Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES.
His reputation for perversity and contrariety is fully maintained by George Bernard Shaw in the ineptly-named article, "Common Sense About the War." At home in Britain we all know that it is Mr. Shaw's habit to oppose where he might be expected to support, and vice versa. For example, should he speak at a prohibition meeting he would most likely extol strong drink, or if asked to defend the sale of liquor declare dramatically for prohibition.
He sees himself as the critic of everything and everybody—the one and only man who knows what to do and how to do it.
Mr. Shaw charges his compatriots with intellectual laziness, but they are not so lazy as to leave him to do their thinking for them. That he sometimes—and oftener in the past than now—says illuminating things is true, but firm reliance cannot be placed upon his freakish mental processes, exemplified in his writings about the war. He has played with effect the part of jester to the British public, but when, as now, his jests are empty of the kernel of good sense, the matter gets beyond a joke.
The truth is that in face of this great and tragic reality of war the men of mere words, the literary theorists, are in danger of missing their way. Certainly women of deeds are more likely to see things aright than are men of words, and it is as a woman of deeds that I, a suffragette, make answer to my irresponsible compatriot, Mr. Bernard Shaw. And yet not a compatriot, for Mr. Shaw disclaims those feelings of loyalty and enthusiasm for the national cause that fill the mass of us who live under the British flag!
"Until Home Rule emerges from its present suspended animation," says Mr. Shaw, "I shall retain my Irish capacity for criticising England with something of the detachment of a foreigner." Now, these words are not a little surprising, because Mr. Shaw's interest in the Home Rule cause has hitherto been of a most restrained and well-nigh secret character, and any one who imagines that Mr. Shaw is a strenuous campaigner for Home Rule is greatly mistaken. If in the years preceding the war the Horne Rule cause had depended upon Mr. Shaw's activities, it would have been in a bad way. It is now, when a foreign enemy menaces our nation as a whole, that Mr. Shaw manifests this enhanced interest in Home Rule.
The suffragettes, who have fought and suffered for their cause as no living man reformer in the British Isles has fought and suffered for his, have during the present crisis subordinated their claim to the urgent claims of national honor and safety. So Mr. Shaw, whose campaigning is done generally in the armchair, and never in any place more dangerous than the rostrum, ought surely to refrain from his frivolous, inconsistent, destructive, and unprofitable criticism of our country.
As for the question of lynching, Mr. Shaw is, the American public may be assured, in no danger whatever of being lynched. He is in far more danger of having the Iron Cross conferred upon him by the Kaiser in recognition of his attempt to supplement the activities of the official German Press Bureau. But if he were a German subject, writing on certain points of German policy as he does upon certain points of British policy, his fate can well be imagined. The only retribution that will come upon this man, who exploits the freedom of speech and pen that England gives him, is that his words lose now and henceforth the weight they used to have. Oh, the conceit of the man, who in this dark hour, when the English are dying on the battlefield, writes of "taking the conceit out of England" by a stroke of his inconsequent pen!
Admits England's Cause Is Just.
But with all his will to "take the conceit" out of this England, so fiercely menaced, her sons killed, her daughters widowed—yet needing, so he thinks, his castigation into the bargain—the critic is constrained to admit that our country is playing the part of "the responsible policeman of the West" and that "for England to have refrained from hurling herself into the fray, horse, foot, and artillery, was impossible from every point of view." Then why preface these statements by a series of attacks upon the country which is admitted to be justly fighting in a just cause?
The sole importance of Mr. Shaw's criticism comes from this. He unwarrantably indorses statements made by Germany in her attempt to put the Allies in the wrong. Because he is known to the German people by his dramatic work, extracts from his article will be circulated among them as an expression of the views of a representative British citizen. And how are the Germans to know that this is false, deprived as they are of news of what is happening in the outside world and ignorant as they must be of Mr. Shaw's real lack of influence at this serious time?
That their traffic in mere words disables some literary men from comprehending facts is shown by Mr. Shaw's play upon the word "Junkerism." He points to the dictionary definition of the word instead of to the fact it represents, and by this verbal juggling tries to convince his readers that the military autocracy that dominates and misdirects Germany has its counterpart and equal in Great Britain. Whereas, the conditions in the two countries are wholly different, and it is this very difference that Germany has regarded as one of the signs of British inferiority.
Mr. Shaw's suggestion that the British are posing as "Injured Innocence" and as "Mild Gazelles" is neither funny nor true. We are simply a people defending ourselves, resisting conquest and military despotism, and fighting for the ideal of freedom and self-government. When our country is no longer in danger we suffragettes, if it be still necessary, are prepared to fight on and wage our civil war that we may win freedom and self-government for women as well as men. But, in the meantime, we support the men—yes, and even the Government do we in a sense support—in fighting the common enemy who menaces the freedom of men and women alike. Although the Government in the past have erred gravely in their dealing with the woman question, they are for the purpose of this war the instrument of the nation.
Facts Belie Him.
Mr. Shaw would seem to hold Britain responsible for German militarism, but the facts he cites are against him there. "I am old enough," says he, "to remember the beginnings of the anti-German phase of military propaganda in England. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 left England very much taken aback. Up to that date nobody was much afraid that Prussia—suddenly Prussia beat France right down in the dust." Precisely! It was this war on France, deliberately engineered by Bismarck, and it was the defeat and despoilment of France that fed Germany's militarism and encouraged Germany to make those plans of military aggression which, after long and deliberate preparation, are being carried into effect in the present war. Germany's plans of military aggression have compelled other countries to prepare, however inadequately, to defend themselves.
Mr. Shaw gives support to the Germans' contention that they are not the aggressors but are menaced by Russia. Yet he does not explain why, if that is so, Germany took French gold and territory in 1870 and has since continued to alienate France; nor why Germany has chosen Britain as her enemy of enemies to be supplanted and surpassed in power.
If Germany is simply on the defensive against Russia and has no desire to attack and cripple France and Britain, then why has she antagonized these countries and driven one after the other into a Russian alliance?
When he affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object is to seize Belgium and to make it part of the German Empire, also to seize at least the northern coast of France and to make this seizure the means of dominating Britain.
Indeed, the point at which German ambition for conquest ceases would be hard to fix. And yet Mr. Shaw pictures for us an injured-innocent, mild-gazelle Germany on the defensive! Quite in this picture is his assertion that "the ultimatum to Servia was the escapade of a dotard," whereas, everybody knows that the ultimatum was dictated at Berlin. It is plain as a pikestaff that in order to bring on the Great War of conquest for which her rulers thought The Day had arrived. Germany dictated the issue and terms of the ultimatum to Servia and then urged Austria to refuse any compromise and arbitration which might have averted war.
Mr. Shaw has assumed the impossible task of trying to blind the American public to these and other facts that prove Germany to be the aggressor in this war, but he will fail in his attempt at white-washing German policy because it is one of the characteristics of the American people that they have a strong feeling for reality and that no twisting and combining of words can prevent them from getting at the facts beneath.
