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Title: How can War ever be Right? (September, 1914)
Author: Murray, George Gilbert Aim (1866-1957)
Date of first publication: 1914
   [Oxford Pamphlet No. 18]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Faith, War, and Policy.
   Addresses and Essays on the European War.
   Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, August 1917
Date first posted: 6 October 2011
Date last updated: 6 October 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #865

This ebook was produced by: James Wright, Jen Haines
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This ebook was produced from images generously made
available by the Internet Archive/Columbia University Libraries






II

HOW CAN WAR EVER BE RIGHT?

(_September, 1914_)


I have all my life been an advocate of Peace. I hate war, not merely for
its own cruelty and folly, but because it is the enemy of all the causes
that I care for most, of social progress and good government and all
friendliness and gentleness of life, as well as of art and learning and
literature. I have spoken and presided at more meetings than I can
remember for peace and arbitration and the promotion of international
friendship. I opposed the policy of war in South Africa with all my
energies, and have been either outspokenly hostile or inwardly
unsympathetic towards almost every war that Great Britain has waged in
my lifetime. If I may speak more personally, there is none of my own
work into which I have put more intense feeling than into my translation
of Euripides' "Trojan Women," the first great denunciation of war in
European literature. I do not regret any word that I have spoken or
written in the cause of Peace, nor have I changed, so far as I know, any
opinion that I have previously held on this subject. Yet I believe
firmly that we were right to declare war against Germany on August 4,
1914, and that to have remained neutral in that crisis would have been a
failure in public duty.

A heavy responsibility--there is no doubt of it--lies upon Great
Britain. Our allies, France and Russia, Belgium and Serbia, had no
choice; the war was, in various degrees, forced on all of them. We only,
after deliberately surveying the situation, when Germany would have
preferred for the moment not to fight us, of our free will declared war.
And we were right.

       *       *       *       *       *

How can such a thing be? It is easy enough to see that our cause is
right, and the German cause, by all ordinary human standards,
desperately wrong. It is hardly possible to study the official papers
issued by the British, the German, and the Russian Governments, without
seeing that Germany--or some party in Germany--had plotted this war
beforehand; that she chose a moment when she thought her neighbours were
at a disadvantage; that she prevented Austria from making a settlement
even at the last moment; that in order to get more quickly at France she
violated her treaty with Belgium. Evidence too strong to resist seems to
show that she has carried out the violation with a purposeful cruelty
that has no parallel in the wars of modern and civilized nations. Yet
some people may still feel gravely doubtful. Germany's ill-doing is no
reason for us to do likewise. We did our best to keep the general peace;
there we were right. We failed; the German Government made war in spite
of us. There we were unfortunate. It was a war already on an enormous
scale, a vast network of calamity ranging over five nations; and we
decided to make it larger still. There we were wrong. Could we not have
stood aside, as the United States stand, ready to help refugees and
sufferers, anxious to heal wounds and not make them, watchful for the
first chance of putting an end to this time of horror?

"Try for a moment," an objector to our policy might say, "to realize
the extent of suffering involved in one small corner of a battlefield.
You have seen a man here and there badly hurt in an accident; you have
seen perhaps a horse with its back broken, and you can remember how
dreadful it seemed to you. In that one corner how many men, how many
horses, will be lying, hurt far worse and just waiting to die?
Indescribable wounds, extreme torment; and all, far further than any eye
can see, multiplied and multiplied! And, for all your righteous
indignation against Germany, what have these done? The horses are not to
blame for anybody's foreign policy. They have only come where their
masters took them. And the masters themselves...admitting that certain
highly placed Germans, whose names we are not sure of, are as wicked as
ever you like, these soldiers--peasants and working-men and shopkeepers
and schoolmasters--have really done nothing in particular; at least,
perhaps they have now, but they had not up to the time when you, seeing
they were involved in war and misery already, decided to make war on
them also and increase their sufferings. You say that justice must be
done on conspirators and public malefactors. But so far as the rights
and wrongs of the war go, you are simply condemning innocent men, by
thousands and thousands, to death, or even to mutilation and torture; is
that the best way to satisfy your sense of justice? These innocent
people, you will say, are fighting to protect the guilty parties whom
you are determined to reach. Well, perhaps, at the end of the war, after
millions of innocent people have suffered, you may at last, if all goes
well with your arms, get at the 'guilty parties.' You will hold an
inquiry, with imperfect evidence and biased judges; you will decide--in
all likelihood wrongly--that a dozen very stupid and obstinate
Prussians with long titles are the guilty parties, and even then you
will not know what to do with them. You will probably try, and almost
certainly fail, to make them somehow feel ashamed or humiliated. It is
likely enough that you will merely make them into national heroes.

