MSi^firP's^
 

 
 NATIONALITY 
 
 IN MODI'RX HISTORY
 
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I 
 
 Two vols., i8i-. 
 
 Cheap Issue, two vols, in one, Sixth Edition, 6s. 
 
 (Bell and Sons). 
 
 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM PITT 
 
 Part I, is. 6d. ; Part II, js. 6d. 
 Second Editions (Bell and Sons). 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUROPEAN 
 
 NATIONS (1870-1914) 
 
 Fifth Edition, extended to 1914, 7s. 6d. 
 (Constable and Co. ). 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC 
 
 ERA (1789-1815) 
 Sixth Edition, y. 6d. (Cambridge University Press). 
 
 THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR (1914) 
 Second Edition, is. (Cambridge University Press).
 
 NATIONALITY 
 
 AS A FACTOR 
 IN M0D1:RX HISTORY 
 
 r.Y 
 
 J. HOLLAND ROSE, Litt.D. 
 
 FELLOW OF Christ's cfoLLECE, Cambridge 
 
 READER IN MODERN HISTORY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 CORRESPONDING MKMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 "Avoir fait dc j^randes choses ensemble, vouloir en 
 faire encore, voil.\ la condilioii csseiiticlle pour etre un 
 peuple." — Renan. 
 
 R 1 \' I N G J' O N S 
 
 34, KING STREET, CO VENT GARDEN 
 
 L ( ) N I ) C) N 
 
 I916
 
 COPYRIGHT
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Lectures I-VIII of this series were delivered at 
 Cambridge in the Michaelmas Term of 1915 ; and 
 Lectures IX and X are based on those which I de- 
 livered in December last to the Historical Associa- 
 tions at Birmingham and Bristol. My aim through- 
 out has been historical, namely, to study the varied 
 manifestations of Nationality among the chief 
 European peoples, before attempting to analyse or 
 define it. That I have sought to do in Lecture VUL 
 It is noteworthy that only in recent times has Nation- 
 ality become a conscious and definite movement. 
 Apart from the writings of Machiavclli, where that 
 instinct figures dimly, it was not (I believe) treated 
 by any writer before the year 1758. Then an anony- 
 mous Swiss brought out a book entitled " Von dem 
 Nationalstolze " {Of National Pride), in which he 
 discussed its good and bad characteristics. I have 
 no space in wliii li to summarize his work ; hut at 
 some points it breathes the spirit of Scliilier's W'ilhdni 
 Tell, the inner meaning of which 1 liavt- sought to 
 portray in Lecture III. 
 
 I began these studies several years ago, and early 
 in 1916 was about to complete them. Most of my 
 conclusions have not been modilifd by the present 
 
 vii
 
 viii NATIONALITY 
 
 war ; but the questions discussed in the later lectures 
 arise out of that conflict. There, as elsewhere, I hope, 
 my treatment has been as objective and impartial as 
 present conditions admit. Lack of space has pre- 
 cluded a study of the lesser national movements in 
 Europe and of all similar movements outside of 
 Europe. I regret this latter omission because the 
 growth of Nationality in the United States and the 
 British Commonwealths is developing a wider and 
 cosmopolitan sentiment which makes for peace. 
 
 At present, however, we are confronted, by Nation- 
 ality of the old type ; and to pass it by with sneers 
 as to its being antiquated does not further the inter- 
 national cause. A careful study of past and present 
 conditions is the first requisite for success in the 
 construction of the healthier European polity which 
 ought to emerge from the present conflict ; and 
 criticisms of German Socialists such as will be found 
 in Lectures IX and X, are, I believe, necessary if 
 mankind is to avoid a repetition of the disastrous 
 blunders of July, 1914. 
 
 The sense which I attach to the words " race," 
 " people," " nation," "' nationality," " nationaHsm," 
 is, briefly, as follows : For the reasons stated in 
 Lecture VIII, I have rarely used the word " race," 
 and then only as a quasi-scientific term. The word 
 " people " I have generally used as implying a close 
 sense of kinship ; " nation " as a political term, 
 designating a people which has attained to state 
 organization; "nationality" (in the concrete sense)
 
 PRKFACE ix 
 
 as a people which has nut yet attained to it ; but 
 I ha\-e nearly always referred to " Nationality," in 
 the ideal sense, namely, as an aspiration towards 
 united national existence. In Lecture IX I have 
 used " Nationalism " to denote the intolerant and 
 aggressive instinct which has of late developed in 
 Gemiany and the Balkan States. 
 
 Mv thanks are due to Professor Bury, litt.d., 
 Regius Professor of Modern History in the University 
 of Cambridge ; to Professor Deschamps of the 
 Institut superieur de Commerce of Antwerp (now 
 resident in Cambridge) ; to Mr. G. P. Gooch, m.a., 
 formerly Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and 
 to Mr. A. B. Hinds, m.a., formerly Student of Christ 
 Church, Oxford, for their valued advice and criticism. 
 
 J. H. R. 
 February, 1916.
 
 rxcE 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 THK DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 
 
 A ^ur\cy of Europe through the centuries suggests 
 the question : Wiiat has made States ? — No 
 national State in the Aneient World — The bar- 
 barian invasions split up Europe into tribal areas 
 — Discords arising from struggles of Pope and 
 Emperor — Was Dante's ideal in De Monarchid 
 national? — Why national feeling emerged in 
 England and France — Unifying forces at work in 
 reign of Edward III — Chaucer and the English 
 spirit — The Hundred Years' War developed 
 a national spirit in France — The influence of 
 Jeanne d'Arc. ...... i 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 VIVE LA NATION 
 
 TJie work of the UKjuarchy in helping on the union 
 of France— New spirit in 1791— " If the King 
 has escaped, tlic nation remains " Influence 
 of Rousseau on tlic (le\fIopmtiii ol French 
 Nationality —Its manifestations in 1789-91 — 
 "Sovereignty resides in the natum " - The 
 " federations " a consolidating force, e.g. in 
 Alsace - Lorraine — The uprising against the 
 invaders in 1792-j ; rmally it erred by excess; 
 hence lionapiirtisiu , . . . . 1<S 
 
 xi
 
 xii NATIONALITY 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 SCHILLER AND FICHTE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 German ideals in eighteenth century were rather 
 international than national — Kant — Germany 
 weak and attracted by French Revolution — 
 Schiller at first decried patriotism ; so, too, 
 Fichte, figured Europe as a Christian Common- 
 wealth — Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (1804) struck 
 the national note — Significance of its message to 
 Germans and Swiss — After Prussia's overthrow 
 by Napoleon, Fichte delivered his Addresses to 
 the German Nation (1807-8) — Selfishness had 
 ruined Germany ; a renovated nation must re- 
 store her — National education and its influence 
 on the events of 1813 ..... 35 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 
 
 Differences between the German and Spanish 
 national movements — Aloofness of Spain and 
 pride of her people — Excessive confidence of 
 Napoleon in dealing with her — The rising of 
 -' May- June, 1808, and alliance with Great Britain 
 — Fury against him — Weakness and strength of 
 provincial procedure — Efforts at reform partial 
 and imitative — -The constitution of 1812 short- 
 lived—Influence of the Spanish resistance on 
 European developments and the fall of Napoleon 58
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii 
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 
 
 PACE 
 
 Tlioutijht detcrniincs the course of action — The 
 Italian movement a struggle against the policy 
 of division and subjugation imposed in 1815 — 
 Italian parties: (i) Neo-Guelf, (2) Monarchist, 
 (3) Mazzini and Young Italy — His programme 
 of national unity (1831) — Charm of liis person- 
 ality — His faitli in Italy's mission, after the 
 failure of French individualism in 1789-93 — 
 True patriotism needful in order to attain 
 cosmopolitan ideals, which otherwise are un- 
 attainable — Mazzini failed for his day — \\"\\\ 
 his ideals now be realized ? . . . -7^ 
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 
 
 The Slav character moulded by the life of the 
 steppes — Russia profoundl}' stirred by Napo- 
 leon's invasion of 1812 — Patriotism soon diverted 
 into reactionary channels — Friction with the 
 Poles — Centrifugal tendencies of the Slavs — 
 The South Slavs of Austria-Hungary awakened 
 by Napoleon — ^The Kingdom of lUyria influenced 
 the Serbs, who in 1815 gained large rights from 
 the Turks — Development of Serbia^ — The Russian 
 Slavoj)Jiiles and Panslavists — All Slavs excited 
 l)y Halkan events of 1875-6— The Hulgars and 
 their efforts— Ucaconslield's pro-Turkish policy
 
 xiv NATIONALITY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Russia's liberating campaign of 1876-7 and 
 the settlement of 1878— Union of the two 
 Bulgarias in 1885 9^ 
 
 LECTURE VII 
 
 THE GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 
 
 Varied conceptions of the State— Ancient democracies 
 required very much from their citizens — So, too, 
 the absolute monarchies of Europe — Frederick 
 the Great was the Prussian State— His activities 
 and stern resolve— Kant's gospel of duty— 
 Fichte in 1804 exalted the State as furthering 
 KnUnr—Uis Spartan aims— In 1807-8, he as- 
 signed supremacy to the nation — His. successor, 
 Hegel, glorified the State as an absolute and all- 
 pervading entity (1820, 1830)— Did he confuse 
 it with the nation ? — Rochau in Realpolitik 
 (1853) affirmed: "The State is Power"— 
 This theme developed by Treitschke, who de- 
 manded the absorption of Saxony and of Alsace- 
 Lorraine— His State morality ; subordination 
 of the people to the State . . . • 115 
 
 LECTURE VIII 
 
 NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 
 
 Necessary omissions from our studies ; but clearly 
 Nationahty has made Europe what it is— 
 Reasons for thinking that Nationahty does not 
 depend on race or language — Examination of 
 Hegel's "World-Spirit" theory — Nationality 
 became a moulding force in 1789— The family
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 
 
 PACE 
 
 instinct uf the French pro\-inces made France a 
 nation — Reaction against her aggressions in 1808- 
 15 — Failures of sporadic Nationalism in 1848-9 
 — Successes of organized Nationalism in 1859-70 
 — Militarism an outcome of the national and 
 democratic instinct in 1792-3 — Armed democracy 
 (developed by Napoleon) routed the monarchs — 
 Militarism began again with the national policy 
 of Wilhclm I of Prussia in i860, and triumphed 
 over Austria (1866), and France (1870)— Like 
 Napoleon I, Kaiser Wilhclm II has misused 
 national forces raised originally for defensive 
 purposes . . . . . .141 
 
 LECTl'Rh: IX 
 
 NATIONALISM SINCI- T8S5 
 
 Nationality a great constructive force up to Septem.- 
 bcr, 1885, has since altered its character, witness 
 the fratricidal attack of Serbia on Bulgaria, the 
 failure of Greek aims in 1897, and racial strifes 
 in Macedonia — Russia's defeats in the Far East 
 emboldened the Central Empires, and in 1908 
 Austria annexed Bosnia — Support of Germany, 
 Bismarck's defensive alliance of 1879 with Austria 
 thus became aggressive— Austro-German ambi- 
 tions— The Pangerman and Navy Leagues pushed 
 the Kaiser on — Germany's charge that the 
 Entente I^owers " encircled " licr Cjiaiu iiiism 
 in Austria-Hungary, whi( h probably i)romi)te(l 
 Bulgaria's attack on her Allies in June, 1913- - 
 Signifi( an( e of the alliance of the Central ICmpires 
 with Turke\- and Bulgaria .... lOo
 
 xvi NATIONALITY 
 
 LECTURE X 
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 
 
 PAGJ 
 
 Great wars have often produced efforts to mitigate 
 or avert tliem, e.g. those of Grotius (1625) 
 and of eighteenth-century thinkers — Kant in 
 Perpetual Peace (1795) proposed, though doubt- 
 fuHy, a federation of free Repubhcs — Reasons 
 for deprecating the supremacy of any one State 
 and requiring proportionate equahty — Unwise or 
 unreal efforts after 1815 — " Young Europe " 
 (1834) — Organized NationaHsm overshadowed 
 the Internationale, which started in 1864 — Fohy 
 of the Paris Communists in 1871 — Divergence 
 of French and Slav " Internationals " from 
 German, many of whom have been attracted by 
 the Kaiser's commercialism — Proposals of the 
 Internationale in 1901, 1907, 1910 — Deadlock 
 on Alsace-Lorraine Question (1912) — -Inaction 
 of German Socialists at the crisis of July- 
 August, 1914 — Temporary collapse of Interna- 
 tionalism — Reasons for hope in its revival . 18;
 
 LECTURES OiN NATIONALITY 
 
 LECTrKK I 
 THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 
 
 It is well sometimes to do with the map of Europe at 
 critical periods what a painter does with his canvas, stand 
 away from it and view it with half-closed eyes so as to 
 behold only the salient features. What is the impression 
 produced by the Europe of the Roman Empire of 1800 
 years ago ? Solidity and universality are its characteris- 
 tics. Eight hundred years later the scene is changed to 
 one of chaos. The attempt of the rulers of the Holy Roman 
 Empire to achieve unity has failed and civilization is lost 
 in a medley of little domains. By slow degrees these sort 
 themselves out, like to like for the most part ; and by the 
 year 1600 the outlines of large States are clearly defined, 
 especially in the West of Europe. Italy and Germany are 
 minutely divided ; and the inroads of the Turks have 
 worked havoc in the South-East. Still, Europe is settling 
 down on a new basis ; and not even the Wars of Religion 
 long delay the assorting process except in Germany, The 
 political bioscope continues to shift until there emerge 
 large blocks of territory which tend to absorb the smaller 
 areas. TIm- NajKjleonic Wars and the series of mockrn 
 wars beginning in 1859 comi)lc'te this solidifying work ; 
 and only in the South-East of Europe do we find a great 
 Empire splitting up into smaller parts. Elsewhere, the 
 1:
 
 2 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 contrary is the case ; and in 1878-1914 Europe consists 
 of solid blocks, which stoutly resist every attempt to 
 break them up. 
 
 To resume ; in the old Roman times Europe forms a 
 solid whole. In the fifth century it splits up into small 
 areas ; and the period of small areas and fleeting 
 States continues far into the Middle Ages ; but by slow 
 degrees these minute subdivisions lessen in number and 
 increase in size ; until, in the nineteenth and early twen- 
 tieth centuries, the map of Europe acquires a clearness and 
 consistency never known since the time of the old Roman 
 Empire. First, there is unity ; then chaos ; then an ap- 
 proach to simplicity and solidity. 
 
 If we inquire into the causes of these very striking 
 changes we come to these general conclusions : The unity 
 of the Roman world was due to its conquest by a single 
 State, which possessed a far greater military and political 
 efficiency than that developed by other peoples. Therefore 
 they were absorbed by it, until, on the break up of that 
 wonderful organism, there ensued utter confusion, the 
 natural result of unchecked racial strifes. The chaos 
 became semi-organic during the Middle Ages, and at their 
 close another influence began to operate, which grouped to- 
 gether the units and brought them into ever larger masses. 
 These masses are the modern States. Now, what has been 
 the influence most conducive to State-building ? That, 
 I hope, we shall discover in this course of lectures. 
 
 This brief survey will have shown that some mighty 
 influence has been at work in the modern world far different 
 from anything that was known to the ancients. In Europe 
 and on its confines there was no State that was conter- 
 minous with a great people. Assyria, Persia, and Egypt 
 held sway over several peoples alien to the ruling race ; 
 and the Mogul Empire was a mere conglomerate. But
 
 THK PAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 3 
 
 there was one exception, small in extent but inlnntcl}- 
 interesting. The Jews during some generations formed a 
 single compact national State. \\'ith the possible excep- 
 tions of China and Babylon they are the first example of a 
 nation in the modern sense. Their records show the rise 
 of the family into the tribe, of the tribe into the nation ; 
 and for a time the nation was lield together by a strong 
 instinct of kinship. The union was sanctified and strength- 
 ened by religious rites and by a profound sense of consecra- 
 tion to the Deit}-. Tims there came about a sense of unity 
 which held together a singularly stiff-necked, clannish 
 people ; and there grew up that spiritual and moral 
 fellowship which has survived eigliteen centuries of dis- 
 persion. True, the Jews did not long hold together poli- 
 tically. But, despite the disruptive tendencies of their 
 degenerate days, they remained and still remain one at 
 heart. The consciousness of being " the chosen people " 
 still unites them, whether they dwell in the mansions of 
 Paris and New York, or vegetate in the slums of Warsaw 
 and Lisbon, or practise their ancient rites in the valleys of 
 Abyssinia. Israel is still a moral and religious unit, inspired 
 by the most tenacious sense of kinship known to histor}'. 
 Elsewhere in the Ancient World there was no State that 
 can be called national, at least not in Europe. The Greeks 
 never achieved political union. Thrilled though they were 
 by their legendary epic, and inspired at times by the 
 worship of Zci« o Trai'tAAv/itos, they very rarely joined in 
 defence of their peninsula. Only when the Persians covered 
 the plains ol Thessaly did the Greeks make common cause ; 
 and then the union was brief and doubtful. For all their 
 scorn of other peoples as barbarians, for all their c arc in 
 excluding non-Greeks from the Olympian and other great 
 festivals, they often sided with aliens against their own 
 kith and kin. The patriotif apixals of Demosthenes
 
 4 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 failed to unite them against Philip of Macedon ; and they 
 fell, because at bottom their political system was not 
 national, only municipal. City fought with city ; and 
 never at the supreme crisis did the City-States effectively 
 unite. The Greek polity stopped short at the city or the 
 clan. Except in regard to religion, art and athletics it 
 never attained to nationality. ■■■ 
 
 Very different is the history of Rome. Her people, 
 though far less imaginative than those of Athens, possessed 
 the political gifts needful for the upbuilding of a Common- 
 wealth. Rome early absorbed other cities ; she then 
 absorbed the Samnites, the Greeks of South Italy and the 
 Gauls of the North. After unifying Italy, she went far 
 towards unifying the then known world. From the Clyde 
 to the Euphrates, from the Tagus to the Rhine, she moulded 
 diverse tribes and formed an almost universal State. As 
 Professor Reid^ has shown, she accomplished this wonderful 
 feat largely by the grant of wide municipal liberties, 
 thereby welding into her imperial system the City-States 
 which Greek separatism had failed to unite. Besides 
 tactful toleration in local affairs. Imperial Rome displayed 
 a peculiar attractive power which drew aliens into her 
 polity ; and in this faculty of assimilation lay her chief 
 strength. Vergil proclaimed that it was her mission to 
 crush the proud and spare those who submitted. The latter 
 process is more important than mere conquest. Indeed, 
 the only real conquest is that which assimilates the con- 
 quered. All other triumphs are vain and evanescent. 
 Now, Rome had this absorbing power to a unique degree. 
 The Jews and Greeks were exclusive and intolerant towards 
 
 ^ The Amphictyonic Council was the only Pan-Hellenic institu- 
 tion ; but it rarely acted with vigour. Isocrates desired to unite 
 all Greece with Philip of Macedon for the invasion of Asia; but 
 Demosthenes and nearly all Athenians scouted the scheme, 
 
 2 J. S. Reid, Mttmcipaliiies in the Reman Empire.
 
 THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL H)EA 5 
 
 Gentiles and barbarians. Not so the Roman. He brought 
 the conquered within the pale ; he adopted their deities/ 
 he enrolled their warriors and made them proud of fighting 
 under the eagles, until it seemed possible that tribalism 
 would vanish from Europe and that the world would 
 become Roman. 
 
 It was not to be. Oilier barbarian tribes, obeying some 
 unknown but potent impulse, burst into the imperial 
 domain ; and ci\ilization reeled back into the tribal stage 
 from which Rome had raised it. The political unity 
 of Europe vanished ; and the human race has never again 
 been able to realize the homogeneity attained by Imperial 
 Rome. During the Dark Ages the annals of mankind 
 became pettily local. Nevertheless, amidst those be- 
 wildering shiftings to and fro, racial settlements of the 
 utmost importance were taking place. Indeed, since the 
 year 1000, few ethnical clianges of any moment have 
 occurred, if we except the Norman settlements, the incur- 
 sion of the Turks and the expulsion of the Moors. With 
 those exceptions the groupings of the European peoples 
 of to-da\' are discernible at that date ; and the course of 
 events, especially during the last fifty years, has tended 
 to identify more or less closely the political frontiers with 
 the bounds of the habitations marked out by tlie great 
 European peoples during the long and obscure struggles 
 of the Dark Ages. As will appear in the seciuel, some 
 peoples, possessing greater attractive or organizing power, 
 have gained at the expense of others less gifted or energetic ; 
 but in their bnjad outlines the great States f>f t(j-day recall 
 thoseoftlicf liir-f sc^ltlementsconseiiiK III on t li. W.i in 1. rings 
 of the Pfopl.s. 
 
 How came it that the binding inlluenccs of Christianity 
 
 ' Sec the complaint of Juvenal [111, (.0] : 
 
 " Jam |)ri(lc-iii Syrus in 'libcrim ik-llu.\it Orontcs."
 
 6 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 and the haunting memories of the old Roman Empire did 
 not group together in a soHd poHty the barbarous tribes 
 that then overran Europe ? The triumph of Christianity 
 over paganism was swift and complete ; and even the 
 proudest and fiercest of the barbarians venerated Rome 
 and her laws. But during the Middle Ages the city which 
 had united the Ancient World became the source of dis- 
 union. The successors of St . Peter contended for supremacy 
 with the heirs of the Caesars, with results fatal both to the 
 Papacy and to the Holy Roman Empire. Institutions 
 which claimed a dominion as wide as Christendom were 
 rent by schism and faction ; and both lost in vitality 
 owing to the intolerable strain. 
 
 During the struggle the first glimmerings of national 
 consciousness become visible. In their struggle for Tem- 
 poral Power Hildebrand and his successors at the Vatican 
 could rarely rely on armed support outside Italy. The 
 wavering fortunes of the Empire were sustained in the 
 main by Germans. Yet the struggle never became 
 national in the modern sense. The Popes could always 
 range many a German duchy against its Emperor ; and 
 he embattled not a few Italian cities against the Vatican, 
 even when the Lombard League formed its sure bulwark 
 in the North. Thus, clashing claims of world-supremacy 
 were sustained by forces that were not even national ; and 
 to this cross division of forces, as well as of ideals, the 
 wretched welter of Germany and Italy in the Middle Ages 
 may largely be ascribed. Weltpoliiik cannot succeed unless 
 its foundations are both extensive and solid. Both Pope 
 and Emperor sought to found their polities on a basis no 
 less shifting than narrow. 
 
 Against this perversion of a divine mission and of a national 
 puty the first great political thinker of the Middle Ages 
 uttered a solemn protest. Dante, no less a statesman and
 
 THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 7 
 
 patriot than a poet and seer, protested against the schism 
 to which Italy and Gemiany were a prey ; and in the course 
 of his protests he uttered words which foretold the future 
 glory of the Roman people. The challenge to action rings 
 through the verses in which he bewails the degradation of 
 his land : — 
 
 " Ah, slavish Italy ! Thou inn of griefs ! 
 Vessel without a pilot in loud storm ! 
 No mistress of fair provinces, 
 But brcTthel-house impure ! 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Ah, people ! Thou obedient still shouldst live 
 
 And in thy saddle let thy Caesar sit 
 
 If well thou markedst that which God commands." 
 
 And then he appeals to the Emperor, Albert I, to 
 come and claim his due : — 
 
 " Come and behold thy Kuine, who calls on thee, 
 Desolate widow, day and night, with moans — 
 ' My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side ? 
 Come and behold what love among thy people.' "' 
 
 For these and the like utterances Dante has been dubbed 
 a Ghibelline. He was more Ghibellinc than Guelf ; but 
 in truth he was a farseeing patriot who sought to reconcile 
 the Empire and the Papacy, thereby assuring peace to 
 Italy and order to the world. 
 
 Such is the theme of his chief political work, Dc Mon- 
 archiii. It rests on the fundamental conception that the 
 world, being a thought of God, is designed for unity, the 
 attainment of whi( h is tlie chief aim of ni;in. Tlie human 
 race never acliieved political unity and peace except during 
 the reign of the Emperor Augustus, at the time of the birth 
 and life on earth of Jesus Christ. N'arious episodes of that 
 life (even the trial by Pontius Pilate) are cited as proofs 
 
 ' Dante, J'urgntonu, Cantu \l, II. 70 ct icq.
 
 8 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 of His recognition of the Roman Empire. Further, the 
 whole history of that Empire showed it to be the organism 
 divinely ordained for promoting unity and peace : " The 
 Roman people was ordained by nature to command." 
 There must be one such people ; and Rome by her spirit, 
 no less than by her exploits, proclaimed herself to be the 
 executant of the divine will : " Who is so dull of mind as 
 not by this time to see that by right of ordeal the glorious 
 people gained for itself the crown of the whole world ? "^ 
 What, then, has of late lost them the crown ? Mainly, the 
 conflict between Pope and Emperor. The striving of the 
 Pope for temporal power has brought endless strife on the 
 people which ought to be one at heart : " O blessed people ! 
 (Dante exclaims==) O glorious Ausonia, if only he who en- 
 feebled thy Empire had either ne'er been born, or ne'er been 
 misled by his own pious purpose." This vigorous outburst 
 is directed against Constantine, whose alleged donation of 
 the Roman domains to the Papacy was claimed as the 
 basis of the Temporal Power of that institution. 
 
 Thus Dante, good son of the Church though he was, 
 recognized her Temporal Power to be an evil, because it 
 introduced strife where there ought to be harmony. Let 
 the Pope be solely the vicar of Christ ; let the Emperor 
 wield the sword in the name of Christ. In no sense does 
 the Emperor derive his authority from the Pope." Each 
 derives his authority from Christ : the Pope, in order to 
 lead men to eternal life ; the Emperor, to lead them to 
 temporal felicity. 
 
 By this teaching Dante hoped to heal the strifes which 
 desolated Italy and Germany. The conflicting authorities 
 of Pope and Emperor were to merge ; then the Roman 
 people would once more direct human affairs. The con- 
 
 1 Dante, De Monarchid, Bk. II, chs. 7, ii. 
 
 2 Bk. II ad fin. » Bk. Ill, passim.
 
 THE DAWX OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 9 
 
 ception is no less imaginative than statesmanlike. Pope 
 and Emperor (i.e. in the main, Italy and Germany) were 
 to work together for the welfare of mankind ; but the 
 guiding impulse must come from Rome, the divinely 
 created source of religion, statesmanship, and armed might. 
 
 In pursuance of this theme Dante sought to revive the 
 Holy Roman Empire, Christianizing its spirit, but keeping 
 the initiative always with " the holy Roman people." In 
 this sense, and this alone, is Dante an Italian nationalist. 
 To me it seems that Mazzini in his essay " On the minor 
 Works of Dante " read into the Dc Monarchid much of his 
 own perfervid nationalism. But it is true that Dante's 
 world-empire was to be Roman. Other peoples were to 
 yield up their wills and act in conformity with the tiat of 
 the Eternal City. This doctrine is not Italian nationalism, 
 very far from it. It is a flash of the old Roman Imperialism 
 focussed in a Christian lens. But here we find the source 
 of the inextinguishable faith in Rome which nerved many 
 Italian patriots, even when, like Mazzini, they rejected 
 Roman clericalism. 
 
 Dante, by ascribing a divine mission to the Roman 
 people, exerted on the fourteenth century an influence not 
 unlike that of the patriotic priest, Gioberti, on the mid- 
 nineteenth century. Each declared the Romans and their 
 descendants to be a chosen people, marked out by special 
 gifts and consecrated by divine decree. When people 
 believe that, they can never be wholly enslaved. They have 
 taken the first difficult step which leads, it may be through 
 ages of torture and despair, towards political independence. 
 In this sense Dante was the father of Italian nationalism. 
 
 In one other respect Dante uplifted his people to an 
 incalculable extent, lb taught them to wing their thoughts 
 t(j the liigh<st ecstasies in tlicir mother-tongue. He 
 delibcratelv chose to \nn\\- fnith tlir holiest and most
 
 10 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 thrilling thoughts in the vernacular. Leaving other scholars 
 to stalk on Latin stilts, he strode forth easily but majes- 
 tically, using the language of the streets of Florence. He 
 defended his choice in the work De Vulgari Eloquentid , 
 which is the first conscious effort at nationalizing literature. 
 Other poets, notably Fazio degli Uberti [circa 1370), 
 wrote canzoni more directly inspired by the national idea. 
 But the instinct of the Itahan people singles out Dante 
 as the source of the Italian spirit. In the year 1844 
 Mazzini thus wrote of the mediaeval seer : — 
 
 " The splendour of no other genius has been able to eclipse 
 or dim the grandeur of Dante ; never has there been a dark- 
 ness so profound that it could conceal this star of promise 
 from Italian eyes. . . . As if there had been a compact, an 
 interchange of secret life between the nation and its poet, even 
 the common people, who cannot read, know and revere his 
 sacred name. The mountaineers of Tolmino, near Udine, 
 tell the travellers that there is the grotto where Dante wrote 
 — there the stone upon which he used to sit ; yet a little 
 while, and the country will inscribe on the base of his statue — 
 ' The Italian nation to the memory of its Prophet.' " 
 
 Yes : Italy has become a nation, and she owes her 
 nationhood no less to the thrilling words of her seers than 
 to the bravery of her soldiers. As will appear in the sequel, 
 her union is due very largely to the thrilling thoughts of 
 her gifted sons. Indeed, the unique interest attaching to 
 the Italian movement is due to the inspiration which it 
 drew from the noblest natures and thence spread through 
 the masses. Italian nationality is no mechanical product, 
 the result of warlike pressure from without, as was else- 
 where often the case. It is rather a soul-politic than a 
 body-politic. 
 
 But if the genius of Dante inspired the leaders of thought 
 in Italy, he did not and could not inaugurate a trul}' 
 national feeling. The times were not ripe for that.
 
 THE DAWX OF THE NATIONAL IDEA il 
 
 Lawgivers, statesmen, warriors, even inventors and 
 mechanics, had to play their several parts before the com- 
 mon people in remote provinces could come into touch 
 and feel the consciousness of a common life. As a rule, 
 such an awakening is due to forces that compel a people 
 to fall back on its reserves of strength ; and these forces 
 act most potently in time of war. It is probable that Italy 
 and Germany would have arrayed themselves in conscious 
 hostility but for the cross currents that swept across them, 
 diverting their fortunes into side channels and many con- 
 fusing eddies. 
 
 As it was, the national issue was first definitely posed 
 between the Western peoples. Of these the Spaniards were 
 almost wholly immersed in the internecine struggle with 
 the Moors, from the long agony of which there emerged 
 the fierce ballads of the Cid as a promise of many a deed 
 of fanatical heroism in the more prosperous future. But 
 France and England learnt to know themselves during 
 the earliest of the great national struggles, the Hundred 
 Years' War. The combatants were well matched. What 
 England lacked in ])ulk she made up in the excellent 
 organization of the monarchy bequeathed by William I 
 and Henry II to the three Edwards. The French, superior 
 in numbers, were weakened by feudal divisions and the 
 strifes of the great nobles. Neither State, however, was 
 nmch distracted by papal or other external claims ; and 
 thus a dispute arising (jut of Plantagenet ambition de- 
 veloped into a trial of strength between two warlike 
 peoples. 
 
 To trail- in detail the growtli nt Englisli ;iii(l I'ltiuh 
 national feehng during the course ot this long struggle is 
 an impossible task. Limiting ourselves for the present 
 to the islanders, we may note that the loss of Normandy, 
 unitv of law and administration, and the intluence of lirm
 
 12 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 government under Henry II and Edward I, had prepared the 
 way for a union of hearts between Norman and Saxon ; but 
 that union was cemented on the fields of Crecy and Poitiers. 
 Fighting side by side against great odds, Norman knight 
 and Saxon archer forgot their old feuds and merged their 
 racial differences in the pride of Englishry. Thenceforth 
 signs abound of the victorious sweep of the new insular 
 sentiment. In 1362 proceedings in the Law Courts were 
 ordered to be conducted in English ; and in the following 
 year our mother-tongue gained its Poitiers, when Edward 
 III opened Parliament in a speech delivered in the ver- 
 nacular. 
 
 The union of Norman energy and Anglo-Saxon stubborn- 
 ness in a single type is an event of unique importance. For 
 when two or more hostile or jealous races coalesce, the 
 result is a notable increase of mental vigour as well as of 
 physical force. In England the reigns of Edward III, 
 Elizabeth, James I and Anne are remarkable for the 
 broadening of national life and also for literary triumphs 
 which express the fuller vitality of the time. A similar 
 access of martial and literary energy marks the complete 
 union of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, and that of 
 France under Louis XIV. These and other cases reveal 
 the connection that exists between politics and culture. 
 Enlarge the outlook of peoples previously cramped and 
 you quicken all their faculties. The result is frequently 
 seen in an outburst of song, as happens with birds at mating 
 time. It was so in England. The age of the Black Prince 
 was also the age of Chaucer, Langland, and Wycliffe. The 
 dawn of English nationality coincided with the dawn of a 
 truly English literature. 
 
 There was something in the air as well as in Chaucer's 
 genius which prompted him to write in English. French 
 in ancestry, courtier by choice, and thereby condemned
 
 TIIF DAWN OF TTIK XATKA'AL IDEA 13 
 
 to speak mainly in French, he chose to write in the tongue 
 of the street and mart. Moreover, not only the language, 
 but the spirit of his chief work is thoroughly English. In 
 their origin most of the " Canterbury Talcs " are Italian, 
 or, in a few cases, French ; but Chaucer's presentment is 
 thoroughly insular. The plot and the setting of the Tales 
 are aggressively Cockney or Kentish. Through Mine Host 
 the poet chaffs those of the company who prefer to mangle 
 the French language rather than speak their own. As for 
 the characters, they are such as might be found to-day at 
 a village penny-reading. Perhaps it was Chaucer's cap- 
 tivity in France which sharpened his insular patriotism ; 
 for no experience can be more nationalizing than a time 
 spent as prisoner of war. Whatever the cause, Chaucer 
 was a thorough Englishman. I think that we know him 
 as well as, and perhaps lo\-e him better than, most men of 
 our acquaintance. 
 
 The writing of charming poems in what had before been 
 a despised vernacular is a landmark in the national life. 
 A people cannot attain to its full powers until its thoughts 
 and aspirations are wedded to the mother-tongue, until 
 tliat mother-tongue ceases to growl or stammer, or learns 
 to sing. The difference in the life of the folk resembles 
 that which comes during the growth of a youth, say, 
 between fifteen and eighteen. The boy of fifteen is tongue- 
 tied, awkward, perhaps a mere hobbledehoy. The youth 
 of eighteen is a different being ; he has felt the first thoughts 
 of love ; he has, perhaps, spoken them forth ; he has 
 become vocal. Possibly, too, those feelings are accom- 
 panied by others much the reverse towards an individual 
 of his own sex. If so, he knows what jealousy or hatred is. 
 In short, he has begun to know himself. That delicious 
 time of life lias its counterpart in the experience of a people. 
 A crisis comes wliich sets the blood tingling and calls forth
 
 14 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 energies and aspirations hitherto latent. That is what 
 happened to us at the beginning of the Hundred Years' 
 War. The Black Prince, Chaucer, Wycliffe are the first 
 complete manifestations of the native spirit. An indefin- 
 able energy, vigour, and splendour radiates forth from our 
 people at that time, as it does from all peoples in the hey- 
 day of ripening manhood. So brilliant are the exploits of 
 the Black Prince that Froissart regards England as the 
 chosen abode of chivalry. Chaucer awakens her brain 
 and her sense of beauty. Wycliffe speaks to her soul. On 
 all sides of her being the nation is awake. It was a keen 
 historic sense which led Shakespeare to place in the mouth 
 of men of that age the loftiest of patriotic paeans. Old John 
 of Gaunt sings his swan-song in praise of England : — 
 
 " This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred isle. 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself 
 Against infection and the hand of war, 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea." 
 
 And Bolingbroke, on departing for banishment : — 
 
 " Then England's ground, farewell ; sweet soil, adieu ; 
 My mother and my nurse, that bears me yet ! 
 Where'er I wander, boast of this I can, 
 Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman. "» 
 
 The clash of war, which first made England know herself, 
 also summoned to conscious life the French nation. There 
 again forces were at w^ork, some promoting, others re- 
 tarding, national unity. The centripetal influences were 
 pride in the old Roman heritage, and the community of 
 language and culture which it bequeathed ; also the work 
 
 » Richard II, Act I, Sc. 3 ; Act II, Sc. i.
 
 THE DAWX OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 15 
 
 of tlie clergv, the effects of the Crusades, ami tlic efforts 
 of the stronger inonarchs to promote uniformity in law 
 and the administration. Of the centrifugal influences the 
 chief were of Frankish origin, the instinct to follow the 
 chief rather than the King, whidi divided the realm 
 amongst rival and greedy feudatories, each a law to himself 
 and the source of law to his vassals. The Kings, allied 
 with the Gallic populace, were waging a doubtful conquest 
 with the Teutonic and feudal elements, when there hurst 
 upon this divided roalm the Hundred Years' War. The 
 natural result was the triumph of the invaders, under 
 whose blows all that was left of the French dominions 
 began to solidify. The one possible rallying point, 
 the monarchy, gradually gained ground over rebellious 
 feudatories ; but, owing to the contemptible weakness 
 of Charles VII, the struggle was still going against France, 
 when the most remarkable figure of the late Middle Ages 
 arose to vivify her people and confound their enemies. 
 Jeanne d'Arc left her sheep at Domremy and came to drive 
 forth the invaders. Her resolve to do battle against the 
 English until Charles be crowned at Rheims was the more 
 remarkable because legally she was not a Frenchwoman. 
 She was born and lived in the Burgundian part of that 
 border village. But in her meditations in the woods the 
 high-souled maiden heard angelic voices that bade her 
 " go into France " ; and we may question whether with the 
 religious impulse were not mingled the promptings of that 
 national sentiment which has often Sj)okcn forth in the 
 moving tones of a woman. The Baraks of a great crisis 
 have rarely lacked their Deborahs ; and a cause that 
 deeply stirs woman's nature is on llu' road to triuiiij)h. 
 Certain it is that the advent of Jeanne d'An meant in- 
 finitely much to the French ; for it heartened them and 
 bewildered their enemies ; and this, not onl}- f(jr super-
 
 i6 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 stitious reasons, but also because Jeanne was France 
 personified. No figure in history has more fully typified 
 a nation ; and when a nation sees itself thus incarnate its 
 powers are doubled. 
 
 From our present point of view it matters little that she 
 was captured, was deserted by the French and barbarously 
 burnt by the English. Those actions belong to the super- 
 stition and cruelty of the time. What belongs to all 
 time is the saintly heroic influence that radiated from her 
 and passed into the heart of her people. While Charles VII 
 was trimming his sails to every breeze she uttered words 
 instinct with patriotic wisdom : "As to the peace with the 
 English, the only one possible is that they should go back 
 to their country in England." That is the national ideal, 
 for the first time clearly defined. The French are one 
 people and must possess the whole of France. There will 
 be no peace while the islanders hold down part of France. 
 The thought is very simple. It is the inspired common 
 sense of a peasant girl gifted with vision. How much misery 
 would mankind have been spared from that time to this 
 if rulers and warriors had realized the truth, that every 
 civilized nation, when thoroughly awakened to conscious 
 life, must control its own destinies and will not long submit 
 to be held down by another people. — " Let each nation be 
 content with its natural boundaries, and not seize the lands 
 of its equally civilized neighbours." How simple ! And 
 yet the nation which claims to be at the summit of civiliza- 
 tion has, even now, not learnt that rudimentary lesson in 
 the doctrine of nationality. 
 
 Notice, too, these words of Jeanne after her capture : 
 " I know well that these English will kill me, because they 
 hope, after my death, to gain the Kingdom of France. 
 But, were there 100,000 more of them, they shall conquer 
 it never, never." There spoke forth clearly for the first
 
 THE DAWN OF Tlir XATK^NAL IDEA 17 
 
 time the soul of France, unconquerable in the fifteenth 
 century- as in the twentieth century. 
 
 The head typifying France on tlu' coins of the lirst 
 Republic was that of a beautiful actress who became 
 transiently famous during the Terror. Certainly, the 
 French genius is best personified by a beautiful, high- 
 spirited woman. But when 1 think of France I always see 
 the Maid of Orleans. 
 
 Italy — not merely the Italy of to-day, but of seven 
 centuries — seems to resolve herself into the figure of 
 Beatrice ; or, in her many tragic phases, to be transformed 
 into the sad yet serene features of Dante. 
 
 The English people, surely, are not well represented by 
 the conventional Britannia. Their character, ruggedly 
 insular yet widely adaptable, and marked by a maturity 
 that does not age, is perhaps best typified by the genial 
 humanism of the countenance of Chaucer or of Shakespeare. 
 
 The time is not j'et ripe for limning the features of our 
 enemies ; and Russia is still somewhat of a sphinx, liut 
 that every nation has a distinct personality, who can 
 doubt ?
 
 LECTURE II 
 VIVE LA NATION 
 
 " La nation, c'est vous ; la loi, c'est encore vous, c'est votre 
 volonte ; le roi, c'est le gardien de la loi." — Adresse de rAssembUe 
 nationale au Peuple franpais, Feb. ii, 1790- 
 
 In the last lecture we found reasons for regarding Dante, 
 Chaucer, and Jeanne d'Arc as the first exponents of the 
 national ideal for their several peoples. But it is very 
 doubtful whether that ideal was visible to the people at 
 large, except in the chief crises of war. At such a time 
 every man and woman who could think felt deep hatred 
 of the foreign invader ; and in this sense of repulsion for 
 the foreigner nationahsm of the cruder sort doubtless had 
 its rise. Idealized though it might be by the loftier minds, 
 yet in its lower forms it was little more than dislike of the 
 aggressive stranger. This feeling it was which ranged 
 French and English against one another in almost solid 
 phalanxes. 
 
 But the cross currents, which we have noticed as con- 
 fusing the issues in mediaeval Germany and Italy, soon 
 began to sweep across England and France. Both lands 
 fell a prey to civil strifes which nearly effaced the nascent 
 sense of unity. England, whose polity had far excelled that 
 of other peoples, was soon distracted by religious and 
 constitutional disputes lasting through most of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. In that period the 
 Elizabethan Era stands out as a smiling oasis ; for then, 
 
 id
 
 VIVE LA NATION iq 
 
 during a brief space, England was almost one at heart ; 
 and the Spanish menace united Englishmen of all creeds 
 in defence of their homes and liberties. That danger past, 
 the island realm was again rent by schisms which the follies 
 and perversity of the Stuarts prolonged until the Settle- 
 ment of i(kS8. Consequently, English patriotism did not 
 fully emerge until the times of Marlborough and the two 
 Pitts. 
 
 The fortunes of the French were not very dissimilar. 
 After monarchy brought them within sight of political 
 union there fell on them the Wars of Religion. The 
 exhaustion of the people and the statecraft of Richelieu 
 and Mazarin finally brought about internal peace, but at 
 the expense of popular liberties ; and the reigns of Louis 
 XIII and XI\', which consummated the external union 
 of the French provinces, left the people themselves unfree 
 and exhausted. This state of things (not unlike that of 
 the English under Henry VIII) is unfavourable to the 
 growth of patriotism, a virtue whose highest manifestation 
 needs a large measure of civic freedom and an abounding 
 vitality. The French provinces, brought together by 
 Louis XI\'. resembled a new plantation of shrubs in time 
 of drought. They were sapless; their leaves drooped; 
 they were starved by the royal oak hard by. " L'Etat, 
 c'est moi," exclaimed the monarch ; and it was true during 
 his reign, when patriotism centred in the person of the 
 King. A political catechism, drawn up for the training 
 of his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, stated that the 
 King represented the entire nation, which had no corporate 
 existence apart from him.' TJiat was correct. During 
 the long interregnum of the States General (1614-1789) 
 the only bond of union was the royal administration ; 
 
 ' " I-.i natirm n«- fait i)as corps en France ; elle ri-side lout 
 rnti^re dans la pcrwinno Mii mi."
 
 20 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 and the edicts of the Royal Council of Ministers 
 formed at best only a partial protection against feudal 
 injustice and provincial inequalities. The people cried 
 out for efhcient government, which could come only with 
 a close and effective union of all classes and provinces. 
 Their cry finds expression in many of the cahiers, or writs 
 of grievances, drawn up in the spring of 1789. The Com- 
 mons of Beauvais demand — " an invariable rule in all 
 parts of the public administration and public order, that 
 is to say, a constitution. ... It is because France has 
 never had one that her administration has been subject 
 to ceaseless changes and she herself has been in danger." 
 So again a village near Metz writes : " May all your 
 subjects. Sire, be made truly French by the Government, 
 as they already are by the love which they feel for their 
 King." Again : " Your peoples seek refuge at the foot 
 of your throne and come to seek in you their tutelary 
 deity."! 
 
 These and many other similar assertions prove that 
 France had no constitution (though Burke denied it) and 
 that she fervently desired to achieve in the sphere of law 
 and administration the national unity of which she was by 
 this time conscious. That Louis XVI should make her 
 effectively a nation was at first the desire of all ; and even 
 when he egregiously failed, and the National Assembly 
 seized the reins from his nerveless hands, the old instinct 
 of regarding the King as the keystone of the national arch 
 for a long time survived. At the news of his flight towards 
 the eastern frontier at midsummer, 1791, the dismay of 
 very many Frenchmen almost resembled that which fell 
 on the Peruvians when Pizarro and his handful of despera- 
 does seized the sacred person of the Inca. Such were the 
 
 ! Archives parlementaires, III, 299 ; VI, 24, 31S. See too Sorel, 
 J^' Europe et la Revolution franfaise, I, p. 187.
 
 \IV]-: LA NATION 21 
 
 feelings of an official in a French village, who, on learning 
 that Louis X\I had fled, exclaimed to a better educated 
 acquaintance : " Alas ! What shall we do ? The King 
 has escaped." The nascent consciousness of the new age 
 flashed forth in the reply: "Well! If the King has 
 escaped, the nation remains. Let us consider what to do." 
 France did consider ; and, after a time of compromise and 
 hesitation, she decided that the only thing to do with a 
 King who desired to run away was to dethrone him. 
 Tliereafter the idea of the nation was paramount ; and, 
 despite the triumph of reaction in and after 1815, it has 
 been paramount ever since. 
 
 The delay of the French in abolishing the old monarchy 
 is somewhat surprising, if we remember the ardour with 
 which their leading thinkers had adopted the political 
 theories of Rousseau. The reader who peruses his chief 
 work, Lc Contral Social (1762), may not at first perceive 
 the importance of the national idea. But that idea is 
 fundamental to his whole treatise. The dominant notion 
 of the work is of a contract or compact by which men, 
 when emerging from savagery, form themselves into a 
 civil society. Rousseau, with the eye of faith, beholds 
 them frame an agreement as free men and equals ; and by 
 this mystic contract, which may or may not have actually 
 happened, they become citizens and fonn a State. It 
 matters not (says Rousseau) that the existence of the social 
 contract cannot be proved. He takes it for granted, and 
 so do all his f(jllowers. 
 
