February 14, 191 8 
Land & Water 
.7 
In one step after another as the war proceeded Prussia 
broke what had been regarded as inviolably sacred under- 
standings throughout the European community. Men without 
a creed, without a moral code, men without tenacity and 
therefore almost without moral memory, may condone these 
things now that they have grown familiar ; but men who boast 
of certain standards of decency, who regard such things as 
" impossible," are much saner in their judgment. For these 
standards, these points in the code of international morals, 
are expressions of something vital to the life of Europe. If 
they are neglected, Europe rapidly and necessarily declines — 
with what ultimate consequences of disaster we cannot tell. 
And the first results of such a decline will be felt here, in this 
crowded island. 
So true is it that Prussia in breaking these elementary laws 
of European morality has imperilled the whole of our civilisa- 
tion, that she herself — utterly imscrupulous as her whole 
history proves her to be — showed hesitation before each new 
step downwards. There was always an interval between two 
succeeding increments of atrocity, nearly always an at- 
tempted apology or explanation. There was here exactly 
what you see in the career of the individual criminal. Things 
rare in 1871 — such as the shooting of hostages — were done 
wholesale in 1914. Things impossible even to Prussia in 1871 
—such as the massacre of neutrals — were done as a matter of 
course in 1914. Things such as the use of poison, which any 
sane man in this country during the first six months of the 
war would have told you were unthinkable in Europe, were 
done by Prussia before twelve months had passed. Things 
which were quite unthinkable in 1915 were done in 1916— 
and so on. 
Accumulation of Atrocities 
The series lies patent to all. The drama has been* enacted 
before the eyes of all. Nothing biit an inexcusable slackness 
of fibre can explain a forgetfulness of such a series. The use 
of poison was unthinkable. It took place. The bombard- 
ment of civilians in open towns was unthinkable. It took 
place. The sinking of merchant ships without warning was 
still unthinkable. It took place. Even then the sinking of 
neutral merchant ships without warning was stUl unthinkable. 
Prussia proceeded to that. Hospital ships were still surely 
immune we said ! So slow is a civilisation — like an individual 
■ — ^to appreciate the approach of death. But there came a 
time when Prussia announced her intention of sinking hospital 
ships — -and she did sink them. There is no end to such a 
series. It may pass from such acts to private assassination, 
to the corruption of the water supplies of great cities, to the 
calculated spread of epidemic diseases. It is a plain declara- 
tion of moral anarchy in the midst of Europe. 
If any man says that he does not mind the advent of moral 
anarchy let him consider how much his own little comfort 
and even life, especially in this country, dejiend upon some 
measure of moral order between nations. 
With the moral order between nations dissolved London is 
always at the mercy of an attaclc from the air — at any moment, 
certainly without declaration of war. The supplies of this 
island are at the mercy of a similar attack by the new engines 
at sea. It is true of every European community — it ought to 
be- obviously true, but one must repeat these things — that 
lacking a certain measure of convention between them all 
the fabric of Europe Is dissolved. That is as true of a comity 
of nations as it is true of a community of individuals. That 
is why we put the anarchist in society to death. If we do 
not destroy him we are at his mercy. 
But, after all, most men, when so elementary a thing is 
pointed out to them, agree with it. It is the other proposition 
which is really dangerous : the proposition that Prussia 
having once begun these things, they have entered into the 
common habit of Europe and cannot be uprooted. You hear 
most technicians nowadays discussing the use of poison gas 
in war as a development like any other and one which will 
have to be taken for granted in the future as we have taken 
artillery or any similar new weapon in the past. You hear 
men accepting as a commonplace the chances of unannounced 
attack from the air upon great civilian populations in the 
future ; the imperfect methods of defence against the same ; 
the effect it will have upon the construction of our cities. 
You hear men similarly debate,though a little more cautiously 
and in rather lower voices, the conditions of sea-power and of 
life upon a crowded island when (as they take for granted) 
an enemy may attack them without warning by sdbmarine. 
All that point of view is false. If we are for the future to 
stand in dread of such a dissolution in European morals as 
will permit these things, then Europe has indeed committed 
suicide. It is not the war which Prussia desired and procured, 
it is our submission that will be the suicide of Europe. Such 
an ending to the present conflict would be much more definitely 
the end of all our civilisation, and in particular of this country, 
than the mere impxiverishment which must follow upon the 
prolongation of this war. From such a chaos as the continu- 
ance of Prussiau methods in war there is no escape. It means 
our final dissolution. 
