Dear Old Pals. The Anglo-German line up (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well! Well! So the Germans are Britain’s Allies now! Dr. Adenauer himself has said “it is astonishing.”

“Britain and Germany have signed a treaty to defend one another instead of attacking each other "—(Sunday Express, 24/10/54.)

It must be a great comfort to the people. After two most frightful wars to smash Germany down, the capitalists of Britain and America are now intent on building Western Germany up.

Those past the half-century mark, with a moment to spare for introspection, may well recall the scenes of days gone by. “Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag!” “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” The Recruiting Office in Whitehall packed with jostling crowds fighting to get into the army first. The Derby Scheme with its armlet, German bakers' shops looted. “ Society ladies chasing about with white feathers. The Great Shell Shortages! Lloyd-George! Minister of Munitions.

The 1915 disasters, Lloyd-George, Prime Minister 

The same Sunday newspaper which reported the news of the Anglo-German Alliance is serialising a new biography of David Lloyd-George.

“To-day’s episode tells of a military disaster which caused grief and misery in nearly four hundred thousand British homes.”

It is the story of Passchendaele, the most stupid and disastrous blunder of the 1918 war.

Four hundred thousand men floundered through mud knee-deep to their doom, trying to capture a piece of land the size of Green Park, Piccadilly.

This was the area at which Haig’s Chief of Staff, Kiggel, visiting the scene after the battle, broke down and wept, sobbing “Good God! did we really send men to fight in that”

That same Passchendaele of which Siegfried Sassoon wrote:

“If I were bald, and fat, and short of breath 

I’d live with scarlet majors at the base 

And speed glum heroes up the line to death 

You’d see me with my puffy petulant face 

Gulping and guzzling in the best hotel 

Poor young chap. I’d say, I knew his father well.

Yes! we lost heavily in that last scrap 

And when war was o’er and youth stone-dead 

I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed ”

Months afterwards, years afterwards, Lloyd-George was asked, if he knew how idiotic Haig and Robertson really were, why he did not sack them out of hand. In his Memoirs he said he dared not take the risk, when the Press were supporting the High Command, which might have required a General Election.

This explanation may satisfy Mr. Owen and some of his readers. It will not do for Socialists. The Socialist Party has a very vivid recollection of those war years.

It was during 1915 and '16 when Haig was “speeding glum heroes up the line to death" that our public meetings were smashed up by hysterically-patriotic members of the British working class.

The self-same violently nationalistic propaganda-drunk workers who cheered Haig’s ludicrous military blunders—booed the Socialist Party speakers who stood up to say that the war was for profits, and would bring workers nothing but disaster.

While nearly a million British soldiers staggered through a sea of mud in Belgium a tiny handful tried to fight through the sea of lies at home—the odds proved too great—the Socialist Party did the only thing possible, stood down until a few more workers came to their senses.

This is the real explanation of those harrowing events. Even two years afterwards, Lloyd-George could still win an election on “Homes for Heroes,” “Make Germany Pay,” and “ Hang the Kaiser,” though the victory was short lived. The political ignorance of the working-class was the ground upon which Haig could hound them to death.

It was this ignorance which blinded workers to their own interests. Understanding nothing of class society, the majority of workers thought they had something to gain from the defeat of Germany. They thought it their interest to prevent German capitalists acquiring British trade. Most of them thought their employers their benefactors—not their exploiters. In brief, knowing nothing of Socialism they supported Capitalism—and inevitably its wars.

Lloyd-George’s election stunts became notorious. The mere mention of “‘Homes for Heroes” got laughs for years, but, after many twists and turns, Baldwin, Ramsay Mac, Chamberlain and Co., the same old routine started all over again.

The same blunders were repeated in 1939/45 by military commanders who must not be mentioned because they have not yet “died in bed.” 1939, a change of labels—but basically the same—and a working class which still did not know that society is divided into two classes, with opposing interests, marched, or now, was rushed, to the shambles in fast trucks.

By now, science had “improved” war. No need to rush to the front, the aeroplane dropped it on you. Still, the workers support their masters, although 60,000 registered objection to the war.

And now, after two doses, Britain and Germany are Allies, “pledged to defend each other against a common aggressor.” What again? Yes! All over again.

And will all those who marched to smash Germany and “make her pay” rise up as one man in burning indignation at the futile squandering of life and wealth in two past wars, and cry aloud—"We will not fight for Germany, and mock our fallen comrades?”

They will not.

Until such time as a sizeable number of workers are Socialists, the people remain hydrogen-bomb dust for the modern Douglas Haigs.

Horatio.

In Flanders Field: Bloody arithmetic (1959)

From the October 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

In times of war, Generals become very important people; sometimes, as in 1917, much too important for the general interests of the ruling-class. Not only did they decide on questions of strategy in their own sectors, they were able to influence or make decisions on the widest scale. Haig, Foch, Cadorna, Joffre, Nivelie, each had taken part in decisions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. To some extent the Generals constituted a special sectional interest, running things their way, and able to deceive, ignore, or persuade the politicians. False reports (and Haig’s Staff turned these out in hundreds) would serve to blind the politicians to the appalling errors being committed. Once appointed, Generals became notoriously touchy, resenting criticism and blocking any move by politicians to interfere.

The threat of resignation, with the resulting blows at morale of troops and workers, would frequently serve to bring the politicians into line. Generals were removed, but only after their particular front had begun to resemble a slaughterhouse, and sometimes not even then. Kitchener set an example, closely followed by his one-time protege Haig, of the stiff-lipped, silent autocratic General. Haig was scandalised when Lloyd George discussed west-front strategy with French officers and politicians behind his back; he noted in his diary that the man was not a gentleman, a supremely irrelevant consideration, bearing in mind the tremendous interests at stake. Apart from the prestige of their professional positions, the British west-front butchers, Haig and Robertson, had considerable support from the British ruling-class.

They were able to override Lloyd George, who thought west-front strategy useless and incapable of producing any decisive result. Lloyd George did have part of his way after the battles of 1917, for by then even the adoring Lord Northcliffe had begun to have his doubts. It was becoming obvious that the German Army was not destroyed, and that no important gain had been made. There were important reasons why Haig was not given the sack; reasons of morale, social influence, and because Haig was a good general in the limited sense of organising, defensive measures. Robertson lost his job as Chief of the Imperial General Staff; reserves were withheld from Haig, and a. system of closer co-operation with the French came into being.

The problem of maintaining control over the Generals is still exercising the ingenuity of Governments. Churchill was to be in much closer touch with the Generals than Lloyd George. By 1939, the Generals were tamed; the old-fashioned officer gave way to more technically-minded machine-conscious officers. Closer systems of control prevented any repetition of 1917. Slaughter became a subject of scientific planning. Hitler, Stalin and Churchill were careful to be always on their guard against the Generals. The German Staffs were purged again and again; Stalin relegated Zhukov to obscurity after the war.

The Bloody Arithmetic of Attrition

The first world war introduced a new branch of arithmetic—a branch that even the cavalry generals could appreciate. The equation was a simple one; three million dead British and French soldiers plus two million dead Germans could equal defeat for Germany. Some there were, like Lloyd George, who were astute enough to realise that attrition could be dangerous for Capitalism. Lloyd George, as a popular orator, was more in touch with public opinion than were the supporters of this simple arithmetic. Ceaseless battering had led to the final collapse of Russia, and had led to serious trouble for the French Government.

’’Attrition ” was popular with a large section of the ruling-class because it offered something more than mere military defeat; it offered the destruction of a large part of Germany’s manhood, the exhaustion of her economy, and a Europe free for Britain and France to bustle in.

