
 
GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 39 
 
 Turkey to the the Valley of the Euphrates 
 and the Tigris. The great bar to her devel- 
 opment in this direction has been Russia, and 
 the strength of the pan-Slavish movement in 
 the East. The failure of Turkey in the Bal- 
 kan war put an end to any prospects of 
 immediate success in that direction. 
 
 But she has also been trying to build up 
 an empire beyond the seas. Here the main 
 trouble arose from the fact that as a nation 
 she is only 45 years old, and, when she came 
 upon the scene in 1870, nearly all the avail- 
 able territory in the world had been taken up 
 by older nations, especially Great Britain. 
 England attained her nationhood in the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, so did France; and 
 in the centuries following they have been 
 building up their empires slowly but surely. 
 Germany had a chance of attaining to national 
 unity 50 years before England and France; 
 but owing to the world-wide ambitions of the 
 Hohenstauffen Emperors on the one hand, 
 and the feudal prejudices of her princes on 
 the other, she lost it. So strong was the 
 feeling of local independence that she did not 
 become a nation till Bismarck welded the 
 principalities together by blood and iron under 
 the lead of Prussia in 1870. If Germany 
 has not as good a place in the sun as she 
 thinks she deserves, then the chief responsi- 
 
4 o REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 bility rests upon the shoulders of the princes 
 who preferred their own limited sovereignty 
 to national unity. 
 
 After 1870 there was one legitimate way 
 left for building up an empire beyond the 
 seas, and that was by diplomacy. Bismarck 
 tried this, and was successful. In the eighties 
 of last century Germany secured Togoland, 
 the Kameruns, German South-West Africa, 
 German East Africa, and notwithstanding a 
 vigorous protest from Queensland, a large 
 part of New Guinea. These were considerable 
 acquisitions, including territory amounting in 
 area to about eight times the size of the 
 United Kingdom. Notwithstanding Bis- 
 marck's devotion to the policy of blood and 
 iron for the consolidation of Germany, he 
 was a reasonable, cautious diplomatist ; and, 
 though he was never enthusiastic about a 
 colonial empire for Germany, he managed to 
 secure nearly everything that she holds be- 
 yond the sea. The present Kaiser Wilhelm II 
 has added hardly anything at all, and for 
 very good reasons. He is a vain man, and 
 is hurt when he cannot swagger. He has no 
 international camaraderie. His one idea of 
 impressing other nations has been to shake 
 his mailed fist in their faces. In China, it is 
 true, he succeeded in getting Kiao Chou; in 
 Europe he succeeded only in outraging the 
 
GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 41 
 
 national self-respect of the great European 
 powers, and uniting them solidly against him 
 for purposes of mutual protection. He insulted 
 France in 1905, Russia in 1908, England and 
 France in 191 1, in the same way as he in- 
 sulted Belgium in August, 19 14, by present- 
 ing them with an alternative: compliance with 
 his demands, or war. 
 
 Indiscreet as such a policy was, it became 
 in Germany almost inevitable. Diplomacy 
 is a matter of bargaining, among democratic 
 powers, by reason and arbitration, because 
 such powers rely mainly on persuasion for 
 attaining their ends; and the older nations of 
 Europe have had time to learn that the way 
 of persuasion is the better way. But Germany 
 was not like the other nations of the West. 
 She was very inexperienced, very military, 
 and every year was becoming more military. 
 This it is that explains the peculiar quality of 
 German diplomacy under William II, who 
 has paraded his military power in every dip- 
 lomatic crisis, and made it his chief argument. 
 It was a diplomacy that showed no respect for 
 the good-will of other nations, and though it 
 might succeed at the moment, it was bound 
 to fail in the end by uniting self-respecting 
 nations against Germany. 
 
 It did fail, and the only way left for Ger- 
 many to secure "a better place in the sun" 
 
4 2 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 was by conquest; and that Germany had 
 made up her mind for this there can be no 
 reasonable doubt. The correspondence in 
 the White Book proves that she intended to 
 strip France of her colonies, and expected 
 Great Britain to stand aside while she did so! 
 But, besides this, the teaching in German 
 universities and schools for the past thirty 
 years has been preparing the national mind 
 for something very ambitious in the way of 
 expansion; and the character of this teaching 
 may fairly be judged by reference to the 
 book, Germany and the Next JVar^ written 
 by General von Bernhardi. No doubt there 
 was a large section of the people in Germany 
 who would have repudiated many of the 
 doctrines of Bernhardi concerning the ulti- 
 mate source of national greatness; but in his 
 views on German imperial expansion he 
 voiced the opinions certainly of the army, 
 and, in all probability, of the great majority 
 of the German people. Bernhardi was an 
 influential teacher in Berlin, a disciple of 
 Treitschke, and a friend of the Kaiser. 
 Events since August, 19 14, have shown 
 that he knew very little about the British 
 Empire; but they have also shown that he 
 knew thoroughly well the mind of the Ger- 
 man army, and that he was qualified to speak 
 concerning both their aims and their methods. 
 
GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 43 
 
 And a study of his book leaves no doubt con- 
 cerning the imperial ambitions of Germany. 
 It is set down in the clearest language that 
 there is one alternative before her: World- 
 dominion or Downfall; and that the way by 
 which she must get what she wants is war. 
 For her might is right, and because that doc- 
 trine is true of the struggle for existence in 
 the animal world, it must also be accepted as 
 true in the world of rational beings! The 
 one thing Germany is determined to have 
 is world-power; the only way left to get it is 
 by conquest. One chapter discusses the 
 "Rights of War", another the "Duty of 
 War". With the correspondence of Euro- 
 pean governments before us, and the conduct 
 of the German army in Belgium, who will 
 say that the views expressed in this book are 
 not the views of the German government and 
 the German army? 
 
 To men and women who have breathed 
 the atmosphere of Christian idealism, and lived 
 under free political institutions, these asser- 
 tions seem so unreasonable, so unfair, so 
 material, so brutal, that they are driven to ask 
 how can these things be among a people so 
 enlightened as the Germans ? 
 
 Perhaps the chief reason is that Germany 
 has been suffering for some time from an 
 attack of megalomania, or "swelled head". 
 
4+ REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 This is a disease to which the nature of the 
 Prussian is peculiarly susceptible, as the ex- 
 tract from Bismarck's Reflections at the be- 
 ginning of the chapter indicates. But there 
 are other reasons why Germans as a whole 
 have become infected by it. Considering her 
 age Germany has done remarkably well. She 
 became a nation as a result of a series of 
 successful wars against Denmark, Austria, and 
 France. Since then she has made her way 
 in commerce so successfully that one wonders 
 why she thought it necessary to go to war at 
 all, if world-wide power were the only thing 
 needed. In branches of technical science that 
 make for material strength she probably leads 
 the world, if not in invention at least in appli- 
 cation. In organizing ability she has proved 
 herself both in peace and war: her civil service 
 is the best in the world, and her transport 
 service in war is marvellous. Her individual 
 citizens have not the initiative or enterprise 
 of the French or the English, but they are 
 plodding, and they are thorough. Her pre- 
 eminence in music, literature, and philosophy 
 has not been maintained in recent years; but 
 undoubtedly Germany is a great nation, and 
 under wise direction has great capacity for 
 world service. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE QUALITY OF GERMAN 
 IMPERIALISM 
 
 ET all these things stand to Ger- 
 many's credit. The question still 
 remains : Do they prove that the 
 German government are justified 
 in setting out on a career of con- 
 quest, which is to end in European hegemony, 
 and world-wide dominion? 
 
