The Pilgrim's Progress.
CHAPTER I
A REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
(January 1901-July 1914)
It is not true to say that this is a war between the rival principles of democracy and autocracy. A too great absorption in our own particular sector of the situation has led certain writers to put forward, as a general explanation, this formula which is not only inadequate, but misleading. The real issue is something wider and deeper than a struggle between forms of government. It is concerned with the groundwork of human beliefs.
And yet it is unquestionably true to say, that by reason of Germany's procedure, this war is being waged against democracy—not perhaps by intention, but certainly in effect. For if the Allies should be defeated, or even if they should fail to conquer their present enemies, the result must necessarily be wounding to the credit of popular institutions all the world over, fatal to their existence in Europe at any rate, fatal conceivably at no long distance of time to their existence elsewhere than in Europe. For mankind, we may be sure, is not going to put up with any kind of government merely because it is ideally beautiful. No system will be tolerated indefinitely which does not enable the people who live under it to protect themselves from their enemies. The instinct of self-preservation will drive them to seek for some other political arrangement which is competent, in the present imperfect condition of the world, to provide the first essential of a state, which is Security.
But although the whole fabric of democracy is threatened by this war, the principle of autocracy is not challenged by it either directly or indirectly. France and England are not fighting against personal monarchy any more than Russia is fighting against popular government. So far as the forms of constitutions are concerned each of the Allies would be well content to live and let live. They are none of them spurred on by propagandist illusions like the armies of the First Republic. Among Russians, devotion to their own institutions, and attachment to the person of their Emperor are inspired not merely by dictates of political expediency and patriotism, but also by their sense of religious duty.[[1]] It is inconceivable that the national spirit of Russia could ever have been roused to universal enthusiasm merely in order to fight the battles of democracy. And yet Russia is now ranged side by side with the French Republic and the British Commonwealth in perfect unison. What has induced her to submit to sacrifices—less indeed than those of Belgium, but equal to those of France, and much greater so far than our own—unless some issue was at stake wider and deeper even than the future of popular government?
The instincts of a people are vague and obscure. The reasons which are put forward, the motives which appear upon the surface, the provocations which lead to action, the immediate ends which are sought after and pursued, rarely explain the true causes or proportions of any great national struggle. But for all that, the main issue, as a rule, is realised by the masses who are engaged, although it is not realised through the medium of coherent argument or articulate speech.
The present war is a fight, not between democracy and autocracy, but between the modern spirit of Germany and the unchanging spirit of civilisation. And it is well to bear in mind that the second of these is not invincible. It has suffered defeat before now, at various epochs in the world's history, when attacked by the same forces which assail it to-day. Barbarism is not any the less barbarism because it employs weapons of precision, because it avails itself of the discoveries of science and the mechanism of finance, or because it thinks it worth while to hire bands of learned men to shriek pæans in its praise and invectives against its victims. Barbarism is not any the less barbarism because its methods are up to date. It is known for what it is by the ends which it pursues and the spirit in which it pursues them.