TheCrimesOfEngland

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THE CRIMES OF

ENGLAND

BY

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

MCMXVI

1916

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

SOME WORDS TO PROFESSOR WHIRLWIND

The German Professor, his need of Education

for Debate—Three Mistakes of German

Controversialists—The Multiplicity of

Excuses—Falsehood against Experience—

Kultur preached by Unkultur—The Mistake

about Bernard Shaw—German Lack of

Welt-Politik—Where England is really

Wrong.

CHAPTER II

THE PROTESTANT HERO

Suitable Finale for the German Emperor—Frederick

II. and the Power of

Fear—German Influence in England since

Lather—Our German Kings and Allies—

Triumph of Frederick the Great.

CHAPTER III

THE ENIGMA OF WATERLOO

How we helped Napoleon—The Revolution

and the Two Germanics—Religious

Resistance of Austria and Russia—Irreligious

Resistance of Prussia and England—Negative

Irreligion of England—its Idealism

in Snobbishness—Positive Irreligion of

Prussia; no Idealism in Anything—Allegory

and the French Revolution—The Dual

Personality of England; the Double Battle—Triumph

of Blucher.

CHAPTER IV

THE COMING OF THE JANISSARIES

The Sad Story of Lord Salisbury—Ireland

and Heligoland—The Young Men of

Ireland—The Dirty Work—The Use of

German Mercenaries—The Unholy Alliance—Triumph

of the German Mercenaries.

CHAPTER V

THE LOST ENGLAND

Truth about England and Ireland—Murder

and the Two Travellers—Real Defence

of England—The Lost Revolution—Story

of Cobbett and the Germans—Historical

Accuracy of Cobbett—Violence of the English

Language—Exaggerated Truths versus

Exaggerated Lies—Defeat of the People—Triumph

of the German Mercenaries.

CHAPTER VI

HAMLET AND THE DANES

Degeneration of Grimm’s Fairy Tales—From

Tales of Terror to Tales of Terrorism—German

Mistake of being Deep—The

Germanisation of Shakespeare—Carlyle and

the Spoilt Child—The Test of Teutonism—

Hell or Hans Andersen—Causes of English

Inaction—Barbarism and Splendid Isolation—

The Peace of the Plutocrats—Hamlet

the Englishman—The Triumph of Bismarck.

CHAPTER VII

THE MIDNIGHT OF EUROPE

The Two Napoleons—Their Ultimate

Success—The Interlude of Sedan—The

Meaning of an Emperor—The Triumph of

Versailles—The True Innocence of England—

Triumph of the Kaiser.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WRONG HORSE

Lord Salisbury Again—The Influence of

1870—The Fairy Tale of Teutonism—The

Adoration of the Crescent—The Reign of

the Cynics—Last Words to Professor

Whirlwind.

CHAPTER IX

THE AWAKENING OF ENGLAND

The March of Montenegro—The Anti-Servile

State—The Prussian Preparation—The

Sleep of England—The Awakening of

England.

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

The Hour of Peril—The Human Deluge—The

English at the Marne.

THE CRIMES OF ENGLAND

I—Some Words to Professor Whirlwind

DEAR PROFESSOR WHIRLWIND,

Your name in the original German is too much for me; and this is the

nearest I propose to get to it: but under the majestic image of pure

wind marching in a movement wholly circular I seem to see, as in a

vision, something of your mind. But the grand isolation of your thoughts

leads you to express them in such words as are gratifying to yourself,

and have an inconspicuous or even an unfortunate effect upon others. If

anything were really to be made of your moral campaign against the

English nation, it was clearly necessary that somebody, if it were only

an Englishman, should show you how to leave off professing philosophy

and begin to practise it. I have therefore sold myself into the Prussian

service, and in return for a cast-off suit of the Emperor’s clothes (the

uniform of an English midshipman), a German hausfrau’s recipe for poison

gas, two penny cigars, and twenty-five Iron Crosses, I have consented

to instruct you in the rudiments of international controversy. Of this

part of my task I have here little to say that is not covered by a

general adjuration to you to observe certain elementary rules. They are,

roughly speaking, as follows:—

First, stick to one excuse. Thus if a tradesman, with whom your social

relations are slight, should chance to find you toying with the coppers

in his till, you may possibly explain that you are interested in

Numismatics and are a Collector of Coins; and he may possibly believe

you. But if you tell him afterwards that you pitied him for being

overloaded with unwieldy copper discs, and were in the act of replacing

them by a silver sixpence of your own, this further explanation, so far

from increasing his confidence in your motives, will (strangely enough)

actually decrease it. And if you are so unwise as to be struck by yet

another brilliant idea, and tell him that the pennies were all bad

pennies, which you were concealing to save him from a police prosecution

for coining, the tradesman may even be so wayward as to institute a

police prosecution himself. Now this is not in any way an exaggeration

of the way in which you have knocked the bottom out of any case you may

ever conceivably have had in such matters as the sinking of the

Lusitania. With my own eyes I have seen the following explanations,

apparently proceeding from your pen, (i) that the ship was a troop-ship

carrying soldiers from Canada; (ii) that if it wasn’t, it was a

merchant-ship unlawfully carrying munitions for the soldiers in France;

(iii) that, as the passengers on the ship had been warned in an

advertisement, Germany was justified in blowing them to the moon; (iv)

that there were guns, and the ship had to be torpedoed because the

English captain was just going to fire them off; (v) that the English or

American authorities, by throwing the Lusitania at the heads of the

German commanders, subjected them to an insupportable temptation; which

was apparently somehow demonstrated or intensified by the fact that the

ship came up to schedule time, there being some mysterious principle by

which having tea at tea-time justifies poisoning the tea; (vi) that the

ship was not sunk by the Germans at all but by the English, the English

captain having deliberately tried to drown himself and some thousand of

his own countrymen in order to cause an exchange of stiff notes between

Mr. Wilson and the Kaiser. If this interesting story be true, I can only

say that such frantic and suicidal devotion to the most remote interests

of his country almost earns the captain pardon for the crime. But do you

not see, my dear Professor, that the very richness and variety of your

inventive genius throws a doubt upon each explanation when considered in

itself? We who read you in England reach a condition of mind in which it

no longer very much matters what explanation you offer, or whether you

offer any at all. We are prepared to hear that you sank the Lusitania

because the sea-born sons of England would live more happily as deep-sea

fishes, or that every person on board was coming home to be hanged. You

have explained yourself so completely, in this clear way, to the

Italians that they have declared war on you, and if you go on explaining

yourself so clearly to the Americans they may quite possibly do the

same.

Second, when telling such lies as may seem necessary to your

international standing, do not tell the lies to the people who know the

truth. Do not tell the Eskimos that snow is bright green; nor tell the

negroes in Africa that the sun never shines in that Dark Continent.

Rather tell the Eskimos that the sun never shines in Africa; and then,

turning to the tropical Africans, see if they will believe that snow is

green. Similarly, the course indicated for you is to slander the

Russians to the English and the English to the Russians; and there are

hundreds of good old reliable slanders which can still be used against

both of them. There are probably still Russians who believe that every

English gentleman puts a rope round his wife’s neck and sells her in

Smithfield. There are certainly still Englishmen who believe that every

Russian gentleman takes a rope to his wife’s back and whips her every

day. But these stories, picturesque and useful as they are, have a limit

to their use like everything else; and the limit consists in the fact

that they are not true, and that there necessarily exists a group of

persons who know they are not true. It is so with matters of fact about

which you asseverate so positively to us, as if they were matters of

opinion. Scarborough might be a fortress; but it is not. I happen to

know it is not. Mr. Morel may deserve to be universally admired in

England; but he is not universally admired in England. Tell the Russians

that he is by all means; but do not tell us. We have seen him; we have

also seen Scarborough. You should think of this before you speak.

Third, don’t perpetually boast that you are cultured in language which

proves that you are not. You claim to thrust yourself upon everybody on

the ground that you are stuffed with wit and wisdom, and have enough for

the whole world. But people who have wit enough for the whole world,

have wit enough for a whole newspaper paragraph. And you can seldom get

through even a whole paragraph without being monotonous, or irrelevant,

or unintelligible, or self-contradictory, or broken-minded generally. If

you have something to teach us, teach it to us now. If you propose to

convert us after you have conquered us, why not convert us before you

have conquered us? As it is, we cannot believe what you say about your

superior education because of the way in which you say it. If an

Englishman says, “I don’t make no mistakes in English, not me,” we can

understand his remark; but we cannot endorse it. To say, “Je parler le

Frenche language, non demi,” is comprehensible, but not convincing. And

when you say, as you did in a recent appeal to the Americans, that the

Germanic Powers have sacrificed a great deal of “red fluid” in defence

of their culture, we point out to you that cultured people do not employ

such a literary style. Or when you say that the Belgians were so

ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren’t, we

only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being

believed when you aren’t. Thus, for instance, when you brag about

burning Venice to express your contempt for “tourists,” we cannot think

much of the culture, as culture, which supposes St. Mark’s to be a thing

for tourists instead of historians. This, however, would be the least

part of our unfavourable judgment. That judgment is complete when we

have read such a paragraph as this, prominently displayed in a paper in

which you specially spread yourself: “That the Italians have a perfect

knowledge of the fact that this city of antiquities and tourists is

subject, and rightly subject, to attack and bombardment, is proved by

the measures they took at the beginning of the war to remove some of

their greatest art treasures.” Now culture may or may not include the

power to admire antiquities, and to restrain oneself from the pleasure

of breaking them like toys. But culture does, presumably, include the

power to think. For less laborious intellects than your own it is

generally sufficient to think once. But if you will think twice or

twenty times, it cannot but dawn on you that there is something wrong in

the reasoning by which the placing of diamonds in a safe proves that

they are “rightly subject” to a burglar. The incessant assertion of such

things can do little to spread your superior culture; and if you say

them too often people may even begin to doubt whether you have any

superior culture after all. The earnest friend now advising you cannot

but grieve at such incautious garrulity. If you confined yourself to

single words, uttered at intervals of about a month or so, no one could

possibly raise any rational objection, or subject them to any rational

criticism. In time you might come to use whole sentences without

revealing the real state of things.

Through neglect of these maxims, my dear Professor, every one of your

attacks upon England has gone wide. In pure fact they have not touched

the spot, which the real critics of England know to be a very vulnerable

spot. We have a real critic of England in Mr. Bernard Shaw, whose name

you parade but apparently cannot spell; for in the paper to which I have

referred he is called Mr. Bernhard Shaw. Perhaps you think he and

Bernhardi are the same man. But if you quoted Mr. Bernard Shaw’s

statement instead of misquoting his name, you would find that his

criticism of England is exactly the opposite of your own; and naturally,

for it is a rational criticism. He does not blame England for being

against Germany. He does most definitely blame England for not being

sufficiently firmly and emphatically on the side of Russia. He is not

such a fool as to accuse Sir Edward Grey of being a fiendish Machiavelli

plotting against Germany; he accuses him of being an amiable

aristocratic stick who failed to frighten the Junkers from their plan of

war. Now, it is not in the least a question of whether we happen to like

this quality or that: Mr. Shaw, I rather fancy, would dislike such

verbose compromise more than downright plotting. It is simply the fact

that Englishmen like Grey are open to Mr. Shaw’s attack and are not open

to yours. It is not true that the English were sufficiently clearheaded

or self-controlled to conspire for the destruction of Germany. Any man

who knows England, any man who hates England as one hates a living

thing, will tell you it is not true. The English may be snobs, they may

be plutocrats, they may be hypocrites, but they are not, as a fact,

plotters; and I gravely doubt whether they could be if they wanted to.

The mass of the people are perfectly incapable of plotting at all, and

if the small ring of rich people who finance our politics were plotting

for anything, it was for peace at almost any price. Any Londoner who

knows the London streets and newspapers as he knows the Nelson column or

the Inner Circle, knows that there were men in the governing class and

in the Cabinet who were literally thirsting to defend Germany until

Germany, by her own act, became indefensible. If they said nothing in

support of the tearing up of the promise of peace to Belgium, it is

simply because there was nothing to be said.

You were the first people to talk about World-Politics; and the first

people to disregard them altogether. Even your foreign policy is

domestic policy. It does not even apply to any people who are not

Germans; and of your wild guesses about some twenty other peoples, not

one has gone right even by accident. Your two or three shots at my own

not immaculate land have been such that you would have been much nearer

the truth if you had tried to invade England by crossing the Caucasus,

or to discover England among the South Sea Islands. With your first

delusion, that our courage was calculated and malignant when in truth

our very corruption was timid and confused, I have already dealt. The

case is the same with your second favourite phrase; that the British

army is mercenary. You learnt it in books and not in battlefields; and I

should like to be present at a scene in which you tried to bribe the

most miserable little loafer in Hammersmith as if he were a cynical

condottiere selling his spear to some foreign city. It is not the fact,

my dear sir. You have been misinformed. The British Army is not at this

moment a hireling army any more than it is a conscript army. It is a

volunteer army in the strict sense of the word; nor do I object to your

calling it an amateur army. There is no compulsion, and there is next to

no pay. It is at this moment drawn from every class of the community,

and there are very few classes which would not earn a little more money

in their ordinary trades. It numbers very nearly as many men as it would

if it were a conscript army; that is with the necessary margin of men

unable to serve or needed to serve otherwise. Ours is a country in which

that democratic spirit which is common to Christendom is rather

unusually sluggish and far below the surface. And the most genuine and

purely popular movement that we have had since the Chartists has been

the enlistment for this war. By all means say that such vague and

sentimental volunteering is valueless in war if you think so; or even

if you don’t think so. By all means say that Germany is unconquerable

and that we cannot really kill you. But if you say that we do not really

want to kill you, you do us an injustice. You do indeed.

I need not consider the yet crazier things that some of you have said;

as that the English intend to keep Calais and fight France as well as

Germany for the privilege of purchasing a frontier and the need to keep

a conscript army. That, also, is out of books, and pretty mouldy old

books at that. It was said, I suppose, to gain sympathy among the

French, and is therefore not my immediate business, as they are

eminently capable of looking after themselves. I merely drop one word in

passing, lest you waste your powerful intellect on such projects. The

English may some day forgive you; the French never will. You Teutons are

too light and fickle to understand the Latin seriousness. My only

concern is to point out that about England, at least, you are invariably

and miraculously wrong.

Now speaking seriously, my dear Professor, it will not do. It could be

easy to fence with you for ever and parry every point you attempt to

make, until English people began to think there was nothing wrong with

England at all. But I refuse to play for safety in this way. There is a

very great deal that is really wrong with England, and it ought not to

be forgotten even in the full blaze of your marvellous mistakes. I

cannot have my countrymen tempted to those pleasures of intellectual

pride which are the result of comparing themselves with you. The deep

collapse and yawning chasm of your ineptitude leaves me upon a perilous

spiritual elevation. Your mistakes are matters of fact; but to enumerate

them does not exhaust the truth. For instance, the learned man who

rendered the phrase in an English advertisement “cut you dead” as “hack

you to death,” was in error; but to say that many such advertisements

are vulgar is not an error. Again, it is true that the English poor are

harried and insecure, with insufficient instinct for armed revolt,

though you will be wrong if you say that they are occupied literally in

shooting the moon. It is true that the average Englishman is too much

attracted by aristocratic society; though you will be in error if you

quote dining with Duke Humphrey as an example of it. In more ways than

one you forget what is meant by idiom.

I have therefore thought it advisable to provide you with a catalogue of

the real crimes of England; and I have selected them on a principle

which cannot fail to interest and please you. On many occasions we have

been very wrong indeed. We were very wrong indeed when we took part in

preventing Europe from putting a term to the impious piracies of

Frederick the Great. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the

triumph over Napoleon to be soiled with the mire and blood of Blucher’s

sullen savages. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the peaceful

King of Denmark to be robbed in broad daylight by a brigand named

Bismarck; and when we allowed the Prussian swashbucklers to enslave and

silence the French provinces which they could neither govern nor

persuade. We were very wrong indeed when we flung to such hungry

adventurers a position so important as Heligoland. We were very wrong

indeed when we praised the soulless Prussian education and copied the

soulless Prussian laws. Knowing that you will mingle your tears with

mine over this record of English wrong-doing, I dedicate it to you, and

I remain,

Yours reverently,

G. K. CHESTERTON

II—The Protestant Hero

A question is current in our looser English journalism touching what

should be done with the German Emperor after a victory of the Allies.

Our more feminine advisers incline to the view that he should be shot.

This is to make a mistake about the very nature of hereditary monarchy.

Assuredly the Emperor William at his worst would be entitled to say to

his amiable Crown Prince what Charles II. said when his brother warned

him of the plots of assassins: “They will never kill me to make you

king.” Others, of greater monstrosity of mind, have suggested that he

should be sent to St. Helena. So far as an estimate of his

historical importance goes, he might as well be sent to Mount Calvary.

What we have to deal with is an elderly, nervous, not unintelligent

person who happens to be a Hohenzollern; and who, to do him justice,

does think more of the Hohenzollerns as a sacred caste than of his own

particular place in it. In such families the old boast and motto of

hereditary kingship has a horrible and degenerate truth. The king never

dies; he only decays for ever.

If it were a matter of the smallest importance what happened to the

Emperor William when once his house had been disarmed, I should satisfy

my fancy with another picture of his declining years; a conclusion that

would be peaceful, humane, harmonious, and forgiving.

In various parts of the lanes and villages of South England the

pedestrian will come upon an old and quiet public-house, decorated with

a dark and faded portrait in a cocked hat and the singular inscription,

“The King of Prussia.” These inn signs probably commemorate the visit of

the Allies after 1815, though a great part of the English middle classes

may well have connected them with the time when Frederick II. was

earning his title of the Great, along with a number of other territorial

titles to which he had considerably less claim. Sincere and

simple-hearted Dissenting ministers would dismount before that sign (for

in those days Dissenters drank beer like Christians, and indeed

manufactured most of it) and would pledge the old valour and the old

victory of him whom they called the Protestant Hero. We should be using

every word with literal exactitude if we said that he was really

something devilish like a hero. Whether he was a Protestant hero or not

can be decided best by those who have read the correspondence of a

writer calling himself Voltaire, who was quite shocked at Frederick’s

utter lack of religion of any kind. But the little Dissenter drank his

beer in all innocence and rode on. And the great blasphemer of Potsdam

would have laughed had he known; it was a jest after his own heart. Such

was the jest he made when he called upon the emperors to come to

communion, and partake of the eucharistic body of Poland. Had he been

such a Bible reader as the Dissenter doubtless thought him, he might

haply have foreseen the vengeance of humanity upon his house. He might

have known what Poland was and was yet to be; he might have known that

he ate and drank to his damnation, discerning not the body of God.

Whether the placing of the present German Emperor in charge of one of

these wayside public-houses would be a jest after his own heart

possibly remains to be seen. But it would be much more melodious and

fitting an end than any of the sublime euthanasias which his enemies

provide for him. That old sign creaking above him as he sat on the bench

outside his home of exile would be a much more genuine memory of the

real greatness of his race than the modern and almost gimcrack stars and

garters that were pulled in Windsor Chapel. From modern knighthood has

departed all shadow of chivalry; how far we have travelled from it can

easily be tested by the mere suggestion that Sir Thomas Lipton, let us

say, should wear his lady’s sleeve round his hat or should watch his

armour in the Chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The giving and

receiving of the Garter among despots and diplomatists is now only part

of that sort of pottering mutual politeness which keeps the peace in an

insecure and insincere state of society. But that old blackened wooden

sign is at least and after all the sign of something; the sign of the

time when one solitary Hohenzollern did not only set fire to fields and

cities, but did truly set on fire the minds of men, even though it were

fire from hell.

Everything was young once, even Frederick the Great. It was an

appropriate preface to the terrible epic of Prussia that it began with

an unnatural tragedy of the loss of youth. That blind and narrow savage

who was the boy’s father had just sufficient difficulty in stamping out

every trace of decency in him, to show that some such traces must have

been there. If the younger and greater Frederick ever had a heart, it

was a broken heart; broken by the same blow that broke his flute. When

his only friend was executed before his eyes, there were two corpses to

be borne away; and one to be borne on a high war-horse through victory

after victory: but with a small bottle of poison in the pocket. It is

not irrelevant thus to pause upon the high and dark house of his

childhood. For the peculiar quality which marks out Prussian arms and

ambitions from all others of the kind consists in this wrinkled and

premature antiquity. There is something comparatively boyish about the

triumphs of all the other tyrants. There was something better than

ambition in the beauty and ardour of the young Napoleon. He was at

least a lover; and his first campaign was like a love-story. All that

was pagan in him worshipped the Republic as men worship a woman, and all

that was Catholic in him understood the paradox of Our Lady of

Victories. Henry VIII., a far less reputable person, was in his early

days a good knight of the later and more florid school of chivalry; we

might almost say that he was a fine old English gentleman so long as he

was young. Even Nero was loved in his first days: and there must have

been some cause to make that Christian maiden cast flowers on his

dishonourable grave. But the spirit of the great Hohenzollern smelt from

the first of the charnel. He came out to his first victory like one

broken by defeats; his strength was stripped to the bone and fearful as

a fleshless resurrection; for the worst of what could come had already

befallen him. The very construction of his kingship was built upon the

destruction of his manhood. He had known the final shame; his soul had

surrendered to force. He could not redress that wrong; he could only

repeat it and repay it. He could make the souls of his soldiers

surrender to his gibbet and his whipping-post; he could ‘make the souls

of the nations surrender to his soldiers. He could only break men in as

he had been broken; while he could break in, he could never break out.

He could not slay in anger, nor even sin with simplicity. Thus he stands

alone among the conquerors of their kind; his madness was not due to a

mere misdirection of courage. Before the whisper of war had come to him

the foundations of his audacity had been laid in fear.

Of the work he did in this world there need be no considerable debate.

It was romantic, if it be romantic that the dragon should swallow St.

George. He turned a small country into a great one: he made a new

diplomacy by the fulness and far-flung daring of his lies: he took away

from criminality all reproach of carelessness and incompleteness. He

achieved an amiable combination of thrift and theft. He undoubtedly gave

to stark plunder something of the solidity of property. He protected

whatever he stole as simpler men protect whatever they have earned or

inherited. He turned his hollow eyes with a sort of loathsome affection

upon the territories which had most reluctantly become his: at the end

of the Seven Years’ War men knew as little how he was to be turned out

of Silesia as they knew why he had ever been allowed in it. In Poland,

like a devil in possession, he tore asunder the body he inhabited; but

it was long before any man dreamed that such disjected limbs could live

again. Nor were the effects of his break from Christian tradition

confined to Christendom; Macaulay’s world-wide generalisation is very

true though very Macaulayese. But though, in a long view, he scattered

the seeds of war all over the world, his own last days were passed in a

long and comparatively prosperous peace; a peace which received and

perhaps deserved a certain praise: a peace with which many European

peoples were content. For though he did not understand justice, he could

understand moderation. He was the most genuine and the most wicked of

pacifists. He did not want any more wars. He had tortured and beggared

all his neighbours; but he bore them no malice for it.

The immediate cause of that spirited disaster, the intervention of

England on behalf of the new Hohenzollern throne, was due, of course,

to the national policy of the first William Pitt. He was the kind of man

whose vanity and simplicity are too easily overwhelmed by the obvious.

He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and

nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless

glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs,

sceptical but still healthy-minded, and neither good enough nor bad

enough to understand that even the war of that irreligious age was

ultimately a religious war. He had not a shade of irony in his whole

being; and beside Frederick, already as old as sin, he was like a rather

brilliant schoolboy.

But the direct causes were not the only causes, nor the true ones. The

true causes were connected with the triumph of one of the two traditions

which had long been struggling in England. And it is pathetic to record

that the foreign tradition was then represented by two of the ablest men

of that age, Frederick of Prussia and Pitt; while what was really the

old English tradition was represented by two of the stupidest men that

mankind ever tolerated in any age, George III. and Lord Bute. Bute was

the figurehead of a group of Tories who set about fulfilling the fine if

fanciful scheme for a democratic monarchy sketched by Bolingbroke in

“The Patriot King.” It was bent in all sincerity on bringing men’s minds

back to what are called domestic affairs, affairs as domestic as George

III. It might have arrested the advancing corruption of Parliaments and

enclosure of country-sides, by turning men’s minds from the foreign

glories of the great Whigs like Churchill and Chatham; and one of its

first acts was to terminate the alliance with Prussia. Unfortunately,

whatever was picturesque in the piracy of Potsdam was beyond the

imagination of Windsor. But whatever was prosaic in Potsdam was already

established at Windsor; the economy of cold mutton, the heavy-handed

taste in the arts, and the strange northern blend of boorishness with

etiquette. If Bolingbroke’s ideas had been applied by a spirited person,

by a Stuart, for example, or even by Queen Elizabeth (who had real

spirit along with her extraordinary vulgarity), the national soul might

have broken free from its new northern chains. But it was the irony of

the situation that the King to whom Tories appealed as a refuge from

Germanism was himself a German.

We have thus to refer the origins of the German influence in England

back to the beginning of the Hanoverian Succession; and thence back to

the quarrel between the King and the lawyers which had issue at Naseby;

and thence again to the angry exit of Henry VIII. from the mediaeval

council of Europe. It is easy to exaggerate the part played in the

matter by that great and human, though very pagan person, Martin Luther.

Henry VIII. was sincere in his hatred for the heresies of the German

monk, for in speculative opinions Henry was wholly Catholic; and the two

wrote against each other innumerable pages, largely consisting of terms

of abuse, which were pretty well deserved on both sides. But Luther was

not a Lutheran. He was a sign of the break-up of Catholicism; but he was

not a builder of Protestantism. The countries which became corporately

and democratically Protestant, Scotland, for instance, and Holland,

followed Calvin and not Luther. And Calvin was a Frenchman; an

unpleasant Frenchman, it is true, but one full of that French capacity

for creating official entities which can really act, and have a kind of

impersonal personality, such as the French Monarchy or the Terror.

Luther was an anarchist, and therefore a dreamer. He made that which is,

perhaps, in the long run, the fullest and most shining manifestation of

failure; he made a name. Calvin made an active, governing, persecuting

thing, called the Kirk. There is something expressive of him in the fact

that he called even his work of abstract theology “The Institutes.”

In England, however, there were elements of chaos more akin to Luther

than to Calvin. And we may thus explain many things which appear rather

puzzling in our history, notably the victory of Cromwell not only over

the English Royalists but over the Scotch Covenanters. It was the

victory of that more happy-go-lucky sort of Protestantism, which had in

it much of aristocracy but much also of liberty, over that logical

ambition of the Kirk which would have made Protestantism, if possible,

as constructive as Catholicism had been. It might be called the victory

of Individualist Puritanism over Socialist Puritanism. It was what

Milton meant when he said that the new presbyter was an exaggeration of

the old priest; it was his office that acted, and acted very harshly.

The enemies of the Presbyterians were not without a meaning when they

called themselves Independents. To this day no one can understand

Scotland who does not realise that it retains much of its mediæval

sympathy with France, the French equality, the French pronunciation of

Latin, and, strange as it may sound, is in nothing so French as in its

Presbyterianism.

In this loose and negative sense only it may be said that the great

modern mistakes of England can be traced to Luther. It is true only in

this, that both in Germany and England a Protestantism softer and less

abstract than Calvinism was found useful to the compromises of courtiers

and aristocrats; for every abstract creed does something for human

equality. Lutheranism in Germany rapidly became what it is to-day—a

religion of court chaplains. The reformed church in England became

something better; it became a profession for the younger sons of

squires. But these parallel tendencies, in all their strength and

weakness, reached, as it were, symbolic culmination when the mediæval

monarchy was extinguished, and the English squires gave to what was

little more than a German squire the damaged and diminished crown.

It must be remembered that the Germanics were at that time used as a

sort of breeding-ground for princes. There is a strange process in

history by which things that decay turn into the very opposite of

themselves. Thus in England Puritanism began as the hardest of creeds,

but has ended as the softest; soft-hearted and not unfrequently

soft-headed. Of old the Puritan in war was certainly the Puritan at his

best; it was the Puritan in peace whom no Christian could be expected to

stand. Yet those Englishmen to-day who claim descent from the great

militarists of 1649 express the utmost horror of militarism. An

inversion of an opposite kind has taken place in Germany. Out of the

country that was once valued as providing a perpetual supply of kings

small enough to be stop-gaps, has come the modern menace of the one

great king who would swallow the kingdoms of the earth. But the old

German kingdoms preserved, and were encouraged to preserve, the good

things that go with small interests and strict boundaries, music,

etiquette, a dreamy philosophy, and so on. They were small enough to be

universal. Their outlook could afford to be in some degree broad and

many-sided. They had the impartiality of impotence. All this has been

utterly reversed, and we find ourselves at war with a Germany whose

powers are the widest and whose outlook is the narrowest in the world.

It is true, of course, that the English squires put themselves over the

new German prince rather than under him. They put the crown on him as an

extinguisher. It was part of the plan that the new-comer, though royal,

should be almost rustic. Hanover must be one of England’s possessions

and not England one of Hanover’s. But the fact that the court became a

German court prepared the soil, so to speak; English politics were

already subconsciously committed to two centuries of the belittlement of

France and the gross exaggeration of Germany. The period can be

symbolically marked out by Carteret, proud of talking German at the

beginning of the period, and Lord Haldane, proud of talking German at

the end of it. Culture is already almost beginning to be spelt with a k.

But all such pacific and only slowly growing Teutonism was brought to a

crisis and a decision when the voice of Pitt called us, like a trumpet,

to the rescue of the Protestant Hero.

Among all the monarchs of that faithless age, the nearest to a man was a

woman. Maria Theresa of Austria was a German of the more generous sort,

limited in a domestic rather than a national sense, firm in the ancient

faith at which all her own courtiers were sneering, and as brave as a

young lioness. Frederick hated her as he hated everything German and

everything good. He sets forth in his own memoirs, with that clearness

which adds something almost superhuman to the mysterious vileness of his

character, how he calculated on her youth, her inexperience and her lack

of friends as proof that she could be despoiled with safety. He invaded

Silesia in advance of his own declaration of war (as if he had run on

ahead to say it was coming) and this new anarchic trick, combined with

the corruptibility of nearly all the other courts, left him after the

two Silesian wars in possession of the stolen goods. But Maria Theresa

had refused to submit to the immorality of nine points of the law. By

appeals and concessions to France, Russia, and other powers, she

contrived to create something which, against the atheist innovator even

in that atheist age, stood up for an instant like a spectre of the

Crusades. Had that Crusade been universal and whole-hearted, the great

new precedent of mere force and fraud would have been broken; and the

whole appalling judgment which is fallen upon Christendom would have

passed us by. But the other Crusaders were only half in earnest for

Europe; Frederick was quite in earnest for Prussia; and he sought for

allies, by whose aid this weak revival of good might be stamped out, and

his adamantine impudence endure for ever. The allies he found were the

English. It is not pleasant for an Englishman to have to write the

words.

This was the first act of the tragedy, and with it we may leave

Frederick, for we are done with the fellow though not with his work. It

is enough to add that if we call all his after actions satanic, it is

not a term of abuse, but of theology. He was a Tempter. He dragged the

other kings to “partake of the body of Poland,” and learn the meaning of

the Black Mass. Poland lay prostrate before three giants in armour, and

her name passed into a synonym for failure. The Prussians, with their

fine magnanimity, gave lectures on the hereditary maladies of the man

they had murdered. They could not conceive of life in those limbs; and

the time was far off when they should be undeceived. In that day five

nations were to partake not of the body, but of the spirit of Poland;

and the trumpet of the resurrection of the peoples should be blown from

Warsaw to the western isles.

III—The Enigma of Waterloo

That great Englishman Charles Fox, who was as national as Nelson, went

to his death with the firm conviction that England had made Napoleon. He

did not mean, of course, that any other Italian gunner would have done

just as well; but he did mean that by forcing the French back on their

guns, as it were, we had made their chief gunner necessarily their chief

citizen. Had the French Republic been left alone, it would probably have

followed the example of most other ideal experiments; and praised peace

along with progress and equality. It would almost certainly have eyed

with the coldest suspicion any adventurer who appeared likely to

substitute his personality for the pure impersonality of the Sovereign

People; and would have considered it the very flower of republican

chastity to provide a Brutus for such a Caesar. But if it was

undesirable that equality should be threatened by a citizen, it was

intolerable that it should be simply forbidden by a foreigner. If

France could not put up with French soldiers she would very soon have to

put up with Austrian soldiers; and it would be absurd if, having decided

to rely on soldiering, she had hampered the best French soldier even on the

ground that he was not French. So that whether we regard Napoleon as a

hero rushing to the country’s help, or a tyrant profiting by the

country’s extremity, it is equally clear that those who made the war

made the war-lord; and those who tried to destroy the Republic were

those who created the Empire. So, at least, Fox argued against that much

less English prig who would have called him unpatriotic; and he threw

the blame upon Pitt’s Government for having joined the anti-French

alliance, and so tipped up the scale in favour of a military France. But

whether he was right or no, he would have been the readiest to admit

that England was not the first to fly at the throat of the young

Republic. Something in Europe much vaster and vaguer had from the first

stirred against it. What was it then that first made war—and made

Napoleon? There is only one possible answer: the Germans. This is the

second act of our drama of the degradation of England to the level of

Germany. And it has this very important development; that Germany means

by this time all the Germans, just as it does to-day. The savagery of

Prussia and the stupidity of Austria are now combined. Mercilessness and

muddleheadedness are met together; unrighteousness and unreasonableness

have kissed each other; and the tempter and the tempted are agreed. The

great and good Maria Theresa was already old. She had a son who was a

philosopher of the school of Frederick; also a daughter who was more

fortunate, for she was guillotined. It was natural, no doubt, that her

brother and relatives should disapprove of the incident; but it occurred

long after the whole Germanic power had been hurled against the new

Republic. Louis XVI. himself was still alive and nominally ruling when

the first pressure came from Prussia and Austria, demanding that the

trend of the French emancipation should be reversed. It is impossible to

deny, therefore, that what the united Germanics were resolved to destroy

was the reform and not even the Revolution. The part which Joseph of

Austria played in the matter is symbolic. For he was what is called an

enlightened despot, which is the worst kind of despot. He was as

irreligious as Frederick the Great, but not so disgusting or amusing.

The old and kindly Austrian family, of which Maria Theresa was the

affectionate mother, and Marie Antoinette the rather uneducated

daughter, was already superseded and summed up by a rather dried-up

young man self-schooled to a Prussian efficiency. The needle is already

veering northward. Prussia is already beginning to be the captain of the

Germanics “in shining armour.” Austria is already becoming a loyal

sekundant.

But there still remains one great difference between Austria and Prussia

which developed more and more as the energy of the young Napoleon was

driven like a wedge between them. The difference can be most shortly

stated by saying that Austria did, in some blundering and barbaric way,

care for Europe; but Prussia cared for nothing but Prussia. Austria is

not a nation; you cannot really find Austria on the map. But Austria is

a kind of Empire; a Holy Roman Empire that never came, an expanding and

contracting-dream. It does feel itself, in a vague patriarchal way, the

leader, not of a nation, but of nations. It is like some dying Emperor

of Rome in the decline; who should admit that the legions had been

withdrawn from Britain or from Parthia, but would feel it as

fundamentally natural that they should have been there, as in Sicily or

Southern Gaul. I would not assert that the aged Francis Joseph imagines

that he is Emperor of Scotland or of Denmark; but I should guess that he

retains some notion that if he did rule both the Scots and the Danes, it

would not be more incongruous than his ruling both the Hungarians and

the Poles. This cosmopolitanism of Austria has in it a kind of shadow of

responsibility for Christendom. And it was this that made the difference

between its proceedings and those of the purely selfish adventurer from

the north, the wild dog of Pomerania.

It may be believed, as Fox himself came at last to believe, that

Napoleon in his latest years was really an enemy to freedom, in the

sense that he was an enemy to that very special and occidental form of

freedom which we call Nationalism. The resistance of the Spaniards, for

instance, was certainly a popular resistance. It had that peculiar,

belated, almost secretive strength with which war is made by the people.

It was quite easy for a conqueror to get into Spain; his great

difficulty was to get out again. It was one of the paradoxes of history

that he who had turned the mob into an army, in defence of its rights

against the princes, should at last have his army worn down, not by

princes but by mobs. It is equally certain that at the other end of

Europe, in burning Moscow and on the bridge of the Beresina, he had

found the common soul, even as he had found the common sky, his enemy.

But all this does not affect the first great lines of the quarrel, which

had begun before horsemen in Germanic uniform had waited vainly upon the

road to Varennes or had failed upon the miry slope up to the windmill of

Valmy. And that duel, on which depended all that our Europe has since

become, had great Russia and gallant Spain and our own glorious island

only as subordinates or seconds. That duel, first, last, and for ever,

was a duel between the Frenchman and the German; that is, between the

citizen and the barbarian.

It is not necessary nowadays to defend the French Revolution, it is not

necessary to defend even Napoleon, its child and champion, from

criticisms in the style of Southey and Alison, which even at the time

had more of the atmosphere of Bath and Cheltenham than of Turcoing and

Talavera. The French Revolution was attacked because it was democratic

and defended because it was democratic; and Napoleon was not feared as

the last of the iron despots, but as the first of the iron democrats.

What France set out to prove France has proved; not that common men are

all angels, or all diplomatists, or all gentlemen (for these inane

aristocratic illusions were no part of the Jacobin theory), but that

common men can all be citizens and can all be soldiers; that common men

can fight and can rule. There is no need to confuse the question with

any of those escapades of a floundering modernism which have made

nonsense of this civic common-sense. Some Free Traders have seemed to

leave a man no country to fight for; some Free Lovers seem to leave a

man no household to rule. But these things have not established

themselves either in France or anywhere else. What has been established

is not Free Trade or Free Love, but Freedom; and it is nowhere so

patriotic or so domestic as in the country from which it came. The poor

men of France have not loved the land less because they have shared it.

Even the patricians are patriots; and if some honest Royalists or

aristocrats are still saying that democracy cannot organise and cannot

obey, they are none the less organised by it and obeying it, nobly

living or splendidly dead for it, along the line from Switzerland to the

sea.

But for Austria, and even more for Russia, there was this to be said;

that the French Republican ideal was incomplete, and that they

possessed, in a corrupt but still positive and often popular sense, what

was needed to complete it. The Czar was not democratic, but he was

humanitarian. He was a Christian Pacifist; there is something of the

Tolstoyan in every Russian. It is not wholly fanciful to talk of the

White Czar: for Russia even destruction has a deathly softness as of

snow. Her ideas are often innocent and even childish; like the idea of

Peace. The phrase Holy Alliance was a beautiful truth for the Czar,

though only a blasphemous jest for his rascally allies, Metternich and

Castlereagh. Austria, though she had lately fallen to a somewhat

treasonable toying with heathens and heretics of Turkey and Prussia,

still retained something of the old Catholic comfort for the soul.

Priests still bore witness to that mighty mediaeval institution which

even its enemies concede to be a noble nightmare. All their hoary

political iniquities had not deprived them of that dignity. If they

darkened the sun in heaven, they clothed it with the strong colours of

sunrise in garment or gloriole; if they had given men stones for bread,

the stones were carved with kindly faces and fascinating tales. If

justice counted on their shameful gibbets hundreds of the innocent dead,

they could still say that for them death was more hopeful than life for

the heathen. If the new daylight discovered their vile tortures, there

had lingered in the darkness some dim memory that they were tortures of

Purgatory and not, like those which Parisian and Prussian diabolists

showed shameless in the sunshine, of naked hell. They claimed a truth

not yet disentangled from human nature; for indeed earth is not even

earth without heaven, as a landscape is not a landscape without the sky.

And in, a universe without God there is not room enough for a man.

It may be held, therefore, that there must in any case have come a

conflict between the old world and the new; if only because the old are

often broad, while the young are always narrow. The Church had learnt,

not at the end but at the beginning of her centuries, that the funeral

of God is always a premature burial. If the bugles of Bonaparte raised

the living populace of the passing hour, she could blow that yet more

revolutionary trumpet that shall raise all the democracy of the dead.

But if we concede that collision was inevitable between the new Republic

on the one hand and Holy Russia and the Holy Roman Empire on the other,

there remain two great European forces which, in different attitudes and

from very different motives, determined the ultimate combination.

Neither of them had any tincture of Catholic mysticism. Neither of them

had any tincture of Jacobin idealism. Neither of them, therefore, had

any real moral reason for being in the war at all. The first was

England, and the second was Prussia.

It is very arguable that England must, in any case, have fought to keep

her influence on the ports of the North Sea. It is quite equally

arguable that if she had been as heartily on the side of the French

Revolution as she was at last against it, she could have claimed the

same concessions from the other side. It is certain that England had no

necessary communion with the arms and tortures of the Continental

tyrannies, and that she stood at the parting of the ways. England was

indeed an aristocracy, but a liberal one; and the ideas growing in the

middle classes were those which had already made America, and were

remaking France. The fiercest Jacobins, such as Danton, were deep in the

liberal literature of England. The people had no religion to fight for,

as in Russia or La Vendée. The parson was no longer a priest, and had

long been a small squire. Already that one great blank in our land had

made snobbishness the only religion of South England; and turned rich

men into a mythology. The effect can be well summed up in that decorous

abbreviation by which our rustics speak of “Lady’s Bedstraw,” where they

once spoke of “Our Lady’s Bedstraw.” We have dropped the comparatively

democratic adjective, and kept the aristocratic noun. South England is

still, as it was called in the Middle Ages, a garden; but it is the kind

where grow the plants called “lords and ladies.”

We became more and more insular even about our continental conquests; we

stood upon our island as if on an anchored ship. We never thought of

Nelson at Naples, but only eternally at Trafalgar; and even that Spanish

name we managed to pronounce wrong. But even if we regard the first

attack upon Napoleon as a national necessity, the general trend remains

true. It only changes the tale from a tragedy of choice to a tragedy of

chance. And the tragedy was that, for a second time, we were at one with

the Germans.

But if England had nothing to fight for but a compromise, Prussia had

nothing to fight for but a negation. She was and is, in the supreme

sense, the spirit that denies. It is as certain that she was fighting

against liberty in Napoleon as it is that she was fighting against

religion in Maria Theresa. What she was fighting for she would have

found it quite impossible to tell you. At the best, it was for Prussia;

if it was anything else, it was tyranny. She cringed to Napoleon when he

beat her, and only joined in the chase when braver people had beaten

him. She professed to restore the Bourbons, and tried to rob them while

she was restoring them. For her own hand she would have wrecked the

Restoration with the Revolution. Alone in all that agony of peoples, she

had not the star of one solitary ideal to light the night of her

nihilism.

The French Revolution has a quality which all men feel; and which may be

called a sudden antiquity. Its classicalism was not altogether a cant.

When it had happened it seemed to have happened thousands of years ago.

It spoke in parables; in the hammering of spears and the awful cap of

Phrygia. To some it seemed to pass like a vision; and yet it seemed

eternal as a group of statuary. One almost thought of its most strenuous

figures as naked. It is always with a shock of comicality that we

remember that its date was so recent that umbrellas were fashionable

and top-hats beginning to be tried. And it is a curious fact, giving a

kind of completeness to this sense of the thing as something that

happened outside the world, that its first great act of arms and also

its last were both primarily symbols; and but for this visionary

character, were in a manner vain. It began with the taking of the old

and almost empty prison called the Bastille; and we always think of it

as the beginning of the Revolution, though the real Revolution did not

come till some time after. And it ended when Wellington and Blucher met

in 1815; and we always think of it as the end of Napoleon; though

Napoleon had really fallen before. And the popular imagery is right, as

it generally is in such things: for the mob is an artist, though not a

man of science. The riot of the 14th of July did not specially deliver

prisoners inside the Bastille, but it did deliver the prisoners outside.

Napoleon when he returned was indeed a revenant, that is, a ghost. But

Waterloo was all the more final in that it was a spectral resurrection

and a second death. And in this second case there were other elements

that were yet more strangely symbolic. That doubtful and double battle

before Waterloo was like the dual personality in a dream. It

corresponded curiously to the double mind of the Englishman. We connect

Quatre Bras with things romantically English to the verge of

sentimentalism, with Byron and “The Black Brunswicker.” We naturally

sympathise with Wellington against Ney. We do not sympathise, and even

then we did not really sympathise, with Blucher against Napoleon.

Germany has complained that we passed over lightly the presence of

Prussians at the decisive action. And well we might. Even at the time

our sentiment was not solely jealousy, but very largely shame.

Wellington, the grimmest and even the most unamiable of Tories, with no

French sympathies and not enough human ones, has recorded his opinion of

his Prussian allies in terms of curt disgust. Peel, the primmest and

most snobbish Tory that ever praised “our gallant Allies” in a frigid

official speech, could not contain himself about the conduct of

Blucher’s men. Our middle classes did well to adorn their parlours with

the picture of the “Meeting of Wellington and Blucher.” They should

have hung up a companion piece of Pilate and Herod shaking hands. Then,

after that meeting amid the ashes of Hougomont, where they dreamed they

had trodden out the embers of all democracy, the Prussians rode on

before, doing after their kind. After them went that ironical aristocrat

out of embittered Ireland, with what thoughts we know; and Blucher, with

what thoughts we care not; and his soldiers entered Paris, and stole the

sword of Joan of Arc.

IV—The Coming of the Janissaries

The late Lord Salisbury, a sad and humorous man, made many public and

serious remarks that have been proved false and perilous, and many

private and frivolous remarks which were valuable and ought to be

immortal. He struck dead the stiff and false psychology of “social

reform,” with its suggestion that the number of public-houses made

people drunk, by saying that there were a number of bedrooms at

Hatfield, but they never made him sleepy. Because of this it is possible

to forgive him for having talked about “living and dying nations”:

though it is of such sayings that living nations die. In the same spirit

he included the nation of Ireland in the “Celtic fringe” upon the west

of England. It seems sufficient to remark that the fringe is

considerably broader than the garment. But the fearful satire of time

has very sufficiently avenged the Irish nation upon him, largely by the

instrumentality of another fragment of the British robe which he cast

away almost contemptuously in the North Sea. The name of it is

Heligoland; and he gave it to the Germans.

The subsequent history of the two islands on either side of England has

been sufficiently ironical. If Lord Salisbury had foreseen exactly what

would happen to Heligoland, as well as to Ireland, he might well have

found no sleep at Hatfield in one bedroom or a hundred. In the eastern

isle he was strengthening a fortress that would one day be called upon

to destroy us. In the western isle he was weakening a fortress that

would one day be called upon to save us. In that day his trusted ally,

William Hohenzollern, was to batter our ships and boats from the Bight

of Heligoland; and in that day his old and once-imprisoned enemy, John

Redmond, was to rise in the hour of English jeopardy, and be thanked in

thunder for the free offer of the Irish sword. All that Robert Cecil

thought valueless has been our loss, and all that he thought feeble our

stay. Among those of his political class or creed who accepted and

welcomed the Irish leader’s alliance, there were some who knew the real

past relations between England and Ireland, and some who first felt

them in that hour. All knew that England could no longer be a mere

mistress; many knew that she was now in some sense a suppliant. Some

knew that she deserved to be a suppliant. These were they who knew a

little of the thing called history; and if they thought at all of such

dead catchwords as the “Celtic fringe” for a description of Ireland, it

was to doubt whether we were worthy to kiss the hem of her garment. If

there be still any Englishman who thinks such language extravagant, this

chapter is written to enlighten him.

In the last two chapters I have sketched in outline the way in which

England, partly by historical accident, but partly also by false

philosophy, was drawn into the orbit of Germany, the centre of whose

circle was already at Berlin. I need not recapitulate the causes at all

fully here. Luther was hardly a heresiarch for England, though a hobby

for Henry VIII. But the negative Germanism of the Reformation, its drag

towards the north, its quarantine against Latin culture, was in a sense

the beginning of the business. It is well represented in two facts; the

barbaric refusal of the new astronomical calendar merely because it was

invented by a Pope, and the singular decision to pronounce Latin as if

it were something else, making it not a dead language but a new

language. Later, the part played by particular royalties is complex and

accidental; “the furious German” came and passed; the much less

interesting Germans came and stayed. Their influence was negative but

not negligible; they kept England out of that current of European life

into which the Gallophil Stuarts might have carried her. Only one of the

Hanoverians was actively German; so German that he actually gloried in

the name of Briton, and spelt it wrong. Incidentally, he lost America.

It is notable that all those eminent among the real Britons, who spelt

it right, respected and would parley with the American Revolution,

however jingo or legitimist they were; the romantic conservative Burke,

the earth-devouring Imperialist Chatham, even, in reality, the jog-trot

Tory North. The intractability was in the Elector of Hanover more than

in the King of England; in the narrow and petty German prince who was

bored by Shakespeare and approximately inspired by Handel. What really

clinched the unlucky companionship of England and Germany was the first

and second alliance with Prussia; the first in which we prevented the

hardening tradition of Frederick the Great being broken up by the Seven

Years’ War; the second in which we prevented it being broken up by the

French Revolution and Napoleon. In the first we helped Prussia to escape

like a young brigand; in the second we helped the brigand to adjudicate

as a respectable magistrate. Having aided his lawlessness, we defended

his legitimacy. We helped to give the Bourbon prince his crown, though

our allies the Prussians (in their cheery way) tried to pick a few

jewels out of it before he got it. Through the whole of that period, so

important in history, it must be said that we were to be reckoned on for

the support of unreformed laws and the rule of unwilling subjects. There

is, as it were, an ugly echo even to the name of Nelson in the name of

Naples. But whatever is to be said of the cause, the work which we did

in it, with steel and gold, was so able and strenuous that an Englishman

can still be proud of it. We never performed a greater task than that

in which we, in a sense, saved Germany, save that in which a hundred

years later, we have now, in a sense, to destroy her. History tends to

be a facade of faded picturesqueness for most of those who have not

specially studied it: a more or less monochrome background for the drama

of their own day. To these it may well seem that it matters little

whether we were on one side or the other in a fight in which all the

figures are antiquated; Bonaparte and Blucher are both in old cocked

hats; French kings and French regicides are both not only dead men but

dead foreigners; the whole is a tapestry as decorative and as arbitrary

as the Wars of the Roses. It was not so: we fought for something real

when we fought for the old world against the new. If we want to know

painfully and precisely what it was, we must open an old and sealed and

very awful door, on a scene which was called Ireland, but which then

might well have been called hell.

Having chosen our part and made war upon the new world, we were soon

made to understand what such spiritual infanticide involved; and were

committed to a kind of Massacre of the Innocents. In Ireland the young

world was represented by young men, who shared the democratic dream of

the Continent, and were resolved to foil the plot of Pitt; who was

working a huge machine of corruption to its utmost to absorb Ireland

into the Anti-Jacobin scheme of England. There was present every

coincidence that could make the British rulers feel they were mere

abbots of misrule. The stiff and self-conscious figure of Pitt has

remained standing incongruously purse in hand; while his manlier rivals

were stretching out their hands for the sword, the only possible resort

of men who cannot be bought and refuse to be sold. A rebellion broke out

and was repressed; and the government that repressed it was ten times

more lawless than the rebellion. Fate for once seemed to pick out a

situation in plain black and white like an allegory; a tragedy of

appalling platitudes. The heroes were really heroes; and the villains

were nothing but villains. The common tangle of life, in which good men

do evil by mistake and bad men do good by accident, seemed suspended for

us as for a judgment. We had to do things that not only were vile, but

felt vile. We had to destroy men who not only were noble, but looked

noble. They were men like Wolfe Tone, a statesman in the grand style who

was not suffered to found a state; and Robert Emmet, lover of his land

and of a woman, in whose very appearance men saw something of the eagle

grace of the young Napoleon. But he was luckier than the young Napoleon;

for he has remained young. He was hanged; not before he had uttered one

of those phrases that are the hinges of history. He made an epitaph of

the refusal of an epitaph: and with a gesture has hung his tomb in

heaven like Mahomet’s coffin. Against such Irishmen we could only

produce Castlereagh; one of the few men in human records who seem to

have been made famous solely that they might be infamous. He sold his

own country, he oppressed ours; for the rest he mixed his metaphors, and

has saddled two separate and sensible nations with the horrible mixed

metaphor called the Union. Here there is no possible see-saw of

sympathies as there can be between Brutus and Caesar or between Cromwell

and Charles I.: there is simply nobody who supposes that Emmet was out

for worldly gain, or that Castlereagh was out for anything else. Even

the incidental resemblances between the two sides only served to sharpen

the contrast and the complete superiority of the nationalists. Thus,

Castlereagh and Lord Edward Fitzgerald were both aristocrats. But

Castlereagh was the corrupt gentleman at the Court, Fitzgerald the

generous gentleman upon the land; some portion of whose blood, along

with some portion of his spirit, descended to that great gentleman,

who—in the midst of the emetic immoralism of our modern politics—gave

back that land to the Irish peasantry. Thus again, all such

eighteenth-century aristocrats (like aristocrats almost anywhere) stood

apart from the popular mysticism and the shrines of the poor; they were

theoretically Protestants, but practically pagans. But Tone was the type

of pagan who refuses to persecute, like Gallio: Pitt was the type of

pagan who consents to persecute; and his place is with Pilate. He was an

intolerant indifferentist; ready to enfranchise the Papists, but more

ready to massacre them. Thus, once more, the two pagans, Tone and

Castlereagh, found a pagan end in suicide. But the circumstances were

such that any man, of any party, felt that Tone had died like Cato and

Castlereagh had died like Judas.

The march of Pitt’s policy went on; and the chasm between light and

darkness deepened. Order was restored; and wherever order spread, there

spread an anarchy more awful than the sun has ever looked on. Torture

came out of the crypts of the Inquisition and walked in the sunlight of

the streets and fields. A village vicar was slain with inconceivable

stripes, and his corpse set on fire with frightful jests about a roasted

priest. Rape became a mode of government. The violation of virgins

became a standing order of police. Stamped still with the same terrible

symbolism, the work of the English Government and the English settlers

seemed to resolve itself into animal atrocities against the wives and

daughters of a race distinguished for a rare and detached purity, and of

a religion which makes of innocence the Mother of God. In its bodily

aspects it became like a war of devils upon angels; as if England could

produce nothing but torturers, and Ireland nothing but martyrs. Such

was a part of the price paid by the Irish body and the English soul, for

the privilege of patching up a Prussian after the sabre-stroke of Jena.

But Germany was not merely present in the spirit: Germany was present in

the flesh. Without any desire to underrate the exploits of the English

or the Orangemen, I can safely say that the finest touches were added by

soldiers trained in a tradition inherited from the horrors of the Thirty

Years’ War, and of what the old ballad called “the cruel wars of High

Germanie.” An Irishman I know, whose brother is a soldier, and who has

relatives in many distinguished posts of the British army, told me that

in his childhood the legend (or rather the truth) of ‘98 was so

frightfully alive that his own mother would not have the word “soldier”

spoken in her house. Wherever we thus find the tradition alive we find

that the hateful soldier means especially the German soldier. When the

Irish say, as some of them do say, that the German mercenary was worse

than the Orangemen, they say as much as human mouth can utter. Beyond

that there is nothing but the curse of God, which shall be uttered in

an unknown tongue.

The practice of using German soldiers, and even whole German regiments,

in the make-up of the British army, came in with our German princes, and

reappeared on many important occasions in our eighteenth-century

history. They were probably among those who encamped triumphantly upon

Drumossie Moor, and also (which is a more gratifying thought) among

those who ran away with great rapidity at Prestonpans. When that very

typical German, George III., narrow, serious, of a stunted culture and

coarse in his very domesticity, quarrelled with all that was spirited,

not only in the democracy of America but in the aristocracy of England,

German troops were very fitted to be his ambassadors beyond the

Atlantic. With their well-drilled formations they followed Burgoyne in

that woodland march that failed at Saratoga; and with their wooden faces

beheld our downfall. Their presence had long had its effect in various

ways. In one way, curiously enough, their very militarism helped England

to be less military; and especially to be more mercantile. It began to

be felt, faintly of course and never consciously, that fighting was a

thing that foreigners had to do. It vaguely increased the prestige of

the Germans as the military people, to the disadvantage of the French,

whom it was the interest of our vanity to underrate. The mere mixture of

their uniforms with ours made a background of pageantry in which it

seemed more and more natural that English and German potentates should

salute each other like cousins, and, in a sense, live in each other’s

countries. Thus in 1908 the German Emperor was already regarded as

something of a menace by the English politicians, and as nothing but a

madman by the English people. Yet it did not seem in any way disgusting

or dangerous that Edward VII. should appear upon occasion in a Prussian

uniform. Edward VII. was himself a friend to France, and worked for the

French Alliance. Yet his appearance in the red trousers of a French

soldier would have struck many people as funny; as funny as if he had

dressed up as a Chinaman.

But the German hirelings or allies had another character which (by that

same strain of evil coincidence which we are tracing in this book)

encouraged all that was worst in the English conservatism and

inequality, while discouraging all that was best in it. It is true that

the ideal Englishman was too much of a squire; but it is just to add

that the ideal squire was a good squire. The best squire I know in

fiction is Duke Theseus in “The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” who is kind to

his people and proud of his dogs; and would be a perfect human being if

he were not just a little bit prone to be kind to both of them in the

same way. But such natural and even pagan good-nature is consonant with

the warm wet woods and comfortable clouds of South England; it never had

any place among the harsh and thrifty squires in the plains of East

Prussia, the land of the East Wind. They were peevish as well as proud,

and everything they created, but especially their army, was made

coherent by sheer brutality. Discipline was cruel enough in all the

eighteenth-century armies, created long after the decay of any faith or

hope that could hold men together. But the state that was first in

Germany was first in ferocity. Frederick the Great had to forbid his

English admirers to follow his regiments during the campaign, lest they

should discover that the most enlightened of kings had only excluded

torture from law to impose it without law. This influence, as we have

seen, left on Ireland a fearful mark which will never be effaced.

English rule in Ireland had been bad before; but in the broadening light

of the revolutionary century I doubt whether it could have continued as

bad, if we had not taken a side that forced us to flatter barbarian

tyranny in Europe. We should hardly have seen such a nightmare as the

Anglicising of Ireland if we had not already seen the Germanising of

England. But even in England it was not without its effects; and one of

its effects was to rouse a man who is, perhaps, the best English witness

to the effect on the England of that time of the Alliance with Germany.

With that man I shall deal in the chapter that follows.

V—The Lost England

Telling the truth about Ireland is not very pleasant to a patriotic

Englishman; but it is very patriotic. It is the truth and nothing but

the truth which I have but touched on in the last chapter. Several

times, and especially at the beginning of this war, we narrowly escaped

ruin because we neglected that truth, and would insist on treating our

crimes of the ‘98 and after as very distant; while in Irish feeling, and

in fact, they are very near. Repentance of this remote sort is not at

all appropriate to the case, and will not do. It may be a good thing to

forget and forgive; but it is altogether too easy a trick to forget and

be forgiven.