Bernhardi's writings are generally believed to be an inspiration, and in part a statement of German policy. But Mr. Shaw differs. In trying to prove that Bernhardism has nothing to do with the case, he maintains that Germany has neglected the Bernhardi programme, and says:
"He warned Germany to make an alliance with Italy, Austria, Turkey, and America before undertaking the subjugation of France, then of England."
Mr. Shaw then asserts that Germany disregarded this advice and allowed herself to be caught between Russia and a Franco-British combination with no ally save Austria. But here again facts are against him. For Germany has followed with marvelous precision the line drawn by Bernhardi.
She is actually fighting in partnership with Austria. She allied herself with Italy—though Italy has refused to fight with her in this present war of aggression. Germany has also bent Turkey to her purpose, and has dragged the Turks into the war. An alliance with America! Well, to have gained the help of America in crushing France and crippling England, and ravaging and conquering Belgium was quite beyond the power of German diplomacy and intrigue! Still Germany's attempts to win at least America's moral support in this war are vigorous, if unsuccessful.
And with what quotable matter Mr. Shaw provides the German rulers for the further deluding of their subjects when he writes of the German people being "stirred to their depths by the apparent treachery and duplicity of the attack made upon them in their extrernest peril from France and Russia," when he writes of the Kaiser doing "all a Kaiser could do without unbearable ignominy to induce the British not to fight him and give him fair play with Russia," and when he writes of "taking the Kaiser at a disadvantage." As though we ought meekly to have agreed to the Kaiser's plan of defeating France and using her defeat as a bridge to England and a means of conquering England! Uncommon nonsense about the war—so we must rename Mr. Shaw's production!
And what is all this that flows from the pen of Mr. Shaw about Belgium and "obsolete treaties," "rights of way," "necessities that know no international law," "circumstances that alter treaties"? Made in Germany such statements are, and yet even the Imperial German Chancellor is not so contemptuous as Bernard Shaw is of Belgium's charter of existence, the treaty now violated by Germany.
That is a treaty that cannot become obsolete until the powers who made it release Belgium from the restrictions and obligations which the treaty imposes. Germany pleads guilty in this matter of the violation of Belgian neutrality, though Mr. Shaw attempts to show her innocent, for the German Chancellor has said: "This is an infraction of international law—we are compelled to overrule the legitimate protests of the Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved." And again the Chancellor said the invasion of Belgium "is contrary to the law of nature." To Mr. Bernard Shaw's peculiar sense of international morality such dealing is not, however, repugnant.
No "Right of Way" in Belgium.
In his letter to President Wilson Mr. Shaw, either willfully or ignorantly, seeks to confuse the neutrality of a neutralized State such as Belgium and the neutrality of an ordinary State such as Italy, and he pretends that violation of the first sort of neutrality creates a situation in no way different from that created by the violation of the second and normal sort of neutrality. I would refer Mr. Shaw to "The Case for Belgium" issued by the Belgian delegates to the United States wherein they point out that "the peculiarity about Belgian neutrality is that it has been imposed upon her by the powers as the one condition upon which they recognized her national existence."
The consequence of this is that whereas Italy and the United States and other powers having a similar status can, subject to the risk of attack from an affronted belligerent, please themselves whether or not they condone a violation of their neutrality, Belgium and the other neutralized States cannot condone such violation, but must either resist all breaches of their neutrality or surrender their right to existence. And further a neutralized State, putting faith in the treaty that guarantees its existence and its neutrality, refrains naturally from that preparation for war which would be deemed necessary in the absence of such a treaty.
There is no such thing as the "right of way" through neutralized Belgium which Mr. Shaw claims on behalf of belligerent Germany. Far from exercising a right of way Germany has violently committed a trespass, offering a German promise, a mere "scrap of paper," as reparation. "A right of way," argues Bernard Shaw, "is not a right of conquest"; but the truth is that in passing through Belgium Germany assumed dominion over Belgium, which dominion she has since formally asserted and is seeking forcibly to maintain.
A New Shavian Theory.
No comprehension does Mr. Shaw display of the hurt to the Belgians' sense of honor involved in Germany's use of their territory for purposes hostile to their friendly neighbor, France. To be forced into injuring a friend is an outrage, indeed, and Mr. Shaw surely knows too much of matters military to be unaware that to permit a right of way to one combatant amounts to making an attack upon the other, and that Germany, by the very fact of crossing Belgium soil, was forcing Belgium to be the enemy of France. Only by their great heroism were the Belgians able to escape this infamy that had been planned for them.
To be conquered does not really matter! There we have another Shavian theory. How grateful would the would-be world-ruling Kaiser feel to Mr. Shaw were he to succeed in inoculating the peoples of Europe and of America with that theory! So would the task of putting the peoples under the German yoke (otherwise known as German culture) be made easier—and cheaper. But the spirit of national freedom, which is as precious to humanity as is the spirit of individual freedom, cannot be driven out by words any more than it can be driven out by blows. The most unlettered Belgian soldier, fighting for a truth that is at the very heart and depth of all things true, puts the mere wordmonger to shame.
That Great Britain does not fight only for Belgium is certainly a fact, though Belgium's plight alone would have been enough to bring us into the conflict. We fight also for France, because she is wrongfully attacked, and because she is by her civilization and culture one of the world's treasures. We fight for the all-sufficient reason of self-defense.
There is the case for Britain, and despite his special pleading for Germany, Mr. Shaw can show no flaw in it. He does say, however, that the British Government, instead of first seeking a mild way of preserving peace, ought to have said point blank to Germany: "If you attack France we shall attack you." I also think that such a declaration would have been the right one. To me and to many others the thought that our country might stand by and watch inactively an attack upon France was intolerable. Great was our relief when this apprehension was removed by the British Government's declaration of war. Why did not the British Government say to Germany before the war cloud burst that Britain would fight to defend France, and why did the Government delay so long in declaring war? Mr. Shaw does not give the reason, but I will give it.
It was that the Government feared opposition to our entering into the war would come from a Radico-Socialist literary clique in London, from a section of the Liberal press, and from certain Liberal and Labor politicians who had been deceived by German professors and other missionaries of the Kaiser into thinking the German peril did not exist. When Belgium was invaded most of these misguided ones were unable to cling any longer to their "keep out of it" policy, and then the Government felt free to act. Yet the Government need not have waited, because with the facts before them the people as a whole would perfectly have understood the necessity of fighting even had Belgium not been invaded.
Henceforward the general public must be kept informed of what is happening in the international world. Foreign politics must be conducted with greater publicity. There, at least, Bernard Shaw is right, but this is a reform which he and his fellow-men have failed to effect, whereas women, had they been voters, would have demanded and secured it long ago.
Now, although undue diplomatic secrecy, always wrong, will be especially wrong when the terms of peace come to be made, sentimentality will certainly be more mischievous still. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Bernard Shaw's writings on the war are intended as an appeal to sentimentality—an appeal that Germany at the close of the war shall have treatment which, by being more than just to her, would be less than just to the countries whom she has attacked, and would mean a recurrence of this appalling war in after years.
