The Old Enemies
The peace spirit which is pervading the mentality of the British Empire and the United States is beginning to work in the mind of individuals and groups even among those European peoples who are closest to the danger zone and most tempted by reactionary tendencies in favour of force for defence or vengeance.
Even in France, which is reasonably afraid of what may happen when Germany gets strong again, there is an increasing desire to obtain security by justice and conciliation rather than by military domination and a policy of coercion.
Even in Germany, resentful, bitter, brooding over “injustice,” inflamed to dreams of vengeance by old and new leaders who believe only in force and hatred, there are groups of idealists, societies of youth, bodies of working men, who are putting up a spiritual resistance to their Junkers and Nationalists. In spite of all their military parades in Bavaria, their secret drillings, their harking back to the sentiment of the old Imperialism, their hatred of France—most dangerous, as I have said—millions of working men and women in Germany have a loathing of war (its horror is in their souls) which would make them revolt against any attempts to prepare for a war of vengeance. Those people—convinced pacifists—are, I think, in a minority. The French adventure in the Ruhr weakened and almost destroyed, for the time, pacifist sentiment in Germany by causing an outburst of fury which has left smouldering fires of resentment and rage. But some of that will pass if the London Agreement is carried out by France in a generous spirit, and especially if the Ruhr is evacuated before another year has gone. It is my personal belief that the Nationalists will not have general support in the country for a revival of militarism if France relieves the pressure on Germany and makes a working agreement with her industrialists for their mutual benefit.
If Germany asks for war again she will get revolution first.