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Mr. Chesterton’s
Analysis of
the Balkan
Complications
And Why England, at Least,
Can Hope for No Mercy
from, or Compromise with, &
the Kaiser. ;
By G. K. Chesterton,
, the Famous English Essayist.
DANGER has recently developed for
A which some of us have heen watching
for some time. I take here the oppor
tunity of adverting to it and the circumstances
which make it a grave one. The ruling minds
of Prussia know by this time, quite as well as
the ruling minds on the Great Alliance, that
Prussia cannot now he saved by Bulgaria, If
she could, she might very well think such a
_rescue worse than ruin. %
It would certainly be an amusing ending to
the world-epic of the great Teuton if he were
saved in a damaged condition by a small Slav, *
- The whole business began with the anger of
Berlin when three of the Balkan princes were
strong enough to defeat the Turkish Empire. It
would be funny, -and far trom{looth!ng to the
anger of Berlin, if the whole business ended by
one of the 3alkan princes being strong enough
to rescue the German Empire,
But such a conclusion is far too entertaining
to be true. In seeking this diversion in the
Balkans, the German Government is not so silly
as to suppose that France, Russia and Britain,
all unconquered and increasing in power, can
be destroyed by King Ferdinadd and his rather
reluctant subjects, The German Government
does not hope that the disturbance will procure
a permanent victory. But the German Govern
ment does hope that it will procure a temporary
peace. And it is exactly at this moment that
some influentizl people in this country have,
largely unconsciously, begun to work in the
same direction.
The situation can be summed up with as
much certainty as simplicity:
A year ago Prussia wanted war because she
wanted donfinatlon. To-day Prussia wants
peace because she wants domimation.
1f the reader will merely put himself for an
instant in the position of a Prussian to-day, he
will see that peace, and nothing but peace, is
now his last hope of ultimate triumph; the one
road left open to his original imperial goal.
Peace, if he can get it at once, is for the
Prussian a purely military manoeuvre, like re
treat. The evacuation of Belzium, even,
might be as much a part of his plan as was
the invasion of Belgium,
Peace, at this moment, simply means that
he will fall back on his own fortifications on
the Rhine, exactly as he fell back on his own
fortifications on the Aisne. We should await
his counter-attack.
Some considerable tinve ago I noted on this
page that Mr. Charles Buxton had entered a
well-meaning but ill-considered plea, urging us
to be content with a partial or rather a negative
sunccess. He has revived it in a letter to the
Daily Chronicle. He does not, indeed, expressly
advise the arrangement which he thinks that
Germany would accept, but he speaks of it
hopefully, as if it were a kind of good news;
and he contrasts it with the tone of the pessi
mist press, for which he expresses a very just
contempt.
But I confess that if 1 thought our utmost
efforts could achieve nothing but the peace
there sketched out I should be fairly pessi
mistic myself. For the peace there sketched
out is simply the very nearest to a Prussian
triumph that even Prussia can for thé moment
expect. At the same time, a number of re
spectable names, such as those of Dr. Horton
and Mr. J, A. Hobson, are found in support of
some such patchwork arrangement.
The question of an inconclusive peace, which
shall leave an unrepentant Prussia at the head
of an undefeated German race, is now for the
first time seriously brought before us. I would
ask the reader to regard it in the light of the
following considerations,
England Must End
the Prussian Lomination.
We must first dismiss from our minds alto
gether a very current notion of making a treaty
with the men of Germany. We might as well
talk about making a treaty with the horses of
Germany. We are dealing with the ambitious
and audacious Prussian Monarchy, which has
pursued one policy for two centuries.
Why the large, blond, bulky, handsome cart
horse of Germany allows itself to be ridden by
this beggar on horseback—or rather, burglar
on horseback-—we do not know. But we do
know that its subordination is subordination
and nothing else; that it Is no case of one
nation being deputed to represent’ a race. We
do know, for a fact, that Germany no more
dreamns of directing Prussia than a horse rides
on a man.
