The Lost Fruits of Waterloo 2

The Lost Fruits of Waterloo 2

Turning to the subject with which we are here chiefly concerned, it

is interesting to note that Germany has undertaken in the last years

to carry forward her world expansion by methods that are entirely

different. While she has federated in industrial life she appears in

her foreign relations as a true representative of the spirit that

built up the trusts. She means to unify her competitor states, not as

she has united her industries, but as the American trusts secured the

whole field of operations. First she forms a small group with herself

at the head. In the group are Germany, Austria, Turkey, and, later on,

Bulgaria. At this stage of her progress she has gone as far as the

Standard Oil Company had gone when Mr. Rockefeller had perfected the

idea of the “trust” in 1882. Her next step was to attack her rivals.

France she would crush at a blow, first lulling Great Britain to

inactivity by feigned friendship and the promise of gains in the Near

East. Then she would do what she would with Russia. With these two

nations disposed of, Britain, the unready, could be easily brought to

terms, and the United States would then be at her mercy. The mass of

German people had not, perhaps, reasoned the process out in this way;

but it was so easily seen that it could not have escaped the minds of

the leaders of the German military party. No trust builder ever made

fairer plans for the upbuilding of his enterprise than these gentlemen

made for putting through their combination, before which they saw in

their minds the states of the world toppling. So well were the plans

made and so efficient were the strokes that the utmost efforts of the

rest of the world have become necessary to defeat the German hopes.

 

The United States have approached the problem of world relations in

another spirit. Rejecting the spirit of the trust magnate, which

Germany accepted, we have turned to coöperation as the means of

avoiding international competition and distrust. President Wilson’s

repeated suggestions of a federated peace are couched in the exact

spirit of the cartel. He asks that war may be replaced by coöperation,

pointing out the tremendous advantage to all if the machinery of

competition can be discarded.

 

Viewed in its largest aspects, therefore, the present struggle has

resolved itself into a debate over the amount of unity that shall in

the future exist between states. It does not seem possible that Austria

will ever be a thoroughly sovereign state again, nor that Turkey will

escape from the snare in which her feet are caught. What degree of

unity this will engender between France and Great Britain, if the old

system of international relations continues, it is not hard to guess.

And as for the small states of Europe, their future is very perplexing.

 

This much rests on the assumption that Germany and her allied

neighbours are going to make peace without defeat and without victory.

If they should be able to carry off a triumph, which now seems

impossible, it would not be hard to tell in what manner unification

would come. However the result, the separateness of European states

will probably be diminished, and their interdependence, either in two

large groupings or in some more or less strong general grouping, will

be increased.

 

No wise man will undertake to say which form of interdependence will

be the result. But it seems certain that we stand today with two roads

before us, each leading to the same end, a stronger degree of unity.

One goes by way of German domination, the other by way of equal and

mutual agreement. I do not need to say which will be pleasanter to

those who travel. We cannot stand at the crossing forever: some day we

shall pass down one of the roads. It is said that the world is not yet

ready to choose the second road, and that it must go on in the old way,

fighting off attempts at domination, until it learns the advantages of

co-operation. It may be so; but meanwhile it is a glorious privilege to

strike a blow, however weak, in behalf of reason.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

 

PAGE

 

INTRODUCTION ix

 

CHAPTER

 

I THE QUESTION OF PERMANENT PEACE 1

 

II EARLY ADVOCATES OF UNIVERSAL PEACE 23

 

III PROBLEMS OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 43

 

IV EUROPE UNDER THE CONCERT OF THE POWERS 65

 

V THE LATER PHASES OF THE CONCERT OF EUROPE 83

 

VI THE BALKAN STATES 103

 

VII GERMAN IDEALS AND ORGANIZATION 132

 

VIII THE FAILURE OF THE OLD EUROPEAN SYSTEM 154

 

IX IF THE SUBMARINES FAIL 184

 

X OBSTACLES TO AN ENDURING PEACE 205

 

XI ARGUMENTS FOR A FEDERATION OF STATES 229

 

XII A FEDERATION OF NATIONS 254

 

 

 

 

THE LOST FRUITS OF WATERLOO

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

THE QUESTION OF PERMANENT PEACE

 

 

When war broke over the world three years ago many ministers and other

people declared that Armageddon had come. They had in mind a tradition

founded on a part of the sixteenth chapter of Revelations, in which

the prophet was supposed to describe a vision of the end of the world.

