p3
Many times since the summer of 1945, when I finished
writing Tb: Tragedy of Europa, my American and British
friends have asked me to give them, in short compass,
in ideas about the economic and political disturbances
which caused the nations to destroy Europe. This was
no eas task for a man of my age, because my mind was
so fulr of the lon histo of the troubles that it was
difficult to select tie chie?features of the terrible drama
and give adequate account of them in brief space.
In putting together this synopsis of the Ipo itical and
diplomatic «tors of each crisis, I have se ected matter
overlooked by many academic historians. Moreover,
with some of the writers who treat of the First World
War and the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, I
notice a tendency to ignore many underlying causes that
contributed to the strife. Diflicult as it is to stand aloof
and forget one's nationality and loyalty to a govern-
ment or its chief minister, this must be done if the stu-
dent is to form a clear idea about the causes of wars.
In future, the investigator in this branch of the art
of historical literature must conduct his work in a man-
ner as cold blooded as that of a biochemist in his labora-
tory. National prejudices and party loyalties ought to
have no place in the task that has to be done. Indeed, it
will be necessary for the students (and I think chiefly of
them) to pursue the line of inquiry laid down by Lord
Acton in his Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge University.
The fact is the dominant of research, and the student
must not be afraid of tracin it to its lair.
This was finished in Fefiruary, 1950, before anyone
dreamed of a war in Korea. What has taken place in
the world since Hitler invaded Poland is not within
p4
its comfass. The volume is brought to a close with the
end of iplomatic negotiations in September, 1939. It is
intentionally provocative and, as a London ublisher
says, a forceful work. The purpose of the author is to
rouse students out of their nationalistic attitude to these
wars and, if they be interested in the matter at all, to
force them to a deeper investigation of the events sur-
veyed in this book, so that they may learn for them-
selves the influences and directions of men behind the
scenes who insrigate the crises that force governments
to choose war rather than the humiliation of confessing
they have blundered.
August 1, 1950
p5
Foreword
I. Britain's Role in the Boer War . . . . . . . 1
II. The Era of Secret Diplomacy. . . . . . . . 11
III. War Patriotism and Propaganda. . . . . . . 17
IV. The Search for Political Truth . . . . . . . 24
V. Diplomatic Prelude to World War I . . . . . 38
VI. Behind the Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . 51
VII. The Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
VIII. Outstanding Problems in Europe . . _ . . . 70
IX. German Rearmament . . . . . . _ . . . 77
X. Who Makes Wars? . . . . . . . . . . 90
XI. Totalitarian Experiments . . . . . . . . 104
XII. Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
XIII. Muddled Statesmanship . . . . . . . . . 12}
XIV. Churchill's Delusions . . . . . _ . . . . I31
XV. The Rise of Mussolini . . . . . , . . 138
XVI. The Press and Lying . . . . . . . . . . I46
XVII. The School of Nonsense . . . . . . . . . 156
XVIII. The Anublm: . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
XIX. The Czechoslovak Minorities . . . . . . 178
XX. The Pledge to Poland . . . . 7 . . . . I96
XXI. The Pursuit of Peace . . . . , . . . . . 213
Bibliography . . . . . . . _ . . . . 227
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
p7
Bntam’s Role m the Boer War
N BAR THE CENTER or THE MAZE AT HAMPTON COURT TWO
men met. One inquired: “How do we get out of this
mess?” The other asked, "How did we get into it?" The
first man re lied, "That's easy. We walked into it."
Looking back upon the condition of Europe after the
Franco-German War, I think most men of my age would
say that we did nor walk into the European mess; we
ambled into it, thoughtlessly. Few people took any
interest in what are called foreign affairs. Millions who
cast their votes at elections were ignorant of the osten-
sible policies of their governments; business men were
concerned chiefly in the financial and commercial success
of their undertakings. During the latter years of Eng-
land's policy of "splendid isolation,” the foreign poli-
cies of the principa powers of the world did not work
out so bad y, but when British and French interests
clashed in northern Africa, something sinister took place
which led to animosities that became deep-seated. The
interests of Great Britain in Egypt, of France and of
Spain in Morocco, and of Italy in Tripoli suddenly ap-
peared to be fraught with the dangers of war.
Underlying these disrurbances of foreign policy there
were many movements which the ublic knew little or
norhing about. These were fostereg by concessionaires,
great business combinations that planned to exploit the
territories of so-called backward people. In every case
it meant aggression, by “peaceful penetration," if pos-
sible; and as fricrion increased, it meant also greater
expenditure upon armies and navies.
p8
Britain's Role in the Boer War 3
When politicians are in control, as they are today,
there are a hundred and one underlying motives that
must be considered seriously if their proclaimed policies
are to be estimated at their true value. For example, to
what extent is a war scare necessary to keep men busy,
who are employed in making munitions and other sup-
plies for armies and navies? Another motive to be ques-
tioned is the desire of the politicians to keep the electors
in as good fettle as possible, so that they will not vote
for the opposition.
Bureaucracy today is a vested interest-the most pow-
erful the world has ever known. In other respects, it
is a job-making industry; every additional man or wom-
an emplloyed in its offices is an additional vote for the
hirer. moreover, the system of taxation of wealth bol-
sters the paper-making industry-paper money, paper
bonds, restrictve forms, red tape, and in America, the
spoils traffic. The American Comptroller QfIaxes de-
clared that something like $50,000,000,000 of the cost
of World War II went in graft.
Therefore, it is surely high time taxpayers should
wake up and take some interest in their political for-
tunes. They should get a few facts, think them over,
and set their minds sternly a ainst the plausible non-
sense poured out sickeningly by governing politicians.
Electors ought to question them, and refuse to be put
off by evasive replies; make them stick to the point.
Your English forefathers did all this. Do you think
that meek and easygoing men could have won the
Reform of 1832, wrung from Peel the abolition of the
Corn Laws, brought about the extension of the franchise
in 1867? It is a simple matter to trace the benefits that
accrued to the British people, owing to the efforts of
common men during the greater part of the last century.
No one was hurt; not even the landlords who thrived
on the high price of corn. You will gain grist for your
thinking mil by learning how the men of the forties
and fifties earned benefits for themselves-benefits they
p9
4 The Makers of War
thought you would enjoy and which would lead to
better conditions, if you had the nous to know about
them.
Now let us see how we got into the maze of European
politics. We rambled into it fifty years ago, and we give
been trying, without success, to find a way out of it
since the end of World War I. The historian, J. A.
Froude, tells us in Cream that South Africa had long
been a territory that attracted exploiters with no pas-
toral ambitions such as the Boer farmers were content
to further in their settlement at Cape Colony. History
now records how they were driven north to the Trans-
vaal and the Orange Free State.
As the commitments of the British Government be-
came more widespread and fraught with greater dangers
to European peace, the continental powers watched with
increasing anxiety her imperial policies and her growing
military and naval needs for supporting them. The sta-
tistics of army and navy exgilnditure of the powers from
the time of the last Boer ar are most enlightening.
The insane armament race be an about 1897. Taking the
ten-year period from 1887, (great Britain increased her
expenditure by more than £9,000,000; France by
£2,000,000; Russia by £2,000,000; and Germany by
more than £2,000,000.
The visit of the French fleet to Kronsradt in 1892 and
the return visit of the Russian fleet to Toulon in 1893
undoubtedly did much to provoke the armament race.
Of course, there was another side to this, and that was
the slackness of trade in the dockyards and the war
scares that were fostered to make it easier to get the
money from the taxpayers.
All the great naval powers were interested to some
extent in the schemes 0 the principal munitions makers
whose international organizations were influentially
powerful. The directors of the Harvey United Steel
Company Ltd. represented the interests of Britain, Ger-
many, France, Italy, and had connections in the United
p10
States. The Steel Manufacturers Nickel Syndicate (ac-
cording to the certificate of the directors’ names, taken
from Somerset House) comprised five companies from
Great Britain, three from France, two from Germany,
one from Italy, and one from Austria.
No clearer evidence of what the race for armaments
really meant to the peace of the world can be found than
that in a White Paper issued in 1905 by the British
Government, which shows the naval expenditure of the
great powers. Taking the year 1890 as a starting lpoint,
it covers a fourteen-year period up to and inc uding
1904. Great Britain increased her expenditure by
£3,000,000; France by more than £4,000,000; Russia
by nearly £8,000,000;German by more than £6,000,000;
and the United States jumped, from £4,600,000 to more
than £20,000,000.
There is another line of approach that must be taken
into consideration for a proper understanding of the
influences that aggravated the powers and affected the
race for armaments. For a long period Great Britain
had enjoyed the maritime carrying service of the world.
She was act only Mistress of the Seas so far as the navy
was concerned; she was also mistress of them in trade
and commerce. She had nothing to fear from France or
Italy as competitors. But when Germany began to build
her own ships and challen England's supremacy in
the passenger and cargo tradge of the world, she realized
that her position was endangered and something had
to be done about it.
This should not be overlooked in a search for the
causes of the jealousies and frictions that arose amon
the powers fifty years ago. It was not so much the build-
ing of the German navy that caused anxiet in Great
Britain as the growth of the maritime fleets of the North
German Lloyd and the Hamburg-American lines.
The pressure of hard facts increased in many competi-
tive fiellds. For a time, the Kaiser Wilhelm der (52:50
was the largest and fastest ship on the Atlantic; and
p11
she was followed in 1900 by the Deutchland, which
crossed from Cherbourg in five and a half days. About
the time that McKinley was elected President of the
United States, America launched two passenger vessels
-the St. Paul and the St. Louir-as a challenge to
British monopoly of the Atlantic traffic.
The high-tariff legislation of the McKinley adminis-
tration was another blow to her supremacy. The organi-
zation of the United States Steel Trust meant fewer
imports of steel from Great Britain. Germany, too, was
nor slow to expand her Steel industries, and the Ruhr
and the Saar sprang into prominence as fierce competitors
of the heavy industries of France and England.
Great Britain had been caught napping. The smug,
complacent British manufacturers, depending largely
upon the export trade, woke up a bit too late. When they
realized that the engineering, the electrical, the dyeing,
the optical, and other highly technical industries were
competing for the markets of the world, they discov-
ered that science had been called in by their rivals to
invent new machinery, cultivate new methods of pro-
duction, and make great savings in costs. There were
many other important adjuncts, such as German com-
mercial travelers speaking fluently the language of the
countries they visited for orders.
When the South African War began in 1899, the or-
dinary expenditure of the British Government amounted
to {343,687,000 and the national debt stood at £638,-
920,000. The income tax fifty years ago was 6d. in the
f” and those with incomes of less than £700 a year were
exempt. The laborer's shilling (when he had a chance to
earn it) was worth 12d. for necessaries. However, he
paid indirect taxes upon tea, tobacco, wines and spirits.
till, it must be remembered that Charles Booth's in-
vestigations into the conditions of the poor revealed
the terrible fact that one-third of the population was
living upon the poverty line.
p12
Nevertheless, Britain had to fight a war in South
Africa for the gold and diamond merchants. The excuse
given to the electors for destroying the Boer Republic
was quite different. Joseph Chamberlain and his sup-
porters said the reason or the conflict was that the
Kruger Government would not give a vote to the
Uitlanders. These were "the greatest gang of circus-
followers, pop merchants, and other ne'er-do-wells ever
collected in a single area."
The military correspondent of the Newcastle Cbrcmicle,
in a letter which appeared December 5, 1899, reported
as follows: It must be a great relief to the military commander in
Natal to know that the 30,000 or 40,000 Uitlanders of
Johannesburg had left that city before the Outbreak of hos-
tilities. Otherwise we should have had Cornishmen and Jew
boys from "the golden city" whining and imploring our
generals to come and save them. Nothing can exceed the
contempt of the real Englishman for this veritable scum of the
earth. t makes our blood boil to think that the pick of the
British army is engaged in mortal combat to make things
easy for the sharpers and swindlers who fatten on the illicit
profits of the gold industry.
The mass of the British people never knew the truth
of this disgraceful business until long after the war was
over. Captain March Phillips, in Wit Rimington, tells us:
As for the Uitlanders and their grievances, I would act
ride a yard or fire a shot to right all the rievances that were
ever invented. The mass of itlanders fie. the miners and
working men of the Rand) had no grievances. I know what I
am talking about, for I have lived and worked among them.
I have seen English newspapers passed from one to anorher,
and roars of laughter rouse by the 'Times' telegrams about
thesz frecious grievances. We used to read the London papers
to )7 out what our grievance: were; and very frequently they
would be due to causes of which he had never even heard.
One of the few books that gives a true account of the
last Boer War was published in America, in 1902, and
p13
it was written by Michael Davitt. It is called The Boer
Fight for Freedom and is dedicated to the memory of
General Philip Botha. Now that we have the third
volume of the History of The Timer, we know something
of the real conspirators and what their object was.
The plot of Joseph Chamberlain, Cecil Rhodes, and
Sir Alfred Milner, together with the long directory of
names of those who did not fight but gathered the spoil,
is revealed in many works that have appeared since the
war terminated. But Chamberlain was not always an
enemy of the Boer. Indeed, at one time he spoke as a
friend. At Birmingham, on June 7, 1881, he said:
They (the Boers) left their homes in Natal as the English
Puritans left England for the United States, and they founded
a little republic of their own in the heart of Africa. In 1852
we made a treaty with them, and we agreed to respect and
guarantee their independence; and I say under these circum-
stances, is it possible we could maintain a forcible annexation
of the country, without incurring the accusation of having
been guilty, I Will not say of national folly, but I say of na-
tional crime?
It was a national crime in 1881! Eighteen years later
it was an imperial duty. Well might Lloyd George say
after the First World War: Wars are precipitated by motives
which the statesmen responsible for them dare not assert.
A public discussion would drag these motives in their nudity
into the open, where they would die of exposure to the
withering contempt of humanity.
What thinking man would now challenge that state-
ment? But how many, fifty years ago, realized that the
influences that brought about the Boer War were re-
sponsible for a complete change in England's foreign
policy? Long after the republics were destroyed, critics
egan to realize that, so far as Great Britain was con-
cerned, the struggle was indicative of a grave decline
of what went by the name of her moral viewpoint, and
p14
that the Colonial Office had lost what little competency
it had.
Some writers whose articles appeared in the monthly
and quarterly reviews asked searching queStions about
Great Britain's industrial strength and her ability to
meet the competition of mass production in the United
States and the high technica development Germany
had made. However, the threat of competitors east
and west had not then been felt by British manufacturers.
Indeed, during the controversies raised by Chamberlain's
campaign for colonial preference, the statisticians
proved that under free trade the country was holding
er own and that her export trade seemed to be secure.
The politicians did not take a long view, but American
and German critics who visited England did not hesitate
to say that it was time Great Britain woke up to the
fan that her methods of production were old-fashioned.
A series of articles appeared in The Time: during World
War II under the title "Foreign Policy in Transition,"
and the writer summed up the position in clear-cut,
telling sentences:
In the 1890's the conditions which had given Britain
an overwhelming and unquestioned supremacy in the world
for three-quarters of a century were gradually passing away.
The volume of British steel roduction was overtaken both in
Germany and in the UnitedP States; and this significant land-
mark was in part cause, in part symptom, in part result, of a
wider range of phenomena-the inevitable decline of British
preeminence, due largely to Britain's long industrial start
over the rest of the world, in technical eflicxency, in scientific
research, and in industrial organization. Industry was enter-
ing a new phase of large-scale produCtion; and in this phase
Britain, hampered by increasingly obsolete traditions and
obsolete physical assets, no longer tool: the lead. Political
repercussmns soon made themselves felt. The South African
at was widely interpreted as a symptom of faltering British
supremacy.
