In due course, as was inevitable, the “Great War” came. During the latter part of 1913 Great Britain had been inclined to favour Russia’s Balkan policy. This suited France, and so the sides were set. Throughout the war, the British Empire, save for a brief and disastrous experiment at Gallipoli, continued to be without an Eastern policy. The greatest Mohammedan Power in the world allowed itself to be swayed by French and Russian counsels, and the heritage handed down and perfected by Warren Hastings, Clive, and Canning was left to the mercy of events. No Frenchman, however gifted, can grasp the scope and mission of the British Empire; to the Pan-Slavs who directed Russia’s foreign policy, our far-flung supremacy in the East was an object of envy and a stumbling block.
Although the Balkan States, while they remained neutral, were courted assiduously by the Allied Powers, they were still looked upon as pawns. A policy which can only be described as unprincipled was pursued. British prestige became the tool of French and Russian intrigue, and Great Britain’s reputation for tenacity, justice and fair play was jeopardized.
Rumania, once she became our ally, was treated as a dependency of Russia, although the most superficial student of the past history of these two States could have foreseen her fate. But she, like Servia and Greece, was only a little country and counted as small dust in the balance. She could be over-run and devastated, once she had played her part; that was a little country’s lot. The frame of mind which, subconsciously perhaps, possessed the French and British Governments was not so unlike that of the actively vicious autocratic Empires; they, too, relied on experts and officials, to whom Small States and helpless peoples were negligible factors, who respected only force and wealth, who viewed human affairs exclusively from those standpoints, and, wrapped in a mantle of self-satisfaction, as ignorant of psychology as of true statesmanship, could not perceive the portents of the times.
It is possible that historians of the future will select three events as the outstanding features of the “Great World War”: the participation of the United States of America, the Russian Revolution, and the collapse of the German Military System. The first of these was, undoubtedly, an expression of idealism. Cynics may say that America was influenced by self-interest, but they invariably judge humanity by their own worldly standards. The “plain people” of America were inspired by nobler sentiments; the measure of their sincerity in the cause of liberty is their present disillusionment, caused by the failure of democratic Governments to make a democratic peace. The intervention of America undoubtedly ensured and accelerated the final triumph of the Allies; but it did more than that, it solidarized democracy for a brief period, and demonstrated the willingness of free people to sacrifice their lives and money for an unworldly cause. It was, to a great extent, an Anglo-Saxon movement, and opened up, till then, undreamt of vistas; it was a light which, although a transient gleam, lit up the way for the regeneration of the world.
The Russian Revolution was the outcome of misgovernment by a corrupt bureaucracy, and the passionate desire of an exhausted, suffering population for a return to peace. Misconceived by the rest of Europe and misdirected by Kerensky, it degenerated into civil war; yet it did prove that even the most down-trodden people possess the power and instinct of self-liberation.
The collapse of the German Military System removed a formidable barrier to human progress. Its efficiency, as an administrative and national institution, had seemed to justify the glorification of the State at the expense of individual freedom; a dangerous example had been set which militarists in every land took as a model and a guide. Had Germany been ruled by statesmen, this odious system might have gained a further lease of life; by a fortunate fatality it became the instrument of its own destruction, it was the sword on which Old Europe fell, its very excellence caused that finely tempered blade to last until it broke into a thousand pieces, thereby providing a conclusive revelation of the futility of force.
Events so portentous should have influenced the minds of delegates who were worthy of the name of statesmen, when they met to make the Peace at Paris. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The same frame of mind permeated the Conference as that which had existed before and throughout the war. Small States and peoples everywhere were sacrificed to the interests of the greater victorious Powers, whose spokesmen were the representatives and members of a propertied and privileged class. Two fears were ever present in their minds: Germany, the monster python State, had committed suicide, and thus had brought them victory, but this victory was so sudden and unexpected that they could hardly understand its meaning. They imagined that following on it would come a swift reaction, that the old system would revive; in fact, they half hoped that it would, it conjured up less disturbing visions than this revolt of a warlike, disciplined people, this abrupt transition from the old order to the new. Even victory had lost its savour; it seemed to them a source of danger that the most evil Government should fall, and so they set to work to recreate the bogy of German militarism with propaganda’s artful aid. The other bogy was the dread that a communistic experiment might succeed in Russia. Rather than let that happen, they were one and all prepared to wage another war.
Either from vanity or jealousy, the four heads of the Governments of the Allied and Associated States appointed themselves as principal delegates at the Conference, in spite of the fact that their presence was essential in their respective countries, where a host of measures dealing with social legislation were already long overdue. Further, their incompetence and unsuitability for the task before them were manifest, and yet, beyond their decisions, there could be no appeal. Each of the Big Four had, at one time or another, reached place and power as a tribune of the people, but when they met in Paris they had undergone a change. Mr. Lloyd George had sold his soul for a mess of pottage, in the shape of a Parliamentary majority secured by truckling to reactionaries and the vulgar clamour of the Jingo Press. Mr. Wilson failed to make good his eloquent professions as an apostle of democracy; he succumbed to the atmosphere of Paris, and only succeeded in irritating Italy without establishing the principles for which he was supposed to stand. With two such men in charge of Anglo-Saxon policy, the triumph of M. Clemenceau[49] was not left long in doubt. He could count in advance on the support of capitalist elements in Great Britain and the United States; and thus, the power and wealth of the British Empire and America were used by an aged Frenchman as a stick to beat helpless, starving peoples and to slake a Latin craving for revenge. A shameful rôle, indeed, for a race which has never known ultimate defeat and has always been magnanimous in the hour of victory.
Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson took back to their respective countries a settlement of European questions of which no sensible English-speaking citizen could possibly approve. It was at best a liquidation of the war and marked an intermediate phase. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, as an administrative and economic unit, has been destroyed, but no serious attempt was made to put anything practical in its place; Eastern and Central Europe have been Balkanized, and in the Balkans the evils of the Treaty of Bucharest have been consummated; frontiers and disabilities have been imposed upon the German people which have aroused a widespread irredentism and cannot be maintained; the policy of intervention against the Soviet Government in Russia has been immoral and inept, while the vacillation in regard to Turkey cannot fail to have serious repercussion throughout the whole Mohammedan world.
A state of moral anarchy has been created, both in the conquered and victorious States. In France, sane opinion is unable to control the activities of roving generals obsessed with the Napoleonic legend; in the United States the general tendency is to leave Europe to its fate, but disgust with European diplomatic methods has not prevented certain forms of imitation; in Great Britain, irresponsible politicians have brought discredit on our Parliamentary system, the House of Commons does not represent the more serious elements in the country, labour is restless and dissatisfied, and even moderate men are tempted to resort to unconstitutional methods, to “direct action,” as the only means of obtaining recognition for the workers’ reasonable demands.