No More Learning

The new means of transport are especially important
in modern warfare. A State cannot have too many
railways for military purposes. An immediate occupa-
tion of an enemy's country is especially important in
modem warfare, for it puts an effective stop to all recruit-
ing. One of Napoleon III's most serious mistakes in
1870 was that he failed to occupy at least a portion
of the left bank of the Rhine. We could not, at the
outset, have prevented him from doing so, and this fact
is openly stated in the Introduction to the History of the
War composed by the general staff, which Moltke no
doubt wrote himself. We should, by that means, have
lost two army corps from our Field Army.
It is certain, then, that the more railways lead to the
frontier the better. But I must here repeat that every-
thing has its natural limits. It is true that an extensive
railway system facilitates the collection of an Army on
the frontier the moment war is declared; but during the
war its use is far more restricted. It is quite easy for a
scouting party to make a railway impracticable for a
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? THE ARMY 155
long time. The working capacity of a railway is also
limited, and it can only transport a given number of men
and guns in each day. Our general staff has calculated
that an Army of 60,000 men can cover thirty miles as
quickly on foot as by train. It is often more useful for
the troops to spend this time in marching. It thus
follows that railway transport is only an advantage
when the distances to be covered are great, and even
then the advantage is sometimes doubtful. If a line
of advance is to be kept secret, the troops must march.
This is proved by Bourbaki's unsuccessful expedition
against Southern Alsace. He collected his Army in
trains, and tried to bring it up in that way as far as the
Vosges. All our officers are of opinion that if the troops
had gone on foot the German outposts of the small
detachments on the western spurs of the Vosges would
not have observed them soon enough. As it was, our
Uhlan patrols on the heights were able to report a
noticeable activity on the railway lines in the valley,
and General Werder thus had time to draw in his men,
and cause them to take up a defensive position. The
old truth that very much depends on the marching
capacity of an efficient body of infantry still holds good
in modern warfare.
Our ideas regarding the importance of the fortress
have, on the other hand, undergone a complete change.
The time has long vanished when every town was a
fortress, and a long campaign in a hostile country usually
ended by taking the form of siege-warfare. To-day the
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? 156 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
question is even being asked, " Are fortresses any longer
of practical use? " The Germans answer this question
far more sensibly than the French. France surrounded
herself with a tremendous rampart of fortresses, reaching
from Sedan to Belfort, and thus believed herself shut
off from Germany as by a Chinese wall. But in so long
a line there must somewhere be a weak spot, which the
Germans will certainly end by finding. There is, how-
ever, an even more important consideration. Walls
cannot defend themselves, and if they are to be effectually
defended the great fortresses need a huge garrison, which
is thus lost to the Field Army. The Germans are of
opinion that small barrier-forts are necessary, and may
be useful even to-day. A little mountain fortress of
this kind situated on a defile can, under certain circum-
stances, cut the enemy off from using a whole system
of roads.
The Saxon fortress of Konigstein, for instance, is not
impregnable, but a siege of the place might drag on
indefinitely. It was from this fortress that a successful
attempt was made in 1866 to destroy the important
railway from Dresden to Prague, so that the Prussians
were unable to use it for a fortnight. The railway could
not be repaired because the batteries of the fortress
commanded the line. The advance of the Prussians
into Bohemia was thus made very difficult. The fortress
of Bitsch, in the Vosges, plays a very similar part. Little
mountain strongholds will thus continue to be of service
for some time to come.
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? THE ARMY 157
On the other hand, it is necessary to maintain the
large strongholds known as army fortresses, in order to
have places of refuge for a whole Army, and especially
so that one may there shelter and replenish a beaten
Army. Strasburg and Metz exist for this purpose.
All our officers agree, however, that we must not have
too many fortresses of this type. Many deny that they \
have any use at all, for decisive actions in war are always
fought in the open field, and any military system which
lessens our forces in the field presents very serious draw-
backs. A fortress of this kind needs a large garrison
even when no enemy is in the neighbourhood. We are
always brought back to the fact that National Armies,
which are so full of moral energy, must be looked upon
as pre-eminently capable of assuming a vigorous offensive.
