Why war

Front matter

BOOKS BY FREDERIC C. HOWE

Published bt CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Socialized Germany. 12mo . net, $1.50

Preface

Modern war is the result of a combination of explosives much as a thunder-storm is the result of a combination of unusual atmospheric conditions. The spark may be ignited in Berlin, Petrograd, Vienna, or London, but the explosive combination is likely to be found in obscure portions of the world.

The cause of the present European war is not to be discovered in the White Book, the Yellow Book, or the Orange Book; the war did not originate in the capitals of Europe, even though the first overt acts were there committed. The war is not the result of patriotic uprisings on the part of the people, of the overcrowding of population, of any social unrest at home, or a national desire for overseas markets. The war is not the personal war of any ruler as were the wars of Frederick the Great or Napoleon, as were the wars of Bismarck fifty years ago. In its final causes it is not a war of aggression or defense, as were the recent wars of Germany, Austria, Italy, and France. When the history of the war is finally written these forces will be found to be of secondary importance. The real cause of the war is to be found far back of the summer of 1914; it is to be found in the new economic

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and financial forces set in motion in the closing years of the last century.

The present war and the wars of the past ten years are the result of endless conflicts and suspicions, of balked ambitions and fears, of diplomatic overreachings and injured dignity, of a thousand irritations that do not appear in the diplomatic correspondence. Present-day wars are primarily the result of the conflict of powerful economic interests radiating out from the capitals of Europe, which, with the foreign office behind them, have laid the whole world with explosives which only needed a spark to set all Europe aflame. Surplus wealth seeking privileges in foreign lands is the proximate cause of the war just as wealth seeking monopoly profits is the cause of the civil conflicts that have involved our cities and States. It is the struggle of high finance bent on the exploitation of weaker peoples that has turned Europe into a human slaughter-house and arrayed 400,000,000 peaceful people against one another in a death struggle.

When the story of the war comes to be written the origin will be found hidden in the diplomatic victories and resentments over Morocco and Turkey rather than in the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand; it will be found in the aggressions of British, French, and German financiers and concession seekers rather than in the ambitions of the Czar

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or Kaiser; it will be found in the struggle for the exploitation of weaker peoples, of whom no less than 140,000,000 together with 10,000,000 square miles of territory have fallen under the dominion of Great Britain, France, and Germany during the last thirty years.

These conflicts have been on a titanic scale. They have led to the ending of the liberties of free peoples, to colonies and protectorates, to the closed door, to the imprisonment of the Mediterranean, to the raising of obstacles and Gibraltars to freedom of trade and commerce. They have created a thousand rumors, suspicions, and hatreds, a great increase in armaments for the protection of private investments; they have given birth to diplomatic intrigues and demonstrations of force that have changed a conflict of private groups into a conflict of peoples.

Behind these private groups of financiers and concession seekers one finds the foreign office and diplomacy, the war lords and the ruling caste. Together they have made common cause with the munition makers and the trading classes. These classes own or control great portions of the press. They mould public opinion. They control political advancement. They are society. These forces are the state much as Louis XIV or Frederick the Great was the state. Outside of France, and to some extent Great Britain and Italy, the state in its forx PREFACE

eign relations is little more than the political and financial will of the ruling classes. It is a merger of seventeenth and twentieth century feudalism.

Any question as to the correctness of this interpretation of the cause of the European war will, I think, be laid at rest by a reading of the record of British penetration into Egypt and Africa; of French aggressions in Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco; of the partition of Persia by Russia and England; of German relations with Turkey; of the intrigues and bad faith of the powers toward the Balkan states, China, Persia, and Morocco; of the struggles of the powers over the building of the Bagdad Railway; of the intimacy of the munition makers and the financiers with their respective governments and foreign offices; of the balked ambitions of the mine-owners that brought on the Boer War; of the diplomatic moves of the chancelleries of Europe during the last quarter of a century.

And were we moved by acts of oppression committed by the Christian powers as we are by the atrocities of the Turks in Armenia, we should find in these records a story of cruelty and disregard of human rights and liberties that has few parallels in modern times.

In this record there is little to distinguish the act of one nation from another's. If greater emphasis seems to be laid on the acts of Great Britain and France it is due to the fact that greater liberty of

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expression prevails in these countries than in Germany and Russia, and the records have been more frankly exposed to view. But a cross-section of one nation is a cross-section of the other. Financial morals are the same the world over when weaker peoples are involved. The indictment is against the ruling classes, not against the people; it is against Junkerism in politics, in diplomacy, and primarily in finance. But it is not the Junkerism of Germany alone, it is the Junkerism of England, Russia, and Austria-Hungary as well.

