England or Germany?

Front matter

-^A V

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Contents

ENGLAND OR GERMANY-?

Chapter Page Foreword 4

I. Christian Morality and the War 11

Foreword

Some of the best heads in the world have written about this war, and yet no one stands out as having approached impartiality. The first half dozen sentences always show on which side the sympathies of the writer are engaged. The Germans all believe that they have been attacked: Herr Von Jagow declares that the plot against them was got up by England; Hauptman is confident that all Germans feel they are in the right; Harden asserts that Germany is a law to herself. On the other hand, the Allies consider Germany as the aggressor: Anatole France throws down his pen and enlists at nearly seventy to fight the "barbarians"; Wells professes to regard the Germans as "inferior" beings; Sir Edward Grey believes that they desire "universal domination"; even Bernard Shaw appears to have regretted his attempt to see things as they really are and agrees that the Germans must be crushed. And now comes M. Faguet, eager to show that a really eminent literary critic may also be blinded by prejudice.

He begins by stating that the Germans are hated by all nations, and he infers therefrom that they are hateworthy, lacking at least in amiable qualities. The inference is plausible, but hardly more. M. Faguet appears to have no notion of the fact that men are apt to hate their superiors just as they like their inferiors; in proportion as a man rises above the ordinary he is sure to be disliked. That is the lesson of all genius: Socrates was hated in Athens not because he was unamiable, not because he "corrupted the youth," as his indictment phrased it; but because he was more reasonable, wiser, braver and more pious than other men. We mortals crown our greatest with thorns. The Germans are hated because they have done great things in the last twenty years ; they are not only strong in a military sense, but they have shown themselves as successful in business as in music and philosophy. Their population and wealth have grown by leaps and bounds, and, strange to say, they have been wise enough at the same time to do away with poverty. Much less would have sufficed to earn them general dislike, even if their manners had been as urbane and distinguished as they are reputed to be rude and aggressive.

Partisans, especially English-speaking partisans, are pretty sure to condemn this book of mine as if it were written in a spirit of bitter prejudice. There is probably an inclination in me to take the weaker side, the side of those who have the odds against them, for I have often noticed this inclination in other Celts; but this tendency, if it exists, is not the bias usual among American writers. In self-justification I say that those who would stand upright must lean against the prevalent wind in proportion to its strength. Of course, one may lean too far and lose balance; if I have done that, it is involuntary and I shall have to pay for the folly.

One curious fact has given me a good deal of confidence. I had practically written this book before I came across the "Englische Fragmente" of Heine. I was astounded to find that the conclusions to which Heine came after visiting England three-quarters of a century ago were almost exactly the conclusions which had gradually forced themselves in on me and I had set down after living and working twenty-five years in the country. Now Heine was a Jew, and apt, as most Jews are, to honor success and material prosperity such as England possesses, unduly; yet Heine condemns English laws and the modern English ideals as passionately as I do: Jew and Celt examining the subject from opposite viewpoints and arriving at the same result!

We both condemn the English oligarchy, English snobbishness and English hypocrisy; we were both struck with horror by the incredible cruelty with which the English treat the poor, and the unimaginable savagery of their laws, mainly directed against the weak. It v/as Heine who taught Matthew Arnold to see the "degradation of the English working class," "the ignorance and sordid narrow-mindedness of their middle-class,'* and the "barbarianism'* of their nobility. Heine left England, he tells us, to get away from "gentlemen" and live among ordinary knaves and fools as the only man with a clear understanding of human squalor.

Yet, though I agree with Heine in his condemnation of much in England, I differ from him in having some hope. The vices of the English governing class and the savagery of their laws only serve to set in relief the fact that such of the working-class as enjoy decent conditions of life are among the finest specimens of humanity to be met with anywhere. There is, so to speak, a well of pure loving-kindness about the heart of them which is amazing and a sense of humor as well. What shall be said of that English soldier who, after an unsuccessful sally against the German trenches, called out to his foes:

"Don't be downhearted, Dutchies; you'll get home yet."

It is my admiration of such Englishmen that lends passion to my hope that there may be a social revolution in Great Britain as an outcome of this war, a revolution which will put an end forever to the selfish, senseless domination of the titled class and set free at length the generous humanity of the common people. If it be partisanship to plead for this, then I am guilty of passionate partisanship ; but not otherwise, I believe. In fine, I belong as Victor Hugo said he did, to the party of Revolutionary civilization; the party which will control the twentieth century; and out of which must come the United States of Europe first, and then the United States of the World.

And in order to hasten the good time and bring the dream to consummation we should all try to be pitiful to the faults of others and pitiless to our own.

