Germany and the Next War Part 1

Germany and the Next War.

by Friedrich von Bernhardi.

INTRODUCTION

The value of war for the political and moral development of mankind has been criticized by large sections of the modern civilized world in a way which threatens to weaken the defensive powers of States by undermining the warlike spirit of the people. Such ideas are widely disseminated in Germany, and whole strata of our nation seem to have lost that ideal enthusiasm which const.i.tuted the greatness of its history. With the increase of wealth they live for the moment, they are incapable of sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of great conceptions, and close their eyes complacently to the duties of our future and to the pressing problems of international life which await a solution at the present time.

We have been capable of soaring upwards. Mighty deeds raised Germany from political disruption and feebleness to the forefront of European nations. But we do not seem willing to take up this inheritance, and to advance along the path of development in politics and culture. We tremble at our own greatness, and s.h.i.+rk the sacrifices it demands from us. Yet we do not wish to renounce the claim which we derive from our glorious past. How rightly Fichte once judged his countrymen when he said the German can never wish for a thing by itself; he must always wish for its contrary also.

The Germans were formerly the best fighting men and the most warlike nation of Europe. For a long time they have proved themselves to be the ruling people of the Continent by the power of their arms and the loftiness of their ideas. Germans have bled and conquered on countless battlefields in every part of the world, and in late years have shown that the heroism of their ancestors still lives in the descendants. In striking contrast to this military apt.i.tude they have to-day become a peace-loving--an almost "too" peace-loving--nation. A rude shock is needed to awaken their warlike instincts, and compel them to show their military strength.

This strongly-marked love of peace is due to various causes.

It springs first from the good-natured character of the German people, which finds intense satisfaction in doctrinaire disputations and partisans.h.i.+p, but dislikes pus.h.i.+ng things to an extreme. It is connected with another characteristic of the German nature. Our aim is to be just, and we strangely imagine that all other nations with whom we exchange relations share this aim. We are always ready to consider the peaceful a.s.surances of foreign diplomacy and of the foreign Press to be no less genuine and true than our own ideas of peace, and we obstinately resist the view that the political world is only ruled by interests and never from ideal aims of philanthropy. "Justice," Goethe says aptly, "is a quality and a phantom of the Germans." We are always inclined to a.s.sume that disputes between States can find a peaceful solution on the basis of justice without clearly realizing what _international_ justice is.

An additional cause of the love of peace, besides those which are rooted in the very soul of the German people, is the wish not to be disturbed in commercial life.

The Germans are born business men, more than any others in the world.

Even before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, Germany was perhaps the greatest trading Power in the world, and in the last forty years Germany's trade has made marvellous progress under the renewed expansion of her political power. Notwithstanding our small stretch of coast-line, we have created in a few years the second largest merchant fleet in the world, and our young industries challenge compet.i.tion with all the great industrial States of the earth. German trading-houses are established all over the world; German merchants traverse every quarter of the globe; a part, indeed, of English wholesale trade is in the hands of Germans, who are, of course, mostly lost to their own country. Under these conditions our national wealth has increased with rapid strides.

Our trade and our industries--owners no less than employes--do not want this development to be interrupted. They believe that peace is the essential condition of commerce. They a.s.sume that free compet.i.tion will be conceded to us, and do not reflect that our victorious wars have never disturbed our business life, and that the political power regained by war rendered possible the vast progress of our trade and commerce.

Universal military service, too, contributes to the love of peace, for war in these days does not merely affect, as formerly, definite limited circles, but the whole nation suffers alike. All families and all cla.s.ses have to pay the same toll of human lives. Finally comes the effect of that universal conception of peace so characteristic of the times--the idea that war in itself is a sign of barbarism unworthy of an aspiring people, and that the finest blossoms of culture can only unfold in peace.

Under the many-sided influence of such views and aspirations, we seem entirely to have forgotten the teaching which once the old German Empire received with "astonishment and indignation" from Frederick the Great, that "the rights of States can only be a.s.serted by the living power"; that what was won in war can only be kept by war; and that we Germans, cramped as we are by political and geographical conditions, require the greatest efforts to hold and to increase what we have won. We regard our warlike preparations as an almost insupportable burden, which it is the special duty of the German Reichstag to lighten so far as possible. We seem to have forgotten that the conscious increase of our armament is not an inevitable evil, but the most necessary precondition of our national health, and the only guarantee of our international prestige.

We are accustomed to regard war as a curse, and refuse to recognize it as the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and power.

Besides this clamorous need of peace, and in spite of its continued justification, other movements, wishes, and efforts, inarticulate and often unconscious, live in the depths of the soul of the German people.