For popular consumption the argument was modified, the enemy was being defeated even though no significant advance was being made. The enemy’s armies were being destroyed (as indeed they were, but not as fast as Haig and his Staff liked to believe, for even at the height of the Flanders battle the Germans could afford to send troops to defeat Italy). Attrition did work, but in a way unforeseen by its supporters. In March 1918 Germany began her last offensive, and in thirteen weeks suffered 700,000 casualties. Germany, desperate to finish the war before the full weight of America could be brought to bear, destroyed the army that had held the western front for four years.

The Dead Weight of Tradition

Capitalist organizations do not always function in the best interests of the ruling-class as a whole. Conflicting demands during wartime may paralyse strategy, so that nothing is achieved. An example is the Dardanelles campaign; (here was no agreement on how many troops to send, the haggling went on for months. It seems that Britain and France almost sustained defeat, not by Germany, but by their own traditions and methods of warfare that had become irrelevant by 1914. As a result, Germany, while maintaining the defensive in the west, was able to gain considerable victories elsewhere, as for instance in Russia. Rumania and Italy. There were alternatives to attrition, but the opportunities were lost, and if such a complex situation can be summarised at all, they were lost because of the outmoded thinking of the ruling-class, of whom the Generals were a part.

A new Waterloo was always just round the corner, and if the Waterloo turned into slaughter-house warfare, there was always the argument for attrition to fall back on. They were full of arguments, those Generals, Haig had another one in his magazine; he had waged the Flanders campaign in order to prevent the Germans from falling on the French. He also waged it because the French had offered their support! And what of the chief participants, the poor bloody soldiers? They were always ready for another effort, another crawl across ground covered by machine-gun fire and under continuous bombardment. The British troops set an example of devotion to duty unequalled in those days; apparently British workers were well-drilled and well impregnated with their ideologies, of which there was a fairly wide choice, all leading to the conclusion that one must tight for one's country, whatever the cost.

The New Passchendaels

The overthrow of one set of myths doesn't matter very much to Capitalism, for there are plenty of brainy people ready to provide variations of the theme “fight and die.” New ideologies are continually being manufactured, and there will always be one or two to suit the needs of the time. The bitterness aroused by 1917 did not make workers into Socialists, but it did give rise to numerous peace movements (in one of which “Go to it” Herbie Morrison was prominent). These movements withered away when Capitalism was once more torn apart by war. With a new appeal, workers could be called out to fight again. Cassino, Stalingrad and Hiroshima mocked the 1918 politicians’ boasts “war to end wars.” The second world war also gave rise to its peace movements, but rather different. The New Pacifists would apparently be prepared to fight if H-bombs were excluded and war consisted of battles like Passchendael, Stalingrad or Cassino.

Breaking the Circle

There is a way out; humanity do not have to tear each other apart; the circle can be broken. What has been said here about ideologies does not mean that there is no end to Capitalism and its wars. A new society can be brought into being. This new society has already taken rough shape in the minds of some of us. Disgust and disillusionment take a slow but steady toll of Capitalist ideas —an example of this is the decline of “white feather” incidents! People in the last war were far less ready to condemn those who stayed at home.

Unfortunately there has been far more apathy and disillusionment than determination to put things right. People are disgusted with politics, including even the Socialist Party in their condemnation. Perhaps in a way there is here a terrible indictment of Capitalism; men and women have lost their faith in a world fit for humans, taking refuge in the acquisition of cars, brass-plates and the material flotsam of a mass-rubbish-producing society. Change is possible; we can reject Capitalism with its Passchendaels, Stalingrads and Hiroshimas. People can act in their own interests, instead of in the barren, blood-smeared interests of ruling groups. The way out does not lie along the road of pacifism or ban-the-bomb (a futile movement if ever there was one). The way lies along the path of Socialist understanding.

F. R. Ivimey.

Workers’ Blood and Capitalist Profit (1939)

From the August 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The spectre of another World War is haunting Europe—war bringing unimaginable horrors which will fall chiefly on the working class.

Bitterly recognising its limitations, yet confident of ultimate success in its appeal to the reason of the great mass of workers, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, as in 1914, sets out its attitude to the threatened war.

The lessons of 1914 have so far been but faintly grasped by the worker. The meanness of the governing clique, their low intrigues against each other, the incompetence of brass hats and their furious jealousies, have been told in a vast and ever-increasing number of war volumes; there is some satisfaction that these people are so ready to give each other away; the amazing thing is how little of this seeps into the minds of the worker.

Let us call Lloyd George to the witness stand —a cunning politician, but author, nevertheless, of a brilliant piece of journalism, “War Memoirs." Insist upon your public library getting copies, and at least read references indicated hereafter (numbers refer to pages in the cheaper edition; after page 1067, Volume 2). Mr. Lloyd George deserves the thanks of the governing clique of Britain, at any rate; his “apology" leaves little doubt in the mind of the reader that he staved off disaster for the class he served.

The recounting of the feeble folly of the Greys and Asquiths comes as no surprise to a moderately- informed student of history; the low intrigues and bitter personal animosities of politicians run through all written history.

The mentality of the class which viewed the common soldier as so much “cannon-fodder" is revealed on page 115: “Kitchener stalked into the Cabinet with his most military stride . . . he exclaimed in husky tones, charged with suppressed emotion, 'Oh, it is terrible—terrible!' 'Were the casualties very heavy ?' we enquired anxiously. 'I’m not thinking about the casualties,' replied Kitchener, ‘but for all the shells that were wasted.' "

The tale of Haig’s incompetence is probably incredible to those whose knowledge of British military history is limited to highly coloured accounts of the few geniuses this country has produced in the killing line; read the whole of Chapter 73 for the tragedy of Passchendaele.

What were the factors which led to this nightmare, when thousands of soldiers perished, choked to death in a bog of blood and mud, a bog which Haig never took the trouble to visit? “No general in the War was expected to visit No Man’s Land until the battleground had been made safe for Brass Hats "(1322). The chief factor was Haig’s determination to score a personal victory by “smashing through"; to this end, the Cabinet was deliberately deceived as to the real state of affairs, downright cheating was resorted to in at least one case, when selected German prisoners were shown to Lloyd George (1316).

A long quotation is justified here; Lloyd George quotes Liddell Hart (1308): “A highly-placed officer was on his first visit to the battle front—at the end of the four months' battle. Growing increasingly uneasy as the car approached the swamp-like edges of the battle area, he eventually burst into tears, crying, 'Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?’ To which his companion replied that the ground was far worse ahead."

Great fun, Old Bill, wasn’t it? Who will be the funny cartoonist to grin through the hollow eye of death in the next war ?

To continue the quotation: 

“Artillery became bogged, tanks stuck in the mire, unwounded men by the hundreds, and wounded men by the thousands, sank beyond recovery into the filth. It is a comment upon the intelligence with which the whole plan had been conceived that, after the ridge had been reached, it was essential part of the plan that masses of cavalry were intended to thunder across this impassable bog to complete the rout of a fleeing enemy. For months, hundreds of thousands of British troops fought through this slough. They sheltered and they slept in mud-holes; when they squelched along, they were shot down into the slush; if wounded, they were drowned in the slime: but the survivors still crept and dragged onward for four months from shell-hole to shell-hole, with their rifles and machine-guns choked with Flemish ooze; it was a tragedy of heroic endurance, and the British Press rang with praises of the ruthless courage of the Commander-in-Chief! It was not the fault of the newspapers. The truth was carefully eliminated from Press dispatches; there was a relentless and clever censorship exercised.”

"Your” Country!!

A word here on those who have a real, solid stake, in the shape of land, which can well enable them to claim that they have a "country.” On page 784, a significant sidelight is thrown on what Lloyd George calls the "Strike of the Junkers.” Imminent stark starvation (chronic under-nourishment is, of course, the normal lot of a huge number of working-class men, women and children), due to submarine warfare chiefly, threatened the country; powers were accorded to local authorities to use private property in land for growing food; our patriotic landowners grumbled, "the grumbling became a growl, and at last a snarl with bared teeth.” One landowner (why no name, Mister George?) interviewed our author. He was "scarlet with fury,” and announced his intention of refusing to comply with the law.