It is not merely that the King of Prussia does
not definitely clalm to represent the Cermans.
The King of Prussia definitely refused to rep.
resent the Germans. And he refused upon the
positive ground that he did not want to repre
sent them because he did want to rule them.
Some time before 1870 the Germans as such,
still free and sitting in council, actually offered
the imperial erown to a Hohenzollern: and the
Hohenzollern refused it, wholly and solely be
cause it had been freely offered. The Hohen
gollernis would only consent to rule Saxony and
Bavaria as directly and despotically as they
bhave ruled Poland and Alsace. And they do.
Toe next ract is that the nearest approach
We can make to guessing at the ground of the
genera! German obedience is this: The Ger
mans belleve that the Prussians, who have con.
quered them, can conquer anybody. They have
0o fear of external danger for the same reason
that they have no hope of internal revolt. We
cannot rescue the German from the Prussian
until we can rescue him from the fear of the
Prussian.
In other words, we are at war with a leg:
Or, to put li even more correctly, a spel
Now, it Is characteristic of all such spelis the
ey cling on aw NE ax there I 8 any olt o
doubt; and balf defeats of them are no defeuts
What Are We Afraid Of?
‘What Ought We Be Afraid Of?
The Rev. Dr. Campbell, the Best Known Clergyman in England,
Declares That in Death “Nothing Has Been Injured Save Our
Perishable Outer Shell; no Bestial Hands Have Fver Yet Been
Laid Upon the Soul or Ever Will Be.”
By Rev. Reginald J. Campbell,
Former Pastor of the City Temple, London.
FRIEND, * looking through last week'’s
A article before it was printed, re
marked: “It is a pity you had not
space to discuss what we really have to fear
in life and why.” 1 quite agree that this is a
subject which arises inevitably out of th? one
already considered, namely, the relation of
religion to the world war, -
What are we afraid of? \
What ought we be afraid of?
We are afraid of suffering, losing, and, in
varying degrees, of harm coming to persons
and interests we love. This is all that is the
matter in England to-day, barring our own
ignorance and wrong-headedness.
We dre afraid of pain in body or mind, of
bereavement in soul or substance, of evil over
taking our country's cause or the few indivi
duals we hold most near and dear. And such
feeling is very natural, though, as I shall try
to show, more or less illusory. We ought to
get above it; we ought to be afraid of being
afraid; we ought to seek to rise to the moral
height whereon the only thing to be feared
is to fail of being and doing our best.
For, if we only knew it, this is all that is
worth our solicitude; it includes every other
good that could be thought or named. This is,
what life is for, to get the best out of us; it
has no other meaning. And this best carries
with it ultimately all the benefits we have ever
needed or desired, and probably much more
than we have even glimpsed as yet.
Pain is joy in the making. Nothing can be
lost that ever was ours; no evil can touch,
much less injure, the truly essential things
in man or nation. This is a great deal to say,
but it can be justified from the experience of
those who have lived their lives in terms of
it in the-past and are endeavoring to do so in
the present. If ever we were on sure ground
in the region of the u9prouble—and what
on earth is provable in the strict sense, good
or bad?—it is here.
Need to Forget
Physical Pain and Suffering.
The primary cause of suffering is the wul
nerability of the flesh. If bodies could not
be hurt we should not suffer, in this way at
any rate; and perhaps not in any other either.
And yet it.is this very susceptibility, this
sensitiveness to physical pain, that has
brought the race to where it is. It is the root
of everything fine and gracious, noble and ad
mirable, in our complex and imperfect nature.
It is the heart of all the social virtues, im
agination, feeling, poetry, art, and govern
ment,
Without it humanity as we know it to-day,
in all that distinguishes it from the lower
creation, could not have come to us,
Physically we are less protected by nature
than any other organisms. We are more ex
posed at all points to the assaults of danger
and disease. We are more liable to perish
of hunger and cold, We have had to bestir
ourselves in order to live at all. We cannot
comfortably take existence for granted. And
it is to this, more than anything else, that we
owe the develdpment of faculty which has
ruised us to where we are in the scale of
being—the incessant stimulus of physical pain,
and the necessity of scheming to avoid it, have
given us our elaborate nervous organization
and the Inteligence to make use of it,
And it has brought out much more, though
not yet so successfully. It has brought out our
moral consclousness and all the spiritual long
ings that accompany it, and which earth can
never fully satisfy. On the other hand, it
makes us feel the pull of the physical and to
tend to overvalue it
Europe is fighting today because we rate
0 highly the importance of physical things.
