Chapter 11

I did not omit to say that Germany regards our policy and our diplomacy as extremely able and clear-sighted. I expressly and elaborately pointed that out. Mr. Bennett, being an Englishman, is so flattered by the apparent compliment from those clever Germans that he insists it is deserved. I, being an Irishman and, therefore, untouched by flattery, see clearly that what the Germans mean by able and clear-sighted is crafty, ruthless, unscrupulous, and directed to the deliberate and intentional destruction of Germany by a masterly diplomatic combination of Russia, France and Great Britain against her, and I defend the English and Sir Edward Grey in particular on the ground, first, that the British nation at large was wholly innocent of the combination, and, second, that even among diplomatists, guilty as most of them unquestionably were and openly as our Junkers--like the German ones--clamored for war with Germany, there was more muddle than Machiavelli about them, and that Sir Edward never completely grasped the situation or found out what he really was doing and even had a democratic horror of war.

*Shaw's Excuses Scorned.*

But Mr. Bennett will not have any of my excuses for his unhappy country. He will have it that the Germans are right in admiring Sir Edward as a modern Caesar Bogia, and that our militarist writers are "of first class quality," as contrasted with the "intense mediocrity" of poor Gen. Bernhardi.

If Mr. Bennett had stopped there the Kaiser would send him the Iron Cross, but of course, like a true born Englishman, he goes on to deny indignantly that England has produced a militarist literature comparable to Germany and to affirm hotly that Mr. Asquith is an honest man whose bad arguments are "a genuine emotional expression of his convictions and that of the whole country," and that Sir Edward Grey is an honest man, and that he (Mr. Bennett) "strongly resents as Englishmen of all opinions will resent any imputation to the contrary"--just what I said he would say and that he entirely agrees with my denunciation of secret diplomacy and undemocratic control of foreign policy and that I am a perverse and wayward harlequin, mischievous, unveracious, scurrilous, monstrous, disingenuous, flippant, unjust, inexact, scandalous, and objectionable, and that on all points to which he takes exception and a good many more I am so magnificent, brilliant, and convincing that no citizen could rise from perusing me without being illuminated.

That is just a little what I meant by saying that Englishmen are muddle-headed, because they never have been forced by political adversity to mistrust their tempers and depend on a carefully stated case as Irishmen have been.

*Showed Germany the Way.*

I did with great pains what nobody else had done. I showed what Germany should have done, knowing that I had no right to reproach her for doing what she did until I was prepared to show that a better way had been open to her.

Bennett says, in effect, that nobody but a fool could suppose that my way was practicable and proceeds to call Germany a burglar. That does not get us much further. In fact, to me it seems a step backward. At all events it is now up to Mr. Bennett to show us what practical alternative Germany had except the one I described. If he cannot do that, can he not, at least, fight for his side? We, who are mouthpieces of many inarticulate citizens, who are fighting at home against the general tumult of scare and rancor and silly cinematograph heroics for a sane facing of facts and a stable settlement, are very few. We have to bring the whole continent of war-struck lunatics to reason if we can.

What chance is there of our succeeding if we begin by attacking one another because we do not like one another's style or confine ourselves to one another's pet points? I invite Mr. Bennett to pay me some more nice compliments and to reserve his fine old Staffordshire loathing for my intellectual nimbleness until the war is over.--G. BERNARD SHAW.

*Flaws in Shaw's Logic*

By Cunninghame Graham.

Letter to The Daily News of London.

_To the Editor of The Daily News:_

The controversy between men of peace as to the merits, demerits, causes, and possible results of the great war is becoming almost as dangerous and little less noisy than the real conflict now being waged in and around Ypres. The only difference between the two conflicts is that the combatants in Flanders only strive to kill the body. Those who fire paper bullets aim at the annihilation of the soul.

Literature is a nice thing in its way. It both passes and gives us many weary hours. It has its place. But I submit that at present it is mere dancing on a tight rope. Whether the war could have been avoided or not is without interest today. In fact, there is no controversy possible after Maximilian Harden's pronouncement. In it he throws away the scabbard and says boldly that Germany from the first was set on war. Hence it becomes a work of supererogation to find excuses for her, and hence, my old friend, Bernard Shaw, penned his long indictment of his hereditary enemy, England, all in vain.

We are a dull-witted race. Although the Continent has dubbed us "Perfidious Albion," it is hard for us to take in general ideas, and no man clearly sees the possibilities of the development of the original sin that lies dormant in him. Thus it becomes hard for us to understand the reason why, if Germany tore up a treaty three months ago we are certain to tear up another in three years' time.

All crystal gazing appeals but little to the average man on this side of the St. George's channel. It may be that we shall tear up many treaties, but the broad fact remains that hitherto we have torn up none.