To resume Passchendaele. Among several letters to the author quoted, the following are worthy of note:

Ex-Captain: "The generals responsible for prolonging the fight should have been shot.”

No general was even court-martialled; at the end of the War, fulsome adulation was ladled out to Haig, and (Lloyd George consenting, holding the gee-gee's bridle) £100,000 was voted by a grateful country to keep the wolf from his door and to facilitate his further ominous work in organising the reactionary British Legion, which has more than a distant resemblance to bands which were of signal service to Hitler and Mussolini. In connection with this grant, let it be remembered that Lloyd George telegraphed hearty congratulations to Haig after Passchendaele.

"An Old Contemptible” (1354) writes: 

"Passchendaele was an absolute crime, and if we have another war the same thing will happen again. I once passed a casual critical remark about Haig, and an officer who overheard me said, 'That's mutiny; I suppose you know you could be shot for that?' "

. . . You are invited by Liberal and Tory, by "Labour" and "Communist” (the loudest bagpipes of the squealing train) to be on the alert to "Fight Fascism,” to "Conserve Democracy." Pause to think, to think hard; it's your business, fellow worker.

The Enemy is Here. 

"Fascism" is a red herring, as "Poor little Belgium” was in 1914. Lloyd George puts an unerring finger on the real cause of war then, as it will be now if war comes. "Our international rivals were forging ahead at a great rate, and jeopardising our hold on the markets of the world" (21). All the good intentions in the world, well-meaning Dick Sheppards and peace-loving George Lansburys notwithstanding, the threat of war remains while capitalism, insatiate in its search for markets, persists.

And, once war is upon us, goodbye to civil "liberties," to relative freedom of speech—the "profiteer” will flourish; again the rule of police in civil life and the iron tyranny of Brass Hat and brutal Sergeant-Major in the army. Already ominous indications are not lacking. A twelve-year employee has been dismissed for refusing to take part in A.R.P. drills. (The Star, March 31st, 1939.)

Labour Leaders in the Last War.

The record of the Labour leaders during the last War makes one wonder which to marvel at most—the gullibility of the worker, or the brazen effrontery of the Labour Party. Both Asquith and Lloyd George found in these leaders pliant tools. G. N. Barnes (Pensions Minister) openly stated that he would resist pensions for disabled soldiers who had slipped through too big meshes of the medical net, and consequently proved unfit to fill a hero's grave.

"Workman's Cottage to Windsor Castle,” by the Right Hon. J. Hodge (full title on cover!); reveals the Labour leader at about its worst. It takes a strong stomach to read this blatant Labour leader's own account of the royal lick-spittling: "The Queen does look queenly; though a Queen she is a woman and a mother; just look at the children hanging on to their mother's skirt ” (page 184). There was "Labour trouble” at Liverpool: "My staff mixed with the strikers, giving stable tips, straight from the horse’s mouth, that all the shop stewards would be apprehended and prosecuted, or probably deported" (page 170). Winston Churchill will hardly be accused of being violently friendly to the working class. Hodge (page 175) scolds him for according a small bonus to engineers against his advice; he is scandalised that "the scavenger in every urban district got it, and” (crowning infamy) "retained it for many years after the War was over.”

Do you really think that the Labour leader would not run true to bias in another World War?

Let us repeat the message of the S.P.G.B. to workers in all lands in 1914. It stands to-day. Capitalism is essentially the same as it was in 1914. Read our pamphlet, "War and the Working Class” (2d.), where the full text of our message will be found on page 24: —

"Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the OVERTHROW OF CAPITALISM and the TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM.”

. . . Turn now to our “Declaration of Principles”—eight plain, straightforward statements of FACT, and expression of Policy.

It's your business!

Augustus Snellgrove

Are Politicians Honest? (1960)

From the July 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Does anybody expect politicians and other leaders to be honest? To keep their promises? To admit their mistakes and if necessary make way for somebody who can do better than they? The history of capitalism is crowded with examples of leaders who have never done anything of the kind. Of men who have persisted in policies and actions which were obviously harmful—and have lied to justify their mistakes.

Older people will remember the stubbornness of the European politicians in the 1914-18 war, who persisted in futile campaigns which were often costing thousands of lives every day, without achieving even the objects which the generals had set out for them. There as a story that, when the terrible battle at Passchendaele was at last over, a high ranking British officer went up to the battlefield and wept at what he saw there. But Douglas Haig, the man who had planned and defended the whole campaign, did not weep. He was given an earldom. None of the politicians suggested that the war was one great, bitter futility. None of them, when it was over, balanced the dead against what was settled at the so-called peace conferences. They simply rearranged the frontiers of Europe, threw the Germans out of Africa and waited for the next war to start. And when that happened, one of the excuses for it was a dispute over a part of the post-1918 settlement — the Polish Corridor. The treaties of 1945 have had the same effect—they have not pacified, but have irritated and provoked more sore spots in the world.

These are only some of the instances when, although direct and vital human interests were at stake, the leaders of capitalism have been less than honest .They are still at the same game. Last March, President Eisenhower spoke to some American-Chilean organisations in Santiago de Chile. He had this to say:

The suggestion that America supports dictators is ridiculous. Surely no nation loves liberty more. . . . We repudiate dictatorship in any form right or left. Our role . . . stands as a beacon to all who love freedom.

Fine words. They ignore the fact that, in the past few years, the U.S.A. has supported, financially and militarily, dictators like Franco, Syngman Rhee, and Batista. And, of course, they have helped one of the most ruthless of the lot—Stalin, who was sustained in his pitiless rule by the aid which America poured into his country during the war. At the time, the American and Russian ruling classes had common cause against Germany—and when capitalist interests are at stake, principles of freedom and human rights are left to take care of themselves.

Nearer home, we find other examples of political inconsistency. The Manchester Guardian of 15th June. 1959, reporting on the Whitehaven by-election, drew attention to two statements which had been made by the Conservative candidate. One, in February. 1950. when he was standing as a Liberal, called the Conservative Party ". . . a class party . . . which desires to keep power and privilege m the hands of a particular section of the community". The other, in October. 1951, when he had joined the Tories, described them as standing ". . . not for one section of the community, but for all.”

This latter can be a winning line. Most workers deny the existence of a class struggle and vote against a party which they think stands for the interests of any class. The majority of them harbour the delusion that everybody’s interests are the same—and woe betide the "rabble rouser" who talks about the class war. This goes down especially well with the hire-purchasers of television sets and the deferred buyers of cars. So, to win votes and influence people, a party must often claim that it is above class, and that its opponents dabble in the fields of narrow self-interest.

A lot of money can be spent to put over this sort of idea. The recently published The British General Election of 1959, by David Butler and Richard Rose, reveals that between July, 1957, and October, 1959, the Conservative Party lashed out £468,000 on press advertising and posters alone. All of this—and what was spent at the same time by the other parties and by the various industries threatened with nationalisation—to convince workers that capitalism could be better organised by one set of leaders rather than the other. Are the voters flattered? Apparently so; change as they might between Labour, Tory, Liberal or what have you, their support for capitalism is unwavering.

Here is the very centre of the whirlwind. They trust their leaders Field Marshal Lord Montgomery summed it up when he said, on the anniversary of D-Day:

. . . a way can be found by which the East and the West can live together in spite of different ideas and social systems, but the finding of that way is not for you and me—it is for our political leaders.

