Why Don't We Learn From History? (4 page)

We learn from history that those who are disloyal to their own superiors are most prone to preach loyalty to their subordinates. Not many years ago there was a man who preached it so continually when in high position as to make it a catchword; that same man had been privately characterized by his chief, his colleague, and his assistant in earlier years as one who would swallow anything in order to get on.

Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency. But the word is much abused. For “loyalty,” analyzed, is too often a polite word for what would be more accurately described as “a conspiracy for mutual inefficiency.” In this sense it is essentially selfish—like a servile loyalty, demeaning both to master and servant. They are in a false relation to each other, and the loyalty which is then so much prized can be traced, if we probe deeply enough, to an ultimate selfishness on either side. “Loyalty” is not a quality we can isolate; so far as it is real, and of intrinsic value, it is implicit in the possession of other virtues.

These minor loyalties also invade the field of history and damage its fruits. The search for truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian. To that occupation many are called but few are worthy, not necessarily for want of gifts but for lack of the urge or the resolution to follow the gleam wherever it may lead. Too many have sentimental encumbrances, even if they are not primarily moved, as so often happens in the field of historical biography, by the sentiment of kinship, or of friendship, or of discipleship. On a lower plane come those who suit their conclusions to the taste of an audience or a patron.

Deep is the gulf between works of history as written and the truth of history, and perhaps never more so than in books dealing with military history. If one reason is that these are usually written by soldiers untrained as historians and another that there is frequently some personal link, whether of acquaintance or tradition, between author and subject, a deeper reason lies in a habit of mind. For the soldier, “My country—right or wrong” must be the watchword. And this essential loyalty, whether it be to a country, to a regiment, or to comrades, is so ingrained in him that when he passes from action to reflection it is difficult for him to acquire instead the historian's single-minded loyalty to the truth.

Not that the most impartial historian is ever likely to attain truth in its entirety; but he is likely to approach it more closely if he has this single-mindedness. For the historian loyal to his calling it would be impossible to put forward the suggestion, such as one heard from distinguished participants in the war, that certain episodes might “best be glossed over” in war histories. Yet these officers were men of indisputable honor and quite unconscious that they were sinning not only against the interests of their country's future but against truth, the essential foundation for honor.

The effect was all too strikingly illustrated in the case of the man who was in charge of the British official military histories of World War I—General Edmonds. In the detective side of historianship, as well as in background knowledge, he was outstandingly well qualified for the task. In the early years of the task he often said that he could not state the damaging truth in an official history because of loyalty to the service and to his old comrades among the generals, yet wanted to make it known privately to other historians—which he did. But as time passed and he grew older, he gradually hypnotized himself into the belief that the gloss he felt bound to put over the facts was the truth—the core of the matter and not merely the protective covering.

That practice became a fatal hindrance to the chance of getting the lessons of World War I clear in time for the next generation to profit by them in World War II. Historical writers who are free from official attachments and institutional obligations should count themselves fortunate in being unfettered—rather than priding themselves on an innate personal superiority of honesty.

Truth may not be absolute, but it is certain that we are likely to come nearest to it if we search for it in a purely scientific spirit and analyze the facts with a complete detachment from all loyalties save that to truth itself.

It implies that one must be ready to discard one's own pet ideas and theories as the search progresses.

In no field has the pursuit of truth been more difficult than that of military history. Apart from the way that the facts were hidden, the need for technical knowledge tended to limit the undertaking to trained soldiers, and these were not trained in historical methods.

Moreover, the military hierarchy showed a natural anxiety lest a knowledge of the fallibility of the generals of yesterday should disturb the young soldier's trust in his generals of today and tomorrow. A realization of the cycle of familiar errors, endlessly recurring, which largely makes up the course of military history may lead one to think that the only hope of escape lies in a more candid scrutiny of past experience and a new honesty in facing the facts.

But one should still be able to appreciate the point of view of those who fear the consequences. Faith matters so much in times of crisis. One must have gone deep into history before reaching the conviction that truth matters more.

PART II: GOVERNMENT AND FREEDOM

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Blindfolded authority

All of us do foolish things—but the wiser realize what they do. The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error. That failure is a common affliction of authority.

From many examples may be cited one from World War I. When reports percolated to Paris about the neglected state of the Verdun defenses Joffre was asked for an assurance that they would be improved. In reply he indignantly denied that there was any cause for anxiety and demanded the names of those who had dared to suggest it: “I cannot be a party to soldiers under my command bringing before the Government, by channels other than the hierarchic channel, complaints or protests about the execution of my orders…. It is calculated to disturb profoundly the spirit of discipline in the Army.”

That reply might well be framed and hung up in all the bureaus of officialdom the world over—to serve as the mummy at the feast. For within two months his doctrine of infallibility collapsed like a punctured balloon, with tragic effects for his army. But here, as so often happens, personal retribution was slow and ironical in its course. The man who had given warning was to be one of the first victims of its neglect, while Joffre for a time gained fresh popular laurels from the heroic sacrifice by which complete disaster was averted.

The pretense to infallibility is instinctive in a hierarchy. But to understand the cause is not to underrate the harm that the pretense has produced—in every sphere.

We learn from history that the critics of authority have always been rebuked in self-righteous tones—if no worse fate has befallen them—yet have repeatedly been justified by history. To be “agin the Government” may be a more philosophic attitude than it appears. For the tendency of all “governments” is to infringe the standards of decency and truth—this is inherent in their nature and hardly avoidable in their practice.