Before the war specious words were used to cloak the German policy of aggression which has plunged the world in horror and is martyrizing peoples. In view of the coming victory of the Allies, the same tactics will be adopted by the German militarists, and it behooves Bernard Shaw to beware lest even without intent he serve as their tool. Men such as he who believe that while they can never be in the wrong, their country can never be in the right, are just the men who are in danger of stumbling at this time.
Comment by Readers of Shaw
Shaw Has Made Minister von Jagow's Remark on a "Scrap of Paper" Understandable.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Most hearty thanks for that masterly "common-sense" article of Bernard Shaw. How clearly he expresses the much that many of us have felt way down inside and have not been able to formulate even to ourselves!
He has made at least one woman—and one of German parentage at that—understand what reams of public and private communications from all over the Fatherland could not make clear: just why the blunt, impetuous, shocked, and astounded Kaiser dared give utterance to that disgraceful "scrap of paper" remark—inexcusable but also very understandable in the light of his knowledge of and confidence in a more astute miscreant; why France and Germany have always considered England more or less of a Tartuffe and a "Scheinheilige" (one who seems holy); and why every German—man, woman and child—so execrates Sir Edward Grey and colleagues.
Nothing in all the sickening present conditions, the future long-lasting woe and misery, the barbarous neutrality violations has so made me blush for my mother's country as the "scrap of paper" incident; and it has been most bitter to listen to the extravagant, fantastic eulogies on England, with which we've been so favored without feeling honestly able to make any excuses whatever for Germany.
But now—thanks to that article—I can understand what I may not condone, and, though abhorring the Kaiser and my mother's compatriots for their share in that horror going on abroad, I can also pity the hot-headed, imperfect mere man going to war under a carefully incited and fostered misapprehension, and need no longer glorify the cool-headed, sapient policy which so cleverly duped ruler and people.
Not since the war began have I felt so undepressed, so free to sympathize where I so love, so free from having to commend those for whom I feel no love whatever. For all of which accept the warmest thanks of
KATE HUDSON.
New York, Nov. 17.
Shaw Article Work of "Farceur."
To the Editor of The New York Times:
"Common sense and Shaw!" Shaw begins his article by saying, "I am giving my views for what they are worth, with a malicious bias." Later on he says: "I am writing history." Toward the end, after having obscured with words many things which had hitherto been clear to most people, he says: "Now that we begin to see where we really are, &c." How Shavian!
There are at least two sides to all questions, and so long as they are reasonably presented one is glad to hear them even if they fail to convince, but when a farceur is allowed to occupy three whole pages usually filled by serious and interesting writers it seems time to protest. The subject itself is not one for easy paradox or false and flippant epigram.
Mr. Shaw says he does not hold his tongue easily. He certainly does not, and when it wags it wags foolishly, and, as he admits, maliciously, albeit sometimes amusingly, and with superficial brilliance. He says the Irish do not consider England their country yet. Of course they do not. Why should the Irish consider themselves English? Neither do the Scots, nor the Welsh, nor the Canadians, nor will they ever so think. But they are all British, and so, despite all Mr. Shaw says to the contrary, Kitchener was right.
Mr. Shaw falls into a common and regrettable error when he continually writes England when he really means the British Empire. It is the British Empire that is at war, for which, though a citizen, Mr. Shaw has no authority to speak or to be considered a representative, for, as he unnecessarily admits, he is not a "British patriot"; neither is he a "Junker," for I have looked through all his definitions of the word, and none applies to him.
In what way is the "Battle of Dorking" like Bernhardi? The one he says had as a moral: "To arms! or the Germans will besiege London!" The other said: "To arms! so that the Germans may besiege London, or any other country that does not want compulsory culture!" The one was defensive, the other offensive.
He says of the war: "We" began it. Since he says he is not English, and that it is an English war, whom does he mean by "We"? If he means the British, then, should a policeman see a small boy being ill-treated by a large man and go to the help of that boy, he, the policeman, must be said to have begun the fight which would probably ensue between him and said man, notwithstanding that the policeman is only fulfilling what he has sworn to do.
Monaco, he says, "seems to be, on the whole, the most prosperous and comfortable State in Europe." If this is buffoonery it is singularly out of place. But even Monaco has an "army," has had recently a small revolution, and the Monegasques do not consider themselves ideally comfortable, and they have many "injustices." Does he hold the principality up as a model administration and the source of its prosperity as above reproach?
Mr. Shaw represents no one but himself, and, like all small men, he reviles others greater than he, such as Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith, but it does not become him, looking at his own life's history, to cast cheap sneers at anonymous journalists in cheap newspapers, who, though they may lack his literary style, possess, at least, one virtue which he boasts that he has not—patriotism! Yours very truly,
LAWRENCE GRANT.
New York, Nov. 18.
Antidote to "Long Infliction of Dreary Stuff."
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Hail to Bernard Shaw! Could anything be more refreshing? After the long infliction upon us of the flood of dreary stuff from London and Paris, and all the talk of German militarism, and what is to become of it at the hands of such immaculately unmilitary apostles of peace and international righteousness and treaty observances as Russia, France, and England, and all the maudlin denunciations of the German Nietzsche and Bernhardi, and the terrible Kaiser, could anything be more refreshing than Shaw's advent in the field of current war history?
Though an Anglo-Saxon of American birth and long descent, and no believer in militarism of any sort of itself, yet I see in that no reason to distort ancient history by an attempt to make it appear that German militarism is at all the chief sinner, or, for that matter, not a very necessary and desirable thing in order that Germany may have her rightful place in the world, or any place at all.
V.A.W. Warwick, N.Y., Nov. 16.
False Assumptions Basis of Shaw's Attack.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
The article on the European war by Mr. G.B. Shaw in THE TIMES of Sunday appeals to me as a noteworthy specimen of what an artful literary genius can do in the way of argumentative cantankerousness. His chief grievance is British diplomacy as represented by Sir Edward Grey, upon whose devoted head he empties the vials of his splenetic humor.
Underlying his argument are two glaringly false assumptions, and on these the whole fabric rests. The first is that a certain undefined but presumably multitudinous body, which he designates as "Socialist," "Democratic," and "Social Democratic," is better qualified to determine the policy and conduct the correspondence of the Foreign Office than trained and experienced statesmen.
The second is that Sir Edward Grey should have followed the suggestion of Sazonof and threatened Germany with war at a certain stage of the correspondence. This can now be only a matter of opinion, but it may be confidently affirmed that of all nations the Germany of this day would be the last to back down in face of a threat. It may be also said generally that an open threat is about the surest way to bring on a war. Austria threatened Servia and war ensued. Germany threatened Russia and war ensued. Germany threatened Belgium—in the form of a notification that she intended to invade her territory—and war ensued.
Mr. Shaw's contentions are grotesque.
Flushing, Nov. 16. SAM TEST.
