Germany and the Next War - F. Von Bernhardi |
Germany has great national and historical duties of policy and culture to fulfil, and her path towards further progress is threatened by formidable enmities. If we realize this, we shall see that it will be impossible to maintain our present position and secure our future without an appeal to arms.
Knowing this, as every man must who impartially considers the political situation, we are called upon to prepare ourselves as well as possible for this war. The times are passed when a stamp of the foot raised an army, or when it was sufficient to levy the masses and lead them to battle. The armaments of the present day must be prepared in peace-time down to the smallest detail, if they are to be effective in time of need.
Although this fact is known, the sacrifices which are required for warlike preparations are no longer so willingly made as the gravity of the situation demands. Every military proposal is bitterly contested in the Reichstag, frequently in a very petty spirit, and no one seems to understand that an unsuccessful war would involve our nation in economic misery, with which the most burdensome charges for the army (and these for the most part come back again into the coffers of the country) cannot for an instant be compared. A victorious war, on the other hand, brings countless advantages to the conqueror, and, as our last great wars showed, forms a new departure in economic progress. The fact is often forgotten that military service and the observance of the national duty of bearing arms are in themselves a high moral gain for our people, and improve the strength and capacity for work. Nor can it be ignored that a nation has other than merely economic duties to discharge. I propose to discuss the question, what kind and degree of preparation for war the great historical crisis through which we are passing demands from us. First, however, it will be profitable to consider the importance of preparations for war generally, and not so much from the purely military as from the social and political aspect; we shall thus strengthen the conviction that we cannot serve the true interests of the country better than by improving its military capabilities.
Preparation for war has a double task to discharge. Firstly, it must maintain and raise the military capabilities of the nation as a national asset; and, secondly, it must make arrangements for the conduct of the war and supply the requisite means.
This capability of national defence has a pronounced educative value in national development.
As in the social competition the persons able to protect themselves hold the field—the persons, that is, who, well equipped intellectually, do not shirk the contest, but fight it out with confidence and certainty of victory—so in the rivalry of nations and States victory rests with the people able to defend itself, which boldly enters the lists, and is capable of wielding the sword with success.
Military service not only educates nations in warlike capacity, but it develops the intellectual and moral qualities generally for the occupations of peace. It educates a man to the full mastery of his body, to the exercise and improvement of his muscles; it develops his mental powers, his self-reliance and readiness of decision; it accustoms him to order and subordination for a common end; it elevates his self-respect and courage, and thus his capacity for every kind of work.
It is a quite perverted view that the time devoted to military service deprives economic life of forces which could have been more appropriately and more profitably employed elsewhere. These forces are not withdrawn from economic life, but are trained for economic life. Military training produces intellectual and moral forces which richly repay the time spent, and have their real value in subsequent life. It is therefore the moral duty of the State to train as many of its countrymen as possible in the use of arms, not only with the prospect of war, but that they may share in the benefits of military service and improve their physical and moral capacities of defence. The sums which the State applies to the military training of the nation are distinctly an outlay for social purposes; the money so spent serves social and educative ends, and raises the nation spiritually and morally; it thus promotes the highest aims of civilization more directly than achievements of mechanics, industries, trades, and commerce, which certainly discharge the material duties of culture by improving the national livelihood and increasing national wealth, but bring with them a number of dangers, such as craving for pleasure and tendency to luxury, thus slackening the moral and productive fibres of the nations. Military service as an educational instrument stands on the same level as the school, and, as will be shown in a later section, each must complete and assist the other. But a people which does not willingly bear the duties and sacrifices entailed by school and military service renounces its will to live, and sacrifices objects which are noble and assure the future for the sake of material advantages which are one-sided and evanescent.
It is the duty, therefore, of every State, conscious of its obligations towards civilization and society, remorselessly to put an end to all tendencies inimical to the full development of the power of defence. The method by which the maintenance and promotion of this defensive power can be practically carried out admits of great variety. It depends largely on the conditions of national life, on the geographical and political circumstances, as well as on past history, and consequently ranges between very wide extremes.
In the Boer States, as among most uncivilized peoples, the military training was almost exclusively left to the individual. That was sufficient to a certain point, since their method of life in itself made them familiar with carrying arms and with riding, and inured them to hard bodily exertions. The higher requirements of combination, subordination, and campaigning, could not be met by such a military system, and the consequences of this were felt disastrously in the conduct of the war. In Switzerland and other States an attempt is made to secure national defence by a system of militia, and to take account of political possibilities. The great European States maintain standing armies in which all able-bodied citizens have to pass a longer or shorter period of military training. England alone keeps up a mercenary army, and by the side of it a territorial army, whose ranks are filled by volunteers.
