Such a peace would be a disaster as great as the War itself, and much greater than the losses involved in its continuance to a decisive ending. It would leave Germany proud in the consciousness that she had faced, not altogether unsuccessfully, an alliance of powerful enemies, and she would simply set to work upon fresh designs of conquest and of preparation for a renewal of the struggle as soon as things looked sufficiently hopeful. And we may be quite sure that Britain, which has had so large a share in the checking of Germany"s over-ambitious designs, would be the princ.i.p.al enemy to be aimed at.
Never again could we hope to face Germany upon such favourable terms, and with such powerful Allies. We do not fear the issue of a conflict with Germany single-handed so long as we are warned in time to make our preparations for attack, but we do not want to see the wealth of our Empire and of the other nations wasted in the future in that mad compet.i.tion of armaments which Germany has forced on the world. Rather would we see the years that are to come years of peace, when the nations shall enjoy a well-earned rest from the burden of militarism which German designs have imposed upon civilisation.
Of all the perils by which we are now threatened, perhaps the very gravest is the conclusion of a premature peace which, in the very nature of things, could be nothing more than a thinly veiled truce to prepare for a new and even more t.i.tanic conflict. That is the game which the Germans are playing to-day, and its dangers to us were admirably pointed out by Lord Rosebery in a recent speech. He said:
There is only one thing which I sometimes fear. It is that when successes begin there may be some weak-minded cry in this country for a premature peace. A premature peace means a short peace, and a war that will be even worse than this to follow. Therefore let all of us unite in the resolve that while no exertion shall be wanting on our part to bring the War to a triumphant conclusion and the Prussian bloodthirsty tyrants to their knees, yet, on the other hand, not a finger will be raised to accelerate peace before it is justly due.
To that grave and n.o.ble warning perhaps I may add the testimony of an officer who is now serving at the front. He writes:
At the present moment there are millions of French, Belgian, Russian, and Serbian peasants wandering about homeless, and there are thousands besides who have died as the result of this wandering about, or who have been actually killed by the Germans as though they had been soldiers in uniform.
Now look at Germany--Germany who will soon be ready for peace! She has hardly had her territory touched; her people do not know what it means to have war waged in their own country.
What I say is that this War must not be finished until it has been carried right into the heart of Germany, so that the German people may know and understand what France, Belgium, Serbia, and Russia have gone through during the last fifteen months.
It is a frightful nightmare to all of us out here that we shall suddenly be told one morning that peace is declared while we are still sitting on this present line of trenches through Belgium and France.
No one wants peace more than we do out here, but I--and I know most soldiers are the same--would rather die than see a peace made before we have shown them in Germany what the peasants of the Allies have suffered.
It"s no good being soft-hearted with the Germans. I don"t think there is any danger of the other Allies being carried away by the premature peace talk; it"s only England, who does not know what war means, who may be.
Over and over again the Germans have attempted, with barefaced effrontery, to buy off our Allies, to attempt to induce them to forsake the common cause, to acquiesce, in short, in the betrayal of Britain.
That to-day is the keystone of the game of chicanery and fraud which pa.s.ses in Berlin for diplomacy. There can be no doubt that to France, to Italy, and to Russia splendid gains are freely open as the price of a dishonourable peace; there is to-day hardly any concession which Germany would not willingly make to either of the Allies to secure their withdrawal from the contest.
The one aim of Germany to-day is to detach Britain"s Allies, because Germany thinks that with Britain as her sole antagonist she would be sure of ultimate victory. And with her warped code of national honour, with her cynical disregard of the plighted word, she simply cannot understand why the baits she is ready to offer are rejected on all hands with loathing and scorn. She cannot understand the obligations of national honour; she cannot understand that a nation may be too proud to stoop to betrayal for the reward of a bribe. Happily, the bonds which unite the Allies hold firm; and if the Germans cannot see and understand the meaning of the solemn renewal of the Allies" pledge to Belgium, so much the worse for them. Probably they think it is all a piece of bluff, and that we are as ready as they themselves are for peace.
