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T‘SHAW AEVEALD oEGAET
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%led by Sir Edward Grey, probably by elass instinet, into
! the sftupvmlmu moral blunder of allowing themselves
;’to be made accomplices in an open and flagrant crime
¥ against civilization. :
4 There was and is plenty of British bulldog jingoism
in the rank and file of the labor party artd among those
?of. its leaders who were trade unionists, and nothing
imore. The dynamic section to which the party owed its
gformnti«m and which supplied most of its ideas, were
Socialists and Internationalists who knew that the tra
® ditions of the British Lion have no future and that the
interests of all the European proletarians are identical
and Pm-ifiu.
: I'hey were, it is true, far more determined to over
{ throw the Hohenzollernist junkerdom than the jingo:s,
{ but they wished to destroy junkerdom, both at home
‘,\and abroad, by a combination of labor at home and
i abroad, whereas the capitalistic jingoes aimed simply at l
! the supremacy of British over German junkerdom.
£ Further the labor party itself was divided irto
| idealist pacifists who wished to stop the war and rea'-
ists who knew the war must be fought out, and who
thoped that when junkers fell out labor would come to
L its own.
: LABOR UNANIMOUS ON ONE POINT.
. There was one point, however, on which labor was
;unanimous and irreconcilable. The Liberal Imperial
18ts had been led by their military advisers, by Freneh
, pressure and in the case of Sir Kdward Grey, probably
g class instinet, into the stupendous moral blunder of
‘afiowing themselves to be made accomplices in an open
iand flagrant crime against civilization committed by the
French Republie.
~ This was nothing less than an alliance with the
‘abominable despotism of the Russian Czardom.
. On the surface the military advantages of this al-
Jiance seemed unquestionable. Russia commanded the
“eastern frontier of the German and Austrian Empires
“and could thus complete the famous encirclement (ein
“kreising), which was the masterstroke of the Allied
strategy. No better illustration could be found of the
‘shallowness of professional military realism. The
Czardom, long obsolete and rotten with corruption,
eruelty, ignorance and the incoherence, contradiction
and weakness which are necessary conditions of autoe
racy conducted as it must be by thousands of deputy
autocrats in no sort of organic relation to one another,
‘was tottering on the brink of revolution. As the labor
‘party well knew.
It was, therefore, perilously untrustworthy as a
.military ally. Besides it was clearly the business of
‘western Furope to support Germany in the interest of
‘eivilization against a barbarous anachronism like the
Czardom. No western power could conspire with Rus
sia to overthrow Germany without putting itself hope
lessly in the wrong mumfl_v, unless it could prove there
was no safe alternative, and that self-preservation drove
‘ i;! to this desperate step. But no such proof was possi
e.
o NEEDED AN ADDITIONAL ALLY.
It is true that France and England needed an addi
tional ally. They were faced by a threa-fold alliance—
of Germany, Austria and Italy, the triplice—and the
Kaiser was cultivating a ridiculous but dangerous en
tente with Islam, which meant Turkey. 1
A triple alliance was, therefore, necessary to ling-
Jand and France, but there was an alternative to an
alliance with Russia, and a very obvious one, To a denio
erat, if not a country house diplomatist, that a'terna
tive was an alliance with the United States of America.
Events have proved that this was the right alternative,
not only morally, but militarily.
- Why was it not chosen? Well, there were diplo—l
matic as well as strategie reasons against it. The United
States were still in the Washingtonian phase of non-in
tervention and the imperialism of the late Colonel
Roosevelt could not see very far. Though it could sce
very red, it could see just far enough to understand it
was not America’s business to maintain Britain as the
ruler of the seas and holder of the Kuropean balance of
g:ver. The United States had no more interest in these
itish traditions than the Central Empires themselves.