 Now, this explanation ol the rise ol civil societ}', though 
 it is altogether fanciful, lias exercised a potent influence. 
 It lies at the root of the early Socialism ; and it also helped 
 «)n the national idea. Take this statement of Ivousscau : 
 " Before examining the act by which a nation elects a 
 King, it would be fitting to examine the act by which a
 
 22 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 nation becomes a nation." ^ That act is the social contract, 
 which he then examines. When the union takes place, 
 the result is a body politic, a respuhlica. Men who before 
 were separate units are now citizens. He temis their 
 association in its passive aspect a State (a use of the term 
 which is open to grave objections). But he applies the 
 term " sovereign " to the body politic when it is active. 
 Thus, according to him, the whole body of citizens, when 
 at rest, forms the State ;- when it makes laws it is " the 
 sovereign." For purposes of convenience or efficiency it 
 may choose a man from one family to become ruler ; but 
 his powers always remain subordinate to the real sovereign, 
 the people.^ 
 
 Again, when they have decided on a law or any course 
 of action, their will is final. The " general will," as he calls 
 it, is the ultimate court of appeal. He declares it to be 
 inalienable, indivisible, impeccable. Before this quint- 
 essence of negations all other authority, especially that of 
 the Church and of privileged Orders, must bow down, so 
 that there may be no divisions in the body politic. It must 
 be compact in order to be supreme ; and that supremacy 
 must have no limits. The newly formed nation may make 
 use of a legislator to draw up laws ; but even then its 
 authority is dominant. 
 
 Now, in this sweeping claim we have the foundation, 
 not only of modern democracy, but also of nationality in 
 a complete and conscious sense. The influence exerted 
 by Rousseau on the development of the national idea has 
 
 ^ Contrat Social, Bk. I, ch. 5. 
 
 2 Again, Bk. II, ch. 10 : " It is the men that constitute the 
 State." 
 
 ^ Dante, in the De Monarchid, proclaimed this truth : " For 
 citizens do not exist for the Consuls, nor the nation for the King ; 
 but, on the contrary, the Consuls for the citizens, the King for the 
 nation."
 
 \1VE LA NATION 23 
 
 not, I think, been sufficiently emphasized. Every student 
 knows that Lc Coniral Social is the source of French 
 democratic notions ; but that work is equally the fountain- 
 head of modern nationalism. Before Rousseau, writers on 
 government and law had been comparatively little influenced 
 by the idea of the nation. Montesquieu, writing only some 
 fourteen years before Rousseau, scarcely mentions the 
 nation. He sometimes seems to feel his way towards that 
 idea as influencing the character of laws ; but only in that 
 particular. It was reserved for Rousseau to set forth the 
 national idea with a force and cogency which opened up a 
 new era both in thought and deed. 
 
 The Swiss thinker not only gave birth to the idea of the 
 nation, but he endowed it with the strength of an infant 
 Hercules. The French people could scarcely have achieved 
 the miracles of the new age had they not been doubly 
 inspired. The notion of liberty, doubtless, was the chief 
 impulse urging them forward ; but with it there then 
 worked the powerful feeling of nationalit}'. For the first 
 time in their history all Frenchmen realized their essential 
 oneness. That is a unique occasion in the life of a people. 
 We know what it meant from our experience in August, 
 191 4. Then, for the first time in our history, the peoples 
 of the whole of the British Empire were enthusiastically 
 of one mind ; and the mighty unison was not marred, 
 only emphasized, by a few thin discordant pipings. Much 
 the same was it in the France of 1789. Resolute in her 
 quest for liberty, she was nerved by the consciousness tliat 
 practically all her children were one at heart. Froni the 
 cramped sphere of provincialism they rose by one bound 
 to the far loftier plateau of nationality. There they 
 breathed the pure air of freedom and were exhilarated by 
 contact with others whom they liad deemed half foreigners 
 and now found U) be Frenchmen. The results of this
 
 ^4 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 double inspiration were portentous. Relatively to the 
 still torpid peoples of the Continent, the Frenchman of 
 the Revolution was a superman. 
 
 After that brief time of exhilaration, which inspired 
 Wordsv/orth and Coleridge with some of their best work, 
 the then allied ideas of liberty and nationality were 
 destined soon to come into collision, with results disastrous 
 to the cause of progress. We who are living amidst a cata- 
 clysm such as the world has never known can realize the 
 extent of the disaster ; and we find it difficult to understand 
 the buoyancy of heart, the vigour in action, of the year 
 1789, when the two powerful principles, Liberty and 
 Nationality, pulled together. Then the human race 
 experienced the spring tide of achievement. May it be 
 the lot of us, who now toil through the dead time of the 
 neap tides, to be borne ahead once again on that bounding 
 flood ! 
 
 The dominance of the national idea in the early part 
 of the French Revolution is obvious at many points. 
 Very significant is the title assumed by the Tiers Etat 
 (Commons) of the States General, That body, hitherto 
 divided into three distinct Orders, had not met during 
 175 years : and the Commons desired to break with the 
 past. After long deliberations as to various cumbrous 
 titles that had been proposed, an obscure member called 
 out : " Assctnhlcc nationale." " Yes, yes," they all cried ; 
 and the motion was carried, despite the grave fears of 
 Mirabeau and others, who foresaw its destructive effect 
 on the monarchy. The name, indeed, recalled the ambi- 
 tious claim of Sieyes in his pamphlet Qu'est~ce quele Tiers 
 Etat ? that the Commons formed the nation ; the Commons 
 (said he) furnish all the productive classes, from professors 
 to lacqueys ; therefore they are the nation. This term he 
 defined thus : " a body of associates living under a common
 
 VIVE 1 A NATION 25 
 
 law and represented by a single legislature." The definition 
 is utterly defective because mechanical ; it would include 
 such cases as the peoples of the old Holy Roman Empire, 
 or of the Indian Empire of to-day where there is no real 
 unity of sentiment. But this cold, mechanical definition 
 inspirited the deputies of France to seek for a single 
 legislature ; and so what had been merely the unprivileged 
 Order of the ancient States General became the National 
 Assembly, the organ of the general will (June 17, 1789). 
 In vain did Louis X\'I seek to force the deputies back into 
 the three distinct Orders. In vain did he declare that if 
 they could not agree, he alone would effect the welfare of 
 h\s peoples. He spoke the language of the past. No longer 
 were they diverse peoples sheltered by his care. The 
 thinking part of France now realized that the nation 
 existed apart from him. Such, too, was the significance 
 of the famous Tennis Court Oath of June 20, when the 
 deputies, without a single reference to the King, swore 
 never to part until they had made a constitution. 
 
 The consequences of this change of outlook were 
 momentous. Even in the first and very moderate draft 
 of the Rights of Man, which Mounicr presented to the 
 National Assembly on July 27, there is this significant 
 clause : " The principle of com})lete sovereignty resides 
 essentially in the nation. No corporation, no individual, 
 can exercise authority whi( h dues not emanate expressly 
 from it." 
 
 The essence ol the Revoluticm lies in those wonls. Ihey 
 enthrone the nation and tlethrone the King of France. 
 Thenceforth he becomes " the hereditary representative," 
 as he is f)ftfn termed ; wliilr ;ill pnhhi bodies ;ire subjecteil 
 III the nation. Tin' Roman Catliolii ( liur( h is fori I'd to 
 acknowledge the supremacy (jf the State ; and the abolition 
 of all bodies, like the olil I'arlcmcnts, which contest that
 
 26 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 supremacy, is a foregone conclusion. With the Parlements 
 vanish the Provinces and all their local exemptions and 
 rights. From Brittany to Provence, from French Flanders 
 to Spanish Roussillon, there is a clean sweep of all the local 
 privileges which had fettered the action of the old mon- 
 archy ; and in the spring of 1790 France stood forth 
 united, unshackled, as she never had been. Against 
 myriads of local or social abuses which had defied the 
 absolute monarchy, the nation forthwith prevailed. Some 
 of its early champions sought to moderate its zeal. Among 
 them, Mounier endeavoured to arouse the local feeling of 
 Dauphine, where he and the provincial Estates had 
 exercised a paramount influence. But now throughout 
 France there was but one cry : " We are not provincials ; 
 we are Frenchmen " ; and before the cry " Vive la 
 Nation " down went all the walls of privilege and local 
 custom. 
 
 The resistance which Mounier offered in Dauphine served 
 to inaugurate those federations of towns and villages 
 which helped on the levelling process. The first of these 
 unions of citizens with those of neighbouring towns took 
 place at Etoile on the Rhone, in Dauphine, in November, 
 1789. There the townsfolk and peasants assembled, some 
 12,000 strong, fully armed as National Guards, and took 
 the following oath : " We, soldier-citizens of both banks of 
 the Rhone, fraternally assembled for the public welfare, 
 swear before high heaven, on our hearts and on our weapons 
 devoted to the defence of the State, that we will remain for 
 ever united. Abjuring every distinction of our provinces 
 [Languedoc and Dauphine], offering our arms and our 
 wealth to the fatherland, for the support of the laws which 
 come from the National Assembly, we swear to give all 
 possible succour to each other to fulfil these sacred duties, 
 and to fly to the help of our brothers of Paris, or of any town
 
 VIVE I. A XATIOX 27 
 
 of France which may be in danger, in the cause of Hberty."' 
 This episode is of high significance. It sounded forth the 
 call to national unity on behalf of the peasants and small 
 traders ; and, throughout the next eight months, similar 
 federations of districts or Departments helped to abolish 
 provincialism. The climax was reached in the national 
 Festival of Federation, held in the Champ dc Mars on 
 July 14, 1790. A spectator, the denationalized Gcnnan 
 baron, " Anacharsis " Clootz, pointed the moral of the 
 episode by a reference to the mass meetings of Celtic and 
 Frankish warriors yearly held on that spot : "It carries 
 you back two thousand years by an indefinable tone of 
 antiquity : it carries j'ou forward two thousand years by 
 the rapid progress of reason, of which this federation is the 
 precocious and delectable foretaste." Certainly these 
 federations helped to brand on the French the feeling of 
 indissoluble oneness. It is easy to pass a law for political 
 union ; it is a far more dilTicult thing to secure a union of 
 hearts. Our Union with Ireland in 1801 is an example of 
 the former ; the French Departmental System of 1790 
 achieved the latter, because the people themselves at once 
 registered the edict of their legislators. Thenceforth Celtic 
 Brittany, the half-Flemish north, the half-Spanish Rous- 
 sillon, and almost wholly German Alsace threw in their 
 lot for ever with France. 
 
 Yes, for ever. This present war is in part the outcome of 
 this resolve of Alsace and North-east Lorraine to be French, 
 not German. Whether Germany might not have won over 
 the Alsacians if her treatment had been less brutal is an 
 open ({uestitiu. But the outcome is that Alsace has never 
 been Germanized, and that a province, which is almost 
 entirely Teutonic by race, is still iilmost entirely Freni h 
 at heart. It was the magical intluciicc of the great idea 
 ' lltst. parUmentairc, IV, p. j.
 
 28 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 incarnate in the France of the Revolution which won that 
 heart for the French nation. 
 
 One of the distinctive features of those federations of 
 1790 was the exaltation of law. It is rather difficult in 
 England to imagine rustics and small shopkeepers assem- 
 bling in tens of thousands for the glorification of law. 
 Generally, when they assemble in large numbers it is for 
 the opposite purpose. But, when one remembers that in 
 France the old feudal and royal edicts had been the de- 
 tested decrees of a class or of a domain, one can see why 
 the populace hailed the dawn of a regime of truly national 
 law. For by 1790 law was the same for all classes. It had 
 swept away the distinctive Orders. It had abolished the 
 old game laws, corvees, gabelles, and other means of 
 oppression ; and recently it had mapped out France in 
 Departments and smaller self-governing areas, with nearly 
 4,300,000 " active " citizens, to whom fell the duty of 
 electing all the officials. Thus, law had become what 
 Rousseau had declared it ought to be, the expression of 
 the general will. Therefore it occupied a place in the new 
 political trinity. " The Nation, the King, the Law," such 
 were the sacred entities in the new Order. — -The Nation, 
 the source of all political energy ; the King, merely its first 
 officer ; the Law, its channel. 
 
 Every feeling that makes the heart of man beat high 
 conspired to make those federations scenes of inspiration 
 and strength. They were the social contracts of the young 
 democracy. Imagine in the square of the town or village 
 an altar of green sods erected to la patrie ; the patriarch 
 of the village, or else the cure, administers the patriotic 
 oath ; children dressed in white are taught what it means ; 
 and tlie day ends in dances and merry-making. At one 
 village in the Cevennes, where religious passions previously 
 ran high, the cure and the Protestant pastor meet and
 
 VIVE LA NATION 29 
 
 embrace at the national altar ; then tlie Roman Catholics 
 conduct the Protestants to church and listen to the pastor's 
 address ; next the Protestants conduct the others to their 
 church and hear thr words of the cure. 
 
 On other federative groups there descended the genius 
 of patriotic doggerel. We read of one occasion when the 
 cure composed verses on the spot and also chanted a Hymn 
 to Liberty ; whereupon the mayor felt moved to reply 
 in stanzas, the purport of which was undiscoverable. 
 Worthy folk ! You typify French patriotism at its loftiest 
 pitch. Did fate permit 3'ou to see the ghastl}^ sequel ? 
 
 In view of all the scenes that followed, it is not surprising 
 that Thomas Carlyle poured a douche of his cold northern 
 sarcasm on all that southern demonstrativeness. But, 
 after all, were those federation festivals merely " miglit>' 
 fireworks " or a " grand theatricality " ? Surely they were 
 something far deeper than that. The sensitive, impres- 
 sionable Gauls need to visualize their political creed ; and 
 they hold it all the more strongly for having exulted 
 about it. 
 
 The strength of the national instinct appeared in grim 
 guise when war broke out between France and the German 
 Powers. The causes of that war do not concern us here. 
 What concerns us is that it was a measuring of strength 
 between an anned nation on the one side and two artificial 
 though well-disciplined States on the other. The French 
 Revolutionists had no doubt as to the issue. Ill anned and 
 drilled though they were, they believed in their power to 
 overcome the professional ariuies drilKd in the school of 
 Eugene and Frederick. Brissot, the bellicose wire-puller of 
 the Girondin group, desired to disguise some French soldiers 
 near the frontier as Austrians to sack and burn French 
 villages in order to hurry on the rupture; ami on a far higher 
 plane, Vergniaud, the great Girondin orator, appealed to
 
 30 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 the National Assembly to commence a crusade which would 
 liberate other peoples still unfree. Even so moderate a 
 thinker as the Swiss publicist, Mallet du Pan, prophesied 
 in the Mercure de France, in Januar}/, 1792, that Austria 
 and Prussia would be defeated unless they could emblazon 
 on their banners the device, " the Charter of the Nations " ; 
 for that alone could fitly oppose the watchword on the 
 lips of the hosts of France, " The Rights of Man."i Of 
 course, the German Powers did not adopt Mallet's advice. 
 Brunswick's manifesto, issued at Coblentz in deference to 
 the emigres, laid stress on the restoration of royalty in 
 France and the punishment of all rebels. 
 
 This was the first of the many blunders of the German 
 Allies in 1792-3. From the outset they exasperated French 
 national feeling, when their aim should have been to 
 separate the moderates from the extreme Jacobins then 
 in power at Paris. They ruined the French monarchy 
 which they came to rescue ; for they identified the cause 
 of royalty with that of the invaders who were coming to 
 partition France. 
 
 After the fall of the French monarchy, in August, 1792, 
 the national idea acquired a force never known before. 
 Previously it had been confused by the lingering sense of 
 devotion to the King and Queen. But after the over- 
 throw of the monarchy the issue was clear. French 
 democracy and nationality were ranged against the German 
 invaders and royalism ; and the French were compelled 
 to put forth all their strength and energy. In August and 
 September, 1792, they had practically no Government ; 
 the exchequer was empty ; credit had vanished ; and the 
 armies were for a time leaderless. But it is in such straits 
 that patriotism becomes a burning force that shrivels up 
 quibbling factions and kindles boundless energy. Only 
 ^ Mallet du Pan, Mems., I, 249.
 
 \'n'E LA XATTOX 31 
 
 when a nation is stripped of all external aids and is faced 
 with absolute ruin does it discover its reserves of strength. 
 If they are utilized in time it may encounter defeats, but 
 it will not pcrisli. The spirit wliich then nerved France 
 is finely expressed in the appeal of the young poet, Andre 
 Chenier : " All ye who have a fatherland and know what 
 it means ; ye for whom the words ' to live free or die ' 
 mean something ; ye who have wives, children, parents, 
 friends for whom ye would conquer or die — how long shall 
 we speak of our liberty ? . . . Come forth. Let the nation 
 appear." 
 
 It did appear — an armed nation. Service in tlie National 
 Guards had, from tlie beginning of the Revolution, been 
 one of the recognized duties of citizenship. No definite 
 decree declared it to be either universal or compulsory ; 
 but the Constitution of 1791 laid it down that all " active 
 citizens" were National Guards. The National Guards 
 were merely citizens called to uphold the force of tlie 
 State. For tlie present they did not form an organized 
 force.' They therefore held a rather indefinite position. 
 In principle every citizen was a soldier ; only he was not 
 drilled. Probably this vague state of things resulted 
 from the conflict f)f opinion which had broken out in the 
 National Assembly during the debates of December, 1789, 
 on military service. Dubois-Crance, a strong democrat, 
 insisted on universal service : " I tell you that in a nation 
 which desires to be free, which is surrounded by powerful 
 neighbours and harassed by factions, every citizen ouglit 
 to be a soldier, and every soldier a citizen, if France is not 
 to be utterly annihilated. . . . How is it possible to make 
 a man march forth to battle whose indolence has driven 
 tiiiii into the ranks . . . who in fact has sold his liberty 
 for a price, side by side with the man who lias taken 
 ' Constitution oj 1791, 1 li. \ , § .|.
 
 32 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 up arms to defend liberty ? ... It is necessary to establish 
 a truly national conscription, which should include every 
 one from the second man in the Kingdom down to the last 
 active citizen." The Due de Liancourt, Mirabeau, and 
 others resisted this proposal as contrary to the principles 
 of liberty and of the Rights of Man, besides being preju- 
 dicial to a complex industrial society ; and the Assembly 
 decided in favour of voluntary enlistment for the regular 
 army ; but it did not impose any rule respecting the 
 National Guards. ^ 
 
 When war seemed imminent in the early part of 1792 
 many thousands of National Guards volunteered for service 
 at the front to fill up the gaps in the regular army caused 
 by desertion. Consequently the armed forces of France 
 were in a chaotic state at the beginning of the war with the 
 Gennan Powers. Great efforts were made in July, 1792, 
 to attract more volunteers. The alarm gun on the Pont 
 Neuf was fired once an hour. Bands paraded the streets. 
 Speeches were delivered at the recruiting tents ; and 
 thousands of patriotic youths at once enlisted. If we may 
 credit the very critical estimate of von Sybel, these efforts 
 produced little result. He says that only 60,000 recruits 
 were forthcoming between July 11 and September 20. 
 It is also well known that the French success at Valmy 
 was decided by the steadiness of the troops of the old royal 
 army, and still more by the timidity of the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, who never pressed home his attack. 
 
 All this may be granted ; and the admissions somewhat 
 dim the glamour of those days. Yet it is undeniable that 
 the enthusiasm which the volunteers brought to the front 
 was a weighty factor in determining the issue on the hill 
 
 ^ Jung, Dubois-Crance, I, pp. 16-28, quoted by Morse Stephens, 
 French Rev., I, 383 ; Proces Verbanx de I'Assemhlee Nafionale, IX, 
 X, Dec. 12 and 16,
 
 WW. \.\ NATIOX 33 
 
 of Valniy. All the life and energy were on the side of the 
 French. Experience and mechanical discipline Nvere ranged 
 under the banners of Prussia ; and in tlie few moments 
 when the issue seemed dttubtful the mighty shout of " \ive 
 la Nation " rooted the Frt-nch to the earth and carried 
 doubt and dismay to the hearts of the invaders. Well 
 might Goethe, who was present at the German head- 
 quarters, declare that that day inaugurated a new epoch 
 in the history- of the world. That was true. It inaugurated 
 the era of militant democracy. 
 
 Subsequent events served to dull democracy and quicken 
 militancy. The contrast between the political chaos at 
 Paris and the conquering march of the French into Holland, 
 Germany, and Italy was so sharp as to become a grave 
 danger to an impressionable people. Unable to achie\-e 
 political liberty at home, they overpowered all opposition 
 abroad ; and thus the very men who had hailed the war 
 of 1792 as a crusade on behalf of the liberty of ensla\cd 
 peoples were soon drawn into methods inconsistent with 
 tht'ir political principles. In the constitution of 1791 
 they declared solemnly that the French nation would 
 never undertake a war for the sake of making conquests. 
 Yet the constitution of 1795 declared that all lands up 
 to the Rhine and the Alps were thenceforth an integral 
 part of France. This solemn declaration, that France 
 intended to fight on until she gained her " natural limits," 
 was an event of sinister import, preluding two decades of 
 war ; for Waterloo was the final retort to the French claim 
 for the Rhine and Alps. 
 
 How are we to explain that extravagant claim ? In 
 part, of course, by that luckless statement of Casar 
 that those were the boimdaries of Gaul. ]U\t tlu' 
 new Gospel of Nature here reinforcecl tin' oM ("asarisiii. 
 Rousseau in his essay, A Treaty of Pi tpr/ital Prt'cc, urged 
 I)
 
 34 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 that natural features, such as mountains and rivers, 
 seemed to mark out the bounds of the nations of Europe ; 
 and (he added) " one may say that the poHtical order of 
 this part of the world is in certain respects the work of 
 nature." This incautious utterance of the master, which 
 subordinated men's feelings to the lie of the land, was 
 exceedingly useful to his follow^ers. In November, 1792, 
 when the French desired to annex Savoy, Bishop Gregoire, 
 in his report on that topic, made use of similar arguments. 
 As a certain number of Savoyards petitioned for union 
 with France, he insisted that this was their universal 
 desire ; and he then stated that " the order of Nature would 
 be contravened if their Government was not identical 
 [with ours]." The turn of the Belgians came next, early 
 in 1793. As for the Germans of the Rhineland, they were 
 not consulted at all. And thus it came about that the 
 national impulse in France, which up to 1791 promised 
 to link all free peoples in a friendly federation, soon 
 degenerated into a warlike and aggressive impulse, the 
 parent of rapine abroad and of Caesarism in France herself.
 
 i.ECTrRi-: III 
 
 SCHILLER AND FICHTE 
 
 " The first original and truly natural frontiers of States are 
 unquestionably their spiritual frontiers. " — Fichte, Addresses to the 
 German Saiiou, No. XII. 
 
 It is difficult now to realize the divisions and helplessness of 
 Gennany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 
 Spilit up into some three hundred different domains, for 
 whicii the Holy Roman Empire provided no effective bond 
 of union ; distracted, too, by the endless rivalry of the 
 chief States, Austria and Prussia, the Gemians seemed 
 doomed to subservience to their better organized neigh- 
 bours. The energizing and new grouping of these torpid 
 fragments was the greatest political event of the nineteenth 
 < entury. 
 
 Before its commencement, there was no desire for close 
 union on a national basis. The ideals of the leaders of 
 (iemian thought were international. Wry characteristic 
 are the words penned by the philosopher Kant, at Ktinigs- 
 berg, in his tractate, Perpetual Peace. 17(^5. " If Fortune 
 ordains that a powerful and enlightened people slu)uld 
 form a Republic which by its very nature is inclined to 
 jx-rpctual peace this would serve as a centre of federal 
 union for other States wishing to join, and thus secure 
 conditi(jns of freedom among the States in accordance 
 with the idea of the law of nations." 
 
 35
 
 36 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 In that passage Kant expressed the aspirations of his 
 age for a federative and pacific union of nations. The 
 idea had been cherished in France among the more reason- 
 able of the Girondins, and found expression in the hope 
 that neighbouring States would form Republics which 
 would link on to France and gradually extend the bounds 
 of liberty. The German thinker warmly adopted this 
 programme and included it among the conditions con- 
 ducive to the abolition of war. If it had come about, the 
 world would have taken a long stride forward towards the 
 international ideal. In that case France would have passed 
 quickly through the national phase, impelled onwards 
 towards a far loftier ideal, that of ministering to the needs 
 of humanity at large. The years 1791-2 formed, perhaps, 
 the most favourable opportunity in that direction that 
 the world has ever known. For at that time Europe was 
 in a transition stage. With the exception of England and 
 France, the peoples had not yet awakened to full pohtical 
 consciousness. True, they had thrilled at the news of the 
 French Revolution ; but the first message that it sent forth 
 from Paris was international. The motto — " Liberty, 
 Equality, Fraternity " — ^was for all peoples on equal terms ; 
 and all seemed likely to press forward to the goal, without 
 the jostling which Nationalism soon engendered. In 
 1792-4 there was a chance that the Germans of the Rhine- 
 land would accept the French connection, if it were really 
 fraternal and not too paternal. At first the German 
 reformers fraternized with the French troops. That 
 eminent savant, Forster of Mainz, went up to some French 
 National Guards then in garrison in his city, and ex- 
 claimed — " Long live the Republic ! " to which there came 
 the discouraging reply, " She will live very well without 
 you." 
 
 The incident is characteristic of the superiority then
 
 SCHILLER AXT) FICHTE 37 
 
 affected by the French over the divided and beniglited 
 Germans. That feehng had long permeated the Parisian 
 factions that desired a war of propaganda. So far back 
 as October, 1791, the first leader of the Girondins, that 
 restless wire-puller, Brissot, had attacked the German 
 Powers in the most provocative terms, and his colleague, 
 Isnard, fired off the following salvos on November 29 : 
 " A people in a state of revolution is invincible. . . . Let 
 us tell Europe that, if the Cabinets engage the Kings in 
 a war against the peoples, we will engage the peoples in 
 a war against the Kings" — this, too, at a time when tlic 
 Austrian and Prussian monarchs had withdrawn their 
 former veiled threats of intervention, to which, indeed, 
 they had scant means of giving effect. Central and Southern 
 Europe were so wretchedly weak that the foremost pub- 
 licist of the time. Mallet du Pan, wrote thus of the chances 
 of a successful attack by France : " Divided into a multi- 
 tude of separate governments, Europe offers few bases 
 for a common resistance, and the first great nation which 
 changes the face of society has to fear only dissociated 
 units." » 
 
 The words are a remarkable forecast of the collapse 
 of the old order before the new ; and the sequel was 
 to show the peril that besets wars of propaganda. Lofty 
 though the motives of the crusaders may be at the outset, 
 they are apt speedily to degenerate under the lure of con- 
 quest. A strong natir)n which overruns weak States will 
 in the pro( t'ss reveal the truth of the far-seeing remark of 
 .Montes<|uieu, that, if a Kepiibhc subdues other peoples, 
 its own Hberty is endangered by the authority which it 
 entrusts to its generals and proconsuls. In the rampaigns 
 ^^^ I703~9 France triumphed too easily, lb 1 iiiofouiidly 
 national system too spcediK* uj^set the European 1 i|uin- 
 ' .M.ilkl <lu I'aii, Mnm., i, 251.
 
 38 Lectures on nationality 
 
 brium ; and in the process the Hberator merged into the 
 mere conqueror. The results were soon felt by the 
 " liberated " Germans of the Rhineland. The fraternal 
 embracings of the first few days soon gave place to exac- 
 tions, confiscations, forced loans, even to plunder. The 
 irreligious customs of the French troops completed the 
 work of disillusionment ; and when those harpies, the 
 military contractors, flew on the spoil, the Germans 
 experienced all the miseries of the conquered. All the 
 salaried posts in the new administration were given to 
 French officials, often of a very corrupt type. The soldiery 
 bettered their example, until, in 1799, a Rhinelander 
 complained that everybody concealed money and valuables 
 in order to save something from the orgies of plunder. 
 In the five years after the French occupation of 1794-5 
 exactions amounting to £6,000,000 were wrung from the 
 Rhineland ; and there was a general regret for the earlier 
 time of undisturbed slumber under equally somnolent 
 translucencies and abbesses. 
 
 The change of tone in German literature between 1789 
 and 1799 is remarkable. In August, 1789, the Swabian 
 poet, Schubart, had extolled the felicity of the Germans 
 in Alsace, who shared in the blessings of the French 
 Revolution, while behind them (i.e. in Germany) cracked 
 the whip of the despot. But, after the French conquest 
 of the Rhineland, references to France and to her 
 Revolution become cold and critical. In the writings 
 of Goethe there are comparatively few references to 
 the public sentiment of the time ; for, as he explained 
 in Walirheit iiud DicJifuiig (anno 1775), " Our object 
 was to get to know man ; we M'ere content to let 
 people in general go their own way." This aloofness 
 from the aims and stri\'ings of the masses is a noteworthy 
 feature of Goethe's character. It probably explains his
 
 SriniTFR ANT) FK HTE 39 
 
 indiflcrcncc to the struggles of his countiymen agauist 
 Napoleon, which sometimes has been ascribed to want of 
 patriotism. That charge is unjust ; for there are persons 
 so constituted as to be unable to take interest in the 
 collective activities of mankind. In their eyes the soul 
 of man is the onlj- study of any worth. The strivings of 
 the many weary or disgust them. They are interested in 
 the problems of the individual life ; but popular move- 
 ments, whether present or past, leave them cold. Such was 
 the cast of Browning's mind. Though he li\ed in the 
 midst of the most romantic of national movements, that 
 of Italy, he has left no poem inspired by it ; whereas 
 Mrs. Browning, who possessed the collective sense, has 
 left many such poems. Goethe, like Browning, lacked that 
 sympathy with the masses, which every ardent reformer 
 and patriot nmst possess. Such minds do not vibrate 
 responsive to the appeal of the many in the present, or 
 to that appeal from the past, which is the very soul of 
 history. 
 
 In Goetlie's writings, as in those of Browning, there are 
 only scattered references to public affairs. But in Hermann 
 und Dorothea (1797) there is this passage : " The man who, 
 in a tottering age, is unsteady in character only increases 
 the evil and spreads it further and further. ... It is not 
 for the Germans to carry on the terrible Kevolutiun, and 
 to waver hither and thither." The words show that 
 Goethe, for all his cosmopolitan leanings, cherished liltlc 
 hope for liberation by France. In his opinion the revolu- 
 tionary movement had gone astray ; and mankind could 
 hope for improvement only by the steady development of 
 all that was best in the leading nations. 
 
 The disillusionment comes out most clearly in the works 
 of S<hilier. His sensitive sj*iril thrillfd rcsponsixe to tlie 
 collective impulses of his time. in«kctl, his works iorm a
 
 40 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 mirror of the age. His first play, The Robbers (1779). 
 produced in liis twentietfi year, belongs to the poetry of 
 revolt. Animated by his defiance of law and custom, all 
 spirited German students then dreamt of overthrowing the 
 petty tyrannies around them— a topic portrayed in The 
 Robbers with school-boy extravagance. Later on, when 
 for a time he quitted the drama for the domain of history, 
 his thoughts still turned towards topics of rebelHon. His 
 Revolt of the Netherlands and Thirty Years' War deal with 
 upheavals that affected many peoples. It is the downfall 
 of tyranny, the progress of mankind in its sterner experi- 
 ences, that interested Schiller. Like Lessing and many 
 other German thinkers of that age, he was not a national 
 patriot ; he was a cosmopolitan. Those leaders in thought 
 and literature did not belong to Jena, Wolfenbiittel, 
 Weimar ; they belonged to the world at large ; and their 
 thoughts touched the imagination in spheres far removed 
 from the ducal or electoral States in which they were 
 conceived. Those writers, cramped though their sur- 
 roundings were, gave to the world a literature no less 
 universal than that of Voltaire, Diderot, and the Encyclo- 
 pedists. How strange, that those giants of the eighteenth 
 century should have prided themselves on the effacement 
 of national boundaries at the time when the political 
 convulsion partly brought about by their teaching was 
 destined to parcel out the peoples in distinct and hostile 
 groups ! 
 
 As an example of Schiller's contempt for a merely 
 national patriotism, take this fine passage from one of 
 his letters, dealing with the aim which the historian ought 
 to set before him. It was written in 1789, shortly after 
 he became Professor of History at Jena : — 
 
 " This is the problem ; to choose and arrange your materials, 
 so that, in order to interest, they shall not have the need of
 
 SCHILLER AM) LICHTE 41 
 
 decoration. We moderns have a source of interest at our 
 disposal which no Greek or Roman was acquainted with, and 
 which the patriotic interest does not nearly equal. This last, 
 in general, is chiefly of importance for unripe nations, for the 
 youth of the world. But we may excite a very different 
 sort of interest if we represent each remarkable occurrence 
 that happened to men as being of importance to man. It is 
 a poor and little aim to write for one nation ; a philosophic 
 spirit cannot tolerate such limits, cannot bound its views to 
 a form of human nature so arbitrary, fluctuating, accidental. 
 The most powerful nation is but a fragment ; and thinking 
 minds will not grow warm on its account, except in so far as 
 this nation or its fortunes have exercised influence on the 
 progress of the species." 
 
 " Arbitrary, fluctuating, accidental " ; these terms well 
 describe the life of the average Gcnnan State — a mere 
 atom in a kaleidoscope. How could one feel much en- 
 thusiasm about Wiirtemberg, Anhalt, or the little county 
 of Limburg-Styrum, with its standing army of six officers 
 and two privates ! Yet it was in some of those pigmy 
 societies that the human mind took its loftiest flights ; 
 and it is open to question whether small States, the life of 
 which is homely and the burdens light, do not favour the 
 growth of the intellect far better than the enormous 
 aggregations of the present, with their vast and diffuse aims, 
 their complex problems, and the crushing load of taxation 
 and military service. Contrast the cast-iron philosophy 
 and brassy literature of modern Germany with that of the 
 quaint and kindly age which witnessed the birth every 
 year of Sfjme masterpiece ennobling the life of the little 
 town. \N'lii« h is the greater (icnnany? Th.it of (iuttlic 
 or that of Wilhelm II ? 
 
 A figure e«iua]|y typical of the serene cosmopohtanism 
 of (j|d (icnnany is thr philnsoplin I-ii htc {17OJ- 1M14). 
 We arc concerned now only with his ideas on natinnal 
 dcvcloj)ment ; but in a later lecture I shall ictuiii (o Jiis
 
 42 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 theory of the State, which contains much that is question- 
 able, even dangerous. Here I wish to point out the con- 
 trast between his earlier and later teachings in reference 
 to the German polity. The most important work of his 
 earlier period is the series of lectures entitled " Charac- 
 teristics of the Present Age," which he delivered to a 
 general audience at Berlin in 1804-5. The lectures are 
 remarkable for their complete neglect of the principle of 
 nationality, though revolutionary France was largely the 
 product of that potent force. Fichte discourses at large 
 on the human race as a whole. He asks : What is the plan 
 of the world ? What is the fundamental idea of human 
 life viewed collectively ? In Lecture I he defines it thus : 
 " The End of the life of mankind on earth is this — that in 
 this life they may order all their relations with freedom 
 according to reason." ^ Stated with Anglo-Saxon bluntness, 
 this means that Reason is to rule in human affairs, and 
 that men ought to be free to choose the methods by which 
 they act reasonably. Everywhere in his lectures he 
 considers Europe as a whole. There is no need to follow 
 him in his tedious mapping-out of the different ages of 
 human history, except to notice his conviction, that the 
 world was then in the third age — that of liberation from 
 external authority. He declares the age to be one of 
 unrestrained licence and selfishness ; but he hopes that 
 the race will ultimately win its way back to justification 
 and sanctification. In all his tedious disquisition there is 
 no sign that he perceives the force of national differences 
 and of the diverse parts which different nations may have 
 to play. With serene indifference to such distinctions, 
 he assumes that somehow mankind will miove, or be moved, 
 onward through the live cycles. In Lecture XIV he says : 
 " The Christian Europeans are essentially but one people ; 
 1 Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age (Kng. TransL, p. 5).
 
 SiIllLLLf^ AM) IKHTE 43 
 
 they recognize tliis common Europe as their one true 
 Fatherland ; and, from one end of it to the other, pursue 
 nearly the same purposes and are ever actuated by similar 
 motives." The statement proves how blind cosmopolitan 
 philosophers can be to disagreeable facts. Enclosing 
 themselves in their own theories, and confusing what is 
 with what ought to be, minds of that order often construct 
 a world of their own, and rail at persons who remind them 
 of the existence of the world of actualities. Fichte. in his 
 earlier phase, was one of these philosophizing spiders, living 
 in a web which he had evolved from his inner consciousness, 
 and caUing it the world. Consider the facts. Napoleon 
 had overrun Hanover and the Kingdom of Naples in the 
 endeavour to beat down the British Power. He had 
 turned Germany upside down with his Secularizations, 
 and the war was clearly about to become world-wide ; 
 for Russia and Austria were arming against the great 
 Emperor, wIkj recklessly defied them. Yet Fichte says 
 that all Christian peoples recognize Europe as their common 
 Fatherland, are pursuing nearly the same purposes, and 
 arc actuated by similar motives. 
 
 Elsewhere, however, he admits that these Christian States 
 are striving perpetually for supremacy. Sometimes one 
 prevails : then another ; and (says Fichte) the truly 
 enlightened man will always owe allegiance to the one 
 which prevails a startling touch of worldly prudence. 
 Only the earth-born souls will remain c itizcns of the fallen 
 State, recognizing their Fatherland in its soil, and rivers 
 and mountains, wliic li is all tlicy desire. I'.ut " the sun- 
 like Spirit, irresistiljly attracted, will wing its way wherever 
 there is Light and Liberty. And in this cosmopolitan 
 frame of mind we may look with perfect serenity on the 
 actions and the fate of Nations, for (jurselvcs and our 
 succesbors, e\en to the end of 1 ime."
 
 44 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 This theory, if translated into practice, works out thus : 
 If Prussia prevails over Austria, all enlightened Germans 
 will transfer their allegiance to her. If France prevails 
 over Prussia, these neo-Prussians will become Frenchmen 
 at heart. If France falls, and there ensues a complete 
 Balance of Power these political chameleons will run about 
 distracted, seeking in vain for a predominant colour. 
 Was Fichte's fluid cosmopolitanism the outcome of despair 
 at Germany's helplessness and of Napoleon's omnipotence ? 
 Or did he share Goethe's conviction as to the need of 
 renovation by " the new Charlemagne " ? It is difficult 
 to say. One thing alone is clear, his utter indifference 
 to the claims of country. Whether France, Prussia, or 
 Austria gained the supremacy was nothing to him. 
 
 No ! The national idea in Germany was first set forth 
 by a man who dealt, not with abstractions but realities, 
 not with States but peoples. While Fichte was groping 
 his way through these hazy abstractions, a poet and 
 historian found his way to firm ground. Schiller gave to 
 the world Wilhelm Tell (1804). 
 
 He designed it as " a national drama, in sympathy with 
 all the liberal tendencies of the age." I beheve that he 
 hoped to stir up a truly German feeling, and thus stay the 
 dry-rot that was creeping into the hfe of his people. With 
 the insight of a poet he had long noted the strength of 
 patriotism. The national revival of France, effected by 
 the Maid of Orleans, had inspired his drama on that 
 subject ; and in 1803-4 he turned his thoughts towards 
 the German Swiss of the Forest Cantons. The inner 
 meaning of the play lies in the conflict between the free 
 mountaineers of the Ur-Cantonen and the greed and 
 usurpation of the House of Hapsburg. True, the human 
 interest of the story centres in the character and action 
 of the legendary hero. Tell. The drama must have heroes.
 
 >ciiilli:r and j-k hte 45 
 
 not heroic abstractions ; and Tell is a fine specimen of 
 the Swiss mountaineer, frank, generous, misuspicious, no 
 meddler in politics, and slow to act against recognized 
 authoritv. He is the central figure of the drama ; but he 
 is not the moving spirit of its action. That spirit is the 
 instinct of the people. Outraged by the barbarities of the 
 Hapsburg soldiery, that instinct asserts itself at lirst in 
 saving this or that defender of his home ; further than this 
 Tell will not go. He represents the average good-natured 
 mountaineer, who will save an individual, but does not 
 understand political action, so that he is reproached for 
 his want of fervour in the common cause. In fact, the 
 instinct of the people wells forth most fully in the person 
 of a woman. Gertrud is the moving influence of the piece. 
 While her husband, Werner Stauffacher, seems likely to 
 endure tamely all the threats and insolence of the Hapsburg 
 officers, she counsels resistance ; and when he speaks of 
 the horrors of war she replies : — 
 
 " Look forward, Werner, not behind yuu, now." 
 
 When again he reminds her of the nameless fate that 
 may befall her, she utters these lofty words : — 
 
 " None are so weak, but one last choice is left. 
 A leap from yonder bridge, and T ;ini free." 
 
 Spurred to action by his wife's heroism, Stauffacher takes 
 counsel with other men of Untcrwalden ; and they resolve 
 to assemble on the Riitli rock above the Lake of Lucerne. 
 meeting there the men of Schwytz and I'ri. In that 
 primeval solitude, and under (()\cr r)f night, they assend)Ie 
 to renew the ancient b(jnd of union between the three 
 cantons. Acts of brutal tyranny by the minions of .Austria 
 now bring together men long sundered in limts ol peace. 
 Thev listen as Stauffacher unfolds to them the story of
 
 46 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 their Germanic parentage ; how, driven forth by famine 
 from the northern plain, their forefathers forced a way 
 into the Swiss mountains and made them homes in diverse 
 valleys ; yet ever were they mindful of their Switzer 
 origin. Now, against Hapsburg usurpation they must 
 make common cause, not only as free Switzers, but also 
 as loyal sons of the old Germanic Empire. 
 
 Before they swear to resist Austria's novel claims, a 
 priest, Rosselmann, steps into the ring and urges them, 
 for the sake of peace and quietness, to give way before 
 Austria. One and all, they scout the proposal as that of 
 a traitor ; and they pass this decree : — ■ 
 
 " Whoe'er 
 Shall talk of tamely bearing Austria's yoke. 
 Let him be stripped of all his rights and honours ; 
 And no man hence receive him at his hearth." 
 
 After this drastic treatment of the pacifist case, they 
 proceed to renew their bond of union : — 
 
 " We swear to be a nation of true brothers, 
 Never to part in danger or in death." 
 
 {They swear, with three fingers raised.) 
 
 " We swear we will be free as were our sires, 
 And sooner die than live in slaveiy." 
 
 {They swear, as before.) 
 
 What is this but a Social Contract in a poetical setting ? 
 Schiller had been an enthusiastic student of Rousseau ; 
 and he believed firmly in the formation of political societies 
 by the action of the people, which would necessarily lead 
 to liberty and harmony. The States thus formed would 
 be strong and stable, far different from the artificial areas 
 ruled over by Gennan princelings. The new Germanic 
 State or States would guarantee the welfare of Germans
 
 sciiilli:r and iuhtk 47 
 
 and keep at arm's length the aggressor. Tlie tone of the 
 drama is tliroughout intensely German. The last scenes 
 reveal the peasants free, united, and happy, while the 
 House of Hapsburg is rent asunder by re\olt and by the 
 murder of its chief. 
 
 The moral of it all is clear. Schiller appeals to his 
 countrjnnen to forget their miserable divisions which have 
 left them a prej' to the aggressions of Napoleon. He seems 
 to say to the Germans of his day : " \\ ill \'»u not forget 
 your absurd differences? Will you not join hands across 
 the political barriers, and unite for the defence of your 
 honour and your dearest interests ? Only so can you save 
 the Fatherland from subjection to an insolent usurper. 
 Your princes cannot, or will not, save you. Your own 
 right hands, your own good sense, must save you from 
 servitude to the foreigner." 
 
 This, surely, is the inner meaning of the drama. It 
 describes the birth of a nation, and as such it is regarded 
 by all Switzers. They look back to the scene on the 
 Riitli rock as the beginning of their political life. Whether 
 that event is historical, or semi-historical, or legendary 
 is of small account. Even if it be legendary, it has exerted 
 upon the fortunes of Switzerland an influence more im- 
 portant than that of cartloads of documents of unimpeach- 
 able authenticity. It is one of those episodes which make 
 the heart of a people beat fast with pride and hope. In 
 the Swiss House of Parliament at Berne the Riitli scene 
 has been painted large on the wall behind the President's 
 chair. In that Parliament there are nun who speak 
 French, Gemian, and Italian ; but the feeling of unity 
 aroused by the contemplation of that scene transcends 
 mere diversities of tongue, and merges the fragments of 
 those now warring peoples in a fervidly Swiss nationality, 
 which bids fair to outlast even the divulsive influences
 
 48 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 of this war.i It is true that the strain just now on Swiss 
 nationality is very severe ; and the sharp tension which 
 prevails between the German and the Latin portions 
 reveals the strength of the tie of language. But here lies 
 the interest of the case of Switzerland. The Swiss cherish 
 a collective sentiment which far transcends race and lan- 
 guage, a sentiment springing from pride in a glorious past 
 and love of the mountains around which they cluster. 
 The Swiss will, I believe, remain a nation, and will not 
 merge into the three great peoples that surround them. 
 Their keen historic sense, their romantic attachment to 
 their mountains and rivers, will keep them united. In 
 this respect they are the " earth-born souls " at whom 
 Fichte scoffed ; and this clinging to the soil, this pride in 
 their achievements, will, I venture to say, help to keep 
 Switzerland a united whole. In this sense the legend of 
 Wilhelm Tell, and the presentment of it by Schiller, form 
 a national asset of priceless worth. 
 
 For Genuany, too, Wilhelm Tell soon became pre- 
 eminently the national drama. The instinct of the people 
 caught at the truth which was there enshrined. Thence- 
 forth Napoleon was regarded as the national enemy, and 
 union against him as the paramount duty of all. The 
 patriotic songs in this and others of Schiller's dramas 
 inspired thousands of youths who went gladly into the 
 almost hopeless struggle against the great Emperor. As 
 was finely said at a meeting in memory of Schiller : " Thou- 
 sands who trembled not when the earth groaned with the 
 weight of the despot's mailed cavalry ; men who with 
 fearless hearts confronted the thunder of his artillery . . . 
 
 ^ Count Mamiani, Rights of Nations (Eng. edit., i860), p. 44, 
 says that the Swiss are not " in the ordinary sense properly a nation." 
 This I deny. For, as I shall show, in Lecture VIII, it is sentiment and 
 will, not language, that make a nation.
 
