Armageddon--And After | Page 8

for the most part useless functions in the
War Office.[4] It is a swollen, over-developed militarism that has got
us into the present mess, and one of our earliest concerns, when the
storm is over, must be to put it into its proper place. Let him who uses
the sword perish by the sword.
[4] Thus it was the Military party in Bulgaria which drove her to the
disastrous second Balkan war, and the Military party in Austria which
insisted on the ultimatum to Servia.
DIPLOMACY
And I fear that there is another ancient piece of our international
strategy which has been found wanting. I approach with some
hesitation the subject of diplomacy, because it contains so many
elements of value to a state, and has given so many opportunities for
active and original minds. Its worst feature is that its operations have to
be conducted in secret: its best is that it affords a fine exemplification
of the way in which the history and fortunes of states are--to their
advantage--dependent upon the initiative of gifted and patriotic
individuals. But if we look back over the history of recent years, we
shall discover that diplomacy has not fulfilled its especial mission.
According to a well-known cynical dictum a diplomatist is a man who
is paid to lie for his country. And, indeed, it is one of the least gracious
aspects of the diplomatic career that it seems necessarily to involve the
use of a certain amount of chicanery and falsehood, the object being to
jockey opponents by means of skilful ruses into a position in which
they find themselves at a disadvantage. Clearly, however, there are
better aims than these for diplomacy--one aim in particular, which is

the preservation of peace. A diplomat is supposed to have failed if the
result of his work leads to war. It is not his business to bring about war.
Any king or prime minister or general can do that, very often with
conspicuous ease. A diplomat is a skilful statesman versed in
international politics, who makes the best provision he can for the
interests of his country, carefully steering it away from those rocks of
angry hostility on which possibly his good ship may founder.
BALANCE OF POWER
Now what has diplomacy done for us during the last few years? It has
formed certain understandings and alliances between different states; it
has tried to safeguard our position by creating sympathetic bonds with
those nations who are allied to us in policy. It has also attempted to
produce that kind of "Balance of Power" in Europe which on its own
showing makes for peace. This Balance of Power, so often and so
mysteriously alluded to by the diplomatic world, has become a
veritable fetish. Perhaps its supreme achievement was reached when
two autocratic monarchs--the Tsar of Russia and the German
Emperor--solemnly propounded a statement, as we have seen, at Port
Baltic that the Balance of Power, as distributed between the Triple
Alliance and the Triple Entente, had proved itself valuable in the
interests of European peace. That was only two years ago, and the thing
seems a mockery now. If we examine precisely what is meant by a
Balance of Power, we shall see that it presupposes certain conditions of
animosity and attempts to neutralise them by the exhibition of superior
or, at all events, equivalent forces. A Balance of Power in the
continental system assumes, for all practical purposes, that the nations
of Europe are ready to fly at each other's throats, and that the only way
to deter them is to make them realise how extremely perilous to
themselves would be any such military enterprise. Can any one doubt
that this is the real meaning of the phrase? If we listen to the Delphic
oracles of diplomacy on this subject of the Balance of Power, we shall
understand that in nine cases out of ten a man invoking this phrase
means that he wants the Balance of Power to be favourable to himself.
It is not so much an exact equipoise that he desires, as a certain
tendency of the scales to dip in his direction. If Germany feels herself

weak she not only associates Austria and Italy with herself, but looks
eastward to get the assistance of Turkey, or, perhaps, attempts--as it so
happens without any success--to create sympathy for herself in the
United States of America. If, on the other hand, France feels herself in
danger, she not only forms an alliance with Russia, but also an entente
with England and, on the principle that the friends of one's friends
ought to be accepted, produces a further entente between England and
Russia. England, on her part, if for whatever reason she feels that she is
liable to attack, goes even so far