CAUSES OF
INTERNATIONAL
WAR
Causes of International
War
By G.
LOWES DICKINSON
CONTENTS PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE SEN...
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CAUSES OF
INTERNATIONAL
WAR
Causes of International
War
By G.
LOWES DICKINSON
CONTENTS PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY AS A CONDITION OF
II
III
IV
WAR
-
-
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF WAR
WAR BETWEEN
STATES
-
-
7 15
-
25
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR OF THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS IN A STATE
V
-
-
6l
-
-
-
90
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
-
IO9
REMEDIES
_
FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR The
object of this series
knowledge of the to
the
inculcate
nationalistic
is
twofold
;
to disseminate
and
facts of international relations,
way
international
of regarding
rather
than
This
them.
the latter
purpose implies no distortion of facts. It is hoped that the books will be found to maintain a high standard of accuracy and fairness. But their avowed object is not merely to record facts, but to present them in a certain light, and with
That
a certain object.
and
light is Internationalism
that object the peace of the world.
If the series is
its purpose it will contribute to what " international mind." Wells has called the
successful in
The
object has been to produce the books at a
price that shall not be prohibitive to people of small
incomes.
For
the
world
cannot
be
saved
by
governments and governing
classes.
only by the creation,
the peoples of the world,
among
It
can be saved
of such a public opinion as cannot be
misrepresentation difficulties
exaggerated,
of
nor
that
misled
by
achievement
duped by
passion.
The
hardly
be
And for men
the
can
but ought not to daunt.
of to hope for support the one attempt, among many others, good to enlighten the intelligence and direct the will. editor ventures
will in this
Chapter
I
THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY AS A CONDITION OF WAR In discussing war,
it
clearly
so
anything
general
We
competition.
mean
the
no doubt would
do not mean
or
persist in the
fightmg or
dehb-rate
by groups of
Other kinds of
other groups.
men
of
use
against
and
conflict might,
absence of war
and
;
an end to war would not be the same thing as
to put an
end
to competitive effort.
from the history of state
We
it.
conflict
as
organised physical force
to put
important to distinguish
is
what we mean by
there
is
states.
That
is
clear
For within an ordered
less there peace, but none the
is
conflict. It
is
of this necessary, also, for the purpose
essay, to distinguish international
war from
In some periods of history, the distinction easy to
draw
But
in practice.
it
becomes
civil. is
not
clear as
soon as sovereign states have appeared. International war is, then, war between such states ; 7
8
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
while
war
civil
one of them.
war between groups included in generally, in international war
is
More
the parties contending do not recognise one another
community ; in civil war These two kinds of war have many
as belonging to a single
they do. features in
common, but
are different.
We
their causes
and objects
confine ourselves here to the
causes and objects of international war.
War, we must
first insist,
For, on the face of
A
it, it is
requires accounting for.
not natural but strange.
quarrel, ending with a fight,
viduals,
everyone
between two indi-
understands.
The men
angry, and they want to hurt one another.
are
But
in
war, none of the individuals concerned need be, and
commonly, none of them are, at all angry They have no kind of personal
in fact,
with one another. quarrel. late
Insomuch
war, during
that, as is
lulls in
well-known, in the
the fighting, quite friendly
were sometimes established between the " *' had to be fraternising opposing regiments and relations
prohibited and punished by the officers. of
men,
killing
for four
and
a half years,
Millions
were engaged
in
one another, with every circumstance of
cruelty, yet broadly speaking,
none of them in any
CONDITION OF WAR way
a very curious fact. to enquire It
On
disliked the others.
how
it
"
man
(this is the first
point
But what
presumed, are united
is
meant by
might mean being a
It
?
Such animals,
herd-animal, hke wolves or sheep.
a special gregarious
by
instinct, not possessed
by
causing them to behave
in a quite different
these.
to
depends on such an
Others believe that the
knew no
larger
The
is
us here
one for biologists to
is
that,
of the feeling of community,
Siomething
direct
men
earliest
community than the primitive
question
What concerns
settle.
whatever the origin
we
experience
it
and primary, seeming to
deeper than any reasons we reader
way
Some think that man is such an animal, and
instinct.
others)
and
solitary creatures,
that his coherence in groups
family.
we
were, as he was long ago
social animal."
being a social animal
it is
is
comes about.
notice) unless
called, a
it^
that
the purpose of this book
It is
could not come about
must
9
the face of
may
give for
it.
as lie
The
may test this by observing himself (or when, for example, his family is insulted,
or his school, or his country. in the expressive phrase,
**
Most hkely he bristle all over,"
will,
and
10
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR and uncontrollably^ and
that quite immediately
without respect to the question whether or no the insult
is
by the
justified
In such cases,
facts.
there seems to be touched a kind of extended
self,
and dear as one's own, and near and dear
as near
**
without any reference to its merits. Good or bad, " it is mine, it is me that is what something seems ** " to say inside one. we shall That something
—
call
the community-sense, and
we must
carry
it
with us in our minds as a fundamental condition of the possibility of war.
of
But
this sense,
first
matter, which receives, from a long course of
whatever
its
origin, is only a kind
The customs,
living together, all sorts of forms.
and history of the group coalesce with
traditions it.
It
supports them, they shape
feeling is
may
rational
thus
An
irrational
become amalgamated with what instinctive movement which
and the
rushes to the rescue of present
it.
"
my
itself as a deliberate
Thus, a man may support
**
group in danger, may-
preference and choice.
his instinctive rally to his
group by the remembrance of deeds performed in the past by distinguished
done to
civilisation
members
of
it,
of services
or liberty, of demonstrable
CONDITION OF WAR
ii
merits of one kind or another, such as a group with a long and continuous tradition
The
to boast.
and
is likely
to be able
which these
proportion in
reflective
rational elements overlie the primitive feeling
will differ for different groups, different individuals,
and
The
different states of civilisation.
for instance, of a cultivated
Roman
patriotism,
of the age of the
Antonines was something very different from the tribal feeling of a
Frank or a Hun.
But the per-
sistence of the irrational element, even
when
it
is
most overlaid, can be detected by an outsider, in the partiality
which the member of a group
with
estimates the excellences of that group in
parison with those of others.
and
in
Commonly
com-
indeed,
time of war invariably, even to attempt
impartiality
is
regarded as an offence "
country right or
wrong
is still
great majority of patriots.
demn that attitude
the
;
and
maxim
my
of the
Even those who con-
do, nevertheless, usually
manage
to bring out their country as obviously right. fact that this is
**
The
always done by both sides in a war
work other than
shows that something
is at
objective judgment.
That something
are calling the community-sense.
is
a sane
what we
12
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
We
have, next, to notice that, while this
com-
munity-sense seems to be primitive and persistent, it
has not a necessary and exclusive reference to any
particular group.
It is conne
with the groups in which a person
is
begin with,
brought up
;
the family, the village or town, the school, the
These various
college, the nation.
incompatible with one another
commonly grow up
they
They
harmoniously.
;
loyalties are
not
on the contrary,
together and
co-exist
are each the result of habits,
customs, traditions and ideas co-operating with the
But
community-sense. the most tragic way.
example, there
When
may
new
is
loyalty
patible with the old.
not be met.
may
conflict in
a person marries, for
arise a clash of family loyalties.
one community
annexed, a
also they
When
conquered by another and is
demanded
of
it,
The demand may
incomor
may
Centuries of connection have not
On the whom we annexed by war in
produced a loyalty of Ireland to Britain. other hand, the Boers,
1901, were fighting side by side with us in 1914, and it is
probably safe to say that those
did
it
who thus fought
as unquestioningly as the British themselves.
The community-sense, it would appear, can
migrate
CONDITION OF WAR in the
most surprising way.
in itself^ nothing
more than
permanent
Most
of attachment to a group. these
migrations
when
takes place in
often happens
occurs
between
If a revolution
that the class dispossessed of
common
The
foe.
human
saviours of civilisation
hand, fellow-countrymen, a
;
before, race,
it
power
with
cause
who,
latter,
unspeakable enemies of the
become
possibility
surprising are
any country during a foreign war,
and property m.akes foreign
conflict
and nation-loyalty.
class-loyalty
one might say,
It is^
a
13
the
were
suddenly
while, on the other
moment ago brothers in
a holy war, are transformed into fiends incarnate.
We
can study this curious phenomenon in ancient
Greece, in mediaeval
Italy, in the
Russia of the revolutions.
such cases,
is
The
France and the nation-group, in
torn asunder into two class-groups,
and these make war upon one another with the passion that
is
always developed by the community-
sense whenever Conflict,
it
it is challenged by force. must next be observed, seems
necessary to evoke the full vigour of the sense.
This
may be
instances of daily
life.
witnessed
A
to
be
community
in
countless
football match, a boat
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
14
race,
an election, excite a passion wholly irrational
and wholly
The
social.
college, a club, or
tradition of a school, a
even a nation,
which the members are very it
is
will
A
challenged.
admit
something of
is
little
conscious until
candid judgment,
I
think,
that, in time of peace, patriotism is not
a motive for most citizens.
They
are,
no doubt,
living within their national tradition, as fish live in
water, and it.
But
would be quite
their interest
amusements,
is
different people without
directed to their work, their
their science or their art.
They
are
pursuing ends that have no conscious reference to
either
It is
country. for is
most only
the prosperity or the
citizens, a
when
dominant motive.
a social class
is
Similarly,
threatened that
develops the terrible passions shown in
The community-sense normally word may a threat
when
stir a ripple
and
a
blow
the storm
is
on
its
lies
to raise a storm.
raised that
far past.
civil
it
And
it it
war.
stagnant.
surface, but
A
requires it is
we become
aware what an inheritance we are
from a
of their
credit
only in war that patriotism becomes,
trailing
only fully
with us
Chapter
II
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF WAR
We
have seen that the community-sense
But
dition of the possibility of war.
is
a con-
it
is
not
enough to account for war. There would be no war if there were only one community, and that not sub-divided into smaller groups.
know
But
across
men^ we
larger
communities each more or
within
itself,
it
them grouped
find
and each
in fact
in smaller or less
complex
in contact with others
which
regards as outsiders.
Even
so,
however,
it is
not self-evident that out-
siders should be treated as enemies.
Animals do
not make war, pack with pack, on their
Such war, outside mankind, bees and ants.
It
existed
is
only
And it is
own
kin.
known among
seems to be an anomaly
rather than a rule. it
we
Wherever we come
of no such condition.
in nature,
questionable whether
among men during millenniums
of their
i6
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
bat there
no evidence
animals,
they fought one
that
And whereas Man may have appeared on
another.
V
is
men hunted
Early
history.
primitive
the earth a million years ago, war,
some
think, does
not go back more than two hundred centuries.
There
no evidence for the statement, sometimes
is
made, that whenever and wherever there
hastily
men
have been
came
likely,
V
not a
fatal
s
effect
of
{
conditions.
in, as,
perhaps,
product of
that
War more
there has been war. it
out.
may go
human
nature.
when put under
nature
It is
It
is
an
certain
some-
Nor again does it seem to be true, as is times assumed, that primitive men, even at that which we begin
late stage of history in
to
have
record or observation of them, are in a condition of perpetual war.
monly
not
uncom-
find small groups living in loose contact,
mostly in peace,
some
On the contrary, we
but occasionally
definite matter,
what another claims
to
"
scrapping "about
hke the poaching of one on be
its
carrying off of a
woman.
the earliest origin
we can
hunting ground, or the
Something trace for war.
like this is
But
very different from war fully developed.
it is
The
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT is
fighting
unorganised, and
it
17
be carried on
may
not between whole groups but between single families within groups.
The
battles are anything
but bloody, and an actual casualty
may
terminate
the proceedings in general dismay and regret.
It is
a long step from this kind of primitive quarrel to
what history knows as war, and the stages of development cannot be certainly traced in a regular the
known
facts suggest that econo-v
mic motives were
at the
bottom of the process.
series.
But
all
For instance, disputes about hunting grounds are a
com-
primitive cause of fighting, where different
munities are settled in the same neighbourhood.
Such causes of dispute are hkely to be more common and more serious where tribes in the pastoral stage of civilisation
distances
between
quarters, as, for
happened Europe.
in
the
wander
summer
their
many thousands steppes
of Asia
far over long
and
winter
of years, has
and Eastern
Disputes of this kind would develop the
readiness to fight, and the weapons and tactics of a rude kind of war.
But
further,
precarious conditions of this kind of
under the life,
a
bad
season, and the perishing of beasts on a large scale,
/
i8
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
may sy'
v^
leave a tribe face to face with the choice
between starving and stealing from others.
Hence,
wars for subsistence, leading on naturally to the
Such wars
habit of war for plunder.
constitute
the greater part of the history of Central Asia.
Sometimes
this struggle of pasturing
hordes led
to migration in mass, the defeated being compelled
new
to seek a
attacks
country.
on more
agricultural basis, for example, or
And these migrations led to peoples settled, on an
civilised
m
more
fertile
Mesopotamia.
It
land
—
in China,
was such migra-
tions that led to the invasions that destroyed the
Roman Empire.* that broke
Quite analogous are the sea-raids
up the ancient
civilisation of Crete, or
those of the northern Vikings.
covering
many
great part of the * "
As long
as a
In
all
these cases,
centuries of primitive war, over a earth,
nomad horde
plunder
is
clearly
finds sufficient
room
the
in the
steppe it does not think of migration and always returns home from its raids richly laden with plunder. But if the steppe-zone is thrown into a ferment by struggles for the winter pastures, or by other causes, the relatively weakest horde gets pushed out of the steppe and must conquer a new home outside the zone. For it is only weak against the remaining nomad hordes, but against any other state upon which it falls it is irresistible. All the nomads of history who broke into Europe, the Scythians, Sarmatians, Hun-, Bulgarians, Avars, Magyars, Cumans, were the weakest in the steppes and had to take to flight, whence they became assailants of the world, before whom the strongest tottered." Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. I., p. 349.