The last sentence is significant, but its meaning was
not plainly interpreted until many years after the con-
p15
flict. Indeed, it may be said that most of the chief
bankers and the greatest industrialists were satisfied
with the general conditions of commerce. The trade
unions and their members showed little knowledge of
what was taking place in the world. They were chiefly
concerned in promoting greater membership and raising
nominal wage.
p16
II
The Era of Secret Dtplomacy
THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR LEFT BRITAIN WITHOUT A
friend in Europe-indeed, in the world. Her political
leaders began to realize that her days of "splendid iso-
lation" were over and she had to seek alliances, public
and secret, as lprops to support her decline. The reason
she turned to France was that their interests conflicted
in Africa. To put the matter in a nutshell, Great Britain
wanted France out of Egypt, and France wanted a free
hand in Morocco. It was Foreign policy at its lowest ebb.
The Entente Cordiale was a diplomatic tour de force. Some
Frenchmen went so far as to say that it was sheer huck-
stering, and the business transacted at Algeciras in 1906
revealed a state of affairs that made decent men squirm
when they knew the facts. For the signatories of that
Treaty to pledge themselves to maintain the integrity
of the dominion of the Sultan and, at the same time, for
Great Britain to agree secretly to the artition of
Morocco by France and Spain was about as discreditable
a proceeding as diplomacy has been guilty of.
In studying the expenditures of the great powers upon
navies after the year 1904, those of France and Russia
should be added to the British. The White Papers and
Blue Books of that year show that Britain, France and
Russia together spent about {357,000,000 and that Ger-
many spent £ll,659,000. Russia and France were bound
by secret military and naval treaties, and Great Britain,
linking her fortunes with France, was committed as
their ally. The secret conversations between the British
and French military staffs began at this time.
p17
The taxpayer who footed the bill for the South
African-War (fought to ain diamonds and old for the
Wernhers, the Beits, the garnatos, and their Friends) had
learned nothing from the past and was, therefore, to-
tally i norant of what was in store for him after the
Act onglgeciras was signed. It is true that he com-
plained about the rising expenditure and protested
strenuously against Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for
colonial preference, which, to the working man, meant
a tax on bread. Some members of Parliament, anxious
about European affairs, did their best in the Commons
to learn from Grey what was really taking place. How-
ever, they did not succeed in getting the truth out of
him. When awkward quesrions were put to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, he sometimes replied that "it was
nor in the public interest to give the information."
The ink was scarcely dry on the signatures appended
to the Algeciras Treaty when France and Spain went
into Morocco to partition the country. Then came the
cruelest hoax ever perpetrated upon the taxpayers. At
the bidding of the interests represented by the Camité du
Maroc, a French military force was sent to Fez where, it
was said, a whole European French colony had sud-
denly been discovered living in anguish. A tale of horror
was built up by the press servitors of the Comité, and
the French papers Le amp: and Le Marin outdid their
previous performances in deception and mendacity.
Francis de Pressensé, the most distinguished of the
French publicists, tells the story of this "errand of
mercy":
Already while the expedition was on its way, light began
to pierce. Those redoubtable rebels who were threatening
Fez had disa‘ppleared like the dew in the morning. Barely did
a few raging horsemen fire off a shot or two before turning
round ang riding away at a furious gallop. A too disin-
genuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the show away.
The expeditionary force complains, he gravely records, of the
absence of the enemy; the approaching harvest season is
keeping all the healthy males in the fieldsl Thus did the
p18
Tln Era of Secret Diplomacy l3
phantom so dextrously conjured by the Com)! is Mam for
the benefit of its aims disappear in a night.
The horror of the light of the colonists in Fez deeply
affected a group of members of Parliament. Major
Archer-Shee asked what steps the government proposed
to take to safeguard British interests and squects in
Fez. He was told that there were ten persons residing
there. The government admitted it had no information
that would give cause for believing there was the slight-
est danger to Europeans. Both Major Archer-Shee and
Mr. Remnant asked whether it was intended to co-
operate with other governments, should it become neces-
sary to send a large orce to pacify Morocco.
John Dillon desired to know to what extent Britain
was committed to “this ill-omened and cruel expedi-
tion," and he told the House that the afl'air was not up
for the purpose of creating a scare. He questioned Grey
about the expedition and inquired “whether the British
Government had in any way approved or made itself
responsible for this attack on the independence of
Morocco.” Grey replied:
His Majesty's Government have been informed by the
French Government of the measures which are being adopted
for the succour of Europeans in Fez, and they understand that
information has also been given to Other Governments. The
acrion taken by France is not intended to alter the political
status of Morocco, and His Majesty’s Government cannot
see why any objection should be taken to it.
There were men in the House who took the trouble
to read French newspapers, who knew this reply con-
tained some complicated lies. In the first place, the
French Government did not know at the beginning of
the enterprise anything about the rescue of the Euro-
peans in Fez. Pressensé says: “The Government knew
nothing, willed nothing of itself.”
The second lie is about the political status of Morocco.
If Grey did not know of the secret treaties for the par-
p19
titioni'of the country, he was wholly unfitted to be
Foreign Minister, for Lord Lansdowne gave his consent
to the partition of the country before the Algeciras
Conference took place. In November, 1911, after this
crisis, the Paris papers got hold of the secret articles
and published the British consent to the partition of the
country between France and Spain.
The story, as it was known to independent French
publiciSts, is told fully in Edmund Morel's book,
Morocco in Diplomacy. Felicien Challaye in La Revue do
Moi: in January, 1912, said:
Honesty would in Morocco. and the Congo have been the
besr of po iCies. France committed lamenta le errors when,
for the satisfaction of private interests, she violated in
Morocco the Au of Algeciras, and in the Congo the Act of
Berlin. . . . Under what influences have been committed these
violations of the Act of Algeciras? Incontestably through the
influence of private interests.
The private interests! Or, as they were afterwards
called, "the international gang." Governments did their
bidding. Still, in justice to some of the ministers who
were not in the inner cabinets, it should be said that
perhaps they had no more knowledge of what was goingl
on than private members of the legislatures. Frenc an
English newspapers, in the spring of 1911, published
lists of some of the powerful interests that were bleeding
the taxpayers. One of these international combinations
was the Union do: Miner. Its founders and associates
were manufaCturers, bankers, and politicians of seven
or eight different countries. In the list published by
L'Humanité, we find:
The French "group" included the Cie. des Forges de
Chatillon-Commentry et Neuves Maisons, Schneider et Cie.
Banque frangaise pour le commerce et l'Industrie, Count
Armande, etc.; the German "group" included Krupps, the
Metallurgische Gesellschaft of Frankfurt, the Nationalbank
fur Deutschland of Berlin, etc.; the British "groug; included
A. E. Harris of Harris Dixon, Ltd., London, Mr. nar Law,
p20
M.P., Mr. W. B. Harris, correspondent of the Tim: at Tan-
gier, etc.; the Spanish " group" included the Marquis de Villa-
mejor, and so on.
France and Britain were to pay dearly for the hoax.
After the march on Fez, Germany complained because
she said her interests were ignored. At length, she sent
a small gunboat to Agadir, a place on the west coast of
Africa, which no one had heard of before, and the
clarions rang throughout Europe. The British Govern-
ment took it as a personal offense, although she was
supposed to have no territorial or commercial interests
in Morocco. However, she had to stand by her allies.
In the several houses of legislature, sheer mendacity
became, for a time, the order of the day, and ministers
were in sore plight when questioned about the commit-
ments of the powers and what was expected of them in the
way of military and naval aid if war took place. To add
to the confusion, the bellicose newspapers stirred the fires
of hate, and the warmongers, headed by Lord Roberts,
breathed "fire and brimstone" against Germany.
The generosity of a democracy was never more no-
ticeable than in the period between 1911, when the
Pantber visited Agadir, and the outbreak of war in
August, 1914. In three short years the taxpayers were
persuaded to shed their blood and reduce themselves
almost to poverty in the interesrs of the munitions indus-
tries, the Comité da Mama, and other an s of exploiters.
Durin this time the diplomatic bfimcfiers of Germany
only adcfed fuel to the flames. The belligerent s eeches
of the Kaiser-never directed against Englamf-were
emblazoned in the popular rints. But the generous-
hearted man in the Street had3 no information from his
government as to what was the real cause of the trouble.
acific speeches from platforms in the country had little
or no effect, for the penny papers that catered to the small
gamblers and gave them the latesr news about horses were
the chief source of information for the proletariat.
p21
Home affairs, both in England and in France, were
disrurbing enough without the prospect of a war. In
England there were great strikes, the "mutiny" at the
Curragh, in Ireland, over the question of Home Rule,
the threatened revolt of Ulster under the leadership of
Sir Edward Carson and F. E. Smith, to say nothing of
Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons on the warpath for votes.
These were troubles enough for any government to con-
tend with. France, too, had her strikes and other internal
troubles. The condition of the army was seriously ques-
tioned, and stories of the jealousies of the generals were
whispered in polite society.
When the Archduke was murdered at Sarajevo, the
ministers of all the powers trembled. And well they
might, for Russia was bound to the interests of Pan-
Slavism in Serbia. AuStria was determined that she
would come to grips with the State that shielded the
miscreants who had committed the crime. When the
news first reached the western capitals of Europe, people
generally were shocked, and sympathy was tendered to
the aged Emperor, Franz Joseph. But in a short time it
was realized in the chancelleries that far-reaching com-
mitments were concerned in the matter. When the Aus-
trian note was presented to Serbia, the diplomatists saw
in it the seeds of war and that all the principal powers
might be drawn into the confliCt.
When Germany sided with Austria, Great Britain
sided with France and Russia. The Italian Government
did not reveal its hand until later, after bargaining for a
bribe to desert the Triple Alliance. Then the passionate
war patriots sharpened their pencils and, in writin
about the intentions of the interested powers, surpassed
all former attempts to delude the peop e. It was an orgy
of mendacit gone raving mad. Although Grey told
the House of}, Commons that Britain's interests in Serbia
were .nil, her commitments to France and Russia, long
hidden from the taxpayers, had to be fulfilled.
p22
War Patriotism and Propaganda
THE WAR PATRIOT AND THE PARTY PATRIOT WERE READY
to send to the gallows anyone who dared to impugn the
actions of men in whose hands the destiny of millions
was held. In the House of Commons members who at-
tempted to protest against the action of the government
were howled down, and such epithets as “the craven
crew” and "dastardly cowards" were thrown at them.
Balfour desig nated their brief speeches as “the very
dregs of the debate."
War patriotism is a madness for which there is no
cure, and he would be a foolish optimist who imagined
he could change the current of events, while a conflict
was in action, by presenting facts to show the govern-
ment had taken a wrong course. Who counts t e cost
when the blood is up? It is one of the great privileges
of democracy to spill it and foot the bill in other people's
quarrels. Another privilege, particularly at the end of
a war, is to form processions of unemployed and to
endure poverty in depressed areas.
It is marvelous what punishment the proletarians
will take. Yet, sometimes they see the errors of their
ways and cast their political idols down. Consistently
they have dealt severely with men who won their wars.
When they do have leisure to review the immediate
past, their political sagacity revives, and when they
go to the poll they show their displeasure. But as soon
as they elect a different lot of statesmen, they seem to
forget and forgive-thinking the old methods will nor
be practiced by the new men. Proletarians are friendly
p23
sort of chaps and do not nurse grudges. The are too
busy looking for jobs, picking a winner, and' striking
for higher prices. There was a time when the mass of
men knew the difference between nominal wage and
real wage. The housewives, when they kept budgets,
knew to a ha'penny how much tax was paid on neces-
saries purchased for the larder. That time has gone.
The main point, however, is that the proletarian will
nor take the trouble to find out what ails him. He will
spend hours, week after week, reading the training
reports of horses, and the chances of his soccer team in
the league championship, but as for spending a little
thought on the amount paid for costly wars and prodigal
governments, one might as well persuade him to read
Locke's Ema] Concerning Human Understanding. Short
memories and the desire for relaxation (which usually
means recreation, because of the monotony of his exist-
ence) are defects that he must remedy for himself. No
one can help him in this respect. He is proof against
counsel and, as generations pass, there is every indication
that he will become the mere plaything of the bureau-
crat and the victim of his own indolence and ignorance.
It was in the winter of 1907-08 that many men became
alarmed at Germany's industrial achievements. At a
meeting held in Caxton Hall, London, Haldane told an
audience about the scientific and technical advances
taking place in several industries. He had recently
visited Germany and returned with information that
was of immediate value. At several gatherin s and in
some illuminating articles in the monthlies, git Chris-
topher Furness reported on what he had seen during his
visit to America. Their warnings went unheeded; per-
haps because, so far as plant was concerned, Great
Britain was set in her ways. There were other indica-
tions that all was not well.
Arthur Balfour was anxious about the future. In the
biography of Henry White, by Allan Nevins, it is
recorded that Secretary Root of the American State
p24
Department inStructed White (who was American Am-
bassador to Italy) to go to London "to ascertain con-
fidentially the views of the British Government as to
the discussion of disarmament at the Hague." This
referred to the conference that was to begin in June,
1907. Nevins says that White's “observations, as he
talked with British public men, gave him a startled
sense that Europe might be approaching a general war."
During this visit, White had several conversations
with Ba four. One was overheard by White's daughter,
who took it down:
BALPOUR (somewhat lightly): "We are probably fools not
to find a reason for declaring war on Germany before she
builds too many ships and takes away our trade.
WHITE: “You are a very high-minded man in private life.
How can you possibly contemplate anything so politically
immoral as provoking a war against a harmless nation which
has as go a right to a navy as you have? If you wish to
compete with German trade, work harder."
BALPOURI “That would mean lowering our standard of
living. Perhaps it would be simpler for us to have a war."
Wan-a: “I am shocked that you of all men should enunci-
ate such principles."
BALPOUR (again lightly): “Is it a question of right or
wrong? Maybe it is just a question of keeping our supremacy.
White also had a talk with the Foreign Minister, and
reported the gist of it to the Secretary of rate [Root].
Not long after this, a reason was found for arming
against Germany, who, in turn, had been armigg against
France and Russia. A naval panic was start on ,the
false information given by Mulliner of the Coventry
Ordnance Company, and the increase of German arma-
ments against er foes east and west was interpreted by
Mr. Balfour and his supporters as preparations for an
attack upon Great Britain. Soon the p atforms of Eng-
land rang out with denunciations at every advance
made by the German navy, and Asquith's Government
p25
was shaken by the storm. The Tories went about howl-
ing:
Eight, Eight, Eight,
We won't have less than Eight.
So we'll smash them flat
If they won't give us that;
We will have Eight.
It was one of the most disgraceful, cooked-up con-
spiracies the British public had known, and the editor
of the Navy League Annual, in dealing with these panics,
said the agitation was “one of the most portentous
pieces of parliamentary humbug ever practiced upon
the electorate." Admiral Fisher, in his book, Memorier,
produces a letter that he wrote to the King, in which he
said:
Now this is the truth: En land has seven "Dreadnau hts"
and three “Dreadnaught” gattle Cruisers . . . ; tOtaI, ten
Dreadnaughts" built and building, while Germany, in
March last [1907], had not begun even one "Dreadnaught."
It is doubtful if, even so late as May last, a German "Dread-
naught" had been commenced.
The damage was done, and from that time prepara-
tions for war were speeded up But the working man
was not wholly convinced, or the Asquith Govern-
ment was returned to power with a severely reduced
majority in two genera elections in 1910, saved by 40
Labor representatives and 82 Irish Nationalists. The
Tories and Liberals made a dead heat of it. In 1906 Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman had a majority of 354. The
last election in 1910 gave his arty a majority of 126,
which included Labor and Irish Home Rulers.
