In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to consider the series of events which immediately preceded the recent outbreak of war. But the most complete account of moves and counter-moves, and of all the pretexts, arguments, demands, and appeals which were put forward by the various governments concerned, with the object of forcing on, justifying, circumscribing, or preventing the present struggle, can never give us the true explanation of why it occurred. For this we must look much further back than Midsummer last, and at other things besides the correspondence between Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors.
Nobody in his senses believes that Europe is at present in a convulsion because the heir-presumptive to the throne of Austria was murdered at Serajevo on the 28th of June. This event was tragic and deplorable, but it was merely a spark—one of that cloud of sparks which is always issuing from the chimney-stack of the European furnace. This one by ill-luck happened to fall upon a heap of combustibles, and set it in a blaze.
Great events, as the Greeks discovered several thousand years ago, do not spring from small causes, {70} though more often than not they have some trivial beginning. How came it that so much inflammable material was lying ready to catch fire?
To answer this question truthfully we need more knowledge of men and things than is given in those books, of varying hue, which the Chancelleries of Europe have published to explain their causes of action. The official sources provide much valuable information; but they will never explain to us why public opinion in Germany, ever since the beginning of the present century, has been inflamed with hatred against this country. Nor will they ever give us any clear idea as to what extent, and where, the practical aims and policies of that nation and our own were in conflict.
According to the state papers, it would appear that Russia was drawn into this war because of Servia, and France because of Russia, and Belgium because of France, and we ourselves because of Belgium; but it may well be doubted if even the first of this row of ninepins would have been allowed to fall, had it not been for the feelings which the German people and their rulers entertained towards Britain.
It is always hard for a man to believe in the sincerity, friendliness, and peaceful intentions of one against whom he is himself engaged in plotting an injury. German distrust of England was based upon the surest of all foundations—upon her own fixed and envious determination to overthrow our empire and rob us of our property. Her own mind being filled with this ambition, how could she be otherwise than incredulous of our expressions of goodwill? How could she conceive that we were so blind as not to have penetrated her thoughts, so deaf as not to have heard the threats which her public characters {71} were proclaiming so openly? Consequently when British Statesmen uttered amiable assurances they were judged guilty of a treacherous dissimulation.... One can only shrug one's shoulders, marvelling at the nightmares and suspicions which a bad conscience is capable of producing even among intelligent people.
THE DANGER POINT
It has been the fashion for half a century or more to talk of the Balkans as the danger-point of European peace. In a sense this is true. The crust is very thin in that region, and violent eruptions are of common occurrence. But the real danger of upheaval comes, not so much from the thinness of the crust, as from the violence of the subterranean forces. Of these, by far the most formidable in recent times have been the attitude of public opinion in Germany towards England—the hatred of England which has been sedulously and systematically inculcated among the people of all ranks—the suspicions of our policy which have been sown broadcast—the envy of our position in the world which has been instilled, without remission, by all and sundry the agencies and individuals subject to the orders and inspiration of government. An obsession has been created, by these means, which has distorted the whole field of German vision. National ill-will accordingly has refused to yield to any persuasion. Like its contrary, the passion of love, it has burned all the more fiercely, being unrequited.
The fact which it is necessary to face, fairly and squarely, is that we are fighting the whole German people. We may blame, and blame justly, the Prussian junkers, the German bureaucracy, the Kaiser himself, for having desired this war, schemed {72} for it, set the match to it by intention or through a blunder; but to regard it as a Kaiser's war, or a junkers' war, or a bureaucrats' war is merely to deceive ourselves. It is a people's war if ever there was one. It could not have been more a people's war than it is, even if Germany had been a democracy like France or England.
The Kaiser, as regards this matter, is the mirror of his people. The Army and the Navy are his trusted servants against whom not a word will be believed. The wisdom of the bureaucracy is unquestioned. In matters of faith the zealous eloquence of the learned men is wholly approved. All classes are as one in devotion, and are moved by the same spirit of self-sacrifice. Hardly a murmur of criticism has been heard, even from the multitudes who at other times march under the red flag of Socialism.
Although a German panic with regard to Russia may have been the proximate occasion of this war, the force which most sustains it in its course is German hatred of England. We must recognise this fact with candour, however painful it may be. And we must also note that, during the past nine months, the feelings against England have undergone a change by no means for the better.
At the beginning the German people, if we may judge from published utterances, were convinced that the war had been engineered by Russia, and that England had meanly joined in it, because she saw her chance of crushing a dangerous and envied rival.
