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 THE VINDICATION OF 
 GREAT BRITAIN
 
 EDWARD THE .SE\ ENTK
 
 THE VINDICATION OF 
 GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 A STUDY IN DIPLOMACY AND STRATEGY 
 
 WITH REFERENCE TO THE ILLUSIONS 
 
 OF HER CRITICS AND THE PROBLEMS 
 
 OF THE FUTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 HAROLD BEGBIE 
 
 4 
 
 WITH THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TORONTO 
 THE COPP CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 1916
 
 TO 
 
 THE AMIABLE AND GRACIOUS MEMORY OF 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 KING-EMPEROR 
 
 WHO SOUGHT PEACE AND PREPARED AGAINST WAR 
 
 "WHO DISLIKED EXAGGERATION AND DETESTED MISCHIEF-MAKING' 
 
 WHO BELIEVED THERE IS GOOD IN ALL MEN AND 
 
 WHO DID NOT DESPAIR OF HUMANITY 
 
 THE BEST OF HIS COUNTRYMEN 
 
 WILL ALWAYS HOLD HIS MEMORY IN HONOUR 
 
 AND THINK OF HIM WITH AFFECTION
 
 This I know, that your country, where I have lived 
 so long and seen so much, is on its way either to a 
 great transformation or to a great disaster. 
 
 Friendship'' s Garland
 
 PREFACE 
 
 /N their well intentioned efforts to rouse the energies of this 
 country^ certain speakers and ivnters in England have suc- 
 ceeded in conveying to neutral nations, to our kinsjnen across 
 the seas, to our allies, and even to our enemies, an impression oj 
 Great Britain which I feel is not fuerely misleading, but monstrously 
 untrue. 
 
 I desire to set the character of this great country in a truer light, 
 and to show its achievement to the present generation in some suck 
 aspect as I venture to think history will show it to posterity. 
 This desire does not spring from any feelings oj vainglory, but 
 from a spirit of justice, a spirit which inspires me with the faith 
 that a righteous pride and a wellfounded enthusiasm are powerful 
 forces in a nation's life, and forces which we in G^'eat Britain shall 
 need in the days ahead. 
 
 In such a spirit I have entered upon this study, looking up con- 
 stantly from the documents of yesterday to the horizon of to-morrow, 
 striving always to see in things which have happened guidance for 
 things which are to come j and the conclusions I have reached in the 
 course of my inquiry have been fortified and enlarged by conversations 
 with men of great emi?ience, not in this coutttry alone, but in Russia, 
 Scandinavia, and America, who are also inindful of that which is 
 to come, and who are convinced that only a revolution in the human 
 mind can avert a repetition of the present tragedy. 
 
 It is my hope that a reading of this book may help, in however 
 }nodest a degree, to create an " international mind " in those of my 
 countrymen who neglected the warning of Matthew Arnold in 1870 to 
 prepare themselves for a war of mind against mind, and who remain 
 
 vll
 
 viii THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 to this hour the pathetic and dangerous victims of newspapers con- 
 ducted by men whose honest and intense partisanship prevents them^ 
 I think, from seeing the truth of great and even critical matters 
 which belong neither to a party nor to a nation, but to humanity. 
 
 The future is in the hands Oj the avsragt ptrson. Right-thinking 
 in the multitude is of capital importance to the well-being of States. 
 It is apparent from the events which led up to this war and from 
 the terrible feelings released by the war itself^ that wrong-thinking 
 is the supreme peril of civllixaHon. All that eivilixation means t» 
 the highest of the sons of men is in tkt hands of the innumerable 
 mass. 
 
 Unless the intellectual and moral character of the average person 
 in Great Britain is powerfully changed for good by this most 
 ruinous and cruel war, and unless we drive out from among our- 
 selves that spirit of strife and contention which in this country has 
 made for wasteful faction and in the world at large has turned 
 Europe into a bear-garden, no victory over the enemy on foreign 
 fields will avail to save us from defeat at our own door. 
 
 It is a choice not between Conservative and Liberal, not even 
 directly between Progress and Reaction, but definitely and inescapably 
 a direct choice between Good and Evil. It is a choice between right- 
 thinking and wrong-thinking. We must either range ourselves on 
 the side of truth, goodness, and beauty, or go over to the destroying 
 armies of selfishness and greed. In the moml arena there is no 
 neutrality. 
 
 I have reason for the belief that at the conclusion oj peace the 
 Emperor of Russia will renew his proposals for an extensive 
 limitation of armaments — an object upon which his heart is as greatly 
 set as on the conquest for Christianity of that great city to which 
 the eyes of Holy Russia are for ever turned as the birthplace of her 
 Faith. The future of civilization may very largely be determined 
 by the reception given to this proposal. 
 
 Let us ask ourselves whether we are yet in the frame of fnind to 
 consider it, and whether our spirit is in harmony with the spirit
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 from which it proceeds — a spirit which seriously and very earnestly 
 believes that the brotherhood of humanity is the divine event to 
 which the whole evolution of history has moved, the divine consum- 
 mation to which always the soul of humanity has tended. 
 
 Do wt really believe thai the world can be made better and santr, 
 or art we so Prussianiatd as to hold that war is a biological 
 necessity f 
 
 But such a proposal, however successful, nevertheless tuill still 
 leave standing in our midst the spiritual armies oj covetonsness, self- 
 ishness, and ignorance. No constructional reformation in human 
 society, however beneficent and far-reaching, can disarm those forces 
 in the individual soul of man. To each man is it ordained to fight 
 a world waf in the silence of his own spirit, and upon the issue op 
 that individual conflict, more than upon any changes in the political 
 region, depend the only lasting peace of the world, and our only 
 enduring security against reaction and anarchy. 
 
 Each man among us is now helping this country, consciously or 
 unconsciously, either to a great transformation or to a great disaster. 
 
 "... The war which is going on is not the only struggle in 
 which this country is engaged. There is a larger rivalry, a rivalry 
 jnore peaceful, less obvious, less rapid in its progress, but not less 
 decisive in the end, in which we have to hold our own, if we are 
 to maintain our place; and that rivalry is one in which knowledge, 
 skill, and foresight are required as urgently as they are in the war." 
 This rivalry is a rivalry of Mind against Mind. It extends 
 beyond any one phase of intellectual activity, and on its conduct and 
 its spirit depends the evolution of the human race. 
 
 HAROLD BEGBIE 
 September, 1916
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Causes of the War . . . . . i 
 
 The average person's view — A notorious fallacy — M. 
 Sazonoflfs statement — The two Germanies — Importance 
 of this view — Warlike Germany and Peaceful Germany 
 — German people " literally dragged into the fight against 
 their will " — How English newspapers strengthened Ger- 
 man War Party — What Germans mean by a "Defen- 
 sive" War — Mr. Branting and German Socialists — The 
 record of certain English newspapers — The danger of 
 the English vulgarian — The war as a moral struggle — 
 Russia's Ideal — "The supreme issue of the war is the 
 repentance of Germany" — The duty of right-thinking. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Edward the Seventh as Statesman . . -31 
 
 Character of King Edward — His three political enthu- 
 siasms — His part in the entente with France — Object of 
 his visits to Reval, Cronberg, and Ischl — His attitude to 
 the mischief-making Press — His desire to include Ger- 
 many in the Entente — Seeks Peace, but prepares 
 against War — His confidence in Lord Haldane and 
 xl
 
 xii THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lord Fisher — He supports them in their reforms — 
 Friendship with Lord Haldane began over education 
 question — German Emperor's visit of 1907 — The King's 
 view of a real German menace — Russia and France 
 favourable to the King's policy — Evil work of newspapers 
 —The war a retribution on wrong-thinking. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Tmi British War Machinb . . . . .51 
 
 King Edward's determination — Lord French's tribute 
 to Lord Haldane's work at the War Office — Newspaper 
 tributes — The later charges against Lord Haldane — 
 What is the truth ? — Increase of Expeditionary Force 
 from 80,000 to 170,000— An increase of forces equivalent 
 to 100 per cent. — Artillery increased from 42 to 81 
 batteries — New howitzer guns — Home-serving Militia 
 transformed into Special Reserve— An integral part of 
 Expeditionary Force — Lord Haldane and Lord Roberts 
 — The true view of National Service — Compulsory Ser- 
 vice rejected by the General Staff on military grounds — 
 The Moltke principle — Chaos and Weakness in 1905, 
 Absolute Efficiency in 1912 — Article in the Fortnightly 
 Review — Mr. Asquith's tribute — Speech by Lord 
 Haldane — Lord Haldane's return to the Law — A story 
 of his childhood. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Lord Haldane's Missions to Germany . . -95 
 
 Mr. F. S. Oliver and Germany's "Warnings" — 
 Moltkeism must be met by Moltkeism — The Haldane 
 family — Education and career — True Liberalism — 
 Professor Cramb and German literature — Lord Haldane
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 rAdE 
 foes to Berlin, 1906 — The Kaiser's greeting — A public 
 compliment to Britain — Generous opportunities of 
 studying German war machine — Better relations — The 
 two Germanics — Kaiser on the side of peaceful Ger- 
 many — Germany between Russia and France — Could 
 the Kaiser trust King Edward ? — Kaiser visits King 
 Edward, 1907 — The Windsor Castle negotiations — 
 Kaiser's ambition — Happiness of everybody at apparently 
 successful result of visit — Why the negotiations failed — 
 Result of this failure — Personal character of the Kaiger 
 — Prince von Billow's policy — The Slav Peril — 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, "an earnest apostle of peace and 
 friendship with England," succeeds the dismissed 
 Billow — The "warning" of 191 1 — M. SazonofF's im- 
 portant statement — Kaiser visits King George — Satisfac- 
 tion of British Press— Kaiser's popularitj-^ — The incident 
 of the Panther — Warning by Britain — Kaiser sends a 
 private messenger to London — Anxious to restore confi- 
 dence — Lord Haldane visits Berlin, 1912 — Conversation 
 with the Chancellor — A clear understanding — The 
 Formula of Neutrality — Conversation with Kaiser and 
 Admiral von Tirpitz — An authorized statement — Lord 
 Haldane's conclusion — Result of visit on British ship- 
 building — Count Reventlow's attack on Lord Haldane — 
 Lord Haldane and German shipbuilding — The situation 
 in 1912 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Last Efforts for Peace . . . . .151 
 
 Great Britain prepared to fulfil all her engagements — 
 The reason for peaceful speeches — Germany left in no 
 doubt as to British policy — Peace kept for two years 
 after Lord Haldane's visit — The Curragh incident, 1914 
 — Preparations for Civil W'ar — The steamship Fanny — 
 Germany's opportunity — Her readiness to deal with 
 France and Russia — Apprehension of German nation —
 
 xiv THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 PAGS 
 
 Nervousness of Kaiser — A people dragged into war — 
 Reason of ferocious hatred towards Britain — War Party's 
 taunt — Conviction of German nation that Britain 
 planned war. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Pars Britannica ...... 177 
 
 Unity of British Empire — Sobriety of the nation — This 
 admirable spirit marred by newspaper panic — Attack on 
 the Government — Lord Haldane as scapegoat — Public 
 confidence shaken — The man who had saved the nation 
 driven out of office — An illustration of newspaper 
 morality — Britain's overwhelming part in the war — The 
 Expeditionary Force saves the French coasts — The Fleet 
 holds the seas — Britain more prepared than her allies — 
 An American critic — Lord Rosebery on " preparedness " 
 — Navy and Army both made efficient by Liberal 
 Government — Lord Haldane's revolution at the War 
 Office — Expeditionary Force in France — A perfect 
 Army — Its invaluable service — Tribute from a North- 
 cliffe publication — Mr. Winston Churchill's statement — 
 Britain's manifold aid to all her allies — Britain the soul 
 of the alliance. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Germany's Place in the World . . 225 
 
 The supreme issue — Germany cannot be excluded — 
 Untrustworthy guides — Will Germany revolt? — Attitude 
 of Scandinavia — A Neutral Diplomat on Germany — A 
 Daily Mail witness to peaceful Germany — Professor 
 Forster of Munich — Signs of a German revolution — 
 Dangers of Nationalism — Emperor of Russia and a 
 Limitation of Armaments — An international spirit — The 
 prayer of Grolius,
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ordeal of Peace . . . . -253 
 
 Historical view ot the war — The future of Britain — Ex- 
 haustion of Conservatism and Liberahsm — A new Labour 
 Party — The Slapdash School of reformers — The real 
 work of statesmanship — British character the finest raw 
 material in the world — Need for direction — British 
 energy must be intelligent energy — Wordsworth's tribute 
 to Milton — Real leadership — Evidences of mental 
 degradation — The remedy — National training — True 
 morality — A story of the Kaiser — " The incendiary of 
 journalism " — The struggle for a particular existence — 
 Russia and England — Fear of Reaction after War — 
 Warning by Prince Trubetzkoy — Goethe's ideal — 
 British character — Perils of apathy and indifference 
 — The light has come. 
 
 Appendix ........ 285 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 King Edward VII . . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 From a -photograph by Knighh-Whittome 
 Lord Haldane .... Facing page 90 
 
 From the painting by Fiddcs Watt 
 
 Lord Fisher ... . „ ,. 302 
 
 From the painting by Herkomer
 
 i 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
 
 Your newspapers are every day solemnly saying that 
 the great lesson to be learned from the present war 
 (1870) Is so and so, — always something which it is 
 not. ... I will tell you what is for you the great 
 lesson to be learned from it : — obedience. That 
 instead of every man airing his self-consequence, 
 thinking it bliss to talk at random about things, and 
 to put his finger in every pie, you should seriously 
 understand that there is a right way of doing things, 
 and that the bliss is, without thinking of one's self- 
 consequence, to do them in that way, or to forward 
 their being done. . . . 
 
 Friendships Garland
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR' 
 
 THE average person, who takes his opinions from 
 popular newspapers, is quite sure that he knows 
 all about the causes of the war. And he holds 
 this belief so sincerely, and with so hot a patriotism, 
 that it is almost impossible to make him listen with the 
 least degree of attention, much less with an unpreju- 
 diced mind, to any argument which runs counter to his 
 convictions. 
 
 Because he has not thought himself into his convic- 
 tions, it never occurs to him that he should challenge 
 himself as to whether they are right convictions. And 
 because his reason has had no part either in the forma- 
 tion of these ideas or in their development to anything 
 in the likeness of a logical conclusion, his reason deserts 
 him when he is asked to consider whether his convic- 
 tions are not conceivably wrong. Questioned in this 
 way, he does but hold the more vehemently to those 
 borrowed and unassimilated convictions, protesting with 
 all the passion of an irrational mind that any man who 
 
 ' I deal only with the political or contemporary causes oi the war. 
 These causes, of course, have their roots in history. We may trace 
 from the German sentiment of the IMiddle Ages, when the Emperor 
 was almost apotheosized, in spite of his rather powerless condition, 
 down to the personality of the present Kaiser, a movement of the 
 German mind very significant for the rest of the world. Romanticism 
 began this movement, the philosophers gave it logical form, and 
 Emperor Wilhelm II, with his empliasis on militarism and his con- 
 stant identification of himself witli the deity, seemed to promise a 
 fulfilment of German hopes. There is no nation in the world half so 
 emotional as the Germans, as their pre-eminence in music, the art 
 nearest to unconscious nature, attests. 
 
 3
 
 4 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 presumes to disagree with him is either a great fool or 
 a traitor to his country. 
 
 These war convictions of the average person may be 
 summarized very briefly, and without doing them the 
 smallest injustice, since it is the genius of popular error 
 to be curt and downright. The Germans, we are told, 
 wanted war, prepared for war, and made this particular 
 war with malice aforethought. Every German, we are 
 assured, is at heart a liar, a hypocrite, a barbarian, and 
 a beast. And further, every British Government which 
 had dealings with this unholy nation from the reign of 
 Queen Victoria to the last days of July 1914 was 
 tricked, hoodwinked, and outwitted by the astuter and 
 utterly unscrupulous German.^ 
 
 It is to the credit of Mr. F. S. Oliver, who advances 
 brilliantly some such fantastical thesis as this in his 
 popular work Ordeal by Battle that his strictures are 
 applied with a fine impartiality to both Unionist and 
 Liberal Governments. This is a point which I rather 
 think has escaped the attention of the more violent of 
 Mr, Oliver's disciples, who would certainly like to hang 
 every Liberal and to shoot every Irishman south of the 
 Boyne. But, manifestly, if Germany has for many years 
 been planning war behind a mask of peace, the Unionists 
 are as guilty as the Liberals in not doing what Mr. Oliver 
 thinks they ought to have done. It does not, however, 
 seem to strike Mr. Oliver that he himself is in a some- 
 what cramped and inconvenient position when he takes 
 
 ' No idea could be more false than the popular idea in this country 
 concerning German character. It is the Frenchman (as witness his 
 incomparable diplomacy and the brilliancy of his Higher Command) 
 whose intellect is cold, logical, and deadly in its precision. The 
 German, in truth, is governed by his emotions. He has always been 
 the most sentimental of men. Suicide is commoner in Germany 
 than in any other country, particularly among children. The songs 
 and literature of Germany are all characterized by an emotionalism 
 which very often degenerates into sentimentalism. It is the very lack 
 of intellectual strength which has made the German nation at one 
 moment soft to the point of flabbiness and at the next ferocious to the 
 extreme of barbarity. Prussian domination has failed in its supreme 
 effort to make this sentimental Germany a nation because it had no 
 other ideal to give it than the ideal of Force.
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 5 
 
 for his chief national hero a distinguished soldier who 
 presided for certain years at the War Office and left the 
 British Army, despite his great opportunity, in no better 
 a condition for a great European conflict than that in 
 which he found it. 
 
 The truth of this matter is, as I hope to show to the 
 satisfaction of all reasonable minds, that the entire argu- 
 ment of the average person is vitiated from its very 
 beginning by a notorious fallacy against which Burke 
 warned mankind in a memorable sentence. " I do not 
 know," he said, " the method of drawing up an indictment 
 against a whole people." 
 
 It sounds not only reasonable but perfectly true, and in 
 the fierce light of this inhuman war absolutely incon- 
 testable, to say that Germany wanted war ; but when a 
 statesman so eminent and interested as M. Sazonoff 
 announces his conviction that even the Imperial Chan- 
 cellor of Germany did not want war, reasonable men will 
 at once perceive that it is both slovenly and unscientific 
 to say that " Germany " wanted war. 
 
 It sounds not only reasonable but perfectly true to say 
 that the Germans are savages of a most horrible nature ; 
 but when Germans like Professor Forster of Munich arc 
 cheered by their pupils for denouncing the Bismarck- 
 Treitschke tradition, reasonable people will at once agree 
 that it is not just or true to describe every German as a 
 savage. 
 
 So long as British opinion is convinced that "Germany" 
 wanted war, and that the term " Hun " is applicable to the 
 whole German people, so long will the very interesting 
 historical truth of this matter remain in darkness for our 
 people, and so long also, a far more serious consideration, 
 will the causes which produced this war continue to exist. 
 
 We admit that it is singularly difficult to think dis- 
 passionately about the German people. It is almost 
 impossible to think charitably of them. So shameful have 
 been the actions of the German Government, so atrocious 
 the behaviour of the German Army and German Navy, 
 and so disgusting the language of German newspapers, 
 that a man may well be pardoned for uttering the most
 
 6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 cordial and righteous detestation of the entire German 
 people, refusing to listen for a single moment to any 
 argument which suggests that there are virtuous men and 
 women among this arrogant, deceitful, and barbarously 
 cruel nation. 
 
 A telling instance of this difficulty is to be found in 
 a recent issue (July 29, 1916) of one of the most reason- 
 able of our newspapers, a Liberal paper which has always 
 steered a middle course between the violence of extreme 
 Radicalism and the blank obstruction of extreme Con- 
 servatism. On the day which brought the news to 
 England that Captain Fryatt of the steamship Brussels 
 had been shot in Germany, this newspaper published a 
 leading article which expressed sentiments of indignation 
 and judgment such as the following : 
 
 The name of the murdered seaman takes its place 
 with those other terrible names — Louvain, Lnsitania, 
 Cavell, Wittenberg — which the last two years have 
 branded on the brow of the modern German nation 
 like the mark of Cain. No blood and no tears will 
 ever wash such branding out ; there are some deeds, 
 some courses of action, which leave no place even 
 for repentance. 
 And yet in another column of this same issue, the 
 newspaper, which had just branded the whole German 
 nation with infamy, printed the narrative of an English 
 lady's experiences who had lived for over seven years in 
 Germany and who was only released and allowed to 
 return to England in 1916, which contained continual 
 expressions of gratitude for the great kindness and con- 
 sideration she had received at German hands, and which 
 told how her German friends implored her to see Sir 
 Edward Grey on her return to England and beg him 
 to stop this cruel war ! Let the following paragraph 
 speak for itself: 
 
 I was the only Englishwoman, I believe the only 
 foreigner, in a town of 35,000 inhabitants when war 
 broke out, and I had to sign a paper promising to 
 remain there until the war ended. I had no idea 
 what other foreigners were doing in different parts
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 7 
 
 of the country, and my isolation made me wish 
 sometimes that I had been interned, for then I should 
 have been with my own people. It was such a 
 strange sensation to feel that I belonged to the 
 enemy in a country where I had been so happy, and 
 had received so much kindness, and I was long in 
 getting accustomed to the fact. After signing the 
 paper promising to remain in Germany till the war 
 ended, I had to report myself twice daily at the 
 police station. This was gradually lessened till it 
 was reduced to a bi-weekly visit, and from first to 
 last I received the utmost kindness and courtesy from 
 the inspector and his underlings. When it was 
 known that I intended to leave Germany, general 
 regret was expressed, and I was told that I should 
 "be safer in Germany because of the danger from 
 Zeppelins in England." I only learnt — by accident 
 — in December that Englishwomen might leave on 
 the 6th of any month, and I delayed my departure 
 in order to have the spring for travelling. VVhen I 
 left in May I was regretted by many — by some sin- 
 cerely, by others because they hoped I would stay 
 till the end of the war, so that they could afterwards 
 boast that an Englishwoman had remained in the 
 Fatherland of her own free will, and they hoped I 
 would mention this to my English friends so that 
 the English should see they arc not such barbarians as 
 they think. The epithet " barbarians " has cut them 
 to the quick. They cannot forget it, and refer to it 
 most bitterly. 
 Thus clearly do we see how extreme is the difficulty of 
 ordering our thoughts with truth and justice when wild 
 passion is abroad and the whole air is quivering with the 
 flames of hatred. Instances of the same kind might very 
 easily be multiplied, instances in which we witness the 
 condemnation of a whole people by one who tells us with 
 the next breath of something heroic and fine and humane 
 in this same people ; but the instance quoted above 
 must suffice. My purpose in referring to this difficulty, 
 a difficulty which I myself feel most acutely, is to persuade
 
 8 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 the reader whose heart is at present filled with indignation 
 and anger against Germany, that if he would think truly 
 in the matter, if he would live up to his highest as a 
 moral and rational being, he must perpetually and per- 
 sistently remind himself that there are men and women 
 in Germany whose notions of morality are not very 
 different from his own, and who will feel as much indigna- 
 tion and anger against the perpetration of heinous deeds 
 as he himself feels, when the true facts are explained to 
 them or when they are freed to express their opinions. 
 
 M. Romain Rolland, who has condemned German 
 atrocities far more effectually, because of his profound 
 spirituality, than anybody else in France or in England, 
 believes passionately in the regeneration of Germany. 
 He says in his famous book Above the Battle: 
 
 He who has lived in the intimacy of your old 
 Germany, who has clasped her hand in the twisted 
 streets of her heroic and sordid past, who has caught 
 the breath of her centuries of trials and shames, 
 remembers and waits : for he knows that even if she 
 has never proved strong enough to bear victory 
 without wavering, it is in her hours of trouble that 
 she reforms herself, and her greatest geniuses are 
 sons of sorrow. 
 And he says : 
 
 I know already several (Germans) who are beginning 
 to champion the rights of the spirit against force. 
 Many a German voice has reached us lately in 
 letters protesting against war and deploring with us 
 the injustices which we deplore. . . . Not very long 
 ago I told the " Fair " which obstructed Paris that it 
 was not France. I say to-day to the German Fair, 
 " You are not the true Germany." 
 
 There exists another Germany, juster and more 
 humane, whose ambition is not to dominate the 
 world by force and guile, but to absorb in peace 
 everything great in the thought of other races, and 
 in return to reflect the harmony. 
 Sermons have been preached in Germany, even when
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 9 
 
 wrath against England was at its highest, rebuking 
 national egoism, castigating national vices, and denouncing 
 the spirit of hate. And these sermons, let us bear in 
 mind, have proceeded from men who believe what 
 authority tells them, and who are therefore convinced 
 that England plotted and planned this war for the 
 destruction of German prosperity.^ 
 
 It is by assuring ourselves of the existence of such 
 Germans — such Germans as the pastor who wrote so 
 beautiful a letter to the mother of the young British 
 airman. Lieutenant Savage, who was buried with military 
 honours by his enemies — it is by thinking of these better- 
 minded, kinder-hearted, and cleaner-souled Germans that 
 we shall not only arrive at the truth of this whole matter, 
 but best serve the highest interests of those who come 
 after us. Utterly and mercilessly to destroy the war-caste 
 of Germany is our bounden duty, dereliction of which 
 would be a crime of the first magnitude. But it is no less 
 our duty, and no less our wisdom, to rescue and free from 
 the deceits of this tyrannous war-caste those many millions 
 of German people who hate war as heartily as we hate it, 
 and who would as greatly shrink from committing the 
 unholy barbarities which have been committed at the 
 orders of that caste as we ourselves. For the moment 
 these many millions of Germans are silent and in ignorance 
 of the full truth. When they know all, and when they are 
 free to speak, Europe will know that there is still a 
 conscience in Germany. 
 
 To understand the diplomacy of this country from 
 the days of King Edward to the breaking off of relations 
 with Germany in August 1914, it is above all things 
 necessary to realize that there are two Germanies and 
 not one Germany. Unless this central fact is seen and 
 accepted it is quite hopeless to understand the policy of 
 Great Britain, and, furthermore, it is equally hopeless to 
 expect the emergence of good from the wreckage of war. 
 The immediate harvest of war is devastation and death, 
 suffering and sorrow, waste and ruin ; but the further 
 ' See Appendix, Note A.
 
 lo THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 harvests of Europe will also be hate harvests and blood 
 harvests, with an endless prospect of anarchy, unless the 
 people of this country, recognizing that there are two 
 Germanies, labour with all their might and with all their 
 main to make the victory of the one Germany over the 
 other as complete and final as their own victory over 
 the two armed Germanies combined. 
 
 There is an arrogant, stupid, coarse, and immoral 
 Germany — a Germany which is black of soul and base 
 of heart, a Germany which cares neither for God nor man, 
 which loves war like a mistress, which holds that force is 
 the supreme weapon of advance, and which believes itself 
 to be the elect of the nations. This Germany, the organ- 
 izing and dominant Prussian war-caste, has been as much 
 hated by the other Germany as by the rest of the world ; 
 and it is this Germany which has now outraged the con- 
 science of mankind and which has made the name of 
 Germany a byword and a scorn. The other Germany, 
 if not very lovable or modest, if not very charming or 
 refined, is at least peaceful. And it is this other Germany, 
 which struggled to subdue the warmongers in its midst, 
 it is this Germany, and not the other, which has made 
 Germany one of the first countries in the world. It is this 
 Germany, not militaristic Germany, which has enriched 
 science and philosophy, which has carried its trade into 
 all lands, and which has solved some of the most desperate 
 social questions which are still the despair of more demo- 
 cratic countries. It is a Germany of extraordinary in- 
 dustry and remarkable seriousness. It is a deep-thinking, 
 restrained, thrifty, highly emotional, and domesticated 
 Germany. It is not the Germany of fifty years ago ; it is 
 a Germany corrupted by prosperity, rather coarse in its 
 fibre, and without the deep and solid foundations of 
 morality which made ancient Germany so powerful and 
 so likeable ; but it is not a warlike Germany. With very 
 little of the courage of enterprise which is almost essential 
 to trade, it has nevertheless by sheer assiduity and dis- 
 cipline so far captured the smaller things in world-trading 
 as to make Germany one of the richest of the nations.
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR ii 
 
 And there seems to be very little question among our own 
 principal business-men that, had the labour of this peace- 
 ful and industrious Germany been permitted to go on 
 without the violent interruption of war, Germany in a few 
 years would have been the richest country in the world.'' 
 
 One of the forces which placed this peaceful Germany 
 in the hand of militaristic Germany, to be used as a 
 tremendous weapon against the world's peace, was that 
 very force here in England which has persistently misled 
 and misguided the opinion of the average person. It was 
 the patriotically honest but internationally ignorant news- 
 papers of this country which finally drove peace-loving 
 Germany into the arms of war-loving Germany. Here 
 in England, working up hatred against Germany by 
 extracts from the writings of men like-minded to them- 
 selves in Germany, these newspapers gave to those very 
 men an endless illustration for their chief argument that 
 England's main interest in foreign politics was the destruc- 
 tion of German power. And it does not need very much 
 imagination to understand how such an argument would 
 finally prevail with peace-loving Germany when the 
 geographical situation of that country is considered, and 
 when we reflect that this argument was applied at a time 
 when war was assuming an ever more threatening attitude 
 on both of her chief frontiers. 
 
 Those newspapers which have most misled opinion in 
 this country, however patriotic their intention, are only 
 second in responsibility for the anguish and desolation 
 of the war to those evil militarists in Germany who made 
 use of their threats and their warnings to deceive the 
 German democracy. 
 
 ' .\ remarkable witness to tlie existence of tliis peaceful Germany is 
 Mr. F. W. Wile, the Berlin correspondent of tlie Daily Mail, who 
 for thirteen years lived in Germany, and made many true friends 
 there. Mr, Wile, who is an American, says in his book lite Assault 
 (Heinemann), that he saw with his own eyes the German people 
 " literally dragged into the fight against their icnll, fears, atui judg- 
 7nent. I know Jrom their o^icm lips that they considered it a cruelly 
 unnecessary ivar and did not want it. They cra7<cd a continuance of 
 the simple blessings of peace. . . ."
 
 12 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 No one will say that the Germans, speaking generally, 
 are fools. Therefore, when we find the vast majority of 
 Germans asserting that this war has been forced upon 
 them — and they made this particular assertion from the 
 very beginning of the crisis — we must either assume that 
 every German, not being a fool, is a hypocrite, or endeavour 
 to understand what they mean. It is not conceivable that 
 every German is a hypocrite. No man of intelligence 
 would dream of making such a preposterous charge 
 against a whole people.^ We must, therefore, endeavour 
 to understand what an intelligent and honest German 
 means, a man like Eucken for example, when he 
 asserts that this war has been forced upon his country. 
 He means that the alliance of Russia and France so 
 threatened his national existence that it was necessary 
 for Germany to strike while her arm was strong and her 
 enemies were not yet ready for their blow. It is a war for 
 him both offensive and defensive. He is not only honest 
 with himself but perfectly logical when he asserts that 
 a war of offence may be a war of defence. And, if we 
 grant his premise that the alliance of Russia, France, and 
 Great Britain was an alliance aimed at the destruction 
 of Germany's national prosperity, we must agree, if we 
 are just men, that this war, which seems to us so palpably 
 a war of German aggression, may very well appear to 
 German eyes as a war of defence. 
 
 On July 24, 1914, Professor Hans Delbriick, a minister 
 and a friend of the Kaiser, gave publicity to an " open 
 letter " received from a Russian colleague, Professor 
 Mitrosanoff, which contained the following passage : 
 
 It must not be forgotten that Russian public opinion 
 plays a vastly different role than it did a decade ago. 
 It has now grown into a full political force. Ani- 
 mosity towards Germans is in everybody's heart and 
 mouth. Seldom was public opinion more unanimous. 
 Almost simultaneously with the [publication of this 
 menacing letter, Professor Schiemann, the Kaiser's confi- 
 
 ' " I do not think the percentage of hypocrisy much higher in 
 Germany, man for man, than elsewhere in the world." — F. W. Wile 
 (Special Correspondent of the Daily Mail) in The Assault.
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 13 
 
 dential adviser on world politics, heaped fresh fuel, as 
 the Daily Mail correspondent in Berlin put it, on the 
 anti-Russian fire. He declared : 
 
 We have reason to think that the underlying purpose 
 
 of President Poincar^'s visit to the Tzar was to expand 
 
 the Triple Entente into a Quadruple Alliance by the 
 
 inclusion of Roumania against Germany. 
 
 " The Bourse closed," telegraphed Mr. Frederick Wile 
 
 to the Daily Mail, " amid undisguised alarm and the 
 
 wildest fears for what the week-end may bring forth." "^ 
 
 And let it be known that Mr. Wile has the courage to say : 
 
 " / doubt if one man in ten thousand in Germany ever heard 
 
 of Bernhardi before August 1914." 
 
 Professor A. F. Pollard has recently explained to us 
 what the Germans mean by saying that this war is a 
 war of defence : 
 
 The combination of offensive strategy with de- 
 fensive tactics means that you strategically put the 
 enemy in such a position that he is bound to attack 
 or to acquiesce in the certainty of ultimate retreat 
 or surrender. In a sense our command of the sea and 
 the geographical situation of Russia and France put 
 Germany in that position from the start ; and that 
 is what she means at bottom by complaining of our 
 pre-war" encircling " policy and insisting that, despite 
 her ultimatum to Russia and France and invasion 
 of Belgium, the Allies were the aggressors: she had 
 to attack, she contends, to defend herself against this 
 nightmare in which Nature has enveloped her. So 
 Charles I went to the scaffold in defence, he said, of 
 his liberty, because he was not allowed to do what 
 he liked. 
 The point is that even a militaristic German may quite 
 honestly believe that his war of offence is a war of defence. 
 He may dream of great conquests : far off in time he may 
 see his nation the mightiest and the su[)remely decisive 
 Power of the world : and of these things he may bluster 
 and boast like a coward who sings in the dark to keep his 
 heart up : but much more immediate to the concern even 
 ' The Assault, by Frederick W. Wile (Heinemann).
 
 14 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of a jingo German in the days before the war were the legions 
 of the Ennperor of Russia on one frontier, the unbroken 
 spirit of gallant France on the other, and the matchless 
 Fleet of Great Britain behind the diplomacy of Downing 
 Street. 
 
 Those newspapers in England which perpetually drew 
 attention to the utterances of the war party in Germany, 
 and which ever since the war, instead of asking for pardon 
 at the grave of slaughtered youth, have been crying, " We 
 told you so " — as an aid to circulation — not only played a 
 powerful part in bringing the war about, but by their 
 attitude at the beginning of the war flung the whole 
 German democracy into the arms of the war party. 
 
 Mr. Branting, the Socialist leader in Sweden, and a very 
 true friend to this country, whose services we shall one 
 day acknowledge with the gratitude they deserve, told me 
 in the spring of the present year (1916) that our supreme 
 mistake has been the cry instantly raised in England at 
 the beginning of the war for the invasion and destruction 
 of Germany. He told me that he receives many letters 
 from his Socialist friends in Germany defending them- 
 selves for their alliance with the war lords by quoting 
 these threats of the most violent of our politicians and 
 journalists. " How can we help ourselves," these German v 
 Socialists argue, " when England declares that she will 
 invade us and destroy our trade ? This is what our 
 Junkers have always told us, and now we see that it is 
 true." Mr. Branting assured me that if we had kept our 
 heads and had issued a manifesto asserting that we had 
 no quarrel with the German people, that we had no 
 thought of destroying German prosperity, that we had 
 no intention of violating German homes, but that our 
 quarrel was solely with the tyrants of German democracy, 
 whom we intended to fight till they surrendered, we might 
 have split the German nation and made it impossible for 
 the war lords to retain their power. But English news- 
 papers, which weakened the peace propaganda of the 
 German Socialists before the war, at the very outbreak of 
 war entirely destroyed the enormous power of German
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 15 
 
 social democracy by driving it straight into the arms of 
 the war party. Instead of fighting a war machine, there- 
 fore, we have had to fight a highly intelligent, completely 
 disciplined, and wholly united nation, stung with rage 
 and fury by the conviction that England had deceived 
 them.^ 
 
 While these newspapers in England were triumphantly 
 crying, " We told you so ! " the war party in Germany 
 were using the same taunt to the German Socialists. They, 
 too, had warned : they, too, had preached ; and here was 
 the proof of all their warnings. England had wanted this 
 war, England had prepared (diplomatically) for this war. 
 With Russia and France to fight witli her and for her, she, 
 the arch-enemy, was all the time putting forth her right 
 arm to destroy the prosperity of a Power which had dared 
 to rival her in commercial greatness. " IVe told you so ! " 
 
 The German Kaiser is neither a fool nor a hypocrite. 
 He is unstable, emotional, and easily subject to fears and 
 suspicions ; but he is not a fool and he is not a hypocrite. 
 This German Kaiser, who probably strove for peace, and 
 who went against the war party in his country again and 
 again, even to the peril of his place, was intellectually con- 
 verted to the views of the war party in the summer of 
 191 3. Something occurred to convince him that the war 
 party was right and that the peace party was wrong. 
 From that moment, ridden by a greater fear than the 
 fear of China's millions, which had formerly oppressed 
 
 ' " The Germans have been taught to regard poor Sir Edward 
 Grey in a light so ludicrously wide of the truth that we can hardly 
 believe any one seriously accepts it. But the legend is repeated too 
 naively to leave any doubt that it is firmly and honestly believed. 
 The credulity of an ignorant people, bred to accept authority un- 
 questioningly, seems to have no bounds. To them our Foreign 
 Secretary is the very figure of evil personified. He is a dark, 
 scheming, powerful personage, equally unscrupulous and astute, the 
 Mephistopheles of diplomacy ; he controls the policy of the United 
 Kingdom, leads the other Allied Powers by the nose, and lives only 
 for the destruction of Germany. Such is the picture sketched by 
 authority, filled in by industrious pamphleteers, obediently reproduced 
 by the newspapers, and implicitly accepted by the people." — Dr. A. 
 Shadwell hi the Ilibbcrt Journal.
 
 i6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 his mind for a number of years, this impulsive and haunted 
 man waited and watched for his opportunity to strike. 
 When he struck he beHeved in his soul of souls that he 
 was striking for the security of his country against the 
 menace of Russia and France, and the ultimate menace of 
 Great Britain. His conversion, which we shall examine at 
 greater length in the history of its period, may be taken as 
 typical of that far more fatal conversion of the average 
 German Socialist to the gospel of the war party. The 
 going over of the Kaiser to the war party was the con- 
 version of an individual German to the idea that the 
 Entente was not to be trusted, and that in swift and 
 violent offence lay the only remedy against slow and 
 merciless destruction. 
 
 Let the reader, before he begins a study of this history, 
 reflect upon the records of those English newspapers 
 from which the average Englishman takes his easy 
 opinions, and on whose testimony the average Englishman 
 relies for the historical truth of all events, even events of 
 the very greatest national importance. 
 
 At the outbreak of war we were threatened by labour 
 strikes which seemed as if they would paralyse our 
 power to fight. The miners, the engineers, and the 
 railwaymen appeared to consider their grievances of more 
 importance than the issue of this tremendous struggle, not 
 only for liberty but for the future character of civilization. 
 We were confronted by such a spectacle as I suppose 
 the world has never before witnessed, the spectacle of 
 free men refusing to lend their essential aid to a struggle 
 with hateful tyranny, and, while that tyranny triumphed 
 over a neighbour democracy, and even threatened to 
 destroy their own sons and their own brothers, standing 
 out for a matter of a few pence in wages. 
 
 Later we were confronted by another spectacle, not so 
 serious, not so inconceivable, but in many ways sad, and 
 surely as symptomatic as the other of grave trouble in 
 the national life. We were confronted by the spectacle of 
 young men holding back from enlistment in the fighting
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 17 
 
 forces of their country, when that country not only offered 
 them an infinitely higher recompense than the soldiers of 
 Germany receive who fight for a tyranny, but called them 
 in tones of urgency. 
 
 Now, what was the attitude of the popular newspapers 
 in England to these appalling phenomena ? It was one of 
 indignation and scorn. They would have shot strike 
 leaders right and left ; they would have conscripted 
 labour ; and they would have set up martial law. That 
 is to say, they would have attempted to Prussianize the 
 democracy of Great Britain. But it was these very 
 newspapers which more than any other influence in 
 English life had brought about this tragic condition in the 
 minds of labour. It is unthinkable ;that labour would 
 have behaved as it did behave in those hours of severe 
 trial if it had been an instructed, a prosperous, and a 
 contented labour. But every effort of the Liberal party 
 to improve the mind and the lot of democracy has been 
 opposed by these very newspapers. The Liberal party, 
 not very intelligently perhaps, but at least earnestly and 
 eagerly, has struggled for ten or twelve years to make our 
 democracy an efficient, educated, healthy, and contented 
 democracy. But every effort made in this direction by 
 the Liberals has been opposed by that party whose news- 
 papers are the chiefest evidence in our midst of what 
 Matthew Arnold called with righteous contempt " the 
 English middle-class mind." 
 
 The control of the liquor traffic was opposed by these 
 newspapers. Housing reform was opposed by these news- 
 papers. Educational reform was opposed by these news- 
 papers. The insurance act and old-age pensions were 
 opposed by these newspapers. Every effort which the 
 Liberal party made to beautify the hideous conditions under 
 which the working-classes live ; every effort to add to the 
 comfort and well-being of these dim millions ; every effort 
 to save them from ignorance and temptation ; every 
 effort to strengthen them in body, mind, and soul ; every 
 effort to spread contentment and prosperity among those 
 who are at once the chief source of our wealth, the greatest 
 contributors to our national revenue, and the final defence
 
 i8 TH'E VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of this country against its enemies — was opposed with the 
 utmost violence, bitterness, and political dishonesty by 
 these same newspapers. 
 
 And when labour rebelled in an hour of crisis, the 
 remedy of these newspapers was neither argument nor 
 appeal, but the Prussian argument of force. 
 
 Is it safe for a man to take his opinions from such a 
 source ? Will it be safe for him to place his political con- 
 science in such hands as these when, after the war, we set 
 about the perilous work of reconstructing the ruins of 
 European civilization ? Already these same newspapers, 
 even with the awful lesson of this war still being written in 
 letters of blood before their very eyes, are making violent 
 war upon one who raises his voice to warn us to prepare 
 for a new and spiritual struggle in the days of peace. 
 The story of Lord Haldane will be an essential part of 
 this history, for he is indeed the chief protagonist in this 
 particular aspect of the world drama ; but it is wise to ask 
 ourselves at the present point what must be the mental 
 condition of those newspapers in England which assail as 
 if he were the very lowest of his species a man of whom 
 Lord French has said that this country owes him an 
 immeasurable debt of gratitude, and who was entrusted by 
 so wise a sovereign as Edward the Seventh, whose confi- 
 dence he enjoyed more than any other contemporary 
 minister, with the most difficult of all offices, and with 
 schemes which were perhaps nearest of all to the heart of 
 that lovable and far-sighted King. 
 
 I take the abuse of Lord Haldane by these newspapers 
 to be the most serious and the most disquieting symptom 
 of our national unintelligence. I cannot conceive of it 
 being possible in any other European country that a 
 statesman so wise and so distinguished, a man who more 
 than any other man in this nation prepared the weapon 
 which broke the purpose of Germany at the very outset, 
 and who has laboured with such eminent distinction in 
 other directions for the greatness of his country, should be 
 so scandalously and so disgracefully attacked by popular 
 newspapers. The abuse of a few journalists is a small 
 thing ; but the acceptance of this abuse by so many of the
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 19 
 
 more or less educated classes of this country, who allow 
 these newspapers to think for them and to decide for them, 
 is, as I say, a most serious and disquieting symptom of our 
 national unintelligence. 
 
 The friend and trusted adviser of Edward the Seventh, 
 a Lord Chancellor, a great minister of state, a philosopher 
 of distinction, a great scholar, and a publicist of world-wide 
 reputation, is allowed by the so-called educated people of 
 this country to be treated as if he deserved hanging for 
 treason, to be treated as if he were a veritable Judas, 
 treated publicly, continuously, and brutally in this manner 
 by a few journalists; whosQ names are utterly unknown 
 outside the back streets of the Press. 
 
 What a sad moral and intellectual state must a country 
 be in where such a thing can happen as the driving out 
 of office by a pack of such journalists, even in the very 
 midst of his greatest triumph, of a man whose preparations 
 for war saved the French coasts from invasion, enabled 
 France to complete her preparations, and provided this 
 country with resources capable of raising immense armies 
 of volunteer soldiers. Lord French, who says that the 
 British Army of August 19 14 was the finest army that 
 ever the sun shone upon, describes Lord Haldane as 
 "that great and distinguished statesman." Wherever I 
 went in Scandinavia and Russia I found it agreed that 
 the glorious and immortal British Army of August 1914 
 had saved the world. Sir Alfred Keogh, whose adminis- 
 tration of the Royal Army Medical Corps is one of the 
 greatest triumphs of organization in this tremendous war, 
 attributes everything he has been able to accomplish to 
 the sympathy and enthusiasm of Lord Haldane, saying 
 " it was not until the advent of Lord Haldane that the 
 triumph of Army Sanitation was complete." But all 
 this makes no difference whatever to the journalists who 
 have received their instructions to abuse, vilify, and 
 destroy Lord Haldane. The placards are printed, the 
 facts are garbled, the headlines are prepared, the violent 
 leading articles are written, and the vulgarians of England 
 are hypnotized to believe that this " great and distin- 
 guished statesman," who, if any one man may be said
 
 20 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 to have saved Europe from the curse of Prussian 
 domination, saved the situation in the only days of real 
 and actual peril, is a German-hearted traitor whose very 
 presence in this country is an offence and a menace ! 
 Lord Haldane rises to speak in the House of Lords on 
 the question of education, and he is at once challenged 
 by a duke to clear himself of charges formulated by 
 irresponsible journalists ^ ; and that same week the whole 
 country — this modern England of ours, this England of 
 the twentieth century — is placarded with bills bearing the 
 legend " Watch Haldane." At the beginning of the crisis 
 in 1914 the placards of this same journal (posted all over 
 the country from one end to the other) bore a very 
 different legend. In those days the legend was not 
 "Watch Haldane," but "To Hell with Serbia." 
 
 It is not a good excuse for the average person to allege 
 that he has no time to go into these questions. He ought 
 to have neither the tim.e nor the disposition to read 
 disgraceful newspapers. And the very existence of such 
 newspapers, which could hardly live in an educated 
 community, but which flourish exceedingly in this, is in 
 itself a sufficient condemnation of the average person. 
 At the door of the average person, who buys, reads, and 
 permits himself to be misled by these ignorant newspapers, 
 lies the guilt of all those things which make us inefficient, 
 insular, and stupid. Instead of being on the side of 
 progress, the average vulgar person in this country is on 
 the side of darkness and retrogression. 
 
 The average vulgarian is often extremely good-natured, 
 and, in his own sphere, he may be capable, even intelli- 
 gent ; but he is deficient in ideas, he allows his prejudices 
 to ride him, and he not merely expresses loose opinions, 
 but often acts upon those loose opinions in matters 
 outside his own responsible sphere of activity. He 
 upbraids the Liberals for not averting war by adopting 
 
 ' "The rudeness of the rebuke to Lord Haldane when, after a long 
 silence, he rose in the upper chamber of the British Parliament to 
 speak on a subject, educational reform, upon which he is a recognized 
 authority throughout the world, will arouse sympathy with him in 
 other countries besides his own." — New York Times.
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 21 
 
 those very measures which he never ceases to condemn in 
 the Germans, He denounces the war-makers of Germany 
 as righteously and scornfully as he frustrated the work of 
 those in this country who were labouring for peace. He 
 damns the working-classes of this country for their lack of 
 discipline and sees in the discipline of the German people 
 nothing but the cowardice of the slave. He is for ever 
 invoking the law and condemning violence, but encouraged 
 Ulster to arm itself, even from Germany, against the law 
 of his own land. He praises the loyalty of South Africa, 
 to whom he would have denied self-government, and ex- 
 presses horror when Ireland, from whom he has so far 
 succeeded in withholding self-government, grows mutinous.^ 
 He chastises the German Chancellor for describing a 
 solemn treaty as a scrap of paper, but calls upon an Irish 
 minority to tear up an Act of Parliament. At one 
 moment he cries for Lord Kitchener to save the country, 
 and at the next would have him shot for incompetence. 
 He decries the War Office, the Air Service, and the 
 Government in a manner which gravely troubles our 
 allies and very powerfully encourages our enemies, and 
 in the same breath calls for a propaganda in foreign 
 countries to show that England is playing her full 
 part in the struggle. He believes the working classes 
 to be drunken, idle, dishonest, and without any sense 
 of patriotism, and would prevent Lord Haldane from 
 improving our system of education. He does not think 
 our educational system can stand in need of im- 
 provement, because, as one nobleman actually argued 
 in the House of Lords, Englishmen have fought bravely 
 and shrewdly on the field of battle. He declares with an 
 absolute conviction that the Englishman is in every way 
 the superior of the German, but would raise a tariff wall 
 against the invasion of the English market by German 
 trade. He hails a labour politician from Australia as a 
 heaven-sent genius, but could not hang quick enough the 
 "agitator" in his own country. He covered with calumny 
 and abuse the venerable minister of religion who declared 
 at the beginning of the war that soldiers were drugged by 
 . ' See Appendix, Note B.
 
 22 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 women of the street ; but raised a cry for the suppression 
 of the illegal traffic in cocaine when the mischief had been 
 done. He accepted the night-club and the music-hall 
 lounge as necessary evils, till they interfered with the 
 physical fitness of men he was paying to fight for him. 
 Everything evil is to him a necessary evil until it touches 
 his safety or his pocket. He is entirely ignorant of 
 literature, of art, of science, of nature, and of other nations; 
 he has no feeling for beauty and no reverence for holiness ; 
 he lives in a villa which is a degradation of architecture, 
 surrounded by furniture which is a crime against sestheti- 
 cisrn, and he is so entirely self-satisfied with his way of 
 dressing, eating, behaving, and bringing up his family that 
 everybody else whose life is conducted on other principles 
 appears in his eyes as an impostor, a poseur, or a crank. 
 And because his son does not run away on the battlefield 
 he believes that this son is perfectly equipped for all the 
 exigencies of modern life. 
 
 It is the existence of this self-satisfied and second-rate 
 Englishman, the vulgarian of the nation, who is to be 
 found in all classes of the community, the highest and 
 the lowest, which most seriously threatens the develop- 
 ment of our national greatness. But for the silent 
 influence of the English Sahib, that cultivated, just, 
 honourable, and modest-minded man, perhaps the finest, 
 as he is certainly the most agreeable specimen of the 
 human race — but for this influence, and the earnestness 
 of the Labour party, and the enthusiasm for moral reforms 
 which characterizes the women's movement, a man who 
 knows the intellectual condition of this country might 
 almost be tempted to feel in despair of its future. For 
 in spite of the magnificent qualities of English character — 
 qualities acquired in centuries of tremendous earnestness 
 and noble simplicity, qualities which manifest themselves 
 in great emergencies and which will never be lacking even 
 in the meanest and most ignorant of us when there is a 
 call for courage and endurance — it must be agreed by 
 every one who has studied the literature, the drama, the 
 music, the politics, the morals, and the manners of this
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 23 
 
 period, that as a nation we are inferior to the enormous 
 needs of the age in which destiny has called upon us to 
 play a deciding part. Even this great war has failed to 
 make the whole nation sober, serious, and unselfish. 
 There is still an element in our midst not merely light 
 and frivolous, but arrogantly selfish and unashamedly 
 ignorant. 
 
 Nevertheless, so fine and splendid are many of our 
 qualities that if we can bring ourselves to see, as the 
 best of our nation have seen from the first, the true and 
 enduring character of this terrific struggle with the Central 
 Powers, we shall at least have the heart and will for 
 the critical duty which even now is laid upon us — 
 the duty of rebuilding what war is every day destroying 
 here in uninvaded England, even as in the invaded 
 territories of France, Poland, Serbia, and Belgium, namely, 
 the moral structure of civilization. And if once we can 
 but get back the heart and the will for that great task, 
 the talent will swiftly follow. No nation is composed 
 of greater stuff. ^ 
 
 This war is a moral struggle. For all students of 
 history and philosophy it is only an episode in the eternal 
 conflict between those two vast spiritual powers in the 
 world which we call ignorance and knowledge, evil and 
 good, hate and love. It is the flaming up of a volcano 
 whose concealed and slumbering fires have been fed by 
 the thoughts, words, and actions of mankind for all the 
 generations of the world. We of the present generation, 
 with a long and disastrous history to warn us and teach 
 us, and in whose will it actually lay to weaken and damp 
 and destroy those infernal fires, are of all generations 
 the most guilty. It is our generation which has most 
 violently fed the volcano. W^e might have left the 
 ancient fires to smoulder out, but instead we flung to 
 the invisible demons of hate, slaughter, and death every 
 thought and word which were most certain to bring 
 calamity upon our children. And now, while our 
 ' See Appendix, Note C.
 
 24 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 children fight for us, suffer for us, bleed for us, and die 
 for us, the German sings his Hymn of Hate, and the 
 Englishman calls his conference for the destruction of 
 German trade. Not yet have we learned the greatest 
 lesson of this war. 
 
 From the economic point of view, this war may right- 
 fully be called a struggle between England and Germany — 
 " between these two Empires, both the descendants of 
 the war-god Odin, and yet, because of that, doomed to 
 this great conflict" (Cramb). But there is a greater God 
 than Odin, One whose purpose a nobler German than 
 Treitschke strove to follow in the mysterious advance 
 of humanity towards truth, beauty, and goodness : there 
 is the God of Love. And he who looks below the surface 
 of things, and who knows that industrialism and money- 
 profits and swelling revenues and imperial grandeur cannot 
 be the aim and purpose of the Absolute, will surely see 
 that this is a struggle — a struggle to the very death — ■ 
 between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil. And 
 studying with awe and reverence the physical appear- 
 ances of this colossal warfare, he will not say glibly that 
 it is a fight between England and Germany for the 
 trade dominion of the world, but rather a struggle between 
 the Russian Christ and the Prussian Satan. 
 
 Englishmen, I think, have hardly yet begun to realize 
 that of all the nations of the earth Russia alone has 
 preserved the secret of Christ, Latin nations have endea- 
 voured to preserve the forms and discipline of religion : 
 Protestant nations have magnificently striven for the 
 ethic of religion : but Russia alone has guarded and 
 preserved the sacred flame of Christ's simplicity, Christ's 
 unique contribution to the human race. Russia believes 
 before everything else that God is Love. This is not 
 a mere phrase with her. It is the burning centre of her 
 existence. And, believing that God is Love, she believes 
 that all men are destined to become the children of God, 
 that all the nations and races of the earth will one day 
 be a brotherhood of love. Her teaching is not Do this ; 
 but Love. She is so consumed by the joy, beauty, and
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 25 
 
 satisfaction of love that she pays h'ttle heed to morality. 
 If a man love God, he will be good. To try to be 
 good without this love is to attain something that is poor, 
 something that may be even hard and repelling. But 
 love^ pursue the idea of love, think of love, dream of 
 love, hunger and thirst after love, drown the soul in the 
 thought of absolute love, and to behave meanly or basely 
 will be impossible. 
 
 Bernhardi says that the meaning of " Germany " is strife 
 and war. " He is a fool," said Frederick the Great, " and 
 that nation is a fool, who having the power to strike his 
 enemies unawares, does not strike and strike his deadliest." 
 What does England answer to this satanic creed ? Lord 
 Roberts said : " Germany strikes when Germany's hour 
 has struck. ... It is an excellent policy. It is or should 
 be the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part 
 in history." What does Satan say? — " All these things will 
 I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." And 
 what does Russia say? — " Tzargrad (Constantinople) cannot 
 be separated from the idea of the Kingdom of God." 
 
 Russia, who has fought more wars for the liberation of 
 little peoples than any other Power, Russia who alone has 
 stood up against the Turkish oppressors of humble Christ- 
 ian races, Russia who established Bulgaria, who withstood 
 Napoleonism, and who refused to see Serbia humiliated — • 
 this great Russia, once herself the most oppressed and 
 persecuted of little peoples, has ever striven to proclaim 
 from Constantinople (Tzargrad — the Town of Towns) 
 the hegemony of God's children and the [)cace of the 
 world. I 
 
 Compare the satanic boastfulness of Bernhardi with the 
 Christlike longing of a great Russian, Prince Trubetzkoy. 
 The Prince says : 
 
 Humanity united by the Spirit of God in one 
 whole, and in this form become like God — this is 
 the highest expression of God's project for the 
 world, and this is what must eventually reign in 
 the world. . . . 
 
 • " She is entitled to the gratitude of the world " (Professor Morfill, 
 of Oxford).
 
 26 TPIE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 But as yet humanity is torn in pieces ; it is not 
 one humanity. Nation fights against nation ; even 
 their faiths are at war. Restoration of the broken 
 whole of humanity and so of all creation — for this 
 burn the hearts of those who have seen the 
 Spirit. . . . 
 
 Constantine saw that heathen Rome had power 
 over the nations in its own name. His wish was 
 that his town should have as the foundation of its 
 power the union of the nations in the name of 
 Christ. . . . With its position in the centre of the 
 highways of the nations, " Sophia " means just what 
 should unite all nations and serve as the beginning 
 of their united kingdom. . . . How then did St. 
 Sophia fall into Turkish hands ? . . . By the fact 
 that the Christian Empire lost its essential spirituality, 
 and the real " Sophia " lives no longer in Christian 
 souls. The material loss of the Temple to the 
 Turks was only the symbol of the ideal spiritual 
 loss. . . . 
 
 Only as the general liberator of the small nations 
 and as their helper can Russia get Constantinople 
 and the Straits. This act can only be thought of as 
 the last stage in the liberation of the peoples. Only 
 in the name of this universal liberation has Russia 
 the right to be crowned with the crown of Tzargrad. 
 . . . For this purpose she must get the victory over 
 her own national egoism, and find in herself a spiritual 
 power higher than that of the nations whom she is 
 fighting. . . . 
 
 " Sophia " is the image of God in the individual 
 and in humanity. He who has the image in his 
 soul, who sees it in every individual and nation, 
 cannot bear any lessening of human dignity. All 
 injustice to humanity rouses wrath in the heart of 
 him who in devotion understands " Sophia." If 
 Russia is willing to suffer for this and is ready for 
 great deeds, it shows that she has raised the altar 
 to "Sophia" in her soul. . . . Sooner or later we 
 will hear this song {^Christ is risen) in the Temple
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 27 
 
 itself. St. Sophia herself, who lives in the soul of 
 the people, will lead thither the Russian Army. Then 
 the hymn of the Holy Resurrection will announce the 
 great day of the liberation of nations.^ 
 Englishmen, I venture to think, do not yet begin to 
 realize how great is that event to which we are now 
 approaching — the Russian occupation of Constantinople. 
 It means nothing short of a new epoch in human history. 
 It means a new world. And we are called upon, more 
 than any other nation, by Russia herself, to help in estab- 
 lishing these new foundations of the Christian kingdom. 
 Are we ready? Are we prepared in mind, in heart, and 
 soul ? It will be for us at one end of Europe, as M. 
 Sazonoff told me, holding the seas of the world, and for 
 Russia at the other end of Europe, with a hundred million 
 peasants living on the soil, first to get upon our feet from 
 the economic ruins of war; and it will be for us, with our 
 moral earnestness, and for Russia, with her spiritual vision, 
 to proclaim with one voice to all the nations of the earth, 
 Germany included, the end of hate, greed, and cruel war. 
 Never to any nation came so great an opportunity as now 
 comes, swiftly and appealingly, to the people of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 It was said to me not long ago by one of the Coali- 
 tion ministers, a Unionist, that the supreme issue of the 
 war is the repentance of Germany. This profound saying 
 is at the very root of a rightful understanding of the 
 whole matter. Even if we destroy the armies of the 
 Central Powers, and invade their territories, and impose 
 our own terms upon them, the true victory of our forces, 
 the true compensation for all our sufferings and bitter 
 loss, will still be to seek. The only victory which can 
 make this awful struggle of physical force glorious in the 
 eyes of our children is the victory which achieves a 
 repentant Germany. We are not fighting to wreak 
 vengeance, or to take territory, or to wring an indem- 
 nity from a beaten foe, but to destroy the evil in 
 Germany and to release the good. We are not fighting 
 
 ■ Prince Eugene Trubetzkoy in The Re-Au'ake?iing of Rt/ssia,\iy 
 Professor J. Y. Simpson (Constable).
 
 28 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 to leave the world as we found it, but to leave it purged 
 of the possibility of murderous war. And we can only 
 hope to reach this consummation by repenting in our- 
 selves of all those dispositions within our souls which 
 make for darkness, ignorance, evil, and hate, and 
 encouraging within ourselves all those dispositions of 
 the soul which make for light, knowledge, goodness, and 
 love. It is for us a moral and spiritual obligation to 
 do everything in our power to help Germany to throw 
 off the modern madness of her Prussian violence and to 
 restore her to that old and noble condition of idealism 
 which was once her glory and the blessing of mankind. 
 
 A study of the political history which culminated in 
 this world war of 1914 should help us at least to acquire 
 the temper in which alone we can hope to approach 
 this spiritual warfare with any confidence of victory. 
 
 Germany, said Matthew Arnold, is a nation which has 
 never truly lived. And Mommsen exclaimed in 1903, 
 " We are no longer free citizens." Unhappy a people 
 of whom its own poets and philosophers have said 
 bitterer things than its enemies. Since 1870, as Lord 
 Haldane once said, France has had her revenge. Germany 
 has absorbed not what is finest in the Gallic spirit, but 
 what is lowest. Germany has degenerated without the 
 fineness of the French spirit to keep her strong ; and with 
 a highly emotional nature which has always exposed her 
 to delusions, she has fallen from frugality and power to 
 luxury and weakness. One of her historians in America 
 said before 19 14 that it was generally recognized in 
 Germany that in the event of a war, successful or 
 unsuccessful, Germany would become a republic.^ 
 
 ' Of all nations Germany is the least democratic and the most 
 snobbish. In spite of its reverence for culture, the professor in 
 Germany is not admitted on terms of equality into Junker society. 
 Readers of IVerther will remember the scene in which the hero is 
 dismissed from a drawing-room on account of his birth, and how he 
 very nearly "ripped up his heart'' in consequence. The same gulf 
 still exists between the landowning class and the professors of culture. 
 In Russia, on the other hand, the most eminent professor, perhaps 
 the first thinker in that Empire, is a Prince — Eugene Trubetzkoy.
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 29 
 
 Before we proceed to a study of that history, let me 
 venture to insist upon the vital importance of right think- 
 ing. Truth is of the very essence of moraHty. A man 
 who gets drunk may be a more disgusting object than his 
 wrong-thinking neighbour, but he is not so dangerous to 
 the State. It is an immoral act to accept as a true thing 
 that which we have not examined with our reason, and it 
 is a highly immoral act to advance as true, seeking sym- 
 pathy for it and converts to it, any opinion or idea of 
 whose truth we are not entirely and rationally convinced. 
 Vice is a sin against the body, loose thinking is a sin 
 against reason. God is not only Beauty and Goodness, 
 He is also Truth. We oppose the Divine Will when we 
 engage ourselves in the spiritual kingdom of opinion on 
 the side of ideas which are not true ideas. Life, whatever 
 its origin or purpose, is development. We move and we 
 change and we become. If we are not moving away from 
 ignorance, if we are not changing our garments of preju- 
 dice, and if we are not becoming every day more right and 
 more true, we are a hindrance to the function of life, and 
 we may be guilty of great sin. It is our bounden duty, at 
 whatever cost in social convenience or in popularity or in 
 riches, to place ourselves absolutely on the side of truth in 
 the moral conflict of the world. Only when we deeply 
 convince ourselves that truth is of twin importance with 
 goodness, only when we feel ourselves as profoundly 
 ashamed of holding a false opinion as of doing a dis- 
 graceful act, only when we are conscious in ourselves of a 
 hunger and thirst for unerring accuracy of thought and 
 will and desire, only then can we call ourselves rational 
 and moral beings. 
 
 " Knowledge," says Mr. Clutton-Brock in The Ultimate 
 Belief, " is always a means to an end, and that end the 
 truth ; so that without the desire for the truth it is like the 
 technique of an art used for some purpose not artistic, such 
 as money-making — and the result, in both cases, is non- 
 sense." The Germans, he says, could not be so docile in 
 their beliefs " if they had not been trained to believe what 
 is convenient rather than what is true." Romain Rolland 
 has said that of all the shortcomings of Prussian Imperial-
 
 30 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 ism, the worst and the vilest is to have concealed its crimes 
 from its people, " for by depriving them of the means of 
 protesting against those crimes it has involved them for 
 ever in the responsibility ; it has abused their magnificent 
 devotion. . . . One cannot pardon those whose duty it is 
 to seek truth in the midst of error, and to know the value 
 of interested witnesses and passionate hallucinations."
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS 
 STATESMAN
 
 You have said that the strength of North Germany lay 
 in this, that the idea of science governed every depart- 
 ment of human activity there. You, my dear friend, 
 live in a country where at present the idea of clap-trap 
 governs every department of human activity. Great 
 events are happening in the world, and Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith tells you that " England will be compelled to 
 speak at last." It would be truly sad if, when she does 
 speak, she should talk nonsense. To prevent such a 
 disaster, I will give you this piece of advice, with which 
 I take my leave : " Get Geist " {intelligence). 
 
 Friendship's Garland
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 
 
 I HAVE heard Sir Sidney Lee's well-known article on 
 King Edward the Seventh, which appeared in the 
 Dictionary of National Biography, criticized by a man 
 who lived for a great number of years in close intimacy 
 with King Edward, and who certainly knew him both as 
 sovereign and individual far better than any of the King's 
 biographers. 
 
 With the help of this criticism, it is possible to form 
 from Sir Sidney Lee's article, which is otherwise, I think, 
 very misleading, an extremely clear notion of King 
 Edward's personality, and also to gather a distinct idea 
 as to the part he played in the politics of his period. 
 And since the notions gained in this manner agree in 
 substance with the opinions of other men of my acquaint- 
 ance who enjoyed the King's friendship, and since they 
 are also, on the whole, in agreement with Lord Esher's 
 published essay on The Influence of King Edward, I feel 
 myself justified in the assumption that the following 
 estimate of le roi charnicur, to use Lord Rosebery's phrase, 
 is one which the future historian will confirm. 
 
 King Edward was a most amiable type of the educated 
 man of the world. He had very few prejudices, was 
 averse from anything in the nature of fanaticism, and 
 took a generous pleasure in being kind and charming. 
 He was not a learned man, he had no intense feeling 
 for beauty in art, and he had little enthusiasm for 
 the literature of those languages which he spoke so 
 
 D 33
 
 34 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 admirably well. But it is not true, as Sir Sidney Lee 
 would have us think, that " apart from newspapers he 
 practically read nothing in mature years," and absolutely 
 untrue that " his natural buoyancy of disposition and his 
 numerous social pleasures and interests outside the 
 political sphere effectually counteracted the depressing 
 influence of public affairs." The King was a conscientious 
 king, and from the hour of his accession to the day of 
 his death made it a solemn part of his duty to follow 
 public affairs with sympathy and intelligence ; and he 
 certainly laboured hard within the limits of his constitu- 
 tional office for what he earnestly and truly believed to 
 be the welfare of his people and the good of the whole 
 world. 
 
