A General Sketch of the European War | Page 4

leading part in Western
Europe; she is even to-day 'over-capitalized,' as it were, possessing a
far greater hold over the modern world than her real strength warrants.
Even the savage Slavs have profited by our former disunion, and the
Russian autocracy not only rules millions of German-speaking subjects,
but threatens our frontiers with its great numbers of barbarians, and
exercises over the Balkan Peninsula, and therefore over the
all-important position of Constantinople, a power very dangerous to
European culture as a whole, and particularly to our own
culture--which is, of course, by far the highest culture of all.

"Some fifty years ago, acting upon the impulse of a group of great
writers and thinkers, our statesmen at last achieved that German unity
which had been the unrealized ideal of so many centuries. In a series of
wars we accomplished that unity, and we amply manifested our
superiority when we were once united by defeating with the greatest
ease and in the most fundamental fashion the French, whom the rest of
Europe then conceived to be the chief military power.
"From that moment we have incontestably stood in the sight of all as
the strongest people in the world, and yet because other and lesser
nations had the start of us, our actual international position, our foreign
possessions, the security that should be due to so supreme an
achievement, did not correspond to our real strength and abilities.
England had vast dependencies, and had staked out the unoccupied
world as her colonies. We had no colonies and no dependencies. France,
though decadent, was a menace to our peace upon the West. We could
have achieved the thorough conquest and dismemberment of France at
any time in the last forty years, and yet during the whole of that time
France was adding to her foreign possessions in Tunis, Madagascar,
and Tonkin, latterly in Morocco, while we were obtaining nothing. The
barbarous Russians were increasing constantly in numbers, and
somewhat perfecting their insufficient military machine without any
interference from us, grave as was the menace from them upon our
Eastern frontier.
"It was evident that such a state of things could not endure. A nation so
united and so immensely strong could not remain in a position of
artificial inferiority while lesser nations possessed advantages in no
way corresponding to their real strength. The whole equilibrium of
Europe was unstable through this contrast between what Germany
might be and what she was, and a struggle to make her what she might
be from what she was could not be avoided.
"Germany must, in fulfilment of a duty to herself, obtain colonial
possessions at the expense of France, obtain both colonial possessions
and sea-power at the expense of England, and put an end, by campaigns
perhaps defensive, but at any rate vigorous, to the menace of Slav

barbarism upon the East. She was potentially, by her strength and her
culture, the mistress of the modern world, the chief influence in it, and
the rightful determinant of its destinies. She must by war pass from a
potential position of this kind to an actual position of domination."
Such was the German mood, such was the fatuous illusion which
produced this war. It had at its service, as we shall see later, numbers,
and, backed by this superiority of numbers, it counted on victory.
(2) CONFLICT PRODUCED BY THE CONTRAST OF THIS
GERMAN ATTITUDE OR WILL WITH THE WILLS OF OTHER
NATIONS.
When we have clearly grasped the German attitude, as it may thus be
not unfairly expressed, we shall not find it difficult to conceive why a
conflict between such a will and other wills around it broke out.
We need waste no time in proving the absurdity of the German
assumptions, the bad history they involve, and the perverse and twisted
perspective so much vanity presupposes. War can never be prevented
by discovering the moral errors of an opponent. It comes into being
because that opponent does not believe them to be moral errors; and in
the attempt to understand this war and its causes, we should only
confuse ourselves if we lost time over argument upon pretensions even
as crassly unreal as these.
It must be enough for the purposes of this to accept the German will so
stated, and to see how it necessarily conflicts with the English will, the
French will, the Russian will, and sooner or later, for that matter, with
every other national will in Europe.
In the matter of sea-power England would answer: "Unless we are
all-powerful at sea, our very existence is imperilled." In the matter of
her colonies and dependencies England would answer: "We may be a
Teutonic people or we may not. All that kind of thing is pleasant talk
for the academies. But if you ask