The theater of neglect: When local wars become pawns in global rivalries

“ No face can be, or is, indifferent, in these days and one no longer feels himself a detached individual observer; one becomes an atom of the crowd, sharing the anxiety of certain women that one knows are on their way to a hospital and who half mad with impatience are clutching the fatal telegram in one hand, while with the fingers of the other they thrum on one cheek or nervously catch at a button or ornament of their clothing. ”

“ Well then, when a bombardment sets in how on earth could I get home quickly without my bicycle?"
As visitors to the front, we were guests of the French Red Cross Society while in Soissons. The local president, whose deeds of heroism have astonished the world at large, is an old-time personal friend.
A luncheon in our honour was served on a spotless cloth, in the only room of that lady's residence which several hundred days of constant bombardment had still left intact. Yet, save for the fact that paper had replaced the window panes, nothing betrayed the proximity of the German. ”

“ With what pride he will show them to his companions, how he will gloat over his Magloire and his Joseph, his petite Marie and his bonne femme. Then, drawing away from the others, he will study them again, each one in turn. Nights when on duty, those cold nights of vigil, way out there in Saloniki, when fatigue and homesickness will assail him, he will slip his hand down into his pocket, and his rough fingers will touch the grease stained envelope that contains the cherished faces of his dear ones. ”

“ The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day is the danger point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as well.
309 36. Advantages of Insular Position [114] Great Britain and the Continental Powers Every war has two aspects, the defensive and the offensive, to each of which there is a corresponding factor of activity. There is something to gain, the offensive; there is something to lose, the defensive. The ears of men, especially of the uninstructed, are more readily and sympathetically open to the demands of the latter. ”

“ A typhoid epidemic forces the village to protect itself against the competition of a more healthful rival. The resourceful labor union facing a corporation which offers profit-sharing and retiring allowances must formulate a protective theory and practice. A society clique too closely imitated by a lower stratum must regain its distinction and supremacy. A nation must be constantly alert to adjust itself to the changing conditions of international trade and to the war equipment and training of its rivals. [Pg 609]
The theory of group rivalry throws light upon the individual. ”

“ EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS ARTICLES
in the New Volumes of the Insidecompletuar Britanniaware N.B.—These are only portions of the Articles. The Articles are heaps longer.
ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS.
From the Article (80 pages) specially contributed by LADY WARWICK.
Africa.—... This dark yet fascinating continent, which extends from the Cape to Cairo and from the Bight of Benin to the Beit of Park Lane, Africa, the home of the gorilla, the ju-ju, the kopje, and the blockhouse, has recently loomed large in the public eye.... ”

“ Normandy, Brittany, the Châteaux of Touraine, the climate of the Riviera, have, at various seasons been more attractive, not only to foreigners, but to the Parisians themselves, so aside from the art lovers who made special trips to Rheims, there was comparatively little pleasure travelling in our immediate neighbourhood, and yet what particular portion of France is more historically renowned? Is it not on those same fertile fields so newly consecrated with our blood that every struggle for world supremacy has been fought? ”

“ The greed of territorial aggrandizement, the spirit of national adventure, the longing for commercial supremacy, the honor of a country, the pride of racial achievement—each is urged to justify the necessity for bloodshed and carnage. Such are the arguments of the advocates of war. ”

“ Of the Honour of the Nation as affected by the War with America. One of the pleas for continuing the contest with America is, “That our honour is engaged; and that we cannot now recede without the most humiliating concessions.”
With respect to this, it is proper to observe, that a distinction should be made between the nation, and its rulers. It is melancholy that there should be ever any reason for making such a distinction. A government is, or ought to be, nothing but an institution for collecting and for carrying into execution the will of the people. ”

“ But for once the Doc was on the wrong end of a browbeating. The generals knew their ground and they shut the Doc up like a thirty-dollar shoe clerk.
"Since a state of global emergency has been declared," Three-star Corbin said icily, "the military has full authority to commandeer the fruits of any independent research. Eastern and Western forces are at the ultimate in cold-war deadlock, a stalemate which must soon cripple the economy of the world unless it is broken. Your Dimension-tube offers an ideal weapon for ending it." ”

“ Trade rivalry after the war is the theme of this book. “Peace will be as great a shock as war,” writes the author. “Hence the need of preparedness to meet the inevitable conflict for universal trade. We—as a nation—are as unready for this emergency as we are to meet the clash of actual physical combat. Commercial preparedness is as vital to the national well being as the training for arms.” ”

“ Earth's most priceless treasures are still more intangible things, the treasures of justice and kindliness and love. In that higher realm the cost of war is most terrible and most deadly. The spirit of war in the soldier sets aside the moral law, makes human life seem valueless, human suffering a thing to be disregarded, human slaughter an honorable profession. ”

