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THE AUDACIOUS WAR

by

CLARENCE W. BARRON







Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1915
Copyright, 1914 and 1915, by the Boston News Bureau Company
Copyright, 1915, by Clarence W. Barron
All Rights Reserved
Published February 1915

THIRD IMPRESSION




IF!

Suppose 't were done!
The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;
Into the wheeling death-clutch sent
Each millioned armament,
To grapple there
On land, on sea and under, and in air!
Suppose at last 't were come--
Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb
And arsenals and dockyards hum,--
Now all complete, supreme,
That vast, Satanic dream!--

Each field were trampled, soaked,
Each stream dyed, choked,
Each leaguered city and blockaded port
Made famine's sport;
The empty wave
Made reeling dreadnought's grave;
Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell
'Neath bomb and shell;
In deathlike trance
Lay industry, finance;
Two thousand years'
Bequest, achievement, saving, disappears
In blood and tears,
In widowed woe
That slum and palace equal know,
In civilization's suicide,--
What served thereby, what satisfied?
For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?
Naught!--

Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap
On the world's shaken map
New lines, more near or far,
Binding to king or czar
In festering hate
Some newly vassaled state;
And passion, lust and pride made satiate;
And just a trace
Of lingering smile on Satan's face!
--_Boston News Bureau Poet_.


This poem has been called the great poem of the war. It was written
just preceding the war, and published August 1 by the "Boston News
Bureau." Of it, and its author, Bartholomew P. Griffin, the following
was written by Rev. Francis G. Peabody: "The English poets, Bridges,
Kipling, Austin, and Noyes, have all tried to meet the need and all
have lamentably failed. I am proud not only that an American, but that
a Harvard man, should have risen to the occasion."




PREFACE

The Scotch have this proverb: "War brings poverty. Poverty brings
peace. Peace brings prosperity. Prosperity brings pride. And pride
brings war again." Shall the world settle down to the faith that there
is no redemption from an everlasting round of pride, war, poverty,
peace, prosperity, pride, and war again?

But it was not primarily to settle, or even study this problem that I
crossed the ocean and the English Channel in winter. As a journalist
publishing the _Wall Street Journal_, the _Boston News Bureau_, and the
_Philadelphia News Bureau_, and directing news-gathering for the
banking and financial communities, I deemed it my duty to ascertain at
close hand the financial factors in this war, and the financial results
therefrom.

I found myself on the other side, not only in the domain of the finance
encircling this war, but unexpectedly in close touch with diplomatic
and government circles. The whole of the war, its commercial causes,
its financial and military forces, its tremendous human sacrifices, the
conflicting principles of government, and the world-wide issues
involved, all lay out in clear facts and figures after I had gathered
by day and night from what appeared at first to be a tangled web.

I learned who made this war, and why at this time and for what
purposes, present and prospective; and from facts that could not be set
down categorically in papers of state. No papers, "white," "gray," or
"yellow," could present a picture of the war in its inception and the
reasons therefor.

There is no powerful organization over nations to keep the peace of
Europe or of the world, as nations are in organization over states, and
states over cities, to insure peace and justice, without strife or
human sacrifice.

The immediate causes of this war, and I believe they have not before
been presented on this side of the ocean, are connected with commercial
treaties, protective tariffs, and financial progress.

It may be wondered that in our country, which is the home of the
protective tariff system and boasts its great prosperity therefrom,
there has been as yet no presentation of the business causes beneath
this war. Our great journalists are trained to find interesting,
picturesque, and saleable news features from big events. Details of
war's atrocities and destructions are to most people of the greatest
human interest, and rightly so. As a country we have no international
policy, and European politics and policies have never interested us.

Germany is buttressed by tariffs and commercial treaties on every side.
Years ago I was told in Europe that the commercial treaties wrested
from France in 1871 were of more value to Germany than the billion
dollars of indemnity she took as her price to quit Paris. But I did
not realize until I was abroad this winter how European countries had
warred by tariffs, and that Germany and Russia were preparing for a
great clash at arms over the renewal of commercial and tariff treaties
which expire within two years, and which had been forced by Germany
upon Russia during the Japanese War.

