Chapter XXIII: Appendix: On Recent Events in Europe

At the outbreak of the Balkan War "The Great Illusion" was subjected to much criticism, on the ground that the war tended to disprove its theses. The following quotations, one from Mr. Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the other from the English _Review of Reviews_, are typical of many others.

Mr. Churchill said, in a speech at Sheffield:

Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or
sit in sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no
consequence at the present moment....

We have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know
that the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is
a war which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and
diplomatists could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press
has had no part, a war which the whole force of the money power
has been subtly and steadfastly directed to prevent, which has
come upon us, not through the ignorance or credulity of the
people, but, on the contrary, through their knowledge of their
history and their destiny, and through their intense
realization of their wrongs and of their duties, as they
conceived them, a war which from all these causes has burst
upon us with all the force of a spontaneous explosion, and
which in strife and destruction has carried all before it. Face
to face with this manifestation, who is the man bold enough to
say that force is never a remedy? Who is the man who is foolish
enough to say that martial virtues do not play a vital part in
the health and honor of every people? (Cheers.) Who is the man
who is vain enough to suppose that the long antagonisms of
history and of time can in all circumstances be adjusted by
the smooth and superficial conventions of politicians and
ambassadors?

The London _Review of Reviews_ said in an article on "The Debacle of Norman Angell":

Mr. Norman Angell's theory was one to enable the citizens of
this country to sleep quietly, and to lull into false security
the citizens of all great countries. That is undoubtedly the
reason why he met with so much success.... It was a very
comfortable theory for those nations which have grown rich and
whose ideals and initiative have been sapped by overmuch
prosperity. But the great delusion of Norman Angell, which led
to the writing of "The Great Illusion," has been dispelled for
ever by the Balkan League. In this connection it is of value to
quote the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, which give very
adequately the reality as opposed to theory.

In reply to these and similar criticisms I wrote several articles in the London Press, from which the following few pages are selected.

What has Pacifism, Old or New, to say now?

Is War impossible?

Is it unlikely?

Is it futile?

Is not force a remedy, and at times the only remedy?

Could any remedy have been devised on the whole as conclusive and complete as that used by the Balkan peoples?

Have not the Balkan peoples redeemed War from the charges too readily brought against it as simply an instrument of barbarism?

Have questions of profit and loss, economic considerations, anything whatever to do with this war?

Would the demonstration of its economic futility have kept the peace?

Are theories and logic of the slightest use, since force alone can determine the issue?

Is not war therefore inevitable and must we not prepare diligently for it?

I will answer all these quite simply and directly without casuistry or logic-chopping and honestly desiring to avoid paradox and "cleverness." Nor will these quite simple answers be in contradiction to anything that I have written, nor will they invalidate any of the principles I have attempted to explain.

My answers may be summarized thus:

(1) This war has justified both the Old Pacifism and the New.
By universal admission events have proved that the Pacifists
who opposed the Crimean War were right and their opponents
wrong. Had public opinion given more consideration to those
Pacifist principles, this country would not have "backed the
wrong horse" and this war, two wars which have preceded it and
many of the abominations of which the Balkan peninsula has been
the scene during the last 60 years might have been avoided. In
any case Great Britain would not now carry upon her shoulders
the responsibility of having during half a century supported
the Turk against the Christian and of having tried uselessly to
prevent what has now taken place--the break-up of the Turk's
rule in Europe.

(2) War is not impossible, and no responsible Pacifist ever
said it was; it is not the likelihood of war which is the
illusion, but its benefits.

(3) It is likely or unlikely according as the parties to a
dispute are guided by wisdom or folly.

(4) It _is_ futile and force is no remedy.

(5) Its futility is proven by the war waged daily by the Turks
as conquerors, during the last 400 years. And if the Balkan
peoples choose the less evil of two kinds of war and will use
their victory to bring a system based on force and conquest to
an end, we who do not believe in force and conquest will
rejoice in their action and believe it will achieve immense
benefits. But if instead of using their victory to eliminate
force, they in their turn pin their faith to it, continue to
use it the one against the other and to exploit by its means
the populations they rule; if they become not the organizers of
social co-operation among the Balkan populations, but merely,
like the Turks, their conquerors and "owners," then they in
their turn will share the fate of the Turks.