I will conclude by pointing out, very briefly, that the
Fleet has begun to assume a far more important posi-
tion--not, in the first place, as an essential factor in a
European war, for no one believes now that a war between
great Powers could be decided by a naval battle--but
as a protection for the merchant navy and the colonies.
The task of ruling countries on the other side of the
Atlantic will, from henceforth, be the chief duty of
European fleets. For, since the object of human culture
must be to assert the supremacy of the white races on
the entire globe, the importance of a people will finally
depend on the share it takes in the rule of the trans-
atlantic world. It is on this account that the importance
of the Fleet has so largely increased during our own day.
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW.
Is there really such a thing as international law? Cer-
tainly there are two common theories of international
relations, each contradictory to the other, each quite
untenable. One, the so-called naturalistic theory, dates
from Machiavelli. It is based on the notion that the State
is merely might personified, that it has the right to do
anything that is profitable to it. On this view the State
cannot fetter itself by international law; its relations
with other States depend simply on the respective strength
which it and they possess. This theory leads to an
absurdity. It it of course true that the State implies
physical might. But if a State be that and nothing else,
if it pay no heed to reason or to conscience, it will never
maintain itself in a proper condition of safety. Even
naturalistic thinkers allow that it is a function of the State
to preserve internal order; that it cannot do if it refuses
to obey any law in its relations with other States. Its
deliberate contempt for good faith, loyalty, and treaty
agreements in external relations would raise a crowd of
enemies, and prevent it from fulfilling its purpose--the
embodiment of physical force. Even Machiavelli's ideal,
Caesar Borgia, ultimately fell into the pit which he had
digged for others For the end and object of the State's
158
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 159
existence is not physical might; it embodies might only
in order that it may protect and develop the nobler aspects
of mankind. Thus the doctrine of pure might is a vain
doctrine; it is immoral because it cannot justify its
own existence.
Directly contrary to this view of the State is another--
an equally false view. This is the " moral " conception
due to German liberalism. The State is here regarded
as a good little boy, to be washed, brushed, and sent to
school; he must have his ears pulled to keep him good,
and in return he is to be thankful, just-minded, and Heaven
knows what else. This German doctrinaire theory has
done as much harm to our political thinking as to other
forms of German life. All our political sins can be traced
back to the notion--natural enough in a learned nation--
that the pronouncement of some scientific truth is ade-
quate to turn the world's course into a new channel.
That notion underlies the German spirit of scientific
research; it also underlies our tendency to all manner of
practical blunders. The doctrinaire exponent of interna-
tional law fondly imagines that he need only emit a few
aphorisms and that the nations of the world will forth-
with, as reasonable men, accept them. We forget that
stupidity and passion matter, and have always mattered,
in history. Who, after all, can fail to see the growth
of national passions during the nineteenth century?
And whence do individuals--Rotteck, Bluntschli, Heffter,
and others--say to States peremptorily, "Thou shalt "?
No single man stands high enough to impose his doctrines
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? 160 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
on all States; he must be ready to see his theories crossed
or crushed by actual life. The delusion that there can be
such a thing as hypothetical law is at the root of these
errors. Positive law is the only law that has real existence.
Until the general public has grown convinced of the truth
and righteousness of various legal principles the function
of learned men is really limited to preparing the way.
Were we to pursue the abstract conception of the State
to its logical conclusion we should find ourselves demand-
ing a supreme authority with world-wide power. The
authority would be such as that claimed by the Papal
See--an authority not of this world, represented by the
Vicegerent of Christ and ruling in the name of God. That
is the sort of authority which we do not want on earth;
our beautiful world should be a world of liberty. Never-
theless, it is only ultramontane thinkers who have con-
sistently worked out to its logical issue the weak and
sentimental view of international law which we at this
moment are considering. That logical issue has been
rightly stated in the great "Codex" of the Jesuits;
according to it, the world is, as it were, an ethnarchy in
which the nations form an ideal community, while the
Pope, as ethnarch, wields over them a coercive power,
keeping each State within bounds by spiritual warnings
and ghostly power. That is the one practical conclusion
deducible from the premise that the State is a body liable
to external coercion. No system of international law can,
merely because it has a scientific basis, restrain a sovereign
State.
