The Evidence in the Case Part 23

If it fail, posterity will be at a loss to determine which blundered the worst, the German Foreign Office or its General Staff, its diplomats or its generals.

CHAPTER X

THE JUDGMENT OF THE WORLD

The record has now been laid before the reader in all its essential details. The witnesses for the different countries have taken the stand and we have their respective contentions in their own words.

Czar, Emperor, and King, as well as Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Amba.s.sador, have testified as to the fateful events, which preceded the outbreak of the war, with a fullness of detail, to which history presents few parallels. The evidence which Germany and Austria have suppressed does not prevent the determination of the issue.

It is a great tribute to the force of public opinion and a clear recognition that the conscience of mankind does exist as something more than a visionary abstraction, that the secrets of diplomacy have been laid bare by most of the contending nations, and that there is an earnest desire on the part of all of them to justify their conduct respectively at the bar of the civilized world.

Even more impressive to the sincere friends of peace is the significant fact that concurrently with the most amazing display of physical force that the world has ever known has come a direct appeal by the belligerent nations to the neutral States, and especially to the United States, not for practical cooperation in the hostilities but for moral sympathy.

All past wars are insignificant in dimensions in comparison with this.

The standing army of the Roman Empire, according to the estimate of Gibbon, did not exceed 400,000, and guarded that mighty Empire from the Euphrates to the Thames. The grand army of Napoleon, which was supposed to mark the maximum of human effort in the art of war and with which he crossed a century ago the Niemen, did not exceed 700,000. To-day at least fifteen millions of men are engaged in a t.i.tanic struggle, with implements of destruction, to which all past devices in the science of destruction are insignificant.

Apparently, therefore, the ideals of the pacificist are little better than a rainbow, a rainbow of promise, perhaps, but still a rainbow, formed by the rays of G.o.d's justice s.h.i.+ning through the tears of human pity.

But when, in contrast to this amazing display of physical power, there is contrasted an equally unprecedented desire on the part of the contending nations to justify their case at the bar of public opinion and to gain the moral sympathy of the neutral States, then it is seen that the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" is still a mighty factor in human affairs, and the question as to the judgment of the world, upon the moral issues raised by this great controversy, becomes not merely of academic but of great practical interest.

What that judgment will be it is not difficult to determine, for the evidence in the case can admit of but one conclusion. It may be, as Mr. George Bernard Shaw says, that in the contending nations, the ears are too greatly deafened by the roar of the cannon and the eyes too blinded by the smoke of battle, to reach a dispa.s.sionate conclusion.

But in the neutral States of the world, and especially in that greatest of all the neutral Powers, the United States of America, a judgment has been p.r.o.nounced that is unmistakable.

The great Republic is more free than any other nation to reach a just conclusion "without fear, favor, or affection." Without alliances with any Power and with no practical interest in the European balance of power, itself composed of men of all the contending nations, it can, above every other people, proceed to judgment, "with malice toward none and with charity for all."

It is a tribute to its unique position among the nations of the world that from the beginning of the war each of the contending Powers has invoked its judgment. The Kaiser, the President of the French Republic, and the King of Belgium have each in an especial way sought its moral support, while to the other nations the question of the att.i.tude of the United States has been one of practical and recognized importance.

If the United States is thus a moral arbiter in the greatest war of history, its judgment is now, and may hereafter increasingly become, a potential factor of great significance.

The nature of that judgment is already apparent to all men. The people of the United States, numbering nearly one hundred millions, have reached, with an amazing approach to unanimity, certain clear and definite conclusions.

These conclusions maybe summarized as follows:

1. That Germany and Austria in a time of profound peace secretly concerted to impose their will upon Europe in a matter affecting the balance of power. Whether in so doing they intended to precipitate a European war to determine the hegemony of Europe is not satisfactorily established, although their whole course of conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made war almost inevitable by (_a_) issuing an ultimatum that was grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to any grievance that Austria may have had, and (_b_) in giving to Servia and Europe insufficient time to consider the rights and obligations of all interested nations.

2. That Germany had at all times the power to induce Austria to preserve a reasonable and conciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted its influence. On the contrary, it certainly abetted, and possibly instigated, Austria in its unreasonable course.

