Outspoken Essays | Page 2

those of the Standard Oil Trust on a still larger scale. The other nations had not followed the logic of competition in the same ruthless manner; there were several things which they were not willing to do. But war to the knife cannot be confined to one of the combatants; the alternative, Weltmacht oder Niedergang, was thrust by Germany upon the Allies when she chose that motto for herself. If the modern man were as much dominated by economic motives as is sometimes supposed, the suicidal results of such a conflict would have been apparent to all; but the poetry and idealism of human nature, no longer centred, as formerly, in religion, had gathered round a romantic patriotism, for which the belligerents were willing to sacrifice their all without counting the cost. Like other idealisms, patriotism varies from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.
But there was another cause which led to the war. Germany was a curious combination of seventeenth century theory and very modern practice. An Emperor ruling by divine right was the head of the most scientific state that the world has seen. In many ways Germany, with an intelligent, economical, and uncorrupt Government, was a model to the rest of the world. But the whole structure was menaced by that form of individualistic materialism which calls itself social democracy, and which in practice is at once the copy of organic materialism and the reaction against it. The motives for drilling a whole nation in the pursuit of purely national and purely materialistic aims are not strong enough to prevent disintegration. The German Kriegsstaat was falling to pieces through internal fissures. A successful war might give the empire a new lease of life; otherwise, the rising tide of revolution was certain to sweep it away. As Sir Charles Walston has shown, it was for some years doubtful whether the democratic movement would obtain control before the bureaucracy and army chiefs succeeded in precipitating a war. There was a kind of race between the two forces. This was the situation which Lord Haldane found still existing in his famous visit to Germany. In the event, the conservative powers were able to strike and to rush public opinion. Perhaps the bureaucracy was carried along by its own momentum. Two or three years before the war a German publicist, replying to an eminent Englishman, who asked him who really directed the policy of Germany, answered: 'It is a difficult question. Nominally, of course, the Emperor is responsible; but he is a man of moods, not a strong man. In reality, the machine runs itself. Whither it is carrying us we none of us know; I fear towards some great disaster.' This seems to be the truth of the matter. No doubt, a romantic imperialism, with dreams of restoring the empire of Charlemagne, was a factor in the criminal enterprise. No doubt the natural ambitions of officers, and the greed of contractors and speculators, played their part in promoting it. But when we consider that Germany held all the winning cards in a game of peaceful penetration and economic competition, we should attribute to the Imperial Government a strange recklessness if we did not conclude that the political condition of Germany itself, and the automatic working of the machine, were the main causes why the attack was made. There is, in fact, abundant evidence that it was so. The scheme failed only because Germany was foolish enough to threaten England before settling accounts with Russia. But this, again, was the result of internal pressure. Hamburg, and all the interests which the name stands for, cared less for expansion in the East than for the capture of markets overseas. For this important section of conservative Germany, England was the enemy. So the gauntlet was thrown down to the whole civilised world at once, and the odds against Germany were too great.
For the time being, the world has no example of a strong monarchy. The three great European empires are, at the time of writing, in a state of septic dissolution. The victors have sprung to the welcome conclusion that democracy is everywhere triumphant, and that before long no other type of civilised state will exist. The amazing provincialism of American political thought accepts this conclusion without demur; and our public men, some of whom doubtless know better, have served the needs of the moment by effusions of political nonsense which almost surpass the orations delivered every year on the Fourth of July. But no historian can suppose that one of the most widespread and successful forms of human association has been permanently extinguished because the Central Empires were not quite strong enough to conquer Europe, an attempt which has always failed, and probably will always fail. The issue is not fully decided,