—
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT motive; and one
may
say,
mistake, that that motive
is
without
much
But,
developments.
lished, as
form of
it
were, on
activity,
its
fear of
the origin of war.*
This original motive war carries with all its
19
later,
own
by important
it
through
war was estabnormal
feet, as a
To
social changes.
describe these in detail, would be to rewrite history.
But
it
will
points.
be useful to
First,
unnecessary, good or
gence and
call
whatever evil,
War
will.
it
do,
two main
necessary or
they put into
it
intelli-
has been no exception, but
rather a principal example.
war began,
attention to
men
took on a
Once the
momentum.
practice of
On
the one
hand, an art of weapons and of their use, of tactics and strategy, was developed on the other, ;
a
social
became
and
attitude
victorious
tradition.
Those nations
which were able
to
show
greatest invention in
the art of war, the
indifference to killing
and being
killed,
the
most
and the
* Mr. W. H. Perry has put forward the rather sensational view that the very beginning of war was the conquest of peaceful peoples by adventurers bent on gold, pearls and amber, and on servile labour to produce them. On that hypothesis all war would be in the modern sense " imperialistic." See reference in
the bibliography to
Mr.
view were established the root of war.
it
Perry's very interesting paper.
If his
would more than ever show plunder
as
%
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
20
strongest and most tenacious acceptance of war as
once
at
savages
necessary
who
have killed they
and
when they find they an enemy, and run away when they think
may be
killed themselves, stand, of course,
chance in such a competition. civilised peoples of the
the
settled
no
and
stood very
nomad Huns.
Nor can
modern Chinese or Africans put up
a successful
But the very
fight against the white race.
war has become the subject of an to
The
Roman Empire
chance against the
little
Innocent
honourable.
burst into tears
art, is
fact that
an obstacle
effective criticism of its necessity or utihty.
any
For every art becomes a purpose in itself, and and resents discussions that may undermine
resists it.
It is
rifles
not from the makers of bows or spears, of
or cannon, of the poison-gasses and disease-
germs which are now taking their place, that there could be expected a candid investigation of the
own
value of their
personal pride forbids calling
it
be discredited
interest.
more
activities.
The
likely to
(for
?),
makers
Professional
what are they,
if
and their
and so does economic of
be tolerant of
weapons pacifists,
are
not
than were
the silversmiths in Ephesus of Christians.
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
21
Even more important, in the process of converting war from a plunder-raid to an institution, is
the development of a special fighting class.
nomads whose history
activities
of war
The
so great a part in the
fill
were not professional
soldiers.
Their wars were episodes in the business of herding their beasts.
And though
they would sometimes
unite in great armies, under
some
chief of military
tended
genius, their social organisation continually to revert to small clans of
freemen.
In some
cases,
more or
less
equal
however, long periods
of fighting and invasion produced the segregation of a special governing and fighting class, whose tradition, occupation,
and
ideal
was
all
of war.
European and Japanese feudalism, so curiously ahke,
though never in contact, are the
examples tribes,
of
this
from the
development.
first
records
great
The Teutonic
we have of them, With
already have the practice and ideal of war. that ideal, they invaded the
Roman Empire, and in
the long process of settling
down transformed their
whole
social organisation in the
way
best calculated
to stereotype the war-like tradition.
Chiefs were
converted into hereditary kings, their personal
22
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR men
followers into lords, and the mass of free vassals
or serfs.
governing is it,
class
which
is
also a fighting class.
their principal business.
for
It
else.
nothing
interest that there should
their ideal.
When
man. playing it,
They
it,
for
are trained for their
is
War
by and
live
They
hold their land by and for
and
into
There has now grown up a
be war.
think no other
continuing
And, life
it
also,
it is
worthy of a
they are not engaged in war, they are
at it in jousts
or hearing
it
and tourneys, or talking about
sung about.
Finally,
all
the
resources of art and religion are brought to bear to consecrate their in Orders, blessed
code of chivalry. It
life. The warriors are grouped by the Church, and trained in the
War
has reached
its
apotheosis.
has passed from being a blind necessity fallen
into
by primitive and hungry men
only purpose of civilised
life
conceivable for
to being the
men
held to be
and noble*
This brief indication must
suffice to
put the
reader on the track of the origin of war and
development.
The
process
its
may be summed up
as the conversion into an institution of what, to
begin
with,
was armed robbery.
J
The armed
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT robbery stage has
filled
human
still
and
history^
of the world.
an enormous space of
continues in certain parts
hung about the
It
23
skirts of the early
empires in Egypt and Mesopotamia and China. It
sent out^ from time to time, great
swarms of
nomads that overwhelmed these empires and settled down on the top of them, again to be overwhelmed by
swarms.
later
Much
of such war, however
large in scale, did not involve
transformations
among
fundamental
who
those
They remained mere plundering a
developed with
class,
The
distinct
a
best
similar
ethic
ways
war.
European But we
war.
analogous
in
find
those
in the
Homeric
Mediterranean
Minoan
civil-
We may
development the institutionalising
this
And
it is
a
and something
Japan,
by invasions from the north.
tutional
of
Middle Ages
region after the break-up of the old isation
governing
all
known examole.
development in
many
and
poems which describe war
call
on.
But
hordes.
and
fighting
tradition
feudalism of the
the
in
social it
were peoples and conditions where there
there
is
carried
of
important to note that this insti-
war preceded and was inherited by the
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
24
organised states both of ancient Greece and of
modern Europe, It is
in
and of
war between such
our time are concerned. analysis of that
its
prelude.
must be
states
And fuller
with which
we
our discussion than our sketch
Chapter
III
WAR BETWEEN STATES By
a state
is
meant
a settled population living in
an orderly way under an established government.
Dimly we
see such states growing
history in
fertile
rivers
in the
up
valleys,
the
dawn
Nile,
Tigris and Euphrates, the great rivers of
on
islands, as Crete
on
of
the
China
;
by
the sea coast like
Tyre and Sidon.
Our knowledge
of the history of
these early states
is
part of
it
;
war
;
strips
sketchy
;
but war
either with invading
land or sea, or with other states. a
moment
to
repelling of plunder raids
;
their borders unsettled
they will
have
examples are a
We may pause for The
and while
first is
states
and uncivilised
the
have
tribes,
Modern wage such war. frontier war on the north-west to
border of India, or a war between white
and the
a great
point out the difference in kind
between these two kinds of wars.
on
is
nomads from
tribes in the African interior. 25
settlers
Such war is
'
26
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
only a prolongation of the primitive war dealt with
The
in the last chapter. istic
essential
and character-
wars of states are those they wage with one
another.
Such wars might be called classic wars. which fill the history of which we
are those
They know most
;
in particular^ the history of ancient
Greece and of modern Europe.
The
transition
from the one period
may be summarised
as follows.
to the other
Ancient Greece,
so tiny geographically, was nevertheless divided into a large cities,
with a
number little
of states.
territory
The
states
And though
big as an English county.
were
round them, about as
were, and recognised themselves
all
Greeks
to be, of kindred
descent, yet these ciries were continually at war, and it
was these wars that
their independence.
glorious first
life
of the
Greece
in a very brief space destroyed
After fell
some two
centuries of
under the domination
kingdom of Macedon, and
later of the
repubhc of Rome.
Rome too, is
too began as a city state, and her history,
one of continual war.
But the course of
it
was very different from that of any Greek city. It was one long career of conquest. Rome subdued
WAR BETWEEN STATES and brought under her own
27
system,
political
her immediate neighbours, then gradually
first
all Italy.
She fought Carthage for the empire of the west, and Macedon and Egypt and the princes of Asia She extended her
for that of the east.
rule over
the savage tribes of Gaul and Britain and north Africa
her frontiers at
till
last
reached the Rhine
and the Danube, Mesopotamia and the mountains of Armenia. For once in its long turbulent history.
under
Western Europe and the Near East rested and cultivated men dreamt of a
a single rule,
But
perpetuity of peace. vast though
it
this
Roman Empire,
was, covered, after
all,
Outside, to
small part of the eastern hemisphere.
north and
was
these,
east,
wandered warlike
but a very
tribes.
And
it
breaking through, in the fourth and
following centuries, that destroyed the
Roman state,
without being able for centuries to establish any other.
Hence the long anarchy on which we
touched in the
last
chapter.
When
it
subsided,
it
was not one state that emerged, but, as before in Greece,
many
states.
Renaissance
Italy
repro-
duced almost precisely the conditions of that old
Greek world.
The
rest of
Europe separated
off
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
28
into larger states under kings,
and by the sixteenth
we
century the international conditions to which are
accustomed
in
already
Europe was
established. states, as
were
like
city states
;
Greece, was continually at war.
war between
It is this
main
world of country-
a
Greece had been a world of
and Europe,
the
states that is specifically
meant by international war, which would be better
And
called interstate war.
grouped into
definitely
quite clear between
we
with which
war
is
between
are
only
civil
when men
are
is
the distinction
war and
that other kind
states
here concerned.
states, civil
war within
Interstate states.
But then, why do states wage war with one ? There are not, on the face of the matter,
another the
same causes or reasons
covered in the
for
chapter.
settled, not
engaged are ture
last
war that we
dis-
The communities
nomad, they live by agricul-
and commerce and the arts ; they have laws, conwhole tradition and practice of orderly
stitutions, a civil
life
;
civilisation
course
;
they are on ;
they have
much
many
the same level of
kinds of pacific inter-
they form alliances with one another
they have
(in
ancient
;
Greece and in modern
WAR BETWEEN STATES common
Europe)
a
common
literature.
common
a
religion,
29 art,
They do not habitually
by plundering one another
and
;
if
a
live
their population
becomes excessive they have a recognised practice
Why
of orderly emigration and colonisation.
should they fight one another
?
to say that they have disputes.
It is
then
not sufficient
For disputes need
not be adjusted by war, and very often are not, even
between plainly
war.
In
states.
that
For
it
is
the
the
their
between
wars
it
retrospect interest
not
appears to
Greek
wage States
destroyed the political independence of them
all,
Macedon and then
to
subjected them Rome, and made it
was
brilliant.
states of the later
first
to
their history as brief
The
and
tragic as
wars between the
Italian
Middle Ages and the Renaissance
resulted, in a similar way, in the reduction of a great part of Italy under a foreign yoke,
and the
subsidence of what remained Italian into
political,
And
the wars
intellectual
and moral stagnation.
modern Europe ? Well, let the reader look about him and consider. Wars between States
of
clearly
need accounting
account.
for.
Let us try to give the
30
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR First,
states, at
we must remind
then,
any
rate in the
ourselves
examples of which
that
we know
most, have emerged out of earlier conditions, all of war. Thus they carry with them from the
>
beginning both a community-sense directed upon war, and a habit and art of war.
start in as
They
an armed pack, and develop, instead of getting rid of, this original bias. First, the
takes,
Let us sketch
this
development.
community-sense, as we have called
it,
the citizens of states, the specific
among
form of patriotism.
would be pedantic and mis-
It
leading, in a -matter concerning feelings, to draw>
hard and
But broadly,
fast distinctions.
it
may be
said, with sufficient truth, that patriotism, in
complete development,
The members
of a primitive wandering tribe are,
presumably, bound together by something less conscious
and elaborate
feudal lord are the
bound
members
to
of
The
vassals of a
him by personal a
much
—by an almost animal
feehng that they belong together.
But
its
only possible in states.
is
state
are
loyalty.
united
by
patriotism.* * For the sake of clearness I have not paused in this place to draw the important distinction between a state and a nation, but
write as though
all
the citizens of a state shared in the patriotism
WAR BETWEEN STATES This patriotism
A common
common customs and
rehgion,
sense
based upon the primitive
is
community-sense.
its
habitation, in
local
of at-one-ness
is
conscious and
and
which the
citizens
But
this feeling
not yet patriotism.
Patriotism
inculcated.
is
mind
bringing to the
language
habits give to this
dwell naturally as in a home.
is
31
It
depends upon
of the citizen, by whatever
educational means present themselves, the past history
may be
and achievement of the true or false, but
Often
movingly presented. of a
common
ancestor.
of
it
faced
Patriotism, thus,
and these
Such
history
must be moving, and it
has included legends
descent from a heroic or divine
Always
danger
it
state.
is
latter
has included stories of war,
in
common and overcome.
bound up with war and religion, < For are bound up together.
whatever private religion individuals or groups or churches
may
profess, the public religion
one that allows and priests of
it
justifies
war-patriots.
is
always
war, and the
official
Further, as has already
" " of it. This is not true, in the case of empires where some of the citizens belong to a nationality retained inside the state against its will, like the Egyptians or the Irish in the British Empire, or the Germans in the new Czecho-Siovak state.
32
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
been remarked^
ft is
especially in time of
patriotism flourishes. that
For^
first,
community
primitive
it
(as
conflict.
nection between patriotism and war the reader test
by the
actual history of states.
of war, he will find,
hang together.
closely
the
that
we And
This con-
traditions are mainly of war.
its
that
form of
which
sense,
have seen) flames up most fiercely in next,
war
a
is
It is in
may time
members most
In time of peace class
antagonisms assert themselves, often to the point of
war.
civil
inspired
a
privileges
and
the whole
Rarely,
social
class
if
ever, to
has
patriotism
abandon important
interests for the sake of the
community.
In
Greece
this
good of almost
never occurred, revolutions there being commonly
accomplished by
civil
war and often with the help
Rome, in the earlier period of the was wiser and more patriotic, and for that
of a foreign foe. republic,
reason succeeded better than any Greek state had
done.
