There may, it is true, remain in some minds a certain fear about Russia, because it is difficult to dispel the old conception of a great despotic Russian autocracy, or, if we like to say so, a semi-eastern and half-barbarous power biding her time to push her conquests both towards the rising and the setting sun. But many happy signs of quite a new spirit in Russia have helped to allay our fears. It looks as if a reformed Russia might arise, with ideas of constitutionalism and liberty and a much truer conception of what the evolution of a state means. At the very beginning of the war the Tsar issued a striking proclamation to the Poles, promising them a restoration of the national freedom which they had lost a century and a half previously. This doubtless was a good stroke of policy, but also it seemed something more—a proof of that benevolent idealism which belongs to the Russian nature, and of which the Tsar himself has given many signs. Of the three nations who control the Poles, the Austrians have done most for their subjects: at all events, the Poles under Austrian control are supposed to be the most happy and contented. Then come the Russian Poles. But the Poles under German government are the most miserable of all, mainly because all German administration is so mechanical, so hard, in a real sense so inhuman. But this determination of the Tsar to do some justice to the Polish subjects is not the only sign of a newer spirit we have to deal with. There was also a proclamation promising liberty to the Jews—a very necessary piece of reform—and giving, as an earnest of the good intentions of the Government, commissions to Jews in the army. Better than all other evidence is the extraordinary outburst of patriotic feeling in all sections of the Russian people. It looks as if this war has really united Russia in a sense in which it has never been united before. When we see voluntary service offered on the part of those who hitherto have felt themselves the victims of Russian autocracy, we may be pretty certain that even the reformers in the great northern kingdom have satisfied themselves that their long-deferred hopes may at length gain fulfilment. Nor ought we to forget that splendid act of reform which has abolished the Imperial monopoly of the sale of vodka. If by one stroke of the pen the Tsar can sacrifice ninety-three millions of revenue in order that Russia may be sober, it is not very extravagant to hope that in virtue of the same kind of benevolent despotism Russia may secure a liberal constitution and the Russian people be set free.[11]
[11] See Our Russian Ally, by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (Macmillan).
Military Autocracy
The end of a great war, however, has one inevitable result, that it leaves a military autocracy in supreme control of affairs. The armies which have won the various campaigns, the generals who have led them, the Commanders-in-Chief who have carried out the successful strategy, these are naturally left with almost complete authority in their hands. Wellington, for instance, a hundred years ago, held an extraordinarily strong position in deciding the fate of Europe. And so, too, did the Russian Tsar, whose armies had done so much to destroy the legend of Napoleonic invincibility. Similar conditions must be expected on the present occasion. And, perhaps, the real use of diplomats, if they are prudent and level-headed men, is to control the ambitions of the military element, to adopt a wider outlook, to consider the ultimate consequences rather than the immediate effects of things. It would indeed be a lamentable result if a war which was intended to destroy militarism in Europe should end by setting up militarism in high places.
Limitation of Armaments
Thus we seem to see still more clearly than before that the size of armaments in Europe constitutes a fundamental problem with which we have to grapple. Every soldier, as a matter of course, believes in military armaments, and is inclined to exaggerate their social and not merely their offensive value. Those of us who are not soldiers, but who are interested in the social and economic development of the nation, know, on the contrary, that the most destructive and wasteful form of expenditure is that which is occupied with armaments grown so bloated that they go far to render the most pressing domestic reforms absolutely impossible. How, then, can we limit the size of armaments? What provision can we make to keep in check that desire to fortify itself, to entrench itself in an absolutely commanding position, which inherently belongs to the military mind? In the case of both navies and armies something depends on geographical conditions, and something on financial possibilities. The first represents, as it were, the minimum required for safety; the second the maximum burden which a state can endure without going into bankruptcy.[12] Our own country, we should say, requires fleets, so far as geographical conditions are concerned, for the protection of her shores, and, inasmuch as she is a scattered empire, we must have our warships in all the Seven Seas. France, in her turn, requires a navy which shall protect her in the Mediterranean, and especially render access easy to her North African possessions. On the supposition that she is good friends with England, she does not require ships in the North Sea or in the English Channel, while, vice versa, England, so long as France is strong in the Mediterranean, need only keep quite small detachments at Gibraltar, Malta, and elsewhere. Russia must have a fleet for the Baltic, and also a fleet in the Black Sea. Beyond that her requirements assuredly do not go. Italy's activities are mainly in the Mediterranean. Under the supposition that she is conquered, Germany stands in some danger of losing her navy altogether.
[12] Brailsford's War of Steel and Gold: Chap. IX.