 No, they do not, and here lies the source of 
 nearly all the mischief. It is one thing to 
 exert world-wide influence through learning 
 and commerce as Germany has undoubtedly 
 done, quite another thing to impose upon 
 Europe and the world a belated form of 
 despotism, which strikes at the very founda- 
 tions of democratic government, and is in- 
 compatible with the growth and maintenance 
 of national independence outside Germany. 
 In all the progressive nations of the Western 
 world, political institutions are rooted in public 
 opinion, or the will of the people. Govern- 
 ment is not only for the people, it is also by 
 
46 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 the people; and constitutional contrivances 
 have been developed in the last two centuries 
 to make public opinion effective. This 
 is achieved mainly in two ways: by making 
 the executive dependent upon, and responsible 
 to, the people; and by keeping the military 
 subordinate to the civil power. In Germany 
 neither of these has been attained. There 
 they have the Reichstag, which is a represen- 
 tative assembly, but it does not control the 
 executive. The responsible ministers who 
 actually administer are appointed by, and 
 responsible to, the Kaiser; and the Kaiser's 
 authority rests, not upon public opinion, but 
 upon the army and navy, over which he has 
 unlimited authority, and which he can set in 
 motion by a stroke of his pen. Even in 
 legislation the Reichstag is, in practice, sub- 
 ordinated to the Bundesrath or Federal 
 Council, which consists of the delegates of 
 the sovereigns of the different states of the 
 empire, holds its meetings in secret in Berlin, 
 and, with the consent of the Emperor, has 
 power to dissolve the Reichstag. Supreme 
 over all is the war-lord who claims to be 
 God's vicegerent. 
 
 Under a constitution such as this there is 
 far less opportunity for developing political 
 aptitude among the people than in any of the 
 Western democracies. And German imperial- 
 
QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 47 
 
 ism takes its character from German politics. 
 
 It is true that in matters of learning Ger- 
 many has led the world, and in some branches 
 still leads; but it is also true that in political 
 sense and imperial method she is far behind 
 the progressive nations of the world. The 
 preposterous character of Germany's imperial 
 ambitions cannot be fully understood unless 
 this is realized. Having done well in war, 
 commerce, and learning, she thinks it her duty 
 to seize the territory of older nations and 
 impose her will upon them! She admits that 
 this will involve suffering; but she believes 
 that it will be good for the world in the 
 end. For the German people are a superior 
 people; it is their mission under God's vice- 
 gerent, the Kaiser, to reform a decadent 
 age by the spread of German Ku/tur; and in 
 order to do this effectively Germany must 
 impose her rule upon Europe first, and the 
 world next. Deutschland uber Alles^ that is her 
 motto ! 
 
 Germany could have influenced the world 
 powerfully by her learning and her commerce 
 without going to war, and that would have 
 given her a place in the sun in the sense 
 in which she already had it — the best 
 sense; but that was not enough ; it did 
 not satisfy her national vanity. She must 
 dominate a great part of the world and 
 
48 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 impose her Kultur upon it. Having failed 
 to do this by legitimate means, she let slip 
 the dogs of war, and plunged civilization into 
 the most awful catastrophe since the world 
 began. This is the way in which Germany's 
 megalomania has misled her. Her claims 
 would be preposterous even if she were 
 as pre-eminent for culture as she was in the 
 days of Goethe, Kant, Beethoven, and Schiller. 
 For the Kultur that makes for material 
 aggrandisement she is far more distinguished 
 than she was 50 years ago; but in the culture 
 that makes for sweetness and light, and the 
 advancement of the world morally and spirit- 
 ually, she has gone back. For the past 30 
 years she has worshipped physical and mate- 
 rial power, and she has got it. Her pre- 
 eminence in learning is now precisely of that 
 kind that makes for material power: money, 
 big guns, explosives, control over the powers 
 of nature generally. 
 
 All this high-flown talk in Germany about 
 the spread of Kultur misleads nobody outside 
 the Fatherland. Culture in the best sense — 
 the love of what is true and beautiful for its 
 own sake — flourishes as well, if not better, in 
 small states than in great ones; and it restrains 
 and subdues the passion for self-aggrandise- 
 ment and domination instead of encouraging 
 or justifying it. The imperial question has 
 
QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 49 
 
 nothing to do with culture at all, for there 
 are no frontiers in learning. The only per- 
 tinent question is this: Has Germany been 
 so successful in her colonial and imperial 
 history that she can claim even an abstract 
 justification for seizing the territory of other 
 nations who have had imperial experience 
 extending in some cases over many centuries? 
 
 No! Compared with other nations Ger- 
 many has not been successful in colonization. 
 Some measure of success she may claim in 
 matters of detail; but, in matters of vital and 
 far-reaching importance, she has failed both 
 in method and results. 
 
 Beyond the seas Germany has territories 
 with an area eight times the size of the 
 United Kingdom, where she has been brought 
 into contact with primitive races. If German 
 imperialism is likely to succeed with any 
 people, it is among races just emerging from 
 barbarism, who understand force, and have 
 had no experience in rule by persuasion. 
 How has Germany been getting on in Togo- 
 land, German South-West Africa, East Africa, 
 and New Guinea? In some respects well. 
 She has a good system of wireless stations, 
 she is efficient in matters of hygiene, and she 
 is thorough in matters of education in the 
 colonies as at home. She has, moreover, 
 done something for the natives in raising them 
 
50 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 in the scale of civilization, though her methods 
 have been characterized by a severity which 
 would not be tolerated by the British govern- 
 ment. In all these matters let Germany have 
 the credit which she deserves ; it still remains 
 true that, even in her empire beyond the 
 seas, she has failed in the greatest matters. 
 She has failed to attract to her overseas colonies 
 any considerable number of settlers, even of 
 German extraction. On this point statistics 
 are absolutely conclusive. In recent years 
 millions of Germans have left Germany for 
 the United States of America, and hundreds 
 of thousands have settled in the British colo- 
 nies. How many Germans have gone to the 
 German colonies beyond the sea, and settled 
 there? At the outside calculation only 24,000, 
 including the smaller possessions and Kiao 
 Chou. It would be superfluous to offer any 
 lengthy comments on these figures. They 
 show, beyond all doubt, that when Germans 
 leave their own country they avoid German 
 colonies. One reason for this is that the 
 German colonies are mostly in the tropics, 
 and the climate is disagreeable; but that is 
 not the only reason. When Germans leave 
 Germany, they do so because they want to 
 get away from military domination and swag- 
 ger, and to breathe the atmosphere of a 
 country that is governed by free institutions. 
 
QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 51 
 
 In such countries they make good settlers, 
 and they are content to make their homes 
 there. In German colonies they would find 
 the military as much in the ascendant as at 
 home, and the swagger of the military officer 
 even more objectionable. In Togoland, the 
 Kameruns, German South-West Africa, Ger- 
 man East Africa, and New Guinea there are 
 17,000 Germans, and of these 2,500 are 
 soldiers, and 700 are policemen ! And, as soon as 
 a stripling puts an officer's uniform on his back, 
 he swaggers it over all others in the colony, 
 even though some of them may be men of 
 industrial efficiency, who have done twenty 
 times as much as he for the benefit of the 
 colony. It is too early yet to pass final judg- 
 ment upon German overseas colonization; but 
 it is fair, even now, to say that it does not 
 impress even German emigrants favourably. 
 