The truth about Ireland is simply this: that the relations between

England and Ireland are the relations between two men who have to travel

together, one of whom tried to stab the other at the last stopping-place

or to poison the other at the last inn. Conversation may be courteous,

but it will be occasionally forced. The topic of attempted murder, its

examples in history and fiction, may be tactfully avoided in the

sallies; but it will be occasionally present in the thoughts. Silences,

not devoid of strain, will fall from time to time. The partially

murdered person may even think an assault unlikely to recur; but it is

asking too much, perhaps, to expect him to find it impossible to

imagine. And even if, as God grant, the predominant partner is really

sorry for his former manner of predominating, and proves it in some

unmistakable manner—as by saving the other from robbers at great

personal risk—the victim may still be unable to repress an abstract

psychological wonder about when his companion first began to feel like

that. Now this is not in the least an exaggerated parable of the

position of England towards Ireland, not only in ‘98, but far back from

the treason that broke the Treaty of Limerick and far onwards through

the Great Famine and after. The conduct of the English towards the Irish

after the Rebellion was quite simply the conduct of one man who traps

and binds another, and then calmly cuts him about with a knife. The

conduct during the Famine was quite simply the conduct of the first man

if he entertained the later moments of the second man, by remarking in a

chatty manner on the very hopeful chances of his bleeding to death. The

British Prime Minister publicly refused to stop the Famine by the use of

English ships. The British Prime Minister positively spread the Famine,

by making the half-starved populations of Ireland pay for the starved

ones. The common verdict of a coroner’s jury upon some emaciated wretch

was “Wilful murder by Lord John Russell”: and that verdict was not only

the verdict of Irish public opinion, but is the verdict of history. But

there were those in influential positions in England who were not

content with publicly approving the act, but publicly proclaimed the

motive. The Times, which had then a national authority and

respectability which gave its words a weight unknown in modern

journalism, openly exulted in the prospect of a Golden Age when the kind

of Irishman native to Ireland would be “as rare on the banks of the

Liffey as a red man on the banks of the Manhattan.” It seems

sufficiently frantic that such a thing should have been said by one

European of another, or even of a Red Indian, if Red Indians had

occupied anything like the place of the Irish then and since; if there

were to be a Red Indian Lord Chief Justice and a Red Indian

Commander-in-Chief, if the Red Indian Party in Congress, containing

first-rate orators and fashionable novelists, could have turned

Presidents in and out; if half the best troops of the country were

trained with the tomahawk and half the best journalism of the capital

written in picture-writing, if later, by general consent, the Chief

known as Pine in the Twilight, was the best living poet, or the Chief

Thin Red Fox, the ablest living dramatist. If that were realised, the

English critic probably would not say anything scornful of red men;

or certainly would be sorry he said it. But the extraordinary avowal

does mark what was most peculiar in the position. This has not been the

common case of misgovernment. It is not merely that the institutions we

set up were indefensible; though the curious mark of them is that they

were literally indefensible; from Wood’s Halfpence to the Irish Church

Establishment. There can be no more excuse for the method used by Pitt

than for the method used by Pigott. But it differs further from

ordinary misrule in the vital matter of its object. The coercion was not

imposed that the people might live quietly, but that the people might

die quietly. And then we sit in an owlish innocence of our sin, and

debate whether the Irish might conceivably succeed in saving Ireland.

We, as a matter of fact, have not even failed to save Ireland. We have

simply failed to destroy her.

It is not possible to reverse this judgment or to take away a single

count from it. Is there, then, anything whatever to be said for the

English in the matter? There is: though the English never by any chance

say it. Nor do the Irish say it; though it is in a sense a weakness as

well as a defence. One would think the Irish had reason to say anything

that can be said against the English ruling class, but they have not

said, indeed they have hardly discovered, one quite simple fact—that it

rules England. They are right in asking that the Irish should have a say

in the Irish government, but they are quite wrong in supposing that the

English have any particular say in English government. And I seriously

believe I am not deceived by any national bias, when I say that the

common Englishman would be quite incapable of the cruelties that were

committed in his name. But, most important of all, it is the historical

fact that there was another England, an England consisting of common

Englishmen, which not only certainly would have done better, but

actually did make some considerable attempt to do better. If anyone asks

for the evidence, the answer is that the evidence has been destroyed, or

at least deliberately boycotted: but can be found in the unfashionable

corners of literature; and, when found, is final. If anyone asks for the

great men of such a potential democratic England, the answer is that the

great men are labelled small men, or not labelled at all; have been

successfully belittled as the emancipation of which they dreamed has

dwindled. The greatest of them is now little more than a name; he is

criticised to be underrated and not to be understood; but he presented

all that alternative and more liberal Englishry; and was enormously

popular because he presented it. In taking him as the type of it we may

tell most shortly the whole of this forgotten tale. And, even when I

begin to tell it, I find myself in the presence of that ubiquitous evil

which is the subject of this book. It is a fact, and I think it is not a

coincidence, that in standing for a moment where this Englishman stood,

I again find myself confronted by the German soldier.

The son of a small Surrey farmer, a respectable Tory and churchman,

ventured to plead against certain extraordinary cruelties being

inflicted on Englishmen whose hands were tied, by the whips of German

superiors; who were then parading in English fields their stiff foreign

uniforms and their sanguinary foreign discipline. In the countries from

which they came, of course, such torments were the one monotonous means

of driving men on to perish in the dead dynastic quarrels of the north;

but to poor Will Cobbett, in his provincial island, knowing little but

the low hills and hedges around the little church where he now lies

buried, the incident seemed odd—nay, unpleasing. He knew, of course,

that there was then flogging in the British army also; but the German

standard was notoriously severe in such things, and was something of an

acquired taste. Added to which he had all sorts of old grandmotherly

prejudices about Englishmen being punished by Englishmen, and notions of

that sort. He protested, not only in speech, but actually in print. He

was soon made to learn the perils of meddling in the high politics of

the High Dutch militarists. The fine feelings of the foreign mercenaries

were soothed by Cobbett being flung into Newgate for two years and

beggared by a fine of £1000. That small incident is a small transparent

picture of the Holy Alliance; of what was really meant by a country,

once half liberalised, taking up the cause of the foreign kings. This,

and not “The Meeting of Wellington and Blucher,” should be engraved as

the great scene of the war. From this intemperate Fenians should learn

that the Teutonic mercenaries did not confine themselves solely to

torturing Irishmen. They were equally ready to torture Englishmen: for

mercenaries are mostly unprejudiced. To Cobbett’s eye we were suffering

from allies exactly as we should suffer from invaders. Boney was a

bogey; but the German was a nightmare, a thing actually sitting on top

of us. In Ireland the Alliance meant the ruin of anything and

everything Irish, from the creed of St. Patrick to the mere colour

green. But in England also it meant the ruin of anything and everything

English, from the Habeas Corpus Act to Cobbett.

After this affair of the scourging, he wielded his pen like a scourge

until he died. This terrible pamphleteer was one of those men who exist

to prove the distinction between a biography and a life. From his

biographies you will learn that he was a Radical who had once been a

Tory. From his life, if there were one, you would learn that he was

always a Radical because he was always a Tory. Few men changed less; it

was round him that the politicians like Pitt chopped and changed, like

fakirs dancing round a sacred rock. His secret is buried with him; it is

that he really cared about the English people. He was conservative

because he cared for their past, and liberal because he cared for their

future. But he was much more than this. He had two forms of moral

manhood very rare in our time: he was ready to uproot ancient successes,

and he was ready to defy oncoming doom. Burke said that few are the

partisans of a tyranny that has departed: he might have added that fewer

still are the critics of a tyranny that has remained. Burke certainly

was not one of them. While lashing himself into a lunacy against the

French Revolution, which only very incidentally destroyed the property

of the rich, he never criticised (to do him justice, perhaps never saw)

the English Revolution, which began with the sack of convents, and ended

with the fencing in of enclosures; a revolution which sweepingly and

systematically destroyed the property of the poor. While rhetorically

putting the Englishman in a castle, politically he would not allow him

on a common. Cobbett, a much more historical thinker, saw the beginning

of Capitalism in the Tudor pillage and deplored it; he saw the triumph

of Capitalism in the industrial cities and defied it. The paradox he was

maintaining really amounted to the assertion that Westminster Abbey is

rather more national than Welbeck Abbey. The same paradox would have led

him to maintain that a Warwickshire man had more reason to be proud of

Stratford-on-Avon than of Birmingham. He would no more have thought of

looking for England in Birmingham than of looking for Ireland in

Belfast.

The prestige of Cobbett’s excellent literary style has survived the

persecution of his equally excellent opinions. But that style also is

underrated through the loss of the real English tradition. More cautious

schools have missed the fact that the very genius of the English tongue

tends not only to vigour, but specially to violence. The Englishman of

the leading articles is calm, moderate, and restrained; but then the

Englishman of the leading articles is a Prussian. The mere English

consonants are full of Cobbett. Dr. Johnson was our great man of letters

when he said “stinks,” not when he said “putrefaction.” Take some common

phrase like “raining cats and dogs,” and note not only the extravagance

of imagery (though that is very Shakespearean), but a jagged energy in

the very spelling. Say “chats” and “chiens” and it is not the same.

Perhaps the old national genius has survived the urban enslavement most

spiritedly in our comic songs, admired by all men of travel and

continental culture, by Mr. George Moore as by Mr. Belloc. One (to

which I am much attached) had a chorus—

“O wind from the South

Blow mud in the mouth

Of Jane, Jane, Jane.”

Note, again, not only the tremendous vision of clinging soils carried

skywards in the tornado, but also the suitability of the mere sounds.

Say “bone” and “bouche” for mud and mouth and it is not the same.

Cobbett was a wind from the South; and if he occasionally seemed to stop

his enemies’ mouths with mud, it was the real soil of South England.

And as his seemingly mad language is very literary, so his seemingly mad

meaning is very historical. Modern people do not understand him because

they do not understand the difference between exaggerating a truth and

exaggerating a lie. He did exaggerate, but what he knew, not what he did

not know. He only appears paradoxical because he upheld tradition

against fashion. A paradox is a fantastic thing that is said once: a

fashion is a more fantastic thing that is said a sufficient number of

times. I could give numberless examples in Cobbett’s case, but I will

give only one. Anyone who finds himself full in the central path of

Cobbett’s fury sometimes has something like a physical shock. No one who

has read “The History of the Reformation” will ever forget the passage

(I forget the precise words) in which he says the mere thought of such a

person as Cranmer makes the brain reel, and, for an instant, doubt the

goodness of God; but that peace and faith flow back into the soul when

we remember that he was burned alive. Now this is extravagant. It takes

the breath away; and it was meant to. But what I wish to point out is

that a much more extravagant view of Cranmer was, in Cobbett’s day, the

accepted view of Cranmer; not as a momentary image, but as an immovable

historical monument. Thousands of parsons and penmen dutifully set down

Cranmer among the saints and martyrs; and there are many respectable

people who would do so still. This is not an exaggerated truth, but an

established lie. Cranmer was not such a monstrosity of meanness as

Cobbett implies; but he was mean. But there is no question of his being

less saintly than the parsonages believed; he was not a saint at all;

and not very attractive even as a sinner. He was no more a martyr for

being burned than Crippen for being hanged.

Cobbett was defeated because the English people was defeated. After the

frame-breaking riots, men, as men, were beaten: and machines, as

machines, had beaten them. Peterloo was as much the defeat of the

English as Waterloo was the defeat of the French. Ireland did not get

Home Rule because England did not get it. Cobbett would not forcibly

incorporate Ireland, least of all the corpse of Ireland. But before his

defeat Cobbett had an enormous following; his “Register” was what the

serial novels of Dickens were afterwards to be. Dickens, by the way,

inherited the same instinct for abrupt diction, and probably enjoyed

writing “gas and gaiters” more than any two other words in his works.

But Dickens was narrower than Cobbett, not by any fault of his own, but

because in the intervening epoch of the triumph of Scrooge and Gradgrind

the link with our Christian past had been lost, save in the single

matter of Christmas, which Dickens rescued romantically and by a

hair’s-breadth escape. Cobbett was a yeoman; that is, a man free and

farming a small estate. By Dickens’s time, yeomen seemed as antiquated

as bowmen. Cobbett was mediaeval; that is, he was in almost every way

the opposite of what that word means to-day. He was as egalitarian as

St. Francis, and as independent as Robin Hood. Like that other yeoman in

the ballad, he bore in hand a mighty bow; what some of his enemies would

have called a long bow. But though he sometimes overshot the mark of

truth, he never shot away from it, like Froude. His account of that

sixteenth century in which the mediaeval civilisation ended, is not more

and not less picturesque than Froude’s: the difference is in the dull

detail of truth. That crisis was not the foundling of a strong Tudor

monarchy, for the monarchy almost immediately perished; it was the

founding of a strong class holding all the capital and land, for it

holds them to this day. Cobbett would have asked nothing better than to

bend his mediaeval bow to the cry of “St. George for Merry England,” for

though he pointed to the other and uglier side of the Waterloo medal,

he was patriotic; and his premonitions were rather against Blucher than

Wellington. But if we take that old war-cry as his final word (and he

would have accepted it) we must note how every term in it points away

from what the modern plutocrats call either progress or empire. It

involves the invocation of saints, the most popular and the most

forbidden form of mediævalism. The modern Imperialist no more thinks of

St. George in England than he thinks of St. John in St. John’s Wood. It

is nationalist in the narrowest sense; and no one knows the beauty and

simplicity of the Middle Ages who has not seen St. George’s Cross

separate, as it was at Creçy or Flodden, and noticed how much finer a

flag it is than the Union Jack. And the word “merry” bears witness to an

England famous for its music and dancing before the coming of the

Puritans, the last traces of which have been stamped out by a social

discipline utterly un-English. Not for two years, but for ten decades

Cobbett has been in prison; and his enemy, the “efficient” foreigner,

has walked about in the sunlight, magnificent, and a model for men. I

do not think that even the Prussians ever boasted about “Merry Prussia.”

VI—Hamlet and the Danes

In the one classic and perfect literary product that ever came out of

Germany—I do not mean “Faust,” but Grimm’s Fairy Tales—there is a

gorgeous story about a boy who went through a number of experiences

without learning how to shudder. In one of them, I remember, he was

sitting by the fireside and a pair of live legs fell down the chimney

and walked about the room by themselves. Afterwards the rest fell down

and joined up; but this was almost an anti-climax. Now that is very

charming, and full of the best German domesticity. It suggests truly

what wild adventures the traveller can find by stopping at home. But it

also illustrates in various ways how that great German influence on

England, which is the matter of these essays, began in good things and

gradually turned to bad. It began as a literary influence, in the lurid

tales of Hoffmann, the tale of “Sintram,” and so on; the revisualising

of the dark background of forest behind our European cities. That old

German darkness was immeasurably livelier than the new German light. The

devils of Germany were much better than the angels. Look at the Teutonic

pictures of “The Three Huntsmen” and observe that while the wicked

huntsman is effective in his own way, the good huntsman is weak in every

way, a sort of sexless woman with a face like a teaspoon. But there is

more in these first forest tales, these homely horrors. In the earlier

stages they have exactly this salt of salvation, that the boy does not

shudder. They are made fearful that he may be fearless, not that he may

fear. As long as that limit is kept, the barbaric dreamland is decent;

and though individuals like Coleridge and De Quincey mixed it with worse

things (such as opium), they kept that romantic rudiment upon the whole.

But the one disadvantage of a forest is that one may lose one’s way in

it. And the one danger is not that we may meet devils, but that we may

worship them. In other words, the danger is one always associated, by

the instinct of folk-lore, with forests; it is enchantment, or the

fixed loss of oneself in some unnatural captivity or spiritual

servitude. And in the evolution of Germanism, from Hoffmann to

Hauptmann, we do see this growing tendency to take horror seriously,

which is diabolism. The German begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy

with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective.

The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin,

but rather with the goblin against the boy. There goes with it, as

always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the

forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the

Superman. Now it is just at this point that I for one, and most men who

love truth as well as tales, begin to lose interest. I am all for “going

out into the world to seek my fortune,” but I do not want to find

it—and find it is only being chained for ever among the frozen figures

of the Sieges Allees. I do not want to be an idolator, still less an

idol. I am all for going to fairyland, but I am also all for coming

back. That is, I will admire, but I will not be magnetised, either by

mysticism or militarism. I am all for German fantasy, but I will resist

German earnestness till I die. I am all for Grimm’s Fairy Tales; but if

there is such a thing as Grimm’s Law, I would break it, if I knew what

it was. I like the Prussian’s legs (in their beautiful boots) to fall

down the chimney and walk about my room. But when he procures a head and

begins to talk, I feel a little bored. The Germans cannot really be deep

because they will not consent to be superficial. They are bewitched by

art, and stare at it, and cannot see round it. They will not believe

that art is a light and slight thing—a feather, even if it be from an

angelic wing. Only the slime is at the bottom of a pool; the sky is on

the surface. We see this in that very typical process, the Germanising

of Shakespeare. I do not complain of the Germans forgetting that

Shakespeare was an Englishman. I complain of their forgetting that

Shakespeare was a man; that he had moods, that he made mistakes, and,

above all, that he knew his art was an art and not an attribute of

deity. That is what is the matter with the Germans; they cannot “ring

fancy’s knell”; their knells have no gaiety. The phrase of Hamlet about

“holding the mirror up to nature” is always quoted by such earnest

critics as meaning that art is nothing if not realistic. But it really

means (or at least its author really thought) that art is nothing if not

artificial. Realists, like other barbarians, really believe the

mirror; and therefore break the mirror. Also they leave out the phrase

“as ‘twere,” which must be read into every remark of Shakespeare, and

especially every remark of Hamlet. What I mean by believing the mirror,

and breaking it, can be recorded in one case I remember; in which a

realistic critic quoted German authorities to prove that Hamlet had a

particular psycho-pathological abnormality, which is admittedly nowhere

mentioned in the play. The critic was bewitched; he was thinking of

Hamlet as a real man, with a background behind him three dimensions

deep—which does not exist in a looking-glass. “The best in this kind

are but shadows.” No German commentator has ever made an adequate note

on that. Nevertheless, Shakespeare was an Englishman; he was nowhere

more English than in his blunders; but he was nowhere more successful

than in the description of very English types of character. And if

anything is to be said about Hamlet, beyond what Shakespeare has said

about him, I should say that Hamlet was an Englishman too. He was as

much an Englishman as he was a gentleman, and he had the very grave

weaknesses of both characters. The chief English fault, especially in

the nineteenth century, has been lack of decision, not only lack of

decision in action, but lack of the equally essential decision in

thought—which some call dogma. And in the politics of the last century,

this English Hamlet, as we shall see, played a great part, or rather

refused to play it.

There were, then, two elements in the German influence; a sort of pretty

playing with terror and a solemn recognition of terrorism. The first

pointed to elfland, and the second to—shall we say, Prussia. And by

that unconscious symbolism with which all this story develops, it was

soon to be dramatically tested, by a definite political query, whether

what we really respected was the Teutonic fantasy or the Teutonic fear.

The Germanisation of England, its transition and turning-point, was well

typified by the genius of Carlyle. The original charm of Germany had

been the charm of the child. The Teutons were never so great as when

they were childish; in their religious art and popular imagery the

Christ-Child is really a child, though the Christ is hardly a man. The

self-conscious fuss of their pedagogy is half-redeemed by the

unconscious grace which called a school not a seed-plot of citizens, but

merely a garden of children. All the first and best forest-spirit is

infancy, its wonder, its wilfulness, even its still innocent fear.

Carlyle marks exactly the moment when the German child becomes the

spoilt child. The wonder turns to mere mysticism; and mere mysticism

always turns to mere immoralism. The wilfulness is no longer liked, but

is actually obeyed. The fear becomes a philosophy. Panic hardens into

pessimism; or else, what is often equally depressing, optimism.

Carlyle, the most influential English writer of that time, marks all

this by the mental interval between his “French Revolution” and his

“Frederick the Great.” In both he was Germanic. Carlyle was really as

sentimental as Goethe; and Goethe was really as sentimental as Werther.

Carlyle understood everything about the French Revolution, except that

it was a French revolution. He could not conceive that cold anger that

comes from a love of insulted truth. It seemed to him absurd that a man

should die, or do murder, for the First Proposition of Euclid; should

relish an egalitarian state like an equilateral triangle; or should

defend the Pons Asinorum as Codes defended the Tiber bridge. But anyone

who does not understand that does not understand the French

Revolution—nor, for that matter, the American Revolution. “We hold

these truths to be self-evident”: it was the fanaticism of truism. But

though Carlyle had no real respect for liberty, he had a real reverence

for anarchy. He admired elemental energy. The violence which repelled

most men from the Revolution was the one thing that attracted him to it.

While a Whig like Macaulay respected the Girondists but deplored the

Mountain, a Tory like Carlyle rather liked the Mountain and quite unduly

despised the Girondists. This appetite for formless force belongs, of

course, to the forests, to Germany. But when Carlyle got there, there

fell upon him a sort of spell which is his tragedy and the English

tragedy, and, in no small degree, the German tragedy too. The real

romance of the Teutons was largely a romance of the Southern Teutons,

with their castles, which are almost literally castles in the air, and

their river which is walled with vineyards and rhymes so naturally to

wine. But as Carlyle’s was rootedly a romance of conquest, he had to

prove that the thing which conquered in Germany was really more poetical

than anything else in Germany. Now the thing that conquered in Germany

was about the most prosaic thing of which the world ever grew weary.

There is a great deal more poetry in Brixton than in Berlin. Stella said

that Swift could write charmingly about a broom-stick; and poor Carlyle

had to write romantically about a ramrod. Compare him with Heine, who

had also a detached taste in the mystical grotesques of Germany, but who

saw what was their enemy: and offered to nail up the Prussian eagle like

an old crow as a target for the archers of the Rhine. Its prosaic

essence is not proved by the fact that it did not produce poets: it is

proved by the more deadly fact that it did. The actual written poetry of

Frederick the Great, for instance, was not even German or barbaric, but

simply feeble—and French. Thus Carlyle became continually gloomier as

his fit of the blues deepened into Prussian blues; nor can there be any

wonder. His philosophy had brought out the result that the Prussian was

the first of Germans, and, therefore, the first of men. No wonder he

looked at the rest of us with little hope.

But a stronger test was coming both for Carlyle and England. Prussia,

plodding, policing, as materialist as mud, went on solidifying and

strengthening after unconquered Russia and unconquered England had

rescued her where she lay prostrate under Napoleon. In this interval the

two most important events were the Polish national revival, with which

Russia was half inclined to be sympathetic, but Prussia was implacably

coercionist; and the positive refusal of the crown of a united Germany

by the King of Prussia, simply because it was constitutionally offered

by a free German Convention. Prussia did not want to lead the Germans:

she wanted to conquer the Germans. And she wanted to conquer other

people first. She had already found her brutal, if humorous, embodiment

in Bismarck; and he began with a scheme full of brutality and not

without humour. He took up, or rather pretended to take up, the claim of

the Prince of Augustenberg to duchies which were a quite lawful part of

the land of Denmark. In support of this small pretender he enlisted two

large things, the Germanic body called the Bund and the Austrian Empire.

It is possibly needless to say that after he had seized the disputed

provinces by pure Prussian violence, he kicked out the Prince of

Augustenberg, kicked out the German Bund, and finally kicked out the

Austrian Empire too, in the sudden campaign of Sadowa. He was a good

husband and a good father; he did not paint in water colours; and of

such is the Kingdom of Heaven. But the symbolic intensity of the

incident was this. The Danes expected protection from England; and if

there had been any sincerity in the ideal side of our Teutonism they

ought to have had it. They ought to have had it even by the pedantries

of the time, which already talked of Latin inferiority: and were never

weary of explaining that the country of Richelieu could not rule and the

country of Napoleon could not fight. But if it was necessary for

whosoever would be saved to be a Teuton, the Danes were more Teuton than

the Prussians. If it be a matter of vital importance to be descended

from Vikings, the Danes really were descended from Vikings, while the

Prussians were descended from mongrel Slavonic savages. If Protestantism

be progress, the Danes were Protestant; while they had attained quite

peculiar success and wealth in that small ownership and intensive

cultivation which is very commonly a boast of Catholic lands. They had

in a quite arresting degree what was claimed for the Germanics as

against Latin revolutionism: quiet freedom, quiet prosperity, a simple

love of fields and of the sea. But, moreover, by that coincidence which

dogs this drama, the English of that Victorian epoch had found their

freshest impression of the northern spirit of infancy and wonder in the

works of a Danish man of genius, whose stories and sketches were so

popular in England as almost to have become English. Good as Grimm’s

Fairy Tales were, they had been collected and not created by the modern

German; they were a museum of things older than any nation, of the

dateless age of once-upon-a-time. When the English romantics wanted to

find the folk-tale spirit still alive, they found it in the small

country of one of those small kings, with whom the folk-tales are almost

comically crowded. There they found what we call an original writer, who

was nevertheless the image of the origins. They found a whole fairyland

in one head and under one nineteenth-century top hat. Those of the

English who were then children owe to Hans Andersen more than to any of

their own writers, that essential educational emotion which feels that

domesticity is not dull but rather fantastic; that sense of the

fairyland of furniture, and the travel and adventure of the farmyard.

His treatment of inanimate things as animate was not a cold and awkward

allegory: it was a true sense of a dumb divinity in things that are.

Through him a child did feel that the chair he sat on was something like

a wooden horse. Through him children and the happier kind of men did

feel themselves covered by a roof as by the folded wings of some vast

domestic fowl; and feel common doors like great mouths that opened to

utter welcome. In the story of “The Fir Tree” he transplanted to

England a living bush that can still blossom into candles. And in his

tale of “The Tin Soldier” he uttered the true defence of romantic

militarism against the prigs who would forbid it even as a toy for the

nursery. He suggested, in the true tradition of the folk-tales, that the

dignity of the fighter is not in his largeness but rather in his

smallness, in his stiff loyalty and heroic helplessness in the hands of

larger and lower things. These things, alas, were an allegory. When

Prussia, finding her crimes unpunished, afterwards carried them into

France as well as Denmark, Carlyle and his school made some effort to

justify their Germanism, by pitting what they called the piety and

simplicity of Germany against what they called the cynicism and ribaldry

of France. But nobody could possibly pretend that Bismarck was more

pious and simple than Hans Andersen; yet the Carlyleans looked on with

silence or approval while the innocent toy kingdom was broken like a

toy. Here again, it is enormously probable that England would have

struck upon the right side, if the English people had been the English

Government. Among other coincidences, the Danish princess who had

married the English heir was something very like a fairy princess to the

English crowd. The national poet had hailed her as a daughter of the

sea-kings; and she was, and indeed still is, the most popular royal

figure in England. But whatever our people may have been like, our

politicians were on the very tamest level of timidity and the fear of

force to which they have ever sunk. The Tin Soldier of the Danish army

and the paper boat of the Danish navy, as in the story, were swept away

down the great gutter, down that colossal cloaca that leads to the

vast cesspool of Berlin.

Why, as a fact, did not England interpose? There were a great many

reasons given, but I think they were all various inferences from one

reason; indirect results and sometimes quite illogical results, of what

we have called the Germanisation of England. First, the very insularity

on which we insisted was barbaric, in its refusal of a seat in the

central senate of the nations. What we called our splendid isolation

became a rather ignominious sleeping-partnership with Prussia. Next, we

were largely trained in irresponsibility by our contemporary historians,

Freeman and Green, teaching us to be proud of a possible descent from

King Arthur’s nameless enemies and not from King Arthur. King Arthur

might not be historical, but at least he was legendary. Hengist and

Horsa were not even legendary, for they left no legend. Anybody could

see what was obligatory on the representative of Arthur; he was bound to

be chivalrous, that is, to be European. But nobody could imagine what

was obligatory on the representative of Horsa, unless it were to be

horsy. That was perhaps the only part of the Anglo-Saxon programme that

the contemporary English really carried out. Then, in the very real

decline from Cobbett to Cobden (that is, from a broad to a narrow

manliness and good sense) there had grown up the cult of a very curious

kind of peace, to be spread all over the world not by pilgrims, but by

pedlars. Mystics from the beginning had made vows of peace—but they

added to them vows of poverty. Vows of poverty were not in the

Cobdenite’s line. Then, again, there was the positive praise of Prussia,

to which steadily worsening case the Carlyleans were already committed.

But beyond these, there was something else, a spirit which had more

infected us as a whole. That spirit was the spirit of Hamlet. We gave

the grand name of “evolution” to a notion that things do themselves. Our

wealth, our insularity, our gradual loss of faith, had so dazed us that

the old Christian England haunted us like a ghost in whom we could not

quite believe. An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating

the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not

without that ugly question which Hamlet asked himself—am I a coward?

It cannot be

But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall

To make oppression bitter; or ‘ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites

With this slave’s offal.

We made dumb our anger and our honour; but it has not brought us peace.

VII—The Midnight of Europe

Among the minor crimes of England may be classed the shallow criticism

and easy abandonment of Napoleon III. The Victorian English had a very

bad habit of being influenced by words and at the same time pretending

to despise them. They would build their whole historical philosophy upon

two or three titles, and then refuse to get even the titles right. The

solid Victorian Englishman, with his whiskers and his Parliamentary

vote, was quite content to say that Louis Napoleon and William of

Prussia both became Emperors—by which he meant autocrats. His whiskers

would have bristled with rage and he would have stormed at you for

hair-splitting and “lingo,” if you had answered that William was German

Emperor, while Napoleon was not French Emperor, but only Emperor of the

French. What could such mere order of the words matter? Yet the same

Victorian would have been even more indignant if he had been asked to

be satisfied with an Art Master, when he had advertised for a Master of

Arts. His irritation would have increased if the Art Master had promised

him a sea-piece and had brought him a piece of the sea; or if, during

the decoration of his house, the same aesthetic humourist had undertaken

to procure some Indian Red and had produced a Red Indian.

The Englishman would not see that if there was only a verbal difference

between the French Emperor and the Emperor of the French, so, if it came

to that, it was a verbal difference between the Emperor and the

Republic, or even between a Parliament and no Parliament. For him an

Emperor meant merely despotism; he had not yet learned that a Parliament

may mean merely oligarchy. He did not know that the English people would

soon be made impotent, not by the disfranchising of their constituents,

but simply by the silencing of their members; and that the governing

class of England did not now depend upon rotten boroughs, but upon

rotten representatives. Therefore he did not understand Bonapartism. He

did not understand that French democracy became more democratic, not

less, when it turned all France into one constituency which elected one

member. He did not understand that many dragged down the Republic

because it was not republican, but purely senatorial. He was yet to

learn how quite corruptly senatorial a great representative assembly can

become. Yet in England to-day we hear “the decline of Parliament” talked

about and taken for granted by the best Parliamentarians—Mr. Balfour,

for instance—and we hear the one partly French and wholly Jacobin

historian of the French Revolution recommending for the English evil a

revival of the power of the Crown. It seems that so far from having left

Louis Napoleon far behind in the grey dust of the dead despotisms, it is

not at all improbable that our most extreme revolutionary developments

may end where Louis Napoleon began.

In other words, the Victorian Englishman did not understand the words

“Emperor of the French.” The type of title was deliberately chosen to

express the idea of an elective and popular origin; as against such a

phrase as “the German Emperor,” which expresses an almost

transcendental tribal patriarchate, or such a phrase as “King of

Prussia,” which suggests personal ownership of a whole territory. To

treat the Coup d’état as unpardonable is to justify riot against

despotism, but forbid any riot against aristocracy. Yet the idea

expressed in “The Emperor of the French” is not dead, but rather risen

from the dead. It is the idea that while a government may pretend to be

a popular government, only a person can be really popular. Indeed, the

idea is still the crown of American democracy, as it was for a time the

crown of French democracy. The very powerful official who makes the

choice of that great people for peace or war, might very well be called,

not the President of the United States, but the President of the

Americans. In Italy we have seen the King and the mob prevail over the

conservatism of the Parliament, and in Russia the new popular policy

sacramentally symbolised by the Czar riding at the head of the new

armies. But in one place, at least, the actual form of words exists; and

the actual form of words has been splendidly justified. One man among

the sons of men has been permitted to fulfil a courtly formula with

awful and disastrous fidelity. Political and geographical ruin have

written one last royal title across the sky; the loss of palace and

capital and territory have but isolated and made evident the people that

has not been lost; not laws but the love of exiles, not soil but the

souls of men, still make certain that five true words shall yet be

written in the corrupt and fanciful chronicles of mankind: “The King of

the Belgians.”

It is a common phrase, recurring constantly in the real if rabid

eloquence of Victor Hugo, that Napoleon III. was a mere ape of Napoleon

I. That is, that he had, as the politician says, in “L’Aiglon,” “le

petit chapeau, mais pas la tête”; that he was merely a bad imitation.

This is extravagantly exaggerative; and those who say it, moreover,

often miss the two or three points of resemblance which really exist in

the exaggeration. One resemblance there certainly was. In both Napoleons

it has been suggested that the glory was not so great as it seemed; but

in both it can be emphatically added that the eclipse was not so great

as it seemed either. Both succeeded at first and failed at last. But

both succeeded at last, even after the failure. If at this moment we owe

thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte for the armies of united France, we also

owe some thanks to Louis Bonaparte for the armies of united Italy. That

great movement to a freer and more chivalrous Europe which we call

to-day the Cause of the Allies, had its forerunners and first victories

before our time; and it not only won at Arcola, but also at Solferino.

Men who remembered Louis Napoleon when he mooned about the Blessington

salon, and was supposed to be almost mentally deficient, used to say

he deceived Europe twice; once when he made men think him an imbecile,

and once when he made them think him a statesman. But he deceived them a

third time; when he made them think he was dead; and had done nothing.

In spite of the unbridled verse of Hugo and the even more unbridled

prose of Kinglake, Napoleon III. is really and solely discredited in

history because of the catastrophe of 1870. Hugo hurled any amount of

lightning on Louis Napoleon; but he threw very little light on him. Some

passages in the “Châtiments” are really caricatures carved in eternal

marble. They will always be valuable in reminding generations too vague

and soft, as were the Victorians, of the great truth that hatred is

beautiful, when it is hatred of the ugliness of the soul. But most of

them could have been written about Haman, or Heliogabalus, or King John,

or Queen Elizabeth, as much as about poor Louis Napoleon; they bear no

trace of any comprehension of his quite interesting aims, and his quite

comprehensible contempt for the fat-souled senatorial politicians. And

if a real revolutionist like Hugo did not do justice to the

revolutionary element in Cæsarism, it need hardly be said that a rather

Primrose League Tory like Tennyson did not. Kinglake’s curiously acrid

insistence upon the Coup d’état is, I fear, only an indulgence in one

of the least pleasing pleasures of our national pen and press, and one

which afterwards altogether ran away with us over the Dreyfus case. It

is an unfortunate habit of publicly repenting for other people’s sins.

If this came easy to an Englishman like Kinglake, it came, of course,

still easier to a German like Queen Victoria’s husband and even to

Queen Victoria herself, who was naturally influenced by him. But in so

far as the sensible masses of the English nation took any interest in

the matter, it is probable that they sympathised with Palmerston, who

was as popular as the Prince Consort was unpopular. The black mark

against Louis Napoleon’s name until now, has simply been Sedan; and it

is our whole purpose to-day to turn Sedan into an interlude. If it is

not an interlude, it will be the end of the world. But we have sworn to

make an end of that ending: warring on until, if only by a purgatory of

the nations and the mountainous annihilation of men, the story of the

world ends well.

There are, as it were, valleys of history quite close to us, but hidden

by the closer hills. One, as we have seen, is that fold in the soft

Surrey hills where Cobbett sleeps with his still-born English

Revolution. Another is under that height called The Spy of Italy, where

a new Napoleon brought back the golden eagles against the black eagles

of Austria. Yet that French adventure in support of the Italian

insurrection was very important; we are only beginning to understand

its importance. It was a defiance to the German Reaction and 1870 was a

sort of revenge for it, just as the Balkan victory was a defiance to the

German Reaction and 1914 was the attempted revenge for it. It is true

that the French liberation of Italy was incomplete, the problem of the

Papal States, for instance, being untouched by the Peace of Villafranca.

The volcanic but fruitful spirit of Italy had already produced that

wonderful, wandering, and almost omnipresent personality whose red shirt

was to be a walking flag: Garibaldi. And many English Liberals

sympathised with him and his extremists as against the peace. Palmerston

called it “the peace that passeth all understanding”: but the profanity

of that hilarious old heathen was nearer the mark than he knew: there

were really present some of those deep things which he did not

understand. To quarrel with the Pope, but to compromise with him, was an

instinct with the Bonapartes; an instinct no Anglo-Saxon could be

expected to understand. They knew the truth; that Anti-Clericalism is

not a Protestant movement, but a Catholic mood. And after all the

English Liberals could not get their own Government to risk what the

French Government had risked; and Napoleon III. might well have retorted

on Palmerston, his rival in international Liberalism, that half a war

was better than no fighting. Swinburne called Villafranca “The Halt

before Rome,” and expressed a rhythmic impatience for the time when the

world

“Shall ring to the roar of the lion

Proclaiming Republican Rome.”

But he might have remembered, after all, that it was not the British

lion, that a British poet should have the right to say so imperiously,

“Let him roar again. Let him roar again.”

It is true that there was no clear call to England from Italy, as there

certainly was from Denmark. The great powers were not bound to help

Italy to become a nation, as they were bound to support the unquestioned

fact that Denmark was one. Indeed the great Italian patriot was to

experience both extremes of the English paradox, and, curiously enough,

in connection with both the two national and anti-German causes. For

Italy he gained the support of the English, but not the support of

England. Not a few of our countrymen followed the red shirt; but not in

the red coat. And when he came to England, not to plead the cause of

Italy but the cause of Denmark, the Italian found he was more popular

with the English than any Englishman. He made his way through a forest

of salutations, which would willingly have turned itself into a forest

of swords. But those who kept the sword kept it sheathed. For the ruling

class the valour of the Italian hero, like the beauty of the Danish

Princess, was a thing to be admired, that is enjoyed, like a novel—or a

newspaper. Palmerston was the very type of Pacifism, because he was the

very type of Jingoism. In spirit as restless as Garibaldi, he was in

practice as cautious as Cobden. England had the most prudent

aristocracy, but the most reckless democracy in the world. It was, and

is, the English contradiction, which has so much misrepresented us,

especially to the Irish. Our national captains were carpet knights; our

knights errant were among the dismounted rabble. When an Austrian

general who had flogged women in the conquered provinces appeared in

the London streets, some common draymen off a cart behaved with the

direct quixotry of Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. He had beaten women and

they beat him. They regarded themselves simply as avengers of ladies in

distress, breaking the bloody whip of a German bully; just as Cobbett

had sought to break it when it was wielded over the men of England. The

boorishness was in the Germanic or half-Germanic rulers who wore crosses

and spurs: the gallantry was in the gutter. English draymen had more

chivalry than Teuton aristocrats—or English ones.

I have dwelt a little on this Italian experiment because it lights up

Louis Napoleon as what he really was before the eclipse, a

politician—perhaps an unscrupulous politician—but certainly a

democratic politician. A power seldom falls being wholly faultless; and

it is true that the Second Empire became contaminated with cosmopolitan

spies and swindlers, justly reviled by such democrats as Rochefort as

well as Hugo. But there was no French inefficiency that weighed a hair

in the balance compared with the huge and hostile efficiency of

Prussia; the tall machine that had struck down Denmark and Austria, and

now stood ready to strike again, extinguishing the lamp of the world.

There was a hitch before the hammer stroke, and Bismarck adjusted it, as

with his finger, by a forgery—for he had many minor accomplishments.

France fell: and what fell with her was freedom, and what reigned in her

stead only tyrants and the ancient terror. The crowning of the first

modern Kaiser in the very palace of the old French kings was an

allegory; like an allegory on those Versailles walls. For it was at once

the lifting of the old despotic diadem and its descent on the low brow

of a barbarian. Louis XI. had returned, and not Louis IX.; and Europe

was to know that sceptre on which there is no dove.

The instant evidence that Europe was in the grip of the savage was as

simple as it was sinister. The invaders behaved with an innocent impiety

and bestiality that had never been known in those lands since Clovis was

signed with the cross. To the naked pride of the new men nations simply

were not. The struggling populations of two vast provinces were simply

carried away like slaves into captivity, as after the sacking of some

prehistoric town. France was fined for having pretended to be a nation;

and the fine was planned to ruin her forever. Under the pressure of such

impossible injustice France cried out to the Christian nations, one

after another, and by name. Her last cry ended in a stillness like that

which had encircled Denmark.

One man answered; one who had quarrelled with the French and their

Emperor; but who knew it was not an emperor that had fallen. Garibaldi,

not always wise but to his end a hero, took his station, sword in hand,

under the darkening sky of Christendom, and shared the last fate of

France. A curious record remains, in which a German commander testifies

to the energy and effect of the last strokes of the wounded lion of

Aspromonte. But England went away sorrowful, for she had great

possessions.

VIII—The Wrong Horse

In another chapter I mentioned some of the late Lord Salisbury’s remarks

with regret, but I trust with respect; for in certain matters he

deserved all the respect that can be given to him. His critics said that

he “thought aloud”; which is perhaps the noblest thing that can be said

of a man. He was jeered at for it by journalists and politicians who had

not the capacity to think or the courage to tell their thoughts. And he

had one yet finer quality which redeems a hundred lapses of anarchic

cynicism. He could change his mind upon the platform: he could repent in

public. He could not only think aloud; he could “think better” aloud.

And one of the turning-points of Europe had come in the hour when he

avowed his conversion from the un-Christian and un-European policy into

which his dexterous Oriental master, Disraeli, had dragged him; and

declared that England had “put her money on the wrong horse.” When he

said it, he referred to the backing we gave to the Turk under a

fallacious fear of Russia. But I cannot but think that if he had lived

much longer, he would have come to feel the same disgust for his long

diplomatic support of the Turk’s great ally in the North. He did not

live, as we have lived, to feel that horse run away with us, and rush on

through wilder and wilder places, until we knew that we were riding on

the nightmare.

What was this thing to which we trusted? And how may we most quickly

explain its development from a dream to a nightmare, and the

hair’s-breadth escape by which it did not hurl us to destruction, as it

seems to be hurling the Turk? It is a certain spirit; and we must not

ask for too logical a definition of it, for the people whom it possesses

disown logic; and the whole thing is not so much a theory as a confusion

of thought. Its widest and most elementary character is adumbrated in

the word Teutonism or Pan-Germanism; and with this (which was what

appeared to win in 1870) we had better begin. The nature of

Pan-Germanism may be allegorised and abbreviated somewhat thus:

The horse asserts that all other creatures are morally bound to

sacrifice their interests to his, on the specific ground that he

possesses all noble and necessary qualities, and is an end in himself.

It is pointed out in answer that when climbing a tree the horse is less

graceful than the cat; that lovers and poets seldom urge the horse to

make a noise all night like the nightingale; that when submerged for

some long time under water, he is less happy than the haddock; and that

when he is cut open pearls are less often found in him than in an

oyster. He is not content to answer (though, being a muddle-headed

horse, he does use this answer also) that having an undivided hoof is

more than pearls or oceans or all ascension or song. He reflects for a

few years on the subject of cats; and at last discovers in the cat “the

characteristic equine quality of caudality, or a tail”; so that cats

are horses, and wave on every tree-top the tail which is the equine

banner. Nightingales are found to have legs, which explains their power

of song. Haddocks are vertebrates; and therefore are sea-horses. And

though the oyster outwardly presents dissimilarities which seem to

divide him from the horse, he is by the all-filling nature-might of the

same horse-moving energy sustained.

Now this horse is intellectually the wrong horse. It is not perhaps

going too far to say that this horse is a donkey. For it is obviously

within even the intellectual resources of a haddock to answer, “But if a

haddock is a horse, why should I yield to you any more than you to me?

Why should that singing horse commonly called the nightingale, or that

climbing horse hitherto known as the cat, fall down and worship you

because of your horsehood? If all our native faculties are the

accomplishments of a horse—why then you are only another horse without

any accomplishments.” When thus gently reasoned with, the horse flings

up his heels, kicks the cat, crushes the oyster, eats the haddock and

pursues the nightingale, and that is how the war began.

This apologue is not in the least more fantastic than the facts of the

Teutonic claim. The Germans do really say that Englishmen are only

Sea-Germans, as our haddocks were only sea-horses. They do really say

that the nightingales of Tuscany or the pearls of Hellas must somehow be

German birds or German jewels. They do maintain that the Italian

Renaissance was really the German Renaissance, pure Germans having

Italian names when they were painters, as cockneys sometimes have when

they are hair-dressers. They suggest that Jesus and the great Jews were

Teutonic. One Teutonist I read actually explained the fresh energy of

the French Revolution and the stale privileges of its German enemies by

saying that the Germanic soul awoke in France and attacked the Latin

influence in Germany. On the advantages of this method I need not dwell:

if you are annoyed at Jack Johnson knocking out an English

prize-fighter, you have only to say that it was the whiteness of the

black man that won and the blackness of the white man that was beaten.

But about the Italian Renaissance they are less general and will go into

detail. They will discover (in their researches into ‘istry, as Mr.

Gandish said) that Michael Angelo’s surname was Buonarotti; and they

will point out that the word “roth” is very like the word “rot.” Which,

in one sense, is true enough. Most Englishmen will be content to say it

is all rot and pass on. It is all of a piece with the preposterous

Prussian history, which talks, for instance, about the “perfect

religious tolerance of the Goths”; which is like talking about the legal

impartiality of chicken-pox. He will decline to believe that the Jews

were Germans; though he may perhaps have met some Germans who were Jews.

But deeper than any such practical reply, lies the deep inconsistency of

the parable. It is simply this; that if Teutonism be used for

comprehension it cannot be used for conquest. If all intelligent peoples

are Germans, then Prussians are only the least intelligent Germans. If

the men of Flanders are as German as the men of Frankfort, we can only

say that in saving Belgium we are helping the Germans who are in the

right against the Germans who are in the wrong. Thus in Alsace the

conquerors are forced into the comic posture of annexing the people for

being German and then persecuting them for being French. The French

Teutons who built Rheims must surrender it to the South German Teutons

who have partly built Cologne; and these in turn surrender Cologne to

the North German Teutons, who never built anything, except the wooden

Aunt Sally of old Hindenburg. Every Teuton must fall on his face before

an inferior Teuton; until they all find, in the foul marshes towards the

Baltic, the very lowest of all possible Teutons, and worship him—and

find he is a Slav. So much for Pan-Germanism.

But though Teutonism is indefinable, or at least is by the Teutons

undefined, it is not unreal. A vague but genuine soul does possess all

peoples who boast of Teutonism; and has possessed ourselves, in so far

as we have been touched by that folly. Not a race, but rather a

religion, the thing exists; and in 1870 its sun was at noon. We can most

briefly describe it under three heads.

The victory of the German arms meant before Leipzic, and means now, the

overthrow of a certain idea. That idea is the idea of the Citizen. This

is true in a quite abstract and courteous sense; and is not meant as a

loose charge of oppression. Its truth is quite compatible with a view

that the Germans are better governed than the French. In many ways the

Germans are very well governed. But they might be governed ten thousand

times better than they are, or than anybody ever can be, and still be

as far as ever from governing. The idea of the Citizen is that his

individual human nature shall be constantly and creatively active in

altering the State. The Germans are right in regarding the idea as

dangerously revolutionary. Every Citizen is a revolution. That is, he

destroys, devours and adapts his environment to the extent of his own

thought and conscience. This is what separates the human social effort

from the non-human; the bee creates the honey-comb, but he does not

criticise it. The German ruler really does feed and train the German as

carefully as a gardener waters a flower. But if the flower suddenly

began to water the gardener, he would be much surprised. So in Germany

the people really are educated; but in France the people educates. The

French not only make up the State, but make the State; not only make it,

but remake it. In Germany the ruler is the artist, always painting the

happy German like a portrait; in France the Frenchman is the artist,

always painting and repainting France like a house. No state of social

good that does not mean the Citizen choosing good, as well as getting

it, has the idea of the Citizen at all. To say the Germanies are

naturally at war with this idea is merely to respect them and take them

seriously: otherwise their war on the French Revolution would be only an

ignorant feud. It is this, to them, risky and fanciful notion of the

critical and creative Citizen, which in 1870 lay prostrate under United

Germany—under the undivided hoof.

Nevertheless, when the German says he has or loves freedom, what he says

is not false. He means something; and what he means is the second

principle, which I may summarise as the Irresponsibility of Thought.

Within the iron framework of the fixed State, the German has not only

liberty but anarchy. Anything can be said although, or rather because,

nothing can be done. Philosophy is really free. But this practically

means only that the prisoner’s cell has become the madman’s cell: that

it is scrawled all over inside with stars and systems, so that it looks

like eternity. This is the contradiction remarked by Dr. Sarolea, in his

brilliant book, between the wildness of German theory and the tameness

of German practice. The Germans sterilise thought, making it active

with a wild virginity; which can bear no fruit.

But though there are so many mad theories, most of them have one root;

and depend upon one assumption. It matters little whether we call it,

with the German Socialists, “the Materialist Theory of History”; or,

with Bismarck, “blood and iron.” It can be put most fairly thus: that

all important events of history are biological, like a change of

pasture or the communism of a pack of wolves. Professors are still

tearing their hair in the effort to prove somehow that the Crusaders

were migrating for food like swallows; or that the French Revolutionists

were somehow only swarming like bees. This works in two ways often

accounted opposite; and explains both the German Socialist and the

Junker. For, first, it fits in with Teutonic Imperialism; making the

“blonde beasts” of Germania into lions whose nature it is to eat such

lambs as the French. The highest success of this notion in Europe is

marked by praise given to a race famous for its physical firmness and

fighting breed, but which has frankly pillaged and scarcely pretended

to rule; the Turk, whom some Tories called “the gentleman of Europe.”

The Kaiser paused to adore the Crescent on his way to patronise the

Cross. It was corporately embodied when Greece attempted a solitary

adventure against Turkey and was quickly crushed. That English guns

helped to impose the mainly Germanic policy of the Concert upon Crete,

cannot be left out of mind while we are making appeals to Greece—or

considering the crimes of England.

But the same principle serves to keep the internal politics of the

Germans quiet, and prevent Socialism being the practical hope or peril

it has been in so many other countries. It operates in two ways; first,

by a curious fallacy about “the time not being ripe”—as if time could

ever be ripe. The same savage superstition from the forests had infected

Matthew Arnold pretty badly when he made a personality out of the

Zeitgeist—perhaps the only ghost that was ever entirely fabulous. It is

tricked by a biological parallel, by which the chicken always comes out

of the egg “at the right time.” He does not; he comes out when he comes

out. The Marxian Socialist will not strike till the clock strikes; and

the clock is made in Germany, and never strikes. Moreover, the theory of

all history as a search for food makes the masses content with having

food and physic, but not freedom. The best working model in the matter

is the system of Compulsory Insurance; which was a total failure and

dead letter in France but has been, in the German sense, a great success

in Germany. It treats employed persons as a fixed, separate, and lower

caste, who must not themselves dispose of the margin of their small

wages. In 1911 it was introduced into England by Mr. Lloyd George, who

had studied its operations in Germany, and, by the Prussian prestige in

“social reform,” was passed.

These three tendencies cohere, or are cohering, in an institution which

is not without a great historical basis and not without great modern

conveniences. And as France was the standard-bearer of citizenship in

1798, Germany is the standard-bearer of this alternative solution in

1915. The institution which our fathers called Slavery fits in with, or

rather logically flows from, all the three spirits of which I have

spoken, and promises great advantages to each of them. It can give the

individual worker everything except the power to alter the State—that

is, his own status. Finality (or what certain eleutheromaniacs would

call hopelessness) of status is the soul of Slavery—and of Compulsory

Insurance. Then again, Germany gives the individual exactly the liberty

that has always been given to a slave—the liberty to think, the liberty

to dream, the liberty to rage; the liberty to indulge in any

intellectual hypotheses about the unalterable world and state—such as

have always been free to slaves, from the stoical maxims of Epictetus to

the skylarking fairy tales of Uncle Remus. And it has been truly urged

by all defenders of slavery that, if history has merely a material test,

the material condition of the subordinate under slavery tends to be good

rather than bad. When I once pointed out how precisely the “model

village” of a great employer reproduces the safety and seclusion of an

old slave estate, the employer thought it quite enough to answer

indignantly that he had provided baths, playing-grounds, a theatre,

etc., for his workers. He would probably have thought it odd to hear a

planter in South Carolina boast that he had provided banjos, hymn-books,

and places suitable for the cake-walk. Yet the planter must have

provided the banjos, for a slave cannot own property. And if this

Germanic sociology is indeed to prevail among us, I think some of the

broad-minded thinkers who concur in its prevalence owe something like an

apology to many gallant gentlemen whose graves lie where the last battle

was fought in the Wilderness; men who had the courage to fight for it,

the courage to die for it and, above all, the courage to call it by its

name.

With the acceptance by England of the German Insurance Act, I bring this

sketch of the past relations of the two countries to an end. I have

written this book because I wish, once and for all, to be done with my

friend Professor Whirlwind of Prussia, who has long despaired of really

defending his own country, and has fallen back upon abusing mine. He has

dropped, amid general derision, his attempt to call a thing right when

even the Chancellor who did it called it wrong. But he has an idea that

if he can show that somebody from England somewhere did another wrong,

the two wrongs may make a right. Against the cry of the Roman Catholic

Poles the Prussian has never done, or even pretended to do, anything but

harden his heart; but he has (such are the lovable inconsistencies of

human nature) a warm corner in his heart for the Roman Catholic Irish.

He has not a word to say for himself about the campaign in Belgium, but

he still has many wise, reproachful words to utter about the campaign in

South Africa. I propose to take those words out of his mouth. I will

have nothing to do with the fatuous front-bench pretensions that our

governors always govern well, that our statesmen are never whitewashed

and never in need of whitewash. The only moral superiority I claim is

that of not defending the indefensible. I most earnestly urge my

countrymen not to hide behind thin official excuses, which the sister

kingdoms and the subject races can easily see through. We can confess

that our crimes have been as mountains, and still not be afraid of the

present comparison. There may be, in the eyes of some, a risk in

dwelling in this dark hour on our failures in the past: I believe

profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most

deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise,

any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and

ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or

Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second

Prussia. I have passed the great part of my life in criticising and

condemning the existing rulers and institutions of my country: I think

it is infinitely the most patriotic thing that a man can do. I have no

illusions either about our past or our present. I think our whole

history in Ireland has been a vulgar and ignorant hatred of the

crucifix, expressed by a crucifixion. I think the South African War was

a dirty work which we did under the whips of moneylenders. I think

Mitchelstown was a disgrace; I think Denshawi was a devilry.

Yet there is one part of life and history in which I would assert the

absolute spotlessness of England. In one department we wear a robe of

white and a halo of innocence. Long and weary as may be the records of

our wickedness, in one direction we have done nothing but good. Whoever

we may have wronged, we have never wronged Germany. Again and again we

have dragged her from under the just vengeance of her enemies, from the

holy anger of Maria Teresa, from the impatient and contemptuous common

sense of Napoleon. We have kept a ring fence around the Germans while

they sacked Denmark and dismembered France. And if we had served our God

as we have served their kings, there would not be to-day one remnant

of them in our path, either to slander or to slay us.

IX—The Awakening of England

In October 1912 silent and seemingly uninhabited crags and chasms in the

high western region of the Balkans echoed and re-echoed with a single

shot. It was fired by the hand of a king—real king, who sat listening

to his people in front of his own house (for it was hardly a palace),

and who, in consequence of his listening to the people, not unfrequently

imprisoned the politicians. It is said of him that his great respect for

Gladstone as the western advocate of Balkan freedom was slightly

shadowed by the fact that Gladstone did not succeed in effecting the

bodily capture of Jack the Ripper. This simple monarch knew that if a

malefactor were the terror of the mountain hamlets, his subjects would

expect him personally to take arms and pursue the ruffian; and if he

refused to do so, would very probably experiment with another king. And

the same primitive conception of a king being kept for some kind of

purpose, led them also to expect him to lead in a foreign campaign, and

it was with his own hand that he fired the first shot of the war which

brought down into the dust the ancient empire of the Grand Turk.

His kingdom was little more than the black mountain after which it was

named: we commonly refer to it under its Italian translation of

Montenegro. It is worth while to pause for a moment upon his picturesque

and peculiar community, because it is perhaps the simplest working model

of all that stood in the path of the great Germanic social machine I

have described in the last chapter—stood in its path and was soon to be

very nearly destroyed by its onset. It was a branch of the Serbian stock

which had climbed into this almost inaccessible eyrie, and thence, for

many hundred years, had mocked at the predatory empire of the Turks. The

Serbians in their turn were but one branch of the peasant Slavs,

millions of whom are spread over Russia and subject on many sides to

empires with which they have less sympathy; and the Slavs again, in the

broad features which are important here, are not merely Slavonic but

simply European. But a particular picture is generally more pointed and

intelligible than tendencies which elsewhere are mingled with subtler

tendencies; and of this unmixed European simplicity Montenegro is an

excellent model.

Moreover, the instance of one small Christian State will serve to

emphasise that this is not a quarrel between England and Germany, but

between Europe and Germany. It is my whole purpose in these pages not to

spare my own country where it is open to criticism; and I freely admit

that Montenegro, morally and politically speaking, is almost as much in

advance of England as it is of Germany. In Montenegro there are no

millionaires—and therefore next to no Socialists. As to why there are

no millionaires, it is a mystery, and best studied among the mysteries

of the Middle Ages. By some of the dark ingenuities of that age of

priestcraft a curious thing was discovered—that if you kill every

usurer, every forestaller, every adulterater, every user of false

weights, every fixer of false boundaries, every land-thief, every

water-thief, you afterwards discover by a strange indirect miracle, or

disconnected truth from heaven, that you have no millionaires. Without

dwelling further on this dark matter, we may say that this great gap in

the Montenegrin experience explains the other great gap—the lack of

Socialists. The Class-conscious Proletarian of All Lands is curiously

absent from this land. The reason (I have sometimes fancied) is that the

Proletarian is class-conscious, not because he is a Proletarian of All

Lands, but because he is a Proletarian with no lands. The poor people in

Montenegro have lands—not landlords. They have roots; for the peasant

is the root of the priest, the poet, and the warrior. And this, and

not a mere recrimination about acts of violence, is the ground of the

age-long Balkan bitterness against the Turkish conqueror. Montenegrins

are patriotic for Montenegro; but Turks are not patriotic for Turkey.

They never heard of it, in fact. They are Bedouins, as homeless as the

desert. The “wrong horse” of Lord Salisbury was an Arab steed, only

stabled in Byzantium. It is hard enough to rule vagabond people, like

the gypsies. To be ruled by them is impossible.

Nevertheless what was called the nineteenth century, and named with a

sort of transcendental faith (as in a Pythagorean worship of number),

was wearing to its close with reaction everywhere, and the Turk, the

great type of reaction, stronger than ever in the saddle. The most

civilised of the Christian nations overshadowed by the Crescent dared to

attack it and was overwhelmed in a catastrophe that seemed as

unanswerable as Hittin. In England Gladstone and Gladstonism were dead;

and Mr. Kipling, a less mystical Carlyle, was expending a type of praise

upon the British Army which would have been even more appropriate to the

Prussian Army. The Prussian Army ruled Prussia; Prussia ruled Germany;

Germany ruled the Concert of Europe. She was planting everywhere the

appliances of that new servile machinery which was her secret; the

absolute identification of national subordination with business

employment; so that Krupp could count on Kaiser and Kaiser on Krupp.

