John Carter Wood »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« Oswald Spengler and the Inter-war British Press I. Introduction In this essay, I examine the public discourse about Oswald Spengler’s ideas – particularly his »cultural morphology« – in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. My aim is not to measure Spengler’s influence in Britain (there is no »barometer of Spenglerism«) but rather to understand the contours of the discussion about his model of cultural development 1. While Spengler’s concepts fascinated some British intellectuals, existing research suggests his approach remained marginal. Henry Stuart Hughes has confirmed Manfred Schroeter’s 1922 verdict that Spengler received a »cool but not unsympathetic reception« in Britain: a pair of articles by R. G. Collingwood in an archaeology journal were, Hughes writes, »typical of the more unfavourable comments« whereas positive evaluations are exemplified by a 1926 popularisation of Spengler’s thought by two Britons, E. H. Goddard and P. A. Gibbons, titled Civilisation or Civilisations2. Spengler’s British sales were modest, and Richard Overy argues that »the idea that past civilizations had perished, and had done so for identifiably similar reasons, relied less [in Britain] on Spengler than it did in Germany or in the United States«3. Despite such generalisations, there has so far been no systematic analysis of Spengler’s British reception in the two decades following the publication of Der Untergang des Abendlandes. These existing evaluations suggest, however, that analysing the reception of Spengler in Britain also means considering resistance to him. On replacing simplistic studies of »influence« with subtler analyses of intercultural exchange, see Johannes Paulmann, Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien: Einführung in ein Forschungskonzept, in: Rudolf muhs / Johannes Paulmann / Willibald steinmetz (ed.), Aneignung und Abwehr. Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert, Bodenheim 1998, pp. 21–43. 2 Henry Stuart hughes, Oswald Spengler, New Brunswick 1992, pp. 95–96, quoting Manfred schroeter, Der Streit um Spengler. Kritik Seiner Kritiker, Munich, 1922, p. 9. 3 Richard overy, The Morbid Age. Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919–1939, London 2009. Overy cites sales figures of 2,856 for the first volume of Decline of the West and 1,473 for the second, implying they include the entire inter-war period. A letter to the Saturday Review suggested that, in Britain, »(probably) fewer than five thousand copies of the fine translation found a market«: Saturday Review, 16 August 1930, p. 203. 1 158 John Carter Wood As signalled in my title, I focus on press sources. In the inter-war period, newspapers played a dominant role in shaping public opinion. Their expansion from the late nineteenth century was driven by sensationalism and »human interest« journalism, but the serious discussion of politics, economics and foreign affairs continued to be prominent, especially in the »broadsheet« press, where commentaries and book reviews by university-based academics or (semi-)professional »public intellectuals« were common4. My research for this essay focused on digitised newspaper databases, such as those for the conservative-leaning (London) Times, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Observer and Scotsman as well as the liberal-oriented Manchester Guardian and Economist. Exemplars of the cultural press – the Times Literary Supplement (hereafter TLS) and the weekly BBC magazine The Listener (which began in 1929 and reprinted many radio talks) – have also been searched in their digitised forms, as have the fascist newspapers Action, The Fascist Week and The Blackshirt. I have also consulted the weekly magazines The Spectator (conservative), The Nation and Athenaeum (left-liberal) and The New Statesman (Fabian socialist) for those years in which English translations of Der Untergang appeared. These sources provide insight into three questions: how were Spengler’s ideas described? With what other concepts or characteristics were they associated? How were patterns in their reception related to the cultural and political context of inter-war Britain? Spengler’s historical »morphology« as laid out in his two-volume Der Untergang des Abendlandes arrived in Britain in two stages: first via occasional references to the originals of 1918 and 1922 and, second, in more sustained discussions of their English translations by Major C. F. Atkinson (The Decline of the West) published by George Allen and Unwin in 1926 and 19285. There was also significant interest in two other works by Spengler, which were also translated by Atkinson and appeared from the same publisher: Man and Technics (1932) and The Hour of Decision (1934). There was a focus across the period on what can be labelled Spengler’s »organicism«, »relativism« and »determinism«. Moreover, Spengler’s reception was also shaped by topics that were not specifically methodological: his erudition, pessimism, Germanness, advocacy of »Prussianism« and associations with Nazism. Between 1921 and 1939, daily metropolitan newspaper circulation nearly doubled: T. Jeffery / K. mcclelland, A World Fit to Live In. The Daily Mail and the Middle Classes 1918–1939, in: J. curran / A. smith / P. Wingate (ed.), Impacts and Influences. Essays on Media Power in the Twentieth Century, London 1987, p. 29. 5 Oswald sPengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vols., trans. F. C. atkinson, London 1926–1928. 4 »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 159 II. Patterns in reception A. Spengler and »Morphology« In 1937, the English churchman William Wand (then Archbishop of Brisbane) recalled discovering Spengler in France in 1926: »In England at that time he was little more than a name«: We knew that a German philosopher two or three years before had published an immense work on World History, called »The Decline of the West«. We were a little amused to know that he thought that history moved in circles, and we were intrigued by his belief that in the natural course of things the whole of Western culture was on the verge of extinction. But very few people had read him, and no one had published a book about him6. Similarly, Henry Stuart Hughes argues that Der Untergang was first »introduced in authoritative fashion« to the British public in 1925 in a chapter on »The German Mind« in historian G. P. Gooch’s book Germany7. However, there had been earlier press discussions of Spengler’s work, even if some evince a rather superficial engagement with his ideas. In July 1920, for example, G. K. Chesterton wrote a lengthy article in the Illustrated London News arguing against either pessimistic or optimistic views about civilisation’s future (based on their shared »fatalist« assumptions): Spengler is not mentioned by name, but the opening reference to a »German professor« who had »written a book to prove that the whole of civilisation is now in decay« is clear enough8. A leading article in The Times titled »The Future of Western Civilisation« compared Der Untergang des Abendlandes unfavourably to Albert Demangeon’s Le déclin de l’Europe9. The article located Spengler within a specifically German tradition, comparing him to Schopenhauer, and it remained unconvinced by his »undeveloped metaphysical system«. His pessimistic determinism was, moreover, a »corrupting creed« that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Demangeon’s analysis, which allowed more possibilities to avoid decline, was preferred. The two books had been compared four days earlier in the TLS (»Europe in the Valley of Death«) by the Irish writer and translator Thomas Rolleston. Spengler’s book was »much the bigger and more impressive both in aim and execution«, Rolleston argued, even if he found Demangeon’s »more closely in touch with concrete 6 7 8 9 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 17 July 1937, p. 19. hughes, Oswald Spengler, p. 95, citing G. P. Gooch, Germany, London 1925, pp. 329–334. Illustrated London News, 10 July 1920, p. 16. The Times, 28 June 1920, p. 17. 