German "Kultur" means German progress, commercially and financially.
German progress is by tariffs and commercial treaties. Her armies, her
arms, and her armaments, are to support this "Kultur" and this progress.

I believe I have told the story as it has never been told before. But
the facts cannot be drawn forth and properly set in review without some
presentation of the spirit of the peoples of the European nations.

If all the nations of Europe were of one language, the spirit, the soul
of each in its distinctive characteristics might stand out even more
prominently than to-day.

Then we could see even more clearly the spirit of brotherhood and
nationality that stands out resplendent as the soul of France. We
should see the spirit of empire and of trade, interknit with
administrative justice, as the soul of Great Britain. We should see
Germany an uncouth giant in the center of Europe, viewing all about him
with suspicion, and demanding to know why, as the youngest, sturdiest,
best organized, and hardest working European nation, he is not entitled
to overseas or world empire.

But few persons on this side have comprehended the relation of this
great war to the greatest commercial prizes in the world; the shores of
the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, with its Bagdad Railroad headed for the
Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia with its great oil-fields, undeveloped and a
source of power for the recreation of Palestine and all the lands
between the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and Asia.

The greatest study for Americans to-day is the spirit of nations as
shown in this war, and great lessons for the United States may be found
in the finance, business, patriotism, and justice that stand forth in
the British Empire as never before. She is rolling up a tremendous
war-power within her empire and throughout Europe, encircling the
German war-power. But she is likewise looking to her own people and
her own workers, filling her own factories and every laboring hand to
the full that she may keep her business and profits at home, and with
her business and profits and accumulated capital and income prosecute
the greatest war of history.

She is not unmindful in any respect of what the war may send her way.
In the breaking-away and the breaking-up of Turkey, she sees a clear
field for Egypt, the realization of the dream of Cecil Rhodes of the
development of the whole of Africa by a Cape to Cairo Railroad, and she
sees her own empire and peoples belting the world in power, usefulness,
and justice, and with a sweep and scope for enterprise and development
beyond all the previous dreams of this generation.

The United States, with hundreds of millions of banking reserves
released and giving base for a business expansion double any we have
had before, seems suddenly paralyzed in its business activities and,
comprehending only that the loaf of bread is a cent higher and a pound
of cotton a few cents lower, it is wondering on which side of its bread
the butter is to fall.

Meanwhile, it talks politics, asks if prosperity here is to come during
or after the war; and having little comprehension of the meaning of the
national throbs that on the other side of the globe are pulsating the
world into a new era of light, liberty, and expansion by individual
labor, it refuses to take up its daily home-task and go forward.

In the hope that these pages may be useful to my fellow countrymen in
giving them the facts of this war, its commercial causes, its financial
progress, its sacrifice in humanity,--sacrifice that could not be
demanded but for a greater future,--these papers are taken, as
completed in my financial publications in this month of February, and
placed before the reading community in book form, as requested in
hundreds of personal letters.

They were never conceived or written with any idea of their permanent
preservation. They were prepared for the banking community, which
demands news-facts and figures discriminatingly presented. The banker
wants the truth; he will make his own argument and reach his own
conclusions.

The reader will readily see that these chapters are day-to-day issues
aiming to present that news from the standpoint of finance. But under
all sound finance must be primarily the truth of humanity. They do not
claim to be from beginning to end a harmonious book-presentation of the
war, but it is believed that they contain the essential fundamental
war-facts; and the aim was to present them in most condensed expression.

They cover the first six months of this most Audacious War. Whether it
is to continue for another six months or another sixteen months is not
so material as the character of the peace and what is to follow.

No greater problem can be placed before the world than that of how the
peace of nations may be maintained. Having cleared my own mind upon
this subject, I submit it in the final chapter, which naturally follows
after that treating of the lessons for the United States from this war.

