Are the axioms set out in the last chapter unchallengeable?

Is it true that the wealth, prosperity and well-being of a nation depend upon its military power, or have necessarily anything whatever to do therewith?

Can one civilized nation gain moral or material advantage by the military conquest of another?

Does conquered territory add to the wealth of the conquering nation?

Is it possible for a nation to “own” the territory of another in the way that a person or corporation would “own” an estate?

Could Germany “take” English trade and Colonies by military force?

Could she turn English Colonies into German ones, and win an overseas empire by the sword, as England won hers in the past?

Does a modern nation need to expand its political boundaries in order to provide for increasing population?

If England could conquer Germany tomorrow, completely conquer her, reduce her nationality to so much dust, would the ordinary British subject be the better for it?

If Germany could conquer England, would any ordinary German subject be the better for it?

The fact that all these questions have to be answered in the negative, and that a negative answer seems to outrage common sense, shows how much our political axioms are in need of revision.

The literature on the subject leaves no doubt whatever that I have correctly stated the premises of the matter in the foregoing chapter. Those whose special vocation is the philosophy of statecraft in the international field, from Aristotle and Plato, passing by Machiavelli and Clausewitz down to Mr. Roosevelt and the German Emperor, have left us in no doubt whatever on the point. The whole view has been admirably summarized by two notable writers⁠—Admiral Mahan, on the Anglo-Saxon side, and Baron Karl von Stengel (second German delegate to the First Hague Conference) on the German. Admiral Mahan says:

The old predatory instinct that he should take who has the power survives⁠ ⁠… and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments are corporations, and corporations have no souls; governments, moreover, are trustees, and as such must put first the lawful interests of their wards⁠—their own people.⁠ ⁠… More and more Germany needs the assured importation of raw materials, and, where possible, control of regions productive of such materials. More and more she requires assured markets and security as to the importation of food, since less and less comparatively is produced within her own borders by her rapidly increasing population. This all means security at sea.⁠ ⁠… Yet the supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetually latent control of German commerce.⁠ ⁠… The world has long been accustomed to the idea of a predominant naval power, coupling it with the name of Great Britain, and it has been noted that such power, when achieved, is commonly often associated with commercial and industrial predominance, the struggle for which is now in progress between Great Britain and Germany. Such predominance forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderant force, the ultimate expression of which is possession.⁠ ⁠… From this flow two results: the attempt to possess and the organization of force by which to maintain possession already achieved.⁠ ⁠… This statement is simply a specific formulation of the general necessity stated; it is an inevitable link in the chain of logical sequences⁠—industrial markets, control, navy bases.3⁠ ⁠…

But in order to show that this is no special view, and that this philosophy does indeed represent the general public opinion of Europe, the opinion of the great mass which prompts the actions of Governments and explains their respective policies, I take the following from the current newspapers and reviews ready to my hand:

It is the prowess of our navy⁠ ⁠… our dominant position at sea⁠ ⁠… which has built up the British Empire and its commerce.

—⁠London Times leading article

Because her commerce is infinitely vulnerable, and because her people are dependent upon that commerce for food and the wages with which to buy it.⁠ ⁠… Britain wants a powerful fleet, a perfect organization behind the fleet, and an army of defence. Until they are provided this country will exist under perpetual menace from the growing fleet of German Dreadnoughts, which have made the North Sea their parade-ground. All security will disappear, and British commerce and industry, when no man knows what the morrow will bring forth, must rapidly decline, thus accentuating British national degeneracy and decadence.

—⁠H. W. Wilson in the National Review, May, 1909

Sea-power is the last fact which stands between Germany and the supreme position in international commerce. At present Germany sends only some fifty million pounds worth, or about a seventh, of her total domestic produce to the markets of the world outside Europe and the United States.⁠ ⁠… Does any man who understands the subject think there is any power in Germany, or, indeed, any power in the world, which can prevent Germany, she having thus accomplished the first stage of her work, from now closing with Great Britain for her ultimate share of this 240 millions of overseas trade? Here it is that we unmask the shadow which looms like a real presence behind all the moves of present-day diplomacy, and behind all the colossal armaments that indicate the present preparations for a new struggle for sea-power.

