Why We Are at War (2nd Edition, revised)University of Oxford. Faculty of Modern History
History
Why We Are at War (2nd Edition, revised)
University of Oxford. Faculty of Modern History
World War, 1914-1918
But it is the glorification of war--war aggressive as well as war
defensive--which is the most striking result of the doctrine of the
all-sufficing, all-embracing national state. In the index to
Treitschke's _Politik_, under the word War, one reads the following
headings--'its sanctity'; 'to be conceived as an ordinance set by God';
'is the most powerful maker of nations'; 'is politics _par excellence_'.
Two functions, says Treitschke, the state exists to discharge; and these
are to administer law, and to make war. Of the two war, since it is
politics _par excellence_, would appear to be the greater. War cannot be
thought or wished out of the world: it is the only medicine for a sick
nation. When we are sunk in the selfish individualism of peace, war
comes to make us realize that we are members one of another. 'Therein
lies the majesty of war, that the petty individual altogether vanishes
before the great thought of the state.' War alone makes us realize the
social organism to which we belong: 'it is political idealism which
demands war.' And again, 'what a perversion of morality it were, if one
struck out of humanity heroism'(_Heldentum_)--as if _Heldentum_ could
not exist in peace! 'But the living God will see to it that war shall
always recur as a terrible medicine for humanity.'
Thus the idealization of the state as power results in the idealization
of war. As we have seen that the state must be 'power' in order to
preserve itself at all, we now find that it must be a war-state to
preserve itself from 'sickness'. If it does not fight, individualism
will triumph over the social organism; heroism will perish out of the
world. Hence Bernhardi writes: 'the maintenance of peace never can or
may be the goal of a policy'. War, war--the 'strong medicine', the
teacher of heroism, and, as Bernhardi adds to Treitschke, the inevitable
biological law, the force that spreads the finest culture--war is the
law of humanity. And this war is offensive as well as defensive--
primarily, indeed, offensive. For the growing nation must preserve
all its new members in its bosom: it must not let them slip away
by emigration to foreign soils. It must therefore find for itself
colonies; and since the world is already largely occupied, it must find
them by conquest from other powers.[182] Treitschke already cried the
watchwords--'Colonies!' 'Sea-power to gain colonies!' Treitschke already
designated England as the object of German attack, and began to instil
in Germany a hatred of England. England blocked the way to the growth of
Germany from a European into a World-power; Germany, to preserve intact
for German culture the surplus of the growing population, must be a
World-power or perish. And besides, England was a 'sick' state--a sham,
an hypocrisy.[183]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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