How conceited, how vainglorious we must be to blame this or that nation for causing this world-war, without realizing that we ourselves are all compact of the very faults which have led inevitably to the catastrophe. Greediness, combativeness, vanity, cruelty, we have all the vices of the fighter, and our faults are manifestly stronger than the corresponding virtues: self-denial, gentleness and loving kindness.

Instead of blaming other men for savage selfishness, why should we not try to realize how easily the war might have been averted if European statesmen had consulted their higher natures, and acted to the best in them. Austria and Russia have no real reason to quarrel: Constantinople and Salonica can be used by them now as ports for everything except making war and the building of warships. Germany should long ago have restored the French parts of Alsace-Lorraine to France, and so founded peace on justice and goodwill. England, too, might have freed India and Egypt or confided them to international guidance, and could have given South Africa to Germany as a field of colonization, or if that were too high an effort of unselfishness, she might have helped Germany to build up a great colony in Central Africa, or the United States might have aided the Kaiser to establish south of the Rio Negro an oversea Germany with the consent of the Argentine Republic. For surely a German experiment in colonization would be worth studying and would probably serve as a spur to effort throughout the world.

Such arrangements as these would benefit everyone and would be a thousand times more profitable than arming ourselves to fight, to say nothing of really fighting.

It is surely impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that it is the two great Germanic peoples, the English and the Germans and their striving for the first place which brought about the war and is now the chief obstacle to a world-peace. Is the Kaiser or Mr. Asquith the more humane? Who will first hold out his hand? If either of them went to counsel with his own soul, or even with the lowest self-interest he would see that the first to propose peace would thereby show himself the wiser. I cannot believe that Mr. Asquith has much sympathy with the land-greed which has driven the English oligarchy in our day to annex Burma and Egypt and make war on the South African republics when already in Canada and Australia the English have larger possessions than they know how to use. For generations England fights and intrigues to prevent Russia getting to Constantinople; now she gives up her traditional policy in this respect. Yet stupid as that policy was, it was not so stupid as the belated attempt to stay the expansion of Germany.

And Germany in fighting England and France, is only helping to make Russia the Master of Europe. The hate-policy of England and Germany from every point of view is worse than idiotic.

In this conflict France has shown herself less eager for war than any of the other countries, though she has the best reason, or at any rate the most obvious and avowable reason, for engaging in it To-day, too, France would make peace on more reasonable terms than any of the other nations, though she is as confident as any of them in her strength and ultimate victory.

The truth is that in France the sense of justice is more active than in any other country in the world. Thanks to this sense and to the consequent partition of land in the Revolution, there is hardly any poverty in France, and wealth is more widely diffused there than elsewhere. On the other hand, France does more for art and artists and the "intellectuals" generally than any country except Germany, and if she prefers a measure of well-being and happiness to large families and energetic growth, who shall blame her? It is this "sagesse" which one admires in the French. Everyone loves France because her follies even are generous, and more than any other people the French cherish the humane ideal.

And Russia? Whichever side wins, whatever happens, Russia is almost sure to profit in a material sense through the war; but it is the Tsar and his counsellors who are fighting and not Russia; Russia as yet is without national policy or purpose; the brain and the heart of her not geared properly to direct the huge body. Thirty years ago I wrote that sooner or later Russia would express herself in a new birth in religion or a new form of society. It is perhaps the mission of Russia, Holy Russia as her children call her, to found the United States of Europe.

Shortly before the war, Mr. H. G. Wells, in his book entitled "Social Forces in England and America," wrote as follows:

*'We in Great Britain are now intensely jealous of Germany. We are intensely jealous of Germany not only because the Germans outnumber us, and have a much larger and more diversified country than ours, and lie in the very heart and body of Europe, but because in the last hundred years, while we have fed on platitudes and vanity, they have had the energy and humility to develop a splendid system of national education, to toil at science and art and literature, to develop social organization, to master and better our methods of business and industry, and to clamber above us in the scale of civilization. This has humiliated and irritated rather than chastened us." Mr. Wells informed us further that one must learn German ''if one would be abreast of scientific knowledge and philosophical thought, or see many good plays or understand the contemporary mind."

