Military preparedness meets two needs. In the first place, it is a partial insurance against war. In the next place, it is a partial guarantee that if war comes the country will certainly escape dishonor and will probably escape material loss.
The question of preparedness cannot be considered at all until we get certain things clearly in our minds. Right thinking, wholesome thinking, is essential as a preliminary to sound national action. Until our people understand the folly of certain of the arguments advanced against the action this nation needs, it is, of course, impossible to expect them to take such action.
The first thing to understand is the fact that preparedness for war does not always insure peace but that it very greatly increases the chances of securing peace. Foolish people point out nations which, in spite of preparedness for war, have seen war come upon them, and then exclaim that preparedness against war is of no use. Such an argument is precisely like saying that the existence175 of destructive fires in great cities shows that there is no use in having a fire department. A fire department, which means preparedness against fire, does not prevent occasional destructive fires, but it does greatly diminish and may completely minimize the chances for wholesale destruction by fire. Nations that are prepared for war occasionally suffer from it; but if they are unprepared for it they suffer far more often and far more radically.
Fifty years ago China, Korea, and Japan were in substantially the same stage of culture and civilization. Japan, whose statesmen had vision and whose people had the fighting edge, began a course of military preparedness, and the other two nations (one of them in natural resources immeasurably superior to Japan) remained unprepared. In consequence, Japan has immensely increased her power and standing and is wholly free from all danger of military invasion. Korea on the contrary, having first been dominated by Russia has now been conquered by Japan. China has been partially dismembered; one half of her territories are now subject to the dominion of foreign nations, which have time and again waged war between themselves on these territories, and her remaining territory is kept by her purely because these foreign nations are jealous of one another.
In 1870 France was overthrown and suffered176 by far the most damaging and disastrous defeat she had suffered since the days of Joan of Arc—because she was not prepared. In the present war she has suffered terribly, but she is beyond all comparison better off than she was in 1870, because she has been prepared. Poor Belgium, in spite of being prepared, was almost destroyed, because great neutral nations—the United States being the chief offender—have not yet reached the standard of international morality and of willingness to fight for righteousness which must be attained before they can guarantee small, well-behaved, civilized nations against cruel disaster. England, because she was prepared as far as her navy is concerned, has been able to avoid Belgium’s fate; and, on the other hand, if she had been as prepared with her army as France, she would probably have been able to avert the war and, if this could not have been done, would at any rate have been able to save both France and Belgium from invasion.
In recent years Rumania, Bulgaria, and Servia have at times suffered terribly, and in some cases have suffered disaster, in spite of being prepared for war; but Bosnia and Herzegovina are under alien rule at this moment because they could no more protect themselves against Austria than they could against Turkey. While Greece was unprepared she was able to accomplish177 nothing, and she encountered disaster. As soon as she was prepared, she benefited immensely.
Switzerland, at the time of the Napoleonic wars, was wholly unprepared for war. In spite of her mountains, her neighbors overran her at will. Great battles were fought on her soil, including one great battle between the French and the Russians; but the Swiss took no part in these battles. Their territory was practically annexed to the French Republic, and they were domineered over first by the Emperor Napoleon and then by his enemies. It was a bitter lesson, but the Swiss learned it. Since then they have gradually prepared for war as no other small state of Europe has done, and it is in consequence of this preparedness that none of the combatants has violated Swiss territory in the present struggle.
The briefest examination of the facts shows that unpreparedness for war tends to lead to immeasurable disaster, and that preparedness, while it does not certainly avert war any more than the fire department of a city certainly averts fire, yet tends very strongly to guarantee the nation against war and to secure success in war if it should unhappily arise.
Another argument advanced against preparedness for war is that such preparedness incites war. This, again, is not in accordance with the facts. Unquestionably certain nations have at times prepared178 for war with a view to foreign conquest. But the rule has been that unpreparedness for war does not have any real effect in securing peace, although it is always apt to make war disastrous, and that preparedness for war generally goes hand in hand with an increased caution in going to war.