In these various ways different degrees of military efficiency are obtained, but, generally, experience shows that the more thorough and intelligent this training in arms, the greater the development of the requisite military qualities in the units; and the more these qualities become a second nature, the more complete will be their warlike efficiency.
When criticizing the different military systems, we must remember that with growing civilization the requisite military capacities are always changing. The duties expected from the Roman legionary or the soldiers who fought in line under Frederick the Great were quite different from those of the rifleman and cavalryman of to-day. Not merely have the physical functions of military service altered, but the moral qualities expected from the fighting man are altered. This applies to the individual soldier as much as to the whole army. The character of warfare has continually been changing. To fight in the Middle Ages or in the eighteenth century with comparatively small forces was one thing; it is quite another to handle the colossal armies of to-day. The preparations for war, therefore, in the social as well as military sense, must be quite different in a highly developed modern civilized State from those in countries, standing on a lower level of civilization, where ordinary life is full of military elements, and war is fought under relatively simple conditions.
The crushing superiority of civilized States over people with a less developed civilization and military system is due to this altered form of military efficiency. It was thus that Japan succeeded in raising herself in a brief space to the supremacy in Eastern Asia. She now reaps in the advancement of her culture what she sowed on the battlefield, and proves once again the immeasurable importance, in its social and educational aspects, of military efficiency. Our own country, by employing its military powers, has attained a degree of culture which it never could have reached by the methods of peaceful development.
When we regard the change in the nature of military efficiency, we find ourselves on ground where the social duty of maintaining the physical and moral power of the nation to defend itself comes into direct contact with the political duty of preparing for warfare itself.
A great variety of procedure is possible, and actually exists, in regard to the immediate preparations for war. This is primarily expressed in the choice of the military system, but it is manifested in various other ways. We see the individual States—according to their geographical position, their relations to other States and the military strength of their neighbours, according to their historic claims and their greater or less importance in the political system of the world—making their military preparations with more or less energy, earnestness, and expenditure. When we consider the complex movements of the life of civilized nations, the variety of its aims and the multiplicity of its emotions, we must agree that the growth or decrease of armaments is everywhere affected by these considerations. War is only a means of attaining political ends and of supporting moral strength.
Thus, if England attaches most weight to her navy, her insular position and the wide oversea interests which she must protect thoroughly justify her policy. If, on the other hand, England develops her land forces only with the objects of safeguarding the command of her colonies, repelling a very improbable hostile invasion, and helping an allied Power in a continental war, the general political situation explains the reason. As a matter of fact, England can never be involved in a great continental European war against her will.
So Switzerland, which has been declared neutral by political treaties, and can therefore only take the field if she is attacked, rightly lays most stress on the social importance of military service, and tries to develop a scheme of defence which consists mainly in increasing the security afforded by her own mountains. The United States of America, again, are justified in keeping their land forces within very modest limits, while devoting their energies to the increase of their naval power. No enemy equal to them in strength can ever spring up on the continent of America; they need not fear the invasion of any considerable forces. On the other hand, they are threatened by oversea conflicts, of epoch-making importance, with the yellow race, which has acquired formidable strength opposite their western coast, and possibly with their great trade rival England, which has, indeed, often made concessions, but may eventually see herself compelled to fight for her position in the world.
While in some States a restriction of armaments is natural and justifiable, it is easily understood that France must strain every nerve to secure her full recognition among the great military nations of Europe. Her glorious past history has fostered in her great political pretensions which she will not abandon without a struggle, although they are no longer justified by the size of her population and her international importance. France affords a conspicuous example of self-devotion to ideals and of a noble conception of political and moral duties.
In the other European States, as in France, external political conditions and claims, in combination with internal politics, regulate the method and extent of warlike preparations, and their attitude, which necessity forces upon them, must be admitted to carry its own justification.
A State may represent a compact unity, from the point of view of nationality and civilization; it may have great duties to discharge in the development of human culture, and may possess the national strength to safeguard its independence, to protect its own interests, and, under certain circumstances, to persist in its civilizing mission and political schemes in defiance of other nations. Another State may be deficient in the conditions of individual national life and in elements of culture; it may lack the resources necessary for the defence and maintenance of its political existence single-handed in the teeth of all opposition. There is a vast difference between these two cases.
