War And Democracy

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Title:     War And Democracy
Author: Havelock Ellis [More Titles by Ellis]

When we read our newspapers to-day we are constantly met by ingenious plans for bringing to an end the activities of Germany after the War. German military activity, it is universally agreed, must be brought to an end; Germany will have no further need of a military system save on the most modest scale. Germany must also be deprived of any colonial empire and shut out from eastward expansion. That being the case, Germany no longer needs a fleet, and must be brought back to Bismarck's naval attitude. Moreover, the industrial activities of Germany must also be destroyed; the Allied opponents of Germany will henceforth manufacture for themselves or for one another the goods they have hitherto been so foolish as to obtain from Germany, and though this may mean cutting themselves aloof from the country which has hitherto been their own best customer, that is a sacrifice to be cheerfully borne for the sake of principle. It is further argued that the world has no need of German activities in science; they are, it appears, much less valuable than we had been led to believe, and in any case no self-respecting people would encourage a science tainted by Kultur. The puzzled reader of these arguments, overlooking the fallacies they contain, may perhaps sometimes be tempted to ask: But what are Germans to be allowed to do? The implied answer is clear: Nothing.

The writers who urge these arguments with such conviction may be supposed to have an elementary knowledge of the history of the Germans. We are concerned, that is to say, with a people which has displayed an irrepressible energy, in one field or another, ever since the time, more than fifteen hundred years ago, when it excited the horror of the civilised world by sacking Rome. The same energy was manifested, a thousand years later, when the Germans again knocked at the door of Rome and drew away half the world from its allegiance to the Church. Still more recently, in yet other fields of industry and commerce and colonisation, these same Germans have displayed their energy by entering into more or less successful competition with that "Modern Rome," as some have termed it, which has its seat in the British Islands. Here is a people,--still youthful as we count age in our European world, for even the Celts had preceded them by nearly a thousand years,--which has successfully displayed its explosive or methodical force in the most diverse fields, military, religious, economic. From henceforth it is invited, by an allied army of terrified journalists, to expend these stupendous and irresistible energies on just Nothing.

We know, of course, what would happen were it possible to subject Germany to any such process of attempted repression. Whenever an individual or a mass of individuals is bidden to do nothing, it merely comes about that the activities aimed at, far from being suppressed, are turned into precisely the direction most unpleasant for the would-be suppressors. When in 1870 the Germans tried to "crush" France, the result was the reverse of that intended. The effects of "crushing" had been even more startingly reverse, on the other side--and this may furnish us with a precedent--when Napoleon trampled down Germany. Two centuries ago, after the brilliant victories of Marlborough, it was proposed to crush permanently the Militarism of France. But, as Swift wrote to Archbishop King just before the Peace of Utrecht, "limiting France to a certain number of ships and troops was, I doubt, not to be compassed." In spite of the exhaustion of France it was not even attempted. In the present case, when the war is over it is probable that Germany will still hold sufficiently great pledges to bargain with in safeguarding her own vital interests. If it were not so, if it were possible to inflict permanent injury on Germany, that would be the greatest misfortune that could happen to us; for it is clear that we should then be faced by a yet more united and yet more aggressively military Germany than the world has seen.[1] In Germany itself there is no doubt on this point. Germans are well aware that German activities cannot be brought to a sudden full stop, and they are also aware that even among Germany's present enemies there are those who after the War will be glad to become her friends. Any doubt or anxiety in the minds of thoughtful Germans is not concerning the continued existence of German energy in the world, but concerning the directions in which that energy will be exerted.

What is Germany's greatest danger? That is the subject of a pamphlet by Rudolf Goldscheid, of Vienna, now published in Switzerland, with a preface by Professor Forel, as originally written a year earlier, because it is believed that in the interval its conclusions have been confirmed by events.[2] Goldscheid is an independent and penetrating thinker in the economic field, and the author of a book on the principles of Social Biology (_Hoeherentwicklung und Menschenoekonomie_) which has been described by an English critic as the ablest defence of Socialism yet written. By the nature of his studies he is concerned with problems of human rather than merely national development, but he ardently desires the welfare of Germany, and is anxious that that welfare shall be on the soundest and most democratic basis. After the War, he says, there must necessarily be a tendency to approximate between the Central Powers and one or other of their present foes. It is clear (though this point is not discussed) that Italy, whose presence in the Triple Alliance was artificial, will not return, while French resentment at German devastation is far too great to be appeased for a long period to come. There remain, therefore, Russia and England. After the War German interests and German sympathies must gravitate either eastwards towards Russia or westwards towards England. Which is it to be?

