Iron and blood may be the grease that enables the gears of history to grind, but only hearts and minds can change ideas and beliefs.
There is a tendency to think that history is made by iron and blood. There is some truth to the claim that the gears of history are lubricated by blood. But the ideology of blood and iron is fundamentally flawed. Critics of violence and war argue that we ought to develop our humanity beyond blood and iron, toward something more spiritual, reasonable, and enlightened. These critics hold that the materialistic logic of iron and blood ought to give way to spirit, reason, and law.
The peculiar conjunction of blood and iron entered the vernacular in 1862 when Otto von Bismarck said that great questions are not decided by speeches and majority decisions but by “iron and blood.”[i] This metaphor is grounded in the visceral, physical reality of war. It has a historical echo in the fascist slogan of “blood and soil.” Related phrases include “boots on the ground” and “skin in the game,” which describe the physical reality of occupying geographical space with living bodies.
This can be described clinically in terms of casualties and body counts. But poets and politicians have routinely resorted to colorful metaphors to speak of war. Homer spoke of weapons “drinking blood” and described them as “thirsty” for blood. Indeed, in Homer’s world, the gods themselves are thirsty for the blood of war.
A similar image occurs in Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage (published in 1895), in which he speaks of “war, the red animal — war, the blood-swollen god.” The poets picture war as a bloodthirsty entity with a logic of its own. Pacifists have routinely argued that this is the problem and that the bloody logic of war ought to be abolished and replaced with a more reasonable way of resolving conflicts. Critics of pacifism sometimes accuse pacifists of being overly squeamish about shedding blood. Perhaps some are.
But the philosophical argument against blood and iron is not merely that this is grotesque or repugnant but, more importantly, that blood and iron are irrational and inferior ways of resolving human conflicts. The higher path involves reasonable persuasion and the development of cosmopolitan law and human rights, along with values such as love and compassion.
Among the most influential figures who argued against the apparent squeamishness of pacifism was Theodore Roosevelt. In his writings, the metaphorical matrix of blood and iron evolved to include the idea that the military hero has blood that is fortified with iron. A generation after Bismarck, Roosevelt highlighted this theme in his discussion of “the strenuous life,” where he argued in favor of heroic, manly virtue consisting of “iron in the blood.” He linked this to a kind of virile courage and audacity and to the idea that war is an important tool for changing the world. Roosevelt said in 1900:
Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant! Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days, let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected. [ii]
Roosevelt goes so far as to thank God here for military power and for the rejection of pacifism, which he described elsewhere as the “diluted moral mush” of “eunuchs.”[iii] He took up this theme in an essay responding to the German attack that sank the Lusitania in 1915, where he said that the doctrine of “blood and iron” was preferable to the doctrine of “milk and water” preached by the “ultra-pacifists.” [iv] From Roosevelt’s perspective, pacifism meant abject appeasement that actively encouraged the ruthlessness of the advocates of blood and iron in Germany and elsewhere. In discussing the outrage of what is now called “the Armenian genocide,” he said:
The weak and timid milk-and-water policy of the professional pacifists is just as responsible as the blood-and-iron policy of the ruthless and unscrupulous militarist for the terrible recrudescence of evil on a gigantic scale in the civilized world.[v]
One of the dangers of the visceral and sanguinary metaphor of blood and iron is that it is an ideology devoid of any moral or political content. Those “boots on the ground” in the metaphor are empty. It does not matter who is wearing those boots or what they stand for. Nor does the blood and iron metaphor care much about the cause on behalf of which weapons are wielded and blood is shed.
The advocates of militarism see iron in the blood, and blood and iron in general, as necessary in order to fight the great battles of civilization. From this perspective, pacifism is both absurd, dangerous, and weak. Pacifists will respond, as Jane Addams and William James both did, by arguing that it is war itself that is a danger and must be abolished, and that militarism must be overcome and replaced by “a moral equivalent of war.” Jane Addams noted in 1906, “We continue to defend war on the ground that it stirs the nobler blood and the higher imagination of the nation.”[vi] But Addams held that in the modern world, this ideology should fade in importance and a “rising tide of moral enthusiasm” would end up “making war impossible.”[vii]
Of course, this did not happen. The martial theme of blood and iron was taken up even more vehemently in subsequent generations by the fascists of the 20th Century. Hitler built upon the German ideology of iron and blood, combining it with the Nazi obsession with blood and soil. And it was Mussolini who said that “it is blood which moves the wheels of history.”[viii] This visceral conception of history is quite different from a more spiritual understanding. Pacifists tend to think that it is “spirit” broadly understood in terms of ideas, values, laws, reason, and enlightenment that ought to be the guiding engine of history and politics.