Only in an international organization, with power to make decrees of
peace and enforce them, and with insurance of powers above those of all
dissenters, can we find the peace of nations as we have found the peace
of cities. This Audacious War has forced such an alliance as can yield
this power. Its transfer to the support of an International tribunal
can make and keep the peace of Europe and eventually of the world.

Then may the earth cease to be, in history, that steady round of
Prosperity, Pride, and War.

C. W. Barron.

February 15, 1915.




CONTENTS


I. THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST
II. TARIFFS AND COMMERCE THE WAR CAUSES
III. THE POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE WAR
IV. PEACE PROPOSALS
V. FRANCE AND THE FRENCH
VI. THE POSITION OF FRANCE
VII. FRENCH FINANCE
VIII. THE BELGIAN SACRIFICE
IX. RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS
X. THE ENGLISH POSITION
XI. ENGLISH WAR FORCES
XII. ENGLISH WAR FINANCE
XIII. GERMAN RESOURCES
XIV. IS IT THE PEOPLE'S WAR?
XV. THE GERMAN POSITION
XVI. THE LESSONS FOR AMERICA
XVII. WHAT PEACE SHOULD MEAN




THE AUDACIOUS WAR


CHAPTER I

THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST

The Censorship--The Warship "Audacious"--Mine or Torpedo?--The Battle
Line--War by Gasolene Motors--The Boys from Canada--The Audacity of it.

The war of 1914 is not only the greatest war in history but the
greatest in the political and economic sciences. Indeed, it is the
greatest war of all the sciences, for it involves all the known
sciences of earth, ocean, and the skies.

To get the military, the political, and especially the financial flavor
of this war, to study its probable duration and its financial
consequences, was the object of a trip to England and France from which
the writer has recently returned.

One can hear "war news" from the time he leaves the American coast and
begins to pick up the line of the British warships--England's far-flung
battle line--until he returns to the dock, but thorough investigation
would convince a trained news man that most of this war gossip is
erroneous.

This war is so vast and wide, from causes so powerful and deep, and
will be so far-reaching in its effects that no ill-considered or
partial statements concerning it should be made by any responsible
writer.

The difficulty of obtaining the exact facts by any ordinary methods is
very great. There is a strict supervision of all news, and to insure
that by news sources no "aid or comfort" is given to the enemy, a vast
amount of pertinent, legitimate, and harmless news and data is
necessarily suppressed. The censors are military men and not news men,
and act from the standpoint that a million facts had better be
suppressed than that a single report should be helpful to the enemy.
Only in Russia are reports of news men from the firing line allowed.

One hears abroad continually of the battle of the Marne, of the battle
of the Aisne, of the contest at Ypres, and the fight on the Yser, but
no outside man has yet been permitted to describe any of these in
detail, or to give the strategy, beginning, end, or boundaries of them,
or even the distinct casualties therefrom. Indeed, it is doubtful if
the official histories, when they are written, can do this, for these
are the emphasized portions of one great and continuous battle that
went on for more than one hundred days.

To illustrate the strength of the hand on the English war news, it may
be noted that there is no mention permitted in the English press of
such a ship as the "Audacious." Yet American papers with photographs
of the "Audacious" as she sinks in the ocean are sold in London and on
the Continent. Outside of London not ten per cent of the people know
anything concerning this boat or her finish.

This word "finish" would be disputed in any newspaper or well-informed
financial office in London where it is daily declared that although the
"Audacious" met with an accident, her guns have been raised and will go
aboard another ship of the same size, purchased, or just being
finished, and named the "Audacious." Indeed, I was informed on "good
authority" that the "Audacious" was afloat, had been towed into
Birkenhead and that the repairs to her bottom were nearly finished.
You can hear similar stories wherever the "accident" is discussed. I
have heard it so many times that I ought to believe it. Yet if one
hundred people separately and individually make assurances concerning
something of which they have no personal knowledge, it does not go down
with a true news man. I was able to run across a man who saw the
affair of the "Audacious." He laughed at the stories of shallow water
and raised guns. His position was such, both then and thereafter, that
I was sure that he knew and told me the truth.