 He was one of the best conversationalists in Europe, 
 thanks to a well-ordered memory and very remarkable 
 powers of intuition. "In his presence," says Lord Esher, 
 " much of the ordinary kind of knowledge, mere informa- 
 tion, was apt to drop into unimportance. The things he 
 knew seemed majestic and significant, and common learn- 
 ing appeared a mere accomplishment. Lord Beaconsfield 
 had noticed much the same quality in the talk of Queen 
 Victoria." King Edward, this authority insists, was 
 " beyond all question in the category of the great." Per- 
 haps it would be more accurate to say that in him were 
 many elements of greatness, and wiser to insist on the 
 attractive nature of his remarkable personality. 
 
 Lord Esher does not tell his reader anything about the 
 King's humour — his persiflage, his wit, his love of chaff 
 But this roistering side to his nature, so reminiscent of 
 Henry VIII, was an essential quality in the King's 
 character. In the days of his youth it could be a little 
 unkind, almost cruel, but as he advanced in life it became 
 nothing more than the spontaneous good-humour of a 
 thoroughly frank and cordial nature. I have heard 
 numerous stories illustrating the quickness of his wit and 
 the playfulness of his humour. Very often he would 
 employ chaff to put his ministers in a good mood, and 
 sometimes a neat mot of the King was a check to bump- 
 tious people in society. He loved to surround himself
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 35 
 
 with witty people who could see a joke quickly and who 
 could tell amusing stories without tediousness.^ 
 
 The King's shortcomings were neither numerous nor 
 grave. His v'irtues were many and great. He loved to 
 make people happy, and was perfectly at his ease with all 
 sorts and conditions of men. He had great sympathy 
 with pain and suffering. He wanted to improve the bad 
 conditions of human life. And he had an almost unerring 
 instinct for the right remedy. He saw the heart of a 
 problem when abler men were still fumbling with the 
 circumference. He broke through the official difficulties 
 of diplomacy and got as soon as possible into human 
 contact with the lives of men and women behind diplo- 
 macy. He believed in settling problems over a dinner- 
 table, and was for ever trying to get quarrelsome people 
 away from the cold region of controversy into the warmer 
 and more generous atmosphere of hospitality. He had 
 a singular genius for persuading enemies to see the good 
 in each other. He had an immense store of natural 
 courage, and would face the most difficult and unpleasant 
 situation with so fine a grace and so winning a charm that 
 one might have thought he courted the ordeal for a dis- 
 play of his skill. Nothing ever daunted him. He had 
 unbounded faith in the common sense and the good-nature 
 of humanity. He believed that with time and tact every 
 problem in politics and diplomacy could be solved by 
 honest men who sincerely sought, not for their own ends, 
 but for the peace and happiness of mankind. There was 
 nothing in his nature mean or narrow, and to a very 
 considerable degree he had an international mind. 
 
 There were three chief political enthusiasms in the 
 
 ' The King was very particular about clothes, and it amused him 
 that his two organizers of defence, Lord Fisher and Lord Haldane, 
 were notoriously indifferent to such matters. Lord Fisher has told 
 me how the King once insisted that he should buy himself a tweed 
 suit for visits to country houses, mercilessly chaffing him about the 
 old blue serge suit in which he always made his appearance. Lord 
 Haldane once arrived at a country house in a brown felt hat of suit- 
 able shape and quality, but of a somewhat pronounced antiquity. 
 "Ah I" cried the King to the people surrounding him, "here he 
 comes, wearing the hat bequeathed to him by Goethe I"
 
 36 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 King's life — housing reform, education, and peace. These 
 three enthusiasms, if we think about them, are at the very 
 foundation of social welfare. The genius of the King 
 carried him straight to the essentials of progress and 
 reform. He knew that men and women, housed as the 
 vast majority of people are housed in these islands, could 
 not be a happy, healthy, or contented people. He knew, 
 too, that with all its splendid qualities, English democracy 
 is the worst educated of the chief European democracies ; 
 and he saw that ignorance and stupidity are this nation's 
 greatest enemies. He knew, also, that if the fires of 
 national animosities were fanned by politicians and 
 journalists, Europe must burst into flame. 
 
 King Edward sought with real earnestness to encourage 
 housing reform, to improve our whole system of national 
 education, and to bring the nations of the world into 
 friendly harmony. He was seriously and deeply inter- 
 ested in these three things, the last of them gaining a 
 final ascendancy in his mind. If he had enjoyed greater 
 political power, and if he had lived a few years longer, it 
 is quite possible that the great scheme of national educa- 
 tion, which was the dream of Lord Haldane and which 
 took tentative shape in the Budget of 1914, would now be 
 in operation. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that King Edward brought 
 about the entente with France, but a far greater mistake to 
 suppose that he endeavoured to direct that understanding 
 at the heart of Germany. All his serious biographers are 
 agreed, and all his friends whom I have consulted concur 
 in this, that the King merely added the grace of his 
 personality to the diplomacy of his ministers, both 
 Unionist and Liberal, who were seeking for a better 
 understanding with France. He did not initiate this 
 movement, but he lent it the very powerful aid of his 
 personal influence. And it is more or less accepted by 
 most men who had anything to do with foreign politics 
 during this period that the King's influence, the mere charm 
 and urbanity of the man, very substantially minimized 
 the difficulties of the diplomatists. 
 
 When the King went to Reval in June 1908, it was not
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 37 
 
 to draw Russia into an anti-German alliance, as some 
 people supposed, but merely to heal, by his friendship and 
 affection, the very natural soreness which certain people in 
 Russia felt at Britain's attitude during the war with Japan. 
 It was characteristic of his grace and tact that he refused 
 to let the Navy send with the royal yacht an imposing 
 escort ; he did not want to dazzle but to soothe Russia. 
 He was followed by only two small cruisers — two small 
 cruisers, however, which drew deeper water than could be 
 found in the Kiel Canal, through which he had to pass, 
 so that two other cruisers had to wait for him off Kiel, 
 where Prince Henry of Prussia represented the Kaiser ; 
 but that was a stroke of the Admiralty : the King knew 
 nothing about it. One who journeyed with the King, and 
 who was present at the first luncheon-party at Reval, tells 
 me that he will never forget the gloom and restraint of the 
 proceedings during the meal itself, nor how all this gloom 
 and restraint gradually gave way before the infinitely 
 patient tact of the King's manner and the irresistible 
 charm of the King's personality. The function, which 
 began so awkwardly, ended in an arm-and-arm walk of 
 the two sovereigns on a beflagged deck, with the cheers 
 of a vast multitude gathered about the harbour ringing 
 in their ears. 
 
 The object of the King in going to Russia was exactly 
 the same object which had taken him to Paris and also to 
 Cronberg and to Ischl. It was the peace of the world. 
 He sought by his presence and his friendship to strengthen 
 the efforts of his ministers, who were likewise seeking the 
 peace of the world. If he went to Paris with this purpose, 
 he went with no other purpose to the German Emperor 
 at Cronberg and to the Austrian Emperor at Ischl. He 
 desired to show these monarchs by the courtesy of a visit, 
 and by his warm friendliness during these visits, that he 
 was on the side of his ministers in seeking the world's 
 peace. To think that he initiated any diplomatic 
 ventures is absurd, but to suppose that his visits were 
 without serious and noble purpose is also absurd. It 
 was the King's faith that as good an understanding 
 could be reached by fairness, patience, and tact with
 
 38 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Germany and with Austria as with Russia and with 
 
 France. 
 
 Lord Esher has stated the King's attitude towards 
 
 Germany in the clearest possible language: 
 
 The absurd Press campaigns in Great Britain and 
 in Germany, carried on by men with honest and 
 patriotic intentions, but ignorant and misguided, 
 saddened and annoyed him. He disliked exaggeration 
 and detested mischief-making. His mind was singu- 
 larly free from insular prejudice. He never yielded 
 for a moment to the feeling of panic, and was unmoved 
 by the loud-toned declamation of those who read 
 nothing but sinister menaces in the legitimate 
 strengthening of their armaments by the Great Powers 
 of the world. On the other hand, no one was more 
 determined than he that no stone should be left 
 unturned to render the defensive forces of his own 
 country powerful and efficient, for he was aware that 
 the immunity of the British Empire from attack is the 
 greatest safeguard of that European Peace which was 
 the main preoccupation of his later years. 
 
 King Edward was far too shrewd, his knowledge 
 was too profound, and his appreciation of the con- 
 ditions of European commercial rivalry too keen, not 
 to realize fully the true meaning of the efforts of 
 the German Kaiser and the German people to 
 strengthen the German Fleet, and to broaden the scope 
 of German colonial enterprise. He was acquainted 
 with eminent business men of all nationalities, and he 
 was intimately conscious of the novel conditions of 
 that international commercial struggle for the open 
 markets of the world which was slowly but surely 
 taking the place of the somewhat aimless national 
 rivalries of the years immediately following the 
 making of the German Empire and the kingdom of 
 Italy. . . . 
 
 No one could be long in the vicinity of King 
 Edward without discovering that he liked Germany 
 and the German people. No one could have watched 
 the King and the Kaiser together without noticing
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 39 
 
 that the two men, in spite of difference in tempera- 
 ment and divergence of ideals, bore a curious likeness 
 to each other, that blood is thicker than water, and 
 that not only mutual respect, but real admiration 
 underlay their intercourse. 
 
 There are some who recall that in January 19 10 
 the King mentioned with grave emotion that he had 
 written warmly to the Emperor on his birthday, 
 expressing a strong wish that Germany and England 
 should always work together in the interests of 
 European Peace, which acting together they can 
 always ensure.^ 
 Lord Esher makes it perfectly plain that the ambition 
 of Edward the Seventh was to bring Germany into the 
 Entente of France, Russia, and Great Britain. " With 
 this policy, liberal, progressive, and yet eminently con- 
 servative, and noble because of its pacific tendencies, 
 its unselfish aspects, and its aspirations for the future 
 of mankind, must ever be connected the name of King 
 Edward VH of Great Britain and Ireland, who presided, 
 if not over its inception, over its partial triumph." 
 
 The popular idea that King Edward was a political 
 strategist who sought to isolate Germany and ring her 
 round with enemies is as false and monstrous as the idea 
 which Sir Sidney Lee would seem to suggest, that the 
 King loved his pleasures and his ease too well to be 
 bothered by the business of a tiresome world. He was 
 above everything else a conscientious king, an intelligent 
 king, and a serious king. 
 
 Not only were the Privy Councillors and citizens 
 of London, who were present in the Banqueting Mall 
 of St. James's Palace on January 23, 1902, moved to 
 admiration by the noble words — written by the King's 
 own unguided hand — in which he announced his 
 determination, so long as there was breath in his 
 body, to work for the good and amelioration of 
 his people, but those who stood nearer to him still, 
 and were for the succeeding days in close touch with 
 
 ' The Injluence of King Edward^ by Viscount Esher, pp. 54-56. 
 (John Murray.)
 
 40 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 the labours of State as they accumulated hour by hour 
 at Marlborough House, realized immediately that in 
 Edward VII the country had come into possession 
 of a great monarch. 
 
 So far from his previous life, with its want of 
 concentrated energy, with its so-called frivolities, and 
 with what men, always prejudiced and sometimes 
 insincere, call its ceremonial inanities, proving an 
 obstacle to kingship, the sheer humanity of it had 
 left him unscathed of soul and most extraordinarily 
 well equipped for dealing with the gravest problem 
 with which a sovereign has to deal, that is to say, the 
 eternal problem of making good use of the average 
 man. Few have equalled, and certainly no one has 
 ever surpassed. King Edward in handling, not dex- 
 terously, because the word implies overconscious- 
 ness, but with grace past understanding, his fellow- 
 men.^ 
 To say, or to hint, that he did not take his kingship 
 seriously, that he did not strive with genuine earnestness 
 to fulfil his vow of working for his people " so long as there 
 was breath in his body," is to traduce the memory of 
 a most lovable, kind-hearted, and gracious king. He 
 worked industriously and with real sympathy to fulfil 
 his vow, to serve his people, and to leave the world as 
 his chief legacy the hope of European Peace. 
 
 *' No one," says Lord Esher, and the fact is notorious, 
 " could be long in the vicinity of King Edward without 
 discovering that he liked Germany and the German people." 
 What was it, let us inquire, that he saw as likeable and 
 attractive in Germany and the German people. 
 
 If he had been a philosopher or an ardent enthusiast 
 of music, we could easily understand why he should like 
 Germany and the German people. But since he lived his 
 life outside the borders of culture, we must conclude that 
 he saw in German people something that was quite simpl}- 
 and humanly likeable, and found in Germany something 
 that rested and refreshed his mind. This would not seem 
 to any travelled Englishman an astonishing or a remark- 
 ' The In faience of King Edward^ pp. 40, 41.
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 41 
 
 able thing, if the horror of war had not made us think 
 of Germany with repugnance and of the Germans with 
 disgust. Other English people besides King Edward have 
 liked Germany and the German people. Every year a 
 host of refined people from this country have gone to 
 Germany in search of something that was lacking here, 
 and have returned with pleasantest memories of the 
 German people.^ Before the war no man would have 
 been upbraided, even by the most ignorant of our news- 
 papers, for calling Germany his spiritual home. Germany, 
 it may be said, is the spiritual home of every philosopher 
 and every idealist. 
 
 King Edward saw the good in Germans as well as the 
 bad. He loved their well-ordered cities and towns, their 
 simple habits of life, their notable efficiency, and their 
 respect for refinement, learning, and authority. He dis- 
 liked their touchiness, their swagger, and their boastful- 
 ness. The scaremongering journalist in Germany was as 
 obnoxious to his mind as the scaremongering and equally 
 vulgar journalist on the Thames. And he detested the 
 self-sufficiency and the rather insolent vanity of the German 
 jingo. 
 
 But the King was a far-seeing and shrewd man of the 
 world. He knew that it was impossible to repress a highly 
 intelligent people numbering between sixty and seventy 
 millions. Moreover, he was wise enough and tolerant 
 enough to believe that contact with a nation so efficient, 
 industrious, and disciplined would be for the good of other 
 peoples. His policy, having seen the entente of his own 
 country with its ancient enemies, Russia and France (con- 
 cerning whom our jingo Tress had quite recently been 
 uttering the most ferocious hatred and scorn), was to per- 
 suade Germany, thus isolated and imperilled, to make a 
 fourtli party in this grand alliance of the Great Powers for 
 the peace of the world. It cannot be too emphatically 
 stated or too widely known that Edward the Seventh never 
 suggested, never supported, and never once entertained the 
 notion of isolating Germany. His mind was not destruc- 
 tive, but constructive. He was so little of a militarist or a 
 ' See Appendix/ Note D.
 
 42 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 jingo that he had no faith in the moral or material advan- 
 tages of victory by physical force. It was with him a 
 commonplace, says Lord Esher, that in a war between 
 Germany and Great Britain " victory to either nation would 
 spell disaster for both." Fighting was repugnant to him. 
 He loathed the very idea of arbitrament by the sword. 
 And he regarded an armed conflict between Great Britain 
 and Germany as one of the most terrible calamities that 
 could afflict the world. 
 
 Palmerston said : "England and Germany have naturally 
 a direct interest in assisting each other to become rich, 
 united, and strong, and there ought not to be in the mind 
 of any enlightened man of either country any feeling 
 of jealousy as to the progress made by the other country 
 in civilization and prosperity." And every Conservative 
 statesman of any eminence, including Mr. Joseph 
 Chamberlain, has said the same thing. 
 
 This sensible view was the view of King Edward, and 
 the ambition dearest to his heart towards the end of his 
 life was to bring the enlightened men of both countries 
 to take this view. He desired with all his heart to silence 
 " the absurd Press campaigns in Great Britain and 
 Germany, carried on by men with honest and patriotic 
 intentions, but ignorant and misguided," which "saddened 
 and annoyed him " ; and he desired, also with all his 
 heart, finally to draw the German Empire into a working 
 alliance with Russia, France, and Great Britain for the 
 welfare of all nations and the good governance of the 
 entire world. 
 
 This noble aim of a noble king was frustrated by forces 
 in both countries which love darkness rather than light, 
 and which are without either generosity of heart or clear- 
 ness of vision. In Germany there were men who would 
 not be persuaded that King Edward was honest, who 
 asserted that England's traditional policy is to egg on 
 other Powers to fight the Power which most seriously 
 threatens her own commercial supremacy, and who saw 
 in the entente of Great Britain with Russia and France, 
 irrefutable evidence that England was compassing the
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 43 
 
 destruction of Germany.^ And in England there were 
 men who refused to believe that Germany desired friend- 
 ship with this country, who ignored the Socialists, the 
 philosophers, and the peace party in Germany, and who 
 insisted that firebrands like Bernhardi spoke for the entire 
 German nation. These men, in both countries, frustrated 
 the policy of King Edward. Instead of insisting upon 
 the good elements in each nation, instead of seeking 
 sympathy between the excellent qualities of the two 
 peoples, they each fastened with hysterical exaggeration 
 on that which was bad, second-rate, and suspicious in 
 the other, insisting that behind all the courtesies of 
 diplomacy and all the make-belief of " peace cranks," 
 was the deadly intention of war. 
 
 There was one man among his ministers more than 
 
 any other in whom King Edward trusted for wisdom, 
 
 imagination, and organizing thoroughness. This man 
 
 was Lord Haldane. Sir Sidney Lee says of the King : 
 
 His attitude to measures was always conditioned 
 
 to a large extent by his interest in the men who 
 
 framed them, and his liking for Mr. Haldane, the 
 
 War Minister who created the Territorial Army, mainly 
 
 inspired his personal patronage of the movement. 
 
 He also says of the 1905 Cabinet, after mentioning a 
 
 (cw of the ministers whom the King liked : 
 
 Mr. Haldane, Secretary for War, whose genial 
 temper and grasp of German life and learning ap- 
 pealed to him, quickly became a persona grata. 
 With the ministers in other posts he found less in 
 common, and he came into little contact with them, 
 save in ceremonial functions. 
 The late Lord Redesdale, who, besides being a friend 
 of King Edward's, was a very capable observer and a 
 reliable student of public affairs, also tells us, in his 
 Memories^ of the King's association with Lord Haldane. 
 The passage in which he mentions the matter is de- 
 serving of quotation, and may well be reflected upon by 
 
 ' A Russian diplomatist once said to Professor J. Y. Simpson, 
 " England has never made a permanent alliance."
 
 44 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 those numerous people who have accepted ignorant and 
 abusive newspaper opprobrium of Lord Haldane as just 
 and true. Lord Redesdale says on p. 184, in the first 
 volume of his Memories^ after referring to the King's 
 earnest and sympathetic interest in home politics, and 
 taking his support of Lord Haldane's scheme of a Terri- 
 torial Army for an illustration : 
 
 Right nobly have the Territorials justified their 
 existence and the confidence of the King in the 
 great War Minister who was responsible for them. 
 I have been privileged to see a letter from one of 
 the greatest of our Generals at the front. It would 
 be difficult to imagine a finer tribute to Lord Hal- 
 dane's administration of the War Office. It is now 
 generally acknowledged that but for him and for 
 the measures which he initiated, our position at the 
 beginning of the war would have been very different 
 from what it was. He enabled us to send out a 
 force which, if still insufficient to break the German 
 legions, was yet worthy of England. The rest will 
 follow. I hold no brief for Lord Haldane, nor should 
 I be guilty of the impertinence of attempting any 
 estimate of his work. He is too great a man, and 
 can afford to be judged by results. 
 There is a suggested error in the statement of Sir 
 Sidney Lee that Lord Haldane " quickly became a 
 persona grata " with King Edward. This sentence, taken 
 with its context, implies that the King did not meet his 
 minister till the year 1905. The truth is that Lord 
 Haldane was on terms of cordial intimacy with the King 
 while that monarch was still the Prince of Wales. This 
 intimacy began long before Lord Haldane was a minister, 
 and it began over a great question in which both men 
 were seriously interested, the question of education. 
 
 In the year 1898, at a time when the Unionists were 
 in power. Lord Haldane was working in agreement with 
 his friend but political opponent, Mr. Arthur Balfour, 
 to save the London University Act from destruction. 
 This incident, which is very little known outside political 
 circles, is one of those pleasurable and surprising proofs
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 45 
 
 that in the artificial and often dishonest wrangling of 
 political parties there are men in either camp who will 
 join forces, undertake thankless tasks, and spare them- 
 selves no pains, to save something which they believe is 
 for the good of the community from the accidents of 
 partisan warfare. 
 
 Supported by enthusiasts for education like Mr. Cecil 
 Rhodes, Lord Haldane laboured at this same time like a 
 giant to set up in London a Technical College that should 
 rival the famous High School at Charlottenburg. It was 
 while seeking a site for this college, having secured 
 enormous sums of money for his purpose, that he first 
 came into contact with Edward the Seventh. The Prince 
 of Wales, as he then was, sent for Mr. Haldane, whose 
 speeches on the need for provincial universities and 
 technical colleges were beginning to attract attention, and 
 inquired whether the Imperial Institute, then in difficult 
 circumstances, would not be a good building for the 
 London University. 
 
 Over this proposition the two men appear to have drawn 
 near to each other, and when Mr, Haldane proceeded on 
 another occasion to discuss the question of a site for the 
 new Imperial College of Science and Technology, this 
 intimacy became closer. Before the year 1905, which was 
 before Mr. Haldane took office, the two men were 
 constantly together — a sure sign, if Sir Sidney Lee 
 wanted one, that Edward the Seventh took a serious 
 interest in public affairs. It was on the King's personal 
 suggestion to Lord Salisbury, when he ascended the throne, 
 that Mr. Haldane, a private member of Parliament and a 
 member belonging to the Opposition, was made a Privy 
 Councillor. Everybody at the time was aware, men of 
 both parties, that Mr. Haldane was frequently at Bucking- 
 ham Palace, Windsor, and Balmoral, and that the King 
 constantly included his name in the list of those people he 
 desired to meet at dinner or during a week-end visit. 
 
 What is not so well known, and what may surprise some 
 of Lord Haldane's traducers, is the fact that it was the wish 
 of King Edward himself that Lord Haldane should go to 
 the War Office. How Lord Haldane fulfilled the con-
 
 46 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 fidence of this wise sovereign we shall see in the next 
 chapter ; for the present there is something more to be 
 said about the association of these two men in the 
 sphere of foreign politics. 
 
 During the visit of the German Emperor to this country 
 in November 1907 Lord Haldane was a guest of King 
 Edward at Windsor Castle. The War Minister was in the 
 King's completest confidence concerning foreign affairs ; 
 he was also the closest friend of Sir Edward Grey, the 
 Foreign Secretary, and he was more conversant than any 
 other Englishman with the political situation in Germany. 
 It was earnestly hoped by King Edward that in the midst 
 of the festivities at Windsor this trusted minister would 
 be able to remove from the minds of his German guests 
 that unhappy element of suspicion and distrust which 
 alone, as he thought, stood in the way of an understanding 
 between the two countries. 
 
 The French Ambassador was aware of this hope of King 
 Edward, and there was not a minister in the Cabinet, nor 
 a responsible statesman among the Opposition, who did 
 not desire the success of Lord Haldane. How very nearly 
 this " great and distinguished statesman " succeeded in his 
 difficult undertaking, how very nearly the peace of the 
 world was secured during those few days at Windsor, will 
 one day be told by the historian. Suffice it to say, at this 
 point, that he did succeed in disabusing the minds of 
 important German personages of the idea that this country 
 sought the hemming-in of Germany, and that he earned 
 the thanks of the King and the gratitude of statesmen 
 in allied countries for the great step he had been able 
 to take towards the ideal of a European Peace. 
 
 King Edward believed that the real menace to this 
 country came, not from the military ambitions of Germany, 
 but from the superior education of the average German 
 citizen. He hoped and believed that diplomacy could 
 accommodate Germany in that country's desire for Eastern 
 expansion, and he was most careful to avoid giving the 
 impression that Great Britain saw anything unnatural or 
 inimical in this German ambition. What he really feared
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 47 
 
 was the keener intelligence, the ceaseless industry, and the 
 intense earnestness of the average German citizen ; and he 
 was drawn to Lord Haldane far more by their common 
 enthusiasm for an improved system of national training 
 than by anything else. 
 
 But the King was sensible of a spirit in Germany which 
 at least threatened the peace of the world. He saw that 
 the work of diplomatists was slow, and that even in the 
 process of working for peace war might suddenly emerge 
 from the very conflicts of compromise and adjustment. 
 He was in some ways a great optimist, but he was never a 
 fool. It became, then, a matter of the first importance to 
 him that the British Navy and the British Army should be 
 brought to the highest degree of perfection. " No one," 
 Lord Esher has told us, " was more determined than he 
 that no stone should be left unturned to render the defen- 
 sive forces of his own country powerful and efficient." Sir 
 Sidney Lee would have us believe that he was only inter- 
 ested in the work of the Navy and Army because of the 
 personalities of Lord Haldane and Lord Fisher ; but this 
 is a very gross misstatement. It is perfectly true that the 
 King knew nothing about army organization and nothing 
 about naval administration, but Lord Haldane and Lord 
 Fisher have both told me on many occasions, Lord Fisher 
 with the greatest possible emphasis, how much they owed 
 to the constant interest and sympathy of the King. 
 
 There was a time when Lord Fisher had scarcely a 
 friend in the world except the King, and when, but for the 
 King, it would have been well-nigh impossible for him to 
 have completed his naval revolution. And it was the 
 King's express wish that Lord Haldane should go to 
 the War Office because he had faith in that minister's 
 industry, seriousness, pertinacity, and genius for organiza- 
 tion. He was not an expert, and, naturally enough, he 
 could not concern himself with the infinite amount of 
 detail which falls to the lot of ministers engaged in naval 
 and army organization ; but so well aware was the King 
 of the most serious condition of things both at the Ad- 
 miralty and the War Office (as we shall see later on), and 
 so anxious was the King for the security of these islands,
 
 48 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 that he took the greatest care to support the two men who 
 more than any others in the country he trusted to bring 
 order and efficiency out of chaos and muddh'ng. 
 
 The policy of King Edward was to prepare this country 
 for defence, and to remove every possible obstacle to 
 the peace of the world. He saw that Germany was the 
 greatest threat to the world's peace, not because she was 
 wickeder or more covetous than other nations, but 
 because she had come into the world a hundred years too 
 late. At the same time he hoped and believed that it was 
 possible to avert war by candour and fair-dealing, by 
 sympathy and co-operation, and by a frank and hearty 
 desire for peace. He never despaired of his fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 Such was the policy of the King, a policy inherited by 
 him from his father, from Baron Stockmar, and from Lord 
 Palmerston. It was the policy of a good man, a wise 
 man, and a far-seeing man. And it was the policy of all 
 that is best, safest, and least unworthy in the country 
 of which he was the sovereign-lord. That it failed was 
 not the fault of the King, nor is its failure a proof that the 
 policy was false. It might have succeeded, and if it had 
 succeeded Europe would not now have been drenched 
 with blood, deluged with tears, and laid waste by ruin. 
 Let those who criticized this policy think upon the 
 devastation and bereavement of Europe, and ask them- 
 selves on their conscience whether they are free of guilt 
 for all that dreadful mass of suffering and death. And 
 let those who followed that policy, and worked for it with 
 the enthusiasm of idealists and with the wisdom of sane 
 and moral men, not lose heart, and not despair, but 
 continue to see in that policy of the dead King the only 
 reasonable hope for the world's enduring peace when this 
 tyranny is overpast. 
 
 The point I desire to establish in the present chapter 
 is this, that while there are men in our country whose 
 blood-guiltiness is only second to the guiltiness of 
 the German war party, England can most truly say that 
 she herself, bv the hand of her Kincr and the hand of his
 
 EDWARD THE SEVENTH AS STATESMAN 49 
 
 most trusted servant, very earnestly and very patiently 
 sought to avert the horrors of war and to remove from 
 the mind of that Power which by its late entrance into 
 world-politics most seriously threatened the world's peace 
 the last reason for suspicion and unrest. 
 
 I can also say with assurance that Russia and France 
 were equally desirous of peace, and equally satisfied with 
 England's policy. Neither France nor Russia wanted war, 
 neither France nor Russia considered themselves as allied 
 to destroy Germany, and neither France nor Russia would 
 have supported England in a wanton attack upon Germany. 
 
 There was in the world only one menace to peace, and 
 that menace was the increasing population, the increasing 
 prosperity, and the increasing unrest of the German Empire. 
 Those people in Germany who preached that France, 
 Russia, and Britain were making a ring of steel round the 
 German Empire intensified this menace to peace ; and 
 those people in England who never lost an opportunity of 
 suggesting that France, Russia, and Britain were allied in 
 enmity against the German nation played directly into the 
 hands of the German war party. 
 
 War came because neither Germany nor England had 
 faith in each other's honesty ; and it came in spite of Herr 
 von Bethmann-Iiollweg's desperate efforts to avoid war and 
 in spite of the British Government's heroic efforts up to the 
 eleventh hour to convince the German war party that 
 Britain was passionately desirous of peace. 
 
 Europe was turned into a bear-garden by the average 
 vulgarian in Germany and England. The war is a 
 gigantic retribution on wrong-thinking.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE
 
 You know I do not join in the common dislike of your 
 nation, or in the beHef in its certain decay. But 
 no nation can, without danger, go on stuffing its 
 mind with such nonsense as is talked by the news- 
 papers which you are stupid enough to quote with 
 admiration. 
 
 Friendships Garlajid
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 
 
 LORD ESHER, who has a special authority for 
 speaking on this matter, tells us that no one was 
 more determined than King Edward that no stone 
 should be left unturned to render the defensive forces of 
 his country powerful and efficient. 
 
 Since, then, it was at the wish of this determined King 
 that Lord Haldane became Secretary of State for War at 
 the end of 1905, we may justly consider that the King, who 
 had a shrewd eye for capacity and character, considered 
 that Lord Haldane was a man who would labour to make 
 the British Army powerful and efficient. 
 
 And since Field-Marshal Lord French, with better oppor- 
 tunities of judging than any other man in the country, 
 declared in the year 191 2, when Lord Haldane's work was 
 completed, that this "great and distinguished statesman," 
 as he subsequently called him, had "inaugurated and made 
 a military fighting machine and a system of national defence 
 such as this country never had before": and since a 
 military authority like General Knox, in his book The 
 Flaw in our Armour^ speaks of Lord Haldane, differing 
 from him in policy, as " the greatest War Minister we 
 have had since the days of Cardwell " : and since so con- 
 scientious a critic of military affairs as Lord Sydenham 
 declares that this country never entered upon war in a 
 better state of preparedness than in August 1914: and 
 since so thoroughgoing an anti-German as Mr, Arnold 
 White, who has since abused Lord Haldane, said in 1909 
 that his achievement "stamps him as one of the master- 
 
 S3
 
 54 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 minds of our era": and since a technical organ like the 
 United Service Gazette said in August 1914 that Lord 
 Haldane was "the most able of the War Ministers 
 England has ever had " — we might almost conclude that 
 to attempt anything in the nature of a justification for 
 Lord Haldane's work at the War Office would be not 
 only an impertinence, as Lord Redesdale has said, but an 
 act of completest supererogation. 
 
 Vast numbers of people in this country, however, believe 
 that Lord Haldane betrayed the British Army. How is 
 this possible ? How do all these masses of people arrive 
 at so astonishing a conclusion — a conclusion the very 
 opposite to, and the absolute contradiction of, that which 
 experts like Lord French have publicly pronounced in the 
 ears of all men ? The answer is that they have been 
 told to think so by the only newspapers they read. 
 
 But what will these deluded people think of their autho- 
 rities when they learn that these very identical authorities 
 were saying in 191 2 almost the same thing of Lord 
 Haldane's work at the War Office as Lord French had 
 the gallantry and honour to say in 1916? What trust 
 and confidence can they have any longer in the intelli- 
 gence, the candour, or the honour of newspapers which, 
 two years after acclaiming a minister as one of the 
 greatest organizing geniuses who ever served his King and 
 his country, raise a street-arab's howl not only to drive him 
 from the service of the nation, but to prevent him from 
 again opening his mouth in public ? 
 
 I will not insult the intelligence of my reader by 
 quoting the utterances of the lowest and most unprincipled 
 of these newspapers which so powerfully affect the 
 judgment, not only of the clerk and the shop-girl, but of 
 the gentlemen of Kensington and the ladies of the 
 Primrose League ; it shall be enough for my purpose to 
 cite as witnesses in favour of Lord Haldane two news- 
 papers so respectable and so self-conscious of their 
 position in the world that they have not yet brought 
 themselves to contemplate the halfpenny as a possibly 
 sufficient reward for their daily service to the nation. 
 I will quote from Tlie Times and from the Morning Post.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 55 
 
 On July 11,1912, the military correspondent of The Times 
 said of Lord Haldane : 
 
 He has made the General Staff a power in the Army 
 
 and throughout the Empire. He has perfected the 
 
 Expeditionary Force and has backed it with the 
 
 Special Reserve. He has created the Territorial 
 
 Force, has initiated the Officers' Training Corps, and 
 
 has been a warm friend and adviser to those private 
 
 citizens to whose energy and enthusiasm is due the 
 
 National Reserve. 
 
 And in a leading article in the same issue the editorial 
 
 mind declared that the changes which Lord Haldane " had 
 
 effected in our military system, so far at least as the 
 
 auxiliary forces go, have been so extensive that he may 
 
 be said to have relaid its foundations. . . . On the whole 
 
 we are disposed to believe that what he has built will 
 
 in its main lines endure. Its distinctive characteristic is 
 
 that it admits of expansion." And the editorial mind 
 
 pronounced judgment in the following sentence : •' As a 
 
 statesman Lord Haldane has done good work for this 
 
 country in circumstances of peculiar difficulty." 
 
 On March 25, 191 1, the Morning Post declared in a 
 leading article : 
 
 As Secretary of State for War, he has accom- 
 plished more in five years than any of his pre- 
 decessors since Cardwell. He found the military 
 forces a mighty maze, with hardly a plan, just as 
 they had grown up sporadically, in consequence of 
 successive fits of popular interest in matters of de- 
 fence. He has given them an organization. That 
 represents a great work. 
 Such were the opinions of two respectable Conservative 
 journals in the years 1911-12 — two respectable Conserva- 
 tive journals which since the outbreak of war have aligned 
 themselves in a hue and cry against Lord Haldane with 
 the Daily Mail, the Evening Neivs, the Daily Express, 
 and that greatest of all the triumphs of the English 
 middle-class mind, John Btill. 
 
 Before summoning Lord Haldane to speak in his own
 
 56 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 defence I would ask the reader to examine the counts 
 in the indictment which charges this "great and distin- 
 guished statesman," this " most able of the War Ministers 
 England has ever had," this fellow-creature whose achieve- 
 ment " stamps him as one of the master-minds of our 
 era," with betrayal of his sovereign's confidence and with 
 betrayal of the British Army and the British people. 
 
 Lord Haldane stands charged before the bar of public 
 opinion (a) with reducing the Regular Army, (d) with 
 reducing the Artillery, (c) with abolishing the Militia, and 
 (d) — most serious crime of all — with opposing Lord Roberts 
 in that distinguished soldier's campaign for National 
 Service. Later on we shall examine in their proper place 
 those other charges which have grown out of these, those 
 charges which actually amount to treachery in the sphere 
 of diplomacy. For the present we limit ourselves to an 
 examination of the charges which we have enumerated 
 above, and which are intended to suggest, as we have said, 
 that Lord Haldane deceived his King and his countrymen. 
 
 (a) When Lord Haldane took office the troops which 
 are called the British Expeditionary Force, the most 
 important of our land forces, numbered 80,000 men. 
 When he had finished his work, this number was increased 
 to 170,000. In place of a reduction, then, we find 
 that Lord Haldane more than doubled the most important 
 of the Crown's land forces. Furthermore, we shall dis- 
 cover that Lord Haldane had given to this great army a 
 cohesion and a subdivision of authority which had never 
 existed in the British Army before, and which rendered 
 it not only as powerful and as efficient as his sovereign 
 desired, but which rendered it, as Lord French says, the 
 finest army that ever the sun shone upon. And further 
 still, we shall find that in every single detail of efficiency, 
 from the most important matter of sanitation and 
 surgery down to the scarcely less important matter of 
 transport services, this army was so perfectly prepared 
 by our " great and distinguished statesman " that to 
 the wonder of the whole world it was moved with an 
 absolute precision of detail, equipped in every single
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 57 
 
 particular, and without one smallest casualty, from the 
 shores of this country to the battlefields of France. 
 Instead of reducing the striking power of the Regular 
 Army, Lord Haldane more than doubled it, and in 
 doubling it rendered it infinitely more efficient than it 
 had ever been before. " He inaugurated and made," said 
 Lord French, and those two words are worth repetition, 
 " inaugurated and made a military fighting machine and 
 a system of national defence such as this country never 
 had before." 
 
 The charge that Lord Haldane reduced the Regular 
 Army has its origin, which I cannot persuade myself is 
 not a malicious origin, in the fact that he disbanded 
 certain battalions in order to increase the fighting effi- 
 ciency of the new machine. If the reader will bear in 
 mind that what Lord Haldane achieved at the War Office 
 was not a reform but a veritable revolution he will be 
 quicker to see the absurdity of this charge. Let me put 
 it in this way. 
 
 Suppose that an architect is set the task of converting a 
 ramshackle community of scattered houses into one self- 
 contained edifice : suppose that out of those old buildings, 
 disconnected from each other and with no real coherence 
 of plan, he is instructed to produce a single building 
 equipped with all the improvements and advantages of 
 modern science : suppose further that in this task he is 
 obliged to use the bricks of the old houses because more 
 bricks cannot be got voluntarily or obtained in sufficient 
 time (time in this case is of the essence of the contract) by 
 compulsion. 
 
 What must he do? His only course is to assort the 
 bricks obtained by pulling down the old dwellings, reject- 
 ing those that are unsuitable for the new structure, and 
 exchanging these unsuitable bricks, which are quite useless 
 for his purpose, for other material which is deficient but 
 essential to the new building. In this way science may 
 enable him to construct a new building of much greater 
 capacity than the old buildings. 
 
 It was in this way that Lord Haldane got rid of eight 
 weak battalions abroad. They were useless for the struc-
 
 58 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 ture of the new Expeditionary Force. They could not be 
 fitted into that perfect weapon of instant offence. And by 
 getting rid of them he was able to build up additional 
 artillery, cavalry, and auxiliary services which were 
 required to make that force a machine of great rapidity 
 in mobilization and of double the size and military 
 efficiency of any expeditionary army that had been 
 created before. 
 
 Under the readjusted terms of service the reserve avail- 
 able on mobilization rose from 85,000 to 135,000, so that 
 even allowing for the 22,000 men whom he was alleged to 
 have reduced — most of them useless troops overseas, who 
 added nothing to our fighting efficiency — the forces avail- 
 able on mobilization were largely increased. In his book 
 on The B7'itish Army of To-day, Captain Atteridge, an 
 independent writer and a very able military critic, works 
 out the increase obtained in this way, an increase of the 
 forces available on the outbreak of a serious war, as 
 equivalent to 100 per cent. 
 
 {b) The question of artillery was left to the experts, 
 that is to say the General Staff, who decided that the 
 requirement of the Expeditionary Force in this respect 
 was 66 batteries of Horse and Field Artillery. In order that 
 there should be no mistake in this important matter. Lord 
 Haldane being very sensible of the value of artillery in 
 modern warfare, the number of available batteries, which 
 in 1905 was only 42, was increased to 72 and ultimately to 
 81. And this addition was effected by the introduction of 
 new howitzer guns which were of the greatest service to 
 the Expeditionary Force and, as we shall presently see, to 
 the French Army, which was entirely without heavy guns 
 at the outbreak of war. "Not a single battery," says an 
 expert in the Daily Chronicle, a newspaper whose war 
 news has been consistently the most reliable, and entirely 
 free, from the very beginning, of panic and rumour, " not 
 a single battery was ever reduced." Further this expert 
 continues as follows : 
 
 On the contrary more batteries were rendered 
 capable of being put into the field. Owing to the
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 59 
 
 new plan of definitely allocating a smaller number of 
 batteries for training purposes instead of keeping 
 a larger and fluctuating number at home, it was 
 possible to put into the field 72 batteries instead of 
 42, as had before been the case. All these were 
 additional to the Indian and Colonial establishments 
 of artillery. In all the nonsense talked by ill-in- 
 formed persons there is no more ridiculous statement 
 than that the Regular R.H.A. and R.F.A. were 
 reduced. On the contrary, the artillery forces were 
 substantially increased and made much more efficient 
 through the reforms described. 
 Much more could be said under this count of the 
 indictment, but the rational man hitherto misguided by 
 his newspapers, and already somewhat gravelled to find 
 {possibly for the first titne) that so great a soldier as 
 Lord French has described Lord Haldane's achievement 
 as a military fighting machine such as this country never 
 had before, will be satisfied when he knows that in the 
 case of the artillery, as in the case of the Regular Army, 
 Lord Haldane's "reductions" amount to very substantial 
 increases, and increases with the additional value of far 
 greater efficiency. 
 
 {c) Lord Haldane abolished the home-serving Militia in 
 order to provide for that enormous wastage in modern 
 war which his foresight prepared him to expect, when his 
 critics were only thinking how to trip the Government out 
 of power. Lord Haldane got rid of a force which was 
 entirely without a war organization, and which was only 
 recruited for service at home, and substituted in its place 
 the Special Reserve, for the creation of which he received 
 at the time the commendation of the military correspondent 
 of TJic Times — a force which is enlisted for foreign service, 
 and which is not only an integral part, but one of the 
 most valuable parts, of this country's war organization. 
 It is not too much to say that but for the perfect efficiency 
 of the British Expeditionary Force, with its invaluable 
 backing of the Special Reserve, the winter of 1914 would 
 have found the German armies encamped along the coasts
 
 Co THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of France with Calais as firmly in their iron clutch as 
 Antwerp. 
 
 (d) The last count in the indictment, and the one to 
 which every violent-minded person appears to attach the 
 most importance, is the charge that Lord Haldane opposed 
 Lord Roberts's campaign for National Service. Because 
 he opposed it, every one who thinks either that National 
 Service would have prevented war, or would have given us 
 the victory within a few months of fighting, is naturally in- 
 clined to conclude that Lord Haldane most shamefully 
 abused his trust as Minister for War, 
 
 The newspapers read by these people only tell them 
 that Lord Haldane "rebuffed," or "snubbed," or "insulted" 
 Lord Roberts, who himself had enjoyed unique powers at 
 the War Office, far greater power than Lord Haldane's, 
 when we consider his immense prestige and the fact that 
 Britain had only just emerged from a prolonged war with 
 a small people which had greatly humiliated her in the 
 eyes of Europe, but who left the British Army " in a 
 condition of chaos and weakness." These newspapers tell 
 their readers that Lord Haldane, the greatest War Minister 
 since Cardwell, rejected the scheme of Lord Roberts, who 
 effected no reforms of any kind during his reign at the 
 War Office, and for that reason they would hang him ; 
 but they do not tell their readers nj/iy those schemes 
 were rejected. 
 
 Lord Haldane, who knew Lord Roberts very well, and 
 had a great admiration for him as a commander and a 
 great liking for him as a fellow-creature, never insulted 
 Lord Roberts. Indeed, he went out of his way, during 
 his first speech in the House of Lords, to use expressions 
 of affectionate regard for the distinguished soldier. But 
 as a statesman, as a master of organization, as the man 
 responsible to his countrymen for the fighting efficiency 
 of the British Army, he did meet the criticisms of the 
 National Service League with the vigour they deserved, 
 and in discharging this duty he certainly inflicted wounds. 
 
 I attribute the disgraceful attack upon Lord Haldane 
 which broke out in 19 14 entirely to his attitude on the
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 6l 
 
 question of National Service, I will not believe so ill of 
 my misguided countrymen as to entertain the conjecture 
 that this wild and unscrupulous campaign had its origin in 
 vulgarian contempt for philosophy and literature. I do 
 not believe for one moment that all the forces of the 
 vulgarians were marshalled to destroy this great minister, 
 this ripe scholar, this quiet, dignified, and noble gentleman, 
 only because he remarked jto a German professor at a 
 London dinner-table that he almost regarded Germany 
 (the Germany of Goethe, and Hegel, and Lotze) as his 
 spiritual home. Nor can I bring myself to believe that 
 these scurrilous attacks, these mean, venomous, and 
 servants'-hall aspersions on the fame of a great public 
 servant, hinted here, whispered there, and presently bruited 
 about without shame and without pity or pain wherever 
 the vulgarian speaks at random, arose from the fact that 
 Lord Haldane went to Berlin in the hope of averting 
 a European conflagration. 
 
 It is more reasonable, and a kinder judgment on my 
 miseducated countrymen, to suppose that all these mean 
 and unworthy whisperings had their rise in something less 
 contemptible. 
 
 My own view is, after listening on a number of 
 occasions to private-house abuse of Lord Haldane, that 
 the sole origin of the crusade to crush him and drive him 
 out of public life is the attitude he presented as Secretary 
 of State for War to this question of National Service. 
 
 The idea of National Service as a duty which every 
 citizen owes to the State, and a duty which neither begins 
 nor ends in military service, is a fine idea and a true idea. 
 As it happens, Lord Haldane had been a preacher of this 
 uea long before it was narrowed down to military service ; 
 and he favoured the idea of national training as a part of 
 the education of young men. It was the particular 
 application of this great idea adopted by a particular set 
 of people which Lord Haldane rejected — rejected, as we 
 shall see, on the advice of his military experts. He has 
 always held that every man owes a duty to the State 
 which gives him home and security ; he appealed to the
 
 62 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 young men of all classes in the country on this very 
 ground when he was forming his Territorial Armies ; and 
 throughout all his speeches on national duty this inspiring 
 idea is to be found — the idea of a duty owed by every man 
 to the State, whose traditions should be in his blood and 
 whose welfare should be his first national concernment. 
 
 Lord Haldane thought that under a voluntary system, 
 %vith a tJioroughly thought-out organisation^ expansion 
 would provide all that might be requisite in case of need, 
 without imperilling those great, urgent, professional, long- 
 service armies in distant places which the island-centre of 
 a vast empire absolutely necessitates. And when we 
 reflect that over five million soldiers have been raised by 
 voluntary enlistment for this war, and that by the volun- 
 tary accession of more millions of skilled workers, men 
 and women, including doctors, men of business, and 
 munition workers, a tremendous organization has also 
 been created behind that huge army, all without com- 
 pulsion, it is clear that there is at least something to be 
 said for this opinion. Lord Haldane, let us never forget, 
 created that thoroughly thought-out organization which 
 made expansion possible. 
 
 Men of sense and judgment feel convinced that the 
 discipline of the nation (a most important matter) would 
 be greatly improved by National Service. They deplore, 
 as everybody must deplore, the ugly temper manifested by 
 masses of men during industrial conflicts, and the horrible 
 intemperance which still disgraces the great centres of 
 industrialism, and the physical slackness, carelessness, and 
 coarseness which are such distressing features in vast 
 numbers of the young men of huge cities. Rightly de- 
 ploring these things, they come to a conclusion for which 
 there is a very great deal to be said, namely, that com- 
 pulsory service in the armed forces of the Crown would be 
 a moral advantage to the nation. Sensible people such as 
 these, however, would not assail Lord Haldane as a traitor, 
 although they very deeply regret that he did not adopt 
 National Service during those wonderful six years in which 
 he revolutionized the War Office. 
 
 But let me ask reasonable people who hold such an
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 63 
 
 opinion as this to consider one governing fact in the 
 present discussion. King Edward's Minister for War, who 
 was in that office to leave no stone unturned in providing a 
 powerful and efficient Army, had nothing whatever to do 
 with improving the moral character of the people. For 
 him, as Minister for War, there was one duty and one 
 obligation — to place behind the word of his sovereign a 
 force well able to see that that word was honoured. His 
 duty was to adopt what he conceived to be the best means 
 for solving a very complicated military problem. His 
 business was to get the best Army he could for the money 
 granted to him by the State ; and since we have the word 
 of Lord French for it that he inaugurated and made a 
 military fighting machine and a system of national defence 
 such as this country never had before, we must conclude, 
 there is no escape from it, that Lord Haldane honoured 
 his master's trust and fulfilled his duty to the nation. 
 
 If he did not adopt Compulsory Service, or Conscription, 
 or National Service, we may conclude that he had excel- 
 lent reasons for not doing so ; and the smallest inquiry 
 into this matter would satisfy us that this conclusion is 
 right. Lord Haldane did not refuse to consider the hypo- 
 thesis of National Service. On the contrary, having formed 
 the best brains of the Army into a General Staff(oneof his 
 most useful achievements at the War Office), he handed 
 this idea of National Service over to his military advisers 
 and instructed them to report upon it as soon as possible. 
 The whole business of military organization was in fact 
 considered de novo at that time, the time of the Agadir 
 incident. And after full consideration National Service 
 was rejected by the General Staff of the British Army. It 
 was rejected by the General Staff, after a most careful 
 examination, on rational military grounds which com- 
 mended themselves to the shrewd and careful judgment of 
 King Ed\vard's War Minister. It was definitely rejected 
 because such a change would have utterly weakened, de- 
 ranged, and probably destroyed our organization for war. 
 Above everything else, while the change from one system 
 to another was being made, there must have been a long
 
 64 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and most perilous hiatus, a period of confusion, a time of 
 neither one thing nor the other, which would have been 
 extremely tempting to a jealous enemy. In a time of 
 profound peace such a change might have been attempted, 
 but in a time when Europe was constantly disturbed by 
 political unrest no change of that kind could be made 
 without the gravest danger. This we shall see later on, 
 when I come to quote Lord Haldane's own words on the 
 matter. I 
 
 It is a curious and interesting fact that Lord Haldane 
 should be charged, years afterwards, with the very same 
 crime in his administration of the War Office which was 
 brought at the time against that other friend and servant 
 of King Edward, Lord Fisher, in his administration of the 
 Navy. These two men, to whom our country owes an 
 immeasurable debt of gratitude, in seeking to obey their 
 King's order that the forces of the Crown should be made 
 as powerful and efficient as possible, both got rid of 
 rubbish in the course of building up greater strength. Lord 
 Fisher was abused up hill and down dale by enemies only 
 a little less evil-minded than those who now abuse Lord 
 Haldane, because he scrapped any number of obsolete 
 ships in the process of building an incomparably superior 
 fleet than the country had ever had before. But nobody 
 dares to say that Lord Fisher reduced the Navy. Lord 
 Haldane scrapped a few weak temporary battalions raised 
 in the emergency of the South African War, exactly as 
 Lord Fisher scrapped obsolete ships — he scrapped these 
 battalions in order to increase and strengthen the British Ex- 
 peditionary Force. His enemies, however, less scrupulous 
 than the enemies of Lord Fisher, fasten upon the dis- 
 banding of these few battalions and tell their deluded 
 victims, day after day, week after week, till the thing 
 becomes incontrovertible nonsense, that Lord Haldane 
 reduced the Army. Why this rancour, why this venom, 
 why this dishonesty? It is, I believe, because Lord 
 Haldane frustrated the darling scheme of the middle-class 
 mind for keeping the working-classes in their proper place. 
 
 See Appendix, Note E.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 65 
 
 And Lord Haldane only frustrated that scheme on the 
 advice of intellectual and responsible soldiers who 
 pronounced it to be, the times bein^^ what they were, the 
 most dangerous adventure on which it was possible for 
 this country to enter. 
 
 Few people realize, I think, the great intellectual im- 
 provement in the British Army during the last ten or 
 twelve years. Before Lord Haldane's advent to the War 
 Office, the British Army was governed by what may be 
 termed the field-marshal mind — an inheritance from the 
 days of the Duke of Cambridge. Field-marshals came, 
 field-marshals went, and the confusion at the War Office 
 remained very little disturbed by the process of exchanging 
 one field-marshal for another. The field-marshal mind in 
 military matters was not unlike master-of-arts Christianity 
 in religion. Master-of-arts Christianity is attractive, 
 picturesque, and sometimes extremely benevolent, but 
 it is not Christianity. That is to say, it is not the com- 
 plete dependence upon God, the utter and unquestioning 
 love of mankind, commended by Christ. In like manner, 
 the old field-marshal mind had many excellences and 
 attractions, but it was not a military mind. It had several 
 intensely interesting ideas concerning discipline, and the 
 facings of a scarlet coat, and the behaviour proper to a 
 British officer ; but of the science of war it knew nothing. 
 The frightful scandals of the Crimea were repeated in the 
 South African War ; and after the South African War, 
 another field-marshal was installed at the War Office, 
 under a Conservative Government, to put matters right 
 for all time. But, as one critic tells us, when a Liberal 
 Government came into power at the end of 1905, the 
 British Army was " in a condition of chaos and weak- 
 ness " ; or, as another critic puts it : " there were many 
 grave defects in our Army system." This second critic 
 proceeds : 
 
 The primary defect was the absence of any real 
 organization for war. And organization for war is 
 only possible if the plans and details and the necessary 
 provisions are made in peace, so that there is no 
 necessity to change the organization or improvise an
 
 66 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 organization on the occasion of war. That was the 
 great principle which Moltke laid down sixty years 
 ago, and it is the basis of all military efficiency. 
 This great principle, which never existed before in the 
 British War Office, was brought into governing existence 
 by Lord Haldane. He set up a thinking and reflecting 
 department ; he gathered about him the best brains of the 
 Army ; and in the closest association with these thoughtful 
 and able soldiers, during a period of six years, he con- 
 verted the entire British Army into an astonishingly 
 perfect organization for war, and at the same time backed 
 this incomparable professional army with the Special 
 Reserve and the Territorials. In the brief period of six 
 years Lord Haldane brought into existence an Imperial 
 Staff, an Expeditionary Force which was able to hold up 
 the flower of the German Armies, changed the old home- 
 service Militia into an integral part of the British Army 
 called the Special Reserve, founded the Officers' Training 
 Corps,! converted the dwindling and unpopular Volunteers 
 into the flourishing Territorials, and saw to it that in 
 every single particular, and not least of all the particular 
 of medical arrangements, these great organizations for 
 war should be absolutely efficient. 
 
 All the facts in this whole matter could not be better 
 stated than they were stated by a writer in the Fortnightly 
 Review early in the present year. This writer compares 
 certain statements of Mr. Arnold Forster, after the Boer 
 War, with the military situation in August 19 14. Mr. 
 
 ' M. Maurice Barres, the distinguished Academician, visited 
 Oxford during his visit to England and expressed admiration for the 
 spirit of the University. He tells us in his articles L'Angleterre 
 Pendant La Guerre the answer he received : " Oui, me repondent ces 
 messieurs, cette guerre a montre de la fafon la plus eclatante ce que 
 nos universites peuvent fournir a la nation dans la plus grande crise de 
 son histoire. Nos jeunes gens furent les ofticiers de cette guerre. 
 Grace a Lord Haldane (celui-la qui etait ministre au moment de la 
 declaration de guerre), il y avait dans chaque universite un noyau de 
 jeunes etudiants qui etudiaient serieusement I'art militaire. lis for- 
 merent le cadre pour la grande armee Kitchener. Sans eux, com- 
 ment aurait-on pu fournir un cerveau et une direction aux armees 
 britanniques?"
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 67 
 
 Arnold Forster said that " under our present system not 
 a single regiment, battery, or battalion is ever jit to take 
 the fields It took us six months at that time to raise 
 a force of 146,000 men. " There were actually not guns 
 available enough in the country to furnish the batteries in 
 the field." " The best which the country could do," says 
 the writer of the article, "was to dribble out men to South 
 Africa, many of them hardly trained, and most of them 
 inadequately equipped." And he concludes his summary 
 of attempts to reform this appalling condition of things in 
 these remarkable words : " Mr. Balfour's nerveless and dis- 
 tracted and feeble Government went out of office leaving 
 the British Army in a condition of chaos and weakness. 
 It was well for us that Germany did not strike then." 
 
 So excellent is this writer's summary of subsequent 
 events that I take the liberty of quoting several pages 
 from the article, venturing on the remark that if the 
 average person in this country paid more attention to 
 periodicals of the character of the Fortnightly Review he 
 would be less easily deceived and less frequently in a con- 
 dition of mind to be doped with the misrepresentations of 
 partisan journalism. 
 
 The writer of the Fortnightly article proceeds as follows 
 from the point of the "chaos and weakness" in which the 
 British Army was left by the last Government at the end 
 of 1905 : 
 
 In these circumstances the Liberal Government 
 came into office and power. If it be a secret, at least 
 it is one which can now be divulged without indiscretion, 
 that King Edward regarded the state of the military 
 forces of this country with the gravest disquietude, 
 and he was not satisfied as to the condition of the 
 Fleet. It was apparent that international relations 
 on the Continent were in a liquid state, and the 
 shadow of the present war was dimly discernible. 
 If hostilities occurred, it was realized that neither the 
 British Fleet nor the British Army was prepared for 
 hostilities. Since His Majesty's death discussion has 
 arisen as to the part which he had in forming the 
 Dual Entente. At the least it is admitted that the
 
 68 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 King, by his charm of manner and his statesmanlike 
 outlook, contributed powerfully to the healing of the 
 differences which had for so many years divided us 
 from France. But His Majesty did more than that. 
 From the day that the Liberal party obtained its 
 immense majority in the country. King Edward deter- 
 mined that no effort on his part should be wanting to 
 secure reforms in our naval and military affairs, so as 
 to enable us to take our share, if necessary, in any war 
 which the future might have in store. His Majesty 
 never wavered in his support of Lord Fisher during 
 the period when that officer — in face of bitter criticism 
 and some unscrupulous opposition — was carrying into 
 execution his series of naval reforms, which shifted 
 the centre of our naval influence from southern to 
 northern waters ; gave to the country new ships pecu- 
 liarly suited to the new conditions, officers and men 
 in touch with the latest developments of physical 
 science as applied to naval warfare, and a system 
 of rapid naval mobilization. 
 
 The work of naval reform had been initiated by 
 Lord Fisher shortly before the change of Government 
 occurred ; it was continued under the new administra- 
 tion, and with the support of the King. The army 
 organization was still in a " rotten " state ; we were in 
 a worse position than when the South African War 
 occurred. What could the King, as a Constitutional 
 sovereign, do ? Among the ministers who were certain 
 to be invited to take office by the new Prime Minister 
 was Mr. (now Lord) Haldane, who was not only 
 familiar with German conditions, but spoke and read 
 German. He was therefore in a peculiarly favourable 
 position for studying the German military system and 
 extracting from it any guidance which might be useful 
 in improving the British military machine. King 
 Edward suggested to the new Prime Minister that 
 Lord Haldane should be asked to accept the portfolio 
 of Secretary of State for War. The suggestion was 
 accepted. Lord Haldane must have realized that he 
 was accepting a thankless task. Where Lord Lans-
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 69 
 
 dovvne, Lord Midleton, and Mr. Arnold-Forster had 
 failed, could he hope to succeed ? The War Office 
 was in a state of chaotic disorder ; there was no 
 General Staff; the Arnny was lacking in warlike 
 form ; the Volunteers were shrinking rapidly in 
 numbers if not in efficiency. At the desire of his 
 sovereign, and with the promised support of his 
 colleagues, Lord Haldane agreed to fill the position 
 which Mr. Cardwell had occupied with so much 
 advantage to the nation under a Liberal Adminis- 
 tration many years before. 
 
 This is neither the time nor has the present writer 
 any inclination to embark upon a technical explana- 
 tion of the work carried out by Lord Haldane. But 
 this must be said : he realized that the first necessity 
 was a General Staff. Such an organization had never 
 before existed in this country. He created it. Then, 
 supported by the General Staff, he tackled one problem 
 after another. It was determined that never again 
 should the military organization be so defective as to 
 compel this country to dribble out, under panic condi- 
 tions, troops inadequately organized and not too well 
 equipped. He was fortunate in having among his 
 advisers Field-Marshal Sir William Nicholson and 
 other officers of distinction, who worked with him cor- 
 dially and whole-heartedly in the various tasks to 
 which he set himself. Above all, the new military 
 administration based its plans on the historic prin- 
 ciple that, as this country consists of islands, and the 
 Empire is a maritime Empire, the first line of defence 
 must be the Navy. Lord Haldane, before he could 
 have had a thought that destiny would lead him to 
 the War Office, had become known by his speeches as 
 an advocate, in association with Mr. Asquith and Sir 
 Edward Grey, of a strong fleet. " The two things this 
 country most needs, he remarked on one occasion, " are 
 an instructed people and an invincible Navy." Lord 
 Haldane, indeed, was the first statesman publicly to 
 advocate the formation of " a North Sea Squadron',^ at 
 a time when practically every new ship of the British
 
 70 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Fleet was concentrated in the Mediterranean, and a 
 man-of-war under the White Ensign was very infre- 
 quently seen in the North Sea.^ Lord Haldane at a 
 City meeting, which many business men may still 
 remember, urged that in view of the naval measures 
 which Germany was taking, this country could no 
 longer afford to continue to ignore the new centre of 
 danger. He spoke to the unconverted, who remained 
 unconverted. The country did not realize the danger ; 
 nor did the Unionist Government, then in office. He 
 was right, as events have shown. On the basis of the 
 maintenance beyond challenge of our naval supremacy 
 as against Germany and any other Power, and in 
 knowledge of Lord Fisher's work. Lord Haldane and 
 his advisers took in hand the reorganization of the 
 Army. A chaotic crowd of regiments was converted 
 into an army. Expansion was carried out in some 
 directions and contraction in others until all the 
 pieces fitted together, and the scheme of forming an 
 Expeditionary Force, not of 40,000 but 160,000 men, 
 thus took shape. 
 
 It was realized that the size and character of the 
 naval forces which were being organized in Germany, 
 and the efficiency of the German naval organization, 
 increased the danger of invasion. The Volunteer 
 Force, as it then existed, was a collection of companies 
 of ill-trained men, without an apology for field or- 
 ganization or proper equipment. It was transparently 
 unsuited for home defence, and was unavailable for 
 other purposes. In circumstances of not a little 
 embarrassment the organization was changed. A 
 new impulse was given to the patriotism of the young 
 men of the nation ; they were asked to make further 
 sacrifices. The foundations were laid of a field force 
 for home defence, organized and trained as no 
 volunteer force in the world had ever before been 
 organized and trained. Lord Haldane and his 
 advisers confided in the spirit of the nation, and 
 events showed that their confidence was not mis- 
 ' The italics are mine. — H. B.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 71 
 
 placed. Who to-day speaks in derision of the 
 Territorials ? 
 
 Thus during Lord Haldane's comparatively short 
 term of office the Expeditionary Force was formed, 
 the Volunteers were transformed into Territorials, an 
 Imperial Staff was created, the Officers' Training 
 Corps was founded, and improved schemes of training 
 were inaugurated. Those tasks were carried through 
 with lightning speed, and the essential work had. been 
 completed when Lord Haldane left the War Office to 
 take his seat on the Woolsack. During the latter 
 period of his administration Field-Marshal Viscount 
 French was Chief of the General Staff and the principal 
 adviser of the Secretary of State. On the night of 
 the day when Lord Haldane delivered up his seals 
 of office. Lord French, speaking in the City, remarked : 
 
 Lord Haldane took up the position of War Secretary at a time 
 of great stress and trial, a time when most important problems 
 of national defence were waiting solution, and problems which 
 appeared to be well-nigh impossible of solution with the 
 means which the country placed at the disposal of its military 
 administrators. 
 
 To the eyes of many the task was almost a superhuman one. 
 But Lord Haldane's great brain, his desire for work, and his 
 imperturbability to opposition were triumphant over every kind 
 of difficulty, and he left the Army having, he thought he might 
 fairly say, inaugurated and made a military fighting machine 
 and established a system of national defence such as this country 
 never had before, and which was far more suited to our present 
 needs than anything had been in the past. 
 
 The military correspondent of The Times referred 
 to the change at the War Office on the following 
 morning, and again, four days later, reverted to the 
 work which had been accomplished by Lord Haldane. 
 In the latter article he recalled the conditions which 
 existed in December 1905, when the Liberals were 
 returned to power : 
 
 The nation and the Army were disheartened and in despair 
 owing to the fruitless eftbrls which had already been made to 
 apply the lessons of the South African campaign. Recruiting 
 was in a state ol chaos owing to changes in the conditions of
 
 72 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 service, which between 1902 and 1905 succeeded one another 
 with startling rapidity. . . . The distribution of the then existing 
 Auxihary Forces, their want of homogeneity, the lack of proper 
 staffs, of field artillery, and of adequate administrative services 
 for them, were all factors which precluded any serious attempt 
 to organize them scientifically for war or to train them properly 
 in peace. 
 
 As for the Militia, it had been freed from all obligation to find 
 drafts for the Regular Army in war. The old Militia had been 
 abolished, and as a result there was every prospect of the 
 Regular Army finding itself at no distant date once more in the 
 parlous and reserveless condition that obtained in the Crimean 
 War. To add to the troubles of the new War Secretary, the 
 party which gained an overwhelming majority at the polls in 
 January 1906 was deeply pledged to retrenchment all round, 
 and especially in matters of military expenditure. 
 
 Durmg the past six years the immediate readiness of the 
 Exp^^-ditionary Force for overseas action has been the primary 
 objective of the General Staff and of the War Office administra- 
 tion, and the restored feeling of self-confidence that prevails in 
 the Army is the best evidence of the success of the efforts made 
 in this direction. 
 
 War was soon to test the new organization. What 
 was the result ? There was no long period of warn- 
 ing, as was the case before hostilities broke out in 
 South Africa. Down to the very eve of the sending 
 of the British ultimatum the issue as between this 
 country and Germany hung in the balance. During 
 that interval Sir Edward Grey, as Foreign Minister, 
 made it plain that the French Government was fully 
 possessed of knowledge of what we could and could not 
 do in case of war. No pledge had been given. We 
 could throw our Fleet into the scale and we could 
 launch the Expeditionary Force, which under the 
 new regime had been converted into an instrument of 
 war of unparalleled efficiency — a razor-like weapon. 
 Germany, by the invasion of Belgium, turned the 
 balance. Suddenly the nation, which but a few days 
 before had had no suspicion that war was probable, 
 found itself involved in a great European struggle. 
 
 On August 4th the ultimatum expired. The 
 country was then left in ignorance of what military 
 measures were being taken, except that it learnt that
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 73 
 
 Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener had become Secretary 
 of State for War at a moment when the probable 
 intervention of her Army in Ireland was the subject 
 of the hour. On August l6th, the day before the 
 Belgian Government was forced to fly to Antwerp, 
 it was dramatically announced that the entire Expedi- 
 tionary Force — not 40,000, but 160,000 men — had 
 been safely landed in France, without a single 
 casualty.^ Five days later its concentration had been 
 completed, and it had occupied the position assigned 
 to it on the line from Cond^ to Mons. 
 
