Bernhardi’s Praise of War.

I return to the doctrines set forth by von Bernhardi and apparently accepted by the military caste to which he belongs.  Briefly summed up, they are as follows—­his own words are used except when it becomes necessary to abridge a lengthened argument: 

  * War is in itself a good thing.  It is a biological necessity of
     the first importance. (P. 18.)

  * The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessing of war as an
     indispensable and stimulating law of development must be repeatedly
     emphasized. (P. 37.)

  * War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and
     power.  Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimental as
     soon as they influence politics. (P. 28.)

  * Fortunately these efforts can never attain their ultimate
     objects in a world bristling with arms, where healthy egotism still
     directs the policy of most countries.  God will see to it, says
     Treitschke, that war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the
     human race. (P. 36.)

  * Efforts directed toward the abolition of war are not only
     foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must be stigmatized as
     unworthy of the human race. (P. 34.)

  * Courts of arbitration are pernicious delusions.  The whole idea
     represents a presumptuous encroachment on natural laws of
     development, which can only lead to the most disastrous
     consequences for humanity generally. (P. 34.)

  * The maintenance of peace never can be or may be the goal of a
     policy.

  * Efforts for peace would, if they attained their goal, lead to
     general degeneration, as happens everywhere in nature where the
     struggle for existence is eliminated. (P. 35.)

  * Huge armaments are in themselves desirable.  They are the most
     necessary precondition of our national health. (P. 11.)

  * The end all and be all of a State is power, and he who is not
     man enough to look this truth in the face should not meddle with
     politics, (quoted from Treitschke’s “Politik").

  * The State’s highest moral duty is to increase its power. (P.
     45-6.)

  * The State is justified in making conquests whenever its own
     advantage seems to require additional territory. (P. 46.)

  * Self-preservation is the State’s highest ideal and justifies
     whatever action it may take if that action be conducive to that
     end.  The State is the sole judge of the morality of its own action. 
     It is, in fact, above morality, or, in other words, whatever is
     necessary is moral.  Recognized rights (i.e., treaty rights) are
     never absolute rights; they are of human origin, and, therefore,
     imperfect and variable.  There are conditions in which they do not
     correspond to the actual truth of things.  In this case infringement
     of the right appears morally justified. (P. 49.)