History does show that blood has often been the grease that allows the gears of history to grind. However, pacifists maintain that this old story about historical development should be overcome. Some Christian pacifists, such as Tolstoy, hold that Christianity ought to direct our attention beyond the world of blood and iron to a kingdom that is not “of this world.” Others maintain that blood and iron are insufficient for a modern, democratic form of life and that the visceral and material reality of history ought to be channeled and guided by ideas, ultimately aiming toward enlightenment.
One of the dangers of the visceral and sanguinary metaphor of blood and iron is that it is an ideology devoid of any moral or political content. Those “boots on the ground” in the metaphor are empty. It does not matter who is wearing those boots or what they stand for. Nor does the blood and iron metaphor care much about the cause on behalf of which weapons are wielded and blood is shed.
Thus, iron and blood fuel the imagination of leading statesmen advocating on behalf of German imperialism, American militarism, and European fascism, while also being used by revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky and Mao Tse-Tung to argue on behalf of guerilla warfare, terrorism, and revolution. In his book on guerilla warfare, Mao Tse-Tung said, “Historical experience is written in iron and blood.”[ix] Mao is also famous for saying that “political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” Trotsky explains the point with a deeper fervor that also points to an antidote. In a chapter on “Terrorism” from 1920, Trotsky writes:
As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the “sacredness of human life.” We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred, we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.[x]
In mocking the Kantian, Quaker, and vegetarian views of life, Trotsky echoes Roosevelt. Indeed, Trotsky argued explicitly against pacifism and Tolstoy, noting that it was not the Tolstoyans who overthrew the Tsar.[xi] This strange conjunction between Roosevelt and Trotsky shows that the militaristic ideology of iron and blood is not tied to any particular moral or political content: Roosevelt and Trotsky agree with Mussolini and Mao that blood and iron are essential mechanisms of history. And they agree that pacifism is pernicious.
In response to the ideology of blood and iron, pacifists and defenders of enlightenment values have proposed that there ought to be a better way. The ferocity and manly virtue of blood and iron have routinely been opposed by proponents of peace, justice, freedom, reason, and spiritual development. Among these are, indeed, Quakers, Kantians, and even vegetarians — as Trotsky correctly points out. Jane Addams and Leo Tolstoy are among them. As well as others. In 1917, Hermann Fernau, a German pacifist living in exile, wrote the following:
In these days, no fatherland can be cemented by ‘blood and iron.’ Blood and iron can only be renewed and maintained by yet more blood and iron… Justice and liberty, not blood and iron, are the cement of modern fatherlands.[xii]
Fernau’s point is crucial. The ideology of blood and iron is self-fulfilling. It requires further blood and iron to renew and maintain it. The higher, better way is to move beyond blood and iron to justice and liberty. The movement beyond blood and iron is a spiritual movement, focused on law, rationality, and values that transcend the visceral, merely physical world of blood and iron.
Pacifists hold that the brute physical force of blood and iron is subhuman and deficient. There are varieties of pacifism. Some pacifists insist on absolute nonviolence, even objecting to shedding the blood of animals. Other pacifists are less dogmatic. Some (so-called ‘contingent pacifists’) may even allow for limited use of violence in self-defense. But what unites pacifists is their basic objection to the absurdity of the ideology of blood and iron that is typical of militarism and the cult of war.
