Why Don't We Learn From History? (7 page)

At the same time history warns us that even in the negative regulatory sense, if much more in the positive compulsory sense, the effort to achieve progress by decree is apt to lead to reaction. The more hurried the effort, the greater the risk to its endurance. The surer way of achieving progress is by generating and diffusing the thought of improvement. Reforms that last are those that come naturally, and with less friction, when men's minds have become ripe for them. A life spent in sowing a few grains of fruitful thought is a life spent more effectively than in hasty action that produces a crop of weeds. That leads us to see the difference, truly a vital difference, between influence and power.

PART III: WAR AND PEACE

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The desire for power

History shows that a main hindrance to real progress is the ever-popular myth of the “great man.” While “greatness” may perhaps be used in a comparative sense, if even then referring more to particular qualities than to the embodied sum, the “great man” is a clay idol whose pedestal has been built up by the natural human desire to look up to someone, but whose form has been carved by men who have not yet outgrown the desire to be regarded, or to picture themselves, as great men.

Many of those who gain power under present systems have much that is good in them. Few are without some good in them. But to keep their power it is easier, and seems safer, to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people—to instinct rather than to reason, to interest rather than to right, to expediency rather than to principle. It sounds practical and may thus command respect where to speak of ideals might only arouse distrust. But in practice there is nothing more difficult than to discover where expediencey lies—it is apt to lead from one expedient to another, in a vicious circle through endless knots.

The shortsightedness of expediency

We learn from history that expediency has rarely proved expedient. Yet today perhaps more than ever the statesmen of all countries talk the language of expediency—almost as if they are afraid to label themselves “unpractical” by referring to principles. They are especially fond of emphasizing the need for “realism.” This attitude would be sound if it implied a sense of the lessons really taught by history. It is unrealistic, for example, to underrate the force of idealism. It is unrealistic, also, to ignore military principles and conditions in taking political steps or making promises. And realism should be combined with foresight—to see one or two moves ahead.

The strength of British policy has been its adaptability to circumstances as they arise; its weakness, that the circumstances (which are usually difficulties) could have been forestalled through forethought. A reflection suggested by the last hundred years of history, especially the history of our affairs in the Mediterranean, is that British policy has been best, not only in spirit but in effect, when it has come nearest to being honest. The counterpull of Britain's moral impulses and material interests produced an amazing series of somersaults in British relations with Turkey. We repeatedly sought to cultivate the Sultan as a counterpoise to French or Russian ambitions in the Near East and as often were driven to take action against him because his behavior to his subjects shocked our sense of justice as well as our sentiments.

In the light of those hundred years of history and their sequel, the use of our national gift for compromise may not seem altogether happy. Such delicate adjustment, to be truly effective, requires a Machiavelli—and the Englishman is not Machiavellian. He can never rid himself of moral scruples sufficiently to fill the part. Thus he is always and inevitably handicapped in an amoral competition, whether in duplicity or blood and iron. Realization of this inherent “weakness” suggests that Britain might find it better to be more consistently moral. At any rate the experiment has yet to be tried.

On the other hand, there is plenty of experience to show the dilemmas and dangers into which Britain's maladjustment of morality and materialism has landed her. While we complacently counted on the Turks' gratitude, they did not forget the unreliability of our attitude. And by throwing the weight of our influence on the side of the Sultan and his effete palace clique against the movement of the young Turks toward reform, we not only forfeited our influence in restraining their excesses, but cold-shouldered them into the embrace of Germany.

How diferently the affairs of the world would go—with a little more decency, a little more honesty, a little more thought! Thought-attempting, above all—to see a few moves ahead and realize the dangers of condoning evil. We try to play the old diplomatic game, yet cannot hope to play it successfully—because we have acquired scruples from which the old-style exponent of realpolitik is free, not yet having grown up as far.

One can understand the point of view of the man who goes in for unabashed “piracy”—and seeks his own profit regardless of others. He may draw his profit, although unconsciously his loss far exceeds it, because he is deadening his own soul. But one cannot see sense, even of so shortsighted a kind, in those who maintain any standards of decency in private life yet advocate, or at least countenance, the law of the jungle in public and international affairs. More illogical still are those who talk of patriotic self-sacrifice and of its spiritual sublimity while preaching pure selfishness in world affairs.

What is the use of anyone sacrificing himself to preserve the country unless in the hope, and with the idea, of providing a chance to continue its spiritual progress—toward becoming a better country? Otherwise he is merely helping to preserve the husk—saving the form but not the soul. Only a perverse patriotism is capable of such hopeless folly.

What is the value of patriotism if it means no more than a cat's devotion to its own fireside rather than to human beings? And, like the cat, such a “patriot” is apt to get burned when the house catches fire.

The importance of keeping promises

Civilization is built on the practice of keeping promises. It may not sound a high attainment, but if trust in its observance be shaken the whole structure cracks and sinks. Any constructive effort and all human relations—personal, political, and commercial—depend on being able to depend on promises.

This truth has a reflection on the question of collective security among nations and on the lessons of history in regard to that subject. In the years before the war the charge was constantly brought that its supporters were courting the risk of war by their exaggerated repsect for covenants. Although they may have been fools in disregarding the conditions necessary for the effective fulfillment of pledges, they at least showed themselves men of honor and, in a long view, of more fundamental common sense than those who argued that we should give aggressors a free hand so long as they left us alone. History has shown, repeatedly, that the hope of buying safety in this way is the greatest of delusions.