 SCHILLl-R ANP 1 KUTE 49 
 
 all carried with them into Iho strut,'gle the entlnisinsin 
 kindled by Schiller's poetry ; his songs were i>n their lijis, 
 and his spirit fought with them." 
 
 During the years 1S05-11 that struggle brought nothing 
 but disaster to the opponents of Napoleon. The organized 
 might of the French Empire seemed likely to overbear 
 the rest of Europe ; and if one investigates the causes of 
 this superiority, they appear to be these-: France was the 
 only great nation completel}- permeated with tlic new- 
 national spirit, and also thoroughly organized for war. 
 The British and Spanish peoples were patriotic, but were 
 ill-organized, while in Napoleon France found the most 
 ruthlessly efficient organizer of all time. The other 
 European States were in a chaotic condition. Austria 
 was a house of cards ; Prussia was little better ; Russia 
 was honeycombed by corruption. In fact, after the death 
 of Pitt and the dismissal of Stein, Napoleon was confronted 
 by mere mediocrities both in the Cabinet and in the field. 
 Or, to sum up. the new national spirit, born in and after 
 1804, was a mere infant of days by comparison with the 
 splendid adolescence of France. The experiences of those 
 terrible years prove that the justice of a cause is of little 
 avail unless that cause adapts itself to the needs of the 
 time. If the work of adaptation be slowly and inefficiently 
 carried out, the peoples that are at fault will suffer for tluir 
 sins of omission. One of the sternest lessons of history 
 is that inefficient and slipshod work, even if it be in the 
 best of causes, must bring disaster. Peoples are punished 
 for slackness and inertia as iimch as they are for positive 
 crimes. So it was with England, Spain, and Prussia in 
 the years 1804-12. Until they found out Wellington, 
 Scharnhorst, Cineisenau. and Pliiclier, all the Iolt\- aspira- 
 tions and enthusiasms were of little avail. 
 
 Out of the darkness of despair that brooded oxer I'rnssia
 
 50 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 after the disaster of Jena, one voice sounded forth in words 
 of inspiration and hope. When she lay under the heel of 
 Napoleon ; when Berlin and all Prussian cities were 
 garrisoned by French troops, Fichte's easy cosmopolitanism 
 fell from him. Like all noble natures, his was not con- 
 vinced by conquest. In those dark days he found that he 
 could not transfer his allegiance from Berlin to Paris, 
 though Paris wasincontestably supreme, and Berlin seemed 
 to have gone under for ever. Even before the campaign 
 of Jena he addressed the Prussian army in glowing terms ; 
 and when it streamed away eastwards towards the Vistula 
 and Niemen in utter rout, his patriotic feelings deepened, 
 as will those of all true men and women in time of anxiety 
 or disaster. Then it was that he discovered cosmopoli- 
 tanism to be only a fair-weather creed. After the Peace 
 of Tilsit, when Prussia lost half her lands and all her 
 prestige, Fichte stood forth at Berlin, and, within sound 
 of the drums of the French garrison, delivered his 
 " Addresses to the German Nation." They purported to 
 be a continuation of the lectures given in 1804-5 ; but they 
 breathe an utterly different spirit. For in the interval 
 the idea of nationality laid hold of the popular imagination; 
 and now, too, when the fabric of the Prussian State had 
 fallen in ruin, Fichte saw the German nation. Previously 
 he had discoursed about States : now his theme was far 
 more definite, more human. In face of the Napoleonic 
 ascendancy, what were Prussia and Austria, Saxony and 
 Bavaria ? As those miserable divisions had invited 
 disaster, so, too, a close union might bring salvation. The 
 topic was dangerous, as Fichte was well aware : "I know 
 the risk [so he wrote to Beyme in January, 1808]. I know 
 that a bullet may strike me down as well as Palm.^ But 
 
 ^ Palm, a Nurnberg bookseller, was shot by Napoleon's order 
 for tlie crime of selling a patriotic pamphlet.
 
 SCHILLER AND FICHTE 51 
 
 that is not what I fear ; and, for the aim which I have in 
 \iew, I too would gladly die." 
 
 IIJN aim was to convince Germans everywhere that their 
 present ruin was due to selfishness. Egotism had divided 
 them up into myriads of petty States and kept them 
 divided : so that, what with political barriers and class 
 divisions, they never caught a glimpse of wide and generous 
 aims. He called his age the age of giant selfishness, which 
 had developed to the utmost on all sides and was about 
 to destroy itself. The description is apt if applied to 
 Gennany ; for. if the Germany of that time was the result 
 of petty selfishness. Napoleon was also the incarnation of 
 colossal acquisitiveness. In the game of grab, into which 
 European politics had degenerated since the accession of 
 Frederick the Great, all trust and confidence had vanished, 
 and thus the great robber-baron beyond the Rhine was 
 able to prey on the thieving knights and footpads of 
 Gennany. As yet there was no sign of effective union ; 
 for how can there be a firm union among thieves ? Fichte 
 was correct in his diagnosis of the disease which paralysed 
 Europe in 1804-7. Egotism and greed had made of it 
 mere political rubble, and the cement of public confidence 
 was nowhere to be found. Distrust must give way to 
 trust (said Fichte) ; the old jealousy between German 
 States nmst vanish in view of the urgency of their universal 
 interests ; in place of the class feeling, which had weakened 
 Prussia, there must arise a national feeling, based on the 
 perception of kindred aims and duties. Selfishness (said 
 he) is self-destructive ; for, when it has run its full 
 rours<^', no linn foundati<;n is left. That vice had ruined 
 (icnnany. How nmst she be reconstructed ? 
 
 Fichte's answer is not altogether clear. It does not 
 sound forth with the trum|)ct tones of conviction by which 
 .Maz/.ini tlirilltd ltal\- in tlic 'thirties. Tlic (Icrnian pliiloso-
 
 52 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 pher had not the abounding faith and enthusiasm of the 
 Itahan prophet. Further, he was hampered by the 
 endeavour to express everything in abstract terms, while 
 Mazzini spoke straight to the heart of the people. The 
 cloudiness of Fichte's views also resulted from his being 
 a pioneer of thought in this direction^ — ^witness his definition 
 of a nation (Lecture VI) — " A nation is the whole com- 
 munity of persons living in social intercourse, ever pro- 
 pagating itself in a natural manner, and existing collec- 
 tively under a certain special law of the development of 
 the divine out of it." 
 
 This nebulous circumlocution in no sense advances our 
 knowledge of the subject ; and it must be confessed that 
 the Addresses are often both dull and confused. Especially 
 tiresome are Lectures IV-VII, which demonstrate the 
 Germanic nature of the Germans with an iteration that 
 seems wholly needless to-day, however much it was needful 
 then to awaken their dormant national sentiment. After 
 these digressions Fichte's narrative straightens and 
 broadens. Very effective is the reference to the ancient 
 Germans, who refused to face the possibility of being 
 Romanized and were resolved at all costs to order their 
 lives in their own way. Coming to the present he lifts the 
 idea of the nation to an eminence whence it may radiate 
 hope to the myriads of Germans who had vegetated in 
 little States, one and all now subject to Napoleon. The 
 following passage in Lecture VIII must have been a revela- 
 tion to all who could grasp its meaning : — 
 
 " Nation and Fatherland in this sense, as bearer of and securer 
 for immortality in this world, and as that which alone here 
 below can be eternal, far transcend the State in the usual 
 sense of that term. . . . This [the State] aims only at security 
 of rights, internal peace, a livelihood to everyone, and pre- 
 servation of material existence during Heaven's pleasure by
 
 SCHILLER AND 1 irUTF 53 
 
 means of toil. All this is only the means, condition, prepara- 
 tion for that which patriotism essentially aims at, the blossom- 
 ing of the eternal and divine in the world. For that very 
 reason, as being the supreme, final, and independent authority, 
 must govern the State itself, while limiting it in the choice 
 of means for its next object, internal peace. With this object 
 in view, the natural freedom of the individual must be re- 
 stricted in many ways ; and, if one has no other intention and 
 aim than this, it would be well to restrict it within the 
 narrowest limits possible." 
 
 Idealism lierc tails off into lealisni. Fichto's celestial arc 
 ends in a Prussian drill-yaril. In laUr passages he insists 
 on the need of conscription and the drastic restriction ot 
 individual liberty. Of course, there were powerful motives 
 why he should urge the claims of Fatherland. It had been 
 ruined by individual selfishness, both of Princes and classes. 
 Now, says Fichte, all Germans must think first of the nation 
 and of the duties which they owe to it. No longer must 
 they shift their responsibilities on to someone else. Every 
 man must realize his duty and perforni it manfully. For 
 this purpose he will nerve himself by catching a glimpse 
 of what the future may bring to the German nation. He 
 will resolve that the Fatherland shall be absolute!}' in- 
 dependent of alien rule. Just as the eye can be trained 
 to feel disgust at dirt and disorder, so, too, the political 
 vision of Germans can be ([uickened until they will reject 
 all thought of subjection to the foreigner. In order to fire 
 them with the heroism necessary for driving out the French, 
 Fichte faces the problem oi the motive power dormant 
 in the will of man. How shall the onlinary citizen be 
 nerved to the self-abandonment that <an accomplish 
 wonders of bravery? That is the j)robk'ni. lAidentlj', 
 no (jrdinary juotive will suince. Or, to cpiote his words : 
 " Not the spirit <»f <|uiet civic obedience to the constitution 
 and the laws. So ; but the Inuning Hume of the higher
 
 54 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 patriotism which conceives the nation as the embodiment 
 of the eternal, to which the high-minded man joyfully 
 devotes himself ; while the base-minded man, who only 
 exists for the other, must be compelled to devote himself." 
 Developing this thought, Fichte seeks to fortify the 
 heroism, even of the high-minded man, by the following 
 inspiring thought. Such an one will prize his nation above 
 all else ; for it is only the nation which can assure the 
 continuity of his work. He will value his life, not for the 
 sake of mere existence, but for the amount of work which 
 he can accomplish ; and, as the nation is the guardian of 
 that work and its guarantor for the future, he will value 
 its safety far above his own. For the nation, then, he will 
 gladly lay down his life, so that, as far as in him lies, he 
 may assure the survival of the larger life which alone lends 
 significance to his own.^ The thought is like that which 
 Kipling, by a flash of genius, has enshrined in one glorious 
 Ime :— „ ^^^^ ^.^^ -^ England lives ? " 
 
 It is obvious that Fichte's doctrine as to the absolute 
 sovereignty of the nation over the lives of all its members 
 was and is liable to great abuse. Fichte's glowing words 
 must not blind us to the risk of entrusting the nation for 
 ever with unlimited powers of life and death. ^ Noble 
 though his theory may be when the question is of expelling 
 the foreigner, it becomes pestilential when that task is 
 achieved, and the nation of death-defying heroes look 
 forth upon less redoubtable neighbours. This, as we have 
 seen, was the temptation that lured Revolutionary France 
 into wars of conquest. A similar temptation has lured the 
 Germany of William I into the mad ways of William II. 
 
 ' Fichte, Lecture VIII. 
 
 2 See Lord Acton's remarks (Essays on Liberty, p. 228) on the 
 Machiavellian traits in Fichte's teaching.
 
 SCHILLER AND LlCHTE 55 
 
 In the time of Fichte the onl\- tiucstion was that of 
 regaining the independence of Germany. But how was it 
 to be regained ? Not by force ; that was impossible when 
 the French held all the fortresses. By moral means, then, 
 — says Fichte (Lectures IX-XI)— by education ; for that 
 is the only domain in which Napoleon leaves the Germans 
 free. The philosopher points out that in many respects 
 German education has been utterly defective. It has been 
 narrow and uninspiring ; it has left its pupils cold and 
 selfish; so that, despite all the teaching, they have not 
 followed its higher precepts and warnings, but have gone 
 on following the impulses of their own natural selfishness. 
 Hitherto education has neither instructed nor inspired. 
 But its true function is to inspire. The true educator will 
 not be satisfied with instructing. He will seek to uplift 
 the moral nature of his students. He will set forth so 
 glowing a picture of the ideal life that, before it, cold 
 selfishness will melt away. The moral order of the universe 
 will appear in so radiant a vision that the petty egotism 
 of the individual will vanish. And not only the wealthy 
 and middle classes are to be thus inspired. All classes will 
 be influenced by the wider and nobler education of the 
 future. " We desire to inspire Germans by a feeling of 
 unity which may throb through all their limbs." At this 
 point, as. he catches a vision of what a better training may 
 effect, he doffs his academic stiffness and exclaims in the 
 inspired words of Ezekiel : " Come fniiii tlic f<nn winds, 
 O breatii, and breathe upon these slain, that tiiey ma\ li\c. 
 So I pnjphesied, as He commanded me; and tlir ijreath 
 tame into them, and they lived, and stood up ujjon lluir 
 feet, an exceeding great army." 
 
 As to the edu< ational methods to i)e adopted, l-'idilc 
 strongly recommended those of the Swiss reformer, 
 Testalo/./.i. They were adopted, and, after the infusion
 
 56 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 of German iiietliod, they were found to be of great service. 
 Elementary education, therefore, received an impetus of 
 great value in Prussia ; and this development, together 
 with the reforms of Stein, Scharnhorst, and Hardenberg, 
 laid the basis for the healthier polity of the future. In the 
 academic sphere equal progress was made by the establish- 
 ment of the thoroughly national Universities of Berlin and 
 Breslau (1809-11). An enlightened patriotism watched 
 over them from the start. The King gave a royal palace 
 so that Berlin might have suitable University buildings ; 
 and from the nearly bankrupt Treasury 150,000 dollars 
 a year were awarded for the maintenance of the new insti- 
 tution. Hitherto, for the most part, German Universities 
 had existed in small towns remote from political life ; and 
 in them there was evolved the type of professor depicted 
 by Carlyle in the person of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, 
 Professor of Things in General in the University of Weiss- 
 nichtwo. Readers of Sartor Resartus will remember that 
 Teufelsdrockh in the early part of his career was mainly 
 occupied with the cognate employments, — " to think and 
 smoke tobacco." These led him only to the Everlasting 
 No. But in lucid intervals he gradually fought his way 
 towards the Everlasting Yes — " The chief end of life is 
 not thought but action. . . . Up ! Up ! Whatsoever 
 thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." - 
 
 This surprising change mirrors that which came over the 
 life of Germany in the decade 1S04 to 1813. The time of 
 divisions, of sloth, of pleasurable self-seeking passed away ; 
 and in its place there came a time marked by terrible 
 suffering and poverty, but irradiated by the noblest deeds 
 of self-sacrifice and heroism. For the most inspired poet 
 and philosopher had spoken to that people in words that 
 burned. Schiller showed what the heroism of unlettered 
 mountaineers could effect in a great and inspiring cause.
 
 Scllll.l.l-.K AM) I 1(11 IE 57 
 
 Fichte, too, after emerging from dreamhind, came out into 
 the world of reality and helped tt» lead his countrymen 
 thither. Emerging from their holes and corners, they dis- 
 covered their essential oneness ; and, as happened to 
 Frenchmen twenty years earlier, the uplift from a narrow 
 provincialism to a sense of nationality endowed them with 
 a buoyancy ami vigour never known before. Arndt, 
 Korner, and others composed national songs that stirred 
 the blood ; and from the Universities there came pro- 
 fessors and students, resolved to win the freedom and 
 independence which Fichte's glowing words had made an 
 essential of life. He, too, formerly so unpractical, sealed 
 the new doctrine with his life-blood ; for he died of a fever 
 caught while his wife and he tended the wounded in hospital 
 - ;in episode as significant as any in the drama of the 
 War of Liberation.
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 
 
 " C'est de I'Espagne que rEurope apprit que Napoleon pouvait 
 etre vaincu, et comiiie il pouvait I'etre." — Talleyrand, Memoires, 
 I, 389. 
 
 The rising of the German people against Napoleon in 1813 
 is for ever memorable, not only for a heroism finally 
 crowned with well-merited triumph, but also for the work 
 of intellectual and moral preparation, which endowed 
 their national movement with solid backing and per- 
 manent results. On turning our thoughts towards the 
 Spanish Peninsula we are conscious of an entire change of 
 conditions, both external and internal. The Spaniards 
 are sometimes reproached with having drawn from that 
 same time of testing, the years 1808-13, none of the 
 beneficent influences that renewed and enriched the life 
 of the German nation. To explain the causes of this 
 divergence is one of my aims in this lecture. 
 
 Firstly, Germany held an honoured place in the intel- 
 lectual movement of the eighteenth century. Her leading 
 men, even some of her rulers, were in full sympathy with 
 " Illuminism," which promised peacefully to banish 
 ignorance and to make of mankind one happy family. 
 They welcomed the French Revolution ; and only after 
 the perversion of its aims did Teuton and Gaul come into 
 serious conflict. Even when racial animosities were 
 embittered by the Napoleonic occupation, the leaders of 
 
 58
 
 THE SPANISH NATION AL RISING 59 
 
 thuught in Gennany continued their efforts, albeit witli 
 aims that were distinctly national, not international as of 
 \ore. Consequently, eighteenth-century culture did much 
 to invigorate the new life of Central Europe. 
 
 Far different was the condition of Spain. She had stood 
 apart from the intellectual movement, which found 
 exponents among a mere handful of her sons. Conse- 
 (juently there were no influential groups of savants, no 
 inspiring traditions, on which the Spanish revival could be 
 based ; and, as wc ^hall see, the strange shifts to which 
 their patriots were reduced prevented any well-considered 
 plan of action. 
 
 Of all these difticulties the fundamental cause was the 
 aloofness of Spain irom Europe. Her aloofness explains 
 not only her intellectual separation, but also her exclusive 
 nationalism. The divergence of her interests from those 
 of her neighbours is due to her insularit}'. Though seas 
 connect, mountains divide ; and the Pyrenees form the 
 most rigid barrier in Europe. No land-power has much 
 inlluenced the life of Spain, because no land-power has ever 
 been able to control it for long. In the Dark Ages con- 
 querors from the North, \'an(lals and \'isigotlis, swept 
 over and even tried to hold the Peninsula. But the effort 
 of the latter people to rule it from Toulouse broke down, 
 just as a similar attempt of Charlemagne broke down. 
 Tlie rugged and impervious barrier of the Pyrenees accounts 
 for the failure. Spain either dehed her would-be conquerors 
 from the North, or else she absorbed them. 
 
 On the other hand, her Mediterranean coasts almost 
 invite the invader ; and she was in succession all but 
 subdued by Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors. But there 
 again, a.s Livy remarked, the extremes of climate, the barren 
 plateau in the interior, and the wonderful tena< ity of the 
 Spaniards in defending tiieir towns rendered complete
 
 6o LECTl/RES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 conquest almost impossible. The Moors, even at the height 
 of their power, never crushed the defenders of the northern 
 fastnesses, who little by little pushed back the invaders, 
 and in the process fashioned the national character to its 
 extremes of valour, bigotry, and pride. Later on, the 
 French monarchs were to experience the toughness of the 
 Spanish nature, and Henri IV summed up their enterprises 
 in the phrase : "In Spain small armies will be beaten, 
 large armies will starve." The memories of conquest of 
 the New World and of in\incibility in their own peninsula 
 stiffened the neck of the Spaniards even in the days of 
 their decline. Robert Southey, during his travels in Spain 
 in 1794-5, relates that a Spanish manufacturer who had 
 sought to introduce wheelbarrows into his works could not 
 persuade his men to use them. All kinds of vehicles were 
 meant for beasts of burden, not for Spaniards ! The 
 experience of the Italian poet, Alfieri, was the same. He 
 declared the Spaniards to be the only people of Europe 
 " possessed of sufficient energy to struggle against foreign 
 usurpation." 
 
 Such was the people whom Napoleon sought to harness 
 to his conqueror's car. In the encyclopaedic studies of his 
 youth there is a serious gap. Nowhere does he seem to 
 have studied national character. It was one of the defects 
 of eighteenth-century thought to ignore differences of race. 
 Man was considered as man ; and, though Rousseau 
 echoed some of the cautions which Montesquieu had given 
 forth as to those differences, the French Revolutionists 
 paid little heed ; and Napoleon certainly erred in assuming 
 that men would in general respond to the same appeals. 
 In his official correspondence is included one letter (dated 
 March 28, 1808) which cautions Murat against ignoring 
 the national energy of the Spaniards ; but that letter is 
 a later invention. In the genuine letters there appear no
 
 THE SPANISH NATIONAL KISING Cm 
 
 signs even of ordinarj' caution, as to the risk of proxoking 
 the Spaniards. So far as we can judge, Napoleon sliared 
 the belief, connnon in France since the days of Choiseul, 
 that they were a decadent people, negligible as a political 
 force. 
 
 This e.xtrenie confidence was, perhaps, natural after his 
 conquest of Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the caiupaigns 
 of 1805-7. England had blundered badly on land ; and 
 tlie Emperor hoped, by means of the new Russian alliance, 
 and thanks to the enforced assistance of the Spanish n;i\y, 
 to reverse the victory of Trafalgar and overthrow e\en her 
 naval power. Spain, then, he regarded as a tool in the 
 world-wide strife. Early in March, 1808, when Barcelona 
 was scarcely held down by the troops of General Duhesme, 
 the Emperor wrote to Murat : " There is no discontent 
 wliatever at Barcelona, (ieneral Duhesme is a gossip. 
 ... On the whole, the people are well disposed, and when 
 we have the citadel, we liave everything." Napoleon was 
 then at Paris. He had never been in Spain ; yet he 
 claimed to know about the Spaniards better than the 
 French generals then in that country. On April 26, while 
 at Bayonne, he wrote to Murat, at Madrid : "It is time 
 for you to show fitting energy. I expect you will not 
 spare the Madrid mob, if it stirs, and that you will lia\e it 
 disarmed innnediately." On April 29 he wrote to the Tsar 
 Alexander I : " These family (juarrels [those of Charles I\' 
 of Spain with the Heir Aj)parent, Ferdinand] cause me 
 some trouble ; but I will soon be free to arrange the great 
 affair with NOur .Majesty." (The " great affair " was the 
 partition of Turkey, in wlii< Ii tlir Spanish fieet was to be 
 serviceable.) After Murat's troops had shot down himdreds 
 of the men of Madrid in the patriotic rising of May 2, the 
 ICmpcror comjilimcnted him on his energy, and ann(»uneed 
 to him the signature of n treatv with the senile ( iiailes I\'
 
 62 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 at Bayonne, whereby the latter resigned to him (Napoleon) 
 all rights to the throne of Spain. The Estates of Spain 
 would assemble at Bayonne to take suitable measures ! 
 All the genuine letters of the time show no sign of 
 apprehension of a national rising in Spain. They are 
 those of a general who believes that he has that people by 
 the throat. Because French troops occupy Madrid, 
 Barcelona, all the chief northern fortresses, and those of 
 Portugal ; because also very many of the Spanish troops 
 are absent either in Portugal or in Holstein, he deems the 
 Spanish problem at an end. For him Spain is the royal 
 family, the Court, the grandees who form the Estates. 
 If he can bully the rightful successor, Ferdinand, into a 
 renunciation of his rights ; if he can intern in France both 
 Charles IV and Ferdinand ; if he can cajole the Spanish 
 grandees into a recognition of his own claims — then he is 
 master of Spain. 
 
 He left out of count one all-important factor — the 
 nation. So soon as the astounding news from Bayonne 
 became known, every town, every province of Spain 
 rejected his sovereignty with scorn and loathing. In vain 
 did Charles and Ferdinand advise submission to the 
 usurper ;^ in vain did the Junta, composed of the leading 
 men of Madrid, inculcate the duty of obeying the new 
 ruler ; in vain did the Holy Inquisition preach the same 
 degrading course ; in vain did responsible persons and 
 thinkers point out the madness of opposing the master of 
 the Continent. The people rejected the counsels of 
 authority, religion, experience, and reform. With an 
 impulse which was both furious and sustained, both local 
 and universal, they rushed at the French forces and re- 
 duced them suddenly to the defensive. District by district, 
 province by province, they rose separately, yet with 
 ^ Ann. Register (i8oS), p. 214.
 
 THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISINC; 63 
 
 astounding unanimity. The rising did not begin in Madrid ; 
 for the turbulent in that city had been cowed by the 
 cannon and cavalry of Murat. How the same thought or 
 instinct laid hold of the whole of Spain within a few days 
 is a mvsterv. The episode reminds us of the incalculable 
 forces which now and again have aroused the tribes of 
 Arabia or of the Soudan to united action. Indeed, the 
 Spanish Rising is a recurrence to the ways of pviniiti\c 
 man, or at least of the mediaeval levies when the faithful 
 mustered to hght the Moors. Then, as in 1808, the impulse 
 was general, yet the action was provincial. Above all, it 
 was action by the populace. In many places those who had 
 advised submission to the French were butchered without 
 mercy, and patriotic Juntas were chosen by acclamation 
 to arrange for the defence of each province. 
 
 Especiallv noteworthy was the action of that of Asturias. 
 That little province of the North-West was the first to 
 organize a Junta which took decisive action. With splendid 
 audacity that single Junta declared war against Napoleon ; 
 and those who notice the connection of tlio instinct of 
 nationalitv with tlie historic sense will remember that in 
 the long warfare against the Moors, Asturias had been the 
 last hope of Spanish freedom. Now it was to be the first 
 hope of the coming national independence. That Junta 
 took another important step. It despatched two deputies 
 t(; L(jndon to beg help from the British people. Legally, 
 Spain was at war with us, as she had been since 1804. 
 Hut Asturias recked little of legality at such a time. 
 Neither did our great statesman, Canning. Tlic warm 
 welcome accorded by our people to tlie Asturian di'puties 
 revealed to him as by a flash the change that had just come 
 over the S|>irit of the age. Hitherto (as Sheridan finely 
 said) " Honaparte had rtin a victorious race because he 
 had contended nLT'iinst ])rin(('S without dif^nity, Ministers
 
 64 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 without wisdom, and countries where the people were 
 indifferent as to liis success." Clearly, a new age had 
 dawned when a provincial Council dared to throw down the 
 gauntlet to the great Emperor. 
 
 I have failed to find in the British archives an account 
 either of Canning's interview with the two delegates or 
 of the Cabinet meeting where the decision was formed to 
 help the Spanish people. It must have been formed verj' 
 quickly ; for on June 15 Canning spoke as follows in the 
 House of Commons : " We shall proceed upon the principle 
 that any nation of Europe that starts up to oppose a 
 Power, , . . the common enemy of all nations, whatever 
 be the existing political relations of that nation, it becomes 
 instantly our essential Ally." In pursuance of this defi- 
 nitely national policy. Great Britain on July 4 ordered the 
 cessation of hostilities with Spain ; and there ensued 
 an informal but binding alliance with the Spanish 
 people. There was an inner fitness in this compact ; for 
 it bound together the only States which then were con- 
 terminous with nations. Napoleonic France had far out- 
 leaped her natural bounds. The British and Spanish 
 peoples now undertook to restrain her within just limits ; 
 and the potency of the national impulse is seen in the 
 rally of every people in Europe to their side in the 
 years 1812-14. 
 
 The Anglo-Spanish Alliance is, therefore, a turning point 
 in the long struggle against Napoleon. Up to the year 1807 
 he had embodied the genius and strength of Revolutionary 
 France ; and her strength (at once democratic and national) 
 far exceeded that of the torpid and artificial States around 
 her. But now, from motives of ambition, he went out of 
 his way to interfere with a people that only asked to be 
 left alone ; and his conduct aroused in it a hatred that 
 nothing could quench. Consequently, the national impulse,
 
 THE Sl'AM^ll NATIUXAL KLslXG 65 
 
 which had helped France to overthrow tlie moribund 
 States of Italy and Germany, now began to operate against 
 her ; and even the military genius of Napoleon could not 
 make up for the downward drag which this fatal incubus 
 entailed. No campaigns were so much detested by the 
 French suldicry as those in Spain ; and that, not so much 
 because they had to face Wellington and the Spanish 
 climate, as on account of the savage hatred which thev 
 encountered from the Spaniards then selves. The outcome 
 of that hatred will appear in the following passages, taken 
 from the first Proclamation of the Supreme Junta. After 
 recounting some successes of the Spaniards and advising 
 a war of partisans, the appeal thus refers to tlic memor\- 
 of the glorious past. 
 
 " France has never domineered over us, nor set her foot in 
 our territory. We have many times mastered lier, not by 
 deceit, l>ut by force of arms ; we ha\e made her Ivings 
 prisoners, and we have made that nation tremble ; we are 
 the same Spaniards ; and France and Europe and the world 
 shall see that we are not less gallant than the most glorious 
 of our ancestors." 
 
 The proclamatitm then states that when their lawful 
 King, Ferdinand, is restored 
 
 " the Cortes will be assembled, abuses reformed, and such 
 laws be enacted as the circumstances of the time and experi- 
 ence may dictate for the public good and haj)piness — things 
 which we Spaniards know how to do, which we have done as 
 well as other nations, without any necessity that the vile 
 French should come to instruct us ; and, according to their 
 custom, under the mask of friendship and wishes for our 
 happiness, should contrive to plunder us, to violate our 
 women, to a.ssassinatc us, to deprive us of our liberty, our 
 laws, and our King, to scoff at and destnjy our holy reli- 
 gion. . . . "' 
 
 • 11/1(1.. pp. 2lX, 2 10. 
 I
 
 66 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 That is an official document. As for the pamphlets of 
 the time, let this suffice. It is a retort to Napoleon's offer 
 of reforms, beginning with the usual formula : " Napoleon, 
 Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the 
 Confederation of the Rhine," etc. The counterblast 
 begins : — 
 
 " Yes ! Napoleon, that is Napo-dragon, ApoUyon, Ruler 
 of the Abyss, King of the monsters of Hell, heretics, and heretic 
 princes, — Abominable Beast, Protector, Head and Soul of the 
 Confederation of the Rhine, that is of the seven heads and ten 
 horns of the beast, which bear blasphemies against God and 
 the Saints. ..." 
 
 Thus religion was now invoked against the French. 
 For this the Emperor had himself to thank. As if his 
 Spanish business were not enough, he in that same spring- 
 time despoiled the Pope of four provinces. In consequence, 
 Pius VII anathematized his despoiler, and urged the 
 Spaniards to arise like David and slay Goliath. The 
 Spanish Rising therefore partook of the nature of a crusade. 
 Their armies were placed under the protection of saints, 
 and in some cases relics of saints went with them to battle, 
 thereby inflaming the Spanish nature to its utmost. 
 
 All these aids were needed ; for in a military sense Spain 
 was almost defenceless. Her regular troops were, in the 
 main, absent ; her capital and chief fortresses were held 
 by the French ; there was no one centre of union for the 
 various provinces, which soon fell to quarrelling about 
 the allocation of the money and stores sent from England. 
 Indeed, Spain was in a worse plight than France was 
 before the Battle of Valmy ; but the same potent impulse 
 nerved the defenders ; and, fortunately for the Spanish 
 patriots. Napoleon's eagerness to seize the fleet at Cadiz 
 (including the French ships that escaped from Trafalgar) 
 led him prematurely to press on a large French force
 
 THE SPANISH XATIuXAL RISING O7 
 
 towards that port. It was surrounded, overborne, and 
 compelled to surrender at Baylen (July, 180S). What 
 \'ahny had been to France, Baylen was to Spain, a proof 
 that she could overcome troops hitherto ileemed invincible. 
 
 In one respect the Spanish victory at Baylen was a 
 misfortune. It filled the Spaniards with intolerable 
 conceit. When Joseph Bonaparte and the French troops 
 fell back behind the line of the Ebro, the perfervid imagi- 
 nation of the South saw in fancy the standards of Spain 
 soaring over the Pyrenees and entering the plains of 
 Guienne. Napier relates that the Spanish officers remarked 
 to those of Sir John Moore's anny : " We are much obliged 
 to our friends, the English ; we thank them for their good 
 will ; we shall escort them through France to Calais ; 
 . . . they shall not have the trouble of fighting the French ; 
 and we shall be pleased to have them as spectators of our 
 victories."' This lofty spirit went before a terrible fall. 
 In the autumn and winter of 1808 Napoleon burst in on 
 these cackling fowl and scattered them to the winds. 
 Yet, even so, Spain was not conquered. After every defeat 
 she rose, still defiant. The defence of her walled towns, 
 especially Saragossa, was sublime ; and that defence was 
 conducted by the people themselves, no less than by the 
 military. Fifty French cannon during forty days played 
 upon its walls and massive monasteries before the eagles 
 of Napoleon floated over the ruins of the capital of Aragon. 
 
 It was both the weakness and the strength of the 
 Spaniards that their national sense was largely provincial. 
 It was their weakness because the provinces rarely worked 
 well together. The different Juntas were absurdly jealous 
 as well as greedy. Besides, owing to the occupation of 
 Madrid by the enemy, there was no possibility of dinrtion 
 from a central jxijnt. Further, the haiightv and suspicious 
 
 ' Xafjicr, I, S.,.
 
 68 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 nature of the Spaniards rendered cordial co-operation 
 with Wellington extremely difficult. Hence the Duke, 
 after Talavera, left them alone and operated from Portugal 
 as a base. Not until Napoleon's Grand Army perished 
 in Russia was there a chance of beating the French in 
 Spain. But then, in 1813, after numerous defeats had 
 rendered the natives more reasonable, all the forces of the 
 Peninsula pulled well together. The results were pheno- 
 menal, and French domination vanished in the brief 
 campaign of Vittoria. 
 
 Nevertheless, the provincial sentiment also strengthened 
 the Spanish cause ; for when one province was lost, the 
 others resisted none the less stoutly ; and the task of the 
 French in holding down a population that scorned surrender 
 increased with every success. As Marshal Jourdan wrote : 
 " The more soundly the Spanish armies were beaten, the 
 more eagerly did that people rush to arms ; the more the 
 French gained ground, the more dangerous did their 
 position become." The broken and inhospitable nature 
 of the country singularly favoured the partisan warfare 
 of the defenders, so that, provided Wellington held a large 
 French force to the West, and all the other provinces 
 persevered, the ultimate failure of the French was inevit- 
 able. Even the genius of Napoleon could not break down 
 the alliance of the Spanish national spirit with the great 
 Sea Power. Moreover, the display of this tenacious 
 vitality in a land hitherto deemed moribund created a 
 profound impression amidst every nation of the world. 
 
 Spain derived little permanent benefit from all this 
 expenditure of energy ; and the reason for this disappoint- 
 ing finale seems to be that the Spanish movement differed 
 ■in toto from that of France nineteen years before. In its 
 essence the French Revolution was a revolt of the brain 
 of France against a cramping system which she h;id long
 
 THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 69 
 
 outgrown. In 1808 it was not the brain, but the heart of 
 Spain whicli led to action ; and the action was directed 
 solely against foreign invaders or usurpers. The Spanish 
 Rising offers an example oi nationalism in its most pas- 
 sionate form. It is, on a large scale, the action of a family, 
 which seeks to expel intruders who have violated its hos- 
 pitality. In such a case we do not expect the family 
 immediately to set about the reform of its internal economy. 
 Long before the events of 1789 France (if we may pursue 
 our simile) had been outgrowing its ancestral abode, and 
 the call for reconstruction and refitting was imperative. 
 The case of Spain was utterl}' different. Therefore, to 
 reproach the Spaniards for not making so good a use as 
 the French of the opportunity offered by an outburst of 
 national zeal is manifestl}' unfair. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Spaniards did attempt to make some 
 changes, though in a somewhat hurried and one-sided way. 
 The defects of their procedure resulted from two dominant 
 facts. They had to legislate at Cadiz ; and at that city, 
 within sound of the roar of Marshal Soult's guns, deputies 
 of the unconcjuered provinces could assemble freely ; but 
 refugees from the large portions of territory held by the 
 French were accepted as representatives of those un- 
 fortunate towns and districts. Naturally, such a haphazard 
 assemblage did not evince (Qualities of prudence and good 
 sense, but rather of passion and prejudice. Naturally, too, 
 it was violently anti-Frem h ; and yet this very body, 
 almost of necessity, borrowed from France the ground- 
 w<jrk for tilt' new constitution. As the English ccmstitution 
 was too vague t<j appeal to Continental reformers, those of 
 Cadiz fell bai k upon the examplf mI by the I'ltinh ( nn- 
 stituent Assembly in 1791. They restricted the functions 
 of their future King within narrow limits ; and, copying 
 the pliraseology of the i^ight^ of .Man, tluy declared that
 
 70 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 " sovereignty resided essentially in the nation." In this 
 view of things, Ferdinand VII, when restored, would be 
 merely the tirst magistrate of the land. Further, the men 
 of Cadiz swept away Feudalism root and branch, dissolved 
 the monastic Orders, and abolished the Int|uisition. This 
 servile imitation of the French legislators of 1789-91 at 
 once produced sharp friction ; and Ferdinand, after his 
 restoration in 1814, found it easy to abrogate this imported 
 constitution. Thus the misuse of the national idea by a 
 few extremists at Cadiz, was destined to work infinite 
 harm both to Spain herself and to the cause of democracy 
 and nationality so unwisely championed. But it is only 
 fair to remember that that cause had not a fair chance 
 amidst the storms and excitements of so wholly exceptional 
 an epoch. 
 
 Despite its obvious faults, the Spanish constitution of 
 1812 aroused much enthusiasm among neighbouring 
 peoples. During the period of reaction and despair which 
 followed the downfall of Napoleon, the " Carbonari " of 
 France and Italy and the " Liberales " of Spain continued 
 to strive for the strange compromise of 1812 ; and it took 
 tangible form during a few months in Spain, Portugal, and 
 Italy at the time of the democratic risings of 1820-2. 
 Those risings failed ; for the Austrian and other auto- 
 cratic rulers (Louis XVIII among them) intervened to 
 crush them ; but the memories of popular liberty in Spain 
 during the years 181 2-3 lived on ; and, amidst the gloom 
 of the time of reaction, the Spanish constitution of those 
 years aroused fond recollections and hopes for the future. 
 Especially was this so in Naples and Sicil}', where the 
 Spanish movement of the Napoleonic time helped on that 
 which is associated with the names of Mazzini and Gari- 
 baldi. 
 
 If the Spanish movement uf 1808-1 j bears only a super-
 
 Tin-: SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 71 
 
 licial resemblance to that of revolutionary France, still 
 more did it diverge from that of Germany. W'c ha\e already 
 noticed one cause of that divergence, but others will now 
 occur to us. Napoleon imposed his supremacy on the Ger- 
 mans piecemeal and with some measure of caution. On 
 the neck of the proudest people of Europe he forced his 
 yoke with sudden and almost contemptuous insolence. 
 'Consequently, while the uprising of the Gennans was not 
 unlike the mounting of a tide over sandbanks, that of the 
 Spaniards resembled an explosion. The difference was 
 also due to diversities of national character and environ- 
 ment. The Spaniard was proud and resentful ; the German 
 of the eighteenth century was torpid and diffident. During 
 four centuries the Spaniards had formed a nation. The 
 average Teuton could neither remember nor imagine a 
 time when all his people were united. The political 
 helplessness of Germany led her sons to a humorous 
 depreciation — witness these lines of Goethe's Faust, when 
 the boon companions in Auerbach's cellar troll the catch : — 
 
 " The Holy Roman Empire now, 
 How holds it together ? " 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " Thank God, every morn, 
 To rule the Roman Empire, that you were not bom. 
 I bless my stars at least that mine is not 
 Either a Kaiser's or a Chancellor's lot. " 
 
 No Spaniard would ever have sung those lines about the 
 compact and glorious kingdom which had conquered, and 
 still ruled over, the greater part of the New World. Nature, 
 which had made the Spaniards a nation, seemed, until the 
 year 1812, to doom the (iermans to division and helpless- 
 ness. During the winter of 1807-8 Prussia's boldest son, 
 richte, did not counsel revolt, only a system of national
 
 72 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 education with a view to some eventual revolt. The 
 German movement therefore was no flash of passion, but 
 rather the growth of an intellectual and moral conviction 
 that Germany must some day form a nation. In the spread 
 of that belief, which became contagious when Napoleon's 
 Grand Army reeled back frostbitten from Russia, lie the 
 unique interest and the exceptional fruitfulness of the 
 German movement. Heralded by a poet and a philosopher, 
 it uplifted the people and bore them to a higher plane of 
 existence. The national policy of the years 1808-13 began 
 by improving and inspiring the individual ; it ended by 
 making an intelligent and valiant nation. 
 
 The blaze of wrath which flashed forth in Spain in 1808 
 could not mature her national life. That life was scorched, 
 not ripened. No literary work of any note was forth- 
 coming ; and, apart from the abolition of Feudalism, no 
 lasting reforms resulted from the sudden and premature 
 efforts of that time. For lack of preparation or wise 
 guidance the national movement at Cadiz and Madrid 
 went astray, and ended in political reaction. The case of 
 Spain, therefore, proves that an appeal to the past, and to 
 a pride rooted in that past, may incite a people to great 
 exertions ; but, whatever their military results, they will 
 have no effect on its development, and may drag it back- 
 wards. In short, nationality in its crudest form is merely 
 an appeal to the emotions or passions and may arrest the 
 progress of a people that indulges them. Under wise and 
 strict control, as in the Germany of those years, it may 
 further the cause of progress. In the case of revolutionary 
 France, and still more of Spain, nationality was a narrowing 
 influence, begetting intolerance towards neighbours and 
 promoting the interests of despotism at home. 
 
 These, I think, are the conclusions to be drawn from a 
 survey of the Spanish movement in its wider issues. But
 
 TH1-: SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 
 
 7i 
 
 now let us consider it, tinally, in its bearing on the Napo- 
 leonic Wars. In that respect its importance can scarcely 
 be overrated. Tlie spectacle of a nation challenging to 
 mortal conflict a powerful enemy that occupied her chief 
 cities and had hlched away her King stirred the blood of 
 all nations, as does the sight of gallant little Serbia holding 
 up against two military Empires on the North and her 
 perfidious neighbour on the East.^ Moreover, the success 
 of the Spanish efforts in the summer of 1808 at Baylen and 
 Saragossa roused an excitement unequalled in that genera- 
 tion. The spell of invincibility that had long protected 
 the French and bewildered their foes was broken, and 
 forlorn peoples caught a gleam of hope. Germany, then 
 writhing under the heel of Napoleon, ceased to despair. 
 In October, 1808, the writer, \'arnhagen von Ense, visiting 
 his confrere, Jean Paul Richter, heard him say that he 
 never doubted that the Germans would one day rise 
 against the French as the Spaniards had done. " The 
 Spaniards were the refrain to everything, and we always 
 returned to them." The statesman. Stein, actually pre- 
 pared for a popular rising in Prussia like that of Spain, 
 and when found out was dri\en from olfice and from 
 Prussia by the order of Napoleon. Austria, whose subjects 
 had fought against the French Iropelessly and nervelessly, 
 early in 1809 made a really national effort. In Ai)ril the 
 Archduke Charles issued this stirring appeal : " The liberty 
 of Europe has taken refuge under your banners. Your 
 victories will loose its fetters, and your brothers in 
 (iermany, yet in the ranks (jf the enemy, long for tin ir 
 deliverance." 
 
 '1 1k-s<' hopfs and asjiir;itioiis were ilirec tly tiir oiidoiin' 
 of the Spanish Rising. It is true Ili.it iicilhcr Spain nor 
 Austria succeeded in those years. The Siumiards displayed 
 ' Tlicsc wonlb were spoken early in November, 1915.
 
 74 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 no skill in organization and proved to be very exasperating 
 allies. The Austrian Government and its generals behaved 
 with their usual want of energy and enterprise. In both 
 lands the spirit of the people far excelled the conduct of 
 Governments and generals. But such a symptom bodes ill 
 for the enemy. For ultimately the energy and determina- 
 tion of the people will find leaders to give full effect to its 
 resolves; and that happened in 1813-5. By that time the 
 new national feelings of Spain and Germany were incarnated 
 in formidable armies led by the ablest of their generals. 
 
 During the four intervening years, generally marked by 
 defeat, the fortitude of all patriots was tried to the utter- 
 most. It may be well to recall the feelings of those dark 
 days when the Napoleonic supremacy seemed irresistible^ 
 In May, 1809, the Quarterly Review thus described the 
 situation : — 
 
 " A more tremendous system never appeared for the 
 desolation and subjection of the world. Every country was 
 to be compelled in succession to furnish men for the plunder 
 and conquest of others. If any one nation presumed to be 
 dissatisfied, the population of another was to be driven to 
 arms to oppress it. . . . Napoleon's vast designs have been 
 executed with the most lavish profusion of human blood. 
 He cares neither for distance, famine, nor disease. ... It is 
 indifferent to him how many thousands of his troops drop 
 from mere fatigue and want. It is suificient that enough 
 reach the point of action to accomplish his purposes. If he 
 disperses the enemy, he gains a new extent of population to 
 drive into his ranks, and to make the instruments, however 
 unwilling, of new depredations. Being consumed so fast, 
 there is no time for mutiny and little demand for pay. For a 
 certain time, therefore, this terrible engine of war acts in his 
 favour with dreadful energy, though it is one which may 
 ultimately recoil upon himself." 
 
 Five weary years were to elapse before the spirit of 
 nationality was completely embattled. Then it overthrew
 
 THK SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 75 
 
 tlie great Emperor. In that time of awakening the people 
 of Spain hokl a foremost place ; fur they dared to beard 
 the conqueror in his prime. Before they knew that England 
 wuuld help them they challenged the master of the Conti- 
 nent. Thus, once again, Europe showed the diversity of 
 racial impulses that go to make up its life. The balance 
 of that life lias been in succession restored by races as far 
 removed, as widely dissimilar, as the Franks, Dutch, 
 English, Swedes, Poles, Spaniards, and Russians. The 
 motives prompting these efforts were very different. 
 Byron thus outlined the Spanish Rising : " Pride points 
 the way to Liberty." That is true. The proud and 
 passionate resentment of the Spaniards Ictl the more 
 phlegmatic peoples of the North into the crusade that 
 finally overthrew the might of Napoleon. So long as 
 the British and Spaniards held firmly together, he could 
 not conquer Europe ; for it is of the very nature of World- 
 Policy that, sooner or later, it }novokes world-wide re- 
 sistance. All honour to the two nations that first dared 
 to offer an unbending resistance.
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 
 
 " Every people has its special mission, whicli will co-operate 
 towards the fulfilment of the general mission of Humanity. That 
 mission constitutes its nationality. Nationality is sacred." — 
 Mazzini, 1834. 
 
 Our previous studies have, I tliink, pointed to the con- 
 clusion, that no popular movement has led to results of 
 lasting importance, unless it proceeded from some forma- 
 tive thought. If it be true, as Carlyle says, that the end 
 of man is action, not thought, it is equally true that the 
 beginning of all action is a thought ; and the usefulness 
 of the action corresponds to the correctness of the thought. 
 Only where the thinkers have led the masses, and led them 
 aright, has the resulting movement been well sustained 
 and healthful in its effects. Where, as in the case of the 
 Spanish Rising of 1808, the impulse has been that of out- 
 raged pride and dignity, unconnected with the deeper 
 convictions of the mind, little has come of it. An ex- 
 plosion of terrific force took place, but thereafter every- 
 thing tended to settle down in nearly the same condition 
 as before. That is nationality in its elemental form, an 
 almost blind impulse, which cannot lead to continued 
 progress, and may even retard progress. 
 
