FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[55]SeeLe Temps, October 31, 1915.[56]Mr. M. Civinini of theCorriere della Sera. SeeCorriere della Sera, October 11, 1915.[57]In September 1914. SeeMorning Post, September 4, 1914.[58]The Batak massacre of Bulgarians by order of Abdul Kerim Pasha had called forth Gladstone’s pamphlet:Bulgarian Atrocities, and aroused the horror of civilized men. But the Hungarian aristocracy sympathized with the mass murderer, and presented him with a golden hilted sabre. The list of subscribers for this mark of aversion to the Bulgarian people can still be viewed in the Museum at Budapest. The third name on that list—Princess Clementine—is followed immediately by that of her son Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, who gave one hundred florins as a token of his admiration for the exterminator of his future subjects! It need hardly be added that he was not yet Prince of Bulgaria.[59]General Fitcheff has since become Minister of War.[60]This narrative was published by M. Wesselitsky in theNovoye Vremya, November 6, 1915.[61]One of the suburbs of Adrianople ceded in July 1915.[62]Roumania’s annual imports from Austria-Hungary, according to the latest available statistics, were valued at 136,906,000 francs; from Germany at 183,713,000; and from Great Britain at only 85,470,000 francs. France exported thither goods valued at no more than 35,273,000 francs.

[55]SeeLe Temps, October 31, 1915.

[56]Mr. M. Civinini of theCorriere della Sera. SeeCorriere della Sera, October 11, 1915.

[57]In September 1914. SeeMorning Post, September 4, 1914.

[58]The Batak massacre of Bulgarians by order of Abdul Kerim Pasha had called forth Gladstone’s pamphlet:Bulgarian Atrocities, and aroused the horror of civilized men. But the Hungarian aristocracy sympathized with the mass murderer, and presented him with a golden hilted sabre. The list of subscribers for this mark of aversion to the Bulgarian people can still be viewed in the Museum at Budapest. The third name on that list—Princess Clementine—is followed immediately by that of her son Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, who gave one hundred florins as a token of his admiration for the exterminator of his future subjects! It need hardly be added that he was not yet Prince of Bulgaria.

[59]General Fitcheff has since become Minister of War.

[60]This narrative was published by M. Wesselitsky in theNovoye Vremya, November 6, 1915.

[61]One of the suburbs of Adrianople ceded in July 1915.

[62]Roumania’s annual imports from Austria-Hungary, according to the latest available statistics, were valued at 136,906,000 francs; from Germany at 183,713,000; and from Great Britain at only 85,470,000 francs. France exported thither goods valued at no more than 35,273,000 francs.

Inface of this Teutonic control of the world’s trade, politics and news supply, the Great Powers whose outlook, political and economic, was most nearly affected, exhibited a degree of supineness which can only be adequately explained by such assumptions as one would gladly eliminate. Anyhow the lessons conveyed by eloquent facts fell upon deaf ears. Yet it was manifest, in view of Germany’s ingenious combination of economics and politics, and the irresistible co-operation of the State and individuals in applying it, that the slipshod methods of Britain and France could no longer be persisted in without grave danger to these states. To deal with trade and industry as though they were matters that concerned only the particular business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany’s economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing to cope with a potent organism equipped scientifically, provided with large capital and backed by the resources of diplomacy. New epochs call for fresh methods,and the era of commercial and industrial individualism was closed years ago by the German people. Co-ordination of effort, the combination of politics with economics, and unity of direction were among Germany’s methods in the contest, and she adopted them in the grounded belief that commerce and industry lie at the nethermost roots of the vast political movements of the new era.

This is a century of co-operation, of joint efforts for common interests, of union in trade, industry, labour, politics and war. To stand aloof is to be isolated, and isolation means helplessness against danger. Germany was the first Power to grasp these facts, to understand the new phase of life and to adapt herself to it. For this work of readjustment her people were specially endowed by Nature, and in their equipment for the task they saw a mark of election set upon them by their “old God.” For the correlate of co-operation is talent for organization, and with this the Teutons are plentifully gifted. They feel impelled as it were by instinct to push forward much further on the road already traversed by all nations from isolation to individualism through gregariousness. They opened the new era of amalgamation by co-ordinating, on a vast scale, individual achievements, resources and labour, and directing them to a common end. The allied peoples were meanwhile content to muddle through in the old way. This difference explains much that seems puzzling in the outcome of the struggle.

It has been affirmed somewhat off-handedly that the Latin and British peoples, incapable of united and organized effort, have halted atthe individualist stage. They are supposed to lack the bump of organization. According to this theory among the Germans, who had passed through all the intermediate phases and carried individualism to sinister extremes in the past, a reaction set in which called forth the latent powers of organization which they possess. And these have been wielded with brilliant results ever since the unity of the German Empire was first established. Applying the new principle to politics, the statesmen of Berlin grasped the fact that all future conflicts in Europe would be waged by coalitions. Neither Austria-Hungary alone nor the German Empire alone could undertake a world war. That was the genesis of the scheme of welding the two central empires in one politico-military entity and then attracting as many other States as possible into their orbit. And the enterprise was conducted so ingeniously that when war was declared, Roumania, Bulgaria and Turkey were tied to the Triple Alliance. And henceforward, whatever the outcome of the war may be, the permanent fusion of Germany and Austria is a foregone conclusion.

By the means described a state of things, actual and potential, was established which rendered Germany’s military attack on Europe much less hazardous and doubtful a venture than was at first supposed. For there was not a country on the globe which she or her ally had not subjected to the process of interpenetration, nor was there one which had remained wholly irresponsive. Even Brazil, Chili, Peru, China, Morocco, Persia, Abyssinia, had all experienced its effects. And when at last the harvest-time was come andits fruits were to be ingathered Germany felt that she could count to varying extents on the active sympathy and support of governments, parliaments and nations; on the Turks, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Bulgarians, the Roumanians; on the autocratic ruler of the Greeks and on millions of American-Germans. Every independent religious centre was permeated with an atmosphere composed in Germany. The Caliph and the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Moslems, the evangelical preachers of the Russian Baltic provinces, Brahmins in India, subjects of the Negus of Abyssinia, the Jews of western Russia and Poland, as well as those of the Netherlands, the Catholics of Switzerland, Holland and Italy, nay, the Vatican itself, raised their voices in the chorus of the millions who sang hosannah to the Highest.[63]

Dismay was the feeling aroused among the Allies by the quick dramatic moves which precipitated the war. The trump of doom seemed to have sounded at a moment when mankind was on the point of discovering the secret of immortality. The utter unpreparedness of the Allies was the dominant note of the new situation, and its manifestations were countless and disastrous. There was no adequate British expeditionary army to send on foreign service, and there existed no machinery by which such a force could quickly be got together and trained. Voluntary enlistment was a slowly moving mechanism, and even if it could be made to work more rapidly, there was no way of employing the new soldiers, for whom there were neither barracks noruniforms nor rifles in sufficiency. And if all these requirements could have been improvised, there were no generals accustomed to handle armies of millions. And even if all those wants had been supplied to hand there was no Government enterprising enough to put them to the best advantage of the nation. Moreover, colonial expeditions were the most extensive military operations which the country had carried on within the memory of the present generation, and it was beyond the power of the authorities not only to organize the imperial defences on an adequate scale but even to realize the necessity of attempting the feat. In a word, the prospect could hardly have been more dismal.

