If we search carefully, we shall find every where underlying the great struggles recorded in past history, no less than those which have occurred, and are now occurring, in our own time, an antagonism of one kind or another between two systems, visions, or ideals, which in some particular were fundamentally opposed and could not be reconciled. State papers and the memoranda of diplomatists, when in due course they come to light, are not a little apt to confuse the real issues, by setting forth a diary of minor incidents and piquant details, not in their true proportions, but as they appeared at the moment of their occurrence to the eyes of harassed and suspicious officials. But even so, all the emptying of desks and pigeon-holes since the great American Civil War, has not been able to cover up the essential fact, that in this case a million lives were sacrificed by one of the most intelligent, humane, and practical nations upon earth, and for no other cause than that there was an irreconcilable difference amongst them, with regard to what St. Paul has called 'the substance of things hoped for.' On the one side there was an ideal of Union and a determination to make it prevail: on the other side there was an ideal of Independence and an equal determination to defend it whatsoever might be the cost. If war on such grounds be possible within the confines of a single nation, nurtured in the same traditions, and born to a large extent of the same stock, how futile is the assurance that economic and material considerations will suffice to make war impossible between nations, who have not even the tie of a common mother-tongue!
A collision may occur, as we know only too well, even although one of two vessels be at anchor, if it happens to lie athwart the course of the other. It was therefore no security against war that British policy did not aim at any aggrandisement or seek for any territorial expansion. The essential questions were—had we possessions which appeared to obstruct the national aspirations and ideals of others; and did these others believe that alone, or in alliance, they had the power to redress the balance?
The real difficulty which besets the philanthropist in his endeavour to exorcise the spirit of war is caused, not by the vices of this spirit, but by its virtues. In so far as it springs from vainglory or cupidity, it is comparatively easy to deal with. In so far as it is base, there is room for a bargain. It can be compounded with and bought off, as we have seen before now, with some kind of material currency. It will not stand out for very long against promises of prosperity and threats of dearth. But where, as at most crises, this spirit is not base, where its impulse is not less noble, but more noble than those which influence men day by day in the conduct of their worldly affairs, where the contrast which presents itself to their imagination is between duty on the one hand and gain on the other, between self-sacrifice and self-interest, between their country's need and their own ease, it is not possible to quench the fires by appeals proceeding from a lower plane. The philanthropist, if he is to succeed, must take still higher ground, and higher ground than this it is not a very simple matter to discover.
[[1]] The increase and acceleration of German shipbuilding was discovered by the British Government in the autumn of 1908, and led to the Imperial Defence Conference in the summer of the following year.
CHAPTER II
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
When war came, it came suddenly. A man who had happened to fall sick of a fever on St. Swithin's day 1914, but was so far on the way to convalescence four weeks later as to desire news of the outside world, must have been altogether incredulous of the tidings which first greeted his ears.
When he fell ill the nations were at peace. The townspeople of Europe were in a holiday humour, packing their trunks and portmanteaus for 'land travel or sea-faring.' The country people were getting in their harvest or looking forward hopefully to the vintage. Business was prosperous. Credit was good. Money, in banking phraseology, was 'cheap.' The horror of the Serajevo assassinations had already faded almost into oblivion. At the worst this sensational event was only an affair of police. Such real anxiety as existed in the United Kingdom had reference to Ireland.
We can imagine the invalid's first feeble question on public affairs:—'What has happened in Ulster?'—The answer, 'Nothing has happened in Ulster.'—The sigh of relief with which he sinks back on his pillows.