Peace Theories and the Balkan War | Page 5

evil form of relationship--its evil and
futility is the whole basis of the principles I have attempted to
illustrate--he has not even observed the rough chivalry of the brigand.
The brigand, though he might knock men on the head, will refrain from
having his force take the form of butchering women and
disembowelling children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government
will take the form of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial
ferocity which is not a matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to
which scores, hundreds, thousands even of credible European,
witnesses have testified. "The finest gentleman, sir, that ever butchered
a woman or burned a village," is the phrase that Punch most justly puts
into the mouth of the defender of our traditional Turcophil policy.
And this condition is "Peace," and the act which would put a stop to it
is "War." It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which
creates much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the
same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for a

counter-action destined to prevent it.
Yet we manage, in other than the international field, in civil matters, to
make the thing clear enough.
Once an American town was set light to by incendiaries, and was
threatened with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it, the
authorities deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the
pathway of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the
town authorities were incendiaries also, and "believed in setting light to
towns?" Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax
Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed
at bringing it to an end.
Put it another way. You do not believe that force should determine the
transfer of property or conformity to a creed, and I say to you: "Hand
me your purse and conform to my creed or I kill you." You say:
"Because I do not believe that force should settle these matters, I shall
try and prevent it settling them, and therefore if you attack I shall resist;
if I did not I should be allowing force to settle them." I attack; you
resist and disarm me and say: "My force having neutralised yours, and
the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may
have to urge for my paying you money; or any argument in favour of
your creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You
would be a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes
non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you
would be an anti-Bellicist to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile
Faguet in the discussion of this matter. If, however, you said: "Having
disarmed you and established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in
my favour by taking your weapon and using it against you unless you
hand me your purse and subscribe to my creed. I do this because force
alone can determine issues, and because it is a law of life that the strong
should eat up the weak." You would then be a Bellicist.
In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his
trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as a
means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in
preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to

knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's
brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade, or
a nation, or a government, or make it the basis of human relationship?
In every civilised country, the basis of the relationship on which the
community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his
differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one
threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it?
That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the
individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by force?"
It is because of that, because the act of self-defence is an attempt to
prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law justifies
it.[2]
But the law would not justify me, if having disarmed my opponent,
having neutralised his force by my own, and re-established the social
equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it, by asking him for his
purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by force--I
should then have ceased to be a Pacifist, and have become a Bellicist.
For that is