 But now we turn to a land where the popular impulse 
 found wise and inspiring leaders. A cynic once called 
 the Italian national movement " the poetry of politics." 
 
 76
 
 MAZZIM AM) \\)INC. ITALY 77 
 
 The taunt veiled a tnitli ; for tliat inovement initiated 
 not only tiic poetry but the philosophy of modern politics. 
 Nearly all movements start as a protest against a wrong ; 
 and the Italian movement is ni) exception to the rule. The 
 people of the Peninsula struggleil against the barriers im- 
 posed on them by the Treaties of Vienna of 1814-5, which 
 divided and enslaved them. A consciousness of their one- 
 ness had grown among them during the Napoleonic regime, 
 when unity of administration and comradesliip in arms 
 evoked a sense of manliness and citizenshiix As Mrs. 
 Browning phrased it : — 
 
 " Children use the fist, until they arc of age 
 To use the brain, . . . 
 And so we needed Caisars to assist 
 Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain 
 God's counsel." 
 
 In 1S15 came the cruel awakening. On a neck straighten- 
 ing with national pride there now fell the yoke of two 
 kings, a Pope, four dukes, and, worst of all, the military 
 despotism of Austria in the North and North-East. It 
 was in vain that Italians resisted. Austria, encamped in 
 her Quadrilateral, and strengthened by her Italian satraps, 
 defied all the puny efforts of the subject race. In vain 
 did the Carbonari strike down a general here, a police 
 officer there, they could not drive out tlie white coats of 
 .\ustria. .\11 the tyrants made conunon cause ; and, if 
 one of them were in danger, the Hapsburgs sent down their 
 legions to restore " order." As the mandatory of tiic 
 Holy Alliance, Austria repressed not only every movement 
 f»f the people but every i)roposal of an Italian ruler to 
 admit them to the least share in the government. She 
 would neither reform herself nor let any Italian State reform 
 itself, for fear that lu 1 rule might seem the inon- ("lions by
 
 78 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 the contrast. ' In fact, the House of Hapsbnrg now became 
 the chief barrier to national aspirations in Europe ; and 
 its Chancellor, Metternich, occupied the position formerly 
 occupied by Napoleon as the deadliest enemy of nationality. 
 The Hapsburgs held down their Magyar and Slavonic sub- 
 jects ; they barred the way to an effective union of the 
 German States ; above all, they played the watch-dog to 
 the sheepfolds in which the Italians were penned up. 
 Austria strove to stifle thought in her dominions, as 
 appeared in the injunction of the Emperor Francis to the 
 professors of the L^niversity of Pavia ; " Your duty is less 
 to make learned men than faithful subjects." Conse- 
 quently, every Italian patriot longed to drive the Austrians 
 beyond the Alps. On this topic there was practical 
 unanimity. On all else there were grave differences. 
 
 Putting aside smaller groups, we may single out from 
 the patriots three parties : (i) Those who desired the 
 supremacy of the Pope ; (2) those who championed the 
 cause of the House of Savoy ; (3) Republicans who desired 
 the end both of monarchy and of the Temporal Power of 
 the Popes, in order to frame an Italian Republic. 
 
 The first party pointed to the services which the Popes 
 had often rendered to the Italian cause, e.g. to the Holy 
 League which Julius II formed in 1510 for the expulsion 
 of the foreigners from Italy. Naturally enough, they left 
 out of count the occasions when the Papacy had sided 
 with foreigners against the Italian cause ; and the armed 
 support which was consistently claimed from Austria by 
 Gregory XVI during his pontificate (1831-46), alienated 
 the respect of all patriots. Nevertheless, the mystical 
 devotion of a priest, Gioberti, pointed to the Papacy as the 
 rallying point for Italians. This was the theme of his book, 
 The Moral and Civil Supremacy of the Ilalians (1843), a 
 
 1 Farini, The Roman State, I, ch. I.
 
 MAZZINI AND Y()rN(; ITALY 79 
 
 work which made a deep impression and contributed 
 largely towards the election of a reforming Pope, Pius IX, 
 in 1846. 
 
 The second party had its headquarters at Turin, and 
 refused to admit a Papal hegemony. Even after the advent 
 of a popular and reforming pontiff, they held to the belief 
 that the House of Savoy alone could bring union or 
 complete unity to the Peninsula. They pointed to the 
 deep-seated abuses of clerical government in the Papal 
 States, where only ten per cent of the people could read ; 
 also to the fact that those States, stretching from the 
 Adriatic to the Tyrrhene Sea, cut off the North from the 
 South of Italy, and barred the way to political union. 
 Finally, they claimed that their royal house, traditionally 
 brave and patriotic, was tlic natural champion of Italy 
 against Austria, and therefore the only hope of freedonr 
 and independence. The monarchists of Piedmont did not 
 at first openly aim at national unity ; for such an avowal 
 would have e.xposed the House of Savoy to the charge of 
 mere ambition. Ostensibly, then, their aim was to federalize 
 Italy under the a;gis of that dynasty ; but the bolder spirits, 
 headed by Cavour, always kept unity before them as the 
 goal. Such a consummation was anathema to Gioberti 
 and the neo-Guelfs. Looking to the Pope as head of a 
 future Italian federation, they perforce rejected the idea of 
 Italian unity. Nationalism, however, was the very breath 
 of life to a third party, the Mazzinians, or Young Italy. 
 
 Joseph Mazzini, born at Genoa in 1803, matured his 
 precocious intelligence in the decades following Waterloo, 
 when Italy under\vent the torture of division antl servitude. 
 Endowed with a highly sensitive natun', he hated the 
 kings and dukes who divided and held down his people. 
 As he wrote in i8ji : " There is nf»t one of tlitsc princes 
 wlio has not signed a compact uith Austria in the Mwod of
 
 8o LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 his subjects ; not one whose past Hfe is not a violent and 
 insurmountable barrier between him and the future of his 
 people." As for Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, his 
 timidity and vacillation finally brought him into the 
 position of a renegade to the patriotic cause ; and the 
 young enthusiast even connived at an attempt at his 
 assassination. A theist by conviction, Mazzini detested 
 the Papacy on religious no less than political grounds. 
 Further, the failure of the " moderates " in 1831, and their 
 cowardly abandonment by Louis Philippe, filled him with 
 contempt for constitutional monarchy and all political 
 compromises. Accordingly, during his time of exile at 
 Marseilles in the autumn of that year, he matured the 
 republican organization known as Young Italy. 
 
 The name indicates its character. Despairing of the 
 men of advanced years, who were nearly all " moderates " ; 
 despairing, too, of all help from France and England, 
 where dull moderation sat enthroned, Mazzini appealed 
 in burning words to the youth of Italy to raise the red, 
 white, and green flag for the Republic and for national 
 unity. In the first document of the Association he ex- 
 plained what he meant by a nation and also the Italian 
 nation : " By the nation we understand the totality of 
 Italians bound together by a common pact and governed 
 by the same laws." This definition marks a great advance 
 on that of Fichte and all previous thinkers. The only 
 objection to it is the emphasis which it lays on Rousseau's 
 idea of a common pact, which is certainly not essential 
 to the forming of a nation. 
 
 Equally significant are the boundaries of the future 
 Italian State. They will be from the River Var, in Nice, 
 to Trieste on the North-East, and will comprise the Tren- 
 tino ; also " the islands proved Italian by the language 
 of the inhabitants." This description would include
 
 MAZZINI AND YOING ITALY 8i 
 
 Corsica and several islands of the Adriatic ; but it is 
 worthy of note that Mazzini did not claim for Italy the 
 Dalmatian coast-line, which he knew to be Slavonic, not 
 Italian. Though there is a veneer of Italian culture in some 
 of the towns on the coast, yet the great body of the popula- 
 tion is Slavonic, closely akin to the Serbs, or, in the North, 
 to the Croats. It is, therefore, certain that Mazzini, if he 
 were now alive, would heartily approve of Italy attacking 
 Austria in order to recover the Trentino and Trieste ; but 
 he would disapprove of those eager patriots who hanker 
 after the Dalmatian coast because it once belonged to 
 ^'enice. In his eyes the historic argument weighs light 
 as against the instincts of the people concerned. We 
 can imagine his scorn at the argument that Italy nmst have 
 Dalmatia because she has no good harbour in the Adriatic. 
 He decides the question on the ground of nationalit\-, nut 
 on the naval considerations which have so often worked 
 mischief. He claims for Italy only those islands where 
 the inhabitants are Italian. Thus his nationalism is 
 thoroughly fair as between Itnlians and Slavs. He leaves 
 the Slavonic islands and all the lands East of the Adriatic 
 to the Slavs ; and, if the Italians are wise enough to recog- 
 nize that those islands and all the Dahiiatian coast arc 
 properly Slavonic, not Italian, Europe will avoid complica- 
 tions that may in the future lead to war. 
 
 Mazzini then explained that Italy ought to be a Repub- 
 lic, because there were no truly monarchical elements in the 
 Peninsula, and her best epochs were those of republican rule 
 I-iirther, an Italian monarchy would be reduced to bargain 
 with and imitate other Courts ; whereas Mazzini iletested 
 compromise with and imitation of foreigners, as certain 
 to weaken and degrade Italy's mission to mankind. His 
 soaring idealism also rejected both the fi-deral s< ju'ines and 
 insisted on unity as the aim of It;ili,ni strivings. The Poj.e
 
 82 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 in the centre, the two kings at the extremities, the Aus- 
 trians in the North-East and their four ducal satraps — all 
 must go, because they hindered that absolutely free inter- 
 course of the people which was essential to the full develop- 
 ment of the Italian Family. To divide it up under eight 
 different governments would be equivalent to tying the 
 body-politic with so many ligaments fatal to the free circu- 
 lation of the blood. 
 
 Mazzini had boundless faith in human nature and its 
 lofty destinies. In his view the life of the human race 
 was essentially one. True, there were great differences 
 between this and that race. He never held Fichte's early 
 opinion, that all the nations were alike, and followed the 
 same aims. He regarded them as members of the great 
 human family, not rivals engaged in ceaseless com- 
 petition and strife. He also hoped that, if the members 
 were allowed free play, they would come to see their true 
 interests towards each other and to the family of which they 
 formed a part. But, said he, they could not see this truth 
 if they led a cramped and artificial existence. Therefore, 
 Italy must attain to her free life, not for any selfish pur- 
 pose ; certainly not in order to invade and despoil her 
 neighbours, but rather that she may minister to their 
 welfare. She will gain unity for the purpose of carrying 
 out her mission to other nations. 
 
 As to the nature of that mission Mazzini nowhere gave 
 a definite answer. In the programme of Young Italy he 
 pointed out that Europe was undergoing a series of changes 
 destined to transform European Society into large and 
 compact masses. The large States, or federations of 
 States, were absorbing small States ; large towns were 
 growing at the expense of small towns or villages : the 
 big factory was superseding the small w^orkshop and 
 cottage industries. What would be the upshot of it all ?
 
 MAZZixi Axn ynrxG itai.y 83 
 
 Would the new agglomerations be peaceful or aggressive, 
 healthy or noxious? That was an urgent question, and 
 it still is. How Italy could lu'lp to solve these political and 
 social problems Mazzini does not explain. Later on, he felt 
 his way towards a partial answer. Meanwhile he insisted 
 on Italy gaining an unfettered existence. This he defined 
 as follows : '" Without unit}' of religious belief and unity 
 of social pact ; without unity of civil, political, and penal 
 legislation, there is no true nation." 
 
 The ideal is lofty. Unity of religious belief is hard to 
 attain and keep in the modern world ; and it is strange 
 that one who had broken away from the Roman Catholic 
 Church should postulate it as essential. Again, legal 
 unity is desirable, but scarcely attainable without doing 
 violence to local customs. Mazzini's requirements would 
 also rule out Switzerland froiu the list of nations. Yet, 
 as we have seen, the Swiss form a nation. His aim, doubt- 
 less, was to hold up a lofty ideal which should inspire 
 Piedmontese, Venetians, Tuscans, Romans, and Nea- 
 politans with a passion for self-sacrifice. Nothing short of 
 utter self-sacrifice could nerve them to the colossal task 
 of breaking their eight prison-houses and forming a national 
 home. What a task ! To expel Austria, to destroy the 
 Temporal Power of the Papacy, and to dethrone six Italian 
 sovereigns. What wonder that he pitched his aims high ! 
 The fault of all his predecessors lay in their proneness to 
 bargain and compromise— tactics wliicli gained some out- 
 side help but stifled the enthusiasm of Italia's sons. Maz- 
 zini sought to arouse that enthusiasm. It throbs in every 
 sentence of the oath whi( h N'oung lt;il\' im|)osed at 
 initiation : — ■ 
 
 " In the name of (iod an<l <.l ll;il\-. In ilic name of all the 
 martyrs of the holy Italian cause who lia\e fallen beneath 
 foreign and domestic tyranny. . . . I'y ilie l<i\e J bear to
 
 84 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 the country that gave my mother birth, and will be the home 
 of my children. . . . By the blush that rises to my brow when 
 I stand before the citizens of other lands, to know that I have 
 no rights of citizenship, no country, and no national Hag. 
 By the memory of our former greatness, and the sense of our 
 present degradation. By the tears of Italian mothers for their 
 sons dead on the scaffold, in prison, or in exile. By the 
 sufferings of the millions — I swear to dedicate myself wholly 
 and for ever to strive to constitute Italy one free, independent, 
 republican nation." 
 
 Such was the enterprise undertaken by a group of penni- 
 less Itahan exiles at Marseilles in the autumn of 1831. 
 They aimed at arousing Italians, whether in Italy or South 
 America, ^ to a sense of duty to the nation ; and out of their 
 slender means they started a journal. Young Italy. When 
 expelled from France by Louis Philippe's Government, 
 they sought refuge in Switzerland ; and a few of them 
 attempted a raid into Piedmont which completely failed. 
 In fact, most of their undertakings were so ill-timed and 
 imprudent, as to lead to a useless effusion of blood. But 
 nothing could long daunt Mazzini. Whether hunted about 
 Switzerland, or vegetating in distress among Itahan organ- 
 grinders in Hatton Garden, he (with the exception of some 
 dark hours of doubt and despair) maintained a firm resolve 
 to persevere in his quest. 
 
 This fixed determination was fed from diverse sources. 
 His nature, though intensely nervous and far from strong, 
 was singularly buoyant. It rallied soon, even after trials 
 and reverses that depressed men of sounder physique. 
 His mind, too, possessed that sharp edge, that rigid grip, 
 which fortified him against disappointment. Under soft 
 and almost feminine features there worked a powerful 
 brain, a steel-like will. Moreover, his personality brought 
 
 ^ In Uruguay, Joseph Garibaldi (born at Nice in 1807) was won 
 back for the Italians by Mazzini 's propaganda.
 
 MAZZIM AM) VOLNG ITALY S5 
 
 him troops of friends. His conversation charmed and 
 dehghted all who came near him. Men so diverse in 
 character as Carl vie, George Meredith, and Joseph Cowen 
 of Newcastle, acknowledged the spell of his presence. 
 Meredith, in Viitoriii, speaks ecstatically of his " large, 
 soft, dark, nieditative eyes." which drew in the soul of the 
 observer into the midst of a " capacious and vigorous 
 mind " ; of his smile which " came softly as a cur\e in 
 water," which " seemed to flow with and to pass in and 
 out of his thoughts, to be a part of his emotion and his 
 meaning when it shone transiently full. For, as he had 
 an orbed mind, so he had an orbed nature." Mrs. Hamilton 
 King, in that inspired poem, The Disciples, tells enthusiasti- 
 cally how 
 
 " the orb of that great human soul 
 Did once deflect and draw this orb of mine 
 Until it touched and trembled on the hnc 
 By whicli my orbit crossed tlic plane of his." 
 
 And Swinburne, in .1 Sow^ of Italy, hails him as the 
 first of her liberators. He hjmns the Italians as : 
 
 " Thy children, cv'n thy people thou hast made, 
 Tliine, with Ihy words arrayed. 
 Clothed with thy thoughts, and girt with thy desires, 
 Yearn up towards thee like lires." 
 
 Not that Mazzini was devoid of faults of character. They 
 were the excess of his (lualities, but some of theiit were 
 serious. His convictions were so intense as to blind him 
 often to the good advice of others. Hence he was often 
 intolerant towards tlujse who differed from him. lint 
 these defects belong rather to Mazzini, tlir man of action, 
 than to Mazzini, the thinker ; and we are concerntMl solely 
 with his political Ihouglil, not witli liis many alioiti\f 
 conspiracies or even with his highest ai hievement , Hk 
 administration (jf the Roman k<'pul)li< ol i.S4(^.
 
 86 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 In this sphere of thought he had one great advantage 
 over his German predecessors. They were so obsessed by 
 the idea of the State as to work their way tardily and 
 doubtfully to the idea of the nation. This was natural. 
 In modern Germany the Prussian State overshadowed 
 everything else ; and under it the German nation loomed 
 nebulous. Therefore, the German thinkers on nationality 
 (except during the ill-starred democratic efforts of 1848-9) 
 tended to Prussianize their notions and often became hide- 
 bound bureaucrats. Not so with the Italians. They were 
 not overshadowed by the Sardinian State ; and they de- 
 tested every other State of the Peninsula. Consequently, 
 the political thought of Italy was free from the distracting 
 influence of the State idea. The Italian thinkers, including 
 Balbo, Cavour, Mamiani, and Gioberti, saw the nation 
 clearly ; and for them the State was merely the concrete 
 embodiment of the national idea. In Germany the national 
 idea was Prussianized, to its infinite harm. The Italian 
 idea was never in danger of being Sardinianized ; though 
 Mazzini, amidst the disappointments of old age, declared 
 that to have been its fate. 
 
 During his manhood, Mazzini not only saw clearly, but 
 believed absolutely in, the nation. The story of Italy's 
 past as well as her natural tendencies to unity combined 
 to nurture in him a profound belief in her future. In 
 common with all thinkers who have exercised a lasting 
 influence on their fellows, he was pre-eminently a man of 
 faith ; and his creed for Italy aroused a unique fervour, 
 because it formed part of a far wider creed — the Gospel of 
 Humanity. Nowhere does he describe the creed in set 
 terms. No prophet ever does. But we catch a glimpse of 
 his meaning in these words : — 
 
 " When in my earhest years I believed that the initiative 
 of the third life of Europe would spring from the heart, the
 
 MAZZIXI AND YOUNG ITALY Sy 
 
 action, the enthusiasm, and the sacrifices of our people, 1 
 heard within me the grand voice of Rome sounding once 
 again ; its utterances treasured up and accepted with loving 
 reverence by the peoples, and telhng of moral unity and 
 fraternity in a faith common to all Humanity. ... I saw 
 Rome in the name of God and a republican Italy substituting 
 a Declaration of Principles for the sterile Declaration of 
 Rights ; . . . and I saw Europe, weary of scepticism, egotism, 
 and anarchy, accept the new faith with acclamations." 
 
 The Genoese republican here speaks almost with the 
 tongue of the old monarchist of Florence. This neo- 
 Roman creed is a modern version of the Dc MoiKirchid of 
 Dante. Rome (not the ci>ty of the Popes but the centre 
 of a world-republic) calls the peoples about her to listen 
 to the voice of faith and authorit3^ faith in the perfectibility 
 of man, authority inherent in the genius of the eternal 
 City. A dream, you will say. Well ! a glorious dream. 
 It inspired Mazzini to struggle on through a life full of 
 disaster, until, as he breathed his last at Pisa in 1872, his 
 ideals lay shattered by collision with coarse reality. That 
 faith must have been intense which impelled him forward, 
 ami w hich, working through him, impelled many thousands 
 of Italians to endure prison, exile, torture, and execution 
 for the cause. An intense faith like his evades mere 
 analysis. Cold criticism misses the soul of it. If we ask 
 — What do you mean by your neo-Romanism ? — \vc 
 receive an inadequate answer. The disciple may reply — 
 Rome has twice given laws to the world, once through the 
 matchless organization of the old ILnipire, and again 
 through tin- decrees of the Church ; therefore she is 
 destined a third time to initiate an eia for mankind. 
 " Not proven," the logician will say. " Contrary to the 
 tendencies of Vatican policy," the historian will say. 
 Mazzini and his disciples ignored both objectors. The 
 eye of faith saw Rome rid herself of N'aticunism and w ilh
 
 Sa LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 magical power gather Italians about her in order to revivify 
 the life of all peoples. 
 
 The conception was not wholly visionary. Mazzini was 
 convinced that French democrats at the time of the 
 great Revolution had gone utterly astray. That is the 
 meaning of his phrase, " the sterile Declaration of Rights," 
 a reference to the Declaration of the Rights of Man drawn 
 up by the Constituent Assembly in August-September, 
 1789. In its place Rome, the true birth-place of law, was 
 to sound forth a Declaration of the Duties of Man. 
 
 This is the bed-rock of Mazzinian doctrine. Let us test 
 it. He declares the French Rights of Man to be sterile ; 
 and elsewhere he terms that programme false, hurtful, the 
 mother of selfishness and strife. Thus, in Faith and the 
 Future (1835) • — ■ 
 
 " Right! is the faith of the individual. Duty is the common 
 collective faith. Right can but organize resistance ; it may 
 destroy, it cannot found. Duty builds up, associates, and 
 unites ; it is derived from a general law, whereas Right is 
 derived onl}^ from human will. There is nothing, therefore, 
 to forbid a struggle against Right. Any individual may rebel 
 against any Right of another individual which is injurious 
 to him ; and the sole judge between the adversaries is force ; 
 and such, in fact, has frequently been the answer which 
 societies based upon Right have given to their opponents. 
 Societies based upon Duty would not be compelled to have 
 recourse to force. Duty, once admitted as the rule, excludes 
 the possibility of struggle, and by rendering the individual 
 subject to the general aim, it cuts at the very root of those 
 evils which Right is unable to prevent. . . . The doctrine 
 of Rights puts an end to sacrifice and cancels martyrdom from 
 the world." 
 
 Such is the moral elevation of this teaching that we are 
 apt at first to overlook its good sense. But students of the 
 
 ■• Mazzini in this passage uses the term " liight " as equivalent 
 to " The theory of individual Rights."
 
 MAZZIM AM) VorNC. ITALY Sq 
 
 French Revolution, who look beneath the surface of 
 events, will realize tiie truth of Mazzini's criticism. The 
 fact that the reformers of 1789 laid stress only upon the 
 Rights of Man produced at once the wrong kind of impres- 
 sion both on the deputies and the people at large. They 
 were led to regard politics as a struggle in which you seize 
 what you can for your class and yourself. In the course 
 of such a struggle the rights of others are disregarded ; they 
 resist ; and the only method of deciding the issue is in the 
 last resort by tumult or by ci\il war. To emphasize the 
 rights of the individual in the sunmier of 17S9, when the 
 old order was vanishing amid the flare of burning castles, 
 was the very worst training for the young French 
 democracy ; for it accentuated the egotism of the time, 
 which needed to be kept under restraint. In the absence 
 of the old authorit}-, the only method of preserving order 
 was a sense of civic duty, which would prescribe first and 
 foremost a feeling of regard for the common weal, a con- 
 viction that the new democratic system nmst be based on 
 the loyalty and self-restraint of the masses. Some deputies 
 (e.g. the Abbe Gregoire and Camus) realized this all-im- 
 portant truth. Mounier's connnittee on the constitution 
 proposed an article (coming just after the definition of 
 Rights) which thus defined duty: " The duty of everyone 
 consists in respecting the rights of others." But the 
 Assembly struck out this article and also another phrase 
 binding them to prescribe tlir Duties ul Man. A motion 
 of Canms to that effect was defeated on August 4 by 570 
 votes to 4JJ. One mendx'r went so far as to say that the 
 fluties of man spring naturally from his rights- -a disastrous 
 blunder, whi< h was to cost l-'rani c dear.' Its result was 
 s«»ii in the rampiint indi\idiialisiii ol (lie lollowing UKtntlis, 
 when politics degenerated into a game of grab and the 
 
 ' JJiil. patlctncntairc dc la Jiiv. Jrauiaiic, II, 177, m-i.
 
 90 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Revolution into a tug - of - war between hostile parties. 
 The tendencies towards anarchy were quickened ; and 
 seeing that anarchy leads, sooner or later, to a military 
 despotism, Mazzini scarcely exaggerated when he summed 
 up the dynamics of the time in this suggestive formula : 
 " The French Revolution, having begun with a Declara- 
 tion of the Rights of Man, could end only in a man. Napo- 
 leon." 
 
 The French Revolution, running in this vicious circle, 
 fatally prejudiced the success of the democratic experi- 
 ment. Mazzini maintained that it merely closed an old 
 era, the era of individuahsm, and did not initiate the new 
 era, the era of collective energies inspired by duty. This, 
 then, was to be the mission of Italy. Looking back over 
 her annals, blood-stained but ennobled by the unceasing 
 self-sacrifice of her best sons, he believed that so much 
 suffering must lead to a noble consummation. Community 
 in suffering had weakened the old local feelings : the glory 
 of dying for la patria had aroused generous feelings which 
 would banish political egotism. Italy, therefore, was the 
 chosen land of the future ; and from Rome would sound 
 forth the gospel of duty which Paris had stifled. This is 
 the essence of Mazzini's faith — no blind instinct, but a 
 belief based on knowledge of the past. France had lost 
 her opportunity. England was a land of timid com- 
 promise. From Italy, when fully aroused, would come the 
 life-giving message, that all the peoples were bound to- 
 gether by the sacred tie of duty towards Humanity. 
 
 Mazzini believed that this inspiring ideal would widen 
 the outlook of Italian patriots. They must be true patriots 
 in order to deaden petty local jealousies. But they would 
 not cast the slough of provincialism in order to encase 
 themselves in the mail of patriotism. The idea of duty 
 must reign in the national sphere. The Italian Republic
 
 MAZZIM AND YOUNT. ITALY 91 
 
 of the future must consult, not its own interests primaril}', 
 but those of all nations, an ideal which would finally sterilize 
 national rivalries. Or, as he developed the theme in his 
 Didics of Mil n (1858), family duty saves a man from being 
 hide-bound in egotism ; the national idea ought to exorcize 
 merely family or clan selhshness ; while duty to mankind 
 will raise national patriotism on to that higher level where 
 wars of aggrandisement become impossible. As he pithily 
 phrased it : " You are men before you are citizens or 
 fat hers."' 
 
 On the other hand, he reminded those who sneered at 
 patriotism, and put their trust only in cosmopolitanism, 
 that theirs was a futile creed. How can 3'ou attain to the 
 vague and vast ideal of Humanity unless you have midway 
 some intemiediate form of association ? How can in- 
 dividuals, as mere units, move the world ? Of course, the 
 thing is impossible save to a handful of idealists. The 
 niasscs must have something tangible to work on. To take 
 a parallel case. The nation can effectively exist only where 
 men are hrst banded together in towns and counties. Be- 
 cause narrow-minded peoj)le cannot see beyond their town 
 or county, you do not therefore abolish the organization 
 of the town or county. You retain that organization and 
 seek to widen their outlook, so that tlie Yorkshireman or 
 the Devonshireman may attain to the nobler pride of being 
 an Englishman. During long ages tribe fought with tribe, 
 county with county, then Scots with Knglish. Bui Ihc 
 tendency, though painfully slow, is sure, which endows 
 men with the wider vision; and then these local strifes of 
 Irish and linglish, \'enetians and Genoese, Lombards and 
 Tuscans, seem absurd. They die of themselves because men 
 have gained th<- bnjadcr \iew, and use these local senti- 
 ments as means of attaining to a higher Ie\el than would 
 
 ' Mazzini, Duties nj Man (I:.VLTyinau edit. J, ch. 5.
 
 92 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 be possible if they sought to reach it by a single bound. 
 The cosmopolitan, who sneers at his country and raves 
 about Humanity, is like a man who disdains the use of 
 stairs and seeks to leap to the first floor. Such efforts 
 have always failed. To ignore the tremendous force of 
 nationality, and grasp at a vague cosmopolitanism by 
 means of groups and unions, is to bridge the torrent by 
 gossamer, as recent events have shown. No ! The true 
 line of advance is, not to sneer at nationality and decry 
 patriotism, but to try to utilize those elemental forces by 
 imparting to them a true aim, instead of the false aim 
 which has deluged Europe with blood. 
 
 No part of Mazzini's teaching is sounder than that which 
 deals with the necessity of recognizing the patriotic in- 
 stinct as fundamental to human nature, and also of edu- 
 cating and directing it to nobler ends than those to which 
 it has so often been perverted. To the Italian working- 
 men, some of whom were running after cosmopolitan 
 will-o'-the-wisps, he gave this wise advice : " Do not be 
 led away by the idea of improving your material conditions 
 without first solving the national question. You cannot 
 do it." And again : " In labouring, according to true 
 principles, for our country we are labouring for Humanity. 
 Our country is the fulcrum of the lever which we have to 
 wield for the common good. If we give up this fulcrum, 
 we run the risk of becoming useless both to our country and 
 to Humanity." 1 
 
 On the question of assuring political unity to his divided 
 and oppressed countrymen, Mazzini accepted no com- 
 promise. He would not hear of a federalized Italy, vege- 
 tating under the shadow of the Vatican. On the surface 
 that scheme of Gioberti (outlined above) seemed easy to 
 realize ; and in 1846, when the reforming Pope Pius IX 
 
 ^ Mazzini, Duties uf Man, pp. 54, ^^.
 
 MAZZIXI AND YOUNG ITALY 03 
 
 was elected, its chances seemed roseate. Gioberti npponlod 
 to history and tradition as proving that ItaHans needed a 
 large measure of freedom of action in local affairs ; and 
 he summed up his contention in these impressive words : 
 " To suppose that Italy, divided as she has been for many 
 centuries, can peacefully submit to the rule of one man is 
 mere folly. To desire that it should come about by violent 
 means is a crime." 
 
 Well ! The folly has been committed. The crime has 
 been perpetrated. The impossible has come to pass. 
 Thanks to the fiery zeal kindled by Mazzini ; thanks also 
 to the sword of Victor Emmanuel, the diplomacy of 
 Cavour. and the self-sacrificing heroism of Garibaldi, Italy 
 is united, tiiough not in the fomi of a Republic. The 
 causes of tiie failure of the Republic do not concern us 
 here. The ideal of Mazzini was unattainable, but not 
 because the Italians rejected it. On the contrary, they 
 rallied to it enthusiastically and in large numbers. In 
 the early half of 1849, when Mazzini was the leading 
 Triumvir of the Roman Republic, with Garibaldi as virtual 
 commander of the troops ; when also brave Manin and the 
 \'cnetians kept the banner of the Republic flying against 
 the shot and shell of Austria, there was some ground for 
 hoping that the cause of Young Italy would survive. All 
 depended on the action of the young French Republic ; 
 and if that Government had granted the support wliidi 
 Mazzini at first expected, France and Italy might have 
 expelled Austria's white coats, as they did ten years later. 
 The fate of Young Italy was sealed when the French Re- 
 j)ublic {ar rather its President, Louis Najioleon) attacked 
 the Roman R(j)ubli< , while Austria W(»re down the de- 
 fenders of \'eni<e. The Itahan Republic was crushed by 
 foreign inter\'ention ; and the Judas of tin time was 
 I^ouis Napoleon.
 
 94 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Nevertheless, though Young Italy lay crushed in the 
 summer of 1849 > though Mazzini and Garibaldi barely 
 escaped with their lives ; though French bayonets sup- 
 ported the Pope at the Vatican, and the white coats of 
 Austria terrorized the North, Italy did not die. She lay 
 stunned and bleeding under the heels of the autocrats, 
 Napoleon III and Francis Joseph. But she had caught 
 life-giving words that were more potent than the bayonet 
 and the gibbet. Garibaldi had shown that her sons could 
 fight on equal terms with the best troops in Europe. The 
 " honest King," Victor Emmanuel, was a centre of hope ; 
 and his Minister, Cavour, sought by all possible means to 
 remedy the disasters of 1849 by pitting France against 
 Austria. He succeeded ; and the Italian monarchy of 
 to-day is largely the outcome of his masterly statecraft. 
 Even Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, however, would not 
 have succeeded but for the faith and enthusiasm kindled 
 by Mazzini. Men who are nerved by a conviction of the 
 justice and beneficence of their cause arc not daunted by 
 one or two disasters. As Mazzini wrote after the surrender 
 of Rome to the French : " What was failure to men who 
 were imbued with our beliefs? " 
 
 That faith was rooted more deeply than in a merely 
 national patriotism. The men of Young Italy shed their 
 blood, not merely that their country might gain the unity 
 she so much needed, but in order to assure her civilizing 
 mission to mankind at large. They caught a vision of 
 other peoples freed and regenerated. In words which are 
 prophetic, if not for his day, then perhaps for ours, Mazzini 
 thus outlined the future : " The map of Europe will be re- 
 made. The countries of the peoples will arise, defined by 
 the voice of the free, upon the ruins of the countries of 
 kings and privileged castes. Between these countries there 
 will be harmony and brotherhood. . . . Then each of you,
 
 MAZZINI AND YOrXG ITALY (15 
 
 strong in the affections and aid of many millions of men 
 speaking the same language and educated in the same 
 historic tratlition, may hope by your personal effort to 
 benefit the whole of Humanity." 
 
 Yes : the map of Europe is now to be remade. The re- 
 making can proceed on two methods ; either on force or 
 on a sense of duty ; either on ihc military results and the 
 calculations deduced therefrom, or according to the dic- 
 tates of justice and enlightened common sense. If tlie 
 peace of the year 1916 or 1917 be merely the law of the 
 strongest, expressed in terms of their actual losses and 
 hoped-for gains, it will be the parent of future wars. If, 
 however, the settlement be dictated by a deep sense of 
 public dutv both towards the present and future genera- 
 tions, then the future may prove to be that which the 
 prophetic eye of Mazzini discerned.
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 
 
 There is a homely saying, " It takes all kinds of people 
 to make the world." And this, which is said of individuals, 
 is equally true of the peoples. The richness of the life of 
 Europe is due mainly to the variety of its races and to 
 their strong individuality. Their competition in the 
 spheres of thought and action, even their collisions in war, 
 are healthier than the stagnation produced by the dead 
 uniformity of the life of pre-reform China. Even to-day, 
 surely, it is true : 
 
 " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 
 
 To dash off the characteristics of the European peoples 
 would lead merely to smart epigrams, and I will not 
 attempt it. It is impossible to assess correctly the pecu- 
 liarities even of the subdivisions of the great family which 
 we are now attempting to study. But there is a general 
 likeness about all the Slavs, especially those who still 
 remain in the great plain of East Europe. 
 
 Those wind-swept steppes, where winter fastens a relent- 
 less grip for five months and then breaks into a brief spring 
 and an almost torrid summer, beget extremes of character. 
 The long and bitter cold fosters the virtues of toughness 
 and endurance, also of firm comradeship. For the millions 
 of Russian peasants life is a stern struggle, and only by 
 holding stoutly together in their Mir, or village commune^ 
 
 96
 
 THK AWAKKMXc. OF THE SLA\^ 
 
 07 
 
 have tlicy survived. The drought of summer is equally 
 to be dreaded. A prey, therefore, to extremes of climate, 
 the peasant develops a tenacity unequalled except among 
 races that struggle against the sea ; and there is in the 
 landsman of the East more of resignation and melancholy 
 than is found among the seamen of the ^\'cst. When the 
 Muscovite has fought on to the vcr}' end and knows he 
 is beaten, he lies down and dies with the fatalism of the 
 Asiatic. The Slavs, essentially an emotional people, have 
 been moulded by this life of extremes. Both they, their 
 literature, and their music are intense and passionate ; 
 but an undertone of melancholy pervades even their 
 outbursts and their excesses. It is the grund-)no{{v of the 
 Russian winter. 
 
 Their great enemy of peace time is also tlieir best friend 
 in war time. From the dawn of history- in the daj's of 
 Herodotus the dwellers in the great plains have, with 
 the aid of this fearsome ally, worsted all invaders. Darius, 
 the Tartars, the Poles, Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon 
 (shall I add Hindcnburg ?) recoiled, shattered. On the 
 other hand, the plain-dwellers have been remarkable for 
 a certain want of enterprise in war. In campaigns far from 
 home they have rarely been formidable, except against 
 Turks and Tartars. Russia, while strong for defence, is 
 weak for offence. She resembles Antaus rather than 
 Hercules. Ibr j)eople and her Governiiunt lack the 
 resourcefulness, foresight, and organizing capacity needful 
 for the success of distant expeditions. Professor Brandes 
 goes so far as to say: " Passivity shows itself in Ihcir 
 public and private life, in the submission to the powers that 
 be. , , , Though the Russians are a brave and a remark- 
 ably steadfast peo])Ic in war, they are the most peaceful 
 and unwarlike people in the world."' 
 
 * G. 15ran(Ji-s, Impressions of Russia, p. 20. 
 II
 
 98 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 This is a little exaggerated ; for Russian Tsars have 
 given rein to warlike ambitions ; and their people have 
 followed them ; but the people themselves cling to their 
 homes, to their creed, and to the old ways. From the time 
 when the Greek colonists of the North Euxine gazed with 
 terror on the Scythian tribes moving about in their quaint 
 caravans, those barbarians were far less formidable than 
 they appeared. Only when pressed from the East, in the 
 Dark Ages, did they or their successors send forth swarms 
 that overran Europe. Considering her vast bulk, Russia 
 has played a curiously small part in European history. 
 Her natural trend was towards Asia rather than Central 
 Europe ; and she rarely moved westwards except after 
 attacks from the west. 
 
 The first event that thoroughly aroused her from 
 Oriental torpor was the invasion of Napoleon in 1812. 
 Untaught by his failure to break down the resistance of 
 the Spaniards, he strove to wear them out in the South- 
 West and the Muscovites in the North-East, though 
 in both cases he confronted an enraged people, unconquer- 
 able if only they would persevere. The life of Russia was 
 widespread, impalpable, scattered through myriads of 
 villages, each of which, thanks to the Mir, was a self- 
 sufficing unit. So soon as these units were resolutely of 
 one mind, the only thing left for the invader was — to 
 decamp. 
 
 Among the many perversities of that curious book, 
 Power and Liberty, Tolstoi hit upon an undoubted truth, 
 that Napoleon's Grand Army had to leave Moscow because 
 the peasants burnt their corn and fodder rather than let 
 the French have it. The triumph was essentially a national 
 triumph ; and the spirit of the Russian troops led even 
 single individuals to attack the French during the long 
 retreat. In a military sense, the Russian pursuit was often
 
 THK AWAIvKXLXd ( »1- illi: >LA\N 99 
 
 tardy and ineffective ; but General Winter ditl liis work 
 thoroughly ; antl tiic Russian people have ne\er lost the 
 feeling of pritle in that owrthrow d the great Emperor. 
 It was in Spain and Russia that lie encountered forces 
 beyond even his power, the strength of a truly national 
 resistance. 
 
 As in Spain, hu\\e\cr, the new patriotism was soon 
 diverted into reactionary paths. The Tsar, Alexander I, 
 drifted away from the Liberalism of his youth ; and, 
 worst of all, he did not keep troth with the Poles. That 
 gifted people had done and suffered much for Napoleon ; 
 and in I1S14-5 Alexander held out to them the hope of a 
 national kingdom under his suzerainty. The autonomous 
 Kingdom of Poland soon xanished, antl Alexander's 
 suzerainty became a despotism. Since then there has been 
 no real union of sentiment between Poles antl Russians, 
 and tiie latent hostility of the Poles to Russia is, perhaps, 
 the chief of the weaknesses of that Empire. That huge 
 organism has never been thoroughly unified. It is an 
 agglomerate, in which the Great Russians of the North and 
 North Centre predominate ; but their hard and practical 
 nature consorts ill with the more sensitive Little Russians 
 of the South, the Poles of the West, and the Finns of the 
 North-West. Whether these peoples will ever cordially 
 unite is one of the problems of the future. Certainly, the 
 autocracy has failed t(» unite them. Perhaps this war, 
 and after the war, democracy, will accomplish the feat. 
 Russian enthusiasts are confident that democracy will 
 succeed where despotism has failed. In this respect the 
 development of Russia jjresents a signal contrast to that 
 of Prussia and (iermany, wlii( h has been \-itally connected 
 with the Houm; of llohenzcjllern. That House has unified 
 the German j)eoplc, and, since unification, has drilled them 
 with Prussian rigour. Whatever be the faults of the
 
 100 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Tsardom, it has not cast all the Russians into the same 
 mould ; but perhaps the failure to unify them results from 
 the lack of cohesion which has always marked the Slav 
 peoples. They have attained to a racial feeling, but not to 
 the wider feeling which may be tenned national. 
 
 The centrifugal tendencies of the Slavs of the Austrian 
 Empire are also very marked. Limiting our attention 
 here to the South Slavs, we notice that the awakening of 
 their national sentiment somewhat preceded that of the 
 Russians. Nature and the current of events had alike 
 been unfavourable to the South Slavs. Their furthest off- 
 shoots on the South-West had settled in the mountainous 
 country a little to the North-East and East of the Adriatic. 
 Those living north of Trieste and around Laybach are 
 termed Slovenes ; those further East are Croats ; those 
 to the South-East, Serbs. The Slovenes are almost com- 
 pletely cut off from the Adriatic by a thin but tough belt 
 of Italians around Trieste ; and the Croats and Serbs, who 
 stretch as far as that sea, have long been severed from it 
 politically by the Venetian Republic and by its heir, 
 Austria. Those Powers kept a tight hold on the coast line 
 and rigorously subjected the Slavonic population. It has 
 never been Italianized, still less Austrianized. These 
 Slavs, cut off from effective use of the sea, and divided 
 between Hapsburg, Venetian, and Ottoman rule, remained 
 in a state of torpor until about the time of the French 
 Revolution, when the blows dealt by the Republican armies 
 to Venice and Austria awakened the Slovenes and Croats. 
 Already the latter had resisted the attempts of the Magyars 
 to denationalize them. In the Hungarian Diet the proud 
 nohiles began to use the Magyar tongue instead of Latin. 
 The Croat deputies resisted ; and in 1805 the Bishop of 
 Agram advocated the use of the Slavonic tongue in public 
 speech and documents. Thus the national sentiment of
 
 THE AWAKF.XING OF THE SLAVS loi 
 
 the South Sla\s was tirst excited by Magyar aggressions at 
 the expense of their mother-tongue. 
 
 Next, the blows of Napoleon fell on the House of Haps- 
 burg. After Austerlitz he compelled Austria to cede 
 East \'enetia, Istria, and part of Dahnatia to his new 
 Kingdom of Italy. After the campaign of Wagram, he 
 forced her to give up the lands which he styled the Illyrian 
 Provinces, and they formed part of the French Empire 
 during the \-cars 1S09-13. Marshal Marmont, the new 
 Governor, introduced the Code Napoleon antl many of the 
 benefits of the French administration. The effects were very 
 marked. These South Slavs, previously divided and mis- 
 governed, now entered into a large and generous polity. 
 The French encouraged the official use of the Slovene and 
 Croat languages, which had previously been proscribed ; 
 and a new national feeling was aroused by newspapers and 
 books written in the \ernacular. Sucli was the gratitude 
 of these downtrodden peoples to the French Emperor 
 that the poet \'odnik sang his praises in an ode, entitled 
 Risen Illyria : " Napoleon has said ' Awake : arise, 
 lUyria.' She wakes, she sighs — ' Who recalls me to the 
 light ? O great hero, is it thou who wakest me ? Thou 
 reachest to me thy mighty hand ; thou liftest me up.' 
 . . . ' Resting one hand on Gaul, 1 gi\e the other to 
 Greece that I may save her. At the head of Greece is 
 Corinth ; in the centre of Europe is Ill}ria. Corinth is 
 called the eye of Greece. Illyria shall be the jewel of the 
 whole world.' " On the fall of Napoleon, the Slovenes again 
 reverted to .Austria, and the Croats to Hungary. Again the 
 .Magyiirs began their attempts to Magyari/.e, but encoun- 
 tered an ecjually oljstinate resistance, the Croat and Serb 
 provinces declaring their C(iuality of rights with the Hun- 
 garian. They were sister j)rovinccs, not daughter provinces. ' 
 
 ' I.cgcr, Austro-Iluni^ary. p .} jo : Soton W.ilsoii, I he Si>iitlu)ii 
 iilav Queilion, jjp, 25-9.
 
 102 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 When part of an oppressed people gains the boon of 
 self-expression it is natural that the other part, which is 
 still gagged, should struggle ceaselessly. Already the Serbs 
 had striven valiantly against Turkish tyranny. They 
 never despaired of casting off their vassalage to the infidel ; 
 for deep in their hearts was the memory of the glorious 
 days of King Dushan, who, about 1350, ruled over all the 
 lands from Philippopolis to Agram, and southwards as 
 far as Corinth. Serbia was then the most powerful State 
 of South-East Europe, and owned ports on the iEgean 
 and Adriatic. At the capital, Uskub, Dushan held a 
 splendid Court, Greeks, Bulgars, even the proud Magyars 
 bowing before Serb supremacy. This promising civilization 
 fell at one blow. The Turks burst upon it and levelled it 
 to the ground at the Battle of Kossovo (1389). A legend, 
 preserved ever since in ballad form, tells how the fate of 
 Serbia and of Christendom was decided by the treachery 
 of a Serb chieftain, Vuk Brankovich, who, at the crisis 
 of the struggle, rode over to the infidels with 12,000 
 panoplied horsemen. Whether true or not, that story 
 struck deep into the hearts of the Serbs. During five 
 centuries of slavery the exploits of Dushan and Milosh 
 were handed down by minstrels {gosslayi), who secretly 
 assembled the peasants and sang to them of the great days 
 when Serbs gave the law to Bulgar and Greek, and fell 
 beneath the Moslem yoke only because of treachery within 
 the fold. Thus a consciousness of superiority lingered on, 
 inspiring the belief that, if ever they had a chance, they 
 would beat back the infidel to Asia and renew the ancient 
 glories of Uskub. A people that cherishes those historic 
 memories can never be altogether enslaved. The fire of 
 patriotism, though choked down, will smoulder on ; and 
 a spark may bring it to a flame. 
 
