Aristodemocracy

Preface to American Edition

In July 1898 I delivered, at the Imperial Institute, London, Lord Rosebery in the chair, an address on the English-Speaking Brotherhood. In an abridged form this appeared as an article, in August 1898, in the North American Review. To this address was added another essay ; and both were published in book-form in 1899 under the title The Expansion of Western Ideals amd the World's Peace.

Similar convictions had been held by me and expressed in various forms as far back as 1874, when, as an American student at Heidelberg, I read a paper on the Staatsziueck before the political society of that University, the late Professor Bluntschli being present.

Many of the views expressed in the present book, especially those which advocate the institution of an International Court with power to enforce its decisions, were already brought forward in my book on The Expansion of Western Ideals and the World's Peace.

I cannot refrain from quoting the opinions on the views set forth in that book by two great Americans, fundamentally opposed in their interpretation of American Foreign Policy as were the late Charles Eliot Norton and John Hay, — the one a representative of the best thought, culture and taste and the highest type of the American gentleman, the other, possessing similar qualities, in my opinion the greatest American statesman of modem times, whose action in reference to China formulated the most important principle of international politics for the future peace of the world.

Charles Norton wrote from Cambridge, Mas;^. on Nov. 18, 1899 (see Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, 1913, Vol. 11, p. 290) "I have read your little volume on the Expansion of Western Ideals and the World's Peace with great interest. As ypu are aware, your position and my own differ on the fundamental question which underlies your essays. But I read with genuine sympathy your very able statement of your own views. * * * Your presentation of the Imperialistic position has this great value at least, that it shows that men who hold it are cherishing ideals wliieli, if they can be fulfilled, will make the course on which America has entered less disastrous than we who do not hold them fear. * * * "

John Hay wjote from the Department of State, Washington, Oct. 21, 1899 (the date is wrongly printed as 1897) [Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, printed (not published) in Washing-ton, 1908, Vol. Ill, p. 100.] "Last night for the first time since your book (The Expansion of Western Ideals) arrived, I found a quiet Jhour to read it and I must thank you most sincerely for a great pleasure. It is a charming treatise, handling a grave subject with an elevation and grace of style which makes it as agreeable to read, as it is weighty and important in substance. What can be the matter with poor dear S — , who set forth at C — the other day this preposterous program:

1. Surrender to Aguinaldo.

2. Make the other tribes surrender to him.

3. Fight any nation he quarrels with.

I think our good friends are wiser when they abuse us for what we do, than when they try to say what ought to be done. I wish you would lend some of your wisdom to certain of our German friends who seem to think that peace with England means war with Germany. * * * "

I make bold to express my convictions that, were Charles Norton alive now, in view of the catastrophe brought upon the world by Prussian Militarism, he would not have remained a Pacifist. He, as well as John Hay, would have urged upon their f ellow-oountrymen the need of Military Preparedness and the duty of each free citizen to defend his country against the danger to the maintenance of its independence and of the ideals of every free country.

Military Preparedness and National Service in no way mean Militarism. They are the only means of combating Militarism when it attacks the Peace-Lovers — No International Police existing — as arming- against armed burglars who threaten the home — no effective Police Protection being available — does not mean that its occupants are not law-abiding citizens. It is a glaring fallacy to maintain that national military service is incompatible with democratic institutions. Past history and republican France of to-day proce the contrary. Even the true socialist impresses its justification and necessity. I recommend all who doubt this truth to read the first and last three chapters of the book on L'Armee Noiwelle by Jaurez — one of the greatest and noblest men of our age.

When we are secure against the active danger of Prussian Militarism, which threatens the very existence of national freedom for the democratic world, then we must revise fundamentally the morals of the civilized world to ensure lasting Peace and Progress. C. W.

Preface

This Essay is not the work of a laudator temporis acti. In spite of its title it is in no wayreactionary or romantic in spirit. It is not meant to advocate a return to conditions of the past, but, on the contrary, emphatically to prepare for the future a new state of things responding to the needs of an advancing age.

There is one possible misunderstanding which I wish above all things to avoid.

Though the book is a protest against war and maintains the possibility — even the necessity — of international peace in the future, and though it is directed against militarism as the arch-enemy of humanity, I firmly hold that the question of peace is not to be obtruded on the consciousness of our people actually engaged in a desperate struggle which requires the concentration of all the energy the nation possesses upon the fight itself. As long as the war lasts all "Pacifist" agitation is out of place. We must first win this war. The nation must even be prepared to substitute conscription for our voluntary system which has served us so well in the past.