160 John Carter Wood realities«10. Rolleston detailed Spenglerian philosophical distinctions – e.g. between »the Becoming« (das Werdende) and »the Become« (das Gewordene) – and highlighted Spengler’s emphasis on »destiny«, his relativism and his depiction of the Western soul as »Faustian«. Rolleston thought Spengler’s »boldness« was »very stimulating«, and he described Spengler’s critique of socialism »as a necessary and fatal symptom of our civilisation« as »eloquent«. However, a TLS review three years later by Edwyn Bevan of Der Untergang’s second volume was more critical. Bevan agreed there are analogies in history – he saw his age reflected in the »Greco-Roman world in the first centuries of the Christian era« – but claimed Spengler took this idea too far. He argued, too, against Spengler’s vision of distinct »Cultures« with different essences and destinies. Instead, Bevan depicted »culture« as a set of practices and ideas that could be transferred, citing Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905: »That was the victory of an Asiatic race«, he argued, »but it was the victory of Western civilization«11. Der Untergang’s popularity in Germany was another focus of commentary, feeding assumptions that the idea of Western decline fit that country’s post-defeat mood. A »defeated State«, Chesterton observed in 1920, »will be glad to maintain that it has dragged down everything else in its fall«12. In early 1920s Britain, then, the name »Spengler« was well known, with comments reflecting admiration for the boldness of his approach, scepticism about its specifics and, at times, concerns about his political message. Emphasis was put on the gloomy, pessimistic qualities of what was already being depicted as a distinctive philosophy or outlook: »Spenglerism«13. Greater engagement with Spengler began with the 1926 publication of the English translation of the first volume of The Decline of the West. »A Disciple of Spengler« described it in the Daily Express as »the most important contribution to the philosophy of history since Hegel«14. The Scotsman thought that there was »nothing particularly new in reading the future from the past, or in finding that civilisation has advanced in great waves«, but it pointed out that Spengler (»proceeding by a method of his own, which would take too long to explain«) claimed to find »deep and unexpected uniformities« in such patterns15. Lengthier commentaries were respectful if sceptical. Oxford historian and former Liberal politician H. A. L. Fisher, for example, revieTLS, 24 June 1920, p. 390. TLS, 29 March 1923, pp. 205–206. Illustrated London News, 10 July 1920, p. 16. For references to »Spenglerism« see, e.g., TLS 27 October 1921, p. 690; TLS, 29 March 1923, pp. 205–206; Saturday Review, 19 June 1926, pp. 750–752; Scotsman, 20 September 1926, p. 2; Saturday Review, 2 October 1926, pp. 382–383; The Blackshirt, 16 May 1933, p. 1; Daily Telegraph, 6 February 1937, p. 9. 14 Daily Express, 13 August 1926, p. 8 15 Scotsman, 28 June 1926, p. 2. 10 11 12 13 »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 161 wed Decline for the Observer16 . The idea of historical cycles was »familiar enough« (»expounded, for instance, by Machiavelli«), but the »novelty« of Spengler’s ideas lay in their inspiration in Goethe’s »morphology of plants«. Fisher found the dependence of the »morphologist« on »flair« and »intuition« suspect: »The morphologist must ›live into his object‹, and as he is royally dispensed from chronological limits, he can live very freely indeed«. Fisher thought Spengler’s vast claims contradicted empirical research and he labelled Spengler’s »over-sharp contrasts« between cultures part of a »morphological fallacy«. A review signed merely »H.« printed in both the Manchester Guardian and the Observer found nothing new in the attribution of »ages« or »seasons« to civilisations, even if Spengler’s »presentation of this view« was »highly original and backed by much learning«17. It focused on Spengler’s view of cultures as expressions of distinct »souls« and his use of mathematical concepts to argue that cultures had mutually incomprehensible essences. The reviewer’s doubts were similar to Fisher’s: »With regard to the proof of all this, Herr Spengler’s method is the easy one of dismissing all necessity for it by the appeal to intuition«18. (This complaint recurred. In 1929 a reviewer described Decline of the West as »a vast mass of comparisons, asserted rather than proved«19. A 1934 review of The Hour of Decision called Spengler »a prophet, and prophets do not argue«: »They merely proclaim the truth as it has been revealed to them«20.) A sharply negative review in the New Statesman noted that the problem with Spengler’s method was »very obvious«: »his standard is a purely subjective one, and the less he knows about the particular phase of history with which he is dealing the more utterly arbitrary and accidental does his classification become«21. Scepticism also greeted British popularisers of Spengler’s thought. 1926 saw the publication not only of an English translation of Der Untergang but also Civilisation or Civilisations: An Essay in the Spenglerian Philosophy of History by E. H. Goddard and P. A. Gibbons22. In the Manchester Guardian, Arnold J. Toynbee thought the authors added little to Spengler’s original analysis and believed their uncritical advocacy of it might even prejudice readers against him23. But Toynbee took a differentiated view of Spengler’s 16 Observer, 25 July 1926, p. 6. 17 Observer, 7 August 1926, p. 7. 18 Cf. Sir Alec Randall: »The centre of all [Spengler’s] philosophizing, he says, has been the idea 19 20 21 22 23 of fate (Schicksalsgedanke), a concept which can no more be explained in ordinary scientific language than the idea of time or space; it must be felt«.: TLS, 27 October 1921, p. 690. Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1929, p. 7. Manchester Guardian, 10 May 1934, p. 5. New Statesman, 3 July 1926, p. 332. E. H. goddard / P. A. gibbons, Civilisation or Civilisations. An Essay in the Spenglerian Philosophy of History, London 1926. Manchester Guardian, 14 December 1926, p. 9. 162 John Carter Wood thought, identifying within it four independent theses. Two were persuasive: that »civilisation« is a plural phenomenon and that all civilisations die out. The thesis that all civilisations are qualitatively different was questionable. About the fourth claim – that all civilisations, including the West, have a preordained duration – Toynbee was highly doubtful. By the time the second volume of Decline appeared in English in late 1928 opinions seem to have hardened against Spengler’s organic analogy of »Cultures«, his insistence on their absolute separateness and his claim that their destinies could be predicted. These were the points particularly criticised in Fisher’s review – again for the Observer – which showed that his earlier scepticism had turned to outright disapproval of »the latest Gospel from Germany«: though the work was »clever, learned, ingenious« and contained »much that is original and true«, Fisher concluded that »Dr. Spengler’s far-famed ›philosophy of History‹ is unsound, that many of his judgments are paradoxical, and that some of his information is incorrect«24. »The intelligent English reader«, he hoped, »is not prepared to accept this doctrine lying down«. An unnamed reviewer in the Manchester Guardian argued that the book’s value hinges upon »whether the conception of a certain limited number of ›cultures,‹ with a regular series of phases – spring, summer, autumn, and winter – which they follow to their predestined end of sterility and nothingness, is or is not an illuminating conception of world history«25. One of the most clearly negative reactions to Spengler was published in the Nation and Athenaeum by Leonard Woolf, who saw Spengler as part of an inter-war trend: His gigantic and violent generalizations are examples of that pseudo-scientific, semimystical, unconscious quackery which is so common in the twilight world of declining Western civilization and produces every type of prophet and sage with their cosmic revelations from Spengler and Steiner to Count Keyserling, and from Mr. D. H. Lawrence and Mr. Wyndham Lewis to Mr. Lothrop Stoddard and Mr. Middleton Murry26. Woolf critiqued Spengler’s emphasis on »destiny«, his relativism and his distinction between »life« and »thought« (with history being determined by »life« rather than »intellect«). »In this tangle there are, no doubt, strands of truth«, he concluded, »but for the most part it is fustian woven of half24 Observer, 27 January 1929, p. 9. A letter soon appeared in the paper from Wilhelm Muhs, who wrote from Germany to argue that the Decline of the West could not be considered a German »Gospel«, as both volumes »were so severely criticised in Germany«: »Up to 1923, the ›Decline of the West‹ was much talked of in Germany, but since that time is so no longer«. Observer, 10 February 1929, p. 6. 25 Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1929, p. 7. 26 Nation and Athenaeum, 23 February 1929, p. 722. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 163 truths, mystic quackery, back-to-naturism, supermanism, and Nietzsche«27. In the same journal a month later, H. J. Massingham praised Woolf’s »incisive handling of Dr. Spengler’s theory« and argued against deterministic philosophies that presupposed either automatic progress or inevitable decay28. »Progress and Decay, Originality and Imitation, Flowering and Inhibition«, Massingham wrote, »are contingent upon external and manmade circumstances«: »We achieve Degeneration, we have Degeneration thrust upon us, but we were not born to it«. Other associations shaped British responses to Spengler’s thought. Some of these accompanied engagements with »morphological« analysis, while others were independent of a methodological critique of »morphology« per se. B. Beyond Method: Erudition, Pessimism, Germanness and Politics 1. Erudition Regardless of their specific conclusions regarding »morphology«, many British commentators highlighted Spengler’s erudition. Learnedness, of course, could be variously connoted, and many reviewers emphasised the difficulty of Spengler’s ideas. »It is a monument of learning«, observed the Spectator of Decline’s first volume, »and although the translation is as near perfection as we have any right to expect, it is exceedingly stiff reading«29. The Scotsman observed that the first volume of Decline »should be found more than sufficient, in matter and style, for a single meal by the most voracious student of history and philosophy«30. The paper reviewed volume two three years later, describing Spengler as »learned« and the book as »ponderous«: the earlier volume »created in certain quarters a fury of discussion and controversy« but interest had been »mitigated and constricted [...] by the difficulty which the average reader found in following the author’s argument and comprehending its conclusions«31. H. A. L. Fisher emphasised Spengler’s murky prose (he »is not easy to read even in a good English version, and presents formidable obstacles in German«) and observed: »Nobody can come into contact with this book without being made aware that the author is a very unusual man«32. The Manchester Guardian thought that the notion of »the Hegelian State« was »mystical enough to the average Englishman«; however, it was 27 Woolf’s comments received two critical letters published in the next issue: Nation and Athena28 29 30 31 32 eum, 2 March 1929, p. 748. He replied in Nation and Athenaeum, 9 March 1929, p. 781. Nation and Athenaeum, 30 March 1929, pp. 910–911. Spectator, 17 July 1926, p. 97. Scotsman, 28 June 1926, p. 2. Scotsman, 5 January 1929, p. 8. Observer, 25 July 1926, p. 6. 