—⁠Mr. Benjamin Kidd in the Fortnightly Review, April 1, 1910

It is idle to talk of “limitation of armaments” unless the nations of the earth will unanimously consent to lay aside all selfish ambitions.⁠ ⁠… Nations, like individuals, concern themselves chiefly with their own interests, and when these clash with those of others, quarrels are apt to follow. If the aggrieved party is the weaker he usually goes to the wall, though “right” be never so much on his side; and the stronger, whether he be the aggressor or not, usually has his own way. In international politics charity begins at home, and quite properly; the duty of a statesman is to think first of the interests of his own country.

—⁠United Service Magazine, May, 1909

Why should Germany attack Britain? Because Germany and Britain are commercial and political rivals; because Germany covets the trade, the colonies, and the Empire which Britain now possesses.

—⁠Robert Blatchford, Germany and England, p. 4

Great Britain, with her present population, exists by virtue of her foreign trade and her control of the carrying trade of the world; defeat in war would mean the transference of both to other hands and consequent starvation for a large percentage of the wage-earners.

—⁠T. G. Martin in the London World

We offer an enormously rich prize if we are not able to defend out shores; we may be perfectly certain that the prize which we offer will go into the mouth of somebody powerful enough to overcome our resistance and to swallow a considerable portion of us up.

—⁠The Speaker of the House of Commons in a speech at Greystoke, reported by the London Times

What is good for the beehive is good for the bee. Whatever brings rich lands, new ports, or wealthy industrial areas to a State enriches its treasury, and therefore the nation at large, and therefore the individual.

—⁠Mr. Douglas Owen in a letter to the Economist, May 28, 1910

Do not forget that in war there is no such thing as international law, and that undefended wealth will be seized wherever it is exposed, whether through the broken pane of a jeweller’s window or owing to the obsession of a humanitarian Celt.

—⁠London Referee, November 14, 1909

We appear to have forgotten the fundamental truth⁠—confirmed by all history⁠—that the warlike races inherit the earth, and that Nature decrees the survival of the fittest in the never-ending struggle for existence.⁠ ⁠… Our yearning for disarmament, our respect for the tender plant of Nonconformist conscience, and the parrot-like repetition of the misleading formula that the “greatest of all British interests is peace”⁠ ⁠… must inevitably give to any people who covet our wealth and our possessions⁠ ⁠… the ambition to strike a swift and deadly blow at the heart of the Empire⁠—undefended London.

—⁠Blackwood’s Magazine, May, 1909

These are taken from English sources, but there is not a straw to choose between them and other European opinion on the subject.

Admiral Mahan and the other Anglo-Saxons of his school have their counterpart in every European country, but more especially in Germany. Even so “Liberal” a statesman as Baron Karl von Stengel, the German delegate to the First Hague Peace Conference, lays it down in his book that⁠—

Every great Power must employ its efforts towards exercising the largest influence possible, not only in European but in world politics, and this mainly because economic power depends in the last resort on political power, and because the largest participation possible in the trade of the world is a vital question for every nation.

The writings of such classic authorities as Clausewitz give full confirmation of this view, while it is the resounding note of most popular German political literature that deals with “Weltpolitik.” Grand Admiral von Koster, President of the Navy League, writes:

The steady increase of our population compels us to devote special attention to the growth of our overseas interests. Nothing but the strong fulfilment of our naval programme can create for us that importance upon the free-world-sea which it is incumbent upon us to demand. The steady increase of our population compels us to set ourselves new goals and to grow from a Continental into a world power. Our mighty industry must aspire to new overseas conquests. Our world trade⁠—which has more than doubled in twenty years, which has increased from 2500 million dollars to 4000 million dollars during the ten years in which our naval programme was fixed, and 3000 million dollars of which is seaborne commerce⁠—only can flourish if we continue honorably to bear the burdens of our armaments on land and sea alike. Unless our children are to accuse us of shortsightedness, it is now our duty to secure our world power and position among other nations. We can do that only under the protection of a strong German fleet, a fleet which shall guarantee us peace with honor for the distant future.

