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This Certifies that Source Records of The Great War
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Legion, and certified in Volume 1 in this form 

National Com 

Official: 

National Adjutant 

BINDING 
Vol. I 

The binding design on this volume is an authorized facsimile 
of the original art binding on the official French copy of the Ver- 
sailles Peace Treaty, which was signed by President Poincare and 
Foreign Minister S. Pichon, and deposited in the Archives of the 
French Government 




Jims 

AHdr the ootaA paiatiag 
f by RiukiilfyHsimebe]^ 



SOURCE RECORDS 

OF 

THE GREAT WAR 



A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE SOURCE RECORD OF THE 
WORLD'S GREAT WAR, EMPHASIZING THE MORE IMPORTANT 
EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES 
IN THE ACTUAL WORDS OF THE CHIEF OFFICIALS AND MOST 
EMINENT LEADERS 



NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL NON-SECTARIAN 



PRESENTING DOCUMENTS FROM GOVERNMENT ARCHIVES AND 
OTHER AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES. WITH OUTUNE NARRATIVES. 
INDICES. CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING ON SOCIO- 
LOGICAL MOVEMENTS AND INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL ACTIVITIES 



EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

CHARLES F. HORNE, Pn.a 

DIRECTING EDITOR 

WALTER F. AUSTIN, LL.M. 

^ith a staff of specialists 

VOLUME I 



iSattonal ^Ittmni 



Copyright, 1923, National Altjmni 

Printed In U. S. A. 



Some have keen wits to know the truth ; 
Some have strong hearts to tell the truth ; 
But how few know to tell it so 
That all men see it is the truth. 

— Sir Thomas Browne. 



i- O O ± d 



TO THE READER 



These volumes are an earnest effort to give the reader, 
in practicdl form, such frank and full information as mill 
enable him to comprehend clearly this greatest of all wars. 
To follow the vdlumes most readily and pleasantly, to gather 
their knowedge most surely and simply, the reader is urged 
to approach them by the method here suggested. 

Turn first to the Outline Narrative which opens each 
volume. It gives the general picture of the period covered, 
sketching briefly each Great Event, and showing how each 
crisis led onward to the next. This series of seven Outline 
Narratives in the seven volumes thus constitutes in itself 
a complete story of the War. 

In addition to this, as each Great Event is described in 
the Outline Narratives, it is further emphasized by a foot- 
note directing the reader to its more extended treatment in 
the body of the volume. For each event upon which the 
reader wishes fidler knowledge, he shoidd next turn, as 
directed, to its specidl section. There he will find, first, a 
brief introduction giving the details of the event, pointing 
out its relation to other affairs, and explaining the real value 
and authoritative source of the articles which follow. 

These articles include government statements, individual 
narratives, or historic documents, covering both sides of 
each large issue. The articles have been carefidly selected 
from whatever atithorities seem, in each particidar case, to 
have best understood what really happened, and to have 
depicted it most vividly. They are the true "sources" from 
which future generations will build their knowledge of each 
event. Only, instead of leaving these "sources" for chance 
to confuse or to destroy, we are presenting them now, ac- 
companied by the living comment of their own day as to 
their weight and truthfulness. 

From these sections the reader can now and at once form 
his own accurate judgments about the War and its coining 

ix 



X 



TO THE READER 



consequences. For example, on the German Chancellor's 
noted phrase declaring the Belgian treaty merely a "scrap 
of paper," this first volume gives the Chance'llor's own ex- 
planation of what he said, and meant; it supplements this 
with the statement of tlie British Ambassador to whom 
the words were said, and the official comments of the rival 
governments. The volumes thus present a succession of 
dramatic antitheses, conflicts of statement as sharp and strik- 
ing as the armed clashes on the field. 

That every speaker may he given absolutely "fair play," 
we have even, as far as possible, liad the translation of 
foreign documents made by writers in sympathy with the 
originals, pro-Germans for the German texts, pro-Russians 
for the Russian, and so on. Moreover the translations have 
been carefully followed by our editors to make sure that 
the atmosphere of the original is preserved. 

As to tlie originals themselves, they are of course often 
violently one-sided. Hence tJte reader is urged, in weighing 
them, to accept the help of our explanatory introductions, 
and also of our footnotes. The latter give warning against 
any statements which the world can now positively declare 
to be mistaken — or worse. Thus forewarned, one may read 
the words of truth's worst enemies, may know the wiles of 
every foe, yet he misled by none of them. 

In some such fashion, surely, will all histories he one day 
written. Only from such will later generations consent to 
read. So shall clear-headed men of the Future look hack 
upon our Present with keener vision, and gather rich wisdom 
from the blunders of the Past. 

For the scholar who seeks rather to consult our work for 
occasional reference, or to read fully upon some one nation 
or topic, we Irnve given to the series a most thorough index. 
In the final volume will be found not only a complete General 
Index but also, as supplement to it, a Subject Index point- 
ing out every mention of the more important themes. The 
reader is guided to outside books by a bibliography. 

The editors ardently hope that the value of their work 
may prove equdl to the earnestness of their effort. They 
have tried to serve you well. 

The Editors. 



CONTENTS 



VOLUME I— How THE Great War Arose 

PAGB 

An Outline Narrative of the Causes of the War . xvii 

CHARLES F. HORNE 

I The Opposing Forces 

Autocracy and Democracy ..... I 

HENRI BERGSON, President of the French Academy of Sciences, 
the world's foremost philosopher. 

OTFRIED NIPPOLD, German pacifist leader and authority on Inter- 
national Law, Professor in Berne University. 

KARL LAMPRECHT, Chief Court Historian of the German Empire, 
Professor in Leipsic University. 



II The Kultur of Germany 

Worship of the Superman, as Taught by Nietzsche . 21 

WILLIAM ELKIN, Professor of Philosophy in Indiana University. 
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Germany's renowned philosopher. 
HENRIQUE DE MENDONCA, of the Portuguese Academy of 
Sciences. 



III The Culture of Democracy 

Humanity's Long Struggle Toward Equal Rights . 53 

ROBERT McELROY, U. S. Government Representative for Teachin? 

the Causes of the War, Professor in Princeton University. 
THEODORE RUVTSSEN, President of the French Peace Society, 

Professor of Philosophy at Bordeaux University. 

IV Germany's Economic Organization 

The Prosperity that Urged Central Europe Toward 

Expansion and War ..... 65 

HENRI HAUSER, of the Institute ot France, the standard authority 
' on economics. 

FRIEDRICH NAUMANN, of the German Reichstag, the foremost 
economic writer of Germany. 

xi 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGB 

V Germany's Dream of World Empire 

The Worship of the War God Thor, as Taught by 

Treitschke ...... 89 

PRINCE VON BULOW, Former Chancellor of Germany. 
MAXIMILIEN HARDEN. German publicist and fiery patriot. 
DR. RICHARD GRELLING. Author of "I Accuse," the first great 
German book blaming Germ.any for the war. 

VI The Poisons Brewed by Militarism 

What Military Methods Did in Germany . . 121 

GENERAL BERNHARDI, Germany's chief military writer. 
EUGENE ETIENNE, Former French Minister of War. 
CHARLES ALTSCHUL, a patriotic American of German ancestry. 
FREDERICK WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN, Former Crown 
Prince of Germany. 

VII Woe to the Conquered! 

Subject Foreign Nations within the German Empire 144 

ERNEST BARKER, Standard English Historian, of Oxford Univer- 
sity. 

VIII Alsace-Lorraine 

Why France and Germany Continued Irreconcilable 156 

CHARLES D. HAZEN, Professor of History in Columbia Univer- 
sity, foremost American authority on European history. 
OFFICIAL PROTEST OF ALSACE. 

HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE. Germany's chief advocate of 
conquest. 

WILLIAM DAVIS, Professor in Minnesota University, author of 
the most used college text-book on the war. 

IX Austria Finds Danger in the Balkans 

The Growth of National Spirit Among the Serbs . 176 

CONSTANTIN DUMBA, Former Austrian Ambassador to the 
United States. 

G. M. TREVELYAN, British publicist in Serbia, afterward Red 
Cross director in Italy. 



X The Bagdad Railway and the Lordship of the East 
The First Clash between British and German Im- 
perialism . . . . . -193 

MORRIS JASTROW, JR., Head of Babylonian Explorations of 
Pennsylvania University, the noted American scholar. 

J. HOLLAND ROSE, of Cambridge University, the renowned 
British historian. 



CONTENTS 



xiit 



PAGE 

XI The Freedom of the Seas 

The Mad Race for Naval Supremacy . . . 204 

G. GILBERT MURRAY, Distinguished British scholar and Oxford 

University professor. 
ARTHUR BALFOUR, Former Conservative Prime Minister of 

Britain, head of the navy in 1914. 
KARL KAUTSKY, Socialist leader in Germany. 
GERHARD VON SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, Rector of Frerbnrg 

University and official German representative. 

XII Germany Reaches the Breaking Pohit {191 4) 

The Burdens Which Made War a Necessity . 228 

DAVID STARR JORDAN, Chancellor of Leland Stanford Univer- 
sity, Cal. 

GENERAL BERNHARDI, Germany's chief military writer. 
JULES CAMBON, French Ambassador to Germany in 1914. 
FRENCH SECRET DIPLOMATIC REPORTS. 

XIII The Assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince 

{June 28, 1 91 4) 
Whose Victim and Whose Opportunity? . . 245 

AUSTRIAN OFFICIAL MAGISTRATE'S REPORT. 
CRAWFURD PRICE, British Publicist in Serbia. 
SIGMUND MUNZ, Austrian diplomat. 

XIV The Kaiser's Decisive Step {July 5, 1914) 

The Hohenzollerns Plan to Divide the World Among 

Their Followers ..... 259 

HENRY MORGENTHAU, U. S. Ambassador to Turkey in 1914. 
WILLIAM MUHLON, Director of Krupp's Munition Worka. 
AUGUST THYSSEN, the German "Steel King." 
AUSTRIAN OFFICIAL RECORD. 

XV The First Ultimatum {July 23, 191 4) 

Austria's Impossible Demand to Serbia . . 285 

COUNT BERCHTOLD, Austria-Hungary's Prime Minister In 1914. 
SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN, British Ambassador in Vienna In 
1914. 

PRINCE ALEXANDER, Regent of Serbia in 1914. 

XVI Breakdown of the Ancient Diplomacy {July 23-28, 
1914) 

Europe, Waking from Its " Fools' Paradise," Faces 

the Spectre of World War . . . 296 

BARON BEYENS, Belgian Minister at Berlin in 1914. 
SIR EDWARD GREY, British Foreign Secretary in 1914. 
PRINCE LICHNOWSKY, German Ambassador to Britain in 1914. 
BARON TSCHIRSCHKY and KAISER WILLIAM II. 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XVII Austria Opens the War (July 28, 1914) 

Serbia Becomes the Champion and Martyr for 

Nationality ..... 323 

AUSTRIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR. 
COUNT ALBERT APPONYI, Former Leader of the Hungarian 

Parliament. 

LAZARE MARCOVITCH, Serbian statesman, Professor In the 
University of Belgrade. 



XVIII The Second Ultimatum {July 31, 191 4) 

Germany Declares War Against Russia {Aug. i) 338 

GERMAN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT STATEMENT. 

BRITISH OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT STATEMENT. 
COUNT VON REVENTLOW.Leading writer of the Pan-Germans. 
MAXIMILIEN HARDEN, German radical leader. 
ALEX MARKOFF, Russian author and scholar. 



XIX France Accepts the Struggle to the Death {Aug. j, 
1914) 

The Climax of Forty Years of Fear . . . 368 

RAYMOND POINCARE, President of France. 
R^NE VIVIANI, Prime Minister of France in 1914. 
BARON SCHOEN, German Ambassador to France in 1914. 



XX Belgium Resists for Honor's Sake {Aug. j, 1914) 
German Materialism Meets the Imponderable 

Forces of the Spirit .... 383 

ULTIMATUM OF THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT. 

OFFICIAL BELGIAN REPLY. 
COMMANDER DE GERLACHE DE GOMERY. Belgian soldier 

and statesman. 
KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM. 

XXI Britain Enters the War {Aug. 4, 1914) 

The " Scrap of Paper" and the "Hymn of Hate" 396 

HERBERT ASQUITH, Prime Minister of Britain in 1914. 
SIR EDWARD GOSCHEN, British Ambassador at Beriin in 1914. 
VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, Chancellor of Germany in 1914. 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, Prime Minister of Britain in 1918. 
DR. ERNEST LISSAUER, Author of the "Hymn of Hate." 



/ 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



VOLUME I 



The Lure of Pan-Germanism 

After the Painting by Rudolf Henneberg. 

Christendom after Twenty Centuries 

Dutch Painting by Louis Raemaekers. 

The Stars ..... 

German Cartoon by Theodore Heine. 

Unconquerable ..... 

British Cartoon by Bernard Partridge. 

The Fields of Flanders 

Canadian Painting by J. A. Shepperson. 

The Spirit of Pan-Slavism . 

Russian Cartoon by Leon Bakst. 

Cursed by his Ancestors 

Spanish Cartoon by Robida. 

What Belgium Faced .... 

Belgian Sketch by Jean Domergue. 

A Better Vie 

British Cartoon by Bruce Bairnsfather. 



XV 



VOLUME I 
HOW THE GREAT WAR AROSE 

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 

BY CHARLES F. HORNE 

NEITHER you nor I nor any man has the right to-day to 
express doubt as to the true origin of the Great War. 
Such doubt may once have indicated keen and cautious 
thought. To-day it indicates either idle ignorance or ob- 
stinate falsity. If you do not know the facts, which are open 
for all the world to know, read them here. 

The Great War could no more have been avoided than an 
earthquake or any other cataclysm of Nature's unknown 
forces. On the one side loomed the German character of 
strength and patience, of selfish caution in adversity, and vain 
and reckless arrogance in power. On the other, glowed the 
sunlight of democratic civilization, which encourages all 
peoples to aspire toward equality, and to prefer death to 
slavery. Given these opposing forces, and their clash was 
inevitable. The marvel now is only that we were all so 
slow to see the ominous approach of the disaster. 

To say that a war arises from this or that individual event 
is folly. Such empty phrases were part of the old blind state- 
craft which we have outgrown. War springs from human 
nature. In the old, old days of kings, it may have sprung at 
times from some such petty growth of human nature as the 
ambition or ill-temper of a single monarch; but in this 
broader age, only some broader passion widespread among 
many men, such as that eagerness for supremacy toward 
which the German mind continued developing during two 
hundred years, only some such race-wide trait of nature 
can produce a war.^ 

' See § I, "The Opposing Forces," by Bergson, Lamprecht, etc. 

xvii 



xviii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



"The war that shall end all war !" Has the human race 
really passed through that stupendous final experience of the 
great tragedy, the terror and the splendor and despair of 
destruction and devotion? We may all hope so, but mere 
hope will do little to change the future. Until the great 
majority of mankind have been educated into the true Democ- 
racy, until each one has grown to say in his heart, 'T want 
the same rights and opportunities as my neighbor, and no 
more" until that altruistic day arrives, strong and selfish men 
will still somewhere continue banding together in ever broader 
and craftier conspiracies to snatch the pleasant richness of 
life from those who seem too feeble or too ignorant to re- 
sist.^ 

The Great War sprang directly from such a conspiracy. 
Can we so educate the masses of our brothers that never 
again will any large portion of them be lured to be the ser- 
vants and victims of another war-plot? At least we can 
make the effort by spreading to every corner of the earth 
some definite understanding of the meaning and the causes 
of the Great War. A later section of these volumes will 
speak of all the War's dreadful costs and agonies, and also 
of its heroes and their glorious service. Here we look only 
for its source. 

THE SERAJEVO TRAGEDY 

The Great War, then, began nominally because on June 
28, 1914, an Austrian lordling bearing the stately title of 
Crown Prince, was slain at Serajevo, the chief city of Bos- 
nia, a Slavic province held in subjection by Austria. The 
prince was shot by one of his own Slavic subjects, a young 
student named Princip, a mere boy of eighteen. A world 
war because a boy's hand on a revolver had held steady 
to its purpose, wherein older men had failed more than 
once before? Obviously not! The death of the Austrian 
prince was only seized as a fitting opportunity for starting 
projects which crafty conspirators, who called themselves 
diplomats, had been preparing and perfecting during many 
years. 

^ See § III, "The Culture of Democracy," by McElroy and Ruysse* 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



The world does not even know — and as yovmg Princip 
is since dead in prison we presumably never shall know — 
what really drove him to his sudden desperate deed. As 
for what the Austrian government afterward announced 
concerning his aims and course, there is not the slightest rea- 
son for accepting any word of it. Immediately on his arrest, 
Princip was turned over to police authorities of well estab- 
lished dishonesty and dishonor and was by them tried se- 
cretly. Austria might have made his trial open so that all 
the world could know the truth ; or she might at least have 
entrusted it to Austrian judges of international repute whose 
word would have carried weight. She did neither. She left 
the investigation in the hands of an Under-Secretary of State 
already convicted of having forged documents for similar 
state trials and of seeking thus foully to destroy the gov- 
ernment's leading Slavic subjects who were its political 
opponents. Under this criminal and utterly untrustworthy 
control, the Serajevo court took almost a month to de- 
liberate, and then announced that its secret trial had estab- 
lished that Princip's attack was directed by Serbian gov- 
ernment officials, inspired by the Serbian government. In 
all the international negotiations that followed, both Austria 
and Germany proved their own essential dishonesty by 
haughtily assuming that Serbia's guilt was neither to be 
questioned nor further investigated; it must be accepted 
as established on the mere word of these corrupt investi- 
gators in this travesty on justice.^ 

Our real knowledge of the affair, therefore, is limited to 
the fact that on that tragic day at Serajevo there were two 
attempts upon the life of the Crown Prince. The first was 
made in the morning by a man who had been a spy in the 
employ of the Austrian police ; it failed. The second, made 
in the afternoon by the frenzied Bosnian student, succeeded. 
The Austrian judges grouped these two assaults together as 
a single plot. More probably they were separate. The first 
looks like a calculated deed, one instigated by the Austrian 
or German antagonists of the prince, and carried out by a 
hired assassin who thought mainly of his own safety — and 

* See § XIII, "Assassination of the Crown Prince," Magistrates' Re- 
port, etc. 



XX AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 

so bungled the attack. The second seems individual, the 
desperate recklessness of a young Slav maddened by the 
weight of all the oppression laid upon him and upon his 
race. 

Viewed in this way, the two deeds lead us to an examina- 
tion of their differing sources. The one opens the German 
causes of the War; the other the Austrian. Austria wanted 
war that she might fix more firmly her dubious power over 
the Slavic people around her, that she might rule them with 
more profit and more safety. The German leaders wanted 
war that they might dominate the world. Germany, the 
shrewder, stronger conspirator, needing aid in her vast plans, 
dragged her feeble partner into a war far more tremendous 
than Austria had ever dreamed of rousing. To accomplish 
this, Germany encouraged Austria — ^who scarcely needed 
urging — to make the death of the Crown Prince a pretext 
for what Austria hoped would be a brief and successful war 
against two or three unready and half-hearted foes. 

The proofs that this was the real origin of the Great War 
lie all around us. To see the whole upheaval clearly, how- 
ever, and with broader vision, we must look beyond these 
immediate impulses, to examine the older, broader, race-wide 
causes which had lured Austrian arrogance and stupidity 
into this snare, and which had created in Germany the yet 
higher arrogance and perhaps equal though less obvious 
blindness that tempted her to grasp at world dominion.^ 

AUSTRIAN SOURCES OF THE WAR 

Let us take Austria first. For her, the Great War was 
born of the Dark Ages, a thousand years ago. Then she was 
the 0 ester eich or East kingdom, the frontier region of the 
old Teutonic empire. Her dukes were the frontier guards 
of western civilization, defending it valiantly against horde 
after horde of the wild Huns and Slavs who surged west- 
ward against the sturdy Oestereich barrier. In those days 
the duty of every Austrian stood out clear and strong, to 
fight these barbarians to the death in protecting his own 
home. So important indeed was the defense of the Oeste- 
' See § V, "Germany's Dream of Empire," Von Biilow, Harden, etc 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



xxi 



reich that by degrees its dukes, the Hapsburg family, became 
the most powerful among the Teuton lords, and then em- 
perors of all that was left of the old Teutonic empire. "Aus- 
tria over all" was the proud Hapsburg motto in those days; 
and the Hapsburg "Archdukes" gave little heed to the 
younger upstart family of Hohenzollern dukes who were one 
day to change that motto somewhat sharply. 

The one unfortunate side to the Austrians' heroic defense 
of civilization was that their idea that they must fight all 
eastern peoples, that Slavs were meant to be slaves, became 
so fixed in the minds of Austrians that they could neither 
forget this nor learn anything else. But in the course of 
centuries the Slavs and Hungarians settled down and in some 
sections, such as Bohemia, became as civilized as the Aus- 
trians themselves. A new barbaric race from further east, 
the Turks, became the menace of the frontier, and Slavs 
and Hungarians were in their turn its defenders. But Aus- 
tria did not change. The Hapsburg family had acquired 
a fixed creed which taught their own "Divine Right," taught 
them that they were appointed by God to rule over just as 
many lands and peoples as they could clutch. Their Aus- 
trian subjects found equal profit in this faith, and trampled 
savagely upon any of the subject races, Slavs, Hungarians 
or Italians, who dared resist it. 

When the French Revolution opened for Europe the great 
new "People's Era" of equal rights, the ancient Austrian 
power was first broken by Napoleon, that strangely confusing 
and unwitting champion of Democracy. Then followed a 
bright century of Democracy's triumphs over this oldest and 
most reactionary of modern autocracies. In 1848 the Hun- 
garians fought Austria to exhaustion, and ultimately won 
equal rights within her empire. In 1859 the Italians fought 
her, and most of them escaped her thrall. In 1866 Prussia 
wrenched from her the lordship over Germany. After that, 
of all Austria's subject races, only the Slavs and a few kin- 
dred folk remained helpless in her grip. 

Yet despite all these disasters, the immovable Hapsburgs, 
incapable as ever of either learning or forgetting, continued 
on their ancient course. To them the ideal world would have 



X3di AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 

been one that never moved, that rested unchanged forever 
under their universal rule, a world wherein the good were 
rewarded by being allowed to hold a Hapsburg's horse, or 
serve at his meals, or even perchance to visit in the royal 
bed-chamber. As for the wicked — that is, the unsubmissive 
— ^they were to be punished by open war, or judicial murder 
in the courts, or secret assassination. Indeed, there is much 
of that grimmest humor which is said to rouse the laughter 
of the gods, in the spectacle of a Hapsburg objecting to 
assassination — ^and even in his holy horror of it summoning 
the world to war. Only as a weapon in the hands of their 
enemies have the Hapsburgs ever protested against murder. 

By the beginning of this twentieth century, affairs were 
going badly in this medieval Austrian court. Democracy 
had roused from slumber even the patient and submissive 
Slavs. The Slavic folk of Serbia had become independent, 
self-governing, vigorous and happy in their freedom, and 
they encouraged the Austrian Slavs to seek a similar release. 
The great Slavic state of Russia was also feeling her "blood 
brotherhood" with these Austrian subjects. Even the Haps- 
burgs saw that the old autocratic despotism was no longer- 
practical.^ Or at least one Hapsburg saw it; that was the 
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the victim of Serajevo. He had 
already advocated, not giving the Slavs their freedom, that 
would have been too wholly Democratic, it would have been 
admitting that a Slav had as much right in the universe as a 
Hapsburg prince — but the Archduke had suggested giving 
the Slavs equal political rights with the Austrians and Hun- 
garians, and making a threefold instead of a dual empire. 

Against a man so radical as this, and one who must very 
soon succeed to the throne of the aged Austrian emperor, 
there was bitter opposition among the Austrian aristocracy 
and among their Teutonic relatives across the German bor- 
der. This may well have been the cause of the first Serajevo 
assault upon him. But whatever the ultimate plans of Franz 
Ferdinand, he had not yet relieved the subject Slavs from 
any of the thousand forms of oppression which made them 

' See § IX, "Austria's Danger in the Balkans," by Ambassador 
Dumba, etc. 



THE CAUSES OE THE WAR 



xxiii 



hate the whole Austrian race. The frenzied lad Princip was 
but the voice of a million of his fellows. They saw no way 
to freedom from the Hapsburgs except by using the Haps- 
burg method of force and fraud and secrecy. Franz Eerdi- 
nand, who sought to be the mediator between these hostile 
forces, was antagonized by both, was caught between the 
millstones.^ 

In opposition to him, the entire Hapsburg family had 
decided on employing once more the long tried methods of 
despotism to suppress the Slavic dream. Serbia, the home 
of the independent Balkan Slavs, was to be crushed out of 
existence. All the "Southern Slavs" were to be made Aus- 
trian subjects. Russia, the great eastern Slavic state, was 
to be tricked or frightened into abandoning them, or if she 
refused to yield was to be destroyed by Germany. 

The righteousness of letting loose massacre and destruc- 
tion on such a scale, troubled the Hapsburg councils not at 
all. Was it not to be done for the noblest of all purposes, 
the extension of the Hapsburg rule! But the feasibility of 
their purpose was less clear. Twice at least within the half 
dozen years immediately before 1914, Austria tried to in- 
duce her allies, Germany and Italy, to support her savage 
plan. Occasion for a war on Serbia could always be manu- 
factured. But Italy refused the proposal flatly; and Ger- 
many held back. 

In 1914 Germany's attitude changed. She was ready 
for war at last, ready to the last detail. So, when once 
more Austria urged on her the Serbian assault, with its 
included defiance of unready Russia, the answer was no 
longer "Wait !" but "Strike !" Poor, foolish, purblind Haps- 
burgs who could not see that they were being used as the 
catspaw in plans as broad and shrewd and fully up to date 
as their own were narrow and obstinate and medievally im- 
possible ! 

So the fatal word for war sped from Berlin to Vienna 
early in July and the death of the unhappy anachronism 
Franz Ferdinand, a Hapsburg who had caught some half- 
glimmering of modem thought, was taken out of the dust- 
bin of forgotten tragedies and suddenly staged as a hideous 

^ See § XIV. "Whose Victim and Vv^hose Opportunity," Miinz, etc. 



xxiv AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



Serbian plot. This cold, stern duke whose plans of media- 
tion had made him most heartily disliked and watchfully 
distrusted by his whole Hapsburg circle, was now proclaimed 
its gallant martyr and pathetic hero. In the first days after 
Serajevo the aged Emperor Franz Josef had said publicly 
that the murder must not be used to incite racial antagonisms, 
must not be treated as a national event but as a personal 
Hapsburg sorrow. Now, no words of execration and incite- 
ment could be found too strong against the whole Serbian 
race. Austrian public resentment was to be fully roused. 
Western Europe was to be horrified by the outrage and pre- 
vented from coming to Serbia's aid. 

GERMAN SOURCES OF THE WAR 

Turn now to the German purpose in the War, a project 
so much vaster, so much deeper of origin and broader of 
meaning, that it seems scarce to belong in the same universe 
with the Austrian futile obstinacy. The one was the last 
relic of an outworn medieval system of despotism which 
could not possibly have lasted many generations longer. The 
other was a new and vigorous outgrowth from despotism, 
an autocracy revised, modernized, made practical and terri- 
ble almost beyond belief. Moreover, this German autocracy 
had gradually built up such a system of militarism as no 
earlier tyrant had conceived, a foul and hideous Minotaur — 
a Minotaur no longer a mere fantasy of ancient legend but 
an actual living horror, a monster devouring all the virtue 
and all the young manhood of its own land.^ 

To understand the German autocracy and this monster 
it had created, we need not go back to very ancient days, but 
only to that King Frederick II. of Prussia commonly called 
"the Great." He closed his long and triumphant reign in 
1786, just before the French Revolution struck the first great 
blow against the ancient regime of kingship by divine au- 
thority — of which Frederick was perhaps the most grotesque 
illustration. We often say, and justly, of some great man 
that he lived a centuiy ahead of his times, because though 
we find him at odds with the common thought of his day, 

* See § VI, "Militarism," by Bernhardi, Prince Frederick, etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xxv 



later generations accept his doctrines and learn to treasure 
his every word. In that sense, Frederick II. surely deserved 
his otherwise dubious title of "the Great" ; for we might al- 
most call the Germany of 19 14 the mirror of his mind. It 
quoted his maxims constantly, worshiped his deeds devoutly, 
and studied his military campaigns as models of perfection. 

This chief national hero of Prussia had plunged his peo- 
ple into war solely because he possessed a larger, better- 
trained army than his neighbors and had found his soldiers 
too expensive to support in peace. Battle was to him an 
exact matter of business, though in his earlier days he was 
much impelled also by vanity and the desire for "glory." The 
cost of his campaigns in human life and human misery scarce 
touched him, so long as it was to be paid by other folk. His 
callousness and craft were not, however, the traits that made 
him great; in these he differed little from many another 
despot both before and since. There is, for example, no such 
wholesale murder to be charged against Frederick as the 
ravaging of the Rhine lands by Louis XIV. of France, half 
a century before. The soldiers of Louis by his orders laid 
these populous lands utterly waste, slaying or driving out 
all the inhabitants, so that the land should lie as a desert be- 
tween him and his German foes. No, we can by no means 
rank Frederick first among the wholesale butchers of human 
kind. His claim to an evil preeminence is intellectual. 

Frederick was absolutely indifferent to the mighty spirit- 
ual forces sometimes called the "Imponderables," self-sacri- 
fice, equal justice, and eternal verity. He denied their ex- 
istence ; he challenged them to prove themselves against him. 
He saw exactly his own selfish motives of action, and he 
stated them with dogmatic frankness. There was for him 
none of that hiding behind veils of stately words and muddled 
thought wherewith other despots, like the Hapsburgs and 
later Hohenzollerns, have obscured their own intellects and 
salved their consciences. "Necessities of State," "Inherited 
obligations," "Evil done that good may come," "The uphold- 
ing of a coronation oath to extend the realm" ! All of these 
ancient shibboleths with which weak tyrants have hidden 
from themselves the horrors of their savagery, Frederick 



xxvi AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



tossed aside. He had reached that scientific clearness of 
vision which has become the idol of our own age, wherein 
every thinker strives to dissociate himself from all inherited 
prejudice and to examine facts exactly as they are. 

Therein lay Frederick's greatness. His range of vision 
was of the very smallest and meanest. He denied religion 
and denied morality; that is, he believed neither in human 
virtue nor in superhuman guidance, recognized the value of 
nothing but strength, wit, and earthly beauty. But such 
as his vision was, he had the courage to abide by it. Amid 
a whole world of pose and pretense, he was so cynically frank 
that his foes never quite believed him. His truth proved 
a deeper mask than falsehood. 

Few Prussians of Frederick's day were so clear-minded 
as their master ; but they gloried in his success. As for later 
generations, the more the Prussian aristocrats grasped the 
teaching of his strong, hard character, the more they wor- 
shiped him. His doctrines were so logical, so consistent, 
so satisfying to those who lived in wealth and high position, 
that many grew to be like him — in all but his frankness of 
self-revelation. Thus the soil was fully ready for the fierce 
pagan doctrine of Nietzsche, widely adopted by the German 
aristocracy about 1890. Nietzsche and the modern German 
"Kultur" could have taught nothing to Frederick the Great 
except some semi-scientific jargon of words for his ideas. 

Meanwhile side by side with the hard materialism of 
Frederick, there were being molded amid the masses of 
Germans other character elements of a different kind. For 
centuries Germany had been divided into hundreds of little 
semi-independent states, seldom united in actions either of 
peace or war. In consequence, the land had been repeatedly 
ravaged by victorious foreign armies ; the people had learned 
their helplessness, and had learned, alas, to cringe and bend 
before the storm. Then under Prussian leadership, quite 
suddenly after 1866, they became strong in a military sense, 
the strongest nation in the world. Had such strength come 
to them slowly, with the training in pity and in kindly toler- 
ance that should go with strength, the German people might 

* See § II, "The Kultur of Germany," by Elkin, Nietzsche, etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xxvii 



have grown worthy of their high position. But alas, power 
had come too swiftly to allow of that gradual development 
of racial character which requires many generations. The 
Germans had not forgotten how to cringe. 

Now, the man who will not stand up for his own human 
rights in defiance of superior force, cannot understand and 
will not anticipate such an attitude in others. The coward 
knows no law save that of brute force. Give him the upper 
hand and he will surely use it like a brute. There was no 
more illuminating incident through the whole war than the 
reproachful meeting between the Belgian and German so- 
cialists in 191 5. Why, demanded the Belgians, did you not 
prevent your government from attacking us? But, pro- 
tested the Germans, if we had interfered we would have 
been shot! And then they asked in rebuttal, But why did 
you resist our soldiers? "We had to," said the Belgians, "in 
defense of our independence and honor." "That," said the 
Germans, "is simply not sense." The whole essence of the 
Great War lies in that brief dialogue. Germany really be- 
lieved that every man of sense, every human being not ac- 
tually insane, would and should cling to the bare husk of 
living, at any sacrifice of principle. Hence the Germans, 
having acquired the power to take away life from the other 
nations, expected the nations to worship their strength, as 
Germans had once worshiped it in others. When mankind 
refused to bow before them, they felt that mankind was not 
"playing the game," their game; and they went to war to 
make us do it. 

The Teutons of the past had been truly a great race, great 
in brute strength even in the far off Roman days, great also 
in their patience, their earnestness and their cleanliness. But 
when, because of centuries of misery, they extended their 
patience into passivity and their endurance into suhmissive- 
ness, they lost their birthright. A person who merely fol- 
lows orders, who obeys passively, submissively, loses his 
power to think. He ceases to be a reasoning creature. His 
life is guided not by intelligence but by blind emotion. That 
is what happened to the mass of the Germans. Their new 
government had given them union and the world power in 



xxviii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



which they so delighted. Hence they were ready to follow 
that government anywhere, believe anything it told them. 
And it deceived them to the height of their folly. 

The world has never before seen such astounding exam- 
ples of mass-hypnosis, the instant uprising on command of 
a fervid and genuine emotion in an entire people. The Ger- 
man government had only to give its order, "Hate the Bel- 
gians, they have wickedly tortured our holy and pure-hearted 
soldiers !" "Hate the Russians, they have wantonly attacked 
our gentle peace-loving people!" "Hate the Britons, they 
have suddenly snared our straightforward government in a 
trap long prepared!" and the German people swung to the 
new emotion with the smoothness of a pendulum and the 
regularity of a military platoon.^ Intellectually of course 
they knew that their soldiers were not holy and pure hearted, 
that they themselves were not gentle and peace-loving, that 
their government was not straightforward. But the intellect 
of the mass of Germans had long ceased to function. Its 
last remnants had been submerged in the passion of self- 
worship, ecstatic worship of their power as world-rulers. The 
German of 1914, in the few moments when he sank to cold 
thought, was still a cringing, logically calculating, life-clutch- 
ing creature ; but in his hours of excitement he became again 
the ferocious barbarian of ancient ages, often recklessly 
heroic and wholly unintelligent. 

Now, consider this huge, unreasoning child of the world, 
with his strength and vanity, his cringing and cruelty, his 
intellectual submissiveness and emotional hysteria, this 
monstrous yet splendid beast which the blunders and oppres- 
sions of Europe had created. Consider that he was ruled by 
an ambitious, military aristocracy of Prussian junkers and 
Rhineland financiers,^ shrewd soulless materialists bred up 
by Frederick the Great and the mad philosopher Nietzsche. 
Under such leaders was not the beast's sometime rush of 
destruction a thing inevitable? If it had not been already 
so, the one other necessary element was the German lack 
of humor. 

* See Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate," page 403. 

' See § XIV, "The Kaiser's Decisive Step," by Thyssen, etc. 



X 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xxix 

Perhaps the importance of this final factor in the disas- 
ter has not been fully recognized. The lack of an eye for in- 
congruities and a pleasure in them will not, let us hope, be 
among the failings of future "great peoples." Tell an Ameri- 
can that he is a fine individual specimen of the finest race 
of the world, and he will laugh with you good-naturedly. 
Tell the same to an Englishman, and he may at heart think 
you are right, but outwardly he knows you are "spoofing" 
him. Tell it even to an Arab or a Turk, and his eyes close 
with suspicion of so crude a snare. Tell it to a German, and 
he will swell with satisfaction, and begin angry question as 
to why you have delayed your salaam so long. The Germans 
for a generation before 1914 had been bowing in ecstatic 
admiration before themselves. Treitschke, the great Berlin 
lecturer, started them on this course as early as 1878, and 
th^ proved eager pupils. One marvels in reading through 
their pre-War literature at the universal easy assump- 
tion of Germany's right to world rule. The only trouble 
from the German viewpoint was that the other, lesser races 
of mankind were so stupidly slow in joining the delightful 
chorus. 

Energy in authority, obedience in submission, these com- 
bining with patient toil in every rank, built up in Germany 
an effectiveness of organization such as the world had never 
before known. It was a new form of cooperation, dependent 
on the subordination, more or less willing, of the individual 
to the good of the community — as interpreted by the aris- 
tocracy. The German really believed that he had evolved 
a higher order of society, and that it was his mission to 
enforce his culture on the outside world of selfish individual- 
ism.^ 

When once we have recognized the Great War as being 
based thus upon the German character too hastily developed 
since 1866, we shall question less anxiously the extent of 
influence of any particular incident in leading toward the 
explosion. A volcano must erupt somewhere, and there is 

*See § IV, "Germany's Economic Organization," by Hauser and 
Naumann. 



XXX AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



small use in clapping a lid over some one of its more obvious 
ventholes and then sitting firmly on that special lid. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OTHER NATIONS 

On the other hand, no one would represent as persecuted 
angels the nations which opposed Germany in the War, Per- 
haps the only European government which will ultimately 
be adjudged wholly guiltless of contributing to the antago- 
nisms of 1914 will be poor martyred Belgium. In the East, 
Russia, while she had no insuperable quarrel with Ger- 
many, had often deliberately made trouble for Austria. The 
Austrian subject Slavs were encouraged in resistance by se- 
cret Russian agents ; and though Russia may have acted in 
this partly because she loved the Slavs, yet many of her 
military chiefs were eager for a war in which to prove 
their power. In Turkey, the whole brutish misrule was un- 
speakable. In each of the Balkan states there was constant 
selfish scheming to extend boundaries at the expense of one 
another, constant intrigue, Russian, German, Austrian and 
Italian, and constant warfare. 