(6) The fundamental causes of this war are economic in the
narrower, as well as in the larger sense of the term; in the
first because conquest was the Turk's only trade--he desired to
live out of taxes wrung from a conquered people, to exploit
them as a means of livelihood, and this conception was at the
root of most of Turkish misgovernment. And in the larger sense
its cause is economic because in the Balkans, remote
geographically from the main drift of European economic
development, there has not grown up that interdependent social
life, the innumerable contacts which in the rest of Europe have
done so much to attenuate primitive religious and racial
hatreds.

(7) A better understanding by the Turk of the real nature of
civilized government, of the economic futility of conquest, of
the fact that a means of livelihood (an economic system) based
upon having more force than someone else and using it
ruthlessly against him is an impossible form of human
relationship bound to break down, _would_ have kept the peace.

(8) If European statecraft had not been animated by false
conceptions, largely economic in origin, based upon a belief in
the necessary rivalry of states, the advantages of preponderant
force and conquest, the Western nations could have composed
their quarrels and ended the abominations of the Balkan
peninsula long ago--even in the opinion of the _Times_. And it
is our own false statecraft--that of Great Britain--which has a
large part of the responsibility for this failure of European
civilization. It has caused us to sustain the Turk in Europe,
to fight a great and popular war with that aim, and led us into
treaties which, had they been kept, would have obliged us to
fight to-day on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States.

(9) If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and
interest in principles, the ideas that govern human
relationship, they are the only things that can prevent future
wars, just as they were the only things that brought religious
wars to an end--a preponderant power "imposing" peace playing
no role therein. Just as it was false religious theories which
made the religious wars, so it is false political theories
which make the political wars.

(10) War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of
error and passion--religious persecution for instance--are
inevitable; they cease with better understanding, as the
attempt to impose religious belief by force has ceased in
Europe.

(11) We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to
prevent war; and though that preparation may include
battleships and conscription, those elements will quite
obviously make the tension and danger greater unless there is
also a better European opinion.

These summarized replies need a little expansion.

Had we thrashed out the question of war and peace as we must finally, it would hardly be necessary to explain that the apparent paradox in Answer No. 4 (that war is futile, and that this war will have immense benefits) is due to the inadequacy of our language, which compels us to use the same word for two opposed purposes, not to any real contradiction of fact.

We called the condition of the Balkan peninsula "Peace" until the attack was made on Turkey merely because the respective Ambassadors still happened to be resident in the capitals to which they were accredited.

Let us see what "Peace" under Turkish rule really meant and who is the real invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial witness--Sir Charles Elliot--who paints for us the character of the Turk as an "administrator":

The Turk in Europe has an overweening sense of his superiority,
and remains a nation apart, mixing little with the conquered
populations, whose customs and ideas he tolerates, but makes
little effort to understand. The expression, indeed, "Turkey in
Europe" means indeed no more than "England in Asia," if used as
a designation for India.... The Turks have done little to
assimilate the people whom they have conquered, and still less,
been assimilated by them. In the larger part of the Turkish
dominions, the Turks themselves are in a minority.... The Turks
certainly resent the dismemberment of their Empire, but not in
the sense in which the French resent the conquest of
Alsace-Lorraine by Germany. They would never use the word
"Turkey" or even its oriental equivalent, "The High Country" in
ordinary conversation. They would never say that Syria and
Greece are parts of Turkey which have been detached, but merely
that they are tributaries which have become independent,
provinces once occupied by Turks where there are no Turks now.
As soon as a province passes under another Government, the
Turks find it the most natural thing in the world to leave it
and go somewhere else. In the same spirit the Turk talks quite
pleasantly of leaving Constantinople some day, he will go over
to Asia and found another capital. One can hardly imagine
Englishmen speaking like that of London, but they might
conceivably speak so of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror
and nothing else. The history of the Turk is a catalogue of
battles. His contributions to art, literature, science, and
religion, are practically nil. Their desire has not been to
instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern, but simply to
conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes whatever he
can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses which he
finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In unfavorable
circumstances he is a marauder. In favorable, a _Grand
Seigneur_ who thinks it his right to enjoy with grace and
dignity all that the world can hold, but who will not lower
himself by engaging in art, literature, trade, or manufacture.
Why should he, when there are other people to do these things
for him. Indeed, it may be said that he takes from others even
his religion, clothes, language, customs; there is hardly
anything which is Turkish and not borrowed. The religion is
Arabic; the language half Arabic and Persian; the literature
almost entirely imitative; the art Persian or Byzantine; the
costumes, in the Upper Classes and Army mostly European. There
is nothing characteristic in manufacture or commerce, except an
aversion to such pursuits. In fact, all occupations, except
agriculture and military service are distasteful to the true
Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant. He may keep a stall in a
bazaar, but his operations are rarely undertaken on a scale
which merits the name of commerce or finance. It is strange to
observe how, when trade becomes active in any seaport, or upon
the railway lines, the Osmanli retires and disappears, while
Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines thrive in his place. Neither
does he much affect law, medicine or the learned professions.
Such callings are followed by Moslems but they are apt to be
of non-Turkish race. But though he does none of these things
... the Turk is a soldier. The moment a sword or rifle is put
into his hands, he instinctively knows how to use it with
effect, and feels at home in the ranks or on a horse. The
Turkish Army is not so much a profession or an institution
necessitated by the fears and aims of the Government as the
quite normal state of the Turkish nation.... Every Turk is a
born soldier, and adopts other pursuits chiefly because times
are bad. When there is a question of fighting, if only in a
riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows surprising power of
finding organization and expedients, and alas! a surprising
ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and good-humored soul,
kind to children and animals, and very patient; but when the
fighting spirit comes on him, he becomes like the terrible
warriors of the Huns or Genghis Khan, and slays, burns, and
ravages without mercy or discrimination.[122]