164 John Carter Wood »the height of lucidity, definiteness, and tangible unity« compared to Spengler’s use of the term »Culture«33. Spengler’s obituaries reiterated such ambiguities: »A very original, fertile, and masterful but imperfectly disciplined intellect had ranged over an immense field of knowledge«, the Manchester Guardian wrote, »everywhere seizing, combining, developing, but without attaining coherence or completeness«34. Blurbs emphasising Spengler’s vast knowledge appeared in advertisements for decades35. There were demurrals. »In defiance of a general agreement to the contrary«, wrote Francis Clarke in the London Mercury in 1929, »I venture to say that he is not an immensely learned man«: His book is made up of the almost innumerable permutations and combinations of a limited number of facts illuminated by a strictly limited number of ideas. [...] The general chorus about his immense learning means simply that he knows more about any one of many subjects than the average specialist in another36. H. A. L. Fisher pointed out that specialists would dispute many of Spengler’s claims: »His picture of Apollinism or Classical Culture«, Fisher wrote, »is full of surprises for the Hellenist«37. By the 1930s, some reviews suggest a growing weariness with Spengler’s self-aggrandising approach38. 2. Pessimism Spengler was even more associated with pessimism. In 1920 The Times described Germans as »gloomily reflecting« on his ideas, and while Spengler’s rejection of human perfectibility was praised, the paper rejected the implied futility of trying to avoid decline39. Spengler’s own efforts to distance himself from the label of »pessimist« were reported upon in Britain, and in a well-disposed TLS review of Spengler’s pamphlet »Pessimismus?« Sir Alec Randall argued that »Herr Spengler may justly claim to be neither a fatalist nor necessarily pessimist« since he still saw »tremendous 33 Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1929, p. 7. 34 Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1936, p. 18. 35 Examples: »Colossal in its learning, vast in its range, and almost superhuman in its intellectual 36 37 38 39 control«. (Evening Standard): The Times, 28 June 1954, p. 10. »Remarkable book. The learning of the man is prodigious«. (Spectator): The Times, 15 Feb 1962, p. 15. Francis clarke, Oswald Spengler, London Mercury 20 (1929), p. 277. Observer, 25 July 1926, p. 6: »Who told Dr. Spengler that the ancients had no feeling for the rustling of the trees, or that there were no portrait statues in Ancient Greece? And what Hellenist would accept the dictum that to ›call Euripides a psychologist is to betray ignorance of what psychology is‹ «? TLS, 16 June 1932, p. 437. The Times, 28 June 1920, p. 17. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 165 tasks awaiting Western culture before its time of fulfilment arrives«40. (Randall admitted, though, that Spengler doubted whether men were ready to shoulder those »tremendous tasks«: »this is where his pessimism becomes evident«.) Spengler was, nonetheless, widely seen throughout the inter-war period as »gloomy« and »pessimistic«. In 1925 the Observer referred to him as »once the most-talked-of pessimist in Germany«41. With the publication of the English translation of Decline of the West, this reputation only grew. The Scotsman highlighted the »discouraging outcome« of his analysis and glumly summarised Spengler’s vision: »we are on the eve of other annihilating wars, a recrudescence of Caesarism and personal despotism, until with the enfeeblement of the whole modern system ›primitive human conditions‹ will slowly thrust themselves upwards and there will be a return to the ›Dark Ages‹«42. A review of Man and Technics in The Times summarised the argument as leading to the conclusion that »the trend of human enterprise ends in failure and disillusion«43. »There remains, according to this dismal prophet«, summarised the Manchester Guardian, »nothing but to face the future like men and to go valiantly to our approaching end«44. Some reviewers simply noted Spengler’s pessimism, but others critiqued it. A review of The Hour of Decision in the Manchester Guardian concluded: »for my part I am not disposed to co-operate on these conditions. I would rather shipwreck on the dream of happiness, justice and peace«45. The Listener’s review of Man and Technics observed that »the typical attitude of to-day is looking forward«, which made it »difficult to take Spengler seriously«: »if he feels like that«, it concluded, »he ought to see a doctor«46. Some agreed with Spengler’s general diagnosis but thought him too fatalistic in applying his theory to real conditions47. Spengler embodied not only pessimism but also a specifically Germanic form of it. The »By the Way« column of the Daily Express written by John Morton under the pseudonym »Beachcomber« – a miscellaneous series of often flippant and humorous observations on current events – referred to the publication of the second volume of Decline of the West. »It is fitting that Professor Spengler, the care-free playboy of the Western world«, Morton sarcastically observed, »should have made his bow with the New Year«: 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 The Times, 21 April 1921, p. 9; TLS, 27 October 1921, p. 690. Observer, 8 March 1925, p. 9. Scotsman, 28 June 1926, p. 2. The Times, 3 June 1932, p. 21. Manchester Guardian, 20 June 1932, p. 5. Manchester Guardian, 10 May 1934, p. 5. Listener, 20 July 1932, p. 99. See, e.g., The Scotsman, 28 November 1939, p. 9. 166 John Carter Wood Most of the German writers who have been so grossly overpraised since the war are all for gloom. The greater part of their enormous novels, their foggy plays, and their sham biographies are without a ray of light. But Spengler, whose second volume is out – Spengler who hates the idea of free-will and looks to the well-known vitality of the Asiatic to supplant poor old worn-out Europe, is the gloomiest of the whole pack48. 3. Germanness To Morton’s emphasis on Spengler’s Germanness, one might add The Times’s comment from nearly ten years before that Spengler »discourses pessimistically and with the cumbrous dogmatism of his race«: »Careless of Schopenhauer’s strictures upon Hegel’s ›German foolishness‹«, the article continued, »he mutters obscure words borrowed from Hegel and Schelling«49. »The scale of this book is truly Teutonic in scope and depth«, observed the Spectator, »and, we may add, in obscurity; it is in the direct line of descent from the works of such men as Goethe and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche«50. The New Statesman highlighted the book’s German qualities less generously: »This book, if useful in no other way, at any rate serves to remind us that across a few leagues of ocean there lies a land far more essentially mysterious to us than Ancient Egypt or modern Tibet«51. The Scotsman in 1929 claimed that Spengler’s »ambiguous language« (like the »Delphic Oracle«) made his chapters »hard of assimilation to other than Teutonic organs of digestion«52. Although Spengler’s work was highly controversial in his homeland, British commentators tended to depict it representing something typically German. On this basis, in a radio broadcast titled »Spengler – A Philosopher of World History« (reprinted in the Listener in 1929), popular philosopher C. E. M. Joad sought to explain national differences related to Spengler’s reception: »The Germans have an appetite for ideas which rivals, if it does not exceed, the English appetite for emotions«53. Referring to then-popular authors of romance novels and histories, he observed: »While the Englishman is enjoying a feast of passion at the luscious boards of Miss Dell or Miss Hull, the German refreshes himself with draughts of pure thought from the fountain-head of some abstruse philosopher«54. Spengler’s sentences, he con48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Daily Express, 9 January 1929, p. 8. The Times, 28 June 1920, p. 17. Spectator, 17 July 1926, p. 97. New Statesman, 3 July 1926, p. 332. Scotsman, 5 January 1929, p. 8. Listener, 27 February 1929, p. 250. »Spengler, the most abstruse German now writing, is also the most popular. He belongs, it is clear, to the grand tradition of German philosophy«. Ibid. Ethel M. Dell was a romance novelist and Eleanor Hull wrote Irish history. See also: »[F]or whereas