“ Concerning the effect of war on labor, we declare unhesitatingly that the two are everlasting foes, and that whenever War lays hands on Labor's throat, it strangles her. This is part of the inevitable program of war, for note that it is on the laboring men that the dreadful claims of war must fall. Mark its course. A bugle sounds the call to arms. From workshop, mill, and factory the laborers pour forth; out go the men into a trade where plunder and robbery are a means of livelihood; when pillage and slaughter wane, indolence becomes the order of the day ”

“ The war spirit blinds the eye of the statesman, till wrong seems right, folly seems expediency, and the death of thousands seems preferable [Page 51] to the life and happiness of all under terms of peace not dictated by his own will. Justice is dethroned, and revenge takes up the iron scepter and lets fly the thunderbolt. The war spirit perverts the mind of the publicist, till the achievements of honorable peace sink into insignificance, and the press clamors for the war that means money to the publisher but death to innocent thousands who can have no possible interest in the conflict. ”

“ If England and France went to war, or if England and the United States, as in 1812, went to war, this right of fitting out privateers would obtain and be recognized. But, there arises, in the affairs of nations, a condition much more obscure and uncertain than this open war between established powers, and that is, when dissension arises in the same original nation—when it proceeds from discontent, sedition, private or local rebellion, into the inflammation of great military aggression ”

“ This is strictly true of communities as well as of individuals.—Civil Liberty (it should be remembered) must be enjoyed as a right derived from the Author of nature only, or it cannot be the blessing which merits this name. If there is any human power which is considered as giving it, on which it depends, and which can invade or recall it at pleasure, it changes its nature, and becomes a species of slavery.
But to return—The force superseding self-government in a state, or the power destroying its Liberty, is of two kinds. It may be either a power without itself, or a power within itself. ”

“ From the nature and principles of Civil Liberty, as they have been now explained, it is an immediate and necessary inference that no one community can have any power over the property or legislation of another community, which is not incorporated with it by a just and adequate representation.—Then only, it has been shewn, is a state free, when it is governed by its own will. But a country that is subject to the legislature of another country, in which it has no voice, and over which it has no controul, cannot be said to be governed by its own will. ”

“ But to maintain, by fire and sword, dominion over the persons and the property of a people out of the realm, who have no share in its legislature, contradicts every principle of liberty and humanity.—Legitimate government, let it be remembered, as opposed to oppression and tyranny, consists “only in the dominion of EQUAL LAWS made with COMMON CONSENT, or of men over THEMSELVES; and not in the dominion of communities over communities, or of ANY MEN OVER OTHER MEN.”—This is the great truth I have endeavoured to explain and defend ”

“ At the period when our authority should have been most concealed, it has been brought most in view; and by a progression of violent measures, every one of which has increased distress, we have given the world reason to conclude, that we are acquainted with no other method of governing than by force.—What a shocking mistake!—If our object is power, we should have known better how to use it; and our rulers should have considered, that freemen will always revolt at the sight of a naked sword ”

“ Can it then be wondered at, that the Colonies should revolt, when they found their charters violated; and an attempt made to force INNOVATIONS upon them by famine and the sword;—But I lay no stress on charters. They derive their rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common sense to imagine, that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any such condition, as that the people from whom they withdrew, should for ever be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. ”

“ The more our forces have suffered, the more the enemy will have expended on his side; the greater, therefore, will be the crisis for the enemy, and the more the superiority of our fresh troops will tell. If now the total result turns in our favour, if we wrest from the enemy the field of battle and recover all the trophies again, then all the forces which he has sacrificed in obtaining them become sheer gain for us, and our former defeat becomes a stepping-stone to a greater triumph. ”

“ If either of the High Contracting Parties become entangled in a war with one or more other powers, the other of the High Contracting Parties will at least observe toward the power so entangled a benevolent neutrality, and use its utmost endeavor for the localization of the conflict. ”

“ Internal troubles have threatened to compromise the progress of the war. The destinies of Russia, the honor of her heroic army, the happiness of her people, and the whole future of our beloved country demand that at all costs victory shall be won. The enemy is making his last efforts, and the moment is near when our gallant troops, in concert with their glorious Allies, will finally overthrow him.
In these days of crisis we have considered that our nation needs the closest union of all its forces for the attainment of victory. ”

“ It is only in periods of crisis, when men are making new and conscious efforts to control the conditions of their common life, that the forces with which they are competing get identified with persons, and competition is converted into conflict. It is in what has been described as the political process that society consciously deals with its crises. [182] War is the political process par excellence. It is in war that the great decisions are made. Political organizations exist for the purpose of dealing with conflict situations. ”

“ If the whole of the enemy’s military power was united in one army, and if the whole war consisted of one battle, then the possession of the country would depend on the issue of that battle; destruction of the enemy’s military forces, conquest of his country and security of our own, would follow from that result, and, in a certain measure, be identical with it. Now the question is, what can induce the defensive to deviate from this simplest form of the act of warfare, and distribute his power in space? ”