"And after all, this is assuming quite the best sort of war: a war in
which one party is wrong and the other right, and the right wins.
Suppose both are wrong; or suppose the wrong party wins? It is as likely
as not; for, if the right party is helped by his good conscience, the
wrong has probably taken pains to have the odds on his side before he
began quarrelling. In that case all the wild expenditure of blood and
treasure, all the immeasurable suffering of innocent individuals and
dumb animals, all the tears of women and children in the background,
have taken place not to vindicate the right, but to establish the wrong.
To do a little evil that great or certain good may come is all very
well; but to do almost infinite evil for a doubtful chance of attaining
something which half the people concerned may think good and the other
half think bad, and which in no imaginable case can ever be attained in
fullness or purity...that is neither good morals nor good sense. Anybody
not in a passion must see that it is insanity."

       *       *       *       *       *

I sympathize with every step of this argument; yet I think it is wrong.
It is judging of the war as a profit-and-loss account, and reckoning,
moreover, only the immediate material consequences. It leaves out of
sight the cardinal fact that in some causes it is better to fight and be
broken than to yield peacefully; that sometimes the mere act of
resisting to the death is in itself a victory.

Let us try to understand this. The Greeks who fought and died at
Thermopyl had no manner of doubt that they were right so to fight and
die, and all posterity has agreed with them. They probably knew they
would be defeated. They probably expected that, after their defeat, the
Persians would proceed easily to conquer the rest of Greece, and would
treat it much more harshly because it had resisted. But such
considerations did not affect them. They would not consent to their
country's dishonour.

Take again a very clear modern case: the fine story of the French
tourist who was captured, together with a priest and some other white
people, by Moorish robbers. The Moors gave their prisoners the choice
either to trample on the Cross or to be killed. The Frenchman happened
to be a Freethinker and an anti-clerical. He disliked Christianity. But
he was not going to trample on the Cross at the orders of a robber. He
stuck to his companions and died.

This sense of honour and the respect for this sense of honour are very
deep instincts in the average man. In the United States there is a
rather specially strong feeling against mixture of blood, not only with
the blood of coloured people, but with that of the large masses of
mankind who are lumped together as "dagoes" or "hunkies." Yet I have
noticed that persons with a dash of Red Indian blood are not ashamed but
rather proud of it. And if you look for the reason, I suspect it lies in
the special reputation which the Indian has acquired, that he would
never consent to be a slave. He preferred to fight till he was dead.

A deal of nonsense, no doubt, is talked about "honour" and "dishonour."
They are feelings based on sentiment, not on reason; the standards by
which they are judged are often conventional or shallow, and sometimes
utterly false. Yet honour and dishonour are real things. I will not try
to define them; but will only notice that, like religion, their
characteristic is that they admit of no bargaining. Indeed, we can
almost think of honour as being simply that which a free man values more
than life, and dishonour as that which he avoids more than suffering or
death. And the important point for us is that there are such things.

       *       *       *       *       *

There are some people, followers of Tolstoy, who accept this position so
far as dying is concerned, but will have nothing to do with killing.
Passive resistance, they say, is right; martyrdom is right; but to
resist violence by violence is sin.

I was once walking with a friend and disciple of Tolstoy's in a country
lane, and a little girl was running in front of us. I put to him the
well-known question: "Suppose you saw a man, wicked or drunk or mad, run
out and attack that child. You are a big man and carry a big stick:
would you not stop him and, if necessary, knock him down?" "No," he
said, "why should I commit a sin? I would try to persuade him, I would
stand in his way, I would let him kill me, but I would not strike him."
Some few people will always be found, less than one in a thousand, to
take this view. They will say: "Let the little girl be killed or carried
off; let the wicked man commit another wickedness; I, at any rate, will
not add to the mass of useless violence that I see all round me."

With such persons one cannot reason, though one can often respect them.
Nearly every normal man will feel that the real sin, the real
dishonour, lies in allowing an abominable act to be committed under your
eyes while you have the strength to prevent it. And the stronger you
are, the greater your chance of success, by so much the more are you
bound to intervene. If the robbers are overpoweringly strong and there
is no chance of beating or baffling them, then and only then should you
think of martyrdom. Martyrdom is not the best possibility. It is almost
the worst. It is a counsel of despair, the last resort when there is no
hope of successful resistance. The best thing--suppose once the robbers
are there and intent on crime--the best thing is to overawe them at
once; the next best, to defeat them after a hard struggle; the third
best, to resist vainly and be martyred; the worst of all, the one evil
that need never be endured, is to let them have their will without
protest. (As for converting them from their evil ways, that is a process
which may be hoped for afterwards.)