As a result of the European war the United States is confronted with the same forces that have drawn Europe into the present conflict. Ambitions and fears have been aroused that have united the privileged classes in a movement for financial imperialism, for a great naval programme, for colossal expenditures for preparedness, and unless some hand interpose to prevent it the ideals of America and the democratic traditions of a century will be submerged in the new imperialistic programme that has no place in our life.

The gravest danger to the country is from within. The danger is as real as any that ever confronted us. Private interests are at war with the interests of the nation. They menace our peaceful security. Surplus wealth has appeared. We have become a creditor nation. The resources and railroads of the country have passed under monopoly control. The xii PREFACE

colossal profits of the past two decades from exploitation are no longer possible. They can only be secured in the less-developed places of the globe, where backward peoples and lack of capital offer opportunities for investment. These are the conditions that have preceded imperialism and aggression the world over. Surplus wealth in search of monopoly profits led the financiers of Europe into distant parts. Here they came into conflict with other financiers in search of similar gains. To protect their investments and insure their loans and concessions the investors demanded a great military and naval establishment. The foreign offices and governments became involved. Irritations and diplomatic controversies finally ripened into war as the only means for the arbitrament of the conflict.

This is the danger which now confronts us. It is a danger from within rather than from without. It is a danger we should anticipate and provide against, just as we provide against a foreign foe. And if we take adequate precautions against the foes within the country we shall safeguard ourselves against those without. For if the war in Europe teaches anything it is that the foes within are responsible for the foes without. It is they who are the jingoes, it is they who are loudest in advocating preparedness, it is they who talk most of national dignity and honor. It is they, too, who insist on the destiny of the country and a place in the sun. There

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is scarcely a war or war scare of the past twenty years, unless it be those of the Balkans, that, in its last analysis, is not the result of the activities of individuals and classes within the country rather than of aggressive foes from without.

In the gathering of material for this book I have received valuable assistance, which I desire to acknowledge, from Miss Gertrude Borchard.

Frederic C. Howe.

New York, March, 1916.

Contents

PAGE

Preface vii

CHAPTER

Chapter I The People And War

The present European war is not a people's war. It is not a race war. Prior to its outbreak no national boundaries were menaced, no national honor was assailed. Even to-day, after eighteen months of conflict, there is no agreement as to what the war is about. Four hundred million people are engaged in a death struggle, fifty billions of wealth has already been wasted, all Europe is a charnel house, and the cause of it is shrouded in mystery.

The war is not a struggle of Slav and Teuton, of Anglo-Saxon and Latin. There is no race surge, no race hunger for the lands of other peoples; there is no lust for overseas expansion as an outlet for an overcrowded population at home. There is no such thing as race hatred among the people. This is fiction of the press, of foreign ministers, of the war classes.

People do not want war. War springs from causes wholly outside the lives, interests, and feelings of the people.

Nor are wars made by peoples. There would be some excuse for wars if they were. Not even in democratic countries are the people consulted. No

4 THE PEOPLE AND WAR

poll of the voters is taken; no effort is made to ascertain public opinion. Even the elected representatives only register their assent to an accomplished fact.

Bismarck drove Prussia into war with Denmark, and later with Austria to Prussianize Germany and advance the house of Hohenzollern. By his own admission he altered a telegram to bring about war with France. The Crimean War was a diplomats' war. The Boer War was not a people's war. It was largely a mine-owners' war. The Russo- Japanese War was certainly not a people's war, for in neither country is there more than a semblance of popular government.

The present European war was not made by the people. In none of the warring nations were the people considered, in none of the countries was there any discussion; in none was there opportunity for delay, for negotiations, for knowledge outside of the cabinets, war offices, or ruling houses. And with the possible exception of France there was no national grievance, no promptings of revenge, no knowledge of what the trouble was all about.

Tens of millions of men have been taken from their homes and sent to the trenches for reasons which have not been explained to them or by virtue of secret alliances in whose making and as to whose propriety the people had no voice.

THE PEOPLE AND WAR 5

Wars are made by irresponsible monarchs, by ruling aristocracies, by foreign ministers and diplomats. Wars are made by privileged interests, by financiers, by commercial groups seeking private profit in foreign lands. Wars are made in the dark behind closed doors. War is still the plaything of ruling classes, much as it was in the time of Richelieu and Mazarin, of Frederick the Great and Napoleon.