Striking examples of these truths are furnished by the history of the Spanish-American states. For nearly three quarters of a century after these states won their independence their history was little else than a succession of bloody revolutions and of wars among themselves as well as with outsiders, while during the same period there was little or nothing done in the way of effective military preparedness by one of them. During the last twenty or thirty years, however, certain of them, notably Argentina and Chile, have prospered and become stable. Their stability has been partly caused by, and partly accompanied by, a great increase in military preparedness. During this period Argentina and Chile have known peace as they never knew it before, and as the other Spanish-American countries have not known it either before or since, and at the same time their military efficiency has enormously increased.
Proportionately, Argentina and Chile are in military strength beyond all comparison more efficient than the United States; and if our navy is permitted to deteriorate as it has been deteriorating179 for nearly two years, the same statement can soon be made, although with more qualification, of their naval strength. Preparedness for war has made them far less liable to have war. It has made them less and not more aggressive. It has also made them for the first time efficient potential factors in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine as coguarantors, on a footing of complete equality with the United States. The Monroe Doctrine, conceived not merely as a measure of foreign policy vital to the welfare of the United States, but even more as the proper joint foreign policy of all American nations, is by far the most efficient guarantee against war that can be offered the western hemisphere. By whatever name it is called, it is absolutely indispensable in order to keep this hemisphere mistress of its own destinies, able to prevent any part of it from falling under the dominion of any Old World power, and able absolutely to control in its own interest all colonization on and immigration to our shores from either Europe or Asia.
The bloodiest and most destructive war in Spanish-American history, that waged by Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay against Paraguay, was waged when all the nations were entirely unprepared for war, especially the three victorious nations. During the last two or three decades Mexico, the Central American states, Colombia,180 and Venezuela have been entirely unprepared for war, as compared with Chile and Argentina. Yet, whereas Chile and Argentina have been at peace, the other states mentioned have been engaged in war after war of the most bloody and destructive character. Entire lack of preparedness for war has gone hand in hand with war of the worst type and with all the worst sufferings that war can bring.
The lessons taught by Spanish-America are paralleled elsewhere. When Greece was entirely unprepared for war she nevertheless went to war with Turkey, exactly as she did when she was prepared; the only difference was that in the one case she suffered disaster and in the other she did not. The war between Italy and Turkey was due wholly to the fact that Turkey was not prepared—that she had no navy. The fact that in 1848 Prussia was entirely unprepared, and moreover had just been engaged in a revolution heartily approved by all the ultrapacificists and professional humanitarians, did not prevent her from entering on a war with Denmark. It merely prevented the war from being successful.
Utter and complete lack of preparation on our part did not prevent our entering into war with Great Britain in 1812 and with Mexico in 1848. It merely exposed us to humiliation and disaster in the former war; in the latter, Mexico was even181 worse off as regards preparation than we were. As for civil war, of course military unpreparedness has not only never prevented it but, on the contrary, seems usually to have been one of the inciting causes.