In France it was a degree less cheerless, but still decidedly bleak. Mobilization there went forward, it is claimed, more smoothly than had been anticipated, but not rapidly enough to enable adequate forces to be dispatched in time against the German military flood. The organization of the railway system was most inefficient. And had it not been for heroic Belgium, who, confronted with the alternatives of ruin with honour and safety with ignominy, unhesitatingly chose the better part, the inrush of the Teutons would, it is asserted by military experts, have swept away every obstacle that lay between them and the French capital, which was their first objective. Belgium’s magnificent resistance thus saved Paris, gave breathing space to the French, and enabled the Allies to swing their sword before smiting.

Russia, too, did better than had been augured of her, but not nearly as well as if her resources had been organized by competent experts,alive to the dangers that threatened the empire. On the eve of the war a process of fermentation among the working men of her two capitals was coming to a head, and a revolt, if not a revolution, was being industriously organized. The movement had certainly been fostered, and probably originated, by wealthy German employers in Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres. They had hoped to frustrate the mobilization order, retard Russia’s entry into the field, and possibly bring about civil strife. And they were within an ace of succeeding. On the very eve of hostilities reports reached Berlin and Vienna that the revolution was already beginning. But the declaration of war against Germany purified the air, absorbed the redundant energies of the people, and fused all classes and parties into a whole-hearted, single-minded nation, giving Russia a degree of union which she had not enjoyed since Napoleon’s invasion. But, separated from her allies, she went her own way without much reference to theirs. Her plans had been drafted by her military leaders, and might be modified by local conditions or subsequent vicissitudes, but were neither co-ordinated nor even synchronized with those of France and Britain. Thus the first and most important lesson had still to be mastered.

Liège and Namur having fallen, the danger to Paris struck terror to the hearts of the French, and the public mind was being gradually prepared by the Press to receive the depressing tidings of its capture with dignified calm. The occupation of the capital, it was argued, would not essentially weaken the military strength of the Republic. For thearmy would still be intact, and that was the essential point. Here, for the first time, one notes the almost invincible force of the antiquated opinions to which the Allies still tenaciously clung about warfare as modified by Germany. No misgivings were harboured that the enemy might threaten to burn the capital city if the army refused to capitulate, or that he was capable of carrying out such a threat. War in its old guise, hedged round with traditions of chivalry, with humanitarian restrictions, with international laws, was how the French and their allies conceived it. And it was in that spirit that they made their forecasts and regulated their own behaviour towards the enemy.

The rise of Generals Joffre, Castelnau and Foch and the retreat of the German invaders raised the Allies from the depths of despair to a degree of confidence bordering on presumption. After the departure of the Belgian Government to Antwerp,[64]the occupation of Brussels,[65]the defeat of the Austrian army by the Serbs and the rout of three German army corps by the Russians,[66]the Western Allies conceived high hopes of the military prowess of the Slavs, and looked to them for the decisive action which would speedily bring the Teutons to their knees. And for a time Russia’s continued progress seemed to justify these hopes. Her troops entered Insterburg[67]and pushed on to Königsberg, which they invested and threatened,[68]and in the south they scored a series of remarkable successes in Galicia. But in the west of Europe theAllies could at most but retard without arresting the advance of the Germans, whose aim was to defeat the French and then concentrate all their efforts on the invasion of the Tsardom. Despite assurances of an optimistic tenor there appeared to be no serious hope of defending Paris, nor were effective local measures adopted for the purpose; and on September 3 the French Government, against the insistent advice of three experienced Cabinet Ministers, suddenly moved to Bordeaux, and earned for itself the nickname oftournedos à la bordelaise. On the same historic day the Tsar’s troops triumphantly entered Lemberg, restored to that city its ancient name of Lvoff, and proceeded to introduce the Russian system of administration there with all its traditional characteristics. But in lieu of conferring full powers on the Governor of the conquered province, a man of broad views and conciliatory methods, the Government dispatched a narrow-minded official, devoid of natural ability, of administrative training, and of the sobering consciousness of his own defects, and listened to his recommendations. For Russia, like France and Britain, still contemplated the situation and its potentialities through the distorting medium of the old order of things. Their orientation had undergone no change.

One of the immediate consequences of Russian rule in Galicia was to confirm the Vatican in its belief that Austria offered Catholicism far more trustworthy guarantees for its unhindered growth than could ever be expected from the Tsardom.

The famous battle of the Marne[69]infusednew energies into the Allies, whose Press organs forthwith took to discussing the terms on which peace might be vouchsafed to the Teutons, and in these stipulations a spirit of magnanimity was displayed towards the enemy which at any rate served to show how little his temper was understood and how enormously his resources were underrated. Soon, however, the mist of ignorance began to lift, and saner notions of the stern interplay of the tidal forces at work were borne in upon the leaders of the allied peoples. One of the first discoveries to be made was the enormous consumption of ammunition required by latter-day warfare and the ease with which the Germans were able to meet this increased demand. That this enormous advantage was the result of scientific organization was patent to all. Nor could it be ignored that an essential element of that organization was the militarization of all workmen whose services were needed by the State. But from the lesson thus inculcated to its application in practice there was an abyss. And as yet that abyss has not been bridged. The most formidable obstacle in the way is offered by the shackles of party politics, which still hamper the leaders of the Entente Powers, and in particular of Great Britain. Industrial compulsion has not yet been moved into the field of practical politics.

One of Germany’s calculations was that, however superior to her own resources those of her adversaries might be, they were not likely to be mobilized, concentrated and brought to bear upon the front. Consequently they would not tell upon the result. Military discipline had not impregnated any of theallied nations, whose ideas of personal liberty and dignity would oppose an insurmountable obstacle to that severe discipline which was essential to military success. Great Britain, they believed, would cling to her ingrained notions of the indefeasible right of the British workman to strike and of the British citizen to hold back from military service. And the telegrams announcing that in the United Kingdom the cries of “business as usual,” “sport as usual,” “strikes as usual,” “voluntary enlistment as usual,” indicated the survival of the antiquated spirit of individualism into a new order of things which peremptorily called for co-operation and iron discipline, were received in Berlin and Vienna with undisguised joy. The persistence of this spirit has been the curse of the Allies ever since.