The particular treaty that Germany tore up was signed by five powers in 1839, ratified again in 1870 by a special clause respected by King Frederick William in his war against the French, was often referred to in Parliament by Gladstone and by other Ministers, and was considered binding on its signatories. Germany tore it up for her own ends, thus showing that she was a stupid though learned people, for she at once at the same time prejudiced her case to the whole world and made a military mistake.

No human motives are without alloy, but at the same time honesty in our case has proved the better policy. Germany, no doubt, would have granted us almost anything for our assent to her march through Belgium. We refused her offers, no doubt from mixed motives, for every Englishman is not an orphan archangel, stupid, or dull or muddle-headed, or what not. The balance of the world is with us, not, perhaps, because they love us greatly, but because they see that we, perhaps by accident, have been forced into the right course and that all smaller nationalities such as Montenegro, Ireland, Poland, and the rest would disappear on our defeat.

CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.

*Editorial Comment on Shaw*

From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Nov. 5, 1914.

Mr. G. Bernard Shaw thinks that "the time has now come to pluck up courage and begin to talk and write soberly about the war." Our readers will find in THE TIMES Sunday Magazine this morning some of the fruits of this auto-suggestion. They are very remarkable. While Mr. Shaw can hardly be called a representative of any considerable class, the fact that one prominent writer, always much read, can assume Mr. Shaw's attitude and make public Mr. Shaw's comments throws a strong light on the spirit of British society. It is true that he intimates that he ran the risk of "prompt lynching" at one time, but that was probably the suggestion of a certain timidity and vanity to which he pleads guilty. His safe and prosperous existence is really a striking evidence, on the one hand, of British good nature, and, on the other, of the indifferent estimate the British put on his influence.

Like Iago, Mr. Shaw is nothing if not critical, and in this crisis his criticism is for the most part bitter, extreme, and in purpose destructive. He particularly dislikes Sir Edward Grey and the Government of which he is a leading spirit, and the class which the Government represents. He singles out Sir Edward as the chief "Junker" and among the chief "militarists" who brought about this war. Mr. Shaw's attacks on the Foreign Secretary are savage, and, as often happens with savage attacks--they are far from consistent. For example, Mr. Shaw paraphrases at some length the interview between Sir Edward and the German Ambassador, in which the latter made four different propositions to secure the neutrality of Great Britain if Germany waged war on France, all of which Sir Edward refused. Mr. Shaw sees in this only evidence of determination to take arms against Germany in any case, carrying out a long-cherished plan formed by the Government of which Sir Edward Grey was, for this matter, the responsible member. He does not see--- though it is so plain that a wayfaring man though a professional satirist should not err therein--that what the Secretary intended to do--what, in fact, he did do--was to refuse to put a price on British perfidy, to accept any "bargain" offered to that end.

On the other hand, Mr. Shaw paraphrases at still greater length the report of the interview in which the Russian Foreign Minister and the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg tried to induce the British Government to commit itself in advance to war against Germany. Mr. Shaw thinks that thus the German "bluff" would have been called and war would have been prevented, and he is confident that Mr. Winston Churchill would have taken the Bismarck tone and dictated the result. He cannot see--what is really the essential fact in both cases--that Sir Edward Grey was striving in every honorable way to preserve peace, that his Government refused to stand idle and see France crushed in the same spirit that it refused to menace Germany until a definite and undeniable cause of war arose.

That cause came with Germany's violation of its pledge to observe the neutrality of Belgium, and England's response excites Mr. Shaw's most furious contempt. He adopts with zest the judgment of the German Chancellor. The pledge for all who signed it was but a scrap of paper, of no more binding force than others that had gone their way to dusty death in the diplomatic waste baskets. To observe the obligation it imposed was hypocrisy. To fight in order to compel Germany to observe it was crass militarism. Plainly, Mr. Shaw is a little difficult. The Government under which he lives is either too bellicose or not bellicose enough; too ready to help France if France is attacked or not ready enough to bully Germany, and especially it is all wrong about Belgium and its treaty, since treaties have several times been broken, and so on through a bewildering circle of contradictory statements and notions.

Mr. Shaw finds little to choose between the groups of combatants. He distinctly prides himself on his impartiality, not to say indifference. On account of his Irish birth he claims something of the detachment of a foreigner, but admits a touch of Irish malice in taking the conceit out of the English. Add to this his professed many-sidedness as a dramatist and playwright and we get as good an explanation as can be given of this noted writer's attitude toward the tremendous struggle now waging. But Mr. Shaw's assumption of even-handed scorn for every one concerned, of "six of one and a half dozen of the other," does not hold out. He feels profoundly that such fighting as Germany does, for such a purpose as inspires Germany, must be met by force, and that England could not in the long run, no matter by whom guided or governed, have shirked the task laid upon her. That being the case, one wonders a little why it was worth while to cover every one with ridicule and to present a picture of Great Britain so essentially grotesque and distorted.