Every other commercial traveller was pathetically proud of being both a

slave and a spy. The old and the new tyrants had taken hands. The “sack”

of the boss was as silent and fatal as the sack of the Bosphorus. And

the dream of the citizen was at an end.

It was under a sky so leaden and on a road so strewn with bones that the

little mountain democracy with its patriarchal prince went out, first

and before all its friends, on the last and seemingly the most hopeless

of the rebellions against the Ottoman Empire. Only one of the omens

seemed other than disastrous; and even that was doubtful. For the

successful Mediterranean attack on Tripoli while proving the gallantry

of the Italians (if that ever needed proving) could be taken in two

ways, and was seen by many, and probably most, sincere liberals as a

mere extension of the Imperialist reaction of Bosnia and Paardeberg, and

not as the promise of newer things. Italy, it must be remembered, was

still supposed to be the partner of Prussia and the Hapsburgs. For days

that seemed like months the microscopic state seemed to be attempting

alone what the Crusades had failed to accomplish. And for days Europe

and the great powers were thunderstruck, again and yet again, by the

news of Turkish forts falling, Turkish cohorts collapsing, the

unconquerable Crescent going down in blood. The Serbians, the

Bulgarians, the Greeks had gathered and risen from their lairs; and men

knew that these peasants had done what all the politicians had long

despaired of doing, and that the spirit of the first Christian Emperor

was already standing over the city that is named after his name.

For Germany this quite unexpected rush was a reversal of the whole tide

of the world. It was as if the Rhine itself had returned from the ocean

and retired into the Alps. For a long time past every important

political process in Europe had been produced or permitted by Prussia.

She had pulled down ministers in France and arrested reforms in Russia.

Her ruler was acclaimed by Englishmen like Rhodes, and Americans like

Roosevelt, as the great prince of the age. One of the most famous and

brilliant of our journalists called him “the Lord Chief Justice of

Europe.” He was the strongest man in Christendom; and he had confirmed

and consecrated the Crescent. And when he had consecrated it a few hill

tribes had risen and trampled it like mire. One or two other things

about the same time, less important in themselves, struck in the

Prussian’s ear the same new note of warning and doubt. He sought to

obtain a small advantage on the north-west coast of Africa; and England

seemed to show a certain strange stiffness in insisting on its

abandonment. In the councils over Morocco, England agreed with France

with what did not seem altogether an accidental agreement. But we shall

not be wrong if we put the crucial point of the German surprise and

anger at the attack from the Balkans and the fall of Adrianople. Not

only did it menace the key of Asia and the whole Eastern dream of German

commerce; not only did it offer the picture of one army trained by

France and victorious, and another army trained by Germany and beaten.

There was more than the material victory of the Creusot over the Krupp

gun. It was also the victory of the peasant’s field over the Krupp

factory. By this time there was in the North German brain an awful

inversion of all the legends and heroic lives that the human race has

loved. Prussia hated romance. Chivalry was not a thing she neglected;

it was a thing that tormented her as any bully is tormented by an

unanswered challenge. That weird process was completed of which I have

spoken on an earlier page, whereby the soul of this strange people was

everywhere on the side of the dragon against the knight, of the giant

against the hero. Anything unexpected—the forlorn hopes, the

eleventh-hour inspirations, by which the weak can elude the strong, and

which take the hearts of happier men like trumpets—filled the Prussian

with a cold fury, as of a frustrated fate. The Prussian felt as a

Chicago pork butcher would feel if the pigs not only refused to pass

through his machine, but turned into romantic wild boars, raging and

rending, calling for the old hunting of princes and fit to be the crests

of kings.

The Prussian saw these things and his mind was made up. He was silent;

but he laboured: laboured for three long years without intermission at

the making of a military machine that should cut out of the world for

ever such romantic accident or random adventure; a machine that should

cure the human pigs for ever of any illusion that they had wings. That

he did so plot and prepare for an attack that should come from him,

anticipating and overwhelming any resistance, is now, even in the

documents he has himself published, a fact of common sense. Suppose a

man sells all his lands except a small yard containing a well; suppose

in the division of the effects of an old friend he particularly asks for

his razors; suppose when a corded trunk is sent him he sends back the

trunk, but keeps the cord. And then suppose we hear that a rival of his

has been lassoed with a rope, his throat then cut, apparently with a

razor, and his body hidden in a well, we do not call in Sherlock Holmes

to project a preliminary suspicion about the guilty party. In the

discussions held by the Prussian Government with Lord Haldane and Sir

Edward Grey we can now see quite as plainly the meaning of the things

that were granted and the things that were withheld, the things that

would have satisfied the Prussian plotter and the things that did not

satisfy him. The German Chancellor refused an English promise not to be

aggressive and asked instead for an English promise to be neutral. There

is no meaning in the distinction, except in the mind of an aggressor.

Germany proposed a pacific arrangement which forbade England to form a

fighting alliance with France, but permitted Germany to retain her old

fighting alliance with Austria. When the hour of war came she used

Austria, used the old fighting alliance and tried to use the new idea of

English neutrality. That is to say, she used the rope, the razor, and

the well.

But it was either by accident or by individual diplomatic skill that

England at the end of the three years even had her own hands free to

help in frustrating the German plot. The mass of the English people had

no notion of such a plot; and indeed regarded the occasional suggestion

of it as absurd. Nor did even the people who knew best know very much

better. Thanks and even apologies are doubtless due to those who in the

deepest lull of our sleeping partnership with Prussia saw her not as a

partner but a potential enemy; such men as Mr. Blatchford, Mr. Bart

Kennedy, or the late Emil Reich. But there is a distinction to be made.

Few even of these, with the admirable and indeed almost magical

exception of Dr. Sarolea, saw Germany as she was; occupied mainly with

Europe and only incidentally with England; indeed, in the first stages,

not occupied with England at all. Even the Anti-Germans were too

insular. Even those who saw most of Germany’s plan saw too much of

England’s part in it. They saw it almost wholly as a commercial and

colonial quarrel; and saw its issue under the image of an invasion of

England, which is even now not very probable. This fear of Germany was

indeed a very German fear of Germany. This also conceived the English as

Sea-Germans. It conceived Germany as at war with something like

itself—practical, prosaic, capitalist, competitive Germany, prepared to

cut us up in battle as she cut us out in business. The time of our

larger vision was not yet, when we should realise that Germany was more

deeply at war with things quite unlike herself, things from which we

also had sadly strayed. Then we should remember what we were and see

whence we also had come; and far and high upon that mountain from which

the Crescent was cast down, behold what was everywhere the real enemy of

the Iron Cross—the peasant’s cross, which is of wood.

Even our very slight ripples of panic, therefore, were provincial, and

even shallow; and for the most part we were possessed and convinced of

peace. That peace was not a noble one. We had indeed reached one of the

lowest and flattest levels of all our undulating history; and it must be

admitted that the contemptuous calculation with which Germany counted on

our submission and abstention was not altogether unfounded, though it

was, thank God, unfulfilled. The full fruition of our alliances against

freedom had come. The meek acceptance of Kultur in our books and schools

had stiffened what was once a free country with a German formalism and a

German fear. By a queer irony, even the same popular writer who had

already warned us against the Prussians, had sought to preach among the

populace a very Prussian fatalism, pivoted upon the importance of the

charlatan Haeckel. The wrestle of the two great parties had long

slackened into an embrace. The fact was faintly denied, and a pretence

was still made that no pact: existed beyond a common patriotism. But the

pretence failed altogether; for it was evident that the leaders on

either side, so far from leading in divergent directions, were much

closer to each other than to their own followers. The power of these

leaders had enormously increased; but the distance between them had

diminished, or, rather, disappeared. It was said about 1800, in derision

of the Foxite rump, that the Whig Party came down to Parliament in a

four-wheeler. It might literally be said in 1900 that the Whig Party and

the Tory Party came to Parliament in a hansom cab. It was not a case of

two towers rising into different roofs or spires, but founded in the

same soil. It was rather the case of an arch, of which the

foundation-stones on either side might fancy they were two buildings;

but the stones nearest the keystone would know there was only one. This

“two-handed engine” still stood ready to strike, not, indeed, the other

part of itself, but anyone who ventured to deny that it was doing so. We

were ruled, as it were, by a Wonderland king and queen, who cut off our

heads, not for saying they quarrelled but for saying they didn’t. The

libel law was now used, not to crush lies about private life, but to

crush truths about public life. Representation had become mere

misrepresentation; a maze of loopholes. This was mainly due to the

monstrous presence of certain secret moneys, on which alone many men

could win the ruinous elections of the age, and which were contributed

and distributed with less check or record than is tolerated in the

lowest trade or club. Only one or two people attacked these funds;

nobody defended them. Through them the great capitalists had the handle

of politics, as of everything else. The poor were struggling hopelessly

against rising prices; and their attempts at collective bargaining, by

the collective refusal of badly-paid work, were discussed in the press,

Liberal and Tory, as attacks upon the State. And so they were; upon the

Servile State.

Such was the condition of England in 1914, when Prussia, now at last

armed to the teeth and secure of triumph, stood up before the world, and

solemnly, like one taking a sacrament, consecrated her campaign with a

crime. She entered by a forbidden door, one which she had herself

forbidden—marching upon France through neutralised Belgium, where every

step was on her broken word. Her neutralised neighbours resisted, as

indeed they, like ourselves, were pledged to do. Instantly the whole

invasion was lit up with a flame of moral lunacy, that turned the

watching nations white who had never known the Prussian. The statistics

of non-combatants killed and tortured by this time only stun the

imagination. But two friends of my own have been in villages sacked by

the Prussian march. One saw a tabernacle containing the Sacrament

patiently picked out in pattern by shot after shot. The other saw a

rocking-horse and the wooden toys in a nursery laboriously hacked to

pieces. Those two facts together will be enough to satisfy some of us of

the name of the Spirit that had passed.

And then a strange thing happened. England, that had not in the modern

sense any army at all, was justified of all her children. Respected

institutions and reputations did indeed waver and collapse on many

sides: though the chief of the states replied worthily to a bribe from

the foreign bully, many other politicians were sufficiently wild and

weak, though doubtless patriotic in intention. One was set to restrain

the journalists, and had to be restrained himself, for being more

sensational than any of them. Another scolded the working-classes in the

style of an intoxicated temperance lecturer. But England was saved by a

forgotten thing—the English. Simple men with simple motives, the chief

one a hate of injustice which grows simpler the longer we stare at it,

came out of their dreary tenements and their tidy shops, their fields

and their suburbs and their factories and their rookeries, and asked for

the arms of men. In a throng that was at last three million men, the

islanders went forth from their island, as simply as the mountaineers

had gone forth from their mountain, with their faces to the dawn.

X—The Battle of the Marne

The impression produced by the first week of war was that the British

contingent had come just in time for the end of the world. Or rather,

for any sensitive and civilised man, touched by the modern doubt but by

the equally modern mysticism, that old theocratic vision fell far short

of the sickening terror of the time. For it was a day of judgment in

which upon the throne in heaven and above the cherubim, sat not God, but

another.

The British had been posted at the extreme western end of the allied

line in the north. The other end rested on the secure city and fortress

of Namur; their end rested upon nothing. It is not wholly a sentimental

fancy to say that there was something forlorn in the position of that

loose end in a strange land, with only the sad fields of Northern France

between them and the sea. For it was really round that loose end that

the foe would probably fling the lasso of his charge; it was here that

death might soon be present upon every side. It must be remembered that

many critics, including many Englishmen, doubted whether a rust had not

eaten into this as into other parts of the national life, feared that

England had too long neglected both the ethic and the technique of war,

and would prove a weak link in the chain. The enemy was absolutely

certain that it was so. To these men, standing disconsolately amid the

hedgeless plains and poplars, came the news that Namur was gone, which

was to their captains one of the four corners of the earth. The two

armies had touched; and instantly the weaker took an electric shock

which told of electric energy, deep into deep Germany, battery behind

battery of abysmal force. In the instant it was discovered that the

enemy was more numerous than they had dreamed. He was actually more

numerous even than they discovered. Every oncoming horseman doubled as

in a drunkard’s vision; and they were soon striving without speech in a

nightmare of numbers. Then all the allied forces at the front were

overthrown in the tragic battle of Mons; and began that black retreat,

in which so many of our young men knew war first and at its worst in

this terrible world; and so many never returned.

In that blackness began to grow strange emotions, long unfamiliar to our

blood. Those six dark days are as full of legends as the six centuries

of the Dark Ages. Many of these may be exaggerated fancies, one was

certainly an avowed fiction, others are quite different from it and more

difficult to dissipate into the daylight. But one curious fact remains

about them if they were all lies, or even if they were all deliberate

works of art. Not one of them referred to those close, crowded, and

stirring three centuries which are nearest to us, and which alone are

covered in this sketch, the centuries during which the Teutonic

influence had expanded itself over our islands. Ghosts were there

perhaps, but they were the ghosts of forgotten ancestors. Nobody saw

Cromwell or even Wellington; nobody so much as thought about Cecil

Rhodes. Things were either seen or said among the British which linked

them up, in matters deeper than any alliance, with the French, who spoke

of Joan of Arc in heaven above the fated city; or the Russians who

dreamed of the Mother of God with her hand pointing to the west. They

were the visions or the inventions of a mediæval army; and a prose poet

was in line with many popular rumours when he told of ghostly archers

crying “Array, Array,” as in that long-disbanded yeomanry in which I

have fancied Cobbett as carrying a bow. Other tales, true or only

symptomatic, told of one on a great white horse who was not the victor

of Blenheim or even the Black Prince, but a faint figure out of far-off

martyrologies—St. George. One soldier is asserted to have claimed to

identify the saint because he was “on every quid.” On the coins, St.

George is a Roman soldier.

But these fancies, if they were fancies, might well seem the last sickly

flickerings of an old-world order now finally wounded to the death. That

which was coming on, with the whole weight of a new world, was something

that had never been numbered among the Seven Champions of Christendom.

Now, in more doubtful and more hopeful days, it is almost impossible to

repicture what was, for those who understood, the gigantic finality of

the first German strides. It seemed as if the forces of the ancient

valour fell away to right and left; and there opened a grand, smooth

granite road right to the gate of Paris, down which the great Germania

moved like a tall, unanswerable sphinx, whose pride could destroy all

things and survive them. In her train moved, like moving mountains,

Cyclopean guns that had never been seen among men, before which walled

cities melted like wax, their mouths set insolently upwards as if

threatening to besiege the sun. Nor is it fantastic to speak so of the

new and abnormal armaments; for the soul of Germany was really expressed

in colossal wheels and cylinders; and her guns were more symbolic than

her flags. Then and now, and in every place and time, it is to be noted

that the German superiority has been in a certain thing and of a certain

kind. It is not unity; it is not, in the moral sense, discipline.

Nothing can be more united in a moral sense than a French, British, or

Russian regiment. Nothing, for that matter, could be more united than a

Highland clan at Killiecrankie or a rush of religious fanatics in the

Soudan. What such engines, in such size and multiplicity, really meant

was this: they meant a type of life naturally intolerable to happier and

more healthy-minded men, conducted on a larger scale and consuming

larger populations than had ever been known before. They meant cities

growing larger than provinces, factories growing larger than cities;

they meant the empire of the slum. They meant a degree of detailed

repetition and dehumanised division of labour, to which no man born

would surrender his brief span in the sunshine, if he could hope to beat

his ploughshare into a sword. The nations of the earth were not to

surrender to the Kaiser; they were to surrender to Krupp, his master and

theirs; the French, the British, the Russians were to surrender to Krupp

as the Germans themselves, after a few swiftly broken strikes, had

already surrendered to Krupp. Through every cogwheel in that

incomparable machinery, through every link in that iron and unending

chain, ran the mastery and the skill of a certain kind of artist; an

artist whose hands are never idle through dreaming or drawn back in

disgust or lifted in wonder or in wrath; but sure and tireless in their

touch upon the thousand little things that make the invisible machinery

of life. That artist was there in triumph; but he had no name. The

ancient world called him the Slave.

From this advancing machine of millions, the slighter array of the

Allies, and especially the British at their ultimate outpost, saved

themselves by a succession of hair’s-breadth escapes and what must have

seemed to the soldiers the heartrending luck of a mouse before a cat.

Again and again Von Kluck’s cavalry, supported by artillery and

infantry, clawed round the end of the British force, which eluded it as

by leaping back again and again. Sometimes the pursuer was, so to speak,

so much on top of his prey that it could not even give way to him; but

had to hit such blows as it could in the hope of checking him for the

instant needed for escape. Sometimes the oncoming wave was so close that

a small individual accident, the capture of one man, would mean the

washing out of a whole battalion. For day after day this living death

endured. And day after day a certain dark truth began to be revealed,

bit by bit, certainly to the incredulous wonder of the Prussians, quite

possibly to the surprise of the French, and quite as possibly to the

surprise of themselves; that there was something singular about the

British soldiers. That singular thing may be expressed in a variety of

ways; but it would be almost certainly expressed insufficiently by

anyone who had not had the moral courage to face the facts about his

country in the last decades before the war. It may perhaps be best

expressed by saying that some thousands of Englishmen were dead: and

that England was not.

The fortress of Maubeuge had gaped, so to speak, offering a refuge for

the unresting and tormented retreat; the British Generals had refused it

and continued to fight a losing fight in the open for the sake of the

common plan. At night an enormous multitude of Germans had come

unexpectedly through the forest and caught a smaller body of the British

in Landrecies; failed to dislodge them and lost a whole battalion in

that battle of the darkness. At the extreme end of the line

Smith-Dorrien’s division, who seemed to be nearly caught or cut off, had

fought with one gun against four, and so hammered the Germans that they

were forced to let go their hold; and the British were again free. When

the blowing up of a bridge announced that they had crossed the last

river, something other than that battered remnant was saved; it was the

honour of the thing by which we live.

The driven and defeated line stood at last almost under the walls of

Paris; and the world waited for the doom of the city. The gates seemed

to stand open; and the Prussian was to ride into it for the third and

the last time: for the end of its long epic of liberty and equality was

come. And still the very able and very French individual on whom rested

the last hope of the seemingly hopeless Alliance stood unruffled as a

rock, in every angle of his sky-blue jacket and his bulldog figure. He

had called his bewildered soldiers back when they had broken the

invasion at Guise; he had silently digested the responsibility of

dragging on the retreat, as in despair, to the last desperate leagues

before the capital; and he stood and watched. And even as he watched the

whole huge invasion swerved.

Out through Paris and out and around beyond Paris, other men in dim blue

coats swung out in long lines upon the plain, slowly folding upon Von

Kluck like blue wings. Von Kluck stood an instant; and then, flinging a

few secondary forces to delay the wing that was swinging round on him,

dashed across the Allies’ line at a desperate angle, to smash it in the

centre as with a hammer. It was less desperate than it seemed; for he

counted, and might well count, on the moral and physical bankruptcy of

the British line and the end of the French line immediately in front of

him, which for six days and nights he had chased before him like autumn

leaves before a whirlwind. Not unlike autumn leaves, red-stained,

dust-hued, and tattered, they lay there as if swept into a corner. But

even as their conquerors wheeled eastwards, their bugles blew the

charge; and the English went forward through the wood that is called

Creçy, and stamped it with their seal for the second time, in the

highest moment of all the secular history of man.

But it was not now the Creçy in which English and French knights had met

in a more coloured age, in a battle that was rather a tournament. It was

a league of all knights for the remains of all knighthood, of all

brotherhood in arms or in arts, against that which is and has been

radically unknightly and radically unbrotherly from the beginning. Much

was to happen after—murder and flaming folly and madness in earth and

sea and sky; but all men knew in their hearts that the third Prussian

thrust had failed, and Christendom was delivered once more. The empire

of blood and iron rolled slowly back towards the darkness of the

northern forests; and the great nations of the West went forward; where

side by side as after a long lover’s quarrel, went the ensigns of St.

Denys and St. George.

NOTE ON THE WORD “ENGLISH”

_The words “England” and “English” as used here require a word of

explanation, if only to anticipate the ire of the inevitable Scot. To

begin with, the word “British” involves a similar awkwardness. I have

tried to use it in the one or two cases that referred to such things as

military glory and unity: though I am sure I have failed of full

consistency in so complex a matter. The difficulty is that this sense of

glory and unity, which should certainly cover the Scotch, should also

cover the Irish. And while it is fairly safe to call a Scotsman a North

Briton (despite the just protest of Stevenson), it is very unsafe indeed

to call an Irishman a West Briton. But there is a deeper difficulty. I

can assure the Scot that I say “England,” not because I deny Scottish

nationality, but because I affirm it. And I can say, further, that I

could not here include Scots in the thesis, simply because I could not

include them in the condemnation. This book is a study, not of a disease

but rather of a weakness, which has only been predominant in the

predominant partner. It would not be true, for instance, to say either

of Ireland or Scotland that the populace lacked a religion; but I do

think that British policy as a whole has suffered from the English lack

of one, with its inevitable result of plutocracy and class contempt_.

CHAPTER I

SOME WORDS TO PROFESSOR WHIRLWIND

The German Professor, his need of Education

for Debate—Three Mistakes of German

Controversialists—The Multiplicity of

Excuses—Falsehood against Experience—

Kultur preached by Unkultur—The Mistake

about Bernard Shaw—German Lack of

Welt-Politik—Where England is really

Wrong.

CAPITOLO I

QUALCHE PAROLA AL PROFESSOR TURBINE

Il professore tedesco, il suo bisogno di Istruzione

per il Dibattito—Tre errori dei

polemisti tedeschi—La molteplicità delle

scuse—La menzogna contro l’esperienza—

La Kultur predicata dall’Unkultur—L’errore

su Bernard Shaw—La mancanza tedesca di

Welt-Politik—Dove l’Inghilterra ha davvero

Torto.

CHAPTER II

THE PROTESTANT HERO

Suitable Finale for the German Emperor—Frederick

II. and the Power of

Fear—German Influence in England since

Lather—Our German Kings and Allies—

Triumph of Frederick the Great.

CAPITOLO II

L’EROE PROTESTANTE

Degno finale per l’imperatore tedesco—Federico

II e il potere della

Paura—L’influenza tedesca in Inghilterra dopo

Lutero—I nostri re e alleati tedeschi—

Il trionfo di Federico il Grande.

CHAPTER III

THE ENIGMA OF WATERLOO

How we helped Napoleon—The Revolution

and the Two Germanics—Religious

Resistance of Austria and Russia—Irreligious

Resistance of Prussia and England—Negative

Irreligion of England—its Idealism

in Snobbishness—Positive Irreligion of

Prussia; no Idealism in Anything—Allegory

and the French Revolution—The Dual

Personality of England; the Double Battle—Triumph

of Blucher.

CAPITOLO III

L’ENIGMA DI WATERLOO

Come aiutammo Napoleone—La Rivoluzione

e le due Germanie—La resistenza religiosa

dell’Austria e della Russia—L’irreligiosa

resistenza della Prussia e dell’Inghilterra—La negativa

irreligione dell’Inghilterra—il suo idealismo

nello snobismo—L’irreligione positiva della

Prussia; nessun idealismo in nulla—L’Allegoria

e la Rivoluzione francese—La duplice

personalità dell’Inghilterra; la Duplice battaglia—Il trionfo

di Blücher.

CHAPTER IV

THE COMING OF THE JANISSARIES

The Sad Story of Lord Salisbury—Ireland

and Heligoland—The Young Men of

Ireland—The Dirty Work—The Use of

German Mercenaries—The Unholy Alliance—Triumph

of the German Mercenaries.

CAPITOLO IV

L’AVVENTO DEI GIANNIZZERI

La triste storia di Lord Salisbury—L’Irlanda

e Helgoland—I giovani d’

Irlanda—Il lavoro sporco—L’impiego di

mercenari tedeschi—L’empia alleanza—Il trionfo

dei mercenari tedeschi.

CHAPTER V

THE LOST ENGLAND

Truth about England and Ireland—Murder

and the Two Travellers—Real Defence

of England—The Lost Revolution—Story

of Cobbett and the Germans—Historical

Accuracy of Cobbett—Violence of the English

Language—Exaggerated Truths versus

Exaggerated Lies—Defeat of the People—Triumph

of the German Mercenaries.

CAPITOLO V

L’INGHILTERRA PERDUTA

Verità su Inghilterra e Irlanda—L’omicidio

e i due Viaggiatori—Vera difesa

dell’Inghilterra—La rivoluzione perduta—Storia

di Cobbett e dei Tedeschi—Esattezza

storica di Cobbett—Violenza della lingua

inglese—Verità esagerate contro

Menzogne esagerate—Sconfitta del Popolo—Trionfo

dei mercenari tedeschi.

CHAPTER VI

HAMLET AND THE DANES

Degeneration of Grimm’s Fairy Tales—From

Tales of Terror to Tales of Terrorism—German

Mistake of being Deep—The

Germanisation of Shakespeare—Carlyle and

the Spoilt Child—The Test of Teutonism—

Hell or Hans Andersen—Causes of English

Inaction—Barbarism and Splendid Isolation—

The Peace of the Plutocrats—Hamlet

the Englishman—The Triumph of Bismarck.

CAPITOLO VI

AMLETO E I DANESI

Degenerazione delle fiabe dei Grimm—Dai

racconti del terrore ai racconti del terrorismo—L’errore

tedesco di voler essere Profondi—La

germanizzazione di Shakespeare—Carlyle e

il Bambino viziato—La prova del teutonismo—

L’inferno o Hans Andersen—Le cause dell’inerzia

inglese—Barbarie e Splendido Isolamento—

La pace dei plutocrati—Amleto

l’inglese—Il trionfo di Bismarck.

CHAPTER VII

THE MIDNIGHT OF EUROPE

The Two Napoleons—Their Ultimate

Success—The Interlude of Sedan—The

Meaning of an Emperor—The Triumph of

Versailles—The True Innocence of England—

Triumph of the Kaiser.

CAPITOLO VII

LA MEZZANOTTE D’EUROPA

I due Napoleoni—Il loro definitivo

Successo—L’interludio di Sedan—Il

Significato di un Imperatore—Il trionfo di

Versailles—La vera Innocenza dell’Inghilterra—

Trionfo del Kaiser.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WRONG HORSE

Lord Salisbury Again—The Influence of

1870—The Fairy Tale of Teutonism—The

Adoration of the Crescent—The Reign of

the Cynics—Last Words to Professor

Whirlwind.

CAPITOLO VIII

IL CAVALLO SBAGLIATO

Ancora Lord Salisbury—L’influenza del

1870—La fiaba del teutonismo—L’

adorazione della Mezzaluna—Il regno

dei cinici—Ultime parole al professor

Turbine.

CHAPTER IX

THE AWAKENING OF ENGLAND

The March of Montenegro—The Anti-Servile

State—The Prussian Preparation—The

Sleep of England—The Awakening of

England.

CAPITOLO IX

IL RISVEGLIO DELL’INGHILTERRA

La marcia del Montenegro—Lo Stato

antiservile—La preparazione prussiana—Il

Sonno dell’Inghilterra—Il risveglio

dell’Inghilterra.

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

The Hour of Peril—The Human Deluge—The

English at the Marne.

THE CRIMES OF ENGLAND

I—Some Words to Professor Whirlwind

DEAR PROFESSOR WHIRLWIND,

Your name in the original German is too much for me; and this is the

nearest I propose to get to it: but under the majestic image of pure

wind marching in a movement wholly circular I seem to see, as in a

vision, something of your mind. But the grand isolation of your thoughts

leads you to express them in such words as are gratifying to yourself,

and have an inconspicuous or even an unfortunate effect upon others. If

anything were really to be made of your moral campaign against the

English nation, it was clearly necessary that somebody, if it were only

an Englishman, should show you how to leave off professing philosophy

and begin to practise it. I have therefore sold myself into the Prussian

service, and in return for a cast-off suit of the Emperor’s clothes (the

uniform of an English midshipman), a German hausfrau’s recipe for poison

gas, two penny cigars, and twenty-five Iron Crosses, I have consented

to instruct you in the rudiments of international controversy. Of this

part of my task I have here little to say that is not covered by a

general adjuration to you to observe certain elementary rules. They are,

roughly speaking, as follows:—

First, stick to one excuse. Thus if a tradesman, with whom your social

relations are slight, should chance to find you toying with the coppers

in his till, you may possibly explain that you are interested in

Numismatics and are a Collector of Coins; and he may possibly believe

you. But if you tell him afterwards that you pitied him for being

overloaded with unwieldy copper discs, and were in the act of replacing

them by a silver sixpence of your own, this further explanation, so far

from increasing his confidence in your motives, will (strangely enough)

actually decrease it. And if you are so unwise as to be struck by yet

another brilliant idea, and tell him that the pennies were all bad

pennies, which you were concealing to save him from a police prosecution

for coining, the tradesman may even be so wayward as to institute a

police prosecution himself. Now this is not in any way an exaggeration

of the way in which you have knocked the bottom out of any case you may

ever conceivably have had in such matters as the sinking of the

Lusitania. With my own eyes I have seen the following explanations,

apparently proceeding from your pen, (i) that the ship was a troop-ship

carrying soldiers from Canada; (ii) that if it wasn’t, it was a

merchant-ship unlawfully carrying munitions for the soldiers in France;

(iii) that, as the passengers on the ship had been warned in an

advertisement, Germany was justified in blowing them to the moon; (iv)

that there were guns, and the ship had to be torpedoed because the

English captain was just going to fire them off; (v) that the English or

American authorities, by throwing the Lusitania at the heads of the

German commanders, subjected them to an insupportable temptation; which

was apparently somehow demonstrated or intensified by the fact that the

ship came up to schedule time, there being some mysterious principle by

which having tea at tea-time justifies poisoning the tea; (vi) that the

ship was not sunk by the Germans at all but by the English, the English

captain having deliberately tried to drown himself and some thousand of

his own countrymen in order to cause an exchange of stiff notes between

Mr. Wilson and the Kaiser. If this interesting story be true, I can only

say that such frantic and suicidal devotion to the most remote interests

of his country almost earns the captain pardon for the crime. But do you

not see, my dear Professor, that the very richness and variety of your

inventive genius throws a doubt upon each explanation when considered in

itself? We who read you in England reach a condition of mind in which it

no longer very much matters what explanation you offer, or whether you

offer any at all. We are prepared to hear that you sank the Lusitania

because the sea-born sons of England would live more happily as deep-sea

fishes, or that every person on board was coming home to be hanged. You

have explained yourself so completely, in this clear way, to the

Italians that they have declared war on you, and if you go on explaining

yourself so clearly to the Americans they may quite possibly do the

same.

Second, when telling such lies as may seem necessary to your

international standing, do not tell the lies to the people who know the

truth. Do not tell the Eskimos that snow is bright green; nor tell the

negroes in Africa that the sun never shines in that Dark Continent.

Rather tell the Eskimos that the sun never shines in Africa; and then,

turning to the tropical Africans, see if they will believe that snow is

green. Similarly, the course indicated for you is to slander the

Russians to the English and the English to the Russians; and there are

hundreds of good old reliable slanders which can still be used against

both of them. There are probably still Russians who believe that every

English gentleman puts a rope round his wife’s neck and sells her in

Smithfield. There are certainly still Englishmen who believe that every

Russian gentleman takes a rope to his wife’s back and whips her every

day. But these stories, picturesque and useful as they are, have a limit

to their use like everything else; and the limit consists in the fact

that they are not true, and that there necessarily exists a group of

persons who know they are not true. It is so with matters of fact about

which you asseverate so positively to us, as if they were matters of

CAPITOLO X

LA BATTAGLIA DELLA Marna

L’ora del pericolo - Il diluvio umano diluvio - Il

L’inglese alla Marna.

I crimini dell’Inghilterra

Alcune parole al professor Tornado

CARO PROFESSORE TORNADO,

Il tuo nome in tedesco è troppo per me; e questo è il

Il più vicino che posso arrivare ad esso, ma sotto la maestosa immagine del puro

Mi sembra di vedere il vento che marcia in un movimento completamente circolare, come in una

Visione, qualcosa della tua mente. Ma l’isolamento maestoso dei tuoi pensieri

Ti spinge ad esprimerli con parole che ti soddisfano

e hanno un effetto poco appariscente o addirittura sfortunato sugli altri. Se

se la tua campagna morale contro fosse davvero efficace

La nazione inglese: era chiaramente necessario che qualcuno, se non altro…

un inglese dovrebbe mostrarti come smettere di professare filosofia

E iniziai a metterla in pratica. Mi sono quindi venduto ai prussiani

Servizio e in cambio di un abito scartato dell’Imperatore

(uniforme di un guardiamarina inglese), la ricetta per il veleno di una casalinga tedesca

Gas, sigari da due penny e venticinque Croci di Ferro, ho acconsentito

Per istruirvi sui principi di base della controversia internazionale. Di ciò

Parte del mio compito qui non ha molto da dire che non sia già stato detto

Invito generale ad osservare alcune regole fondamentali. Sono:

approssimativamente parlando, come segue: —

Prima di tutto, scegli un’unica scusa. Se sei un commerciante e il tuo socio…

le relazioni sono superficiali, se per caso ti trovi a giocare con i soldi

Nel suo cassetto potrebbe spiegare che sei interessato

La numismatica e il collezionismo di monete: forse crede che…

Lui. Ma se poi gli dici che lo hai compatito per essere…

sovraccaricati di ingombranti dischi di rame e stavano per sostituirli

Con una moneta d’argento tua, questa ulteriore spiegazione, fin qui

aumentare la sua fiducia nei tuoi motivi, (stranamente)

In realtà la riduce. E se sei così sconsiderato da essere colpito ancora…

Un’altra brillante idea: ditegli che i penny erano tutti falsi

Penny che nascondevi per salvarlo da un’accusa della polizia

Per la coniazione, il commerciante potrebbe anche essere così capriccioso da istituire…

L’accusa della polizia stessa. Ora, questo non è affatto un’esagerazione

per il modo in cui avete tolto la base a qualsiasi argomentazione possiate

mai potuto avere in questioni come l’affondamento del

Lusitania. Con i miei occhi ho visto le seguenti spiegazioni:

apparentemente provenienti dalla tua penna, (i) che la nave era una nave da truppa-nave

Trasporto di soldati dal Canada; (ii) se non lo era, allora era…

nave mercantile nave che trasportava illegalmente munizioni per i soldati in Francia;

(iii) che, poiché i passeggeri sulla nave erano stati avvertiti in un

pubblicità, la Germania aveva giustificato di mandarli sulla luna; (iv)

che c’erano dei cannoni e la nave dovette essere silurata perché

Il capitano inglese stava per farli partire a cannonate; (v) che gli inglesi o

Autorità americane che scagliano il Lusitania sulle teste dei…

I comandanti tedeschi li sottoposero a un’insopportabile tentazione; che

È stato in qualche modo dimostrato o intensificato dal fatto che il

La nave arrivò secondo l’orario previsto, in quanto esisteva un qualche principio misterioso per cui

che prendere il tè all’ora del tè giustifica l’avvelenamento del tè; (vi) che il

La nave non fu affondata dai tedeschi ma dagli inglesi, dagli inglesi.

Il capitano che ha deliberatamente cercato di annegare se stesso e circa mille persone

I suoi connazionali per provocare uno scambio di rigide note tra

Mr. Wilson e il Kaiser. Se questa interessante storia fosse vera, non potrei che…

dire che tale dedizione frenetica e suicida agli interessi più remoti

Il paese del capitano quasi gli merita il perdono per il crimine. Ma voi…

Non vede, mio caro professore, che la stessa ricchezza e varietà della sua

il genio inventivo getta un dubbio su ogni spiegazione quando considerata in

Noi che ti leggiamo in Inghilterra raggiungiamo una condizione mentale in cui…

Non importa più molto quale spiegazione offri, o se lo fai

Siamo pronti ad ascoltare che avete affondato il Lusitania

Perché i figli marini d’Inghilterra vivrebbero più felici in acque profonde

pesci, o che ogni persona a bordo stesse tornando a casa per essere impiccata. Tu

Avete spiegato voi stessi così completamente, in questo modo chiaro, ai…

Gli italiani hanno dichiarato guerra a voi, e se continuate a spiegare

Spiegatevi così chiaramente agli americani che potrebbero davvero farlo

stesso.

In secondo luogo, quando si raccontano bugie che sembrano necessarie per il tuo

Stato internazionale: non mentire a chi lo conosce

verità. Non dite agli Eschimesi che la neve è verde brillante; né dite ai

negri in Africa che il sole non splende mai su quel Continente Oscuro.

È meglio dire agli eschimesi che il sole non splende mai in Africa; e poi,

rivolgendosi agli africani dei tropici, si veda se crederanno che la neve sia

Verde. Allo stesso modo, il percorso indicato per te è quello di calunniare…

I russi agli inglesi e gli inglesi ai russi; e ci sono

centinaia di vecchie e affidabili calunnie ancora utilizzabili contro

Entrambi. Probabilmente ci sono ancora russi che credono che ogni

Un gentiluomo inglese mette una corda al collo di sua moglie e la vende

Smithfield: ci sono ancora inglesi che credono che ogni…

Un gentiluomo russo prende una corda e frusta la schiena di sua moglie

Ma queste storie, pittoresche e utili come sono, hanno un limite

Al loro uso come tutto il resto; e il limite consiste nel fatto

che non sono vere, e che esiste necessariamente un gruppo di

Persone che sanno di non essere vere. È così con le questioni di fatto su…

che voi ci assicurate così positivamente, come se fossero questioni di

opinion. Scarborough might be a fortress; but it is not. I happen to

know it is not. Mr. Morel may deserve to be universally admired in

England; but he is not universally admired in England. Tell the Russians

that he is by all means; but do not tell us. We have seen him; we have

also seen Scarborough. You should think of this before you speak.

Third, don’t perpetually boast that you are cultured in language which

proves that you are not. You claim to thrust yourself upon everybody on

the ground that you are stuffed with wit and wisdom, and have enough for

the whole world. But people who have wit enough for the whole world,

have wit enough for a whole newspaper paragraph. And you can seldom get

through even a whole paragraph without being monotonous, or irrelevant,

or unintelligible, or self-contradictory, or broken-minded generally. If

you have something to teach us, teach it to us now. If you propose to

convert us after you have conquered us, why not convert us before you

have conquered us? As it is, we cannot believe what you say about your

superior education because of the way in which you say it. If an

Englishman says, “I don’t make no mistakes in English, not me,” we can

understand his remark; but we cannot endorse it. To say, “Je parler le

Frenche language, non demi,” is comprehensible, but not convincing. And

when you say, as you did in a recent appeal to the Americans, that the

Germanic Powers have sacrificed a great deal of “red fluid” in defence

of their culture, we point out to you that cultured people do not employ

such a literary style. Or when you say that the Belgians were so

ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren’t, we

only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being

believed when you aren’t. Thus, for instance, when you brag about

burning Venice to express your contempt for “tourists,” we cannot think

much of the culture, as culture, which supposes St. Mark’s to be a thing

for tourists instead of historians. This, however, would be the least

part of our unfavourable judgment. That judgment is complete when we

have read such a paragraph as this, prominently displayed in a paper in

which you specially spread yourself: “That the Italians have a perfect

knowledge of the fact that this city of antiquities and tourists is

subject, and rightly subject, to attack and bombardment, is proved by

the measures they took at the beginning of the war to remove some of

their greatest art treasures.” Now culture may or may not include the

power to admire antiquities, and to restrain oneself from the pleasure

of breaking them like toys. But culture does, presumably, include the

power to think. For less laborious intellects than your own it is

generally sufficient to think once. But if you will think twice or

twenty times, it cannot but dawn on you that there is something wrong in

the reasoning by which the placing of diamonds in a safe proves that

they are “rightly subject” to a burglar. The incessant assertion of such

things can do little to spread your superior culture; and if you say

them too often people may even begin to doubt whether you have any

superior culture after all. The earnest friend now advising you cannot

but grieve at such incautious garrulity. If you confined yourself to

single words, uttered at intervals of about a month or so, no one could

possibly raise any rational objection, or subject them to any rational

criticism. In time you might come to use whole sentences without

revealing the real state of things.

Through neglect of these maxims, my dear Professor, every one of your

attacks upon England has gone wide. In pure fact they have not touched

the spot, which the real critics of England know to be a very vulnerable

spot. We have a real critic of England in Mr. Bernard Shaw, whose name

you parade but apparently cannot spell; for in the paper to which I have

referred he is called Mr. Bernhard Shaw. Perhaps you think he and

Bernhardi are the same man. But if you quoted Mr. Bernard Shaw’s

statement instead of misquoting his name, you would find that his

criticism of England is exactly the opposite of your own; and naturally,

for it is a rational criticism. He does not blame England for being

against Germany. He does most definitely blame England for not being

sufficiently firmly and emphatically on the side of Russia. He is not

such a fool as to accuse Sir Edward Grey of being a fiendish Machiavelli

plotting against Germany; he accuses him of being an amiable

aristocratic stick who failed to frighten the Junkers from their plan of

war. Now, it is not in the least a question of whether we happen to like

this quality or that: Mr. Shaw, I rather fancy, would dislike such

verbose compromise more than downright plotting. It is simply the fact

that Englishmen like Grey are open to Mr. Shaw’s attack and are not open

to yours. It is not true that the English were sufficiently clearheaded

or self-controlled to conspire for the destruction of Germany. Any man

who knows England, any man who hates England as one hates a living

thing, will tell you it is not true. The English may be snobs, they may

be plutocrats, they may be hypocrites, but they are not, as a fact,

plotters; and I gravely doubt whether they could be if they wanted to.

The mass of the people are perfectly incapable of plotting at all, and

if the small ring of rich people who finance our politics were plotting

for anything, it was for peace at almost any price. Any Londoner who

knows the London streets and newspapers as he knows the Nelson column or

the Inner Circle, knows that there were men in the governing class and

in the Cabinet who were literally thirsting to defend Germany until

Germany, by her own act, became indefensible. If they said nothing in

opinione. Scarborough potrebbe essere una fortezza; ma non lo è. Mi accade di

sapere che non lo è. Il signor Morel può meritare di essere universalmente ammirato in

Inghilterra; ma non è universalmente ammirato in Inghilterra. Ditelo pure ai russi

quanto volete; ma non ditelo a noi. Noi lo abbiamo visto; abbiamo

visto anche Scarborough. Dovreste pensarci prima di parlare.

Terzo, non vantatevi in perpetuo di essere colti in un linguaggio che

prova che non lo siete. Pretendete di imporvi a chiunque con

il pretesto di essere ricolmi di spirito e saggezza, e di averne a sufficienza per

il mondo intero. Ma le persone che hanno spirito a sufficienza per il mondo intero,

hanno spirito a sufficienza per un intero paragrafo di giornale. E voi di rado riuscite ad arrivare

in fondo anche a un solo paragrafo senza essere monotoni, o irrilevanti,

o incomprensibili, o auto-contraddittori, o in genere sconnessi di mente. Se

avete qualcosa da insegnarci, insegnatecelo ora. Se vi proponete di

convertirci dopo averci conquistati, perché non convertirci prima di

averci conquistati? Così com’è, non possiamo credere a ciò che dite sulla vostra

superiore educazione per via del modo in cui lo dite. Se un

inglese dice: «Io non faccio nessun errore in inglese, mica io», possiamo

comprendere la sua osservazione; ma non possiamo sottoscriverla. Dire «Je parler le

Frenche language, non demi» è comprensibile, ma non convincente. E

quando dite, come avete fatto in un recente appello agli americani, che le

Potenze germaniche hanno sacrificato una gran quantità di «fluido rosso» in difesa

della loro cultura, vi facciamo notare che le persone colte non impiegano

un simile stile letterario. Oppure quando dite che i belgi erano così

ignoranti da credere di essere massacrati quando non lo erano, noi

ci chiediamo soltanto se voi siate tanto ignoranti da credere di essere

creduti quando non lo siete. Così, per esempio, quando vi vantate di

incendiare Venezia per esprimere il vostro disprezzo per i «turisti», non possiamo pensare

granché della cultura, in quanto cultura, che suppone San Marco essere una cosa

per turisti anziché per storici. Questa, tuttavia, sarebbe la minima

parte del nostro giudizio sfavorevole. Quel giudizio è completo quando

abbiamo letto un paragrafo come questo, esposto in bella evidenza in un giornale in

cui vi mettete particolarmente in mostra: «Che gli italiani abbiano perfetta

conoscenza del fatto che questa città di antichità e di turisti sia

soggetta, e giustamente soggetta, ad attacco e bombardamento, è provato dalle

misure che presero all’inizio della guerra per rimuovere alcuni dei

loro più grandi tesori d’arte». Ora, la cultura può includere o meno il

potere di ammirare le antichità, e di trattenersi dal piacere

di spezzarle come giocattoli. Ma la cultura, presumibilmente, include il

potere di pensare. Per intelletti meno laboriosi del vostro è

in genere sufficiente pensare una volta. Ma se penserete due volte o

venti volte, non potrà che albeggiarvi in mente che c’è qualcosa di sbagliato nel

ragionamento per cui il collocare diamanti in una cassaforte prova che

essi sono «giustamente soggetti» a uno scassinatore. L’incessante affermazione di simili

cose può fare ben poco per diffondere la vostra cultura superiore; e se le

dite troppo spesso la gente potrebbe persino cominciare a dubitare che voi abbiate una qualche

cultura superiore, dopotutto. L’amico sincero che ora vi consiglia non può

che dolersi di una simile incauta loquacità. Se vi limitaste a

parole singole, pronunciate a intervalli di circa un mese, nessuno potrebbe

sollevare alcuna obiezione razionale, o sottoporle ad alcuna critica

razionale. Col tempo potreste arrivare a usare intere frasi senza

rivelare il reale stato delle cose.

Per aver trascurato queste massime, mio caro Professore, ognuno dei vostri

attacchi all’Inghilterra è andato a vuoto. In pura realtà non hanno toccato

il punto, che i veri critici dell’Inghilterra sanno essere un assai vulnerabile

punto. Abbiamo un vero critico dell’Inghilterra nel signor Bernard Shaw, il cui nome

voi sbandierate ma a quanto pare non sapete scrivere; poiché nel giornale a cui ho

fatto riferimento egli è chiamato signor Bernhard Shaw. Forse pensate che lui e

Bernhardi siano lo stesso uomo. Ma se citaste del signor Bernard Shaw la

dichiarazione invece di travisarne il nome, scoprireste che la sua

critica dell’Inghilterra è esattamente l’opposto della vostra; e naturalmente,

poiché è una critica razionale. Egli non biasima l’Inghilterra per essere

contro la Germania. Egli biasima invece decisamente l’Inghilterra per non essere

abbastanza fermamente ed enfaticamente dalla parte della Russia. Egli non è

tanto sciocco da accusare Sir Edward Grey di essere un diabolico Machiavelli

che trama contro la Germania; lo accusa di essere un amabile

impiastro aristocratico che non riuscì a distogliere i Junker dal loro piano di

guerra. Ora, non è affatto una questione di se a noi piaccia

questa o quella qualità: il signor Shaw, immagino piuttosto, detesterebbe un simile

verboso compromesso più del vero e proprio tramare. È semplicemente il fatto

che inglesi come Grey sono esposti all’attacco del signor Shaw e non sono esposti

al vostro. Non è vero che gli inglesi fossero abbastanza lucidi

o auto-controllati da cospirare per la distruzione della Germania. Chiunque

conosca l’Inghilterra, chiunque odi l’Inghilterra come si odia una cosa

viva, vi dirà che non è vero. Gli inglesi saranno anche snob, saranno

plutocrati, saranno ipocriti, ma non sono, di fatto,

cospiratori; e dubito gravemente che potrebbero esserlo anche se lo volessero.

La massa del popolo è perfettamente incapace di tramare alcunché, e

se la piccola cerchia di ricchi che finanzia la nostra politica tramava

per qualcosa, era per la pace a quasi qualunque prezzo. Ogni londinese che

conosce le strade e i giornali di Londra come conosce la colonna di Nelson o

l’Inner Circle, sa che c’erano uomini nella classe dirigente e

nel Gabinetto che letteralmente smaniavano di difendere la Germania finché

la Germania, per un proprio atto, divenne indifendibile. Se non dissero nulla in

support of the tearing up of the promise of peace to Belgium, it is

simply because there was nothing to be said.

You were the first people to talk about World-Politics; and the first

people to disregard them altogether. Even your foreign policy is

domestic policy. It does not even apply to any people who are not

Germans; and of your wild guesses about some twenty other peoples, not

one has gone right even by accident. Your two or three shots at my own

not immaculate land have been such that you would have been much nearer

the truth if you had tried to invade England by crossing the Caucasus,

or to discover England among the South Sea Islands. With your first

delusion, that our courage was calculated and malignant when in truth

our very corruption was timid and confused, I have already dealt. The

case is the same with your second favourite phrase; that the British

army is mercenary. You learnt it in books and not in battlefields; and I

should like to be present at a scene in which you tried to bribe the

most miserable little loafer in Hammersmith as if he were a cynical

condottiere selling his spear to some foreign city. It is not the fact,

my dear sir. You have been misinformed. The British Army is not at this

moment a hireling army any more than it is a conscript army. It is a

volunteer army in the strict sense of the word; nor do I object to your

calling it an amateur army. There is no compulsion, and there is next to

no pay. It is at this moment drawn from every class of the community,

and there are very few classes which would not earn a little more money

in their ordinary trades. It numbers very nearly as many men as it would

if it were a conscript army; that is with the necessary margin of men

unable to serve or needed to serve otherwise. Ours is a country in which

that democratic spirit which is common to Christendom is rather

unusually sluggish and far below the surface. And the most genuine and

purely popular movement that we have had since the Chartists has been

the enlistment for this war. By all means say that such vague and

sentimental volunteering is valueless in war if you think so; or even

if you don’t think so. By all means say that Germany is unconquerable

and that we cannot really kill you. But if you say that we do not really

want to kill you, you do us an injustice. You do indeed.

I need not consider the yet crazier things that some of you have said;

as that the English intend to keep Calais and fight France as well as

Germany for the privilege of purchasing a frontier and the need to keep

a conscript army. That, also, is out of books, and pretty mouldy old

books at that. It was said, I suppose, to gain sympathy among the

French, and is therefore not my immediate business, as they are

eminently capable of looking after themselves. I merely drop one word in

passing, lest you waste your powerful intellect on such projects. The

English may some day forgive you; the French never will. You Teutons are

too light and fickle to understand the Latin seriousness. My only

concern is to point out that about England, at least, you are invariably

and miraculously wrong.

Now speaking seriously, my dear Professor, it will not do. It could be

easy to fence with you for ever and parry every point you attempt to

make, until English people began to think there was nothing wrong with

England at all. But I refuse to play for safety in this way. There is a

very great deal that is really wrong with England, and it ought not to

be forgotten even in the full blaze of your marvellous mistakes. I

cannot have my countrymen tempted to those pleasures of intellectual

pride which are the result of comparing themselves with you. The deep

collapse and yawning chasm of your ineptitude leaves me upon a perilous

spiritual elevation. Your mistakes are matters of fact; but to enumerate

them does not exhaust the truth. For instance, the learned man who

rendered the phrase in an English advertisement “cut you dead” as “hack

you to death,” was in error; but to say that many such advertisements

are vulgar is not an error. Again, it is true that the English poor are

harried and insecure, with insufficient instinct for armed revolt,

though you will be wrong if you say that they are occupied literally in

shooting the moon. It is true that the average Englishman is too much

attracted by aristocratic society; though you will be in error if you

quote dining with Duke Humphrey as an example of it. In more ways than

one you forget what is meant by idiom.

I have therefore thought it advisable to provide you with a catalogue of

the real crimes of England; and I have selected them on a principle

which cannot fail to interest and please you. On many occasions we have

been very wrong indeed. We were very wrong indeed when we took part in

preventing Europe from putting a term to the impious piracies of

Frederick the Great. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the

triumph over Napoleon to be soiled with the mire and blood of Blucher’s

sullen savages. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the peaceful

King of Denmark to be robbed in broad daylight by a brigand named

Bismarck; and when we allowed the Prussian swashbucklers to enslave and

silence the French provinces which they could neither govern nor

persuade. We were very wrong indeed when we flung to such hungry

adventurers a position so important as Heligoland. We were very wrong

indeed when we praised the soulless Prussian education and copied the

soulless Prussian laws. Knowing that you will mingle your tears with

mine over this record of English wrong-doing, I dedicate it to you, and

I remain,

Yours reverently,

G. K. CHESTERTON

II—The Protestant Hero

A question is current in our looser English journalism touching what

a sostegno dello stracciamento della promessa di pace al Belgio, è

semplicemente perché non c’era nulla da dire.

Siete stati il primo popolo a parlare di Politica-Mondiale; e il primo

popolo a ignorarla del tutto. Persino la vostra politica estera è

politica interna. Non si applica nemmeno a un popolo che non sia

tedesco; e delle vostre folli congetture su una ventina di altri popoli, non

una ne è andata giusta nemmeno per caso. I vostri due o tre tentativi sulla mia stessa

non immacolata terra sono stati tali che sareste stati molto più vicini

alla verità se aveste tentato di invadere l’Inghilterra attraversando il Caucaso,

o di scoprire l’Inghilterra tra le isole dei Mari del Sud. Con la vostra prima

illusione, che il nostro coraggio fosse calcolato e maligno quando in verità

la nostra stessa corruzione era timida e confusa, ho già fatto i conti. Il

caso è lo stesso con la vostra seconda frase prediletta; che l’esercito britannico

sia mercenario. L’avete appreso sui libri e non sui campi di battaglia; e

vorrei essere presente a una scena in cui tentaste di corrompere il

più miserabile fannullone di Hammersmith come se fosse un cinico

condottiero che vende la propria lancia a qualche città straniera. Non è così,

mio caro signore. Siete stato male informato. L’esercito britannico non è in questo

momento un esercito di prezzolati più di quanto sia un esercito di coscritti. È un

esercito di volontari nel senso stretto della parola; né mi oppongo al vostro

chiamarlo un esercito di dilettanti. Non c’è costrizione, e non c’è quasi

paga. È in questo momento attinto da ogni classe della comunità,

e vi sono pochissime classi che non guadagnerebbero un po’ più di denaro

nei loro ordinari mestieri. Conta quasi altrettanti uomini quanti ne conterebbe

se fosse un esercito di coscritti; vale a dire con il necessario margine di uomini

incapaci di servire o necessari a servire altrimenti. Il nostro è un paese in cui

quello spirito democratico che è comune alla Cristianità è piuttosto

insolitamente fiacco e ben al di sotto della superficie. E il più genuino e

puramente popolare movimento che abbiamo avuto dai Cartisti in poi è stato

l’arruolamento per questa guerra. Dite pure che un simile vago e

sentimentale volontariato è privo di valore in guerra se così pensate; o anche

se non lo pensate. Dite pure che la Germania è inespugnabile

e che non possiamo davvero uccidervi. Ma se dite che non vogliamo davvero

uccidervi, ci fate un’ingiustizia. Davvero.

Non ho bisogno di considerare le cose ancora più folli che alcuni di voi hanno detto;

come che gli inglesi intendano tenersi Calais e combattere la Francia tanto quanto

la Germania per il privilegio di acquistare una frontiera e il bisogno di mantenere

un esercito di coscritti. Anche questo viene dai libri, e per giunta da libri vecchi e

assai ammuffiti. Fu detto, suppongo, per guadagnare simpatia tra i

francesi, e non è dunque affar mio immediato, poiché essi sono

eminentemente capaci di badare a sé stessi. Lascio soltanto cadere una parola di

sfuggita, affinché non sprechiate il vostro potente intelletto in simili progetti. Gli

inglesi potranno un giorno perdonarvi; i francesi mai. Voi Teutoni siete

troppo leggeri e volubili per comprendere la serietà latina. La mia sola

preoccupazione è di far notare che sull’Inghilterra, almeno, avete invariabilmente

e miracolosamente torto.

Ora, parlando seriamente, mio caro Professore, non va bene. Sarebbe

facile schermire con voi in eterno e parare ogni colpo che tentate di

vibrare, finché gli inglesi cominciassero a pensare che non ci fosse nulla di sbagliato in

Inghilterra affatto. Ma mi rifiuto di giocare sul sicuro in questo modo. C’è

moltissimo di davvero sbagliato nell’Inghilterra, e non dovrebbe

essere dimenticato nemmeno nel pieno bagliore dei vostri meravigliosi errori. Non

posso permettere che i miei compatrioti siano tentati da quei piaceri dell’intellettuale

orgoglio che derivano dal confrontarsi con voi. Il profondo

collasso e la voragine spalancata della vostra inettitudine mi lascia su una perigliosa

elevazione spirituale. I vostri errori sono questioni di fatto; ma enumerarli

non esaurisce la verità. Per esempio, il dotto che

rese la frase di un annuncio inglese «cut you dead» come «farvi a

morte», era in errore; ma dire che molti simili annunci

sono volgari non è un errore. Di nuovo, è vero che i poveri inglesi sono

tormentati e insicuri, con insufficiente istinto per la rivolta armata,

benché sbaglierete se direte che sono occupati letteralmente a

sparare alla luna. È vero che l’inglese medio è troppo

attratto dalla società aristocratica; benché sarete in errore se

citate il pranzare con il Duca Humphrey come esempio di ciò. In più d’un

modo dimenticate ciò che s’intende per idioma.

Ho perciò ritenuto opportuno fornirvi un catalogo dei

veri crimini dell’Inghilterra; e li ho scelti secondo un principio

che non può mancare di interessarvi e compiacervi. In molte occasioni ci siamo

comportati davvero malissimo. Ci comportammo davvero malissimo quando prendemmo parte a

impedire all’Europa di porre un termine alle empie piraterie di

Federico il Grande. Ci comportammo davvero malissimo quando permettemmo che il

trionfo su Napoleone fosse insozzato dal fango e dal sangue dei

tetri selvaggi di Blücher. Ci comportammo davvero malissimo quando permettemmo che il pacifico

Re di Danimarca fosse derubato in pieno giorno da un brigante di nome

Bismarck; e quando permettemmo agli spacconi prussiani di asservire e

zittire le province francesi che non seppero né governare né

persuadere. Ci comportammo davvero malissimo quando gettammo a simili affamati

avventurieri una posizione così importante come Heligoland. Ci comportammo davvero

malissimo quando lodammo la senz’anima educazione prussiana e copiammo le

senz’anima leggi prussiane. Sapendo che mescolerete le vostre lacrime alle

mie su questo resoconto delle malefatte inglesi, lo dedico a voi, e

resto,

vostro con reverenza,

G. K. CHESTERTON

II—L’eroe protestante

Una questione corre nel nostro più sciatto giornalismo inglese riguardo a ciò che

should be done with the German Emperor after a victory of the Allies.

Our more feminine advisers incline to the view that he should be shot.

This is to make a mistake about the very nature of hereditary monarchy.

Assuredly the Emperor William at his worst would be entitled to say to

his amiable Crown Prince what Charles II. said when his brother warned

him of the plots of assassins: “They will never kill me to make you

king.” Others, of greater monstrosity of mind, have suggested that he

should be sent to St. Helena. So far as an estimate of his

historical importance goes, he might as well be sent to Mount Calvary.

