Private enquirers of course knew nothing of Lord Haldane's rebuff at Berlin in 1912, for that was a Government secret. Nor had they any means of understanding more than a portion of what was actually afoot on the Continent of Europe in the matter of armaments and military preparations. Their sole sources of information were official papers and public discussions. Many additional facts beyond {310} these are brought to the notice of governments through their secret intelligence departments. All continental4 powers are more or less uncandid, both as regards the direction and the amount of their expenditure5 on armaments. In the case of Germany concealment6 is practised on a greater scale and more methodically than with any other. Ministers obviously knew a great deal more than the British public; but what was known to the man-in-the-street was sufficiently7 disquieting8, when he set himself to puzzle out its meanings.
At this time (during 1912, and in the first half of 1913, until anxiety with regard to Ireland began to absorb public attention) there was a very widely-spread and rapidly-growing concern as to the security of the country. For nearly seven years Lord Roberts, with quiet constancy, had been addressing thin and, for the most part, inanimate gatherings9 on the subject of National Service. Suddenly he found himself being listened to with attention and respect by crowded audiences.
Lord Roberts had ceased to be Commander-in-Chief in 1904. After his retirement10, and in the same year, he revisited the South African battlefields. During this trip, very reluctantly—for he was no lover of change—he came to the conclusion that in existing circumstances 'national service' was a necessity. On his return to England he endeavoured to persuade Mr. Balfour's Government to accept his views and give effect to them. Failing in this, he resigned his seat upon the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1905, in order that he might be able to advocate his opinion freely. He was then in his seventy-fourth year. It was not, however, {311} until seven years later[1] that his words can be said to have arrested general attention.
NATIONAL ANXIETY
The truth was that the nation was beginning to be dissatisfied with what it had been told by the party speakers and newspapers, on the one side and the other, regarding the state of the national defences. It had not even the consolation11 of feeling that what the one said might be set against the other, and truth arrived at by striking a balance between them. This method of the party system, which was supposed to have served fairly well in other matters, failed to reassure12 the nation with regard to its military preparations. The whole of this subject was highly complicated, lent itself readily to political mystery, and produced in existing circumstances the same apprehensions13 among ordinary men as those of a nervous pedestrian, lost in a fog by the wharf14 side, who finds himself beset15 by officious and quarrelsome touts16, each claiming permission to set him on his way.
The nation was disquieted17 because it knew that it had not been told the whole truth by either set of politicians. It suspected the reason of this to be that neither set had ever taken pains to understand where the truth lay. It had a notion, moreover, that the few who really knew, were afraid—for party reasons—to speak out, to state their conclusions, and to propose the proper remedies, lest such a course might drive them from office, or prevent them from ever holding it. Beyond any doubt it was true that at this time many people were seriously disturbed by the unsatisfactory character of recent Parliamentary discussions, and earnestly desired to know {312} the real nature of the dangers to be apprehended18, and the adequacy of our preparations for meeting them.
There had always been a difficulty in keeping the Army question from being used as a weapon in party warfare19. As to this—looking back over a long period of years—there was not much to choose between the Radicals20, Liberals, or Whigs upon the one hand, and the unionists, Conservatives, or Tories on the other. Military affairs are complicated and technical; and the very fact that the line of country is so puzzling to the ordinary man had preserved it as the happy hunting-ground of the politician. When an opportunity presented itself of attacking the Government on its army policy, the opposition21—whether in the reign1 of Queen Victoria or in that of Queen Anne—rarely flinched22 out of any regard for the national interest. And when Parliamentary considerations and ingrained prejudices made it seem a risky23 matter to undertake reforms which were important, or even essential, the Government of the day just as rarely showed any disposition24 to discharge this unpopular duty.
While at times naval25 policy, and even foreign policy, had for years together been removed out of the region of purely26 party criticism, army policy had ever remained embarrassed by an evil tradition. From the time of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, to the time of Field-Marshal Sir John French—from a date, that is, only a few years after our modern Parliamentary system was inaugurated by the 'Glorious Revolution,' down to the present day—the characteristic of almost every opposition with regard to this matter, had been factiousness27, and that of {313} almost every Government evasion28. Neither the one side nor the other had ever seemed able to approach this ill-fated topic with courage or sincerity29, or to view it with steady constancy from the standpoint of the national interest.
THE BLOOD TAXES
For several years past the country had been watching a conspicuous30 example of this ingrained habit of manoeuvring round the Army in order to obtain party advantage. From 1912 onwards, until more interesting perplexities provided a distraction31, a great part of the Liberal press and party had been actively32 engaged in the attempt to fix the unionist party with responsibility for the proposals of the National Service League. The Opposition, it is hardly necessary to record, were innocent of this charge—criminally innocent; but it was nevertheless regarded as good party business to load them with the odium of 'conscription.' The 'blood-taxes,' as it was pointed33 out by one particularly zealous34 journal, would be no less useful than the 'food-taxes' as an 'election cry,' which at this time—more than ever before—appeared to have become the be-all and end-all of party activities.