 In this manner the work of Lord Haldane and 
 his advisers was put to the test. Never before had 
 any country transported so large a force in so short a 
 time. The exploit, in which the Navy, the mercantile 
 marine, and the Army all shared, completely upset 
 the calculations which the German General Staff had 
 made, with the assistance of their active agents in 
 this country. Events showed that Viscount French, 
 the Commander-in-Chief of this Army, had spoken 
 with full knowledge and accuracy when he had 
 declared that Lord Haldane, during his term of office, 
 had "inaugurated and made a military fighting 
 machine and a system of national defence such as 
 this country never had before." If ever an army took 
 the field " complete to the last button," with splendid 
 arrangements for the commissariat, the medical 
 services, and supplies generally, that army was the 
 Expeditionary Force thrown across the Channel like 
 a thunderbolt, to the complete derangement of 
 Germany's plans. What would have happened to 
 the French Republic if, when the die was cast, the 
 British Army had been in the condition it was when 
 the South African War occurred, or if it had remained 
 in the state of greater chaos which existed when 
 Lord Haldane went to the War Office ? Small 
 
 ' It is not clear that the Sixth Division had actually been sent off 
 by August 1 6th ; but it was mobilized with the others on August 3rd, 
 and followed at the moment which Lord Kitchener considered most 
 appropriate a few days later. — H. B.
 
 74 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 though the force was — this country in the past had 
 never had a completely organized army one-quarter 
 its size ready to move — it proved sufficient, so fine 
 was the material and so efficient the organization, 
 to save civilization from a threatened doom. The 
 British Expeditionary Force, launched against the 
 hosts of Germany, turned the scale at the critical 
 moment.! 
 
 But that does not exhaust the record. Foundations 
 had been laid on which Lord Kitchener, who proved 
 in the emergency a supreme recruiting agent, could 
 build up new armies. Lord Haldane merits some 
 credit for the smoothness with which the new armies 
 were raised. In the history of warfare there has been 
 no exhibition of patriotism and no demonstration of 
 organizing ability to approach the effort put forth 
 when the character of the war became apparent. 
 Recruits poured in. The military authorities pro- 
 ceeded with splendid resourcefulness to organize the 
 new armies of peril — the armies of Europe's peril. 
 This country was ill-fitted to meet the strain which 
 the equipment of the new armies involved. Supreme 
 in the elements of sea-power, its capacity for creating 
 military munitions was strictly limited — had always 
 been strictly limited, and necessarily so in view of our 
 small military effort. # Within eighteen months of the 
 beginning of the war the Prime Minister was never- 
 theless able to announce that this country, in spite of 
 the many casualties which had been suffered, had 
 operating in the various theatres no fewer than a 
 million and a half of men. Consider that figure ! 
 Contrast it with any former military effort which this 
 country has ever made, even in its day of direst 
 emergency. We had 30,000 men only at Waterloo! 
 Must we blush for our generation ? What should be 
 said of the Jeremiahs who told us on the eve of the 
 
 ' We shall see in a later chapter, on the witness of a Harmsworth 
 publication, that the British Expeditionary Force assisted French 
 armies very handsomely by lending them some of its big guns, with 
 which armament none of the French armies was provided. — H. B.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 75 
 
 war that this England of ours was decadent ; that we 
 could exert no influence if the war-cloud on the Con- 
 tinent burst ? When the Prime Minister spoke of a 
 million and a half of men on the fighting fronts, there 
 must have been about a million and a half of other 
 troops in this country either trained or in training. 
 And not a conscript amongst them ! The raising of 
 these new armies, their training, and their equipment ; 
 the transport of these new armies and their sujDply ; 
 the fighting of these new armies, wherever they have 
 confronted the enemy, constitute a series of triumphs 
 which stand unparalleled in the history of this or any 
 other race. 
 
 Nothing more need be said. Indisputable for all honest 
 men, for all men willing to be convinced, for all men who 
 realize the moral duty of holding right and true opinions, 
 are these facts of the whole matter : First, that King 
 Edward, in seeking peace, was not unmindful of the hazard 
 of war. Second, that the King did not err in giving his 
 trust and confidence and friendship to Lord Fisher and 
 Lord Haldane. Third, that both by land and by sea this 
 country most faithfully fulfilled its obligations to its allies. 
 And, fourth, that the British Army of August 1914, 
 which twice met and broke the furious onset of the Ger- 
 man legions, not merely proved itself an army of imperish- 
 able glory, but, in giving France time to mobilize her vast 
 army and make those changes in her strategy necessitated 
 by the German invasion of Belgium, saved France, saved 
 England, and perhaps saved the whole world from a 
 calamity such as (qw men have the vision to imagine. 
 
 And now Lord Haldane shall speak for himself. I 
 make no apology for printing one of his speeches almost 
 in full, first, because it is a very wise speech, a very noble 
 speech, and a speech which the average person will find 
 good for his reason to dwell upon, but because I do not 
 suppose that a single word of this very important and 
 instructive speech was ever printed in those newspapers 
 which provide the vulgarians of this country with their 
 political opinions. Let the reader, who is already be-
 
 ^6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 wildered to know why his newspaper did not tell him 
 of Lord French's tribute to the unique work of this War 
 Minister, and who is still utterly amazed to find that, 
 instead of reducing the British Army, Lord Haldane 
 enormously increased its fighting efficiency, let him further 
 reflect upon the strange fact that the speech which now 
 follows was never printed in his paper, which has room, no 
 doubt, for murders, divorces, and fashions, and certainly 
 room for misleading the opinions of its readers. 
 
 Lord Haldane spoke on National Duty on July 5, 
 191 5, at a meeting to which the Prime Minister sent the 
 following message : 
 
 Lord Haldane is the oldest political and personal 
 friend that I have in the world. For the best part of 
 thirty-five years we have been associated in close and 
 unbroken intimacy. We have worked together, and 
 fought side by side through many vicissitudes of 
 fortune in the pursuit of what we have believed to 
 be great and worthy causes, without (so far as I can 
 recall) more than a passing shadow of difference in 
 opinion, and always with the same ideals in view. I 
 can never adequately express the debt which I owe to 
 the breadth of his outlook, to the large range of his 
 varied knowledge, to his acute perception of political 
 perspective, and, above all, to his selfless loyalty and 
 devotion. It has been given to few men to find and 
 to keep such a friend. 
 
 But quite apart from and beyond these person- 
 alities, I wish to put on record my sense of the 
 inestimable value of the work which in man}' different 
 spheres he has done for the State. A profound 
 and accomplished lawyer, he has worthily sustained 
 the best traditions of the Woolsack, Inter anna 
 silent leges. And now that we are engaged in the 
 greatest war in our history, or in that of the world, 
 I should wish my countrymen to realize that it is 
 more due to him than to any other man that our 
 Army was ready to undertake the mission to which 
 it has been called.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE ^7 
 
 The Territorial Force, which is winning its laurels 
 and covering itself with glory in every theatre of the 
 war, is his creation. The magnificent work which is 
 being done by the Staff is largely the result of his 
 initiative and inspiration. Long years of patient 
 and unobtrusive effort, conducted under his guidance 
 and stimulus, are bearing their fruit, with the addi- 
 tion every day of fresh chapters to the glorious 
 annals of the British Army. 
 
 I may take the opportunity of contradicting a 
 statement which I am told is still believed in some 
 quarters — that at the outbreak of war Lord Haldane 
 claimed or desired to return to the War Office. 
 
 There is not a word of truth in this silly story. 
 I was myself at the time Secretary of State, and Lord 
 Haldane was good enough to assist me for a few days 
 at the office to cope with the overwhelming pressure 
 of business. He was from the first moment a strong 
 advocate of Lord Kitchener's appointment. 
 
 Let me add that no man in our time has made 
 more fertile and lasting contribution to the recon- 
 struction and better organization of national education 
 in its best and broadest sense ; a reform which has 
 already done much, and when developed and com- 
 pleted is destined to do far more to enable this 
 country to hold and better its own in the growing 
 rivalry of the peoples of the world. 
 
 You do well to-night to honour him, and I predict 
 with undoubting confidence that your recognition 
 of his character and services will be ratified by 
 history and posterity. 
 
 Lord Haldane spoke as follows ; — 
 
 ... I have noticed the tone of Job and Jeremiah in 
 certain sections of the Press. I am entirely in favour 
 of rousing up the nation. We have been sluggish 
 and unconscious, and any one who has turned our 
 attention to the real danger, and made us think, has 
 rendered a public service. But you can overdo that ; 
 you can produce depression beyond what is desirable.
 
 78 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 The situation is serious enough without our making it 
 worse. 
 
 Now, just let me ask this question : Are we the 
 only nation that has been taken aback by what has 
 happened, and has been in that sense unprepared ? I 
 always try when I am looking at a situation such 
 as this to follow the example of the great military 
 leaders who ought to be our guide in such a case — 
 men like Hannibal and Napoleon, whose habit it was 
 always to endeavour to look over the enemy's ramparts 
 and define what was in his mind. 
 
 If we were to look into the mind of the German 
 General Staff, what should we find at this moment ? 
 We can only conjecture, but I expect they have some 
 Jobs and Jeremiahs. Was Germany prepared to find 
 her old ally Italy ranged amongst her enemies ? Was 
 she prepared to find a torrent of criticism on her 
 methods from the vast majority in the United States? 
 Was she ready to see her commerce and her armed 
 cruisers swept from the seas by the British Navy ? 
 Did she count upon India vying with the rest of her 
 enemies in loyalty and help? Did she reckon on 
 the Mohammedan world outside Turkey remaining 
 neutral ? Did she think General Botha would lead 
 the Dutch to victory in South Africa, and did she 
 suppose Japan would speedily extinguish her posses- 
 sions in the Eastern world? If these things had been 
 in the mind of some of those in command of the 
 German General Staff they would probably have 
 said, " The gamble is too much for us, even with our 
 magnificent army." 
 
 Do not imagine that in saying that I am in the least 
 underestimating the grave situation with which we 
 are confronted. The armies of the Central Powers 
 are not only extraordinarily powerful, but they are 
 magnificently organized. The problem for us is 
 how we are to deal with the situation. The simple 
 fact on which we must build is this, that taking the 
 Powers that are most immediately concerned, the 
 Allies have 280 millions of population to organize 
 for war against 120 millions.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 79 
 
 That is a great fact if we can make adequate use 
 of it ; and the question is how we are to make use of 
 that bed-rock fact, because if we can make use of it 
 we win this war. It is not only men that we want 
 to accomplish this end ; nor is it only munitions ; 
 nor is it only money. There was a book which, 
 when I was at the War Office three years ago, I used 
 to be very fond of. Probably very few of you know 
 it. It was a book written by a brilliant French 
 soldier before the war of 1870, Colonel Ardant du 
 Picq I think was his name, who was killed at Metz 
 in that year, and who wrote a ^ book on the moral 
 factor in war under the title o{ Etudes sur le Combat. 
 
 In that book he laid down the effect of the moral 
 factor which I think has been the foundation of the 
 principles of that magnificent General Staff which 
 our French allies possess to-day. It is not merely 
 numbers and munitions and resources, it is not only 
 energy, although energy is absolutely essential ; but 
 it is energy directed. And that means organization, 
 and organization necessitates thought, and calls for 
 the application of mind. What we have to do is to 
 create organization, resources, and munitions, and 
 bring men into the field ; and bring them always 
 under the direction of that supreme condition. 
 Thought must be at the back, so that we get the 
 staying power, that moral effect which comes from 
 certainty of purpose, and which only concentrated 
 thought and will can give. And it is there that 
 the nation comes in. 
 
 We want, in the nation, mind in the form of direct 
 and concentrated and thought-out purpose, which is 
 the foundation of the staying power of the nation, 
 not only in our own case, but in the case of each of 
 our allies. That is my first and basic proposition 
 which I want to develop to you to-night. Now let 
 us look at our own real difficulties. Our real diffi- 
 culty, the source of the confusion and the reproaches 
 that have taken place, is the fact that we are not 
 naturally or ordinarily a reflective nation. Long ago
 
 8o THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 a great man, Matthew Arnold, pointed this out in 
 words which have a great appHcation to the problem 
 of to-day, in a book called Friendship' s Garlajid. 
 That was published over forty years ago, and 
 Matthew Arnold called his country to reflection. 
 But you cannot alter a nation in a day, and you 
 cannot, when the emergency comes, develop in a 
 man what the reflective habit would have given you 
 easily. That is where we are at some disadvantage 
 compared with our enemies. 
 
 On the other hand, we have great capacities in 
 this nation — we have a great capacity in certain 
 departments — for reflection. There is the British 
 Navy. That is a thought-out organization — but it 
 depends on a tradition which has been historical 
 with us, which has always been there. The nation's 
 mind has concentrated itself in the case of its Navy. 
 With the Army it was never so easy, and yet in the 
 case of the Army some things have been done which 
 are very striking. 
 
 I am going to speak of one here. I speak freely 
 because, though it happened in my time, it was done 
 by a man whom I did no more than set free and help 
 to do it, and I did not meddle with him. I mean 
 that extraordinary Army Medical Service, first 
 organized on a territorial basis in connection with 
 the territorial forces, which has been used in France 
 with such an extraordinary effect that I am told 
 that to-day the Germans are busily engaged in trying 
 to imitate it. I mean the Army Medical Organiza- 
 tion, created by Surgeon-General Sir Alfred Keogh. 
 
 Now, it is well we should remember that case as 
 an illustration of what can be done in a comparatively 
 short time by a man who really knows what he 
 means, and sets himself to do it. Gentlemen, that 
 is not the only case of reflection. There has been 
 some criticism of the Committee of Imperial Defence 
 of late. Well, I know the work of the Committee 
 of Imperial Defence very well. I sat on it and
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 8i 
 
 worked on it first under Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
 man, and I have sat on it and worked on it under 
 the present Prime Minister, and I will say this to 
 you : We may have thought wrong or we may have 
 thought right, but we thought very hard on the 
 Committee of Imperial Defence. 
 
 First of all the Committee of Imperial Defence 
 had to settle the basic principle of the protection 
 of this country. So far as we were concerned the 
 problem was easy if we alone and in isolation had 
 been attacked alone by Germany, We had a fleet 
 which was double the size of the German Fleet, and 
 an expeditionary force with which at home invasion 
 would have been out of the question, apart from 
 the Territorial Force, which was in reserve behind. 
 But, of course, we had to consider more things than 
 the case of our being engaged in an isolated war 
 with Germany. 
 
 We knew that we had another factor in our favour 
 in the case of attack on us alone, that whereas the 
 German Army and Navy are raised by compulsion — 
 that sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, and fathers are 
 taken away from their businesses and cannot remain 
 a long time away without great suffering to the 
 German nation — under the British system with a 
 professional Navy and Army, war can go on for a 
 dozen years. 
 
 It was one of the great principles of the Committee 
 of Imperial Defence that we refused to look at the 
 question as though it could only be a home defence 
 question. We realized that other nations were 
 creating great navies — we realized that we should 
 have closely and carefully to consider what part we 
 might bear if we were drawn into a continental war. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there were three alternatives before 
 the Committee of Imperial Defence. There was that 
 of developing our existing system, which was a very 
 highly trained professional army, small compared to 
 the vast continental armies, but very large compared 
 to what they could send and keep in distant region.s 
 
 G
 
 82 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 for a long period. There was that professional army 
 with behind it expansion in the shape of a territorial 
 army. The other alternative was a plan which was 
 put forward for a compulsorily raised home defence 
 army — short trained and not under obligation to go 
 abroad. I can only tell you that the experts of the 
 Defence Committee would not look at that plan, 
 because, they said, "It is not designed either for one 
 thing or another. We can make sure of home 
 defence without it. We cannot make sure that with 
 an army, the very basis of which is that it is only 
 raised for home defence, we should be able to do what 
 may be required of us on the Continent." 
 
 I have seen it said that we might have had 600,000 
 men under that system in place of 150,000. 
 Gentlemen, it is not true that we have only had 
 150,000 for the Continent. We have at this moment 
 in France over 600,000, and we have got a good many 
 more in other parts of the world. Therefore, apart 
 from other drawbacks which were very great, we 
 rejected that system because we did not think we 
 could get out of it nearly as much as we could out of 
 the Voluntary system. 
 
 We are quite aware of the drawbacks of the 
 Voluntary system if you only look at one thing, 
 but we had to consider the defence of the Empire as 
 well as the defence of these shores, and the necessity 
 for a great expeditionary force such as we were 
 advised we could not get if we tried to mix up in one 
 a Compulsory and a Voluntary system. Now, that 
 brought us to the third alternative. It was my 
 business to give my mind as closely as I could to 
 every alternative, and I gave my mind to the question 
 of raising a continental army of 2,000,000 men two 
 5'ears trained. I considered that — I was bound to 
 consider everything — looking to the great increase of 
 armaments on the Continent, and I did consider it, 
 and there was a fatal difficulty in days where the 
 situation was one which might pass or might mature
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 83 
 
 and prove full of peril. It was the old maxim against 
 swopping horses when you are crossing the stream. 
 To raise an army like this, even if you could have got 
 the nation to assent to it either in 191 2 or 1906, would 
 have taken a generation. 
 
 The great armies of the Continent have taken at 
 least two generations to build up. How could we 
 have built up such an army in the time that was at 
 our disposal ? Even ten or fifteen years would have 
 been too late. Unless we could have got that army 
 into existence at once, by waving a wand, we chould 
 have been in a situation of extraordinary peril, because 
 at once our professional army would have begun to 
 disappear, and before we could have got anything 
 approaching even the beginnings of the second army 
 into an efficient state the enemy would have had 
 good reason for choosing his moment and attacking. 
 
 At that time the armies of Russia were not 
 organized as they are to-day. Nor was the French 
 Army as it is to-day ; and we should have been at 
 the mercy, and they all would have been at the 
 mercy, of the German Army. And then there was 
 another difficulty. There were then, at any rate, 
 three parties in the German State. There was the 
 great German nation, in some respects very like our 
 own people, but with this difference, that they had no 
 part in politics, and therefore if the Government raised 
 its hand they were constrained to follow. 
 
 Then at the other extreme there was the war party, 
 the German General Staff, and those who surrounded 
 it — what is called the Junker party — that had been 
 maturing war and preparing a tremendous machine, 
 and was always endeavouring to persuade the German 
 nation that it would be a good thing to use it. And 
 then, in between, the balance was held by a third 
 party, the great middle party in Germany, which 
 included many of the diplomatists and a great many 
 of the business men, and was very powerful, and that 
 party did not want war — at any rate did not want it 
 then ; wanted Germany, at any rate, to be richer and
 
 84 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 stronger before she embarked on any policy of 
 adventure, and, above all, wished to develop the 
 material prosperity of Germany. 
 
 Now, that party had a suspicion rooted in it which 
 I do not think we in this country generally realized. 
 We are not an imaginative nation, and we could not 
 conceive of anything so far from the truth as that it 
 should be supposed that we had entered into a secret 
 combination with France and Russia to ring round 
 Germany and fall upon her unawares and crush her ; 
 and yet that was a superstition which was widely 
 spread at that time in Germany — a pernicious error 
 which the war party did the utmost to foster by 
 circulating every speech and article they could collect 
 from this country which seemed to argue this kind 
 of intentions. Perhaps you will realize why I felt it 
 incumbent on myself to do all I could to make 
 friendly speeches. 
 
 I know something of Germany. I knew when 
 August last came the meaning of what had happened 
 despite all our efforts. The moment the war party 
 in Germany dominated and unsheathed the sword it 
 was with me a question of far more than even 
 Belgium, and I said, " We fight for our lives." I had 
 no doubt of the necessity of our taking part in this 
 war. Had we stood out, with the war party of 
 Germany in the ascendancy, I think our shrift would 
 have been very short. 
 
 I pass that by. At any rate you see the principle : 
 a great navy and a highly organized expeditionary 
 force, with expansion from a national territorial 
 army beyond, which should be able to render assis- 
 tance if required in the protection of common interests. 
 We did not want to be dominated by Germany, and 
 we had to take the necessary means to prevent it. 
 It was our principle to have a strong navy, with 
 such an army as I have described, and that was the 
 judgment on which we acted. I will only add that a 
 vast amount of nonsense has been written by people 
 who appear to have very little understanding.
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 85 
 
 It remains to be seen whether we have been right 
 and whether we have acted so as to meet the case. 
 I am pretty sure no other estimate would have put us 
 in a better position. I am pretty certain it would 
 have put us in a worse position. You cannot swop 
 horses in the middle of a stream, and we had been in 
 the middle of the stream for the last fifteen years. 
 
 Now, let me pass to the important point which was 
 raised in 191 2. We were made uneasy in that year 
 because we were made acquainted with a new feature. 
 It was known in the Press and generally, but it fell 
 to me to get early news of it. Germany introduced 
 a new Fleet law, which meant a great naval increase. 
 It was communicated to my colleagues, and we at 
 once took action. Mr. McKenna had laid down an 
 increase in ships, and Mr. Churchill, building on that, 
 raised the British Navy to a point of size and 
 readiness for war in which it was something like two 
 to one against the German Navy. Well, that is an 
 answer to people who say that nothing was done. I 
 am far from suggesting to you that in the light of 
 what we know now we might not have considered 
 whether even more was not possible, but I am not 
 sure that we should have come to any different 
 conclusion. The nation could only do what it 
 could do. We might all have been better prepared 
 in other ways of which I have not spoken, but not, 
 I think, much better in the direction of which I 
 have spoken. 
 
 Gentlemen, the difficulty which we have to con- 
 front is the difficulty which arises from our national 
 habit. Our national habit is to be content with 
 things as they are. We have great energy and great 
 resourcefulness. No man is better in a tight place 
 than a citizen of the British Empire. But, generally 
 he has not been thinking about it much beforehand. 
 Well, when I look back, the most difficult of all 
 campaigns is not the campaign about the Army, not 
 the campaign about the Navy — that is easy — but the
 
 86 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 campaign of trying to get people to educate them- 
 selves into the reflective habit. 
 
 I have been since the year 1898 engaged in a 
 campaign of education ; and my friend and late 
 colleague, Mr. Pease, who has done more than any 
 Education Minister to make our ideas mature, knows 
 how extraordinarily difficult it is to wake up the 
 interest of the nation in education. Not that some- 
 thing was not done. Not merely were there the 
 reforms which he made and which are very valuable, 
 but between 1898 and now ten new teaching uni- 
 versities were created in this country. They have 
 radiated out their influence in all directions, and if 
 they had only given us the Officers' Training Corps 
 they would have given us a service which we may 
 well be grateful for to-day. 
 
 The education campaign is only typical of the 
 extraordinary difficulties which! everybody has to en- 
 counter who tries to waken this nation before it 
 chooses to be wakened to the business of organizing 
 itself The efibrts of the Education Department, the 
 application of science to industry, and all the ques- 
 tions which are agitating people's minds just now, 
 would have been easier if, fifteen years ago, we had 
 begun to think of these things and applied our minds 
 to them. 
 
 But I have not asked you to come here and weep 
 with rae. My eyes are fixed on the immediate 
 future, and the future beyond that, and I want to 
 urge you to work with me in this. I think we can 
 do a great deal in this war. We can win if the 
 national effort is rightly organized. We and 
 our allies have got splendid chances of co-opera- 
 tion, and we must see to it that we distribute the 
 burden and the task and bear our full share, each 
 alike, in his own way. 
 
 Three years ago, when I was at the War Office, 
 and in the years before that, the new General Staff", 
 which contained some of the most brilliant generals 
 that are now fighting at the front, taught me various
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 87 
 
 things. They taught me that for success in war 
 clear conceptions were absolutely essential. You 
 must know exactly what it is you wish to accomplish 
 in war if you are to succeed. At present we are face 
 to face with two alternative possible ways of beating 
 the enemy, and everything turns on our having a 
 perfectly clear conception and distinction between 
 these two ways, and not confusing them, because if 
 we confuse them we shall not only fail in energy, 
 but we shall fall between two stools. 
 
 One way that people talk of is to pour troops 
 into Germany. Now, Germany has a very great and 
 highly organized army, and also a network of 
 strategic railways, and it is a very difficult business 
 to pour men into Germany, invade and crush her, 
 unless you have gone through the preliminary process 
 of wearing down the enemy by attrition. That is 
 where your population of 280 millions against 120 
 millions comes in ; and it is that superiority in 
 numbers which gives room for a clear conception of 
 what you want to do. It is that that we want to 
 get into the national mind ; and if it is in the national 
 mind it will be in everybody's mind, and it will be 
 done. 
 
 If you choose the mode of attrition you must 
 realize its obligations and prepare now. And here 
 it is necessary to give a word of warning. You must 
 not turn out isolated brigades, and attempt what I 
 may term firework feats. You must not lose men in 
 taking positions you do not intend to hold or cannot 
 hold. You must save all your forces, and take care 
 that you wear down an enemy who is trying to wear 
 you down. You must prepare your positions, your 
 entrenchments, and your artillery, ordinary and heavy, 
 for the purpose, and you must concentrate in getting 
 that ready, however long a time it takes. 
 
 You must not grudge any time that gives you 
 the result. The method of attrition may turn out 
 to be a real method in this war. I am not do^ma-
 
 88 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 tizing. It is not for me to express military opinions, 
 but only opinions on matters of common sense, and 
 each ally must play its part. The French are playing 
 their own splendid part and the Russians are playing 
 a part that is too little understood. 
 
 We are, indeed, an unreflective nation. I see 
 proposals put forward to mobilize the men of science 
 and mobilize even the Royal Society. Now, no man 
 has insisted more strongly than I have on the 
 necessity of science and its application to industry 
 . . . but to mobilize science in the abstract is to 
 mobilize a mob, and a mob of scientific men is not 
 much more useful than a mob of soldiers. You want 
 to determine the precise problems which you desire to 
 see solved, to summon exactly the right men to do 
 that, to associate them with the experts, military and 
 naval, whose necessities they have to deal with, and 
 to organize in as careful a way as you would organize 
 in any ordinary department of everyday business. . . . 
 
 Before I sit down I want to say a word or two not 
 only about war. but about peace. I don't mean the 
 terms of peace. I don't mean to discuss that, but 
 it is about the situation in which we shall find our- 
 selves when peace comes. 
 
 Let us take care that we are not as badly prepared 
 for peace as we were for some of the exigencies of 
 this war. What will have happened to us? We 
 shall have very little capital left. There will be a 
 tendency to transfer business to the United States, 
 and we shall have thrust back upon us a vast number 
 of soldiers come back from the war who will have to 
 be employed. Let us see that we don't find ourselves 
 a huge discontented island in the North Sea as the 
 result. Much can be done by attacking that problem 
 early. If you think about it now a great deal can be 
 done. 
 
 They will be difficult times. Much will be changed. 
 We shall have to build up again the ramparts of 
 wealth and prosperity, and it will be essential that
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 89 
 
 our manufacturers should have thought of the situa- 
 tion ahead, and we should have thought systemati- 
 cally and scientifically how to build up chances of 
 employment. Vast numbers of makers of munitions 
 will be unemployed, and manufacturers will not be 
 sufficiently re-established to employ them. 
 
 The War Office and the Board of Trade are thinking 
 of it, but it is a problem so vast that we ought to be 
 thinking of it — the whole nation. That brings me 
 to another point. On 26th June last, about two 
 months before the war, I came here to make a speech 
 with Mr. Lioyd George on the inwardness of the 
 Budget. We developed prospects arising out of the 
 Budget which were not on the face of the Bill but 
 were latent in it. We spoke of building up a better 
 race. A system of national education was in that 
 Budget ; and besides there was something that is 
 vital at this moment — I speak in the presence of a 
 great expert on this subject, my friend Mr. Herbert 
 Samuel, who was the minister in charge of the public 
 health. He and his experts and the Board of Educa- 
 tion had ascertained that of all the children who were 
 born, 10 per cent died in the first 12 months, and of 
 the whole of the children who might have come into 
 the world, 15 per cent died who need not have died. 
 Nearly the whole of that wastage, 25 per cent, and it 
 was more if you work out the figures actuarially, can 
 be saved. And yet here we are with a falling birth- 
 rate ! It is an urgent problem. 
 
 I am well aware of the necessity of saving every 
 penny we can save. But do not let us be penny-wise 
 and pound-foolish. These reforms are almost as 
 vital as the supply of munitions of war. We dare 
 not flinch from them. Set to work to see that these 
 things I have mentioned and indicated are done, and 
 done at once ! . . . 
 
 The examples which I have given you are examples 
 which are only isolated ones. The problems abound. 
 What is the moral ? We must not look merely to
 
 90 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 the Government ; we must organize ourselves. Men 
 must think and work too, because they will play a 
 tremendous part in some of these social problems of 
 which I have spoken. We must set ourselves to 
 learn to think and to act as we never thought and 
 acted before. Then it may be that the war and the 
 convulsion which has awakened us out of our slumbers 
 may prove to have been a blessing. At least let us 
 make the most of such an opportunity as we have. 
 We needed in the lethargy into which we had got an 
 intellectual and spiritual awakening. Perhaps it has 
 come ! Ah ! gentlemen, our one mind must be the 
 mind not only of the nation, but of the awakened 
 nation. Our leaders cannot do everything, and we 
 must not leave it to them. Each one of us is deeply 
 responsible individually for doing what he can to save 
 his country in the greatest emergency in which it has 
 been for many a generation. We support a Govern- 
 ment which is in reality and in effect a Government 
 of Public Safety. Well, do not let us lose courage. 
 Do not let us flinch from this great effort. Let us 
 turn the necessity of it to our profit. Let us feel that 
 what has happened may be the making of us as a 
 race, aye I and our salvation from the state of indif- 
 ference into which we had fallen. There are some 
 old words of Robert Browning which come into my 
 mind, and I will quote them to you as I conclude : 
 
 There are flashes struck from midnights ; 
 
 There are fire-flames noondays kindle ; 
 Whereby piled-up honours perish, 
 
 Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle ; 
 While just this or that poor impulse 
 
 Which for once has play unstifled 
 Seems the sole work of a lifetime 
 
 That away the rest have trifled. 
 
 The midnight call has come. Let us see to it that 
 our lamps are trimmed. 
 
 In the course of his reply to a vote of thanks Lord 
 Haldane said :
 
 VISCOUNT HALDANE 
 Front a portrait by Fiddes Watt
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 91 
 
 Gentlemen, I am deeply moved by this occasion. 
 In some ways I have ahvays felt myself lacking in 
 the gifts of public life. I am no orator. I have not 
 the capacity for stirring great masses of men. My 
 political life has been in some ways a lonely one, and 
 would have been more so but for devoted friends. 
 But I have tried during these long years to think as 
 closely as I could — to think out ideas which might 
 bear fruit. And yet to-night in your attitude, in the 
 generousness of your response, in the kindliness of 
 your welcome, I feel that my life has indeed not been 
 wasted. You have crowned it with a prize, and I am 
 grateful to you. 
 
 Can any man read this calm and quiet speech, so full of 
 wisdom, modesty, and vision, without coming to the con- 
 clusion that it were a far healthier thing for such a country 
 as Britain to listen more often and more willingly to the 
 utterances of a mind like this, than to lend its undisciplined 
 feelings so greedily to the claptrap of the demagogue and 
 the hysterics of a conscienceless Press? In this speech 
 of the great minister I am aware of an unexaggerating 
 common sense, a practical wisdom, and a quiet and 
 disciplined imagination which explain for me why he was 
 so trusted by that shrewd king who "disliked exaggeration 
 and detested mischief-making." 
 
 Lord Haldane has returned to his early love, the Law.' 
 He is to be seen daily sitting from early morning until 
 late in the afternoon taking a leading part in the de- 
 liberations of the two supreme tribunals of the Empire 
 — the House of Lords, which hears the appeals from 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Judicial Com- 
 mittee of the Privy Council, which, in the name of the 
 sovereign, dispenses ultimate justice to the rest of the 
 Empire. It was his dream a quarter of a century earlier 
 to build up these great tribunals into one Supreme Court 
 of the Empire. The House of Lords remains unchanged 
 still as a judicial institution, and in form this dream 
 remains still unaccomplished. But in substance he ac- 
 ' See Appendix, Note F.
 
 92 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 complished it when, as Lord Chancellor, he carried the 
 recent Act which strengthened the body of Law Lords, 
 who sit in divisions between which the members are 
 interchangeable. By this Act he added two paid Law 
 Lords of the highest learning and ability to that corps 
 of judges. He also prevailed on two other highly 
 distinguished lawyers to accept peerages and to devote 
 their lives, unremunerated, to this great work. 
 
 The Judicial Committee in particular has been Lord 
 Haldane's special care. To-day he sits there interpreting 
 the constitutions of the Dominions and Colonies which 
 make up the Empire. One of its most real links is the 
 Privy Council in its Judicial Committee, a body that 
 commands high respect and confidence among the four 
 hundred millions of the subjects of the King — subjects 
 of every nationality and every colour, and under systems 
 of law which range from those in the Western world, based 
 on the customs of old France, to others in the Far East, 
 based on the Shastras and traditions of India. In that 
 dominion of the King-Emperor Lord Haldane's name is 
 held in deep respect, for he has played a great part in 
 holding the scales of justice impartially between the 
 Government and the natives. There is a story told 
 about the Supreme Tribunal which sits in Downing 
 Street in the court with the shabby entrance which I 
 will rescue from oblivion. A traveller in Northern India 
 found a hill tribe assembled for the religious purpose of 
 a sacrifice. " To what god do you make your offering?" 
 he asked. "We know not his mystery," was the reply, 
 " but he is a god so great and powerful that he has made 
 the British Raj [the Government at Calcutta] give us back 
 the land it had taken from us. Aii^ we know the name 
 of him to commemorate whose justice we make sacrifice ; 
 it is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council." 
 
 A member of Lord Haldane's family once told me an 
 interesting story about his childhood. He had an old 
 Scotch nurse, who took him, aged six, to see the House 
 of Lords, which was in recess. She led him through the 
 chamber and asked the attendant to let her place the boy 
 on the Woolsack, When she returned with him she told
 
 THE BRITISH WAR MACHINE 93 
 
 the Highland butler of the family what she had done, and 
 added, " One day the bairn will sit there in his own 
 right ! " " Aye, Mrs. Ferguson," was the reply, " but your 
 heid will be weel happit by then." He was right. The 
 old nurse, to whom Lord Haldane was devoted to the day 
 of her death, passed away before the goal of her ambition 
 for him had been bravely reached.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S MISSIONS TO 
 GERMANY
 
 . . . The melancholy scene I had just gone through had 
 shaken me, and I needed sympathy. I told Sala what 
 had happened. " The old story," said Sala ; " life a 
 dream! Take a glass of brandy." He then inquired 
 who my friends were. " Three admirable members of 
 Parliament," I cried, " who, donning the cross of 
 
 charity " " I know," interrupted Sala ; " the cleverest 
 
 thing out ! " 
 
 Friendships Garland
 
 CHAPTER III 
 LORD HALDANE'S MISSIONS TO GERiMANY 
 
 [/;/! view of /he 7'eccnt answer given by Mr. AsquitJi in tJie house of 
 Conunofis^ it is apparent that we cannot hope to see the full record of 
 the Berlin conversations before the waf ends. What appears in the 
 text of this chapter relative to the substance of these conversatio7is is 
 the result of a collation from a variety oj sources^ German as well as 
 English. As., however., accuracy in such a matter is of the highest 
 importance, I thought it right to communicate with Lord Haldane and 
 ask him to look at the proof of this particular chapter. I have his 
 authority for saying that " iti no point is it inaccurate."^ 
 
 THE Liberal Government," says Mr. Oliver in 
 Ordeal by Battle, not very accurately, " came 
 into office in the autumn of 1905. Ministers," 
 he continues, " can hardly have had time to master the 
 contents of their various portfolios before German aggres- 
 sion burst rudely in upon them." He then proceeds to 
 suggest, with the complacency of a good Conservative 
 (whose Government, having left the War Office in a condi- 
 tion of " chaos and weakness," had just departed amidst 
 almost universal derision), that this German aggression 
 was dictated by the fact that a Liberal Government had 
 come into power ! 
 
 " It is a highly significant fact," says he, following up 
 this complacent hint, " that early in 1906, only a few 
 months after Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's advent to 
 power, 't he found himself faced with the prospect of a 
 European war " — and mark what follows, without even 
 the decency of a full stop to mitigate its complete con- 
 tradiction — " which was only averted when our Foreign 
 
 ' As a matter of fact it was in the very next month. 
 H 97
 
 98 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Minister" — that is to say, Sir Edward Grey, with the 
 full concurrence of his Liberal colleagues — " made it clear 
 to Germany that in such an event this country would 
 range itself upon the side of Erance." 
 
 I desire to treat Mr. Oliver with courtesy and respect. 
 He is sincere, he is courageous, and he writes like a gentle- 
 man. His main offence, it seems to me, lies in this, that 
 he ventured to write a book on a subject of the very 
 gravest nature, and at a time when Britain's good name 
 was of priceless worth to her, without being perfectly 
 certain of his facts and without taking the greatest trouble 
 to see that he was not doing violence to those facts. But 
 at this point it does seem to me that Mr. Oliver has 
 treated his reader's intelligence with a degree of rough- 
 ness which deserves particular reproof. P'or immediately 
 after this statement that Britain had delivered an emphatic 
 answer to the " warning " of Germany, he proceeds to say : 
 " The British answer to it was to utter renewed pro- 
 testations of friendly confidence " ! And yet, saying this, 
 he actually quotes in a footnote the following sentence 
 from Mr. J. A. Spender's Foiindcxtions of British Policy : 
 "It was the general belief at the time that nothing but the 
 support which the British Government gave to the French 
 averted a catastrophe. . . ." 
 
 Let me tell Mr, Oliver and his numerous disciples — a 
 host of intelligent people who, fascinated and hypnotized 
 by a very seductive narrative style, have accepted all 
 Mr. Oliver's facts and all Mr. Oliver's conclusions from 
 those facts — the true story of what are styled in Oi'deal 
 by Battle the warnings of Germany, the story of the 
 three principal warnings — the ivarnijtg of 1906, the 
 warning of 190S, and the ivarning of 191 1. 
 
 The "Warning" of 1906 
 
 The Liberal Government was formed, with some diffi- 
 culty, in December 1905. The trouble which had divided 
 the party over the South African War was over, but a 
 certain amount of friction still remained. The section led 
 by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and the section led
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS gQ 
 
 by Lord Rosebery, which included Mr. Asquith, Sir 
 Edward Grey, and Mr. Haldane (three close personal 
 friends), were only drawn together by what they judged 
 to be the menace of Protection. Lord Rosebery did not 
 take office, but the three North countrymen who most 
 emphatically represented the strength, dignity, and elo- 
 quence of Liberal Imperialism accepted the invitation 
 of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to join the Govern- 
 ment. Sir Edward Grey became Foreign Secretary, 
 Mr. Asquith went to the Treasury, and, at King 
 Edward's express wish, Mr. Haldane accepted the seals 
 of the War Office.^ Thus, in this Liberal Government 
 which on Mr. Oliver's supposition invited an attack by 
 German aggression, were three of the strongest intellects 
 in the House of Commons, three men whose principles 
 of a strong, rigorous, but rational imperialism must have 
 been very well known at the German Embassy in London, 
 if not to the statesmen of the Wilhelmstrasse, and three 
 men who had never uttered a single word which suggested 
 either pusillanimity or betrayal of international under- 
 takings. 
 
 Early in January the trouble between France and 
 Germany was very serious. The Germans, who in 
 the region of foreign politics have the touchiness of a 
 parvenu, felt that their dignity had been flouted by the 
 French Foreign Minister. They insisted upon M. Del- 
 cassd's resignation. Naturally enough, after this evidence 
 of German feeling, the French became wisely anxious, and 
 in the field of their anxiety was the question of British 
 support. If France were wantonly attacked by her neigh- 
 bour, would Britain lend the aid of her land-power as well 
 as the aid of her sea-power ? — that is to say, would Britain 
 land an army in France, and if so, of what size would that 
 army be ? 
 
 The British Foreign Secretary would not enter into any 
 engagement which might bind his country improperly. 
 But he consulted with the British War Minister, and 
 having gained the assent of the Prime Minister, Mr. 
 
 ' " Nobody else," Sir Henry Campbell-Bannernian once said, 
 "would touch it with a pole."
 
 100 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Haldane made arrangements at the War Office for a 
 conference between his military advisers and the French 
 General Staff. It was made perfectly plain that in no 
 case whatever would Britain lend her support to an 
 unprovoked attack on Germany, but the military men 
 were told to consider in what way the two friendly 
 countries could best act together in the event of a German 
 attack on France, No one was to be bound, but possible 
 military eventualities were to be thought out. And the 
 British War Minister did something more. He set his 
 generals to work on a complete investigation of the 
 condition of our military forces, with the direct instruc- 
 tion to report on the greatest number of troops we 
 could land in France if emergency arose, and how quickly 
 the landing could be effected. 
 
 Thus, during all the distractions of a General Election, 
 and certainly before he could have mastered his portfolio, 
 did Mr. Haldane meet this first warning of German 
 aggression. Mr. Oliver will hardly suggest that he could 
 have done more, seeing that he had succeeded to the Con- 
 servative Government's British Army of " chaos and weak- 
 ness." To have flung that poor army at the head of 
 Germany, or even to have strutted and blustered and 
 worked himself up into a fine music-hall passion of indig- 
 nation, might have satisfied the hot feelings of gentlemen 
 like Mr. Oliver ; but it would hardly have been kind to the 
 British Army, to France, or to the British Empire. What 
 Mr. Haldane did do, on the other hand, was of the very 
 greatest service both to the British Army and to France. 
 He began to put the chaos into such order that it pre- 
 sently became a military fighting machine such as this 
 country never had before. 
 
 The result of the investigation by the generals was, of 
 course, most disquieting. Only a very small force could 
 have been sent to France in those days, perhaps 80,000 
 men, and even so only after a delay that would have been 
 fatal. This appalling state of things, we may say, was one 
 of the chief contents left by Mr. Oliver's political leaders in 
 the portfolio of the minister, and we may also say that it 
 was this appalling state of things which the War Minister
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS loi 
 
 so completely, so triumphantly, and so mercifully mastered 
 to the f^reat satisfaction of his generals. 
 
 Lord Ilaldane saw at once that the master secret of 
 modern warfare was rapid iiiobilizatioi. The Germans had 
 discovered that secret. His business was to meet Moltke- 
 ism with Moltkeism. The Germans have since complained 
 that he stole this secret from them during his friendly visit 
 of 1906. But the truth is that rapidity of mobilization as 
 tlie key to the whole question of modern war was no secret 
 to any one who took the trouble to look into military science. 
 Nevertheless it is significant that a layman like Lord 
 Haldane initiated the British Army into this secret. It 
 was he who revolutionized the military science of Great 
 Ih'itain, who did away with sprawling incohesiveness, anrl 
 who knitted together, by means of the greater unit com- 
 plete in itself, a striking force which could be set in motion 
 with a minimum of delay. We shall see later on how 
 extraordinarily successful he was in this revolution, and how 
 that revolution begun in 1906 saved Europe in the autumn 
 of 1914. 
 
 But this was not all that the War Minister did in those 
 perilous days. Faithful to his wise master and to the 
 highest principles of his own mind, while he laboured as 
 War Minister to get order and efficiency out of chaos and 
 weakness, Lord Haldane strove with all the keenness of 
 his intellect and with all the fire of his soul to better our 
 relations with Germany. In the light of subsequent events, 
 of course, the Germans now regard this admirable diplo- 
 macy of Lord Haldane as the trick of King Edward's 
 blandest, silkiest, cleverest, and most dishonest trickster ; 
 but in honest truth it was nothing of the kind. It was a 
 genuine effort made by a very wise man and a perfectly 
 upright man to save the peace of Europe ; and while it 
 certainly did enable us to put our house in order and to 
 come to a working understanding with France, it was never 
 intended as a policy for gaining time, and never used in 
 after-years in the direction of offence. 
 
 Before proceeding to relate what Lord Ilaldane attempted 
 in the field of improving our relations with Germany, it may
 
 102 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 be well, seeing that slander and calumny have not refrained 
 from assailing his family honour, asserting among other 
 matters that he has German blood in his veins, to give the 
 reader some brief idea of the minister's credentials. 
 
 Richard Burdon Ilaldane was born on the 30th July 
 1856, the son of a Scottish gentleman, Robert Flaldane of 
 Cloan, who married Mary Elizabeth Burdon Sander- 
 son, a sister of Darwin's friend, Sir John Burdon San- 
 derson. The family is an ancient one, dating back to the 
 thirteenth century. There have been Haldanes at Glen- 
 eagles ever since those days, and the present owner of 
 Gleneagles, Lord Camperdown, is a Haldane in the 
 female line. Among the notable people connected with 
 the Haldanes are Admiral Duncan, the hero of Camper- 
 down, and Sir Ralph Abercromby of Aboukir. Two 
 grand-uncles of Lord Haldane are famous in the religious 
 history of Scotland and Switzerland. On the mother's 
 side he was the great-grandnephew of a previous Lord 
 Chancellor, the famous Lord Eldon, and his not less 
 distinguished brother, the famous jurist, Lord Stowell. ^ 
 
 One of Lord Haldane's brothers, Dr. J. S. Haldane of 
 Oxford, is an eminent physiologist with a European repu- 
 tation, whose services to the nation in providing masks 
 against the German gas-attacks was only an episode in 
 a life of devotion to science which has been of the greatest 
 blessing to workers in mines ; his service to the British 
 Admiralty both before and during the war has been of very 
 considerable national advantage. Another brother, Sir 
 William Haldane, is a well-known citizen of Edinburgh, 
 and the Crown Agent for Scotland ; his sister, Elizabeth 
 Haldane, a doctor of laws, a translator of Hegel and a 
 
 ' "Gleneagles House, built in 1624 . . . can only be reckoned a late 
 edition of the house of the Haldanes — a race not scintillating along 
 the march of history like the Lords of Graham, alternately lost in 
 shade or glittering in the sunshine, but holding, through troubled, trying 
 centuries, a calm, dignified, unobtrusive state, till, reaching the ages 
 suited to their high moral development, they flashed upon the scene — 
 here 'a minister of peace to guilty man,' and there the world-famed 
 hero of Camperdown. ... As for the Haldanes proper — those of 
 Airthrey — their fame is in all the churches and at every fireside 
 where religion is a matter of lively interest." — Hugh Alillen
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 103 
 
 biographer of Descartes, is one of the most [practical, and 
 certainly one of the most persuasive women in what may 
 be called the higher branches of the Woman's Movement, 
 The mother of this distinguished family, a friend of many 
 notable men and women, is still in the enjoyment of an 
 excellent memory at the age of ninety-one. Perhaps I 
 may be allowed to say that it is when I think of this very 
 gracious lady, in all the dignity and beauty of her extreme 
 age, that my indignation is most deeply stirred against 
 those scurrilous journalists (few of whom a man of breed- 
 ing would admit to his dinner-table) who have attempted 
 not only to blacken but to blast the honour of the most 
 distinguished of her children. 
 
 At the age of seventeen Richard Haldane went in the 
 summer session to the University of Guttingen, on the 
 advice of Professor l^lackie, Professor of Greek in the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh.^ This eccentric Professor of Greek, 
 who taught everything else except Greek, had the greatest 
 hopes of his pupil, and wished the young man to come 
 under the influence of Hermann Lotze, Gottingen's famous 
 professor of philosophy. Richard Haldane, who, like 
 Aristotle, is a man breathing libraries, was interested in 
 German literature, even as were such irreproachable 
 patriots as Carlyle, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, and Pro- 
 fessor Cramb (he is also deeply interested in French litera- 
 ture) ; and he himself wished to study philosophy under the 
 influence of Lotze. In one of his numerous addresses to 
 University students which have been so extraordinarily 
 helpful and inspiring, he spoke many years afterwards of 
 that noble teacher: 
 
 Thirty-six years ago I was bidden to choose for 
 myself whether I would go to Oxford or to a German 
 
 ' It has been pointed out to me by a famous professor at Edinburgh 
 University that Scotland has always had closer cultural relations 
 with the Continent than England has had in all her history. Scotland 
 and France were devoted to each other centuries ago. Carlyle was 
 the first British interpreter of German thought. And it is from her 
 relation with Germany that Scotland has advanced in religious intel- 
 ligence at so much greater a pace than England. The intellectual 
 condition of the Scottish churches is of a high order, and the eaWy 
 doctrinal narrowness has practically vanished,
 
 104 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 University, and I chose Gottingen because Lotze was 
 there. I was only seventeen, little more than a boy. 
 I remember vividly how spiritually as well as intel- 
 lectually anchorless I felt in the early days of my 
 residence in the old University town where lay the 
 Hanoverian centre of learning. Gottingen was, in 
 those days, full of great men. Gauss and Riemann 
 and Weber were dead, but Wohler was there, and 
 Benfey and Sauppe and von Jhering and Ritschl — 
 names that stood in the " seventies " for what was 
 highest in Germany in science and classical learning 
 and jurisprudence and theology. Yet the figure that 
 stood out above all the others was that of my old 
 master, Hermann Lotze. I had the privilege, boy as 
 I was, of seeing him often in his study as well as of 
 listening in his lecture-room, and to the end of my 
 life I shall hold the deep impression he made on me — 
 of a combination of intellectual power and the highest 
 moral stature. ... I have often wondered whether 
 Browning had not visited Gottingen before he wrote 
 his Christmas Eve, and whether it was Lotze he had 
 in his mind when he describes how the spirit took 
 him from place to place, until at last — 
 
 Alone by the entrance door 
 
 Of a sort of temple — perhaps a college, 
 
 Like nothing I ever saw before 
 
 At home in England to my knowledge. 
 
 The tall, old, quaint, irregular town — 
 
 It may be — though which, I can't 
 
 Affirm any. 
 
 Of the famous middle-age towns of Germany ; 
 
 Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel, Frankfort 
 
 Or Gottingen, I have to thank for 't ? 
 
 It may be Gottingen — most likely. 
 
 Then he describes how he enters the lecture-room and 
 sits down among the students, and a professor comes in : 
 
 I felt at once as if there ran 
 
 A shoot of love from my heart to the man, . . . 
 
 Who stood surveying his auditory 
 
 With a wan, pure look, well-nigh celestial,
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 105 
 
 Those blue eyes had surveyed so much, 
 While under the foot they could not smutch 
 Lay all the fleshly and bestial.' 
 
 Some of the results of his study at Gottingen may be 
 seen in those two volumes The Pathivay to Reality which 
 contain his Gifford Lectures at the University of St. 
 Andrews in 1902-4 — philosophical lectures which show 
 the influence of Kant and Hegel on his mind and Lotze 
 on his character — lectures full of moral earnestness, the 
 highest idealism, and a courageous and unflinching devo- 
 tion to truth. 
 
 On his return to this country he continued his Uni- 
 versity career at Edinburgh, winning the Ferguson 
 Scholarship of 1876, which was open to all the Universities 
 of Scotland (Edward Caird was at Glasgow in those days), 
 and taking a First Class Honours degree. This was a 
 time when Hutchison Stirling was introducing Hegel to 
 the English mind for the first time, and when T. H. 
 Green at Oxford and Edward Caird at Glasgow were 
 beginning to fire the minds of British students with an 
 enthusiasm for German philosophy. He went to the 
 J^ar at the end of 1879. Ten years afterwards he took 
 silk, but long before that he was a marked man among 
 the lawyers of the day. In 1885 he entered Parliament 
 as the Liberal member for Haddingtonshire, a con- 
 stituency which never played him false for the whole 
 of his House of Cominons career — a term of five-and- 
 twenty years — although its member was never a Whip's 
 man and freely exercised his own discretion in party war- 
 fare. A Conservative Government was in power when he 
 entered Parliament, and with this Government Mr. Hal- 
 dane, who has never been an intolerant partisan, worked 
 in closest co-operation for the changing of London Uni- 
 versity from a merely examining into a teaching Univer- 
 sity ; ten years afterwards another Government asked 
 him to take the chair of the Royal Commission on 
 University Education in London. This Commission sat 
 for four years, and Mr. Haldane managed to preside over 
 
 ' Universiiies afid Nafiojjal Life, by Lord Haldane, pp. 26-8. 
 (John Murray.)
 
 io6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 it, so keen and unabated was his enthusiasm for education, 
 even when he was War Minister in 1906 and Lord 
 Chancellor in 191 1. No other man in the country has 
 done more to encourage and establish universities and to 
 broaden the whole character of our educational system. 
 
 From the first he was known as a great lawyer, a tre- 
 mendous worker, an entirely disinterested and honourable 
 politician, and above everything else as an enthusiast for 
 clear-thinking and rational progress. He defined his idea 
 of Liberalism in a preface to a volume of addresses called 
 Education and Eynpire : 
 
 There is a Liberalism which some of us believe 
 to be the Liberalism of the future. It holds that the 
 faith which it has made its own cannot stand still, 
 but must advance with the advancing needs of new 
 generations. To-day, at the beginning of the 
 twentieth century, we as a nation have to face the 
 problem of preserving our great commercial position, 
 and with it the great empire which the great men 
 of past generations have won and handed down to 
 us. That empire it is our bounden duty to hold as a 
 sacred trust, and to pass on in such a fashion that 
 those who come after may be proud of us, as we are 
 proud of the forefathers who did their work before 
 our time. The duty we have to discharge requires 
 an effort. That effort must assume the fo?-m neither of 
 sivaggering along the High Street of the world, nor 
 of sitting down with folded hands on a dust-heap. 
 It is rather to be sought in clear views and activity 
 of the kind that is at once unhasting and unresting. 
 Around us is surging up a flood of new competition. 
 If we are to hold the ground which our predecessors 
 won before the days of that competition, we shall 
 require above all things enlightened views about the 
 common constitution which unites us with our colonies 
 and dependencies. 
 This Liberalism, which is perhaps the politics of every 
 educated man in the country, never mind what party he 
 belongs to, is not the Liberalism of the smoking-room, 
 the club, and the local committee. Lord Haldane, like Mr.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 107 
 
 Arthur Balfour, never gave himself to the man in the street. 
 He had friends — great and true friends — chiefest of all 
 among politicians, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, and Mr 
 Balfour ; and every man who ever worked with him, from 
 Lord French to Mr. Sidney Webb, came under the spell of 
 his naturalness, his candour, his honesty, his good-humour, 
 his indifference to cheap popularity, and his solid intellec- 
 tual greatness ; but he never had a crowd of henchmen at 
 his heels. He was too busy to bother about such matters. 
 Many of his holidays were spent in Germany, where 
 with Professor Hume Brown he went to bathe himself 
 in memories of Goethe, that exalted spirit, that {profound 
 thinker, and that sublime poet, admiration for whom will 
 be for ever felt and expressed in this country with or 
 without the permission of our vulgarians. In this manner, 
 Lord Haldane not only kept up his German language, 
 deepened his love for Goethe, and broadened his know- 
 ledge of German philosophy, but he made himself 
 acquainted with what was taking place in the mind of 
 Germany. Better than any man in this country, better 
 perhaps than any other man in the world, he knew the 
 psychological changes in modern Germany ; and from 
 1906 onwards, when he came to know the true and awful 
 state of the British Army, he saw that only the most 
 delicate statesmanship, only the most ceaseless vigilance, 
 could avert a calamity. 
 
 Lord Haldane's admiration for German literature was 
 shared, but with infinitely less discrimination, by that fire- 
 eating prophet of force, the late Professor J. A. Cramb. The 
 professor tells us that " Goethe is, perhaps, the most serene 
 artist in words since Sophocles," and says of him that 
 " amongst the children of men not one has striven with a 
 loftier purpose to divine, even though darkly, the bond of 
 the Many and the One, and thus to justify the ways of 
 God to man, and of man to God." Further, he says that 
 " German scholarship has not left a single period in its 
 annals unillumincd by some work which is marked by dis- 
 tinction or power." And this : 
 
 There is no such stainless mirror of a nation's soul
 
 io8 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 as German literature. In every age it is racy of 
 German earth, going the round of its rivers and moun- 
 tains and valleys. In the thirteenth century it is in 
 Thuringia, the feudal castles ; in the sixteenth, Saxony 
 gives its tone to Reformation literature and hymns ; 
 the varied art of Silesia dominates the seventeenth, as 
 that of Suabia the eighteenth century. Romanticism 
 has its home in Berlin ; the fatalism of Vienna and 
 Munich succeeds " Young Germany " ; and in the 
 twentieth century Berlin again leads in this, one of 
 the greatest world-literatures.^ 
 His contempt for English ignorance is very great. " A 
 few weeks ago," he says, " the head master of one of our 
 public schools exhumed a letter of the late Mr. Gladstone, 
 in which that eminent politician cast a slur upon the whole 
 of German literature. . . . The astonishing thing is that 
 in the second decade of the twentieth century an English- 
 man should have been found who, having exhumed such a 
 verdict, did not from very shame instantly cover it again in 
 complete oblivion. Instead of this, he incontinently pub- 
 lished it in The Times, not once only, but in two different 
 issues. The publication of this letter is discreditable at 
 once to the critic, to the exhumer, to the Press, and to the 
 nation." He hopes that " during the next few decades " — 
 Lord Northcliffe should pay attention to this hope of the 
 great English militarist — " there may gradually arise here 
 in England a wall, as it were, of cultured opinion, which 
 should make the blunt enunciation of such judgments by a 
 prominent politician all but impossible by the ridicule to 
 which they would at once expose him, and their ratification 
 by the head master of one of our public schools absolutely 
 unthinkable." 
 Finally : 
 
 Germany has one of the greatest and most profound 
 schools of poetry — yet how many Englishmen have the 
 secrets of its high places, or access to its templed 
 wonders ? Since the decline of Alexandria there has 
 been no such group of daring thinkers as those of 
 Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth 
 ' See Appendix, NoteiG.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 109 
 
 centuries : yet to most English men and women the 
 Critique of Pure Reason and the larger vision of 
 Hegel's Logic are sealed as the Enneads of Plotinus. 
 
 If an English militarist who could hardly contain his 
 feelings of adoration when one day in the streets of Berlin 
 he saw Treitschke remove his " soft grey-felt wide-awake 
 hat"— /t^r tJie day was Jiot — if such a worshipper of mili- 
 tarism and strife and war, and such a hater of Liberalism 
 and Pacifism, may express admiration for German litera- 
 ture, surely Lord Haldane, whose contempt for the 
 Treitschke school is born of true scholarship and what 
 Sainte-Beuve calls an imniovahlc eveimess 0/ so?d, may be 
 allowed to acknowledge his debt of spiritual gratitude to 
 the real and enduring masters of German culture. 
 
 With the Morocco crisis in his mind he began to make 
 several speeches, one of them in German to the Germans 
 in London. His object was to get rid of German touchi- 
 ness, while he and his generals worked night and day 
 to save the British Army from " chaos and weakness." 
 These wise, temperate, and entirely statesmanlike speeches 
 attracted attention in Germany, and in 1906, the very year 
 of the crisis, he went to Berlin, as War Minister of Great 
 Britain, to be the Emperor's guest at the September 
 manoeuvres of the German Army. Lord Midleton, one 
 of his Conservative predecessors, had received such an 
 invitation, and although some difficulties were put in the 
 way of this visit. King Edward, the Prime Minister, and 
 Sir Edward Grey thought that the invitation should be 
 accepted. The King's only anxiety, apparently, was 
 whether Lord Haldane, as a beginner at the War Office, 
 might not be somewhat ill at ease among Germany's 
 professional soldiers. The minister, who saw the King at 
 Marienbad on his way to Berlin, where he encountered 
 Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria,'^ was able to reassure His 
 
 ' An amusin;^^ story is told of tliis encounter. Ferdinand wanted 
 to discuss a great coup with which liis mind was bubbhng over. The 
 King lelused to hear a word of it, and as a constitutional monarch 
 waited for his minister's arrival. When Lord Haldane did arrive, he 
 put him into a room with Ferdinand, and there left him. Lord 
 Haldane, who had no instructions on Balkan affairs from the Foreign
 
 Ito THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Majesty very good-humouredly on this point, and with 
 the best wishes of everybody, the King most of all, he set 
 off for Berlin, accompanied by Colonel Ellison, who had 
 served as secretary to the Esher Committee on the War 
 Office, and knew a very great deal about the armies of 
 foreign Powers. From many sources of information, both 
 public and private, both British and foreign, I will en- 
 deavour to reconstruct the narrative of this important 
 visit to Berlin. 
 
 The British minister was received in state on his arrival 
 at the railway station, and was escorted to his hotel by a 
 detachment of the Guards. Several state servants and 
 two officers of the General Staff were attached to his 
 person, and he was installed with Colonel Ellison in a 
 suite of rooms which the Emperor reserves for his guests. 
 The atmosphere was correct but frigid ; the newspapers 
 were polite but not cordial ; and the general reception of 
 our minister seems to have expressed very accurately the 
 feelings which then characterized Anglo-German relations 
 — uncertainty and suspicion. 
 
 On the following day the Emperor arrived from 
 Potsdam to present new colours to his troops, and Lord 
 Haldane, who had previously called at the French 
 Embassy and visited the German War Office, received 
 from him at this ceremony an open-air welcome. Next 
 day, at the great parade, which Lord Haldane attended as 
 a civilian in plain clothes, the Emperor sought him out, 
 and, his face shining with pride, spoke of his splendid 
 troops. The scene was one of some impressiveness. The 
 citizens of Berlin in vast numbers crowded the parade 
 ground ; in the reserved positions were representatives 
 of foreign Powers, most of them in uniform, and many 
 of them accompanied by ladies ; and there in the midst of 
 his magnificent army, surrounded by his princes and 
 generals, and mounted on a great horse brilliant with 
 trappings, was the little pale-faced man with the withered 
 arm in whose hands — hands which were often shaky or 
 
 Office, at once began to talk about chemistry, and went on talking 
 about chemistry till King Edward opened the door and let him out. 
 The King always told this story with a great relish.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS in 
 
 threatening with the emotions of fear and anger — lay the 
 issues of peace and war. Suddenly this chief figure was 
 seen to break away from his soldiers and to gallop towards 
 the spectators, reining in his horse before a carriage in 
 which a civilian was standing, dressed in tall hat and 
 frock-coat, Mr. Haldane, the War Minister of England. 
 It was an almost unprecedented compliment, and augured 
 well for the hopes of the peace party. Photographs have 
 preserved the scene. The Kaiser leaned forward from his 
 tall horse, and in the presence of a number of people, and 
 without lowering his voice, asked Mr. Haldane what he 
 should do without that great army, situated as he was 
 between the Russians and the French, apologizing for 
 the remark with good-humour since France was the ally 
 of Great Britain. And Mr. Haldane also replied with 
 good-humour, saying that he would rather be behind 
 that army than in front of it. This incident was noted 
 by many people, and industrious ladies in neighbouring 
 carriages made haste to take snap-shots of the scene. 
 It was taken to mean that the Kaiser had paid England 
 a public compliment. 
 
 That night Lord Haldane and Colonel Ellison dined 
 at the Schloss, where he met Prince von Biilow, the 
 Chancellor. Instructed by Sir Edward Grey as to what 
 he might properly say, Lord Haldane appears to have 
 made a good impression on the German Chancellor — an 
 impression of Britain's wish for a better understanding 
 with Germany, of Britain's realization that such an 
 understanding could not be hurried, of Britain's deter- 
 mined and unbreakable loyalty to the Entente with France. 
 After dinner he saw the Emperor alone, and the Emperor 
 certainly concluded from that conversation, which was 
 brief and friendly, that Lord Haldane truly and honestly 
 represented the mind of King Edward. At this period 
 the Emperor was firmly persuaded that Delcasse had 
 sought to drag England into a war with Germany over 
 Morocco, but he was nevertheless seeking friendship with 
 P'rance. As for England, he had faith in her good 
 intentions. 
 
 As an evidence of his confidence, the Emperor gave
 
 112 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Lord Haldanc the most generous opportunities of studying 
 the work of the German War Office. Accompanied by 
 Colonel Ellison, our minister went day after day to the 
 German War Office in the Tiergarten. The Chief of 
 the General Staff, von Moltke, was perfectly frank to 
 the two representatives of Britain, and not only allowed 
 them to see the mechanism of the German war machine, 
 but with Lord Haldane discussed the political situation 
 without bitterness of any kind. According to Mr. Wile, 
 von Moltke was a Christian Scientist and, like Dr. von 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, belonged to the peace party in 
 Germany. Of Prince von Billow's attitude I shall speak 
 at greater length a little further on in this narrative. 
 
 The result of Lord Haldane's visit was of real service 
 to Britain. In the first place it gave us time to rescue 
 the British Army from its condition of " chaos and weak- 
 ness," it provided the two representatives of this country 
 with several most valuable ideas for the improvement 
 of the British War Office, and it also helped to establish 
 very much better relations v/ith Germany. It is perfectly 
 true that certain sections of the German Press were 
 uneasy, disliking Lord Haldane's visits to the Great 
 General Staff, and hinting pretty plainly that behind 
 this polite and prying visit of the British minister was 
 the figure of " Uncle Europe" weaving his web of intrigue 
 along the frontiers of Germany. But there is no doubt 
 that most people in Germany welcomed the visit, and 
 no doubt whatever that the Emperor, who stood between 
 the war party and the peace party, was immensely pleased 
 by it. It need scarcely be said that King Edward was 
 as pleased by Lord Haldane's success as the Prime 
 Minister and the Foreign Secretary. 
 
 The whole of Mr. Oliver's argument in Part III of 
 Ordeal by Battle is vitiated by the premise that through- 
 out her diplomacy Germany, the all-wise and the all- 
 strong and the all-knowing, was hoodwinking the rest 
 of the world, and in particular throwing dust into the 
 eyes of Britain. On this premise, why in Heaven's name 
 should she be so extravagantly foolish as to give England
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 113 
 
 siv warnhigs^ beginning with this first warning of 1906 
 — warnings so emphatic that ]\Ir. Oliver almost loses 
 his patience over the crass stupidity of men like King 
 Edward, Sir Edward Grey, and Lord Haldatic for not 
 seeing them ? Why, in Heaven's name, should she be 
 so stupid ? 
 
 Look at this matter with more reasonable eyes. Instead 
 of seeing in the six occurrences cited by Mr. Oliver the 
 six deliberate voarnings of a Machiavellian power (when 
 was Machiavelli ever so kind ?), regard them as exhibitions 
 of nervous anxiety, as symptoms of want of control. 
 Regarded in this light, the whole policy of Germany 
 becomes explicable and consistent. Regarded in this 
 light, there is no need for the footnote of contradiction 
 or the parenthesis of absurdity. The entire thesis can 
 be stated without the interruptions and inconveniences 
 of a violent antithesis. 
 
 Germany, with a population of 65,000,000, found herself, 
 for the first time in her very brief history as an empire, 
 surrounded by 170,000,000 Russians and some 40,000,000 
 Frenchmen who had come to a political understanding. 
 It was a saying of the Emperor that he had no Himalayas 
 between himself and Russia ; and he also held that the 
 war of 1870 had left in the heart of France a desire for 
 revenge which had not yet ceased to influence her foreign 
 policy. He spoke of both these matters quite frankly to 
 a number of people, some of whom I know very well. 
 Tlie understanding between France and Russia was a 
 menace which could not be ignored. Forced by this 
 threatening situation to look closely to her armour, 
 Germany made prodigious efforts to increase the efficiency 
 of her war machine. The uncertain and rather shadowy 
 figure of King Edward behind this understanding of 
 Russia and France was another cause for uneasiness. No 
 other course was possibly open to Germany — a Germany 
 that would not listen to any idea of disarmament — than 
 to increase her forces by land and sea. Now, let us ask 
 ourselves how Germany could best discover the true 
 feelings of these great world Powers towards her position 
 in the world. Behind the politeness of diplomacy, what 
 I
 
 114 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 was the real truth? — and diplomacy, let us say and there 
 leave it, was not always polite to Germany. We can 
 imagine how every activity of these three Powers, in which 
 Germany was not consulted, would heighten anxiety and 
 increase suspicion. Surely tlie best way to test the truth 
 would be from time to time to assert Germany's right 
 to be consulted by these associated Powers in their 
 arrangements and agreements, wherever by any stretch 
 of imagination Germany's commercial interests might 
 be said to be concerned. By such methods she could 
 at least see which way the wind of the Entente was 
 blowing. 
 