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 161
So, then, these two extreme views are both unworkable
in practice. Let us see if we can in their place set up a
theory of international law based on historical foundations-
First and before all we must recognise clearly that we
must not overweight our human nature with demands
which our weakness cannot meet. That mistake is respon-
sible for the perversion of many an idealist into a
disillusioned fanatic. The man who declaims that might
and the mailed fist alone decide the rivalry of nations is
often a soured fanatic who in his youth smoked away at
the pipe of peace, discovered that that was too good for
this poor world, rushed off to the other extreme, and now
declares that the basis of all things is brutality and
cynicism. No doubt all great political thinkers show a
touch of cynical contempt for mankind, and when this
contempt is not too deep it has its justification. But it
is only the man who does not ask the impossible from
human nature who can really awaken the finer energies
which, despite all frailties and brutish instincts, lie dor-
mant in man.
With this in mind, we must set to work historically and
consider the State as it actually is. It is physical force;
but it is also an institution aiming at the betterment of
mankind. In so far as it is physical force it has a
natural tendency to grab as many possessions as may
seem to it desirable. But every State will nevertheless
show of its own accord a real regard for neighbouring
States. Prudent calculation and a mutual recognition
of advantages will gradually foster an ever-growing sense
L
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? 162 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
of justice; there will arise the consciousness that each State
is bound up with the common life of the States around
it and that, willingly or unwillingly, it must come to terms
with them as a body of States. This consideration is
prompted not by any sort of philanthropy but by a literal
sense of the benefits of reciprocal action. What I may
call the formal part of international law, such as the rules
which assure the inviolability of ambassadors and which
regulate the ceremonial of embassies, was developed and
fixed at an early date in history. In modern Europe
the laws about embassies are definite and well deter-
mined. It may even be asserted that the formal side of
international law is more firmly established and more
seldom broken than the laws which govern the internal
life of each single State. Still, the existence of inter-
national law is precarious ; it is a lex imperfecta, because
there is no higher power to control States as a whole.
All depends on the sense of reciprocity between nations, and
here, in default (as already said) of a supreme authority,
learning and public opinion may play a great part. The
jurist Savigny declared that international law is perpe-
tually in the making. He did not mean, of course, that
it has no real validity. For this law which is daily grow-
ing is obviously of practical use at every turn. There can
be no doubt that the development of modern interna-
tional law owes a very special debt to Christianity, which
extends beyond the limits of single States towards
cosmopolitanism in the noblest sense of that term. Our
ancestors, therefore, were both reasonable and logical
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 163
when they for a while omitted the Porte from among the
nations bound by international law. They could not
admit the Porte so long as it was dominated exclusively
by Mohammedan standards of morals. More recently
Christianity has spread in the Balkans, Mohammedanism
has somewhat decreased there, and the Porte has been
brought into the circle of nations subject to international
law.
As States grow from small to large and from weakness
to independence they necessarily wish to preserve peace,
simply to ensure their safety and to guard the treasures
of civilisation entrusted to them. Hence grows up a
general agreement to obey international law, yielding an
orderly association of States, a political system. But
this at once presupposes a more or less approximately
level balance of power among the nations concerned. The
notion of a balance of power in Europe was at the first
accepted in a purely mechanical sense. But it contains
the germ of a perfectly true political conception. We
must not picture it under the image of a trutina gentium,
a weighing machine of nations, with both sides of the
balance equipoised. It is enough to premise that in any
ordered political system no State should be sufficiently
strong to be able to act as it pleases with impunity. In
this connexion we may note the superiority of present-day
Europe over the immature system of States in America.
There, the United States can do as they please, and it is
only because the relations of the United States with the
republics of South America are still rather slight that
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? 164 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the latter have as yet suffered little direct interference
from their northern neighbour.
