Germany, up to 1866 renowned chiefly for her poets, musicians, and thinkers, had since been fed for nearly fifty years upon the doctrine that military force is the only power in the world worth considering. Some of the German people still cling to the high ideals of their ancestors, but the majority had drunk deeply of the wine of conquest and were intoxicated with the idea that Germany’s mission in life was to conquer all the other nations of the world and rule them for their own good by German thoroughness and by German efficiency. It may take many years to stamp this feeling out of the German nation. As they have worshipped force and appealed to force as the settler of all questions, so they will listen to reason only after they have been thoroughly crushed by a superior force. The sufferings brought upon the German nation by the war have had a great effect in making them doubt whether, after all, force is a good thing. As long as the people could be kept enthusiastic through stories of wonderful victories over the Russians, the Serbians, and then the Roumanians, they were contented to endure all manner of hardships.
Someone has said that no people are happier than those living in a despotism, if the right kind of man is the despot. So the German people, although they were governed strictly by the military rule, nevertheless, were contented as long as they were prosperous and victorious in war. With the rumors and fears of defeat, however, they began to doubt their government. There are indications that sweeping reforms in the election of representatives in the Reichstag and in the power of that body itself will take place before long.
The Russian revolution was in some respects a blow to the central powers. In the first place the fact that Russia had a despot for a ruler while England, France, and Italy were countries where the people elected their law makers, made it impossible that there should be the best of understanding between the allies. Then, again, the various peoples of Austria-Hungary, while they were not happy under the rule of the Hapsburg family, were afraid lest, if they became subjects of the Czar, it would be “jumping from the frying pan into the fire.” They would rather bear the evils of the Austrian rule than risk what the Czar and the grand dukes might do to them. Turkey, likewise, was bound to stick to Germany to the end, because of her fear that Russia would seize Constantinople. When the new government of Russia, then, announced that they did not desire to annex by force any territory, but only wished to free the peoples who were in bondage, it removed the fear of the Turks as far as their capital city was concerned; it showed the Poles, Ruthenians, and Czechs of Austria that they were in no danger of being swallowed up in the Russian empire, but that, on the other hand, the Russians wanted them to be free, like themselves; it showed the German people how easily a whole nation, when united, could get rid of its rulers, and encouraged the bold spirits who had never favored the military rule.
The nations of the Entente, including the United States, are now united in an effort to stamp out the curse of feudalism in Austria and in Germany—a curse which has disappeared from all other parts of the civilized world. They are united to crush the military spirit of conquest which exists among the war leaders of the Prussians. They are pledged “to make the world safe for democracy” as President Wilson has said; to do away with the rule of force. So long as the governments of Germany, Austria, and Turkey place the military power at all times above the civil power, so long will it be necessary to police the world. There must be no repetition of the savage attack of August, 1914. There was a time when many of us believed that some one nation, by disbanding its army and refusing to build warships, might set an example of disarming which all the world would finally follow. It now is plain that there must be a “League to Enforce Peace” as Ex-President Taft and other American statesmen have declared. The United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Serbia, Greece, together with Spain, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations where the will of the people is the law, must unite in an alliance which will insist on arbitration as a means of settling disputes.
In 1870, Great Britain and the United States had a dispute which might well have led to war. Instead of fighting over it, however, they laid their trouble before a court of five men, a Swiss, an Italian, a Brazilian, an Englishman, and an American. This court, by a vote of four to one, decided against England, and England accepted the decision as final, although it cost her many millions of dollars.
The League to Enforce Peace must insist that each nation in the world maintain only a small force of soldiers, to be used as police for its own affairs, and there must be an international police to settle all differences between nations and to enforce the orders of the court of arbitration. In time (no one knows how soon) the people of Germany and Austria will be freed from the military rule which now has the power to hurl them into war. When that day arrives and they learn that they have been led astray by Treitschke and Bernhardi, who preached that war was a blessing to a nation and that only the powerful nations had the right to survive, they will know that “Thou shalt not kill” is just as strong a commandment today as when it first was uttered.
Sometime, nations will learn that other nations have the right to live, and that no country can wrong another through force of arms without suffering for it in the end. In a blunted conscience, in the loss of the sympathy of the rest of the world, in a lessening of the Christ-spirit of doing good to others, the nation which resorts to force to gratify its own selfish ends, like the individual, pays the full penalty for its misdeeds. It, was a great American who said, “The world is my country and mankind are my brothers.”
Questions for Review
- Why did England and the United States fail to understand Germany?
- What right would Germany have had to an indemnity?
- What great change took place in Germany after 1866?
- Why must the war go on till Germany is crushed?
- What lesson must Germany learn?
- Why have the South American republics fought so many wars?
- Suggest some solution for the problem of war.
- What is meant by arbitration?
- What was the greatest mistake of those who planned the war?
- How did the Russian Revolution help the cause of the Entente?
- What is the greatest lesson taught by the war?