 There is no need for reservation, however, 
 in criticizing the attempts of the Germans to 
 govern enlightened races that aspire to self- 
 government, and feel the stirrings of nationality 
 within them. How has Germany been getting 
 on with Poland and Alsace-Lorraine ? In both 
 places she has pursued a policy of repression, 
 and set herself to crush out all in-born national 
 aspirations. In both places the people are 
 forbidden to speak their own language, and 
 in both attempts have been made to settle 
 
52 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 Germans on the land. In Alsace-Lorraine 
 there is a large population of Germans now; 
 but in Poland the policy of land settlement 
 has failed, notwithstanding the expenditure 
 of 17 million pounds and the passing of an 
 Expropriation Act through the Prussian Diet. 
 The best test of success in the government 
 of civilized people is the measure of sponta- 
 neous loyalty elicited by the central imperial 
 authority. Germany has failed to arouse it either 
 among the Poles or the non-German people 
 in Alsace-Lorraine; and failed so egregiously 
 that, as a ruling power, she is more cordially 
 disliked by the Poles than either Austria or 
 Russia. The Poles still cherish their national 
 aspiration, and they know, after a century of 
 experience, that national aspirations and 
 German imperialism are utterly incompatible. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 A STUDY IN CONTRAST 
 
 ERE lies the essential difference 
 between British and German 
 imperialism. Great Britain has 
 made her mistakes as an imperial 
 power, and the greatest of all was 
 made in trying to force the old colonial policy 
 on America. But it is nevertheless true 
 that, when she has erred, it has generally 
 been on the side of generosity, rather 
 than severity, in her dealings with civilized 
 and uncivilized races alike. In the wave 
 of loyalty which has swept from one end of 
 her empire to the other in this great crisis 
 she has her reward. It may be that in some 
 cases there is impatience of British rule: 
 it would be strange in so vast an empire if 
 there were not; but, when it comes to a 
 choice between British imperialism and German 
 imperialism, the empire shows its mind with- 
 out hesitation in word and deed. 
 
 And this has been one of the most bitter 
 disappointments for Germany since the 
 
54 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 beginning of the war. To her the British 
 Empire was a loose agglomeration of states 
 which would fall to pieces on the first shock 
 of war. Ireland was on the brink of civil 
 war. In India a holy war would shake British 
 authority in the East to its foundations, and 
 news of the preparation for it helped to fill 
 the columns of the German press for months 
 after the war began! Elaborate preparations 
 were made for the invasion of South Africa 
 in the belief that the Boers would strike a 
 blow for independence when the first oppor- 
 tunity came. As for the other Dominions, 
 they were not worth considering from a mili- 
 tary point of view, and, besides, their desire for 
 independence of Great Britain would make 
 them troublesome rather than helpful. Such 
 was the German forecast before the outbreak 
 of the war. 
 
 But what are the facts? The Irish question 
 was dropped for the time being, and large 
 numbers of volunteers enlisted from both sides 
 to defend the United Kingdom against the 
 European menace. India rose almost as one 
 man in defence of the Empire. In the early 
 days of September 70,000 troops were on 
 their way to fight in Europe. Every one of 
 the 700 native princes offered personal ser- 
 vices and the resources of their states for the 
 war. From the utmost confines of India, from 
 
A STUDY IN CONTRAST 55 
 
 Beluchistan, Chitral, Kashmir, and Thibet 
 came offers of assistance; and even the wild 
 and warlike Waziris offered to maintain peace 
 and order on their borders, if it were found 
 necessary or desirable to remove the govern- 
 ment troops! 
 
 The self-governing Dominions did not wait 
 for any appeal from the British government. 
 As soon as they realized the gravity of the 
 situation they gave practical demonstration of 
 their determination to support Great Britain 
 with all their resources. In South Africa there 
 was some trouble; but, despite that, South 
 Africa affords the best example in any of the 
 Dominions of the wisdom of British imperial 
 policy. Thirteen years before we had been 
 at war with the Boers, and it was a long and 
 bitter war. Notwithstanding that, as soon 
 as the insurrection began, General Botha 
 took the field, and General Smuts directed 
 affairs from headquarters. They succeeded 
 not only in putting down rebellion in 
 the territory of the Union, but also in the 
 conquest of German South-West Africa, which 
 now belongs to the British Empire. Could 
 any finer or more striking tribute have been 
 paid to the quality of British imperialism? 
 
 And why all these ludicrous miscalculations 
 on the part of German theorists? Simply 
 because they do not understand. In the 
 
56 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 development of a sense of political freedom 
 Germany is far behind the western democracies 
 of the world. She has no idea how strong 
 the passion for freedom is in the British 
 Dominions, and how far their loyalty to the 
 British Empire is due to that. It is quite 
 true that in times of peace the bonds of British 
 imperialism press as lightly as air; but that 
 is precisely the reason why they are likely 
 to prove as strong as steel in times of war. 
 Germany has failed because she has tried to 
 crush national aspiration. Great Britain has 
 succeeded because wherever a people have 
 proved their ability to govern themselves, and 
 even before they have been able to pay their 
 own way, she has encouraged national aspira- 
 tion. The last word in German imperialism 
 is domination, the last word in British impe- 
 rialism is freedom. India knows this, the 
 self-governing Dominions know it, the world 
 knows it. 
 
 Nor need we go any further than our own 
 state and Commonwealth to find proof of it. 
 The colony of South Australia was founded 
 in 1836. Twenty years later the citizens were 
 granted responsible as well as representative 
 government: they not only had a democratic 
 franchise, they had control over their minis- 
 ters through Parliament as well, which the 
 German people in their own country have 
 
A STUDY IN CONTRAST 57 
 
 not attained to yet. And when the different 
 states of Australia were ready to federate, 
 and begin their history as a nation, the Prince 
 of Wales was sent to inaugurate the Common- 
 wealth. Taught by the loyalty of the Cana- 
 dians after 1867, the British government had 
 come to realize that nationality and British 
 imperialism were not incompatible. This is 
 the new imperialism which was making its 
 way in the world, when, of a sudden, it was 
 challenged by the crude military imperialism 
 of Germany. 
 
 The difference between the two empires is 
 so great that they constitute a study in 
 contrast. Germany's object is to germanize 
 Europe and eventually the world, as she has 
 tried to germanize Poland. To this end she 
 has subordinated the Poles politically; for- 
 bidden the use of their own language in 
 public, and in the schools; and even tried by 
 the Expropriation Act introduced into the 
 Prussian Diet by a royal speech in 1907 to 
 oust the Poles and plant Germans on their 
 lands. It is not only the subjugation, but also 
 the assimilation of Poland that is deliberately 
 aimed at. This is indeed the only kind of 
 imperialism that is to be expected of an auto- 
 cratic government whose power is based upon 
 unlimited control over the army and the 
 navy. German imperialism affords no oppor- 
 
58 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 tunity for the development of the peculiar 
 quality that distinguishes one nation from 
 another. The struggle for supremacy so 
 dominates political and imperial thought that 
 the idea of a comity of nations or an associa- 
 tion of free commonwealths has hardly any 
 place in it at all. Prince von Btllow in his 
 book on Imperial Germany makes this quite 
 clear. "It is a law of life and development 
 in history", he says, "that where two national 
 civilizations meet they fight for ascendancy. 
 In the struggle between nationalities one 
 nation is the hammer and the other the anvil* 
 one is the victor and the other the vanquished". 
 Here is the thought that determines the bias 
 of German imperialism. The aim is not 
 unity, but uniformity ; not freedom, but 
 domination. 
 