It was obvious to the meanest capacity that these industrious35 politicians were not nearly so much concerned with the demerits, real or supposed, of National Service, as with making their opponents as unpopular as possible. In such an atmosphere of prejudice it would have required great courage and determination in a statesman to seek out and proclaim the true way to security, were it national service or anything else which entailed36 a sacrifice.
Was it wonderful that when people examined the signs of the times in the early part of 1913, {314} they should have found themselves oppressed by feelings of doubt and insecurity? A huge German military increase; a desperate French effort in reply; war loans (for they were nothing else) on a vast scale in both countries—what was the meaning of it all? To what extent was British safety jeopardised thereby37?
To these questions there was no answer which carried authority; the official oracles38 were dumb. We are a democratic country, and yet none of our rulers had ever yet spoken plainly to us. None of the Secretaries for War, none of the Prime Ministers since the beginning of the century, had ever stated the issue with uncompromising simplicity39, as the case required. None of them had ever taken the country into his confidence, either as to the extent of the danger or as to the nature of the remedy. It is necessary to assume—in the light of subsequent events—that these statesmen had in fact realised the danger, and were not ignorant of the preparations which were required to forestall40 it. Certainly it is hard to believe otherwise; but at times, remembering their speeches and their acts, one is inclined to give them the benefit, if it be a benefit, of the doubt.
BRITAIN AND EUROPEAN INTERESTS
The question at issue was in reality a graver matter than the security of the United Kingdom or the British Empire. The outlook was wider even than this. The best guarantee for the preservation41 of the peace of Europe, and of the World, would have been a British army proportionate to our population and resources. There could be no doubt of this. For half a century or more we had, half unconsciously, bluffed42 Europe into the belief that we did in fact possess such an army; but gradually it had become {315} plain that this was not the case. Since the Agadir incident the real situation was apparent even to the man in the street—in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, the Hague, Vienna, Rome, and Petrograd—in every capital, indeed, save perhaps in London alone.
If England had possessed43 such an army as would have enabled her to intervene with effect in European affairs, she would almost certainly never have been called upon to intervene.[2] Peace in that case would have preserved itself. For Europe knew—not from our professions, but from the obvious facts, which are a much better assurance—that our army would never be used except for one purpose only, to maintain the balance of Power. She knew this to be our only serious concern; and, except for the single nation which, at any given time, might be aiming at predominance, it was also the most serious concern of the whole of Europe. She knew us to be disinterested44, in the diplomatic sense, with regard to all other European matters. She knew that there was nothing in Europe which we wished to acquire, and nothing—save in the extreme south-west, a rock called Gibraltar, and in the Mediterranean45 an island called Malta—which we held and were determined46 to maintain. In the chancelleries of Europe all this was clearly recognised. And more and more it was {316} coming to be recognised also by the organs of public opinion on the Continent.
The population of France is roughly forty millions; that of Germany} sixty-five millions; that of the United Kingdom, forty-five millions. As regards numbers of men trained to bear arms, France by 1911 had already come to the end of her resources; Germany had still considerable means of expansion; Britain alone had not yet seriously attempted to put forth47 her strength. Had we done so in time the effect must have been final and decisive; there would then have been full security against disturbance48 of the peace of Europe by a deliberately49 calculated war.
Europe's greatest need therefore was that Britain should possess an army formidable not only in valour, but also in numbers: her greatest peril50 lay in the fact that, as to the second of these requirements, Britain was deficient51. No power from the Atlantic seaboard to the Ural Mountains, save that one alone which contemplated52 the conquest and spoliation of its neighbours, would have been disquieted—or indeed anything else but reassured—had the British people decided53 to create such an army. For by reason of England's peculiar54 interests—or rather perhaps from her lack of all direct personal interests in European affairs, other than in peace and the balance of power—she was marked out as the natural mediator55 in Continental disputes. In these high perplexities, however, it is not the justice of the mediator which restrains aggression56, so much as the fear inspired by his fleets and the strength of his battalions57.
[1] October 1913.
[2] This view was held by no one more strongly than by Lord Roberts. During the last five-and-twenty years the writer has probably seen as much of soldiers as falls to the lot of most civilians58, but nowhere, during that period, from the late senior Field-Marshal downwards59, has he ever encountered that figment of the pacifist imagination of which we read so much during 1912-1914—"a military clique60 which desires to create a conscript army on the European model for purposes of aggression on the continent of Europe." The one thought of all soldiers was adequate defence. Their one concern was how to prevent war.... M. Clemenceau once urged that Lord Roberts should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of 'conscription' in England. This proposal was made quite seriously.
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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touts
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| n.招徕( tout的名词复数 )；（音乐会、体育比赛等的）卖高价票的人；侦查者；探听赛马的情报v.兜售( tout的第三人称单数 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
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disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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factiousness
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| 有党派 | |
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28
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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40
forestall
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| vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止 | |
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41
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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42
bluffed
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| 以假象欺骗，吹牛( bluff的过去式和过去分词 )； 以虚张声势找出或达成 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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45
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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46
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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47
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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48
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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49
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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50
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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51
deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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52
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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53
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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54
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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55
mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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56
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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57
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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58
civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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59
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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