Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

“ Europe should be unified and unitary, but that does not mean that it should be uniform. On the contrary, development aims at variation, at individualisation. The Germans, in spite of all their science, proved even in this war, how short-sighted they can be. Though they were well prepared for war—in fact, they alone were prepared—they did not see how the war would develop. They under-estimated Russia, over-estimated Austria, failed to understand England and America, and were totally deceived as to France, which they declared to be degenerate. ”

“ History and the Philosophy of History became the favourite sciences, and still hold their ground to this day. And by a strange destiny it was the German followers of the great philosopher of Universal Harmony who sought to justify the Discord of War. Death on the battlefield has been glorified by them, and the primacy of the German nation and its world-power has been revealed as the destiny for which the nations were waiting. Pangermanism is indeed nothing else than an endeavour to erect a system of the teleography of war and of human death. ”

“ The Prussian Germans, the Turks and Austria’s royal agent in Bulgaria accept the Habsburgs, because they pursue the same antiquated dynastic aims; but if Europe is to be regenerated this immoral and obsolete tradition must be finally overcome. The Allies, if we may judge from their answer to President Wilson, understand this. The great question is how their aims can be realised. There is only one way: victory on the battlefield can alone secure the victory of truth and humanity. Truth and humanity in the abstract are not victorious, if men and nations do not defend and protect them. ”

“ Humanity is not supernational, it is the organisation of individual nations. If, therefore, individual nations struggle for their independence and attempt to break up states of which they have heretofore been parts, that is not a fight against internationality and humanity, but a fight against aggressors, who misuse states for the purposes of levelling them and enforcing political uniformity. Humanity does not tend to uniformity, but to unity; it will be the liberation of nations which will make possible the organic association, the federation of nations, of Europe, and of all mankind. ”

“ The Pangermans raised nationalism to an almost mystical chauvinism and they impressed upon their nation, intoxicated by frequent military victories, the idea of an elect Herrenvolk; against this German danger, heightened by a clever and almost scientific exploitation of the centralised strength of Germany and Austria-Hungary, not only the Slavs but all the other nations made common cause. Their aim, therefore, is not and cannot be only national; it is democratic, being national only in so far as nationality is democratic and social. ”

“ Every war may be immoral, so the Prussian militarists will admit after the manner of Jesuits, and therefore one should not introduce questions of morality into it. All this is absolutely false: historians of Prussia, and of lands where there is no political freedom, cannot solve the controversy; that much is true; and it is true also that certain historians have not the ability for it. But free men of judgment, accustomed to scientific exactness, are able to settle the difference with due exactness. That is true of this war also. Every man sees the difference between defence and attack ”

“ The war, however, compelled official Europe to take heed of the true condition, namely, that the zone from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, the Aegean and Black Seas, which includes Prussia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Western Russia, is a territory of unsettled national problems and struggles. The war is a bloody object-lesson for the world, teaching that the principal problem of the war and of the future peace is the political reconstruction of Eastern Europe on a national basis. ”

“ To-day the great political problem which centres round Great Britain, Russia and Germany overshadows all others: will Great Britain join forces with Russia, or does she consider Germany to be less dangerous to her world-empire than Russia? ”

“ Militarism is the real evil which people have in mind, when they talk of the evils of war. Militarism is the mathematics of aggressiveness, the fighting spirit turned into a bureaucratic system—all state activities guided by military considerations, the officer becoming the standard of the citizen and of the world in general. Prussian militarism is universally recognised as the pattern and source of this social evil; the Prussian militarists themselves point out correctly that all life in Germany is militarized. ”

“ We condemn the agitation of the Great-Serbian Nationalists, but the frivolous provocation of the war by the Austro-Hungarian Government calls for our liveliest protest. For the demands of this Government are more brutal than any that have ever been addressed, in the whole course of history, to an independent State, and they can only be intended to provoke war forthwith. The conscious proletarist of Germany, in the name of humanity and culture, raises its burning protest against this criminal agitation . ”

“ In a democracy there are no men or classes exploiting the labour of others; a democratic state does not admit of militarism or secret diplomacy, its internal and external policy is subject to the judgment and direction of Parliament. Democracy, it has been said, is discussion; men are governed by arguments, not by an arbitrary will and violence; democracy to-day is not possible without science, democracy is the organisation of progress in all branches of human activity. ”

“ Literally, the entire world has now for four years borne the sufferings of a war caused by an attack upon Serbia by Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany. The entire world has been divided into two camps. Austria and Germany have with them merely Turkey, Bulgaria and the Papal Curia; all the other states are on the side of the Allies. Only some of the small States have remained neutral, and in them the majority of the people are on the side of the Allies. Thus practically all mankind has taken a stand against Germany and Austria. ”

“ Not only France, but even England, stand successfully against Prussian militarism, although England was not at all militaristic; the armies of the Allies fight no less bravely than the Germans; and if we consider that Germany alone was prepared for the war, that German soldiers are military specialists, the achievements of the Allied armies are relatively higher than the German successes. Most assuredly this war has already sounded the deathknell for Prussian militarism—for militarism does not decide the value of men and nations. ”