We have noticed that in all these cases of honour there is, or at least
there seems to be, no counting of cost, no balancing of good and evil.
In ordinary conduct, we are always balancing the probable results of
this course or that; but when honour or religion comes on the scene all
such balancing ceases. If you argued to the Christian martyr: "Suppose
you do burn the pinch of incense, what will be the harm? All your
friends know you are really a Christian: they will not be misled. The
idol will not be any the better for the incense, nor will your own true
God be any the worse. Why should you bring misery on yourself and all
your family?" Or suppose you pleaded, with the French atheist: "Why in
the world should you not trample on the Cross? It is the sign of the
clericalism to which you object. Even if trampling somewhat exaggerates
your sentiments, the harm is small. Who will be a penny the worse for
your trampling? While you will live instead of dying, and all your
family be happy instead of wretched." Suppose you said to the Red
Indian: "My friend, you are outnumbered by ten to one. If you will
submit unconditionally to these pale-faces, and be always civil and
obliging, they will probably treat you quite well. If they do not, well,
you can reconsider the situation later on. No need to get yourself
killed at once."

The people concerned would not condescend to meet your arguments.
Perhaps they can be met, perhaps not. But it is in the very essence of
religion or honour that it must outweigh all material considerations.
The point of honour is the point at which a man says to some proposal,
"I will not do it. I will rather die."

       *       *       *       *       *

These things are far easier to see where one man is involved than where
it is a whole nation. But they arise with nations too. In the case of a
nation the material consequences are much larger, and the point of
honour is apt to be less clear. But, in general, whenever one nation in
dealing with another relies simply on force or fraud, and denies to its
neighbour the common consideration due to human beings, a point of
honour must arise.

Austria says suddenly to Serbia: "You are a wicked little State. I have
annexed and governed against their will some millions of your
countrymen, yet you are still full of anti-Austrian feeling, which I do
not intend to allow. You will dismiss from your service all officials,
politicians, and soldiers who do not love Austria, and I will further
send you from time to time lists of persons whom you are to dismiss or
put to death. And if you do not agree to this within forty-eight hours,
I, being vastly stronger than you, will make you." As a matter of fact,
Serbia did her very best to comply with Austria's demands; she accepted
about two thirds of them, and asked for arbitration on the remaining
third. But it is clear that she could not accept them all without being
dishonoured. That is, Serbia would have given up her freedom at the
threat of force; the Serbs would no longer be a free people, and every
individual Serb would have been humiliated. He would have confessed
himself to be the kind of man who will yield when an Austrian bullies
him. And if it is urged that under good Austrian government Serbia would
become richer and safer, and the Serbian peasants get better markets,
such pleas cannot be listened to. They are a price offered for slavery;
and a free man will not accept slavery at a price.

Germany, again, says to Belgium (we leave out for the moment the fact of
Germany's special treaty obligations), "We have no quarrel with you, but we
intend for certain reasons to march across your territory and perhaps fight
a battle or two there. We know that you are pledged by treaty not to allow
any such thing, but we cannot help that. Consent, and we will pay you some
compensation afterwards; refuse, and we shall make you wish you had never
been born." At that moment Belgium was a free self-governing State. If she
had yielded to Germany's demand, she would have ceased to be either. It is
possible that, if Germany had been completely victorious and France quite
unable to retaliate, Belgium would have suffered no great material injury;
but she would have taken orders from a stranger who had no right to give
them, simply because he was strong and Belgium dared not face him. Belgium
refused. She has had some of her principal towns destroyed, some thousands
of her soldiers killed, many more thousands of her women, children, and
non-combatants outraged and beggared; but she is still free. She has still
her honour.

       *       *       *       *       *

Let us think this matter out more closely. Our Tolstoyan will say: "We
speak of Belgium's honour and Serbia's honour; but who is Serbia and who
is Belgium? There is no such person as either. There are only great
numbers of people who happen to be Serbians and Belgians, and who mostly
have had nothing to do with the questions at issue. Some of them are
honourable people, some dishonourable. The honour of each one of them
depends very much on whether he pays his debts and tells the truth, but
not in the least on whether a number of foreigners walk through his
country or interfere with his Government. King Albert and his Ministers
might feel humiliated if the German Government compelled them to give
way against their will; but would the ordinary population? Would the
ordinary peasant or shopkeeper or artisan in the districts of Vis and
Lige and Louvain have felt particularly disgraced or ashamed? He would
probably have made a little money and been greatly amused by the sight
of the troops passing. Who will pretend that he would have suffered any
injury that can for a moment be compared with what he has suffered now,
in order that his Government may feel proud of itself?"