 That spark, as we have seen, was blown eastwards from
 
 THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 103 
 
 Italy and Croatia. The exploits of Napoleon and the fall 
 of \'enice and Austria sent a tlirill through the Slavonic 
 world ; and the Serbs challenged the supremacy of the 
 Turks. At that time the Ottoman Empire was rent 
 asunder by revolts of local pashas and of that pii\ ileged 
 military caste, the Janissaries. The Serb peasants there- 
 fore won many successes ; and the invasion of Turkey 
 by the Russians in 1S09 promised for a time to lead to the 
 expulsion of the Turks from Europe. In 1812 the Russians 
 had to withdraw in order to meet Napoleon's Grand Army ; 
 but, as formerly in 1791, they had spread far and wide 
 the hope that the great Slav brother would free his " little 
 brothers," the Roumans, Bulgars, and Serbs. By the 
 treaty of 1812 Russia wrested from the Turks the boon of 
 autonomy for the Roumans, together with certain pri\i- 
 leges for tlie Serbs. These last w^ere soon revoked by the 
 ever faithless Turks, who sought to cow the Serbs by 
 impaling or brutal floggings. They failed. An enterprising 
 Serb peasant, Milosh Obrenovich, proclaimed a general 
 rising on Palm Sunday, 1815, worsted the enemy and ex- 
 torted the right to bear arms. 
 
 In the sequel the Ottomans might, perhaps, have over- 
 whelmed the Serbs but for the risings of the Greeks, the 
 revolts of the Janissaries, and the Russian invasion of 
 1829. The rapid advance of the Russians as far as Adrian- 
 ople spread dismay among the Turks ; and Sultan 
 Mahmud II made peace with Russia, conceding among 
 other tilings further rights to the Serbs. Thus a second time 
 Russia befriended the Slavs of the Balkans, and they (the 
 Bulgars included) acknowledged her as their champion, 
 Jn 1842 Serbia (now enlargi-d) refashi(jned her p<)i)ular 
 Assembly, so that what had been merely a mass meeting 
 of warriors became an organized representative body. Thus 
 the Serbs were the first of the lesser Slav peoples to develoj)
 
 104 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 constitutional rule, albeit of a very crude and primitive 
 type. This fact is far more significant than the sanguinary 
 strifes between the rival Houses of Karageorge and Obreno- 
 vich. Those struggles, culminating in the murder of 
 King Alexander in 1903, are relics of a barbarous past ; 
 but they have not very seriously retarded the progress 
 of the people at large. That progress is what really 
 matters ; and the acts by which a community of peasants 
 step by step won its freedom from the warlike Turks and 
 then gradually attained to self-government bespeak not 
 only tenacious bravery, but also a political capacity of no 
 mean order. In the nineteenth century nationalism which 
 is limited solely to military exploits counts for little. As 
 Napoleon once remarked, the civilian is a wider man than 
 a mere warrior, because " the method of the soldier is to 
 act despotically ; that of the civilian is to submit to dis- 
 cussion, truth, and reason." Similarly, a people which 
 Excels in the affairs of peace must in the long run surpass 
 one which, like the Turks, devotes itself almost exclusively 
 to war. In fact, nothing is more remarkable than the 
 manner in which the Christian peoples of the Balkans, 
 though often defeated and massacred, have slowly but 
 surely outstripped their Ottoman conquerors and perse- 
 cutors. It is because the latter have relied upon force, 
 while their subjects have applied the new national en- 
 thusiasm to all sides of the widening life of to-day. The 
 futility of relying merely upon armed might nowhere 
 appears more clearly than in the changed relations of the 
 Turks and their victims. 
 
 . The fortunes of those subject peoples, however, depended 
 largely upon their champion, Russia. In that Empire, 
 especially at the old capital, Moscow, pride of race has 
 always been strong. If Petrograd was, as its founder 
 claimed, the eye by which Russia looked out on Europe,
 
 THE AWAKEXIXG OF THE SLAVS 105 
 
 Moscow was the eye of faith, which discerned in Muscoxy 
 the means of national upHfting. There are always two 
 currents of thought in Russia — the cosmopoHtan, strong 
 at Petrograd, which lias tended to rely on Germany and 
 France ; the other, all-powerful at Moscow, which circles 
 about things Muscovite, and claims that they alone will 
 save Russia. The foimcr party tend to depreciate Slavonic 
 customs and sometimes vent their despair in such an out- 
 burst as that of Turgenieff : "What have we Russians 
 invented but the knout ? " The others, strong in faith 
 and contemptuous of foreign ways, retort : " Yes : when- 
 ever it rains at Paris, you put up your umbrellas at Peters- 
 burg." The men of faith point out that in 1812 the 
 might of Napoleon collapsed before the patriotic endurance 
 of Russian peasants ; and in that time of trial the nation 
 proved its capacity both to save itself and save Europe. 
 Away, then, with servile imitation of the foreigner ! Away 
 with the German customs and notions imported by Peter 
 the Great and Catharine ! 
 
 Such was the creed of a group of students at the Univer- 
 sity of Moscow. They sought " to found an independent 
 national culture on the basis uf popular conceptions and 
 Byzantine orthodo.\y, forsaken since the time of Peter the 
 Great."* In the main the\' relied on the Mir and the 
 connnunal customs connected with it ; also on the Greek 
 Cliurch as the true exponent of Christian tradition. They 
 forswore the use of French and German in fa\(jur of the 
 hitherto despised vernacular. At first, i.e. early in the 
 'thirties, the m(»v«-iiiint had no p<iliti<al signili* anci- ; Imt 
 Ni«lic>las I s(t(in used it to fnitlni his reactionary p(»hry ; 
 and till- ttiidi-m y «»f a naiiou n;it ion.ihsin to pla\- into tlir 
 hands of a despot was illustrated in Russia mori' proiiiptl\' 
 anrl banelully than perhaps anywhere else. Thanks to the 
 ' liussia bejute and after the M'ui, j). i jM.
 
 io6 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Slavophiles of Moscow, Nicholas was able to subject the 
 teaching of philosophy to the clergy of the Greek Church 
 and that of history to the supervision of the public censor. 
 Foreign books and newspapers were as far as possible 
 excluded ; and Russia entered upon the path of political 
 and religious reaction. 
 
 A similar degradation befell a somewhat cognate move- 
 ment. Panslavism can boast a revolutionary origin. It 
 was first proclaimed at Paris by a Russian, Bakunin, who 
 is also the father of Nihilism. A Russian student, he sat 
 at the feet of Hegel at Berlin, and finally settled in the 
 French capital, where he associated with many Polish 
 exiles. At a banquet, held in 1847 ^o commemorate the 
 Polish rising of 1830, he spoke passionately in favour of a 
 federative union of all Slavs. Such a scheme implied the 
 grouping together, not only of the Russians and Poles, 
 but of the Checs and Slovaks of Bohemia and Moravia, 
 and of the South Slavs oppressed by Austria and Turkey. 
 As a revolutionary programme this scheme of Bakunin 
 surpassed all the political schemes of the nineteenth 
 century. Its complete realization would involve the 
 destruction, not only of Austria and Turkey, but also of 
 the Empire of the Tsars ; for, as was said by Herzen, one 
 of the Russian revolutionaries : " When we win Constanti- 
 nople, then the iron sceptre of Peter the Great must break ; 
 for it cannot be lengthened to reach to the Dardanelles."^ 
 The Russian anarchists, then, hoped by arousing a Slavonic 
 enthusiasm among all branches of that widely scattered 
 race to break up three great Empires and spread revolution 
 far and wide. In its origin Panslavism was rather an 
 anarchic than a merely national movement. In this 
 respect it contrasts with the Pangerman movement, which 
 has always been intensely national. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 308.
 
 Tin: AWAKENING OF TIIK SI,AVS 107 
 
 Panslavisni, however, gradually shed its revolutionary 
 slough and became almost a conservative force. The steps 
 by which this came about are obscure ; and we need merely 
 note that in the critical years 1875-7 Panslavists and 
 Slavophiles tended to merge. Both sections sought to 
 force the Tsar, Alexander II, to draw the sword against 
 Turkey ; and. despite his clinging to peace, thc\- prevailed. 
 In the period of reaction which set in under Alexander III 
 Panslavisni and the Slavophile movement proper were the 
 twin steeds yoked to the autocrat's car. Both proved to 
 be equally amenable to the yoke ; and the reactionary 
 Ministers of Petrograd succeeded so skilfully in manipu- 
 lating Panslavisni that wags ha\e wittily dubbed it " the 
 romanticism of red tape." The phrase crystallizes the 
 tendencies of the Slavs towards emotionalism in politics, 
 which, in practice, inclines them towards submission to the 
 powers that be in Church and State. 
 
 Another weakness of the Sla\s is tlicir wide disi)crsion. 
 The Germans and Magyars thrust a solid mass between 
 the North and South Slavs of the Austrian Empire ; so 
 that, even in the cataclysm of 1848-9, the two halves of 
 that people failed to unite. For all their eager fraternizing 
 in a great Slavonic Congress at Prague in the spring of 
 1848,' the South Sla\s soon ranged themselves on the side 
 of the Hapsburgs and helped to re-establish that dynasty. 
 It is curious that those jears witnessed the rise both of the 
 Panslavonic and Pangerman ideas, the former at Prague, 
 the latter at the German Parliament assembled at F'rank- 
 furt ; but nothing came of either (•! thcin. Democracy 
 and nationality then hindered each otlu 1, and found no 
 
 ' I l>e Coinimltces inunilesto cunlained these words: "After 
 centuries of misery we have at last become aware of our unity, our 
 responsibility for one another." But the proceedings at the Congress 
 demonstrated the extreme difficulty of common action.
 
 io8 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 support from any powerful State. Their ignominious 
 collapse subjected those formative ideas two decades later 
 to the domination of Realpolitik ; of Gortchakoff in Russia, 
 of Bismarck in Prussia. 
 
 Not that the call which in 1875 came to Russia from the 
 Slavs of the Turkish Empire was devoid of romance ; 
 for, if ever cause was lofty and holy, it was that which the 
 Tsar, Alexander II, championed in the ensuing years. 
 But the Slav movement was finally to suffer from the 
 bargaining and the statecraft which accompanied and 
 closed those liberating efforts. Assuredly, the cries which 
 came from Bosnians, Serbs, and Bulgars were such as no 
 patriotic Russian could hear unmoved. Bulgaria had 
 lagged far behind her neighbours in developing the national 
 idea, a fact which we may explain partly by her semi- 
 
 ' Slavonic origin. The Bulgars are akin to the Magyars 
 and Turks. True, after their long stay in Russia, near 
 the Volga, they were Slavized and finally became Christian. 
 But their stolid and unemotional temperament still 
 
 . proclaims their aftinity to the Turanian stock ; so that 
 persons who lay stress on mere questions of race and 
 ignore the higher and more lasting influences making for 
 nationality may perhaps find some slight excuse for the 
 recent treachery of the Bulgars to the Slavonic cause. 
 But let it ever be remembered that the Bulgars owe every- 
 thing to the Slavs. Besides, of themselves they would 
 
 . never have shaken off the Turkish yoke. In 1834 Kinglake 
 travelled from Belgrade through Sofia to Constantinople. 
 In Serbia he recognized the people as Serbs. East of the 
 Dragoman Pass, that is in Bulgaria, he deemed all the 
 inhabitants Turks, except a substratum of Christian rayahs 
 unworthy of his notice. It was reserved for the French 
 professor of Slavonic literature, Cyprien Robert, to unearth 
 
 • the Bulgars, and he found them secretly cherishing their
 
 THE A\\AKi:XlXG OF THE SLAVS 109 
 
 religion, customs, and language, all of them not vcv\ unlike 
 those of the Serbs. 
 
 Apart from a few local risings of Bulgar peasants, goaded 
 to madness by Turkish tyranny, nothing of importance 
 occurred in their history until 1870, when they gained the 
 riglit to have their own religious conununity, that is, apart 
 from the Patriarch of the Greek Church. The Porte was 
 induced to take tliis step, partly by the demands of Russia, 
 France, and Great Britain, who always favoured Bulgarian 
 claims ; partly also because it hoped by this means to 
 divide the Christians and weaken them. Far from that, 
 the fonnation of a national Church strengthened the Bul- 
 garian movement at the expense both of Greeks and Serbs. 
 To the new Church were allotted Bulgaria Proper, also the 
 vilayets of Adrianople, Salonica, Kossovo, and Monastir. 
 In these districts, which Serbs and Greeks also claimed, 
 the Bulgars soon began a vigorous propaganda by means of 
 churches and schools, which soon withdrew vast numbers 
 from the Greek Church. Sir Charles Eliot believes that this 
 act halved the numbers of those who previously were 
 counted Greeks.' The Bulgars also stole a march on the 
 Serbs in the districts of Kossovo and Monastir. A Serb 
 gentleman once informed me that his people never suffered 
 a worse blow than the allocation of Old Serbia to the 
 Bulgarian Church. The consequence was the growth of 
 an intense rivalry between Bulgar, Greek, and Serb, 
 especially for supremacy in Macedonia. The present war 
 is in large measure the outcome of the racial jealousies 
 which the Porte kindled, or rather rekindled, by its finnan . 
 of 1870. Bulgaria is making a mad bid for the conquest 
 of the territory which the Porte gave to her ecclesiastically 
 in 1870. It was not until late in the nineteenth century 
 that the Serbs gained the right to open their S( hools in the 
 
 ' Sir C. liliot, iitrhey in liurxpr, |i|) ly), 2<.)\.
 
 no LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 vilayets of Monastir and Salonica : and not until 1900 
 did they acquire a national church. 
 
 In this respect Serbia has been very unfortunate, while 
 Bulgaria enjoyed exceptional good fortune. Ever since 
 1805 the Serbs were struggling for their independence from 
 the Turks. Yet in 1870 at one bound the Bulgars passed 
 them by in the race for supremacy, which depends largely 
 on religious organization. How much this meant was seen 
 in the racial statistics of Macedonia ; in which the priest 
 and schoolmaster were able to make what they liked of 
 that doubtful material. The report of a Russian victory, 
 a lavish distribution of Austrian gold, or fear of the incur- 
 sion of a robber-band of Greeks sufficed to make the 
 wretched peasantry of Macedonia turn over from one side 
 to the other with unblushing effrontery. 
 
 To revert to the events of 1875 ; the reopening of the 
 Eastern Question certainly came from the Serbs of Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina. Their revolt in the autumn of 1875 
 was caused by the exceptional cruelty of the Turkish tax- 
 gatherers after a bad harvest. That rising has by some been 
 ascribed to Austrian agitators. But when crops were seized 
 wholesale, and the sanctities of home were foully out- 
 raged, what need is there to drag in the foreign agitator ? 
 The explanation is not supported by the facts of the case, 
 and it is, in general, a singularly superficial way of account- 
 ing for a widespread movement. 
 
 Last of all the Slavonic peoples, the Bulgars began to 
 stir, but in the partial way that might be expected from 
 their canny and suspicious nature. An ambitious Bulgar 
 youth, named Stambuloff , who had been educated in Russia 
 but expelled thence as a revolutionary, came back to 
 Bulgaria in 1875 and sought in mid-September to raise 
 the peasants against Turkish tyranny. Of the thousands 
 who promised to help him only thirty assembled at the
 
 THE AW AKl.MNG 0¥ THl-: SLAVS in 
 
 reiiilezvous near Eskizat,'ra. Tlicse courageous men fled 
 to tlie Balkans. Thence Stanibuloll and a \cry few 
 escaped to Russia, where once again he sought to rouse 
 his shiggish countrymen. 
 
 He had grounds for hope. The men of Herzegovina and 
 Bosnia lield out on the mountains, despite tlie hardships 
 of the winter of 1875-6. The efforts of the three Empires 
 (Austria, Russia, and Germany) to induce the Sultan to 
 grant effective refomis were thwarted by the British 
 Cabinet. Lord Beaconsfield, unwarned by the utter failure 
 of our Crimean War policy, refused to support the efforts 
 of the three Empires to apply pacific coercion in order to 
 e.xtort from Turkey the needed reforms. The British 
 Ministry went further. It sent our Mediterranean squadron 
 to Besika Bay, near the entrance of the Dardanelles, a step 
 which encouraged the Sublime Porte to expect the armed 
 succour of Britain in case of war with Russia. These events 
 increased the excitement both of Moslems and Christians 
 in the Peninsula. Serbia could scarcely keep her sword in 
 its scabbard ; and the Bulgars hoped for amied aid from 
 Russia. A Bulgar schoolmaster found out a curious 
 anagram. The Bulgarian letters which make up the words 
 " Turkey will fall," when put in the fonii of an addition 
 sum (letters serve as figures in the Cyrillic aljihabct) ; 
 amount to the total 1876. 
 
 The news whetted the eagerness of the peasants. The 
 Bulgarian novelist, V'azoff, in his romance. Under the Yakc, 
 has described the secret preparations for the revolt. The 
 women worked hard to ])ake quantities of biscuit for the 
 men who were to take to the hills at the end of April, i87(). 
 The men made guns, pikes, knives ; wliiK- the more 
 ambitious of tlu-m, wlio had heard tell of what tlu- C arlists 
 did long beffjrc in Spain, cut down their lin«s( cherry trees, 
 jiollowed ihcm out, hooped tiiein witli iron clamps, and
 
 112 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 hoped for great things from these curios mounted on the 
 hills. Imagine the sequel on the first of May, when the 
 Turkish Bashi-bazouks marched in. No deafening roar, 
 no devastating volleys of grape shot on the Moslems ; 
 only a dull puff, a sound of rent wood, and the gunners 
 themselves laid low. That pathetic incident was typical 
 of the whole rising. With the narrow view of things, which 
 is characteristic of the Bulgars, some villages waited for 
 the others to begin ; and most never began at all. On the 
 few bolder spirits the Turks burst like a whirlwind ; and 
 then the work of murder and outrage began. At Batak 
 the Moslems, after accepting the surrender of the place, 
 drove the men into the great church and set it on fire. 
 Out of seven thousand inhabitants five thousand were done 
 to death. 
 
 But the victims did not die wholly in vain. When these 
 horrors became known in England they aroused a storm 
 of indignation against Turkish misrule. Mr. Gladstone 
 voiced that indignation in tones which rang through the 
 world. Even to-day, or certainly up to their last mad 
 plunge, the Bulgars reverenced his memory and kept his 
 portrait in their cottages beside that of " the Tsar 
 Liberator." 
 
 For Alexander II now listened to the fervid demands 
 of his people for anned intervention. Gallant little Serbia 
 had drawn the sword against the Turks ; and the sight 
 of the Serbs struggling against great odds stirred Slav 
 opinion to its depths. As before, Slav sentiment centred 
 at Moscow, while official circles at Petrograd and the 
 Tsar himself, suspecting that crusading fervour concealed 
 revolutionary designs, sought to turn the people from their 
 purpose. In this they failed. Finally, after curbing 
 Slavophile sentiment for a year, the Tsar perceived that 
 further delay would unite the naturally conservative
 
 THE AWAKENIXG OF THE SLAVS 113 
 
 Slavophiles with the Nihilists ; and when the Sublime Porte, 
 still trusting to British succour, refused all offers of com- 
 promise, he declaretl war on Turkey. The ensuing struggle 
 was fertile in surprises. Even witli the help of Roumania, 
 Russia barely overcame the Turks at Plevna, and then had 
 to submit her first terms of peace, those of San Stefano, - 
 to the arbitrament of Europe. Owing to the opposition 
 of England and Austria, a far less drastic settlement of 
 the racial questions of the Balkans was arrived at in the -. 
 Treaty of Berlin (July, 1878). That treaty cut down the 
 new Bulgarian State, from the San Stefano limits, which 
 would have brought it near to Salonica, and penned Bul- 
 garia Proper up in the province north of the Balkans. 
 The Bulgars there were divided from their brethren south 
 of that chain so as to weaken that people, whom British 
 and Austrian statesmen hastily assumed to be the puppets 
 of Russia. The gratitude of the Bulgars to Russia, how- 
 ever, vanished when the new Tsar, Alexander HI, proceeded 
 to treat them as puppets. His harsh overbearing ways 
 alienated them ; and on their declaring for the union of 
 the two Bulgarias in 1885, it was England, under Lord 
 Salisbury, which favoured the union, while the Tsar, y 
 chiefly from hatred of the Bulgarian prince, Alexander, 
 opposed that most natural and salutary step. The 
 statesmanlike policy of Lord Salisbury had been prompted 
 largely by our ambassador. Sir William White, a warm 
 friend of the Christians of the Balkans ; and thus the evil 
 effects of Beaconsfield's pro-Turkish and anti-national - 
 policy were reversed. 
 
 We must postpone to a later lecture a consideration of 
 Balkan politics in the sequel. I have sought to bring before 
 you a succession of scenes in which the Slavonic peoples 
 struggled for self-c.xpression and for the most part utterly 
 failed. During many years Panshuism was a nanu' that 
 
 J
 
 114 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 aroused terror in the clubs and salons of London. The 
 reality never alarmed those who observed the centrifugal 
 tendencies always potent among the Slavs. Hitherto 
 Panslavism has been a political Tower of Babel.
 
 LECTURK VII 
 
 THE GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 
 
 " The aim of the State is not dominion or the restraining of men 
 by and the subjecting of them to a foreign yoke. On the contrary, 
 its aim is to deliver each man from fear so that he may be able to 
 live with the utmost possible security. . . . The aim of the State 
 is liberty." — Spinoza, Theological Politics, ch. 20. 
 
 At the beginning of this lecture I wish to make it clear 
 that my aim is, not to discourse upon any one tlieory of 
 the State, but rather to show how the notions about the 
 State, now prevalent in Prussia and Germany, developed 
 tiiere. I will also not waste time by seeking to frame an 
 elaborate definition of tiie term " State." The word itself 
 means that which is fixed or established, that is, in regard 
 to law and government. Setting aside minor differences, 
 there are three chief conceptions regarding the State. The 
 first regards it as depending on the will of the monarch 
 (e.g. I'Etal c'csi moi, of Louis XI \') ; or, secondly, of a 
 ])rivi]eged set of persons ; or, thirdly, of the mass of the 
 people. The organisin which gives effect to one or other 
 of those wills is the State. Notions respecting it are always 
 changing ; and amidst the present cataclysm he would be 
 a bold man who would ascribe definiteness and fi.xity to 
 the conception of the State.' But the desire for something 
 
 ' I accept the description given by .Mr. C. Delisle Burns (The 
 Morality of Nations, p. 28) as " tlic sovereign organization for tlic 
 attainment of common ixjlitical good."
 
 ii6 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 approaching to definiteness, if not fixity, is inherent in 
 the human mind, witness the declaration of poor, be- 
 wildered Louis XVI not long before the French Revolution. 
 Conscious that le regime du hon plaisir (i.e. of the King's 
 will) was doomed, he declared that France desired tine 
 maniere fixe d'etre gouvernce. That admission heralded the 
 dawn of a democratic order on the Continent. Thence- 
 forth the typical State was not to be the expression of one 
 man's w'ill, but of " the general will," which Rousseau 
 affirmed to be the source of all law and administration. 
 
 But even when we limit ourselves to the modern State 
 based on representative institutions, we find a great 
 variety of conceptions regarding its functions. The 
 most important of these differences arise respecting the 
 claims which the State may make on the liberty and 
 services of the individual citizen. Here at once w^e plunge 
 into the region of controversies that are certain to become 
 more and more acute. In this connection it is well to re- 
 member that the democratic States of the Ancient World, 
 e.g. that of Athens, required implicit and almost un- 
 limited obedience from their citizens. These were bound 
 in many ways which we should deem abhorrent to true 
 liberty. Transport a Londoner to the Sparta of Lycurgus, 
 and he would protest vigorously that he was a mere bond- 
 man, not much better off than the actual slaves. Again, 
 the fact that a Roman citizen could for heinous crimes be 
 degraded to the position of a slave illustrates the radical 
 difference between the authority of the State over the 
 individual in the Ancient and Modern World. The power 
 of the Greek or Roman State was far greater than we 
 should allow ; yet that power was accepted as in the 
 natural order of things by citizens who considered them- 
 selves entirely free. 
 
 When, therefore, we approach the subject of the authority
 
 GERMAN THKORY OF Till': STATl': 117 
 
 of the modern State over its citizens, we must remember 
 that all well-educated men were familiar with a condition 
 of society in which a democratic State could demand 
 nearly everything from its subjects. Lord Acton well 
 describes the State in ancient times as being " both Church 
 and State " in one.' It was even more. It was Church 
 and State and an exacting employer all in one. 
 
 Lord Acton's simile is even more applicable to the 
 absolute monarchies of \\'estern Europe ; for their 
 authority was based on a theocratic creed as well as on 
 military force. Henry Mil, Philip I\', and Louis Xl\' 
 claimed to exercise an authority conferred by divine power 
 and sacred unction. This was the theory adopted by the 
 HohenzoUerns in the year 1701. The claim in their case 
 was singular ; for everj'one who looked on at the gaudy 
 ceremony of coronation of the first Prussian King at 
 Konigsberg was aware that the royal title was gained by 
 hard bargaining with the Hapsburg Court at Vienna. 
 Nevertheless, Frederick I of Prussia decided that he would 
 be a king by the grace of God, and he did his utmost to get 
 himself taken seriously in that character. He crowned 
 himself, as all his successors have done, excepting the 
 greatest of them. Frederick the Great deemed that cere- 
 mony a farce, besides wasting money better spent on troops 
 or road-making. 
 
 By this resolve he struck the ke}-note oi Prussian policy. 
 Nothing for show, everything for eflkiency. Rigorous 
 efficiency in all departments of government, such was the 
 aim of Frederick II. Nothing was too small to escape his 
 ken. In time of peace he visited once a year every part of 
 liis kingdtjin. I \<- <li( idcd what marslus should !)<• (hained, 
 or what rivers embanked U)V the i>re\inlion of Hoods. 
 It was his fostering care that inij)ro\cd the woollen trade, 
 
 • Acton, History of J-'rceJom and other Lssays, \>. i(>.
 
 ii8 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 founded new villages, and sought to construct a navy and 
 plant colonies overseas. He was his own commander-in- 
 chief, foreign minister, chief engineer, and chief develop- 
 ment commissioner. Woe betide the official who neglected 
 his work ! Frederick's eye was sure to detect the fault and 
 punish it severety. During one of his journeys he happened 
 to find out that a courier was kept waiting owing to the 
 somnolence of a postmaster. The King rushed upstairs 
 into the offender's bedroom, dragged him from bed, and 
 administered a severe caning under the most favourable 
 conditions. 
 
 Frederick II was the Prussian State. To his nephew 
 he described his feelings early in the reign as he surveyed 
 the splendid troops and full coffers bequeathed by his 
 fathers. He spent some of the mone}' and increased the 
 troops. Then he looked around him and saw four provinces 
 that he might seize. He chose Silesia. " Therefore " (he 
 wrote to his successor), " have money, give an air of 
 superiority to your troops, ^^'ait for opportunities, and 
 .you will be certain, not merely to preserve, but to increase 
 your dominions. . . . All depends on circumstances and 
 on the courage of him who takes." Such are the funda- 
 mental maxims of Prussian statecraft : "Be strong, be 
 ready, then make your coup." 
 
 But if Frederick schemed and tricked, it was for Prussia ; 
 and it was for Prussia that he was ready to bleed and die. 
 His letter, of October, 1760, written in the midst of a 
 seemingly hopeless campaign, strikes a high note : "I 
 regard death from the Stoic point of view. Never shall I 
 see the moment that forces me to make a disadvantageous 
 peace. No persuasion, no eloquence, shall ever induce 
 me to sign my dishonour. . . . Finish this campaign I 
 certainly will, resolved to dare all, and to make the most 
 desperate attempts, either to succeed or to find a glorious
 
 GERMAN IIILUKY Ub THE STATE iic) 
 
 end." — That is the spirit which prevails o\or less deter- 
 mined foes, whose chatter about peace proclaims their 
 half-heartedness, or at least their lack of the supreme 
 resolve of the hero. It is this rigorous spirit, rigorous 
 towards self as well as towards others, which has made 
 Prussia so formidable. Rightly to understand the Prussian 
 idea of the State, you must first understand historically 
 the Hohenzollern spirit ; for it is that spirit which has 
 made the State. The State is merely the machine ; that 
 spirit is the inner fire whicli imparts to the machine its 
 terrible force ; and that spirit is still in its essence the 
 relentless but also self-sacrificing energy of Frederick 
 the Great. 
 
 The extent to which the personality of her rulers affected 
 the administration of Prussia is obvious from a glance at 
 her fortunes. Frederick the Great raised her to the rank 
 of a Great Power. But, as Mirabeau pointed out in 17SO, 
 that position was \ery precarious. Under the rule of his 
 vicious, extravagant, and vacillating nephew, Frederick 
 William II, Prussia sank quickly to the second rank. The 
 weakness and pedantry of his son, Frederick \\'illiam III 
 completed her misfortunes. But a change came over the 
 scene in the years 1807-13. The people, formerly passive 
 in the hands of their rulers, became keenly interested in 
 the revival of their State. Schiller and Fichte had awakened 
 a truly national Gennan feeling ; and the reforms ol the 
 Prussian statesmen, Stein, Scharnhorst, and Hardenberg, 
 in those years made Berlin the one possible centre of 
 j)olitical uni(jn for all Germans. The Prussian people were 
 identified with the Prussian State, as was the case nowhere 
 else in (jerniany ; and Germans elsewhere looked to 
 Prussia to sa\i- thcin from Xa|)<il(<>ii. It was the energy 
 of thinkers and men of actii^n at ImiIIm that expilled 
 the Frent li and made i'russia the leader of (ierman\.
 
 120 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Depressed by the weaknesses of Frederick William IV, 
 she was raised to unexampled glory by William I and his 
 paladins ; and in 1871 she unified Germany. 
 
 Now, Prussia was the same State, yet that State varied 
 enormously according to the human element. Therefore 
 it is fallacious to suppose that there is some magic in the 
 Prussian State, or in the German Empire founded on it. 
 To theorize about the Prussian State as though it were 
 everything in the development of Prussia and Germany 
 is absurd. The rulers and statesmen are more important 
 than the State. Indeed, from the time of the Great Elector 
 down to Wilhelm II it is they who have made or unmade 
 the State. 
 
 Nevertheless, the development of ideas about the Prus- 
 sian State deserves careful study. Though that polity made 
 unheard of demands on the citizens, j^et it looked after 
 their interests with almost grandfatherly care. Bismarck, 
 on introducing the first measures that were to be kno\Mi as 
 State Socialism, declared that they formed no new depar- 
 ture ; for the House of Hohenzollern had always governed 
 with a view to the welfare of the poor. This was certainly 
 true of its best members. For instance, Frederick the Great, 
 in 1766, refused to countenance a proposal of one of his 
 officials to tax fat cattle when imported. " A crown a 
 head on the import of fat cattle ? Tax on butcher's meat ? 
 (he exclaimed) . No. That would fall on the poorer classes. 
 To that I must say no. I am, by ofiice, procurator of the 
 poor {avocat dit pauvrc)." The Hohenzollerns have generally 
 sought to consult the welfare of their poorer subjects ; and 
 this was the reason why German provinces, like Silesia, 
 which were annexed to the Prussian monarchy, soon 
 became Prussian. That kingdom was not liked — it never 
 has been — but its vigorous rule promoted prosperity and 
 pushed the people on. By these qualities many able
 
 GERMAN THKORV OF TH1-: STATE 121 
 
 Geniians wore attracted to Berlin. Of the men who 
 lielped to raise up Prussia after llie terrible overthrow of 
 1S06-7, tli<-' niost illustrious were non-Prussians. Stein 
 was a Franconian, Hartlenberg and Scharnliorst were 
 Hanoverians, Queen Louisa and Bliicher were ]\Iecklcn- 
 burgers, F'ichte and Gneisenau were Saxons, etc.* Scarcely 
 a single able leader was a Prussian. Yet the best brains 
 in Germany gravitated to Berlin. What was the attractive 
 force ? Not mere ambition ; but rather the conviction 
 that there alone worked an eflicient machine. 
 
 These considerations explain why practically all German 
 theories as to the State originated in Prussia. Omitting the 
 F'^rench and freedom-loving theories of William von Hum- 
 boldt, the first is that of Kant, the idealist of Konigsberg. 
 Sir John Seeley said that Kant's severe gospel of dut}- was 
 a natural outcome of the age and the polity of Frederick 
 the Great. It may even be affirmed that Kant's teaching 
 about the State is an idealization of all that was best in the 
 actions of the great King. Kant seeks to repress the 
 seltislmess of individuals, and to compel them Ic) work 
 for the general weal. They nmst do so (he claims) in the 
 interest of order ; for order is essentially the aim of the 
 State ; and order can be assured only by submission of 
 individual whims to the will of the community. True ; 
 for the purpose of securing order, the State nmst be en- 
 dowed with force ; but it does not exist for the sake of 
 developing force. (There Kant is far ahead of the latest 
 school uf German thinkers.) The raison d'etre of the State 
 is order. 
 
 On the outbreak of the F^rench Revolution, liberty, 
 progress, and peace become the dominant aims of Kant. 
 They are set forth in his essay, Perpelual Peace (i7<)5), which 
 remains a landmark of the generous ( ()sm()|)olil;inisiii 
 
 ' Scek-y, SItiii, 11, .joj.
 
 122 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 that was soon to be submerged by the Napoleonie dehige. 
 We shall return to Kant's Essay in Lecture X. 
 
 The next of Germany's political thinkers was a Saxon 
 by birth. Fichte (1762-1814) spent most of his early life 
 in Saxony, Switzerland, and at Jena ; but a charge of 
 infidelity drove him from his professorship at that Uni- 
 versity ; and in his thirty-seventh year he settled at 
 Berlin, where he found more toleration and freedom of 
 speech than in the smaller centres. In 1800 he published 
 an Essay, Tlie Exclusive Commercial State, in which he 
 advocated rigorous protection and an almost socialistic 
 ordering of all activities. The work glorified the rigorous 
 tendencies of Prussian politics ; and may be termed a 
 rather viewy precursor of the State Socialism of Lassalle 
 and Bismarck. 
 
 Far fuller and more philosophical were Fichte's lectures 
 on " The Characteristics of the Present Age " (1804) — at 
 which we glanced in Lecture III. In them he eulogized 
 Prussia. In the tenth lecture he rejected a theory of the 
 State which describes it as merely a juridical institution, 
 i.e. concerned with the making and administering of law. 
 Such a conception might do for Saxony or Wiirtemberg ; 
 but it appeared to him inadequate amidst the varied 
 activities of Prussia. He put forward one which certainly 
 did not err on that side. He called the absolute (i.e. com- 
 plete or perfect) State " an artistic institution, intended 
 to direct all individual powers towards the life of the race 
 and to transfuse them therein." In previous lectures he 
 had explained his sense of the importance of the universal 
 life, declaring that the aim of mankind was, or should be, " to 
 order all their relations with freedom according to reason." 
 Human life, then, ought to be concerned with reasonable 
 activities, which must enjoy a reasonable amount of free- 
 dom. As for the State, it would be the means of furthering
 
 GERMAN Tin-URV OF THE STATE 123 
 
 the higher aims of nianl<iml. It wmild restrain the selhsh- 
 ness of individuals by direeting their energies towards the 
 welfare of the whole of Socict}'. Fichte's aim, at this 
 time, was cosmopolitan, not Prussian. 
 
 But his methods were autocratic. As the collective 
 activities of mankind do not in the least degree attract the 
 numerous indi\iduals to whom the triumph of reason is 
 naught and the pursuit of their own unreason is everything, 
 he maintains that they must be compelled to enter into the 
 coUectix e life. Seeing that they " feel no desire, but, on the 
 contrary, a reluctance, to ofTer up their individual life for 
 the race," there must be some power which will compel 
 them, if need be, to die for the community. That power 
 is the State. 
 
 Fichte's words describing the State as an artistic institu- 
 tion are somewhat odd, seeing that it directs all individual 
 powers towards the life of the race. But he explains that 
 by " artistic " he means that which raises men above their 
 natural level so as to fulfil the destinies of the race.* The 
 State carries out this purpose and compels all citizens, 
 without a single exception, to dedicate themselves to this 
 duty. Even the rulers are subject to this obligation. It 
 is their directing power and the directed energies of the 
 governed, which together make up the State. He proceeds 
 to make another claim : " All individual power which is 
 known and accessible to the State is necessary to it for the 
 furtherance of its purpose : its purpose is Kitltur (civiliza- 
 tion) ; and in order to maintain the position to which a 
 State has already attained, and to advance still further, it 
 re«juires at all times the exertion of every available power ; 
 for, only through the united j)(jwer of .\i.i., has it attained 
 this position. SiiouI<l it imt tnkc the Wlmlr into ai ( mmt, 
 
 ' I ihink tliat llu- |)lir.ise " a ( ivilizinn institiitir)n " comrs ncarrr 
 I'. I i> lit<-'!i ri-al tlioii^lit .
 
 124 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 it must needs recede, instead of advancing, and lose its 
 position in the ranks of civilization." 
 
 These statements call for some explanation. Fichte 
 spoke at a time when the Government of Prussia was in the 
 weak and nerveless hands of Frederick William III ; when, 
 also, Germany was sinking under the control of Napoleon 
 and accepted his direction in the spoliation of the Ecclesias- 
 tical States and knightly domains. In view of that dis- 
 graceful scramble Fichte desired to strengthen Prussia ; 
 he sought also to remind her King and nobles that the 
 State had declined in authority and prestige since the days 
 of Frederick the Great. Then the Prussian State was the 
 embodiment of power. In 1804 it was not ; and unless it 
 recurred to the forceful ideals of the earlier generation 
 Prussia must degenerate. Fichte therefore sought to 
 press every faculty of the Prussian people into the public 
 service ; and he chnched his demand by this declaration : 
 " In a perfect State no just individual purpose can exist, 
 which is not included in the purposes of the community, 
 and for the attainment of which the community does not 
 provide." Or, to translate it into modern parlance : 
 " Every activity of life belongs to the State ; and the 
 perfect community will have a place for every man and 
 will see that he fills that place to the utmost of his 
 power." 
 
 Obviously, Fichte was heading towards a drastic State 
 Socialism. He did not use the term " Socialism," which, 
 indeed, does not first appear until some thirty-two years 
 later. Still less did he see his Spartan ideals realized. 
 But his system would have imposed on Prussia a polity 
 as absolute as that of the Pharaohs, a regime in which 
 individual liberty would vanish and all the activities of 
 life would be regulated as they are in an ants' nest. " The 
 general will " of Rousseau, having passed through the mill
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 125 
 
 of German pliilosophical metliod, cnnie out as tlie Prussian 
 State, tluis outlined by Ficlite. 
 
 For the attainment of its complete and characteristic 
 growth one nu)re element was necessary -tiiat of Nation- 
 ality. In 1N04-3 Fichte had not yet hit upon that formative 
 idea. Perhaps he derived it from Schiller's Willi dm Tell, 
 which seems to have influenced Fichte's Addresses to the 
 German Nation. Or else, as I ventured to suggest, the fall 
 of the Prussian State after Jena (1806) revealed to him the 
 German nation. In the earlier lectures on the State he 
 never mentions the nation. He conceives the Christian 
 European peoples as being very much alike and concerned 
 with the same purposes. It is the States that are in per- 
 petual conflict, some rising, some falling, according to the 
 degrees of energy and ability which they display ; and 
 their true aim is to further the progress of the race as a 
 whole. To take a concrete instance, Prussia and Austria 
 are in constant competition, sometimes in actual conflict. 
 Their rivalry calls forth the powers of their rulers and 
 subjects. Prussia wins because she is the better organized ; 
 and her triumph, being a survival of the fittest, furthers 
 the progress of the human race. Fichte was not then 
 thinking of the German race : for indeed it was in so 
 divided and discordant a condition that \<)u could not 
 discern it as a political unit. 
 
 By the winter of 1807-8 the way was cleared, and 
 Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation called to action, 
 not hide-bound States, but a half-strangled people. As 
 always happens in time of crisis, he sought to revive their 
 courage by recalling the mighty deeds that Germans had 
 accomplished both in war and in the peaceful arts— their 
 inventi(ms, commercial de\elopment, and learning. He 
 ( laimed the Kcfonnation as a truly (jerman assertion ui 
 liberty '»f th(mght ; and Jie \aunled the sujxrini it\- of the
 
 126 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 pure Germans over the Franks and other Teutons that had 
 unlearnt their mother-tongue. The nation was now the 
 dominant thought. It echpsed the idea of the State, as 
 appeared in this passage (Lecture VIII) : " Nation and 
 Fatherland in this sense as bearers of and security for 
 earthly immortality ... far transcend the State in the 
 usual sense of the term. . . . The State only aims at 
 security of rights, internal peace. All that is only the 
 means, the condition, the preparation, for that which 
 patriotism essentially aims at, the blossoming of the 
 eternal and divine in the world." He then asserted that 
 patriotism must direct the State, individual liberty being 
 restricted within as narrow limits as possible. In his 
 earlier notions the State was supreme in order by competi- 
 tion with other States to advance the welfare of the human 
 race as a whole. In 1807-8 he reduced the State merely 
 to a piece of mechanism, driven onwards by the nation, 
 with patriotism as the directing agency. The union of his 
 earlier Pharaoh-like theory with his later claim of the 
 supremacy of the nation prepared the way for the later 
 theory of the German State, conterminous with the German 
 nation, and both impelling, and impelled by, that nation. 
 His teaching bore fruit in many directions. As the State 
 or the nation requires all the activities of its citizens, it 
 follows that all distinctions of privilege must vanish ; for 
 the unprivileged (e.g. the serfs) cannot develop their full 
 powers. The serfs therefore become freeholders ; national 
 education begins, so does municipal governinent, in which 
 men are compelled to take up their duties. All these 
 changes aim at the increase of power and efficiency. For 
 this same purpose compulsion is laid upon them to defend 
 their country. That duty had been required of all French- 
 men of military age by the French Republic in 1793, and 
 more systematically in 1798. After the Peace of Tilsit (1807) ,
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 127 
 
 Prussia extended the principle of compulsory service to 
 all her sons. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the chief de- 
 sii^Miers of the new Prussian army, demanded in the [)re- 
 amhle to their reforms that the army nuist be " the union 
 of all the moral and physical energies of the nation." The 
 phrase recalls the words of Fichte ; and it well summarizes 
 the aims of the Prussian patriots of that time. The realiza- 
 tion of their ideal in the glorious efforts of the War of 
 Liberation reveals the potentialities of the Prussian State. 
 Dowered with the toughness of the Frederician regime, 
 it is strengthened and enriched by the doctrines of civic 
 self-sacrifice proclaimed by Kant and Fichte. 
 
 Long after the fall of Napoleon, the memory of the 
 events of 1813-5 inspired the thinkers of Prussia and 
 Germany. The energy and order prevalent at Berlin 
 attracted thither many thinkers who began life in the small 
 States. That had happened to Fichte, and in 1818 it 
 happened to Hegel, his successor in the chair of philosophy 
 in that University. Earlier in his career Hegel (1770-1831) 
 had been an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon and viewed 
 the overthrow of Prussia with supreme indifference ; for 
 he saw in the French people and their Emperor the outcrop 
 of the world-spirit. But in his Berlin period he became 
 Prussian. In his lectures delivered there in 1820 he 
 delivered his theory of the State in regard to law. His 
 conclusion was that the State was in the moral order 
 what Nature was in the physical order. As the State 
 sustained and regulated everything, it formed the chief 
 necessity of life for civilized men, and became, in effect, 
 the realized ethical ideal or ethical spirit. 
 
 By these claims Hegel raised the Stati- to a supernatural 
 level. There it existed as something perft'ct, absolute, and 
 superhuman, yet dominating the fortunes of mankind. 
 Apparently, the Hegelian State could not deselop or
 
 128 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 change ; for development implies advance from a less 
 perfect condition to one that is more perfect. Hegel also 
 made no allowance for its permeation by the ideals of 
 other States.^ His ideal creation remains alone, like some 
 Zeppelin tethered a mile or so above Berlin, and dominating 
 earth, air, and heaven itself. Indeed, this simile is too 
 weak to express the absolute self-sufftciency of the Hegelian 
 State. Its creator scoffed at all inquiries as to its origin ; 
 for it had always existed while the nation existed. All 
 that he will say on this head is that the State is the outcome 
 of the deep-seated principle of order." This it is which 
 determines the exercise of what Rousseau termed " the 
 general will." 
 
 Here at last we come to firm ground ; but we remember 
 that forty years earlier Kant had affirmed the raison 
 d'etre of the State to be the craving for order. In this 
 respect, then, the Hegelian notion links itself on to the 
 doctrines of Rousseau and Kant ; but the outcome is a 
 terrifying and sterilizing creation, whose chief practical 
 duty is to protect " the life, property, and free-will (!) of 
 every person, simply in so far as he does not injure the life, 
 property, and free-will of any other." But, he proceeds, 
 the State is far more than a magnified police officer. The 
 perfect State is a spiritual and all-pervading entity. It is 
 not something separate from each of its subjects. It is 
 not distinct from you, from me. We fomi part of it ; and 
 in this consciousness lies our political freedom. Here we 
 must remember that Hegel admits that a bad State is 
 finite and worldly. But wherein the perfect State consists 
 and wherein a State is bad is not clearly defined. 
 
 It may seem impertinent in a mere historian to criticize 
 Hegel ; but I cannot avoid the suspicion that, in idcnti- 
 
 ^ See D. Burns, op. cit., pp. 45, 53. 
 
 2 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, transl. by S. W. Dyde, pp. 240-65.
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE ijq 
 
 fying the subjects witli a perfect State, he is confusing 
 the State with the nation. My insuhir imagination fails 
 to conceive so complete an identification of the citizen 
 with the most perfect State as to become merged into it. 
 That merging is possible in the case of the nation ; and I 
 believe that it can be aHfinued of every true patriot at a 
 great crisis. Certainly every Briton who now dies for his 
 country makes that supreme surrender on behalf of the 
 nation, or for His Majesty as typifying the nation. Pro- 
 fessor Edward Meyer in a recent work claims that it is the 
 great defect of our public life that we do not think about 
 the State. He says: "The Briton never speaks of his 
 State — a State does not exist for him. He either speaks 
 of the Empire or he speaks of the Government, meaning 
 the Government which then handles the rudder of State. 
 A State high above the clash of parties does not exist for 
 the Briton as it exists for the German " ; and to this he 
 attributes our political helplessness in this war. Events, 
 of course, will decide that point ;' and I question whether 
 the average German is filled with much enthusiasm for 
 the German State. I believe that he fights and dies for 
 das Vatcrhmd, which is a far more human and inspiring 
 conception than that of the State. The idea of the State, 
 I believe, appeals chiefly to the intellectuals ; for, ever 
 since Hegel's day, it has supplied them with a motiv for 
 theory-weaving. 
 
