WWI WAR GUILT EVIDENCE (Pre-War Expectations)

Primary Document

Durnovo Memorandum (February 1914)

Secondary Sources

The Great Illusion by Norman Angell

“The Man Who Predicted the Great War” (Ivan Bloch) by Paul Reynolds

Durnovo Memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II(February 1914)

Written by P. Durnovo who was a member of the State Council and a former Minister of Interior.

A Future Anglo-German War Will Become an Armed Conflict between Two Groups of Powers

The central factor of the period of world history through which we are now passing is the rivalry between England and Germany. This rivalry must inevitably lead to an armed struggle between them, the issue of which will, in all probability, prove fatal to the vanquished side. The interests of these two powers are far too incompatible, and their simultaneous existence as world powers will sooner or later prove impossible. On the one hand, there is an insular State, whose world importance rests upon its domination of the sea, its world trade, and its innumerable colonies. On the other, there is a powerful continental empire, whose limited territory is insufficient for an increased population. It has therefore openly and candidly declared that its future is on the seas. It has, with fabulous speed, developed an enormous world commerce, built for its protection a formidable navy, and, with its famous trademark, "Made in Germany," created a mortal danger to the industrial and economic prosperity of its rival. Naturally, England cannot yield without a fight, and between her and Germany a struggle for life or death is inevitable.

The armed conflict impending as a result of this rivalry cannot be confined to a duel between England and Germany alone. Their resources are far too unequal, and, at the same time, they are not sufficiently vulnerable to each other. Germany could provoke rebellion in India, in South Africa, and, especially, a dangerous rebellion in Ireland, and paralyze English sea trade by means of privateering and, perhaps, submarine warfare, thereby creating for Great Britain difficulties in her food supply; but, in spite of all the daring of the German military leaders, they would scarcely risk landing in England, unless a fortunate accident helped them to destroy or appreciably to weaken the English navy. As for England, she will find Germany absolutely invulnerable. All that she may achieve is to seize the German colonies, stop German sea trade, and, in the most favorable event, annihilate the German navy, but nothing more. This, however, would not force the enemy to sue for peace. There is no doubt, therefore, that England will attempt the means she has more than once used with success, and will risk armed action only after securing participation in the war, on her own side, of powers stronger in a strategical sense. But since Germany, for her own part, will not be found isolated, the future Anglo-German war will undoubtedly be transformed into an armed conflict between two groups of powers, one with a German, the other with an English orientation.

Fundamental Alignments in the Coming War

Under what conditions will this clash occur and what will be its probable consequences? The fundamental groupings in a future war are self-evident: Russia, France, and England, on the one side, with Germany, Austria, and Turkey, on the other. It is more than likely that other powers, too, will participate in that war, depending upon circumstances as they may exist at the war's outbreak. But, whether the immediate cause for the war is furnished by another clash of conflicting interests in the Balkans, or by a colonial incident, such as that of Algeciras, the fundamental alignment will remain unchanged.

Italy, if she has any conception of her real interests, will not join the German side. For political as well as economic reasons, she undoubtedly hopes to expand her present territory. Such an expansion may be achieved only at the expense of Austria, on one hand, and Turkey, on the other. It is, therefore, natural for Italy not to join that party which would safeguard the territorial integrity of the countries at whose expense she hopes to realize her aspirations. Furthermore, it is not out of the question that Italy would join the anti-German coalition, if the scales of war should incline in its favor, in order to secure for herself the most favorable conditions in sharing the subsequent division of spoils.

In this respect, the position of Italy is similar to the probable position of Rumania, which, it may be assumed, will remain neutral until the scales of fortune favor one or another side. Then, animated by normal political self- interest, she will attach herself to the victors, to be rewarded at the expense of either Russia or Austria. Of the other Balkan States, Serbia and Montenegro will unquestionably join the side opposing Austria, while Bulgaria and Albania (if by that time they have not yet formed at least the embryo of a State) will take their stand against the Serbian side. Greece will in all probability remain neutral or make common cause with the side opposing Turkey, but that only after the issue has been more or less determined. The participation of other powers will be incidental, and Sweden ought to be feared, of course, in the ranks of our foes.

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Under such circumstances, a struggle with Germany presents to us enormous difficulties, and will require countless sacrifices. War will not find the enemy unprepared, and the degree of his preparedness will probably exceed our most exaggerated calculations. It should not be thought that this readiness is due to Germany's own desire for war. She needs no war, so long as she can attain her object-the end of exclusive domination of the seas. But, once this vital object is opposed by the coalition, Germany will not shrink from war, and, of course, will even try to provoke it, choosing the most auspicious moment.

The Main Burden of the War Will Fall on Russia

The main burden of the war will undoubtedly fall on us, since England is hardly capable of taking a considerable part in a continental war, while France, poor in man power, will probably adhere to strictly defensive tactics, in view of the enormous losses by which war will be attended under present conditions of military technique. The part of a battering-ram, making a breach in the very thick of the German defense, will be ours, with many factors against us to which we shall have to devote great effort and attention.

From the sum of these unfavorable factors we should deduct the Far East. Both America and Japan-- the former fundamentally, and the latter by virtue of her present political orientation--are hostile to Germany, and there is no reason to expect them to act on the German side. Furthermore, the war, regardless of its issue, will weaken Russia and divert her attention to the West, a fact which, of course, serves both Japanese and American interests. Thus, our rear will be sufficiently secure in the Far East, and the most that can happen there will be the extortion from us of some concessions of an economic nature in return for benevolent neutrality. Indeed, it is possible that America or Japan may join the anti- German side, but, of course, merely as usurpers of one or the other of the unprotected German colonies.

There can be no doubt, however, as to an outburst of hatred for us in Persia, and a probable unrest among the Moslems of the Caucasus and Turkestan; it is possible that Afghanistan, as a result of that unrest, may act againstus; and, finally, we must foresee very unpleasant complications in Poland and Finland. In the latter, a rebellion willundoubtedly break out if Sweden is found in the ranks of our enemies. As for Poland, it is not to be expected that we can hold her against our enemy during the war. And after she is in his power, he will undoubtedly endeavor to provoke an insurrection which, while not in reality very dangerous, must be considered, nevertheless, as one of the factors unfavorable to us, especially since the influence of our allies may induce us to take such measures in our relations with Poland as will prove more dangerous to us than any open revolt.

Are we prepared for so stubborn a war as the future war of the European nations will undoubtedly become? This question we must answer, without evasion, in the negative. That much has been done for our defense since the Japanese war, I am the last person to deny, but even so, it is quite inadequate considering the unprecedented scale on which a future war will inevitably be fought. The fault lies, in a considerable measure, in our young legislative institutions, which have taken a dilettante interest in our defenses, but are far from grasping the seriousness of the political situation arising from the new orientation which, with the sympathy of the public, has been followed in recent years by our Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The enormous number of still unconsidered legislative bills of the war and navy departments may serve as proof of this: for example, the plan of the organization of our national defense proposed to the Duma as early as the days of Secretary of State Stolypin. It cannot be denied that, in the matter of military instruction, according to the reports of specialists, we have achieved substantial improvements, as compared with the time before the Japanese War. According to the same specialists, our field artillery leaves nothing to be desired; the gun is entirely satisfactory, and the equipment convenient and practical. Yet, it must be admitted that there are substantial shortcomings in the organization of our defenses.