FOOTNOTES:[63]The Highest of All is the official designation of the Kaiser: der Allerhöchste.[64]August 17, 1914.[65]August 20, 1914.[66]August 22, 1914.[67]August 23, 1914.[68]August 29, 1914.[69]September 12, 1914.

[63]The Highest of All is the official designation of the Kaiser: der Allerhöchste.

[64]August 17, 1914.

[65]August 20, 1914.

[66]August 22, 1914.

[67]August 23, 1914.

[68]August 29, 1914.

[69]September 12, 1914.

Itis worth noting in this connection how heavily the lack of genial leaders at this critical conjuncture in European history told upon the allied peoples and affected their chances of success. The statesmen in power were mostly straightforward, conscientious servants of their respective Governments, whose ideal had been the prevention of hostilities, and whose exertions in war time were directed to the restoration of peace on a stable basis. By none of them was the stir, the spirit, the governing instincts of the new era or the actual crisis perceived. They all failed of audacity. Hence they were solicitous to leave as far as possible intact all the rights, privileges and institutions of the past which would be serviceable in the re-established peace régime of the future. In Great Britain the voluntary system of recruiting the army and navy was to be respected, the right of workmen to strike was recognized, and the maintenance of party government was looked upon as a matter of course. The writer of these pages made several ineffectual attempts to propagate the view that a War Cabinet presided over by a real chief was a corollary of the situation, military and industrial compulsion for all was indispensable, that a discriminating tariff on our imports and a restriction of certain exportswould materially contribute to our progress, and that a special department for the manufacture of munitions ought to be organized without delay.[70]One measure indicative, people said, of undisputed wisdom which was resorted to was the appointment of Lord Kitchener as Secretary for War.[71]If this step deserved the fervent approval it met with, its efficacy was considerably impaired by imposing on the new Secretary the task of purveying munitions and other supplies, in addition to the multifarious duties of his office. And with this solitary exception everything was allowed to go on “as usual,” with consequences which every one has since had an opportunity of meditating. Internal whole-hearted co-operation between the Government and all the social layers of the population was neither known nor systematically attempted, and still less were the respective forces of the Allies co-ordinated and hurled against the enemy. The struggle was confined to the army and the navy, and these instruments of national defence were inadequately provided with the first necessaries for action.

Each of the Allies was isolated, cooped within its own narrow circle of ideas, buoyed up by its own hopes, bent on the attainment of its own special aims. The first step towards amalgamation was negative in character, but superlatively politic. It took the form of a covenant by which it was stipulated that none of the Allies should conclude a separate peacewith the enemy. But beyond that nothing was done, nor was anything more considered necessary.

In Britain the consciousness that the country was at war spread very slowly, while the conviction that this was a life-and-death struggle which would seriously affect the lives and rights and habits of every individual made no headway. Only a few grasped the fact that a tremendous upheaval was going forward which marked the rise of a new era and a complete break with the old. By the bulk of the population it was treated as a game calling for no extraordinary efforts, no special methods, no new departures. It was construed as a hateful parenthesis in a cheerful history of human progress, and the object of the nation was to have it swiftly and decently closed. Hence the machinery of the old system was not discarded. Voluntary enlistment was belauded and agitation against joining the army magnanimously tolerated. Attacks on the Government were permitted. The manufacture of munitions was confided to private firms and to the whims of dissatisfied workmen, and co-operation among the various sections of the population was left to private initiative.

Most of us are prone to consider this war as a fortuitous event, which might, indeed, have been staved off, but which, having disturbed for a time the easy movement of our insular life, will die away and leave us free to continue our progress on the same lines as before. But this faith is hardly more than the confluence of hopes and strivings, habits, traditions, and aspirations untempered by accurate knowledge of the facts. And thefacts, were we cognizant of them, would show us that the agencies which brought about this tremendous shock of peoples without blasting our hopes or exploding our pet theories, will not spend their force in this generation or the next, and that already the entire fabric—social, political, and economical—of our national life is undergoing disruption.

The shifting of landmarks, political and social, is going steadily if stealthily forward; and the nation waking up one day will note with amazement the vast distance it has imperceptibly traversed. If only we could realize at present how rapidly and irrevocably we are drifting away from our old-world moorings, we should feel in a more congenial mood for adjusting ourselves to the new and unpopular requirements of the era now dawning. Already we are becoming a militarist and a protective State, but we do not yet know it. We have broken with the traditions of our own peculiar and insular form of civilization, of which poets like Tennyson were the high priests, yet we hesitate to bid them farewell. We still base our forecasts of the future political life on the past and calculate the outcome of the next elections, the fate of Disestablishment and Home Rule, the relative positions of the chief Parliamentary parties on the old bases, and draw up our plans accordingly. In short, we still bear about with us the fragrant atmosphere of our previous existence which will never be renewed. And it is owing to the effects of that disturbing medium that our observations have been so defective and our mistakes so sinister. We still fail to perceive that decay has overtaken the organs of our Party Government and the groundwork of ourState fabric is rotten. Yet everything about and around us is in flux. We are in the midst of a new environment.

When this war is over we shall search in vain for what was peculiarly British in our cherished civilization. Of that civilization which reached its acme during the reign of the late King Edward, we have seen the last, little though most of us realize its passing. It was an age of sturdy good sense, healthy animalism, and dignity withal, and not devoid of a strong flavour of humanity and home-reared virtue. But in every branch of politics and some departments of science it was an age of amateurism. Respect for right, for liberty, for law and tradition, for relative truth and gradual progress, was widely diffused. Well-controlled energy, responsiveness to calls on one’s fellow-feeling, and the everyday honesty that tapers into policy were among its familiar features. But if one were asked to sum it all up in a single word it would be hard to utter one more comprehensive or characteristic than the essentially English term, comfort. Comfort was the apex of the pyramid which is now crumbling away. And it is that Laodicean civilization, and not the fierce spirit of the new time, which is incarnate in the present official leaders of the British nation.

The French, too, approached the general problem from their own particular standpoint. Provided with a serviceable military organization, the same unconsciousness of the need of mobilizing all the other national resources pierced through their policy. Parties and factions subsisted as before, and half-way men who would have been satisfied with driving the enemy out of France and Belgiumlifted up their voices against those who insisted on prosecuting the war until Prussianism was worsted. The French Socialists met in London[72]and passed resolutions in which the usual claptrap of the war of classes, the boons of pacifism and the wickedness of the Tsardom occupied a prominent place. And the Congress was honoured by the presence of two Cabinet Ministers, MM. Guesde and Sembat.