"Junkers" Controlled Old World Ages Before Shaw.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
With regard to the article by Mr. Bernard Shaw, the gist of the matter can be compressed in fewer words. The ideas expressed are not the exclusive property of Mr. Shaw. The Old World for indefinite ages has been controlled and directed by what he calls the "Junker" class, the rich and idle aristocrats who want for nothing, and, being born to rule, do not find it worth while to exert themselves mentally, and for whom there is no suitable profession but the army and diplomacy.
The mass of the people are to them the great unwashed, and those a little higher in the scale "cads and bounders," or the German equivalent, in fact the canaille of the French who at the time of the Revolution took things into their own hands to the great surprise of everybody. This substratum is not considered in the scheme of the "Junker's" existence, though the lower orders alone are the workers and producers and make ease and luxury possible.
Mr. Shaw. I believe, intends to intimate that there might be a use for the intellectual class, the thinkers and writers with the imagination that can put them mentally in the place of the individuals who make up the masses, think the thoughts and live the lives vicariously of the people who are the nation, and if the "Junker" class of England and Germany and kindred nations who govern and dictate its policies were leavened with the brains and broad-mindedness of the thinkers there might be found a better use for men than killing each other and a brighter outlook for the world which is now filled with widows and orphans.
Mrs. F.B. WILLIAMSON.
Elizabeth, N.J., Nov, 16.
Open Letter to President Wilson[[1]]
By George Bernard Shaw.
Sir: I petition you to invite the neutral powers to confer with the United States of America for the purpose of requesting Britain, France, and Germany to withdraw from the soil of Belgium and fight out their quarrel on their own territories. However the sympathies of the neutral States may be divided, and whatever points now at issue between the belligerent powers may be doubtful, there is one point on which there can be neither division nor doubt, and that is that the belligerent armies have no right to be in Belgium, much less to fight in Belgium, and involve the innocent inhabitants of that country in their reciprocal slaughter. You will not question my right to address this petition to you. You are the official head of the nation that is beyond all question or comparison the chief of the neutral powers, marked out from all the rest by commanding magnitude, by modern democratic constitution, and by freedom from the complication of monarchy and its traditions, which have led Europe into the quaint absurdity of a war waged formally between the German Kaiser, the German Czar, the German King of the Belgians, the German King of England, the German Emperor of Austria, and a gentleman who shares with you the distinction of not being related to any of them, and is therefore describable monarchically as one Poincaré, a Frenchman.
I make this petition on its merits, without claiming any representative character except such as attaches to me as a human being. Nobody here has asked me to do it. Except among the large class of constitutional beggars, the normal English feeling is that it is no use asking for a thing if you feel certain that it will be refused, and are not in a position to enforce compliance. Also, that the party whose request is refused and not enforced looks ridiculous. Many Englishmen will say that a request to the belligerents to evacuate Belgium forthwith would be refused; could not be enforced; and would make the asker ridiculous. We are, in short, not a prayerful nation. But to you it will be clear that even the strongest power, or even allied group of powers, can have its position completely changed by an expression of the public opinion of the rest of the world. In your clear western atmosphere and in your peculiarly responsible position as the head centre of western democracy, you, when the European situation became threatening three months ago, must have been acutely aware of the fact to which Europe was so fatally blinded—namely, that the simple solution of the difficulty in which the menace of the Franco-Russo-British Entente placed Germany was for the German Emperor to leave his western frontier under the safeguard of the neighborliness and good faith of American, British, and French democracy, and then await quite calmly any action that Russia might take against his country on the east. Had he done so, we could not have attacked him from behind; and had France made such an attack—and it is in the extremest degree improbable that French public opinion would have permitted such a hazardous and unjustifiable adventure—he would at worst have confronted it with the fullest sympathy of Britain and the United States, and at best with their active assistance. Unhappily, German Kings do not allow democracy to interfere in their foreign policy; do not believe in neighborliness; and do believe in cannon and cannon fodder. The Kaiser never dreamed of confiding his frontier to you and to the humanity of his neighbors. And the diplomatists of Europe never thought of that easy and right policy, and could not suggest any substitute for it, with the hideous result which is before you.
The State of Belgium.
Now that this mischief has been done, and the two European thunderclouds have met and are discharging their lightnings, it is not for me to meddle with the question whether the United States should take a side in their warfare as far as it concerns themselves alone. But I may plead for a perfectly innocent neutral State, the State of Belgium, which is being ravaged in a horrible manner by the belligerents. Her surviving population is flying into all the neighboring countries to escape from the incessant hail of shrapnel and howitzer shells from British cannon, French cannon, German cannon, and, most tragic of all, Belgian cannon; for the Belgian Army is being forced to devastate its own country in its own defense.
For this there can be no excuse; and at such a horror the rest of the world cannot look on in silence without incurring the guilt of the bystander who witnesses a crime without even giving the alarm. I grant that Belgium, in her extreme peril, made one mistake. She called to her aid the powers of the Entente alone instead of calling on the whole world of kindly men. She should have called on America, too; and it is hard to see how you could in honor have disregarded that call. But if Belgium says nothing, but only turns her eyes dumbly toward you while you look at the red ruin in which her villages, her heaps of slain, her monuments and treasures are being hurled by her friends and enemies alike, are you any the less bound to speak out than if Belgium had asked you to send her a million soldiers?
Not for a moment do I suggest that your intervention should be an intervention on behalf of either the Allies or the Entente. If you consider both sides equally guilty, we know that you can find reasons for that verdict. But Belgium is innocent; and it is on behalf of Belgium that so much of the world as is still at peace is waiting for a lead from you. No other question need be prejudged. If Germany maintains her claim to a right of way through Belgium on a matter which she believed (however erroneously) to be one of life and death to her as a nation, nobody, not even China, now pretends that such rights of way have not their place among those common human rights which are superior to the more artificial rights of nationality. I think, for example, that if Russia made a descent on your continent under circumstances which made it essential to the maintenance of your national freedom that you should move an army through Canada, you would ask our leave to do so, and take it by force if we did not grant it. You may reasonably suspect, even if all our statesmen raise a shriek of denial, that we should take a similar liberty under similar circumstances in the teeth of all the scraps of paper in our Foreign Office dustbin. You see, I am frank with you, and fair, I hope, to Germany. But a right of way is not a right of conquest; and even the right of way was not, as the Imperial Chancellor imagined, a matter of life and death at all, but a militarist hallucination, and one that has turned out, so far, a military mistake. In short, there was no such case of overwhelming necessity as would have made the denial of a right of way to the German Army equivalent to a refusal to save German independence from destruction, and therefore to an act of war against her, justifying a German conquest of Belgium. You can therefore leave the abstract question of international rights of way quite unprejudiced by your action. You can leave every question between the belligerents fully open, and yet, in the common interest of the world, ask Germany to clear out of Belgium, into France or across the Channel, if she can, back home if she can force no other passage, but at all events out of Belgium. A like request would, of course, be addressed to Britain and to France at the same time. The technical correctness of our diplomatic position as to Belgium may be unimpeachable; but as the effect of our shells on Belgium is precisely the same as that of the German shells, and as by fighting on Belgian soil we are doing her exactly the same injury that we should have done her if the violation of her neutrality had been initiated by us instead of by Germany, we could not decently refuse to fall in with a general evacuation.
