Britain at Bay. Constable and Co. ↩
See details on this matter given in Chapter VII, Part I. ↩
London Morning Post, April 21, 1910. I pass over the fact that to cite all this as a reason for armaments is absurd. Does the Morning Post really suggest that the Germans are going to attack England because they don’t like the English taste in art, or music, or cooking? The notion that preferences of this sort need the protection of Dreadnoughts is surely to bring the whole thing within the domain of the grotesque. ↩
I refer to the remarkable speech in which Mr. Chamberlain notified France that she must “mend her manners or take the consequences” (see London daily papers between November 28 and December 5, 1899). ↩
Not that a very great period separates us from such methods. Froude quotes Maltby’s Report to Government as follows: “I burned all their corn and houses, and committed to the sword all that could be found. In like manner I assailed a castle. When the garrison surrendered, I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers. They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my way, which cruelty did so amaze their fellows that they could not tell where to bestow themselves.” Of the commander of the English forces at Munster we read: “He diverted his forces into East Clanwilliam, and harassed the country; killed all mankind that were found therein … not leaving behind us man or beast, corn or cattle … sparing none of what quality, age, or sex soever. Beside many burned to death, we killed man, woman, child, horse, or beast or whatever we could find.” ↩
In The Evolution of Modern Germany (Fisher Unwin, London) the same author says: “Germany implies not one people, but many peoples … of different culture, different political and social institutions … diversity of intellectual and economic life. … When the average Englishman speaks of Germany he really means Prussia, and consciously or not he ignores the fact that in but few things can Prussia be regarded as typical of the whole Empire.” ↩
International Law. John Murray, London. ↩
Lord Sanderson, dealing with the development of international intercourse in an address to the Royal Society of Arts (November 15, 1911), said: “The most notable feature of recent international intercourse, he thought, was the great increase in international exhibitions, associations, and conferences of every description and on every conceivable subject. When he first joined the Foreign Office, rather more than fifty years ago, conferences were confined almost entirely to formal diplomatic meetings to settle some urgent territorial or political question in which several States were interested. But as time had passed, not only were the number and frequency of political conferences increased, but a host of meetings of persons more or less official, termed indiscriminately conferences and congresses, had come into being.” ↩
January 8, 1910. ↩
March 10, 1910. ↩
“The German Government is straining every nerve, with the zealous support of its people, to get ready for a fight with this country” (Morning Post, March 1, 1912). “The unsatiated will of the armed State will, when an opportunity offers, attack most likely its most satiated neighbors without scruple, and despoil them without ruth” (Dr. Dillon, Contemporary Review, October, 1911). ↩
I have shown in a former chapter (Chapter VI, Part II) how these international hatreds are not the cause of conflict, but the outcome of conflicts or presumed conflicts of policy. If difference of national psychology—national “incompatibility of temper”—were the cause, how can we explain the fact that ten years since the English were still “hating all Frenchmen like the devil,” and talking of alliance with the Germans? If diplomatic shuffling had pushed England into alliance with the Germans against the French, it would never have occurred to the people that they had to “detest the Germans.” ↩
The German Navy Law in its preamble might have filched this from the British Navy League catechism. ↩
In an article published in 1897 (January 16) the London Spectator pointed out the hopeless position Germany would occupy if England cared to threaten her. The organ, which is now apt to resent the increased German Navy as implying aggression upon England, then wrote as follows: “Germany has a mercantile marine of vast proportions. The German flag is everywhere. But on the declaration of war the whole of Germany’s trading ships would be at our mercy. Throughout the seas of the world our cruisers would seize and confiscate German ships. Within the first week of the declaration of war Germany would have suffered a loss of many million pounds by the capture of her ships. Nor is that all. Our Colonies are dotted with German trading-houses, who, in spite of a keen competition, do a great deal of business. … We should not, of course, want to treat them harshly; but war must mean for them the selling of their businesses for what they would fetch and going home to Germany. In this way Germany would lose a hold upon the trade of the world which it has taken her many years of toil to create. … Again, think of the effect upon Germany’s trade of the closing of all her ports. Hamburg is one of the greatest ports of the world. What would be its condition if practically not a single ship could leave or enter it? Blockades are no doubt very difficult things to maintain strictly, but Hamburg is so placed that the operation would be comparatively easy. In truth the blockade