What we have to deal with is an elderly, nervous, not unintelligent

person who happens to be a Hohenzollern; and who, to do him justice,

does think more of the Hohenzollerns as a sacred caste than of his own

particular place in it. In such families the old boast and motto of

hereditary kingship has a horrible and degenerate truth. The king never

dies; he only decays for ever.

If it were a matter of the smallest importance what happened to the

Emperor William when once his house had been disarmed, I should satisfy

my fancy with another picture of his declining years; a conclusion that

would be peaceful, humane, harmonious, and forgiving.

In various parts of the lanes and villages of South England the

pedestrian will come upon an old and quiet public-house, decorated with

a dark and faded portrait in a cocked hat and the singular inscription,

“The King of Prussia.” These inn signs probably commemorate the visit of

the Allies after 1815, though a great part of the English middle classes

may well have connected them with the time when Frederick II. was

earning his title of the Great, along with a number of other territorial

titles to which he had considerably less claim. Sincere and

simple-hearted Dissenting ministers would dismount before that sign (for

in those days Dissenters drank beer like Christians, and indeed

manufactured most of it) and would pledge the old valour and the old

victory of him whom they called the Protestant Hero. We should be using

every word with literal exactitude if we said that he was really

something devilish like a hero. Whether he was a Protestant hero or not

can be decided best by those who have read the correspondence of a

writer calling himself Voltaire, who was quite shocked at Frederick’s

utter lack of religion of any kind. But the little Dissenter drank his

beer in all innocence and rode on. And the great blasphemer of Potsdam

would have laughed had he known; it was a jest after his own heart. Such

was the jest he made when he called upon the emperors to come to

communion, and partake of the eucharistic body of Poland. Had he been

such a Bible reader as the Dissenter doubtless thought him, he might

haply have foreseen the vengeance of humanity upon his house. He might

have known what Poland was and was yet to be; he might have known that

he ate and drank to his damnation, discerning not the body of God.

Whether the placing of the present German Emperor in charge of one of

these wayside public-houses would be a jest after his own heart

possibly remains to be seen. But it would be much more melodious and

fitting an end than any of the sublime euthanasias which his enemies

provide for him. That old sign creaking above him as he sat on the bench

outside his home of exile would be a much more genuine memory of the

real greatness of his race than the modern and almost gimcrack stars and

garters that were pulled in Windsor Chapel. From modern knighthood has

departed all shadow of chivalry; how far we have travelled from it can

easily be tested by the mere suggestion that Sir Thomas Lipton, let us

say, should wear his lady’s sleeve round his hat or should watch his

armour in the Chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The giving and

receiving of the Garter among despots and diplomatists is now only part

of that sort of pottering mutual politeness which keeps the peace in an

insecure and insincere state of society. But that old blackened wooden

sign is at least and after all the sign of something; the sign of the

time when one solitary Hohenzollern did not only set fire to fields and

cities, but did truly set on fire the minds of men, even though it were

fire from hell.

Everything was young once, even Frederick the Great. It was an

appropriate preface to the terrible epic of Prussia that it began with

an unnatural tragedy of the loss of youth. That blind and narrow savage

who was the boy’s father had just sufficient difficulty in stamping out

every trace of decency in him, to show that some such traces must have

been there. If the younger and greater Frederick ever had a heart, it

was a broken heart; broken by the same blow that broke his flute. When

his only friend was executed before his eyes, there were two corpses to

be borne away; and one to be borne on a high war-horse through victory

after victory: but with a small bottle of poison in the pocket. It is

not irrelevant thus to pause upon the high and dark house of his

childhood. For the peculiar quality which marks out Prussian arms and

ambitions from all others of the kind consists in this wrinkled and

premature antiquity. There is something comparatively boyish about the

triumphs of all the other tyrants. There was something better than

ambition in the beauty and ardour of the young Napoleon. He was at

least a lover; and his first campaign was like a love-story. All that

was pagan in him worshipped the Republic as men worship a woman, and all

that was Catholic in him understood the paradox of Our Lady of

andrebbe fatto dell’Imperatore tedesco dopo una vittoria degli Alleati.

I nostri consiglieri più femminei propendono per l’idea che dovrebbe essere fucilato.

Ciò significa fraintendere la natura stessa della monarchia ereditaria.

Di certo l’Imperatore Guglielmo, nel suo peggio, avrebbe il diritto di dire al

suo amabile Principe ereditario ciò che Carlo II disse quando suo fratello lo avvertì

dei complotti degli assassini: «Non mi uccideranno mai per fare di te

re». Altri, di mente più mostruosa, hanno suggerito che egli

dovrebbe essere mandato a Sant’Elena. Per quanto riguarda una stima della sua

importanza storica, potrebbe benissimo essere mandato sul Monte Calvario.

Ciò con cui abbiamo a che fare è una persona anziana, nervosa, non priva d’intelligenza,

che per caso è un Hohenzollern; e che, a rendergli giustizia,

pensa più agli Hohenzollern come casta sacra che al proprio

posto particolare in essa. In simili famiglie l’antico vanto e motto della

regalità ereditaria ha una verità orribile e degenerata. Il re non

muore mai; si limita a decadere in eterno.

Se avesse la minima importanza ciò che accade all’

Imperatore Guglielmo una volta disarmata la sua casa, appagherei

la mia fantasia con un altro quadro dei suoi anni declinanti; una conclusione che

sarebbe pacifica, umana, armoniosa e clemente.

In varie parti dei sentieri e dei villaggi dell’Inghilterra meridionale il

viandante si imbatterà in un’antica e quieta osteria, decorata con

un ritratto scuro e sbiadito con un cappello a punta e la singolare iscrizione,

«Il Re di Prussia». Queste insegne di locanda commemorano probabilmente la visita degli

Alleati dopo il 1815, benché gran parte della classe media inglese

possa benissimo averle collegate al tempo in cui Federico II

si guadagnava il titolo di Grande, insieme a una serie di altri titoli territoriali

su cui aveva un diritto considerevolmente minore. Sinceri e

di cuore semplice, i ministri Dissenzienti smontavano da cavallo davanti a quell’insegna (poiché

a quei tempi i Dissenzienti bevevano birra come cristiani, e anzi

ne producevano la maggior parte) e brindavano all’antico valore e all’antica

vittoria di colui che chiamavano l’Eroe protestante. Useremmo

ogni parola con letterale esattezza se dicessimo che egli era davvero

qualcosa di diabolicamente simile a un eroe. Se fosse un eroe protestante o meno

può deciderlo meglio chi ha letto la corrispondenza di uno

scrittore che si faceva chiamare Voltaire, il quale era assai scandalizzato dalla

totale assenza in Federico di qualsiasi religione. Ma il piccolo Dissenziente beveva la sua

birra in tutta innocenza e proseguiva a cavallo. E il grande bestemmiatore di Potsdam

avrebbe riso se l’avesse saputo; era uno scherzo di suo gradimento. Tale

era lo scherzo che fece quando invitò gli imperatori a venire alla

comunione, e a prendere parte al corpo eucaristico della Polonia. Se fosse stato

un lettore della Bibbia quale il Dissenziente senza dubbio lo credeva, avrebbe

forse potuto prevedere la vendetta dell’umanità sulla sua casa. Avrebbe

potuto sapere ciò che la Polonia era e sarebbe ancora stata; avrebbe potuto sapere che

mangiava e beveva alla propria dannazione, non discernendo il corpo di Dio.

Se collocare l’attuale Imperatore tedesco alla guida di una di

queste osterie di strada sarebbe uno scherzo di suo gradimento

resta forse da vedere. Ma sarebbe una fine assai più melodiosa e

appropriata di qualsiasi sublime eutanasia che i suoi nemici

gli riservano. Quella vecchia insegna che cigola sopra di lui mentre siede sulla panca

fuori dalla sua dimora d’esilio sarebbe un ricordo assai più genuino della

vera grandezza della sua stirpe che le moderne e quasi dozzinali stelle e

giarrettiere esibite nella Cappella di Windsor. Dalla cavalleria moderna è

scomparsa ogni ombra di cavalleria; quanto ce ne siamo allontanati può

facilmente misurarsi dalla semplice ipotesi che Sir Thomas Lipton, diciamo,

dovrebbe portare la manica della sua dama attorno al cappello o vegliare la sua

armatura nella Cappella di San Tommaso di Canterbury. Il conferire e

il ricevere la Giarrettiera fra despoti e diplomatici è ormai solo parte

di quella sorta di gingillante cortesia reciproca che mantiene la pace in uno

stato di società insicuro e insincero. Ma quella vecchia insegna di legno annerito

è almeno e dopo tutto il segno di qualcosa; il segno del

tempo in cui un solitario Hohenzollern non solo diede fuoco a campi e

città, ma diede davvero fuoco alle menti degli uomini, per quanto fosse

fuoco infernale.

Ogni cosa un tempo fu giovane, persino Federico il Grande. Fu un

preludio appropriato alla terribile epopea della Prussia che essa cominciasse con

una tragedia innaturale della perdita della giovinezza. Quel selvaggio cieco e gretto

che era il padre del ragazzo ebbe difficoltà appena sufficiente a estirpare

ogni traccia di decenza in lui, da mostrare che alcune di queste tracce dovevano

esserci state. Se il più giovane e più grande Federico ebbe mai un cuore, esso

fu un cuore spezzato; spezzato dallo stesso colpo che spezzò il suo flauto. Quando

il suo unico amico fu giustiziato davanti ai suoi occhi, vi furono due cadaveri da

portar via; e uno da portare su un alto cavallo da guerra di vittoria

dopo vittoria: ma con una piccola boccetta di veleno in tasca. Non è

irrilevante soffermarsi così sull’alta e oscura casa della sua

infanzia. Poiché la peculiare qualità che distingue le armi e le

ambizioni prussiane da tutte le altre del genere consiste in questa rugosa e

prematura antichità. C’è qualcosa di comparativamente fanciullesco nei

trionfi di tutti gli altri tiranni. C’era qualcosa di migliore dell’

ambizione nella bellezza e nell’ardore del giovane Napoleone. Egli era per

lo meno un amante; e la sua prima campagna fu come una storia d’amore. Tutto ciò

che in lui era pagano adorava la Repubblica come gli uomini adorano una donna, e tutto

ciò che in lui era cattolico comprendeva il paradosso di Nostra Signora di

Victories. Henry VIII., a far less reputable person, was in his early

days a good knight of the later and more florid school of chivalry; we

might almost say that he was a fine old English gentleman so long as he

was young. Even Nero was loved in his first days: and there must have

been some cause to make that Christian maiden cast flowers on his

dishonourable grave. But the spirit of the great Hohenzollern smelt from

the first of the charnel. He came out to his first victory like one

broken by defeats; his strength was stripped to the bone and fearful as

a fleshless resurrection; for the worst of what could come had already

befallen him. The very construction of his kingship was built upon the

destruction of his manhood. He had known the final shame; his soul had

surrendered to force. He could not redress that wrong; he could only

repeat it and repay it. He could make the souls of his soldiers

surrender to his gibbet and his whipping-post; he could ‘make the souls

of the nations surrender to his soldiers. He could only break men in as

he had been broken; while he could break in, he could never break out.

He could not slay in anger, nor even sin with simplicity. Thus he stands

alone among the conquerors of their kind; his madness was not due to a

mere misdirection of courage. Before the whisper of war had come to him

the foundations of his audacity had been laid in fear.

Of the work he did in this world there need be no considerable debate.

It was romantic, if it be romantic that the dragon should swallow St.

George. He turned a small country into a great one: he made a new

diplomacy by the fulness and far-flung daring of his lies: he took away

from criminality all reproach of carelessness and incompleteness. He

achieved an amiable combination of thrift and theft. He undoubtedly gave

to stark plunder something of the solidity of property. He protected

whatever he stole as simpler men protect whatever they have earned or

inherited. He turned his hollow eyes with a sort of loathsome affection

upon the territories which had most reluctantly become his: at the end

of the Seven Years’ War men knew as little how he was to be turned out

of Silesia as they knew why he had ever been allowed in it. In Poland,

like a devil in possession, he tore asunder the body he inhabited; but

it was long before any man dreamed that such disjected limbs could live

again. Nor were the effects of his break from Christian tradition

confined to Christendom; Macaulay’s world-wide generalisation is very

true though very Macaulayese. But though, in a long view, he scattered

the seeds of war all over the world, his own last days were passed in a

long and comparatively prosperous peace; a peace which received and

perhaps deserved a certain praise: a peace with which many European

peoples were content. For though he did not understand justice, he could

understand moderation. He was the most genuine and the most wicked of

pacifists. He did not want any more wars. He had tortured and beggared

all his neighbours; but he bore them no malice for it.

The immediate cause of that spirited disaster, the intervention of

England on behalf of the new Hohenzollern throne, was due, of course,

to the national policy of the first William Pitt. He was the kind of man

whose vanity and simplicity are too easily overwhelmed by the obvious.

He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and

nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless

glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs,

sceptical but still healthy-minded, and neither good enough nor bad

enough to understand that even the war of that irreligious age was

ultimately a religious war. He had not a shade of irony in his whole

being; and beside Frederick, already as old as sin, he was like a rather

brilliant schoolboy.

But the direct causes were not the only causes, nor the true ones. The

true causes were connected with the triumph of one of the two traditions

which had long been struggling in England. And it is pathetic to record

that the foreign tradition was then represented by two of the ablest men

of that age, Frederick of Prussia and Pitt; while what was really the

old English tradition was represented by two of the stupidest men that

mankind ever tolerated in any age, George III. and Lord Bute. Bute was

the figurehead of a group of Tories who set about fulfilling the fine if

fanciful scheme for a democratic monarchy sketched by Bolingbroke in

“The Patriot King.” It was bent in all sincerity on bringing men’s minds

back to what are called domestic affairs, affairs as domestic as George

III. It might have arrested the advancing corruption of Parliaments and

enclosure of country-sides, by turning men’s minds from the foreign

glories of the great Whigs like Churchill and Chatham; and one of its

first acts was to terminate the alliance with Prussia. Unfortunately,

whatever was picturesque in the piracy of Potsdam was beyond the

imagination of Windsor. But whatever was prosaic in Potsdam was already

established at Windsor; the economy of cold mutton, the heavy-handed

taste in the arts, and the strange northern blend of boorishness with

etiquette. If Bolingbroke’s ideas had been applied by a spirited person,

by a Stuart, for example, or even by Queen Elizabeth (who had real

spirit along with her extraordinary vulgarity), the national soul might

have broken free from its new northern chains. But it was the irony of

the situation that the King to whom Tories appealed as a refuge from

Germanism was himself a German.

We have thus to refer the origins of the German influence in England

back to the beginning of the Hanoverian Succession; and thence back to

the quarrel between the King and the lawyers which had issue at Naseby;

Vittorie. Enrico VIII, persona assai meno rispettabile, fu nei suoi primi

giorni un buon cavaliere della più tarda e più florida scuola della cavalleria; si

potrebbe quasi dire che fu un bel vecchio gentiluomo inglese finché

fu giovane. Persino Nerone fu amato nei suoi primi giorni: e vi dev’essere

stata qualche ragione perché quella fanciulla cristiana gettasse fiori sulla sua

disonorevole tomba. Ma lo spirito del grande Hohenzollern sapeva fin dal

principio di carnaio. Egli venne alla sua prima vittoria come uno

spezzato dalle sconfitte; la sua forza era ridotta all’osso e terribile come

una scarna resurrezione; poiché il peggio di ciò che poteva venire gli era già

accaduto. La stessa costruzione della sua regalità era edificata sulla

distruzione della sua virilità. Aveva conosciuto l’ultima vergogna; la sua anima si era

arresa alla forza. Non poteva riparare quel torto; poteva solo

ripeterlo e ripagarlo. Poteva far sì che le anime dei suoi soldati

si arrendessero alla sua forca e al suo palo della fustigazione; poteva ‘far sì che le anime

delle nazioni si arrendessero ai suoi soldati. Poteva solo domare gli uomini come

era stato domato lui; finché poteva domare, non poteva mai affrancarsi.

Non poteva uccidere per ira, né peccare con semplicità. Così egli sta

solo fra i conquistatori della loro specie; la sua follia non era dovuta a un

mero sviamento del coraggio. Prima che il sussurro della guerra gli giungesse

le fondamenta della sua audacia erano state poste nella paura.

Dell’opera che egli compì in questo mondo non v’è bisogno di gran dibattito.

Fu romantica, se è romantico che il drago debba inghiottire san

Giorgio. Trasformò un piccolo paese in uno grande: creò una nuova

diplomazia con la pienezza e l’ardire smisurato delle sue menzogne: tolse

alla criminalità ogni biasimo di negligenza e incompletezza. Egli

realizzò un’amabile combinazione di parsimonia e furto. Diede senza dubbio

alla pura rapina qualcosa della solidità della proprietà. Proteggeva

tutto ciò che rubava come gli uomini più semplici proteggono ciò che hanno guadagnato o

ereditato. Volgeva i suoi occhi incavati con una sorta di ripugnante affetto

verso i territori che con la massima riluttanza erano divenuti suoi: alla fine

della Guerra dei Sette Anni gli uomini sapevano tanto poco come lo si potesse cacciare

dalla Slesia quanto sapevano perché mai gli fosse stato permesso di entrarvi. In Polonia,

come un demonio in possesso, lacerò il corpo che abitava; ma

passò molto tempo prima che alcuno sognasse che tali membra disgiunte potessero vivere

di nuovo. Né gli effetti della sua rottura dalla tradizione cristiana

furono confinati alla cristianità; la generalizzazione mondiale di Macaulay è assai

vera per quanto assai macaulayana. Ma benché, in una lunga prospettiva, egli sparse

i semi della guerra per tutto il mondo, i suoi ultimi giorni trascorsero in una

lunga e relativamente prospera pace; una pace che ricevette e

forse meritò una certa lode: una pace di cui molti popoli europei

erano contenti. Poiché, benché non comprendesse la giustizia, poteva

comprendere la moderazione. Fu il più genuino e il più malvagio dei

pacifisti. Non voleva altre guerre. Aveva torturato e ridotto alla mendicità

tutti i suoi vicini; ma non ne serbava loro alcun rancore.

La causa immediata di quel vivace disastro, l’intervento

dell’Inghilterra a favore del nuovo trono Hohenzollern, fu dovuta, naturalmente,

alla politica nazionale del primo William Pitt. Era il tipo d’uomo

la cui vanità e semplicità sono troppo facilmente sopraffatte dall’ovvio.

Non vedeva in una crisi europea altro che una guerra con la Francia; e

nulla in una guerra con la Francia se non una ripetizione delle piuttosto sterili

glorie di Azincourt e di Malplaquet. Era degli Whig erastiani,

scettico ma pur sano di mente, e né abbastanza buono né abbastanza

malvagio da comprendere che perfino la guerra di quell’età irreligiosa era

in ultima analisi una guerra religiosa. Non aveva un’ombra d’ironia in tutto il suo

essere; e accanto a Federico, già vecchio come il peccato, era come un piuttosto

brillante scolaro.

Ma le cause dirette non erano le sole cause, né quelle vere. Le

vere cause erano legate al trionfo di una delle due tradizioni

che a lungo avevano lottato in Inghilterra. Ed è patetico registrare

che la tradizione straniera era allora rappresentata da due dei più abili uomini

di quell’età, Federico di Prussia e Pitt; mentre ciò che era davvero l’

antica tradizione inglese era rappresentata da due dei più stupidi uomini che

l’umanità abbia mai tollerato in qualsiasi età, Giorgio III e Lord Bute. Bute era

la figura di prua di un gruppo di Tory che si accinsero ad attuare il bello per quanto

fantasioso disegno di una monarchia democratica abbozzato da Bolingbroke ne

“Il Re Patriota.” Era intento con tutta sincerità a riportare le menti degli uomini

a ciò che si chiamano affari domestici, affari domestici quanto Giorgio

III. Avrebbe potuto arrestare l’avanzante corruzione dei Parlamenti e la

recinzione delle campagne, distogliendo le menti degli uomini dalle straniere

glorie dei grandi Whig come Churchill e Chatham; e uno dei suoi

primi atti fu di porre fine all’alleanza con la Prussia. Sfortunatamente,

qualunque cosa vi fosse di pittoresco nella pirateria di Potsdam era oltre l’

immaginazione di Windsor. Ma qualunque cosa vi fosse di prosaico in Potsdam era già

stabilita a Windsor; l’economia del montone freddo, il pesante

gusto nelle arti, e lo strano miscuglio settentrionale di rozzezza ed

etichetta. Se le idee di Bolingbroke fossero state applicate da una persona animosa,

da uno Stuart, per esempio, o persino da Elisabetta (che aveva vero

spirito insieme alla sua straordinaria volgarità), l’anima nazionale avrebbe potuto

essersi liberata dalle sue nuove catene settentrionali. Ma fu l’ironia della

situazione che il Re al quale i Tory si appellavano come a un rifugio dal

germanesimo era egli stesso un tedesco.

Dobbiamo così ricondurre le origini dell’influenza tedesca in Inghilterra

all’inizio della Successione Hannoveriana; e di lì indietro alla

disputa tra il Re e i giuristi che ebbe il suo esito a Naseby;

and thence again to the angry exit of Henry VIII. from the mediaeval

council of Europe. It is easy to exaggerate the part played in the

matter by that great and human, though very pagan person, Martin Luther.

Henry VIII. was sincere in his hatred for the heresies of the German

monk, for in speculative opinions Henry was wholly Catholic; and the two

wrote against each other innumerable pages, largely consisting of terms

of abuse, which were pretty well deserved on both sides. But Luther was

not a Lutheran. He was a sign of the break-up of Catholicism; but he was

not a builder of Protestantism. The countries which became corporately

and democratically Protestant, Scotland, for instance, and Holland,

followed Calvin and not Luther. And Calvin was a Frenchman; an

unpleasant Frenchman, it is true, but one full of that French capacity

for creating official entities which can really act, and have a kind of

impersonal personality, such as the French Monarchy or the Terror.

Luther was an anarchist, and therefore a dreamer. He made that which is,

perhaps, in the long run, the fullest and most shining manifestation of

failure; he made a name. Calvin made an active, governing, persecuting

thing, called the Kirk. There is something expressive of him in the fact

that he called even his work of abstract theology “The Institutes.”

In England, however, there were elements of chaos more akin to Luther

than to Calvin. And we may thus explain many things which appear rather

puzzling in our history, notably the victory of Cromwell not only over

the English Royalists but over the Scotch Covenanters. It was the

victory of that more happy-go-lucky sort of Protestantism, which had in

it much of aristocracy but much also of liberty, over that logical

ambition of the Kirk which would have made Protestantism, if possible,

as constructive as Catholicism had been. It might be called the victory

of Individualist Puritanism over Socialist Puritanism. It was what

Milton meant when he said that the new presbyter was an exaggeration of

the old priest; it was his office that acted, and acted very harshly.

The enemies of the Presbyterians were not without a meaning when they

called themselves Independents. To this day no one can understand

Scotland who does not realise that it retains much of its mediæval

sympathy with France, the French equality, the French pronunciation of

Latin, and, strange as it may sound, is in nothing so French as in its

Presbyterianism.

In this loose and negative sense only it may be said that the great

modern mistakes of England can be traced to Luther. It is true only in

this, that both in Germany and England a Protestantism softer and less

abstract than Calvinism was found useful to the compromises of courtiers

and aristocrats; for every abstract creed does something for human

equality. Lutheranism in Germany rapidly became what it is to-day—a

religion of court chaplains. The reformed church in England became

something better; it became a profession for the younger sons of

squires. But these parallel tendencies, in all their strength and

weakness, reached, as it were, symbolic culmination when the mediæval

monarchy was extinguished, and the English squires gave to what was

little more than a German squire the damaged and diminished crown.

It must be remembered that the Germanics were at that time used as a

sort of breeding-ground for princes. There is a strange process in

history by which things that decay turn into the very opposite of

themselves. Thus in England Puritanism began as the hardest of creeds,

but has ended as the softest; soft-hearted and not unfrequently

soft-headed. Of old the Puritan in war was certainly the Puritan at his

best; it was the Puritan in peace whom no Christian could be expected to

stand. Yet those Englishmen to-day who claim descent from the great

militarists of 1649 express the utmost horror of militarism. An

inversion of an opposite kind has taken place in Germany. Out of the

country that was once valued as providing a perpetual supply of kings

small enough to be stop-gaps, has come the modern menace of the one

great king who would swallow the kingdoms of the earth. But the old

German kingdoms preserved, and were encouraged to preserve, the good

things that go with small interests and strict boundaries, music,

etiquette, a dreamy philosophy, and so on. They were small enough to be

universal. Their outlook could afford to be in some degree broad and

many-sided. They had the impartiality of impotence. All this has been

utterly reversed, and we find ourselves at war with a Germany whose

powers are the widest and whose outlook is the narrowest in the world.

It is true, of course, that the English squires put themselves over the

new German prince rather than under him. They put the crown on him as an

extinguisher. It was part of the plan that the new-comer, though royal,

should be almost rustic. Hanover must be one of England’s possessions

and not England one of Hanover’s. But the fact that the court became a

German court prepared the soil, so to speak; English politics were

already subconsciously committed to two centuries of the belittlement of

France and the gross exaggeration of Germany. The period can be

symbolically marked out by Carteret, proud of talking German at the

beginning of the period, and Lord Haldane, proud of talking German at

the end of it. Culture is already almost beginning to be spelt with a k.

But all such pacific and only slowly growing Teutonism was brought to a

crisis and a decision when the voice of Pitt called us, like a trumpet,

to the rescue of the Protestant Hero.

Among all the monarchs of that faithless age, the nearest to a man was a

woman. Maria Theresa of Austria was a German of the more generous sort,

e di lì di nuovo all’uscita adirata di Enrico VIII dal medievale

consiglio d’Europa. È facile esagerare il ruolo svolto nella

faccenda da quella persona grande e umana, per quanto assai pagana, Martin Lutero.

Enrico VIII era sincero nel suo odio per le eresie del monaco

tedesco, poiché nelle opinioni speculative Enrico era interamente cattolico; e i due

scrissero l’uno contro l’altro innumerevoli pagine, consistenti in gran parte di termini

ingiuriosi, che erano abbastanza bene meritati da entrambe le parti. Ma Lutero non era

un luterano. Fu un segno della disgregazione del cattolicesimo; ma non fu

un costruttore del protestantesimo. I paesi che divennero corporativamente

e democraticamente protestanti, la Scozia, per esempio, e l’Olanda,

seguirono Calvino e non Lutero. E Calvino era un francese; un

francese sgradevole, è vero, ma pieno di quella capacità francese

di creare entità ufficiali che possono davvero agire, e possiedono una sorta di

personalità impersonale, come la Monarchia francese o il Terrore.

Lutero era un anarchico, e dunque un sognatore. Creò ciò che è,

forse, alla lunga, la più piena e splendente manifestazione del

fallimento; creò un nome. Calvino creò una cosa attiva, governante, persecutrice,

chiamata la Kirk. C’è qualcosa che lo esprime nel fatto

che egli chiamò persino la sua opera di teologia astratta «Le Istituzioni».

In Inghilterra, tuttavia, vi erano elementi di caos più affini a Lutero

che a Calvino. E possiamo così spiegare molte cose che appaiono piuttosto

sconcertanti nella nostra storia, in particolare la vittoria di Cromwell non solo sui

realisti inglesi ma sui Covenanters scozzesi. Fu la

vittoria di quella specie più spensierata di protestantesimo, che aveva in

sé molto di aristocrazia ma anche molto di libertà, su quella logica

ambizione della Kirk che avrebbe reso il protestantesimo, se possibile,

costruttivo quanto lo era stato il cattolicesimo. La si potrebbe chiamare la vittoria

del Puritanesimo individualista sul Puritanesimo socialista. Fu ciò che

Milton intendeva quando disse che il nuovo presbitero era un’esagerazione del

vecchio prete; era la sua carica ad agire, e ad agire assai duramente.

I nemici dei presbiteriani non erano privi di ragione quando

si chiamavano Indipendenti. Ancor oggi nessuno può comprendere

la Scozia se non si rende conto che essa conserva molto della sua medievale

simpatia per la Francia, l’uguaglianza francese, la pronuncia francese del

latino, e, per quanto strano possa suonare, in nulla è tanto francese quanto nel suo

presbiterianesimo.

Solo in questo senso vago e negativo si può dire che i grandi

errori moderni dell’Inghilterra si possono ricondurre a Lutero. È vero solo in

questo, che sia in Germania sia in Inghilterra un protestantesimo più morbido e meno

astratto del calvinismo si rivelò utile ai compromessi dei cortigiani

e degli aristocratici; poiché ogni credo astratto fa qualcosa per l’uguaglianza

umana. Il luteranesimo in Germania divenne rapidamente ciò che è oggi: una

religione di cappellani di corte. La chiesa riformata in Inghilterra divenne

qualcosa di migliore; divenne una professione per i figli cadetti dei

possidenti. Ma queste tendenze parallele, in tutta la loro forza e

debolezza, raggiunsero, per così dire, un culmine simbolico quando la medievale

monarchia fu estinta, e i possidenti inglesi diedero a ciò che era

poco più di un possidente tedesco la danneggiata e diminuita corona.

Va ricordato che i germanici erano a quel tempo usati come una

sorta di vivaio per principi. C’è uno strano processo nella

storia per cui le cose che decadono si tramutano nell’esatto opposto di

se stesse. Così in Inghilterra il Puritanesimo cominciò come il più duro dei credi,

ma è finito come il più molle; tenero di cuore e non di rado

molle di testa. Un tempo il puritano in guerra era certamente il puritano al suo

meglio; era il puritano in pace che nessun cristiano poteva essere tenuto a

sopportare. Eppure quegli inglesi che oggi rivendicano la discendenza dai grandi

militaristi del 1649 esprimono il massimo orrore per il militarismo. Un’

inversione di tipo opposto ha avuto luogo in Germania. Dal

paese che un tempo era apprezzato per fornire una perpetua scorta di re

abbastanza piccoli da fungere da tappabuchi, è venuta la moderna minaccia dell’unico

grande re che inghiottirebbe i regni della terra. Ma gli antichi

regni tedeschi conservarono, e furono incoraggiati a conservare, le buone

cose che si accompagnano a piccoli interessi e confini rigorosi, la musica,

l’etichetta, una filosofia sognante, e così via. Erano abbastanza piccoli da essere

universali. La loro visione poteva permettersi di essere in qualche misura ampia e

poliedrica. Avevano l’imparzialità dell’impotenza. Tutto ciò è stato

completamente rovesciato, e ci troviamo in guerra con una Germania le cui

potenze sono le più vaste e la cui visione è la più angusta del mondo.

È vero, certo, che i possidenti inglesi si posero al di sopra del

nuovo principe tedesco piuttosto che al di sotto di lui. Gli posero la corona come uno

spegnitoio. Faceva parte del piano che il nuovo venuto, per quanto regale,

dovesse essere quasi rustico. Hannover doveva essere uno dei possedimenti dell’Inghilterra

e non l’Inghilterra uno di quelli di Hannover. Ma il fatto che la corte divenisse una

corte tedesca preparò il terreno, per così dire; la politica inglese era

già inconsciamente votata a due secoli di svilimento della

Francia e di grossolana esagerazione della Germania. Il periodo può essere

simbolicamente delimitato da Carteret, orgoglioso di parlare tedesco all’

inizio del periodo, e Lord Haldane, orgoglioso di parlare tedesco alla

fine di esso. La cultura sta già quasi cominciando a scriversi con la k.

Ma tutto questo teutonismo pacifico e solo lentamente crescente fu portato a una

crisi e a una decisione quando la voce di Pitt ci chiamò, come una tromba,

in soccorso dell’Eroe protestante.

Fra tutti i monarchi di quell’età senza fede, il più vicino a un uomo era una

donna. Maria Teresa d’Austria era una tedesca del genere più generoso,

limited in a domestic rather than a national sense, firm in the ancient

faith at which all her own courtiers were sneering, and as brave as a

young lioness. Frederick hated her as he hated everything German and

everything good. He sets forth in his own memoirs, with that clearness

which adds something almost superhuman to the mysterious vileness of his

character, how he calculated on her youth, her inexperience and her lack

of friends as proof that she could be despoiled with safety. He invaded

Silesia in advance of his own declaration of war (as if he had run on

ahead to say it was coming) and this new anarchic trick, combined with

the corruptibility of nearly all the other courts, left him after the

two Silesian wars in possession of the stolen goods. But Maria Theresa

had refused to submit to the immorality of nine points of the law. By

appeals and concessions to France, Russia, and other powers, she

contrived to create something which, against the atheist innovator even

in that atheist age, stood up for an instant like a spectre of the

Crusades. Had that Crusade been universal and whole-hearted, the great

new precedent of mere force and fraud would have been broken; and the

whole appalling judgment which is fallen upon Christendom would have

passed us by. But the other Crusaders were only half in earnest for

Europe; Frederick was quite in earnest for Prussia; and he sought for

allies, by whose aid this weak revival of good might be stamped out, and

his adamantine impudence endure for ever. The allies he found were the

English. It is not pleasant for an Englishman to have to write the

words.

This was the first act of the tragedy, and with it we may leave

Frederick, for we are done with the fellow though not with his work. It

is enough to add that if we call all his after actions satanic, it is

not a term of abuse, but of theology. He was a Tempter. He dragged the

other kings to “partake of the body of Poland,” and learn the meaning of

the Black Mass. Poland lay prostrate before three giants in armour, and

her name passed into a synonym for failure. The Prussians, with their

fine magnanimity, gave lectures on the hereditary maladies of the man

they had murdered. They could not conceive of life in those limbs; and

the time was far off when they should be undeceived. In that day five

nations were to partake not of the body, but of the spirit of Poland;

and the trumpet of the resurrection of the peoples should be blown from

Warsaw to the western isles.

III—The Enigma of Waterloo

That great Englishman Charles Fox, who was as national as Nelson, went

to his death with the firm conviction that England had made Napoleon. He

did not mean, of course, that any other Italian gunner would have done

just as well; but he did mean that by forcing the French back on their

guns, as it were, we had made their chief gunner necessarily their chief

citizen. Had the French Republic been left alone, it would probably have

followed the example of most other ideal experiments; and praised peace

along with progress and equality. It would almost certainly have eyed

with the coldest suspicion any adventurer who appeared likely to

substitute his personality for the pure impersonality of the Sovereign

People; and would have considered it the very flower of republican

chastity to provide a Brutus for such a Caesar. But if it was

undesirable that equality should be threatened by a citizen, it was

intolerable that it should be simply forbidden by a foreigner. If

France could not put up with French soldiers she would very soon have to

put up with Austrian soldiers; and it would be absurd if, having decided

to rely on soldiering, she had hampered the best French soldier even on the

ground that he was not French. So that whether we regard Napoleon as a

hero rushing to the country’s help, or a tyrant profiting by the

country’s extremity, it is equally clear that those who made the war

made the war-lord; and those who tried to destroy the Republic were

those who created the Empire. So, at least, Fox argued against that much

less English prig who would have called him unpatriotic; and he threw

the blame upon Pitt’s Government for having joined the anti-French

alliance, and so tipped up the scale in favour of a military France. But

whether he was right or no, he would have been the readiest to admit

that England was not the first to fly at the throat of the young

Republic. Something in Europe much vaster and vaguer had from the first

stirred against it. What was it then that first made war—and made

Napoleon? There is only one possible answer: the Germans. This is the

second act of our drama of the degradation of England to the level of

Germany. And it has this very important development; that Germany means

by this time all the Germans, just as it does to-day. The savagery of

Prussia and the stupidity of Austria are now combined. Mercilessness and

muddleheadedness are met together; unrighteousness and unreasonableness

have kissed each other; and the tempter and the tempted are agreed. The

great and good Maria Theresa was already old. She had a son who was a

philosopher of the school of Frederick; also a daughter who was more

fortunate, for she was guillotined. It was natural, no doubt, that her

brother and relatives should disapprove of the incident; but it occurred

long after the whole Germanic power had been hurled against the new

Republic. Louis XVI. himself was still alive and nominally ruling when

the first pressure came from Prussia and Austria, demanding that the

trend of the French emancipation should be reversed. It is impossible to

deny, therefore, that what the united Germanics were resolved to destroy

was the reform and not even the Revolution. The part which Joseph of

limitata in senso domestico più che nazionale, ferma nell’antica

fede alla quale tutti i suoi stessi cortigiani sogghignavano, e coraggiosa come una

giovane leonessa. Federico la odiava come odiava tutto ciò che era tedesco e

tutto ciò che era buono. Egli espone nelle proprie memorie, con quella chiarezza

che aggiunge qualcosa di quasi sovrumano alla misteriosa bassezza del suo

carattere, come egli contasse sulla sua giovinezza, sulla sua inesperienza e sulla sua mancanza

di amici come prova che ella potesse essere spogliata senza pericolo. Invase

la Slesia prima della propria dichiarazione di guerra (come se fosse corso

avanti ad annunciarne l’arrivo) e questo nuovo trucco anarchico, unito

alla corruttibilità di quasi tutte le altre corti, lo lasciò dopo le

due guerre slesiane in possesso della refurtiva. Ma Maria Teresa

aveva rifiutato di sottomettersi all’immoralità dei nove punti della legge. Mediante

appelli e concessioni alla Francia, alla Russia, e ad altre potenze, ella

riuscì a creare qualcosa che, contro l’innovatore ateo persino

in quell’età atea, si levò per un istante come uno spettro delle

Crociate. Fosse stata quella Crociata universale e sincera, il grande

nuovo precedente della mera forza e frode sarebbe stato spezzato; e l’

intero spaventoso giudizio che è caduto sulla Cristianità ci

avrebbe risparmiati. Ma gli altri Crociati erano solo a metà sinceri per

l’Europa; Federico era del tutto sincero per la Prussia; e cercò

alleati, con il cui aiuto questa debole rinascita del bene potesse essere schiacciata, e

la sua adamantina impudenza durasse per sempre. Gli alleati che trovò furono gli

inglesi. Non è piacevole per un inglese dover scrivere queste

parole.

Questo fu il primo atto della tragedia, e con esso possiamo lasciare

Federico, poiché abbiamo finito con quell’individuo per quanto non con la sua opera. È

sufficiente aggiungere che se chiamiamo sataniche tutte le sue azioni successive, non è

un termine ingiurioso, ma teologico. Egli fu un Tentatore. Trascinò gli

altri re a «partecipare del corpo della Polonia», e ad apprendere il significato della

Messa Nera. La Polonia giaceva prostrata dinanzi a tre giganti in armatura, e

il suo nome divenne sinonimo di fallimento. I prussiani, con la loro

raffinata magnanimità, tenevano conferenze sulle malattie ereditarie dell’uomo

che avevano assassinato. Non riuscivano a concepire la vita in quelle membra; e

il tempo era lontano in cui sarebbero stati disingannati. In quel giorno cinque

nazioni avrebbero partecipato non del corpo, ma dello spirito della Polonia;

e la tromba della resurrezione dei popoli sarebbe stata suonata da

Varsavia alle isole occidentali.

III—L’enigma di Waterloo

Quel grande inglese Charles Fox, che era nazionale quanto Nelson, andò

alla sua morte con la ferma convinzione che l’Inghilterra avesse creato Napoleone. Egli

non intendeva, naturalmente, che un qualsiasi altro artigliere italiano avrebbe fatto

altrettanto bene; ma intendeva che, respingendo i francesi sui loro

cannoni, per così dire, avevamo reso il loro primo artigliere necessariamente il loro primo

cittadino. Fosse stata lasciata sola la Repubblica francese, avrebbe probabilmente

seguito l’esempio della maggior parte degli altri esperimenti ideali; e lodato la pace

insieme al progresso e all’uguaglianza. Avrebbe quasi certamente guardato

con il più freddo sospetto ogni avventuriero che apparisse verosimilmente incline a

sostituire la propria personalità alla pura impersonalità del Popolo

Sovrano; e avrebbe considerato il fiore stesso della castità

repubblicana fornire un Bruto per un tale Cesare. Ma se era

indesiderabile che l’uguaglianza fosse minacciata da un cittadino, era

intollerabile che fosse semplicemente vietata da uno straniero. Se

la Francia non poteva sopportare i soldati francesi, ben presto avrebbe dovuto

sopportare i soldati austriaci; e sarebbe assurdo se, avendo deciso

di affidarsi al mestiere delle armi, avesse ostacolato il miglior soldato francese anche sul

pretesto che egli non fosse francese. Cosicché, sia che consideriamo Napoleone un

eroe accorso in aiuto del paese, sia un tiranno che approfitta della

disperazione del paese, è ugualmente chiaro che coloro che fecero la guerra

fecero il signore della guerra; e coloro che tentarono di distruggere la Repubblica furono

coloro che crearono l’Impero. Così, almeno, argomentava Fox contro quel ben

meno inglese pedante che l’avrebbe detto antipatriottico; ed egli gettò

la colpa sul Governo di Pitt per essersi unito all’alleanza

antifrancese, e aver così fatto pendere la bilancia a favore di una Francia militare. Ma

a torto o a ragione, egli sarebbe stato il primo ad ammettere

che l’Inghilterra non fu la prima a scagliarsi alla gola della giovane

Repubblica. Qualcosa in Europa di assai più vasto e vago si era fin dal principio

mosso contro di essa. Che cosa dunque fece per primo la guerra… e fece

Napoleone? Vi è una sola risposta possibile: i tedeschi. Questo è il

secondo atto del nostro dramma della degradazione dell’Inghilterra al livello della

Germania. Ed esso ha questo sviluppo importantissimo; che Germania significa

a questo tempo tutti i tedeschi, proprio come significa oggi. La ferocia della

Prussia e la stupidità dell’Austria sono ora congiunte. La spietatezza e

la confusione mentale si sono incontrate; l’iniquità e l’irragionevolezza

si sono baciate; e il tentatore e il tentato sono d’accordo. La

grande e buona Maria Teresa era già vecchia. Aveva un figlio che era un

filosofo della scuola di Federico; e anche una figlia che fu più

fortunata, poiché fu ghigliottinata. Era naturale, senza dubbio, che suo

fratello e i suoi parenti disapprovassero l’incidente; ma esso avvenne

molto dopo che l’intera potenza germanica era stata scagliata contro la nuova

Repubblica. Lo stesso Luigi XVI era ancora vivo e nominalmente al potere quando

la prima pressione venne dalla Prussia e dall’Austria, esigendo che la

tendenza dell’emancipazione francese fosse invertita. È impossibile

negare, perciò, che ciò che i germanici uniti erano decisi a distruggere

era la riforma e non addirittura la Rivoluzione. Il ruolo che Giuseppe d’

Austria played in the matter is symbolic. For he was what is called an

enlightened despot, which is the worst kind of despot. He was as

irreligious as Frederick the Great, but not so disgusting or amusing.

The old and kindly Austrian family, of which Maria Theresa was the

affectionate mother, and Marie Antoinette the rather uneducated

daughter, was already superseded and summed up by a rather dried-up

young man self-schooled to a Prussian efficiency. The needle is already

veering northward. Prussia is already beginning to be the captain of the

Germanics “in shining armour.” Austria is already becoming a loyal

sekundant.

But there still remains one great difference between Austria and Prussia

which developed more and more as the energy of the young Napoleon was

driven like a wedge between them. The difference can be most shortly

stated by saying that Austria did, in some blundering and barbaric way,

care for Europe; but Prussia cared for nothing but Prussia. Austria is

not a nation; you cannot really find Austria on the map. But Austria is

a kind of Empire; a Holy Roman Empire that never came, an expanding and

contracting-dream. It does feel itself, in a vague patriarchal way, the

leader, not of a nation, but of nations. It is like some dying Emperor

of Rome in the decline; who should admit that the legions had been

withdrawn from Britain or from Parthia, but would feel it as

fundamentally natural that they should have been there, as in Sicily or

Southern Gaul. I would not assert that the aged Francis Joseph imagines

that he is Emperor of Scotland or of Denmark; but I should guess that he

retains some notion that if he did rule both the Scots and the Danes, it

would not be more incongruous than his ruling both the Hungarians and

the Poles. This cosmopolitanism of Austria has in it a kind of shadow of

responsibility for Christendom. And it was this that made the difference

between its proceedings and those of the purely selfish adventurer from

the north, the wild dog of Pomerania.

It may be believed, as Fox himself came at last to believe, that

Napoleon in his latest years was really an enemy to freedom, in the

sense that he was an enemy to that very special and occidental form of

freedom which we call Nationalism. The resistance of the Spaniards, for

instance, was certainly a popular resistance. It had that peculiar,

belated, almost secretive strength with which war is made by the people.

It was quite easy for a conqueror to get into Spain; his great

difficulty was to get out again. It was one of the paradoxes of history

that he who had turned the mob into an army, in defence of its rights

against the princes, should at last have his army worn down, not by

princes but by mobs. It is equally certain that at the other end of

Europe, in burning Moscow and on the bridge of the Beresina, he had

found the common soul, even as he had found the common sky, his enemy.

But all this does not affect the first great lines of the quarrel, which

had begun before horsemen in Germanic uniform had waited vainly upon the

road to Varennes or had failed upon the miry slope up to the windmill of

Valmy. And that duel, on which depended all that our Europe has since

become, had great Russia and gallant Spain and our own glorious island

only as subordinates or seconds. That duel, first, last, and for ever,

was a duel between the Frenchman and the German; that is, between the

citizen and the barbarian.

It is not necessary nowadays to defend the French Revolution, it is not

necessary to defend even Napoleon, its child and champion, from

criticisms in the style of Southey and Alison, which even at the time

had more of the atmosphere of Bath and Cheltenham than of Turcoing and

Talavera. The French Revolution was attacked because it was democratic

and defended because it was democratic; and Napoleon was not feared as

the last of the iron despots, but as the first of the iron democrats.

What France set out to prove France has proved; not that common men are

all angels, or all diplomatists, or all gentlemen (for these inane

aristocratic illusions were no part of the Jacobin theory), but that

common men can all be citizens and can all be soldiers; that common men

can fight and can rule. There is no need to confuse the question with

any of those escapades of a floundering modernism which have made

nonsense of this civic common-sense. Some Free Traders have seemed to

leave a man no country to fight for; some Free Lovers seem to leave a

man no household to rule. But these things have not established

themselves either in France or anywhere else. What has been established

is not Free Trade or Free Love, but Freedom; and it is nowhere so

patriotic or so domestic as in the country from which it came. The poor

men of France have not loved the land less because they have shared it.

Even the patricians are patriots; and if some honest Royalists or

aristocrats are still saying that democracy cannot organise and cannot

obey, they are none the less organised by it and obeying it, nobly

living or splendidly dead for it, along the line from Switzerland to the

sea.

But for Austria, and even more for Russia, there was this to be said;

that the French Republican ideal was incomplete, and that they

possessed, in a corrupt but still positive and often popular sense, what

was needed to complete it. The Czar was not democratic, but he was

humanitarian. He was a Christian Pacifist; there is something of the

Tolstoyan in every Russian. It is not wholly fanciful to talk of the

White Czar: for Russia even destruction has a deathly softness as of

snow. Her ideas are often innocent and even childish; like the idea of

Peace. The phrase Holy Alliance was a beautiful truth for the Czar,

though only a blasphemous jest for his rascally allies, Metternich and

Austria svolse nella faccenda è simbolico. Poiché egli era ciò che si chiama un

despota illuminato, che è la peggior specie di despota. Era tanto

irreligioso quanto Federico il Grande, ma non così disgustoso o divertente.

L’antica e benevola famiglia austriaca, di cui Maria Teresa era l’

affettuosa madre, e Maria Antonietta la piuttosto ignorante

figlia, era già soppiantata e riassunta da un piuttosto rinsecchito

giovanotto istruitosi da sé fino a un’efficienza prussiana. L’ago sta già

volgendo verso nord. La Prussia sta già cominciando a essere il capitano dei

germanici «in lucente armatura». L’Austria sta già divenendo un fedele

sekundant.

Ma rimane ancora una grande differenza fra l’Austria e la Prussia

che si sviluppò sempre più man mano che l’energia del giovane Napoleone veniva

conficcata come un cuneo tra loro. La differenza può essere nel modo più breve

enunciata dicendo che l’Austria, in qualche modo maldestro e barbarico, aveva

a cuore l’Europa; ma la Prussia non aveva a cuore nulla se non la Prussia. L’Austria non è

una nazione; non si può davvero trovare l’Austria sulla carta. Ma l’Austria è

una sorta di Impero; un Sacro Romano Impero che non venne mai, un sogno che si espande e

si contrae. Essa si sente davvero, in un vago modo patriarcale, il

condottiero, non di una nazione, ma di nazioni. È come un qualche morente Imperatore

di Roma nella decadenza; che ammetterebbe che le legioni erano state

ritirate dalla Britannia o dalla Partia, ma sentirebbe come

fondamentalmente naturale che vi fossero state, come in Sicilia o nella

Gallia meridionale. Non affermerei che l’anziano Francesco Giuseppe immagini

di essere Imperatore di Scozia o di Danimarca; ma indovinerei che egli

conservi una qualche nozione che, se governasse tanto gli scozzesi quanto i danesi,

ciò non sarebbe più incongruo del suo governare tanto gli ungheresi quanto i

polacchi. Questo cosmopolitismo dell’Austria ha in sé una sorta di ombra di

responsabilità per la Cristianità. Ed era questo a fare la differenza

tra il suo operato e quello dell’avventuriero puramente egoista del

nord, il cane selvaggio della Pomerania.

Si può credere, come Fox stesso giunse infine a credere, che

Napoleone nei suoi ultimi anni fosse davvero un nemico della libertà, nel

senso che era nemico di quella specialissima e occidentale forma di

libertà che chiamiamo Nazionalismo. La resistenza degli spagnoli, per

esempio, fu certamente una resistenza popolare. Ebbe quella peculiare,

tardiva, quasi segreta forza con cui la guerra è fatta dal popolo.

Era assai facile per un conquistatore entrare in Spagna; la sua grande

difficoltà era uscirne di nuovo. Fu uno dei paradossi della storia

che colui che aveva mutato la plebe in un esercito, in difesa dei suoi diritti

contro i principi, dovesse alla fine vedere il proprio esercito logorato, non da

principi ma da plebi. È ugualmente certo che all’altro capo d’

Europa, nella Mosca in fiamme e sul ponte della Beresina, egli aveva

trovato l’anima comune, così come aveva trovato il cielo comune, sua nemica.

Ma tutto ciò non tocca le prime grandi linee della contesa, che

era cominciata prima che cavalieri in uniforme germanica avessero atteso invano sulla

strada per Varennes o fossero falliti sul fangoso pendio che sale al mulino a vento di

Valmy. E quel duello, dal quale dipendeva tutto ciò che la nostra Europa è da allora

divenuta, ebbe la grande Russia e la valorosa Spagna e la nostra stessa gloriosa isola

soltanto come subordinati o padrini. Quel duello, primo, ultimo, e per sempre,

fu un duello tra il francese e il tedesco; ossia, tra il

cittadino e il barbaro.

Non è necessario oggigiorno difendere la Rivoluzione francese, non è

necessario difendere nemmeno Napoleone, suo figlio e campione, dalle

critiche nello stile di Southey e Alison, che già al tempo

avevano più dell’atmosfera di Bath e Cheltenham che di Turcoing e

Talavera. La Rivoluzione francese fu attaccata perché era democratica

e difesa perché era democratica; e Napoleone non era temuto come

l’ultimo dei despoti di ferro, ma come il primo dei democratici di ferro.

Ciò che la Francia si propose di dimostrare la Francia lo ha dimostrato; non che gli uomini comuni siano

tutti angeli, o tutti diplomatici, o tutti gentiluomini (poiché queste vane

illusioni aristocratiche non facevano parte della teoria giacobina), ma che

gli uomini comuni possono tutti essere cittadini e possono tutti essere soldati; che gli uomini comuni

possono combattere e possono governare. Non c’è bisogno di confondere la questione con

una qualsiasi di quelle scappatelle di un modernismo brancolante che hanno reso

insensato questo buon senso civico. Certi liberisti sono sembrati

non lasciare all’uomo alcun paese per cui combattere; certi liberi amanti sembrano non lasciare all’uomo

alcun focolare da governare. Ma queste cose non si sono affermate

né in Francia né altrove. Ciò che si è affermato

non è il Libero Scambio o il Libero Amore, ma la Libertà; e in nessun luogo essa è così

patriottica o così domestica come nel paese da cui provenne. I poveri

di Francia non hanno amato meno la terra per averla condivisa.

Persino i patrizi sono patrioti; e se alcuni onesti realisti o

aristocratici vanno ancora dicendo che la democrazia non sa organizzare e non sa

obbedire, essi non di meno sono da essa organizzati e le obbediscono, nobilmente

vivendo o splendidamente morendo per essa, lungo la linea dalla Svizzera al

mare.

Ma per l’Austria, e ancor più per la Russia, c’era questo da dire;

che l’ideale repubblicano francese era incompleto, e che esse

possedevano, in un senso corrotto ma pur sempre positivo e spesso popolare, ciò

che era necessario a completarlo. Lo Zar non era democratico, ma era

umanitario. Era un Pacifista cristiano; c’è qualcosa del

tolstoiano in ogni russo. Non è del tutto fantasioso parlare dello

Zar Bianco: poiché per la Russia persino la distruzione ha una mortale morbidezza come di

neve. Le sue idee sono spesso innocenti e persino infantili; come l’idea della

Pace. L’espressione Santa Alleanza era una bella verità per lo Zar,

per quanto solo una beffa blasfema per i suoi furfanteschi alleati, Metternich e

Castlereagh. Austria, though she had lately fallen to a somewhat

treasonable toying with heathens and heretics of Turkey and Prussia,

still retained something of the old Catholic comfort for the soul.

Priests still bore witness to that mighty mediaeval institution which

even its enemies concede to be a noble nightmare. All their hoary

political iniquities had not deprived them of that dignity. If they

darkened the sun in heaven, they clothed it with the strong colours of

sunrise in garment or gloriole; if they had given men stones for bread,

the stones were carved with kindly faces and fascinating tales. If

justice counted on their shameful gibbets hundreds of the innocent dead,

they could still say that for them death was more hopeful than life for

the heathen. If the new daylight discovered their vile tortures, there

had lingered in the darkness some dim memory that they were tortures of

Purgatory and not, like those which Parisian and Prussian diabolists

showed shameless in the sunshine, of naked hell. They claimed a truth

not yet disentangled from human nature; for indeed earth is not even

earth without heaven, as a landscape is not a landscape without the sky.

And in, a universe without God there is not room enough for a man.

It may be held, therefore, that there must in any case have come a

conflict between the old world and the new; if only because the old are

often broad, while the young are always narrow. The Church had learnt,

not at the end but at the beginning of her centuries, that the funeral

of God is always a premature burial. If the bugles of Bonaparte raised

the living populace of the passing hour, she could blow that yet more

revolutionary trumpet that shall raise all the democracy of the dead.

But if we concede that collision was inevitable between the new Republic

on the one hand and Holy Russia and the Holy Roman Empire on the other,

there remain two great European forces which, in different attitudes and

from very different motives, determined the ultimate combination.

Neither of them had any tincture of Catholic mysticism. Neither of them

had any tincture of Jacobin idealism. Neither of them, therefore, had

any real moral reason for being in the war at all. The first was

England, and the second was Prussia.

It is very arguable that England must, in any case, have fought to keep

her influence on the ports of the North Sea. It is quite equally

arguable that if she had been as heartily on the side of the French

Revolution as she was at last against it, she could have claimed the

same concessions from the other side. It is certain that England had no

necessary communion with the arms and tortures of the Continental

tyrannies, and that she stood at the parting of the ways. England was

indeed an aristocracy, but a liberal one; and the ideas growing in the

middle classes were those which had already made America, and were

remaking France. The fiercest Jacobins, such as Danton, were deep in the

liberal literature of England. The people had no religion to fight for,

as in Russia or La Vendée. The parson was no longer a priest, and had

long been a small squire. Already that one great blank in our land had

made snobbishness the only religion of South England; and turned rich

men into a mythology. The effect can be well summed up in that decorous

abbreviation by which our rustics speak of “Lady’s Bedstraw,” where they

once spoke of “Our Lady’s Bedstraw.” We have dropped the comparatively

democratic adjective, and kept the aristocratic noun. South England is

still, as it was called in the Middle Ages, a garden; but it is the kind

where grow the plants called “lords and ladies.”

We became more and more insular even about our continental conquests; we

stood upon our island as if on an anchored ship. We never thought of

Nelson at Naples, but only eternally at Trafalgar; and even that Spanish

name we managed to pronounce wrong. But even if we regard the first

attack upon Napoleon as a national necessity, the general trend remains

true. It only changes the tale from a tragedy of choice to a tragedy of

chance. And the tragedy was that, for a second time, we were at one with

the Germans.

But if England had nothing to fight for but a compromise, Prussia had

nothing to fight for but a negation. She was and is, in the supreme

sense, the spirit that denies. It is as certain that she was fighting

against liberty in Napoleon as it is that she was fighting against

religion in Maria Theresa. What she was fighting for she would have

found it quite impossible to tell you. At the best, it was for Prussia;

if it was anything else, it was tyranny. She cringed to Napoleon when he

beat her, and only joined in the chase when braver people had beaten

him. She professed to restore the Bourbons, and tried to rob them while

she was restoring them. For her own hand she would have wrecked the

Restoration with the Revolution. Alone in all that agony of peoples, she

had not the star of one solitary ideal to light the night of her

nihilism.

The French Revolution has a quality which all men feel; and which may be

called a sudden antiquity. Its classicalism was not altogether a cant.

When it had happened it seemed to have happened thousands of years ago.

It spoke in parables; in the hammering of spears and the awful cap of

Phrygia. To some it seemed to pass like a vision; and yet it seemed

eternal as a group of statuary. One almost thought of its most strenuous

figures as naked. It is always with a shock of comicality that we

remember that its date was so recent that umbrellas were fashionable

and top-hats beginning to be tried. And it is a curious fact, giving a

kind of completeness to this sense of the thing as something that

happened outside the world, that its first great act of arms and also

Castlereagh. L’Austria, benché fosse ultimamente scivolata in un

alquanto proditorio trastullarsi con i pagani e gli eretici di Turchia e Prussia,

conservava ancora qualcosa dell’antico conforto cattolico per l’anima.

I sacerdoti rendevano ancora testimonianza a quella possente istituzione medievale che

perfino i suoi nemici riconoscono essere un nobile incubo. Tutte le loro canute

iniquità politiche non li avevano privati di quella dignità. Se

oscuravano il sole nel cielo, lo rivestivano dei forti colori dell’

aurora nella veste o nella gloriola; se avevano dato agli uomini pietre in luogo di pane,

le pietre erano scolpite con volti benevoli e racconti affascinanti. Se

la giustizia contava sulle loro vergognose forche centinaia di innocenti morti,

potevano pur dire che per loro la morte era più ricca di speranza della vita per

il pagano. Se la nuova luce del giorno scopriva le loro vili torture, era

indugiata nelle tenebre qualche fioca memoria che esse erano torture del

Purgatorio e non, come quelle che i diabolisti parigini e prussiani

mostravano sfrontati alla luce del sole, dell’inferno nudo. Essi rivendicavano una verità

non ancora districata dalla natura umana; poiché in verità la terra non è nemmeno

terra senza il cielo, come un paesaggio non è un paesaggio senza il firmamento.

