Serajevo-and Shanghai
Stuart, Henry Longan
484 SERAJEVO—AND SHANGHAI By HENRY LONGAN STUART FOR a period that dates back to the first meeting of the League of Nations in the year following the Treaty of Versailles, the world at large...
...The Daily Telegraph makes the sporting proposition that efforts shall now aim at "the limitation of the area of conflict so that Austria and Serbia may fight out their differences [presumably at catch-weights] without entangling other powers...
...The Kreuz-Zeitung foresees "an extremely delicate situation for Germany...
...Dramatization, at some crucial moment, remains the great danger to which peace is subject...
...Two convictions at least were burned into the consciousness of the most chauvinistic in the years that followed June 29, 1914...
...He sees successive conferences or invitations to confer at the worst as manoeuvres for position before another trial of strength challenges the post-war settlement, at the best as a half-hearted concession to war-weariness, useful if the interval between a generation that knows war at first hand and one that well knows it by hearsay only, is to be bridged without calamity...
...The theory of a Bolshevist Russia, standing behind a quite natural resistance to dragooning, is used as confidently in the case of China today as the theory of a Czarist Russia doing much the same thing for Serbia was used in July, 1914...
...Unfortunately, the repercussion of the assassination in Bosnia cannot be confined within the frontiers of the country most concerned...
...Scott notes that the crime at Serajevo did not so much arouse anti-Serbian feeling in Austria as "dramatize" a feeling of dislike already in existence...
...The first stage of the imbroglio, during which peace was within easy reach, ended, though the world did not know it, on July 5, when Raiser Wilhelm ("somewhat in advance of German public opinion," says Dr...
...For the latter, the net of the fowler is being laid too openly in the sight of the fowl for any illusion to be possible...
...Wars of revenge," the Neue Freie Presse considers, "are out of the question...
...To a people only too prone to think in pictures, imperialism finds it far easier and more profitable to offer the vision of European women and children in peril than to defend an ancient history of force majeure...
...When a report handed to Count Berchthold by his confidential agent Wiesner tells the Austrian foreign minister that conclusive evidence proving the complicity of the Serbian government is "out of the question," Berchthold, for reasons unexplained, "suppresses" the document...
...On the one hand, the nations that emerged intact from the ordeal—the victors in a measure controlled by their resources—the vanquished in so far as a hostile supervision can be checkmated—have busied themselves reassembling the machinery of slaughter...
...Another and even more important lesson is that the "will-to-war" which renders catastrophe possible, is no longer under the control of cabinets and chancelleries...
...Lifted from their own smudged and ill-printed columns, the tu quoques of Serbian Potts and Slurks, their canonization of Prinzip as "a young martyr," their jeers at "a worm-eaten monarchy" and "crocodile tears," are so eminently calculated to render a peaceful solution impossible that even the friendly German ambassador at Vienna feels constrained to report his own opinion that the Austrian government is reproducing them with what to him looks like the deliberate intention of creating a war-temper...
...Scott to be untenable...
...There is no present sign, but rather the contrary, that the great nations are prepared to abdicate their privilege of "keeping the peace" among the smaller fry by violent means when such seem good to themselves...
...On the other hand, the very governments which are appropriating billions of dollars to renovate their military establishments, or, in the case of the new nations, to build them up from the ground, are associates in devising some scheme of international comity which will render their use in the future either impossible or at least a remote eventuality...
...This being so, it would be thought that a study of just how the will-to-war on the part of peoples is created, was one that should preempt such palliatives to the war spirit as limitation of armaments, classification of naval strength by aggregate or individual tonnage, or the hundred and one details which arouse such bitter recrimination whenever they are aired as almost to justify the very cynical outlook just referred to...
...Scott, was a main factor in stiffening Austrian action...
...There are deceptive lulls—breaks in the massing clouds...
...A parallel, very far from fanciful, might be erected between the arguments advanced to justify the expedition to Shanghai in the British Parliament and the arguments used by the involved rulers on the eve of the great war to sell a fait accompli to the ruled...
...No doubt on any threat of war upon a big scale today instant diplomatic action would be brought to bear...
...Scott, guardedly) assured his Austrian fellow-monarch of full support in any steps he might see fit to take...
...As days pass and the investigation set on foot by the Vienna Foreign Office fails to produce facts to support the first theory, far less the latter, another symptom develops...
...People of all classes are enthusiastic at the prospect of a war against the forces of Germanism" (Morning Post correspondent at St...
...What created this fatal "public opinion...
...There are riots in Vienna...
...How far Dr...
...Between the two dates lies the really dubious period of the crisis, and it is interesting to follow the reactions, in the countries which were to be involved, as one hope of peace faded after another...
...Between will-to-force and will-to-war the transition is brief and instant...
...It is echoed in London, never very sensitive to the grievances of small or weak nations...
...What Dr...
...Germany is better prepared...
...Two days later the Vorwarts reports "little feeling of sorrow for the Archduke...