In that awful day seven angels appeared with seven vials of wrath, and

the contents of each when poured out wiped away something that was dear

to the men of the earth. The sixth angel poured out on the waters of

the river Euphrates, and they were dried up; and then unclean spirits

issued from the mouths of the dragons and of other beasts and from the

mouth of the false prophet, and they went into the kings of the earth,

then the political rulers of mankind, and induced them to bring the

people together “to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” And

the armies met at Armageddon and fought there the last battle of time.

This striking figure made a deep impression on the early Christians,

and out of it arose the belief that some day would come a great and

final war, in which the nations of the earth would unite for their

mutual destruction, after which the spirit of righteousness would

establish a millennial reign of peace. And so when most of the nations

of the world came together in war in 1914, many persons pronounced the

struggle the long expected Armageddon.

 

It was easy to say in those days of excitement that this war was going

to be the last. Madness it certainly was, and surely a mad world would

come back to reasonableness after a season of brutal destruction.

Common sense, humanity, and the all powerful force of economic interest

would bring the struggle to an end, and then by agreement steps would

be taken to make a recurrence of the situation impossible.

 

It was in the days when we still had confidence in civilization.

Humanity, we said, had developed to such an extent that it could not

return to the chaos that an age of war would imply. International law

was still considered a binding body of morality, if not of actual law.

International public opinion was believed to have power to punish

national wrong-doers. We who teach said as much to our classes many

times in those days of innocence. In all sincerity we felt that a

nation could not do this or that thing because public opinion would not

tolerate it. How far distant seem now the days of early summer in 1914!

 

We had adopted many specific rules to restrain needless barbarity in

war. For example, we would not use dum-dum bullets, nor drop bombs

on non-combatants, nor shell the homes of innocent dwellers on the

seashore. It was considered an achievement of the civilized spirit

that an army occupying enemy territory would respect the rights of the

non-combatant inhabitants, set guards over private property, protect

women and children from injury, and permit civilians to go about their

business as long as they did not intermeddle with military matters.

In three and a half horrible years we have drifted a long way from

these protestations. Those of us who once studied the elements of

international law may well study them again when the war is over, if,

indeed, international law is still thought worth studying.

 

In the vision the angel poured out his vial on the great river, to the

early men of Mesapotamia the symbol of the great waters. In our own

day we have seen strange engines of wrath placed in the great waters,

foul spirits that destroy men and ships in disregard of the rules of

fair fighting. And out of the mouths of dragons and other loathsome

beasts, and of false prophets as well, evil spirits have issued in

these sad days. They have taken their places in the hearts and minds of

self-willed men and made beasts of them; so that the rest of humanity

have had to fight against them and suffer themselves to be killed by

them, in order that the wicked shall not triumph over the whole earth.

 

The war has been gruesome beyond the imagination of man. No other

recorded experience has told us of so much killing, and of so many

different ways of killing. Men have been slain with swords, cannon,

great howitzers, rifles, machine guns, tanks, liquid fire, electrified

wires, and finally with the germs of disease deliberately planted.

Nothing that science could invent for destroying human life has been

omitted, except, possibly, dum-dum bullets; and in view of the use of

much more cruel means we may well ask, “Why not dum-dums also?”

 

We must admit that if the author of the Book of Revelations had

prophetic insight and foresaw the world struggle that now is, he did

not overpaint its terrors. And so, asks the man of faith, if the first

part of the vision comes true, why may not the second part likewise

come true? If the seer could foresee the war and its horrors, may he

not also have spoken truly when he foretold that after Armageddon wars

would be no more; for God would wipe away the desire for them from the