 British imperialism aims at no such thing; 
 its corner stone is self-government, and 
 national imperialism is its highest and best 
 expression. Each one of the self-governing 
 Dominions is travelling along the road to 
 nationhood, and no obstacle is placed in the 
 way. Australians are no longer Englishmen 
 beyond the seas; they are loyal subjects of 
 his Majesty, but they are Australians. Over 
 them waves their own flag, but above that is 
 the Union Jack, and both can wave together. 
 So it is in Canada, South Africa, and New 
 
A STUDY IN CONTRAST 59 
 
 Zealand. Great Britain does not aim at 
 anglicizing any of them. She so governs and 
 superintends that each part is allowed to go 
 on developing the quality that is peculiar to 
 its own national life. And even South Africa 
 knows this. When the trouble broke out there 
 last year General Smuts wrote a letter to one of 
 the malcontents in which he pointed out that, 
 though the Boers were a conquered people 
 in 1902, they were now free to work out 
 their own national ideals under the British 
 flag. 
 
 Can there be any reasonable doubt concern- 
 ing the relative merits of these two systems, 
 either in respect of quality or results? German 
 imperialism is anti-national in its character ; it 
 shows no sufficient respect for the essential 
 differences by which the various nationalities 
 in the world are distinguished. It may attain 
 to some measure of success among people just 
 emerging from a state of barbarism, who know 
 no other rule than the rule of force ; but 
 among civilized people, and especially among 
 people who have been trained under respons- 
 ible government, and are conscious of national 
 aspirations, it is bound to fail. Germany has 
 no more chance of germanizing Europe than 
 a forester has of turning larches, beeches, 
 pines, and oaks into gum trees. Only a nation 
 that is suffering from a violent attack of 
 
60 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 megalomania, and a profound ignorance of 
 human nature beyond her borders, would have 
 entertained any such ambition. Germany does 
 know a good deal about the forces of nature 
 that make for material strength; but of the 
 forces of human nature that make for spon- 
 taneous loyalty she knows very little. In 
 scientific knowledge she may be pre-eminent, 
 but in moral insight she is sadly deficient. 
 
 In fighting for such an imperial ideal, 
 Germany is fighting against one of the strongest 
 forces in human nature. She is trying to 
 impose an authority from without in defiance 
 of the natural process of development from 
 within. The only way by which she could 
 could succeed in germanizing Europe is by 
 exterminating all other European nations, 
 and leaving only Germans; and, even then, 
 nature would beat her in ioo years. For, 
 when the Germans had spread over Europe, 
 they would, under the influence of local 
 interests and climatic difference, split up into 
 nationalities again. That matter is settled by 
 nature, not by Germany. Germany wants 
 uniformity under despotic authority. Nature 
 wants unity in variety. That is why British 
 imperialism is so superior to the German. 
 As Captain Mahan has so well said: "Of 
 colonization, as of all other growths, it is true 
 that it is more healthy when it is most natural. 
 
A STUDY IN CONTRAST 61 
 
 Therefore colonies that spring from the felt 
 wants and natural impulses of a whole people 
 will have the most solid foundations; and 
 subsequent growth will be the surest when 
 they are least trammelled from home if the 
 people have the genius for independent action. 
 .... If elaborate system and supervision, 
 careful adaption of means to ends, diligent 
 nursing could avail for colonial growth, the 
 genius of England has less of this systematizing 
 faculty than the genius of France ; but England, 
 not France, has been the great colonizer of the 
 world. Successful colonization, with its 
 consequent effects upon commerce and sea- 
 power, depends essentially upon national 
 character; because colonies grow best when 
 they grow of themselves, naturally. The 
 character of the colonist, not the care of the 
 home government, is the principle of the 
 colony's growth." If this is true in comparing 
 French and British colonization, how much 
 more might be written of the contrast between 
 British and German imperialism: between an 
 imperialism that seeks to germanize the world, 
 and an imperialism that is based upon 
 self-government, and encourages national 
 development. 
 
Part III 
 THE WAR AND CIVILIZATION 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFUL- 
 
 NESS 
 
 N his message to the govern- 
 ments and people of his self- 
 governing Dominions at the 
 beginning of the war, the King 
 stated, in words chosen, no 
 doubt, after the most careful deliberation, 
 that the peoples of his whole empire, at 
 home and overseas, had "moved with one 
 mind and purpose to confront and over- 
 throw an unparalleled attack upon the con- 
 tinuity of civilization and the peace of 
 mankind". Apart from devotion to the 
 free spirit of British institutions, there is 
 probably nothing that accounts more for the 
 extraordinary rally of the empire than the 
 conviction that this is the language not of 
 exaggeration, but of truth. It does not mean 
 that Germany set out on this war of conquest 
 with the deliberate intention of overturning 
 civilization ; but it does mean that, if by any 
 mischance Germany were to win, the con- 
 
66 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 tinuity of civilization would be broken, and 
 the foundations of international peace im- 
 perilled. 
 
 The prussianization of Germany has not 
 been simply a military process; it has been 
 educational too. During the past thirty of 
 forty years some of the most influential writers 
 and teachers in Berlin have been inculcating 
 ideas and principles which have prepared the 
 national mind for the work of Prussian 
 militarists, and given to German Kultur the 
 peculiar quality whereby it may be distin- 
 guished from culture as it is understood in 
 other enlightened countries. 
 
 Of these ideas or principles two have sunk 
 deeply into the political and military mind 
 of Germany, and they have already been 
 applied in ways that have startled and shocked 
 the civilized world. The one is expounded 
 and elaborated with amazing candour by 
 General von Bernhardi in his book Germany 
 and the Next War^ viz., that the law of natural 
 selection which prevails in the animal world, 
 and is technically known as the struggle for 
 existence, governs human development also; 
 the other more particularly developed by 
 Treitschke, that in the external society of 
 man there is no authority higher than the 
 state. The second is little more than a 
 corollary of the first in its application to 
 
THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 67 
 
 national life; and unfortunately, though 
 Germany is the only enlightened nation that 
 would have ventured to apply the law of 
 natural selection with such brutal directness 
 at this stage of the world's history, the Ger- 
 mans have no monopoly of teachers who 
 out-Darwin Darwin by insisting on the 
 application of biological law to the evolution 
 of human life. 
 
 No doubt that theory does explain much 
 in the life of primitive man; but it is utterly 
 misleading to say that it has governed human 
 development since the beginning of the 
 Christian era; and to teach that it is a law 
 that should and must dominate the lives of 
 men, even in war, is tantamount to a denial 
 of the essential differences between animal 
 life and human life, and especially of the 
 distinguishing qualities of man as an ethical 
 and spiritual being. 
 
 If such a doctrine is to go unchallenged in 
 its application to human evolution, then 
 assuredly might is right, as Bernhardi says; 
 assuredly, too, the soldier must crush every 
 feeling of humanity, and mercy and pity will 
 count for nothing more than they have 
 counted in Belgium; success will go to the 
 strongest, the swiftest, and the most cunning, 
 without any regard to the restraints of honour 
 and morality; and small states like Belgium 
 
68 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 and Holland will have no more right to 
 independent national existence than is conceded 
 them by the forbearance of a strong and 
 overbearing neighbour. It is high time that 
 students of history followed the lead of 
 Huxley, and raised their voices in clear and 
 unmistakable tones against the inculcation of 
 theories that give support to such monstrous 
 ideas as these. 
 