I will not raise the point that, as a matter of fact, to grant a right
of way to Germany would have been equivalent to declaring war against
France, so that Belgium would not, by giving up her independence, have
been spared the danger of war. I will assume that nothing but honour was
involved. In that form, this question goes to the root of our whole
conception of citizenship and the position of man in society. And I
believe that our Tolstoyan friend is profoundly wrong.

Is it true, in a healthy and well-governed State, that the average
citizen is indifferent to the honour of his country? We know that it is
not. True, the average citizen may often not understand what is going
on, but as soon as he knows he cares. Suppose for a moment that the
King, or the Prime Minister, or the President of the United States, were
found to be in the pay of a foreign State, as for instance Charles II
was in the pay of Louis XIV, can any one pretend that the ordinary
citizens of Great Britain or America would take it quietly? that any
normal man would be found saying: "Well, the King, or the President, or
the Prime Minister, is behaving dishonourably, but that is a matter for
him, not for me. I am an honest and honourable man, and my Government
can do what it likes." The notion is absurd. The ordinary citizen would
feel instantly and without question that his country's honour involved
his own. And woe to the society in which it were otherwise! We know of
such societies in history. They are the kind which is called "corrupt,"
and which generally has not long to live. Belgium has proved that she is
not that kind of society.

       *       *       *       *       *

But what about Great Britain herself? At the present moment a very clear
case has arisen, and we can test our own feelings. Great Britain had, by
a solemn treaty more than once renewed, pledged herself to maintain the
neutrality of Belgium. Belgium is a little State lying between two very
strong States, France and Germany, and in danger of being overrun or
maltreated by one of them unless the Great Powers guarantee her safety.
The treaty, signed by Prussia, Russia, Austria, France, and Great Britain,
bound all these Powers not to attack Belgium, move troops into her
territory, or annex any part of it; and further, to resist by armed
force any Power which should try to do any of these things. Belgium,
on her part, was bound to maintain her own neutrality to the best of
her power, and not to side with any State which was at war with another.

At the end of last July the exact case arose in which we had pledged
ourselves to act. Germany suddenly and without excuse invaded Belgium,
and Belgium appealed to us and France to defend her. Meantime she fought
alone, desperately, against overwhelming odds. The issue was clear,
and free from any complications. The German Chancellor, Herr von
Bethmann-Hollweg, in his speech of August 6, admitted that Germany had no
grievance against Belgium, and no excuse except "necessity." She could
not get to France quick enough by the direct road. Germany put her case
to us, roughly, on these grounds. "True, you did sign a treaty, but what
is a treaty? We ourselves signed the same treaty, and see what we are
doing! Anyhow, treaty or no treaty, we have Belgium absolutely in our
power. If she had done what we wanted, we would have treated her kindly;
as it is we shall show her no mercy. If you will now do what we want and
stay quiet, later on, at our convenience, we will consider a friendly
deal with you. If you interfere, you must take the consequences. We trust
you will not be so insane as to plunge your whole Empire into danger for
the sake of 'a scrap of paper.'" Our answer was: "Evacuate Belgium
within twelve hours or we fight you."

I think that answer was right. Consider the situation carefully. No
question arises of overhaste or lack of patience on our part. From the
first moment of the crisis, we had laboured night and day in every Court
of Europe for any possible means of conciliation and peace. We had
carefully and sincerely explained to Germany beforehand what attitude
she might expect from us. We did not send our ultimatum till Belgium was
already invaded. It is just the plain question put to the British
Government, and, I think, to every one who feels himself a British
citizen: "The exact case contemplated in your treaty has arisen: the
people you swore to protect is being massacred; will you keep your word
at a gigantic cost, or will you break it at the bidding of Germany?" For
my own part, weighing the whole question soberly and without undue
passion, I feel that in this case I would rather die than submit; and I
believe that the Government, in deciding to keep its word at the cost of
war, has rightly interpreted the feeling of the average British citizen.

