Europe's fateful hour

Preface

When the war broke out in August, 19 14, it was generally supposed that it would be on much the same scale as the various struggles for the balance of power or the wars of aggression which had rent Europe asunder since the French Revolution ; an opinion which prevailed so long as to exercise no small influence on the conduct of the war. It is only indeed comparatively recently that governments and peoples alike seem to have realized that the present conflict is more far-reaching and more complex than a repetition of even the Franco-Prussian War on a vaster scale.

The essays collected in this volume were all written to show the erroneousness of this idea and to prove that this struggle is not merely the continuation of the national and political wars of the nineteenth century, but rather a great crisis in what is commonly called western civilization — a crisis whose development will be far more extensive than was ever contemplated and whose consequences will far transcend the territorial ambitions of the various belligerent states. In order to prove this assertion, I have endeavoured to trace the component elements of this crisis with the help of what is generally known as the comparative method, studying modern civilization in the light of the civilizations of ancient times, trying by this means to discover their strong and weak points, and making use for this purpose of the comparative studies along these lines which I had made before the outbreak of war.*

1 Cf r. Ferrero, " Ancient Rome and Modern America," Putnam. New York. "Between the Old World and the New." Idem.

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VI

PREFACE

These essential elements of the crisis appear to me to be three in number. The first is of a military order — i. e., the rivalry between the Great Powers of Europe in the matter of armaments which began after the Franco-Prussian War, when for the first time in history the greatest nations of the world based their military policy not on the greatest possible limitation of armaments, as had hitherto been the case, but on the principle of the indefinite increase of men and weapons.

The second element is the development of industry, more especially in its metallurgical and mechanical branches. These industries, which have become so powerful during the last century, have not only supplied European militarism with the means of indefinitely increasing their armaments, but, by providing incredibly complicated, rapid and powerful weapons, have transformed the art of war into a kind of diabolical instrument of extermination. Until the nineteenth century armies were light, easily handled swords with which duels were fought between states according to certain recognized rules in order to settle their disputes with the minimum expenditure of blood and money. In the century of metallurgy and mechanics they have become gigantic machines for the destruction of nations.

The third element is of a moral and intellectual nature: i. e., that unshakable optimism, that blind faith in the progress and strength of man, that unbridled ambition and covetousness which has effaced or at all events dimmed the sense of limitation, of proportion, of the humanly possible and the reasonable in the whole western civilization, in the realms of philosophy, religion, art, science, politics, finance, industry and commerce alike. Western civilization was on the way to thinking itself omnipotent. This malady had attacked all the nations of Europe to a greater

PREFACE vu or less extent, but its ravages were greatest in Germany which had fallen victim to that megalomania, that insensate pride, that unbounded ambition, that deterioration in the morals of the masses which made a country, which for long had been regarded as the model of the world, become in a few short months its terror and detestation.

These three elements gave birth to this war which knows no limits of time, space, destruction of life and property — an appalling phenomenon in the history of the world — a war which in its turn gave birth to a crisis in the whole of western civilization, owing to the overwhelming shock to its political and moral order.

I was specially pleased that an English translation of 4:h'is book should be published in America, because the Americans occupy a peculiar position which makes it easier for them than for Europeans to follow these ideas. Is not the United States the living proof of their truth? If the European war were the last and greatest of the political and national wars of the Old World, it would not be easy to understand why the United States could not have remained neutral as it did in all preceding conflicts; if, on the other hand, it is a crisis in western civilization, it is easy enough to see why it could not be a mere looker on, since America forms part of that civilization.

The Americans are not only in a position to understand this universal character of this crisis, but are also better able to profit by this truth in the work of reconstruction which must follow the present cataclysm. The position of America in relation to the great events of the last three years differs from that of the European Powers in so far as only two of the elements which have contributed to this viii PREFACE

crisis are present in America : the industrial and the moral and intellectual. The first and most important — the militarism which impelled Europe to the unlimited increase of armaments — is altogether lacking.