In this regard we must note, first of all, the insufficiency of our war supplies, which, certainly, cannot be blamed upon the war department, since the supply schedules are still far from being executed, owing to the low productivity of our factories. This insufficiency of munitions is the more significant since, in the embryonic condition of our industries, we shall, during the war, have no opportunity to make up the revealed shortage by our own efforts, and the closing of the Baltic as well as the Black Sea will prevent the importation from abroad of the defense materials which we lack.

Another circumstance unfavorable to our defense is its far too great dependence, generally speaking, upon foreign industry, a fact which, in connection with the above noted interruption of more or less convenient communications with abroad, will create a series of obstacles difficult to overcome. The quantity of our heavy

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artillery, the importance of which was demonstrated in the Japanese War, is far too inadequate, and there are few machine guns. The organization of our fortress defenses has scarcely been started, and even the fortress of Reval, which is to defend the road to the capital, is not yet finished.

The network of strategic railways is inadequate. The railways possess a rolling stock sufficient, perhaps, for normal traffic, but not commensurate with the colossal demands which will be made upon them in the event of a European war. Lastly, it should not be forgotten that the impending war will be fought among the most civilized and technically most advanced nations. Every previous war has invariably been followed by something new in the realm of military technique, but the technical backwardness of our industries does not create favorable conditions for our adoption of the new inventions.

Even a Victory over Germany Promises Russia an Exceedingly Unfavorable Prospect

In any case, even if we were to admit the necessity for eradicating German domination in the field of our economic life, even at the price of a total banishment of German capital from Russian industry, appropriate measures could be taken it would seem, without war against Germany. Such a war will demand such enormous expenditures that they will many times exceed the more than doubtful advantages to us in the abolition of the German [economic] domination. More than that, the result of such a war will be an economic situation compared with which the yoke of German capital will seem easy.

For there can be no doubt that the war will necessitate expenditures which are beyond Russia's limited financial means. We shall have to obtain credit from allied and neutral countries, but this will not be granted gratuitously. Asto what will happen if the war should end disastrously for us, I do not wish to discuss now. The financial and economic consequences of defeat can be neither calculated nor foreseen, and will undoubtedly spell the total ruinof our entire national economy. But even victory promises us extremely unfavorable financial prospects; a totally ruined Germany will not be in a position to compensate us for the cost involved. Dictated in the interest of England, the peace treaty will not afford Germany opportunity for sufficient economic recuperation to cover our war expenditures, even at a distant time. The little which we may perhaps succeed in extorting from her will have to be shared with our allies, and to our share there will fall but negligible crumbs, compared with the war cost. Meantime, we shall have to pay our war loans, not without pressure by the allies. For, after the destruction of German power, we shall no longer be necessary to them. Nay, more, our political might, enhanced by our victory, will induce them to weaken us, at least economically. And so it is inevitable that, even after a victorious conclusionof the war, we shall fall into the same sort of financial and economic dependence upon our creditors, compared with which our present dependence upon German capital will seem ideal.

However, no matter how sad may be the economic prospects which face us as a result of union with England, and, by that token, of war with Germany, they are still of secondary importance when we think of the political consequences of this fundamentally unnatural alliance.

A Struggle Between Russia and Germany Is Profoundly Undesirable to Both Sides, as It Amounts to a Weakening of the Monarchist Principle

It should not be forgotten that Russia and Germany are the representatives of the conservative principle in the civilized world, as opposed to the democratic principle, incarnated in England and, to an infinitely lesser degree, inFrance. Strange as it may seem, England, monarchistic and conservative to the marrow at home, has in her foreign relations always acted as the protector of the most demagogical tendencies, invariably encouraging all popular movements aiming at the weakening of the monarchical principle.

From this point of view, a struggle between Germany and Russia, regardless of its issue, is profoundly undesirable to both sides, as undoubtedly involving the weakening of the conservative principle in the world of which the above-named two great powers are the only reliable bulwarks. More than that, one must realize that under the exceptional conditions which exist, a general European war is mortally dangerous both for Russia and Germany, no matter who wins. It is our firm conviction, based upon a long and careful study of all contemporary subversive tendencies, that there must inevitably break out in the defeated country a social revolution which, by the very nature of things, will spread to the country of the victor.

During the many years of peaceable neighborly existence, the two countries have become united by many ties, and a social upheaval in one is bound to affect the other. That these troubles will be of a social, and not a political,nature cannot be doubted, and this will hold true, not only as regards Russia, but for Germany as well. An

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especially favorable soil for social upheavals is found in Russia, where the masses undoubtedly profess,unconsciously, the principles of Socialism. In spite of the spirit of antagonism to the Government in Russian society, as unconscious as the Socialism of the broad masses of the people, a political revolution is not possible in Russia, and any revolutionary movement inevitably must degenerate into a Socialist movement. The opponentsof the government have no popular support. The people see no difference between a government official and an intellectual. The Russian masses, whether workmen or peasants, are not looking for political rights, which they neither want nor comprehend.

The peasant dreams of obtaining a gratuitous share of somebody else's land; the workman, of getting hold of the entire capital and profits of the manufacturer. Beyond this, they have no aspirations. If these slogans are scatteredfar and wide among the populace, and the Government permits agitation along these lines, Russia will be flung into anarchy, such as she suffered in the ever-memorable period of troubles in 1905-1906. War with Germany would create exceptionally favorable conditions for such agitation. As already stated, this war is pregnant with enormous difficulties for us, and cannot turn out to be a mere triumphal march to Berlin. Both military disaster,- partial ones, let us hope-and all kinds of shortcomings in our supply are inevitable. In the excessive nervousness and spirit of opposition of our society, these events will be given an exaggerated importance, and all the blame willbe laid on the Government.

Russia Will be Flung into Hopeless Anarchy, the Issue of Which Will be Hard to Foresee

If the war ends in victory, the putting down of the Socialist movement will not offer any insurmountable obstacles. There will be agrarian troubles, as a result of agitation for compensating the soldiers with additional land allotments; there will be labor troubles during the transition from the probably increased wages of war time to normal schedules; and this, it is to be hoped, will be all, so long as the wave of the German social revolution has not reached us. But in the event of defeat, the possibility of which in a struggle with a foe like Germany cannot be overlooked, social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable.

As has already been said, the trouble will start with the blaming of the Government for all disasters. In the legislative institutions a bitter campaign against the Government will begin, followed by revolutionary agitations throughout the country, with Socialist slogans, capable of arousing and rallying the masses, beginning with the division of the land and succeeded by a division of all valuables and property. The defeated army, having lost itsmost dependable men, and carried away by the tide of primitive peasant desire for land, will find itself too demoralized to serve as a bulwark of law and order. The legislative institutions and the intellectual opposition parties, lacking real authority in the eyes of the people, will be powerless to stem the popular tide, aroused by themselves, and Russia will be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen.

