Peace Theories and the Balkan War

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Ti­tle: Peace The­ories and the Balkan War

Au­thor: Nor­man An­gell

Re­lease Date: April 3, 2004 [EBook #11895] [Date last up­dat­ed: Jan 29, 2006]

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PEACE THE­ORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR

BY

NOR­MAN AN­GELL

Au­thor of “The Great Il­lu­sion”

1912

PEACE THE­ORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR

By NOR­MAN AN­GELL,

Au­thor of “The Great Il­lu­sion.”

1912

THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK.

Whether we blame the bel­liger­ents or crit­icise the pow­ers, or sit in sack­cloth and ash­es our­selves is ab­so­lute­ly of no con­se­quence at the present mo­ment....

We have some­times been as­sured by per­sons who pro­fess to know that the dan­ger of war has be­come an il­lu­sion.... Well, here is a war which has bro­ken out in spite of all that rulers and diplo­ma­tists could do to pre­vent it, a war in which the Press has had no part, a war which the whole force of the mon­ey pow­er has been sub­tly and stead­fast­ly di­rect­ed to pre­vent, which has come up­on us, not through the ig­no­rance or creduli­ty of the peo­ple, but, on the con­trary, through their knowl­edge of their his­to­ry and their des­tiny, and through their in­tense re­al­isa­tion of their wrongs and of their du­ties, as they con­ceived them, a war which from all these caus­es has burst up­on us with all the force of a spon­ta­neous ex­plo­sion, and which in strife and de­struc­tion has car­ried all be­fore it. Face to face with this man­ifes­ta­tion, who is the man bold enough to say that force is nev­er a rem­edy? Who is the man who is fool­ish enough to say that mar­tial virtues do not play a vi­tal part in the health and hon­our of ev­ery peo­ple? (Cheers.) Who is the man who is vain enough to sup­pose that the long an­tag­onisms of his­to­ry and of time can in all cir­cum­stances be ad­just­ed by the smooth and su­per­fi­cial con­ven­tions of politi­cians and am­bas­sadors?--MR. WIN­STON CHURCHILL at Sheffield.

Mr. Nor­man An­gell's the­ory was one to en­able the cit­izens of this coun­try to sleep qui­et­ly, and to lull in­to false se­cu­ri­ty the cit­izens of all great coun­tries. That is un­doubt­ed­ly the rea­son why he met with so much suc­cess.... It was a very com­fort­able the­ory for those na­tions which have grown rich and whose ide­als and ini­tia­tive have been sapped by over much pros­per­ity. But the great delu­sion of Nor­man An­gell, which led to the writ­ing of “The Great Il­lu­sion,” has been dis­pelled for ev­er by the Balkan League. In this con­nec­tion it is of val­ue to quote the words of Mr. Win­ston Churchill, which give very ad­equate­ly the re­al­ity as op­posed to the­ory.--_The Re­view of Re­views_, from an ar­ti­cle on “The De­ba­cle of Nor­man An­gell.”

And an odd score of like pro­nounce­ments from news­pa­pers and pub­lic men since the out­break of the Balkan War.

The in­ter­ro­ga­tions they im­ply have been put def­inite­ly in the first chap­ter of this book; the replies to those ques­tions sum­marised in that chap­ter and elab­orat­ed in the oth­ers.

_The “key” to this book and the sum­ma­ry of its ar­gu­ments are con­tained in Chap­ter I. (pp. 7-12)_

CON­TENTS.

I. The Ques­tions and their An­swers

II. “Peace” and “War” in the Balka­ns

III. Eco­nom­ic Caus­es in the Balkan War

IV. Turk­ish Ide­als in our Po­lit­ical Thought

V. Our Re­spon­si­bil­ity for Balkan Wars

VI. Paci­fism, De­fence, and the “Im­pos­si­bil­ity of War”

VII. “The­ories” False and True; their Role in Eu­ro­pean Pol­itics

VI­II. What Shall we DO?

CHAP­TER I.

THE QUES­TIONS AND THEIR AN­SWER.

CHAP­TER II.

“PEACE” AND “WAR” IN THE BALKA­NS.

