And what about the German Empire?—The German Empire was founded at a moment, when the call of the new age for the healthy form of social life was endeavouring to find practical realisation. To have realised it, might have given the empire a justification for its existence in the world’s history. All the social impulses met together in this realm of Central Europe, as if it were the ground allotted to them from of old in the world’s history for them to work themselves out. The social tendency in thought was to be found in any number of places, but within the German Empire it assumed a form that plainly shewed whither it was tending. Here lay the work which should have given the empire its substance and purport. Here was the field of labour for those who were at the head of its affairs. This empire would have required no justification in the community of modern nations, had it received at its foundation a task and purport such as the forces of history themselves seemed to suggest. But instead of dealing with the task on a scale corresponding to its magnitude, those at the head of affairs contented themselves with “social reforms” arising out of the exigencies of the hour, and were delighted when such reforms as these were held up as models by other countries. And all the time, they were more and more seeking to establish the external prestige of the empire upon a pattern taken from the antiquated conceptions of the power and glory of States. They went on building up an empire, which was as contrary as the Austro-Hungarian fabric to everything that history shewed to be an active force in the modern life of the peoples. But of these forces the empire’s governors saw nothing. The particular form of State-structure, that they had in their mind’s eye, could only rest on military force. Whereas the form of State, that modern history demanded, must have rested on a practical realisation of the impulses that were making for a healthy social organism. In giving these impulses practical realisation, they would have made themselves a different place in the community of peoples from the position they actually occupied in 1914. Through failure to understand what was demanded by the life of the peoples in this new age, German policy had, in 1914, reached a dead-point as regards any possibility of further action. For years past, German policy had been blind to everything that ought to have been accomplished; it had busied itself with every conceivable thing that lay outside the forces of modern evolution, and that was bound inevitably from sheer hollowness to “tumble down like a house of cards.”
The whole tragedy, thus brought about in the course of history and summed up in the fate of the German Empire, is to be found very faithfully reflected, for anyone who would take the trouble to examine and give the world a true and exact picture of what occurred in the leading quarters of Berlin in the last days of July and 1st August, 1914. Of these occurrences very little still is known, either at home or abroad. Whoever is acquainted with them knows, that German policy at that time was a card-house policy, that it had reached a dead-point in action; so that the whole question, as to whether there should be a war, or how it should begin, was inevitably made over to the decision of the military authorities. And the responsible people amongst the military authorities could not, from a military point of view, act otherwise than they did act, because from that point of view, the situation could only be regarded as they regarded it; for outside the military department things had got to a pass where no further action was possible. This would be a notorious fact in the world’s history, if there were any who would make it their business to bring to light what went on in Berlin at the end of July and on the first of August,—in particular on July 31 and August 1. People are still under the delusion, that nothing is to be gained by a minute knowledge of these occurrences, if one knows the previous events that led up to them. But it is knowledge that must not be shirked, if there is to be any discussion of the question of “blame,” as it is called to-day. Of course, there are other ways of arriving at the causes, which were already of long standing; but a detailed knowledge of these few days reveals the way in which these causes acted.
The notions, which at the time drove Germany’s leaders into war, continued their baneful work. They became the mood of a nation. And these same notions prevented the people in power from acquiring by the bitter experiences of the final terrible years that insight, for want of which the tragedy had come about. These experiences might well have opened men’s eyes; and, in this hope, the present writer took what seemed to him an opportune moment in the war calamity, and did his best to bring before various personages the ideas underlying a healthy social organism, and the political attitude that these entail towards the world abroad. He addressed himself to prominent individuals, whose influence at that time might still have been exerted to carry these social impulses into effect; and various persons, who had the destiny of the German people honestly at heart, took pains to gain admission for these ideas. All that was said was in vain. Every old habit of thought was up in arms against social impulses of this kind, which to a purely military cast of thought appeared quite impracticable,—something for which they had no use at all. The farthest they could get was: “Separation of Church and School,”—yes,—there was something in that. The thoughts of the “statesman-like thinkers” had been running on lines of that sort for years, and would not be turned into any direction involving drastic change. Well-meaning people suggested my “publishing” these proposals,—most futile advise at that particular moment. What would have been the good of another treatise on these social impulses, in addition to all the other current literature of the hour,—and coming from a private person too! From the very nature of such impulses, they could, at that time, only have carried weight through the quarter from which they were pronounced. Had a pronouncement in favour of these impulses been made from the right place, the peoples of Central Europe would have recognised the possibility of realising something that was in sympathy with their own more or less conscious tendencies. And the peoples of the Russian districts, East, would at that time most undoubtedly have recognised in these social impulses a practical solution to Czarism. That they could and would have recognised the significance of these impulses, is beyond dispute for anyone able to perceive the as yet unexhausted intellectual vigour of the peoples of Eastern Europe, and how receptive their minds are to healthy social ideas. However, there was no pronouncement in favour of these ideas; and, instead, came Brest-Litovsk.
