New York Times Current History: Vol 1, No. 1 | Page 9

point, spends its indemnity in building an invincible
Armada, stronger and nearer to us than the German one we are now out

to destroy! Suppose Sir Edward Grey remonstrates, and Monsieur
Delcasse replies, "Russia and France have humbled one Imperial Bully,
and are prepared to humble another. I have not forgotten Fashoda. Stop
us if you can; or turn, if you like, for help to the Germany we have
smashed and disarmed!" Of what use will all this bloodshed be then,
with the old situation reproduced in an aggravated form, the enemy
closer to our shores, a raid far more feasible, the tradition of "natural
enmity" to steel the foe, and Waterloo to be wiped out like Sedan? A
child in arms should be able to see that this idiotic notion of relaxing
the military pressure on us by smashing this or that particular Power is
like trying to alter the pressure of the ocean by dipping up a bucket of
water from the North Sea and pouring it into the Bay of Biscay.
I purposely omit more easterly supposings as to what victorious Russia
might do. But a noble emancipation of Poland and Finland at her own
expense, and of Bosnia and Harzegovina at Austria's, might easily
suggest to our nervous Militarists that a passion for the freedom of
Egypt and India might seize her, and remind her that we were Japan's
ally in the day of Russia's humiliation in Manchuria. So there at once is
your Balance of Power problem in Asia enormously aggravated by
throwing Germany out of the anti-Russian scale and grinding her to
powder. Even in North Africa--but enough is enough. You can
durchhauen your way out of the frying pan, but only into the fire.
Better take Nietzsche's brave advice, and make it your point of honour
to "live dangerously." History shews that it is often the way to live
long.
*Learning Nothing: Forgetting Everything.*
But let me test the Militarist theory, not by a hypothetical future, but by
the accomplished and irrevocable past. Is it true that nations must
conquer or go under, and that military conquest means prosperity and
power for the victor and annihilation for the vanquished? I have already
alluded in passing to the fact that Austria has been beaten repeatedly:
by France, by Italy, by Germany, almost by everybody who has thought
it worth while to have a whack at her; and yet she is one of the Great
Powers; and her alliance has been sought by invincible Germany.

France was beaten by Germany in 1870 with a completeness that
seemed impossible; yet France has since enlarged her territory whilst
Germany is still pleading in vain for a place in the sun. Russia was
beaten by the Japanese in Manchuria on a scale that made an end
forever of the old notion that the West is the natural military superior of
the East; yet it is the terror of Russia that has driven Germany into her
present desperate onslaught on France; and it is the Russian alliance on
which France and England are depending for their assurance of
ultimate success. We ourselves confess that the military efficiency with
which we have so astonished the Germans is the effect, not of Waterloo
and Inkerman, but of the drubbing we got from the Boers, who we aid
probably have beaten us if we had been anything like their own size.
Greece has lately distinguished herself in war within a few years by a
most disgraceful beating of the Turks. It would be easy to multiply
instances from remoter history: for example, the effect on England's
position of the repeated defeats of our troops by the French under
Luxembourg in the Balance of Power War at the end of the seventeenth
century differed surprisingly little, if at all, from the effect of our
subsequent victories under Marlborough. And the inference from the
Militarist theory that the States which at present count for nothing as
military Powers necessarily count for nothing at all is absurd on the
face of it. Monaco seems to be, on the whole, the most prosperous and
comfortable State in Europe.
In short, Militarism must be classed as one of the most inconsiderately
foolish of the bogus "sciences" which the last half century has produced
in such profusion, and which have the common characteristic of
revolting all sane souls, and being stared out of countenance by the
broad facts of human experience. The only rule of thumb that can be
hazarded on the strength of actual practice is that wars to maintain or
upset the Balance of Power between States, called by inaccurate people
Balance of Power wars, and by accurate people Jealousy of Power wars,
never establish the desired peaceful and secure equilibrium. They may
exercise pugnacity, gratify spite, assuage