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STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS ON THE WAR

1815-1915

FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
TO THE WAR OF 1914

by
Ch. SEIGNOBOS

Professor in the University of Paris

Translated by
P. E. MATHESON

Cette brochure est en vente a la

LIBRAIRIE ARMAND COLIN

103, Boulevard Saint-Michel, PARIS, 5s
au prix de 0 fr. 50

STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS ON THE WAR

PUBLISHING COMMITTEE

MM. Ernest LAVISSE, of the« Academie fran9aise », President.

Charles ANDLER, professor of German literature and
language in the University of Paris.

Joseph BEDIER, professor at the « College de France ».

Henri BERGSON, of the « Academie francaise ».

Emile BOUTROUX, of the « Academie francaise ».

Ernest DENIS, professor of history in the University
of Paris.

Emile DURKHEIM, professor in the University of Paris.

Jacques HADAMARD, of the « Academie des Sciences)).

Gustave LAN SON, professor of French literature in the
University of Paris.

Charles SEIGNOBOS, professor of history in the Uni-
versity of Paris.

Andre WEISS, of the « Academie des Sciences morales
et politiques ».

All communications to be addressed to the Secretary of the Committee :
M. Emile DURKHEIM, 4, Avenue d'Orleans, Paris, 14*.

STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS ON THE WAR

1815-1915

FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
TO THE WAR OF 1914

by

Ch. SEIGNOBOS

Professor in the University of Paris.

Translated by
P. E. MATHESON

LIBRAIRIE ARMAND COLIN

103, Boulevard Saint-Michel. PARIS, 5"

iqi:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. — The work of the Congress of Vienna.

The principle of the Balance of Power 4

The European Concert as a conservative force 8

The first breaches in the system 12

II. — The collapse of the system.

The policy of Napoleon III 15

Italian unity 1T>

Formation of the German Empire 17

III. — The new system and the war of 1914.

The preponderance of Germany. ...» 19

The method of armed peace 22

The world-policy of Germany 2i

The war of i91i 50

IV. — The conditions of a lasting peace 52

1815-1915

FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
TO THE WAR OF 1914

1815-1915. — 1815, the year of the settlement which after
the great wars of the Empire restored the balance that the
domination of Napoleon I had overthrown; 1915, the year oi
the settlement which, when the great European war is ended,
will deliver Europe from the preponderance of Germany ■ the
parallel is one which has forced itself on the minds of all.
It is made still more striking by the date of the treaties
which put an end to the domination of Louis XIV in Europe.
Such comparisons of dates, indeed, like prophecies, will not
bear very close examination; the treaties of Utrecht and of
Rastalt belong to 1715 and 1714, the last document of the
Congress of Vienna is dated June 9th, 1815 and its centenary
has been reached before the date of the third seUlemeul.
But the correspondence of dates, imperfect as it is, satisfies
the mysticism of numbers which has exercised a spell over
mankind ever since Pythagoras. We like to think that three
times in succession, at a century's interval, the mysterious
rhythm of time has brought round the great settlement of
Europe. I therefore appeal to the centenary of the Congress
of Vienna as my excuse for explaining what was the nature
of the settlement of 1815, how the balance of power it esta-
blished was destroyed and the reason why the system which
took its place has collapsed and imposed on Europe the task
of a new settlement.

337693

\ ••.]). nVuMK'-oI T.HK CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

I
THE WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

The principle of the Balance of Power. — In 1815 the
Empire of Napoleon was bankrupt, and the settlement of
1815 was the winding-up of its affairs : its task was to distri-
bute the territorries taken from the French Empire and its
two allies the King of Denmark and the King of Saxony,
Grand Duke of Warsaw. The victors — England, Russia,
Austria and Prussia — settling on their own authority all
the points on which they were agreed, had already by a
secret treaty (May 50ih, 1814) settled the claims of Austria
and England, restored the smaller States of Germany and
Italy, and created the Kingdom of the Netherlands. To settle
the points in dispute they summoned a " General Congress
at Vienna, the capital of Austria, whose support in d 8 i 3 had
ensured the success of the Allies. All the Christian States of
Europe were represented because all had been engaged in
the war. The sessions began on October 1st, 1814.

The Congress of Vienna was the largest gathering of
sovereigns and diplomatists ever seen in Europe. We know
from confidential documents what its underground workings
were, and the spectacle is not a pleasant one. The police
reports of a spy in high society (1) shew us how Metternich
and the Czar competed with one another for the favour of
women of fashion. The lettersof Talleyrand to Louis XVIII
introduce us to a labyrinth of intrigues, schemes and quar-
rels; we see one of the two representatives of the King of
Prussia, Wilhelm von Humboldt, a Prussian of distinction
in the intellectual world, at the moment when Talleyrand
proposed to declare the Congress open in the name of public
law, indignantly exclaim (a century before the declaration of

1. Tlic Revue de Paris published long extracts from this in 1912.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE BALANCE OF POWER.

Bethmann-Holhveg in the Reichstag which formulates Prus-
sian international morality) : " What have we to do with
public law?" The public law which Talleyrand championed
was indeed only the law recognised by Kings. It was in the
interest of the King of Saxony, whose spoils Prussia coveted,
that Talleyrand invoked the principle of legitimacy, the here-
ditary rights of princes over their subjects.

The Kingdom of Saxony and Poland, given to the King
of Saxony by Napoleon under the name of the Grand Duchy
of Warsaw, were both occupied by the Prussian and Russian
armies. Alexander wanted to keep all Poland (except Galicia,
already assigned to Austria). Prussia wanted to annex the
whole Kingdom of Saxony in right of conquest, and proposed
to remove the King to the other end of Germany, transferring
him to the old ecclesiastical territories on the left bank of the
Rhine now taken from France and vacant because they
belonged to no legitimate dynasty. Austria and England
opposed this, not on grounds of principle but from mutual
jealousy, and with such violence that in January 1815, it
looked as if the four Allies would break up into two hostile
leagues. Finally an understanding was arrived at, but
neither now nor in previous arrangements was there any
thought of consulting the inhabitants of the territories con-|
cerned, or of paying any regard to their wishes or affinities. f
A " statistical commission " was appointed to consider the
claims of Prussia, taking account of three things — extent
of territory, revenues, and population. Us work was like
that of an expert cutting up a landed estate into portions to
divide it among the heirs. The portion of Prussia consisted
of four separate pieces : Posen detached from Poland, a pro-
vince torn from the Kingdom of Saxony, the ecclesiastical
territories of Westphalia, and the Rhine Province. None of
the four populations concerned was contented, the Poles
parted from their country, the province of Saxony taken from
its king, the Catholic population of Westphalia and the Rhine
put under a Protestant ruler. The sovereigns dealt with one

6 THE WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

another like large land-owners dividing- lands, revenues and
tenanls among themselves. All Ihey cared to know of their
subjects was their numbers and their wealth. The valua-
tions were based on the number of souls, a term borrowed
from the language of the ecclesiastical registers, but im-
plying no regard for men's feelings or wishes : souls were
regarded merely as appendages to bodies.

The settlement of 1814-1815 then was the work solely of
princes and their ministers, and the nations concerned look
no part in it. In conformity with the 18th century spirit of
" enlightened despotism " it was governed solely by " rea-
sons of State ", which included dynastic expediency, the
interests of the governing classes, tradition, and theories
founded on the Machiavellian principles of the 16lh century,
entirely unaffected by the feelings and ideas which had ins-
pired the Revolutions in England, America and France.

