by John Buchan
In the fog and chill of Monday morning, November 11th, the minutes passed slowly along the front. An occasional shot, an occasional burst of firing, told that peace was not yet. Officers had their watches in their hands, and the troops waited with the same grave composure with which they had fought. At two minutes to eleven, opposite the South African brigade, which represented the easternmost point reached by the British armies, a German machine-gunner, after firing off a belt without pause, was seen to stand up beside his weapon, take off his helmet, bow, and then walk slowly to the rear. Suddenly, as the watch-hands touched eleven, there came a second of expectant silence, and then a curious rippling sound, which observers far behind the front likened to the noise of a light wind. It was the sound of men cheering from the Vosges to the sea.
IV
Victory dawned upon a world too weary for jubilation, too weary even for comprehension. The crescendo of the final weeks had dazed the mind. The ordinary man could not grasp the magnitude of a war which had dwarfed all earlier contests, and had depleted the world of life to a far greater degree than a century of the old Barbarian invasions. In Britain the figures were too astronomical to have much meaning — nearly ten million men in arms from the Empire, of whom over three million were wounded, missing or dead; nearly ten thousand millions of money spent, and shipping lost to the extent of seven hundred and fifty millions. The plain citizen could only realise that he had come, battered and broken, out of a great peril, and that his country had not been the least among the winners of victory. Her fleet had conducted the blockade which sapped the enemy’s strength, and had made possible the co-operation of Allies separated by leagues of ocean. Her wealth had borne the main financial burden of the alliance. Her armies, beginning from small numbers, had grown to be the equal of any in the world, alike in training, discipline and leadership. Moreover, her steady resolution had been a bulwark to all her confederates in the darkest hours.
He could reflect that such had always been her record in European wars. At the beginning she is underrated as a soft and pacific Power already on the decline. This, in the eighteenth century, was the view of the continental monarchs — this, in 1914, was the view of Germany. She comes slowly to a decision, enters upon war unwillingly, but wages it with all her heart, and does not slacken till her purpose is attained. It had been so in the days of Philip of Spain, of Louis Quatorze, and of Napoleon. The “island Poland” ends by finding the future of the world largely entrusted to her reluctant hands.
It was beginning to dawn, too, upon our people that they had been fortunate in the leader to whom their manhood had been entrusted. Haig could never be a popular hero; he was too reserved, too sparing of speech, too fastidious. In the early days his limitations had been obvious, but slowly men had come to perceive in him certain qualities which, above all others, the crisis required. He was a master in the art of training troops, and under his guidance had been produced some of the chief tactical developments of the campaign. He had furnished the ways and means for Foch’s strategical plans. Certain kinds of great soldier he was not, but he was the type of great soldier most needed for this situation, and he succeeded when a man of more showy endowments would have failed. Drawing comfort from deep springs, he bore in the face of difficulties a gentle and unshakable resolution. Gradually his massive patience and fortitude had impressed themselves on his armies, and after peace his efforts for the men who had fought with him won their deep and abiding affection. The many thousands who, ten years later, awaited in the winter midnight the return of the dead soldier to his own land, showed how strong was his hold upon the hearts of his countrymen.
When Michelet, after the writing of his history, fell ill and rested, he excused himself with the words “J’ai abattu tant de rois.” Now there was a clattering down of thrones in Europe, and the world was a little dazed with the sound and dust. But to those that endured — in Britain, in Italy and in Belgium — the peoples turned as to the symbol of the liberties for which they had fought. On November 11th great crowds assembled outside Buckingham Palace, moving thither from all quarters by a common impulse, and the King and Queen appeared on the balcony to receive such an acclamation as has rarely greeted the sovereigns of an unemotional people. The next days were full of pregnant ceremonial. On the 12th they went in solemn procession to St. Paul’s to return thanks to the Giver of victory. In the following week they drove through the east and south and north districts of London, and paid a brief visit to Scotland. On the 27th the King visited France. He had been on the battle-field three months before during the great advance of August 8th, and now he could examine at leisure the ground where victory had been won, and greet his troops as they moved eastward to the German frontier. In Paris, at banquets at the Elysée and the Hôtel de Ville, he spoke words of gratitude and friendship to the French people.