 However, the question whether a soldier fights and dies 
 for his nation or his State is academic trifling ; and (to 
 return to Hegel) I believe that he ascribed to the State 
 much that Fichte had ascribed to the nation. It seems to 
 me that on this topic Fichte's view was sounder. The 
 
 * Sec the suggestive rcmark.s of Rev. J. Oman, The War and its 
 Issues, ch. in (Camh. L'niv. Press, 1915), as to tlic dilloronro of 
 liritish ami (iiriiian ul<as of tl»e Stale.
 
 130 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 nation it was which fired France with hope and enthusiasm. 
 The Germans defiantly retorted with their national idea 
 in 1813 ; and though the idea of the German nation did 
 not in that age find visible expression in a national State, 
 yet there was the chance that it would one day embody 
 itself. To idealize the State in 1830 was surely doubtful 
 psychology and false as history. The criticism of some of 
 Hegel's contemporaries crystallized in the joke that he mis- 
 took the Kingdom of Prussia for the Kingdom of Heaven. ^ 
 Hegel even affirms that the State is the nation's spirit. 
 That again is a question of words ; and I cannot see that 
 such a description of the State advances our knowledge 
 of it. We worldly-minded students of history want to 
 know, not what the State is, but how it works ; how it 
 reconciles the often divergent claims of general order and 
 the liberty of the individual. On these topics Hegel is as 
 silent as Rousseau. In fact, Hegel, like Rousseau, seems 
 to believe that in that ideal entity, the absolute State, 
 there will be no opposition. We reply that that is un- 
 thinkable among a free community ; and our suspicions 
 of the Berlin professor are not lessened by his assertion 
 that to offer the people a constitution is a mere whim, 
 seeing that a constitution must grow from the consciousness 
 of the people. " True ! " we English reply ; " that is the 
 best method, the English method ; but is that a sufficient 
 reason for refusing the beginnings of a free government 
 to a less fortunate people ? " There is, of course, much 
 truth in Hegel's further statement, that every nation has 
 the constitution that suits it and belongs to it ; but this 
 assertion again is liable to abuse, if it implies that no 
 arbitrary Government is ever to be overthrown, because 
 the people do not deserve a better. ^ In practice, Hegel's 
 
 1 G. P. Gooch, in Contemporary Review, June, 1915. 
 
 2 Dyde, op. cit., pp. 274-S2.
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 131 
 
 theorizing about the State came to be a defence of paternal 
 and ahnost despotic Government. " You have a nearly 
 perfect State " (said he) ; " be content with it ; identify 
 yourself with it ; you need not wisli for anything better." 
 Some of his friends reproached him with deserting his 
 earlier progressive views ; and the charge seems proven. 
 
 In his next pohtical work, The Philosophy of History 
 (1S30), Hegel implicitly defended the Prussian system, 
 which excluded the populace from the political life of the 
 State : he also decried the results of the French Revolu- 
 tion ; and, as for the English Reform Bill, he declared that 
 it would destroy what slight measure of governing capacity 
 still survived in these islands. Moreover (said he), the 
 typical Englishman was too insular, too whimsical, to 
 understand real liberty, and always looked at it from the 
 point of view of his own home. As for Prussia, despite her 
 exclusion of the citizens from ])olitical affairs, she was on 
 the right track ; for she embodied the principle of reason. 
 She was Protestant, and she admitted capable men to all 
 posts. ' What more could they want ? 
 
 Notwithstanding tliis discouraging conclusion, the in- 
 fluence exerted by Hegel was very great. Discredited 
 though he was by the later Liberalism (which found its 
 exponent in Bluntschli-), his State-absolutism lived on 
 and helped to reinforce the masterful notions of the Bis- 
 marck-Treitschkc period. Another HCf^elian theory tending 
 in the same direction was that of the World-Spirit visiting 
 and vivifying the great peoples in turn, and, in the fulhiess 
 of time, the German people. But we nmst postpone to 
 Lecture X an examination of that theory. 
 
 ' Hegel (op. cit., p. 4^7) recogni/es a S(nith tiLTinan n.itionulity. 
 >)ccausc that j>coplc was too mixed to accept Protestantism. 
 
 * See J. K. HluntsclUi, The T/imry 0/ the State [ICng. edit, (.ind), 
 Oxford, iMg2] ; especially !>k 11 (or suggestive remarks on tlie 
 State and NatKJiiaiitv.
 
 132 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 So far we have been considering the German idealists. 
 It has been stated that their pohtical teaching was sound, 
 and that the poison which has crept in was due solely to 
 materialism of thought and to its political resultant, 
 RealpoliiikJ But, as I have tried to show, danger lurked 
 in the teachings of Fichte and Hegel. In their Berlin 
 periods they denied individual liberty and exalted the 
 State to a dangerous pre-eminence, while Hegel's later 
 teachings fostered the growth of Prussian Chauvinism, 
 The following years witnessed the publication of Clause- 
 witz's work On War, memorable for its declaration that 
 States were always in a condition of struggle, of which 
 war was only an intenser form. Then, too, appeared that 
 exciting poem, " Deutschland, Deidschland uber alles." 
 
 The popular outbreaks of 1848-9 in Germany concern 
 us here only because the populace everywhere afhrmed the 
 supremacy of the whole nation ; and when Frederick 
 William IV for a time surrendered to his " dear Berliners " 
 and declared that thenceforth Prussia would merge herself 
 in Germany, the triumph of the nation over the Prussian 
 State seemed assured. Owing to the inexperience and 
 reckless enthusiasms of the first German Parliament, which 
 met at Frankfurt in 1848, all went awry. The old political 
 mechanism was set up again ; and, when Germany achieved 
 her union in 1870-1, it was through the House of Hohen- 
 zollern and the Prussian State. Consequently, the failures 
 of German Liberalism in 1848-9 have profoundly affected 
 the trend of political thought. Idealism, democracy, and 
 voluntary methods being discredited, the tendency was 
 towards the precepts and practice of Frederick the Great. 
 In short, the age became ripe for Bismarck's gospel of 
 " blood and iron," the way for which was further facilitated 
 
 ^ Prof. J. H. Muirhead, German Philosophy in Relation to the 
 War, Lects. I, II. 

 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 133 
 
 by prosperity, and the development of a materialistic 
 philosophy.* Bismarck often gibed at the professors and 
 barristers of 1S48 ; but it was their viewiness which pre- 
 pared the way for his statecraft. The excesses of democrats 
 have always been the best help of reactionaries. 
 
 The first sign of the new spirit was an essay by Rochau 
 on Rcalpoliiik. Published in 1853, when the reaction was 
 in full swing, it trumpeted forth the new political mate- 
 rialism. " The State is Power " — such is its thesis. It 
 attracted a far more important man than Rochau, Heinrich 
 von Treitschke, who afterwards developed that theory to 
 its logical conclusion. Treitschke (1834-96) came of a 
 Slav family and was endowed with Slavonic intensity and 
 vehemence, which he vented against that race with all the 
 acerbity of a renegade. His father was a Saxon olficer of 
 proved loyalty and steadfastness ; but the youth soon dis- 
 played far other tendencies. For his first recorded speech, 
 delivered at a prize-giving, he chose as his subject praise 
 of Prussia's championship of Gemian unity ; and that 
 incident is typical as illustrating his natural bent towards 
 Prussianism. As a student, he read with ardour the 
 Politics, of Aristotle and the Prince of Machiavelli, dangerous 
 reading for a youth of his ardent temperament. The study 
 of Fichte and Hegel fortified his conviction of the need for 
 the supremacy of the State ; and in 18O1 (the year of the 
 consmnmation of Italian unity) he set forth the ideal of 
 " the nationally exclusive State," i.e. a State composed of 
 one people. "For" (said he) "where the living and in- 
 dubitable consciousness of unity pervades all the members 
 of the State, there and there only is the State what its 
 nature re(}uires that it should be, a nation possessing 
 organi< unity." lb- prophesied that the great peoples 
 would everywhere form national States— a singularly 
 
 ' Sec I'rofcssor Muirhcid, op. cit . Lcct. HI.
 
 134 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 correct forecast. In common with all nationalists he 
 detested the House of Hapsburg as artificially clamping 
 together diverse elements which Nature meant to exist 
 separately. What, then, would he have said about the 
 Hohenzollern-Hapsburg-Bulgar-Turkish compacts for the 
 domination of neighbouring lands ? Probably he would 
 have defended that strange league on the ground that the 
 State is power and must hew its way through to more 
 favourable positions on the North Sea and in the Levant ; 
 but assuredly such a plea would contradict his earlier 
 contention, that the State must be conterminous with the 
 nation, and that it is well even " to amputate alien elements 
 of the population."! 
 
 His eager nationalism led him to advocate the absorption 
 of the smaller Gennan States by Prussia ; and indeed he 
 invited her to attack them. The end, said he, would justify 
 the means ; and they would soon benefit by her vigorous 
 rule. Such was his plea in 1864. He knew perfectly well 
 that the King and Bismarck were then governing illegally 
 and despotically. All the same, he prayed that they might 
 succeed ; for Prussia alone could unify Germany. She 
 alone could win the coveted duchies, Schleswig-Holstein, 
 and thereby assure to Germany a commanding position 
 in the North Sea and the Baltic. Similar reasons induced 
 him to side against Austria and her South German allies 
 in the struggle of 1866. After the triumph of Prussia, he, 
 a Saxon by birth, demanded that she should annex Saxony 
 outright, for the crime of taking the side of Austria ; and 
 he professed to be surprised and pained that his father 
 should speak of hhn as " a political Jesuit." 
 
 Treitschke persisted in his claim that Prussia should 
 lead the German people forward to power and prosperity 
 
 ! Treitschke overlooked the Poles of Posen, then, as now, 
 utterly un-Prussianized.
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 135 
 
 far beyond the bounds of the nation. In a remarkable 
 passage in his essay BinKfessUini unci EinJiciisslaat he 
 pleaded for an effective unity of Germans so that they 
 might be able to compete with other peoples for the 
 commerce of the oceans. The South Sea was calling for 
 traders ; and mighty united nations were pressing in, 
 while the Germans could only follow humbly at a distance 
 their more fortunate predecessors. Why should Germans 
 be steeped in inland notions ? Let them hear the call of 
 the sea and organize themselves fitly for a great future. 
 That future they could realize only by means of political 
 unity. Enough of their old federalism ! What they 
 needed was unity — an EinJicitsstmU (a united State). 
 
 This was the thought that impelled his angry demand for 
 the annexation of Saxony, as well as Hanover and Hesse 
 Cassel. In August, 1870, even before Napoleon III was 
 overthrown at Sedan, Treitschke passionately demanded 
 the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. That the people of 
 those provinces objected to such a change was nought to 
 him. " These provinces " (he cries) " are ours by the right 
 of the sword ; and we will rule them in virtue of a higher 
 right ; in virtue of the right of the German nation to pre- 
 vent the permanent estrangement of her lost children 
 from the Germanic Empire. We Germans, who know both 
 Germany and France, know better what is for the good of 
 the Alsatians than do those unhappy people themselves, 
 who, in the perverse conditions of a French existence, 
 have been denied any true knowledge of modern Germany. 
 \N'e desire, even against their will, to restore them to 
 themselves." Then comes the naive and illuminating 
 admission : " We are by no means rich enough to renounce 
 so precious a possession." He also ex])ressed the hope that 
 the extension of the responsibilities of the German people 
 would lift their politics above doctrinaire pettiness " to a
 
 136 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 great, strenuous and positive conduct of the affairs of the 
 State." 1 
 
 This last statement is instructive, in view of the opposi- 
 tion ah^eady offered by German Liberals and Socialists 
 to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The progressive 
 elements in German}' deprecated such an act,- not only 
 from principle, but also from expediency ; from principle, 
 because the transfer of people like cattle to an alien rule 
 was abhorrent to democracy ; from expediency, because 
 the Government of these unwilling subjects must be more 
 or less coercive ; and coercion renders the Government 
 harsher towards its own subjects, besides furthering the 
 growth of militarism. Now, it was precisely for these 
 reasons that Treitschke advocated the annexation. He 
 wanted to have done with idealism in order to assure " a 
 positive conduct of the affairs of the State," in other words, 
 he aimed at the triumph of Realpolitik. Bismarck was of 
 the same mind as Treitschke. The Iron ChanceUor, 
 speaking to Busch just after Sedan, laughed at the notion 
 that Germany would annex Alsace in order to re-teutonize 
 her lost children. All that talk was merely the vapouring 
 of German professors (not yet in favour) : " It is the 
 fortresses of Metz and Strassburg which we want, and which 
 we will take." 
 
 That is the essence of Realpoliiik. Germany needs 
 Metz and Strassburg for military reasons. Therefore she 
 will annex them. True, a little later, Bismarck wavered 
 about annexing the wholly French population of Metz ; 
 but the German Staff never wavered. They had their way, 
 and that way led towards a more drastic polity. Thus, 
 just as Frederick II's persistent rigour resulted from his 
 deliberate choice of an aggressive and therefore militarist 
 
 ^ H. W. C. Davis, The Political Thought of Treitschke, p. 112. 
 * Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-Geyman War, I, 147.
 
 GERMAN THEORY OE THE STATE 137 
 
 policy, so, too, the aggrandized Germany of 1871 imposed 
 on Europe the evils of an armed peace and on herself a 
 more absolutist regime. 
 
 In proportion as the aims of Berlin politicians became 
 n.ore and more objective, so did the teaching of Treitschke. 
 He laughed at a political science based on abstract prin- 
 ciples, viz. the science of Kant, Fichte, Hegel. He claimed 
 that it must be the outcome of the experience of each 
 people. As the peoples differed widely in character and 
 local conditions, so, too, must their polity. To affirm the 
 necessary superiority of any one State-system was ridicu- 
 lous. The nation must construct its own fomi of polity 
 in order that it might lead its own life. The true guide 
 was history, not the doctrine of abstract right ; for history 
 showed what the people was and what it wanted. So far, 
 good. Few Englishmen will dispute these dicta. But 
 Treitschke proceeded to claim that in matters pohtical 
 there was no positive right and wrong. Every nation 
 must construct its own moral code — as the Germans have 
 done. 
 
 His reasoning at this point is illogical; for, though 
 he postulated the complete supremacy of the State in 
 secular affairs, he deliberately excepted matters of con- 
 science which (said he) pertained to the relations between 
 G(xl and man, and were beyond the cognizance of the State. 
 Yet the State must form its own code of morality. The 
 only escape from the dilhculty is to claim that State 
 morality is something entirely separate from the morality 
 (.f tli«' individual. That is what the followers of Treitschke 
 have both afTirmed in their lecture-rooms anfl practised 
 in Belgium. 
 
 I'inally wr may nwti that Treits* like- nKntilifd tin- ^t.it< 
 and the nation. He defined the State as a peo])!*- unitid 
 by legal ties to form an independent power. On this
 
 138 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 subject again his ideas were inconsistent. Sometimes he 
 denied that the State was an organism and declared it to 
 be a person (presumably the nation personified). Else- 
 where, however, he thus defined it : " The State is the 
 public power for defensive and offensive purposes." (That 
 is, it is a magnified drill-sergeant.) Pursuing this trend of 
 thought, he thus narrowed down the functions of the State : 
 " It only represents the nation from the point of view of 
 power" (a political Hercules). But, again, he said: 
 " The State is the basis of all national life " (an eternized 
 Frederick the Great) . ^ 
 
 It is difficult to frame any intelligible theory out of 
 these descriptions ; and the composite photograph made 
 up from these personifications would be an odd creature, 
 recognizable only by the spiked helmet. But there is one 
 feature common to them all. They body forth the idea of 
 power ; they imply a something which functions with 
 tremendous energy, which belongs more to the barracks 
 and the workshop than to the Church and the University. 
 Treitschke's State, whatever he may at times say to the 
 contrary, is a mechanical contrivance designed for con- 
 quest ; and to this contrivance the Gennan people is 
 closely linked. 
 
 These conceptions of the State as drill-sergeant and of the 
 populace as recruits mark a serious set back from the ideas 
 of Fichte ; for he insisted on the ideal character of the 
 nation. In his view the nation far transcended the State, 
 which concerned itself with government and law. The 
 nation looked to higher things, to the blossoming of the 
 eternal and divine in the world. Despite his too hopeful 
 idealism, Fichte was far nearer to the truth than Treitschke. 
 For, surely, the State is the organism, while the nation is 
 
 ^ Treitschke, Politik, I, pp. 28-32, 62-3 ; 
 quoted by H. W. C. Davis, op. cit., pp. 127-131.
 
 GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 139 
 
 the brain and the soul. True, the nation needs the State 
 to endow it with hands and feet. But the nation remains 
 the directing agency vitahzing and directing the body 
 poHtic. Indeed, the nation survives, even when all the 
 machinery of Government is shattered. At this very time 
 the Belgian State and the Serbian State scarcely exist ; 
 but the Belgian nation and the Serb nation endure — aye, 
 and will endure ; for their sublime courage has endowed 
 them with immortalit}'. This is what Gemian politicians 
 and German professors cannot understand. Destroy all' 
 the machinery of government and you have destroyed the 
 nation, say Treitschke and his successors. Possibly it is, 
 in part, these mechanical notions which have led them 
 astray into their recent adventures ; for otherwise their 
 conduct is altogether inexplicable. It becomes dimly 
 intelligible when compared with that of Napoleon, who, 
 carrying eighteenth-century niaterialism into the realm of 
 high policy, deemed the Spanish nation conquered when he 
 had beaten their armies and seized the machinery of 
 government. It is the nemesis of a forceful regime that 
 it neglects everything which cannot be measured in 
 battalions, money, and foot-pounds. 
 
 Treitschke had before him the example, not onl\- of 
 Napoleon's disastrous blunder, but also that of two peoples 
 who defied all assessment by ofl'icial measures. During a 
 century (with a short interval after Waterloo) the Poles 
 enjoyed no political existence. Yet have the Poles ever 
 ceased to be a nation ? The other instance is even more 
 striking. During 1800 years the Jews have liad no State. 
 Nevertheless, Jewish nationaUty is one of the powerful 
 influences of the world, often seemingly destioyed, but 
 ever rising again in Phanix-like vitality. In sjjite of these 
 patent proofs of the superiority of the nation to the State, 
 Treitschke and his many followers insist upon degrading
 
 140 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 the nation, which is essentially a spiritual entity, to the 
 level of the organism which merely endows it with power 
 for action. I believe that there is no hope for German poli- 
 tical thought until it frees itself from this disastrous 
 confusion. " Back to Fichte " ought to be the cry of all 
 German idealists ; for, though his political creed contained 
 much that was despotic, yet he proclaimed the all-important 
 truth (veiled to Treitschke), that a nation exists in the 
 realm of spirit and cannot be made or unmade by force. 
 When that discovery is brought home to the German 
 people they will have taken the first step towards a political 
 renascence. Then they will liberate themselves from the 
 traditions of Frederick the Great. Then they will re- 
 organize themselves on rational lines, free from the 
 overmastering influence of the Prussian State.
 
 LFXTURE VTTI 
 NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 
 
 Our studies in national movements liave been bj' no means 
 complete. We have passed by the struggles of the Poles, 
 Belgians, Greeks, and Hungarians, also the efforts of the 
 French for a revival of their polity in the critical years 
 1871-5. The study of the French Risorgimento reveals 
 the sterling worth of that people and also the practical 
 usefulness of patriotism in rebuilding an almost shattered 
 societv. No better guide and inspiration can be found 
 for the tremendous work of reconstruction which awaits 
 the European peoples at the close of this disastrous war. ' 
 We have also had to omit from our sur\ey the most 
 surprising of all national movements in our age, that of 
 Japan. A genuinely patriotic impulse it was which 
 suddenly transformed Japan from a mediaeval into a 
 modern State, which absorbed much of the best in European 
 civilization without impairing the strength of the old 
 Japanese chivalry {Bitshidu). Finally it was a keen sense 
 of national lionour which flung back Russia from Korea, 
 expelled Germany from Shang Tung, and is now loyally 
 lielping the Allies by furnishing Russia with the munitions 
 of war. All this has been done by a people which less than 
 half a century ago fought with bows and arrows and 
 
 • The revival of France in 1 871-5 will form one of the " special 
 periods " for the Historical Tripos of 191 7, etc. ; and will be dealt 
 with by members of the (ambiidge History School. 
 
 141
 
 142 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 frightened the enemy with masks. It is a romance ; and 
 the soul of the romance is the intense patriotism which 
 nerves the Japanese, from the highest to the lowest, with 
 devotion to the Mikado as the embodiment of all that is 
 holy and lofty in the national life. There is terrible poverty 
 in Japan ; but no Japanese would dream of whining : 
 " I have no country to fight for." 
 
 These great movements one and all demonstrate the 
 tremendous force of Nationality. It may be granted that 
 that feeling appeared long ago in England, France, and 
 Spain ; yet its influence was fitful by comparison with 
 that which it has recently exerted upon the European 
 peoples ; and I think we may ascribe its development 
 largely to the spread of education and of facilities for trade 
 and travel. In the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds the 
 town or even the village was the typical social unit. By 
 degrees that unit enlarged. In times of general danger 
 men recognized their kinship with men previously 
 deemed strangers or enemies ; and with the widening of 
 social intercourse that conception acquired strength until 
 it flashed forth in a universal consciousness at a time of 
 mental exaltation such as that which exhilarated France 
 in 1789-90. Elsewhere, as in Spain, England, and North 
 Germany, danger of conquest by the foreigner furnished 
 the mental stimulus ; and then what had been a group- 
 consciousness, a county or provincial feeling, became a 
 permanently national feeling. As I have tried to show in 
 these lectures, this widening outlook, this pride in the 
 country instead of merely in the county, opens up an im- 
 mense store of vital energy. There passes through those 
 diverse groups and classes a thrill which makes them one 
 body politic — not a corpus vile on which Kings and law- 
 givers may work their will, but a conscious powerful entity 
 which bends them to its will. Such is the change which
 
 NATIONALITY AND .MILITARISM 
 
 IV. 
 
 has come over the peoples. It has refashioned the map of 
 Europe, forming in the centre massive blocks out of what 
 was a feudal niDsaic, ilissohing the Ottoman Empire into 
 its component racial groups, in short, giving political 
 expression to the settlements of the peoples effected during 
 the Dark Ages. 
 
 Reverting to our political bioscope of Lecture I, we see 
 that the political boundaries of Europe now correspond 
 nearly to the more permanent of the conquests made by the 
 barbarian invaders who shattered the Roman Empire. 
 First there was imperial unity, which gave way before 
 tribal chaos ; then there ensued long and painful jostlings ; 
 then an assorting process under monarchs ; then there 
 emerged groups of tribes nearly related, which developed 
 at the expense of merely traditional or enforced groupings ; 
 finally there were formed the solid homogeneous blocks of 
 to-day. Obviously, here we have an elemental force of 
 incalculable potency, whether for good or harm. The 
 reasonable method of regarding this national instinct is, 
 not to sneer at it as something old-fashioned and certain 
 soon to disappear before an enlightened cosmopolitanism, 
 but rather to try and understand it, so as to dissociate its 
 baser elements from those which may further the progress 
 of mankind. 
 
 Firstly, then, what is Nationality, using the term in its 
 abstract sense?' Perhaps we shall come nearer to the 
 truth if we apply the method of exclusion and discover 
 what it is not. Our studies have, I believe, led us to doubt 
 whether it is determined by race. Let us consider this 
 question in the light of the science of ethnology. We now 
 know that the old notions about " the Eurojiean family " 
 and its supposed division into Celts, Teutons, etc., are 
 
 • Sfc tlic Preface for notes on Iho forms " people," " nation," 
 nationality."
 
 144 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 without scientific foundation. There is no European 
 family, no Celtic race, no Teutonic race. Anthropologists, 
 by their careful examinations of certain physical charac- 
 teristics, such as the shape of the skull and the colour of 
 • hair and eyes, have proved that so-called racial divisions 
 based on language or tradition are not fundamental. 
 Speaking broadly, there are three races in Europe : 
 (i) the tall, fair, long-haired race which spreads from the 
 British Isles and the North of France through Flanders 
 and the North European plain and Scandinavia as far as 
 the Gulf of Finland ; (2) the broad-headed race, generally 
 termed the Alpine, which inhabits the greater part of 
 Central France, Central Europe, and the Balkan Peninsula ; 
 (3) the Mediterranean race, inhabiting the European lands 
 north of the Mediterranean Sea, with the exception of 
 North Italy and the Balkan Peninsula.^ 
 
 Science, then, knows of no essential physical difference 
 between a North-West German, a Fleming, and a North 
 Frenchman. There is a difference between this northern 
 family and the Central and Southern Germans and 
 Frenchmen. Considered according to race, Germany is 
 tripartite, and so is France. There is no marked distinction 
 of race between a Norman and a Hanoverian ; between 
 a Lyonnais and a Bavarian ; between a Provencal and a 
 Calabrian. In the French army there are three distinct 
 racial types : so there are in the German army. Yet 
 those three diverse types are welded into political and 
 military entities, which oppose each other with the most 
 desperate determination. But this political and mihtary 
 grouping is not racial ; it is based on difference of culture 
 
 ^ The above summary, of course, does not comprise the Jews, 
 Turks, Bulgars, Magyars, and Finns. It is only a very general 
 statement. Deniker subdivides the three races named above into 
 several groups.
 
 NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 145 
 
 (using the term in its widest sense). Though there is 
 no such thing as a Celtic or Teutonic race, Celtic or Teutonic 
 culture is a reality. So, too, the Anglo-Saxon people is a 
 conglomerate, made up of several racial elements ; but 
 Anglo-Saxon culture has marked and distinct characteris- 
 tics, which, from our present point of view, overshadow 
 the physical differences above noted. It is also important 
 to get rid of the old notion that there is a fundamental 
 physical difference between the average Englishman and 
 the average North Frenchman, and between him and the 
 average North German.* What differences there are have 
 developed later. They are due to language, tradition, 
 religion, custom, and, finally, political grouping and 
 political sentiment. Of course these differences make up 
 nearly the whole of life to the modern man ; but (to put 
 it baldly) the Englishman is not a different animal from 
 the North German, or he, again, from the North French- 
 man. Science has rendered a great service b}' dispro\ing 
 that hoar}' superstition. 
 
 No ! Only in a very crude form (like that which now 
 prevails in Germany and the Balkans) does Nationality 
 depend on race. The Belgian litterateur, Laveleye, well 
 expressed the thought : " In proportion as the culture of a 
 people advances, identity of race and of blood exercises 
 less power on it, and historic memories exercise more 
 power. Above ethnical nationalities there are political 
 nationalities, formed by choice (one may say), rooted in 
 love of liberty, in the cult of a glorious past, in accord of 
 interests, in similarity of moral iileas, and of all that forms 
 the intellectual life."- Here, however, I must regretfully 
 remark that this ]»eaceful iuid idc.il (U-vclopment is apt 
 to be interrupted by inrushes of sentiment and passion. 
 
 * W. Z. Kiplcy, The Races of Hurupe, i li. (>. 
 
 * E. Laveleye, Le Gouvernemeut tl Li liinuwratie (1891), I, p. 58.
 
 146 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 At such crises, especially during war, the adage " Blood is 
 thicker than water " holds good ; and the affinities pro- 
 duced by generations of culture vanish under the drag of 
 racial instincts that seemed to be dead. Then the cultured 
 European gives place to the tribal warrior. 
 
 In normal circumstances, however, Nationality does not 
 depend on race. Does it, then, depend on language ? 
 Here certainly we come nearer to a powerful political 
 influence. But again consider. In the French army are 
 Bretons and a few Basques and Spaniards who speak no 
 French, yet are enthusiastically French at heart. In the 
 German army are Wends who in a political sense are 
 thoroughly Germanized, not to speak of PoleSj Danes, and 
 Lorrainers who are not Germanized. In the Austrian army 
 are peoples speaking eleven distinct languages ; yet there is 
 in that army, as in the Austrian Empire, far more solidarity 
 than was believed to be possible. But the crowning proof 
 that language does not determine Nationality is found in 
 Switzerland. The Swiss comprise portions of three peoples, 
 which speak French, German, and Italian ; ^ yet they 
 remain at peace, though over the borders their kith and 
 kin are at war. How is this possible ? Merely because 
 language does not determine Nationality. The sentiment 
 of Swiss Nationality, rooted in pride in their historic past 
 and in contentment with an almost ideal polity, has 
 triumphed over linguistic differences. Trilingual Switzer- 
 land remains at peace — agitated, it is true, for language 
 is a powerful tie. Nevertheless, the spiritual union of 
 that people holds firm ; and its triumph is an augury of 
 hope for the future. Scarcely less remarkable is the case 
 of the Jews, at which we glanced in Lecture I. They have 
 retained their solidarity, though dispersed during long 
 
 ^ I omit the Romansch, spoken in the Engadine, as too small to 
 count
 
 XATIOXALITY AND MILITARISM 147 
 
 ages, and divided by sharp differences of language. Only 
 where congregated together in large numbers do they 
 habitually use Hebrew. In Spain and the Balkan States 
 they use Spanish ; in Russia and Polanil they speak either 
 Polish or a corrupt German ; in Morocco, Arabic. Yet they 
 rarely lose their Nationality.' 
 
 The case of the Swiss and that of the Jews, then, seems 
 to show that language is not necessary to, though it may 
 help on, the forming of a nation. Probably, with the spread 
 of education, language will play a smaller part than before. 
 Welsh is dying in several parts of Wales, especially in the 
 industrial districts ; and the smaller languages will doubt- 
 less vanish, and with them racial differences and jealousies. 
 Migration and emigration help on the assimilating process. 
 In the United States and Canada few languages except 
 English, French, and German have a chance of surviving, 
 and French and German only in certain areas. Speaking 
 generally, in the new lands the smaller languages tend to 
 disappear. Dutch (in a very simplified form) persists in 
 South Africa ; but there, too, commerce helps on the more 
 useful language, English. Indeed, the victory of General 
 Botha over Hcrtzog at the polls in South Africa may prove 
 to be the beginning of a genuinely Anglo-Dutch reunion, 
 which wiij be neither English nor Dutch, but Africander 
 (perhaps bi-lingual for some generations), loyal to the 
 Empire which not only tolerates but fosters within its 
 fold all peoples, all creeds, all languages. The j)resent 
 war has been a terrible set back to the progress of mankind ; 
 for it has revived national hatreds and has arrayed against 
 each other peoples speaking different languages ; but 
 
 > Ripley, op. cit., p. 369 ; S. B. Hohold. The War atut the Jew 
 (Torontrj, 191 5), sliows that 350,000 Jcw.s arc li^litin^ for Kiissia, 
 iHo.ooo U)T .Austria, f)vcr I5,()(«) for us, and over lo.ooo for I-iaucc. 
 Yet, though lf)yally obeying their Governnients anil lighting against 
 their co-reiigionisls, tlu-y nniaiii Jews.
 
 148 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 there are tendencies at work, more permanent than war, 
 which lessen Hnguistic differences and induce peoples of 
 diverse tongues to live together in friendly union. Of 
 these Federations, Switzerland, the United States, and the 
 British Empire (which is in spirit a Federation rather than 
 an Empire) form the most promising examples ; and the 
 present disastrous conflict will probably tend ultimately 
 to strengthen the development of such unions existing 
 independently of race or language. Such at least is the 
 tendency among the leading peoples of the West. They 
 do not need to conquer their neighbours ; they attract 
 them by the charm of their culture. And this, surely, is 
 the type of Nationality which will ultimately prevail over 
 the crude force that is now devastating the w^orld. 
 
 No ! Nationality does not depend on language. Still 
 less does it depend on a State. As we saw in the last lecture, 
 a nation that depends on a State is mistaking an organism 
 for the life and soul of that organism. In modern times, 
 national feeling has fashioned States, and is always at work 
 refashioning them in accordance with new needs. Nations 
 make States ; not States, nations. The one exception is 
 Prussia ; so long as she limited herself to the unification 
 of the German people, she achieved remarkable success ; 
 but so soon as the Prussian State sought to Germanize 
 other peoples, it utterly failed. Herein, surely, lies one 
 of the chief causes of the deep hostility between the Ger- 
 mans and other peoples. The Germans have glorified the 
 State and have sought to force their Kultur on neighbouring 
 highly civilized peoples, who resent that process. Even if, 
 by some miracle, they succeeded in this war, their effort 
 would be doomed to failure, as surely as that of Napoleon 
 the Great. For it violates a fundamental conviction of 
 the modern man. 
 
 Lastly, is Nationality an emanation of the World-
 
 NATIONALITY AND MII.ITARIS:\I 149 
 
 Spirit ? Hegel (in his Philosophy of History, 1S30) put 
 forth a theory which assumed that a world-force visited the 
 peoples in a predetermined order and endowed them 
 with exceptional vitality for some special task. \Miile 
 they performed that task, they were " moral, virtuous, 
 vigorous." Thereafter, they declined, and another took 
 up that or some similar task. The theory finds little 
 support from History. It breaks down in the case of China, 
 which during thousands of years has pursued the even 
 tenor of its way, with few signs of decline, and, indeed, 
 recently with many signs of rejuvenescence. The theory 
 also seeks to account for the decay of the nations, both 
 ancient and modern, on a single hypothesis ; whereas 
 history shows that decline and decay were due to very 
 diverse causes, many of them of an agrarian or social 
 character but slightly understood in Hegel's day. Nations 
 also may seem to be on the downward trend, like the France 
 of Louis XV and X\T, and then by a conscious and deter- 
 mined effort of reform they will shoot up again to un- 
 imagined heights of power, declining once more when that 
 power is abused by a dictator. Napoleon. If Napoleon 
 was the chief emanation of the World-Spirit, as Hegel 
 long assumed him to be, how came it that he left France 
 far weaker than he found her ? Did the World-Spirit 
 suddenly change its mind in 1813 and resolve to desert 
 him and go over to the Allies ? 
 
 On these and similar topics the World-Spirit theory 
 offers no adequate explanation. Indeed, it cannot explain 
 the complex phenomena of the rise and fall of nations. 
 That certain peoples have now and again displayed marvel- 
 lously increased vigour is true ; but that ])]K'n<unenon is 
 generally due to one or more nf the folhtwing causes: 
 There may be a fusing together of various tribes by 
 s<jn'.e able leader or under the impulse of religious ferxour
 
 150 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 (as happened to the Arabs after the time of Mohammed). 
 A great warrior may have incited peoples to wars of ambi- 
 tion. Or, on the other hand, a nation, when threatened 
 with conquest, may be thrown back on itself and develop 
 to the utmost the powers that generally go unused. 
 Or, again, a people can be stimulated by becoming the 
 exponent of some great idea, as were the Sw^edes of Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus by Reformation fervour, or the French 
 Revolutionists by the ideas of liberty, equality, and 
 Nationality. Lastly, geographical discoveries and me- 
 chanical inventions bring some peoples to the front and 
 depress the fortunes of others, as is evident from the 
 history of Venice, Portugal, Holland, Great Britain. 
 Looking at the causes that make for the rise and fall of 
 nations, we discern a great variety ; they range from war- 
 like ambition or the spur of hunger, to impulses of an ideal 
 nature, such as religious zeal, or newly aroused national 
 pride, or wars of liberation. Sometimes a new energy 
 raises the people to a higher level of thought, art, or 
 invention. Again, it drives them to the conquest of new 
 markets. How is it possible to refer to any one cause 
 impulses of so bewildering a variety ? Label your causa 
 causans " World-Spirit " if you like ; but remember that 
 it is a very Proteus, now flashing forth as a warrior, then 
 shrinking into a huckster ; now an artist or poet, then a 
 politician ; now a philosopher, then an explorer ; now an 
 admiral, then a mechanic or engineer. You must run 
 through the whole range of life in order to fill up all the 
 characters that your Spirit may assume. 
 
 Lastly, remember that the theory of a World-Spirit 
 inflating one people and deflating others in a predeter- 
 mined order is morally mischievous. For it tends to puff 
 up with pride a people which believes it detects some sign 
 of the spiritual afflatus ; while it also disheartens peoples
 
 NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 151 
 
 tliat deem the deflating process begun, and thereby dis- 
 courages the timely efforts at reform which can nearly 
 always avert collapse. Believe me, that a fatalistic theory, 
 such as that of tlu- \\'orld-Spirit, has little warrant from 
 history. It does not apply to peoples that refuse to bow 
 down to the supposed decrees of fate. Only those peoples 
 are sure to perish who tamely prostrate themselves before 
 those decrees. • 
 
 \\'e have now cleared the ground of fault}' ur huiJcquatc 
 explanations of Nationality. Perhaps we shall best under- 
 stand what it is if we briefly review the events that first 
 made it a force in the modern world. 
 
 Recent history is held to begin with the French Revolu- 
 tion of 1789 : and Alison classed all the campaigns up to 
 Waterloo under the Revolution. Is it not truer to fact to sub- 
 divide the period and say that the first phase of Nationality 
 as distinct from Democracy begins with the Spanish Rising 
 of 1808 ? It ends with Waterloo. The second phase com- 
 mences fitfully in 1830 and 1848, and more definitely with the 
 Italian War of Liberation in 1859. From 1859 to the present 
 is pre-eminently the climax of the Age of Nationality. 
 By this I mean that the idea has permeated the masses of 
 the population and lias increased their power for action. 
 True, the national idea had previously dawned upon poets 
 and thinkers. It vibrates in the verse of Dante, Chaucer, 
 and Shakespeare ; but, as we saw in Lecture I, it did not 
 penneate the masses, except at intense moments of their 
 life, such as coincided with the exploits of Jeanne d'Arc, 
 the rej)ulse of the Spanish Armada, or the revolt of the Dutrli 
 " Beggars " against Spain. Subse(|uently, it dit-d down 
 even in France, Fngland, and Holland ; for the Religious 
 Wars divided peoples against themselves, and. on tiic 
 
 ' I think that Nationality explains several of the cases of 
 exceptional vitality which Hegel Obcribed to his World-Spirit.
 
 152 LECTURES ON NATIONALITV 
 
 cessation of those strifes, dynastic wars or the growth of 
 absolutist States half stifled the sentiment. Louis XIV 
 personified the French nation, but so successfully that the 
 nation was but half aware of its own existence. 
 
 Much preparatory work had to be done before this 
 discovery was possible. The shipbuilders, road-makers, 
 and traders played their part in bringing men together. 
 Thinkers pointed out what was natural, what artificial, 
 in their society. But when all this preliminary work was 
 ended, and men of different provinces of France began 
 to greet each other instead of scowling, any widepread 
 impulse was certain to produce a new and vital union. 
 
 Such an event was the Revolution. It changed the half- 
 animate clods into citizens, but it also sent through them 
 a sympathetic thrill which made the citizens a nation. 
 France is often termed the political laboratory of Europe ; 
 for her actions are more striking than are the gradual 
 unfoldings that characterize our annals. Certainly, it is 
 in French history that the development of Nationality is 
 most clearly outlined. The merging of different peoples 
 and diverse provinces in a single monarchy was the work 
 of French monarchs and statesmen, so that, except in a 
 few moments of inspiration, the nation existed only by 
 and in the person of the King. As the monarchy declined 
 under Louis XV and XVI, the nation emerged ; and, early 
 in the Revolution (as we saw in Lecture II), the disputes 
 of the National Assembly with the King brought the sense 
 of Nationality to sudden maturity. It found expression 
 during the famous sitting of August 4, 1789, when Lorraine, 
 youngest of the French provinces, expressed her desire to 
 join intimately in the life of " this glorious family." 
 
 I know of no words that better describe Nationality. 
 It is an instinct, and cannot be exactly defined ; it is the 
 recognition as kinsmen of those who were deemed strangers ;
 
 NATIONALITY AND Mll.irAKISM 153 
 
 it is the apotheosis of family feehng, and begets a resolve 
 never again to separate ; it leads to the founding of a 
 polity on a natural basis, independent of a monareh or a 
 State, though not in any sense hostile to them ; it is more 
 than a political contract ; it is a union of hearts, once made, 
 never unmade. These are the characteristics of Nationality 
 in its highest fonn — a spiritual conception, unconquerable, 
 indestructible. So soon as clans, tribes, or provinces catch 
 the glow of this wider enthusiasm, they foriia a nation. 
 And thus it was that France burst into her new life. Her 
 long chrysalis stage, when patriotism clung about the old 
 monarcliy, was ended ; and the nation stood erect and 
 defiant. England, Italy, Illyria, Spain, Russia, Gemiany, 
 successively felt the impact of this new vital force, and 
 responded with messages, first of sympathy, then of dis- 
 trust, finally of hostility. Thus, within twenty-five years, 
 Europe was awake, and became a camp of warring nations. 
 During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Age, then, 
 France exhibits Nationality at its best and at its worst. 
 In its higher developments in 1789-91 that principle 
 endowed her with a distinct and vivid consciousness, so 
 that what had been a set of limbs, worked in the main by 
 a master, became a body-politic — nay, more, a soul-politic 
 that defied division. In this new ami intense life she 
 exerted a singular fascination on all peoples. Thinkers 
 felt licr magnetic potency. Goethe, unresponsive to 
 Gennan politics, bowed before the manifestation of her 
 uncanny strength at \'almy. Schiller and Fichte hailed 
 her as the source of light and warmth to a dead world. 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge first felt the full thrill of jioctic 
 ecstasy as they gazed on her ci\'ic rajiturcs, and foretold 
 defeat to all who withstood her new-found might. That 
 was Nationality in its purest form. It <orre.sj)onds to the 
 time in life when the youth finds himself.
 
 154 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 But, as often happens in human affairs, this strength 
 ran riot. Self-reahzation begot self-confidence, and that 
 in its turn contempt for those who were still inert. Hence 
 the crusade of 1792 for the liberation of unfree peoples 
 degenerated into wars of aggression. As Wordsworth 
 phrased it : — 
 
 But now, become oppressors in their turn. 
 Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence 
 For one of conquest, losing sight of all 
 Which they had struggled for. . . . 
 
 ... I read her doom, 
 With anger vexed, with disappointment sore." ^ 
 
 This sudden degeneration of French Nationality reminds 
 us that there is a baser side to the instinct. In this respect 
 it does not aim at the union of all who desire to share in 
 the common life, but seeks to compel aliens to come in. 
 It uses force, not attraction. Its outcome is tyranny, not 
 liberty ; a military Empire, not a free Federation. 
 
 Not only events in France in 1792-1815, but also the 
 Continental movements of 1848-9 reveal the ease with 
 which Nationalism is perverted and becomes an enemy 
 to freedom. When the peoples of Italy, France, Germany, 
 and Austria-Hungary rose to demand constitutional rule 
 and a more natural political grouping, Democracy and 
 Nationality seemed for a time to have achieved a complete 
 triumph. But the two principles soon clashed, especially 
 among the Germans and Magyars. In Hungary, the 
 Magyars won their freedom from the House of Hapsburg, 
 but soon showed their unfitness for the boon. No sooner 
 did they gain constitutional rights than they used 
 them to force the Magyar language on their Slav fellow- 
 subjects — an act of intolerance fatal to Hungary in 1849, 
 
 ^ Wordsworth, Prelude, Bk. XI.
 
 XATIOXALITY AND MILITARISM 155 
 
 as similar acts have been in tlie recent past.' At other 
 points, too. the Xationahsts of 1849 strained their case to 
 breaking point, witli the result that in Central Europe and 
 to a less extent in Italy Democracy and Nationality parted 
 company, to their mutual detriment. 
 
 The upshot of it all was that the progranmie of Mazzini 
 failed in the sphere of practice ; and the peoples, unable to 
 achieve self-expression by their unaided exertions, fell back 
 on the methods of diplomacy and force exemplified in the 
 careers of Cavour and Bismarck, and championed by the 
 Houses of Savoy and Hohenzollern. In that statement 
 much lies enfolded ; for it implies that they entered upon 
 paths parallel to those which led Revolutionary France 
 towards Militarism. 
 
 True : the successes won by Cavour and Bismarck were 
 phenomenal. The Italian and Gemian movements rushed 
 to victory in the elc\cn years 1859-70 ; but I believe 
 that all intelligent Germans now regret the suddenness 
 and the brilliance of that triumph uf military force. Better 
 that Germany and Italy had struggled on some decades 
 longer, and won their national unity by less forceful means 
 and at the cost of fewer national antipathies. 
 
 Let us retrace our steps in order to observe the parallel 
 courses of Militarism in Republican France and Bis- 
 marckian Prussia. As we saw in Lecture II, France 
 adopted the princii)le of ci\ic service for her newly en- 
 franchised sons in 1789 ; and Lafayette, sh<^rtly after the 
 ca|)ture of the Bastille, wheii f(mnding the new National 
 (iuaril, j)ronounced that force "an institution at once 
 civic and military, which nmst prevail over the old tactics 
 (A Europe, ami whitli will reduce arbitrary Governments 
 
 ' Uluntschli (Theory of the Stale, Hk. II, cli. j) says lluit a Stale 
 (.innot fleny a Naliun.ilitv tin- use of iU l.ini^uaKf and lilciatiirf, 
 thuugli it may u^c the prcduininanl laji(^aagc lur cuuvc-nicncc.
 
 156 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 to the alternative of being beaten if they do not imitate it, 
 or overthrown [by their subjects] if they dare to imitate 
 it."i This remarkable prophecy did not come true until 
 the national danger became acute ; but then, in the spring 
 of 1793, the organization of the National Guards was greatly 
 extended, so much so as to cause the first outbreaks in 
 recalcitrant La Vendee. After the individualist Girondins 
 were overthrown on June 2, thorough -going Jacobins 
 leaped to power, and they proceeded to enforce the prin- 
 ciple of national service. With Robespierre supreme in 
 the Committee of Public Safety and Carnot as its military 
 organizer, conscription became the groundwork of the 
 national defence. In a great speech at the Jacobins' Club 
 on August 1 1 Robespierre thus set forth the gravity of the 
 military crisis : "... The remedy is in you yourselves. 
 ... If the whole people does not derive fresh courage 
 from our reverses ; if one single citizen fails to rush forward 
 to devote himself to the salvation of the country by beating 
 back its oppressors, it is all up with Liberty : she will not 
 survive our courage." Thereafter a Report was presented 
 to the National Convention urging drastic measures, 
 because " half measures are always fatal in extreme peril. 
 The whole nation is easier to move than a part of the 
 nation. . . . Let there be no exceptions save those which 
 are necessary for the sowing and harvesting of the crops." 
 Barere then declared that the whole nation ought to rise 
 in defence of freedom and constitution and to drive out 
 the foreign despots and their satellites. On August 23 the 
 National Convention placed all males of military age per- 
 manently at the service of the armies. The decree ran thus : 
 " The young men shall go to fight ; married men shall forge 
 weapons and transport supplies ; the women shall make 
 tents and uniforms or serve in the hospitals ; the children 
 
 ^ Lafayette, Mems., II, 267.
 
 NATIONALITY AND .MILITAKI^.M 157 
 
 shall make lint ; the old men shall be carried to the public 
 squares to excite the courage of soldiers, hatred of kings, 
 and enthusiasm for the unity of the Ropubhc."' That is 
 how France interpreted the new dc\ice on its flags : " The 
 French nation risen against tyrants." 
 