As for Serbia, against which the Great War nominally 
began, and which was to suffer worst of all Europe from 
its devastation, Serbia could not possibly have wanted war 
in 1914, she was too wholly exhausted by her recent and re- 
peated fighting. Presumably, therefore, she had no direct 
part in either of the Serajevo assaults. Yet Serbia had 
for years and years encouraged the spirit of revolt among 
the Austrian Slavs, her brothers; and in this she had not 
always confined herself to methods strictly polite and legal. 
When a huge and wholly inconsiderate neighbor persists 
in trampling upon you with hobnailed boots, it is not easy 
to restrict your resistance to legal methods or the formal 
punctilio of the duel. Moreover, Serbian propaganda could 
not have roused the Austrian Slavs to revolt had they not 
been already embittered by such genuine cause for discon- 
tent as made war seem better to them than peace. In the 
essence of her Austrian quarrel, Serbia was right and would 
always be so, as long as a single Serbian peasant was held 
in unwilling subjection by the Hapsburg autocrats.^ 

* See § IX, "National Spirit Among the Serbs," by Trevelyart ett. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xxxi 



So also in the West. It was Frenchmen's own arrogance 
and recklessness which had enabled Prussia to entrap them 
into the disastrous war of 1870. Afterward, it was their 
own constant talking of "Revenge" — a revenge which most 
of them had long abandoned except as an emotional phrase 
— that made Germany eternally suspicious of them. This 
was at least in part what led the German people to bow 
their necks so meekly beneath the heavy yoke of Prussian 
militarism.^ 

As for Britain, her "imperialism" made Germans envi- 
ous. Britain's mastery of the seas caused Germany, believ- 
ing only in force, to fear that her sea-trade might any day 
be stripped from her. Britain's treatment of Ireland led 
Germany to justify her own tyranny over subject peoples. 
And lastly Britain's blocking of Germany's colonial expan- 
sion in Africa and commercial aggrandizement in the Orient, 
made Germany sullenly resolute to win by force v/hat she had 
failed to accomplish by diplomacy. No one can deny that 
there had been something of the dog-in-the-manger attitude 
in Britain's outlook on "world pohtics." 

Germany had long secured her own safety by the "Triple 
Alliance," in which Austria was her willing and Italy her 
unwilling ally. France and Russia, driven by fear of Ger- 
many, formed an opposition alliance. To this Britain, also 
fearful of Germany, linked herself in 1907 though only in 
such loose fashion that their agreement was not called an 
alliance, but the "Triple Entente." The strength thus 
banded against Central Europe startled the Germans in their 
turn. Their leaders talked angrily of the "encirclement" of 
their land by these strong enemies, as though the encircle- 
ment had been an original threat against Germany, instead 
of a necessary counter-defense. German statesmen con- 
stantly emphasized to their people the country's so-called 
"isolation," which they vehemently insisted was due to Brit- 
ish "scheming" rather than to Europe's well-founded dread 
of German militarism.^ 

* See § VIII, "Alsace-Lorraine," by Hazen Davis, etc. 

' See § XI, "Freedom of the Seas," by Balfour, Gaevernitz, etc. 



xxxii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 

GERMAN EXPANSION AND AMBITION UNDER WILLIAM II. 

With our minds thus cleared as to the degree of responsi- 
bility of other nations in the Great War, and as to its real 
sources in Austrian and German autocracy and in the un- 
balanced development of the German character, let us trace 
now the more obvious and immediate steps which led to its 
outbreak. 

When William II. ascended the imperial throne of Ger- 
many in 1888, he found his country already well-advanced 
upon that road of marvelous commercial prosperity which 
was to make her the most successful business corporation the 
world has ever known. He found his people already pos- 
sessed of that idealizing elevation of the State above the in- 
dividual which led so many of them to ignore self for "Ger- 
many." He found his own hand and brain in a position to 
control all the stupendous machinery of diplomatic and mili- 
tary absolutism which Bismarck had built up. In a word the 
new Kaiser was possessed of such power as might well have 
overthrown the humility and self-balance of a far greater 
soul than his. If ever man had an excuse for thinking 
himself God-chosen to direct the universe, William Hohen- 
zoUern was that man. 

He soon proved himself unequal to his wondrous oppor- 
tunity. He failed to direct the mighty German forces toward 
the benefit of the universe. He did not even marshal them 
successfully toward that narrower ambition, the benefit of 
Germany. He dismissed Bismarck, rather than endure a 
divided authority; and under William's personal rule, Ger- 
many no longer won such diplomatic triumphs as Bismarck 
frequently had gained for her. The new emperor next sought 
socialistic approval and passed socialistic laws, only to find 
the socialists grimly ungrateful and so increasing in num- 
bers they seemed like to crowd him from his throne. He 
then encouraged his military associates to build up the army's 
power over civilians, only to find at last that the army had 
grown stronger than he. In brief, he thrust himself into 
every field, encouraged many a mighty growth, but kept a 
wise control over none. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



xxxiii 



GROWTH OF THE PLOT FOR WORLD RULE 

Just when William definitely accepted the idea of world 
rule as necessary to reestablish his vanishing ascendancy, it 
must always be impossible to say. The vision of world rule 
was already bright in Germany when the Kaiser began 
founding the new German navy in 1898, and when in that 
same year he visited Turkey and the Holy Land and spoke 
there of his will to be the great protector of all Moslems — 
including those under French or British rule. But it is 
doubtful if William then had either the callous soul or the 
stubborn will for deliberate world war. There has been 
much denial of responsibility in Germany since the war, much 
pointing the finger at some one else as the real world villain. 
But the general judgment in other lands has been that 
William began in 1898 a mere playing with the idea of world 
rule — and found it a delightful plaything — without deep 
serious intent. 

His admiring subjects encouraged his high juggling with 
the sword. The German war machine was kept always ahead 
of every neighbor in numbers and efficiency. Any increase 
in military expenditure anywhere in the world was made 
the excuse for a still larger expenditure in Germany. Money 
taxes mounted toward the breaking point. So also did the 
"man tax," that is, the ever lengthening years of compulsory 
military service, the increasing severity of discipline, the in- 
creasing submission exacted from the civilian.^ The mili- 
tary autocracy which William so pompously encouraged soon 
strode on beyond him. It began seriously to will and plan 
the foul thing, a world-wide murder out of which the German 
Army should arise in glory. 

Up to 1907 the German merchant classes, the great money 
princes, still held out against this costly military madness. 
They hoped to win the world through trade. But then came 
the diplomatic struggle with Britain over the building of the 
Bagdad railway. That giant enterprise, dear to every Ger- 
man heart, was to insure German ascendancy through all the 
"Near East" from Vienna to Constantinople, and from Bag- 

' See § VII, "Woe to the Conquered," by Barker. 



xxxiv AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



dad to the very edge of India. It was the first great move 
in the plans for a mighty "Middle Europe" empire. And 
when British diplomacy blocked the Bagdad railway, the 
German merchant classes took a long step towards entering 
the conspiracy for war.^ 

By 191 1 Kaiser WiUiam, who had once been the most 
outspoken of the advocates of force, found himself at heart 
perhaps the least eager for it among all his associates. The 
more enthusiastic military leaders began sarcastically criti- 
cizing his weakness, turning from him to his youthfully im- 
pulsive son, the Crown Prince Frederick William. The lat- 
ter pushed himself somewhat ostentatiously forward as the 
champion of military arrogance. Wild rumors flew about 
that William might be forced to abdicate in favor of his more 
"resolute" son. There are many evidences that under this 
pressure William took the final step in 1912, committing him- 
self and his nation definitely to "war for world conquest." 

After that there were only the details to be arranged — 
preparations to be made, a date set, and fitting occasion 
found. The Germans hoped to accomplish much against Brit- 
ain with their newly constructed navy. As early as 1898 their 
naval officers began drinking as a toast, "The Day" when 
they should meet the Britons upon equal terms. The Kiel 
Canal, which almost doubled the value of a German war- 
ship by enabling it to shift at will between the North and 
Baltic seas, was too shallow for the huge "dreadnoughts," 
having been built before their invention. So the enlarge- 
ment of the canal was pushed forward with all possible haste. 
It reached completion in the early summer of 1914. Mean- 
time taxes were still further enlarged, until they pressed so 
heavily upon the upper classes as to rouse bitter protest. 
There was also possible one further extension of the de- 
mand on German youth for military service. That extension 
was made in 19 13, though it almost stung the poorer classes 
and the socialists to revolt. 

Outside observers began to say that the weight of Ger- 
man militarism was surely on the point of breaking the 
back of the German empire. The enormously costly mili- 
= See § X, "The Bagdad Railway," by Jastrow and Rose. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



tary machine must very shortly justify its existence by suc- 
cessful war or must disappear. The new troops gained in 
1913 were ready trained in 1914. The new sums raised 
by taxation had been converted into war munitions. Never 
had Germary^ been so ready for stupendous war, war upon 
the moment, before the threatening breakdown came, and 
before France and Russia could again match her latest mili- 
tary enlargement.^ 

Why did we not all see that the hour of German war 
was about to strike? Many people did rouse to apprehen- 
sion when Franz Ferdinand was slain at Serajevo. But 
Austria deceived the world by at first treating the affair 
with such sad and simple dignity as a private Hapsburg 
sorrow. 

Then came the conferences at the Kaiser's Potsdam 
palace on July 5th, The German leaders had resolved to 
use the tragic circumstances of the Serajevo murder as 
the occasion for assuming world mastery. Either by ter- 
rorizing other nations, or preferably by fighting them, Ger- 
many was to take the decisive step in establishing that 
mighty "Middle Europe Empire" which she had long 
planned. Her leaders did not intend, however, to appear 
as the aggressors. They had well learned the subtle Bis- 
marckian teaching that to win the full support of their 
own people they must appear to be defending themselves 
against an unjust attack, but that to win battles they must 
really begin the attack thmeselves, and must even select the 
moment for launching it unexpectedly. So they v^elcomed 
this fortunate opportunity to put Austria forward as the 
disturber of the peace. 

The Kaiser, on July 5th, gave secret assurance to the 
envoys of Austria that at last they might work their wicked 
will upon Serbia, that if they would seize the present occa- 
sion for crushing their little foe, he would support them to 
the uttermost, lend them all the strength of his armies, sup- 
port them, no matter how impossible their demands. In 
fact, the more abrupt, severe and even ferocious an ulti- 

' See § XII, "Germany at the Breaking Point," by Jordan, Bem- 
hardi, etc. 



xxxvi AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



matum the Austrians could devise, the better. On that 
same day the chief German officials were also called to 
Potsdam and were warned that this pledge to Austria 
made war almost certain, and that every preliminary step 
must be made so as to insure instant readiness. Rumor 
says that at this point the financial leaders demanded two 
weeks' delay, so that they might sell such foreign securi- 
ties as they must lose in war. Another reason for delay 
was found in the fact that President Poincare of France 
was at the moment visiting Russia, a fact that might make 
French and Russian co-operation uncomfortably swift. So 
the conspirators waited until Poincare had left Russia; and 
meanwhile the Kaiser went on a yachting trip so that all 
the world might be assured he had not a single war-like 
thought.^ 

Next in importance to uniting the German people for 
a supposedly defensive war, the great conspirators con- 
sidered it essential to keep the other nations disunited and 
unsuspicious of the German aim. Austria, by accepting 
Germany's aid, would become definitely bound to her, and 
in case of widespread war must soon become subordinate to 
her. The conspirators sought to draw Turkey also to their 
chariot wheels, and Italy if they could, and Rumania and 
Bulgaria and Greece. With all of these they started secret 
negotiations; since all might be considered as in some sort 
rivals of Serbia. As to supporters of the Serbs, Russia was 
well known to be pledged to their defense. Yet the Russian 
Czar might well hesitate to defend the accused assassins 
of another monarch. If on the other hand Russia aban- 
doned Serbia to the spoilers, Russian influence in the 
Balkan States was gone forever; German supremacy was 
established without a blow, and presently German generals 
would be commanding every Balkan army as they already 
did in Turkey. 

On the whole then, Russia would almost surely fight. 
And if she did, France, her ally, was pledged to join her. 
Here were two powerful foes well-nigh assured; but both 

* See § XIV, "The Kaiser's Decisive Step," by Morgenthau, Muhlon, 
etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



hesitant to fight for so poor a cause, and Hkely therefore 
to be slow of action and half-hearted. As for Great 
Britain, she was to some slight extent bound to these two, 
but would be interested in the Serbian cause even less than 
they; so the conspirators were very confident that Britain 
and all the more distant nations could be cajoled or con- 
fused and misled at least for the moment. Before any 
of them awoke to the real meaning of Germany's great 
stroke, Russia's awkward strength could be broken and 
France crushed forever. 

For more than two weeks the dread ultimatum to 
Serbia was thus held back. It was only vaguely whis- 
pered of in highest German circles, or guessed at in Eastern 
European chancelleries. It was the great diplomatic secret 
of the century. Then, when all was ready, on July 23rd, 
the ultimatum was suddenly hurled at Serbia with the 
abruptness of a thunderbolt. 

THE "thirteen DAYS" 

Not for generations had there been such a tumult 
among high state officials in Europe as that ultimatum 
created. Its demands had been purposely made so extrava- 
gant as to render Serbia's submission impossible. The 
German Government had purposely remained unaware of 
the exact terms prescribed, as the German conspirators 
aimed to make Austria feel herself the leading spirit in the 
attack. Yet even this suddenly extravagant trust from a 
usually cautious ally did not wake Austria's suspicions. 
She pressed blindly ahead, confident that her chance for 
crushing Serbia had come. As for Germany, had she not 
sold her foreign securities at a loss, and sent secret orders 
to her military officers ! For her the Great Adventure was 
already begun; and if Austria could not strike the open- 
ing spark, the German government knew of those who 
would. 

It is now an open fact that Europe's diplomatic efforts 
did almost check Austria's savage rush upon her victim. 
The British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, was most 
earnestly determined to keep the peace. France was most 



xxxviii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



unwilling to fight in what seemed so poor a cause. Of the 
strictly correct forbearance of Russia's diplomatic attitude, 
we have not sufficient evidence to make us equally sure. 
The Russian people as a whole were pacifically inclined; 
but they felt in honor bound to protect Serbia. The weak, 
unhappy Czar certainly did his best to preserve "peace with 
honor." On the other hand, the Russian bureaucracy was 
already so honeycombed with treachery, there were so many 
high officials taking Germany's pay and doing her bidding 
that if she desired a flow of offensive incidents to emanate 
from Russian government offices, she had only to command 
her troop of trained and hungry hyenas. Moreover, there 
was a Russian "war party," headed by the Czar's uncle 
and chief general, the Grandduke Nicholas, which openly 
preferred almost any war to any peace. 

As a whole, however, the British, French and Russian 
influence for peace was so strongly exerted upon Serbia 
that she sent Austria an extremely submissive response, 
such as would have ended any real quarrel where the real 
grounds for quarrel had been stated. But since Serbia's 
submission was not, as it could not possibly have been, 
absolute, Austria found excuse for declaring the response 
treacherous, elusive and several other adjectives; and she 
declared war on Serbia on July 28th. ^ 

Even then the Great War was not fully inaugurated; 
for while Russian began gathering her forces to protect 
Serbia, Sir Edward Grey with true British obstinacy con- 
tinued to insist that a way of pacific settlement could and 
must be found. He assailed every foreign office with ever 
new suggestions for peace. The whole world owes Sir Ed- 
ward a debt of gratitude for his conduct through all those 
trying "Thirteen Days" of negotiation — not that he could in 
any way have prevented war. We now know that was 
impossible. But his persistency made so crystal clear the 
fact that every Power was honestly eager to check the war, 
except Austria and Germany. 

Briefly outlined, this is what occurred. All the Powers 
except Germany had already appealed to Austria not to de- 
* See § XVII, "Austria Opens the War," by Count Apponyi, etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



clare war on Serbia so abruptly, but to give them time to 
join with her, judge the case against Serbia, and make the 
latter's punishment, if guilty, an international affair. Rus- 
sia now went further, declaring that if her brother Slavs in 
Serbia were attacked without further preliminaries, she 
must and would defend them with her arms. Every one 
then appealed to Germany to restrain her Austrian ally. 
Germany refused, on the plea that Austria's honor was at 
stake — a strange survival of that medieval madness which 
declared a man once started on a reckless deed must carry 
it to the end no matter how disastrous to himself and 
others, and that all his friends must support him in his 
reckless wickedness! A nation was to be destroyed, or a 
world plunged into war, rather than that the "honor" of 
an Austrian autocrat might be dimmed by holding back 
his hand from the massacre! Is it any wonder the world 
has swept away forever the old "diplomacy" which in- 
trenched itself behind such debasing and unhuman falsities !^ 

To this first betrayal of the "Imponderables," the Ger- 
man government added a second, by announcing that the 
only way to escape world war was to "localize the conflict" 
and that for this reason no other Power must interfere in 
"the war between Austria and Serbia," as Austria's sudden 
pounce upon her helpless victim was now blandly termed. 
In other words, if Russia persisted in saving the Serbs from 
destruction, Germany would attack her. For Russia such 
a surrender of her brethren to massacre was impossible; 
and even western Europe could scarce in righteousness 
abandon Serbia. Yet Germany would do no more than 
keep repeating, parrot-like, her speciously phrased demand. 
It is an all-sufficient comment upon the state of the men- 
tality of the German people in 19 14 that they listened seri- 
ously to such a shallow subterfuge, and still prated of 
their government as seeking peace. 

Austria now began, from her side of the Danube River, 
to bombard the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Russia reso- 
lutely gathered her armies for Serbia's defense; and France 

'See § XVI, "Breakdown of Diplomacy," by Sir Edward Grey, 
Prince Lichnowsky, etc. 



xl AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 



announced herself as pledged to support Russia. Britain, 
as we have seen, continued protests equally insistent 
though less warlike. Austria seems suddenly to have be- 
come alarmed at this weight of opposition; and on July 
30th she sent word to Russia that she would step back 
and submit the whole dispute to arbitration. 

Was Austria in earnest? Had there flashed upon her 
startled vision some realization of the awful destruction 
into which the vaster German plot had lured her? Or was 
this a mere pretense by which Austrian subjects were to be 
convinced, like the Germans, of their government's peace- 
fulness of purpose? In either case, the offer to arbitrate 
was useless; for Germany herself now took the decisive 
step. On July 31st, she precipitated world war by dis- 
patching to Russia an ultimatum, as extravagantly impossi- 
ble as that which had been hurled at Serbia.^ 

How far this ultimatum had, like Austria's, been in- 
tended from the start we cannot say. Affairs had not 
gone exactly as the Potsdam conspirators had planned. 
The Kaiser was distinctly less eager for war on July 31st 
than he had been on July 23rd. The world was not being 
wholly deceived as to Germany's underlying aggressive- 
ness. Italy, which had been counted on to join her allies, 
Germany and Austria, in a "defensive" war, was evidenc- 
ing quite clearly that she regarded Austria's savage swoop 
as an "offensive" and would have no part in it. Britain 
also was less patient and less blind than had been expected ; 
and since the conspirators already knew of their own in- 
tent to invade neutral Belgium, they had an increasing fear 
that this would be the final straw to bring Britain into 
arms against them. Thus the unfolding situation for their 
war was by no means so favorable as they had counted on. 

On the other hand, they were being driven to a state 
of nervous fear lest their other great advantage, that of 
being the first to strike, might also be snatched from them. 
Negotiations were dragging along ; both Russia and France 
were perforce arming. Suppose these two dangerous foes 

' See § XVIII, "Germany Declares War Against Russia," by Von 
Reventlow, Markoff, etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



xli 



should suddenly snatch the initiative and attack Germany! 
The German "High Staff" insisted on instant action, be- 
fore its military plan of campaign could be forestalled. The 
startled Kaiser, forced at last to face reality instead of 
speech-making, wavered. In his notes he jotted down 
frantic curses against Britain; he would destroy her and 
himself and the world together. Then he let the High 
Staff have its way. 

Thus the ultimatum to Russia was dispatched. It de- 
clared that Germany regarded the Russian mobilization of 
troops against Austria as being directed also against her- 
self, and hence if Russia did not completely demobilize 
within twelve hours, Germany would attack her. Such a 
sudden abandonment of Russian preparations would have 
been impossible. Even the attempt at it would, in face of 
Germany's own gathering of troops, have been suicidal. 

The ultimatum was delivered in the Russian capital at 
midnight; twelve hours later, at noon of August ist, it was 
followed by the German declaration of war against Russia. 
The final step had been taken. The Great War was no 
longer the mere dream of the Nietzschian devotees of 
"hardness" and the "superman." It was the grimmest and 
most awful fact in human history. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF FALSEHOOD 

The German assault was thus suddenly launched upon 
a civilization which had been so befogged and misled by 
the craft of the German leaders that men everywhere stood 
uncertain, not seeing what the struggle really meant. 
German craft could hope but one point further in its 
favor. If France, which was pledged to aid Russia, would 
start to invade German territory, the Kaiser could again 
cry, "Protect the Fatherland"; and every German would 
rush eagerly to arms. France, however, did not repeat her 
vainglorious blunder of 1870. She was very careful to 
avoid the faintest appearance of being the aggressor. So 
Germany took the next step in her long calculated cam- 
paign. She declared war on France, asserting, in abso- 
lutely obvious falsehood, that France had attacked her. 



xlii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF 

So far as the great majority of half -hypnotized German 
subjects were concerned, the effect of this accusation was 
the same as if it had been true. In a furor of patriotism 
they rushed to sacrifice themselves for the punishment of 
France. 

Germany next announced, equally without one shadow 
of knowledge or of truth, that Belgium was aiding France; 
and on this pretext Germany assumed the right to invade 
Belgium, as the easiest road for assailing France. Another 
ultimatum was dispatched. Belgium must welcome the 
German soldiers as masters, or suffer the consequences of 
battle. Surrender without resistance or be destroyed! To 
the eternal honor of Belgium's king, Albert, he chose the 
latter alternative ! And to the eternal honor of all Belgians, 
his people upheld his choice.^ 

Therein lay Germany's first colossal blunder. She 
thought that all people, like her own in colder moods, would 
bow to fear. Had she been willing to accept International 
Law and common obvious justice as her guide, had she 
spared Belgium and attacked France along the more diffi- 
cult Rhine border, the war might indeed have been what 
Germany had so craftily intended, a contest in which she 
and Austria were allied against France and Russia, and 
almost sure of A^ctory. Germany overreached herself. She 
revealed too soon the Nietzschian beast of prey behind the 
mask of the disinterested ally of an injured Austria. 

May the world never again behold a sight so terrifying 
and so shameless as when the German beast sprang, raven- 
ing and rending, upon helpless Belgium! Falsehood was 
now the German government's weapon and defense upon 
every side. The German Chancellor made his notorious 
statement, that he admitted his country's guilt towards Bel- 
gium but was driven to it by necessity — the necessity of 
punishing the single murder at Serajevo by perpetrating 
thousands of far more hideous murders upon the wholly 
guiltless Belgians ! Surely here was a world of unreason 
gone hopelessly absurd. 

*See § XX, "Belgium Resists for Honor," by De Gerlache, King 
Albert, etc. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



xliii 



In the very moment of pledging himself to protect the 
Belgians, the Chancellor abandoned them to plunder and 
massacre. Germany vowed to restore Belgium after the 
war, and at the same time made obvious preparations for 
the land's permanent annexation. The Kaiser himself sent 
to the United States government an official statement as- 
serting the impossible and oft disproven charges that 
France and Belgium had begun the war. And when in 
later years the United States government referred to this 
"imperial" statement, German officials flatly denied its 
existence. When it was then officially made public, Ger- 
man writers for America insisted that it must have been 
forged, ignoring the fact that it was but an echo of Ger- 
many's own solemnly proclaimed grievances upon which 
she based her Declaration of War. 

THE GERMAN EXPLANATION OF THE WAR'S BEGINNING 

While many intellectual Germans today agree frankly 
with almost every point of this exposition of the origin of 
the War, there are still many official or unofficial "ex- 
plainers" who noisily deny the guilt of the German gov- 
ernment. Their lines of argument are twofold. Either 
they quote extracts from Teuton officials, written in 19 14, 
to show that these individuals were not expecting war, 
or they point to the warlike words and deeds of officials 
of other nations to show that others were equally at fault. 
No one of the arguments thus patiently woven together 
has ever for one moment shaken the essential facts. 
Dozens of letters from individual Germans declaring they 
knew nothing of any mobilization have no weight as against 
one from the German government commanding secret 
preparation. Even the Kaiser's weeping over a flower on 
the battlefield and poetically vowing that he "had not 
willed this," have no weight as against the same Kaiser's 
official orders to have Serbia forced into fighting.^ 

Of German charges against other nations, the vehement- 
ly advanced have been three. The first was that made 
officially by the German government against poor little 
* See § XVI, "Breakdown of Diplomacy," by the Kaiser, etc. 



xliv THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 

Belgium, of having secretly formed with Britain an offen- 
sive alliance against Germany. The charge was based on 
two worthless documents found by the Germans during 
their occupation of Belgium. It was obviously untrue, con- 
cocted carelessly in a hurried moment to divert pity from 
Belgium (see Volume II, page 52). The second charge 
was made against Russia, by German apologists in gen- 
eral, when the Russian Republic in 191 7 brought the for- 
mer Russian general, Sukhomlinoff, to trial for treason. 
All that the evidence at this trial really established was 
what has been already stated above, that some Russians in 
high places acted as German agents and that not the Rus- 
sian government but some Russian military officials desired 
war. The third charge was that made by French Socialists 
after the War, that the French president, Poincare, had 
desired and encouraged its outbreak. President Poincare 
overthrew this attack by showing that his attitude had been 
that shared by all Frenchmen; he feared that war would 
come, and he made every preparation to meet it, but he did 
not start it. 

There, of course, lies the logical weakness of all the 
German efforts to shift responsibility. Everybody feared 
and to some extent prepared against the coming of a world- 
wide war; but Germany deliberately incited it. She used 
the threat of it to establish her empire over Middle Europe 
and the Near East, and was fully resolved to enforce the 
threat if her domination was not submissively accepted. 
The difference is obvious, even when partisan spirit at- 
tempts to gloss it over. So long as armies exist there will 
always exist in any large country some men of military 
type who seek war — or the spoils of war — rather than 
peace. But only in Germany and Austria were such war- 
seekers in control of the government. 

HOW DEMOCRACY AWOKE TO ITS DEATH-MENACE 

Pause now to see in its full terror the awful menace 
which suddenly confronted the world in those midsummer 
days of 1 9 14. By such ways of craft and open menace, 
a greedy monster of autocracy had been enabled to pounce 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xlv 



suddenly upon its unready victim, the slowly built up civili- 
zation which had been developing through all the ages, ad- 
vancing confusedly, doubtfully, but ever groping onward 
towards universal knowledge, peace and brotherhood. This 
civilization of light, such light as man has managed to 
attain, was to be devoured by this monster wolf of old 
Teutonic legend, Fenris, the world-destroying wolf of evil, 
born of the darkness of the Teuton gods. And this mon- 
ster was now no hollow painted demon of a stage spectacle. 
It was the mightiest autocracy the world had ever seen, 
splendidly armed, elaborately organized, scientifically pre- 
pared, and relieved from every scruple of conscience by the 
long taught doctrine that any crime was right and noble 
if it served that glorious idol of a glorified selfishness, 
"Deutschland over all." 

To this stupendous outburst of armed materialism, the 
only sufficient source of resistance in all the human uni- 
verse lay in that other and yet mightier force, "Democracy." 
But Democracy, for all its strength, is blind, and easily con- 
fused, and must move openly. It is many-headed and 
therefore many-counseled. Autocracy is single-headed, and 
can move in secret. Hence, the outcome of the struggle be- 
tween them is, even at Democracy's best, most dangerously 
insecure, more so than Democracy's leaders have been quite 
willing to admit. Moreover, when the great Demos wins 
a victory, he sleeps again. His soldiers scatter joyously, 
each to resume his own home work and play. Then the 
foes of Demos recommence their crafty brewing of con- 
fusion. Only in some God-given hour of human clarity 
of vision does the whole world realize, as it did in 19 17, 
that Demos must awake and strike. 

France, indeed, recognized at once the nature of the 
opposing forces in the Great War.^ She had ever been a 
leader in Democracy, and she knew well that by Democ- 
racy she must stand or fall. From her the main and most 
immediate resistance to the great war-plot came. But for 
safety's sake France had previously bound herself to the 

* See § XIX, "France Accepts the Struggle to the Death," by Poin- 
care and Viviani. 



xlvi THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 

autocratic Russian government; and she had taken on 
with Russia an autocratic tinge. Thus even she at first 
was no clear champion of human brotherhood, a leader 
around whom all earnest men might rally. 

Britain also knew herself to be DemxOcratic at heart. 
But her outward appearance of world empire made her 
seem even more the autocrat. Her navy gave her at least 
the garb and voice of despotism, Germany honestly be- 
lieved that in Britain she had a rival more hypocritical, 
though less strong and crafty, than herself. In truth, how- 
ever, Britain's essential Democracy was clearly visible 
through those last days of diplomatic effort to avoid the 
struggle. Sir Edward Grey had repeatedly to say to friend 
and foe, *T am not sure Britain will fight for that." He 
could not shake an armed fist and announce his ultimatum 
as could the autocrats of Russia, Austria and Germany. 
He knew that he must first have the support of the British 
populace. The first moment when he could speak posi- 
tively, sure that all the weight of Britain's Democracy 
stood behind him, was when Belgium was invaded. For 
the first time, then, his voice rang sure and stern as ever 
Germany's had been. "If you touch Belgium, it means 
war with Britain." Autocracy had roused Democracy to 
the full; yet the haughty, blinded Prussian lordlings did 
not even recognize the meaning of the new and mightier 
contest that confronted them. 

Had Germany been more dangerously wise, she would 
have made any and every concession to Britain and to Bel- 
gium, and to world-sentiment generally, so as to have kept 
her war of conquest on its first deceptive basis of moral in- 
dignation against Serbia. But again, as always, autocracy 
failed to measure truly the weight of the "Imponderables." 
Germany had aimed her plans of invasion and conquest first 
at Belgium; the machine had started and must not be 
stopped. What matter if it overrode mere righteousness, 
a useful diplomatic word indeed, kindly of sound, but with- 
out one cannon at command, without a single new device 
of war concealed in secret armories. 

Perhaps even after that first Belgian blunder, Germany 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR xlvu 



might have accomplished her purpose, might in her terrible 
strength have triumphed over Britain also, if she could have 
sufficiently changed her fierce wolf nature, and so avoided 
rousing the United States. In the great western Democ- 
racy, many thinkers long remained in doubt as to the real 
causes of the War. Had not the new Germany finally con- 
vinced Americans of her essential paganism, had she not 
by her own brute ravages shown beyond question that this 
War was indeed "Armageddon," the decisive clash between 
tyranny and brotherhood, America might still have held 
her strength apart. In that event the Great War would 
have reached a different and perhaps cataclysmic end. 

Germany's disaster lay in that her government could 
not believe that other States were not as she in at least 
secret rejection of the Imponderables, that other people 
were not like her own in the practice and acceptance of de- 
ception. Hence we have the amazement of the German 
authorities over Britain's sudden defiance, the frenzied and 
now historic appeal of their Chancellor, "Would you go to 
war over a scrap of paper," a mere British promise to pro- 
tect Belgium!^ No wonder that Chancellor was in despair! 
He had thought himself dealing with another autocracy; 
and he had cajoled and deceived and offered it bribes such 
as should have rendered it wholly subservient. He was 
flatly incapable of understanding that Britain, being a 
Democracy, simply must in the long, long run be truthful 
— must stand by her plighted word. 

For Democracy is not a word but a reality. It is the 
voice of those Imponderables, which are the Inevitables. 
It is the expression of man's faith in man. 

'See § XXI, "Britain Enters the War," by Asquith, Bethmann- 
Hollweg, etc. 



CHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES 

By far the most famous artist and cartoonist created by the War was 
Louis Raemaekers. Being a citizen of Holland, he was nominally a 
neutral, though his mother was of German birth. His earlier war-car- 
toons contained criticism of England as well as of Germany; but inten;;e 
sympathy for Belgium gradually made him an impassioned supporter of 
the Allies' cause. Germany made every possible effort to suppress the 
Raemaekers cartoons, realizing with what mighty force they were blaz- 
oning her shame before the world. 




I 



1 



THE STARS 

"Those are the Orders of Honor that nave been awarded to the dear 
God for his services to the House of Hohenzollcrn." 

This cartoon depicts a baby HohenzoUern prince explaining the heavens 
to his brothers and sisters. It is by Theodore Heine, and appeared in 
the great German comic paper, Siniplicissimus, as far bacii as 1903. 
Many Germans of that day recognized the enormous arrogance of their 
Emperor and his sons. But, apparently not realizing to what disaster 
this vanity tended, they made it the subject of light jest rather than 
serious reprobation. SiiiipHcissiinus, being not a Prussian but a Bavarian 
paper, ventured further than any other in cartooning royalty. 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



AUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 

HENRI BERGSON OTFRIED NIPPOLD 

KARL LAMPRECHT 

Our review of the causes of the Great War may best begin with its 
ultimate or philosophic cause. In the deceptively quiet days before the 
War, Henri Bergson had been widely hailed as the world's greatest 
philosopher. His native France had conferred upon him her highest 
literary and scientific honors. He was President of her Academy of 
Moral and Political Sciences. In Britain, Germany and America he 
had been equally welcomed, equally admired as the teacher of a new 
spiritual faith, at once poetic and scientific, a new and universal tol- 
erance. 

Tolerance is of course the traditional attitude of the philosopher. 
Watching all things, searching back to their origins, he comes to regard 
them all as natural growths, steady of approach and perhaps inevitable, 
horrible sometimes and sternly to be suppressed, but never beyond the 
pity and the helpfulness of the Highest God. From the philosopher 
Bergson, therefore — and especially as he speaks for France, which 
among the larger nations has suffered most — let us gather our first 
broad view of the meaning of the War. Was it inevitable? What were 
the vast and eternal forces which clashed? I believe the whole world 
will ultimately accept, perhaps it has already accepted, M. Bergson's in- 
terpretation as to the elemental antagonisms which precipitated the 
struggle. It was a giant phase of the war forever being waged between 
Life and Death. 

To balance this French thinker's view of the world movement of 
1914 with an equally honest, comprehensive and philosophic study from 
the German standpoint, has not been easy. The broadest view yet 
taken by a German is perhaps the one here given by Professor Otfried 
Nippold. It also explains why his countrymen have not been able to 
view the conflict broadly. Of course. Professor Nippold's view is not 
the official one of Germany. Indeed, his frankness and independence of 
officialdom in the days before the War resulted ultimately in his leaving 
Prussia, of which he was a native, and settling in Switzerland. There 
he became Professor of International Law at the University of Berne, 
a world-recognized authority on his subject, and a leader in the peace 
movements before the War. In 1913 he wrote a book of warning against 
the rising war spirit in Germany, a caution directed to his own beloved 
German people. That book stirred the lazy world to its first faint 
tremors of anxiety as to the approaching crisis. In 1918 Professor Nip- 
pold, in continuation of his earlier work, wrote "The Awakening of 
the German People," the essence of which is given here. 
W., VOL. I.— 1. I 



2 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



In contrast to this independent German attitude we give also the 
official viewpoint of the German Government as repeatedly expressed 
throughout the War. It is voiced here by Dr. Karl Lamprecht, who 
before the War was the most widely known and justly celebrated among 
German historians, Professor of History at the University of Leipzig. 
Dr. Lamprecht wrote this appeal especially for the American public 
in the first heat of the War. Whether we regard the German attitude 
of those days as one of blindness or as one of deliberate misrepresenta- 
tion, the article certainly distorts plain facts. To an ignorant and trust- 
ful person, it would be dangerous reading. Hence, while Dr. Lam- 
precht's words are here given exactly as written, footnotes have been 
added to supply the reader with the established facts when these seem 
most perverted or not widely known. The glaring inconsistencies and 
inaccuracies of the article may do more than could either Bergson or 
Nippold to convince the reader that Dr. Lamprecht's scholarship be- 
longs to a different "culture" from our own. 



O understand and not to be enraged"; this has been 



1 said to be the last word in philosophy. I believe none 
of it; and, had I to choose, I should much prefer, when in 
presence of crime, to give my indignation rein and not to un- 
derstand. Happily, the choice has not to be made. On the 
contrary, there are forms of anger which, from a thorough 
comprehension of their objects, derive the force to sustain 
and renew their vigor. Our anger is of that kind. We have 
only to detach the inner meaning of this war, and our horror 
for those who made it will be increased. Moreover, nothing 
is easier. A little history, and a little philosophy, will suffice. 

For a long period Germany devoted herself to poetry, to 
art, to metaphysic. She was made, so she said, for thought 
and imagination; "she had no feeling for the reality of 
things." It is true that her administration had defects, that 
she was divided into rival states, that anarchy at certain 
times seemed beyond remedy. Nevertheless, an attentive 
study would have revealed, beneath this disorder, the normal 
process of life, which is always too rank at the first and 
later on prunes away its excess, makes its choice and adopts 
a lasting form. From her municipal activity there would 
have issued at length a good administration, which would 
have assured order without suppressing liberty. From the 
closer union of the confederated states would have arisen 



C F. H. 



BY HENRI BERGSON 




THE OPPOSING FORCES 



3 



that unity in diversity which is the distinguishing mark of 
organized beings. But time was needed for that, as it al- 
ways is needed by life, in order that its possibilities may be 
realized. 

Now, while Germany was thus working out the task of 
her organic self-development, there was within her, or 
rather by her side, a people with whom every process tended 
to take a mechanical form. Artificiality marked the creation 
of Prussia; for she was formed by clumsily sewing together, 
edge to edge, provinces either acquired or conquered. Her 
administration was mechanical, it did its work with the regu- 
larity of a well-appointed machine. Not less mechanical 
— extreme both in precision and in power — was the army, 
on which the attention of the Plohenzollerns was concen- 
trated. Whether it was that the people had been drilled 
for centuries to mechanical obedience; or that an elemental 
instinct for conquest and plunder, absorbing to itself the 
life of the nation, had simplified its aims and reduced them 
to materialism ; or that the Prussian character was originally 
so made — it is certain that the idea of Prussia always invoked 
a vision of rudeness, of rigidity, of automatism, as if every- 
thing within her went by clockwork, from the gesture of her 
kings to the step of her soldiers. 

A day came when Germany had to choose between a 
rigid and ready-made system of unification, mechanically 
superposed from without, and the unity which comes from 
within by a natural effort of life. At the same time the 
choice was offered her between an administrative mechanism, 
into which she would merely have to fit herself — a com- 
plete order, doubtless, but poverty-stricken, like everything 
else that is artificial — and that richer and more flexible order 
which the wills of men, when freely associated, evolve of 
themselves. How would she choose? 

There was a man on the spot in whom the methods of 
Prussia were incarnate — a genius, I admit, but an evil genius, 
for he was devoid of scruple, devoid of faith, devoid of pity, 
and devoid of soul. He had just removed the only obstacle 
which could spoil his plan; he had got rid of Austria. He 
said to himself: "We are going to make Germany take 



4 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



over, along with Prussian centralization and discipline, all 
our ambitions and all our appetites. If she hesitates, if 
the confederate peoples do not arrive of their own accord 
at this common resolution, I know how to compel them ; I 
will cause a breath of hatred to pass over them, all alike. 
I will launch them against a common enemy, an enemy we 
have hoodwinked and waylaid, and whom we shall try to 
catch unarmed. Then when the hour of triumph shall sound, 
I will rise up; from Germany, in her intoxication, I will 
snatch a covenant, which, like that of Faust with Mephis- 
topheles, she has signed with her blood, and by which she also, 
like Faust, has traded her soul away for the good things of 
earth." 