Germany, in Case of Defeat, is Destined to Suffer Social Upheavals No Less than those of Russia

No matter how strange it may appear at first sight, considering the extraordinary poise of the German character, Germany, likewise, is destined to suffer, in case of defeat, no lesser social upheavals. The effect of a disastrous war upon the population will be too severe not to bring to the surface destructive tendencies, now deeply hidden. The peculiar social order of modern Germany rests upon the actually predominant influence of the agrarians, Prussian Junkerdom and propertied peasants.

These elements are the bulwark of the profoundly conservative German regime headed by Prussia. The vital interests of these classes demand a protective economic policy towards agriculture, import duties on grain, and consequently, high price for all farm products. But Germany, with her limited territory and increasing population, has long ago turned from an agricultural into an industrial State, so that protection of agriculture is, in effect, a matter of taxing the larger part of the population for the benefit of the smaller. To this majority, there is a compensation in the extensive development of the export of German industrial products to the most distant markets, so that the advantages derived thereby enable the industrialists and working people to pay the higher prices for the farm products consumed at home.

Defeated, Germany will lose her world markets and maritime commerce, for the aim of the war-on the part of its real instigator, England-will be the destruction of German competition. After this has been achieved, the laboring masses, deprived not only of higher but of any and all wages, having suffered greatly during the war, and being, naturally, embittered, will offer fertile soil for anti-agrarian and later anti-social propaganda by the Socialist parties.

These parties, in turn, making use of the outraged patriotic sentiment among the people, owing to the loss of the

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war, their exasperation at the militarists and the feudal burgher regime that betrayed them, will abandon the road of peaceable evolution which they have thus far been following so steadily, and take a purely revolutionary path. Some part will also be played, especially in the event of agrarian troubles in neighboring Russia, by the class of landless farmhands, which is quite numerous in Germany. Apart from this, there will be a revival of the hitherto concealed separatist tendencies in southern Germany, and the hidden antagonism of Bavaria to domination by Prussia will emerge in all its intensity. In short, a situation will be created which (in gravity) will be little better than that in Russia.

Peace Among the Civilized Nations is Imperiled Chiefly by the Desire of England to Retain Her Vanishing Domination of the Seas

A summary of all that has been stated above must lead to the conclusion that a rapprochement with England doesnot promise us any benefits, and that the English orientation of our diplomacy is essentially wrong. We do not travel the same road as England; she should be left to go her own way, and we must not quarrel on her account with Germany.

The Triple Entente is an artificial combination, without a basis of real interest. It has nothing to look forward to. The future belongs to a close and incomparably more vital rapprochement of Russia, Germany, France (reconciled with Germany), and Japan (allied to Russia by a strictly defensive union). A political combination like this, lacking all aggressiveness toward other States, would safeguard for many years the peace of the civilized nations, threatened, not by the militant intentions of Germany, as English diplomacy is trying to show, but solely bythe perfectly natural striving of England to retain at all costs her vanishing domination of the seas. In this direction,and not in the fruitless search of a basis for an accord with England, which is in its very nature contrary to our national plans and aims, should all the efforts of our diplomacy be concentrated.

It goes without saying that Germany, on her part, must meet our desire to restore our well-tested relations and friendly alliance with her, and to elaborate, in closest agreement with us, such terms of our neighborly existence as to afford no basis for anti-German agitation on the part of our constitutional-liberal parties, which, by their very nature, are forced to adhere, not to a Conservative German, but to a liberal English orientation.

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The Great Illusion, 1910

Sir Norman Angell

I think it will be admitted that there is not much chance of misunderstanding the general idea embodied in the passage quoted at the end of the last chapter. Mr. Harri-son is especially definite. At the risk of "damnable iteration," I would again recall the fact that he is merely expressing one of the universally accepted axioms of European politics, namely, that a nation's whole economic security, its financial and: industrial stability, its commercial opportunity, its prosperity and well-being, in short depend upon its being able to defend itself against the aggression of other nations, who will, if they are able, be tempted to commit such aggression because in so doing they will in-crease their power, and thus prosperity and well-being, at the cost of the weaker and vanquished.

I have quoted largely journalists, politicians, publicists of all kinds, because I de-sired to indicate not merely scholarly opinion, but the common public opinion really operative in politics, though in fact the scholars, the experts on international affairs, are at one with popular opinion in accepting the assumption which underlies these expressions, the assumption that military force if great enough can be used to transfer wealth, trade, property, from the vanquished to the victor, and that this latent power so to do explains the need of each to arm.

It is the object of these pages to show that this all but universal idea is a gross and desperately dangerous misconception, partaking at limes of the nature of an optical illusion, at times of the nature of a superstition—a misconception not only gross and universal, but so profoundly mischievous as to misdirect an immense part of the en-ergies of mankind, to misdirect them to such degree that, unless we liberate ourselves from it, civilization itself will be threatened.

As one of the most extraordinary features of this whole question is that the com-plete demonstration of the fallac-y involved, the exposure of the illusion which gives it birth, is neither intricate nor doubtful. The demonstration does not repose upon any elaborately constructed theorem, but upon the simplest statement of the plainest facts in the economic life of Europe as we see it going on around us. Their nature may be indicated in a few simple propositions stated thus:

1. An extent of devastation, even approximating to that which Mr. Harrison fore-shadows, as the result of the conquest of Great Britain, could only be inflicted by an invader as a means of punishment costly to himself, or as the result of an unselfish and exoensive desire to inflict misery for the mere joy of inflicting it. Since trade de-

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pends upon the existence of natural wealth and a population capable of working it, an invader cannot "utterly destroy it" except by destroying the population, which is not practicable. If he could destroy the population, he would thereby destroy his own market, actual or potential, which would be commercially suicidal. In this self-seeking world, it is not reasonable to assume the existence of an inverted altruism of this kind.

a. If an invasion by Germany did involve, as Mr. Harrison and those who think with him say it would, the "total collapse of the empire, our trade, and the means of feeding forty millions in these islands ... the disturbance of capital and destruction of credit," German capital would, because of the internationalization and interdepen-dence of modern finance, and so of trade and industry, also disappear in large part, German credit would also collapse; and the only means of restoring it would be for Germany to put an end to the chaos in Great Britain by putting an end to the condi-tion which had produced it. Moreover, because also of this interdependence of our finance, the confiscation by an invader of private property, whether stocks, shares, ships, mines, or anything more valuable than jewelry or furniture—anything, in short, which is bound up with the economic life of the people—would so react upon the finance of the invader's country as to make the damage to him resulting from the confiscation exceed in value the property confiscated. So that Germany's success in conquest would be a demonstration of the economic futility of conquest.

3.For allied reasons, the exaction of tribute from a conquered people in our day has become an economic impossibility; the exaction of a large indemnity so difficult and so costly directly and indirectly as to be an extremely disadvantageous financial oper-ation.

