TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SNARE OF PEACE TALK.
ATIME comes in all bitter and long wars when people arc exposed to the temptation prematurely to throw up their hats and say that everything is over. Such a time has come to this nation now. The snare of optimism is one of the most dangerous traps which lie in wait for men who do not watch their steps carefully. We here use the word " optimism " in its disreputable sense, and not at all In the sense in which we are proud to call ourselves optimists. Without optimism of the right kind, without idealism, without faith, without a strong conviction that right will triumph over wrong, no people could have emerged from such terrible years as we have just through, much less have emerged from them, as theBritish nation is notoriously doing, stronger, more accomplished, and more self-confident than when it plunged into the darkness. To hear the comments of some persona upon the cloudy reply which Germany sent to President Wilson's searching questions of last week, one might have supposed that Germany had surrendered in fact instead of in highly diplomatic words. What every one ought to recognize now is that peace talk is an extremely enervating pastime. The Germans, students as they are of the psychology of war, are perfectly well aware that men fight less well when their minds are bent on thoughts of relaxation than when they are tuning their minds in grim earnest to a dreadful effort. There is no doubt whatever that the Germans hope that something good for themselves and bad for us will come out of the smoke-clouds of peace talk which they are so busily emitting. They want peace of course, but they want salvation more. When peace is in the air then is the time for us to push harder than ever and to think less of peace than ever before.
That supreme master of war, Napoleon, timed his heaviest blows for the moment when the hope of peace was in the hearts of his opponents. He knew that a mighty blow would then have a far greater moral effect than at any other time. It is only necessary to think the situation out to see what utter folly it is to relax one's efforts just when the reward of them is coming into view. Some very simple illustrations will emphasize this folly. Suppose that a man has carefully insured his house and regularly paid his premiums throughout almost the whole of his lease of twenty-one years. When, however, twenty years of the lease have passed and nothing has happened, he tells himself that it is extremely improbable. that any fire will occur in his house during the last year of his tenancy, as in the past he has escaped even a sign of any such catastrophe, and he can evidently rely upon the care of a methodical and scrupulous household. Accordingly for the last year of his tenancy he does not insure his house—and it is burnt down. All the premiums paid during the twenty years have been a wasted effort. They served only the fatal purpose of lulling him into a sense of false security. Or to take another illustration. A man is running a long- distance race. He measures his speed to his exact powers of endurance, which he has estimated through a long period of training and practice ; so that during the race he is able to bring his opponents to the breaking-point of exhaustion, and yet store enough energy for a final spurt to stave off the possible challenge of the best of his opponents at the last moment. But in the last lap of the race he is so much the prey of optimism that he does not start his spurt soon enough. He does not believe that any of his opponents has got it in him to challenge him almost on the post. He leaves his spurt till it is too late, and in the end he is out- manoeuvred by the mere cleverness of a runner who was really more exhausted than he was. He has failed to make use of the supreme moment for which all his long and tiring plodding work was a preparation. Many races are lost like this.
Probably at the front there is very little danger of false optimism, because men never fight better than when they are in the stride of victory, as our men are now. But even there the danger would by no means be absent if talk about " getting home to Blighty " were so freely indulged in that men seriously began to regard the end of the war as only a matter of a few weeks one way or the other. " If the war is as good as over, why should I be killed during the last ten minutes t I was perfectly ready to be killed when we were fighting an uphill fight, and everything had yet to be gained, but now it is a' different matter. Why be killed now ? " All experienced officers dread this kind of talk, and they do their-best to stop it whenever it appears. It is much more difficult to stop a cognate optimism and enervation among people at home. Yet if it be true, as it unquestionably is, that a blow against the enemy has more value now than at any other time in the war, now is the moment to produce more munitions, to build more ships, to buy more War Bonds, and last, but by no means least, to eat less food. The conditions of war will extend far into the period of peace, however soon peace may come, and if we are going not only to beat our enemy con- clusively but reconstruct our fortunes upon the foundation of a shattered world, the need for economy becomes more urgent with every day that passes. To see that this is not generally recognized one has only got to take a most casual look round. Who can pretend that people are as careful as they were about food economy when the startling truth about the danger of famine was first announced to them ? The speed with which our fortunes can be restored will depend enor- mously upon the decisiveness of the peace terms which we impose upon Germany. From the point of view of quick and efficacious reconstruction, people have not thought out the extraordinary difference there would be between the conditions of a dictated peace and the conditions of an ordinary peace by discussion. If the peace be dictated, the whole matter will be settled quickly, and the world can set to work to rebuild its dwelling-place. On the other hand, if the Germans be allowed to