Consider these words from Daniel Berrigan, a pacifist critic of the wars of the 20th Century:
Blood and iron, nukes and rifles. The leftists kill the rightists, the rightists kill the leftists; both, given time and occasion, kill the children, the aged, the ill, the suspects. Given time and occasion, both torture prisoners. Always, you understand, inadvertently, regretfully. Both sides, moreover, have excellent intentions, and call on God to witness them. And, of course, nothing changes… Except that the living die. And that old, revered distinction between combatant and noncombatant, which was supposed to protect the innocent and helpless, goes down the nearest drain; along with the indistinguishable blood of any and all.[xiii]
Berrigan points out that although the ideology of blood and iron can be dressed up in the idealism of the just war theory, just war ideology is often perverted and ignored. In the end, wars escalate (up to nuclear bombs). They kill children and other noncombatants. And the blood of innocents is flushed down the drain.
Defenders of the just war idea will claim that there is an essential difference between the blood of innocents and the blood of the guilty. Elizabeth Anscombe criticized pacifism for ignoring this distinction. She said:
Pacifism teaches people to make no distinction between the shedding of innocent blood and the shedding of any human blood. And in this way pacifism has corrupted enormous numbers of people who will not act according to its tenets.[xiv]
In response, pacifists like Berrigan will say that in most wars, this distinction is quickly lost, as bombs fall on cities and as children and other noncombatants are slaughtered. Moreover, Berrigan makes an even deeper point here, which is that as all of this bloodshed occurs, “nothing changes.” Berrigan suggests a kind of futility in the dogma of blood and iron. This may appear to be a contestable empirical and historical point.
A critic may say that wars do indeed change things: the wars fought under Bismarck, Roosevelt, Trotsky, and Mao certainly changed the world. Trotsky is right that the Tolstoyans did not depose the Tsar. But the pacifist point is that each war leads to the next and nothing is fundamentally transformed. The Franco-Prussian of Bismarck’s time war led to the First World War, which led to the Second World War, the Cold War, and so on.
It is true that Germany has evolved quite far beyond the ideology of blood and iron in the direction of reasonable internationalism. The utter defeat and dismemberment of Germany in the Second World War was instrumental in this transformation. But at what cost? And despite this, there is still no peace in Europe: one hundred years after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar, militarism still rules the day in Russia, causing blood to flow in Ukraine.
The pacifists will argue that the problem is the dogma of blood and iron. Militarism is a doctrine primarily in service to the blood-swollen god of war. It is indifferent to political ideology and can be employed by revolutionaries and reactionaries, fascists and free marketeers. Pacifists argue that it would be better for social and political reality to develop rationally and without the carnage. The pacifists suggest that human progress must be spiritual instead of sanguinary. Wars do not change hearts and minds; only other hearts and minds can do that. Blood and iron do not change ideas and beliefs. Rather, we need fewer weapons, less bloodshed, better beliefs, and more reasonable ideas.
Endnotes
[i] Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron Speech” (1862), https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=250&language=english
[ii] Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life (New York: Colliers, 1900), p. 7.
[iii] Theodore Roosevelt, America and The World War (New York: Charles Scribners, 1915), p. 244.
[iv] Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (New York: George Doran Co., 1916), 187.
[v] Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (New York: George Doran Co., 1916), 381.
[vi] Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace (New York: MacMillan, 1906), 27.
[vii] Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace (New York: MacMillan, 1906), 238.
[viii] Mussolini, Speech at Parma, December 13, 1914, in Mussolini as Revealed in his Political Speeches (London: J.M Dent, 1923), at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62754/62754-h/62754-h.htm (accessed June 11, 20224).
[ix] Mao Tse-Tung on Guerilla Warfare (U.S. Marine Corp Publications, 1989), p. 65, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/FMFRP%2012-18%20%20Mao%20Tse-tung%20on%20Guerrilla%20Warfare.pdf (accessed June 13, 2024).
[x] Leon Trotsky, “Terrorism” Chapter 4 of Terrorism and Communism, at https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/index.htm
[xi] Leon Trotsky, “Once More on Pacifism and Revolution” https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/problems/ch04.htm, (accessed June 17, 2024).
[xii] Hermann Fernau, The Coming Democracy (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1917), 320.
[xiii] Daniel Berrigan, “Controversy: Too heavy a price” Index on Censorship, 8: 6 (1979), 38-40. https://doi.org/10.1080/03064227908532997
[xiv] G.E.M. Anscombe, “War and murder,” in Anscombe, Ethics, Religion, and Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 51–71.