That military thinking could do nothing to avert the disaster from Central and Eastern Europe, could have been concealed from none but militarist minds. The cause of the German people’s disaster was, that people would not recognise that the disaster could not be averted. They would not face the fact, that in those quarters, which had the deciding of affairs, there was no sense of the big, historic necessities. Anyone, who knew anything of these historic necessities, also knew, that the English-speaking races had persons amongst them, who were able to read the forces at work amongst the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, and that these persons were convinced, that there was something working up in Central and Eastern Europe which must find vent in tremendous social convulsions,—convulsions of a sort for which they believed there to be no necessity nor occasion in the English-speaking regions. They framed their own policy on these conclusions. In Central and Eastern Europe nothing was seen of all this, and the people there shaped their policy on lines which brought the whole thing “like a house of cards” about their ears. The only policy, which could have had a solid foundation, would have been one which recognised, that people in the English-speaking countries were handling the forces of world-history on large lines, and of course, naturally, from the English point of view. But to agitate in favour of such a policy would have been regarded as highly superfluous,—especially by the “diplomatists.”
So, instead of adopting a policy, which might have also have ensured the prosperity of Central and Eastern Europe,—despite the large lines of English policy,—before the war-catastrophe swept over everything, the leaders still continued to run along the familiar diplomatic rails. And, even amidst the horrors of war, bitter experience still failed to teach them, when the manifesto came from America announcing the world’s mission in political terms, that it must be met by another and a different one from Europe, born of the forces of Europe herself. Wilson had announced the world’s mission from the American standpoint. Europe’s sense of her mission would have been heard as a spiritual impulse above the roar of the guns. Between the two it would have been possible to effect an understanding. All other talk of mutual understanding rang hollow in face of the historic necessities. But those, whom circumstances brought to the head of affairs in the German Empire, lacked the perception which could make them lay hold on the seeds of new growth in modern human life and embody them in a comprehensive aim. And, therefore, the autumn of 1918 could bring nothing but what it brought. The collapse of military power was accompanied by spiritual surrender. In this supreme hour, at least they might have roused themselves, have sought strength in the will and purpose of Europe, and made good the spiritual forces of the German people. Instead, they abdicated to Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Wilson was confronted by a Germany that had nothing to say on her own account. Whatever Wilson may think about his own 14 points, he is nevertheless powerless to help Germany except as Germany is willing. He was bound to await a pronouncement of her will. The beginning of the war had already demonstrated the nullity of German policy. It was again demonstrated in October, 1918. So came that awful spiritual capitulation, at the hands of a man on whom numbers in German lands had staked as it were their last hope.
Want of faith in insight based on the forces at work through history;—unwillingness to seek strength in impulses that proceed from a perception of spiritual facts:—The state of Central Europe was due to these two things.
And now, to-day, the circumstances consequent on the war-catastrophe have created a new situation. The idea that gives its stamp to the new situation can be that of the social impulses of mankind, as conceived in this book. These social impulses speak a language, towards which the whole civilised world has a responsibility. Has thought spent itself, and come to its dead-point before the social question as Central-European policy did before the problems of 1914? Some countries were able to stand aloof from the points that were then at issue. From the social movement they cannot stand aloof. This is a question that admits of no political adversaries and of no neutrals. Here, there must be but one human race working at one common task, willing to read the signs of the times and to act in accordance with them.
[1] Author’s Note. It may be urged, that the “rights” relations and the economic relations form one indivisible whole in actual reality. This however misses the point of what is meant by the threefold division. Of course, in the mutual intercourse and exchange that goes on between the various social organisms, taken as a collective process, the two different sorts of relations,—between their “rights” systems and their economic systems,—work together as a single whole. But it is a different matter, whether one makes rights regulations to suit the requirements of economic intercourse, or whether one first shapes them by the common sense of right, and then takes the combined result, whatever it may be. [↑]
[2] Author’s Note. Some people think these things “Utopias,” because they fail to see that, in reality, actual life itself is struggling towards the very kind of arrangement which seems to them so Utopian, and that the actual mischief going on in real life is due precisely to the fact that these arrangements are nowhere to be found. [↑]