The fact that unpreparedness does not mean peace ought to be patent to every American who will think of what has occurred in this country during the last seventeen years. In 1898 we were entirely unprepared for war. No big nation, save and except our opponent, Spain, was more utterly unprepared than we were at that time, nor more utterly unfit for military operations. This did not, however, mean that peace was secured for a single additional hour. Our army and navy had been neglected for thirty-three years. This was due largely to the attitude of the spiritual forebears of those eminent clergymen, earnest social workers, and professionally humanitarian and peace-loving editors, publicists, writers for syndicates, speakers for peace congresses, pacificist college presidents, and the like who have recently come forward to protest against any inquiry into the military condition of this nation, on the ground that to supply our ships and forts with sufficient ammunition and to fill up the depleted ranks of the army and navy, and in other ways to prepare against war, will tend to interfere with peace. In 1898 the gentlemen of this sort had had their way for182 thirty-three years. Our army and navy had been grossly neglected. But the unpreparedness due to this neglect had not the slightest effect of any kind in preventing the war. The only effect it had was to cause the unnecessary and useless loss of thousands of lives in the war. Hundreds of young men perished in the Philippine trenches because, while the soldiers of Aguinaldo had modern rifles with smokeless powder, our troops had only the old black-powder Springfield. Hundreds more, nay thousands, died or had their health impaired for life in fever camps here in our own country and in the Philippines and Cuba, and suffered on transports, because we were entirely unprepared for war, and therefore no one knew how to take care of our men. The lives of these brave young volunteers were the price that this country paid for the past action of men like the clergymen, college presidents, editors, and humanitarians in question—none of whom, by the way, risked their own lives. They were also the price that this country paid for having had in previous cabinets just such incompetents as in time of peace Presidents so often, for political reasons, put into American cabinets—just such incompetents as President Wilson has put into the Departments of State and of the Navy.
Now and then the ultrapacificists point out the fact that war is bad because the best men go to the183 front and the worst stay at home. There is a certain truth in this. I do not believe that we ought to permit pacificists to stay at home and escape all risk, while their braver and more patriotic fellow countrymen fight for the national well-being. It is for this reason that I wish that we would provide for universal military training for our young men, and in the event of serious war make all men do their part instead of letting the whole burden fall upon the gallant souls who volunteer. But as there is small likelihood of any such course being followed in the immediate future, I at least hope that we will so prepare ourselves in time of peace as to make our navy and army thoroughly efficient; and also to enable us in time of war to handle our volunteers in such shape that the loss among them shall be due to the enemy’s bullets instead of, as is now the case, predominantly to preventable sickness which we do not prevent. I call the attention of the ultrapacificists to the fact that in the last half century all the losses among our men caused by “militarism,” as they call it, that is, by the arms of an enemy in consequence of our going to war, have been far less than the loss caused among these same soldiers by applied pacificism, that is, by our government having yielded to the wishes of the pacificists and declined in advance to make any preparations for war. The professional peace184 people have benefited the foes and ill-wishers of their country; but it is probably the literal fact to say that in the actual deed, by the obstacles they have thrown in the way of making adequate preparation in advance, they have caused more loss of life among American soldiers, fighting for the honor of the American flag, during the fifty years since the close of the Civil War than has been caused by the foes whom we have fought during that period.2
2 Some of the leading pacificists are men who have made great fortunes in industry. Of course industry inevitably takes toll of life. Far more lives have been lost in this country by men engaged in bridge building, tunnel digging, mining, steel manufacturing, the erection of sky-scrapers, the operations of the fishing fleet, and the like, than in all our battles in all our foreign wars put together. Such loss of life no more justifies us in opposing righteous wars than in opposing necessary industry. There was certainly far greater loss of life, and probably greater needless and preventable and uncompensated loss of life, in the industries out of which Mr. Carnegie made his gigantic fortune than has occurred among our troops in war during the time covered by Mr. Carnegie’s activities on behalf of peace.
But the most striking instance of the utter failure of unpreparedness to stop war has been shown by President Wilson himself. President Wilson has made himself the great official champion of unpreparedness in military and naval matters. His words and his actions about foreign war have their nearest parallel in the words and the actions of President Buchanan about civil war; and in each case there has been the same use of verbal adroitness to cover mental hesitancy. By185 his words and his actions President Wilson has done everything possible to prevent this nation from making its army and navy effective and to increase the inefficiency which he already found existing. We were unprepared when he took office, and every month since we have grown still less prepared. Yet this fact did not prevent President Wilson, the great apostle of unpreparedness, the great apostle of pacificism and anti-militarism, from going to war with Mexico last spring. It merely prevented him, or, to speak more accurately, the same mental peculiarities which made him the apostle of unpreparedness also prevented him, from making the war efficient. His conduct rendered the United States an object of international derision because of the way in which its affairs were managed. President Wilson made no declaration of war. He did not in any way satisfy the requirements of common international law before acting. He invaded a neighboring state, with which he himself insisted we were entirely at peace, and occupied the most considerable seaport of the country after military operations which resulted in the loss of the lives of perhaps twenty of our men and five or ten times that number of Mexicans; and then he sat supine, and refused to allow either the United States or Mexico to reap any benefit from what had been done.