 From the date of the Entente two parties in Germany 
 rapidly grew up and developed in sharply divided camps. 
 The first party was led by the Junkers, and commanded 
 the sympathies of the Army : this was the war party. 
 The war party refused to believe that King Edward was 
 a peacemaker, and, like a great host of people in this 
 country, believed that our amiable King was the most 
 astute and dangerous diplomatist in Europe. They were 
 as furious with their peace party as the anti-German 
 jingoes in this country with our peace party. It made 
 them rage to see their Emperor and their stupid merchants 
 so easily duped by the charms of the English King. For 
 them, Lord Haldane was a python, and their Emperor 
 a rabbit. They wanted their All- Highest, their great 
 Supreme War Lord, to throw off the habits of a lepiis 
 tiviidus and save his country from the ever-increasing 
 menace of invasion. Russia was making ready, France 
 was making ready, and England, who intended to let 
 these two Powers do the butcher's work for her while 
 her Navy kept the ring and she herself waxed fat with 
 industrial profits, was merely soothing Germany to sleep 
 with these missions and embassies of friendship. They 
 saw it all so clearly — as clearly as Mr. Oliver sees warnings 
 in jumpiness. 
 
 On the other hand, the peace party was inclined to 
 trust King Edward. It hated the idea of war, it 
 saw the madness of war, and it desired to come to 
 an understanding with England, so that the menace
 
 LORD HxALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 115 
 
 of Russia and France might be lifted from their 
 frontiers. It preached that war was both an economic 
 mistake and a crime. It encouraged the idea of 
 conquering world-markets by the improving of educa- 
 tion. It wanted to be left undisturbed with its pretty 
 considerable income from an ever-increasing commerce. 
 This party consisted of some of the first men in Germany, 
 and it comprised the majority of the nation. 
 
 Behind these two principal parties were two others. 
 Behind the peace party was the growing force of social 
 democracy, which proclaimed, whenever the police let it, 
 that the armaments of the war party not only pressed 
 upon the wage-earners, but were actually provocative of 
 war ; and behind the war party, which chiefly regarded 
 war as the sharpest and shortest means of defence, was 
 a flaming body of almost drunken imperialists, a body 
 not wholly unlike the most violent of our own jingoes, 
 which, loathing the Socialists with an abysmal loathing, 
 and despising the fat merchants with the profoundest 
 contempt, shouted itself hoarse in the honour and glory 
 of Pan-Germanism. This party, which eventually suc- 
 ceeded in bringing about war, although very powerful 
 and utterly unscrupulous, was not at any time a numerous 
 party. The special correspondent of the Daily Mail in 
 Berlin has said : " I doubt if one man in ten thousand 
 in Germany ever heard of Bernhardi before August 19 14." 
 
 In the midst of this modern Germany, seething with 
 alarms and contentions, a Germany suddenly self-con- 
 scious and only lately a Great Power, there was one 
 man, a man with English blood in his veins, who had 
 the power to choose between peace and war. At one 
 moment a man like Prince von Bulow was at his ear ; 
 at the next a man like Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg. 
 At one moment he read of King Edward's triumphant 
 reccfotion in Paris, and at the next of a German Socialist 
 meeting which condemned armaments. He had friends 
 among his marshals and generals, and friends among 
 his bankers and merchants. He heard at one moment
 
 Ii6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 what the Army was thinking, and at the next what prac- 
 tical nrien of affairs, like Herr Ballin, were thinking. And 
 for this strange, impulsive, rather able, and remarkable 
 man, who held in his hands the issues of peace and war, 
 and who believed himself answerable to God for the welfare 
 of his Germans, and who was beset on both sides by the 
 champions of the two great parties in his Empire, there 
 was one question above all other questions which he had 
 to answer, he and none other, Could he trust King 
 Echvard ? 
 
 Did King Edward really represent the mind of England? 
 Did Sir Edward Grey really represent the truth of British 
 diplomacy? Did Lord Haldane really speak the absolute 
 truth when he said that England desired better relations 
 with Germany, and would not support Russia and France 
 in an unprovoked attack upon Germany? These ques- 
 tions haunted the Emperor's mind, a mind which has never 
 been free of an obsession, and until the summer of 191 3, 
 that is to say for seven years, he answered them on the 
 whole in England's favour. So long as King Edward 
 lived there was no war. For seven years human life was 
 lived in Europe as if there were no royal autocrats to 
 decide for it whether its children should be butchered, 
 its fields laid waste, and its heart broken ; as if there were 
 no diplomatists to lay mines of death under the hearth- 
 stones of domestic happiness, while they smiled and shook 
 hands like cheats at a card table ; as if men were moral 
 and rational beings who had outgrown the savage and the 
 pirate. Seven years of happy peace for the private person, 
 for the contented peasant in Saxony, and for the brave 
 crofter in Scotland, but seven years of watching, waiting, 
 fearing, and trembling for the diplomatists of Europe. 
 
 Lord Haldane helped to convince the Emperor that he 
 could trust Great Britain. He returned to England in 
 1906 (having removed friction and laid the foundations of 
 a better feeling) with the conviction that so long as the 
 German peace party could be kept in the saddle there 
 would be no war. And he set to work, as no British 
 minister before him ever set to work, and opposed by
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 117 
 
 many men in his own party, some of whom are now 
 national heroes, to inaugurate and make for this country 
 a fighting machine and a system of national defence such 
 as it had never had before, in case the German war parly 
 should ever get into the saddle. 
 
 The "Warning" of 1908 
 
 No man of intelh'gence will dispute the proposition that 
 if it was in the highest interest of this country to preserve 
 the peace of the world, no course of conduct could be wiser 
 or more hopeful than a course of conduct which tended to 
 keep Germany's peace party in power and Germany's war 
 party out of power. 
 
 This was the policy of Sir Edward Grey, and it was the 
 only Anglo-German policy to which King Edward, who 
 detested mischief-makers, lent his encouragement. The 
 King, who was kept very well posted in these matters, and 
 who knew every incident in the Haldane visit to Berlin, 
 desired to deepen the good impression of his minister by 
 [)ersonal politeness to the Emperor. He shared entirely 
 the view of Lord Haldane that if once suspicion gave the 
 war party an excuse to climb into the saddle, the peace of 
 1^2urope would be gone. 
 
 Let me caution the reader from confusing this war 
 party with the fanatics of Pan-Germanism, who only 
 cheered from behind. The war party was composed of 
 able men, cool-headed and unemotional, who held the 
 opinion that every year the Emperor delayed a war of 
 defence the more doubtful would be the issue of a conflict 
 with France and Russia, and perhaps Britain, who were 
 drawing at every turn into a closer understanding, and 
 who would most assuredly (so they argued) one day fall 
 uj^on Germany. 
 
 It was to keep this party out of power (a party which 
 had a good deal to say for itself) that Sir Edward Grey 
 laboured, with his sovereign always in the most loyal 
 sup[)ort. And the labours of Sir Edward Grey were 
 perfectly well known and entirely approved of, both in 
 Paris and in Pctrograd. Never once, so far as I am
 
 Ii8 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 aware, did Sir Edward Grey take a step of even moderate 
 importance without consulting Russia and France. His 
 labours, it will be easily imagined, were not lightened by 
 those journalists, and also those private individuals, in this 
 country who persistently propagated the malignant false- 
 hood that the policy of this country, devised by King 
 Edward, was to hem Germany in and presently to fall 
 upon and destroy her. But, hindered as he was by these 
 mischief-makers, Sir Edward Grey, very loyally assisted 
 again and again by Lord Haldane, laboured with all his 
 heart and with all his brain to avert the calamity of war. 
 That is to say, he sought on every possible occasion to 
 convince Germany that our desire for peace was sincere, 
 that we should never countenance any unprovoked assault 
 upon her, and that we were perfectly agreeable to working 
 with her both in Europe and in Asia. But while the 
 foreign ministers talked, the naval attaches, the military 
 attaches, the permanent officials, and the journalists of 
 both countries, whispered to their friends that war was 
 inevitable. 
 
 In November 1907 the German Emperor paid a visit 
 to King Edward at Windsor Castle. He brought with 
 him Baron von Schoen, who had succeeded Herr von 
 Tchirsky as Foreign Minister, and his Minister for War, 
 General von Einem. The newspapers of the world, 
 always excited and suspicious when Anglo-German 
 relations were in evidence, jumped to the conclusion, 
 merely from the character of the Emperor's entourage, 
 that the visit was not merely an act of courtesy. In this 
 conclusion they were right. But few of them guessed at 
 the time how very nearly the peace of Europe was secured 
 for a generation during those brilliant junketings at 
 Windsor Castle. Later on something of the truth leaked 
 out, but the whole story has not even yet been told. 
 
 It is possible to furnish the reader with an outline of 
 what occurred. Sir Edward Grey was at the Castle for the 
 reception of the Emperor. Lord Haldane remained after 
 his departure as minister in attendance. Conversations 
 took place of a serious character, and conversations directed
 
 LORD HALDANE*S GERMAN MISSIONS 119 
 
 to something more than a general understanding between 
 the two nations. It seems quite evident from what was 
 disclosed a few months later that the German Emperor 
 was less interested in the state banquets, the theatrical 
 performances, and the brilliant pageantry of his uncle's 
 Court than in his own pet scheme of a railway far away 
 in Bagdad. There in the midst of all this glittering 
 ceremonial, attended by two of his ministers, his am- 
 bassador, and his helmeted guardsmen, was the impulsive, 
 eager, and dreaming Bagman of the German Empire 
 fighting for his permanent v/ay across the ancient pastures 
 of Persia. The beautiful ladies looking at each other's 
 diamonds and the gentlemen of England rather bored by 
 the crush of fashion little imagined that this central figure 
 of the pageant, who joined in all the gaiety of the occasion 
 with an apparent abandonment to its transient excite- 
 ments, was only happy because one of his dreams for his 
 own country appeared to be coming true. 
 
 It seems that some kind of verbal agreement was 
 reached in Windsor Castle during those days of festivity 
 concerning the Bagdad Railway. Apparently Great 
 Britain had expressed her willingness that the German 
 Emperor should go ahead with his railway, provided that 
 her own obvious interests were safeguarded, and that her 
 partners in the Entente, not omitting the Russian partner, 
 were consulted before any agreement was ratified. From 
 what followed it is quite certain that some such stipulation 
 as this was made by Great Britain and agreed to by 
 Germany during these informal conversations at Windsor 
 Castle. The Emperor was to get his railway. 
 
 This may seem to the reader a small matter, but in 
 truth it was a matter of considerable importance. It 
 showed the Emperor that our attitude was not hostile, and 
 it might have shown him, if he had been wise enough 
 to see it, that here was a door by which Germany could 
 enter the Entente. So far as I can gather, he himself was 
 not averse from the proposition of a conference between 
 his country and the Entente Powers, but he would have 
 been more pleased apparently if the agreement had been 
 one between England and Germany. This is not difficult
 
 120 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 to understand. It irked him to find that he could move 
 nowhere in the world without first consulting the other 
 Great Powers. Wherever he turned, except in the least 
 desirable parts of Africa, he was met by opposition and 
 by barriers. But unless I am seriously misinformed he 
 did on this occasion express his willingness to enter into 
 a conference with Russia and France as well as with 
 ourselves. 
 
 But the Emperor, as we shall see, had counted without 
 his Chancellor. In his eagerness to get his railway and 
 to feel that he was expanding Eastwards, he had forgotten 
 that Prince von Bulow's policy was to weaken, not to 
 consolidate, the Entente. He had imagined himself, in 
 his almost feverish desire for this railway, to be in sober 
 truth an absolute monarch. 
 
 I have good reasons for saying that King Edward was 
 highly delighted by the result of the Windsor visit, and 
 those who were about the King at that time can testify 
 that his satisfaction amounted almost to enthusiasm. 
 The minister whom he trusted, and who was already 
 building up a great military fighting machine at the W^ar 
 Office, had so conducted his business of diplomacy that the 
 German Emperor was like a schoolboy in the affection he 
 manifested towards his uncle, and all seemed merry as a 
 marriage bell. 
 
 For the first time since the beginning of strained 
 relations, a feeling of confidence seemed to exist between 
 Germany and England. It looked as if the Kaiser had 
 definitely made up his mind to trust the fair word of 
 King Edward and to shake off the obsession of a Franco- 
 Russian understanding. He was cheerfulness itself, spoke 
 freely to everybody of his satisfaction with the negotiations 
 for his railway, and made a number of suggestions which 
 he thought would add to the strength and security of 
 Britain. 
 
 In the following year came what Mr. Oliver calls the 
 second zvarnmg. The bright promise of the Windsor 
 Castle negotiations faded away with the autumn of 1908, 
 and once again the two nations were plunged into feverish
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 121 
 
 discussions concerning armaments. What had happened ? 
 The explanation is simple enough. Prince von Bulow, 
 who was not altogether suspicious of England, and did 
 indeed on occasions (as I have personal reasons for 
 knowing) attempt to establish a friendly feeling with this 
 country, was suspicious about the Entente. Count 
 Bernstorff will allow me to say, I hope, that Prince von 
 Billow was working him at this time very hard indeed to 
 improve Anglo-German relations, and that he himself 
 really did take considerable pains to obey his instructions. 
 A visit which I paid to Berlin assured me of two things, 
 first, that Germany was living in a high state of nerves 
 concerning the alliance of Russia and France, and, second, 
 that there was grave suspicion of Britain's real attitude 
 towards Germany. But Prince von Blilow put himself to 
 considerable trouble in order to convince every Englishman 
 he encountered that he desired to establish a working 
 arrangement with this country — a working arrangement, 
 however, which seemed to me as if he aimed to detach 
 this country from Russia and France. Germans never 
 doubted that they could deal with Russia and France ; 
 what they feared was that France might drag England 
 into a war against Germany, even perhaps against 
 England's will. The diplomatists of Germany are perhaps 
 the most stupid in the world, but they have sufficient 
 intelligence to recognize that the diplomacy of France 
 is matchless in quickness of perception and brilliance of 
 inspiration. 
 
 Prince von Billow appeared to feel that while he could 
 trust this country alone, he could not trust it in con- 
 junction with our allies. He appeared to think that 
 while England quite honestly desired peace and friendly 
 relations, her engagements with France and Russia might 
 jM-esently entangle her in a war against Germany. That 
 is the real explanation of his quarrel with the Kaiser. He 
 seemed to me to be working very hard indeed to improve 
 Anglo-German relations and to weaken iLntente 
 sympathies. In any case his policy was to do nothing 
 which could possibly strengthen the Entente, and in a 
 conference over the Bagdad Railway, which brought in
 
 152 tHE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Russia and France, he saw a step which would go very far 
 to make that Entente a more formidable menace to 
 German peace. We can imagine the unhappy Kaiser, 
 with von Biilow on one side of him and von Schoen on 
 the other, striving to save the Windsor Castle negotiations 
 from collapse, and finally, after many months of argument 
 and counter-argument (he was not just then very popular 
 with his people), yielding to his masterful Chancellor. 
 
 What was the inevitable result of this failure ? The 
 very fact that Britain refused to come into a conference 
 without Russia and France tended to prove that the 
 Chancellor's position was well-grounded. It enabled him 
 to say very emphatically to Baron von Schoen, " I told 
 you so ! " and to say in politer language much the same 
 thing to his royal and imperial master. The Emperor 
 could not save himself from the inevitable conclusion. 
 He still clung to his faith in King Edward's word, but in 
 case that word should be false, in case the Entente was a 
 deadly preparation for war against Germany when the 
 hour was ripe, he must increase his defences. Just as 
 Lord Haldane and Lord Fisher were toiling to increase 
 the fighting forces of Great Britain in case Germany 
 should play us false, so Germany fell to strengthening 
 her military resources in case the Entente should play her 
 false. And while the Entente Powers were increasing 
 their forces without fuss and without excitement, Germany 
 set about increasing her forces in a spirit which suggested 
 panic. 
 
 Let me at this point say something about the German 
 Emperor, since in no very inconsiderable degree the fate of 
 Europe rested in his hands. If it be possible to arrive 
 at some truthful idea of this man's mind, we shall be less 
 likely to go astray in deciding the causes of the war. 
 
 I remember very well that Mr. W. T. Stead remon- 
 strated with me a few months before his death in the 
 Titanic^ because I had ventured to rebuke the Kaiser 
 for cheapening the idea of God by continual reference 
 to the Supreme in speeches which struck me as odiously
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 123 
 
 tribal and ferocious. I remember that I quoted in my 
 article the phrase of Mach, " God is a great word." I 
 hated to think of the Kaiser, with skull and crossbones 
 decorating his busby, employing the great word God 
 go that brutal-minded people and shallow-minded people 
 made a mock of religion. Mr. Stead remonstrated with 
 me very earnestly for my article, because that article 
 betrayed, he said, a total ignorance of the Emperor's 
 personality. He told me that the Emperor groaned in 
 secret over the moral condition of the Germans, convinced 
 that he would have to answer at the bar of heaven for the 
 soul of his people. He had received from the hands of his 
 ancestors a simple, thrifty, God-fearing, and quiet people, 
 a people notable throughout the world for their sobriety 
 and plainness, their indifference to the follies of the hour, 
 their contempt for luxury and ostentation, their devotion 
 to the sentimentalism of their poets and the idealism of 
 their philosophers. But, visible to the Emperor's eyes, 
 visible to the eyes of every visitor to modern German}', 
 was a change, almost a revolution, in these Germans. 
 Luxury had become a passion with the commercial classes, 
 atheism and socialism were pervading all classes of the 
 democracy, and imitation of other peoples had become the 
 mania of the whole nation. Mr. Stead assured me that 
 the Emperor himself had told him how he groaned in his 
 soul over the condition of his people, how he sought on 
 every occasion to recall them to the noble memories of 
 their mighty ancestors, and how he shuddered to think of 
 the question of God, to which he was perfectly certain 
 he would one day have to reply, " What have you done 
 with My German people ? " 
 
 Such was the impression made upon Mr. Stead by the 
 German Emperor. From other men who have had many 
 opportunities of studying the Kaiser in the intimacies of 
 social life, but not men with whom he would be likely to 
 talk about his soul (some one has said that a letter shows 
 not only the character of the man by whom it is written 
 but the character of him to whom it is sent), I gather the 
 following ideas concerning this mysterious person. He
 
 124 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 is what is called a man with a temperament — a sensi- 
 tive, changeable, emotional, and easily excited man, a 
 man who at one moment is in the clouds of serenity and 
 at the next in the abyss of despair. When he is pleased, 
 and he is not averse from flattery, he shows a most cheerful 
 face to the world, laughing and joking with all the hearti- 
 ness of a schoolboy released for an unexpected holiday ; 
 but when something occurs to depress him, he is sullen, 
 morose, and occasionally vindictive. 
 
 From his youth up he has never been without a ghost. He 
 is one of those men, common enough, of whom it is really 
 not an exaggeration to say that they could not be ha[)py 
 without some miserable, depressing, or haunting thought 
 to darken and occupy their minds. The Kaiser has been 
 dominated from youth up by these obsessing fears. During 
 his reign he has been afflicted in this manner by three 
 principal obsessions : the first, that fear described by Mr. 
 Stead, or as some would call it a fear of the Socialists ; the 
 second, a fear of China and the East, the Yellow Peril as 
 it is called — a fear which really ruled his mind for a number 
 of years and filled him with nightmares of anxiety ; and 
 the third, the last and the most potent, a fear of Russia, or, 
 as it is described, the Slav Peril. 
 
 In the year 1908 this last obsession was only beginning 
 to take form and to gain power. It was in no shape at that 
 time to enable the war party in Germany to play upon the 
 War Lord's feeling ; but it was there, subconsciously influ- 
 encing his actions, and occasionally making him dream. 
 His fear that the whole of Europe would some day be 
 swept away by an invasion of swarms, hordes, and un- 
 countable millions of Chinamen, had exhausted itself. 
 China had now become for him a convenient market and 
 also a stage for imperial display ; he liked to think of him- 
 self as God's protector of those yellow millions, and German 
 Kultur's first apostle to those poor heathen. But with 
 these pleasant and romantic dreams in his mind, the 
 shadow of another fear began to fall across the peace of 
 his soul. These barbarous Russians, these despised and 
 hated Cossacks, these uncivilized Muscovites swarming in 
 vast millions on the frontier of Prussia, which way were
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 125 
 
 they looking for expansion ? To his neighbour Austria 
 the Slav Peril had existed for years : had indeed flung 
 Austria into his arms : had ruled and dominated Austrian 
 (h'plomacy to the exclusion of everything else ; but for him, 
 the Prussian King, this Slav Peril had only been the fear of 
 a small brother ; he was well able to look after Austria ; 
 let the Russian Tzar keep his hands off the ramshackle 
 Empire or he would smash him to powder. In such a mood 
 the Slav Peril had no terrors for the War Lord's soul. 
 
 Prince von Biilovv seems to have dropped the first 
 poison of this fear into the Kaiser's mind during the 
 year 1908. Nothing must be done, in that statesman's 
 view, to bind Russia and P'rance and England closer 
 together. The safe thing to do was to treat France as 
 an equal in reduced circumstances ; to treat England as 
 a friend, more or less well-meaning, but opportunist ; and 
 to ignore Russia as much as possible, treating her in 
 consultation with other Powers as a nation too barbarous 
 and uncivilized for decent peoples either to associate 
 with or to trust. Nothing has struck me more forcibly 
 in my recent journeys in Europe and America than the 
 almost passionate distrust of Russia which I found to 
 prevail wherever I went. Nations most friendly to us and 
 to P'rance in our struggle with Germany shake their heads 
 over our association with Russia — and yet Russia, as 
 every student of history knows, has fought more wars for 
 the deliverance of smaller nations than any other Power, 
 Prince von Biilow knew very well that Russia is one of 
 the most refined, gentle, and peaceable nations under 
 heaven ; he knew, too, that her infinite resources presented 
 a most convenient field for exploitation by thoroughgoing 
 scientific Germans ; and he played the wisest game a 
 suspicious German statesman could play in striving to 
 keep Russia as far away as possible from French influence, 
 because, succeeding in this, he not only weakened the 
 danger of an armed attack by these two partners in the 
 Entente, but he preserved the undevelopment of Russian 
 resources for the exclusive profit of his industrious fellow- 
 countrymen.
 
 126 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 It seems evident from what followed that Prince von 
 Billow was more or less willing for his royal master to 
 make friends with King Edward, while his entire diplo- 
 macy was directed to breaking up the Entente, danger 
 from which oppressed his mind to a very acute degree. 
 He risked war to make trouble with the Entente over 
 Persia ; he risked the countenance of his royal master by 
 publicly rebuking him for speeches which could only tend 
 to strengthen the Entente ; and finally, in pursuing his 
 policy, he sinned himself out of his impulsive master's 
 patience. The Kaiser got rid of him in the year following 
 the failure of the Bagdad negotiations (1909) — a failure 
 which was a really grievous disappointment to the 
 Emperor. At his departure, William the Second, who 
 had been on good terms with his English uncle all this 
 time, summoned to his side a Chancellor who was disposed 
 to accept the Entente as an unalterable fact and who was 
 very much more decidedly a peace man than Prince von 
 Biilow. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg — "^« earnest apostle 
 of peace and friendship with England" as the Berlin corre- 
 spondent of the Daily Mail assures us — became the fifth 
 Chancellor of the German Empire. 
 
 King Edward's death, which moved the whole world as 
 no other monarch's death in all history moved it, fell upon 
 an hour when the world was at peace. His greatest 
 ambition had not succeeded : Germany still remained out- 
 side the Entente, suspicious, nervous, self-assertive, and 
 occasionally provocative ; but although the strength of 
 Germany was very great, she picked a quarrel neither 
 with Russia nor France, and behaved with a very fair 
 propriety towards Britain. King Edward had helped to 
 keep the world's peace ; he had been a real and 
 affectionate peacemaker ; but he had not been able to lift 
 the fear of war from his beloved Europe — every country 
 of which he knew and loved and found very good. 
 
 At the King's death the diplomatic relations of the 
 Great Powers were correct, but behind the diplomatic 
 relations were the forces of hatred, jealousy, suspicion, 
 and fear, working with all their evil might to bury the 
 grave of the great peacemaker under the ruins of Europe,
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 127 
 
 In Germany the war party watched the Entente with fear, 
 hatred, and suspicion ; and among the Entente nations 
 were many who saw in Germany's feverish preparations to 
 be stronger than the Entente the kist of world-dominion. 
 King Edward, with all his amiable qualities, and served as 
 he had been by most able and devoted ministers, had 
 failed to remove from the German mind one little, second- 
 rate, and rather pitiful failing, that distrust of another 
 which in a parvenu makes for bad manners and in a 
 self-conscious nation makes for war. 
 
 Tpie "Warning" of 191 i 
 
 Before we examine the most serious of all these 
 "warnings," I must ask the reader to put out of his 
 mind the conviction fostered by his newspapers that 
 the statesmanship of Germany desired, planned, and 
 brought about the dreadful war of 1914. I would ask 
 him to approach this matter with as open and as un- 
 prejudiced a mind as possible, telling himself that it 
 is more rational to search for truth than to accept 
 without question the ready-made judgments of other 
 people. And to prepare his mind for such an examin- 
 ation, I would ask him to read most carefully the 
 following statement, made so late as June of the present 
 year (1916) by M. Sazonoff, at that time the Foreign 
 Minister of Russia, M. Sazonoff, who of all public men 
 I have ever met is the most gracious, the most refined, the 
 most deeply religious, and the most charming, and who 
 has been infinitely the best friend of this country in Russia 
 for the last twenty years, is a man whose loathing for the 
 worst elements in Prussian character amounts to a spiritual 
 disgust, and whose love for the character of the best 
 Englishman, with his moral earnestness and his modest 
 demeanour, amounts to a spiritual enthusiasm. History 
 may record it as a curious fact that at the outbreak of this 
 tremendous catastrophe, which we call the world war, 
 there were two men at either end of Europe watching 
 over the foreign affairs of their two countries to whom 
 mystical religion was the central fact of life. Sir Edward
 
 128 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Grey, who loves music, spends one day of ev^ery week in 
 complete solitude, meditating in the woods and fields, 
 seeing no one, speaking not a word, and emptying his 
 mind of world business to receive the strength which 
 comes from communion with the invisible and the eternal. 
 M. Sazonoff is also a man who loves nature with a reli- 
 gious enthusiasm, and is deeply convinced of the nearness 
 of the spiritual world. 
 
 In the very important statement of which I am speaking, 
 M. Sazonoff said : 
 
 In seeking to exculpate himself in the eyes of his 
 compatriots, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, in an excess 
 of zeal, surpassed all that he had said hitherto. The 
 Chancellor declared iriter alia that Great Britain, 
 France, and Russia had been closely bound by an 
 alliance against Germany. Only the Germans could 
 believe this absurd assertion. As a matter of fact, the 
 Imperial Chancellor knows as well as I that before 
 the war no pact united Russia, France, and England. 
 Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg pretends that France 
 and Russia would never have risked a defiant reply to 
 Germany if they had not been sure of the assistance 
 of Great Britain. Now, the real course of political 
 events was this. Despite their completely pacific 
 feelings, France and Russia decided to destroy the 
 arrogance of Germany and to render her incapable 
 once for all of the custom of treading on the corns of 
 her neighbours. The crude German policy had as a 
 result that the Triple Entente, which for a long time 
 was without material and definite form, became a 
 powerful political alliance having as its object the 
 protection of the rights and interests of its members 
 and the maintenance of European peace. 
 
 Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg accuses Russia of the 
 guilt of the war by a hasty mobilization. Now the 
 Chancellor carefully avoids mentioning that the 
 Russian mobilization took place after the Austrian 
 and after the mobilization of a considerable part of 
 the German Army. Moreover, the whole world 
 remembers the premature announcement of this
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 129 
 
 mobilization to the people of Germany by the Lokal- 
 anzeiger. 
 
 I am ready to admit that Herr von Bethmann- 
 
 Holhveg did not wish the war and was not the direct 
 
 promoter of it, but numerous persons in the 
 
 Chancellor's entourage did ardently desire it. The 
 
 ultimatum to Serbia was drawn up under the direct 
 
 influence of an eminent German diplomat, and it was 
 
 submitted to the approval of William II without the 
 
 knowledge of the leader of German foreign policy. 
 
 This fact proves that Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg 
 
 was not master in his own house, but, on the other 
 
 hand, it is difficult to admit that the Chancellor was 
 
 not well aware of the intrigues of the enemies of 
 
 European peace and that he knew nothing of them. 
 
 The present war is exclusively due to the canker of 
 
 Pan-Germanism which has preyed upon Germany for 
 
 twenty years and which has now reached her vital 
 
 organs. 
 
 Nothing more important concerning the origin of this 
 
 war has been said by any other statesmen of the belligerent 
 
 countries. Examine it closely, and the whole story is 
 
 there — a story which explains why Germany talks almost 
 
 as one man as if she was fighting a war of defence, and 
 
 which explains also the amazing violence and the unbridled 
 
 hatred which the Kaiser and every one of his subjects feels 
 
 for this country. 
 
 To begin with, we have the statement : " Despite their 
 completely pacific feelings, France and Russia decided to 
 destroy the arrogance of Germany and to render her 
 incapable once and for all of the custom of treading on 
 the corns of her neighbours." And to end with, the 
 statement : "/ am ready to admit that Herr von BetJimann- 
 Hollwcg did not wish the war and was not the direct 
 promoter of it, but numerous persons in the Chancellor's 
 entourage did ardently desire it." 
 
 In other words, there are two parties in Germany, a 
 war party and a peace party ; the war party, having at 
 last not climbed but sprung suddenly into the saddle, 
 determined to strike Russia and France while the forces
 
 130 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of Germany were stronger than the forces of those two 
 great countries on either side of her. And, for their part, 
 France and Russia decided to destroy the perpetual 
 menace of German aggression. 
 
 Here is the whole story of the war. 
 
 It is a story of one single human failing — the story of 
 suspicion. Germany was suspicious of Russia and France : 
 Russia and France were suspicious of Germany. Neither 
 the one party nor the other could trust each other. And, 
 in the end, when this suspicion had crushed all three of 
 them under a frightful burden of debt, all three of them 
 determined to put an end to suspense, anxiety, and the 
 fear of financial ruin, by a war to the death. 
 
 Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Emperor's 
 own Chancellor, did not wish the war and was not the 
 direct protnoter of it. . . . Let the reader keep this very 
 emphatic and keynote statement in his mind while he 
 reads the story of England's effort to preserve the peace 
 of the world. 
 
 In the year 191 1 the German Emperor came to London 
 on a visit to King George, who was diligently following in 
 his father's footsteps as a constitutional monarch who 
 earnestly desired the peace of the world. The Emperor 
 had the best reception he ever received in this country, 
 and was something of a popular hero among English 
 people. He made speeches of a most friendly character, 
 showed himself to the crowds in the streets, and went out 
 of his way to be simple, unaffected, and agreeable. To 
 some of us it seemed that he had a genuine desire to wear 
 henceforth on the world's stage the mantle of his dead 
 uncle, Edward the Peacemaker. One of his simple and 
 friendly acts was to signify to Lord Haldane, who was 
 entertaining some of his generals to luncheon, that he 
 would like to be of the party ; and when Lord Haldane 
 inquired whom he would wish to meet among Englishmen, 
 the Emperor replied that he would like to meet those 
 whom otherwise he might not be likely to meet. The 
 result of this intimation was a party which attracted news- 
 paper attention — a party which consisted, among others, 
 of Lord Kitchener, Lord Curzon, Lord Morley, Admiral
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 131 
 
 Sir Arthur Wilson, Mr. J. A. Spender, and Mr. Ramsay 
 Macdonald, the leader of the Labour party. In this 
 company, the German Emperor came off his high horse, 
 showed himself in an agreeable mood, and so far as I can 
 gather made a pleasant impression on the guests. 
 
 When he left England the newspapers were full of good 
 wishes and felicitations ; all that our public men had ever 
 said in favour of the Emperor or his people, from 
 Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
 lain, and ]\Ir. Bonar Law downwards, seemed as if they 
 were really true. Even Lord Northcliffe's newspapers 
 were apparently without suspicion down to as late as 
 October 17, 19 13, when one of them said : 
 
 We all acknowledge the Kaiser as a very gallant 
 gentleman, whose word is better than many another's 
 bond, a guest whom we are always glad to welcome 
 and sorry to lose, a ruler whose ambitions for his own 
 people are founded on as good right as our own. 
 While in that very year of 191 1 the special corre- 
 spondent of the Daily Mail in Berlin wrote in one of 
 Lord Northcliffe's most popular magazines an enthusiastic 
 description of the Emperor, speaking of the "deep 
 personal attachment that binds him to Britain and to 
 British hearts," and protesting that " none of the countless 
 innuendoes levelled at the Kaiser causes him greater 
 impatience and distress than the charge that he is the 
 enemy of England. ... It has been his dream since 
 youth that England and Germany should march shoulder 
 to shoulder. . . ." 
 
 And yet, after this magnificent reception in London, in 
 July of this very same year, came what Mr. Oliver calls 
 the "■fourth strident warning from the gong of the German 
 Chancellory." The German cruiser Pantlier suddenly 
 appeared at Agadir in Morocco, as though to flout France 
 and sting her into action. Perhaps it was decided to see 
 how far England was committed to France, the England 
 which had just shown herself in so excellent a mood 
 towards Germany. If that were so, the answer was soon 
 forthcoming. Three weeks afterwards, in a memorable 
 speech at the Mansion House, Mr. Lloyd George an-
 
 132 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 nounced amidst the greatest enthusiasm that England 
 would not suffer France to be attacked by another Power. 
 This speech, be it noted, could not have rung with so 
 emphatic an emphasis of conviction but for the fact that 
 the military organization of the country was at that time 
 in really working order. Lord Haldane was perfectly able 
 to dispatch an expeditionary force to the Continent ; and, 
 thoroughly aware that the situation was threatening, he 
 stopped the usual manoeuvres and devoted all the money 
 for that purpose to completing arrangements for instant 
 mobilization — an action which did not escape the attention 
 of Germany. Germany was, moreover, perfectly aware of 
 the conferences which then took place under Lord Hal- 
 dane's administration between the General Staffs of France 
 and Great Britain. 
 
 Although the crisis passed away, thanks in some measure 
 to the vigorous action of the British Government, the good 
 relations between Germany and England were to all 
 intents and purposes destroyed. Britain became violently 
 suspicious, and the German war party influenced German 
 national feeling by saying in various keys, " I told you 
 so ! " The Kaiser found himself attacked on all sides by 
 this war party. He was told that to trust England any 
 further would be an act of suicide ; England was behind 
 France and behind Russia, egging on the two Powers as 
 hard as she could to attack Germany ; it was futile to 
 dream of breaking up the Entente ; the Entente, indeed, as 
 they had always said, was King Edward's instrument for 
 smashing Germany. It was a good and logical argument, 
 but quite untrue.^ 
 
 ' The special correspondent ot The Times at Amsterdam sent the 
 following information to his paper on July 31, 1916 : 
 
 " Count Reventlow, addressing a large meeting at Munich on the 
 development of Anglo-German relations, said it had been clear to 
 Admiral von Tirpitz that English and German paths crossed. For 
 twelve or thirteen years English policy sought to constitute a 
 Continental coalition for the annihilation of the German Empire. He 
 did not doubt that England had striven for and organized this war 
 with all reflection, and that she was seeking with all her power to 
 render annihilation a fact. 
 
 " ' Only against, and not with, England shall we attain that security
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 133 
 
 For the present the Kaiser stood firm. He sent a private 
 message to one of our ministers, not Lord Haldane, by a 
 personal friend in England, saying that he was concerned 
 about the cloud which had gathered over our relations, 
 and suggesting that the two Cabinets should confer to- 
 gether. The initiative came from Germany. Herr Ballin, 
 who was a peace man, with every reason for being so, 
 played a part in bringing the views of the Emperor 
 before this minister, and it was in some measure at least 
 due to his influence, and his evident desire to avert a war 
 which, whatever its results on land, must infallibly destroy 
 Herr Ballin's prosperity as a shipowner, that Sir Edward 
 Grey began to build up again the hope of establishing 
 good relations with Germany. 
 
 It was thought that the best possible way of establishing 
 these good relations would be to send a minister to Berlin 
 able to speak with authority of our determination to 
 support France and able at the same time to find out what 
 was passing in the German mind. Instead of using the 
 ordinary means of diplomatic communication, which might 
 have deepened the Kaiser's suspicions and appeared in the 
 nature of a rebuff, the Government most wisely decided to 
 send a minister who spoke the German language very 
 perfectly, who was personally acquainted with the Kaiser 
 and his chief ministers, and who was also well informed as 
 to the working of the British Foreign Office. Lord Haldane 
 was chosen for this most difficult mission, and after Sir 
 Edward Goschen, the British Ambassador in Berlin, had 
 come over here to discuss matters. Lord Haldane, osten- 
 sibly as a private citizen interested in education, set out 
 for Germany. He was accompanied by his famous brother 
 from Oxford, Dr. J. S. Haldane, who knew Germany, who 
 was interested in education, and who was to act as private 
 secretary. 
 
 So much hope did Germany attach to this visit, that on 
 
 for the future which is vital for the strength of the German people. 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. England stands to-day still unbroken. 
 The much-talked-of financial collapse of England will not take place. 
 We must wage the war with a single purpose, and because our life is 
 at stake we can and will have no consideration.'"
 
 134 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 a rumour reaching the Bourse in Berlin, which gained 
 credence for a brief time, that Lord Haldane's visit had 
 nothing to do with poHtical questions, there was an 
 immediate fall in the prices of stocks. 
 
 Lord Haldane arrived in Berlin on February 8, 19 12. 
 This time there was no guard of honour, no ceremony, and 
 no imperial suite of rooms at his disposal. He arrived as 
 a private individual, and as a private individual was met 
 by Sir Edward Goschen's motor-car and by a considerable 
 body of journalists resident in Berlin. He was driven to 
 the Hotel Bristol, where rooms were engaged for him. 
 That same morning he had a private conversation at the 
 British Embassy with the German Chancellor. On the 
 next day, followed by journalists, he saw the German 
 Emperor and Admiral von Tirpitz together. And on 
 the third day, still followed by journalists, who reported 
 every one of his movements, he saw the Chancellor again. 
 In addition to these conversations he saw many high 
 officials, though of minor importance ; and throughout his 
 visit and for some time afterwards the German Press 
 discussed very little else except Anglo-German relations. 
 
 The Vossische Zeitung was fairly friendly. " England," 
 it said, " has prevented Germany from going forward ; but 
 it has been of no comfort to her. We do not grow fat on 
 the pleasure we take in other people's misfortunes." But it 
 added, " Those Englishmen who come to seek our friend- 
 ship we will welcome ; we shall greet them with a sympa- 
 pathetic esteem." The P^.?/ insisted that England's policy 
 had necessitated increases in Germany's armaments. The 
 Berliner Neiieste Nachrichten fiercely warned the German 
 Government against trusting English diplomacy, and 
 declared emphatically, " There is only one way of assur- 
 ing our future and of assuring the peace of the world : to 
 augment energetically and at all points the forces ot 
 our army." 
 
 The French newspapers were interested but reserved. 
 The general attitude among French journalists was that of 
 the Daily Graphic in London, which one of them quoted 
 with approval. This quotation was to the effect that if in 
 the opinion of the British and German Governments the
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 135 
 
 moment had come to negotiate for an Anglo-German 
 understanding, " England could not confide the care 
 of such a rapprochement to a more able and sympathetic 
 personality than that of Lord Haldane ; there is no 
 Englishman who knows Germany better than he, who 
 possesses more than he the confidence of the German 
 people: he stands in the first rank of our statesmen; 
 in case there should be an entente, no one would be better 
 able than he to safeguard our interests. But is the hour 
 as propitious as the personage ? " (translation). 
 
 Less than a week after that visit, on February 14th, 
 Lord Lansdowne said in the House of Lords : 
 
 ... It is lamentable that these misunderstandings 
 and these apprehensions should exist, and it is the 
 duty of all right-thinking people to endeavour to 
 dispel them. In any effort to do this His Majesty's 
 Government will, I am convinced, have the support of 
 those who oppose them in regard to other questions. 
 . . . And may I be permitted to say, seeing the Sec- 
 retary of State for War (Lord Haldane) in his place, 
 that if his genial presence at Berlin on a recent occa- 
 sion has at all contributed to so desirable a result, if 
 he has come back with anything in the nature of an 
 olive branch in his buttonhole, we shall congratulate 
 him on this side as warmly as he will be congratulated 
 by his friends on the other side of the House. 
 Mr. Bonar Law, speaking in the House of Commons on 
 the same day, said : 
 
 ... No man in this House is more anxious for a 
 good understanding with Germany than I am, and no 
 one would regard with more horror a war between this 
 country and Germany. I am quite sure that the 
 Foreign Secretary is just as anxious as I am that there 
 should be a good understanding with Germany, 
 And when a new German Ambassador arrived four 
 months afterwards, The Times welcomed him in the follow- 
 ing manner : 
 
 The main features of the situation as between our- 
 selves and the great Empire Baron Marschall von 
 Bieberstein comes to represent are so plain that we
 
 136 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 can hardly suppose he will not grasp them immedi- 
 ately. He has only to reflect upon the statements 
 which our leading statesmen of both parties have been 
 continuously making for the last ten years in order 
 to master those features without delay. Those state- 
 ments are all marked by the same characteristics. 
 They all reveal in the plainest and most direct terms 
 our genuinely national desire to live on the best of 
 terms with our German neighbours. Nobody who 
 knows England can doubt the sincerity of that wish, 
 and all Englishmen who know Germany are confident 
 that it is reciprocated by the great majority of the 
 German people. 
 There was no question of a desire on both sides of 
 British politics for good relations with Germany ; nothing 
 was felt in either political camp but the very heartiest 
 wishes for Lord Haldane's mission ; and, if we may believe 
 The Times, there was no doubt whatever in the English 
 mind that the great majority of the German people, not 
 merely a few, not merely peace cranks and commercial 
 opportunists, but the great majority of the German people, 
 desired to live on the best terms with their English 
 neighbours.! 
 
 The time, you will observe, had not yet come for abusing 
 Lord Haldane for going to Berlin to try and improve 
 Anglo-German relations, nor was the time come to say 
 that " Germany " had always wanted war and had been 
 deceiving our foolish ministers for a number of years. To 
 read the newspapers then and now is to be reminded of 
 that interesting instance of journalistic volte face recorded 
 in Friendship's Garland, when The Times, having violently 
 and righteously denounced a French pamphlet, which 
 argued that treaties are not binding, denouncing it as 
 " the dreams of an agitator in the language of an acade- 
 mician," very soon afterwards justified the action of 
 
 ' This view is over and over again categorically expressed by the 
 Daily MaiPs correspondent at Berlin. In The Assault, for example, 
 he says : " At a liberal estimate, no one can ever convince me that 
 more than one million five hundred thousand Germans really 
 wanted war."
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 137 
 
 Sardinia in the war of Italian independence with these 
 words : " It is very irregular, it is contrary to all diplomatic 
 forms. . . . Yes, but there are extremities beyond all law, 
 and there are laws which existed before even society was 
 formed " — language not unlike the German Chancellor's, 
 when he apologized for the invasion of Belgium. " King 
 Victor Emmanuel and his sagacious counsellor," said 
 The Times, "have achieved success by remembering that 
 fortune favours the bold." Whether the moral principles 
 and logical consistency of British journalism have improved 
 since then, let each newspaper reader, who studies his 
 journal intelligently, decide for himself.^ 
 
 What was the purpose and what was the outcome of 
 Lord Haldane's mission to Germany in February 1912? 
 
 The purpose of this embassy, as we now know, was to 
 ascertain why good relations between the two countries 
 had become overclouded, and to assure the German 
 Government that the British policy of goodwill which had 
 characterized King Edward's reign still persisted. It was 
 a mission, we must be careful to remember, which had its 
 origin in Berlin. The German Government desired direct 
 conversations between the cabinets of St. James's and 
 Berlin. They wished to get rid of misunderstandings. 
 Lord Haldane was sent to Berlin, as an answer to this 
 invitation, not to make treaties, but simply for frank and 
 friendly conversations which might clear the air. 
 
 It is understood that in his opening conversation with 
 the Chancellor, Lord Haldane established a most friendly 
 confidence. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg declaring with 
 absolute truth that for two and a half years the aim of his 
 policy had been to come to some agreement with England. 
 Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, says the Berlin correspondent 
 of the Daily Mail, " is an earnest apostle of peace and 
 friendship with England." He speaks of his " singular 
 high-mindedness and rugged integrity." Everybody who 
 has the least acquaintance with German affairs knows 
 
 ' Our extraordinary equanimity in making these changes causes 
 foreign people to think that we are either exceedingly stupid or pro- 
 foundly hypocritical. "To Hell with Serbia" one week, and soon 
 after "No Peace Piffle," is more than most foreigners can understand.
 
 138 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 perfectly well that this is true. Dr. von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg was an earnest peace man, and, as M. Sazonoff 
 says, as everybody knows, he did not want war.^ 
 
 Lord Haldane made it perfectly plain to the Chancellor 
 that the Triple Alliance had given Germany tremendous 
 strength, and that any increase in her fighting forces was a 
 very serious matter for other Powers. So far as we know, 
 Lord Haldane did not question Germany's right to in- 
 crease her armaments, but it is known that he asked the 
 Chancellor to consider whether an increase in the German 
 Navy, which must unquestionably be met by a double 
 increase in the British Navy, could facilitate friendly 
 relations. The whole course of his negotiations turned 
 on that point. The Chancellor made a tentative proposal 
 on the subject, a proposal to see how far he could go in 
 making an offer to spread German shipbuilding over a 
 number of years ; in the meantime he referred to a 
 particular proposal on the question of British and German 
 action in the event of war which he had already made to 
 the British Government. This proposal, we now know, 
 was a formula of absolute neutrality, which bound both 
 parties not to enter into any combination against each 
 other. Lord Haldane pointed out the obvious objections 
 to the wording of this formula, and suggested the British 
 Government's alternative of mutual undertakings against 
 aggressive or unprovoked attacks and against all com- 
 binations, military and naval agreements, and plans 
 directed to the purpose of aggression and unprovoked 
 attack. The Chancellor was not satisfied with the 
 extent of this counter-proposal. 
 
 From an interview which was given by Lord Haldane 
 to the London correspondent of the Chicago Daily News 
 on March 7, 191 5, and which was stated publicly to have 
 
 ' The moral downfall of the Imperial Chancellor, kis contempt for 
 treaties, and his unscrupulous brutality towards Belgium, can only be 
 accounted for by the violent necessities of German nationalism. His 
 case, I think, is likely to become historic. In a few hours a man 
 notable for his rectitude and for his peaceful intentions, a man of real 
 culture and steady goodness, was transformed by the e>agencies of 
 his nation into a ruffian, a prevaricator, and a deliberate perverter of 
 truth.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 139 
 
 been given by the desire of the Prime Minister and 
 Sir Edward Grey, who revised its text, a good deal was 
 made known of what passed between the British envoy 
 and the German Chancellor and the Emperor. The 
 information derived from the report has since been 
 supplemented by official and semi-official statements on 
 the subject made in Berlin.^ From these sources it 
 appears that Lord Haldane's conversations took place on 
 the basis that his first duty as representing the Govern- 
 ment here was to make it plain that he could only speak 
 on the footing that absolute loyalty to the ententes with 
 France and Russia must be the condition of any further 
 progress towards an understanding with the German 
 Government. He went on to say that we could not be 
 reckoned on as neutrals if France were attacked or if the 
 neutrality of Belgium were violated. He also insisted 
 that if Germany entered on a policy of increasing her 
 naval development we should lay down two keels to 
 every one she laid down. When, shortly afterwards, she 
 proceeded to introduce a new Fleet Law, this course was 
 at once adopted, as a reference to the British Naval 
 Estimates, which were increased from 36 millions to 
 51, and to the discussions in Parliament shows. 
 There was no delay, and there is no doubt that Lord 
 Haldane communicated to his colleagues in the Cabinet 
 and the Committee of Imperial Defence the whole of 
 the valuable information he had obtained in Berlin, 
 where he secured an advanced draft of the new German 
 Fleet Law which was afterwards promulgated. There 
 was still hope that Germany might modify her policy 
 in view of the frank statements he had made while there, 
 and the assurance of complete absence of intention on 
 the part of Britain to enter into aggressive combinations 
 against Germany. But he appears to have been rendered 
 uneasy by the uncertainty whether the pacifically minded 
 Bethmann-Hollweg would retain his ascendancy, and 
 
 ' See also a long account from the German point of view of these 
 negotiations, and of their subsequent developments in the hands of 
 Sir Edward Grey, in the last edition of Count von Reventlow's recent 
 book on German foreign policy from 1888 to 1914.
 
 140 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 whether the war party would not insist on the idea of 
 further naval increases. While he pointed out to Germany 
 the grave consequences which must ensue if they did so, 
 he firmly and at once refused the formula proposed to 
 him of unconditional neutrality, which would have 
 hindered his country in the fulfilment not only of its 
 own treaty obligations, but of its duty to maintain its own 
 interests by protecting the northern coasts of France from 
 hostile occupation. 
 
 There was nothing in this conversation which darkened 
 the clouds, and it soon became apparent that the friends 
 of peace in Germany were aware of the good turn events 
 had taken. It was generally understood that while the 
 British envoy had made it perfectly plain to the Chancellor 
 that Britain would put an extra shilling on the income 
 tax rather than hazard her absolute security at sea, he had 
 nevertheless made it equally plain that Britain had no 
 thought in the world of lending her support to any 
 aggression on the part of France and Russia. 
 
 The conversation with the Emperor and his admiral 
 was even more hopeful. The Emperor wanted an agree- 
 ment with England, and in order to get that agreement 
 he was willing, under some pressure, to delay the develop- 
 ment of his navy. Admiral von Tirpitz was not quite 
 so willing, but Lord Haldane's insistence that an agree- 
 ment which was accompanied by rivalry in shipbuilding 
 would make no impression whatever in England, influenced 
 the Kaiser to decide against his admiral. At this time, 
 there is no doubt that the Emperor was on the side of 
 the peace party, still wearing, if a little loosely and 
 awkwardly, the mantle of Edward the Peacemaker. And 
 the fact that Germany dropped a battleship from her 
 programme may be taken as evidence that the Emperor 
 was not at that time completely under the domination 
 of Admiral von Tirpitz,^ 
 
 Hopes rose higher and higher in Berlin ; the good news 
 spread from those in the secret that Germany and England 
 
 ' We shall see presently, in a very remarkable statement by Count 
 Reventlow, that as a result of Lord Haldane's visit Germany dropped 
 not one battleship, hv^tfour.
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 141 
 
 were coming to an agreement, and that the clouds over 
 Europe were beginning to show signs of drifting away. 
 A visit paid by Lord Haldane to the French Ambassador 
 did not affect the good spirits of Berh'n. No one of any 
 consequence suspected that England was breaking away 
 from France or Russia, nor did the statesmen of Germany 
 expect an entente with England. But it seemed likely 
 that obstacles to a detente were being got over, and that 
 peace was assured. 
 
 Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg was known as a peace man. 
 To one of his German friends in Berlin he used at that 
 time the phrase that it was " the dream of his life " to 
 come to an agreement with England. Some people in 
 Germany knew, too, that peace had only been kept after 
 the Agadir incident by the hard work of this Chancellor, 
 helped though he was by the Emperor, and also it must 
 be said by M. Jules Cambon. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, 
 it must be repeated till it gets into the English mind, was 
 a peace man — a man who would not listen to the gamblers 
 among the war party, and who cordially detested the 
 nonsense of Pan-Germanism. When war came he aban- 
 doned his principles, threw honour to the winds, and in the 
 defence of his country ceased to defend morality. But there 
 is overwhelming evidence that till nationalism destroyed 
 his soul in the crisis of war, this man strove for peace. 
 
 Lord Haldane came to the conclusion that so long as 
 Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg was Chancellor and in real 
 power war might be regarded as an improbable con- 
 tingency ; but he does not seem to have formed so 
 pleasant an impression of Admiral von Tirpitz, or to have 
 been altogether happy concerning the activities of the 
 war party. He saw some of his German friends while 
 he was in Berlin, and no doubt gathered from them, if not 
 from the Chancellor himself, that powerful influences were 
 at work to prevent an agreement with England. 
 
 " Lord Haldane," says the astonishing Mr. Oliver, " would 
 have acted more wisely had he . . . never entered Berlin 
 at all." It was made clear to him, he says, " that Germany 
 desired a free hand to establish herself in a position 
 of supremacy astride of Europe. So Lord Haldane
 
 142 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 returned profitless from his wayfaring. . . ." Such words 
 as these could never have been written if Mr. Oliver had 
 put himself to the pains which the gravity of the matter 
 morally and intellectually demanded, to ascertain the facts. 
 Alas that such random words should pass muster, among 
 large sections of the English people, for sober history. 
 
 It is interesting to know, as I can vouch for, that the 
 Emperor of Russia expressed his particular gratification 
 at the success of Lord Haldane's visit to Berlin. The 
 Emperor of Russia was, and is still, a man entirely 
 devoted to peace. His satisfaction over Lord Haldane's 
 mission was the spontaneous expression of a good man 
 for something which seemed to restore the feeling of 
 confidence between the Great Powers. If certain of the 
 French newspapers were anxious at first as to the exact 
 nature of this mission, that anxiety soon disappeared 
 with the formal assurance that Lord Haldane had made 
 it perfectly plain in Berlin that Britain would have nothing 
 to do with any proposal for absolute neutrality. Both 
 Russia and France were pleased with this effort to restore 
 confidence. 
 
 It is not history, it is not even romance, it is wild 
 nonsense, to suggest that the German Government was 
 not striving for peace at this moment. The Emperor 
 wanted peace, the Chancellor wanted peace, and rap- 
 prochement with England was the ideal, as the Daily Mail's 
 correspondent at Berlin assures us, to which the Foreign 
 Minister, Herr Kiderlen-Waechter, was devoting his 
 energies. The war party, of course, was working for war ; 
 but the responsible Government of the country was 
 earnestly working for peace. 
 
 The two Foreign Offices found themselves in a better 
 position, with their relations sensibly eased. But the 
 Chancellor was unable to promise a restriction in ship- 
 building which satisfied this country, and the formula 
 for neutrality could not be agreed upon in terms which 
 commended themselves to both nations.^ 
 
 ' One of the great difficulties in dealing with Germany lies in the 
 fact that she has three Foreign Offices. This fact is very often over- 
 looked. The Imperial Chancellor has his Foreign Office, the Foreign
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 143 
 
 Any one, we should have thought, might have concluded 
 from the fact that Mr. Winston Churchill's extraordinary- 
 activity at the Admiralty did not check on Lord Haldane's 
 return to England, but increased^ that the envoy brought 
 back from Berlin certain intelligence which confirmed his 
 earliest view of German politics, namely, that vigilance 
 can never be relaxed in our relations with that Power. 
 Careful students of events must have been amused, 
 knowing of the great changes at the Admiralty, when 
 they read in their newspapers two years afterwards that 
 Lord Haldane returned from Berlin in 191 2 with nothing 
 but dust in his eyes. Lord Haldane returned with the 
 new German Naval Law in his pocket, and with the 
 knowledge that certain dangerous elements in German 
 life were working against the Chancellor. 
 
 As before, everything depended on the continued 
 ascendancy of the peace party. The fact that Dr. von 
 Bethmann-HoUweg was finding it difficult to resist the 
 pressure of Admiral von Tirpitz told everybody who 
 had ears in his head that the war party was gaining new 
 influence. It told Lord Haldane, of course, that Prince 
 von Billow was exerting pressure, and that Admiral von 
 Tirpitz was beginning to dominate the Kaiser. Like every 
 other Cabinet Minister, and like every other responsible 
 politician, he saw that there were only two things to do — 
 to increase the efficiency of navy and army, and to make 
 no speech and to take no single step which could entitle 
 the German war party to claim the reins of power. 
 
 The reader shall now be presented with an opportunity 
 of seeing what sort of a figure Lord Haldane cuts in 
 German eyes. The mere fact that execration of England 
 is the strongest passion in Germany might have told our 
 newspapers that Lord Haldane was a very effective 
 envoy ; but apparently the blindness of party spirit pre- 
 vented many of them from seeing the obvious significance 
 of that passion. If the reader will put on German 
 
 Secretary presides over the Foreign Office proper, and the Emperor 
 has his own personal staff of diplomatists who compose yet another 
 Foreign Office.
 
 144 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 spectacles for a moment or two, he will be able to see the 
 facts of the mission in a truer light. 
 
 In the latest edition of his recent book on German 
 foreign policy {Deutschland's Auswdrtige Politik, 1888- 
 1914, 3rd edition), Count Reventlow gives a great deal 
 of fresh information, from the point of view of official 
 Berlin, about Lord Haldane's two visits to that city. He 
 appears to have had access to official sources of infor- 
 mation, and I hazard the opinion that into the sym- 
 pathetic ears of the Count Admiral von Tirpitz has poured 
 the full flood of his overburdened heart. The picture he 
 draws of Lord Haldane is, however, none the less as untrue 
 as the picture drawn by the hostile critics here. But it 
 is untrue in a very significantly different sense. Instead 
 of Lord Haldane appearing as one who was soothed and 
 duped by Germany, he is, on the contrary, depicted by 
 Count Reventlow as a Machiavelli by whom innocent 
 and confiding Germany was soothed and duped : " In 
 him the German Government saw an upright friend of 
 peace and an upright friend to the German Empire. He 
 has revealed himself as the opposite of both." 
 
 Count Reventlow, in the first place, gives an account 
 of Lord Haldane's visit to the Emperor in 1906. Sir 
 Edward Grey, we are told, had announced himself ready 
 for an improvement in the relations between Great Britain 
 and Germany, if Germany was willing to put no more 
 difficulties in the way of France in Morocco. " A suitable 
 person to initiate the new departure," says the Count, " was 
 Lord Haldane, later so well known in Germany as the 
 promoter of friendship and good understanding. In 1906 
 he was War Minister and had set himself the task of 
 bringing about a thoroughgoing reorganization of the 
 British Army. Haldane belonged to those in the Cabinet 
 of Great Britain who were not only instructed as to the 
 content and aim of the British-French-Belgian military 
 conversations and conventions, but had taken a leading- 
 part in them. He regarded it as his problem to create 
 an organization which should be capable of dispatching 
 to the Continent, in case of the outbreak of war, the largest 
 possible expeditionary army in the shortest possible
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 145 
 
 time. In order to solve this problem, which was rendered 
 a specially difficult one by the peculiar conditions of the 
 British Army, Haldane succeeded in getting permission 
 from the German Government to investigate in Berlin 
 the military system in Germany, with assistance from her 
 military authorities. This permission seemed as though 
 it might be given safely, and was gladly conceded on 
 account of the proof it apparently offered of an approach 
 to friendliness on the part of England. In this fashion 
 the British War Minister obtained an opportunity, not 
 often afforded to the War Minister of a foreign country, 
 of getting a thorough grasp of the German military 
 system, and of getting it at the highest source. This 
 turned out to have been for Great Britain and her ally 
 France, who both really looked on Germany as their 
 future enemy, of high importance. Moreover, Haldane 
 was able by his study of the German military system to 
 procure valuable experience and knowledge which enabled 
 him to organize the British Expeditionary Force which 
 was destined to fight in the coming war against German 
 troops. When he returned to British shores, Haldane 
 made speeches in which he declared that the relations 
 with Germany were improved. In Germany there pre- 
 vailed, as is always the case when things like this take 
 place, easygoing confidence and hope. People thought 
 that there had only been some misunderstandings between 
 the two countries which might easily be cleared up by 
 calmness and goodwill, except so far as concerned the 
 wicked violence of the chauvinists on both sides, become 
 so for individual or industrial reasons." ^ 
 
 " The knowledge and experience," says Count Revent- 
 low, " which Lord Haldane obtained on the occasion of 
 this visit bore fruit." Indeed it did ! But it is ridiculous 
 to say, as he does, that Lord Haldane's attitude was in 
 reality unfriendly or that it concealed sinister purposes. 
 The Germans knew at this time that England regarded 
 the peril of France with apprehension, and that, in her 
 own interest, she was disinclined to be a passive spectator 
 of any attempt to dismember France. But it is wholly 
 
 ' Page 295. 
 I,
 
 146 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 untrue that either then or afterwards there was any 
 military convention or secret alliance, or anything more 
 than a willingness to make a study of the situation which 
 would arise in France and Belgium in case of an attack 
 by Germany, a study which was requisite in order to 
 enable England to prepare her forces for a possible 
 military emergency. 
 
 Count Reventlow attributes to King Edward and his 
 ministers an intention to join in encircling Germany ; such 
 an intention never existed. This was one of the mis- 
 apprehensions which Lord Haldane did his best to destroy 
 when he next visited Berlin. Count Reventlow devotes 
 much space to what he calls the " mission " of Lord Hal- 
 dane to Berlin in 191 2, its attendant circumstances and 
 consequences. He quotes the subsequent speech of Lord 
 Haldane in 191 5 at the National Liberal Club already 
 referred to, and contrasts the view set out in it with that 
 of the German Chancellor. The latter said in his speech 
 in the Reichstag that Lord Haldane assured him in 1912 
 of the " genuine desire of the English Cabinet for an 
 understanding." Count Reventlow declares that this 
 so-called genuine desire was a mere figure of rhetoric. 
 Lord Haldane had, as the result of years of work, based 
 largely on knowledge obtained in Germany in 1906, 
 "powerfully reorganized the British Army, and espe- 
 cially the Expeditionary Force," with serious results 
 from a German point of view, inasmuch as Germany 
 had now the prospect of an attack, by forces organized like 
 her own, on the flank of her army if it advanced. And 
 yet Lord Haldane ventured to come again in 191 2 to pose 
 as the known and trusted friend of Germany. He asked 
 for confidence, and it was given him. Count Reventlow 
 says that the Imperial Chancellor, of whom he is a keen 
 critic, reported that Lord Haldane was unfavourably im- 
 pressed by the news that a new German Fleet Law was 
 impending. The Chancellor, according to this critic, was 
 too easygoing. The German Admiralty, as the result 
 of the Morocco crisis of 191 1, were then pressing for an 
 increase of the German Fleet, and wanted the addition of 
 six battleships besides more armoured cruisers, but he
 
 LORD HALDANE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 147 
 
 declares that Lord Haldane urged the inexpediency for 
 both Germany and Great Britain of provoking a race in 
 shipbuilding, and succeeded. The result of the pressure 
 he brought to bear was that when the new Fleet Law was 
 brought in shortly afterwards, in March, it provided only 
 for three battleships, and of these only two were to be 
 completed in definite years, the third being put off indefi- 
 nitely. The result of these and other modifications, says 
 Count Reventlow, was that the Fleet got almost nothing of 
 what it so direly needed, great armoured ships. " During 
 the visit of Lord Haldane the plan for adding to the Fleet 
 by new construction was cut down by more than half!' ^ 
 Although he had obtained this result, he complains that 
 Lord Haldane nevertheless refused to accept the German 
 formula for an absolute neutrality of both countries in case 
 of war, and set off for London, having only proposed the 
 limited formula for good relations which Sir Edward Grey 
 afterwards offered officially. The negotiations then passed 
 into the hands of the German Ambassador in London and 
 the British Foreign Secretary. With them were taken up 
 the threads of other negotiations on topics about which 
 Lord Haldane had conversed freely, but yet without pro- 
 posing any detailed heads of agreement. Among these 
 were the Bagdad Railway and the extension of the treaty 
 relating to Delagoa Bay, entered into between Germany 
 and Great Britain in 1898. Count Reventlow says that 
 both the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey had inti- 
 mated in December 191 1 that Great Britain did not desire 
 to prevent Germany from expanding in Mid-Africa. Lord 
 Haldane opened a general conversation with the German 
 Chancellor on the topic, but only as a nebenzweck (sub- 
 sidiary object). The discussion was handed over to the 
 German Ambassador, with whom it was pursued in London 
 by Sir Edward Grey. But whereas the old agreement of 
 1898 had been based on the idea that the Portuguese 
 Colonies would come into the market, much had happened 
 in the meantime. In the days of King Edward the British 
 Government had assisted Portugal financially, and her 
 colonies were, as the result, unlikely to come into the 
 
 ' Page 428.
 
 148 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 market. Still, the Portuguese colonies in Africa would 
 require money for their commercial development. Rail- 
 ways would become very important. In this way Germany 
 and Great Britain would gain new positions of great 
 iufluence if they could agree to apportion definitely their 
 spheres of influence. " This was approximately what the 
 British Government wanted people in Berlin to believe in 
 and hope for, and it had a corresponding result. Well on 
 in the year 191 3, when the agreement had for some time 
 been concluded and signed by the representatives of the 
 two countries, the German public was still believing 
 that negotiations were being carried still further, and was 
 waiting with expectation for their outcome. They did not 
 understand why the result did not appear, and could not 
 explain to themselves the silence of the German Govern- 
 ment. The real truth was that after the negotiations had 
 been concluded and the signatures and paraphrasing had 
 taken place, the British Government had insisted on the 
 transaction being kept secret. The moment was not 
 propitious ; the German entry into Portuguese colonial 
 territories must first progress and be correspondingly 
 supported by German capital, so as to create real German 
 ' interest.' Thus the agreement was doomed to remain in 
 the cupboard, a costly but not utilizable treasure. To-day 
 it is impossible to doubt any longer that these negotiations 
 were only entered on and the agreement was only con- 
 cluded in order to hold back the German Empire, and at 
 the same time to suggest to the German Government the 
 idea that an intimate co-operation with Great Britain was 
 in prospect. The British Government desired to per- 
 suade the German people of its goodwill and peaceful 
 intentions because it wanted to gain time for its plans as 
 regards the East and for the completion of the armament 
 of Russia." ^ 
 
 This story is, of course, a travesty of the real course of 
 events, as Sir Edv/ard Grey will doubtless reveal in due 
 time. Count Reventlow, it will be noted, abstains from 
 reproaching Lord Haldane him>self with having to do with 
 these particular negotiations, although he endeavours to 
 
 ' Page 434.
 
 LORD HALDAxNE'S GERMAN MISSIONS 149 
 
 fix him with having cast dust into the eyes of Germany in 
 the earlier diplomatic conversations. 
 
 The verdict of history will be passed on the charge with 
 which Count Reventlow's apologia of 477 pages concludes : 
 " The lust of Great Britain for extension of her rule and 
 her commerce have been the motives which have led her 
 to organize the world, and to set it in motion in order 
 to start a war of annihilation against a friendly people." * 
 
 The situation in 1912 was this: With slightly better 
 relations between Downing Street and the Wilhelmstrasse, 
 there was in the minds of men in both countries a feeling 
 that any provocative word or action might bring to Europe 
 the awful calamity of war. The British Government had 
 done its best. The head of the German Government and 
 other high personages in Germany had done their best. 
 But suspicion was not destroyed ; mistrust and jealousy 
 and fear were still at work ; and these mean movements 
 in the heart of man, dignified by grander names in the 
 case of empires, began from this moment to express them- 
 selves with less shame and more hardihood in the news- 
 papers of the two countries, spreading an ever-widening 
 sense of anxiety and distrust among the peoples, to the 
 growing satisfaction of those Germans and those English- 
 men who wanted war and who have ever believed that war 
 is inevitable. 
 