The agelong dream of the German nation was realized in the political union of the greater part of the German races and in the founding of the German Empire. Since then there lives in the hearts of all (I would not exclude even the supporters of the anti-national party) a proud consciousness of strength, of regained national unity, and of increased political power. This consciousness is supported by the fixed determination never to abandon these acquisitions. The conviction is universal that every attack upon these conquests will rouse the whole nation with enthusiastic unanimity to arms. We all wish, indeed, to be able to maintain our present position in the world without a conflict, and we live in the belief that the power of our State will steadily increase without our needing to fight for it. We do not at the bottom of our hearts shrink from such a conflict, but we look towards it with a certain calm confidence, and are inwardly resolved never to let ourselves be degraded to an inferior position without striking a blow.

Every appeal to force finds a loud response in the hearts of all. Not merely in the North, where a proud, efficient, hard-working race with glorious traditions has grown up under the laurel-crowned banner of Prussia, does this feeling thrive as an unconscious basis of all thought, sentiment, and volition, in the depth of the soul; but in the South also, which has suffered for centuries under the curse of petty nationalities, the haughty pride and ambition of the German stock live in the heart of the people. Here and there, maybe, such emotions slumber in the shade of a jealous particularism, overgrown by the richer and more luxuriant forms of social intercourse; but still they are animated by latent energy; here, too, the germs of mighty national consciousness await their awakening.

Thus the political power of our nation, while fully alive below the surface, is fettered externally by this love of peace. It fritters itself away in fruitless bickerings and doctrinaire disputes. We no longer have a clearly defined political and national aim, which grips the imagination, moves the heart of the people, and forces them to unity of action. Such a goal existed, until our wars of unification, in the yearnings for German unity, for the fulfilment of the Barbarossa legend.

A great danger to the healthy, continuous growth of our people seems to me to lie in the lack of it, and the more our political position in the world is threatened by external complications, the greater is this danger.

Extreme tension exists between the Great Powers, notwithstanding all peaceful prospects for the moment, and it is hardly to be a.s.sumed that their aspirations, which conflict at so many points and are so often pressed forward with brutal energy, will always find a pacific settlement.

In this struggle of the most powerful nations, which employ peaceful methods at first until the differences between them grow irreconcilable, our German nation is beset on all sides. This is primarily a result of our geographical position in the midst of hostile rivals, but also because we have forced ourselves, though the last-comers, the virtual upstarts, between the States which have earlier gained their place, and now claim our share in the dominion of this world, after we have for centuries been paramount only in the realm of intellect. We have thus injured a thousand interests and roused bitter hostilities. It must be reserved for a subsequent section to explain the political situation thus affected, but one point can be mentioned without further consideration: if a violent solution of existing difficulties is adopted, if the political crisis develops into military action, the Germans would have a dangerous situation in the midst of all the forces brought into play against them. On the other hand, the issue of this struggle will be decisive of Germany's whole future as State and nation.

We have the most to win or lose by such a struggle. We shall be beset by the greatest perils, and we can only emerge victoriously from this struggle against a world of hostile elements, and successfully carry through a Seven Years' War for our position as a World Power, if we gain a start on our probable enemy as _soldiers_; if the army which will fight our battles is supported by all the material and spiritual forces of the nation; if the resolve to conquer lives not only in our troops, but in the entire united people which sends these troops to fight for all their dearest possessions.

These were the considerations which induced me to regard war from the standpoint of civilization, and to study its relation to the great tasks of the present and the future which Providence has set before the German people as the greatest civilized people known to history.

From this standpoint I must first of all examine the aspirations for peace, which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of the German people, according to their true moral significance. I must try to prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture, in which a true civilized nation finds the highest expression of strength and vitality.

I must endeavour to develop from the history of the German past in its connection with the conditions of the present those aspects of the question which may guide us into the unknown land of the future. The historical past cannot be killed; it exists and works according to inward laws, while the present, too, imposes its own drastic obligations. No one need pa.s.sively submit to the pressure of circ.u.mstances; even States stand, like the Hercules of legend, at the parting of the ways. They can choose the road to progress or to decadence. "A favoured position in the world will only become effective in the life of nations by the conscious human endeavour to use it." It seemed to me, therefore, to be necessary and profitable, at this parting of the ways of our development where we now stand, to throw what light I may on the different paths which are open to our people. A nation must fully realize the probable consequences of its action; then only can it take deliberately the great decisions for its future development, and, looking forward to its destiny with clear gaze, be prepared for any sacrifices which the present or future may demand.

These sacrifices, so far as they lie within the military and financial sphere, depend mainly on the idea of what Germany is called upon to strive for and attain in the present and the future. Only those who share my conception of the duties and obligations of the German people, and my conviction that they cannot be fulfilled without drawing the sword, will be able to estimate correctly my arguments and conclusions in the purely military sphere, and to judge competently the financial demands which spring out of it. It is only in their logical connection with the entire development, political and moral, of the State that the military requirements find their motive and their justification.