E in un universo senza Dio non c’è spazio abbastanza per un uomo.

Si può dunque sostenere che in ogni caso doveva prodursi un

conflitto tra il vecchio mondo e il nuovo; non foss’altro perché i vecchi sono

spesso ampi, mentre i giovani sono sempre angusti. La Chiesa aveva appreso,

non alla fine ma al principio dei suoi secoli, che il funerale

di Dio è sempre una sepoltura prematura. Se le trombe di Bonaparte destavano

la popolazione vivente dell’ora fuggente, essa poteva soffiare in quella tromba ancor più

rivoluzionaria che desterà tutta la democrazia dei morti.

Ma se concediamo che la collisione fosse inevitabile tra la nuova Repubblica

da un lato e la Santa Russia e il Sacro Romano Impero dall’altro,

rimangono due grandi forze europee che, in atteggiamenti diversi e

da moventi assai diversi, determinarono la combinazione ultima.

Nessuna delle due aveva alcuna tintura di misticismo cattolico. Nessuna delle due

aveva alcuna tintura di idealismo giacobino. Nessuna delle due, dunque, aveva

alcuna reale ragione morale per essere in guerra. La prima era

l’Inghilterra, e la seconda era la Prussia.

È assai sostenibile che l’Inghilterra dovesse, in ogni caso, combattere per conservare

la sua influenza sui porti del Mare del Nord. È del tutto altrettanto

sostenibile che se fosse stata di cuore dalla parte della Rivoluzione francese

come alla fine lo fu contro di essa, avrebbe potuto reclamare le

stesse concessioni dall’altra parte. È certo che l’Inghilterra non aveva

necessaria comunione con le armi e le torture delle tirannie

continentali, e che si trovava al bivio delle vie. L’Inghilterra era

davvero un’aristocrazia, ma liberale; e le idee che crescevano nelle

classi medie erano quelle che avevano già fatto l’America, e stavano

rifacendo la Francia. I più feroci giacobini, come Danton, erano immersi nella

letteratura liberale d’Inghilterra. Il popolo non aveva religione per cui combattere,

come in Russia o in Vandea. Il parroco non era più un sacerdote, ed era

da tempo un piccolo signorotto. Già quell’unica grande lacuna nella nostra terra aveva

fatto dello snobismo l’unica religione dell’Inghilterra del Sud; e mutato gli uomini ricchi

in una mitologia. L’effetto può essere bene riassunto in quella decorosa

abbreviazione con cui i nostri rustici parlano del «Lady’s Bedstraw», là dove

un tempo dicevano «Our Lady’s Bedstraw». Abbiamo lasciato cadere il relativamente

democratico aggettivo, e conservato l’aristocratico sostantivo. L’Inghilterra del Sud è

ancora, come veniva chiamata nel Medioevo, un giardino; ma è del genere

dove crescono le piante chiamate «lords and ladies».

Divenimmo sempre più insulari perfino riguardo alle nostre conquiste continentali;

stavamo sulla nostra isola come su una nave all’àncora. Non pensavamo mai a

Nelson a Napoli, ma soltanto eternamente a Trafalgar; e persino quel nome spagnolo

riuscivamo a pronunciarlo male. Ma anche se consideriamo il primo

attacco a Napoleone una necessità nazionale, la tendenza generale rimane

vera. Muta soltanto il racconto da una tragedia di scelta a una tragedia di

caso. E la tragedia fu che, per una seconda volta, eravamo tutt’uno con

i tedeschi.

Ma se l’Inghilterra non aveva nulla per cui combattere se non un compromesso, la Prussia

non aveva nulla per cui combattere se non una negazione. Essa era ed è, nel senso

supremo, lo spirito che nega. È certo tanto che combatteva

contro la libertà in Napoleone quanto che combatteva contro

la religione in Maria Teresa. Per che cosa combattesse le sarebbe stato

del tutto impossibile dirvelo. Nel migliore dei casi, era per la Prussia;

se era qualcos’altro, era la tirannia. Si prostrò a Napoleone quando egli

la batté, e si unì alla caccia solo quando gente più coraggiosa lo aveva battuto.

Professava di restaurare i Borboni, e cercava di derubarli mentre

li restaurava. Per il proprio tornaconto avrebbe mandato in rovina la

Restaurazione insieme alla Rivoluzione. Sola in tutta quell’agonia dei popoli, essa

non aveva la stella di un solo ideale a rischiarare la notte del suo

nichilismo.

La Rivoluzione francese ha una qualità che tutti gli uomini sentono; e che può essere

chiamata un’improvvisa antichità. Il suo classicismo non era del tutto una posa.

Quando fu avvenuta, sembrava essere avvenuta migliaia di anni or sono.

Parlava per parabole; nel martellare delle lance e nell’atroce berretto di

Frigia. Ad alcuni parve passare come una visione; eppure sembrava

eterna come un gruppo statuario. Si pensava quasi alle sue figure più strenue

come nude. È sempre con un sussulto di comicità che

ricordiamo che la sua data era così recente che gli ombrelli erano di moda

e i cilindri cominciavano a essere sperimentati. Ed è un fatto curioso, che dà una

sorta di compiutezza a questo senso della cosa come qualcosa

accaduto fuori del mondo, che il suo primo grande atto d’armi e anche

its last were both primarily symbols; and but for this visionary

character, were in a manner vain. It began with the taking of the old

and almost empty prison called the Bastille; and we always think of it

as the beginning of the Revolution, though the real Revolution did not

come till some time after. And it ended when Wellington and Blucher met

in 1815; and we always think of it as the end of Napoleon; though

Napoleon had really fallen before. And the popular imagery is right, as

it generally is in such things: for the mob is an artist, though not a

man of science. The riot of the 14th of July did not specially deliver

prisoners inside the Bastille, but it did deliver the prisoners outside.

Napoleon when he returned was indeed a revenant, that is, a ghost. But

Waterloo was all the more final in that it was a spectral resurrection

and a second death. And in this second case there were other elements

that were yet more strangely symbolic. That doubtful and double battle

before Waterloo was like the dual personality in a dream. It

corresponded curiously to the double mind of the Englishman. We connect

Quatre Bras with things romantically English to the verge of

sentimentalism, with Byron and “The Black Brunswicker.” We naturally

sympathise with Wellington against Ney. We do not sympathise, and even

then we did not really sympathise, with Blucher against Napoleon.

Germany has complained that we passed over lightly the presence of

Prussians at the decisive action. And well we might. Even at the time

our sentiment was not solely jealousy, but very largely shame.

Wellington, the grimmest and even the most unamiable of Tories, with no

French sympathies and not enough human ones, has recorded his opinion of

his Prussian allies in terms of curt disgust. Peel, the primmest and

most snobbish Tory that ever praised “our gallant Allies” in a frigid

official speech, could not contain himself about the conduct of

Blucher’s men. Our middle classes did well to adorn their parlours with

the picture of the “Meeting of Wellington and Blucher.” They should

have hung up a companion piece of Pilate and Herod shaking hands. Then,

after that meeting amid the ashes of Hougomont, where they dreamed they

had trodden out the embers of all democracy, the Prussians rode on

before, doing after their kind. After them went that ironical aristocrat

out of embittered Ireland, with what thoughts we know; and Blucher, with

what thoughts we care not; and his soldiers entered Paris, and stole the

sword of Joan of Arc.

IV—The Coming of the Janissaries

The late Lord Salisbury, a sad and humorous man, made many public and

serious remarks that have been proved false and perilous, and many

private and frivolous remarks which were valuable and ought to be

immortal. He struck dead the stiff and false psychology of “social

reform,” with its suggestion that the number of public-houses made

people drunk, by saying that there were a number of bedrooms at

Hatfield, but they never made him sleepy. Because of this it is possible

to forgive him for having talked about “living and dying nations”:

though it is of such sayings that living nations die. In the same spirit

he included the nation of Ireland in the “Celtic fringe” upon the west

of England. It seems sufficient to remark that the fringe is

considerably broader than the garment. But the fearful satire of time

has very sufficiently avenged the Irish nation upon him, largely by the

instrumentality of another fragment of the British robe which he cast

away almost contemptuously in the North Sea. The name of it is

Heligoland; and he gave it to the Germans.

The subsequent history of the two islands on either side of England has

been sufficiently ironical. If Lord Salisbury had foreseen exactly what

would happen to Heligoland, as well as to Ireland, he might well have

found no sleep at Hatfield in one bedroom or a hundred. In the eastern

isle he was strengthening a fortress that would one day be called upon

to destroy us. In the western isle he was weakening a fortress that

would one day be called upon to save us. In that day his trusted ally,

William Hohenzollern, was to batter our ships and boats from the Bight

of Heligoland; and in that day his old and once-imprisoned enemy, John

Redmond, was to rise in the hour of English jeopardy, and be thanked in

thunder for the free offer of the Irish sword. All that Robert Cecil

thought valueless has been our loss, and all that he thought feeble our

stay. Among those of his political class or creed who accepted and

welcomed the Irish leader’s alliance, there were some who knew the real

past relations between England and Ireland, and some who first felt

them in that hour. All knew that England could no longer be a mere

mistress; many knew that she was now in some sense a suppliant. Some

knew that she deserved to be a suppliant. These were they who knew a

little of the thing called history; and if they thought at all of such

dead catchwords as the “Celtic fringe” for a description of Ireland, it

was to doubt whether we were worthy to kiss the hem of her garment. If

there be still any Englishman who thinks such language extravagant, this

chapter is written to enlighten him.

In the last two chapters I have sketched in outline the way in which

England, partly by historical accident, but partly also by false

philosophy, was drawn into the orbit of Germany, the centre of whose

circle was already at Berlin. I need not recapitulate the causes at all

fully here. Luther was hardly a heresiarch for England, though a hobby

for Henry VIII. But the negative Germanism of the Reformation, its drag

towards the north, its quarantine against Latin culture, was in a sense

l’ultimo furono entrambi essenzialmente simboli; e senza questo carattere

visionario, erano in certo modo vani. Cominciò con la presa della vecchia

e quasi vuota prigione chiamata la Bastiglia; e la pensiamo sempre

come il principio della Rivoluzione, benché la vera Rivoluzione non

giungesse se non qualche tempo dopo. E finì quando Wellington e Blücher s’incontrarono

nel 1815; e la pensiamo sempre come la fine di Napoleone; benché

Napoleone fosse in realtà caduto prima. E l’immaginario popolare ha ragione, come

generalmente accade in tali cose: poiché la folla è un artista, sebbene non un

uomo di scienza. Il tumulto del 14 luglio non liberò propriamente i

prigionieri dentro la Bastiglia, ma liberò i prigionieri di fuori.

Napoleone, quando tornò, era davvero un revenant, cioè un fantasma. Ma

Waterloo fu tanto più definitiva in quanto fu una spettrale resurrezione

e una seconda morte. E in questo secondo caso vi furono altri elementi

ancor più stranamente simbolici. Quella dubbia e duplice battaglia

prima di Waterloo era come la doppia personalità in un sogno. Essa

corrispondeva curiosamente alla duplice mente dell’inglese. Colleghiamo

Quatre Bras a cose romanticamente inglesi fino all’orlo del

sentimentalismo, a Byron e al «Black Brunswicker». Naturalmente

parteggiamo per Wellington contro Ney. Non parteggiamo, e nemmeno

allora parteggiavamo davvero, per Blücher contro Napoleone.

La Germania si è lamentata che passassimo lievemente sopra la presenza dei

prussiani nell’azione decisiva. E bene potevamo farlo. Persino a quel tempo

il nostro sentimento non era solo gelosia, ma in gran parte vergogna.

Wellington, il più arcigno e persino il più sgradevole dei Tory, senza

simpatie francesi e con non abbastanza simpatie umane, ha registrato la sua opinione sui

suoi alleati prussiani in termini di secco disgusto. Peel, il più compassato e

più snob dei Tory che mai lodò «i nostri prodi Alleati» in un freddo

discorso ufficiale, non seppe trattenersi riguardo alla condotta degli

uomini di Blücher. Le nostre classi medie fecero bene ad adornare i loro salotti con

il quadro del «Meeting of Wellington and Blucher». Avrebbero dovuto

appendere un pendant di Pilato ed Erode che si stringono la mano. Poi,

dopo quell’incontro tra le ceneri di Hougomont, dove sognavano di aver

spento le braci di ogni democrazia, i prussiani cavalcarono avanti

innanzi, agendo secondo la loro indole. Dopo di loro andò quell’ironico aristocratico

uscito dall’inasprita Irlanda, con quali pensieri sappiamo; e Blücher, con

quali pensieri non ci curiamo; e i suoi soldati entrarono a Parigi, e rubarono la

spada di Giovanna d’Arco.

IV—L’avvento dei Giannizzeri

Il defunto Lord Salisbury, uomo triste e faceto, fece molte pubbliche e

serie osservazioni che si sono rivelate false e perigliose, e molte

private e frivole osservazioni che erano preziose e meriterebbero di essere

immortali. Colpì a morte la rigida e falsa psicologia della «riforma

sociale», con la sua insinuazione che il numero delle taverne rendesse

la gente ubriaca, dicendo che a Hatfield vi era un certo numero di camere da letto,

ma esse non lo resero mai sonnolento. Per questo è possibile

perdonargli d’aver parlato di «nazioni vive e morenti»:

benché sia di tali detti che le nazioni vive muoiono. Nel medesimo spirito

egli incluse la nazione d’Irlanda nella «frangia celtica» a occidente

dell’Inghilterra. Pare sufficiente osservare che la frangia è

considerevolmente più larga della veste. Ma la terribile satira del tempo

ha assai sufficientemente vendicato la nazione irlandese contro di lui, in gran parte per

il tramite di un altro frammento della veste britannica ch’egli gettò

via quasi con disprezzo nel Mare del Nord. Il suo nome è

Helgoland; ed egli la diede ai tedeschi.

La successiva storia delle due isole ai due lati dell’Inghilterra è

stata sufficientemente ironica. Se Lord Salisbury avesse previsto esattamente ciò che

sarebbe accaduto a Helgoland, come bene all’Irlanda, avrebbe ben potuto

non trovare sonno a Hatfield in una camera o in cento. Nell’isola orientale

andava rafforzando una fortezza che un giorno sarebbe stata chiamata

a distruggerci. Nell’isola occidentale andava indebolendo una fortezza che

un giorno sarebbe stata chiamata a salvarci. In quel giorno il suo fidato alleato,

Guglielmo Hohenzollern, avrebbe martellato le nostre navi e barche dalla Baia

di Helgoland; e in quel giorno il suo vecchio e un tempo imprigionato nemico, John

Redmond, si sarebbe levato nell’ora del pericolo inglese, ed essere ringraziato con

tuono per la libera offerta della spada irlandese. Tutto ciò che Robert Cecil

reputò senza valore è stato la nostra perdita, e tutto ciò ch’egli reputò debole il nostro

sostegno. Tra quelli della sua classe politica o del suo credo che accettarono e

accolsero l’alleanza del capo irlandese, ve n’erano alcuni che conoscevano le reali

relazioni passate tra Inghilterra e Irlanda, e alcuni che le sentirono per la prima volta

in quell’ora. Tutti sapevano che l’Inghilterra non poteva più essere una mera

signora; molti sapevano ch’era ormai in certo senso una supplice. Alcuni

sapevano ch’ella meritava d’essere una supplice. Questi erano coloro che sapevano un

poco di quella cosa chiamata storia; e se pur pensavano a tali

morte formule fatte come la «frangia celtica» per descrivere l’Irlanda, era

per dubitare se fossimo degni di baciare l’orlo della sua veste. Se

vi è ancora un inglese che ritenga tale linguaggio stravagante, questo

capitolo è scritto per illuminarlo.

Negli ultimi due capitoli ho tratteggiato in abbozzo il modo in cui

l’Inghilterra, in parte per accidente storico, ma in parte anche per falsa

filosofia, fu attirata nell’orbita della Germania, il centro del cui

cerchio era già a Berlino. Non occorre ch’io ricapitoli le cause in modo

esauriente qui. Lutero fu ben poco un eresiarca per l’Inghilterra, benché un passatempo

per Enrico VIII. Ma il germanesimo negativo della Riforma, il suo trascinamento

verso il nord, la sua quarantena contro la cultura latina, era in un certo senso

the beginning of the business. It is well represented in two facts; the

barbaric refusal of the new astronomical calendar merely because it was

invented by a Pope, and the singular decision to pronounce Latin as if

it were something else, making it not a dead language but a new

language. Later, the part played by particular royalties is complex and

accidental; “the furious German” came and passed; the much less

interesting Germans came and stayed. Their influence was negative but

not negligible; they kept England out of that current of European life

into which the Gallophil Stuarts might have carried her. Only one of the

Hanoverians was actively German; so German that he actually gloried in

the name of Briton, and spelt it wrong. Incidentally, he lost America.

It is notable that all those eminent among the real Britons, who spelt

it right, respected and would parley with the American Revolution,

however jingo or legitimist they were; the romantic conservative Burke,

the earth-devouring Imperialist Chatham, even, in reality, the jog-trot

Tory North. The intractability was in the Elector of Hanover more than

in the King of England; in the narrow and petty German prince who was

bored by Shakespeare and approximately inspired by Handel. What really

clinched the unlucky companionship of England and Germany was the first

and second alliance with Prussia; the first in which we prevented the

hardening tradition of Frederick the Great being broken up by the Seven

Years’ War; the second in which we prevented it being broken up by the

French Revolution and Napoleon. In the first we helped Prussia to escape

like a young brigand; in the second we helped the brigand to adjudicate

as a respectable magistrate. Having aided his lawlessness, we defended

his legitimacy. We helped to give the Bourbon prince his crown, though

our allies the Prussians (in their cheery way) tried to pick a few

jewels out of it before he got it. Through the whole of that period, so

important in history, it must be said that we were to be reckoned on for

the support of unreformed laws and the rule of unwilling subjects. There

is, as it were, an ugly echo even to the name of Nelson in the name of

Naples. But whatever is to be said of the cause, the work which we did

in it, with steel and gold, was so able and strenuous that an Englishman

can still be proud of it. We never performed a greater task than that

in which we, in a sense, saved Germany, save that in which a hundred

years later, we have now, in a sense, to destroy her. History tends to

be a facade of faded picturesqueness for most of those who have not

specially studied it: a more or less monochrome background for the drama

of their own day. To these it may well seem that it matters little

whether we were on one side or the other in a fight in which all the

figures are antiquated; Bonaparte and Blucher are both in old cocked

hats; French kings and French regicides are both not only dead men but

dead foreigners; the whole is a tapestry as decorative and as arbitrary

as the Wars of the Roses. It was not so: we fought for something real

when we fought for the old world against the new. If we want to know

painfully and precisely what it was, we must open an old and sealed and

very awful door, on a scene which was called Ireland, but which then

might well have been called hell.

Having chosen our part and made war upon the new world, we were soon

made to understand what such spiritual infanticide involved; and were

committed to a kind of Massacre of the Innocents. In Ireland the young

world was represented by young men, who shared the democratic dream of

the Continent, and were resolved to foil the plot of Pitt; who was

working a huge machine of corruption to its utmost to absorb Ireland

into the Anti-Jacobin scheme of England. There was present every

coincidence that could make the British rulers feel they were mere

abbots of misrule. The stiff and self-conscious figure of Pitt has

remained standing incongruously purse in hand; while his manlier rivals

were stretching out their hands for the sword, the only possible resort

of men who cannot be bought and refuse to be sold. A rebellion broke out

and was repressed; and the government that repressed it was ten times

more lawless than the rebellion. Fate for once seemed to pick out a

situation in plain black and white like an allegory; a tragedy of

appalling platitudes. The heroes were really heroes; and the villains

were nothing but villains. The common tangle of life, in which good men

do evil by mistake and bad men do good by accident, seemed suspended for

us as for a judgment. We had to do things that not only were vile, but

felt vile. We had to destroy men who not only were noble, but looked

noble. They were men like Wolfe Tone, a statesman in the grand style who

was not suffered to found a state; and Robert Emmet, lover of his land

and of a woman, in whose very appearance men saw something of the eagle

grace of the young Napoleon. But he was luckier than the young Napoleon;

for he has remained young. He was hanged; not before he had uttered one

of those phrases that are the hinges of history. He made an epitaph of

the refusal of an epitaph: and with a gesture has hung his tomb in

heaven like Mahomet’s coffin. Against such Irishmen we could only

produce Castlereagh; one of the few men in human records who seem to

have been made famous solely that they might be infamous. He sold his

own country, he oppressed ours; for the rest he mixed his metaphors, and

has saddled two separate and sensible nations with the horrible mixed

metaphor called the Union. Here there is no possible see-saw of

sympathies as there can be between Brutus and Caesar or between Cromwell

and Charles I.: there is simply nobody who supposes that Emmet was out

il principio dell’affare. È bene rappresentato in due fatti; il

barbarico rifiuto del nuovo calendario astronomico solo perché era

stato inventato da un Papa, e la singolare decisione di pronunciare il latino come se

fosse qualcos’altro, facendone non una lingua morta ma una nuova

lingua. Più tardi, la parte giocata da particolari casate regali è complessa e

accidentale; «il furioso tedesco» venne e passò; i tedeschi assai meno

interessanti vennero e rimasero. La loro influenza fu negativa ma

non trascurabile; tennero l’Inghilterra fuori da quella corrente di vita europea

nella quale gli Stuart gallofili l’avrebbero potuta portare. Solo uno degli

Hannover fu attivamente tedesco; così tedesco che di fatto si gloriava del

nome di Britanno, e lo scriveva male. Per inciso, perse l’America.

È notevole che tutti quelli eminenti tra i veri Britanni, che lo scrivevano

giusto, rispettavano e sarebbero venuti a patti con la Rivoluzione americana,

per quanto sciovinisti o legittimisti fossero; il romantico conservatore Burke,

il divoratore di terre imperialista Chatham, persino, in realtà, il compassato

Tory North. L’intrattabilità era nell’Elettore di Hannover più che

nel Re d’Inghilterra; in quel gretto e meschino principe tedesco che era

annoiato da Shakespeare e all’incirca ispirato da Händel. Ciò che davvero

suggellò l’infausto sodalizio di Inghilterra e Germania fu la prima

e la seconda alleanza con la Prussia; la prima in cui impedimmo che la

indurente tradizione di Federico il Grande fosse spezzata dalla Guerra dei Sette

Anni; la seconda in cui le impedimmo di essere spezzata dalla

Rivoluzione francese e da Napoleone. Nella prima aiutammo la Prussia a fuggire

come un giovane brigante; nella seconda aiutammo il brigante a sentenziare

come un rispettabile magistrato. Avendo assecondato la sua illegalità, ne difendemmo

la legittimità. Contribuimmo a dare al principe borbonico la sua corona, benché

i nostri alleati prussiani (alla loro allegra maniera) tentassero di sfilarne alcuni

gioielli prima che egli l’ottenesse. Per tutto quel periodo, così

importante nella storia, si deve dire che si poteva contare su di noi per

il sostegno di leggi non riformate e il dominio su sudditi riluttanti. Vi

è, per così dire, una brutta eco perfino nel nome di Nelson nel nome di

Napoli. Ma qualunque cosa si debba dire della causa, l’opera che vi

compimmo, con acciaio e oro, fu così abile e strenua che un inglese

può ancora esserne fiero. Non compimmo mai impresa più grande di quella

in cui, in un certo senso, salvammo la Germania, salvo quella in cui cento

anni dopo, dobbiamo ora, in un certo senso, distruggerla. La storia tende a

essere una facciata di sbiadito pittoresco per la maggior parte di coloro che non

l’hanno studiata di proposito: uno sfondo più o meno monocromo per il dramma

del loro proprio giorno. A costoro può ben sembrare che poco importi

se fossimo da una parte o dall’altra in una lotta in cui tutte le

figure sono antiquate; Bonaparte e Blücher sono entrambi in vecchi tricorni;

i re francesi e i regicidi francesi sono entrambi non solo uomini morti ma

stranieri morti; il tutto è un arazzo tanto decorativo e tanto arbitrario

quanto le Guerre delle Due Rose. Non fu così: combattemmo per qualcosa di reale

quando combattemmo per il vecchio mondo contro il nuovo. Se vogliamo sapere

penosamente e con precisione che cosa fosse, dobbiamo aprire una vecchia e sigillata e

assai spaventosa porta, su una scena che si chiamava Irlanda, ma che allora

avrebbe ben potuto chiamarsi inferno.

Avendo scelto la nostra parte e mosso guerra al nuovo mondo, fummo presto

fatti comprendere ciò che tale infanticidio spirituale comportava; e fummo

impegnati in una sorta di Strage degli Innocenti. In Irlanda il giovane

mondo era rappresentato da giovani, che condividevano il sogno democratico del

Continente, ed erano risoluti a sventare il complotto di Pitt; il quale

azionava all’estremo un’enorme macchina di corruzione per assorbire l’Irlanda

nel disegno anti-giacobino dell’Inghilterra. Era presente ogni

coincidenza che potesse far sentire ai governanti britannici d’essere meri

abati del disordine. La rigida e consapevole di sé figura di Pitt è

rimasta in piedi incongruamente con la borsa in mano; mentre i suoi più virili rivali

tendevano le mani verso la spada, l’unica risorsa possibile

per uomini che non si possono comprare e rifiutano di essere venduti. Una ribellione scoppiò

e fu repressa; e il governo che la represse fu dieci volte

più illegale della ribellione. Il Fato per una volta parve scegliere una

situazione in schietto bianco e nero come un’allegoria; una tragedia di

spaventose ovvietà. Gli eroi erano davvero eroi; e i malvagi

non erano altro che malvagi. Il comune groviglio della vita, in cui gli uomini buoni

fanno il male per errore e gli uomini cattivi fanno il bene per caso, parve sospeso per

noi come per un giudizio. Dovemmo fare cose che non solo erano vili, ma

parevano vili. Dovemmo distruggere uomini che non solo erano nobili, ma sembravano

nobili. Erano uomini come Wolfe Tone, uno statista in grande stile a cui

non fu concesso fondare uno stato; e Robert Emmet, amante della sua terra

e di una donna, nel cui stesso aspetto gli uomini vedevano qualcosa della grazia d’aquila

del giovane Napoleone. Ma egli fu più fortunato del giovane Napoleone;

poiché è rimasto giovane. Fu impiccato; non prima d’aver pronunciato una

di quelle frasi che sono i cardini della storia. Fece un epitaffio del

rifiuto di un epitaffio: e con un gesto ha appeso la sua tomba in

cielo come la bara di Maometto. Contro tali irlandesi potemmo solo

produrre Castlereagh; uno dei pochi uomini negli annali umani che sembrano

essere stati resi famosi solo perché fossero infami. Vendette il

proprio paese, oppresse il nostro; per il resto confuse le sue metafore, e

ha gravato due distinte e assennate nazioni con l’orribile metafora mista

chiamata l’Unione. Qui non v’è possibile altalena di

simpatie come può esservi tra Bruto e Cesare o tra Cromwell

e Carlo I: non v’è semplicemente nessuno che supponga che Emmet fosse in

for worldly gain, or that Castlereagh was out for anything else. Even

the incidental resemblances between the two sides only served to sharpen

the contrast and the complete superiority of the nationalists. Thus,

Castlereagh and Lord Edward Fitzgerald were both aristocrats. But

Castlereagh was the corrupt gentleman at the Court, Fitzgerald the

generous gentleman upon the land; some portion of whose blood, along

with some portion of his spirit, descended to that great gentleman,

who—in the midst of the emetic immoralism of our modern politics—gave

back that land to the Irish peasantry. Thus again, all such

eighteenth-century aristocrats (like aristocrats almost anywhere) stood

apart from the popular mysticism and the shrines of the poor; they were

theoretically Protestants, but practically pagans. But Tone was the type

of pagan who refuses to persecute, like Gallio: Pitt was the type of

pagan who consents to persecute; and his place is with Pilate. He was an

intolerant indifferentist; ready to enfranchise the Papists, but more

ready to massacre them. Thus, once more, the two pagans, Tone and

Castlereagh, found a pagan end in suicide. But the circumstances were

such that any man, of any party, felt that Tone had died like Cato and

Castlereagh had died like Judas.

The march of Pitt’s policy went on; and the chasm between light and

darkness deepened. Order was restored; and wherever order spread, there

spread an anarchy more awful than the sun has ever looked on. Torture

came out of the crypts of the Inquisition and walked in the sunlight of

the streets and fields. A village vicar was slain with inconceivable

stripes, and his corpse set on fire with frightful jests about a roasted

priest. Rape became a mode of government. The violation of virgins

became a standing order of police. Stamped still with the same terrible

symbolism, the work of the English Government and the English settlers

seemed to resolve itself into animal atrocities against the wives and

daughters of a race distinguished for a rare and detached purity, and of

a religion which makes of innocence the Mother of God. In its bodily

aspects it became like a war of devils upon angels; as if England could

produce nothing but torturers, and Ireland nothing but martyrs. Such

was a part of the price paid by the Irish body and the English soul, for

the privilege of patching up a Prussian after the sabre-stroke of Jena.

But Germany was not merely present in the spirit: Germany was present in

the flesh. Without any desire to underrate the exploits of the English

or the Orangemen, I can safely say that the finest touches were added by

soldiers trained in a tradition inherited from the horrors of the Thirty

Years’ War, and of what the old ballad called “the cruel wars of High

Germanie.” An Irishman I know, whose brother is a soldier, and who has

relatives in many distinguished posts of the British army, told me that

in his childhood the legend (or rather the truth) of ‘98 was so

frightfully alive that his own mother would not have the word “soldier”

spoken in her house. Wherever we thus find the tradition alive we find

that the hateful soldier means especially the German soldier. When the

Irish say, as some of them do say, that the German mercenary was worse

than the Orangemen, they say as much as human mouth can utter. Beyond

that there is nothing but the curse of God, which shall be uttered in

an unknown tongue.

The practice of using German soldiers, and even whole German regiments,

in the make-up of the British army, came in with our German princes, and

reappeared on many important occasions in our eighteenth-century

history. They were probably among those who encamped triumphantly upon

Drumossie Moor, and also (which is a more gratifying thought) among

those who ran away with great rapidity at Prestonpans. When that very

typical German, George III., narrow, serious, of a stunted culture and

coarse in his very domesticity, quarrelled with all that was spirited,

not only in the democracy of America but in the aristocracy of England,

German troops were very fitted to be his ambassadors beyond the

Atlantic. With their well-drilled formations they followed Burgoyne in

that woodland march that failed at Saratoga; and with their wooden faces

beheld our downfall. Their presence had long had its effect in various

ways. In one way, curiously enough, their very militarism helped England

to be less military; and especially to be more mercantile. It began to

be felt, faintly of course and never consciously, that fighting was a

thing that foreigners had to do. It vaguely increased the prestige of

the Germans as the military people, to the disadvantage of the French,

whom it was the interest of our vanity to underrate. The mere mixture of

their uniforms with ours made a background of pageantry in which it

seemed more and more natural that English and German potentates should

salute each other like cousins, and, in a sense, live in each other’s

countries. Thus in 1908 the German Emperor was already regarded as

something of a menace by the English politicians, and as nothing but a

madman by the English people. Yet it did not seem in any way disgusting

or dangerous that Edward VII. should appear upon occasion in a Prussian

uniform. Edward VII. was himself a friend to France, and worked for the

French Alliance. Yet his appearance in the red trousers of a French

soldier would have struck many people as funny; as funny as if he had

dressed up as a Chinaman.

But the German hirelings or allies had another character which (by that

same strain of evil coincidence which we are tracing in this book)

encouraged all that was worst in the English conservatism and

inequality, while discouraging all that was best in it. It is true that

Per guadagno mondano, o che Castlereagh cercasse altro. Anche

Le somiglianze casuali tra le due parti servirono solo ad accentuare

Il contrasto e la completa superiorità dei nazionalisti.

Castlereagh e Lord Edward Fitzgerald erano entrambi aristocratici, ma…

Castlereagh era il gentiluomo corrotto alla Corte, Fitzgerald il

un gentiluomo generoso sulla terra; una parte del cui sangue, insieme

Con una parte del suo spirito, scese in quel grande gentiluomo

Chi - in mezzo all’immoralismo nauseabondo della nostra politica moderna - ha dato

Ridare quella terra ai contadini irlandesi. E così via, tutti questi…

Aristocratici del diciottesimo secolo (come quasi ovunque) si erano fermati

A parte il misticismo popolare e i santuari dei poveri, c’erano

Teoricamente protestanti, ma praticamente pagani. Ma Tone era il tipo

Del pagano che rifiuta di perseguitare, come Gallo: Pitt era il tipo di

Pagano che acconsente alla persecuzione; il suo posto è con Ponzio Pilato. Era un…

Indifferentista intollerante; pronto ad emancipare i papisti, ma più…

Pronti per massacrarli. Così ancora una volta i due pagani, Tone e…

Castlereagh trovò una fine pagana nel suicidio. Ma le circostanze erano

tale che qualsiasi uomo, di qualsiasi partito, sentisse che Tone era morto come Catone e

Castlereagh era morto come Giuda.

La marcia della politica di Pitt continuò; e l’abisso tra la luce e…

L’oscurità si addensò. L’ordine fu ripristinato; e ovunque l’ordine si diffuse, là…

Diffondere un’anarchia più terribile di quanto il sole abbia mai visto. Tortura

uscì dalle cripte dell’Inquisizione e camminò alla luce del sole di

Le strade e i campi. Un parroco di villaggio fu ucciso in modo incredibile

strisce e il suo cadavere fu dato alle flamme con terribili scherzi su un arrosto

sacerdote. Lo stupro divenne un mezzo di governo. La violazione delle vergini

Divenne un ordine permanente di polizia. Immobile con lo stesso terribile…

simbolismo, l’opera del Governo inglese e dei coloni inglesi

sembrava risolversi in atrocità animali contro le mogli e

Figlie di una razza nota per la sua rara e distaccata purezza

una religione che fa dell’innocenza la Madre di Dio. Nel suo corpo

Aspetti che divennero come una guerra di demoni contro gli angeli; quasi come se l’Inghilterra potesse…

Non produce altro che carnefici e l’Irlanda altro che martiri. Tali

era parte del prezzo pagato dallo corpo irlandese e dall’anima inglese, per

il privilegio di medicare un prussiano dopo il colpo di sciabola di Iena.

Ma la Germania non era semplicemente presente nello spirito: la Germania era presente in

la carne. Senza alcun desiderio di sminuire le imprese degli inglesi

o degli Orangemen, posso dire con certezza che i tocchi più raffinati furono aggiunti da

Soldati formati secondo una tradizione ereditata dagli orrori dei Trenta

La guerra degli anni e le «crudeli guerre di Altezza» della vecchia ballata

La Germania. Un irlandese che conosco, il cui fratello è un soldato, e che ha…

Parenti in molte posizioni di rilievo nell’esercito britannico mi dissero che

nell’infanzia la leggenda (o meglio, la verità) del ‘98 era così

così vivo che sua madre non avrebbe usato la parola “soldato”

parlato nella sua casa. Ovunque troviamo viva la tradizione, troviamo

Il soldato odioso è soprattutto il soldato tedesco. Quando il

Gli irlandesi dicono che il mercenario tedesco era peggio

Più degli Orangisti, dicono tutto ciò che una bocca umana può dire. Oltre a

Non c’è altro che la maledizione di Dio, che verrà pronunciata

una lingua sconosciuta.

L’uso di soldati tedeschi e interi reggimenti tedeschi

Nella composizione dell’esercito britannico, arrivarono con i nostri principi tedeschi e…

Riapparso in molte occasioni importanti nel nostro diciottesimo secolo

storia. Erano probabilmente tra coloro che accamparono trionfalmente su

La brughiera di Drumossie e anche (pensiero più confortante) tra…

Quelli che scapparono velocemente da Prestonpans. Quando proprio

Tipico tedesco, Giorgio III, ristretto, serio, di una cultura limitata e

volgare nella sua stessa vita domestica, litigava con tutto ciò che era vivace

non solo nella democrazia della America, ma anche nell’aristocrazia dell’Inghilterra,

Le truppe tedesche erano molto adatte per essere i suoi ambasciatori oltre il…

Atlantico. Con le loro formazioni ben addestrate seguirono Burgoyne in

Quella marcia nel bosco che fallì a Saratoga e i loro volti di legno

Hanno assistito al nostro declino. La loro presenza aveva già da tempo avuto il suo effetto in vari modi.

Modi. Curiosamente, il loro stesso militarismo ha aiutato l’Inghilterra in un certo senso

Essere meno militari e soprattutto più mercantili. Iniziò a…

Si può sentire, ovviamente in modo vago e mai consapevolmente, che combattere è…

La cosa che gli stranieri dovevano fare. Aumentava vagamente il prestigio di…

I tedeschi come popolo militare, a svantaggio dei francesi

chi era nell’interesse della nostra vanità sminuire. La semplice miscela di

I loro uniformi con i nostri creavano uno sfondo di spettacolo in cui

Sembrava sempre più naturale che i potenti inglesi e tedeschi dovessero…

Ci salutiamo come cugini e, in un certo senso, viviamo l’uno nella vita dell’altro

Paesi. Così nel 1908 l’imperatore tedesco era già considerato come…

Qualcosa di minaccioso da parte dei politici inglesi e nient’altro che un…

pazzo agli occhi del popolo inglese, eppure non sembrava affatto disgustoso

o pericoloso che Edoardo VII appaia occasionalmente in abiti prussiani

Uniforme. Edoardo VII era lui stesso un amico della Francia e lavorò per la…

L’alleanza francese. Eppure apparve nei pantaloni rossi di un francese

Un soldato avrebbe fatto ridere molte persone, come se fosse stato…

vestito da cinese.

Ma i mercenari o alleati tedeschi avevano un altro carattere che (a quel

La stessa serie di coincidenze negative che stiamo analizzando in questo libro

incoraggiò tutto ciò che c’era di peggio nel conservatorismo inglese e

Disuguaglianza, scoraggiando tutto ciò che c’era di meglio in essa. È vero che

the ideal Englishman was too much of a squire; but it is just to add

that the ideal squire was a good squire. The best squire I know in

fiction is Duke Theseus in “The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” who is kind to

his people and proud of his dogs; and would be a perfect human being if

he were not just a little bit prone to be kind to both of them in the

same way. But such natural and even pagan good-nature is consonant with

the warm wet woods and comfortable clouds of South England; it never had

any place among the harsh and thrifty squires in the plains of East

Prussia, the land of the East Wind. They were peevish as well as proud,

and everything they created, but especially their army, was made

coherent by sheer brutality. Discipline was cruel enough in all the

eighteenth-century armies, created long after the decay of any faith or

hope that could hold men together. But the state that was first in

Germany was first in ferocity. Frederick the Great had to forbid his

English admirers to follow his regiments during the campaign, lest they

should discover that the most enlightened of kings had only excluded

torture from law to impose it without law. This influence, as we have

seen, left on Ireland a fearful mark which will never be effaced.

English rule in Ireland had been bad before; but in the broadening light

of the revolutionary century I doubt whether it could have continued as

bad, if we had not taken a side that forced us to flatter barbarian

tyranny in Europe. We should hardly have seen such a nightmare as the

Anglicising of Ireland if we had not already seen the Germanising of

England. But even in England it was not without its effects; and one of

its effects was to rouse a man who is, perhaps, the best English witness

to the effect on the England of that time of the Alliance with Germany.

With that man I shall deal in the chapter that follows.

V—The Lost England

Telling the truth about Ireland is not very pleasant to a patriotic

Englishman; but it is very patriotic. It is the truth and nothing but

the truth which I have but touched on in the last chapter. Several

times, and especially at the beginning of this war, we narrowly escaped

ruin because we neglected that truth, and would insist on treating our

crimes of the ‘98 and after as very distant; while in Irish feeling, and

in fact, they are very near. Repentance of this remote sort is not at

all appropriate to the case, and will not do. It may be a good thing to

forget and forgive; but it is altogether too easy a trick to forget and

be forgiven.

The truth about Ireland is simply this: that the relations between

England and Ireland are the relations between two men who have to travel

together, one of whom tried to stab the other at the last stopping-place

or to poison the other at the last inn. Conversation may be courteous,

but it will be occasionally forced. The topic of attempted murder, its

examples in history and fiction, may be tactfully avoided in the

sallies; but it will be occasionally present in the thoughts. Silences,

not devoid of strain, will fall from time to time. The partially

murdered person may even think an assault unlikely to recur; but it is

asking too much, perhaps, to expect him to find it impossible to

imagine. And even if, as God grant, the predominant partner is really

sorry for his former manner of predominating, and proves it in some

unmistakable manner—as by saving the other from robbers at great

personal risk—the victim may still be unable to repress an abstract

psychological wonder about when his companion first began to feel like

that. Now this is not in the least an exaggerated parable of the

position of England towards Ireland, not only in ‘98, but far back from

the treason that broke the Treaty of Limerick and far onwards through

the Great Famine and after. The conduct of the English towards the Irish

after the Rebellion was quite simply the conduct of one man who traps

and binds another, and then calmly cuts him about with a knife. The

conduct during the Famine was quite simply the conduct of the first man

if he entertained the later moments of the second man, by remarking in a

chatty manner on the very hopeful chances of his bleeding to death. The

British Prime Minister publicly refused to stop the Famine by the use of

English ships. The British Prime Minister positively spread the Famine,

by making the half-starved populations of Ireland pay for the starved

ones. The common verdict of a coroner’s jury upon some emaciated wretch

was “Wilful murder by Lord John Russell”: and that verdict was not only

the verdict of Irish public opinion, but is the verdict of history. But

there were those in influential positions in England who were not

content with publicly approving the act, but publicly proclaimed the

motive. The Times, which had then a national authority and

respectability which gave its words a weight unknown in modern

journalism, openly exulted in the prospect of a Golden Age when the kind

of Irishman native to Ireland would be “as rare on the banks of the

Liffey as a red man on the banks of the Manhattan.” It seems

sufficiently frantic that such a thing should have been said by one

European of another, or even of a Red Indian, if Red Indians had

occupied anything like the place of the Irish then and since; if there

were to be a Red Indian Lord Chief Justice and a Red Indian

Commander-in-Chief, if the Red Indian Party in Congress, containing

first-rate orators and fashionable novelists, could have turned

Presidents in and out; if half the best troops of the country were

trained with the tomahawk and half the best journalism of the capital

written in picture-writing, if later, by general consent, the Chief

L’inglese ideale era troppo un gentiluomo di campagna; ma è giusto aggiungere

che il gentiluomo ideale fosse un buon gentiluomo. Il miglior gentiluomo che conosco è

Il personaggio di finzione è il Duca Teseo ne “Il sogno di una notte di mezza estate”, che si dimostra gentile con

il suo popolo e orgoglioso dei suoi cani; sarebbe un essere umano perfetto se

Non era solo un po’ incline ad essere gentile con entrambi

allo stesso modo. Ma una simile naturale e persino pagana buona indole è in armonia con

Le calde foreste umide e le nuvole confortevoli del sud dell’Inghilterra; non l’hanno mai avuto

Qualsiasi posto tra i duri e parsimoniosi proprietari terrieri nelle pianure dell’Est

La Prussia, la terra del vento orientale vento. Erano petulanti oltre che orgogliosi oltre.

e tutto ciò che crearono, ma soprattutto il loro esercito, fu fatto

Coerente per pura brutalità. La disciplina era abbastanza crudele in tutti i…

eserciti del diciottesimo secolo, creati molto tempo dopo il declino di ogni fede o

speranza che potesse tenere uniti gli uomini. Ma lo stato che fu il primo a

La Germania fu la prima nella ferocia. Federico il Grande dovette vietare ai suoi

Gli ammiratori inglesi che seguono i suoi reggimenti durante la campagna, per timore che…

Scoprirete che il più illuminato dei re aveva solo escluso

La tortura: imposta dalla legge e inflitta senza di essa. Questa influenza, come abbiamo…

ha lasciato sull’Irlanda un’impronta terribile che non verrà mai cancellata.

Il dominio inglese in Irlanda era già stato brutto prima, ma alla luce che si allarga

del secolo rivoluzionario io dubito che avrebbe potuto continuare come

Male, se non avessimo preso una parte che ci costringeva ad adulare i barbari

tirannia in Europa. Non avremmo quasi visto un tale incubo come il

L’anglicizzazione dell’Irlanda se non avessimo già visto la germanizzazione della…

L’Inghilterra. Ma anche qui non mancarono gli effetti, e uno di questi fu…

i suoi effetti furono di risvegliare un uomo che è forse il migliore testimone inglese

sull’effetto che l’alleanza con la Germania ebbe sull’Inghilterra di quel periodo.

Mi occuperò di quell’uomo nel capitolo che segue.

L’Inghilterra perduta

Dire la verità sull’Irlanda non è molto piacevole per un patriota

inglese; ma è molto patriottica. È la verità e nient’altro che

la verità che ho solo accennato nell’ultimo capitolo. Diversi

Tempi, e specialmente all’inizio di questa guerra, siamo sfuggiti per un pelo

rovinati perché abbiamo trascurato quella verità e avremmo voluto continuare a trattarla come fosse nostra.

I crimini del 1898 e successivi come molto lontani; mentre nel sentimento irlandese,

infatti sono molto vicini. Il pentimento di questo tipo remoto non è

Tutto ciò che è appropriato al caso non va bene. Potrebbe essere una buona cosa…

Dimenticare e perdonare; ma dimenticare è un trucco troppo facile

perdonato.

La verità sull’Irlanda è semplicemente questa: che le relazioni tra

Inghilterra e Irlanda sono come due viaggiatori che devono percorrere la stessa strada

Insieme, uno dei quali ha cercato di pugnalare l’altro all’ultima fermata

o di avvelenare l’altro all’ultima locanda. La conversazione può essere cortese,

Ma sarà occasionalmente forzato. Il tema del tentativo di omicidio, il suo

esempi nella storia e nella narrativa possono essere evitati con tatto

Scorrerie; ma sarà occasionalmente presente nei pensieri. Silenzi,

non privi di tensione, cadranno di tempo in tempo. Quelli parzialmente

La vittima di un omicidio potrebbe anche pensare che l’aggressione non si ripeterà; ma è…

Forse si chiede troppo aspettarsi che gli risulti impossibile

Immagina. E anche se, come Dio vuole, il partner predominante è davvero

Scusa per il suo precedente comportamento arrogante e lo dimostra in qualche modo

Maniera inconfondibile - come salvare qualcuno da ladri con grande…

Rischio personale: la vittima potrebbe ancora non riuscire a reprimere un’astrazione

il meravigliamento psicologico su quando il suo compagno avesse iniziato a sentirsi come

Ora questo non è affatto un’esagerata parabola della

La posizione dell’Inghilterra verso l’Irlanda non solo nel 1798 ma anche molto prima

Il tradimento che infranse il Trattato di Limerick e molto oltre

La grande carestia e dopo: il comportamento degli inglesi verso gli irlandesi

Dopo la ribellione fu semplicemente il comportamento di un uomo che intrappola

e lega un altro, e poi lo taglia con calma con un coltello. Il

Comportamento durante la carestia era semplicemente quello del primo uomo

Se intrattenne i momenti successivi del secondo uomo, osservando in un…

con un tono amichevole sulle speranze molto rosee di morire dissanguato alla morte. Il

Il Primo Ministro britannico rifiutò pubblicamente di fermare la carestia con l’uso della forza

Navi inglesi. Il Primo Ministro britannico ha diffuso positivamente la carestia.

facendo pagare alle popolazioni mezzo affamate dell’Irlanda per gli affamati

Il verdetto comune di una giuria d’inchiesta su qualche povero disgraziato emaciato

“Omaggio volontario da parte di Lord John Russell”: e quella sentenza non era solo…

il verdetto dell’opinione pubblica irlandese, ma è il verdetto della storia. Ma

C’erano persone influenti in Inghilterra che non erano

Contento di approvare pubblicamente l’atto, ma proclamato pubblicamente il

Motivo: il Times, che allora aveva un’autorità nazionale e…

La rispettabilità che dava alle sue parole un peso sconosciuto ai tempi moderni

il giornalismo esultava apertamente alla prospettiva di una età dell’oro quando il genere

Un irlandese nativo d’Irlanda sarebbe «altrettanto raro sulle rive del

Il Liffey come un uomo rosso sulle rive della Manhattan.” Sembra

abbastanza folle da dire una cosa del genere

Europeo di un altro, o anche di un indiano d’America, se gli indiani d’America fossero…

occupato un posto simile a quello degli irlandesi allora e da allora; se c’era

ci fosse un Signore Giudice Capo indiano d’America e un indiano d’America Signore Giudice Capo

Comandante in capo, se il partito degli indiani d’America al congresso contiene

Oratori di prim’ordine e romanzieri alla moda avrebbero potuto trasformare

Presidenti che vanno e vengono; se metà delle migliori truppe del paese fossero…

Addestrato con il tomahawk e metà del miglior giornalismo della capitale

Scritto con pittogrammi, se più tardi, per comune accordo, dal Capo

known as Pine in the Twilight, was the best living poet, or the Chief

Thin Red Fox, the ablest living dramatist. If that were realised, the

English critic probably would not say anything scornful of red men;

or certainly would be sorry he said it. But the extraordinary avowal

does mark what was most peculiar in the position. This has not been the

common case of misgovernment. It is not merely that the institutions we

set up were indefensible; though the curious mark of them is that they

were literally indefensible; from Wood’s Halfpence to the Irish Church

Establishment. There can be no more excuse for the method used by Pitt

than for the method used by Pigott. But it differs further from

ordinary misrule in the vital matter of its object. The coercion was not

imposed that the people might live quietly, but that the people might

die quietly. And then we sit in an owlish innocence of our sin, and

debate whether the Irish might conceivably succeed in saving Ireland.

We, as a matter of fact, have not even failed to save Ireland. We have

simply failed to destroy her.

It is not possible to reverse this judgment or to take away a single

count from it. Is there, then, anything whatever to be said for the

English in the matter? There is: though the English never by any chance

say it. Nor do the Irish say it; though it is in a sense a weakness as

well as a defence. One would think the Irish had reason to say anything

that can be said against the English ruling class, but they have not

said, indeed they have hardly discovered, one quite simple fact—that it

rules England. They are right in asking that the Irish should have a say

in the Irish government, but they are quite wrong in supposing that the

English have any particular say in English government. And I seriously

believe I am not deceived by any national bias, when I say that the

common Englishman would be quite incapable of the cruelties that were

committed in his name. But, most important of all, it is the historical

fact that there was another England, an England consisting of common

Englishmen, which not only certainly would have done better, but

actually did make some considerable attempt to do better. If anyone asks

for the evidence, the answer is that the evidence has been destroyed, or

at least deliberately boycotted: but can be found in the unfashionable

corners of literature; and, when found, is final. If anyone asks for the

great men of such a potential democratic England, the answer is that the

great men are labelled small men, or not labelled at all; have been

successfully belittled as the emancipation of which they dreamed has

dwindled. The greatest of them is now little more than a name; he is

criticised to be underrated and not to be understood; but he presented

all that alternative and more liberal Englishry; and was enormously

popular because he presented it. In taking him as the type of it we may

tell most shortly the whole of this forgotten tale. And, even when I

begin to tell it, I find myself in the presence of that ubiquitous evil

which is the subject of this book. It is a fact, and I think it is not a

coincidence, that in standing for a moment where this Englishman stood,

I again find myself confronted by the German soldier.

The son of a small Surrey farmer, a respectable Tory and churchman,

ventured to plead against certain extraordinary cruelties being

inflicted on Englishmen whose hands were tied, by the whips of German

superiors; who were then parading in English fields their stiff foreign

uniforms and their sanguinary foreign discipline. In the countries from

which they came, of course, such torments were the one monotonous means

of driving men on to perish in the dead dynastic quarrels of the north;

but to poor Will Cobbett, in his provincial island, knowing little but

the low hills and hedges around the little church where he now lies

buried, the incident seemed odd—nay, unpleasing. He knew, of course,

that there was then flogging in the British army also; but the German

standard was notoriously severe in such things, and was something of an

acquired taste. Added to which he had all sorts of old grandmotherly

prejudices about Englishmen being punished by Englishmen, and notions of

that sort. He protested, not only in speech, but actually in print. He

was soon made to learn the perils of meddling in the high politics of

the High Dutch militarists. The fine feelings of the foreign mercenaries

were soothed by Cobbett being flung into Newgate for two years and

beggared by a fine of £1000. That small incident is a small transparent

picture of the Holy Alliance; of what was really meant by a country,

once half liberalised, taking up the cause of the foreign kings. This,

and not “The Meeting of Wellington and Blucher,” should be engraved as

the great scene of the war. From this intemperate Fenians should learn

that the Teutonic mercenaries did not confine themselves solely to

torturing Irishmen. They were equally ready to torture Englishmen: for

mercenaries are mostly unprejudiced. To Cobbett’s eye we were suffering

from allies exactly as we should suffer from invaders. Boney was a

bogey; but the German was a nightmare, a thing actually sitting on top

of us. In Ireland the Alliance meant the ruin of anything and

everything Irish, from the creed of St. Patrick to the mere colour

green. But in England also it meant the ruin of anything and everything

English, from the Habeas Corpus Act to Cobbett.

After this affair of the scourging, he wielded his pen like a scourge

until he died. This terrible pamphleteer was one of those men who exist

to prove the distinction between a biography and a life. From his

biographies you will learn that he was a Radical who had once been a

Tory. From his life, if there were one, you would learn that he was

always a Radical because he was always a Tory. Few men changed less; it

noto come Pino nel Crepuscolo, fosse il miglior poeta vivente, o il Capo

Sottile Volpe Rossa, il più abile drammaturgo vivente. Se ciò fosse compreso, il

critico inglese probabilmente non direbbe nulla di sprezzante sugli uomini rossi;

o certamente si pentirebbe d’averlo detto. Ma la straordinaria confessione

segna davvero ciò che v’era di più peculiare nella posizione. Questo non è stato il

caso comune del malgoverno. Non è soltanto che le istituzioni che

erigemmo erano indifendibili; benché il curioso segno di esse sia che erano

letteralmente indifendibili; dai Wood’s Halfpence alla Chiesa d’Irlanda

di Stato. Non vi può essere maggior scusa per il metodo usato da Pitt

di quanta ve ne sia per il metodo usato da Pigott. Ma esso differisce ancora dal

malgoverno ordinario nel punto vitale del suo oggetto. La coercizione non fu

imposta perché il popolo vivesse in quiete, ma perché il popolo potesse

morire in quiete. E poi ce ne stiamo seduti in una gufesca innocenza del nostro peccato, e

discutiamo se gli irlandesi possano concepibilmente riuscire a salvare l’Irlanda.

Noi, in verità, non abbiamo nemmeno fallito nel salvare l’Irlanda. Abbiamo

semplicemente fallito nel distruggerla.

Non è possibile ribaltare questo giudizio né togliergli un solo

capo d’accusa. Vi è, dunque, qualcosa di che si possa dire in favore degli

inglesi nella faccenda? Vi è: benché gli inglesi non lo dicano mai per nessun caso.

Né lo dicono gli irlandesi; benché sia in un certo senso una debolezza tanto

quanto una difesa. Si penserebbe che gli irlandesi avessero ragione di dire tutto ciò

che si può dire contro la classe dirigente inglese, ma essi non hanno

detto, anzi hanno appena scoperto, un fatto ben semplice: che essa

governa l’Inghilterra. Hanno ragione a chiedere che gli irlandesi abbiano voce

nel governo irlandese, ma hanno del tutto torto a supporre che gli

inglesi abbiano voce particolare nel governo inglese. E credo sul serio

di non essere ingannato da alcun pregiudizio nazionale, quando dico che il

comune inglese sarebbe del tutto incapace delle crudeltà che furono

commesse in suo nome. Ma, più importante di tutto, è il fatto storico

che vi era un’altra Inghilterra, un’Inghilterra composta di comuni

inglesi, la quale non solo certamente avrebbe fatto meglio, ma

in realtà fece qualche considerevole tentativo di far meglio. Se qualcuno chiede

le prove, la risposta è che le prove sono state distrutte, o

quantomeno deliberatamente boicottate: ma si possono trovare negli angoli fuori moda

della letteratura; e, quando si trovano, sono decisive. Se qualcuno chiede degli

grandi uomini di una tale potenziale Inghilterra democratica, la risposta è che i

grandi uomini sono etichettati come piccoli uomini, o non etichettati affatto; sono stati

sminuiti con successo man mano che l’emancipazione ch’essi sognavano si è

affievolita. Il maggiore di essi è ora poco più di un nome; è

criticato per essere sottovalutato e non per essere compreso; ma egli presentò

tutta quell’alternativa e più liberale britannicità; e fu enormemente

popolare perché la presentò. Prendendolo come il tipo di essa possiamo

narrare assai brevemente tutta questa dimenticata vicenda. E, persino quando

comincio a narrarla, mi trovo alla presenza di quel male ubiquo

che è il soggetto di questo libro. È un fatto, e penso che non sia una

coincidenza, che stando per un momento dove stette questo inglese,

mi trovo di nuovo di fronte al soldato tedesco.

Il figlio di un piccolo agricoltore del Surrey, rispettabile Tory e uomo di Chiesa,

osò perorare contro certe straordinarie crudeltà

inflitte a inglesi con le mani legate, dalle fruste di superiori

tedeschi; che allora sfilavano nei campi inglesi con le loro rigide divise

straniere e la loro sanguinaria disciplina straniera. Nei paesi da

cui venivano, s’intende, tali tormenti erano l’unico monotono mezzo

per spingere gli uomini a perire nelle morte contese dinastiche del nord;

ma al povero Will Cobbett, nella sua isola provinciale, che conosceva poco più

delle basse colline e siepi attorno alla piccola chiesa dove ora giace

sepolto, l’incidente parve strano — anzi, sgradevole. Sapeva, s’intende,

che allora vi era la fustigazione anche nell’esercito britannico; ma lo standard

tedesco era notoriamente severo in tali cose, ed era una sorta di

gusto acquisito. In aggiunta aveva ogni sorta di antichi pregiudizi da nonna

sull’essere gli inglesi puniti dagli inglesi, e nozioni di

quella specie. Protestò, non solo a voce, ma di fatto per iscritto. Fu

presto fatto imparare i pericoli dell’immischiarsi nell’alta politica dei

militaristi altotedeschi. I delicati sentimenti dei mercenari stranieri

furono blanditi facendo scaraventare Cobbett a Newgate per due anni e

ridotto in miseria da una multa di £1000. Quel piccolo incidente è un piccolo trasparente

quadro della Santa Alleanza; di ciò che davvero significava un paese,

un tempo semi-liberalizzato, che abbraccia la causa dei re stranieri. Questo,

e non «The Meeting of Wellington and Blucher», dovrebbe essere inciso come

la grande scena della guerra. Da questo gli intemperanti Feniani dovrebbero apprendere

che i mercenari teutonici non si limitavano soltanto a

torturare irlandesi. Erano ugualmente pronti a torturare inglesi: poiché

i mercenari sono per lo più senza pregiudizi. All’occhio di Cobbett noi soffrivamo

per opera degli alleati esattamente come dovremmo soffrire per opera degli invasori. Boney era uno

spauracchio; ma il tedesco era un incubo, una cosa che di fatto ci stava seduta

addosso. In Irlanda l’Alleanza significava la rovina di ogni cosa e

di tutto ciò che era irlandese, dal credo di San Patrizio al mero colore

verde. Ma anche in Inghilterra significava la rovina di ogni cosa e di tutto ciò che era

inglese, dall’Habeas Corpus Act a Cobbett.