He did as he had said. The covenant was made. But, to 
insure that it would never be broken, Germany must be made 
to feel, for ever and ever, the necessity of the armor in which 
she was imprisoned. Bismarck took his measures accord- 
ingly. Among the confidences which fell from his lips and 
were gathered up by his intimates is this revealing word: 
"We took nothing from Austria after Sadowa because we 
wanted to be able one day to be reconciled with her." So, 
then, in taking Alsace and a part of Lorraine, his idea was 
that no reconciliation with the French would be possible. 
He intended that the German people should believe itself in 
permanent danger of war, that the new Empire should re- 
main armed to the teeth, and that Germany, instead of dis- 
solving Prussian militarism into her own life, should reen- 
force it by militarizing herself. 

She reenf orced it ; and day by day the machine grew in 
complexity and power. But in the process it yielded auto- 
matically a result very different from that which its construc- 
tors had foreseen. It is the story of the witch who, by a 
magic incantation, had won the consent of her broomstick 
to go to the river and fill her buckets; having no formula 
ready to check the work, she watched her cave fill with water 
until she was drowned. 

The Prussian army had been organized, brought to per- 
fection, tended with love by the Kings of Prussia, in order 
that it might serve their lust of conquest. To take posses- 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



5 



sion of neighbors' territory was then the sole aim, territory 
was almost the whole of the national wealth. But with the 
nineteenth century there was a new departure. The idea 
peculiar to that century of diverting science to the satisfac- 
tion of men's material wants evoked a development of in- 
dustry, and consequently of commerce, so extraordinary that 
the old conception of wealth was completely overthrown. 
Not more than fifty years were needed to bring about this 
transformation. On the morrow of the war of 1870 a na- 
tion expressly made for appropriating the good things of 
this world had no alternative but to become industrial and 
commercial. Not on that account, however, would she 
change the essential principle of her action. On the contrary, 
she had but to utilize her habits of discipline, method, tenac- 
ity, minute care, precise information — and, we may add, of 
impertinence and spying — to which she owed the growth of 
her military power. She would thus equip herself with in- 
dustry and commerce not less formidable than her army, 
and able to march, on their part also, in military order. 

From that time onwards these two were seen going for- 
ward together, advancing at an even pace and reciprocally 
supporting each other — industry, which had answered the 
appeal of the spirit of conquest, on one side; on the other, 
the army, in which that spirit was incarnate, with the navy, 
which had just been added to the forces of the army. In- 
dustry was free to develop in all directions; but, from the 
first, war was the end in view. In enormous factories, such 
as the world had never seen, tens of thousands of workmen 
toiled in casting great guns, while by their side, in workshops 
and laboratories, every invention which the disinterested 
genius of neighboring peoples had been able to achieve was 
immediately captured, bent from its intended use, and con- 
verted into an engine of war. Reciprocally, the army and 
navy, which owed their growth to the increasing wealth of 
the nation, repaid the debt by placing their services at the 
disposal of this wealth : they undertook to open roads for 
commerce and outlets for industry. But through this very 
combination the movement imposed on Prussia by her kings, 
and on Germany by Prussia, was bound to swerve from its 



6 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



course, whilst gathering speed and flinging itself forward. 
Sooner or later it was bound to escape from all control and 
become a plunge into the abyss. 

For, even though the spirit of conquest knows no limit in 
itself, it must limit its ambitions as long as the question is 
simply that of seizing a neighbor's territory. To constitute 
their kingdom, kings of Prussia had been obliged to under- 
take a long series of wars. Whether the name of the spoiler 
be Frederick or William, not more than one or two provinces 
can be annexed at a time : to take more is to weaken oneself. 
But suppose that the same insatiable thirst for conquest en- 
ters into the new form of wealth — ^what follows? Bound- 
less ambition, which till then had spread out the coming of 
its gains over indefinite time, since each one of them would 
be worthy only a definite portion of space, will now leap all 
at once to an object boundless as itself. Rights will be set 
up on every portion of the globe where raw material for in- 
dustry, refitting stations for ships, concessions for capital- 
ists, or outlets for production are seen to exist. In fact, the 
policy which had served Prussia so well passed at a bound 
from the most calculating prudence to the wildest temerity. 
Bismarck, whose common sense put some restraint on the 
logic of his principles, was still averse to colonial enterprises; 
he said that all the affairs of the East were not worth the 
bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. But Germany, retain- 
ing Bismarck's former impulse, went straight on and rushed 
forward along the lines of least resistance to east and west; 
on the one side lay the route to the Orient, on the other the 
empire of the sea. But in so doing she virtually declared 
war on the nations which Bismarck had managed to keep 
allied or friendly. Her ambition looked forward to the 
domination of the world. 

Moreover, there was no moral restraint which could keep 
this ambition under control. Intoxicated by victory, by the 
prestige which victory had given her, and of which her com- 
merce, her industry, her science even, had reaped the benefit, 
Germany plunged into a material prosperity such as she had 
never known, such as she would never have dared to dream 
of. She told herself that if force had wrought this miracle, 



THE OPPOSING FORCES ^ 



if force had given her riches and honor, it was because force 
had within it a hidden virtue, mysterious — nay, divine. Yes, 
brute force with its train of trickery and lies, when it comes 
with powers of attack sufficient for the conquest of the world, 
must needs be in direct line from heaven and a revelation 
of the will of God on earth. The people to whom this power 
of attack had come were the elect, a chosen race by whose 
side the others are races of bondmen. To such a race noth- 
ing is forbidden that may help in establishing its dominion. 
Let none speak to it of inviolable right ! Right is what is 
written in a treaty ; a treaty is what registers the will of a 
conqueror — that js, the direction of his force for the time 
being. Force, then, and right are the same thing; and if 
force is pleased to take a new direction, the old right becomes 
ancient history, and the treaty which backed it with a sol- 
emn undertaking, no more than a scrap of paper. Thus Ger- 
many, struck with wonder in presence of her victories, of the 
brute force which had been their means, of the material 
prosperity which was the outcome, translated her amazement 
into an idea. And see how, at the call of this idea, a thou- 
sand thoughts, as if awaked from slumber, and shaking off 
the dust of libraries, came rushing in from every side — 
thoughts which Germany had suffered to sleep among her 
poets and philosophers, every one which could lend a seduc- 
tive or striking form to a conviction already made ! Hence- 
forth German imperialism had a theory of its own. Taught 
in schools and universities, it easily molded to itself a nation 
already broken in to passive obedience and having no loftier 
ideal wherewith to oppose the official doctrine. Many per- 
sons have explained the aberrations of German policy as due 
to that theory. For my part, I see in it nothing more than 
a philosophy doomed to translate into ideas what was, in its 
essence, insatiable ambition and will perverted by pride. The 
doctrine is an effect rather than a cause ; and should the day 
come when Germany, conscious of her moral humiliation, 
shall say, to excuse herself, that she had trusted herself too 
much to certain theories, that an error of judgment is not a 
crime, it will be necessary to remind her that her philosophy 
was simply a translation into intellectual terms of her bru- 



8 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



tality, her appetites and her vices. So, too, in most cases, 
doctrines are the means by which nations and individuals 
seek to explain what they are and what they do. Germany, 
having finally become a predatory nation, invokes Hegel as 
witness; just as a Germany enamored of moral beauty would 
have declared herself faithful to Kant, just as a sentimental 
Germany would have found her tutelary genius in Jacobi or 
Schopenhauer. Had she leaned in any other direction and 
been unable to find at home the philosophy she needed, she 
would have procured it from abroad. Thus when she wished 
to convince herself that predestined nations exist, she took 
from France, that she might hoist him into celebrity, a writer 
whom we have not read — Gobineau. 

None the less it is true that perverse ambition, once 
erected into theory, feels more at ease in working itself out 
to the end; a part of the responsibility will then be thrown 
upon logic. If the German race is the elect, it will be the 
only race which has an unconditional right to live ; the others 
will be tolerated races, and this toleration will be precisely 
what is termed the "state of peace." Let war come ; the 
annihilation of the enemy will be the end Germany has to 
pursue. She will not strike at combatants only; she will 
massacre women and children and old men ; she will pillage 
and bum; the ideal will be to destroy towns, villages, the 
whole population. Such is the conclusion of the theory. 
Now we come to its aim and true principle. 

As long as war was no more than a means to the settle- 
ment of a dispute between two nations, the conflict was lo- 
calized to the two armies involved. More and more of use- 
less violence was eliminated ; innocent populations were kept 
outside the quarrel. Thus little by Httle a code of war was 
drawn up. From the first, however, the Prussian army, or- 
ganized as it was for conquest, did not take kindly to this 
law. But from the time when Prussian militarism, now 
turned into German militarism, had become one with indus- 
trialism, it was the enemy's industry, his commerce, the 
sources of his wealth itself, as well as his military power, 
which war must now make the end in view. His factories 
must be destroyed that his competition may be suppressed. 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



Moreover, that he may be impoverished once and for all 
and the aggressor enriched, his towns must be put to ran- 
som, pillaged and burned. Above all must the war be short, 
not only in order that the economic life of Germany might 
not suffer too much, but further, and chiefly, because her 
military power lacked that consciousness of a right superior 
to force by which she could sustain and recuperate her en- 
ergies. Her moral force, being only the pride which comes 
from the material force, would be exposed to the same vicis- 
situdes as this latter : in proportion as the one was being ex- 
pended the other would be used up. Time for moral force 
to be used up must not be given. The machine must deliver 
its blow all at once. And this it could do by terrorizing the 
population, and so paralyzing the nation. To achieve that 
end, no scruple must be suffered to embarrass the play of its 
wheels. Hence a system of atrocities prepared in advance — 
a system as sagaciously put together as the machine itself. 

Such is the explanation of the spectacle before us, "Sci- 
entific barbarism," "systematic barbarism," are phrases we 
have heard. Yes, barbarism reenforced by the capture of 
civiHzation. Throughout the course of the history we have 
been following there is, as it were, the continuous clang of 
militarism and industrialism, of machinery and mechanism, 
of debased moral materialism. 

Many years hence when the reaction of the past shall 
have left only the grand outline in view, this perhaps is how 
a philosopher will speak of it. He vv^ill say that the idea, 
peculiar to the nineteenth century, of employing science in 
the satisfaction of our material wants had given a wholly un- 
foreseen extension to the mechanical arts and had equipped 
man in less than fifty years with more tools than he had made 
during the thousands of years he had lived on the earth. 
Each new machine being for man a new organ — -an artificial 
organ which merely prolongs the natural organs — his body 
became suddenly and prodigiously increased in size, without 
his soul being able at the same time to dilate to the dimensions 
of his new body. From this disproportion there issued the 
problems, moral, social, international, which most of the na- 
tions endeavored to solve by filling up the soulless void in the 



lO 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



body politic by creating more liberty, more fraternity, more 
justice than the world had ever seen. 

Now, while mankind labored at this task of spiritualiza- 
tion, inferior powers — I was going to say infernal powers — 
plotted an inverse experience for mankind. What would 
happen if the mechanical forces, which science had brought 
to a state of readiness for the service of man, should them- 
selves take possession of man in order to make his nature as 
material as their own? What kind of a world would it be if 
this mechanism should seize the human race entire, and if the 
peoples, instead of raising themselves to a richer and more 
harmonious diversity, as persons may do, were to fall into the 
uniformity of things? What kind of a society would that be 
which should mechanically obey a word of command me- 
chanically transmitted ; which should rule its science and its 
conscience in accordance therewith ; and which should lose, 
along with the sense of justice, the power to discern between 
truth and falsehood? What would mankind be when brute 
force should hold the place of moral force? What new bar- 
barism, this time final, would arise from these conditions to 
stifle feeling, ideas, and the whole civilization of which the 
old barbarism contained the germ? What would happen, in 
short, if the moral effort of humanity should turn in its 
tracks at the moment of attaining its goal, and if some dia- 
bolical contrivance should cause it to produce the mechaniza- 
tion of spirit instead of the spiritualization of matter? 

There was a people predestined to try the experiment. 
Prussia had been militarized by her kings ; Germany had been 
militarized by Prussia; a powerful nation was on the spot 
marching forward in mechanical order. Administration and 
military mechanism were only waiting to make alliance with 
industrial mechanism. The combination once made, a for- 
midable machine would come into existence. A touch upon 
the starting gear and the other nations would be dragged into 
the wake of Germany, subjects to the same movement, pris- 
oners of the same mechanism. Such would be the meaning 
of the war on the day when Germany should decide upon its 
declaration. 

She decided, he will continue, but the result was very dif- 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



II 



ferent from what had been predicted. For the moral forces, 
which were to submit to the forces of matter by their side, 
suddenly revealed themselves as creators of material force. 
A simple idea, the heroic conception which a small people had 
formed of its honor, enabled it to make head against a power- 
ful empire. At the cry of outraged justice we saw, more- 
over, in a nation which till then had trusted to its fleet, one 
million, two millions of soldiers suddenly rise from the earth. 
A yet greater miracle: in a nation thought to be mortally 
divided against itself all became brothers in the space of a 
day. From that moment the issue of the conflict was not 
open to doubt. On the one side, there was force spread out 
on the stirface; on the other there was force in the depths. 
On one side, mechanism, the manufactured article which 
cannot repair its own injuries; on the other, life, the power 
of creation, which makes and remakes itself at every instant. 
On one side, that which uses itself up; on the other, that 
which does not use itself up. 

Indeed, our philosopher will conclude, the machine did 
use itself up. For a long time it resisted ; then it bent ; then 
it broke. Alas! it had crushed under it a multitude of our 
children; and over the fate of this young life, which was so 
naturally and purely heroic, our tears will continue to fall. 
An implacable law decrees that spirit must encounter the re- 
sistance of matter, that life cannot advance without bruising 
that which lives, and that great moral results are purchased 
by much blood and many tears. But this time the sacrifice 
was to be rich in fruit as it had been rich in beauty. That 
the powers of death might be matched against life in one su- 
preme combat, destiny had gathered them all at a single point. 
And behold how death was conquered; how humanity was 
saved by material suffering from the moral downfall which 
would have been its end; while the peoples, joyful in their 
desolation, raised on high the song of deliverance from the 
depths of ruin and of grief! 

BY OTFRIED NIPPOLD 

Before the outbreak of the Great War it can scarcely be 
said that any real attempt had been made to give an account 



12 THE OPPOSING FORCES 



of the powerful force which suggestions are capable of 
exercising even in the life of nations, and particularly in 
our German nation. At that time only a few writers had 
devoted their attention to "Mass-suggestions." Thus it hap- 
pened that people had not become aware, or at any rate wide 
circles of them were still ignorant, of the way in which the 
war-makers in Germany had systematically been at work in 
recent years to influence the soul of the German people by 
the instrumentality of certain catchwords. In my book on 
"German Chauvinism," which appeared in 1913, 1 undertook 
the task of producing documentary evidence of this system- 
atic activity on the part of those forces which in Germany 
were exerting themselves in the direction of a war. I used 
the term "Chauvinists" comprehensively to include all these 
classes, not merely the military party who longed for war in 
itself, but also the Pan-German politicians and imperialists 
who for political or other reasons chose to represent it as 
desirable and inevitable. I further showed the catch-words 
of which use was made in these circles to make the German 
people, in itself peace-loving, "mellow" for war. In this un- 
dertaking the "encirclement" inevitably played a part from 
the outset, as did also the "French thirst for revenge," the 
"envy of the English" and the alleged danger of "Panslav- 
ism." All these had to do their part in the task of represent- 
ing to the German people that war was in the first place in- 
evitable. The war-intriguers, however, did not stop at this 
stage. In recent years they advanced to the theory of the 
preventive war and advocated quite openly a war of aggres- 
sion. In justification of such a war they in no way restricted 
themselves, however, to pointing out the necessity of choos- 
ing the right moment for a war, but they represented even an 
aggressive war as being simply in the interests of an "active" 
German policy and of an extension of German power. Thus 
these war-intriguers had in the end really arrived at the point 
of recommending to the German people a predatory war, 
without the public opinion of Germany revolting against the 
suggestion ; indeed, they were able to put forward these views 
amid the general approval of the multitude and more particu- 
larly of the Press. 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



13 



The German people, unfortunately, was not aware of the 
growing danger that menaced its soul. The number of those 
who fell within the spell of these suggestions was constantly 
increasing. In 1913, in my "German Chauvinism," I was 
obliged to confirm the fact that even then very extensive 
classes of the German people believed in these catch-words. 
Even if before the war the number of the real and conscious 
Imperialists in Germany was limited, scarcely extending to 
the circle of those imbued with Pan-German sentiments, it 
still remains a fact that the great majority of the German 
people had nevertheless fallen under the spell of the catch- 
words that were scattered abroad, in this sense that they be- 
gan to desire that "the bomb might at last explode if, as they 
say, war is inevitable." As a result of the year-long incite- 
ment to war, the German people had in fact been made "mel- 
low," so mellow that in the end even men who were in them- 
selves peace-loving directly longed for the dreaded war. Be- 
fore the war it was only a relatively small section of the 
population, drawn from eminent men of intellect, from dem- 
ocrats belonging to the civil parties and social democrats, 
who had remained deaf to the suggestions of the war-in- 
triguers. 

It was under these circumstances that the year 1914 ap- 
proached. Here I pass over all the portents which some 
months beforehand could not have failed to intimate to the 
careful observer the approach of the catastrophe. These in- 
dications would in themselves form an interesting chapter. 
In consequence of the machinations of the war-intriguers the 
German people's nervousness, sensitiveness and responsive- 
ness to suggestion had gradually reached an abnormal de- 
velopment. As a result the circle of these intriguers felt that 
they were near their goal. Writing in Mdrz of July i8th, 
1914, I believed that I might still warn the German Govern- 
ment against these intrigues: — ^"How is it possible in au- 
thoritative circles to hope, when the decisive hour arrives, to 
be able to master the evil, when it is continually being allowed 
to grow greater, and nothing is done at the right time to seize 
the appropriate counter-measures ? What may not be an im- 
mediate danger to-day may become so overnight." A few 



14 THE OPPOSING FORCES 



days later the decisive hour had arrived. The Gernian Gov- 
ernment not only failed to master the evil, but capitulated 
to it. 

Nevertheless the Government did not venture to tell the 
truth to the German people, no matter how "mellow" it had 
gradually been made. The truth would not have seized the 
people in the way considered necessary in a war. Thus a new 
catch-word was added to those used in pursuing mass-sug- 
gestions before the war, that, namely, of the "ruthless attack" 
and of the "war of defense forced upon us." For the un- 
prejudiced, objective onlooker it cannot be said to be very 
ingeniously devised; for, indeed, this catch-word, when the 
whole situation is considered, was in reality only devised for 
political babes. Only the poor German people had already 
in fact been brought so far that it blindly believed everything, 
and thus it even believed in a "ruthless attack." The Ger- 
man people, down to the last man, believed it as gospel truth. 
If before the outbreak of war a section of the population had 
not yet fallen within the spell of these catch-words, the posi- 
tion in this respect was now at once altered. And thus Mili- 
tarism and Pan-Germanism had gained the upper hand in 
Germany, not merely over the people but over the Govern- 
ment as well. 

Militarism now held unrestricted sway, and beside it a 
Nationalism in which imperialistic tendencies now mani- 
fested themselves in a more unveiled form than heretofore. 
In its issue of September 19, 1916, the Berlin Conservative 
paper. Die Post, could quite correctly write with reference 
to my controversy with Von Sybel in the Neue Ziiricher 
Zeitung that imperialistic efforts in Germany were before the 
war restricted to a narrow circle, and were indeed from time 
to time officially repudiated. An Imperialism could, how- 
ever, only operate in a really expansive manner when it pene- 
trated into the great mass of the people and had permanently 
established itself there; every individual must have accepted 
imperialistic ideas in such a strong measure in his own circle 
©f thoughts, that the imperialistic direction of his actions was 
«\ fact no longer present to his consciousness. It was only 
during the war, Die Post continued, that the Gennan people 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



15 



had found the soil on which the imperiaHstic idea could take 
root and bring forth fruit. This was indeed the case. On 
the outbreak of war the whole German people did in fact fall 
imder the spell of the suggestions of the war-makers. 

And since then the German people has slumbered and 
dreamed a fair dream. It dreams of victories and of glory and 
of tlie respect which it has instilled into the whole world by its 
deeds of heroism and by its spirit of sacrifice ;it dreams of the 
position of power which the future Germany will enjoy in the 
circle of the nations, and it dreams of peace. It continues to 
dream and it does not see and cannot see the crude reality. 
For the war-makers carefully seek to guard it against an 
awakening from its fair dream. Every day the newspapers 
tell the German people of new victories. The peace that is 
to come will thus be based on a German victory ; not in vain 
will the sacrifices have been made. The truth is jealously 
kept from them, lest they awake. Nothing is allowed to pass 
the German frontier that could disturb the fair dream. And 
within Germany nothing is written or spoken that could rob 
the population of this illusion. Thus to-day the German 
people has no longer any knowledge of how it was incited 
into this war. Everything that took place before the war is 
forgotten. The German people is innocent of this war. It 
did not want it; it did not provoke it; it is merely defending 
itself and safeguarding its national existence. And as it is 
innocent of the outbreak of war, so also it is innocent of the 
continuation of the war. It has conquered and is ready for 
peace. What more can one ask? It cannot realize that 
there can be people who attribute to Germany itself the guilt 
of the war, and who also despite everything hold it respon- 
sible for the continuance of the war. That can only be done 
by the enemies of the German people, that is to say, the 
wicked Englishmen and Frenchmen, Russians and Japanese, 
and, unfortunately, many neutrals as well. Yes, indeed, the 
whole world seems to-day to have risen against Germany, 
They are surrounded by enemies. The enemies are every- 
where — but not in their own land, not there where the dream- 
ing German people continues to be carefully guarded against 
awakening. 



i6 THE OPPOSING FORCES 



What will this awakening reveal to the German people? 
What will the crude reality look like, when the dream is at 
an end? The thought is a bitter one. Every dream must 
come to an end some day; from every sleep there must be 
an awakening. And then the reality is seen. Then the Ger- 
man people will see that the rest of the world passes a dif- 
ferent judgment on the question of the responsibility for the 
war from that current in Germany on. the basis of the Ger- 
man official accounts. It will then recognize that while, no 
doubt, the German armies have often been victorious, they 
have not always been so, that the other side also has gained 
many a victory, that there was a battle on the Marne which 
completely frustrated the German plan of campaign, and 
that while it is certainly possible to dream of a German vic- 
tory, such a victory cannot be experienced. It will recognize 
that even if Germany may perhaps be unconquerable it never- 
theless cannot conquer, a fact which for an aggressor is 
necessarily a sorry business and cannot but destroy all dreams 
of victory. And further, what on awakening will be the 
outlook as regards their other dreams of glory and respect 
and honor? Has the German conduct of the war in fact 
been such as to increase the glory of the German name ? Has 
it not rather been placed in the service of terror, branding 
the German name for centuries to come, for the sake of 
momentary petty advantages? Have not the German army 
leaders, in agreement with the German Government, vio- 
lated Belgian neutrality and often enough ridden roughshod 
over international law on many other occasions as well ? And 
is it not the fact that German scholarship has declared its 
solidarity with all these actions, and has thus robbed itself 
of the glory which it enjoyed throughout the whole world? 
And has not the German Press done its utmost to feed the 
flame of universal hatred enkindled by these things — hatred, 
of course, against other nations who are innocent of all these 
matters, not hatred against the enemy who sits in their own . 
land, working on the soul of their own people ? 

Thus, on awakening, the German people will really see 
itself confronted by a world of enemies, and it will be con- 
strained to recognize that for many years to come it has 



UNCONQUERABLE 
TrtE Kaissr. "SO, YOU SEE— YOU'VE LOST EVERYTHING." 
TiiK Kiso or Tiie Belcuns. "NOT MV SOUL." 

October 21, 1 9 14. 

^- - ^ ~ .J 

Most widely known and noted among British War-cartoons is the 
above. It appeared originally in Punch from the hand of the renowned 
cartoonist, Bernard Partridge. It echoes most emphatically the conflict 
of German materialism with the spiritual forces of the universe. 



THE FIELDS OF FLANDERS 

"Where are the Dead? 
"There are no Dead." 

Maeterlinck ("The Blue Bird"). 

This is a Canadian sketch by J. A. Shepperson, emphasizing that high 
hope on which the true Culture of the world has been building for 
twenty cenjturies. Mankind, outside of Germany, believed that all the 
doctrines of materialism break down just because they reckon the dead 
as dead, and take no heed as to what a man's labors here shall make 
him fitted for when he passes beyond earth's Death. Hence when the 
Britons and Canadians sacrificed their lives by thousands on the "Flan- 
ders Fields" through all the years of the War, their faith was symbolized 
by Maeterlinck's allegory in "The Blue Bird." He makes the trembling 
searchers for the terrible field of death find it beautiful instead ; for it 
blossoms into a field of lilies. 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



17 



gained, not glory and honor, but hatred and contempt. Yes, 
the thought of this awakening of the German people is bitter 
in the extreme! It cannot but wring one's very heart to 
think of this brave people and of the millions it has sacrificed 
in life and wealth, and then to picture the awakening of this 
people from its dream ! 

BY KARL LAMPRECHT 
Written in February, 1915 

The gravest and perhaps most widely spread misconcep- 
tion about us Germans is that we are the serfs of our Princes, 
servile and dependent in political thought.^ That false no- 
tion has probably been dispelled during the initial weeks of 
the present war. 

With absolute certainty the German Nation, with one 
voice ^ and correctly, diagnosed the political situation with- 
out respect to party or creed and unanimously and of its own 
free will acted. 

But this misconception is so deep rooted that more ex- 
tended discussion is needed. I pass on to other matters. 

The essential point is that public opinion have free scope 
of development. Every American will admit that. Now, 
public opinion finds its expression in the principles that gov- 
ern the use of the suffrage. The German voting system is 
the freest in the world, much freer than the French, English, 
or American system, because not only does it operate in ac- 
cordance with the principle that every one shall have a direct 

*A11 university professors in Prussia were appointed by the Govern- 
ment, and a similar situation existed in Saxony, the home of Prof. 
Lamprecht. He himself was commonly accused of seeking court favor 
by flattery. He wrote of William II, "Listening to his ministers, we are 
again and again amazed at the extent to which they merely repeat the 
Emperor's ideas. Even opponents when coming from an interview are 
dominated by the charm of his personality." Any teacher or professor 
who expressed views not approved by the Imperial Government ruined 
his career. Tragic cases of this kind have been frequent. A similar 
system of official interference with opinion extended to almost every 
rank in society, operating through permits, pensions, rewards, or public 
condemnation. 

'The German Socialists repeatedly objected to the threatened war. 
Even after it had begun and protests were treated as treason, the So- 
cialists in the parliament only voted the money for war most unwillingly. 

W., VOL. I.— 2. 



i8 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



and secret vote, but the powers of the State are exercised 
faithfully and conscientiously to carry out that principle in 
practice. The constitutional life of the German Nation is of 
a thoroughly democratic character.' 

Those who know that were not surprised that our Social 
Democrats marched to war with such enthusiasm. Already 
among their ranks many have fallen as heroes, never to be 
forgotten by any German when his thoughts turn to the noble 
blood which has saturated foreign soil — thank God, foreign 
soil ! Many of the Socialist leaders and adherents are wear- 
ing the Iron Cross, that simple token that seems to tell you 
when you speak of its bearer, "Now, this is a fearless and 
faithful soul." 

Let it be said once and for all : He who wants to under- 
stand us must accept our conception that constitutionally we 
enjoy so great a political freedom that we would not change 
with any country in the world.* Everybody in America 
knows that our manners and customs have been democratic 

* Except for the fact that the German "voting system" was in some 
but not all elections free and secret, there is not one true statement in 
this paragraph. The German parliament was wholly undemocratic ; be- 
cause its upper and more powerful house was not elected at all but filled 
by the German princes. The lower or elected house was so powerless 
as to be ridiculed everyTvhere. Germans themselves nicknamed it the 
"debating society" and the "hall of echoes." The chief elective body 
having any real power was the lower house of the legislature of Prussia, 
Elections to this were notoriously arranged so as to favor overwhelm- 
ingly the upper classes, and to expose to their resentment any one who 
ventured to vote against them. 

^ This view was honestly held by many Germans, Commenting on 
it in an article in the N. Y. Sun, the present editor said : 

"What makes the German so ready to assert T am freer than you, for 
all your boasted democracy?' In the first place, he is an orderly soul 
who loves to have his paths marked out for him. When a German sees 
a road labeled Verboten he never dreams of using it. He welcomes laws, 
even in their most restrictive form. 

"In the second place, the German Government has really made excel- 
lent laws for the advantage of its working classes, old age pensions and 
the like. And it has very carefully refrained from restricting its voters 
on the subjects where they find their real enjoyment. A German can 
act toward his wife and children or in a dozen other every day affairs 
as an American could not — and would not wish to. So the German 
naturally says, T am freer than you.' Of the larger freedom by which 
a people controls its own destiny, he has so little knowledge that he does 
not even know he lacks it." 



THE OPPOSING FORCES 



19 



for centuries, while in France and England they have been 
ever aristocratic. Americans^ we know, always feel at home 
on German soil. 

But the Kaiser, you will say, speaks of "his monarchy," 
therefore must the Germans be Fuerstenknechte (servants of 
Princes). 

First of all, as to tlie phrase "Fuerstenknechte." Does 
not the King of England speak of his "subjects"? That 
word irritates a German, because he is conscious that he is 
not a subject, but a citizen of the empire. Yet he will not 
infer from the English King's use of the term in formal 
utterances that an Englishman is a churl, a "servant of his 
King." That would be a superficial political conception. 

As to our Princes, most of us, including the Social Demo- 
crats, are glad in our heart of hearts that we have them. As 
far back as our history runs, and that is more than 2,000 
years, we have had Princes. They have never been more 
than their name, "Fuerst," implies, the first and foremost of 
German freemen, "primi inter pares." Therefore they have 
never acted independently, never without taking the people 
into counsel. That would have been contrary to the most 
important fundamental principles of German law ; hence our 
people have never been "de jure" without their representa* 
tives. Even in the times of absolute monarchy the old "es- 
tates of the realm" had their being as a representative body,^ 
and wherever and whenever these privileges were suppressed 
it was regarded as a violation of our fundamental rights and 
is so still regarded. 

We glory in our Princes. They link our existence with 
the earliest centuries of our history. They preserve for us 
the priceless independence of our small home States. 

We are accused of militarism. What is this new and 
terrible crime? Since the years of the wars of liberation 
against France and Napoleon we have had what amounts 
practically to universal conscription. Only two generations 
later universal suffrage was introduced. The nation has been 
sternly trained by its history in the ways of discipline and 

^ These "estates" represented only the higher classes — at first only 
the warriors — never the masses of the poor. 



20 THE OPPOSING FORCES 



self-restraint. Germans are very far from mistaking free- 
dom for license and independence for licentiousness, 

Germany has a long past. She enjoys the inheritance of 
an original and priceless civilization. She holds clearly for- 
mulated ideals. To the future she has all this to bequeath 
and, in addition, the intellectual wealth of her present stage 
of development. Consider Germany's contributions to the 
arts, the poetical achievements of the period of Schiller and 
Goethe, the music of Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Bee- 
thoven; the thought systems of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel! 

The last decade has reawakened these great men in the 
consciousness of the German Nation. Enriched by the con- 
sciousness and message of an intellectual past, our people 
were moving forward to new horizons. 

At that moment the war hit us. If you could only have 
lived these weeks in Germany I do not doubt that what you 
would have seen would have led your ripe experience to a 
fervent faith in a Divinely guided future of mankind. The 
great spiritual movement of 1870, when I was a boy grow- 
ing up, was but a phantom compared to July and August of 
1914. Germany was a nation stirred by the most sacred emo- 
tions, humble and strong, filled with just wrath and a firm 
determination to conquer — a nation disciplined, faithful, 
and loving. 

In that disposition we have gone to war and still fight. 
As for the slanders of which we have been the victims, ask 
the thousands of Frenchmen who housed German soldiers 
in 1870 and 1 871, or ask the Belgians of Ghent and Bruges ! ^ 
They will give you a different picture of the "Furor Teutoni- 
cus." They will tell you that the "raging German" generally 
is a good-natured fellow, ever ready for service and sym- 
pathy, who, Hke Parsifal, gazes forth eagerly mto a strange 
world which the war has opened to his loyal and patriotic 
vision. 

° When this phrase of astounding insolence or obtuseness was writ- 
ten, the Belgians" of Ghent and Bruges could not speak; they were mur- 
derously strangled. Since then they have managed to find voice with 
which to repudiate Germany in utmost loathing. 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



THE WORSHIP OF THE "SUPERMAN" AS TAUGHT BY 

NIETZSCHE 



WILLIAM ELKIN introducing FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 
HENRIQUE DE MENDONgA 

The "Kultur" on which Germany prided herself was certainly a large 
factor in bringing on the Great War. This new Kultur was itself war- 
like in essence ; and, moreover, the Germans believed themselves divinely 
commissioned to extend it over other lands. In a way, theirs was a 
missionary spirit such as had started the wild followers of Mahomet to 
ravaging and conquering the world some thirteen hundred years before 
— though we must admit that the German soldier as a missionary was 
the strangest proselyter yet conceived in all the mad vagaries of the 
human mind. 

William Baird Elkin, Professor of Philosophy in Indiana University, 
is an excellent American authority to give us an unprejudiced view of 
the German "Kultur" as expounded by Nietzsche and other leaders. 
Friedrich Nietzsche, upon whom is usually laid the main responsibility 
for the whole modern German system of thought, was as much Polish 
as German; and he gathered the roots of his doctrine from an earlier 
French writer, Gobineau. In education, however, as in outlook, 
Nietzsche was wholly German ; and from about 1878 onward his vigor- 
ous books, especially his "Thus Spake Zarathustra," an Imaginary expo- 
sition of the religion of Zoroaster, profoundly swayed German phi- 
losophy. Briefly summarized, Nietzsche's teaching was that Christianity 
is a weakness; might is the only right; the man of Aryan race (or 
rhetorically "the blond beast") is the mightiest among men, and should 
develop himself into the "superman," despise all lesser forms of human 
beings, and wipe out all other races except as he needs slaves. Nietzsche 
died in an insane asylum in 1900. 

That the German "Kultur" shall not be seen only from Nietzsche's 
own view or from that of an American, committed to the antagonistic 
worship of Democracy, we include a resume of Kultur's influence by a 
scholar from one of the "smaller nations." Senhor Henrique Lopes de 
Mendonga is a Portuguese statesman, Associate of the Lisbon Academy 
of Sciences, and author of many scientific works. 

C. F. H. 

BY WILLIAM BAIRD ELKIN 

GERMAN philosophy of war, one might almost say Ger- 
man civilization, is based essentially on four ideas. 
These are in four books, two ancient, and two comparatively 

21 



22 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



modern. The first is Plato's "Republic." In Plato's phi- 
losophy of the state, the state begins small, and the people are 
poor. It increases in wealth and in population. Then it ex- 
pands. Expansion leads to war. For war an army is needed. 
If the army is to be successful, it must be well trained. 
Hence, the state is organized for the sake of the army ; and 
the army is organized for the sake of the ruling class. This 
is an aristocracy. It is government by the few. But the 
few are the intelligent, the wealthy, and the efficient. Con- 
sequently, they are the best. And government by the best is 
thought to be the best government. 

The great representatives, in Germany, of this idea were 
Bismarck and Treitschke. Treitschke held that England was 
a decadent nation. She began to decline about 1832, with 
the enactment of the first reform bill, when Great Britain 
began to become truly democratic. She became more demo- 
cratic, and therefore more degenerate. Hence it was only 
a question of time when the British Empire would break 
up, and most of the fragments would pass to the country in 
best condition to acquire them. That country would be Ger- 
many, with her superior form of government. The process 
of British disintegration and German expansion might be 
facilitated by war. "We have already made our reckoning 
with Austria," said Treitschke, "with France, and with Rus- 
sia ; our last reckoning, that with England^ will probably be 
the most tedious and the most difficult." 

The second idea is in the Old Testament, the Hebrew 
conception of a chosen people, whose national mission was 
to take possession of the Promised Land, and then to in- 
crease and multiply until they should become like the stars 
of heaven, or the sand on the seashore in multitude. 

The great representative of this idea is the Kaiser, as 
when he said, "Remember that the German people are the 
chosen of God." "It is, as it is written in the Bible, my duty 
to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called 
upon to give an account." On January 18, 1896, the writer 
joined in the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the founding of the German Empire. That evening the Em- 
peror in his famous palace speech declared : "The German 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 23 



Empire has become a world-empire. Thousands of our coun- 
trymen live abroad in the most distant parts of the world. 
... It is your duty, gentlemen, to see that you help me to 
incorporate this Greater Germany permanently into the old 
Fatherland. . . . You will loyally and devotedly assist me 
to discharge my duty, not only to our countrymen at home 
but to those thousands of our countrymen who dwell afar, 
so that when they need my protection, I may have the power 
to extend it to them." And, in a confidential memorandum, 
issued March, 1913, he said that their aim was "to fortify 
and to extend German power throughout the whole world." 

If one inquires how this extension of power is to be ef- 
fected, one comes to the third idea. It is in Machiavelli's 
"Prince," as expounded by Frederick the Great. "No 
treaty," said Treitschke, "and no alliance could ever make 
him [Frederick] renounce the right of free self-determina- 
tion," consequently, "all his life through he was exposed to 
the accusation of faithless cunning." German power is to 
be extended partly by alliances, when Germany would have 
the better of the alliance, and would observe the alliance only 
so long as it was thought to be advantageous ; and partly by 
war, brought on at the opportune moment. 

The chief representatives of this idea are Bernhardi and 
the General Staff. "Let it be the task of our diplomacy," 
wrote Bernhardi, "so to shuffle the cards that we may be at- 
tacked by France, for then there would be reasonable pros- 
pect that Russia for a time would remain neutral. . . . But 
we must not hope to bring about this attack by waiting pas- 
sively. 

"We must initiate an active policy which, without at- 
tacking France, will so prejudice her interests or those of 
England, that both these states would feel themselves com- 
pelled to attack us. Opportunities for such procedure are 
offered both in Africa and in Europe, and any one who has 
attentively studied prominent political utterances can easily 
satisfy himself on that point," 

The fourth idea is in Comte's positive philosophy, "the 
law of the three stages." According to Comte, civilization 
passes through three stages : the theological, the metaphysi- 



24 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



cal, and the positive. The first stage is called the theological, 
because then people explained natural phenomena by means 
of personal agents, as when they thought that the sun was 
carried around the earth in the chariot of Apollo, and eclipses 
of the sun and moon were caused by gods or demons eating 
them up. After a time civilization advanced to the second 
stage. Then theology was relegated to a subordinate posi- 
tion, and people explained things by means of metaphysical 
principles, such as substances, essences, energies, etc. Finally, 
civilization advanced to the third stage. Then there is no 
more use for either theology, or metaphysics, since people ex- 
plain phenomena in terms of antecedent and consequent, in 
accordance with natural law. In the third stage, science 
usurps the place formerly held by theology and metaphysics, 
and rules alone supreme. 