This circumstance has had and will have various consequences. The fact that she had not taken part in the rivalries of militarism was one of the causes which both obliged America to intervene and made that intervention more difficult. It forced America to intervene because had she not done so, she would have been unable to create a great army, and had she not created this army, she would have found herself at the end of the war the only wealthy nation in the world, but at the same time wholly defenceless against Europe, which, while possessing numberless great armies, would be bankrupt owing to the expenditures of her whole capital on armaments. The vastest accumulation of wealth which the world has ever seen would have existed on one side of the Atlantic and the most formidable accumulation of armaments on the other side. It is difficult to say what would have been the outcome of this disproportion, but no one can fail to see the danger latent in it to the political and moral equilibrium of the world. It will be one of the chief glories of American democracy that it realized this supreme necessity and the other nations will give it credit for the great service it has rendered to civilization by improvising a great army at this critical moment in the history of the world in order to reestablish the equilibrium of power on the two sides of the Atlantic. This service will be still greater if, as is hoped by all enlightened minds, the new American army acts as the army of universal disarmament; if America itses her power, her wealth and the sacrifices she is making in the common cause to induce the European Powers to accept

PREFACE

IX loyally a military organization based on the principle of reduction of armaments to the lowest possible limit.

Of the three elements which have contributed to this crisis, militarism has been the most active. Without it, as is proved by America, the other two would have been almost innocuous and it may fairly be said that this tremendous crisis of western civilization is the offspring of European militarism, as developed during the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is therefore obvious that this evil must be abolished if civilization is to be regenerated and no State can effect so much towards this end as that Power which was fortunate enough to be almost immune from it, namely, the United States, which has it therefore in its power to save our civilization. I do not think that I can better close this preface to a book whose aim it is to discover the means of this salvation than by expressing the hope that it may rise to its lofty task.

GUGLIELMO FeRRERO.

Florence, December 9th, 1917'

Contents

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Preface v

CHAPTER

CHAPTER I The Underlying Causes of the War

i. quantity and quality

The first impression made by America on the European who sees it from the windows of a railway carriage is that of an immense desert. In the Argentine he sees boundless green plains, whose monotony is broken only by an occasional group of three or four one-storied houses behind a railway station — groups almost too few and far between to make him realize that the desert is inhabited by man. In Brazil he sees range after range of gloomy mountains with here and there a lighter patch, where the forest has been cleared to make room for coffee plantations. But on plain and mountain alike he seeks in vain for signs of the presence of man. The train runs for hours without passing through so much as a village. It is the same in North America, at all events in the Western States, where vast, dreary stretches of country meet the eye. True, villages are more numerous and less scattered, and suddenly the traveller sees that the train is passing houses, more and more houses, great factory chimneys bristle on either hand, lofty buildings tower over the ordinary buildings like giants over a multitude of dwarfs and he catches glimpses of streets with hurrying motor cars and trams. He is passing through an important town, where half a million, a million or even two million of his fellow men live crowded together under

the shadows of the myriad chimneys surrounded by an almost deserted countryside. Soon the train leaves the haunts of men once more and rushes into the melancholy solitude of the desert plains.

A strange sight, this boundless void, to the European, who has lived all his life in one of the most densely populated countries of the world, where dwellings of man are to be found everywhere from the sea shore to the loftiest inhabitable mountain peaks. Desolate as these plains and mountains may appear, they are however not unknown to man, whose unremitting toil forces them to yield every year immense quantities of grain, cotton, tobacco, coffee, wool, meat, gold, silver, copper, iron and coal — a boundless stream of wealth which flows over the whole world. These raw materials are worked up in the great manufacturing centres of the United States with almost incredible rapidity. Even if Europeans tend to exaggerate everything concerning America, its marvels and its horrors alike, there is one thing which exceeds their estimate of it, namely, its riches. In no place or period has man succeeded in producing such boundless wealth in so short a space of time as he has done in the United States and in the great republics of South America, such as the Argentine and Brazil, since the middle of the nineteenth century. We might well believe that he had discovered beyond the shores of the Atlantic the fabulous garden of the Hesperides for which he had so long sought in vain, the promised land which for centuries to come will provide mankind with food, clothing, metals and fuel enough to satisfy the wildest dreams of avarice; the land of plenty which is one day to banish from the world the scourge of famine, before which it trembled for so many centuries. If we bear this in mind, we shall realize the importance of all that has taken place during the last fifty years in the plains, mountains and cities of America and the great role which the countries of the New World now play. The riches of America would not, however, be one of the most remarkable historical phenomena of our age, if they merely furnished man with powers of action and enjoyment such as he has never before possessed. Their effect is at once wider and deeper, for they are hastening the end of a movement which began more than a century ago — one which threatens to overwhelm the very foundations of our civilization; they place before us a formidable problem, the most serious, in my opinion, which we have to face ; the problem, which together with the influence, hatred or admiration of the riches of America, lies at the bottom of almost all the moral and social difficulties surrounding us : the problem of progress. This statement may appear perhaps obscure: I will now endeavour to explain it.

