TOPICS OF THE DAY.
DISARMAMENT AS A SECURITY FOR PEACE.
AGOOD many fallacies about Disarmament have recently been exposed, but there is one, and an important one, which seems always to escape exposure. A great many friends of peace admit that drilled nations cannot disarm, a mere dis- missal of soldiers not altering either their strength or their readiness for war; a great many more allow that the Continent is in no mood to sit down contented with existing arrange- ments, and almost everybody confesses that a work which no- body will be first to begin can never be accomplished. There is a sort of consensus that no one Power can be expected to put off its armour, while uncertain whether its rivals will not seize upon that as their opportunity. But almost everybody assumes that a general disarmament, were it possible, would secure peace, and we want to know why. Of course a partial disarmament would secure a disagreeable kind of peace. If France and Russia, for example, would disband half their soldiers, demand only half as many recruits, dismiss half their officers, and reduce their artillery to one cannon per brigade of 5,000 men, Germany would be mistress of Europe, and for everybody who obeyed her commands there would be a sort of sulky tranquillity. Of course also general disarmament would greatly diminish the burden of an armed peace upon the nations, would relieve the taxpayer of a charge of millions, and would allow hundreds of thousands of workers to contribute their quota to the general reservoir of wealth. But how a general disarmament would secure peace we confess we are utterly unable to perceive. Suppose Europe in Congress agreed to reduce the standing armies of all countries to one-fourth their present amount, and the order were honestly obeyed, what guarantee would that be for the prevention or even the post- ponement of war? France would have, say, only 150,000 men, which seems now-a-days quite a little army; but Germany would only have as many, and the temptation to take Lorraine and Alsace back again would to Parisians be as strong as ever, —would, in fact, be stronger, because the cost of the under- taking would be comparatively so much reduced. It does not take more trouble to put a small army in motion than a great one, but much less, and a small army within certain limits can conquer territory, and inflict damage, and levy contribu- tions as efficiently as a great one. Very small bodies of men, thoroughly armed, disciplined, and mobilised, can hold down very large bodies of unarmed persons ; and in fact, before 1800, most countries which were conquered were conquered by armies quite minute in comparison with their people. It is comparative strength, not positive strength, which tempts States to war ; and Von Moltke would lead 100,000 Germans against 100,000 Frenchmen just as readily as 500,000 Germans against 500,000 of their enemies, and the taxpayers would be more willing, and not less willing, that they should be led. It may be said that the resisting power of the populations would be greater, because, though a million of unorganised men could not defeat 100,000 organised soldiers, they could defeat 10,000 ; but even supposing that true, how does it bear upon the matter ? Half-organised levies cannot fight soldiers, but they can fight other levies as badly organised as themselves. The General invading would merely improvise armies which, though not equal to regulars, would be equal to the un- organised population ; and the popular strength being thus far neutralised, his highly-drilled soldiers would still remain masters of the situation. In the American War of Secession, both Presidents actually did this, huge masses of half-drilled Northerners meeting equal numbers of half-drilled Southerners, —and the war was not only one of the fiercest, but one of the bloodiest and most decisive upon record. Indeed there can be no better answer to the theory that disarma- ment secures peace than the history of that war. No European nation ever was, or will be, so thoroughly disarmed as the North and South were when the great war broke out. Neither had the control of 10,000 Regulars, or 500 trained officers, or twenty full batteries of artillery ; neither had any first-class fortresses, neither had full arsenals, and neither had any drilled population behind their soldiers, and yet the war broke out, and was waged furiously, and involved as much cost in blood and treasure and misery, and as complete a defeat to the vanquished, as any other war. We can see no ground for believing that it would be different in Europe, or that Bis- marck, after disarmament, would hesitate to pit Germans against Frenchmen, any more than Lincoln hesitated during disarmament to pit Northerners against 54ntlernera, Indeed, he would hesitate less, for while a drilled German army may not beat a French army, a German crowd of men, by virtue of its mere patience, and habit of obedience, and physical weight,. would almost inevitably beat a French crowd of similar pro- portions. It may be said that with small armies there wouldi be less of the military spirit prevalent in Courts, but where is- the proof of that ? Certainly it is not in history, which shows that one of the most disturbed epochs in Europe was one in which an army of a hundred thousand men on a single battle- field was considered a monstrous force. No such force, indeed, on one side ever fought a battle during the whole reign of Louis XIV. England has never had a great army, and England has always, except just now, been as willing as any other State to go to war. As the dismissal of soldiers could not alter the relative proportions of power, so neither could a reduction either of officers or artillery. Prince Bismarck is said to have remonstrated against the new French Law on the Cadres, which. would show that he thought a multiplication of officers as addition to the strength of France ; but he proposed, if any- thing, that France should reduce, not that Germany and France should reduce equally. Disarmament, when not produced by exhaustion, is no doubt in a thousand ways a blessing to the world, but it does not secure peace, nor can we conceive any change in the municipal organisation of States which would. Governments of every form are about equally willing to go to war. Republics fight as hard as Monarchies, and Constitutional Governments, if we may judge by our own past history, rather harder than either. The consent of popular bodies is just as easy to obtain as the con- sent of Monarchs. The strongest organisation of Democracy, Camarism, is essentially warlike ; and the feeblest, Federalism, has never, when wailed, shrunk back from war. The secret of peace is not organisation at all,—or if organisation has any- thing to do with it, the larger the armies all round, the greater the risk, and consequently the unwillingness to fight,—but con- sists either in the inclination of the nations to keep it, or in the creation of a power competent to enforce it. At present the nations are not inclined to keep peace. They hate each other and dread each other too much, and have too much rea- son both for dread and for hate. Germany wants tep sit securely at the top of the world, and thinks that security not attained. Russia wants not to be left alone by- the side of a resistless Germany, and thinks that she might be so left, and France -wants Alsace and Lor- raine back again in their old allegiance. And of any Power competent to secure peace by enforcing it there is as yet scarcely a trace. The most effective organisation Europe has yet seen, the Tribunal of the Five Powers, which from 1815, to 1848 kept Europe comparatively steady, cannot as yet be re- formed, perhaps never will be re-formed at all. The condition which made those Powers so irresistible and so peaceful was that none wanted anything of the other which he thought him- self likely to get, and that condition is wanting now. Its two principal members, France and Germany, cannot act together ; while a third, Great Britain, has got itself into a sort of temper in which it rather enjoys isolation, and is unwilling to con- template war even for the sake of securing a lasting peace. It is true that while three men, the Romanoff, Hohenzollern,. and Hapsburg, choose to remain allied, war cannot break out,. because nobody could hope to defeat the three; but that alliance is an unreal thing, patched up for a moment, and resting on no community either of interests or of fears_ Germany wants to keep Alsace and Lorraine, but that is no interest either of St. Petersburg or Vienna. Germany is afraid of France' but Russia is afraid of Germany, and Austria is afraid both of Germany and Russia, and friendly to France_ The first shot would dissolve the alliance, even if it is not dis- solved before. In the far horizon, perhaps, one may see the possibility of a new combination, a coalition of all the Powers except France and Germany, to menace the Power which first disturbs public order; but it is not realised yet, and the interests of its members are almost too separate for consistent or per- manent action. Till a tribunal competent to execute its decrees has been formed, there can be no guarantee for peace ; and when it is formed, though we hope, in the interests of humauity, that it will accept disarmament, still it is not in disarmament, but in the irresistible strength of the alliance, that the security for peace will be found.
Previous page
