Newspaper Page Text
v‘/ ”
A Continued From Page 1.
¥ led by Sir Edward Grey, probably by class instinet, into
the gtupendous moral blunder of allowing themselves
to be made accomplices in an open and flagrant erime
against civilization.
‘ There was and is plenty of British 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 dynamic 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 pacific.
: g‘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
. abroad, whereas the capitalistic jingoes aimed simply at
g 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’-
zists who knew the war must be fought out, and who
* hoped that when junkers fell out labor would come to
. its own.
¢ LABOR UNANIMOUS ON ONE POINT.
¢ There was one point, however, on which labor was
" unanimous and irreconcilable. The Liberal Imperial-
L ists had been led by their military advisers, by }?rench
| pressure and in the case of Sir Kdward Grey, probably
f£ r elass instinet, into the stupendous moral blunder of
;Jlowing themselves to be made accomplices in an open
. ! and flagrant crime against civilization committed by the
' French Republic.
i This was nothing less than an alliance with the
abominable despotism of the Russian Czardom,
. . On the surface the military advantages of this al
~liance 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
i shallowness of professional ‘military realism. The
t 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
.altocrats in no sort of organic relation to one anoz’her,
- was tottering on the brink of revolution. As the labor
;,pn't¥ well knew.
B t was, therefore, perilously untrustworthy as a
Umilitary ally. Besides it was clearly the business of
+ western Europe to support Germany in the interest of
~eivilization against a barbarous anachronism like the
. ‘Ozardom. No western power could conspire with Rus
sia to overthrow Gigrmany without putting itself hope
lessly in the wrong morally, unless it coulg prove there
- 'was no safe alternative, and that self-preservation drove
. gat‘o this desperate step. But no su«S) proof was possi
-
e NEEDED AN ADDITIONAL ALLY.
i 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 ltaly, the triplice—and the
Kaiser was cultivating a ridiculous but dangerous en
~ ftente with Islam, which meant Turkey.
\ A triple alliance was, therefore, necessary to ling
land and France, but there was an alternative to an
~ " alliance with Russia, and a very obvious one. To a demo
~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,
i not o‘%lfiv morally, but militarily. ,
L y was it not chosen? Well, there were diplo
%fi matic as well as strategic reasons against it. The United
- Btates 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 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
3 gvlver. The United States had no more interest in these
- British traditions than the Central Empires themselves.
_+ To bring them into the alliance it would have been nec
-2 mu:iy to appeal to t!)oir.intvn-st in the peace of the
I worl a.t_xd in the substitution of Federal Republicanism
~ for emxm as the prevalent form of government in Eu
-4 .:iope n alliance with Russia was quite out of the ques
| tion.
There was nothing for it but either remodel the
‘4 anti-German combination so as to include America or
¢ Jeave it as it was and accept the French alliance with
. Russia as part of it.
> TOOK TO THE RUSSIAN ALLIANCE.
'} ° Such a remodeling was beyond Sir Edward Grey's
1§ eapacity and highly uncongenial to his class traditions
sd sympathies. As a typieal British Junker, he took
¥to the Russian alliance as a duck takes to water, and
i m with the French Republie in one pocket and
% the British Eipire in the other, abandoned the little
¥ self-restraint which the scruples of the domoeratie west
% had hitherto compelled her to impose on herself and let
% herself go in Persia and elsewhere with the certainty
,‘thltheverything to her diseredit would now be kept out
%of the British and French q&alws.
