The Problem of Foreign Policy / A Consideration of Present Dangers and the Best Methods for Meeting Them

by Gilbert Murray

Take the blockade of Germany. It was a slow and somewhat cruel weapon to employ, falling most severely on the most innocent classes. But Germany was trying to blockade us, and only our superior strength and skill at sea caused her plan to fail. It was part of the normal means of war, and of course we used it.

Then came an extension of it. Poland, most unhappy of European nations, was swept by alternate armies, conquered by the Germans, devastated and laid bare. The Poles were our allies. Our newspapers had accounts of the appalling distress in Poland—the roads strewn with skeletons, the almost complete blotting-out of children under seven, and the like. The Americans proposed to send food for the relief of the Poles. But we made objection. We did not allow food to go into Poland, to save our own allies, who were starving. Why? Because the Germans were still taking from the miserable country all the food they could wring out of it. And if the Americans brought in more food, undoubtedly the enemy would take more. There was no choice. We had to refuse the entry of the food ships. But the man who had to sign that order may well have wished he had died before the need came to him.

These results and necessities of war, though I have chosen none of a sensational kind, are very horrible. It is not easy to think of actions much more horrible. But they are not exactly crimes, they are not marks of degradation in those who order them, because they are done under the compulsion of war. The alternative in each case is something equivalent to helping the enemy.

At the end of the war, after the signing of an armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points, there came at last a moment of free choice. It came after five years of unspeakable waste—five years during which the nations of Europe had become habituated to cruelty and "all pity choked with custom of fell deeds." I am anxious to avoid the faintest semblance of heat or exaggeration, but I think it can hardly be disputed that practically every economist agreed that Europe was on the brink of economic ruin and could only be saved by a quick revival of trade; every man of conscience, irrespective of political party, knew that the first condition for the recovery of civilization was a change from the war mind to the peace mind. Such a change could not happen in a night. It must needs be gradual. It could only be brought about by a strong and persistent lead from those who possessed the ear of the world and the confidence of their own people. Never in the whole course of modern history has there been a more magnificent opportunity than then lay before the British Prime Minister, never has there been a clearer call of plain duty. He was free, as men in public life are seldom free. Great Britain hung on his lips, and Europe was waiting for the lead of Great Britain. It was for him to choose plain good or plain evil. And he chose, deliberately, evil. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country in a General Election on a programme of frantic war passion, coupled with promises which he knew to be false, and which were ridiculed by every educated man among his surroundings. This man had before him a task and an opportunity so glorious that one can scarcely speak of it except in the language of religion. Many ordinary men would willingly give their lives if they could save their fellow creatures from sufferings and perils far less terrible than those which then threatened. And he could have saved them without any sacrifice. It needed only a little courage. For a week or ten days he hesitated. Then on December 11 he proclaimed his programme: the Kaiser's head; the punishment of enemy war-criminals; Germany to pay the whole cost of the war; Britain for the British; rehabilitation of those whom the war had broken.

At the time when this programme was put forward I felt bewildered. I did not realize that any one could be, I will not say so wicked, but so curiously destitute of generous ambition, so incapable of thinking greatly. And when I tried to find out what motive could lie at the back of a failure so incredible, I was told by his supporters that the Prime Minister was not thinking about the matters of which I was thinking. He was trying to get a very large majority in the House of Commons and to crush his old colleagues, and conceivable rivals, entirely out of existence. Of course he succeeded.

I hope I have put this statement forward without any malice or party feeling. The state of the world is far too serious to permit of either. And I hope that the profound and burning indignation which I undoubtedly feel has not biased my judgment. In any case, the conclusion that I wish to draw is not a personal but a general one. I doubt if such action would have been possible before the war in any constitutional statesman, not to speak of a clever and humane man like Mr. George. I doubt if the public opinion of any nation would have endured it. A nation in which such conduct is tolerated, and even approved, ought surely to pause and bethink itself. For it is not a particular reckless or unfortunate act which is thus condoned; it is a way of behaviour. It is a way of behaviour which has its origin in the methods of war, and of which the characteristic is that it gives the unscrupulous man the advantage over the scrupulous man, the cheat over the honest player, the violent and the criminal over those who obey the law. It fosters exactly those things which it is the business of civilized society to prevent. There are always lawless and dishonest men in every large community, as there are criminals in every army. There are always men who make profit out of their neighbours' extremity, who use advertisement to stifle truth, who jeer at all that is higher than themselves. But in a good social order they are not influential. They acquire power only in a society which, in external conduct, is losing its traditional standards and inwardly, in the words of Tolstoy's great condemnation, has forgotten God.

My criticism here is directed against my own country, and in particular against the British Prime Minister, not in the least because I have any anti-British bias. On the contrary, I think that in most of the international problems of Europe the influence of Great Britain, and in particular of the British Prime Minister, is generally an influence for good, though not nearly such a strong and clear influence as it might be. I confine these criticisms to our own policy because the scolding of foreign countries is a notoriously profitless task. The only criticism that has any chance of being useful is that of matters for which the critic or his readers have some degree of responsibility.

I believe profoundly in the traditions of Liberal England. As every one knows who has cared to read my writings, I look to the League of Nations as the main hope of the world, and to the British Commonwealth as the mainstay of the League of Nations. But, if it was ever doubtful, it is surely clear in the present state of the world that the Commonwealth cannot rest upon any secure foundation except the good-will of its members. And that good-will in its turn depends upon equal law, good government, and good faith.

It is not a new lesson that we have to learn: it is an old lesson that good Englishmen once knew better than any rulers the world has ever seen, though five years of madness have made it largely forgotten. But, as Lord Grey has said, the choice now before us is absolute; we must learn or perish.

It is in this belief and this spirit that I have written the following pages, which I hope, except to those who still live in some unsubstantial paradise of war-bred delusions, will cause no permanent offence, nor leave the impression that where I think others have made mistakes I imagine that I should make none.