4. For reasons of a like nature to the foregoing, it is a physical and economic im-possibility to capture the external or carrying trade of another nation by military con-quest. Large navies are impotent to create trade for the nations owning them, and can in practice do nothing to "confine the commercial rivalry" of other nations. Nor can a conqueror destroy the competition of a conquered nation by annexation; his com-petitors would still compete with him—i.e., if Germany conquered Holland, German merchants would still have to meet the competition of the Dutch, and on keener terms than originally, because the Dutch manufacturers and merchants would then be within the German customs lines; the notion that the trade competition of rivals can be disposed of by conquering those rivals being one of the illustrations of the curious optical illusion which lies behind the misconception dominating this subject.

5. The wealth, prosperity, and well-being of a nation depend in no way upon its military power; otherwise we should find the commercial prosperity, and the eco-nomic well-being of the smaller nations, which exercise no such power, manifestly below that of the great nations which control Europe, whereas this is not the case. The populations of States like Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden are in every way as prosperous as the citizens of States like Germany, Russia, Austria, and France. The wealth per capita of the small nations is in many cases in excess of that of the great nations. Not only the question of the security of small States, which, it might be urged, is due to treaties of neutrality, is here involved, but the question of whether military power can be turned in a positive sense to economic advantage.

6. No other nation could gain material advantage by the conquest of the British Colonies, and Great Britain could not suffer material damage by their "loss," however much such "loss" would be regretted on sentimental grounds, and as rendering less easy a certain useful social cooperation between kindred peoples. The use of the word "loss" is misleading. Great Britain does not "own" her Colonies. They are, in fact, in-dependent nations in alliance with the Mother Country, to whom they are no source of tribute or economic profit (except as foreign nations are a source of profit), their economic relations being settled, not by the Mother Country, but by the Colonies. Economically, Great Britain would gain by their formal separation, since she would be relieved of the cost of their defense. Their "loss," involving no fundamental change in economic fact (beyond saving the Mother Country the cost of theft defense), could not involve the ruin of the Empire and the starvation of the Mother Country, as those who commonly treat of such a contingency usually aver. As Great Britain is not able to exact tribute or economic advantage, it is inconceivable that any other country, necessarily less experienced in colonial management, would be able to succeed where Great Brain had failed, especially in view of the past history of the Spanish, Por-tuguese, French and British Colonial Empires. This history also demonstrates that the position of Crown Colonies, in the respect which we are considering, is not sensibly different from that of the self-governing ones (i.e., their fiscal policies tend to become their own affair, not the Mother Country's). It is not to be presumed, therefore, that any European nation, realizing the facts, would attempt the desperately expensive business of the conquest of Great Britain for the purpose of making an experiment which all colonial history shows to be doomed to failure.

The propositions just outlined—which traverse sufficiently the ground covered by those expressions, British and German, of the current view quoted in the last chap-ter—are little more than a mere statement of self-evident fact in Europe today. Yet the mere statement of self-evident fact constitutes, I suggest, a complete refutation of the views I have quoted, which are the commonly accepted "axioms" of international pol-itics. For the purpose of parallel, I have divided my propositions into six clauses, but such division is quite arbitrary, and the whole could be gathered into a single clause as follows:

As the only feasible policy in our day for a conqueror to pursue is to leave the wealth of a territory in the possession of its occupants, it is a fallacy, an illusion, to re-gard a nation as increasing its wealth when it increases its territory. When a province or state is annexed, the population, who are the owners of the wealth, are also an-nexed. There is a change of political administration which may be bad (or good), but there is not a transfer of property from one group of owners to another. The facts of modern history abundantly demonstrate this. When Germany annexed Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, no ordinary German citizen was enriched by goods or property taken from the conquered territory. Nor in these cases where there is no for-mal annexation, can the conqueror take the wealth of a conquered territory, for rea-sons connected with the very nature of wealth in the modern world. The structure of modern banking and finance have set up a vital, and, by reason of the telegraph, an immediately felt interdependence. Mutual indebtedness and world-wide investment have made the financial and industrial security of the victor dependent upon financial

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and industrial security in all considerable civilized centers. For these reasons wide-spread confiscation, or destruction of industry and trade in a conquered territory, would react disastrously upon the commerce and finance of the conqueror. The con-queror is, by this fact, reduced to military impotence as far as economic ends are con-cerned. Military power can do nothing commensurate with its cost and risk for the trade and well-being of the particular rulers exercising it. It cannot be used as an in-strument for seizing or keeping trade. The idea that armies and navies can be used to transfer the trade of rivals from weak to powerful states is an illusion. Although Great Britain "owns" Canada, has completely "conquered" Canada, the British merchant is driven from the Canadian markets by the merchant of (say) the United States or Switzerland. The great nations neither destroy nor transfer to themselves the trade of small nations, because they cannot. Military power does not determine the relative economic position of peoples. The Dutch citizen, whose Government possesses no considerable military power, is just as well off as the German citizen, whose govern-ment possesses an army of two million men, and a great deal better off than the Russ-ian, whose government possesses an army of something like four million. A fairly good index of economic stability whether of a business organization or a nation, is the rate at which it is able to borrow money: risk and insecurity are very quickly refl-ected by a rise in the interest it must pay. Thus, as a rough-and-ready though incom-plete indication of the relative wealth and security of the respective States, we find that the Three per Cents. of comparatively powerless Holland are quoted at 77 1/2, and the Three per Cents. of powerful Germany at 75; the Three and a Half per Cents. of the Russian Empire, with its hundred and twenty million souls and its four million army, are quoted at 78, while the Three and a Half per Cents. of Norway, which has not an army at all (or any that need be considered in this discussion), are quoted at 88. We thus get the paradox that, the more a nation's wealth is militarily protected, the less secure does it become.

The late Lord Salisbury, speaking to a delegation of businessmen, made this no-table observation: The conduct of men of affairs, acting individually in their business capacity, differs radically in its principles and application from the conduct of the same men who they act collectively in political affairs.

The fact may explain the contradiction between the daily practice of the business world and the prevailing political philosophy, which security of property and high prosperity in the smaller States involves. We are told by the political experts that great navies and great armies are necessary in order to protect our wealth against the ag-gression of powerful neighbors, whose cupidity and voracity can be controlled by force alone; that as treaties avail nothing, and that in international politics might makes right, armaments are imposed by the necessity of commercial security; that our navy is an "insurance," and that a country without military power, with which their diplomats can "bargain" in the Councils of Europe, is at a hopeless disadvantage economically. Yet, when the investor studying the question in its purely material, its financial aspect, has to decide between the great States, with all their imposing para-phernalia of colossal armies and fabulously costly navies, and the little States, possess-ing relatively no military power whatever, he plumps solidly, and with what is in the circumstance a very great difference, in favor of the small and helpless. For a differ-

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ence of twenty points, which we find as between Norwegian and Russian, and four-teen as between Belgian and German securities, is the difference between a safe and a speculative one.

