Thirdly, by the economic disorganisation of Europe (resulting mainly from the desire to weaken the enemy), which deprives the Alliance of economic resources sufficient for a military task like that of the conquest of Russia or the occupation of Germany.
Fourthly, by the social unrest within each country (itself due in part to the economic disorganisation, in part to the introduction of the psychology of jingoism into the domain of industrial strife): Bolshevism. A long war of intervention in Russia by the Alliance would have broken down under the strain of internal unrest in Allied countries.
The Alliance thus succumbs to the clash of Nationalisms and the clash of classes.
These moral factors render the purpose which will be given to accumulated military force—‘the direction in which the guns will shoot’—so uncertain that the amount of material power available is no indication of the degree of security attained.
If it were true, as we argued so universally before and during the War, that German power was the final cause of the armament rivalry in Europe, then the disappearance of that power should mark, as so many prophesied it would mark, the end of the ‘armament era.’[47] Has it done so? Or does any one to-day seriously argue that the increase of armament expenditure over the pre-war period is in some mystic way due to Prussian militarism?
Let us turn to a Times leader in the summer of 1920:—
‘To-day the condition of Europe and of a large portion of the world is scarcely less critical than it was six years ago. Within a few days, or at most a few weeks, we may know whether the Peace Treaty signed at Versailles will possess effective validity. The independent existence of Poland, which is a keystone of the reorganisation of Europe contemplated by the Treaty, is in grave peril; and with it, though perhaps not in the manner currently imagined in Germany, is jeopardised the present situation of Germany herself.
... There is undoubtedly a widespread plot against Western civilisation as we know it, and probably against British liberal institutions as a principal mainstay of that civilisation. Yet if our institutions, and Western civilisation with them, are to withstand the present onslaught, they must be defended.... We never doubted the staunchness and vigour of England six years ago, and we doubt them as little to-day.’[48]
And so we must have even larger armaments than ever. Field-Marshal Earl Haig and Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson in England, Marshal Foch in France, General Leonard Wood in America, all urge that it will be indispensable to maintain our armaments at more than the pre-war scale. The ink of the Armistice was barely dry before the Daily Mail published a long interview with Marshal Foch[49] in the course of which the Generalissimo enlarged on the ‘inevitability’ of war in the future and the need of being ‘prepared for it.’ Lord Haig, in his Rectorial Address at St Andrews (May 14th, 1919) followed with the plea that as ‘the seeds of future conflict are to be found in every quarter, only waiting the right condition, moral, economic, political, to burst once more into activity,’ every man in the country must immediately be trained for war. The Mail, supporting his plea, said:—
‘We all desire peace, but we cannot, even in the hour of complete victory, disregard the injunction uttered by our first soldier, that “only by adequate preparation for war can peace in every way be guaranteed.”