In the latter half of the last century the Germans almost 
universally adopted Comte's idea. They said that theology 
and metaphysics were outgrown and outworn. Science alone 
was sufficient for the needs of modern civilization. And 
they applied science to agriculture, to industry, tO' commerce, 
to education, to war, to government, and to everything me- 
chanical. This application of utilitarian scientific principles 
to modern life, without due regard to other equally important 
factors of civilization — religious, ethical, esthetic — is the 
peculiar and striking characteristic of German "Kultur." 
The Germans claim to be much farther advanced in this re- 
spect than any other people in the world. Hence they have 
a divine mission to civilize, to lead, and to rule all other peo- 
ples. Of course, they profess to act for the good of man- 
kind. Thus Ostwald, the noted chemist, says : "Germany, 
thanks to her genius for organization or social efficiency, 
has attained a stage of civilization far higher than that of 
all other peoples. . . . Among our enemies the Russians, in 
brief, are still in the period of the undisciplined tribe [theo- 
logical stage, perhaps], while the French and the English 
have only attained the degree of cultural development which 
we ourselves left behind fifty years ago [metaphysical stage, 
probably]. Do you ask me what it is that Germany wants? 
Well, Germany wants to organize Europe, for up to now 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 25 



Europe has never been organized. The moment has come, 
I believe, for remodeling the map of Europe." 

Summarizing what has been said : The Germans, accord- 
ing to their own view, have the best form of government; 
they are an elect people with a divine mission, which they 
seek to carry out in a strictly scientific way, in accordance 
with natural law, and, consequently, the will of God. 

We come now to a discussion of the German ethics of 
war. Ethics may be defined as the science of right and 
wrong. Here two questions arise: (i) What is right? and 
(2) How do we know it? These constitute the two funda- 
mental problems in ethical theory: the highest good, and 
conscience. 

The next question is. What is the highest good? Two- 
general answers are given. Some people say the highest 
good is happiness. Others say, not happiness, but perfection, 
or some form of development. H we say the highest good is 
happiness, then another question arises : Whose happiness ? 
mine, or others? the happiness of the individual, or the 
happiness of all people? If we say that the happiness of the 
individual is the highest good, the ethical theory is called 
Egoistic Hedonism. If we say the happiness of mankind, 
the theory is called Altruistic Hedonism, or Utilitarianism. 
If we say the highest good is perfection, a similar question 
arises as before, Whose perfection? the perfection of the in- 
dividual, or the perfection of all people? If we say the per- 
fection of the individual is the highest good, the theory is 
that of self-realization. If we say the perfection of mankind, 
the theory is that of social welfare, closely akin to social 
service. 

Our next inquiry is, What is the Gennan highest good ? 
For the common people the highest good is the Fatherland, 
a modification of the fourth ideal. But the common people 
are not Germany. The common people exist for the sake 
of the Fatherland. "In the German view," said Miinster- 
berg, "the state is not for the individuals, but the individuals 
for the state." And the Fatherland exists for the sake of 
the ruling class. The ruling class of Germany molds and 
makes both the Fatherland and the common people. The 



26 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



ruling class is the real Germany. And the highest good of 
the ruling class is self-realization. 

If space permitted, it might be interesting to trace the de- 
velopment of the German highest good from the time of 
Luther, through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
then through the Romantic movement in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and the Prussian school system in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, until the rise of Nietzscheism in recent times. Nietzsche 
did not make the theory, he found it. And it is his 
distinctive merit, or demerit, that he took up this theory of 
the highest good and developed it to its ultimate logical con- 
clusion, in his doctrine of the superman. 

Nietzsche's greatest book is his "Zarathustra." Of it 
he said: "I have given to mankind the profoundest book 
it possesses, my 'Zarathustra.' This profoundest book in 
the world, according to the author, proclaims that God is 
dead! But if God is dead, what are men to do? How get 
along without God? All that is necessary is for men to be- 
come gods themselves, and thus take God's place; or if they 
cannot do that, then they ought to do the next best thing, 
viz., become supermen. To become a superman means to 
be, to do, to get, and to hold, all raised to the nth power. 
But every one cannot become a superman. Hence there are 
two classes of people: supermen, and back-worldsmen ; or, 
briefly, masters and slaves. 

Accordingly, there are two systems of morality: the 
morality of the masters and the morality of the slaves. But 
as it is better to be a master than a slave, the master morality 
is the good morality, the slave morality is the bad morality. 
The slave morahty is essentially the same as Christian mo- 
rality. It is fit only for "shopkeepers, Christians, cows, 
women. Englishmen, and other democrats." Nietzsche 
thinks it is impossible to say anything too severe against 
Christianity. It is the greatest evil that ever appeared in the 
world, because it tends to prevent the realization of the high- 
est good, and the development of the superman. In the 
"Antichrist" he says : "The Christian concept of God — God 
as God of the sick, God as cobweb-spinner, God as spirit — 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 27 



is one of the most corrupt concepts of God ever arrived at 
on earth," 

"Every expression in the mouth of a 'first Christian* is 
a lie, every action he does is an instinctive falsehood — all his 
values, all his aims are injurious, but he whom he hates, that 
which he hates, has value. . . . Have I yet to say that in the 
whole New Testament, only a single figure appears which 
one is obliged to honor — Pilate, the Roman governor? To 
take a Jewish affair seriously, — he will not be persuaded to 
do so. A Jew more or less — what does that matter?" 

Finally: "With this I am at the conclusion and pro- 
nounce my sentence. I condemn Christianity. I bring 
against the Christian church the most terrible of all accusa- 
tions that ever an accuser has taken into his mouth. It is to 
me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions. . . . The 
Christian church has left nothing untouched with its de- 
pravity, it has m.ade a worthlessness out of every value, a lie 
out of every truth, a baseness of soul out of every straight- 
forwardness. Let a man still dare to speak to me of its 'hu- 
manitarian' blessings! . . . The 'equality of souls before 
God,' this falsehood, . . . this explosive material of a con- 
cept which has finally become revolution, — is Christian dyna- 
mite. . . . This eternal accusation of Christianity I shall 
write on all walls, wherever there are walls, . . . — I calf 
Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic de- 
pravity, the one great instinct of revenge for which no ex- 
pedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, mean, 
— I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind. . . ." 

Contrasted with Christian or slave morality is the moral- 
ity of the superman, the morality of the masters. Thus 
Zarathustra spake unto the people : "I teach you the higher 
man, Man is something that must be overcome. What have 
ye done to surmount him ? 

"All beings hitherto created something greater than them- 
selves ; and would ye be the ebb of this great flood, and rather 
go back to the beast than surmount the human? 

"What is the ape for men ? A laughing-stock or a pain- 
ful disgrace. The same shall man be for the higher man — a 



28 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



laughing-stock or a painful disgrace. . . . See, I teach you 
the higher man," 

"Ye have heard it said of old, blessed are the meek, for 
they shall inherit the earth ; but I say unto you, blessed are 
the valiant, for they shall make the earth their throne ; and 
ye have heard men say, blessed are the poor in spirit ; but I 
say to you, blessed are the mighty and free in spirit, for they 
shall enter Valhalla. And ye have heard men say, blessed 
are the peacemakers, but I say unto you, blessed are they 
who make war, for they shall be called not the children of 
Jahve, but the children of Odin, which is greater than Jahve." 

From the German theory of the highest good a few prac- 
tical conclusions follow: 

First, justification of war. Nietzsche did not invent this 
doctrine. He found it already prominent in German thought, 
and emphasized it. Frederick the Great said, "War opens 
the most fruitful field of all virtues." 

Hegel : "Just as the movement of the ocean prevents the 
corruption which would result from perpetual calm, so by 
war people escape the corruption which would be occasioned 
by a continuous peace." 

Moltke: "Perpetual peace is a dream, and not even a 
beautiful dream. But war is a link in the divine system of 
the universe." 

Treitschke: "War is a biological necessity of the first 
importance," and "efforts directed toward the abolition of 
war are not only foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must 
be stigmatized as unworthy of the human race." 

Nietzsche : "Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, 
and the short peace better than the long." And "I do not 
advise you to work, but to fight. I do not advise you to 
conclude peace, but to conquer. Let your work be a fight, 
your peace a victory ! ... Ye say, a good cause will hallow 
even war? I say unto you: a good war halloweth every 
cause." And again, "Oh, blessed remote time, when a peo- 
ple said unto itself : 'I will be — master over peoples!' . . . 
For, my brethren, what is best, shall rule ; what is best, zvill 
rule ! And where the teaching soundeth dififerent, the best 
is — lacking." 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 29 



A second conclusion is the justification of Germany's 
claim to a place in the sun, the acquisition of more colonies 
and the extension of commerce. In 19 12 Delbriick, Treitsch- 
ke's successor in the chair of history in Berlin Univer- 
sity, dealt with this subject in his own periodical, the Preus- 
sische Jahrbikher. He thought the time had come to remodel 
the map of Africa, so that Germany might have a colonial 
empire in that continent. Not that Germany had colonists tO' 
send there. Germany was not an emigrant country, but an 
immigrant country. She employed annually upwards of one 
million foreign workmen. But the situation was this : Suit- 
able positions were not available at home for the many young 
men of birth and wealth highly educated by the German 
school system. In other words, there were so many high offi- 
cers in the army and navy, so many high officials in the gov- 
ernment, and so many nobles and wealthy men throughout 
the country, that suitable positions for their sons could not 
be obtained in the Fatherland. Hence Germany needed a 
colonial empire which these young men could organize and 
develop. Germany, in short, needed colonies where her am- 
bitious youths might have an opportunity to exploit the na- 
tive inhabitants, and thus to become supermen. 

How officials in the German colonies succeeded in carry- 
ing out this policy of exploitation a writer in the Nineteenth 
Century for July, 191 5, informs us. In German Southwest 
Africa the native population decreased from nearly 1,000,- 
000 to less than 100,000 during the thirty years in which the 
Germans administered the affairs of the colony, and in 19 13 
th«; Colonial Secretary admitted that 105,000 natives in To- 
goland had been killed, during the preceding ten years, by 
German expeditions sent against them. The Germans could 
not make their colonies pay. And in order to make them 
pay, they wanted the natives to work almost without pay, 
hence insurrection and war. This policy of annihilation had 
the approval, not only of Germans at home, but of some Ger- 
mans abroad. A writer in a German-American paper ex- 
pressed himself as follows: "When we have humbled our 
enemies and confiscated their lands, let but any one of the 
former natives of the soil, be he English, French, Italian, 



30 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



American, or a man of any other lower race, lift up his voice 
louder than a sigh, and we will dash him to pieces against 
the earth. 

"And after we have demolished their worm-eaten cathe- 
drals and the rest of their hideous structures, together with 
the temples of India and the other countries of heathendom, 
we will build much bigger cathedrals and more splendid tem- 
ples in which to honor our noble Kaiser and the great deeds 
of his people, who are the destroyers of the decadent races 
of the world. 

"Oh! how we thank God for having chosen our great 
and incomparable Kaiser and his people to accomplish this 
mighty mission, for has Darwin not said (and no doubt he 
borrowed this idea from some of our great German profes- 
sors) that only the fittest shall survive? And are the Ger- 
mans not the fittest in all things ? Therefore let all us Ger- 
mans say : Perish the carrion ! Only the Germans are noble 
men." 

Another conclusion from the German theory of the high- 
est good is Pan-Germanism, that is, the world for Germany. 
For if the native races of the colonies were exterminated 
what would the administrators do? As supermen they 
could not live on one another. Then they would need othef 
countries to govern, and other peoples to consume. The 
following are a few of the many statements that might be 
cited from German Molochs in support of their cherished 
Juggernaut : 

Major General von Roehl: "Only one people has the 
right to play a leading role in the political world, and that 
people is the German people." 

The Kaiser : "The ocean reminds us . . . that on it and 
beyond it no great decision may henceforth be made with- 
out Germany and the German Emperor." 

Vossische Zeitung: "As we are the supreme people, our 
duty, henceforth, is to lead the march of humanity 'tself . . . . 
It would be a sin against our mission to spare the people who 
are inferior to us." 

Rommel : "The time is at hand when the five poor sons 
of the German family, allured by the resources and the fer- 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 31 



tility of France, will easily make an end of the solitary son 
of the French family. The land between the Vosges and the 
Pyrenees was not made by the Almighty just in order that 
38,000,000 Frenchmen should vegetate there without grow- 
ing, when 100,000,000 Germans could live and flourish there 
as well, according to the divine law." 

Treitschke : "Then when the German flag flies over and 
protects this vast empire, to whom will belong the scepter 
of the universe ? What nation will impose its wishes on the 
other enfeebled and decadent peoples? Will it not be Ger- 
many that will have the mission to ensure the peace of the 
world?" 

Evangelical League: "The King at the head of Prus- 
sia, Prussia at the head of Germany, Germany at the head 
of the world." 

Still another conclusion which follows from the Ger- 
man theory of the highest good may be mentioned, viz., the 
German language ought to become the language of the world. 
The argument on this subject is clear and brief : All other 
European languages are based on the roots of dead lan- 
guages. The roots of dead languages are dead. Therefore, 
all languages based on these roots are decadent. Q.E.D. 

The position of English is peculiarly unfortunate, for 
English is based on the roots of two dead languages, Greek 
and Latin; therefore it is doubly decadent. On the other 
hand, the German language came straight from God, and is 
thus, in every respect, preeminently fitted to be divinely in- 
strumental in spreading the culture of mankind. Says a 
prominent writer in the Deutsche Tageszeitung: "It is a 
crying necessity that German should replace English as the 
world language. Should the English language be victori- 
ous and become the world language the culture of mankind 
will stand before a closed door, and the death knell will 
sound for civilization. Here we have the reason why it is 
necessary for the German, and with him the German lan- 
guage, to conquer. And the victory once won, be it now or 
be it one hundred years hence, there remains a task for the 
German, than which none is more important, that of forcing 
the German tongue on the world. On all men, on men of 



32 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



all colors and nationalities, the German language acts as a 
blessing which, coming direct from the hand of God [or 
from his mouth ?] , sinks into the heart like a precious balm 
and ennobles it. English, the bastard tongue of the canting 
island pirates, must be swept from the place it has usurped, 
and forced back into the remotest corners of Britain, until 
it has returned to its original elements of an insignificant 
pirate dialect." 

We come next to the treatment of conscience or the 
moral faculty. Conscience was formerly defined as the 
voice of God in the soul of man. That definition may have 
done very well in the theological stage of civilization, but it 
is not satisfactory in the scientific. Conscience must now 
be explained in terms of antecedent and consequent like any 
other natural phenomenon. The usual account of the moral 
faculty, in the first three stages of its developmentj is some- 
what as follows : 

At first the child has no conscience, just as it has no lan- 
guage. But it has the capacity of acquiring both. As it 
grows it gradually acquires a conscience and a language, and 
it acquires the one in much the same manner as the other. 
Brought up in one country, it acquires one language ; brought 
up in another country, it acquires another language. Simi- 
larly, the child brought up in one country develops one kind 
of conscience ; brought up in a different country, it develops 
a different kind of conscience. The first form of conscience 
which the child acquires may be called the conscience of 
the home, and is derived largely from its mother. This is 
conscience on the first level, to speak in the language of 
psychology. 

But the child goes to school, to church and Sunday 
School, meets and plays and works with other children and 
with other people. Thus its conscience grows, as its lan- 
guage grows. And after a time the youth acquires the con- 
science of the community. This is conscience on the second 
level. It is the conscience of custom. Whatever is in ac- 
cordance with custom is right, and whatever is contrary to 
sustom is wrong. This conscience can scarcely be regarded 
as an individual faculty ; rather it is social faculty, a collec- 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 33 



tive faculty; the common conscience of the people. And 
this is as far as the development of conscience often goes. 

For some persons, however, there is a third stage in the 
development of conscience. This is the result of a process 
called individualization. People v^^ho are accustomed to do 
their own thinking, or who read some of the masterpieces 
of literature, or who study science, philosophy, ethics, or re- 
ligion gradually advance from the second level to the third 
level, from the collective conscience to the individual con- 
science. Then they may criticize the customs of the com- 
munity, which they formerly accepted without question. 
Some customs they approve, others they disapprove. Some 
modes of conduct they commend, others they would 
change or abolish. They have acquired a higher conscience 
than that of custom. This is properly an individual con- 
science, in contrast with the collective. It has been acquired 
through contact with the thought of other minds, and ex- 
ists in the higher ideals of one's community, of one's coun- 
try, or of the race. 

It should be observed further, that in this process of in- 
dividualization there are two paths or directions, either of 
which conscience may take : the upward path, and the down- 
ward path. A person may acquire a higher conscience than 
that of custom, or a lower one. Not only may a person ac- 
quire a perverted conscience, or a seared conscience, but 
may lose the conscience one formerly had, and proclaim com- 
plete emancipation from all moral restraints whatever. This 
experience may be illustrated in the sphere of knowledge. A 
thinker examines many different theories, — scientific, philo- 
sophical, or religious, — and as a result of his examination 
he may arrive at the correct view. He has then a higher 
idea of truth than before. He is in a position to criticize 
other theories, and say this one is true, or that one is false, 
as the case may be. But he may also arrive at a degree of 
bewilderment, or dissatisfaction, such that he may say this 
theory is false, and that theory is false — they all are false; 
truth is not to be discovered anywhere; there is nO' such 
thing as truth. The case is precisely similar in the sphere 
of ethics, during the process of individualization. Some 

VOL. I.— 3. 



34 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



persons rise to a higher level of conscience, others sink to 
a lower. Of the two paths in the moral life, one leads up 
the front stairs to the treasure-house of virtue; the other 
leads down the back stairs to the charnel house of vice. 

There is a fourth stage in the development of conscience, 
that which implies the existence of a transcendental factor ; 
but it does not call for treatment here, as very few Ger- 
mans now advance tO' this stage. 

Naturally the next question is, To what stage of develop- 
ment does the German conscience attain ? The conscience of 
the common people is on the second level. The common peo- 
ple have a collective conscience, that of custom. The ruling 
classes, on the other hand, have advanced to the third level. 
But in the process of individualization most members of the 
ruling classes seem to have gone on the downward path, in- 
stead of on the upward, and have acquired a perverted con- 
science, or a seared conscience, or have lost their conscience 
altogether. This seems to be particularly true of the officers 
of the army and navy, of the members of the diplomatic 
corps, and of government officials generally. 

Thus much as to the theoretical treatment of the German 
conscience. It only remains now to show how the peculiar 
brand of conscience, universally known as "Teutonic," has 
been developed in the German people through the influence of 
their chief institutions as directed and controlled by the 
Kaiser and his government. 

Many years ago when the writer was in Germany, he was 
interested in education, and visited Jena University, then 
the Mecca of American educators. In conversation with an 
American fellow-student one day, I asked him what he 
thought of the German schools. He replied: "Not very 
much. They scarcely teach anything but God and the 
Kaiser." He ought to have said "the Kaiser and God," for 
that is the way in which instruction in a German elementary 
school impresses an American. One fine morning a normal 
school man from West Virginia proposed to me that we take 
a day off and visit a village school. And we did. We went 
out some twenty miles on the train, reached our destined 
village, and obtained admittance to the school. German vil- 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



lage schools are much aHke. I had already visited several, 
but my friend saw this world-renowned phenomenon then 
for the first time. 

In this school there were some seventy or eighty pupils. 
There were two teachers, an old man and a young man, 
but only one schoolroom. In the afternoon the old man 
took charge, with all the children in one class. He taught 
a great lesson in history, on the German Kaisers. Long, 
lank, and earnest he stood before the class, and delivered 
his message with animation and with power. In all serious- 
ness and with glowing fervor, he told the pupils what grand 
and glorious deeds the wonderful and incomparable Kaisers 
had done for the German people and their beloved Father- 
land. God did not have even second place ; the Kaisers were 
the whole thing. The schoolroom was decorated with many 
pictures of the Emperor and other Hohenzollerns, as indeed 
are the walls of all German schools. The teacher may have 
taught many other subjects that afternoon. I remember 
only the history lesson. It is as vivid now, after a lapse 
of twenty years, as is any experience of yesterday. And I 
believe the impression made on the children was no less 
strong than that on me. In this manner the German school 
develops what may well be called a "Kaiser" conscience. 

Dr. Busch, in his secret "Life of Bismarck," has told us 
how the German government controls and directs the press. 
Busch was Bismarck's right-hand man in this field for three 
years. And Bismarck kept him busy, Sunday and Monday, 
sometimes day and night, sending at any hour a messenger 
to call him, if a press communication demanded dispatch. 
"I sometimes saw him," says Busch, "as often as five or even 
eight times in one day." At their first interview Bismarck 
said : *T intend to get you to write notes and articles for the 
papers from such particulars and instructions as I may give 
you. You will also arrange for others doing so." 

"At these interviews," wrote Busch, "I had to take good 
care to keep my ears well open, and to note everything with 
the closest attention. Through practice, I gradually suc- 
ceeded in retaining long sentences and even whole speeches, 
practically without omissions, until I had an opportunity of 



36 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



committing them to paper." Busch gives a list of newspapers 
to which "articles thus prepared were supplied," and men- 
tioned several writers to whom he himself gave "instructions 
and material for publication," among them "Herr Heide, 
who had previously been a missionary in Australia and was 
at that time working for the 'North German Correspond- 
ence,' which had been founded with a view to influencing 
the English press." 

As an illustration of the character of Bismarck's instruc- 
tions we may take a brief item of March 1 1, 1870 : "Atten- 
tion is to be directed, at first in a paper which has no con- 
nection with the Government, to the prolonged sojourn of 
Archduke Albrecht in Paris as a suspicious symptom. In 
connection with it rumors have been circulated in London 
of an understanding between France and Austria. Our 
papers will afterwards reproduce these hints." 

In this way Bismarck and Busch helped to develop in the 
German people a "Kaiser" conscience. And their policy still 
continues. On July 27, 1914, Austria was "wild with joy 
at the prospect of war with Serbia." A few days later Ger« 
many was wild with joy at the prospect of war with Russia. 
The German press had made thorough and effective prepara- 
tion for the Great War, as later it made thorough and effec- 
tive preparation for the destruction of merchant ships by 
submarines. The result for the government in both cases 
was similar. To the editor of the New York Nation 
Darmstaedter of Gottingen University wrote : "I find the 
sinking of the Lusitania was just, necessary, and useful, and 
I may add that the whole German nation has the same 
opinion." 

The Church also helped to develop a "Kaiser" conscience. 
Every clergyman when taking his oath of office swore: "I 
will be submissive, faithful, and obedient to his Royal Maj- 
esty. ... In particular, I vow that I will not support any 
society or association, . . . which might endanger the public 
security. I will inform his Majesty of any proposals made, 
either in my diocese, or elsewhere, which might prove injuri- 
ous to the state. I will preach the word as his Gracious 
Majesty dictates." 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 37 



It is not surprising that an observant publicist like Rohr- 
bach bewailed the slight influence of religion on the German 
conscience. Writing a few years before the war he acknowl- 
edged that the problem of religion was one of the most diffi- 
cult that the German people had to face. "Are the churches," 
he asked, "capable of dealing with the demoralization of our 
national conscience owing to the idolatry of class distinc- 
tions, by awakening a strong Christian religious conscious- 
ness ?" He admitted that the outlook was not encouraging, 
because the Lutheran church, as he asserted, "appears from 
the first to be the church of princes and classes, and has 
remained so faithful to itself that the principle of worldly 
authority and class superiority has been better developed 
within its walls than anywhere else." 

The theater, similarly, is an important factor in molding 
the German conscience. "When I succeeded to the throne," 
said the Kaiser, "I was convinced and had firmly determined 
that the Royal Theater, like the schools and the universities, 
must be an instrument of the monarch. . . . The theater 
is also one of my weapons." 

The university is one of the most effective weapons of 
the Kaiser in the development of the German conscience. 
The University is a state institution. The government con- 
trols and may prescribe the subjects of instruction. The 
present Emperor, soon after his accession, ordered the Min- 
ister of Education "to discourage as far as possible the study 
of the French Revolution in German schools and universi- 
ties." Later he changed his mind and recommended it, 
with the direction that "we should learn from it to know the 
powers of darkness and of destruction and attach ourselves 
by so much the more closely to monarchy and authority." 

The government appoints the professors, promotes those 
who please it, and dismisses or disciplines those who do not. 
Dr. Arons, a teacher of physics in the University of Berlin, 
was dismissed, not because of his teaching, but because he 
was a Social Democrat. Hueffer relates "the case of the 
brothers X," — a burgomaster, a professor, and an assistant 
professor. The burgomaster wrote for a Liberal paper an 
article which displeased the government. He was tried in 



i 
I 



38 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



camera for this offense and deprived of his ofifice. Then the 
Minister of Education presented to the other two brothers 
for signature a paper disavowing the liberal opinions of the 
burgomaster. They refused to sign. The assistant profes- 
sor was not only dismissed, but the Prussian government en- 
deavored to prevent his appointment at any other university 
in Germany. And the professor was boycotted in the fol- 
lowing manner: He was deprived of his seat in the univer- 
sity senate ; he was prohibited from examining students ; the 
students were warned that if they attended his lectures their 
subsequent careers would be prejudiced; and another profes- 
sor was appointed to offer his courses. And yet, so peculiar 
is the German mental constitution, that soon after the out- 
break of the present war one of these professors wrote 
Huefifer making a spirited defense of Germany, "as the true 
land of culture and of democratic progress." 

Of course it will be asserted that all the factors named 
thus far are not sufficient to explain the real character of the 
German conscience, as it has been revealed in this world war. 
They explain it in part. But they do not explain the fiendish 
cruelty of German soldiers as manifested in the most horri- 
ble atrocities committed on a stupendous scale. And they do 
not explain the general acquiescence of the German people 
in the wholesale massacres of noncombatants, and in the in- 
credibly inhuman methods of warfare carried on in Belgium, 
in Poland, in Armenia, and on the high seas. Two additional 
considerations, however, will serve to indicate how the Ger- 
man conscience has been molded along these lines. 

First, as to the soldiers. Most Americans have no idea of 
the methods of training and discipline which prevail in the 
German army.^ If American officers treated their men as 
German officers treat theirs, the American army would soon 
be without officers. German soldiers are brutalized in a man- 
ner wholly unknown to soldiers serving under a democratic 
regime. They tend to lose all the little element of conscience 
that they ever had, except obedience to their officers. And 
their officers, as already stated, usually have little or no con- 
science or else a perverted one. When passing from the sec- 
* See the later article on German Militarism. 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 39 



ond level of conscience to the third, they go down the back 
stairs instead of up the front. 

Enough, perhaps, has now been said to indicate how the 
German army became an immense breeding-place for un- 
natural, as well as natural, vices. Hence the abominable and 
diabolical acts of barbarity and bestiality, countless and in- 
excusable, committed in France and Belgium, by privates and 
officers alike, against innocent and defenseless women and 
children, acts that are now heralded throughout the world, 
and the record of which will ever remain to the everlasting 
shame of the German aristocracy and of the German army. 
As Morgan says, to the end of time they will be remembered, 
"and from one generation to another, on the plains of Flan- 
ders, in the valleys of the Vosges, and on the rolling fields 
of the Marne, oral tradition will perpetuate this story of 
infamy and wrong." 

Secondly, the people. It is necessary to bear in mind that 
at the beginning of the war, and during the first few weeks 
of the conflict, the German people passed through an experi- 
ence such as no people ever passed through before, on such 
an extensive scale. Their press, their preachers, teachers, and 
leaders made them believe that they were attacked by their 
enemies, who wished to destroy them. The common people 
were made to believe that they would easily and quickly 
vanquish all their enemies, and, further, they were led to be- 
lieve that the war would result in great material and spiritual 
advantages to themselves. The events of the first month 
seemed to confirm all their expectations. They read of noth- 
ing but victories, day after day, on all the battle fronts. In 
a few weeks they would be in Paris, in a few months in 
London, and then the whole world would lie at their feet. 
For the first time in their history the entire population be- 
came supermen. Nietzsche's doctrine reached its culmina- 
tion. The following quotation from the press campaign of 
that time may serve to portray the national feeling : 

"There are two kinds of races, master races and inferior 
races. Political rights belong to the master race alone, and 
can only be won by war. This is a scientific law, a law of 
biology. It is unjust that a rapidly-increasing master race 



40 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



should be struggling for room behind its own frontier, while 
a declining, inferior race can stretch its limbs at ease on the 
other side of that frontier. The inferior race will not be 
educated in the schools of the master race, nor will any school 
be established for it, nor will its language be employed in 
public. Should it rebel, it is necessary to use the most violent 
means to crush such insurrection, and not to encumber the 
prisons afterwards. Thus the conquerors can best work for 
the annihilation of the conquered, and break forever with 
the prejudice which would claim for a beaten race any right 
to maintain its nationality or its native tongue." 

We come now to an examination of the few fundamental 
principles of German philosophy of war. 

Plato's principle of aristocracy, government by the best 
is the best government, is a sophism. The practical justifi- 
cation of democracy, in a few propositions, — as there is not 
space for discussion, — is as follows: 

In general, people attend to their own business better 
than other people would attend to it for them. 

In general, people govern themselves better than another 
people would govern them. 

All the people are more likely to govern themselves better 
than any one party, class, or sect would govern them, for 
this reason : Government is an exceedingly difficult and com- 
plicated matter, and mistakes are continually occurring. But 
when all the people have a voice in the government, if a mis- 
take is made, those on whom the evil of the mistake falls are 
in a position to help correct the mistake, and thus remove the 
evil ; and they have a tendency so to do. That is, in a democ- 
racy the corrective force lies within the government. Hence 
the natural tendency of democracy is progress and improve- 
ment. 

In an aristocracy, on the other hand, when a mistake is 
made the resulting evil usually falls on those without the gov- 
ernment. And these persons have little or no power to re- 
move the evil by correcting the mistake. Hence the natural 
tendency of an aristocracy, no matter how good the govern- 
ment was originally, is to grow gradually worse. After 
education becomes universal, aristocracy is an anachronism. 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 41 



The Hebrew idea of a single chosen people is one-sided. 
Later writers in the Old Testament arrived at a truer and 
juster conception. Thus Isaiah and Jeremiah regarded God 
as the God of all peoples, of the Egyptians and Babylonians 
as well as of the Hebrews. Of course it is eminently becom- 
ing for every one to think that one's own country is the 
best, just as it is meet and right for every man who is mar- 
ried to think that his wife is the best woman in the world. 
But such thought seems to be a process of the idealizing 
imagination, rather than a judgment of the understanding. 

Machiavelli was a keen observer, and a versatile writer ; 
but he was not a profound thinker. He failed to perceive 
that the moral order lies at the basis, as the very essence of 
human affairs. As Morley said, in his Romanes lecture: 
"The modern conception of a state has long made it a moral 
person, capable of right and wrong, just as are the individuals 
composing it." 

Comte's law of the three stages is a superficial generaliza- 
tion, and is consequently inaccurate. He did not distinguish 
between the terms "theology" and "mythology." If he had 
said that civilization passes through two stages, the mytho- 
logical and the scientific, he would have been correct ; or he 
might have said that it passes through three stages, the 
mythological, the transitional, and the scientific. For this is 
the order in which civilization always has advanced. As 
theology and metaphysics arose out of mythology, likewise 
did ancient science. Mythology was the great mother sci- 
ence. And as the special sciences gradually freed themselves 
from mythology and became more strictly scientific, so did 
theology and metaphysics also. Hence, instead of Comte's 
statement being true, that theology and metaphysics have be- 
come outgrown and useless, precisely the contrary is the case. 
With the methodical and logical advance of the special sci- 
ences, theology and metaphysics have advanced in like man- 
ner. Theology, metaphysics, and science have all advanced 
in concert, or in close relation to one another, sometimes one, 
sometimes another being in the lead. And there is not any 
rational ground for inferring that the course of civilization, 
in this respect, will be different in the future from that in 



42 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



the past. As long as human nature endures, theology, meta- 
physics, and science will stand or fall together. 

Regarding lonely and unhappy Nietzsche two brief re- 
marks must here suffice : ( i ) Nietzsche was a specialist. He 
may have been a great scholar in philology, — though even 
in this field his unfortunate prejudices sometimes lured him 
aside from the straight and narrow path of scientific pro- 
cedure. But he wrote on anthropology, psychology, sociol- 
ogy, philosophy, ethics, and religion, subjects about which he 
knew comparatively little. Hence his religious and philo- 
sophical opinions are largely of the nature of personal 
guesses, not logical or valid conclusions. Frau Wagner's 
criticism on "Human, Ail-too Himian" applies to many of his 
books ; superficial in matter and pretentious in manner. And 
although the pretentiousness increased until he boasted that 
he had attained to "an elevation" where he spoke "no longer 
with words, but with flashes of lightning," the superficiality 
alas! remained. (2) The last eleven years of his life 
Nietzsche was hopelessly insane; and for the ten years pre- 
ceding this period he was a confirmed invalid, suffering part 
of the time, if not all, from a lesion of the brain. Conse- 
quently his writings, particularly the later ones, are not to be 
taken as the expression of a normal or rational mind. They 
are of practically no value, except from the subjective point 
of view. They are of interest to the psychologist, or to the 
pathologist as they serve to throw light on the gradual prog- 
ress of nervous disease in this remarkable, but erratic and 
unbalanced man. 

For nearly a generation Germany has been intoxicated 
with Kaiserism and Nietzscheism. Recently the Deutsche 
Zeitung proclaimed: "Down with the world-conscience t 
Away with the spirit of world-brotherhood ! Let the Ger- 
man spirit of power alone be our commander and leader! 
Its cry is more power ! More German power ! That is the 
legacy bequeathed to us by our dead heroes, and written in 
the flame-red letters of their blood. May those who trifle 
with this legacy be struck by the curse which will rise from 
their graves to God's heaven ! He whose 'world-conscience' 
or sense of 'responsibility toward humanity' causes him to 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 43 



say or write anything less than that which the power of the 
German sword commands is, and always will be, a. feeble 
political dreamer, a gloomy wanderer in the clouds." The 
social tissue of the German nation has become diseased. The 
public mind is delirious. National responsibility is paralyzed. 
A surgical operation is required. After the diseased por- 
tions of the body politic shall have been removed, the nation 
will doubtless return to its right mind, and recognize that 
world-empire, at the present stage of political evolution, is 
but an atavistic phantom of a deranged imagination. 

BY HENRIQUE LOPES DE MENDONgA 

The great majority of crushedj impoverished, bereaved 
mortals, cast into grief and misery by the most tremendous 
war that history has ever witnessed, these are the men who 
interest me, who interest us all. It is their voice which speaks 
through the lips of the great statesmen of the belligerents, 
proclaiming their desire for peace, but an honorable peace, 
a lasting peace, a peace which shall free future generations 
from the anguish and tortures assigned by destiny to ours. 

This brings me to the point of my thought; but let us 
turn back a little. For sacred discourses I find myself lack- 
ing in the one essential thing, and perhaps the greater por- 
tion of my audience may be in like case — we have not the 
gift of faith ! For want of it, the heart of many of us has for 
long been desolate and shrouded in gloom. This I deplore 
for my hearers as I do for myself. To live in a dream is 
still the most blissful, perhaps the only really happy form of 
existence on earth. And the dream of the supernatural is 
the supreme hope, for without hope the soul of man sinks 
into darkness. This it was which inspired Dante to record, 
over the gateway to his Inferno, the fateful legend: Las- 
ciate ogni speransa, 6 voi che entrate? 

And indeed, with an eternity of despair, no other tor- 
ment was required to make a hell of Hell. 

But let us desist from vain regrets. It is possible that 
the philosophic mission of Christianity may be on the point 
of vanishing from the world. Sincerely I hope not. But its 
'All hope abandon, ye who enter here. 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



social mission still survives, despite revolutions and cata- 
clysms, as the source of all morality among the civilized na- 
tions of Europe and America. Be we devout, skeptical, or 
atheistic, we still remain saturated with its doctrine, and 
thus fail to conceive, outside the domain of savagery, any 
society which does not revere its precepts. The ideals of 
justice on which all democratic legislation is based spring 
from the blood so unjustly shed on Calvary. The ideals of 
love, which kindle our hearts, take their rise from the sacred 
lips which proclaimed : "Love one another," The ideals of 
equality and fraternity, never yet attained, were from the 
same sublime source. Yet it is remarkable that those very 
revolutionaries who are the fiercest in their zeal for stripping 
Christ of His divine attributes should inscribe on their ban- 
ner of social regeneration, in the name of Humanity, the 
identical words which epitomize the doctrine preached in the 
name of God. 

Hence my conclusion is this: be our sentiments as re- 
gards religion what they may; be we believers or skeptics, 
mystics or atheists, in the depths of our souls we are all Chris- 
tians — Christians from the moral standpoint. Christians in 
our mutual relations with the Godhead. Twenty centuries 
of Christianity have accumulated in our consciences a store 
of ethical sentiments which no storm will ever sweep out, 
unless we are prepared to revert to primitive savagery. Con- 
ceptions of honor, of duty, of respect for the rights of others, 
of charity towards the unfortunate, of pity for the oppressed, 
of horror for unjust violence, of hatred for tyranny, of ex- 
ecration for perfidy and crime: all these have become en- 
grafted into our very being as essential principles, incon- 
testable and indispensable to our social life. Without them 
we should lapse into the cavern-life of troglodytes, seizing 
with tooth and claw, with the knife and other weapons of 
death, the bread we require to keep us from starvation. 

True, the good seed of the Gospel has not yet expelled 
evil from the world. But in the human animal it has at least 
softened those instincts of rapine, the proximate or remoter 
source of all social conflagrations. War itself, the organic 
fatality of societies, from the time when Christ's word poured 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



balm upon the soul of the warrior, has become less atrocious 
in its methods. In that long period of ten centuries known 
as the Middle Ages, when a northern barbarian came on the 
scene, flooding the lands of the sun in the hope of restraining 
the advance of the Grasco-Roman civilization, a gleam of 
hope filtered into the dungeons of the captives, a ray of pity 
flashed against the swords of the invaders. Faith, honor, 
adherence to the plighted word, respect for innocent and de- 
fenseless life, protection for the unjustly persecuted : all these 
notions of justice and dignity, which Roman law had formu- 
lated and Christ's apostles had acclaimed, found their way 
into a code tacitly accepted by all civilized peoples, even by 
those who, like the Mussulman, were themselves outside the 
pale of the Church. Such was the code of chivalry, which 
for centuries stood as the safeguard of millions of oppressed, 
the refuge of the weak, a shield against the tyranny of the 
strong, and a mitigation of the violence of armed savagery 
in war. 

By this I do not mean, and it would be senseless to affirm, 
that, times without number, brute force did not gain the 
mastery over law and reason ; that might was not the supreme 
arbiter of unbridled ambition. But it is certain that brute 
force itself paid homage to justice by cloaking its misdeeds 
under moral pretexts more or less specious. It was in the 
name of Catholic faith that the Spanish conqueror slew the 
Indian, that his kings bathed Flanders in blood. It was un- 
der color of a resistance to despotism that Napoleon I. under- 
took by force of arms to forge his own despotism upon 
Europe. And in the various wars of succession, the ambi- 
tions which crossed swords always invoked the protection of 
divine right, universally acknowledged as the source of mon- 
archical power. 

