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led by Sir Edward Grey, probably by elass instinet, into
the stupendous moral blunder of allowing themselves
to he amade necomplices in an open and flagrant crime
against civilization,
There was and is plenty of Britigh bulldog jingoism
in the rank and file of the labor party and among those
of its leaders who were trade unionists, and nothing
more. The dynamie section to which the party owed its
formation 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 gavifiv. |
They were, it is true, far more détermined to uvm‘—}
throw the Hohenzollernist junkerdom than the jingo»s,
but they wished to destroy junkerdom, both at home
and abroad, hy a combination of labor at homé and
abroad, whereas the capitalistic jingoes aimed simply nt!
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 he fought out, and who
hoped that when junkers fell out labor would ecome to
its own,
LABOR UNANIMOUS ON ONE POINT.
There was one point, however, on which labor was
unanimous and irreconcilable, The Liberal Imperial
ists had been led by their military advisers, b French
yressure and in the case of Sir Edward Grey, prnhahly(
g class instinet, inte the stupendous moral blunder of
&éowing themselves to be made accomplices in an open
and flagrant erime against civilization committed by the
French Republie.
This was nothing less than an alliance with the
abominable despotism of the Russian Czardom.
On the sarface the military advantages of this al
liance seemed unquestionable. Russia eommanded the.
eastern frontior of the German and Austrian Empires’
and could thus complete the famous encirelement (ein
kreising), whica was the masterstroke of the Allied
strategy. No better illustration could be found of the
shallowness of professional military realism. The
Czardom, long ohsolete and rotten with corruption,
eruelty, ignorance and the ineoherence, eontradietion
and weakness which are necessary conditions of autoc
racy conducted as it must be by thousands of deputy
autoerats in no sort of organie relation to one another,
was tottering on the brink of revolution, As the labor
part¥ well knew,
t was, therefore, perilously untrustworthy as a
military ally, Besides it was clearly the business of
western Kurope to support Germany in the interest of
civilization 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 morally, unless it mulg prove there
was no safe alternative, and that solf—preaorvatioxg drove
;)tlto this desperate step. But no such proof was possi
e, , 1
NEEDED AN ADDITIONAL ALLY. i
It is true that France and England needed an addi
tional ally. They were faced by a three-fold alliance—
of Germany, Austria and Italy, the triplice—and the
Kaiser was cultivating a ridiculous but dangerous en
tente with Islam, Whi(fil meant Turkey. *
A triple alliancé®was, therefore, necessary to Fng
land and France, but there, was an alternative to an
alliance with Russia, and a very obvious one. To a demo
crat, if not a eountry house diplomatist, that alterna
tive was an alliance with the United States of America.
Events have proved that this was the right alternative,
not only morally, byt militarily.
Wfi'y was it not chosen? Well, there were diplo
matic as well as strategic reasons against it. The United
States were =till in the Washingtonian phase of non-in
tervention and the imperialism of the late Colonel
Roosevelt could not see very far. Though it could see
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 European balance of
g;:vm'. The United States had no more interest in these
itish traditions than the Central Empires themselves,
To bring them into the alliance it would have been nee
essary to appeal to their interest in the peace of the
world and in the substitution of Federal Republicanism
for emxir(' as the prevalent form of government in Eu
r;)pe. n alliance with Russia was quite out of the ques
tion.
There was nothing for it but either remodel the
anti-German combination so as to include America or
leave it as it was and aceept the Freneh alliance with
Russia as part of it,
TOOK TO THE RUSSIAN ALLIANCE. .
Such a remodeling was beyond Sir Edward Grey's
capacity and highly uncongenial to his elass traditions
and sympathies. As a typical British Junker, he took
to the Russian alliance as a duck takes to water, and
Russia, with the French Republic in one pocket and
the British Kmpire in the other, abandoned the little
self-restraint which the seruples of the domoeratie west
had hitherto eompelled her to impose on herself and let
herself go in Persia and elsewhere with the certainty
that everything te her discredit would now be kept out
of the British and French papers. .
From this time forth The Loudon Times no longer
hailed the assassination of Grand Dukes and Governors
of Finland with a very thinly paraphrased ‘Served him
right,”” and Russia’s reputation rose as her conduet
grew worse,
Yet the attempt at concealment was only half sue-
HEARST'S SUNDAY AMERICAN — A Newspaper for People Who Think — SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 1919,
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW |
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cessful. Nothing eould smother the thundering voice
of Tolstoy nor silence the thousand minor voices that
clamored for judgment on the vilest surviving tyranny
in Kurope. 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
Liheral Imperialists had virtually joined hands with the
Czar in a secret compaet against a much more civilized
neighboring State.
The Russian connection thus forced him to a se
crecy which did not stop short of flat denials made by
himself and Sir Edwar({) Grey in reply to questions in
the House of Commons on more than one oceasion 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 B E MISLEADING.
But none the less they were misleading and were
meant to be misleading. A true reply to thesquestion
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 short
of it had the effect of a lie, and naturally when the truth
eventually came out those who were deceived refused to
make the fine distinetions with which Mr. Asquith and
Sir Edward Grey saved their conseiences.
And so the secrecy of the British alliance went on,
with all its evil eonsequences. ' It was so evident that
Sir Edward Grey was unequal to the situation that in
desperation I, as a private individual, suggested a line
of action when Prince Lichnowsky was appointed Ger
man Ambassador in London,
Urmer 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.