Hence the duty of the good citizen who is free from the responsibility of Government is to be a watchdog upon it, lest Government impair the fundamental objects which it exists to serve. It is a necessary evil, thus requiring constant watchfulness and check.

Restraints of democracy

We learn from history that democracy has commonly put a premium on conventionality. By its nature, it prefers those who keep step with the slowest march of thought and frowns on those who may disturb the “conspiracy for mutual inefficiency.” Thereby, this system of government tends to result in the triumph of mediocrity—and entails the exclusion of first-rate ability, if this is combined with honesty. But the alternative to it, despotism, almost inevitably means the triumph of stupidity. And of the two evils, the former is the less.

Hence it is better that ability should consent to its own sacrifice, and subordination to the regime of mediocrity, rather than assist in establishing a regime where, in the light of past experience, brute stupidity will be enthroned and ability may preserve its footing only at the price of dishonesty.

What is of value in “England” and “America” and worth defending is its tradition of freedom—the guarantee of its vitality. Our civilization, like the Greek, has, for all its blundering way, taught the value of freedom, of criticism of authority—and of harmonizing this with order. Anyone who urges a different system, for efficiency's sake, is betraying the vital tradition.

The experience of the two-party system developed in English politics, and transplanted across the ocean, continued long enough to show its practical superiority, whatever its theoretical drawbacks, to any other system of government that has yet been tried. I cannot see that socialism (in the “true” sense of the term) can be attained and made secure without tending to its logical end, the totalitarian state. It is not productive basically of a good or an efficient community. In England, at any rate, it has carried on, and no more, the improvement of the conditions of the “underdog” that was developed, above all, by Lloyd George.

Power politics in a democracy

The part that power plays in relations between nations is coming to be better understood and more generally recognized than it was in a more optimistic period. The term “power politics” is now in such common usage as to represent an admission of reality. But there is still a lack of public understanding as to where power lies and how it is exercised within a nation.

In a democratic system, power is entrusted to committees. These are the main organs of the body politic on all levels, from local councils up to the highest committees of Government. But the process by which decisions are reached is very different in reality from what is conceived in constitutional theory. Moreover, issues are apt to be powerfully influenced by factors which have no relation to principles and of which theory takes little account.

While committee meetings are not so frequently held in the late afternoon as in the morning, dinner itself provides both an opportunity and an atmosphere suited to the informal kind of committee that tends to be more influential than those which are formally constituted. The informal type is usually small, and the smaller it is the more influential it may be. The “two or three gathered together” may outweigh a formal committee of twenty or thirty members—to which it may often be related “under the blanket,” where it is assembled by someone who has a leading voice in the larger official committee. For it will represent his personal selection in the way of consultants, and, its members being chosen for their congeniality as well as for for their advisory value, it is likely to reach clear-cut conclusions, which in turn may be translated into the decisions of a formal committee.

For in any gathering of twenty or thirty men there is likely to be so much diversity and nebulosity of views that the consent of the majority can generally be gained for any conclusion that is sufficiently definite, impressively backed by well-considered arguments, and sponsored by a heavyweight member—especially if the presentation is carefully stage-managed.

The most significant example of this dinner-table influence is to be found on the highest level, which in Britain is the Cabinet. This first became apparent to me years ago when I happened to know rather closely two men who held the office of Secretary of State for the same department in successive Governments and found that while the first dined with the Prime Minister only occasionally, and then usually at rather large dinner parties, the second dined with the Prime Minister every few days, either alone or with only one or two other intimate friends present. Then I noticed the difference between the “deal” which the department received in the one case compared with the other and also the way that the second man influenced Government decisions on many matters outside his own departmental sphere. Later observation brought more indications to the same effect.

The “Sea Lords” of the Admiralty played a large part at the dinner tables of London society before World War II. That “dining out” power weighed more than any weapon power in securing for the Navy the largest share of the national defense budget—although less successful in fending off the interference of the German Air Force when war came. Across the dinner table before the war they were always confident that battleships could operate without serious risk from air attack, but when the test came, in war, they were compelled to revise their opinion after suffering heavy losses.

The Cabinet in England is in constitutional theory the decisive organ of the state—the brain of the national body. But it is a big committee—too big to be really effective as a source of decisions. A realization of that fact has led to repeated efforts toward a reduction of its size. Most of these efforts have resulted in no more than a paring down of numbers, in order to keep the membership nearer the figure of twenty than thirty. Those minor reductions could make no essential difference. A committee of twenty is no better than a committee of thirty for the airing of views, while in either case the decisions are almost bound to be guided by conclusions previously formulated in a smaller circle. The nearest approach to an effective organ was the “War Cabinet” of five which Lloyd George formed in 1917 to deal with the critical situation then existing. It was a Cabinet within a Cabinet. The system was reintroduced by Churchill in World War II.

There is always an “Inner Cabinet,” but usually it has no official constitution and might be more aptly described as an “Intimate Cabinet.” It is a fluid body. It may comprise those members of the actual Cabinet on whom the Prime Minister mainly relies or considers it essential to consult. But it may include men who have no ministerial position. For its constituent elements depend on the Prime Minister's judgment, and choice, of the men whose opinions are most helpful and stimulating to him. The essential condition of membership is intimacy, not status.