Leftism
15. The American Left and World War I
Dealing not only with American foreign policy but also with British foreign policy in our century, I am obviously addressing readers from English-speaking countries as an alien—as an Austrian who, during all his lifetime has been at the “receiving end” of political decisions which were largely identified with the national interest of the United States and Britain. Certainly not every American, not every Britisher subscribed to every movement his government made during the crucial World War I years and if the party he voted for was in opposition, he had good reason to disassociate himself from his government’s official policy. And yet he could not possibly avoid identifying himself—at least up to a point—with the actions of his country. Writing as an Austrian, nevertheless I have to tell my readers in all candor that I am also writing as a man who still has a “home,” a Heimat, but since my childhood, since November 1918, no longer a fatherland. The Alpine Republic of Austria has made every imaginable effort to deny its historic roots going back to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It shed all the symbols recalling the Hapsburg monarchy either in the form of the Danubian monarchy or its real matrix, the Holy Roman Empire. Thus politically I am representing a void. This, however, gives me the courage to criticize the policies of the English-speaking nations vigorously though endeavoring to remain objective. I think that as a citizen of Christendom, as a product of the Western World it is my duty to point to a chain of errors committed by Britain and America in the past, because these countries still have an armed might, a freedom of decision, a responsibility which Austria no longer possesses. This is the reason I am not dwelling on the faults and mistakes of my own people, now a small pawn on a big chessboard. I am not even putting much stress on the sins of omission and commission of the German people or of its masters prior to 1933, a people to whom as an Austrian I feel attached in many ways. Great nations have fallen very low—the Jews when they rejected their Messiah; France, the “Oldest Daughter of the Church,” when it engaged in the Revolution, Pandora’s Box of centuries to come; “Holy Mother Russia,” when she fell for the abstruse ideas of German intellectuals; the “Germanies,” heart of the Holy Roman Empire, when they submitted to Hitler and his evil creed. Of course these peoples have no common guilt. There is no such thing as collective guilt. However, as Theodor Heuss has pointed out, there is collective shame.
Nor, obviously, are the Americans (or the British) collectively guilty of the fateful errors and misdeeds committed by some of them. The words of Count Benckendorff, last Imperial Russian Ambassador in London, about the Germans—“Il n’y a pas ‘les Allemands,’ il n’y a que des Allemands”—are equally valid for the English-speaking nations. The vast majority of my friends in Britain and America never belonged to the left, they rarely subscribed to its errors, they have little, sometimes no responsibility for the tragic situation the modern world is in at present. If I am accusing, I am hardly accusing them and the accusations themselves are made in order to show errors of the past. The only thing we can do now is to learn from them.
Certainly in no domain has the influence of American (and the British) left been more nefarious than in matters of foreign policy. The effects of their interventions were tragic not only in the United States and in Britain but for the world at large. Yet let us also admit that, while the left has actively participated in political and military activities that powerfully contributed to the decline of the West, the more conservative forces in the English-speaking world cannot be entirely absolved from the guilt of omission rather than commission, of inaction rather than intervention.
One’s self I sing, a simple separate person
Yet after the word democratic, the word en masse.
Yet in America moderate leftism and national nativist nationalism have gone well together. Witness Whitman, witness a certain aspect of Carl Sandburg’s writings, witness the poem of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. This gigantic symbol of freedom greets the immigrants thus:
By the end of 1916 and early 1917 a compromise peace was still possible and great efforts were made in that direction. In a diminished form hopes still existed until early 1918, when the last Austro-Hungarian peace offensive took place. Of course, Emperor Charles I was not the only person trying desperately to end the frightful butchery. The Vatican, certain German parties, the Socialists, Conservatives, English groups, and Spain were also engaged in major efforts to put an end to the almost universal suffering. By the summer of 1917 the Russian emperor had abdicated, the Kerensky government was tottering, the Italians awaited a major blow, Rumania had been defeated, a stalemate existed on the Western Front, and a partial mutiny had weakened the French army. Lord Lansdowne’s famous letter (rejected by the London Times) had been published by the Daily Telegraph. But the non-Marxist left in Britain and France, represented by Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Ribot, was relentless. It counted on American aid. And the decision over peace or war really lay with America. As a matter of fact, never was there a greater chance for a genuine Pax Americana. If the United States had then been blessed with an outstanding President, with a great leader endowed with real vision, he could have called a peace conference and treated all those refusing to attend as prima facie partisans of the war.
GREY: Suppose you have to intervene, what then?
PAGE: Make ’em vote and live by their decisions.
GREY: But suppose they will not so live?
PAGE: We’ll go in again and make ’em vote again.
GREY: And keep this up for 200 years?
Now, who was George Davis Herron, one of the gravediggers of old Europe? Who was this curious bearded, bespectacled poet, mentioned in some documents as “Reverend,” in others as “Professor” or more rarely as plain Mr. Herron? Romain Rolland, the great pacifist, once referred to him. The reason? Herron had written an article against Rolland in Geneva’s La Revue Mensuelle (April 1917) entitled “Pacifist Immorality.” At that time Herron was tortured by the fear of a compromise peace and spoke out in ringing words: “Darkness is rising rapidly over the skies of the nations. It is as if the soul of the human race were gripped by the crushing fear of a prehistoric night. Yes, it is Thor and Wotan who are now about to establish a reign of spiritual death. . . .” Romain Rolland replied by calling him a “virtuous hypocrite” and a “gigantic idiot.” Herron was the latter rather than the former, an eternally confused youthful enthusiast, rather than a scoundrel, steeped in deepest ignorance and drunk with words. Part of the key to his behavior and his thinking was his idealistic-romantic leftism.
The precise nature of Herron’s status in American and British Service, (he also “informed” the Foreign Office) especially before 1916, seems rather ambiguous. In the voluminous Herron Papers we find only two meager documents concerning his financial dealings with London and Washington and his official position. One contains an admission that he was recognized by Washington as representative of the American Socialist Mission—which certainly had no ties with the American Socialist party, whose leader Eugene V. Debs, a great idealist, was sent to penitentiary in September 1918 for his pacifist views.
As one who hopes passionately for the victory of the Allies, I would say that a complete Prussian triumph would be preferable to a compromise between the contending peoples and principles. For even under the baleful bondage of a German dominion mankind might still through high rebellion, through hard suffering awaken to its mission in the universe—to cosmic intimacy and infinite choice. But if the war end in universal evasion, if the race refuse its great hour of decision, then downward into long and impenetrable darkness we shall surely go. One can imagine such an issue as the very despair of the heart of God, vainly broken for a dastard and derelict humanity. (The Menace of the Peace, pp. 9-10.)
