The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National AdvantageAngell, Norman
History
The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage
Angell, Norman
Commercial policy; Disarmament; Imperialism; War; War, Cost of
stage of the progress in the past, from the day that we killed our
prisoner in order to eat him, and refused to share him with our fellow,
to the day that the telegraph and the bank have rendered military force
economically futile.
But the foregoing does not include all the facts, or all the factors. If
Russia does England an injury--sinks a fishing fleet in time of peace,
for instance--it is no satisfaction to Englishmen to go out and kill a
lot of Frenchmen or Irishmen. They want to kill Russians. If, however,
they knew a little less geography--if, for instance, they were Chinese
Boxers, it would not matter in the least which they killed, because to
the Chinaman all alike are "foreign devils"; his knowledge of the case
does not enable him to differentiate between the various nationalities
of Europeans. In the case of a wronged negro in the Congo the collective
responsibility is still wider; for a wrong inflicted by one white man he
will avenge himself on any other--American, German, English, French,
Dutch, Belgian, or Chinese. As our knowledge increases, our sense of the
collective responsibility of outside groups narrows. But immediately we
start on this differentiation there is no stopping. The English yokel is
satisfied if he can "get a whack at them foreigners"--Germans will do
if Russians are not available. The more educated man wants Russians; but
if he stops a moment longer, he will see that in killing Russian
peasants he might as well be killing so many Hindoos, for all they had
to do with the matter. He then wants to get at the Russian Government.
But so do a great many Russians--Liberals, Reformers, etc. He then sees
that the real conflict is not English against Russians at all, but the
interest of all law-abiding folk--Russian and English alike--against
oppression, corruption, and incompetence. To give the Russian Government
an opportunity of going to war would only strengthen its hands against
those with whom he was in sympathy--the Reformers. As war would increase
the influence of the reactionary party in Russia, it would do nothing to
prevent the recurrence of such incidents, and so quite the wrong party
would suffer. Were the real facts and the real responsibilities
understood, a Liberal people would reply to such an aggression by taking
every means which the social and economic relationship of the two States
afforded to enable Russian Liberals to hang a few Russian Admirals and
establish a Russian Liberal Government. In any case, the realization of
the fact attenuates hostility. In the same way, as they become more
familiar with the facts, the English will attenuate their hostility to
"Germans." An English patriot recently said, "We must smash
Prussianism." The majority of Germans are in cordial agreement with him,
and are working to that end. But if England went to war for that
purpose, Germans would be compelled to fight for Prussianism. War
between States for a political ideal of this kind is not only futile, it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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