What I mean to say is that greed or wickedness invari- 
ably clothed itself in the guise of some sacred ideal, and at 
least in modern times — never till now — ^has it dared to af- 
front the conscience of mankind by a cynical parade of its 
true intentions. 

Never till now, I have said ; never till yesterday, I ought 
to have said. For it was but yesterday, in the full daylight 



46 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



of civilization, that a European nation struck the cultured 
world full in the face, proclaiming over all the globe the 
supremacy of might as the dogma of her moral culture. It 
was but yesterday, to the shame of civilization, that the 
most admirable conquests of modern science, carefully turned 
to account during forty years of painstaking preparation, 
were brought into play to crush the weak, to surprise the 
unsuspecting, to trample under the brutal weight of her 
armies the most generous aspirations of the human soul — all 
this, according to the impenitent confession of her warriors 
and philosophers, with the sole object of riveting upon the 
world at large the iron bondage of German rule. 

History repeats itself. Some fifteen centuries before, 
Attila, king of the Huns, devastated all Europe, proclaiming 
that never again would grass grow where the hoofs of his 
steed had trod. Just in the same spirit German arrogance 
boasted itself that never again, in the regions swept by Ger- 
man cannon, would popular liberty be reborn. Over the 
whole world of old, with Attila, dark night came on. But 
mark the fateful coincidence: it was on the banks of the 
Mame, in the Catalatmian plains, that the defeat of the Hun- 
nish hosts dispelled the fearsome gloom; and it was in the 
battle of the Marne that the first dawn of victory gleamed 
in our eyes. Let us be of good cheer: the same fate is in 
store for the modern Hun. 

The modern Hun has to go under, if we so will it. Let 
us strengthen our will, not only against the transitory vicissi- 
tudes of war, but — note this well — against the persistent in- 
sinuations of peace. Yes! For almost half a century these 
influences, slowly infiltrating, have threatened to pervert our 
thought and deprave our conscience, just as they have suc- 
ceeded in doing within the borders of Germany herself. For 
the present war is the explosion of deleterious forces which, 
sapping Germany, have brought her back to the first stage 
of normal civilization. In attempting to establish the Teu- 
tonic hegemony of the world, those forces have shaken the 
foundations upon which human society rests; they have con- 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 47 



verted social life into a fierce struggle of individual egoisms 
in perpetual revolt against the preponderant egoism. 

The Germany of which I speak, please remember, is not 
the Germany which captured the admiration of thinkers, 
philosophers and artists. It is not the Germany which under 
the hand of Luther broke the fetters of religious intolerance, 
which illuminated human thought by the brilliant beacon of 
Kant, which through the sublime genius of Goethe shed its 
renovating rays over universal literature, which with Bee- 
thoven and Wagner brought fresh charm into the Divine Art. 
No! From the day when the most unprogressive of Ger- 
many's races, that race which to-day stands for the truculent 
energies of barbarism, hurled over her the chariots of its steel 
colossus, that Germany, great and mighty, sank into ob- 
livion. The German nation (though blindly and uncon- 
sciously so) is to-day the victim of Prussian militarism. 
Aided by a tenaciously malevolent intelligence^ the germs of 
that poison, spread ever since the eighteenth century at the 
instance of Frederick the Great, have been filtering into the 
organism of Germany, there to develop with intensity, above 
all since the war of 1871 placed the Imperial crown on the 
head of the King of Prussia. From that time onward the 
pest overflowed the frontiers and began to contaminate the 
whole world. To-day, and only to-day, has the conscious- 
ness of this infernal perversion of men's minds begun to be 
perceived, up to now accepted as it has been by the snobbism 
of the world at large as if it were a salutary transformation. 

Yes! Many of our contemporaries, and among them 
some of the best informed, have been reading eagerly and 
assimilating with delight the Nietzschian doctrine that for 
those organisms endowed with an excess of energy, the so- 
called supermen, all mankind should make way. And this 
abominable doctrine, based on a sophistication of scientific 
principles, the negation of all morals and all justice, the con- 
secration of violence and rapine, has been received without 
protest, nay even with sympathy, by minds rooted in Chris- 
tianity, by social workers whose activities had for their mo- 
tive force the deepest respect for the dignity of man. 

But if the tares spread beyond the German borders, what 



48 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



wonder that they should have flourished within them, where 
an environment had been so assiduously prepared for their 
reception ! The State, with singular astuteness, turned to its 
own ends, if it did not actively promote, the vagaries of 
genius so as to mold the German mentality. Nietzsche's 
monstrous theory was practically given a collective interpre- 
tation. The superman was expanded into the super-national- 
ity. The professor and the soldier effectively collaborated 
with the philosopher in the work of moral perversion. Into 
the Germanic conscience was infused the mystic conviction 
that the German people was that chosen by the Deity to shep- 
herd the human flock. The pride of moral and intellectual 
supremacy became ingrained in the soul of the people, in- 
spiring her claim to an indisputable dominion over all the 
races of the earth. She presented an amazing crisis of gen- 
eral megalomania, which the imminence of defeat has not yet 
cured. 

Of this fact there are abundant proofs, but want of time 
and the character of this discourse forbid my enlarging upon 
them. Suffice it to mention, as the latest instance of this 
form of arrogance, the expression used in 1916 by Professor 
von Stengel, of the University of Munich. "The whole war 
up to now," his iron pen wrote, "has shown that Germany 
has been selected by Providence to guide all other nations. 
Let us march at the head of them, and we shall lead them to 
a permanent peace. For this mission we have the strength, 
and likewise the spiritual gifts, as we are the crown of all 
civilization. The whole world, and especially the neutral 
nations, have only one means of profitable existence, and that 
is to submit themselves to our direction, which is superior to 
all others from every point of view. No nation surpasses 
us in the widest and highest ideals and sentiments, and under 
our dominion none need concern himself as to the defense of 
his rights." 

Be it specially noted: the words I have just recited were 
penned in cold blood, inside the walls of a German Uni- 
versity, by a man whose brain was saturated with science, at 
the very period when two years of war-pressure at the hands 
of the Allies had begtm to make itself cruelly felt within the 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 49 



borders of Germany. Yet this document unmistakably mani- 
fests the ambition of universal dominion, its threats not 
even sparing the neutral Powers. It portrays in gloomy per- 
spective a future for humanity under the iron-shod jack-boot 
of the Teuton. 

Should not the universal conscience, that of the whole 
civilized world, be it inspired by Christ or Muliammad, by 
Buddha or by the goddess of Reason, combine in revolt 
against this formidable hypertrophy of national egoism? 
With all sincerity I confess it: in the midst of this tre- 
mendous conflagration, what most alarms one, the epidemic 
of war-madness in Germany synchronizing with a world- 
wide blindness elsewhere, is that Germany should have allies 
at all, and that a single neutral should continue to exist in 
the world. When, with an effrontery such as this, a whole 
people forsakes its rudimentary moral sense, boasting its own 
brute force as the sole sanction of its boundless pride, we 
feel we are confronted with a pack of ravening wolves. 
These it behooves us to hunt down with all our available en- 
ergies, unless we all, every man among us, mankind in the 
mass, are willing to be torn to pieces by their death-dealing 
fangs. 

To hunt them down, yes ! To destroy them utterly, no ! 
This would neither be practicable, nor humane, nor yet bene- 
ficial. Our vision is one of a reconstituted Germany, relieved 
of Prussian militarism, dedicated to her own prolific task 
of peace and science, unoppressed by the horrid nightmare of 
which her only record is a universal hatred. Freed from 
the illusive fumes of vainglory, her eyes fixed on the supreme 
ideal of liberty, her robust hands wielding the instruments 
of honest toil, her powerful brain applied to invention, a Ger- 
many such as we portray would be a potent lever of incal- 
culable value towards human progress. During long years 
of apparent prosperity, though the latent virus was mining 
her organism, she showed the world the greatness of her 
genius, the pertinacity of her toil, the excellence of her manu- 
factures. She contributed largely to the material comfort 
of mankind, rendering life easier and more joyous, and giv- 
ing the poor a share in that luxury which used to be the 

W.. VOL. I. — 4. 



50 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 

monopoly of the rich. It may have been that to this end this 
unfortunate people was ignorantly sacrificing its old ideals of 
dignity, burning on the altars of despotism the last remnants 
of its democratic pride. But however great her services to 
us may have been, the price she demanded from us in return 
was out of all proportion. It was an ignoble serfdom, this 
transformation of free men into a gang of convicts, toiling 
on the endless task of filling their coffers. The first on- 
slaughts of hunger should have led them to see the senseless- 
ness of such an aspiration. 

What a pity that to this distracted people, the progenitor 
of heroes and geniuses, so cruel a disillusionment as this 
should alone have remained ! But, should it open her eyes to 
her true position, she may be able later on to say, having re- 
gained full possession of her senses, that it was not she who 
was defeated, but the ancestral forces which overwhelmed 
her from within, the atavic eruption of barbarism bursting 
through the noble sentiments acquired by her as the work of 
many centuries of civilization. That formidable outburst 
over, she will have been released by the hands which, when 
fighting her, were purifying her from the malign ferment 
which has poisoned her culture — a culture of which she was 
so proud, yet one which only attains its true fecundity when 
the rays of the Latin sun are allowed free play upon it. 

For half a century the Germanic genius, shrouded in a 
mantle of pride, has sought to withdraw itself from those 
vivifying rays. The result is what we are now witnessing. 
Given up entirely to herself, Germany has by insensible 
transitions been sliding down the declivity into barbarism. 
Kept going by her undeniable internal energyj her products 
have been colossal, but monstrous ; flourishing, but aberrant. 
A depraved philosophy : a brutalized art. In applied science 
alone, served by an admirably methodical mind, and on the 
utilitarian side of civilization alone, thanks to an astounding 
tenacity, has German genius during that period earned an in- 
disputable title to the gratitude of mankind. 

But it is equally certain that this very savagery of great- 
ness in her conceptions has blinded her. I have already re- 
ferred in passing to the fatal influence of German philosophy. 



THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 51 



That influence has not restricted itself to the limited orbit 
of those thinkers who alone possess the brains capable of the 
laborious assimilation of such metaphysical dainties. Lam- 
entable though it may be, it would not be altogether an evil 
had they, sequestered in their own lazarettos, refrained from 
contaminating society at large. But around the thinkers 
there hover the restless, petulant multitude, the chattering, 
pervading army of snobs, and it is they who are the trans- 
mitters and the propagators of the virus. Filtered through 
this layer, those philosophical principles change their form, 
either crystallizing into dogmatic aphorisms or diffusing 
themselves in subtle emanations which spread throughout the 
whole body social. Often even the most beneficent of them, 
by excessive concentration, assume deleterious properties: 
what, then, of those which, as in the present instance, are 
by their nature dissolvent ? 

In this way the pernicious principle of the supremacy of 
force over right, elevated into a body of moral doctrine, 
the inspiring idea of the Nietzschian philosophy, has been 
worked to its full extent so as to arouse into mischievous 
activity the savage instincts slumbering in the minds of the 
many. Recourse to violence, intolerance of control, the re- 
bellion of the ruled, exacerbations of the egoistic passions, 
refusal to yield where interests conflict, all emerge as the 
fatal and ultimate consequences towards which we have long 
been ignorantly drifting. And indeed many minds at present 
hostile to Germanism have nevertheless become tainted by 
it. Everywhere idealistic tendencies are carped at, humane 
precepts ridiculed, disinterestedness scorned, the struggle 
for life accentuated. Our old romantic ideals are tied up into 
bundles and slightingly labeled "sentimentalism." 

A curious thing ! The Germanic spirit, prone to expan- 
siveness like all its earlier contemporaries, used to indulge 
from the first in the most exaggerated flights of romantic 
idealism. We have a familiar instance of the kind in the 
youthful creation of Goethe — Werther. Remember how he 
could find no other means of ridding his brain of a criminal 
passion than by shattering it with a pistol-shot. The vogue 
created by this romance became so extraordinary throughout 



52 THE KULTUR OF GERMANY 



Germany that imitators arose on all sides. An epidemic of 
passional suicide ran through the nation. Goethe had to 
hasten to check it, and succeeded in doing so by cauterizing 
the evil he himself had created, in his later work, "The Basis 
of Sentimentalism." 

And now, a century and a half later, the torrent of Ger- 
man materialism and overweening self-adulation has not 
merely subverted the exaggerated sentimentalism of the 
ultra-romantic school, but has stripped off the foliage and 
withered the flower of romance which gave the human soul 
its only perfume. It has thus destroyed the only check upon 
the corrosive influence of egoistic passion, the only restraint 
upon savagery and crime. And this time there is not the 
slightest hope that the disseminators of the pestilence will 
repent and provide the remedy for the evil they have wrought. 

How dark a future would be reserved for mankind had 
chance not opposed a barrier to this devastating torrent, and, 
after it had been dammed back, had some germs of good, de- 
posited by the flood, not been left in the world. 

But, as the apothegm of the old Roman poet hath it: 
"Quem Jupiter vult perdere dementat prius." ^ It was thus 
that Germany, materially prosperous, aggrandized from the 
worldly standpoint, allowed herself to be deceived so far as 
to attempt a gigantic and decisive blow towards making 
good her own monstrous megalomania. The blow was pre- 
maturely delivered. The world had not yet been sufficiently 
sapped by the corruption previously spread abroad. It was 
still but a minority of thoughtless persons who, impelled by 
a craving for the new and the extravagant, by the deplorable 
obsession of political passion or of despicable interests, re- 
ceived and welcomed the advent of the movement. The 
others, the well-meaning, not entirely contaminated by the 
virus, had their eyes opened in time to the menace as revealed 
in the crushing of innocent populations, in the vandalistic 
destruction of revered monuments, in terror glorified as the 
true system of warfare, in unscrupulous rapine, in slaughter 
without pity, in ferocity without limits. Taken thus by sur- 
prise, the nations armed themselves to resist the barbarians. 
* Whom Jupiter would destroy, he first makes mad. 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



HUMANITY'S LONG STRUGGLE TOWARD EQUAL RIGHTS 

AND JUSTICE 

ROBERT N. McELROY THEODORE RUYSSEN 

In sharpest opposition to the German Kultur stands that other 
Culture which had at the same time been growing up in the world out- 
side of Germany, the culture which is founded on Democracy, on the 
faith that every other man has rights equal to our own, that we want 
to give him whatever is justly his, and to live in harmony with him, 
not in authority over him. This spirit has been developed chiefly, but 
by no means wholly, in America. 

Robert Nutt McElroy, whose words on Democracy's ideal are here 
presented, was Professor of History and Politics at Princeton Uni- 
versity, and was chosen by the American Government during the War 
to direct, in all schools and colleges, through the National Security 
League, the educational work of teaching why the nation entered the 
war. Theodore Ruyssen is a noted French scholar and author. Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy at Bordeaux University, and long president of 
the leading patriotic Peace Society of France. 

From Ruyssen as the standard authority, we may learn the Euro- 
pean view upon Democracy and the equal rights of the smaller nations. 
The American review of the two hundred year long struggle toward 
Democracy is here presented by her own writers. To America the 
Great War was but a single phase in the centuries of effort; but to 
Europeans many of these ideas of equality, especially as applied to the 
"little peoples," uprose for the first time during the War. Americans 
have called this the War for Democracy; but many Europeans, even 
among the Allies, had at the beginning of hostilities still to learn much 
of what Democracy believes and represents. They have learned its 
lessons swiftly, and sometimes adopted them more valiantly than the 
earlier Democracies. c. f. h. 

BY ROBERT N. McELROY 

WHEN you say "an American," what do you mean? 
Do you mean a person of English blood ? The Amer- 
icans without English blood are vastly more numerous than 
those whose ancestors were English. "American" is a term 
which has no relation to blood. You may be of pure Ger- 
man blood and yet be a real American. You may be of 

53 



54 THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



pure Irish blood and yet be a real American. You may be 
of Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, French, Belgian or 
Austrian blood and yet be as real an American as if your 
ancestors had come to this country on board the Mayflower, 
or had fought with Washington to create the Republic, or 
later, with Lincoln, to save it. There are more than twenty- 
six million people in the United States to-day who were 
bom in other countries, or whose parents were foreign born. 
Each and every one of these is or may easily become a real 
American, if he has but the spirit of loyalty to the ideals 
which have made this nation out of many races. 

In most nations the race tie is the idea at the basis of 
political unity. In each of them, one race so far outnum- 
bers all other races that the national name implies a blood 
kinship of its citizens. But in our nation, in the United 
States, the tie is not of blood, but of belief in an ideal of 
liberty; therefore race does not count in determining 
whether or not one is an American. In that respect America 
is unique among great, independent nations. 

Our Republic was founded by people of many races, 
all intent upon one idea — ^political liberty. From many 
lands there came to these shores men and women who cher- 
ished the idea of political liberty above race or creed or 
financial interest. By their devotion they made here a na- 
tion with liberty and equality for all. That ideal furnishes 
the real test of Americanism. No man, woman or child 
who wishes special privileges is a real American. No man, 
woman or child who knowingly denies to another equal 
rights is a real American: for all Americans must "hold 
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un- 
alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." 

Governments are created among men to make these 
rights secure. The best and noblest men and women of 
every race have always been ready to sacrifice private in- 
terests, and even life itself, to preserve them to the world. 
Resistance to these ideas is treason to the best that is in every 
race; the defense of them is the supreme duty of every 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 55 



American, and our history is glorious just in so far as we 
have defended them. 

The American Revolution was not a fight between Eng- 
land and America. It was a war which resuked from an 
attempt of the arbitrary rulers of England, led by a king of 
German origin, to deny these rights and thus to destroy po- 
litical liberty in America, as they had already destroyed it 
in England, and as other arbitrary rulers had destroyed it 
upon the continent of Europe. America did not stand alone 
in her fight to preserve political liberty. To her aid came 
Englishmen and Frenchmen, Poles and Germans, Irish and 
Scotch, as well as natives of the Colonies. The Fathers of 
the American Revolution did not all live in America. Some 
of them never saw our shores. William Pitt, a Father of 
America, in his speeches in Parliament, used the bold words, 
"our armies in America," when referring to the troops 
which were fighting against the king. Edmund Burke, a 
Father of America, eloquently pleaded in England the cause 
of America as the cause of human freedom. The gallant 
Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette, a Father of Amer- 
ica, was fighting for the interests of France and America 
when he carried out the orders of General Washington. 
Kosciusko, a Father of America, struck for Polish and 
American freedom when he fought in the American army ; 
while the brave German, Baron von Steuben, a Father" of 
America, unsheathed his sword in the cause of Germany 
and America when he taught our ragged troops at Valley 
Forge how to plan a campaign. 

The victory at Yorktown was not merely an American 
victory. It was a world victory. It meant that free govern- 
ment, the hope of all nations, and kindred, and tongues, 
was to survive, not for America only, but for the good of 
all men, in all future ages, and in all countries. 

As soon as the American Revolution had saved free gov- 
ernment in America, other countries began to feel the effect. 
People with souls for freedom, in many lands, began to 
struggle with new courage for political liberty. France was 
the first to catch the infection. As the French soldiers, who 
had fought side by side with the Americans during "the days 



56 THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



that tried men's souls," sailed back to sunny France and 
their Bourbon despots, they carried in their hearts the ring- 
ing phrase, "All men are created equal," and soon the throne 
of the Bourbons was rocking under the blows for "Liberty, 
Equality and Fraternity." A few years later the Marquis 
de Lafayette sent to Washington the key to the royal prison- 
house, the Bastille, which had been taken by the revolution- 
ists ; and he labeled it "the spoil of despotism." 

England, too, soon felt the effects of a forward move- 
ment which the success of the American Revolution revivi- 
fied. Parliament, under the leadership of William Pitt, 
the Younger, was soon made once more a really representa- 
tive assembly, a character which it had lost many years 
before the American Revolution began. The Reform Bill 
of 1832 restored free government to England, and this Re- 
form Bill had been made possible by the failure of George 
III. to crush free government in America. 

Thus representative government returned to England, 
and to-day Americans and English acknowledge the same 
sovereign. That sovereign is not the descendant of King 
George IIL, however, but the "Sovereign People." And it 
is a glory to America and to Great Britain alike that wher- 
ever our flags have been unfurled, the love of that sovereign 
has since been the theme of political teaching. 

From free America, and free France, and free England 
the ideals of a government "of the people, by the people 
and for the people" spread slowly into many lands. It was 
this march of free government for the peaceful and benefi- 
cent conquest of the world for the good of the world, that 
the gallant French people had in mind when they erected in 
New York Harbor that wonderful statue of "Liberty En- 
lightening the World." 

Until August, 1 9 14, the spread of American ideals of 
freedom was steady and almost uninterrupted. The world 
saw one country after another adopt the ideas for which 
the heroes of many races had fought at Yorktown; and 
the friends of freedom began to hope and plan for a lasting 
world-peace, resting upon the idea of the right of self-gov- 
ernment 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 57 



But the peaceful conquest of the world for free govern- 
ment was watched with jealous foreboding by the Prussian 
military autocracy, whose power had been built upon the 
theory that "might makes right." From the beginning of 
her history Prussia has cherished the belief that government 
is something with which the masses of the people, the mer- 
chant, the farmer and the laborer, have no concern. Her 
ideals have always been ideals of government from above. 

"We Hohenzollerns," said the Kaiser, in frank contempt 
for the idea of government "of the people, by the people 
and for the people" — "We Hohenzollerns take our crown 
from God alone. On me the spirit of God has descended. 
I regard my whole task as appointed by Heaven. Who 
opposes me I shall crush. Nothing must be settled in the 
world without the intervention of the German Emperor. He 
who listens to public opinion runs a danger of inflicting im- 
mense harm on the state." 

In this statement William H, is merely summarizing the 
philosophy which Prussia has always followed. In the his- 
tory of Prussia we miss the stirring conflicts for the peo- 
ple's rights, which lend a charm to American, English and 
French history. There are no Runnymede Barons in the 
history of Prussia, no Simon de Montf orts, no Oliver Crom- 
wells, Pitts, Washingtons, Lafayettes or Lincolns. From 
the first, Prussia has been what she remained tO' 191 8, a 
nation whose profession is war. Slowly, but with a ter- 
rible certainty, she imposed her ideals upon the rest of Ger- 
many, until Germany became merely an expanded Prussia, 
a military autocracy, thinking in terms of force, and dream- 
ing dreams of world-conquest. 

The philosophy of Prussianized Germany taught that 
the world must some day be brought, by force of arms, into 
subjection tO' the will of the iron masters of Germany. The 
philosophy of America and England and France, on the 
other hand, teaches that the rights of small nations are 
sacred and must not be disregarded. Contrast the words in 
which the Kaiser told why Germany was at war with the 
words in which President Wilson states the aims of 
America. 



S8 THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



The Kaiser said, "The triumph of the greater Germany 
which some day must dominate all Europe is the single end 
for which we are fighting." And, in a still more striking 
statement, he presents the dream of empire which has del- 
uged the world with blood : "From childhood I have been 
under the influence of five men, — Alexander, Julius Caesar, 
Theodoric II., Frederick II., and Napoleon. Each of these 
men dreamed a dream of world-empire (and) they failed. 
I am dreaming a dream of the German World Empire, and 
my mailed fist shall succeed." 

President Wilson thus declared our aims : "These are 
the things we shall stand for : 

( 1 ) "That all nations are equally interested in the peace 
of the world, and in the political stability of free peoples, 
and equally responsible for their maintenance. 

(2) "That the essential principle of peace is the actual 
equality of nations, in all matters of right and privilege. 

(3) "That peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an 
- armed balance of power. 

(4) "That governments derive all their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and that no other powers 
should be supported by the common thought, purpose, or 
power of the family of nations. 

(5) "That the seas should be equally free and safe for 
the use of all peoples . . . accessible to all upon equal terms. 

(6) "That national armaments should be limited to the 
necessities of national order and domestic safety." 

What does this contrast mean to your mind ? It should 
mean something very definite, if you are a real American. 
It should cause you again to say with pride, "America 
means freedom for the world." 

BY THEODORE RUYSSEN 

In his speech delivered before the House of Commons 
on August 6, 1914, in justification of the participation of the 
British Empire in the European War, Mr. Asquith, the 
English prime minister, expressed himself to this effect: 
"We are fighting to vindicate the principle that the small na- 
tionalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 59 



good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmas- 
tering power." On several occasions, members of the Brit- 
ish and the French cabinets have emphasized the same idea, 
that the small nations, even the weakest among them, have 
an equal right to existence with the greatest, and that it is in 
defense of this right, violated to the injury of Serbia and of 
Belgium, that the allies are risking the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of men. "The people are resolved to dispose of 
themselves in freedom," proclaims M. Viviani, In terms yet 
more precise, Mr. Lloyd George thus defines the object of 
the war: "This," he declares, "is a war of nationalities." 
No utterance, I think, could better characterize the gigantic 
struggle deployed before our eyes throughout the entire Eu- 
ropean continent. 

It is not, or rather it is no longer, only Serbia and Bel- 
gium which are at stake in the fighting at Artois, in the 
Vosges, and along the Dvina, the Dniester and the Isonzo. 
By far the most striking feature of this war is the way in 
which it has raised, one after another, most of the "national" 
questions of Europe and even of the Orient, not only those 
which yesterday menaced the equilibrium of Europe, such as 
the Balkan problems, but even the most ancient of them, 
slumbering in the obscurity of the past, and in regard to 
which public opinion has retained only an academic and, so 
to speak, a conventional interest. As a matter of fact, who 
save a few special students concerned himself in June, 1914, 
about the Polish question or that of Syria? Even among 
those who maintain the honorable tradition of according 
their sympathy to unjustly treated peoples, how many were 
aware of a Ukrainian, a Ruthenian, a Lithuanian question? 

Thus, through a long train of successive events which 
should be recognized as something more than a mere series 
of accidents, manifold national questions, which statesmen 
and diplomats had attempted to disregard because they in- 
terfered with their political schemes, have entered the war. 
Already on July 26, 1914, the uncompromising ultimatum 
addressed to Serbia by Austria-Hungary gave notice that the 
Hapsburg Empire had determined to begin, beyond Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, the first step of the "advance to the East" 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



{Drang nach Osten), and gain a decisive start on the road 
to Salonika ; thereby bringing into question the independ- 
ence of Serbia and with it that of Bulgaria and Greece, dis- 
turbing again the intricate tangle of Balkan problems of 
which the treaty of Bucharest and the Convention of London 
had just relieved the wearied hands of the diplomats. On 
August 15th, the Grand Duke Constantine made a solemn 
promise to restore to Poland her territorial unity as well as 
her political autonomy. A little later, an imperial rescript 
informed the Russian Jews that henceforth they would en- 
joy an equal position in the Empire with that of Orthodox 
subjects.^ By the pretensions of certain German publicists 
the Finnish question was discovered as involving a branch of 
the Germanic stock which extends from the Baltic coast to 
the Adriatic. 

With the entrance of Turkey into the war, all the na- 
tional questions of the Orient were again thrown open; 
Russia no longer conceals her intention to conquer Armenia, 
of which she already holds the Caucasian region; Syria 
and Arabia are growing restless, and, finally, with the fate 
of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, the very existence 
of the Ottoman Empire, its final expulsion from Europe, 
and, perhaps, its dismemberment in Asia have come into 
question; this would mean the parceling out of Asia Minor 
into colonies or spheres of influence. More generally, the 
whole problem of the relation of the Moslem to the Christian 
world has risen anew in all its magnitude. The Germans 
have clearly recognized this, and from the first days of the 
war they tried to stir up difficulties for Russia in Persia, 
for England in India and Egypt, for Italy in Tripoli, for 
France in the whole of northern Africa, up to the day when 
the Ottoman Empire itself was dragged into their quarrel. 

This military alliance of the Protestant Kaiser, the 
Catholic Emperor at Vienna, and the Moslem Commander 
of the Faithful is a fact of great symbolic significance. Its 
importance can hardly be exaggerated. It demonstrates con- 
clusively — despite what certain writers may have said who 
saw nothing in the ruins of Belgium but an act of Lutheran 
vandalism — that the age of the great religious wars is past 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 6i 



and that even where religious passion plays a part, as no 
one will deny it does, it is only an atixiliary to national sen- 
timent. The alliance of Berlin, Vienna and Constantinople 
is no artificial arrangement, but the expression of the natural 
and necessary solidarity of the three European Empires 
which are drawn together by the one common characteristic 
that they have never granted nor desired to grant justice 
to conquered peoples. 

No doubt one may detect certain differences in the rule 
established by these empires. That of Austria-Hungary has 
been the least harsh; she has granted parliamentary insti- 
tutions to many nationalities within the Dual Monarchy and, 
of the three divisions of Poland, Galicia has undoubtedly 
been the best treated. Even Germany has never, like Tur- 
key, made wholesale massacre an instrument of govern- 
ment The fact remains, however, that Austria-Hungary, 
Germany and Turkey are conglomerations of imperfectly 
absorbed and unequally treated nationalities. None of these 
states has been able to assimilate its conquests. In Alsace, 
in Lorraine, in Schleswig, and in Poland, Germany, in spite 
of the most indefatigable efforts, has been able to "German- 
ize" only by importing Germans, by expropriating the land 
owners or by forcing them through persecution to expatriate 
themselves. In the Hapsburg monarchy, at least a dozen 
heterogeneous, jealous and hostile nationalities are crowded 
together, none of which has a decisive preponderance over 
the others. 

As for the Turks, it has been justly said that they have 
been contented to camp, saber in hand, among the subjected 
population. We must, however, do them the justice to ad- 
mit that they have not attempted to impose Islamism upon 
the conquered, and that they have shown themselves very 
tolerant in one respect, that they have never made an at- 
tempt to win over to their type of civilization the Greeks, 
the Balkan Slavs, the Armenians, the Christian communities 
of the Orient. The lack of mutual understanding between 
victors and vanquished has remained as profound after six 
centuries of occupation as at the time when the first horse- 
men, coming down from Turkestan, directed their daring 



62 THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



raids against the Byzantine Empire ; and whenever the taxes 
were not paid promptly, or whenever the civil population 
threatened to become rebellious, great hecatombs soon re- 
stored order among the discontented and gold to the public 
coffers. 

In the absence of any real fusion of the ethnical elements 
in the three empires into a homogeneous unity or any volun- 
tary cooperation of the nationalities remaining distinct, it 
has been necessary to obtain unity through force : military 
force to begin with, thereafter administrative. Artificial 
combinations of alien or mutually hostile peoples, some of 
which knew themselves to be deprived of the political and 
even of the civil rights accorded to others, Germany, Aus- 
tria-Hungary and Turkey were doomed to remain military 
empires, to place the army above the civil law, to perpetuate 
and to renew noble castes, one of whose privileges it is to 
monopolize the higher grades of the army, to put this caste 
and this army at the disposal not of the nation but of the 
ruler, and, finally, to make him, notwithstanding certain con- 
cessions to modern parliamentary polity, the arbiter of na- 
tional destiny, the master of war and peace. 

In opposition to this triptych, a view of the "allied" 
forces presents a remarkable unity, despite some incontest- 
able divergencies. It is doubtless necessary to avoid over- 
simplified generalizations and merely verbal distinctions. It 
would be false as well as arbitrary to divide the contending 
nations which dispute with each other the empire of the 
world into the oppressors and the defenders of nationality. 
Germany herself achieved her unity in the name of the na- 
tionalist principle, and it may even be said that, in a certain 
sense, Pan-Germanism is nothing but a monstrous perver- 
sion of that principle. On the other hand, nobody will be 
apt to forget that in the tragic history of nationality, the 
record of the allies is far from immaculate. Nations with- 
out faults exist only in legend. The most liberal of western 
nations, England, has borne in her side for centuries the 
sore wound of the Irish question, and the admirable solidar- 
ity shown by the British Empire to-day cannot make us 
forget that on the very eve of war it was an open question 



THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 63 



whether the introduction of Home Rule in Ireland might 
not inflict upon the United Kingdom the horrors of a civil 
war. France is far from having made such efforts to ele- 
vate the dignity of her Mohammedan subjects in northern 
Africa as might have been expected from the country of 
the "Rights of Man." As for Russia, not even her best 
friends could forget that during the past twenty years she 
has continuously infringed the liberties of Finland by re- 
strictions as unconstitutional and unjust as they were tact- 
less, and that her attempts to Russify eastern Poland have 
equaled the German attempts to Germanize Prussian Po- 
land. 

All these facts are only too true and should be frankly 
admitted. But these admissions only add force to the state- 
ment that, as a whole, the group of allied powers represent 
in their struggle against the empires of armed force the 
continuity of that liberal tradition to which the nationalities 
which were enfranchised in the course of the nineteenth 
century owe their liberation. There is hardly a national 
movement to which France, England and Russia, separately 
or together, have not given the support of their political 
influence or even of their arms. Russia, whatever may 
have been her faults in respect to the Finns, Poles and 
Jews, has been an indefatigable helper in the liberation of 
the Balkan Slavs. England has aided in the freeing of 
Greece and Bulgaria, and has always shown herself the 
protectress of small states. As for France, it is needless to 
recall what Greece, Belgium, Rumania and Italy have owed 
to her in the conquest of their national independence. 

And where have all the patriots who have been perse- 
cuted for dreaming of the emancipation of their respective 
nationalities found an asylum? Where were the commit- 
tees for the protection of all the martyred nationalities or- 
ganized, the "Leagues of the Rights of Peoples," the "Na- 
tionalist Headquarters" ? Where are the pamphlets printed, 
where are the periodicals published, which are intended to 
defend before the tribunal of public opinion the interests, 
so easily forgotten, of the peoples held in bondage? Is it 
at Berlin? Is it at Vienna? No; but in the two capitals 



64 THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY 



which have been equally hospitable to oppressed peoples and 
to "Kings in Exile," London and Paris. 

For whom, after all, did men fight in 1914 from the 
Yser to the Niemen, from the Adige to the Caucasus? In 
the first instance, Russia arose to defend Serbia, already- 
sacrificed by Europe at the end of the second Balkan War, 
from the menaces of Austria. England and France re- 
sponded in their turn tO' the pathetic appeal of Belgium, 
crushed under the heel of one of the powers which had guar- 
anteed by their signature her neutrality. Thus from the 
very outset, the European war disclosed its original char- 
acter, which has continually become more apparent. It was 
a war of nationalities. Without question, it was also some- 
thing more; it has so profoundly shaken the old structure 
of the European balance of power that one may well wonder 
what great social, political, economic, or even religious in= 
terest there is that it has not imperiled. 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



THE PROSPERITY THAT URGED CENTRAL EUROPE 
TOWARD EXPANSION AND WAR 

HENRI HAUSER JOSEPH FRIEDRICH NAUMANN 

The marvelous economic organization of Germany before the war, 
and the colossal commercial prosperity which sprang from it, were in 
part the product of the new Kultur. More largely, however, they sprang 
from the natural German energy and perseverance in toil. The unhappy 
result of this prosperity was to enlarge the German self-confidence. 
The whole nation became desirous of expansion, demanding it as a right 
and duty, with very little consideration of the rights of other nations 
against whose commerce or across whose lands they might expand. 
Chiefly their ideas looked towards the possession of a Middle-Europe 
Empire (Mittel-Europa), with Turkish, African and South American 
dependencies. 

The most able and successful book that appeared in Germany dur- 
ing the War was the "Central Europe" of J. Friedrich Naumann, one 
of the most influential of Germany's radical statesmen, an economist, 
clergyman, newspaper editor, and member of the Imperial Reichstag. 
Until his death in August, 1919, Naumann was a leader in the reorgani- 
zation of the less far-spreading Germany which survived the War. 
Instead of being blindly boastful, like most German war utterances, 
Naumann's "Central Europe" is keenly analytical, patriotic but philo- 
sophic. He is thus enabled to present in its strongest form the usual 
plea of his countrymen that they must have space for expansion, both 
in trade and in territory. Naumann also saw the really new impulse 
which German organization had introduced into civilization, and so 
drew the striking picture, which follows, of Germany's economic prog- 
ress. 

Of course it scarcely occurred to Naumann, or to the other German 
leaders of his hour, to consider the pressure their expansion must exert 
on other peoples. The superman wastes no remorseful pity on those 
he tramples down in his glorious progress. Naumann's picture of pros- 
perity driving Germany toward war is almost wholly unconscious — and 
perhaps for that very reason the more impressive. 

The conscious view of what this lordly expansion involved for the 
rest of Europe is therefore presented here by the standard French au- 
thority on economics. Professor Henri Hauser of the University of 
Dijon, a member of the Institute of France. 

c F. H. 



W., VOL. I.— 5. 



65 



66 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



NE of the favorite arguments used by pacificists in re- 



V-/ cent years was that the development of industrial civi- 
lization made all war henceforward impossible, and so to say 
unthinkable. The ties formed between modem peoples by 
industry and commerce are so manifold and so subtle that 
interest, even in the absence of sentiment, makes it impos- 
sible to break them. 

Nevertheless war has broken out. More than that, war 
has been declared by a people whom we were pleased to con- 
sider the most remarkable creation of industrial civilization. 
And we are bound to recognize that, in the unanimous en- 
thusiasm with which this people has welcomed the dawn of 
bloodshed, among the most eager voices have been those of 
the commercial and manufacturing classes. Financiers, man- 
agers of works, workingmen themselves, have all figured in 
the front ranks of the defenders of Imperialism. 

How are we to explain this paradox? And first let us 
get rid of a possible misunderstanding. Certain thinkers tell 
us, "It is not true that economic causes played a preponderant 
part in the explosion of July, 19 14. Germany was not threat' 
ened by over-population, she had no urgent need of colo- 
nies." But the truth is that what counts in the history of 
humanity is not the actual facts, but the form in which men 
picture them to their minds. Political economy and history 
are in their essence psychological sciences. What we are 
concerned to know is not whether Germany was actually suf- 
focating. Germany thought she was suffocating, she yielded 
• — to use the very words of one of those who contradict us 
— to the haunting fear of aggressive "encirclement," which 
she felt bound to shatter at all costs. It is this "pathological 
phenomenon of collective psychology" which we must at- 
tempt to explain. 

What strikes us at the very outset in the evolution of 
German industry is the actual greatness of the phenomenon. 
There is something impressive in the spectacle of this peo- 
ple, which forty years ago scarcely counted at all in economic 
geography, and yet had become on the eve of the war one of 



BY HENRI HAUSER 




GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 67 



the great forces of the world. With her 5,000 millions * of 
foreign commerce Germany reckoned in the second rank of 
mercantile nations, after England. Outstripping England 
herself, she had achieved the second place in the smelting 
and production of iron and the second also in the manu- 
facture of steel. Her mercantile marine, inferior to that of 
France in 1870, was in 19 13 surpassed only by those of Eng- 
land and the United States. 

All this won our admiration. Are we to disavow the 
admiration we have expressed, because Germany has dishon- 
ored herself by crimes? No! For Frenchmen the truth is 
always the truth. History will certainly record the prodi- 
gious effort of will by which Germany, victorious on the bat- 
tlefield in 1870, has won her place by main force in the 
economic world. I do not know whether it is true that Fried- 
rich Karl said, on the night of the surrender of Metz, "We 
have just conquered in the military sphere : our task is now 
to fight and conquer in the industrial sphere." It matters lit- 
tle whether the words are apocryphal : they express a pro- 
found and symbolic truth, and admirably render the thought 
of an entire nation. 