3. That England, France, Italy, and Russia throughout the diplomatic controversy sincerely worked for peace, and in this spirit not only overlooked the original misconduct of Austria but made every reasonable concession in the hope of preserving peace.

4. That Austria, having mobilized its army, Russia was reasonably justified in mobilizing its forces. Such act of mobilization is the right of any sovereign State, and as long as the Russian armies did not cross the border or take any aggressive action, no other nation had any just right to complain, each having the same right to make similar preparations.

5. That Germany, in abruptly declaring war against Russia for failure to demobilize, when the other Powers had offered to make any reasonable concession and peace parleys were still in progress, precipitated the war.

6. That the invasion of Belgium by Germany was without any provocation and in violation of Belgium's inherent rights as a sovereign State. The sanct.i.ty of its territory does not depend exclusively upon the Treaty of 1839 or The Hague Convention, but upon fundamental and axiomatic principles of international law. These treaties were simply declaratory of Belgium's rights as a sovereign nation and simply reaffirmed by a special covenant the duty of Germany and the other Powers to respect the neutrality of Belgium.

7. England was justified in its declaration of war upon Germany, not only because of its direct interests in the neutrality of Belgium, but also because of the ethical duty of the strong nations to protect the weak upon adequate occasion from indefensible wrong. Apart from this general ethical justification, England was, under the Treaty of 1839, under an especial obligation to defend the neutrality of Belgium, and had it failed to respect that obligation it would have broken its solemn covenant.

If they are "thrice armed" who have their "quarrel just," then England, France, Russia, and Belgium can await with confidence, not merely the immediate issue of the t.i.tanic conflict, but also the equally important judgment of history.

EPILOGUE

On the evening of July 31, 1914, the author reached Basle. The rapid progress of events, narrated in this volume, suggested the wisdom of continuing the journey to Paris that night, but as I wanted to see the tomb of Erasmus in the Basle Cathedral I determined to break my long journey from St. Moritz.

It seemed a fitting time to make a pilgrimage to the last resting-place of the great humanist philosopher of Rotterdam and Louvain, for in that prodigious upheaval of the sixteenth century, which has pa.s.sed into history as the Reformation, Erasmus was the one n.o.ble spirit who looked with a tolerant and philosophical mind upon both parties to the great controversy. He suffered the fate of the conservative in a radical time, and as the great storm convulsed Europe the author of the _Praise of Folly_ probably said on more than one occasion: "A plague o' both your houses." Nearly four centuries have pa.s.sed since he joined the "silent majority," between whom is no quarreling, and the desolated Louvain, which he loved, is to-day in its ruins a standing witness that immeasurable folly still rules the darkened counsels of men.

As I reached Basle and saw the spires of the Cathedral rising above the Rhine, it seemed to me that the great convulsion, which was then rocking all Europe with seismic violence, was the greatest since that of the French Revolution and might have as lasting results as the great schism of the sixteenth century.

I was not fated to see the tomb, for when I reached my hotel the facilities of civilization had broken down so abruptly that if I did not wish to be interned in Switzerland I must leave early on the following morning for Paris. Transportation had almost entirely collapsed, communication was difficult, and credit itself was so strained that "mine host" of the Three Kings was disposed to look askance even at gold.

Our journey took us to France by way of Delle. Twenty-four hours after we pa.s.sed that frontier town, German soldiers entered and blew out the brains of a French custom-house officer, thus the first victim in the greatest war that the world has ever known.

As we journeyed from Basle to Paris on that last day of July the fair fields of France never looked more beautiful. In the gleaming summer sun they made a new "field of the cloth of gold," and the hayricks looked like the aureate tents of a mighty army. It was harvest time, but already the laborers had deserted their fields which, although "white unto the harvest," seemed bereft of the tillers. Some had left the bounty of nature to join in the harvest of death. From the high pasture lands of the Alps the herdsmen at the ringing of the village church bells had left their herds and before night had fallen were on their way to the front.

At Belfort the station was crowded with French troops and an elderly French couple came into our compartment. The eyes of the wife were red with weeping, while the man sank into his seat and with his head upon his breast gazed moodily into vacancy. They had just parted with their son, who had joined the colors. I stood for a time with this French gentleman in the corridor of the train, but as he could not speak English or German and I could not speak French, it was impossible for us to communicate the intense and tragical thoughts that were pa.s.sing through our minds. Suddenly he pointed to the smiling harvest fields, by which we pa.s.sed so swiftly, and said "_Perdu! perdu!_" This word of tragical import could have been applied to all civilization as well.