Later I learned that the "Audacious" was too far off the Irish coast to
permit of talk of shallow water, and that neither guns nor 30,000-ton
warships are raised from fifty-fathom depths.

Yet I am willing to narrate what has not been permitted publication in
England, and I think not elsewhere: that the mines about Lough Swilly,
along the Scotch and Irish coasts, and in the Irish Sea, were laid with
the assistance of English fishing-boats flying the English flag. These
boats had been captured by the Germans and impressed into this work.

There are also stories of Irish boats and Norwegian trawlers in this
work, but I secured no confirmation of such reports.

It is still unsettled in British Admiralty circles as to whether the
"Audacious" came in contact with a mine or torpedo from a German
submarine. Two of her crew report that they saw the wake of a torpedo.
Reports that the periscope of a submarine showed above the water I have
reason to reject.

English reports were suppressed--the admiralty claimed this right,
since there was no loss of life--in the belief that if the ship was
torpedoed by a submarine, the Germans would give out the first report,
and thereby be of assistance in determining the cause. But to-day the
Germans have their doubt as to where the "Audacious" is, and as to
whether or not she was ever really sunk.

Expert opinion is divided in authoritative circles in England as to the
cause of the disaster; but more than 400 mines have been swept up along
the Irish and Scotch coasts by the English mine sweepers.

While upon this subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this
topic has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope
within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo
practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will
warrant German warships coming forth to battle.

Every battleship is protected by four destroyers. Submarines, when
detected, are the most easily destroyed craft. They have no protection
against even a well-directed rifle bullet. Their whole protection is
that of invisibility. Their plan of operation is to reach a position
during the night, whence in the early morning they can single out an
unprotected warship or cruiser not in motion, and launch against her
side a well-directed torpedo, before being discovered.

The place for England's battleships is where they are: in the harbors
with their protecting nets down until they are called for in battle.
In motion or action, submarines have little show against them.

The Japanese at Port Arthur found that protecting nets picked up many
torpedoes and submarines. Since that time, torpedoes have been made
with cutting heads to pierce steel nets encircling the warships, but
their effectiveness has not so far been practically demonstrated.

It is Kitchener's idea to keep the enemy guessing. Therefore he was
rather pleased than otherwise when the story of Russians coming through
England from Archangel was told all over the world. The War Office
winked at the story and certainly had no objection to the Germans
getting a good dose of it. I think that story might have been helpful
at the time when the Allies were at their weakest, but they do not now
need Russians, or stories of Russians, from Archangel.

The story must also go by the board that a submarine north of Ireland
meant either a new type of boat that could go so far from Germany, or
an unknown base nearer Scotland.

Submarines as now built could go from Germany around the British Isles
and then across the Atlantic--in fair weather.

The eastern boundary of France divides itself into four very nearly
equal sections. Italy and Switzerland are the lower quarters of this
boundary line; and of the upper quarters Belgium is the larger and
Germany the smaller. The southern half of the German quarter boundary
is a mountain range and on the open sections stand the great
fortifications of France and Germany, regarded by both countries as
practically impregnable. The defence of France on the Belgian frontier
was the treaty which guaranteed the neutrality of the smaller country.

When Germany's conquering hosts came through Belgium, the war soon
became a battle of human beings rather than of fortifications. Neither
the French nor the Germans had learned from practical experience the
modern art of fighting human legions in ground trenches, but both sides
quickly betook themselves to this rabbit method of warfare.

To-day from Switzerland to the North Sea is a double wall of 4,000,000
men, all fighting, not only for their own existence but for the
existence of their nationality--their national ideals. They are
protected by aeroplanes, flying above, that keep watch of any large
movements.

They are backed by 4,000,000 men in reserve and training who keep the
trenches filled with fighting men, as 10,000 to 20,000 daily retire to
mother earth, to the hospitals, or to the camps of the imprisoned. On
the North Sea and the English Channel they are supported by fleets of
battleships, cruisers, submarines, and torpedo boat destroyers that
occasionally "scrap" with each other, the German boats now and then
attacking the English coast and harbors and the English boats now and
then assisting to mow down the German troops when they approach too
near the coast. But the great dread and key to this naval warfare is
the modern submarine.

