FOREIGN POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 5

FOREIGN POLICY

NATIONAL TRAITS

GERMANY AND BRITAIN

That tragic lack of self-confidence which is one of the major afflictions of their race inspires Germans with an almost hysterical craving for a national form, whites Harold Nicolson in the "Atlantic Monthly." "We are," writes Friedrich Sieburg, "shifting sand, yet in every grain there inheres a longing! to combine with all the rest into solid, | durable stone." This sense of spiritual loneliness—l might almost say of spiritual forsakenness—lies at the very root of the German character and explains many of its more perplexing manifestations. It is this which leads the German to seek comfort in the ordered groups of his fellow-countrymen and explains why for him militarism is not only a political instrument but an end in itself, bringing him relief from his own uncertainties, and providing him with a sense of outline, solidity, and purposes for which he craves. It_ is this spiritual loneliness, again, which explains his self-abandonment to the State; his freedom, his conscience, and his reasoning powers; and his conception of the State as something superhuman and almost theocratic. It is, again, the tremulous diffidence of the German which leads him to place such confidence in quantitative values, whether in the form of exaggerated erudition or in the form of exaggerated force. And finally, it is the German's lack of self-confidence which renders him so sensitive, so suspicious, so impulsive, and at times so reckless. TAKING OFFENCE. Even as an individual, the German is more prone to take offence than is the Englishman, being more preoccupied than we are by considerations of status. This exaggerated awareness of status often complicates social relations between Germans and their fellowcountrymen, and renders them selfconscious in their dealings with foreigners. . . . The German tends, as I have said, to surrender his own individuality to the State, and he often does so with superb self-sacrifice. But by his act to surrender he identifies himself with the State,to a degree which is not conceivable aniong the British, and he comes to regard the State with the same passionate ,susceptibility, the same nervous sense of status, which prove so inconvenient for him in his personal relationships. In this manner his personal honour, and the resultant form of patriotism is far more inflammable than that old warm blanket which patriotism takes with us. Thus the German concept of prestige is very akin to the concept of national honour, and the latter concept is closely identified with the concept of personal honour which, in its turn, is much concerned with questions of status. And whereas for the Englishman the idea of prestige is impersonal, fluctuating, and elastic, for the German it is something intensely personal, rigid, and tense. I do not think that in our past and present dealings with Germany we have always taken sufficiently generous account of this consideration. THE HEROIC CONCEPTION. The German conception of policy is essentially the heroic or warrior conception. German diplomacy, for instance, is conducted by military rather than by civilian methods. There is the whole apparatus of alternative campaigns carefully elaborated in.adVcJice; of wide flanking movements and sudden captures of strategical points; of the "Kraftprobe the ambush, and the night attack; of rapid manoeuvres and sudden concentration - y of surprises and feints. There is the belief in the importance of initiative and secrecy; the desire, to.-maintain.'.the enemy in a state of anxious uncertainty; the confidence in heavy artillery; and above all the conviction that victory is the only possible alternative to The English conception of policy is not in the least military. It is mercantile. We conduct our diplomacy not as heroic warriors, but as rather timid shopkeepers. Except in rare moment of aberration (the worst of which occ -rred in 1919) we are not out tpr spectacular diplomatic victories or sensattonal trials of strength. What we are after is a profitable deal. And we know from long business experience that no deal is profitable which imposes conditions which are incapable of execution. ' .