But even so the principal concessions of were wrung by a general war when the foreign foe was at the
patricians to plebeians strike against
gate.
Broadly
effective
it is
true that patriotism
only for war»
To
say
is
a force
then that the
WAR BETWEEN STAIES citizens of a state are patriotic
make war.
Whether
is
33
to say that they
there might be
some com-
munity-feeh'ng operative with equal energy in a
world
at peace,
But
there were,
if
from what we Next, ities
of
menace this fact it
may be it
call
we must
;
as a possible
The importance
communities.
cannot be exaggerated.
attack
commun-
note that states start as
armed men, and therefore to other
different
patriotism.
creates suspicion.
may
matter for speculation.
would be something
One who
In the
first
defence will never be convincing.
become an object of
for
Thus every
be stronger than others,
if
only in
order to feel safe, and by so seeking will
fear will
place
can attack always
and assurances that arms are only
state will seek to
of
fear to those others.
itself
The
be proportioned to the menace of the
armaments.
Under modern
perpetual development of
conditions, with the
new means
of offence
and the tremendous advantage of a sudden attack on a
state insufficiently prepared, the fear
becomes
so intense that the mere existence of armaments
enough
to
provoke war.
of states that thinks
For
itself,
a state or
for the
is
an alliance
moment,
in an 3
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
34
advantageous position
war which to if
make
all
tempted
to precipitate the
parties regard as inevitable, in order to
Thus armaments, even
sure of victory.
they were honestly maintained only for defence,
would tend
that
still
war
is
A
produce what they are supposed to
to
And
obviate.
there
is
no idea more
illusory than
generally held that the best
to prepare for
then,
state,
something more. .
is
armed egotism. super-person.
is
way
to avoid
it.
armed
But
patriotism.
it
In relation to other states, Its
And
members regard the
primitive
it
is
it is
as a kind of
and
instincts
centre about real personalities are " " transferred to it. Its life or artificially " " " men is threatened ; its honour existence," say, that
feelings
outraged
demands
it
;
is
capable of being insulted
;
it
"
These metaphors would of course, have no power if they were not working
upon
reparation."
the
patriotism.
cance.
into community-sense heightened But they have also a further signifi-
Through them
individual
able to find an outlet for the
which the
social
citizens
primitive
are
emotion
needs and rules check and thwart in
ordinary relations of
life.
The
state
thus
WAR BETWEEN STATES becomes an immense
35
which are
reservoir, into
poured the otherwise balked egotisms of bers.
In one sense,
But
to the State.
—
all this,
individuals
comes back
it.
—the blow for
own
a blow, the being judge in one's
revenge,
mem-
them in
in another, they satisfy
All that an ordered society inhibits
exaction of one's
its
true, they sacrifice these
it is
own remedies and
the
cause,
own
one's
repressed in disputes between
by the cold arbitrament of justice, enhanced when one state
a million-fold
deals with others.
The
duel
forbidden.
is
How
much the more delightful, when one's state has been insulted, to send a challenge
How much
more
the
satisfying
impunity from the foreigner fellow-citizens
more
is
its
is
to
forbidden.
with
steal
Power over one's
!
limited by law.
intoxicating
members
Theft
!
How much
the
unrestricted use against the
of another society
I
And
all
this,
not
merely without a bad conscience, but with a good
one
;
approved by oneself, approved by one's For whatever a state does its
whole people
members as
done
(at
justly
!
any
rate, the
bulk of them) regard
and righteously.
(unless they be unusually candid
They do not say and
brutal)
"We
36 >^J
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
*'
They
say
seek the Right."
seek markets or plunder."
seek to civilise backward popu-
They
But
this
We are angry and We have to vindicate '*
say *'
to hit out."
our honour."
yj
We
say
We
say
They do not
lations."
want
They "
They do not
We
'*
seek power/'
say
honour
always found to
is
be indistinguishable from prestige
power
;
from
power
egotism incarnate, unblushing,
And
in that
than
huge egotism the
compensation
may be
;
for
the
prestige
The
interest.*
proud of
citi2;ens find
sacrifice,
to death, of the egotism
from
state
itself.
more
even
of their
is
it
own
individualities.
The
State being thus not only
but armed egotism
armaments
it is,
much for
exist as
At almost any moment world of or
states, the
more of these
is
armed patriotism
in fact, generally true that
offence as for defence.
in history, in a political
student will find that some one
not merely believed to be, but
is,
word " honour " has recently been discussed by an " American writer, Leo Perla, in a volume entitled What is " National Honour ? (Macmillan, igi8). He has brought together a long list of passages where the word is used by * This
'v
And the reader will find, if he turns to patriots and statesmen. " honour " means them, that there is hardly a case where anything except power or (what is regarded as the "outwork of power) On national honour see also Veblen On the Nature of prestige. Peace," p. 27
seg.
,
WAR BETWEEN STATES a
menace
For
to its neighbours.
something which
it
it is
37
trying to get
can only get by taking
away
it
from others.
What
It is
?
able, that
which
this object thus
is
of states
which
the root of
is at
human
the object of
it is
per, restrict
pursued by the egotism
the simplest and crudest conceiv-
and divert
to higher
all
animal
life,
aims
;
namely, the
growth
this
means the nourishment and
of his body, then of his possessions,
first
means the v
then of his influence.
In the
extension of
and of its subjects.
may to
be,
its
state
it
;
There
states that are, in fact, too
weak
and yet continue to exist by self-interest of more powerful
this object
and
grace
neighbours.
tempory
territory
no doubt,
pursue
the
//
In
maintenance anidJncreasc of material power. an individual,
and
tem-
discipline to
Such
Europe,
Treitschke.
These
and so long
as,
are
the small states of con-
so
hated
shows.
have always wanted to restrained only
despised
the greater states choose.
precarious such existence
Low Countries
and
by
by
are maintained only because,
is
How
the whole history of the
Their greater neighbours eat
them up, and been
their jealousy of
one another.
38
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
The same
is
true of the small states in the Balkans.
They have subsisted because^ and so long
as,
more powerful states were not yet ready to test by war which of them should swallow them up. More usually, small and weak states are destined to be brought by force under the power of great ones, as
for
happened,
instance,
swallowed up Greece,
when
Macedon
Rome Macedon,
Prussia
The
Hanover, Great Britain the Boer republics.
non-expanding state, preserved under a " " has been a rare and excepbalance of power small
tional
phenomenon
in history.
The
rule
the time, are trying to expand,
states, all
is
and
that
either
succeeding and becoming empires, or failing and \
becoming
subject,
or
maintaining a precarious
balance of power.
occur competition of states there " for It is wars important Liberty.*' episodically In
this
to notice this fact, because
famous
it is
such wars, and their
— Marathon and Thermopylae, Solferino— that connect war with
battles
Magenta and But there could be no idealism. servitude. sion,
liberation without
Deliverance always postulates oppres-
and a righteous war an unrighteous one.
The
WAR BETWEEN STATES essence of the activity of states
power by
violence, the accident
the pursuit of
is
is
the weaker against the stronger.
39
the hit-back of
Of
the truth of
convince himself by noting
this the reader
may
how commonly
in history a nation that has liber-
ated itself sets out immediately to conquer others.
For example, no sooner had Athens defeated the Persians than she built up an empire of her own and
aimed
No
conquest of the Mediterranean world.
at the
she set out to secure the
hegemony
Armada than she was knocking India
and
become aim
America.
mistress in her
at the
No
is
gates of
had
France
house, than she began
mastery of Europe.
There
at the
sooner
own
of this writing examples arresting.
of the two
No sooner had England defeated the
hemispheres.
to
Moors than
sooner had Spain expelled the
At the moment
are before us even
hardly one of the
new
more States
by the victory of the Allies that is not coercing under its rule large alien populations and openly aspiring to a career of power. The called into
new
life
Hellas "
statesman
is
to be, in the
great
words of
its
greatest
and rich and powerful, corre-
sponding to the highest
flights
of our national
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
40
'*
I
aspirations/** for urging force
"
do not says a
fear being reproached
"
Czech
patriot
for the
Czechs were the conquerors and the German
Bohemians the conquered who must bear the consequences of their defeat."t already making warj
The new Poland
to recover
its
is
former empire,
though that comprises more than ninety per cent, All these states have introduced
of non-Poles. conscription
not
how
are
all
;
they
may
thinking,
from the
repair the ravages of
give to their unfortunate people a
and prosperous
but
life,
how
first,
war and
new and
free
may extend
they
by further aggression.
their territories
In this complicated process of power-hunting
>/
is
hardly possible
offensive action.
to
it
distinguish defensive and
For any expansion of power may
be regarded as defensive, since, obviously, the stronger you are, the less open to successful attack. It is
the
same principle of insatiability
makes men fortune.
strive
The
as that
which
continually to increase
their
bigger
it is,
they
feel,
the safer they
* M. Venizelos cited in Oakes and Mowatt European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, p. 113.
t Cited in Foreign Affairs, April, 1920, p. a. X June, 1920.
The Great
WAR BETWEEN STATES are.
don't
They are on an move up, they
States.
they
If
inclined plane, and will
slip
if
they
So with
down.
they are not advancing, they think
be retrograding.
will
41
There
usually a
is
great deal of argument, in the case of any given
who was
war, as to
such
argument
relations in will all
really
is
as otiose as
While States continue to
clusive.
which they always have
be always
But
the immediate aggressor.
incon-
is
it
in
exist
the
existed, they
once on the offensive and the
at
defensive, except those weaker ones that
may be
kept in a stationary condition by a kind of vassalage to the powerful.
Now,
while these conditions continue, no equi-
librium can be other than
equilibrium
is
standings.
But
temporary
and
none of
precarious,
whom
depending
is
held to
its
the
the competi-
its allies
by any other and any of
of
self-interest,
therefore be detachable,
the conditions of
on
all
any moment,
principle than that of
whom may
For an
these, as all history shows, are
relative strength, at tors,
transitory.
maintained by alliances and under-
interest change.
if,
and when,
The
history
of states illustrates this throughout, and nowhere
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
42
illustrates
anything contrary to
it.
Under such
circumstances^ the only hope of reaching a stable position
would be the domination of
by one.
It
was
this that
Rome
all
the states
achieved, for a
period, in the Mediterranean world,
and
this that
Napoleon aimed at in Europe. But the instinct and passion of all states is against this solution, so that, in Europe
as in
ancient Greece,
always been defeated,
to be by a There remains the
Mongol conqueror.
possibility of a
has
Europe may But it would have
day be dominated. Slav or
it
indeed some
permanent union of equals
but without domination.
But
in.
peace,
that possibility pre-
supposes the abandonment of the power-motive by all
the states concerned.
It is
pages to demonstrate that that
an object of these
abandonment
is
a
necessary condition of peace. In the universal pursuit of power various motives and objects may be distinguished. Thus, first, you may make war on a powerful rival, frankly because, if
y you
don't destroy him, he will destroy you.
wars of this.
Rome and
The
enough
for
The
Carthage are the typical case of
world, these states thought, was not big
them both
;
and historians approve and
WAR BETWEEN STATES "
Delenda
applaud. actually
was razed
Romans.
est
to the
would be
It
Carthago/' and Carthage
ground by the triumphant
would
foolish,
enquire seriously whether the aggressor
43
Rome
it
not, to
or Carthage was
This Rome-Carthage position was
?
reproduced (in the minds of soldiers, statesmen and journalists)
between England and Germany before
the war of 19 14.
compared
it
more chary of
reiterate
Punic war
to a
thought, only the
English
When the war broke out Germans first
and
Delenda
But
And though est
was, they
it
The English were
historical analogies.
who won. "
;
of these.
Germania
it
they
"
was the did
not
Germans and
Austrians must be thinking that their behaviour is
much
the
same
as
if
they had.
Not much,
it
would seem, has changed in the relations between states during the two thousand years of the Christian era.
Apart, however, from direct attack on a rival in
order to destroy,
by the desire
examples are the
Empire
in India.
are final.
it,
states
may be
driven into war Classical
to secure a safe frontier.
Roman Empire and The
Rivers are
trouble little
is
use.
that
the British
no
frontiers
Mountains are
/
44
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
not
much better
;
the Alps^ for instance, have never
served to preserve Italy from invasion, nor the
Hindu Kush
to preserve India.
or seem to be, a
on the other
little
safer to
side of the
It
may always be,
descend into the plain
To
Range.
secure your
you must fight a series of frontier wars ; the end probably swallow up weak buffer
frontiers
and
in
states or fighting tribes that lie i
I
between you and
another empire.
Thus, before the war of 19 14, by advances from both sides, the Russian progressive
and British empires had come into contact across the prostrate
body of
Persia.
Examples abound.
Poland has no natural frontiers
she will claim
;
very likely some day that she must advance to the Urals and to Berlin and Vienna. the
Mesopotamia they
natural northern frontier. to get to the Caucasus
are
The
British
annexing,
They
will try
and the Caspian.
manoeuvres offensive or defensive
?
in
have no
no doubt
Are these
Your answer
depends entirely upon the side of the frontier from which you survey the question. Again, you are a landlocked state, and your access to the sea the mercy of neighbour states.
These
indeed put no obstacle in your way.
states
is at
may
But then.
WAR BETWEEN STATES they always could,
Their
do.
if
they liked, and they sometimes
mind, "
**
person
is
it
gives
position
superior
them
an
to
the
And, anyhow,
advantage in a dispute. patriotic
45
intolerable
one's state should
lie
that that great in ignominious
dependence on another such person. As well be a slave, cries the natural man. Hence, wars to get to the sea.
That such access
to the prosperity of a state
No
Switzerland. port.
not
**
matter
is
!
is
not really necessary
shown by the case of Serbia must have her
Poland must have her port. "
exist
otherwise.