The two principal questions put to the electors in
these genera elections were: the taxation of land values
bill for England and Wales, which had been rejected by
the House of Lords, and the Parliament Act. The sinister
problem that haunted the minds of so many leading
men was scarcely discussed. Land, the economic prob-
p26
lem, and the veto of the House of Lords were of im-
mediate concern.
After the Agadir affair, the Prime Minister sent
Churchill to the Admiralty, and soon Asquith Was to
learn from the country what the working men of Eng-
land thought about the move. The Liberals lost by-
eleCtion after by-election until, in 1912, three seats were
held by candidates who placed the taxation of land
values in the forefront of their programs. Still, the
government did not take the hint, which was obvious
to many Liberal organizers and to many of the trade
unionists.
Secretly, the Committee of Imperial Defence carried
forward with great earnesmess the lans for war, pre-
dicted by several “in the know" (lincluding Admiral
Fisher) to begin in 1914. Churchill left no stone unturned
to make the navy as powerful as possible. He was sent
to the Admiralty expressly to prepare for war with Ger-
many, as he told his constituents at Dundee, and he
performed his job as well as mortal man could.
It should be unnecessary here to go into the matter of
the immediate causes of the war, because there are suffi-
cient books written by investigators of the principal
powers, which working men can read. Many of the
severest critics belon to Allied nations. Those of France,
Italy, Belgium, am? the United States have exposed
ruthlessly the stupid pretexts of the statesmen who were
at odds with Germany. No historian of any repute today
believes that Germany Was solely responsible for the
war. It has been said that the men who subscribed to
that sill statement did not believe it themselves. But
one lie breeds anOther, and those who were guilty of
writing the Treaty of Versailles could nor afford to lose
face and appear in sackcloth and ashes.
That treaty, even at the time it was signed by the
Allied ministers and the German plenipotentiaries, was
denounced as a vindictive, war-breeding instrument that
would engulf Europe in anOther confliCt. Robert Lansing,
p27
the American Secretary of State who was in Paris when
the treaty was drawn up, says in his book, The Peace
Negotiations:
The terms of peace were yesterday delivered [May 7, 1919]
to the German plenipotentiaries, and for the first time in
these days of feverish rush of preparation there is time to
consider the Treaty as a complete document.
The impression made by it is one of disappointment, of
regret, and of depression. The terms of peace appear immeas-
urably harsh an humiliating, while many of t em seem to
me impossible of performance.
It must be admitted in honesty that the League is an
instrument of the mighty to check the normal rowth of
national power and national aspirations among time who
have been rendered impotent by defeat.
The League as now constituted will be the prey of greed
and intrigue; and the law of unanimity in the Council, which
may offer a restraint, will be broken or render the organization
powerless. It is called upon to stamp as just what is unjust.
Unfortunately, books written by men like Lansing
find few readers. When a war is over, the ordinary
artisan is busy from morning till night, Striving to
et back to the normal condition of things. No matter
gow great a hero he has appeared to be in the con-
flict, no matter how his exploits have been lauded
by the sensational press while the war raged, he soon
finds he is quite another chap when he gets into mufti
and has to find ways and means of making a living.
The books that would give him some notion of how
he has been used by his statesmen scarcely ever reach
him because, for a certain period, the patriotic papers-
their editors and their reviewers-enter into what seems
like a conspiracy to hide the truth from him. A few
years must pass before it is safe to enlighten Tommy
Atkins or the American doughboy. Those who denounce
the enemy as liars, barbarians, and thieves are slow to
let the truth appear. They connive at the barbarity of
the economic system, which, because of the taxation of
p28
wialalth, is legalized stealing, as many of our economists
te us.
His efforts to save civilization are penalized by tons
of paper money-Bradburys in Britain and "shinplas-
ters" in the United States. The crownin folly of it all
is that he has penalized his progeny for generations
because the paper debt can only be paid from the wealth
produced by labor. Still, his statesmen tell him that he
as won prestige and honor in defeating his fellow-
workers, who were his enemies and threatened to take
the bread out of his month. And so the mad farce goes
on, generation after generation, and the poor are still
poor, and the weight of taxation has reduced the rich
to the status of genteel paupers.
p29
The Search for Political Truth
The Search for Poltttcal Truth
ONE REMARKABLE FEATURE ABOUT THE LEADING pom:-
cians of the west, since 1895, is the contempt they have
shown for the roletariat. If anyone doubts this, all he
has to do is to look back and read the pretexts given to
the electors for going to war. British and European
statesmen knew that the "age of enlightenment" had
not shar ned the minds of the taxpayers. The warmak-
ers befuddled the people with impunity.
The Boer War and World War I provided some his-
torians with fascinating exercises for examining the
advertised reasons for these direful adventures. The
earlier generation had the benefit of the searching meth-
ods of Cobden and Bright about the true causes of wars
of their day. The two Corn Law reformers did not be-
lieve the fire-eating gentlemen who occupied the front
bench; with keen knowledge and incisive eloquence,
they both riddled the flimsy pretexts of Palmerston.
The people, however, backed the Crimean War. It
was popular. Peace-loving democracy could not permit
Russia to take the Holy Places on the Bosphorus. When
that war stopped for a while, Lord Salisbury said Eng-
land had bac ed the wron horse.
No one attempts to expfain the extraordinary change
that has come about since the early seventies of the
last century, when education was hoped to be the means
of improving the mind of the electorate. With the
growrh of schools and the extensions of universities,
there has been noticeable an ominous decline in the
political intelligence of the taxpayers.
p30
Henry Ford said, "History is bunk." The lack of
action on the part of the British and American masses
makes one think that they would agree with him. Yet,
it may be said in their defense that, since the turn of the
century, the hiStories of wars have not been proper sub-
jects for the classrooms. Certainly much that goes by the
name of modern history needs ruthless revision. One
stumbling block to such an effort is that it might not
be patriotic to hold an autopsy on subjects that are nor
fit or decent burial.
The steady stream of books that have come from the
pens of statesmen, editors, generals, and admirals since
the end of the First World War, indicates that publishers
think there is a large reading public desirous of informa-
tion. In America since the close of World War II, some
eighty or ninety books dealing with it have been pub-
lished. Few of these were written by historians. To say
that these works contain startling revelations (some,
indeed, flatly deny the pretexts set out by the chief
ministers of the Allied States) is an ordinary observa-
tion; but to what extent the reading public has digested
the facts and views is quite another matter.
A well-known bookseller remarked that most of the
readers look down a page, but they do not understand
what they read. The statistics of illiteracy in America
and in Britain bear this out. Like the aristocracy of
Disraeli's day, people buy books, but they do not read.
Who on earth cou d keep up with the immense flow of
volumes that pass over the counters of the bookshops?
So we may take it, I presume, that history is not for the
proletariat, notwithstanding the inordinate mass of
opinions upon these matters that come from the presses.
Influential seCtions of men in public positions in
Great Britain and in the United States have already
shown a desire to suppress the truth. In both countries,
skeptical authors who wish to get their views before the
public complain that publishers frown upon manuscripts
which contain views contrary to official opinion. In a
p31
recent review of a British general's work on the war, the
critic lamented pitifully that the author had dealt with
some political questions. In America the reviewers gen-
erally condemned George Morgenstern's Pearl Harbor
because he proved from the documents that it was not
quite the unexpected blow that Roosevelt's admirers
imagined. The guns of many other writers have been
spiked in the same way. Two books that should be
read by every decent-minded person have been ignored
by the reviewers. They are: Montgomery Belgion's
Victorr' Justice and Freda Utley's The High Cort of Ven-
eance. It is heaven help the poor author who has 5 at
long months in striving to expose the delusions offhe
official broadcasters!
It is very difficult to get at the truth of anything
because opinion now is made for peocple. The man who
does his own thinking upon the evi ence he gathers is
looked upon askance. l-liscpatriOtism is doubted; many
feel that his mission is to efend the enemy he fought,
when his only intention is to expose or accuse the enemy
at home.
The search for truth is the task of tasks. Perhaps only
in science is it less difficult than in any other branch of
thought. All true scientists are eager for the truth. In
the political and diplomatic realm it hides its head
under tons of dispatches, speeches of legislators, the
machinations of munitions makers, and millions of col-
umns penned by war-minded editorial writers. The
searcher who goes in quest of political truth should be
honored for the labor that he undertakes, if no other
honor is earned.
It may very well be that the proletariat thinks it is
not necessary to learn now that the gadget age has dis-
pensed with truth. There are so many labor-saving de-
vices that relieve a man from the arduous process of
thought, that he is quite content to let the broadcaster
for the soa manufacturer tell him any nonsense about
the news. I]: is only necessary to look at the front page
p32
The Search for Political Truth
Tb: Search for Political Trtu‘b 27
of the popular papers to understand clearly what the
majority of taxpayers read. Advertisers have admitted
that they must cater to the mind of a child of eight
ears.
y Everything seems to be pre-digested for the intelleCtual
processes of the millions who have been "educated."
It costs billions to graduate them from the schools, and
more billions are wasred upon their delinquencies. The
cost of crime cannOt be eStimated. In 1944, J. Edgar
Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Invesrigation,
reported that in the United States one was committed
every 23 seconds. Later he Stated that the nation was
facing a potential army of 6,000,000 criminals-ten
times the number of students in our colleges and uni-
versities.
During the past two years I have followed the corre-
spondence in t e columns of Tbe Time: upon child delin-
uency. I have no doubt that those w o complain of
31c increase are informed persons. Still, no one asks if
this is an asset of saving civilization. After the Boer War,
the head of the New York police system made a study
of the increase in crime in Europe and in America. He
came to the conclusion that the war drills of immature
yOUths were responsible for the appalling conditions.
There are many truths that should be placed before
the public, so that they may have a notion of their
responsibility, but the only way this can be done effec-
tively is to get down to bed rock, or as near it as possible.
So long as the few intellecruals who prOtest against the
present condition of things are content to ignore the
underlying causes of the general distress, they are merely
beating the air. Their present method of admonishing
the people will get them nowhere, and as it is not likely
that Statesmen and relates will appear in sackclorh and
ashes before the mobs, it devolves on intelligent laymen
to undertake the task.
They did not do so badly when they got down to
work a hundred years ago, and surely the men of today
p33
-heirs of the wonders accomplished by their fathers-
should be able to perform a similar feat. Yes, but it takes
great courage. That is one of the chief things that truth
seems to insist upon. Courage is her right-hand partner.
Emerson said, “God will not have His wor made
manifest by cowards." That seems reasonable, even to
an agnosdc. But the man who is afraid of being accused
of apologizing for the enemy is a coward, no matter
what feats he has performed in the slaughter.
Let us consider the glorious wars for a minute or two.
That wizard of wit and preacher of wisdom, Sydney
Smith, in an article for The Edinburgh Review, said: "Alas!
we have been at war thirty-five minutes out of every
hour since the Peace of Utrecht." That was in 1827.
Consider what that means. England spent thirty-five
minutes out of every hour at war, during a period of 113
consecutive years. Lord Acton said, "No Christian
annals are so sanguinary as ours. " Dr. Quincy Wright, in
his volumes called A Study of War produces tables that
show how the peace-loving democracies kept the peace.
From 1800 to 1941 Great Britain fought 34 wars and, in
the same period, France fought 29. Germany (Prussia)
fought 10. Henry Labouchére said: "We are without
exception the reatest robbers and marauders that ever
existed on the Face of the globe. We are worse than other
countries because we are hypocrites also, for we plunder
and always pretend to do so for other people's good."
The Radical member for Northampton knew his book.
Millions in England approved of his relentless exposure
of shams and organized hypocrisy. Doubts may be
raised as to whether men now have stomachs strong
enou h to digest the political and economic nourishment
our fgthers fed on. Is it to be imagined that a Swift, a
Cobbett, or a Hazlitt would be tolerated by our anemic
leaders of o inion who take us from disaster to chaos?
Where woufil a publisher be found today to issue such
critical reviews of State affairs as William Cobbett erte
for the readers of the Weekly Regirter?
p34
The slogans that we have been familiar with during
the last two wars are merely variations of much older
ones. A "war to end war" is by no means new, and we
heard a great deal about "democracy" during the Boer
War when Kru er refused to give a vote to the Uitland-
ers. Since Marlborough's campaigns, Britain has always
been ready to "save civilization" or "Christianity,"
and sometimes both. The working man of today may
be surprised to learn that nearly two hundred years ago
the greatest statesman in England condemned the slogans
of his day, root and branch. The Earl of Chatham sai
We have suffered ourselves to be deceived by names and
sounds-“the balance of power," "the liberty of Europe,"
a common cause," and many more Such expressions, w1t out
any Other meanin than to exhaust our wealth, consume the
profits of our trage and 'load our posterity with intolerable
urdens. None but a nation that had lost all Signs of Virility
would submit to be so treated.
The great slogan of World War II was "the common
cause." It was the rallying cry to get money out of the
taxpayers’ pockets. Now that the war is over, the com-
mon cause is so bedraggled and tousled that no one
thinks it worth while mentioning, and as for “balance
of power," the value of it cannot even be weighed be-
cause America and Great Britain presented Stalin with
the scales.
But how the proletariat could be humbugged about
the balance of power, after three or four generations of
experience of its uncertainty and cost, is difficult to
explain. An alert young student of eighteen who has
read Britain's history during the nineteenth century
would easily find many examples of the scorn that was
poured t}pon it by leading politicians. john Bright called
It “the on] idol," and at Birmingham in 1864 he said:
It rises ucp before me when I think of it as a ghastly phan-
tom which uring one hundred and seventy years, whilst it
has been worshipped in this country, has loaded the nation
with debt and taxes, has sacrificed the lives of hundreds of
p35
thousands of Englishmen, has desolated the homes of millions
of families, and has left us, as the great result of the profli‘gate
expenditure it has caused, a doubled peerage at one end 0 the
social scale, and far more than a doubled pauperism at the
Other.
It is amazing to witness, in war after war, how the
statesmen and diplomatists can bring out the old props
that have done service and, by touching them up with
a little bit of high-falutin g eloquence, find the proletariat
ready to kneel down and worship them.
In trying to drag a little truth from history, it is
interesting to find a close similarity in the slogans of
Statesmen generation after generation. We need a Sydney
Smith or a Jonathan Swift to point these resemblances
out to us. Read this letter that Smith wrote to Lady
Grey, the wife of the Reform Prime Minister of 1832:
For God's sake, do not drag me into anather war! I am
worn down, and worn out, with crusading‘ and defending
Europe, and prorecring mankind: I mm t ink a little of
myse f. I am sorry for the Slpaniards-I am sorry for the
Greeks-I deplore the fate o the Jews; the people of the
Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable
tyranny; Bagdad is oppressed; do not like the present state
of the Delta; Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all
these people? The world is bursting with sin and sorrow.
Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally
raising fleets and armies to make al men good and happy?
We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the conse-
quence will be, that we shall cut each other's throats. No
war, dear Lady Greyl-No eloquence; but apathy, selfishness,
common sense, arit metic! I beseech you, secure Lord Grey's
swords and pistols, as the housekeeper did Don Quixote's
armour. If there is another war, life Will nOt be worth having.
Ma the vengeance of Heaven" overtake all the Legiti-
mates 0? Verona! ut, in the present state of rent and taxes,
they must be left to the vengeance of Heaven. I allow fighting
in such a cause to be a luxury; but the business of a prudent,
sensible man, is to guard against luxury.