We individually and collectively want to get
and keep as much as possible of material
wealth In order to secure physical comfort.
That is the meaning of Germany's bid for
world power, mad as it is.
What power could anybody have over any
body else but for the physical? What use
would there be for governments but for the
physical? What would lust of territory and
commercial predominance amount to but for
the phywical?
Suppose that at g stroke all necessity for
feeding and clothing people could be made to
disappear from the earth; suppose no quivering
flesh could be worn by shot and shell or in.
Jured In any way by material means, Kaiserism
and everything it stands for would be swept
at all. If we made peace in the manner now
proposed, even our victory would be considersd
A% a passing cioud, ke Jena, to be followed by
fated vietories like Laelpziz. The Prussian
v:::ld remain & superman-—that s, superstl.
.
With such superstitions, {{ we honestly think
them evil and Intolerable, there is only one
thing that we can do. We must do the im
possible. We must quench the unouenchable
amp, kil the immortal man, sreak the un
speskable word, and conquer the unconquerable
army.
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‘l'he Rev. Reginald J. Campbell, long famous as the pastor of City Tem
ple, London, and now one of the most distinguished
' Clergymen of the Church of England.
from the globe. Nobody would have & word
to say to it or pay the slightést heed to it.
But, as 1 have already shown, something
else might disappear, too, and that would be
the main dynamic of our moral energies. Not
entirely, I admit, for what is gained is gained;
man is man, and would not be man without
idealism; and all our idealism, I contend, has
been born of our pains and struggles. Take
the urgency for these away, while allowing
conditions otherwise to remain much as they
are, and, judging from all the indications of
the past, our tendency would be to let go and
sink down to sordid and uninspiring levels.
Then, welcome each revuff,
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, mor account tne pang; dare, never
grudge the throe!
But—here is the mamn point 1 wish to im
press upon my readers—nothing that touches
the physical only touches the real man or any
thing that s his. If we could get this well
into our minds it would set us free from most
of our fears and dreads, not to speak of hope
less sorrow and blind despalr. Ido not say it
would deliver us utterly from suffering, either
bodily or mental,
That s not to be expected while we are
dwellers In the flesh; but 1 do say that it
would take us right out of the paralyzing
dominfon of terror--and only think what that
would mean. Those were wise words of old.
“Our light affiiction, which is but for a mo
ment, worketh for us more and more exceed.
ingly an eternal weight of glory; while we
look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen: for the things
which are seen are temporai: but the things
which are not seen are eternal”
And finer still was the utterance of One
who knew more about life and death than any
who has ever yet worn human form: “Be not
afrald of them that kill the body, and after that
have no more that they can do.”
I admit the difficulty of realizing this at all
seasons and consistently acting up to it; 1
have often thought that if 1 had lved In
mediaeval times | should probably have con
fessed anything on the rack that my tormen.
tors chose to put into my mouth; and it Is
more than probable that If | saw my own child
Prussia rules with a rod of fron because it is
#iso 4 magic wand; and the only way to breax
the spell so to break the rod. | would not ap
prove such final profanation in the temple of
any fi‘ but a devil; but | think that the
Prussian superman, with his higher morality,
ix & devil, ] thought so when it was the aimost
universal English custom to pralse him.
Events since have not decreased the number
of thoss who agree with me,
The third fact to be Armly ungg‘ also re
fers to the origina! Prussian plan, o Prussian
bolds himself, and Is heid by the German,
RS, WY leey T TR
to-day in the foul hands of German Uhlans, and
1 powerless to save her from degradation, tor
ture and murder, I should be near to madness.