They could
And so, Hungary must be
cut off from the sea, since she
is
the vanquished,
and German
territory be cut across by a PoHsh
**
How
corridor,"
promising these arrangements
are for the future peace of the world, policies
and
if
current
ideas are to continue to prevail,
it is
hardly necessary to set forth. Just as landlocked states desire to reach the sea, so do sea-going states desire to control narrow
waters, for they want a free passage for their trade
and
their war-ships.
at Gibraltar,
That
is
why
That
is
why
the British are
and show no signs of moving from
it.
the bottle-neck that forms the entrance
46
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
to the Baltic
and
to
is
of so great concern both to England
That
Germany.
Panama Canals
is
why
the Suez and the
The
are of world-wide interest.
control of such waters has been^ and
may be
again,
Does anyone suppose, for Spain were strong she would
the occasion of wars.
example, acquiesce
that
if
in the British control of the straits
We took it by force, and we hold we annexed Egypt,
by force.
Again
in part at least, in order to
And
a hold on the Suez Canal. control of the
it
Panama Canal
bid
?
have
the building and fair, at
one time,
to involve us in serious trouble with America.
The proceedings we have been
considering,
imply, of course, the continual annexation by war of
new
itself
result
territory.
In such cases,
is
the territory
part of the object, or only an accidental in
the carrying out of a policy
?
Such
questions are hardly asked by those responsible for
But very often the acquisisake is the whole object
the conduct of States. tion of territory for its
of a war.
Territory
own
is
desired for various reasons.
At times when the State as in the East
West, for
under
many
its
is
identified with its ruler,
great conquerors or in the
centuries of the Christian era, the
WAR BETWEEN STATES
annexes territory as a landlord buys up
ruler
estates.
It
"
property
kingdom or
so doing his sense of
human
"
increases his
that he regards his
of
47
power and splendour.
it is
and
so "by
Much
history has been directed by this kind
of personal
ambition.
desire to annex territory
But, is
unfortunately,
it
with
states
still
rid of
Contemporary
disappearance.
the
not confined to monarchs
and emperors, or we might have got their
(for
his empire)
pursue that ambition with an avidity and a determination unsurpassed by any absolute ruler. are their motives
One motive want
is
What
?
the very elementary one, that they
to increase
the
number
of their conscript
what they have, or to motive has been frankly
soldiers in order to hold
more.
acquire
This
avowed by the statesmen of the country professes to stand at the tion.
M.
which
head of western civilisa-
Caillaux, in his defence of his policy at
the time of the crisis of 191 1, explains that his object,
and the object of
colonial
policy,
was
his predecessors, in their
to redress the
weakness of
France in Europe by acquiring population and territory
in
Africa,
"
The statesmen
of
whom
48
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
we have spoken ancient
took up once more the pohcy of
Rome^ poor
in
Roman
rich in
citizens^
subjects^ supplying the absence of Latin soldiers
by Gaulish, Iberian or Numidian legions. Colonial expansion became the complement, or rather the buttress of their general policy.
It
gave France
the material power, the necessary weight required for her affirmations of Right in
That
really is the
this
governing class in France that,
Europe."*
point of view of the is
proved by the
fact
since the war, they have introduced con-
scription into their African colonies, so that the
episode at which in
it is
Frankfurt
at
be only one **
that has a blush left
Europe
**
the
soldiers. t
The
illustration of a definite policy.
of natives means,
civilisation
case,
all
—the occupation of Goethe's home by black troops — may be taken to
blushing
conversion If
of
them
France persists
we
see, in this
into
conscript
in her policy,
it
will
almost certainly be adopted by other states, and *
t
Joseph Caillaux.
And what
that
"
Ma
politique exterieure," p. 6.
means may be gathered from the following
account by Henri Barbusse : " We know the methods adopted to fetch them out of their own country. We know how they have been torn from their natural life by armed raids and incendiary fires, to be carried off into captivity and thrust into barracks, to be slaughtered by being used in attacks made in open country where masses of them
WAR BETWEEN STATES especially
by Great
We
Britain.
49
have enormous
populations capable of conversion into coloured troops
;
and
if
war
we may
is
So
so convert them.
to continue
we
shall
no doubt
that, in the twentieth century,
find the world
still
—" because
involved in the old
we have extended our empire, we must have soldiers to defend it we must
circle
;
therefore extend
the soldiers." politics
further, in order to acquire
To such madness do
conduct
It is not,
it still
false ideas
and
states.
however, in recent years, the military
motive which has been the main one in driving states
to acquire territory
by
force.
The main
perish, to die of cold and of diseases, which they did the more easily since their suffering awakened no echoes and they themselves hardly knew how to explain their troubles. " many while I was at the front have I not seen die of
How
—
—
consumption, exhaustion, and melancholy, poisoned by our northern fogs, collapsing litde by little like mere things, deprived of that southern sun which they needed. " On the Riviera, where the rich enjoy all the subtleties of luxury and live princely lives, I have seen these unhappy blacks herded like animals in a pen. The arms of many of them were marked by weals from the ropes with which they had been tied to bring them from their country and to prevent them, once landed in Europe, from running away. Many of them committed suicide from wretchedness and through pining for their own land. " All this has not prevented the pernicious Jingo Press from exalting the heroism of the traders in black flesh, whose energies had secured this additional number of soldiers for the home country, or from lavishing praise upon the clever manoeuvres which enabled us to benefit from the sacrifice of the black troops." From a letter in Foreign Affairs, June, 1920. Special Supplement, p. 8.
—
—
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
50
The development
\^ motive has been economic.
created an ever-increasing
modern industry has demand^
of
in western states, for
raw
materials, cheap
labour to extract them, and markets wherein to sell
very largely in Africa
in
Morocco,
in
The raw
the manufactured goods.
lie
materials
and Asia ; iron, for instance,
oil in Mesopotamia and Persia, rubber West and Central Africa. The cheap labour is
spot, once the natives have been turned off
on the
the land and prevented from living in any other
way than by working at a nominal wage for white masters. The markets are where the natives are, if a
demand can be
Driven by these
created.
impulses, the principal European states, especially the
since
been
eighties
annexing
of
the
enormous
The consequences
Asia.
last
have
century,
tracts
of this
in
Africa and to
policy
the
native populations belongs to another discussion.
What / the
V
concerns us
and
causes,
of the
war.
late
of making
resources
greater
of
is,
that
this
perhaps the
The
notion,
profit
undeveloped
was
one
principal
true
or
of
cause, false,
by monopolising the countries
has
taken
hold of the minds of statesmen and merchants
WAR BETWEEN STATES and manufacturers
so that
;
it
has
51
come
to
seem
and prosperity of any state depends on the amount of territory it can annex to its own that the wealth
securing the
thereby
flag,
exclusively in
war
tion,
own
its
power
On
interest.
lose
and
;
" life
exploit
that
*
it
assump-
the only issue of the rivalry of states,
is
whatever one takes, the others,
for
to
it
comes
and death
"
to
is
it
thought,
be regarded as a matter of
that (let us say) the legacy of the
Turkish Empire should
fall
own
rather to one's
state than to another.
Hence,
at
bottom, and in the
last analysis,
the
and hence war after war in the future, great war if the same ideas are to continue to govern the ;
policy of states.
That they do
in fact
govern them,
even after the experience through which the world has passed,
Germany states
shown by
is
and
with
the peace treaties with
Turkey.
The
victorious
have pursued, in both cases, a policy of
dividing the spoils, and they hardly attempt to
make
a secret of the fact that a
annexations
is
Our answer, make war
is,
main motive of
their /.
the cornering of economic resources. then, to the question
because^they £ursue
why
states
political
and
,
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
52
The answer
economic power.
is
so completely
borne out by the whole course of history that cannot be seriously disputed. gating
and
modifying
it
But some miti-
may be
considerations
adduced^ and must be touched upon here.
The
process of extending power,
observed,
and
it
is
also
is
one of extending
By
*'
And
with, that not civilising.
the
Huns
"
civilisation
of things better than that
conquest.
often **
is
meant a
state
to begin
conquests are, in that sense,
all
thinks that the conquests of
Nobody
Many doubt Roman Empire by
or of the Turks were.
whether the conquest of the
And
the barbarians was.
history, perhaps, will
take a different view of the conquest of Africa
Asia by the West from that which the West generally takes now.
To
and
itself
appraise the good and
the evil involved in these great world-events
perhaps beyond any
human
capacity.
what must be
said,
that never has
because
any
state
it is
is
It certainly
cannot be attempted here in a parenthesis.
is,
;
on
which preceded the
must be remarked,
it
is
civilisation
justified, after the event,
commonly
that ground.
it
*'
But
true and relevant,
made any conquest
in
WAR BETWEEN STATES
53
order to benefit the people concerned, and not in
order to benefit
The motives
itself.
for conquest
have invariably been those outlined in the previous pages.
Later on, no doubt, a sense of responsi-
conquered has sometimes developed may fairly be
bility to the
and much
has been done which
regarded as disinterested, whether or no
But
beneficial. it
if,
does not affect our analysis.
war
it
has been
and when, that has happened,
in order to secure or
States conquer
extend their power.
by
If
it
were otherwise, every state would be as much " " backward races being civilised by pleased to see other states as by themselves.
Has any
state ever looked
Are they,
annexation of any territory by another
though,
in fact
?
with satisfaction on the state,
even
according to all the current assumptions,
should be to the advantage of the
"
cerned to be thus civihsed by force
natives It is
?
"
it
con-
not the
process of civilisation in general which states admire
and approve. themselves.
It is
the process of civilisation by
For each thinks that
of this civilising
writing,
power.
are
it
The French,
capacity of civilising.
alone has the at the
intervening in
The
moment
Syria
as
a
fact that the Syrians are
I
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
54
fighting affect if
them
to escape
from
that process does not
But they would feel it to be monstrous
them.
the civilising mission should be taken from
and handed over
to Great Britain.
them
Great Britain^
on the other hand^ shows no enthusiasm whatever French penetration.
for the process of
because
we do
The French do
that
Is
so well and the French so badly
it
And we
not think so.
?
are hardly
good judges in our own cause.
We think we are the
best civilising power, because
we are we, not because
we
are not capable of esti-
of the evidence.
Plainly,
mating the evidence impartially
do not even trouble "
Civilisation **
other hand,
"
is
to
liberation
And
subject
populations.
place,
"
state
The
the British Empire tion of this.
sometimes
That
is
so.
is,
complete
be said
that, may independence, we should have to
haps, nay probably,
in its
the
own
political
self-governing dominions of
may be adduced
It
is.
the
liberated
But,
has ever liberated
subjects, given them, that
independence.
On
the undoing of con-
is
have
states
no
the evidence
a result of conquest.
quest.
first
and most of us
;
know what
\Ye.
should.
A
in contraven-
if
they desired
grant
it.
Per-
leading British
WAR BETWEEN STATES
55
statesman recently asserted that we should.
But
the reply was made, in a prominent liberal news-
would depend on circumstances. We might acquiesce in the independence of Canada or Australia or New Zealand. But we might fight
paper, that
it
No
against that of South Africa.
one can
say,
and
most people will hope that the situation will not But in any case, the example is irrelevant, arise.
Dominions
for the population of the
Look, on the other hand,
is
not subject.
There
at Ireland.
is
a
nation that has been rebelling against British rule for centuries past. it
by
those
At
methods not
this
moment we
employed by other
distinguishable from
easily
we have denounced states.
are coercing
so passionately
And no
when
one, with the
doubtful exception of the Labour Party,
is
prepared
The
to give this population independence.
reasons
are, partly a division of feeling in Ireland itself,
partly the pride of dominion, but strategical necessities. it
to
right to govern
guard our
in point.
and
A
safety.
Egypt
principal reason
will not let
it
go,
specifically,
a subject people in order
by force
own
more
In other words, we^think
is
that
is
another case
why we took Egypt, we may control the
56
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
route to India.
The
British State
is
thoroughly
determined never to release a subject population so long as
seem
its
own power and
to depend,
And, of course, is
on holding all
wealth depend, or
that population
down.
other states are the same.
It
only other peoples* subject nationalities that states
are prepared to liberate,
and then only when
seems to be to their own advantage to do
Let
the
reader
consider,
for,
it
so.
instance,
the
history of the dealings of the Powers with the
Balkan peoples
during the
wars
result of a series of
won them
all
are
still
As
a
those peoples have
their independence, except so far as
some of
oppressing populations belonging in
race or sentiment to others. it
past century.
And
they have
won
with the help or acquiescence of one or another of
the great States.
Nevertheless,
followed in detail,
it
will
if
the history be
be seen that the Balkan
agony was prolonged for decades by the jealousies of these states, and their pre-occupation with the
The Turkish Empire was an all of them were casting which estate, upon covetous eyes and all were afraid of precipitating
balance of power.
its fall
in a
way, and
at a time,
which would give
WAR BETWEEN STATES advantage to a that
drew
rival claimant.
were thinking
this situation
Russia was willing to inter-
but France and England feared her
effectively,
The governments
intervention.
was
through long years, the Greek
out,
struggle for freedom.
vene
It
57
much more
of these
states
of the advance of Russia
and Europe than of the sufferings of the Greek population. The battle of Navarino was
in Asia
And
received by both with embarrassment. efforts
were
directed
to
making the
hberated as small as possible, for fear the
their
territory
new
should come under Russian hegemony.
state
Later,
the same determination to check the expansion of
Russia led,
first
to the
Crimean War, then
British intervention in 1878,
to the
and the substitution
of the treaty of Berlin for that of San Stephano,
then to the long duel between Russia and Austria,
which prevented for decades any settlement at all. For all these intrigues and delays the wretched population paid in
new massacres and
And
they took matters into their
it
was not
till
hands that they won protecting
their
own
freedom, while the
Powers looked on.
rivalries of Russia, Austria
oppressions.
and
Even
then,
the
Italy vitiated the
\
^^'
58 i
^
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
settlement, and the great
\its aspects,
war of 19 14 was,
in
one of
only the war over the Balkans that had
been so long and so vainly postponed. Next,
let
Two
us take the case of Italy.
other
states intervened actively to assist the Italians in
their struggle for liberation.
