Why We Are at War (2nd Edition, revised)

by University of Oxford. Faculty of Modern History

But we were loyal to our obligations as we understood them. If our answers to France were guarded, our answers to the German overtures of July 29th and August 1st show that we were fighting the battle of France with diplomatic weapons. On August 2nd we went still further, by undertaking to defend the French coasts and shipping, if the German fleet should come into the Channel or through the North Sea. To justify our position of reserve from July 31st to August 4th we may quote what Mr. Asquith said the other day (September 4th):—

'No one who has not been in that position can realize the strength, the energy, and the persistence with which we laboured for peace. We persevered by every expedient that diplomacy could suggest, straining almost to breaking-point our most cherished friendships and obligations.'

Those efforts failed. We know to-day that mediation had never any prospects of success, because Germany had resolved that it should not succeed. Ought we to have known this from the first? It is easy to be wise after the event. But in England we have Cabinet government and we have Parliamentary government. Before an English minister can act, in a matter of national importance, no matter how positive his own convictions may be, he must convince his colleagues, and they must feel certain of convincing a democracy which is essentially pacific, cautious, slow to move. Nothing short of the German attack on Belgium would have convinced the ordinary Englishman that German statesmanship had degenerated into piracy. That proof was given us on August 4th; and on that day we sent our ultimatum to Berlin.

To-day all England is convinced; and we are fighting back to back with the French for their national existence and our own. Our own, because England's existence depends not only on her sea-power, but upon the maintenance of European state-law. The military spirit which we have described above ([Chap. VI]) tramples upon the rights of nations because it sees a foe in every equal; because it regards the prosperity of a neighbour as a national misfortune; because it holds that national greatness is only to be realized in the act of destroying or absorbing other nationalities. To those who are not yet visibly assailed, and who possibly believe themselves secure, we can only give the warning: Tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

Of the issue England is not afraid. The most unfavourable issue would find her still convinced that she has taken the only course compatible with honour and with public law. Military anarchism shall be destroyed if England, France, and Russia can destroy it. On this object England and France have staked their last ship and their last soldier. But, it may be asked, what state-system do we hope to establish, if and when we are successful in this great crusade?

What England not only desires but needs, and needs imperatively, is, first, the restitution to Belgium of her former status and whatever else can be restored of all that she has sacrificed. This is the indispensable preliminary to any form of settlement. The next essential is an adequate guarantee to France that she shall never experience such another invasion as we have seen in August, 1914; without a France which is prosperous, secure, and independent, European civilization would be irreparably maimed and stunted. The third essential, as essential as the other two, is the conservation of those other nations which can only exist on sufferance so long as Realpolitik is practised with impunity.

To minor nationalities it should be clear that England is their friend, and cannot choose but stand their friend. Three times in her history she has made war upon a would-be despot of the Continent, treating the 'Balance of Power' as a principle for which no sacrifice could be too great. In these struggles she assisted the small Powers, less from altruism than because their interest was her own. She supported Holland against Philip II of Spain and against Louis XIV; against Napoleon she supported not Holland only, but also Portugal and, to the best of her power, Switzerland and Piedmont.

We do not argue—it would be absurd to argue—that England has always been free from reproach in her dealings with the smaller states. Holland may well remember the naval conflicts of the seventeenth century and the English Navigation Laws. But Holland should also remember that, in the seventeenth century, England was not yet a great Power; Holland and England fought as rivals and on equal terms, in a feud which subsequent alliances have healed, over a policy which England has long since renounced as mischievous and futile. On Denmark we inflicted a great wrong in 1807; it can only be extenuated by the fact, which Denmark knows now though she did not know it then, that Napoleon had conspired with Russia to seize the Danish fleet and use it against England. Denmark, indeed, has better cause to complain that we gave her no assistance in 1864. That mistake—for it was a mistake of weakness, not deliberate treachery—has brought its own nemesis. We are still paying for that particular mistake, and we are not likely to forget the lesson. The case of Schleswig-Holstein shows how the losses of such a state as Denmark may react on such a state as England.

England cannot afford that her weaker neighbours should become less prosperous or less independent than they are. So far as the long arm of naval power reaches, England is bound to give them whatever help she can. From motives of self-preservation, if on no other ground, she could not tolerate their subordination to such a power as Germany aspires to found. Her quarrel is not with the German people, but with the political system for which the German Empire, in its present temper, stands. That system England is bound to resist, no matter by what power it is adopted.

English sympathies and English traditions are here at one with English interests. England is proud to recollect how she befriended struggling nationalities in the nineteenth century. She did not support Greece and Italy for the sake of any help that they could give her. The goodwill of England to Holland, to Switzerland, to the Scandinavian states, is largely based upon their achievements in science and art and literature. They have proved that they can serve the higher interests of humanity. They have contributed to the growth of that common civilization which links together the small powers and the great with bonds more sacred and more durable than those of race, of government, of material interest. In this fraternity each nation has a duty to the rest. If we have harped on England's interest, it must not for a moment be supposed that we have forgotten England's duty. But England stands to-day in this fortunate position, that her duty and her interest combine to impel her in the same direction.