Chapter II

The important fact about Europe is this: the greater powers, with the exception of France, have not wholly emerged from feudalism. The forms have changed; the personal relations of master and serf have been abolished, but the essentials of feudalism, political, economic, and social, remain. Constitutions have been adopted, but they legalized the power of the feudal classes which had previously been enjoyed by force. The constitutions were written by the old aristocracy and ruling houses which modified the old order by admitting the business and commercial classes to some participation in the government. This is the essential meaning of the political changes and revolutions of the nineteenth century. The bourgeoisie were granted political recognition, not on terms of equality, not to an equal voice in the affairs of the nation, but on such terms as the old nobility fixed. Even to-day, except in France and Italy, neither political equality nor universal suffrage exists in the warring countries of Europe. There still remain the hereditary upper chambers, the House of Lords, the Bundesrath, the grand dukes, which have an equal and generally a controlling voice in the state, and into which chambers the commercial and working classes have never been admitted.

The feudal nobility is still supreme in the politics of Europe, and outside of France, Italy, and Great Britain it is the only voice in the great powers that is really heard. In most essentials the old order remains as it was. This is particularly true of the central powers and Russia, into which the influences of the French Revolution scarcely penetrated. In many respects it is true of Great Britain as well.

The nations immediately responsible for the present war are those in which the people have only a suggestion of power. In Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary the rule is still in the hands of hereditary rulers, of the feudal nobility, which fills the higher offices of state and through its position and power controls the government, the press, freedom of speech, and the right of discussion as well. Germany.

Germany is ruled by the Kaiser and the aristocracy, and the rule is only less complete than it was in the time of Frederick the Great. There is only an appearance of representative government or popular control. There is a constitution, it is true, but a constitution imposed on Germany by Bismarck in 1867, after the defeat of Austria, and modified in unimportant particulars after the overthrow of France, in 1871. The twenty-six states and free cities which comprise the empire were united under the Prussian yoke, partly through choice and partly through coercion. In none of the states were the people consulted.

Under this constitution Prussia controls the empire. And Prussia in turn is ruled by the old feudal aristocracy, which remains only less reactionary than it was in the eighteenth century. Bismarck's ambition was the substitution of Prussia for Austria as the dominant power in the federation of German states. He loved his King, he loved Prussia, and he loved the old feudal aristocracy, to which he himself belonged. And the constitution which he imposed upon Germany achieved the supremacy of this trinity. Under it the Prussian aristocracy rules with much of the irresponsibility of two hundred years ago, before the advent of constitutions, ministries, and a popular ballot. The Junker is assured control by a constitution that can only be changed by the consent of the Junker himself. It cannot be changed by the people; it cannot be changed by the action of all of the other twenty-six states in the empire, for by its terms Prussia can veto any amendments that may be offered. And under the constitution of Prussia the Junker is supreme. Thus the Junker is the final arbiter in the constitution of Germany.

The Kaiser and Parliament.

A ruling caste based upon the possession of landed property was written into the German constitution. The King of Prussia was made hereditary Emperor. With the consent of the Bundesrath he can declare war and make peace. He is commander of the army and the navy. He appoints the chancellor of the empire, who is his personal representative and is responsible to him alone. The chancellor is not responsible to parliament, as in all other constitutional monarchies; he is not the leader of a party, and is in no wise responsive to the people or to their elected representatives.

There are two houses in parliament: one the Reichstag, or lower house, and the other the Bundesrath, or senate. Members of the Reichstag are elected by manhood suffrage. But the Reichstag is not a popular parliament like the House of Commons. The real legislative body is the Bundesrath, which is made up of 58 representatives or agents appointed by the rulers of the twenty-six states. And it is a monarchical body, strongly conservative in all its leanings. It is responsible only to the ruling houses. Its members are not elected, and they vote as the individual states direct. The meetings of the Bundesrath are secret. In this chamber Prussia has 18 votes out of 58, and no change can be made in the constitution if opposed by 14 votes.

By this constitutional legerdemain Germany is ruled by the Kaiser and his appointed chancellor and the delegates appointed by the royal houses and the three free cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck. It would be far better for Germany if she had no constitution. Then revolution would have a chance, as it did against Charles I and Louis XVI, as it did in 1830 and 1848. Under the constitution the appearance of popular government is given to an oligarchy. Feudalism has been legalized, with all of the sanctity which legality involves. The Ascendancy of Prussia.

