In spite of all this preliminary discoursing which had been going on for many years past, like artillery preparation before an infantry attack—about world-power, will-to-power, and all the rest of it—nothing is more remarkable than the contrast presented, immediately after war broke out, between the blatancy of those writers who had caused the war and the bleating of those (in many cases the same) who sought to justify Germany's part in it to their countrymen and the world.
On the enlightened principles of Treitschke and Bernhardi, Britain would have acted not only wisely, but in the strictest accordance with her duty to her own state, had she indeed contrived and compassed this war, believing circumstances to be favourable for herself and unfavourable for Germany. Not another shred of right or reason was required.[[14]] But when war actually burst out, all these new-fangled doctrines went by the board. Though the ink was hardly dry upon Bernhardi's latest exhortation—of which several hundred thousand copies had been sold, and in which he urged his fellow-countrymen to watch their time and make war when it suited them, without remorse and no matter on what plea—in spite of this fact, there was a singular lack of Stoicism among 'the brethren' when war was declared against Russia and France. When Britain joined in, and when things began to go less well than had been expected, Stoicism entirely disappeared. Indeed there is something highly ludicrous, at the same time painful—like all spectacles of human abasement—in the chorus of whines and shrill execration, which at once went up to heaven from that very pedantocracy whose leaders, so short a time before, had been preaching that, as between the nations of the earth, Might is Right, and Craft is the trusty servant of Might.[[15]]
APOSTASY WHEN WAR CAME
These scolding fakirs were of an infinite credulity, inasmuch as they believed that Sir Edward Grey was the reincarnation of Machiavelli. Yet on their own principles, what was there in this discovery to be in the least shocked at? British statesmen (it is hardly necessary to repeat it) had not walked in the footsteps of the Florentine; had not provoked the war; had not wished for it; had tried with all their might to prevent it; but if they had done the very reverse, would they not merely have been taking a leaf out of the sacred book of the pedantocracy—out of Bernhardi's book, out of Nietzsche's book, out of Treitschke's book? Why, then, all these unpleasant howlings and ravings?
The answers are not hard to find. The careful plans and theories of the German bureaucrats had been turned topsy-turvy because England had joined in the war when, according to the calculations of the augurs, she should have remained neutral. That mistake must have been sufficiently annoying in itself to disturb the equanimity even of professional philosophers. And further, in spite of all the ingenious, eloquent, and sophistical exhortations of the prophets, the old morality still kept its hold upon the hearts of men. When trouble arose they turned to it instinctively—priesthood as well as people—and the later gospel fell flat like a house of cards. Immediately war came there was an appeal to old-fashioned justice, and the altars of the little, new-fangled, will-to-power gods were deserted by their worshippers.
When statesmen are laying out policies, and moralists are setting up systems, it is worth their while to make certain that they are not, in fact, engaged upon an attempt to make water flow uphill; above all, that their ingenious new aqueducts will actually hold water, which in this instance they certainly did not.
[[1]] Heinrich von Treitschke, son of a Saxon general of Bohemian-Slavonic origin; born at Dresden 1834. Deafness following upon a fever in childhood prevented him from adopting the profession of arms; 1858-1863 lectured on history at Leipzig; 1863-1866 professor at Freiburg; 1866-1874 professor at Heidelberg; 1874 until his death in 1896 professor of history and politics at Berlin.
[[2]] "Thus it follows from this, that we must distinguish between public and private morality. The order of rank of the various duties must necessarily be for the State, as it is power, quite other than for individual men. A whole series of these duties, which are obligatory on the individual, are not to be thought of in any case for the State. To maintain itself counts for it always as the highest commandment; that is absolutely moral for it. And on that account we must declare that of all political sins that of weakness is the most reprehensible and the most contemptible; it is in politics the sin against the Holy Ghost...."—Selections, p. 32.
[[3]] "That must not hinder us from declaring joyfully that the gifted Florentine, with all the vast consequence of his thinking, was the first to set in the centre of all politics the great thought: The State is power. For that is the truth; and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face ought to keep his hands off politics."—Ibid. p. 28.
[[4]] "... to the historian who lives in the world of will it is immediately clear that the demand for a perpetual peace is thoroughly reactionary; he sees that with war all movement, all growth, must be struck out of history. It has always been the tired, unintelligent, and enervated periods that have played with the dream of perpetual peace...."—Selections, p. 25.