Is it a sort of altruism or quixotism which thus impels the capitnlicts of Europe to conclude that the public funds and investments of powerless Holland and Sweden (any day at the mercy of their big neighbors) are to to zo per cent. safer than those of the greatest Power of Continental Europe? The question is, of course, absurd. The only consideration of the financier is profit and security, and he has decided, thinking and acting as a financier, a practical economist, that the funds of the undefended na-tion are more secure than the funds of those defended by colossal armaments. Why does he reject the implications of this decision when he comes to settle matters of in-ternational politics?

If Mr. Harrison were right; if, as he implies, our commerce, our very industrial ex-istence, would disappear did we allow neighbors who envied us that commerce to be-come our superiors in armament, and to exercise political weight in the world, how does he explain the fact that the great Powers of the Continent are flanked by little na-dons far weaker than themselves having nearly always a commercial development equal .to, and in some cases greater than, their own? If the common doctrine be true, the financiers would not invest a pound or a dollar in the territories of the unde-fended nations. Yet, far from that being the case, they consider that a Swiss or a Dutch investment is more secure than a German one; that industrial undertakings in a coun-try like Switzerland are preferable in point of security to enterprises backed by three millions of the most perfectly trained soldiers in the world. The beliefs of European financiers, as reflected in their acts, are in flat contradiction with the beliefs of Euro-pean politicians as reflected in their acts. If a country's trade were really at the mercy of the first successful invader; if armies and navies were really necessary for the pro-tection and promotion of trade, the small countries would be in a hopelessly inferior position, and could only exist on the sufferance of what we are told are unscrupulous aggressors. And yet Norway has, relatively to population, a greater carrying trade than Great Britain, and Dutch, Swiss, and Belgian merchants compete in all the markets of the world successfully with those of Germany and France.

The prosperity of the small states is thus a fact which proves a good deal more than that wealth can be secure without armaments. Exponents of the orthodox statecraft—notably such authorities as Admiral Mahan—plead that armaments are a necessary part of the economic struggle of nations, that without such power a nation is at a hopeless economic disadvantage.

The relative economic situation of the small States gives the lie to it all. This pro-found political philosophy is seen to be just learned nonsense when we realize that all the might of Russia or Germany cannot secure for the individual citizen better gen-eral economic conditions than those prevalent in the little States. The citizens of Switzerland, Belgium, or Holland, countries without "contror or navy, or bases, or "weight in the councils of Europe," or the "prestige of a great Power: are just as well off as Germans, and a great deal better off than Austrians or Russians.

Even if it could be argued that the security of the small States is due to the various treaties guaranteeing their neutrality, it cannot be argued that those treaties give them

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the military and naval power, the "weight in the councils of the nations:' which Admi-ral Mahan and the other exponents of the orthodox statecraft assure us are such nec-essary factors in national prosperity.

I want, however, with all possible emphasis, to indicate the limits of the argument that I am trying to enforce. That argument is not that the facts just cited show arma-ments or the absence of them to be the sole or even the determining factor in national wealth or poverty. Nor indeed that there are no advantages in large national areas. Plainly there are (e.g. the absence of tariffs and fiscal barriers). But the facts cited do show that the security of wealth is due to other things than armaments; that the ab-sence of political and military power is, on the one hand, no obstacle to prosperity any more than the possession of such power is a guarantee of prosperity; that the mere size of administrative area has no relation to the wealth of those inhabiting it, any more than it would be true to say that a man living in London is richer than a man living in Liverpool because the former city is larger and has a bigger budget

A very common reply to the arguments just adduced is that the security of the small states nevertheless depends upon armaments—the armaments of the states which guarantee their neutrality. But, if treaty guarantees suffice for the protection of small states, why not of great? When that is suggested, however, the militarist is apt to turn round and declare that treaties are utterly valueless as a means of national secu-rity. Thus Major Stewart Murray:

The European waste-paper basket is the place to which all treaties eventually find their way, and a thing which can any day be placed in a waste-paper basket is a poor thing on which to hang our national safety. Yet there are plenty of people in this country who quote treaties to us as if we could depend on their never being torn up. Very plausible and very dangerous people they are—idealists too good and innocent for a hard, cruel world, where force is the chief law. Yet there are some such innocent people in Parlia-ment, even at present. It is to be hoped that we shall see none of them there in future.

But again, if the security of a nation's wealth can only be assured by force, and treaty rights are mere waste paper, how can we explain the evident security of the wealth of States possessing relatively no force? By the mutual jealousies of those guar-anteeing their neutrality? Then that mutual jealousy could equally well guarantee the security of any one of the larger States against the rest.

The right understanding of this phenomenon involves, however, a certain distinc-tion, the distinction between economic and political security The political security of the small States is not assured; no man would take heavy odds on Holland being able to maintain complete political independence if Germany cared seriously to threaten it. But Holland's economic security is assured. Every financier in Europe knows that, if Germany conquered Holland or Belgium tomorrow, she would have to leave their wealth untouched; there could be no confiscation. And that is why the stocks of the lesser States, not in reality threatened by confiscation, yet relieved in part at least of the charge of armaments, stand fifteen to twenty points higher than those of the mili-tary States. Belgium, politically, might disappear tomorrow; her wealth would remain practically unchanged.

I. Causes 31

If this truth—that the wealth of an unprotected country is safe, that it cannot be seized—is recognized (as it is) by investors and financiers, the experts most con-cerned, whence comes the political danger, the danger of aggression? It is due surely to the fact that the truth recognized by investors, financiers, businessmen when deal-ing with facts belonging to their familiar world, has not been carried over into the realm of political ideas. The average businessman does not see the contradiction be-tween his daily conduct as a businessman and the policy which he encourages his gov-ernment to adopt He sees no need of reconciling the fact that he will invest heavily in property that has no military or naval protection and his applause of Mr. Harrison, when the latter declares that, but for the British navy, the foreigner would run off with every penny that we possess, or words to that effect.

The actual policy pursued by financiers and investors implies that they do not be-lieve that wealth, property can be "taken" by preponderant power. Yet preponderant power is pursued everywhere as the means of national enrichment. Power as an end is set up in European politics as desirable beyond all others. Here, for instance, are the Pan-Germanists of Germany. This party has set before itself the object of group-ing into one great Power all the peoples of the Germanic race or language in Eu-rope. Were this aim achieved, Germany would become the dominating Power of the Continent, and might become the dominating Power of the world. And, according to the commonly accepted doctrine of national advantage, such an achievement would, from the point of view of Germany, be worth any sacrifice that Germans could make. It would be an achievement so great, so desirable, that German citizens should not hesitate for an instant to give everything, life itself, in its accomplish-ment. Very good. Let us assume that, at the cost of great sacrifice, the greatest sacri-fice which it is possible to imagine a modern civilized nation making, this has been accomplished, and that Belgium and Holland and Germany, Switzerland and Aus-tria, have all become part of the great German hegemony: is there one ordinary Ger-man citizen who would be able to say that his well-being had been increased by such a change? Germany would then "own" Holland. But would a single German citizen be the richer for the ownership? The Hollander, from having been the citizen of a small and insignificant State, would become the citizen of a very great one. Would the in-dividual Hollander be any the richer or any the better? We know that, as a matter of fact, neither the German nor the Hollander would be one whit the better; and we know also that, in all probability, both would be a great deal the worse. We may, in-deed, say that the Hollander would be certainly the worse, in that he would have ex-changed the relatively light taxation and light military service of Holland for the much heavier taxation and the much longer military service of the "great" German empire.