Dopo questa faccenda della flagellazione, egli brandì la penna come una sferza

fino alla morte. Questo terribile pamphlettista fu uno di quegli uomini che esistono

per provare la distinzione tra una biografia e una vita. Dalle sue

biografie apprenderete che era un Radicale che era stato un tempo un

Tory. Dalla sua vita, se ve ne fosse una, apprendereste che egli era

sempre un Radicale perché era sempre un Tory. Pochi uomini cambiarono meno; è

was round him that the politicians like Pitt chopped and changed, like

fakirs dancing round a sacred rock. His secret is buried with him; it is

that he really cared about the English people. He was conservative

because he cared for their past, and liberal because he cared for their

future. But he was much more than this. He had two forms of moral

manhood very rare in our time: he was ready to uproot ancient successes,

and he was ready to defy oncoming doom. Burke said that few are the

partisans of a tyranny that has departed: he might have added that fewer

still are the critics of a tyranny that has remained. Burke certainly

was not one of them. While lashing himself into a lunacy against the

French Revolution, which only very incidentally destroyed the property

of the rich, he never criticised (to do him justice, perhaps never saw)

the English Revolution, which began with the sack of convents, and ended

with the fencing in of enclosures; a revolution which sweepingly and

systematically destroyed the property of the poor. While rhetorically

putting the Englishman in a castle, politically he would not allow him

on a common. Cobbett, a much more historical thinker, saw the beginning

of Capitalism in the Tudor pillage and deplored it; he saw the triumph

of Capitalism in the industrial cities and defied it. The paradox he was

maintaining really amounted to the assertion that Westminster Abbey is

rather more national than Welbeck Abbey. The same paradox would have led

him to maintain that a Warwickshire man had more reason to be proud of

Stratford-on-Avon than of Birmingham. He would no more have thought of

looking for England in Birmingham than of looking for Ireland in

Belfast.

The prestige of Cobbett’s excellent literary style has survived the

persecution of his equally excellent opinions. But that style also is

underrated through the loss of the real English tradition. More cautious

schools have missed the fact that the very genius of the English tongue

tends not only to vigour, but specially to violence. The Englishman of

the leading articles is calm, moderate, and restrained; but then the

Englishman of the leading articles is a Prussian. The mere English

consonants are full of Cobbett. Dr. Johnson was our great man of letters

when he said “stinks,” not when he said “putrefaction.” Take some common

phrase like “raining cats and dogs,” and note not only the extravagance

of imagery (though that is very Shakespearean), but a jagged energy in

the very spelling. Say “chats” and “chiens” and it is not the same.

Perhaps the old national genius has survived the urban enslavement most

spiritedly in our comic songs, admired by all men of travel and

continental culture, by Mr. George Moore as by Mr. Belloc. One (to

which I am much attached) had a chorus—

“O wind from the South

Blow mud in the mouth

Of Jane, Jane, Jane.”

Note, again, not only the tremendous vision of clinging soils carried

skywards in the tornado, but also the suitability of the mere sounds.

Say “bone” and “bouche” for mud and mouth and it is not the same.

Cobbett was a wind from the South; and if he occasionally seemed to stop

his enemies’ mouths with mud, it was the real soil of South England.

And as his seemingly mad language is very literary, so his seemingly mad

meaning is very historical. Modern people do not understand him because

they do not understand the difference between exaggerating a truth and

exaggerating a lie. He did exaggerate, but what he knew, not what he did

not know. He only appears paradoxical because he upheld tradition

against fashion. A paradox is a fantastic thing that is said once: a

fashion is a more fantastic thing that is said a sufficient number of

times. I could give numberless examples in Cobbett’s case, but I will

give only one. Anyone who finds himself full in the central path of

Cobbett’s fury sometimes has something like a physical shock. No one who

has read “The History of the Reformation” will ever forget the passage

(I forget the precise words) in which he says the mere thought of such a

person as Cranmer makes the brain reel, and, for an instant, doubt the

goodness of God; but that peace and faith flow back into the soul when

we remember that he was burned alive. Now this is extravagant. It takes

the breath away; and it was meant to. But what I wish to point out is

that a much more extravagant view of Cranmer was, in Cobbett’s day, the

accepted view of Cranmer; not as a momentary image, but as an immovable

historical monument. Thousands of parsons and penmen dutifully set down

Cranmer among the saints and martyrs; and there are many respectable

people who would do so still. This is not an exaggerated truth, but an

established lie. Cranmer was not such a monstrosity of meanness as

Cobbett implies; but he was mean. But there is no question of his being

less saintly than the parsonages believed; he was not a saint at all;

and not very attractive even as a sinner. He was no more a martyr for

being burned than Crippen for being hanged.

Cobbett was defeated because the English people was defeated. After the

frame-breaking riots, men, as men, were beaten: and machines, as

machines, had beaten them. Peterloo was as much the defeat of the

English as Waterloo was the defeat of the French. Ireland did not get

Home Rule because England did not get it. Cobbett would not forcibly

incorporate Ireland, least of all the corpse of Ireland. But before his

defeat Cobbett had an enormous following; his “Register” was what the

serial novels of Dickens were afterwards to be. Dickens, by the way,

inherited the same instinct for abrupt diction, and probably enjoyed

writing “gas and gaiters” more than any two other words in his works.

But Dickens was narrower than Cobbett, not by any fault of his own, but

che attorno a lui i politici come Pitt tagliavano e cambiavano, come

fachiri che danzano attorno a una roccia sacra. Il suo segreto è sepolto con lui; è

che gli stava davvero a cuore il popolo inglese. Era conservatore

perché aveva a cuore il loro passato, e liberale perché aveva a cuore il loro

futuro. Ma era assai più di questo. Aveva due forme di virilità

morale assai rare al nostro tempo: era pronto a sradicare antichi successi,

ed era pronto a sfidare la rovina incombente. Burke disse che pochi sono i

partigiani di una tirannia che se n’è andata: avrebbe potuto aggiungere che ancor meno

sono i critici di una tirannia che è rimasta. Burke certamente

non era uno di loro. Mentre si frustava in una follia contro la

Rivoluzione francese, che solo assai incidentalmente distrusse la proprietà

dei ricchi, egli non criticò mai (per rendergli giustizia, forse non vide mai)

la Rivoluzione inglese, che cominciò con il saccheggio dei conventi, e finì

con la recinzione degli enclosures; una rivoluzione che radicalmente e

sistematicamente distrusse la proprietà dei poveri. Mentre retoricamente

metteva l’inglese in un castello, politicamente non gli permetteva di stare

su un terreno comune. Cobbett, pensatore assai più storico, vide il principio

del Capitalismo nel saccheggio dei Tudor e lo deplorò; vide il trionfo

del Capitalismo nelle città industriali e lo sfidò. Il paradosso ch’egli

sosteneva equivaleva davvero all’asserzione che l’Abbazia di Westminster è

piuttosto più nazionale dell’Abbazia di Welbeck. Il medesimo paradosso lo avrebbe portato

a sostenere che un uomo del Warwickshire aveva più ragione di essere fiero di

Stratford-on-Avon che di Birmingham. Non gli sarebbe più venuto in mente di

cercare l’Inghilterra a Birmingham di quanto di cercare l’Irlanda a

Belfast.

Il prestigio dell’eccellente stile letterario di Cobbett è sopravvissuto alla

persecuzione delle sue opinioni ugualmente eccellenti. Ma anche quello stile è

sottovalutato per la perdita della vera tradizione inglese. Scuole più caute

hanno mancato il fatto che il genio stesso della lingua inglese

tende non solo al vigore, ma specialmente alla violenza. L’inglese

degli articoli di fondo è calmo, moderato e trattenuto; ma allora l’

inglese degli articoli di fondo è un prussiano. Le mere consonanti

inglesi sono piene di Cobbett. Il Dr. Johnson fu il nostro grande uomo di lettere

quando disse «stinks», non quando disse «putrefaction». Prendete una comune

frase come «raining cats and dogs», e notate non solo la stravaganza

dell’immagine (benché sia assai shakespeariana), ma un’energia frastagliata nella

stessa ortografia. Dite «chats» e «chiens» e non è la stessa cosa.

Forse l’antico genio nazionale è sopravvissuto alla schiavitù urbana più

briosamente nelle nostre canzoni comiche, ammirate da tutti gli uomini di viaggio e

di cultura continentale, dal signor George Moore come dal signor Belloc. Una (a

cui sono molto affezionato) aveva un ritornello—

«O vento del Sud

Soffia fango nella bocca

Di Jane, Jane, Jane.»

Notate, di nuovo, non solo la tremenda visione di suoli aggrappati portati

verso il cielo nel tornado, ma anche l’appropriatezza dei meri suoni.

Dite «bone» e «bouche» per fango e bocca e non è la stessa cosa.

Cobbett era un vento del Sud; e se talora sembrava tappare

le bocche dei suoi nemici col fango, era il vero suolo dell’Inghilterra del Sud.

E come il suo linguaggio in apparenza folle è assai letterario, così il suo in apparenza folle

significato è assai storico. La gente moderna non lo comprende perché

non comprende la differenza tra esagerare una verità ed

esagerare una menzogna. Egli esagerava, ma ciò che sapeva, non ciò che non

sapeva. Appare paradossale solo perché sosteneva la tradizione

contro la moda. Un paradosso è una cosa fantastica che si dice una volta: una

moda è una cosa più fantastica che si dice un numero sufficiente di

volte. Potrei dare innumerevoli esempi nel caso di Cobbett, ma ne

darò uno solo. Chiunque si trovi in pieno sul cammino centrale della

furia di Cobbett prova talora qualcosa come uno shock fisico. Nessuno che

abbia letto «The History of the Reformation» dimenticherà mai il passo

(dimentico le parole precise) in cui egli dice che il solo pensiero di una

persona come Cranmer fa vacillare il cervello, e, per un istante, dubitare della

bontà di Dio; ma che la pace e la fede rifluiscono nell’anima quando

ricordiamo ch’egli fu bruciato vivo. Ora questo è stravagante. Toglie

il respiro; ed era destinato a farlo. Ma ciò che desidero mettere in rilievo è

che una visione assai più stravagante di Cranmer era, ai giorni di Cobbett, la

visione accettata di Cranmer; non come un’immagine momentanea, ma come un immobile

monumento storico. Migliaia di parroci e scribi diligentemente collocavano

Cranmer tra i santi e i martiri; e vi sono molte rispettabili

persone che lo farebbero ancora. Questa non è una verità esagerata, ma una

menzogna consolidata. Cranmer non era una tale mostruosità di viltà come

Cobbett insinua; ma era vile. Ma non v’è questione ch’egli fosse

meno santo di quanto le canoniche credessero; non era affatto un santo;

e nemmeno molto attraente come peccatore. Non era più martire per essere

stato bruciato di quanto Crippen per essere stato impiccato.

Cobbett fu sconfitto perché il popolo inglese fu sconfitto. Dopo i

tumulti della rottura dei telai, gli uomini, come uomini, furono battuti: e le macchine, come

macchine, li avevano battuti. Peterloo fu tanto la sconfitta degli

inglesi quanto Waterloo fu la sconfitta dei francesi. L’Irlanda non ebbe

l’Home Rule perché l’Inghilterra non lo ebbe. Cobbett non avrebbe incorporato con la forza

l’Irlanda, meno che mai il cadavere dell’Irlanda. Ma prima della sua

sconfitta Cobbett ebbe un seguito enorme; il suo «Register» era ciò che i

romanzi a puntate di Dickens sarebbero stati in seguito. Dickens, per inciso,

ereditò il medesimo istinto per la dizione brusca, e probabilmente si godeva

lo scrivere «gas and gaiters» più di qualunque altre due parole nelle sue opere.

Ma Dickens era più angusto di Cobbett, non per colpa sua, ma

because in the intervening epoch of the triumph of Scrooge and Gradgrind

the link with our Christian past had been lost, save in the single

matter of Christmas, which Dickens rescued romantically and by a

hair’s-breadth escape. Cobbett was a yeoman; that is, a man free and

farming a small estate. By Dickens’s time, yeomen seemed as antiquated

as bowmen. Cobbett was mediaeval; that is, he was in almost every way

the opposite of what that word means to-day. He was as egalitarian as

St. Francis, and as independent as Robin Hood. Like that other yeoman in

the ballad, he bore in hand a mighty bow; what some of his enemies would

have called a long bow. But though he sometimes overshot the mark of

truth, he never shot away from it, like Froude. His account of that

sixteenth century in which the mediaeval civilisation ended, is not more

and not less picturesque than Froude’s: the difference is in the dull

detail of truth. That crisis was not the foundling of a strong Tudor

monarchy, for the monarchy almost immediately perished; it was the

founding of a strong class holding all the capital and land, for it

holds them to this day. Cobbett would have asked nothing better than to

bend his mediaeval bow to the cry of “St. George for Merry England,” for

though he pointed to the other and uglier side of the Waterloo medal,

he was patriotic; and his premonitions were rather against Blucher than

Wellington. But if we take that old war-cry as his final word (and he

would have accepted it) we must note how every term in it points away

from what the modern plutocrats call either progress or empire. It

involves the invocation of saints, the most popular and the most

forbidden form of mediævalism. The modern Imperialist no more thinks of

St. George in England than he thinks of St. John in St. John’s Wood. It

is nationalist in the narrowest sense; and no one knows the beauty and

simplicity of the Middle Ages who has not seen St. George’s Cross

separate, as it was at Creçy or Flodden, and noticed how much finer a

flag it is than the Union Jack. And the word “merry” bears witness to an

England famous for its music and dancing before the coming of the

Puritans, the last traces of which have been stamped out by a social

discipline utterly un-English. Not for two years, but for ten decades

Cobbett has been in prison; and his enemy, the “efficient” foreigner,

has walked about in the sunlight, magnificent, and a model for men. I

do not think that even the Prussians ever boasted about “Merry Prussia.”

VI—Hamlet and the Danes

In the one classic and perfect literary product that ever came out of

Germany—I do not mean “Faust,” but Grimm’s Fairy Tales—there is a

gorgeous story about a boy who went through a number of experiences

without learning how to shudder. In one of them, I remember, he was

sitting by the fireside and a pair of live legs fell down the chimney

and walked about the room by themselves. Afterwards the rest fell down

and joined up; but this was almost an anti-climax. Now that is very

charming, and full of the best German domesticity. It suggests truly

what wild adventures the traveller can find by stopping at home. But it

also illustrates in various ways how that great German influence on

England, which is the matter of these essays, began in good things and

gradually turned to bad. It began as a literary influence, in the lurid

tales of Hoffmann, the tale of “Sintram,” and so on; the revisualising

of the dark background of forest behind our European cities. That old

German darkness was immeasurably livelier than the new German light. The

devils of Germany were much better than the angels. Look at the Teutonic

pictures of “The Three Huntsmen” and observe that while the wicked

huntsman is effective in his own way, the good huntsman is weak in every

way, a sort of sexless woman with a face like a teaspoon. But there is

more in these first forest tales, these homely horrors. In the earlier

stages they have exactly this salt of salvation, that the boy does not

shudder. They are made fearful that he may be fearless, not that he may

fear. As long as that limit is kept, the barbaric dreamland is decent;

and though individuals like Coleridge and De Quincey mixed it with worse

things (such as opium), they kept that romantic rudiment upon the whole.

But the one disadvantage of a forest is that one may lose one’s way in

it. And the one danger is not that we may meet devils, but that we may

worship them. In other words, the danger is one always associated, by

the instinct of folk-lore, with forests; it is enchantment, or the

fixed loss of oneself in some unnatural captivity or spiritual

servitude. And in the evolution of Germanism, from Hoffmann to

Hauptmann, we do see this growing tendency to take horror seriously,

which is diabolism. The German begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy

with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective.

The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin,

but rather with the goblin against the boy. There goes with it, as

always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the

forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the

Superman. Now it is just at this point that I for one, and most men who

love truth as well as tales, begin to lose interest. I am all for “going

out into the world to seek my fortune,” but I do not want to find

it—and find it is only being chained for ever among the frozen figures

of the Sieges Allees. I do not want to be an idolator, still less an

idol. I am all for going to fairyland, but I am also all for coming

back. That is, I will admire, but I will not be magnetised, either by

mysticism or militarism. I am all for German fantasy, but I will resist

German earnestness till I die. I am all for Grimm’s Fairy Tales; but if

perché nell’epoca intermedia del trionfo di Scrooge e Gradgrind

il legame col nostro passato cristiano era andato perduto, salvo nell’unica

faccenda del Natale, che Dickens salvò romanticamente e per un

capello di scampo. Cobbett era uno yeoman; cioè, un uomo libero che

coltivava un piccolo podere. Al tempo di Dickens, gli yeomen sembravano antiquati

come gli arcieri. Cobbett era medievale; cioè, era in quasi ogni modo

l’opposto di ciò che quella parola significa oggi. Era egualitario come

san Francesco, e indipendente come Robin Hood. Come quell’altro yeoman

della ballata, portava in mano un possente arco; ciò che alcuni dei suoi nemici avrebbero

chiamato un arco lungo. Ma benché talora oltrepassasse il bersaglio della

verità, non tirò mai lontano da essa, come Froude. Il suo resoconto di quel

sedicesimo secolo in cui la civiltà medievale finì, non è più

e non meno pittoresco di quello di Froude: la differenza è nel tedioso

dettaglio della verità. Quella crisi non fu il trovatello di una forte

monarchia Tudor, poiché la monarchia quasi subito perì; fu la

fondazione di una forte classe che deteneva tutto il capitale e la terra, poiché li

detiene fino a oggi. Cobbett non avrebbe chiesto nulla di meglio che

tendere il suo arco medievale al grido di «St. George for Merry England», poiché

benché egli additasse l’altra e più brutta faccia della medaglia di Waterloo,

era patriottico; e le sue premonizioni erano piuttosto contro Blücher che contro

Wellington. Ma se prendiamo quell’antico grido di guerra come la sua parola finale (ed egli

l’avrebbe accettata) dobbiamo notare come ogni termine in esso addita lontano

da ciò che i moderni plutocrati chiamano progresso o impero. Esso

implica l’invocazione dei santi, la più popolare e la più

proibita forma di medievalismo. L’Imperialista moderno non pensa più a

San Giorgio in Inghilterra di quanto pensi a San Giovanni in St. John’s Wood. È

nazionalista nel senso più stretto; e nessuno conosce la bellezza e la

semplicità del Medioevo che non abbia visto la Croce di San Giorgio

separata, com’era a Crécy o a Flodden, e notato quanto più bella

bandiera essa sia della Union Jack. E la parola «merry» rende testimonianza a un’

Inghilterra famosa per la sua musica e la sua danza prima dell’avvento dei

Puritani, le cui ultime tracce sono state cancellate da una disciplina

sociale del tutto non-inglese. Non per due anni, ma per dieci decenni

Cobbett è stato in prigione; e il suo nemico, lo straniero «efficiente»,

ha passeggiato alla luce del sole, magnifico, e modello per gli uomini. Non

penso che nemmeno i prussiani si vantassero mai di una «Merry Prussia».

VI—Amleto e i Danesi

Nell’unico classico e perfetto prodotto letterario che mai sia uscito dalla

Germania—non intendo il «Faust», ma le Fiabe di Grimm—v’è una

splendida storia su un ragazzo che passò attraverso una serie di esperienze

senza imparare a rabbrividire. In una di esse, ricordo, egli era

seduto accanto al focolare e un paio di gambe vive caddero giù per il camino

e camminarono per la stanza da sole. Poi il resto cadde giù

e si congiunse; ma questo fu quasi un anticlimax. Ora ciò è assai

grazioso, e pieno della migliore domesticità tedesca. Suggerisce veramente

quali selvagge avventure il viaggiatore possa trovare fermandosi a casa. Ma

illustra anche in vari modi come quella grande influenza tedesca sull’

Inghilterra, che è la materia di questi saggi, cominciò in cose buone e

gradualmente volse al male. Cominciò come influenza letteraria, nei foschi

racconti di Hoffmann, nel racconto di «Sintram», e così via; il rivisualizzare

del cupo sfondo di foresta dietro le nostre città europee. Quella vecchia

oscurità tedesca era incommensurabilmente più viva della nuova luce tedesca. I

diavoli di Germania erano assai migliori degli angeli. Guardate le teutoniche

raffigurazioni dei «Tre Cacciatori» e osservate che mentre il malvagio

cacciatore è efficace a suo modo, il buon cacciatore è debole in ogni

modo, una sorta di donna asessuata con un volto come un cucchiaino. Ma v’è

di più in questi primi racconti di foresta, questi orrori casalinghi. Negli stadi più

antichi essi hanno esattamente questo sale di salvezza, che il ragazzo non

rabbrividisce. Sono resi spaventosi perché egli possa essere impavido, non perché egli possa

temere. Finché quel limite è mantenuto, il barbarico mondo dei sogni è decoroso;

e benché individui come Coleridge e De Quincey lo mescolassero con cose peggiori

(come l’oppio), essi conservarono nel complesso quel rudimento romantico.

Ma l’unico svantaggio di una foresta è che vi si può smarrire la

via. E l’unico pericolo non è che possiamo incontrare i diavoli, ma che possiamo

adorarli. In altre parole, il pericolo è uno sempre associato, dall’

istinto del folclore, alle foreste; è l’incantesimo, o lo

smarrimento fisso di se stessi in qualche innaturale prigionia o servitù

spirituale. E nell’evoluzione del germanesimo, da Hoffmann a

Hauptmann, vediamo davvero questa crescente tendenza a prendere l’orrore sul serio,

che è diabolismo. Il tedesco comincia ad avere una misteriosa astratta simpatia

con la forza e la paura che descrive, distinta dal loro oggetto.

Il tedesco non parteggia più per il ragazzo contro il folletto,

ma piuttosto per il folletto contro il ragazzo. Con ciò va, come

sempre va con l’idolatria, una serietà disumanizzata; gli uomini della

foresta stanno già erigendo su una montagna il vuoto trono del

Superuomo. Ora è proprio a questo punto che io per parte mia, e la maggior parte degli uomini che

amano la verità tanto quanto i racconti, comincio a perdere interesse. Sono tutto per «andare

fuori nel mondo a cercar fortuna», ma non voglio trovarla

—e trovarla è solo essere incatenato per sempre tra le gelide figure

della Sieges Allees. Non voglio essere un idolatra, ancor meno un

idolo. Sono tutto per andare nel paese delle fate, ma sono anche tutto per tornare

indietro. Cioè, ammirerò, ma non mi lascerò magnetizzare, né dal

misticismo né dal militarismo. Sono tutto per la fantasia tedesca, ma resisterò

alla serietà tedesca fino alla morte. Sono tutto per le Fiabe di Grimm; ma se

there is such a thing as Grimm’s Law, I would break it, if I knew what

it was. I like the Prussian’s legs (in their beautiful boots) to fall

down the chimney and walk about my room. But when he procures a head and

begins to talk, I feel a little bored. The Germans cannot really be deep

because they will not consent to be superficial. They are bewitched by

art, and stare at it, and cannot see round it. They will not believe

that art is a light and slight thing—a feather, even if it be from an

angelic wing. Only the slime is at the bottom of a pool; the sky is on

the surface. We see this in that very typical process, the Germanising

of Shakespeare. I do not complain of the Germans forgetting that

Shakespeare was an Englishman. I complain of their forgetting that

Shakespeare was a man; that he had moods, that he made mistakes, and,

above all, that he knew his art was an art and not an attribute of

deity. That is what is the matter with the Germans; they cannot “ring

fancy’s knell”; their knells have no gaiety. The phrase of Hamlet about

“holding the mirror up to nature” is always quoted by such earnest

critics as meaning that art is nothing if not realistic. But it really

means (or at least its author really thought) that art is nothing if not

artificial. Realists, like other barbarians, really believe the

mirror; and therefore break the mirror. Also they leave out the phrase

“as ‘twere,” which must be read into every remark of Shakespeare, and

especially every remark of Hamlet. What I mean by believing the mirror,

and breaking it, can be recorded in one case I remember; in which a

realistic critic quoted German authorities to prove that Hamlet had a

particular psycho-pathological abnormality, which is admittedly nowhere

mentioned in the play. The critic was bewitched; he was thinking of

Hamlet as a real man, with a background behind him three dimensions

deep—which does not exist in a looking-glass. “The best in this kind

are but shadows.” No German commentator has ever made an adequate note

on that. Nevertheless, Shakespeare was an Englishman; he was nowhere

more English than in his blunders; but he was nowhere more successful

than in the description of very English types of character. And if

anything is to be said about Hamlet, beyond what Shakespeare has said

about him, I should say that Hamlet was an Englishman too. He was as

much an Englishman as he was a gentleman, and he had the very grave

weaknesses of both characters. The chief English fault, especially in

the nineteenth century, has been lack of decision, not only lack of

decision in action, but lack of the equally essential decision in

thought—which some call dogma. And in the politics of the last century,

this English Hamlet, as we shall see, played a great part, or rather

refused to play it.

There were, then, two elements in the German influence; a sort of pretty

playing with terror and a solemn recognition of terrorism. The first

pointed to elfland, and the second to—shall we say, Prussia. And by

that unconscious symbolism with which all this story develops, it was

soon to be dramatically tested, by a definite political query, whether

what we really respected was the Teutonic fantasy or the Teutonic fear.

The Germanisation of England, its transition and turning-point, was well

typified by the genius of Carlyle. The original charm of Germany had

been the charm of the child. The Teutons were never so great as when

they were childish; in their religious art and popular imagery the

Christ-Child is really a child, though the Christ is hardly a man. The

self-conscious fuss of their pedagogy is half-redeemed by the

unconscious grace which called a school not a seed-plot of citizens, but

merely a garden of children. All the first and best forest-spirit is

infancy, its wonder, its wilfulness, even its still innocent fear.

Carlyle marks exactly the moment when the German child becomes the

spoilt child. The wonder turns to mere mysticism; and mere mysticism

always turns to mere immoralism. The wilfulness is no longer liked, but

is actually obeyed. The fear becomes a philosophy. Panic hardens into

pessimism; or else, what is often equally depressing, optimism.

Carlyle, the most influential English writer of that time, marks all

this by the mental interval between his “French Revolution” and his

“Frederick the Great.” In both he was Germanic. Carlyle was really as

sentimental as Goethe; and Goethe was really as sentimental as Werther.

Carlyle understood everything about the French Revolution, except that

it was a French revolution. He could not conceive that cold anger that

comes from a love of insulted truth. It seemed to him absurd that a man

should die, or do murder, for the First Proposition of Euclid; should

relish an egalitarian state like an equilateral triangle; or should

defend the Pons Asinorum as Codes defended the Tiber bridge. But anyone

who does not understand that does not understand the French

Revolution—nor, for that matter, the American Revolution. “We hold

these truths to be self-evident”: it was the fanaticism of truism. But

though Carlyle had no real respect for liberty, he had a real reverence

for anarchy. He admired elemental energy. The violence which repelled

most men from the Revolution was the one thing that attracted him to it.

While a Whig like Macaulay respected the Girondists but deplored the

Mountain, a Tory like Carlyle rather liked the Mountain and quite unduly

despised the Girondists. This appetite for formless force belongs, of

course, to the forests, to Germany. But when Carlyle got there, there

esiste una cosa come la Legge di Grimm, la infrangerei, se sapessi che

cosa fosse. Mi piace che le gambe del prussiano (nei loro begli stivali) cadano

giù per il camino e camminino per la mia stanza. Ma quando egli si procura una testa e

comincia a parlare, mi sento un po’ annoiato. I tedeschi non possono davvero essere profondi

perché non acconsentono a essere superficiali. Sono stregati dall’

arte, e la fissano, e non riescono a vederle attorno. Non vogliono credere

che l’arte sia una cosa lieve e leggera—una piuma, anche se venga da un’

ala angelica. Solo la melma è sul fondo di uno stagno; il cielo è alla

superficie. Vediamo questo in quel processo assai tipico, la germanizzazione

di Shakespeare. Non mi lagno che i tedeschi dimentichino che

Shakespeare era un inglese. Mi lagno che essi dimentichino che

Shakespeare era un uomo; che aveva umori, che commetteva errori, e,

soprattutto, che sapeva che la sua arte era un’arte e non un attributo della

divinità. Ecco ciò che non va nei tedeschi; non sanno «suonare

la campana a morto della fantasia»; le loro campane a morto non hanno gaiezza. La frase di Amleto sul

«tenere lo specchio alzato verso la natura» è sempre citata da tali seri

critici come a significare che l’arte è nulla se non realistica. Ma essa davvero

significa (o almeno il suo autore davvero pensava) che l’arte è nulla se non

artificiale. I realisti, come gli altri barbari, davvero credono allo

specchio; e perciò rompono lo specchio. Inoltre tralasciano la frase

«per così dire», che va letta in ogni osservazione di Shakespeare, e

specialmente in ogni osservazione di Amleto. Ciò che intendo per credere allo specchio,

e romperlo, può essere registrato in un caso che ricordo; in cui un

critico realista citava autorità tedesche per provare che Amleto aveva una

particolare anormalità psico-patologica, che com’è ammesso in nessun luogo è

menzionata nel dramma. Il critico era stregato; pensava a

Amleto come a un uomo reale, con uno sfondo dietro di lui profondo tre

dimensioni—che non esiste in uno specchio. «I migliori di questa specie

non sono che ombre.» Nessun commentatore tedesco ha mai fatto un’adeguata annotazione

su ciò. Nondimeno, Shakespeare era un inglese; non fu mai

più inglese che nei suoi svarioni; ma non fu mai più riuscito

che nella descrizione di tipi di carattere assai inglesi. E se

qualcosa si deve dire di Amleto, oltre a ciò che Shakespeare ha detto

di lui, direi che Amleto era anch’egli un inglese. Era tanto

inglese quanto era un gentiluomo, e aveva le assai gravi

debolezze di entrambi i caratteri. Il principale difetto inglese, specialmente nel

diciannovesimo secolo, è stato la mancanza di decisione, non solo mancanza di

decisione nell’azione, ma mancanza dell’ugualmente essenziale decisione nel

pensiero—che alcuni chiamano dogma. E nella politica dell’ultimo secolo,

questo Amleto inglese, come vedremo, giocò una gran parte, o piuttosto

rifiutò di giocarla.

Vi erano, dunque, due elementi nell’influenza tedesca; una sorta di grazioso

giocare col terrore e un solenne riconoscimento del terrorismo. Il primo

additava il paese degli elfi, e il secondo—diciamo, la Prussia. E per

quell’inconscio simbolismo con cui tutta questa storia si sviluppa, doveva

presto essere drammaticamente messo alla prova, da un preciso quesito politico, se

ciò che davvero rispettavamo fosse la fantasia teutonica o la paura teutonica.

La germanizzazione dell’Inghilterra, la sua transizione e il suo punto di svolta, fu bene

tipizzata dal genio di Carlyle. Il fascino originale della Germania era

stato il fascino del bambino. I Teutoni non furono mai così grandi come quando

erano fanciulleschi; nella loro arte religiosa e nell’immaginario popolare il

Cristo-Bambino è davvero un bambino, benché il Cristo sia a malapena un uomo. La

autocosciente agitazione della loro pedagogia è per metà riscattata dalla

inconscia grazia che chiamava una scuola non un semenzaio di cittadini, ma

semplicemente un giardino di bambini. Tutto il primo e migliore spirito-di-foresta è

infanzia, la sua meraviglia, la sua ostinazione, persino la sua ancora innocente paura.

Carlyle segna esattamente il momento in cui il bambino tedesco diventa il

bambino viziato. La meraviglia si volge in mero misticismo; e il mero misticismo

si volge sempre in mero immoralismo. L’ostinazione non è più gradita, ma

è di fatto obbedita. La paura diventa una filosofia. Il panico s’indurisce in

pessimismo; oppure, ciò che è spesso ugualmente deprimente, in ottimismo.

Carlyle, lo scrittore inglese più influente di quel tempo, segna tutto

questo con l’intervallo mentale tra la sua «Rivoluzione francese» e il suo

«Federico il Grande». In entrambi era germanico. Carlyle era davvero

sentimentale come Goethe; e Goethe era davvero sentimentale come Werther.

Carlyle comprese tutto della Rivoluzione francese, eccetto che

era una rivoluzione francese. Non poteva concepire quella fredda ira che

viene da un amore per la verità insultata. Gli pareva assurdo che un uomo

dovesse morire, o commettere omicidio, per la Prima Proposizione di Euclide; dovesse

gustare uno stato egualitario come un triangolo equilatero; o dovesse

difendere il Pons Asinorum come Coclite difese il ponte sul Tevere. Ma chiunque

non comprenda ciò non comprende la Rivoluzione

francese—né, se è per questo, la Rivoluzione americana. «Riteniamo

queste verità di per sé evidenti»: era il fanatismo del truismo. Ma

benché Carlyle non avesse alcun reale rispetto per la libertà, aveva una reale reverenza

per l’anarchia. Ammirava l’energia elementare. La violenza che respingeva

la maggior parte degli uomini dalla Rivoluzione era l’unica cosa che ve lo attraeva.

Mentre un Whig come Macaulay rispettava i Girondini ma deplorava la

Montagna, un Tory come Carlyle piuttosto amava la Montagna e assai indebitamente

disprezzava i Girondini. Questo appetito per la forza informe appartiene, s’

intende, alle foreste, alla Germania. Ma quando Carlyle vi giunse, là

fell upon him a sort of spell which is his tragedy and the English

tragedy, and, in no small degree, the German tragedy too. The real

romance of the Teutons was largely a romance of the Southern Teutons,

with their castles, which are almost literally castles in the air, and

their river which is walled with vineyards and rhymes so naturally to

wine. But as Carlyle’s was rootedly a romance of conquest, he had to

prove that the thing which conquered in Germany was really more poetical

than anything else in Germany. Now the thing that conquered in Germany

was about the most prosaic thing of which the world ever grew weary.

There is a great deal more poetry in Brixton than in Berlin. Stella said

that Swift could write charmingly about a broom-stick; and poor Carlyle

had to write romantically about a ramrod. Compare him with Heine, who

had also a detached taste in the mystical grotesques of Germany, but who

saw what was their enemy: and offered to nail up the Prussian eagle like

an old crow as a target for the archers of the Rhine. Its prosaic

essence is not proved by the fact that it did not produce poets: it is

proved by the more deadly fact that it did. The actual written poetry of

Frederick the Great, for instance, was not even German or barbaric, but

simply feeble—and French. Thus Carlyle became continually gloomier as

his fit of the blues deepened into Prussian blues; nor can there be any

wonder. His philosophy had brought out the result that the Prussian was

the first of Germans, and, therefore, the first of men. No wonder he

looked at the rest of us with little hope.

But a stronger test was coming both for Carlyle and England. Prussia,

plodding, policing, as materialist as mud, went on solidifying and

strengthening after unconquered Russia and unconquered England had

rescued her where she lay prostrate under Napoleon. In this interval the

two most important events were the Polish national revival, with which

Russia was half inclined to be sympathetic, but Prussia was implacably

coercionist; and the positive refusal of the crown of a united Germany

by the King of Prussia, simply because it was constitutionally offered

by a free German Convention. Prussia did not want to lead the Germans:

she wanted to conquer the Germans. And she wanted to conquer other

people first. She had already found her brutal, if humorous, embodiment

in Bismarck; and he began with a scheme full of brutality and not

without humour. He took up, or rather pretended to take up, the claim of

the Prince of Augustenberg to duchies which were a quite lawful part of

the land of Denmark. In support of this small pretender he enlisted two

large things, the Germanic body called the Bund and the Austrian Empire.

It is possibly needless to say that after he had seized the disputed

provinces by pure Prussian violence, he kicked out the Prince of

Augustenberg, kicked out the German Bund, and finally kicked out the

Austrian Empire too, in the sudden campaign of Sadowa. He was a good

husband and a good father; he did not paint in water colours; and of

such is the Kingdom of Heaven. But the symbolic intensity of the

incident was this. The Danes expected protection from England; and if

there had been any sincerity in the ideal side of our Teutonism they

ought to have had it. They ought to have had it even by the pedantries

of the time, which already talked of Latin inferiority: and were never

weary of explaining that the country of Richelieu could not rule and the

country of Napoleon could not fight. But if it was necessary for

whosoever would be saved to be a Teuton, the Danes were more Teuton than

the Prussians. If it be a matter of vital importance to be descended

from Vikings, the Danes really were descended from Vikings, while the

Prussians were descended from mongrel Slavonic savages. If Protestantism

be progress, the Danes were Protestant; while they had attained quite

peculiar success and wealth in that small ownership and intensive

cultivation which is very commonly a boast of Catholic lands. They had

in a quite arresting degree what was claimed for the Germanics as

against Latin revolutionism: quiet freedom, quiet prosperity, a simple

love of fields and of the sea. But, moreover, by that coincidence which

dogs this drama, the English of that Victorian epoch had found their

freshest impression of the northern spirit of infancy and wonder in the

works of a Danish man of genius, whose stories and sketches were so

popular in England as almost to have become English. Good as Grimm’s

Fairy Tales were, they had been collected and not created by the modern

German; they were a museum of things older than any nation, of the

dateless age of once-upon-a-time. When the English romantics wanted to

find the folk-tale spirit still alive, they found it in the small

country of one of those small kings, with whom the folk-tales are almost

comically crowded. There they found what we call an original writer, who

was nevertheless the image of the origins. They found a whole fairyland

in one head and under one nineteenth-century top hat. Those of the

English who were then children owe to Hans Andersen more than to any of

their own writers, that essential educational emotion which feels that

domesticity is not dull but rather fantastic; that sense of the

fairyland of furniture, and the travel and adventure of the farmyard.

His treatment of inanimate things as animate was not a cold and awkward

allegory: it was a true sense of a dumb divinity in things that are.

Through him a child did feel that the chair he sat on was something like

a wooden horse. Through him children and the happier kind of men did

cadde su di lui una sorta d’incantesimo che è la sua tragedia e quella inglese,

la tragedia, e, in non piccola misura, anche la tragedia tedesca. Il vero

romanticismo dei Teutoni fu in gran parte un romanticismo dei Teutoni meridionali,

con i loro castelli, che sono quasi letteralmente castelli in aria, e

il loro fiume che è murato di vigneti e rima così naturalmente con

il vino. Ma poiché quello di Carlyle era radicalmente un romanticismo di conquista, egli dovette

dimostrare che ciò che aveva conquistato in Germania fosse davvero più poetico

di qualunque altra cosa in Germania. Ora, la cosa che aveva conquistato in Germania

era all’incirca la cosa più prosaica di cui il mondo si sia mai stancato.

C’è molta più poesia a Brixton che a Berlino. Stella disse

che Swift sapeva scrivere in modo incantevole su un manico di scopa; e il povero Carlyle

dovette scrivere romanticamente su un calcatoio. Confrontatelo con Heine, che

aveva anch’egli un gusto distaccato per i grotteschi mistici della Germania, ma che

vide quale ne fosse il nemico: e si offrì d’inchiodare l’aquila prussiana come

una vecchia cornacchia a bersaglio per gli arcieri del Reno. La sua prosaica

essenza non è provata dal fatto che non produsse poeti: è

provata dal fatto ben più letale che ne produsse. L’effettiva poesia scritta di

Federico il Grande, per esempio, non era nemmeno tedesca o barbarica, ma

semplicemente fiacca—e francese. Così Carlyle divenne di continuo più cupo, mentre

il suo accesso di malinconia s’inaspriva in blu di Prussia; né vi può essere alcuna

meraviglia. La sua filosofia aveva prodotto il risultato che il Prussiano fosse

il primo dei Tedeschi, e, dunque, il primo degli uomini. Nessuna meraviglia che egli

guardasse al resto di noi con poca speranza.

Ma una prova più dura stava per giungere sia a Carlyle che all’Inghilterra. La Prussia,

arrancante, poliziesca, materialista come il fango, continuò a solidificarsi e

a rafforzarsi dopo che l’inconquistata Russia e l’inconquistata Inghilterra l’avevano

soccorsa là dove giaceva prostrata sotto Napoleone. In questo intervallo i

due eventi più importanti furono la rinascita nazionale polacca, verso la quale

la Russia era per metà incline a mostrarsi comprensiva, ma la Prussia era implacabilmente

coercitrice; e il netto rifiuto della corona di una Germania unita

da parte del Re di Prussia, semplicemente perché veniva offerta costituzionalmente

da una libera Convenzione tedesca. La Prussia non voleva guidare i Tedeschi:

voleva conquistare i Tedeschi. E voleva conquistare prima altri

popoli. Aveva già trovato la sua brutale, benché faceta, incarnazione

in Bismarck; ed egli cominciò con un disegno pieno di brutalità e non

privo di umorismo. Assunse, o piuttosto finse di assumere, la rivendicazione del

Principe di Augustenburg su ducati che erano una parte del tutto legittima

della terra di Danimarca. A sostegno di questo piccolo pretendente arruolò due

grandi cose, il corpo germanico chiamato il Bund e l’Impero Austriaco.

È forse superfluo dire che, dopo aver afferrato le contese

province con pura violenza prussiana, egli scacciò il Principe di

Augustenburg, scacciò il Bund tedesco, e infine scacciò anche l’

Impero Austriaco, nell’improvvisa campagna di Sadowa. Era un buon

marito e un buon padre; non dipingeva ad acquarello; e di

tali è il Regno dei Cieli. Ma l’intensità simbolica dell’

episodio fu questa. I Danesi si aspettavano protezione dall’Inghilterra; e se

vi fosse stata una qualche sincerità nel lato ideale del nostro Teutonismo, essi

avrebbero dovuto averla. Avrebbero dovuto averla persino secondo le pedanterie

del tempo, che già parlavano d’inferiorità latina: e non erano mai

stanche di spiegare che il paese di Richelieu non sapeva governare e il

paese di Napoleone non sapeva combattere. Ma se era necessario che

chiunque volesse salvarsi fosse Teutone, i Danesi erano più Teutoni dei

Prussiani. Se è cosa di vitale importanza discendere

dai Vichinghi, i Danesi davvero discendevano dai Vichinghi, mentre i

Prussiani discendevano da bastardi selvaggi slavi. Se il Protestantesimo

è progresso, i Danesi erano Protestanti; mentre avevano raggiunto un del tutto

peculiare successo e ricchezza in quella piccola proprietà e intensiva

coltivazione che è assai comunemente un vanto delle terre cattoliche. Avevano

in grado davvero sorprendente ciò che si rivendicava per i Germanici in

opposizione al rivoluzionarismo latino: quieta libertà, quieta prosperità, un semplice

amore dei campi e del mare. Ma, per di più, per quella coincidenza che

perseguita questo dramma, gli Inglesi di quell’epoca vittoriana avevano trovato la loro

più fresca impressione dello spirito nordico d’infanzia e di meraviglia nelle

opere di un genio danese, le cui storie e schizzi erano così

popolari in Inghilterra da esser quasi divenuti inglesi. Per quanto buone fossero le

Fiabe di Grimm, esse erano state raccolte e non create dal moderno

Tedesco; erano un museo di cose più antiche di ogni nazione, dell’

età senza data del c’era-una-volta. Quando i romantici inglesi vollero

trovare ancora vivo lo spirito della fiaba popolare, lo trovarono nel piccolo

paese di uno di quei piccoli re, di cui le fiabe popolari sono quasi

comicamente affollate. Là trovarono ciò che chiamiamo uno scrittore originale, che

era nondimeno l’immagine delle origini. Trovarono un intero regno fatato

in una sola testa e sotto un solo cilindro ottocentesco. Quelli fra gli

Inglesi che allora erano bambini devono a Hans Andersen più che a qualunque dei

loro stessi scrittori quell’essenziale emozione educativa che sente che

la domesticità non è tediosa ma piuttosto fantastica; quel senso del

regno fatato delle suppellettili, e del viaggio e dell’avventura dell’aia.

Il suo trattare le cose inanimate come animate non era una fredda e goffa

allegoria: era un vero senso di una muta divinità nelle cose che sono.

Attraverso di lui un bambino sentiva davvero che la sedia su cui sedeva era qualcosa come

un cavallo di legno. Attraverso di lui i bambini e la specie più felice degli uomini

feel themselves covered by a roof as by the folded wings of some vast

domestic fowl; and feel common doors like great mouths that opened to

utter welcome. In the story of “The Fir Tree” he transplanted to

England a living bush that can still blossom into candles. And in his

tale of “The Tin Soldier” he uttered the true defence of romantic

militarism against the prigs who would forbid it even as a toy for the

nursery. He suggested, in the true tradition of the folk-tales, that the

dignity of the fighter is not in his largeness but rather in his

smallness, in his stiff loyalty and heroic helplessness in the hands of

larger and lower things. These things, alas, were an allegory. When

Prussia, finding her crimes unpunished, afterwards carried them into

France as well as Denmark, Carlyle and his school made some effort to

justify their Germanism, by pitting what they called the piety and

simplicity of Germany against what they called the cynicism and ribaldry

of France. But nobody could possibly pretend that Bismarck was more

pious and simple than Hans Andersen; yet the Carlyleans looked on with

silence or approval while the innocent toy kingdom was broken like a

toy. Here again, it is enormously probable that England would have

struck upon the right side, if the English people had been the English

Government. Among other coincidences, the Danish princess who had

married the English heir was something very like a fairy princess to the

English crowd. The national poet had hailed her as a daughter of the

sea-kings; and she was, and indeed still is, the most popular royal

figure in England. But whatever our people may have been like, our

politicians were on the very tamest level of timidity and the fear of

force to which they have ever sunk. The Tin Soldier of the Danish army

and the paper boat of the Danish navy, as in the story, were swept away

down the great gutter, down that colossal cloaca that leads to the

vast cesspool of Berlin.

Why, as a fact, did not England interpose? There were a great many

reasons given, but I think they were all various inferences from one

reason; indirect results and sometimes quite illogical results, of what

we have called the Germanisation of England. First, the very insularity

on which we insisted was barbaric, in its refusal of a seat in the

central senate of the nations. What we called our splendid isolation

became a rather ignominious sleeping-partnership with Prussia. Next, we

were largely trained in irresponsibility by our contemporary historians,

Freeman and Green, teaching us to be proud of a possible descent from

King Arthur’s nameless enemies and not from King Arthur. King Arthur

might not be historical, but at least he was legendary. Hengist and

Horsa were not even legendary, for they left no legend. Anybody could

see what was obligatory on the representative of Arthur; he was bound to

be chivalrous, that is, to be European. But nobody could imagine what

was obligatory on the representative of Horsa, unless it were to be

horsy. That was perhaps the only part of the Anglo-Saxon programme that

the contemporary English really carried out. Then, in the very real

decline from Cobbett to Cobden (that is, from a broad to a narrow

manliness and good sense) there had grown up the cult of a very curious

kind of peace, to be spread all over the world not by pilgrims, but by

pedlars. Mystics from the beginning had made vows of peace—but they

added to them vows of poverty. Vows of poverty were not in the

Cobdenite’s line. Then, again, there was the positive praise of Prussia,

to which steadily worsening case the Carlyleans were already committed.

But beyond these, there was something else, a spirit which had more

infected us as a whole. That spirit was the spirit of Hamlet. We gave

the grand name of “evolution” to a notion that things do themselves. Our

wealth, our insularity, our gradual loss of faith, had so dazed us that

the old Christian England haunted us like a ghost in whom we could not

quite believe. An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating

the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not

without that ugly question which Hamlet asked himself—am I a coward?

It cannot be

But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall

To make oppression bitter; or ‘ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites

With this slave’s offal.

We made dumb our anger and our honour; but it has not brought us peace.

VII—The Midnight of Europe

Among the minor crimes of England may be classed the shallow criticism

and easy abandonment of Napoleon III. The Victorian English had a very

bad habit of being influenced by words and at the same time pretending

to despise them. They would build their whole historical philosophy upon

two or three titles, and then refuse to get even the titles right. The

solid Victorian Englishman, with his whiskers and his Parliamentary

vote, was quite content to say that Louis Napoleon and William of

Prussia both became Emperors—by which he meant autocrats. His whiskers

would have bristled with rage and he would have stormed at you for

hair-splitting and “lingo,” if you had answered that William was German

Emperor, while Napoleon was not French Emperor, but only Emperor of the

French. What could such mere order of the words matter? Yet the same

Victorian would have been even more indignant if he had been asked to

be satisfied with an Art Master, when he had advertised for a Master of

Arts. His irritation would have increased if the Art Master had promised

him a sea-piece and had brought him a piece of the sea; or if, during

the decoration of his house, the same aesthetic humourist had undertaken

to procure some Indian Red and had produced a Red Indian.

Si sentono protetti da un tetto come dalle ali ripiegate di qualcosa di immenso

Uccelli domestici e porte comuni che si aprono come grandi bocche

Benvenuto assoluto. Nella storia del «Pino» lo ha trapiantato a…

L’Inghilterra è un cespuglio vivente che può ancora fiorire di candele. E in lui

La storia del “Soldatino di stagno”: la vera difesa del romantico

Militarismo contro i puritani che lo vorrebbero vietare anche come giocattolo per i…

La nursery e la tradizione dei racconti popolari

La dignità del combattente non sta nella sua grandezza, ma piuttosto…

Piccolezza, nella sua rigida lealtà e impotenza eroica nelle mani di

cose più grandi e più basse. Purtroppo queste cose erano un’allegoria. Quando

La Prussia, trovando i suoi crimini impuniti, li portò poi in…

La Francia così come la Danimarca, Carlyle e la sua scuola fecero qualche sforzo per

Giustificare il loro germanesimo opponendo ciò che chiamavano la devozione e…

la semplicità della Germania contro quello che chiamavano cinismo e licenziosità

della Francia. Ma nessuno potrebbe sostenere che Bismarck fosse più

Più pio e semplice di Hans Christian Andersen; eppure i carlisti osservavano con…

Il silenzio o l’approvazione mentre il regno giocattolo innocente veniva distrutto come un

Giocattolo. Anche qui è estremamente probabile che l’Inghilterra avrebbe…

Colpiti sul lato giusto, se gli inglesi fossero stati veramente inglesi

Governo. Tra le altre coincidenze, la principessa danese che aveva

sposò l’erede inglese era qualcosa di molto simile a una principessa delle fate per la

Folla inglese. Il poeta nazionale l’aveva salutata come figlia della…

Re dei mari; e lei era, ed è ancora oggi, la regina più popolare

Figure in Inghilterra. Ma qualunque cosa il nostro popolo possa essere stato, il nostro…

i politici erano al livello più moderato di timidità e la paura di

La forza alla quale sono mai arrivati. Il soldatino di stagno dell’esercito danese

e la barca di carta della marina danese, come nella storia, furono spazzate via

Giù per il grande canale, giù per quella colossale cloaca che conduce alla

enorme fogna di Berlino.

Perché l’Inghilterra non intervenne? Ci furono molte ragioni

Ragioni date, ma penso che fossero tutte deduzioni da una sola

Ragione: risultati indiretti e talvolta del tutto illogici di ciò che

Abbiamo chiamato la germanizzazione dell’Inghilterra. In primo luogo, l’isolamento stesso

Su cui insistevamo fosse barbarico, nel rifiuto di un posto nella

Senato centrale delle nazioni: la nostra cosiddetta splendida isolazione

Divenne una piuttosto ignominiosa alleanza dormiente con la Prussia. Poi, noi

Siamo stati ampiamente educati all’irresponsabilità dai nostri storici contemporanei

Freeman e Green ci insegnano ad essere orgogliosi di una possibile discendenza da

I nemici senza nome di Re Artù e non da Re Artù. Re Artù

Potrebbe non essere storico, ma almeno era leggendario. Hengist e…

Horsa non erano neanche leggendari, perché non lasciarono alcuna leggenda. Chiunque potesse…

vedere cosa era obbligatorio per il rappresentante di Artù; egli era tenuto a

Sii cavalleresco, cioè europeo. Ma nessuno poteva immaginare cosa fosse.

Era obbligatorio per il rappresentante di Horsa, a meno che non dovesse essere

cavallino. Forse quella era l’unica parte del programma anglosassone che

L’inglese contemporaneo ha davvero portato a termine. Poi, nel senso più vero

Declino da Cobbett a Cobden (cioè dal largo al ristretto)

virilità e buon senso) era nato il culto di un curioso…

Un tipo di pace da diffondere in tutto il mondo non dai pellegrini, ma dai…

venditori ambulanti. I mistici fin dall’inizio avevano fatto voto di pace…

aggiunti a essi i voti di povertà. I voti di povertà non erano nei

La linea di Cobdenite. Poi, ancora, c’era l’elogio positivo della Prussia.

al quale caso sempre più grave i carlisti erano già impegnati.

Ma oltre questi c’era qualcos’altro, uno spirito che aveva di più

ci ha contagiati tutti quanti. Quello spirito era lo spirito di Amleto. Abbiamo dato

Il grande nome di “evoluzione” per un’idea che le cose si fanno da sole. Il nostro

la ricchezza, il nostro isolamento, la nostra graduale perdita di fede ci avevano talmente storditi che

la vecchia Inghilterra cristiana ci perseguitava come un fantasma in cui non potevamo

crederci del tutto. Un aristocratico come Palmerston, amante della libertà e che odia

Il dispotismo emergente, deve aver osservato la sua fredda brutalità non

senza quella brutta domanda che si fece Amleto: sono un codardo?

Non può essere

Ma sono codardo e manco di coraggio

Per rendere l’oppressione amara; o prima di allora

Avrei dovuto ingrassare tutti i rapaci della zona

Con queste interiora di schiavo.

Abbiamo reso muti il nostro sdegno e la nostra onore; ma ciò non ci ha portato pace.

VII - La mezzanotte dell’Europa

Tra i crimini minori dell’Inghilterra si può annoverare la critica superficiale

e l’abbandono facile di Napoleone III. Gli inglesi vittoriani avevano un atteggiamento molto

cattiva abitudine di lasciarsi influenzare dalle parole e nello stesso tempo fingere

per disprezzarli. Costruirebbero tutta la loro filosofia storica sulla

Due o tre titoli e poi rifiutarsi di fare bene anche solo i titoli.

solido inglese vittoriano con i suoi baffi e il suo Parlamento

Voto: era del tutto soddisfatto di dire che Luigi Napoleone e Guglielmo di…

La Prussia divenne imperiale, intendendo per questo autocratica. I suoi baffi

Sarebbe scoppiato di rabbia e vi avrebbe aggredito per

Sottigliezze e gergo, se aveste risposto che Guglielmo era tedesco

Imperatore: Napoleone non era imperatore francese, ma solo imperatore di…

Francese: perché mai l’ordine delle parole dovrebbe contare? Eppure lo stesso…

Un vittoriano sarebbe stato ancora più indignato se gli fosse stato chiesto di

Soddisfarsi di un Maestro d’Arte quando si cercava un Maestro di…

Le arti. La sua irritazione sarebbe aumentata se il maestro d’arte avesse promesso

Un dipinto marino e un pezzo di mare; o se, durante…

la decorazione della sua casa, lo stesso umorista estetico si era impegnato

per procurarsi un po’ di rosso indiano e aveva prodotto un pellerossa.

The Englishman would not see that if there was only a verbal difference

between the French Emperor and the Emperor of the French, so, if it came

to that, it was a verbal difference between the Emperor and the

Republic, or even between a Parliament and no Parliament. For him an

Emperor meant merely despotism; he had not yet learned that a Parliament

may mean merely oligarchy. He did not know that the English people would

soon be made impotent, not by the disfranchising of their constituents,

but simply by the silencing of their members; and that the governing

class of England did not now depend upon rotten boroughs, but upon

rotten representatives. Therefore he did not understand Bonapartism. He

did not understand that French democracy became more democratic, not

less, when it turned all France into one constituency which elected one

member. He did not understand that many dragged down the Republic

because it was not republican, but purely senatorial. He was yet to

learn how quite corruptly senatorial a great representative assembly can

become. Yet in England to-day we hear “the decline of Parliament” talked

about and taken for granted by the best Parliamentarians—Mr. Balfour,

for instance—and we hear the one partly French and wholly Jacobin

historian of the French Revolution recommending for the English evil a

revival of the power of the Crown. It seems that so far from having left

Louis Napoleon far behind in the grey dust of the dead despotisms, it is

not at all improbable that our most extreme revolutionary developments

may end where Louis Napoleon began.

In other words, the Victorian Englishman did not understand the words

“Emperor of the French.” The type of title was deliberately chosen to

express the idea of an elective and popular origin; as against such a

phrase as “the German Emperor,” which expresses an almost

transcendental tribal patriarchate, or such a phrase as “King of

Prussia,” which suggests personal ownership of a whole territory. To

treat the Coup d’état as unpardonable is to justify riot against

despotism, but forbid any riot against aristocracy. Yet the idea

expressed in “The Emperor of the French” is not dead, but rather risen

from the dead. It is the idea that while a government may pretend to be

a popular government, only a person can be really popular. Indeed, the

idea is still the crown of American democracy, as it was for a time the

crown of French democracy. The very powerful official who makes the

choice of that great people for peace or war, might very well be called,

not the President of the United States, but the President of the

Americans. In Italy we have seen the King and the mob prevail over the

conservatism of the Parliament, and in Russia the new popular policy

sacramentally symbolised by the Czar riding at the head of the new

armies. But in one place, at least, the actual form of words exists; and

the actual form of words has been splendidly justified. One man among

the sons of men has been permitted to fulfil a courtly formula with

awful and disastrous fidelity. Political and geographical ruin have

written one last royal title across the sky; the loss of palace and

capital and territory have but isolated and made evident the people that

has not been lost; not laws but the love of exiles, not soil but the

souls of men, still make certain that five true words shall yet be

written in the corrupt and fanciful chronicles of mankind: “The King of

the Belgians.”

It is a common phrase, recurring constantly in the real if rabid

eloquence of Victor Hugo, that Napoleon III. was a mere ape of Napoleon

I. That is, that he had, as the politician says, in “L’Aiglon,” “le

petit chapeau, mais pas la tête”; that he was merely a bad imitation.

This is extravagantly exaggerative; and those who say it, moreover,

often miss the two or three points of resemblance which really exist in

the exaggeration. One resemblance there certainly was. In both Napoleons

it has been suggested that the glory was not so great as it seemed; but

in both it can be emphatically added that the eclipse was not so great

as it seemed either. Both succeeded at first and failed at last. But

both succeeded at last, even after the failure. If at this moment we owe

thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte for the armies of united France, we also

owe some thanks to Louis Bonaparte for the armies of united Italy. That

great movement to a freer and more chivalrous Europe which we call

to-day the Cause of the Allies, had its forerunners and first victories

before our time; and it not only won at Arcola, but also at Solferino.