Two months later, however, it was equally clear that the German people were persuaded—Heaven {73} knows how or why!—that the war had been engineered by England, who was using France and Russia as her tools. Behind Russia, France, Belgium, Servia, and Japan—according to this view—stood Britain—perfidious throughout the ages—guiding her puppets with indefatigable skill to the destruction of German trade, colonies, navy, and world-power.
FANTASTIC ERRORS
Confiding Germany, in spite of all her unremitting abuse of Britain, had apparently, for some reason, really believed her to be a friend and a fellow Teuton! Could any treachery have been blacker than our own in outraging these family affections? And for Britain to support the Slav and the Celt against the Teuton, was judged to be the worst treachery of all—race treachery—especially by the Prussians, who, having forgotten that they themselves are half Slavs, seemed also to have forgotten that the British are largely Celts.
Every Englishman, whether he be an admirer of Sir Edward Grey's administration of Foreign Affairs or not, knows these dark suspicions to be merely nonsense. He knows this as one of the common certainties of existence—just as he knows that ginger is hot i' the mouth. Every Englishman knows that Sir Edward Grey, his colleagues, his advisers, his supporters in Parliament and out of it, and the whole British race throughout the world, hated the idea of war, and would have done—and in fact did, so far as in them lay—everything they could think of to avert it. Yet the German people do not at present believe a single word of this; and there must be some reason for their disbelief as for other things.
Unfortunately the nations of the world never {74} see one another face to face. They carry on their intercourse, friendly and otherwise, by high-angle fire, from hidden batteries of journalistic howitzers. Sometimes the projectiles which they exchange are charged with ideal hate which explodes and kills; at others with ideal love and admiration which dissolve in golden showers, delightful and amazing to behold. But always the gunners are invisible to each other, and the ideal love and admiration are often as far removed from the real merits of their objective as the ideal hate.
That there was no excuse, beyond mere fancy on Germany's part, for her distrust of British policy, no one, unless he were wholly ignorant of the facts, would dream of maintaining. During the years which have passed since 1870, our intentions have very rarely been unfriendly. Still more rarely, however, have we ever shown any real comprehension of the German point of view. Never have we made our policy clear. The last is hardly to be wondered at, seeing that we had not ourselves taken the pains to understand it.
On occasions, it is true, we have been effusive, and have somewhat overstepped the limits of dignity, plunging into a gushing sentimentality, or else wheedling and coaxing, with some material object—the abatement of naval expenditure, for example—showing very plainly through our blandishments. And as our methods at these times have been lacking in self-respect, it is not wonderful if they have earned little or no respect from others. Our protestations that we were friends, our babble about blood-relationship, were suspected to have their origin in timidity; our appeals for restriction of armaments, {75} to our aversion from personal sacrifice and our senile penuriousness.
FAULTS OF ENGLISH METHODS
Until lately these lapses into excessive amiability, it must be allowed, were not very frequent. The main excuse for German suspicion is to be found elsewhere—in the dilatoriness of our foreign policy—in its inability to make up its mind—in its changeability after its mind might have been supposed made up—in its vagueness with regard to the nature of our obligations towards other powers—whom we would support, and to what extent, and upon what pleas.
Irritation on the part of Germany would have been natural in these circumstances, even if she had not been in the mood to suspect dark motives in the background. From the days of Lord Granville to those of Sir Edward Grey, we had been dealing with a neighbour who, whatever her failings might be, was essentially businesslike in her methods. We, on the other hand, continued to exhibit many of those faults which are most ill-regarded by business men. We would not say clearly what regions came within our sphere of influence. We would not say clearly where Germany might go and where we should object to her going; but wherever she went, we were apt after the event to grumble and make trouble.
The delay and indecision which marked Lord Granville's dealings with Bismarck over the partition of Africa were both bad manners in the international sense, and bad policy. The neglect of Sir Edward Grey, after Agadir, to make clear to his fellow-countrymen, and to the world at large, the nature and extent of our obligations to France, was bad business. Next {76} to the British people and our present allies, Germany had the best reason to complain of this procedure, or rather of this failure to proceed.
The blame for this unfortunate record rests mainly upon our political system, rather than on individuals. We cannot enjoy the benefits of the most highly developed party system in the world, without losing by it in various directions. A change of Government, actual or impending, has more often been the cause of procrastination and uncertainty than change in the mind of the Foreign Minister. There are people who assure us that this must always be so, that it is one of the inherent weaknesses of party government, and even of democracy itself. This is not altogether true. It is tr............