Those who tell' us that such action can be avoided in the 
future by getting the originators of it all to sign their names 
on a bit of paper are not worth arguing with. Those who tell 
us that it is unavoidable and that Prussian methods of indis- 
criminate murder are unavoidable hold a more formidable 
position. But it is a position only formidable because they 
have not learnt the main lessons of history. 
History, which is the object lesson of human psychology, 
the permanent experience of how the human mind acts, 
teaches one thing quite clearly. It is that an undefeated and 
unchastised aggression upon the essential morals of a civOisa- 
tion is always successful. Any compromise with barbarism, 
any paying of dane-gelt, any postponement or shirking of 
the hard duty of warring down the menace, defeats its own 
object. It does not purchase security at the expense of honour. 
It sacrifices both. 
It is a thing we could premise from what we know of indi- 
vidual character ; it is at any rate a thing which stands clearly 
out from the established record of three thousand years. 
Who first proposes to yield is defeated. 
Permanency of Defeat 
There is a converse truth which too many men are reluctant 
to entertain. History very clearly proves, if continued human 
precedent is any proof, that the defeat of powers thus chal- 
lenging civilisation is a permanent thing. If you break them 
their acts are not repeated — but only if you break them. 
■ It is not true that acts of anarchy, and of terror, or habits 
incompatible with a certain standard of civilisation, re-arise 
"easily after their defeat in the field, or, at any rate, after the 
dissolution through the effect of war of the organisms prac- 
tising them. Human sacrifice did not re-arise in Gaul after 
the victory of the Romans, nor in North Africa after the 
destruction of Carthage. The burnings of the Commune were 
not repeated elsewhere in Europe after the military victory 
of authority in 1871. The methods of the Revolutionary 
Terror were not attempted after the punishment of its authors. 
The one thing and the only thing which stamps out an evil 
influence (and a good influence too, for that matter), when 
once the challenge of arms has been accepted, is success 
under arms. 
Two clearly opp)osing principles will not stand side by side 
in one spiritual community, such as is or was the civilisation 
of Europe. One or the other will be destroyed. There will 
be victory or defeat. 
Men stiU living can remember an instance of this. It is 
an instance which has no relation to the fundamental quarrel 
between good and evil as has this war. It relates only to a 
specific and logical difference in constitutional ideas. I refer 
to the armed struggle between the Union in the United States 
and the Confederacy. We have no need to discuss which 
ideal was justified, whether both were justified, or neither. 
The point is that two incompatible theories of constitutional 
conduct were opposed ; either the national unity of a vast 
Federal Democracy could be maintained or its tendencies 
to local independence and separatism would triumph. What 
decided the issue for good or ill, and the only thing that could 
decide the issue, was complete military success gained by one 
of the two sides over the other. 
The last obvious form of such a success may be a great battle 
or it may be an internal dissolution, or a slow siege followed 
by a capitulation. But some definite seal of success there 
always is which is called in military history a decision. 
Such a decision achieved against Prussia, as the fruit of 
some mighty effort upon the part of forces originally inferior ' 
to her own and alw£^ys handicapped by the natural weaknesses 
of a coalition, would stamp out the increasingly evil precedents 
in war created by Prussia during the last three years. It 
would make them impossible for the future- — that is the 
point. Unless they are made impossible for the future our 
civilisation goes under. They cannot be made impossible 
by mutual understandings, for there is no mutual action at 
work. France and England have not shot hostages nor 
initiated indiscriminate murder by sea and land. They have 
not originated the use of poison gas, Hor constructed vast 
systems of internal espionage and treason. It is no case of 
a number of equally erring passionate belligerents coming to 
their senses and making good a misunderstanding. It is a 
case of destroying by example something which, if it 
survives, will be the death of us. 
I can see no escape from that conclusion, and, as it seems 
to me, all those who attempt to escape it to-day cither deli- 
berately shut their eyes to the immediate past or, as is very 
common in the case with men under a strain of fatigue, are 
choosing immediate relief at the expense of future cat.'strophe. 
H. Belloc. 
