recognised the correctness of this point of view, which is proved by the fact that they have tried by every means in their power to prove that their war was a defensive one; to that they were led by the German constitution, which allows the Emperor to declare war without the consent of Parliament, only in the case of a defensive war. The question of who began the war and whose is the guilt of having caused it, is of the greatest importance from the democratic and moral point of view.
Democracy demands defence, but it denounces injustice towards the enemy; democratic defence must not exceed the limits of justice in dealing with the enemy. For that reason the future peace must be a just one.
Democracy excludes the Prussian idolatry of war, and does not recognise it as the absolute measure of political and cultural capacity. The present war has already uprooted Prussian theories by revealing first of all how all the nations have proved their bravery and self-sacrifice on the battlefield—the Serbian, Russian, French, British, Italian, Belgian soldiers do not fight by any means less bravely than the German, and the nations of the Allies are not less capable of self-sacrifice than the Germans. As regards the French, the Pangermans declared that they were a decadent nation, and therefore deserving of no respect. On the battlefield they have completely disproved these Pangerman theories.
The Allied armies have worsted Prussian militarism, not only by their bravery, but even by their strategy. This applies essentially to the British Army; this is the first time, in fact, that the British have had a large army; and their new army is already capable of withstanding the old militarist army of Prussia, an army of military specialists. That is a decisive proof that a militia is sufficient even from the strategical point of view.
From the moral as well as the political standpoint we must reject Mr. Russell’s views on patriotism and nationalism. He thinks patriotism is unsatisfactory because it lacks universality; but even socialists, advocating humanitarian universalism, have been convinced that sound patriotism and nationalism are the organic step towards a living cosmopolitanism; national indifference generates a kind of cosmopolitanism, which, in fact, is political decay. Mr. Russell, though he repudiates imperialism, including British imperialism, is in danger himself of becoming a passive pacifist, by accepting
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