DEMOCRACY AND AVAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15748, 24 October 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

DEMOCRACY AND AVAR.

BY A. A. GRACE. •I [ r to the present the war has been no ; . final test of the endurance of the German s people. Till now they have waged war S principally in the territory of their V enemies. Franco knows what it is to '> have the Teuton on her soil; Belgium has ' suffered all the honors of invasion : r except for intermittent inroads in East Prussia, which caused panic enough '' among the inhabitant?. Germany has yet '' to learn what it means to have her 1 enemies in occupation of her territory. But it, would now seem that she is to iearn her lesson. Soon the Germans will s know what it is to endure the miseries { of invasion— that not merely by the - chivalrous troops of France and Britain, • cut by the dreaded Cossack. It is interestnig to speculate whether they will endure I -heir impending suffering with the forti- ( iudo which the heroic Belgians have dis--3 played so remarkably, or whother they 1 will how in increased measure that peruurbalion which the incipient inroads of . the Russians in East Prussia and Galicia 1 nave caused respectively in Berlin and - Vienna. In waging a war which is a struggle for existence republics usually display a a gi eater degree of- fortitude than do » nations governed despotically or by an ) aristocratic class. History seems to prove > this conclusively. We have the example J ci republican Rome facing (he then world _ power of Carthage, which sought nothing f its* than the total extinction of the Latin - race. All the preponderance of wealth * and maritime power was with Carthage ; " with her were the strength of vast, welldiillcd armies and huge fleets which had . never known defeat. With Rome . was i aothing but her citizenship and her love : • of liberty. Wo know how it ended. Creating navies apparently out of ' nothing, adopting naval tactics quite , unique, Rome, swept the Carthaginian I , lleets from the seas. Enduring tho in- ; \asio n of Hannibal, that master of wax. ! who, marching from Spain, crossed the : Alps and ravaged Italy from north to . I south, Rome finally routed Hasdrubal, I who had come by the same route as his ; redoubtable brother, and finally reduced , Hannibal's forces to such slight dimcn- , sions that that old lion of Africa was 1 forced to slink back to his native lair. • For years the Romans had endured in- , \asion, but after Scipio had invaded . Carthage and had shattered tho Cartha- . ginian power at Zama how quickly the re- . sistance of despotic Carthage ceased. Everyone remembers the wonderful stand which the Dutch Republic made ; against the invading Spaniard. When the French, after their Revolution, were threatened by the combined armies ot Germany, we remember how they routed -heir enemies at Valmy, in that Argonne country of which we have been hearing so much of late in the cablegrams. And go it is with Republican France to-day— nas turned on her invaders and has hurled them back with tremendous slaughter. Let its now look at the reverse side of the medal, xiow have despotic governments and nations governed by aristocracies fared when their territories have been invaded? What degree of fortitude have ■ hey displayed when overwhelmed by their enemies? It will be found that usually they have put up a much poorer fight than have republics and countries governed constitutionally which have been invaded. The case of France's Second Empire is the first case which occurs to mv mind an empire which was ruled by Napoleon 111. in a manner which was scarcely democratic Wo remember how quickly the power of France crumpled under the blows rained on her by the Germans in 1870. To take another case in connection with the same country. Though the first French Republic was phenomenally successfully in her aggressive wars.' when converted into an Empire by Napoleon 1. and invaded by the allies she showed little of the determination which she had displayed when invading the countries of her enemies. When has Austria put up anything of a struggle when her liberties have been assailed by the invader, whether that invader were Russian or Prussian or French? In even- case, not once or twice, but many times Austrian territory •as been invaded—in the Seven Years' War, in the early years of the last century, in 1866, and in every case she has been quickly worsted. And so it has been with most countries governed autocratically—they have wilted before the invpder. The one remarkable exception is Russia. When we look for th'e reason of this surprising difference between the resisting power of democratic and republican countries on the one hand and of countries governed by autocrats on the other, we find the explanation to bo simple and indisputable. When a democratic or republican country is in adversity the tendency of its people- is to cling together. Their misfortune, they recognise, is not onlv the misfortune of all. but is the result of the actions of all made through their elected political representatives. They can blame no one but themselves for their misfortunes, and so clinging together they display a power of resistance great out "of all proportion to their resources. When, however, a nation governed by a despot or by an aristocratic class finds ■t-e!f in the throes of invasion, how different is the degree of resistance offered to the invaders. So soon as such a people finds itself under the thrall of the mvadI Bug armies, when it, finds the horrors ol , war brought to its very hearths and | he mes, tho tendency is for* it to ask who I it is who is responsible for its miseries, I and naturally it blames the ruler or rulers ; who plunged its country into war. There , is a tendency for such a people to make . peace with the invader and to throw from | ]K>wer the dynasty responsible for its I tribulations. It was so with Napoleon 1. ; and Napoleon 111. In any case, a nation jso situated usually presents a broken i front to its invaders, and quickly sue- ! climbs j It may therefore be expected that Ceri many, whose government, though osteni sibly democratic, is in reality autocratic, ' Will if she is seriously invaded, show a | tendency to weaken in her efforts, it is ; likely in -such circumstances that the ; socialistic element of her population will i .">.-■< those principles for which llerr I Rebel and bis confreres so long strove, and | that Germany, torn by internal differences - red perceiving the source of her troubles i to be in the Kaiser and the nobility sur- ; rounding him, will do as France did. m I it'll and 1870, and will free herself of the invader by discarding her ruler and his ' satellites. ! Before that can occur there must, howi ever, be many a bloody battle and imi measurable misery. At present the Or '. mans know little of the horrors of m- , vasion ; til! now they have invaded the I territory of the allies: but, should the | tide of war cany desolation and destruci lion into their towns and villages, it may | be expected that the Germans, seeing the I war from a new and awful point of view, , will sacrifice the military aristocracy , which governs them and make peace with : ..heir enemies. ; In this way would they achieve the most ! lasting benefits for themselves and the j more quickly terminate their sufferings. History seems to show that a misguided , aristocracy which plunges its country into ! an unsuccessful war suffers ultimately at I the hands of those whom it governed I foolishly and for its own aggrandisement. I Success in its policy of war is its only j excuse, and if its policy of war fail it | quickly finds itself discarded by those whom it led to defeat. Let us hope that such may be the experience of the Kaiser ' and the swashbucklers who with him are solely responsible for the war which has devastated Belgium and Northern France, and which, it would appear, must, sooner , or later devastate Germany,