Even with all these obstacles to representative government the empire might have a popular sanction if Prussia had representative institutions. For Prussia, as said before, rules Germany. But the reverse is true. Prussia is the most reactionary of all of the states in the empire. It is far more reactionary than Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemberg, or Baden, which, while monarchical in form, are quite democratic in opinion, and in their constitutions as well.

The ascendancy of the Junker in Prussia is preserved by three devices. First, by the three-class system of voting; second, by the unjust distribution of seats in parliament; and third, by the open and indirect ballot.

There is no such thing as manhood suffrage in Prussia. Property, rather than people, votes. The voters are divided into three classes according to the amount of income taxes paid by each. Then those who pay one-third of the taxes are checked off, and these elect the delegates, who in turn elect one-third of the representatives to parliament. Then a second third are checked off, and they in turn elect a second third of the representatives, while the great majority of the electors, who in small sums pay the final third of the income taxes, select the remaining third of the members. By this means from 3 to 10 per cent, of the qualified electors choose two-thirds of the representatives to parliament. And the large taxpayers who compose the first and second class of electors are the great estate owners or Junkers, who along with the Kaiser are the government.

Bismarck himself called the Prussian electoral system "the worst of all electoral systems." It is against this system that the Socialists and Radicals have protested for years.

Unfair Distribution of Seats in Parliament.

But even the control of the great estate owners might be overthrown under the three-class system of voting if the cities with their rich business and financial classes were given representation in parliament proportionate to the taxes paid by them. For Prussia contains most of the large cities in the empire, and during the past generation a powerful commercial aristocracy has arisen that craves full share of political power. Precautions were taken against this danger by a distribution of parliamentary districts made while Prussia was still an agricultural country. This distribution has not been changed in fifty years, and the Junkers will not permit it to be changed. As a consequence, in Prussian elections property votes most powerfully when the property is landed. The mercantile classes are only less discriminated against than are the working classes. For instance, under this system Berlin has but 9 members in parliament, while it would have 24 if the districts were fairly distributed. This is characteristic of the other cities as well.

Finally, there is no secret ballot. The voting is open and viva-voce. In consequence, the peasant and the worker are afraid to express their opinions. They fear eviction, the loss of a job, or some other oppression from those who control their means of livelihood.

By these means Prussia is ruled by the landed aristocracy or Junkers almost as arbitrarily as in feudal times. There is only a semblance of popular government, and outside of the disfranchised classes no real belief in it. Only the Socialists and the Radicals remain of the revolutionary groups which prior to 1848 struggled so valiantly for a really constitutional government.

Were there any approach to popular government in Prussia the Socialists would be the largest single party, if not the controlling one; for they are dominant in all of the cities and industrial districts, from all of which, with the possible exception of Cologne, Socialist deputies are returned to the Reichstag. As a matter of fact, however, the Socialists were until recently unable to elect a single member of the Prussian parliament, while the rich commercial classes of the cities (who should be in control even under the three-class system of voting if the districts were justly distributed) have a much smaller representation than their voting strength entitles them to.

The Ruling Caste.

These are the constitutional devices under which the Junker, or landed aristocrat, rules Germany. He rules with but little concern for public opinion. Certainly he is in no way responsive to it. He cares little for the political rights of the working classes. He has a contempt for the peasant who works on his estate. He stands aloof from the farmer and professional classes, and lives almost as isolated and detached as did his ancestors in an earlier age. Along with the Kaiser the Junker is the state. And he believes, as did Louis XIV, who coined the phrase: "The state! I am the state." Nowhere in Europe, unless it be in Russia and Austria, is the aristocracy as contemptuous of representative government and of all other classes as in Prussia.

But the power of the Junker does not end with his control of parliament. The Junker fills all of the important places in the empire. From this class come the chancellors and the ministers. The King's counsellors are almost all from the aristocracy. The Junker fills the high places in the foreign and diplomatic service. He officers the army and the navy. He closes the crack regiments against those who are not of his caste. From some of the regiments even the sons of merchant princes are excluded. The higher positions in the civil service are also reserved for him, as are practically all of the more dignified places of state administration.

War is the Junker's calling, just as it was two centuries ago. He is trained in the military schools. He works hard and laboriously. His salary is small, but his social position is the highest in the empire.

By reason of his power and social position the Junker makes war the important thing in the empire. And this influence affects all of the upper classes. The merchants and middle classes are affected by it. The motive force of Junker statecraft, of science, and of legislation is war, the preservation of his privileges, and the advancement of German power.

Great Britain.