       *       *       *       *       *

So much for the question of honour, pure and simple; honour without regard
for consequences. But, of course, situations in real political life are
never so simple as that; they have many different aspects and ramifications.
And in the present case, though the point of honour happens to be quite
clear, it seems probable that even without it there were compelling reasons
for war. I do not, of course, for a moment mean that war was going to be
"profitable" to Great Britain; such a calculation would be infamous. I mean
that, terrible as the consequences of our taking part in the war were sure
to be, the consequences of our not doing so were likely to be even more
profoundly and widely evil.

Let us leave aside, then, the definite treaty binding us to Belgium. Apart
from that, we were faced with a complicated question of statesmanship, of
prudence, of patriotism towards our own country and towards humanity.

Germany has for years presented a problem to Europe. Since her defeat of
France in 1870, she has been extraordinarily successful, and the success
seems to have intoxicated her. This is a complicated subject, which
calls for far deeper knowledge than I possess. I will merely try to
state, as fairly as I can, the impression that has been forced on me by
a certain amount of reading and observation. From the point of view of
one who really believes that great nations ought to behave to one
another as scrupulously and honourably as ordinary, law-abiding men, no
Power in Europe, or out of it, is quite blameless. They all have
ambitions; they all, to some extent, use spies; they all, within limits,
try to outwit each other; in their diplomatic dealings they rely not
only on the claims of good sense and justice, but ultimately, no doubt,
on the threat of possible force. But, as a matter of degree, Germany
does all these things more than other Powers. In her diplomacy, force
comes at once to the front; international justice is hardly mentioned.
She spends colossal sums on her secret service, so that German spies are
become a by-word and a joke. In the recognized sport of international
treachery, she goes frequently beyond the rules of the game. Her
Emperor, her Imperial Chancellor, and other people in the highest
positions of responsibility, expound her ambitions and her schemes in
language which would only be used by an irresponsible journalist in
England or France. They discuss, for instance, whether the time has come
for conquering France once more, and how best they can "bleed her white"
and reduce her to impotence. They explain that Bismarck and his generation
have made Germany the strongest Power on the Continent. "The will of
Germany is now respected" in Europe; it rests with the present Emperor to
make it similarly respected throughout the world. "Germany's world-future
lies on the sea." They discuss whether they can build up a fleet strong
enough to fight and beat the British fleet without Great Britain
interfering. They discuss in public how many colonies, and which, they
will leave to Great Britain when the great "Day" comes. They express
regret, combined, so far as one can make out, with a little genuine
surprise, that the "brutal egoism of Great Britain" should raise any
objection to this plan and they hope--openly and publicly--that her
well-known weakness and cowardice will make her afraid to act. Since
Great Britain has a vast number of Mohammedan subjects, who may possibly
be stirred to disaffection, the German Emperor proclaims to "the three
hundred million Mohammedans who live scattered over the globe" that
whenever they need him, the German Emperor will be their friend. And this
in 1898, in the middle of profound peace! Professors in German
Universities lecture on the best way of destroying the British Empire,
and the officers' messes in the German Navy regularly drink the toast of
"The Day." There is no need to explain what Day. The curious thing is
that these plans are all expounded in public speeches and books--strange
books, in which the average civilized sense of international justice or
common honesty seems to have been left out of account, as well as the
sense of common political prudence; in which the schemes of an
accomplished burglar are expounded with the candour of a child.

And all through this period, in which she plots against her neighbours
and tells them she is plotting, Germany lives in a state of alarm. Her
neighbours are so unfriendly! Their attitude may be correct, but it is
not trustful and cordial. The Imperial Chancellor, Von Blow, explains
in his book that there was only one time when he really breathed freely.
It was in 1909, when Austria, his ally, annexed by violence and against
her pledges the two Slav provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All Europe
was indignant, especially Russia, the natural protector of the Slavs,
and England, the habitual champion of small nationalities. But Germany
put down her foot. The Kaiser "appeared in shining armour beside his
ally," and no Power dared to intervene. Germany was in the wrong. Every
one knew she was in the wrong. It was just that fact that was so
comforting. Her army was big enough, her navy was big enough, and for
the moment the timid creature felt secure.

Lastly, we must remember that it is Germany who started the race for
armaments; and that while Russia has pressed again and again for a
general limitation of armies, and England made proposal after proposal
for a general limitation of navies, Germany has steadily refused to
entertain any such idea.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now, for some time it was possible to minimize all these danger-signals,
and, for my own part, I have always tried to minimize them. There are
militarists and Jingoes in every country; our own have often been bad
enough. The German sort seemed unusually blatant, but it did not follow
that they carried their country with them. The Kaiser, always impulsive,
said on the whole more friendly things than unfriendly things. At any
rate, it seemed wiser and more statesmanlike to meet provocation with
good temper, and to try by persistent friendliness to encourage all the
more liberal and reasonable elements in German public life. This policy
seemed possible until the July of the present year. Then certain facts
were forced upon us. They are all detailed in the White Paper and the
other diplomatic correspondence.