 It has been asserted that the decree of 1798 is the first 
 law of conscription. True, it carried out more methodically 
 the system imposed in August, 179J. But the later decree 
 was merely the extension of the earlier decree, which gave 
 France those massive arrays so fatal to the thin lines of 
 Coburg and the Duke of York. The momentum of the 
 new national forces carried them into Holland, the Rhine- 
 land, and tlie Genoese Riviera in the campaigns of 1794-5, 
 thus inaugurating the period of conquest, which was 
 prolonged by the genius and ambition of Napoleon. 
 
 These facts should be noted carefully ; for they dispose 
 of the assertions often made, that conscription was a device 
 of the monarchs for the enslavement of their peoples. 
 Far froni that, conscription was a device of the most 
 democratic government in the world for the expulsion of 
 the armies of the monarchs. None of them dared to copy 
 the deniocratic principle of national service, until Frederick 
 W'iUiam III of Prussia doubtfully adopted it as a desperate 
 expedient for saving that humiliated State from utter 
 ruin ; and tlie Prussian army, when nationalized, played 
 a very important part in the o\ert]irow of Napoleon. 
 I believe that there is a \-ague notion that conscription 
 (jriginated with him. He merely systematized its appHca- 
 tion. The responsibility for the introduction of the system 
 lies with tlie French Republicans of iy()^ and 179'S. It was 
 therefore a result of the national and democratic sentiment 
 which swept through France at the time of her great 
 Revolution. The statement that Militarism is the outcome 
 * Hiil. parlementairc, XXVIII, .\55-\(i9-
 
 158 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 of a deep-laid plot of rulers to enslave their peoples is so 
 far wrong, that, after the Restoration of the French 
 Bourbons in 1814-5, the national army was considerably 
 reduced ; and the same thing happened among other 
 peoples. Autocrats do not like universal service ; for they 
 cannot trust it. Thus ended Militarism in its first phase. 
 
 The second, or Prussian, phase began in i860, when, 
 for purposes of defence, after the humiliations of the 
 previous years, the Regent (soon King), William I of 
 Prussia, introduced the first of his famous Army Bills. 
 They were fiercely opposed by the Prussian Parliament 
 in the belief that he would make the army the tool of 
 absolutism. But his aim was patriotic, not despotic. 
 After the overthrow of Denmark and Austria by means 
 of that army, Prussian Liberals withdrew their opposition 
 and condoned all the illegal proceedings of the years 
 1860-6. Why ? Because, however high-handed, the 
 Bismarckian policy had enabled them to win Schleswig- 
 Holstein from the Danes and to weld the North German 
 States on the firm basis of the Prussian monarchy. Their 
 constitutional scruples vanished when it appeared that the 
 policy of " blood and iron " had prevailed over two neigh- 
 bouring States, and had nearly solved the problem of 
 German unity. The Prussian deputies now saw that the 
 King's aim had been national. The triumph of 1870 
 clinched the success of Prussia ; and the German Empire 
 of 1871, though federal in form, was, in effect, an enlarge- 
 ment of Prussia. In March, 1849, Kii^g Frederick William 
 IV had solemnly promised that Prussia should merge 
 herself in Germany. In 1871 Germany merged herself 
 in Prussia. 
 
 The brilliance of these military triumphs led neighbouring 
 peoples to copy the Prussian army ; and once again 
 Europe became an armed camp. The results are well
 
 XATIOXALITY AXD MILITARISM 159 
 
 known. Just as Napoleon diverted to purposes of conquest 
 a citizen-anuy wliich at first was solely defensive, so Kaiser 
 Wilhehn II lias misused the enormous resources of men, 
 arms, and money which his grandfather is believed to have 
 amassed primarily for the sake of defence. Worst of all, 
 the national army which enabled Prussia in 1866-70 to 
 effect the unity of Gennany, has been prostituted to colossal 
 schemes of aggrandizement at thr expense of weaker 
 neighbours. The conduct of \\'ilhLlin 11 in this century 
 therefore resembles that of Napoleon a century ago. But 
 in one respect the Hohenzollcrn has less excuse than the 
 Corsican. In the years 1805-15 national sentiment was 
 far less developed than it is to-day. A century of effort 
 has strengthened the individuality of all the peoples, so that 
 their merging in any one State or Union, which was possible 
 under Napoleon, is unthinkable under Wilhehn. Prussia 
 now offers her victims no higli ideal of citizenship, only the 
 prospect of unlimited drilling with a view to the subjection 
 of other peoples ; no inspiring traditions such as glorified 
 the French Empire— little else than records of astute 
 oj)portunism, sudden attack, and now, as in 1871, brutality 
 in the hour of real or fancied triumpli. Such is the history 
 of fifty-five years of Prussian Militarism. L'ndcr Nai)olt()n 
 (at any rate up to Friedland, 1807) the French polity had 
 not so far belied its democratic origin as to be a tool of 
 despotism and ambition. The men who carried NapoKon's 
 eagles to Vienna, Rome, and Warsaw believed that they 
 were furthering the cause of liberty. Do the German 
 troojjs in Belgium, Poland, and Serbia believe that ? Will 
 a foreign poet and a foreign composer ever sound forth 
 the heroism and chivalry of zwci Crciuniicroi, as Ihiiic 
 and S< humaim immortalized those of N,ij)oleon ?
 
 LECTURE IX 
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 
 
 " Weak and incapable nations must look on while foreign 
 nationalities gain in number and importance within the borders of 
 their State." — Prince von Bulow, Imperial Germany, p. 240. 
 
 The previous studies have illustrated the excellences and 
 defects of the national movements up to the year 1885. 
 The instinct of Nationality has endowed the European 
 peoples and Japan (perhaps soon we shall add China) with 
 a vitality and force which resembles, say, the incoming of 
 steam-power into industry. What previously had been 
 minutely subdivided and inert became united, vigorous, 
 aggressive. Contrast the ridiculous Germany at which 
 Heine mocked, the torpid Italy which Mazzini awakened, 
 with the great and powerful nations of to-day. The 
 changes wrought by the national wars of the years 1859-70 
 are among the most important of all time ; for they altered 
 not only the polity but the national character in France, 
 Germany, and Italy. ^ Further, the Balkan peoples were 
 nerved to struggle for their rights, and in 1876-8 and 1885 
 
 1 In a Paris paper early in February, 1871, was an article by 
 " Ferragus " which began : " Bismarck has probably done better 
 service to France than to Germany. He has worked for a false 
 unity in his country, but ver}^ effectually for a regeneration of ours. 
 He has freed us from the Empire. He has restored to us our energy, 
 our hatred for the foreigner, our love for our country, our contempt 
 for life, our readiness for self-sacrifice, in short all the virtues which 
 Napoleon III had killed in us." 
 
 160
 
 NATIONALISM SINCK 1SS3 161 
 
 they largely succeeded in shaking off the Turkish yoke. 
 In the autumn of 1885 the union of the two Bulgarias 
 almost completed the aspirations of that people ; and (as 
 we saw in Lecture \'I) it enabled them to escape from 
 Russian tutelage and to proceed with internal developments 
 of great promise. On the other hand British polic}-, which 
 under Lord Beaconsfield had thwarted the national efforts 
 of the Balkan peoples, now, under Lord Salisbur}', resumed 
 its traditional role of protector of the small nationalities. 
 Thus, up to the month of September, 1885, Nationalism 
 won portentous triumphs. True, in 1866 Prussia over- 
 stepped her fair limits In' annexing the Danes of North 
 Schleswig, and in 1871 by wrenching Alsace-Lorraine from 
 France. Still, the balance was decidedly favourable for 
 the national principle. 
 
 We now approach c\-ents of a different order. I propose 
 to review them here as impartially as possible, and in the 
 main to leave you to draw your own conclusions. 
 
 On November 14, 1885, King Milan of Serbia suddenly 
 declared war against Bulgaria on a frivolous pretext, his 
 real reason being jealousy of the increase of her power 
 consequent on the recent union. The Serbs entered Bul- 
 garia, and were advancing towards Sofia, when the Bulgars, 
 speedily rallying, soundly beat them at Slivnitza, and 
 chased them back into their own territory. Near Pirot 
 the victors were bidden to halt. The Austrian general, 
 Khcvenhiiller, declared in imperious terms that any 
 further advance would oblige the Dual-Monarchy to send 
 in its white-coats. The Bulgars thereafter retired, ;in(l 
 patrhed up matters with Serbia ; but the incident rankled 
 in the breasts of both peoples and excited racial jealousies 
 dating bark five centuries to tli<' time of Serbia's glory 
 under the sway of King Dushan. 
 
 The ( onisif)n has a double signifieance. Only se\cn years 
 
 .M
 
 i62 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 after deliverance from their bondage to the Turk two 
 Christian peoples flew at one another's throats and thereby 
 provoked hatreds whose ghastly sequel has recently 
 appalled the world. Secondly, the intervention of Austria 
 on behalf of her protege, King Milan, gave colour to the 
 story that she had incited him to that fratricidal attack 
 in order to weaken the Balkan peoples and thus prepare 
 the way for her advance southwards to Salonica. As she 
 had bargained with the Tsar in 1876 with a view to the 
 acquisition of that long-coveted port,i she probably had 
 a hand in Milan's enterprise. Thereafter both he and his 
 son, Alexander (the latter reigned at Belgrade from 1889 
 to 1903) were notoriously under Hapsburg patronage, 
 which often screened them from the resentment of the 
 Serb people. The murder of Alexander and the accession 
 of Peter (of the Karageorge family) inaugurated a national 
 policy, which increasingly incurred the displeasure of the 
 Hapsburgs. But, despite the long tutelage of Serbia by 
 them, and that of Bulgaria by the Tsar Alexander III ; even 
 despite the cruelties of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II against 
 both the Serbs and Bulgars in Macedonia, these races could 
 not lay aside their mutual hatreds. Consequently, the 
 ideal of a Balkan Federation remained a dream ; and 
 disgust at the narrow and vindictive Nationalism of the 
 Balkan peoples probably figured among the motives which 
 led the new Tsar, Nicholas II (1894), to turn away from 
 their exasperating feuds towards the golden visions opening 
 out in the Far East. Whatever his reasons, he certainly 
 took less interest than his father in Balkan affairs. 
 
 In 1897 the Greeks struggled unsuccessfully to extend 
 their too narrow bounds in Thessaly. They met with no 
 support whatever from Serbs and Bulgars, and succumbed 
 to an unexpectedly sharp counter-stroke from Turks and 
 
 ^ Debidour, Hist, diplomatique de I'Europe, II, 515.
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1SS5 163 
 
 Albanians. In the same year ruthless massacres of Mace- 
 donians and Armenians by order of Abdul Hamid mani- 
 fested his resolve to effect a Moslem rex i\al by tiie 
 traditional Turkish method ; and the sight of this energy 
 produced no small impression at Berlin. In face of these 
 glaring violations of tiie articles of the Treaty of 1878, 
 guaranteeing good government to the Christian subjects 
 of tlie Sultan, Great Britain, France, and Italy displayed 
 an apathy highly discreditable to their rulers. Their 
 inaction in a matter closely concerning their honour, the 
 orientation of Russian policy, and the warlike prowess of 
 Abdul Hamid served to strengthen a Panislam movement, 
 which soon received a public benediction from Kaiser 
 W'ilhehn II. During his Eastern tour in 1898 (that is, two 
 years after the adoption of Wdtpolitik) he announced his 
 resolve to befriend the Sultan and the 300,000,000 Moslems 
 — a declaration destined to strengthen Mohammedan fanati- 
 cism and to cause further massacres of the Christians of 
 the Ottoman Empire. Further troubles having ensued, 
 especially in that seething cauldron of races, Macedonia, 
 the Emperors of Russia and Austria drew up at !\Iiirzsteg 
 in 1903 a programme of reforms for an improved 
 administration of that province.* The " Miirzsteg Pro- 
 gramme " completed and strengthened one that the two 
 Sovereigns had framed in 1897, ^^^^ other Powers on both 
 occasions agreeing to delegate special functions to those 
 i)reviously rival Empires. Both efforts to put down 
 iiarchy in Macedonia failed, either from lack of energy 
 in the efforts, or because the racial feuds were insoluble. 
 
 ' Very many Macedonians have no definite racial afiinity, which 
 • nablcs rival claimants to number the Greeks either 600,000 or 
 ^cxj,(j<x> ; the liulf^ars 2,000,000, 1,500,000, or 60,000; the Serbs 
 2,o5o,or>o or nil ; the Wallaths 100,000 or 75,000 ; the Turks 
 Ooo,fX)o or 230,000. Sec J. Cvijic, Renutrques sur I'Ethno^raphie de 
 '1 Mac/fioittf : Ichircoff, Ktudc cthnof^raphique sur les Slaves de 
 laceJume (l*ari.s, lyoh).
 
 i64 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Accordingly, the Great Powers once more took up the duties 
 imposed on them by the Treaty of Berhn, and in April, 
 1907, sought to cure the maladministration of Macedonia. 
 This attempt came too late ; for the situation had recently 
 changed in favour of the Central Empires. Russia was 
 badly beaten by Japan in 1904-5, whereupon the Berlin 
 Government dictated terms to France in the Moroccan 
 affair of 1905-6 ; and, with the accession of Aehrenthal 
 to office, in 1906, Austria entered upon a vigorous foreign 
 policy. The results were seen in an increase of Teutonic 
 energy in all quarters, while the Slav cause, which Russia 
 had neglected since 1897, underwent a notable decline, 
 the prestige of Austria and Turkey proportionately rising. 
 
 These facts explain the daring stroke of Austria in annex- 
 ing Bosnia outright ; while at the same time her protege, 
 Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, proclaimed himself Tsar 
 of the Bulgarians (October, 1908). Coming soon after 
 the Young Turk Revolution at Constantinople, these 
 events foreshadowed a future in which Austria, Bulgaria, 
 and a renovated Turkey would share the Peninsula about 
 equally between them. Germany threw her weight into 
 the scale in favour of Austria ; and a threat from Kaiser 
 Wilhelm to Russia in the spring of 1909 caused the latter 
 to accept the Hapsburgs' fait accompli in Bosnia. Thence- 
 forth the futiue of the Balkans lay with the Central 
 Empires and with their proteges, Bulgaria and Roumania. 
 
 To the confusion caused by threats from without were 
 added the miseries due to ever-increasing racial feuds and 
 mad misgovernment. The Young Turks, far from carrying 
 out their much-vaunted programme of reforms, soon 
 exasperated their subjects by an " Ottomanizing " policy 
 of the most pedantic and irritating kind. Consequently, 
 the Greek, Serb, and Bulgar elements in Macedonia 
 despaired of obtaining redress except by force, and what
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 165 
 
 the Turkish vampires spared the armed bands of these 
 rival races swept oft". The beginning of the end came for 
 Ottoman rule when the usually faithful Albanians rose in 
 revolt against stupid interferences with their customs and 
 language. Consequently, the Eastern Question in 1909-12 
 entered upon its last and most terrible phase. 
 
 While Nationalism in the Balkans made more and more 
 for strife, the same instinct waxed powerful and aggressive 
 in Central Europe. The interaction of these cyclonic 
 systems has finally produced the present appalling tempest. 
 In order to understand that interaction and the tremendous 
 forces which it set in motion, we must retrace our steps 
 and note the rise of Chauvinism in Germany and the outlet 
 which it sought to acquire towards the East. 
 
 As we have already seen, Kaiser Wilhehn II has 
 modelled his policy largely on that of Frederick the Great. 
 Now, during that reign, as also subsequently, Prussia often 
 made ^se of the Turks to annoy and weaken either Russia 
 or Austria, whenever those realms were at feud with her. 
 Another fact is equally significant. The rival Houses of 
 Ilapsburg and liolienzollern have rarely continued long in 
 close union except for purposes of aggression against their 
 neighbours. Cases in point arc their agreements to effect 
 the Partitions of Pohmd (1772, 1793, 1795, though in 1793 
 Austria comi)lained of being left in the lurch) and those of 
 1792 and 1815 for the annexation of large portions of 
 France. In 1827-30 they united in order to tliwart the 
 emancijjation of Greece, then championed by Russia, 
 Frant e, and EngUuid, the general aim of the (jcrmanic 
 Powers being to ujjhold Turkish authority and stay the 
 growth of the Christian peoples of the Balkans.' But tiiat 
 
 ' See, l(K), l)fbni(:\T, Hist, dtplomaliqiie de I'liurope, II, i8i-j. 
 for Austria's opposition to the formation of the Principality of 
 Koumania in 1H5H, wliicli was helped on by Kuhsia ami N'apolion 
 III. " the frun<I of n.itionaiitu-s."
 
 i66 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 negative and cramping policy has of late given way to one 
 that has sought to range Turkey, if possible along with 
 Roumania and Bulgaria, on the side of the Central Empires. 
 Serb nationalists, inspired by jealousy of Bulgaria and the 
 hope of detaching their kith and kin, the Croats and Slovenes, 
 from Austria, firmly opposed all attempts at bullying or 
 bargaining from Vienna. But the stolid Tartar strain in 
 the Bulgars' nature afforded some hope of rallying them, 
 under their Coburg prince, to the side of their Moslem 
 oppressors and against their Russian liberators. This done, 
 Serbia alone barred the way to the formation of a Teutonic- 
 Magyar-Turanian League, extending from the North Sea 
 to the Persian Gulf. For such a purpose HohenzoUern and 
 Hapsburg might well clasp hands and consort with the 
 butchers of the Balkan Christians. That this Eastern 
 expansion would crush Balkan Nationalism was nothing 
 to the leaders of thought and action in the Central Empires ; 
 for their conception of things had wholly changed since 
 the time when Bismarck and Deak achieved the triumph 
 of that principle for the German and the Magyar. 
 
 Let us, then, review the events which transformed 
 Bismarck's Austro-German alliance of 1879 (an essentially 
 defensive compact) into an aggressive league aiming at 
 the domination of the land hemisphere. The determining 
 event was the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the German 
 throne in 1888. Inheriting a powerful and prosperous 
 domain, protected by an invincible army and unassailable 
 alliances, he nevertheless declared in his first proclamation 
 that he would ever be responsible for the glory and honour 
 of his army. To this was added keen sohcitude for naval 
 and colonial expansion, as appeared in his very profitable 
 bargain with Lord Salisbury in 1890 for the cession of some 
 untenable claims over Zanzibar against the acquisition of 
 that valuable naval base, Heligoland. But the fact that he
 
 XATIOXAI.ISM SINCE 1885 167 
 
 bargained anytliing away in East Africa angered the more 
 eager of the Gemian patriots, who sought to prevent a 
 recurrence of such a humihation by founding a kind of 
 watchdog Society in 1S91, which, three years later, became 
 the Pangerman League. Claiming that the Gennan Empire 
 must become a World-Empire, it set forth the following 
 ideal : " Above the interests of the State should be those 
 of the Nation. Even more sacred than love of the Father- 
 land should be love of the ilothcrland." It soon appeared 
 that the nation was the totality of all German-speaking 
 peoples, and the Motherland was the area (geographically 
 vague but mentally stinuilating) which would bring all 
 these peoples into the Teutonic fellowship. The Germans 
 of Austria, Switzerland, and the Baltic provinces of Russia 
 (though the last were but a small minority among the 
 Letts and Esthonians) were all to be swept into the 
 -Motherland's anns, which would finally close around 
 Dutch, Flemings, and Scandinavians. The day of little 
 States and little peoples was over ; for they lived a narrow 
 existence, oppressed by fear of vigorous neighbours. Let 
 them, therefore, merge their miserable lives in tliat of the 
 Teutonic Supennan. Such was the Pangerman propaganda, 
 directed by a friend of the Kaiser, Di . Hasse. It soon 
 gained an inmiense vogue ; and around tlic League clus- 
 tered several organizations, chief among tliem the Navy 
 League. 
 
 The generation which grew up during the years of 
 Koniggriitz and Sedan (William II's generation) was in 
 the mood to regard even those triumphs as precursors to 
 others of world-wide import. Merely by skilful carpet- 
 bagging and diplomatic hustling, Bismarck and agents 
 like Peters, Nachtigall, and Liideritz had secured a con- 
 siderable colonial Empire ; and if that were gained by 
 craft, what might not be the outcome <j1 a well-i)r('pare<l
 
 i68 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 effort of the whole German nation ? After the surrender 
 of Paris in January, 1871, Bismarck called his people " the 
 male principle, the fructifying principle " of Europe ; 
 while the Celts and Slavs represented the female sex. 
 As for the English, they were contemptible hucksters, 
 envious of the brave Germans but afraid to fight them.^ 
 Such was the doctrine taught to young Germany in and 
 after 1871. To it Treitschke merely added an academic 
 veneer. Viewing history from the standpoint of a patriotic 
 pamphleteer, he excited the youth of Germany by sentences 
 such as these : "To tell the truth, the Slav seems to us a 
 born slave " ;2 or again : " What nation will impose its 
 will on the other enfeebled and decadent peoples ? Will 
 it not be Germany's mission to ensure the peace of the 
 world ? Russia, that immense Colossus with feet of clay, 
 will be absorbed in its domestic and economic difficulties. 
 England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will 
 doubtless see her colonies break loose and exhaust them- 
 selves in fruitless struggles. France, given over to internal 
 dissensions and the strife of parties, will sink into hopeless 
 decadence. As to Italy, she will have her work cut out 
 to ensure a crust to her children. The future belongs to 
 Germany, to which Austria will attach herself if she wishes 
 to survive." With a few honourable exceptions the 
 teachers at the German Universities adopted this tone, 
 and thus nursed the feeling of national pride which the 
 parade ground brought to lush maturity. 
 
 Along with this, however, there grew up a passion to 
 excel, to push through every task to thorough completion. 
 An English correspondent long in Germany has described 
 
 ■ 1 Bismarck : some secret Pages of his History, I, 500, 526 ; 
 
 Bismarck in the Franco-German War, I, 277, II, 8, 19, 333, 345 (note). 
 
 ^ Treitschke, Germany, France, Russia, and Islam, p. 17 (Eng.ed.).
 
 XATIOXALISM SINCE 1885 169 
 
 it by their word Draug — driving force, ox tlie resolve to 
 make your will prevail.^ It is a formidable force in all 
 departments of life, and contrasts sharply with the easy 
 good nature and weak tolerance of bad work far too pre- 
 valent among us. In this respect we need to copy the 
 Germans and regain that passion for thoroughness which 
 used to be ours, but which has vanished of late under the 
 influence of pleasure, sport, or the worship of the eight- 
 hours' day. It is significant that the German phrase 
 Allcs in Ordnung, which corresponds to our " All right," 
 conveys a guarantee that all is right. Whereas our phrase 
 " All right " has come to mean : " Now, don't bother : 
 I've done all I mean to do." This is the spirit which we 
 must drive from our Uni\'ersities and schools, our work- 
 shops and public offices. We need a new sense of the dignity 
 of work such as Thomas Carlyle hammered into his genera- 
 tion — a healthy public opinion which will be stronger than 
 official etiquette, stronger than red tape, stronger even 
 than Trade Union regulations. In this respect Germany 
 has nmch to teach us regarding her matchless power of 
 organization ; and at bottom that means power of hard 
 work and clear thinking. In the fierce competition of the 
 modern world (a competition which will be fiercer than 
 ever after the war) no nation is sure of holding its own 
 unless it puts forth its utmost powers, directs them 
 wisely, and minimizes the friction between Capital and 
 Labour. 
 
 To return to Germany : the intense devotion of her 
 people, fostered in the schools and Universities, lias 
 permeated all parts of the national life ; ami it must be 
 remembered that that feeling, with its ( (tunterjjart, 
 (ontemj>t for (Hlier peoples, is based on a not unnatural 
 belief in the primacy of Germans in all important spheres. 
 ' C. Tower, Chanmnti (icnnauv, \>. z^^.
 
 170 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Thus a new tone has permeated the German people during 
 the reign of Wilhehn II. It has also profoundly affected 
 their settlers in other lands, who, under the influence of 
 patriotic clubs, have tended to form garrisons for the 
 Empire, ready, when called upon, to take action against 
 the communities out of which they have made their money. 
 No harm would have resulted from this fanatical Teutonism 
 if the Kaiser and his paladins had been wise and prudent. 
 But startling results followed when he, they and the leading 
 professors and journalists sought to outcrow each other 
 in praise of Germania. Sheer political vertigo was the 
 -outcome, especially since 1896, when Wilhelm proclaimed 
 Weltpolitik as the goal of her efforts. The Pangerman 
 League first enunciated the programme in 1894. Not to 
 be outdone, the Kaiser adopted it at the twenty-fifth 
 anniversary of the proclamation of the Empire (January 21, 
 1896). 
 
 In other matters the League has pushed him on. 
 In 1895 it urged the acquisition of a good naval base in 
 China ; the mailed fist in 1897 descended upon Kiao-Chao, 
 after the opportune murder of two German missionaries. 
 In 1896 the League eamiarked Asia Minor as a fit sphere 
 for economic penetration by the Germans. Again after 
 an interval of two years, the Kaiser proceeded to Con- 
 stantinople and Damascus, making at the tomb of Saladin 
 his promise ever to champion the Moslem World. In 
 1896-7 the Pangerman and Navy Leagues began a sys- 
 tematic agitation in favour of a great navy. The Kaiser 
 responded by appointing Admiral von Tirpitz to the 
 Admiralty, and an expansionist, Count (now Prince) von 
 Biilow, to the Foreign Office ; while the Navy Bill of 1898 
 ushered in the long series of measures for the systematic 
 and sustained increase of the German marine. Certain 
 acts of the Kaiser, such as his proclamation as to Well-
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 171 
 
 politik, bear the impress of his personality, whicli loves to 
 seize a great occasion for the utterance of a sonorous and 
 telling phrase. But in the main it seems that he has been 
 pushed on by eager and ambitious patriots, who, after 
 gaining the ear of a morbidly sensitive public, have re- 
 proached him for timidity whenever he has sought to steady 
 the pace. 
 
 It is worthy of note that he has gi\en them thrii head 
 on occasions when he deemed Germany to be well prepared 
 for war. Such occasions were the years succeeding the 
 opening of the Kiel Canal in 1895 ; the completion of the 
 first instalment of the new navy in 1905 (which coincided 
 with Russia's defeats in the Far East) ; the opportunity 
 which offered for supporting Austria's forward move of 
 October, 1908, in the Near East ; and the completion of 
 the enlarged Kiel Canal in June, 1914 (which coincided 
 with singular difficulties for the Entente Powers and a 
 unique state of militar}' preparation in Germany). On 
 other occasions he has often held in the Pangermans 
 despite their champing the bit and pawing the air. But 
 again, as if to relieve his pent-up feelings, he has uttered 
 words that struck like a spur : " Our future lies on the 
 water " — " The trident must pass into our hands " — 
 " We are the salt of the earth " — " The German nation 
 alone has been called upon to defend, cultivate, and de\ elop 
 great ideas " — " Our Gennan nation shall be the rock of 
 granite on which the Almighty will finish his work of 
 civilizing the worl<l. Then shall i)c fuHilled the words of 
 the poet : ' (iemian character shall save tiir world.' " 
 The ruler who uttered these words, and tried to live up 
 to them, must bear a heavy share of responsibility for the 
 growth of an o\erwcening Chauvinism. The collective 
 impulse, which up to 1870 had been a healthy endea\our 
 to achieve national union, has un<ler Kai^-r W'illielm II
 
 172 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 been degraded into an aggressive Nationalism utterly 
 callous to the claims of other peoples. 
 
 Rash in word but prudent in deed, ^^'ilhelm kept a tight 
 curb on his high-spirited charger until a clear field was 
 before him ; and in this respect he may count as the new 
 'Machiavel. During the Boer War of 1899-1902 he turned 
 the furiously Angiophobe passions of his subjects into a 
 practical channel by carrying through an immense naval 
 programme ; and in the spring of 1905, when Russia's 
 military power tottered under the blows of Japan, he 
 embarked on the Moroccan policy which the Leagues had 
 pressed on him long before. Meanwhile his Chancellor, 
 Billow, had secured the passing of the Tariff Laws of 1902 
 for the protection of agriculture so that the Germany of the 
 future might not depend too largely on foreign foodstuffs. A 
 further aim of the Kaiser and Chancellor was to stimulate 
 tillage of the soil so as to maintain a healthy balance 
 between industry and agriculture, as was summed up in 
 the phrase, " Agriculture must provide soldiers and 
 industry pay for them.''^ 
 
 Thus was built up a polity no less prosperous in peace 
 than well prepared for war ; and the outcome of this 
 material preparedness and national confidence was seen 
 in the rebuffs dealt to France in the Moroccan affair of 
 1905-6. Apprehension of Germany had prompted the 
 Anglo-French Entente of 1904, and in 1907 came that 
 between England and Russia, which was clinched by the 
 recent declarations of Germany at the Hague Conference, 
 that she would neither lessen her armaments nor submit 
 disputes to arbitration. The Ententes, though merely 
 conditional agreements far removed from definite alliances, 
 ought to have warned the German people of the need of 
 lowering its tone. In normal conditions a nation would 
 
 ^ Billow, Imperial Germany, pp. 20Q-11.
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 17;, 
 
 regard the alienation of an old friend, like Russia, and 
 her drawing towards other States for protection, as a 
 sign that its conduct had been unduly provocative, and 
 that bluster must give way to conciliation. But this is 
 not the way of champions of Drang. Their aim being 
 to carry matters with a high hand, they interpret all 
 signs of distrust as a challenge to their honour. Newly 
 awakened Nationalism (and that of Germany dates from 
 1S70) has always displayed the morbid sensitiveness of 
 youth, and has given out that tlie Entente is contriving 
 a villainous plot to " encircle " Germany and Austria 
 with a view to bringing about their isolation and de- 
 struction. 
 
 Let us examine this charge in the light of facts. They 
 are as follows : The Central Empires had a close alliance 
 with Italy and a personal compact with tlie King of 
 Koumania, a member of the Swabian branch df the House 
 of Hohenzollern. A German prince reigned over Bulgaria, 
 the Kaiser's sister had married the Crown Prince of Greece, 
 and the Sultan of Turkey was notoriously a satrap of 
 Berlin. Consequently, the " encircling " of a block of 
 territory, which extended from the North Sea to the 
 Tyrrhene and .Egean, could scarcely be taken seriously 
 by those who knew the facts of the case. But by dint of 
 much noise and skilful suppression of facts, the Germans, 
 and n(jt a few Englishmen, were led to regard the Central 
 Empires, etc., as pinched in by wily and aggressive foes 
 under the direction of the arch-plotter. King Edward ML 
 The theory of " encircling " proved to be especially 
 ser\'iccable in dulling the opposition of German Socialists 
 to the successive Army and Navy Bills. I'nacciuaintcd 
 with military history, they failed to realize the enormous 
 advantage* of the central position in warfare ; and the 
 authorities, who every year increased that advantage by
 
 174 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 constructing strategic railways to the western and eastern 
 frontiers, ceased not to alarm their subjects as to the 
 terrible might of the Eastern Colossus, the quenchless 
 thirst of Frenchmen for a war of revenge, and the malignant 
 jealousy of England. 
 
 That the German Government was not actuated by 
 fear of Russia or France is obvious from its policy. At the 
 Hague Conference of 1907, as we have seen, it rejected 
 all proposals for arbitration and limitation of armaments ; 
 at the close of 1908 the Reichstag passed Bills for the 
 Germanizing of Alsace-Lorrainers, the Poles of Posen, and 
 the Danes of North Schleswig. At the same time Germany 
 supported her ahy, Austria, in her annexation of Bosnia ; 
 and in March, 1909, a threatening note from Berlin to 
 Petrograd led the Tsar to withdraw his opposition to that 
 step. Further, the vigorous efforts of Teutonic diplomacy 
 to recover the ground at first lost at Constantinople in the 
 Young Turk Revolution of 1908 were completely successful. 
 This forceful policy upheld the arms of Austria-Hungary, 
 browbeat Russia, and encouraged the Young Turks to 
 proceed with the " Ottomanizing " of their Christian 
 subjects.^ 
 
 In no quarter did the Teutonic idea work more effec- 
 tively than in Austria-Hungary. In its early stages the 
 Pangerman movement seemed to threaten the disruption 
 of the Dual Monarchy, whose Germanic subjects, hard 
 pressed by 'Slavs and Magyars, seemed likely to break 
 away from the crumbling heritage of the Hapsburgs and 
 form a southern annexe of the Hohenzollern Empire. 
 But, however much the Pangermans played \vith tlie 
 notion, the statesmen of Berlin finally discouraged it as 
 tending to form a diffuse realm in which Prussian influence 
 
 ^ Nationalism and War in the Near East, by " Diplomatist," 
 Chs. Ill, IV.
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 175 
 
 would be lost.' They deemed it better to favour the Ger- 
 man elements in Austria and support tliat Empire in tiie 
 difficult enterprise of dominating the Balkans. In 1906 
 the Archduke Ferdinand and the new Foreign Minister, 
 Aehrenthal, inaugurated a spirited foreign policy which 
 succeeded in quieting, or crushing, racial strifes within the 
 Empire. The revival of the prestige of the Dual Monarchy 
 was assisted by the passionate Nationalism of the Magyars, 
 which at times amounted almost to frenzy. Excited by the 
 celebrations of the thousandth anniversary of their organized 
 national life in 1896, Hungarian patriots had resolved 
 to ride roughshod over their Slavonic and Roumanian 
 subjects ; and their exuberant patriotism reduced parlia- 
 mentary elections and procedure to the level of a farce ; 
 while their sense of justice received startling illustration 
 in incidents such as that of the Agram trial.- Nevertheless 
 this crude Nationalism succeeded for the time ; and, 
 joining hands with the boisterous anti-Semites of Vienna 
 and the expansionists of Berlin, it prepared to stride 
 southwards to conquest over the hated Serbs. 
 
 Austro-Hungarian Chauvinism secured its first triumph 
 in the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October, 
 1908. The significance of this event was doubled by its 
 coincidence with the assumption of the title " Tsar of the 
 Bulgarians " by Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria immediately 
 after a visit to the Hapsburg Court. Half Austrian by 
 upbringing, and largely Magyar by sympathy and terri- 
 torial connexions, that wily schemer by his title now laid 
 
 • G. Weil, Le Pangermanisme en Autriche, chs. 7, 8. But tlie 
 revelations of Mr. Wickham Steed (Xineleenth Century. Feb., igiO) 
 as to the alleged bargain between Kaiser Wilhelin and the .An liduke 
 Franz Ferdinand in June, i<ji.\. seem to show that the lornicr niaj- 
 then have revived the older PanRerman scheme. 
 
 * Sec Dr. Seton-W.itson's works, Cor uption and Reform i)i IIioi- 
 gary, Racial J'roblttns in Hungary, etc.
 
 176 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 claim to lordship over the large Bulgar population of 
 Macedonia ; and Austria's longings for Salonica being 
 notorious, it was clear that the Dual Monarchy and her 
 satrap were contemplating an eventual partition of that 
 troublous province. In view of the decline of Russia's 
 prestige in the Near East since her disastrous adventures 
 in the Far East, the Central Empires and their pro-consuls 
 at Sofia and Bukarest had in their hands the future of the 
 Balkan Peninsula. 
 
 These brilliant successes, I repeat, rehabilitated the 
 prestige of Austria, stilled her racial disputes, and reduced 
 the Serbs and their Croat cousins to despair. The details 
 of the compromise framed by the Pangermans and the 
 Dual Monarchy are, of course, not known ; but the success 
 of Austria's forward and Teutonic policy, as contrasted 
 with the barren parliamentary and racial strifes of the 
 earlier period, opened up a new and promising future, in 
 which it seemed that Austria-Hungary would be pre- 
 dominantly German-Magyar and would control the 
 Balkans, thus forming an essential link in the future 
 Zollverein stretching from the North Sea to the Bosphorus, 
 the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. As this scheme 
 developed, it naturally aroused alarm in Russia and among 
 the Mediterranean Powers. The Italians began to sheer 
 off from the Triple Alliance as its Oriental ambitions 
 developed ; and fear of Austro-Gemian aggressions 
 grouped Great Britain, France, and Russia more closely 
 together. The Franco-German agreement of 1909 re- 
 specting Morocco did not, and could not, solve that 
 question ; while the Russo-German compact arrived at 
 late in 1910 failed to compose their rivalries in the Near 
 East. 
 
 This brief survey will suffice to explain not only the 
 political tension prevalent throughout Europe but also
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1S85 177 
 
 the growth of a neurotic Nationalism in German}'. Not 
 satisfied with lier supremacy in Europe, she prepared to 
 achieve world-tUnninanco ; and the mihtary weakness of 
 Russia, together with the absorption of Erance and Engkmd 
 in parliamentary disputes, furthered lier schemes.. The 
 Western Powers sought to solve social questions by con- 
 cessions and bargains ; Germany prepared to soh'c tliem 
 bv distracting the attention of tlie masses to national 
 issues. Prince Biilow has frankly avowed that intention. 
 He states that the successive Army and Navy Bills were 
 designed to help on Gennany's world-policy, and, in order 
 to secure a majority in the Reichstag, the middle classes 
 and as many as possible of the working classes had to be 
 won over. He admits that, notwithstanding all the efforts 
 put forth against the Social Democrats, their votes at the 
 polls steadily mounted, though the number of seats gained 
 curiously varied. 
 
 Votes polled. Seats gained. 
 
 1898 . . 2,107,000 56 
 
 1903 . . 3,011,000 81 
 
 I9"7 •• 3.539.000 43 
 
 1912 .. 4,250,000 no 
 
 Their losses of seats in 1907 were due to speeches, 
 explanations, and " the direction of the electoral cam- 
 paign."' As to the Socialist gains of 1912, Biilow says 
 nothing, because they were due to the spirited protests 
 of that party against Weltpolilik. On the general question 
 of combating the Socialists, he says : " W'e must accustom 
 them to the idea of the State. . . . The idea of the nation 
 must agaip and again be emphasized by dealing witli 
 national problems, so that this idea may continue to move, 
 unite, and separate tli<- p.irtics. Nothing has a more 
 
 * Hiilow, Intperiitl Cscrtmniy. \>\>. 15.S-168. The tot.il iiumlur of 
 deputies i.H 397. 
 
 N
 
 178 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 discouraging, paralysing, and depressing effect on a clever, 
 enterprising, and highly developed nation such as the 
 Germans than a monotonous, dull policy, which, for fear 
 of an ensuing fight, avoids rousing passions by strong 
 action." Biilow also advised the Government to fight 
 Social Democracy by " a great and comprehensive national 
 policy." By this he declares that he meant the Germanizing 
 of all the races within the Empire, especially the Poles, 
 whose political incompetence had subjected them to the 
 superior organization of Prussia. But he deprecated the 
 conquest of neighbouring territories. ^ 
 
 Such a limitation of Germany's expansive power dis- 
 pleased German Chauvinists, who exercised greater pressure 
 on Billow's successor, Bethmann-Hollweg (1909). The 
 Foreign Assistant Secretary, Kiderlen-Waechter, favoured 
 the Agadir coup of July, 1911, which is known to have 
 been contrived by the Navy and other patriotic Leagues. 
 First, they pointed out in the Press the urgent need of 
 German expansion in Morocco ; and then the two Ministers 
 declared that they must try to keep pace with public 
 opinion. Thus the mutually exciting influences of the 
 Leagues and the Administration worked up a furious 
 national feeling which formed the chief danger of the 
 situation. The dispute at Agadir in itself was trivial, as 
 was afterwards admitted by German patriots. But their 
 masterful tone nearly brought about a general war. 
 Probably this was their aim ; for great was their wrath 
 when the Kaiser and his Ministry finally patched up the 
 Morocco dispute by the compact of November 4, 1911, 
 with France, gaining about 100,000 square miles of French 
 Congoland at the price of their acquiescence in French 
 supremacy in Morocco. The rage of German Chauvinists 
 against the Kaiser for this profitable though inglorious 
 1 Ihid., pp. 157-204, 239-245.
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 179 
 
 bargain burst out in downright insults, Die Post calling 
 him cc poUron miserable. ' 
 
 In a siiort time the Germans saw that they had exag- 
 gerated the importance of the Moroccan affair. In 1912 
 that astute publicist, Maximilian Harden, said : " As for 
 the Morocco escapade, God knows the colonial fever was 
 there expended for nothing. It was simply an affair oi 
 prestige, — national prestige, personal prestige. German}" 
 had no real interests in Morocco." The Pangerman 
 champion. Count Reventlow, also blamed that adventure 
 as ill-judged because it offended both England and France. 
 Nevertheless the Pangermans stirred up intlignation 
 against that " failure " in order to effect and increase the 
 already formidable armaments. The expenditure on the 
 army was increased by ^TG, 450, 000, despite the incidence 
 of a severe financial crisis in 191 1. A prominent German 
 newspaper stated that a great war would be " perhaps 
 delayed, but not averted, if German armaments are not 
 of a nature to intimidate every adversary into beating a 
 retreat." That is the essential thought at the bottom of 
 German Nationalism of the Sturm und Drang type. - 
 
 The formation of the Balkan League and its successful 
 attack upon Turkey in the autunm of 1912 caused great 
 
 * Dr. Kohrbach {Der deutsche Gedanhe in der Welt, p. 216) 
 declared that Germany took the wrong turn about Morocco, which 
 was not a vital alluir ; besides the Hedjaz Jvailway, tlic Kiel-North 
 Sea Canal and the forts at Heligoland were not then in rcadine.ss. 
 In the future, too, the stake must be a greater one than a strip of 
 Moroccan co;Lst. He concludes : " We are now (1912) in a jiosilion 
 to launch out boldly." Kohrbach is a champion of the liagilad 
 and other Ix-vantine schemes, which will probably prove to be the 
 chief cause of the present war. Certain! v tiicv interested Austria 
 and Turkey, which Morocco never did. 
 
 * IViurdon, The fjerman I-.ttif^ma, ])p. 15"^, i '^", igH. Prof. \'an 
 Vollonhoven (W»r Ohvialed by an Itilcniatimiul Police, iQio, |). 7) 
 calls tlicm " force-monomaniacs." They were long laughed at in 
 Germany , but carried the day in July, 1914-
 
 i8o LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 concern in Germany and Austria, where the triumph of 
 the crescent had been taken for granted. At once the 
 Central Empires declared the new League to be a mere tool 
 of Russia ; whereas it was certainly the outcome of the 
 grinding pressure of the Young Turks on all their Christian 
 subjects. M. Sazonoff, the Russian Foreign Minister, at 
 first discouraged the Leaguers and advised them to come 
 to terms with Turkey. ^ As is well known, after the con- 
 clusion of a Balkan peace in London in the spring of 1913, 
 the Christian States fell out, and, probably under the 
 impulse of Austria, the Bulgar troops in June, 1913, 
 perfidiously attacked the Greeks and Serbs, only to suffer 
 condign punishment. Finally, the Treaty of Bukarest 
 (largely decided by the two Central Empires) imposed the 
 present unsatisfactory frontiers and left all the races of the 
 Peninsula at feud (August, 1913). Their friction kindled 
 the spark which set Europe in a blaze in August, 1914.^ 
 
 Here again, then, the principle of Nationality, for which 
 Gladstone pleaded and Stambuloff struggled, has undergone 
 dire degradation. Promising to sort out the Balkan peoples 
 according to ethnic affinities, it has of late aroused their 
 baser passions and lent itself to intriguers who have ruined 
 their people and deluged the Peninsula with blood. The 
 part recently played by Bulgaria completes the career of 
 infamy on which she entered in June, 1913. Owing all 
 that she is to the principle of Slav Nationality and to the 
 
 ^ For proofs see I. E. Gueshoff, The Balkan League (Eng. transL), 
 
 PP- 9-45- 
 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 71-94. As to Austria's responsibility for the war of 
 1913 (not yet fully proven) see " Balkanicus," The Aspirations of 
 Bulgaria (1915), pp. 132-42. Very significant were the remarks of 
 the Austrian Reichspost (the organ of the Archduke Ferdinand) : 
 " The results of the Balkan War (of 191 3) have no disagreeable 
 features for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy or for the German 
 nation. The last Balkan War was more disastrous for Panslavism 
 than the first one was for Turkey."
 
 NATIONALISM SINCE i8t;3 181 
 
 po^^•c^ful aid of Russia, she has acted as Judas both to tlic 
 principle and to her champion. In order to stab Serbia 
 in the back she has helped her age-long oppressors, the 
 Turks, and those more recent and more formidable enemies 
 of Balkan independence, the Germanic Empires. 
 
 To all who were not blindetl by revenge or blinkeretl by 
 mere peasant-cunning, it ought to have been clear that the 
 Austro-Gemian intrigues with the Sublime Porte for pre- 
 dominance in the Near luist involved the suppression of 
 all the free races which lay in their path ; that, conse- 
 quentlv, the subjection of Serbia in the present war would 
 but prelude the subjection of Bulgaria. The Teutonic- 
 Turanian policy, summed up in the Bagdad Railway 
 scheme, is based on military and trading considerations, 
 in which Belgrade and Sofia figure merely as stages on the 
 route from Berlin to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. What 
 would be the lot of Turkey in case of the triumph of the 
 new imperial commercialism is far from clear. That the 
 lot of Bulgaria, Serbia, and probably of Roumania and 
 Greece, would be one of political impotence, no student 
 of German developments can harbour a doubt. Such a 
 finale to the present war would in\ply the extinction of 
 Serbia and the reversal of all that Roumans, Greeks, 
 Bulgars have achieved with the help of Byron, Canning, 
 and Gladstone; of Napoleon III and Gambetta ; of 
 Diebitsch and Skobeloff. The results of a century of 
 national striving would be swept away in order that the 
 Teutons might force their way to the East. It is in face 
 of such an issue tiuit (ireece, the lirst-born of Europe's 
 children, vacillates, while Bulgaria, the youngest of the 
 family, has foully betrayed the Slavonic national cause to 
 which she owes her very existent e. 
 
 Such are the crucial developments of Nationalism since 
 the year 1885. The revival of racial feuds in the Balkans
 
 1 82 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 at that time ensured the triumph of the barbarous pohcy 
 of Abdul Hamid, which continued to desolate Macedonia 
 and Armenia until 1908. The accession of Wilhelm II in 
 1888 inaugurated an era of aggressive Nationalism in Ger- 
 many and, somewhat later, in Austria, the result being 
 Pangermanism and its varied efforts which culminated in 
 July, 1914. After the accession of the Tsar Nicholas II in 
 1894 the diversion of Russia's energies towards the Far 
 East emasculated the Panslav movement, so powerful 
 under his predecessors ; and Slavonic sentiment retained 
 its vitality chiefly among the Serbs and other South Slavs, 
 who could not effect much. The growth of Pangermanism 
 and its alliance with the Turks and the Panislam movement 
 has proved to be the chief determining factor in recent 
 history. That these national movements have developed 
 immense energies in their respective peoples admits of no 
 doubt ; but the events of 1914-5 form the supreme test 
 as to the worth of the new Nationahsm.
 
