THE MISSING GENERATION
By L. B. NAMIER
.1 N The Spectator of April 12th, 1940, Mr. Harold Nicolson, when discussing the argument which attributes the "apparent dearth of rising statesmen " to " a whole genera- tion" having been destroyed in the last war, pointed out that, for instance, " many of those who were at Oxford during that most legendary period from 1905-1914 survived the war," including some who at the time were regarded as even abler than those who died—" yet only a small minority of those have arisen to positions of power." " Janus " in The Spectator of March. 7th shows that percentually the losses of the last war do not justify the talk about a " missing generation." To this might be added that, had the losses been even greater, a certain measure of substitution could have been expected: as with trees, when an essential branch is cut off, another which normally would not have played the part tends to replace it. Seldom has there been such destruction of actual and potential leaders, political, military and intellectual, as in the French Revolution, but was there a shortage during the years 1795-1815? On the contrary: the void offered exceptional chances to new men, who took them. If it were merely a question of the " missing generation," why have not younger men replaced it in recent years? Hardly anyone who is 4o has fought in the last war, having been under 18 at the Armistice. By now the post-war generation has had time to come to the fore. Mr. Gladstone was 4o in 1849, Lord Balfour in 1888, Lord Randolph Churchill in 1889, Lord Birkenhead in 1912, Mr. Winston Churchill in 1915. They had to compete with an older generation not thinned out by war : still, each of them had at that age reached the front rank of politics. In France politicians, on the whole, make their mark at a comparatively young age, and yet the post-war generation has produced nobody. Even more striking is the lowering of the level in her art and literature, in which supreme quality is usually discernible before 40. The post-war period has Produced no one who could compare with Zola, Anatole France, Ceranne, Renoir, Gauguin or Rodin in an older generation, or with Gide, Proust, Romains, Peguy, Matisse, Derain or Maillol among the younger men. Still more surprising is the change in Poland (of which the largest part, late Russian Poland, lost comparatively few men in the last war, as it soon came under enemy occupation and therefore had few classes conscripted for the army). With national independence regained, magnificent developments might have been expected: but while during the twenty years preceding 1914, Polish literature reached a level surpassed only once, by the peaks of the Romantic period 1820-1850, and never equalled in the sum-total of achievement, during the twenty years 1919-1939 it produced next to nothing. In Polish politics nearly everyone now in the forefront was known in 1919, or even in 1914.
lIt is not a generation which seems to have perished in the lallwar, but an 'atmosphere, an inspiration, un élan vital—and their loss has deadened the living Statesmen, artists and writers work against a social background, on values and ideas, produced in the common national existence. Where the deeper fellowship breaks up, where collective aims fade, where men no longer cherish common hopes but in disappointment turn to their own individual concerns and seek comfort in good living, little scope and incentive is left for statesmanship, and contests and controversies, which are part of political life, assume a personal, pernicious, poisonous character. Were there no bitter contests in France before 1914, were there no hostilities between her statesmen or generals? Yet none assumed the deadly character of those of 1939-40—" it y avait la France" Why wonder that in this country there has been little rise, and even less selection, from the ranks of the younger generations, when the artificers of victory, still in full vigour, were discarded and replaced by men of their own age, but untried, inexperienced, and undistinguished? If in 1922 the most com- petent political observers had been asked who would govern Great Britain during the next eighteen y.ears, not one would have named Mr. MacDonald, Lord Baldwin and Mr. Neville Chamberlain.
There was a feeling of fatigue. The strain, physical, mental and emotional, had been too great. The country was weary and worried. Eagles and lions would have been out of place, almost laughable: no one wanted to soar or to roar. There was no call for experiment and adventure, for bold, imaginative leadership, for greatness. There was disappointment. People did not want to be reminded of the war, not so much because of its sufferings and sacrifices, as because of its unfulfilled and utterly unattainable expectations, which, none the less, had helped us to go through with it. The country muddled along. If there were survivors of the war-generation, or post-war young men, fit to speak a different language, the stage was not set for them, their appeal would have sounded false and hollow, the words would have died on their lips, they would have relapsed into the void. Generations were not missing ; but there was nothing for them to do or to say. Looking back at those years one wonders at their stale, sterile spirit and at their leaders.
L.The disenchantment of victory is far more paralysing than the bitterness of defeat.) The Western democracies—America, Great Britain and France—seemed to have had the world in their power ; except that it is in the power of men to remake worlds. Had we had the inspiration, humility, and sanity of true conservatism, had we had a firm, feasible purpose and the determination to carry it through, we might at least have preserved the obvious fruits of war and victory. Far more was desired, infinitely less was achieved. In this war we are fully conscious of fighting for our very life as a civilised nation: the war has to be fought through to the bitter end—an end much more complete and decisive than 19r8—even if nothing more can be achieved by victory than bare survival. In the last war we had still visions of a world better than that which we had known—of some glorious expiation for all the suffer- ings and deaths; and in a naive way we expected victory by itself to achieve our aims. The sacrifices made by France were even greater, the disappointment even more poignant. More than anything this explains the spiritual listlessness of post-war France, her purely defensive attitude, and her downfall.
Germany the bitterness of defeat planted the seeds of a purpose) An élan of rage was born of an exasperated " will to-power," of a fury of revenge in a nation singularly brutal and ruthless, and of the wrong idea fostered by the restraint and mildness of the democratic Powers that Germany had never been squarely beaten. On this negative basis the Nazis unified Germany and produced a statesmanship of their own. Their purpose may be vile, their methods atrocious ; but their technique was certainly superior to that of the statesmen of the European democracies who faced them before, and at the outbreak of, the war. The losses of the war-generation in Germany were percentually even greater than in this country ; still, when there was an idea—no matter what its moral value or character—the Germans found within that so-called " missing generation " the men to carry it through. lye have rediscovered real leaders only when the supreme danger to our existence and the instinct of self-preservation created a new national sense and unity. They will not be less needed after the victory is wort.
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