* * * * *

*Bernard Shaw on the End of the War.*

_From The New York Sun, Nov_. 15, 1914.

In the midst of a good deal of untimely gibing, George Bernard Shaw, as reported in a London dispatch to The Sun of yesterday, says one or two very wise and appropriate things about the end of the war and the times to come after it. His warnings are a useful check to the current loose talk of the fire-eaters and preachers of the gospel of vengeance.

"We and France have to live with Germany after the war," Mr. Shaw points out. Even to embarrass her financially would be a blow to England herself, Germany being one of England's best customers and one of her most frequently visited neighbors. The truth of this is unanswerable. The great object must be to effect a peace with as little rancor as possible.

Mr. Shaw does not say it, but there are going to be overwhelming political reasons why the pride of Germany and Austria and still more why their military power shall not be too much impaired in case of their defeat.

Perhaps in the final settlement the Western Allies may be found to have more in common with Berlin than with St. Petersburg. Germany has pointed this out with much force.

Mr. Shaw's position is not admirable when he chooses their days of tribulation for sticking pins into his own people, even though some of the things he says may be unpleasantly true. But it cannot be denied that he has some sane views on the situation. The pity is that he must always impair the force of the useful things he has to say by flippancies, impertinences, and out-of-place girdings at those whose courage he should help to maintain. He reminds one of a man who insists on wrangling over the mistaken construction of a chimney while the house is burning down.

* * * * *

*Bernard Shaw as a Patriot.*

_From The New York World, Nov. 17, 1914._

Bernard Shaw has written for our neighbor THE TIMES an elaborate three-page thesis to maintain:

1. That Great Britain was abundantly justified in making war with Germany.

2. That the explanation given by the British Government for making war against Germany was stupid, hypocritical, mendacious, and disgraceful.

3. That he alone is capable of interpreting the moral purpose of the British people in undertaking this necessary work of civilization.

4. That the reason the British Government's justification of the war is so inadequate is because no British Government is ever so clever as Bernard Shaw.

5. That even in the midst of the most horrible calamity known to human history it pays to advertise.

Various patriots have various ways of serving their country. Some go to the firing line to be shot and others stay at home to be a source of innocent merriment to the survivors.

*"Shaw Empty of Good Sense"*

By Christabel Pankhurst.

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES.

His reputation for perversity and contrariety is fully maintained by George Bernard Shaw in the ineptly-named article, "Common Sense About the War." At home in Britain we all know that it is Mr. Shaw's habit to oppose where he might be expected to support, and vice versa. For example, should he speak at a prohibition meeting he would most likely extol strong drink, or if asked to defend the sale of liquor declare dramatically for prohibition.

He sees himself as the critic of everything and everybody--the one and only man who knows what to do and how to do it.

Mr. Shaw charges his compatriots with intellectual laziness, but they are not so lazy as to leave him to do their thinking for them. That he sometimes--and oftener in the past than now--says illuminating things is true, but firm reliance cannot be placed upon his freakish mental processes, exemplified in his writings about the war. He has played with effect the part of jester to the British public, but when, as now, his jests are empty of the kernel of good sense, the matter gets beyond a joke.

The truth is that in face of this great and tragic reality of war the men of mere words, the literary theorists, are in danger of missing their way. Certainly women of deeds are more likely to see things aright than are men of words, and it is as a woman of deeds that I, a suffragette, make answer to my irresponsible compatriot, Mr. Bernard Shaw. And yet not a compatriot, for Mr. Shaw disclaims those feelings of loyalty and enthusiasm for the national cause that fill the mass of us who live under the British flag!

"Until Home Rule emerges from its present suspended animation," says Mr. Shaw, "I shall retain my Irish capacity for criticising England with something of the detachment of a foreigner." Now, these words are not a little surprising, because Mr. Shaw's interest in the Home Rule cause has hitherto been of a most restrained and well-nigh secret character, and any one who imagines that Mr. Shaw is a strenuous campaigner for Home Rule is greatly mistaken. If in the years preceding the war the Horne Rule cause had depended upon Mr. Shaw's activities, it would have been in a bad way. It is now, when a foreign enemy menaces our nation as a whole, that Mr. Shaw manifests this enhanced interest in Home Rule.