A Certain Result of Intervention.
At all events, your intervention could not fail to produce at least the result that even if the belligerents refused to comply, your request would leave them in an entirely new and very unpleasant relation to public opinion. No matter how powerful a State is, it is not above feeling the vast difference between doing something that nobody condemns and something that everybody condemns except the interested parties.
That difference alone would be well worth your pains. But it is by no means a foregone conclusion that a blank refusal would be persisted in. Germany must be aware that the honor of England is now so bound up with the complete redemption of Belgium from the German occupation that to keep Antwerp and Brussels she must take Portsmouth and London. France is no less deeply engaged. You can judge better than I what chance Germany now has, or can persuade herself she has, of exhausting or overwhelming her western enemies without ruining herself in the attempt. Whatever else the war and its horrors may have done or not done, you will agree with me that it has made an end of the dreams of military and naval steam-rollering in which the whole wretched business began. At a cost which the conquest of a whole continent would hardly justify, these terrible armaments and the heroic hosts which wield them push one another a few miles back and forward in a month, and take and retake some miserable village three times over in less than a week. Can you doubt that though we have lost all fear of being beaten, (our darkened towns, and the panics of our papers, with their endless scares and silly inventions, are mere metropolitan hysteria,) we are getting very tired of a war in which, having now re-established our old military reputation, and taught the Germans that there is no future for their empire without our friendship and that of France, we have nothing more to gain? In London and Paris and Berlin nobody at present dares say "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?"; for the slightest disposition toward a Christian view of things is regarded as a shooting matter in these capitals; but Washington is still privileged to talk common humanity to the nations.
An Advantage of Aloofness.
Finally, I may remind you of another advantage which your aloofness from the conflict gives you. Here, in England and in France, men are going to the front every day; their women and children are all within earshot; and no man is hard-hearted enough to say the worst that might be said of what is going on in Belgium now. We talk to you of Louvain and Rheims in the hope of enlisting you on our side or prejudicing you against the Germans, forgetting how sorely you must be tempted to say as you look on at what we are doing, "Well, if European literature, as represented by the library of Louvain, and European religion, as represented by the Cathedral of Rheims, have not got us beyond this, in God's name let them perish." I am thinking of other things—of the honest Belgians, whom I have seen nursing their wounds, and whom I recognize at a glance as plain men, innocent of all warlike intentions, trusting to the wisdom and honesty of the rulers and diplomatists who have betrayed them, taken from their farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our guns. The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black smoke of the howitzer blinds us; and what these do to our bodily senses our passions do to our imaginations. For justice, we must do as the mediaeval cities did—call in a stranger. You are not altogether that to us; but you can look at all of us impartially. And you are the spokesman of Western democracy. That is why I appeal to you.
G. BERNARD SHAW.
Note:
[1] The English newspaper, The Nation, in which Mr. Shaw's letter to the President of the United States appeared on Nov. 7, made the following comment thereon:
We are glad to publish Mr. Shaw's brilliant appeal to the President of the United States, because we believe that when the time for settlement arrives, the influence of America will be a powerful, perhaps a decisive, factor in obtaining it. We agree, too, with him that while she is not likely to respond to an appeal to intervene on the side of the Entente or the Alliance, the case of Belgium, the innocent victim of the war, is bound to find her in a very different mood. The States are already Belgium's almoner; it is only a step further for them to come in as her savior. But on a vital point we disagree with Mr. Shaw. His Irish mind puts the case with an indifference to which we cannot pretend. We have got to save Western Europe from a victory of Prussian militarism, as well as to avenge Belgium and set her on her feet again. We regard the temper and policy revealed in Germany's violation of Belgium soil and her brutalization of the Belgian people as essential to our judgment of this war and its end. And we dare not concede an inch to Mr. Shaw's "right of way" theory. His distinction between "right of way" and a "right of conquest" has no practical effect other than to extinguish the rights of small nationalities as against great ones, who alone have the power to take a "right of way" when it is refused, and afterward to turn it into a right of conquest. Germany's action was not only a breach of her own treaty (only revealed within a few hours of its execution), but of Article I. of The Hague Convention on the rights of neutral powers:
"THE TERRITORY OF NEUTRAL POWERS IS INVIOLABLE."
It is not therefore a small thing that Germany has ripped clean through the whole fabric of The Hague Conventions of 1907. Could the American Government, aware of that fact, address herself to intervention on the Belgian question without regard to the breaches of international law which were perpetrated, first, through the orignal German invasion of Belgium, and then in the conduct of the campaign in that country?
A German Letter to G. Bernard Shaw
By Herbert Eulenberg.
The following letter from the noted German playwright Eulenberg, whose plays of a decided modern tendency have been presented extensively in Germany and in Vienna, was made public by the German Press Bureau of New York in October, 1914.
Bernard Shaw: You have addressed us Germans several times of late without receiving a reply from us. The reason for this was probably the momentary bitterness against your country of our people's intellectual representatives. Indeed, our best scholars and artists, Ernst Haeckel at 81 years, leading the rest, stripped themselves during these past weeks of all the honors which England had apportioned them. Permit me as one who had the opportunity to do much for the propagation of your dramatic works, especially of your finest drama, "Candida," in Western Germany and in Holland, to present as quiet and as moderate a retort as is possible.
Your appeal to intellectual Germany we reciprocate with a question to intellectual England. It is as follows: How is it possible for you to witness your country's present unheard of policy (so opposed to culture) without rising as one man against it? Do you believe that we thinking Germans would ever, without saying or doing anything, observe an alliance of our Government, whose goal was the strengthening of imperialism and the subjugation and destruction of a cultured power, such as France or England? Never! Among your people only a very small number of brave scholars protested against this criminal alliance of your Government at the beginning of the war. You others, you poets, painters, and musicians of present-day England were silent and permitted Sir Edward Grey to continue to sin against a people related to you by blood and intellect. You raised your voice a little, Bernard Shaw! But what did you propose to us: "Refrain from your militarism, my dear Germans, and become again the congenial, complacent poets and thinkers, the people of Goethe and Beethoven, whom no one hated! Then we will surely help you against the bad Russians!"
Is not this proposal a bit too naïve for you, Bernard Shaw? We are situated in the midst of Russians and Frenchmen, who have formed an open alliance against us for more than twenty years. Our neighbors in the East denounce nothing more than us, and our neighbors in the West denounce us and plan against us, who have for nearly half a century evinced nothing but friendliness toward them. When such enemies surround us, does not your friendly counsel, Bernard Shaw, seem as if you said to us: "Just let yourself be massacred, Germans! Afterward your British cousins will vouchsafe you their protection."
