"CRITIQUE OF WEAPONS."
Karl Kautsky, in the Neue Zeit, Berlin, Aug. 8.
Kautsky has for over a quarter of a century been one of the foremost Socialist leaders in Germany; the founder and present editor of the Neue Zeit. The present article on the war appeared before the periodical was suppressed by the Government.
War, with all its attendant horrors, has broken loose, the "Critique of Weapons" has been set up, and the weapons of criticism are consequently broken. This is not merely the inevitable result of the automatic limitations which would be imposed by any state of war, but rather—though this is but a transitory phase—because of an absolute lack of interest in any sort of critical estimate of the whole situation. In breathless suspense, every man is concentrating the whole of his mental energy on the news of the next moment, news concerning which none can make even fairly clear surmise, and about which one fact only is known in advance, that whatever it is, it is sure to be horrible. For relief from this wretched suspense men are looking to dispatches and decisions of battles, not to critical speculation.
Yet by the time these lines come before the reader this stage may already be giving way, and in all probability there will be beginning to be felt the need of regaining our usual attitude, of taking account of this monstrous event which has broken in on us so suddenly—so unexpectedly that for the moment it has stunned us—of making ourselves clear concerning the end toward which we are moving.
Of course, to discuss the chances of each or any of the combatants involved is out of the question; indeed, it would be a difficult task for the shrewdest military expert to establish a sound estimate, for there are probably few, perhaps none, to whom the armies under consideration are sufficiently well known for that. Besides all this, moreover, the present conflict is taking place under conditions absolutely different from any we have before known, totally new to our experience.
Formerly, when the situation was more simple than at present, there were always at the outbreak of war a few experienced experts who could correctly estimate the prospects for each side in the struggle, for it was usually fairly clear from the very beginning what each side wanted to gain and what in the case of victory each would gain. But in the present situation there is not a word of prophecy which can be uttered in face of the fact that the most terrible war known to history has broken out without any of the powers involved in the least wishing it. It was in Russia first that at the last moment the war party seemed to have gained the upper hand and to have set in motion the whole bloody sport. We may rely on it that the statesmen of Austria were of the honest belief that they could localize the conflict with Servia.
But it is impossible any longer to consider this world war as a continuation of that conflict. Servia has vanished completely from the horizon, and in the moment when that end disappeared from view, each nation found itself suddenly fighting for nothing else save its own national integrity. The real purposes in this war will not come to the surface until the balance of the power becomes a little more sharply defined. Then in the victors' camp all manner of purposes and desires will suddenly spring up wide awake.
When Everything Is Over.