There are many reasons why Germany should gravitate towards Russia. Such a movement was indeed already in active progress before the war, notwithstanding Russia's alliance with France, and may easily become yet more active after the war, when it is likely that the bonds between Russia and France may grow weaker, and when it is possible that the Germans, with their immense industry, economy and recuperative power, may prove to be in the best position--unless America cuts in--to finance Russia. Industrially Russia offers a vast field for German enterprise which no other country can well snatch away, and German is already to some extent the commercial language of Russia.[3]

Politically, moreover, a close understanding between the two supreme autocratic and anti-democratic powers of Europe is of the greatest mutual benefit, for any democratic movement within the borders of either Power is highly inconvenient to the other, so that it is to the advantage of both to stimulate each other in the task of repression.[4] It is this aspect of the approximation which arouses Goldscheid's alarm. It is mainly on this ground that he advocates a counter-balancing approximation between Germany and England which would lay Germany open to the West and serve to develop her latent democratic tendencies. He admits that at some points the interests of Germany and England run counter to each other, but at yet a greater number of points their interests are common. It is only by the development of these common interests, and the consequent permeation of Germany by democratic English ideas, that Goldscheid sees any salvation from Czarism, for that is "Germany's greatest danger," and at the same time the greatest danger to Europe.

That is Goldscheid's point of view. Our English point of view is necessarily somewhat different. With our politically democratic tendencies we see very little difference between Russia and Prussia. As they are at present constituted, we have no wish to be in very close political intimacy with either. It so happens, indeed, that, for the moment, the chances of fellowship in War have brought us into a condition of almost sentimental sympathy with the Russian people, such as has never existed among us before. But this sympathy, amply justified, as all who know Russia agree, is exclusively with the Russian people. It leaves the Russian Government, the Russian bureaucracy, the Russian political system, all that Goldscheid concentrates into the term "Czarism," severely alone. Our hostility to these may be for the moment latent, but it is as profound as it ever was. Czarism is even more remote from our sympathies than Kaiserism. All that has happened is that we cherish the pious hope that Russia is becoming converted to our own ideas on these points, although there is not the smallest item of solid fact to support that hope. Otherwise, Russian oppression of the Finns is just as odious to us as Prussian oppression of the Poles, and Russian persecution of Liberals as alien as German persecution of War-prisoners.[5] Our future policy, in the opinion of many, should, however, be to isolate Germany as completely as possible from English influence and to cultivate closer relations with Russia.[6] Such a policy, Goldscheid argues, will defeat its own ends. The more stringently England holds aloof from Germany the more anxiously will Germany cultivate good relationships with Russia. Such relationships, as we know, are easy to cultivate, because they are much in the interests of both countries which possess so large an extent of common frontier and so admirably supply each other's needs; it may be added also that the Russian commercial world is showing no keen desire to enter into close relations with England. Moreover, after the War, we may expect a weakening of French influence in Russia, for that influence was largely based on French gold, and a France no longer able or willing to finance Russia would no longer possess a strong hold over Russia. A Russo-German understanding, difficult to prevent in any case, is inimical to the interests of England, but it would be rendered inevitable by an attempt on the part of England to isolate Germany.[7]

Such an attempt could not be carried out completely and would break down on its weakest side, which is the East. So that the way lies open to a League of the Three Kaisers, the Dreikaiserbuendnis which would form a great island fortress of militarism and reaction amid the surrounding sea of democracy, able to repress those immense possibilities of progress within its own walls which would have been liberated by contact with the vital currents outside.

So long as the War lasts it is the interest of England to strike Germany and to strike hard. That is here assumed as certain. But when the War is over, it will no longer be in the interests of England, it will indeed be directly contrary to those interests, to continue cultivating hostility, provided, that is, that no rankling wounds are left. The fatal mistake of Bismarck in annexing Alsace-Lorraine introduced a poison into the European organism which is working still. But the Russo-Japanese War produced a more amicable understanding than had existed before, and the Boer War led to still more intimate relationships between the belligerents. It may be thought that the impression in England of German "frightfulness," and in Germany of English "treachery," may prove ineffaceable. But the Germans have been considered atrocious and the English perfidious for a long time past, yet that has not prevented English and Germans fighting side by side at Waterloo and on many another field; nor has it stood in the way of German worship of the quintessential Englishman, Shakespeare, nor English homage to the quintessential German Goethe.

The question of the future relations of England and Germany may, indeed, be said to lie on a higher plane than that of interest and policy, vitally urgent as their claims may be. It is the merit of Goldscheid's little book that--with faith in a future United States of Europe in which every country would develop its own peculiar aptitudes freely and harmoniously--he is able to look at the War from that European standpoint which is so rarely attained in England. He sees that more is at stake than a mere question of national rivalries; that democracy is at stake, and the whole future direction of civilisation. He looks beyond the enmities of the moment, and he knows that, unless we look beyond them, we not only condemn Europe to the prospect of unending war, we do more: we ensure the triumph of Reaction and the destruction of Democracy. "War and Reaction are brethren"; on that point Goldscheid is very sure, and he foretells and laments the temporary "demolition of Democracy" in England. We have only too much reason to believe his prophetic words, for since he wrote we have had a Coalition Government which is predominantly democratic, Liberal and Labour, and yet has been fatally impelled towards reaction and autocracy.[8] That the impulse is really fatal and inevitable we cannot doubt, for we see exactly the same movement in France, and even in Russia, where it might seem that reaction has so few triumphs to achieve. "The blood of the battlefield is the stream that drives the mills of Reaction." The elementary and fundamental fact that in Democracy the officers obey the men, while in Militarism the men obey the officers, is the key to the whole situation. We see at once why all reactionaries are on the side of war and a military basis of society. The fate of democracy in Europe hangs on this question of adequate pacification. "Democratisation and Pacification march side by side."[9] Unless we realise that fact we are not competent to decide on a sound European policy. For there is an intimate connection between a country's external policy and its internal policy. An internal reactionary policy means an external aggressive policy. To shut out English influence from Germany, to fortify German Junkerism and Militarism, to drive Germany into the arms of a yet more reactionary Russia, is to create a perpetual menace, alike to peace and to democracy, which involves the arrest of civilisation. However magnanimous the task may seem to some, it is not only the interest of England, but England's duty to Europe, to take the initiative in preparing the ground for a clear and good understanding with Germany. It is, moreover, only through England that France can be brought into harmonious relations with Germany, and when Russia then approaches her neighbour it will be in sympathy with her more progressive Western Allies and not in reactionary response to a reactionary Germany. It is along such lines as these that amid the confusion of the present we may catch a glimpse of the Europe of the future.