On Tuesday, November 19th, in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, he replied to the addresses of the two Houses of Parliament. There, in the presence of political leaders, and the great officers of State, and representatives of India and of all the Britains overseas, he expounded in simple words the debt of the nation to its fleets and armies for their achievement; the pride of Britain in her Allies; the unspectacular toil of the millions at home who had made victory possible, and the task still before the nation if a better world was to be built out of the wreckage of the old.
In what spirit shall we approach these great problems? How shall we seek to achieve the victories of peace? Can we do better than remember the lessons which the years of war have taught, and retain the spirit which they have instilled? In these years Britain and her traditions have come to mean more to us than they had ever meant before. It became a privilege to serve her in whatever way we could; and we were all drawn by the sacredness of the cause into a comradeship which fired our zeal and nerved our efforts. This is the spirit we must try to preserve. It is on the sense of brotherhood and mutual good will, on a common devotion to the common interests of the nation as a whole, that its future prosperity and strength must be built up. The sacrifices made, the sufferings endured, the memory of the heroes who have died that Britain may live, ought surely to ennoble our thoughts and attune our hearts to a higher sense of individual and national duty, and to a fuller realisation of what the English-speaking race, dwelling upon the shores of all the oceans, may yet accomplish for mankind. For centuries Britain has led the world along the path of ordered freedom. Leadership may still be hers among the peoples who are seeking to follow that path. God grant to their efforts such wisdom and perseverance as shall ensure stability for the days to come.
It was an expansion of the words which he had spoken eight years earlier in the month before his Coronation, a homily upon Milton’s proud saying: “Let not England forget her precedence of teaching the nations how to live.” He was entitled so to exhort his people, for he and his house had played their part manfully in the struggle, unostentatiously performing hard and monotonous duties, sharing gladly in every national burden. The country knew this and turned to the King as to its best friend, with something warmer than respect, profounder than loyalty. A year before there had been an attempt in Germany to drum up monarchical sentiment by films and lectures and articles showing the simplicity and devotion of the Imperial household. There was no need of such artifices in Britain, for royalism was the willing creed of all. Its most impressive manifestation was not the crowds around Buckingham Palace, or the splendid occasion in the Royal Gallery, but what happened on the late afternoon of Armistice Day. In the wet November dusk the King and Queen drove in a simple open carriage through the city of London, almost unattended and wholly unheralded. The merrymakers left their own occupations to cheer, and crowds accompanied the carriage through the new-lighted streets, running beside it and shouting friendly greetings. It was an incident which interpreted better than any formula the meaning of a People’s King.
PART III
CHAPTER I. SOUR-APPLE HARVEST
I
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br /> A war solves no problem but the one — which side is the stronger. In November 1918 a menace had been defeated and a great arrogance overthrown. These gains were indubitable, but what then? It is an old assumption that some spiritual profit is assured by material loss and bodily suffering; but it is certain that the moral disorder is at least as conspicuous as the moral gain. One bequest of war is an impulse to lawlessness. The passions of many millions cannot be stirred for years without leaving a hideous legacy. Human life has been shorn of its sacredness, death and misery and torture have become too familiar, the old decorums and sanctions have lost something of their power. The crust of civilisation has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of the primordial fires. Again, with the suspension of a great effort, there is apt to come a debauch of theorising. Principles, which seemed fundamental, are a little weakened, and men are inclined to question the cardinal articles of their faith. The world becomes one vast laboratory, where ignorance clamours for blind experiments with unknown chemicals.