A State like the latter is always more or less dependent on the friendliness of stronger neighbours, whether it ranks in public law as fully independent or has been proclaimed neutral by international conventions. If it is attacked on one side, it must count on support from the other. Whether it shall continue to exist as a State and under what conditions must depend on the result of the ensuing war and the consequent political position—factors that lie wholly outside its own sphere of power.
This being the case, the question may well be put whether such a State is politically justified in requiring from its citizens in time of peace the greatest military efforts and correspondingly large pecuniary expenditure. It will certainly have to share the contest in which it is itself, perhaps, the prize, and theoretically will do best to have the largest possible military force at its disposal. But there is another aspect of the question which is at least arguable. The fighting power of such a State may be so small that it counts for nothing in comparison with the millions of a modern army. On the other hand, where appreciable military strength exists, it may be best not to organize the army with a view to decisive campaigning, but to put the social objects of military preparation into the foreground, and to adopt in actual warfare a defensive policy calculated to gain time, with a view to the subsequent interference of the prospective allies with whom the ultimate decision will rest. Such an army must, if it is to attain its object, represent a real factor of strength. It must give the probable allies that effective addition of strength which may insure a superiority over the antagonist. The ally must then be forced to consider the interests of such secondary State. The forces of the possible allies will thus exercise a certain influence on the armament of the State, in combination with the local conditions, the geographical position, and the natural configuration of the country.
It is only to be expected that, since such various conditions exist, the utmost variety should also prevail among the military systems; and such is, in fact, the case.
In the mountain stronghold of Switzerland, which has to reckon with the political and military circumstances of Germany, France, and Italy, preparations for war take a different shape from those of Holland, situated on the coast and secured by numerous waterways, whose political independence is chiefly affected by the land forces of Germany and the navy of England.
The conditions are quite otherwise for a country which relies wholly on its own power.
The power of the probable antagonists and of the presumable allies will have a certain importance for it, and its Government will in its plans and military preparations pay attention to their grouping and attitudes; but these preparations must never be motived by such considerations alone. The necessity for a strong military force is permanent and unqualified; the political permutations and combinations are endless, and the assistance of possible allies is always an uncertain and shifting factor, on which no reliance can be reposed.
The military power of an independent State in the true sense must guarantee the maintenance of a force sufficient to protect the interests of a great civilized nation and to secure to it the necessary freedom of development. If from the social standpoint no sacrifice can be considered too great which promotes the maintenance of national military efficiency, the increase in these sacrifices due to political conditions must be willingly and cheerfully borne, in consideration of the object thereby to be gained. This object—of which each individual must be conscious—if conceived in the true spirit of statesmanship, comprises the conditions which are decisive for the political and moral future of the State as well as for the livelihood of each individual citizen.
A civilization which has a value of its own, and thus forms a vital factor in the development of mankind, can only flourish where all the healthy and stimulating capacities of a nation find ample scope in international competition. This is also an essential condition for the unhindered and vigorous exercise of individual activities. Where the natural capacity for growth is permanently checked by external circumstances, nation and State are stunted and individual growth is set back.
Increasing political power and the consequent multiplication of possibilities of action constitute the only healthy soil for the intellectual and moral strength of a vigorous nation, as is shown by every phase of history.
The wish for culture must therefore in a healthy nation express itself first in terms of the wish for political power, and the foremost duty of statesmanship is to attain, safeguard, and promote this power, by force of arms in the last resort. Thus the first and most essential duty of every great civilized people is to prepare for war on a scale commensurate with its political needs. Even the superiority of the enemy cannot absolve from the performance of this requirement. On the contrary, it must stimulate to the utmost military efforts and the most strenuous political action in order to secure favourable conditions for the eventuality of a decisive campaign. Mere numbers count for less than ever in modern fighting, although they always constitute a very important factor of the total strength. But, within certain limits, which are laid down by the law of numbers, the true elements of superiority under the present system of gigantic armies are seen to be spiritual and moral strength, and larger masses will be beaten by a small, well-led and self-devoting army. The Russo-Japanese War has proved this once more.