This surprisingly is not one of the Field Marshal's least sensible statements. The problems of capitalist society can be left to "our political leaders." But workers—the people who make and build, who manage and organise—and who die in capitalisms wars—have a different task. They must realise that the leaders themselves show the wretchedness and brutality of the system. That, even without the mistakes and dishonesty which we have seen, capitalism would still make one hell of a world. That the future is not in putting blind faith in leaders, but in widespread understanding and socially conscious action.

Ivan

In Flanders Field (1959)

Book Review from the September 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Great Man" myths have a habit, disturbing for the staid in mind, of toppling to the ground. Generals, politicians and other famous public figures are found, usually some time after their period of usefulness is over, to have feet of clay. The more incisive historical enquiries uncover lies, intrigue and treachery: and the myths collapse, though usually too late to have any practical effect. It is, however, never too late to learn; and perhaps the unmasking of the Great Men of yesterday might make us a little suspicious of to-day's Pillars of the Establishment. The latest victims of the fashionable literary pastime of debunking are the generals and politicians of 1917, and particularly Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

In Flanders Fields, by Leon Wolff, Longmans, 25s. is a very fine conscientious piece of muck-raking. It is not a book about war generally, it is a detailed, well-documented account of the prominent men and important events of 1917. The main theme of the book is the policy of “attrition" and its consequences for the soldiers taking part.. The great exponent of this policy of wearing down the enemy by repeated offensives was Haig, and its principal opponent Lloyd George (at that time Prime Minister). There is a larger theme, usually implied but occasionally explicit as in the quotation from Carlyle at the end of the book; that wars are fought in the interests of ruling groups, and that the majority, of the participants are but pawns in a very dirty game.

The end of 1916 found the armies in France and Belgium more firmly dug-in than ever. A system of trenches, dug-outs, pill-boxes and barbed-wire stretched for hundreds of miles, and many miles deep. In spite of the horrible battles of 1915 and 1916 the Allied Generals were as determined as ever to break the German lines. The French started their offensive first; and as at the Somme, the result was ghastly failure. There were more serious consequences for the French Government than defeat in battle, for the French soldiers decided that they had had enough. They mutinied in tens of thousands, and the ringleaders were shot in hundreds. One group, numbering 750, were sent to a quiet part of the front line and there massacred by their own artillery. These incidents were to provide Haig with some good excuses later. He was to need them; particularly perhaps to quiet his own conscience.

Passchendaele
The main British effort was directed at breaking the German line in Flanders and capturing the Channel ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge. Haig hoped that after the initial break-through squadrons of cavalry would be able to chase the Germans and turn retreat into rout, thereby breaking the stale-mate that had existed on the Western front since December, 1914. The offensive started on July 31st, and continued for fifteen weeks. The ground, in peace-time carefully drained by an extensive system of ditches and canals, quickly returned to marshland under the heavy bombardment. At the end of one of the bitterest battles ever waged an enormous number of soldiers were placed in a salient, only a few miles deep, more dangerous than the Ypres salient from which they started. Passchendaele, a heap of rubble, about five miles from the starting line, was captured after ninety-eight days. The offensive resulted, according to one official estimate, in 448,000 casualties on the British side; the author estimates that the small French forces under Haig’s command lost 50,000, and the Germans 250,000. It was usual that about a third of the casualties were killed or died of wounds, so that for a piece of muddy ground 250,000 men were killed, and a further 500,000 wounded or captured. It is fair to point out that other estimates, more favourable to Haig (showing more dead Germans, and less British) have been made by other historians; after reading this book it is difficult to place any reliance on them. Many of the wounded (no one knows how many) were drowned in the shell-holes, unable to drag themselves to safety. They died slow, miserable deaths, making feeble efforts to resist the clinging, sticky mud.

The author thinks that the war was being fought for objects that were “demonstrably trivial” a view that is based on a mistaken conception of how and why Capitalism goes to war. Where there are avowed “war aims” they may be only a cloak for objects which are not openly stated because it would be more difficult to get people to fight for them. There were important issues at stake; Europe had not been torn apart because of an assassination: and there were more important reasons for Britain's entry into the war than the preservation of Belgian neutrality.

Several questions are raised by the book, and if not answered in full at least plenty of material is provided to help supply the answers. Why did the British Government allow Haig to continue his hopeless offensive? Why could not Lloyd George remove Haig from his post? And what was the attitude of the Welsh Wizard towards the war?

Lloyd George, the War-Monger

On one thing Haig and Lloyd George were in full agreement—they were both determined to smash Germany. Lloyd George's weepings over the fallen can be treated sceptically; if more concrete results could have been obtained he would no doubt have been quite prepared to send more millions to their deaths. He had already rejected peace negotiations with Germany, and indeed was placed in power because he was in favour of vigorous prosecution of the war. Characteristically, he would no doubt have made his (written) reservations about such a victory that would conveniently have found a place later in his memoirs. Though Lloyd George had once acquired a reputation as a “peace lover” by opposing the war against the Boer republic in South Africa he was quite prepared, along with the rest of his party, to forget about tolerance and humanity for the duration.

Haig, Blood-Merchant

And what of Haig, the man who gave the orders in June, 1917 that led to the deaths of 250,000 men? He deserves a mention, for he was in his day a Great Man, a leading actor in the sordid tragedy of 1914-18; unfortunately a tragedy that is no mere stage-piece. Capitalism lives by savage rules, and millions died so that Britain and France could dominate Europe. Haig did not take a personally tragic part in the events of 1917, being merely relegated after the war to an Earldom, inaction and (by ruling-class warrior standards) an early death: He never occupied any official post after 1920, but in his heyday he was the darling of the ruling-class How Lord Northcliffe’s papers fawned on Haig in 1917! How The Times (and the Top People) loved him! For a few months during that autumn The Times acclaimed a tremendous victory for every move Haig's armies made, every pile of rubble captured, every few yards of mud gained.

Haig was a cavalry officer, and this explains much about his mentality and methods. He had joined a fashionable regiment, married a Queen’s lady-in-waiting, and was the favourite of Kings—and of Kitchener. He owed his position more to influence than military ability. He grew up in the secure world of late-Victorian England, where military exploits were romantic adventures undertaken in far-off countries against enormous hordes of ill-trained, ill-armed tribesmen. (The hordes would be lucky if they possessed the fire-power of one machine-gun.) A very special kind of military tradition was built up in England; the Army was a shell fired by the navy! Secure in their sea communications, small forces would be sent all over the world; and from this grew Britain’s tremendous superiority in overseas bases. What was an advantage in Empire-building became however a positive disadvantage when engaging in a war with another great industrial power.

Haig was a part of this tradition, ideas were modified slowly (from the Boer war the generals gained an exaggerated respect for massed cavalry) new technical innovations were almost beneath the dignity of high-ranking generals. India, South Africa, Omdurman provided a very poor apprenticeship for Ypres and the Somme. Haig with his rigid, Army-trained mind, was incapable of appreciating that cavalry were useless against machine-guns, earthworks and barbed-wire. He held to the end his faith in his horsemen, not seeing that war was changing, that machines were playing an increasingly important part. It is probable that in his 400 tanks Haig held a master-card that could have beaten the Germans, but he never played this card until his Armies had become bogged down in the mud. Where the tanks were given a chance to show what they could do, there were no reserves left to follow up the initial success gained. From reading his private papers it is obvious that he had no very clear idea of the conditions under which men fought. He was a sincere man, religiously convinced that he could win the war. He placed enormous faith in his staff, believing their phony reports of the victories gained. Along with his Staff, he lived in a narrow optimistic world, almost closed to common-sense or mercy.

In the second (concluding) article, the influence of the generals and the policy of attrition will be considered.

F. R. Ivimey

Link to Part 2

Peace (!) (1919)

Editorial from the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peace, we are told, has now been made. On 28th June, 1919, the representatives of the Allied powers and Germany signed a “Peace treaty”, officially terminating the “Great War”, which it had claimed would “end all war” and “make the world safe for democracy”.