To the thesis here developed, the thesis that, while military conquest in the modern world involves a change of political administration which may be good, bad, or indiff- erent, it does not and cannot involve a transfer of property from one group of owners to another, the commonest objection is that I have overlooked the collection of taxes by the conqueror. While it may be true, say these critics, that a modern conqueror must respect titles to property since the insolvencies and insecurities produced by their destruction might well (almost inevitably would) affect securities, instruments

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of credits, loans, or what nots, held by persons of the victor state; produce, in other words, insolvencies, which would have dangerous repercussions—while all that may be true, it is said, I have overlooked the fact that the conqueror collects the taxes. It may be true that the Alsatians retained their farms and houses when the Germans took over the Province, they paid their taxes to Germany instead of France. Thus a writer in the Daily Mail argues: "If Alsace-Lorraine had remained French it would have yielded at the present rate of French taxation a revenue of eight millions a year to the State. That Revenue is lost to France and placed at the disposal of Germany:' and on the basis of this the Daily Mail financier works out the "cash value" of the asset which France has lost and Germany gained.

Not once or twice since this book first appeared has that particular criticism been made. On hundreds of occasions have educated people written to me to point out this "oversight." I really had not thought this matter out sufficiently: obviously a nation was enriched by an addition to the receipts of its treasury. And never, in these criti-cism, is there any awareness that it constitutes a sort of Irish bull.

That this is perhaps the commonest of all the objections made to the argument of this chapter I regard as an extremely significant comment on the character of current political thinking. For this objection so commonly made is the outcome of pure confusion of thought, an illustration of what some writer has called "the uni-lateral illusion," the kind of illusion which leads us to think of a sale without realiz-ing that it is also a purchase; that an export must also be an import; a failure to be clear as to the meaning of the terms we use, a mixing of the symbols with the things for which it stands. "Germany," says the Daily Mail critic, is now richer by eight mil-lions a year which, but for the conquest, would have gone to "France." But who or what is "Germany" after the annexation? "Germany" now includes the people of Al-sace-Lorraine, who not only pay the taxes but receive them—receive them, that is, as much as any other German. They belong to the new entity which "owns" the asset. The number of recipients have been increased in exact proportion to the number of the contributors.

To this particular critic I replied as follows: Conquest multiplies by x it is true, but we overlook the fact that it also has to

divide by x, and that the result is consequently, so far as the individual is con-cerned, exactly what it was before. My critic remembered the multiplication all right, but he forgot the division. The matricular contribution of Alsace-Lorraine to the Imperial treasury (which incidentally is neither three millions nor eight, but just about one) is fixed on exactly the same scale as that of the other States of the Empire. Prussia, the conqueror, pays per capita just as much as and no less than Alsace, the conquered, who, if she were not paying this million to Germany, would be paying it—or, according to my critic, a much larger sum—to France; and, if Germany did not "own" Alsace-Lorraine, she would be relieved of charges that amount not to one but several millions. The change of "ownership" does not therefore of itself change the money position (which is what we are now dis-cussing) of either owner or owned.

If a great country benefits every time it annexes a province, and her people are the richer for the widened territory, the small nations ought to be immeasurably poorer

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than the great, instead of which, by every test which you like to apply—public credit, amounts in savings banks, standard of living, social progress, general well-being—cit izens of small States are, other things being equal, as well off as, or better off than, the citizens of great States.

If the Germans are enriched by eight millions a year through the conquest of a province like Alsace-Lorraine, how much should the English people draw from their "possessions"? On the basis of population, somewhere in the region of a thousand million; on the basis of area, still more—enough not only to pay all our taxes, wipe out our National Debt, support the army and navy, but give every family in the land a fat income into the bargain. There is evidently something wrong.

In every civilized State, revenues which are drawn from a territory are expended on that territory, and there is no process known to modern government by which wealth may first be drawn from a territory into the treasury and then be redistributed with a profit to the individuals who have contributed it or to others. It would be just as rea-sonable to say that the citizens of London are richer than the citizens of Birmingham because London has a richer treasury; or that Londoners would become richer if the London County Council were to annex the county of Hertford, as to say that people's wealth varies according to the size of the administrative area which they inhabit. The whole thing is, as I have called it, an optical illusion, due to the hypnotism of an obso-lete terminology. Just as poverty may be greater in the large city than in the small one, and taxation heavier, so the citizens of a great State may be poorer than the citizens of a small one, as they very often are.

But there is another phase of this confusion, characterized by a strange contradic-fion. In the militarist view, we must fight others for trade—fight them-in a literal mil-itary sense, since the need of protecting our trade is invoked as the justification of a great navy. Their trade must be checked, restrained, their goods kept from our shores. Also, we add to our wealth when we conquer their territory. But, if we conquer theft territory, we don't keep out their trade: the barriers against their goods are wiped away. The goods enter freely without let or hindrance. Conquest has not destroyed competition, it has wiped away all restraints upon it. We hear a good deal from Amer-icans of the competition of Canadian trade, the need for barriers to keep out goods made in the factories of Ontario and Quebec. America is damaged by the free entry of those goods from those factories. So be it. But Americans of the nationalist and mili-tarist type of mind talk of the ultimate conquest of Canada "and all its riches added to our nation's heritage." But it would mean that those same goods, made by the same hands in the same factories owned by the same people, would now compete freely with the goods of the conquerors. No American would dream of complaining any more than the people of Pennsylvania complain about the competition of Massachu-setts (or those of Lancashire about the competition of Yorkshire). It would seem that it is the political status of the trader or manufacturer, not any economic fact, which determines whether he is a competitor or not. But then we do, indeed, labor under a delusion: the economic fight, the "inevitable biological struggle," has given place to a quarrel about flags. The "grim struggle for bread" ceases the moment that the rival comes under our flag. Is it not time we made up our minds what we are preparing to fight about: economic needs or national insignia?

We have never perhaps asked ourselves what it is we are really fighting about; as we certainly do not, for the most part, examine the nature of that wealth which we de-clare to be the object of the contest. Let us examine it.

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From The Great Illusion by Norman Angell (New York Putman, [1910] and 1933), pp. 86-1oz.

The Man Who Predicted the Great War

By Paul Reynolds History Today Volume 63 Issue 5 May 2013

Few foresaw the horror of the First World War. The financier Jan Bloch did and in 1901 he outlined his vision to Britain’s military establishment.

Thirteen years before the start of the First World War Britain’s military establishment was warned explicitly that offensive operations in a major conflict in Europe would be unsuccessful and that such a war would end only when one side was exhausted.

