CHAPTER VII
INTERNATIONAL ILL-WILL
In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to consider the series of events which immediately preceded the recent outbreak of war. But the most complete account of moves and counter-moves, and of all the pretexts, arguments, demands, and appeals which were put forward by the various governments concerned, with the object of forcing on, justifying, circumscribing, or preventing the present struggle, can never give us the true explanation of why it occurred. For this we must look much further back than Midsummer last, and at other things besides the correspondence between Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors.
Nobody in his senses believes that Europe is at present in a convulsion because the heir-presumptive to the throne of Austria was murdered at Serajevo on the 28th of June. This event was tragic and deplorable, but it was merely a spark—one of that cloud of sparks which is always issuing from the chimney-stack of the European furnace. This one by ill-luck happened to fall upon a heap of combustibles, and set it in a blaze.
Great events, as the Greeks discovered several thousand years ago, do not spring from small causes, though more often than not they have some trivial beginning. How came it that so much inflammable material was lying ready to catch fire?
To answer this question truthfully we need more knowledge of men and things than is given in those books, of varying hue, which the Chancelleries of Europe have published to explain their causes of action. The official sources provide much valuable information; but they will never explain to us why public opinion in Germany, ever since the beginning of the present century, has been inflamed with hatred against this country. Nor will they ever give us any clear idea as to what extent, and where, the practical aims and policies of that nation and our own were in conflict.
According to the state papers, it would appear that Russia was drawn into this war because of Servia, and France because of Russia, and Belgium because of France, and we ourselves because of Belgium; but it may well be doubted if even the first of this row of ninepins would have been allowed to fall, had it not been for the feelings which the German people and their rulers entertained towards Britain.
It is always hard for a man to believe in the sincerity, friendliness, and peaceful intentions of one against whom he is himself engaged in plotting an injury. German distrust of England was based upon the surest of all foundations—upon her own fixed and envious determination to overthrow our empire and rob us of our property. Her own mind being filled with this ambition, how could she be otherwise than incredulous of our expressions of goodwill? How could she conceive that we were so blind as not to have penetrated her thoughts, so deaf as not to have heard the threats which her public characters were proclaiming so openly? Consequently when British Statesmen uttered amiable assurances they were judged guilty of a treacherous dissimulation.... One can only shrug one's shoulders, marvelling at the nightmares and suspicions which a bad conscience is capable of producing even among intelligent people.
THE DANGER POINT
It has been the fashion for half a century or more to talk of the Balkans as the danger-point of European peace. In a sense this is true. The crust is very thin in that region, and violent eruptions are of common occurrence. But the real danger of upheaval comes, not so much from the thinness of the crust, as from the violence of the subterranean forces. Of these, by far the most formidable in recent times have been the attitude of public opinion in Germany towards England—the hatred of England which has been sedulously and systematically inculcated among the people of all ranks—the suspicions of our policy which have been sown broadcast—the envy of our position in the world which has been instilled, without remission, by all and sundry the agencies and individuals subject to the orders and inspiration of government. An obsession has been created, by these means, which has distorted the whole field of German vision. National ill-will accordingly has refused to yield to any persuasion. Like its contrary, the passion of love, it has burned all the more fiercely, being unrequited.