Granted that the development of military strength is the first duty of every State, since all else depends upon the possibility to assert power, it does not follow that the State must spend the total of its personal and financial resources solely on military strength in the narrower sense of army and navy. That is neither feasible nor profitable. The military power of a people is not exclusively determined by these external resources; it consists, rather, in a harmonious development of physical, spiritual, moral, financial, and military elements of strength. The highest and most effective military system cannot be developed except by the co-operation of all these factors. It needs a broad and well-constructed basis in order to be effective. In the Manchurian War at the critical moment, when the Japanese attacking strength seemed spent, the Russian military system broke down, because its foundation was unstable; the State had fallen into political and moral ruin, and the very army was tainted with revolutionary ideas.
The social requirement of maintaining military efficiency, and the political necessity for so doing, determine the nature and degree of warlike preparations; but it must be remembered that this standard may be very variously estimated, according to the notion of what the State's duties are. Thus, in Germany the most violent disputes burst out whenever the question of the organization of the military forces is brought up, since widely different opinions prevail about the duties of the State and of the army.
It is, indeed, impossible so to formulate and fix the political duties of the State that they cannot be looked at from another standpoint. The social democrat, to whom agitation is an end in itself, will see the duty of the State in a quite different light from the political dilettante, who lives from hand to mouth, without making the bearing of things clear to himself, or from the sober Statesman who looks to the welfare of the community and keeps his eyes fixed on the distant beacons on the horizon of the future.
Certain points of view, however, may be laid down, which, based on the nature of things, check to some degree any arbitrary decision on these momentous questions, and are well adapted to persuade calm and experienced thinkers.
First, it must be observed that military power cannot be improvised in the present political world, even though all the elements for it are present.
Although the German Empire contains 65,000,000 inhabitants, compared to 40,000,000 of French, this excess in population represents merely so much dead capital, unless a corresponding majority of recruits are annually enlisted, and unless in peace-time the necessary machinery is set up for their organization. The assumption that these masses would be available for the army in the moment of need is a delusion. It would not mean a strengthening, but a distinct weakening, of the army, not to say a danger, if these untrained masses were at a crisis suddenly sent on active service. Bourbaki's campaign shows what is to be expected from such measures. Owing to the complexity of all modern affairs, the continuous advance in technical skill and in the character of warlike weapons, as also in the increased requirements expected from the individual, long and minute preparations are necessary to procure the highest military values. Allusion has already been made to this at the beginning of this chapter. It takes a year to complete a 30-centimetre cannon. If it is to be ready for use at a given time, it must have been ordered long beforehand. Years will pass before the full effect of the strengthening of the army, which is now being decided on, appears in the rolls of the Reserve and the Landwehr. The recruit who begins his service to-day requires a year's training to become a useful soldier. With the hasty training of substitute reservists and such expedients, we merely deceive ourselves as to the necessity of serious preparations. We must not regard the present only, but provide for the future.
The same argument applies to the political conditions. The man who makes the bulk of the preparations for war dependent on the shifting changes of the politics of the day, who wishes to slacken off in the work of arming because no clouds in the political horizon suggest the necessity of greater efforts, acts contrary to all real statesmanship, and is sinning against his country.
The moment does not decide; the great political aspirations, oppositions, and tensions, which are based on the nature of things—these turn the scale.
When King William at the beginning of the sixties of the last century undertook the reorganization of the Prussian army, no political tension existed. The crisis of 1859 had just subsided. But the King had perceived that the Prussian armament was insufficient to meet the requirements of the future. After a bitter struggle he extorted from his people a reorganization of the army, and this laid the foundations without which the glorious progress of our State would never have begun. In the same true spirit of statesmanship the Emperor William II. has powerfully aided and extended the evolution of our fleet, without being under the stress of any political necessity; he has enjoyed the cheerful co-operation of his people, since the reform at which he aimed was universally recognized as an indisputable need of the future, and accorded with traditional German sentiment.
While the preparation for war must be completed irrespectively of the political influences of the day, the military power of the probable opponents marks a limit below which the State cannot sink without jeopardizing the national safety.
Further, the State is bound to enlist in its service all the discoveries of modern science, so far as they can be applied to warfare, since all these methods and engines of war, should they be exclusively in the hands of the enemy, would secure him a distinct superiority. It is an obvious necessity to keep the forces which can be put into the field as up-to-date as possible, and to facilitate their military operations by every means which science and mechanical skill supply. Further, the army must be large enough to constitute a school for the whole nation, in which a thoroughgoing and no mere superficial military efficiency may be attained.
