down to the Westminster Confession. The virile tradition of the Scottish Church, in particular, is utterly inconsistent with Quaker principles. The Scottish Reformation was carried through, humanly speaking, because of the steps taken at the crisis by John Knox to secure the intervention of an English fleet and the expulsion of a French army of occupation. With the hearty approval of the Church, Scotland sent an army into England to second the cause of the Parliament against Charles 1., and at a later date it as earnestly attempted to dispute the triumphal progress of Oliver Cromwell. When the Covenanters took to the moors, they carried with them the Bible in the one hand and the sword in the other. In the period following the Union with England, when Scotland took its share in the upbuilding and defence of the Empire, there was no greater misgiving as to the lawfulness of fighting. During the Napoleonic wars, in particular, there was a profound and enthusiastic conviction that resistance to the schemes of the mighty conqueror was a duty imposed by loyalty to the King of kings.1 III. WHEN IS WAR A NECESSITY? 1. We cannot admit that war is part of God's plan for this world, or that fighting is so inherent an instinct in mankind as to be ineradicable, and that therefore we shall have war so long as the world lasts. Nor, on the other hand, can we admit that war is the worst possible thing in the world, and that therefore we ought never to engage in war whatever happens. War is so evil that we shall do all in our power to avoid it. But it may come to pass that we cannot avoid it without suffering greater loss than even war can work. ¶ I have all my life been an advocate of Peace. I hate war not merely for its own cruelty and folly, but because it is the enemy of all the causes that I care for most, of social progress and good government and all friendliness and gentleness of life, as well as of art and learning and literature. I have spoken and presided at more meetings than I can remember for peace and arbitration and the promotion of international friendship. I opposed the policy of war in South Africa with all my energies, and have been either outspokenly hostile or inwardly unsympathetic towards almost every war that Great Britain has waged in my lifetime. If I may speak more personally, there is none of my own work into which 1 W. P. Paterson, In the Day of the Muster, 6. I have put more intense feeling than into my translation of Euripides' Trojan Women, the first great denunciation of war in European literature. I do not regret any word that I have spoken or written in the cause of Peace, nor have I changed, as far as I know, any opinion that I have previously held on this subject. Yet I believe firmly that we were right to declare war against Germany on August 4, 1914, and that to have remained neutral in that crisis would have been a failure in public duty.1 In his biography of John Hus, recently published, Count Lützow quotes the opinion of the Hussite Wars of the Bohemian historian Palacky and approves it: "One school of historians to which I have the honour to belong has maintained that the Hussite war is the first war in the world's history that was fought, not for material interests, but for intellectual ones, that is to say, for ideas. This ideal standpoint was so seriously and so sincerely maintained by the Bohemians that when victorious they never attempted to replace it by a more interested policy. It is true that during the war they forced foreign communities to pay taxes and an annual tribute to them; but they never thought of subduing them, or of extending their dominion over foreign lands-a thing that under the circumstances of the time would not have been difficult. I know that among the modern school of German historians there are persons who attribute this attitude mainly to the incapacity of the ancient Bohemians, and who, with brutal derision, attempt to deduce from it their racial inferiority. I leave it to a more enlightened posterity to decide what conduct is nearer to barbarism -that of the disinterested victor, or that of the imperious and rapacious conqueror. Two centuries later the enemies, after one victory—that of the White Mountain-certainly acted differently, and endeavoured in every way to use their victory for the purpose of material gain. Was their conduct nobler and more Christian? As to the Hussites, they never during their prolonged and heroic struggle ceased to consider it and to term it a struggle for the liberty of God's word." 2 Looking back upon those early, unforgettable days, when the British nation revealed itself at its highest and best, who does not still feel that to have lived through them was an experience to be counted amongst the richest of life? It was a people's rising in the fullest sense of the word. In the hour of their country's need there was no asking, Where shall England's armies be found? Three million volunteers at once stood forth and said, "We are the 1 Professor Gilbert Murray, in Oxford Pamphlets. armies ! " and braver armies never fought for a good cause. So long as history is written there will be told again and again the inspiring story of how the British people, taken suddenly and unawares in the midst of the absorption of business, the palaver of politics, and the easy ways of pleasure, forsook these things and sternly bade them wait until a great wrong had been righted and their country had proved to all the world that its word was to be trusted. That, and no other, was the cause and the motive that sent men like Charles Lister and Rupert Brooke, W. G. Gladstone, T. M. Kettle, and Raymond Asquith to their deaths, and that drew from the factories and workshops of the North tens of thousands of gallant lads, without the culture of these men, maybe, but with all their glowing idealism and splendid chivalry. One of the most impressive war letters which I have read-a letter not written for the public eye-came from a young factory operative of a little town in my native Yorkshire, well known to me, one of two brothers who had enlisted in the first spontaneous rush to the colours. The younger of the two had been killed while rescuing a wounded comrade. Writing to his mother to break the news of her loss, the surviving brother added, "Arthur and I did not enlist because we loved war. We went because it was our duty." How many of the millions of volunteers who flocked to the flag in 1914 and 1915 did it for the sheer love of fighting? It is doubtful whether one in a hundred or a thousand of them could have told where Serajevo is, or had heard the name of Bethmann-Hollweg, but they knew of England's obligation to Belgium, and her obligation was their own.1 Cleanse your hands, Britain! Yea, cleanse them in blood if it must be! O for the fiery grace of old, The heart and the masterful hand! But grace grows dim and the fire grows cold, Break your bonds, Britain! Stand up once again for the right! We have stained our hands in the times that are past, 1 W. H. Dawson, Problems of the Peace, 29. a J. Oxenham, Bees in Amber, 32. 3. One thing must be added. When we have judged as fairly as we can, setting aside as far as possible all selfish interests, we yet may judge wrongfully. Let war therefore, being so awful a scourge, be the last resort and the most reluctantly adopted. Like civil justice, it is a terrible remedy, and it behoves those who use it to have a clear conscience and clean hands. Yet, like all inflictions of pain, it may be salutary. But if it is used wantonly, or for wrong and selfish ends, it is abominable and unpardonable. And it has too often been used both wantonly and selfishly. Fighting was the chief business and amusement of the upper classes of Europe in the Middle Ages, and that Chivalry, which gave such romantic grace and dignity to noble life, had a very ugly side. The delicate consideration of knight for knight took little account of the churl. We read of Edward the Black Prince, that after Poitiers "When the French King was first brought to him, he offered, quite naturally and simply, to help him off with his armour. The King said with great dignity, 'Thank you, cousin, but after this it is not for you to serve me; no Prince has ever won such honour in a single day.' The Prince was touched to the quick, he cannot bear that his honour should be another's misfortune. He said in a very low voice, God forgive me this victory.' 6 ¶ In 1855 Lord Aberdeen wrote as follows on the Crimean War a war of which Lord Salisbury said that we had put our money on the wrong horse: "I have never entertained the least doubt of the justice of the war in which we are at present engaged. It is unquestionably just, and it is also strongly marked by a character of disinterestedness. But although just and disinterested, the policy and the necessity of this war may, perhaps, be less certain. It is possible that our posterity may form a different estimate on this head from that at which we have arrived." The policy, or necessity, of any war must always be, more or less, the subject of doubt, and must vary according to a change of circumstances. This is not matter of immutable principle, but may be affected by an infinite variety of considerations. It is true that every necessary war must also really be a just war; but it does not absolutely follow that every just war must also be a necessary war.1 1 A. Gordon, The Earl of Aberdeen, 303. |