The Russian diplomat Gortshakof once said, and said
with truth, that neither the nations who fear attack nor
those who deem themselves strong enough to be able to
attack whom they will, will ever hasten the completion of
international law. Actual examples will convince us of
the correctness of this acute remark. In countries like
Belgium and Holland, which have--most unfortunately
for the proper growth of international law--long been
the chief centres of its study, there has sprung up a
sentimental conception of it, begotten no doubt by
unceasing fear of attack from outside. These countries
have fallen into the custom of addressing to the
conqueror demands in the name of humanity which
contradict the power of the State, and are unnatural
and unreasonable. The treaties of peace signed at
Nymwegen and Ryswick in 1678-9 and 1697 show
that then Holland was looked on as the diplomatic
cockpit of Europe, where all questions of high politics
might be fought out. Later on, this doubtful honour
passed to Switzerland. Nowadays few people reflect
how ridiculous it is that Belgium should pose as
the home of international law.
Just as it is true that
that law rests on a basis of practical fact, so true is it that
a State which is in an abnormal position will inevitably
form an abnormal and perverted conception of it. Bel-
gium is neutral. And yet men think that it can give birth
to a healthy system of international law. I will ask you
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 165
to remember this when you are confronted with the volu-
minous literature which Belgian scholars have produced
on this subject.
Again, there is one country which believes itself in a
position to attack when it will, and which is therefore
a home of barbarism in all matters of international law.
Thanks to England, marine international law is still,
in time of war, nothing better than a system of privileged
piracy. We see, therefore, that as international law rests
wholly on reciprocity, it is vain to ask nations to listen
to empty commonplaces about humanity. Theory must
here be nailed down to practice; real reciprocity and a
real balance of power are inseparable.
If we would further define the sphere of international
law we must bear well in mind that it must never trespass
on the existence of the State. Demands which drive a
State towards suicide are necessarily unreasonable; each
State must retain its internal sovereignty amid the
general community of States; the preservation of
that sovereignty is its highest duty, even in its dealings
with its neighbours. The only principles of international
conduct which are seldom broken and may claim to be
fixed are those which do not touch this sovereignty, those,
namely, which concern the formal and ceremonial rules
mentioned above. To lay a finger on the honour of a
State is to contest its existence. Even to reproach a
State with a too touchy sense of honour is to misread the
true moral laws of politics. That State which will not be
untrue to itself must possess an acute sense of honour.
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? 166 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
It is no violet to flower unseen. Its strength should be
shown signally in the light of open day, and it dare not
allow that strength to be questioned even indirectly.
If its flag be insulted, it must ask satisfaction; if that
satisfaction be not forthcoming, it must declare war,
however trifling the occasion may seem.
It follows that all the limitations which States lay on
themselves in treaties are merely voluntary; all treaties
are concluded with a mental reservation--rebus sic
stantibus--so long as circumstances remain unchanged.
No State exists, no State ever will exist, which is willing
to observe the terms of any peace for ever; no State can
pledge itself to the unlimited observance of treaties, for
that would limit its sovereign power. No treaty can hold
good when the conditions under which it was signed have
wholly changed. This doctrine has been declared in-
human; in reality it will be found the height of humanity.
Until the State has realised that its engagements have but
limited duration, it will never exercise due skill in treaty-
making. We cannot treat history as if we were judges
in a civil court of law. If we did that we should have to
say that Prussia, having signed the treaty of Tilsit in 1807,
ought not to have attacked Napoleon in 1813. But that
treaty, like all others, was concluded rebus sic stanti-
bus, and, thank God, things had completely changed in
the six years. A whole nation found itself in a state to
escape from intolerable thraldom.
Never disregard the free moral life of the nation as a
whole. No State in the wide world can venture to relin-
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 167
quish the "ego " of its sovereignty. If conditions have
been imposed on it which cripple it or which it cannot
observe, the nation honours itself in breaking them. It
is one of the most admirable facts in history that a nation
can recover from material loss far sooner than from the
slightest insult to its honour. The loss of a province may
be accepted as inevitable; the endurance of what we
deem to be servitude is an unending insult to a noble-
hearted nation. Napoleon, by stationing his troops on
Prussian soil, stirred up fierce hatred in the veins even of
the most patient. When a State has been wounded in its
honour the breach of a treaty is but a matter of time.
England and France had to admit this in 1870. In their
arrogant pride at the end of the Crimean War they had
compelled their exhausted enemy to agree to remove all
her warships from the Black Sea. Russia seized the
opportunity offered by the Franco-Prussian War to break
the agreement, and she was fully within her rights.