The importance of care about making promises

It is immoral to make promises that one cannot in practice fulfill—in the sense that the recipient expects. On that ground, in 1939 I questioned the underlying morality of the Polish Guarantee, as well as its practicality. If the Poles had realized the military inability of Britain and France to save them from defeat, and of what such defeat would mean to them individually and collectively, it is unlikely that they would have shown such stubborn opposition to Germany's originally modest demands—for Danzig and a passage through the Corridor. Since it was obvious to me that they were bound to lose these points, and much more in the event of a conflict, it seemed to me wrong on our part to make promises that were bound to encourage false hopes.

It also seemed to me that any such promises were the most certain way to produce war—because of the inevitable provocativeness of guaranteeing, at such a moment of tension, an area which we had hitherto treated as outside our sphere of interest; because of the manifest temptation which the guarantee offered, to a military-minded people like the Germans, to show how fatuously impractical our guarantee was; and because of its natural effect in stiffening the attitude of a people, the Poles, who had always shown themselves exceptionally intractable in negotiating a reasonable settlement of any issue.

An historian could not help seeing certain parallels between the long-standing aspect of the Polish-German situation and that between Britain and the Boer Republics forty years earlier—and remembering the effect on us of the attempts of the other European powers to induce or coerce us into negotiating a settlement with the Boers. If our own reaction then had been so violent, it could hardly be expected that the reaction of a nation filled with an even more bellicose spirit would be less violent—especially as the attempt to compel negotiation was backed by an actual promise of making war if Poland felt moved to resist the German conditions.

It is worth recalling that Gladstone, than whom no one was more emphatic in condemning aggression, defined, for Queen Victoria's enlightenment, a series of guiding principles for British foreign policy when he first became Prime Minister in 1869. The circumstances then, before collective security had been organized, were broadly similar to those of 1939, when it had been in effect dissolved.

Among the introductory remarks, which are still relevant and not only, nor now primarily, to England, he said: “Though Europe never saw England faint away, we know at what cost of internal danger to all the institutions of the country she fought her way to the perilous eminence on which she undoubtedly stood in 1815…. Is England so uplifted in strength above every other nation that she can with prudence advertise herself as ready to undertake the general redress of wrongs? Would not the consequences of such professions and promises be either the premature exhaustion of her means, or a collapse in the day of performance?”

The principles he laid down were “That England should keep entire in her own hands the means of estimating her own obligations; … that she should not narrow her own liberty of choice by declarations made to other Powers … of which they would claim to be at least joint interpreters; … that, come what may, it is better for her to promise too little than too much; that she should not encourage the weak by giving expectations of aid to resist the strong, but should rather seek to deter the strong by firm but moderate language, from aggressions on the weak.”

The germs of war

Such pitfalls of policy are closely related to the causes of war itself. Sympathies and antipathies, interests and loyalties, cloud the vision. And this kind of shortsight is apt to produce short temper.

As a light on the processes by which wars are manufactured and detonated, there is nothing more illuminating than a study of the fifty years of history preceding 1914. The vital influences are to be detected not in the formal documents compiled by rulers, ministers, and generals but in their marginal notes and verbal asides. Here are revealed their instinctive prejudices, lack of interest in truth for its own sake, and indifference to the exactness of statement and reception which is a safeguard against dangerous misunderstanding.

I have come to think that accuracy, in the deepest sense, is the basic virtue—the foundation of understanding, supporting the promise of progress. The cause of most troubles can be traced to excess; the failure to check them to deficiency; their prevention lies in moderation. So in the case of troubles that develop from spoken or written communication, their cause can be traced to overstatement, their maintenance to understatement, while their prevention lies in exact statement. It applies to private as well as to public life.

Sweeping judgements, malicious gossip, inaccurate statements which spread a misleading impression—these are symptoms of the moral and mental recklessness that gives rise to war. Studying their effect, one is led to see that the germs of war lie within ourselves—not in economics, politics, or religion as such. How can we hope to rid the world of war until we have cured ourselves of the originating causes?

How the germs work

These germs are most virulent among those who direct the affairs of nations. The atmosphere of power, and activity in the pursuit of power, inflame them. The way they work can be clearly traced in examining the origins and course of World War I. While economic factors formed a predisposing cause, the deeper and more decisive factors lay in human nature—its possessiveness, competitiveness, vanity, and pugnacity, all of which were fomented by the dishonesty which breeds inaccuracy.

Throughout the twenty-five years preceding that war, one of the most significant symptoms can be seen in the Kaiser's vanity and the effect on it of his curiously mingled affection and jealousy toward England. Understanding of his composition enables us to see how his worst tendencies were often sharpened by the snubs that Edward VII was disposed to administer to his nephew.

When one comes to the fateful weeks preceding the outbreak of war, one sees how great was the part played in the Governments of both Austria and Russia by resentment at past humiliations and the fear of any fresh “loss of face.” Both of those Governments, and their foreign ministers in particular, were all too ready to bring misery upon millions rather than swallow their injured pride. And in the crucial opening phase of the crisis, the Austrian Government was prompted to take up a position from which it could not easily climb down, by the encouragement which the Kaiser gave it to take vigorous action.

The irony of history, and the absurdity of the factors that determine it, was never more clearly shown than at that moment. The crisis arose out of the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a handful of young Slavs who had sought and received help from a Serbian secret society known as the “Black Hand.” They murdered the one man of influence in Austria who was potentially their friend and might have fulfilled their hopes.

The Austrian Government, while quite pleased at his removal, used it as an excuse for curbing Serbia. The Kaiser's initial support of their high-handed treatment of Serbia seems to have been inspired by his royal indignation that royal blood should have been shed, together with his fear that if he advised moderation he would be reproached with weakness. When he saw war actually in sight he tried to back down—but it was then too late. And the Austrian Government, in turn, was afraid that if showed hesitation it might subsequently forfeit Germany's support. So it hastily declared war on Serbia, regardless of the risks of bringing on a general war.