Even when this war is over our military preparedness to meet our foes must not be relaxed or weakened, unless some International Court, backed by Power, such as is advocated in this Essay is established. Not even a European alliance will take its place. The more we read past history, and even in the light of the experiences of the working of alliance under the constraining influences of a conunon enemy in the field, the less faith can we have in the security of such alliances. Only such a definite organisation as the one advocated in this Essay will justify disarmament.

Meanwhile the British Empire will have to increase its military strength, and above all retain unimpaired its Command of the Sea. The United States will no doubt be bound to follow the example of military and naval preparedness, until the blessed day has arrived when interest, reason and justice will lead to an efficient safeguarding of international peace. By that time the political consciousness of the whole world will probably be greatly altered, mainly owing to (the results of this war.

This War mil prove to be the Swan-Song of the older conception of Nationality; for it is this misconception of Nationality which has produced it. Ultimately a new conception of Nationality and Internationality will be ushered in, in which loyalty to the narrower relations will in no way prevent loyalty to the wider. It wall be the Era of Patriotic Internationalism. Not many years ago, as human history goes, the Scotsman, for instance, could not have conceived it possible that he could have loyally upheld the interests of a great British Empire even at the sacrifice of Scottish local or personal interests, as he is now prepared to do. The same will be true as regards the wider international unit of the future in its relation to the nations of today.

In some respects the actual events of this war have made the realisation of such a scheme more remote than in the period preceding it. I am not so much alluding to the attitude of the German belligerents, as to that of the Administration of the United States of America.

One of the greatest — perhaps the greatest — opportunity in history to affect the course of humanity towards the attainments of highest good ever placed within the reach of a few individuals by means of one definite action has been lost by them.

I pass no judgment upon the action of President Wilson's Administration in refraining from active intervention in the war, nor upon the question how far national honour was involved, nor yet how far it is the duty of nations to protect their honour at all costs. But a paramount duty to the cause of humanity has been shirked from the very outset with the most disastrous results. Had it been fulfilled, it might have marked a great epoch in the history of humanity. It was their duty to protest against every clear and flagrant violation of international law and the decisions of the Hague Convention to which the United States was a signatory.

Had the United States thus protested against the action of Germany in Belgium, the numerous and undoubted contraventions of these laws and decisions in the bombardment of unfortified towns by ordinance or aircraft, the sinking of peaceful merchant men, etc., etc., a new era might have been initiated. Such a protest need not have been followed by forceful intervention, and might have remained purely academic and platonic; but made, it ought to have been. The sinking of passenger — and merchant — vessels ought not to have evoked protest only on the ground of their belonging to the United States or carrying American goods or passengers, but purely and w^iolly on the ground that the United States was a cosignatory of the Hague Convention. The United States, as the only great neutral power remaining, would have formed the center to which the combined opinion and support of all the numerous smaller and less powerful neutral states — also co-signatories of the Hague Convention — would have been drawn; thus forming a united expression of civilised opinion and moral force in the world. It would perhaps only have formed a nucelus to a germ-cell of internaitional justice and peace ; but out of this germ a great and sturdy organic body of civilised opinion and power might subsequently have developed. Such action has not been taken. The great world-opportunity has been lost. The cause of human peace has not been advanced. Worse than that: the sin of omission has had the positive effect of retarding the realisation of the just hope of civilised humanity formed before this war, and has confirmed the divorce between right and might for years to come.

This book was written during the winter and spring of 1914 to 1915. Events subsequent to that date have not necessitated the making of any essential alterations or additions. Where such additions are made they are made in footnotes.

My sincere thanks are due to my friend and colleague, Dr. J. B. Bury, Fellow of King's College, and Regius Professor of History in the University of Cambridge, as well as to my wife, for numerous suggestions and corrections.

From the Great War

Back to Moses, Christ and Plato

Introduction

What is the real cause of this war? How can we find the true diagnosis of the disease which has culminated in this dissolvent crisis, threatening the health and normal progress of modern civilisation? Some — in fact the vast majority, not only of tliose concerned, but of neutrals as well, — say it is to be found in the militaristic aggression of Germany; others in the steady pursuit of an end, perhaps more remote, of the Pan-Slav domination by Russia. Be it the one or the other, or both, the fact remains that Austria, Turkey, France and England, prospectively Italy and the Balkan States as well, are all concerned. It takes two or more to make a quarrel. That others should have joined in this internecine war is only partially explained (it is but a moral *'s}Tnptomatic diagnosis" of the disease) by pointing to the various combinations of alliance and ententes, to avowed or secret treaties, to the various moves on the diplomatic chessboard of Europo r!"ring the last few generations, or by the consideration of such phrases as the "European Balance of Power," of the spread of colonisation, commerce and trade, and of endless proximate causes, such as, especially, the influence of the armament industry. The moral consciousness of the vast majority of the population of the civilised nations of the West is directly opposed to this barbarous, irrational, immoral arbitrament of right by the uncertain, fatuous, grotesquely stupid appeal to the brute forces of savagery and destruction, however much these be raised to the sphere of scientific forethought and mechanical ingenuity, however much — to use the happy phrase of the French Ambassador in London — ''barbarism may have bedecked itself with the shoAvy attributes of intellectual jDedantry. "