...Personal responsibility disappears in the face of a host of convergent forces, inherited disabilities and mutual *Five Weeks: The Surge of Public Opinion on the Eve of the Great War, by Jonathan French Scott, Ph...
...To sum up: What Dr...
...First, in Austria, a pardonable outburst of indignation (Dr...
...Unless some "honest broker" makes his appearance, the next step is downward and inevitable...
...Its result is a near-panic on the Bourse...
...Nevertheless, this nagging by the senior partner, thinks Dr...
...It is the contention of the writer [thus Dr...
...In Berlin "the theory that Serbia was responsible . . . spouted spontaneously and spread rapidly...
...In behalf of the first it can be argued that behind the dubious and disheartening tactics, the specious arguments and acrid give and take that every invitation to disarm seems to breed, a vague inclination—perhaps not amounting to more than what recent phraseology is teaching us to call a "velleite"—does lurk to find some less costly and less perilous method of realizing national ambitions than successive wars, with their doubtful result and their incalculable contingencies...
...But it stands in a class of its own by reason of this fact: Whereas other writers (notably Professors Fay and Barnes, Albert Jay Nock, Frederick Bausman, and the anonymous writer of the series signed Historicus, contributed to The Freeman four years ago) have sought to attach responsibility to individuals or definite groups, the entire thesis of Dr...
...Then a backwash of German anger, taking all the hasty accusations for granted, fed, moreover, Dr...
...finally—"strategic considerations," or the dying end of peace...
...Nevertheless the terms of the note, when made public, are read with "a distinct shock...
...But at the moment it supervenes, repercussions from the outside world begin to arrive, and in a form that renders admission of mistake impossible if national prestige is to be preserved...
...But the merits of the case as concerns the protagonists pass quickly into the background...
...Scott's lesson is applicable to future eventualities is a matter of opinion...
...D. New York: The John Day Company...
...Scott notes, upon a raeial dislike for Serbians, which takes the strange form, as proofs which would justify it are not produced, of impatience with the old ally...
...Luckily, while the "practical" men of the world busy themselves in periodically providing bones for contention and matter for smart diplomatic notes, the larger issue is not escaping the attention of thinkers...
...Diplomacy...
...Up to the eve of general mobilization, Serbia, on whose behalf all Europe is to be plunged into war and mourning, has not in all Europe a friend, save Russia...
...Jonathan French Scott, of the University of Wisconsin, is only the last of a long series of monographs which have sought to examine and reexamine responsibility for the world war...
...But it can also, by sowing rumor and innuendo on wind and wire, so completely outrun the slower action of diplomacy that it is an easy matter for an atmosphere in which peace is impossible to be created before diplomacy can get to work at all...
...Scott is that with one possible exception, there were no outstanding culprits at all...
...or the Berlin Vorwarts story of the well-dressed crowd, thousands strong, who 486 on July 26 "marched in closed ranks, hither and yon, hours long, roared and shrieked, and acted like thoroughly ill-bred louts...
...Only secondarily...
...The Bourse is only slightly affected...
...By a crowning piece of bad luck the influence that is to do more than any other to inflame public opinion, comes from the country which has everything to gain by a sober and dignified attitude before the world...
...The last phase is a chronic and intolerable condition of tension, to which any relief, even war with all its risks, is preferable...
...As generally happens when a situation has to be faced for which precedent is lacking, both the naive view and the sceptical identify only a portion of the truth...
...Scott sums up his conclusions in an introductory chapter] that the influence of public opinion in certain countries during the diplomatic crisis of the summer of 1914 was the most important factor in precipitating the war...
...The former, however, depressed by the obstacles that rear themselves every time an attempt is made to translate ideals into action, persevere in a policy of congratulation and reassurance...
...It is disquieting to perceive, in news which has been filling the frontpage columns of the press during the past weeks, an evil growth, whose roots the world had hoped were extirpated indefinitely, appearing afresh...
...It is illuminating to summarize the immediate consequences of the Serajevo slaying in the two Germanic countries...
...But always, perhaps from some quarter unsuspected, the wind sweeps in afresh, piling up the agitated waters to such a height that finally the choice before governments is to founder or run before the storm...
...It is true the very journals which chide Austria for its spineless attitude "deprecate forceful handling...
...It is easy to realize that it comprised more than one sheet with taste and temper only comparable to the famous third estate at Eatanswill...
...Petersburg, July 27 and 28...
...The theory that war breeds immunity to wars is more comforting than tenable...
...Only the most skilled of pilots note that the tide is lifting, the glass falling a little lower after each rise...
...The mass of the people, quick to resent a slur on national vanity, press upon their governors...
...Influential British newspapers suggest that Serbia shall, by giving in, remove "any excuse for an invasion...
...Five Weeks,* by Dr...
...Serbian shops, schools, and restaurants are sacked by a crowd largely composed of Moslems and Croats...
...But it should not be forgotten that the last war did not have its source in a quarrel between nations of equal status, but in disciplinary action inflicted by a great nation upon a small one...