We all know that such things as these have
happened and are happening still. But I re
iterate it:
We ought to know at the same time that
nothing has been injured save the perishable
outer shell of the victims we pity and would
shed our blood to rescue from shame and
Wrong; no bestial hands have ever yet been
laid upon the soul or ever will be.
Death destroys nothing that belongs to us;
he only withdraws it from our sight for a time.
Behind the curtain of the visible and tangible,
all we have ever loved that was worthy of our
love is waiting for us to claim it on a surer
plane of possession. No one can be robbed of
what is his in the spirit; it is his forever.
The stars come nightly to our sky;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away frbm me.
I am not a spiritualist, nor have 1 ever seen
a supernatural appearance in my life; but |
am absolutely convinced, from testimony which
I could not doubt, that communication be
tween the hither and the gonder, between be
ings still in the flesh and the so-called dead,
Is more frequently made than most people
suppose. And such communication is going
on rapidly just now owing to the great num
bers that In the prime of their manhood are
mob. llu to the other side through the shoek of
ttle.
It may not be wise or healthy minded to
dwell miach upon these supernormal occur
rences, but no one could deny them who knows
the evidence. And in any case what other evi
+ dence do we want than the evidence of our
spiritual nature itself?
The great diference in outlook between the
Oriental and ourselves is that the former as
sumes the soul as the foundation of all ex
perience, and is not at all sure of the reality
of the material world, whereas we begin by
assuming the reality of the material world and
£0 on to speculate as to whether there Is &
soul to survive it. SBurely the former assump
tion has as much (o Justify It as the Intter,
What, then, is there to be afraid of in the
turmoll and confusion through which the world
is passing just now? Nothing whatever except
that we may come dowm from what we o
superior to the whole world. What we call his
crimes he calls his “cultureconquests.” We
do oot do as he does because we are not
enough to break promises, or herofe Oiulr::
shoot women. L
Being ignorant of religion, he regards Russis
as barbarie,
Belug ignorant of civilization, he regards
France as decadent,
There is no exception to his ignorance snd
disdain; but there is one hallexception. To
France and Russia he regards himself as helr
by default; there is only one country to which
dividually know to be our proper altitude of
feeling and aim, whether anyone tells us about
it or not, and play the coward or the traitor to
our trust. And are we not in some danger of
doing this?
At the beginning of the war we were fnll of
admiration for the spirit of the British people
at home and abroad, proud of the loyalty and
devotion of our fellow subjects in every quaf®
ter of the world, full of self-congraturation
at the unity of purpose manifest in all ranks
and classes in face of the common enemy. = *
We loudly announced our conviction that the
doom of Prussian militarism was sealed, that
the war it had so criminally provoked would
bring about its speedy destruction and disillu
sion the German people who had dwelt so long
under its shadow. The Berlin bureaucracy, we
cried, had clumsily blundered In every parti
cular from its bullying diplomacy and cynical
disregard of solemn pledges to its doctrine of
‘rightfulness as demonstrated in martyred Bel
glum,
There could only be one end to all this, we
declared, and that would be to dictate the
terms of peace in Berlin. We should have no
half-medsures, no inconclusive peace. We
were fighting the enemy of the human race,
and all the moral forces of mankind were on
our side.
How does the situation look now? If there
be unity of purpose anywhere it is not with
us. Strikes, incompetence, and party factions
have brought the nation to the very verge of
ruin, and if they do not cease forthwith will
precipitate us into it.
Germany Will Fall
“ike Babylon and Nineveh.
There is only one mind and will in Germany,
and that is the mind and will to destroy us,
All its energies are concentrated upon that
one end, and there is not the slightest sign of
slackening or deviation of aim in regard
thereto. What have we to counter it with?
Only one thing, and If that fails all is lost—
{ mean the spirit of our people.