Such is the verdict of an instructed, travelled, and observant English author and diplomatist, who lived among these people for many years and who learned to like them, who studied them and their history. It does not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. His nation has lived by the sword and to-day he is dying by the sword, because the sword, the mere exercise of force by one man or group of men upon another, conquest in other words, is an impossible form of human relationship.

In order to maintain this evil form of relationship--its evil and futility constitute the whole basis of the principles I have attempted to illustrate--he has not even observed the rough chivalry of the brigand. The brigand, though he might knock men on the head, will refrain from having his force take the form of butchering women and disembowelling children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government will take the form of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial ferocity which is not a matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to which scores, hundreds, thousands even of credible European witnesses have testified. "The finest gentleman, sir, that ever butchered a woman or burned a village," is the phrase that _Punch_ most justly puts into the mouth of the defender of our traditional Turcophil policy.

This condition is "Peace" and the act which would put a stop to it is "War"! It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which create much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for counter-action destined to prevent it.

Yet we manage in other than the international field, in civil matters, to make the thing clear enough.

Once an American town was set on fire by incendiaries and was threatened with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it the authorities deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the pathway of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town authorities were incendiaries also and "believed in setting fire to towns"? Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed at bringing it to an end.

Put it another way. You do not believe that force should determine the transfer of property or conformity to a creed, and I say to you: "Hand me your purse and conform to my creed or I kill you." You say: "Because I do not believe that force should settle these matters, I shall try to prevent it settling them; therefore if you attack I shall resist; if I did not I should be allowing force to settle them." I attack; you resist and disarm me and say: "My force having neutralized yours and, the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may have to urge for my paying you money or any argument in favor of your creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an Anti-bellicist, to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the discussion of this matter. If however you said: "Having disarmed you and established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in my favor by taking your weapon and using it against you unless you hand me _your_ purse and subscribe to _my_ creed. I do this because force alone can determine issues and because it is a law of life that the strong should eat up the weak," you would then be a Bellicist.

In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade or to govern a nation or that it could be the basis of human relationship?

In every civilized country, the basis of the relationship on which the community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it? That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by force"? It is _because_ of that, because the act of self-defence is an attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law justifies it.[123]

But the law would not justify me if, having disarmed my opponent, having neutralized his force by my own and re-established the social equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it by asking him for his purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by force--I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist and have become a Bellicist.

For that is the difference between the two conceptions; the Bellicist says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal, therefore fight it out; let the best man win. When you have preponderant strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not because it is right, but because you are able to do so." It is the "excellent policy" which Lord Roberts attributes to Germany and approves.

We Anti-bellicists take an exactly contrary view. We say: "To fight it out settles nothing, since it is not a question of who is stronger, but of whose view is best and, as that is not always easy to establish, it is of the utmost importance in the interest of all parties, in the long run, to keep force out of it."

The former is the policy of the Turks. They have been obsessed with the idea that, if only they had enough of physical force ruthlessly exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjustment, understanding, equity, law, commerce; that "blood and iron" were all that was needed. The success of that policy can now be judged.