II

The wealth of America ! We constantly hear this spoken of in Europe, frequently with envy, as if it were the riches of some uncivilized people which, in order to acquire the treasures of the earth, looks with contempt on the things of the intellect. One does not, however, need to travel in America in order to realize that the Americans are no mere barbarians, wholly given over to money grubbing. I can only here give a few instances from North America, but they would almost all apply on a smaller scale to the great States of Southern America. The effort made by the Americans to establish schools all over the country would in itself be sufficient to refute such an accusation. You have all heard of the great American universities, such as Harvard and Columbia. These institutions are real cities of learning, with splendid buildings, gardens, laboratories, museums, libraries, playing fields and swimming baths. The beauty and comfort of the buildings are in themselves a proof of the esteem accorded to learning, but of this the scholastic program affords even more striking evidence. It may safely be said that everything which can be taught is taught : all languages, living and dead ; the histories and literatures of every land, both ancient and modern, which have influenced the development of civilization ; all sciences, both theoretical and practical. Millions are required annually for the upkeep of these buildings and the support of the professors, yet nearly all these great universities are wholly independent of the State. They are maintained by the fees paid by the students and by the generosity of the rich. Bankers, manufacturers and business men contribute a large proportion of the sum required for the salaries of all these professors of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, philosophy, mathematics, etc. Nor do the universities absorb all the money spent by public bodies and the wealthy classes on education. Everywhere we find museums, libraries and Schools of every kind for both men and women of every class set up by cities, states and millionaires for the spread of general education and professional training. Face to face with these facts, it is difficult to say that the upper classes in America care about nothing but money. It may be asserted that they are lacking in taste, that their towns are hideous. It would undoubtedly require some courage to say that American cities are beautiful, but it would none the less be unjust to say that the American is indifferent to beauty or to deny that he makes great efforts to beautify his country. All the architectural schools of Europe, those of Paris above all, are full of enthusiastic American students. Fabulous sums are spent on fine public buildings by towns, states, banks, insurance companies, universities and railways.

These edifices may not be masterpieces, but it can hardly be denied that some of them are very handsome and that America possesses many talented architects. We constantly hear it asserted in Europe that Americans give high prices for antiques or so-called antiques and are incapable of distinguishing between the really beautiful and the mediocre, the genuine and the faked. But those who have visited rich Americans in their homes know that while the pretentious and the dupe are to be found in America as in every other country, there are also many Americans who are real connoisseurs.

A writer given to paradox might even assert that Americans are more idealistic than Europeans, if the desire to understand, admire and assimilate everything — art, ideas and religions alike — is to be regarded as a proof of idealism. Go to New York : you will see in the streets specimens of every kind of architecture; every religion is represented in its churches; every school of music in its theatres; every style of decorative art in its houses. Now New York is typical of that spirit of universal reconciliation, somewhat vague and superficial perhaps, but vigorous and sincere, characteristic of contemporary America, of which pragmatism is the philosophic expression. When pragmatism affirmed that all useful ideas are true, did it really intend, as has been alleged, to subordinate the ideal to the practical ? I hardly think it is possible to believe this when one has once breathed American air. No, pragmatism is essentially a doctrine of conciliation. Its aim is to afford man the means of reconciling opposing ideas and doctrines by proving that all ideas, even those which appear mutually exclusive, may help to become wiser, stronger and better. Why then struggle for the triumph of one to the detriment of the other instead of allowing man to take from each all the good that each has to offer? Those who know North America will say that if there be a distinctively American doctrine, it is this. Many philosophic objections might of course be made to such a doctrine, but, whether it be true or false, it proves that the people which conceived it, far from despising the ideal, has such a respect for all ideas, that it has not the courage to reject any one of them.

