No one however mad could have called Gilbert a pro-German: it was perhaps the only accusation the New Witness escaped. But while he largely agreed with Shaw's analysis of the Englishman as a natural Anarchist and grumbler, while he believed in the voluntary principle and disliked conscription, his general outlook was as different from Shaw's as were the pamphlets they both wrote.
In a book addressed to a German professor G.K. frankly confessed the real Crimes of England, for which she was now making reparation.
To any Englishman living in the native atmosphere the suggestion that England had been preparing an aggression against Germany seemed more than faintly ludicrous. We were not engaged in plotting in Europe—on the contrary we were far too careless of Europe. And the funds of the Liberal Party (which was in power) actually depended chiefly on Quaker Millionaires who were noted pacifists and at whose bidding national honour was jeopardised by our delay in declaring our support of France. We were not prepared for war and probably only the shock of the invasion of Belgium made certain our stand with France.
. . . It may seem an idle contradiction to say that our strength in this war came from not being prepared. But there is a truth that cannot be otherwise expressed. The strongest thing in sane anger is surprise. If we had time to think we might have thought better—that is worse. Everything that could be instinctive managed to be strong; the instant fury of contempt with which the better spirit in our rulers flung back the Prussian bribe; the instant solidarity of all parties; above all, the brilliant instinct by which the Irish leader cast into the scale of a free Europe the ancient sword of Ireland.*
[* The Uses of Diversity.]
Our crimes were in the past, not the present. The first had been when we gave aid to Prussia against Austria, Austria which was "not a nation" but "a kind of Empire, a Holy Roman Empire that never came," which "still retained something of the old Catholic comfort for the soul." We had helped to put Prussia instead of Austria at the head of the Germanies—Prussia which in the person of Frederick the Great "hated everything German and everything good." Francophile as Chesterton was, he yet had a certain tenderness for those old Germanies which "preserved the good things that go with small interests and strict boundaries, music, etiquette, a dreamy philosophy and so on."
Our next crimes had been in calling Prussia to our aid against Napoleon and in failing to assist Denmark against her. And by far our worst had been the using of Prussian mercenaries with their ghastly tradition of cruelty in Ireland in the '98.
There is in this little book one drawback from the historian's point of view: its view of the past is so oddly selective. Doubtless it is lawful to examine your own nation's conscience as you do your own—and not your neighbour's. Yet history should be rather an examination of facts than an examination of conscience. And historically Richelieu's policies had had quite something to say in the creation of Prussia; the conscript armies of the French Revolution had first made Europe into an armed camp. It was an undue simplification to insist exclusively on The Crimes of England.
But even while he did so Chesterton rejoiced that now at long last England was on the right side, on the side of Europe and of sanity. The New Witness group had always seen the issue as their countrymen were now suddenly beginning to see it. They had no sympathy with the "liberal" thinking, made in Germany, that had in the name of biblical and historical criticism been undermining the bases of Christianity. Their love of logic and of clarity had made German philosophy intolerable to them—it was wind, and it was fog. Finally their love of France had always made them conceive of Europe as centering in that country. For them there was one profound satisfaction even amid the horrors of war: that the issues were so clear.
But were they as clear to the whole world? If not they must be made so.