IN MEMORIAM
FORTY-FIVE years after the end of the First World War we still commemorate those who died between 1914 and 1918 as well as the fallen of more recent battles. Armistice Day was conceived as a national service of remembrance, in which those who had lost friends and relatives could feel that their loss was shared by their fel- low-countrymen. The sentiments it aroused were not so much the nostalgia, attributed to, it last Sunday by the Archdeacon of Westminster, as a participation in a multi- tude of personal tragedies. Those emotions are gradually being blunted by time. Already there is a generation which can- not remember the Second World War. Only those over sixty years of age can have taken part in the First. The nature of the celebration of Armis- tice Day is, therefore, bound to change. Memories of loss and memories of com- radeship will fade, to be replaced—by what? The Archdeacon of Westminster wishes for a ceremony that would be a `dynamic spur to action.' Canon Collins would like us 'to sacrifice ourselves today on behalf of the whole of humanity in the cause of peace and justice.' These are aims which represent a creative reaction to the contemplation of the exemplary disasters of European civilisation, but they are per- haps more easily stated than embodied in a national ceremony. Perhaps it is only the intimacy of personal feeling which can pre- vent such rites from degenerating into banality. It is difficult to associate any of the purposes which we desire to achieve in the years to come with the myriad of indi- vidual wounds left behind by the wars. It may be that Remembrance Day should be left to pass into history with the events it commemorates. In any case, it can hardly last longer than those who survived the First World War which gave it its origin and whose Flanders poppies are its symbol.
This is not to say that the terrible spec- tacle of the first half of the twentieth cen- tury should not serve as an admonition to us when we wish to define our aims for the future. It is not merely the fact that nuclear war is so infinitely more terrible than what was known before which should make us welcome the present balance of fear, un- easy though it may toe. The wars of 1914 and 1939 looked at in retrospect were symptoms of an imbalance in international politics which produced a continual threat of anarchy. With the advantage of hind- sight we can see that European political instability in the first half of the century was bound to have violent consequences. The most favourable sign for the future which, we can now observe is the re-estab- lishment of a world concert of powers in some sort of equilibrium. No doubt, the nuclear factor is the most compelling reason why the great powers should be prepared to arrive at a new stability, but it is by no means the only one. A process of change begun towards the end of the nineteenth century has now been completed, and the emergent great powers have had time to perceive that they must live with one another.
But a glance at the process by which this has been achieved shows that the simpler gestures in the international field are not necessarily the most effective. What has been won for world peace in the contacts between the US and Russia has not been won by unilateral disarmament or a will- ingness to abandon one's own point of view. It has been won by a wary readiness to negotiate from positions of strength. If American policy had not checked Soviet post-war expansion, then no basis for a stable international system would have been present. The balance of fear can now be seen as a necessary prelude to the balance of convenience. This, in itself, is a refutation of those who believe that Britain could contract out of the Western alliance or that to give up one's own means of defence is a contribution to the establish- ment of peace.
This then is the lesson which we can still draw from two wars: that peace is not necessarily compatible with justice and that it may be essential to threaten war first in order to get agreement afterwards. Not all our history over the last fifty years has been a total loss: through many bitter hours we have now come to the point where we can begin to envisage the future with confi- dence. If Armistice Day means anything, it should mean our recognition that the dead of 1914 and 1939 have contributed to that result.
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