 LECTURE X 
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 
 
 " Si unc guerre menace d'eclater, c'est un devoir do la ckissc 
 ou\Tidre dans les pays concern^s, c'est un devoir pour leurs repre- 
 sentants dans les Parlements, avec I'aide du bureau international, 
 force d'action et de co-ordination, de faire tous leurs efforts pour 
 einpecher la guerre. . . ." — Resolution of the Congress of I'lnter- 
 nationale at Stuttgart, August, 1907. 
 
 Periods of war and peace succeed each other with a per- 
 sistence which must arouse the curiosity of every well- 
 wisher of mankind. Unless we accept Bernhardi's view 
 (now so popular in Germany) that war is a necessary 
 S'.hool of the manly virtues, its periodicity is a distressing 
 symptom. Certainly, those who believe that human pro- 
 gress is advanced more by peace will continue to incjuire 
 whether means of avoiding conflicts may not be discovered 
 and successfully apphed. I will tiy here to review this 
 (jUL'stion in the light of the teachings of history. 
 
 Incjuiries of this kind have been especially numerous 
 at the end of long and devastating campaigns ; and it is 
 not too nmch to say that efforts in favour of peace and 
 legality have been in proportion to the horrors of warfare. 
 
 This truth is ()l)vi(jus in the case of the founder of 
 International Law, lingo \an droot ((irotius). Li\ing 
 amidst the atrocities that disgraced the Wars of Religion, 
 that Dut< h Scholar p»>ndered over the utter lawlessness 
 that had of I;ite aftli. ted mankind. In words that might 
 
 i8j
 
 i84 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 now be written by a Belgian, Pole, or Serb, Grotius in 1625 
 thus set forth his reason for inculcating the principles of 
 public right : "I saw prevailing throughout the Christian 
 world a licence in making war of which even barbarous 
 nations would have been ashamed, recourse being had to 
 arms for slight reason or no reason ; and, when arms were 
 once taken up, all reverence for divine and human law 
 was then thrown away, just as if men were henceforth 
 authorized to commit all crimes without restraint."^ 
 The subsequent atrocities of the Thirty Years' War 
 emphasized the need for some guiding and restraining 
 authority ; and hence by degrees there grew up a code of 
 public law, the chief contributors to which (hke the German 
 Pufendorf in 1661) were those who had experienced the 
 terrors of lawlessness. In 1693, during our campaigns 
 against Louis XIV, the Quaker, William Penn, set forth 
 proposals for the preservation of peace ; and in 1713, at 
 the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, the French 
 priest, Charles de St. Pierre, drew up a scheme which 
 I shall notice presently. As the din of anns filled the 
 greater part of the eighteenth century, thinkers occupied 
 themselves with the problems of war and peace. Voltaire, 
 Montesquieu, and Rousseau in France ; ^ Adam Smith and 
 the younger Pitt in England ; Kant and Lessing in Ger- 
 many, all voiced the pacific aspirations of the age. The 
 French Economistes and Adam Smith advocated principles 
 
 ^ Quoted by Dr. T. J. Lawrence, The Principles oj Inter )iational 
 Laiv, p. 42. I omit Henri IV's peace project as unimportant. 
 
 2 Again it is worth noting that the books which dealt heavy 
 blows at the warlike ambitions and false aims of the ancien regime 
 appeared at or near the end of wars, e.g. Les Leitres persanes (1721), 
 L'Esprit des Lois (1748), L'Encyclopedie (1751-65), Le Contrat 
 social (1762), Le Systeme de la Nature (1770). As I have shown in 
 my Life of Pitt (I, p. 340), William Pulteney in 1786 proposed to 
 Pitt a plan of arbitration, and Pitt's treaty with France of that year 
 was an effort for lasting peace.
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 1.S3 
 
 which would have transfonned the Continental States 
 into friendly economic units among a comity of nations. 
 
 Especially noteworthy were the efforts of German thinkers 
 on behalf of peace and brotherhood. The philosophical 
 movement in France found a clear echo across the Rhine, 
 where leading men desired to end racial rivalries. Deeming 
 patriotism a promoter of strife, they belittled that instinct. 
 The genial Lessing wrote : "I lui\e no conception of the 
 love of country ; and it seems to me at best a heroic 
 failing, which I am well content to be without." Indeed 
 he aspired to a far higher ideal. In liis most perfect play, 
 Xailiini dcr Weise (1779), the hero is a Jewish merchant of 
 the time of Saladin, who, even in that time of bigotr}-, 
 disarms racial and religious hatreds by the attractive 
 power of goodness. Rivalries vanish before the magic of 
 his virtue ; and the play ends with a spectacle of concord 
 and happiness. Lessing took the leading incident of the 
 play from Boccaccio ; but he transformed the story by 
 investing it with the ethical promise of his own time, the 
 Age of Enlightenment. 
 
 Kant enforced similar precepts in his tractate Perpetual 
 Peace, published in 1795 shortly after Prussia came to 
 terms with France in the Peace of Basel. He proposed 
 as the chief step towards peace a Federation of free 
 States. They must be Republics, i.e. they must be States 
 endowed with really representative institutions — which 
 would rule out all fonns of Bonapartisni with their modern 
 e(iuivalent, Kaiserism.' These free States would form 
 delinite compacts one with Die other, thus lajing the foun- 
 dati(jn for a system of International Law, binding on all, 
 and tjicreby substituting the reign of right for merely 
 national aims. Just as indi\idu;ilsha(l by degrees consented 
 
 ' Kant, Perpetual Peace, p. \Zi (ling, tnuisl. I)y .M. Campbell Smith).
 
 i86 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 to give up something of their entire liberty so as to 
 secure order, similarly (he urged) it ought to be possible 
 to substitute some measure of international control for 
 that extreme ideal of national liberty which often led to 
 war. Kant was not very hopeful on this score. He saw that 
 for nations to give up their natural liberty (including the 
 liberty to expand and to make war) implied an immense 
 advance in ethical ideas, as is now painfully obvious. 
 Farther, in his Rechislehre, he stated that mankind can 
 arrive at permanent peace " only in a universal Union of 
 States, by a process analogous to that through which a 
 people becomes a State. Since, however, the too great 
 extension of such a State of Nations over vast territories 
 must, in the long run, render impossible the government 
 of that Union — and therefore the protection of each of its 
 members — a multitude of such corporations will again 
 lead to a state of war. So that perpetual peace, the final 
 goal of international law, as a whole, is really an impractic- 
 able idea." Nevertheless, he hoped that these political 
 principles might approximate towards that end. 
 
 For my part I do not admit that the extension of the area 
 of these federating States is an objection to Kant's theory. 
 His fear on this topic was, I believe, grounded on the 
 objection felt by him, by Rousseau, and by all his contem- 
 poraries, to the formation of great realms. They all held 
 that civil liberty was incompatible with great States and 
 could be attained and retained only in small communities. 
 The fear was very natural in times of slow and difficult 
 communications. It is groundless now in the days of 
 railways and telegraphs ; and in that respect we are far 
 more favourably situated than our forefathers for building 
 up a great Union of States. Indeed, it is essential that such 
 a Union or Federation should comprise practically all the 
 great States. It is not too great an extension, but too
 
 I^TER^AT10^■AL1^M 187 
 
 partial an extension, that is the danger. As we have recently 
 seen, there is no security for peace so long as one great 
 nation remains outside the circle of those that desire peace. 
 
 Furtlier. if any groat State conies into such a Union with 
 the notion of being the leader, that Union will be a sham 
 and a dokision. Not until tlie federating States, one and 
 all, put far from tlicni the idea of predominance, will there 
 be a reasonable lu»pe of securing fair play, justice, and 
 therefore peace. Kant saw this clearly, and therefore 
 stipulated that there must be a " universal will determining 
 the rights and property of each individual nation " ; and 
 this universal will (an extension of Rousseau's " general 
 will " of a single community) must take the form of a 
 contract.' 
 
 Let us look at this (jucslion i\y the light ol experience. 
 In 171J, at the end of the ^^'ar of the Spanish Succession, 
 I'Abbe de St. Pierre published a tractate on peace. 
 His chief contentions were that Christendom should com- 
 bine to fonn a federation of States under the lead of 
 France, and proceed, as the first of its pacific duties, to 
 turn the Turks out of Europe. Tht^e proposals sufficed 
 U) danm the scheme as a device for re-establishing French 
 [jrestige recently shattered by Marlborough. 
 
 Not very dissimilar was a scheme of Napuleun 1. During 
 his sojourn at St. Helena (which ought to have cured him 
 of his notions of world-supremacy) the illustrious exile 
 described his plan of forming the European Association. 
 He would have imposetl the same system, the same princi- 
 ples every wliere, the same Code of Laws, a SujMeme 
 Tribunal, tJie same weights and measures, a similar coinage, 
 so that I'iurope would have formed but one ])eo])le. But 
 it is signilifant that all these plans wert- closely coimecled 
 in his ii.ind with the conciuest of Kussi.i. That implied in 
 
 ' K^nt, App. II, ^ 2.
 
 i88 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 his mind tlie " beginning of security " ; and then only 
 could the European System be founded. Thereafter he 
 would have his Congress to settle Europe ; also his Holy 
 Alliance.^ 
 
 In much the same spirit the German Chancellor, Beth- 
 mann-Hollweg, said to the Reichstag on August 19, 1915 : 
 " If Europe is to come to peace, it can only be possible 
 by the inviolable and strong position of Germany. The 
 English policy of the Balance of Power must disappear." 
 These words imply that Germany will not accept a position 
 of mere equality of power ; she must be supreme. The 
 claim is not urged with the extravagance that characterized 
 Napoleon's final regrets. Nevertheless, the German claim 
 to supremacy is absolutely incompatible with the principle 
 of proportionate equality on which alone a federation of 
 free States can be firmly established. Minds of a certain 
 bent cannot conceive of any other way of imposing order 
 and quiet than that of enforcement by some superior 
 Power. Well ! It cannot be too clearly understood that 
 that way lies war. For, sooner or later, your constabulary 
 guardian will develop into a drill sergeant ; and thence 
 must ensue the rule of force and therefore strife. I grant 
 that the drill-sergeant theory is the simpler ; and very 
 many people can understand no other way. They cannot 
 see that harmony attained by the agreement of all is 
 infinitely preferable to, and more probably lasting than, 
 a harmony produced by dread of a superior. 
 
 Let us, however, frankly confess that a union of peoples 
 on proportionate terms is difficult to attain and still more 
 difficult to maintain. The French Revolution egregiously 
 failed in the international sphere. Though it began with 
 
 ^ Las Cases, Memorial de Ste. Helene (V, 398-400), (August, 
 1816). So, too, he told Count Rambuteau {Memoires, p. 55, Eng. 
 edit.) that his Empire would be safe only when he was master of 
 all the capitals of Europe.
 
 INTERXATIONALTSM 189 
 
 the profession of fraternity, yet its practice degenerated 
 under tlic strain of war. Military considerations, backed 
 up b}' national pride, carried the da}' at I'aris ; and French 
 democracy, even before the rise of Bonaparte, was com- 
 mitted to courses directly opposed to the cosmopolitan 
 aims of 17S9. It was a German thinker who in 1795 
 pointed towards peace, while France headed towards 
 wider conquests — ^and Bonapartism. 
 
 The efforts of the Tsar Alexander I in and after 1S15 to 
 promote a Confederation of Europe need not detain us 
 long. There prevailed then a general desire for peace, one 
 expression of which was the founding of the Peace Society 
 in London in 1816.* Whether Alexander had more in 
 view an Association of Peoples on equal terms or a Con- 
 federation of States more or less under his direction cannot 
 be discussed here. Certain it is that, if ever he cherished 
 the lofty views ascribed to him in 1815, they soon vanished ; 
 and the promised federation of the European peoples 
 became a mere device for depriving them of political and 
 civic liberty. The period of the Congresses (1818-22) 
 therefore merits the sarcastic censure which Sorel applies 
 to International Law, that it was known " only through 
 the declamations of publicists and its violation by the 
 (iovernmcnts." It is not surprising that all students of 
 that disapp(jinting era should view with reserve and sus- 
 j)icion all proposals for World-Tribunals and International 
 Congresses. But the optimist may repl}' : " Both the men 
 and the methods were defective. The men were autocrats 
 and were easily turned aside into reactionary paths." 
 This is undenial)le ; and I refuse t(j bclicNc that, because 
 Metternic h lun-d Alexander aside, therefore Congresses of 
 
 ' I liave no space in whicli tu notici- tln' works of ('.i.tiI/, I'Alihu 
 <\c I'raflt, etc. See Pradt's I.' Europe aprds le Con^ris, and Alison 
 I'liillips' Confederation <ij Empire.
 
 190 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 delegates chosen for the purpose of founding a Union of 
 European States need necessarily be held in vain. We have 
 nearly a hundred years of experience behind us since 
 Aix-la-Chapelle and Verona. I trust that, after the present 
 war, we shall have before us principles more definite and 
 sound than that of " morality based on bayonets," which 
 aptly summarizes the bastard Internationalism of 1818-22. 
 It is, however, instructive to notice the extreme ease with 
 which the philanthropic views of the Tsar were perverted ; 
 and the experience of those years bids us beware of benevo- 
 lent doctrinaires no less than wily diplomats. The dreamer 
 is as dangerous as his first cousin, the trickster, into whose 
 hands he frequently plays. 
 
 More genuine than the federalism of the Tsar Alexander 
 were the aims of Mazzini and the Young Europe Movement 
 of 1834-5 by which he sought to group together the 
 democrats of Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as 
 other peoples. The sporadic movements of 1830 having 
 failed owing to utter lack of concert, Mazzini now sought 
 to co-ordinate them. By means of a central advisory body 
 in Switzerland he endeavoured to form what he called a 
 " college of intellects," which would both incite and guide 
 democrats of various lands. But that movement failed, 
 largely because its lofty aims appealed only to groups of 
 intellectuals. The generation that grew up under Napoleon 
 and his conquerors was too exhausted to rise in revolt 
 until the hardships of 1847-8 reinforced the teachings of 
 idealists. As Lord Acton observed, Mazzini's conspiracy 
 was founded not on a grievance but "on a doctrine " ;^ and 
 the experiences of 1848 were to show that the doctrines 
 must be practical and the grievances intense to produce 
 unanimity among peoples only half awakened. " Young 
 Europe " virtually collapsed with Mazzini's removal to 
 ^ Lord Acton, Essays on Liberty, p. 286.
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 191 
 
 London in 1837 '< ^^'^^ ^^ ^^ questionable whether the exiles 
 who founded " Young Eurojie," or the fiercer group of 
 Panslavists that gyrated around IJakunin in Paris in 1S47, 
 had any practical influence on the democratic movements 
 of i848-<). 
 
 The events of those luckless years showed the extreme 
 difliculty of Democracy antl Nationality working well 
 together, and justify the belief that they are in tlieir 
 nature opposed. Wherever the fervid nationalists got the 
 upper hand, liberty was jealousl}' restricted to the leading 
 race ; and as a result there prevailed those cries : " Hun- 
 gary for the Hungarians," etc., which brought Nationalism 
 into deserved disrepute. In Italy alone were the democrats 
 inspired by broader views, thanks to the inspiring influence 
 of Mazzini ; but at Rome and Venice the foreigner stamped 
 out both Nationalism and Democracy, so that by the end 
 of 1849 the future of the Continent was most dreary. In 
 his essay Europe : Us Condition (1852) ^lazzini pointed 
 out that Europe no longer believed in the Papacy, or in 
 dynasties or aristocracies. In fact Europe possessed no 
 unity of aim, of faith, or of mission. But, he proceeded, 
 a new initiative would probably arise out of the question 
 of nationalities, which would destroy the Treaties of Menna 
 and assort the peoples in accord with their desires. " The 
 question of nationalities" (he wrote), "rightly understood, 
 is the alliance of the peoples, the balance of powers based 
 on new foundations, the organization of the work that 
 l'2ur<;pe has to accomplish." At that time such a solution 
 was jiossible. The jieoples were not yet at enmity ; and 
 they all had an interest in striving for more complete 
 self-expression, firstly, by becoming ( omjilete political 
 entities instead of remaining di\'ided fragments ; secondly, 
 by solving the social and industrial proi)Iems in a way tliat 
 was impossible in their then fragmentary existence. Alas !
 
 192 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 the nations did not rearrange their pohtical boundaries 
 without strifes that left behind rankhng hatreds ; and 
 in consequence the social and industrial problems have 
 gone unsolved. Nationalism asserted itself in its cruder 
 form, clothed itself in Militarism, and made the Continent 
 a series of self-contained and hostile nations. 
 
 Consequently, the international movement, which con- 
 currently struggled for recognition, had little chance of 
 success. Its beginnings may be traced in the famous Associa- 
 tion called r Internationale, which was started by French 
 and British workmen in London in 1864. Originating in 
 meetings of French working-men visitors to our Exhibition 
 of 1862 with our own artisans, it soon had branches in all 
 countries ; and at its Congresses revolutionary Socialism 
 of the most advanced type gained ground. The anarchic 
 section got the upper hand in 1869, when Bakunin and his 
 Russian and Polish Nihilists joined the Association. Its 
 influence on the Paris Commune of 1871 has been disputed, 
 but I think on insufftcient grounds. M. Hanotaux estimates 
 the number of its members in Paris at between 70,000 and 
 80,000, and thinks that Bismarck may have encouraged 
 the anarchic propaganda of the French Communists. The 
 idea may seem far-fetched ; but Bismarck was a past 
 master in the art of weakening his enemies ; and, on 
 January 27, 1871, during an interview with Jules Favre, 
 he alluded to the dangerous state of public opinion in 
 Paris on the eve of its surrender to the Germans, and 
 gave the following Machiavellian advice : " Provoke an 
 emeute while you still have an army to suppress it with."^ 
 Favre looked at him with horror, for making so bloodthirsty 
 a suggestion. But evidently Bismarck knew the state of 
 things in Paris better than Favre, who, later on, probably 
 regretted that he did not follow that cunning counsel. 
 J- Busch, Bismarck during the Franco-German War, IT, 265.
 
 IXTERXATIOXALISM 193 
 
 The Internationale played Geniiany's game admirably 
 in completing the ruin of Franco in the spring of 1871, 
 when Lyons and other cities of the Centre and South 
 sought to copy Paris and overturn the national Ciovern- 
 ment. In its place they sought to erect a sjstem based on 
 the Commune as governing unit, with federations to endow 
 these microcosms with some solidarity. That the Com- 
 munists should have made their bold bid for power while 
 France was still writhing under the heel of the Gennans 
 sufhciently characterized their movement. It proved that 
 among a fanatical minority of " Internationals " all claims 
 of country were ignored ; nay, that the greater the agony 
 of la patrie, the better was the opportunity deemed for 
 sweeping away old-world notions and imposing a com- 
 munistic and anti-national fomi of society. Of course the 
 national view prevailed, but after a terrible struggle, 
 which brought France to the verge of dissolution. The 
 violence of the fetroleuscs in Paris and other signs of 
 political lunacy discredited the cause ; and in 1872 the 
 Internationale split into two factions. The more moderate, 
 led b}' Marx, outvoted the desperadoes of Bakunin ; but 
 the latter found a considerable following among the 
 artisans of France, and, still more, of Spain aii<l ltal\. 
 Worsted at their own game of violence, the Nihilists 
 gradually declined in nundicrs ; Imt llic Russian branch 
 of the sect effected the murder of the reforming Tsar. 
 Alexander II, ;ind thus threw Russia into the anns of 
 reaction. 
 
 The chief significance of these facts lies in the reckless 
 unwisdom of the champions of Internationalism antl their 
 utter disregard of the claims of country, even after a most 
 disastrous war ; but it is of prim*- importance to observe 
 that anarchic and anti-national tli« orits liad a far greater 
 hold on the Slav and Latin propjts than nii the (iciinans. 
 
 o
 
 194 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 The Karl Marx party dominant in German Socialism, 
 though advanced in its opinions, was not anarchic. Indeed, 
 Marx often behaved like a German patriot. On July 20, 
 1870, just before the Franco-German War, he wrote to 
 another Sociahst, Engels, that he hoped the French would 
 be well thrashed ; then the centre of the Internationale 
 would be in Germany. He was no less hostile to the 
 French Republic. On the contrary, Bakunin did his best 
 to help the young French democracy against the Germans. ^ 
 Thus, the Teutonic Socialists tended towards Nationahsm, 
 the French and Russians towards Internationalism ; the 
 fractions that now and again terrorized the Latin and 
 Russian peoples were the declared enemies, not only of 
 those Governments, but of all government. 
 
 This divergence between the Teutonic peoples on the 
 one hand and the Latin and Slav peoples on the other 
 suggests that there must be a fundamental difference of 
 temperament and outlook. In the Latin and Slav peoples 
 the sense of the ideal is certainly stronger ; and the notion 
 of a common law and civilization has taken deeper root. 
 Consequently, on every important question the authority 
 of the community tends to prevail — a heritage bequeathed 
 in rich measure by Ancient Rome to the Romance peoples. 
 The Slav peoples are characterized by similar notions, and 
 by an even stronger vein of sentiment. Consequently a 
 movement that aims at far-reaching changes, such as the 
 sovereignty of the community or of the human race at 
 large over the individual, has a greater chance of success 
 among them than elsewhere. In fact, far-reaching social 
 revolutions have generally originated with them. On the 
 other hand the Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian 
 peoples are remarkable for attachment to the home and 
 
 ^ James Guillaiime, Karl Marx pangermaniste, et V Association 
 Internationale (Paris, Colin, 1915), pp. ^5, loi.
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 195 
 
 to intlividual liberty. Luther and rroniwell are tlieir 
 characteristic products; Rousseau aiul Mazzini {\\o^c ol 
 the Latin peoples. Accordingly, it seems probable that 
 Internationalisni will develop first among the latter, and 
 will be retarded by the individualism of the former. 
 
 However, in 187 1 the movenient was wrecked mainly 
 by the extravagant ardour of its disciples. Mrs. Browning 
 has sung of the proneness of the French of her day to hurry 
 to extremes : — 
 
 " these too fiery and impatient souls, 
 They threaten conllagration to the world. 
 And rush with most unscrupulous logic on 
 Impossible practice.' 
 
 Never was this defect more flagrant than in the spring of 
 1871. It was due to the Con^munists that the French 
 Republic became for a time a prey to reaction. In Germany, 
 on the contrary, the anarchist movement never was serious ; 
 and tiie majority of the Socialists in the long run tended 
 to express not much more than the discontent naturally 
 aroused by the autocratic proceedings of the present Kaiser. 
 Even the Marxian Socialists have diminished in Germany, 
 where, indeed, the Socialists are often little more than 
 upholders of individual liberty. During tlie first seven or 
 eight years of his reign William II sought to appease them 
 by measures known as State Socialism : but in and after 
 1895 he found that his imperial palliatives were not 
 appreciated, and in 1896 he threw himself into Wdtpolilik. 
 As we have seen, this commercial Imperialism gained 
 ground rapidly ; and, what is most remarkable, it won over 
 very many German Socialists. The reasons for their 
 defection are still far from clear ; but one cause, perhaps 
 the fundamental cause, has been pointed out by a Belgian, 
 M. Emile Royer. y{v, the Socialist deputy for Tournay. 
 states that Marxism had tlevoled itself almost exclusively
 
 196 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 to the national side of social questions, thereby losing sight 
 of the wider and humanitarian issues which nerved the 
 Socialists of 1848.^ This explanation goes far to solve the 
 riddle ; for since the year 1888 the German Government 
 has done much for the workmen, and recently has tried 
 to convince them of the need of colonies and better outlets 
 to the sea. To men who looked chiefly to the loaves and 
 fishes the Kaiser's policy presented irresistible attractions. 
 For instance, the Pangerman programme, which he 
 patronized, has aimed at the inclusion of Belgium and 
 Holland in a Greater Germany — to which a Central 
 Zollverein would be the convenient prelude ; and this 
 programme has immensely furthered the growth of imperial 
 and Chauvinistic ideas among the Bavarians. Shedding 
 their former separatist notions, they have embraced the 
 new programme with ardour, because, as their King 
 recently stated, it promises to give to South German trade 
 its natural outlets to the sea, Rotterdam and Antwerp. 
 Similarly in the great commercial centres, very many 
 Socialists have favoured the imperial policy of expansion. 
 Their conduct has dealt a heavy blow to the international 
 cause. Most of the fathers of Socialism believed in Free 
 Trade between nations as a means of furthering friendly 
 intercourse and lessening the chances of war. But Bis- 
 marck's policy of protecting home industries (supple- 
 mented by that of Biilow respecting agriculture) had very 
 important results, far beyond the limits of commerce and 
 agriculture. For there were two alternatives before Ger- 
 many ; either to continue in the path of Free Trade, which 
 imphes peaceful intercourse, or to adopt a protective and 
 narrowly national policy. Bismarck chose the latter, and 
 Wilhelm accentuated the choice, his aim being to make 
 
 ^ Independance beige, Feb. 17, 1915 ; quoted by J. Destree, 
 Les Socialistes el la Guerre europeenne, p. 20,
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 197 
 
 the nation as far as possible a self-sufficing unit. The 
 result was that Germany in forty years of peace piled up 
 great stores of industrial energy which threatened to burst 
 their bounds. On the basis of protection vast industrial 
 interests were built up, which could find no adequate 
 markets unless other States let in German goods on easy 
 terms ; and this they would not do to a sufficient extent. 
 Consequently the national or protective system led to an 
 impasse. The new trade interests clamoured for new 
 markets, and the artisans concerned in them tended to 
 become imperial expansionists. Thus the protective 
 system adopted in 18S0 served to strengthen the demands 
 for further annexations. 
 
 In fact the whole system gyrated in a vicious circle, 
 somewhat as follows : First the colonial party demanded 
 colonies and protection. Then the colonies were stated 
 to need a great fleet ; while protection led to a mushroom 
 growth of industries which helped to pay for the fleet. 
 Industries, inflated to near bursting point, demanded new 
 outlets, and all classes of the community, including many 
 of the Socialists, believed it necessary to support that 
 demand, which the army and fleet were prepared to 
 satisfy. If Germany had persevered with the system of 
 free exchange which makes the whole world an open market, 
 the present cataclysm would probably have been averted ; 
 for though the Prussian Junkers would in any case clamour 
 for war, tlieir cries would have f(jund no response in com- 
 mercial circles, still less among the artisans of Germany. 
 These last, I repeat, have been largely Kd astray from 
 international ideals by a narrow commercialism, which 
 made either for an inttrnal exjjlosion or a luirojx'an war. 
 In these islands we- think of (onimerci' as a bond of pi ace. 
 It has acted far otherwise in (iennany, where it takes on 
 the guise (jf tlie old mercantile system, that fruitful parent
 
 igS LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 of wars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 Indeed, over-speculation and over-production in Germany 
 probably prompted the mad plunge of July, 1914.^ Ant- 
 werp, Salonica, Constantinople, and Bagdad were to be 
 the safety-valves for a surcharged industrial system. The 
 conquest of Belgium and North-East France, Poland, 
 Courland, and the Balkans seemed no difhcult task in 
 view of the confusion and weakness in the Entente States 
 and Serbia. Commerce therefore joined hands with 
 Militarism, and German Socialists did not bestow on that 
 suspicious union the expected shower of curses. 
 
 Imperialism, of course, has sometimes assumed a 
 threatening guise in these islands ; but on the whole it 
 has aimed at safeguarding the Empire by the upkeep of 
 an adequate fleet, the increase of which barely kept pace 
 with that of the mercantile marine and of our colonial 
 responsibilities. The role of the British fleet was neces- 
 sarily defensive ; that of the German fleet, on its very 
 limited coasts, could, after the recent huge additions, well 
 be offensive. In truth, the danger of the situation lay in 
 the fact that the greatest military Power in the world 
 aspired to rival on the oceans the Power for which maritime 
 supremacy is the first law of existence. This difference 
 in the situation of Germany and Great Britain was never 
 admitted by the German people ; and of late years their 
 Socialists have ceased effectively to protest against the in- 
 crease of their armaments, and that, too, despite the per- 
 sistent refusal of the Berlin Government to accept proposals 
 at the Hague Conferences for limitation of armaments. - 
 
 ^ See M. Millioud, The Ruling Caste and frenzied Trade in 
 Germany (Eng. transl., 191G). 
 
 ^ Bernhardi's claim, that Germany needs new colonics lor licr 
 surplus population, is refuted by the official statement in the 
 Preussische Jahrbilcher of March, 1912, that her emigration had of 
 late sunk to about 20,000 a year.
 
 INTERXATIOXALlbM 199 
 
 In view of the inaction of German Socialists at the 
 greatest crisis in the modern world, it is of interest to 
 glance at the resolutions which their delegates helped to 
 pass at the chief Congresses of the Internationale. At Paris 
 in 1901 the Congress engaged the Socialists of all countries 
 to oppose votes for naval construction and colonial 
 wars. At Stuttgart in 1907 that able French writer, 
 Gustavc Herve, spoke vehemently against patriotism as 
 an anti-social prejudice. The German leader, Bebel, 
 opposed this on the ground that la patrie belongs more to 
 the poor than to the dominant classes ; and he warned 
 Herve not to encourage the German General Staff against 
 " the eventual enemy." For himself, he would not support 
 war, but he supported defensive preparations. Herve, in 
 reply, said that his propaganda in France had disarmed the 
 Government, which in case of mobilization, would be faced 
 with insurrection and chaos. Bebel declared that there 
 were two million Socialists in the German army, but ga\'e 
 no promise as to their conduct in case of a war, which, 
 moreover, would further their cause better than ten years 
 of propaganda. The Congress unanimously voted a motion, 
 the chief clause of which appears at the head of this lecture. 
 
 The Congress held at Copenhagen in 1910 rejected Keir 
 Hardic's motion for a general strike of workers in case of 
 war by 131 votes to 51. In the majority were German^' 
 20 votes, Austria 18, Italy 15, America, 14, etc. ; in the 
 minority, Great Britain 20, France 12, Russia 7, Poland 5, 
 etc. The delegates who met at the Bale Congress ol 
 November, 1912, were cheered by the sweeping triumi)lis 
 of the party in the recent General Election.^ to th* Rri( li- 
 stag (sec ante, p. 177). Referring to the Balkan War then 
 raging, the French leader, Jaures, called on the workers 
 in (jermany, France, and I'lngland to i>re\ent an\' help 
 going to Austria or Russia if those Powers ( aiue to blows.
 
 200 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 The German delegate, Haase, for his party, promised to 
 use all possible means to prevent a war.^ 
 
 A sinister incident followed. In the hope of clearing up 
 the Alsace-Lorraine Question i8o French Socialists went 
 on to Berne, expecting to meet the same number of German 
 delegates. They found a mere handful ; for as one of 
 them said to ]\I. Vergnet : " Every German, from the 
 highest to the lowest, considers that the Alsace-Lorraine 
 Question can be reopened only on the battlefield. Let the 
 French have no illusion on that head."- The German 
 Socialists also made no sustained protests against the 
 barbarous treatment of certain harmless civilians of 
 Zabern by German officers near the close of 1913. At that 
 time the centenary celebrations of the German War of 
 Liberation of 1S13 turned all heads in the Fatherland ; 
 and Germany, though she had no Napoleon to fear, whipped 
 herself to a frenzy of warlike ardour, amidst which the 
 no Socialist members of the Reichstag raised scarcely a 
 protest against the enormous votes passed in that autumn 
 for military and naval purposes — votes which far exceeded 
 all possible demands of a defensive character. Thereafter 
 the Berlin Government was convinced that in any even- 
 tuality the German Socialists would (to use a famous 
 phrase of Bebel's) " fight to the last gasp for the Father- 
 land." Of course, the great Socialist had spoken thus only 
 for a really defensive war. In July-August, 1914, his party 
 condoned the action of the German Government when it 
 precipitated the long-dreaded European conflict. 
 
 Here it is well to recall the condition of Labour in the 
 chief countries. The spring and summer of 1914 were 
 
 1 E. Royer, La Social-Democratie allemande et austro-hongroise 
 el les Socialistes beiges, pp. 8-24 (17-18 Green St., Leicester Square, 
 London) . 
 
 * Vergnet, The Geyman Enigma, p. 138.
 
 INTERNATIONALISM joi 
 
 characterized by great unrest in France, Great Britain, 
 and Russia. Strikes were numerous and others were 
 threatened. Frequent ministerial crises at Paris and pubHc 
 admissions as to the unpreparedness of the anuy weakened 
 pubhc confidence. As for the United Kingdom, it seemed 
 on the verge of civil war in Ireland. In Russia the strikes 
 of tlie transport workers and others opened up the most 
 serious prospects. It was in this state of affairs, when the 
 Fntente Powers hovered on the brink of social revolution 
 or ci\il war, that Genuany launched her ultimatums to 
 Pctrograd and Paris (July 31). Those acts alone, following 
 on the insolent demands of the Austrian Government on 
 Serbia, suflicientl}' revealed the aggressive designs of the 
 Central Empires, which became clear as day when Germany 
 sought to " hew her way " through Belgium. 
 
 It is curious that, in the early stages of the diplunuitic 
 quarrel, the German Socialists raised protests against being 
 dragged into war. On July 28 they held twenty-eight 
 l)ubhc meetings in Berlin alone for that purpose ; and those 
 meetings were even protected by the police. This fact 
 seems to show that either the authorities had not yet 
 decided in favour of war (it is thought that tliey decided 
 on the evening of July 29) or that they were using the 
 Socialists to lull those of Russia, France, and Belgium into 
 false security. In either case the opposition of German 
 Socialists to war thenceforth collapsed— why is a mystery. 
 Were they coerced by the officials? Or were they terrified 
 by the Muscovite bogey which Berlin ofi'icials magnified into 
 colossal proportions ? Tlie latter supposition is incredible 
 in \ itw of the almost complete paralysis of the transport 
 services in Russia. It seems, then, tliat thf German 
 Sorjalists must have followrd tin- inipfriahst inipulsr \\lii( h 
 had won them over in and after IIh- year H)i2. \\liate\er 
 the ( ause. they all (though a few silently dennured)
 
 202 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 supported the war votes of August 4 for a campaign whicli 
 a mere tyro in diplomacy could see was of an offensive 
 character. Nevertheless, Haase read out the Socialists' 
 declaration that they no longer had to pronounce on the 
 cause of the war, but only to defend their frontiers ; and on 
 this wretched excuse he and his party gave the lie to their 
 protestations of several years past. His action was all the 
 more disgraceful because on July 29, at a great meeting of 
 Socialists at Brussels, he declared Austria's demands on 
 Serbia a veritable provocation to war, and affirmed the 
 conviction of the German people that its Government ought 
 not to intervene, even if Russia intervened. It was then 
 decided to hold a great International Congress at Paris 
 on August 9 to concert general measures to prevent war.^ 
 Did the knowledge of that fact induce the Berlin Govern- 
 ment to hurry on its ultimatums to Russia and France 
 on July 31 ? And why did not those obvious signs 
 of hurry arouse the suspicions of the no Socialist 
 deputies ? Why, during the sitting of August 4th, 
 did they not protest against the violation of Belgium's 
 neutrality, which the Chancellor admitted to be a lawless 
 act ? Why, finally, did they not protest against the 
 horrors perpetrated in Belgium in August-September ? 
 
 In justice, it must be said that the Socialist journal, 
 the Vorwdrts, protested both against the war and 
 the barbarities of the army. Liebknecht, too, in 
 December, 1914, in opposing the second war credits, 
 
 ^ Royer, pp. 24-31. P. G. la Chesnais, J'he Socialist Party in 
 the Reichstag and the Declaration of War, ch. 3, shews that 
 that party abandoned all opposition to war in its manifesto of 
 July 31, that is before war became certain. The Vorwarts also 
 wrote: "Social Democracy bears no responsibility for forth- 
 coming events " — a forecast of the passivity of the party on 
 August 4. On August i a German Socialist, Miiller, arrived at 
 Paris, and sought to induce his French comrades to oppose the 
 war credits at Paris.
 
 INTERNATIONALISM 203 
 
 declared tlie w ar to be an imperialist and capitalist war for 
 the conquest of the world's markets. By that time all 
 German Socialists were aware of the absolute preparedness 
 of German}' and the unpreparedness of her opponents. 
 Yet only sixteen Socialist deputies joined in his opposition 
 and protest. By degrees his following increased ; and 
 the majority of the German Socialist party has finally 
 condenmed the policy of annexation openly avowed in 
 the time of fancied triumph. Some of its members, 
 however, sought to persuade their French and Belgian 
 comrades that France and Belgium ought to discuss 
 tenns of peace. Against this suggestion Bernstein, 
 editor of the Bremer Bi'irgerzcitting, strongly protested, 
 pointing out that, as France was attacked and part of her 
 territory still occupied, discussions of peace by her would 
 be a fatal act. Bernstein, Liebknecht, Kautzky, and Haasc 
 published a Socialist manifesto demanding peace, without 
 annexations or conquests. They and their manifesto were 
 repudiated by the party, which thus associated itself with 
 the pohcy of the Government (June, 1915).* 
 
 As for the French Socialists, though stunned for a 
 moment by the assassination of their leader, Jaures, they 
 soon took up the position which, assuredly, he would liavc 
 taken up. In face of the unprovoked and treacherous stab 
 of the Germans at France through Belgium, they rallied as 
 one man to the defence of la palrie. There was now no talk 
 of a " general strike " such as might conceivably have 
 
 ' Dcstrcc, i)p. 17, 35-40. 11. IJourgin, Les Responsabilitcs dii 
 Socialisme allcmaiid, pp. 14-22. The assertion of Mr. Snowden, 
 M.P., in the debate of February 23, I9i(>, tliat in no country of 
 Euro|>c (except Hungary and Italy) )i;us Internationalism been 
 sfi well kept .alive ;us by the German Socialists, is incorrect. Ilu y 
 have made some fine si)eeches, but their actions have been timid 
 and far too tardy to influence events, except in a sense favourable 
 to Germany.
 
 204 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 stopped the war at its two sources, Berlin and Vienna. 
 The treason of German Sociahsts to the Internationale 
 consigned it for the present to the limbo of vain hopes ; 
 and nothing remained for their comrades in Belgium, 
 France, Serbia, and Poland but to fall back on the old 
 principle of duty to their several nations. The supreme 
 lesson of the crisis of July-August, 1914, is that Inter- 
 nationalism can succeed only when its votaries stand firm 
 in every nation ; and that treason in one quarter involves 
 collapse in all quarters. 
 
 The genius of the Latin and Slav peoples was quick to 
 discern the truth that in August, 1914, the patriotic 
 principle, which many of them had consistently derided, 
 formed the pnly possible basis of action during the war ; 
 also that, in fighting for la pairie against its violators, they 
 were taking the first step towards reafftrming the cosmo- 
 politan ideal. Very noteworthy was the action of Gustave 
 Herve. He at once became a flaming patriot, the champion 
 of war to the death against Germany. The Belgian 
 Socialist, Destree, by his fiery denunciation of the Huns, 
 did much to arouse Italy from her indecision and range 
 her on the side of national liberty against an overweening 
 Imperialism, In Great Britain the action of the workers 
 has in general been marked by self-sacrificing devotion ; 
 but unfortunately one section of the Labour party has 
 been blind to the wider issues at stake in this mighty 
 struggle. Consequently there has not been here that 
 unanimous rally to the nation's call which has lifted 
 the whole life of France to a higher level. In France, 
 despite a sharp rise in prices, there has not been a single 
 strike since the beginning of the war up to mid-February, 
 1916 ; but here as many as 698 strikes occurred during 
 the year 1915 alone. Of these several were due to merely 
 local and sectional considerations, and many were highly
 
 I^'T^:R^ATlo^ALl^M 205 
 
 detrimental to the public service. The contrast is deeply 
 humiliating, and is not to be explained away by saying 
 that France is invaded and we are not ; for the same 
 principle, the freedom of the smaller peoples, is at stake 
 ever\-\vhere. Inability or refusal to see this truth must 
 discredit a portion of the British Labour party ; and leader- 
 ship in the international movement of the future will 
 probably lie with the Latin or Slav peoples, whose workers 
 have almost unanimously shown the capacity of taking 
 a wide, generous, and statesmanlike view^ of this un- 
 exampled crisis in the fortunes of the European peoples. 
 
 In Russia the Socialists were at first divided on the ques- 
 tion of the war, as was natural in view of the despotic 
 nature of their Government. But their leaders, notably 
 Prince Kropotkin, soon perceived the seriousness of the 
 German menace ; and the party rallied enthusiastically 
 to the national cause. At the International Socialist 
 Congress held in London in February, 1915, all the Russian 
 delegates voted for the prosecution of the war until the 
 rights of nationalities were restored and a federative system 
 could be designed for the protection of the peace of Europe. 
 
 That has become the aim of nearly all Socialists in this 
 war ; but, in spite of the increase of distress in Germany, 
 her Socialist party continues to support the Government. 
 In a debate early in January, 1916, Liebknccht's anti-war 
 group mustered forty-one strong ; but the refusal of the 
 German Chancellor to repudiate aims of annexation 
 on either frontier failed to alienate the majority of the 
 Socialists. For tiieir part, the French Socialists demand 
 that the future of Alsace-Lorraine shall be decided by>a 
 plebiscite in those provinces, a proposal scouted by their 
 German confreres, who claim that that future is irrevocably 
 bound u|j with (icrman rule. On this rock, then, as well 
 as that of Poland, Internationalism has foimilcred ; and
 
 2o6 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 it will be observed that, while its ideal is championed by 
 French and Russian Socialists, those of Germany have 
 in the main taken up the nationalist standpoint and hold 
 to the lands seized or conquered by Frederick the Great 
 and Wilhelm I.^ In January, 1916, the Socialist leader, 
 Scheidemann, spoke strongly for peace and against 
 annexations; but he uttered the fatal words: "We 
 refuse any thought of an annexation of Alsace-Lorraine 
 by France, in whatever form it may be attempted." 
 
 Another blow to the cosmopolitan movement is the 
 utter failure of neutrals to give effect to their obligations, 
 contracted at the Hague Conferences, for assuring the 
 sanctity of neutral territory and the rights due to non- 
 combatants. Though Germany's weaker neighbours were 
 obviously terrorized into silence, yet the United States 
 could safely have protested in the case of outrages so 
 notorious as those committed in Belgium and Poland. 
 No protest has come from Washington ; ^ and this 
 dereliction of duty has rendered futile all the labour 
 expended at the Hague Conferences, at least during 
 this war. Here again, then, experience has proved 
 the extreme fragility of the cosmopolitan ideals. At the 
 first contact with a brutal and overweening Nationalism 
 they vanished ; and Germany has plunged the world back 
 into a state of lawlessness and bestiality comparable with 
 that of the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 Men are asking everywhere : Can International Law 
 and morality ever be re-established in such a way as to 
 
 ^ See the Temps for Nov. 6, 191 5, and the Nation (London) for 
 Jan. 15, 1916. 
 
 2 In his Allocution of January 22, 1915, the Pope reprobated 
 all acts of injustice, but in terms so general as to render the 
 protest useless. Equally disappointing is the letter of Cardinal 
 Gasparri, of July 6, 1915, to the Belgian Minister {L'Allemagne 
 el les Allies devaut la Conscience chreticnne, ad fin., Paris, 1915)-
 
 IXTERNATIOXALISM 207 
 
 restore confidence ? Pessimists and cynics deny it. On 
 historical grounds, I dissent irom this sombre estimate. 
 For, as has appeared in these stuiUes, Nationahsm shows 
 sit^ns of liaving exhausted its strengtli except among the 
 most backward peoples. This war is the rcdiictio ad 
 ahsurdum of the movement in its recent narrow and 
 intolerant form. The persistent attempt of one nation 
 to overbear its weaker neighbours in order to achieve 
 world - supremacy has sufficed to unite against it nearly 
 all the world ; and the frightful exhaustion which failure 
 must entail will be a warning to would-be world-conquerors 
 for centuries to come. Further, as we have seen, the more 
 brutal and perfidious the violation of International Law, 
 the stronger is the demand for the re-establishment of that 
 law, with adequate guarantees for the future. In the 
 domains of politics, finance, and law violent action always 
 begets a strong reaction ; and we may be sure that, when 
 the base Nationalism of recent years has brought its 
 protagonists to ruin, there will be a potent revulsion in 
 favour of international ideals. In 1871 those ideals were 
 foolishly championed by the fanatics of Paris; in 1914 they 
 were foully betrayed by turncoats at Berlin. Let us ho])e 
 that in the future good sense and good faith will work hand 
 in hand for their realization. Already in the Hague Tri- 
 bunal there exists the means for assuring the triumph of 
 reason in place of force. If in due course all the European 
 Powers consent to substitute the will to reconcile for the 
 will to conquer, the task is half accomplished. 
 
 Why sliould not the new Europe will to reconcile its 
 interests? ICvery leading thinker now admits that the 
 saner of the national aspirations (that is, those which 
 prompt the political union of mm of like sentiments) 
 must rei eive du<- satisfaction. Pxluium will l)e recon- 
 stitutfd, more glorious than beftjre. France must recover
 
 2o8 LECTURES ON NATIONALITY 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine. But the French and Belgian peoples, 
 if they are wise, will not covet the Rhine boundary. 
 Poland (the Poland of 1771) ought to emerge once more, 
 free in civic affairs, though under the suzerainty of the 
 Tsars. Italy will gather in her people of the Trentino and 
 Trieste, but, if she is wise, will annex no Slovene or Slav 
 lands further east. The Austrian and Eastern Ouestions 
 are more difficult, but can be settled on a federative system 
 based on Nationality and equality of rights. The Mace- 
 donian tangle should be settled by a commission appointed 
 by the Great Powers, not by wrangling delegates of the 
 peoples concerned. On the questions concerning Albania, 
 Bulgaria, and Constantinople no prudent person will at 
 present dogmatize ; for they must be settled largely accord- 
 ing to the course of events. This much is certain : the 
 enormous importance of the issues now at stake ought to 
 nerve every Briton to do his utmost so that the solution 
 shall be thorough and shall not end in the ghastly fiasco 
 of a stale-mate. Better five years of war than that. 
 
 The new Europe which I have outlined ought to be 
 a far happier Europe than ever before. For the first 
 time practically all the great peoples will have sorted 
 themselves out, like to like ; and it may be assumed that 
 all dynasties hostile to that healthy process will have 
 disappeared. Then, after the attainment of civic freedom 
 and national solidarity, the national instinct, which 
 strengthens with opposition and weakens after due satis- 
 faction, ought to merge in the wider and nobler sentiment 
 of human brotherhood in the attainment of which it is only 
 a preparatory phase. 
 
 THE END
 
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