One popular German writer sees the possibility of “overthrowing the British Empire” and “wiping it from the map of the world in less than twenty-four hours.” (I quote his actual words, and I have heard a parallel utterance from the mouth of a serious English public man.) The author in question, in order to show how the thing could come about, deals with the matter prophetically. Writing from the standpoint of 1911,4 he admits that⁠—

At the beginning of the twentieth century Great Britain was a free, a rich, and a happy country, in which every citizen, from the Prime Minister to the dock-laborer, was proud to be a member of the world-ruling nation. At the head of the State were men possessing a general mandate to carry out their programme of government, whose actions were subject to the criticism of public opinion, represented by an independent Press. Educated for centuries in self-government, a race had grown up which seemed born to rule. The highest triumphs attended England’s skill in the art of government, in her handling of subject peoples.⁠ ⁠… And this immense Empire, which stretched from the Cape to Cairo, over the southern half of Asia, over half of North America and the fifth continent, could be wiped from the map of the world in less than twenty-four hours! This apparently inexplicable fact will be intelligible if we keep in sight the circumstances which rendered possible the building up of England’s colonial power. The true basis of her world supremacy was not her own strength, but the maritime weakness of all the other European nations. Their almost complete lack of naval preparations had given the English a position of monopoly which was used by them for the annexation of all those dominions which seemed of value. Had it been in England’s power to keep the rest of the world as it was in the nineteenth century, the British Empire might have continued for an unlimited time. The awakening of the Continental States to their national possibilities and to political independence introduced quite new factors into Weltpolitik, and it was only a question of time as to how long England could maintain her position in the face of the changed circumstances.

And the writer tells how the trick was done, thanks to a fog, efficient espionage, the bursting of the English war balloon, and the success of the German one in dropping shells at the correct tactical moment on to the British ships in the North Sea:

This war, which was decided by a naval battle lasting a single hour, was of only three weeks’ duration⁠—hunger forced England into peace. In her conditions Germany showed a wise moderation. In addition to a war indemnity in accordance with the wealth of the two conquered States, she contented herself with the acquisition of the African Colonies, with the exception of the southern States, which had proclaimed their independence, and these possessions were divided with the other two powers of the Triple Alliance. Nevertheless, this war was the end of England. A lost battle had sufficed to manifest to the world at large the feet of clay on which the dreaded Colossus had stood. In a night the British Empire had crumbled altogether; the pillars which English diplomacy had erected after years of labour had failed at the first test.

A glance at any average Pan-Germanist organ will reveal immediately how very nearly the foregoing corresponds to a somewhat prevalent type of political aspiration in Germany. One Pan-Germanist writer says:

“The future of Germany demands the absorption of Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, and Turkey, with the North Sea ports. Her realms will stretch towards the east from Berlin to Bagdad, and to Antwerp on the west.”

For the moment we are assured there is no immediate intention of seizing the countries in question, nor is Germany’s hand actually ready yet to catch Belgium and Holland within the net of the Federated Empire.

“But,” he says, “all these changes will happen within our epoch,” and he fixes the time when the map of Europe will thus be rearranged as from twenty to thirty years hence.

Germany, according to the writer, means to fight while she has a penny left and a man to carry arms, for she is, he says, “face to face with a crisis which is more serious than even that of Jena.”

And, recognizing the position, she is only waiting for the moment she judges the right one to break in pieces those of her neighbors who work against her.

France will be her first victim, and she will not wait to be attacked. She is, indeed, preparing for the moment when the allied Powers attempt to dictate to her.

Germany, it would seem, has already decided to annex the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and Belgium, incidentally with, of course, Antwerp, and will add all the northern provinces of France to her possessions, so as to secure Boulogne and Calais.