But the chief consequence of so great a war as this was mental and moral fatigue. Minds were relaxed and surfeited, when they were not disillusioned. They had had enough of the heroic. After the strain of the distant vision they were apt to seek the immediate advantage; after so much altruism they asked leave to attend to private interests; after their unremitting labours they claimed the right of apathy. The conundrums of peace had to be faced not only by jaded statesmen, but by listless, confused peoples. Listless, but also restless; Mr. Lloyd George found the right word for the malady when he described it as a “fever of anæmia.”
The situation was the more dangerous for the Allies, because the intricate business of peace should have been the work of the peoples, as they had been the architects of victory. The War was not won by the genius of the few but by the faithfulness of the many. It had been a vindication of the essential greatness of our common nature. The problem now was colossal, for, if many ramshackle structures had been demolished, the ground was heavily cumbered with rubble, and there were sharp differences of view as to the edifice to be built. But the peoples seemed to stand aside, and cast the whole burden of settlement on statesmen whose shoulders were already weary. Nothing was more striking than the popular apathy about the business of peace-making. The statesmen, too, had no great dominant mind and character among them. The world was like Rome after the murder of Cæsar, like America after the death of Lincoln. History will pay respectful tribute to the able and tenacious men thrown up by the years of war, but it is doubtful if many names will live in the popular memory. Perhaps only the fantastic figures whose doings were like those of the heroes of fairy tales: Lenin, the dark Ogre; D’Annunzio, the glittering Knight-Errant; Colonel Lawrence, the eternal Younger Son.
Britain caught the same infection as the rest of the world. The prevailing mood after peace was one of satiety with high endeavour, the mood of the Restoration after Cromwell’s discipline. The bow had been stretched too tight and must relax. After toil there must be a play-time. Older men turned to the job of settling themselves again. For long they had been living on sufferance, with the feeling that in a night all they possessed might vanish; now they suddenly felt secure, and clung passionately to what remained of an ordered life. There was a good deal of irrational optimism about. As for youth, it shut its ears for a little to every call but the piping of pleasure. There was a general loosening of screws and a rise in temperature. The War was a memory to be buried. Young men back from the trenches tried to make up for the four years of natural amusement of which they had been cheated; girls, starved for years of their rights, came from dull war-work and shadowed schoolrooms determined to win back something. Perhaps the gaieties of the first months of peace had for their god Dionysus rather than Apollo, but the reaction from gravity was inevitable and not unwholesome.
Tiny pleasures occupy the place Of glories and of duties: as the feet Of fabled fairies, when the sun goes down, Trip o’er the grass where wrestlers strove by day.
For the Government there could be no turning aside to leisure. They had an urgent task in front of them and problems to solve where mistakes might mean anarchy or revolution. Inevitably they did not grasp the full meaning of the situation. They thought of their task as rather to restore a damaged old world than to grapple with something novel and undefined; they assumed, too, that the same vitality which had carried the nation through war would not be wanting in peace. But they had the wisdom to see that peace would not follow naturally on victory; that it was in itself a construction, a slow and difficult attempt to bridge a gap. Their aim was to maintain the same corporate national effort as had been successful in war.
The purpose did them credit, but it was shallowly interpreted, and it led to the blunder of the 1918 General Election. Statesmen, who had criticised the soldiers harshly for their blindness, were now in their own province to be not less myopic. The instinct which led to the election was right, but its conduct was disastrous. It was desired to obtain a fresh mandate from the nation for the work of peace-making and to continue the coalition of all parties; both worthy aims, if they had resulted in brigading behind statesmen the wisest and sanest patriotism of the country. But for sitting members the test of patriotism was a solitary division in the House of Commons in the preceding May on a criticism of the Government by a distinguished staff-officer — a criticism which may have been ill-timed, but was assuredly not factious or unfair. The docile were given “coupons,” the malcontents were outlawed. The immediate consequence was a descent from the Prime Minister’s high words after the Armistice about a peace based on righteousness, and the need of putting away “base, sordid, squalid ideas of vengeance and of avarice.” The coupon candidates swept the board, and gave the Government a huge working majority with 484 members; Labour returned 59 strong, and the non-coalition Liberals were reduced to little more than a score. But the mischief lay less in the result than in the conduct of the election campaign. Responsible statesmen lent themselves to cries about “hanging the Kaiser” and extracting from Germany impossible indemnities. Britain stood before the world as the exponent of the shoddiest of false patriotisms, instead of the reasoned generosity which was the true temper of the nation.
