Chapter One: The Passing of War?

Part III

After the two flawed ideas that the rise of commerce and the development of democracy would prevent wars, the third such flawed idea was "the power of Courts of Arbitration and Concerts of Europe to prevent war". (CWSA 25, pg. 608) Things took an ironic turn when "the monarch who had first conceived the idea, was also the first to unsheathe his sword in a conflict dictated on both sides by the most unrighteous greed and aggression". (Ibid) Sri Aurobindo is referring to the Tsar, Nicholas II of Russia who initiated the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 which proved to be an important phase in the modern history of international arbitration. The convention created the possibility of an Permanent Court of Arbitration which was finally established in 1900 and began operating in 1902 but had important limitations as its jurisdiction was entirely voluntary. In the highly charged July crisis of 1914, the major powers -Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia chose confrontation and mobilization over peaceful settlement through arbitration. No wonder, Sri Aurobindo wrote in the beginning of World War I, that the series of wars that preceded World War I "were marked most prominently by the spirit which disregards cynically that very idea of inherent and existing rights, the balance of law and equity upon which alone arbitration can be founded". (Ibid) After Sri Aurobindo wrote about Nicholas II, the latter was abdicated in March 1917 following the February Revolution ending the Romanov dynasty's 304 rule. He was finally executed along with his family on 17th July, 1918.

Sri Aurobindo also refers to the Concerts of Europe inability to prevent was. The Concert was active during 1815 to 1914 when the Great Powers of Europe maintained balance of power and supported peace following the Napoleonic Wars. While it was initially somewhat successful, it was undermined by nationalist upsurges, unification of Germany and collapsed before World War I.

Sri Aurobindo wrote that the demand for a United States of Europe to substitute the ineffective Concert of Europe and the helpless Court of international arbitration had already begun. (Ibid, pg.609) An United States of Europe had been mooted earlier by Napoleon, Jasttrzebowski, Mazzini and Victor Hugo. For his part, Sri Aurobindo wrote a chapter titled "The United States of Europe" an year before the Russian revolution of 1917 in "The Ideal of Human Unity" that envisaged the setting up of the European Union, not as a harbinger of Pan-European power and prestige but as a logical outcome of world-events cruising towards trans-national unity en route the global vision of an united mankind.

Date of Update: 30-Nov-25