It was a work of restoration, carried out in a moderate
and conservative spirit. There was no attempt to bring
back the Europe of 1789, to revive the aristocratic Republics
(Venice, Genoa, the United Provinces) nor the Free Towns
of Germany, nor even the Ecclesiastical Stales, notwith-
standing the protests of the Pope. France was confined to
her frontiers of 1792, but was allowed to have Savoy and the
enclaves annexed since the Revolution. England retained
her colonial conquests, and the Czar the territories he had

I acquired at the expense of his neighbours — the Grand Duchy
of Finland, Bessarabia, and Poland, which he made into a
Kingdom. The gains of Austria and Prussia were disgui-
sed under the name of " compensations ". Austria in place
of her old domains, Belgium and Western Germany, recei-
ved Salzburg, the possessions of Venice on the Adriatic and
the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom, so that henceforward her
Empire formed a compact territory. Prussia in exchange

Ifor her share of a poor, depopulated and hostile Poland, re-
ceived three rich German provinces, which carried her
supremacy up to the frontiers of France. Belgium was

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE BALANCE OF POWER. 7

united to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland to form the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. Switzerland had all her terri-
tories restored to her, while she retained her new constitu-
tion. Norway, was separated from Denmark and given to
the King of Sweden.

This redistribution of Europe was the work of people whoi
had genuinely suffered from war and sincerely wished toj
make its return impossible. In this point, but in this point
alone, will it bear any resemblance to Lhe settlement which
is to follow the present war. For the politicians of that day,i
trained in the school of Machiavelli, had no faith in the effi-J
cacy of the law of nations, and based their peace solely ora
the calculus of forces. Their desire was that no Slatej
should be strong enough to be templed into imposing its'
supremacy on the world. Even before Napoleon fell they
had declared their intention of securing the peace of Europe
" by restoring a proper balance of powers ", and they then
announced to the world, in the declaration of Decembert Ist,
1815, a " slate of peace " founded on a " wise redistribution
of forces ".

They restored that " balance " among the Great Powers
of Europe, which had for a century been regarded as the
guarantee of Europeau peace. Five Great Powers were in
counterpoise with one another: England and France com-
peting in the West, Austria and Prussia balanced against
each other in the centre, and in the East a single Power,
Russia, whose economic weakness was a set off against its
enormous territory. The mass of central Europe remained
divided into petty Slates, too weak to have an independent
policy. In Germany some thirty Principalities and four
Free Cities formed so many petty Stales, all quasi-sovereign,
and united solely by the very loose lie of a Confederation, in
which the Emperor of Austria and the Kings of Denmark,
Prussia and the Netherlands were included in virtue of
parts of their territories. Italy, with fewer divisions (eight
Stales only, three of them very small), had no common

Till: WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

institutions and so remained, as Melternich wished, " a
geographical expression ". In (iermany and Italy, Austria
.reserved her preeminence, but her privileged position was
tio menace to peace, for from her very nature as a purely
laynastic Slate, a collection of nations without any inner
bond of union, her policy was bound to be purely defensive.

The European Concert as a conservative force. — The

balance of power thus restored was confirmed by a perma-
nent agreement to guard against any disturbance of the
peace by revolutionary France. The four other Powers had
laid down this principle during the invasion of 1814 in a
treaty of alliance in which they pledged themselves " to
concert the means best calculated to guarantee peace ".
The return of Napoleon led them still further to define
(March 25th, 1815) their undertaking " to preserve against
all attack the order of things so happily restored in Europe ".
After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the second
invasion, the victors, by the treaty of November "20th, 1815,
by way of military precaution, enforced new cessions of
territory. To weaken the frontiers of France, she was
deprived of Savoy, and, on the borders of Germany and of
Belgium, lost several strips of her former territory (Landau,
Sarrebruck and Sarrelouis, Philippeville and Marienbourg).
A line of federal fortresses was built at her expense from
Luxembourg to Ulm,and entrusted to German garrisons. In
order to watch over the conquered nation the Allies made a
common undertaking to hold " meetings with the purpose
of... devising measures... for maintaining the peace of
Europe ", they adopted as their express object the consolida-
tion in France of the order of things " founded on the main-
tenance of the royal authority and of the Charter " and " the
perpetual exclusion... of Napoleon and his family ".

These agreements concluded in Paris were not distin-
guished by the French public from the arrangements made
at Vienna under the name of " treaties of 1815 ".

THE EUROPEAN CONCERT. 9

Thus the defensive work of the Congress of Vienna was
completed at Paris : a work based on reasons of Stale, but
'wise in the main, with that dry and limited wisdom which
belongs to diplomatists familiar with the hidden thoughts
of princes and ignorant of national feelings. The structure
was solidly built, resisting- as it did for half a century attacks
from many quarters. But it had two weak points. First,
the mutual guarantee of territories was confined to the
Christian Slates, which alone were represented in the Con-
gress, and did not extend to Turkey in Europe, which was
inhabited by four Christian nations under the supremacy of
the Mohammedan Sultan. Secondly, the European concert
was based solely on external relations between the govern-
ments concerned, it had no support either in national con-
sent nor in any political morality common to Europe; it!
was therefore exposed to the risk of destruction from any
internal change which might make cordial cooperation bet-
ween the different governments impossible. It is only fair
to Metternich to say that he wished to remedy these two
weaknesses. At the Congress of Vienna he proposed the
admission of the Sultan into the Mutual Assurance Society
of the sovereigns; but the Czar regarded the Ottoman Em-
pire as his own hunting-ground and refused to put it under
the supervision of Europe. Metternich tried to persuade the
Great Powers lo complete their territorial settlement by a
settlement of internal policy which should be common to all
Europe. Alexander also tried to find some system of Euro-
pean unity. But their methods like their temperaments were
irreconcilable.

Alexander, with a strong vein of Christian mysticism,
dreamed of founding " the great European family ", by a
brotherly harmony among sovereigns united in one bond of
Christian faith; but he would not exclude the peoples from
this union. The scheme that he drew up, May 15lb, 1815,
attributes the successes of the " grand alliance " to the
influence of public opinion over governments; he recognises

10 THE WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

that " the spirit of the age " has given rise to " the tendency
of nations... towards constitutionalism " and he expresses a
wish that " the Slates from whose union the great European
family is henceforward to be formed " should lake account
of national feelings in regulating institutions within each
State. Alexander hoped to maintain the peace of Europe
by uniting all sovereigns in a common sentiment of " bro-
therhood and affection " which should make all States adopt
the same political system. This system, which he had
demanded for France and which he set up in his own Slates
of Finland and Poland, was constitutional monarchy, fur-
nished with arislocratic representative assemblies, equally
removed from the two dangerous extremes of absolutism and
democracy. This ideal, at once conservative and liberal, he
thought might be realised by formal treaty under a religious
name, the " Holy Alliance ".