If a State finds that any of its existing treaties have
ceased to express the relative strength of itself and the
other treaty-State, and if it cannot induce the latter to a
friendly cancelment of the treaty, then has come the
moment for the " legal proceedings " customary between
nations, that is, for war. And in such circumstances
war is declared in the full consciousness that the nation
is doing its duty. Personal greed plays no part in such
an act. Those who declare war then say to themselves,
"Our treaty-obligation has failed to correspond with our
relative strength at this moment; we cannot come to
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? 168 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
friendly terms; we turn to the great assize of the
nations. " The justice of a war depends wholly on the
consciousness of its moral necessity. And since there
neither can be nor ought to be any external
coercive power controlling the great personages of a
State, and since history must ever remain in a state of
change, war is in itself justifiable; it is an ordinance of
God. No doubt a State may err as to the necessity of
applying this means of coercion. Niebuhr spoke truly
when he said that war can establish no right which did not
previously exist. Just for this reason we may look upon
certain deeds of violence as expiated in the very act of
being committed--for example, the completion of German
or of Italian unity. On the other hand, since not every
war produces the results which it ought to produce, the
historian must now and again withhold his judgment and
remember that the life of a State lasts for centuries. The
proud saying of the conquered Piedmontese, "We will
begin again," will always have its place in the history
of noble nations.
War will never be swept from the earth by courts of
arbitration. In questions that touch the very life of a
State, the other members of the community of States
cannot possibly be impartial. They must take sides
just because they belong to the community of States and
are drawn together or forced apart by the most diverse
interests. If Germany were foolish enough to try to
settle the question of Alsace-Lorraine by arbitration,
what European power could be impartial? You could
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 169
not find impartiality even in dreamland. Hence the
fact--well known to us all--that though international
congresses may formulate the results of a war and set
them out in juristic language, they can never avert a
threatened outbreak of hostilities. Other States can be
impartial only in questions of third-rate importance. # .
We have nowagreed thafwar is just and moral, and that
the ideal of eternal peace is both unjust and immoral,
and impossible. A purely intellectual life, with its
enervating effect on the thinker, may make men think
otherwise; let us get rid of the undignified attitude of
those who call possible what never can happen. So long
as human nature, with its passions and its sins, remains
what it is, the sword shall not depart from the earth.
It is curious to see how, in the writings of the pacificists,
unconsciously the sense of national honour cuts into the
talk of cosmopolitanism. In the Old Testament the
prophet Joel demanded that Israel should win a bloody
battle over the heathen in the valley of Jehosaphat;
Victor Hugo clamours in like manner that the Germans
shall first get a flogging before universal peace sets in.
Again and again it must be repeated that war, the violent
form of the quarrels of the nations, is the direct outcome
of the very nature of the State. The mere fact that there
are many States proves, of itself, that war is necessary.
Frederick the Great said that the dream of universal peace
is a phantom which everyone ignores so soon as it affects
his own freedom of action. A lasting balance of power,
he adds, is inconceivable.
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? 17(C) TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Curiously enough, however, it is just in the domain of
war that the triumph of the human intellect most clearly
asserts itself. All noble nations have felt that the physical
power unchained in war must be regulated by laws.
The result has been the gradual establishment, by common
consent, of rules and customs to be observed in time of war.
The greatest successes of the science of international law
have been won in a field which those who are fools look
upon as barbarous--I mean the domain of the laws of war.
Really gross instances of the violation of military usages
are rare in modern times. One of the finest things about
international law is that it is perpetually progressing in
this respect, and that the universalis consensus alone
has so firmly planted a whole series of principles that they
are now well established. No doubt international law
will always lag a little behind the civil law, for various
principles of justice and culture must first reach maturity
within the State before anyone will feel anxious to find
them a corner in international conduct. Thus it was that
no crusade against slavery could claim the support of
international law till the general belief in the dignity of
man had become common in the nineteenth century.
Another factor which contributed to strengthen inter-
national law is the growing publicity of public life.
The days of the English Blue Book are now past; these
Blue, Yellow, and Green Books were only intended to
blind the Philistine with fumes of a flattery through which
he cannot see. A clever diplomat can easily hoodwink
a Parliament by these means. But the whole life of the
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 171
'
State is lived to-day so entirely in the glare of the footlights
that a gross violation of international law at once arouses
real anger among all civilised peoples.