Mo bring them into the alliance it would have been nee
essary to appeal to their interest in the peace of the
i ,horldyand in the substitution of Federal Republicanism
~for emxirfl as the prevalent form of government in Fu
rope. An alliance with Russia was quite out of the ques
! tion. |
f There was nothing for it but either remodel the
j anti-German combination so as to include Ameriea or
! leave it as it was and accept the French alliance with
Russia as part of it. L
ey TOOK TO THE RUSSIAN ALLIANOE.
L« Such a remodeling was beyond Sir Edward Grey's
capacity and highly uncongenial to his class traditions
and sympathies. As a typical British Junker, he took
g"to the Russian alliance as a duck takes to water, and
. Russia, with the French Republic in one pocket and
_the British Empire in the other, abandoned the little
- self-restraint which the seruples of the domoeratic west
- had hitherto compelled her to impose on herself and let
herself go in Persia and elsewhere with the certainty
that everything to her discredit would now be kept out
of the British and French papers,
. From this time forth Tll.w London Times no longer
hulg: the assassination of Grand Dukes and Governors
fin‘ nland with a very thinly paraphrased ‘Served him
“ right,”” and ' Russia’s reputation rose as her condnet
grew worse, .
. Yet the,attempt at coneealment was only half sue-
_HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN —,AY,NEE@R?’:‘?F" for People Who Think — WsUN’DAY,_JéN_U.}RY 26, 1919,
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
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cessful. Nothing could smother the thundering voice
of Tolstoy nor silence the thousand minor voices that
clamored for judgment on the vilest surviving tyranny
in Europe. Paris swallowed a visit from the Czar and
even made much of him, but when he proposed a visit
to England the agitation against him was so furious
that Mr. Asquith dared not allow him to land, much less
confess to the Labor Party and to the people that the
Liberal Imperialists had virtually joined hands with the
Czar in a secret compact against a much more civilized
neighboring State.
The Russian connection thus forced him to a se
crecy whieh did not stop short of flat denials made by
himself and Sir Edward Grey in reply to questions in
the House of Commons on more than one occasion that
there was any binding engagement between Britain and
France. The two powers actually went to the length of ‘
exchanging letters stating formally that there was no
binding engagement, so that these denials might be
technically true,
MEANT TO BE MISLEADING.
But none the less they were misleading and were
meant to be misleading. A true reply to the question
would have run: “There is no binding engagement be-‘
tween England and France in the legal sense, but if
Germany attacks France, whether through Belgium or
not, and England does not send the British fleet and an‘
expeditionary foree to France's aid, England will be dis
honored to the last page of her history.”
That would have been the truth. Anything sho;fi
of it had the effect of a lie, and naturally when the trut
eventually came out those who were deceived refused to
make the fine distinctions with which Mr. Asquith and
Sir Edward Grey saved their consciences.
And so the secrecy of the British alliance went on,
with all its evil consequences. It was so evident that
Sir Edward Grey was unequal to the situation that in
desperation 1, as a private individual, suggested a line
of action when Prince Lichnowsky was appointed Ger
man Ambassador in London,
Under the impression that well known authors and
sociologists enjoy the same consideration in England as
in Germany, he invited me to visit him at the Embassy,
and even went so far as to say that a place should always
be ready for me at his table.
URGED OFFICIAL DECLARATION.
Accordingly I induced The London Daily Chroniele,
which had not then been bought by the friends of the
Government, to place its columns at my disposal for a
proposed solution of the Franco-German difficulty. 1
urged that for the sake of avoiding war England should.
