"The greatest triumph of our time, a triumph in a region loftier than that of electricity or steam, will be the enthronement of this idea of Public Right as the governing idea of European policy; as the common and precious inheritance of all lands, but superior to the passing opinion of any. The foremost among the nations will be that one which, by its conduct, shall gradually engender in the minds of the others a fixed belief that it is just."—GLADSTONE.
§1. The Two Issues.—The War of 1914 is not simply a war between the Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente: it is, for Great Britain and Germany especially, a war of ideas—a conflict between two different and irreconcilable conceptions of government, society, and progress. An attempt will be made in this chapter to make clear what these conceptions are, and to discuss the issue between them as impartially as possible, from the point of view, not of either of the combatant Powers, but of human civilisation as a whole.
There are really two great controversies being fought out between Great Britain and Germany: one about the ends of national policy, and another about the means to be adopted towards those or any other ends. The latter is the issue raised by the German Chancellor's plea—not so unfamiliar on the lips of our own countrymen as we are now tempted to believe—that "Necessity knows no law." It is the issue of Law and "scraps of paper" against Force, against what some apologists have called "the Philosophy of Violence," but which, in its latest form, the French Ambassador has more aptly christened "the Pedantry of Barbarism." That issue has lately been brought home, in its full reality, to the British public from the course of events in Belgium and elsewhere, and need not here be elaborated. Further words would be wasted. A Power which recognises no obligation but force, and no law but the sword, which marks the path of its advance by organised terrorism and devastation, is the public enemy of the civilised world.
But it is a remarkable and significant fact that the policy in which this ruthless theory is embodied commands the enthusiastic and united support of the German nation. How can this be explained?
It must be remembered in the first place that the German public does not see the facts of the situation as we do. On the question of Belgian neutrality and the events which precipitated the British ultimatum, what we know to be a false version of the facts is current in Germany, as is evident from the published statements of the leaders of German thought and opinion, and it may be many years before its currency is displaced.
This difficulty should serve to remind us how defective the machinery of civilisation still is. One of the chief functions of law is, not merely to settle disputes and to enforce its decisions, but to ascertain the true facts on which alone a settlement can be based. The fact that no tribunal exists for ascertaining the true facts in disputes between sovereign governments shows how far mankind still is from an established "rule of law" in international affairs. Not only is the Hague powerless to give and, still more, to enforce its decision on the questions at issue between the European Powers. It has not even the machinery for ascertaining the facts of the case and bringing them to the notice of neutral governments and peoples in the name of civilisation as a whole.
But apart from divergent beliefs as to the facts, it is remarkable that thinking Germany should be in sympathy with the spirit and tone of German policy, which led, as it appears to us, by an inexorable logic to the violation of Belgian neutrality and the collision with Great Britain.
But the fact, we are told, admits of easy explanation. Thinking Germany has fallen a victim to the teachings of Treitschke and Nietzsche—Treitschke with his Macchiavellian doctrine that "Power is the end-all and be-all of a State," Nietzsche with his contempt for pity and the gentler virtues, his admiration for "valour," and his disdain for Christianity.
This explanation is too simple to fit the facts. It may satisfy those who know no more of Treitschke's brilliant and careful work than the extracts culled from his occasional writings by General von Bernhardi and the late Professor Cramb. It may gratify those who, with so many young German students, forget that Nietzsche, like many other prophets, wrote in allegory, and that when he spoke of valour he was thinking, not of "shining armour," but of spiritual conflicts. But careful enquirers, who would disdain to condemn Macaulay on passages selected by undiscriminating admirers from his Essays, or Carlyle for his frank admiration of Thor and Odin and the virtues of Valhalla, will ask for a more satisfying explanation. Even if all that were said about Treitschke and Nietzsche were true, it would still remain an unsolved question why they and their ideas should have taken intellectual Germany by storm. But it is not true. What is true, and what is far more serious, both for Great Britain and for Europe, is that men like Harnack, Eucken, and Wilamowitz, who would repudiate all intellectual kinship with Macchiavelli and Nietzsche—men who are leaders of European thought, and with whom and whose ideas we shall have to go on living in Europe—publicly support and encourage the policy and standpoint of a Government which, according to British ideas, has acted with criminal wickedness and folly, and so totally misunderstood the conduct and attitude of Great Britain as honestly to regard us as hypocritically treacherous to the highest interests of civilisation.
That is the real problem; and it is a far more complex and difficult one than if we had to do with a people which had consciously abandoned the Christian virtues or consciously embarked on a conspiracy against Belgium or Great Britain. The utter failure of even the most eminent Germans to grasp British politics, British institutions, and the British point of view points to a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental divergence of outlook, between the political ideals of the two countries. It is the conflict between these ideals which forms the second great issue between Germany and Great Britain; and on its outcome depends the future of human civilisation.