In face of this Teutonic control of the world’s trade, politics and news supply, the Great Powers whose outlook, political and economic, was most nearly affected, exhibited a degree of supineness which can only be adequately explained by such assumptions as one would gladly eliminate. Anyhow the lessons conveyed by eloquent facts fell upon deaf ears. Yet it was manifest, in view of Germany’s ingenious combination of economics and politics, and the irresistible co-operation of the State and individuals in applying it, that the slipshod methods of Britain and France could no longer be persisted in without grave danger to these states. To deal with trade and industry as though they were matters that concerned only the particular business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany’s economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing to cope with a potent organism equipped scientifically, provided with large capital and backed by the resources of diplomacy. New epochs call for fresh methods, and the era of commercial and industrial individualism was closed years ago by the German people. Co-ordination of effort, the combination of politics with economics, and unity of direction were among Germany’s methods in the contest, and she adopted them in the grounded belief that commerce and industry lie at the nethermost roots of the vast political movements of the new era.

This is a century of co-operation, of joint efforts for common interests, of union in trade, industry, labour, politics and war. To stand aloof is to be isolated, and isolation means helplessness against danger. Germany was the first Power to grasp these facts, to understand the new phase of life and to adapt herself to it. For this work of readjustment her people were specially endowed by Nature, and in their equipment for the task they saw a mark of election set upon them by their “old God.” For the correlate of co-operation is talent for organization, and with this the Teutons are plentifully gifted. They feel impelled as it were by instinct to push forward much further on the road already traversed by all nations from isolation to individualism through gregariousness. They opened the new era of amalgamation by co-ordinating, on a vast scale, individual achievements, resources and labour, and directing them to a common end. The allied peoples were meanwhile content to muddle through in the old way. This difference explains much that seems puzzling in the outcome of the struggle.

It has been affirmed somewhat off-handedly that the Latin and British peoples, incapable of united and organized effort, have halted at the individualist stage. They are supposed to lack the bump of organization. According to this theory among the Germans, who had passed through all the intermediate phases and carried individualism to sinister extremes in the past, a reaction set in which called forth the latent powers of organization which they possess. And these have been wielded with brilliant results ever since the unity of the German Empire was first established. Applying the new principle to politics, the statesmen of Berlin grasped the fact that all future conflicts in Europe would be waged by coalitions. Neither Austria-Hungary alone nor the German Empire alone could undertake a world war. That was the genesis of the scheme of welding the two central empires in one politico-military entity and then attracting as many other States as possible into their orbit. And the enterprise was conducted so ingeniously that when war was declared, Roumania, Bulgaria and Turkey were tied to the Triple Alliance. And henceforward, whatever the outcome of the war may be, the permanent fusion of Germany and Austria is a foregone conclusion.

By the means described a state of things, actual and potential, was established which rendered Germany’s military attack on Europe much less hazardous and doubtful a venture than was at first supposed. For there was not a country on the globe which she or her ally had not subjected to the process of interpenetration, nor was there one which had remained wholly irresponsive. Even Brazil, Chili, Peru, China, Morocco, Persia, Abyssinia, had all experienced its effects. And when at last the harvest-time was come and its fruits were to be ingathered Germany felt that she could count to varying extents on the active sympathy and support of governments, parliaments and nations; on the Turks, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Bulgarians, the Roumanians; on the autocratic ruler of the Greeks and on millions of American-Germans. Every independent religious centre was permeated with an atmosphere composed in Germany. The Caliph and the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Moslems, the evangelical preachers of the Russian Baltic provinces, Brahmins in India, subjects of the Negus of Abyssinia, the Jews of western Russia and Poland, as well as those of the Netherlands, the Catholics of Switzerland, Holland and Italy, nay, the Vatican itself, raised their voices in the chorus of the millions who sang hosannah to the Highest.[63]

Dismay was the feeling aroused among the Allies by the quick dramatic moves which precipitated the war. The trump of doom seemed to have sounded at a moment when mankind was on the point of discovering the secret of immortality. The utter unpreparedness of the Allies was the dominant note of the new situation, and its manifestations were countless and disastrous. There was no adequate British expeditionary army to send on foreign service, and there existed no machinery by which such a force could quickly be got together and trained. Voluntary enlistment was a slowly moving mechanism, and even if it could be made to work more rapidly, there was no way of employing the new soldiers, for whom there were neither barracks nor uniforms nor rifles in sufficiency. And if all these requirements could have been improvised, there were no generals accustomed to handle armies of millions. And even if all those wants had been supplied to hand there was no Government enterprising enough to put them to the best advantage of the nation. Moreover, colonial expeditions were the most extensive military operations which the country had carried on within the memory of the present generation, and it was beyond the power of the authorities not only to organize the imperial defences on an adequate scale but even to realize the necessity of attempting the feat. In a word, the prospect could hardly have been more dismal.

In France it was a degree less cheerless, but still decidedly bleak. Mobilization there went forward, it is claimed, more smoothly than had been anticipated, but not rapidly enough to enable adequate forces to be dispatched in time against the German military flood. The organization of the railway system was most inefficient. And had it not been for heroic Belgium, who, confronted with the alternatives of ruin with honour and safety with ignominy, unhesitatingly chose the better part, the inrush of the Teutons would, it is asserted by military experts, have swept away every obstacle that lay between them and the French capital, which was their first objective. Belgium’s magnificent resistance thus saved Paris, gave breathing space to the French, and enabled the Allies to swing their sword before smiting.