Metternich did indeed accept " the moral solidarity... of
all the Powers... of the continent ", but only for the purpose
of preserving the established order, for Europe was attacked
by " the fever of Revolution ", and " one must not dream of
reform amid the turmoil of passions ". He therefore pro-
posed that the European Concert, created to maintain the
external distribution of territories, should also be used to
maintain within the different Slates the political system most
opposed to Revolution, that employed by Austria herself,
absolute monarchy, with secret and uncontrolled government.
Insurance against danger from without should be extended
to revolution from within. Princes should pledge themselves
to support one another against their peoples; and if a people
forced its sovereign to abolish absolute rule, the Great
Powers should intervene by force to restore it. Under this
system a common internal policy would be maintained by
armed intervention from outside. Peace would no longer
depend on an unstable equilibrium among various forces, but
would be ensured by that perfect stability and complete immo-
bility of the government which is the dream of every admi-

THE EUROPEAN CONCERT. 11

nistrator. This scheme seemed possible at a time when the|
majority of the peoples concerned consisted of dependentj
and ignorant peasants, far removed from all public life, des-
titute of political ideas and even of national senliment. The
working-class proletariat was not yet in existence and there
were hardly any large towns. Political or national opposi-
tion could only find followers in the population of the capi-
tals and in the educated middle-class (bourgeoisie), in what
Metternich called " the restless classes..., state officials, mer^j
of letters, lawyers, and persons superintending public edu-l
cation"; bodies which were very small and defenceless when
confronted with the powerful forces at the disposal of
Governments. Police control was sufficient to make them
inoffensive and in Austria there was no difficulty in dealing
with them.

The hard and clear-cut system of Metternich prevailed
over the generous but confused dream of Alexand' r. The
sovereigns signed the " Holy Alliance " to please the Czar,
but the principle on which they acted was that of inter-
vention. They first took in hand the supervision of France,
" the country least inclined to respect general peace ". Their
ministers at Paris kept watch over the constitutional
monarchy, and gave advice to the King; they carefully
followed the annual elections to the Chambers and when
they were dissatisfied with them they made representations
and demanded a change in the system of eleclion. When
the armies, at Naples and Madrid, forced the Kings to grant
a constitution, they forcibly intervened : they sent an
Austrian army against Naples in 1820, a French army against
Spain in 1825, to reslore absolute monarchy. Public opi-
nion, which was ill informed, was unable to distinguish
between the two conlradictory systems; the " Holy Alliance",
the liberal alliance of Alexander, came in for the curses that
were really aimed at Metternich's system, the alliance of
princes against peoples.

Alexander himself, circumvented by the supporters of

12 Till: WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

absolutism, finally rallied lo the system of his rival, and
Metternich achieved a public triumph when the Russian
minister after the revolution at Naples in 1820, officially
laid down in the name of his master the absolutist doctrine
of intervention.

The first breaches in the system. — The sovereigns did
not long succeed in applying- Metternich's system. The
European concert was soon disturbed, in the two regions
which had been excluded from the settlement of 1815. In
the Ottoman Empire the Christian Greeks rebelled in 1820
against the Mussulman Sultan who had been left outside
the European family; their rebellion, stirred up by national
feeling, was supported by the public opinion of Europe,
which induced Governments to take sides with the rebels.
The new Czar Nicholas I, absolutist but " orthodox ", sup-
ported the Christian subjects against the " infidel " sove-
reign : to accomplish " Russia's mission " in the East, he
marched his army on Constantinople and forced the Sultan
to recognise the little kingdom of Greece which had parted
from his Empire.

Then came the Revolution of 1850 in France, a consti-
tutional struggle, which the people of Paris turned into
a national revolution by resuming the tricolour flag and
driving out the legitimist dynasty, which it never forgave
for allowing itself to be restored by foreigners. Its example
led to the national rebellion of Brabant against the Dutch
King, from which emerged the Kingdom of Belgium; then
the national rebellion of the Poles against the Russian Czar,
which ended in the destruction of the Kingdom of Poland.
The last fragment of the Polish State, the little aristocratic
Republic of Cracow, disappeared in 18-46, absorbed by
Austria.

The contrast in internal government between the legi-
timist monarchies which had remained absolute and the
monarchies of England and France which had become

THE POLICY OF NAPOLEON III. 15

parliamentary broke up the concert of the Great Powers;
Europe was now divided into two hostile groups : in the
West the two constitutional Stales, in the East three abso-
lule monarchies.

The territorial settlement of 1815, however, remained
almost unchanged. It did indeed .give signs of falling to
pieces in the whole of Central Europe during the Revolution
of 1848 : in Italy, there were wars of nationality against
Austria, and republican risings against the Pope and the
Grand Duke of Tuscany; in Germany, civil war at Berlin
and Vienna, a war of nationality in the Duchies against
Denmark, republican risings in Saxony and Baden; in
Hungary, " national " wars of Magyars against Germans,
and of Serbians, Croats and Roumanians against Magyars.
But the reaction of 1849 restored the whole structure in its
completeness.

It still remained strong enough in 1854 to resist the blow
dealt by Russia to the Ottoman Empire. England and
France intervened with armed force to defend the Sultan;
for the first time two of the Allies of 1814 made war on one
another. The structure emerged from this trial with new
strength, for the Congress of Paris put the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire under the guarantee of the Powers and
admitted the Sultan into " the family of Europe ", thus
filling the gap left in the South-East of Europe in 1815.

The structure built at the Congress of Vienna remained)
standing in 1858. with only a few breaches in it.

II
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM

The policy of Napoleon III. — The structure was destined
to fall in twelve years, 1859-1871 ; its overthrow was due to
three men, two of them ministers, Cavour in Italy, Bis-

14 THE COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM.

raarck in Germany, and one a sovereign, Napoleon 111. They
al Lacked the established order from different motives. Ca-
vour and Bismarck were working for their masters the King
of Sardinia and the King of Prussia, who were interested in
creating a united Italy and a united Germany by uniting the
other States of Italy and Germany under their supremacy.
They were obliged to make war on Austria to drive her from
Italy and Germany, and they needed the help or the conni-
vance of Napoleon in thus tearing up the treaties of 1815.
Napoleon was influenced by personal feelings : he hated
with a personal hatred the treaties of 1815, which excluded
him and his family from the throne of France (he publicly
expressed his hatred in 1866 in his address at Auxerre). His
rise to power, his title of Emperor, his name Napoleon III,
which implied the reign of Napoleon II, were so many blows
struck at the agreeinent made between the Allies in 1815 :
the sovereigns h;id shut their eyes, from haired of the demo-
cratic revolution, because they relied on him to bring the
turbulent French nation to order; but they did not admit
him into " the famdy of Europe "; and Nicholas I made him
feel his position by refusing him the title of " brother ", to
which the tradition of the Courts of Europe gave him a right.
Napoleon loved Italy and hated Austria, against which he
had fought during the insurrection of the Romagna in 1851,
and which persecuted his Italian friends. He was eagerly
anxious to destroy the treaties of 1815 and expel the Aus-
trians from Italy. He hoped by that means to console
French national pride, still suffering from the disasters of
1815, by a revival of the glories of Napoleon and the acqui-
sition of new territories.

But Napoleon III had no illusions as to the actual strength
of his army if he should have to face the coalition of 1814.
He worked hard to break up the coalition, first by trying to
divide the two great rival powers, England and Russia, in
order to obtain an alliance which would serve him later
against Austria. In these operations he was forced to con:

ITALIAN UNITY. 15

ceal his action from his diplomatic representatives and even
from his ministers, whom he knew to he opposed to his
schemes. He first drew closer to England, by helping her
to defend against the Czar the Ottoman Empire, in which he
took very little interest. He enjoyed some years' intimacy
with the English royal family, and confided to Prince Albert,
1851, his designs against the treaties of 1815, but he received
no encouragement from him and found England hostile to
any policy involving war or territorial redistribution.