Germany Not Isolated.
Do you think that we would carry on our militarism and our expensive drilling if we lived on an island as you do? We would not think of it. We would speedily dispatch a blood-thirsty butcher, like your Lord Kitchener, from our island to our most unhealthy colony. We could not even reconcile our worthy Dr. Karl Peters, who had dealt a little unscrupulously with a few negro women, with our conceptions of culture, and had to pass him over to you! But the thought shall not come to me or to us, as it does to your Prime Ministers, to pose as angels of light, a fact about which you have yourself told your compatriots the bitter truth to our great joy. We admit having injured Belgium's neutrality, but we have only done it because of dire necessity, because we could not otherwise reach France and take up the fight against two sides forced upon us. Belgium's independence and freedom, which is suddenly of the utmost importance to your King and your Ministers, we have not touched. Even after the expeditious capture of Liége we asked Belgium for the second time: "Let us pass quickly through your country. We will make good every damage, and will not take away a square foot of your country! Do destroyers of liberty and Huns and vandals, or whatever other defamatory names your English papers now heap upon us, who at the time of Beethoven and Schopenhauer formed the Areopagus of culture, conduct themselves in such a way? Does not one of your living spirits in England cry aloud at the reprehensible alliance which your Government has made over your heads with Russia and Japan? On the most shameful day in English history, on the day when Mongolian Japan gave the German people her ultimatum at the instigation of your politicians, on this, I repeat it, most shameful day in the entire English history, I believed that the great dead in Westminster Abbey would rise from their graves horrified at the shameful deed which their grandsons and great-grandsons imposed upon old England.
The Land of Shakespeare.
We Germans venerated the old England almost as a fatherland. We have recognized, understood, and studied Shakespeare, whom you, Bernard Shaw, so dislike, more than any other people, even more than the English nation itself. Lord Byron received more benefits from Goethe alone than from all of England put together. Newton, Darwin, and Adam Smith found in Germany their best supporters and interpreters. The dramatic writers of latter-day England, most worthy of mention, from Oscar Wilde to you, Galsworthy and Knoblauch, are recognized by us and their plays performed numberless times. We have always endeavored to understand the English character. "Nowhere did we feel so much at home as in Germany," all your compatriots will tell you who have been guests here.
In "gratitude" for this our merchants were persecuted for years by your merchants, because of a wild hatred for Germans, which, by the way, had a most disagreeable effect upon the races of other colors. In "gratitude," with but few exceptions which we will not forget, we are now abused and belittled by your press before all of Europe and America as if we were assassins, vagabonds, enemies of culture and murderers, far worse than the Russians. As thanks for that you have entered upon a war against us, for which even Sir Edward Grey could not at first give a good reason until the injury of Belgium neutrality luckily came to his assistance.
Our people are, therefore, now rightly embittered against England because through your groundless participation you have made more difficult the war against Russia and France, for which one alone, the Czar of Russia, bears the blame. But despite this great bitterness they would never approve the demolition of your country and your nation, because of their respect for your great past and your share in the development of culture in Europe. You, however, joined an alliance as a third great power, whose only purpose is our dissolution and destruction. Merely for reasons of justice and of moral courage a Pitt, a Burke, a Disraeli would have withdrawn their participation in such an alliance, which—Oh, heroic deed—falls upon the Germans by threes, no, by fours or fives. Your present-day statesmen, wholly unworthy of representing a people with your past and your inheritance, incite the Mongolians and blacks against us, your brother nation. They steal and permit our small and insufficiently protected colonies to be stolen and no not care a jot for all considerations of Europeans' culture and morals.
An Unnatural Russian Alliance.
England, once the home and the refuge for all free spirits from the days of the Inquisition, from Rousseau until Freiligrath and Karl Marx, England has allied herself with Russia—the prison and the horror of all friends of liberty! Hear ye, hear ye illustrious dead, who lived and struggled for the freedom and the greatest possible joy of mankind, and shake in your tombs with disgust and with horror! But you living ones, and you, Bernard Shaw, the foremost of all English artists, do everything in your power to break this terrible alliance and make it powerless for England. Much more lies in the balance for her than is understood by your present nearsighted politicians, who have in mind only the momentary advantages. The destruction of the German power is not the only thing in question here; no, it concerns a great part of civilized Europe in regard to the suspension of their hard-won political liberty; and England, the people of the Magna Charta, the first free Constitution, can never be a party to that. That is why we call to you, Bernard Shaw, in the name of Europe, and ask you for your voice in the struggle.
It is a splendid thing that this serious time has also aroused the poets, the thinkers and artists as political and diplomatic advisers, and we should not let ourselves be crowded out of this profession, for which, thanks to our minds, we are not less fitted than the high-brow Lords and Counts. Men of our guild from Thucydides and Herodotus to Petrarch and Rubens, and our Humboldt and your Beaconsfield have ever shown themselves to be good intermediaries and peace advocates. And that, believe me, Bernard Shaw, is of more importance to our people, as well as to our Kaiser, who for over twenty-five years has avoided war like a poison, than all other bloody laurels. Here's to a decent, honorable and "eternal" peace.
HERBERT EULENBERG.
British Authors Defend England's War
One of the most interesting documents brought forth about the war was issued Sept. 17 in London. It was signed by fifty-three of the leading British writers. Herewith are presented the text of their defense of England and their autograph signatures in facsimile.
The undersigned writers, comprising among them men of the most divergent political and social views, some of them having been for years ardent champions of good-will toward Germany, and many of them extreme advocates of peace, are nevertheless agreed that Great Britain could not without dishonor have refused to take part in the present war. No one can read the full diplomatic correspondence published in the "White Paper" without seeing that the British representatives were throughout laboring whole-heartedly to preserve the peace of Europe, and that their conciliatory efforts were cordially received by both France and Russia.
When these efforts failed Great Britain had still no direct quarrel with any power. She was eventually compelled to take up arms because, together with France, Germany, and Austria, she had solemnly pledged herself to maintain the neutrality of Belgium. As soon as danger to that neutrality arose she questioned both France and Germany as to their intentions. France immediately renewed her pledge not to violate Belgian neutrality; Germany refused to answer, and soon made all answer needless by her actions. Without even the pretense of a grievance against Belgium she made war on the weak and unoffending country she had undertaken to protect, and has since carried out her invasion with a calculated and ingenious ferocity which has raised questions other and no less grave than that of the willful disregard of treaties.
When Belgium in her dire need appealed to Great Britain to carry out her pledge, that country's course was clear. She had either to break faith, letting the sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nations count for nothing before the threat of naked force, or she had to fight. She did not hesitate, and we trust she will not lay down arms till Belgium's integrity is restored and her wrongs redressed.
The treaty with Belgium made our duty clear, but many of us feel that, even if Belgium had not been involved, it would have been impossible for Great Britain to stand aside while France was dragged into war and destroyed. To permit the ruin of France would be a crime against liberty and civilization. Even those of us who question the wisdom of a policy of Continental ententes or alliances refuse to see France struck down by a foul blow dealt in violation of a treaty.