the success of the Anglo-Saxon »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 167 tinued, »seem to be the necessary accompaniments of German philosophy in the grand manner: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, all wrote them and worse; they sound the authentic German note«. The Scotsman argued that, even though German philosophy »as applied to the material affairs of the universe and the human race« had »dropped in value, or at least in authority, since the Great War«, the English translation of Decline’s second volume was a sign that, »like German wealth and industry, it is cropping up again«55. A 1930 TLS review of British author John S. Hoyland’s History as Direction – which explicitly (if selectively) borrowed Spenglerian concepts – found its weaknesses to be rooted in its German philosophical influences and linked Hoyland’s »one-sidedness« to the »one-sidedness of Spengler, more remotely that of Hegel, of one-half of Goethe (cut off from the other half), and of an ancient philosophical tradition«56. John Middleton Murry thought Spengler’s »Faustian« metaphor for the West was itself specifically Germanic: despite a »superficial appropriateness« of the Faust legend, it »was German in origin, so it has proved to be Germanic in popularity. It never took root in England«57. Spengler’s reception in his own country was not only commented upon but also seen to indicate the post-war German mentality. In 1920 The Times stated: »No book since Nietzsche’s ›Zarathustra‹ has stirred the German mind more than Oswald Spengler’s prediction that the crisis of European civilization is upon us«58. (This brought a critical response from Oscar Levy, editor of the authorised English translation of Nietzsche’s works, who claimed that the Germans »never understood« Nietzsche: »They are creatures of nerves and fits and depressions; if things go well they believe in optimistic and supercilious books such as Chamberlain’s ›Foundations of the Nineteenth Century‹, if the weather changes their spirits immediately drop and they then hail such depressing and pessimistic wails as Oswald Spengler’s ›Der Untergang des Abendlandes‹ «59.) In 1925, Sir Alec Randall declared, »The day of the Nietzsche-cult is over, at least in England«, but he pointed to Spengler’s popularity in Germany as evidence that, there, »the seeker for evidences of Nietzsche’s influence is likely to be better rewarded«60. Two years earlier, Edwyn Bevan saw the content and popularity of Spengler’s »windy and unsound« theories 55 56 57 58 59 60 best-seller depends upon a facile acceptance of emotions, the Teutonic best-seller demands of the reader an equally facile acceptance of ideas«. New Statesman, 3 July 1926, p. 332. Scotsman, 5 January 1929, p. 8. TLS, 20 November 1930, p. 955. TLS, 11 April 1936, p. 312. The Times, 28 June 1920, p. 17. The Times, 30 June 1920, p. 12. Levy also wrote to the Observer in 1926 to complain about H. A. L. Fisher’s linking of Spengler and Nietzsche in a review of the English-language translation of the first volume of Decline. Observer, 1 August 1926, p. 6. TLS, 19 March 1925, p. 195. 168 John Carter Wood to be »discouraging to those who hope for the prevalence of a new spirit in the Germany reconstructed after the war« 61. Spengler’s celebration of »forcible self-assertion« as well as his contempt for »ideal values« and democracy exemplified, Bevan thought, »the old temper which brought discredit upon Hohenzollern Germany«: It is almost as if Spengler wanted to talk in character, just as the war literature of the Allies always said that the Germans talked. If proof were needed, Spengler’s book – and still more the success of the book – would prove that the Germany portrayed in that literature exists even now – a terrible fact which no pacifism can talk away. A Germany wedded to Spenglerism would really be a Germany for which no place could be found in the fellowship of nations62. In, 1925, the Manchester Guardian welcomed signs that Spengler’s popularity was declining: It has been said that when the Germans are beaten they are inclined to believe that the end of the universe is at hand. Spengler’s portentous chapters [...] appealed to the national mood immediately after defeat and revolution. That they appeal no longer is one of the signs that the Germans are recovering their mental stability 63. When Decline of the West appeared in English in 1926, however, the paper noted its continuing popularity in Germany64. H. A. L. Fisher ascribed Spengler’s success there not only to his »bold and even fantastic generalisations«, »brilliant phrasing«, »apocalyptic manner« and »a certain poetical intuition«, but also »to the title of the book and to the date of its publication«: »In July 1918, the German public were disposed to welcome an imposing treatise entitled ›The Decline of the West‹«65. Spengler’s obituary in the Manchester Guardian, however, emphasised that Decline »was no cry of despair provoked by the German debacle of 1918«: instead, it was »a stern warning, addressed to [Spengler’s] fellow-countrymen when ›decline‹ was the last destiny of which they dreamed in the years of intoxicated national exaltation which immediately preceded the war«66. 61 62 63 64 65 66 TLS, 29 March 1923, pp. 205–206. TLS, 29 March 1923, p. 205. Manchester Guardian, 24 December 1925, p. 6. Manchester Guardian, 3 June 1926, p. 7. Observer, 25 July 1926, p. 6. Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1936, p. 18. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 169 4. Politics: Prussianism and Nazism As that obituary suggests, not only Spengler’s defeatism but also his triumphalism attracted censure. The political aspects of Spengler’s thinking became a focus of attention in the reception of the shorter works Preussentum und Sozialismus and Pessimismus? as well as of the second volume of Der Untergang. An unnamed Hungarian correspondent wrote to the Manchester Guardian in August 1920 to warn that Prussianism and Bolshevism were »brother-ideas« since both »want to organise the world according to a principle based on authority«. Citing Preussentum und Sozialismus, he asserted that the only alternative (which he, unlike Spengler, preferred) was »British Liberalism«67. In 1923 Sir Alec Randall claimed that readers of Decline’s second volume would find they had been mistaken about Spengler: »Far from being a fatalist, he is an idealist, in the philosophical sense; far from being a resigned pacifist, he is a defiant militarist; far from being a philosopher of universal sympathies, he is a Prussian nationalist«68. In 1927, Randall saw the »idea of Caesarism« again »rising on the Continent«69. In Italy it was driven by a «revived imperialism«; in Germany the »renewed intellectual Caesar-cult« could be blamed, in Randall’s view, on Spengler. An advertisement of The Hour of Decision described the book as arguing that »›Prussianism‹ is the remedy for all our present troubles«70. Spengler’s obituary in The Times emphasised that he »abhorred Socialism and democracy, and saw in Prussianism his country’s only hope, a hope, indeed which was in reality only a counsel of despair«71. By the early 1930s Spengler was increasingly linked to National Socialism. Though not usually described as a member of or propagandist for the Nazi Party, his ideas were seen as having prepared the way for key aspects of Nazism. »The idealistic basis of the National Socialist Party«, noted the Economist, »is perhaps best expressed by a remarkable pamphlet published some ten years ago«: Under the heading »Prussianism and Socialism«, Spengler compares Socialism with the Prussian ideal of service for the State, and contrasts this with the Anglo-Saxon ideal of individual enterprise which built up the Empire. The Anti-Semitism of the movement is bound up with this view; the Jew is looked upon as a person whose only law is that of private profit, and who is therefore bound to come into conflict with the ideal of service to the German people as a whole72. 67 68 69 70 71 72 Manchester Guardian, 21 August 1920, p. 11. TLS, 25 January 1923, p. 59. TLS, 13 January 1927, p. 20. Manchester Guardian, 19 April 1934, p. 5. The Times, 9 May 1936, p. 18. Economist, 11 October 1930, p. 656. 170 John Carter Wood »This little book«, noted the Listener with reference to Man and Technics, »is a mixture of Nietzsche and Hitler, with the ›Nordic‹ mythology in full flower«73. In a lengthy TLS article in October 1933 on »German Literature and Revolution«, Sir Alec Randall looked back on the disappointed post-war hopes that a more liberal ideal would prevail in Germany: »The spirit of Bismarck and Treitschke was to abdicate, and the spirit of Goethe and Hölderlin was to resume its way«74. The battle, as he put it, between »Eastern« and »Western« ideas (»Eastern« here referring explicitly to Bolshevism though implicitly also to Nazism) had been lost, and in this article (and another in spring 1934) Randall described Spengler as contributing to both the attempted left-wing revolutions in post-war Germany as well as to the rightwing »Revolution« of 1933, as each opposed liberalism. Der Untergang was »the most important work of popular philosophy published between 1917 and 1920«, and, Randall wrote, while »it is not as a professed Nazi that Herr Spengler writes«, there was »no question of the influence he has exerted on the young men who helped to bring about the Nazi Revolution, and several of his assertions are easily to be paralleled in authorized Nazi publications«75. But Spengler’s conflicts with the Nazis, such as their critique of Jahre der Entscheidung, were also noted, and articles in the Observer and Manchester Guardian – with a sub-headline referring to Spengler as »The Anti-Nazi?