The very fact that war was long an activity which was in some sense a change and relaxation from the more intellectual strife of peaceful life, in which work was replaced by danger, thought by adventure, accounted in no small part for its attraction for men. But, as we have seen, war is becoming as hopelessly intellectual and scientific as any other form of work: officers are scientists, the men are workmen, the army is a machine, battles are “tactical operations,” the charge is becoming out of date; a little while and war will become the least romantic of all professions.
In this domain, as in all others, intellectual force is replacing sheer physical force, and we are being pushed by the necessities even of this struggle to be more rational in our attitude to war, to rationalize our study of it; and as our attitude generally becomes more scientific, so will the purely impulsive element lose its empire over us. That is one factor; but, of course, there is the greater one. Our respect and admiration goes in the long run, despite momentary setbacks, to those qualities which achieve the results at which we are all, in common, aiming. If those results are mainly intellectual, it is the intellectual qualities that will receive the tribute of our admiration. We do not make a man President because he holds the lightweight boxing championship, and nobody knows or cares whether Mr. Wilson or Mr. Taft would be the better man at golf. But in a condition of society in which physical force was still the determining factor it would matter all in the world, and even when other factors had obtained considerable weight, as during the Middle Ages, physical combat went for a great deal: the knight in his shining armor established his prestige by his prowess in arms, and the vestige of this still remains in those countries that retain the duel. To some small extent—a very small extent—a man’s dexterity with sword and pistol will affect his political prestige in Paris, Rome, Budapest, or Berlin. But these are just interesting vestiges, which in the case of Anglo-Saxon societies have disappeared entirely. My commercial friend who declares that he works fifteen hours a day mainly for the purpose of going one better than his commercial rival across the street, must beat that rival in commerce, not in arms; it would satisfy no pride of either to “have it out” in the back garden in their shirtsleeves. Nor is there the least danger that one will stick a knife into the other.
Are all these factors to leave the national relationship unaffected? Have they left it unaffected? Does the military prowess of Russia or of Turkey inspire any particular satisfaction in the minds of the individual Russian or of the individual Turk? Does it inspire Europe with any especial respect? Would not most of us just as soon be a nonmilitary American as a military Turk? Do not, in short, all the factors show that sheer physical force is losing its prestige as much in the national as in the personal relationship?
I am not overlooking the case of Germany. Does the history of Germany, during the last half-century, show the blind instinctive pugnacity which is supposed to be so overpowering an element in international relationship as to outweigh all question of material interest? Does the commonly accepted history of the trickery and negotiation which preceded the 1870 conflict, the cool calculation of those who swayed Germany’s policy during those years, show that subordination to the blind lust for battle which the militarist would persuade us is always to be an element in our international conflict? Does it not, on the contrary, show that German destinies were swayed by very cool and calculating motives of interest, though interest interpreted in terms of political and economic doctrines which the development of the last thirty years or so has demonstrated to be obsolete? Nor am I overlooking the “Prussian tradition,” the fact of a firmly entrenched, aristocratic status, the intellectual legacy of pagan knighthood and Heaven knows what else. But even a Prussian Junker becomes less of an energumen as he becomes more of a scientist,96 and although German science has of late spent its energies in somewhat arid specialization, the influence of more enlightened conceptions in sociology and statecraft must sooner or later emerge from any thoroughgoing study of political and economic problems. Of course, there are survivals of the old temper, but can it seriously be argued that, when the futility of physical force to accomplish those ends towards which we are all striving is fully demonstrated, we shall go on maintaining war as a sort of theatrical entertainment? Has such a thing ever happened in the past, when our impulses and “sporting” instincts came into conflict with our larger social and economic interests?
All this, in other words, involves a great deal more than the mere change in the character of warfare. It involves a fundamental change in our psychological attitude thereto. Not only does it show that on every side, even the military side, conflict must become less impulsive and instinctive, more rational and sustained, less the blind strife of mutually hating men, and more and more the calculated effort to a definite end; but it will affect the very wellsprings of much of the present defence of war.
Why is it that the authorities I have quoted in the first chapter of this section—Mr. Roosevelt, Von Moltke, Renan, and the English clergymen—sing the praises of war as such a valuable school of morals?97 Do these war advocates urge that war itself is desirable? Would they urge going to war unnecessarily or unjustly merely because it is good for us? Emphatically no.