There is no such thing as a "just war," or, at least, as a
win war.
p36
A fair sample of the language used by men before
proletarians were "educated." The critical predecessors
of Smith, since the time of George Savile, Marquis of
Halifax, were more severe in their methods of exposing
the delusions of statesmen and their victims. Savile said:
Religion is the foundation of government. Without
it man is an abandoned creature, one of the worst
beasts nature has produced."
Savile “is one of the most brilliant of politicians and
expresses the racy good sense of his age. l-lis maxims of
state policy, so pithy, so modern, strike deep to the
foundations of political practice in all times." So John
Bowle writes in Western Political Thought, a book well
worth close study. Alas, every olitical party in Britain
and in America is in sad need of) a Savile.
Anyone who took the trouble to search the speeches
and letters of the men at the head of affairs since the
days of Queen Anne would be amazed to find that they
used the language we have heard so often since the
Boer War. "The liberties of Europe," "the arrogance
of tyrants," "republican upstarts" were words that fell
trippingly from the tongues of statesmen. The leader of
the enemy was painted in satanic colors, and he and the
proletarians who fought with him had to be chaStised
by the lovers of peace, no matter what it cosr. Some-
times the devil was a Spaniard; at other times he was an
American or a Frenchman; recently he has been Dutch,
then German; the last was an Austrian. When the Third
World War takes place, the devil will be a Caucasian,
if Stalin lives long enough to enter the fray.
Proletarians never seem to get tired of spoof. They
are as ready to take it from their political idol as they
are to take it from Marx or Laski. There is nothing like
a violent chan e for breaking drear monOtony. Life
would be very grab and dull for the much-too-many to
endure a long season of peace. One optimistic psycholo-
gist thinks it would take at least three full generations
p37
of war-less days to eradicate from the race this itch for
belligerent change.
Peace campaigns usually end in war. It was so before
1914; it was so before 1939. President Wilson was so
sure, when he “kept the people out of war," that none
of his advisers could convince him that an American
soldier would fight in Euro . Scarcely three months
had passed after his seconge inauguration before he
changed his mind.
Arthur Balfour crossed the Atlantic with Edward
Holden and had a chat with him. And soon afterward
the American President started a preparedness campaign.
Balfour packed Wilson's peace ideals in his dispatch
box, and on the passage back to Britain, dumped it in
mid-Atlantic.
President Roosevelt never dreamed of sending an
American lad to h ht in Europe. For over two years he
promised the mothers of our youths that they would
remain in America. The public opinion polls before
Pearl Harbor revealed that between 70 and 80 per cent
of the eople questioned were against war. But lon
before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was finding ways and
means of getting into the strife. So it goes. It is an
awful thing for proletarians when the liberties of
Europe are in danger, whether a potentate-such as the
Czar of Russia-or an upstart like Napoleon or Hitler
is accused of the intention to destroy them.
Poor old proletarian! He never seems to get tired of
saving something for others. When he wakes up to the
fact that he had better save something for imself,
there may be a change, but it will not last long, if the
history of the chap is to be relied on.
The toral bill for World War II exceeds the financial
imagination of a King Midas. Official sources in Wash-
ington and a survey made by the American University,
also in Washington, put the total military cost of the
war to all belligerents at $1,116,991,463,084 and prop-
erty damage at $230,900,000,000. The same sources esti-
p38
mate the military cost to the principal belligerents as
follows: United States, $330,030,463,084; United King-
dom, $120,000,000,000.
According to Wbitaker': Almanac-k, the national debt
of the United Kingdom in 1913-14 was just under
(300,000,000. After the great wars, it had risen to more
than £25,000,000,000. It has been a pretty costly busi-
ness, and the worst of it is not yet, either for the British
taxpayer or the American.
An article published in Newaeek for December 12,
1949, says:
Nat one American in a hundred realizes that total tax
collections now exceed the wartime peak. And not one in a
thousand knows that hidden taxes-included in the price
of everything he buys-will exceed $700 per family this year.
In fan, the best-kept secret in the country today is the Size of
the tax load.
Small wonder shopkeepers complain of a consumer's
strike against the high cost of commodities! The Joint
Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation reports that
the number of taxpayers enjoying an annual income
under $3,000 a year amounts to 32,875,500. Should that
1ot get tired of subscribing to European aid, what would
the British proletarian do? National bankruptcy is
something he ought to think about, but whether it is
nobler to be a civilized bankrupt than a barbaric torali-
tarian, only a lawyer born and raised in Philadelphia
can tell.
No one seems prepared to face the music, but the
band will play the fortissimo passages of the debt mo-
tive, with tubas and trombones going full blaSt, before
we are many years older.
So long as the workers in Great Britain look to the
government at Westminster to provide them with jobs,
they will live precariously. Later on, rationing will be-
come more and more meager, and restriction ti%1ter.
Already, keen observers who have surveyed the uro-
p39
pean scene return to the United States with doleful
stories. One says that the great problem in Britain is
how the present administration can save the bureaucracy.
The same might be said by an Englishman who has
visited the United States-that Truman’s principal
effort is to save his administration.
No bureaucrat talks of saving the taxpayers, and the
reason is that the workers who provide the funds for
government are not tax conscious. It takes time and
thought to make a study of the cost of government. In
America where commodities are sold freely without
ration tickets, the consumers may strike against high
prices. In Britain the people have to take what they
can get of the necessaries of life. But the Americans
have not yet found out why prices are high and the pur-
chasing power of the dollar is shrinking. It is now
worth about 48¢. It is a baffling business for the rich
and the poor, but there seems to be little hope that the
taxpayers will set to work to learn for themselves why
they are in distress.
The modern man we hear so much about has no time
to work these things out for himself. The movie, the
radio, and television are on the way to destroy thought.
Perhaps the real reason why the people of a hundred
years ago were able to better themselves is because they
were not pestered from morning till night with the dis-
tractions of the machine age. When the artisan in Old-
ham or in Fall River reached home for his dinner, he
had a chance to think things over. He was not worried
about the payment of the next inStallment on some
gadget that did his thinking for him. He had advan-
tages of meditation the modern man knows little or
nothing about. Science was something for the intellec-
tual, and he did nor bother much about it. He never
dreamed of letting broadcasters have a mortgage on his
mind. As for moror cars, buses, or bicycles to give him
a lift for a few miles, he would have scorned them.
p40
Perhaps he knew that walking was an aid to thinking,
as goets and musicians discovered years ago.
efore the gadget age, the average man used his eyes,
and what he saw set his mind to work. His descendant,
who travels in a fast-moving vehicle, has no chance to
see what he saw. The scenery goes by so fast that he
cannot get a proper view of anything of consequence,
and this is a very serious matter. For observation is a
necessary exercise for the eyes. There were few bespec-
tacled people when men walked. Today nearly every
Other person over thirty must have sight aids, and the
number of people whose ears are decorated with tone
amplifiers is increasing steadily. John Hervey, the great
racehorse expert, remarked that the gas-pushers are
breeding a race that will not know how to walk.
What, therefore, can be expected from a dphysically
defective proletariat? And, yet, we are tol that the
health of the British and American people was never
better. Upon what basis is such an assertion made?
Merely that there have been fewer sick peo le. How
comes it, then, that every hospital in the and3 is crying
out for more funds and the State says that the health
of the people is so serious that medicine must be na-
tionalized?
Thinking is a bore; the moron is a very happy
person. I am one," said a lady who was entertaining
the president, the dean, and two or three professors of a
wel -known college. There was no doubt about her
being a moron, but she had to admit that she would
like to know as much as her cook, who attended a night
school twice a week. Thinking is in disrepute, and how
the proletarians are going to save themselves from be-
coming chattel slaves of the State is a mighty (problem.
Short-cuts to knowledge are the bane of e ucation.
Since the State has offered courses on a silver platter,
the vasr majority of youngsters look upon them with dis-
dain. Educationists who are free to express themselves
say that national education is one of the biggest rackets
p41
praCticed by the bureaucracies. It is undoubtedly so in
the United States where illiteracy is fostered by the
credit system. A well-known teacher of French was
asked how many in her class would be able to write or
speak the language when they left the university. She
said, "About one per cent. Most of them are taking it
merely for credits."
The same may be said of other studies. The waste of
time and money is appalling, and the number of new
subjects being introduced in the universities turns the
sorry business into a farce. Some American institutions
of learning provide classes for cosmeticians, morticians,
shoeticians, and dietitians. These are only a few of the
new courses advertised by solemn faculties to attract
reluctant students. Perhaps some instructor of youth
will explain the success of such men as James Brindley,
Sir Richard Arkwright, Sir Humphry Davy, Michael
Faraday, Thomas Edison, and a host of Other inventors
and scientists who had little or no schooling in their
early years. The education that made them eminent they
got for themselves. When one scans the list of American
and British manufacturers who built up great industries
during the last half of the nineteenth century, one is
amazed at what they did on the meager curricula of
the schools of the period.
Since the introduction into our colleges of such
studies as political science, we have had two world
wars and many Others of lesser dimension. Since civics
has been a study for young people, statistics show that
the increase in crime perpetrate by this group staggers
the imagination. How the idealists rec on upon the
products of such a system to deal successfully with the
mighty problems that baffle the politicians is something
no one pretends to explain. Therein, perhaps, lies the
reason why politicians have things a1 their own way
and go from one distressing blunder to another without
compunction.
p42
One of the strangest things today is the cry for more
leisure for recreation which is heard everywhere, al-
though the need for deep refleCtion was never so great.
Of course, the study of essential problems cal s for
work, and with the millions today, work is doing
what you do not like. The only reason why it is r-
formed is because man must feed his belly. The Piaf
has become the god of appetite.
Read Chapter Five-"The Grand Inquisitor"-in
Book V of Tbe Brat/Jen Kammazov. Dostoevsky says:
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and
say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." They will
understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough
for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they
be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too,
that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worth-
less and rebellious.
Is that what it all comes to? Was the author a prophet
who estimated correCtly the tendencies of the age? The
book was published seventy years ago, and the redic-
tion of the Grand Inquisitor is well-nigh fulfilled). It is
not a nice prospecr for the reflective man who has any
thought for the future of his children.
p43
Diplomatic Prelude to World
War I
THERE IS NO CONFESSIONAL FOR THE POLITICAL SINNER,
probably because it is impossible to imagine a reason
why he should be absolved. And now that hell has
been abolished, he has little fear of the fire dreaded by
those long ago who committed political sins which
seem somewhat insignificant as judged by our present
standards of morality. Perhaps the whitewash tub and a
two-ply brush are all that are necessary to cleanse the
sins of our legislators.
Certainly whitewash has been applied in excess since
the last South African War. But a good deal of it has
peeled off under the burning processes of thorough in-
vestigation, and the acts 0 our idols are now seen in
their nakedness. Nietzsche said that perhaps one of the
greateSt crimes was Stupidity. I-le meant political stu-
pidity. Schiller, too, railed against it: “Against stu-
pidity the very gods themselves contend in vain."
Stupidity in foreign affairs is not easily detected-not
even by a watchful House of Commons or an alert
Congress. It is not until long after the blunder has been
committed, and the damage one, that the sin is brou ht
into the light of day. No one knew the dan ers of3 an
error in diplomacy better than Disraeli, and3 he dealt
with the matter in the House of Commons:
If you make a mistake in your foreign affairs; if you enter
into unwise treaties; if you conduct campaigns upon vicious
principles; if the scope and tendency of your foreign system are
p44
founded upon want of information or false information, or are
framed With no clear idea of what are your objeCts and your
means of obtaining them, there is no majority in the House
of Commons which can long uphold a Government under
such circumstances. A majority under such circumstances
will not make a Government strong, but will make this
House weak.
No one will quarrel with that statement. But the
friends of the men at the head of affairs in Britain,
America, and European countries have naturally sought
to defend them against the severe striCtures of hard-
hearted critics. Hence, the whitewash tub and the two-
ply brush, used so lavishly on behalf of Minisrers of
Foreign Affairs. But in nearly every case these apologiSts
have mistaken the politician for the man. Who could
be more charming, in polite society, than Sir Edward
Grey, Count Berchtold, Raymond Poincaré, or von
Bethmann-Hollweg? They were gentlemen and had hosts
of devoted friends. But as ministers of state, their acts
affected millions of people and brought death and deso-
lation to them.
Their excuses for the conflagration they started in
Au ust, 1914, have been shattered to pieces, and few
students now believe them. The woeful work of secret
diplomacy brought ruin to their countries, and an
examination of the policies that were kept secret from
the public reveals an unbelievable course of crass Stu-
pidity. The lies told to shield their secret policies
entered the ublic mind as truth and bred nothing but
hatred and disaster.
One of the chief reasons why progress in reconstruc-
tion is stalled is that the lies are perpetuated by their
successors who know they are lies. Who expects a
public which has been misinformed to assiSt in the
work of peace, when the hatred they bear one another
is born of a long series of palpable untruths?
There will never be peace in Europe until the lie that
Germany was solely responsible for the First World
p45
War is cleared out of the minds of the people of Britain,
France, and America. The necessity for wipin that
slate clean is obvious to any man who has fofiowed
closely the writin s of present-day publicists. It infeCts
their opinions, ant? it inoculates the minds of those who
will have to bear the brunt of future wars. It poisons
the atmosphere breathed by the delegates to the United
Nations. It is perpetuated in articles written by some
of the new historians, and unfortunately, a few of these
people teach at important seats of learning. The youths
who receive instrucrion from them were mere boys when
the Second World War was fought. It is a dreadful
state of affairs, and the worst of it is, it is fostered by
statesmen and prelates who are baffled daily in the course
of their respeCtive pursuits.
Surely the peace of the world is of more importance
than the reputation of a politician. With the object of
learnin what took place in the chancelleries of the
Allies Eom the time the Austrian Archduke was mur-
dered until Russia and France declared war, it is neces-
sary to review, step by step, the sequence of events.
In taking up this task, students must understand that
there were five editions of the British White Paper con-
taining the diplomatic correspondence prior to the
outbreak of the confliCt. I doubt whether half a dozen
men in the three Allied countries know about the first
edition that was published on August 4th. I have a copy
of it, but I have not heard of any Other person who
possesses one. It was so full of deliberate errors that
after the war orgy in the House of Commons, when
members tore their papers to shreds, the debris was
swept up and burned.
Recently a new light has been thrown upon documents
in the first White Paper, revealing a state of affairs
which is unbelievably Stupid.
In a letter to the writer from a well-known prelate,
who was entertaining Lord Haldane after World War I,
the story is told of “what happened on the evening of
p46
Sunday, August 2, 1914." The following is taken from
the letter:
Lord Haldane saidz.”Grey and I were dining at Queen
Anne's Gate when a man from the Foreign Office came with a
red box. Grey opened it and said, The German: are over :6: Bel-
gian frontier. What are we to do?‘ I said, ‘l..et usfo and tell
Asquith.’ So we wentto Number 10. Asquith sai , 'Give me
five minutes.’ We sat in silence till A. said, 'We must fight.’
We said, 'We hoped you would decide that way.’ " (Italics
mine)
Then, in the prelate's letter, the details are given
about Haldane offering to attend to the mobilization of
the expeditionary force that he had organized. No
example of diplomatic blundering can be found that
shows more clearly how men like Asquith, Grey, and
Haldane are ready to jump to conclusions that are with-
out substance.