The night of our arrival in Paris I fully expected to see a half a million Frenchmen parading the streets and enthusiastically cheering for war and crying, as in 1870, "a Berlin!" I was to witness an extraordinary transformation of a great nation. An unusual silence brooded over the city. A few hundred people paraded the chief avenues, crying "down with war!", while a separate crowd of equal size sang the national hymn. With these exceptions there was no cheering or enthusiasm, such as I would have expected from my preconceived idea of French excitability. Men spoke in undertones, with a quiet but subdued intensity of feeling rather than with frenzied enthusiasm.

With a devotion that was extraordinary and a pathetically brave submission to a possible fate, they seemed to be sternly resolved to die to the last man, if necessary, in defense of their n.o.ble nation.

Although I subsequently saw in the thrilling days of mobilization many thousands of soldiers pa.s.s through the railroad stations on their way to the front, I never heard the rumble of a drum or saw the waving of regimental colors.

No sacrifice seemed to be too great, whether it was asked of man, woman, or child. The spirit of materialism for the time being vanished. The newspapers shrunk to a single sheet and all commercial advertis.e.m.e.nts disappeared. Theaters, art galleries, museums, libraries, closed their doors. Upon some streets nearly every shop was closed, with the simple but eloquent placard "Gone to join the colors." The French people neither exulted, boasted, nor complained.

The only querulous element was a small minority of the large body of American tourists, so suddenly caught in a terrific storm of human pa.s.sions, who seemed to feel that this Red Sea of blood should part until they could walk dry-shod to the sh.o.r.e of safety.

In Germany similar scenes were enacted and a like spirit of courage and self-sacrifice was shown.

It is a reflection upon civilization that two nations, each so brave, heroic, and self-sacrificing, should, without their consent and by the miserable and iniquitous folly of scheming statesmen and diplomats, be plunged into a war, of which no man can see the end and which has already swept away the flower of their manhood.

One great lesson of this conflict may be that no aggressive war ought to be initiated unless the policy of that war is first submitted to the ma.s.ses of the people, upon whom the burdens in the last a.n.a.lysis fall and who must pay the dreadful penalty with their treasure and their lives.

If the policy of this war had been submitted by a referendum to the Austrian and German peoples with a full statement of the facts of the Servian controversy, would they not have rejected a form of arbitrament, which creates but does not settle questions, convinces no one, and only sows the seeds of greater hatred for future and richer harvests of death? If the be-ribboned diplomats and decorated generals of the General Staffs at Berlin and Vienna had been without power to precipitate this war, unless they themselves were willing to occupy the trenches on the firing line, this war might never have been.

Nearly five months have pa.s.sed since that summer day, when I pa.s.sed through smiling harvest fields from the mountains to the Seine. The trenches, in which innumerable brave men are writing with their blood the records of their statesmen's follies, are filled with snow. The blackest Christmas Eve within the memory of living man has come and gone, perhaps the blackest, since in the stillness of the night there fell upon the wondering ears of the shepherds the gracious refrain of "Peace on earth, good will among men." On that night devout German soldiers sang in their trenches in Flanders and along the Vistula the hymn of Christmas Eve, "_Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht_."

Was this unconscious mockery, an expression of invincible faith, or a reversion from habit to the gentler a.s.sociations of childhood? The spirit of Christmas was not wholly dead, for it is narrated that these brave men in English and German trenches on this saddest of Christmas Eves declared for a few hours of their own volition a Christmas truce.

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated The bird of dawning singeth all night long, And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

There is not between the men in one trench and those in another, each seeking the speediest opportunity to kill the other, any personal quarrel. On occasion they even fraternize, only to resume the work of mutual extermination. They would not have quarreled, if the Berchtolds, the von Bethmann-Hollwegs, and the von Jagows had had sufficient loyalty to civilization to submit any possible grievance, which either had, to the judgment of Europe.

A spectacle more ghastly than this "far-flung battle line" has never been witnessed since the world began, for these soldiers in gray or khaki are not savages but are beings of an advanced civilization.