One was
In the case of France
other Prussia.
France, the
it
may
fairly
be supposed that one motive of Napoleon III was a
and a desire to
belief in the principle of nationality
establish
it.
But not
intervene, French
If
France was to
profit.
And France
for nothing
power must
!
accordingly came off with the booty of Nice and
Savoy.
On
immediately
the other hand, after,
the
same France,
did her best to prevent the
from the Bourbon tyranny.
liberation of Naples
In the case of Prussia, no one will accuse Bismarck of idealistic aspirations. Italy to assist *
him
It
suited
him
to
have
in settling accounts with Austria,
and he was willing
to
liberation, in order to
pay the price of Italian a step on the road of
mark
Prussian aggrandisement, and the unification of
Germany. These examples, it will be admitted, do not conflict with our general account of the policy of states.
WAR BETWEEN STATES But,
it
may be
any rate the war of 1914 was waged, among other \
said, at
was disinterested.
It
things, for the rights of small nations. things, yes
!
59
Among other
But the other things were the deter-
mining ones. For every state that entered the war the primary object was its own security and Take, first, the defence of Belgium.
power.
It
has
been, for centuries, a cardinal principle of British policy to prevent
j
by force the occupation of the
Belgian coast by a power that might be dangerous to
Hence our
Great Britain.
intervention.
But
!
even apart from the invasion of Belgium we should have gone to war, as Sir Edward Grey made perfectly
whom,
in
plain,
in fact,
order to protect France, to
we were pledged.
was entered into
for our
own
But
interest.
this pledge It
was part
i
of the system of maintaining the balance of power.
when
After their victory, their
power
to
the victors had
it
in
apply their avowed principle, they
took case to apply
it
only where
themselves and their
allies,
enemies.
A
Germany
in the east.
it
would strengthen
and weaken
their
great Poland was created, to
A
j
ij
latej
hem
great Jugo-Slavia
\
in
and
Czecho-Slovakia to threaten her on the south.
6o
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
But when the application of the principle of nationality
might have strengthened enemy
succumbed
it
Thus,
first
the four million
were forced against their of
their
by
then
will
Germans
of
Bohemia
under the domination
enemies, the C2;echs. And, Germans of Austria were forbidden
secular
secondly, the to join the
states^
to the other consideration, power.
Germans
Germany, and condemned which they are
of
that fact, to the complete ruin in
involved, the city of Vienna, for centuries a centre
of high civilisation, being
states, as always,
condemned
All this
inevitable destruction.
to slow
and
was done because
were thinking not of Right, but
of power.*
J
* General Smuts, who took part in drawing up "the Peace seething Treaties, has referred to the Peace Conference as a cauldron of human greed and passion." Lord Robert Cecil has " said : Anyone who has had any personal experience of that strange body will desire anything rather than a renewal of its deliberations." (Hansard, H.C., 14th April, 1920, v. 127,
P- ^747-)
.
Against the judgment passed
^ ^ m the text on the Peace Treaties .
,
,
.
.
it
may be objected that no account has been taken of the Covenant of
We
are concerned here with That is for a reason. the League. causes of war, and therefore, with the evidence, only too conspicuous, that the purposes and ideas that cause war are still operative in the minds of statesmen and their nations. That there are signs of a reaction against these purposes and ideas, is a principal hope for the future, and the most notable sign is the Covenant of the League.
Chapter IV
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR OF THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS IN A STATE Historians and others, considering the general facts outlined in the
apt to regard the
"
preceding pages, have been
whole process as what they
In one sense,
inevitable."
call
of course, every-
thing that has happened was inevitable, since
happened. determined. is
said that
that
It
also be that everything
may
But that
war
is
is
not what
is
meant
is
no human deliberation or choice can
the matter, one
way
or the other.
pre-
meant when
What
inevitable.
is
it
it
is
affect
What we have
described as power-policies these thinkers describe " " as the of states. expansion They treat this
expansion as analogous to that of water turns into steam, and think
it
when
it
equally foolish to
attempt to check the one or the other.
This way
of thinking comes from talking always about States
and Countries and Nations, and never about men
62
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL
and women.
For convenience
it is
WAR
necessary so to
an evident danger that the words
talk^
but there
will
be converted into things^ and States come to
is
be conceived as kind of super-beings which dictate the conduct of their citizens, instead of being, as
they are, a mere result of that conduct. policies states
policies of those individual persons
moment, were
Whatever
have ever pursued have been the
acting for the states.
again, have been influenced both
who,
at the
These persons,
by the
tradition
of what other such persons have done before them,
and by the general opinion of the citizens of the The whole matter depends state or some of them .
on the views held, the passions felt, and the purposes pursued by a number of individual people. change policy,
is
to
And to say that that cannot be done is to
purposes.
beg the question.
who
say
To
change those views, passions and
it
In truth the very same people
are likely to say, in the next breath,
that the whole outlook of the
German people was
radically transformed by education during the
half of the nineteenth century.
last
Unless we are
prepared to assert that no experience and no instruction can have
any effect upon the human mind, we
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
WAR
63
cannot deny the possibility of such a change in
human motives war.
But
as
we
if
may put an end
must know what they are,
how
to international
are to affect these motives, in
whom they
subsist
they are maintained and propagated.
other words bility
of
we must
In
inquire into the responsi-
elements in states
different
we and
the
for
maintenance of that power-idea that leads to war. This inquiry
What is
is
and comphcated.
difficult
very
true of one period of history and of one state
will not
be altogether true of others.
confine ourselves here to what
We
must
most important for us, contemporary conditions, and among them, to those which are generally applicable to all states. First,
there
then,
Governments.
It is
the
is
is
responsibihty
not sole, but
it
is
of
chief and
primary, and that as much, hitherto, in democratic For, whatever the form of
as in autocratic states.
government, foreign policy in
been conducted by Foreign
all
Offices,
countries
Nor does
there
countries,
any desire or intention to
arrangement.
seem
Even
to be, at present, in
in
countries
has
and in secrecy.
like
alter
most that
our own,
where ministers and the diplomatic services arc
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
64
nominally responsible to a representative assembly, the permanent officials of the Foreign Office have
enormous
They have
influence.
the records, the
information, the long experience, the tradition, the the
prestige,
taken
connections.
social
together, in
all
all states,
They
form,
a kind of diplomatic
International, with the solidarity of a professional class.
They
spring from
well-to-do
the
;
for
the Foreign Offices have been jealously preserved
where other public posts have
for the rich, even
been thrown open
to
Thus, they
competition.
have associated, since their birth, exclusively with people (in
who have never known what
many
presents
cases)
what work
them
itself to
sometimes
inert,
lines.
poverty, or
The world
as a kind of
sometimes
their natural mission to
accustomed
is.
raw material,
recalcitrant,
is
the concern of Foreign Offices, and
Foreign Policy
governed by the traditional principles. course, are those of power-policy.
4
>
school
it is
Public opinion, like politicians,
a nuisance to be circumvented.
at
which
keep and direct on the
is
history,
outside
and
all
must be
These, of
The reading
university,
taught the young diplomat that
it
has
of
already
the history of
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
one another,
states, in their relations to
for power,
and that
it
65
a contest
is
nothing more.
is
record and document in the
Every
every treaty,
office,
every correspondence, confirms that view. conversation with
and reinforces
it.
official
every despatch an admonition of
whose inmost introduced, is
is
secrets
the
an example,
is
it.
The world is
aspirant
is
The
affairs
material with which
armed competition.
Secrecy and
intrigue is the atmosphere they breathe .
come out
to
gradually
one where no other view of
even conceivable.
diplomats deal
presupposes
superiors
Every step taken
if
Or,
they
into the open, to bargain or to threaten,
what they offer, in friendship or hostility, is always an army and a navy. These are the cards without which they could not play war, sooner or
whole
later, is
their
But they
inevitable
they
that
of course, and very likely often do, in
a general and abstract view, consider evil.
So
game.
the presupposition of their
activity.
They may,
at
;
are
bound
as indeed
it
to regard
is,
war it
to
as
be an
an
evil
granted the situation
once suffer and create, and the assumptions
within which their whole
/
Every
life
and thought moves.
.
66
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
But an
evil believed to
must not be too at it
be inevitable
fore, while admitting that
what
course, doing
obviate
it,
It is better, there-
war
becomes,
it
general public, a mere
what
even when it is,
as the millions
it
upon
But, not
it.
word without
real content.
breaks out and reveals
do not
must do
really bear
whom
itself for
?
and
suffer war,
they have flung into
when
Has
price that has been paid.
been defeated it
and, of
to diplomats, as to the
they are not unduly disturbed,
Has
evil,
since these gentlemen do not go to the
front, since they
by the
an
for as long a time as is possible or con-
dwelt upon,
And
is
reasonably practicable to
is
venient, not to let oneself dwell
it,
For
particularly contemplated.
any moment it may be necessary to precipitate on the world, and one must be sure to have the
nerve to do this with courage.
>
one which
is
all is
over,
their country
Well, that was the soldiers* fault.
been victorious
How
?
diplomats must have planned
1
well,
The
then,
infinite
aginable suffering, the degradation of
the
unim-
all life,
the
economic ruin, the setback of progress, the plain fact that nothing whatever has been gained to compensate for
all
these
losses,
all
that drops
RESPONSIBILITY FOR out of the mind, because lated
by
The
it.
great
more, and the board It is
own
make
game has been played once to be set for a new contest.
a
first,
in the peace
]
the situation as favourable fori \J
side as possible,
game with
67
has never been assimi-
the business of the diplomat
settlement, to his
is
it
WAR
new
and then
to play the old)
The vanquished, with
skill.
good luck and brains, may recover their position. The victor must try to maintain his. That is all.
The
tradition emerges unbroken and, really, in the minds of these men, unchallenged. If the reader
have any doubt of this, treaties, all
made war
great
him consider
to
the series of
and consultation
made during and after end war. Let him examine,
with the diplomatic the
let
in close contact class,
and impartially, the presumptions underHe will see, to demonstration and lying them.
carefully
beyond
all
dispute, that the territorial and economic
arrangements have been dictated by the principle of Power, and that a few score men, working in the dark, have been able in cold blood, and (no doubt)
with a perfectly good conscience, to defeat the
hope and aspiration milhons
who have
for
died,
permanent peace of the and the milhons who
-t-
68
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
remain to mourn them, to doff aside as an
dream the cause lives^
and
their
fears,
for
which the masses gave
reinstate
to
their
themselves, their hopes,
ambitions, their unbeliefs,
their
the governing factor in an international
And,
let it
life
as
arranged
and even more
to lead, as before, to a fresh
catastrophe*
idle
be understood,
terrible all this
has happened not because these are bad men.
Most
likely they are
They
are, at **
thought
any
nice
good and conscientious men.
rate,
"
men,
dilettantes of literature
are
what would commonly be
imbued, not through
false
tradition
enough such
Yes
art.
their
own
!
But they
fault,
with a
and they have never been
to reality to correct
men
charming,
cultivated,
and
make
it.
It is
close
impossible for
good peace, for they are from believing in peace. incapacitated Or will it be urged that nobody wanted a better peace
?
to
This
is
a
palpably untrue.
For the Labour
organisations of every country, during the war and after the armistice,
had put forward
definite pro-
posals for a peace on quite other lines.
They had
asked for real self-determination for
oppressed
nationalities.
They had asked
for
all
no annexations
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
WAR
69
They had asked for a true
and no indemnities.
League of Nations, in which all states should be, from the outset, included. Does any one doubt that, if a congress of socialists it
would have been
had made the peace,
a different peace
a single representative of the
As
?
it is,
class
working
not
was
present at the Peace Conference.
They, with their and hopes, were simply brushed aside. They were good enough to win the war. They That were not good enough to make the peace.
desires
was reserved
for
prime ministers, acting under the
pressure of the great interests, and for the diplo-
matic
class.
The
it,
diplomatic class, however, does not work
Powerful sections of society have access to
alone.
and exchange with
the
same school and
what
is
it
men
Partly, these are the
influences
and
ideas.
of the same social class,
college, those
called in a special sense
who
constitute
" society."
AH
these are naturally solid together, and breathe, and create
by
their
breathing, a single atmosphere.
But sodety is always
politically powerful, so that the
diplomatic class
always well supported in the
political world.
is
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
70
Next, and belonging to the same social military and naval
men
these
states.
it is
important,
it
must make
if
desire
his
put
otherwise, what
that
is
he be serious and competent,
good.
To
say this,
its is
evil
Professional
?
are,
war
;
almost by
believe, that
a fine profession
it is
cannot outweigh
to attribute
its
no iniquity to this
Hindenburg, no doubt, and Ludendorf,
class.
along
with
their
less
prominent
promising fellow-professionals are
life
sailors
believe in
inevitable, that
and therefore that
For
traming into practice.
the use of his
men who
it is
For, in
has trained himself for
and professional
definition, is,
man
place, if a
to
But it is
for the perpetuation of
policies that lead to war.
war, he must,
soldiers
of
pre-war
pre-war America.
in
least
in
greatest
important, and in proportion as
war and of the first
was
it
Probably
wherever
class, are
The importance
in determining policy differs in different
Germany, and
the
officers.
fathers
good
of
in
and uncomall
countries,
good
patriots,
brave, powerful and determined
men.
