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Imperial Germany and a World Without War
The Peace Movement and German Society, 1892-1914
By Roger Chickering PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1975 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05228-1
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: The Peace Movement, Pacifism, and Political Culture
Among the documents of that tangle of events in 1914 known to historians as the July crisis, one of the least controversial has been the Serbian reply to the Austrian ultimatum. Convinced that the Austrians were determined to go to war regardless of how the Serbs answered the ultimatum, and convinced that the Serbs knew this, historians have not ascribed much importance to the substance of the Serbian reply, except to note that it was a clever piece of dissimulation designed to win for Serbia the support of world opinion. No doubt this interpretation is correct, and one ought to regard with skepticism any concessions the Serbs made in the document. This skepticism ought certainly to extend to the remarkable offer contained in the second paragraph of Article X of their reply: "In the event the Austrian government is not satisfied with this response, the Serbian government ... is prepared, as always, to accept a peaceful agreement, by submitting the question ... to the decision of the International Tribunal at The Hague."
However disingenuous, the Serbian offer was not altogether implausible. There was in fact a tribunal at The Hague, which had on several occasions successfully arbitrated international disputes submitted to it. In the years prior to i914 numerous international agreements had been negotiated, binding signatory states to arbitrate certain kinds of disputes either at The Hague or before some other suitable agency. There was, moreover, a considerable body of world opinion which believed that arbitration represented a realistic alternative to war and that the competence of bodies like the Hague tribunal ought to be enlarged.
Historians who have studied the origins of the First World War have shown little more interest in the development and popularization of arbitration than the diplomats in Vienna showed in the Serbian offer to resolve the July crisis at The Hague. Only recently have general studies of the prewar years begun to acknowledge that arbitration appeared to many Europeans as a feasible solution to the problem of international violence. The historical questions that remain unanswered about this possible alternative are legion. Given the political and social tensions in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, was arbitration in fact a feasible alternative to war? Did the men who formulated government policy regard arbitration as feasible or desirable? What was the nature of popular support for arbitration? Did it influence political decisions? What resistance did the concept of arbitration encounter?
No single volume can deal adequately with this complex of questions, at least not at the present stage of historical research into the problem. Obviously, the concept of arbitration was international in scope; this meant that discussion of the concept took place in all countries in Europe, in different circumstances and with significantly different results. Nonetheless, an analysis of this discussion in any single country must begin with a brief consideration of a movement in which there had by the turn of the century developed a strong sense of international solidarity.
The Development of the International Peace Movement
There has been no dearth in western history of thinkers who have envisaged the definitive elimination of violence from international affairs and have made specific proposals to this end. As a rule, however, these thinkers — men such as Crucé, Sully, St. Pierre, and Kant — were isolated intellectuals, officials, or clerics, who spoke for no articulate group but relied on the benevolence and insight of the sovereign heads of state for the realization of their projects. Only in the nineteenth century did proposals to do away with war begin to attract a politically active popular following.
The immediate stimulus for the creation of peace societies in the early nineteenth century was revulsion over the Napoleonic wars. The first such society was established in New York in August 1814, while the first in Europe, the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, was founded in London in June 1815. Most of the societies that appeared subsequently in the first half of the nineteenth century were located in England, but one was established in Paris in 182 1 and another in Geneva in 1830. Tied together by little more than personal acquaintances and a common commitment to working against war, this early peace movement represented the outgrowth of three different, though not unrelated traditions. The most important of these was Quakerism, a denomination whose unique blend of doctrinal precepts would make it the most active of all Christian groups in organized efforts to secure peace. Like many Christian sects, Quakers repudiated all forms of warfare, whether aggressive or defensive, as unbefitting a Christian life, and refused to participate in military service. In the case of most sectarian groups this repudiation was part of a general rejection of secular concerns; in Quakerism it was coupled with constructive political activism, a commitment to achieving the reforms that would eliminate the need for war. In this connection it was significant that the authors of two of the most important peace projects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, William Penn and John Bellers, were Quakers. In the early nineteenth century Quakers were the leading element in most English and American peace societies.
