According to Tacitus, this is what the Caledonian chieftain Calcagus told his host before taking on the Romans in the Battle of Mons Graupius (83 AD).
Refusing to sue for a truce, that proto-Scot explained to his troops, mostly in words of one syllable, the difference between peace and surrender. Though Tacitus’s account of that rousing speech might have been apocryphal, it was nonetheless eternally instructive.
Whenever a small nation fights for its survival against a mighty invader, there are always some people shedding crocodile tears over the casualties and calling for peace at any price. The price they demand but are too coy to name is capitulation.
Some of those peace mongers are driven by genuine abhorrence of violence, but by and large they harbour a secret sympathy for the invader’s cause. Since expressing it openly would be treasonous, they camouflage their legerdemain as a touching concern for lives lost.
This is the point of my foray into ancient history. For we too have our share of such peace mongers, those who pass their attachment to Putin’s Russia as love of peace. Yesterday I mentioned one such, Richard Sakwa, whom I called “the academic answer to Peter Hitchens”.
Yet, as the French say, comparaison n’est pas raison (loosely and less mellifluously, comparison isn’t an argument). Hitchens obviously took exception to being compared to anyone and set out to prove that, in this respect at least, he is incomparable.
As a journalist, he has to be topical, and no topic is more irksome to Hitchens than the new transfer of US armaments to the Ukraine.
Yet as an aspiring intellectual, Hitchens must add an historical perspective to his pro-Putin propaganda: “And here we are, stuck in a stinking trench-warfare brawl which has already lasted half as long as the First World War.” The implication is that the Ukraine’s attempt to stem the flood of fascism into Europe will end up being as disastrous as the events of 1914-1918.
“Wise people (conservatives, as it happened) sought to end that war with a deal, too. But politicians and many in the media of the day were too proud and high-minded to do so. And so we got more killing, and Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and the Second World War as a result. The same bloody fools are in charge again.”
God save us all, the man is suggesting that Zelensky and his Western acolytes are trying to usher in present-day Lenins, Stalins, Hitlers and Mussolinis. And there I was, thinking we were opposing the typological equivalent of those monsters (all of them, incidentally, socialists).
Then, in commendably brutal self-laceration, Hitchens insists that “shabby compromise is cheaper and safer than a fight to the finish”. I’m glad he realises that the immediate peace he calls for is shabby.
Hitchens is especially concerned about the use to which the Ukrainians may put their new weapons, especially the “powerful new American missiles which can travel almost 200 miles”. Make sure you’re sitting down: “I think we can also be sure that there will be more strikes into Russian territory… .” Crikey.
Contextually, Hitchens thinks it would be wrong for the Ukraine to deter further devastation of her own cities by retaliating in kind. I wish I could gain an insight into his logic, military or moral, that at the moment escapes me.
The only obvious conclusion is that Hitchens wants the Ukraine to surrender to what he once called “the most conservative and Christian country in Europe”. Otherwise it’s not immediately clear why he objects to the Ukraine striking into Russian territory while her own territory is being turned into wasteland.
He then unrolls a syllogism staggering in its fusion of dishonesty and inanity. Thesis: Hitchens is conservative (in the same sense in which Putin is?). Antithesis: Hitchens wants Russia to win. Synthesis: Anyone who wants the Ukraine to win is left-wing.
“The mystery is why political conservatives these days are so keen on war,” he writes. If he is truly puzzled, I’ll be happy to solve the mystery for him.
We, conservatives, aren’t keen on war in general. We are, however, hoping for the Ukraine’s victory in this particular war because her defeat (peace, in Hitchens’s parlance) would fling the sluice gates wide-open for a torrent of fascist aggression engulfing Europe.
Using a technique popular with all masters of disinformation, Hitchens establishes a correct premise, only then to pervert it to reach false conclusions:
“… Leftists have sound reasons for liking wars. War increases state power and centralisation, imposes regimentation and censorship and – in the past century – has made Europe far more socialist than it would ever otherwise have been. Leftists are also Utopian idealists, ready to kill and destroy for a glowing distant goal. Utopia can only be approached across a sea of blood, and you never arrive.”
All true. But this correct observation shouldn’t lead to the generalisation that conservatives should reject all wars because they all empower the state and lead to socialism. For example, the Second World War did have that effect, but nevertheless the desire to stop Nazism and defend Britain’s sovereignty wasn’t especially unconservative.
Then came another generalising truism: “The proper conservative (and adult) view of war is that it is a regrettable necessity, costly and destructive, and to be ended by compromise as soon as possible.”
Any war? Should Britain have sought compromise with Hitler to avoid the “costly and destructive” events of 1940? Just wondering.
I’ve mentioned it a thousand times if I’ve mentioned it once that Hitchens is clearly taking his cues from the Kremlin. How he takes them is irrelevant. It could be a response to a direct instruction or merely an osmotic understanding. One way or the other, those who have no time to study Putin’s concerns in detail can do worse than reading Hitchens’s articles.
The one today screams Putin’s fear that the new infusion of American armaments will turn the tide of the war. This means that we, real conservatives, have been right all along when campaigning for the end of America’s vacillation.
That doesn’t make us warmongering, bloodthirsty monsters. It makes us people who cherish other nations’ freedom – especially when its loss may diminish our freedom as well. So congratulations to the US for finally moving in the right direction – and shame on Putin’s quislings in the West, especially those who dare call themselves conservatives.
“And here we are, stuck in a stinking trench-warfare brawl which has already lasted half as long as the First World War.”
And for SEVEN years prior to 2022 the two sides stuck in “stinking trench-warfare brawl”.
HEY, we didn’t promise you a rose garden.
I’ve said it before but there is a certain amount of anti-Americanism amongst the upper class British. I can’t read minds obviously, but Hitchens may be on Putin’s side because of that.
Such a sentiment does exist, but I’m not certain Hitchens shares it, and I know for sure he isn’t upper class. It’s more likely he is viscerally attracted to totalitarianism (he was a communist well into his 30s), perhaps partly because he despises our own government (can’t fault him on that). Then — and I hate to wax Freudian — there’s his complex relationship with his brother, who, unlike Peter, remained a Leftie till he died, but who, again unlike Peter, had genuine talent and a sense of humour.
This seems a bit unreasonable to me. You’re saying that Peter, the brother who has explicitly and repeatedly repudiated his communist past, is somehow worse than Christopher, the man who forever employed the Trotskyist sleight of hand regarding mass murder, simply because the elder sibling was cool, whilst the younger is manifestly not.
I’m not saying that Christopher was better, only that he was talented, and Peter isn’t. That might have been the background to the widely publicised rift between the brothers. As to the repudiation bit, I take it seriously only when it occurs in one’s youth. When someone believes in his 30s that the mass murder and totalitarian oppression of millions are justified by good causes, I take his subsequent conversion with a bag of salt. You can change your ideas, but you can’t change your temperament and intuitive predisposition. (This may explain Peter Hitchens’s affection for Putin, whom he probably sees as a right-wing answer to his left-wing instincts.)
One doesn’t have to belong to the upper class to notice that the cultural influence of the USA has been disastrous for the rest of the world. Most Americans are vulgar, and most of those who aren’t vulgar are précieux ridicules, like the notorious “Boston Brahmins”. And their participation in two World Wars was a mixed blessing for their allies.
But Aristotle would have something rude to say about the syllogism: “Americans aren’t admirable. Putin isn’t an American. Therefore Putin is admirable.”
Alas, neither the Americans, not Putin, nor anybody else outside alexanderboot.com pays much attention to Aristotle nowadays.