Peace Theories and the Balkan War

are all Pacifists now since we all desire Peace-Will more armaments alone secure it?-The experience of mankind-War "the failure of human wisdom"-Therefore more

hat these despised men were so entirely right and their triumphant adversaries so entirely wrong a mere fluke, or was it due to the soundness of o

question we must get away from certa

t of wars which have taken place since the Crimean War as pr

e war would be futile-but not sterile, for they saw that others would grow from it. Their counsel was disregarded and the war came, and events ha

pts Mr. Churchill to refer to Pacifists as p

onception is worth a

*

nd the poultry of the country gentlemen near whose property the railroa

of a more intangible and elusive kind should be subject to a like unconscious misrepresentation, especially by newspapers and public men pushed by commercial or political necessity to say the popular

test intention of referring to those who share the views embodied in "The Great Illusion," which are, not that the danger of war is an illusion, but that the

n to write that railway smoke killed poultry) is a trifling matter, but to misrepresent an idea, is not, for it makes that better understanding of facts, the cr

efforts at the better understanding of the facts of international relati

t touched upon, or is merely a silly gibe of those who deride arguments to which they have not listened, and consequently do not

erning what it can accomplish, and unless we use our energies and efforts to prevent it, instead of directing those efforts to create it. What anti-Bellicists as a whole urge, is not that war is impossible or improbable, but that it is impossible to benefit by it; that conquest must, in the

e, foolish, and the plea that it is impossible; whether they really suppose that anyone in our time could argue that human folly is impossible, or an "illusion." It is quite evidently a tragic reality. U

are that their one object is the maintenance of peace. Never were such Pacifists. The German Emperor, speaking to his army, invariably points out that they stand for the peace of Europe. Does a First Lord want new ships? It is because a strong British Navy is the best guarantee of peace. Lord Roberts wants conscription becau

hown the least disposition not to take this advice and not to try this method to the full. And wr

y and sloth. And of course they imply that our own nation, about a third of whom have not enough to eat and about another third of whom have a heart-breaking struggle with small means and precariousness of livelihood, is in danger of this degeneration which comes from too much wealth and luxury and sloth and ease. I could fill a dozen books the size of this with the solemn warning of such Pacifists as these against the danger of peace (which they tell you they ar

or, at least, are very mixed in their views as to this. Before men can secure peace they must at least make up their minds whether it is peace o

be said for war-for settling a thing by fighting about it instead of by understanding it,-just as there may be something to be said for the ordeal, or the duel, as against trial by evidence, for the rack as

sed plainly and boldly the whole question of their wisdom and because the intellectual ferment created by those interrogations, either in the juridical or religious field, re-acted on the minds of men in Geneva or Wurtenburg or Rome or Madrid. It was by this means, not by improving the

e truth, are but the encouragement of pernicious theories: there is, according to h

ses ever pronounced by a statesman, has decla

conceptions-man's recognition of his mistakes, whether those mistakes take the form of cannibalism, slavery, torture, superstition, tyranny, false laws, or what you will. The veriest savage, or for that matter t

misrepresenting him; that is quite fairly the popular line: it is no use talking about these things or trying to explain them, all that is logic and theories; what you want to do is to get a bigger army or more battleships. And, of course, the Bellicist on the other side of the frontier says exactly the same thing, and I

creation of a public opinion which should make duelling or such things as the massacre of St. Bartholomew impossible by showing how unsatisfactory and futile they were; and I should know perfectly well that neither would stop until public opinion had, as the result of education of one kind or another, realised their futility. But it is as certain as anything can be that the Churchills of that society or of that day

the grounds of the prejudice and misunderstanding, there is a volte face and such efforts are sneered at as "sentimental" or "sordid," according as the plea for peace is put upon moral or material grounds. It is not that they disagree in detail with any given proposition looking towards a basis of international co-operation, but that in reality they deprecate raising the matter at all.[9] It must be armaments and nothing but armaments with them. If there had been any possibility of success in that we should not now be entering upon the 8,000th or 9,000th war of written history. Armaments may be necessary, but they are not enough. Our plan is armaments plus education; theirs is armament versus education. And by education, of course, we do not mean school books, or an extension of the School Board curriculum, but a recognition of the fact that the character of human society is determined by the extent to which its units attempt to arrive at an understanding of thei

ses the Militarist, that unless they misrepresent facts in a sensational direction the nations will be too apat

people desiring to understand these things and interested in the development of a better European society, can at the same time be determined to resist the use of force. They believe that unless the people are kept in a blue funk, they will not arm,

e this p

N BRITISH APATHY

ersisting in her present course of unpreparedness, her apathy, unintelligence, and blindness, and in he

of victory as anything in human calculation can be made certain. 'Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck.' That is the time-honoured policy of her Foreign Office. It is h

Rule, and a dozen other questions of domestic politics. We have a Little Navy Party, an Anti

GERMAN APATHY AN

he moment, they are incapable of sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of great conceptions, and close their eyes complacently to the duties of