The second major tradition underlying the early peace movement was free-trade liberalism. Secular and utilitarian in its assumptions, this school of thought condemned warfare, to use the words of one of its principal figures, James Mill, as "the pestilential wind which blasts the property of nations" and "the devouring fiend which eats up the precious treasure of national economy." As the most effective guarantee of a durable peace, these liberals prescribed unimpeded international trade, which would tie the peoples of the world together in a network of commercial interdependence. The most renowned champions of this liberal case against war were Richard Cobden and John Bright, whose stature and influence made the peace movement an important factor in English politics.
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the peace movement remained much stronger in England than on the European continent, where neither Quakerism nor free-trade liberalism was as deeply rooted. The continental peace societies managed to attract primarily liberals, such as the Frenchmen Frédéric Bastiat and Joseph Garnier. Toward the middle of the century, however, an alliance began to form between the peace movement and a tradition indigenous to the continent. One of the articles of faith of nationalists inspired by Mazzini was that warfare would persist only as long as reactionary statesmen frustrated the national aspirations of the peoples of Europe. Lasting peace, they argued, would be the natural product of the division of mankind into harmonious, responsibly governed, national groups.
Largely a middle-class phenomenon, the early peace movement was more homogeneous socially than doctrinally. Although all elements in it agreed that war was reprehensible, they were severely at odds about conditions in which war might be permissible. Quakers argued that war was legitimate in no circumstances, while liberals approved of wars of self-defense, and Mazzinian nationalists even condoned revolutionary wars of national unification. There was, however, one point on which all could agree. Arbitration appealed to Quakers as a means to remove the need for wars of any kind; liberals regarded it as the appropriate device for resolving misunderstandings in the community of trading partners, and nationalists endorsed it as a useful tool for settling disputes that might occasionally arise in the great sisterhood of nations they envisaged. A principal activity of peace societies everywhere was, accordingly, the popularization of the concept of arbitration and the elaboration of plans for some kind of international arbitral agency.
The first phase of the peace movement's history culminated in a series of international peace congresses in the middle of the century. In 1843 delegates from the existing peace societies gathered in London for the first General Peace Convention. Then, amidst the euphoria of the mid-century revolutions on the continent, peace congresses convened in Brussels in 1848, in Paris in 1849, in Frankfurt in 1850, and in London in 1851. Although they created the impression of international solidarity, these congresses, like the peace movement itself, were overwhelmingly dominated by the English; 292 of the 324 delegates to the convention in 1843, and 670 of the 850 delegates to the congress in Paris were from Great Britain.
Even as this series of congresses was drawing to a close, the peace movement began to enter an eclipse that extended almost until the 1870s. The onset of reaction on the continent made it impossible for peace societies to work in public. The Crimean War and then the wars of national unification on the continent badly discouraged the Quakers, who made up much of the English movement. The American Civil War likewise created serious difficulties for the peace movement in the United States.
Measured by the numbers of people associated with it, the range of its activities, and the influence it enjoyed, the peace movement experienced its golden age in the period between the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of the First World War. This was both a result and a symptom of the significant developments that were changing the face of European society and politics. The most important of these was the accelerated internationalization of western life at the end of the century. The development of an international economy, unprecedented in its degree of interdependence, seemed to confirm the expectations of liberals that the nations of the world would tie themselves together in a vast commercial and financial network. To make this economic internationalization possible, an international communications and transportation network developed, overseen in part by international agencies such as the Universal Postal Union and the Telegraphic Union. In the wake of economic developments numerous cultural, humanitarian, professional, and religious organizations appeared. Between 1870 and 1914 over four hundred such nongovernmental organizations were created, and in l910 representatives of 137 of them met in Brussels to found the Union of International Associations, which was designed to serve as a coordinating agency for what was becoming known as the "international movement."