186 It is idle to say that such an amazing action was not war. It was an utterly futile war and achieved nothing; but it was war. We had ample justification for interfering in Mexico and even for going to war with Mexico, if after careful consideration this course was deemed necessary. But the President did not even take notice of any of the atrocious wrongs Americans had suffered, or deal with any of the grave provocations we had received. His statement of justification was merely that “we are in Mexico to serve mankind, if we can find a way.” Evidently he did not have in his mind any particular idea of how he was to “serve mankind,” for, after staying eight months in Mexico, he decided that he could not “find a way” and brought his army home. He had not accomplished one single thing. At one time it was said that we went to Vera Cruz to stop the shipment of arms into Mexico. But after we got there we allowed the shipments to continue. At another time it was said that we went there in order to exact an apology for an insult to the flag. But we never did exact the apology, and we left Vera Cruz without taking any steps to get an apology. In all our history there has been no more extraordinary example of queer infirmity of purpose in an important crisis than was shown by President Wilson in this matter. His business was either not to interfere187 at all or to interfere hard and effectively. This was the sole policy which should have been allowed by regard for the dignity and honor of the government of the United States and the welfare of our people. In the actual event President Wilson interfered, not enough to quell civil war, not enough to put a stop to or punish the outrages on American citizens, but enough to incur fearful responsibilities. Then, having without authority of any kind, either under the Constitution or in international law or in any other way, thus interfered, and having interfered to worse than no purpose, and having made himself and the nation partly responsible for the atrocious wrongs committed on Americans and on foreigners generally in Mexico by the bandit chiefs whom he was more or less furtively supporting, President Wilson abandoned his whole policy and drew out of Mexico to resume his “watchful waiting.” When the President, who has made himself the chief official exponent of the doctrine of unpreparedness, thus shows that even in his hands unpreparedness has not the smallest effect in preventing war, there ought to be little need of discussing the matter further.
Preparedness for war occasionally has a slight effect in creating or increasing an aggressive and militaristic spirit. Far more often it distinctly diminishes it. In Switzerland, for instance, which188 we can well afford to take as a model for ourselves, effectiveness in preparation, and the retention and development of all the personal qualities which give the individual man the fighting edge, have in no shape or way increased the militarist or aggressive spirit. On the contrary, they have doubtless been among the factors that have made the Swiss so much more law-abiding and less homicidal than we are.
The ultrapacificists have been fond of prophesying the immediate approach of a universally peaceful condition throughout the world, which will render it unnecessary to prepare against war because there will be no more war. This represents in some cases well-meaning and pathetic folly. In other cases it represents mischievous and inexcusable folly. But it always represents folly. At best, it represents the inability of some well-meaning men of weak mind, and of some men of strong but twisted mind, either to face or to understand facts.
These prophets of the inane are not peculiar to our own day. A little over a century and a quarter ago a noted Italian pacificist and philosopher, Aurelio Bertela, summed up the future of civilized mankind as follows: “The political system of Europe has arrived at perfection. An equilibrium has been attained which henceforth will preserve peoples from subjugation. Few reforms189 are now needed and these will be accomplished peaceably. Europe has no need to fear revolution.”
These sapient statements (which have been paralleled by hundreds of utterances in the many peace congresses of the last couple of decades) were delivered in 1787, the year in which the French Assembly of Notables ushered in the greatest era of revolution, domestic turmoil, and international war in all history—an era which still continues and which shows not the smallest sign of coming to an end. Never before have there been wars on so great a scale as during this century and a quarter; and the greatest of all these wars is now being waged. Never before, except for the ephemeral conquests of certain Asiatic barbarians, have there been subjugations of civilized peoples on so great a scale.