The suffragettes, who have fought and suffered for their cause as no living man reformer in the British Isles has fought and suffered for his, have during the present crisis subordinated their claim to the urgent claims of national honor and safety. So Mr. Shaw, whose campaigning is done generally in the armchair, and never in any place more dangerous than the rostrum, ought surely to refrain from his frivolous, inconsistent, destructive, and unprofitable criticism of our country.

As for the question of lynching, Mr. Shaw is, the American public may be assured, in no danger whatever of being lynched. He is in far more danger of having the Iron Cross conferred upon him by the Kaiser in recognition of his attempt to supplement the activities of the official German Press Bureau. But if he were a German subject, writing on certain points of German policy as he does upon certain points of British policy, his fate can well be imagined. The only retribution that will come upon this man, who exploits the freedom of speech and pen that England gives him, is that his words lose now and henceforth the weight they used to have. Oh, the conceit of the man, who in this dark hour, when the English are dying on the battlefield, writes of "taking the conceit out of England" by a stroke of his inconsequent pen!

*Admits England's Cause Is Just.*

But with all his will to "take the conceit" out of this England, so fiercely menaced, her sons killed, her daughters widowed--yet needing, so he thinks, his castigation into the bargain--the critic is constrained to admit that our country is playing the part of "the responsible policeman of the West" and that "for England to have refrained from hurling herself into the fray, horse, foot, and artillery, was impossible from every point of view." Then why preface these statements by a series of attacks upon the country which is admitted to be justly fighting in a just cause?

The sole importance of Mr. Shaw's criticism comes from this. He unwarrantably indorses statements made by Germany in her attempt to put the Allies in the wrong. Because he is known to the German people by his dramatic work, extracts from his article will be circulated among them as an expression of the views of a representative British citizen. And how are the Germans to know that this is false, deprived as they are of news of what is happening in the outside world and ignorant as they must be of Mr. Shaw's real lack of influence at this serious time?

That their traffic in mere words disables some literary men from comprehending facts is shown by Mr. Shaw's play upon the word "Junkerism." He points to the dictionary definition of the word instead of to the fact it represents, and by this verbal juggling tries to convince his readers that the military autocracy that dominates and misdirects Germany has its counterpart and equal in Great Britain. Whereas, the conditions in the two countries are wholly different, and it is this very difference that Germany has regarded as one of the signs of British inferiority.

Mr. Shaw's suggestion that the British are posing as "Injured Innocence" and as "Mild Gazelles" is neither funny nor true. We are simply a people defending ourselves, resisting conquest and military despotism, and fighting for the ideal of freedom and self-government. When our country is no longer in danger we suffragettes, if it be still necessary, are prepared to fight on and wage our civil war that we may win freedom and self-government for women as well as men. But, in the meantime, we support the men--yes, and even the Government do we in a sense support--in fighting the common enemy who menaces the freedom of men and women alike. Although the Government in the past have erred gravely in their dealing with the woman question, they are for the purpose of this war the instrument of the nation.

*Facts Belie Him.*

Mr. Shaw would seem to hold Britain responsible for German militarism, but the facts he cites are against him there. "I am old enough," says he, "to remember the beginnings of the anti-German phase of military propaganda in England. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 left England very much taken aback. Up to that date nobody was much afraid that Prussia--suddenly Prussia beat France right down in the dust." Precisely! It was this war on France, deliberately engineered by Bismarck, and it was the defeat and despoilment of France that fed Germany's militarism and encouraged Germany to make those plans of military aggression which, after long and deliberate preparation, are being carried into effect in the present war. Germany's plans of military aggression have compelled other countries to prepare, however inadequately, to defend themselves.

Mr. Shaw gives support to the Germans' contention that they are not the aggressors but are menaced by Russia. Yet he does not explain why, if that is so, Germany took French gold and territory in 1870 and has since continued to alienate France; nor why Germany has chosen Britain as her enemy of enemies to be supplanted and surpassed in power.

If Germany is simply on the defensive against Russia and has no desire to attack and cripple France and Britain, then why has she antagonized these countries and driven one after the other into a Russian alliance?

When he affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object is to seize Belgium and to make it part of the German Empire, also to seize at least the northern coast of France and to make this seizure the means of dominating Britain.

Indeed, the point at which German ambition for conquest ceases would be hard to fix. And yet Mr. Shaw pictures for us an injured-innocent, mild-gazelle Germany on the defensive! Quite in this picture is his assertion that "the ultimatum to Servia was the escapade of a dotard," whereas, everybody knows that the ultimatum was dictated at Berlin. It is plain as a pikestaff that in order to bring on the Great War of conquest for which her rulers thought The Day had arrived. Germany dictated the issue and terms of the ultimatum to Servia and then urged Austria to refuse any compromise and arbitration which might have averted war.