Russia, true to her old self, carried the narrow spirit of the bureaucracy into the fiercest struggle recorded by history, seemingly satisfied that the clash of armies and navies would leave antiquated theories and moulding traditions intact. When the revolutionist Burtzeff published his patriotic letter to the French papers approving Russia’s energetic defence of civilization, he was applauded by all Europe. “Even we,” he wrote, “adherents of the parties of the Extreme Left and hitherto ardent anti-militarists and pacifists, even we believe in the necessity ofthiswar. The German peril, the curse which has hung over the world for so many decades, will be crushed.” Yet when he returned to his country resolved to support the Tsar’s Government and lend a hand in the good work, he was sent to Siberia, in commemoration of the old order of things.

Germany alone took her stand on the new plane and accommodated herself to the new conditions. Thoroughness was her watchword because victory was her aim, its alternative being coma or death. With her gaze fixed on the end, she rejected nothing that could serve as means.

In congruity with these divergent views and sentiments was the reading of the war’s vicissitudes in the various belligerent countries. The allied Press was over-hopeful, right being certain to triumph over might wedded to wrong. Publicists pitied the Teutons in anticipation of the fate that was fast overtaking them. Pæans of victory resounded, allaying the apprehensions and numbing the energies of the leagued nations. The German, it was asseverated, had shot his bolt and was at bay. Russia had laid siege to Cracow, and would shortly occupy that city as she had occupied Lemberg. The Tsar’s troops might then be expected to push on to Berlin, and to reach it in a few months. And, painfully aware of the certainty of this consummation, Austria was dejected and Hungary secretly making ready to secede from the Habsburg Monarchy. To this soothing gossip even serious statesmen lent a willing ear. The writer of these remarks was several times asked by leading personages of the allied Governments whether internal upheavals were not impending in Germany and Austria, and his assurance that no such diversion could be looked for then or in the near future was traversed on the ground that all trustworthy accounts from Berlin, Vienna and Budapest pointed to a process of fermentation which would shortly interpose an impassable barrier to the further military advance of the Central empires. But he continued to express himself in the same strain of warning, which subsequent events have unhappily justified.

In October 1914, for instance, he wrote—

“Germany has already shot her bolt, people tell us. Already? The people who for forty years have been preparing to establish their rule from Ostend to the Persian Gulf have expended their energies after three months of warfare? And the concrete foundations built at such pains and expense in the German factory that dominates Edinburgh? Was the Teuton simple-minded enough to fancy that he would be in a position to utilize this and the other emplacements for his giant guns within three months after the outbreak of hostilities? Let us be fair to our enemy and just to ourselves. The German has not shot his bolt. If time is on our side, it will also remain on his up to a point which we have not yet reached. Those who urge that the German must make haste imply that his resources are gradually drying up, and that neither his food supplies, nor his chemicals, nor his metals can be imported so long as we hold command of the seas. His armies will therefore die of inanition, or their operations will be thwarted for lack of munitions. This would indeed be joyful tidings were it true. If false, it is a mischievous delusion.“We are told that the German time-table has been upset. Unquestionably it has. But is the time-table identical with the programme for which it was drawn up? If it is, then the march on Paris has been definitely abandoned. Now is this conclusion borne out by what we behold? What, then, is the meaning of the plan to capture Belfort and Calais? What is the object of the vast reinforcements now on their way from the east to Von Kluck’s army? Personally, I have not a doubt that Paris is the objective, or that the Germans are still striving to carry out their programme in itsentirety, which is the extension of their empire over Europe and Asia Minor. The immediate object of the Allies is to foil this design, and only after we have accomplished that can we think of assuming the offensive and crushing Prussian militarism. We have not compassed that end; the battlefields are still in the Allies’ countries, and the initiative rests with the enemy. Now to whatever causes we may attribute this undesirable state of things—and it certainly cannot be ascribed to lack of energy on the part of the British Government or our military authorities—it is right that those who are acting for the nation should ask themselves whether those causes are still operative. If they are—and on this score there is hardly room for doubt—it behoves the Allies, and the British people in particular, to rise to a just sense of theunparalleled sacrificesthey must be prepared to make during the ordeal which they are about to undergo.”

“We are told that the German time-table has been upset. Unquestionably it has. But is the time-table identical with the programme for which it was drawn up? If it is, then the march on Paris has been definitely abandoned. Now is this conclusion borne out by what we behold? What, then, is the meaning of the plan to capture Belfort and Calais? What is the object of the vast reinforcements now on their way from the east to Von Kluck’s army? Personally, I have not a doubt that Paris is the objective, or that the Germans are still striving to carry out their programme in itsentirety, which is the extension of their empire over Europe and Asia Minor. The immediate object of the Allies is to foil this design, and only after we have accomplished that can we think of assuming the offensive and crushing Prussian militarism. We have not compassed that end; the battlefields are still in the Allies’ countries, and the initiative rests with the enemy. Now to whatever causes we may attribute this undesirable state of things—and it certainly cannot be ascribed to lack of energy on the part of the British Government or our military authorities—it is right that those who are acting for the nation should ask themselves whether those causes are still operative. If they are—and on this score there is hardly room for doubt—it behoves the Allies, and the British people in particular, to rise to a just sense of theunparalleled sacrificesthey must be prepared to make during the ordeal which they are about to undergo.”

The German way of looking at the relative strength and positions of the belligerents as modified by the vicissitudes of the campaign was realistic and statesmanlike. Starting from the principle that a people of about a hundred millions, animated by a lively faith in its own vitality and mental equipment, can neither be destroyed nor permanently crippled, they argued that the worst that Fate could have in store for them would be a draw. But before that end could be achieved the Teutonic armies must have been pulverized and Germany and Austria occupied by the allied troops. And of this there were no signs. “We never fancied,” they said, “that what happened in 1870 would be repeated in 1914.How could we make such a stupid mistake? Then we had only France against us. To-day we encounter the combined forces of Russia, France, Belgium and England. This difference had to have its counterpart in the campaign. Thus we have not yet captured Paris. But then to-day we are wrestling with the greatest empires in the world, and we hold them in our grip. We are fighting not for a few milliard francs and a disaffected province, but for priceless spoils and European hegemony. Moreover, Belgium, which we possess and mean to keep, is a greater prize than the temporary occupation of Paris. Besides, postponement is not abandonment. Whether we take the French capital one month or another is but a detail.