He turned towards Russia, and had a cordial interview
with Alexander II at Stuttgart : proposals of alliance were
exchanged between their ministers. But the Czar asked
Napoleon for his help only in the East, for enterprises against
Turkey with which England would have nothing to do : in
the West he only offered him defensive support, to prevent
a coalition against his dynasty. This was not enough to
compensate for a rupture with England. Napoleon, in spite
of the respect henceforward shewn him by the other sove-
reigns, had gained no support for his policy of action.

Italian Unity. — Thereupon he decided to act alone. He
sent for Cavour (July 1858) and made a secret agreement
with him at Plombieres as lo the means of making war on
Austria. He was careful to wait till Austria, by diplomatic
mistakes, had isolated herself in Europe, by appearing in
the light of an aggressor. France immediately took her
stand as defender of threatened Piedmont, and Napoleon,
reassured against the danger of a coalition, began the Italian
War of 1859. The object agreed on between France and
Piedmont was to deprive Austria of all her Italian posses-
sions. But after the conquest of Lombardy, and before
Venetia was touched, Napoleon learnt that Prussia was
arming : he did not venture to face a coalition of the two
Germanic Powers and returned to France, leaving his Pied-
montese allies disappointed and irritated.

A widespread legend represents Napoleon III as the cham-

16 THE COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM.

pion of the principle of nationality, a Don Quixote fighting
battle after battle in defence of oppressed peoples. Some
have praised him for this, but the majority have blamed him
for sacrificing the interests of France to the safety of foreign
peoples; the result has been to create a prejudice in French
opinion against the policy founded on respect for nationali-
ties, which has been held responsible for the disasters of
France. There is an element of truth in the legend. It is
true that Napoleon took an interest in certain oppressed
peoples, but he did not make war on their behalf. He inte-
rested himself in the Roumanians; when the Powers insisted
on maintaining the separation of Moldavia and Wallachia,
which had been given autonomy by the Congress of Paris,
Napoleon gave personal instructions to support their union,
to the great astonishment of the ambassador Thouvenel, who,
having spent his career in the East, looked upon all the
peoples under Turkey as so much " dung " !

He made offers to the Hungarian refugees in 1859, but to
employ them for the war against Austria ; Bismarck did the
same in 1866. For the Poles, Napoleon was not able to do
more in 1865 than take diplomatic measures demanded by
French public opinion. For the Danes of Schleswig he did
not risk war in 1864, and only obtained for them in 1866
belated verbal concession in the treaty of Prague. Of the
five wars that he fought, not one, except the Italian, was in
the interests of nationality. These facts help us to under-
stand the behaviour of Napoleon in Italy after 1 859. He had
a sincere sympathy for the Italians, but his only concern with
Italian nationality was to deliver Italy from the barbarians ;
he did not wish for Italian unity. What he wished to esta-
blish in Italy was a confederation of sovereign princes, ana-
logous to that Germanic Confederation which the Germans
rejected as incompatible with unity. This plan, which recei-
ved official sanction by the treaty of Zurich, miscarried
owing to the refusal of the princes. It was the Italians
themselves who, under Cavour's direction, revolted and

ch. seignobos. — Anerl.

FORMATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 17

expelled their legitimate princes, expressed their will by
plebiscite, and by a series of annexations created th« King-
dom of Italy.

Napoleon did not attempt to use force to prevent Ilalian
unity, but took advantage of it to secure the cession of
Savoy and Nice (1860). This acquisition, which belied his
public promises in 1859, made all the sovereigns distrust
him : it was in vain that he tried henceforward to resume
cordial relations with them. He felt isolated and powerless.

Formation of the German Empire. — He gained new
confidence from the conflict between Austria and Prussia
for preponderance in Germany; he counted on a long war
which would exhaust them both, when he would come
forward as arbiter and make his own terms. That was why
he helped Bismarck to conclude the alliance between Italy
and Prussia, which decided King William to make war on
Austria, the ally of the German States. His calculations
were upset by the new Prussian method of warfare, a revival
of that of Napoleon I, making use of rapid operations and a
massed attack upon a surprised enemy to decide the fortune
of war in one engagement. Sadowa, the news of which he
heard with pleasure, was soon seen to be a disaster, for
having neglected to keep an army in readiness, he was forced
to be a powerless spectator of the manoeuvres of victorious
Prussia. He aggravated the evil by encouraging Prussia to
annex a large part of the German States of the North, hoping
in return for his compliance to get from her what Bismarck
cynically called a pourboire. He first asked for German
territory on the frontier of Lorraine, and then for Belgium ;
he would have been satisfied in 1867 with Luxembourg. But
he got nothing. He ceased to speak of nationality, and offi-
cially put forward through a minister a theory on the natural
tendency of peoples to form " large agglomerations '", a
theory threatening the existence of small States.

Prussia, supreme in Germany, united all the German

CH. SEIGNOBOS. — Ansjfl. 2

IS THE COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM.

States, except the four States of the South, under a Federal
Government, controlled by hierself. The Emperor of Austria
reconciled with the Hungarian nobles, divided his Empire
into two States, one governed by the Germans of Vienna, the
other (the Kingdom of Hungary) by the Magyar nobility.

Preparations for the " revenge for Sadowa " were discussed
at Paris and Vienna in 1869, a short time before the candida-
ture of a Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain caused the
sudden outbreak of war between France and Prussia. Preli-
minary steps had been taken for an alliance, in the form of
an exchange of letters between the three sovereigns of
Austria, France and Italy. The Due de Gramont, who
became Minister of Foreign Affairs in May 1870, was aware
of their negociations, which he regarded as definite agree-
ments full of and was therefore so confidence, that not
content with the rebuff to Prussia expressed in the with-
drawal of the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern, he
wanted the King of Prussia officially to admit the rebuft.
He thus provided Bismarck with his opportunity of replying
by the " Ems telegram ", of which the outcome was the
war between France and the German States.

The war against France completed the unity of Germany
under the supremacy of the King of Prussia, who now
became " German Emperor ". Such was the conclusion
in 1871 of the European crisis, started by the Emperor of
the French in 1859. Prussia, accomplishing in 1871 what her
allies had prevented her lrom doing in IN] 5, drove France
back beyond her frontiers of the 17th century, and tore from
her Metz and Alsace, in defiance of the manifest wishes of
the population.

Austria, driven out of Italy and Germany, Italy and
Germany transformed into Great Powers, the Kingdom of
Hungary elevated into a Slate, Denmark deprived of her
Duchies, France of Alsace Lorraine — all this meant that
central Europe was turned upside down, and the structure
raised by the Congress of Vienna was destroyed. It was

THE PREPONDERANCE OF GERMANY. 19

also the end of the European concert which guaranteed the
balance of power in Europe. When Thiers, afler the fall of
the Empire, went in the name of invaded France to ask for
the help of the Great Powers, Beust, the Austrian minister,
replied to him : " I see no Europe left ". The treaties
of 1815 disappeared in the storm unchained by their personal
enemy Napoleon III, and with them disappeared men's
confidence in international agreements, destroyed by the
brutal methods and cynical declarations of Bismarck.

Ill
THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914

The preponderance of Germany. — The new structure
was no longer, like that of 1815, framed by a general agree-
ment between equal Stales to preserve peace by moans of a
Balance of Power; it rested on the preponderance of Ger-
many, the' strongest military Power, keeping the other
Powers in awe, or binding them to her by separate agree-
ments.