But for the Hmitations of space, many analogous instances might be cited. There are rich, uneducated people in America as elsewhere, but the boor rolling in money is a mythical being. Nor is this surprising. Modern society is so constituted that it is impossible to conceive of a nation which is both wealthy and ignorant. Modern industry, commerce and agriculture demand special technical knowledge and a highly perfected social organization; in other words, a high degree of scientific and judicial culture. America cannot therefore be said to be indifferent to the things of the intellect; it would be more correct to say that she is less interested in them as a people than in industry, commerce and agriculture. But is not this the case also in Europe? Who would venture to assert that the progress of literature, art and science is the dominant interest of the governments and upper classes of the Old World? Listen to the conversation of those around us. What are its topics? The perfecting of industrial machinery, the development of coal and iron mines, the utilization of waterfalls, and the expansion of industries and commerce. Kings who reign by the grace of God declare publicly that they have nothing so much at heart as the commerce o.f their countries! If this be American barbarism, it must be admitted that Europe is being Americanized with alarming rapidity. This economic effort of Europe is not, however, in the least surprising: it is but the dizzy speeding up of a great historical movement which began in the far-away days when an obscure and tenacious Genoese spread his canvas and set sail across the ocean for the unknown West. Europe had, indeed, given birth to miracles of art and literature, to profound systems of philosophy, lofty moral standards and learned codes of law — but she was poor; she produced but little and that little slowly. She had made gods of tradition and authority; she had set bounds to the energy of man by means of laws, prejudices and precepts ; she bent the pride of man by telling him unceasingly that he was weak, unstable, corrupt and — to quote Virgil's metaphor — like the boatman rowing slowly against the stream. Woe to him if for a single moment he relaxes his efforts to make headway against the current which is ever ready to carry him away with his frail bark! Then, suddenly, she discovered an immense continent in the midst of the ocean and realized that Prometheus, who had only stolen a single spark, was but a clumsy thief. She discovered electricity and coal mines ; she learned how to make the steamengine and consequently how to multiply her wealth with a rapidity unknown to our ancestors. From that moment man was no longer content merely to dream of the promised land; he wished to see it for himself. He demolished all those traditions, laws and institutions which hampered the flight of human energy; he learned to work both hard and quickly; he won both liberty and riches and he conceived the idea of progress.

The idea of progress was born during the closing years of the seventeenth century, at which time man began to realize that he was able to conquer the earth and its treasures. It developed and spread during the nineteenth century, and overcame both the objections of philosophers and the misoneism of the masses, the scruples of religion and the spirit of tradition, in proportion as man extended his dominion over nature, seized her treasures and shook off the yoke of obsolete teaching. The tremendous development of the great American States ensured its final triumph and it is today the dominating principle of our civilization — one which obliges us to make efforts, to run risks and endure privation. And yet ... if you ask people who have the word " progress " constantly on their lips what they understand by it, how many can give you an exact definition? You have only to read the books and articles on the subject or to study the proceedings of sociological congresses to see how confused and discordant are the ideas even of experts. The idea of progress appears to be as popular and all powerful as it is vague and incoherent. It is on every one's lips, but no one knows exactly what it is. Stranger still, in the century of progress you hear constant complaints of universal decadence. Workmen, employes, soldiers, students, children, parents and servants are no better than before ; good cooking is as much a thing of the past as good literature, beautiful furniture, and art, and courteous manners. How is it that so many things are deteriorating in this age of progress ? Are we making progress or not? Is the progress of which we are so proud and to which we daily sacrifice our leisure and our peace of mind, sometimes even our very life, but an illusion after all?

Ill

It is hardly necessary to point out the seriousness of this question, which may be regarded as fundamental, since on it depends the final sentence passed upon our civilization: whether it is a serious matter or a great delusion. And yet our age cannot answer it. Why is this? How is this apparent contradiction to be explained? This is the great problem which all I saw, learned and observed in North and South America forced me to face. Has the problem of the New World struck me in this light because my starting point was not only Europe but also the dead and gone ages of ancient history? It may be so. At all events this obscure problem has always seemed somewhat clearer when I compared American, and more especially North American, society with the ancient civilizations to which I had devoted so much study. True, the civilizations from which our own is descended were poor: their desires, ambitions, their initiative, enterprise and originality were all limited; they produced but little and, while they suffered much from lack of material resources, they only looked upon the increase of riches as a painful necessity. They did, however, strive after a high standard of perfection in art, literature, morals and religion, as is proved by the artistic character of almost all the industries of the past, the importance attributed to the decorative arts, to questions of personal morals, ceremonial and forms. Quality was more highly esteemed than quantity, and all the limitations to which these civilizations were subject — limitations which seem so strange to us today — were but the necessary price of this ardently desired perfection. We have made the accumulation of riches our aim; we have won liberty and destroyed almost all the limitations of the past ; but we have had to abandon nearly all the ideals of artistic, religious and moral perfection venerated by our ancestors and sacrifice quality to quantity.