Finally, the nature of the preparation for war is to some degree regulated by the political position of the State. If the State has satisfied its political ambitions and is chiefly concerned with keeping its place, the military policy will assume a more or less defensive character. States, on the other hand, which are still desirous of expansion, or such as are exposed to attacks on different sides, must adopt a predominantly offensive military system.
Preparations for war in this way follow definite lines, which are dictated by necessity and circumstances; but it is evident that a wide scope is still left for varieties of personal opinion, especially where the discussion includes the positive duties of the State, which may lead to an energetic foreign policy, and thus possibly to an offensive war, and where very divergent views exist as to the preparation for war. In this case the statesman's only resource is to use persuasion, and to so clearly expound and support his conceptions of the necessary policy that the majority of the nation accept his view. There are always and everywhere conditions which have a persuasive character of their own, and appeal to the intellects and the feelings of the masses.
Every Englishman is convinced of the necessity to maintain the command of the sea, since he realizes that not only the present powerful position of the country, but also the possibility of feeding the population in case of war, depend on it. No sacrifice for the fleet is too great, and every increase of foreign navies instantly disquiets public opinion. The whole of France, except a few anti-military circles, feels the necessity of strengthening the position of the State, which was shaken by the defeats of 1870-71, through redoubled exertions in the military sphere, and this object is being pursued with exemplary unanimity.
Even in neutral Switzerland the feeling that political independence rests less on international treaties than on the possibility of self-defence is so strong and widespread that the nation willingly supports heavy taxation for its military equipment. In Germany, also, it should be possible to arouse a universal appreciation of the great duties of the State, if only our politicians, without any diplomatic evasion, which deceives no one abroad and is harmful to the people at home, disclosed the true political situation and the necessary objects of our policy.
To be sure, they must be ready to face a struggle with public opinion, as King William I. did: for when public opinion does not stand under the control of a master will or a compelling necessity, it can be led astray too easily by the most varied influences. This danger is particularly great in a country so torn asunder internally and externally as Germany. He who in such a case listens to public opinion runs a danger of inflicting immense harm on the interests of State and people.
One of the fundamental principles of true statesmanship is that permanent interests should never be abandoned or prejudiced for the sake of momentary advantages, such as the lightening of the burdens of the taxpayer, the temporary maintenance of peace, or suchlike specious benefits, which, in the course of events, often prove distinct disadvantages.
The statesman, therefore, led astray neither by popular opinion nor by the material difficulties which have to be surmounted, nor by the sacrifices required of his countrymen, must keep these objects carefully in view. So long as it seems practicable he will try to reconcile the conflicting interests and bring them into harmony with his own. But where great fundamental questions await decision, such as the actual enforcement of universal service or of the requirements on which readiness for war depends, he must not shrink from strong measures in order to create the forces which the State needs, or will need, in order to maintain its vitality.
One of the most essential political duties is to initiate and sanction preparations for war on a scale commensurate with the existing conditions; to organize them efficiently is the duty of the military authorities—a duty which belongs in a sense to the sphere of strategy, since it supplies the machinery with which commanders have to reckon. Policy and strategy touch in this sphere. Policy has a strategic duty to perform, since it sanctions preparations for war and defines their limit.
It would, therefore, be a fatal and foolish act of political weakness to disregard the military and strategic standpoint, and to make the bulk of the preparations for war dependent on the financial moans momentarily available. "No expenditure without security," runs the formula in which this policy clothes itself. It is justified only when the security is fixed by the expenditure. In a great civilized State it is the duties which must be fulfilled—as Treitschke, our great historian and national politician, tells us—that determine the expenditure, and the great Finance Minister is not the man who balances the national accounts by sparing the national forces, while renouncing the politically indispensable outlay, but he who stimulates all the live forces of the nation to cheerful activity, and so employs them for national ends that the State revenue suffices to meet the admitted political demands. He can only attain this purpose if he works in harmony with the Ministers for Commerce, Agriculture, Industries, and Colonies, in order to break down the restrictions which cramp the enterprise and energy of the individual, to make all dead values remunerative, and to create favourable conditions for profitable business. A great impulse must thrill the whole productive and financial circles of the State, if the duties of the present and the future are to be fulfilled.
Thus the preparation for war, which, under modern conditions, calls for very considerable expenditure, exercises a marked influence on the entire social and political life of the people and on the financial policy of the State.