Nationalities were not much better trealed than in 1815.
Italians and Germans had obtained their national unity by
accepting voluntarily in the one case, by submitting after
defeat in the other, to the domination of the military Slates,
Piedmont and Prussia, who had taken advantage of the
sentiment of nationality to aggrandize their own power.
The Hungarians had profited by the dilficullies of the
Emperor to re-eslablish an autonomous Kingdom. But the
unily of Italy alone was based on the will of the peoples
concerned and unstained by violence done to other nationa-
lities. Prussia had annexed the Duchies and lour German
Slates without consulting their populations and certainly
against the wishes of the inhabitants of Holstein, Hanover

•10 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OE 1914.

and the Republic of Frankfurt, attempting to give an official
justification to her action by an appeal to the barbarous
custom of " the judgment of God ". In the " national "
German Empire, Prussia did violence to the national senti-
ment of three peoples, the Poles of Posen, to whom she did
not even keep the promise made in 1815 to leave them the
use of their own language, the Danes of North Schleswig,
whom she refused to consult in spite of the clause in the
treaty of I860, the peoples of Alsace-Lorraine, whom under
the lying label of " Pieichsland " (Imperial Territory) she
kept under the discretionary power of the Government in
Berlin. Arbitrary annexations were no novelty in Europe,
but in Alsace-Lorraine Prussia made an unprecedented
experiment : seizing a strip of territory on the frontier of
another Great Power, she incorporated a population whose
national sentiment, to which conquest had already done
violence, was perpetually kept up by neighbourhood to their
old mother-country and permanent ties with it. The creation
of the Hungarian State, if it freed the Hungarian people
from the German domination of Vienna, surrendered all the
other nationalities of the Kingdom, Croats, Serbs, Slovaks,
Roumanians, even Germans in Transylvania and the Banat,
to the arbitrary will of the Magyar minority. The Magyar
nobles who governed the " national " State of Hungary were
to show much greater ardour in " Magyarizing " than the
Germans of Austria had been in " Germanizing ". The
Austrian monarchy remained, in both its halves, a challenge
to the national sentiments of its subjects.

Across the whole breadth of Europe, from the Arctic Sea
o the Archipelago, stretched a belt of small subject nationa-
lities more or less ill-treated, all subject to foreign govern-
ment, most of them ruled by officials, some even by an aris-
tocracy, of another nation. Going from North to South,
these nationalities were : Finland, the freest of all, in so far
as the Czar left it its national autonomy; the Esthonian and
Lettish peoples, subjected at the same time to a German

THE PREPONDERANCE OF GERMANY. 21

aristocracy and lo Russian officials; the Lithuanian peoples
divided between Russia and Prussia; Ihe Polish people, dis-
membered by partition among- the three Empires; the Czechs
governed by Vienna and the Slo>ak branch of them subject
to the Magyars; the Ruthenians, subject in Austria to the
Polish nobility of Galicia, in Russia to a censorship which
forbade them to publish anything- in their own dialect ;
Croats and Slovenes, dependent partly on Vienna and partly
on Ruda-Pest; the Serbian people half vassals, half subjects
of the Sultan; the Rumanians, divided between the Ottoman
Empire and Hungary; the Bulgarian people, all of it still
oppressed by the Turks; the Greek nationality, only a mino-
rity of whom enjoyed national independence. In 187I as
in 18 15 Europe was everywhere ruled by the force of the
governments, not by the will of the peoples.

This system, like that of 1815, was based on distrust of
France, but it was dominated by the preponderance of Ger-
many. Germany, which was strong enough to fdl the part
played by all the Al ies combined in 1815, kept watch on
republican France, which she suspected of a desire to retrieve
her losses. She consolidated her position by agreements
with other Powers, concluded under colour of preserving
order, the statu quo, and peace. First came (from 1871
to 1875) the " entente " between the three Emperors,
announced to the world by their visits to one another. The
sovereigns, as in the time of Metternich, combined to lake
measures against the common enemy, the Revolution, social
revolution as represented then by the " International asso-
ciation of working-men ", " The International ", already in
its last agonies, but taken by ill-informed governments to be
a fighting organisation.

When the personal rivalry between Bismarck and Gorts-
chakof had loosened the ties with Russia, Germany drew
into her alliance first Austria, whose policy she supported
against Russia in the Balkans, and then Italy which was at
enmity with France, where the Conservatives were talking

22 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914.

of restoring the power of the Pope and the Republicans
were deciding on the occupation of Tunis. Russia, resu-
ming her advance against the Oltoman Empire, which was
weakened by the bankruptcy of 1875 and the deposition of
two successive Sultans in 1870, brought her army as far as
Constantinople; but, checked by the intervention pf England,
she was forced to refer the decision to the Concert of Eu-
rope. She emerged (187N) empty-handed from the Congress
of Rerlin, enraged against Bismarck, the " honest broker ",
who had tricked her.

The Triple Alliance of 1882 united the whole of central
Europe under Germany's control; Bismarck supplemented it
by a secret treaty of " re-insurance " with Russia, in 1884,
which guaranteed to Germany the benevolent neutrality of her
Eastern neighbour. Then, when the Bulgarians, freeing
themselves from the guardianship of their liberators the
Russians, reunited the two fragments into which they had
been severed by the Congress of Berlin to form a single self-
governing Stale, Bismarck seized the opportunity lo main-
lain cordial relations with the Czar Alexander III by helping
him to prevent the recognition by Europe of the new slate
of affairs in Bulgaria. All these alliances called themselves
" defensive alliances " framed for the maintenance of peace.

The method of armed peace. — It was a peace such as
the world had never seen, " armed peace ", Prussian peace,
as costly as war, a peace precarious and insecure, always
hovering on the brink of war. The new method of war, cal-
culated for rapid invasion, continued until the enemy is
crushed, demanded an enormous number of effectives, always
ready. The doctrine of irresistible superiority in the offen-
sive compelled each State lo be constantly preparing for
the aggressive and to live under the perpetual menace of
aggression. The Prussian Staff even in 1875, when France
was reorganising the cadres of her army, had appeared to
adopt the formidable principle of " preventive " aggression.

THE METHOD OF ARMED PEACE. 23

When a State suspects its neighbour of preparing war, it
ought to anticipate it and to attack it in order lo prevent it
finishing its preparations. William I and Bismarck disa-
vowed this doctrine, but their protestations were not sufficient
to reassure Europe. In the day of slow wars, an interval
separated the state of peace from the slate of war; men waited
to prepare war until it was there, and raised armies only when
the time was come to use them Now Europe was obliged
to adopt the Prussian method, in order to resist Prussia.
Except the Slates protected by their geographical position
(England, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway) and Belgium,
which relied on its neutrality guaranteed by treaty, every
State required all its young men to pass through the active
army and kept all able-bodied men liable to a summons to
mobilise.

Every State, for fear of falling behind in its preparations
went on increasing its armaments without ceasing; military
expenditure grew rapidly. Wise per-ons said that financial
ruin would check the nations in this mad race, just as
in 1815 they foretold the inevitable bankruptcy of England,
loaded with 800 million pounds of debt by the war. But the
wiseacres did not estimate national resources at their true
value. The burden of armaments has perhaps delayed the
accumulation of wealth in Europe, but it has not stopped it.
Germany under this system has rapidly increased her popu-
lation, her commerce, her capital and her income; no large
Slate has become impoverished.