Since the commencement of the war, Mr. Wells has changed his tune. He now says :

"That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe that has arrested civilization for forty years, German imperialism and German militarism, has struck its inevitable blow"

CHAPTER I Christian Morality and the War

For Christian nations waging war with each other to talk of morality is mere hypocrisy. This war is a proof, if proof were needed, of the bankruptcy of Christian morals and of the weak hold the unselfish teaching of Jesus has on the modern world. Science, with its "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" ; science, which has reinforced Paganism with its Nietzschean ideal, is the inspirer of the present struggle. Yet so strong is habit and so profound the influence of the Gospel that the first weeks of the war were filled with discussions as to the moral guilt or innocence of the various nations engaged — such mouth-honor, at least, was paid to the higher law.

It seems to me almost a waste of time to attempt to apportion moral responsibility for what even the German Crown Prince, in an interview at the end of November, 19 14, called

II "the most stupid, senseless and unnecessary war of modern times."

Yet something must be said on the matter, for the American bias in favor of the Allies is continually being used as a proof that right is on that side. In a recent speech. Lord Bryce, whilom British Ambassador in Washington, asserted that the sympathy of the Americans for the cause of the Allies was a sympathy based on moral grounds and therefore doubly valuable. Of course, fair-minded people knew that American sympathy had no such foundation, but was in reality an unreasoned prepossession due mainly to the fact that Americans and Britons speak the same tongue. The tie of speech has once more proved itself "light as air and binding as iron," stronger even than any bond of blood or intimacy of intercourse. Russian Jews are all praying and fighting for "Holy Russia"; on the other side of an imaginary line, equally pious Jews are passionately fighting for the "Vaterland," while the Belgian and French Jews pray and fight in order that France may win and Germany be dismembered. The tie of language is stronger than that of race, even when the racial tie is backed by religion, secular life in a Ghetto and immemorial customs. It is the most durable of all bonds between men. And in this war the great bond of language which always tends to assimilate American opinion to British opinion is still further strengthened in many ways. American papers share the expense of getting news with London papers and use British correspondents as freely as American. The chief New York journals, like all London journals, belong to the capitalist class, and are directed by the same self-interest. And last but not least, whenever an American paper publishes an article greatly in favor of the Allies, it can reckon that the article will be reproduced in the English press and praised beyond measure. The effect of such genial eulogy on writers and editors is prodigious. The great financial institutions, too, and the principal banks in New York and London are intimately allied and are accustomed to act in concert.

It is not surprising, therefore, that American opinion, particularly at the outset, should have been captured by British arguments and dominated by British sympathies.

But already one sees a gradual swinging round of American feeling in favor of Germany, chiefly because Americans admire efficiency above all things, and it will not be long before the assertion of Lord Bryce will be seen here to be a piece of special pleading, an assumption, indeed, out of all relation to fact.

Mr. Bernard Shaw has already made fun of the British "bulldog breed" trying to masquerade as "meek gazelles"; "incorrigibly combative and snobbish," he calls the British aristocratic caste and condemns British diplomacy for taking sides with the Russian autocracy against the German people. It is clear to him, as to every impartial mind, that that is one meaning of this war.

I must confess that at the outbreak of the war I cherished a certain confidence in Sir Edward Grey and the violation of the neutrality of Belgium by the Germans inclined me to the side of the Allies and made me regard the Germans as the aggressors.

The publication of the British "White Papers" cleverly edited as the book was, proved that the violation of the neutrality of Belgium had nothing to do with the resolve of Great Britain to support France. When this became clear to me I resented the pretences of Sir Edward Grey, whom I had hitherto trusted. The following despatch in the British "White Papers" is conclusive on this point, and most informative besides, to one familiar with the reticence of official England :

"Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen. London Foreign Office, August i, 191 4.

"Sir: I told the German Ambassador to-day that the reply of the German Government with regard to the neutrality of Belgium was a matter of very great regret, because the neutrality of Belgium affected feeling in this country. . . . He asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise liot to violate Belgian neutrality, we would engage to remain neutral. I replied that I could not say that : our hands were still free and we were considering what our attitude should be. . . . The Ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that the integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral . . . and I could only say that we must keep our hands free."

Now, if one reads that despatch of Sir Edward Grey carefully, one sees that he was surprised by the lengths to which Germany was willing to go in order to avoid complicating the struggle with Russia, by a war also with France and Britain. So far from being arrogant or overbearing, the German ambassador "even" suggested that the neutrality of France and her colonies might be guaranteed and "pressed me as to whether I could not formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral."

Germany thereby said to England in effect— "tell us how to insure your neutrality ; we shall accept your conditions if possible." Britain, by the mouth of Sir Edward Grey, "refused definitely to remain neutral" on any conditions. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium had nothing whatever to do with the decision of Great Britain. Sir Edward Grey himself admits that categorically.