We suddenly found that Germany and Austria, or some conspiring parties in
Germany and Austria, had arranged for a great stroke, like that of 1909
on a larger scale. It was so obviously aggressive in its nature that
their ally, Italy, the third Power in the Triple Alliance, formally
refused to act with them. The Alliance only applied to a defensive war.
The time had been carefully chosen. England was supposed to be on the
verge of a civil war in Ireland and a new mutiny in India. France had
just been through a military scandal, in which it appeared that the army
was short of boots and ammunition. Russia, besides a general strike and
internal troubles, was re-arming her troops with a new weapon, and the
process was only half through. Even the day was chosen. It was in a week
when nearly all the ambassadors were away from their posts, taking their
summer holiday--the English Ambassador at Berlin, the Russian Ambassadors
at Berlin and Vienna, the Austrian Foreign Minister, the French Prime
Minister, the Serbian Prime Minister, the Kaiser himself, and others who
might have used a restraining influence on the schemes of the war party.
Suddenly, without a word to any outside Power, Austria issued an
ultimatum to Serbia, to be answered in forty-eight hours. Seventeen of
these hours had elapsed before the other Powers were informed, and war
was declared on Serbia before all the ambassadors could get back to their
posts. The leading statesmen of Europe sat up all night trying for
conciliation, for arbitration, even for bare delay. At the last moment,
when the Austrian Foreign Minister had returned, and had consented to a
basis for conversations with Russia, there seemed to be a good chance
that peace might be preserved; but at that moment Germany launched her
ultimatum at Russia and France, and Austria was already invading Serbia.
In twenty-four hours, six European Powers were at war.

Now, the secret history of this strange intrigue is not yet known. It
will not be known for fifty years or so. It is impossible to believe
that the German nation would have backed up the plot, if they had
understood it. It is difficult to think that the Kaiser would; and the
Austrian Foreign Minister, when once he returned, tried to undo the work
of his subordinates. But somehow the war parties in Germany and Austria
got the upper hand for one fatal week, and have managed to drag their
countries after them.

We saw, as Italy had seen, that Germany had pre-arranged the war. We saw
her breaking her treaties and overrunning little Belgium, as her ally
was trampling on little Serbia. We remembered her threats against
ourselves. And at this very time, as if to deepen our suspicions, she
made us what has been justly termed an "infamous proposal," that if we
would condone her treaty-breaking now, she would have an "understanding"
with us afterwards.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suppose we had not been bound by our treaty to Belgium, or even our
natural and informal friendship with France: what could we have done? I
wish to take no low ground; I wish to face the question from the point
of view of a statesman who owes a duty to his own country and a duty to
Europe.

The one thing which we could not have done, in my opinion, was to repudiate
our responsibility. We are a very strong Power, one of the strongest in the
world, and here, under our eyes and within range of our guns, a thing was
being done which menaced every living creature in Europe. The one thing
that no statesman could possibly do was to say: "This is no concern of
ours. We will go our ways as usual." It was perfectly possible to stand
aside and proclaim our neutrality. But--apart from questions of honour--to
proclaim neutrality was quite as grave a step as to proclaim war. Let no
man imagine that he can escape blood-guiltiness by standing still while
murder is committed before his eyes.

I will not argue here what the right decision would have been. It
depends, unlike the point of honour, on a careful balancing of evidence
and consequences, and scarcely any one in the country except the
Government has sufficient knowledge to make the balance. For my own part,
I should have started with a strong predilection for peace, even a
fragmentary peace, but should ultimately have been guided chiefly by the
public men whom I most trust. But, as things fell out, our Government was
not forced to make a decision on this difficult ground at all, because
Germany took a further step which made the whole situation clear. Her
treatment of Belgium not only roused our passionate indignation, but
compelled us either to declare war or to break our pledged word. I
incline, however, to think that our whole welfare is so vitally dependent
on the observance of public law and the rights of nations, and would have
been so terribly endangered by the presence of Germany in a conqueror's
mood at Ostend and Zeebrugge, not to speak of Dunkirk and Calais, that in
this case mere self-preservation called us to fight. I do not venture to
lay any stress on the hopes which we may entertain for the building up of
a better Europe after the war, a Europe which shall have settled its old
feuds and devised some great machinery for dealing with new difficulties
as they arise, on a basis of justice and concord, not of intrigue and
force. By all means let us hope, let us work, for that rebuilding; but it
will be a task essentially difficult when it comes; and the very
beginning of it lies far away, separated from the present time and the
immediate task by many terrific hazards. We have no right to soothe our
consciences concerning the war with professions of the fine and generous
things that we are going to do afterwards. Doubtless Germany was going to
make us all good and happy when she was once sure of our obedience. For
the moment we can think only of our duty, and need of self-preservation.
And I believe that in this matter the two run together: our interest
coincides with our honour.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is curious how often this is the case. It is one of the old optimistic
beliefs of nineteenth-century Liberalism, and one which is often ridiculed,
that a nation's duty generally does coincide with its interest. No doubt
one can find abundant exceptions, but I believe that in the main, for
nations as for individuals, real palpable conscious dishonesty or
wickedness is exceedingly unprofitable. This is a more interesting
fact than it looks at first sight.