 No honest man, looking back to those days and faith- 
 fully examining his own conscience — remembering that 
 thousands and hundreds of thousands of young men have 
 been slain, mutilated, blinded, and driven mad by this war, 
 and also that thousands and hundreds of thousands have 
 lost in this war the most beautiful and sacred objects of 
 their human love — no honest man, I say, looking back 
 to the year of 191 2 but must thank God if he then strove 
 for peace, and was not upon the side of those who spoke at 
 random or uttered the sentiments of hate. 
 
 " By opprobrious epithets," says Sir Thomas Browne, 
 " we miscall each other, and by an uncharitable logic, from 
 
 ' Page 477-
 
 150 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 a disposition in a few, conclude a habit in all." And he 
 warns us that " by a word we wound a thousand, and at 
 one blow assassine the honour of a nation." He con- 
 tents himself, in detecting faults in other people, with 
 an admonition or instructive reprehension ; " for noble 
 natures, and such as are capable of goodness, are railed 
 into vice, that might as easily be admonished into virtue ; 
 and we should be all so far the orators of goodness as 
 to protect her from the powers of vice and maintain 
 the cause of injured truth." 
 
 Dostoevsky tells us in a beautiful passage beginning, 
 " Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round 
 yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is 
 a seemly one," that, passing by a child with a scowling face 
 and black thoughts in our minds, we may implant upon 
 his "defenceless heart" that which will grow up and 
 perhaps harm him. 
 
 By a word we wound a thousand. What an inscription 
 for the newspaper offices of Europe !
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE
 
 ... I remember Mr. Frederic Harrison beginning to 
 harangue, with his usual fiery eloquence, on the enerva- 
 tion of England, and on the brute mass of us who are 
 not Comtists. Arrainius checked him. "Enervation!'' 
 said he ; " depend upon it, yours is still the most fighting 
 people in the whole world. Malignancy ! — the best 
 character of the English people ever yet given ... is 
 still this of Burke's :-" The ancient and inbred integrity, 
 piety, good-nature, and good-humour of the people of 
 England." Your nation is sound enough, if only it can 
 be taught that being able to do what one likes, and say 
 what one likes, is not sufficient for salvation. Its dangers 
 are from a surfeit of clap-trap, due to the false notion that 
 liberty and publicity are not only valuable for the use to 
 be made of them, but are goods in themselves, nay, are 
 the summum bonum .' " 
 
 Friendship's Garland
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN was perfectly prepared in 1912 to 
 fulfil all her engagements ; she was more ready 
 than any of her allies ; and at the outbreak of 
 hostilities in 1914 she alone was in a position instantly 
 and entirely to substantiate every word of her under- 
 takings with armed force. 
 
 It is, therefore, a travesty of reason to say that the British 
 Government were taken by surprise, or to assert, as some 
 base people have had the hardihood and the extreme 
 wickedness to suggest, that Lord Haldane did not 
 sufficiently warn his colleagues of the dangers ahead. 
 
 Because he and his colleagues made speeches which 
 were aimed to strengthen the peace party in Germany, 
 aimed, that is, to avert the awful calamity of war, it is 
 concluded by stupid and evil-minded people that no pre- 
 parations were made for an armed struggle either then or 
 in the future. Those preparations had already been made. 
 There was nothing to do but stand by and wait for the 
 hour, if the hour should come. A reasonable man will see 
 that if ministers in this country had made provocative 
 speeches, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg — who did not, as 
 M. Sazonoff says, want war — would have been dismissed 
 from his high office. The war party were doing everything 
 they could to compass this dismissal. The swagger- 
 ing Crown Prince went about openly manifesting im- 
 patience with his father and the Chancellor ; Admiral von 
 Tirpitz was pressing his policy relentlessly ; and in the 
 background was Prince von Blilow, who had always feared 
 
 >53
 
 154 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 the Entente, watching every move on the European chess- 
 board, and, among very powerful sections of German 
 opinion, expressing his criticisms of the Chancellor's 
 diplomacy. 
 
 The idea that Germany would never have made war if 
 she had been perfectly certain of British intervention needs 
 to be very thoroughly examined before it is accepted as 
 truth. Germany, it seems probable, would not have risked 
 a war with France and Russia if she had been certain that 
 Great Britain would support her allies ; and so long as she 
 was absolutely certain that Great Britain would support 
 those allies, she refrained from war. Lord Haldane in 
 Berlin, and Sir Edward Grey in London, made it so trans- 
 parently clear that Britain would not permit France to be 
 attacked, made this fact the unalterable postulate, the 
 irrefragable condition, the everlasting sine qua non of all 
 their efforts towards an understanding with Germany, that 
 so long as there was nothing to prevent Britain from 
 keeping her word, Germany held her hand. 
 
 From 191 2 to 19 14, although the Germans knew how 
 industriously this country and her allies were at work to 
 perfect their organization for war (an industry which made 
 the war party in Germany exceedingly busy with their 
 tongues and pens), the peace was kept. Because Ger- 
 many knew that Lord Haldane meant what he said she 
 dared not attack either Russia or France. Suspicious, 
 troubled, doubting, and sore afraid, she looked on and saw 
 the preparations which were being made in France and 
 Russia for the hazard of war ; but because of England 
 kept the peace. So far, then, the understanding estab- 
 lished by Lord Haldane and Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg 
 had worked for good. Two years had passed since those 
 conversations, and there was still peace. 
 
 Let an Englishman put on German spectacles and see 
 how the history of those years presents itself to his eyes. 
 France had made a loan to Russia to which certain very 
 important military conditions were attached ; Russian 
 railways were to be built towards the German frontier, 
 and that frontier was to be strengthened. France had 
 replied to a new military law in Germany by a new
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 155 
 
 military law of her own. Great Britain, standing sted- 
 fastly and honourably to her engagements, had brought 
 her small but admirable new army to a state of almost 
 exquisite perfection for expeditionary purposes, and was 
 making gigantic increases to her already overwhelming fleet. 
 
 Of course, from our point of view all these increases 
 were justified : they sprang entirely from German provoca- 
 tion ; but to the German in the storm centre of the world, 
 particularly those Germans who distrusted England and 
 believed that this country would one day precipitate war 
 on the Continent in the interests of her trade, these tre- 
 mendous preparations could only intensify suspicion and 
 dismay. 
 
 The British Government, who had many other sources 
 of inspiration besides Lord Haldane, though none more 
 wise and dependable, believed that the peace party in 
 Germany was preponderant, and hoped that it could be 
 maintained in preponderance by two definite strokes of 
 British policy — the continued declaration that in no case 
 would this country allow France or Russia to be wantonly 
 attacked, and the faithful assurance that Great Britain, 
 desiring to maintain friendly relations with Germany, 
 would not lend herself to aggression on the part of her 
 allies. With these two declarations made quite simply 
 but with the earnestness of their sincere intention, silently 
 and ceaselessly this great country increased the strength of 
 her fighting forces by land and by sea. 
 
 Was this policy a false policy ? and did it really fail ? 
 It was the policy of King Edward, the policy to which he 
 had devoted his reign, and it was the policy of the Con- 
 servative party and the Liberal party. No man even 
 questioned it at the time. There was a suggestion for 
 National Service from outside political parties, a suggestion 
 which would have introduced the utmost chaos into our 
 military machine at a critical hour, and might have plunged 
 the whole country into industrial conflict ; but no respon- 
 sible party in British politics questioned the wisdom of the 
 British Government in declaring its wish for friendly rela- 
 tions with Germany and its determination to stand by 
 France and Russia in the case of a wanton attack.
 
 156 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 No man at the time said that this was a false policy : 
 and no man of any sense or position has questioned it 
 since the outbreak of war. And did this policy fail ? 
 
 It failed only when the conditions were so violently 
 changed that the Germans doubted, not the will or the 
 truth of England, but her physical ability to fulfil her 
 engagements. It failed, that is, when important people in 
 this country and in the north of Ireland sent to Germany 
 for rifles, spread mutiny among the armed forces of the 
 Crown, and openly boasted that an Act of the British 
 Parliament would be opposed to the point of civil war. 
 Not till that hour, that most evil and unpardonable hour 
 in the history of modern and constitutional England, did 
 the German Junkers dare to take the risk of a European 
 war. So long as this country was in a condition which 
 suggested that above every other consideration she would 
 support France in the event of an aggressive attack upon 
 her, so long did Germany hold her hand. And directly 
 this country was involved in a most serious internal dispute, 
 Germany struck with all her might.^ 
 
 In 19 1 2 died Marschall von Bieberstein, who had suc- 
 ceeded Metternich in this country, and who was perhaps 
 
 ' No less a person than Lord Derby, and as late as August 1916, 
 has admitted that the Unionist party contemplated the possibility of 
 civil war in 1914. He said to a meeting in Lancashire : 
 
 " I am a firm believer in Sir Edward Carson. Two years ago, 
 when Home Rule looked as if it might result in civil war, it was Sir 
 Edward Carson who placed his case before the people of Lancashire. 
 ... I believed in him then — I believe in him implicitly now — as I 
 believe what he strove to achieve would have been for the benefit 
 of this country and for the Empire as a whole. 
 
 " I want you to look at things as they are, and not as they were, 
 because the difference is extremely great. What was the position 
 before the war ? To have achieved success for the Ulster Unionists 
 meant two things — money to pay and men to fight for Ulster. Has 
 not the country somewhat altered since then ? No doubt money 
 would be subscribed ; but there is one thing absolutely certain : when 
 peace happily comes you are not going to get the men of this country 
 to engage in a civil war. 
 
 " If we searched our hearts a few years ago we should probably 
 have looked upon every Nationalist member as a rebel to this country. 
 I venture to say that nobody with a spark of honesty in him would 
 now say so."
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 157 
 
 the ablest of living Germans ; he was succeeded by a sin- 
 gularly agreeable but not very brilliant ambassador, Prince 
 Lichnowsky, whose wife was devoted to this country and 
 made many friends in the more educated and refined circles 
 of English society. There is no reason to doubt that Prince 
 Lichnowsky came to this country as an earnest of the 
 Emperor's desire and Dr. von Bethmann-Holhvegg's desire 
 to improve Germany's relations with Great Britain. 
 
 At this time Lord Haldane succeeded Lord Loreburn 
 as Lord High Chancellor of England, a distinction which 
 some of the ablest judges in the country, men like the un- 
 bending Tory Lord Halsbury, had desired for him in 1905. 
 He left the War Office, as I have already shown, not only 
 with tributes of the highest praise from soldiers like Lord 
 French, but with laurels presented to him by all the news- 
 papers, some of which have never ceased from 19 14 to 
 blacken his name with infamy. 
 
 From this time forward Lord Haldane had less to do 
 with foreign policy, and he paid no further visit to 
 Germany. He had left the Army in a state of great 
 perfection, he had placed our relations with Germany on a 
 better footing, and he was now free to devote his remark- 
 able powers to the exacting duties of his new office. His 
 oldest and closest friend. Sir Edward Grey, had successfully 
 conducted the negotiations connected with the Balkan 
 War : the diplomatic sky was all but cloudless ; the 
 doubtful German Ambassador was dead ; the peace party 
 in Germany was still in the saddle; and our great allies, 
 France and Russia, were easier in their minds than they 
 had been for a considerable period. 
 
 But gradually a spirit manifested itself in England's 
 home politics which changed the whole atmosphere of 
 Europe. Europe knew well enough that our intense 
 individualism exposed us at any moment to the incon- 
 veniences and dangers of great industrial conflicts ; but 
 Europe did not know, had never guessed, that a nation so 
 devoted to constitutional procedure, a nation so proud of 
 its position as the mother of parliaments, would ever 
 proceed to the anarchy of civil war in a partisan resistance 
 to the Statute Book. All through 191 3 the fight for
 
 158 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and against Home Rule was conducted with a bitterness, 
 a vulgarity, and a want of reason which would have been 
 disgraceful to a third-rate debating society. Responsible 
 statesmen called the most eminent minister in the House 
 of Commons a liar ; the vocabulary of Billingsgate was 
 ransacked for the most offensive epithets to hurl at the 
 head of his opponents by a man whose fortune had been 
 made at the Bar, and who had held high legal office in 
 a British Government ; the House of Commons was dis- 
 graced in the eyes of the whole world by a meanness of 
 mind, a narrowness of heart, and a vulgarity of temper 
 such as seldom exhibit themselves in the youngest parlia- 
 ments of the most uncivilized people ; and behind all this 
 turmoil at Westminster was the wild, frantic, and irrespon- 
 sible raving of a Press which had raved in exactly the 
 same spirit, though in a milder degree, against the grant 
 of self-government to South Africa. 
 
 It was during this time that the German Emperor went 
 over, not body and soul, but nervously and tentatively, to 
 the war party. 
 
 In the summer of 191 3 a different spirit manifested itself 
 in Berlin. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg kept his place — it 
 was convenient for the Kaiser to keep him — but society 
 knew, politicians knew, and the newspapers knew, that the 
 Emperor's mind was beginning to consider the wisdom 
 of striking right and left before his neighbours grew too 
 strong for him. Only the fear of England held him at 
 this moment; and then began the campaign for the 
 Emperor's soul by those very close to him, an insidious 
 and yet confident campaign, which aimed to convince him, 
 first, that England was the moving spirit in the threatening 
 Entente, and that this same wicked and cowardly England 
 was decadent, undisciplined, and degenerate. 
 
 Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg might strive to maintain 
 good relations with this country : it was not merely a 
 harmless but a very useful office for so weak and senti- 
 mental a mind ; but let the great War Lord listen to the 
 voice of Austria — the voice of Austria telling him as if an 
 angel of God were at his ear that the Slav Peril which 
 threatened her, threatened him also ; and let the great
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 159 
 
 War Lord give heed likewise to the voice of his mightiest, 
 and most confident, and most faithful generals, who said 
 that to strike now at Russia would be safe, but to strike in 
 two years' time would be too late ; and let the great War 
 Lord consider what his statesmen are saying, that a man 
 of the blood of Frederick the Great would not abide the 
 hour of his jealous enemies, but for the safety, honour, 
 glory, and welfare of the Fatherland would strike in his 
 own hour. 
 
 I confess that the Emperor's position was as difficult as 
 any autocrat's in history ; if he waited he might see his 
 empire burst suddenly in upon from both sides ; and if he 
 struck well and surely in his own convenient hour, not 
 only might he destroy the threatening enemies on his 
 frontiers, but add to the greatness, the glory of the Hohen- 
 zollerns. 
 
 In the spring of 1914 occurred the incident at the 
 Curragh. The Commander-in-Chief issued certain orders 
 which, tactfully given or not, were the orders of a superior 
 officer ; they were not accepted by those under him. 
 Ladies in London drawing-rooms were as elated by 
 this act of mutiny as the great and little newspapers 
 which represented the interests of the privileged classes. 
 A chorus of delight was raised. Wherever one went 
 people cackled of nothing else. I said to the daughter 
 of a nobleman, " The talk at your table is like a servants'- 
 hall ! " ; she laughed and replied, " But it is the servants'- 
 hall." Scandals about ministers multiplied, and scandals 
 about ministers' wives intensified in stupidity and 
 malignity ; and through it all was the savage, godless, 
 and hilarious joy at the prospect of breaking a Government 
 devoted to social reform. The greatest people in London 
 chuckled and rubbed their hands with the rarest pleasure. 
 It was the chance of a lifetime. Radicals had said that 
 the Ulster Movement was " blufif" — let the Curragh 
 incident teach them to look for another word. Bluff? It 
 was going to be civil war ! They spoke of anarchy as if 
 it were a picnic. 
 
 To these numskulls, to the lowest dregs of plutocratic 
 society, and to the newspapers of law and order, this
 
 i6o THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 incident at the Curragh nieant dishing the despised 
 Radicals, destroying the power of the nnost loathed and 
 detested demagogue, Mr. Lloyd George, and the social 
 defeat of a lady, the wife of a minister, more hated than 
 any other person in London. It meant something else 
 to Sir Edward Grey at the War Office. And it meant 
 something else to Lord Haldane on the Woolsack. 
 
 To Sir Edward Grey this incident and the subsequent 
 passion it aroused, meant watching Germany with more 
 anxious eyes. Certain people in this country and in the 
 north of Ireland sent a large order for rifles to Germany. 
 The German Government is said to have cleared the 
 traffic in the Kiel Canal in order to let the steamship 
 Fanny, carrying these German rifles from Hamburg, steal 
 into the North Sea round Denmark, in order to escape 
 capture by the British Navy. Why should the German 
 Government be interested in the Orangemen of Ireland? 
 And while the German Government was thus manifest- 
 ing its sympathy with the Ulster Volunteers, France was 
 disturbed by the discovery of mismanagement as regards 
 her stores, also by the circumstance that her new system 
 of service with the colours had not come into operation, 
 and also by the threatening condition of affairs in 
 England. 
 
 As regards the British Expeditionary Force, Vv'hether it 
 had been as closely geared up during the two years in 
 which Lord Haldane had ceased to reign at the War 
 Office may be open to doubt ; the machine itself was as 
 perfect in its mechanism as the great minister had left it, 
 and relations with the Admiralty could not have been 
 better. Nothing was wanting to set this expeditionary 
 machine in instant motion. But it would have been a better 
 thing for this country if the minister who made that 
 machine had been there to work it with the soldiers whose 
 intelligence he had tried and not found wanting. 
 
 In July of this fatal year came the first declaration of 
 war, and on August 4th Great Britain was involved in it. 
 Sir Edward Grey, who was living at the town house of 
 Lord Haldane in Queen Anne's Gate, during the whole of 
 those awful days, wrestled in an agony of soul to preserve
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE i6i 
 
 the peace.i King George, faithful to his ministers and to 
 his father's memory, did everything in his power to bring 
 the German Emperor to reason. But all effort was now in 
 vain. The Emperor had become \j\e tool of the war party, 
 and peace fled from the fields of Europe. 
 
 Professor Holland Rose has replied to the criticisms of 
 a friendly neutral that Germany would have shrunk from 
 making war if she had been perfectly convinced that 
 England would not stand aloof; and also to the contention 
 of Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg that France and Russia 
 " would never have ventured on a defiant reply to Germany 
 if they had not been sure of the assistance of Great 
 Britain." So admirable is this reply of Professor Holland 
 Rose, which appeared in the Daily Chronicle on August 3, 
 19 16, that I shall venture to quote the greater part of it ; 
 only remarking on the rather curious fact that, although 
 Professor Rose had under his eyes the recent statement of 
 M. Sazonoff referred to in the previous chapter of this 
 book, he does not comment upon the significant statement 
 of M. Sazonoff that Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg did not 
 want war. It is a statement which so far as I know has 
 entirely escaped the attention of the English mind. 
 Professor Rose says : 
 
 Both these sets of charges collapse when brought 
 into contact with the known facts of the case, as I 
 will try briefly to show from the Official Correspond- 
 ence of the British and French Governments. That 
 England did nothing to encourage France and Russia 
 is clear from the British dispatches 6 and 17, which 
 show that those Governments tried hard, on July 24th 
 and 25th, to induce England to proclaim her soli- 
 darity with them as regards the Austro-Serb dispute. 
 The British Ambassador at Petrograd, Sir George 
 Buchanan, refused to do so, and Viscount Grey con- 
 firmed his refusal (No. 24). PVance and Russia then 
 deplored our independent attitude as involving a risk 
 
 ' Because numerous ambassadors called frequently at Lord 
 Haldane's house during those days, many newspapers concluded that 
 the overworked Lord Chancellor was conducting the diplomacy of the 
 country. They came, of course, to see the Foreign Secretary, 
 
 M
 
 i62 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of war ; but their regrets prove, at any rate, that we 
 were in no respect committed to them, and that we 
 intended to persist in this non-committal poHcy. 
 Even on August ist, when hostilities by Germany 
 and Austria against Russia and France were hourly 
 expected, Viscount Grey assured the German Ambas- 
 sador, Prince Lichnowsky, that "Our hands were still 
 free, and we were considering what our attitude would 
 be." This dispatch (No. 123) proves that it was the 
 question of preserving the neutrality of Belgium (on 
 which Germany refused to give any assurance — see 
 No. 122), which alone caused the British Government 
 acute anxiety for the immediate future, anxiety which 
 it clearly manifested to the German Government. 
 
 These facts suffice to disprove the charges that 
 Great Britain encouraged France and Russia to "defy" 
 Germany. But there remain the other charges, that 
 the British Government was too pacific, and thereby 
 lured Germany to her doom ; that our policy shrouded 
 itself under the cloak of peace in order to deal the 
 dagger-thrust on August 4th. This theory has at- 
 tracted minds of a certain order, even in this country. 
 But does it fit the facts ? They are these : Though, 
 on July 24th and 25th, Sir George Buchanan and 
 Viscount Grey took steps to warn France and Russia 
 that they must not count on British support, yet our 
 Government, on July 27th, made it clear that Germany 
 and Austria ought not to rely on our neutrality in all 
 circumstances. A very significant fact was the counter- 
 manding on that day of the orders for the Great Fleet 
 assembled at Portland to disperse for manceuvres. 
 Viscount Grey believed that step would create a 
 great impression (Nos. 47, 48); and in the new school 
 of Realpolitik supreme at Berlin such an act must 
 have weighed far more than verbal warnings, however 
 official. 
 
 But verbal warnings were given on that day. 
 Viscount Grey then cautioned the Austrian Ambas- 
 sador that the consequences of Austria's threatened 
 action against Serbia "would be incalculable." He
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 163 
 
 also stated to Prince Lichnovvsky that that action 
 might " bring other Powers in, and the war would be 
 the biggest ever known " ; but he would keep in 
 touch with Germany so long as she " would work to 
 keep the peace." Further warnings were then given 
 to the German Ambassador by Sir Arthur Nicolson, 
 Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs. The precise terms which he employed are, 
 unfortunately, not known ; and, if an official and 
 contemporary minute of that conversation exists at 
 our Foreign Office, it might with advantage be pub- 
 lished. But the tenor of that conversation is clear 
 from the account given by the P>ench Charg^ 
 d'Affaires in London to his Government : " Sir Arthur 
 Nicolson m'a dit que, cependant, le Prince Lichnowski 
 ne pouvait, apres la conversation qu'il a eu avec lui 
 aujourd'hui, conserver aucun doute sur la liberty 
 qu'entendait garder le Gouvernement Britannique 
 d'intervenir, au cas ou il le jugerait utile." He also 
 described Viscount Grey's warnings to the German 
 Ambassador (" French Yellow Book," Nos. 63, 66). 
 In the light of these facts (reinforced by the sig- 
 nificant holding in readiness of the great British 
 Fleet), how is it possible to assert that our Foreign 
 Office left Germany completely in the dark ? True, 
 its language did not partake of the brutal incisive- 
 ness that enlivens many a town council meeting. 
 Diplomacy is always polite ; and politeness has 
 helped to tide over many a crisis peacefully. Besides, 
 there was nothing up to July 27th that warranted 
 the adoption of threatening language by Great 
 Britain. The Austro-Serb dispute did not directly 
 concern us. But, from the outset (i.e. from July 23rd), 
 Viscount Grey had discerned the danger of a far wider 
 conflict, and had striven to avert it by the well-known 
 suggestion that France and Great Britain should seek 
 to moderate the resentment of Russia, while Germany 
 and Italy pacified Austria. On July 27th Prince 
 Lichnowsky assured him that the "German Govern- 
 ment accepts in principle mediation between Austria
 
 i64 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and Russia by the four Powers," Not until July 
 28th did the outlook become almost hopeless. On 
 that day Austria declared war on Serbia, and Germany 
 declined Viscount Grey's suggestion of mediation by 
 the four Powers. The fact that the Central Empires 
 simultaneously adopted courses of action which 
 gravely imperilled the peace of the world seems to 
 show that they had all along been acting in concert ; 
 it certainly shows that those Governments were 
 resolved to ignore the serious warnings which their 
 Ambassadors received from the British Government 
 on the previous day. 
 
 Further, when Viscount Grey suggested to Germany, 
 that, even though she rejected his proposals, he would 
 accord a friendly reception to pacific proposals of her 
 own, none whatever were forthcoming. The intention 
 to ignore the British Government, and to treat its 
 proposals with disdain, could not be more signally 
 demonstrated. The only question on which there 
 can be any doubt is whether the German and Austrian 
 Ambassadors sufficiently informed their Governments 
 as to the warnings of the British Foreign Office. The 
 terms of the telegram of His Majesty, King George V, 
 to the Kaiser, on August ist, prove that Lichnowsky 
 had either misunderstood Viscount Grey or had not 
 apprised his Government correctly as to the situation 
 here (French Yellow Book, Appendix II). 
 
 There were considerations of a wider nature which 
 forbade anything like sword-rattling at London. 
 Firstly, a constitutional minister must be very sure 
 of the support of the Parliament and nation before 
 he uses language at all approaching menace. Now, 
 both Parliament and nation were indisposed to take 
 vigorous steps on a question which primarily con- 
 cerned Serbia, Austria, and Russia. A newspaper, 
 which has since been remarkable for its flamboyant 
 patriotism, then put forth the headline, " To Hell with 
 Serbia"; and, if its sulphurous signal had been dis- 
 regarded, would have added, " To Hell with Grey." 
 And more important considerations than these
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 165 
 
 rendered caution imperative. With labour troubles 
 rife in Great Britain and a civil war imminent in 
 Ireland, a Foreign Minister who played a game of 
 bluff against two great military empires armed to 
 the teeth and inflamed with passion would have 
 deserved impeachment ; and assuredly those who 
 now impugn Viscount Grey for " want of plainness" 
 would then have been the first to clamour against 
 him for dealing in threats which he could not make 
 good. The charges flung at him during the debate 
 of August 3rd, even when the independence of 
 Belgium was at stake, reveal the nagging temper of 
 a large section of the House. Surely, then, he acted 
 wisely in not posing as the arbiter of the Continent. 
 A statesman who speaks like Palmerston needs to 
 have " Pam's " Parliament and nation behind him. 
 
 Critics who assert that the war would have been 
 averted if, on July 24-27, Viscount Grey had well 
 seasoned his dispatches with invectives, assume that 
 he knew a great European war to be inevitable. 
 Of course, he knew nothing of the kind. The crisis 
 then did not seem to be worse than those of 1909 
 and 1913, also arising out of Balkan affairs. His 
 statesmanship had largely helped to solve that of 
 191 3. Why not that of 1914? Clearly he hoped to 
 do so by his suggestion, on July 24th, that Germany, 
 France, Italy, and Great Britain " should act together 
 for the sake of peace simultaneously at Vienna and 
 St. Petersburg," a suggestion at once accepted by 
 France, Russia, and Italy. His policy of conciliation 
 held the field until July 28th, when the actions of 
 Austria and Germany negatived it. But, meanwhile, 
 how could he in any way have threatened them .'' He 
 was bound to go on with his conciliatory procedure, 
 until the Central Empires rejected it, thereby drawing 
 on themselves complete responsibility for the failure 
 of pacific efforts. Incidentally, his policy had the 
 advantage of facilitating a change in that of Italy. 
 The Cabinet of Rome, being joined to the Triple 
 Alliance only so long as it was of a defensive char-
 
 i66 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 acter, was free to break loose so soon as it became 
 offensive. Now, the actions of Austria (always 
 abetted by Germany) became more and more aggres- 
 sive on the days July 23-28. Italy strongly dis- 
 approved those actions. But, if the Central Empires, 
 on July 25-27, had been confronted by a joint 
 declaration of Russia, France, and Great Britain, 
 they could have represented it to their hitherto 
 doubtful ally as a deliberate menace, which imposed 
 on her the duty of rallying to their side. In that 
 case it is very doubtful whether Italy could honour- 
 ably have refused. Certainly, it would have been 
 extremely difficult for her to decide, as she did 
 by August 1st, not to support Austria. The fire- 
 eaters, who claim that Viscount Grey should early 
 have ranged England on the side of Russia and 
 France, forget that such a proceeding would probably 
 have ranged Italy on the side of Austria and Germany. 
 The defensive attitude of the British Foreign Office 
 was in reality far stronger than the offensive attitude 
 adopted by Austria and Germany. The policy of 
 Vienna and Berlin broke up the Triple Alliance. The 
 policy of London closed up the "open order" of the 
 Triple Entente and enabled it to develop into the 
 largest and firmest league of all time. 
 
 Finally, did Germany, on August 4, 19 14, show the 
 slightest regard for the British remonstrance against 
 her violation of the neutrality of Belgium ? Herr 
 Zimmerman then assured the British Ambassador, Sir 
 Edward Goschen, that Germany " could not possibly 
 give the assurance required, either that night or any 
 night." This almost contemptuous refusal gives the 
 measure of Germany's respect both for her own 
 international obligations and for our endeavour to 
 induce her to respect them. If she brushed aside our 
 protest on August 4th, even at the cost of encountering 
 our immediate hostility, what ground is there for 
 supposing that she would have heeded any warning 
 whatever that we might have given on July 24-27 ? 
 The supposition that we could then have averted 
 
 J
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 167 
 
 war is entirely at variance with the known facts of 
 the case. In truth, the more closely British diplo- 
 macy is examined, the more worthy it will appear of 
 the eulogium passed by Professor Stowell, of Columbia 
 University, New York — "one of England's glories, and 
 a pattern for generations to come." 
 
 The history of the negotiations immediately preceding 
 war could not be more fairly and overwhelmingly pre- 
 sented in brief form. Britain neither drove Russia and 
 France to war, nor left Germany in any reasonable doubt 
 as to the attitude of this country in the event of aggressive 
 attitude on her part towards either Russia or France. 
 These things can no more be gainsaid than the laws of 
 nature or the propositions of Euclid. 
 
 How, then, can we explain the gnashing rage and fury 
 of almost the whole German nation whenever the name of 
 England is now mentioned? It is folly to suppose that 
 this hatred is pretended, or that it is unintelligent, or that 
 it is infamous hypocrisy. It is so deep, so general, and so 
 intense that we must conclude there is some rational 
 explanation to account for it. A whole people does not 
 go suddenly mad, or at a stroke become the finished actor 
 of hypocrisy. There are many people in Germany who 
 are hypocrites, and many who are mad with baffled fury ; 
 but there are others neither mad nor hypocritical whose 
 hatred of England is just as passionate and indignant as 
 those who pretend and those who are only hysterical. 
 What is the explanation ? 
 
 Let us ignore the fanatics of Pan-Germanism, and 
 consider the interesting and typical case of the German 
 Emperor. William II, surrounded by enemies, had at 
 last made up his mind to fight a swift and crushing war 
 of defence. " Before God and history," he said a year 
 after hostilities, " my conscience is clear. I did not will this 
 war." France was to be knocked senseless and left bleed- 
 ing in a week or two, and then, swinging eastward, the dis- 
 orderly Russian legions, the legions of the Slav Peril, were 
 to be scattered like sheep before the drilled cohorts of the 
 Prussian War Lord. With Russia humbled, shattered,
 
 i68 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and cowed, the War Lord could breathe again ; and as 
 for France, who would certainly never forgive England, she 
 would not soon disturb his dreams again. His blow there 
 was to fall like a cataract. In this way, with his frontiers 
 cleared, the Entente dismembered, and the rest of the 
 world quaking before the might of Germany, what could 
 prevent expansion towards the East ? Austria would be 
 his vassal, Bulgaria was already in his pocket, and Turkey 
 could be had for the asking. It was a war of defence, but 
 in a war of defence, when the enemies who threatened our 
 peace are conquered, we stretch ourselves more freely in 
 the sun. Certainly until France was beaten to her knees, 
 and until Russia was rolled howling back far beyond Polish 
 territory, the German Empire could not feel itself safe. 
 There were those behind the war party who dreamed 
 wilder dreams than these, but I am convinced that for 
 the great multitude of the German nation this is how war 
 presented itself They wanted to breathe freely. They 
 wanted to be free from the Slav Peril and from the menace 
 of the Entente. The Emperor did not go to war as a 
 proud world conqueror whose plans were laid and whose 
 path of glory is shining in the sun. He went to war like 
 an irritable and terrified man who has made up his trembling 
 mind at last and is venturing much on a gigantic hazard. 
 He went to war protesting that his enemies had forced war 
 upon him, blustering to his people in the language of 
 Cromwell and Falstafif rolled into one man. From the 
 very first he was in this mood. 
 
 The account which Mr. Frederick Wile, the Berlin 
 correspondent of the Daily Mail, gives of the last days of 
 peace does not suggest that " Germany " planned, plotted, 
 and hungered for this war. Of the fateful Council of War 
 at Potsdam on July 29th, he says in The Assault: 
 
 Its precise details have never leaked out. So much 
 I believe can be here set down with certainty — it was 
 not quite a harmonious council which finally voted 
 for war. At the outset, at any rate, it was divided 
 into camps which found themselves in diametrical 
 opposition. The " peace party," or what was left of 
 it, was said, loath as the world is to believe it, to
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 169 
 
 have been headed by the Kaiser himself. Bethmann- 
 Hollweg supported his Imperial master's view that 
 war should only be resorted to as a last desperate 
 emergency. . . . Von Falkenhayn and von Tirpitz 
 favoured war. Germany was ready ; her adversaries 
 were not ; the issue was plain. Von Moltke was non- 
 committal. He is a Christian Scientist, and otherwise 
 pacific by temperament. 
 
 Of the Kaiser's arrival in Berlin on Friday, July 31st, 
 he says : 
 
 The brass-helmeted War Lord . . . was the per- 
 sonification of gravity. , . . He did not seem a happy 
 man, nor a tithe so haughty as I always imagined he 
 would be in the midst of war delirium. It was an 
 unmistakably anxious Kaiser who entered his capital 
 on that afternoon of deathless memory. 
 
 The afternoon of August ist, he says — 
 
 passed amid almost insufferable anxiety. Untcr 
 den Linden and the Lustgarten, the sprawling area 
 around the Castle, were choked with people tense 
 with expectancy. Dread, rather than war fervour, 
 inspired them. ... It was six o'clock. The doleful 
 chimes of the Cathedral . . . were summoning the 
 people to the service of intercession ordained by 
 the Emperor earlier in the day. Solemnity hung over 
 the multitude like a pall. Men and women knew 
 now that Russia's answer . . . meant war, not peace. 
 They had not long to wait for confirmatory news. 
 . . . The deed was done. " Gentlemen," the Kaiser 
 is said to have remarked to Moltke, Falkenhayn, 
 and the rest of the military clique, after affixing his 
 signature to the document which meant not only 
 mobilization, but war, "you will live to regret 
 this." 
 
 He tells the following remarkable story, vouching for its 
 truth : 
 
 I can vouch for the literal accuracy of a hitherto 
 unrecorded piece of ante-bellum history which bears 
 out my doubts of the Kaiser's immediate responsibility 
 for the war, though it does not acquit him of supine
 
 170 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 acquiescence in, and to that extent abetting, the war 
 party's plot. 
 
 On the afternoon of Saturday, August i, 1914, the 
 wife of Lieutenant-General Helmuth von Moltke, then 
 Chief of the Great German General Staff, paid a visit 
 to a certain home in Berlin which shall be nameless. 
 The Frau Gcneralstabschef was in a state of obvious 
 mental excitement. 
 
 " Ach^ what a day I've been through, Kinder!" she 
 began. " My husband came home just before I left. 
 Dog-tired, he threw himself on to the couch, a total 
 wreck, explaining to me that he had finally accom- 
 plished the three days' hardest work that he had ever 
 done in his whole life — he had helped to induce the 
 Kaiser to sign the mobilization order ! " 
 
 Examine the two words defensive and offensive, and 
 see what you can make of them. Did the British in Egypt 
 and South Africa and in the Himalayas fight offensive or 
 defensive wars ? When Lord Roberts went to Kandahar, 
 was he conducting a defensive or an offensive campaign? 
 When Lord Kitchener set out across the Arabian waste, 
 was he fighting a war of offence or defence? And when 
 Sir Redvers Buller landed in South Africa, was he the 
 leader of an offensive or a defensive expedition ? In every 
 one of those instances, surely we reply confidently that 
 our country was fighting a war of defence. And the 
 German Kaiser, believing that the Slav Peril which 
 threatened Austria likewise threatened him, believed and 
 still believes that he is fighting a war of defence. 
 
 The fury of the war party against this country is not 
 difficult to understand, except by those amongst us who 
 have persistently upbraided the Government and traduced 
 the character of our working people. Prussia's rage 
 against England is the rage of a baffled and frustrated and 
 ruined gambler. The entrance of England upon the 
 battlefield was the end of German hopes. From the first 
 moment when our diplomacy made it plain to Berlin that 
 we would intervene if she violated the neutrality of 
 Belgium, bitterness of the most acrid kind entered the
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 171 
 
 Prussian soul ; and when we actually declared war upon 
 Germany on August 4th, the storm of rage descended upon 
 us — a storm such as never before has been known among 
 nations. 
 
 And yet Mr, Oliver has the boldness to say in Ordeal 
 by Battle that the Germans only hate us because they 
 despise us ! I hardly know in all literature a more glaring 
 exhibition of prejudice than this statement solemnly made 
 by a man who sat down, when the pillars of civilization 
 were rocking and when the floor of Europe was drenched 
 with blood, to write a book on his fad. Let me quote the 
 actual words : 
 
 It is not a paradox, but merely a statement of plain 
 fact, to say that Germany's chief grievance against 
 ourselves was that we were not prepared to withstand 
 her attack. Her hatred, which has caused and still 
 causes us so much amazement, was founded upon the 
 surest of foundations — a want of respect. 
 Mark well, that these words were written after battles 
 which covered British arms with a glory greater than they 
 had ever known — battles in which the soldiers of Britain 
 shattered for ever the dream of German conquest. Lord 
 French, coolly smoking a cigarette among his incomparable 
 soldiers, had held up the massed legions of the greatest 
 fighting machine the world has ever known, held them up, 
 shattered them again and again, and had finally sent them 
 reeling from the coasts of France. The seas of the world 
 were swept clear of German commerce : our war vessels and 
 the vessels of our mercantile marine went where they would : 
 the colonies of Germany were falling into our hands : and 
 France was calmly and without haste making her prepara- 
 tions for recovery and advance. 
 
 Mr. Oliver falls into the same error as the late Professor 
 Cramb — he mistakes the rage of jealo2isy for the cold passion 
 of co7itcmpt. " Everything with man," says Frederick the 
 Great, " depends upon the time when he comes into the 
 world. Although I have come too late, I do not regret 
 it : I have seen Voltaire. . , ." Cramb saw that Germany 
 had come too late, but he mistook the chagrin and bad 
 temper of the late arrival for the contempt of a superior
 
 172 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 mind. If you examine the work of von Treitschke you 
 will find that his feelings for England are far too hot and 
 frenzied for genuine contempt. Contempt may certainly 
 be informed with the passion of righteous indignation : 
 but authentic contempt does not froth at the mouth, does 
 not stamp its foot, does not gesticulate, and does not talk 
 nonsense. 
 
 The true nature of Germany's feeling for this country is 
 now manifest. So long as we sought peace we were the 
 successful burglar retired from business who desired the 
 protection of the police ; but directly we moved our 
 mighty fleet and armed 5,000,000 of our free citizens 
 we were a brutal tyrant. The contempt for the retired 
 burglar was simulated ; the fear of the policeman was 
 real and genuine. 
 
 Our own militarists exhibit a like inconsistency. 
 Professor Cramb, for example, regards Pacifism with a 
 fanatical rage. He will not believe that humanity can 
 ever escape, or ought to want to escape, the fatality of war. 
 He hugs Bernhardi to his breast because that masculine 
 soldier replies to his own question, " What is Germany ? " 
 with the answer " It is strife ; it is war." And yet we 
 read in Germany and England such a phrase as this : " The 
 first dark roll that announces the coming dreadful storm, 
 the coming war." But why "dreadful"? If Pacifism is 
 contemptible, why not say glorious, or delightftd, or 
 beneficent ? And why, when war comes, and when it is 
 accompanied by those horrible excesses and atrocities 
 which have always accompanied war, why should our 
 militarists be the very first to howl out against the inhu- 
 manity of the warrior nation which they have never ceased 
 to hold up for our admiration and our model? 
 
 The Germans, we were told, loved that bitter saying 
 of Nietzsche's, "Man, after all, does not really desire 
 happiness ; only the Englishman does that " — a saying 
 which adroitly places the Englishman " outside the pale 
 of humanity altogether." But directly the Englishman, 
 growing somewhat weary of these gibes, proceeds to make 
 the German nation very unhappy indeed, more unhappy, 
 in fact, than they have ever been before, instead of thanking
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 173 
 
 us, instead of expressing gratitude and love to this 
 country, the German warriors almost explode with hatred. 
 There is no pleasing a militarist. 
 
 As for England's alleged supineness, cowardice, and 
 degeneracy, the matter does not now call for discussion. 
 History will discover at the end of Treitschke's works, 
 at the end of Bernhardi's pamphlets, and at the end of 
 poor Professor Cramb's neurotic lectures, one simple and 
 decisive sentence written by the greatest maker of history 
 that ever lived : — This is not true, (signed) Thomas Atkins. 
 It is one of my fond dreams that just as Charon was 
 conducted by Mercury to a place from which he could 
 see the world, so some angel of peace may have conducted 
 the pale ghosts of Treitschke and Cramb, hand in hand, 
 to some convenient place above the River Marne when the 
 British soldiers, in a Harmsworth phrase, were kicking 
 the finest armies of the Kaiser across three rivers. 
 
 That any man in his senses could solemnly write in 
 those amazing days, when this country was saving its ally 
 on foreign soil, that we were not prepared to withstand 
 Germany's attack, passes my comprehension ; but that he 
 should go so far on the road of nightmare and madness as 
 to say that Germany — Germany bleeding and bruised and 
 broken by our troops, Germany gnashing her teeth with 
 rage and anger against us, Germany disillusioned, balked, 
 and utterly discomfited because of us — to say that this 
 raging, yelling, screaming, and maddened Germany hated 
 us because she could not respect us, this is so staggering 
 and bewildering that it can only be repeated and preserved 
 as a monument of monomania. 
 
 I would ask Mr. Oliver and those who share his opinions 
 to read what a special correspondent of TJie Ti))ies had 
 to say of this matchless British force so late as August 3, 
 1916. He says : 
 
 It is almost a commonplace that our First 
 Expeditionary Force was probably the finest fighting 
 army for its size that the world ever saw. Our allies 
 do — our enemies will — allow so much. Either France 
 or Germany, perhaps, might have taken the pick of 
 all their millions and made another army of the
 
 174 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 same contemptible dimensions and unconquerable 
 spirit, but such another army was not and never 
 has been in existence. 
 
 There are those who fear that the splendour of 
 
 the old Army may be forgotten in the majesty of 
 
 the new. There is no danger of that. The honour 
 
 of the old Army is secure to all time. And it was 
 
 its example, its precedent and achievement, which 
 
 made it possible for these new Armies to be what 
 
 they have proved themselves. 
 
 It was the entrance on the scene of battle of this British 
 
 Expeditionary Force, inaugurated and made by a man 
 
 whom Mr. Oliver insults without a blush, which told the 
 
 Germans, as nothing else told them at the time except 
 
 the British Navy, that their war of defence was in very 
 
 sober truth a war of defence, and such a defence as would 
 
 try them to- the very soul. M. Venizelos is reported to 
 
 have said that Germany was beaten on the Marne, but 
 
 that it would take her two years to realize it. 
 
 Far from despising us, Germany feared us more than 
 anything else in the world. Some of her fanatics did 
 indeed endeavour to prove in a string of words that we 
 were decadent, just as people in this country attempted 
 to prove that Germany was dissolute and her army over- 
 trained. But the cool heads of Germany judged truly 
 that of all the Powers she had to fear England was most 
 to be dreaded, and that what her discipline had to meet 
 before she could ever dream of world dominion was that 
 " unconquerable British courage which is never so sedate 
 and stubborn as towards the close of a doubtful and 
 murderous day." 
 
 The Kaiser's rage, the rage of tne peace men in 
 Germany, the rage of pastors and professors and poli- 
 ticians, came from the bitter taunt of the war party, " We 
 told you so ! " Germany now believes almost to a man 
 that King Edward did plan to surround her with enemies 
 and did plan the triple attack against which they knew 
 at once that Prussian strength, Prussian courage, and even 
 Prussian brutality could not in the end prevail.^ 
 ' See Appendix, Note H.
 
 LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE 175 
 
 Germany, it is probable, would never have risked an 
 attack on Russia and France if she had been perfectly 
 certain that Britain would fight. She took the risk of 
 that attack, believing that Britain was so entangled in 
 Irish affairs as to be incompetent of fulfilling her obliga- 
 tions abroad. Because Britain put away the madness of 
 civil war and took her place at the side of France, Germany 
 believes that the supreme end of our foreign policy was 
 the destruction of her commercial prosperity. 
 
 In the next chapter I shall endeavour to present the 
 reader with some idea of the part played by this great 
 and steadfast country in a war for the freedom of man- 
 kind and the reign of international law. That part, mag- 
 nificent and glorious as it is, must not so absorb us that 
 we forget the honourable, straightforward, and vigorous 
 diplomacy of Great Britain, which, still preparing for all 
 the chances of war, laboured with clean hands and un- 
 flinching soul to preserve the peace of the world. Only 
 by insisting again and again upon that historical fact can 
 we vindicate the memory of a gentle king and bring the 
 better part of Germany to its senses.
 
 PARS BRITANNICA
 
 You imagine that your words must have weight with 
 us because you are very rich and have unbounded 
 liberty and publicity ; you will find yourselves mistaken, 
 and you will be bewildered. Then you may get involved 
 in war, and you imagine that you cannot but make war 
 well by dint of being so very rich ; that you will just add 
 a penny or two to your income tax, change none of your 
 ways, have claptrap everywhere, as at present . . . 
 and thus, at a grand high pressure of expenditure, 
 bustle, and excitement, arrive at a happy and triumphant 
 result. But authority and victory over people who are 
 in earnest means being in earnest oneself, and your 
 Philistines are not in earnest ; they have no idea great 
 enough to make them so. 
 
 Frietidshifs Garland
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 
 
 NOTHING was so remarkable in this country 
 during the first week of August 1914 as the 
 quiet dignity and silent confidence of the British 
 nation. The dreadful spirit which had distressed every 
 friend of this country at the time of the South African 
 War, a spirit which expressed some of the most crude and 
 offensive emotions of human nature, was entirely absent. 
 Quietly, soberly, and sternly this great and steadfast people 
 settled itself down to fight the world's fiercest engine of 
 War and the world's greatest menace to individual liberty. 
 There was no drunken exaltation and no panic. 
 
 A man who went about England at that time could not 
 but be proud of his people. A wonderful dignity clothed 
 the whole nation and an almost religious seriousness 
 appeared even upon the surface current of its daily life. 
 The hideous pandemonium of class hatred and party 
 rancour which had disgraced us for so long ceased at a 
 stroke. If the German Emperor could claim that his 
 whole nation was at his back, and that from that hour 
 forward he knew only Germans, the King of England, had 
 he been in boastful mood or had he felt it incumbent upon 
 him to state the self-evident, might have said that the 
 entire British Empire was of one heart and one mind. 
 
 For a few days this admirable condition of things 
 characterized the British nation's attitude towards cala- 
 mitous war. The railways were taken over by the State ; 
 the Royal Navy, so silently mobilized, held in undisputed 
 supremacy the sea-ways of the world ; the British Expe- 
 
 179
 
 i8o THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 ditionary Force, with all its train of subsidiary services, 
 was transported to France without a check and without a 
 casualty ; the long-prepared machinery of the Royal 
 Army Medical Corps was set in motion both here and 
 in France, and from every class and community of the 
 nation sprang an innumerable host of people offering their 
 services to the State. Finally, to lift us up, to strengthen 
 and glorify us, to touch our hearts to tears, the distant 
 dominions of the Commonwealth, the ruling princes of 
 India, and the sorely tried people of Ireland close at our 
 door, immediately laid the sword of their manhood at the 
 feet of the British sovereign. Such a spectacle, the most 
 impressive in the world's history, made for dignity and 
 confidence. The spirit of the British Empire was 
 vindicated before the eyes of all mankind. 
 
 A change, however, in the spirit of the nation manifested 
 itself before this glory of Great Britain had struck wonder- 
 ment into the soul of the world. The men amongst us 
 who can never be happy or feel that they are truly serving 
 the State until they have a muck-rake in their hands 
 began their evil and depressing work of fault-finding. 
 Their first object was to shatter confidence in the 
 Government. Whether they seized an opportunity to pay 
 off old political scores, or whether they were genuinely 
 shivering in their skins at the thought of Prussian feet on 
 their office stairs, we do not know. All we do know for 
 certain is that a conspiracy to get rid of the Government 
 was set on foot, and began instantly to manifest itself in 
 several places. In order to put the nation into the mood 
 they desired — a mood of excitement, hysteria, and fussy 
 activity — these people struck with all their malignant 
 strength at the public confidence. 
 
 Some men who took part in this conspiracy were honest 
 and patriotic. They believed that the Liberal party was 
 not fitted to conduct a great European war. They knew 
 that there had been dissensions in the Cabinet about 
 going to war at all, dissensions which had eventuated in 
 certain resignations. There was real excuse for the desire 
 of the best of these Unionists to destroy the Liberal 
 Government ; but no excuse at all, either in morals or in
 
 PARS BRITANNICA i8i 
 
 political wisdom, for the methods they adopted. In order 
 to destroy the Government and to undermine public 
 confidence, a campaign of personal slander was set on foot 
 directed at some of the most responsible, some of the very 
 strongest, and some of the very wisest of the King's 
 ministers. 
 
 In particular, this campaign of calumny, as humiliating 
 as it was treasonable, directed itself against the Lord 
 Chancellor. Of all men in the Government he was most 
 hated by the unreflecting zealots for National Service. 
 He had dared to withstand Lord Roberts. He had torn 
 the dialectic of these conscriptionists to rags and tatters. 
 This was the head and front of his offence. He had been 
 most instant in the House of Lords in his rebuke of Ulster's 
 rashness and in his chastisement of revolutionary and 
 obstructionist peers. He more than any other (because 
 it presented an incomparable opportunity for improving 
 education) had removed the Bill for the Disestablishment 
 of the Anglican Church in Wales from the sphere of 
 ecclesiastical squabbling and set it unassailable and digni- 
 fied in the region of high statesmanship. Whenever the 
 vigorous, rather slap-dash, and not very carefully prepared 
 rhetoric of Mr. Lloyd George gave these furious pens of 
 the opposition an opportunity for scratching ironical abuse 
 about demagogues and class-hatred. Lord Haldane, the 
 profound scholar and the far-seeing statesman, appeared 
 upon the scene, and from the eminence of the highest 
 position in the State revealed Liberalism to his fellow- 
 countrymen in its true spirit, as the rational action of the 
 human mind seeking to discover the true methods of 
 improvement and the straight ways of progress. These 
 offences, however, might have been forgotten and forgiven. 
 But who could forgive his exposure of National Service ? 
 He was hated by the scribes of a political opposition 
 because he had refused, on the advice of the most able 
 soldiers in the country, to take their counsel and the 
 counsel of Lord Roberts in the matter of National Service. 
 
 It is important to repeat here what I have already said, 
 that National Service was rejected by Lord Haldane on 
 the advice of his military officers. They would not look at
 
 i82 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 it. To have adopted National Service would have been, 
 in their deliberate judgment, to dislocate the military 
 machine of this country, to create a dangerous hiatus, and 
 to tempt an enemy to attack us in the confusion which 
 such a change obviously must have involved. They re- 
 jected National Service, and concentrated all their efforts 
 on strengthening the army which a former Government 
 had left in a notorious condition of chaos and weakness. 
 
 Of what followed it is difficult to write without the 
 hottest indignation and the most burning shame. The 
 Prime Minister, a man of great restraint and almost im- 
 movable reserve, declared in August 1914 that if this 
 country was prepared for war it was to Lord Haldane 
 more than to any other man that it owed that position. 
 Lord French had already said of him that he had 
 inaugurated and made a military fighting machine and a 
 system of national defence such as this country had never 
 had before. The Times and the Mor7ii7ig Post had 
 offered him, even in the midst of most bitter party war- 
 fare, their tributes of praise and gratitude. King Edward 
 had trusted him with the greatest of his political ideals. 
 He was known as the closest friend of Sir Edward Grey, 
 whose host and constant support he had been in those 
 days of agony which preceded the declaration of war. 
 His character no man had ever dared to assail. His 
 devotion to his country, for which he had made many 
 sacrifices, was as unquestioned as his scholarship, his 
 integrity, and his extraordinary powers of organization. 
 His utterances on education, on peace, and world-politics 
 had attracted the attention of enlightened men in every 
 country on both sides of the world. He was the highest 
 lay subject in the land ; he was a great statesman, a dis- 
 tinguished author ; he had been the Lord Rector of one 
 of our principal Universities and was Chancellor of another; 
 he was a personal friend of the most able of the Unionist 
 leaders, and one of the few men in contemporary politics 
 who stood cleanest from the mud of party controversy — 
 but all this availed him nothing. 
 
 A scapegoat was wanted, an excuse was needed for 
 panic, and this man was marked down for the hue and cry
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 183 
 
 of England's greatest enemies — her misleaders of the vul- 
 garians. He had been in charge of the War Office. He 
 had rebuffed Lord Roberts. He had entertained the 
 German Emperor in his house. And he had been known 
 for years as a devoted disciple of the highest and noblest 
 German literature. Mr. Asquith, apparently, could not be 
 shaken just then, much as he was hated ; the public held 
 that Sir Edward Grey was a man of honour ; but what did 
 the public know, what did the public care, what did the 
 vulgarians of England know about and care about this 
 silent and devoted servant of right reason and the will 
 of God ? 
 
 What did it matter that he had been the favourite 
 Liberal minister of King Edward ? He had not adver- 
 tised the fact, and the public did not know it. What did 
 it matter that Lord French had given him such extra- 
 ordinary credit? The public has a short memory — other- 
 wise how could our leading articles escape derision ? What 
 did it matter that he had laboured more abundantly and 
 achieved infinitely more for education than any other man 
 in the country ? As if the public, our great vulgarian 
 public, care a jot about education ! 
 
 Then followed the saddest, the most shameful, and the 
 most disquieting incident in contemporary history — the 
 hounding into retirement by a pack of ignorant, unprin- 
 cipled, and reckless journalists of the one statesman more 
 than any other in the land who had most faithfully fulfilled 
 King Edward's trust and saved his country from the Prus- 
 sian horde. In the sight of all men, in the view of all 
 nations, our allies and our enemies, we suffered this good 
 man, this great man, and this wise man to be dragged into 
 the gutter by those who get their bread from the gutter. 
 
 It was actually said, and even while his fighting machine 
 was saving the coasts of France and shattering the German 
 dream of conquest, that Lord Haldane was an illegitimate 
 brother of the Kaiser, that he had a secret wife in Ger- 
 many, that he was corresponding with Germans, and that, 
 knowing perfectly well the intention of Germany to make 
 war, he had deliberately withheld this knowledge from his 
 colleagues in the Cabinet. Everything base, mean, petty,
 
 i84 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and disgraceful was said and hinted about England's Lord 
 Chancellor, The papers which had laid laurels at his feet 
 two years ago now proceeded to besmirch him with mud. 
 The paper which had placarded the towns and cities of this 
 great country with its abominable cry, " To Hell with 
 Serbia," began to talk about God and to vilify Lord 
 Haldane, Even Mr. Oliver, though he could not bring 
 himself to such depths as these, was unable to prevent 
 himself from wounding sneer. The country was filled 
 from end to end with suspicion and dismay. A traitor 
 in the Cabinet ! A spy at the very heart of England ! 
 For a moment there was wavering and doubt. For a 
 moment the vulgarians wondered if their newspapers 
 really spoke the truth. And then it was discovered (O 
 marvellous, happy, and God-given chance !) that across a 
 London dinner-table, to a guest of his English hostess, a 
 German philosopher who loved Hermann Lotze, Lord 
 Haldane had once said that because of Lotze he almost 
 regarded Germany as his spiritual home. That was the 
 finishing stroke. What need of further witnesses ? Would 
 the vulgarians of England suffer a wretch to sit in the 
 Cabinet who regarded Germany as his spiritual home — 
 actually as his spiritual home ? It was impossible to 
 think so. 
 
 Thus fell the Lord High Chancellor of England, sacri- 
 ficed to the most venomous and unscrupulous journalists 
 of this country, men of whom Ruskin said that they would 
 pawn the dirty linen of their souls for a bottle of claret ; 
 thus fell our highest and noblest, dragged down by our 
 lowest and our vilest ; and thus in the midst of a most 
 serious war, which had at the outset touched us to real 
 greatness, and which required above all other things that 
 we should be resolute and show ourselves resolute to 
 friend and foe, we exhibited ourselves to all mankind as a 
 nation of hysterics amenable to government by newspaper 
 clamour. 
 
 We have never properly recovered from that blow. 
 Lord Northcliffe, in his recent travels through France, 
 Italy, Switzerland, and Spain, has sent repeated lamen- 
 tations to The Times that Britain's part in the war is not
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 185 
 
 appreciated by foreign nations. He calls for a vigorous 
 and skilful propaganda. But it is too late. Only British 
 sailors and soldiers can now vindicate our good name. 
 The effect of all that deadly and depressing newspaper 
 depreciation of this country which marked the outbreak of 
 war has sunk too deeply into the mind of foreign nations 
 to be uprooted by verbal advertisement. The fall of so 
 strong, so intellectual, so eminent a minister as Lord 
 Haldane, a minister who admirably represented the silent 
 strength and the unshakeable composure of this great 
 nation, was a blow at our reputation from which we shall 
 not easily recover. 
 
 It may be well for the enemies of Lord Haldane to 
 know how a great man accepts the verdict of the mob. 
 Like another Lord Chancellor who retired in the 
 eighteenth century before a storm of animosity and 
 calumny. Lord Haldane turned with affection and almost 
 with relief to science and philosophy.^ His conscience was 
 clear. He had done his duty. And he must have known 
 that but for his tenacity at the War Office the whole 
 history of this war would have been different. Un- 
 disturbed by " the malignity of party spirit " and the 
 " blindness of party prejudice," unembittered by the gross 
 ingratitude of his fellow-countrymen, he left the hurly of 
 politics for the seclusion of study. 
 
 In December of 191 5 he laid the results of his study 
 before the Aristotelian Society in the shape of a profoundly 
 interesting paper entitled On Progress in Philosophical 
 Research. This paper is a wonderful example of reverence 
 for truth, patience in research, the widest tolerance, and 
 a scholarship which is almost staggering in its reach. It 
 is the work of a philosopher who has followed with 
 discernment the movement of human thought from Plato 
 and Aristotle, through Hegel and Schopenhauer, down to 
 the living men of modern Europe like Bergson, Bradley, 
 and the New Realists. And that he continues to be in 
 touch with contemporary philosophers during his retire- 
 ment is made evident by the following conclusion to the 
 preface of an impressive book on the philosophy of 
 ' See Appendi.x, Note I.
 
 i86 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Bergson recently published by one of the most emi- 
 nent of the younger generation of American meta- 
 physicians : 
 
 In conclusion, I desire to place on record my 
 sincere gratitude to Viscount Haldane for the en- 
 couragement and inspiration which I have received 
 from correspondence with him during the course of 
 this study. While he is in no way responsible for any 
 opinion which finds expression in the work, I never- 
 theless feel that the success of my efforts, whatever 
 measure of success may perchance have attended 
 them, is in no small degree due to him and to the 
 sympathetic interest he has manifested in a former 
 work of mine. Indeed, apart from a remark made by 
 him apropos of the work concerning the inadequacy of 
 the Bergsonian point of view and the necessity of sup- 
 plementing it by bringing it into harmony with the 
 fundamentals of intellectualism, I am not at all sure 
 that the present argument would have taken tangible 
 shape. ^ 
 Only to warn his countrymen of the danger of neglect- 
 ing education has Lord Haldane forsaken the cleaner 
 region of pure truth for the somewhat sordid lists of 
 political controversy. Never once has he uttered a 
 complaint. Never once has he uttered taunt or rebuke. 
 He has borne the ingratitude of the wise as imperturbably 
 as the vilification of the ignorant. And to all his 
 numerous friends he has only one reply to their question, 
 " Why don't you answer your enemies ? " — " Why should 
 I bother? Truth will prevail. And when my country- 
 men want me they will call me." 
 
 Such a spirit I find admirable and lofty ; and I would 
 have all those who have been misled as to the character 
 of this nation, and who are sometimes depressed by the 
 apparent victory on every field of our shouting vulgarians, 
 know that it is thus our greatest and strongest still meet 
 the onslaughts of the Philistines. Not by death, but by 
 the power of his living soul — 
 
 ' The Philosophy of Bergson, by Professor Watts Cunningham. 
 (Longmans.)
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 187 
 
 He has outsoarecl the shadow of our night, 
 Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
 Can touch him not and torture not again. 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
 He is secure. 
 
 The persecutions of ignorance, the clamour of partisan 
 malignity, the base ingratitude of friendship, these 
 adversities are powerless when they assail the soul of one 
 whose heart has long been fixed where true joys are to be 
 found. To such a man the vexations of life are no more 
 than the perturbations of an ant-heap. He takes the blow 
 as he took the crown. He pays no more attention to 
 slander than he did to flattery. The moral law within 
 and the starry heavens above comfort and inspire him. 
 The instant is always the eternal. Here and now is his 
 America. And so the man who has known courts and 
 who has received all that the world has to give, takes 
 down a book from the shelf, seats himself beside the 
 lamp, and far into the night dwells with those who, like 
 himself, passed in life through the veil of appearance to 
 the everlasting serenity of the real. From the contagion of 
 the world's slow stain he is secure. 
 
 I dwell upon this incident for two reasons. First, I 
 cannot believe that at any hour of any crisis should a 
 man be silent in the face of grave injustice ; and next, 
 because in this incident — so glaring and so stark — men 
 tiot yet awake to the immense danger and the inex- 
 pressible shame of government by newspaper clamour 
 may rouse themselves, before the searching ordeal which 
 awaits us with the declaration of peace, to be free of such 
 dominance. It is not a day when we can afford to lower 
 the character of our [parliamentarians, not a day when we 
 can loosely make public life detestable to all that is 
 highest and noblest in our English culture, and certainly 
 not a day when we can put ourselves under the rule of 
 the vulgarians. There lies our supremest danger. It is a 
 day when all that is most thoughtful and serious among 
 Conservatives must ally itself with all that is freest from 
 petty class feeling and sectarian prejudice among Liberals,
 
 i88 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and with all that is least sectional and most nobly patriotic 
 among the Labour party. There is an absolute com- 
 munity of feeling- and principle in men like Mr. Arthur 
 Balfour and Lord Haldane, Lord Robert Cecil and 
 Viscount Grey, Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Bonar Law 
 and Mr. Arthur Henderson. And in English journalism — 
 to speak only of English journalism — there are men who 
 own newspapers and edit newspapers of every shade of 
 political opinion to whom morality is a greater thing than 
 party, and intelligence a nobler ideal than popularity, men 
 who would without one single selfish thought sacrifice 
 every partisan interest to secure the welfare and the 
 dignity of this nation.^ It is not impossible for us either 
 to be great-hearted or rational. All the effort that is 
 necessary for us to win salvation is the effort to throw 
 off that deadening and destructive influence of the vul- 
 garians who at one moment are grovelling in almost 
 slavish adulation at the feet of a Kitchener and at the 
 next are sharpening the axe for his beheading. Our 
 vulgarians, who belong to every class in the community, 
 are a grave danger to the country in the days that are 
 coming. 
 
 Soon after the outbreak of war, and soon after the 
 feeling of panic to which I have alluded had been spread 
 broadcast over the country, a venerable and much-respected 
 minister of religion, Dr. F. B. Meyer, called the nation's 
 attention to grave scandals in our public streets. The 
 wise words were scarcely out of that noble mouth, a 
 mouth which had never uttered anything base or cruel, 
 when many of those reckless journalists who had assailed 
 the Lord Chancellor fell upon this minister of religion 
 with the fury of wolves. The journalism which is never 
 more furious than when it has virtue to attack and vice to 
 defend, rose to a pitch of the utmost frenzy. We were 
 invited to regard Dr. Meyer as a vile-minded person who 
 took pleasure in seeking out nastiness, who in his thirst for 
 
 ' To their credit it should be known that the great newspapers oi 
 Scotland and the provinces have had nothing to do with the rancorous 
 crusade against Lord Haldane.
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 189 
 
 notoriety did not scruple to blacken the character of men 
 behind whose backs he was sheltering himself from Prussian 
 bayonets, and who was one of those very men who had 
 done most by his canting namby-pambyism to weaken the 
 fibre of British character. 
 
 While this storm was raging I paid a visit to the streets 
 about which Dr. Meyer had complained. The sight was 
 not only disgraceful, it was indescribably disgusting. 
 Nothing that I had ever seen in the great capitals of 
 the world compared with the orgy of drunkenness and 
 lust which met my eyes at every turn in those abominable 
 dark streets round the great railway centres of London. 
 And it was not only a scene of vice ; it was, as Dr. Meyer 
 complained with all his force, a scene of crime. At the 
 station gates was the girl of fifteen or sixteen, pretty, 
 innocent-looking, and garish ; in the public-house to 
 which she lured the soldier fresh-arrived in London, par- 
 ticularly the Colonial soldier with twenty or thirty pounds 
 in his pocket-book, was the blotchy-faced, half-drunken, 
 and entirely diseased woman-thief An American gentle- 
 man, directing the work of a soldiers' hut in Waterloo 
 Bridge Road, told me that in all his experience of Latin 
 cities in South America he had never encountered women 
 so abandoned, so flagrant, and so boldly defiant as these 
 revolting vampires of London. Under the eyes of the 
 civil police, under the eyes of the military police, they 
 plied their loathsome business. Dr. Meyer, in my pre- 
 sence, asked a constable, very politely, whether it was in 
 his instructions to prevent one of these women from lead- 
 ing a soldier into the back-streets ; the constable replied, 
 rudely and as it were threateningly, " I don't know what 
 you mean." On the question being repeated, he gave the 
 same answer, and then shouldered his way past Dr. Meyer 
 with an expression of impatient anger on his face. A 
 provost-sergeant from Canada, patrolling these streets to 
 save as many Canadians as possible, said that it well-nigh 
 broke his heart to see young and healthy boys from 
 Canada fall into such dreadful hands directly they alighted 
 from the train in the home-country. But nothing was 
 done. In PVance we have at least one British hospital
 
 190 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 which is filled only with soldiers who arrive with disease 
 from a few days' stay in London ; and here in England 
 numerous men, enlisted and drilled to fight our enemies, 
 are lying in hospitals created only for venereal diseases. 
 
 In spite of this, the newspapers which would have sent 
 Serbia to hell rather than lift a finger to help her, the 
 newspapers which drove the clearest thinking minister in 
 the British Government out of office, the newspapers which 
 first clamoured for and then would have destroyed Lord 
 Kitchener, hurled such scorn, abuse, and insult at Dr. 
 Meyer as might have got him lynched in the streets. It 
 was nothing to them that he is a good man who has 
 devoted his whole life to improving our moral standards, 
 still less to them, apparently, that his crusade for the bodies 
 and souls of men was an economically just as well as a 
 morally sound crusade. They would not listen to him. 
 Instead of listening, instead of going to see for themselves, 
 they denounced him as a squeamish Puritan. 
 