To the vast majority of the civilian population (with the exception perhaps of professional soldiers and those directly dependent for their living upon war or the prospect of war) war is not only a survival of barbarism and savagery^ but an absurdity. Though all recognise the right of self-defence, the duty to protect home and family and the community in which they live, to defend honour and ideals, none who are sane and sincere would admit, that one must slay those who are not endangering one's life, and whose aims and ideals are practically the same as one's own. To create a state in which the whole life of the community is subordinated to the one great aim of slaying neighbors generally related by race, religion, and ideals; and with whom one had previously lived in friendly intercourse; to do this by subverting all principles of morals, all standards Oif right and wrong, of fair dealing, of honor, of chivalry and of generosity, on which life in times of peace has been based, is not only cruel and immoral, but grossly stupid and insane. And yet, in spite of these views held by all sane people, such a war is actually raging: families are bereft of fathers, sons and brothers; misery penetrates into all layers of society in every civilised country in Europe; the rule of morality and sanity is suspended for the time; millions of pounds a day are expended without any economic return, dissolved into empty space — sums which would in one month, one week and even in one day have advanced social reforms, alleviated suffering and misery of the poor and feeble, provided for Science and Art and all spiritual improvements, sums which in times of peace can never be appropriated to such uses for the welfare of humanity for ages to come. Was there ever such a tragic paradox, such glaring contradiction between conviction and actual profession, between faith and action, between what we believe and what we do?

How came modem civilisation to end in such a paradox? For the true answer to this question we must consider, not only the direct actions of Germany and Russia, but also the less direct international policy of all the other civilised nations; it is to be found much deeper down and much further afield in the moral state of national, social and individual life within all the peoples of the Western world.

I shall endeavor to show that the real cause, the real ''etiology" of this universal disease, is to be found in the fact, that either we have no efficient common ideals or else that we have false ideals; prejudices and one-sided figments of diseased or unbalanced brains, which we consider ideals, when in reality they are the outcome of brutal and lower instincts. And furthermore, it is to be found in the imdeniable fact, that the modern world has no Faith, no Religion, no clearly adopted higher code of ideal striving in which we believe whole-heartedly, and which will not only lead us on to great things, noble enterprise, complete self-sacrifice, but will also regulate our actions even in the smallest demands of daily life ; moral standards which are in complete harmony with the firmly established and clearly recognised faith in such unassailable ideals, intense and pervasive and capable of resisting every onslaught of doubt or scepticism even in the smallest constituent elements of our wider faith.

What is needed, above all, is to reconstitute our faith, so that it should have the powder to guide and to control our actions in every aspect of life, unfailingly, as in bygone days, there was complete harmony between what people believed and professed and what they considered the right thing to do.

It is my object in this essay to show that for want of ideals and of religious faith, truly expressive of our best thought and of the civilised conditions of modern life, is ultimately to be found the true cause of this sudden and universal crisf& in European history. It is also my object to endeavour in all humility at least to indicate the direction in which the reconstitution of our ideals and the establishment of an effective Faith for the future may be found.

Chapter I

The Immediate Causes of the War. The Dominance OF German Sterberthum and Alldeutsche Militarism

Immediately after that most acute crisis in the relations between England and Germany in 1911, when the railway strike in England threatened to develop into a general strike, paralysing trade and communications throughout the British Isles, and this critical moment was seized by Germany, through the Agadir incident, nearly to provoke a war, I had a most interesting and deeply significant conversation with one of the leading German statesmen in England. I am firmly con\dnced that he was not only a most honourable man, who combined an intense and loyal patriotism with liigh ideals for humanity as a whole, but was also truly and sincerely an Anglophile, anxious to maintain cordial relations between Germany and Great Britain, two nations whose vocation in history it was jointly to advance the cause of civilisation. Besides ourselves there was present one other person deeply and intimately concerned in adjusting labour-disputes and thoroughly acquainted with labour difficulties all over the world. The crisis threatening the maintenance of peace between Germany and England had by that time practically passed and our own labour troubles were on the way to final settlement. My friend, the authority on labour questions, had just informed us that there were signs of a threat of similar troubles in one of the continental countries, and dwelt upon the sympathetic responsiveness of every country to the strikes and labour troubles of their neighbours. He predicted that this responsiveness would grow and might lead to more thoroughly organised international labour movements.