“And, over and above all this, we have reached the sea and are within a few miles of England’s shores. Furthermore, Russia’s army, which we lured into East Prussia until it fancied it was about to invest Königsberg, has been driven back beyond Wirballen far into Tsardom, with appalling losses of men and material. Her other forces, which several weeks ago boasted that they were about to capture Cracow, will soon be driven out of Przemysl and Lemberg. Libau will fall into our hands. Riga is sure to be ours, and Warsaw itself will finally admit our victorious troops. Does this look like defeat at the hands of our enemies? And German soil is still as immune from invasion as though it were girded by the sea.”

In all our forecasts one important element of calculation was invariably left out of account: the consequences of our blunders, past, present and future. And these have added enormouslyto our difficulties and dangers. Not the least made was the mistake in allowing the two German warshipsGoebenandBreslauto enter the Dardanelles. To have pursued them into Ottoman waters would, it was pleaded in justification, have constituted a violation of Turkish neutrality. Undoubtedly it would, but the infringement would not have been more serious than many flagrant breaches of neutrality which the Sublime Porte had committed a short time before and was known to be about to perpetrate again.[73]But a scrupulous regard for the rights of neutrals has been, and still is, the groundstone of the Allies’ policy, irrespective of its effects on the outcome of the war. The rules of the game, it is contended, must be observed by us, however much they may be disregarded by the enemy. This considerateness and scrupulosity may be chivalrous, but they form an irksome drag on a nation at war with Teutons. The two ships were at once transferred by Germany to the Turks.[74]Some two months later, deeming their war preparations completed, the latter suddenly bombarded the open Russian town of Theodosia in the Black Sea, and sank several small craft, thus realizing Germany’s hopes and justifying her politico-economic policy. It was now too late to lament the chivalrous attitude which had permitted theGoebenandtheBreslauto steam into the Dardanelles, or to regret the indifference we had persistently displayed to Near Eastern affairs for well-nigh twenty years. The best that could be done at that late hour was to face the consequences of those errors with dignity and to strive to repair them with alacrity. But all the efforts made were partial and successive. There was no attempt at co-ordination.

Turkey’s defection was a serious blow to the allied cause, not only in view of the positive, but also of the negative, advantages it was calculated to confer upon Germany. The Ottoman army, consisting of first-class raw materials, had had its latent qualities unfolded and matured by German organization, discipline and training. Its supplies were replenished. Ammunition factories were established. Barracks were built and fortifications equipped in congruity with latter-day needs. Three million pounds of German bar gold reached Constantinople, and were deposited in the branch offices of the Deutsche Bank there for the requirements of the army. In all this the Kaiser’s Government ran no risks. The return was guaranteed by the politico-economic measures which had been continuously applied during the years of our “disinterestedness.”

Enver had meanwhile risen to the zenith of his career. He was now War Minister and had surrounded himself with officers who would follow him whithersoever he might lead them. A low-sized, wiry man, seemingly of no account, Enver is pale of complexion, shuffling in gait. His eyes are piercing, and his gaze furtive. A soul-monger who should buy him at his specific value and sell him at his own estimate would earn untold millions. For, to use apicturesque Russian phrase, the ocean is only up to his knees. He is physically dauntless and buoyant. In the war against Italy he had fought well and organized the Arab and other native troops under conditions of great difficulty, winning laurels which have not yet withered. A Pole by extraction, Enver Pasha is a Prussian by training and sympathies, and a Turk by language and religion and by his marriage with a daughter of the Sultan. Political sense he has none. His one ideal was to earn the appreciation of the Prussian military authorities, to whom he looks up as a fervid disciple to peerless masters. German military praise melts his manhood and turns his brain. He possesses a dictatorial temper with none of the essential qualities of a dictator, and in the field he is distinguished, I am told, by splendid valour without an inkling of scientific strategy.

It was that Polish Turk and his German masters who formally made war upon Russia, France and Britain.[75]And the Turkish nation had no opportunity to sanction or veto their resolve. Nay, even the majority of the Cabinet, including the Grand Vizier, had had no say on the issue, were not even informed of what was being done until overt acts of hostility had actually clinched the matter. Indeed, there was a majority of Cabinet Ministers in favour of neutrality, but it was ignored. In this way Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons,[76]to the astonishmentof the Allies, who had hoped that a policy of forbearance and meekness would elicit a friendly response and frustrate the effect of the master strokes by which Germany, during a long series of years, had consolidated her ascendancy over Turkey and obtained the command of the Ottoman army. The childish notion that a sudden exhibition of pacific intentions and goodwill is enough to foil the carefully laid schemes of a clever enemy which have been maturing for decades, is the refrain that runs through the history of our foreign policy for the last thirty or forty years. And not only through the history of our foreign policy. Faith in the sacramental efficacy of an improvisation is a trait common to all the Allies, but in the British nation it is the faith that is expected to move mountains.

The negative aspect of Turkey’s belligerency proved to be quite as irksome as the positive. For it involved the closing of the Dardanelles to Russia’s corn export and the disappearanceof the principal route for communications between the Tsardom and its Western allies. Archangel is blocked in winter and inadequately connected by rail with the two capitals in summer. This additional embarrassment and its financial sequel compelled the attention of the Allies to the need of some kind of co-operation—just to satisfy actual needs. For neither then nor at any subsequent period was there any pretence of laying open the whole ground and building a complete structure upon that. A temporary expedient is all that was contemplated, and nothing more lasting was evoked. None the less, the Conference of the three Finance Ministers in Paris[77]marked a step in advance, and was subsequently followed up by a closer and more continuous contact.

FOOTNOTES:[70]Cf.Contemporary Review, November 1914. I was requested to suppress an article on the subject of “Coalition Government” and another on the subject of “Tariff Reform during and after the War.”[71]August 5, 1914.[72]February 1915.[73]Turkey had already violated her neutrality to our detriment many times. For instance, on September 25 she had erected military works against us on the Sinai frontier; as far back as August 25 Turkish officers had seized Egyptian camels laden with foodstuffs. Moslem fidahis in Ottoman service endeavoured to incite the Egyptian Mohammedans against the British Government during the first half of October.[74]August 13, 1914.[75]November 3, 1914.[76]On October 25, 1908, after having studied the origins of the Turkish Revolution and the antecedents of its authors, and while all Europe was still warmly congratulating the Young Turks on their bloodless victory and moderation, I dispatched the following telegraphic message to theDaily Telegraph—“Most unwillingly do I give utterance to facts and impressions calculated to introduce a jarring note into the harmonious optimism of Western peoples, who confidently augur great things of the young Ottoman nation, and discern no difficulties likely to become formidable dangers to the new-born State. But a knowledge of all the essential data is indispensable to correct the diagnosis without which the malady cannot be successfully treated. Emancipation, then, has produced a beneficent enthusiasm for the political ideals of Europe in minds hitherto impermeable to Western notions, but has neither transformed the national character nor supplied the revolutionary movement with the requisite constructive forces.Neither can it break the fateful continuity of Turkish history nor avert the defects of the destructive causes that have been operative here for generations.”[77]February 6, 1915, and the following three days.