We have to remember that, as Goldscheid reminds us, this War is making all of us into citizens of the world. A world-wide outlook can no longer be reserved merely for philosophers. Some of the old bridges, it is true, have been washed away, but on every side walls are falling, and the petty fears and rivalries of European nations begin to look worse than trivial in the face of greater dangers. As our eyes begin to be opened we see Europe lying between the nether millstone of Asia and the upper millstone of America. It is not by constituting themselves a Mutual Suicide Club that the nations of Europe will avoid that peril.[10] A wise and far-seeing world-policy can alone avail, and the enemies of to-day will see themselves compelled, even by the mere logic of events, to join hands to-morrow lest a worse fate befall them. In so doing they may not only escape possible destruction, but they will be taking the greatest step ever taken in the organisation of the world. Which nation is to assume the initiative in such combined organisation? That remains the fateful question for Democracy.

NOTES:

[1] Treitschke in his _History_ (Bk. I., Ch. III.) has well described "the elemental hatred which foreign injury pours into the veins of our good-natured people, for ever pursued by the question: 'Art thou yet on thy feet, Germania? Is the day of thy revenge at hand!'"

[2] Rudolf Goldscheid, _Deutschlands Groesste Gefahr_, Institut Orell Fuessli, Zuerich, 1916.

[3] One may remark that up to the outbreak of war fifty per cent. of the import trade of Russia has been with Germany. To suppose that that immense volume of trade can suddenly be transferred after the war from a neighbouring country which has intelligently and systematically adapted itself to its requirements to a remote country which has never shown the slightest aptitude to meet those requirements argues a simplicity of mind which in itself may be charming, but when translated into practical affairs it is stupendous folly.

[4] Sir Valentine Chirol remarks of Bismarck, in an Oxford Pamphlet on "Germany and the Fear of Russia":--"Friendship with Russia was one of the cardinal principles of his foreign policy, and one thing he always relied upon to make Russia amenable to German influence was that she should never succeed in healing the Polish sore."

[5] In making these observations on the Russians and the Prussians, I do not, of course, overlook the fact that all nations, like individuals,

"Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to,"

and the English treatment of the conscientious objector in the Great War has been just as odious as Russian treatment of the Finns or Prussian treatment of war prisoners, and even more foolish, since it strikes at our own most cherished principles.

[6] There is, indeed, another school which would like to shut off all foreign countries by a tariff wall and make the British Empire mutually self-supporting, on the economic basis adopted by those three old ladies in decayed circumstances who subsisted by taking tea in one another's houses.

[7] Even if partially successful, as has lately been pointed out, the greater the financial depression of Germany the greater would be the advantage to Russia of doing business with Germany.

[8] It may be proper to point out that I by no means wish to imply that democracy is necessarily the ultimate and most desirable form of political society, but merely that it is a necessary stage for those peoples that have not yet reached it. Even Treitschke in his famous _History_, while idealising the Prussian State, always assumes that movement towards democracy is beneficial progress. For the larger question of the comparative merits of the different forms of political society, see an admirable little book by C. Delisle Burns, _Political Ideals_ (1915). And see also the searching study, _Political Parties_ (English translation, 1915), by Robert Michels, who, while accepting democracy as the highest political form, argues that practically it always works out as oligarchy.

[9] Professor D.S. Jordan has quoted the letter of a German officer to a friend in Roumania (published in the Bucharest _Adverul_, 21 Aug., 1915): "How difficult it was to convince our Emperor that the moment had arrived for letting loose the war, otherwise Pacifism, Internationalism, Anti-Militarism, and so many other noxious weeds would have infected our stupid people. That would have been the end of our dazzling nobility. We have everything to gain by the war, and all the chimeras and stupidities of democracy will be chased from the world for an infinite time."

[10] "Let us be patient," a Japanese is reported to have said lately, "until Europe has completed her _hara-kiri_."

[The end]
Havelock Ellis's essay: War And Democracy

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