It was then that I ventured to express my conviction as regards the possibility of a great, if not a universal, war in the future. To me it then appeared — and I endeavoured to formulate my views — that the future history of civilisation depended on the relative rapidity in progress and realisability of iwo opposed movements and aims, held by the two chief contending forces and camps : the peaceful workers in the world and the militarists. It was entirely a question wliich of the opposed purposes held by the two forces determining the fate of the world would arrive at fruition first: Whether militarism — which made for war — or true democracy — the people realising its own power and conscious, not only of its interests, but its ideals — which made for peace, would win the day. The fate of the world hung upon the question of time as to which of these two forces would realise itself first in power and organisation so as to impose its aims upon the world. Since the general strike, though abortive for the time, had been resorted to in St. Petersburg in 1905, the labour men throughout the world had realised the power in their hands to decide eventually upon war or peace; and even though war be declared by any country, to make it impossible for any government to wage it. The labour parties all over the world were becoming internationalised, as capital on its side was more and more effectually internationalised. Moreover, it was equally manifest to me, that the several governments and military authorities were beginning to realise this fact of primary importance. It therefore appeared to me that in the immediate future it was all a question as to whether the labour men (the practical, not the theoretical pacifists) would arrive at the realisation of their power before the militarists had forced a war upon us, or whether the military powers w^ould anticipate this result and, mthin the next few years would force a war upon the world. If they delayed in their purpose, and even a few more 3^ears were to pass without a conflict, the world Avould no longer tolerate such a war, and some form of permanent peace — though not necessarily peace from internal and wider social revolutions — would be ensured. What I feared was, that those convinced of the need for war and those interested in the maintenance of armies and military prestige and all that it implied, would anticipate events in the undisturbed development of social forces and would precipitate a war upon us. My Grerman diplomatic friend listened attentively, and for an answer, nodding his head with a suggestion of consent and approval simply and with manifest reticence remarked: ''Sie konnen nicht unrecht Jiahen'' (You may not be wrong).

Now German militarism has Avon the day and has brought about this disastrous war — more disasterous than any the world has yet seen. Not wishing to delay war (the possibility of which in the future thus hung in the balance) any longer than necessary, and deeming the autumn of 1914 the most propitious moment for the coincidence and confluence of many factors favourable to German aggression, war was declared, and was forced upon Europe at exactly that date. It is one of the doctrines, openly admitted by the German war-party, that the reasons for a declaration of war, if they do not manifestly exist, can always be created. This is borne out by past history, and is clearly put by Nippold in his book on German Chauvinism^ when he wrote in 1913: *'The quintessence of their (the German Chauvinists) doctrine is always the same: A European war is not only an eventuality against which one must guard oneself, but a necessity, moreover one which in the interest of the German nation one ought to accept witht joy. ... In the eyes of these agitators the German nation requires a war; a long peace is to their mind in itself regrettable, and it does not matter whether a reason for such a war exists or not ; therefore, such a cause must if necessary simply be produced. ' '

That August, 1914, was thus the most favourable moment is clear from the fact, that the new army organisation was completed and in working order ; that the strategic railways on the Eastern and Western frontiers were completed; and that the extension of the Kiel Canal had also been carried out. As regards the unfavourable position of the Powers of the Triple Entente : Russia had not developed her own strategic railways, nor re-organised her army, both of which she was actively engaged in doing and expected to have completed about two years later ; moreover, at that moment she was in the throes of labour difficulties, corresponding in some degree to those

(1) "Der Deutsche Chativinismus"

of England two years previously, which had then set in motion aggressive movements against us by Germany. France could not yet count upon the complete fruition of the revised Army Bill which would bring her numbers to the required proportion for resistance against Germany; moreover, scandals concerning the equipment of the army had been brought before the public through debates in the Chamber and had shown great unpreparedness for war, weakness and disorganisation in the French army. Finally, England was in the throes of one of the most serious internal crises, owing to the deadlock in the solution of the Irish question, and, in the eyes of incompetent German diplomats, a revolution seemed not improbable, and even more probable should a war be forced upon England at that moment. I have the best authority for maintaining that the ruling powers of Germany were absolutely convinced that England was not prepared to join the other Powers of the Triple Entente and would under all circumstances at least remain neutral. Thus the only factor in which that moment was least favourable to German aggression, namely, the exceptional readiness of the mobilised British Fleet, could in the estimation of the Kaiser and the German Foreign Office be discounted, because they felt confident that England would not join in a war, at any rate not at the beginning.