 For Huxley, though he is rightly called 
 the armour-bearer of Charles Darwin, did 
 protest against the application of this law to 
 human development in the most emphatic 
 way. In his Romanes Lecture at Oxford in 
 1893 he repudiated the idea that "because on 
 the whole animals and plants have advanced 
 in perfection of organization by means of the 
 struggle for existence and the consequent 
 survival of the fittest, therefore men in society ^ 
 men as ethical beings, must look to the same 
 process to help them toward perfection". On 
 the contrary, he affirmed that "Social progress 
 means a checking of the cosmic process at 
 every step, and a substitution for it of another 
 v/hich may be called the ethical process". 
 
 Precisely, that is what civilization means 
 and has meant especially in the last 190a 
 years, and that is why Great Britain has been 
 forced into this struggle. Behind the teach- 
 ing of Treitschke and Bernhardi lies the con- 
 
THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 69 
 
 viction that "war gives a biologically just 
 decision ", even though it begin in dishonour 
 and be waged in defiance of the rules of the 
 game. Behind the decision of the British 
 government on August 4 lies the conviction 
 that an ethical, not a brutal, process must 
 dominate international as well as civic life; 
 that force must be used not to trample upon 
 but to uphold the honourable engagements 
 and usages of civilized peoples in their deal- 
 ings with one another. This it is which makes 
 the present war a great landmark in the world's 
 history. It is nothing less than a struggle to 
 prevent a relapse into barbarous methods of 
 settling disputes, and to preserve those prin- 
 ciples, usages, and conventions which are 
 bound up with the continuity of civilization. 
 If Great Britain and the Allies win in this 
 war, then the idea that an ethical process 
 should be substituted for the brutal process 
 of war in the evolution of human affairs will 
 receive a sanction far more authoritative than 
 it has ever had before, and it is possible 
 enough that no nation will ever dare to do 
 again what Germany has done in Belgium. 
 
 But it will be a very different matter if 
 Germany should prevail ; for, undoubtedly, 
 the German authorities have waged war on 
 land and sea in a way that shows they are out 
 of harmony with the spirit of the age in which 
 
70 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 we live. Yet they are convinced that their 
 way is the right way; and in this attitude of 
 mind lurks great danger to civilization, for it 
 has been a sinister, immoral, and brutal way. 
 
 Most governments, even of the more 
 advanced democracies, realize their responsi- 
 bilities in regard to defensive warfare ; and 
 some of them were prepared to act upon the 
 conviction that under exceptional circum- 
 stances, in which invasion was to be expected, 
 aggressive warfare might be the only chance 
 of defending successfully. But the idea of 
 making elaborate preparations extending over 
 many years for a war of conquest was so alien 
 to the spirit of our times that responsible states- 
 men in France and England, drawn together 
 as they were by dread of it, were caught ill- 
 prepared, and have been taken at a disadvantage. 
 
 Even more shocking to many people 
 than this cold-blooded preparation for 
 world conquest have been the methods by 
 which the military and naval authorities have 
 carried on the war. They have revived prac- 
 tices that are incompatible with the usage of 
 civilized peoples, and destructive of any true 
 confidence between nation and nation. The 
 abuse of espionage is one of them. Nobody 
 objects to an intelligence or even a secret 
 service department. Every government wants 
 to know how it stands with respect to other 
 
THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 71 
 
 governments, and especially those from which 
 danger is to be apprehended. But the Ger- 
 mans have practised espionage in a way that 
 is inconsistent with any ideas of national 
 fair play. The history of the war in Belgium 
 proves this ; and the charge is made, not only 
 by writers of the belligerent nations, but 
 also by neutral authors, such as Mr. Powell, 
 who have written of what they saw in Flanders. 
 Many of the Germans, who had lived in 
 Belgium for years, made fortunes there, and 
 had honours conferred upon them, acted as 
 spies for the German army after the invasion. 
 This is dirty work, and it is not the sort of 
 thing that is likely to inspire the govern- 
 ments of different countries with confidence 
 in the loyalty of their German settlers. It 
 will probably force many of them to find out, 
 after this war is over, how far the existence 
 of the Delbruck Act is compatible with the 
 loyalty of settlers of German birth to the 
 country of their adoption. Treachery is a 
 difficult thing to deal with in times of war, 
 and the results of it may be terrible. The 
 Russian retreat from the Carpathians may 
 find its true explanation in the treacherous 
 destruction of munition factories in St. Peters- 
 burg. 
 
 But even the abuses of espionage have not 
 shocked the feeling of the civilized world so 
 
72 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 much as the atrocities committed by Germany 
 in Belgium and on the Atlantic in pursuance 
 of the policy of frightfulness. In Belgium 
 hostages have been taken and held responsible 
 for the conduct of whole towns and cities; 
 women, children, and old men have been 
 slaughtered in droves, sometimes without so 
 much as an inquiry, because of sniping, or 
 the acts of individuals stung to madness by 
 the destruction of their homes, or the viola- 
 tion of those they loved; children have been 
 roped together as screens for the German 
 soldiery, and women made to stand all night 
 on a bridge, exposed to the rigours of the 
 climate, for the same purpose. Across the 
 water, unfortified towns such as Scarborough 
 and Whitby have been bombarded; the 
 Falaba was sunk, and some of the passengers 
 fired upon as they were trying to escape ; the 
 Lusitania was torpedoed, and ioo neutral 
 Americans sent to their doom with hundreds 
 of British civilians. 
 
 All this is contrary to convention, and some 
 legally minded people talk as though it were 
 the violation of convention that made it a 
 crime. Not at all. Such outrages would 
 have been crimes against civilization even if 
 the Hague Conferences had never been held. 
 It is impossible in a war of this magnitude to 
 shield civilians altogether; but these are not 
 
THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 73 
 
 accidents; they are the results of a policy 
 deliberately adopted and pursued in order to 
 terrorize Belgium, and the world at large, 
 into submission. Prussians have long been 
 of the opinion that peace-loving nations were 
 decadent, and that the imminence of danger 
 or of death would unnerve them, and throw 
 them into panic. Hence these cowardly 
 barbarities, which force the mind back over 
 centuries to find a parallel in severity. The 
 tendency of civilized peoples in the past three 
 hundred years has been to formulate rules of 
 the game in such a way that civilians, and 
 especially women, children, and old men, 
 should be kept out of this dreadful business 
 as much as possible. The German military 
 and naval authorities have dragged them back 
 into it again, and they have done it deliberately. 
 After the publication of Lord Bryce's 
 report there can no longer be any reasonable 
 doubt about this. That is their crime against 
 civilization. 
 
 And that is the chief reason why opinion 
 in the great neutral countries of the world 
 has gone so decidedly against Germany. The 
 people of the United States are anxious to 
 keep out of the war if possible; but 80 per 
 cent, of them are heart and soul with the 
 Allies, because they know that respect for the 
 opinions and prejudices of civilization is part 
 
74 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 of the great cause for which they are fighting. 
 President Wilson's protests came as a surprise 
 to the missionaries of Kultur^ and were bitterly 
 resented. "War is war," they persisted, and 
 so, no doubt, it is; but there is a human as 
 well as a brutal way of conducting warfare. 
 In the relentless struggle in the animal world 
 there are no rules of the game, and the Ger- 
 man idea of war resembles that struggle to a 
 degree that few enlightened people thought 
 possible in this stage of the world's history. 
 But it is just those rules of the game that 
 constitute the difference between fair play and 
 foul play, between civilized warfare and bar- 
 barous slaughter; and this is what the people 
 of the United States have been trying to 
 impress upon the German mind. 
 
