too crude for official use. This correct official position can be found
only by considering what Germany should have done, and might have done
had she not been, like our own Junkers, so fascinated by the Militarist
craze, and obsessed by the chronic Militarist panic, that she was "in
too great hurry to bid the devil good morning." The matter is simple
enough: she should have entrusted the security of her western frontier
to the public opinion of the west of Europe and to America, and fought
Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended. The
Militarist theory is that we, France and England, would have immediately
sprung at her from behind; but that is just how the Militarist theory
gets its votaries into trouble by assuming that Europe is a chess board.
Europe is not a chess board; but a populous continent in which only a
very few people are engaged in military chess; and even those few have
many other things to consider besides capturing their adversary's king.
Not only would it have been impossible for England to have attacked
Germany under such circumstances; but if France had done so England
could not have assisted her, and might even have been compelled by
public opinion to intervene by way of a joint protest from England and
America, or even by arms, on her behalf if she were murderously pressed
on both flanks. Even our Militarists and diplomatists would have had
reasons for such an intervention. An aggressive Franco-Russian hegemony,
if it crushed Germany, would be quite as disagreeable to us as a German
one. Thus Germany would at worst have been fighting Russia and France
with the sympathy of all the other Powers, and a chance of active
assistance from some of them, especially those who share her hostility
to the Russian Government. Had France not attacked her--and though I am
as ignorant of the terms of the Franco-Russian alliance as Sir Edward
Grey is strangely content to be, I cannot see how the French Government
could have justified to its own people a fearfully dangerous attack on
Germany had Russia been the aggressor--Germany would have secured fair