The prediction was delivered in 1901 at the Royal United Service Institution (now the Royal United Services Institute), a military think tank and discussion forum in Whitehall founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington. The warning came in a lecture given by the unlikely figure of Jan Bloch, or Jean de Bloch as he was later known. Bloch was not a military man, but a banker and financier, who was born in Poland in 1836 and rose to an influential position in the Russian empire, of which Poland was then a part. He was an important figure in Russia’srailway system and took an interest in international affairs. He called for arbitration to replace warfare as a way of settling disputes and organized a peace conference at The Hague in 1899 to further that aim.

He first laid out his thesis in a six-volume book published in Paris in 1898 called The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political Relations. In it he argued that such was the power of defense. in modern warfare that it would be impossible for major wars to be won, especially general European conflicts, without huge casualties.

Bloch concluded that governments would not, indeed could not, engage in war because they and their societies would be destroyed if they did so. He was right in his first idea and, of course, wrong in his second. He edited the work into a single volume, which was published in English in 1899 under the catchier title of Is War Now Impossible?

Bloch’s ideas were transmitted widely in Britain by the campaigning journalist W.T. Stead, who shared the financier’s enthusiasm for international arbitration. To help popularize Bloch’s thinking, Stead conducted a long interview with him, which was printed as a preface to the English edition of his book. Bloch first makes clear that he is not talking about colonial wars, which he calls ‘frontier brawls ... trumpery expeditions against semi barbarous peoples’. He is talking of war in Europe: ‘That is to say, the long talked of, constantly postponed war between France and Germany for the lost provinces [Alsace and Lorraine].’

His argument was that, in modern warfare, soldiers could not reach the enemy because the last few hundred yards had become so deadly. First, there was the increased range of the smokeless rifle: 3,000 or 4,000 meters, or two to three miles. Then there was the fact that a rifle now had a magazine: ‘The possibility of firing half a dozen bullets without having to stop to reload has transformed the conditions of modern war.’ At that stage he wasnot aware of how much more destructive the machine gun would be. Third, there was artillery, already so powerfulthat a shell could ‘effectively destroy all life within a range of 200 meters of the point of explosion’.

Bloch dismissed the bayonet, comparing the generals’ attachment to it with the fondness of old admirals for sails, but he predicted the development of trench warfare:

Everybody will be entrenched in the next war. It will be a great war of entrenchments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his rifle. The first thing every man will have to do, if he cares for his life at all, will be to dig a hole in the ground. War, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which neither army is able to get at the other, threatening each other, but never being able to deliver a final and decisive attack ... It is that war which, I maintain, has become absolutely impossible.

***

Bloch’s views were put before a British military audience at the Royal United Service Institution (RUSI) on MondayJune 24th, 1901. His paper, read out for him in English, was so long that there had to be two further meetings to

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allow for questions, his replies and a concluding discussion.

That summer was a good moment for the RUSI to consider the state of modern warfare. An era had ended with the death of Queen Victoria in January of that year. Military technology was developing rapidly. In the background Germany was already planning how to fight a war against France and Russia. Britain’s splendid isolation was coming to an end; a treaty with Japan would soon follow and a secret military agreement with France would help determine which side Britain would take in a future war between France and Germany. More immediately there was the experience of the Second Boer – or South African – War, which had begun in 1899.

Some lessons could be drawn for, although the war would not be over until the following year, it had already moved into its final phase, in which the Boers were being reduced to a guerrilla force under the weight of British numbers. Among Bloch’s audience were Boer War veterans.

Bloch contrasted the siege of Paardeberg (February 1899), in which the Boers had surrendered after seeing off a direct infantry assault, with the battle for the hill of Spion Kop (January 1900), where the British were defeated in trying to relieve Ladysmith. (The nickname ‘The Kop’ was soon adopted by many British football clubs for their high-banked spectator terraces.) Bloch said: ‘The Boers fortified Paardeberg, whereas the British, owing to the rocky nature of the ground and other circumstances, found it impossible to raise entrenchments at Spion Kop.’

The result was that the Boers lost only 179 men at Paardeberg, while 1,500 Britons died at Spion Kop. In the Boersiege of Ladysmith itself conditions were reversed:

The Boer guns, when turned against British entrenchments, caused absurdly small loss. The losses of the four months’ bombardment of Ladysmith amounted to no more than 250 killed and wounded.

Bloch, like the British, had noted the skill with which the Boers constructed their trenches:

They constructed traverses at short intervals to prevent enfilading [exposure to enemy fire], and to limit the effect of explosive shells. Their bomb-proof shelters were constructed after the model of a bottle with a narrow opening, so that a shell could enter only by chance. Other trenches were constructed in a sinuous line, and a shell bursting in such a trench could wound only the two or three men in the section in which it fell. In addition, they dug caves in the fore parts of the trenches which were completely bomb-proof. These trenches were invisible, and masked by brushwood and other objects, so that there were 1,000 chances to one against any shell failing in them. Even when a shell did fall, the method of construction was such that its effects were confined to the actual point of fall.

Bloch predicted the demise of cavalry. They would not, in Europe, be able to turn a line of trenches, as Sir John French had done in South Africa to relieve Kimberley in February 1900:

The continuous fortifications upon all the European frontiers make it almost impossible even to attempt those flanking movements for which mounted men are so eminently fitted.

Bloch urged his audience to believe that the lessons of South Africa could be applied to a war in Europe:

It is evident that the main lesson to be drawn from the Transvaal War is that it is absurd to suppose that, whatever combinations be formed by any State or alliance of States, the results of a war of aggression can be regarded as hopeful against any great Power, or still more so against an alliance of Powers.

‘In discussions with soldiers,’ he added:

I have always met with the objection that the Germans would employ such masses of men that the lessons of the Transvaal War would have no importance. Many men, they say, would be lost, but the defenders’ lines would be broken all the same. It is necessary to observe that the military authorities whom I have already cited declare that the greater the masses the greater will be the defeat.

Bloch accurately anticipated that such a war might take place. ‘What will happen in a war ten or 15 years hence, and what will be the consequences?’ he asked.

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***

During questions, it was clear that Bloch had not convinced everyone of his vision. Colonel C.M.H Downing of the Royal Artillery kept faith with his branch of arms:

I consider that the artillery in the attack still have the same role to play as ever, namely to support an infantry attack, and the only way to do that is by keeping down the fire of the defenders, without necessarilyinflicting actual loss thereby.

Major General C.E. Webber, formerly of the Royal Engineers, accused Bloch of pacifism and attacked, as he put it, ‘so-called non-jingoism, or non-militarism, the namby-pamby so-called humanitarianism ... “peace at any price” into which our friend wishes us to retire’.

Colonel F.J. Graves objected that Bloch had ‘simply wiped the floor with us cavalry’. He contended that war was ‘not just a matter of ballistics ... I say there is nothing in the South African war ... which proves his [Bloch’s] case. I believe the cavalry ... have a great future before them’.