Russia, too, did better than had been augured of her, but not nearly as well as if her resources had been organized by competent experts, alive to the dangers that threatened the empire. On the eve of the war a process of fermentation among the working men of her two capitals was coming to a head, and a revolt, if not a revolution, was being industriously organized. The movement had certainly been fostered, and probably originated, by wealthy German employers in Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres. They had hoped to frustrate the mobilization order, retard Russia’s entry into the field, and possibly bring about civil strife. And they were within an ace of succeeding. On the very eve of hostilities reports reached Berlin and Vienna that the revolution was already beginning. But the declaration of war against Germany purified the air, absorbed the redundant energies of the people, and fused all classes and parties into a whole-hearted, single-minded nation, giving Russia a degree of union which she had not enjoyed since Napoleon’s invasion. But, separated from her allies, she went her own way without much reference to theirs. Her plans had been drafted by her military leaders, and might be modified by local conditions or subsequent vicissitudes, but were neither co-ordinated nor even synchronized with those of France and Britain. Thus the first and most important lesson had still to be mastered.

LiÈge and Namur having fallen, the danger to Paris struck terror to the hearts of the French, and the public mind was being gradually prepared by the Press to receive the depressing tidings of its capture with dignified calm. The occupation of the capital, it was argued, would not essentially weaken the military strength of the Republic. For the army would still be intact, and that was the essential point. Here, for the first time, one notes the almost invincible force of the antiquated opinions to which the Allies still tenaciously clung about warfare as modified by Germany. No misgivings were harboured that the enemy might threaten to burn the capital city if the army refused to capitulate, or that he was capable of carrying out such a threat. War in its old guise, hedged round with traditions of chivalry, with humanitarian restrictions, with international laws, was how the French and their allies conceived it. And it was in that spirit that they made their forecasts and regulated their own behaviour towards the enemy.

The rise of Generals Joffre, Castelnau and Foch and the retreat of the German invaders raised the Allies from the depths of despair to a degree of confidence bordering on presumption. After the departure of the Belgian Government to Antwerp,[64] the occupation of Brussels,[65] the defeat of the Austrian army by the Serbs and the rout of three German army corps by the Russians,[66] the Western Allies conceived high hopes of the military prowess of the Slavs, and looked to them for the decisive action which would speedily bring the Teutons to their knees. And for a time Russia’s continued progress seemed to justify these hopes. Her troops entered Insterburg[67] and pushed on to KÖnigsberg, which they invested and threatened,[68] and in the south they scored a series of remarkable successes in Galicia. But in the west of Europe the Allies could at most but retard without arresting the advance of the Germans, whose aim was to defeat the French and then concentrate all their efforts on the invasion of the Tsardom. Despite assurances of an optimistic tenor there appeared to be no serious hope of defending Paris, nor were effective local measures adopted for the purpose; and on September 3 the French Government, against the insistent advice of three experienced Cabinet Ministers, suddenly moved to Bordeaux, and earned for itself the nickname of tournedos À la bordelaise. On the same historic day the Tsar’s troops triumphantly entered Lemberg, restored to that city its ancient name of Lvoff, and proceeded to introduce the Russian system of administration there with all its traditional characteristics. But in lieu of conferring full powers on the Governor of the conquered province, a man of broad views and conciliatory methods, the Government dispatched a narrow-minded official, devoid of natural ability, of administrative training, and of the sobering consciousness of his own defects, and listened to his recommendations. For Russia, like France and Britain, still contemplated the situation and its potentialities through the distorting medium of the old order of things. Their orientation had undergone no change.

One of the immediate consequences of Russian rule in Galicia was to confirm the Vatican in its belief that Austria offered Catholicism far more trustworthy guarantees for its unhindered growth than could ever be expected from the Tsardom.

The famous battle of the Marne[69] infused new energies into the Allies, whose Press organs forthwith took to discussing the terms on which peace might be vouchsafed to the Teutons, and in these stipulations a spirit of magnanimity was displayed towards the enemy which at any rate served to show how little his temper was understood and how enormously his resources were underrated. Soon, however, the mist of ignorance began to lift, and saner notions of the stern interplay of the tidal forces at work were borne in upon the leaders of the allied peoples. One of the first discoveries to be made was the enormous consumption of ammunition required by latter-day warfare and the ease with which the Germans were able to meet this increased demand. That this enormous advantage was the result of scientific organization was patent to all. Nor could it be ignored that an essential element of that organization was the militarization of all workmen whose services were needed by the State. But from the lesson thus inculcated to its application in practice there was an abyss. And as yet that abyss has not been bridged. The most formidable obstacle in the way is offered by the shackles of party politics, which still hamper the leaders of the Entente Powers, and in particular of Great Britain. Industrial compulsion has not yet been moved into the field of practical politics.

One of Germany’s calculations was that, however superior to her own resources those of her adversaries might be, they were not likely to be mobilized, concentrated and brought to bear upon the front. Consequently they would not tell upon the result. Military discipline had not impregnated any of the allied nations, whose ideas of personal liberty and dignity would oppose an insurmountable obstacle to that severe discipline which was essential to military success. Great Britain, they believed, would cling to her ingrained notions of the indefeasible right of the British workman to strike and of the British citizen to hold back from military service. And the telegrams announcing that in the United Kingdom the cries of “business as usual,” “sport as usual,” “strikes as usual,” “voluntary enlistment as usual,” indicated the survival of the antiquated spirit of individualism into a new order of things which peremptorily called for co-operation and iron discipline, were received in Berlin and Vienna with undisguised joy. The persistence of this spirit has been the curse of the Allies ever since.