Germany did not make use of her military power as her
neighbours feared. Her preponderance was decided, but
not bellicose. She threatened war but inainlened peace.
She did not seek either conquests or adventures. H^r policy
was summed up in two phrases of Bismarck : " The whole
Eastern question is not worth the bones of one Pomeranian
grenadier ", therefore no invasion in the East. " Germany
is satiated ", therefore no more aggrandizement. The colo-
nies, created from 1884 onward, were accepted by the

24 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914,

German Government only in the form of enterprises under-
taken by companies under the protection of the Empire.
The Germany of Bismarck, like the Austria of Metter-
nicli, content with the order she had established in Europe,
remained motionless, watching- France. Fafner, having- won
the RheingoUL withdrew into his cavern.

Germany maintained this attitude during the life-time of
William I. But this conservative policy, confined within
the limits of Europe, did not long- satisfy William II. He
soon came into conflict with Bismarck, and though it may
be true that he dismissed him chiefly because he disapproved
of his proposed coup d'Etat against universal suffrage, their
disagreement on foreign policy was a contributory cause of
the rupture. Bismarck wished to keep up the understanding
with Bussia, William preferred to draw the Austrian agree-
ment closer. Alexander III, though he had a personal enmity
with the Germans, had nevertheless given a cold reception
lo the advances of the French. He was reluctant to enter
into relations with Bepublican ministers, in whom he did not
find the guarantees of permanence and discretion which are
necessary for negotiating an alliance. But finally, being
reassured by the long duration of the ministry of I890-189-2,
under the direction of men of distinguished bearing and
moderate opinions (MM. Freycinet and Bibot) he consented
to draw near to France, in compliance with the desire of
his ministers of finance, who needed French capital for in-
dustrial undertakings and for the conversion of paper money.

The world-policy (Weltpolitik) of Germany. — The

Franco-Bussian alliance, by uniting two Great Powers
hitherto isolated, in opposition to the Triple Alliance of the
three Great Powers of central Europe, put an end to the
exclusive preponderance of Germany, and led the way to the
restoration of a system of relations in Europe based on the
balance of forces. William II then inaugurated his " world-
policy '" ( Weltpolitik); the phrase was grandiloquent, but the

THE WORLD-POLICY OF GERMANY. 25

idea wanting in clearness; (he Emperor William, who has
talked a great deal, has never taken the trouble to think with
precision. The Germans have at different times, or even at
the same time, given four interpretations of the phrase.

1st. The oldest explanation seems to have been that it was
the duty of the imperial government, whether by subventions
or by the intervention of its official representatives, to help
Germans to extend their commerce throughout the world.

2nd. It was further urged that it was necessary to find an
outlet for the population of Germany which was rapidly
growing; instead of letting emigrants go to America where
they were lost for Germany, the Government would direct
them to unoccupied territories where they would form
colonies of settlement (colonics de pe up lenient) under the
direct control or under the influence of the Empire.

5rd. Later reflection suggested that Germany, with her
colossal industry and highly developed agricultural system,
had no longer any surplus population to send abroad, since
she had actually to induce foreign labourers to come in.
She must, therefore, look not for colonies, of settlement but
for colonies to be exploited (colonies Sexploitation) : these
would be developed by German capitalists, engineers, plan-
ters and contractors, who would direct the labour of the
native population. They would thus learn, in Delbruck's
words, to become like the English " a nation of masters ".
But for this purpose vast territories were needed, and it
was the duty of the Government to acquire them.

4th. Finally they went on to say that Germany, which had
now become the greatest Power in the world, did not play a
part in politics proportionate to her strength. Henceforward
Germany must " have her say " on every question raised
anywhere in the world; the Government must not allow any
acquisition of territory, influence or economic advantages
by another Slate to pass without claiming its share or some
compensation.

All these ideas had one point in common : Germany must

26 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914.

abandon the policy of " satiation ", she must no longer
remain withdrawn in her own borders and confined to
Europe; her activity must spread wide overall the earth.

Fafner emerged from his cavern and looked out upon the
world. The sight that met his eyes was not a pleasing one.
lie saw the best places occupied, the best of all by the
English and their colonies of settlement (colonies de penple-
menl), the rest by English, French. Dutch, Russians. The
future appeared closed. Wide territories, occupied by the
great peoples of the future, were all inhabited by a popula-
tion which did not speak German. Within a cenlury, the
language of North America would be English, of South
America Spanish and Portuguese, of Africa English and
French, of Australasia English; Asia would speak Russian,
English and Chinese: no continent would speak German.
It was necessary to prepare for distant operations; the army
made to win supremacy in Europe, was not enough.
Germany constructed a navy. At first it was a commercial
undertaking. " Trade follows the flag ", it was said : the
navy served to advertise German goods. Then it was
asserted that the fleet was necessary to defend Gorman
colonies. Were these inconsiderable colonies worth so
large an expenditure? In the end it was acknowledged that
the navy, like the army, was an expression of German
power, and that its object was to back up the diplomacy of
Germany.

William II gave his Wellpolitik a wide range in every cor-
ner of the globe, where he thought an opening was to be
found lor German influence to penetrate, and particularly in
those countries which he believed to be disorganized. He
made preparations f<*r the partition of China, but the natio-
nal rising of the Chinese, in spite of the victory of the devas-
tating " Huns " sent against them by Germany (William
him-elf exhorted his soldiers to make the Huns their pattern)
made him abandon the enterprise; there only remained the
costly establishment at Tsing-Tau, which has just been taken

THE WORLD-POLICY OF GERMANY. 27

from him by Japan. His next idea was lo support the Boers
in Iheir war with England, in order to open a door to Ger-
man influence in South Africa; but he soon thought better
of this, and sent lo England a plan of operations against the
Boers prepared by his Stall'. This did not add to his
influence, either in Africa or Europe. He tried to get a
footing in South America by sending his fleet to demand
from Venezuela at the cannon's mouth the payment of Ger-
man debts; but he was pulled up sharply by the United States
which appealed to the Monroe doctrine. He wanted to open
up Morocco to the trade and to the enterprises of Germany,
and three times he announced this to France " with mailed
fist ". These three exhibitions of German power, at Tan
giers 1905, Algeciras 1906, Agadir 1911, ended in the French
Protectorate over Morocco. In Persia, before he hail taken
any steps, he was forestalled by the agreement between
Bussia and England. But the sphere of his purticularchoice
was the Ottoman Empire. He extended his protection lo
the Sultan Abdul-Hamid who had massacred his subjects in
Armenia, Crete and Macedonia, and thus obtained for the
factories of Germany the privilege of providing material ot
war for the Turks, and for the German army that of educa-
ting Turkish officers. He got for a German company the
concession for the great Bagdad railway, which was to open
up to German goods, and it was even added to German colo-
nists, the vast region of the Tigris and Euphrates. But
" German Bagdad " did not get I he French capital it hoped
for. The Ottoman revolution of 1908, which put the Sultan
under the guardianship of the Young Turks, and later the
defeat of the Turks by the Balkan nations in 1912 endangered
at once the influence and the enterprises of Germany. The
Wellpnlitik was reaping a harvest of defeats.

Meantime Germany was growing in strength more rapidly
than ever, and she took more and more pride in her posi-
tion : she was proud of her population, which had risen to
65 millions, proud of her wealth which was estimated at

28 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914.