[70]Cf.Contemporary Review, November 1914. I was requested to suppress an article on the subject of “Coalition Government” and another on the subject of “Tariff Reform during and after the War.”

[71]August 5, 1914.

[72]February 1915.

[73]Turkey had already violated her neutrality to our detriment many times. For instance, on September 25 she had erected military works against us on the Sinai frontier; as far back as August 25 Turkish officers had seized Egyptian camels laden with foodstuffs. Moslem fidahis in Ottoman service endeavoured to incite the Egyptian Mohammedans against the British Government during the first half of October.

[74]August 13, 1914.

[75]November 3, 1914.

[76]On October 25, 1908, after having studied the origins of the Turkish Revolution and the antecedents of its authors, and while all Europe was still warmly congratulating the Young Turks on their bloodless victory and moderation, I dispatched the following telegraphic message to theDaily Telegraph—“Most unwillingly do I give utterance to facts and impressions calculated to introduce a jarring note into the harmonious optimism of Western peoples, who confidently augur great things of the young Ottoman nation, and discern no difficulties likely to become formidable dangers to the new-born State. But a knowledge of all the essential data is indispensable to correct the diagnosis without which the malady cannot be successfully treated. Emancipation, then, has produced a beneficent enthusiasm for the political ideals of Europe in minds hitherto impermeable to Western notions, but has neither transformed the national character nor supplied the revolutionary movement with the requisite constructive forces.Neither can it break the fateful continuity of Turkish history nor avert the defects of the destructive causes that have been operative here for generations.”

“Most unwillingly do I give utterance to facts and impressions calculated to introduce a jarring note into the harmonious optimism of Western peoples, who confidently augur great things of the young Ottoman nation, and discern no difficulties likely to become formidable dangers to the new-born State. But a knowledge of all the essential data is indispensable to correct the diagnosis without which the malady cannot be successfully treated. Emancipation, then, has produced a beneficent enthusiasm for the political ideals of Europe in minds hitherto impermeable to Western notions, but has neither transformed the national character nor supplied the revolutionary movement with the requisite constructive forces.Neither can it break the fateful continuity of Turkish history nor avert the defects of the destructive causes that have been operative here for generations.”

[77]February 6, 1915, and the following three days.

Financesare the nerve of warfare, and in a contest which can be decided only by the exhaustion of one of the belligerents they are, so to say, the central nerve system. The Germans being astute financiers, and aware that the war to which their policy was leading would soon break out, had made due preparations, with a surprising grasp of detail. Nothing was forgotten and nothing neglected. And success rewarded their efforts. The result was that they mobilized their finances long before they had begun to mobilize their troops.

France, on the contrary, persuaded that peace would not be disturbed, took no thought of the morrow. Yet her budgetary estimates showed an ugly deficit. This gap, however, would have been filled up in the ordinary course of things by a big loan which was about to be floated. But M. Caillaux, probably the most clever financier in France, who, if he applied his knowledge and resourcefulness to the furtherance of his country’s interests, could achieve great things, used them—and together with them his parliamentary influence—to upset the Cabinet and thwart the loan scheme. Then, taking over the portfolio of the Finance Minister in the new Cabinet, he arranged for borrowing a small instead of a large amount, thereby exposing his country to risks moreserious than the public realized. For it was a heavy disadvantage on the eve of the most exhausting struggle ever entered upon by the French people, whose strongest position was weakened as no enemy could have weakened it.

Russia was in a different, but nowise better, position when suddenly called upon to meet the onerous demands of the world-contest. She, too, having pinned her faith to the maintenance of peace, had made no preparations for war, financial or military. Moreover, a considerable sum of her money was at the time deposited in various foreign countries, and especially in France, for the service of her loans and the payment of State orders placed with various firms. This money, on the outbreak of hostilities, was automatically immobilized by the moratorium, although the delicate question whether a moratorium can be legally applied to sums thus deposited by a foreign Government has not yet been decided with finality. As a matter of fact, Russia’s deposits remained where they were, and could not be utilized. The consequences of this embargo were irksome, and for a time threatened to become dangerous. Little by little, however, these restrictions were removed, partly by the French Government and partly by the spontaneous efforts of the banks.

France, too, suffered in a like way from the paralysing effect of the moratorium. For the French had no less than half a milliard francs lent out at interest for short terms in Russia. This sum could, as it chanced, have been refunded at once without inconvenience, seeing that it was liquid in the banks of Petrograd, Moscow, Warsaw, and other cities of the Tsardom. But as the money was in Russian roubles,and all international exchange had ceased, it too was incapable of being converted into francs. Thus the two allies, although really flush of money, were undergoing some of the hardships of impecuniosity, and to extricate them from this tangle was a task that called for the exercise of uncommon ingenuity. This happily was forthcoming.

But that was only one aspect of a larger and more momentous business which the financiers of the Entente Powers had to set themselves to tackle. Another of its bearings was the effect of the war upon the rate of exchange of the rouble, which is of moment to all the Allies. Indeed, so long as the conflict lasts the smooth working of the financial machines of the three States is of as much moment to each and all as is the winning of battles and the raising of fresh armies. In this struggle and at least until the curtain has fallen upon the final scene, the maintenance of financial credit and the purveyance of ready cash, together with all the subsidiary issues to which these operations may give rise, should be discussed and settled in common.

During the present world combat, which has not its like in history, whether we consider the issues at stake, the number of troops engaged, or the destructive forces let loose, the ordinary narrow conceptions of mutual assistance, financial and other, with their jealous care of flaccid interests, cannot be persisted in. The basic principle on which it behoves the allied Powers to sustain each other’s vitality can only be the community of resources within the limits traced by national needs. For our cause is one and indivisible, and a success of one of the Allies is a successof all. Hence, although we move from different starting-points and by unconnected roads, we are one community in motive, tendencies and sacrifices. The sense of Fate, whose deepening shadow now lies across the civilized nations of the Old Continent, has evoked the sympathies of the partner peoples for each other, and temporarily obliterated many of the points of artificial distinction which owed their existence to national egotism.

