THE NATIONAL REVIEW No. 421. MARCH 1918 The "Unthinkable" EPISODES OF THE MONTH LET us frankly face the fact that humanly speaking there is little or no prospect of obtaining Peace this year, for the simple reason that the situation would not appear to admit of an Allied victory, and peace on any other terms is" unthinkable," in the politician's favourite phrase. There is, of course, always scope for miracles, the unexpected is a constant factor in human affairs, but short of miracles, on which we should be foolish to count, it is difficult to see how the Civilized Powers can reasonably hope to secure a decision against the Central Empires in the course of 1918. All things are possible, and there might conceivably be some upheaval in Germany, of which, however, so far there are no serious symptoms. The "impending collapse of the enemy" is the accepted creed of all belligerents in all wars. We have already heard more than enough of it in previous winters from those with whom the wish is ever father to the thought. We should be well advised not to clutch at mere straws, which may encourage gamblers, but are unworthy of serious attention. More than one of Mr. Asquith's colleagues, who were more famous for cocksureness than for wisdom, used to tell all and sundry in the spring of 1916 that "Germany must collapse this autumn." The autumn came and went and the winter followed, when it was not Germany that collapsed, but the Government to which these false prophets belonged, largely because the disappointment of their own baseless anticipations plunged them into black pessimism VOL. LXXI 1 and "Defeatism," necessitating a change in Downing Street. It is only natural in men who have never studied war, and who would be incapable of understanding it if they did, to make such mistakes, but they are dangerous in Governments, as they paralyse foresight and prevent preparation. Hand-to-mouth politicians, whose motto is "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," as one of them once confessed in the House of Commons, can never be persuaded to look ahead and organize for a campaign which they are convinced in their superior wisdom will never come. Why waste all this money?—they argue in the Cabinet. Moreover, in the remote event of their proving wrong they hope to save their own skins by throwing the blame on the soldiers, who are defenceless against the Press "barrage" which Ministers can always turn on against any one they wish to "down" or discredit-more so than ever in our time. Learning from Lincoln NAPOLEON laid down "Pessimism in preparation, optimism in action," as the golden and governing rule of war. Some of our Ministers prefer the opposite course, being ultrasanguine when they should be extra cautious, and then getting into a panic when the inevitable emergency which they blindly and wilfully refused to anticipate arises. The present Prime Minister, as we know, is a mercurial Celt, who, judging by his public utterances, which are our only sources of information, suffers violent ups and downs, of which the former are as useless to his country as the latter, while both are about equally dangerous. Alternations between Hot Head and Cold Feet have never helped to win any war. Mr. Lloyd George could hardly do better than devote a week-end to President Lincoln, of whom a brother Liberal, Lord Charnwood, has recently written an admirable biography. There is no living statesman in any country who cannot learn something from Lincoln, whose character was compounded of sanity, steadfastness, and unconquerable determination combined with a wonderful sense of perspective that enabled him to distinguish between the large and the small. He was among the very few public men who think less of their own careers than of their country. He was a great national leader, and there can be no national leadership without at any rate some of his gifts. Our War Cabinet, with all its talents and skill in manoeuvre and self-protection, has an immense amount to learn from President Lincoln. At the crisis we have reached we need clear-sightedness and earlymorning courage, of which there is a superabundance in the Front Trenches, but infinitely little on the Front Benches. Then we must resolutely discard those childish illusions upon which our orators have fed themselves and us throughout the war. With the fate of the Bolsheviks staring us in the face it is little less than treason to Democracy and Civilization to treat the camouflage elaborated in Germany as a genuine conversion to Parliamentarism. Unfortunately, knowledge of Europe is despised at Westminster, while few of our public men have any acquaintance whatsoever with Germany, which they all misread before the war almost as egregiously as Lord Haldane, while during the war they usually rely for their information on advisers no less ignorant than themselves. The Glasgow "Offer" THE Prime Minister's entourage is well-meaning, but unfortunately it lacks the knowledge to keep him posted on international affairs, with the result that the wrong note is repeatedly struck to the bewilderment and concern of our Allies on both sides of the Atlantic. Nothing, for instance, could have been more untoward from his own point of view than the notorious Glasgow speech, which appeared to be founded on the delusion that Germany was about to "democratize" herself, a contingency that prompted the Prime Minister to promise better terms to democratic Germany than autocratic Germany could hope to secure! This was represented at the moment by Press enthusiasts, of whom Mr. Lloyd George always appears to command an undue proportion, as a masterpiece of statesmanship which would drive a wedge between the Kaiser and his people, as the latter in their eagerness to grasp the British offer would forthwith throw off the Imperial yoke, and within a very few months the Allies would be presented with the reasonable peace proposals of that "Moderate" Germany which would come to the fore under Glasgow pressure and convert the Hohenzollerns into a Constitutional Monarchy. The result, however, was precisely the opposite, though exactly what any serious student of German psychology--which is totally different from British psychology, however reluctant many of our journalists may be to recognize the fact-might have foreseen. So far from any revolt of the "German people "---as a matter of fact there are no German "people "--against the Kaiser, the suppression of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and the formation of a Government of "German Lansdownes on a policy of "Peace by negotiations," it was the so-called "Military Party," who are the only people we need reckon with in Germany, who took the initiative. Instead of the Reichstag "rising" against the Great General Staff and installing Von Bethmann-Hollweg as a real Prime Minister with real powers-like Mr. Lloyd GeorgeHindenburg, Ludendorff, and the Crown Prince descended upon Berlin and called upon the Kaiser to clear out Bethmann-Hollweg and appoint another Chancellor who would be still " tamer from the army's point of view. It was just as though Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson and the Prince of Wales went to Buckingham Palace and summoned the King to replace Mr. Lloyd George by some one more acceptable from the military point of view. It gives one the measure of the difference between the German and the British regimes. The Reichstag was not so much as consulted, and Dr. Michaelis, Hindenburg's nominee, became Imperial Chancellor. That was the single visible fruit of the offer from Glasgow, which like all our overtures to the enemy, including General Smuts's "mission" to Switzerland, was founded on a fallacy. State of 66 So far as Allied oratory has had any effect upon the internal affairs of Germany, which in war, as we see, is effectively governed by the Great General Staff, the position of such Moderates,' ," "Democrats," and "Socialists " as there may be has been weakened save in so far as these elements can be used by the Autocracy to fool Pacifists and "Defeatists" abroad. All the leading Socialists of Germany who are bona fide Socialists and not agents of the Berlin Government are in" field grey." The sham Socialists, or " Imperial Socialists" as they are called, are employed by von Kühlmann to beguile any French Socialists, Italian Socialists, or British Socialists who can be persuaded to listen to them. They have been a considerable factor in poisoning Russia against the Allies, to her own undoing, |