Good or evil will come of the present war according as the Balkan States are on the whole guided by the Bellicist or by the opposed principle. If, having now momentarily eliminated force as between themselves, they re-introduce it; if the strongest, presumably Bulgaria,[124] adopts Lord Roberts's "excellent policy" of striking because she has the preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest of other members of the Balkan League and of the populations of the conquered territories and uses them for exploitation by military force--why then there will be no settlement and this war will have accomplished nothing save futile waste and slaughter. For they will have taken under a new flag, the pathway of the Turk to savagery, degeneration, death.

If on the other hand they are guided more by the Pacifist principle, if they believe that co-operation among States is better than conflict, if they believe that the common interest of all in good Government is greater than the special interest of anyone in conquest, that the understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the organization of society are the means by which men progress and not the imposition of force by one man or group upon another, why, they will have taken the pathway to better civilization. But then they will have disregarded Lord Roberts's advice.

This distinction between the two systems, far from being a matter of abstract theory of metaphysics or logic-chopping, is just the difference which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from the Turk, which distinguishes America from Turkey. The Turk has as much physical vigor as the American, is as virile, manly, and military. The Turk has the same raw materials of Nature, soil, and water. There is no difference in the capacity for the exercise of physical force--or if there is, the difference is in favor of the Turk. The real difference is a difference of ideas, of mind, outlook on the part of the individuals composing the respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a Militarist one; the American has another, mainly a Pacifist one. And whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the Turkish ideal or towards the Anglo-Saxon ideal will depend upon whether it is animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine; if the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to barbarism; if the latter, it will take a better road.

In dealing with answer No. 4 I have shown how the ambiguity of terms[125] used leads us so much astray in our notions of the real role of force in human relationships. But there is a curious phenomenon of thought which explains perhaps still more how misconceptions grow up on this subject and that is the habit of thinking of a war which, of course, must include two parties in terms solely of one party at a time. Thus one critic[126] is quite sure that because the Balkan peoples "recked nothing of financial disaster," economic considerations have had nothing to do with their war--a conclusion which seems to be arrived at by the process of judgment just indicated: to find the cause of conditions produced by two parties you shall rigorously ignore one. For there is a great deal of internal evidence for believing that the writer of the article in question would admit very readily that the efforts of the Turk to wring taxes out of the conquered peoples--not in return for a civilized administration, but simply as the means of livelihood, of turning conquest into a trade--had a very great deal to do in explaining the Turk's presence there at all and the Christian's desire to get rid of him; while the same article specifically states that the mutual jealousies of the great Powers, based on a desire to "grab" (an economic motive), had a great deal to do with preventing a peaceful settlement of the difficulties. Yet "economics" have nothing to do with it!

I have attempted elsewhere to make these two points--that it is on the one hand the false economics of the Turks and on the other hand the false economics of the Powers of Europe, coloring the policy and statecraft of both, which have played an enormous, in all human probability, a determining role in the immediate cause of the war; and, of course, a further and more remote cause of the whole difficulty is the fact that the Balkan peoples, never having been subjected to the discipline of that complex social life which arises from trade and commerce have not, or at least not so completely, outgrown those primitive racial and religious hostilities which at one time in Europe as a whole provoked conflicts like that now raging in the Balkans. The following article which appeared[127] at the outbreak of the war may summarise some of the points with which we have been dealing:--

"Polite and good-natured people think it rude to say 'Balkans'
if a Pacifist be present. Yet I never understood why, and I
understand now less than ever. It carries the implication that
because war has broken out that fact disposes of all objection
to it. The armies are at grips, therefore peace is a mistake.
Passion reigns in the Balkans, therefore passion is preferable
to reason.

"I suppose cannibalism and infanticide, polygamy, judicial
torture, religious persecution, witchcraft, during all the
years we did these 'inevitable' things, were defended in the
same way, and those who resented all criticism of them pointed
in triumph to the cannibal feast, the dead child, the maimed
witness, the slain heretic, or the burned witch. But the fact
did not prove the wisdom of those habits, still less their
inevitability; for we have them no more.

"We are all agreed as to the fundamental cause of the Balkan
trouble: the hate born of religious, racial, national, and
linguistic differences; the attempt of an alien conqueror to
live parasitically upon the conquered, and the desire of
conqueror and conquered alike to satisfy in massacre and
bloodshed the rancor of fanaticism and hatred.