Russia’s resources, then, were immobilized at the outset of the war. The minister who had spent thirty-five years in the financial department of State had resigned shortly before. His successor, a man of considerable capacity and good intentions, was bereft of the help of the best permanent officials of the Ministry, who had followed the outgoing minister into retirement. And no minister ever needed help more sorely than M. Bark. For the sudden cessation of all international exchange and the consequent immobilization of Russia’s financial reserve, made it temporarily impossible for her to satisfy demands which could easily have been met under circumstances less disconcerting. Here her British ally came to the rescue. In the first place, the British Government gave its guarantee to the Bank of England for the acceptances which this bank had discounted. These were of two kinds: all acceptances whatever discounted before hostilities had broken out, and all commercial acceptances discounted since the declaration of war. The measure which brought this welcome assistance was general in its form, but it included Russian bills accepted in London. And this discount by the Bank of England will continue until one year after theclose of the campaign. In plain English, that means that the greater part of Russia’s cash payments in London will be put off until then.

In Russia’s dealings with France a like trouble made itself felt, but the same remedy was not applied. The Government there did not offer a State guarantee for acceptances by the Banque de France. The reasons for this difference of method are immaterial. The main point is that some other expedient had to be devised whereby Russia could discharge her short-term debts to her French creditors. In the Tsardom money was available for the purpose, but it was in roubles, which would first have to be exchanged into francs, and, as there was no rate of exchange, this operation could be effected, if at all, only at a considerable and unnecessary loss.

After several weeks’ negotiations, and a thorough study of the question, an agreement was struck up between the Imperial Russian Bank and the Banque de France, by which the latter institution placed at the disposal of the former the requisite sum in francs which was specially earmarked for the payment of Russia’s private debts in Paris.

The fall in the rouble was partly caused by the diminution of Russian exports, in consequence of the closing of the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the land routesviaGermany and Austria. The whole harvest of 1914 lay garnered up in the Tsar’s dominions, where prices fell to a low level, while the rouble lost one-fourth of its value. Russia’s interest on her foreign debt was thus increased by twenty-five per cent. The Western allies, on the other hand, were paying huge sums for corn to neutrals. As in the long run all EntentePowers will have to bear their share of eventual losses, it behoved them to prevent or moderate them. And this they accomplished to a limited extent. It might have been well to go further into the matter and consider the advisability of entering into closer partnership than was established by their concerted efforts in Paris. An economic league with privileges for importation and exportation accorded to all its members—and only to these—not merely during the war but for a series of years after the conclusion of peace, might perhaps have tended to solve that and kindred problems. But the Allied Governments were constitutionally averse to taking long views or adopting comprehensive measures.

But the reopening of the Dardanelles and the liberation of Russia’s corn supplies called for immediate attention and a concrete plan of campaign. The idea of rigging out a naval and military expedition had been mooted in London before the Financial Conference in Paris, but on grounds which do not yet constitute materials for public history it was dropped. At the Conference the scheme was again taken up, and the previous objections to its execution having been successfully met it was unanimously accepted. It is worth observing that the original plan, so far as the present writer was cognizant of it, was coherent, adequate and feasible, and involved co-ordination on the part of all three Allies. It did not contemplate a purely naval expedition to the Dardanelles, but provided for a mixed force of land and sea troops, of which the number was considerable and under the conditions then prevalent might also have been ample for the purpose. Although the Allies had thusmade what they believed to be adequate provision for the success of their project, they took measures to render assurance doubly sure. They entered into pourparlers with Greece, from whose co-operation they anticipated advantages which would tell with decisive force not only on the outcome of the expedition but also on the upshot of the war.

Venizelos was approached and sounded on the subject. His authority in his country, like that of Bismarck on the eve of his fall, was held to be supreme. For he had saved Greece from anarchy and the dynasty from banishment; he had reorganized the army, strengthened the navy, established good government at home, extended the boundaries of the realm and laid the foundations of a regenerate State which might in time reunite under the royal sceptre most of the scattered elements of Hellenism. His personal relations with King Constantine were, however, understood to be wanting in cordiality, but the monarch was credited with sufficient acumen to perceive where the interests of his dynasty and country lay, and with common sense enough to allow them to be safeguarded and furthered. It was on these unsifted assumptions that the Governments of the allied Powers went to work.

One redoubtable obstacle to be dislodged before any headway could be made was Bulgaria’s opposition. In order to displace it, it would be necessary to acquiesce in her demands for territory possessed by her neighbours. And in view of the intimate relations, political and economical, which the military empires had established with Bulgaria and their firm hold over Ferdinand, even this retrocession might prove inadequate for thepurpose. According to a binding arrangement between Serbia and Greece, no territorial concession running counter to the settlement of the Bucharest Treaty might be accorded to Bulgaria by either of the two contracting States, without the consent of the other. And now Venizelos was asked to signify his assent to the abandonment by Serbia of a part of the Macedonian province recently annexed. This point gained, he was further solicited to cede Kavalla and some 2000 square kilometres of territory incorporated with Greece, to Bulgaria, in return for the future possession of 140,000 square kilometres in western Asia Minor. It was stipulated by him and hastily taken for granted by the Governments of the Allied States that these concessions, together with those which Serbia and Roumania were expected to make, would move Bulgaria to follow Russia’s lead and enter the arena by the side of the Allies. But before Venizelos’s readiness to compromise could be utilized as a practical element of the negotiations, the Bulgarian Cabinet had applied for and received an advance of 150 million francs from the two Central empires on conditions which, in the judgment of the Greek Premier, rendered further dealings with that State nugatory.

At the same time King Constantine, yielding to German importunity and to personal emotions, adopted a series of measures of which the effect would have been to discredit in the eyes of the nation Venizelos’s patriotism as a minister and his veracity as an individual. The upshot of these machinations was the voluntary retirement of the Premier from public life, the dissolution of the Greek Parliament,the accession to power of a Germanophile Cabinet, and the frustration of that part of the Allies’ plan which had for its object the immediate co-operation of Greece and the subsequent enlistment of the neighbouring Balkan States. As yet, however, Greece was not wholly lost to the Entente. Another opportunity presented itself which, had it been seized by the Governments of Great Britain and France, might yet have altered the course of Balkan history. But the acceptable offer in which it was embodied by the Hellenic Government elicited no response whatever in London or Paris. This was the last hope. Thenceforward the Allies were constrained to rely upon their own unaided exertions.