To achieve the great result millions of the working class lie in war graves, millions are maimed, crippled, or disfigured for life, millions more, with constitutions shattered, are wondering what the future holds for them.

Alongside this enormous waste of human life and limb, the destruction of wealth that has taken place seems trivial. Yet here the quantities are staggering. Numberless houses, factories and works, numerous mines, roads, railways and canals, thousands of ships with their cargoes, millions of tons of munitions, and extensive crops, forests, and the like, have been destroyed in this welter of war. And even now we are not at the end of the waste and destruction, for Mr. Bonar Law, speaking at a “Victory Loan” meeting, stated that there were still 23 other wars in progress.

But the “Great War” has ended. And almost immediately, in every country throughout the capitalist world, strikes and struggles between masters and workers blaze up. In the countries of the conquerors and the conquered alike, in neutral States and border zones, over-riding all the artificial divisions of territory and race, the antagonism between the working class and the master class gains greater prominence, with fiercer fights, than ever before. These fights, necessary for immediate purposes as many of them are, provide no solution for the fundamental problem facing the working class.

To the capitalist class a solution is impossible. They cannot abolish the antagonism except by abolishing themselves.

The “League of Nations”, claimed by its supporters to be the greatest safeguard of future peace that has resulted from the war, is cynically exposed by the military treaties between England, France, and America, to be a combination of the stronger Powers to enforce methods and conditions suitable to their own interests upon the weaker nations.

What other arrangements or undertakings have been made we do not at present know, but the refusal of China, one of the Allies, to sign the “Peace” Treaty is significant. One reason for China’s action that has leaked out is the practical handing over of Chinese territory – the Shantung Peninsular, to Japan. As this action threatens to at least restrain, if not to shut out, American trade in that part of China, because of the important seaports on the Shantung coast, it is raising a pretty quarrel between America and Japan, whose trade rivalry is already intense.

Such portions of the “Peace” Treaty with Germany as have been published further support our case. Large areas are to be taken from Germany and handed over to France, Belgium, Poland, and Denmark. In some cases a plebiscite of the inhabitants of certain areas may be taken later on, but this is entirely within the discretion of the “League”, who may withhold such plebiscite if they wish. It is, of course, quite an accident that so many of these areas contain rich coal and ore deposits. In addition the Allies are to enjoy the “most favoured nation” treatment in commerce, to have unrestricted freedom of transit for their goods, and no Tariff discrimination for five years. While children are starving in Germany over 100,000 milch cows are to be taken by the Allies.

In the Socialist Standard for September 1914, in our Manifesto on the War, we stated:

  “The Capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the questions of the control of trade routes and the world’s markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters’ quarrel.”

Alone of all parties in this country we took our stand upon the Socialist position. So-called Socialist parties that supported the war then, are now in many cases pretending to be opposed to such wars and are urging the workers to demonstrate and strike against British soldiers being used against Russian workers. Too ignorant or cowardly in those days to stand for the interests of the working class, they now try to achieve a popularity and reputation by urging soldiers to refuse to fire on Russian workers, while they applauded or were silent when the same soldiers were shooting down German, Austrian, or Hungarian soldiers.

Nay, even when these soldiers were used against workers at home–in Dublin, Hull, Tonypandy, and Glasgow–they accepted the right claimed by the capitalists to use such forces for their own interests, without any call for a strike.

In the manifesto mentioned above we said:

  “The machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers. These armed forces, therefore, will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them – the master class.”

As far as Russia is concerned, there are signs that “intervention” is nearing its end – not because of the demonstrations (those called for 21st July were a ghastly failure), but because of a division of interests in the capitalist camp.

While the British and French capitalists who have invested large amounts of capital in developing Russian industry, desire intervention for the purpose of seizing control of the productive forces, either for themselves or in combination with the Russian master class, the other capitalists are quietly but effectively protesting against the scheme. Those who manufacture at home and seek markets abroad, note with anxiety how Japan and America are preparing to take hold of the Russian market. According to some reports, German merchants are already trading in Russia. On the other hand the Bolshevik Government has repeatedly announced its readiness to make “economic” and “industrial” concessions to foreign capitalists in exchange for seeds, machinery, and tools. The acceptance of these “concessions” can have but one result–the running of the main industries of Russia on capitalist lines.

The backward economic conditions of Russia compel the Bolsheviks to make these offers that are in flat contradiction to their theories, and they can no more resist successfully the force of these circumstances than they could avoid signing the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Hence that section of the capitalist class who wish to open trade with Russia favour the withdrawal of Allied support of all kinds from Kotchak and Dennikin, and the making of a commercial agreement with the Bolshevik Government. Their need for haste is increased by the open campaign of jingoism that arose again after the Armistice and which has been epitomised by Sir Douglas Haig when receiving the Freedom of the City of London on the 12th June, 1919. Speaking of his experience of the war he said:

  “My message to you, and through you to the Empire, is to urge you, now that the war has given you at once the reason and the opportunity to do so, to set up forthwith the organisation of a strong citizen Army on Territorial lines–an organisation which shall ensure that every able-bodied citizen shall come forward when the next crisis comes, not as a willing, patriotic, but militarily ignorant volunteer, but as a trained man.” (Daily News, 13.6.1919).

Here, even before the “Peace” treaty was signed, was the exposure of the foul lies of the capitalist class that this war was “to end all war”.

While competition between capitalist groups for routes, markets, and control of raw material exists, the cause of war remains. The amalgamation of some of these groups into “leagues” or “associations”, while it may put off the evil day for a while, only makes the struggle the greater when it does arise. But even if the whole of the greater capitalists of the world were to unite for the control of the globe, there would still remain the greatest of all wars to be fought out – the Class War for the freedom of Mankind.

During the “Great War” the capitalist class on both sides broke down many of the old national and racial barriers that still existed between various sections of slaves under their control. Black chattel slaves fought alongside yellow contract workers. Irish Home Rulers stood by jingo Englishmen, French Syndicalists by Japanese Imperialists.

Clearer than ever before stands out the great fact that there is no hope for real peace in the world until these various sections of workers recognise the common fundamental character of their slavery and set to work to remove it, thus ending the enslavement of the human race by the establishment of Socialism.

As in September 1914, so now we say:

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.”

Executive Committee,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Peace—Competition—War. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the day the Press was gushing and frothing over the spectacular peace-signing business (30.6.19) the "Daily News" published an editorial on the matter, and also several articles by those they designate "Great Men." The articles in question are best summed up as a conglomeration of contradictory vapourings.

In its editorial the "Daily News" sends up a hymn of thanksgiving that "the world has won its freedom," and then goes on to make the following curious remarks:

  "We are friends to-day with France, and our sincerest prayer is that that friendship will never be broken. . . . . She is again the most formidable figure on the Continent. She, almost alone, stands erect and triumphant over the ruins of Empires.  We rejoice in her miraculous recovery ; but we should be fools to blind ourselves to the implications." (Italics mine.)

These sound pacific words ! What is the nature of the implications to which we must not blind ourselves? Of course the nature is the old capitalist nature. The crushing of Germany has strengthened the commercial power of France—one of the competitors in the rush for the world's markets.

The article goes on further to enlighten us :

  "And is there anyone who looks to Japan and the Far East without large and vague apprehensions ? Or Westward across the Atlantic without wondering what the future has in store there and realising, however dimly, that if the United States is compelled to forsake its historic pacifism for militarism it is sea power which will be its capital concern."

Undoubtedly the above shows that the present peace is to be a lasting one ! The subscribers to this view have evidently studied the relativity of all things, and the meaning they attach to "lasting" is a day or two—or rather its a lasting peace until the next great war !