« – delineated his complicated relationship with the regime76. He had »always been a popular Nazi philosopher« due to »certain characteristics« he shared with them: Like the Nazis he makes heroic the fighter and the soldier, stands for »the people« – though viewed through aristocratic eyes; is anti-democratic; anti-Parliamentarian, and anti-Marxist. In his hatred of Bolshevism and his antagonism to the coloured races, he approaches our old friend, Herr Rosenberg, who does the Nazi party’s thinking. On the other hand, it was noted, Spengler avoided anti-Semitism and advocated traditional political and social hierarchies. At his death, the press highlighted his ambivalent relationship with Nazism. A Reuters obituary was the basis of comments in the Scotsman and Manchester Guardian. The subheadline in the Scotsman even described him as a »Famous philosopher whom Nazis disliked«77. The Manchester Guardian found »many plain affinities between the Spenglerian world view and that of National Socialism«; however, Spengler’s views were seen by the new regime as »a negation of 73 74 75 76 77 Listener, 20 July 1932, p. 99. TLS, 12 October 1933, p. 677. TLS, 26 April 1934, p. 291. Observer, 10 December 1933, p. 10; Manchester Guardian, 10 December 1933, p. 10. Scotsman, 9 May 1936, p. 14. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 171 National Socialist principles«, ill-suited to their vision of a »happy and prosperous new Germany«78. The Times’s obituary noted that »Dr. Spengler was vigorously attacked by Herr Albert [sic] Rosenberg«, and Jahre der Entscheidung »was regarded as a scathing criticism of the new rulers in Germany«79. Some British commentators, though, connected Spengler directly to Nazism. In the Daily Express, John Morton (»Beachcomber«) urged the »clot of highbrows« in Britain who had praised Decline of the West to consider Jahre der Entscheidung, »a glorification of the most barbarous kind of warfare for its own sake as the ideal to be aimed at by all men«80. The Scotsman reviewed three books on the »meaning of history« (including The Hour of Decision) and noted Spengler’s predictions of »Caesarism«81. While »his theory is one that cannot be dismissed without consideration«, the reviewer noted, »there is a good deal of drivel in this book«, such as Spengler’s views of Britain: It appears that Britain »lacks the racial foundation of a tough peasantry« – a remark which shows the affinity between the author’s ideals and those of the Nazis. British youth, he stupidly imagines, is more or less decadent. [...] Liberal democracy is just anarchy that has become a habit. That is another link with Nazi theory. In a 1935 Scotsman review of Alfred Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts Spengler was depicted as a forerunner of the Nazi »German Christian« movement 82. An article in 1939 claimed Spengler signified the German »revolt against reason« that had led to Nazism and Germany’s conflict with »the West« and »civilisation«83. In a 1940 article in the Listener, W. G. Moore described Spengler’s work as part of a »narrow cultural nationalism« at the heart of »The German Character«. »Spengler flung into general discussion ideas which gained ground enormously by 1930«, Moore wrote: »Nazi orators had only to fan them to a flame of revolt«84. In an article on literature and Nazism, W. H. Bruford argued Spengler »contributed directly to the new movement of ideas away from ›western‹ democratic ideals«85. This critique continued after the Second World War. »Unhappily«, the Listener noted in January 1947, »German philosophers and historians cannot altogether be freed from censure for the depths that were plumbed by half-baked propagan- 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1936, p. 18. The Times, 9 May 1936, p. 10. Daily Express, 2 October 1933, p. 10. Scotsman, 7 May 1934, p. 15. Scotsman, 22 March 1935, p. 10. Picture Post, 29 April 1939, p. 43. Listener, 29 February 1940, p. 419. Scotsman, 21 December 1933, p. 2. 172 John Carter Wood dists both recently and in earlier times«, citing Spengler’s advocacy of »hardness«, »bold scepticism« and a »body of socialist supermen«86. Spengler was a popular thinker among British fascists, who, in the 1930s, were primarily organised politically in the British Union of Fascists (BUF). His »dauntless nobility in the face of inevitable annihilation« was, on the one hand, praised in the Fascist Week 87. »Spengler tells us«, the article noted, »that, though we are going down hill [sic], at least we can chose to go down hill seeing«. One of the early issues of the Blackshirt described Spengler’s analysis of the »decadence of the modern world« as part of the fascist worldview, but it rejected Spengler’s »predeterminism«: by »combating the decadent tendencies« of modern civilisation and reinvigorating »ideals of state service and personal self-sacrifice«, fascism, it argued, »intends to prolong, even perpetuate, the splendid life-career of our Western civilization«, thus escaping Spengler’s vision of »inevitable, predetermined« decay88. Fascists agreed with Spengler about Western »decadence« but rejected his fatalism about turning the tide89. »We may perhaps claim that [Spengler’s] theory is too fatalistic«, wrote E. D. Hart in an article on »Fascism and History«: »Men do not learn very much from history; but they do learn a little [....] [I]t may still be possible to arrest the process of decay«90. A 1938 Action editorial stated that BUF leader Oswald Mosley »gave full credit to Spengler for his monumental work as completely exploding the easy creed of progress held by the materialists, but denied his pessimistic conclusion that all civilisations are doomed«91. Two months later, the Blackshirt noted Mosley’s call for »modern man to throw off the artificial limitations laid down by the materialist determinism of Marx, the biological determinism of Freud, and the cultural determinism of Spengler«92. A Christmas message in 1937 by Anglican churchman Rev. H. B. Nye – a frequent contributor to Action – adapted Spengler’s analysis to argue, »Every Civilisation has ended in Democracy, and every Democracy has betrayed its Civilisation«93. It was impossible to escape »destiny«, but it was possible to »retard by centuries our fate«, Nye urged. The »success« of National Socialist Germany was adduced as counter-evi- 86 Listener, 9 January 1947, p. 54. 87 Fascist Week, 12–18 January 1934, p. 4. 88 The Blackshirt, 16 May 1933, p. 1. See also Thomas linehan, The British Union of Fascists as 89 90 91 92 93 a Totalitarian Movement and Political Religion, in: Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5 (2004), p. 400. See also a review of James Drennan’s book B. U. F. Oswald Mosley and British Fascism in: The Blackshirt, 16–22 February 1934, p. 1 as well as comments in: The Blackshirt, 14 September 1934, p. 4 and 1 February 1935, p. 11. The Blackshirt, 16 January 1937, p. 4. Action, 29 January 1938, p. 8. The Blackshirt, March 1938, p. 2. Action, 23 December 1937, p. 3. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 173 dence to Spengler’s analysis in an Action headline in March 1938: »Germany Confounds Spengler«94. Given Spengler’s link to inter-war right-wing politics, it is an interesting irony that the British press made use of him during the Second World War, responding to German radio broadcasts quoting British writers’ critical remarks about their own country. In October 1939, The Times noted that the »latest propaganda quotations on the German wireless have been culled from Swift, Kipling, and Lord Charles Beresford«, and quoted Spengler (»an author much favoured by the Nazis«) in response: »We Germans find it hard to regard politics as an art instead of as the expression of feelings. Our past has given us so little chance to learn from experience«95. Days later, the paper began publishing a daily »example of self-criticism by well-known German authors«. The first was from Spengler: The Germans are great at suspecting, pulling to pieces and disparaging creative deeds. Historical experience and the strength of tradition, such as are natural in English life, escape them. A nation of poets and thinkers which is on the way to becoming a nation of chatterers and persecutors96! III. Patterns in resistance Having explained overall patterns in Spengler’s reception, I turn in this section to an analysis of the main reasons for the general scepticism that greeted Spengler’s ideas in Britain. The preface by the Anglo-German philosopher F. C. S. Schiller to Goddard and Gibbons’ popularisation of Spengler’s ideas, Civilisation or Civilisations, was polite but unconvinced. (The Spectator, noting Schiller’s »decorous scepticism with regard to Spengler’s whole theory« wondered why he »introduced a book with which he so manifestly disagrees« and thought his scepticism »is amply justified by this presentation of it«97.) In this context, Schiller compared Der Untergang’s bestseller status in Germany with its limited success in Britain: »in a country where serious reading is a hobby of the few, and not the custom of the many«, he wrote, »even prophets of woe stand in