During this period here and there something has been done for peace, much has been done for liberty, and very much has been done for reform and advancement. But the professional pacificists, taken as a class throughout the entire period, have done nothing for permanent peace and less than nothing for liberty and for the forward movement of mankind. Hideous things have been done in the name of liberty, in the name of order, in the name of religion; and the victories that have been gained against these iniquities190 have been gained by strong men, armed, who put their strength at the service of righteousness and who were hampered and not helped by the futility of the men who inveighed against all use of armed strength.
The effective workers for the peace of righteousness were men like Stein, Cavour, and Lincoln; that is, men who dreamed great dreams, but who were also pre-eminently men of action, who stood for the right, and who knew that the right would fail unless might was put behind it. The prophets of pacificism have had nothing whatever in common with these great men; and whenever they have preached mere pacificism, whenever they have failed to put righteousness first and to advocate peace as the handmaiden of righteousness, they have done evil and not good.
After the exhaustion of the Napoleonic struggles there came thirty-five years during which there was no great war, while what was called “the long peace” was broken only by minor international wars or short-lived revolutionary contests. Good, but not far-sighted, men in various countries, but especially in England, Germany, and our own country, forthwith began to dream dreams—not of a universal peace that should be founded on justice and righteousness backed by strength, but of a universal peace to be obtained by the prattle of weaklings and the outpourings of amiable191 enthusiasts who lacked the fighting edge. About 1850, for instance, the first large peace congress was held. There were numbers of kindly people who felt that this congress, and the contemporary international exposition, also the first of its kind, heralded the beginning of a régime of universal peace. As a matter of fact, there followed twenty years during which a number of great and bloody wars took place—wars far surpassing in extent, in duration, in loss of life and property, and in importance anything that had been seen since the close of the Napoleonic contest.
Then there came another period of nearly thirty years during which there were relatively only a few wars, and these not of the highest importance. Again upright and intelligent but uninformed men began to be misled by foolish men into the belief that world peace was about to be secured, on a basis of amiable fatuity all around and under the lead of the preachers of the diluted mush of make-believe morality. A number of peace congresses, none of which accomplished anything, were held, and also certain Hague conferences, which did accomplish a certain small amount of real good but of a strictly limited kind. It was well worth going into these Hague conferences, but only on condition of clearly understanding how strictly limited was the good that they accomplished. The hysterical192 people who treated them as furnishing a patent peace panacea did nothing but harm, and partially offset the real but limited good the conferences actually accomplished. Indeed, the conferences undoubtedly did a certain amount of damage because of the preposterous expectations they excited among well-meaning but ill-informed and unthinking persons. These persons really believed that it was possible to achieve the millennium by means that would not have been very effective in preserving peace among the active boys of a large Sunday-school—let alone grown-up men in the world as it actually is. A pathetic commentary on their attitude is furnished by the fact that the fifteen years that have elapsed since the first Hague conference have seen an immense increase of war, culminating in the present war, waged by armies, and with bloodshed, on a scale far vaster than ever before in the history of mankind.
All these facts furnish no excuse whatever for our failing to work zealously for peace, but they absolutely require us to understand that it is noxious to work for a peace not based on righteousness, and useless to work for a peace based on righteousness unless we put force back of righteousness. At present this means that adequate preparedness against war offers to our nation its sole guarantee against wrong and aggression.
193 Emerson has said that in the long run the most uncomfortable truth is a safer travelling companion than the most agreeable falsehood. The advocates of peace will accomplish nothing except mischief until they are willing to look facts squarely in the face. One of these facts is that universal military service, wherever tried, has on the whole been a benefit and not a harm to the people of the nation, so long as the demand upon the average man’s life has not been for too long a time. The Swiss people have beyond all question benefited by their system of limited but universal preparation for military service. The same thing is true of Australia, Chile, and Argentina. In every one of these countries the short military training given has been found to increase in marked fashion the social and industrial efficiency, the ability to do good industrial work, of the man thus trained. It would be well for the United States from every standpoint immediately to provide such strictly limited universal military training.