The German gauges every man by his own low standard. He believes that every man has his price; nevertheless, in this belief he exempts the English.
I have before me as I write a copy of recent instructions and advice issued from the German Intelligence Department to its spies. This doc.u.ment is a long and most illuminating one. Here are some quotations from it:
The officer who has prepared himself by an exhaustive course of technical study cannot fail to acquit himself in intelligence work, _which is more fruitful of distinction than most of the duties of his profession_.
It is rarely advisable to try to conceal one"s nationality, but at the same time it is often desirable to a.s.sume, especially when in Russia or England, the character and accent of a South German, and to allow it to be understood that he is a member of the Roman Catholic faith.
In England it is well to avoid making any approaches to either a military or naval officer. _They may be regarded as incorruptible_.
The latter sentence of this secret doc.u.ment shows what Germany thinks of our British officers. It shows also to our Allies what our enemies think of us.
The Invisible Hand is ever at work, no doubt. But even the German Intelligence Department, with all its brains and all its cunning, is compelled to admit that we Britons are incorruptible. They have, of course, established the canker-worm in the heart of Great Britain, and we have with us the horde of so-called "naturalised" Germans, so many of whom are impatiently awaiting the downfall of the country to which they have with their traitorous oaths sworn allegiance. But this they have also done in the territory of our Allies, and we may be sure that the scheme which is working tortuously to split the Allies will be persevered in until its futility becomes obvious even to the German mind. It is this plot which explains the peace talk which is beginning to issue so cleverly from Berlin. The design, quite obviously, is either to weaken the solidarity of the Entente or to represent Germany to the neutral nations as the benevolent victor who is ready with the magnanimous offer of the olive-branch as soon as her beaten foes come to their senses.
Such talk may deceive Germans; it may even have some effect upon the very numerous peace body in America with its ludicrous Ford expedition (to whom it is perhaps princ.i.p.ally addressed); but it surely can deceive no one else. It does not deceive "the man in the street." We have plenty of evidence that the vast ma.s.s of people in the neutral nations realise fully the futility of the German aims, and they are not in the least degree likely to be tempted into proffering peace proposals which would a.s.suredly be instantly rejected by the Allied Powers.
Keen observers among the neutral nations are fully conscious of the fact that Britain"s determination to win the War is hardening into that stern and immutable resolve which in all ages has been the dominant characteristic of our people when once their dogged temper was fully aroused. And of the determination of our Allies there is happily not the slightest doubt. They are one and all determined to end once and for all the German menace to the peace of the world.
I believe most firmly that we can win this War if we will. _We have alike the power and the will to win_.
The combined resources of the Allies in men and money are, in the long run, vastly superior to those of Germany and her miserable va.s.sals--for the countries she has dragged into the War with her are, and can be, nothing more. The Central Powers are fighting to-day on four great main fronts, and the drain on their resources is appalling. Germany, in the words of a keen American observer, is being "bled white," and to-day she is striving to secure some vestiges of success to hearten her people, who are beginning to entertain some uneasy doubts as to the reality of the "victories" of which they have heard so much. And her perils are rapidly increasing. Her Turkish Ally has been so badly shaken that we may well look forward to the swift progress of that demoralisation which seems to have already commenced; if Turkey falls by the way, nothing will keep the swelled-headed Bulgarians in the field, and probably nothing would keep the Rumanians and Greeks out of it.
We have to remember that the South-Eastern front is the last chance Germany has of breaking through the iron ring which is ever being drawn tighter and tighter round her throat. Her dreams of expansion eastwards are indeed already shattered, and with the Turkish failure in Armenia probably goes the last hope Germany entertained of being able to call the fight a draw. In the language of the New York _Tribune_, "Germany is now approaching what will be her last great bid for success. But it will not be made on the battlefield; it will be made in conferences, in peace negotiations, and in operations through neutrals." Against that danger it is more than ever necessary for us to be on our guard.
