Peace Theories and the Balkan War

uest to an end-The difference between action designed to settle relationship on force and counter action designed to prevent such settlement-The force of the policeman and

parent paradox in Answer No. 4 (that war is futile, and that this war will have immense benefits) is due to the inadequac

other day, merely because the respective Ambassadors still happe

invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial witness-Sir Char

might conceivably speak so of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror and nothing else. The history of the Turk is a catalogue of battles. His contributions to art, literature, science and religion, are practically nil. Their desire has not been to instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern, but simply to conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes whatever he can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses which he finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In unfavourable circumstances he is a marauder. In favourable, a Grand Seigneur who thinks it his right to enjoy with grace and dignity all that the world can hold, but who will not lower himself by engaging in art, literature, trade or manufacture. Why should he, when there are other people to do these things for him. Indeed, it may be said that he takes from others even his religion, clothes, language, customs; there is hardly anything which is Turkish and not borrowed. The religion is Arabic; the language half Arabic and Persian; the literature almost entirely imitative; the art Persian or Byzantine; the costumes, in the Upper Classes and Army mostly European. There is nothing characteristic in manufacture or commerce, except an aversion to such pursuits. In fact, all occupations, except agriculture and military service are distasteful to the true Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant. He may keep a

heir history. It does not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. As a nation, he has lived by the s

from having his force take the form of butchering women and disembowelling children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government will take the form of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial ferocity which is not a matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to w

and inadequacy of our language which creates much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have t

nternational field, in civil matte

down a block of buildings in the pathway of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town authorities were incendiaries also, and "believed in sett

disarm me and say: "My force having neutralised yours, and the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may have to urge for my paying you money; or any argument in favour of your creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an anti-Bellicist to use a drea

precisely because we do not. And if, in preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to knock out his brains, is it because we believe in kn

hat if one threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it? That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the individual citizens are not allow

blished the social equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it, by asking him for his purse on pain of murder. I

therefore fight it out. Let the best man win. When you have preponderant strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not

ot a question of who is stronger, but of whose view is best, and as that is not always easy to establish,

sly exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjus

the strongest, presumably Bulgaria, adopts Lord Roberts' "excellent policy" of striking because she has the preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest of other members of the Balkan League, and the populations of the conquered territories, using

of all in good Government is greater than the special interest of any one in conquest, that the understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the organisation of society are the means by whi

There is no difference in the capacity for the exercise of physical force-or if there is, the difference is in favour of the Turk. The real difference is a difference of ideas, of mind and outlook on the part of the individuals composing the respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a militarist o

key in Europe," p

tradition. Capt. F.W. von Herbert ("Bye Paths in the Balkans") wrote (some years before the present war): "The Bulgars as Christian subjects of Tur

conditions" is, in view of subs

en a Cabinet Minister is unable in this discussion to distinguish between the f