We do not hesitate then to recognize that the German 
people, since the foundation of the Empire, have given proof 
of remarkable qualities. First and foremost they have 
worked with intense energy, not with the feverish excite- 
ment which raises mountains in a few days, but with per- 
sistent and patient everyday labor, regular and methodical. 
Ostwald is right when he attributes to the Germans the 
faculty and genius for organization. They have carried to 
perfection the art of making use of men^ of putting every 
man in his place and of getting the maximum of output from 
each individual. If the genius for great discoveries seems in 
recent times to have deserted Germany, the Germans are 
past masters in the application of the discoveries of science to 
industry. The statement has often enough been made: It 
is the union of the laboratory and the workshop which is the 
foundation of German wealth. This truth was emphasized 

' The figures given by M. Hauser in milliards (— 1,000 millions of 
francs) are here given in dollars. 



68 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



in 1897 by M. Raphael-Georges Levy. In an article in the 
Revue des Deux Mondes, which was a revelation to many 
Frenchmen, he wrote : "The sphere in which science wins 
its triumphs is that of industry. It is difficult to find a more 
striking demonstration of this truth than that furnished by 
the chemical industry of Germany, That industry came 
from the laboratories of great men of science such as Liebig 
and Hoffmann, and its continued prosperity is due to the 
incessant cooperation of hundreds of chemists who come 
every year from the Universities. Germany is covered with 
laboratories, several of which have cost over $100,000, and 
the yearly upkeep of which requires hundreds of thousands." 

Again, in one point this analysis was incomplete. Side 
by side with the union between laboratory and workshop, it 
is necessary to call attention to the union between the office 
of the business-director and the library of the economist, the 
geographer and the historian. For the method which the 
Germans applied to the production of a new aniline color 
they also carried into their search for commercial outlets, 
and their organization of channels of commerce. The Ger- 
man chemist and the German commercial traveler marched 
in step to the conquest of the globe. 

This rise of Germany vjrs a great and, we are prepared 
to say, in a certain sense, a fine spectacle; but its very rapid- 
ity contained an element which gave some ground for anx- 
iety. 

The evolution of Germany has borne a startling and al- 
most catastrophic character. From the complex of agri- 
cultural states, dotted with industrial patches, which con- 
stituted the Z Oliver ein in 1870, the industrial Empire has 
sprung up in a few years by a sort of historical "right-about- 
face," without any of that slow and secular preparation 
which marked the rise, for instance, of the English power. 
Time has had no share in producing industrial Germany: 
like nearly everything else in modem Germany it is an up- 
start. A few dates and figures will bring this out clearly. 
Karl Lamprecht has noted the fact that towards 1880 the 
infant industry of Germany still needed protection against its 
older rivals, and this protectionist movement started, by re- 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 69 



action, the French movement of 1892. In the midst of the 
internal struggle over the question of canals in 1894-1901 it 
is still a matter of debate "whether the majority of occupa- 
tions and interests in the Empire is still agricultural or has 
become industrial and commercial." But facts give the an- 
swer: In 1893 the consumption of raw iron per caput of 
the population did not rise to 220 pounds a year; in 1899 it 
amounted to 340 pounds. The consumption of coal rises 
from 4,200 to 6,000 pounds a head. In the same period the 
production of iron and pig-iron rises from five million to 
more than eight million tons, that of coal from 95 million 
to 136 million. In these six years the fate of Germany vi^as 
decided by an increase in production so intensive that it 
seemed "unwholesome," and was destined to lead to the crisis 
of 190 1, The country which was poor had suddenly become 
very rich. In 1895 the income from the fortunes of the Em- 
pire was estimated at four bilHon dollars; in 1913 the esti- 
mate varied from eight to ten billions, while the wealth of 
Germany was estimated at 64 billions. Such are the figures 
proudly produced by Dr. Helfferich, Director of the Deutsche 
Bank, the Minister of Finance of the King of Prussia, at the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession of William II. 

This sudden increase in German wealth had very serious 
consequences for the character and distribution of the popu- 
lation of Germany. The two most notable results were the 
progressive disappearance of the rural population and the 
abrupt cessation of emigration. It is repeatedly stated that 
the Germans were forced into a policy of expansion and 
conquest by the increase in their population. This was in- 
deed the excuse they put forward to justify their attempts to 
create colonies of settlement in Morocco and Asia Minor. 
A pitiless Malthusian law had forced them, it was said, to 
find for themselves a "place in the sun." Now there could 
be no idea more false than this of Germany as an over-popu- 
lated country. It is quite true that since 1871 the population 
of the Empire has increased from 40 to nearly 70 millions. 
It is quite true that in spite of a decline in the birth rate, the 
increase in the population of Germany was 800,000 a year : 
that is, 800,000 more births than deaths, 800.000 more 



70 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



mouths to feed. But this increase was far from being exces- 
sive, for every year 700,000 Slav laborers came in to v^ovk on 
the great estates of the East, not to mention the Italian, 
Croatian, Polish, etc., labor employed in towns, mines and 
works. 

As for German emigration, it was no longer more than 
a memory. Between 1880 and 1883 it exceeded 200,000 a 
year, in 1914 it did not reach 20,000, very nwiJn the same 
figure as our own, and the French are regarded as a people 
who emigrate very little. The number of arrivals far ex- 
ceeds that of departures. Germany has ceased to be a coun- 
try of emigration and is becoming a country of immigration. 

There is indeed an emigration in Germany, but it is an 
internal emigration, from the country to the town, from the 
agricultural regions to the industrial districts. Since 1895 
the population living on the land has ceased to be half of the 
total population : at the present time it is not 44 per cent. 

Out of 67 million Germans scarcely 17 millions are agri- 
cultural or live on agriculture. Every year an enormous 
number of peasants quit the land and rush into colossal fac- 
tories. It is thus that the number of towns with a population 
over 100,000 exceeds 45, it is thus that armies of labor are 
formed which put 15,000 workmen at the disposal of a firm 
like Mannesermann, more than 30,000 under Thyssen, 
73,000, nearly two army corps, under Krupp. In these fig- 
ures I include all the works belonging to one firm. 

Germany has definitely passed from the type of the agri- 
cultural state to that of the industrial state. The equilibrium 
between the land and the workshop has been upset. 

The Industrial State has very imperious needs and re- 
quirements, which are not shared by the Agricultural State ; 
the Agricultural State lives on itself and for itself, and can 
live within its OAvn limits. The Industrial State, to use the 
phrase of Lamprecht, is a "tentacular" State. 

To begin with, it has need of supplies of food. It is cal- 
culated that 20 millions of the 67 millions of Germany de- 
pend for their maintenance on foreign harvests and foreign 
cattle. A dangerous position, since it compels Germany to 
secure for herself at all times not only free passage over her 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 71 



land frontiers, but, above all, freedom of communication by- 
sea. We know what it costs Germany to-day to be cut off 
from receiving the wheat of Russia, America and Argentina. 

The Industrial State is in pressing need not only of capi- 
tal but of raw material. Germany, when she entered the 
lists, was regarded as a country rich in coal and iron. She 
has remained rich in coal ; but by working her iron mines 
intensively I do not say she has exhausted them, but she can 
no longer extract from them the total amount of ore re- 
quired by her metallurgical works. Krupp is more and more 
dependent on Sweden, Spain, North Africa and France. In 
the same way the spinning and weaving factories of Saxony 
and Silesia are dependent on Texas and Louisiana. If Swe- 
den, which has nationalized her mines, puts barriers on the 
export of her ores, or the price of com undergoes an ab- 
normal rise in the market of New Orleans, it means famine 
for the crowds which throng into the Westphalia district 
or to the north of the Bohemian mountains. 

Raw cotton bulks larger than any other article imported 
into Germany, to the amount of considerably more than 
$125,000,000. The cotton industry employs more than 1 5^ 
millions of work-people and manufactures goods to the value 
of more than $250,000,000. Now, two-thirds of the raw 
cotton consumed in the world is supplied by a single country, 
the United States. In 1894, a syndicate, the "Sully cotton 
corner," took advantage of this situation to produce an enor- 
mous rise of prices and to reserve the cotton for the Ameri- 
can factories. On the Bremen Exchange, in February, the 
price paid for cotton was 85 pfennige a pound, while in De- 
cember, when the corner had been broken up, it fell to 35. 
Germany lost in the operation $30,000,000 paid to the for- 
eigner. A reduction in the production of cotton textiles and 
widespread dismissal of workmen were the results of this 
veritable cotton famine, which at the same time disastrously 
affected our own industries in the Vosges and in Normandy 
as well as those of Lancashire. 

The Industrial State has need of capital. In spite of the 
prodigious increase in German wealth, German industry 
has an enormous appetite for capital. No sooner is capital 



72 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



created than it is used up in constructing new works or in 
remodeling machinery. In the formidable industrial strug- 
gle in which Germany entered, she was condemned to make 
new conquests every day, for any defeat, nay more, any 
check, would be fatal. It would be true to say that capital 
is swallowed up before it comes into being, for it is antici- 
pated by credit. Companies with imposing capital dependent 
on industrial banks, these again dependent on central banks 
and especially on the Deutsche Bank, these great banks in 
their turn absorbing all available wealth, including a propor- 
tion of foreign capital — all this forms a marvelous but fragile 
structure. The very denials of the German financiers prove 
that they cannot afford to disregard the assistance of foreign 
capital. Let but one of the streams which feed the mighty 
river happen to dry up, and the crisis comes with violent and 
widespread consequences. 

Customers are necessary to Germany even more than 
capital. In spite of their power of increase, in spite of 
their rapid advance in wealth, in spite of their appetite for 
enjoyment, the German people cannot by themselves alone 
absorb the enormous output of the German factories. They 
are bound to turn more and more to the outside world and 
to become an exporting industry. 

All causes then combine to make Germany a "tentacular 
State," spreading out in every direction over the world. The 
general staff of the industrial world needs a "world-policy" 
to find interest for its capital and to pay the wages of its 
workmen. The proletariat have need of it to give them a 
full day's work and save them from starvation. That is 
why German Socialism is Imperialist. You know what a 
hue-and-cry was raised against the French Socialist who 
dared to make this discovery. We are compelled to-day to 
recognize that M. Andler was too painfully right. Even as 
early as 1900 the defenders of the German Naval Law wrote : 
"The freedom of the seas and vigorous competition in the 
markets of the world are therefore questions of life and 
death for the nation, questions in which the working classes 
are most deeply interested." We know by recent examples 
what Germany means by "questions of life and death," and 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 73 



what methods she is in the habit of using to answer such 
questions and to deal with any obstacles that bar the way to 
their solution. Only yesterday the Social Democrat, Konrad 
Hoenisch, ex-member of the Reichstag, exclaimed: "The 
social interests of the German proletariat even more than 
political considerations make victory for Germany neces- 
sary." 

Thus we see the Industrial State condemned to "World- 
policy." Its first business is to find means tO' develop its 
policy of export. The first means adopted is the system of 
bounties. As German industry is working less for the home 
market than for foreign markets it is logical to sell cheap, 
sometimes even to sell at a loss beyond the frontier in order 
to win new markets and to discourage all competition. 
Thanks to the system by which the chief economic forces are 
grouped in cartels, the process is easy enough. In 1902 the 
coke-syndicate compelled the German consumer to pay four 
dollars a ton, while at the same time it agreed to sell large 
quantities abroad at less than three dollars. In the second 
half of 1900 the iron-wire syndicate had sold abroad at $1.60 
per 100 lbs., while the home price was $2.85. It thus made 
a minus profit on the foreign market, and on the home 
market a plus profit of larger size. This gave a balance on 
the right side. But this time the trick was overdone, for 
the result was that German iron was bought up abroad to 
be reexported to Germany at a profit. Next to the system 
of bounties comes that of treaties of commerce, which favor 
the importation of provisions and of laborers (Slavs, for ex- 
ample), and which secure a moderate tariff for German 
goods abroad. Such is the basis of the Russo-German 
Treaty of 1904, the tendency of which was to make Russia 
an economic colony of Germany. 

In order to meet the want of iron, Germany had to con- 
quer new supplies of iron ore. Peaceful conquest to begin 
with. The expert adviser attached to the commissioners of 
delimitation in 1871 allowed the iron-ore strata of the 
Woevre to escape, from ignorance of their real importance 
and also because he thought them inaccessible by reason of 
their depth, unworkable because of their high percentage of 



74 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



phosphorus. But the application of the Thomas process in 
1878 converted the Briey basin into the most important iron- 
field at present being worked in the world. That is why 
Thyssen made his way into this region at Batilly, Jouaville 
and Bouligny under fictitious names. At the same time he 
sent his divers to Dielette to search for ore under the sea: 
he planted his agents in the mining and metallurgical com- 
pany of Calvados, started under some one else's name the 
company of mines and quarries at Flamanville, and then the 
powerful company of smelting and steel-works at Caen. 
By these operations he gained the double advantage of buy- 
ing ore from us and selling coke to us. With the iron of 
Lorraine and Normandy and the coal of Westphalia, Ger- 
many would be the mistress of the world. 

To make sure of this supremacy it was of importance 
to remove all competition and establish German industry in 
the very heart of the country of her rivals. A description 
was given before the war of the extraordinary control ac- 
quired by German manufacturers over French works pro- 
ducing chemical materials, electricity, etc. At Neuville-sur- 
Saone it was the Badische Sodafabrik which, under a French 
name, provided the madder-dye for the red trousers of the 
French army, and possibly it even inspired the Press cam- 
paign, conducted with the support of sentimental arguments, 
in favor of a color which was dangerous from a military 
point of view. The Parisian Aniline Dye Company (Com- 
pagnie parisienne des couleurs d'aniline) was nothing but a 
branch of Meister, Lucius and Bruning, of Hoechst. We 
have been told how a Darmstadt company for producing 
pharmaceutical goods came and established a branch at Mon- 
tereau in order to destroy a French factory which was there 
before, and how the Allgemeine Elektriziiidtsgcsellschaft 
got hold of Rouen, Nantes, Algiers, Oran and Chateauroux. 

The same conquests were won at Seville, Granada, 
Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Mendoza, Santiago and Valpa- 
raiso. Turkey, Russia, Italy and Switzerland shared the 
fate of France. 

A remarkable study of the same subject in Italy has been 
made by M. Giovanni Preziosi in some articles which ap- 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 75 



peared in 19 14 in the Vita italiana all' estero, and were col- 
lected in pamphlet form in 191 5 under the significant title, 
"Germany's Plan for the Conquest of Italy." It was indeed 
a war of conquest, conducted with admirable organizing fac- 
ulty. At its center was a financial staff, constituted by the 
"Banca comnierciale . . . italiana," which naturally is called 
"Italian," just as the companies in France are called "French" 
or "Parisian." This product of German finance is described 
as a "Germanic octopus," the very image of the "tentacular 
State" before described. Establishing itself within the di- 
recting boards, and, by means of a system of secret cards, 
employing a regular system of commercial espionage to ruin 
all who resist it, it succeeded in gradually absorbing the 
economic energies of an entire people — establishments of 
credit, shipping companies, manufacturing firms ; it was even 
able to corrupt political hfe, overthrow ministries and con- 
trol elections. Here, as in Switzerland, the pseudo-Italian 
German banks "act as a pump which pumps out of Italy and 
pumps into Germany." Italy, which is considered a poor 
country, provides capital for rich Germany. 

To back up this policy of economic conquest the prestige 
and the strength of the Empire must be put at the service 
of the manufacturers. To make the State as the Germans 
understand it, the instrument of German expansion — this is 
the meaning of what the Germans have well named the policy 
of "business and power," Handels und Machtpolitik. No- 
where is the confusion of the two ideas more clearly exhibited 
than in the report forwarded to London in February, 19 14, 
by Sir Edward Goschen, on "An Official German Organiza- 
tion for Influencing the Press of Other Countries." This 
important document is too little known in France, perhaps 
because, outside the Blue Book, it has not appeared in Eng- 
land except as an ordinary "White Paper." But how in- 
structive it is t 

The object of this company was to promote the manu- 
facturing prestige of Germany abroad. It supplied full in- 
formation gratuitously or at a low price to foreign journals 
in their own language concerning Germany and favorable 
to Germany. It withheld the service from those who showed 



76 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



themselves deaf to instruction. "To reply to news meant to 
influence opinion on Germany and to meet attacks upon her, 
and to make the true situation of German industry widely 
known" — such was the program. In an article so naively 
transparent that its publication was thought inopportune and 
orders came from above not to reproduce it or make any 
allusion to it, the Deutsche Export Revue crudely remarked : 
"It is better to choose men already connected with the vari- 
ous journals, who will serve German interests without at- 
tracting so much attention." 

This fusion of Weltpolitik and business policy was pe- 
culiarly dangerous for the peace of the world. If Imperial- 
ism, if "the tentacular State" puts its strength at the dis- 
posal of manufacturing interests, the temptation is strong 
and constant to use this strength to break down any re- 
sistance which stands in the way of the triumph of these 
interests. If a crisis comes which causes a stoppage of work 
(there are sometimes 100,000 unemployed in Berlin) the 
neighboring nation which may be held responsible for the 
crisis has reason to be on its guard. "Be my customer or I 
kill you," seems to be the motto of this industrial system, 
continually revolving in its diabolical circle, always produc- 
ing more in order to sell more, always selling more in order 
to meet the necessities of a production always growing more 
intensive. 

Russia was for Germany both a reservoir of labor and 
a market. France was a bank and a purveyor of minerals. 
What a temptation to dip deep into the jealously guarded 
stocking and fill both hands! What a temptation, too, to 
repair the blunder made in the delimitation of 1871 ! Even 
in 191 1 the Gazette du Rhin et de Westphalie put forward 
the view that the iron ores of Lorraine and Luxembourg 
ought to be under the same control as those of Westphalia 
and the Saar. And I am told that the great journals of Paris, 
when informed of this campaign, refused to take this "pro- 
vincial journal" seriously, being blind to the fact that it was 
the organ of the great manufacturers of the Rhineland and 
of the Prussian staff. What a temptation again to take the 
port of Cherbourg in the rear from Dielette ! 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 77 



As for England, the direct competitor of Germany in 
all the markets of the world, and manufacturing the same 
goods, she was the enemy to be crushed. Had she not ac- 
quired the habit, and had she not taught it to France, of re- 
fusing to lend money to poor States except in return for good 
orders ? The time was beginning to go by v/hen it was pos- 
sible to do German business in Turkey with French or Eng- 
lish gold. Germany's rivals have learnt from her the lesson 
of Handels und Machtpolitik. But what is to become of 
Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and all that immense industrial city of 
which Westphalia consists, if Rumanians, Greeks, Serbians 
order their guns and their ironclads, their rails or their loco- 
motives at Glasgow or at Le Creusot ? Germany thought war 
preferable to this economic encirclement, and the velvet glove 
gave place to the mailed gauntlet. 

Little by little the idea of war as necessary, of war as 
almost a thing to wish for, laid hold on the industrial classes. 
The proof is to be found as early as 1908 in a popular book 
by Professor Paul Arndt, one of those small shilling books 
which served to instruct the German mind. All of us, even 
the best informed, must reproach ourselves for not having 
studied or studied closely enough these small books, which 
would have made the danger clear to us. In this volume 
the author, after a paean to German greatness, begins a chap- 
ter "On the dangers of Germany's participation in world- 
wide trade." He shows that this participation increases Ger- 
many's dependence on the foreigner and makes her vulnerable 
by sea as well as by land. If international relations are dis- 
turbed there will be "many workmen without food, and 
much depreciation of capital," and that from causes "in great 
measure beyond the control of Germany" in countries which 
may seize the opportunity to weaken Germany. And in a 
hypothesis which is prophetic he describes the effects of the 
blockade. 

But he accepts without hesitation these risks of the 
World-Policy. "No doubt, if we wish to be and to remain a 
great people, a world power, we expose ourselves to serious 
struggles. But this must not alarm us. There is profound 
truth in the dictum that man degenerates in peace time. The 



78 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



call to arms is often needed to rouse a world benumbed with 
apathy and indolence. Those who can look far and deeply 
into things see that warfare is often a blessing to humanity." 

I have shown how the over-rapid industrialization of Ger- 
many led by a mechanical and fatal process to the German 
war. If any doubt were felt on the part played by economic 
causes in this war it would be enough to look at the picture 
of German victory as imagined by the Germans in their 
dreams during the early months of war. It is an industrial 
victory, a forced marriage between German coal and foreign 
iron, the reduction of nations into vassals who are to play the 
part of perpetual customers of the German workshops. 

"The metalliferous strata of French Lorraine and Rus- 
sian Poland," wrote Baron Zedlitz-Neukirch in 191 5, "sup- 
plement in some degree our own mining works." If we ask 
the impetuous Max. Harden what is to become of martyred 
Belgium, he replies, in October, 1914, "Antwerp not against 
Hamburg and Bremen, but with them ; Liege, working side 
by side with the arms factories of Hesse, Berlin and Swabia ; 
Cockerill in alliance with Krupp ; Belgian and German iron, 
coal and textiles under one control. From Calais to Ant- 
werp, Flanders, Limbourg and Brabant, up to and beyond 
the line of fortresses on the Meuse, all Prussian." The Ger- 
man dream is the dream of a conquering man of business, a 
counting-house romance founded on Freytag's novel oV'Soll 
und Haben" ("Debit and Credit"). The victory of Ger- 
many meant for them security of iron-supply and enlarged 
markets : it meant Briey, Ouenza, Casablanca, Bagdad. 

The vision has faded and the building of their dreams has 
crumbled away. But the dream has left its lessons for us, 
which demand attention not only in the future but to-day. 
Let us cherish no illusions. Germany, though conquered and 
curtailed, will not cease to exist. It is idle to suppose, as 
some publicists write, that we are going to suppress a whole 
people. Even if we had the military power to do it, policy 
and morality would forbid us. After our victory there will 
once more be a Germany which will patiently and persistently 
resume its labors. The great war will no sooner be ended 
than the other war, the economic war, will begin again. If 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 79 



we do not wish to be crushed we must to-day begin to prepare 
our mobilization for this new war. 

BY FRIEDRICH NAUMANN 

During the war we were all wondering why we Germans, 
and especially we Germans of the Empire, were so little be- 
loved by the rest of the world. To many well-meaning and 
sociable people this international dislike is something quite 
horrible, and they rack their brains to discover what we must 
do in order to find favor again. But they often look for the 
source of the ill-will of other nations in very secondary mat- 
ters, such as perhaps in the lack of social good tone in those 
who travel abroad, loud-voiced German tourists dressed in 
Tyrolese homespun, or in the theatrical sword-clanging of 
some discharged general, and not in the economic national 
type itself ; because they share in the economic and mental 
changes of their own nation much too unconsciously. It 
hardly even occurs to them that we are unloved because we 
have found a method of work in which now and for a long 
time to come no other European nation can imitate us, and 
which consequently the others do not regard as fair. It is 
this to which we have just referred as the transition to the 
impersonal capitalism of the second stage, a process which 
with us has demanded about a century and a half of work 
and education. 

In order by illustration to make clearer at the outset the 
distinction between the older and the newer creed of capital- 
ism I will begin with a little story about London. I wanted 
to look at the London docks, and said so to a respected Eng- 
lish friend, whom in spite of the war I greet from across the 
trenches. He replied, "No one here goes to look at the 
docks." Then I inquired at the International Tourist Of- 
fices of Cook and Son whether they arranged for visits to 
the docks. Answer: No, because there were no London 
docks like, for instance, the Hamburg docks, which one could 
visit and inspect as a whole ; the London docks are an un- 
systematic succession of many very big establishments, each 
of which belongs to a separate private firm. Thus, as to 
quantity, labor, money value, goods, the London trade ex- 



8o GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



ceeds that of Hamburg, but as to unity, articulation, organi- 
zation, they already represent a more antiquated form of life. 
Hamburg learned from London, but added to its learning 
quite of itself something peculiarly German, which at the 
outset appeared like some chance additional characteristic, 
merely as stricter police supervision and regulation, but which 
developed in course of time into an essential feature. Why, 
we ask, does the smaller German sea trade possess the great- 
est companies? 

Or another example: in 1900 I was in Paris during the 
Exhibition and was talking to a German wood carver who 
had worked for a long time in France, about the difference 
between Germans and French. The man, so far as I can 
remember now after fifteen years, spoke somewhat thus : If 
a French joiner has thirty workmen and can get a larger or- 
der employing more than this number he accepts it indeed, 
but puts it out on commission, because he has not sufficient 
confidence in himself or will not take the trouble to deal with 
more than thirty workmen. Meanwhile the corresponding 
German employer would accept the order for himself, would 
enlarge his workshop, and by reason of this enlargement 
would seek further new orders. If one of the Frenchmen 
acts differently, then he is certain to be from Alsace or 
Switzerland. Thus the Germans have the greater organiz- 
ing ability both in medium-sized businesses and in skilled 
handwork. 

The peculiarity of the Germans does not consist in an 
essentially new attribute which has not appeared elsewhere 
in the world, but in the methodical, trained progress in an 
ability which has existed and does still exist among the 
hitherto leading nations, but has not been so systematically 
and intentionally developed. From our own point of view 
we are still a long way from having arrived at perfection of 
organization, but in the eyes of others we have already de- 
viated far from their style of living. They regard us as 
an unfree people, because we have learnt better than they 
have how to carry out our work on a common plan and to a 
common rhythm. And this applies to all types of work. It 
is not as if industrialism were a special German charac- 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 8i 



teristic, for the English are an industrial, machine-using, 
manufacturing nation, and were so before us. Moreover, 
the peculiar German spirit of which we are speaking shows 
itself at least as much in our agricultural occupations as in 
our manufactures. 

Of course there are all sorts of attempts at organization 
and cooperation in English and French agriculture, as, for 
example, among the wine growers in Southern France. But 
when examined closely these attempts are nearly all quite 
feeble, whereas German agriculture, although the independ- 
ence of the peasantry is definitely safeguarded, is already 
almost entirely managed by systematic cooperation, or at 
least is making daily progress towards this goal. By the 
joint action of agricultural boards, agricultural schools, loan 
banks, granaries, and dairies, a strong net is woven round the 
individual. He has become a peasant cooperator, member of 
a definite profession. He can, no doubt, evade all these regu- 
lations, but it is to his own injury if he does so. For the 
sake of personal interest he becomes a member of an im- 
personal institution and works for it as for himself. This 
insertation of the individual ego into the joint ego is our spe- 
cial ability, by which we attain a more intensive cultivation, 
a better assorted production, and better marketing qualities 
for international trade. Individualism is fully developed, 
but it is then carried up into the next higher form of economic 
cooperative existence. 

Owing to a like intrinsic impulse, our industrial life is 
similarly full of ideas of organization and regulations for 
combining. We have extensive economic syndicates or car- 
tels ; moreover, during the last twenty years our German in- 
dustries have taken on an entirely new appearance. In grow- 
ing they have become interlaced. By means of employers' 
federations, payment cartels, zone compacts, and price agree- 
ments, a complicated machinery of spheres of business and 
subordinations has come into being, in which the outsider 
can hardly find his way, but which has been created step by 
step as needed, and by means of which the private employer 
of the old style has quite gently slipped over into the disci- 
plined, industrial community, and that in the course of one 

W., VOL. I.— 6. 



82 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



generation and even when at the outset he was quite un- 
willing. He has become a federated employer. The em- 
ployers of the first and second generations perhaps only 
adapted themselves reluctantly to these developments and 
would rather have remained individualist capitalists in the 
West European sense ; but the employer of the third genera- 
tion is for the most part born into a combination from the 
outset. Thus in a certain sense he becomes the free, direct- 
ing employee of a society which produces steel or yarn or 
sugar or spirits. The industrial basis of the age is thus dis- 
covered, and its spirit is now steadily penetrating deeper. In 
another twenty years we shall see before us the whole scheme 
of a powerful industry with its domestic regulations and its 
divisions of labor. The regulation of production is on the 
way. Things that forty years ago would have seemed like 
the unreal idealism of socialist and state-socialist dreamers, 
now appear with incredible certainty as realities which have 
come into being in the interval. Germany is on the way to 
become not merely an industrial State, but above all, an or- 
ganized State. 

In complete correspondence with this is our experience 
with the wage-earners, and following their example, with all 
the employees in the higher groups. The old ideal of the in- 
dividual who sells his working strength when, where, and 
how he likes, has almost disappeared in the social ideal of 
the common unions of wage-earners and workers. The non- 
unionist is still numerous, it is true, but he is in no way the 
leader. And what distinguishes the German trade unionist, 
so far as we can see, from the older English type, is his 
greater coherence and discipline, which he has painfully but 
successfully won by fighting, in spite of socialistic law and 
police intrigue, against the policy of the Government and of 
the employers. The German masses mean to make their 
advance as organized groups ; that is their guiding principle. 
It is inadequate to say that they combine in order to secure 
ir creased wages. Any one who knows the unionists knows 
that calculated self-interest is only one side of their ex- 
istence, and that, especially in the case of the leaders, it is 
the least decisive influence. They have formed their trade 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 83 



unionist ideal of conduct, narrow and inflexible, as could 
hardly be otherwise with people of moderate means who- have 
but little scope for action in their lives, but yet firmly de- 
cided upon and definite in itself. The idea of a super-per- 
sonal economic leadership of the masses in work, and in sale 
and consumption of its products, is prevalent and becomes a 
mere matter of course. In this the German working classes 
differ from all the Latin nations, for what in France and 
Italy is called socialism is indeed related in word and theory 
to the German workmen's unions, but has none of the stern- 
ness of inward determination which has been attained by 
our social democrats, or even by other unionist groups. 

All travel along the same path : engineers, teachers, head- 
teachers, scholars, doctors, even artists. The guilds of hand- 
workers are coming to life again and adapting themselves to 
the altered conditions of the time. We are a uniform nation 
in spite of the quarrels among the numerous associations of 
opposing interests, magnificently uniform in this method of 
organizing our daily work and life. Primary schools, uni- 
versal conscription, police, science and socialistic propaganda, 
have all worked together to this end. We were hardly aware 
that we desired all this in reality : this disciplined work of the 
second period of capitalism, which may be described as the 
transition from private capitalism to socialism, if the word 
socialism be not applied solely to a proletarian vision of great 
businesses, but is understood, broadly, as an ordering of the 
nation for the increase of the joint product of each for all. 

This new German type is incomprehensible to the indi- 
vidualist nations, to whom he appears partly as a relapse into 
past times of constraint, and partly as an artificial product of 
coercion that belies and overcomes humanity. In educated 
circles in Paris and London they feel a mixture of pity, fear, 
respect and aversion towards this German type. Even if 
they could produce the same thing there, they would not 
wish to do so, for they have no desire for this disciplined 
soul. They do not desire it because it would be the death 
and surrender of the individual soul. No one can quite un- 
derstand this unless he has occasionally tried to look at Ger- 
many with the eyes of a foreigner. To the German who 



84 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



knows only Germany, the intrinsic strength of this opposition 
must necessarily remain hidden; he does not realize how 
strange he has already become to even the best men of the 
Western nations, not owing to any particular thing which he 
does, but merely owing to what he is. 

This new German character has by no means been pro- 
duced among us in the German Empire without opposition, 
for it is something distinct from the old German condition of 
life and heart. The old German was much more natural, 
slower, wilder or weaker, just as it happened. All our Ro- 
manticism lacks the organizing spirit ; it is loyal, self-sacri- 
ficing and companionable, but it is wanting in any gmding 
idea of aim. The good, ridiculous Germans of former days 
were thus no objects of general enmity. People thought of 
them at times as coarse, and wished they had a larger share 
of French politeness, but foreign peoples had at bottom noth- 
ing against the worthy bears, who let themselves be pushed 
hither and thither and yet laughed at it themselves. No one 
ever supposed that this old, comfortably coarse, downright 
fellow would one day shake ofif his dream and stand up as 
the thinker of labor. 

Even when philosophers of the highest rank appeared 
amongst us, foreigners never thought that this signified a 
practical and economic change in the German character. In- 
deed, we ourselves hardly noticed how much our philos- 
ophers were practical prophets. They were regarded as art- 
ists in ideas and as reformers of the world, without its being 
realized that, emanating from them, a spirit of labor inspired 
by reason would transform the entire world in the course of 
a century. Indeed, the thinkers themselves did not perceive 
to what purpose they were there. They thought about pure 
and practical reason in the sense of intellect and morality. 
But after them came their followers, and tried to introduce 
into Government, Law, and Administration the reason which 
they had conceived. They were, it is true, only partially suc- 
cessful, but again, in the next generation, keen, highly trained 
thinkers about actual possibilities were found in all depart- 
ments of work. Neither Bismarck nor Savigny nor Helm- 
holz nor either of the two Siemens is conceivable without 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 85 

this philosopher's oil poured out for the second and third 
time. Our technical and agricultural schools are German 
institutions for thought which aims at realization in fact, and 
are nowadays almost more characteristic of our national na- 
ture than the old-established universities. The "high school" 
with a practical object is a novelty which we first had to 
assimilate ourselves, and which the people of older civiliza- 
tions most heartily grudged us when it appeared, because for 
them knowledge was more an amusement than a practical 
ability. 

In the quite recent past, and until our character was thus 
transformed in this matter of technical organization, the 
English were always very friendly to us Germans. The great 
English thinker Carlyle, it is true, understood what was pre- 
paring in the German spirit ; but his fellow-countrymen ac- 
cepted what they saw before their eyes: the Germans have 
good schools and buy English machinery ! It was not until 
by reason of these schools the Germans set up their own ma- 
chines and offered them to foreign nations that they lost the 
English goodwill. How could the learned brother on the con- 
tinent be so bold as to mix himself up in business? This 
learned German technical scholar appeared in all occupations 
like something essentially improper. The old English world 
was not adapted to make a systematic working alliance be- 
tween thought and international trade! From the time of 
this memorable change onwards, the educated Englishman 
felt himself deceived by the German and called him a dan- 
gerous competitor, as indeed he really was, and that too in 
virtue of the English universal watchword, "Free play for 
the strong," but with a quite differently trained strength. 

How closely the new German method of work is a con- 
tinuation of the German trained thought can only be realized 
from a comparison between German management of im- 
portant undertakings by leading men and the corresponding 
foreign non-German management. Our financial policy has 
a perceptible doctrinaire tendency, but on this very account is 
most successful. Our military education is markedly sci- 
entific, but is not injured thereby. Our great merchants are 
almost economists and statisticians by profession. Our wood- 



86 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



craft is almost as logically thought out as a textbook on 
grammar. Our ship building is highly mathematical; our 
steel plates are scientific works; our dyes are chemical in- 
ventions. Into everything there enters to-day less of the 
lucky spirit of invention than of patient educated industry. 
Or to put it otherwise : we believe in combined work. 

That connection with systematic science which we find 
throughout in the new agriculture and in all the more ex- 
tensive industrial undertakings was and still is the peculiar 
quality of German social democracy. Dr. Engels, the friend 
of Karl Marx, said of it that it was the heiress of German 
philosophy, and if the saying is not taken to mean the sole 
heiress, then there is a large kernel of truth in it. Of all 
working classes, only the German (and the German- Aus- 
trian) is theoretical in its group instruction in the sense of 
pure Marxism. This instruction may often be false in de- 
tails and may be far over the pupils' heads and remote from 
present day problems ; but the actual fact that we possess the 
most theoretical labor movement in the world is part of the 
picture of German economic life. This working class in com- 
bination with its educated employers, with our syndicate lead- 
ers, with our Civil Service and officers, does not offer the 
most charming and amusing society possible, but does con- 
stitute the most practical, safe and durable human machinery. 
This living national machine goes its way whether the in- 
dividual lives or dies, it is impersonal or super-personal, has 
its frictions and interruptions, but is as a whole something 
that has never come to pass exactly in this way before. It 
is the historically developed German character. 

We are all being much confirmed in this our German 
method of work by the progress of the war. From the very 
first days this war, which had been forced upon us, was 
regarded as a necessary and quite universal duty and task 
which must be performed. Every one looked to those in re- 
sponsible positions for a planned organization reaching even 
to the smallest details. As soon as it was felt that this 
existed, the troops and the workers at home showed them- 
selves ready for the greatest and most exceptional efforts, 
without crediting themselves with this as any special merit. 



GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 87 



The war was really only a continuation of our previous life 
with other tools but based on the same methods. In this in- 
deed lies the secret of success. We conquer less through in- 
dividuals than through the disciplined feeling for combined 
difficult work ; and those who take the field to amend us after 
their own pattern must try in battle to equal us. 

If our opponents like to label this intrinsic connection 
between the work of war and peace as "German militarism," 
we can only regard this as reasonable, for Prussian military 
discipline influences us all in actual fact, from the captain of 
industry to the maker of earthworks. All that we object to 
is the secondary implication which has associated itself with 
the word militarism, and which in the management of bar- 
racks in the peace years it was difficult entirely to avoid. But 
after this war we shall certainly remain much more closely 
agreed in our common esteem for the voluntary discipline of 
a great national, military or industrial army sO' long as the 
men are still living who have kept at their posts during this 
struggle. Happen what will, the German spirit has re- 
ceived its baptism of fire : the national genius was and is a 
reality. Both to ourselves and to the outside world we have 
shown ourselves as in essence a single unit. Now it is our 
concern to carry through to its goal this essential German 
character, proved in the most sinister of wars. This will 
and must be set on foot directly peace is concluded. 

For on this day all Imperial and State officials and all 
parties and societies will produce their memoranda wherein 
are noted the things that must be altered after the war. I 
wager that three-fourths of this memoranda will contain the 
words : better organization ! Our foreign service, our Red 
Cross, our hospital system, our military clothing, our mili- 
tary purveying, our horse-breeding, our food-supply, all this 
and much else must be much more rigidly thought out and 
calculated for beforehand, so that we shall not again be so 
situated as now in the ill-advised debates on food. But all 
organization consists in statistics, grouping, analysis, syn- 
thesis, control and regulation, and thus there grows up from 
all sides a State or national socialism, there grows up the 
"systematized national economy." Fichte and Hegel nod 



88 GERMANY'S ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



approval from the walls: now, after the war, the German 
is at last becoming heart and soul a political economic citizen. 
His ideal is and will be the organism and not free will, rea- 
son and not the blind struggle for existence. 

This constitutes our freedom, our self -development. By- 
its means we shall enjoy our golden age as other conquering 
nations in other ages and with other abilities and excellences 
have done before us. Our epoch dawns when English capi- 
talism has reached and overstepped its highest point, and 
we have been educated for this epoch by Friedrich II., Kant, 
Scharnhorst, Siemens, Krupp, Bismarck, Bebel, Legien, Kir- 
dorf and Ballin. Our dead have fallen on the field for the 
sake of this our Fatherland. Germany, foremost in the 
world! 



