XVII
THE PENALTY
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed.
Othello.
It would be distinctly a work of supererogation for me to attempt to tell the story of the Anglo-German war—of all modern wars the most remarkable in some ways, and certainly the war which has been most exhaustively treated by modern historians. A. Low says in the concluding chapter of his fine history:
"Putting aside the fighting in South Africa, and after the initial destruction of both the German Navy and its Army in England (as effective forces), we must revert to the wars of more than a century ago to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There can be no doubt that at the time of the invasion of England Germany's effective fighting strength was enormous. Its growth had been very rapid; its decline must be dated from General von Füchter's occupation of London on Black Saturday.
"At that moment everything appeared to bode well for the realization of the Emperor's ambition to be Dictator of Europe, as the ruler of by far the greatest Power in the Old World. From that moment the German people, but more particularly the German official and governing class, and her naval and military men, would appear to have imbibed of some distillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and found it too heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of slower growth. Certain it is, that before ever an English shot was fired the fighting strength of Germany waned rapidly from the period of the invasion. By some writers this has been attributed to the insidious spread of Socialism. But it must be remembered that the deterioration was far more notable in the higher than in the lower walks of life; and most of all it was notable among the naval and military official nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the divine privileges of ancient pedigrees.
"When the German army of occupation in England was disarmed, prisoners in barracks and camps, and the German Navy had, to all intents and purposes, been destroyed, the Imperial German Government adopted the extraordinary course of simply defying England to strike further blows. Germany practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were ever landed in South Africa, and the German troops already engaged there had no other choice than to continue fighting, though left entirely without Imperial backing), but emphatically refused to consider the extremely moderate terms offered by Britain, which, at that time, did not even include an indemnity. But this extraordinary policy was not so purely callous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things in this world, it had its different component parts. There was the cynical arrogance of the Prussian Court upon the one side; but upon the other side there was the ominous disaffection of the lesser German States, and the rampant, angry Socialism of the lower and middle classes throughout the Empire, which had become steadily more and more virulent from the time of the reactionary elections of the early part of 1907, in which the Socialists felt that they had been tricked by the Court party. In reality Germany had two mouthpieces. The Court defied Britain; the people refused to back that defiance with action."
For a brief summary of the causes leading up to the strange half-year which followed our receipt of the American offer of assistance, I think we have nothing more lucid than this passage of Low's important work. That the forces at work in Germany, which he described from the vantage-point of a later date, were pretty clearly understood, even at that time, by our Government, is proved, I think, by the tactics we adopted throughout that troublous period.
In South Africa our troops, though amply strong, never adopted an aggressive line. They defended our frontiers, and that defence led to some heavy fighting. But, after the first outbreak of hostilities, our men never carried the war into the enemy's camp. There was a considerable party in the House of Commons which favoured an actively aggressive policy in the matter of seizing the Mediterranean strongholds ceded to Germany at the time of the invasion. It was even suggested that we should land a great Citizen army in Germany and enforce our demands at the point of the sword.