 The policy of Rightfulness has been modi- 
 fied to some extent, but not out of any real 
 respect for the usages of civilization. Rather 
 it is due to the realization that, in dealing with 
 the nations of the West, it does not pay as well 
 as the German war-lords thought it would, and 
 also because so many German submarines are 
 lying helpless wrecks on the bottom of the 
 sea. It is not the continuity of civilization, 
 or the substitution of an ethical process for 
 the brutal process of war, that troubles Ger- 
 many. She is out to win, and has made it 
 clear from the beginning of the war that no 
 
THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 75 
 
 respect for the opinions and prejudices of 
 mankind will prevent her from using any 
 means that will enable her to snatch a victory. 
 It is with her a question of what policy pays 
 best in the attempt to "hack her way 
 through ". The views of Bernhardi on war 
 are the views of the war-lords of Germany. 
 To them, as to him, might is right. What 
 Bernhardi has preached in his book the war- 
 lords have applied in their warfare on land 
 and sea. It is the application of biological 
 law in defiance of the rules of the game and 
 of the moral force of civilization. 
 

 
 m 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NATIONAL INDIVIDUALISM 
 V. INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 OR is there any hope for a better 
 state of things in the teaching of 
 Treitschke concerning the final 
 authority of the state. It is an 
 idea that follows almost inevitably 
 from the application of biological law to human 
 life. Just as the comity of nations is naturally 
 associated with arbitration and international 
 law; so national individualism is associated 
 with and implies war, and in the end a bellum 
 omnium contra omnes. But such an individual- 
 ism would mean a relapse into barbarism, and, 
 to prevent this, civilized peoples have made 
 use of law, convention, and organization inside 
 and outside the state. 
 
 Most people were of the opinion before 
 the beginning of this war that international 
 law, and the well established usages of civili- 
 zation, to say nothing of conscience, were 
 tribunals before which the conduct of any one 
 state, however powerful, would be judged. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW jj 
 
 Not so the German military and political 
 authorities, and not so a majority of the Ger- 
 man people. In the whole range of Treitschke's 
 political thought there is probably no one idea 
 more forcefully and persistently advocated 
 than the almightiness of the state. What it 
 meant for him and for his disciples was that 
 in the visible organization of man there is no 
 authority higher than the state, and for that 
 reason "a state cannot bind its will for the 
 future in relation to another state. The 
 state has no higher judge above it, and there- 
 fore will conclude all treaties with mental 
 reservation." 
 
 The influence of such teaching as this on 
 the treaty-violation that brought Great Britain 
 into this war will be apparent at once. It is 
 quite characteristic of Germany that, while 
 claiming so much for nationality in her own 
 interests, she has shown so little regard for 
 the independence of Belgium. What Treitschke 
 and the German political and military hierarchy 
 really meant was that there is no higher 
 authority in the external society of man than 
 Germany. Nationality is a reality, one of 
 the most stubborn realities of our time, as 
 Germany is now learning to her cost; but, so 
 long as human beings are dispersed in many 
 nations, and recognize the supremacy of moral 
 over physical force, national authority can 
 
78 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 never be final or supreme. National authority 
 has a place, and a very important place, in 
 the world to-day; but it may not usurp so 
 high an authority as the law of nations, and 
 the conscience of mankind. As well might 
 a citizen argue that he has a right to put his 
 own individual interests, or the interests of 
 his profession, class, or union above the claims 
 of the state. That means anarchy. 
 
 In pushing the authority of a single state 
 to such an unwarrantable extent Germany has 
 deliberately set herself in opposition to the 
 development of international authority on 
 which the maintenance of an enduring peace, 
 and the formal progress of civilization so much 
 depend. The issue involved here is one of 
 very great importance. It is nothing less than 
 this: Are we ever to have such a thing as 
 international law or not? Certainly, if the 
 German idea of the almightiness of the state 
 is to prevail, we shall not. But in the last 
 400 years history has been turning out the 
 raw material of international law, and Germany's 
 reactionary protest only means that the finished 
 product was so near completion that war, 
 Prussia's chief industry, and the source of so 
 much of her own material power, would soon 
 be under its control. 
 
 The movement toward the attainment of 
 some definitely constituted international au- 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 79 
 
 thority in Europe that would gradually 
 supersede war was begun by Wolsey in the 
 reign of Henry VIII, when he launched the 
 idea of the balance of power. By this means 
 a comity of nations was arranged to repel the 
 aggression of any one state that was strong 
 enough to imperil the peace of Europe. 
 There is no doubt that it worked well, and, 
 because of her "splendid isolation ", particu- 
 larly well for England. It meant very often 
 that she with her well defined sea-girt frontiers 
 held the balance of power; and anybody who 
 has read Bernhardi's book can see that this is 
 the reason why Germany is determined to 
 put an end to it by insisting upon the 
 almightiness of the state. That it has made 
 for the peace of Europe, and for the continuity 
 of civilization, does not matter to Germany. 
 She has made up her mind to dominate 
 Europe, and, if the comity of nations and the 
 balance of power stand in her way, they must 
 go, and especially if England, the great world- 
 power, derives more advantage from them 
 than she. 
 
 And so, too, must international convention, 
 arbitration, and law, for they belong to the 
 comity of nations, and, during the nineteenth 
 century, were winning authority not only in 
 Europe but also in the world at large. It 
 was a development which all the democratic 
 
80 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 nations of the world favoured, and even some 
 of the more military nations like Russia and 
 Japan. To all nations with any genuine 
 pacific inclinations, and any real regard for the 
 progress of civilization, it was bound to com- 
 mend itself. England and France settled 
 their differences about Egypt, Central Africa, 
 and the Newfoundland fisheries by arbitration; 
 by the same method England and the United 
 States settled their disputes about the Cana- 
 dian boundary and Behring Straits. So well 
 established had this method of settling dis- 
 putes become that, by the end of the century, 
 responsible statesmen in different countries of 
 the world had begun to discuss the possibility 
 of the erection of an international court of 
 arbitration. This court was to consist of 
 representatives of the nations of the world, 
 and its business was to be the settlement of 
 international disputes by reason instead of 
 war. President Roosevelt, when in office, 
 tried to prepare the way for it, and he is 
 working for it still. There is probably 
 nothing more characteristic of the administra- 
 tion of Sir Edward Grey than the work he 
 has done to prepare the mind of Europe for 
 such a tribunal — a tribunal which shall have 
 the power to say to any aggressive country: 
 Show us your ultimatum; if we believe that 
 your demands are just we will support them; 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 81 
 
 if not, and you still persist in war, it is also 
 war against the nations here represented. 
 
 This is one of the great issues involved in 
 the war. This is what England the champion 
 of the comity of nations is fighting for, and 
 what Germany the champion of national in- 
 dividualism is fighting against. The issue is 
 so tremendous that it involves nothing less 
 than a choice between the continuity of 
 civilization and a return to the crudest form 
 of despotism. It is a struggle between the 
 methods that make for the rule of reason and 
 persuasion, and methods that make for the 
 rule of force. 
 
 And what has the progress of civilization 
 consisted in, if not in the gradual substitution 
 of reason for force in the settlement of 
 individual and national disputes? Individual 
 liberty within the state is rendered possible 
 because individual aggression is restrained by 
 law. In like manner national freedom can 
 only be secured by making international 
 brigands amenable to international law. What 
 security will Belgium or any other small state 
 ever have against a mighty power like Ger- 
 many, if there is to be no external authority 
 in the society of men higher than the state? 
 Germany has shown that she has no sufficient 
 regard for the settled opinions and feelings 
 of civilization, and Germany is a mighty power. 
 