Such confidence was echoed in 1906 in another meeting at the RUSI, one on the future of cavalry chaired by Lieutenant General Sir John French, the hero of Kimberley. Brigadier General Edward Bethune, late of the 16th Lancers, who commanded his own mounted infantry in the Boer War, declared: ‘We want a great deal more cavalry.’ His view of modern arms can be seen in his comment on his choice of weapon for the cavalry: ‘I have a predilection for the lance.’

The military men listening to Bloch were, of course, skeptical about his claim that war was now ‘impossible’. They knew governments too well for that and in any case were obviously beginning to persuade themselves that new tactics could overcome the new problems, thereby making war very much possible. Admiral Sir E.R. Fremantle pointed out that huge casualties had not stopped war before. Foreshadowing the introduction of an overwhelming force like the nuclear bomb, he said: ‘Until we can produce a power like Vril in Bulwer-Lytton’s Coming Race, which can destroy armies wholesale, I am incredulous that wars will cease in all the world through any modern developments of instruments of war.’ Vril was a destructive energy force which featured in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’snovel of 1871.

In his summing up, the chairman of the meeting, Major General Sir J.F. Maurice, dismissed Bloch’s thinking, suggesting that artillery could still do its job:

If the result is that you shut up men like rats in a hole, it is about as good to you as if you had killed them onthe spot. We should not be in too great a hurry to accept the conclusions of the lecturer as to the incapacity for their proper work of either artillery or cavalry.

The British military did not ignore Bloch. The dangers facing troops over the ‘last 500 yards’ had been recognized for decades, since Gettysburg in 1863 at least. The military’s response was not to dismiss the power of the defense. It felt the answer lay in increasing the power of the attack. Artillery, it argued, was the way to do this.

***

Here was a gap in Bloch’s analysis. He did not predict the development of indirect fire from heavy artillery, a characteristic of the First World War and, as a consequence, many artillerymen were inclined to ignore his warnings. In 1906 the Journal of the Royal Artillery published an article by Captain E. Nash, which reviewed the recent Russo-Japanese War:

Among these the most striking is the success of Japanese frontal attacks. After the South African war there were many who said that frontal attacks were impossible ... to say that ... was to say that the offensive could seldom succeed. In this latest war, the offensive has always succeeded.

However, in an account of Bloch’s thinking in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute in 1992, Chris Bellamy concludes that the military never resolved the problem of what Bloch called ‘the horrors of the frontal attack’. Bellamy quotes prewar field regulations stating that a frontal assault against an enemy in a prepared

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position ‘was all the more unlikely to succeed’ and that therefore ‘a decision had to be sought on the flanks’. He notes that Bloch had predicted that there would be no use of flanks in a future European war because there wouldbe no flanks – the whole front line would be entrenched and there would be no way round it. In the event, frontal attacks were mounted because there was no alternative, the hope being that artillery would destroy the defendersor at least keep their heads down. The failure of this approach quickly became apparent.

The British army did not trust artillery alone. It acknowledged that, for that last dash over ground exposed to fire, there would have to be better training for the soldiers. It is often forgotten that ‘Be Prepared’, BadenPowell’s mottofor the Boy Scouts movement he founded after returning from the Boer War, meant, as he put it: ‘Be prepared to die for your country, so that when the time comes you may charge home with confidence, not caring whether you are to be killed or not.’

The generals’ answer to the power of the defensive would in due course be tested. It turned out that Bloch’s ignorance about indirect fire did not make much difference to his predictions.

The war between Russia and Japan was on the face of it a setback for Bloch’s theory of war, because the Japanese offensive strategy was successful. However the main conclusion drawn from this war by a senior Britishobserver on the Japanese side was not that war should be avoided because of the huge casualties it now necessitated, but that it could indeed be won. The observer was Lieutenant General Sir Ian Hamilton, later of Gallipoli, who wrote a book, A Staff Officer’s Scrapbook During the Russo-Japanese War, published in 1905, based on his experiences observing Japanese military strategy.

Hamilton was very impressed with artillery and wrote about receiving a telegram from a friend saying of the 1904 Battle of Yalu: ‘And so the big guns did it after all. Best congratulations.’ During a dinner at General Kadama’s Japanese headquarters, Hamilton advocated ‘the employment in war of something more powerful than an ordinary field gun’. The artillery lobby had Hamilton in its ranks and the RussoJapanese War did not undermine itsphilosophy. Yet the leading British military writer of the time, Basil Liddell Hart, used the same war as evidence that Bloch was right:

Nearly every disconcerting development in the World War was foreshadowed by the RussoJapanese War –the paralyzing power of machine guns, the hopelessness of frontal attacks, the consequent development oftrenches and barbed wire, and, to counter them, grenades and heavy guns. In the light of the RussoJapanese War, it did not require a seer to foretell that, with much larger armies in a smaller space, the entrenched fronts would soon stretch across the whole frontier and stagnation ensue. Twenty years before, a Polish banker and amateur of war, Bloch, had foreseen it. And the only ground for surprise is that so few believed him.

The influential British strategist J.F.C. Fuller also praised Bloch:

His description of the modern battle is exact, for it is exactly as it was fought 17 years later. His prediction ofthe war was no less accurate. As Bloch had foretold, the ultimate arbiter was to be famine.

More recently the military historian Correlli Barnett noted:

Almost all prewar thinkers had agreed that the war would be short, decided in the great encounter battles. Only a Polish banker named Jean de Bloch ... had predicted a long war of attrition fought by armies locked into trench systems.

Bloch was not a lone prophet. A French captain, Emile Mayer, a contemporary of Marshals Joffre and Foch, the latter an ardent advocate of attack, wrote a handbook on artillery in 1890 and said: ‘The artillery will become the principal arm, the axis of manoeuvre ... Does this now mean that the advantage henceforth goes over to the defense.?’ Another supporter of the defense. was the French colonel, August Grouard.

France should have as its principle to leave the enemy the initiative of making the first moves and, when wediscover them, to reply with an energetic counter-stroke on a well-chosen point.

This of course is exactly the opposite of what the French did in 1914, under their Plan XVII. They had became

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preoccupied by the spirit of the offensive. The French drew the conclusion from the war they had lost against the Prussians in 1870, that they had been too defensive and that an immediate attack in a future conflict would throw the Germans off balance. The attack duly took place amid appalling losses and led to a withdrawal. In turn, of course, the German offensive petered out on the Marne in September 1915. Liddell Hart noted, using a phrase Bloch himself would approve: ‘It was almost a mathematical certainty, by historical data, that the advance of the pursuing Germans into France ... would end in failure.’

Bloch realized that his ideas were being spurned:

Don’t let us blindly accept the view of those who pretend that the offensive has lost none of its value. One feels that a terrible surprise is in store and one knows, alas!, that the clue will be found in the blood of manyhuman victims.

Bloch was spared the pain of seeing his theories proved correct and his prediction that war was now impossible proved wrong. He died of heart failure the year after his talk in London.

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