There are many poisons which are simply so nasty that, undisguised, they
cannot be swallowed. No power could induce a man or dog to sip or lap a
tablespoonful of nicotine or prussic acid. You might coax the dog with
future bones, you might persuade the man that the medicine was just what
his health needed; but their swallowing muscles would refuse to act.
Doubtless, in the scheme of nature, the disgust is a provision which
saves the race. Now I cannot help suspecting that, much more faintly and
more fallibly, the vehement and invincible refusal with which man's sense
of honour or religion meets certain classes of proposal, which look
profitable enough on the surface, is just such another warning of nature
against poison. In all these cases discussed above, the Christian's
martyrdom, the honourable man's refusal to desert his companions, it was
not true to say, as we seemed to say, that advantage was on one side and
honour on the other. Dishonour would have brought with it a subtler and
more lasting disadvantage, greater in its sum than immediate death. If
the Christian had sacrificed to the idol, what would his life have been
afterwards? Perhaps his friends would have rejected his example and been
martyred; he would be alone in his shame. Perhaps they would have
followed his example, and through him the whole band of the "faithful"
have betrayed Christ. Not a very enviable choice either way. Without any
tall talk or high professions, would it not quite certainly be better
for the whole Church and probably for the man himself that he should defy
his persecutors and die? And does not the same now hold for any patriotic
Belgian or Serbian who has had a voice in his country's action? The
choice was not on the one hand honour and misery, on the other dishonour
and a happy life. It was on the one hand honour and great physical
suffering, on the other hand dishonour and a life subtly affected by that
dishonour in a thousand unforeseen ways. I do not underrate the
tremendous importance of mere physical suffering; I do not underrate the
advantage of living as long a life as is conveniently possible. But men
must die some time, and, if we dare really to confess the truth, the
thing that most of us in our hearts long for, the thing which either
means ultimate happiness or else is greater and dearer to men than
happiness, is the power to do our duty and, when we die, to have done it.
The behaviour of our soldiers and sailors proves it. "_The last I saw of
him was on the after bridge, doing well._" The words come in the official
report made by the captain of one of our lost cruisers. But that is the
kind of epitaph nearly all men crave for themselves, and the wisest men,
I think, even for their nation.

       *       *       *       *       *

And if we accept this there will follow further consequences. War is not
all evil. It is a true tragedy, which must have nobleness and triumph in
it as well as disaster.... This is dangerous ground. The subject lends
itself to foolish bombast, especially when accompanied by a lack of true
imagination. We must not begin to praise war without stopping to reflect
on the hundreds of thousands of human beings involved in such horrors
of pain and indignity that, if here in our ordinary hours we saw one man
so treated, the memory would sicken us to the end of our lives; we must
remember the horses, remember the gentle natures brutalized by hardship
and filth, and the once decent persons transformed by rage and fear into
devils of cruelty. But, when we have realized that, we may venture to
see in this wilderness of evil some oases of extraordinary good.