 The charge brought by Dr. Meyer which they most 
 ridiculed was the charge that our soldiers were drugged by 
 these women-thieves. It was pure moonshine, it was 
 romantic nonsense, it was just the sort of wild absurdity 
 that Dr. Meyer would gloat over and use, if We would let 
 him, for the purpose of scaring the great vulgarian mind, 
 incidentally advertising himself 
 
 A few people listened to Dr. Meyer. Money was raised, 
 the Young Men's Christian Association provided huts, 
 volunteers came forward to work in the huts, and some 
 attempt was made to do indirectly work which the mili- 
 tary and civil authorities ought to have done directly. 
 But the newspapers of the middle-class mind did nothing 
 at all, except to hinder and frustrate and bring to naught 
 the minister's campaign. In the summer of 1916, how- 
 ever, a change came over these papers. There was no 
 apology to Dr. Meyer, no regret for abuse and derision, 
 but they began to cry out and clamour for the protection 
 of our soldiers from the harlot and the thief, laying their 
 chief emphasis on, and making their greatest sensation out 
 of, the fact that cocaine was used for drugging our soldiers 
 and was even sold to them by the prostitutes of the pave-
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 191 
 
 ments. A sudden enthusiasm for morality characterized 
 these newspapers. The night-club and the music-hall 
 lounge were denounced as if they had only just come into 
 existence ; and the tremendous invective hitherto reserved 
 for the palmist and the fortune-teller began at last to fall 
 upon the strumpet and the pimp. Never once, so far as 
 I know, did any of these newspapers ever lift their voices 
 before in support of a purity crusade. They only dis- 
 covered morality in discovering that the harlot added to 
 their taxation. 
 
 Let us keep these matters in our mind while we proceed 
 to a statement of the great services which this country has 
 rendered to the general cause for which our allies and our- 
 selves unwillingly but unflinchingly drew the sword. For 
 it is well to remind ourselves that behind all the greatness 
 of our strength, all the majesty of our power, and all the 
 beauty of our self-sacrifice, there is ever this shameful 
 background of ignorance, violence, self-satisfaction, and 
 moral indifference. The enemy before us we can conquer ; 
 but the enemy behind may drag us down. And never 
 more is this enemy of our own household to be feared than 
 when he puts on his most sanctimonious airs, utters his 
 most noisome assurances of patriotism, and linking his 
 arm with ours, endeavours to walk abreast of honest 
 men. There is only one reply to such insolence and such 
 hypocrisy. The just man will say, " Get thee behind me." 
 
 When our children's children come to read of this great 
 war they will not hang their heads. They will lift up their 
 hearts, and those hearts will be full of noble pride and 
 generous gratitude. They will see nothing for shame 
 and nothing for regret. As they will escape the grief 
 and agony of those who mourn, so too they will miss all 
 those trivial occasions for fault-finding and all those just 
 reasons for powerful criticism which now distract our eyes 
 from the magnitude of our achievement. They will see 
 only great glory and decisive victory — glory purchased at 
 the price of sublime devotion, and victory gained by the 
 most gallant, steadfast, and surpassing exertion of the 
 human heart. The names of Asquith and Grey will have
 
 192 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 for them no smirch from the dust of political controversy : 
 Sir John Jellicoe and Sir David Beatty, Lord French and 
 Sir Douglas Haig, will be for them as the names of Drake 
 and Nelson, Wellington and Marlborough, for us : and if 
 some historian remark that what von Roon was to the 
 German armies of 1870, a great Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
 land was to the glorious British Army of 1914, which died 
 to give civilization an hour in which to draw her breath 
 and save the world, they will smile and be glad of this 
 romance, knowing naught of our shame and our humiliation. 
 
 To these our children's children one thing above all 
 others will stand clear from the record of the great war. 
 To them it will appear the most magnificent reason for 
 pride and gratefulness that a little island of only forty-five 
 million people could hold, in a supremacy which its enemies, 
 numbering four times its population, dared not challenge, 
 the oceans and seas of the whole world. It will bewilder 
 and astonish them, and move them to the depths of their 
 being, that a country so small, and so insignificant in 
 numbers, should hold in its hand this ultimate instrument 
 of victory. And great will be their wonder when they 
 learn that the people who forged this mighty weapon of 
 war were a people for the most part who lived below the 
 line of poverty, who were always struggling to keep head 
 above water, who were housed in disgraceful circumstances, 
 who were ill-educated and preyed upon by cunning rogues 
 who made fortunes out of their ignorance, and who had to 
 fight with resolution and threatening before the State would 
 give them twelve pounds a year in their decrepitude. 
 
 This will amaze them ; but when they learn that in 
 addition to holding the seas of the world, the Admiralty 
 of this little nation rendered services to their allies such 
 as never before in the whole history of the world had been 
 rendered by one Power to another, surely their astonish- 
 ment will be boundless. 
 
 The time, I suppose, has not yet come to tell the full 
 story of that assistance rendered by Great Britain's Navy 
 to France, Russia, and Italy. We know in part how our 
 submarines threaded the German minefields and appeared 
 among the snow and ice of Riga. We know in part
 
 PARS BRITANNICA I93 
 
 how our merchantmen carried food and arms to our friends 
 across thousands of miles of ocean. We know in part 
 how the audacity and resourcefuhiess of the British Fleet 
 met every new and devilish invention of German con- 
 trivance which threatened, as well as our own ability to 
 fight, the very life of our allies. But we do not yet know 
 of a certain service rendered by the British Navy at Malta 
 to the French Fleet ; nor of the service rendered to Italy 
 in the Mediterranean in the form of thousands of vessels. 
 These things our children's children will know ; they will 
 be the commonplaces of their history books and the 
 inspiration of their national songs ; and wherever they go 
 among the nations of the world, even in Germany — 
 Germany cleansed, penitent, and born again free of 
 Hohenzollern tyranny — men and women will say of them : 
 They belong to those ivJio saved the ivorld. 
 
 Do we, who live during the war, fully realize the part 
 which we have played from the very first hour in this 
 enormous conflict ? Britain's contribution was by far and 
 away the most considerable contribution of all the Allies ; 
 and she of all the Allies was most ready for the shock of 
 battle. Germany failed in this war because at the outset, 
 thanks to one wise man amongst us, Moltkeism was met 
 by Moltkeism. Germany and England alone were prepared 
 for their part in the war. No other belligerent was pre- 
 pared. Swiftness of mobilization in Germany was met 
 by swiftness of mobilization in England. And England's 
 readiness determined the eventual end of this enormous 
 struggle. We miss in the dust raised by petty men in 
 degraded controversies the shining glory of the nation. 
 Britain held the seas of the world for her allies. Britain 
 prevented the enemy fleets either from ravaging the 
 coasts of her allies or preying upon their commerce. 
 Britain made victory for the foe impossible before she had 
 actually declared war. Mer Fleet was mobilized. This 
 little island said to her threatened neighbours, " Look to 
 your land frontiers, and forget you have coasts to defend." 
 Her shield was over all people who love freedom. Weeks 
 were added to weeks, and months to months, but no arm
 
 194 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 was risked from German ports to thrust that shield away. 
 Eighteen months and more went past before the might of 
 the German Fleet dared to show itself a few miles away from 
 its land batteries; and before the big guns of England 
 could speak, that Fleet, bleeding, broken, and wreathed 
 in flames, had steamed for its ports. And all the nations 
 knew that the shield of Great Britain still covered the 
 world. 
 
 If we had done nothing else our contribution would 
 still have been the greatest in the Grand Alliance. To 
 keep the immense British Fleet mobilized and cleared 
 for action was an effort that called for tremendous sacrifice. 
 And we kept it mobilized through the storms of the first 
 winter to the summer of the second year, and through the 
 winter of the second year to the third August of war. 
 This immense achievement, by itself, is something to 
 make proud the meanest Briton that ever hunted scape- 
 goats in an hour of peril. 
 
 But we did something more. We landed in France 
 an army the finest for its size upon which the sun ever 
 shone, of veteran soldiers, so gallant and debonair that 
 French and British officers seeing it swing through the 
 cobbled streets of Boulogne, singing its confident song of 
 victory, had tears in their eyes — tears of sheer joy and 
 swelling pride. One who watched it go to its glorious 
 victory on the Marne, an old officer decorated and dis- 
 tinguished, must needs take me in Boulogne to the very 
 spot at which he had stood to see that army go by, and 
 as he spoke of it his voice broke and he had to turn away 
 his face. Men speak of that army as they never speak of 
 any other force on all the battlefields of the world. Men 
 have thus spoken to me of that army in Norway, in 
 Sweden, in Finland, in Russia, in France, and in the 
 United States of America. Danes have told me that they 
 see in that army the force that saved the world. Japanese 
 officers have said to me that in Japan they speak of that 
 army as the army which destroyed the German's hope 
 of victory. All men who have studied the history of this 
 war acknowledge that the tide turned when the British 
 Army of 19 14 hurled the Germans from the coasts of
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 195 
 
 France. Read what Mr. Belloc says of it, what Mr. 
 Buchan says of it, what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and 
 what Professor Pollard say of it — this glorious army which 
 saved the world and which all nations, except the foe, 
 have taken to their hearts. Its homely battle-song 
 became the possession of the world ; it was sung by the 
 French and by the Russians ; it went to Italy, and was 
 taken up by Japan ; Americans sang it night after night 
 at the dinner-tables of the Lusitania ; our kinsmen from 
 Canada and Australasia came singing it across the seas ; 
 it became the cheerful song of India's warriors and 
 sounded through the streets of Cairo and the bazaars of 
 Port Said ; and even the enemies learned to sing it across 
 their snowbound trenches, where something stronger than 
 winter held them fast. 
 
 This incomparable, matchless, and immortal army, 
 inaugurated and made by a statesman since driven out 
 of office, was the first contribution of Britain to the land 
 struggle. It was shot like an arrow from a bow to its 
 appointed place on the battlefield. It was ready. It was 
 prepared. It was equipped to the last detail of efficient 
 organization. And while it fought and held the enemy, 
 whose prodigious preparations no one in France or Russia 
 had suspected, from its Special Reserve and from the 
 Territorial Associations, both the creation of Lord 
 Haldane, there went forth a continual stream of men 
 without jolt or dislocation to Britain's mechanism of war. 
 And from that hour never has the stream checked or 
 faltered. Newspapers clamoured for men and ever more 
 men, at a time when we had neither rifles nor clothes to 
 give them ; but the stream of men whom we could use 
 never once checked until an army of 5,041,000 had volun- 
 tarily come to the colours. 
 
 Well might the nation resist conscription as humiliation, 
 and humiliation which could not be justified. If this 
 small island group of forty-five million people had secured 
 140,000,000 square miles of ocean, and had given over 
 five million soldiers to the common cause, of a truth 
 might the nation well ask, Have we not done our share? 
 And this same nation, let us remember, had become the
 
 196 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAlM 
 
 manufacturing centre, the market, and the bank of the 
 whole alliance. From these shores without ceasing went 
 ammunition and supplies of every order to our brave 
 friends in France and Russia. And with these goods 
 went also that which was equally urgent, money to 
 continue the fight. We provided men, we provided 
 stores, we provided munitions, we provided riches. And 
 to provide these things the democracy of Great Britain 
 toiled from dawn to darkness, men and women alike, the 
 men and women of all classes, the whole nation as one 
 man — an effort such as the world has never seen. On 
 the blackened banks of our great shipbuilding rivers the 
 furnaces roared and the steam-riveters clattered by night 
 and by day, building the mightiest battleships ever known, 
 the strangest craft that ever sailed the sea, and changing 
 merchantmen and great liners as if by magic into ships 
 that could serve in the struggle against the Central 
 Powers. And by night and by day the miners toiled with 
 their picks in the depths of the earth ; and by night and 
 by day the railwaymen laboured in the service of the 
 State ; and every factory in the land and every foundry in 
 the land was filled with men and women making, ever 
 making a thousand things, millions and millions of things, 
 for the men in the field — our men and the men of our allies. 
 But in spite of all this, in spite of feeling that already 
 they had done their fair share in the fight, British demo- 
 cracy accepted the odious burden of compulsion, and sent 
 its last men to the barracks. 
 
 With this tremendous effort, do not let us forget that 
 the rich men of the country poured out their wealth 
 without stint, that ladies of all degrees turned from their 
 leisure to cook and to scrub, and that the children of the 
 country brought their pennies to school for the Prince of 
 Wales's Fund, for the Red Cross, for Belgium, for Serbia, 
 for France, and for Russia. Nor let us forget the gentle- 
 ness and beauty of little acts that escaped notice in the 
 thunder of guns and the clash of armies. From one end 
 of the country to the other people gave up their houses 
 and gardens to the wounded, put their carriages and
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 197 
 
 motor-cars at the disposal of the Government, organized 
 Voluntary Aid Detachments, organized a society for 
 scouring the whole country to get eggs for the troops, 
 organized societies for sending provisions and writing 
 letters to our British prisoners in Germany, and began to 
 work with their sewing-machines and their knitting-needles 
 for the soldiers in the trench. Millions of pounds were 
 collected by the Prince of Wales's P'und to provide against 
 distress in the first winter of the war ; and when the pre- 
 dictions of the economists were falsified, and people saw 
 that instead of unemployment there was more work than 
 hands to do it, the money of the public flowed into the 
 coffers of the Red Cross Society. In spite of a heavy 
 taxation which pressed upon everybody, in spite of the 
 rise in the price of commodities, money poured into the 
 almsdish of charity in such a flood as the world has never 
 seen. The rich were generous and the poor were brave. 
 Some lovers of panic saw in the cheerfulness of our 
 working classes a dangerous element, ascribing their 
 cheerfulness to want of imagination. They wished to see 
 us gloomy and depressed, walking about with sad faces, 
 and shaking our heads over the peril which confronted us. 
 A writer in the Round Tabic for December 191 5 remarked 
 on the different moral of the well-to-do and the working 
 class. " Both," he said, " are equally determined to 
 pursue the war to a successful end, and both are equally 
 ready to make the sacrifices required ; but the temper of 
 the working class is distinctly the more buoyant and 
 confident of the two." And he refers us, for an explana- 
 tion of this working-class buoyancy, to " the old English 
 feeling that if a difficult job has to be done it is best done 
 in good spirits." This same difference in moral was 
 noticeable between the worst newspapers and the troops. 
 Newspaper proprietors earning enormous fortunes behind 
 the firing-line were depressed and gloomy ; Thomas 
 Atkins, earning his shilling a day in the midst of shells, 
 bullets, and poison-gas, was as cheerful as a sandboy. 
 The soldier believed in "the old English feeling"; the 
 newspaper proprietor believed in the prescription of the 
 Fat Boy in Pickwick. The soldier wanted to make
 
 198 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Germany's flesh creep ; the newspaper proprietor to make 
 Britannia's flesh creep. But, on the whole, we may justly 
 say that the great British nation gave itself up to the old 
 English feeling, that if a difficult job has to be done it is 
 best done in good spirits. In good spirits our sailors kept 
 their vigil, in good spirits our soldiers held the foe at bay, 
 in good spirits our men and women toiled in the foundries 
 and the sheds and the factories, and in good spirits the 
 humane people of the country, nobly led by a high- 
 minded King and a virtuous Queen, worked for the cause 
 of charity. 
 
 Now, it is unquestionable, and does not need to be 
 demonstrated for any person of sense, that Great Britain 
 is the very heart of the Allies' resistance to German 
 aggression. Without us (and they generously say so) our 
 partners in the alliance could not hope to continue the 
 struggle. If we had failed, they must have gone down. 
 If we had wavered, they must have lost heart. It was on 
 the confidence, the honour, and the strength of this country 
 that the splendid valour of France and Russia, and later 
 of Italy, absolutely depended for final victory. 
 
 What are we to think, then, we who bowed ourselves in 
 reverence before the superb heroism and devotion of our 
 countrymen — what are we to think of English newspapers 
 which so conducted their crusade against the Government 
 as to inspire such an utterance as this in a great American 
 journal ? — 
 
 A whole system has broken down in England — a 
 system of empire, of life, of government. A handful 
 of insignificant and selfish politicians, long in control 
 of the fortunes of the nation, have managed to keep 
 control, despite their failures, which in France would 
 have brought them to the lamp-post ; they have 
 deceived the British people, and they are continuing 
 to deceive the British people, and the result is seen in 
 Flanders, in Asia, all over the world, and it is flaming 
 up in Ireland.^ 
 
 ' The writer of this grotesque article compared the spirit of France 
 with the spirit of England, very much to the disadvantage of Eng- 
 land. Mr. Robert Donald, who sent an admirable reply to the
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 199 
 
 In no single particular is this true. No system broke 
 down in England, neither a system of empire, nor of life, 
 nor of government. The old system adapted itself im- 
 mediately to the new conditions. The government 
 nationalized the railways, the mercantile marine, the great 
 engineering firms of the country, and to a very consider- 
 able extent the finance of the country and the food of the 
 people. Without a crisis of any kind, it met the menace 
 of the submarine and the Zeppelin. It organized an army 
 of over five million men. It sent munitions, supplies, and 
 money to all our allies. It called for sacrifice, and sacrifice 
 was forthcoming from every class in the commonwealth 
 and from every part of the King's dominions. Ireland was 
 faithful, India was faithful, Egypt v^^as faithful, South 
 Africa was faithful ; and (as if they were counties of 
 England) Canada, Australasia, and the smallest island in 
 the farthest seas which flies the flag of England, offered 
 their love and their lives in the cause of freedom. 
 
 Could anything more seriously bring home to our minds 
 the peril of reckless newspaper pessimism than that in an 
 hour which witnessed so unparalleled a demonstration of 
 unity and power and resolution as this, a great organ of 
 public opinion in America should conclude that " a whole 
 system has broken down in England — a system of empire, 
 of life, of government " ? 
 
 There is one important point to be considered. I find 
 that even a man like Lord Rosebery, who, in spite of a 
 constitutional pessimism, is mightily proud of the part 
 
 American newspaper, pointed out that no public meetings are held in 
 France durin;^ the war, and that even the newspaper of an ex-Prime 
 Minister of that country, AI. Clemenceau's LHonme Enchaine^ is 
 constantly printed with the blank spaces of censorship, and was in one 
 instance suppressed for eight days. " If the British Government," 
 ViX. Donald truly says, " had adopted the same policy towards the 
 British newspapers, the criticisms and attacks which the Tribune 
 editorial reflects or paraphrases would not have been published. 
 He argues justly, and proves it up to the hilt, that " England has up%et 
 every German calculation^ And he ironically remarks that whoever 
 in America may accept this article as a fair criticism of British eftbrt 
 and policy, one thing is quite certain, that the Germans will not 
 believe it,
 
 200 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 played by Great Britain in this world struggle, and who, 
 in spite of his dangerous facility in speech-making, is a 
 practised writer knowing the full value of words — I find 
 that even a man like this makes use of the term " unpre- 
 paredness " in speaking of our country's position before 
 the war. 
 
 The one simple incontrovertible proof of our innocence 
 as war-makers, he argues, is that " we were wholly un- 
 prepared for such a struggle." We were not prepared. 
 And why were we not prepared ? asks Lord Rosebery. 
 " In the first place," he replies, " because our Government 
 could not be persuaded of the imminence of the danger. 
 But, above all, because democracies never prepare for 
 war." I 
 
 This statement, in spite of its logical appearance, is, 
 I venture to say, profoundly untrue, and even ridiculously 
 untrue. For how can it be said that our democracy did 
 not prepare for war when it maintained on its bowed back 
 and in the midst of all its deprivations and miseries the 
 enormous burden of the British Navy — the greatest 
 weapon of war in the whole history of the world ? How 
 can any man dare to say of a democracy which held in 
 its iron grip the five gates of the world — Suez, Gibraltar, 
 the Cape of Good Hope, the Straits of Malacca, and the 
 English Channel — that it was not prepared for war? 
 And how can any man who knows the meaning of words 
 say that Great Britain was unprepared for war, when it 
 was her instant intervention which flung the whole 
 German conspiracy into confusion and threw across her 
 conscript phalanx from the very first the shadow of ruin ? 
 
 I beg the reader's closest attention to this matter. And 
 I beg him also not to think that I am writing as a party 
 politician, for I detest party politics, and was as devoted a 
 supporter of the Conservative Government during the 
 South African War as I was of the Liberal Government 
 which succeeded it in its efforts to improve the conditions 
 of the masses and to resist the peril of tariff reform. What 
 I have to say now is not the argument of a partisan, but 
 ' England's Effort, by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 201 
 
 the statement which every honest inquirer who respects 
 truth, and who would no naore juggle with facts than he 
 would pick a pocket, must make at the conclusion of his 
 inquiries into this matter of our preparations for war. 
 Let us begin with the Navy, Mr, Archibald Hurd, an 
 unimpeachable witness, says in the Navy League Annual 
 (1915-16): 
 
 Our sea-power, as represented in modern, first-class 
 battleships, was slipping from us when the struggle 
 between Japan and Russia opened in 1904. ... Is 
 it realized that a period of only seven years separated 
 us from a state of naval weakness and a state of 
 naval strength which robbed Germany of the spoils of 
 victory ? 
 Reflect upon these words. They are the statement 
 of one of the ablest authorities on naval affairs in this 
 country. What may be the politics of Mr, Archibald 
 Hurd I do not know, but he writes for the Fortnightly 
 Reviezu and the Daily Telegraph, neither of which can 
 be charged with Liberalism, any more than they can 
 be charged with the violence of the hysteric Press. 
 And he makes these deliberate statements in the official 
 year-book of the Navy League, which is an association 
 of people who place the security of this country before 
 everything else. In 1904, he says, our sea-power was 
 slipping from us. What party was in power in 1904? 
 The Conservative party, I am bringing no charge what- 
 ever against the Conservative party. Mr, Balfour's 
 Government did, indeed, begin a series of important naval 
 reforms before it quitted office. My point is that at a 
 time when a Government was in power which enjoys the 
 support of those newspaper writers who have calumniated 
 Lord Haldane most disgracefully, the first line of Britain's 
 defence was not in adequate order. Seven years, says Mr 
 Hurd, separated us from a state of naval weakness and 
 a state of naval strength which robbed Germany of the 
 spoils of victory. What party was in power during those 
 seven years ? The Liberal party. That is to say, if 
 an enemy had struck in 1904 the British Empire might 
 have received at least a staggering blow ; and the British
 
 202 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Empire has not staggered, and our allies are absolutely 
 secure from defeat, because when Germany did strike, a 
 despised Liberal Government happening to be in power, 
 this country was not in a state of naval weakness but in a 
 state of naval strength. 
 
 Mr. Hurd says : " Speaking from the Treasury Bench 
 in the House of Commons in the year preceding the 
 outbreak of war, Mr. Churchill, turning to his predecessor 
 at the Admiralty, Mr. McKenna, remarked : 
 
 I do not believe that there has been taken in recent 
 times any more daring and certainly there has been 
 no more successful step in naval policy than that 
 which was taken by him on the advice of the then 
 First Sea Lord (Lord Fisher) in making that great 
 advance with the eight ships of the 1909-10 pro- 
 gramme and increasing the size and increasing the 
 gun-power of the vessels. That was a most bold and 
 decisive step ; it was a big step forward ; and it 
 has had the result that we have sixteen ships built 
 and building, armed with i3*5-in. guns, which will 
 be afloat before any ship armed with a weapon of 
 similar power is on the water or in possession of any 
 other naval Power. 
 " Since the beginning of the present struggle," Mr. 
 Hurd continues, " the nation has had good reason to re- 
 echo those words. The decision of the Board of 
 Admiralty in 1909 may be regarded as the final act which 
 condemned Germany to naval inferiority and to impo- 
 tence. . . . By these steps, in a period of nine years only, 
 we built or were in process of building a battle fleet over- 
 whelmingly superior to that of Germany, while simul- 
 taneously the Foreign Office created an international 
 atmosphere which enabled us on the outbreak of war to 
 defeat Germany's expectations and concentrate practically 
 all our large armoured ships in the vicinity of the North 
 Sea." 
 
 These facts are incontrovertible. In seven years the 
 Liberal party rescued the country from a condition of 
 naval weakness, put it in a condition which condemned 
 Germany to nava] inferiority and impotence, and also
 
 I.OKO KISHER 
 ' a portrait by Uerkomer
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 203 
 
 created an international atmosphere which enabled us to 
 lock the second greatest fleet in the world within its 
 harbours. 
 
 Is it fair to say that England was unprepared for war, 
 or that the democracy which put the Liberal party in 
 power at the end of 1905 never prepared for war? 
 Would Admiral von Tirpitz echo those words of Lord 
 Rosebery ? or Vv'ould any German politician say that " we 
 were wholly unprepared for such a conflict"? I cannot 
 imagine how the pen did not jump out of Lord Rose- 
 bery's hand when he wrote, " Our exertions have been 
 since the war began." Let him ask our admirals, our 
 shipbuilders, and our armament manufacturers what their 
 commentary is on this eccentric remark. 
 
 Do not let the reader think that Mr. McKenna's magni- 
 ficent work was the result of newspaper clamour. The 
 same newspapers which still labour under the delusion 
 that they appointed Lord Kitchener to the War Office 
 (a little shamefacedly now) like to think that it was they 
 who strengthened the British Navy. They had nothing 
 whatever to do with the one thing or the other. That 
 Lord Kitchener should go to the War Office was Lord 
 Haldane's suggestion, a suggestion made at the very 
 beginning of the crisis : Mr. Asquith adopted this sug- 
 gestion before the newspapers knew that war was de- 
 clared ; and only Foreign Office anxiety about Lord 
 Kitchener's command in Egypt delayed the appointment 
 for a day or two. These things are perfectly well known 
 to everybody who has any acquaintance with the history 
 of those days. And in the same way Mr. McKenna's 
 famous programme was a decision between himself and 
 Lord Fisher long before newspapers knew what was 
 doing at the Admiralty. Certain members of the Cabinet 
 withstood that programme ; Mr. McKenna said he must 
 resign if it was not accepted ; and the Cabinet accepted 
 it. The Cabinet was not in the least influenced by news- 
 paper clamour, but by the insistence of Mr. McKenna, 
 and by the support he received from the Prime Minister 
 and the War Secretary. Public clamour had nothing what- 
 ever to do with that decision. While the newspapers
 
 204 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 raged, the very newspapers, be it noted, whose party 
 had left Army and Navy in a condition of weakness, the 
 Cabinet was deliberating with no other documents before 
 it but the documents of the First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 It was on those documents, and on nothing else, that the 
 Government took its decision. 
 
 Lord Rosebery may reply to this statement that he was 
 not thinking so much of the Navy as the Army. Let us, 
 then, examine our preparations for war on land. " It 
 is not," says Lord Rosebery, "for the army of 150,000 
 to scheme war against the army of millions." What he 
 quite means by this I do not understand. If he means 
 that the British Expeditionary Force was not a weapon 
 to throw against the German Army, without the support 
 of the British Navy, or without the support of Russia's 
 millions and France's millions, I can see some dim reason 
 for taking the trouble to put this sentence on paper. But 
 since no man in his senses ever conceived that the British 
 Expeditionary Force (the British Army, of course, did not 
 consist of 1 50,000 men but of some 700,000 men) should 
 go into Germany and try its unaided fortunes with " the 
 army of millions," I can see neither force nor excuse for 
 this extraordinary remark. It is a remark which may 
 be as comfortably dismissed as the other remark, " Demo- 
 cracies never prepare for war." 
 
 What are the unassailable facts in this matter? 
 
 When the Liberal Government took office at the extreme 
 end of 1905, our sea-power was slipping from us and our 
 Army was in a condition of chaos and weakness. Between 
 that date and the autumn of 1914 this same Government 
 was able to hold the second greatest navy in the world 
 to its harbours, and to strike such a blow at Germany 
 on land as shattered her hopes of anything but a drawn 
 battle. The Government, then, must have made some 
 preparations. It is purest moonshine, on ]the bare facts 
 of the case, to say that we were " wholly unprepared." 
 Our preparations by sea, as Mr. Hurd tells us, con- 
 demned Germany to impotence. Our preparations by 
 land, as every military observer is agreed, enabled us to 
 save Calais and to break the German onset. We have
 
 i^ARS BRItANNlCA 205 
 
 glanced at what our preparations were by sea, let us 
 glance at what our preparations were by land. 
 
 When Lord Haldane went to the War Office there was 
 no unit larger than a brigade which could have gone to war 
 without changing its composition. The utmost confusion 
 prevailed. And there was depression in every department. 
 No one had thought out a coherent plan. The Aldershot 
 Army Corps would have had to be pulled about and 
 changed in its composition before it could have taken the 
 field. Above everything else, the artillery was in a de- 
 plorable condition. Mr. Arnold Forster had armed it 
 with a good gun, the i8-pounder, but this gun, being a 
 quick-firer, entailed much larger ammunition columns than 
 its introducer had provided. The result was that the men 
 with the batteries had to be drawn on to man the essential 
 ammunition columns, so depleting the batteries that cer- 
 tainly not more than forty-two of them, probably less, 
 could have been sent into action. Such a condition of 
 things will be understood by the veriest layman to stand 
 self-condemned. 
 
 As regards the infantry. Lord Midleton and Lord 
 Roberts had abolished the system of enlisting for seven 
 years with the colours and five with the reserve, substitut- 
 ing a system of three years with the colours and nine with 
 the reserve. The result was that a large number of men 
 refused to sign on after their three years with the colours 
 were out, and, in consequence, there was a serious shortage 
 in numbers. In order to get drafts for India the War 
 Office was compelled to offer bounties on a large scale. 
 There were eight battalions of the line, raised specially for 
 the South African War, which had a peace strength of only 
 500 instead of 750. The total Regular reserve was only 
 80,000, and how the battalions were to be mobilized for war 
 nobody seemed to know. And this was not all. The great 
 principle introduced by Lord Cardwell, that every battalion 
 abroad should be supported by a battalion of the same 
 regiment at home, which in peace-time should train and 
 send out drafts to the oversea battalion, had been so 
 dangerously departed from that there was great confusion 
 in the whole Army system, with inordinate extra^' <5jance in 
 the matter of transports.
 
 2o6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 As to the cavalry, this branch of the service was not only 
 short of horses, but there was no workable provision, even 
 in mobilization, for getting the horses it required. Equally 
 defective were the arrangements for transport and for 
 medical service. In short, wherever one looked the British 
 war machine in 1905, as the writer in the Fortnightly 
 Review truly said, was in a condition of chaos and weak- 
 ness — the two very conditions in which an army should 
 not be. So serious indeed was the condition of the 
 British Army in all its branches and departments when 
 the Liberal Government took office, that Lord Haldane, 
 who must have known that the Fleet was not in a con- 
 dition of complete efficiency, saw, not only the wisdom 
 and righteousness, but the necessity of striving to improve 
 our relations with Germany. 
 
 Lord Haldane, it will be recalled, paid a visit to Berlin 
 very soon after he had taken office, and was given many 
 opportunities of studying the mechanism of the German war 
 machine. It is also known that he was reading up his 
 subject with great industry, so much so that the German 
 generals he encountered told their Kaiser that the English- 
 man knew more about certain military matters, even their 
 own German war history, than they did. Moreover, con- 
 vinced that the British generals of the older generation had 
 failed to assimilate the new ideas which Moltke had intro- 
 duced into military organization. Lord Haldane had taken 
 the greatest pains to surround himself with the most 
 intelligent officers of the younger generation who had 
 learnt the bitter lesson of our war in South Africa. No 
 man was ever better coached for his task or in more 
 deadly earnest. 
 
 Certain principles were decided on by the nev/ minister. 
 First of all, there must be a complete separation of the 
 work of the General Staff, a separation of strategy and 
 training from administration, such as existed in every 
 great army except our own. Secondly, he decided that 
 the basis of all organization must be a war basis, not a 
 peace basis, every unit being prepared to spring into 
 immediate activity on mobilization for war. There was 
 difficulty at first in putting these principles into action,
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 207 
 
 but the Report of the Royal Commission on tlie Army in 
 South Africa disclosed such an appaUing state of confusion 
 (with the result of gross mismanagement and a good deal 
 of dishonest)') that Lord Haldane, who had to deal with 
 this Report in a disciplinary fashion, was strengthened in 
 his determination to overcome all opposition in appl)'ing 
 these two principles to his work of reorganizing the 
 British Army. There was a third principle cki which he 
 acted almost at once, the principle that a higher organiza- 
 tion and a less obsolete method must be found than 
 fighting with battalions and brigades. A larger unit was 
 essential, and Lord Haldane decided on the great division 
 of three brigades, supplied with its full complement of 
 artillery, its divisional cavalry, its proper transport supply, 
 and its own medical service. There was great difficulty in 
 forming these divisions in the matter of artillery ; but 
 Lord Haldane grappled with that difficulty and solved it. 
 In 1906 a total of 38,725 artillerymen was available on 
 mobilization; in 1912, when he left office, this total was 
 54,865. He started at the very outside with 42 batteries, 
 and left the Expeditionary Force with 81 immediately 
 ready for war. 
 
 Nor was this all. In organizing the Territorial Force, 
 Lord Haldane organized it on exactly the same pattern 
 as the Regular Army. He converted the old field-gun 
 into a quick-firer, producing a gun almost as good as the 
 ordinary field-gun of the German Army, and with these 
 provided the Territorial Army with over 150 batteries of 
 horse and field artiller}-, in addition to the 81 of the 
 Regulars. The result was that during his term of office, 
 this man who has actually been accused of reducing the 
 artillery of the British Army, not only made it a much 
 more efficient artillerj^ not only brought it into a proper 
 war organization, but actually gave it about four times as 
 many batteries as it had possessed before.^ 
 
 In the important branch of medical service. Lord 
 
 Haldane gave to Surgeon-General Sir Alfred Keogh a 
 
 free hand, and the liveliest sympathy and the most 
 
 constant support. Not only was the Regular Army 
 
 ' See Appendix, Note J.
 
 2o8 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Medical Service put for tiie first time on an adequate and 
 scientific footing, but one of the most extraordinarily- 
 efficient organizations ever known was set up in connec- 
 tion with the Territorial Force. The highest surgeons 
 and physicians in the land were enrolled as officers, nurses 
 were enlisted in the Territorial Force Nursing Service, and 
 women were trained as members of Voluntary Aid 
 Detachments (Miss Haldane played a great part in this 
 work), while a number of very large buildings were marked 
 down for general hospitals in the event of war. The 
 marvellous hospital of my friend Colonel Bruce-Porter on 
 Wandsworth Common, a school for orphan children up 
 to the hour of mobilization, a hospital with its staff of 
 eminent surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, X-ray special- 
 ists, and nurses, a hospital with all the latest modern 
 equipment for thousands of wounded men, was mobilized 
 for war in a few days after the outbreak of hostilities.^ 
 
 During 31 months of the South African War, in an 
 army of only 250,000 men there were 8,020 cases of 
 enteric fever. In this war, up to April 22, 1916, among 
 1,250,000 men the cases of enteric fever numbered 162. 
 This is what Sir Alfred Keogh has to say on the subject 
 of sanitation, and how sanitation in the Army was brought 
 to its present position of perfect efficiency : 
 
 The primary function of the Royal Army Medical 
 Corps is the maintenance of the strength of armies in 
 the field through prevention of disease. No other 
 consideration is of equal magnitude or importance. 
 Lord Herbert knew this. Parkes was the protagonist 
 of the principle. Modern science by its discoveries 
 has affirmed it over and over again. Yet, though its 
 acceptance as a cardinal principle of administration 
 meant bayonets and money, zV zoas not until the 
 advent of Lord Haldane that the triumph of Anny 
 sanitation tuas complete. Then began that study of 
 technical problems of field sanitation which has meant 
 so much ; then, too, through systematic courses of 
 instruction given to combatant officers and men, the 
 
 ' On the staff of this hospital are Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, Sir 
 John Bland Sutton, and Mr. Richard Cruise.
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 209 
 
 Army generally became aware that practical measures 
 for disease prevention rested on a sound basis. 
 
 Read this tribute of a brilliant man of science and a 
 master of organization in conjunction with the tribute of a 
 great combatant soldier like Lord French, and ask yourself 
 what men mean, what they can possibly mean, when they 
 speak of British unpreparedness for war. 
 
 There is another matter to be mentioned. Lord 
 Haldane did away with the old piecemeal manceuvres, 
 and instituted annual manceuvres on a large scale and 
 as far as possible under war conditions. He took a 
 census of all the horses in the United Kingdom, and 
 obtained powers from Parliament to requisition those 
 which were suitable for war. For the first time British 
 cavalry was fully provided with horses and with reserves 
 of horses. 
 
 Then we must not forget that it was Lord Haldane 
 who converted the old-fashioned, home-service Militia, 
 which was not at all in a good mood after the experience 
 of the South African War, into the Special Reserve be- 
 longing to the first line, organizing large third battalions 
 behind each pair of Regulars, to .train drafts and be 
 stationed for garrison purposes in time of war. 
 
 Above all, we must not forget the abolition of the old 
 Volunteer Force, and the creation of the Territorial Army, 
 which in every material respect resembled the first-line 
 army in organization. Rifles, field-guns, and heavy guns 
 were provided for this force, with a surplus of something 
 like 160,000 rifles in case of emergency. 
 
 The result of all these reforms, begun in 1906 and com- 
 pleted in 1912, was that behind the Regular Force of six 
 divisions and the Regular cavalry organization, there was a 
 second-line army of 14 great divisions and 14 yeomanry 
 brigades. At the beginning of the war this country was 
 able to mobilize 20 divisions with their artillery, cavalry, 
 medical, and transport service complete, the equivalent of 
 ten Army Corps. And the mobilization of this immense 
 force took place without a hitch. The Territorial Army, 
 numbering 313,000 men, were at that moment 50,000 
 short, but officers and men who had passed through its
 
 210 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 training immediately rejoined, and within a few days the 
 whole force was at complete strength, while in a short 
 time it doubled itself. 
 
 These things concerned the United Kingdom. But 
 Lord Haldane's energy and enthusiasm travelled beyond 
 these islands. A year after he took office (1907) there was 
 a Conference of the Colonial Prime Ministers in London, 
 and to these important men Lord Haldane unfolded his 
 scheme and invited their co-operation. So persuasive was 
 that speech, and so admirable the scheme it unfolded, that 
 General Botha proposed, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier seconded, 
 a motion that the speech made to them by Lord Haldane, 
 with the scheme of an Imperial General Staff, should be 
 published throughout the British Commonwealth. This 
 scheme came into being, and later on an Inspector of the 
 Overseas Force was appointed — first Sir John French, and 
 then Sir Ian Hamilton — who visited Canada, Australia, 
 New Zealand, and elsewhere, inspecting and reporting 
 upon the new organization. When war broke out this 
 admirable scheme which Lord Haldane brought into exist- 
 ence enabled the forces of the great dominions to be fitted 
 into the divisional organization of the British Army with- 
 out dislocation or confusion of the smallest kind. 
 
 One of the most significant and useful reforms of Lord 
 Haldane which has escaped general attention concerned 
 the training of officers. He arranged with the London 
 School of Economics to train a number of officers in 
 business administration, railway organization, accounting, 
 preparation of contracts, and other matters essential to the 
 efficient working of a military machine. And in order to 
 get officers, he went round with Sir Archibald Murray of 
 the General Staff (now distinguishing himself in Egypt) 
 and addressed meetings at the Universities on the subject 
 of the Officers' Training Corps. He also called together 
 the head masters of the Public Schools, and arranged with 
 them to take a certain number of boys for Sandhurst 
 without examination, simply on the recommendation of 
 the head masters. The work at the Universities gave the 
 British Army at the beginning of war 24,000 young men 
 of excellent physique and intelligence who joined as
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 211 
 
 officers ; and the work among the Public Schools kept 
 Sandhurst well filled with the best material for officers 
 that the country could supply. 
 
 When Lord Haldane went to the Woolsack in 19 12, 
 The Times stated with perfect truth that "during the past 
 six years the immediate readiness of the Expeditionary 
 Force for overseas action has been the primary objective 
 of the General Staff and of the War Office Administration, 
 and the restored feeling of self-confidetice that prevails in the 
 Army is the best evidejice of the sneeess of the efforts made in 
 this direction^ The words which I have put into italics 
 are the end of the whole matter. Lord Haldane not only 
 " inaugurated and made a military fighting machine and a 
 system of national defence such as this country never had 
 before," but he gave back to the British Army that which 
 all the muddling and tinkering of other reformers, both 
 military and political, had failed to restore — its self- 
 confidence. 
 
 When a man like Lord French says of this great 
 minister, in the midst of war, and a year after the 
 minister's hounding into retirement, that the country owes 
 him a great debt, need we stop to argue with those who 
 say that he reduced here and muddled there and that we 
 were in consequence unprepared for war ? These are the 
 words of Lord French spoken at Cambridge in the month 
 of July 1916: 
 
 It was reserved for Lord Haldane to bring them 
 
 (the Volunteers) to the zenith of their reputation and 
 
 value. The nation is indeed deeply indebted to the 
 
 determined energy, skill, and foresight of that great 
 
 and distinguished statesman. It was he who saw the 
 
 real use to which they might be turned, and the 
 
 general result was that, although remaining volunteers, 
 
 they were formed into that great Territorial Army 
 
 . . . the conception of which was surely one of the 
 
 greatest strokes of genius any statesman ever 
 
 exhibited. 
 
 These are great words, and they proceed from an exalted 
 
 source ; but for myself I almost prefer the words of the 
 
 writer in The Times newspaper : lie restored the self-confi-
 
 212 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 dence of the British Army. It is in this phrase that you 
 have the best answer to all the detractions of Lord 
 Haldane, and the explanation of that almost laughing joy 
 which has animated the whole of the British Arm.y in its 
 fight with the conscripts of Germany. 
 
 My argument is that Great Britain was prepared for 
 war, better prepared than any of her gallant allies, and 
 that it was her preparations which made her entrance into 
 the quarrel fatal to German ambitions. I contend that 
 just as the immortal French Army before Verdun gave 
 our new British armies time to organize themselves for 
 the fight on the Somme, so our immortal British Army of 
 19 1 4, in first breaking the main onset of the German 
 Army, and then in holding the coasts of France, gave the 
 Republic time to marshal its forces and revise its strategy 
 for the v^hole struggle from the English Channel to the 
 Vosges. The battle of the Marne, as Professor Pollard 
 says, was the decisive battle of the v/ar ; " it saved France, 
 and indirectly it saved Russia, too, from a concentrated 
 attack in 191 5 which might have carried the German and 
 Austrian armies to Petrograd and Moscow." And the 
 battle of the Marne followed the battle of Mons and pre- 
 ceded the great sweep to the x'\isne. 
 
 Mr. Oliver says that we only occupied thirty miles on 
 the whole front ; yes, but why does he not say that they 
 are thirty miles of imperishable glory, thirty miles which 
 took the spear-head of the German thrust and broke it on 
 the bleeding breast of British valour ? Only thirty miles, 
 but not a yard of those thirty miles which is not sacred 
 evermore, and proudly sacred, to every man and woman in 
 the British commonwealth. Only thirty miles, but the 
 grave of German ambition. Only thirty miles, but there 
 was wrought the salvation of Europe. 
 
 How sad a thing it is, how sad and disquieting, that it 
 should be necessary for any man to insist upon the decisive 
 part played by the British Army of 19 14. But so insidi- 
 ously and industriously and recklessly have the detractors 
 of England done their work that there is not, I suppose, 
 one man in a hundred amongst us who would not say with
 
 PARS BRITAXNICA 2r^ 
 
 Lord Rosebery that this country was unprepared for war 
 and that all our efforts came after the declaration of war. 
 Let me, then, summoning a hostile witness, remind mj' 
 countrymen that the British Army of August 1914 saved 
 the world. 
 
 What are the true facts of this matter ? I can prove, 
 even from a publication issued by the house of Harms- 
 worth, and called Tlie Standard History of the All-Europe 
 Conflict^ that if our gallant allies had been as well pre- 
 pared as Great Britain this war, which began in August 
 1 9 14, might have ended in six weeks with the total 
 destruction of the German armies. I can prove, too, and 
 our chivalrous allies will be the first to admit it, that the 
 big guns of the British Army saved the hosts of France, 
 ^i}ho ivere entirely ivithout big guns. And I can prove that 
 the British Army of 1914 not only entered upon this war 
 with big guns, but that from the very first its airmen, who 
 worked for the French as well as for ourselves, held 
 complete mastery over the Germans. 
 
 The reader will remember that soon after mobilization 
 the British Expeditionary Force was rushed up to Mons. 
 He will also remember, for it is surely unforgettable, that 
 at Mons the gallant soldiers of this country met, held, and 
 shattered a tremendous drive of the German legions. He 
 will then recollect that this British Army fell back, fighting 
 actions which all the way delayed the Germans, as far 
 as the Marne, close to the French capital. He will then 
 recall that the British Army suddenly leapt up, sweeping 
 the Germans before it as far as the Aisne. All this was 
 the work of a month. Now let us see, calling our hostile 
 witness, how these actions of the British Army were 
 related to the actions of our gallant and chivalrous friends 
 in whose country we were fighting. I quote from The 
 Great War: The Standard History of the All-Europe 
 Conflict (Parts 17, 18, 19, 22, 24): 
 
 In the first great battle, that raged from Mons and 
 Lille in the east {sic) to the Moselle and the Vosges 
 in the west {sic\ France had to pay a heavy price for 
 the dreams of some of her peace-loving ministers, 
 who, bent on social reforms, had grudged the cost
 
 214 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of highly efficient preparations for a vast war. It 
 was a generous mistake.^ 
 
 We were prepared to teach the Germans that good 
 
 marksmanship, a magazine rifle, and a cool, steady 
 
 eye could break any Zulu-like charge, even when 
 
 guns had failed to stay it. . . . " Mark your man ! " 
 
 Our soldiers marked him, in tens, in hundreds, and 
 
 when the range was three hundred yards they marked 
 
 him in thousands, in tens of thousands. Nothing 
 
 living could stand against the deadly, scientific rapid 
 
 fire poured out from the British trenches. The 
 
 Germans who remained upright looked about them 
 
 like men dazed ; then, screaming with terror, turned 
 
 and fled. . . . The first historic battle against the 
 
 Prussian . . . was going the way that Crecy and 
 
 Agincourt had gone. 
 
 The writer tells us that the German gunners " were 
 
 not so good as ours " ; that the German infantry was 
 
 " helpless " ; that our cavalry had the German cavalry 
 
 " at their mercy " ; and that in aerial warfare " the same 
 
 personal ascendancy of the Briton over the Teuton was 
 
 quickly gained." Not badly then did Lord Haldane's 
 
 fighting machine expose to Germany its criminal " un- 
 
 preparedness." The writer proceeds : 
 
 While the British Expeditionary Force was 
 gallantly beating back one hundred thousand German 
 troops at Mons . . . things were going badly every- 
 where else on the northerti front of the Allies. . . . 
 
 In spite of the delay to part of the German forces 
 at Liege, France had not been able to carry out her 
 mobilization with the effectiveness and completeness 
 that marked the aggressive Teutonic effort. . . . 
 Still more unhappy was the French army that was 
 working more northward along the Meuse, between 
 Dinant and Mezieres. It was thrown back to the 
 river. ... It was mainly this disaster at Givet which 
 
 ' The treatment meted out to Lord Haldane, who did provide big 
 guns and who did give us a perfect and swiftly mobilized army, was 
 not generous.
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 215 
 
 determined the retreat of the rest of the allied 
 line. . . . 
 
 In the meantime the large French force of 200,000 
 men at Charleroi had already lost the command of 
 the Sambre between Charleroi and Namur . . . the 
 men of the Fifth French Army were in no position to 
 help their British friends at Mons. They could not 
 even attempt any combined action. . . . 
 
 Such was the disastrous condition of things on the 
 right of the British force that was holding Mons. , . . 
 On the left of our troops matters were growing even 
 worse. . . . To General D'Amade had been entrusted 
 the defence of Northern France from Lille to the 
 sea-coast. . . . He was now at Arras, with only some 
 French Territorials within call. The French Terri- 
 torial is not a young, active volunteer like the British 
 Territorial, but an oldish man who has passed out 
 of the first-line troops. . . . Many of them were 
 fathers of families, suddenly called from office, shop, 
 and workshop to the colours. Their march tired 
 them. . . . 
 
 Since Sir John Moore marched through Spain . . . 
 no British commander had had to conduct a retreat 
 in such difficulties as faced Sir John French on the 
 Franco-Belgian frontier in the last week of August 
 1914. Indeed, the later achievement of British arms 
 is even more glorious than the early feat at Corunna. 
 
 After describing the beginning of the great retreat 
 of the British with both their flanks exposed, the standard 
 historian tells us that "the incomparable marksmanship 
 of the British infantrymen " saved the situation ; and that 
 with the British were "the best men with a bayonet to 
 be found in the world." He then tells us that the 
 " haimner-head of the Germati host, fashioned to deliver the 
 blow shattering the British Army and ruining the entire 
 French offetisive, was able ... to mass the tremendous 
 fire of a thousand guns against the British left wing." 
 Then we come to the description of a battle and read : 
 The total losses of the enemy were literally stagger-
 
 2i6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 ing. They certainly staggered the attacking army. 
 . . . After our men sent their wounded on by train 
 to Guise, and then withdrew southward towards Was- 
 signy, the German gunners went on shelling Landrecies 
 for hours. The Germans were afraid to enter. The 
 nerve of their infantry was broken. 
 How different was it with our men, ringed round by the 
 Germans ! 
 
 With bullet and bayonet they broke through and 
 swept aside the host that barred their southern road, 
 and their gunners cleared the way in front of them 
 with fanning-out salvos of shrapnel fire. One eye- 
 witness remarks that tlie Germans in turn might have 
 been ringed with flame and steel if the French reserves 
 had been able to a}'rive sooner. 
 And finally : 
 
 All risk of disaster to the retiring yet invincible 
 Britons was averted. The supreme test had come, 
 and the men of our race had risen to the heights of 
 heroism of our forefathers. They had saved us from 
 disaster and shielded France. . . . While the British 
 Expeditionary Force was holding back the great 
 enveloping movement of the main German Army, 
 and then saving itself and the Fifth and Fourth 
 French Armies from an overwhelming outflanking 
 attack, the northern forces of France were fighting 
 their way southward. 
 Whether Lord Rosebery will still say, after reading 
 these words, that we were unprepared for war, and 
 whether Mr, Oliver will still speak patronizingly of the 
 thirty miles of British front, I cannot say ; but I do not 
 believe that a single unprejudiced mind, reading these 
 words, which ought to recall and quicken a thousand 
 splendid memories, will say that I exaggerate my case 
 when I protest that literally and beyond all possible 
 question the British Army of August 1914 saved Europe 
 from a German victory. And if this be true, what mad- 
 ness to speak lightly of our unpreparedness, or slightingly 
 of our thirty miles of front ! 
 
 Is Lord Rosebery aware, and is Mr. Oliver aware, that
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 217 
 
 France was entirely without heavy guns, and that the 
 British Expeditionary Force, which they say was unpre- 
 pared for this war, saved French armies by the use of 
 heavy guns with which it had been equipped from the 
 very first? If they are not aware of these things they 
 ought not to speak on the subject ; and if aware of them, 
 they ought not to say what they have said, for it darkens 
 the glory of British arms and is not the truth. 
 
 Let the standard historian continue to enlighten us. 
 He is now speaking of the end of the great retirement 
 and the beginning of the great advance : 
 
 The French in their artillery had sacrificed power 
 to mobility. Their light quick-firing gun was almost 
 as handy as a maxim. . . . But in siege warfare, 
 against long-range howitzers, it could make no pro- 
 gress. ... It was the fault of the French Ministry 
 for War of more than a decade before, but they had 
 made a mistake in neglecting the change which the 
 progress of motor-traction had produced in the con- 
 ditions of so moving heavy guns and heavy howitzers 
 as not to slacken the march of an army. 
 
 The German rearguard was not thrown back from 
 the Ourcq until some heavy guns of the British Army 
 were brought up from Meaux to shell the enemy's 
 artillery positions. . . . One of the things that made 
 our comparatively small Expeditionary Force so 
 useful to our allies was that — taught by our expe- 
 rience in the South African campaign ... we had 
 a proportion of fairly heavy batteries in our field 
 artillery. 
 He then comes to the battle of the Marne,^ and says : 
 In this battle, where millions of men rocked for 
 ten days in unceasing conflict, a hundred thousand 
 British soldiers played a strangely decisive part — out 
 of all proportion to the smallness of their numbers. 
 . . . The splendid fighting qualities of the British 
 
 ' "The great crisis of the war passed when the battle of the Marne 
 was won, and by the end of November the violent attempts to reach 
 Calais had failed. . . ." (Lord Sydenham, in T/ie Times, August 4, 
 1916).
 
 2i8 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 soldier consummated the success. The result was 
 that the Crown Prince and the Kaiser, while pre- 
 paring for their great immortal triumph, were sud- 
 denly transformed into fugitives. It was French's 
 "contemptible little army," still unexterminated, 
 which was the immediate instrument in bringing 
 suddenly to dust and bitterness the towering, glorious 
 hopes of the War-maker of the World. . . . The 
 British soldier walked over what had been the 
 Kaiser's best army ; he kicked it across three rivers 
 — the Grand Morin, the Petit Morin, and the 
 Marne — and then chased it as it tore away in pre- 
 cipitate flight. ... In numbers the British Expe- 
 ditionary Force had not increased since its great 
 battles in Belgium . . . but all its losses had been 
 made good by fresh drafts. . . . 
 
 This completed the British victory. How impor- 
 tant it was to the general scheme of operations 
 planned by the French Commander-in-Chief, may 
 be judged from the fact that the Sixth French 
 Army, at the time our forces crossed the Marne, 
 was still heavily engaged to the west of the Ourcq 
 River. The great German armament still swept all 
 the main approaches against Kluck's lines of retreat 
 . . . and it was apparently only with the help of some 
 of our heavy batteries that the passage of the Ourcq 
 was at last forced. 
 
 And it is the same thing at the crowning glory of the 
 
 Aisne : 
 
 Even the heavy German field-guns could not keep 
 back the British force. For our men also had heavy 
 guns and howitzer batteries, and in the two recognized 
 actions . . . the Germans lost about 48 guns as 
 well as some 4,000 men. 
 If the French were not prepared for a battle of big guns, 
 
 they were also not prepared against the German system 
 
 of espionage : 
 
 Some of the chief quarries near Soissons had been 
 especially worked by German firms in peace-time . . . 
 positions had been prepared and every yard of the
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 219 
 
 plateau carefully marked out for artillery. . . . 
 Employees in these German businesses — some of 
 them Frenchmen of a scoundrelly sort . . . — were 
 scattered about the country south of the Aisne River, 
 and provided with secret underground telephone 
 communications. 
 
 It was not a battle of man against man. It was a 
 one-sided contest between 80,000 young British 
 athletes and a gigantic, systematized, and long- 
 prepared machine of war . . . with 140,000 riflemen, 
 gunners, and cavalrymen behind it. It would have 
 been no disparagement of the courage of our soldiers 
 had they failed to force the passage of the Aisne 
 against such an array of machinery of death. Just 
 on the British right the Turcos, who are among the 
 most fearless souls with mortal breath, were driven 
 back to the ford of Berry-au-Bac. And further west- 
 ward, in the more level land around Rheims, the 
 German guns blew the Fifth French Army from a 
 very important hill position. . . . On the British left 
 the Sixth French Army was, for a time, held up south 
 of Soissons, until our artillery cleared the way for 
 them, and it was hurled back to the river, often 
 almost reaching the plateau. 
 
 But despite the terrible disadvantages under which 
 
 they attacked, the British troops not only crossed the 
 
 valley of death, but seized and held a commanding 
 
 position on the plateau of Soissons. . . . Over the 
 
 difficult high wooded ridge between the Vesle and 
 
 the Aisne the beaten German forces were driven by 
 
 the British horsemen. 
 
 Surely I need quote no more from The Standard History 
 
 of the All-Europe Cofiflict, issued with the imprimatur of 
 
 Lord Northcliffe and edited by a notable writer on the 
 
 staff of the Daily Mail, Mr. H. VV. Wilson. 
 
 We know, ot course, that the decisive battle of the 
 Marne was won by the magnificent strategy of Jofifre, 
 by Foch, and by the fine valour of French manhood. We 
 know that the France of the Marne was the same
 
 220 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 unconquerable France which stirred the admiration of 
 the whole world at Verdun. It is the very top of 
 exaggeration to say that Britain won this decisive battle. 
 To France, fighting for her very life, belongs the imperish- 
 able glory of the victory which saved her. But this will 
 be said by every historian of that battle, French or British, 
 that France was helped, and helped decisively, in getting 
 her glorious victory over the German hosts by a little 
 army from Britain which held with a high courage and 
 an unbreakable will thirty vital miles of that vital 
 battlefront. 
 
 People who have been depressed by the pessimists 
 during the long and trying period of trench warfare will 
 perhaps rub their eyes on reading that the unprepared 
 and neglected British Army at the beginning of the war 
 went about kicking the Kaiser's best army across rivers, 
 making His Imperial Majesty's infantrymen run screaming 
 for their lives, outshooting German gunners, outflying 
 German airmen, scattering German cavalry, and lending 
 its heavy batteries to the aid of the French, who were 
 entirely without heavy guns. 
 
 Such, however, was indeed the achievement of the 
 British Expeditionar)' Force, the war machine inaugurated 
 and made by Lord Haldane, of whom quite recently one 
 of the London newspapers, published by the same house 
 as published the history from which I have quoted, has 
 spoken in the following elegant fashion : " The results of 
 his policy are written iji British blood on the battlefields of 
 three continents : 
 
 From such a man we want to hear no word on any 
 subject whatever. One is staggered indeed by the 
 impertinence of a politician who, having done his 
 utmost — only too successfully — to prevent due pre- 
 paration for the present war, seeks to advise us con- 
 cerning our preparedness for the commercial war 
 which is to follow. Whatever we do, we shall not 
 wage war on Lord Haldane' s lines. 
 
 Whether Lord Haldane remains in England or 
 betakes himself to that " spiritual home " which he has 
 never disowned concerns us but little, but if he elects to
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 221 
 
 stay here, let him hold his tongue. In common decency 
 let him remain silent and forbear to insult with his 
 pompous orations the nation which he has misled.^ 
 Is it not inconceivable that from the same house two 
 such voices should proceed ? And is it not still more 
 inconceivable that these insolent and unpardonable words 
 should be addressed by journalists of whom nobody has 
 ever heard to a man who restored the self-confidence of 
 the British Army (shattered by the political party sup- 
 ported by this very newspaper) and to whom the best 
 military judge in the country has told us we are deeply 
 in debt ? 
 
 Let it be remembered that while the battle of the Marne 
 was a decisive battle, the glory of v/hich belongs mainly 
 to the French, that decisive battle would never have taken 
 place if the British Army during the retreat from Mons 
 had failed to hold back " the great enveloping movement 
 of the main German A.rmy." On that famous retreat 
 British arms saved the world. If Britain had failed then, 
 nothing could have stopped the German Army from 
 reaching Paris and seizing the French coasts. 
 
 The truth of the whole matter has been excellently put 
 by Mr. Winston Churchill in a recent article published in 
 the Stmday Pictorial, which seems to have some connec- 
 tion with the house of Harmsworth. He said that the 
 British Army went to France according to what might be 
 called the Haldane plan ; and proceeded : 
 
 Everything in that minister's eight-year tenure of 
 the War Office had led up to this and had been sacri- 
 ficed for this. To place an army of four or six 
 infantry divisions, thoroughly equipped, and with 
 their necessary cavalry, on the left of the French 
 line within twelve or fourteen days of the order to 
 mobilize, and to guard the home island meanwhile by 
 the fourteen Territorial divisions he had organized, 
 was the scheme upon which, aided by Field-Marshals 
 Nicholson and P'rench, he had concentrated all his 
 efforts and stinted resources. 
 
 ' Evening News ^ July 12, 1916.
 
 222 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 It was a modest plan ; but it was a practical plan ; 
 it was consistently pursued and laboriously and 
 minutely studied. It represented, approximately, the 
 maximum war effort that the voluntary system would 
 yield, applied in the most effective and daring manner 
 to the decisive spot. It commanded the assent of 
 almost all the leading generals. When the hour 
 struck it worked with perfect precision and punc- 
 tuality. There was nothing to argue about, nothing 
 to haggle over. The French knew exactly what they 
 were going to get, if Great Britain decided to come 
 in, and exactly when and where they were going to 
 get it. . . . 
 
 The French judged the value of any help we could 
 give entirely by when it could arrive ! If on that 
 August 4th they had been given the choice of 
 100,000 British soldiers in a fortnight or 500,000 in 
 six months, or 1,000,000 in a year, they would un- 
 questionably have replied, " What have six months 
 hence to do with us ? We have got to live through 
 six weeks." 
 I need say no more. The only blot on England's 
 escutcheon in this war of many nations is that she allowed 
 a few noisy journalists to drive out of office the one man 
 who more than any other, save Lord Fisher, had pre- 
 pared her to fight with honour and with power. 
 
 When the mischief-makers, detested by King Edward, 
 are busy on other matters, when the hysterics, no longer 
 shivering for their skins, have recovered their composure 
 and their manners, and when the hearts of our disturbed, 
 depressed, misguided vulgarians are again impatient of 
 Sir Benjamin Backbiter, and in a mood to laugh at 
 Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, we shall see with clear eyes 
 that Britain played for her size by far the greatest and 
 infinitely the most decisive part in the world's fight for 
 liberty and law. We shall see, to begin with, that she 
 fulfilled to the letter all her engagements : that her Fleet 
 held the seas, and that a greater force than France ever 
 expected her to send was landed on French coasts with a
 
 PARS BRITANNICA 223 
 
 swiftness and a completeness of detail that astonished 
 mankind. And we shall see that these little islands, 
 having given this Fleet and this incomparable Army to 
 the common cause, proceeded, without serious interruption 
 of her normal life, to lend millions of pounds to her allies 
 and her colonies, and also to supply her allies with 
 munitions and stores. i And we shall see that, finding 
 these things not sufficient, she called to her manhood, and 
 that over five million of her manhood answered ; and that 
 she called to her masters and men, and in a few months, 
 without chaos or disorder, this democratic country devoted 
 to industry and peace was turned into a vast arsenal. 
 These things we shall see with clear eyes and surely with 
 proud eyes. We shall see that mistakes were made here 
 and there, but no mistake comparable to the awful 
 blunders of Germany ; and we shall see that a few 
 hundred thousand men were a little slow in coming to 
 the colours, and that a few hundred thousand workmen 
 were selfish and lazy and ignorant at the beginning of 
 this revolution in our national life ; but all these things 
 will appear as dust on the highway in comparison with the 
 swift uprising of the British commonwealth to do more 
 than it had promised, more than its allies expected it to 
 do, and more than any other country in the world has 
 ever done before. 
 
 Some men, looking back to the years behind us, will 
 perhaps see a curious coincidence in the fact that two of 
 King Edward's most trusted friends. Lord Fisher at the 
 Admiralty and Lord Haldane at the War Office, were 
 diligently rescuing the British Navy and the British Army 
 from chaos, weakness, and loss of confidence, while their 
 royal master did what he could for the peace of the world. 
 A curious coincidence, too, that both these men had 
 succeeded beyond the bounds of expectation just before 
 Germany hit out with all her force at Russia and at 
 France. 
 
 Let me assure the reader, and I know what I am 
 speaking of, that when he hears what this country has 
 
 ' By March, 1917, Great Britain will have lent to her allies and 
 the Dominions /j"8 1 8,000,000.
 
 224 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 done for Russia, for France, for Italy, and for Serbia — 
 holding her world-wide empire in unbroken security, and 
 taking colony after colony of enormous size from the 
 Germans — he will be very angry with those who have 
 disparaged this great people, depressed his spirits, shaken 
 the faith of our allies, and inspired a serious journalist 
 to tell the continent of neutral America that a whole 
 system has broken down in England — a system of empire, 
 of life, of government. 
 
 Such a story as the world has never heard will be told 
 to the nations when glorious Russia (who is longing to tell 
 now) and most valiant, noble-hearted France, and gallant, 
 freedom-loving Italy, are free to say what Britain has 
 done for them. And what I know, and what will amaze 
 every man when it is told, is also known (let this be 
 remembered afterwards) by those who still persist in 
 spreading depression and blackening the good name of 
 this country. 
 
 There are indeed men in this nation whom France 
 would long ago have brought to the lamp-post.
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD
 
 I believe no country of Europe is so fitted to be a 
 republic as Germany ; I believe her difficulties are from 
 her Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs, and nothing else. 
 I believe she will end by getting rid of these gentry ; 
 and that till that time comes the world will never know 
 of what real greatness she is capable. 
 
 Friendships Garland (1870)
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 
 
 MANY serious people in England are at the present 
 moment considering (stupider people are deciding) 
 what shall be done with Germany after the war. 
 If I am not misinformed, societies have come into 
 existence (most of them with fine-sounding imperial 
 names) expressly for dealing with this matter. And 
 certainly we have had the Allies' Economic Conference in 
 Paris which was a considerable step on the road of doing 
 unto Germany exactly what we should not like other 
 people to do unto us — just as if our old jungle morality 
 had not received a deathblow in this war. But in spite of 
 societies, resolutions, and pagan feeling, the only victory 
 which can bring lasting peace to the world is Germany's 
 victory over herself. The supreme issue of the war is the 
 repentance of Germany. 
 
 No man of sober and reflective mind dreams for a 
 moment, I am quite sure, that any economic plan of the 
 Allies can permanently exclude the centre of Europe from 
 relations with the rest of the world. No man thinks that 
 we can really put millions of people to Coventry. We 
 may hate Germany with all our hearts ; we may loathe 
 and detest her for those abominable things which have 
 brought her to open shame in the eyes of mankind ; we 
 may wish to annihilate her people and wash her name 
 from off the map of Europe and forget that ever such an 
 evil Power disgraced the modern annals of humanity ; but 
 reflection will tell us that these wishes, desires, and 
 vehement feelings lead nowhither, that certainly they do 
 not make for that chief ambition which, we have over and
 
 22"^ TilZ Vi^J[Z\ TION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 over again professed, was our reason for drawing the 
 sword — they do not make for an end of war, and they do 
 not contribute to the foundations of peace. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we inquire into the condition of 
 Germany, and find that among these very intelHgent if 
 disHkeable people there are many who really hate war, 
 and really repudiate all the ideas underlying Pan-Ger- 
 manism, and who really wish to live in love and charity 
 with their neighbours, we must surely see that our wisest 
 and our highest action will be so to end this hideous war 
 that these better German people, and not the ruling caste 
 who have brought about the calamity of war, become the 
 arbiters of Germany's future. Therefore, to speak of what 
 we intend to do with " Germany " after the war is to 
 speak of what is not yet in existence — is to assume at any 
 rate that the v/orld will still be confronted by the same 
 enemy, which at that time, if the argument hold, will be 
 destroyed. If the same Germany exist after the war as 
 existed before the war then is our labour vain. But if a 
 new Germany come into existence, then it must be wise of 
 us, before we decide how we shall deal with this Germany, 
 to tarry until we know the form it will assume and the 
 character it will take. 
 
