Much of this is now admitted more or less frankly, but justification is pleaded, in that it was essential to lead the country cautiously, and that the Government could do nothing unless it had the people behind it. In these sayings there is a measure of truth. But as a matter of fact the country was not led at all. It was trapped. Never was there the slightest effort made by any member of the Government to educate the people with regard to the national dangers, responsibilities, and duties. When the crisis occurred the hand of the whole British Empire was forced. There was no other way; but it was a bad way. And what was infinitely worse, was the fact that, when war was declared—that war which had been discussed at so many Cabinet meetings since 1906—military preparations were found to be utterly inadequate in numbers; and in many things other than numbers. The politician is right in thinking that, as a rule, it is to his advantage if the people are behind him; but there are times when we can imagine him praying that they may not be too close.
We have been given to understand that it was impossible for the Government to acknowledge their policy frankly, to face the consequences, and to insist upon the necessary preparations in men and material being granted. It was impossible, because to have done so would have broken the Liberal party—that great instrument for good—in twain. The Cabinet would have fallen in ruin. The careers of its most distinguished members would have been cut short. Consider what sacrifices would have been contained in this catalogue of disasters.
That is really what we are now beginning to consider, and are likely to consider more and more as time goes on.
VALUE OF SELF-SACRIFICE
A great act of self-sacrifice—a man's, or a party's—may sometimes make heedless people realise the presence of danger when nothing else will. Suppose Mr. Asquith had said, "I will only continue to hold office on one condition," and had named the condition—'that armaments should correspond to policy'—the only means of safety. He might thereupon have disappeared into the chasm; but like Curtius he might have saved the City. It would have made a great impression, Mr. Asquith falling from office for his principles. Those passages of Periclean spoken after war broke out, about the crime of Germany against humanity—about sacrificing our own ease—about duty, honour, freedom, and the like—were wonderfully moving. Would there, however, have been occasion for them, if in the orator's own case, the sacrifice had been made before the event instead of after it, or if he had faithfully performed the simplest and chief of all the duties attaching to his great position?
The present war, as many of us thought, and still think, was not inevitable. None have maintained this opinion in the past with greater vehemence than the Liberal party. But the conditions on which it could have been avoided were, that England should have been prepared, which she was not; and that she should have spoken her intentions clearly, which she did not.
THE PRICE PAID
When the war is ended, or when the tide of it has turned and begun to sweep eastward, there will be much coming and going of the older people, and of women, both young and old, between England and France. They have waited, and what is it that they will then be setting forth to see? ... From Mons to the Marne, and back again to Ypres, heaps of earth, big and little, shapeless, nameless, numberless—the graves of men who did not hesitate to sacrifice either their careers or their lives when duty called them. Desolation is the heaviest sacrifice of all; and those who will, by and by, go on this pilgrimage have suffered it, ungrudgingly and with pride, because their country needed it. If this war was indeed inevitable there is no more to be said. But what if it was not inevitable? What if there would have been no war at all—or a less lingering and murderous war—supposing that those, who from the trust reposed in them by their fellow-countrymen should have been the first to sacrifice their careers to duty, had not chosen instead to sacrifice duty to their careers? It was no doubt a service to humanity to save the careers of politicians from extinction, to keep ministers in office from year to year, to preserve the Liberal party—that great instrument for good—unfractured. These benefits were worth a great price; but were they worth quite so great a price as has been paid?
[[1]] The Editor of the Westminster Gazette should be an unimpeachable witness: "The (German) Emperor's visit to Tangier (March 1905) was followed by a highly perilous passage of diplomacy, in which the German Government appeared to be taking risks out of all proportion to any interest they could have had in Morocco. The French sacrificed their Foreign Minister (M. Delcasse) in order to keep the peace, but the Germans were not appeased, and the pressure continued. It was the general belief at this time, that nothing but the support which the British government gave to the French averted a catastrophe in the early part of 1906, or induced the Germans to accept the Algeciras conference as the way out of a dangerous situation."—The Foundations of British Policy (p. 15), by J. A. Spender.
[[2]] The Cawdor Programme.