International Law in Time of Peace.
We may now study some of the principles affecting the
intercourse of nations in time of peace which have deve-
loped into law. All nations should be allowed to enjoy,'
in security and without distinction, the unifying influences
of commercial intercourse, science, and art. Ancient
peoples sometimes forbade other nations to practise
certain industries which were looked on as secret arts.
In the later Roman Empire it was forbidden to initiate
barbarians in ship-building, and similar monopolist
principles obtained even as late as the days of the Hansa
League. All that would be impossible to-day. The State
must take the risk of free competition with other States,
and that has been laid down in a whole series of treaties.
In classical times it was, further, the custom of
almost all nations to claim exclusive access to some parti-
cular sea. Later still, it has been held that certain seas
which were not properly called oceans belonged to
particular States. The Adriatic was the property of
Venice, the Ligurian Sea of Genoa, the Gulf of Bothnia
of Sweden. To-day the sea is said to belong to the States
which border on it only so far as it can be militarily con-
trolled from the coast, that is, within gunshot. But
in such questions, as in so many others, everything
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? 172 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
ultimately depends on the actual power of the States
concerned. If a particular State can dominate a particular
sea, no well-meaning theorist can ever make that sea
public. The Caspian Sea belongs in name to two States,
Persia and Russia. But Russia is so strong that the Sea
is a Russian lake. So, again, if a power were to arise at
Constantinople strong enough to close the Bosphorus
to all comers, protestations against such an act would
be merely laughed at. Apart from this, the sea must be
regarded as open to all ships flying a recognised flag. The
high seas are policed by the navies of all nations, and every
man-of-war has the right to stop a merchantman and
examine its papers. This is the result of a long and
intricate development. All nations are now agreed that
occasional inconveniences suffered by their merchant
ships is a far lesser evil than piracy.
All international rights are safeguarded by treaties.
These treaties differ in many details from compacts made
under the civil law. In the first place they depend on good
faith on both sides, since there is no tribunal to compel
either side to observe them. The ancient Athenians were
therefore obeying a right instinct when they decided to
l limit the time during which their treaties with other nations
held good. Christian nations have tended rather to re-
j gard treaties as eternally binding, but their real attitude
is that they are willing to observe the treaty so long as the
relative strength of the States involved does not seriously
change. The more clearly this truth is proclaimed, and the
more dispassionately it is regarded, the safer will be the
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? INTERNATIONAL LAW 173
treaties made; States will not conclude agreements which
the other party is likely to break.
There are other treaties which are made under compul-
sion. Such compacts are not made in time of peace;
if Switzerland be unwilling in peace time to enter into a
treaty with Germany, she is free to refuse. But after
wars the victor imposes a compulsory peace on the con-
quered. Here again we seek in vain for the external judge
who can say with authority, " This treaty is compulsory. "
It does not appear that there can be any limit of time
implied in agreements under international law. Limits
are imposed on the duration of certain legal liabilities
under the ordinary law; for example, thefts might cease
to be actionable after twenty years. But this is really a
juristic makeshift. The framer of the law has authorised
a legal fiction on practical grounds. It is not thought
worth while to pursue a trifling offence after the lapse of a
long period. But that cannot be done in international
law. The lives of States last for centuries. One would
have to wait for years for the expiry of the time-limits
of nations. Frederick the Great had a perfect right to
claim Silesia as part of his kingdom, though the treaties
which secured it to his family were over two hundred
years old.
Much progress has been effected of late years in the
way of better drafting, and also of more distinct ratifica-
tion, of international treaties, as well as in lucidity of
wording. As a rule, such treaties ought not to contain
secret clauses. They merely obscure the true state of
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? 174 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
affairs; they bring it about that States which are unaware
of them form false ideas of their mutual obligations, and
thus they may easily prove dangerous to the very State
which made them. Governments used to imagine that
secret clauses would trip up other governments; obviously
they are actually a double-edged weapon. There are,
of course, exceptions even to this. In 1866, when Prussia
made peace with the conquered States of Southern Ger-
many, an offensive and defensive alliance between them
was concluded in a series of secret treaties.