2 . From this time forth The London Times no longer
. ’%%lthe assassination of Grand Dukes and Governors
Soof Finland with a very thinly paraphrased ‘Served him
~ right,”” and Russia’s reputation rose ag her conduet
~ grew worse.r
t at coneealment was only half sue-
Y gs& N A o R s
HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN — A Newspaper for People Who Think — SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 1019,
~ GEORGE BERNARD SHAW |
e "
s
e,
g *’,{’& ¢
y 5 i, I g
: 7 /»',r p y s e‘*
‘ ey o ?WA ;
/ 7 Vl{L‘ \‘. "é"
U S ¥ 278 LR
e A
N e
& 00, b %/
l«\ by NG
_ i &,. ' ’ - oy
A P PR i Py
; 3 h e\ T
s v " -l P ) y
b oW K &
> G . ‘; V
5e 7 ¥
g <A . 4
Vs RN
Yigsiok / , \ o ¥ M
% ',".*!‘ 4. ; ¥ ' ’ vl
ey X s #
ARI I 1
Yi b %
IR & % Ny i
e iy RN
2 B L gSV W % s s
~ S " ",xrv i . M’.,. ‘i*} '%
i sk G i ‘ji" ‘i;jv
; g . IR "18 | b 0 T
,o W e
! 2T PR £, %)
G ROV
) R Y K A% ‘
: Al %? i 4 oSR
p : v o e hc: N Y 6-‘»v && e
o . \ X ‘
S ) QIR v
3 ; 3 L%; by ‘-')f,".i
':) P e
‘ o 4
: 5
AV
A ‘ h’
o a 4
0 -
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 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
Liberal Imperialists had virtually joined hands with the
Czar in a secret compact against a much more civilized
neighboring State.
The Russian connection thus foreced him to a se
crecy which did not stop short of flat denials made by
himself and Sir Edwartf 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 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 force 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 distinctions with which Mr. Asquith and
Sir Edward Grey saved their consciences.
And so the seerecy of the British alliance went on.
with all its evil consequences. It was so evident that
Sir Edward Girey 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.
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 would throw
in her sword on the side of France, balancing this threat
by a reciprocal assurance that if Germany were attacked
by Russia or France, or both, she would defend Ger
many.
1 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 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 Rocky
Mountains. &
The dead silence which followed this proposal in
the press was inevitable, for, as T was not a party poli
tician nor a famous ecricketer, jockey nor glove fighter,
neither the political columns nor the stunt columns of
the British press was concerned with me. 1 might as
iwell have been Fielding, Goldsmith, Blake, Dickens,
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, am my suggestion was offered to the diplo-
‘matists, unfortunately. It demanded initiative and a
quality described variously as dictatorial coura;ie. Rix
marckian brutality or Rooseveltian rough ridership, ac
lcording to faste. In these qualities Sir Edward Grey
‘was deficient. He was an agreeable drifter, always
‘trusting to amiable conferences to smooth over difficnl
-Iles, and complaint with established sower to such a
degree that not even the Denshawi atrocity in Eg;q)t
nor the outrageous proceedings of the Russians in
Persia had moved him to make himsdf 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 %0 tea parties grandiloquently
deseribed as conferences was to harness a mouse to a
steam roller, e \
The only comment made by him on my proposal, a
very characteristic one, was that if I were in the For
eign Office there would be a European war in a fort
night. As I was not at the Foreign Office, there was a
EurotFean war in eighteen months.
he poh't;{y 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 poliey at all. His
vears of office were very prosperous and comfortable
years 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 meither antici-
Eate nor remember it for a single day, he took things as
¢ found them, and would have be@ content to leave
them as he found them if only all the slecping dogs had
been allowed to lie by less placid spirits. ‘
Lord Haldane’s case was quite different, hit he was
neither Prime: Minister nor Secretary for Foreign Af
f(airs. He was busy organizing the army and trying to
ee{: the Kaiser from playing with fire and, being a Seot,
with a trained and exercise«f intellect, he was not trust
ed by his English colleagues, who preferred not to know
what they were doing lest they should become unable
to deny it without pains in their consciences. |
So my+ proposal inevitably eame to nothing, hut
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 unealicd
for on the ground that Sir Edward Grey was one of the
greatest living statesmen and the truest friend of Ger
many. ;
FACED IT AS AN IRIISHMAN. l
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 [, who
was going to the stake if the war eame. My side was
the English side, and as an irishman I was facing it
with m¥ eyes open and with no British patriotie illu
sions. It was not my business to warn the Prinee that
he was walking straight into an ambush, for if war had
to come 1 wanted his master to he beaten.
I changed the eonversation to nentral topies of art
and literature and concluded that I conld not, without
something like personal treachery, follow wp the ae
(naintance which the Prince had so frankly offered me!
