Although militarist literature on this, as on most similar points, shows flagrant contradictions, even that literature is against the view that war is the outcome of the sheer sudden temper of nations. Most of the popular, and all of the scientific, militarist writers take the contrary view. Mr. Blatchford and his school normally represent a typical militarist policy, like that of Germany, as actuated by a cold, deep, Machiavellian, unsentimental, calculated opportunism, as diverse from a wild, irrational explosion of feeling as possible. Mr. Blatchford writes:
German policy, based upon the teachings of Clausewitz, may be expressed in two questions, the questions laid down by Clausewitz: “Is it expedient to do this? Have we the power to do it?” If it will benefit the Fatherland to break up the British Empire, then it is expedient to break up the British Empire. Clausewitz taught Germany that “war is a part of policy.” He taught that policy is a system of bargaining or negotiating, backed by arms. Clausewitz does not discuss the moral aspect of war; he deals with power and expediency. His pupils take his lead. They do not read poems on the blessings of peace; they do not spend ink on philanthropic theories.
All the more scientific writers, without an exception, so far as I am aware, repudiate its “accidental” character. They one and all, from Grotius to Von der Goltz, take the view that it results from definite and determinable laws, like all the great processes of human development.
Von der Goltz (On the Conduct of War) says:
One must never lose sight of the fact that war is the consequence and continuation of policy. One will act on the defensive strategically or rest on the defensive according as the policy has been offensive or defensive. An offensive and defensive policy is in its turn indicated by the line of conduct dictated historically. We see this very clearly in antiquity by the example furnished us in the Persians and Romans. In their wars we see the strategical role following the bend of the historical role. The people which in its historical development has arrived at the stage of inertia, or even retrogression, will not carry on a policy of offence, but merely one of defence; a nation in that situation will wait to be attacked, and its strategy will consequently be defensive, and from a defensive strategy will follow necessarily a defensive tactic.
Lord Esher has expressed a like thought.51
But whether wars result from sheer temper, national “hot fits,” or not, it is quite certain that the lengthy preparation for war, the condition of armed peace, the burden of armaments which is almost worse than an occasional war, does not result therefrom.
The paraphernalia of war in the modern world cannot be improvised on the spur of the moment to meet each gust of ill-feeling, and be dropped when it is over. The building of battleships, the discussion of budgets and the voting of them, the training of armies, the preparation of a campaign, are a long business, and more and more in our day does each distinctive campaign involve a special and distinctive preparation. The pundits declare that the German battleships have been especially built with a view to work in the North Sea. In any case, we know that the conflict with Germany has been going on for ten years. This is surely a rather prolonged “hot fit.” The truth is that war in the modern world is the outcome of armed peace, and involves, with all its elaborate machinery of yearly budgets, and slowly built warships and forts, and slowly trained armies, fixity of policy and purpose extending over years, and sometimes generations. Men do not make these sacrifices month after month, year after year, pay taxes, and upset Governments and fight in Parliament for a mere passing whim; and as conflicts necessarily become more scientific, we shall in the nature of things be forced to prepare everything more thoroughly, and have clearer and sounder ideas as to their essence, their cause, and their effects, and to watch more closely their relation to national motive and policy. The final justification for all these immense, humdrum, workaday sacrifices must be more and more national well-being.
This does not imply, as some critics allege, the conclusion that an Englishman is to say: “Since I might be just as well off under the Germans, let them come”; but that the German will say: “Since I shall be no better off for the going, I will not go.”
Indeed, the case of the authorities cited in the preceding chapter is marked by a false form of statement. Those who plead for war on moral grounds say: “War will go on because men will defend their ideals, moral, political, social, and religious.” It should be stated thus: “War will go on because men will always attack the spiritual possessions of other men,” because, of course, the necessity for defence arises from the fact that these possessions are in danger of attack.
Put in the second form, however, the case breaks down almost of itself. The least informed of us realizes that the whole trend of history is against the tendency for men to attack the ideals and the beliefs of other men. In the religious domain that