The late nineteenth century also saw a marked increase in the international coordination of political activity. The Second International provided the most conspicuous example; less dramatic, but no less political in implication, was the response of governments to the internationalization of communications, transportation, and the economy. Through a network of treaties, conventions, and agencies, governments regularized their relations in such important areas as the navigation of international waterways, consular jurisdiction, extradition, and some categories of commercial legislation. The product was a growing body of international law, which in turn stimulated scholarly and professional interest in its continued development. In l873 two private organizations were founded to study and promote the expansion of international law. The Institut de droit international, with headquarters in Ghent, was an elite group of statesmen and scholars, while the more widely based International Law Association in London appealed to lawyers, politicians, and professional people with a more practical interest in the development of international law.
From one perspective the expansion of the peace movement after 1870 represented an aspect of this internationalization. Peace societies sought to capitalize on the growth of international interdependence and to push it through to what they believed was its logical conclusion — the regulation by law of all critical aspects of international affairs, including the kinds of disputes that had routinely led in the past to war.
The growth of the peace movement at the end of the century was also a response to a paradoxical development: the same period in which international ties multiplied so rapidly also witnessed the transformation of Europe into an armed camp. The adoption of universal military service in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the development and deployment of efficient new weaponry, such as the small-caliber rifle, the machine gun, and siege artillery, portended war of unprecedented scale. The revolution in military equipment and organization also provoked popular alarm over the likely consequences of such a war and over the cost, both fiscal and moral, of maintaining vast armies and navies in peace time. From another perspective, then, the expansion of the peace movement represented an attempt to articulate this concern and make it politically effective.
One final factor contributed to the growth of the peace movement at this time. This was the very fact of a long period of peace in Europe — a phenomenon the peace movement tended to ascribe to internationalization rather than to the deterrent effect of large armies. Despite sporadic colonial wars and a series of increasingly ominous international crises after the turn of the century, peace societies could point to more than three decades of peace in Europe as evidence that war had become an anachronism.
The recovery of the peace movement from its mid-century decline can be dated from 1867, when two of the most durable peace societies on the continent were founded. Created in Paris by Frederic Passy, the Ligue internationale et permanente de la paix represented a continuation of the liberal tradition in calling for international political cooperation on the basis of free trade. The other new organization, the Ligue internationale de la paix et de la liberte, emphasized the more radical Mazzinian vision of a peaceful community of democratic nations, and after its creation in Geneva by Charles Lemonnier, it became a haven for disaffected republicans throughout Europe. Both new organizations stressed secular considerations in opposing war and were more successful in finding support on the continent than English Quakers had been earlier in the century.
After a brief relapse occasioned by the Franco-Prussian War, the peace movement's expansion began in earnest. By the middle of the 1870s new peace societies had been founded in Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In 1878 an international peace congress convened in Paris, attended by delegates from thirteen countries. In the 1880s peace societies underwent further expansion and reorganization. Plans began to take shape for some kind of international apparatus to coordinate activities among peace societies in different countries. In 1880 Hodgson Pratt established the International Arbitration and Peace Association of Great Britain and Ireland, an organization whose secular orientation appealed to those who were uncomfortable in the religious atmosphere that still prevailed in most English peace groups. Pratt was also a tireless agitator and set up several peace societies on the continent. At the same time a vigorous peace movement developed in Scandinavia.
In 1889 the development of the peace movement entered a new phase. In that year both of the institutions that would become the focal points of the prewar peace movement appeared. In June the first Universal Peace Congress met in Paris. There representatives from peace societies in western Europe and America decided to coordinate their campaign through a series of regular international congresses. They agreed as well that this campaign should emphasize the need for obligatory arbitration of international disputes. Immediately after this congress adjourned, the first Interparliamentary Conference convened, likewise in Paris. There, some one hundred parliamentarians, principally from France and England, also agreed to launch a series of regular international meetings and to exert pressure within their respective parliaments for negotiation of permanent treaties of arbitration.
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Excerpted from Imperial Germany and a World Without War by Roger Chickering. Copyright © 1975 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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