12 000 to 14000 million pounds, proud of the mechanical
subordination of individuals to society, which she called
" organisation ", proud of the regular discipline of her army
and police, of the attention paid to every detail of her rail-
ways, streets, ports and insurance-arrangements, of the tech-
nical perfection of her workshops and laboratories, which
she look for the higher form of civilisation. And the more
Germany found to admire in herself, the less did she succeed
in the world. She overlooked the fact that" culture " is an
inward and individual possession, a product of mental expe-
rience and reflection, and that it is this which alone enables
men to understand and to foresee the sentiments of others;
and that, no technical knowledge or social machinery can
take its place. The more Germany advanced towards scien-
tific perfection, the greater was the want of tact that she
displayed. Her psychology was crude; it understood two
motives only, fear and material interest, " sugar and the
whip ", the methods of the liontamer. Her threats only
exasperated those she wanted to frighten, and her trickery
roused distrust in those she sought to win ; her display of
force gave offence.

Bismarck had shewn more tact, because, though he was a
Prussian and therefore a barbarian in sensibility, he had also
shared in the European culture which is based upon psycho-
logy : he knew " the psychological moment " and took
account of " imponderables ". But ever since Germany, for
twenty years past, has closed her windows on Europe and
contemplates nothing but herself, she has lost the faculty of
insight into character; for German society, uniform and
docile, does not afford those subjects of observation which
make education in psychology possible. That is why all the
appeals addressed to the world by the Germans to justify
their conduct are so amazingly clumsy; the educated classes
have shewn no greater intelligence than the rest, because
they have ceased to possess humane culture.

England, uneasy at the rapid increase of the German navy,

THE WORLD-POLICY OF GERMANIA. '2'.)

gave up her " splendid isolation ", and burying old rivalries,
drew closer to France and then lo Russia. The Triple
Entente now stood confronting the Triple Alliance, which
was weakened by the rivalry between Austria and Italy.
The balance of forces among the Powers was re-established
and the preponderance of Germany was at an end. This
was seen in 190G at the Conference of Algeciras, summoned at
the express demand of Berlin; Germany found herself in iso-
lation with Austria " her brilliant second ". The instrument
forged by Bismarck for the maintenance of German peace in
Europe had been wrenched out of shape by the Weltpolitih.
An intelligent Prussian, Professor II. Delbriick, in 1900
warned his countrymen of the danger of a policy of aggres-
sion, which would drag Germany, with no other ally but
Austria, into a war with the Triple Entente in which she
would be defeated. But German opinion still demanded
exhibitions of German strength. Why did the greatest
Power in Europe hold a position in the world so much below
her dignify? It was because envious neighbours had fra-
med a plot to " ring her in " and to bar all roads to her
expansion; The " ring " must be broken. Megalomania pas-
sed into the madness of persecution.

Not only her foreign policy but also her internal constitu-
tion led to Germany's isolation. While other civilized States
were developing in the direction of representative govern-
ment, increasingly liberal and democratic, based on the
will of the people and on national sentiment, the Prussian
nobility, in control of the Court and of the army, and the
Prussian bureaucracy, in control of government and admi-
nistration, were guiding Germany back in the direction of
bureaucratic and military monarchy; the Emperor William
revived the manners and the language of the divine right of
kings. The nobility insisted on keeping up in Prussia the
division of electors into three classes, election by two stages,
and public voting, provisional expedients of the reaction
of 1849, which have now become absurdly unjust and

30 THE NEW SYSTEM AND THE WAR OF 1914.

unreasonable. The Government persisted in trying to
denationalise the Poles, the Danes of Schleswig, and the
Alsatians, by persecution through the police, through admi-
nistration and through the schools, by colonisation and even
by expropriation. The only result has been to strengthen
Ihe national sentiment of the persecuted and to outrage by
barbarous methods the opinion of the civilised world.
Delbruck, in the Preussische Jahrbiicher, has for a long time
called repeated attention to the fact.

The War of 1914. — The antipathy between Germany and
the other Powers was growing : any sincere European
Concert became impossible. The Eastern question broke
the peace. Germany was now interested in it not merely
the ally of Austria : her Welt/>olitik regarded the Ottoman
Empire as one of its spheres of activity; one of the essential
parts of the programme of economic expansion, the Drang
nach Osten, Ihe " thrust to the East ". claimed for the Ger-
manic Powers the control of the road between the Danube
and Salonica, so that the Germanic supremacy might extend
without a break over the whole centre of the historic conti-
nent, from Hamburg and Trieste to Bassorah and the Per-
sian Gulf. Serbia blocked the way. Long submissive to
the Court of Vienna she had since 1905 resumed under King
Peter her political and economic independence and lived in
perpetual hostility with Austria, which oppressed the Serbs
of Bosnia, and with the Magyars, who persecuted the Serbs
of Hungary. The Austrian government altribuled the com-
plaints of its Slav subjects to Serbian propaganda. It clai-
med to prove to the world the complicity of the Serbian
government by getting false documents forged, which, when
produced at the discussions connected with the famous trials
at Agram in which Professor Friedjung was involved ( 1 908-
1909) covered the Austrian authorities with confusion. It
was not a question of a genuine document, " improved " by
a diplomatist, like the Ems telegram, but of bare-faced for-

THE^WAR OF 1914. ul

geries, forgeries of a mediaeval crudity ; a document, full of
grammatical blunders, claiming to be written by a Serbian
minister, a pretended account of the proceedings of a sociely
of Serbian students, written on a page a yard long, because
the forger had found this size convenient for photographing
his forgery. When the minister von Aehrenlhal, to earn the
title of" the Austrian Bismarck ", procured the annexation
of Bosnia to the Austrian monarchy in 1908, the breach with
Serbia became irreparable. The Balkan Alliance, formed in
spite of the Court of Vienna, and the victories of the Balkan
Stales over the Turks in 1912, ruined the policy of Austria
in the East. The extension of Serbian territory in 1915
barred Germany's road to Salonica, and blocked Austria's
way to supremacy in the Balkans. Germany, foiled in her
" world-policy ", Austria foiled in her conflict with Serbia,
made common cause. The resolution to gel rid of the Ser-
bians arose in 1917) from Iheir common disappointment.
The crime of Sarajevo furnished the pretext, and the two
Emperors with a light heart advanced to the catastrophe.

Into this war, which they wanted and prepared, the Ger-
mans brought technical perfection of material : their
machine-guns, their armoured cars, their railway transport,
their trenches, their aeroplanes, their submarines have from
the first proved them lo be masters in the art of military
preparation. But they have also bi ought into the war their
childish psychology, which makes them unable to foresee
the behaviour of other men and the consequences of their
own actions. They have been mistaken in their judgments
on every people without exception, and grossly mistaken :
they misjudged the Bussians and the French, whose national
unity and individual courage they failed to appreciate; the
Belgians and the Serbians, whom they expected lo hypnotise
by terror : the English, Italians, Japanese, and Americans,
whom they attempted to seduce; the Mahommedan peoples,
whom they induced the Turk lo summon lo " the holy war".
The crimes of their generals and the insolent avowalsof their

32 THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE.

diplomatists have forced Europe to convert into reality what
was a chimaera of the German imagination — the " encircle-
ment " of Germany, an encirclement military, economic and
moral, which will stifle her al last.

IV
THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE

What will be the next settlement of Europe? I will not
attempt to trace its plan upon the map. To do so is an idle
pastime until the armies have done their work, and it is a
pastime which has its dangers, for anything a Frenchman
publishes, though it is read without attention in France, is
carefully scanned by our opponents. It is impossible to do
more than lay down in outline the moral conditions oi
peace.