Men who remembered Louis Napoleon when he mooned about the Blessington

salon, and was supposed to be almost mentally deficient, used to say

he deceived Europe twice; once when he made men think him an imbecile,

and once when he made them think him a statesman. But he deceived them a

third time; when he made them think he was dead; and had done nothing.

In spite of the unbridled verse of Hugo and the even more unbridled

prose of Kinglake, Napoleon III. is really and solely discredited in

history because of the catastrophe of 1870. Hugo hurled any amount of

lightning on Louis Napoleon; but he threw very little light on him. Some

passages in the “Châtiments” are really caricatures carved in eternal

marble. They will always be valuable in reminding generations too vague

and soft, as were the Victorians, of the great truth that hatred is

beautiful, when it is hatred of the ugliness of the soul. But most of

them could have been written about Haman, or Heliogabalus, or King John,

or Queen Elizabeth, as much as about poor Louis Napoleon; they bear no

trace of any comprehension of his quite interesting aims, and his quite

comprehensible contempt for the fat-souled senatorial politicians. And

L’Inglese non voleva vedere che, se vi era solo una differenza verbale

tra l’Imperatore francese e l’Imperatore dei Francesi, allora, a ben vedere,

era una differenza verbale anche tra l’Imperatore e la

Repubblica, o persino tra un Parlamento e nessun Parlamento. Per lui un

Imperatore significava soltanto dispotismo; non aveva ancora appreso che un Parlamento

può significare soltanto oligarchia. Non sapeva che il popolo inglese sarebbe

presto stato reso impotente, non con la privazione del voto dei suoi elettori,

ma semplicemente col ridurre al silenzio i suoi deputati; e che la classe

dirigente d’Inghilterra ormai non dipendeva da borghi putridi, ma da

rappresentanti putridi. Perciò egli non capiva il Bonapartismo. Non

capiva che la democrazia francese divenne più democratica, non

meno, quando trasformò l’intera Francia in un unico collegio che eleggeva un solo

membro. Non capiva che molti abbatterono la Repubblica

perché essa non era repubblicana, ma puramente senatoria. Doveva ancora

imparare quanto corrottamente senatoria una grande assemblea rappresentativa possa

divenire. Eppure oggi in Inghilterra sentiamo parlare del «declino del Parlamento»,

e darlo per scontato, dai migliori parlamentari—il signor Balfour,

per esempio—e sentiamo l’unico storico in parte francese e del tutto giacobino

della Rivoluzione francese raccomandare per il male inglese un

ravvivamento del potere della Corona. Pare che, ben lungi dall’aver lasciato

Luigi Napoleone lontano indietro nella grigia polvere dei dispotismi morti, non sia

affatto improbabile che i nostri più estremi sviluppi rivoluzionari

possano finire là dove Luigi Napoleone cominciò.

In altre parole, l’Inglese vittoriano non comprendeva le parole

«Imperatore dei Francesi». Quel tipo di titolo fu deliberatamente scelto per

esprimere l’idea di un’origine elettiva e popolare; in contrapposizione a una

frase come «l’Imperatore tedesco», che esprime un patriarcato tribale quasi

trascendentale, o a una frase come «Re di

Prussia», che suggerisce la proprietà personale di un intero territorio. Trattare

il Coup d’état come imperdonabile significa giustificare la rivolta contro il

dispotismo, ma vietare ogni rivolta contro l’aristocrazia. Eppure l’idea

espressa in «L’Imperatore dei Francesi» non è morta, ma anzi risorta

dai morti. È l’idea che, mentre un governo può pretendere di essere

un governo popolare, solo una persona può essere davvero popolare. Anzi, l’

idea è ancora la corona della democrazia americana, come fu per un tempo la

corona della democrazia francese. Il potentissimo funzionario che compie la

scelta di quel grande popolo tra pace e guerra potrebbe benissimo essere chiamato,

non il Presidente degli Stati Uniti, ma il Presidente degli

Americani. In Italia abbiamo visto il Re e la folla prevalere sul

conservatorismo del Parlamento, e in Russia la nuova politica popolare

simboleggiata sacramentalmente dallo Zar in sella alla testa dei nuovi

eserciti. Ma in un luogo, almeno, la reale formula di parole esiste; e

la reale formula di parole è stata splendidamente giustificata. Un uomo fra

i figli degli uomini ha potuto adempiere una formula di corte con

terribile e disastrosa fedeltà. La rovina politica e geografica hanno

scritto un ultimo titolo regale attraverso il cielo; la perdita di palazzo e

capitale e territorio non ha fatto che isolare e rendere evidente il popolo che

non è stato perduto; non le leggi ma l’amore degli esuli, non il suolo ma le

anime degli uomini rendono ancora certo che cinque vere parole saranno pur

scritte nelle corrotte e fantasiose cronache dell’umanità: «Il Re dei

Belgi».

È una frase comune, ricorrente di continuo nella vera se pur rabbiosa

eloquenza di Victor Hugo, che Napoleone III fosse una mera scimmia di Napoleone

I. Cioè che egli avesse, come dice il politico, ne «L’Aiglon», «le

petit chapeau, mais pas la tête»; che fosse soltanto una cattiva imitazione.

Ciò è stravagantemente esagerato; e quelli che lo dicono, per di più,

spesso mancano i due o tre punti di somiglianza che davvero esistono nell’

esagerazione. Una somiglianza certamente vi fu. In entrambi i Napoleoni

si è suggerito che la gloria non fosse così grande come sembrava; ma

in entrambi si può enfaticamente aggiungere che l’eclissi non fu così grande

come sembrava neppure essa. Entrambi riuscirono dapprima e fallirono alla fine. Ma

entrambi riuscirono alla fine, persino dopo il fallimento. Se in questo momento dobbiamo

grazie a Napoleone Bonaparte per gli eserciti della Francia unita, dobbiamo anche

qualche grazie a Luigi Bonaparte per gli eserciti dell’Italia unita. Quel

grande movimento verso un’Europa più libera e più cavalleresca che oggi

chiamiamo la Causa degli Alleati ebbe i suoi precursori e le prime vittorie

prima del nostro tempo; e non vinse solo ad Arcole, ma anche a Solferino.

Uomini che ricordavano Luigi Napoleone quando gironzolava trasognato per il

salon Blessington, e lo si riteneva quasi deficiente di mente, solevano dire

ch’egli ingannò l’Europa due volte; una quando fece credere agli uomini d’esser un imbecille,

e una quando fece loro credere ch’egli fosse uno statista. Ma li ingannò una

terza volta; quando fece loro credere ch’egli fosse morto; e non avesse fatto nulla.

Nonostante il verso sfrenato di Hugo e la prosa ancor più sfrenata

di Kinglake, Napoleone III è davvero e unicamente screditato nella

storia a causa della catastrofe del 1870. Hugo scagliò qualsiasi quantità di

fulmini su Luigi Napoleone; ma gettò ben poca luce su di lui. Alcuni

passi dei «Châtiments» sono davvero caricature scolpite nell’eterno

marmo. Saranno sempre preziosi nel ricordare a generazioni troppo vaghe

e molli, come furono i Vittoriani, la grande verità che l’odio è

bello, quando è odio della bruttezza dell’anima. Ma la maggior parte di

essi avrebbe potuto esser scritta su Aman, o Eliogabalo, o Re Giovanni,

o la Regina Elisabetta, tanto quanto sul povero Luigi Napoleone; non recano

traccia di alcuna comprensione dei suoi assai interessanti propositi, e del suo assai

comprensibile disprezzo per i politici senatori dall’anima grassa. E

if a real revolutionist like Hugo did not do justice to the

revolutionary element in Cæsarism, it need hardly be said that a rather

Primrose League Tory like Tennyson did not. Kinglake’s curiously acrid

insistence upon the Coup d’état is, I fear, only an indulgence in one

of the least pleasing pleasures of our national pen and press, and one

which afterwards altogether ran away with us over the Dreyfus case. It

is an unfortunate habit of publicly repenting for other people’s sins.

If this came easy to an Englishman like Kinglake, it came, of course,

still easier to a German like Queen Victoria’s husband and even to

Queen Victoria herself, who was naturally influenced by him. But in so

far as the sensible masses of the English nation took any interest in

the matter, it is probable that they sympathised with Palmerston, who

was as popular as the Prince Consort was unpopular. The black mark

against Louis Napoleon’s name until now, has simply been Sedan; and it

is our whole purpose to-day to turn Sedan into an interlude. If it is

not an interlude, it will be the end of the world. But we have sworn to

make an end of that ending: warring on until, if only by a purgatory of

the nations and the mountainous annihilation of men, the story of the

world ends well.

There are, as it were, valleys of history quite close to us, but hidden

by the closer hills. One, as we have seen, is that fold in the soft

Surrey hills where Cobbett sleeps with his still-born English

Revolution. Another is under that height called The Spy of Italy, where

a new Napoleon brought back the golden eagles against the black eagles

of Austria. Yet that French adventure in support of the Italian

insurrection was very important; we are only beginning to understand

its importance. It was a defiance to the German Reaction and 1870 was a

sort of revenge for it, just as the Balkan victory was a defiance to the

German Reaction and 1914 was the attempted revenge for it. It is true

that the French liberation of Italy was incomplete, the problem of the

Papal States, for instance, being untouched by the Peace of Villafranca.

The volcanic but fruitful spirit of Italy had already produced that

wonderful, wandering, and almost omnipresent personality whose red shirt

was to be a walking flag: Garibaldi. And many English Liberals

sympathised with him and his extremists as against the peace. Palmerston

called it “the peace that passeth all understanding”: but the profanity

of that hilarious old heathen was nearer the mark than he knew: there

were really present some of those deep things which he did not

understand. To quarrel with the Pope, but to compromise with him, was an

instinct with the Bonapartes; an instinct no Anglo-Saxon could be

expected to understand. They knew the truth; that Anti-Clericalism is

not a Protestant movement, but a Catholic mood. And after all the

English Liberals could not get their own Government to risk what the

French Government had risked; and Napoleon III. might well have retorted

on Palmerston, his rival in international Liberalism, that half a war

was better than no fighting. Swinburne called Villafranca “The Halt

before Rome,” and expressed a rhythmic impatience for the time when the

world

“Shall ring to the roar of the lion

Proclaiming Republican Rome.”

But he might have remembered, after all, that it was not the British

lion, that a British poet should have the right to say so imperiously,

“Let him roar again. Let him roar again.”

It is true that there was no clear call to England from Italy, as there

certainly was from Denmark. The great powers were not bound to help

Italy to become a nation, as they were bound to support the unquestioned

fact that Denmark was one. Indeed the great Italian patriot was to

experience both extremes of the English paradox, and, curiously enough,

in connection with both the two national and anti-German causes. For

Italy he gained the support of the English, but not the support of

England. Not a few of our countrymen followed the red shirt; but not in

the red coat. And when he came to England, not to plead the cause of

Italy but the cause of Denmark, the Italian found he was more popular

with the English than any Englishman. He made his way through a forest

of salutations, which would willingly have turned itself into a forest

of swords. But those who kept the sword kept it sheathed. For the ruling

class the valour of the Italian hero, like the beauty of the Danish

Princess, was a thing to be admired, that is enjoyed, like a novel—or a

newspaper. Palmerston was the very type of Pacifism, because he was the

very type of Jingoism. In spirit as restless as Garibaldi, he was in

practice as cautious as Cobden. England had the most prudent

aristocracy, but the most reckless democracy in the world. It was, and

is, the English contradiction, which has so much misrepresented us,

especially to the Irish. Our national captains were carpet knights; our

knights errant were among the dismounted rabble. When an Austrian

general who had flogged women in the conquered provinces appeared in

the London streets, some common draymen off a cart behaved with the

direct quixotry of Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. He had beaten women and

they beat him. They regarded themselves simply as avengers of ladies in

distress, breaking the bloody whip of a German bully; just as Cobbett

had sought to break it when it was wielded over the men of England. The

boorishness was in the Germanic or half-Germanic rulers who wore crosses

and spurs: the gallantry was in the gutter. English draymen had more

chivalry than Teuton aristocrats—or English ones.

I have dwelt a little on this Italian experiment because it lights up

se un vero rivoluzionario come Hugo non rese giustizia all’

elemento rivoluzionario nel Cesarismo, appena occorre dire che un piuttosto

Tory della Primrose League come Tennyson non lo rese. La curiosamente acre

insistenza di Kinglake sul Coup d’état è, temo, solo un indulgere in uno

dei meno gradevoli piaceri della nostra penna e stampa nazionale, e uno

che in seguito ci prese del tutto la mano nel caso Dreyfus. È

una spiacevole abitudine di pentirsi pubblicamente dei peccati altrui.

Se questo veniva facile a un Inglese come Kinglake, veniva, naturalmente,

ancor più facile a un Tedesco come il marito della Regina Vittoria e persino alla

Regina Vittoria stessa, che ne era naturalmente influenzata. Ma nella

misura in cui le sensate masse della nazione inglese s’interessarono

alla faccenda, è probabile che simpatizzassero con Palmerston, che

era popolare tanto quanto il Principe Consorte era impopolare. Il marchio nero

contro il nome di Luigi Napoleone finora è stato semplicemente Sedan; ed è

tutto il nostro proposito oggi trasformare Sedan in un interludio. Se non è

un interludio, sarà la fine del mondo. Ma abbiamo giurato di

por fine a quella fine: guerreggiando finché, non fosse che per un purgatorio delle

nazioni e per il montuoso annientamento degli uomini, la storia del

mondo finisca bene.

Vi sono, per così dire, valli di storia assai vicine a noi, ma nascoste

dai colli più prossimi. Una, come abbiamo visto, è quella piega nelle molli

colline del Surrey dove Cobbett dorme con la sua nata-morta Rivoluzione

inglese. Un’altra è sotto quell’altura chiamata la Spia d’Italia, dove

un nuovo Napoleone riportò le aquile dorate contro le aquile nere

d’Austria. Eppure quell’avventura francese a sostegno dell’insurrezione

italiana fu molto importante; cominciamo solo ora a comprenderne

l’importanza. Fu una sfida alla Reazione tedesca e il 1870 fu una

sorta di vendetta per essa, proprio come la vittoria balcanica fu una sfida alla

Reazione tedesca e il 1914 fu la tentata vendetta per essa. È vero

che la liberazione francese dell’Italia fu incompleta, il problema degli

Stati Pontifici, per esempio, restando intatto dalla Pace di Villafranca.

Lo spirito vulcanico ma fecondo dell’Italia aveva già prodotto quella

meravigliosa, errante e quasi onnipresente personalità la cui camicia rossa

sarebbe stata una bandiera ambulante: Garibaldi. E molti Liberali inglesi

simpatizzavano con lui e i suoi estremisti contro la pace. Palmerston

la chiamò «la pace che oltrepassa ogni intendimento»: ma la profanità

di quel gioviale vecchio pagano era più vicina al segno di quanto sapesse: vi

erano davvero presenti alcune di quelle cose profonde ch’egli non

comprendeva. Litigare col Papa, ma venire a patti con lui, era un

istinto nei Bonaparte; un istinto che nessun Anglosassone poteva

sperar di comprendere. Essi conoscevano la verità; che l’anticlericalismo non è

un movimento protestante, ma un umore cattolico. E dopotutto i

Liberali inglesi non riuscirono a far rischiare al proprio Governo ciò che il

Governo francese aveva rischiato; e Napoleone III avrebbe ben potuto ribattere

a Palmerston, suo rivale nel Liberalismo internazionale, che mezza guerra

era meglio di nessuna battaglia. Swinburne chiamò Villafranca «La Sosta

prima di Roma», ed espresse una ritmica impazienza per il tempo in cui il

mondo

«Risuonerà al ruggito del Leone

Proclamante la Roma Repubblicana».

Ma avrebbe potuto ricordare, dopotutto, che non era il

Leone britannico, perché un poeta britannico avesse il diritto di dire così imperiosamente,

«Lascialo ruggire di nuovo. Lascialo ruggire di nuovo».

È vero che non vi fu chiaro appello all’Inghilterra dall’Italia, come vi

fu certamente dalla Danimarca. Le grandi potenze non erano tenute ad aiutare

l’Italia a divenire una nazione, come erano tenute a sostenere l’indiscusso

fatto che la Danimarca lo fosse. Anzi il grande patriota italiano avrebbe

sperimentato entrambi gli estremi del paradosso inglese, e, cosa curiosa,

in connessione con entrambe le due cause nazionali e antitedesche. Per

l’Italia egli guadagnò il sostegno degli Inglesi, ma non il sostegno dell’

Inghilterra. Non pochi dei nostri connazionali seguirono la camicia rossa; ma non nella

giubba rossa. E quando venne in Inghilterra, non per perorare la causa dell’

Italia ma la causa della Danimarca, l’Italiano si trovò più popolare

presso gli Inglesi di qualunque Inglese. Si aprì la via attraverso una foresta

di saluti, che volentieri si sarebbe tramutata in una foresta

di spade. Ma coloro che tenevano la spada la tennero nel fodero. Per la classe

dominante il valore dell’Eroe italiano, come la bellezza della Principessa

danese, era cosa da ammirare, cioè da godersi, come un romanzo—o un

giornale. Palmerston era il tipo stesso del Pacifismo, perché era il

tipo stesso del Bellicismo. Nello spirito inquieto come Garibaldi, era in

pratica cauto come Cobden. L’Inghilterra aveva l’aristocrazia più prudente,

ma la democrazia più temeraria del mondo. Era, ed

è, la contraddizione inglese, che tanto ci ha travisati,

specialmente agli Irlandesi. I nostri capitani nazionali erano cavalieri da salotto; i nostri

cavalieri erranti erano fra la plebaglia appiedata. Quando un generale

austriaco che aveva flagellato donne nelle province conquistate comparve nelle

strade di Londra, alcuni comuni carrettieri scesi da un carro si comportarono con la

diretta cavalleria donchisciottesca di Sir Lancillotto o Sir Galahad. Egli aveva battuto donne ed

essi batterono lui. Si consideravano semplicemente vendicatori di dame in

pericolo, spezzando la sanguinosa frusta di un bruto tedesco; proprio come Cobbett

aveva cercato di spezzarla quando era brandita sugli uomini d’Inghilterra. La

villania era nei governanti germanici o mezzo germanici che portavano croci

e speroni: la galanteria era nel rigagnolo. I carrettieri inglesi avevano più

cavalleria degli aristocratici teutoni—o di quelli inglesi.

Mi sono soffermato un poco su questo esperimento italiano perché illumina

Louis Napoleon as what he really was before the eclipse, a

politician—perhaps an unscrupulous politician—but certainly a

democratic politician. A power seldom falls being wholly faultless; and

it is true that the Second Empire became contaminated with cosmopolitan

spies and swindlers, justly reviled by such democrats as Rochefort as

well as Hugo. But there was no French inefficiency that weighed a hair

in the balance compared with the huge and hostile efficiency of

Prussia; the tall machine that had struck down Denmark and Austria, and

now stood ready to strike again, extinguishing the lamp of the world.

There was a hitch before the hammer stroke, and Bismarck adjusted it, as

with his finger, by a forgery—for he had many minor accomplishments.

France fell: and what fell with her was freedom, and what reigned in her

stead only tyrants and the ancient terror. The crowning of the first

modern Kaiser in the very palace of the old French kings was an

allegory; like an allegory on those Versailles walls. For it was at once

the lifting of the old despotic diadem and its descent on the low brow

of a barbarian. Louis XI. had returned, and not Louis IX.; and Europe

was to know that sceptre on which there is no dove.

The instant evidence that Europe was in the grip of the savage was as

simple as it was sinister. The invaders behaved with an innocent impiety

and bestiality that had never been known in those lands since Clovis was

signed with the cross. To the naked pride of the new men nations simply

were not. The struggling populations of two vast provinces were simply

carried away like slaves into captivity, as after the sacking of some

prehistoric town. France was fined for having pretended to be a nation;

and the fine was planned to ruin her forever. Under the pressure of such

impossible injustice France cried out to the Christian nations, one

after another, and by name. Her last cry ended in a stillness like that

which had encircled Denmark.

One man answered; one who had quarrelled with the French and their

Emperor; but who knew it was not an emperor that had fallen. Garibaldi,

not always wise but to his end a hero, took his station, sword in hand,

under the darkening sky of Christendom, and shared the last fate of

France. A curious record remains, in which a German commander testifies

to the energy and effect of the last strokes of the wounded lion of

Aspromonte. But England went away sorrowful, for she had great

possessions.

VIII—The Wrong Horse

In another chapter I mentioned some of the late Lord Salisbury’s remarks

with regret, but I trust with respect; for in certain matters he

deserved all the respect that can be given to him. His critics said that

he “thought aloud”; which is perhaps the noblest thing that can be said

of a man. He was jeered at for it by journalists and politicians who had

not the capacity to think or the courage to tell their thoughts. And he

had one yet finer quality which redeems a hundred lapses of anarchic

cynicism. He could change his mind upon the platform: he could repent in

public. He could not only think aloud; he could “think better” aloud.

And one of the turning-points of Europe had come in the hour when he

avowed his conversion from the un-Christian and un-European policy into

which his dexterous Oriental master, Disraeli, had dragged him; and

declared that England had “put her money on the wrong horse.” When he

said it, he referred to the backing we gave to the Turk under a

fallacious fear of Russia. But I cannot but think that if he had lived

much longer, he would have come to feel the same disgust for his long

diplomatic support of the Turk’s great ally in the North. He did not

live, as we have lived, to feel that horse run away with us, and rush on

through wilder and wilder places, until we knew that we were riding on

the nightmare.

What was this thing to which we trusted? And how may we most quickly

explain its development from a dream to a nightmare, and the

hair’s-breadth escape by which it did not hurl us to destruction, as it

seems to be hurling the Turk? It is a certain spirit; and we must not

ask for too logical a definition of it, for the people whom it possesses

disown logic; and the whole thing is not so much a theory as a confusion

of thought. Its widest and most elementary character is adumbrated in

the word Teutonism or Pan-Germanism; and with this (which was what

appeared to win in 1870) we had better begin. The nature of

Pan-Germanism may be allegorised and abbreviated somewhat thus:

The horse asserts that all other creatures are morally bound to

sacrifice their interests to his, on the specific ground that he

possesses all noble and necessary qualities, and is an end in himself.

It is pointed out in answer that when climbing a tree the horse is less

graceful than the cat; that lovers and poets seldom urge the horse to

make a noise all night like the nightingale; that when submerged for

some long time under water, he is less happy than the haddock; and that

when he is cut open pearls are less often found in him than in an

oyster. He is not content to answer (though, being a muddle-headed

horse, he does use this answer also) that having an undivided hoof is

more than pearls or oceans or all ascension or song. He reflects for a

few years on the subject of cats; and at last discovers in the cat “the

characteristic equine quality of caudality, or a tail”; so that cats

are horses, and wave on every tree-top the tail which is the equine

banner. Nightingales are found to have legs, which explains their power

of song. Haddocks are vertebrates; and therefore are sea-horses. And

Luigi Napoleone per ciò che davvero era prima dell’eclissi, un

politico—forse un politico senza scrupoli—ma certamente un

politico democratico. Una potenza di rado cade essendo del tutto senza colpa; ed

è vero che il Secondo Impero si contaminò di cosmopoliti

spie e truffatori, giustamente vituperati da democratici come Rochefort tanto

quanto Hugo. Ma non vi era inefficienza francese che pesasse un capello

sulla bilancia in confronto all’enorme e ostile efficienza della

Prussia; l’alta macchina che aveva abbattuto la Danimarca e l’Austria, e

ora stava pronta a colpire di nuovo, spegnendo la lampada del mondo.

Vi fu un intoppo prima del colpo di martello, e Bismarck lo aggiustò, come

con un dito, mediante una falsificazione—ché aveva molte doti minori.

La Francia cadde: e ciò che cadde con lei fu la libertà, e ciò che regnò in sua

vece furono solo tiranni e l’antico terrore. L’incoronazione del primo

Kaiser moderno nel palazzo stesso degli antichi re francesi fu un’

allegoria; come un’allegoria su quelle pareti di Versailles. Ché fu insieme

il sollevarsi dell’antico diadema dispotico e il suo calare sulla bassa fronte

di un barbaro. Luigi XI era tornato, e non Luigi IX; e l’Europa

avrebbe conosciuto quello scettro su cui non v’è colomba.

L’immediata prova che l’Europa era nella morsa del selvaggio fu tanto

semplice quanto sinistra. Gli invasori si comportarono con un’innocente empietà

e bestialità che non s’erano mai conosciute in quelle terre da quando Clodoveo fu

segnato con la Croce. Al nudo orgoglio degli uomini nuovi le nazioni semplicemente

non erano. Le popolazioni in lotta di due vaste province furono semplicemente

trascinate via come schiavi in cattività, come dopo il saccheggio di qualche

città preistorica. La Francia fu multata per aver preteso d’essere una nazione;

e la multa fu concepita per rovinarla per sempre. Sotto la pressione di tale

impossibile ingiustizia la Francia gridò alle nazioni cristiane, l’una

dopo l’altra, e per nome. Il suo ultimo grido si spense in una quiete come quella

che aveva circondato la Danimarca.

Un uomo rispose; uno che aveva litigato coi Francesi e col loro

Imperatore; ma che sapeva non essere un imperatore ciò ch’era caduto. Garibaldi,

non sempre saggio ma fino alla fine un Eroe, prese posto, spada in pugno,

sotto il cielo oscurantesi della Cristianità, e condivise l’ultima sorte della

Francia. Rimane una curiosa testimonianza, in cui un comandante tedesco attesta

l’energia e l’effetto degli ultimi colpi del ferito Leone di

Aspromonte. Ma l’Inghilterra se ne andò afflitta, ché aveva grandi

possedimenti.

VIII—Il Cavallo Sbagliato

In un altro capitolo ho menzionato alcune delle osservazioni del defunto Lord Salisbury

con rammarico, ma spero con rispetto; ché in certe cose egli

meritava tutto il rispetto che gli si possa dare. I suoi critici dicevano che

egli «pensava ad alta voce»; il che è forse la cosa più nobile che si possa dire

di un uomo. Ne fu schernito da giornalisti e politici che non avevano

la capacità di pensare né il coraggio di dire i propri pensieri. Ed egli

aveva una qualità ancor più fine che riscatta cento cadute di anarchico

cinismo. Poteva cambiare idea sul palco: poteva pentirsi in

pubblico. Non solo poteva pensare ad alta voce; poteva «ravvedersi» ad alta voce.

E uno dei punti di svolta dell’Europa era giunto nell’ora in cui egli

confessò la sua conversione dalla politica anticristiana e antieuropea nella

quale il suo destro maestro orientale, Disraeli, lo aveva trascinato; e

dichiarò che l’Inghilterra aveva «puntato il suo denaro sul cavallo sbagliato». Quando lo

disse, si riferiva all’appoggio che demmo al Turco sotto un

fallace timore della Russia. Ma non posso non pensare che, se fosse vissuto

molto più a lungo, sarebbe giunto a provare lo stesso disgusto per il suo lungo

sostegno diplomatico al grande alleato del Turco nel Nord. Egli non

visse, come noi siamo vissuti, per sentire quel cavallo prenderci la mano, e lanciarsi

attraverso luoghi sempre più selvaggi, finché sapemmo di cavalcare

l’incubo.

Che cos’era questa cosa a cui ci affidammo? E come possiamo più rapidamente

spiegarne lo sviluppo da un sogno a un incubo, e lo

scampo per un pelo per cui non ci scagliò nella distruzione, come

sembra star scagliando il Turco? È un certo spirito; e non dobbiamo

chiederne una definizione troppo logica, ché le persone da cui è posseduto

rinnegano la logica; e l’intera cosa non è tanto una teoria quanto una confusione

di pensiero. Il suo carattere più ampio ed elementare è adombrato nella

parola Teutonismo o Pangermanesimo; e con questo (che era ciò che

parve vincere nel 1870) faremmo bene a cominciare. La natura del

Pangermanesimo può essere allegorizzata e abbreviata press’a poco così:

Il cavallo asserisce che tutte le altre creature sono moralmente tenute a

sacrificare i loro interessi ai suoi, sullo specifico fondamento ch’egli

possiede tutte le qualità nobili e necessarie, ed è fine a se stesso.

Gli si fa notare in risposta che nell’arrampicarsi su un albero il cavallo è meno

aggraziato del gatto; che gli amanti e i poeti di rado esortano il cavallo a

far rumore tutta la notte come l’usignolo; che quando è sommerso per

qualche lungo tempo sotto l’acqua, è meno felice dell’eglefino; e che

quando lo si apre, meno spesso vi si trovano perle che in un’

ostrica. Non si accontenta di rispondere (benché, essendo un confusionario

cavallo, usi anche questa risposta) che avere uno zoccolo indiviso vale

più delle perle o degli oceani o di ogni ascensione o canto. Riflette per

qualche anno sul tema dei gatti; e alla fine scopre nel gatto «la

caratteristica qualità equina della caudalità, ovvero una coda»; sicché i gatti

sono cavalli, e sventolano su ogni cima d’albero la coda ch’è il vessillo

equino. Si scopre che gli usignoli hanno gambe, il che spiega il loro potere

di canto. Gli eglefini sono vertebrati; e dunque sono cavalli marini. E

though the oyster outwardly presents dissimilarities which seem to

divide him from the horse, he is by the all-filling nature-might of the

same horse-moving energy sustained.

Now this horse is intellectually the wrong horse. It is not perhaps

going too far to say that this horse is a donkey. For it is obviously

within even the intellectual resources of a haddock to answer, “But if a

haddock is a horse, why should I yield to you any more than you to me?

Why should that singing horse commonly called the nightingale, or that

climbing horse hitherto known as the cat, fall down and worship you

because of your horsehood? If all our native faculties are the

accomplishments of a horse—why then you are only another horse without

any accomplishments.” When thus gently reasoned with, the horse flings

up his heels, kicks the cat, crushes the oyster, eats the haddock and

pursues the nightingale, and that is how the war began.

This apologue is not in the least more fantastic than the facts of the

Teutonic claim. The Germans do really say that Englishmen are only

Sea-Germans, as our haddocks were only sea-horses. They do really say

that the nightingales of Tuscany or the pearls of Hellas must somehow be

German birds or German jewels. They do maintain that the Italian

Renaissance was really the German Renaissance, pure Germans having

Italian names when they were painters, as cockneys sometimes have when

they are hair-dressers. They suggest that Jesus and the great Jews were

Teutonic. One Teutonist I read actually explained the fresh energy of

the French Revolution and the stale privileges of its German enemies by

saying that the Germanic soul awoke in France and attacked the Latin

influence in Germany. On the advantages of this method I need not dwell:

if you are annoyed at Jack Johnson knocking out an English

prize-fighter, you have only to say that it was the whiteness of the

black man that won and the blackness of the white man that was beaten.

But about the Italian Renaissance they are less general and will go into

detail. They will discover (in their researches into ‘istry, as Mr.

Gandish said) that Michael Angelo’s surname was Buonarotti; and they

will point out that the word “roth” is very like the word “rot.” Which,

in one sense, is true enough. Most Englishmen will be content to say it

is all rot and pass on. It is all of a piece with the preposterous

Prussian history, which talks, for instance, about the “perfect

religious tolerance of the Goths”; which is like talking about the legal

impartiality of chicken-pox. He will decline to believe that the Jews

were Germans; though he may perhaps have met some Germans who were Jews.

But deeper than any such practical reply, lies the deep inconsistency of

the parable. It is simply this; that if Teutonism be used for

comprehension it cannot be used for conquest. If all intelligent peoples

are Germans, then Prussians are only the least intelligent Germans. If

the men of Flanders are as German as the men of Frankfort, we can only

say that in saving Belgium we are helping the Germans who are in the

right against the Germans who are in the wrong. Thus in Alsace the

conquerors are forced into the comic posture of annexing the people for

being German and then persecuting them for being French. The French

Teutons who built Rheims must surrender it to the South German Teutons

who have partly built Cologne; and these in turn surrender Cologne to

the North German Teutons, who never built anything, except the wooden

Aunt Sally of old Hindenburg. Every Teuton must fall on his face before

an inferior Teuton; until they all find, in the foul marshes towards the

Baltic, the very lowest of all possible Teutons, and worship him—and

find he is a Slav. So much for Pan-Germanism.

But though Teutonism is indefinable, or at least is by the Teutons

undefined, it is not unreal. A vague but genuine soul does possess all

peoples who boast of Teutonism; and has possessed ourselves, in so far

as we have been touched by that folly. Not a race, but rather a

religion, the thing exists; and in 1870 its sun was at noon. We can most

briefly describe it under three heads.

The victory of the German arms meant before Leipzic, and means now, the

overthrow of a certain idea. That idea is the idea of the Citizen. This

is true in a quite abstract and courteous sense; and is not meant as a

loose charge of oppression. Its truth is quite compatible with a view

that the Germans are better governed than the French. In many ways the

Germans are very well governed. But they might be governed ten thousand

times better than they are, or than anybody ever can be, and still be

as far as ever from governing. The idea of the Citizen is that his

individual human nature shall be constantly and creatively active in

altering the State. The Germans are right in regarding the idea as

dangerously revolutionary. Every Citizen is a revolution. That is, he

destroys, devours and adapts his environment to the extent of his own

thought and conscience. This is what separates the human social effort

from the non-human; the bee creates the honey-comb, but he does not

criticise it. The German ruler really does feed and train the German as

carefully as a gardener waters a flower. But if the flower suddenly

began to water the gardener, he would be much surprised. So in Germany

the people really are educated; but in France the people educates. The

French not only make up the State, but make the State; not only make it,

but remake it. In Germany the ruler is the artist, always painting the

happy German like a portrait; in France the Frenchman is the artist,

benché l’ostrica presenti esteriormente dissomiglianze che paiono

separarla dal cavallo, essa è, per l’onnipervadente potenza-natura della

medesima energia che muove il cavallo, sostenuta.

Ora, questo cavallo è intellettualmente il cavallo sbagliato. Non è forse

esagerato dire che questo cavallo è un asino. Poiché rientra evidentemente

persino nelle risorse intellettuali di un merluzzo rispondere: «Ma se un

merluzzo è un cavallo, perché mai dovrei cedere a te più di quanto tu ceda a me?

Perché quel cavallo canterino comunemente detto usignolo, o quel

cavallo rampicante finora noto come il gatto, dovrebbero prostrarsi e adorarti

in virtù della tua cavallinità? Se tutte le nostre facoltà native sono le

doti di un cavallo… ebbene allora tu sei soltanto un altro cavallo privo di

qualsiasi dote». Quando gli si ragiona così, garbatamente, il cavallo scaglia

all’aria i garretti, prende a calci il gatto, schiaccia l’ostrica, mangia il merluzzo e

insegue l’usignolo, ed è così che ebbe inizio la guerra.

Questo apologo non è affatto più fantasioso dei fatti della

pretesa teutonica. I tedeschi affermano davvero che gli inglesi non sono che

tedeschi-di-mare, come i nostri merluzzi non erano che cavalli marini. Affermano davvero

che gli usignoli della Toscana o le perle dell’Ellade debbano in qualche modo essere

uccelli tedeschi o gioielli tedeschi. Sostengono che l’italiano

Rinascimento fosse in realtà il Rinascimento tedesco, giacché puri tedeschi portavano

nomi italiani quando erano pittori, come talora ne hanno i cockney quando

fanno i parrucchieri. Suggeriscono che Gesù e i grandi ebrei fossero

teutonici. Un teutonista che ho letto spiegava addirittura la fresca energia della

Rivoluzione francese e gli stantii privilegi dei suoi nemici tedeschi

dicendo che l’anima germanica si era destata in Francia e aveva attaccato l’influenza latina

in Germania. Sui vantaggi di questo metodo non occorre che mi soffermi:

se vi infastidisce che Jack Johnson metta al tappeto un pugile

professionista inglese, basta dire che fu il candore dell’

uomo nero a vincere e il nero dell’uomo bianco a essere battuto.

Ma sul Rinascimento italiano sono meno generici e scendono nel

dettaglio. Scopriranno (nelle loro ricerche di ‘storia’, come diceva il signor

Gandish) che il cognome di Michel Angelo era Buonarotti; ed essi

faranno notare che la parola «roth» somiglia molto alla parola «rot». Il che,

in un certo senso, è abbastanza vero. La maggior parte degli inglesi si accontenterà di dire che

è tutta una fandonia e di tirare avanti. È tutt’uno con l’assurda

storia prussiana, che parla, per esempio, della «perfetta

tolleranza religiosa dei Goti»; il che è come parlare dell’imparzialità giuridica

della varicella. Egli rifiuterà di credere che gli ebrei

fossero tedeschi; benché possa forse aver incontrato qualche tedesco che era ebreo.

Ma più profonda di qualsiasi replica pratica, giace la profonda incoerenza della

parabola. È semplicemente questa: che se il teutonismo è usato per la

comprensione, non può essere usato per la conquista. Se tutti i popoli intelligenti

sono tedeschi, allora i prussiani sono solo i tedeschi meno intelligenti. Se

gli uomini delle Fiandre sono tedeschi quanto quelli di Francoforte, possiamo solo

dire che nel salvare il Belgio stiamo aiutando i tedeschi che hanno

ragione contro i tedeschi che hanno torto. Così in Alsazia i

conquistatori sono costretti alla comica posizione di annettere il popolo perché

è tedesco e poi di perseguitarlo perché è francese. I francesi

teutoni che edificarono Reims devono cederla ai teutoni della Germania meridionale

che hanno in parte edificato Colonia; e questi a loro volta cedono Colonia ai

teutoni della Germania settentrionale, che non edificarono mai nulla, se non il ligneo

fantoccio da baraccone del vecchio Hindenburg. Ogni teutone deve cadere bocconi dinanzi a

un teutone inferiore; finché tutti non trovano, nelle fetide paludi verso il

Baltico, il più infimo di tutti i teutoni possibili, e non lo adorano… e

scoprono che è uno slavo. Tanto vale per il pangermanesimo.

Ma per quanto il teutonismo sia indefinibile, o almeno sia dai teutoni

lasciato indefinito, non è irreale. Un’anima vaga ma autentica possiede davvero tutti

i popoli che si vantano del teutonismo; e ha posseduto noi stessi, nella misura

in cui siamo stati toccati da quella follia. Non una razza, ma piuttosto una

religione, la cosa esiste; e nel 1870 il suo sole era al mezzogiorno. Possiamo

descriverla molto brevemente sotto tre voci.

La vittoria delle armi tedesche significava prima di Lipsia, e significa ora, il

rovesciamento di una certa idea. Quell’idea è l’idea del Cittadino. Ciò

è vero in un senso del tutto astratto e cortese; e non è inteso come una

vaga accusa di oppressione. La sua verità è del tutto compatibile con l’idea

che i tedeschi siano governati meglio dei francesi. Per molti versi i

tedeschi sono governati molto bene. Ma potrebbero essere governati diecimila

volte meglio di come lo sono, o di come chiunque potrà mai esserlo, e restare pur sempre

lontani come non mai dal governare. L’idea del Cittadino è che la sua

individuale natura umana sia costantemente e creativamente attiva nel

modificare lo Stato. I tedeschi hanno ragione a considerare quell’idea come

pericolosamente rivoluzionaria. Ogni Cittadino è una rivoluzione. Cioè,

distrugge, divora e adatta il proprio ambiente nella misura del proprio

pensiero e della propria coscienza. È questo che separa lo sforzo sociale umano

da quello non umano; l’ape crea il favo, ma non lo

critica. Il governante tedesco nutre e addestra davvero il tedesco con la stessa

cura con cui un giardiniere annaffia un fiore. Ma se il fiore d’improvviso

cominciasse ad annaffiare il giardiniere, questi ne sarebbe assai sorpreso. Così in Germania

il popolo è davvero educato; ma in Francia è il popolo che educa. I

francesi non solo compongono lo Stato, ma fanno lo Stato; non solo lo fanno,

ma lo rifanno. In Germania il governante è l’artista, che dipinge sempre il

tedesco felice come un ritratto; in Francia è il francese l’artista,

always painting and repainting France like a house. No state of social

good that does not mean the Citizen choosing good, as well as getting

it, has the idea of the Citizen at all. To say the Germanies are

naturally at war with this idea is merely to respect them and take them

seriously: otherwise their war on the French Revolution would be only an

ignorant feud. It is this, to them, risky and fanciful notion of the

critical and creative Citizen, which in 1870 lay prostrate under United

Germany—under the undivided hoof.

Nevertheless, when the German says he has or loves freedom, what he says

is not false. He means something; and what he means is the second

principle, which I may summarise as the Irresponsibility of Thought.

Within the iron framework of the fixed State, the German has not only

liberty but anarchy. Anything can be said although, or rather because,

nothing can be done. Philosophy is really free. But this practically

means only that the prisoner’s cell has become the madman’s cell: that

it is scrawled all over inside with stars and systems, so that it looks

like eternity. This is the contradiction remarked by Dr. Sarolea, in his

brilliant book, between the wildness of German theory and the tameness

of German practice. The Germans sterilise thought, making it active

with a wild virginity; which can bear no fruit.

But though there are so many mad theories, most of them have one root;

and depend upon one assumption. It matters little whether we call it,

with the German Socialists, “the Materialist Theory of History”; or,

with Bismarck, “blood and iron.” It can be put most fairly thus: that

all important events of history are biological, like a change of

pasture or the communism of a pack of wolves. Professors are still

tearing their hair in the effort to prove somehow that the Crusaders

were migrating for food like swallows; or that the French Revolutionists

were somehow only swarming like bees. This works in two ways often

accounted opposite; and explains both the German Socialist and the

Junker. For, first, it fits in with Teutonic Imperialism; making the

“blonde beasts” of Germania into lions whose nature it is to eat such

lambs as the French. The highest success of this notion in Europe is

marked by praise given to a race famous for its physical firmness and

fighting breed, but which has frankly pillaged and scarcely pretended

to rule; the Turk, whom some Tories called “the gentleman of Europe.”

The Kaiser paused to adore the Crescent on his way to patronise the

Cross. It was corporately embodied when Greece attempted a solitary

adventure against Turkey and was quickly crushed. That English guns

helped to impose the mainly Germanic policy of the Concert upon Crete,

cannot be left out of mind while we are making appeals to Greece—or

considering the crimes of England.

But the same principle serves to keep the internal politics of the

Germans quiet, and prevent Socialism being the practical hope or peril

it has been in so many other countries. It operates in two ways; first,

by a curious fallacy about “the time not being ripe”—as if time could

ever be ripe. The same savage superstition from the forests had infected

Matthew Arnold pretty badly when he made a personality out of the

Zeitgeist—perhaps the only ghost that was ever entirely fabulous. It is

tricked by a biological parallel, by which the chicken always comes out

of the egg “at the right time.” He does not; he comes out when he comes

out. The Marxian Socialist will not strike till the clock strikes; and

the clock is made in Germany, and never strikes. Moreover, the theory of

all history as a search for food makes the masses content with having

food and physic, but not freedom. The best working model in the matter

is the system of Compulsory Insurance; which was a total failure and

dead letter in France but has been, in the German sense, a great success

in Germany. It treats employed persons as a fixed, separate, and lower

caste, who must not themselves dispose of the margin of their small

wages. In 1911 it was introduced into England by Mr. Lloyd George, who

had studied its operations in Germany, and, by the Prussian prestige in

“social reform,” was passed.

These three tendencies cohere, or are cohering, in an institution which

is not without a great historical basis and not without great modern

conveniences. And as France was the standard-bearer of citizenship in

1798, Germany is the standard-bearer of this alternative solution in

1915. The institution which our fathers called Slavery fits in with, or

rather logically flows from, all the three spirits of which I have

spoken, and promises great advantages to each of them. It can give the

individual worker everything except the power to alter the State—that

is, his own status. Finality (or what certain eleutheromaniacs would

call hopelessness) of status is the soul of Slavery—and of Compulsory

Insurance. Then again, Germany gives the individual exactly the liberty

that has always been given to a slave—the liberty to think, the liberty

to dream, the liberty to rage; the liberty to indulge in any

intellectual hypotheses about the unalterable world and state—such as

have always been free to slaves, from the stoical maxims of Epictetus to

the skylarking fairy tales of Uncle Remus. And it has been truly urged

by all defenders of slavery that, if history has merely a material test,

the material condition of the subordinate under slavery tends to be good

rather than bad. When I once pointed out how precisely the “model

village” of a great employer reproduces the safety and seclusion of an

old slave estate, the employer thought it quite enough to answer

sempre dipingere e ridipingere la Francia come una casa. Nessuno stato di bene

sociale che non significhi il Cittadino che sceglie il bene, tanto bene quanto ottenerlo,

ha affatto l’idea del Cittadino. Dire che le Germanie sono

naturalmente in guerra con quest’idea è semplicemente rispettarle e prenderle

sul serio: altrimenti la loro guerra alla Rivoluzione francese sarebbe solo una

faida ignorante. È questa, per loro, rischiosa e fantasiosa nozione del

Cittadino critico e creativo che nel 1870 giacque prostrata sotto la

Germania Unita—sotto lo zoccolo indiviso.

Nondimeno, quando il Tedesco dice di avere o amare la libertà, ciò che dice

non è falso. Intende qualcosa; e ciò che intende è il secondo

principio, che posso riassumere come l’Irresponsabilità del Pensiero.

Entro l’intelaiatura di ferro dello Stato fisso, il Tedesco ha non solo

libertà ma anarchia. Tutto può esser detto sebbene, o piuttosto perché,

nulla può esser fatto. La Filosofia è davvero libera. Ma questo praticamente

significa solo che la cella del prigioniero è divenuta la cella del pazzo: che

è tutta scarabocchiata all’interno di stelle e sistemi, sì che pare

l’eternità. Questa è la contraddizione notata dal Dr. Sarolea, nel suo

brillante libro, tra la selvatichezza della teoria tedesca e la mansuetudine

della pratica tedesca. I Tedeschi sterilizzano il pensiero, rendendolo attivo

di una selvaggia verginità; che non può portare frutto.

Ma benché vi siano tante teorie folli, la maggior parte ha una sola radice;

e dipende da un solo assunto. Poco importa se lo chiamiamo,

coi Socialisti tedeschi, «la Teoria Materialistica della Storia»; oppure,

con Bismarck, «sangue e ferro». Lo si può mettere più equamente così: che

tutti gli eventi importanti della storia sono biologici, come un cambio di

pascolo o il comunismo di un branco di lupi. I professori stanno ancora

strappandosi i capelli nello sforzo di dimostrare in qualche modo che i Crociati

migravano in cerca di cibo come rondini; o che i Rivoluzionari francesi

in qualche modo sciamavano soltanto come api. Ciò funziona in due modi spesso

considerati opposti; e spiega tanto il Socialista tedesco quanto il

Junker. Ché, primo, s’accorda con l’Imperialismo teutonico; facendo delle

«bionde bestie» di Germania leoni la cui natura è di mangiare tali

agnelli come i Francesi. Il più alto successo di questa nozione in Europa è

segnato dalla lode data a una razza famosa per la sua fermezza fisica e

stirpe guerriera, ma che ha francamente saccheggiato e a stento preteso

di governare; il Turco, che alcuni Tory chiamavano «il gentiluomo d’Europa».

Il Kaiser si fermò ad adorare la Mezzaluna mentre andava a patrocinare la

Croce. Fu corporativamente incarnato quando la Grecia tentò una solitaria

avventura contro la Turchia e fu prontamente schiacciata. Che i cannoni inglesi

abbiano contribuito a imporre a Creta la politica principalmente germanica del Concerto,

non può esser lasciato fuori dalla mente mentre facciamo appelli alla Grecia—o

consideriamo i crimini dell’Inghilterra.

Ma lo stesso principio serve a tenere quieta la politica interna dei

Tedeschi, e a impedire che il Socialismo sia la pratica speranza o il pericolo

che è stato in tanti altri paesi. Opera in due modi; primo,

con una curiosa fallacia sul «tempo non ancora maturo»—come se il tempo potesse

mai esser maturo. La stessa selvaggia superstizione dalle foreste aveva infettato

Matthew Arnold piuttosto malamente quando fece una personalità dello

Zeitgeist—forse l’unico fantasma che sia mai stato interamente favoloso. Esso è

ingannato da un parallelo biologico, per cui il pulcino esce sempre

dall’uovo «al tempo giusto». Non è così; esce quando esce.

Il Socialista marxiano non sciopererà finché l’orologio non suoni; e

l’orologio è fatto in Germania, e non suona mai. Inoltre, la teoria di

tutta la storia come ricerca di cibo rende le masse contente d’avere

cibo e medicina, ma non libertà. Il miglior modello operante in materia

è il sistema dell’Assicurazione Obbligatoria; che fu un totale fallimento e

lettera morta in Francia ma è stato, nel senso tedesco, un gran successo

in Germania. Tratta le persone impiegate come una casta fissa, separata e inferiore,

che non deve disporre da sé del margine dei propri piccoli

salari. Nel 1911 fu introdotto in Inghilterra dal signor Lloyd George, che

ne aveva studiato le operazioni in Germania, e, per il prestigio prussiano nella

«riforma sociale», fu approvato.

Queste tre tendenze coeriscono, o stanno coerendo, in un’istituzione che

non è priva di un grande fondamento storico né priva di grandi moderne

convenienze. E come la Francia fu la portabandiera della cittadinanza nel

1798, la Germania è la portabandiera di questa soluzione alternativa nel

1915. L’istituzione che i nostri padri chiamavano Schiavitù s’accorda con, o

piuttosto logicamente scaturisce da, tutti e tre gli spiriti di cui ho

parlato, e promette grandi vantaggi a ciascuno di essi. Può dare al

singolo lavoratore ogni cosa tranne il potere di alterare lo Stato—cioè

il proprio status. La finalità (o ciò che certi eleuteromani

chiamerebbero disperazione) dello status è l’anima della Schiavitù—e dell’Assicurazione

Obbligatoria. E poi ancora, la Germania dà al singolo esattamente la libertà

che è sempre stata data a uno schiavo—la libertà di pensare, la libertà

di sognare, la libertà d’infuriarsi; la libertà d’indulgere in qualsiasi

ipotesi intellettuale sul mondo e sullo stato inalterabili—quali

sono sempre state libere agli schiavi, dalle massime stoiche di Epitteto alle

spensierate fiabe dello Zio Remo. Ed è stato veramente sostenuto

da tutti i difensori della schiavitù che, se la storia ha soltanto un criterio materiale,

la condizione materiale del subordinato sotto la schiavitù tende a essere buona

piuttosto che cattiva. Quando una volta feci notare quanto precisamente il «villaggio

modello» di un grande datore di lavoro riproduce la sicurezza e la segregazione di un’

antica tenuta schiavista, il datore di lavoro ritenne del tutto sufficiente rispondere

indignantly that he had provided baths, playing-grounds, a theatre,

etc., for his workers. He would probably have thought it odd to hear a

planter in South Carolina boast that he had provided banjos, hymn-books,

and places suitable for the cake-walk. Yet the planter must have

provided the banjos, for a slave cannot own property. And if this

Germanic sociology is indeed to prevail among us, I think some of the

broad-minded thinkers who concur in its prevalence owe something like an

apology to many gallant gentlemen whose graves lie where the last battle

was fought in the Wilderness; men who had the courage to fight for it,

the courage to die for it and, above all, the courage to call it by its

name.

With the acceptance by England of the German Insurance Act, I bring this

sketch of the past relations of the two countries to an end. I have

written this book because I wish, once and for all, to be done with my

friend Professor Whirlwind of Prussia, who has long despaired of really

defending his own country, and has fallen back upon abusing mine. He has

dropped, amid general derision, his attempt to call a thing right when

even the Chancellor who did it called it wrong. But he has an idea that

if he can show that somebody from England somewhere did another wrong,

the two wrongs may make a right. Against the cry of the Roman Catholic

Poles the Prussian has never done, or even pretended to do, anything but

harden his heart; but he has (such are the lovable inconsistencies of

human nature) a warm corner in his heart for the Roman Catholic Irish.

He has not a word to say for himself about the campaign in Belgium, but

he still has many wise, reproachful words to utter about the campaign in

South Africa. I propose to take those words out of his mouth. I will

have nothing to do with the fatuous front-bench pretensions that our

governors always govern well, that our statesmen are never whitewashed

and never in need of whitewash. The only moral superiority I claim is

that of not defending the indefensible. I most earnestly urge my

countrymen not to hide behind thin official excuses, which the sister

kingdoms and the subject races can easily see through. We can confess

that our crimes have been as mountains, and still not be afraid of the

present comparison. There may be, in the eyes of some, a risk in

dwelling in this dark hour on our failures in the past: I believe

profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most

deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise,

any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and

ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or

Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second

Prussia. I have passed the great part of my life in criticising and

condemning the existing rulers and institutions of my country: I think

it is infinitely the most patriotic thing that a man can do. I have no

illusions either about our past or our present. I think our whole

history in Ireland has been a vulgar and ignorant hatred of the

crucifix, expressed by a crucifixion. I think the South African War was

a dirty work which we did under the whips of moneylenders. I think

Mitchelstown was a disgrace; I think Denshawi was a devilry.

Yet there is one part of life and history in which I would assert the

absolute spotlessness of England. In one department we wear a robe of

white and a halo of innocence. Long and weary as may be the records of

our wickedness, in one direction we have done nothing but good. Whoever

we may have wronged, we have never wronged Germany. Again and again we

have dragged her from under the just vengeance of her enemies, from the

holy anger of Maria Teresa, from the impatient and contemptuous common

sense of Napoleon. We have kept a ring fence around the Germans while

they sacked Denmark and dismembered France. And if we had served our God

as we have served their kings, there would not be to-day one remnant

of them in our path, either to slander or to slay us.

IX—The Awakening of England

In October 1912 silent and seemingly uninhabited crags and chasms in the

high western region of the Balkans echoed and re-echoed with a single

shot. It was fired by the hand of a king—real king, who sat listening

to his people in front of his own house (for it was hardly a palace),

and who, in consequence of his listening to the people, not unfrequently

imprisoned the politicians. It is said of him that his great respect for

Gladstone as the western advocate of Balkan freedom was slightly

shadowed by the fact that Gladstone did not succeed in effecting the

bodily capture of Jack the Ripper. This simple monarch knew that if a

malefactor were the terror of the mountain hamlets, his subjects would

expect him personally to take arms and pursue the ruffian; and if he

refused to do so, would very probably experiment with another king. And

the same primitive conception of a king being kept for some kind of

purpose, led them also to expect him to lead in a foreign campaign, and

it was with his own hand that he fired the first shot of the war which

brought down into the dust the ancient empire of the Grand Turk.

His kingdom was little more than the black mountain after which it was

named: we commonly refer to it under its Italian translation of

Montenegro. It is worth while to pause for a moment upon his picturesque

and peculiar community, because it is perhaps the simplest working model

of all that stood in the path of the great Germanic social machine I

have described in the last chapter—stood in its path and was soon to be

very nearly destroyed by its onset. It was a branch of the Serbian stock

which had climbed into this almost inaccessible eyrie, and thence, for

indignato che aveva fornito bagni, campi da gioco, un teatro,

ecc., per i suoi operai. Probabilmente avrebbe trovato strano udire un

piantatore della Carolina del Sud vantarsi d’aver fornito banjo, libri di inni,

e luoghi adatti al cake-walk. Eppure il piantatore doveva pur aver

fornito i banjo, poiché uno schiavo non può possedere proprietà. E se questa

sociologia germanica deve davvero prevalere fra noi, penso che alcuni dei

pensatori di larghe vedute che concordano sul suo prevalere debbano qualcosa come una

scusa a molti valorosi gentiluomini le cui tombe giacciono dove l’ultima battaglia

fu combattuta nella Wilderness; uomini che ebbero il coraggio di combattere per essa,

il coraggio di morire per essa e, soprattutto, il coraggio di chiamarla col suo

nome.

Con l’accettazione da parte dell’Inghilterra della Legge tedesca sull’Assicurazione, porto questo

abbozzo delle passate relazioni dei due paesi a una fine. Ho

scritto questo libro perché desidero, una volta per tutte, farla finita col mio

amico Professor Turbine di Prussia, che da tempo ha disperato di difendere davvero

il proprio paese, ed è ripiegato sull’ingiuriare il mio. Egli ha

lasciato cadere, tra la derisione generale, il suo tentativo di dir giusta una cosa quando

persino il Cancelliere che la fece la disse sbagliata. Ma ha l’idea che,

se può mostrare che qualcuno d’Inghilterra da qualche parte fece un altro torto,

i due torti possano fare una ragione. Contro il grido dei Polacchi

cattolici romani il Prussiano non ha mai fatto, né mai finto di fare, altro che

indurire il proprio cuore; ma egli ha (tali sono le amabili incoerenze della

natura umana) un angolo caldo nel cuore per gli Irlandesi cattolici romani.

Non ha una parola da dire a propria difesa sulla campagna in Belgio, ma

ha ancora molte sagge, riprovevoli parole da proferire sulla campagna in

Sudafrica. Mi propongo di togliergli quelle parole di bocca. Non

avrò nulla a che fare con le fatue pretese del banco di governo che i nostri

governanti governano sempre bene, che i nostri statisti non sono mai imbiancati

né mai bisognosi d’imbiancatura. L’unica superiorità morale che rivendico è

quella di non difendere l’indifendibile. Esorto con la massima serietà i miei

connazionali a non nascondersi dietro sottili scuse ufficiali, che i regni

sorelli e le razze soggette possono facilmente penetrare con lo sguardo. Possiamo confessare

che i nostri crimini sono stati come montagne, e non temere ancora il

presente confronto. Vi può essere, agli occhi di alcuni, un rischio nel

soffermarsi in quest’ora buia sui nostri fallimenti nel passato: io credo

profondamente che il rischio sia tutto dall’altra parte. Credo che il più

letale pericolo per le nostre armi oggi risieda in ogni zaffata di quell’autoelogio,

in ogni sapore di quella viltà morale, in ogni barlume di quella impudente e

ultima impenitenza, che possa far sentire a un Boero o Scozzese o Gallese o

Irlandese o Indiano che sta solo spianando la via a una seconda

Prussia. Ho trascorso gran parte della mia vita a criticare e

condannare i governanti e le istituzioni esistenti del mio paese: penso

che sia infinitamente la cosa più patriottica che un uomo possa fare. Non ho

illusioni né sul nostro passato né sul nostro presente. Io penso che tutta la nostra

storia in Irlanda sia stata un volgare e ignorante odio del

crocifisso, espresso mediante una crocifissione. Penso che la Guerra Sudafricana fu

un lavoro sporco che facemmo sotto le fruste degli usurai. Penso

che Mitchelstown fu una vergogna; penso che Denshawi fu una diavoleria.

