Part 32 (1/2)

In 1801 Monsignor de Savine ”made allusions in prudent and almost terrified terms to some international sect ...a power superior to all others ...which has arms and eyes everywhere and which governs Europe to-day.”[768]

In 1817 the Chevalier de Malet declared that ”the authors of the Revolution are not more French than German, Italian, English, etc. They form a particular nation which took birth and has increased in the dark amidst all civilized nations with the object of subjecting them all to its domination.”[769]

In 1835 the Carbonaro, Malegari, wrote to another member of the Carbonari:

We form an a.s.sociation of brothers in all points of the globe, we have desires and interests in common, we aim at the emanc.i.p.ation of humanity, we wish to break every kind of yoke, yet there is one that is unseen, that can hardly be felt, yet that weighs on us.

Whence comes it? Where is it? No one knows, or at least no one tells. The a.s.sociation is secret, even for us, the veterans of secret societies.[770]

In 1852 Disraeli wrote:

It was neither parliaments nor populations, nor the course of nature, nor the course of events, that overthrew the throne of Louis Philippe ...the throne was surprised by the Secret Societies, ever prepared to ravage Europe.... Acting in unison with a great popular movement they may destroy society, as they did at the end of the last century.[771]

In 1874 Pere Deschamps, after his exhaustive study of secret societies, thus propounded the question:

We have now to ask ourselves whether there is anything but an ident.i.ty of doctrines and personal communications between the members of the different sects, whether there is really a unity of direction which binds together all the secret societies, including Free Masonry. Here we touch on the most mysterious point of the action of secret societies, on that which these national Grand Orients who declare themselves independent of each other and sometimes even excommunicate each other conceal most carefully beneath a veil.[772]

Finally Deschamps is led to the conclusion that there is ”a secret council which directs all masonic societies,”[773] that there are secret lairs where the chiefs of the sects agree together on their work of destruction.[774]

It would be easy to multiply quotations of this kind taken from many different sources. Whether the men who expressed these opinions were, as we are frequently told, suffering from delusions or not, the fact remains that the idea of a hidden hand behind world-revolution has existed for at least 135 years. And when we compare these utterances with Monsieur Copin Albancelli's description of an inner circle secretly directing the activities of the Grand Orient, and with the conclusions reached by members of other secret societies, that such a circle exists behind all occult and masonic societies of a subversive kind, we are necessarily led to enquire: is there one circle or rather one Power behind both open and secret organizations working for the overthrow of the existing social order and Christian civilization? If so, what is this power?

Now, to leave speculation for the moment and come to known facts, everyone who has seriously studied these matters is aware that there are at the present moment five princ.i.p.al organized movements at work in the world with which ordered government has to contend, that may be summarized as follows:

1. Grand Orient Freemasonry.

2. Theosophy with its innumerable ramifications.

3. Nationalism of an aggressive kind, now represented by Pan-Germanism.

4. International Finance.

5. Social Revolution.

It will be seen that, with the exception of the fourth, these movements are those of which I have endeavoured to trace the course throughout the earlier part of this book. It is a highly significant fact that it was only when I had reached this stage of my work I discovered there were independent investigators who had arrived at precisely the same conclusions as myself.

The problem that now confronts us is therefore this: if there is indeed one power directing all subversive movements, is it one of the five movements here enumerated or is it yet another power more potent and more invisible? In order to discover this, it is necessary to consider whether these movements, although apparently divergent in their ultimate purpose, have nevertheless any ideas or any aims in common. One fundamental point of similarity will certainly be found between them.

All desire to dominate the world and to direct it along lines and according to rules of their own devising; more than this, each desires to direct it solely for the benefit of one cla.s.s of people--social, intellectual, or national as the case may be--to the entire exclusion of every human being outside that cla.s.s. Thus in reality each aspires to the dictators.h.i.+p of the world.

Besides this, it will be noticed that not only these princ.i.p.al movements, but also the minor subversive movements described in the last chapter, have in the main (1) a pro-German tendency--none, at any rate, are pro-French nor do they encourage British patriotism, (2) all contain a Jewish element--none, at least, are ”anti-Semite,” and (3) all have a more or less decided antagonism to Christianity. If then, there is a single power behind them, is it the Pan-Germanic Power? Is it the Jewish Power? Or is it the Anti-Christian Power? Let us examine each of these possibilities in turn.

