TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE WAR. THE task of prophesying whether the war will be long or short is one which no wise man will care to under- take. All that we can feel sure about is that if the Italians are fortunate enough to have a series of uninterrupted successes in their occupation of the coast towns of Tripoli and of the oases near the coast, and if no complications arise in other parts of the Turkish Empire, the Turks will yield to the inevitable. These "ifs," however, are very large "ifs." Though the Italian expedition seems to be well equipped and well directed, desert warfare is always subject to unforeseen risks and blind chances. Again, should the Turks be ill advised enough to insist on expelling the Italians in Turkey and upon a rigid boycott, the Italian Government might, nay, almost certainly would, feel obliged to retaliate in European Turkey or Asia Minor. But it is impossible to foresee the result of an attempt to take strong action at Salonika or Smyrna. Again—and this is perhaps the most doubtful point of all—there is always the fear lest some one or other of the Balkan States, grown restless and excited by the sound of the cannon, should think that the moment had come for securing her piece of the Turkish heritage. If Turkish disasters were to produce anything in the shape of revolution or insurrection in Constantinople, and if it looked as if Turkey were going to break up, or, at any rate, to become for a time very weak at the centre, it might be impossible to prevent some one of the Balkan Powers from thinking that it was a case of "now or never." But if one South Eastern State were to move, so must all the others, including, of course, Austria-Hungary.
But though in the present stage of affairs, and with the Italian expeditionary force only just disembarked or half disembarked, it is not possible to speculate with any approach to certainty as to the course of events, there are some considerations suggested by the war to which it is worth while for the British people to direct their thoughts. The war even so far has plenty of lessons. In the first place, as one of our correspondents points out, it shows the extreme danger which the cause of peace runs through lack of preparation for defence. If Tripoli and its Mohammedan population had been organized for defence as are the Turks in Europe or as are the Bulgarians, the Montenegrins, or the Swiss with their citizen armies, Italy would have thought a, very long time before she ran the risks of occupying Tripoli. In the last resort she has seized Tripoli because the Government to which these African provinces belong had neglected, or at any rate were unable, to provide them with adequate defence. Here indeed is an almost perfect example of a point we have urged so often in these columns. A Power which really desires that the peace of the world shall be kept has no moral right to provoke the predatory instincts of mankind by remaining un- armed or by neglecting its defences. The world is not, as some people would like to believe, and as we our- selves should like to believe were it possible, a kind of polyglot Sunday-school, but a fierce and dangerous place where those who are unprepared to defend themselves are certain to provoke attack, and where the road of safety and peace lies through the possession of physical force.
Another even more obvious lesson of the war is the absolute necessity for an adequate naval force for any Power which has oversee possessions. A State which has provinces that can only be reached by sea must either possess sea-power or hold those provinces subject to the leave and licence of any Power which is its undisputed superior at sea. Even if Turkey had neglected to organize the provinces of Tripoli for defensive purposes, she still might have held them had she, as far as Italy is concerned, possessed the command of the sea. As it was, as Turkey had no naval force that counted, her great military strength in Europe was totally useless to her, and her Tripolitan provinces were at the mercy of the Italians. We see as in a magic mirror what would happen to our vast sea- divided Empire if we once were to lose the command of the sea. A third lesson is one which we fear we shall be thought by a certain section of our readers cynical or even brutal and bloodthirsty for pointing out, but it is one which nevertheless must be faced. The war shows how great is the delusion that any and every quarrel between nations can be settled by arbitration. No doubt there are a great many questions in which arbitration is useful, and where arbitration provides a suitable means of settling disputes. Unfortunately, however, they are not the cases in which wars are most likely to arise. In the. present instance there was no room for arbitration. Italy left no loophole for its application. It may be remembered that the Italian ultimatum was not couched in language which gave Turkey an alternative. It was not so much an -ultimatum as a notice that Italy had finally decided to take warlike action. The Turks were not told that unless they did such-and-such things at once Italy would move. Instead they were informed that Italy would begin operations in Tripoli in twenty-four hours. When- the time expired, in spite of the fact that Turkey had made a pacific reply, the Italians declared a state of war to exist.
When a man says, "I have for years been watching the way in which you have dealt with a particular piece of- property and have come to the conclusion that you are misusing it, and further that this misuse causes great danger and inconvenience to me : I have also come to the conclusion that there is no possibility of your reforming : therefore I shall take it from you to- morrow morning at eight o'clock," such announcement is not a claim which can be arbitrated upon. In civil life such action is stopped by the courts of law and the police, who say in effect : "You shall not take the law into your own hands, but must bring your claims before a judge and let him decide whether you have any right to take the property in question." Until the States of the world place themselves in the hands of a universal police- man, like the Roman Empire in old days, or like the British Empire in India in our time, or organiz3 some sort of international committee which shall be the real sovereign of the world, it is idle to think of arbitration as if it were a panacea for stopping wars. In the world of international affairs right is still might.
The notion that the Powers of the world will in our day tolerate a universal arbitrator in the shape of one omnipotent Power or will consent to pool their sove- reignty in a committee of Powers is, in our opinion, utterly untenable. Before that can be even discussed with any sense of reality the world as a whole must be content with the status quo, for universal compulsory arbitra- tion would for practical purposes mean the petrifaction of the status quo. Tripoli, if once part of the Turkish Empire, would always remain part of the Turkish Empire, and so on, and so on. But does any sane man suppose that the Powers, great and small, with all their ambitions and aspirations for growing greater and stronger and for development or regeneration, could be got to consent to saying that things from the international point of view shall remain as they are ? Till they can and do say that and mean it, universal compulsory arbitration is a dream.
Previous page