We observe that various German apologists, official and semi-official, admit that their country had been false to its pledged word, and dwell almost with pride on the "frightfulness" of the examples by which it has sought to spread terror in Belgium, but they excuse all these proceedings by a strange and novel plea. German culture and civilization are so superior to those of other nations that all steps taken to assert them are more than justified, and the destiny of Germany to be the dominating force in Europe and the world is so manifest that ordinary rules of morality do not hold in her case, but actions are good or bad simply as they help or hinder the accomplishment of that destiny.
These views, inculcated upon the present generation of Germans by many celebrated historians and teachers, seem to us both dangerous and insane. Many of us have dear friends in Germany, many of us regard German culture with the highest respect and gratitude; but we cannot admit that any nation has the right by brute force to impose its culture upon other nations, nor that the iron military bureaucracy of Prussia represents a higher form of human society than the free Constitutions of Western Europe.
Whatever the world destiny of Germany may be, we in Great Britain are ourselves conscious of a destiny and a duty. That destiny and duty, alike for us and for all the English-speaking race, call upon us to uphold the rule of common justice between civilized peoples, to defend the rights of small nations, and to maintain the free and law-abiding ideals of Western Europe against the rule of "Blood and Iron" and the domination of the whole Continent by a military caste.
For these reasons and others the undersigned feel bound to support the cause of the Allies with all their strength, with a full conviction of its righteousness, and with a deep sense of its vital import to the future of the world.
WHO'S WHO AMONG THE SIGNERS.
WILLIAM ARCHER, dramatic critic and editor of Ibsen's works, author of "Life of Macready," "Real Conversations," "The Great Analysis," and (with Granville Barker) "A National Theatre."
H. GRANVILLE BARKER, actor, dramatist, and manager, shares with his wife management of the Kingsway Theatre, London; author of "The Voysey Inheritance," and (with Laurence Housman) "Prunella."
SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, creator of "Sentimental Tommy" and "Peter Pan," famous for his sympathetic studies of Scotch life and his fantastic comedies.
HILAIRE BELLOC, best known as a writer on history, politics, and economics; a recognized authority on the French Revolution.
ARNOLD BENNETT, author of many popular realistic studies of English provincial life, including "Clayhanger" and "Hilda Lessways."
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, chiefly known for "From a College Window," "Beside Still Waters," and other volumes of essays.
EDWARD FREDERIC BENSON, brother of the preceding, author of many novels of modern life, including "Dodo."
VERY REV. MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BENSON, the youngest of the three famous Benson brothers. Besides numerous devotional and theological works, Monsignor Benson has written several widely appreciated historical novels.
LAWRENCE BINYON, author of many lyrics and poetic dramas, Assistant Keeper in the British Museum, in charge of Oriental Prints and Drawings.
ANDREW CECIL BRADLEY, critic, sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, author of a standard work on Shakespeare.
ROBERT BRIDGES, Poet-Laureate. Prominent as a physician before his poetry brought him the high honor he now enjoys.
HALL CAINE, one of the most popular of contemporary novelists.
R.C. CARTON, dramatist, author of "Lord and Lady Algy" and "A White Elephant."
CHARLES HADDON CHAMBERS, dramatist, author of "John a Dreams," part author of "The Fatal Card."
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON, essayist, novelist, poet; defender of orthodox thought by unorthodox methods.
HUBERT HENRY DAVIES, dramatist, author of "The Mollusc" and "A Single Man."
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, creator of "Sherlock Holmes."
HERBERT ALBERT LAURENS FISHER, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University, author of "The Mediaeval Empire," "Napoleon Bonaparte," and other historical works.
JOHN GALSWORTHY, a novelist and dramatist who has come into great prominence during the last five years, his plays, "Strife" and "Justice," and his novel, "The Dark Flower," being widely known.
ANSTEY GUTHRIE, (F. ANSTEY,) author of "The Brass Bottle," "The Talking Horse," and other fantastic and humorous tales.
SIR HENRY RIDER HAGGARD, author of many widely read romances, among them being "She."
THOMAS HARDY, generally considered to be the greatest living English novelist.
JANE ELLEN HARRISON, sometime Fellow and Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge University; writer of many standard works on classical religion, literature, and life.
ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS, (ANTHONY HOPE,) author of popular historical romance and sketches of modern society, including "The Prisoner of Zenda."
MAURICE HEWLETT, poet and romantic novelist, author of "Earthworks Out of Tuscany" and other mediaeval tales.
ROBERT HICHENS, novelist, author of "The Garden of Allah," "Bella Donna," and other stories.
JEROME K. JEROME, humorist, famous for "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" and the "Three Men" series, and for his play "The Passing of the Third Floor Back."
HENRY ARTHUR JONES, dramatist, author of "The Silver King," "The Hypocrites," and other plays.
RUDYARD KIPLING needs no introduction to people who read the English language.
WILLIAM J. LOCKE, author of "The Morals of Marcus," "Septimus," and "The Beloved Vagabond," which have been made into successful plays.
EDWARD VERRAL LUCAS, associate editor of Punch and editor of several popular anthologies, author of "A Wanderer in Holland."
JOHN WILLIAM MACKAIL, Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, author and editor of many volumes dealing with ancient Greek and Roman literature.
JOHN MASEFIELD, known chiefly for his long poems of life among the British poor.
ALFRED EDWARD WOODLEY MASON, writer of romantic novels, of which "The Four Feathers" and "The Turnstile" are perhaps the best known, and of several popular dramas.
GILBERT MURRAY, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University since 1908, editor and translator of Greek classics, perhaps the greatest Greek scholar now living.
HENRY NEWBOLT, "laureate of the British Navy," author of "Drake's Drum" and many other songs.
BARRY PAIN, author of "Eliza" and other novels and short stories of adventure, of many well-known parodies and poems.
SIR GILBERT PARKER, of Canadian birth, poet and author of romantic novels, including "The Judgment House," and "The Right of Way."
EDEN PHILLPOTTS, realistic novelist, noted for his exact portraits of the English rustic, author of "Down Dartmoor Way."
SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO, one of the most popular of living dramatists. His plays include "Sweet Lavender" and "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray."
SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University, poet, novelist, and writer of short stories.
SIR OWEN SEAMAN, since 1906 editor of Punch, writer of parodies and light verse.
GEORGE R. SIMS, journalist, poet, and author of many popular dramas, including "The Lights of London," "Two Little Vagabonds," and "Harbour Lights."
MAY SINCLAIR, writer of novels dealing with modern moral problems, "The Divine Fire" and "The Combined Maze" being best known.
FLORA ANNIE STEEL, author of "Tales from the Punjab," "On the Face of the Waters," "A Prince of Dreamers," and other novels and short stories, most of which deal with life in India.
ALFRED SUTRO, dramatist, author of "The Walls of Jericho," "The Barrier," and other plays of modern society."
GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; author of "England Under the Stuarts," and other historical and biographical works.
RT. HON. GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, historian, biographer of Macaulay, and author of a four-volume work on the American Revolution.
HUMPHRY WARD, journalist and author, sometime Fellow of Brasenose College, editor of several biographical and historical works.
MARY A. WARD, (Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD,) best known of contemporary women novelists; her first success was "Robert Elsmere."
H.G. WELLS, novelist, author of "Tono Bungay" and "Ann Veronica."
MARGARET L. WOODS, poet; her "Wild Justice" and "The Invader" have placed her in the front rank.
ISRAEL ZANGWILL, novelist, poet, dramatist, interpreter of the modern Jewish spirit.
The Fourth of August—Europe at War
By H.G. Wells.
Copyright, 1914, by The New York Times Company.
Europe is at war!
The monstrous vanity that was begotten by the easy victories of '70 and '71 has challenged the world, and Germany prepares to reap the harvest Bismarck sowed. That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe, that has arrested civilization and darkened the hopes of mankind for forty years. German imperialism, German militarism, has struck its inevitable blow. The victory of Germany will mean the permanent enthronement of the War God over all human affairs. The defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth.
To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present conflict than the defeat, the utter discrediting of the German legend, the ending for good and all of the blood and iron superstition, of Krupp, flag-wagging Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal, sham efficiency that centres in Berlin. Never was war so righteous as war against Germany now. Never has any State in the world so clamored for punishment.
But be it remembered that Europe's quarrel is with the German State, not with the German people; with a system, and not with a race. The older tradition of Germany is a pacific and civilizing tradition. The temperament of the mass of German people is kindly, sane, and amiable. Disaster to the German Army, if it is unaccompanied by any such memorable wrong as dismemberment or intolerable indignity, will mean the restoration of the greatest people in Europe to the fellowship of Western nations. The role of England in this huge struggle is plain as daylight. We have to fight. If only on account of the Luxemburg outrage, we have to fight. If we do not fight, England will cease to be a country to be proud of; it will be a dirt-bath to escape from. But it is inconceivable that we should not fight. And having fought, then in the hour of victory it will be for us to save the liberated Germans from vindictive treatment, to secure for this great people their right, as one united German-speaking State, to a place in the sun.
First we have to save ourselves and Europe, and then we have to stand between German on the one hand and the Cossack and revenge on the other.
For my own part, I do not doubt that Germany and Austria are doomed to defeat in this war. It may not be catastrophic defeat, though even that is possible, but it is defeat. There is no destiny in the stars and every sign is false if this is not so.
They have provoked an overwhelming combination of enemies. They have underrated France. They are hampered by a bad social and military tradition. The German is not naturally a good soldier; he is orderly and obedient, but he is not nimble nor quick-witted; since his sole considerable military achievement, his not very lengthy march to Paris in '70 and '71, the conditions of modern warfare have been almost completely revolutionized and in a direction that subordinates the massed fighting of unintelligent men to the rapid initiative of individualized soldiers. And, on the other hand, since those years of disaster, the Frenchman has learned the lesson of humility; he is prepared now sombrely for a sombre struggle; his is the gravity that precedes astonishing victories. In the air, in the open field, with guns and machines, it is doubtful if any one fully realizes the superiority of his quality to the German. This sudden attack may take him aback for a week or so, though I doubt even that, but in the end I think he will hold his own; even without us he will hold his own, and with us then I venture to prophesy that within three months from now his tricolor will be over the Rhine. And even suppose his line gets broken by the first rush. Even then I do not see how the Germans are to get to Paris or anywhere near Paris. I do not see how against the strength of the modern defensive and the stinging power of an intelligent enemy in retreat, of which we had a little foretaste in South Africa, the exploit of Sedan can be repeated. A retiring German army, on the other hand, will be far less formidable than a retiring French army, because it has less "devil" in it, because it is made up of men taught to obey in masses, because its intelligence is concentrated in its aristocratic officers, because it is dismayed when it breaks ranks. The German Army is everything the conscriptionists dreamed of making our people; it is, in fact, an army about twenty years behind the requirements of contemporary conditions.
On the eastern frontier the issue is more doubtful because of the uncertainty of Russian things. The peculiar military strength of Russia, a strength it was not able to display in Manchuria, lies in its vast resources of mounted men. A set invasion of Prussia may be a matter of many weeks, but the raiding possibilities in Eastern Germany are enormous. It is difficult to guess how far the Russian attack will be guided by intelligence, and how far Russia will blunder, but Russia will have to blunder very disastrously indeed before she can be put upon the defensive. A Russian raid is far more likely to threaten Berlin than a German to reach Paris.
Meanwhile there is the struggle on the sea. In that I am prepared for some rude shocks. The Germans have devoted an amount of energy to the creation of an aggressive navy that would have been spent more wisely in consolidating their European position. It is probably a thoroughly good navy and ship for ship the equal of our own. But the same lack of invention, the same relative uncreativeness that has kept the German behind the Frenchman in things aerial has made him, regardless of his shallow seas, follow our lead in naval matters, and if we have erred, and I believe we have erred, in overrating the importance of the big battleship, the German has at least very obligingly fallen in with our error. The safest, most effective place for the German fleet at the present time is the Baltic Sea. On this side of the Kiel Canal, unless I overrate the powers of the waterplane, there is no safe harbor for it. If it goes into port anywhere that port can be ruined, and the bottled-up ships can be destroyed at leisure by aerial bombs. So that if they are on this side of the Kiel Canal they must keep the sea and fight, if we let them, before their coal runs short. Battle in the open sea in this case is their only chance. They will fight against odds, and with every prospect of a smashing, albeit we shall certainly have to pay for that victory in ships and men. In the Baltic we shall not be able to get at them without the participation of Denmark, and they may have a considerable use against Russia. But in the end even there mine and aeroplane and destroyer should do their work.
So I reckon that Germany will be held east and west, and that she will get her fleet practically destroyed. We ought also to be able to sweep her shipping off the seas, and lower her flag forever in Africa and Asia and the Pacific. All the probabilities, it seems to me, point to that. There is no reason why Italy should not stick to her present neutrality, and there is considerable inducement close at hand for both Denmark and Japan to join in, directly they are convinced of the failure of the first big rush on the part of Germany. All these issues will be more or less definitely decided within the next two or three months. By that time I believe German imperialism will be shattered, and it may be possible to anticipate the end of the armaments phase of European history. France, Italy, England, and all the smaller powers of Europe are now pacific countries; Russia, after this huge war, will be too exhausted for further adventure; a shattered Germany will be a revolutionary Germany, as sick of uniforms and the imperialist idea as France was in 1871, as disillusioned about predominance as Bulgaria is today. The way will be open at last for all these western powers to organize peace. That is why I, with my declared horror of war, have not signed any of these "stop-the-war" appeals and declarations that have appeared in the last few days. Every sword that is drawn against Germany now is a sword drawn for peace.