Submarines, aeroplanes, and motor busses are three elements of warfare
never before put to the test; and the greatest of these thus far is the
gasolene motor-car. By this alone Germany may be defeated. France and
England are rich in gasolene motor power, and supplies from America are
open to them. A year ago there were less than 90,000 motor-cars in
Germany, and Prince Henry started to encourage motoring to remedy this,
but the Germans are slow to respond in sport. Indeed they know little
of sport as the English understand it, of sportsman ethics or the sense
of fair play in either sport or war. They do not comprehend the
English applause for the captain of the "Emden" and stand aghast at the
idea that he would be received as a hero in England. When a daring
aeroplane flier in the performance of his duty has met with mishap and,
landed on German soil, he is not welcomed as a hero. He is struck and
kicked.

The German is not to be blamed. It is the way he has been educated to
"assert himself," as the Germans phrase it. Indeed, when the captain
of the "Emden" was taken prisoner and was congratulated by the
Australian commander for his gallant defense, he was so taken aback
that he had to walk away and think it over. He returned to thank his
adversary for his complimentary remarks. With true German scientific
instinct he had to find his defeat in a physical cause, remarking, "It
was fortunate for you that your first shot took away my speaking tubes."

The English are sports in war,--too sporty in fact. General Joffre
warned General French over and over again, "Your officers are too
audacious; you will soon have none to command," and his words proved
true. The English officers felt that the rules of the game called upon
them to lead their men. They became targets for the guns of the foe,
until one of the present embarrassments in England is the unprecedented
loss of officers.

This has now been changed and Kitchener insists that both officers and
men shall regard themselves as property of the Empire, that the
exposure of a single life to unnecessary hazard is a breach of
discipline. For this reason Victoria Crosses are not numerous, less
than two dozen having been conferred thus far; and it has been quietly
announced that no Victoria Crosses will be conferred for single acts of
bravery or where only one life is involved. It must be team work and
results affecting many.

For this reason also it has been decreed that the 33,000 Canadians in
training at Salisbury Plain shall not be put in the front until they
have learned discipline in place of the American initiative.

These Canadian boys receive their home pay of four shillings, or $1 per
day, while the English Tommy gets one quarter of this amount. The
Canadians are fine fellows, feeling their independence and anxious to
be on the firing line, but the War Office recognizes that soldierly
independence cannot be allowed in this war. It is not improbable that
the Canadian troops will eventually be dispersed that their strong
individual initiative may be thoroughly harnessed under the
organization before they are trusted in the trenches. They are not to
be permitted to go there to be shot at, but to use their splendid
physiques, fighting abilities, and patriotism--more British than the
English themselves--in strict organization.

This is not to be an audacious war on the part of the Allies. It is
first a defensive war in which the Germans are the heaviest losers. On
the part of the Germans it is an audacious war and its very audacity
has astounded the whole world. But Germany never meant to war against
the world collectively. That was the accident of her bad diplomacy.

The audaciousness of Prussian war conceptions began in the latter part
of the last century. They did not grow out of the war with the French
in 1870, for Bismarck's legacy to the German nation was a warning
against any war with Russia. The German scheme was concocted by the
successor of Bismarck himself, none other than Kaiser William II. He
planned a steady growth of German power that would first vanquish the
Slav of southeastern Europe and give Germany control through
Constantinople and Asia Minor to the Persian gulf; then, as opportunity
arose, a crushing of France and repression of Russia; and the overthrow
of the British empire; and then the end of the Monroe Doctrine, to be
followed by American tariffs dictated from Germany.

This seems so audacious a program as to be almost beyond comprehension
in America. Yet it will be made clear in the next chapter.




CHAPTER II

TARIFFS AND COMMERCE THE WAR CAUSES

War with Russia was Inevitable--Finance and Tariffs made Germany
great--Commercial War--How Germany loses in the United States--The
Tariff Danger.

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