need of interpreters«98. But despite translation, Spengler’s theories faced obstacles in Britain99, 94 95 96 97 98 99 Action, 19 March 1938, p. 4. The Times, 28 October 1939, p. 5. The Times, 31 October 1939, p. 5. See also The Times, 8 Nov 1939, p. 7. Spectator, 2 October 1926, p. 543. goddard / gibbons, Civilisation or Civilisations, from introduction by F. C. S. schiller, p. xiv. Thereby confirming Rudolf Muhs’s observation, »Übersetzungen sind eine notwendige, aber noch keine hinreichende Bedingung für den Transfer von Ideen«. Rudolf muhs, Geisteswe- 174 John Carter Wood and the next section considers aspects of this intellectual resistance: »Germanness«, »competition« and »political resonance«. A. Germanness While historians in specialist journals tended to view Spengler as part of a cosmopolitan world of academic history100, the press consistently highlighted his Germanness, referring not only to the fact that he was a German but also to characteristics seen as typical of German scholars: a distinctive intellectual tradition, a wordy and opaque philosophical style and a gloomy tone. H. A. L. Fisher emphasised how Spengler (a »true disciple of Nietzsche«) used the organic metaphor derived from Goethe to create an explanation of historical development that was »woven with so many fine touches and far flung reaches of fantasy«; however, he concluded dismissively, »If he were less sensational he might endure longer; but he would amuse us less«101. A Scotsman review critiqued Spengler’s vision of cultural crisis, in particular his hostility toward commerce and liberalism: »his conceptions of the present and the future look like the fabric of a vision, an elaborate product of Teutonic industry and imagination, founded largely on ideas that are deceptive and mischievous«102. The intense criticisms that Spengler received in his home country were often overlooked in Britain. Still, Arthur Herman describes how Spengler’s thinking, however idiosyncratic, indeed emerged from a distinctive style of German Kulturkritik (one also apparent in the work of Werner Sombart or the early writings of Thomas Mann) that focused on threats to Kultur from scientific worldviews (which endangered the spiritual and aesthetic ideals of Bildung), technological development (leading to the domination of »mechanical« aspects over »human« ones) and liberalism (identified strongly with an Anglo-American capitalist culture that eroded »organic« community life)103. Many Britons were, of course, also anxious about urban life, technology or capitalism104. However, as Herman shows, German intellectuals distinctly 100 101 102 103 104 hen. Rahmenbedingungen des deutsch-britischen Kulturaustausches im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Rudolf muhs / Johannes Paulmann / Willibald steinmetz (ed.), Aneignung und Abwehr. Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert, Bodenheim 1998, pp. 44–70. D. C. somervell, Reviews, in: History 15 (1930), pp. 52–53; Gilbert murray, The Historical Present, in: History 18 (1934), pp. 289–306. Observer, 25 July 1926, p. 6. Scotsman, 5 January 1929, p. 8. Arthur herman, The Idea of Decline in Western History, New York 1997, pp. 227–230. A leading article in the Manchester Guardian in 1930 observed: »The newly elected president of the Library Association joined the company of Spengler, Aldous Huxley, and other distin- »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 175 tended to see themselves »as outside European or Western civilization« and sought counter-arguments to rescue Kultur105. Hughes, similarly, highlights Spengler’s debt to German philosophy and »historicism«, locating him in a »revolt against positivism« rooted in Romantic philosophy and marked by »the revival of cyclical theories«106. John Farrenkopf, too, emphasises Spengler’s location within German intellectual traditions, particularly historicism, even if he had several conflicts with their other advocates107. These elements made Spengler’s approach a hard sell in Britain. It is not that the British press deliberately promoted anti-historicist views or critiqued Romantic philosophy; however, underlying assumptions about the nature and meaning of history are recognisable in the press critique of Spengler, combining commitments to empiricism and evolutionism with a focus on »external causes« (as opposed to a logic of organic development), a definition of culture as crossnationally transferrable ideas and practices (rather than as an »essence« or »soul«) and an emphasis on what we would today call »agency« (as opposed to »destiny«). Although such tendencies and approaches also featured in German historiography, the British press reception of Spengler tended to ignore this. Germanness as such would not have necessarily hindered Spengler’s popularity in Britain. The Great War certainly had generated mutual animosities and, on the intellectual plane, interrupted the intensive exchange between German and British historians that had emerged since the late nineteenth century108. But as Colin Storer shows, British intellectuals were fascinated by German ideas and culture in the 1920s; what appealed most to them were ideas that represented the new »spirit of the age«: »modernity«, youthfulness, innovation and experimentation109. Spengler’s philosophy (and, more, his politics) not only ran against the grain of this spirit, it was clearly opposed to it: in 1933 the Observer printed a translated passage from the preface to Jahre der Entscheidung in which the author emphasised how he »hated the evil revolution of 1918 from its inception as the treachery of the inferior part of our nation towards the strong and superior part« and asserted that 105 106 107 108 109 guished Jeremiahs yesterday when he denounced the modern age, with its mass production and mass thinking, and foretold a possible decline of our civilisation into a flat and dead uniformity«. Manchester Guardian, 24 September 1930, p. 8. See, more generally, Martin Wiener , English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1980, Cambridge 1981. herman, Idea of Decline, pp. 230–231. hughes, Oswald Spengler, pp. 31, 36. John farrenkoPf, Prophet of Decline. Spengler on World History and Politics, Baton Rouge 2001, pp. 77–90, especially pp. 77, 84 and 88. Peter Wende, Views and Reviews. Mutual Perceptions of British and German Historians in the Late Nineteenth Century, in: Benedikt stuchtey / Peter Wende (ed.), British and German Historiography 1750–1950. Traditions, Perceptions and Transfers, Oxford 2000, pp. 175–176. Colin storer, Britain and the Weimar Republic. The History of a Cultural Relationship, London 2010, pp. 4, 176 and 182. 176 John Carter Wood »everything I have since written on politics was directed against the powers that settled themselves by the aid of our enemies on the mountain of our misfortunes«110. For the British, the problem was not that Spengler was German but rather that he was the wrong kind of German. B. Competition Spengler’s ideas were thus hobbled in the face of stiff competition from other thinkers in this period. E. F. Jacob, writing in History in January 1924, observed: »The amount of ›universal‹ or ›world‹ history which has been produced of late is very striking«111. He refers to Spengler once, but identifies two »universal historians proper«: H. G. Wells and Hutton Webster112. There were also popular contributions on this topic from disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, psychology and sociology. Broadly speaking, »diffusionist« perspectives – in which ideas and technologies spread from culture to culture – were prominent in Britain, encouraged by studies such as W. H. R. Rivers’s The History of Melanesian Society (1914), Flinders Petrie’s The Revolutions of Civilisation (1911) or G. Elliot Smith’s The Ancient Egyptians and the Origins of Civilization (1911). A Manchester Guardian review noted that Spengler’s approach contradicted »the Diffusionist theory active in this country, in accordance with which there is only one original culture, that of Egypt, which has spread in waves over the entire civilised world«113. There were also British historical analyses similar to Spengler’s, such as Geoffrey Sainsbury’s now-forgotten »theory of polarity«114. The 1920s and 1930s also saw a wave of anxious, doom-laden laments about civilisational decline115. Spengler’s most significant British competitors were H. G. Wells and Arnold J. Toynbee. Better known now as a science fiction author, Wells was one of the most popular »public intellectuals« of inter-war Britain. His Outline of History – from the emergence of life to the First World War – was published in 1920. It was an enormously successful best-seller and pioneering work of »universal history« (a term Wells helped popularise) that was also taken seriously by academic historians: a 1933 History review of Hermann Schneider’s A History of World Civilisation compared it both to Wells’s 110 Observer, 27 August 1933, p. 8. 111 E. F. Jacob, Recent World History and its Variety, in: History 8 (1924), pp. 241–255. 112 Jacob, World History, p. 246. Webster wrote, among other works, History of the Ancient World (1915) and Early European History (1924). 113 Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1929, p. 7. 114 Observer, 14 August 1927, p. 6. 115 overy, Morbid Age. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 177 Outline and Spengler’s Decline116. But in terms of his approach, Wells was a sort of »anti-Spengler«: he saw human history as a continuous (and progressive) unity, emphasised social, political and technological causation (rather than »destiny«) and saw cross-cultural exchange as the norm rather than an exception. He also advocated a progressive, peaceful and liberal »World State«. During the 1930s Toynbee took on the mantle of »the British Spengler«117, and, in his case, connections with Spengler are clearer. Given a copy of Der Untergang des Abendlandes in the summer of 1920 by historian Lewis Namier, Toynbee had been simultaneously inspired by its »firefly flashes of historical insight« and concerned that it had made irrelevant his own aim to create a large-scale history118. As we know, Toynbee recovered enough confidence to not only warn of civilisational collapse (such as in radio broadcasts reprinted in 1930 as World Order or Downfall119) but also publish his twelve-volume series A Study of History between 1934 and 1961. Like Spengler, Toynbee was interested in examining large units (»societies« or »civilisations«) whose developmental similarities allowed different stages to be seen as »contemporary« across different time periods, and he rejected »the straight-line succession of ancient, medieval, and modern history«120. Finally, he too conceptualised a late developmental phase (»universal states«) characterised by cultural stagnancy. But Toynbee thought Spengler’s claim that cultures »arose, developed, declined, and foundered in unvarying conformity with a fixed timetable« was »most unilluminatingly dogmatic and deterministic« and believed the theory offered »no explanation« for their development 121. Toynbee proposed a »challenge and response« model of historical development, in which societies faced by »adversity« are compelled to find solutions; as long as they (or their leaders) creatively respond, the society moves forward. Collapse results through defeat by external forces or the internal degeneration of creative resources. Toynbee’s project had been partly aimed at demonstrating that Gibbon had been wrong to deny that Britain might go the way of imperial Rome122. In a 1935 lecture he asserted that Gibbon himself might have become a Spenglerian had he lived in Spengler’s society123. Toynbee’s model, however, offered more room for active efforts to 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 John L. myres, Dr. Hermann Schneider’s Philosophy of History, in: History 17 (1933), p. 303. overy, Morbid Age, p. 34. Arnold J. toynbee, Civilization on Trial, London 1948, p. 9. Idem, World Order or Downfall, London 1930. hughes, Oswald Spengler, p. 139. toynbee, Civilization on Trial, p. 10. overy, Morbid Age, p. 36. Irish Times, 20 November 1935, p. 5. 178 John Carter Wood forestall and even prevent decline, and his increasing adoption of Christian perspectives clearly distinguished him from Spengler. Toynbee’s response to Spengler was, as should now be clear, in many ways typically British. He later noted how he »became aware of a difference in national traditions«: »Where the German a priori method drew blank, let us see what could be done by English empiricism«124. Whether Toynbee’s approach was in fact much more »empirical« than Spengler’s is, here, unimportant; however, this assumption was a starting point for his analysis and may have helped make A Study of History popular in Britain. Ultimately, both Wells and Toynbee may have been linked to Spengler in the public mind more than either author would have preferred. During the Second World War, Ivor Thomas discussed large-scale philosophical-historical analyses: Wells’s Outline of History, he claimed, »illustrates the genre better than perhaps any other example«, and Toynbee’s Study of History »belongs essentially to the same type«: both »owe much to the gloomy and cloudy analysis of the German, Oswald Spengler«125. In 1947, an Economist review titled »Spengler-Toynbee History« also saw Toynbee’s Study of History »on the whole in the succession to Spengler«, though it noted that it »has a much more English quality; Toynbee avoids Spengler’s absolute determinism and his mind has a brilliant and stimulating vivacity of thought in striking contrast to the pompous and ponderous style of the German scholar«126. In a 1929 letter, W. B. Yeats recorded Ezra Pound’s verdict that »Spengler is a Wells who has founded himself in German scholarship instead of English Journalism«127. C. Political resonance If Spengler’s diagnosis of decline was not needed in Britain because there were other »universal« historians and prophets of decline who wrote in a more appealing (and intelligible) British idiom, his cure was, generally speaking, not wanted. As noted, Spengler’s advocacy of »Prussianism«, commitment to German nationalism and, later, associations with Nazism generated resistance in Britain. This is perhaps unsurprising: the term »Prussianism« was common in Britain in the 1920s but was negatively connoted and used to 124 toynbee, Civilization on Trial, p. 10. 125 TLS, 20 January 1945, p. 31. On Toynbee and Spengler, see Kenneth W. thomPson, Toynbee’s Philosophy of World History and Politics, Baton Rouge 1985. 126 Economist, 1 February 1947, p. 191. On Spengler, Toynbee and Wells, see also Michael bid diss, Global Interdependence and the Study of Modern World History, in: G. Parry (ed.), Politics in an Interdependent World. Essays Presented to Ghita Ionescu, Aldershot 1994, pp. 66–84. 127 Edward callan, W. B. Yeats’s Learned Theban. Oswald Spengler, in: Journal of Modern Literature 4 (1975), p. 603. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 179 describe either reactionary German political opinion or unwelcome domestic social developments, such as the growth of state interference in everyday life. For the (broadly pacifist) British left, militarist nationalism was unappealing, and the Liberal Party was committed to political principles very much the contrary to »Caesarism«. Liberalism and socialism, despite the Great War, also remained marked by beliefs in »progress«. Mainstream British conservatism, too, would have been an unlikely home for Spenglerism. While it is not hard to find Tory elements that were nationalist, militarist and antiCommunist, the party was dominated in the inter-war period by a moderate, constitutionalist conservatism represented by Stanley Baldwin128. Baldwin himself embodied what some historians have argued was an attempted refashioning of post-war »Britishness« as a »peaceable kingdom« in line with a more »gentlemanly ideal«129. The result was a strong political consensus in inter-war Britain regarding constitutionalism, liberal principles and – given persistent economic difficulties – moderate state intervention in the economy (»planning«)130. Compared to Germany, there was thus little political space in Britain for advocates of »conservative revolution«, such as Spengler, in the sense of »a radical break with bourgeois liberalism and Western democracy«131. This is not to deny the many illiberal aspects of British politics and society, whether the persistence of widespread poverty, the predations of empire, the prevalence of prejudice or the enthusiasm for eugenics; nonetheless, the language and »sensibility«132 of politics were marked by 128 Philip Williamson, The Doctrinal Politics of Stanley Baldwin, in: Michael bentley (ed.), 129 130 131 132 Public and Private Doctrine. Essays in British History Presented to Maurice Cowling, Cambridge 1993, pp. 181–208 and Bill schWarz, The Language of Constitutionalism. Baldwinite Conservatism, in: Formations Editorial Collective (ed.), Formations of Nation and People, London 1984, pp. 1–18. Jon laWrence, Forging a Peaceable Kingdom. War, Violence and Fear of Brutalization in Post-First World War Britain, in: Journal of Modern History 75 (2003), pp. 557–559; Peter m andler, The English National Character. The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair, London 2006, pp. 163–184. Arthur m arWick, Middle Opinion in the Thirties. Planning, Progress and Political Agreement, in: English Historical Review 79 (1964), pp. 285–298; Julia staPleton, Resisting the Centre at the Extremes. »English« Liberalism in the Political Thought of Interwar Britain, in: British Journal of Politics and International Relations 1 (1999), pp. 270–292. Heinrich August Winkler, Germany. The Long Road West, Vol. 1: 1789–1933, trans. Alexander J. Sager, Oxford 2006, p. 414. Bernhard Dietz has emphasised the importance of an anti-modern and anti-democratic right-wing intellectual discourse among a small group of British conservatives in the inter-war period. He concludes, however, that such »neo-conservative« tendencies remained confined to an »elite circle«: »Anders als im Deutschen Reich blieb diese Denkrichtung allerdings auf einen elitären Zirkel beschränkt. Ein radikalisiertes Bürgertum, das tatsächlich Adressat der Neokonservativen hätte sein können, war in England nicht entstanden«. Bernhard dietz, Gab es eine »Konservative Revolution« in Großbritannien? Rechtsintellektuelle am Rande der Konservativen Partei 1929–1933, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 54 (2006), p. 637. staPleton, Resisting the Centre, p. 273. 