GERMANY'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 



THE WORSHIP OF THE WAR GOD THOR AS TAUGHT BY 

TREITSCHKE 



PRINCE BERNHARD VON BULOW 
MAXIMILIAN HARDEN RICHARD GRELLING 

We turn now from the unconscious to the conscious lust for War. 
In Napoleon's day Frenchmen had worshiped "Glory" and dreamed their 
dream of world-empire. The tremendous military successes of Ger- 
many in 1870 stirred her people to a similar evil obsession. A popular 
poet in 1878 wrote : 

Thor stood at the midnight end of the world, 

His hammer flew from his hand : 
"So far as my thunderous weapon I've hurled 

Mine are the sea and the land !" 

And onward hurtled the mighty sledge 

O'er the wide, wide earth, to fall 
At last on the Southland's furthest edge 

In token that His was all. 

Since then 'tis the joyous German right, 

With the hammer, lands to win. 
We mean to possess the world by might, 

As Thor the Hammer-God's kin. 

Chief teacher and prophet of this demon worship in its early day 
was Heinrich von Treitschke, who died in 1896. As Professor of His- 
tory in the University of Berlin he spoke in brilliant, passionate lectures 
of the splendor of Germany's new power and the coming wonders of 
her future. All the young aristocrats of Berlin heard him and thrilled 
to his inspiration. William II. called him "Our national historian." Yet 
ironically enough Treitschke, the inspirer of Germany's war-lust, was 
probably of Slavonic parentage, just as Nietzsche, the inspirer of h,eT 
new philosophy, was of Polish origin. 

Even Chancellor Von Biilow opens his renowned book, "Imperial 
Germany," with a reference to the youthful inspiration which he had 
caught from Treitschke. Von Biilow is generally regarded as the ablest 
and strongest of the Imperial Chancellors after Bismarck. His book, 
published shortly before the Great War, spoke so frankly of Germany's 
hopes of world power that foreigners scarcely took it seriously. Such 
visions seemed impossible to those days. Yet so exactly had this shrewd 
prince and statesman weighed his words that when, a year after the 
War had begun, he republished his book, he changed scarcely the least 

89 



90 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



of its ideas. The only exception was in his treatment of the German 
Socialists. In his first edition he could find no words too harsh for 
them — they threatened to block the wheels of war. In his later edition, 
he rewrote the entire chapter on the Socialists and praised them heart- 
ily. That was their reward for bowing at the shrine of the war-god 
Thor. 

Prince Von Biilow's words in the following and most noted section 
from his book oflfer us therefore the highest German official viewpoint 
as to Germany's destiny. Of course his words are diplomatically re- 
strained. In one of his official speeches more than a decade before the 
War, while urging military expansion, he said to an eager audience, 
"You will understand that in my official position I can not say much ; I 
can not dot all my i's." He then hinted that America as well as Europe 
was included in his schemes of conquest. So for contrast with Von 
Blulow's "restraint" we give a fiery outburst from Max. Harden, gen- 
erally regarded as the most sincere voice of Germany during the War. 
As editor of a leading radical paper, Harden was a constant thorn in 
the side of the Imperial Government — not that he lacked war enthusiasm, 
but that he was too straightforward about it. He said what he meant; 
whereas the Government constantly and obviously said what it did not 
mean, preparing its terrible aggressive strokes in secret, while publicly 
lamenting that other nations insisted on attacking poor, peaceful Ger- 
many. Thus Harden was sometimes far ahead of the Government 
chorus and had to be restrained. At other times he was equally far 
behind and was reproachfully spurred onward. 

Yet a third type of German voice is here given from the remarkable 
book "I Accuse." No other war book roused such excitement as this 
and its later continuation, "The Crime." These were written by a Ger- 
man and one who knew the national situation thoroughly. With reso- 
lute severity he tore the mask from all the pretenses of the Imperial 
Government, and pointed out the truth as to how it had deceived its 
people and plotted to deceive the world. "I Accuse" was published 
anonymously in Switzerland, but its combination of intimate knowledge 
and bitter condemnation drew to it the swift attention of all nations. 
The German official press could find no words too savage for the 
"traitor" author, particularly when he was learned to be Dr. Richard 
Grelling, a professor already academically punished for too much free- 
dom of opinion. Yet in after-war days most Germans have admitted 
the justice of Grelling's every word. 

Thus the following expressions of Germans' judgment upon Ger- 
many were all three written in the heat of war, after their country had 
tasted her first victories, before she had to face her final defeat. 

C. F. H. 

BY PRINCE VON BULOW 

* * f N spite of the length of their history, the German people 
1 is the youngest of the great nations of Western Europe. 
A period of youth has twice fallen to their lot, and with it 
the struggle to establish their power as a State, and to gain 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 91 



freedom for civilization. A thousand years ago they founded 
the proudest kingdom of the Germans; eight hundred years 
later they had to build up their State anew on quite dif- 
ferent foundations, and it is only in our times that, as a 
united people, they entered the ranks of the nations." 

These words, with which Treitschke begins his "German 
History," not only show deep historical knowledge, but also 
have a very modern political significance. Germany is the 
youngest of the Great Powers of Europe, the homo novus 
who, having sprung up very recently, has forced his way by 
his own superior capacity into the circle of the older nations. 
The new Great Power was looked upon as an uninvited and 
unwelcome intruder, when, after three glorious and success- 
ful campaigns, it entered the company of the Great Powers 
of Europe a formidable figure and demanded its share of 
the treasures of the world. For centuries Europe had not 
believed in the possibility of the national unification of the 
individual German territories as one State. At any rate, the 
European Powers had done their best to prevent this. In 
particular, the policy of France, from the time of Richelieu 
to that of Napoleon III., was directed towards maintaining 
and intensifying the disruption of Germany, as it was rightly 
recognized that the ascendancy of France, la preponderance 
legitime de la France, depended primarily on this state of 
affairs. Nor did the other Powers desire the unification of 
Germany. On this point the Emperor Nicholas and Lord 
Palmerston, as well as Metternich and Thiers, were at one. 
Nothing could show more clearly the marvelous way in 
which the mature wisdom of our old Emperor cooperated 
with the genius of Prince Bismarck than the fact that they 
effected the unification of Germany, not only in the face of 
all the difficulties with which they were confronted at home 
— long cherished rivalries and hatreds, all the sins of our 
past, and all the peculiarities of our political character, but 
also in spite of all opposition, avowed or secret, and of the 
displeasure of the whole of Europe. 

Suddenly the German Empire was in existence. More 
quickly even than had been feared, far stronger than any one 
had guessed. None of the other Great Powers had desired 



92 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



the regeneration of Germany ; each of them, when it actually 
took place, would have liked to prevent it. Small wonder 
that the new Great Power was not made welcome, but was 
looked upon as a nuisance. Even a very reserved and pacific 
policy could effect but little change in this first verdict. This 
union of the States of the Mid-European continent, so long 
prevented, so often feared, and at last accomplished by the 
force of German arms and incomparable statesmanship, 
seemed to imply something of the nature of a threat, or at 
any rate to be a disturbing factor. 

In the middle of the nineties, in Rome, where I was Am- 
bassador at that time, my English colleague. Sir Clare Ford, 
said to me : "How much pleasanter and easier it was in the 
world of politics when England, France and Russia consti- 
tuted the areopagus of Europe, and at most Austria had to 
be occasionally consulted." Those good old days are past. 
More than forty years ago the council of Europe had to 
admit another member entitled to vote, one that had not only 
the wish to express its opinion, but also the power to act; 
a power which our enemies in the world war have been made 
to feel even more fearfully than they had feared. 

A strenuous task in the history of the world had reached 
completion in the masterpiece of Prince Bismarck. The un- 
flinching purpose of the Hohenzollern dynasty for centuries 
required the patient heroism of the Prussian army and the 
resolute devotion of the Prussian people, until, after many 
changes of fortune, the Mark of Brandenburg rose to the 
rank of a Great Power as the kingdom of Prussia. Twice 
the prize seemed to slip from the grasp of the Prussian State. 
The crushing defeat of 1806 hurled Prussia down from the 
dizzy heights, which had filled her contemporaries with ad- 
miration and fear, and which she had attained under the 
rule of the great Frederick. Those people seemed to be 
right who had always considered the proud State of the great 
King to be nothing more than an artificial political structure, 
that would stand and fall with the unique political and mili- 
tary genius of its monarch. Its rise, after the overwhelming 
disasters of Jena and Tilsit, proved to an astonished world 
what innate and indestructible strength this State possessed. 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 93 



Such self-sacrifice and such heroism on the part of a whole 
people presuppose long-established national self-confidence. 
And as the people of Prussia did not rise in lawless rebellion 
like the much-admired Spaniards and the honest Tyrolese 
peasants, but placed themselves one and all, unquestioningly, 
at the orders of the King and his advisers, it appeared, to 
every one's surprise, that amongst the Prussians conscious- 
ness as a nation and as a State were one and the same thing ; 
and that the people had been transformed into a nation under 
the strict discipline of Frederick's rule. The reorganization 
of the State under the guidance of men of creative power 
during the years 1807 to 1813 won for the Government not 
only the obedience of its subjects but also their affection. In 
the war of liberation, from 1813 to 1815, Prussia gained the 
respect of all, and the confidence of many of the non-Prus- 
sian Germans. 

It was a rich inheritance that the great period of upheaval 
and liberation left behind. But owing to the reaction of a 
feeble and inglorious foreign policy, and to a home adminis- 
tration which never knew when to be open-handed and when 
to refuse, this inheritance was to a large extent squandered 
in the course of the following decades. 

In Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister," when the melancholy 
Aurelia finds fault in many ways with the Germans, Lo- 
thario, a man of experience, replies that there is no better 
nation than the Germans, so long as they are rightly guided. 
The German, of whatever stock he be, has always accom- 
plished his greatest works under strong, steady and firm 
guidance, and has seldom done well without such guidance, 
or in opposition to the Government and rulers. Bismarck 
himself has told us in his "Gedanken und Erinnerungeti" 
("Reflections and Reminiscences") that he was from the 
first quite clear on this point. With the intuition of genius 
he found the way in which the hopes of the people and the 
interests of the German Governments might be reconciled. 
Probably no other statesman ever had so deep a knowledge 
of the history of the nation he was called upon to guide. 
Behind the external sequence of events he sought and found 
the motive forces of national life. He, who was^bom in 



94 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



the year of Waterloo, and was confirmed by Schleiermacher 
in the Church of the Trinity in BerHn, never forgot the 
great times of the hberation and the rise of Prussia; at the 
beginning of his career as a molder of the destinies of the 
world, the remembrance of these days was always with 
him. He realized that in Germany the will-power of the na- 
tion would not be strengthened, nor national passions roused 
by friction between the Government and the people, but by 
the clash of German pride, honor and ambitions against the 
resistance and the demands of foreign nations. So long as 
the question of German unification was a problem of home 
politics, a problem over which the political parties, and the 
Government and the people wrangled, it could not give birth 
to a mighty, compelling national movement that would sweep 
nations and princes alike along on a tide of enthusiasm. 
When he made it clear that the German question was essen- 
tially a question of European politics, when on this the non- 
German opponents of German unification began to move, 
Bismarck gave the princes the opportunity of putting them- 
selves at the head of the national movement. 

By this means national policy was interwoven with in- 
ternational policy ; with incomparable audacity and construc- 
tive statesmanship, in consummating the work of uniting 
Germany, he left out of play the political capabilities of the 
Germans, in which they have never excelled, while he called 
into action their fighting powers, which have always been 
their strongest point. 

By a happy dispensation, Bismarck found a general such 
as Moltke and a military organizer such as Roon to support 
him. The military achievements which had enabled us to 
regain our position as a Great Power in Europe also assured 
that position. They long discouraged any attempt of the 
Great Powers to deprive us of our right to a voice in the 
councils of Europe, a right which we had won in three vic- 
torious campaigns, and which has since then, for nearly half 
a C2ntury, never been seriously disputed, although it was un- 
willingly granted. With the single exception of France, 
every one, in all probability, would have gradually become 
reconciled to Germany's political power if her development 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



95 



had ceased with the founding of the Empire. But the po- 
Htical unification was not the end of our history but the be- 
ginning of a new era. In the front rank of the Powers, 
Germany once more participated in full in the life of Europe. 
For a long time, however, the life of Europe had formed 
only a part of the life of all the nations of the world. 

Foreign politics had become more and more concerned 
with the world at large. The path of world politics lay 
open to Germany too, when she had won a powerful position 
on a level with the older Great Powers. The question was 
whether we should tread that new path, risk the "grand 
game," as Disraeli used to call world politics, or whether 
we should hesitate to undertake further hazardous enterprises 
for fear of compromising our newly acquired power. 

In the Emperor William II. the nation found a clear- 
sighted, strong-willed guide, who led them along the new 
road. With him we trod the path of world politics; but 
not as conquerors, not amid adventures and quarrels. We 
advanced slowly, and our rate of progress was regulated, not 
by the impatience of ambition, but by the interests we had 
to promote and the rights we had to assert. We did not 
plunge into world politics, we grew, so to speak, into our 
task in that sphere, and we did not exchange the old Euro- 
pean policy of Prussia and Germany for the new world 
policy; as is clearly shown by the course of the Great War 
both on the economic and the military side, our strength to- 
day is rooted, as it has been since time immemorial, in the 
ancient soil of Europe. 

"It is the task of our generation to maintain our position 
on the Continent, which is the basis of our position in the 
world, and at the same time to foster our interests overseas 
and pursue a prudent, sensible and wisely restricted world 
policy, in such a way that the safety of the German people 
may not be endangered, and that the future of the nation 
may not be imperiled." With these words I attempted on 
November 14, 1906, towards the close of a detailed exposi- 
tion of the international situation, to formulate the task 
which Germany must perform at the present time, and, as 
far as man can judge, will have to perform in the future: a 



\ 



96 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



world policy based on the solidly laid foundation of our posi- 
tion as one of the Great Powers of Europe. 

At first voices were raised in protest when we trod the 
new paths of world politics, for it was considered a mis- 
take to depart from the approved ways of Bismarck's Con- 
tinental policy. The fact was overlooked that it was Bis- 
marck himself who pointed out the new way to us by bring- 
ing our old policy to a close. His work, in fact, gave us 
access to world politics. Only when Germany had at- 
tained political strength was the development of German 
commerce and industry to a world position possible. It was 
not till the Empire had secured its old position in Europe 
that it could think of defending the interests which German 
enterprise, German industry and commercial foresight had 
created in all quarters of the globe. It is certain that Bis- 
marck did not foresee the course of this new development of 
Germany, nor the details of the problems of this new epoch; 
and it was not possible for him to do so. 

The course of events has long driven German policy out 
from the narrow confines of Europe into the wider world. 
It was not ambitious restlessness which urged us to imitate 
the Great Powers that had long ago embarked on world 
politics. The strength of the nation, rejuvenated by the 
political reorganization, as it grew, burst the bounds of its 
old home, and its policy was dictated by the new interests 
and needs. In proportion as our national life has become 
world wide, the policy of the German Empire has become a 
world policy. 

In the year 1871 the number of inhabitants dwelling 
within the new German Empire was 41,058,792. They found 
work and a living in their own country, and, moreover, both 
were better and easier to get than before ; this was due to 
the protection afforded by increased national power, the 
great improvement in the means of communication effected 
at the founding of the Empire, and the blessings of the 
new common German legislation. In the year 1900 the num- 
ber of inhabitants had risen to 56,367,178, and to-day it has 
reached 68,000,000. The Empire could no longer support 
in the old way this immense mass of humanity within its 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 97 



boundaries. Owing to this enormous increase of population, 
German commerce and industry, and in consequence German 
policy, was confronted with a tremendous problem. This 
had to be solved, if foreign countries were not to profit by 
the superfluity of German life which the mother country was 
not able to support. In the year 1883 about 173,000 Ger- 
mans emigrated; in 1892 the number was 116,339; in 1898 
only 22,921 ; and since then the average has remained at this 
last low figure. 

The German Empire, such as it emerged from the bap- 
tism of fire of Koniggratz and Sedan, the belated fruit of the 
slow evolution of our nation, could not come into existence 
until German intellect and the Prussian monarchy joined 
forces. They were bound to join forces if a united German 
State of lasting power was to be achieved. 

German history, eventful as it is, discloses an abundance 
of great and mighty deeds : the struggle of the German Em- 
perors for the heritage of the Cresars, German arms vic- 
torious on the shores of the Great Belt and the Mediter- 
ranean, in Asia Minor, and in the heart of what is now 
France; and after the intellectual refining process of the 
Reformation, the greatest development of artistic and sci- 
entific life that the Vv^orld has known since the days of Hellas 
and the Cinquecento. 

The result, however, of these glorious activities, as far 
as the State and politics are concerned, was the dissolution 
of all forms of government in the nineteenth century, and 
the fact that German power was outstripped by the younger 
States of Eastern and Western Europe. In a thousand years 
of work, from the point of view of culture, the highest had 
been accomplished, but politically, nothing had been achieved. 
The Western and Southern domains of Germany, greatly 
favored by Nature, accomplished indestructible work in the 
sphere of German intellectual life, but could not raise suf- 
ficient strength for the sterner business of creating a State. 

We modern Germans do not share Treitschke's harsh 
opinion that the small German States were worthless. Dur- 
ing the decades in which we have enjoyed union as an Em- 
pire, we have recovered 1 clear perception of the manifold 

w., VOL. 1.- -7. 



98 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



blessings we owe to the small States. Side by side with the 
sins of German separatism we must place the encouragement 
and protection afforded to the intellectual life of Germany 
by the Princes and the cities. The Court of the Muses at j 
Weimar achieved the highest in this respect, but it by no 
means stood alone. 

The history of most of the non-Prussian States is con- 
nected with the name of some one or other of the men of 
Science and of Art who have helped to raise the magnificent 
edifice of our intellectual life. When Prussia woke to a ' 
consciousness of her duties with regard to the spiritual 
achievements of Germany, in those terrible but yet splendid 
years when, as Frederick William III. so well expressed it, 
the Prussian State must make good by its intellectual powers 
what it had lost physically. German intellect had already 
reached its zenith without the help of Prussia. German in- 
tellectual life, which the whole world has learned to admire, 
and which even the first Napoleon respected, is predomi- 
nantly the work of the South and West, achieved under the 
protection of her Princes, small States, and free cities. 

But the people who lived on the sandy soil of the Mark, 
in the plains east of the Elbe and the Oder, so scantly favored 
by Nature, during the centuries which witnessed the growth 
of German culture in other parts of the country, prepared 
the future of Germany as a State in battles and privations 
under the rule of heroic and politic kings. 

German intellect was developed in the West and the 
South, the German State in Prussia. The Princes of the 
West were the patrons of German culture ; the Hohenzollem 
were the political teachers and task -masters. 

It took a long time before the importance of Prussia, in 
which even Goethe only loved her great King, was recog- 
nized in Germany; before it was reaHzed that this rude and 
thoroughly prosaic State of soldiers and officials, without 
many words but with deeds that were all the greater, was 
performing a task of enormous importance in the work of 
German civilization: preparing the political culture of the 
German nation. Prussia became for Germany what Rome 
was for the ancient world. Leopold von Ranke, intellectu- 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



99 



ally the most universal and at the same time the most Prus- 
sian of German historians, says, in his "History of the 
World," that it was the task of antiquity to permeate the 
Greek spirit with the Roman. Classical culture, in which 
the intellectual life of Western Europe is rooted, was pre- 
served by the Roman State, which, with its legal and mili- 
tary foundation, gave to the ancient world its political shape. 
The Prussian State became the guardian of German intel- 
lectual life, by giving to the German people a united State 
and a position on a level with the great Empires of the 
world. 

Through the foundation of the Empire we acquired na- 
tional life as a State. In so doing our political develop- 
ment embarked on a new and a safe course. But it has not 
yet reached its goal. Our task has been begun but is by no 
means yet completed. 

We must secure and cement the unity of our intellectual 
and political life by the fusion of the Prussian and the Ger- 
man spirit. That is what I meant when, not long before 
my retirement, I said in the Reichstag, with reference to the 
fact that in the death chamber of Prince Bismarck the only 
ornament I noticed on the wall was the portrait of Ludwig 
Uhland, that this juxtaposition summed up all German his- 
tory, for only the union between the energy and discipline 
of old Prussian Conservatism and the magnanimous spirit 
of German Liberalism could insure a happy future for the 
nation. A century ago Fichte challenged the nation to over- 
come the difference between thought and being within itself, 
and thus consciously to create itself ; this challenge is also 
addressed to us. Prussian State life and German intellectual 
life must become reconciled in such a way that both their 
growths become intertwined without weakening each other. 

Such a reconciliation had not quite been achieved before 
the Great War. The representative of German intellectual 
life was still sometimes inclined to regard the Prussian State 
as a hostile power, and the old Prussian at times to regard 
the free and untrammeled development of German intellect 
as a destructive force. And again and again in Parliament 
and in the Press accusations were leveled in the name of 



100 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



freedom against Prussia, and in the name of order against 
the undauntable German intellect, which in its breadth, its 
philosophic depth and its poetic charm has never been equaled 
since the days of the Greeks. 

My late friend, Adolph Wilbrandt, in a pleasing play, 
has a scene between an official belonging to the North Ger- 
man nobility and the daughter of a savant of the middle 
classes. At first they repel each other and quarrel. "I repre- 
sent the Germany of Schiller, Goethe and Lessing," says 
the woman, and the man replies : "And I represent the Ger- 
many of Bismarck, Bliicher and Moltke." We often hear 
similar things from the lips of clever and serious men. Our 
intellectual and political future depends on whether, and to 
what extent, we succeed in amalgamating German intellect 
with the Prussian monarchy. 

Bismarck, the Prussian, realized better than any one else 
that in Germany strong government could only be based and 
maintained on the monarchic principle. The work of union 
could only be permanent if the monarchy was not a purely 
ornamental part of the fabric of the Empire, but was made 
to be the actual support of the union. 

And if the creative power of Prussian monarchy, well 
tested in the course of centuries, was to be enlisted in the 
interests of the new Empire, then the King of Prussia must, 
as German Emperor, be more than the bearer of shadowy 
dignities; he must rule and guide — and for this purpose 
must actually possess monarchic rights such as have been 
laid down and transcribed in the Constitution of the Empire. 

Germany would never, or at best very slovv^ly and imper- 
fectly, have achieved union as a State by following the paths 
of democracy along which other nations have reached the 
goal of national development. As a monarchy, with the 
Federal Princes represented in the Federal Council, and the 
King of Prussia at the head, we became a united German 
Empire. Had we been entrusted entirely to the care of quar- 
reling parties in Parliament, the idea of the Empire would 
never have gained so much ground, would never have been 
able to win the heart of Germans to such an extent as is 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE loi 



actually the case since the unity of the Empire was placed 
under the protection of the monarchy. 

At the beginning of the sixties in the nineteenth century, 
Crispi, later President of the Ministry in Italy, wrote to Maz- 
zini that he had been converted from the Republic to the 
Monarchy, because the latter would unite Italy, whereas the 
former would disintegrate her : the same applies to us. And 
it is particularly true in our case because the German Em- 
pire, situated in the middle of Europe, insufficiently pro- 
tected by Nature on its frontiers, and surrounded by great 
military powers, is and must remain a military State. And 
in history strong military States have always required mon- 
archic guidance. 

We have seen that at the moment when Germany's ex- 
istence was seriously threatened on the outbreak of war, all 
hearts turned spontaneously to our Imperial leader, all faith 
and confidence were placed in him. The whole German peo- 
ple expressed its devoted patriotism and loyalty to the State 
by an unpremeditated and instinctive manifestation of mon- 
archic feeling. And during the whole course of these ter- 
rible struggles on all fronts and in all climes Germany has 
realized with satisfaction that, thanks to monarchic leader- 
ship, in the war she is superior to her opponents in her readi- 
ness to strike promptly and in the uniformity of her military 
action. 

The higher the tide of hatred and rage, of injustice and 
envy, rises during this war and because of this war, the less 
will we allow ourselves to be deterred from pursuing our 
aims, or to be diverted from them. In future let us not for- 
get what a very small part gratitude plays in politics. In the 
Hfe of nations a debt of gratitude, in that it hurts national 
pride, is more apt to lead to silent wrath than to true friend- 
ship. The wise founder of the Constitution of the United 
States, George Washington, told his fellow-countrymen that 
there was no more grievous error than to think that nations 
can act magnanimously and unselfishly toward each other. 

We must also be clear on the point that in politics it is 
not right alone that decides. Pitt, the greatest English 
statesman, said that the might of no realm would endure for 



102 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



longer than from sunrise to sunset if absolute justice were 
to prevail. It was a Frenchman, Pascal, who said that right 
without might is powerless, and might is mistress of the 
world. If right decided things, the world would have looked 
very different for the past three thousand years, and the 
German people would not have had to undergo such suffer- 
ing as they were exposed to in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries and up to the middle of the nineteenth century. 

Stress must be laid, however, upon the fact that it would 
be a gross mistake to confound a clear and robust practical 
policy with a misapprehension of the imponderables. Noth- 
ing is less in accordance with practical policy in the true 
sense of the word, or with a Bismarckian policy, than to over- 
look the importance of imponderables. We can learn from 
French, English and Russian history how largely our neigh- 
bors have been guided in their policy by their interests, their 
wish for power and their keen desire for mastery, both po- 
litical and economic. But we can also learn from the history 
of our neighbors how clever they were on the banks of the 
Seine, of the Thames, and even of the Neva, at cloaking 
practical motives and instincts in high sounding words which 
make them seem beautiful. As the wise Greek said, men 
are moved not so much by things as by their views on things, 
and it is often not truth but the semblance of truth which 
rules the world. 

The man who pursues a practical policy knows better 
than any one else what an important factor feehng is in the 
life of the nation, what weight imponderable things have, 
which, as Prince Bismarck said on February 6, 1888, weigh 
far, far more heavily than material objects. A clumsy word, 
a thoughtless phrase, can do more harm at times than defeat 
in battle. It is a question whether ill-chosen words cannot 
do more damage than imprudent writings or even deeds, 
whether the Latin dictum, "Verba volant, scripta manent," 
might not more properly be reversed. The expression "coeur 
leger," which Emile Ollivier allowed to escape his lips in 
1870 at the beginning of the war, straightway labeled the 
war for millions of people in the world, and the impression 
created by them persisted for many years. 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 103 



In practical politics and in the administration of affairs 
dogmatic adherence to principles and unpractical theories is 
mischievous. Ernest Renan, himself a philosopher, rightly 
said that philosophy had as little connection with politics as 
with mechanics or chemistry. The principles of practical 
politics must be applied in a practical manner, they must not 
be proclaimed from the housetops in the form of an extreme 
theory. Otherwise we shall cover Germany with odium, with 
an evil repute which our noble people assuredly do not de- 
serve, for we have for centuries actually pursued a policy 
which is essentially more humane, and in the best sense of 
the word more idealistic, than France from the times of 
Philip the Fair, Henry IV. and Richelieu to those of Na- 
poleon; than Russia from the days of Peter the Great and 
Catherine to the present time ; than England in all her history. 

Owing to our seriousness and our logic, owing also to our 
thoroughness, which at times becomes clumsiness, many a 
thing sounds cruder on German lips, and is more offensive 
when expressed in German fashion, than if it had been ut- 
tered by others. Pascal, probably the deepest French thinker, 
discriminated between the esprit geometrique and the esprit 
de finesse. The former causes much mischief in politics, 
the latter prevents many things and achieves some. 

The outbreak of war was calculated to force the German 
nation with sudden violence to realize how greatly the course 
of foreign politics affects the fate of every German, and 
that questions of greater politics are like dynamite cartridges 
which, if they are clumsily handled anywhere in the world, 
may produce terrible explosions; it was calculated to show 
us how urgent is the necessity for cool judgment and sensible 
determination where the web of international relations is 
concerned in which our national life, in its entirety and in 
its details, is entangled ; how indispensable, in dealing with 
these relations, are experience, knowledge of men and things, 
psychological insight and the right estimation of others 
which it enables us to form; how desirable is that quality 
which the Frenchman describes by the untranslatable ex- 
pression "le doigte," which Prince Bismarck demanded of 
every one who had anything to do with foreign and diplo- 



I04 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



matic affairs. It depends upon the lever of the pointsman 
whether two railway trains pass one another or collide with 
fearful violence. 

Politics, as Prince Bismarck often said, is an art. Hence 
goodwill, which in matters of morality is everything, is of 
little or no account, and ability is the only thing that tells. 
A short time ago in the Reichstag a deputy opined very 
truly that all the misfortunes in the world arose from good- 
will, coupled with incapacity. We need a skillfully con- 
ducted foreign policy all the more because we are situated in 
the middle of Europe, wedged in between races hostile to 
us, and must always reckon with the possibility of attack. 
We have been encircled for a thousand years, ever since by 
the Treaty of Verdun the German tribes of Charles the Great 
were separated from the others and started life as an inde- 
pendent State under the Carolingian king named Ludwig 
the German. Hemmed in by Latins and Slavs, we must suit 
our foreign policy to our geographical position. 

The present, which is full of great and serious political 
problems, and still more so the future after the war, require 
a poHtical generation. It is Germany's great hope that men 
of political insight will some day return home from the 
fiery ordeal by which their souls are tried in this gigantic 
struggle among the nations. Great-hearted men who will 
not let their considered judgment on practical questions of 
home politics be crippled by the pressure of the doctrines of 
party politics, strong-willed men who will demand of the 
Government as well a determined policy with great aims, 
which shall be energetically carried out. 

When from the bloody seed of this world war we shall 
reap the increased glory of the German Empire, the im- 
portant point will be to concentrate the wealth of German 
intellect, the indestructible German capacity for work, the 
unwearied German energy upon the interrupted task of Ger- 
man progress. Fighting so tenaciously for many months of 
warfare, the mighty powers and means at Germany's dis- 
posal have with invincible might and unshakable confidence 
in victory, mastered, and with God's help will continue to 
master the monstrous fate which overtook us so unexpect- 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 105 



edly. These powers were fostered and grew during forty- 
five years of work in times of peace — work which was rest- 
less, sometimes somber and sullen, much debated, but al- 
ways unwearied, steadfast and fruitful. This war was the 
tremendous test of the strength of the edifice erected in peace. 
Germany has stood the test. In April, 1813, Gneisenau, a 
great man at that time, wrote: "Prussia will never again 
be subjugated, for the whole nation participates in the strug- 
gle; it has developed a greatness of character which makes 
it invincible." What was true of Prussia at that time is true 
of Germany to-day. 

Less than half a century of peaceful progress along the 
new path of history, into which Bismarck's strong hand had 
guided them, was vouchsafed to the German people. The 
German Empire, whose forces were welded together on bat- 
tlefields, must now fight innumerable battles against a world 
of foes ; and the German nation has met the threat of ruin 
with the determination to wrest from the struggle a glori- 
ous peace which shall clear and prepare the way to a brilliant 
future in international politics. It was Germany's hope and 
Germany's desire to strengthen and develop her position 
among the nations of the world by peaceful work and com- 
petition. But it has ever been the fate of the German peo- 
ple, as it is at the present time, to fulfill its own destiny, and 
hence its destiny in the history of the world, by treading a 
thorny path. 

Our nation has never quarreled with its fate, nor does it 
do so now. With wonderful unanimity and determination it 
shows the world that its will, its might, its courage rise 
superior to history and to destiny. It hopes and believes that 
these qualities, which no nation has ever displayed with such 
deep and unswerving faith in God, such pure hearts, such 
simple acquiescence, with never-failing devotion and with 
such unanimity, will surely get its due reward: a peace 
worthy of such deeds and sacrifices, worthy of our past, a 
serious, real and secure guarantee for our future. 

It betokens an unscientific and unpractical mode of 
thought to assume that after this world war an era will dawn 
which in its broad outlines as in its details is diametrically 



io6 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



opposed to the past decades before the war, an era that will 
break with traditions and earlier development, instead of 
carrying them on. We are well aware of this. We cannot 
even desire it, for it is steady organic evolution, and not 
sudden change, which insures sound growth. Taine, as the 
result of his lifelong study of the French Revolution, came 
to the conclusion that. En fait d'histoire il vaut mieux coip- 
tinuer que recommencer} We do, however, hope that the 
purifying, clarifying and civilizing influence of the war, 
which we have seen at work in the course of the war, will 
continue to act on the intellectual and public life of Germany 
after it is over, on the nation in general, and in detail on the 
Government and the parties. But experience teaches us that, 
however great the events, however heavy the blows of fate, 
neither men nor circumstances change suddenly or become 
the contrary of what they were before — especially not in 
Germany. Even the tremendous change betokened by the 
transition from Germany of the period of the Federated Diet, 
of the worthy small folk, to Germany, the new Empire and 
Great Power, left untouched the nature of the German, the 
roots of our character and the fundamental conditions of 
our existence. 

The number of problems a nation has solved is always 
small compared with the number that await solution. That 
was Germany's experience after the wars of liberation and 
the wars of union. The German nation knows it to-day too. 
It knows that Goethe depicted the German nation in human 
guise, not in Wagner, who is filled with satisfaction by the 
contemplation of all the fine things we have at last achieved, 
but in Faust who, with high self-confidence, ever strives to 
achieve more, and who gives utterance to this truth as the 
ultimate conclusion of wisdom : Nur der verdient sich Frei- 
heit wie das Lehen, Der taglich sie erobern muss.^ 

May the consideration of the welfare of the country in 

Germany always prove stronger than party interests and 

the claims of special groups. May every German be ever 

* Where history is concerned, it is better to continue than to begin 
afresh. 

He alone deserves liberty and life who must conquer them daily 
anew. 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 107 



conscious of the duties which two thousand years of history 
have imposed on us, a history which led us through the 
stormy times of the V olkerwanderung (migration of na- 
tions), by way of Charles the Great and Frederick Barba- 
rossa, by way of Fehrbellin and Leuthen, Leipzig and Water- 
loo, Koniggratz and Sedan. May every German at all times 
be ready to defend the Fatherland, may every German heart 
for all time subscribe to the sacred vow : Deutschland uher 
alles! 



HEY write and talk much about the great scourge of 



1 war. That is all quite true. But we should also bear 
in mind how much greater is the scourge which is fended 
off by war. The sum and substance of the matter is this : 
In looking upon the ofifice of war one must not consider how 
it strangles, bums, destroys. For that is what the simple 
eyes of children do which do not further watch the surgeon 
when he chops off a hand or saws off a leg; which do not 
see or perceive that it is a matter of saving the entire body. 
So we must look upon the office of war and of the sword with 
the eyes of men, and understand why it strangles and why 
it wreaks cruel deeds. Then it will justify itself and prove 
of its own accord that it is an ofifice divine in itself, and as 
necessary and useful to the world as is eating, drinking, or 
any other work. But that some there are who abuse the 
office of war, who strangle and destroy without need, out of 
sheer wantonness — that is not the fault of the office, but of 
the person. Is there any office, work, or thing so good that 
wicked and wanton persons will not abuse it ? 

The organ tone of such words as these at last rolls forth 
once more in their native land. 

Therefore cease the pitiful attempts to excuse Germany's 
action. No longer wail to strangers, who do not care to hear 
you, telling them how dear to us were the smiles of peace 
we had smeared like rouge upon our lips, and how deeply 
we regret in our hearts that the treachery of conspirators 
dragged us, unwilling, into a forced war. 



BY MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 
Written in 1915 




io8 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



Cease, also, you popular writers, the degraded scolding 
of enemies that does not emanate from passion but out of 
greedy hankering for the applause of the masses, and which 
continually nauseates us amid the piety of this hour! Be- 
cause our statesmen failed to discover and foil shrewd plans 
of deception is no reason why we may hoist the flag of most 
pious morality. 

Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the 
fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had 
to wish it, and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle 
those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous 
in these hours of lofty experience. We do not stand, and 
shall not place ourselves, before the court of Europe. Our 
power shall create new law in Europe. Germany strikes. 
If it conquers new realms for its genius, the priesthood of 
all the gods will sing songs of praise to the good war. . . . 

We are waging this war not in order to punish those who 
have sinned, nor in order to free enslaved peoples and there- 
after to comfort ourselves with the unselfish and useless con- 
sciousness of our own righteousness. We wage it from the 
lofty point of view and .with the conviction that Germany, 
as a result of her achievements and in proportion to them, 
is justified in asking, and must obtain, wider room on earth 
for development and for working out the possibilities that 
are in her. The powers from whom she forced her ascend- 
ancy, in spite of themselves, still live, and some of them 
have recovered from the weakening she gave them. Spairr 
and the Netherlands, Rome and Hapsburg, France and Eng- 
land, possessed and settled and ruled great stretches of the 
most fruitful soil. Now strikes the hour for Germany's 
rising power. The terms of a peace treaty that does not in- 
sure this would leave the great effort unrewarded. Even if 
it brought dozens of shining billions into the National Treas- 
ury, the fate of Europe would be dependent upon the United 
States of America. 

We are waging war for ourselves alone ; and still we are 
convinced that all who desire the good would soon be able 
to rejoice in the result. For with this war there must also 
end the politics that have frightened away all the upright 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 109 

from entering into intimate relations with the most powerful 
Continental empire. . . . 

Not only for the territories that are to feed their chil- 
dren and grandchildren is this warrior host battling, but also 
for the conquering triumph of the German genius, for the 
forces of sentiment that rise from Goethe and Beethoven 
and Bismarck and Schiller and Kant and Kleist, working on 
throughout time and eternity. 

Never was there a war more just ; never one the result 
of which could bring such happiness as must this, even for 
the conquered. In order that that spirit might conquer we 
were obliged to forge the mightiest weapons for it. Over 
the meadows of the Scheldt is wafted the word of the King: 

How proud I feel my heart flame 

When in every German land 

I find such a warrior band ! 

For German land, the German sword ! 

Thus be the empire's strength preserved! 

This strength was begotten by that spirit. The fash- 
ioning of such weapons was possible only because millions of 
industrious persons, with untiring and unremitting labors, 
transformed the poor Germany intO' the rich Germany, 
which was then able to prepare and conduct the war as a 
great industry. And what the spirit created once again 
serves the spirit. It shall not lay waste, nor banish us free 
men into slavery, but rather it shall call forth to the light 
of heaven a new, richer soul of life out of the ruins of a 
storm-tossed civilization. It shall, it must, it will conquer 
new provinces for the majesty of the noble German spirit 
(Deufschheit) that never will grow chill and numb, as that 
of the Roman did. Otherwise — and even though unnum- 
bered billions flowed into the Rhine — the expense of this 
war would be shamefully wasted, 

BY DR. RICHARD GRELLING 

The official version states that the Triple Entente has 
attacked us. "We have to protect our holiest possessions, 
the Fatherland and our own hearths against a sudden ruth- 
less attack." So said the Emperor in his speech of August 



no 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



6th. "The sword must then decide. In the midst of peace 
the enemy falls upon us, therefore to arms! Every hesi- 
tation, every delay, would be treachery to the Fatherland. 
The existence of our empire is at stake — the existence of 
German power and German character." 

Such is the official version which crops up in a thousand 
various forms from the Chancellor down to the last street- 
sweeper. 