All European nations are much on the same level when it comes to respecting promises or treaties. Russia violated the treaty of Paris;

Austria tore up the Treaty of Berlin without even an apology. England pledged herself not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal and her promises to evacuate Egypt were so numerous that they excited derision.

The French have attempted to prove, in a Second Yellow Book, that the German Kaiser v/as turned into an advocate of war by the Agadir incident, which he is said to have considered as a defeat for German diplomacy, and that the French from the beginning to the end were lambs forced to defend themselves against German wolves. Much as I love France and greatly as I admire the French, I cannot accept this view. It becomes necessary to tell the truth about that occurrence.

At the time of the Agadir affair, M. Caillaux was Premier of France and intensely patriotic and high-spirited. He admitted to me in conversations (which he allowed me to use ; and I did use by publishing the gist of them in a London paper) that in igii he offered Great Britain, on three several occasions, to break off all negotiations with the Germans over Agadir if Sir Edward Grey would promise to support France with arms. "We were eager to fight," he declared boldly, and continued :

"Sir Edward Grey told M. Cambon again and again that Great Britain would support France if France were attacked, or indeed, if France could keep public opinion on her side. He laid great stress," said M. Caillaux, "on this point which seemed to me insignificant; but parliamentary diplomacy, I suppose, tied his hands. Of course, I could not act without a definite and unconditional promise of support."

That is, Sir Edward Grey in 191 1, as in 191 4, was more than willing to fight; but wanted to have public opinion on his side; "to keep up appearances" at all costs. And France when backed by Russia and England was eager for the conflict.

But if it is clear, as Mr. Bernard Shaw has shown, that Sir Edward Grey could have maintained peace in 191 4 by simply telling Russia he would not support her if she mobilized, surely it is equally clear that the German Emperor might have kept the peace if he had agreed to Sir Edward Grey's proposal to submit the Austro-Servian dispute to arbitration. Indeed, in some respects, German diplomacy is the most difficult to defend in the whole imbroglio. Here is the position. In the last twenty years Germany has grown in population, in wealth and in power, in the most extraordinary way. While the French population has been stationary, the German population has increased from forty-five millions to over seventy millions. If Germany had only kept the peace for twenty years more she would have had ninety millions of people and France would have been hopelessly dwarfed. It was Germany's cue not to be drawn into a quarrel ;

every year was increasing her relative power and strengthening, too, her vital contention that a nation growing in this way must not be cribbed and coffined in a small country no larger than France. Peace and diplomatic negotiations were Germany's game; but Germany, too, was eager to draw the sword and submit the decision to force.

The truth is, all the peoples engaged in this war are almost equally to blame. Behind all the moral pretenses there was hard national selfishness. Russia was determined to support Servia and thus add to its already immense territory by forcing its way to Constantinople and the Mediterranean; the Germans, hemmed in on all sides, as in a straight waistcoat, felt compelled to find an outlet to the sea and colonies which they might fill with men of their own blood ; France was eager for revenge and resolved to win back Alsace-Lorraine; and England —

Why was Sir Edward Grey so determined not to remain neutral under any circumstances, so resolved to take up arms against Germany in August, 191 4, when Germany had to defend herself against both Russia and France? No one who has followed British policy in the past can remain for a moment in doubt! British policy has often been admired just because it has had only one object, self-interest.

Long ago, Ranke showed that it has always been a matter of vital importance for Great

Britain to keep command of the seas. For that reason she waged war against Spain and broke the power of the Invincible Armada. A little later, she defeated Protestant Holland, and half a century afterwards began the great war which lasted, with interludes of peace, for more than a century and ended with the defeat of France as a maritime rival.

As soon as Germany began to build a navy to protect her mercantile marine, the feelings of Great Britain towards her underwent a seachange. Up to that moment she had been friendly though somewhat annoyed by the astounding growth of German trade and commerce. Now at once Great Britain resolved to build two war ships to each one of Germany's, and when she found this costly, she proposed to rest on her oars, if Germany would do the same and consent thereby always to remain vastly inferior in naval strength.

Again and again, by the mouth of Mr. Winston Churchill, Great Britain voiced her desire to remain mistress of the seas at the smallest possible expenditure. When Germany replied that she had no aggressive designs but required a navy for protection and would not accept dictation as to its strength. Great Britain began to construct a new naval base at Forsyth and stationed a fleet in the North Sea.