Adcordingly I induced The London Daily Chroniele,
which had not then been hought by the friends of the
Government, to place its eolumns at my disposal for a
proposed solution of the Franco-German diffieulty. 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 would throw
in her sword on the side of France, balancing this threat
by a rociprocal assurance that if Germany were attacked
by Russia or France, or both, she would defend Ger
man¥.
pointed out that this would have the effect of pro
ducing a combination of England, France and Germany
to keep the peace of Europe; that the weaker northern
States, Belgium and I]n{l)and. 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 Rocky
Mountains. ~
The dead silence which followed this proposal in
the press was inevitable, for, as I was not a party poli
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. I might as
well have been Fielding, Goldsmith, Blake, Dickeus,
Hardy, Wells or Bennett for all the attention my politi
cal ideas received from the newspapers.,
But the Mewspapers have very little to do with
diplomacy, and my suggestion was offered to the diplo
matists, unfortunately. It demanded ?nifiative 'and' a,
quality described variously as dietatorial couraie, Ris
marckian brutality or Rooseveltian rough ridership, ae-|
cording 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 ecomplaint with established {mwer to such a/
degree that not even the Denshawi atroeity in Eg'fpt‘
nor the outrageous proceedings of the Russians 1n
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 hehind his back and
smile and invite Eurape to tea parties grandiloquently
deseribed 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 tim For
eign Office there would be a European war in a fort
night, As I was not at the Foreign Office, there was a
Eun%man war in eighteen months. .
he policy of drift proved even on its own showing
no more pacific than the poliey of action.
"‘ASBQUITH HAD N 0 REAL POLICY.”
Mr. Asquith never really had any policy at all. His
years 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
disk;ositinn and a ready talent that coul(? deal plausibly
with a difficulty when i arose but conld neither antici-
Eate nor remember it for a single day, hie took things as
¢ found them, and windd have been eontent to leave
thern as he found them if only all the sleeping dogs had
been allowed to lie by less placid spirits,
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
keep the Kaiser from playing with fire and, being a Scot,
with a trained and exercised intellect, he was not trust
ed by his English colléagues, who preferred not to know
what they were doing lest they should become unable
to deny it without pains in their econsciences.
So my proposal inevitably eame to nothing, but
when I had formulated it T took advantage of Prinece
Lichnowsky’s hospitality and mooted it to him. He put
it aside without a magnent’s consideration as uncalied
for on the ground that Sir Edward Grey was one of the
greatest living statesmen and the truest friend of Ger—l
manv.
FACED IT AS AN IRIISHMAN,
1 eould not, especially in the presence of voh 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 Knglish side, and as an irvishman [ was facing it
with my eyes open and with no British patriotic illu
siong, It was not my business to warn the Prinece that
he was walking straight into an ambush, for if war kad
to come I wanted his master to he beaten.
« I changed the econversation to nentral topies of art
and iiterature and concluded that I eonld not, without
something like personal treachery, follow up the ae
quaintance which the Prinee had so frankly otg’),vn-d me.
Nothing further passed between us on the subject of
European polities, and I saw the Prinee 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, lmaffecteti, generous
and cultured in the best sense.
In faet, 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 Londen
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
kinowledge of the situation was built not upon the faets
and documents and admissions which have sinee become
publie, but upon the British tradition, on current eir
cumstantial evidence and on my estimate of the char:
acter of the parties. :
I eould 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. I even doubt whether he would have heen ul
lowed to invite me to the Embassy had the politieal 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 nothing 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 diplomati¢ Arifters, Europe
might drift into a new situation without a eollision.
The hope was disappointed. England did not mud
dle through this time. The Serbs assassinated the Aus
trian heir apparent. Austria.sent a furicus ultimatum
to Se rbia Epssia rallied to the defense of the Slay and
mobilized against Austria, and Germany, being Aus
tria’s ally and well aware that ['rance was the ally of
Russ'a, dashed at France in the lope of smasking her
before Russia could bring her eumbrous forees 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
presumed to challenge England’s naval supremacy and
io move toward Antwerp.
When I called it ““the last spring of the British
lion,” the lion was so pleased that he eould not helg
cheering my remark, even whilst he ground his teet |
with fury at me for tearing off the sheepskin in which
he was masquerading. , U? to the last Sir Edward Grey
clung to the sheepskin, He could have prevented the
war, even at the eleventh hour, by simply declqrin%rbf
Sazonoff. and Cambon implored him to "declare, t
Britain would fight if Germany attacked France, and
by telling the Kaiser that if Russia attacked him he
might trust to western democraey to-allow him a fair
fight with his barbarous eastern enemy. For even if
France had broken that compact—and it is hard to be- ‘
lieve that publie opinion in France would have made
such a breach safe or possible—the Kaiser would have
had only Franee and Russia to fight instead of virtually
the whole world. : t
But Sir Edward would not be fussed, He I_{)alpitat—
ed. He begged for another little econference. e would
answer for nothing, not even for a defense of Belgium.
He did nothing and said everything except the one tking '
that might have kept Germany’s hands off France. Had
he said it, he would have balked the spring of thé 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 claws 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. J
Peace proposals were called peace offensives.
I am very far from condemning this attitude. T
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 Cambhon 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 Lord 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 How
erful as the British, and England can hardiv be re
proached for fighting and conquering instead of eontriv- .
ing that Germany should exhaust herself in a struggle
with Russia, from which she might we!l have emerged
more formidable than ever,
4 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 conclude that she did not postpone it
simply because at bottom she did not want to pestpone
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. ,
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