It is strange how the spirit of a people can
rise and fall from age to age. Compare the
poor-spirited Greece of to-day with the Greece
of Thermopylae and Salamis, of Leonidas and
Pericles. We were a small and feeble folk
inm the spacious days of great Elizabeth com
pared with our numbers and resources to-day,
but that tiny State broke the powgr of im
perial Spain, which occupied then the same
position relatively to the rest of the world
that Germany occupies now.
It was done by a great national spirit and
nothing else, a spirit that could create and in
spire fleets and armies and without which
fleets and armies are of little worth, Never
was a more glorious band of men than the
mighty captains whe stood around the throne
¢of England in that supreme hour of our na
tional destiny.
To-day an even greater crisis is upon us, Is
our national spirit equal to it?—our daring,
self-confidence, willingness to dedicate all we
have and are to the salvation of our name and
race?
If so, the future of mankind is safe; if not,
then the morrow is with tyranny, brutality, and
les, and liberty is trampled into dust,
The grief-stricken father who at the Zeppelin
rald Inquest the other day dramatically sum
moned the Kaiser to meet him at the bar of
God to answer for the crime of wholesale mur
der thereby prociaimed what most people really
believe in, his coanaence in the moral order of
the universe. In the lvug run this moral order
is sure to be vindicated to the last detall, but
how it will work out depends largely upon
ourselves. The vast empires of Assyria and
Babylon that oppressed little Judah are to-day
no more than & name. They bave perished
utterly from the earth, whereas the Jew still
persists and plays his purt among the nations
But, oh, the agony and blood it cost the Jew
to survive and find his soul!
One day Germany and her tremendous war
muchine, and her cruel trust in material force
will be no more than a name, an evil lrldl:-
tion of the past,
But where will England be? ;
protest that we mmld'nul lose ln“l?u.:‘ (m:n
because our cause Is the cause of liberty and
Justice | answer that that does not follow,
History has another tale to tell, namely, that
the better cause may for a time have to go
under till its adherents are worthier to sustain
it. Wlill that be our fate in this contest? [do
not think so, but we must set our house In
order and quickly. Every man to his post! All
!c?f.tho dear Motherland, whether we live or
he really condescended to be helr by t,
The reciplent of his clumsy compliment, : am
ashamed to say, was England.
It Is difficult for us who are dulh" with
realities, and struggling with the muddle and
snobbery of our own system, to understand how
this could be so; but It was. It was part of
his whole lumbering Teutonic theory,
::‘.lnd waS the country which really dis
puted the world with him,
England is the country he will hate and hit,
if he is allowed 1o rally and return to the
attack. And he will not rest till she is dead.
M. Briand, the
New Prime
Minister of
France
Remarkable Career and Pe
culiar Personal Qualities of
the ““Lloyd George’’ of France.
By Charles Dawbarn,
Author of “France at Bay.”
RISTIDE BRIAND, the new French Pre
A mier and Minister for Foreign Affairs,
is a discovery of M. Clemenceau’s.
The veteran polemist and the statesman, wha
is now taking office in the critical circum
stances of the Great War, form the most re
markable pair in, political France to-day, if we
except M. Poincare, removed by his high office
as President from the etrife of parties. ;
Briand was Clemenceau's protege. It 'll;
through his influence that he came to power,
Nothing, however, could be in greater con
trast than the character of the two. Clemen
ceau is the strenuous hard-hitter, the remorse
less adversary. Briand, on the other hand, is
all suppleness -and conciliation; he has an
extraordinary gift of disarming opposition,
whilst Clemenceau revels in it, and is as keen
upon throwing hand grenades at the enemy as
any trench-fighter. ) ¥t
Yet there is a certain quality of loneliness
common to both. Neither inspires great
friendships. Both inhabit a lolltaSy hill from
which they look down upon humanity; bus
there is no condescension in their e
ly an active, almost a passionate, interest ip
the problems which vex their fellows. g
M. Briand’s exclusiveness comes from the
fact that he belongs to no party; he broke
with the only party to which he was joined
temperamentally—the Unified Socalists. m
never forgave him in that, being of ;
number, and a most ardent advocate of the
new heaven and the new earth, he yet ao
cepted office in a bourgeois Cabinet. £
It was the one sin for which there was ne
forgiveness. But this salt from grace was 1
companied by extenuating circumstances.