One incident occurred which shows the whole position in the dry light of unconscious humor. It was habitually asserted in England that German trade was growing because the Germans imitated English goods and passed off inferior and cheaper articles for the better class productions of Great Britain. On the other hand, British consular agents reported that German trade was prospering because the German manufacturers studied foreign markets and were more intelligent and better informed than British manufacturers, and were served besides by German travellers who thought nothing of learning two or three foreign languages in order to win clients. But it was more consoling to British pride to declare German goods inferior and cheaper ; and at length Parliament took the matter up and in its wisdom decreed that all goods brought into Great Britain and her colonies should be plainly marked with their place of origin. Every effort was made in the press to turn the stamp, "made in Germany" into a symbol of contempt. But, alas, one soon found that the only knives and razors that would cut were all stamped with the hateful mark, "made in Germany." In every department this trade-mark became a badge of honor, and very soon the English manufacturers went about crying to have the law repealed.

Year by year the industries of Germany and the over-sea trade of Germany grew as no trade had ever grown before, and year by year the jealousy of Great Britain kept pace with it. In cool blood, before the war, Mr. H. G. Wells acknowledged and deplored this sordid but natural meanness. British journal after journal turned from admiration of Germany to envy and dislike and the dislike grew quickly to hatred and loathing. Soon the feeling became active, and in spite of Fashoda, Great Britain struck up a treaty with France in order that she might free her fleets from the Mediterranean and be able to concentrate them opposite the German coast. From that moment on, it was only a question of time when Great Britain would declare war on Germany. Bernard Shaw is absolutely justified when he tears to pieces the hypocritical pretence that Great Britain is fighting for poor little Belgium or treaty rights or even for the balance of power in Europe. Living in England he can hardly be blamed for not telling the whole truth — that Great Britain has taken up arms to crush a successful trade rival and for no other reason. As soon as war was declared the Times and Daily Mail and many other London papers threw off the mask and published column after column showing how this, that and the other department of trade could now be taken from the Germans. The facts are too plain to be disputed. In private life, for the last ten years, Englishmen of the governing class have admitted the trade jealousy and its inevitable consequences with smiling complacence.

CHAPTER II The Conflict of Ideals: English and German

Lord Bryce asserts that this war is a conflict of the two ideals of England and Germany. There is a great deal to be said for his statement, though he may not be satisfied with the scientific definition of it. Let us examine it impartially. And, first of all, what is the English ideal?

There are two chief ways of looking at England as at all other countries; as she sees herself and as others see her. Mr. Arnold Bennett has given us a picture of her as she sees herself, while the poet Heine long ago gave us a notev/orthy picture of her as others see her. Mr. Arnold Bennett simply asserts that England stands for freedom and free institutions, while Germany is under the heel of a frightful military despotism which threatens the peace of mankind. Mr. Bennett knows no German.

When I asked Mr. H. G. Wells recently: what he knew about Germany that he should condemn her so absolutely, he told me that his son's tutor had been a German. Sir Edward Grey was not ashamed in a speech made so late as March 22nd, to declare that "the German ideal is that the Germans are a superior people to whom all things are lawful and against whom resistance is unlawful."

It is impossible to take such ignorant partisanship seriously. It reminds me of what Dooley said to Hennessy at the beginning of our war with Spain, "I don't have any more use for thim Spaniards than what you have, Hinnessey ; I've never known one of 'em."

It is necessary to know a nation before one talks of it; and the better we know men, the more disinclined we are to lump a whole people together in eulogy or condemnation. Burke declared that it was impossible to frame an indictment against a nation.

Mr. Arnold Bennett appears to be ignorant of the fact that of the nations now at war, Germany is the only one which has practically kept the peace without a break for over forty years and that Great Britain spends fifty per cent more on armaments per year in proportion to her population than Germany spends. Besides, the military caste in Germany has no power to be compared with that of the titled oligarchy in England.

The comparison between Britain and Germany needs to be taken in hand by someone who knows both countries and has a desire to state the truth, and nothing but the truth. Let us weigh, first, the claim of England to stand for liberty and all that liberty means.

In popular esteem the claim rests mainly on the fact that Great Britain was the first country to free her negro slaves and to give up the slave-trade. It was pointed out at the time, that after losing her chief North American colonies, the large profits Britain had been making out of the slave traffic had fallen away to a small amount and that by freeing her slaves, she only wished to read the United States a lesson which would cost them infinitely more than it could cost her. Besides, the twenty million pounds sterling set apart to compensate the slave-holders was so expended that while many got less than a third of what they should have received, a minority was rewarded beyond reason. Still, in spite of the intrusion of mean motives and other drawbacks, the act was a great step in advance, and one redounding to Britain's credit. But, after all, one cannot live forever on the achievements of one's grandfathers; we must ask how England stands to-day in regard to freedom.