THE
WAR OF STEEL AND GOLD
A STUDY OF THE ARMED PEACE
BY
HENRY NOEL BRAILSFORD
TENTH EDITION, REVISED
LONDON
G. BELL & SONS, LTD.
.
FIRST PUBLISHED, MAY, 1914.
REPRINTED, DECEMBER, 1914.
CHEAPER EDITION, JULY, 1915.
REPRINTED, OCTOBER, 1915.
REPRINTED, DECEMBER, 1915.
REPRINTED, MAY, 1916.
REPRINTED , SEPTEMBER, 1916.
REPRINTED, MARCH, 1917.
REPRINTED, OCTOBER, 1917.
REPRINTED, OCTOBER. 1918.
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PART I---DESCRIPTIVE |
|
| THE BALANCE OF POWER | |
| "REAL POLITICS | |
| Diplomacy and Finance | |
| The Export of Capital | |
| The Trade in War | |
| THE EGYPTIAN MODEL | |
| CLASS-DIPLOMACY | |
|
PART II---CONSTRUCTIVE |
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| ON PACIFISM | |
| SOCIALISM AND ANTI-MILITARISM | |
| THE CONTROL OF POLICY | |
| THE CONTROL OF FINANCE | |
| ON ARMAMENTS | |
| THE CONCERT OF EUROPE | |
| A POSTSCRIPT ON PEACE AND CHANGE | |
| APPENDIX---Sketch of a Federal League |
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PREFACE
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
A STUDY of the armed peace may seem superfluous amid general war. The true causes of the present struggle worked none the less in the protracted rivalry which preceded it. The Serajevo murders broke the bonds of public law and goodwill, only because a decade of diplomatic strife had left them frayed and worn. During the early months of this war, in our mood of idealistic exaltation, we dwelt exclusively on the issues of nationality involved in Europe. The argument of this book traces the rivalry of the Great Powers primarily to economic motives, and especially to the struggle for the possession of monopolies, concessions, and spheres of influence over-seas. These motives are more visibly at work to-day than they seemed to be in August, 1914. The war is protracted largely to decide whether Turkey shall be exploited by the Germans or partitioned among the Allies. The dismemberment of Austria-Hungary may seem to be a demand inspired by the principle of nationality. Behind that demand there lies, however, the resolve to weaken the enemy, to shut him off from access to the East, to cut the road from Berlin to Bagdad and to prevent the creation of "Central Europe" as an economic unity. Added to this Eastern issue is the question of the future possession of the German colonies, and the immense economic programme of the Paris Resolutions. The idealistic issues have been overlaid, as the war went on, by questions of colonisation and trade, by competing claims for economic predominance in the East, and by the threat of a tariff struggle which will outlast the war. The issues which made the armed peace are infallibly shaping the course of the war itself. The issues of nationality are, none the less, living and real, but they provoked a universal war only because the economic rivalries of the Great Powers lay behind them
The greater part of this book was written in 1910. It was revised and completed in the winter of 1913, and published in May, 1914. The constructive chapters are busied mainly with a domestic problem. By what constitutional changes may a democracy, baffled by the secretive and irresponsible procedure of diplomacy, hope to bring under control the interested economic forces which inspire the struggle for a balance of power? I dealt only tentatively with the larger problem of international organisation. The war showed us our peril, created an articulate demand for reconstruction, and tempted me to give to my originally vague proposals a much more definite shape. In the third edition (May, 1915) 1 added a new chapter, "A Postscript on Peace and Change," and as an appendix, a sketch of a Federal League of European Nations. A year later President Wilson made his memorable speech to the American League to Enforce Peace. What had been a scheme cherished by visionaries and idealists, became the programme of statesmen who have the power and profess the will to realise it. In a subsequent book (A League of Nations. Headley Brothers, 5s.) I have attempted to work out this idea in detail, and to bring it into relation with the settlement of the war. The ten pre-war chapters of The War of Steel and Gold remain (with a few verbal corrections) as they were first published. The reviewers found them pessimistic and cynical in May, 1914. The reader of to-day will smile occasionally at their excessive optimism. They may have a use if they serve to analyse the forces which make our modern wars---the forces which may wreck the coming peace.
Notes added since 1914 are marked P.S.
March, 1917.
H. N. BRAILSFORD