Eppure vi è una parte della vita e della storia in cui asserirei l’

assoluta immacolatezza dell’Inghilterra. In un settore indossiamo una veste di

bianco e un’aureola d’innocenza. Per quanto lunghi e tediosi possano essere gli annali della

nostra malvagità, in una direzione non abbiamo fatto altro che bene. Chiunque

possiamo aver leso, non abbiamo mai leso la Germania. Ancora e ancora l’

abbiamo trascinata via da sotto la giusta vendetta dei suoi nemici, dalla

santa ira di Maria Teresa, dall’impaziente e sprezzante buon

senso di Napoleone. Abbiamo tenuto una cinta protettiva attorno ai Tedeschi mentre

essi saccheggiavano la Danimarca e smembravano la Francia. E se avessimo servito il nostro Dio

come abbiamo servito i loro re, non vi sarebbe oggi un solo residuo

di essi sul nostro cammino, a calunniarci o a ucciderci.

IX—Il Risveglio dell’Inghilterra

Nell’ottobre 1912 rupi e abissi silenziosi e apparentemente disabitati nell’

alta regione occidentale dei Balcani echeggiarono e rieccheggiarono di un singolo

colpo. Fu sparato dalla mano di un re—vero re, che sedeva ascoltando

il suo popolo davanti alla propria casa (ché era a stento un palazzo),

e che, in conseguenza del suo ascoltare il popolo, non di rado

imprigionava i politici. Di lui si dice che il suo grande rispetto per

Gladstone come difensore occidentale della libertà balcanica era lievemente

adombrato dal fatto che Gladstone non riuscì a effettuare la

cattura in carne e ossa di Jack lo Squartatore. Questo semplice monarca sapeva che, se un

malfattore fosse il terrore dei villaggi montani, i suoi sudditi si

aspetterebbero che egli personalmente prendesse le armi e inseguisse il farabutto; e se

rifiutasse di farlo, assai probabilmente sperimenterebbero con un altro re. E

la stessa primitiva concezione di un re tenuto per una qualche

funzione li portava anche ad aspettarsi ch’egli guidasse in una campagna estera, e

fu con la propria mano ch’egli sparò il primo colpo della guerra che

abbatté nella polvere l’antico impero del Gran Turco.

Il suo regno era poco più della montagna nera da cui era

chiamato: comunemente vi ci riferiamo sotto la sua traduzione italiana di

Montenegro. Vale la pena soffermarsi un momento sulla sua pittoresca

e peculiare comunità, perché è forse il più semplice modello operante

di tutto ciò che si ergeva sul cammino della grande macchina sociale germanica che

ho descritto nell’ultimo capitolo—si ergeva sul suo cammino e stava presto per essere

quasi del tutto distrutta dal suo assalto. Era un ramo del ceppo serbo

che era salito in questo nido d’aquila quasi inaccessibile, e di là, per

many hundred years, had mocked at the predatory empire of the Turks. The

Serbians in their turn were but one branch of the peasant Slavs,

millions of whom are spread over Russia and subject on many sides to

empires with which they have less sympathy; and the Slavs again, in the

broad features which are important here, are not merely Slavonic but

simply European. But a particular picture is generally more pointed and

intelligible than tendencies which elsewhere are mingled with subtler

tendencies; and of this unmixed European simplicity Montenegro is an

excellent model.

Moreover, the instance of one small Christian State will serve to

emphasise that this is not a quarrel between England and Germany, but

between Europe and Germany. It is my whole purpose in these pages not to

spare my own country where it is open to criticism; and I freely admit

that Montenegro, morally and politically speaking, is almost as much in

advance of England as it is of Germany. In Montenegro there are no

millionaires—and therefore next to no Socialists. As to why there are

no millionaires, it is a mystery, and best studied among the mysteries

of the Middle Ages. By some of the dark ingenuities of that age of

priestcraft a curious thing was discovered—that if you kill every

usurer, every forestaller, every adulterater, every user of false

weights, every fixer of false boundaries, every land-thief, every

water-thief, you afterwards discover by a strange indirect miracle, or

disconnected truth from heaven, that you have no millionaires. Without

dwelling further on this dark matter, we may say that this great gap in

the Montenegrin experience explains the other great gap—the lack of

Socialists. The Class-conscious Proletarian of All Lands is curiously

absent from this land. The reason (I have sometimes fancied) is that the

Proletarian is class-conscious, not because he is a Proletarian of All

Lands, but because he is a Proletarian with no lands. The poor people in

Montenegro have lands—not landlords. They have roots; for the peasant

is the root of the priest, the poet, and the warrior. And this, and

not a mere recrimination about acts of violence, is the ground of the

age-long Balkan bitterness against the Turkish conqueror. Montenegrins

are patriotic for Montenegro; but Turks are not patriotic for Turkey.

They never heard of it, in fact. They are Bedouins, as homeless as the

desert. The “wrong horse” of Lord Salisbury was an Arab steed, only

stabled in Byzantium. It is hard enough to rule vagabond people, like

the gypsies. To be ruled by them is impossible.

Nevertheless what was called the nineteenth century, and named with a

sort of transcendental faith (as in a Pythagorean worship of number),

was wearing to its close with reaction everywhere, and the Turk, the

great type of reaction, stronger than ever in the saddle. The most

civilised of the Christian nations overshadowed by the Crescent dared to

attack it and was overwhelmed in a catastrophe that seemed as

unanswerable as Hittin. In England Gladstone and Gladstonism were dead;

and Mr. Kipling, a less mystical Carlyle, was expending a type of praise

upon the British Army which would have been even more appropriate to the

Prussian Army. The Prussian Army ruled Prussia; Prussia ruled Germany;

Germany ruled the Concert of Europe. She was planting everywhere the

appliances of that new servile machinery which was her secret; the

absolute identification of national subordination with business

employment; so that Krupp could count on Kaiser and Kaiser on Krupp.

Every other commercial traveller was pathetically proud of being both a

slave and a spy. The old and the new tyrants had taken hands. The “sack”

of the boss was as silent and fatal as the sack of the Bosphorus. And

the dream of the citizen was at an end.

It was under a sky so leaden and on a road so strewn with bones that the

little mountain democracy with its patriarchal prince went out, first

and before all its friends, on the last and seemingly the most hopeless

of the rebellions against the Ottoman Empire. Only one of the omens

seemed other than disastrous; and even that was doubtful. For the

successful Mediterranean attack on Tripoli while proving the gallantry

of the Italians (if that ever needed proving) could be taken in two

ways, and was seen by many, and probably most, sincere liberals as a

mere extension of the Imperialist reaction of Bosnia and Paardeberg, and

not as the promise of newer things. Italy, it must be remembered, was

still supposed to be the partner of Prussia and the Hapsburgs. For days

that seemed like months the microscopic state seemed to be attempting

alone what the Crusades had failed to accomplish. And for days Europe

and the great powers were thunderstruck, again and yet again, by the

news of Turkish forts falling, Turkish cohorts collapsing, the

unconquerable Crescent going down in blood. The Serbians, the

Bulgarians, the Greeks had gathered and risen from their lairs; and men

knew that these peasants had done what all the politicians had long

despaired of doing, and that the spirit of the first Christian Emperor

was already standing over the city that is named after his name.

For Germany this quite unexpected rush was a reversal of the whole tide

of the world. It was as if the Rhine itself had returned from the ocean

and retired into the Alps. For a long time past every important

political process in Europe had been produced or permitted by Prussia.

She had pulled down ministers in France and arrested reforms in Russia.

Her ruler was acclaimed by Englishmen like Rhodes, and Americans like

Roosevelt, as the great prince of the age. One of the most famous and

brilliant of our journalists called him “the Lord Chief Justice of

Europe.” He was the strongest man in Christendom; and he had confirmed

molte centinaia d’anni, s’era fatto beffe del predatorio impero dei Turchi. I

Serbi a loro volta non erano che un ramo degli Slavi contadini,

milioni dei quali sono sparsi per la Russia e soggetti da molti lati a

imperi verso cui hanno minor simpatia; e gli Slavi, di nuovo, nei

tratti generali che qui importano, non sono meramente slavi ma

semplicemente europei. Ma un quadro particolare è generalmente più incisivo e

intelligibile di tendenze che altrove si mescolano con più sottili

tendenze; e di questa pura semplicità europea il Montenegro è un

eccellente modello.

Inoltre, l’esempio di un piccolo Stato cristiano servirà a

sottolineare che questa non è una contesa tra l’Inghilterra e la Germania, ma

tra l’Europa e la Germania. È tutto il mio proposito in queste pagine non

risparmiare il mio paese dove è aperto alla critica; e ammetto liberamente

che il Montenegro, moralmente e politicamente parlando, è quasi altrettanto in

anticipo sull’Inghilterra quanto sulla Germania. In Montenegro non vi sono

milionari—e perciò quasi nessun Socialista. Quanto al perché non vi siano

milionari, è un mistero, e meglio studiato fra i misteri

del Medioevo. Per alcune delle oscure ingegnosità di quell’epoca di

clericalismo si scoprì una cosa curiosa—che se uccidi ogni

usuraio, ogni accaparratore, ogni adulteratore, ogni utilizzatore di falsi

pesi, ogni falsificatore di confini, ogni ladro di terre, ogni

ladro d’acqua, in seguito scopri per uno strano miracolo indiretto, o

sconnessa verità dal cielo, che non hai milionari. Senza

soffermarci oltre su questa oscura faccenda, possiamo dire che questa grande lacuna nell’

esperienza montenegrina spiega l’altra grande lacuna—la mancanza di

Socialisti. Il Proletario coscienzialmente classista di Tutte le Terre è curiosamente

assente da questa terra. La ragione (ho talvolta immaginato) è che il

Proletario è cosciente della classe, non perché è un Proletario di Tutte

le Terre, ma perché è un Proletario senza terre. La povera gente in

Montenegro ha terre—non padroni di terre. Ha radici; ché il contadino

è la radice del prete, del poeta e del guerriero. E questo, e

non una mera recriminazione su atti di violenza, è il fondamento dell’

secolare amarezza balcanica contro il conquistatore turco. I Montenegrini

sono patrioti per il Montenegro; ma i Turchi non sono patrioti per la Turchia.

Non ne hanno mai sentito parlare, in effetti. Sono Beduini, senza patria come il

deserto. Il «cavallo sbagliato» di Lord Salisbury era un destriero arabo, solo

stabulato a Bisanzio. È già abbastanza arduo governare popoli vagabondi, come

gli zingari. Esser governati da loro è impossibile.

Nondimeno ciò che si chiamava il diciannovesimo secolo, e nominato con una

sorta di fede trascendentale (come in un culto pitagorico del numero),

volgeva al suo termine con reazione ovunque, e il Turco, il

gran tipo della reazione, più saldo che mai in sella. La più

civile delle nazioni cristiane adombrate dalla Mezzaluna osò

attaccarla e fu travolta in una catastrofe che parve tanto

irrefutabile quanto Hittin. In Inghilterra Gladstone e il Gladstonismo erano morti;

e il signor Kipling, un Carlyle meno mistico, prodigava un tipo di lode

all’Esercito britannico che sarebbe stata ancor più appropriata all’

Esercito prussiano. L’Esercito prussiano governava la Prussia; la Prussia governava la Germania;

la Germania governava il Concerto d’Europa. Essa piantava ovunque gli

apparati di quel nuovo macchinario servile ch’era il suo segreto; l’

assoluta identificazione della subordinazione nazionale con l’impiego

d’affari; sì che Krupp poteva contare sul Kaiser e il Kaiser su Krupp.

Ogni altro commesso viaggiatore era pateticamente fiero d’essere insieme uno

schiavo e una spia. I vecchi e i nuovi tiranni s’erano dati la mano. Il «licenziamento»

del padrone era silenzioso e fatale quanto il sacco del Bosforo. E

il sogno del cittadino era finito.

Fu sotto un cielo così plumbeo e su una strada così cosparsa d’ossa che la

piccola democrazia montana col suo principe patriarcale uscì, prima

e innanzi a tutti i suoi amici, nell’ultima e apparentemente più disperata

delle ribellioni contro l’Impero Ottomano. Solo uno dei presagi

pareva altro che disastroso; e persino quello era dubbio. Ché il

riuscito attacco mediterraneo su Tripoli, pur provando il valore

degli Italiani (se mai ne bisognasse la prova) poteva esser preso in due

modi, ed era visto da molti, e probabilmente dai più, sinceri liberali come una

mera estensione della reazione imperialista di Bosnia e Paardeberg, e

non come la promessa di cose più nuove. L’Italia, si deve ricordare, era

ancora ritenuta la partner della Prussia e degli Asburgo. Per giorni

che parevano mesi il microscopico stato parve tentare

da solo ciò che le Crociate avevano fallito di compiere. E per giorni l’Europa

e le grandi potenze furono fulminate, ancora e ancora, dalle

notizie di forti turchi che cadevano, coorti turche che crollavano, l’

inconquistabile Mezzaluna che affondava nel sangue. I Serbi, i

Bulgari, i Greci s’erano radunati e levati dalle loro tane; e gli uomini

sapevano che questi contadini avevano fatto ciò che tutti i politici avevano a lungo

disperato di fare, e che lo spirito del primo Imperatore cristiano

già si ergeva sopra la città che porta il suo nome.

Per la Germania questa del tutto inattesa avanzata fu un rovesciamento dell’intera marea

del mondo. Fu come se il Reno stesso fosse tornato dall’oceano

e ritirato nelle Alpi. Per un lungo tempo passato ogni importante

processo politico in Europa era stato prodotto o permesso dalla Prussia.

Essa aveva abbattuto ministri in Francia e arrestato riforme in Russia.

Il suo sovrano era acclamato da Inglesi come Rhodes, e Americani come

Roosevelt, come il gran principe dell’epoca. Uno dei più famosi e

brillanti dei nostri giornalisti lo chiamò «il Lord Giudice Supremo d’

Europa». Era l’uomo più forte della Cristianità; e aveva confermato

and consecrated the Crescent. And when he had consecrated it a few hill

tribes had risen and trampled it like mire. One or two other things

about the same time, less important in themselves, struck in the

Prussian’s ear the same new note of warning and doubt. He sought to

obtain a small advantage on the north-west coast of Africa; and England

seemed to show a certain strange stiffness in insisting on its

abandonment. In the councils over Morocco, England agreed with France

with what did not seem altogether an accidental agreement. But we shall

not be wrong if we put the crucial point of the German surprise and

anger at the attack from the Balkans and the fall of Adrianople. Not

only did it menace the key of Asia and the whole Eastern dream of German

commerce; not only did it offer the picture of one army trained by

France and victorious, and another army trained by Germany and beaten.

There was more than the material victory of the Creusot over the Krupp

gun. It was also the victory of the peasant’s field over the Krupp

factory. By this time there was in the North German brain an awful

inversion of all the legends and heroic lives that the human race has

loved. Prussia hated romance. Chivalry was not a thing she neglected;

it was a thing that tormented her as any bully is tormented by an

unanswered challenge. That weird process was completed of which I have

spoken on an earlier page, whereby the soul of this strange people was

everywhere on the side of the dragon against the knight, of the giant

against the hero. Anything unexpected—the forlorn hopes, the

eleventh-hour inspirations, by which the weak can elude the strong, and

which take the hearts of happier men like trumpets—filled the Prussian

with a cold fury, as of a frustrated fate. The Prussian felt as a

Chicago pork butcher would feel if the pigs not only refused to pass

through his machine, but turned into romantic wild boars, raging and

rending, calling for the old hunting of princes and fit to be the crests

of kings.

The Prussian saw these things and his mind was made up. He was silent;

but he laboured: laboured for three long years without intermission at

the making of a military machine that should cut out of the world for

ever such romantic accident or random adventure; a machine that should

cure the human pigs for ever of any illusion that they had wings. That

he did so plot and prepare for an attack that should come from him,

anticipating and overwhelming any resistance, is now, even in the

documents he has himself published, a fact of common sense. Suppose a

man sells all his lands except a small yard containing a well; suppose

in the division of the effects of an old friend he particularly asks for

his razors; suppose when a corded trunk is sent him he sends back the

trunk, but keeps the cord. And then suppose we hear that a rival of his

has been lassoed with a rope, his throat then cut, apparently with a

razor, and his body hidden in a well, we do not call in Sherlock Holmes

to project a preliminary suspicion about the guilty party. In the

discussions held by the Prussian Government with Lord Haldane and Sir

Edward Grey we can now see quite as plainly the meaning of the things

that were granted and the things that were withheld, the things that

would have satisfied the Prussian plotter and the things that did not

satisfy him. The German Chancellor refused an English promise not to be

aggressive and asked instead for an English promise to be neutral. There

is no meaning in the distinction, except in the mind of an aggressor.

Germany proposed a pacific arrangement which forbade England to form a

fighting alliance with France, but permitted Germany to retain her old

fighting alliance with Austria. When the hour of war came she used

Austria, used the old fighting alliance and tried to use the new idea of

English neutrality. That is to say, she used the rope, the razor, and

the well.

But it was either by accident or by individual diplomatic skill that

England at the end of the three years even had her own hands free to

help in frustrating the German plot. The mass of the English people had

no notion of such a plot; and indeed regarded the occasional suggestion

of it as absurd. Nor did even the people who knew best know very much

better. Thanks and even apologies are doubtless due to those who in the

deepest lull of our sleeping partnership with Prussia saw her not as a

partner but a potential enemy; such men as Mr. Blatchford, Mr. Bart

Kennedy, or the late Emil Reich. But there is a distinction to be made.

Few even of these, with the admirable and indeed almost magical

exception of Dr. Sarolea, saw Germany as she was; occupied mainly with

Europe and only incidentally with England; indeed, in the first stages,

not occupied with England at all. Even the Anti-Germans were too

insular. Even those who saw most of Germany’s plan saw too much of

England’s part in it. They saw it almost wholly as a commercial and

colonial quarrel; and saw its issue under the image of an invasion of

England, which is even now not very probable. This fear of Germany was

indeed a very German fear of Germany. This also conceived the English as

Sea-Germans. It conceived Germany as at war with something like

itself—practical, prosaic, capitalist, competitive Germany, prepared to

cut us up in battle as she cut us out in business. The time of our

larger vision was not yet, when we should realise that Germany was more

deeply at war with things quite unlike herself, things from which we

also had sadly strayed. Then we should remember what we were and see

whence we also had come; and far and high upon that mountain from which

the Crescent was cast down, behold what was everywhere the real enemy of

e consacrò la Mezzaluna. E quando l’ebbe consacrata alcune tribù di collina

si erano levate e l’avevano calpestata come fango. Una o due altre cose

all’incirca nello stesso tempo, meno importanti in sé, fecero risuonare nell’

orecchio del prussiano la stessa nuova nota di avvertimento e dubbio. Egli cercò di

ottenere un piccolo vantaggio sulla costa nord-occidentale dell’Africa; e l’Inghilterra

parve mostrare una certa strana durezza nell’insistere sul suo

abbandono. Nei consigli sul Marocco, l’Inghilterra concordò con la Francia

con quello che non parve del tutto un accordo casuale. Ma non

sbaglieremo se poniamo il punto cruciale della sorpresa e della collera tedesca

nell’attacco dai Balcani e nella caduta di Adrianopoli. Non

solo esso minacciava la chiave dell’Asia e l’intero sogno orientale del commercio

tedesco; non solo offriva l’immagine di un esercito addestrato dalla

Francia e vittorioso, e di un altro esercito addestrato dalla Germania e sconfitto.

C’era più della vittoria materiale del cannone Creusot sul cannone

Krupp. Era anche la vittoria del campo del contadino sulla fabbrica

Krupp. A questo punto c’era nel cervello tedesco del Nord una terribile

inversione di tutte le leggende e le vite eroiche che il genere umano ha

amato. La Prussia odiava il romanzesco. La cavalleria non era una cosa che essa trascurava;

era una cosa che la tormentava come ogni prepotente è tormentato da una

sfida senza risposta. Si compì quel bizzarro processo di cui ho

parlato in una pagina precedente, per cui l’anima di questo strano popolo era

ovunque dalla parte del drago contro il cavaliere, del gigante

contro l’eroe. Qualsiasi cosa inaspettata… le imprese disperate, le

ispirazioni dell’ultima ora, con cui i deboli possono eludere i forti, e

che conquistano i cuori degli uomini più felici come trombe… riempivano il prussiano

di una fredda furia, come di un destino frustrato. Il prussiano si sentiva come un

macellaio di maiali di Chicago si sentirebbe se i maiali non solo rifiutassero di passare

attraverso la sua macchina, ma si tramutassero in romantici cinghiali, infuriati e

laceranti, che invocano l’antica caccia dei principi e degni di essere i cimieri

dei re.

Il prussiano vide queste cose e la sua decisione fu presa. Era silenzioso;

ma lavorava: lavorò per tre lunghi anni senza interruzione alla

costruzione di una macchina militare che tagliasse via dal mondo per

sempre ogni tale accidente romantico o avventura casuale; una macchina che

guarisse i maiali umani per sempre da ogni illusione di avere le ali. Che

egli abbia così tramato e preparato un attacco che partisse da lui,

anticipando e travolgendo ogni resistenza, è ora, persino nei

documenti che egli stesso ha pubblicato, un fatto di buon senso. Supponete che un

uomo venda tutte le sue terre tranne un piccolo cortile contenente un pozzo; supponete

che nella divisione dei beni di un vecchio amico egli chieda in particolare

i suoi rasoi; supponete che quando gli viene mandato un baule legato con una corda egli rimandi indietro il

baule, ma tenga la corda. E poi supponete che veniamo a sapere che un suo rivale

è stato preso al laccio con una fune, la gola poi tagliata, apparentemente con un

rasoio, e il suo corpo nascosto in un pozzo, non chiamiamo Sherlock Holmes

per formulare un sospetto preliminare sul colpevole. Nelle

discussioni tenute dal Governo prussiano con Lord Haldane e Sir

Edward Grey possiamo ora vedere altrettanto chiaramente il significato delle cose

che furono concesse e delle cose che furono negate, le cose che

avrebbero soddisfatto il cospiratore prussiano e le cose che non lo

soddisfacevano. Il Cancelliere tedesco rifiutò una promessa inglese di non essere

aggressivo e chiese invece una promessa inglese di essere neutrale. Non

c’è alcun senso in questa distinzione, se non nella mente di un aggressore.

La Germania propose un’intesa pacifica che vietava all’Inghilterra di formare una

alleanza di combattimento con la Francia, ma permetteva alla Germania di conservare la sua vecchia

alleanza di combattimento con l’Austria. Quando venne l’ora della guerra essa usò

l’Austria, usò la vecchia alleanza di combattimento e cercò di usare la nuova idea della

neutralità inglese. Vale a dire, usò la fune, il rasoio, e

il pozzo.

Ma fu o per caso o per l’abilità diplomatica di singoli che

l’Inghilterra alla fine dei tre anni ebbe perfino le mani libere per

contribuire a sventare il complotto tedesco. La massa del popolo inglese non aveva

alcuna nozione di un tale complotto; e anzi considerava l’occasionale suggerimento

di esso come assurdo. Né gli stessi che ne sapevano di più sapevano molto

di meglio. Ringraziamenti e persino scuse sono senza dubbio dovuti a coloro che nel

più profondo assopimento della nostra dormiente collaborazione con la Prussia la videro non come una

socia ma come una potenziale nemica; uomini quali il signor Blatchford, il signor Bart

Kennedy, o il defunto Emil Reich. Ma c’è una distinzione da fare.

Pochi anche fra questi, con l’ammirevole e invero quasi magica

eccezione del Dr. Sarolea, videro la Germania com’era; occupata principalmente con

l’Europa e solo incidentalmente con l’Inghilterra; anzi, nelle prime fasi,

per nulla occupata con l’Inghilterra. Persino gli antitedeschi erano troppo

insulari. Persino coloro che vedevano di più del piano della Germania vedevano troppo della

parte dell’Inghilterra in esso. Lo vedevano quasi interamente come una contesa commerciale e

coloniale; e ne vedevano l’esito sotto l’immagine di un’invasione dell’

Inghilterra, che ancora oggi non è molto probabile. Questa paura della Germania era

invero una paura assai tedesca della Germania. Anche questa concepiva gli inglesi come

tedeschi del mare. Concepiva la Germania come in guerra con qualcosa di simile a

se stessa… una Germania pratica, prosaica, capitalista, competitiva, pronta a

farci a pezzi in battaglia come ci soppiantava negli affari. Il tempo della nostra

più ampia visione non era ancora venuto, quando avremmo compreso che la Germania era più

profondamente in guerra con cose del tutto dissimili da sé, cose dalle quali anche noi

ci eravamo tristemente allontanati. Allora avremmo ricordato ciò che eravamo e visto

donde anche noi eravamo venuti; e lontano e in alto su quel monte da cui

la Mezzaluna fu abbattuta, ecco ciò che era ovunque il vero nemico della

the Iron Cross—the peasant’s cross, which is of wood.

Even our very slight ripples of panic, therefore, were provincial, and

even shallow; and for the most part we were possessed and convinced of

peace. That peace was not a noble one. We had indeed reached one of the

lowest and flattest levels of all our undulating history; and it must be

admitted that the contemptuous calculation with which Germany counted on

our submission and abstention was not altogether unfounded, though it

was, thank God, unfulfilled. The full fruition of our alliances against

freedom had come. The meek acceptance of Kultur in our books and schools

had stiffened what was once a free country with a German formalism and a

German fear. By a queer irony, even the same popular writer who had

already warned us against the Prussians, had sought to preach among the

populace a very Prussian fatalism, pivoted upon the importance of the

charlatan Haeckel. The wrestle of the two great parties had long

slackened into an embrace. The fact was faintly denied, and a pretence

was still made that no pact: existed beyond a common patriotism. But the

pretence failed altogether; for it was evident that the leaders on

either side, so far from leading in divergent directions, were much

closer to each other than to their own followers. The power of these

leaders had enormously increased; but the distance between them had

diminished, or, rather, disappeared. It was said about 1800, in derision

of the Foxite rump, that the Whig Party came down to Parliament in a

four-wheeler. It might literally be said in 1900 that the Whig Party and

the Tory Party came to Parliament in a hansom cab. It was not a case of

two towers rising into different roofs or spires, but founded in the

same soil. It was rather the case of an arch, of which the

foundation-stones on either side might fancy they were two buildings;

but the stones nearest the keystone would know there was only one. This

“two-handed engine” still stood ready to strike, not, indeed, the other

part of itself, but anyone who ventured to deny that it was doing so. We

were ruled, as it were, by a Wonderland king and queen, who cut off our

heads, not for saying they quarrelled but for saying they didn’t. The

libel law was now used, not to crush lies about private life, but to

crush truths about public life. Representation had become mere

misrepresentation; a maze of loopholes. This was mainly due to the

monstrous presence of certain secret moneys, on which alone many men

could win the ruinous elections of the age, and which were contributed

and distributed with less check or record than is tolerated in the

lowest trade or club. Only one or two people attacked these funds;

nobody defended them. Through them the great capitalists had the handle

of politics, as of everything else. The poor were struggling hopelessly

against rising prices; and their attempts at collective bargaining, by

the collective refusal of badly-paid work, were discussed in the press,

Liberal and Tory, as attacks upon the State. And so they were; upon the

Servile State.

Such was the condition of England in 1914, when Prussia, now at last

armed to the teeth and secure of triumph, stood up before the world, and

solemnly, like one taking a sacrament, consecrated her campaign with a

crime. She entered by a forbidden door, one which she had herself

forbidden—marching upon France through neutralised Belgium, where every

step was on her broken word. Her neutralised neighbours resisted, as

indeed they, like ourselves, were pledged to do. Instantly the whole

invasion was lit up with a flame of moral lunacy, that turned the

watching nations white who had never known the Prussian. The statistics

of non-combatants killed and tortured by this time only stun the

imagination. But two friends of my own have been in villages sacked by

the Prussian march. One saw a tabernacle containing the Sacrament

patiently picked out in pattern by shot after shot. The other saw a

rocking-horse and the wooden toys in a nursery laboriously hacked to

pieces. Those two facts together will be enough to satisfy some of us of

the name of the Spirit that had passed.

And then a strange thing happened. England, that had not in the modern

sense any army at all, was justified of all her children. Respected

institutions and reputations did indeed waver and collapse on many

sides: though the chief of the states replied worthily to a bribe from

the foreign bully, many other politicians were sufficiently wild and

weak, though doubtless patriotic in intention. One was set to restrain

the journalists, and had to be restrained himself, for being more

sensational than any of them. Another scolded the working-classes in the

style of an intoxicated temperance lecturer. But England was saved by a

forgotten thing—the English. Simple men with simple motives, the chief

one a hate of injustice which grows simpler the longer we stare at it,

came out of their dreary tenements and their tidy shops, their fields

and their suburbs and their factories and their rookeries, and asked for

the arms of men. In a throng that was at last three million men, the

islanders went forth from their island, as simply as the mountaineers

had gone forth from their mountain, with their faces to the dawn.

X—The Battle of the Marne

The impression produced by the first week of war was that the British

contingent had come just in time for the end of the world. Or rather,

for any sensitive and civilised man, touched by the modern doubt but by

the equally modern mysticism, that old theocratic vision fell far short

of the sickening terror of the time. For it was a day of judgment in

which upon the throne in heaven and above the cherubim, sat not God, but

another.

The British had been posted at the extreme western end of the allied

la Croce di Ferro… la croce del contadino, che è di legno.

Persino le nostre lievissime increspature di panico, dunque, erano provinciali, e

persino superficiali; e per la maggior parte eravamo posseduti e convinti della

pace. Quella pace non era nobile. Avevamo invero raggiunto uno dei

livelli più bassi e più piatti di tutta la nostra ondeggiante storia; e va

ammesso che il calcolo sprezzante con cui la Germania contava sulla

nostra sottomissione e astensione non era del tutto infondato, per quanto

fosse, grazie a Dio, non realizzato. La piena maturazione delle nostre alleanze contro

la libertà era giunta. La docile accettazione della Kultur nei nostri libri e scuole

aveva irrigidito ciò che era un tempo un paese libero con un formalismo tedesco e una

paura tedesca. Per una bizzarra ironia, persino quello stesso scrittore popolare che

già ci aveva messi in guardia contro i prussiani, aveva cercato di predicare tra il

popolo un fatalismo assai prussiano, imperniato sull’importanza del

ciarlatano Haeckel. La lotta dei due grandi partiti si era da tempo

allentata in un abbraccio. Il fatto veniva debolmente negato, e si fingeva

ancora che nessun patto esistesse al di là di un comune patriottismo. Ma la

finzione fallì del tutto; poiché era evidente che i capi di

entrambe le parti, ben lungi dal condurre in direzioni divergenti, erano molto

più vicini l’uno all’altro che ai propri seguaci. Il potere di questi

capi era enormemente cresciuto; ma la distanza tra loro era

diminuita, o, piuttosto, scomparsa. Si disse intorno al 1800, in derisione

del residuo foxiano, che il Partito Whig veniva in Parlamento su una

carrozza a quattro ruote. Si potrebbe letteralmente dire nel 1900 che il Partito Whig e

il Partito Tory venivano in Parlamento su un solo hansom. Non era il caso di

due torri che si elevano in tetti o guglie diverse, ma fondate nello

stesso suolo. Era piuttosto il caso di un arco, di cui le

pietre di fondazione dell’una e dell’altra parte potrebbero immaginare di essere due edifici;

ma le pietre più vicine alla chiave di volta saprebbero che ce n’era uno solo. Questa

«macchina a due mani» stava ancora pronta a colpire, non, invero, l’altra

parte di sé, ma chiunque osasse negare che lo stesse facendo. Eravamo

governati, per così dire, da un Re e da una Regina del Paese delle Meraviglie, che ci tagliavano le

teste, non per aver detto che litigavano ma per aver detto che non litigavano. La

legge sulla diffamazione era ora usata, non per schiacciare le menzogne sulla vita privata, ma per

schiacciare le verità sulla vita pubblica. La rappresentanza era divenuta mera

travisamento; un labirinto di scappatoie. Ciò era dovuto principalmente alla

mostruosa presenza di certi denari segreti, con i quali soltanto molti uomini

potevano vincere le rovinose elezioni dell’epoca, e che erano versati

e distribuiti con meno controllo o registrazione di quanto sia tollerato nel

più infimo commercio o circolo. Solo una o due persone attaccarono questi fondi;

nessuno li difese. Attraverso di essi i grandi capitalisti tenevano il manico

della politica, come di ogni altra cosa. I poveri lottavano senza speranza

contro i prezzi crescenti; e i loro tentativi di contrattazione collettiva, mediante

il rifiuto collettivo del lavoro mal pagato, erano discussi nella stampa,

liberale e tory, come attacchi allo Stato. E così erano; allo

Stato Servile.

Tale era la condizione dell’Inghilterra nel 1914, quando la Prussia, ora finalmente

armata fino ai denti e sicura del trionfo, si levò dinanzi al mondo, e

solennemente, come chi riceve un sacramento, consacrò la sua campagna con un

delitto. Entrò da una porta proibita, una che essa stessa aveva

proibito… marciando sulla Francia attraverso il neutralizzato Belgio, dove ogni

passo era sulla sua parola infranta. I suoi vicini neutralizzati resistettero, come

invero essi, al pari di noi, erano impegnati a fare. Immediatamente l’intera

invasione si accese di una fiamma di follia morale, che fece impallidire le

nazioni spettatrici che non avevano mai conosciuto il prussiano. Le statistiche

dei non combattenti uccisi e torturati a questo punto non fanno che stordire l’

immaginazione. Ma due miei amici sono stati in villaggi saccheggiati dalla

marcia prussiana. Uno vide un tabernacolo contenente il Sacramento

pazientemente crivellato a disegno da un colpo dopo l’altro. L’altro vide un

cavallo a dondolo e i giocattoli di legno in una stanza dei bambini laboriosamente fatti a

pezzi. Quei due fatti insieme basteranno a persuadere alcuni di noi del

nome dello Spirito che era passato.

E poi accadde una cosa strana. L’Inghilterra, che non aveva in senso moderno

alcun esercito, fu giustificata da tutti i suoi figli. Rispettabili

istituzioni e reputazioni invero vacillarono e crollarono su molti

lati: benché il capo degli Stati rispondesse degnamente a una corruzione offerta dal

prepotente straniero, molti altri politici furono abbastanza sfrenati e

deboli, benché senza dubbio patriottici nell’intenzione. Uno fu incaricato di frenare

i giornalisti, e dovette essere frenato egli stesso, per essere più

sensazionalista di ognuno di loro. Un altro rimproverava le classi lavoratrici nello

stile di un ubriaco conferenziere della temperanza. Ma l’Inghilterra fu salvata da una

cosa dimenticata… gli inglesi. Uomini semplici con moventi semplici, il principale

dei quali un odio per l’ingiustizia che si fa più semplice quanto più a lungo lo fissiamo,

uscirono dai loro squallidi caseggiati e dalle loro linde botteghe, dai loro campi

e dai loro sobborghi e dalle loro fabbriche e dai loro tuguri, e chiesero

le armi degli uomini. In una folla che fu alla fine di tre milioni di uomini, gli

isolani uscirono dalla loro isola, con la stessa semplicità con cui i montanari

erano usciti dalla loro montagna, con i volti rivolti all’alba.

X—La battaglia della Marna

L’impressione prodotta dalla prima settimana di guerra fu che il contingente

britannico fosse giunto giusto in tempo per la fine del mondo. O piuttosto,

per ogni uomo sensibile e civile, toccato dal moderno dubbio ma anche dal

misticismo egualmente moderno, quell’antica visione teocratica restava ben al di sotto

del nauseante terrore del tempo. Poiché era un giorno del giudizio in

cui sul trono nei cieli e al di sopra dei cherubini, sedeva non Dio, ma

un altro.

I britannici erano stati postati all’estremità occidentale estrema dello schieramento alleato

line in the north. The other end rested on the secure city and fortress

of Namur; their end rested upon nothing. It is not wholly a sentimental

fancy to say that there was something forlorn in the position of that

loose end in a strange land, with only the sad fields of Northern France

between them and the sea. For it was really round that loose end that

the foe would probably fling the lasso of his charge; it was here that

death might soon be present upon every side. It must be remembered that

many critics, including many Englishmen, doubted whether a rust had not

eaten into this as into other parts of the national life, feared that

England had too long neglected both the ethic and the technique of war,

and would prove a weak link in the chain. The enemy was absolutely

certain that it was so. To these men, standing disconsolately amid the

hedgeless plains and poplars, came the news that Namur was gone, which

was to their captains one of the four corners of the earth. The two

armies had touched; and instantly the weaker took an electric shock

which told of electric energy, deep into deep Germany, battery behind

battery of abysmal force. In the instant it was discovered that the

enemy was more numerous than they had dreamed. He was actually more

numerous even than they discovered. Every oncoming horseman doubled as

in a drunkard’s vision; and they were soon striving without speech in a

nightmare of numbers. Then all the allied forces at the front were

overthrown in the tragic battle of Mons; and began that black retreat,

in which so many of our young men knew war first and at its worst in

this terrible world; and so many never returned.

In that blackness began to grow strange emotions, long unfamiliar to our

blood. Those six dark days are as full of legends as the six centuries

of the Dark Ages. Many of these may be exaggerated fancies, one was

certainly an avowed fiction, others are quite different from it and more

difficult to dissipate into the daylight. But one curious fact remains

about them if they were all lies, or even if they were all deliberate

works of art. Not one of them referred to those close, crowded, and

stirring three centuries which are nearest to us, and which alone are

covered in this sketch, the centuries during which the Teutonic

influence had expanded itself over our islands. Ghosts were there

perhaps, but they were the ghosts of forgotten ancestors. Nobody saw

Cromwell or even Wellington; nobody so much as thought about Cecil

Rhodes. Things were either seen or said among the British which linked

them up, in matters deeper than any alliance, with the French, who spoke

of Joan of Arc in heaven above the fated city; or the Russians who

dreamed of the Mother of God with her hand pointing to the west. They

were the visions or the inventions of a mediæval army; and a prose poet

was in line with many popular rumours when he told of ghostly archers

crying “Array, Array,” as in that long-disbanded yeomanry in which I

have fancied Cobbett as carrying a bow. Other tales, true or only

symptomatic, told of one on a great white horse who was not the victor

of Blenheim or even the Black Prince, but a faint figure out of far-off

martyrologies—St. George. One soldier is asserted to have claimed to

identify the saint because he was “on every quid.” On the coins, St.

George is a Roman soldier.

But these fancies, if they were fancies, might well seem the last sickly

flickerings of an old-world order now finally wounded to the death. That

which was coming on, with the whole weight of a new world, was something

that had never been numbered among the Seven Champions of Christendom.

Now, in more doubtful and more hopeful days, it is almost impossible to

repicture what was, for those who understood, the gigantic finality of

the first German strides. It seemed as if the forces of the ancient

valour fell away to right and left; and there opened a grand, smooth

granite road right to the gate of Paris, down which the great Germania

moved like a tall, unanswerable sphinx, whose pride could destroy all

things and survive them. In her train moved, like moving mountains,

Cyclopean guns that had never been seen among men, before which walled

cities melted like wax, their mouths set insolently upwards as if

threatening to besiege the sun. Nor is it fantastic to speak so of the

new and abnormal armaments; for the soul of Germany was really expressed

in colossal wheels and cylinders; and her guns were more symbolic than

her flags. Then and now, and in every place and time, it is to be noted

that the German superiority has been in a certain thing and of a certain

kind. It is not unity; it is not, in the moral sense, discipline.

Nothing can be more united in a moral sense than a French, British, or

Russian regiment. Nothing, for that matter, could be more united than a

Highland clan at Killiecrankie or a rush of religious fanatics in the

Soudan. What such engines, in such size and multiplicity, really meant

was this: they meant a type of life naturally intolerable to happier and

more healthy-minded men, conducted on a larger scale and consuming

larger populations than had ever been known before. They meant cities

growing larger than provinces, factories growing larger than cities;

they meant the empire of the slum. They meant a degree of detailed

repetition and dehumanised division of labour, to which no man born

would surrender his brief span in the sunshine, if he could hope to beat

his ploughshare into a sword. The nations of the earth were not to

surrender to the Kaiser; they were to surrender to Krupp, his master and

theirs; the French, the British, the Russians were to surrender to Krupp

as the Germans themselves, after a few swiftly broken strikes, had

nel nord. L’altra estremità poggiava sulla sicura città e fortezza

di Namur; la loro estremità non poggiava su nulla. Non è del tutto una fantasia

sentimentale dire che c’era qualcosa di derelitto nella posizione di quell’

estremità sciolta in una terra straniera, con solo i tristi campi della Francia settentrionale

tra loro e il mare. Poiché era davvero intorno a quell’estremità sciolta che

il nemico avrebbe probabilmente lanciato il laccio della sua carica; era qui che

la morte avrebbe potuto presto essere presente da ogni lato. Va ricordato che

molti critici, compresi molti inglesi, dubitavano se una ruggine non avesse

corroso questa come altre parti della vita nazionale, temevano che

l’Inghilterra avesse troppo a lungo trascurato sia l’etica sia la tecnica della guerra,

e si sarebbe rivelata un anello debole nella catena. Il nemico era assolutamente

certo che fosse così. A questi uomini, ritti sconsolati tra le

pianure senza siepi e i pioppi, giunse la notizia che Namur era caduta, che

era per i loro capitani uno dei quattro angoli della terra. I due

eserciti si erano toccati; e all’istante il più debole ricevette una scossa elettrica

che rivelava un’energia elettrica, giù nel profondo della Germania, batteria dietro

batteria di forza abissale. Nell’istante si scoprì che il

nemico era più numeroso di quanto avessero sognato. Era in realtà più

numeroso persino di quanto scoprirono. Ogni cavaliere che sopraggiungeva si sdoppiava come

nella visione di un ubriaco; e presto lottavano senza parola in un

incubo di numeri. Poi tutte le forze alleate al fronte furono

travolte nella tragica battaglia di Mons; e cominciò quella nera ritirata,

in cui tanti dei nostri giovani conobbero la guerra per la prima volta e nel suo peggio in

questo mondo terribile; e tanti non tornarono mai.

In quella tenebra cominciarono a crescere strane emozioni, a lungo estranee al nostro

sangue. Quei sei giorni oscuri sono colmi di leggende quanto i sei secoli

dei Secoli Bui. Molte di queste possono essere fantasie esagerate, una fu

certamente una dichiarata invenzione, altre sono del tutto diverse da essa e più

difficili da dissipare alla luce del giorno. Ma un fatto curioso rimane

riguardo a esse se fossero tutte menzogne, o anche se fossero tutte deliberate

opere d’arte. Nessuna di esse si riferiva a quei serrati, affollati, e

movimentati tre secoli che ci sono più vicini, e che soltanto sono

trattati in questo schizzo, i secoli durante i quali l’influenza

teutonica si era estesa sulle nostre isole. Fantasmi c’erano

forse, ma erano i fantasmi di antenati dimenticati. Nessuno vide

Cromwell o persino Wellington; nessuno pensò nemmeno a Cecil

Rhodes. Si videro o si dissero tra i britannici cose che li collegavano,

in questioni più profonde di qualsiasi alleanza, ai francesi, che parlavano

di Giovanna d’Arco in cielo sopra la città segnata dal destino; o ai russi che

sognavano la Madre di Dio con la mano puntata verso occidente. Erano

le visioni o le invenzioni di un esercito medievale; e un poeta in prosa

era in linea con molte voci popolari quando raccontò di arcieri spettrali

che gridavano «In fila, in fila», come in quella milizia di piccoli proprietari da tempo sciolta in cui io

ho immaginato Cobbett portare un arco. Altri racconti, veri o solo

sintomatici, narravano di uno su un grande cavallo bianco che non era il vincitore

di Blenheim né il Principe Nero, ma una debole figura uscita da lontane

martirologie… San Giorgio. Si afferma che un soldato abbia sostenuto di

identificare il santo perché era «su ogni sterlina». Sulle monete, San

Giorgio è un soldato romano.

Ma queste fantasie, se erano fantasie, potrebbero bene sembrare gli ultimi malaticci

barlumi di un ordine del vecchio mondo ora finalmente ferito a morte. Ciò

che si avvicinava, con tutto il peso di un mondo nuovo, era qualcosa

che non era mai stato annoverato tra i Sette Campioni della Cristianità.

Ora, in giorni più incerti e più pieni di speranza, è quasi impossibile

ridipingere quella che fu, per coloro che compresero, la gigantesca definitività dei

primi passi tedeschi. Sembrava come se le forze dell’antico

valore cadessero a destra e a sinistra; e si aprì una grande, liscia

strada di granito fin proprio alla porta di Parigi, lungo la quale la grande Germania

avanzava come un’alta, irrefutabile sfinge, il cui orgoglio poteva distruggere tutte le

cose e sopravvivere loro. Al suo seguito si muovevano, come montagne in movimento,

cannoni ciclopici mai visti tra gli uomini, dinanzi ai quali le città

murate si fondevano come cera, le loro bocche puntate insolentemente verso l’alto come se

minacciassero di assediare il sole. Né è fantastico parlare così dei

nuovi e abnormi armamenti; poiché l’anima della Germania era davvero espressa

in colossali ruote e cilindri; e i suoi cannoni erano più simbolici delle

sue bandiere. Allora e ora, e in ogni luogo e tempo, è da notare

che la superiorità tedesca è stata in una certa cosa e di una certa

specie. Non è l’unità; non è, in senso morale, disciplina.

Nulla può essere più unito in senso morale di un reggimento francese, britannico, o

russo. Nulla, del resto, potrebbe essere più unito di un

clan delle Highland a Killiecrankie o di un impeto di fanatici religiosi nel

Sudan. Ciò che tali macchine, in tale dimensione e molteplicità, realmente significavano

era questo: significavano un tipo di vita naturalmente intollerabile a uomini più felici e

più sani di mente, condotta su scala più vasta e che consumava

popolazioni più grandi di quante se ne fossero mai conosciute prima. Significavano città

che crescevano più grandi delle province, fabbriche che crescevano più grandi delle città;

significavano l’impero della bidonville. Significavano un grado di dettagliata

ripetizione e di disumanizzata divisione del lavoro, a cui nessun uomo nato

cederebbe il suo breve tratto al sole, se potesse sperare di battere

il suo vomere in una spada. Le nazioni della terra non dovevano

arrendersi al Kaiser; dovevano arrendersi a Krupp, suo padrone e

loro; i francesi, i britannici, i russi dovevano arrendersi a Krupp

come gli stessi tedeschi, dopo alcuni scioperi rapidamente spezzati, si erano

already surrendered to Krupp. Through every cogwheel in that

incomparable machinery, through every link in that iron and unending

chain, ran the mastery and the skill of a certain kind of artist; an

artist whose hands are never idle through dreaming or drawn back in

disgust or lifted in wonder or in wrath; but sure and tireless in their

touch upon the thousand little things that make the invisible machinery

of life. That artist was there in triumph; but he had no name. The

ancient world called him the Slave.

From this advancing machine of millions, the slighter array of the

Allies, and especially the British at their ultimate outpost, saved

themselves by a succession of hair’s-breadth escapes and what must have

seemed to the soldiers the heartrending luck of a mouse before a cat.

Again and again Von Kluck’s cavalry, supported by artillery and

infantry, clawed round the end of the British force, which eluded it as

by leaping back again and again. Sometimes the pursuer was, so to speak,

so much on top of his prey that it could not even give way to him; but

had to hit such blows as it could in the hope of checking him for the

instant needed for escape. Sometimes the oncoming wave was so close that

a small individual accident, the capture of one man, would mean the

washing out of a whole battalion. For day after day this living death

endured. And day after day a certain dark truth began to be revealed,

bit by bit, certainly to the incredulous wonder of the Prussians, quite

possibly to the surprise of the French, and quite as possibly to the

surprise of themselves; that there was something singular about the

British soldiers. That singular thing may be expressed in a variety of

ways; but it would be almost certainly expressed insufficiently by

anyone who had not had the moral courage to face the facts about his

country in the last decades before the war. It may perhaps be best

expressed by saying that some thousands of Englishmen were dead: and

that England was not.

The fortress of Maubeuge had gaped, so to speak, offering a refuge for

the unresting and tormented retreat; the British Generals had refused it

and continued to fight a losing fight in the open for the sake of the

common plan. At night an enormous multitude of Germans had come

unexpectedly through the forest and caught a smaller body of the British

in Landrecies; failed to dislodge them and lost a whole battalion in

that battle of the darkness. At the extreme end of the line

Smith-Dorrien’s division, who seemed to be nearly caught or cut off, had

fought with one gun against four, and so hammered the Germans that they

were forced to let go their hold; and the British were again free. When

the blowing up of a bridge announced that they had crossed the last

river, something other than that battered remnant was saved; it was the

honour of the thing by which we live.

The driven and defeated line stood at last almost under the walls of

Paris; and the world waited for the doom of the city. The gates seemed

to stand open; and the Prussian was to ride into it for the third and

the last time: for the end of its long epic of liberty and equality was

come. And still the very able and very French individual on whom rested

the last hope of the seemingly hopeless Alliance stood unruffled as a

rock, in every angle of his sky-blue jacket and his bulldog figure. He

had called his bewildered soldiers back when they had broken the

invasion at Guise; he had silently digested the responsibility of

dragging on the retreat, as in despair, to the last desperate leagues

before the capital; and he stood and watched. And even as he watched the

whole huge invasion swerved.

Out through Paris and out and around beyond Paris, other men in dim blue

coats swung out in long lines upon the plain, slowly folding upon Von

Kluck like blue wings. Von Kluck stood an instant; and then, flinging a

few secondary forces to delay the wing that was swinging round on him,

dashed across the Allies’ line at a desperate angle, to smash it in the

centre as with a hammer. It was less desperate than it seemed; for he

counted, and might well count, on the moral and physical bankruptcy of

the British line and the end of the French line immediately in front of

him, which for six days and nights he had chased before him like autumn

leaves before a whirlwind. Not unlike autumn leaves, red-stained,

dust-hued, and tattered, they lay there as if swept into a corner. But

even as their conquerors wheeled eastwards, their bugles blew the

charge; and the English went forward through the wood that is called

Creçy, and stamped it with their seal for the second time, in the

highest moment of all the secular history of man.

But it was not now the Creçy in which English and French knights had met

in a more coloured age, in a battle that was rather a tournament. It was

a league of all knights for the remains of all knighthood, of all

brotherhood in arms or in arts, against that which is and has been

radically unknightly and radically unbrotherly from the beginning. Much

was to happen after—murder and flaming folly and madness in earth and

sea and sky; but all men knew in their hearts that the third Prussian

thrust had failed, and Christendom was delivered once more. The empire

of blood and iron rolled slowly back towards the darkness of the

northern forests; and the great nations of the West went forward; where

side by side as after a long lover’s quarrel, went the ensigns of St.

Denys and St. George.

NOTE ON THE WORD “ENGLISH”

_The words “England” and “English” as used here require a word of

explanation, if only to anticipate the ire of the inevitable Scot. To

già arresi a Krupp. Attraverso ogni ruota dentata di quel

incomparabile macchinario, attraverso ogni anello di quella catena di ferro e senza

fine, correva la maestria e l’abilità di una certa specie di artista; un

artista le cui mani non sono mai oziose per il sognare né ritratte per il

disgusto né levate in stupore o in ira; ma sicure e instancabili nel loro

tocco sulle mille piccole cose che compongono l’invisibile macchinario

della vita. Quell’artista era là in trionfo; ma non aveva nome. Il

mondo antico lo chiamava lo Schiavo.

Da questa avanzante macchina di milioni, il più esile schieramento degli

Alleati, e specialmente i britannici al loro estremo avamposto, si salvarono

con una successione di fughe per un pelo e ciò che dovette

sembrare ai soldati la straziante fortuna di un topo dinanzi a un gatto.

Più e più volte la cavalleria di Von Kluck, sostenuta da artiglieria e

fanteria, artigliava intorno all’estremità della forza britannica, che la eludeva come

balzando indietro ancora e ancora. Talvolta l’inseguitore era, per così dire,

talmente addosso alla sua preda che essa non poteva nemmeno cedergli il passo; ma

doveva assestare quei colpi che poteva nella speranza di frenarlo per l’

istante necessario alla fuga. Talvolta l’onda incombente era così vicina che

un piccolo accidente individuale, la cattura di un solo uomo, avrebbe significato il

dilavamento di un intero battaglione. Giorno dopo giorno questa vivente morte

durò. E giorno dopo giorno una certa oscura verità cominciò a rivelarsi,

a poco a poco, certamente all’incredulo stupore dei prussiani, assai

probabilmente alla sorpresa dei francesi, e altrettanto probabilmente alla

sorpresa di loro stessi; che c’era qualcosa di singolare nei

soldati britannici. Quella cosa singolare può essere espressa in svariati

modi; ma sarebbe quasi certamente espressa in modo insufficiente da

chiunque non avesse avuto il coraggio morale di affrontare i fatti riguardo al suo

paese negli ultimi decenni prima della guerra. Forse può essere meglio

espressa dicendo che alcune migliaia di inglesi erano morti: e

che l’Inghilterra non lo era.

La fortezza di Maubeuge si era spalancata, per così dire, offrendo un rifugio per

la senza sosta e tormentata ritirata; i Generali britannici l’avevano rifiutata

e continuarono a combattere una lotta perdente allo scoperto per amore del

piano comune. Di notte un’enorme moltitudine di tedeschi era giunta

inaspettatamente attraverso la foresta e aveva sorpreso un più piccolo corpo dei britannici

a Landrecies; non riuscì a snidarli e perdette un intero battaglione in

quella battaglia dell’oscurità. All’estremità estrema della linea

la divisione di Smith-Dorrien, che sembrava quasi presa o tagliata fuori, aveva

combattuto con un cannone contro quattro, e martellò talmente i tedeschi che essi

furono costretti a mollare la presa; e i britannici furono di nuovo liberi. Quando

il far saltare di un ponte annunciò che avevano attraversato l’ultimo

fiume, qualcosa di diverso da quel malconcio residuo fu salvato; era l’

onore della cosa per cui viviamo.

La linea incalzata e sconfitta stette infine quasi sotto le mura di

Parigi; e il mondo attendeva la rovina della città. Le porte parevano

stare aperte; e il prussiano vi doveva entrare a cavallo per la terza e

l’ultima volta: poiché la fine della sua lunga epopea di libertà e uguaglianza era

giunta. E tuttavia l’abilissimo e francesissimo individuo su cui poggiava

l’ultima speranza della Alleanza apparentemente senza speranza stava imperturbabile come una

roccia, in ogni angolo della sua giacca azzurro cielo e della sua figura da bulldog. Egli

aveva richiamato i suoi sbigottiti soldati quando avevano infranto l’

invasione a Guise; aveva silenziosamente digerito la responsabilità di

trascinare la ritirata, come nella disperazione, fino alle ultime disperate leghe

prima della capitale; e stette a guardare. E proprio mentre guardava l’intera

enorme invasione deviò.

Fuori attraverso Parigi e fuori e attorno oltre Parigi, altri uomini in fosche

giubbe azzurre si dispiegarono in lunghe file sulla pianura, ripiegandosi lentamente su Von

Kluck come ali azzurre. Von Kluck si arrestò un istante; e poi, gettando

alcune forze secondarie a ritardare l’ala che gli girava attorno,

si slanciò attraverso la linea degli Alleati con un angolo disperato, per fracassarla al

centro come con un martello. Era meno disperato di quanto sembrasse; poiché egli

contava, e poteva bene contare, sulla bancarotta morale e fisica della

linea britannica e dell’estremità della linea francese immediatamente di fronte a

lui, che per sei giorni e sei notti aveva rincorso davanti a sé come autunnali

foglie dinanzi a un turbine. Non dissimili dalle autunnali foglie, macchiate di rosso,

color polvere, e a brandelli, giacevano là come spazzate in un angolo. Ma

proprio mentre i loro conquistatori ruotavano verso est, le loro trombe suonarono la

carica; e gli inglesi avanzarono attraverso il bosco che si chiama

Crécy, e vi impressero il loro sigillo per la seconda volta, nel

più alto momento di tutta la storia secolare dell’uomo.

Ma non era ora la Crécy in cui cavalieri inglesi e francesi si erano incontrati

in un’età più colorata, in una battaglia che era piuttosto un torneo. Era

una lega di tutti i cavalieri per i resti di tutta la cavalleria, di tutta la

fratellanza nelle armi o nelle arti, contro ciò che è e è stato

radicalmente non cavalleresco e radicalmente non fraterno fin dal principio. Molto

doveva accadere dopo… assassinio e ardente follia e pazzia in terra e

mare e cielo; ma tutti gli uomini sapevano nel loro cuore che il terzo assalto

prussiano era fallito, e la Cristianità era liberata ancora una volta. L’impero

del sangue e del ferro rifluì lentamente verso l’oscurità delle

foreste settentrionali; e le grandi nazioni dell’Occidente andarono avanti; dove

fianco a fianco come dopo una lunga lite tra amanti, andavano le insegne di San

Dionigi e San Giorgio.

NOTA SULLA PAROLA «INGLESE»

_Le parole «Inghilterra» e «inglese» così come qui usate richiedono una parola di

spiegazione, non fosse che per prevenire l’ira dell’inevitabile scozzese. Per

begin with, the word “British” involves a similar awkwardness. I have

tried to use it in the one or two cases that referred to such things as

military glory and unity: though I am sure I have failed of full

consistency in so complex a matter. The difficulty is that this sense of

glory and unity, which should certainly cover the Scotch, should also

cover the Irish. And while it is fairly safe to call a Scotsman a North

Briton (despite the just protest of Stevenson), it is very unsafe indeed

to call an Irishman a West Briton. But there is a deeper difficulty. I

can assure the Scot that I say “England,” not because I deny Scottish

nationality, but because I affirm it. And I can say, further, that I

could not here include Scots in the thesis, simply because I could not

include them in the condemnation. This book is a study, not of a disease

but rather of a weakness, which has only been predominant in the

predominant partner. It would not be true, for instance, to say either

of Ireland or Scotland that the populace lacked a religion; but I do

think that British policy as a whole has suffered from the English lack

of one, with its inevitable result of plutocracy and class contempt_.

cominciare, la parola «British» comporta una simile scomodità. Ho

cercato di usarla nei pochi casi che si riferivano a cose come

la gloria militare e l’unità: benché sia certo di aver mancato la piena

coerenza in una materia tanto complessa. La difficoltà è che questo senso di

gloria e unità, che dovrebbe certamente comprendere gli Scozzesi, dovrebbe anche

comprendere gli Irlandesi. E se è abbastanza sicuro chiamare uno Scozzese un Nord

Britanno (nonostante la giusta protesta di Stevenson), è invece davvero assai rischioso

chiamare un Irlandese un Britanno dell’Ovest. Ma c’è una difficoltà più profonda. Io

posso assicurare allo Scozzese che dico «Inghilterra» non perché neghi la nazionalità

scozzese, ma perché la affermo. E posso dire, inoltre, che

non potevo qui includere gli Scozzesi nella tesi, semplicemente perché non potevo

includerli nella condanna. Questo libro è uno studio non di una malattia

ma piuttosto di una debolezza, che è stata predominante soltanto nel

partner predominante. Non sarebbe vero, per esempio, dire né

dell’Irlanda né della Scozia che al popolo mancasse una religione; ma credo

che la politica britannica nel suo insieme abbia sofferto della mancanza inglese

di una, col suo inevitabile esito di plutocrazia e disprezzo di classe_.