 Before we consider whether there are moderate, humane, 
 and peaceful people in Germany, let us first of all remind 
 ourselves that those newspapers in England which most 
 loudly tell us there are not any people in Germany whom 
 we can trust, are themselves the least trustworthy guides 
 in any matter under the sun. Let us think, for example, 
 what would have been our fate in this war if we had 
 listened to these same newspapers in the days of Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and had refused self-govern- 
 ment to South Africa. That is a most pertinent question. 
 For it is quite certain that had we been guided by those 
 well-meaning but wrong-thinking newspapers, by this time 
 not a colony would be left to us in South Africa, and 
 perhaps not a single man or woman of the British race in 
 South Africa would be alive at the present moment. And 
 let us remember that these sam.e newspapers, some of them 
 with pure motives, did everything in their power to stir up
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 229 
 
 religious animosities in Ireland, whereby not only were 
 we brought to mutiny in the Army and very near to civil 
 war in the United Kingdom, but whereby, in all prob- 
 ability, this cataract of blood and ruin descended upon 
 Europe. And let us remember, too, that having spent the 
 last decade in fighting, with every weapon of abuse and 
 misrepresentation and recklessness, the political party 
 which was struggling to improve the very deplorable con- 
 ditions of our working people, these same newspapers, at 
 the beginning of war, had the hardihood to turn round on 
 the poor workman in his slum and call him every name 
 under the sun, because he had neither the intelligence to 
 see that his liberties were threatened nor the decency to 
 feel that those liberties were worth fighting for. Let us 
 also remember (and I know of few more striking warn- 
 ings against reckless clamour) that if we had listened to 
 certain of our journalistic advisers we should have started 
 on this war, which depends so largely for its success both 
 by land and by sea on wireless telegraphy, not with the 
 English Marconi Company, but with its only rival, to 
 whom members of Parliament actually went for the 
 purpose of negotiations, a German Wireless Company, with 
 its offices in Berlin. Finally, let us remember that there 
 has been in English life no more vulgarizing influence 
 during the last ten years than the influence exercised by 
 the popular Press — a Press which has exalted the Divorce 
 Court and degraded-Parliament, which has administered 
 claptrap and lived upon sensation, which thinks so con- 
 temptuously of the people whose halfpennies bulge its 
 pockets that it unsays to-day without explanation what it 
 said yesterday, and to-morrow will certainly say something 
 else ; a Press which is not more without self-respect than it 
 is without shame — in sober truth, an irresponsible, unin- 
 telligent, and most dangerous Press. We must altogether 
 neglect the efforts of this Press to make us think according 
 to its varying moods in deciding any question of impor- 
 tance, particularly so important a question as the one we 
 are now considering, which involves the peace and happi- 
 ness of our children. It is to me one of the greatest 
 tragedies of this most tragic calamity, that the men of
 
 230 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 middle age who made this war by their reckless journalism 
 are safe out of the firing-line, while a purer, kinder, and 
 more honourable generation, which would certainly have 
 worked for a better and nobler world, and which would 
 have been superior to the influence of these baser news- 
 papers, is being slain by tens and hundreds of thousands. 
 " You," says Romain Rolland to the young soldiers of 
 France, " are doing your duty, but have others done theirs ? 
 Let us be bold and proclaim the truth to the elders of these 
 young men, to their moral guides, to their religious and 
 secular leaders, to the churches, the great thinkers, the 
 leaders of socialism : these living riches, these treasures 
 of heroism you held in your hands ; for what are you 
 squandering them ? What ideal have you held up to the 
 devotion of these youths so eager to sacrifice themselves? 
 Their mutual slaughter ! A European war ! A sacri- 
 legious conflict which shows a maddened Europe ascending 
 its funeral pyre, and, like Hercules, destroying itself with 
 its own hands ! " ^ 
 
 In Scandinavia, where the general level of comfort and 
 refinement is very much higher than in this country, and 
 where education, too, has a higher standard, I found a 
 considerable number of people holding the view that our 
 shortest way to the victory we desire would be an imme- 
 diate peace. They argued, from their experience of 
 Germany, that a peace which returns to the conditions 
 existing before the war, however unsatisfactory and 
 inconclusive it might seem, would in reality give us the 
 only victory which could serve our ultimate and highest 
 purpose. 
 
 These people said to me, and they were people of great 
 reputation among their countrymen: "You cannot destroy 
 the German nation. You may drive the German armies 
 across the Rhine, at a great cost in life and fortune, but you 
 will never be able to subjugate the German people. And 
 the more you hint or suggest that you will not be satisfied 
 till you enter Germany, the more you strengthen the 
 hands of the war caste and weaken the arm of social 
 ' Above the Battle, by Romain Rolland. (Allen and Unwin.)
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 231 
 
 democracy. Your wise policy is to say that you are 
 satisf.ed with the punishment you have inflicted, and, 
 if Germany will evacuate the territories she has invaded 
 (the question of indemnities is a detail), that you will 
 withdra\7 your armies and remove your blockade. The 
 result of such an action would be this : Germany, with 
 foreign trade and a paper currency, and with no raw 
 materials worth speaking of, would presently be reduced 
 to insolvency. There would be the greatest suffering 
 and distress throughout the German Empire. And in 
 that condition the Socialists, the peace party, and the 
 great body of moderate opinion in Germany, would say 
 to the Pan-Germanists, ' Well, you have had your war, 
 and this is what you have brought us to — away with you ! ' 
 In a word, very soon after peace is proclaimed there will 
 be a revolution in Germany. The Hohenzollcrns will be 
 driven from the throne, the war party will be dispersed, 
 and a republic will be proclaimed." 
 
 Now, this suggestion is only questionable because we 
 cannot be certain that the German people will revolt 
 against their rulers. Manifestly, if we could be certain 
 of that, it would be folly to proceed with our apparatus of 
 war, which is costing us so many infinitely precious lives, 
 which is filling our hospitals with thousands of maimed 
 and mutilated young men, and which is certainly piling 
 up an enormous debt, the weight of which will be felt to 
 its life's end by the youngest child alive. None of us 
 would go on with the war for another day, nay, for another 
 hour, if we could be perfectly certain that peace would 
 bring a republic to Germany. The whole question is, 
 Will Germany change her mind ? There are some who 
 say that the Germans are too docile to rebel. But I heard 
 Mr. A. li. Pollen once reply to this assertion, that as for 
 himself he had never been dogmatic on such matters after 
 an illuminating day in his boyhood, when his hand was 
 bitten right through by a doe rabbit. We should certainly 
 say that no person with a glimmer of imagination would 
 expect the Germans to be as docile after this ruinous 
 war as they have certainly shown themselves for a number 
 of flourishing peace years. But the fact still remains
 
 232 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 that we cannot be certain of a revolution, and therefore 
 it is incumbent upon us to fight until our enemies seek 
 for peace. 
 
 M. Sazonoff, with whom I have discussed this Scandi- 
 navian idea, told me, and the best opinion in English 
 ministerial circles agrees with him, that we cannot possibly 
 afford to make peace of any kind until the Germans 
 acknowledge that they are beaten. As to whether we 
 must overrun German territory, M. Sazonoff said, that 
 is for the allied generals to decide ; but certainly our 
 armies must go on fighting until the enemy is on his 
 knees. This, I take it, is the opinion of most rational 
 men. We dare not sheathe our terrible sword, however 
 deeply we feel the anguish and loss of wasteful war, 
 while Germany holds the gathered nations at bay. 
 
 Now, why I mention this matter of peace, is to bring 
 home to those people in England who have not cultivated 
 an international mind, and who are under the hypnotic 
 influence of our brawling journalism, that in other countries 
 of the world, countries which are thoroughly friendly to 
 the Allies, and whose democracies have every reason to 
 fear any extension of German power, there is an absolute 
 conviction that among the German nations are elements 
 of the population whose sympathies are entirely with the 
 real cause for which we are fighting. 
 
 It is true I did not find in these countries the same 
 detestation of German atrocities as exists here ; indeed, 
 they are inclined to think that we have lost dignity in 
 the way we have made public use of these horrible 
 things ; they say that we should have made a better 
 mark in the world by registering our condemnation of 
 these atrocities and then holding our peace while we con- 
 tinued our efforts to beat the German armies. Let me 
 take two examples of this feeling. Scandinavians said to 
 me that the sinking of the Lusita^iia was a dreadful 
 thing ; but not much less dreadful in their opinion was 
 our blockade, which threatened death by starvation to 
 women and children whose men we are unable to over- 
 throw in the field. This, I hold, is a bad, false point of
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 233 
 
 view : but there is no doubt that many Scandinavians 
 do genuinely see the matter in that Hght. They are filled 
 with pity for the sufferings of innocent women and 
 children in Germany. 
 
 And then again : the shooting of Nurse Cavell, they 
 say, was a blunder on the part of the Germans, but it is 
 absurd of us, so they argue, to stigmatize this blunder 
 as a "murder." They say that Nurse Cavell had betrayed 
 her trust : that under the sacred garb of charity she was 
 playing the part of an enemy agent : that having received 
 confidence from her country's enemies, she abused that 
 confidence, and smuggled men back into the trenches who, 
 when they got there, would certainly kill as many 
 Germans as possible. When I pressed these people on 
 the point of the horror of shooting a woman, they answered 
 me that the French had shot a number of women spies. 
 The chief point they made was this : that while horrors 
 and atrocities are deplorable in the highest degree, we in 
 England have seemed to make use of these horrors and 
 atrocities, not so much to stir up our own determination 
 and resolution, as to create sympathy for ourselves with 
 neutrals and to do as much harm as possible to the 
 Germans. They know that we hasten to spread news of 
 such things by wireless telegraphy all over the world, and 
 that our newspapers do everything in their power to 
 magnify the horror of every German crime. This, they 
 think, is odious and immoral. 
 
 But while the people I am speaking about hold the 
 opinions I have endeavoured to state very briefly, they 
 are one and all on the side of the Allies and decidedly 
 anti-German. They hate German arrogance. They fear 
 German power. It would be the worst day in the world 
 for Sweden, Norway, and Denmark if Germany conquered 
 in this struggle : one of the greatest assurances of liberty 
 if Germany is defeated. 
 
 When such people as these, then, tell us that there are 
 men and women in Germany who are on the side of peace, 
 who hate the war caste, and who will certainly make an 
 end of that war caste after the bloodshed is over and when 
 the ruin has begun, we may at least feel ourselves en-
 
 234 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 couraged to inquire how far this opinion reflects the 
 actual condition of German psychology. For, if there is 
 any real hope of a revolution in Germany, then we can 
 fight with the assurance of a victory that will really bring 
 peace to the earth ; and perhaps fight in such a manner 
 as will bring the forces of revolution into action. That 
 is to say, if our public men will declare more and more 
 emphatically that we are not fighting to destroy the 
 German nation, but fighting to destroy the present system 
 of government in Germany, and if our publicists and 
 journalists will proclaim the same gospel, announcing that 
 we shall certainly fight on until that evil system of govern- 
 ment is destroyed, then, through neutral countries, this 
 truth getting more and more into the mind of German 
 democracy, we may find our battle won for us by an ally 
 we scarcely thought about — the sober and sensible people 
 of Germany. As it is, the extracts from our English 
 newspapers which now appear in the German Press are 
 not calculated to make the sober and sensible people of 
 Germany either trust us or respect us. We are exhibited 
 to the German people, by these extracts, as a jealous and 
 revengeful nation. 
 
 In a recent number of the Cornhill Magazine a " Neutral 
 Diplomat " has told English readers that there is a change 
 in the mind of Germany, a change which we do not realize. 
 " Cut off," said this neutral diplomat, " by the pall 
 of the more imminent war-clouds, we on the outside 
 have as yet had little chance to gauge the force of the 
 storm that is gathering to break upon Germany from 
 within. Whether the breaking of that storm will 
 precede and accelerate the coming of peace, or whether 
 the coming of peace will precede and accelerate the 
 breaking of the storm, it is still too early to say. But 
 break it must, sooner or later, and when this hour 
 arrives I feel that I know enough of the temper of the 
 men who distrusted and hated the Kaiser before 
 the war to be safe in saying, that whatever of his just 
 deserts he may have escaped receiving at the hand 
 of the Allies he will stand every chance of havin
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 235 
 
 meted out to him at the hands of his own outraged 
 people." 
 Some of the Kaiser's own men, he says, now admit that 
 this " mad piece of international adv^enturing " has " made 
 inevitable the downfall of Germany." Before the war 
 came, a German diplomatist said to this writer in the 
 Cornhill : 
 
 For a long time I have been afraid that this periodic 
 waving of a lighted torch over such a powder magazine 
 as Europe has become would cause an explosion. It 
 will /lave to come if — if " some one" continues to scatter 
 sparks in the future as he has done in the past. Please 
 don't understand me as intimating that Gei'many 
 would not render a good account of herself in such 
 an event (you may be sure that her enemies would 
 have some terrible surprises in store for them) ; but 
 the folly of the thing lies in the fact that we are 
 already on our way to win by " peaceful penetra- 
 tion " all that the most successful war could give us. 
 But if we should fight a war and chance to lose it — 
 nay, even if it should result in more or less of a draw 
 — Germany will never again have such an opportunity 
 for a commercial — and through that, for a political — ■ 
 conquest of the world as she has enjoyed for the last 
 two or three decades, and as she will continue to enjoy 
 so long, but only so long, as we can keep at peace. 
 These remarks suggest that the German diplomatist 
 cordially approved of Prince von Billow's laconic prophecy 
 in the Reichstag concerning the race of armaments : 
 " Pressure — coimter-pressure — explosion" 
 
 Our authority goes on to assure us that Herr Ballin, one 
 of the best-known peace men in Germany, whose acquaint- 
 ance with Lord Haldane, however, has driven the viper 
 Press of this country to coil itself into contortions of 
 frenzied rage, is " one of those who watched the develop- 
 ment of the Kaiser's insidiously ruthless policy with the 
 gravest misgivings." He quotes another German ship- 
 owner who said to him one day in Hong-Kong : 
 
 Emperor William's ivelt-politik is the worst, almost 
 the one, menace to the continuance of our commercial
 
 236 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 triumphs. We have done what we have in spite of, not 
 because of, this kind of ivelt-politik. What is more, it 
 is the one thing that threatens to bring all our achieve- 
 ments to naught. Yes, not only to check our advance, 
 but even to put us back so far that we may never 
 be able to regain the place we hold to-day, to say 
 nothing of the one we might attain to in the course 
 of another decade of peace. 
 M. Sazonoff, we know, has numbered Dr. von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg among the peace party, which is also Lord 
 Haldane's impression of the Imperial Chancellor. But 
 M. Sazonoff and Lord Haldane are not alone in this 
 matter. The Daily Mail, of which paper Mr. Wile was 
 the Berlin correspondent for a number of years, laid it 
 down concerning the book Men Around the Kaiser, on 
 August 14, 1914, that " English readers cannot fail 
 to derive from it fresh understanding of the under- 
 currents which have led up to the present crisis." Let 
 us, then, thus encouraged, see what Mr. Wile has to teach 
 us. Of the Imperial Chancellor he says : 
 
 He is, above all, thoroughly sincere and honest. 
 His influence is always on the side of moderation. 
 . . . The Agadir adventure, which brought Europe 
 to the brink of war in 191 1, never originated with 
 Bethmann-Hollweg. He fathered it, as was his con- 
 stitutional duty, but nobody who knows him doubts 
 but that he rued it too. Robber-baron politics are no 
 part of his equipment. He is an earnest apostle of 
 peace and friendship with England. 
 The opinion is even more or less favourable concerning 
 Prince von Biilow : 
 
 Biilow never thoroughly understood England and 
 the English character. Anglo-German tension de- 
 veloped during his Chancellorship, though it is fair 
 to remember that he inherited the Foreign Secretary- 
 ship after the Kruger telegrams. He rejected Mr. 
 Chamberlain's famous overtures for an Anglo-German - 
 American Alliance, and never particularly exerted 
 himself to bring about a relaxation of the strained 
 relations. . . . He was, however, no armaments zealot.
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 237 
 
 On the question of unceasing naval expansion he was 
 
 dragged along by his more forceful colleague, Admiral 
 
 von Tirpitz. 
 
 And of the late Herr Kiderlen-Waechter, the Foreign 
 
 Secretary when Lord Haldane visited Berlin, Mr. Wile 
 
 says : 
 
 Rapprochement \\\'C(\ England was the ideal to which 
 his ebbing energies were being devoted (191 3). He 
 did not believe that Anglo-German rivalries must end 
 in Armageddon. " The English," he said to a friend, 
 only a i^t^ weeks before his death, " are much too 
 shrewd business people not to realize, finally, that 
 neither they nor we can profit from the present state 
 of affairs. You may be sure an understanding will 
 come, no matter who is Ambassador in London." 
 Kiderlen's last public utterance was a brief but telling 
 statement in the Reichstag recording the " gratifying 
 intimacy " which had sprung up between the British 
 and German Governments in connection with the 
 Balkan turmoil. 
 He did certainly try to break up the Entente, but Mr. 
 Wile assures us that this Foreign. Secretary "dedicated 
 himself with all his iron energy to the great task of better- 
 ing Anglo-German relations." 
 
 English people cannot, indeed, fail to derive " fresh 
 understanding" from this book. They will understand, 
 for example, many of them, I suspect, for the first time, 
 that there have been and still are very considerable per- 
 sonages in Germany who did not plot this war, who did 
 not want war, and who were sincerely and earnestly work- 
 ing with Lord Haldane to keep the German war party out 
 of the saddle. I doubt if a better witness to Lord Hal- 
 dane's wisdom could be found than Mr. F. W. Wile, Berlin 
 correspondent of the Daily Mail. 
 
 But I think a more notable witness just now to the 
 goodness and peacefulness of at least some Germans is 
 Professor P'orster, of the Munich University, to whom I 
 have referred in my Introduction. The following extracts 
 which appeared in that excellent column of the Daily 
 Chronicle called " Sidelights from Germany " (a column so
 
 238 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 conducted that it really does give an intelligent person a 
 definite idea of what is taking place within the German 
 mind) will convince the unprejudiced reader, must con- 
 vince him if he is convinceable at all, that there are ele- 
 ments in Germany with which it behoves all those who 
 desire a lasting peace to ally themselves as closely as 
 possible : 
 
 Professor Forster, of the Munich University, whose 
 recent article animadverting on Bismarck and the new 
 Germany brought down on his devoted head the con- 
 demnation of the Philosophical Faculty of the Uni- 
 versity and the anathemas of the Nationalist Press, 
 seems to bother himself little about the stir he has 
 caused. After the Whitsuntide holidays he resumed 
 his lectures, and we are informed that at the close of 
 his first lecture the students broke into demonstrative 
 applause. 
 
 In this lecture, which is published at length in the 
 Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung^ and practically ignored in 
 the German Press, Dr. Forster defends himself 
 against the charge of unpatriotic conduct. Is it any 
 reason, he asks, to charge him with betraying the 
 German cause because he criticizes the Bismarck- 
 Treitschke tradition ? "I believe," he said, " that we 
 Germans will best fulfil our coming task, both in 
 Central Europe and on the wider stage of the world, 
 the further we soar above these traditions. And I 
 believe that other nations will also best accomplish 
 their work in the world the more they disentangle 
 themselves from their traditions of might-policy. We 
 must do so," said the professor emphatically, " if 
 Europe is not to go down in fury and blood." 
 
 " These questions of political morality," said Forster, 
 " are most suitably discussed now, when we must all 
 be making preparations for what is coming. This 
 discussion cannot be postponed until after the war, 
 and that is why I am urging a new orientation of our 
 political thought, a revision of certain dogmas of 
 our political faith." 
 
 Referring to his famous article in the Friedenswarte,
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 239 
 
 Forster declared that to accuse him of unpatriotism 
 because he happened to hold views not held by the 
 majority is to be guilty of that intolerance which 
 Germans are the first to denounce when they see it 
 manifested in other lands. " I love my Fatherland 
 so intensely," said the professor, " that I can calmly 
 submit to be regarded as unpatriotic. The ephemeral 
 opinion of to-day will not be the opinion of posterity. 
 It will also be regarded as unpatriotic if I now say 
 to the old school of political thought that this world- 
 war has proved that we must all get out of our 
 national egoism into something higher and better. It 
 will be regarded as rank treason if I maintain that 
 the existing ideas, whatever their moral and social 
 pedagogic importance, are only ' particular ideas * 
 compared with the coming European order of things, 
 for which we must now work with all the seriousness 
 in our power." 
 
 Forster drew the attention of his hearers to the 
 unparalleled campaign of calumny against him. He 
 mentioned having received from the Wiesbaden 
 Rhenish Prussians a fulmination in which he was 
 described as " the greatest monster in Munich," and 
 on the very morning of his lecture he received a 
 letter in which he was asked, " How much English 
 and French money has been paid to bribe you, you 
 rascal ? " But he has had numerous letters of 
 appreciation as well, and some of the best of these 
 came from soldiers and officers at the front. One 
 officer wrote : " Men will arise everywhere who will 
 proclaim that Europe will only be able to free itself 
 from this stubborn madness when it learns to think in 
 a new way." 
 
 Forster concludes : " But this new order of things 
 will not descend on us from heaven. We must create 
 an atmosphere for it by a process of self-cleansing 
 and self-elevation. We must send out words of mag- 
 nanimity which will be as doves with olive branches, 
 and which will fly from land to land. This ennobling 
 of our tone, this readiness to criticize ourselves, must
 
 240 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 take the place of the passionate complaints against 
 others in which we now indulge. We are not to 
 expect miracles. We must first deserve peace, not 
 merely by deeds of arms but by silent acts of self- 
 conquest. The people must reflect on their own sins, 
 failings, mistakes. In this way the vision of a new 
 and different Europe will arise in our souls. Let us 
 above all else remember that no great quarrel on 
 earth can be settled until each one of the parties to 
 the quarrel asks himself, In how far am I myself a 
 guilty party, and have I myself sinned against the 
 principles of the peace of mankind ?" 
 
 The reader will find in the Appendix a number of very 
 significant extracts from war sermons preached by German 
 pastors. Our newspapers have, as a rule, printed only the 
 most stupid and violent of these German war sermons ; 
 but sermons have been preached in that country, and to 
 immense congregations apparently, which have denounced 
 German egotism, German hate, German self-righteousness, 
 and have uncompromisingly proclaimed the necessity for 
 Germany's repentance of her sins. 
 
 Another sign of the times, a political sign, is to be found, 
 I think, in the following paragraphs which appeared in the 
 Daily Chronicle of August 9, 1916: 
 
 There are signs that social democracy in Germany 
 is slowly coming to its senses again. The German 
 Socialists will emerge from this war with many sins 
 on their conscience, and not the least of their sins 
 will have been not so much their patriotic rally to 
 the national cause, which sprang almost as much from 
 ignorance as from anything else, but their silence in 
 the face of cruelties and outrages against humanity 
 which are without parallel in modern history. 
 Occasional voices now break that silence. 
 
 Herr Eduard Bernstein makes a telling contrast 
 in the Leipziger Volkszeitung between German and 
 French socialism. The French Socialists, he admits, 
 "exercised far more pressure on the Government for 
 the preservation of peace during the fateful July-
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 241 
 
 August week of 1914" than their German "comrades." 
 He points out, too, that France did not declare war, 
 but that war was declared upon her. 
 
 Thereupon he repeats the gravest accusation of the 
 French Socialists. " By maintaining their attitude in 
 the face of facts which should have called forth a 
 protest from every Sociali.st and Internationalist, the 
 German party has, in the French view, put itself 
 outside the International, and, so long as it does not 
 abandon this attitude, will not be admitted to any 
 conference of the International." The French 
 Socialists, in short, have put the German Socialists 
 into a moral Coventry, beyond the pale of civilized 
 intercourse. " I am convinced," Bernstein adds — 
 and the admission is the weightier as coming from 
 inside the fold — " the German party has not been 
 true to the political duties which its membership and 
 its dominant position laid upon it. . . . We of the 
 German party all recognize the duty of defending our 
 country. But if this duty is so defined as to bind us 
 Socialists to vote war-credits to any Government, 
 whatever may be . . . its methods in the war and 
 its aims, then we are abandoning our great world- 
 mission." 
 
 Similarly, in the Vorivaerts, Herr Kautsky, the 
 philosopher of Marxist Socialism, writes upon Inter- 
 national Socialism and the future peace. He says : 
 
 " According to the resolution of the Stuttgart Con- 
 gress the task of the International Socialist movement 
 must be * to advocate the speedy ending of the war.' 
 This does not mean merely a concentration of effort 
 for putting a stop to military operations as soon as 
 possible, without considering the outcome of the war. 
 The party must not strive for a mere armistice, which 
 would soon be superseded by a new and more terrible 
 war, but for such a peace as will have every tendency 
 to remain permanent and which corresponds to inter- 
 national principles. 
 
 " Such a peace can only be one built upon a 
 foundation which guarantees equally to all the par- 
 
 K
 
 242 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 ticipating nations their independent development. 
 The task of any international (Socialist) gathering 
 would be to discover whether an understanding on 
 such a basis could not be brought about between all 
 the Socialist parties. Should such an understanding 
 be successfully brought about, then it would be the 
 duty of the Socialists of each country to demand 
 that their Government should declare its v/illingness 
 to make peace on this basis." Against any Govern- 
 ment which declined to act in this way a most 
 energetic opposition would be declared. " Should, 
 however, an understanding on such a basis prove 
 impossible, then it would be incumbent upon the 
 International Conference to determine upon which of 
 the parties affiliated to the International the fault of 
 this failure lay. The spokesman of that party at the 
 congress would then be faced with an international- 
 thinking opposition. Here are the most direct 
 problems for an international congress. It becomes 
 day by day more urgent and more indispensable." 
 
 But, as Herr Bernstein points out, no intercourse 
 is possible with German social democracy, at least 
 until it has been purged. This is where Herr Kaut- 
 sky's dream of an International Socialist Congress 
 arranging peace terms and dictating them to the 
 belligerent Governments breaks down. Not so easily 
 is peace to be won by the German Government 
 through the intermediary of social democracy. 
 
 Germany promises to emerge from the war a more 
 than half-socialized country. It is now accepted that 
 the rationing and food-card system will continue long 
 after peace is declared. In other words, the people 
 will be fed by the State. All Germany's purchases 
 of raw materials and foodstuffs abroad is to be done 
 by Imperial Commissions, who will then distribute 
 the goods at home. Thus industry, too, will be State- 
 controlled. But even larger measures of nationaliza- 
 tion will be necessary. 
 
 The Vossiscke Zeitung says : " However favourable 
 the outcome of the war may be to us, the taxes that
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 243 
 
 have become necessary cannot be covered in the 
 ordinary way. Before the war our debt service cost 
 us 250,000,000 marks ; after the war it will amount to 
 three thousand or four thousand millions of marks, or 
 perhaps even more. The introduction of Imperial 
 monopolies will be unavoidable." 
 
 In the same English journal I find the following extract 
 from the Vossische Zeitung concerning the recent "Chan- 
 cellor Crisis " in Germany, of which perhaps not one 
 Englishman in a hundred thousand has at present heard 
 a word : 
 
 There are grounds for hoping that the caste spirit 
 which has split up our people more than all the party 
 struggles has undergone a great diminution. 
 
 Byzantinism (i.e. blind adoration of Authority) and 
 the cult of persons, this, too, must be permanently 
 done away with after the war. It behoves Liberalism, 
 too, to go over the record of its past sins and its 
 present weaknesses on these points. Its uncritical 
 support through thick and thin the moment a states- 
 man displays a liberalizing fit is a form of personal 
 cultus. Even so is there a certain Byzantinism 
 towards the Anointed of Democracy. 
 
 " Authority " has experienced a powerful shock 
 through the experiences of the last two years. This 
 is perhaps the best thing that the war has brought us 
 in our internal development. On every side the critic 
 is arising, and men are already discussing practical 
 ways and means for the participation of the people in 
 the control of State business. . . . 
 
 Baron von Richthofen demands the establishment of 
 a Parliamentary Committee which would share respon- 
 sibility for the conduct of Imperial affairs. This 
 would mean a blow at the heart of secret diplomacy, 
 and, of course, the beginning of Parliamentary control 
 over the whole field of State affairs.^ 
 Not only is there in Germany a deep and growing 
 dissatisfaction with the present regime, but there is even 
 ' See Appendix, Note I.
 
 244 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 a certain amount of bitterness among the various parts of 
 that young Empire. The special correspondent of The 
 Times in France has given us recently a too-brief account 
 of a scuffle between Prussian and Bavarian prisoners in 
 one of our " cages " in France, and the Daily Chronicle in 
 August of the present year furnishes us with the following 
 reasons for thinking that Prussia is gradually losing 
 caste : 
 
 Great irritation has been caused by this Bavarian 
 boycott of Prussians, and the bad temper was brought 
 to boiling-point a few days ago by the report that 
 the Burgomaster of the Bavarian summer resort of 
 Ruhpolding had issued a " ukase," as the Berlin 
 papers called it, forbidding the sale of bread and 
 meat to Prussians. This " ukase " has since been 
 annulled, but the heat engendered by the incident 
 has not yet died down. 
 
 The Berliner Tagcblatfs headline to the subject is 
 " Boycotted North Germans," and sufficiently explains 
 its feelings of resentment. In the last number that 
 has reached us it prints the following narrative from a 
 correspondent : 
 
 " In the middle of May I was passing through 
 Aschaffenburg (Bavaria) on business, and picked up 
 the menu card in a respectable hostelry whereupon 
 the waiting-maid put the question : 
 •' ' Where are you from ? ' 
 
 "'From Frankfurt-on-Main. Why? I asked in 
 turn. 
 
 " ' Everything is off,' was the waitress's retort. 
 " I was in haste, so snatched up my hat and went 
 to another restaurant that I knew, and there, too, I 
 picked up the menu card. This time it was a waiter 
 who put the same question to me, ' Where are you 
 from ? ' ' Why, does it matter to you where I come 
 from and whither I go ? ' I retorted. ' Yes, I must 
 know if I am to bring you anything to eat.' ' From 
 Frankfurt-on-Main,' I replied. The Waiter : ' For 
 Prussians we have nothing to eat' ' But I am in fact 
 no Prussian ; true, I live in Berlin, but was born in
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 245 
 
 Offenbach,' was my answer. ' Then you can have 
 lunch.'" 
 
 The writer says it will be a long time before he 
 goes again to this " enemy land " where hospitality is 
 so understood. 
 
 I find even in the Morning Post evidence of this change 
 in Germany. The Petrograd correspondent of that journal 
 recently sent the following piece of news to London : 
 
 A friend who has the oversight of one of those 
 mixed firms so common in all countries of the world 
 tells me the following : 
 
 The Russian partner recently visited Copenhagen, 
 whither he had summoned his German colleague from 
 Bavaria to confer regarding business affairs. The 
 Bavarian spoke with great freedom to his Russian 
 partner, who summed up his impression of the 
 Bavarian's statement thus : 
 
 He told me that the strongest term of abuse in 
 the German language, as spoken in Bavaria to-day, is 
 "Wilhelm." 
 
 Slight as these incidents may seem, at least they give us 
 reasons for thinking that when Germany faces the ruin 
 which this war has brought to her doors she will not 
 exhibit the quality of a too-meek discipline in setting 
 about the reconstruction of her economic life. We must 
 constantly remind ourselves, especially when we read of 
 vehement outbursts of passion directed towards England, 
 that the newspapers in Germany are tongue-tied by 
 authority, that even the educated people there are not 
 yet in full possession of the facts, and that the masses 
 for the most part are now kept in the very densest 
 ignorance. And reminding ourselves of these things, let 
 us pay close and careful attention to those signs of dis- 
 turbance and discontent in Germany which are not growing 
 less as the war advances. 
 
 We may, I think, fairly assure ourselves that when peace 
 comes, revealing not only the true facts of this terrible 
 controversy, but the indescribable ruin which war has
 
 246 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 wrought in the economic life of Germany, there will be 
 many voices raised in that unhappy and disillusioned 
 country for a complete change in the system of its 
 government. It is impossible to think that the same 
 Germany will confront us. 
 
 The idea I desire to leave in the reader's mind is this : 
 whether we like it or not, there will still be a Germany in 
 the world after hostilities are closed. Our attitude towards 
 that Germany will at least help to determine its character. 
 A revengeful and bitterly hostile Germany will leave 
 Europe with the morals of a bear-garden. In a night, 
 and without a word of warning, the heavens may be black 
 with her aircraft and the seas thick with her submarines 
 all driven forward to the work of reckless destruction by 
 the spirit of revenge. Such a Germany, I feel, will be, to 
 some extent at least, the creation of our unforgiveness. 
 On the other hand, if we encourage all that is good, great, 
 and peaceful in Germany to insist upon the democratiza- 
 tion of her institutions, and hold out to this better and 
 nobler Germany the frank hand of our unhesitating friend- 
 ship, we shall be lending her most powerful assistance in 
 her struggle with conservatism and despotism. A new 
 Germany will be born, a Germany with whom all free 
 nations will be proud to work in the interests of civiliza- 
 tion, a Germany such as all men loved and all men learned 
 from before the Prussians had brutalized her soul, a Ger- 
 many cleansed, purified, and repentant. 
 
 Let us be quite certain of this, that unless a new and 
 better Germany does arise from the ruins of the old, all 
 our struggles and all our sacrifices for a lasting peace will 
 have been in vain. 
 
 A writer in the Round Table for December 191 5, in a 
 very remarkable article entitled " The Harvest of War," 
 drew English attention to this important, and even urgent, 
 matter. We are determined to fight, he says, until " liberty 
 is secure," and he proceeds : 
 
 It is clear that the mere victory of the Allies will 
 not be sufficient. Similar vindications of liberty were 
 made in 17 13 after the era of Louis XIV, and in
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 247 
 
 181 5 after the era of Napoleon, yet when the genera- 
 tions which had experienced the horrors of war were 
 dead, the nations flew at one another's throats again. 
 In each case the settlement registered the defeat of 
 an attempt to establish a military domination over 
 Europe, but did nothing to place international rela- 
 tions on a basis which did not contain within itself 
 the seeds of fresh war. To prevent a repetition of 
 this mistake is no less important than the vindication 
 of national liberty itself. 
 He then speaks of the two opposing schools who argue, 
 the one, that to prevent war a nation must prepare against 
 war, and, the other, that preparations against war bring 
 war : 
 
 The ordinary sensible man is unable wholeheartedly 
 to stand under either banner. He feels that there is 
 much truth in the arguments used against the first 
 school. The policy of defensive armaments and the 
 balance of power, if pursued to its logical conclusion, 
 must inexorably lead to war, for as national safety 
 and national liberty are thereby based on military 
 force, they cease to be secure directly the equilibrium 
 of forces is changed. Consequently, as the population 
 and industry and wealth of peoples continuously alter, 
 and as their conception of what are their vital interests 
 also alters, the diplomatic world is kept for ever in a 
 condition of feverish anxiety, attempting to redress 
 disturbances in the balance of power by dexterous 
 diplomatic shufflings of fresh crops of armaments. 
 As the strain and burden grow there grow also 
 suspicion and jealousy of the intentions of other 
 Powers, and the adjustment of conflicting national 
 interests or ambitions becomes ever more difficult. 
 Finally, a trivial cause, or an irresistible temptation to 
 put an end to an intolerable situation by overthrowing 
 the balance once for all and establishing the pre- 
 dominance of a single Power in its place, produces 
 Armageddon. 
 He then examines the sphere of force and its limita- 
 tions :
 
 248 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 The sphere of force is obviously limited. You 
 cannot compel people to be wise or considerate or 
 to hold particular opinions by force. It is often 
 wrongly used where persuasion or tolerance would 
 produce better and more lasting results. It is not 
 less frequently employed so blindly and with so little 
 understanding that it does more harm than good. In 
 wrong hands it is an unmitigated evil. None the less, 
 force is indispensable in society to-day. And the 
 reason for it lies in our own failure to live aright. If 
 all citizens were fully educated, were animated pri- 
 marily by the desire to serve their neighbours, and 
 were active and alert in their public duties, its use 
 would never be necessary, except for the insane or 
 the young. Precisely in the degree in which a com- 
 munity is ruled by the principles of justice, honour, 
 and mutual goodwill, the use of force will disappear, 
 and public opinion and the authority of the moral 
 code will take its place. Public opinion and principle, 
 where they operate, are by far the more effective 
 agency, as is seen in the problem of drunkenness, 
 which has been practically rooted out among certain 
 classes by public opinion, whereas force can only 
 prevent the worst of its evils where public opinion is 
 . not so strong. The necessity for force, therefore, is 
 the price we pay for our social sins. When we get 
 rid of them the soldier and the policeman will also 
 disappear. 
 
 From the State to international relations is but a step : 
 Armaments, therefore, and liability to war are the 
 price we pay for our national sins. They are the 
 remedy for the evils of tyranny and injustice prac- 
 tised on a national scale. Mere war against war can 
 never succeed, for that means the destruction of the 
 only instruments wherewith, in a still imperfect world, 
 we can protect right and liberty. The true war is 
 against the evil passions which bring about war. 
 When these are overcome, war will recede into the 
 background of its own accord. 
 
 The writer concludes that nationalism " in its modern
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 249 
 
 bi^Toted form, is the enemy to be destroyed. . . . The 
 real cure for war is to overthrow the idol of selfish 
 nationalism and put in its place the service of humanity " : 
 
 Directly that is done the way is clear. And the 
 reason is obvious. Humanity is one. It is one great 
 {■dimly, of which the different races and nations are 
 the members. So long as these members look at one 
 another as rivals and enemies they cannot prosper or 
 be happy, and they are bound to end in quarrel and 
 conflict. So soon, however, as they recognize them- 
 selves as a single household it must become clear to 
 them that the welfare of each is only to be found 
 in the welfare of all, and that the reign of right and 
 liberty, and the peace and happiness which follow 
 from it, will never be reached by any other road than 
 that of mutual friendship and help. If nations will 
 once honestly set to work to treat international 
 questions from the point of view of humanity, and not 
 of their own selfish ends, nearly all the issues which 
 estrange them to-day will lose their bitterness. No 
 people will wish to dominate or oppress another, or to 
 deprive it of its language or liberty. No nation will 
 see its own greatness and strength in the weakness or 
 poverty of others ; it will be rather concerned to share 
 with it knowledge and ideas, to learn from it, and 
 to help it forward along the difficult road of human 
 progress. No one will be driven, as we are at present, 
 to regard the death of our neighbours as a benefit to 
 ourselves. Opinions will differ about ways and means 
 of promoting the common welfare, but honest and 
 selfless controversy can never lead to bloodshed as the 
 policy of selfish grab and indifference must do. 
 
 Heinous as, I am afraid, these opinions will appear in 
 the eyes of a very powerful body of Englisli public 
 opinion, they are nevertheless opinions entertained by the 
 great majority of gentlemen in their relations with other 
 gentlemen, and they also happen to express the opinion 
 of that religion the Established Church of which in this 
 country is as dear to the popular organs of our bold
 
 250 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 vulgarians as the public-house. Outrageous as they 
 may seem on the first blush, they are nevertheless the only 
 opinions which can assure the peace of the world. And I 
 am disposed to think that, however certain vehement 
 persons may protest against them, the irresistible force 
 not only of democracy, but of political economy, will drive 
 us all, sooner or later, into their adoption. 
 
 When we say, then, that the supreme issue of this war 
 is the repentance of Germany, let us help Germany to 
 repent with all our might and main ; and not only to this 
 end, but because it is right and good so to do, let us our- 
 selves set about repenting for all those dispositions and all 
 those sins which war against our own spirit and against 
 the peace of the world. 
 
 I have reasons for believing, as mentioned in the 
 Preface of this book, that the Emperor of Russia, 
 at the conclusion of war, will renew his efforts for 
 a limitation of armaments. This proposal will remove 
 from a group of small nations its only suspicion of 
 the Entente, which is its only reason for wishing 
 Germany to be strong and powerful in a military sense. 
 It will also have a notable effect in the United States 
 of America. France will certainly not be disinclined to 
 consider the proposal, and so far as I know Italy will 
 welcome it. If, then. Great Britain and Japan can be 
 brought into the conference with minds favourably dis- 
 posed towards this noble ideal, we shall have all the world 
 arrayed against the last vestiges of militarism in defeated 
 Germany. A real peace of the world is in sight But 
 that hope of peace may even now be jeopardized if we 
 proceed to organize our vast Empire for the ends of selfish 
 nationalism. 
 
 It is an urgent thing for this country, which has hitherto 
 used its immense possessions in a noble and unselfish way, 
 not to let the fear of a Germany which is ceasing to exist, 
 and presently may not exist at all, drive it into a course of 
 action perilous to the peace of the world. There can be 
 no harm, indeed there may be much good, in striving 
 by legitimate means to make the British commonwealth 
 self-contained and self-supporting ; but exceeding harmi
 
 GERMANY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 251 
 
 harm of the greatest kind, may be done by seeking to 
 make that vast commonwealth exclusive. Unless we use 
 our vast possessions for the good of humanity, we shall 
 make enemies and not friends ; unless we see that we are 
 all members one of another, and that the prosperity of one 
 State is the security as well as the prosperity of another, 
 we shall blunder ; and unless we make ourselves morally 
 and spiritually worthy of our tremendous responsibilities 
 we shall perish. 
 
 It is the instinctive sense of what to do and what 
 not to do in daily life and behaviour that is the 
 source of liberty and ease. And it is this instinctive 
 sense of obligation that is the chief foundation of 
 society. Its reality takes objective shape and displays 
 itself in family life and in our other civic and social 
 institutions. . . . None of these can subsist in isolation 
 from the rest ; together they and other institutions of 
 the kind form a single organic whole which is known 
 as the Nation. . . . Can nations form a group or 
 community among themselves within which a habit 
 of looking to common ideals may grow up sufficiently 
 strong to develop a General Will, and to make the 
 binding power of these ideals a reliable sanction for 
 their obligations to each other? . . . Renan tells us 
 that " Man is enslaved neither by his race, nor by 
 his language, nor by the direction of mountain ranges. 
 A great aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm 
 of heart, creates a moral consciousness which is called 
 a nation." 
 
 Another acute critic of life, Matthew Arnold, citing 
 one still greater than himself, draws what is in effect 
 a deduction from the same proposition. " Let us," 
 he says, " conceive of the whole group of civilized 
 nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, 
 one great confederation whose members have a due 
 knowledge both of the past, out of which they all pro- 
 ceeded, and of each other. This was the ideal of 
 Goethe, and it is an ideal which will impose itself upon 
 the thoughts of our modern societies more and more." 
 . . . Grotius concludes his great book on War and
 
 252 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Peace with a noble prayer : " May God write," he said, 
 
 "these lessons — He who alone can — on the hearts of 
 
 all those who have the affairs of Christendom in their 
 
 hands. And may He give to those persons a mind 
 
 fitted to understand and to respect rights, human and 
 
 divine, and lead them to recollect always that the 
 
 ministration committed to them is no less than this, 
 
 that they are the Governors of Man, a creature most 
 
 dear to God." 
 
 So spoke a great Lord Chancellor of England, addressing 
 
 the American Bar Association at Montreal in 191 3. So 
 
 spoke the great minister of whom a London newspaper has 
 
 said : " From such a man we want to hear no word on any 
 
 subject whatever." 
 
 But wisdom^ as Lord Haldane has said, tneans more 
 than attention to the gospel of getting on.
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE
 
 The era of aristocracies is over ; nations must now 
 stand or fall by the intelligence of their middle-class 
 and their people. The people with you is still in 
 embryo ; no one can yet quite say what it will come 
 to. You lean, therefore, with your whole weight upon 
 the intelligence of your middle-class. And intelligence, 
 in the true sense of the word, your middle-class has 
 absolutely none. 
 
 Fricfids/n'p's Garland (1870)
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 
 
 IN the war Great Britain has done her best. If I have 
 ventured to' assert that it is a great best I have 
 at least this warrant, that those who criticized are at 
 last silent before the achievements of British valour and 
 the accomplishment of British labour. I have not made 
 this assertion merely as a rebuke to those who by their 
 frantic fears and noisy admonishments have lowered our 
 prestige in the eyes of the world, but far rather as an 
 inspiration for the ordeal which awaits us. We of the 
 British Islands have no need to wear sackcloth, nor is 
 there any reason why we should doubt our capacity to 
 handle the future ; a nation's history, it has been said, is 
 a nation's fate, and in our history, with much to regret, 
 there is nothing that breeds despair. Our past is our 
 confidence and our encouragement. 
 
 To the historian who sees in the immediate struggles 
 of to-day the long destiny of old and half-forgotten 
 yesterdays, from the very beginning of this armed 
 struggle Germany was foredoomed to defeat and Great 
 Britain to victory. Germany has never been a nation. 
 She has striven from the earliest dawn of history to 
 weld the Germanic peoples into nationhood, and always 
 she has failed. "The Germans can never be a nation," 
 said Goethe, who hated militarism, " but at least they 
 can be free citizens." The contempt expressed by her 
 modern historians for England is feigned. They hate 
 us ; and Johnson says truly that you cannot hate what you 
 despise. To Germany has been given many talents, but 
 
 255
 
 2S6 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 into her hands God has not committed the destinies of the 
 human race. She takes the sword and perishes with the 
 sword. This restless, haunted, and suspicious Emperor, 
 half-believing that in him is fulfilled the mediaeval dream 
 of German Romanticism, half-feeling that in him the will 
 of God is working to its sublime terrestrial consummation, 
 strikes in what he held was Germany's hour, and even as 
 he strikes the clock tolls the knell of another short-lived 
 and always precarious German Empire. How shall they 
 rule the world who have never had the spirit of national 
 unity at their centre? Prussia's titanic effort to forge the 
 separate German States into a solid Empire has failed. 
 It was splendid, it was magnificent ; but it has failed. 
 The labour of fifty years lies at her feet in the broken 
 elements of her Empire which was never an empire. For 
 a little while it looked as if she had shackled destiny, as 
 if she had bound fate in chains, as if the impossible had 
 been accomplished. But she had never absorbed the 
 German States. She started to conquer her enemies 
 before she had conquered those of her own household. 
 The history of Germany is the fate of Germany. And 
 from Charles V to William II that history has always been 
 written in the fading colours of victory and in the lasting 
 blackness of defeat, Germany can only be great when 
 she breaks free from the Prussian drill-sergeant and goes 
 back to her books. 
 
 There are two Empires in the world which have been 
 Empires down the centuries, Russia and England — these 
 two and only these two. Empire is in the blood of these 
 peoples. Their histories are histories of imperialism. 
 Russia, surrounded by barbaric enemies, has not only 
 saved herself from destruction, but has absorbed these 
 enemies on every side of her into the mystery of the 
 Russian soul. The Lithuanian, the Georgian, the Cossack, 
 the Mongol is now a Russian in the way he looks at 
 life and regards other nations. The history of Russia 
 is the fate of Russia. This little people, once fighting for 
 its existence, once broken and bleeding at the foot of 
 Turk and Mongol, is now a mighty Empire by the force
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE ^57 
 
 of its power to absorb enemies and to create a nation. 
 Aji^ainst such a power Prussian force could not prevail. 
 And at the other end of Europe, holding the seas of the 
 world in her grasp, is Britain, whose Empire is scattered, 
 whose citizens are of many races, and whose law is the 
 law of freedom, justice, and union — an Empire the most 
 exposed to disruption but the most coherent, an Empire 
 such as never yet was known and yet the most sensible. 
 And against such a power Prussian force could not 
 prevail. It is in destiny that Russia at one end of Europe 
 and Britain at the other should either clash together for 
 world mastery or in spiritual union destroy the fears 
 of the nations and give peace to the earth. This is the 
 choice of the twentieth century. It is Peace or War.^ 
 
 Those who now stand by the war machine of Great 
 Britain may be left to their work. The machine was built 
 for them ; their labour is but to keep it in motion ; and 
 already the end foreseen by others is in sight. Victory is 
 certain. Once more the freedom of the world is secure. 
 William of Germany, the fifth man to assail the liberties of 
 the human race, fails as Charles V failed, as Philip II 
 failed, as Louis XIV failed, and as Napoleon failed. He 
 who doubts the end has the newspaper for his excuse, not 
 history for his assurance. But while the end is certain, the 
 beginning is obscure. With this war ends not only an 
 attack upon human liberty, but an epoch, almost a world. 
 And with peace will begin not only a new age, but almost 
 a new world. 
 
 We in Great Britain accomplished in two }-ears what the 
 laborious Prussian failed to accomplish in fifty years. We 
 made ourselves a mighty military power, and with pas- 
 sionate loyalty in all our loose-knit parts flung ourselves as 
 one man upon the enemy. We have greatness in our 
 blood, and our greatness manifested itself in the hour of 
 trial. We proved ourselves before mankind worthy of our 
 noble heredity and worthy of our glorious heritage. Des- 
 tiny is still upon our side. And destiny will not desert us 
 in the hour which approaches if we are faithful to the beck 
 
 ' .See Appendix, Note L. 
 s
 
 258 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of the Spirit and rise up and follow, without fear and with- 
 out boastfulness, whither the Spirit leads. Let us be of 
 a good courage, for we have withstood the cataclysm ; let 
 us reflect before we move, for the future is dark. 
 
 Our energy has served us at the ending of an epoch. 
 We must summon our wisdom for the beginning of a new 
 age. Let us consider what is required of us. 
 
 It is rather to suggest how the British spirit will operate 
 at the conclusion of war than to presume to teach my 
 fellow-countrymen what they should do that I write this 
 conclusion to my vindication of Great Britain. I think 
 there are already signs which show us how the British 
 spirit is beginning to approach the impending ordeal, and 
 by indicating those signs it may be something of a help 
 and something of an encouragement to those who, doubt- 
 ing how we should emerge from a great war, still doubt 
 what the fate of this country will be in the years that are 
 coming. 
 
 It seems to me that we have exhausted two great forces 
 in our national life, the political forces known as Liberalism 
 and Conservatism. Men are conscious that faction is a 
 danger, and that the fortunes of the nation are too serious 
 to lie at the hazard of party strife. They feel that the war 
 has brought all classes nearer together, and that in this 
 unity of the national spirit the nation has been able to 
 accomplish great things. It is impossible, in their thoughts, 
 that we should slip back into our old wa}'s. But when 
 they look forward they are troubled. They are troubled 
 because they do not see how political parties will group 
 themselves, and chiefly perhaps because they do not see 
 any man of genius in the nation capable of leadership. 
 
 They are aware that the Slapdash School of politicians 
 cannot be trusted with the future. If this future is, too 
 critical for the obstruction of Conservatism, it is also too 
 critical for the undisciplined enthusiasms of the social 
 reformer. Slapdash is well enough in a period of profound 
 peace and enormous prosperity ; but at the beginning of 
 a new experience reflection is necessary — reflection and 
 wisdom. Many of us look back on the last ten or twelve
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 259 
 
 years and wonder at ourselves that we did not perceive the 
 absurdity of the reforms for which we fought so stub- 
 bornly. Why did we not perceive, for example, that to 
 provide pensions for old age and to confer upon middle age 
 the benefits of insurance, before we had done anything of 
 value for the new generation, was to put the cart before 
 the horse? We were swept off our feet by the fighting 
 rhetoric of the Slapdash School. We thought we could 
 have a new earth with a few patches. We thought it 
 needed only a prop here and a strut there to transform the 
 hovel of life into the palace of millennial existence. The 
 orator laid his spell upon us. We ceased to reflect, we 
 abandoned ourselves to our dream, and in a world which 
 did not exist, laboured to build a world which could never 
 be. Why did we overlook the child? Why did our 
 enthusiasm for the middle-aged, and our pity for the old, 
 blind us to the child who, while we shouted for millennium, 
 suffered and stumbled for lack of guidance ? 
 
 At last we see that the work of statesmanship is to 
 inould and frame a Jiation. We see that to mould and 
 frame a nation, bodily, morally, and spiritually, it is above 
 all things necessary to begin with the child. We see that 
 if we take care of childhood, middle age and old age will 
 take care of themselves. All our patches had been 
 unnecessary if childhood thirty years ago had been given 
 the chance it deserves. W^e see it now as clearly as we 
 see the meaning of the Prussian spirit. Some of us saw it 
 before, as they saw also the danger of Britain's inaptitude 
 for new ideas, but we were too entranced by the vehement 
 rhetoric of the Slapdash School to hear the measured 
 words of real wisdom. And now, when we see it clearly, 
 when so many of us see quite clearly that we must, above 
 all other things, begin to mould and frame the nation for 
 the might}' tests of the future, we wonder where we must 
 look for leadership. 
 
 Liberalism has exhausted itself; Conservatism has no 
 ideas. There remains Labour. As we know it in the 
 House of Commons, Labour is not a very inspiring force. 
 Its raison d'etre is provincial ; its spirit is sectional ; it 
 appears to have neither the height of true vision nor the
 
 26o THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 breadth of true sympathy. But Labour differs from 
 Liberalism and Conservatism in this, that while they are at 
 the end of themselves, Labour is only at its beginning. 
 What may Labour become when even now it is conscious 
 of these islands as only a part of a gigantic commonwealth, 
 and even now in the classes for which it had entertained 
 a certain hostility is conscious of qualities lacking in itself 
 and necessary to its evolution ? If Labour remain the 
 political weapon of a sectional trades unionism it must 
 decay and perish, but if Labour, feeling that its title 
 embraces all that is finest and noblest in humanity — the 
 striving of the mind, the toil of the brain, and the heavy 
 labour of the soul seeking perfection — if Labour, feeling 
 this, sets out to grow, to develop, to become the weapon of 
 the Time Spirit, then not only is its owai future secure, 
 but the fortunes of humanity are in the safest hands. 
 
 There are signs that Labour is awake to its destiny. I 
 find, for instance, that among the most reflecting working 
 men there is a marked and a growing suspicion of the 
 Radical demagogue. The Labour man has less antipathy 
 for the genuine Conservative than for the strutting mouth- 
 piece of the Slapdash School. He feels — and his instinct 
 is extraordinarily acute in these matters — that the rhetor 
 of Radicalism is something of a poseur^ that as his 
 popularity increases his purity of purpose wanes, and that 
 as he loses his simplicity and the first passion of the village 
 reformer he becomes the worst type of the man of the world 
 — the man of the world who professes idealism but practises 
 cunning and takes his ease with the vulgarians. There 
 are signs, too, that Labour is aware of the need for true 
 leadership. Labour would give itself with enthusiasm 
 to any great man who would lead it to what it now begins 
 to feel is its destiny. It would not ask him if he is 
 Conservative or Liberal : it would decide within itself 
 whether the man is a true man or a false man ; and it 
 would follow the true man with loyalty and affection. 
 
 I feel that it is in this way that the British spirit is 
 beginning to manifest itself. I seem to discern in Labour 
 the first movements towards grandeur, the grandeur of a
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 261 
 
 noble nationalism which will not rest in nationalism. The 
 more the Slapdash School bangs its great drum the less is 
 Labour deflected from its path. It looks far, it thinks 
 deeply, and it asks itself Whither? before it moves. If, 
 as I believe it will, Labour decide to appeal to the nation 
 for a scheme of education in its widest and most compre- 
 hensive form, if it make national training the first clause 
 in its new gospel for a new world, then I believe that it 
 is destined to absorb within itself all that is best and 
 purest and most honest in Liberalism and Conservatism. 
 
 The point I wish to establish is this : In British character 
 there is the finest material in the world for great achieve- 
 ment. Our energy is magnificent. I think it is matchless. 
 But the future tells us that if this energy is to do its work 
 and attain its consummation, it must be ititellige7ti energy — 
 that is to say it must be directed to a clearly visualized 
 and highly intelligent end. There must be less Push and 
 Go, and much more reflection. Slapdash must be thrown 
 aside and wisdom set in its place. We must leave nothing 
 to chance. We must destroy faction. We must call our 
 wisest and our greatest to tell us what we must do before 
 we begin to work. The politician as we have known him 
 is discredited. He has no ideas. He has nothing to tell 
 us. He has nothing to give us. Life, as we see it now, is 
 development. Our development has reached a point when 
 it must become conscious development. We must not 
 trust to our matchless energy to make something, but 
 must use our intelligence to make the particular thing that 
 we perceive to be essential. We desire a better world, a 
 juster world, a stronger world, and a more rational world. 
 Let us summon our highest intelligence to this task, and 
 pray that our intelligence may be worthy of our energy. 
 
 There is no exact parallel in history to the problem 
 which will confront this nation at the conclusion of war. 
 Some likeness may be found in the situation of the United 
 States after the Civil War, when a new equilibrium had to 
 be established, but it is not a parallel. The emergency 
 which confronts us is a new emergency. We are, as it were, 
 at the making of a new world.
 
 262 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 A great man once said that when he was confronted by 
 a new set of conditions he always began by looking 
 steadily at the problem which they created. " I put it 
 clearly before me," he said. If we put our problem before 
 us, we shall see, I think, that our first and our highest need 
 is the need of leadership. We cannot trust ourselves to 
 the amateur and the patcher and the windbag. Monu- 
 mental oratory will not construct the new house of life, even 
 as platform glibness failed to keep the storm out of the old 
 structure. Our need is for a particular kind of leadership — 
 reflecting leadership. 
 
 I heard a scholar say that the finest tribute ever paid to 
 man was that of Wordsworth's when he called the spirit 
 of Milton to England's aid. Why Milton ? " Milton, thou 
 shouldst be living at this hour." Why Milton, and not 
 Shakespeare, who was a greater master of words and a 
 greater genius ? " England hath need of theer Why 
 Milton, and not Cromwell, who was a far more potent 
 "reformer"? Milton, because Milton stood for certain 
 qualities of human personality lacking in Shakespeare 
 and lacking in Cromwell ; Milton, because Milton stood 
 for elevation of mind, for magnanimity of soul, for lofti- 
 ness of spirit ; Milton, because Milton was a moral force, 
 because he meant character^ because all his wisdom and 
 scholarship and intellectualism were only elements in a 
 spirit which was powerful by the sheer force of its moral 
 nobility; Milton, becaitee Milton stood for truth, righteous- 
 ness, and duty. By righteousness is a nation saved, by 
 righteousness is a people nourished and sustained. 
 
 That our need for such high leadership is great and 
 urgent may be judged not only from the emergency which 
 now confronts us, but by the conditions which have 
 brought us to this pass. 
 
 We see on all sides of us evidence of a depraved taste. 
 The jerry-builder, with no sense of the dialect of a dis- 
 trict, and with only a desire to make money as quickly as 
 possible, is ruining the most beautiful countryside in the 
 world and destroying the lovely character of our most 
 ancient cities. The visitor even to Oxford has to approach 
 the grey loveliness of the town through a blinding glare of
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 263 
 
 red bricks and machine-cut slates. In all the towns on 
 the banks of the Tyne there is nothing but blackness and 
 squalor. The great centres of industry are so repulsive 
 that no one thinks of them as places in which any man 
 would live if he could possibly help it. The wonderful 
 charm of a little place like Broadstairs, preserving some of 
 the most delightful memories of Charles Dickens, is prac- 
 tically destroyed by red bricks, while its wide, rolling, and 
 splendid north cliff, which was once open to all the world, 
 is now fenced in with the cheapest French sticks, and 
 can only be seen from the streets of villadom or along an 
 uneventful road. Places like Margate and Blackpool are 
 almost as indifferent to the real purposes of life as Man- 
 chester, Warrington, or Bootle. The suburbs of London 
 are more monotonous than its slums. There is nothing 
 to look at, nothing to admire, nothing to create interest of 
 any kind, until we have left the tram-lines far behind us, 
 and the cottages of a hundred years ago begin to appear. 
 And this is true of every single city in the kingdom, 
 including such interesting places as Nottingham and 
 Exeter and Coventry, wherever the modern builder has 
 set up his idea of a human dwelling. 
 
 If our homes are deplorable, what must be said of our 
 public amusements? Can any man say on his conscience 
 that he is not ashamed when he goes abroad at the 
 memory of our gin-palaces, our music-halls, and our 
 dreadful " Empires " and " Palaces " which exhibit cine- 
 matograph pictures? We still have the most beautiful 
 parks in the world, but our street amusements are the 
 worst in the world. There is nothing in Europe or Asia 
 so horrible and revolting as the sight presented in every 
 city and town throughout the length and breadth of this 
 country — the sight of public-houses stuffed full of 
 slatternly women and degraded men. As for the amuse- 
 ments of our people, as to what drama and music mean to 
 the million masses, let Mr. William Archer bear witness. 
 He says in a recent number of the Fortnightly Revieiu : 
 
 Under its various aliases, the music-hall is certainly 
 not the least among the forces that shape and colour 
 the mind oi the nation. Every night and almost
 
 264 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 every afternoon tens of thousands of men and 
 women, boys and girls, flock to the " Empires " and 
 " Palaces " which have arisen in every centre of popu- 
 lation above the grade of a village. That they are 
 deeply influenced, morally and aesthetically, by the 
 entertainments presented to them is scarcely to be 
 disputed. 
 
 Has the music-hall, in its fifty-odd years of high- 
 pressure activity, produced either a culture-poetry or 
 a folk-poetry in any way commensurate either with 
 the eflbrt centred upon it or with the ruin it has 
 wrought ? 
 
 The answer, though almost incredible, must be 
 unqualified and emphatic ; the music-hall has pro- 
 duced not one single lyric which has any chance of 
 living in the national memory, except, perhaps, as a 
 monument of vulgarity and inanity. I speak, of 
 course, of the words : the fate of tunes it is impossible 
 to prophesy ; but I can remember none which seems 
 to me to take even respectable rank as a melodic 
 invention. 
 
 What is certain is that the whole music-hall move- 
 ment has produced not one — literally not one — piece 
 of verse that can rank as poetry of the humblest 
 type, or even as a really clever bit of comic rhyming. 
 If it had given us a Burns or a Beranger, lit would 
 in so far have justified its existence ; but it has 
 not even given us a Charles Dibdin or a Haynes 
 Bayly. 
 
 To revive our memory of this wholly immemorable 
 literature, let us glance down the list of songs in 
 Mr Hibbert's index. I omit many titles, but none 
 that seems to promise work of a higher order : 
 
 " Act on the square, girls, act on the square " ; 
 "Captain Cuff"; "Captain Jinks of the Horse 
 Marines " ; " Champagne Charley " ; " The Chicka- 
 leary Bloke"; "Clicquot"; "Come where the booze 
 is cheaper " ; " Cool Burgundy Ben " ; " Get your hair 
 cut " ; " Hi-tiddly-hi-ti-ti " ; " Hit him on the boko " ;
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 265 
 
 "If you want to know the time, ask a pleeceman " ; 
 "Kemo Kimo"; "La-di-da"; "Let 'em all come"; 
 " Milk for the twins " ; " Mind you inform your 
 father"; " Moet and Chandon"; "Not for Joe"; 
 "The Perfect Cure"; " Pollywollyamo " ; "Rackety 
 Jack " ; " Rollicking Rams " ; " Slap Bang, here we 
 are again " ; " Sparkling Moselle " ; " Ta-rara-boom- 
 de-ay"; "There's 'air"; " They're all very fine and 
 large " ; " Tooral-Iaddy " ; " Two lovely black eyes " ; 
 "Up in a balloon"; "We don't want to fight"; 
 "Wot cheer, 'Ria." 
 
 Was there ever such an array of rampant im- 
 becility? . . . 
 
 One thing may be said with absolute confidence : 
 in the strenuous years that lie before us, when our 
 whole existence may depend on our making the very 
 most of such moral and intellectual qualities as nature 
 has bestowed upon us, the enormous wastage involved 
 in our lower forms of popular entertainment must, if 
 unchecked, lead to disastrous consequences.' 
 Such amusements as these, we must remember, are not 
 only the amusements of the ignorant and the squalid. 
 They are the most popular extant entertainments for all 
 classes. " Officers who have been living on the brink of 
 death for months," says Mr. Archer, " have nothing better 
 to do with their scant time of respite than to haunt amuse- 
 ment houses, which makes it seem very doubtful whether 
 England is worth fighting for. A man whose leave is 
 expiring will take his wife or his betrothed, on the last 
 evening they may ever spend together, to a piece of garish 
 and cynical inanity, humiliating alike to our national and 
 to our personal self-respect." And Mr. Hibbert says : " It 
 is significant that no factor of the music-hall programme 
 has maintained his price so steadily as the ' red-nosed 
 comedian.' " 
 
 When we turn from the amusements of the people to 
 the newspapers of the people, matters are nearly as bad. 
 The popular newspaper is the paper that gives most 
 photographs of actresses and society women mixed up 
 with sensational paragraphs, blood-curdling fiction, and a
 
 266 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 violent political bias. The report of Parliamentary debates 
 hardly exists in these wretched papers ; literary criticism 
 is squeezed into a few paragraphs, if it appear at all ; and 
 everything else is the police court, the divorce court, and 
 what professes to be society gossip. We have the best 
 newspapers in the world — in London, in Manchester, in 
 Glasgow, in Edinburgh, and in Liverpool — but so far as 
 London is concerned these admirable newspapers are not 
 popular with the million, and some of them only just 
 contrive to exist. For the rest — rubbish. 
 
 I need not refer at any length to other matters which 
 are notorious enough — the very low intellectual tone of 
 what is called society, a general laxity of morals and 
 manners among the leisured classes, the entire want of 
 national enthusiasm for education, the decadence of the 
 legitimate drama, the grinning prurience of advertisements 
 on hoardings and in newspapers, the lack of restraint, 
 modesty, and humility in every class of the community, 
 and the excessive emphasis on the right of every person 
 in the State to do what he likes, think what he likes, and 
 say what he likes. 
 
 There are many indications, some of them of the most 
 encouraging character (I am thinking above everything 
 else of the moral influence of educated women on political 
 life) — many indications that the nation is ashamed of these 
 things ; but it still remains a most serious reflection that 
 any one of these things should continue to exist at all 
 at a time when our youngest, bravest, and hopefnllest are 
 dying for us, and when the future character of European 
 civilization is swinging and swaying in a hurricane of 
 destruction. To ignore these symptoms of evil is folly: 
 to do nothing to remove the evil is madness. Take, for 
 example, the questions of our falling birth-rate and of 
 infantile mortality. Here, in the lurid light of war, the 
 most blind and indifferent must see the peril which 
 threatens our existence as a world Power. In 1877 began 
 the fall of the birth-rate, and the writer of a recent 
 pamphlet entitled Cradles oy Coffins ? basing himself on 
 official figures, calculates that " we have directly lost, 
 owing to the reduction in birth-rate alone, in less than
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 267 
 
 forty years, 8,573,223 lives." This is direct loss. But 
 if one-third of this number had reached marriageable age, 
 and married, and their families consisted of only one child, 
 and of those children one in seven had died before birth, 
 the direct and indirect loss in forty years is a population 
 of eleven millions. The figures of infantile mortality re- 
 present an inexpressible tragedy of human life. And 
 the figures of syphilitic suffering among infants a still 
 greater tragedy. One authority says that "syphilis is 
 more disastrous to child-life than tubercle." Another that 
 32"8 per cent, of all stillbirths are due to syphilis. And 
 it is believed that every year 100,000 children are born 
 dead, or one in 7"63 of the total birth-rate. " One baby 
 in every nine," says the writer of the pamphlet we have 
 referred to, "dies during the first twelve months of life." 
 
 What is the remedy for this mass of evil preying on 
 the nation's vitality? Is there one cure to which we can 
 give ourselves in the hope of destroying all the causes 
 of this multitudinous badness — our vulgarity, our exces- 
 sive individualism, our immorality, our indifference, and 
 our ignorance ? What will give us a cleaner, a gladder, 
 a more spontaneous existence, with the Wordsworthian 
 ideal of joy in widest commonalty spread ? 
 