180 John Carter Wood moderation, stability, the gradual extension of democratic rights and a commitment to constitutional procedures. There was some enthusiasm, on the right, for fascism and, on the left, for communism, but in Britain these antiliberal extremes remained politically marginal133. Even Spengler’s most committed »interpreters« in Britain – Gibbons and Goddard – re-cast his discussion of »Caesarism« in line with domestic sensibilities. »Disillusioned we may be with parliaments and assemblies«, they wrote, »but ›blood and iron‹ are poor substitutes and dollars even poorer«: »we must hope for rescue«, they concluded, »from a Lloyd George or Churchill on a larger and greater scale«134. IV. Conclusion In 1973, the Observer reported on a lecture series being given in Dublin by F. S. L. Lyons, Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, on »Prophets of Doom«, addressing, in turn, Oswald Spengler, H. G. Wells and Arnold Toynbee135. In his lecture on Decline of the West, Lyons noted that the book »refused to lie down« and had been »in and out of fashion« in the half century since its publication: »Spengler’s work had survived«, he observed, »in spite of the derision of the historians«. It should be clear that »derision« would be too strong a blanket term for inter-war reactions to Spengler. British reviewers – including historians – often found something of value in his approach, even if the criticisms Lyons made in 1973 were similar to those from the 1920s and 1930s: Spengler »did not know enough basic history«, »invented his own rules and he broke them whenever it suited him«, »failed to offer any convincing explanation of how cultures came into being«, »never adequately defined what a culture was« and »offered no proof that cultures were living organisms«. Still, inter-war British commentators felt compelled to come to terms with Spengler. First, he was seen to exemplify cultural, political and intellectual trends in Germany, and what Germans thought mattered not only because of their status as former enemies but also because their country seemed to embody what was both most hopeful and most dangerous about the 1920s and 1930s. Looking back from the perspective of 1933, Sir Alec Randall observed: »Germany was to become what Thomas Mann described in his 133 See, e.g., Andrew thorPe (ed.), The Failure of Political Extremism in Inter-War Britain, Exeter 1989. 134 goddard / gibbons, Civilisation or Civilisations, pp. 41, 178. 135 Observer, 31 October 1973, p. 10. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 181 ›Magic Mountain‹ – that indispensable key to [the] post-War German mentality – the ›seelischer Kampfplatz für europäische Gegensätze‹«136. Spengler was seen as a key player in that German cultural struggle. Second, Spengler had proposed a theory of historical development and civilisational decline that was both universal and spoke to contemporary anxieties in Britain (as elsewhere). However, as I have suggested, resistance to Spengler was driven two key factors. First, the British did not need his ideas, as there were many other »universal histories« and »prophecies of decline« that were available in what was (for Britons) a more engaging and less foreign intellectual language. Second, Spengler’s politics meant that Britons, outside a relatively small circle of intellectual admirers, did not want his ideas. Unlike initial reactions to Spengler in America – which Hans Weigert has characterised as »enthusiasm and horror« – British reactions were, on the whole, more muted, and we might label them »curiosity« and »scepticism«137. In Britain, Spengler became famous but never popular: his name was known by most, his works (or at least their titles) were cited by many but his analysis was advocated by very few. At the end of 1926, two Spectator reviewers, Alan Porter and C. E. M. Joad, named the first translated volume of Decline of the West as their choice for book of the year138. But even they fell short of whole-hearted admiration. Porter praised Spengler’s »gallant and grandiose attempt to understand the life-pulse of universal history, and to prophesy the future destiny of man«, though he noted that the book »is not easily approachable by the English mind«. Joad said: »With all its faults The Decline of the West is much the largest and the most original work on philosophy published during the last twelve months«. The writer of the weekly books column, however, disagreed, seeing Spengler as »a spider, weaving webs in a library of dusty volumes«. Interestingly, in a 1929 review of Decline’s second volume, Joad revised his earlier opinion: The process [of reading Spengler] is an exhilarating one, and the impressionable reader is apt to lose his head. I remember how the enthusiasm engendered by my own reading of the first volume of the Decline of the West found expression in an enraptured review in the Spectator which subsequent reflection condemned as extravagant 139. 136 TLS, 12 October 1933, p. 677. 137 Hans W. Weigert, Oswald Spengler. Twenty-five Years After, in: Foreign Affairs 21 (1942), p. 121. 138 Spectator, 18 December 1926, pp. 1116–1117. Joad, as noted above, also reviewed the second volume of Decline in a radio broadcast reprinted in the Listener, 27 February 1929, p. 250. 139 Spectator, 12 January 1929, p. 54. 182 John Carter Wood Joad now criticised Spengler for his »inaccuracy«, »inconsistency« and »selfcontradiction«. Ultimately, it may be that Spengler’s greatest impact in Britain came through his role in encouraging Toynbee to embark on his own project of historical philosophy, which – if now hardly influential – was in its time a resounding success. Still, the name Spengler and the concept of a »Decline of the West« seeped deeply into the Zeitgeist of inter-war Britain, showing up in a variety of press contexts. »Nothing would be more welcome than a refutation of Spengler’s determinism«, wrote the Daily Telegraph’s music critic Richard Capell in 1937, »but it has a formidably plausible look«. He vaticinates too well: it seems to simple souls uncomfortably impressive that, writing 20 or more years ago, he should so unambiguously have foretold the era of the dictators (only his vaticination has come true rather sooner than expected)140. »If any reader knows of a good refutation of the ›Untergang‹ «, Capell concluded, »will he please be so kind as to let me have a postcard«. Whether Capell received any such comforting response remains unrecorded. 140 Daily Telegraph, 6 February 1937, p. 9. »German foolishness« and the »prophet of doom« 183 Information about Spengler reception in Britain in the inter-war period 1. Translations of Spengler’s works into English (all translated by Major C. F. Atkinson) – Decline of the West, vol. 1: Form and Actuality (London: Allen and Unwin, 1926). – Decline of the West, vol. 2: Perspectives of World History (London: Allen and Unwin, 1928). – Man and Technics (London: Allen and Unwin, 1932). – The Hour of Decision (London: Allen and Unwin, 1934). 2. Spengler’s English translator Major C. F. (Charles Francis) Atkinson (1880–1960) translated into English both volumes of The Decline of the West (1926, 1928) as well as Man and Technics (1932) and The Hour of Decision (1934). He was an officer in the »Volunteer Force« (later renamed the »Territorial Force« and »Territorial Army«), a translator into English, from French and German, of many books (mostly military history) and Foreign and Oversees Director of the BBC. In the inter-war period, along with Spengler’s works, he translated Egon Friedell’s three-volume, A Cultural History of the Modern Age (1930– 1932) and Otto Rank’s Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development (1932)141. 3. Key »agents of transfer« in Spengler’s ideas in the British press (alphabetical order by surname) – H. A. L. Fisher: wrote reviews of Decline, vol. 1 and vol. 2, for the Observer in 1926 and 1929. A historian and author of the highly successful A History of Europe (1935). – E. H. Goddard and P.A. Gibbons: authors of Civilisation or Civilisations? An Essay on the Spenglerian Philosophy of History (London: Constable, 1926). 141 Sources: The Times, 14 October 1960, p. 17; Athenaeum, 9 November 1907, pp. 582–83; West- minster Review, January 1908, pp. 112–16; Saturday Review, 22 June 1912, pp. 783–84. British Library Integrated Catalogue. 184 John Carter Wood – C. E. M. Joad: recommended Decline as his »book of the year« in the Spectator in 1926; later, he more critically reviewed the second volume of Decline in the same magazine in 1929 and made a BBC radio broadcast (»Spengler – A Philosopher of World History«) which was also reprinted in the Listener in 1929. A popular philosopher, both in print and on the radio. – Sir Alec Randall: wrote several articles for the Times Literary Supplement across the inter-war period on Spengler’s works and ideas. Diplomat, author and frequent commentator at the TLS on German political, intellectual and cultural developments. – F. C. S. Schiller: wrote a generous if clearly sceptical foreword to Civilisation or Civilisations by Goddard and Gibbons. A German-born, Englisheducated professor of history. – Arnold J. Toynbee: Historian who was, in part, inspired by Spengler’s ideas in his own creation of a multi-volume world history A Study of History, published between 1934 and 1961. – Leonard Woolf: reviewed volume two of Decline of the West for the Nation and Athenaeum (which he edited) in 1929 and later reiterated his criticisms of Spengler in his book Quack, Quack (1935). Journalist, Fabian Socialist, husband of author Virginia Woolf and editor of the Nation and Athenaeum (1923–1930).