The idea of setting up America with her gigantic naval programme as a pacifist nation, is truly comical. In the last twenty-five years America has been at war with Spain, the Phillipines, China, and Germany, to say nothing of the murderous slaughter of American working men in the various strikes. At the moment of writing it is announced that America contemplates the construction of two liners larger than anything afloat, and so constructed that they are easily convertible into commerce protectors.

The Peace Treaty receives anything but a glowing reference from the "Daily News." "It does not aim at abolishing militarism ; it aims at abolishing Prussia," is their tribute to the efforts of Lloyd George & Co.

After mourning over the defects of the Peace Treaty the article hails the "League of Nations" as the new deliverer and the promise of a glorious future. It then proceeds to knock the bottom out of the League with the following remarks:

   "There are grave defects in this momentous document. The provision that unanimity is required for action is the most disquieting of these defects."

And we might tack on this the fact that, so far, the League consists mainly of England, France, and America, and excludes the Central Powers; also that the nations composing the League are laying themselves out for more efficient predatory forces than ever, as witness America's mighty warships, Britain's gigantic airships and flying machines, and the recent big armament combine, Explosives, Ltd.

Things certainly look promising !

From the other articles, in the same paper, already alluded to I will extract some of the wisdom of the "Great Men."

Sir Walter Runciman writes :

  "Now that peace is signed, the first necessity for the British Empire and for the whole world is to get trade going everywhere. . . . Only by a full stream of trade can the flow of food and goods between all peoples wipe out hunger, misery, and unemployment, and possibly anarchy."

Capital lying idle is unfruitful, but capital employed in trade brings in rich returns, hence the anxiety of the profit seekers to get on with the business. That a full stream of trade will will wipe out hunger, etc., is the usual delusive humbug of the employing class. Just prior to the war trade was booming everywhere. Statistics showed relatively higher returns than ever before, and yet the lackeys of the master class (Lloyd George among them) admitted that there was greater poverty and misery existing than any previous records showed. For years the number of inmates in the lunatic asylums, and the number of homeless on the streets of London, had been growing. With the improvement in productive processes and machinery, and the increase in the number of women in industry, brought about by the war, we have far worse times ahead when trade booms again.

Another writer, Dr. Clifford, says:

 "The seed of new wars are sown with a prodigal hand. . . . An economic struggle is to follow the military, and an international trade rivalry is arranged to block the way to international co-operation and reconciliation."

As he correctly states, the seeds of new wars are already sown—the seeds of war exist in the very marrow of capitalism. The economic laws governing capitalism drive different sections into trade conflict, and it becomes a question of the eclipse of a particular section or a trial of arms.

The seeds of new wars are not hard to discover. While England has been deeply involved in war, America has been restoring her shipbuilding industries, which were previously decaying, and now ranges herself against England as a powerful competitor in the shipbuilding and carrying trades.

At the recent coal enquiry competent witnesses expressed the fear that in the future America and France would be serious competitors in the iron and steel trades.

For some years Japan and America have been in a state of doubtful friendship in their competition for the Chinese trade. Latterly China has been developing rapidly, and may soon be able to supply a great part of her own needs, and also compete abroad. We may witness the spectacle of Japan and America at each other's throats over the Chinese market, and either or both at the throat of China to force her to accept their goods.

Japan is becoming yearly a more serious competitor in European markets, and "cheap German muck" may yet give place to "cheap Japanese muck."

In a note relating to a conversation with a "well-known authority in the City," headed "Japan ready to sell," in the "Daily News" (9.7.19.) the following appears :

   "Japan is manufacturing all the fancy goods, the cheap crockery, the toilet and clothes brushes, and the thousand-and-one little knick-knacks that used to come from Germany and Austria. . . . The Japanese are making just those goods which we formerly imported from enemy countries on account of their cheapness."

A writer in the "Penny Magazine" during the last two months also points out that Japan, India, and America are steadily encroaching upon England's cotton trade. Modern inventions have deprived Lancashire of the advantage she formerly possessed in her humid atmosphere. As the other countries possess the raw material (and Lancashire does not) and can produce the necessary atmosphere artificially, Lancashire is going downhill and may be crushed out of the trade eventually.

That "our staunch ally," Japan (who is pinching our trade!) has learnt from the experience of the leading nations, and is developing her industries and piling up her wealth strictly in accordance with capitalist tradition, is borne out by the New York special correspondent of the "Daily News" (16.7.19.) in the following quotation relating to Korea :

"The regular use of torture, the establishment of compulsory prostitution, the promotion of the opium traffic, the suppression of free speech, the repeated flogging of women, the massacre of scores of unarmed people at a time when no disturbance was proceeding, and many other atrocities indicate that Japan should spare no effort to dismiss officials responsible and completely change her attitude towards this problem.
Already Japan is confronted with the Chinese boycott, which tends to substitute American for Japanese trade. Her Korean policy must inevitably determine her position in the Far East, and beyond all question the cruelties practised in Korea have caused indignation here."

If Japan continues to forge ahead it can easily be seen that she may soon become an "enemy country" so far as the other leading capitalist nations are concerned. The recent disclosure by President Wilson of the secret treaty between Japan, Germany, and Russia, if true, shows that Japan is well up to her rivals in the unscrupulous scramble for markets.

In spite of the ringing of the joy bells of peace England is still at war in India and Russia.

India, as well as pinching our trade, is developing in other directions. She is the world's greatest producer of hides, and the only producer of jute, while her export of manganese and tungsten materially affects the manufacture of steel in Europe. Such a prize must be retained at all costs.

A side-light on the intervention of England in Russia is given in by Sir A. Steel-Maitland when addressing business men interested in Russian trade. He said:

"In the next 20 years the part of the world where trade expansion was likely to be quickest was in Central and South-Eastern Russia, and the enormous belt of country east of the Urals. British traders now had a good chance of establishing themselves there." —"Daily News," 12.7.19.

In "The World's Work" during the war Mr. R. C. Martens (of Martens & Co., a large American commercial concern) contributed an article and a series of maps relating to the resources of European and Asiatic Russia. In the course of the article he made the following remarks :

"The war has caused American manufactures to double at least. Most other countries have also expanded their manufacturing capacities with the result that the world's manufacturing capacity is at least three times as great as it was before the war. . . . Will the industrial nations not have to look for markets for their surplus in lands where there is greatest natural wealth ? If so, Russia will assuredly be the greatest commercial field in the world at the end of this war."

And he closes the article with this significant remark:

  "The opportunity is waiting."

No wonder England and the "great democracy of the West" are taking such a fatherly and bloodthirsty interest in Russian affairs.

The "Daily Chronicle" for August 6th adds its quota to the mass of evidence supporting our contention. Under the heading "Tariff War Breaks Out in Europe" our contemporary reports:

  ". . the introduction into Italy of hats, caps, gloves, and umbrellas is wholly forbidden. So, too are threads, textiles, and all semi-manufactured goods, whether in wool, linen, cotton, hemp, or jute.
The same applies to agricultural machinery and to . all parts thereof.  . .

BOHEMIA'S COUNTER TARIFF.

. . Already Bohemia has retaliated on the shutting out of her glass wares by imposing a steep tariff of 300 kronen on Italian wines."

The report then goes on to declare that there is every prospect of Sweden, who had made the promised supply of paper pulp dependent upon the admission into Italy of certain cheap paper goods, retaliating by stopping the paper pulp supply. Truly, we are a happy family in these days of universal peace !

As the military war waned the trade war took its place and rages with greater violence every day. The inevitable result will be another recourse to the battlefield.

So that the last doubt may be dispelled from the minds of readers as to the everlasting nature of the "peace" I will conclude with another quotation from the "Daily News" (12.7.19.)

