England and the War | Page 4

be no wars. Good wars are fought by nations who make their
choice, and would rather die than lose what they are fighting for.
Military fortunes are notoriously variable, and depend on a hundred
accidents. Moral causes are constant, and operate all the time. The chief
of these moral causes is the character of a people. Germany, by her
vaunted study of the art and science of war, has got herself into a
position where no success can come to her except by way of the
collapse or failure of the English-speaking peoples. A study of the
moral causes, if she were capable of making it, would not encourage
her in her old impious belief that God will destroy these peoples in
order to clear the way for the dominion of the Hohenzollerns.

MIGHT IS RIGHT
First published as one of the Oxford Pamphlets, October 1914
It is now recognized in England that our enemy in this war is not a
tyrant military caste, but the united people of modern Germany. We
have to combat an armed doctrine which is virtually the creed of all
Germany. Saxony and Bavaria, it is true, would never have invented
the doctrine; but they have accepted it from Prussia, and they believe it.
The Prussian doctrine has paid the German people handsomely; it has
given them their place in the world. When it ceases to pay them, and
not till then, they will reconsider it. They will not think, till they are
compelled to think. When they find themselves face to face with a
greater and more enduring strength than their own, they will renounce
their idol. But they are a brave people, a faithful people, and a stupid
people, so that they will need rough proofs. They cannot be driven from
their position by a little paper shot. In their present mood, if they hear
an appeal to pity, sensibility, and sympathy, they take it for a cry of
weakness. I am reminded of what I once heard said by a genial and
humane Irish officer concerning a proposal to treat with the leaders of a
Zulu rebellion. 'Kill them all,' he said, 'it's the only thing they
understand.' He meant that the Zulu chiefs would mistake moderation

for a sign of fear. By the irony of human history this sentence has
become almost true of the great German people, who built up the
structure of modern metaphysics. They can be argued with only by
those who have the will and the power to punish them.
The doctrine that Might is Right, though it is true, is an unprofitable
doctrine, for it is true only in so broad and simple a sense that no one
would dream of denying it. If a single nation can conquer, depress, and
destroy all the other nations of the earth and acquire for itself a sole
dominion, there may be matter for question whether God approves that
dominion; what is certain is that He permits it. No earthly governor
who is conscious of his power will waste time in listening to arguments
concerning what his power ought to be. His right to wield the sword
can be challenged only by the sword. An all-powerful governor who
feared no assault would never trouble himself to assert that Might is
Right. He would smile and sit still. The doctrine, when it is propounded
by weak humanity, is never a statement of abstract truth; it is a
declaration of intention, a threat, a boast, an advertisement. It has no
value except when there is some one to be frightened. But it is a very
dangerous doctrine when it becomes the creed of a stupid people, for it
flatters their self-sufficiency, and distracts their attention from the
difficult, subtle, frail, and wavering conditions of human power. The
tragic question for Germany to-day is what she can do, not whether it is
right for her to do it. The buffaloes, it must be allowed, had a perfect
right to dominate the prairie of America, till the hunters came. They
moved in herds, they practised shock-tactics, they were violent, and
very cunning. There are but few of them now. A nation of men who
mistake violence for strength, and cunning for wisdom, may
conceivably suffer the fate of the buffaloes and perish without knowing
why.
To the English mind the German political doctrine is so incredibly
stupid that for many long years, while men in high authority in the
German Empire, ministers, generals, and professors, expounded that
doctrine at great length and with perfect clearness, hardly any one
could be found in England to take it seriously, or to regard it as
anything but the vapourings of a crazy sect. England knows better now;

the scream of the guns has awakened her. The German