82 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 There lies the danger, and, if the continuity 
 of civilization is to be safeguarded some 
 external authority must be established with 
 sufficient power to make international law as 
 effective in the relations between nation and 
 nation, as ordinary law is in the relations 
 between man and man. Germany is trying 
 to do essentially the same thing in the world 
 at large as the feudal brigand of the Middle 
 Ages with his powerful following did within 
 the state. She must be brought under control 
 in the same way as he — by law. 
 
 That is what England is fighting for, and 
 if ever such a desirable object is to be attained, 
 it will have to be won by fighting; it will not 
 come by talking and protesting. America 
 has done something to expose the inhumanity 
 of Germany's conduct by her official notes, 
 and her splendid efforts to relieve the suffer- 
 ings of the Belgians. But it is well for 
 America, and for civilization, that there are 
 other nations in the world prepared to support 
 their protests by armed force. America is 
 humanitarian in her sympathies, and her ideals 
 of government are higher than those of 
 Germany; but she has overlooked the fact 
 that idealism must be supported by force, if 
 it is to be effective at this stage of the world's 
 history. Germany by her strength and pre- 
 paredness has taught us that; so has America 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 83 
 
 by her unpreparedness and want of military- 
 efficiency. 
 
 When a nation of 100,000,000 people after 
 hearing that its neutral subjects are sent 
 to their doom in the waves of the Atlantic 
 tells the world through its chief executive 
 officer that there is such a thing as being too 
 proud to fight only one reflection is possible, 
 viz., that America does not fight because she 
 is not prepared to put her protests into effect. 
 And no further evidence is needed to prove 
 that, if ever an international court of arbitra- 
 tion is established, it must differ in one 
 all-important essential from the Hague tribu- 
 nal: it must be backed by military and naval 
 force sufficient to make its decisions effective 
 against the defiance of any one power, however 
 strong that power may be. The world is not 
 done with force yet, and never will be till the 
 millennium is reached. The frail man need 
 not fear the strong now-a-days in a court of 
 law, provided he can convince a judge and 
 jury that his cause is just. That is because 
 there is a force behind the law which is 
 stronger than the force that any one aggressive 
 individual can command. We have become 
 so habituated to the rule of law that there is 
 little need in a civilized country to parade the 
 force behind it; but it is there, or at least it 
 should be there, if the state hopes to avert 
 
84 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 anarchy, and to survive. And so it must be 
 in regard to this international court of arbi- 
 tration. Some people talk as though the 
 establishment of such a court would make 
 armies and navies superfluous. No j ustiflcation 
 can be found in history for any such optimism. 
 Reason is better than force, but force is more 
 ultimate than reason, and where there is not 
 force enough to maintain the law, unscrupulous 
 men will seize the opportunity to defy it. 
 So will unscrupulous nations, where there is 
 not force enough to restrain international 
 brigandage. 
 
 Germany has used her mighty power to 
 crash through treaty-obligation and promise. 
 That is a barbarous use of force, and the only 
 way to prevent its recurrence is to have a 
 power greater than Germany's which will be 
 used to uphold treaty-obligation and promise. 
 That is the only practical way to make 
 international law effective; and that is why 
 Great Britain has thrown in her lot with 
 France and Russia in this war; and, if ever 
 anything like an enduring peace among the 
 nations of the world is to be attained, that is 
 the only way to get it. Nobody had a right to 
 complain of Germany having a strong military 
 force, for it is the duty of every nation to 
 prepare to defend itself, and Germany is in a 
 difficult position geographically. But her 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 85 
 
 ambitions were not limited to defensive pre- 
 cautions. She had designs on the colonies 
 of France, as the White Book shows; and all 
 that speeding up of the army and navy is 
 inexplicable except on the assumption that 
 she had made up her mind for world-power, 
 by conquest, and was willing to risk downfall 
 in the event of failure. 
 
 Germany has in fact gone the way of 
 nearly all individuals and nations who have 
 pursued material ambitions with success, at 
 the expense of such qualities as make for 
 sweetness and light, and a reasonable respect 
 for the feelings of others. The culture of 
 Goethe and Beethoven and Kant gives place 
 to the Kultur of Nietzsche, Treitschke, and 
 Wilhelm II, and in religion the worship of 
 valour takes the place of the worship of 
 Christ. The harvest has come, and she is 
 reaping to-day what she has sown with so 
 much care in the past. The crop is not only 
 tares. In physical and material strength 
 Germany is prodigiously powerful, and the 
 patriotism of her citizens must command the 
 admiration of all fair-minded men. If the 
 inculcation of the almightiness of the state 
 has made Germany an Ishmaelite among the 
 greater and more civilized nations of the 
 world, it has also taught the German people 
 themselves to sacrifice everything for what 
 
86 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 they conceive to be the good of Germany. 
 It would appear that masses of men in 
 macedonian phalanxes are willing to go to 
 almost certain death for the Fatherland. 
 
 Pity it is that the Fatherland is not en- 
 gaged in a nobler cause, and that so many 
 lives should be sacrificed for material ambi- 
 tions, and impossible ideals! For no consi- 
 deration of the energy and self-sacrifice of the 
 German soldiers can alter the fact that Ger- 
 many is playing the part of an international 
 brigand, and that, in the conduct of the war 
 on land and sea, she has already established 
 traditions so dishonourable and brutal that no 
 amount of heroism can atone for them. What 
 is the better class of German likely to think 
 50 years hence as he looks back over the past, 
 and sees the Kaiser trampling on the word of 
 his countrymen, pledged solemnly in treaty, 
 and reaffirmed by convention and ministerial 
 promise? What is he likely to think as he 
 reflects on the condition of Belgium and its 
 people, dragged into this war for no other 
 reason than that they preferred their political 
 freedom to material advantage, and fidelity to 
 the word that they, too, had pledged in the 
 treaties that guaranteed them their neutrality 
 and independence? And what, again, is he 
 likely to think of the conduct of the German 
 naval authorities who, after sustaining reverses, 
 
INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 87 
 
 abandon legitimate warfare on the sea to at- 
 tack passenger boats, and even hospital ships? 
 
 Germany is no doubt relying on the success 
 of her arms to minimize the effects of these 
 outrages on the decencies of civilized warfare; 
 and if^ by any mischance, she were to come 
 out of this war successful, much will be for- 
 given her by those who have never really 
 risen above the conviction that might is right. 
 And there are many such folk in the world, 
 though they are not as numerous as Germany 
 thinks. The heart of the world is after all 
 soundly moral. Civilized people believe in 
 world-right far more than in world-might; 
 and, though arrogance may be endured for a 
 time through the weakness or fear of its 
 victims, it breeds lasting feelings of resent- 
 ment in the heart of man. 
 