as the holder of the balance of power, officially declare
that if Germany attacked France, England wonld thmw‘
in her sword on the side of France, balancing this threat
by a reciprocal assurance that if Germany were attavkedl
by Russia or Franee, or both, she would defend Ger
many. 1
1 pointed out that this would have the effect of pro
ducing a combination of England, France and Germany
to keep the peace of Kurope; that the weaker northern
States,” Belgium and Holland, Norway, Sweden and
Denmark, would immediately join in; that the United
States would have every reason to do the same, and that
the final result would be a combination of western de
mocracy against war from the Carpathians to the Rock v
Mountains. e :
1 The dead silence which followed this proposal in
the press was inevitable, for, as 1 was not a party {wli
tician nor a famous ericketer, jockey nor glove fighter,
neither the political columns nor the stunt columns of
the British press was concerned with me. 1 might as
well have been Fielding, Goldsmith, Blake, Diekens,
Hardy, Wells or Bennett for all the attention my politi
cal ideas received from the newspapers, ;
But the newspapers have very little to do with
diplomacy, and my suggestion was offered to the diplo-
‘matists, unfortunately. It demanded initiative and a
}quality described variously as dictatorial cpuraie, Rix
marckian brutality or Rooseveltian rough ridership, ac
l(-urding to taste. In these qualities Sir Edward Grey
was deficient. He was an agreeable drifter, always
trusting to amiable conferences to smooth over difficul
ties, and complaint with established {)ower to such a
degree that not even the Denshawi atrocity in EgyEt
nor the outrageous proceedings of the Russians in
Persia had moved him to make himself disagreeable to
the Anglo-Egyptian officials or the Russian Court, even
though the cost of his compliance was the infamy of his
country.
To invite him to do anything with the sword of
England except hide it nervously behind his back and
smile and invite Europe to tea parties grandiloquently
described as conferences was to harness a mouse to a
steam roller.
The only comment made by him on my proposal, a
very characteristic one, was that if I were in tge For
eign Office there would be a European war in a fort
night. As I was not at the Foreign Office, there was a
Eurolpean war in eighteen months,
‘he policy of drift proved even on its own showing
no more pacific than the policy of action. |
‘‘ASQUITH HAD NO REAL POLICY.” :
Mr. Asquith never really had any policy at all. His
vears of office were very prosperous and comfortable
vears for the governing class, and as he shared that
comfort and prosperity and was blessed with an easy
disposition and a ready talent that could deal plausibly
with a difficulty when it arose but could neither antici
pate nor remember it for a single day, he took things as
he found them, and would have been content to leave
them as he found them if only all the sleeping dogs had
been allowed to‘lie by less placid spirits, J
Lord Haldane’s case was quite different, but he was
neither Prime Minister nor Secretary for Foreign Af-{
fairs. He was busy organizing the army and trying to
keeg the Kaiser from playing with fire and, being a Scot,}
with a trained and exercise«f intellect, he was not trust
ed by hii English colleagues, who preferred not to know
what thßy were doing lest they should become unable
to deny ig without pains in their consciences. ‘
So my proposal inevitably came to nothing, but
when I had formulated it I took advantage of Prince
Lichnowsky’s hospitality and mooted it to him. He put
it aside without a moment’s consideration as unealied
for on the ground that Sir Edward Grey was one of the
greatest living statesmen and the truest friend of Ger—l
many.
FACED IT AS AN IRIISHMAN.
I could not, especially in the presence of von Kuhl
mann, lift up my hands and exclaim with Huss. **Sancta
simplicitas.”” Besides, it was Lichnowsky, not I, who
was going to the stake if the war came. My side was
the English side, and as an ivishman I was facing it
with my eyes open and with no British patriotie illu
sions. It was not my business to warn the Prince that
he was walking straight into an ambush, for if war had
to come 1 wanted his master to be beaten.
I changed the conversation to nentral topies of art
and niterature and concluded that I conld not, without
something like personal treachery, follow np the ae
(uaintance which the Prince had so frankly ogered me.
Nothing further passed between us on the subjeet of
Kuropean polities, and I saw the Prince only once again,
at the house of Lord Howard de Walden. T liked him,
and nobody could help liking his wife. They were not
only charming people, but clever, unaffected, generous
and cultured in the best sense.
In fact, it. was Lichnowsky’s generosity and intel
ligence that made him a dupe. If he had been a little
more of a fool and a little less of a gentleman he might
not have made the mistake of giving Sir Edward Grey
credit for his own best qualities. His so-called revela
tions show that he took exceptional powers of observa
tion and a very considerable literary talent into London
society.
HIS EVIDENCE CIRCUMSTANTIAL.
