TWO BOOKS ON WAR.*
Tins is on the whole a good book.' That is to say, most people ought to read it. It is a small, yet a considerable contribution to the growing stream of propaganda which is seeking to change men's mental outlook on a particular group of subjects. Biologically stated, the problem is this. The genus homo sapiens (self-called, you notice !) has reached a degree of development superior to that of any other living organism. A point has been reached, however, in the race's history where one of the qualities, one of the root impulses that make up the Psyche of all the individuals of the genus, has suddenly become inimical to its further progress, and possibly even to its continued existence. In this case the quality is the impulse of combativeness. Now, combativeness incontro- vertibly in the past had one of the highest " survival values " of any basic impulse in man. But the conditions of man's environment have now changed. They have been changed by his own actions. He has with amazing suddenness acquired quite a hundred times as much control over his natural surroundings as he ever possessed before. This at once lowered the survival value of combativeness, since it made man's task of winning sustenance immensely easier and at the same time enormously increased the incidental dangers and difficulties into which this impulse had always led the race. So long as man's destructiveness was strictly limited, the fact that combativeness led to constant war only served to weed out the unfit. Now, however, owing to new facilities for destruction, it is leading straight to the extinction of civilization and possibly of the race. Any paper arrangements, such as leagues of nations, are manifestly impotent to arrest this process. It can only be effected by a real change of out- look on the part of individual men and women. Obviously, the impulse of combativeness cannot be rooted out, even if that were racially desirable, lint it must be modified and re- directed. That, indeed, may seem a somewhat hopeless • (1) War : ita Nature, Cause and Cure. By Lowcs Dickinson. _London : George Allen and Unwin. 149. Oil. net.l—(2) The Reformation 01 ar. By Colonel 7.1. C. Feller. London Hutchinson. 110s. net.]
task for any group of propagandists, be they never so earnest. But, after all, the War itself was an extensive and elaborate, if costly, piece of peace propaganda on the part of the various Governments engaged. And as such it had considerable success. It did undoubtedly modify the outlook on inter-
national affairs of portions of the world. The task of the anti-war propagandist at the moment is not so much to arouse the pacific sentiment as to direct it ; to articulate it amongst the people who already hold it ; to show them that it depends on their energy, on their " interestedness," on their pressure, whether they and their children are to be torn to pieces or horribly poisoned by the inanimate servants that the men of science are daily pressing into the hands of their rulers or whether they will use these same servants to ameliorate their lives. In a sentence, it depends on them whether " Master Adam will learn to manage his new toys."
Mr. Lowes Dickinson raises many interesting points, all subsidiary to the main thesis of his book, which is on the lines described above. For instance, should scientists invariably communicate the secrets of new methods of destruction to Governments whom they know to be unimaginative in regard to the effect of those new agencies ? Is it necessarily the highest form of " patriotism" to endow mankind with a new method of destroying itself ? How do chemists who are now devoting their whole energies to the elaboration of new poison gases feel about it ? The middle chapters of the book are devoted to an account of the origins of the late War. Whatever may be thought of the respective responsibilities of Germany, Russia, Austria, France, England, these chapters establish quite clearly—it is not a difficult task—that the system under which Europe then lived was absolutely certain to lead to war sooner or later. The question, therefore, who behaved well and who badly in those summer months of 1914 is not particularly important—though, of course, deeply interesting from an historian's point of view. The practical point is that we have now returned to a European system slightly worse than that of 1914, and so may expect a war after a rather shorter period of peace. Mr. Dickinson suggests certain practical remedies : suppression of the Supreme Council of the Allies ; an in- clusive League to be the only channel for the conduct of international affairs ; a limitation in the absolute sovereignty of States, &c., &c. But these can only come as the result of a change in the outlook of the individual. And then they will come inevitably. To the growing literature that aims at an expression of that change Mr. Lowes Dickinson's book with its nervous provocative style, its clear and vivid presentation of facts, is a contribution for which we owe him gratitude.
It is not uninteresting to turn from Mr. Dickinson's book to another by an author who disbelieves entirely in the possibility of this shift of human outlook which we all agree is necessary before war can be abolished. In it we may see very clearly set out by an authoritative hand what humanity may expect if it allows the present line of develop- ment to be indefinitely produced. The book is called the Reformation of War,' and is by Colonel Fuller. We are assured by the author that he is a humane man and, above all, a man of common sense. He is a military expert, too : he was one of the first offieers to see the importance of tanks in modern warfare. In this book he projects himself into the future ; and here are his conclusions. We will have no nonsense about a possible end of war : we need war, we thrive on war, and, at least in times of peace, we desire war. We are made like that, and we shall not alter our habits of mind on this side of the millennium. Let us admit, therefore, that war is inevitable and cast forward to observe what wars of the future will be like. The greatest discovery of the last war was the efficiency of gas as an offensive weapon ; but its use was at once sparing and wasteful. The purpose of war is not to cripple an enemy but to gain from him advantages which he does not wish to grant. If you wear him down, destroy his resources, and kill his men, you defeat yourself as much iv him. If you reduce him to a lasting impotence, he can fulfil none of your demands. The aim of successful warfare is to enslave an enemy with all his powers intact—with not a man killed nor a penny wasted. Now, suppose we produce in immense quantities and let loose on the enemy a sleeping gas that will suspend the animation of the whole people. We can then take what we want and stand by for the wakening up. As we are in complete_control of our enemy's iesoureeh,
if he refuses to give guarantees that he will not retaliate we can put him to sleep again till he grows wiser.
Or, better still, we can let loose an atmosphere that will give the nation some ridiculously childish, but wholly incapacitating complaint. While the people are doubled up with colic or sit sneezing in the streets we will go round collecting their goods : the rest of the world will look on and laugh uproariously. The moral of a country is its most important asset. Our enemies will never get over their feeling of shame. We shall have established a complete physical and moral ascendancy. This war of the future is an excellent and harmless game, a species of perfected and international " ragging." Get in good training for it, Colonel Fuller advises.
But there is much the light-hearted Colonel neglects. We are attempting now to find means of settling international difficulties by equity rather than by force ; and we have been driven to the attempt by the costliness and the horror of war and by the fact that both sides lose incalculably. If there were a prospect of an easy and cheap warfare in which the victorious side would gain everything it demanded without in any degree paying for it, it is obvious that our sluggish sympathies would forget the immorality of compulsion and we should again be in danger of taking self-interest for justice. In Colonel Fuller's visionary world, indeed, the only safety would be aggressiveness. A greedy nation, prompt in offence, could obtain everything for which it chose to ask. There would be no need, and no opportunity, for consideration of another nation's interests or for a standard of international morality. Wars would come daily ; they would be vast and ruinous : we could afford no other activity. The only hope of an end would be that a nation became so aggressive, so imperialistic, that it subjected to itself immediately the rest of the world. Or, to be well defended, we should be compelled to live in incubators and move from place to place along fortified burrows. Fresh air would be the universal curse, and no one would dare to stand in the open sunlight. Mr. Wells could not conceive a more distressing nightmare. Colonel Fuller should be the fiercest pacifist and internationalist of us all.
He writes with more vigour than coherence ; but on the general principles of warfare his knowledge is complete and his expression admirable. In incidental remarks his wisdom is obvious : we wish that certain politician amateurs of warfare could have been guided by his tenet : " In war, audacity is nearly always right and gambling is nearly always wrong, and the worst form of gambling in war is gambling with small stakes." But if his two premises are correct—that war is inevitable and that the use of gas in future wars will be so exclusive and so efficient—then humanity should make the best of life while life is tolerable.
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