The result was one of the least representative Parliaments in our history. A batch of leaderless trade unionists constituted the official Opposition; the rest was, in Mr. Lloyd George’s words, like a chamber of commerce. It did not represent the intelligence of Britain, since it was mainly an assembly of well-to-do mediocrities; it did not represent the better side of the national temper; it left out certain vital elements of opinion, which were in consequence driven underground. It mirrored the nation in its worst mood, and it did much to perpetuate that mood. The feverish vulgarities of the election created impatience in many classes, in returning soldiers, in munition-workers, in the circles of labour, which made infinitely harder the business of resettlement. It gravely weakened the prestige of Parliament, which had been largely in abeyance during the War, and which could not afford any decline in dignity at a time when many minds were turning away from constitutionalism. Above all it weakened the authority of Britain in the coming peace councils. She alone could exercise a moderating and healing influence, both from the authority which the War had given her, and from her detachment from old European jealousies. But the Prime Minister would go to these councils bound by extravagant election pledges: and whatever words of conciliation he might speak would be obscured by ugly echoes of the blatancies of the polls.
II
The history of the Peace Conference in Paris, which filled the early months of 1919, has been written in detail in many volumes. Its work has been bitterly criticised, and on it have been blamed most of the later misfortunes of Europe. But it is probable that our successors will take a friendlier view, and will recognise more fully the difficulties under which it laboured and the many valuable results which it achieved. Its position was very different from that of the Congress of Vienna in 18
14. Then the victors held most of Europe and had armies ready and willing to carry out their commands: now they were so weary that the further use of force was almost unthinkable. Then a little group of grandees, akin in temper, met in dignified seclusion. Now a multitude of plenipotentiaries sat almost in public, surrounded by hordes of secretaries and journalists, and under the arc-lamp of suspicious popular opinion. The difference in the complexity and scale of the two inquiries is shown by the resulting treaties. The 120 articles of the Treaty of Vienna were signed by seventeen delegates; the Treaty of Versailles contained 441 articles and seventy signatures. The business was indeed so vast that the mechanism was constantly changing. At first the main work was in the hands of a Council of Ten, representing the five great Powers; then it fell to the American President and the European Prime Ministers; at the end the dictators were Mr. Wilson, M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George.
Had these three architects of destiny been fully agreed, or had they been men of a different stamp, things might have gone better. But all three were leaders of democracies, and they had to take many things into consideration besides the merits of the case. M. Clemenceau was the intense nationalist. Policy to him meant the security of France, and he translated every world problem into the terms of an immediate and narrowly conceived national interest. Mr. Lloyd George, subtler and more far-seeing, took broad views, but his power was weakened in his colleagues’ eyes by the election he had fought and the intransigent following which it had given him. From Mr. Wilson, who had lived apart from the actual conflict, there might have been expected a cool and dispassionate mind, as well as a unique authority. But he found himself on unfamiliar ground, and his political mistakes in his own country had made it doubtful whether America would ratify his conclusions. His idealism, it soon appeared, was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and not the creed of a great people. His self-confidence made him cast himself for too high a part, and he failed to play it; in the end his decline in health forced him into aloof and impotent criticism. The framers of the Treaty of Vienna a century before were fortunate in that they were simpler men, whose assurance was better based, and who were happily detached from popular passions. “There are times when the finest intelligence in the world is less serviceable than the sound common sense of a grand seigneur.”