But the
more they
fatally are
opposed
are
to
all that,
the whole
families,
the
more
they
conception and ideal of
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR When
a world at peace.
peace
is
dream and
a
a
Moltke said
71
"
Perpetual
bad dream/' he expressed
the thought of every good soldier and sailor. Professional
hke
then,
officers,
professional
diplomats, accept war as a necessary part of the system of things. But there is an important difference in the outlook of the soldiers
and
two
The
classes.
have actually to conduct both
sailors
war and the preparation
for
it.
They
are thus
brought continually into contact with the
facts
which the diplomats are able to ignore. They are bound to know what war really means, for they are giving
it its
real soldiers
illusions
meaning. Thus it is impossible for and sailors to have any of the romantic
about war that take the place of experience
and imagination in the minds of civilians. possible for these to
come to
can justify it
men to have a
see that it,
war is
and that
if
a thing so evil that
selected
by
criminals
"
the
nothing it,
conversions.
One,
German General Montgelas,
a peculiar irony, as
by the
is,
During the great war we
have actual record of such is
thus
society does not destroy
will destroy society.
for instance,
It is
— conversion, that
allied
one of the
Governments.
"
War
Another
72 is
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR the
naval
Another
Captain Persius.
the
is
And it might be possible add one or two famous English names. If the terrible experience through which he must pass French General Verraux. to
does manage to penetrate to the mind and heart of a soldier, he becomes, of
all pacifists,
For he has known and
convinced.
the most as
no
And
for
felt
other has.
But
officer
does not very often happen.
this
reasons.
It is
not to
the let
first it
business of a professional
happen.
For
himself to realise and to feel what
which
his life is devoted, he
his profession.
away this,
His
deliberately
he allowed
it
really is to
would have
to
abandon
instinct, therefore, is to turn
from
such thoughts.
all
And
not only in war time, but in time of peace,
when, of course,
becomes
it
is
much
a dual nature.
retains the ordinary habits life.
if
He would
easier.
is
thus
the one hand, he
and
feelings of civilian
not hurt a child.
nature, kindness and helpfulness.
hand, he
He
On
training himself,
He is all good On the other
and other people (and
that is his real business) to inflict cruelties unimagin-
able
on innumerable people unknown
to him, not
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR men
only, but
as he well
women and
children.
little
For,
knows, modern war makes no distinctions
of civilian or soldier, age or sex. force,
73
it is
his
work
to the notion of
to
is
in the air
dropping bombs into the midst of
herded crowd.*
a helpless
he
If
accustom himself and others
If
he
is
mind and
tank pre-occupies his
a gunner, the
(like
recent
a
expert on the subject) he contemplates a civilian '* demanding population (whom he supposes to be
war
" ")
killed
is
a
few minutes
For the next war
thousands." course)
in
to
open with attacks
enemy's army, but against the order
to
attacker."
compel
to
it
(**
"
not against the
civil
population, in
accept the will of the
Chivalry, mercy, a fair fight,
apparatus of romance which schoolboys, and
is still
still
that
soldier
knows
all
does duty
the
among
served up, on occasion, in
hterature, or the cinema, or the press,
modern
tens of " of
by
inevitable
to
be nonsense.
all
this the
He knows
war means the greatest and most
indis-
criminate massacre possible of whole populations.
He knows
that
* It is generally
no
rules or conventions, even
if
agreed that air-raids on cities will be a principal And {air-raids do not select for feature of the next war. slaughter soldiers or male adults.
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
74
such be drawn up^
knows
lous^ the
most
He knows
that
and
ever be
will
pitiless^
his
it is
duty to be that kind of man,
to create that kind of
man.
He knows
he stop for a moment to consider what he
is
He
observed.
most unscrupuand the most ingenious.
that victory will be to the
that, if
this is that
doing, to confront his professional with his
private
life,
he
Thus, he has to arm
ruined.
is
own humanity and He has to regard the
himself against his
common
sense.
bility for
war
and the
as resting elsewhere than
fact that
He man and
him.
has, in a
a
own
on himself,
elsewhere taken as freeing
is
it
his
responsi-
word, to view himself not as a
citizen,
but as
destruction, and thus
an
instrument
of
make himself immune
to
against the only energy that can extirpate
war from
the world, namely intellect prompted by humanity.
For
all this
he may,
been said
in
men
as
pitied or pardoned.
choose, be admired or
What
judgment.
It
is
said here has not
has been said to bring
out the fact that to maintain an officer class maintain a class of
men who
war, and must work for
it,
is
to
cannot work against
unless they undergo a
conversion that would shatter their whole
life.
So
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR that here,
75
once more, we come back, by a new
route, to the indisputable fact that to prepare for
war a
is
mihtary machine,
and the object of
education
work against war,
habits of civilian
against
all
life,
not merely
to extirpate
is
men any
feelings
and
to sterilise the
and
mind
influences which might counter-vail
can effectively do that, or to question.
That
how who
effectively,
object to
do
may be it, may
will inquire into the
methods adopted by the sergeants who recruits, or will
its
Whether an army
it is its
be ascertained by anyone
books.
from
and ideas
to reverse the motives
training in scientific slaughter.
open
is
an educational machine,
is
it
its
the minds and hearts of that
An army
to perpetuate war.
drill
raw
turn over the pages of military hand-
In peace time,
it is
true, this education is
afterwards more or less counteracted, in the rank
and life.
by But
file,
nothing
their necessary withdrawal into civilian
for
the
to counteract
for the fact or
professional it,
soldier
there
is
and whether he be admired
whether he be condemned, he can
hardly escape becoming a permanent obstacle to any possibhty of improvement in
human
Yet bad though the case of these
civilisation.
men
be, through
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
76
th^ obligations of a profession which they
chosen from the best of motives, in
it is
may have
yet better,
one way, than that of the pohticians in time of For these have to maintain the cant, ** We
war.
will not sheathe the
say
For
it.
the truth,
**
sword
"
they say, and they must
would never do
it
We
to say
will not cut off the
what would be
poison gas, nor
the
bombs on undefended towns, nor
fire,
not the
lice,
the liquid
nor the typhus, nor the dysentery,
nor the slow starvation, by blockade, of millions of
women and
kept up
!
must keep
To
children."
But what a it
up
No, the
fiction
must be
fate is that of those
who
!
the classes thus directly responsible for the
maintenance of war and war-policies must be added
some >(
I
great business interests.
This, however,
commerce,
as a whole,
do not
profit,
is
a
Trade and
very complicated matter to disentangle.
but
lose,
by
war, and, in a general way, they are aware of that.
Most
likely
what
is
called international
works in the direction of peace, so all
in politics
;
far as
and some patriots are
precisely for that reason.
And
it
its
finance
works
at
enemies
though, no doubt,
in time of war, certain industries
make enormous
RESPONSIBILITY FOR would be unreasonable
it
profits, yet
WAR
they promote war in order to profit by other hand, there
is
at least
This
business.
all,
the
one business which
and that
business,
On
it.
requires war, or, at any rate, the constant of war, to thrive at
77
to suggest that
is
the
therefore,
menace
armament has
every
motive of self-interest to work for war and against It
peace.
is
internationally organised,
so
that
shareholders in every country are making profits
out of the munitions destined to be used against
own
their
sons,
and
its
formally declared, in the
Nations, to be
But
it is
"
open
in the
existence has
now been
Covenant of the League of
to grave objections."
economic expansion of
states that
business interests play the most questionable part.
The main motives to.
high
manufacturers want raw material
return;
and markets
And
here have been already referred
Capital wants an investment that will pay a
all
;
concessionaires want cheap labour.
these things they hope to find in countries
economically
undeveloped
strong governments. able,
and
is
and
The hope
sometimes
justified
unprotected is
by
not unreason-
by the event.
great deposit of iron, of coal, of gold, of
oil,
A or
/
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
78
whatever
it may he, taken for nothing by force from primitive populations who do not know its
value^
may
holders.
and
easily bring in high dividends to share-
Native populations^ driven off the land
may be compelled to give rates. They may possibly " to demand '* European and to abandon their own
sufficiently taxed^
their labour at very
even
be
low
induced
manufactured goods, handicrafts.
Thus, any given
manufacturers or traders
may
set of financiers or
and
really see
find
profit in the seizure of African territories or
the opening resources.
up by
We
force of Asiatic markets
in
and
should expect therefore to find
that schemes of expansion are favoured not only
by
M
soldiers
and
imperialistic politicians,
business interests.
And
expansion shows that that is
curious, even before the
in is
but by
the history of
fact
usually the case.
modern
era, to
trade and markets have always been a
note
It
how
main motive
of British wars, and a main cause of such popularity as those wars have achieved. last half century, this
prominent.
And
able peer, the
But, during the
motive has been peculiarly
the combination 01 the respect-
Company promoter,
the trader, the
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
WAR
79
adventurer and the soldier has been behind the colonial enterprises of
of the last Cecil
Rhodes
is
were blended empire,
all
countries from the eighties
century onward.
The
career of
the classical example
;
the motives which
all
— patriotism,
for in
him
behind
lie
cupidity, adventure^
Mr.
and the
passion for domination and power.
The
trouble, of course,
is
that this expansion
cannot take place without war.
war upon the
It
implies,
first,
For however cunningly
natives.
may have been
deceived into the grant of
concessions, the time
comes when the mask must
they
be thrown
off,
and
it
must be made plain to them abandon their
that they are to lose their lands, to traditional
of
way
life,
and to become workers
semi-servile condition under white masters.
however,
may be
it
These native wars, except
to
said, is
after
the natives,
all,
and
in a
That,
a negligible matter.
do not cost much, if
were
that
all
it
might plausibly be maintained that empire pays. all
Unfortunately, so that friction
may
states are playing the
is
bound
to arise.
same game,
The
friction
be allayed for a time by compromises and
concessions.
But
it
adds a main contribution to
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
8o
the universal rivalry of power;
till,
at last, all is
put to the stake in a great war, as a result of the victor takes
away the of
way
by
vanquished, "
which
colonial territory of the
"
'*
compensation
or
punishment."
At
this
point,
empire
Perhaps, after the late war, and will
paid
or
its results,
no
?
no one
have the audacity to answer the question in the
affirmative, so clear is
vidually, and
all
it
infinitely
can be any reasonable hope ever regain.
that every nation indi-
nations taken together, have lost,
even in material values,
to
'*
'*
has
Statesmen and nations,
be good accountants, must
profits of
more than there
that even the victors can if
they
set against the
mean
meagre
economic expansion, the whole of
their
war expenditure during the period of expansion. And a mere glance at the finance and trade of colonial dependencies deficit
must be.*
shows how enormous the
Although, however, on pecuniary
* In the year 191 3, the British exports to the whole of British tropical Africa (Somaliland, East Africa, Uganda, Nyassaland, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria) were one per the Gambia, cent, of the whole, and the imports from those territories less than one per cent. Our trade with India, of course, is important. But who can do the sum which consists in calculating the expense of the long series of wars we have waged to secure our communications with India, against the hypothetical duninution of our trade with that country, if it were occupied by a State
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR balance, the nation loses,
given
may
all
beyond and individuals
interests
8i
computation,
may
gain.
policies
continue,
there
men, and the
always be, behind
will
schemes of expansion,
financiers
activities
and
business
men must be
of such
reckoned in among the forces working for war.
men
If
could or would think things through, from
the beginning to the bitter end, clearly that the profits
are
It
therefore be expected that, so long as present
made out
made by
it
would be seen
these enterprises
of the life-blood of the sons of those
who engaged upon them. But not so do men And it would be unjust to lay think, nor so feel. upon these patriotic-feeling expansionists the condemnation that would rest upon them if they knew what they did.
We
see then that the tradition of the diplomatic
class,
the
sailors,
business
professional
and
the
power
protecting against us
?
of soldiers
interest
men, work together
pursuit of
to
of
maintain
as the policy of states.
The
and
certain
the
These
self-governing Dominions do not
But it is very questionable whether into this argument. should do less trade with them, if they were not part of the
come
wc
attitude
pecuniary
BritishEmpire.
82
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR and
classes
moving
form a kind of
interests
own
in the circle of their
meating one another with them.
social block,
and per-
ideas,
They may be
called, collectively, the governing class*
a class
whose membership is fixed. it, and others go out.
constantly rise into is,
or has been, fixed,
and wealth the instrument. policies
and
it
New men But what
—power
the point of view
carries
governing class that forms
them out behind the its
scenes,
confidence, or to so much
seems desirable, only at moments of crisis passions must be played upon and the people
as
when
brought upon the stage. mass, that daily
not
object, war, in the last resort, the
It is this
admitting the Public to of
is
It is
is,
This
**
of the uninitiated,
work and
play, until the
blows from the heaven of their
people," the great
who pursue trumpet of
their
doom
—these must
rulers,
be regarded as victims and dupes, not accomplices, in the great
But though that be
game.
so, yet the
masses must bear their responsibility, seeing that is their
passions, instincts
to the call
mind
when
of the crowd
of war.
it is
is
it
and emotions that respond
made.
The whole
state of
one of the fundamental causes
RESPONSIBILITY FOR And,
first,
we must note
WAR
that in the
83
crowd must
be included the majority of the educated and well-
Very few people take any interest in foreign very few even attempt to follow it through
to-do.
policy its
;
underground channels or to infer
its
course from
the chance emergence of the stream at this point or
Most people therefore, educated or no, are, mob. They follow passion not
that.
in this matter, a
reason, sentiment not interest,
We
words not things.
come back here upon what we have
community-sense,
undiluted,
called the
uninstructed, un-
Unable to
enlightened by reason or by knowledge. direct
itself, it
follows the direction of
and these are members
leaders
its
of the governing
class,
acting through the platform and the press.
information, and (what the
way
crowd
in
is
For
equally important) for
which information
is
presented, the
mercy of these influences. It is and the words serve not to governed by words but to release passion. inform and thought, express is
at the
;
It
matters
little
whether or no what
form of
couched
in the
readers
demand
this,
argument be supplied,
a logical
others it
is
is
argument.
do
not.
said
is
Some But,
if
passion that dictates
84
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
both the premises and the conclusions. a crisis has broken out
For once
between nations^
becomes
it
an axiom on each side, that the other nation
Some want
the wrong.
wrong, most do not. reasons
tolerate
reasons v/hy
it
is
But no one wants or
why
colossal egotism of the
be
may
it
herd
in
in the
is
will
The
right.
at this point takes
charge, and any reasoning that can gain a hearing
is
but sophistry to justify that.