  "Sir Douglas Haig and Admiral Sir Roger Keyes received the freedom of the city (Aberdeen) to-day, and also honorary degrees of the University. Sir Douglas, in reply, urged that every growing lad should be taught the use of the rifle, so that when the next great trial came, "as one day it surely will," we should be found a nation in arms, ready and prepared to meet it."

As the Socialist Party has all along pointed out. the wars of civilised countries, since the birth of the capitalist system, have been caused through the struggles between sections of the world's capitalist class for the trade routes, raw materials, markets, and the like. As long as there is commodity production, buying and selling, with the consequent competition among buyers and sellers and the enslavement of the producing class, wars are of the very essence of things. Lasting peace can only arrive when the private ownership of the means of living has been abolished and common ownership has emerged from the ruins—in other words, wars and all the other evils that are a consequence of capitalism can only disappear when capitalism gives place to Socialism.

Gilmac.

By The Way. (1919)

The By The Way column from the July 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is just possible that, by the time this issue of our journal is ready for sale, the opposing sections of the capitalist class who, for close on five years, have been urging their dupes to slaughter, will have temporarily patched up THEIR quarrel.

The fact that there are, as Mr. Bonar Law has told us, twenty-three minor wars on hand, does not matter to those who are making the world safe for democracy. At long last the cry ''Give peace in our time, O Lord," has been heard, and "our greatest enemy" is crushed. We are now bidden to hang out our flags and rejoice. For what should we rejoice? Is it the knowledge that millions of the world's working class have been done to death and thousands upon thousands more rendered mental and physical wrecks, not forgetting the widows and orphans, in order to satiate capitalist greed, that we are now exhorted to rejoice and be glad ?

How mechanical it all is ! In the beginning the capitalist class inform us, the working class, through their Press, that we have an enemy "over there." We are told to hate him; tall stories are written in order to infuriate us and work us up into a warlike attitude ; and when our liberty-loving masters cry "halt!" we obey. And last of all they arrange peace concert parties for us. How stupid ! Think it over, fellow wage slaves.

--0--

In perusing some of the peace prattle I came across the following morsel which beautifully illustrates our masters' way of doing things, and proves incidentally beyond all disputation, that the noble ideal which has actuated the Allies from the very beginning down to the present time, namely, the crushing, root and branch, of militarism, has been worthily maintained. Here it is :

The German plenipotentiaries will arrive through the park, and military honours will not be accorded them on their entry, but they will leave at the same time as the Allied plenipotentiaries, and, being no longer enemy delegates, will receive military honours.

—Reuter Special.

Blimey ! I can almost imagine Lloyd George and Wilson leading the singing at some peace concert. Such songs as "For Old Times' Sake" and "We'll All Go the Same Way Home" would be most appropriate.

--0--

Just recently the big-wigs of the Empire's capital—the representatives of the holy trinity of Rent, Interest, and Profit—assembled for the purpose of bestowing the freedom of the City of London on "those two heroes of the war," Admiral Beatty and Field Marshal Haig.

Arising out of this little jollification there are just two points to which I desire to draw attention. First, it does seem somewhat incongruous that the claims of the men who have been fighting for the Allied section of the capitalist class should require to be incessantly placed before whose whose interests they; have been so well serving. Why is it that our capitalist masters so soon forget their faithful warriors when the last shot has been fired ? In the din of battle "we are one" ; there is the "new spirit of comradeship" which was generated in the trenches or on the man-of-war ; but with the cessation of hostilities the curtain is rung down on all the flowery talk, and once again the players return to the old game of scrambling for jobs—that phenomenon peculiar to capitalist society.

Here we see the antagonism of interests between the working and the employing classes. We may have been "over there," facing the "enemy," but coming back to the ordinary work-a-day world we suffer no delusion. Even the agents of capitalism are themselves occasionally forced to step in and, as it were, "pour oil on troubled waters," or remind the employing class that they have certain "obligations" to the men who have kept the flag flying, which should be honoured. This brings me to the burden of Admiral Beatty's speech, from which I quote the following :

  "I should like to express here the hope that in the revival of commerce, employers will consider the claim of ex-naval officers. Their inevitable lack of experience is, I understand, proving an obstacle to their finding employment. They have, however, invaluable qualities of resource, loyalty, discipline, and experience in handling men, which make them peculiarly fitted for many of the positions that have to be filled." —"Daily News," June 13th, 1919.

In the event of the Admiral's hope not coming to maturity, well, of course, the men can form part of the new "voluntary" armed force. The posters recently exhibited state : "If you are out of work call at the recruiting office." An empty stomach is a good recruiting sergeant.

--0--

The second point arises from the contribution of Sir Douglas Haig. Notwithstanding the innumerable occasions on which we have been told that this war was to end war, and that we were fighting militarism, we have this warrior bold asserting at the very time "we" are insisting that the Germans must limit their military forces to 100,000 men, that what we want is more militarism. According to a report of his speech I find he delivered himself as followeth:

  "My message to you, and through you to the Empire, is to urge you, now that the war has given you at once the reason and the opportunity to do so, to set up forthwith the organisation of a strong citizen army on Territorial lines—an organisation which shall ensure that every able-bodied citizen shall come forward when the next crisis comes, not as a willing, patriotic, but militarily ignorant volunteer, but as a trained man."

Yea, verily, I ask what it shall profit you if, having dethroned militarism in Germany it is enthroned in England ? Thousands of men have laid down their lives believing that in doing so they were helping to eradicate the evil of militarism. Surely they have died in vain if ear is given to these people of whom Sir Douglas Haig is the chief mouthpiece.

Our speaker revels in his subject. To make sure that none shall slip through the meshes he says later on—

 "There must, in addition, be our highly trained professional army to maintain the standard of our  military knowledge, and meet the daily needs of a police force for our vast Empire, and there must be proper and sufficient training schools and staff colleges that the higher arts of war may be kept abreast of the times. Above all, however, to ensure that the military strength of our race may be readily realisable to meet whatever danger may threaten us we need to organise at once our democratic citizen army."

This is what capitalism holds in store for the workers who blindly support this hellish system. Arise, then; remove the blinkers from your eyes, and help to fight for

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS.

--0--

Though we were told that the Germans initiated the war in the air, and it was a violation of international law, the Allies seem quite content to extend its usage. For colossal hypocrisy the Allies take some beating. Now for a quotation on a recent air excursion—

BOMBS ON AMIR'S PALACE. 

A telegram received from Simla reporting the air attacks on Jalalabad, according to a Reuter message, says that these bombing raids have been highly successful. In a night raid Captain Carbery dropped four small bombs on the Amir's Palace. In a day raid four bombs were dropped amongst 2,000 infantry on parade, inflicting about 50 casualties. The infantry scattered into the barracks, which were bombed in the next raid. Six direct hits were obtained, and all the bombs were dropped in the town, which was much damaged. Fifteen machines took part in the raid and nearly two tons of bombs were dropped.—"Daily News," 28.5.1919.

--0--

We live in a strange world. The Government's appeal for money by the 4 per cent. Funding Loan and the 4 per cent. Victory Bonds does not in any way excite us. But we have some difficulty in understanding why the "Daily Herald" accepts these advertisements and prints them in its columns—whether paid or not does not matter—rails continuously at the Government, and claims to be voicing the views of the revolutionary working class. Is this the class-conscious action that paper frequently speaks of day by day ? Surely by issuing such an appeal our contemporary is assisting the master class to carry on, to further entrench themselves, to keep their hold upon the workers, and above all, assisting in spreading confusion amongst the workers by such anti working-class action ?

--0--

Though we frequently hear the Psalm-singing fraternity giving lip to the hymn "We are not divided, all one body we," the truth of their contention is gravely open to doubt, as witness the following :

The Church of England is so divided that many excellent churchmen have turned away in despair from any further effort to recover external unity.—Bishop of Hereford at Westminster.