...An inspired article, in the Norddeutsche Allegemeine Zeitung, familiarizes the public mind with the possibilities latent in the situation...
...Was it also a factor in producing what seems like the one deliberate crime in the catalogue of errors...
...Such is the hyperaesthesia of national fear, suspicion and amour-propre war has left us as its legacy, that today even a threat of force on the part of one of the larger powers is sufficient to set in motion a thrill of apprehension that does not spare one of the community of nations...
...485 misunderstandings, whose final harvest was violent and untimely death for 6,000,000 human creatures made in the image and likeness of God...
...Never has a war been entered into with so vivid a perception of its probable volume and extent, with all its possibilities so clearly envisaged in advance...
...Unfortunately their spokesmen, whose support and incitement are responsible for driving a government into action, have no control over its nature or extent...
...the low national vitality, the material and spiritual burden laid upon generations unborn, the great truth, in a word, that those who take by the sword fail as well as fall by the sword...
...Unless this element of contempt, which bulks so largely in international relations, can be removed once and for all, it is to be feared that peace must remain at the mercy of circumstances which change daily, and that our present immunity may prove to have been merely an illusive interregnum while another generation was ripening for the shambles...
...It is true that, in a sudden emergency, it can familiarize a nation that seems to be threatened, with the fact that its interests are the concern of a multitude of men of good will in the nation that seems to threaten...
...484 SERAJEVO—AND SHANGHAI By HENRY LONGAN STUART FOR a period that dates back to the first meeting of the League of Nations in the year following the Treaty of Versailles, the world at large has been treated to a spectacle that is as puzzling as it is unedifying...
...For to such things, it bears much the same relation as preventive hygiene bears to a major operation...
...Finally, one can hardly doubt, a determination on the part of the latter to supply them in one fashion or another...
...The theory that Europe "blundered" into hostilities in July and August, 1914, is shown by Dr...
...The entire German press (so reports the correspondent of the London Times) seems "bewildered by the crime," and conscious of "flaws in the Dual Alliance...
...One of the wisest men who ever lived has told us that there is no quarrel which cannot be composed if only the element of contempt be kept out of it...
...Scott asks us what the feeling in England would have been had the Prince of Wales fallen to a Sinn Fein bullet...
...What is most vital to peace is a consideration of what is most lethal in war...
...Now, as then, it is far less the merits of the case for or against China than the dangers to national prestige unless it is settled one way, and that not China's way, that are advanced as the ultima ratio...
...There are good days and bad days, panics and recoveries...
...This much is certain...
...The fatal rumor that Russia may be behind the conspiracy is voiced in the Berlin press...
...As we read Dr...
...A diplomatic humiliation for the Dual Alliance is anticipated and this gives rise to "irritation...
...Victory or defeat are now perceived by all who think afar, to be comparative terms...
...Naturally the idealist and the cynic view the mystification from two standpoints...
...A censorship of the press is adjudged necessary...
...The second, during which peace was still possible but only at the price of national self-denial, ended, as is well known, with the despatch of the Austrian ultimatum on July 23...
...Francis Ferdinand falls on June 29...
...A desire to "localize" the quarrel takes their place, swiftly followed by the sinister phrase "strategic considerations...
...People in Vienna," writes the correspondent of the Paris Matin on the very morrow of the demonstration, "are beginning to show their astonishment at the violence of the anti-Serbian manifestations...
...2.50...
...Scott makes no comment on the quality of the Serbian press in 1914...
...A reaction to reason follows with the sober and influential minority...
...Scott seems to have done better than any previous writer on the pre-war period, is to identify the successive stages through which peoples and governments pass during the transition from peace to the will-to-war...
...One is that, for a long time to come, it will be impossible to localize wars...
...Wisdom comes otherwise than by wishing...
...There is the "incident"—the causa causans—then hasty and ill-advised indignation, careless of its expression...
...Scott's book (it is as engrossing and thrilling as a novel should be and very rarely is) we seem to be assisting at the gathering and oncoming of a vast hurricane at sea...
...Even in Austria, the French ambassador reports on July 24 that public opinion, is "startled by the sudden and exaggerated tone of the note...
...Even in France, where sympathy with Serbia has never been pronounced, and as late as July 25, German complicity remains "a rumor in the press...
...But what is matter for mirth when confined to parochial issues becomes a danger to world peace when national bitterness makes the meanest rag that ever came off the press a mouthpiece for its expression...
...Responsible organs, including the semi-official Hirlap of Budapest, "see no ground for anxiety...
...It is not until July 29, that a paper of the weight of the Temps concludes that "if Germany should reject Sir Edward Grey's proposition for mediation . . . civilized opinion would conclude that she desired war...
...Scott terms the "psychotic explosion" followed simultaneously in Austria, Russia, and Germany, and is featured in such reports as: "This country has gone wild with joy over the prospect of war with Serbia" (Sir Maurice de Bunsen, from Vienna, July 27...
...There is danger as well as hope in the intensified worldconsciousness which is the net result of one triumph in communication after another...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 18