"Well, in these islands, not so very long ago, those things
were causes of bloodshed; indeed, they were a common feature of
European life. But if they are inevitable in human
relationship, how comes it that Adana is no longer duplicated
by St. Bartholomew; the Bulgarian bands by the vendetta of the
Highlander and the Lowlander; the struggle of the Slav and
Turk, Serb and Bulgar, by that of Scots and English, and
English and Welsh? The fanaticism of the Moslem to-day is no
more intense than that of Catholic and heretic in Rome, Madrid,
Paris, and Geneva at a time which is only separated from us by
the lives of three or four elderly men. The heretic or infidel
was then in Europe also a thing unclean and horrifying,
exciting in the mind of the orthodox a sincere and honest
hatred and a (very largely satisfied) desire to kill. The
Catholic of the 16th century was apt to tell you that he could
not sit at table with a heretic because the latter carried with
him a distinctive and overpoweringly repulsive odor. If you
would measure the distance Europe has travelled, think what
this means: all the nations of Christendom united in a war
lasting 200 years for the capture of the Holy Sepulchre; and
yet, when in our day their representatives, seated round a
table, could have had it for the asking, they did not deem it
worth the asking, so little of the ancient passion was there
left. The very nature of man seemed to be transformed. For,
wonderful though it be that orthodox should cease killing
heretic, infinitely more wonderful still is it that he should
cease wanting to kill him.

"Just as most of us are certain that the underlying causes of
this conflict are 'inevitable' and 'inherent in unchanging
human nature,' so are we certain that so _un_-human a thing as
economics can have no bearing on it.

"Well, I will suggest that the transformation of the
heretic-hating and heretic-killing European is due mainly to
economic forces; that it is because the drift of those forces
has to so great a degree left the Balkans, where until
yesterday the people lived a life little different from that
which they lived in the time of Abraham, unaffected that war is
now raging; that economic factors of a more immediate kind form
a large part of the provoking cause of that war; and that a
better comprehension by great nations of Europe of certain
economic facts of their international relationship is essential
before much progress towards solution can be made.

"But then by 'economics' of course I mean, not a merchant's
profit or a money-lender's interest, but the method by which
men earn their bread, which must also mean the kind of life
they lead.

"We generally think of the primitive life of man--that of the
herdsman or the tent liver--as something idyllic. The picture
is as far as possible from the truth. Those into whose lives
economics do not enter, or enter very little--that is to say,
those who, like the Congo cannibal, or the Red Indian, or the
Bedouin, do not cultivate, or divide their labor, or trade, or
save, or look to the future, have shed little of the primitive
passions of other animals of prey, the tigers and the wolves,
who have no economics at all, and have no need to check an
impulse or a hate. But industry, even of the more primitive
kind, means that men must divide their labor, which means that
they must put some sort of reliance upon one another; the thing
of prey becomes a partner, and the attitude towards it changes.
And as this life becomes more complex, as the daily needs and
desires push men to trade and barter, that means building up a
social organization, rules and codes and courts to enforce
them; as the interdependence widens and deepens it necessarily
means the cessation of certain hostilities. If the neighboring
tribe wants to trade with you it must not kill you; if you want
the services of the heretic you must not kill him, you must
keep your obligation towards him, and mutual good faith is
death to long-sustained hatreds.

"You cannot separate the moral from the social and economic
development of a people. The great service of a complex social
and industrial organization, which is built up by the desire of
men for better material conditions, is not that it 'pays,' but
that it makes a more interdependent human society, and that it
leads men to recognize what is the best relationship among
them. The fact of recognizing that some act of aggression is
causing stocks to fall is not important because it may save
Oppenheim's or Solomon's money but because it is a
demonstration that we are dependent upon some community on the
other side of the world, that their damage is our damage, and
that we have an interest in preventing it. It teaches us, as
only some such simple and mechanical means can teach, the
lesson of human fellowship.

"It is by such means as this that Western Europe has in some
measure, within its respective political frontiers, learned
that lesson. Each nation has learned, within its own confines
at least, that wealth is made by work, not robbery; that,
indeed, general robbery is fatal to prosperity; that government
consists not merely in having the power of the sword but in
organizing society--in 'knowing how,' which means the
development of ideas; in maintaining courts; in making it
possible to run railways, post-offices, and all the
contrivances of a complex society.