“Peace” in the Balka­ns un­der the Turk­ish Sys­tem--The in­ad­equa­cy of our terms--The re­pul­sion of the Turk­ish in­va­sion--The Chris­tian ef­fort to bring the reign of force and con­quest to an end--The dif­fer­ence be­tween ac­tion de­signed to set­tle re­la­tion­ship on force and counter ac­tion de­signed to pre­vent such set­tle­ment--The force of the po­lice­man and the force of the brig­and--The fail­ure of con­quest as ex­em­pli­fied by the Turk--Will the Balkan peo­ples prove Paci­fist or Bel­li­cist; adopt the Turk­ish or the Chris­tian Sys­tem?

CHAP­TER III.

ECO­NOMICS AND THE BALKAN WAR.

The “eco­nom­ic sys­tem” of the Turk--The Turk­ish “Trade of Con­quest” as a cause of this war--Racial and Re­li­gious ha­tred of prim­itive so­ci­eties--In­dus­tri­al­ism as a sol­vent--Its op­er­ation in Eu­rope--Balka­ns ge­ograph­ical­ly re­mote from main drift of Eu­ro­pean eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment--The false economies of the Pow­ers as a cause of their jeal­ousies and quar­rels--- This has pre­vent­ed set­tle­ment--What is the “eco­nom­ic mo­tive”?--Im­pos­si­ble to sep­arate moral and ma­te­ri­al--Na­tion­al­ity and the War Sys­tem.

CHAP­TER IV.

TURK­ISH IDE­ALS IN OUR PO­LIT­ICAL THOUGHT.

This war and “the Turks of Britain and Prus­sia”--The An­glo-​Sax­on and op­posed ide­als--Mr. C. Chester­ton's case for “killing and be­ing killed” as the best method of set­tling dif­fer­ences--Its ap­pli­ca­tion to Civ­il Con­flicts--As in Span­ish-​Amer­ica--The dif­fer­ence be­tween De­von­shire and Venezuela--Will the Balka­ns adopt the Tur­co-​Venezue­lan po­lit­ical ide­als or the British?

CHAP­TER V.

OUR RE­SPON­SI­BIL­ITY FOR BALKAN WARS.

Mr. Win­ston Churchill on the “Re­spon­si­bil­ity” of Diplo­ma­cy--What does he mean?--An easy (and pop­ular) phi­los­ophy--Can we ne­glect past if we would avoid fu­ture er­rors?--British tem­per and pol­icy in the Crimean War--What are its lessons?--Why we fought a war to sus­tain the “in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the Turk­ish do­min­ion in Eu­rope”--Sup­port­ing the Turk against his Chris­tian vic­tims--From fear of Rus­sian growth which we are now aid­ing--The com­men­tary of events--Shall we back the wrong horse again?

CHAP­TER VI.

PACI­FISM, DE­FENCE, AND “THE IM­POS­SI­BIL­ITY OF WAR.”

Did the Crimean War prove Bright and Cob­den wrong?--Our cu­ri­ous rea­son­ing--Mr. Churchill on “il­lu­sions”--The dan­ger of war is not the il­lu­sion but its ben­efits--We are all Paci­fists now since we all de­sire Peace--Will more ar­ma­ments alone se­cure it?--The ex­pe­ri­ence of mankind--War “the fail­ure of hu­man wis­dom”--There­fore more wis­dom is the rem­edy--But the Mil­itarists on­ly want more arms--The Ger­man Lord Roberts--The mil­itary cam­paign against po­lit­ical Ra­tio­nal­ism--How to make war cer­tain.

CHAP­TER VII.

“THE­ORIES” FALSE AND TRUE: THEIR ROLE IN EU­RO­PEAN PROGRESS.

The im­prove­ment of ideas the foun­da­tion of all im­prove­ment--Shoot­ing straight and think­ing straight; the one as im­por­tant as the oth­er--Paci­fism and the Mil­len­ni­um--How we got rid of wars of re­li­gion--A few ideas have changed the face of the world--The sim­ple ideas the most im­por­tant--The “the­ories” which have led to war--The work of the re­former to de­stroy old and false the­ories--The in­tel­lec­tu­al in­ter­de­pen­dence of na­tions--Eu­rope at uni­ty in this mat­ter--New ideas can­not be con­fined to one peo­ple--No fear of our­selves or any na­tion be­ing ahead of the rest.

CHAP­TER VI­II.

WHAT MUST WE _DO_?

We must have the right po­lit­ical faith--Then we must give ef­fect to it--Good in­ten­tion not enough--The or­ga­ni­za­tion of the great forces of mod­ern life--Our in­dif­fer­ence as to the foun­da­tions of the evil--The on­ly hope.