.... There are more abrupt contrasts between Germ

r mistrust, and suspicion.... In spite of numerous wars, bloodshed, and disaster, England always emerges smoothly and easily from her military crises and

y better than that of the other, which would carry a

ayment of doctors, but he knows exactly what a foreign country will do in a much more serious matter. The simple truth is, of course, that no man knows what "Germany" will do ten years hence, any more than we can know what "England" will do. We don't even know what England will be, whether Unionist or Liberal or Labour, Socialist, Free Trade or Protectionist. All these things, like the question of Peace and War depends upon all sorts of tendencies, drifts and developments. At bottom, of course, since wa

has broken into flame? Shall we wait till Consols are 65 and our national credit is gone? Shall we wait till the Income Tax is 1s. 6d. in the pound? OR SHALL WE STRIKE NOW-finding every out-of-work a job in connection with the guardianship of our shores, and, with our mighty fleet, either sinking every German ship or towing it in triumph into

after it is over, there will be abounding pro

odwill whilst foreign Dreadnoughts are gradually closing in upon us. As Mr. Balfour said at the Eugenic Conference the ot

Chancelleries of Europe John Bull is regarded as a negligible journalistic quantity. But John Bull is read by a million people

the next week there was the following letter from him. It wa

there would not be so much balderdash about a friendly understanding, etc., between England and Germany. The German is a born tyrant. The desire to remain with Britain on good terms will only last so long until Germany feels herself strong enough to beat England both on sea and on land: afterwards it'll simply be "la bours

alone. This is how the Daily Express, in a doubl

cers proclaim martial law from the Royal Exchange steps, and when some billions of pounds have to be raised by taxation-by taxation of the "toiling millions" as well as others-to pay the invaders out, and the British Empire consists of Englan

llowed to walk upon the pavement (it would be the German way of solving the traffic problem-

pt, shorn of all power, deserted, as must clearly follow, as a commercial state, and groaning under a huge indemnity that she cannot pay and

centre of commerce, and efforts will be made to enable Berlin to take London's place. Her manufactures will gradually desert her. Failing to obtain payments

follow. Those who cannot get away will starve unless large relief funds are forthcoming from, say, Canada and the United States, for this country, bereft of its m

sh born of funk and ignorance, that whatever happens in war this does not happen, and that it is based on false economics and grows i

of poltroons or of bullies and aggressors, and that since life is a matter of the choice of risks it is wiser and more courageous to choose the less evil. A nation may be defeated and still live in the esteem of men-and in its own. No civilized man esteems a nation of Bashi-Bazouks or Prussian Junkers. Of the two risks involved-the risk of attack arising from a possible superiority of armament on the part of a rival, and the risk of

into futile war from sheer panic and funk arising out of the terror insp

res" (i.e., mobilization of armies) taken by the var

war, or even a collision larger than that already witnessed.... There is no great nation in Europe which to-day has the least desire that millions of men should be torn from their homes and flung headlong to destruction at the bidding of vain ambitions. The Balkan peoples fought for a cause which was peculiarly their own. They were inspired by the memories of centuries of wrong which they were burning to avenge. The larger nations have no such quarrel, unless it is wilfully manufactured for them. The common sense of the peoples of Europe is well aware that no issue has been presented which could not be settled by amicable discussion. In England men will learn with amazement and incredulity that war is possible over the question of a Servian port, or even over the larger issues which are said to lie behin

there appeared in the

Fraser end

or ought to rest, wit

in Armageddon? It is

for his answer m

difference-the survival on the part of the great mass of just those conceptions born of the old and now obsolete conditions-since diplomacy, like all functions of government, is a reflection of average opinion; (3) that this public opinion is not something which descends upon us from the skies but is the sum of the opinions of each one of us and is the outcome of our daily contacts, our writing and talking and discussion, and that the road to safety lies in having that general public opinion better informed not in directly discouraging such better information; (4) that the me

ts. To these latter war is not something that we, the peoples of Europe, create by our ignorance and temper, by the nursing of old and vicious theories, by the poorness and defects of the ideas our intellectual activities

s practical men, we have to do, is to be stronger tha

utcome of such an att

or that of the idealist, who, persuaded of the brutality or immorality of war, is apt to show a certain indifference concerning self-defence. What is needed is the type of activity which will include both halves of the problem: provision for education

he line of the "practical man," and limit their e

deemed a poser: "Do you urge that we sha

se Germans?"-a reply which, of course, meant this: In attempting to find the solution of this question in terms of one party, yo

angerous for your enemy to attack you."[11] Mr. Churchill, however, goes farther than

ce. As a matter of simple fact, both the Navy League, by its demand for two ships to one, and Mr. Churchill, by his demand for certain victory, deny in this matter Germany's right to defend herself; and such denial is bound, on the part of a people animated by like motives to ourselves, to provoke a challenge. When the Navy League says, as it does, that a self-respecting nation should not

lutely opposed to such political education. And it is for that reason, not because he is asking for adequate armament, that some of the best

reciable part. It is the methods not the object or the ideals of the peace movement which I have ventured to criticize, without, I hope, offence to men whom I respect in the very highest and sincerest degree. The methods of Pacifism have in the past, to some extent at least, implied a disposition to allow easy emotion to take the place of hard thinking, good inte

e in themselves poor or mean (as the average Militarist would imply), but because so much of Pacifism in the past has failed to reconcile intellectually th

f the Crimean War, but it was the rapid spread of their principles which within the next twenty years made intervention impossible in the Franco-Austrian War

us the Editor o

conomic theories, they would recognize that exchange is the union of forces, and that it is very foolish to hate or be jealous of your co-operators....

illusion continue-for there is no other c

English view of German "intentions." For the man in the street (I write in that capacity) to receive that expression in silence is to endorse it, to make it national. And I have stated here the reasons which make such an attitude disastrous. We all greatly resp

ts preamble might have filched this fr