I hope he has forgiven me for not being more frank
with him, but besides the purely militaristic considera=
tions already stated I can plead that at this time my
knowledge of the situation was built not upon the facts
and documents and admissions which have sinee become
public, but upon the British tradition, on current e'r
cumstantial evidence and on my estimate of the char
acter of the parties. j
I could not then have convinced any foreigner,
much less a professional diplomatist like Pince Lich
nowsky, that a person known to him only as a play
wright and a man of letters could instruet him in foreign
affairs. T even doubt whether he would have been al
lowed to invite me to the Embassy had the political side
of my career been known to him as the literary side was.
Socialists are not privileged in imperial circles in Ger-‘
mauy., ‘
After this failure there was notking to be done but
drift along in the hope that, as there was neither a Napo
leon nor a Bismarck in the field and Sir Edward Grey
was only one of a dozen diplomatic drifters, Eorope
might drift into a new situation without a eollision. |
j The hope was disappointed. England did not mud
dle through this time, ’}'he Serbs assassinated the Aus
trian heir apparent. Austria sent a furicus ultimatum
to Serhia gussia rallied to the defense of the Slav and
mobilized against Austria, and Germany, being Aus
tria’s ally and well aware that Urance was the ally of
Russ’a, dashed at France in the Lope of smasking her
before Russia could bring her eumbrous forces to bear
effectively. ‘
BRITISH BATTERY UNMASKED. |
Then the British battery was unmasked at last and
the ambush let loose on the doomed empires who had
rrosumed to echallenge England’s naval supremacy and
0 move toward Antwerp. .
When 1 called it ‘“the last spring of the British
lion,” the lion was so pleased that he could not help
cheering my remark, even whilst he ground his teeth
with fury at me for tearing off the sheepskin in which
he was masquerading. Ulfito the last Sir KEdward Grey
clung to the sheepskin, He could have prevented the
war, even at the eleventh hour, bfi' simply declaring, as
Sazonoff and Cambon implored him to declare, that
Britain would fight if Germany attacked France, and
by telling the I&iser that if Russia attacked him he
might trust to western democracy to allow him a fair
fight with his barbarous eastern enemy. For even if
France had broken that compact—and it is hard te be
lieve that public opinion in France would have made
such a breach safe or possible—the Kaiser would have
had only France and Russia to fight instead of virtually
the whole world.
But Sir Edward would not be fussed. He palpitat
ed. He begged for another little conference. He would
answer for nothing, not even for a defense of Belgium.
He did nothing and said everything exeept the one thing
that might have kept Germany’s hands off France. Had
he said it, he woulcf have balked the spring of the Brit
ish lion, and the British lion did not intend to be balked
ONLY ONE VALID PEACE WORD.
From that moment until the lion had his prey hope
lessly in his elaws there was only ‘one really valid word
in England about peace, and that was that those who
preached it were the enemies of their country.-
Peace proposals were called peace offensives,
lam very far from condemning this attitude I
could make a very strong case for it as having the root
of the actual situation in it, although M. Clemenceau has
just committed himself to the opinion of Cambon and
Sazonoff, not to mention my own, that the war would
have been staved off if Germany had been warned of
the certainty of British intervention.
I can quite conceive myself as taking Tord Grey’s
course.,
In his place, if the war had to come it was important
that it should come before the German fleet was as pow
erful as the British, and England can hardiv be re
proached for fighting and conquering instead of contriv
ing that Germany should exhaust herself in a struggle
with Russia, from which she might we!l have emerged
more formidable than ever.
l But England can not claim both the laurel and the
olive.
If she did everything to postpone the war except
the thing that might conceivably have postponed it, his
tory will certainly eonclude that she did not postpone it
simqu because at bottom she did not want to postpone
it. It is significant that nobody—British imperialist or
other, put any heart into preventing it.
This is the second of a series of six articles
written by George Bernard Shaw especially for
The Sunday Ameriacn. The third article will
appear in an early issue,
\531 t 7, *‘
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