have their say in respect of only a few reserved matters, they will show themselves more persistent intriguers than they have ever done in the past, and that is saying a great deal. The discussions would go on for a year or more, and financial and commercial revival would be delayed to that extent. No man of business can aot freely so long as he does not know exactly upon what basis he is working. In almost every great war, as we suggested at the beginning, a time comes when rumours of peace fill the air, although the time is not yet due for peace. It was in such circumstances that Pitt made his famous speech about the French overtures on February 3rd, 1800. All through that speech he never let go of the word " Security," which, as every one knows, was the motto under which he fought. The word occurs again and again. The analogy between premature peace talk then and premature peace talk now is really rather close, because Pitt saw that he was being asked to take the good faith, or a " change of heart " as we say now, in the enemy for granted. Let us quote a passage from the speech in which Pitt, answering Erskine, pointed out that it was impossible to gamble with the safety of the country. There might or might not be a change in the methods of Revolutionary Franca such as Erskine had assumed, but it was not right to assume such a change:- " I say then, that before any man can concur in opinion with that learned gentleman—before any man can think that the sub- stance of His Majesty's answer is any other than the safety of the country required ; before any man can be of opinion, that to the overtures made by the enemy, at such a time, and under such circumstances, it would have been safe to have returned an answer concurring in the negotiation—he must come within one of the three following descriptions : he must e:ther believe that the French Revolution ne:ther does now exhibit, nor has at any time exhibited, such circumstances of danger, arising out of the very nature of the system and the internal state and condition of France, as to leave to foreign Powers no adequate ground of security in negotiation ; or, secondly, he must be of opinion, that the change which has recently taken place has given that security, which, in the former stages of the Revolution, was wanting ; or, thirdly, he must be one who, believing that the danger existed, not under- valuing its extent, nor mistaking its nature, nevertheless think-, from his view of the present pressure on the country, from his view of its situation and its prospects, compared with the situation and prospects of its enemies, that we are, with our eyes open, bound to accept of inadequate security for everything that is valuable and sacred, rather than endure the pressure, or incur the risk, whicli would result from a further prolongation of the contest."
Unfortunately the country listened to the Erskinian doctrines and not to those of Pitt. Negotiations were opened with France in the following year, and the Peace of Amiens followed in 1802. The result of this most unsubstantial peace was that the war had all to be fought over again. In 1803 hostilities reopened, and in 1804 Pitt had to be recalled to office to redeem the tragic blunders against which he had so solemnly warned the country. We might go on quoting analogies from other wars, but let us content ourselves with only one more, which by a curious coincidence also happened on a 3rd of February. On February 3rd, 1865, towards the end of the American Civil War, Lincoln consented to receive three Confederate Commissioners at Hampton Roads. Lincoln's statement to those Commissioners was a masterly piece of discrimination. In all matters where he could be generous and friendly without touching the essential issues for which' he was fighting he was ready, and even anxious, to make advances. But on the essential issues he was adamantine. It is important to recall the fact that the Confederate States had been circulating peace rumours as a means of weakening the war spirit in the North. We sometimes think of propaganda as an entirely new thing, but we ought to remember that our ancestors were not quite so innocent as they are often supposed to have been. The Confederates at most stages of the war had some peace " stunt " going on in Canada ; and Canada was the Mecca to which the misguided but self-righteous Copperheads of the North turned three times daily. Lincoln had again and again been urged to make use of the highly promising peace atmosphere thus created, and end the terrible fratricidal war. None the less, he was adamantine. He insisted at Hampton Roads on (1) the restoration of the national authority throughout all the States ; (2) the maintenance of the Federal point of view about slavery ; (3) no cessation of hostilities till all forces hostile to the Union were disbanded. That was how Lincoln dealt with the enervation that was being produced by peace talk. He went the whole hog. Within a few weeks the Confederates made their complete surrender.
We had written as far as this before the saturnalia of peace talk and rumour began in London on Wednesday afternoon. As we write these concluding words on Thurs- day morning the origin of all this claptrap is far from clear, but there seems to be no doubt that the explicit statement as to the surrender of Germany came in the first place from a Dutch newspaper that has been marked by pro-German sentiments. Indulgence in such orgies of credulity can do nothing but harm, and if the intentions of the originators of the rumours could be analysed, we dare say it would be found that nothing but harm was intended. But what was the Press Bureau doing in this matter ? It may have some perfectly valid explanation of what, when every one is wise after the event, must be acknowledged to have been an unwise complaisance in passing for publica- tion unsubstantiated reports. We cannot help saying that if the Press Bureau allowed these reports to be circu- lated without carefully inquiring both into their origin and their credibility, it failed in one of its first functions as a Bureau.
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