Peace will be demanded after this appalling war by the
intense, unanimous and it may be imperious will of Europe :
not merely the formal peace which will put an end to mas-
sacres and ruins and will restore the combatants to their
normal life, but real and definitive peace, which will deliver
the world from the race for armaments and from the perpe-
tual nightmare of sudden war : peace which will give to the
nations the security they need for their labour and freedom
to employ their resources in the works of civilised life.
Europe desires no longer to be an army always on guard,
liable to the menaces of an attack which would become more
and more formidable as explosives and air-ships arrive at
higher perfection. She desires no longer to be forced to
make herself half Prussian, in order to avoid being swallowed
up by Prussia, and to be condemned to " armed peace 'from
fear of " preventive war ". The Prussian system has gone
bankrupt; it never gave security and did not even prevent

THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE. 33

war. A system is wanted which ensures complete security
for Europe and delivers it from ruinous armaments.

On what foundation can it be established?

The next Congress will make its appeal not like Metternich
to the legitimate rights of kings, nor like Bismarck to " the
judgment of God ". Our age has ceased to have faith in the
divine right of kings, it will not worship Force, its religion
is national sentiment. The nations have made advances
since 1815 and even since 1866; they have grown in wealth,
in education and in freedom; they have all become conscious
of their nationality and most of them have acquired the right
to political life and have grown accustomed to having their
wishes taken into account. The Congress will not proceed,
like the Congress of Vienna, by counting the number of
souls : it will have to learn what those souls desire. Every-
where this war has had a national colour, and has awakened
the claims even of nationalities not yet organised. By an
unprecedented innovation the allied governments have regu-
lated the treatment of their prisoners of war according to
the nationality of the prisoner. It may be hoped therefore
that the Congress will make it a rule, in the redistribution
of territories, to respect national sentiment and the wishes
of the population concerned. I do not pretend that it is
easy, in that zone of Eastern Europe where the nationalities
are intermingled and have no precise limits, to find solutions
which shall be, 1 do not say satisfactory to all those inte-
rested, but merely equitable. At least we have a right to
count on measures being taken to ensure that all, even mino-
rities, shall have their language and their customs respected.
As for France, whose public law is based upon the national
will, France will reject any settlement which would expose
her to the shame of seeing deputies in a French Chamber
protesting againsl I heir inclusion, or to the criminal tempta-
tion of making a territory French by forcing its inhabitants
to disappear.

Respect for international law diminishes the chances of
r.H. seignobos. — Angl. 3

54 THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE.

war but does no I remove them, as long as nations remain
hostile. Every permanent agreement between groups of
men, as between individuals, demands a common morality,
to furnish rules respected by all, and sanctions effective for
all. In Europe, since the decay of the political ideal of the
Middle Ages based on religious authority, no rule exists to
control the relations between States. This international
anarchy has its foundation in the very idea of sovereignty as
defined in the 16th century by Bodin, " the absolute and per-
petual power of a Republic ". The characteristic of abso-
lute power is that it recognises no rule or control superior
to itself. Applied to internal government this principle
leads to absolute monarchy, the arbitrary power of the sove-
reign over all his subjects : applied to the relations between
States it ends in the moral anarchy erected into a doctrine
by Machiavelli and confirmed by the usage of diplomacy.
Between States there are no rights, no duties, no obliga-
tions; international rules are merely matters of expediency,
which alter with national interests. A treaty is merely a
record which states existing facts. Absolute monarchy and
Machiavellism are only two varieties of the same absolutism.
In the 19th century absolutism was driven from the field of
internal government by national rebellions; it has entrenched
itself in foreign policy and the ignorance of nations allows it
to survive there, because they do not see the danger of it.
This war has brought it into light. All other States make
good the lack of international morality by usages of general
morality; they respect peace and treaties out of-gard for
public opinion or from a feeling of humanity which makes
them shrink from the awfulness of war. But Prussia has
not these scruples and we know now for what purposes she
employs her sovereignty.

As long as this superannuated idea of sovereignty survives
in international relations, there will be no definitive peace.
The menace of war will remain, so long as a statesman
regards it as his duty as a patriot to prepare for an aggres-

THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE. 35

sive war and as long as his country admires him if he
succeeds. This feeling that the sovereignty of the State is
absolute in relation to other States must be rooted out in
the same way that the idea of the absolute sovereignty ol
the prince in relation to his subjects has already been rooted
out. A revolution has to be made ininternational life, cor-
responding to the internal revolution which has established
the representative system within individual States. Public
opinion alone can effect it ; this opinion is in advance of the
diplomatists, it is already conscious that the nations of
Europe have more common than they have conflicting inte-
rests, that it would be more advantageous for all to work in
harmony than to destroy one another, it knows that peace is
preferable to war. When the breath of public opinion finds
its way into that hitherto closed world in which diplomatists
live, it will blow to the winds the spirit of Machiavelli and ot
Bismarck, the spirit of trickery and violence.

But does not the surrender of an absolute power demand
too great a sacrifice of self-esteem from those who govern?
It is a sacrifice which may be hoped for in countries with a
parliamentary system; statesmen accustomed to recognise
powers above them — Parliament, the decision of majorities,
the votes of electors — will not find it a great hardship to
submit to international rules. But sovereigns of countries
where government is personal, brought up from childhood
to feel themselves superior beings, and to see in their peoples
only the instrument of their greatness, accustomed to live in
uniform, in the company of officers for whom war is the only
honourable occupation, what would induce them to recognise
the control of rules which draw their whole strength from
the opinion of subjects who are their inferiors? What
would induce them to give up enforcing respect for their
sovereign will by the appeal to cannon, " the last argument
of kings "? One of the worst evils of this system is the in-
clination for war which it creates in the governing class ; we
know it only too well, for we have just seen the most fearful

30 THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE.

war of all time brought on by the decision of two sovereigns,
neither of whom, certainly, is superior in intelligence to the
average level of humanity.

It is certain that the defeat of the two aggressive Empires,
by destroying the caste of Prussian officers, the police
bureaucracy of Berlin, the Magyar Oligarchy of Buda-Pesth,
will ruin personal government and military absolutism even
in the opinions of their peoples, and will bring back the
nations of Central Europe into the evolutionary process
common to civilized States. It will then be easier to make
their governments submit to the observance of an interna-
tional morality. As for the Emperor of Russia, imbued with
that pacific spirit which is the basis of the Russian caracter,
he is ready to accept the rules which are necessary for
peace ; he proved it in 1899 by taking the initiative in a pro-
posal for limitation of armaments which gave rise, at the
two Hague Conferences to the only practical attempts hitherto
made to secure the avoidance of war. His victory, like the
defeat of our enemies, will increase the chances of a perma-
nent peace, provided that practical guarantees are taken
against Prussia, who by her avowals, as well as by her con-
duct, has openly put herself outside international law.

Let governments recognise above them, if not positive
institutions, at least the moral authority of international
rules; let them respect agreements between States as
private persons respect their engagements; let them accept
the principle of mutual regulation of armaments; let them
frankly submit their negotiations and their decisions to
public opinion, with the help of official parliamentary com-
mittees; then, international institutions for peace will come
of themselves.

76WS', — Imprimerie Lahure, rue de Fleurus, 9. a Pari:-.

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