The Scout

Past and Present: Remembrance Day poppycock (1962)

From the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Did you buy a poppy? You probably did. And you probably stood still when the salutes were sounded at eleven o’clock in the morning on the eleventh, and remembered the millions who died in the two World Wars. Perhaps you knew somebody—a relative or a friend—who died among them; perhaps you were one who remembered with a deep personal grief. And perhaps, because you had remembered and you had bought your poppy—you and millions like you—you felt a bit better about it.

It is impossible not to feel sympathy.

But it is even more difficult not to speak out against your illusions.

You probably think you were right to pop your money into the collecting box. The figures of the men who were crippled and blinded in the wars, and who cannot support themselves, are real enough. Obvious, too, is their plight. We sometimes get a look at them; there is, for example, a home for disabled ex-servicemen in West London which organises its own flag day in the summer, when it wheels some of its worst cases and plants them outside the local railway stations with a box propped upon their laps—or upon their chests. These men are pitifully shattered and have no hope of getting their living in the usual labour market. You think that if we all contribute something it would help them to solve that problem. Perhaps you think that only a niggard could resist the appeals to buy a flag or a poppy.

Yet we do not have to be misers to wonder how the whole thing started. And it is not for the sake of saving our coin in the box that we would like to stop it happening again. Why are these men forced to beg on the streets? To many people the answer to that question—The war, of course—closes the discussion, as if war is something which just happens, something to do with the Old Adam in us, or something to be blamed onto That Man in Berlin or Moscow or somewhere else. Anyway, nobody should stop to think about the whys and the wherefores; we should all get into uniform as soon as a war starts. If we’re unlucky we’ll get our name on one of the memorials or end up in a bath chair rattling a collection box.

This is exactly the attitude our masters like us to adopt. For those who unquestioningly accept a war are the easiest of victims for the propaganda which prepares them for the next bout of bloodletting. They easily forget the promises which are offered to excuse one war and which are broken as the next draws near. Such people in this country forgot the promises which were made in 1914-18, that that was the war to end wars and the assurances they were given in 1945 that Europe—and especially Germany— would be so organised that international disputes would be impossible in the future. Such people in Germany forgot that their country was one of the guarantors of the Belgian frontiers which they coldly violated in 1914 and that in 1919 they signed a pact which bound them never to rearm. Pacts and promises are freely broken, the power blocs in the world regroup and rearm, the war propaganda switches effortlessly from one line to another. And you, as you drop your coin through the slot and take your poppy, accept and condone it all. The war, you murmur, it's the war. There’s nothing anyone can do about that, is there?

We do not have to be misers to see that there is something we can do about it.

If you examine your poppy, you will see that it acknowledges a donation to the Haig Fund. You probably know that poppies are sold because they were the flowers which were thick in the cornfields of Flanders at the beginning of World War I, although by the time the fighting had rolled backwards and forwards over the countryside and had settled into the trenches where the guns and the gas could do their work there were very few poppies left. And you probably know who Haig was.

He was the man they gave £100,000 and an Earldom to, making him the first Earl Haig of Bemersyde in the County of Berwick, Viscount Dawick and Twentieth Laird of Bemersyde, for organising the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men. Haig was a sombre, withdrawn man who had notions that he was divinely appointed to lead his men to victory. Even for his time, his ideas were out of date. To the end, he dreamed of using his beloved cavalry on thrilling, lightning thrusts—although at the same time his infantry were finding it impossible to walk over the liquid battlefields he sent them across. His name is firmly linked with his own pet Big Push at Passchendaele, a bloody fiasco in which tens of thousands were lost to capture a few square miles of land and a heap of rubble which was anyway very soon recaptured by the Germans. It is easy now to be wise about Passchendaele, to remember the deep mud, to recall the official War Office publication which warns of the marshy nature of the Flanders countryside, and to ask, horrified, why the attack was ever allowed to happen. But perhaps the grimmest fact about it is that at the time, to the people who supported the war, Passchendaele seemed a very good idea. Haig had planned the offensive for a long time, confident that the attacks organised by the other Allied commanders would come to nothing and that he would be called upon to finish the war. The other attacks did come to nothing. So did Haig’s, if by nothing we mean the massed dead, the fear and the pain and the shattered lives and in the end the Earldom—and the poppies.

Cynicism
The poppies, in fact, are one of the unkindest cuts of all. There was, to be blunt, a cynical political reason for them. So great was the slaughter of that first war, so shocked was the world at what it had seen, that capitalism's masters realised that there were prospects of working class reaction. If these wars were to be a regular thing, something must appear to be done for the bits of men who came out of them. Possible resentment must be diverted from the disillusionment which was staring people in the face and fobbed off by unctuous gratitude for the penny in the box. How many of us can remember how this was done, in the years between the wars? The children drawn up in rows in the chill, depressing halls of working class schools with the dank November morning outside, being hectored by sour teachers and told that the penny they had wrung from an unemployed father—who had himself survived the trenches—was a vital part of the great virtue of charity. (In those days, the capitalist class in England were more generous in their gratitude for the dead. They always had the Two Minute Silence on November 11th, no matter on what day of the week it fell. Now they make sure that Remembrance Day is fixed for a Sunday so that production is not interrupted and nobody gets two minutes off.)

We said that we would be blunt. This is the reason for the charity sop which capitalism so carefully fosters. Charity stifles protest at the inhumanities of capitalism and it goes some of the way to conceal the true causes of our problems.

Charity solves nothing. The unemployed man in the ’thirties did not solve his problems by buying a poppy—and neither did be solve the problems of the men be thought he was helping. This is still true, even though post-war inflation means that it may be sixpence which goes into the collecting box more often than a penny. The very best that charity can do is to spread—ever so thinly, at that—a little working class poverty from one group of workers to another. Charity to the war disabled stifles the protests at their conditions and diverts the question which asks why they are broken and needy as they are.

Wars are as much a part of capitalist society as buying and selling. In fact, they are conceived and executed and fought so that buying and selling can go on. So that one power can buy its oil, or uranium, or rubber, or something else, in the most convenient and cheapest market. So that it can sell its cars or steel or chemicals in the places where it can get a good price for them. So that its ships and aircraft can carry its commodities to any place where the price is right. So that, in a nutshell, the profit motive of capitalism can be satisfied.

An essential part of this profit making is that enough people can turn out the wealth and make it possible to sell it profitably. But there would be no sense in the employers paying these people the same as the value of what they had made. There would be no profit in that. So the workers are in general paid only enough to keep them; enough to give them what they need to get up steam again for another bout of wealth production and profit making. This means that most people have to go out to work for their living and that in return they get a wage which is about enough for them to live a distinctly restricted, unambitious life and to turn out more workers who will live and work in exactly the same way.

This applies for as long as the worker is able to work. But if for some reason he loses his ability then his livelihood is lost with it and his only hope is the charity of other people. This is what has happened to the war disabled men, the men you bought your poppy for.

As long as there are people to buy the poppies without question, there will be the social system which makes war and as long as there is war there will be the wounded who will need charity and who will make the poppies for people to buy without question. . . This grisly circle could go on forever, in a descending spiral of madness and destruction.

Anybody who cares about human welfare should look for another way of dealing with this situation. It is worse than futile to be charitable to the men who come out of capitalism’s wars, the men who are some of the worst victims of the poverty which capitalism forces upon all its workers, and at the same time support the continuance of capitalism.

It is better—and this is no miser's talk—to get down to some reasoning about the causes of the poverty and the unhappiness which so deeply scars the world today. It is even better to come up with right answer. Socialism is the most plentiful and happy world we can have. And because of that it is a world away from the futile charity with which so many people excuse their toleration of capitalism today.

Ivan