In the White Papers published by the government,
there is only one dispatch which informed Grey of an
invasion of foreign territory by the Germans. That is
the one Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador at Lon-
don received from Viviani, the French Minister of For-
eign Affairs, and is desi nated in the first White Paper
as Enclosure 3 in Dispatch No. 105. Whether the English
translation of this dispatch was made at the French
Embassy or at the British Forei n Office is nor clear,
but tbere i: no reference in it to the (germane crowing tbe Bel-
gian frontier. Here is what it says:
The German Army had its advance posts on our frontiers
yesterday (Friday). German patrols twice penetrated onto
our territory.
|
This is an accurate translation of the first sentence of
the French dispatch, which is as follows:
L'amie allmande a u: aunt-porter .mr no: bomr-frontiirer,
bier vendredi; par deux foi: do: parroiiille: 411mm: one pint"!
mr mm territoire.
p47
Belgium is not mentioned anywhere in this communi-
cation. Why Grey jum d to the conclusion that her
territory had been invale can be explained in only one
way: the British and French preparations for the struggle
were made solely from the viewpoint that if a conflict
took place, Germany would attac Belgium first. Indeed,
Belgium concentrated all her forces on her eastern fron-
tier. This story, told by Haldane, is strange indeed,
because one must infer that Grey did not show him the
dispatch. For Haldane spoke and read French as flu-
ent y as he spoke and read English and German. Grey
knew little or nothing about the Continent of Europe
and was no French scholar.
Not long after the war broke out, suspicion was cast
upon Viviani's dispatch, and when the war terminated,
it was proved by French critics to be a fake. This was
obvious to anyone who read the first White Paper with
caution. The dispatch is dated Paris, July 31, 1914. It
begins b saying: French frontiers were penetrated on
Friday gyesterday). But "yesterday" was Thursday,
July 3oth.
However, there are stranger things than that about
these documents. Turning to Dis atch No. 105, from
Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie ghe British Ambassa-
dor to France), we find that there were three enclosures:
(1) Grey's letter to Paul Cambon, dated November 22,
1912, concerning the consultations which had been tak-
ing place in recent years between the French and British
naval and military experts; (2) the letter in reply from
Paul Cambon to Grey, dated French Embassy, London,
November 23, 1912; (3) the one referred to above from
Viviani. But how Grey could enclose a letter that left
Paris on Friday, July 31$t, in one that he sent from
London the day before-July 3oth-is incomprehensible.
Worse still, and far more difficult to understand, are
the two letters that passed between Sir Edward Grey
and Paul Cambon. They were Enclosures 1 and 2, which
were sent in Dispatch No. 105 by the British Foreign
p48
Diplomatic Prelude to World War I 43
Minister to his ambassador in Paris, Sir Francis Bertie.
No thorough, hard-headed student of these two letters
has been able to reconcile them with the statements
made in the House of Commons by Sir Edward Grey.
It must be noted that the first one is not from the
French Ambassador, but from the British Minister of
Foreign Affairs, who admits "from time to time in
recent years the French and British naval and military
experts have consulted together." The date of this letter
isff November 22, 1912-sixteen months after the Agadir
a air.
The only reason I can find for the exchan e of these
letters was the need to dispel the anxiety of those "in
the know" in the House of Commons about the state
of affairs aggravated by the Agadir crisis. Several
speeches were made in the country durin November,
1912, which indicated clearly that Sir gdward Grey
was in for a showdown, as the phrase went. Earl Percy,
at Queen's Hall, November 14, 1912, told his audience:
It would require courage to tell the country the truth that
they are living in a "fool's paradise," and that it was not
merely our Army but the army of France which was our pres-
ent defence against German invasion. And it was a base be-
trayal of our obligations nor to be able to support France with
an adequate military force of our own.
Before the House rose, Mr. Amery moved to reduce
the Army estimates, and in his speech he declared that
it was agreed to send a force to assist France. Some
foolish Virgins behind the Treasury bench cried, "No!
No!" Unconscious of sitting in the dark, they resented
every petition made to Grey for light upon the question.
Through that summer and autumn many critics of
Grey's policy expressed themselves upon the necessity
of informing the House and the public of the obligations
implicit in the plans made by the French and British
mi itary and naval staffs.
But the speeches of Grey's critics are net suflicient to
clear up the mystery, which envelops the exchange of
p49
letters at that date. Many have searched for a reason,
and some of the men associated with the Paris branch
of the Union of Democratic Control came to the conclu-
sion that the letters were written for the sole purpose
of helping Grey in his address to the House on August
3, 1914-to assure members that the government's hands
were free.
That is the point that he insists upon in his memoirs.
However, when he read the letters to the House, he
omitted the final sentence in his own letter to Cambon,
which is as follows: "If these measures involved action,
the plans of the General Staffs would at once be taken
into consideration, and the Governments would then
decide what effeCt should be given to them."
But every subterfuge failed to impress those who, for
several years, had opposed the foreign policy of Grey.
Many Conservatives, nearly all Irish Home Rulers, and
about fift Liberal backbenchers proteSted againsr the
secrecy ofy the Foreign Office. Noc a few of these men
knew the government was heading for war. As for
the Cabinet, only Asquith, Grey, and Haldane knew
what the commitments were. Lloyd George says:
There was a reticence and a secrecy which practically ruled
out three-fourths of the Cabinet from the chance of making
any genuine contribution to the momentous questions then
fermenting on the Continent of Europe, which ultimately
ended in an explosion that almOSt shattered the civilisation
of the world.
He states in his War Memoir: that Lord Northcliffe,
at a dinner at Lord Birkenhead's house, told the com-
pany “quite bluntly that the editor of a great London
journal was better informed about what was happening
in the capitals of the world than any cabinet minister.’
The situation on Sunday, August 2nd, was desperate
for the Cabinet. Lloyd George has said that there was
a great difference of opinion, and several of the mem-
bers threatened to resign. Later, Lord Morley and John
p50
Diplomatic Prelude to World War I 45
Burns sent in their resignations. However, a pretext for
war was found in the old so-called Belgian treaties of
1831 and 1839, although it had been determined several
times, particularly in 1887, that
(1) England is under no guarantee whatever except such as is
common to Austria, France, Russia, and Germany; (2) that
guarantee is not specifically of the neutrality of Bel ium at
all; and (3) [it] is given not to Belgium but to the fiether-
lands.
Taking another glance at the questions put to the
government, and the debates in the House 0 Commons
uring the years 1912-13, one sees clearly how Grey
strove to deceive the house, and that all his striving
made the situation worse for him. There is a record of
every question that was put to him on the matter of
Britain 5 commitments to France and Russia. John
Dillon, Joseph King, J. W. Jowett, Lord Hugh Cecil,
and others tried in vain to get from the Foreign Minister
an explicit Statement about the matter. The majority
of the House believed firmly that British military and
naval forces had to go to the aid of France if a war
broke out. Grey neglected every opportunity the ties-
tioners gave him to clarify the situation. Wearied, at
last, by making fruitless efforts to get the information
from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lord Hugh Cecil
turned to the Prime Minister.
The passafge taken from the official report is worth
quoting in ull:
Lord Hugh Cecil: “The right hon. gentleman [Asquith]
made reference to foreign affairs, and there is one aspect of
them, of not so controversial a charaCter as Others, on which
I should like to say a few words. The ri ht hon. gentleman
and his colleagues are generally believecF-I speak with the
utmost diffidence in regard to allegations which may nor be
well founded-to have entered into an engagement, or, to
speak more accurately, to have given assurances, which in the
contingency of a great European war would involve heavy
military obligations on this country. We do not suspect the
p51
Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary of pursuing anything
but a pacific foreign policy, and we are far from saying that
their policy is in any way an aggressive one; but certainly we
believe, if the stories current are true, the policy, if it is not
to be regarded as an aggressive one, is adventurous.”
The Prime Minister: "Will the noble lord define a little
more definitely what he means?"
Lord Hugh Cecil: "I am only anxious not to use words
which will convey anything but perfectly fair criticism in a
matter of this sort, and any ambiguity in what I have said
is due to the fact that I do not wish to go beyond the necessi-
ties of the case."
The Prime Minister: "1 do not complain.”
Lord Hugh Cecil: "There is a very general belief that this
country is under an obligation, mat a treaty obligation, but
an obligation arising out of an assurance given by the Min-
istry in the course 0 diplomatic negoriations, to send a very
large armed force out of this count? to operate in Europe.
That is the general belief. It woul be very presumptuous
of any one who has not access to all the facts in possession
of the Government-"
The Prime Minister: "I ought to say that it is not true."
There were some who wondered whether Asquith
himself was informed. After the war, I made it my
business to look up the statements made by Haldane,
Colonel Repington, and Colonel Huguet, the French
military attaché at London, and I found that Asquith
was privy to the arrangements consented to by Grey-
to carry on meetings 0 the British and French military
staffs. In his book, Before the War, Haldane says:
Sir Edward Grey consulted the Prime Minister, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr.
Asquith, and myself as War Minister, and I was instructed,
in January, 1906, a month after assuming office, to take the
examination of the question in hand.
Why, therefore, should Asquith try to deceive the
House? There were two reasons: one was the fear of a
revolt in the Liberal ranks, if they knew of the arrange-
ment; the other was the fear of France and Russna ob-
p52
Diplomatic Prelude to World War I 47
jecting to a public announcement of the plans then
being made. But in 1912 this t of trouble came to the
boil, and the French at the éiiai d'Orsay became very
uneasy, fearing there would be an explosion. Grey had
to do something to make things easy or his ambassador
at Paris, so he wrote the following letter to him:
MY om Baum,
There would be a row in Parliament here if I had used
words which implied the possibility of a secret engagement
unknown to Parliament al these years committing us to a
European war. But I send you a copy of the question and
answer. I purposely worded the answer so as not to convey
that the engagement of 1904 mi ht not under certain circum-
stances be construed to have farther consequences than its
strict letter.
B. Gan?
It was T. P. Conwell-Evans who discovered this letter
and published it in his book, Foreign Policy from a Back
Ben: . Most of those who have taken the trouble to
look into this discreditable affair agree that there would
have been no war in 1914 if Grey and Asquith had taken
the House into their confidence. Indeed, in 1922, Austen
Chamberlain declared in the Commons:
Suppose that engagement had been made publicly in the
light 0 day. Suppose it had been read before this House and
approved by this lzlbuse, might act the events of those Autumn
days of 1914 have been different? If our obligations had gin
known and definite, it is at least possible, and I think it is
probable, that war would have been avoided in 1914.
Now the Proletarian may ask, "What is the good of
raking up a that old controversy, and how is it going
to help us to make a living?" A pertinent question. The
reply is simple, however. The story is revived because
it has become more and more difficult for you to live in
fife with your neighbors. Ever since 1906, you have
been threatened with war, and today the gigantic debt
that has been incurred makes you as a producer a slave
p53
of the State. The interest on the debt can only be paid
for by the goods that you produce.
Now the military experts in America are preparing
to fight another war. Do you think you can escape the
call when the bugles blow? Do you not realize that when
that moment comes you have little or nothing to say
about it? Your commanders will not ask you whether
you think it is moral to obey their orders; they will
tell you to march and you will have to fight. It is all
in the cards, my friends, so take heed and make your
desires known to your representatives in Congress and
in Parliament, and let them understand you do not
want another war and have no desire to be driven to
the slaughter like sheep. The time to take action is now
-not when the trouble begins.
Do you know that the British army and navy esti-
mates for 1948-49 amounted to more than £400,000,000?
The net estimate of the navy is nearly equal to the sum
the London Government must pay in interest and prin-
cipal upon the post-war loan she got from the United
States. The London financial correspondent of The New
York Timer says:
Under terms of the loan, Britain had the privilege of
drawing on the $3,750,000,000 fund as needed. It was thought
that the credit could stretch comfortably over five years or
more. Events roved otherwise and within three years of the
first advance England had used up the last penny of her
American credit.
This was written on December 25, 1949. Such things
have become more and more serious, and now they are
getting out of hand. The difficulties that lie ahead for
the proletarians are dreadful to contemplate. For they
do not seem to realize that no miracle will take place
to save them.
The importance of resurrecting the "old stufim set out
above should be clear to any thinking man. What has
happened before may happen again. Do you think the
p54
Atlantic Pact is to be relied on in an emergency? What
became of all your other pacts? Was there ever a tighter,
stronger one made than t at which existed before World
War I? And so sanguine were its makers that it would
accomplish its purpose that Lord Esher said in August,
1915:
From the outset of the war I have been thrown into the
company of practically every one of our leading statesmen,
and have found them all wrong in their forecasts without
exception. They genuinely believed in a short war. They
prophesied its conclusion in anything from three to nine
months. They jeered at a less optimistic view, and hardly
one of them but held that before now (August, 1915) the
British Army, accompanied by political plenipotentiaries,
would be marching through Berlin.
Never were men "in the know" so sure of a speedy
victory as your leaders were in the autumn of 1914.
However, when they discovered that it was going to
be a long job, they began to paint the enemy in terrible
colors and invent the yarns that made a reasonable peace
impossible four years later. Germany was to be judged
solely responsible for starting the war; and on the basis
of that stupid notion, the vindictive Treaty of Ver-
sailles was signed at the point of the gun. Every sug-
gestion of revision was rejected by the Allied Govern-
ments, but independent neutral committees investigated
the causes of the war and declared that Germany was
no more responsible than the Allies. Later-after the
trials of the Russian generals-it was found that Russia
began it. England was drawn in at the tail end of the
chariots of France and Russia.
Perhaps no man in the House of Commons desired
peace more than Sir Edward Grey , but every secret
commitment that he had made negated his aim. I do
not agree with those who say that he desired war. After
the demonstration that broke from members who wel-
comed his address on August 3rd, he relapsed into piti-
able dejection; and when the declaration of war was
p55
made a day or so later, he was a sad sight. The strain
that he had been under since the middle of July was so
severe that he never recovered from it.
There it is! The course that he had pursued since he
took office in December, 1905, led to the most terrible
disaster. It nor only culminated in the war, but it de-
stroyed the Liberaly party. Grey's fate reminds one of
William Pitt, and when I think of Sir Edward, I am
reminded of several pages in Macaulay's essay on the
British Prime Minister who waged war against Napo-
leon.
p56
The reason why you have fallen so thoughtlessly
into the toils of war should now be plain to you. You
imadgined that all you had to do as an elector was to
sen a representative to Congress or Parliament and
let him do the political thinking for you. When you
did this, your mind was chiefly occupied with immediate
domestic problems, and no doubt the man you sent to
represent you was ready to deal with them according
to his election pledges. Maybe he was highly qualified
for this purpose, but very likely his knowledge of the
intricacies of foreign affairs amounted to no more than
yours.
In 1920, Herbert Morrison was Secretary of the Lon-
don Labor Party. He felt he had been wrong during
World War I, and he solemnly vowed, "Never again!"
In an article he wrote:
All the governments of all the warring nations deliber-
ately deceived their citizens and their fighting men. They
founded propaganda departments for this special purpose,
paying men out of public funds to deceive their fellows by the
spoken and written word. The government suppressed truth,
newspapers, books, and organizations, and imprisoned good
men an true.
Therefore, he called on all trade unionisrs to say:
Never again shall leaders of labor or their rank and file be
so ill-informed and so lacking in a sense of responsibility as
to accept without critical analysis the statements of govern-
ments {of whatever party) who desire to lead the country
Into war.
p57
Clement Attlee also felt that he had been wrong. In
1920 he was Mayor of Stepney, and confessed, coura-
geously;
When we entered this war we were too credulous-we
believed the Government. We should have been wiser if we
had listened to the Union of Democratic Control, and less
to the other voices. I am proud today, as a man who has
fought in the war, to stand on a Union of Democratic Control
platform with those who always protested against the war
and told us we were deceived. They were right and we were
wrong.