“ But this speculative distinction which we have made is also necessary for our further progress in the construction of our theory, because all that we have to say on the relation of attack and defence, and on the completion of this double-sided act, concerns the state of the crisis in which the forces are placed during the tension and motion, and because all the activity which can take place during the condition of equilibrium can only be regarded and treated as a corollary; for that crisis is the real War and this state of equilibrium only its reflection. ”

“ But it is not so in Strategy. Partly, as we have just shown, it has not so much reason to fear a reaction after a success realised, because with that success the crisis stops; partly all the forces strategically employed are not necessarily weakened. Only so much of them as have been tactically in conflict with the enemy’s force, that is, engaged in partial combat, are weakened by it; consequently, only so much as was unavoidably necessary, but by no means all which was strategically in conflict with the enemy, unless tactics has expended them unnecessarily. ”

“ In recent times, when War has been carried on with so much more rapidity and vigour, it has in consequence often happened that Armies have encamped very close to each other, without having a very strong system of outposts, because those circumstances have generally occurred just at the crisis which precedes a great decision. ”

“ In proportion as the first efforts of the national levies are small, so the detachments sent out will be weak in numbers, from the repugnance to a great dispersion of forces; it is on these weak bodies that the fire of the national war usually first properly kindles itself, they are overpowered by numbers at some points, courage rises, the love of fighting gains strength, and the intensity of this struggle increases until the crisis approaches which is to decide the issue. ”

“ We are face to face with a great crisis. The consequences of the imperialistic policy by means of which an era of competitive preparation for war has been inaugurated, and which has served to intensify hostile feeling between nations, have swept down over Europe like a torrent. The responsibility lies with those who have upheld this policy; we refuse it. [Applause from the Socialists.] ”

“ Whatever may be the rights and wrongs of the sudden, crushing attack made by the militarist Empire of Austria upon Servia, it is certain that the workers of all countries likely to be drawn into the conflict must strain every nerve to prevent their Governments from committing them to war.
Everywhere Socialists and the organized forces of labor are taking this course. Everywhere vehement protests are made against the greed and intrigues of militarists and armament mongers. ”

“ And in the waging of war, do we reckon the direct cost to commerce? The commercial relations of the entire world are disturbed. Prolonged conflict is accompanied by the closing of the bank and the factory, the dismantling of the shop and mill, and the lengthening of the bread line in every city and town. In what state of prosperity and happiness might not France have been had Napoleon never lived? With half a century gone, our own country is still suffering from the devastation of the Civil War. ”

“ How tame the life of peace to this wild life of war! And all the time the love of toil is fading from men's minds; at home the factory wheels are turning more and more feebly, and when at last the sword is laid aside, there is only "confusion worse confounded," for the channels of labor are choked with men reared in habits of indolence or trained in the school of vice. Before the scar on that nation's industry can finally be healed, decades and perhaps centuries of peace must pass away.
[Page 78] But if war is a scar on the nation's industry, it is likewise a blot on her ideals. ”

“ Our commerce with South America is scarcely beyond the point it had reached before our week-end tiff with Spain. Yet there are those who prate of national honor and of war as insuring prosperity. From the leader of a newborn national party we hear that without a periodic war America would become effeminate and weak, her aggressive commercial life timid and corrupt, and within a few brief years the great Republic would sink to a fourth-rate power. ”

“ If in place of the Russian battleships they should display the starving masses [Page 43] of dejected and despised beings who pay for those battleships; if in place of the gay German uniforms they should exhibit the rags of the disheartened peasants who pay for those uniforms; if in place of the grand parade they should produce masses of wounded men and rivers of blood; if in place of the stirring martial music they should produce the writhing agonies and awful groans of dying men; if in place of sham war they should produce actual war,—their exhibitions would make militarism unbearable. ”

“ No wonder Channing cried so bitterly: "War is the concentration of all human crimes. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew men, it would do little. But it turns man into a beast of prey. Here is the evil of war, that man, made to be the brother, becomes the deadly foe of his kind; that man, whose duty is to mitigate suffering, makes the infliction of suffering his study and end."
No, Mr. Roosevelt, for once at least you are wrong! We cannot believe that war builds up a nation. ”

“ But when through war the attempt is made to tear down law, overthrow justice and shackle the world's liberty, shall not war be met by war in order to preserve these priceless possessions, and perchance end all wars by rendering its mad champions powerless? No minister can be called Christian who does not hate war. ”

“ The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been transformed from a gainful occupation into [Page 118] economic folly, and war will cease because the price is becoming prohibitive.
In this movement for peace, capital's strongest ally is her most active enemy. Raised to a position of independence and power by the Industrial Revolution, labor is wielding an effective influence. ”