These men who are engaged in what seems like a vast public crime ought,
one would think, to fall to something below their average selves, below
the ordinary standard of common folk. But do they? Day after day come
streams of letters from the front, odd stories, fragments of diaries,
and the like, full of the small, intimate facts which reveal character;
and almost with one accord they show that these men have not fallen, but
risen. No doubt there has been some selection in the letters; to some
extent the writers repeat what they wish to have remembered, and say
nothing of what they wish to forget. But, when all allowances are made,
one cannot read the letters and the dispatches without a feeling of
almost passionate admiration for the men about whom they tell. They were
not originally a set of men chosen for their peculiar qualities. They
were just our ordinary fellow citizens, the men you meet on a crowded
pavement. There was nothing to suggest that their conduct in common life
was better than that of their neighbours. Yet now, under the stress of
war, having a duty before them that is clear and unquestioned and
terrible, they are daily doing nobler things than we most of us have
ever had the chance of doing, things which we hardly dare hope that we
might be able to do. I am not thinking of the rare achievements that win
a V.C. or a Cross of the Legion of Honour, but of the common necessary
heroism of the average men: the long endurance, the devoted obedience,
the close-banded life in which self-sacrifice is the normal rule, and
all men may be forgiven except the man who saves himself at the expense
of his comrade. I think of the men who share their last biscuits with a
starving peasant, who help wounded comrades through days and nights of
horrible retreat, who give their lives to save mates or officers.[1] Or
I think again of the expressions on faces that I have seen or read
about, something alert and glad and self-respecting in the eyes of those
who are going to the front, and even of the wounded who are returning.
"Never once," writes one correspondent, "not once since I came to France
have I seen among the soldiers an angry face or heard an angry word....
They are always quiet, orderly, and wonderfully cheerful." And no one
who has followed the war need be told of their heroism. I do not forget
the thousands left on the battlefield to die, or the groaning of the
wounded sounding all day between the crashes of the guns. But there is a
strange deep gladness as well. "One feels an extraordinary freedom,"
says a young Russian officer, "in the midst of death, with the bullets
whistling round. The same with all the soldiers. The wounded all want to
get well and return to the fight. They fight with tears of joy in their
eyes."

Human nature is a mysterious thing, and man finds his weal and woe not
in the obvious places. To have something before you, clearly seen, which
you know you must do, and can do, and will spend your utmost strength
and perhaps your life in doing, that is one form at least of very high
happiness, and one that appeals--the facts prove it--not only to saints
and heroes, but to average men. Doubtless the few who are wise enough
and have enough imagination may find opportunity for that same happiness
in everyday life, but in war ordinary men find it. This is the inward
triumph which lies at the heart of the great tragedy.

[1] For example, to take two stories out of a score:--

     1. Relating his experiences to a pressman, Lance-Corporal
     Edmondson, of the Royal Irish Lancers, said: "There is
     absolutely no doubt that our men are still animated by the
     spirit of old. I came on a couple of men of the Argyll and
     Sutherland Highlanders who had been cut off at Mons. One
     was badly wounded, but his companion had stuck by him all
     the time in a country swarming with Germans, and though
     they had only a few biscuits between them they managed to
     pull through until we picked them up. I pressed the
     unwounded man to tell me how they managed to get through
     the four days on six biscuits, but he always got angry and
     told me to shut up. I fancy he went without anything, and
     gave the biscuits to the wounded man. They were offered
     shelter many times by French peasants, but they were so
     afraid of bringing trouble on these kind folk that they
     would never accept shelter. One night they lay out in the
     open all through a heavy downpour, though there was a house
     at hand where they could have had shelter. Uhlans were on
     the prowl, and they would not think of compromising the
     French people, who would have been glad to help them."

     2. The following story of an unidentified private of the
     Royal Irish Regiment, who deliberately threw away his life
     in order to warn his comrades of an ambush, is told by a
     wounded corporal of the West Yorkshire Regiment now in
     hospital in Woolwich:--

     "The fight in which I got hit was in a little village near
     to Rheims. We were working in touch with the French corps
     on our left, and early one morning we were sent ahead to
     this village, which we had reason to believe was clear of
     the enemy. On the outskirts we questioned a French lad, but
     he seemed scared and ran away. We went on through the long,
     narrow street, and just as we were in sight of the end the
     figure of a man dashed out from a farmhouse on the right.
     Immediately the rifles began to crack in front, and the
     poor chap fell dead before he reached us.

     "He was one of our men, a private of the Royal Irish
     Regiment. We learned that he had been captured the previous
     day by a marauding party of German cavalry, and had been
     held a prisoner at the farm where the Germans were in
     ambush for us. He tumbled to their game, and though he knew
     that if he made the slightest sound they would kill him, he
     decided to make a dash to warn us of what was in store. He
     had more than a dozen bullets in him, and there was not the
     slightest hope for him. We carried him into a house until
     the fight was over, and then we buried him next day with
     military honours. His identification disk and everything
     else was missing, so that we could only put over his grave
     the tribute that was paid to a greater: 'He saved others;
     himself he could not save.' There wasn't a dry eye among us
     when we laid him to rest in that little village."




[End of How can War ever be Right?, by Gilbert Murray]