And that danger is undoubtedly increased by the mischievous and traitorous chatter of the peace cranks who in our own country are slowly recovering their courage, and are beginning to make their noisy voices heard. These are the people who at the moment are the real enemies of our country, the real pro-Germans. They are not very numerous, but they are very noisy; they are not very intelligent, but they are very persistent; and, like all "martyrs," so-called, they are imbued with the firm conviction that they alone are right, and that all the rest of our people are wrong. They are industrious with the industry of the true fanatic, and they are striving by every means in their power, fair or foul, to swing the wavering and the faint-hearted to their cause.
Already the croaking voice of the peace crank has been heard even in the House of Lords itself, and it might have been heard still more loudly if the public, with a just perception of the mischief these pestilent people are doing, had not taken more than once rough-and-ready measures to put a stop to their misguided energies.
I am no advocate of mob law, but if the peace advocates persist in turning the principle of free speech into a licence for a traitorous propaganda I confess I cannot sympathise deeply with their shrieks for sympathy when an indignant public turns upon them in the only way open to it, and refuses to allow their voices to be heard.
That the heart of the people is sound upon this question of fighting the War to the only conclusion compatible with our national honour and safety I am to-day firmly convinced.
Yet there is a very real risk that the cry of "Stop the War!" may make too many converts among the unthinking sections who, like all of us, are weary of the War and long to see peace restored. None of us desires to see the War prolonged, with all its terrible cost in blood and treasure; but, on the other hand, no Englishman worthy the name can fail to share the view expressed by Lord Rosebery. It is the business of all loyal Britons to see that the poisonous propaganda which finds its best representation in such egregious bodies as the "Union of Democratic Control" shall be decisively countered. It is the business of the nation to concentrate all its energies to-day upon the winning of a clear and unmistakable victory which shall ensure the peace of Europe for a century to come.
It is a very striking characteristic of Germany that the better things are going the more loudly she talks of the great things she is going to do in the immediate future. Every trifling success she wins produces an outburst of extravagant boasting wholly disproportionate to the achievement. In the early days of the War, what the Germans call, with their usual lack of good taste, the "big mouth" (_grosse Schnautze_) was very much in evidence. It has cooled down very considerably of late, and its place is being taken by a very much more chastened frame of mind.
The olive-branch is much in evidence, and the mailed fist is somewhat at a discount. "Frightfulness" is, in the main, left to the sabre-rattling Count Reventlow, the puff-ball Captain Persius, and to that portion of the German Press which takes its leading articles direct from the Government lie-factory in Berlin. Ananias has his hand heavily over Germany at the present moment. Otherwise the tone is one of a benignant willingness to admit that Germany and all the other countries have been very much to blame, and that it is time this terrible War was ended.
This new species of modesty by compulsion is all a part of the German dodge to try to make a favourable peace which would leave Germany weakened indeed--it is realised that that can hardly be avoided--but by no means whipped. It is our business to stick to our task until the whipping is obvious not only to the whole world, but to the German people as well.
The times are full of perils, yet they are not without hope. Already we see the rifts in the dark clouds which have hung over us for so long.
And if we turn a deaf ear to those who counsel the way of ignominious ease, if we decide to persevere with all our heart and all our strength along the path of n.o.ble purpose upon which we have embarked, we shall reach in good time to the long-desired haven of victory and peace and prosperity.
I defined in this hall exactly a year ago the objects without the attainment of which the Allies will not lay down their arms. They remain to-day as they were then. We pursue them one and all with undiminished faith; we believe that we have advanced a long way to their achievement. Be the journey long or short we shall not falter till we have secured for the smaller states of Europe their charter of Independence, and for Europe itself and for the world at large its final emanc.i.p.ation from the reign of force.--_Mr Asquith, at The Guildhall, November 9, 1915_.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
"NEVER AGAIN."