This analysis
is
not refuted by the
nations, in such crises,
are
emotions as well as of the reverse.
when
always be generous,
it is
Egotism can
contemplating the
What
victims and the crimes of an enemy. it, is its
own
victims and
its
own
crimes.
same passion which transports with fury at
at the iniquities of its
itself
ness of a nation
is
it
enemies,
prefers (like
or
to divert
desires.
it
is
very
war
turned
who may seek to The righteous-
self-righteousness.
it
to cover will
from the course of
All this
is
at
its allies.
all egotists)
in fine-sounding words,
tests
The
a people
once against a candid friend
expose those of
that
fact
capable of generous
up
And though its
emotions
never allow idealism its
own
so instinctive that
interest it
and
would be
WAR
RESPONSIBILITY FOR unjust to charge
For hypocrisy
to hypocrisy.
it
85
implies deliberation and self-control, and here is
The
primitive passion.
inconsistencies
all
between
the words of nations and their deeds, between their
avowed intentions and
their
actual accomplish-
ment, between what they profess in victory, runs
what they do
course of history. illustration, let
allied nations
If
in conflict,
and
through the whole
the reader requires particular
him compare the declarations of the during the war of 19 14, with their
action in the treaties they dictated to vanquished foes. It
would be
idle to
blame men
for having this
kind of mind and soul, which they inherit from the
animal world.
have after
it
But
it is,
at
bottom, because they
that wars are possible.
all,
are
the
For the people,
great reservoir of force,
and
governments can only act by and through them.
One might compare
nations to patients liable to
outbreaks of homicidal mania, but normally sane, kindly, helpful
and productive.
rashly spoken, are
known
to bring
Certain words,
on the
attacks.
Wise and humane keepers would, therefore, avoid speaking them. But the keepers of nations,
—
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
86
and
governments
classes
governing
—forget
or
In thoughtlessness^ in mis-
^despise this counsel.
conception, in ambition, ia fear, or,
it
wickedness, they speak the words.
may The
be, in catas-
trophe follows, and the patients, falling upon one till
another, fight last
human
they may, the is
Bled to sanity,
they drop.
they rise heavily from the dust, to lead again,
in
working
life.
But
more they
will
is
spoken again, once
be at one another's throats.
from the
It follows,
if
the old poison
them, the old keepers watching and
And when the word
waiting.
still
at
situation thus described,
government can always reckon on the support of the people for a war, once the war can be prethat a
sented as will
**
be very
even
if
one.
inevitable."
they want
to,
It
follows
also
that
it
make a good peace, and very easy to make a bad
difficult for
them
to
For though the mass of the people, in every
nation, may, in a general way, desire a settlement
which
will
prevent
future
wars,
yet
they are
neither instructed about the conditions necessary to the attainment of such a peace nor ready to sacrifice
A
to
it
the passions engendered
victorious nation
may want
by war. But
a good peace.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
WAR
more revenge and indemnity.
still
it
wants,
it
does not see that
it
87
And
precisely the taking of
is
those things that makes future wars inevitable.
When
the British electorate, in
December, 19 18,
voted for the Kaiser's head and the cost of the war, they voted away the possibility of a good peace.
They were, of course, less guilty than the politicians who seized the most critical moment in our history and
in the history of the world, to lay
such policies
They hoped, no doubt, and intended have, nevertheless, the peace that would end
before them. to
war.
But,
not guilty, they were none the less
if
For
responsible.
it
was
their passion, their con-
fusion of mind, their ignorance, their impatience, their refusal,
all
and wholesome to approach
through the war, to truth, that
them
listen to cold
encouraged politicians
and discouraged
in that spirit
them from approaching them
in
any other.
They
have been duped, no doubt, they have been cheated, they have been betrayed.
ments
The their
back
Yes
!
!
But
also
Yes by
!
their
By their governown passions.
passionateness, then, of the mass of
dealing at
with
other
nations,
their
men
in
falling
once on the blind community-sense,
is
a
88
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR of their
part
principal
not
Perhaps
When war
less
is
over,
responsibility
all
they want
Instead of taking the opportunity,
and
strain
is
past, to look
it.
the tension
back in cold blood on
and
estimate evils and goods, they put
all
politics, to
war. levity.
to forget
is
when
that has occurred, to trace causes
them and turn
for
their
is
contributory
all
effects, to
that behind
to pleasure, to business, to domestic
anything rather than learning the lesson
of the experience through which they have passed.
That this
is
natural does not alter
its
significance,
nor obviate its consequences. Until men can learn by is little hope that they will ever from the vicious circle of unnecessary war emerge and unstable peace. We have before us, at this
experience there
moment, such
a lesson as has never been given to
the world before.
We
have seen prodigies of
sacrifice, miracles of courage,
unimaginable depths
of suffering and heights of devotion a prodigality is
in
man
we have the
;
and
and
riot of the best
all this
;
we have seen
and the wofst that
goodness and
all this
badness
seen directed to internecine destruction in
name of certain abstract principles.
stood for the principles have won.
Those who
They have had
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
Triumphant force has been given a see what it can do to estabhsh Right. result
?
89
do what they h'ked with the world.
to
power
WAR
A
free
hand
What is
to
the
scene of ruin, an orgy of hatred, a
debauch of cupidity,
a
deployment of hypocrisy
unequalled by anything yet presented in the tragic annals of mankind.
Nor
will
These are the
fruits of war.
any devotion nor any heroism on the part
of those fighting ever cause the fruits to be other.
Do we
Have we learned
the lesson
that the lesson
there to be learned
are jazzing,
is
?
?
even know
No
!
We
and racing and mobbing Mary Pickford.
Chapter
V
REMEDIES This essay
concerned with the causes, not with
is
But a comprehension
the cure of international war. of the causes
is
important only because
A
condition of the cure.
may,
therefore,
be
it is
a
few concluding words devoted
appropriately
to
remedies.
These
fall
under two heads
;
the creation of
and administrative machinery, and the } adoption of a new outlook and policy. These must judicial
go together, latter is
if
either
to
is
be
effective.
more important, and more
the former.
The machinery, That
been created.
Peace Conference.
is
difficult,
than
indeed, has already
the one good
And
But the
as, in
work of the
previous pages,
I
have had occasion to speak in condemnation of the statesmen there assembled, so a full tribute to creating the
them
I
would here pay
for a great achievement.
In
League of Nations, they showed 90
REMEDIES
91
themselves far-sighted, pacific and humane.
when
and
the states at present excluded are admitted to
the League,
if
and when
it is
permitted to take the
place at present occupied by the
have
will
it
If
the
Supreme Council, of
opportunity
constituting,
maintaining and developing a world at peace.
But
League of Nations of which the component
a
States should be pursuing the old power-policies
would be
a contradiction in terms.
of the League unless
the
spirit
there is
controUing
the
are to be directed
is little
at
The
creation
nothing, and worse than nothing,
governments and
support them
And
is
by
who
peoples
new
a
spirit.
evidence at present that such a
work among those who
are actually
The governments
affairs.
of
all
the
great states are as
still pursuing imperiahstic pohcies, though the League did not exist, and where
these policies are concerned, they refuse
the League function.
to
let
Thus, when Poland attacked
Russia in April, 1920, a case had arisen of the
kind contemplated by It
was the
to
take
principal
clear
action. allies
article 11 of the
Covenant.
duty of the Council of the
No
action
was taken,
League for the
did not desire action to be taken.
92
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
And
they did not desire
it
because Poland was their
ally^ and because powerful elements in their own governments had been actively supporting the
The Covenant
Polish offensive.
of the League
Yet
solemn international obligation.
constitutes a
already the states that profess to stand for international right have infringed letter.
Some
ignored,
if it is
observe
it.
exponent
its
Covenant mast be
as a matter of course, that the
inconvenient to the signatories to
Thus of
not
its spirit, if
organs of the press indeed assume,
the Temps, that representative
cynical
when
imperialism,
Persia
appealed to the League for protection against alleged aggression
by Russia (June, 1920) argued that
the League should decline principal
to take risks for Persia,
of the
to
members would not
League and
its
worth while
it
Yet Persia
entitled
because
act,
think
is
a
member
by Treaty
to
its
protection.
Let us take another example of the dealings of
No
the principal Allied States with the Covenant. article in that
number
22,
mandates.
document which
The
is
deals
intention
more important than with of
the
this
system
article
is
of to
REMEDIES
93
convert annexations of territory by the victors the
in
late
war into mandates held under the
The
League.
territories in question are to
"
in trust for the
the inhabitants.
The
State
is
after
seek
its
own.
pecuniary
Its trust is to
follows that material
or
is
to look after the
interests of the population entrusted It
of
intention of the article
The mandatory
plain.
be held "
well-being and development
it
to
not
it,
not
should for
benefit
itself.
be a burden, not an advantage.
It
might therefore be supposed that there would be no and great competition for the post of mandatory,
would be assumed reluctantly
that the obligation
as a duty, not covetously, as an opportunity.
What
has happened ? Let us take the case of the Turkish Empire.
By
the Peace Treaty the Turks are to be deprived
How
of the greater part of their territory. it
been disposed of
?
According
to Treaties
has
drawn
up during the war, before the mandatory system or a League of Nations was heard of, and conceived frankly
on
the
old
mandates are being assigned themselves,
not
by
the
to
The
lines.
imperialistic
the
League,
States
and
by
they
94
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
themselves are drawing up the terms of their Britain
trusteeship.
is
to
have
Palestine
own and
Mesopotamia, France, Syria and Cilicia, Italy, And no concealment is made of Adalia, and so on. the fact that, in
the
all
these territories, what interests
mandatories
self-appointed
resources involved. British
Why,
Mesopotamia
taking
is
the
material
instance
for ?
From
are
the
a
dis-
interested desire to benefit the Arabs, our paternal
care of this
whom we by
writing,
machine
guns?*
are showing, at the killing
moment of
them with bombs and
He must be
very credulous
or very ignorant of the ways of states believe that
it.
It is
move us
;
who
can
not even strategical considerations
for
if it
were,
we should be
content "
* Article the 22, says, referring to the Turkish territories, wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration
mandatory state." The Arabs of Mesopotamia and of Syria are showing, in the most conclusive way
in the selection of the
they can, that is by armed resistance, that they do not want the English nor the French. The latter indeed, at the moment of this writing, have sent an ultimatum to the Syrian Arabs, demanding that they accept the
war.
French
Thus do governments
governmental cynicism and
as their
mandatory under threat of This
interpret their obligations. duplicity is so profound and so
much
a matter of course, that people hardly even attend to it. Yet it has already gone far to destroy the promise of the League of Nations, and to ruin the future peace of the world.
REMEDIES to hold
do by the Treaty with Germany, drawn
in 19 14.
No
The
!
indeed, told that this
But that
State.
we had
the head of the Persian gulf, as
arranged to
up
95
" is
lure
is
the
oil.
We
to belong to the
oil is
are,
Arab
subject to any arrangements
that
were made before the war with Turkey."
And
before the war, Turkey had granted a conces-
sion of British
of the
all
oil
of
Bagdad and Mosul
The ownership
Company.
of the
State presumably will be confined to the
taxing the
One taking
company
reason then, v/e
Mesopotamia
exploit the
is
power of
for the administration.
pay
may
why we are Company may
fairly say,
that a British
oil.
But here there point.
to
is
involved a yet more important
According to the Covenant, the conditions
of a mandate are to be such as will secure
opportunities for the trade and
members *
to a
Arab
of
Article
22
equal
commerce of other In the case of the
of the league."*
The wording
"
is
deplorably
and perhaps
can, and probably will, be maintained that the words quoted in the text apply only to African In that case the British and the territory and not to Asiatic.
purposely ambiguous.
Thus
it
French would not be breakin?^ the
letter of the
established in the territories of the late Turkish
and commercial monopoly.
Covenant
if
they
Empire a trading But they would none the less be
96
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
Mesopotamian oil, that would imply that neither the British Government nor British subjects would be granted any the purchase of the
differential
oil^
or in matter of prior claim. position will
It
another
may be
that that
be maintained by the British Govern-
But we have reason
ment. in
opportunity for
either in matter of price
case,
the
for anxiety.
government
adopted the contrary policy.
has
For, already
Among the territories
which the British have granted themselves a mandate is a little island in the Pacific called
for
Naura.
This island
according to the 22,
these
rich in phosphates, and,
phosphates
equal terms to
What
is
all
in fact has
infringing the spirit.
not the
spirit, if
should
nations
letter,
be
members
happened
is,
of Article
offered
on
of the League.
that the sale of the
For the object of the Covenant is to prevent is the creation of such exclusive If territories seized by one state are to be
war, and a principal cause of war
national privileges. closed economically to others, then states are bound to fight for The same observation territories rich in industrial resources.
