BALANCE OF POWER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 820, 15 April 1955, Page 12

BALANCE OF POWER

THE STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY IN EUROPE, by A. J. P. Taylor; Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, English price 30/-.

(Reviewed by

F. L. W.

Wood

HIS is, of its own kind, a briiiant book and by any reckoning an important one. It fairly crackles in one’s hands with pungent comment, vigorous exposition and sharp characterisation. Out of the enormously voluminous printed source material Mr. Taylor has absorbed a staggering amount of detail which he sets out with a blaze of verbal fireworks and with an assurance of mastery. Even those familiar with his subject will find, with pleasure, sharp and revealing comments on its every aspect, and new teeth* added to that vague concept, "The Balance of Power." The Balance, though challenged, preserved until 1914 a precarious equilibrium among five or six Great Powers. The means was an elaborate and rather per-sonal-diplomacy, which is the main sub-ject-matter of this book, and which offers instructive reading for those who view with some apprehension the prospect of.a Two Power world. It is instructive, too, to note the evidence here pre-

sented that Europe’s suicide was produced by muddle-headed mediocrities rather than by clever knaves; and that, among a poor lot, some English statesmen, show up rather well. Few historians in the next few years will be able to express themselves within Mr. Taylor’s field without checking up on what he has to say, and rather anxiously asking themselves whether or not he is right; for in spite of a splash of footnotes, many of his most devastating assertions and best stories are not supported by direct authority. Moreover, confidence often spills over into speculative matters: the unexpressed calculations of tortuous men are set out with the assurance of Holy Writ. As for the general reader, the detail is too minute and indeed too dazzling for comfort. Yet for him, as for the expert, the volume has outstanding value. It can be read with pleasure by a well-in-formed, though inexpert, reader, who is content to skip what is indigestible and feast upon Mr..Taylor’s treatment of big issues and famous. personalities. All Europe is a stage on which his puppets perform an endless intricate dance. He knows their every act and intention and the accents of their voices, he reveals their follies-and the follies of previous

commentators-and he moves among his creatures with brilliant effect. After all, a mediocre Emperor is no match for the dialectic skill and detailed knowledge of a first-rate Oxford don. Two further comments come to mind. In the first place, this is professedly diplomatic history, following a_ brilliant introduction. on underlying realitieschanges in population, economic resources and so forth. Mr. Taylor’s case is that in the end decisions are made by individual men; for example, he virtually divides the blame for the outbreak of war in 1914 between Berchtold ‘(who wished to show a jeering colleague that he was not irresolute) and Schlieffen (who in 1892 taught the German Army that France must alwavs be defeated first). The proportionate importance of individuals and of impersonal trends must always be a matter of opinion; yet the reader of Mr. Taylor’s book should constantly bear in mind that the world is not populated exclusively by excited politicians. The second comment is this. Disregarding some irresponsible vigour of writing-of which those most. defenceless of men, the statesmen of Imperial Russia and Austria-Hungary, are principal victims-the impression remains that the book, both in arrangement and conclusions, is forceful rather than revolutionary. Mr. Taylor, among others, has already exploded some of the myths that have bedevilled thought about the 19th

Century; his own essential views are already known, and not much more destruction is here undertaken. On the other hand, his use of material is, as always, highly individual, and the unwary should be warned that on many issues there are different opinions, often more charitable, though seldom so picturesque.