It would be nothing less than a crime against civilisation if, after the War has come to a close, Germany is left with the power again to make herself a menace to the peace of our modern civilised world.
We need have no sentimental considerations on this point. We want none.
Germany has shown conclusively that she is not to be bound by any considerations of honour, and that she has deliberately aimed at what the world will never tolerate--world-dominion in the hands of a single Power. We and our Allies have determined that she shall not be allowed to realise her ambitions in this direction; it is our duty to see that for the future, in the interests of humanity as a whole, she is robbed of the power of making herself a nuisance and a danger to her neighbours, who wish only to live in peace.
If peace for the moment were the only object of the Allies, their wishes could be gratified on very easy terms.
There is no doubt whatever that Germany would be glad to bring the War to a close before she is more seriously weakened, if not utterly ruined; it is our business and the business of our Allies to see that no premature peace is allowed to rob them of the fruits of their great sacrifices. For, be it remembered, their real object is not so much victory now, except inasmuch as victory will enable them to gain security in the future. We do not want a world kept perpetually on tenterhooks by Germany"s exhibitions of the "mailed fist"; and unless I misread entirely the signs of the times, I do not think we are likely to have it. Germany will have to be dealt with after the War, and no feelings of pity or consideration for a defeated enemy can have any influence on the settlement.
For years past Germany has deliberately elected to make economic war in times of peace. Of this we have no reason to complain; a country"s fiscal arrangements are a matter for itself. But out of her economic war Germany grew rich and strong enough to wage military war, and she will do so again unless we and our Allies take steps to stop her. Now in this matter old shibboleths have got to go by the board, and there is every indication that, not as a matter of politics, but as a mere matter of self-preservation, both Britain and the Allies are preparing to fight Germany in the future with the weapon which in the past has proved so successful against themselves.
There are very few things indeed produced by Germany which Britain or her Allies cannot produce for themselves, and I have no hesitation in saying that for the future our fiscal watchword ought to be, "The Allies first and the rest nowhere." I do not want to see this or that party s.n.a.t.c.h a party advantage out of our old quarrels on the subject of Free Trade.
I have every hope that as a result of the War many of our old suicidal party divisions and petty bickerings will disappear, never to return; and for this reason I hope--perhaps it is hoping against hope--that when the War is over we shall consider our future tariff system not as Liberals or Conservatives, but as Imperialists pure and simple.
It is true, speaking broadly, that the Liberal Party as a whole is so deeply pledged to Free Trade that any reversal of its policy on this subject must be a matter of grave difficulty. But the question is no longer Free Trade or Tariff Reform; the question to-day is, or at least in the near future will be, the maintenance of Britain"s commercial prosperity against German attacks which are sure to be renewed the instant peace is declared.
There are those who think--the wish is father to the thought--that Germans will be so unpopular after the War that there will be no risk of their doing business in any British territory, and that many of the neutrals even will refuse to have dealings with them. I think it is undoubtedly true that in many cases and in many countries Germans will find that they are not received in the future as they have been in the past. But the Fownes case shows us very clearly that there are Englishmen who are not averse to trading with Germany even in time of War when such trading is expressly forbidden. What reason have we, then, to think that after peace is declared there will not be found hundreds of firms quite ready to trade with Germans if by so doing they can make a profit? And if this is true of England, can we blame the neutral nations and our Allies if they are no more scrupulous?
Our policy must be to make such trading impossible because unprofitable--firstly, to encourage our own business men throughout the Empire and the business men belonging to the nations that are allied with us, and, secondly, to prevent Germany gaining in the commercial world a position which will enable her again to grow so rich and so strong that she will be enabled in her own time again to menace our security.
There is only one way to secure that end, and that is by a preferential tariff which shall operate in all the Allied countries in favour of Allied goods. At whatever cost in the sacrifice of long-held political convictions, some such measure is imperative if we are not to be faced with the prospect of another and more terrible war just as soon as Germany feels herself strong enough to wage it.