CHAPTER I

THE RIGHT TO MAKE WAR

Since 1795, when Immanuel Kant published in his old age his treatise on "Perpetual Peace," many have considered it an established fact that war is the destruction of all good and the origin of all evil. In spite of all that history teaches, no conviction is felt that the struggle between nations is inevitable, and the growth of civilization is credited with a power to which war must yield. But, undisturbed by such human theories and the change of times, war has again and again marched from country to country with the clash of arms, and has proved its destructive as well as creative and purifying power. It has not succeeded in teaching mankind what its real nature is. Long periods of war, far from convincing men of the necessity of war, have, on the contrary, always revived the wish to exclude war, where possible, from the political intercourse of nations.

This wish and this hope are widely disseminated even to-day. The maintenance of peace is lauded as the only goal at which statesmans.h.i.+p should aim. This unqualified desire for peace has obtained in our days a quite peculiar power over men's spirits. This aspiration finds its public expression in peace leagues and peace congresses; the Press of every country and of every party opens its columns to it. The current in this direction is, indeed, so strong that the majority of Governments profess--outwardly, at any rate--that the necessity of maintaining peace is the real aim of their policy; while when a war breaks out the aggressor is universally stigmatized, and all Governments exert themselves, partly in reality, partly in pretence, to extinguish the conflagration.

Pacific ideals, to be sure, are seldom the real motive of their action.

They usually employ the need of peace as a cloak under which to promote their own political aims. This was the real position of affairs at the Hague Congresses, and this is also the meaning of the action of the United States of America, who in recent times have earnestly tried to conclude treaties for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, first and foremost with England, but also with j.a.pan, France, and Germany. No practical results, it must be said, have so far been achieved.

We can hardly a.s.sume that a real love of peace prompts these efforts.

This is shown by the fact that precisely those Powers which, as the weaker, are exposed to aggression, and therefore were in the greatest need of international protection, have been completely pa.s.sed over in the American proposals for Arbitration Courts. It must consequently be a.s.sumed that very matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans, with their commercial instincts, to take such steps, and induced "perfidious Albion" to accede to the proposals. We may suppose that England intended to protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, but that America wished to have a free hand in order to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America without hindrance, and to carry out her plans regarding the Panama Ca.n.a.l in the exclusive interests of America.

Both countries certainly entertained the hope of gaining advantage over the other signatory of the treaty, and of winning the lion's share for themselves. Theorists and fanatics imagine that they see in the efforts of President Taft a great step forward on the path to perpetual peace, and enthusiastically agree with him. Even the Minister for Foreign Affairs in England, with well-affected idealism, termed the procedure of the United States an era in the history of mankind.

This desire for peace has rendered most civilized nations anemic, and marks a decay of spirit and political courage such as has often been shown by a race of Epigoni. "It has always been," H. von Treitschke tells us, "the weary, spiritless, and exhausted ages which have played with the dream of perpetual peace."

Everyone will, within certain limits, admit that the endeavours to diminish the dangers of war and to mitigate the sufferings which war entails are justifiable. It is an incontestable fact that war temporarily disturbs industrial life, interrupts quiet economic development, brings widespread misery with it, and emphasizes the primitive brutality of man. It is therefore a most desirable consummation if wars for trivial reasons should be rendered impossible, and if efforts are made to restrict the evils which follow necessarily in the train of war, so far as is compatible with the essential nature of war. All that the Hague Peace Congress has accomplished in this limited sphere deserves, like every permissible humanization of war, universal acknowledgment. But it is quite another matter if the object is to abolish war entirely, and to deny its necessary place in historical development.

This aspiration is directly antagonistic to the great universal laws which rule all life. War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow, which excludes every advancement of the race, and therefore all real civilization. "War is the father of all things." [A] The sages of antiquity long before Darwin recognized this.

[Footnote A: (Herac.l.i.tus of Ephesus).]

The struggle for existence is, in the life of Nature, the basis of all healthy development. All existing things show themselves to be the result of contesting forces. So in the life of man the struggle is not merely the destructive, but the life-giving principle. "To supplant or to be supplanted is the essence of life," says Goethe, and the strong life gains the upper hand. The law of the stronger holds good everywhere. Those forms survive which are able to procure themselves the most favourable conditions of life, and to a.s.sert themselves in the universal economy of Nature. The weaker succ.u.mb. This struggle is regulated and restrained by the unconscious sway of biological laws and by the interplay of opposite forces. In the plant world and the animal world this process is worked out in unconscious tragedy. In the human race it is consciously carried out, and regulated by social ordinances.