In 1939 these men were politicians. Both were mem-
bers of the House of Commons, but no one heard them
say, "Never again!" Were they too credulous? Did they
know any more about the real causes of World War II
than they did about the causes of its predecessor? Nor a
bit! Yet, they went into it and took their people with
them.
Ask your grandfather about the situation as he found
it before the First World War. Ask him how much his
representative knew in July, 1914, about the onrushing
conflict, the disastrous storm that broke in a few short
weeks over Europe, and caused irretrievable havoc.
Why, on Sunday, August 2nd, when British troops were
moving to the stations of the southern railways, mem-
bers of Parliament in the National Liberal Club, London,
were firmly convinced there would be no war. Yet, two
members of Parliament, who had gone to a Liberal
demonstration at Swindon the day before, Sfent nearly
five hours on that short journey, because 0 the move-
ment of troop trains going to the ports. At four o'clock
on Sunday afternoon, a Friend learned from an Under-
Secretary of State in Downing Street that war was un-
thinkable.
Lloyd George says, in his War Memoirr, that on Sun-
day, August 2nd, the Cabinet was “hopelessly divided
on the subject of Britain entering the war." Further-
more, he tells us: “Even then he met no responsible
p58
minister who was not convinced that, in one way or
another, the calamity of a great European war would
somehow be averted." But the most Startling commen-
tary on the whole thing was his statement:
The world was exceptionally unfortunate in the quality
of its counsellors in this terrible emergency. Had there been
a Bismarck in Germany, or a Palmerston or a Disraeli in
Britain, a Roosevelt in America, or a Clemenceau in authority
in Paris, the catastrophe might, and I believe would, have
been averted; but there was no one of that quality visible on
the bridge, in any great State. Von Beél'lmannJ-Iollweg,
Poincare, Viviani, Berchtold, Sazonow and Grey were all
able, experienced, conscientious and respectable mariners, but
distinctl); lacking in the force, vision, imagination and re-
source which alone could have saved the situation.
If, then, cabinet ministers, other members of Parlia-
ment, and the great mass of the electors in such a crisis
knew so little about the true reason for it, why do peace
societies now organize and pass resolutions against war?
The fact is that there are undercover movements always
at work instigating ministries, editors, clergymen, and
orher influential bodies to further their interests. None
of this work is done directly. Indeed, scarcely anyone
in the groups mentioned above has known how he has
been influenced. Disraeli was one of the few who was
conscious of the extraordinary power of these people
who work in the dark. He makes that farce plain in his
novel, Coningsby.
Bismarck knew them well, but I cannot find a direct
reference of his to their work in Europe. Still there is
on record the conversation he had with Conrad Siem
in 1876, which referred particularly to the American
Civil War. Urbain Gohier published it in his magazine,
La Vieille France, March, 1921. Strangely enough, Lin-
coln knew the real influences at work behind the Civil
War, and when it was over, he said:
As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned
and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the
p59
money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign
by warring upon the prejudices of the people until wealth
is aggregated in the hands of a few and the Republic is de-
stroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of
my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war.
But how is the elector to know what goes on behind
the scenes? When he has a job, he works eight or ten
hours a day, and when he reaches home, his mind turns
not to study, but to recreation. Even if he knew a bit
about essential things, he would feel he could not live
in a world of skepticism from morning till night, doubt-
ing the men in his government and distrusting his rep-
resentative in Congress or Parliament. He might very
well point out that the great pundits and learned jour-
nalists who write books on political history and supply
his newspapers with editorials know no more about it
than he does.
The proletarian may ask what chance he has to edu-
cate himself upon these subjects. The only reply that
can be made is that he had better take time off to study
a bit, so that when the opportunity occurs, he will be
better equipped to make his protest. This he must do
for himself . No college, no university, will help him
to improve his mind in that way. No one in a university,
during the past fifty years to my knowledge, has touched
upon this question. The professors seem to be removed
from actuality, and when a crisis arises in international
affairs, they are swept like the proletarians into the
maeIstrom.
Yet, it is possible for an intelligent man to get some
light upon these matters. After the First World War
was over, a libel action was brought against the Paris
newspaper, L'Humanite’, and at the trial the evidence
revealed some startling facts. A Rhodes Scholar, C. K.
Streit, was so impressed by the revelations that he
wrote a remarkable study of the operations of the Comité
de: Forge: and kindred associations in Germany, which
he called The Asmuz'n: of tbe People. It was afterwards
p60
published under the title, Wbere Iron ir, Tbere i: :6:
Fatherland. When the pamphlet was circulated in New
York, many working men read it and learned more
about the real interests of munitions makers than any
historian dared to publish.
Shortly after the pamphlet was issued, anOther trade
depression set in. Men were out of work, larders were
empty, and time had to be given to that most discourag-
ing pursuit of all-looking for a job. That knocked the
bortom out of interest in historical treatises. The facts
revealed by Streit were summed up by Senator Gaudin
de Villaine, a Conservative member of the French Par-
liament:
I formally accuse the big cosmopolitan banks, at least the
owners of mining rights, to have conceived, prepared, and
let loose this horrible tragedy with the monstrous thought
of world stock-jabbing. I accuse these same money powers to
have, before and since the war, betrayed the interests of
France.
I cannot remember reading in a single work by an
academic historian, who dealt with the First World
War, a reference to the facts given from the documents
by Mr. Streit.
The speeches of ministers of State and the dis atches
of diplomatists to their Ministers of Foreign Affairs by
no means tell the whole story. One has only to read the
Monypenny and Buckle Life of Disraeli and check its
account of events of that period with Moritz Busch’s
Our Chancellor and Bismarck, Some Secret Page: of his-
tory to discover how different interpretations of foreign
policy conflict and cannot be reconciled. It is a pity that
someone has not endowed a chair of modern history
at a university for the sole purpose of dealing specifically
with foreign policy and the powers that have influenced
it since Waterloo.
In such a course some light might be thrown upon
the sinister influences that make for war. After the
p61
panic of 1908, there was only one man of prominence
who had the courage to speak his mind upon this matter.
Lord Welby, who was once the head of the British
Treasury, said:
We are in the hands of an organization of crooks. They
are politicians, generals, manufacturers of armaments, and
journalists. All of them are anxious for unlimited expendi-
ture, and go on inventing scares to terrify the public and to
terrify Ministers of the Crown.
He was in a position to gather the facts and know
what he was talking about.
In the United States in the past few years there have
been scores of articles written upon atomic warfare and
the probability of another confliCt. Long books, too,
have been published on these subjects. The student
gleans from all this literature that many of the readers
are anxious about the future and wish to know what
should be done to avert war and the use of the bomb.
No satisfactory reply comes from the authors who spill
so much ink. There has been no enthusiasm for the
Atlantic Pact. Most people who know anything about
it shrug their shoulders and say, “Just another treaty."
Some of the curious ask, "Are we to fight Russia be-
cause she is spreading Communist propaganda or be-
cause, in Germany, she is west of the er, where the
secret treaty of the Allies, of the First World War,
promised she should stand?"
No one attempts to make a direct reply to this, and
I do not see how one can be given. The long speeches
delivered by delegates at the United Nations meetings
at Lake Success do not enlighten the people, and there
is a feeling that time and money are being wasted there
just as they were at that great temple of peace in Geneva
-the hall of the League of Nations.
The pretext of defending Belgium in the First World
War was ridiculed when it was announced. The Spectator
said frankly that Britain was pledged to go to war,
p62
Behind the 5mm 57
whether the Germans invaded Belgium or not. And
Leo Maxse, the belligerent editor of The National Review,
said it was to salve the consciences of the timid Liberals
in the Cabinet that the pretext of defending Belgium
was found. Many similar statements were made before
the war was six months old.
It was a commercial war, planned chiefly by Delcassé
(the French Foreign Minister), Sazonov (the Russian
Foreign Minister), and Izvolsky (Russian Ambassador
to France in 1914). As for Great Britain, John Maynard
Keynes points out in his book, The Economic Comequence:
of the Peace, that “England had destroyed, as in each
preceding century, a trade rival.”
Underlying all the frictions and animosities of the
powers interested in northern Africa were the gangs of
concessionaires associated with the Comité du Maroc and
the international combinations of the heavy industries
-the makers of munitions. The exploitation of the
natural resources of backward peoples, the search for
new markets, the development of railways and harbors,
and Other imperialistic schemes were the aims of rival
powers, but few representatives of the parliaments of the
great States knew anything about the real causes until
it was over. Delcassé had been on the war path before
the conference at Algeciras in 1906. According to Le
Gauloir, on July 12, 1905, he said:
Of what importance would the yonng navy of Germany
be in the event of war in which England, I tell you, would
assuredly be with us against Germany? What would become of
Germany's ports or her trade, or her mercantile marine? They
would be annihilated. That is what would be the significance
of the visit, prepared and calculated, of the British Squadron
to Brest, while the return visit of the French squadron to
Portsmouth will complete the demonstration. The entente
between the two countries and the coalition of their navies,
constitutes such a formidable machine of naval war that
neither Germany, nor any other Power, would dare to face
such an overwhelming force at sea.
p63
The only man in the French Chamber of Deputies
who knew what Delcassé and his associates were up
to was Jaurés who, so it is alleged, exposed the whole
thing to Prime Minister Rouvier. When the war broke
out in August, 1914, Jaurés was shot. He had to be
murdered, for he knew too much. But he was not the
only one who knew that it was a trade war that had
been provoked by exploiters using the backstairs of the
chancelleries.
When Woodrow Wilson returned to America for the
last time, he was an enlightened man. He had seen all
his great ideals scattered like chaff; he had even lost
faith in the Covenant. In an address at St. Louis, Sep-
tember, 1919, he said:
Why, my fellow-citizens, is there an man here, or any
woman-let me say , is there any child {ere-who does not
know that the seed, of war in the modern world is industrial
and commercial rivalry? . . . This war, in its inception, was a
commercial and industrial war. It was not a political war.
At St. Paul, in the same month, he said:
The German bankers and the German merchants and the
German manufacrurers did not want this war. They were
making conquest of the world without it, and they knew it
would spoil their plans.
It did more than “spoil the plans" of the German
bankers and manufacturers. It quite upset those of the
British and American proletarians, for it saddled them
with an enormous debt and mortgaged the labor of their
heirs for generations to come. Within ten years both
countries suffered two of the severest depressions the
modern world has known. The dole had to be given to
British working men to keep them quiet, and in America
after the crash of 1929, the dole was used as a Demo-
cratic ballot ticket, and the grafters made billions out
of the schemes launched by Roosevelt to give the im-
poverished work. It was a wonderful war, and "the
p64
glory and prestige earned by the men who survived the
fighting were not worth a patch on a laborer's blue
jeans."
In cutting down a trade rival, Great Britain discov-
ered she had not only wounded herself as an exporter
but that she had raised up competitors who would
make financial and commercial life a burden for her.
So shortsighted were the men who thought the First
World War would be short and sharp and that every-
thing would be "hunky-dory" when Germany was
licked! So far as trade was concerned, British statesmen
snapped at the shadow and dropped the bone. Keynes,
in his book, reminds us:
The statistics of the economic interdépendence of Germany
and her neighbors are overwhelming. Germany was the best
customer of Russia, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland,
Italy, and Austria-Hungary; she was the second best Customer
of Great Britain, Sweden, and Denmark; and the third best cus-
tomer of France. She was the largest source of supply to Rus-
sia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, olland, Switzer and, Italy,
Austria-Hunga?’, Roumania, and Bulgaria; and the second
largest source 0 supply to Great Britain, Belgium, and France.
In our own case we sent more exports to Germany than
to any other country in the world except India, and we bought
more from her than from any other country in the world
except the United States.
A rather cruel wit, during the Peace Conference at
Paris, observed that the men at the head of affairs in
Europe had never run a bank or manufactured an article
for sale. In Britain there were two lawyers, a solicitor,
and a fisherman on the Treasury bench, and Mr. Balfour
as the leader of the opposition. How were they to know
that the destruction of Germany as a trade rival would
injure every country in Europe?
The Treaty of Versailles was a catastrophe from which
Great Britain has never recovered. France-because of
her millions of peasant proprietors-was hurt least of
all by it. About a hundred years before, a far more able
p65
set of men than Great Britain boasted in 1914 had waged
a war against Napoleon. When it was over, the London
New: told its readers:
The situation of this country at the successful close of a
long war is singular, and worthy of observation. It is a fan
that peace, instead of having brought us security, retrench-
ment, relief from burdens, or extended commerce, to enable
us to bear them, has left us all the expenses of war, without
gaining to us the friendship of the very powers for whom we
undertook it. Of all the countries, that one against which we
fought has come out of the contest with the least harm; and
that which set all the rest in metion has suffered in the high-
est degree.
Where are Britain's friends today? Outside the Com-
monwealth they would be hard to find, for you cannot
call a money-lender a friend, particularly when there
is no chance whatever of repayin the debt you owe
him. There is more suspicion and fear today than there
has been at any time in the history of the world. And
unfortunately, no statesman has the stature necessary
for attempting to dispel the suspicions and fears that
hang like a dreadful pall upon us all. After Napoleon
was sent to St. Helena, it took forty years for the Con-
tinent to recover. Several European countries were
shaken by revolution, and blood-stained ways were
paved for the coming of Marx.
Put your thinking caps on and commune with your-
selves! You will never get out of the mess until you
know how you got into it. You are like the folks lost
in the maze. And, yet, we read week after week that
there are optimists who imagine everything will turn
out all right if we have patience. The language used
by these peo le to impress the mob differs little from
that written by their predecessors after the First World
War.
The cold-blooded pessimist who is dealing with facts
is a kill-joy and is liked no better now than he was
then. Optimism is the luxury of the thoughtless, and it
p66
is no intention of mine to deprive him of the slightest
moiety of it. Still it must be remarked that there were
no pessimists among the gentlemen who were responsible
for either war. And those who said that civilization
was beyond saving in 1914 might point out that there
was less chance of saving it in 1939.
Anyway, suppose we grant that you saved it: what
are you going to do with it? You can't eat it; you can't
wear it, and I should be the last to advise anybody to
smell it. Why, even the great men in Parliament, in
Congress, at Lake Success do not know what in the
dickens to do with it now they have their laps full of
it. The scientists, too, are confounded by it and confess
it is a far more difficult problem to understand than Ein-
stein’s latest mathematical formula embracing gravita-
tion and the electromagnetic field. At the recent meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, a learned professor read a paper in which he
declared: "The primary task of every society is to __c_i_vil-
ize the thousand: of young barbarians born into it each
day."
There we are! That gentleman hit the nail squarely
on the head. We have to stop breeding barbarians, and
the best way to impress our enemies that we mean busi-
ness is to set the example. If, as we are told, the totali-
tarian countries would educate the young dpeople to
conduct themselves according to the rules lai down by
their dietators, there seems to be no reason why the
peace-loving countries should be unable to civilize their
barbarians. In the past we thou ht that education would
make men use their faculties gr their own good. Phi-
losophers believed that reason was the peculiar endow-
ment of man and distinguished him mm the brute.
Something has gone wrong, however, with reason in
politics and socnal affairs. Perhaps men have been so
usy they have had no time to use it, and it has gone.
rusty and will act work. Whatever the explanation be
for the lack of it, our own critics, the pessimists, the
p67
kill-joys, do not hesitate to say that it is scarcely notice-
able in the things we do.