How they approached the problem thus modified, and to what degree and in consequence of what technical occurrences the achievement fell short of reasonable expectations, are matters which do not come within the scope of this summary narrative of historic events. It may suffice to contrast the belief, which in March 1915 was widespread—that the Dardanelles would be forced and Constantinople captured in the space of four or five weeks—with the circumstance that since then the British troops alone had nearly a hundred thousand casualties and that in the month of January 1916 it became evident that nothing could be gained by further prolonging this painful effort, and the enterprise was abandoned.

In spite of Turkey’s hostility, the tone of the Allied Press lost little of its buoyancy. Japan, who had declared war on Germany in August,[78]had since captured Kiao Chau[79]] and that achievement coupled with the resultsof four months’ warfare in Europe were held to be promising. For Germany’s original plan of campaign had been foiled, her army driven back from Paris, and Austria had been defeated in Galicia. If on the debit side of the balance nearly all Belgium and nine departments of France had fallen into the enemy’s hands, it was some solace to learn that the military authorities of the Allies had reckoned with all that from the outset. Every reverse sustained by their arms turned out to have been foreseen and discounted by their sagacious leaders. Then, again, it was argued that time was on our side, enabling us to develop our resources, which are much vaster than those of the enemy. To this way of looking at the situation the writer of these lines opposed another. “There is,” he wrote, “a small section of the nation, men conversant with the aims, modes of thought, and military, financial, and economic resources of the enemy, whose gloomy forecasts in the past have been unhappily fulfilled in the present, and who would gladly see more conclusive evidence than has yet been offered that everything which can be done at a given moment to turn the scale more decisively in our favour is being expeditiously undertaken by the responsible authorities.

“They are afraid that the gravity of the issues for which we are fighting, the telling initial advantages secured by the wily enemy, the formidable nature of the difficulties in the way of decisive victory, and the tremendous sacrifices which we shall all be called upon to make before we come in sight of the goal, have not yet filtered down into the consciousness of any considerable section of the people.” Many months later[80]Mr. Lloyd George re-echoed that judgment when dealing with the Welsh miners’ strike.

But optimism continued to prevail among the allied peoples, who through the Press proclaimed their conviction that ultimate and complete success was a foregone conclusion. At the same time, however, an eager desire to hasten this consummation found vent among a considerable section of politicians, more particularly in France. And one of the means by which they hoped to attain their goal was by inviting Japan to co-operate with the Allies in Europe. As “invitation” was the term employed, the peculiar manner in which the idea was conceived hardly needs definition. To the Japanese themselves the inference was patent and distasteful. Theretofore it had been a dogma that France, Britain and Russia, being quite capable of crushing Germany and Austria, neither attempted nor wished to draw any neutral or Asiatic nation into the sanguinary maelstrom of war. And even now it was held to be undignified to swerve from that doctrine. Help therefore, it was contended, was not indispensable to victory, it was merely desirable from the humanitarian standpoint of putting an early end to the campaign and sparing the lives of millions.

French statesmen of the calibre of MM. Pichon and Clémenceau pushed into the foreground of international politics this question of Japan’s military intervention in Europe. An organized Press campaign was carried on in several of the most prominent daily papers and reviews of Paris.[81]Striking argumentswere put forward in support of the thesis that Japan’s co-operation in Europe is desirable, and the inference which many readers were encouraged to draw was that if the aim had not yet been attained, failure should be ascribed to the statesmanship of the Allies, which was deficient in sagacity, or to their diplomacy, which was wanting in resourcefulness. M. Pichon, in a masterly article in theRevue, wrote: “I am one of those who hold that (Japan) could bring to us here on the European continent an incomparable force, and I remain convinced that the Japanese Government would like nothing better than to respond to the appeal of the Triple Entente Powers if these requested its collaboration for future combats.”[82]

The idea was that Japanese troops should come to southern Europe, combine with the Serbs and create a new front there. This diversion, it was contended, would transform the slow and costly siege war and give the Allies access to Germany. And these decisive results could be achieved by an expedition of less than half a million Japanese warriors.

When it was asked what motives could be held out to Nippon potent enough to determine her to embark on such an enterprise, the reply was that she had a positive interest to undertake the task. For by contributing to the defeat of Germany in Europe she would free herself from Teutonic machinations in the Far East. The Allies would, of course, have to promise her territorial compensation commensurate with her sacrifices. And after the conclusion of peace Japan would extract from Germany not only a sum big enough to cover all the expenses of the expedition, but also aheavy war indemnity. Over and above this, France and Britain would enable her to float on easy terms a loan of some three hundred millions sterling, as a moderate return for the three or four months curtailment of the war which costs the Allies nearly a hundred and twenty millions a month. Lastly, Japan’s horn would be vastly exalted and her prestige increased by her participation in the most tremendous conflict recorded in history.

Considered on its merits the enterprise impressed one more by its arduousness than by the tangible advantages it offered to either of the interested parties. The technical difficulties were many and well-nigh insurmountable: the lack of transports, the distance at which the Mikado’s troops in Europe would be from their base of supplies, and the length of time that must elapse before they could replenish their stores of ammunition, whether these were drawn from Tokyo or manufactured in Europe. And half a million fighting men, however well trained, would represent but a drop in the ocean when flung against the millions to whom they would be opposed.

Still more decisive was the question of motive. Why should the Japanese sacrifice their brave soldiers? For the sake of territory which they do not yet covet, or of prestige which they enjoy in a superlative degree already? Although chivalrous and highly impressible to everything that can appeal to a high-minded people, they are also practical and far-sighted and are not to be lured by a will-o’-the-wisp. They had already assisted the Allies in the Far East and performed their part admirably.

The Japanese army is made up of patriotswhose lives belong to their country. To their spirit of self-sacrifice there are no bounds. And that this splendid organism should be implicitly set down as a band of mercenaries capable of being bought and sold is more than its leaders can brook. The idea that mere money or money’s worth could purchase Japanese blood is resented by our Far Eastern Ally. Between Europe and Asia Japan is the connecting link. Her people are endowed with some of the highest qualities of the European and the Asiatic. Their civilization is ancient and refined, and they understand and appreciate that of Europe. The chivalry of the Samurai is recognized universally. Their respect for their plighted word is scrupulous. And their tact and moderation have been demonstrated time and again during their relations first with Russia and then with the United States. Japan’s immediate task lies in the Far East, and to that region she is minded to confine her activity, as was shown by the pressure which she soon afterwards put upon China. None the less, it is symptomatic of feelings which are still inarticulate and of currents which flow beneath the surface, that more than once of late the Russian Press has called for a defensive and offensive alliance between the Tsardom and Japan.[83]That it will come and exert a noteworthy influence on the politics of the world, is the firm conviction of the present writer, who has had the good fortune to contribute more than once to bring the two Powers closer together.[84]

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