 From the very commencement of this 
 war the German army leaders threw to 
 the winds such high considerations as 
 honour, humanity, and fair play. They 
 made it clear to the world that they were 
 going to act up to the convictions of 
 Treitschke, that they were a law unto 
 themselves, that the soldier must crush every 
 feeling of humanity, and that success must 
 be attained by any means, fair or foul, just as 
 it is attained in the struggle for existence in 
 the animal world. If it had become clear to 
 
88 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 Germany that the policy of frightfulness was 
 an undoubted success, there is every reason 
 to believe that she would have stopped at no 
 atrocity. She will not be restrained by any 
 considerations of humanity. The only way 
 to restrain her is to show that frightfulness 
 does not pay. And this can only be done 
 if the decent opinion and prejudices of civili- 
 zation are effectively organized against her. 
 What the world wants is an international 
 court of arbitration powerful enough by 
 reason of the force it can command to keep 
 national individualism within due bounds; 
 and, if we do not get it in the near future, 
 then, in one very important respect, this war 
 will have been fought in vain. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE NEED OF THE HOUR 
 
 HE German people are wonder- 
 fully well organized for purposes 
 of war. This is only to be 
 expected, for Germany has been 
 prussianized in the last 50 years, 
 and Prussia's chief industry has for long been 
 war. It is only now that the nations of Europe, 
 and the world at large, are beginning to realize 
 the full extent of Germany's material and 
 physical resources, and many economists have 
 yet to learn that a nation that is determined 
 to live on its own labour, and produce what 
 it wants within its own confines, is not beaten 
 even if it should lose all its money and all its 
 outside trade. The people who cannot do 
 without money in this world are those who 
 are dependent on others for supplying their 
 wants; and this is true of nations as well as 
 individuals. Those who do their own work 
 can get along with very simple finance. 
 Germany's oceanic trade has ceased, and all 
 
9 o REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 her ships, except a few in the Baltic, are shut 
 up in German ports, or interned elsewhere. 
 If there is any commodity Germany cannot 
 produce which is indispensable for the 
 manufacture of weapons and explosives, she 
 will suffer, provided she cannot find a sub- 
 stitute; and it will become increasingly 
 difficult for her to supply the needs of her 
 vast armies on all fronts, especially as our 
 submarines are now sinking her ships in the 
 Baltic Sea. But if Germany can produce 
 what she wants within her own territory, 
 then you may destroy her commerce, and 
 shatter her financial credit in the outside 
 world, but she will still go on fighting, and 
 may still go on as long as she has men to fight 
 with. There has been far too much talk 
 about crushing Germany by reducing her to 
 a condition of financial bankruptcy. It is 
 true that you may force a nation to alter its 
 economic system by crippling its trade and 
 finance; but if it can live of its own, and is 
 willing and able to do all its work independent 
 of the outside world, you will only beat it by 
 capturing or destroying its armies. 
 
 When it comes to a struggle such as the 
 one in which we are now engaged, the 
 ordinary maxims of political economy do not 
 apply, and it is just as well to face this fact 
 and all that it means at once. One thing it 
 
THE NEED OF THE HOUR 91 
 
 means is this, that if Great Britain is depen- 
 dent upon the outside world for many of her 
 commodities, and Germany is self-sufficing, 
 then, despite all that British gold can do, and 
 despite all that the British fleet can do, 
 Germany will hold out until the last British 
 sovereign is spent, provided she has men 
 enough left to fight with. Money is, after 
 after all, only a universal means of exchange ; 
 behind that are the real sources of wealth: 
 the labour, material, industrial leaders, and 
 the will to conquer. Germany has the labour, 
 the leaders, and the will to conquer. If she 
 has also the cotton, and the copper, or 
 suitable substitutes, then the issue of the 
 struggle will depend upon the number and 
 efficiency of the men that either side can put 
 into the field and keep there. 
 
 It is precisely for this reason that the 
 advent of Bulgaria on the side of the central 
 powers has made the position a much more 
 serious one for the Allies. The sudden acces- 
 sion of a force of 300,000 men at a critical 
 stage of the war is of enormous impor- 
 tance. For, although there are great reserves 
 of men in the British Empire and Russia to 
 draw upon, it is impossible to equip them at 
 once and make them efficient fighters, and 
 much mischief may be done before the Allies 
 have time to cope with the additional forces 
 
92 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 at the disposal of the enemy. If Greece and 
 Roumania could make up their minds to 
 come in on the side of the Allies Bulgaria's 
 decision might speedily turn out to be a 
 blessing in disguise. But they are probably 
 thinking as hard about the Russian retreat as 
 Bulgaria has done, and, until the prestige 
 lost there and in the Dardanelles has been 
 recovered, it is not likely that they will care 
 to declare themselves openly against Ger- 
 many. The instinct of self-preservation is 
 strong, and so is the influence of German 
 dynastic sympathies. But the present incon- 
 venient situation would not have arisen if the 
 military forces of Russia and Great Britain 
 had been organized in anything like the same 
 thorough-going way as those of Germany. 
 It is easy to be wise after the event, and see 
 this now, and it is unfair to indulge in whole- 
 sale recriminations. Victory has not come 
 as soon as the Allies thought it would, and 
 there are many reasons why. Great Britain 
 is a naval, not a military, power, and Russia 
 was not prepared for war; very few people 
 knew that Germany was as strong as she is; 
 still fewer believed that it would be necessary 
 for Great Britain and Russia to draw upon 
 their reserves to the utmost limit in order 
 to defeat the Central Powers; the fighting 
 strength of Turkey was altogether under- 
 
THE NEED OF THE HOUR 93 
 
 rated, because of her failure in the Balkan 
 war; and too much reliance was placed upon 
 the strength of the Panslavist movement in 
 Austria-Hungary and the Balkan states. 
 
 But the gravity of the situation is suffi- 
 ciently apparent now; and, if Germany and 
 Austria should achieve any further successes, 
 the prestige of the Allies will so far be 
 impaired that wavering states will be inclined 
 to range themselves on the side where they 
 think safety lies. At present the issue is 
 hanging in the balance, though the reserve 
 of strength is far greater on the side of the 
 Allies than on that of the Central Powers. 
 Great Britain has right on her side, and 
 strength in reserve. Germany entered the 
 war with a confession of wrong-doing, but 
 her strength was organized with marvellous 
 efficiency from the beginning. One thing, 
 and one only, now stands between the Allies 
 and success: the want of a thorough-going 
 and effective organization of all their re- 
 sources. If Germany is to be conquered, if 
 right is to prevail over might, then the 
 government of Great Britain must organize 
 the forces of the United Kingdom and the 
 Empire far more effectively than they have 
 done hitherto, and they must do it speedily. 
 Never had nation a greater or nobler cause 
 for taking up arms; freedom, honour, the 
 
94 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 
 
 integrity of the Empire, the continuity of 
 civilization are at stake. Time after time we 
 have been told this by our leaders, and there 
 is every reason to believe that it is true. 
 Much has been done by Great Britain and 
 the Empire — far more than most people 
 thought would be necessary at the outbreak 
 of the war. The British navy has fully 
 maintained the traditions of the past, and the 
 imperial armies have done bravely in Africa, 
 Flanders, and the Dardanelles; but more 
 men are needed, and the question of the hour 
 is: How are they to be raised, organized, 
 and equipped efficiently and speedily? This 
 is not the place to conduct an inquiry 
 into the relative merits of voluntary and 
 compulsory service. The question of the 
 adoption of the one or the other is a political 
 question, and will be decided on grounds of 
 expediency. The only people qualified to 
 express an authoritative opinion are the cabi- 
 net ministers in the governments of the 
 United Kingdom and the Dominions. With 
 them lies the responsibility, and their respon- 
 sibility is great! If the authority of inter- 
 national law is to be vindicated; if the peace 
 of Europe and the world is to be established 
 on more enduring foundations, then forces 
 stronger than those of the Central Powers must 
 be raised, organized, and equipped without 
 
THE NEED OF THE HOUR 95 
 
 delay. Will the democratic governments 
 of the empire rise to the greatness of the 
 occasion? If not, then once more in the 
 history of the world, democracy, the highest 
 form of human government, will have proved 
 itself unequal to the demands made upon it 
 in the hour of danger. Germany will emerge 
 from the struggle unbeaten, and there will 
 be military discipline enough for a hundred 
 years to come. 
 
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