The government of Great Britain, with some important modifications, is lodged in the same classes as it is in Germany. The forms are different, but the ultimate power is in the landed class, modified materially by the greater political recognition given to the commercial and working classes, as well as by the far greater freedom of speech, of the press, and of the individual which obtains. Great Britain does protect the liberties of the person, but she concedes far less popular government than is generally supposed.

This is not generally recognized, for England is the mother of parliaments. She has admitted all classes to the suffrage, though not on equal terms, for plural voting still obtains. Moreover, Great Britain is in many respects very democratic. The ministry is responsible to Parliament and to the party in power, rather than to the King. The budget is prepared by the House of Commons, and all of the externals of popular government are jealously insisted on. But that is one trouble with England. She is satisfied with externals. There is little critical analysis of the actual facts. There is veneration for things that are. So long as the forms are observed there is little complaint as to underlying realities.

The Power of the Aristocracy.

The monarchy exists for show purposes. The King has lost almost all substance of power. He is not even consulted on. legislation and is only formally conferred with on cabinet appointments. His power began to wane with Magna Charta, when the landed barons, the feudal estate owners, stripped him of some of his feudal rights. The process has continued ever since. The real power of the Crown ended with George III, and the privileges of kingship have been diminishing to the vanishing-point ever since.

The House of Lords has always been, and still is, a hereditary house of landlords. Only a minority of its members come from any other class. And these have little influence. The brewers, distillers, financiers, literary men, and lawyers have little voice in public affairs. It is the great landed proprietors who own practically all of the land of Great Britain that form the House of Lords. It has always been a house of landlords. That is what it is to-day.

Up to 1910 the House of Lords was supreme in legislation. The House of Commons was permitted to govern only so long as it kept its hands off the things the aristocracy owned. Legislation which touched the privileges of the ruling class was thrown out by the lords, who are the sanctuary of privilege in England, just as the grand seigneurs of France were the sanctuary of the abuses of the ancien regime.

Public Office an Aristocratic Privilege.

It is not through Parliament alone that the aristocracy rules. That is merely one means of control of the nation. Even a Liberal ministry contains representatives of the old nobility. The secretary of foreign affairs is almost always from the aristocracy. The diplomats and foreign ambassadors are, with rare exceptions, from the same class, as are the representatives sent to rule the colonies and dependencies. The higher civil service is recruited from the gentry, while the army and navy are officered by it. The Church of England is part and parcel of the system, and is still supported by the ownership of land and by landed tithes paid by the tenants. The priesthood, from the highest dignitary to the poor, underpaid curate, is recruited from the younger sons and dependent relatives of the aristocrary. The "livings" are the personal patronage of the landed families. They are ecclesiastical "spoils."

Social Caste and Politics.

The professional classes also reflect the will of the aristocracy. The lawyer and solicitor are its handmaidens, for the aristocracy is the employing class. The solicitors manage the estates; the barristers appear for the aristocracy in court. The same is true of the professors and the teachers, especially in the older institutions of learning.

Caste is writ large in Great Britain. It is allpervasive. Honors, preferment, and the doors of social recognition open and close to those who do the bidding of those who rule. In England there are a score of privileges before which men bow, and they are so entwined with the things men and women hold dear that they affect all classes.

All of the economic and social forces of the kingdom sustain the aristocracy. The control is so subtle that it cannot be assailed. The passion for a title weakens the conscience of the scientist and the poet, the artist and the dramatist, the editor and the statesman, the politician and the barrister. The lure of a knighthood quenches the fire of the agitator, and the radical of to-day becomes the cautious reformer of to-morrow. All these influences affect the nation; they influence its representatives. Progress has to make its way against fear of anything new and untried, of anything un-British.

Education and Caste.

Everything makes for the permanence of these conditions. Higher education is far less common than it is in America and Germany. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are still governed in accordance with the traditions of the past. They are very expensive. They make no appeal to the poorer classes; there is no attempt on the part of the nation to extend their usefulness, as in America, Germany, and Denmark. The "public schools" which prepare for the universities are also the schools of the aristocracy, while the board or common schools have until very recently been under the influence of the established church.

This is the secret of the political and social power of the aristocracy. It is not necessary that the constitution should confer power upon it. Power is conferred by custom, by tradition, by the control of the positions of distinction, and in the final analysis by the ownership of the land by the ruling class.

In Great Britain, as in Prussia, the people do not really rule. They participate freely in the government, they elect their representatives to Parliament, but the rule is still in the hands of the old feudal nobility, whose political and economic privileges remain only less sacred than they were in an earlier age.