annexation in case of final German victory; but to infer that, in view of these immediate and prospective advantages, the German government not only reckoned with but hoped for resistance, would be to attribute to that government intentions which it has not avowed and with which it should not be charged without direct evidence. If, however, Germany expected to go through Belgium without fighting the Belgians, this expectation must have rested upon the purely military consideration that resistance on the part of the Belgian militia was so hopeless as to be inconceivable. From the purely military point of view, even the Belgian General Staff could hardly have reached a different conclusion. It is of course evident that in permitting the passage of German troops Belgium would have ceased to be neutral and would have given France and Great Britain cause for war; but it would have had German support against these countries, with a German guaranty of its territorial integrity at the close of the war. And in case of German defeat, France and Great Britain might well have recognized the excuse of duress, vis major. The sentiments that seem to have determined Belgian resistance to Germany-love of independence, fidelity. to treaty engagements and resentment against flagrant wrong— are of precisely the sort which the military mind is apt to undervalue. They are imponderables.

This study of the Austro-German diplomacy seems to lead to fairly definite conclusions. Military, not political, opinion. decided that war was, if not desirable, at least inevitable; military strategy robbed diplomacy, not only of the time necessary to manœuver the adversaries into aggression, but even of opportunity to show a decent reluctance to engage in war; military strategy decided that the war must be carried at the outset through Belgium into France, leaving to diplomacy only the hopeless task of getting the German armies through Belgium into France without war with Great Britain. There are signs already that in the event of German defeat the diplomatists are to be made the scapegoats. That, however, will be unjust; for they really had no chance.

In assuming the control of diplomacy, military strategy appears to have defeated its own aims. Whatever may be the

final outcome of the war, the original plan of campaign has failed. Neither Servia nor France has been crushed. And the original plan of campaign in the west seems to have failed because of the unexpectedly obstinate resistance of the Belgians and the unexpectedly efficient assistance which Great Britain was able to give to France. The most formidable fighting machine in the world has been unable to perform the task imposed upon it by its leaders; and the error in their calculations was undervaluation of the imponderables.

VII

From the outbreak of the war there has been, not only in countries opposed to Austria and Germany, but also in neutral countries, and particularly in the United States, a very general assertion that "militarism" is responsible. There has been also a general assumption that German or Prussian militarism is a unique phenomenon; that it differs from anything resembling militarism to be found in other countries, not in degree only, but in kind.

What do we really mean when we assert that a state is miliIt is clear, I think, that a state is not necessarily militaristic because it is prepared for war. It is not necessarily militaristic because it holds all its able-bodied male citizens to military service, as is the case in Switzerland, nor because it holds them to three years of training, as is the case in France, nor because it has a powerful navy, as is the case with the United States. Nor is a state militaristic because it has a large body of professional military officers whose duty it is to form plans for the conduct of war, and who are apt to regard war with other feelings than those of the normal civilian. A nation is militaristic just in so far as the views and feelings natural and almost necessary in its army and navy are shared by its civilians, especially by those who are able to direct national thought and to create national sentiment. In a nation, as in an individual, militarism is a state of mind. The more fully a national mind is militarized, the more difficult it becomes for the political heads of the state to subordinate military to political considerations. They may even fail to give due weight to purely political considerations,

because their own minds have been militarized. happens, the state itself has become militaristic.

When this

The peril that foreign policy may be controlled by considerations of military strategy is of course greatest in such a state. It is, however, not confined to such a state. The characteristics of the military mind are everywhere the same, and the antithesis between the military mind and the political mind is not only perpetual but universal. Military appreciation of the advantages of the attack will always and everywhere tend to rob diplomacy of the time necessary to accomplish its proper tasks and may direct any government into unwise and possibly disastrous action. And if this peril is particularly great under personal government, it must be remembered that in monarchies and republics alike, under every system of government which obtains in the civilized world, the conduct of diplomacy is personal: it is in the hands of the chief executive and of the secretary or minister of foreign affairs. To show that Great Britain and the United States may be exposed to the same perils to which Austria and Germany succumbed in 1914, two illustrations must suffice.

