us here is that our civilisation is threatened with absolute overthrow. The twentieth century seems to menace it with a ruin as complete as that which the fifth century brought to the civilisation of Rome. How long will the crowded cities of Britain stand? How long will they survive the thunderbolts wielded either by their own insensate 'revolutionary' sons or by Furies from other lands?

To this dire pass of peril we have been driven by many forces, by the lethargy and indifference of our population, which have allowed politics to become a corrupt trade, by the failure of our political chiefs to give any coherent or intelligent aim to national education, and, most of all, by the scarcely resisted march of ideas incompatible with national existence or human order. Socialism has prepared the way for Bolshevism, and of Bolshevism aviation by-and-by will be the handmaid. Failing some Providential interposition, failing some change in the heart of man, no one who looks with unclouded vision at the days to be can avoid a shudder of fear. The advantage is great. Be glad henceforth' are some of the words of the lying advertisement set by our politicians on the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. There are no words in any tongue which could adequately characterise that inscription.

H. F. WYATT.

VOL. LXXXVI-No. 509

D

PEACE-OR TRUCE?

(IV)

WAR AND PEACE, LIMITED OR UNLIMITED?

THE Peace Treaty, as the text was first presented by the Allies, provides that the German Army is to function without a General Staff and must even abstain henceforth from studying the art of war. If the Allies are seriously resolved to pursue an opposite course for their own armies, this will doubtless be productive of excellent results; yet the recent war, together with the peace terms, raises such momentous questions within this field that it is difficult to see how the Germans can abstain from at all events thinking them over! Had von Schlieffen survived he would doubtless have produced an epigrammatic article demonstrating the accuracy of his assertion of a few years ago as to the impossibility of war to the millionth! On the other hand, Bernhardi, if left unmuzzled by the Peace Treaty, will doubtless produce a whole series of books of expurgated military information -for the export trade. But to old Clausewitz, as usual, we can all, whether in Germany or not, still turn with profit; and one of his best-known distinctions, that between limited and unlimited war, may serve as a convenient text for a few general observations on the war and on the peace.

'War is only a continuation of State policy by other means,' said Clausewitz. And the other day, at Weimar, when the German National Assembly received the peace terms, the inevitable Herr Muller arose and declared: The peace proposed to Germany is only a continuation of the war by other means! Undeniably Herr Muller was on solid ground, political and philosophical. The struggle, especially when the economic factors are strong, continues from peace, through war, to peace again, merely changing its means. And in considering the present war and peace we may discern all the elements of an increasingly bitter economic struggle that may possibly in the near future take on an absolutely unlimited character.

It may be as well to explain briefly, before going further, what

the great theorist had in mind when he distinguished between two modes of war, limited and unlimited. As usual his thought was saturated with his personal experience. He was serving in the Russian Army during that terrific crisis when the French penetrated to Moscow and the Russian Government, by refusing even to acknowledge receipt of Napoleon's overtures for peace, proclaimed the fact that it was war to the knife, to the last ditch, unlimited war, against the French Emperor. An analogous deadlock was broken last October when President Wilson finally replied to the reiterated German demands for an armistice.

When, on the other hand, Clausewitz visualises limited war, he is thinking very specifically of a Chief-of-Staff's problem, the one that arose in Berlin after the Belgian revolution of 1830. The question was, how could Prussia maintain a relatively small army in Belgium against the French long enough to force a diplo matic settlement adverse to France. Limited war, he concluded, must be defensive, and defensive war is the stronger form of war with a negative object-a hard saying which the present war has, however, justified. Unlimited war must obviously be offensive; and indeed demands the offensive spirit pushed to the uttermost bounds.

Clausewitz did not carry his observations on limited and unlimited war very far. Had he done so he doubtless would have noted that many wars are intermediate between the two types; and examples of this common case are the last phase of the Napoleonic wars, 1812-15, and the struggle of 1914-18. The straight case of unlimited war is abnormal save in the annals of savage tribes. The partitions of Poland, the American Civil War, and some of the wars of religion in modern times, the Carthaginian wars in ancient times, are rare examples among civilised nations.

The intermediate character of the two great wars of modern times will appear better by a review of some of their incidents. In this light they both present the same general characteristics. They began apparently 'limited' in scope; they quickly developed 'unlimited' aspects; the 'unlimited' character once established ⚫ showed considerable fluctuation.