The man of strong will and strong intellect tries by every means to a.s.sert himself, the ambitious strive to rise, and in this effort the individual is far from being guided merely by the consciousness of right. The life-work and the life-struggle of many men are determined, doubtless, by unselfish and ideal motives, but to a far greater extent the less n.o.ble pa.s.sions--craving for possessions, enjoyment and honour, envy and the thirst for revenge--determine men's actions. Still more often, perhaps, it is the need to live which brings down even natures of a higher mould into the universal struggle for existence and enjoyment.

There can be no doubt on this point. The nation is made up of individuals, the State of communities. The motive which influences each member is prominent in the whole body. It is a persistent struggle for possessions, power, and sovereignty, which primarily governs the relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only as it is compatible with advantage. So long as there are men who have human feelings and aspirations, so long as there are nations who strive for an enlarged sphere of activity, so long will conflicting interests come into being and occasions for making war arise.

"The natural law, to which all laws of Nature can be reduced, is the law of struggle. All intrasocial property, all thoughts, inventions, and inst.i.tutions, as, indeed, the social system itself, are a result of the intrasocial struggle, in which one survives and another is cast out. The extrasocial, the supersocial, struggle which guides the external development of societies, nations, and races, is war. The internal development, the intrasocial struggle, is man's daily work--the struggle of thoughts, feelings, wishes, sciences, activities. The outward development, the supersocial struggle, is the sanguinary struggle of nations--war. In what does the creative power of this struggle consist?

In growth and decay, in the victory of the one factor and in the defeat of the other! This struggle is a creator, since it eliminates." [B]

[Footnote B: Clauss Wagner, "Der Krieg als schaffendes Weltprinzip."]

That social system in which the most efficient personalities possess the greatest influence will show the greatest vitality in the intrasocial struggle. In the extrasocial struggle, in war, that nation will conquer which can throw into the scale the greatest physical, mental, moral, material, and political power, and is therefore the best able to defend itself. War will furnish such a nation with favourable vital conditions, enlarged possibilities of expansion and widened influence, and thus promote the progress of mankind; for it is clear that those intellectual and moral factors which insure superiority in war are also those which render possible a general progressive development. They confer victory because the elements of progress are latent in them. Without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow. "War," says A.

W. von Schlegel, "is as necessary as the struggle of the elements in Nature."

Now, it is, of course, an obvious fact that a peaceful rivalry may exist between peoples and States, like that between the fellow-members of a society, in all departments of civilized life--a struggle which need not always degenerate Into war. Struggle and war are not identical. This rivalry, however, does not take place under the same conditions as the intrasocial struggle, and therefore cannot lead to the same results.

Above the rivalry of individuals and groups within the State stands the law, which takes care that injustice is kept within bounds, and that the right shall prevail. Behind the law stands the State, armed with power, which it employs, and rightly so, not merely to protect, but actively to promote, the moral and spiritual interests of society. But there is no impartial power that stands above the rivalry of States to restrain injustice, and to use that rivalry with conscious purpose to promote the highest ends of mankind. Between States the only check on injustice is force, and in morality and civilization each people must play its own part and promote its own ends and ideals. If in doing so it comes into conflict with the ideals and views of other States, it must either submit and concede the precedence to the rival people or State, or appeal to force, and face the risk of the real struggle--i.e., of war--in order to make its own views prevail. No power exists which can judge between States, and makes its judgments prevail. Nothing, in fact, is left but war to secure to the true elements of progress the ascendancy over the spirits of corruption and decay.

It will, of course, happen that several weak nations unite and form a superior combination in order to defeat a nation which in itself is stronger. This attempt will succeed for a time, but in the end the more intensive vitality will prevail. The allied opponents have the seeds of corruption in them, while the powerful nation gains from a temporary reverse a new strength which procures for it an ultimate victory over numerical superiority. The history of Germany is an eloquent example of this truth.

Struggle is, therefore, a universal law of Nature, and the instinct of self-preservation which leads to struggle is acknowledged to be a natural condition of existence. "Man is a fighter." Self-sacrifice is a renunciation of life, whether in the existence of the individual or in the life of States, which are agglomerations of individuals. The first and paramount law is the a.s.sertion of one's own independent existence.

By self-a.s.sertion alone can the State maintain the conditions of life for its citizens, and insure them the legal protection which each man is ent.i.tled to claim from it. This duty of self-a.s.sertion is by no means satisfied by the mere repulse of hostile attacks; it includes the obligation to a.s.sure the possibility of life and development to the whole body of the nation embraced by the State.

Strong, healthy, and flouris.h.i.+ng nations increase in numbers. From a given moment they require a continual expansion of their frontiers, they require new territory for the accommodation of their surplus population.

Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory must, as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors--that is to say, by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity.

The right of conquest is universally acknowledged. At first the procedure is pacific. Over-populated countries pour a stream of emigrants into other States and territories. These submit to the legislature of the new country, but try to obtain favourable conditions of existence for themselves at the cost of the original inhabitants, with whom they compete. This amounts to conquest.