Viewed under the aspect of exaggerated Nationalism, the spirit of Pan-Germanism is nothing new. The dream of world-domination has haunted the imagination of many races from the time of Alexander the Great to Napoleon I, but nowhere has the plan been carried out by the Machiavellian methods which have characterized Prussian foreign policy and diplomacy from the days of Frederick the Great onwards. It is not Prussian militarism that const.i.tutes the crime of modern Germany.

Militarism in the sense of courage, patriotism, discipline, and devotion to duty is a splendid thing. But the spirit of Pan-Germanism differs from the British conception of patriotism in that it overrides the rights of all other peoples and seeks to establish its domination over the whole world. Under German domination every German would be free and every other human being a slave. England, whilst seeking conquests, has, on the other hand, always allowed the inhabitants of conquered territories to develop along their own lines and has made use of legislation largely to protect them from each other. The preference of the native of India for an English judge to one of his own race is evidence of this fact. But it is further the abandonment of all principle, the acceptance of the doctrine that everything is allowable--lying, treachery, calumny, and bad faith--in order to achieve its end, that has placed Germany outside the comity of nations. Robison describes the system of the Illuminati as leading to the conclusion that ”nothing would be scrupled at, if it could be made appear that the Order would derive advantage from it, because the great object of the Order was held as superior to every consideration.”[775] Change the word Order to State, and one has the whole principle of modern German Imperialism.

Now, it is interesting to notice that the founders of German Illuminism and of German Imperialism drew certain of their ideas from the same source. Both Weishaupt and Frederick the Great were earnest students of Machiavelli--and both out-did their master. This form of Machiavellism, carried to a point probably never dreamt of by the Italian philosopher, has run through the whole struggle of Prussia for supremacy and at the same time through each outbreak of world revolution in which Prussian influence has played a part. Thus the Ems telegram in 1870, the false report that tricked Russia into mobilization in 1914,[776] the violation of treaties and of all the laws of civilised warfare during the recent war, were the direct outcome of doctrines that may be found in embryo in _The Prince_. So also the most striking characteristic of the French Revolution under the inspiration of Weishaupt's emissaries and the agents of Prussia, and of the present revolutionary movement inaugurated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is not so much its violence as its Machiavellian cunning. The art popularly known to-day as _camouflage_--of dressing-up one design under the guise of something quite different, of making black appear white by glorifying the most ign.o.ble actions, of making white appear black by holding up all honourable traditions to contempt and ridicule, in a word _perversion_--has been reduced to a system by the secret directors of world revolution. It is here that we can detect the non-proletarian character of the movement. The working-man of all countries is the least Machiavellian of beings; his weakness lies in the fact that he is too inarticulate, that he does not know how to put his case even when he has a good one, still less to make a bad one appear plausible. It was not until world revolution was taken over by the faction described by Bakunin as ”the German-Jew Company” that it rea.s.sumed its Machiavellian character and gradually became the formidable organization it is to-day.

A few extracts from _The Prince_ will show how closely both the Prussians and the Terrorists of France and Russia have followed Machiavelli's manual for despots:

”He who usurps the government of any State is to execute and put in practice all the cruelties which he thinks material at once, that he may have no occasion to renew them often,” etc.[777] (Vide the German principle of ”frightfulness” to be exercised against the inhabitants of invaded territory and the plan of the French and Russian Terrorists in suppressing ”counter-revolutionaries.”)

”It is of such importance to a prince to take upon him the nature and disposition of a beast; of all the whole flock he ought to imitate the lion and the fox.”[778](Vide Frederick the Great and the demagogues of France and Russia.)

”A prince ... who is wise and prudent, cannot or ought not to keep his parole, when the keeping of it is to his prejudice, and the causes for which he promised removed.”[779] (Vide Germany's doctrine of the sc.r.a.p of paper and the promises of the Bolshevist Trade Delegation in London to refrain from propaganda.)

”Because the whole mult.i.tude which submits to your government is not capable of being armed, if you be beneficial and obliging to those you do arm, you may make the bolder with the rest, for the difference of your behaviour to the soldier binds him more firmly to your service,”