It applies to the case of the island of Nauru referred to below. is open to the British to say (as they have done) that this mandate is held under the sixth clause of Article 22, and that therefore the condition of equal commercial opportunity does not apply to it. None the less, the action they have taken is a breach of the
spirit of the
Covenant,
REMEDIES phosphates
is
to
be
restricted
New
Kingdom, AustraHa and
right
clear case of
A
give
principal all
unless
them
at
cost price.
territory
that
Here,
a
is
economic imperialism of the worst seized
is
by war and then the
political power of the State seizing
to
United
and that these countries are to have the
;
to receive
kind.
the
to
Zealand,
and above what they
there be any surplus over
require
97
State
a
it is
preferential
raw material, so that
it
other nations altogether,
employed on its
claim
can either exclude
or
charge them a
monopoly price. Such a policy is a war policy. For it shows every State that its only security for access to materials is to seize and occupy the It was the territory where they are to be found. clear intention of the
end
to
mandatory system
such practices.
And
here
is
to
put an
a
British
Government introducing them, for the first time, The precedent of course
into the British system. will
A
be imitated elsewhere.
coach and four
has thus already been driven through one of the
most important Clauses of the Covenant. The whole affair is disreputable. But perhaps its
most
disreputable
feature
is
the
speaking in 7
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
98
of
support
Commons.
the
Member
after
the
in
government
member
House of
rose in his
place to declare, in effect, that he regarded the
solemn international treaty constituting the League as a scrap of paper.
One even went
so far as to
emit the following sentence, worth recording as '*
an example of the political morals of Empire. the matter of the League of Nations I think Bill)
is
it
On (the
a violation of the Covenant, but on the
ground of imperial needs, and the necessity for procuring this tremendous and vital product, I shall
And
be inclined to support the government."* these are the people
who
professed to
world that they were fighting, a
Oh
!
young men dead
then and for It will,
in
**
war
the
for Right."
your millions, for what
whom has your blood been shed
I
perhaps, be said, in extenuation, that this
business of oil and phosphates has been exaggerated,
and that
after all the real concern of the States that
are giving themselves mandates
of the native populations
is
with the interests
whom they are to
protect.
Well, this contention can be tested by a typical case,
that of
Armenia.
Here,
• See Hansard, vol. 130,
if
No. 78,
anywhere, the p. 1337.
REMEDIES conditions
Here
by Article 22 exist. which has been decimated
contemplated
a population
is
99
by massacre again and again.
A
million
were
exterminated by the Turks during the war^ and the Allied nations the
Germans
tively to
prevent
hked
insisted
on
it
a special
it.
Well, Turkey surrendered
Armenia.
about
They could have
evacuation by the Turkish troops,
its
and have occupied the whole But
charge against
They could have made any terms
to the Allies.
they
made
that they did not intervene effec-
territory
by
their
own.
their interests lay otherwhere, in those regions
which they had marked out for economic exploitaThe British withdrew from CiHcia, because
tion.
that province
had been assigned to the French by
the agreement.
enough,
The French occupied
But they had none is
poor in
extend
in the rest of
their
Armenia, which
thither.
occupation
who seem
resistance,
willingly
natural resources, and they did not
recommenced almost under troops,
it,
they had economic interests there.
for
to have
and who,
at the
Massacres
the eyes of the French
attempted no effective
moment
of this writing,
are withdrawing altogether, leaving the
Armenians
100
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
mercy of the Turkish nationalists. Meanno mandate has yet been accepted by anyone time^ for these unhappy people. With characteristic at the
cynicism the Supreme Council offered
Council of the League. the only
way
could.
it
to the
it
That Council replied in It suggested that it would
endeavour to find a State to undertake the mandate, but that
it
would be glad
and funds would be
Thereupon
the
to be
Supreme mandate
irony, offered the '*
informed what forces
at the disposal of
such a state.
Council, with to the
elegant
United States.
We have distributed among ourselves/' they said,
in effect,
Empire.
whose
"
the lucrative parts of the Turkish
all
There
remains
protection
will
expenditure of
Armenia, a
require
a
men and money, and from which
unfortunately no return can be expected. selves require
all
*
The
We our-
the troops and resources
afford to protect our ests in the late
territory
considerable
oil
we can
and other material
Turkish Empire*
!
We
inter-
have done
British are
maintaining in Mesopotamia a force of 80,000 troops at an estimated cost of at least £35,000 per annum. AH this we can do in our own supposed interest.
But we cannot spare a man or a shilling to save the Armenians from massacre we who have " troubled deaf heaven with our bootless cries," again and again, on this subject, and have made
—
REMEDIES all
we
can.
now your
turn to assume your
humanity."
This agreeable offer
It is
responsibility to
loi
And
the Americans unaccountably declined.
mandate before
for the
it is
to enjoy
Armenians
is still
left
it.
"
for the
sacred trust for civilisation
contemplated in Article 22.
wrong with the
Article.
spirit of the Allied
interests
There
What
is
is
it,
dictate
their
"
nothing
wrong,
Governments, and of the
that
the war, as before
policy.
is
the
classes
After
these are inspired by economic
imperialism of the crudest kind. is
the
Perhaps
found, there will be no Armenians
So much
and
to seek.
And
while that
the case, the Covenant of the League can never be
anything more than a piece of solemn hypocrisy.
But of
this
economic imperialism Great Britain
There has been much
a principal exponent.
England of
in
Fiume and
on our horizon. our
it
own
and French Imperialism.
Italian
the Saar
Valley have bulked large
But how
little
has been said of
appropriation of East and
West German
Germans that they when they had no troops in
a special count against the
the massacres at a time
Empire, and no
is
talk
possibility of taking
any there.
did not stop the Turkish
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
102
and Mesopotamia, not to mention the protectorate of Egypt, and what will of
Africa,
Palestine
certainly be a
quietly, as if
And what
of course.
Persia and Arabia.
hegemony over
we took
All that
were a matter
it
had we, then, to
case
more moderate imperialism They would only have laughed
protest against the
of other states at us, as
at
the
Let us admit the
perhaps they did.
Above
truth.
?
internationalism, above peace,
of
cost
that
all
war,
is
and
powerful
in
England values the continued expansion of the British
Empire.
who might world
Now,
fairly
dominion, let it
If
ever
that
people
If a
ideal of
taken
>
at the cost of other
League of Nations
by
the
common
But
this
British.
incompatible
it
opposite
all states
can only be
Empires, that is
to
be a
Empire must disappear, and
operation of of a
is
For
with the peace of the world.
war.
the
is
be clearly understood, the continued
expansion of the British Empire
expanded
were a people
there
be accused of making a bid for
ideal
—the
and nations
is
by
reality, the
its
place be
peaceful
co-
in the interests
world-civilisation.
conclusion
is
unwelcome,
if
not
REMEDIES
103
intolerable to the governing classes of
and
not least to their
tradition, interest, all
that
of this
work against
it.
nations^
Their
country.
their
education,
all
their
pride,
The imperialism
of
the wealthy and aristocratic sections of the English,
of the army, the navy, the church, the public schools, to a great extent the universities, direct, so simple, so
unamenable
so
is
to discussion
and
is
no
evidence that the war has done anything to
it,
There
argument, as to resemble an instinct.
except to enhance
it.
As
to the
League of Nations,
these classes either are frankly hostile to
regard
it
as a device to consolidate the
stabilising the status quo after
has been
it
favourable as possible to British power.
kind
of spirit
animates
it
governing
or they
Empire by
made
as
While that classes,
the
League simply cannot function. the sense of this irreconcilable hostility of
It is
the governing class to the only conditions that
can give us a world at peace that
is
leading so
many
people to turn, for their only hope, to Labour.
A hope,
it is,
but not a certainty.
For, as
we have
noticed in a previous chapter, the passions, good and bad, of the peoples, make them easy dupes of
^
104
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR Their leaders indeed, in
imperialism.
But
see the truth clearly.
whether the rank and
file
A
do.
education has here to be done.
must contend with
if
work of
great
mind and
Imperialists have at their
money, the
press, the innumerable
agencies of corruption and intrigue. have,
countries
Internationalists
imperialists for the
soul of the peoples. disposal the
all
must be doubted
it
Above all they
they choose, one great bribe to offer.
may go
to the
class
working
and say
—
'*
:
They
We offer
you a tribute Empire.
Black men, yellow men,
brown men,
throughout the world to
shall slave
raw
give you cheap
materials.
—honestly, we
spoils with you
grow
will share the I
We
will all
rich together at the price of their poverty.
Let us stop another.
peoples." put.
We will
this idle wasteful fighting
Of
course,
it is
But its cynicism,
will not prevent its
ble form.
with one
Let us join hands to exploit our subject not thus that
its folly
and
its
it
will
be
wickedness
being put in some more plausi-
Before the working people are secured
for internationalism, they will have to stand
against a deadly assault of imperialism
predatory instincts.
upon
up
their
REMEDIES Nothing assault
will
education to be given in
this
them
enable
education.
except
It
?
of
connection,
105 to
resist
But
how
is
the
such an that
is
natural to think,
educational
public
system, of the schools and colleges maintained or
by the
assisted
There
here.
But there are
State.
is
no greater danger
difficulties
to
democracy
than a deliberate system of governmental education in morals
and
It
politics.
might, indeed,
be used for good, but equally and more probably, it
might be used for
evil.
It
seems
essential to
and progress that such subjects either be
liberty
not taught in government-controlled schools,
or,
they be taught, that the teachers should have
full
if
to
liberty
To even
teach according to their
if
desirable,
difficulty, for
geography or
would
not
literature,
intend to communicate all
really
solve
the
every lesson in history or political will
teacher's point of view, even
with
convictions.
exclude the subjects from the curriculum,
carry
Freedom
it.
with
it
the
though he may not for teachers,
the risks of freedom, seems to be the true
alternative.
And
if
there
is
to be
any entry to the
schools directly or indirectly, for propaganda,
it
io6
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
should be impartially extended to reputable views. solve,
but
The
book.
the
of
and
be easy to
*"
There remains the
agent
serious
has been said must suffice to indicate
nature.
its
all
will not
cannot be further discussed in this
it
What
place.
The problem
press
press, the platform and the
perhaps the most powerful
is
ever
propaganda
more
indirection
and
created,
more
the
powerful
It
suggestion.
most curious and disquieting society that this great
be controlled by
it
and
it
operates
is
facts
is
by
one of the of
modern
agency of education should
men who
openly profess that they
have no object except to make money and no training in any art but that.
For the peace of the world
and the security of civilisation no reform would be more important than one which should make the press a
profession
commerce, and
its
instead
editors
men
of a
branch of
of knowledge,
science and humanity, with a sense of responsibility for the
are
of
still
consequences of their teaching. There
a few such in England, but the succession
them seems
the able young
to be in grave peril.
men
Yet among
constantly being recruited for
REMEDIES some with the
the press there must be
One
be apostles.
107 capacity to
of these perhaps will arise to
reform the press as once the Friars reformed the church.
The platform causes.
It
is
to
open
And
need not speak further of
words must be
become
it
said.
a
more,
still
a large
for serious literature
this
we
and may of
must be cheap, written for and it
members
demand
there
becoming
is
place
instrument
powerful
must be deliberately
What
in
It is already,
distributed to the thinking class.
all
But of the book
it.
But, to be so,
popular education.
and
and
parties
must always be a potent source of
education, good or bad.
a few
all
of the working is
among
daily
these
more and
more evident by actual experiment. It is that demand that workers for peace must set themselves to satisfy.
They must
rewrite the history and
of politics of the past and the present in the light the the international ideal. They must destroy
romantic facts.
illusions,
They must
and
insist
upon the hard
plain
return again and again, from
every angle of approach, to the fundamental prob-
lem of war and peace.
They must
treat
war
as a
io8
CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR
problem not an axiom,
a catastrophe not a glory, a
disease to diagnose not an achievement to idealise.
A
generation of hard and sober work of this
kind might conceivably revolutionise international policy.
men
For
that
it is
it is
possible to impart a steady direction
to their action.
But there
is
only by convincing the reason of
The way
no other.
is
laborious and difficult.
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY The confirmation of the position taken in the text is to be sought in
all
history past and contemporary. For the convenience of a who wishes to pursue the matter, a short list of books is
reader
here added.
Chapter Trotter,
W.
I
Peace and War, (Fisher
Instincts of the herd in
Unwin, 1916.)
Chapter Havelock
Ellis.
Time.
And Conflict
"
Is
II
War Diminishing
(Constable, 191 6.) " The Origin of
War,"
and other Essays
War
Holsti (Rudolf).
The
in
in Essays in
War
in
The Philosophy of
Time.
(Constable, 1919.)
war
relation of
" ?
to the origin of the state.
(Helsingfors, 191 3.)
Perry,
W.
" J.
War and
Civilisation," in Bulletin of the
John
Ryland's Library, Manchester, Vol. IV., Nos. 3 and 4.
February and July, 191 8. " The Dawn of History," in The Myres, J. L. Library. (Williams and Norgate.)
Chapter Dickinson, G. Lowes.
Home
University
III
The European Anarchy.
(George Allen
and Unwin, 191 6.) Egerton, H. E.
to the end (Macmillan and Co., 191 7.)
British Foreign Policy in Europe
of the nineteenth century.
Oakes, Sir A. Mowatt, K.B. nineteenth century,
The Great European Treaties of the
(Oxford. Clar. Press, 1918.) log
no CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR Perla, Leo.
What
Phillimore, Sir
is
National honour
W. G.
F.
i
(Macmillan, 1918.)
Three Centuries of Treaties of Peace.
(John Murray, 1917.)
Woolf, L. S. Empire and Commerce in Africa (George Allen and Unwin), and Economic Imperialism, in the Swarthmore International Handbooks. (Swarthmore Press.)
Chapter IV Dickinson, G. Lowes.
The Choice before
us.
(Allen and
Unwin,
1917.)
Veblen, Thornton. An Inquiry into the nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation. (Macmillan and Co., 1917 )
Headl«y Brothers,
i8,
Devonshire Street, E.C.2
;
and Ashford, Keat.