"Now rulers did not create these things; it was the daily
activities of the people, born of their desires and made
possible by the circumstances in which they lived, by the
trading and the mining and the shipping which they carried on,
that made them. But the Balkans have been geographically
outside the influence of European industrial and commercial
life. The Turk has hardly felt it at all. He has learned none
of the social and moral lessons which interdependence and
improved communications have taught the Western European, and
it is because he had not learned these lessons, because he is a
soldier and a conqueror to an extent and completeness that
other nations of Europe lost a generation or two since, that
the Balkanese are fighting and that war is raging.

"Not merely in this larger sense, but in the more immediate,
narrower sense, are the fundamental causes of this war
economic.

"This war arises, as the past wars against the Turkish
conqueror have arisen, from the desire of the Christian peoples
on whom he lives to shake off this burden. "To live upon their
subjects is the Turks' only means of livelihood," says one
authority. The Turk is an economic parasite and the healthy
economic organism must end by rejecting him.

"The management of society, simple and primitive even as that
of the Balkan mountains, needs some effort and work and
capacity for administration; otherwise even rudimentary
economic life cannot be carried on. The Turkish system, founded
on the sword and nothing else ('the finest soldier in Europe'),
cannot give that small modicum of energy or administrative
capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it is not
by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a
machine, but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road or
make a bridge or administer a post-office or found a court of
law. And these things are necessary. He will not let them be
done by the Christian, who, because he did not belong to the
conquering class, has had to work and has consequently come to
possess whatever capacity for work and administration the
country can show, because to do so would be to threaten the
Turk's only trade. In the Turk granted the Christians equal
political rights they would inevitably 'run the country.' And
yet the Turk himself cannot do it; and he will not let others
do it, because to do so would be to threaten his supremacy.

"The more the use of force fails, the more, of course, does he
resort to it and that is why many of us who do not believe in
force and desire to see it disappear from the relationship not
merely of religious but of political groups, might conceivably
welcome this war of the Balkan Christians, in so far as it is
an attempt to resist the use of force in those relationships.
Of course, I do not try to estimate the 'balance of
criminality.' Right is not all on one side--it never is. But
the broad issue is clear and plain. And only those concerned
with the name rather than the thing, with nominal and verbal
consistency rather than realities, will see anything
paradoxical or contradictory in Pacifist approval of Christian
resistance to the use of Turkish force.

"One fact stands out incontrovertibly from the whole weary
muddle. It is quite clear that the inability to act in concert
arises from the fact that in the international sphere the
European is still dominated by illusions which he has dropped
when he deals with home politics. The political faith of the
Turk, which he would never think of applying at home as among
the individuals of his nation, he applies pure and unalloyed
when he comes to deal with foreigners as nations. The economic
conception--using the term in that wider sense which I have
indicated earlier in this article--which guides his individual
conduct is the antithesis of that which guides his national
conduct.

"While the Christian does not believe in robbery inside the
frontier, he does without; while within the State he realizes
that it is better for each to observe the general code, so that
civilized society can exist, than for each to disregard it, so
that society goes to pieces; while within the State he realizes
that government is a matter of administration, not the seizure
of property; that one town does not add to its wealth by
'capturing' another, that indeed one community cannot 'own'
another--while, I say, he believes all these things in his
daily life at home, he disregards them all when he comes to the
field of international relationship, _la haute politique_. To
annex some province by a cynical breach of treaty obligation
(Austria in Bosnia, Italy in Tripoli) is regarded as better
politics than to act loyally with the community of nations to
enforce their common interest in order and good government. In
fact, we do not believe that there can be a community of
nations, because, in fact, we do not believe that their
interests are common, but rival; like the Turk, we believe that
if you do not exercise force upon your 'rival' he will exercise
it upon you; that nations live upon one another, not by
co-operation with one another--and it is for this reason
presumably that you must 'own' as much of your neighbors as
possible. It is the Turkish conception from beginning to end.

"It is because these false beliefs prevent the nations of
Christendom acting loyally the one to the other, because each
is playing for its own hand, that the Turk, with hint of some
sordid bribe, has been able to play off each against the other.

"This is the crux of the matter. When Europe can honestly act
in common on behalf of common interests some solution can be
found. And the capacity of Europe to act in harmony will not be
found as long as the accepted doctrines of European statecraft
remain unchanged, as long as they are dominated by existing
illusions."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "The True Way of Life" (Headley Brothers, London), p. 29. I am aware that many modern pacifists, even of the English school, to which these remarks mainly apply, are more objective in their advocacy than Mr. Grubb, but in the eyes of the "average sensual man" pacificism is still deeply tainted with this self-sacrificing altruism (see Chapter III.,