Nothing further passed between us on the subject of
European politics, and I saw the Prince only onee again,
at the house of Lord Howard de Walden. I 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. 1
HIS EVIDENCE CIRCUMSTANTIAL. \
I hope he has forgiven me for not betng 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 since become
publie, but upon the British tradition, on current eir
cumstantial evidence and on my estimate of the c¢har
acter of the parties. ' ;
1 could not then have convineced 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 been ul
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 eircles in Ger
mauy. :
)After this failure there was nothing to be done but
dvift aiong 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 diplomatie Arifters, Earope
might drift into a new situation without a eollision.
The hope was disappointed. England did not mud
dle through this time. tho Serbs assussinated the Aus
trian heir apparent.. Austria sent a faricus ultimatum
to Sorbia Eussia rallied to the defense of the Slav and
mobilized against Austria, and Germany, being Aus
tria’s ally and well aware that France was the ally of
Russ'a, dashed at France in the Liope of smasxking her
before Russia could bring her cumbrous 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
presumed to challenge England’s naval supremacy and
to move toward Antwerp.‘ :
~+ When 1 called it ‘‘the last spring of thes 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 téaring off the sheepskin in which\
he was masquerading. Ug to the last Sir Edward Grey
clung to the sheepskin. He could have prevented the
war, even at the eleventh hour, b{lsimply declaring, as
Sazonoff and Cambon implored him to declare, that
Britain would fight if GGermany attacked France, and
by telling the I&iser that if Russia attacked him he
might trust to western democraey to allow him a fair
fi;;gt with his barbarous eastern enemy. For even if
France-had broken that compact—and it is hard te be
lieve that publig 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 li)a.lpitat—
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 except the one thing
that might have kept Germany’s hands off France. Had
he said it, he woulf have balked the spring of the Rrit
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.” -
Peace proposals were called peace offegsives,
lam very far from condemning this attitude 1.
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.
1 can quite conceive myself as taking Tiord Grey’s
course. -
In his place, if the war had to come it was important
that it should come before the €ierman fleet was as DOW
erful as the British, and England ean hardiv be re
proached for fighting and conquering instead of eontriv
g that Germany should exhaust herself in a struggle
with Russia, from which she might we!l have emerged
more formidable than ever.
But England can not claim both the laurel and the
olive.’ : : ‘
If she did everything to postpone the war except
tiie thing that might conceivably have postponed it,Jiis
tory will ecertainly conclude that she did not postpone it
simyr)l_v because at bottom she di}i not want to poestpone
it. Tt 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 far
- The Sunday Ameriacn. The third article will
appear in an early issue.
S :ffi' p ,\kg
. p ,” : *’m
““ > ,\ 3 fl’ ‘\;, y
fiGoR:
s LTS 3Ry s
We Have Just Received a Shipment of This
- -
New Combination
Outfit No. 1 Consists of
e A Genuine Victrola, a Con
& § vertible Cabinet Filing Sys
s 3 tem for Accommodating 100
LSk 3 Records, 9 10-Inch ‘Double
éfi;}g A Faced Victor Record (12 Se
’ lections of your choice).
iz PRICE §
W enosteßfon doer i‘ 3 A‘:‘-v >
£ Ea 2l Complete
_“j l' Special terms tomorrow
“‘%%‘i e only (as long as they last)—
B RN
St B R b 50
e "
3 ‘t,@f%; A $7 Cash and
T s
oo M a Month
f:g« Tl Helght (with lid closed)
b‘ 40 inches. Width 15678 inch.
i es, Depth 21 inches.
‘ “
[able Piano [
L A AT SR P A RGN |
82-84 N. Broad St. Atlanta.
Home of the Celebrated Mason & Hamlin Piane.
What Is ElVigor?
at Is ElVigor?
The answer to the question that is being
asked by thousands—
A physician’s prescription especially
compounded to meet the demands for a
reconstructive tonic and blood purifier fol
lowing the ‘‘flu.”
E] Vigor is a great blood purifier,
strength bullder, kidney and etomach
tonic, 5
Insist upon your druggist getting Bi
Vigo: for you if you want the best. SI.OO.
27 Ivy St. Phone Ivy 1864, (Adv.)