All this is to come like a thunderbolt, and Russia, Spain, and the rest of the Powers friendly to England will not dare to move a finger to aid her. The possession of the coasts of France and Belgium will dispose of England’s supremacy forever.

In a book on South Africa entitled Reisen Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, by Dr. F. Bachmar, occurs the passage:

“My second object in writing this book is that it may happen to our children’s children to possess that beautiful and unhappy land of whose final absorption (gewinnung) by our Anglo-Saxon cousins I have not the least belief. It may be our lot to unite this land with the German Fatherland, to be equally a blessing to Germany and South Africa.”

The necessity for armament is put in other than fictional form by so serious a writer as Dr. Gaevernitz, Pro-Rector of the University of Freiburg. Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz is not unknown in England, nor is he imbued with inimical feelings towards her. But he takes the view that the commercial prosperity of Germany depends upon her political domination.5

After having described in an impressive way the astonishing growth of Germany’s trade and commerce, and shown how dangerous a competitor Germany has become for England, he returns to the old question, and asks what might happen if England, unable to keep down the inconvenient upstart by economic means, should, at the eleventh hour, try to knock him down. Quotations from the National Review, the Observer, the Outlook, the Saturday Review, etc., facilitate the professor’s thesis that this presumption is more than a mere abstract speculation. Granted that they voice only the sentiments of a small minority, they are, according to our author, dangerous for Germany in this⁠—that they point to a feasible and consequently enticing solution. The old peaceful Free Trade, he says, shows signs of senility. A new and rising Imperialism is everywhere inclined to throw the weapons of political warfare into the arena of economic rivalry.

How deeply the danger is felt even by those who sincerely desire peace and can in no sense be considered Jingoes may be judged by the following from the pen of Mr. Frederic Harrison. I make no apology for giving the quotations at some length. In a letter to the London Times he says:

Whenever our Empire and maritime ascendancy are challenged it will be by such an invasion in force as was once designed by Philip and Parma, and again by Napoleon. It is this certainty which compels me to modify the anti-militarist policy which I have consistently maintained for forty years past.⁠ ⁠… To me now it is no question of loss of prestige⁠—no question of the shrinkage of the Empire; it is our existence as a foremost European Power, and even as a thriving nation.⁠ ⁠… If ever our naval defence were broken through, our Navy overwhelmed or even dispersed for a season, and a military occupation of our arsenals, docks, and capital were effected, the ruin would be such as modern history cannot parallel. It would not be the Empire, but Britain, that would be destroyed.⁠ ⁠… The occupation by a foreign invader of our arsenals, docks, cities, and capital would be to the Empire what the bursting of the boilers would be to a Dreadnought. Capital would disappear with the destruction of credit.⁠ ⁠… A catastrophe so appalling cannot be left to chance, even if the probabilities against its occurring were 50 to 1. But the odds are not 50 to 1. No high authority ventures to assert that a successful invasion of our country is absolutely impossible if it were assisted by extraordinary conditions. And a successful invasion would mean to us the total collapse of our Empire, our trade, and, with trade, the means of feeding forty millions in these islands. If it is asked, “Why does invasion threaten more terrible consequences to us than it does to our neighbors?” the answer is that the British Empire is an anomalous structure, without any real parallel in modern history, except in the history of Portugal, Venice, and Holland, and in ancient history Athens and Carthage. Our Empire presents special conditions both for attack and for destruction. And its destruction by an enemy seated on the Thames would have consequences so awful to contemplate that it cannot be left to be safeguarded by one sole line of defence, however good, and for the present hour however adequate.⁠ ⁠… For more than forty years I have raised my voice against every form of aggression, of Imperial expansion, and Continental militarism. Few men have more earnestly protested against postponing social reforms and the well-being of the people to Imperial conquests and Asiatic and African adventures. I do not go back on a word that I have uttered thereon. But how hollow is all talk about industrial reorganization until we have secured our country against a catastrophe that would involve untold destitution and misery on the people in the mass⁠—which would paralyze industry and raise food to famine prices, whilst closing our factories and our yards!