But it is well also for the United States to understand that a system of military training which from our standpoint would be excessive and unnecessary in order to meet our needs, may yet work admirably for some other nation. The two nations that during the last fifty years have made by far the greatest progress are Germany and Japan; and they are the two nations in which194 preparedness for war in time of peace has been carried to the highest point of scientific development. The feat of Japan has been something absolutely without precedent in recorded history. Great civilizations, military, industrial, and artistic, have arisen and flourished in Asia again and again in the past. But never before has an Asiatic power succeeded in adopting civilization of the European or most advanced type and in developing it to a point of military and industrial efficiency equalled only by one power of European blood.
As for Germany, we believers in democracy who also understand, as every sound-thinking democrat must, that democracy cannot succeed unless it shows the same efficiency that is shown by autocracy (as Switzerland on a small scale has shown it) need above all other men carefully to study what Germany has accomplished during the last half century. Her military efficiency has not been more astounding than her industrial and social efficiency; and the essential thing in her career of greatness has been the fact that this industrial and social efficiency is in part directly based upon the military efficiency and in part indirectly based upon it, because based upon the mental, physical, and moral qualities developed by the military efficiency. The solidarity and power of collective action, the trained ability to work hard for an end which is afar off in the195 future, the combination of intelligent forethought with efficient and strenuous action—all these together have given her her extraordinary industrial pre-eminence; and all of these have been based upon her military efficiency.
The Germans have developed patriotism of the most intense kind, and although this patriotism expresses itself in thunderous songs, in speeches and in books, it does not confine itself to these methods of expression, but treats them merely as incitements to direct and efficient action. After five months of war, Germany has on the whole been successful against opponents which in population outnumber her over two to one, and in natural resources are largely superior. Russian and French armies have from time to time obtained lodgement on German soil; but on the whole the fighting has been waged by German armies on Russian, French, and Belgian territory. On her western frontier, it is true, she was checked and thrown back after her first drive on Paris, and again checked and thrown slightly back when, after the fall of Antwerp, she attempted to advance along the Belgian coast. But in the west she has on the whole successfully pursued the offensive, and her battle lines are in the enemies’ territory, although she has had to face the entire strength of France, England, and Belgium.
196 Moreover, she did this with only a part of her forces. At the same time she was also obliged to use immense armies, singly or in conjunction with the Austrians, against the Russians on her Eastern frontier. No one can foretell the issue of the war. But what Germany has already done must extort the heartiest admiration for her grim efficiency. It could have been done only by a masterful people guided by keen intelligence and inspired by an intensely patriotic spirit.
France has likewise shown to fine advantage in this war (in spite of certain marked shortcomings, such as the absurd uniforms of her soldiers) because of her system of universal military training. England has suffered lamentably because there has been no such system. Great masses of Englishmen, including all her men at the front, have behaved so as to command our heartiest admiration. But qualification must be made when the nation as a whole is considered. Her professional soldiers, her navy, and her upper classes have done admirably; but the English papers describe certain sections of her people as making a poor showing in their refusal to volunteer. The description of the professional football matches, attended by tens of thousands of spectators, none of whom will enlist, makes a decent man ardently wish that under a rigid conscription law the entire body of players, promoters, and197 spectators could be sent to the front. Scotland and Canada have apparently made an extraordinary showing; the same thing is true of sections, high and low, of society in England proper; but it is also true that certain sections of the British democracy under a system of free volunteering have shown to disadvantage compared to Germany, where military service is universal. The lack of foresight in preparation was also shown by the inability of the authorities to furnish arms and equipment for the troops that were being raised. These shortcomings are not alluded to by me in a censorious spirit, and least of all with any idea of reflecting on England, but purely tha............