 I think the one cure, and the only cure, the cure which 
 goes to the root of everything, and which, at the same time, 
 gives greatest promise of creative benefit, is iiaiional train- 
 ing. We must begin at once to improve the whole quality 
 of our national education, and set about the reconstruction 
 of our entire educational system. There lies the tap-root of 
 all those evil things which degrade us in the eyes of other 
 people and hold the better part of the nation back from 
 advancing to its rightful destiny. Our national and our in- 
 dividual sins, in largest measure, are the fruits of stupidity. 
 We are a nation very ill equipped for the battle of life. 
 Ni7te of 02ir children otit of every ten receive no education 
 at all after the age oj fourteen. The boys go in vast 
 legions to dead-end occupations, becoming at the age 
 of eighteen or twenty, except in those exceptional cases 
 where personality saves them, unskilled labourers. The
 
 268 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 girls go into factories and domestic service, losing vitality, 
 losing the joy of life, and never once knowing the stimulus 
 and reward of intelligence. It is a wonder that we are 
 not worse than we are. It is a wonder that we have 
 so few labour troubles and so little unrest among the 
 masses. The explanation is that we are in our very 
 natures, and by the force of our heredity, a law-abiding 
 people, and a people as fatalistic as any of the Eastern 
 races. We put up with everything, even with serious 
 inconveniences which a minimum of effort would remove. 
 
 This law-abiding quality of English character de- 
 serves attention. It passes sometimes for a virtue, and 
 because of it we are disposed to think of ourselves too 
 easily as a moral people. But this is to debase morality. 
 Morality does not lie in obedience to standards of conduct. 
 Morality is an inward conviction of the superiority of 
 right over wrong, with a spiritual enthusiasm for the right. 
 To keep the law is nothing ; a lunatic in confinement, or 
 a convict under prison discipline, is not a moral person. 
 A nation is not a moral nation which merely acquiesces 
 in the law of the land or is obedient to the decalogue. 
 A man may be perfectly moral in his conduct, and yet 
 thoroughly immoral in his soul. 
 
 I will take a case which is consonant to the whole 
 argument of this book. It is perfectly well known to 
 every man in politics that from the year 1906 to the year 
 191 1 Lord Haldane had to carry through his Army policy 
 with but little assistance from his colleagues. It is per- 
 fectly well known that certain ministers not only opposed 
 his reforms, but desired to get rid of him and to introduce , 
 such retrenchments at the War Office as would not only 
 have arrested the policy of reform, but would have reduced 
 the British Army to a condition not unlike that from 
 which Lord Haldane rescued it.^ Now, no man has a 
 
 ' As late as January 1914 Mr. Lloyd George was praising Lord 
 Randolph Churchill's action in resigning as a protest against increased 
 military estimates. Asked by his interviewer if the present moment 
 was favourable for a reduction of armaments, he replied, " I think 
 it is the most favourable moment that has presented itself during 
 the last twenty years,"
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 269 
 
 right to quarrel with these ministers, certainly not to 
 accuse them of immorality. They were entitled to think 
 that the mone}' spent on our physical defence exceeded 
 our needs. It could be argued that if Russia and France 
 attended to their armies with as great a devotion as we 
 were attending to our Navy, the peace of the world would 
 be secured, as far as armaments can secure it. Social 
 reform was pressing ; the opposition w'as fighting expendi- 
 ture with increasing force ; the newspapers were taunting 
 the Government with extravagance ; to spend more money 
 on the Army than was absolutel)' essential — this was 
 foolish, perhaps criminal. Here is a thesis that could be 
 argued. 
 
 But what becomes of the morality of these same 
 ministers who, when war comes, and when Lord Haldane's 
 preparations save them from the lamp-post, and when 
 Lord Haldane himself is being denounced by the most 
 violent and dangerous people in the community as a 
 traitor to his country, keep their mouths shut? Nay, what 
 becomes of the morality of these ministers, who, leaving 
 to the wolves the colleague they had opposed, rush 
 furiously into the limelight of public attention, and, 
 assuming the air which amused Turgenev, the air of their 
 own statues erected by public subscription, demand the 
 nation's applause ? 
 
 This is not morality ; it is immorality. It is conduct 
 such as would have made a man like Sir Walter Scott 
 white with indignation, and driven a man like Charles 
 Kingsley or Thomas Huxley into a very fury of rage. 
 Instead of seeking the plaudits of the mob, instead of 
 putting on the garments of national heroism, instead of 
 strutting here and there as the incarnation of Britain's 
 honour, the duty of these ministers was to stand by their 
 colleague and to face the storm of ignorant abuse. No 
 man with a grain of chivalry in his nature could have 
 done anything else. No man of honour could have con- 
 ceived of doing anything else. 
 
 These ministers, you will observe, committed no offence 
 against the law of the land. Outwardly they were not 
 merely good and patriotic : they were indeed, some of
 
 270 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 them, veritably of the greatest possible service to the State; 
 but in the eyes of a man of honour they were immoral. 
 
 Without a firm moral foundation to his character every 
 man who presumes to guide or to influence public opinion 
 is a danger to his country. He may have at his heart 
 what he conceives to be the true interests of his nation, 
 he may even make great sacrifices for those interests ; 
 but if he is not governed by the fixed and eternal laws 
 of morality his patriotism will for ever be a menace 
 to his country, and a menace, perhaps, to the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 A friend of mine once argued with the German Em- 
 peror on the question of militarism. He pointed out to 
 the Emperor that in spite of his professions of peace, the 
 very fact that he so closely and so deliberately associated 
 himself with the military forces of his nation made for 
 unrest, suspicion, and open scepticism. The Emperor 
 listened with grave interest to this argument. He was 
 moved by it, for he is a man who has ever been haunted 
 by an almost intolerable sense of responsibility. But at 
 the end, nodding his head as though to say " That's all 
 very well," he pointed over his left shoulder and said, 
 " Look west " ; then, pointing over the other shoulder, he 
 said, " Look east." 
 
 We see now that this identification of the Emperor with 
 the militarism of his nation, dictated by patriotic con- 
 siderations and justifiable on purely national grounds, has 
 brought disaster to his own country and great suffering to 
 almost all the world. He pointed to the east, and he 
 pointed to the west. But the frontiers of nationalism 
 are not the ends of civilization. On the east the Emperor 
 saw the innumerable legions of the Tzar, and on the west 
 the unconquerable spirit of a people whose richest territory 
 one of his ancestors had wrested from it. Danger there, 
 and danger on the east. But those dangers were as nothing 
 to the sovran danger which lay neither east nor west, but 
 inward, deep in his own unsettled heart. If he had looked 
 neither to the right nor to the left, but inward to his own 
 heart : if he had considered neither the strategic railways
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 271 
 
 of Russia nor the diplomacy of France, but the everlasting 
 laws of right and wrong : if he had broken free from the 
 warring confusions of nationalism and had given himself 
 whole-heartedly to the spirit of humanity, how different 
 now had been the histor)' of the world. 
 
 If he desired peace — and all who know him are con- 
 vinced that he did desire peace — it was morally wrong 
 to clothe himself in the garments of war and to use the 
 language of force. If in truth he desired the welfare of 
 humanity, it was morally wrong to associate himself so 
 arrogantly and so exclusively with only the few millions 
 of Germany. If in truth he believed in God, it was 
 morally wrong — whatever the dangers of east and west 
 — to wear the livery of Odin. He might have drawn all 
 nations together, but he was intent only on safeguarding 
 his own. He might have sown confidence in the fields of 
 Europe, but nationalism led him to sow enmity and dis- 
 trust. Because he had no moral foundations to his 
 character, because his heart was not surely fixed, he 
 endeavoured to serve two masters, he divided his house 
 against itself, and he brought ruin to the world. 
 
 We may see the same danger in ourselves. It is only 
 a few years ago that one of our most popular newspapers 
 was threatening to roll France in " blood and mud." She 
 was told that England had long hesitated between France 
 and Germany, but that now England's mind was made 
 up — " France will be rolled in the blood and mud in which 
 her Press daily wallows . . . nothing like an entente cor- 
 diale can subsist between England and her nearest neigh- 
 bour . . . their colonies will be taken from them and 
 given to Germany and Ital>' . . . the French have suc- 
 ceeded in thoroughly convincing John Bull that they 
 are his inveterate enemies, and that all his attempts at 
 conciliation are useless." 
 
 This newspaper believed that it was serving the interests 
 of Great Britain in using such outrageous language. The 
 language was not chosen out of a delight in mischief or 
 to increase the newspaper's circulation : it was deliberately 
 provocative because provocation was deemed the best 
 means of frightening a very intellectual and gallant people
 
 2;2 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 into doing what the newspaper wanted — and what the 
 newspaper wanted was something to the advantage of 
 England. But such language made the work of King 
 Edward exceedingly difficult : it brought us into contempt 
 with all that is truest and best in France : and it might 
 very well have thrown the French people into the arms 
 of Germany. Only the clumsy character of German 
 diplomacy, and the perspicuity of French statesmen, 
 saved us at that time from a disaster which might have 
 been overwhelming. 
 
 Such language as this would never have been employed 
 if the policy of the newspaper in question had been based 
 upon morality. For, whatever the danger to be guarded 
 against, it can never be right to address another people in 
 the terms of a bully. It is always wrong to be insulting. 
 It is always right to be persuasive and reasonable. No 
 benefit won by threat and insult can be a righteous benefit. 
 And no nation which uses threat and insult can enjoy the 
 confidence of mankind. 
 
 It has been said of a well-known newspaper proprietor 
 that he is the incendiary of journalism — " a man ever 
 ready to set the world in a blaze to make a newspaper 
 placard." I do not believe this. I know him, and at one 
 time knew him with a fair degree of intimacy. He is a 
 man, I am certain, who most earnestly desires to serve his 
 country. He has many qualities which are noble and 
 generous. He has made sacrifices for what he conceives 
 to be the truth. He has more than once risked the 
 popularity on which his wealth depends to secure an 
 advantage for the nation. And he has had the courage 
 and the honesty again and again to change his mind. 
 
 But the offences which he has undoubtedly committed 
 are grave offences, and for many of his countrymen he is a 
 sinister figure of the most serious danger to civilization. 
 How is it that these offences come ? They come from a 
 lack of unswerving morality in the region of thought, i 
 They are the offences, not of personal selfishness, but ofj 
 selfish nationahsm, a nationalism so sincere and decisive] 
 that it becomes oblivious and indifferent to the unchanging 
 laws of morality. To exaggerate is thought no sin, if
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 273 
 
 exaggeration will serve a patriotic end. To obstruct 
 progress is thought a duty, if the end is of greater national 
 benefit. The end justifies the means. Everything must 
 be sacrificed to secure the great end. Scruples are for the 
 shortsighted and moderation for the timorous. Forward, 
 over the body of truth, over the body of justice, over the 
 body of goodness and righteousness ; forward, forward to 
 the great end. 
 
 Such a man as this, like the German Emperor, places 
 nationalism above morality. It is the most fatal of in- 
 versions. Morality is eternal. Every sin against tnose 
 eternal laws brings retribution now or hereafter. National- 
 ism is itself a sin against morality ; for the movement 
 of life is away from all forms of selfishness ; and he who 
 throws himself athwart the movement of life is opposing 
 himself to the will of the universe. History is a chronicle 
 of such oppositions. All the blood of battles has been 
 spilled in resistance to the movement of life, that unbroken 
 movement of the spirit of humanity from individualism and 
 tribalism towards the ideal of sympathy, co-operation, and 
 brotherhood. It is the same in the natural world. Every 
 living thing, animal or plant, which lives by destruction, 
 always makes its environment worse for itself and its 
 descendants.^ The mastodon, that evolutionary triumph 
 of selfish strength, existed only to become extinct. The 
 museums and the menageries of the world are full of 
 memorials to the folly of attempting to oppose the great 
 central movement of life. That plant and that creature 
 which have something to give to others, however hivmble 
 they be and however weak, flourish exceedingly, improving 
 their environment for their descendants, while the mastodon 
 perishes, and lion, tiger, and wolf glare at the world from 
 behind iron bars. 
 
 The latter years of the last century were darkened by an 
 unreasonable phrase — the Spencerian phrase of struggle 
 for existence. Alen saw no longer a universe working out 
 a divine destiny, but a blind and unguided universe 
 blundering through rapine and bloodshed to a purposeless 
 end. All the wonderful beauty of the world was clouded 
 
 ' The Meaning of Life ^ by E. Kay Robinson. 
 T
 
 274 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 over by the false thought that nature is red in tooth 
 and claw. It did not occur to many in those days that 
 while on every side of them were things of exquisite 
 beauty and tenderness, interlaced with each other in a 
 marvellous web of sympathy, only here and there, at vast 
 intervals, was there any evidence of slaughter and pain. 
 For them it was as if the fields ran red with blood and the 
 woods rang with cries of death. They questioned the idea 
 of a Providence. They closed their books of teleology for 
 the last time. They looked out from their darkened 
 windows upon a struggle for existence which appeared 
 to them cruel and meaningless. 
 
 There is, indeed, a struggle for existence ; but a struggle 
 for a particular existence. And because that struggle is 
 for a particular existence it is a moral, a magnificent, and 
 a divine struggle. All purpose is there. The old teleology 
 is gone, but so is the mastodon. No demiurgus made the 
 v/orld, set it going, and withdrew to see how it would 
 work. In life itself is the purpose of life. In evolution 
 itself is the teleology of existence. From the beginnings 
 of time, before man had appeared upon this planet, before 
 a crystal was formed, before there was cohesion of any 
 kind, and while yet this corner of the infinite universe, was 
 a writhing flame whirling through the unbroken silences 
 of space, that spirit which we call life was immanent in 
 the mist, and was moving to the ends of creation. It was 
 struggling then, but not in a blind and aimless struggle. 
 It was struggling for existence, and for a particular exist- 
 ence. It was weaving itself a material garment, but a 
 particular material garment, and a material garment to 
 be used for a purpose. The flame died down ; the worlds 
 took shape : a thousand forms appeared on this particular 
 star: and historic life began for humankind. From the 
 savage Man moved forward through centuries of struggle, 
 half-conscious of guidance from without, unconscious of 
 guidance from within, but himself, in the divinity of his 
 own spirit, pressing forward to fuller and deeper experi- 
 ence, to finer and grander consciousness. And we who 
 look back can see over all the wreckage of wars and over 
 all the ruins of imperfect civilizations and over all the
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 275 
 
 litter of half-true theories of existence, the one great 
 spiritual truth of history, the one supreme miracle of human 
 experience — a movement towards beauty and goodness. 
 
 Darwin, who confessed that he could never look without 
 feeling sick at the tail-feather of a peacock — that wonder of 
 shaded colour, that miracle of the blood which carries 
 delicate degrees of beauty to an exact, an almost infini- 
 tesimal point — Darwin has nothing to tell us either of 
 real origins or of the existence of beauty and goodness. 
 No man can explain the universe. Into no system can the 
 infinite be compressed. And with no words can the eternal 
 be uttered. " Dear friend," said Goethe, to one who would 
 convert him to a dogma, " it is with you as it is with me ; 
 in the particular you feel yourself grand and mighty, but 
 the whole goes as little into your head as into mine." All 
 that we know for certain is this, that from the beginning 
 of time there has been a movement of life, and that this 
 movement has been in the direction of beauty and good- 
 ness. Whence came the movement, we can never know ; 
 whither it tends, we can only guess ; but in our own human 
 story of life, in the history of mankind on this planet, we 
 can see that there is movement, and that this movement is 
 towards betterment. We know as surely as we know 
 anything that in mankind life has been moving towards 
 greater intelligence and wider sympathy ; and we must 
 decide within ourselves, looking for no end of the riddle 
 and hoping for no rewards of any kind, whether by our 
 thoughts and actions we will further this movement of life, 
 or by our thoughts and actions throw ourselves athwart 
 its path. 
 
 As regards our own nation, which carries in so signifi- 
 cant a degree the fortunes of civilization, and which with 
 Russia, I am persuaded, is destined to exercise an over- 
 whelming influence on the present century, it may be said 
 with all modesty that it has qualities of the very highest 
 kind, and qualities which are of supreme importance to 
 the human race. The question which should concern us 
 is the manner in which those qualities arc to be employed 
 and the direction in which they are to be aimed. We are
 
 276 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 not to be disheartened by our failures ; we are not to be 
 distressed because we have blundered here and have fallen 
 there. A nation's history is a nation's fate. In our his- 
 tory there has ever been a movement from littleness to 
 greatness, from tyranny to freedom, from cruelty to justice, 
 from distrust to confidence, from enmity to friendship. 
 And in this war of nations Great Britain has vindicated 
 her character. She has suffered from the aspersions of 
 her critics, she has been gravely misrepresented by those 
 of her own household who flung stones at her to rouse her 
 energies, and she has lacked Miltonic leadership ; she has 
 not been, unhappily, the trumpet-voice of liberty, but she 
 has been servus servoruin; she has worked silently and 
 humbly for all, and by her efforts, more than by the efforts 
 of any other, the world has been saved from the domina- 
 tion of a selfish militarism. The nation has vindicated 
 itself in the eyes of all mankind. 
 
 Let us, then, quietly and with a good conscience, ask 
 ourselves how we are to employ our great qualities and to 
 what end we shall direct them. We have energy, industry, 
 and courage. How shall we employ them ? We must 
 begin by throwing off the delaying hand of the last cen- 
 tury, and stand perfectly free from the last illusions of 
 naaterialism. That is to say, we must see the physical 
 universe not as mechanism, but as mind. Life is intelli- 
 gent. The whole struggle of existence is a spiritual 
 struggle. We as a nation are playing a part in the 
 spiritual evolution of the human race. There is a move- 
 ment in the world from false to true, from bad to good, 
 from wrong to right, from hate to love. There is a 
 struggle of life for a particular existence — a better, nobler, 
 and truer existence. To play our part in that struggle, to 
 make our contribution to that immense effort, we must be 
 not only moral beings, very conscious of the difference 
 between right and wrong, but intelligent beings very 
 conscious of the difference between truth and falsity. 
 Morality alone is not enough. Intelligence is of utmost 
 importance. 
 
 The greatest drawback to British character is unintelli- 
 gence. It is not slackness, it is not lack of " push and
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 277 
 
 i^o," it is certainly not want of energy. Carlyle was for 
 ever calling upon the British nation to be what indeed it 
 was ; Matthew Arnold alone, while that great drum was 
 still reverberating in men's ears, bade this nation get that 
 which it chiefly lacked to make it truly great — intelligence. 
 Of moral earnestness and of tremendous energy we have 
 never been in want, but of intelligence to inform that 
 moral earnestness and to guide that tremendous energy 
 we have often stood, and now stand, in sorest need. The 
 remedy is surely plain. We must revolutionize our vvhole 
 system of national training. We must begin as soon as 
 ever we can to train the children of this country in such a 
 school of morality and intelligence as shall give the next 
 generation a vast majority of knowledgeable and moral 
 citizens. We must aim, in our national training, to create 
 the higher type of British citizen. We must direct all 
 our splendid qualities to the evolution of a man and 
 woman who shall represent those ideals of British char- 
 acter for which so many of our bravest and our fairest have 
 been glad to lay down their lives. Before our ej'es must 
 be ever this definite goal, this political aim which is above 
 every other political aim, the making of men and women 
 worthy to call themselves the children of Great Britain. 
 
 Let us fight error as a physician fights disease. Let us 
 be united in one spirit to destroy those things which are 
 wrong and base, and to free those things which are true 
 and good. Let us lay afresh in the life of modern demo- 
 cracy the great foundations of moral conduct. And 
 let us give to the life of our whole people the vivifying 
 inspiration of intelligence. 
 
 To these ends let us set a new value on truth. As I 
 have argued throughout this book, the war which has 
 wasted Europe is above everything else a retribution on 
 wrong-thinking. Truth is of the very essence of morality, 
 and without intelligence right-thinking is at the mercy of 
 a thousand hazards. With the same scrupulous care 
 for exact thinking which characterizes the man of science, 
 the inventor, and the engineer, let us, in the sphere of 
 ideas, seek the truth of all those matters on which we are 
 called upon to give even a passing opinion. Let us be
 
 278 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 afraid to think wrongly. Let us be ashamed to make a 
 mistake in our opinions. 
 
 I fear that in our anxiety about the future we may be 
 relying too much on the emotions evoked by this war. 
 There is a spirit of unanimity in our midst, and a spirit of 
 self-sacrifice which seems as if it were already securing the 
 future of the nation ; our anxiety is inclined to rely upon 
 the continuance of this spirit for the solution of problems 
 which will need the highest intelligence and the severest 
 devotion to moral considerations. Prince Trubetzkoy 
 warned me in Moscow at the beginning of the present 
 year against this danger. War, he averred, is an evil, and 
 nothing "but an evil ; almost all the self-sacrifice it calls 
 forth in the civilian population is only a moral reaction 
 from Satanism. We cannot rely on reactions. We need, 
 as Henry James said, a moral equivalent for war. If men 
 and women were not willing before this war to sacrifice 
 themselves and work for the general welfare, they will 
 not be willing to make this sacrifice when the excitement 
 of war has passed. There may come the reaction of a 
 worse indifference. 
 
 Professor Forster of Munich is preaching this same 
 warning to Germany. In a book which he has just 
 published entitled CJiristianity and War, this courageous 
 professor, after a vigorous chastisement of those shuffling 
 and compromising Christians who attempt to justify war, 
 turns and castigates those who assert that war has brought 
 the spirit of sacrifice and idealism to the nation. He 
 says : " Let us wait until after the war and see how much 
 unity we possess, how much we are willing to sacrifice, 
 how much our ideals are worth. The heroism of the 
 battlefield is a different thing from the daily heroism, sacri- 
 fice, and discipline in family or calling or society. Believe 
 me that these great virtues will not be strengthened, 
 and that out of the depths of this v.'ar fury quite 
 unsuspected and terrible things, big with destiny, will 
 come, and to combat which all the healing powers of 
 religious and ethical fervour will have to be exercised if our 
 spiritual life is to exist at all."
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 279 
 
 " War," he says, " will not give us any revival of our 
 religious and moral life. Quite the contrary. It is only 
 when our Christianity has recovered from the intoxication 
 of war, when we have reached a state of wholesome 
 sobriety, when we feel ashamed of what we have done, 
 when we recognize that our illusions are all really illusions, 
 only then will the powers of the Gospel perform their 
 miracles in our people's hearts. We can only hope for 
 moral and religious benefit from this war when we hold 
 our souls perfectl}' pure from all war jubilation, all war 
 delirium, all love of war for the sake of war. If we 
 cannot do this, our religious and moral life is doomed 
 beyond recovery." 
 
 We shall soon have in the midst of our civil life, at a 
 time when the readjustment of industrial mechanism will 
 be extremely difficult, millions of men who have been 
 leading an utterly unnatural life, and many thousands who 
 have slain their fellow-creatures in hand-to-hand encounters. 
 To absorb this element into the uneventful round of 
 industrial existence will not be easy, and unless that 
 industrial existence is of another spirit from what it was 
 before the war, it may be impossible. We must rely on 
 no emotionalism. We must direct all our intelligence 
 and all our moral fervour to making the hiatus between 
 war and peace a moment of great and deep spiritual 
 reality. Those who come back must find new ideals 
 waiting for them, must feel in their souls fresh incentives 
 for the highest life of man. 
 
 In Germany there are signs that the nation is awaking 
 from its dream. It looks back from its luxury and 
 dominion to its simplicity and peace, even as Goethe 
 looked back upon his youth from the pinnacle of his fame, 
 when he sighed : 
 
 What I possess I see as though it were afar, 
 
 And what has vanished has become for me the Real. 
 
 Treitschke, D. F. Stnauss, and Bernhardi have been 
 tried and found wantSng. The German people, in the 
 misery which must ensue after this war, will turn again to
 
 28o THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 their great Goethe, a War Minister who reduced an army.i 
 and see how his teaching compares with the teaching of 
 these others. " The entire trend of our culture and of the 
 Christian reHgion itself," he taught them, "is the inter- 
 communication of peoples, the community of interests, 
 modesty of tone, and all the social virtues " : " I am a 
 child of peace, and am for peace with the world at all 
 times " : " War is, in truth, a disease in which the sap that 
 should nourish and sustain a healthy body goes to feed 
 some monstrosity of nature " : " The lust for war which 
 works like an itch under the skin of our rulers, disturbs me 
 like an evil dream." Goethe taught that " Every people 
 contributes its own note to the great chorus of humanity" : 
 he proclaimed his debt to English and French culture ; 
 and he warned the German people against the egoism of 
 Prussian dominion. In a great measure he foresaw the 
 impending disaster for his countrymen. 
 
 Germany will work out her own salvation. She has 
 many and grievous faults, some of them the most serious 
 faults of the spirit, but she is deep-thinking, she has great 
 intelligence, and she has an aptitude for new ideas. One 
 thinks that something of a revolution must impassion 
 every part of that mushroom and makeshift Empire when 
 the full truth of this war is really known to the German 
 people ; but, however that may be, hopeful are those 
 who know her best that in a generation Germany will 
 have cleansed herself of the Prussian itch.^ 
 
 And for ourselves (we who have never preached that war 
 is a "biological necessity," but have seen that it may 
 
 ^ When he was War Minister under Carl August, Grand Duke oi 
 Weimar, Goethe reduced the army by exactly one half, from 600 
 to 300. 
 
 - The principal idea in the famous Manifesto of Souther?! Germany^ 
 published by the King of Wiirtemberg in 1820, is that only South 
 German States are truly German, Austria and Prussia being only half 
 German colonies. Rotteck said in 1830 that all Liberal Germans 
 would side with France if she waged war against the absolutist States 
 of Germany. Bavaria has never been easy under Prussian domina- 
 tion. The Austrian Prime Minister said openly in 1850, "Prussia 
 must be degraded, then demolished."
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 28t 
 
 become a moral duty), we take assurance for the future 
 from our difficult but victorious past. " England in the 
 nineteenth century," says M. Seignobos, " has served as 
 a political model for Europe. The English people 
 developed the political mechanism of modern Europe, 
 constitutional monarchy, parliamentary government, and 
 safeguards for personal liberty. The other nations have 
 only imitated them." ^ Other countries spent the nine- 
 teenth century sword in hand fighting Absolutism, Clerical- 
 ism, and Feudalism ; other countries, only a few decades 
 ago, bloodily wrung from privilege and tradition the 
 elements of freedom, and even now, in some of them, the 
 equilibrium is unstable. But Britain, by her vigorous 
 sanity, her wholesome cheerfulness, her indestructible 
 faith in man's moral nature, her inherent sense of com- 
 radeship, fashioned her liberties in discussion and buiit 
 the great structure of her commonwealth by the hand 
 of reason. The " Old England " of the eighteenth century 
 passed without a revolution into the democratic Britain 
 of the nineteenth, and without strife or civil war has 
 become the vast, unified, and liberal British Empire which 
 rose like one man to withstand Prussianism at the threshold 
 of the twentieth. We need not fear the future, however 
 formidable it may seem, if this spirit of the past still 
 animates the nation, and Intelligence directs it. 
 
 All history is a movement towards the moral dignit}' 
 of the individur' man. Many and great kings have been 
 overthrown, many and great empires have been cast down, 
 by the immense pressure of evolution seeking this manifest 
 end of creation. No force has been able to withstand it. 
 The privileges of the rich, the traditional rights of the 
 powerful, even the sacred claims and armed might of the 
 Church, yield in the end to this movement of the human 
 mind. European history for the last hundred years is a 
 text-book of moral evolution. P'rom the fall of Napoleon 
 to the outbreak of this war, every democracy in Europe, 
 opposed in every case by clericalism and privilege, has 
 been pressing into greater liberty and towards a more 
 
 ' A Political Histo)-y of Conteinpo}\vy Europe. (Hoineinaiin.)
 
 282 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 rational justice. And Britain, who without bloodshed 
 has led the way in this j^reat movement of humanity, 
 must still cherish as the loftiest of her ideals the dignity 
 of the individual man, and must acquire an ever greater 
 intelligence in working for that ideal, if she is still to 
 lead the nations to the end of the present centurj^ 
 
 We see in the valour of our seamen, in the gallantry 
 of our soldiers, and in the devotion of the whole people, 
 as it were a light from heaven which reveals to us the 
 true character of human existence. We are not machines. 
 And we are not swine. We are moral beings working 
 out a moral evolution. The Dead have died for an idea. 
 The maimed and blind have suffered for an idea. The 
 future of humanity is either that idea, or it is anarchy. 
 War, which seems to us a thing gigantic and overshadow- 
 ing, is in truth only an interruption of this immemorial 
 movement in the human mind — a movement which 
 becomes swifter and more resistless after the check of 
 savage war. He who opposes himself to this movement, 
 after such a people's war as this, will be swept aside. 
 
 But who that loves her will seek to stop this movement 
 of life in Great Britain ? Will he not rather march breast 
 forward with the host of British democracy, putting away 
 from him all selfishness, laughing to scorn the fears of 
 the privileged, stopping his ears against the rant of the 
 demagogue, ever keeping the eyes of his intelligent soul 
 to the light of reason ? And, touched to greatness by 
 those who have fought and died for his liberties, will he 
 not see to it that henceforth the liberties of the least of 
 his fellow-countrymen are of a truth worth dying for ? 
 Will he not passionately desire a fairer and a more 
 kindly Britain ? Will he not feel, even as though they 
 afflicted himself, the disabilities, the destitution, and the 
 degradation which afflict his fellow-citizens ? Will 
 he not be ashamed of all that makes Britain shameful 
 and proud of all that makes her worthy of men's 
 love? 
 
 Surely, after the exaltation of this war, after the match- 
 less heroism and frightful suffering of this war, only the
 
 THE ORDEAL OF PEACE 283 
 
 most base, the most ignorant, will forbear to sing the 
 true hymn of British revolution — 
 
 Bring me my bow of burning gold I 
 
 Bring me my arrows of desire I 
 Bring me my spear : O clouds unfold ! 
 
 Bring me my chariot of fire I 
 
 I will not cease from mental strife, 
 Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, 
 
 Till we have built Jerusalem 
 
 In England's green and pleasant land. 
 
 " When light penetrates into darkness," says William 
 Scott Palmer, " we may have only to stay as we are and do 
 as we have done ... to answer for a sin where once we 
 knew no sin." ^ 
 
 The light has come ; terribly for some, gloriously for 
 others, but it has come to all. 
 
 ' Faith or Fear? An Appeal to the Church of England, (Alac- 
 millan.)
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 NOTE A, p. 9 
 
 In the July issue (1916) of the Hibbert Journal^ Dr. Shadwell gives 
 some interesting extracts from German war sermons. He reminds 
 us that : 
 
 Newspaper correspondents residing in foreign countries pick 
 out the most piquant tit-bits to send to their journals. And 
 generally the references to their own country which they select as 
 most appetizing to their readers are abusive. The result is a 
 mutual interchange of offensive and irritating matter which is 
 constantly served up to the public and stimulates international ill- 
 will. This practice is mainly responsible for the remarkable fact, 
 which is not otherwise explained, that wars tend to become more 
 and more people's wars, and that the present prodigious struggle 
 is above all others a people's war. The sense of nationality, 
 heightened by newspapers at home, is wounded, and smouldering 
 animosities are inflamed by a steady interchange of pin-pricks in- 
 flicted by the selected items which are sent from abroad by " our 
 own foreign correspondents." Experienced and well-informed 
 readers know how to discount these despatches, but the general 
 public do not. Modern wars are caused less by "secret diplo- 
 macy" than by newspaper publicity, and the exceptionally violent 
 feelings excited in the present war are mainly due to the same 
 agency. 
 
 The following are some of the extracts quoted by Dr. Shadwell 
 from the sermons of German pastors : — 
 
 Our enemies maintain that the German people want to sub- 
 jugate Europe, and that an intolerable pressure has been for years 
 exercised by Germany on the whole Continent. From this 
 pressure they are bound to free themselves. If that were so we 
 should now be, with all the service we are rendering, the 
 assistants of a policy of force. But we know that what they say 
 IS untrue. We are fighting not for rule, but for our life. Ger- 
 many has not drawn the sword to curtail the rights of any one ; 
 she plunged into war to preserve her own possessions. This aim 
 
 287
 
 288 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of war may truly stand before the eye of God. But can it also 
 stand before the serving Jesus? It may be legitimate self- 
 assertion, enforced self-defence ; but is it service ? When nations 
 engage in sanguinary strife must not Jesus always veil His head, 
 He who came not to be served but to serve and give His 
 life a ransom for many ? (Schian). 
 
 One of the ugliest phenomena of our German life before the 
 war was undoubtedly the mammon-worship prevailing in all 
 circles. It was the painful accompaniment of the prosperity 
 which the German people have achieved in the last decades. A 
 poor nation, which barely covered its own needs by agriculture 
 and paid its State officials and officers salaries proverbially 
 known throughout Europe for their modesty, developed into 
 one which by manufacture and commerce won a large place 
 in the world's market, and year by year gathered accumulating 
 wealth. The transformation proceeded too rapidly not to have a 
 corrupting effect on the public mind. The old simplicity and 
 frugality were replaced in the upper classes by a luxury which 
 was not even in good taste. Social life, still impressively intel- 
 lectual in Goethe's time, became constantly more materialistic 
 and elegant, the claims on enjoyment ever more unrestrained 
 and dissolute. Wealth seemed to many the most important and 
 indeed the only desirable aim in life. We have not infrequently 
 seen it cover a multitude of sins. We have seen odious methods 
 of winning it readily indulged in by those who have known how 
 to use them successfully with no excess of scruples. We have 
 seen mere possession accorded an influence and treated with a 
 respect which character and wisdom can only gain by laborious 
 efforts. The converse side was a deep distrust among the 
 m^asses, and here too an unwholesome though more pardonable 
 over-rating of money, as though the aim of improving the 
 economic position justified setting aside all considerations ot 
 the common weal, the conditions of international competition in 
 industry, and the maintenance of family life. ... 
 
 But I will not proceed any further with these generalities. 
 Rather will I put the question — Who among us feels quite free 
 from guilt in this matter? Who dares to say with a clear 
 conscience that he has firmly opposed this dance round the 
 golden calf? . . . Let us then strike ourselves on the breast and 
 confess that we have all sinned, that none of us has been free 
 from the spell. We will not except those present here, but with 
 one and all, old and young, man and wife, rich and poor, admit 
 our guilt (Foerster). 
 
 We must earnestly admit that not only has money served us 
 but that we have served money ; that we have not only lived on 
 our money as its master but for money as its lover ; or even that 
 we have been lived on by money as its slave. It is true, of
 
 APPENDIX 289 
 
 course, that there are still ideals for which we have lived — 
 profession and work, wife and child, art and science. But — 
 have not the ideals among us really been starved ? What, for 
 instance, has become of the ideal of Germanism, internal unity? 
 Has there not been a fierce driving of class against class ? And 
 is not the cause of it that every one has lived only for himself and 
 his own pocket ? (Tolzein). 
 
 It is an exceedingly dangerous thing to summon God's chas- 
 tising justice. Must not God, if He be altogether just, begin by 
 exercising His chastising justice on precisely those who hava 
 called for it ? But woe to us if God dealt with us wholly after the 
 measure of His chastising justice ! We will pass over the time 
 before the war. But how much evasion of sacrifice, how much 
 miserable self-seeking, how much levity, how much license and 
 inimorality still pervade our people in spite of all improvement ! 
 It is God's grace and mercy that we want, not His chastising 
 justice. Then we must not call on it for others either (Dorrfuss). 
 
 We hear and talk a great deal about the diabolical forces, the 
 evil spirits, wliich are at work among our enemies, in the pious 
 English, the frivolous French, the savage Russians. But do not 
 let us forget, ourselves. Just as the prophet (Jeremiah) was 
 bidden to hold out the cup of judgment, but first of all to the 
 people of Jerusalem, so must we submit ourselves honestly and 
 straightforwardly to the divine judgment, recognize and fight 
 against the evil spirits that plague us, and open our hearts to the 
 good spirit from above, who will cleanse and heal us. We speak 
 constantly of the gi-eat hour of Fate which has struck for our 
 nation. And rightly. But do we really understand the secret of 
 it? Our fate and future do not depend on whether our frontiers 
 are enlarged or diminished, or on how the European balance 
 may hereafter be regulated, but mainly and essentially on 
 whether our souls and the soul of the nation let themselves be 
 cleansed and filled with the holy spirit of God, which now sweeps 
 abroad over the land and through our hearts ; whether we 
 conquer and drive out the evil spirits within us and steadfastly so 
 remain in that state (Oculi). 
 
 He goes on to enumerate some of the evil spirits. One is 
 the German love of drink, of which he says that a hospital 
 orderly at the front had lately written : " One might almost say 
 that French wines had done our troops more hurt than French 
 shells." Another is the spirit of impurity and immorality "which 
 slinks by night and even in war fi.xes its claws in the flower of 
 our people.'' A third is the worship of Mammon, " which does 
 not rest amid the common stress and suffering, but still thinks of 
 usury and getting rich i istead of sacrifice and the law — each for 
 all and all for each."
 
 290 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 War reveals the hearts of men, and the heart of man is a 
 mixture of good and evil. ... How faithful men can be, how 
 self-sacrificing, how devotedly brave ! The mightiest, the best, 
 the noblest in human nature is revealed. And the worst in 
 human nature is revealed. We hear of things that make us 
 think men must be beasts. We hear of uncharitableness of which 
 we could hardly have believed men capable. We hear of 
 common theft, of bestial lust, of shameless levity, of unfaithfulness 
 among men in the enemy's country, of unfaithfulness and lascivi- 
 ousness among wives and girls at home. We hear of brutal 
 conduct by soldiers, of boasting, of cowardice — how shall I name 
 it all? (Ritzhaupt). 
 
 There is still much self-seeking among us which must be burnt 
 out and eradicated by love. From large and small towns we 
 hear that many are daily seen feasting as though there were no 
 war, willing to perform and to look on at lewd plays full of 
 double-edged jokes as though Death had made no round among 
 us, and turned so many homes into homes of mourning. 
 Certainly cheerfulness has its claims even in serious limes, but 
 luxury and wantonness are contrary to the love we owe our brave 
 men out there and the mourners at home (Simons). 
 
 Why are men fighting in East and West ? Merely that one 
 side may conquer and the other fall, that we may in the end 
 knock out so many milliards of indemnity, or that our industry 
 and our colonial policy may make a new advance, or that we 
 may wrest from England her world dominion ? So long as we 
 see nothing in it but war objects, so long as we fail to realize that 
 the highest moral values are at stake in this wrestling of the 
 nations, and that unless we emerge from the strife a morally and 
 rehgiously renewed people the streams of blood have flowed in 
 vain and the countless sacrifice of life has gone for nothing — so 
 long as we do not see this we are spiritually blind (Schonhuth). 
 
 Now it seems to me, concludes Dr. Shadwell, that, taken broadly 
 as a whole, these sermons reveal a stratum of thought and feeling in 
 Germany which is not apparent from newspapers and other publica- 
 tions. How deep or broad it may be we cannot tell, but according to 
 my experience there is a great deal more of it than appears on the 
 surface. The German clergy have not been preachmg to empty 
 churches during the war. And the essential feature of this stratum 
 of thought is its maintenance of the moral law and the claims of 
 conscience. It does not admit that might is right or Not kenni kein 
 Gebot. The German authorities and newspapers have paid it a silent 
 tribute by the immense pains they have taken to manipulate the 
 evidence both as to the cause and the conduct of the war in such a 
 way as to present the German case not merely in a favourable light 
 but as absolutely flawless, and the conduct of the enemy as incredibly
 
 APPENDIX 291 
 
 vile and base. It may be said, perhaps, that our own do the same on 
 this side. It is not so ; but if it were, we have the neutrals to decide, 
 and their verdict is unmistakable. I cannot but see in the spirit of 
 self-examination and high ideals running through these sermons the 
 potential elements of a strong moral revulsion when the facts, which 
 cannot be concealed for ever even in Germany, become known. 
 Ethical principles will come into their own again when Force has 
 visibly broken down, but not before. 
 
 NOTE B, p. 21 
 
 Sir Thomas Esmonde, who lost a gifted son in the Battle of Jutland, 
 sent the following letter to a London newspaper on August 18, 1916 : 
 " I have grown sick and tired of the incessant abuse of Ireland in 
 connection with the war. I do not know if there is any sense of fair- 
 play left in England where Ireland is concerned, but if there is, the 
 mterests both of the war and of the Empire would suggest a stop to 
 this unending vilification of Irishmen. Neither do I know if there is 
 any one in England of sufficient manliness and honesty and authority 
 to cry halt to this hideous campaign of hate. It would be to England's 
 interest if he could be speedily discovered. 
 
 What have we Irish done already in this war ? We have supported 
 it from the outset. We have done all we could to ensure its success in 
 the teeth of the bitterest official opposition in every quarter. We have 
 submitted to the ghastly misgovernment of our country and to all the 
 needless vexations of so-called war measures without protest. We 
 have contributed far more than our fair share of war taxation without 
 complaint. We have sent the flower of our manhood to fight and die 
 without either reward or recognition. 
 
 We have done all this, first, because we believed in the justice of 
 the war ; and secondly, because we believed in the promises of 
 English statesmen. The character of the war remains the same, but 
 through monstrous mismanagement it has brought us infinitely greater 
 sorrow and loss than we ever could have anticipated. The promises 
 of English statesmen turn out to be scraps of paper, and what do we 
 Irish get in return for our sacrifice!? Nothmg but abuse, gross, 
 cowardly, dishonest abuse. 
 
 When I think of our glorious Irish regiments and their unacknow- 
 ledged deeds of unsurpassed heroism — of our gallant Irish sailors 
 who for two terrible years have guarded the Empire in stress and 
 storm and danger from the Arctic to the Antarctic — when I think 
 of Flanders and France, and Gallipoli, and Serbia, and Mesopotamia, 
 and Egypt — of the landing at the Dardanelles with its awful toll of 
 Irish lives — of our splendid loth Irish Division recklessly thrown 
 away by British incompetency — of the hundreds of Irish sailors who 
 perished in the Jutland battle — three hundred of them in two ships 
 alone. When I think of our desolate Irish homes — of the unnumbered 
 Irish fathers and mothers and sons and daughters who have bravely
 
 292 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and uncomplainingly given what they loved best on earth to the 
 Empire — I ask myself, what spirit possesses the anti-Irish, when not 
 even our children's sacrifice will propitiate them ?" 
 
 NOTE C, p. 23 
 
 ... I most genuinely admire this dominant race [the English], 
 even in their Philistinism. They think ahead but little. They are 
 worse at organizing for the fulfilment of definite ends beyond those of 
 the moment than almost any of their rivals. And yet they hold their 
 own in the world, and I see no indication that they are in the least 
 degree failing to hold it. They are almost always late in coming on 
 the ground, but when they do come they set to work silently and with 
 courage. They proceed with marvellous initiative to repair their 
 errors of omission, and they drop their practice of saying depressing 
 things about themselves and their institutions until they see them- 
 selves again on the top. When a new invention, like the submarine 
 or the motor, comes to light, the Englishman is usually behind. Give 
 him a few years and he has not only taken care of himself in the 
 meantime, but is generally leading. As it was with these inventions, 
 so I suspect it will prove to be with aircraft. 
 
 Being at present charged with some part of the endeavour to see 
 that we catch up other nations in matters of science applied to 
 defence, I have experience of what happens when the British people 
 are exhorted to make efforts in times of tranquillity. The reply is 
 invariably that there is no necessity to worry them, and that the one 
 thing needful is for the Government to spend the taxes plentifully, 
 and to damn the differential calculus emphatically. Yet this very 
 people, when it was caught unprepared and threatened with defeat a 
 few years ago in South Africa, calmly put its shoulder to the wheel 
 and, without a groan, set itself to get through a situation which would 
 have appalled a nation with a more nervous temperament. . . . 
 
 And let us remember that they go on periodically producing from 
 among themselves individualities of very great power, mdividualities 
 that could only spring from a very great race. Shakespeare and 
 Milton, Cromwell . . . Chatham, Nelson and Wellington, Newton 
 and Darwin, these are indications of a rich soil which I believe to 
 be as rich and productive to-day as it has ever been. 
 
 Universities and National Life^ by Lord Haldana. (John Murray.) 
 
 NOTE D, p. 41 
 
 The Germany at peace that I saw during May and June 1914 was, 
 in the first place, a constant pleasure to the eye, a constant repose to 
 the body and mind. Look where you might, beauty was in some 
 form to be seen, given its chance by the intelligence of man — not
 
 APPENDIX 293 
 
 defaced, but made the most of; and, whether in towns or in the 
 country, a harmonious spectacle was the rule. I thought of our land- 
 scape, littered with rubbish and careless fences and stumps of trees, 
 hideous with glaring advertisements ; of the rusty junk lying about 
 our farms and towns and wayside stations ; and of the disfigured 
 palisades along the Hudson River. America was ugly and shabby — 
 made so by Americans ; Germany was swept and garnished — made 
 so by Germans. 
 
 In Nauheim the admirable courtyard of the bathhouses was 
 matched by the admirable system within. The convenience and the 
 architecture were equally good. For every hour of the invalid's day 
 the secret of his well-being seemed to have been thought out. On 
 one side of the group and court of baths ran the chief street, shady 
 and well kempt, with its hotels and its very entertaining shops ; on 
 the other side spread a park. This was a truly gracious little region, 
 embowered in trees, with spaces and walks and flowers all near at 
 hand, yet nothing crowded. The park sloped upward to a terrace and 
 a casino, with tables for sitting out to eat and drink and hear the 
 band, and with a concert hall and theatre for the evening. Herein 
 comedies and little operas and music, both serious and light, were 
 played. 
 
 Nothing was far from anything ; the baths, the doctors, the hotels, 
 the music, the tennis-courts, the lake, the golf-links — all were fitted 
 into a scheme laid out with marvellous capability. A^'arious hills and 
 forests, a little more distant, provided walks for those robust enough 
 to take them, while longer excursions in carriages or motor-cars over 
 miles of excellent roads were all mapped out and tariffed in a terse 
 but comprehensive guide-book. Such was living at Nauheim. Dying, 
 I feel sure, was equally well arranged ; it was never allowed to 
 obtrude itself on living. 
 
 This serenity of living was not got up for the stranger ; it was not 
 to meet his market that a complex and artificial ease had been con- 
 structed, bearing no relation to what lay beyond its limits. That sort 
 of thing is to be found among ourselves in isolated spots, though far 
 less perfect and far more expensive. Nauheim was merely a blossom 
 on the general tree. It was when I began my walks in the country 
 and found everywhere a corresponding, ordered excellence, and came 
 to talk more and more with the peasants and to notice the men, 
 women, and children that the scheme of Germany grew impressive 
 to me. 
 
 . , , We various invalids of Nauheim presently began to compare 
 notes. All of us going about the country, among the gardens and 
 the farms, or across the plain through the fruit trees to little Fried- 
 burg on its hill — an old castle, a steep village, a clean Teutonic gem, 
 dropped perfect out of the Middle Ages into the present, yet perfectly 
 keeping up with the present. Many of the peasants in the plain, 
 men and women, were of those who brought their flowers and produce
 
 294 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 to sell in Nauheim — humble people, poor in what you call worldly 
 goods, but seemingly very few of them poor in the great essential 
 possession. 
 
 We invalids compared notes . . . every one had been struck with 
 the contentment in the German face. Contentment ! Among the 
 old and young of both sexes this was the dominating note, the great 
 essential possession. 
 
 The Pentecost of Calamity^ by Owen Wister. (Macniillan.) 
 
 NOTE E, p. 64 
 
 It may be as well, seeing that the main charge brought against 
 Lord Haldane hangs upon it, to wit, that knowing the menacing con- 
 dition of German policy, he did, nevertheless, take no steps to prepare 
 this country against it, to go with some amount of detail into the 
 question of National Service. 
 
 After the Agadir incident, the War Ofifice proceeded to examine de 
 novo the whole question of military preparedness. Lord Roberts and 
 the National Service League were at this time denouncing the Terri- 
 torial Force as a sham. Reports from responsible officers informed 
 the War Minister that these attacks, delivered all over the country, 
 were seriously afifecting the business of recruitmg. Inquiry was made, 
 therefore, to see exactly how this country stood in the matter of its 
 armed forces. 
 
 Lord Haldane knew quite well that in the Expeditionary Force and 
 in the Territorial Force he had got the utmost the nation would give 
 him by the voluntary system in peace time. Our Overseas Army was 
 enormously greater than the army of any other country in the world, 
 and with a supreme Navy commanding the sea, and the Territorial 
 Force behind, both the minister and his advisers considered that 
 these islands were safe from invasion. Lord Roberts' scheme was 
 directed wholly to Home Defence, and it was accompanied by a 
 pledge that no man compulsorily enlisted for Home Defence should 
 be compelled to fire a rifle except within these shores. It was, there- 
 fore, of no strategical value for the real problem, which depended on 
 capacity to take the offensive ; and it ignored sea-power. But the 
 War Office went into the matter of a continental army to be raised 
 by conscription, and for a number of months the ablest brains in the 
 British Army worked at a scheme for compulsory service, a scheme 
 which was aimed to give us an Army of 2,000,000 men on the con- 
 tinental model. The result of these investigation was, in the opinion 
 of the most responsible soldiers of the day, a verdict that so far 
 as military utility was concerned the scheme was impracticable. They 
 said that if the scheme had been inaugurated twenty or thirty years 
 before, something might have been made of it ; but that to take it up 
 at a time when war might descend upon us at any moment, was 
 unsafe. It would have taken years to mature, and in the meantime
 
 APPENDIX 295 
 
 there would have been a hiatus during which for a long time we should 
 have remained in confusion, and weaker than under the existing 
 system. It was agreed by responsible soldiers that such a change, 
 even if wise, could only be safely introduced when peace appeared 
 to be perfectly certain. 
 
 In time of war^ when the nation is full oj the war spirit^ you can 
 improvise armies very rapidly. The standards in peace-time., when 
 you cannot prepare without a much slower process^ do not obtain. 
 
 It is absurd of enthusiasts and faddists to charge Lord Haldane with 
 want of courage for not trying these schemes. Lord Haldane was 
 fortified by the best expert advice on the military question, and he 
 was well justified in thinking that if Lord Roberts and his party got 
 their way, and were allowed to try one or other of their compulsory 
 schemes, there would be not only one more colossal failure to be 
 added to the failures of previous years, but that the admirable condi- 
 tion of the British Army at that time would have been seriously 
 disturbed., if not permanently disorganized. 
 
 Lord Haldane was always careful to explain, as he did in the House 
 of Commons in introducing the Army Estimates of 1909, and on other 
 occasions, that he had no objection to compulsion on principle. It 
 was a duty., in his view, moral and legal., binding every man to sen>e 
 the State in time of need, and it was the right of the State to compel 
 him to do so. In war such compulsion not only could be applied, but 
 it might well be that it ought to be applied. He only defended the 
 voluntary principle as the best mode of preparing during peace time 
 for the contingency of war. 
 
 The reader who still believes, in defiance of military authority, that 
 compulsion would not have disorganized the British Expeditionary 
 Force, and who also thinks that alarming and provocative speeches 
 might have persuaded the country to accept compulsion during Lord 
 Haldane's tenure of office, is invited to remember that even the 
 hideous realities of war itself, realities of the most terrible and 
 unsuspected character, were insufficient to move British democracy 
 in the direction of compulsion until they had reigned over our 
 thoughts and imaginations, plunging the whole nation into mourning 
 for a period of a year and five months. 
 
 This country, in addition to its voluntary and incomparable Navy, 
 gave to the cause of the Allies, first an army of professional soldiers 
 numbering 160,000 men, which played a decisive part in breaking the 
 whole German scheme of reaching the French coast, and second an 
 army of 5,000,000 volunteer soldiers of whom Lord French, General 
 Joffi'e, and every responsible person who has seen them in the field, 
 have spoken in the highest praise. 
 
 Let me refer the reader who wants to go more deeply into this 
 matter to Sir Ian Hamilton's book Compulsory Seri'ice {]o\\x\ Murray), 
 to which Lord Haldane contributed a preface. 
 
 For many reasons, some of them personal, I wish to speak of Lord 
 Roberts with the very greatest admiration and respect ; but an impar- 
 tial judge, who knows all the facts, cannot say that he had the qualities
 
 296 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 of statesmanship. He was a remarkable soldier in the field, a magnetic 
 leader of men, and a swift thinker who never lost his head during a 
 battle ; but his period at the War Office proved that he had nothing 
 in the way of statesmanship to give the nation he served so devotedly 
 on the battlefield, and his subsequent crusade for national service 
 proved him to be even a dangerous guide. // was precisely because 
 the danger from Germany existed and occasionally pressed, that his 
 scheme and the provocative campaign which accompanied it were so 
 utterly impossible and so gravely dangerous. 
 
 NOTE F, p. 91 
 
 The Times gave prominence to the following letter, signed X., 
 which appeared in its issue of May 27, 191 5 : 
 
 The retirement of Lord Haldane may have been, upon political 
 grounds, necessary ; but it is, I have reason for thinking, greatly 
 regretted by many lawyers — indeed, by all who know how much 
 he has accomplished in his comparatively brief term of office. 
 He has raised the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in 
 the estimation of lawyers of the Dominions, the Colonies, and 
 India, to a pomt never before attained. Never, too, was the 
 House of Lords as a judicial tribunal more satisfactory than it 
 now is. This is partly due to the new elements which he has 
 introduced ; but it is also to be ascribed to the character of his 
 own judgments, which have helped to set a standard to which 
 others have more or less conformed. His appointments have 
 commanded universal approval ; and if he has had few opportu- 
 nities of initiating or carrying out constructive legal reforms, he 
 has more than once pointed out the path to be followed. Soldiers 
 of experience have been heard to say that he was at the War 
 Office the best organizer which it has seen for a generation. Of 
 the truth of that opinion I cannot judge ; but I am sure that 
 in the view of very many lawyers he has been (with perhaps 
 one dubious exception) the best Lord Chancellor since Lord 
 Hardwicke. 
 
 NOTE G, p. 108 
 
 Professor Cramb does not tell his readers that the supreme in- 
 fluence in German literature in its one great period was English. 
 Edward Young, the author of Night Thoughts, wrote a pamphlet 
 entitled Conjectures on Origifial Composition which made a profound 
 impression on Herder, and through Herder on the great Goethe him- 
 self. It is not an exaggeration to say that Young was the father of
 
 APPENDIX . 297 
 
 the Sturm und Drang period. The German writers, inspired by 
 Young, set themselves to break free from the cramping and artificial 
 traditions of French literature. The German historians of German 
 literature, as Professor Hume Brown tells us in The Youth of Goethe 
 (John Murray), have found in Young's pamphlet " the main impulse 
 that gave occasion to this revolution." Germany's worship of Shake- 
 speare need not be insisted upon ; Goethe speaks of him as "our 
 great progenitor," and says that with Spinoza, Shakespeare was one of 
 the chief moulding forces of his life. Scott, Richardson, Sterne, 
 Byron, and Swift, all played their part in the creation of German 
 literature. 
 
 NOTE H, p. 174 
 
 "What will the English do?" was the question they anxiously and 
 constantly flung at any one they thought likely to be able to answer it 
 intelligently. It was the thing which gave them the most poignant 
 heart-searching. The " war on two fronts," the purely Continental 
 affair with the Dual Alliance, filled the average German with no 
 concern. The Kaiser's military machine was constructed to deal with 
 France and Russia combined, and no German ever for a moment 
 doubted its capacity to do so. Events of the past year, I think it may 
 fairly be said, have justified that confidence, for I suppose no expert 
 anywhere in the world doubts that but for the presence of British sea 
 power on France and Russia's side, the German eagle might long 
 since have been screaming in triumph over Paris and Petrograd. 
 But with the British " in," dozens of Germans confessed, as my own 
 ears can bear testimony, their case was "hopeless." Few of them 
 were persuaded that Germany could, in Bismarck's picturesque 
 phrase, "deal with the British Navy in Paris." While the prospects 
 of having to fight France and Russia did not disturb the Germans, the 
 possibility of having to battle with Britain simultaneously filled thera 
 with undisguised alarm. 
 
 The Assault^ by Frederic W. Wile. (Heinemann.) 
 
 NOTE I, p. 185 
 
 A remarkable parallel to the case of Lord Haldane is to be found 
 in the story of what happened to another Lord Chancellor, tlie great 
 Lord Somers, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The then 
 Lord Chancellor was accused of having leaned to the side of the 
 French in the peace negotiations of that period, and was virulently 
 attacked by the pamphleteers and by the Opposition. For once 
 William III showed weakness and was induced to dismiss hii
 
 298 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 minister. Articles of impeachment were afterwards exhibited against 
 the ex-Chancellor, monstrous charges being included in them. His 
 enemies, said Brougham, were actuated entirely by motives of private 
 passion and revenge. The impeachment failed, but the abuse con- 
 tinued, and the country was deprived of the services of Lord Somers 
 as a minister for some years. In retirement he exhibited a dignity 
 and a freedom from bitterness which compelled the admiration of 
 Addison, Bishop Burnet, and a number of eminent men on both sides 
 of politics which steadily increased. 
 
 The story of Lord Somers is fully told in the fourth volume of Lord 
 Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, and an interesting account of 
 his career is given in the English edition of Bayle's Dictionary. 
 
 Burke said of him : " I never desire to be thought a better Whig 
 than Lord Somers." Bishop Burnet, who speaks of " the great 
 capacity and inflexible integrity of this Lord," said : " He was very 
 learned in his own profession, with a great deal more learning in 
 other professions — in divinity, philosophy, and history. He had a 
 great capacity for business, with an extraordinary temper ; for he was 
 fair and gentle, perhaps to a fault, considering his post ; so that he 
 had all the patience and softness, as well as the justness and equity 
 becoming a great magistrate." 
 
 NOTE J, p. 207 
 
 Reductions had been eflfected in garrison artillery — sedentary guns 
 scattered about the Empire in such places as Halifax and Esquimalt 
 in Canada. These reductions were the work of Lord Haldane's 
 predecessor. Garrison artillery was to a great extent done away 
 with because the Royal Navy undertook almost all the responsibility 
 of coastal defence. There was no reduction whatever, but on the 
 contrary a considerable increase., in field and horse artillery under 
 Lord Haldane's administration. 
 
 NOTE K, p. 243 
 
 The Times of August 17, 1916, gives a very informing account of 
 the German pamphlet by "Junius Alter" which stung the Imperial 
 Chancellor into a hot and undignified speech in the Reichstag : — 
 
 There seems to be no doubt that " Junius Alter" enjoyed very 
 high military inspiration — as might, indeed, be guessed from the 
 tone of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg's reply. The pamphlet 
 deals with the whole policy of the Chancellor towards England 
 in the years before the war, denouncing it as "grotesque and
 
 APPENDIX 299 
 
 criminal," arguing that it was perfectly clear "that 1914 was to 
 be the fateful year for Europe," asserting that the German 
 Government " must have been informed at least in the spring of 
 1914, by its representatives in Petrograd, how grave the situation 
 was," and saying that, after the Serajevo murders, "only 
 Bethmann-HoUweg clung to the hope that a peaceful solution 
 could be found, or at least that hostilities might be confined to 
 Austria and Serbia." There is an important passage about the 
 struggle between the military authorities and the Foreign Office 
 in the days before the war : — 
 
 In vain were the warnings of the General Staff. The 
 Minister of War [the present chief of the General Staff, 
 General von Falkenhayn] and men of authority in the Naval 
 Department pointed in vain to the necessity of mobilization. 
 They succeeded in half-convincing the Emperor of its 
 absolute necessity. On Thursday, July 30th, the afternoon 
 police papers {sic) and the Berlin Lokalatizeiger published 
 the fact of the mobilization, but the interference of Bethmann- 
 HoUwegg served to nullify this decisive action. 
 
 Thus it is represented that the famous announcement in the 
 Lokalanzeiger was not a mere mistake, as the Foreign Office 
 declared, but was a deliberate action by the military authorities. 
 
 "Junius Alter," after dealing further with the Chancellor's 
 responsibility for "delaying the mobilization," goes on to accuse 
 the Government of having practised "exaggerated economy" in 
 military preparation before the war. It may be remembered that 
 the late General von Moltke, in reply to certain statements by 
 Mr. Lloyd George about the German accumulation of munitions, 
 said that as a matter of fact Germany ran short at an early stage 
 of the war. "Junius Alter" practically attributes to an in- 
 sufficiency of munitions, combined with the political " delay," the 
 whole failure of the German military scheme against France. 
 Speaking of the " exaggerated economy," he says : — 
 
 This was also plainly demonstrated by the lack of 
 ammunition which was felt on the Western front after the 
 first battles, and which, together with other conditions, led 
 to the cutting short of the lightning attack upon France. So 
 it came about that there was a necessity for throwing out 
 strength which the original plan of campaign would have 
 made impossible. It was not until January 191 5 that the 
 deficiency in ammunition was made good. This was due 
 primarily to the German industrial organization, which in an 
 inconceivably short time most admirably met the demands 
 of the war. One is permitted to remark that it could not be 
 foreseen by the military authorities that such quantities of 
 ammunition would be needed for the world war. Never-
 
 300 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 theless the fact remains that here also the Government 
 pohcy of economy was fatal, for the quantity of ammunition 
 on hand at the outbreak of the war should have been much 
 greater. 
 
 There is then an attack on the former Prussian Minister of 
 War, General von Heeringen, and it is stated that on July ;3i, 
 1914, the Prussian War Office had to send out a note "urging tne 
 greatest moderation in the use of ammunition." 
 
 A great part of the pamphlet is devoted to the Government's 
 "yielding to the demands of America." "Junius Alter" doubts 
 " whether any one in Berlin ever tried to measure the exact 
 consequences of a clash with America," and says : — 
 
 People with knowledge of the internal politics of the 
 United States and of its fleet and army, among them a 
 well-known diplomatist, have declared that armed inter- 
 ference by America is absolutely out of the question. The 
 only practical consequence of a break in diplomatic relations 
 would be the confiscation of the merchant ships lying in 
 American ports. 
 
 According to " Junius Alter," Herr Ballin exercised a great 
 influence, but it was Herr Helfferich who turned the scale by 
 arguing that " acceptance of the American terms " would end the 
 negotiations for the Anglo-French Loan in America and produce 
 strong steps by the American Government in "the cotton 
 question." So " Helfferich, backed by Ballin and by Dernburg 
 and his party, won out, and the result was that in the autumn of 
 191 5 submarines had almost entirely ceased to operate in English 
 waters." 
 
 Dealing with the naval opposition to the Chancellor, " Junius 
 Alter" argues that the retirement of Admirals Bachmann and 
 Behnke and the return of Admiral von Holtzendorf to office as 
 Chief of the Admiralty Staff were all moves against Tirpitz, and 
 he says that further "purification" of the Office of the Imperial 
 Navy was only prevented by the effisct upon public opinion of 
 the resignation of " the popular Grand Admiral von Tirpitz." 
 
 NOTE L, p. 257 
 
 Russia will be satisfied when she reigns at Constantinople. And 
 she will be something more than satisfied ; she will be exalted — 
 because Tzargrad, as the Russians always call it, the Town of Towns, 
 is the natural capital of their intense Faith. Thence many centuries 
 ago came the idea of Love and Brotherhood to the little sore-afflicted
 
 APPENDIX 301 
 
 Russian nation surrounded by implacable enemies — Mongols, Poles, 
 Finns, Germans, Cossacks, Lithuanians, and Letts ; and, warring for 
 existence with those implacable enemies, who burned her cities, laid 
 waste her fields, and seized her children and sold them to the Turks, 
 she has ever been faithful to this divine idea. Love and Brotherhood. 
 Her persistence is a miracle. But a greater miracle still is her 
 absorption of almost all her former enemies, so that she is now a 
 mighty and puissant empire of 170,000,000 souls, in nearly all of 
 whom the central fact of existence is the Love of God. There is 
 nothing like this in history. It is the most miraculous witness to 
 Christianity as a spirit. 
 
 Prince Trubetzkoy has expressed the Russian Faith in words which 
 haunt the memory : — 
 
 It is no matter for surprise that the soul of our people was from 
 the earliest times united to the idea of St. Sophia' with the 
 greatest hope and with the greatest joy, and it would be vain to 
 think that the deepest sense of this idea can be understood only 
 by intelligent and educated people. On the contrary ... it is 
 much nearer to the life-understanding of our people. As proot 
 of this take the following personal reminiscence. 
 
 Four years ago I returned to Russia from a long foreign 
 journey through Constantinople. In the morning in the Mosque 
 of St. Sophia they showed me on the wall the imprint of the 
 bloody hand of the Sultan who had shed the blood of Christians 
 in this greatest of the orthodox temples on the very day of the 
 taking of Constantinople. . . . Immediately after this visit I 
 went on board a Russian steamer going to Odessa from Palestine, 
 and at once found myself in a familiar atmosphere. On the deck 
 there was gathered a very large group of Russian peasants — 
 pilgrims returning homewards from the Holy Land. 
 
 Tired with the long journey, badly dressed and hungry, they 
 were drinking water with hard bread, they were finishing their 
 simple everyday toilet, they were listening, reclining, to tales 
 about Constantinople. They were listening to tales about its 
 churches and, of course, about the bloody Sultan and about the 
 streams of Christian blood which, during more than five centuries, 
 had periodically flowed in this once Christian kingdom. I cannot 
 convey to you how deeply I was moved by what I saw. I saw 
 my own country in Constantinople. 
 
 There on the mountain had just disappeared the Holy Sophia 
 lighted by the sun, and here before me on the deck was a real 
 Russian village ; and at the moment when our boat gently 
 moved along the Bosphorus with its mosques and minarets, the 
 
 ' "Sophia" means to the Russian the Divine Wisdom incarnate in 
 creation. It signifies Oie humanity oj God. It expresses faith in the 
 triumph of the Christ idea— man's essential brotherhood.
 
 302 THE VINDICATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 whole crowd firmly and solemnly, but, I do not know why, in a 
 subdued voice, sang "Christ is Risen." 
 
 How deep and long-developed was the instinct which I heard 
 in this singing ... I What other answer could they find in 
 their souls but this to what they heard about the Temple, about 
 the Turks who defiled it, and of the long-contmued persecution 
 of the nation over whom they ruled ? What other answer could 
 they find in their souls in such a country, except this, except 
 their joy in the thought of a common resurrection for all peoples 
 and for all nations ? . . . 
 
 They understood the ferocious Turkish power under which 
 the blood of persecuted peoples flowed : they saw (in their soul) 
 the whole humanity joined in the joy of the Holy Resurrection, 
 but at the same time they felt that they could not express this 
 joy, this hope, which always lives in the soul of the people, now, 
 m the centre of the Turkish power, except with a subdued voice. 
 . . . But the time will come when heaven will descend to earth, 
 and the eternal idea of humanity will be realized ; then this hymn 
 will sound loud and powerful — this hymn which now you hear in 
 a subdued voice. 
 
 If the reader would know what religion means to Russia, what 
 Constantinople means to her, and what is her passionate hope for the 
 whole of the human race, let him read The Self-discovery of Russia 
 by Professor J. Y. Simpson (Constable), from which admirable and 
 most illuminating book I have taken the above passage. Such a 
 book should prepare us for what is coming to the world, when Russia 
 lifts the Cross in Constantinople and the whole of the Slav world 
 breaks out with its great Easter anthem, Christ is Risen.
 
 PRINTED J\ GREAT BRITAIN 
 BY I'NWIX BROTHERS, LIMITED 
 PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON
 
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