Armageddon--And After | Page 6

by the cession of about one hundred thousand square miles of territory in the Congo basin by France to Germany in compensation for German acquiescence in the French protectorate over Morocco. I need not, perhaps, refer to other more recent events. One point, however, must not be omitted. The issue of the Balkan wars in 1912 caused a distinct disappointment to both Germany and Austria. Turkey's defeat lessened the importance of the Ottoman Empire as an ally. Austria had to curb her desires in the direction of Salonica. And the enemies who had prevented the realisation of wide Teutonic schemes were Servia and her protector, Russia. From this time onwards Austria waited for an opportunity to avenge herself on Servia, while Germany, in close union with her ally, began to study the situation in relation to the Great Northern Empire in an eminently bellicose spirit.
MILITARISM
Now that we have the proper standpoint from which to watch the general tendency of events like these, we can form some estimate of the nature of German ambition and the results of the personal ascendancy of the Kaiser. We speak vaguely of militarism. Fortunately, we have a very valuable document to enable us to understand what precisely German militarism signifies. General von Bernhardi's Germany and the Next War is one of the most interesting, as well as most suggestive, of books, intended to illustrate the spirit of German ambition. Bernhardi writes like a soldier. Such philosophy as he possesses he has taken from Nietzsche. His applications of history come from Treitschke. He has persuaded himself that the main object of human life is war, and the higher the nation the more persistently must it pursue preparations for war. Hence the best men in the State are the fighting men. Ethics and religion, so far as they deprecate fighting and plead for peace, are absolutely pernicious. Culture does not mean, as we hoped and thought, the best development of scientific and artistic enlightenment, but merely an all-absorbing will-power, an all-devouring ambition to be on the top and to crush every one else. The assumption throughout is that the German is the highest specimen of humanity. Germany is especially qualified to be the leader, and the only way in which it can become the leader is to have such overwhelming military power that no one has any chance of resisting. Moreover, all methods are justified in the sacred cause of German culture--duplicity, violence, the deliberate sowing of dissensions between possible rivals, incitements of Asiatics to rise against Europeans. All means are to be adopted to win the ultimate great victory, and, of course, when the struggle comes there must be no misplaced leniency to any of the inferior races who interpose between Germany and her legitimate place in the sun.[3] The ideal is almost too na?ve and too ferocious to be conceived by ordinary minds. Yet here it all stands in black and white. According to Bernhardi's volume German militarism means at least two things. First the suppression of every other nationality except the German; second the suppression of the whole civilian element in the population under the heel of the German drill-sergeant. Is it any wonder that the recent war has been conducted by Berlin with such appalling barbarism and ferocity?
[3] Germany and the Next War, by F. von Bernhardi. See especially Chap. V, "World-Power or Downfall." Other works which may be consulted are Professor J.A. Cramb's Germany and England (esp. pp. 111-112) and Professor Usher's _Pan-Germanism_.
THE EVILS OF AUTOCRACY
Our inquiry so far has led to two conclusions. We have discovered by bitter experience that a personal ascendancy, such as the German Emperor wields, is in the highest degree perilous to the interests of peace: and that a militarism such as that which holds in its thrall the German Empire is an open menace to intellectual culture and to Christian ethics. But we must not suppose that these conclusions are only true so far as they apply to the Teutonic race, and that the same phenomena observed elsewhere are comparatively innocuous. Alas! autocracy in any and every country seems to be inimical to the best and highest of social needs, and militarism, wherever found, is the enemy of pacific social development. Let us take a few instances at haphazard of the danger of the personal factor in European politics. There is hardly a person to be found nowadays who defends the Crimean war, or indeed thinks that it was in any sense inevitable. Yet if there was one man more than another whose personal will brought it about, it was--not Lord Aberdeen who ought to have been responsible--but Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. "The great Eltchi," as he was called, was our Ambassador at Constantinople, a man of uncommon strength of will, which, as is often the