But, over and above all these considerations, which made that moment the most propitious for a declaration of war on the part of Germany, was the very fact for which the Germans might be able to claim disinterestedness of motive — namely, that the war on the face of it was caused by a question primarily concerning Austria-Hungary and not Germany, and that its immediate cause was clearly one which appealed to the sense of law and morality in people all the world over. For in the first instance it meant a protest against murder and the vilest form of assassination of a man and a woman who were representative of the sovereignty of the great Austrian Empire. It could be claimed — apart from all the political bearings of that assassination, its origin and connection with the anti-Serbian policy of Austria in the immediate past and for many years before that date, and even with the suspicion that Austria herself w^as not free from collusion in this political crime of assassination — it could be claimed, I say, that morally a great power was justified in punishing a heinous crime, recognised as such by the whole civilised world, and in taking steps that such crime should not occur again. There was thus a favourable element in this appeal to common justice, as regards the individual incident out of which this war, concerning the national interests and aspirations of all the countries, grew. There was further a claim to disinterestedness on Germany's part as the matter primarily concerned her ally and not herself.

But above all — and this I wish to emphasise — the most important element was the fact that the chief antagonist of the Germanic powers in this international quarrel with the Entente Powers was not Anglo-Saxon England or Latin France, but the Slav world — Serbia, behind whom stood Russia. The chief antagonists in this great war could thus be clearly and distinctly defined as Russia and the Tuetonic powers, the Slav and the Teuton. This was the most important and decisive factor in the whole confluence of circumstances which made for w^ar and could justify it in the eyes of the German people and of the whole world. At the beginning of the M^ar this element was utilised to the full by the German Government, the German press, and every organ of publicity which could affect the German nation itself and the neutral peoples of the civilised world. The antagonism was clearly defined as hdng between Germany and her allies and Russia and her allies, between the Teuton and the Slav, between Germanic culture and Slav culture. Furthermore, on the mder political side it could be used to symbolise the conflict between benighted autocracy and despotism represented by Russia, and the enlightenment of progressive Germany. This fact was of supreme importance in the beginnings of this war and remains so to this day. It not only won over all the possible liberal opponents to war in Germany itself, but it also won over, or at least caused to waver in their adherence and sympath}", the liberal elements in man^?^ of the neutral countries — especially those who appreciated and valued German culture, science and art, and equally opposed and deplored the autocratic rule and the benighted social degradation of the Russian people. Had this war been primarily declared by Germany against France or against England on any contentious issue between Germany and these countries, not only the socialists, but the mass of the liberal thinking Germans, would have been opposed in feeling and sympathy to such a war, or would at least have been lukewarm in their support of it. But when it could be clearly impressed upon the national consciousness that the fight meant the self-preservation of Teutonism in its struggle with Pan- Slavism, that the ever-present danger to Germany of being crushed by its all-powerful autocratic neighbour, had come to an imminent climax, and that the actual war was wantonly forced on Germany by the Russian Tsar, who had treacherously mobilised his forces against Germany in contravention of his plighted word, we can understand, not only that the pacifists were silenced for the time being; but even that a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and of warlike determination swept over the whole of the German nation, who from that time on rose like one man to defend the fatherland and their Teutonic culture and ideals, against the ruthless and deceitful foe.

But here comes one of the most striking and singular incidents in the history of national psychology, as illustrating the facility, the stupendous levity, with which a whole nation can be duped and its deepest convictions turned from one direction to another within a few days, even to the very opposite pole of the dominant passion which had before swayed millions. At a given moment Russia was dropped from the sphere of supreme culpability and enmity and England was substituted. Since then there are manifest signs of attempts (such as those made in the letters of Herr Ballin published in the "Times" of April 23, 1915) to deny the initial antagonism against Russia, because of equally manifest diplomatic moves, if possible to drive a wedge into the Triple Entente and to bring about an understanding between reactionary autocratic Russia and militaristic and autocratic Germany. But the one outstanding fact is, that the doctrine of hate against England, established and preached for a number of years in the immediate past in more or less open and avowed forms, has now become the all-powerful and all-pervading motive of German official and popular patriotism. Evidence now furnished proves beyond all possible doubt, that this plan and its supreme end were in the minds of the militaristic section of the German people for a number of years past, and that this militaristic section has gained full dominance over the whole of the united German people.