When in 1912' the British military attaché in Brussels told the Belgian general with whom he was conferring that, in case of necessity, the British government would land troops in Belgium without waiting for any invitation from that country, he neither committed the Belgian government to any such arrangement, since the Belgian general protested that Belgian consent was necessary, nor did he commit his own government, because, fortunately, he had no power to do so. He gave, however, a typical illustration of the incapacity of the military man to appreciate the importance of keeping one's country in a correct attitude on the face of the record.2

Just before the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, the acting secretary of our navy urged President McKinley to send out a fleet to meet and destroy the Spanish fleet without waiting for a formal declaration of war.3 Here we have a classical

1 Or 1911. The date seems to be uncertain.

2 The Case of Belgium, p. 12.

3 John D. Long, The New American Navy, p. 174.

example of the danger that even the civilian, if charged with military responsibility and preoccupied with military problems, may leave out of his reckoning a very important imponderable -the opinion of civilized mankind.

I have spoken thus far only of the dangers which a nation incurs by permitting its diplomacy to be controlled by strategic considerations. There is, however, a far broader aspect to the problem. Of all means which civilization has provided to avert war, negotiation is the most important. Direct negotiation may be and often is supplemented by the friendly offices of nations not immediately concerned and by offers of mediation; but these are but extensions of negotiation. Arbitration is a potent agency for the peaceful settlement of controversies, but arbitration cannot be set in motion without negotiation. For negotiation time is essential. In the interest of the peace of the world, therefore, it is of the highest importance that the political heads. of every state should be ever on their guard against the attempts of their military advisers to convince them that immediate attack is necessary. It is almost always declared to be a matter "of life or death." To the nation primarily concerned it is usually, in fact, only a matter of greater or less chance of initial success. To peace, however, it is always a matter of

death.

MUNROE SMITH.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

IT

SOUTH AMERICA AND THE MONROE

DOCTRINE, 1824-1828

T is the purpose of this article to describe briefly the reception of President Monroe's message to Congress of December 2, 1823, by the republic of Colombia, the empire of Brazil, and the provinces of the Rio de la Plata.

Colombia had been placed upon the map of South America by virtue of the victories won over the Spanish royalists by the revolutionary soldiers who were led by the military genius, Simón Bolívar. According to the Colombian constitution of 1821, this republic was to include the territories which under Spanish rule had been organized into the captain-generalship of Venezuela and the viceroyalty of New Granada. In 1823 the titular president of "Great Colombia" was Bolívar the Liberator; but as he had led his conquering soldiers against the royalists in Peru, the able vice president, General Francisco de Paula Santander, acted as the chief civil executive of Colombia. 2 Richard C. Anderson of Colombia, the first minister plenipotentiary of the United States to Colombia, reached the capital city of Bogotá on December 10, 1823.3 He soon became aware from conversations with the Colombian secretary of foreign affairs, Pedro Gual, that the Colombians were apprehensive of the designs upon America of that mysterious association of European monarchs known as the Holy Alliance. When reports of the capture of Cadiz by French soldiers acting as informal agents of the Holy Alliance reached Bogotá, the government of Colombia was startled: some Colombian officials feared that, having restored Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain, the Allies might attempt to subjugate the independent states of Spanish America.

The Colombian Constitution of 1821, which was framed at Cúcuta, is found in Blanco, J. F., Documentos para la historia de la vida pública del Libertador de Colombia, Perú, y Bolivia, viii, 24-40.

2 Gil Fortoul, J., Historia Constitucional de Venezuela, i, 327, 328.

3 Anderson announced his arrival at Bogotá in a letter to Adams, December 22, 1823, State Dept. MSS., Bureau of Indexes and Archives, Letters from Colombia, iii.

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