First, a few words, very briefly, as to the Napoleonic wars. The unlimited factor centres in this case almost, though not wholly, in the determination to get rid of Napoleon. The Emperor is not, however, merely the Conqueror feared for his sword, but the Child of the Revolution dreaded as the heir of the uncompromising propaganda of 1792-93. The determination not to defeat but to destroy him is to be found in England at various intervals through the whole epoch 1803-15. This becomes the predominant feature of the last phase of the great wars from the moment that Alexander refuses all negotiation in the summer of

1812. It comes to an actual accomplishment, not against France, of course, but against the individual Napoleon, in April 1814, and finally in June 1815.

But in this period it is obvious that the unlimited character of the war does not hold consistently. On the French side it applies to the Chief of the army only, and this differentiation between the chief and his subordinates is a factor felt increasingly up to the end. It may here be remarked that Napoleon's action during the campaign of 1814, which contrasts so sharply with his conduct of such preceding campaigns as those of 1809, '12 and '13, coincides with Clausewitz' rule that unlimited war calls for the offensive in the extreme. It is inadequate merely to say that he assumed the strategic offensive; he really countered an unlimited offensive in its own terms. But neither Napoleon's generals nor his troops were imbued with an offensive spirit during that famous campaign; at bottom they were engaged in a different sort of war from their master.

On the side of Napoleon's opponents there was some uncertainty. One of them, Austria, never frankly accepted the unlimited basis. Notwithstanding Metternich's disclaimers, we may safely assert that she was always hunting for a bargain. And it is hardly too much to say that the consequence was that the army which should have been the strongest in the field was in fact the weakest. Russia's Czar, as soon as the war was carried beyond his own borders, relaxed something of his previous intransigeance. It was only England and Prussia that maintained consistently the extreme offensive that was a prerequisite of success. Personally, I differ very strongly from current historical opinion as to the respective merits of Gneisenau and Blücher. To my mind the veteran Prussian Field-Marshal contributed more to the downfall of Napoleon than any other individual of his day, because he embodied the spirit of the unlimited offensive.

Enough of past history. Turning to the present war, it may be said that it was initiated by Germany on a limited basis. Her objects were large, even vast, but they were defined or limited; and her military action corresponded. It is true that the first move aimed at nothing less than putting the French first-line army out of the game within a couple of months of the declaration— a gigantic and, as it proved, impossible task. Yet the idea behind this operation remained within the bounds of limited war. For the move was inspired by a consideration of all the theatres of operations, with the advantages to be gained in each; and it was far more because military principle dictated the prompt elimination of the opponent's greatest military asset as the surest foundation for every subsequent move, than because Germany aimed at the destruction of France, that this great blow was delivered. It

was simply the best move of a series, that aimed, as a whole, at limited objectives.

On the German side the war took on an unlimited aspect locally, as in the Serbian campaign. On the other hand a special study of an instructive character, especially for the economic factors in the conduct of war, might be made of the peculiarly limited aspect of the struggle as between Germany and Italy. But it will be better to leave these topics on one side and to come at once to the submarine question.

It was foreseen more than twenty years ago, when the submarine was in its earliest experimental stage, that it might play a decisive part in war. French naval experts at the Hague Conference in 1898 argued against any limitation in its use, claiming that the unrestricted sinking of merchant vessels, in the case of a war between France and England, would enable France to starve England out in three weeks and bring her to an unconditional surrender. It was even argued that because of its rapidity and decisiveness this would prove a humane course in the long run.

The Germans had not developed their submarine power sufficiently in 1914 to have a far-reaching doctrine as to its employment. A few lucky successes at the outset, however, coupled with the bottling up of their main fleet, encouraged them to build more and better ships of the type. Later the destruction of British tonnage revealed the high effectiveness of the submarine in terms of the distribution of man-power, and indeed it played to the end a very big part in these terms.

But it is not until after the failure of the German attempt to negotiate at the close of 1916 that we come to unrestricted submarine warfare, or, let us say, to unlimited war. The psychological effect of this on both sides of the North Sea was so marked that it does not need to be recalled. What is more important is to note that in this respect it introduced a new factor of some degree of permanence in the relations of Great Britain and Germany.

It is true that the decisiveness of unrestricted submarine warfare had long been predicted. Yet until the beginning of the war such opinions were pretty well restricted to naval and military circles, and those who attempted to spread them were inevitably dismissed as cranks. But from the moment the war began the extreme possibility was realised by an increasingly large circle until finally British and German national consciousness were permeated with this idea, the idea of unlimited war, war to the knife. This national consciousness on both sides must inevitably remain, for some few years at least, an important factor in international politics. It was translated in the Armistice and Peace Treaty by those terms in which England attempted to throttle Germany's navy not merely in the present but in the future. It