Take, for example, the dispute as to the study of the classics. Why did men study Homer and Cicero with so much enthusiasm in times past? Because the great Greek and Latin writers were then considered the models of a literary perfection greatly admired by the ruling classes, which was not merely an intellectual adornment. It could confer public esteem, celebrity, even glory and lofty positions. During the last century these models have, however, lost much of their prestige, either because many people have learnt to appreciate the literature of other ages or because they are no longer in touch with a period which speaks too much and writes too fast. How can a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, who has to make ten or fifteen speeches a day, aim at the perfection of oratory of Cicero or Quintilian? But the day when classic learning ceased to be a school of literary taste pronounced its doom ; once the ancient writers ceased to be models, their works became books like any others, and less interesting to many readers than much modern literature. We hear much of an artistic crisis. Here we must, however, draw a distinction. The arts may be divided into two categories: those which merely serve to amuse man and to offer him an agreeable pastime, such as music, the drama and, to a certain extent, literature; and those which beautify the world, such as architecture, sculpture, painting and all the decorative arts. Now it is obvious that if there is a crisis in every branch of art at the present time, the crisis is far more acute in the arts belonging to the latter category. No age has spent so much on beautifying the world as our own has done; no epoch has given birth to such hosts of architects, sculptors, painters and decorators, built so many towns, palaces and bridges, or laid out so many parks and gardens. Why are we so dissatisfied with the results? Why have the Americans, who spent such fabulous sums on beautifying their towns, never succeeded in building a S. Mark or a Notre Dame ? We have everything : money, artists and the desire to create the beautiful; what is lacking?

Only one thing : time. One day at New York I was speaking in appreciative terms of American architecture to a very talented architect. " Yes, yes," he answered sarcastically, " my compatriots are quite ready to spend one hundred million dollars on building a church as beautiful as S. Mark's in Venice, but they would insist on its being finished in eighteen months." The reply was suggestive. How is it possible to beautify a world which is perpetually being transformed, where nothing is stable and where everything, from furniture to buildings, must be turned out in quantities? Time, reasonable leisure, a wise moderation in the demand for quantity and a certain stability of taste are indispensable in the construction of beautiful buildings and beautiful furniture alike if even a fairly high standard of perfection is to be attained. S. Mark and Notre Dame cannot be built in eighteen months and France could never have produced her great decorative styles if public taste had been as changeable as it is now and people had expected to refurnish every ten years.

IV

How many other instances could be given! If we look around us we see on all hands this struggle between quality and quantity, which is the very essence of modern civilization. Two worlds are at war in our day ; not, as is so often thought, Europe and America, but quantity and quality, and their conflicts disturb and rend asunder America just as much Europe. The impossibility of defining progress, the contradiction between our constant complaints of general decadence and our equally constant assertions that the world is progressing, are another effect of this struggle. Our age has increased the output of certain commodities while lowering the standard of quality so that it appears to be progressing If we judge it from the standpoint of quantity, and to be deteriorating if we judge it from that of quahty. We are bewildered, because we are constantly confusing these two standards by using sometimes one and sometimes the other. Set an architect and a builder in concrete to discuss our age: the former will tell you that the multipHcation of hideous, jerry built towns and villages is a sign of decadence and barbarism, because they prove that we have lost the power of raising the marvellous monuments which are the glory of the Middle Ages; while the latter will maintain with equal sincerity that no epoch has been so progressive as ours which sees the birth of so many new towns and the extension of those already existing. The former judges from the standpoint of quality and is right in asserting that Notre Dame or S.

Mark's, Venice, are of greater value than a whole American city; the other, who judges from the standpoint of quantity, is equally justified in drawing a directly opposite conclusion. In America I have seen an even more striking instance of this tragic misunderstanding, which is latent in nearly all our judgments on good and evil. When I arrived the campaign which had been going on for some years against the trusts, the great banks, the railway and insurance companies, was at its fiercest. Speeches, articles and books by men of weight accused the great financial magnates of being propagators of corruption and tools of a modern despotism no less detestable than the despotisms of ancient times, and of forming disgraceful organizations to rob honest men of the fruit of their toil. This campaign was so widespread among the middle and lower classes as to contribute in no small degree to the fall of the Republican Party. This wave of popular indignation was, however, met in America, as it had been in Europe, with absolute composure by economists and business men who accused the whole movement of being a return to the ideas of the Middle Ages and sang the praises of modern finance, its immense enterprises, great successes and formidable organizations. How is such a marked difference of opinion on a question of such importance to be explained in an epoch so enlightened and educated as our own? Has part of the world been struck blind and only the remainder been gifted with clear vision?