80 happened that the country called him sc
insistently that there could bhe no refnsal.
But for Aristide Briand, there would have
been no separation, probably, hetween Church
and State, bound together by the mm
dating from Napoleon’s time, and the
would have been perpetual irritation, for the
spirit of union had departed, and it was fit
ting, therefore, that each should go his wWay.
Come to office in times of great Industrial un
rest, the present Premier showed power fn
bridling labor in its most truculent mood.
A general strike was threatened, and had
begun with the ratlways. Then the postmen
Joined in, and for a week France was cut off
from the rest of the world. The Premier broke
the movement by ealling up the railwaymen
a 8 reservists. The docility with which they re
sponded showed their heart was not in the
struggle; indeed, they were thankful to es
cape from their own agitators by obeying the
voice of the master, »
Briand's master diplomacy will be wanted
for the final settlement. It is for this reason
- that his presence at the Qual d'Orsay is of
paramount importance. He will prove a superb
negotiator, firm and strongz. Though he is ne
longer to be counted amongst the official So
clalists, he has remained a Soclalist at im
and still dreams of effecting those esse
reforms which shall bring happiness and plenty
to the homes of the poor, and give to labor a
larger share of the profits of industry,
The Socialist Who ’
Ended the Greatest Modern Strike.
But he knows the difficulties of such pro
posals, and has poured much water into the
wine of his bolsterous political youth. For
he was a stump orator with the best He
wrestled daily with pollti€al opponents in &
small case at St. Nazaire, the seaport in which
his parents lived. That is how he learned to
speak, and to speak so well that he came to
Parls as a trade union secretary. In Parlia
ment his maiden speech was violent, snd in
it he reproached the Government for uvz
repressed a strike bloodily. Later, -
House came to know his dulcet tones; he
showed the other side of his character, all per
suasion and light and shade.
No man has had a mere romantic career
than he. His family was so poor that his edn
cation was a matter of difficulty. He went to
the bar and achieved success, but he scandal
ized his fellows by pleading for Gustave Herve,
the famous anti-militarist of those days, but
now one of the most sweetly reasonable of the
Republican journalists (notwithstanding his
fights with the Censor), Yet Briand was
never anti-patriotic; he claimed merely that
as an advocate he had the right to submit any
thesis to the bench without necessarily com
mitting himself to the view as his own opinion.
In Paris itself, bhis first contact with politieal
life did not promise the sober and serious
statesmanship which he has since revealed,
Without losing anything of his passion for
justice and bis detestation of soclal wrongs, he
has known how to adapt himself to the work
of Minister of the Republic. “I am a man of
realizations,” he tells us, meaning that he
prefers the half loaf to no bread, the practical
policy of reform to the dream.
His methods of work are as original as his
career. To the outward eye he does not work.
You never see him surrounded by a mass of
papers covered with notes, He seems never
to take notes, and to rely exclusively upon &
prodigious memory. He thinks out his speech
beforeband, but never writes it, either
tally or iln full, He consults his n&:i
friend« about the substance of it, and then
he delivers It with the freshness and spon
taneity that belongs to an Impromptu oration.
You may differ radieally from his arguments,’
but you will be forced to admit the persussive
character of the oratory. .
The value of a man of this calibre at the
head of affairs at the present moment cannot
be gainsald, for he has strength as well as
sweetness
I predict a brilllant future for this charmer
of men who, sprung from the most
surroundings to constructive states
has yet known how to conjure with di s
how to be firm ax well as subtle, how to
In the name of France even when his
bristles with controversial points lw
shall 1 forget the dramatic omohasle ot -
gesture in the Chamber when called to
by the Soclalists for having settied ,
ralivay strike by military means “M
tio blood on these hands.” Be sald, o
Wt his paims towards the benches from :}4
baight of the Parllamentary tribune. 3