“ But Berlin needs Vienna, and Vienna needs Berlin. Great Germany can easily afford to tolerate Great Austria, as was clearly demonstrated by the personal friendship between Francis Ferdinand, the chief exponent of the Great Austrian idea, and William II., the leader of Great Germany. This war has completely atoned for the year 1866, and to-day Vienna can already tolerate Hindenburg as the supreme commander at her army—that army, which according to Austrian politicians, and Francis Joseph himself, was the very soul and essence of Austria's defence. ”

“ If Berlin succeeds in creating "Central Europe," the aim of the war is attained, even if, at the worst, some time should elapse before the completion of the Constantinople-Bagdad and Constantinople-Cairo routes.
If successful, Prussia-Germany would become an Asiatic and African power like Russia, Britain and France: nay more, she would become the greatest World-Power. Pangermanism is a programme for the final solution of the Eastern question. The Great War is a daring attempt to organise Europe, Asia and Africa—the Old World—under the leadership of Germany. ”

“ Humanity is, indeed, at the beginning of its development; the philosophers of history in all nations declare that the epoch following the Great Revolution, political and philosophical, to be the beginning of an entirely new era; this war and its horrors will shake our consciences and make us accept this conviction. ”

“ Hence the political kaleidoscope of the map of Europe throughout the Middle Ages and down to the 18th century.
Reformation and renaissance mark the first stirring up of the consciousness of nationality. The national tongues begin to be used in church services, the translation of the Bible equally hallows the language of the people as against the aristocratic church-language of Latin, Greek, and so on. There arises national non-Latin literature in the fields of philosophy and science, as well as in belles lettres; literature becomes a cultural power. ”

“ Considering that the war broke out in the Central Zone on account of Serbia, no thinking person can be left in doubt that it is here that lies the centre of gravity of European history and of European politics. This Zone is the centre of political unrest; the wars of recent decades, not to say centuries, have had their fundamental causes in the inorganic conditions of this part of Europe. ”

“ Austria is the strong, yet also the weak, spot of the German body. Without Austria and its non-German nations Germany would be compelled to live like all the other nations—by its own strength. The dismemberment of Austria will be the greatest blow to Prussianized Germany. This should be clear to every one, particularly since the military and political downfall of Russia. A strong Russia was a powerful military and political support to the Western nations. With its military and economic strength weakened, Russia could easily become the prey of Germany, unless Austria-Hungary is dismembered. ”

“ There are three nations, however, which have not yet attained their freedom: the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, and the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. All these three nations have for a long time been making efforts to attain freedom and unity. They are, indeed, the biggest nations of the Central Zone; all three were free and independent in the past, all three possess a remarkable history, all three have done much towards the development of the civilisation of Europe. ”

“ State, war, property, are classed as the chief political embodiments of the “possessive” impulses; while education, marriage, religion, ought to embody the creative impulses, although at present they do so very inadequately. In other words, civilised society is too passive, it is even decaying; and, therefore, if it is to be saved, the civilised world has need of a fundamental change.
Traditional Liberalism, Mr. Russell argues, cannot inspire this change. Mankind needs a new, a higher philosophy of politics. ”

“ Every thoughtful democratic and progressive statesman, every enlightened and culturally active nation must accept the program of the Allies, because it is politically broader and culturally and morally higher. The Allies champion humanity, the Pangermans force; the Allies champion progress, Austria-Hungary and Germany are the champions of the Middle Ages. Pangermanism and its Central Europe is a program of the theocratic anachronistic monarchies—the Allies and their program of the organisation of mankind is a democratic program constructed logically on humanitarian ideals. ”

“ The Turkish and Mongolian invasions hindered the development of Asia, but were unable to change the given racial affinities and connection with Europe, India, the hazy dream of Alexander the Great, has been attached to England and partly to France, as Australia became a part of the British Empire. Persia and Asia Minor are reconquering their freedom as the Turkish Empire, step by step, is losing power and vitality; England, France and Russia have become the real rulers of Asia. Africa, of old in close connection with Asia, also has become a part of France and Great Britain. ”

“ A real federation of nations will be accomplished only when the nations are free to unite of their own accord. The development of Europe points to that end. The program of the Allies answers fully to this development: free and liberated nations will organise themselves, as they find necessary, into greater units, and thus the whole continent will be organised. Should there be federations of smaller states, they will be federations freely entered upon, out of the real needs of the nations, not out of dynastic and imperialistic motives. Federation without freedom is impossible ”

“ It has been stated above that European states are still theocratic, therefore democracy everywhere is opposed to the state and the church; democracy has a human foundation, and not a divine foundation in the theocratic sense; it has its foundation in morality, not in official religion. Only in so far as morality—love for one another—is hallowed by true, pure, non-political religion, does democracy recognise politics subspecie aeternitatis. Such politics is possible on the basis of the teachings of Jesus and of his two great commandments, and only on that basis. [4] ”