Years ago, John Watson, the behaviorist, told us that
we had only to hear men speak and see them act to
know they did not think. And Herbert Spencer wrote,
july 17, 1898:
Now that the white savages of Europe are over-running
the dark savages everywhere-now that the European nations
are vying wit one another in political burglaries-now that
we have entered upon an era of social cannibalism, in which
the strong nations are devouring the weaker-now that
national interests, national prestige, pluck, and so forth are
alone thouiht of, and equity has utterly dropped out of
thought, while rectitude is scorned as unctuous, It is useless
to resist the wave of barbarism. There is a bad time coming,
and civilised mankind will (morally) be uncivilised before
civilisation can again advance.
When the division bell rings and the tellers have
made the count, the Speaker will say, "The pessimists
have it."
p68
VII
The Interlude
Some of you, if prompted, will remember the maze of
of entanglements into which the peace-lovin statesmen
of the Allies rambled after they tried to put tie punitive
clauses of the Treaty of Versailles into practice. You
may recollect the joy-riding that took place from spa
to spa, and the complexities of finance and debt that
Owen Young and Charles Dawes attempted to solve. I
shall not carry your feelings by telling you all I know
about that discreditable business. All I shall say is that
one of the experts in the Dawes entourage told me, when
he returned to America, that the business was a no less
mess. Later efforts of the American experts confirmed
that gentleman's conviction.
When we consider what German politicians passed
through in the rigmaroles conducted by Allied states-
men, we can only imagine that their minds must have
been like whirling dervishes from morning till night.
They tried as best they could to bring some order out
of the chaos into which domestic affairs had fallen, but
nearl every action was blunted by the thousand and
one directions, restrictions, and prohibitions laid down
in the treaty.
I spent some months in Germany in 1921, and on
almost every hand I was told that the treaty was ruin-
ing Central Europe. The last time I saw Walther Rathe-
nau-a few weeks before he was murdered-he said that
the Ebert Government was incapable and that the
Economic Committee (over which Rathenau presided)
could have been of some praCtical use at home and better
p69
64 The Maker: of War
prepared to deal with the Allies, if it were free to do so.
had a long chat with him on how the financial and
commercial disorder of Central Europe affected British
trade. Returning to London, I told some of my friends-
oliticians and business men-of what I had learned,
but I might as well have made my remarks to a hitching
post. The men I conversed with were full of the propa-
anda yarns, and most of them thought that Germany
deserved her fate. They were blind to the fact that Eng-
lish business had been severely injured by the disruption
of trade in Central Europe. In Germany the Social
Democrats held the Kaiser and his associates responsible
for the war. Georg Bernhard, the editor of the wrist-be
Zeitung, with whom I had had several interviews, de-
clined to have anything to do with a petition for revision
of the treaty. His last words to me were: “We are now
on top and we intend to stay there."
The men who thought as he did were many and had
great influence in the eichstag. The British and Ameri-
can Ambassadors in Berlin saw the trouble clearly, but
they were powerless to bring the governments at home
to their senses. The chief reason for that was the obdur-
ate attitude of the French. When men in London and
Paris were told that their countries could not solve their
debt problems unless Central Europe was put to work
again, they suspected the informer of being a pro-Ger-
man. Never was there a clearer example of indolent
stupidity. Anyone who thought about the best interests
of Britain, but was not in accord with the popular no-
tions, was looked upon as a traitor.
Wherever I went in Europe, from Vienna to Bordeaux,
I was shocked to find the only people who had any sense
were those who had no influence whatever. This refers
to the natives of the countries I visited. That summer,
Berlin was taken over by Americans who were having
the time of their lives buying old masters, royal jewelry,
tapestries, furniture, and other objects of art thrown
p70
Tb: Irmrlnde 65
upon the market by collectors who saw the mark
dwindling in value day after day and nothing but pov-
erty staring them in the face.
My other visits to Germany before the rise of Hitler
were in 1925 and 1928. Perhaps the political nous that
I inherit acted clairvoyantly, and I could see that a
desperate change was taking ]place. I warned my friends
in ondon ant? Paris but fai ed to convince them that
something should be done to avert anorher war.
One of the most significant thin s I noticed, month
after month, was the hiking horfes of youths, from
sixteen to twenty-one, moving from village to village.
In the year 1925 I must have seen from thirty to forty
of these bands on the road or in a small town cleanin
up. All were dressed in shorts and wore heavy hobnailed
shoes-both girls and boys. They carried knapsacks
and staffs. They lived from hand to mouth, but a more
cheerful lot of wayfarers one could not wish to meet.
There was always someone in the group who could speak
English fluently, and willingly he or she would chat
about their condition and life in the open.
I spoke to my friends in Munich about these hikers,
but t ey knew little or nothing about them. I was told
there was not much of that taking place in Bavaria.
There had been few changes there. The people, how-
ever, were poor, and many of my old friends connected
with the opera, the theater, and painting were gone.
Twenty years had passed since my first visit there to
see the opening of the new Festspielhaus. Strange to
say, nobody spoke much of political disturbances, but
some told me Marxism was making rapid strides among
the poorer people. I realized that was to be expected,
for the repressions of the Treaty of Versailles and the
stupidity of Allied statesmen were creating the mobs
that would be easily infected with the virus of Marx.
I have not been able to explain to myself or to anyone
else why I knew so little about the Hitler movement in
the years between November, 1923, when his followers
p71
were shor in the courtyard of the War Office in Munich,
and the time while he was writing in prison the first
volume of Mein Kampf. There had been so many revolts
after the close of the war that perhaps I thought the
Munich revolution was just one more like those that
had petered out in Berlin. I do nor remember hearing
much about Hitler then; certainly norhing of a nature
that would rivet my attention.
Three years after his first volume was published, I
thought so little of the remarks of my friends in Germany
about it that I was not prompted to inquire for a trans-
lation. Truth to tell, I dld not read it in its entirety until
the only unexpurgated version in English was produced
in the United States, in 1939. Translations of the work
began to appear after 1933, but very soon it was rumored
that these were not complete. I read a copy of one of
them, but when a German-American friend told me it
was not a reliable translation, I put it aside. It was a
version of the work to be read as the editor of it desired.
However, there was so much bitter controversy
against what had appeared that I thought I had better
defer judgment unti I could study the whole book.
Nevertheless, I do remember I was amazed to find it
praised extravagantly by one section of readers and
itterly denounced by another. Then people who had
nor read it, but had seen some of the controversies about
it published in the newspapers, began to make transla-
tions of their own, and as collaborators they inserted
statements which became current in the gossip about
the work.
When the unex urgated edition appeared in English,
the inventions oiP those who had not read the former
editions had too long a start to be overtaken b Ludwig
Lore's excellent translation; and to this day these
stories linger in the minds of the majority of British and
American people. The translator of the unexpurgated
version has been roundly condemned by unprejudiced
students for his preface. It undoubtedly shows on which
p72
side of the fence he stands. As a Jew, he naturally resents
Hitler's idea of a superior race, and that disposition
colors a great many of his fulminations in the preface.
But this must be said to his credit: nowhere in the book
itself does he attempt to direct the mind of the reader,
either in a parenthetical passa e or in a footnote. He
leaves his translation free of editorial comment.
As a matter of record, however, it was not any part
of the doctrine expl§essed in Mein Kampf that stirred the
statesmen of the estern Allies to action. It was the
success of Hitler’s experiment in Germany. Indeed, it
was not a statesman who began the crusade against
Hitler; it was a New York lawyer who had never con-
tested a seat for Congress.
I fully appreciate the difficulties one must encounter
in making an attempt to put known facts in their order
and present a view of the case that is contrary to popular
notion. I remember what happened to such attempts in
Britain, in the United States, and in France after the
First World War. Like a formidable redoubt stand those
who have been hoodwinked by propaganda. They take
pride in maintaining their delusions and frown upon
anyone who would de rive them of them. Members of
legislatures told me after World War I that they did
not wish to go into the matter of the causes of the war
or who was to blame for it. I met in Italy, in 1925, two
peers who had been members of the House of Commons,
who could not bear to hear the matter referred to.
But the greatest obStacle one has to surmount is the
reviewer who must consider the editorial policy of his
paper. Perhaps I have known more of these people
intimately than any man who is not a practical journal-
ist. I pity many of them who do nor 1i e the job of giv-
ing scant notice to works which privately they consider
worthy of serious study. But theopress is the press, and
the chief thing to be considered is the effect that fair
criticism of such works will have upon advertisers. No
paper can afford to set up the backs o the men who make
p73
publication possible. There have been some few in-
stances of newspaper proprietors overriding their ob-
jections, but in the main the prosperity of a newspaper
depends upon those who advertise.
Some papers Cpermit popular columniSts to print what
is in their min s without fear of resentment from their
advertisers. They serve a useful purpose, and very often
information comes to light that would have no chance
whatever of appearing in a book review or in an edi-
torial.
Here it should be clearly understood that the propa-
ganda given out under the official stamp during a war
sinks in at a time of severe distress, an it is very dif-
ficult indeed to eradicate it when the conflict ends. The
person who is nor susceptible to the deleterious effect
of such propaganda must have a tough spirit and a clear
head.
He has a hard road to travel during a war. The patriOts
look upon him with disfavor, and if he should make a
remark that questions the wisdom of the affair, some-
body is sure to think that he is in the pay of the enemy.
Men have been lodged in prison without charge for
consorting with people who were under suspicion. Men
who have had the courage to voice their opinions from
the platform have been ounded by the riffrafl‘ of free-
lance journalism. It is not necessary to recall the names
of the men who, with the consent of the governments,
suffered persecution at the hands of persons who were
well paid for the job of smearing them. The smear
campaign in America was one of the most disgraceful
proceedings of World War II.
Now that the fighting is over for a while, these ani-
mosities should be forgotten and attention should be
aid to the problem of how anather war is to be averted.
{lever was it so difficult to know what to do to keep
the peace as it is at this time. One reason for this is that
the mass of people do nor take the trouble to learn what
caused the Other war. So long as they look to their
p74
politicians for guidance, they will be left in the dark.
hat means they will have to find out for themselves.
However, few will be inclined to make an effort to learn
how they have been humbugged.
Somehow war-time myths sink deeper into the con-
sciousness of a man than any that gain currency. They
are poured into his mind day after day during the con-
flict, when he is torally unfitted, mentally and spiritu-
ally, to question them. Upon these myths his judgment
is formed, and to ive them 11 is like deserting an old
friend who has aided him in distress. This may be the
reason why it is so easy, generation after generation, for
politicians to revive the old slogans and capture the
intelligence of the people. Nevertheless, it is incumbent
upon us at this time to examine closely the myths of the
last war and expose the methods by which they were
implanted in the minds of the people.
p75
AFTER THE RESUMPTION or THE OLD WARS, INTERRUP'I‘BD
in November, 1918, statesmen of all parties seemed to
enter into competition for a prize to be given to the one
who would be first to warn the people that it was to
begin again. There were warnings enough, but the poli-
ticians had been misinformed to a man, and they ignored
all those "croaking" prophets who, after the Treaty of
Versailles, predicted another great conflict. They had
had about twelve years, in and out of office, to rectify
the injustices which many of them admitted were ob-
vious in the treaty. Nothing was done, and often annoy-
ance was shown by those at the head of the Allied
Governments when suggestions of a pracrical nature
were made to relieve the deepening distress of Central
Europe.
However, all were agreed upon the necessity of de-
fending themselves against unarmed Germany. Church-
ill, in the House of Commons, May 13, 1932, reminded
the government about his remarks the year before, con-
cerning the disarmament discussions at Geneva:
They have been a positive cause of friction and ill-will,
and have given an undue advertisement to naval and military
affairs. They have concentrated the attention of Governments
in all countries, many of them without the slightest reason for
mutual apprehension or dispute, upon all sorts of hypotheti-
cal wars which certainly will never take place.
A statesman out of office is a very different rson
from one in office. When he is on the opposition Eznch,
p76
Outstanding Problem: in Europe 71
he has a feeling of freedom and enjoys a lack of ad-
ministrative responsibility. The same man holding a
Cabinet position is quite another person, for he is not
free-not by any means; and so long as he remains there,
he is bound, hand and fOOt, by the policy of the govern-
ment of which he is a member.
Should a taxpayer care to understand this difference,
he might take up a book of speeches put together by
Churchill's son, Randolph, an there he will find this
astonishing difference which I have pointed out before
NotwithStanding his attitude taken in 1931-eighteen
months before Hitler assumed control in Germany-
Churchill was busy enough tilting at the MacDonald
disarmament plan, criticizing severely the air defenses,
and sometimes touching upon an injustice of the Treaty
of Versailles. In the debate on the adjournment, April
13, 1933, he said:
M213! people would like to see, or would have liked to
see a lit e while ago-I was one of them-the question of
the Polish Corridor adjusted. For my part, I should certainly
have considered that to be one of the greatest practical objec-
tives of European peace-seeking diplomacy. . . . (Wbile Eng-
land Slept)
I find no reference, in his speeches delivered while he
was in office, to the Polish Corridor or to any of the
Other stupid arrangements the treaty imposed on a de-
feated foe. A long book could be written upon the differ-
ence between Mr. Churchill in office and out of office.
But it would be an easy matter, if one had leisure, to
take any of the statesmen of our time and show that the
political mind is built on shifting sands. The warning
of the hour is often submerged by the calm incoming
sea of the morrow. Everything depends upon how the
domestic tide is running.
There were warnings-very definite ones- based on
firsthand information, which went practically unnoticed
for years. I do not refer to the so-called “croakings” of
p77
the revisionists that were heard on every hand for five
years after the treaty was signed at the point of a gun.
I have perhaps a dozen books written nor by sratesmen
but by men eminently fitted to investigate the political
and economic conditions of Europe before Hitler became
Fri/2m. Here I shall deal with only one. It is called
Tbunder Over Europe, and its writer is Colonel E. Alex-
ander Powell, an American soldier, who before the war
saw more of all the countries of Europe than anyone
who has recorded his impressions.
The work was published in the United States in
April, 1931. To what extent it was read, I do not know,
nor do I know if an English edition was issued. Even
today, it is an amazing document, and as a warning to
the governments of what was likely to take place if
practical measures were nor instituted to heal the sores
of Europe, there is nothing to be compared with it. The
author takes in hand nearly all the important crises in
each country, which statesmen of the riod were
afraid to examine. So conscious were they olxthe gravity
of their own stupidities that they had nor the courage
to admit them and face the consequences. British states-
men, in dealing with Hitler's entry into the Rhineland,
conveniently overlooked Poincaré's invasion of the
Ruhr. Colonel Powell describes the consequence of that
reckless blunder in a short paragraph:
Then came the invasion of the Ruhr. To that adventure,
engineered by the vindictive and relentless Poincare, might
aptly be applied the cynical words of Talleyrand: "It was
worse than a crime; it was a mistake." It gained nothin for
France; it did much to alienate English sympathy; it alf but
completed the wreck of Germany; and it set back the hands
of Franco-German understanding by many years.
I think Powell was the firsc man to take the Nazi
movement seriousl . l-lis chapter on it is prophetic,
and his estimate ofy Hitler and the task that faced him
is correct. The chapter is full of warning, and it must
p78
Outrtdnding Problem: in Europe 73
have been written quite two years before Hitler won
his victory at the polls. It appeared in print at a time
when the comic cartoonists and the silly penmen were
giving an utterly false impression to the people about
the man who, in eight years, was to turn the world up-
side down. Powell said: “The inescapable faCt remains
that the Nazis must be reckoned with whether the
reSt of the world likes it or not."
As I shall have something to say about Germany re-
arming, it is appropriate that I should refer to the respec-
tive figures of forces and equipment of France and Ger-
many, taken from Tbe Statesman': Year-Book for 1930. In
some very instructive passages upon the attitude of the
average German, Powell says that in voting for the
Nazi party, he did so because it was "the only way
open to him to register his dissatisfacrion with the
prevailing disorder of things." He then goes on to say
that this average German
refuses to believe that the French stand in perpetual fear of
another German onslaught. Fully aware of the defenseless and
enfeebled condition of his own country and the overwhelming
military strength of France, the very idea is to him preposter-
ous.
And it must seem equally preposterous to anyone who
compares the military establishments of the two nations.
Franc: Gm»)
Infantry regiments 223 21
Cavalry “ 86 18
Artillery “ 104 7
Tank “ 19 none
Engineer battalions S6 7
Heavy artillery groups 282 none
Aviation squadrons 136 none
Balloon companies 18 none
Tatal peace establishment 541,154 men 99,191 men
“The trouble with France," a distinguished American
soldier remarked to me not long ago, "is that she is suffer-
ing from an inferiority complex."
p79
The ground covered by Powell in his peregrinations
extended from Russia to France and from the Balkans
to the North Sea. In each country visited, he met officials
and diplomatists. He names about a dozen of these men
to whom he was indebted for information. While
statesmen were confined to their bureaus and diplo-
matists inured in the chancelleries, depending upon in-
formation gathered secondhand, Powell was coming
face to face in the separate States with the acrual con-
tingencies of their policies. In the foreword, he de-
nounces forthrightly the system that makes for friction
and animosity:
The most discouraging‘feature of the whole business is the
moral cowardice and lac of vision of the European states-
men, who, with a few notable exceptions, are only politicians,
and of mediocre intelleCtual caliber at that. They are cowards
because they are afraid of public opinion. That is, they are
afraid of losing votes. They have neither the unselfishness nor
the moral courage to avert war by backing down.
What Europe needs, and needs desperately, is a political
housecleaning. She should sweep out her hidebound diplomats
and (professional politicians and replace them with experi-
ence , hard-headed business men who recognize the value of
compromise, who know how to give and take, who think
that maintaining the balance of power is not nearly so impor-
tant as balancing the budget. " otes be damned!" such men
would say. “Let's get together and work Out an arrangement
which will be reasonabl fair to everyone concerned. ' That
would end the danger of), war overnight.
80 long as the diplomatic system exists, there will
be trouble. In private, this has been admitted b the
diplomatists themselves. One has only to read, Dr.
Moritz Busch's books on Bismarck to realize that his
master had norhing but contempt for them. Disraeli,
too, was not backward in expressing himself severely
upon their shortcomings. Someone said, after the First
World War, that if consuls could take the place of
diplomatists, most of the differences that cause war
could be settled over a cup of tea. This I believe to be
p80
true. A round table of business men of the various States
concerned in the crisis would be an effective way of
bringing them face to face and putting a stop to the
dispatching business.
One thing is certain now-there is no way of checking
the information sent by ambassadors to their Foreign
Ministers. The colored books of the First World War,
when carefully analyzed, revealed an almost unbeliev-
able abundance of downright mendacity. Dispatches
were mutilated-some of them faked-others omitted;
secret treaties unearthed; and when the Bolsheviks
published the versions they found in the Russian ar-
chives, a conspiracy was revealed which made a dreadful
smell.
The agitation for open diplomacy, which followed
the Treaty of Versailles, petered out unfortunately, and
those in the various countries who had worked to give
the people accurate information became immersed in
the domestic political broils of their own States. An
excellent organization in Britain dissolved when most
of the men who had been working along non-party
lines joined the Socialist party. Herbert Morrison and
Clement Attlee, among dozens of others, lamented that
they had been misinformed, and newspaper editors
admitted they had lied to their readers because the
country was in danger and the morale of the people
had to be sustained.
Was there ever a more ignominious example of the
danger of this system than the one of Woodrow Wilson
admitting before the Senate that he knew nothing of
the secret treaties? In October, 1939, Vandenberg, re-
ferring to World War I, told the Senate:
Before we ever fired a shot, the spoils of our joint Vietory
had. been. Ere-pledged in sordid, secret treaties concerning
which next er our people nor even our Congress knew a Single
thing. It was a “shel -game" in more than one meaning of
that phrase.
p81
Abolish diplomatists and appoint consuls, business
men, and they will be intereste chiefly in the balance
of revenue in the tax ayers' pockets and not the balance
of power. But it will) take an informed public to brin
about such a change. So long as taxpayers are satisfied
with the present syStem, they will be sacrificed on the
battlefield, and those who survive will have to pay the
cost and be glad to get a ration ticket for a meal.
p82
IX
German Rearmament
Mn. CHURCHILL wnorn A LETTER TO HIMSELF oN MAY 1,
1936, which will be found in his book, Step by Step. This
is entitled, "How Germany is Arming,” and in it he
says: "I give my warnings, as I have given some before.
I do not deal in vague statements. I offer facts and figures
which I believe to be true."
He then asks the question: "How much is the Hitler
regime spending upon armaments?" His reply to his own
question is: "I declared several months ago that Ger-
many spent upwards of [$00,000,000 sterling on warlike
preparation in the calendar year 1935 alone."
Now it must be remembered that this letter was not
made public in America until the war began. The preface
to the book is dated by the author May 21, 1939. When
it was read by intelligent persons, it caused some con-
sternation because the ordinary expenditure of the
United Kingdom for the year 1934-35 amounted to
£688,879,000.
When I read this letter, a few days after it was pub-
lished, I searched in vain for the declaration he said
he had made “several months ago." I could not find
it in any of his speeches. How, within two short years,
a bankrupt country like Germany could find such a
sum of money to spend on "warlike preparation" was
a miracle unknown in the world of wild finance.
Now by the time that he published these letters to
himself, he had had ample leisure to check his figures.
Had he been careful enough to do this, he would have
p83
discovered from many sources that the money was not
spent on "warlike preparation." In the re rt he took
from the Bulletin of the Reicbskredit Gerelllfgmft, issued
at the end of 1935, it is stated that the expenditure was
for buildings, equi ment and Stores, less amounts spent
on residential buildings. There is nothing to justify the
assumption that the whole, or even half, of this sum
was spent upon armaments.
Toward the end of this letter, he gives the German
imports, since 1932, of raw materials used for the making
of munitions, and he says:
All this has gone into makin the mosr destructive war
weapons and war arrangements that have ever been known;
and there are four or five millions of aetive, intelligent, valiant
Germans engaged in these processes, working, as General
Goering has to (1 us, night and day.
It must be remembered that this was written to him-
self, and doubtless the information he gave to himself
convinced him that Germany, laboriously emer ing
from bankruptcy, was dead set on another war. Perhaps
that was the reason why he bad ered Prime Minister
Baldwin and other men in his Cabinet about the state
of the British military, ,naval and air forces, without
any reference at all to the armaments of France and the
Little Entente. Curiously enough, seventeen months
later, when Germany had more cause to arm than she
had in 1935, Churchill wrote to himself: "I declare my
belief that a major war is not imminent, and I still be-
lieve there is a good chance of no major war taking
place again in our time."
A taxpayer wishing to understand the vagaries of the
mind of a statesman should not miss reading the letters
in Step by Step. It is a difficult job trying to follow Mr.
Churchill's in-and-out reasoning and to reconcile his
assumptions with the knowledge we now possess. He
runs the gamut of contradiction, and as a political
hisrorian of events since World War I, his presentation
p84
German Rear-mama": 79
of facts and his errors of judgment have already been
severely criticized. Of course, now-long after these
events-we can quote facts and figures from unprejudiced
investigators which flatly contradict many of the state-
ments in Churchill's books and speeches.
Let us take a volume published in 1937, about two
years before the war began, written by a man who made
it his special business to live in Germany from Novem-
ber, 1935 to March, 1937. This work is The Home that
Hitler Built, written by Professor Stephen H. Roberts
of the University of Sydney, Australia. He tells us in
the preface:
Owing to a fortunate conjunction of cirCumstances, I was
afforded unusual facilities in Germany. The Nazi authorities
did everything possible to aid my investigations, although
they knew from the outset that my attitude was one of objec-
tive criticism. Indeed, they had even filed copies of all my
articles and summaries of my wireless and other talks on
Germany over a period of years. Despite this, no request of
mine was too much for them, and the only refusal I encount-
ered in the whole of Germany was in being denied access to
their collecrion of banned literature.
Roberts declares himself to be a democratic individual-
ist, and there is no doubt that his skepticism of the ap-
parent success of the Nazi movement was unshaken dur-
ing the period when he visited Germany. And yet, he
is eminently fair in showing gratitude to the people who
gave him the opportunity to further his quests. He
says:
I must also pay tribute to the ordinary people of Germany
who made my investigations such a great pleasure. Although
we morored many thousands of miles through every German
province but one, and although we showed what must often
have been a disconcerting persistence in trying to find out
what tinker and worker, professor and farmer thought, we
met not the slightest discourtesy and found everywhere a
striking eagerness for friendship with Great Britain.
p85
It is interesting to read the information presented by
Professor Roberts on the position of Hitler's army at
the time when Mr. Churchill said Germany had spent
£800,000,000 sterling on "making the most destructive
war weapons and war arrangements that have ever been
known." Roberts tells us that von Seekt did not want
a national levy of men, that he preferred a relatively
small professional army. The idea of expanding the
army to 600,000 men in 1935 caused dissatisfaCtion
among the General Staff. Perhaps this marks the begin-
ning of the troubles that arose between Hitler and some
of his generals. The situation described by Roberts at
that time is so unlike anything Churchill had in mind
that I must quote two paragraphs:
Their [the General StaE's] problem was a difficult one-
to change a specialized army of 100,000 men enlisted for
twelve years into a national force of 600,000 conscripts forced
to serve for a year or two. The necessary cadm cou d nor be
built up in a moment, and, even when the organization was
provided, there was a shortage of everythitélg-arms, equip-
ment, officers, barracks. The greatest di culty was the
shortage of instructors, especia ly in the new aerial and
mechanized units. At one stage, aeroplanes were lying idle
for lack of trained pilots, because, despite Goring's efforts,
Germany had been so poverty-stricken for years that there
were few civilian pilots on whom to draw.
It became obvious, then, that it would take years to (give
practical effect to the law of March 16th. The thirty-six ivi-
sions did not exist even on paper when Hitler issued his
decree on May let, and it was not until the misty morning of
November 7t , 1933. almost eight months after Hitler's rst
announcement, that the first conscripts were called up and the
new Nazi war-flag hoisted for the first time.
This statement from an unprejudiced observer can
scarcely be reconciled with Churchill's notions of what
was taking (place. But suppose there were some truth in
what he sai . It might be asked: “Why was she arming?”
You can examine Churchill's speeches and writings
under a microscope, and you w: 1 not find a sentence
p86
devoted to the reasons why Germany was preparing to
defend herself. Think of the war preparations of her
neighbors!
Here are figures taken from the League of Nations
Armament: Year Book for the year 1936: the total German
war strength was 3,650,000; the Little Entente, including
Rumania, Poland, Jugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia-all
pledged by treaty-amounted to 7,000,000 men; to this
enormous war Strength of the Little Entente should be
added 6,900,000 for France.
Professor Roberts tells us that "France and Czecho-
slovakia, feeling themselves threatened by Germany's
new foreign policy, signed pacts with Russia (May 2nd
and 16th, 1935)." This meant that Germany was com-
pletely encircled. Of course, it is not quite polite to ask
why Germany should not arm while the Little Entente,
along with Russia, was arming to the teeth.
Another question that may be resented by the thought-
less is: Why should not Hitler break treaties when the
Allies did so? Why anyone should expecc Hitler to sub-
mit like a plaster saint to the provisions of the Treaty of
Versailles and its injustices has never been explained.
He did not roam the Elysian fields; he lived in a political
world, and knew what others had done and were doing.
The taxpayer who really desires information about
the events prior to the outbreak of war should seek it in
as many sources as are open to him. The day is gone when
the war patriot can sniff, snort, and then denounce a
man for quOting from anything but his own official
record. There are now open to the inquirer hundreds of
books dealing with the years 1932-1939, if the taxpayer
has the desire to look at them. Professor Roberts' work
should be Studied closely because it was written by an
eyewitness. Another one by an eyewitness is Hitler
flGerman} by Cesare Santoro, a forei n press correspondent
who made a rolonged stay in Germany. In speaking
of himself ancl> his colleagues in Berlin, he says:
p87
The present international situation, which is so compli-
cated and uncertain and full of perils, imposes on every jour-
nalist who is conscious of his mission the duty of devOting his
whole strength to the work of mutual enlightenment, of re-
moving as at as possible all cause of friCtion based on mis-
understanding between nations. It is his duty to encourage
mutual comprehension founded on the notion of a real inter-
national community.
Unlike Professor Roberts, the democratic individual-
ist, Santoro seems to me to be in sympathy with the
domestic aims of Hitler. His name leads one to think
he might have been an Italian Fascist. No matter what
his political opinions were, his book is filled with
essential information. The first edition appeared in Ber-
lin, in 1937, and I daresay a translation of it never
reached the English masses. But one was issued in
America in 1939-too late to have any effecr.
Historically this book is invaluable. The statistics
alone are worth preserving. To read the story of the
reconstruction of the Wehrmacht (the torality of Ger-
many's fighting forces) is most enlightening, to say the
least. I have looked in vain in Other works to find a
statement as clear and as reliable as the one provided
by Santoro. Many will be surprised to learn the follow-
ing:
A few days after the announcement of Germany's with-
drawal from the League of Nations in October, 1933. the
Reich Government proposed in a Memorandum that Germany
should be authorised to maintain an Army of 300,000 men.
On the basis of a British Memorandum of January 22, 1934,
which was presented simultaneously in Berlin, Paris, Rome,
Brussels, an Warsaw, direCt neiotiations in view of an agree-
ment concerning armaments too place repeatedly. Tb: Brititb
Memorandum welcomed Hitler's prepaid: on the ground tbat thy
not only dealt witb technical qurttt'om of disarmament, but alto
witb tbc quertiort of political guarantee: agairut aggrm't'ort.
But already on March 17, the French Government, in its
reply to the British Memorandum, expressed a number of
reservations regarding Germany's proposal. A reread not: of
p88
German Rear-moment 83
the French Government of April 17 declared further negotiation: on
the :ubject to be eereleu. (Italics mine)
There are books enough to enlighten men who wish
to be enlightened, and in my library there must be fully
a dozen written by British authors during the six years
before the war began, which contain information never
touched upon in the debates in the House of Commons,
or mentioned in Mr. Churchill's letters to himself. There
is no reason now why anyone who wishes to know
should remain in ignorance of the chief causes of the
war.
In America, a staff study, made under the direction of
Major-General C. F. Robinson, was published in Octo-
ber, 1947. In reviewing this work, Hanson W. Baldwin,
the military correspondent of The New York Times, said
in that paper, on May 8, 1948:
German industry and German aircraft production facili-
ties-contrary to official and popular impression-were nor
by any means fully mobilized for war w en Hitler invaded
Poland in 1939, according to a comprehensive official study
and report prepared for the Secretary of the Army.
The work is called, "Foreign Logistical Organiza-
tions and Method." It is an astonishing analysis of the
British and German production of war machines:
The report reveals that in 1938 Germany produced only
3,340 com at aircraft, or 5,235 aircraft of all types, including
trainers and non-combat types. In 1939, when Britain was pro-
ducing 8,000 military aircraft of all types, combat and non-
combat, Germany produced only 4,733 combat planes, or
8,295 of all airplane types, including civil aircraft.
The report is far too long to be dealt with adequately
here, but it will certainly surprise a good many people
to learn that
Germany was not prepared in 1939-contrary to demo-
cratic assumption-for a long war or for total war; her eco- |
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