Semi-officially, however, and in the confidence of secrecy 
many Germans can be heard asserting that we were not, it is 
true, attacked, but that we would have been attacked later, if 
we had not now begun the war at a moment favorable for 
us. Should we then ask for evidence in support of this 
hypothesis, most of those who maintain this view have 
nothing to say, or else they declare that the intention of the 
enemy to attack us was so obvious that any proof would be 
superfluous, "What did they mean by their enormous prep- 
arations" is what they most frequently say. And what 
about our preparations? I reply, which were certainly 
greater and more comprehensive than in any other country 
in the world. Did ever any country in time of peace act as 
we did in 1913 when we suddenly raised the strength of our 
army on a peace footing by 140,000 men, that is to say, 
from 720,000 to 860,000, and when we rose to an extraordi- 
nary war tax of £50,000,000? "What was the meaning of 
the Entente, the celebrated policy of 'encirclement' (Einkrei- 
sung), if they did not mean to attack us?" is what they next 
say. And what, I reply, was the meaning of the Triple Al- 
liance which involved even stricter obligations than the En- 
tente, and in spite of this, according to our assertions, was 
defensive in its nature? "Yes, but think of the Pan-Slavs !" 
is urged as an objection against me. And what about 
the Pan-Germans? I venture to answer. Are our "All- 
deutschen," our national party, our Pan-Germans of the 
school of Treitschke and Bernhardi, in any way better or 
less aggressive than the Pan-Slavs? Such "Pan-tendencies" 
are to be found in all countries. They are harmless, so long 
as they do not advance to action. The decisive act was, how- 
ever, taken by our Pan-Germans, when they drove us into 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



III 



this horrible war — a war desired and openly proclaimed by 
them. 

And they had and still have friends and patrons in high 
places. They have gradually acquired more influence in our 
authoritative circles than ever the Pan-Slavs exercised at 
the Russian court. I need not mention by name the person 
who for years has been the influential head and the batter- 
ing-ram of this movement against the originally peace-loving 
mind of the Emperor. Every one knows to whom I refer.^ 
The Zabem telegram, the message of farewell to the Dan- 
zig Hussars, the open demonstration from the tribune of the 
Reichstag against our Morocco policy, which was at the 
time still peaceful in intention — these and countless other 
occurrences and suggestions leave not the slightest room for 
doubt as to the quarter and the camp from which the in- 
citers to war have discharged their destructive missiles over 
Germany. One has but to wander along the streets of Ber- 
lin to see in all bookshops the work of Frobenius, entitled 
"The German Empire's Hour of Destiny," with the com- 
mendatory telegram of the exalted gentleman on the outside. 
In his recommendation he expresses the desire that this "dis- 
tinguished book" which he has "read with the greatest in- 
terest" will find the widest circulation among the German 
people. And this Frobenius is a comrade in thought of Bern- 
hardi, and the whole purport of his book is that we should 
strike before it is too late ; since the others mean to attack 
us, we must anticipate them and attack them. Of course no 
proof, not the shadow of a proof, is advanced in support of 
this premise, which in reality is but a pretext, and which is 
denied by Bernhardi himself. 

But that does not inconvenience these great minds ; they 
do not recognize the defects of their logic. They do not 
see that of the two assertions only one can be true. Either 
we have been attacked, in which case we are conducting a 
defensive war, or else we were going to he attacked, and in 
that case we are conducting a preventive war. If the sec- 
ond statement is true the first must be untrue ; and in that 
case all official utterances from the Imperial speech from the 
*The Crown Prince Frederick William. 



112 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



Palace on the 31st of July down to the speech of the Chan- 
cellor on the 2nd of December are branded as lies. 

If the assertion that it is a defensive war is true, the idea 
of a preventive war is at once put completely aside, and it is 
superfluous to discuss further whether the presuppositions 
of a preventive war in fact existed, or whether such a pre- 
ventive war politically and morally can be defended. Bis- 
marck, who after all knew something about politics, emphati- 
cally answered this latter question in the negative, in stating 
that "even victorious wars cannot be justified unless they are 
forced upon one, and that one cannot see the cards of Provi- 
dence far enough ahead to anticipate historical development 
according to one's own calculation." * 

This dictum of the great man of the past appears to have 
fallen into oblivion. While monument after monument has 
been erected to his memory, this sentence might have been 
inscribed in brass and in marble in the walls of the palaces 
of kings and of governments in places where it would at all 
times have been visible ; then perhaps the German people and 
the world might have been spared this most terrible of evils. 
Bismarck also after 1870 was repeatedly urged by generals 
and by the instigators of war to undertake a new campaign 
against France in order tO' crush once for all and tO' make 
harmless for all time the country that was again raising its 
head. All such efforts he constantly rejected with unyield- 
ing energy, and the idea of initiating a war because it must 
come sooner or later, he declared to be "criminal" and "in- 
sane." 

The saying is apposite, and those whom it fits will not be 
able to escape its application. 

The Imperial War — The Place in the Sun 

It will be obvious from all that I have so far said that I 
regard the present war neither as a defensive nor as a pre- 
ventive war. This war is purely a war of conquest, horn of 
imperialist ideas and serving imperialist ends. It is nothing 
else. 

It is a war for the celebrated "Place in the sun," which 

* Bismarck, "Gedanken und Erinnerungen." 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 113 



it is supposed is being refused us, and which we must take 
forcibly with the sword in our hand. 

What is the meaning of the "Place in the sun" ? No one 
says clearly what it is, and every one understands the phrase 
in a different sense. 

The idea is so alien to the people that it may be presumed 
that they would not have allowed themselves to have been 
sacrificed, if it had been said to them : "You must gain for 
us a place in the sun." 

For the initiated, however, it is the magic spell which 
unites their imperialistic desires. "Only thus relying on the 
sword, can we gain the place in the sun, which is our due, 
but which is not voluntarily accorded to us." With this in- 
scription, and with the motto pro patria et gloria, the 
photograph of the German Crown Prince is sold in German 
bookshops. 

The Chosen People 

The place in the sun is the world-power which is due to 
us, as to the chosen people of God. From the point of view 
of the psychology of the nation it is remarkable how the old 
Jewish idea has mastered the good, Christian, Protestant, 
anti-semitic Empire, and how it has ousted the true teaching 
of Christ, that all men are brothers. 

We change our religious ideas, like our uniforms, ac- 
cording to our needs and our circumstances. 

The God whom in war we invoke every day, whom we 
entreat tO' grant that we may destroy as many of the enemy 
as possible, and to whom we give thanks when he fulfills our 
prayers, is the old Jewish God, Jehovah, the God of battles 
and of vengeance, to whom no sacrifice appears too great, 
if it is to serve the power and the dominion of his chosen 
people. The Christian God, however, and his "only-begotten 
Son," who wandered about on earth preaching love and sac- 
rifice, whose kingdom is not of this world — they have noth- 
ing to do with this shedding of blood, which is entirely con- 
tradictory to the doctrine they taught. 

If it were known in certain places in Germany how edu- 

W., VOL. I.— 8. 



114 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



cated men and religious people throughout the whole world 
judge these continual blasphemous appeals to God ! 

Luigi Luzzatti, one of the most distinguished politicians 
and most important thinkers in Italy, who, as is well known, 
has more than once been Prime Minister (be it observed a 
strict Jew — this I mention as an example to Germany, whose 
mission is to "bring freedom," although in time of peace it 
does not go so far as to promote a Jew to be a Second Lieu- 
tenant), Luigi Luzzatti has recently published in the Cor- 
riere della Sera a remarkable article bearing the title "The 
abuse of the name of God," from which I quote some sen- 
tences : 

"From the day on which this fearful war broke out 
Princes (not the people, it must be said) have bored every 
one by the use and abuse of the name of God. In the tele- 
grams which were recently exchanged between the Austrian 
Emperor and the Sultan the Almighty makes his appearance. 
The matter would take on an ironical tinge if up in Heaven, 
the conquerors and the defeated of Lepanto and the soul of 
John Sobieski were to hear of it. One could have wished 
that at least on this occasion they might have felt enough 
shame to induce them to leave heaven in peace out of the 
question ! . . . Fortunately God has not yet appeared in the 
telegrams exchanged between the monarchs of England and 
Japan. And indeed it would have been a difficult matter to 
reconcile in the same fearful uproar of war Jesus and Bud- 
dha, a religion without God and a religion which rests on 
a personal God and Saviour. W e are reminded of a bitterly 
ironical saying of Voltaire, who observed 'Since God cre- 
ated man in his own image, how often has man endeavored to 
render a similar service to God.' . . . Let us save God from 
such profanation! Let us leave in peace the Father of all 
mankind who punishes guilt and rewards virtue, and who 
gives no one the right to represent Him on earth, and to 
claim for himself His omnipotence in this tragedy of war." 

Such is the judgment of serious men abroad on certain 
German peculiarities and on the presumption of Germany 
to be the chosen people of God. 

The place in the sun which is due to us as the chosen 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 115 



people, thus represents the true object of this war, even if 
it is not admitted to the nation that this is the object. 

Germany's Brilliant Development 

If any one seeks a place in the sun, and seeks it sword in 
hand, it must be assumed that hitherto he has stood in the 
shadow. Is this so in the case of Germany ? I maintain that 
the opposite is the case, and in support of this assertion I 
rely on those very people who have pressed the sword into 
our hand to enable us to seek a place in the sun. In the 
chapter entitled "Financial and Political Preparation for 
War" Bernhardi gives a comprehensive view of the brilliant 
and unprecedented economic development of Germany since 
the Franco-Prussian war. He points out, and supports his 
assertion freely with statistics, that the increase of wealth 
continues on an ascending scale, and that the advance in 
trade and industry since the foundation of the Empire has 
been extraordinary. He quotes a lecture delivered by Pro- 
fessor Dade before a general meeting of the Finance and 
Tax Reformers held on the 22nd February, 1910, from 
which we gather that the value of German imports and ex- 
ports in the last years before 1910 had increased from 300 
million pounds sterling to between 725 million pounds and 
800 million pounds. In 19 12 German imports and exports 
reached a value of approximately 1,200 million pounds 
sterling. 

This brilliant picture of our industrial development, 
which could be supported by a series of other figures, is nat- 
urally of use to General Bernhardi, only in so far as it en- 
ables him to represent as tolerable a further increase of mili- 
tary burdens. He forgets, however, that in thus demon- 
strating our continuous increase of national wealth, and in 
particular in emphasizing our increasing advantage over 
England, he cuts from under his own feet the ground on 
which there should be erected the edifice of his Imperialism. 
If we already have such a sunny corner in the sun, what is 
still lacking? What more do we want? 

If in many respects we, the most recent industrial State 
in the world, the growth of scarcely more than two genera- 



ii6 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



tions, are already placing England, the oldest industrial 
State, in the shadow, we certainly cannot complain of any 
deficiency of sunshine. 

What about extension of territory? What about Colo- 
nies? Does the happiness of nations depend on the number 
of square miles which they possess, or does it depend on 
their Colonies? If that were the case, small countries like 
Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and 
Norway would necessarily be poor in comparison with Great 
States, whereas as a matter of fact the opposite is the case. 
The highest figures for imports and exports per head of the 
population are shown by Holland, followed by Belgium, 
Switzerland, and Denmark, and then only after these the 
great Powers. The Belgian 3 per cents, stood at 96 when 
the German stood at 83 per cent. The Norwegian 3}^ per 
cents, stood at 102 when the Russian could be had at 81. 
Similar figures may be adduced in every sphere of economic 
life. The greatness of a country, and in particular the ex- 
tent of its Colonial possessions, has no relation to the pros- 
perity of a country. 

The best proof for this fact is found in Germany itself. 
No one, not even the most fanatical nationalist, will or can 
dispute the fact that the increase in prosperity of Germany 
in the last forty years, and in particular in the twenty-six 
years which have elapsed since the present Emperor ascended 
the throne, has been without precedent in the history of the 
world. On the occasion of the celebration of the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the accession of William II. a compila- 
tion appeared under the title, "Social Culture and the Well- 
being of the People during the first 25 Years of the Reign 
of William II." This work describes, and supports with 
statistics, the prosperity of Germany in all branches of hu- 
man culture during this period. It is superfluous to repro- 
duce here these well-known figures. 

The increase of the national income and the national 
wealth correspond to the commercial and industrial develop- 
ment of Germany. Dr. Karl Helfferich, Director of the 
German Bank,^ in his contribution to the compilation men- 
° Afterward Secretary of the Treasury. 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 117 



tioned above, summarizes his conclusions in the following 
words : 

"The wealth of the German people amounts to-day to 
more than 15,000 million pounds, as against about 10,000 
million pounds about the middle of the nineties of last cen- 
tury. 

"These solid figures summarize, expressed in money, the 
result of the enormous economic labor which Germany has 
achieved under the government of our Emperor." 

That is the place in the sun which we occupy, which 
no one has disputed, can dispute, or means tO' dispute, a 
place in the sun for which we are indebted to the spirit of 
enterprise, the pertinacity and the skillful methods of our 
merchants and our manufacturers, but not to the braggart 
company of our nationalists, and just as little to the sword 
of our generals or the plans of campaign of our General 
Staff. 

It is exclusively the work of the German merchant and 
his motto "My field is the world," exclusively the result of 
the long-enduring condition of peace, which, to judge from 
the experience of the past, the longer it lasted would have 
more and more promoted the prosperity of the German 
people. 

The Place in the Sun for Us — The Place in the Shadow 

for the Others 

In reality our imperialists are seeking to achieve some- 
thing quite different. They also know, even if they do not 
say it to the stupid people (and Bernhardi's book proves that 
this is so) that we have indeed the place in the sun, that no 
one seeks to dispute it, and that if any one were to seek to 
do so, he would necessarily fail. But it is something else 
that they want. They want the exclusive place in the sun; 
they are striving for the world-dominion of Germany, and 
that, at any rate, is what the others are not prepared to 
yield to them. 

The German Wehr-Verein, in a meeting held in the 
House of Representatives, has quite recently expressed this 



ii8 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 

with all the lucidity that can be desired. In this manifesto 
we find the following words : 

"We need room and air for the further development of 
our German nationality. The time for moderation is past. 
Relentlessly thinking only of our interests, we must and 
we will dictate peace. Only one peace can be thought of, a 
peace which assures the permanent leading world-position 
of Germany. . . . The criminal breakers of the peace . . . 
England, France and Russia, must be so weakened that in 
future they will cease to be a danger to the peace of the 
world." 

Thus we find, on the one side, breakers of the peace, 
and on the other a permanent leading world-position ! Ex- 
plain this to me. Count Oerindur ! Here we find truth and 
falsehood mingled in a most dexterous manner. On the 
one side the true aims of the war-party are openly pro- 
claimed, and yet on the other the pretense that the peace 
was broken by the other party is boldly maintained. Never- 
theless, these gentlemen do not succeed in their somer- 
sault over logic. If to extend our nationality we must ob- 
tain for Germany the permanent leading position in the 
world, that is equivalent to saying in other words that we 
must compel the others to subject themselves to our leader- 
ship, since to-day we already enjoy equal privileges with 
others, but not a leadership. If, however, we do this, it is 
we who are the breakers of the peace, and not the others. 

In reality that is the position of affairs, as I will point 

out. 

It is leadership that we seek, not merely equal privileges 
with others. It would be nonsense to say that we seek the 
latter, since we already possess in the fullest measure such 
equal privileges. If we are not, as a German professor has 
expressed it, "morally and intellectually beyond all compari- 
son superior to all other nations," there is at least one su- 
periority which has willingly been granted to our Prussian 
Germany by the rest of the world for a century and a half. 
I refer to our military superiority. While we need only 
fear God, but nothing else in the world, Germany has been 
feared by all — almost more than God Himself. Even Taci- 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



119 



tus long ago pointed out that the defectiveness of the Ger- 
man frontiers was made good by fear of the Teutons. The 
fear of Germany produces the effect that our word weighs 
heavily in the council of the nations despite all "encircle- 
ment," and despite the wretchedness of our diplomacy. 

On a certain occasion recently the most important con- 
ditions of peace were being discussed in a lively conversa- 
tion. Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen living abroad 
were taking part in the discussion seated round the com- 
mon table, and in the end they almost arrived at an agree- 
ment as to the terms of peace. Then, however, the German 
observed in jest, "One more condition; you French must 
take over en bloc our German diplomatists." The French- 
man sprang up in indignation and broke off the peace nego- 
tiations, exclaiming, ''Ah ga, non! Ca c'est trop. Nous con- 
tinuerons d comhattre." ^ And with these words he left the 
restaurant. 

The lack of dexterity shown by our diplomacy — where 
could all the high-bom Borussen and Saxo-Borussen be ex- 
pected to learn skill in business! — the defects of our diplo- 
macy are constantly made good by the weight of the army, 
standing in the background. For long the Triple Alliance 
was indeed only a sham, but it looked quite well from the 
outside, and it worked almost like a being of flesh and blood. 

Thus in all the conflicts of recent years Germany, in 
union with Austria and Italy, has come out quite well in the 
end, and her allies, relying on the power of Germany, have 
been able to bear home spoil, with which it would scarcely 
be proper to compare the acquisitions of the Triple Alliance. 
Was Austria not able in 1908 to bag Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina, a fat morsel of more importance than twenty Mo- 
roccos? Was Italy not able to appropriate without a Eu- 
ropean conflict Tripoli and the ^gean islands — acquisitions 
which it can scarcely be expected to disgorge again? In 
addition to the open door in Morocco, which is of more 
value than any costly rights of possession demanding the 
expenditure of blood, have we not got into the bargain a 
considerable piece of the French Congo — an exchange which 
"'That, no! That is too much. We will continue to fight." 



120 THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 



cost Caillaux, the Minister responsible for it, his prestige 
and his position, and which almost cost his wife her life? 
Did we not, acting with our ally Austria, achieve in her 
interests the great feat of gracefully turning the Monte- 
negrins out of Scutari, which they had purchased with 
streams of blood, and of introducing there an international 
garrison? Was not the creation of that mannikin-kingdom 
of Albania, that "vile abortion of filth and fire," accom- 
plished exclusively in the interests of our allies, Austria 
and Italy ? Were we not able to complete with England and 
Turkey an agreement that was favorable to us in connection 
with Asia Minor and the Bagdad line? 

This list of successes could be considerably lengthened. 
I need not emphasize the fact that, from my point of view, 
many — indeed nearly all — of these diplomatic bickerings, 
these alterations and annexations of territory have not the 
slightest connection with the real interests of the nations. 
When we reflect that a European war almost broke out in 
19 1 2 on the question whether Serbia should receive her 
celebrated "window on the Adriatic" — when we reflect that 
nearly every one of the questions mentioned above brought 
Europe for the time being to the verge of an armed conflict, 
while these so-called "vital questions" frequently had not in 
any way decisive importance for the well-being, in the true 
sense of the word, of the States immediately concerned, we 
are constantly constrained to admire anew the lamb-like 
patience of the nations and the craziness of the diplomatists. 

'' Spottegeburt aus Dreck und Feuer — Faust. 



THE POISONS BREWED BY MILITARISM 



WHAT MILITARY METHODS DID IN GERMANY 

FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI 
EUGENE ETIENNE CHARLES ALTSCHUL 

FREDERICK WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN 

That military training has wide values and might even, under proper 
methods, breed high virtues, no thoughtful man denies. But the picture 
of what actual militarism, carried enthusiastically to its fullest power, 
produced in Germany, warns us that it may easily become a weapon 
more suited to devils than to men. To make this picture clear, to show 
the progress of German militarism through enthusiasm to falsehood 
and treachery, and through strictness to brutality and vilest foulness, 
the German writers are here called on to speak for themselves. 

First comes the high-priest of militarism before the War, General 
Bernhardi. He wrote several books which were much honored in Ger- 
many, and which preached a sort of Darwinian scientific theory that 
war is the chief means of advancing civilization, because it results 
always in the "survival of the fittest," that is, of the Germans. At the 
opening of the War, Bernhardi was given a command on the Russian 
front; later he commanded one of the western armies. We give here 
his teaching as expressed in his last book just before the War, "Our 
Future — A Word of Warning to Germany." In this book, while urging 
all the splendors of war, its uplifting character, its delights, its profits, 
Bernhardi closes his introduction with the grim warning to his people 
that the crisis is close at hand and that they "can pass through this 
crisis and reach victory only if they are determined to the utmost to 
win and to endure the heaviest burdens and sacrifices." 

This ominous forecast of suffering is very different from the au- 
thor's usual cheerful war-praise. The glory of militarism, as Bern- 
hardi usually presents it, was obviously the side the German leaders 
intended their people to see. In startling contrast is its other face of 
treachery and cunning, as revealed in our second article. 

This is an official bulletin from the French Minister of War, M. 
Etienne, who declared that it was a secret German official document 
secretly secured by him. France guaranteed this document publicly to 
the world; and Germany has, at least by silence, admitted its authen- 
ticity. Comment is unnecessary as to its methods and its criminality. 

A still blacker side of militarism is discussed by Mr. Altschul, a 
well-known American citizen. He draws his evidence wholly from Ger- 
man sources, to prove the barbarity of Germany's process of military 
training, and the resulting barbarity and submissive obedience of her 
troops. This evidence is largely quoted from the notorious trial of 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 



Rosa Luxemburg, the socialist leader since killed in the German tumults 
of 1919. The examples of evil practices are here limited to a few ; they 
might have been expanded indefinitely to establish that each foulness 
was not an exceptional case but a common custom, often unprintable 
in its gross details. 

Lastly, in contrast to these terrible cumulative German voices, vi^e 
let the noisy younger "War Lord" speak for himself. The Crown 
Prince of the German Empire shouldered his share in the intellectual 
preparation of his countrymen for the War, by writing in 1913 a book 
of his own, called "Germany in Arms." Perhaps it is not a very great 
book; but it will at least enable readers to understand the writer, who, 
when the War was over, altered his voice and spoke in less self-asser- 
tive tones. c. F. H. 

BY GENERAL BERNHARDI 

IT is quite clear that the decisive factor in all diplomatic 
negotiations is always the factor of actually existing and 
therefore effective force. Consequently, it is most important 
for every State which desires to maintain its position among 
the Powers, to enlarge its sphere of influence, and it is par- 
ticularly important that it should increase all its instruments 
of power, its army, its navy and its finances. At the same 
time, it is at least as important to increase the moral and 
mental strength of the population in every way. Superior 
moral and mental force alone can form an equivalent for 
superiority in the material factors which one's opponents 
may possess. An advancing civilization and increasing 
armaments must go hand in hand. Only then can the great- 
est efficiency be obtained. It follows that absolutely the 
most important task of a modern State consists in making its 
armed force as powerful as possible, not only in order to 
be able to be victorious in war, but also with a view to being 
successful in diplomatic negotiations. The expansion of the 
armed forces of the nation is particularly valuable, because 
military service is perhaps the most important means for 
increasing the mental and moral forces of the nation. 

A statesman who does not appreciate the close inter- 
dependence between armed strength and policy, and who 
tries to negotiate with his opponents without constantly re- 
lying on the living forces of the State — he need, of course, 
not continually and demonstratively show his reliance upon 
force — can never reckon upon success. A leading German 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 123 



statesman has expressed the opinion that continual reliance 
upon Germany's army, while negotiating, would before long 
involve Germany in differences with all the world.^ If that 
opinion is founded on his conviction and is not merely a 
phrase, it would show that he does not understand the very 
elements of foreign policy. Reliance on our military power 
is the only means whereby we can obtain what we require 
without war. Respect of our armed forces will cause our 
opponents to be cautious in dealing with Germany. Besides, 
our readiness to throw the army into the diplomatic balance 
will encourage our friends, and will powerfully encourage 
them. 

If in diplomatic negotiations, in the course of which we 
show our reliance upon our armed strength, we do not suc- 
ceed by peaceful means either in carrying our point or in 
adjourning the decision: if, for instance, in case of serious 
differences concerning a question of territory, we cannot 
obtain its neutralization or the preservation of the status 
quo, then we must go to war and defend our justified claims. 
The stronger our armed forces are, the greater is the prob- 
ability that we shall be successful. Besides, the better our 
army and navy are organized, the more highly developed is 
the military, moral and mental strength of the nation and 
the greater is the confidence in the political determination 
of Germany among her allies, the more likely will be Ger- 
many's victory. 

War is the continuation of foreign policy with non- 
diplomatic means. It is the most powerful, but at the same 
time the most dangerous instrument of policy. It may be 
asserted that the possibility of war is a necessary instru- 
ment of foreign policy. One cannot imagine foreign pol- 
icy without the possibility of an appeal to arms. If two 
States are in disagreement, and their disagreement cannot 
be settled by peaceful means, then no settlement is pos- 
sible between them except by VN^ar. Only the knowledge of 
the disadvantages to which war may give rise is able to 
induce a State to sacrifice part of its valuable interests to its 
opponent. 

*Von Bethmann-Hollweg. 



124 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



It is not generally recognized that this is the case. Even 
in leading circles the erroneous view is often expressed that 
one can obtain real political advantages by means of ne- 
gotiations. There are people who believe that one can in- 
duce one's opponent to sacrifice his own interests solely by 
diplomatic means. Many people even endeavor to eliminate 
war from international life, and to replace it by international 
laws and law courts, by arbitration. These say that war is 
a relic of barbarism which brings untold misery upon man- 
kind, that it is a violation of right, that it appeals to the 
brutal instincts of humanity, that it stands in contradiction 
to the law of Christian love, and is therefore unworthy of 
a modem and progressive civilized State. 

The progress of civilization and the closer economic re- 
lations among nations, many assert, create constantly in- 
creasing common interests among nations, and should tend 
to make wars impossible. The abolition of war should fur- 
ther become probable through the progress of morality. 
These ideas which, in Treitschke's words, come to the front 
only in times when nations become soft and decadent, have 
obtained such importance during the last few years that 
even governments have allowed themselves to be influenced 
by them. It is noteworthy that, owing to the pressure of 
public opinion, ex-President Taft has gone so far as ac- 
tually to propose the conclusion of general arbitration trea- 
ties. 

In Germany the desire to preserve the peace has, since 
1 871, exerted an unfavorable influence upon foreign policy. 
The desire for peace has created a political situation in 
Germany which I cannot consider favorable to the coun- 
try. The desire to preserve the peace which everywhere and 
always is placed in the foreground in Germany, seems to 
justify our faint-hearted peace policy. To support such 
views can only do harm and is likely to lame public opinion. 

We must strenuously combat the peace propaganda. 
War must regain its moral justification and its political sig- 
nificance in the eyes of the public. It is necessary that its 
high significance as a powerful promoter of civilization 
should become generally recognized. We must learn to un- 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 125 

derstand that economic and individual interests alone must 
never be the decisive factor in a truly civilized State. We 
must recognize that the most valuable treasures of a nation 
are not material, but moral, that it is necessary to make 
sacrifices and to suffer in the interests of a great cause, that 
sacrifice and suffering are more pYecious than enjoyment. 
In short, we must become convinced that a war fought for 
an ideal or fought with the intention of maintaining one's 
position in the world, is not a barbaric act, but the highest 
expression of true civilization, that war is a political neces- 
sity, and that it is fought in the interest of biological, so- 
cial and moral progress. 

In the life of individuals and of States there is no stand- 
ing still. They must rise or decline. I believe it is abso- 
lutely wrong to contemplate only the barbaric and pernicious 
side of war, and to omit its practical and ideal benefits. 
Those who look only upon the harm done by war have never 
clearly contemplated a great and serious war. Those who 
have taken part in war will judge differently. How great 
and holy was the patriotic wave of 1870! All egotistical in- 
terests disappeared before the glorious feeling which united 
all Germans and moved them to offer themselves unselfishly 
to the Fatherland ! 

On the other hand, one must not judge of wars by those 
wars of the past which have arisen from dynastic or per- 
sonal reasons, or from sheer lust of robbery. 

A war always leads to- brutalities and to suffering. But 
at the same time it gives rise to the noblest actions, espe- 
cially when the freedom, honor and future of a nation are 
at stake. Then the brutalities and wrongs of war disap- 
pear before the idealism which animates the whole. The 
common danger unites all in a common effort, and this uni- 
fying factor is a force which frees the mind of the people 
and elevates them for a long time. Wars destroy the shams 
of peace, reveal great personalities and place them in 
power. They give scope to strength, greatness and truth to 
all the virtues, to unselfishness and to the joy of sacrifice. 

One ought not to overestimate the economic damage 
done by war. Although wars bring about economic crises. 



126 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



and do harm to the business of many individuals, the victor 
usually derives the greatest economic advantage from his 
victory. Germany's great economic development was made 
possible only by the victories of 1866 and 1870-71. 
Throughout history vire find that increasing prosperity and 
increasing political power go hand in hand, because capital 
and labor I'equire the security of armed power to develop 
freely. If peace has to be bought with a diminution of po- 
litical power, the economic damage done by it may prove 
greater than that inflicted by a sanguinary war. Lastly, it 
should be remembered that a war which has been chival- 
rously fought with honest arms is a more moral form of 
competition than one fought with gold and intrigue under 
the appearance of peace. Victories of intrigue and gold are 
won by those who possess gold and lack conscience and 
morality. They are not triumphs of civilization. 

Wars are ennobling because small-minded men are 
swamped in the greatness of the movement. The nations 
and States are at their greatest when fighting with their 
whole strength for liberty, independence, and honor. Only 
in States which calculate with the possibility of war will the 
character of the nation possess that energy which enables 
them to develop their moral and mental forces to the highest 
degree. 

War has its ideal side and peace has its blessings. At 
the same time, peace is no blessing if it lasts too long, espe- 
cially if its maintenance has to be paid for with the abandon- 
ment of the national ideals. Such a peace dishonors a na- 
tion, and in such a peace small-mindedness and selfishness 
flourish, while idealism is destroyed by materialism and the 
simplicity of manners by luxury. In such times money 
becomes all powerful, and character is of little value. The 
more deeply we penetrate into history, the more clearly we 
recognize that peace is the normal and the desirable state, 
but that wars are required from time to time in order to 
cleanse the moral atmosphere. Political tension can become 
so great and the irreconcilable interests so acute and so 
involved that the Gordian knot can only be cut with the 
sword. When a nation sees its power jeopardized, when its 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 127 



ability to solve its problems in its own way is threatened, 
and when the highest possessions of a nation can no longer 
be preserved by compromise, then war becomes a moral duty. 
Such situations will arise as long as the nations look at the 
development of the world from different points of view. 
When the pursuit of their ideals leads to differences, war 
becomes the highest expression of the will to civilisation and 
idealism makes it a necessity. 

In view of the compelling logic of those considerations it 
seems surprising that the peace movement has obtained so 
great an influence. Its success is due to the fact that it is 
supported by powerful private, and especially by large cap- 
italistic, interests. There is a great contrast between the 
views of the United States and Germany on the question 
of peace and war. The United States have conquered their 
independence and unity on the field of battle, and they have 
acquired a great heritage of glory, self-consciousness, and 
liberty. At present the United States have many competi- 
tors, but no enemies. Their relations with England are se- 
cured by the community of language, not of race. Their 
differences with Japan cannot endanger their vital interests, 
should it come to war. America need not fear overpopu- 
lation, in view of her vast and thinly peopled districts in 
the South and West. The natural wealth of the country 
makes the Americans independent of foreign States, and 
their struggle with nature steels their muscles and enables 
them to undertake the greatest and . most difficult tasks. 
Under these circumstances it is only natural that the Ameri- 
cans look upon the peace movement with sympathy, for 
peace can only bring them advantage, while war can only 
harm them by impeding the development of the country 
and upsetting the money market. 

Germany is in a totally different position. Since the col- 
lapse of the ancient German Empire the German nation has 
had to fight against its enemies. It has wrested from the 
Slavs the territories in the East, and to-day the Slavonic 
flood beats against its frontier with renewed hostility. 
Towards the West and South the Germans had to defend 
themselves against the Latin nations, and to preserve their 



128 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



political independence during centuries of war, without being 
able to disarm the hostility of the fanatical French. The 
most recent political and economic development of Ger- 
many has at last made England also our most bitter enemy. 
England fears that she may lose the mastery of the sea 
and her trade supremacy. She opposes us throughout the 
world with hostility, and prevents us acquiring colonies, the 
possession of which is for Germany a question of life or 
death. 

If we consider our national circumstances, it is evident 
why the peace idea has many adherents in Germany, but 
that idea is not much appreciated by the patriotically in- 
clined and by the educated. History has taught us that a 
State which is in Germany's position can preserve that 
position only sword in hand. 

BY EUGENE ETIENNE 
French Minister of War 

Paris, April 2, 1913. 
I have just received from a reliable source the following 
official secret report concerning the strengthening of the 
German army: 

[Memorandum of the German Headquarters Staff on 
the strengthening of the German army, March 19, 1913.] 
The increase has taken place in three stages: — 
(i) The Conference of Algeciras has removed the last 
doubt with regard to the existence of an Entente between 
France, England, and Russia. Moreover, we have seen that 
Austria-Hungary was obliged to keep some of her forces 
mobilized against Serbia and Italy ; finally our fleet was not 
at that time sufficiently strong. At the end of the dispute 
the first matter taken in hand was the strengthening of our 
coast defenses and the increase of our naval forces. To 
meet the English plan of sending an Expeditionary Force 
of 100,000 men to the Continent, it would be necessary to 
make a better formation of reserves, to be used according 
to circumstances in the protection of the Coast, in fortresses 
and in siege operations. It was already clear at that time 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 129 



that it would be absolutely necessary to make a great effort. 

(2) The French having violated the Morocco Conven- 
tions, brought on the incident of Agadir. At that time the 
progress made by the French army, the moral recovery of 
the nation, the technical advance in the realm of aviation 
and of machine guns rendered an attack on France less easy 
than in the previous period. Further, an attack by the Eng- 
lish fleet had to be considered. This difficult situation 
opened our eyes to the necessity for an increase in the army. 
This increase was from this moment considered as a min- 
imum. 

(3) The war in the Balkans might have involved us in 
a war in support of our ally. The new situation in the south 
of Austria-Hungary lessened the value of the help which 
this ally could give us. On the other hand, France was 
strengthened by a new hi des cadres; it was accordingly nec- 
essary to anticipate the date of execution contemplated by 
the new military law. 

Public opinion is being prepared for a new increase in 
the active army, which would insure Germany an honorable 
peace and the possibility of properly insuring her influence 
in the affairs of the world. The new army law and the sup- 
plementary law which should follow will enable her almost 
completely to attain this end. 

Neither ridiculous shriekings for revenge by French 
chauvinists, nor the Englishmen's gnashing of teeth, nor 
the wild gestures of the Slavs will turn us from our aim of 
protecting and extending Deutschtum (German influence) 
all the world over. 

The French may arm as much as they wish, they cannot 
in one day increase their population. The employment of 
an army of negroes in the theater of European operations 
will remain for a long time a dream, and in any case be 
devoid of beauty. 

Aim and Obligations of Our National Policy, of Our Army, 
and of the Special Organisatiom for Army Purposes 

Our new army law is only an extension of the military 
education of the German nation. Our ancestors of 18 13 
W., VOL. I.— 9. 



I30 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



made greater sacrifices. It is our sacred duty to sharpen 
the sword that has been put into our hands and to hold it 
ready for defense as well as for offense. We must allow 
the idea to sink into the minds of our people that our arma- 
ments are an answer to the armaments and policy of the 
French. We must accustom them to think that an offensive 
war on our part is a necessity, in order to combat the provo- 
cations of our adversaries. We must act with prudence so 
as not to arouse suspicion, and to avoid the crises which 
might injure our economic existence. We must so manage 
matters that under the heavy weight of powerful arma- 
ments, considerable sacrifices, and strained political rela- 
tions, an outbreak (Losschlagen) should he considered as 
a relief, because after it would come decades of peace and 
prosperity, as after 1870. We must prepare for war from 
the financial point of view ; there is much to be done in this 
direction. We must not arouse the distrust of our finan- 
ciers, but there are many things which cannot be concealed. 

We must not be anxious about the fate of our colonies. 
The final result in Europe will settle their position. On 
the other hand, we must stir up trouble in the north of Africa 
and in Russia. It is a means of keeping the forces of the 
enemy engaged. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that 
we should open up relations, by means of well-chosen or- 
ganizations, with influential people in Egypt, Tunis, Al- 
geria, and Morocco, in order to prepare the measures which 
would be necessary in the case of a European war. Of 
course in case of war we should openly recognize these se- 
cret allies; and on the conclusion of peace we should secure 
to them the advantages which they had gained. These aims 
are capable of realization. The first attempt which was 
made some years ago opened up for us the desired relations. 
Unfortunately these relations were not sufficiently consoli- 
dated. Whether we like it or not it will be necessary to 
resort to preparations of this kind, in order to bring a cam- 
paign rapidly to a conclusion. 

Risings provoked in time of war by political agents need 
to be carefully prepared and by material means. They must 
break out simultaneously with the destruction of the means 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 131 



of communication ; they must have a controlling head to be 
found among the influential leaders, religious or political. 
The Egyptian School is particularly suited to this purpose ; 
more and more it serves as a bond between the intellectuals 
of the Mohammedan World. 

However this may be, we must be strong in order to an- 
nihilate at one powerful swoop our enemies in the east and 
west. But in the next European war it will also be neces- 
sary that the small states should be forced to follow its or 
be subdued. In certain conditions their armies and their 
strong positions can be rapidly conquered or neutralized; 
this would probably be the case with Belgium and Holland, 
so as to prevent our enemy in the west from gaining ter- 
ritory which they could use as a base of operations against 
our flank. In the north we have nothing to fear from Den- 
mark or Scandinavia, especially as in any event we shall 
provide for the concentration of a strong northern army, 
capable of replying to any menace from this direction. In 
the most unfavorable case, Denmark might be forced by 
England to abandon her neutrality ; but by this time the de- 
cision would already have been reached both on land and on 
sea. Our northern army, the strength of which could be 
largely increased by Dutch formations, would oppose a very 
active defense to any offensive measures from this quarter. 

In the south, Switzerland forms an extremely solid bul- 
wark, and we can rely on her energetically defending her 
neutrality against France, and thus protecting our flank. 

As was stated above, the situation with regard to the 
small states on our northwestern frontier cannot be viewed 
in quite the same light. This will be a vital question for us, 
and our aim must be to take the offensive with a large su- 
periority from the first days. For this purpose it will be 
necessary to concentrate a large army, followed up by strong 
Landwehr formations, which will induce the small states to 
follow us or at least to remain inactive in the theater of 
operations, and which would crush them in the event of 
armed resistance. If we could induce these states to or- 
ganize their system of fortification in such a manner as to 
constitute an effective protection for our flank we could 



132 POISONS OF MILITARISM 

abandon the proposed invasion. But for this, army reor- 
ganization, particularly in Belgium, would be necessary in 
order that it might really guarantee an effective resistance. 
If, on the contrary, their defensive organization was es- 
tablished against us, thus giving definite advantages to our 
adversary in the west, we could in no circumstances offer 
Belgium a guarantee for the security of her neutrality. Ac- 
cordingly, a vast field is open to our diplomacy to work in 
this country on the lines of our interests. 

The arrangements made with this end in view allow us 
to hope that it will be possible to take the offensive imme- 
diately after the complete concentration of the army of the 
Lower Rhine. An ultimatum with a short time-limit, to he 
followed immediately by invasion, would allow a sufficient 
justification for our action in international law. 

Such are the duties which devolve on our army and 
which demand a striking force of considerable numbers. If 
the enemy attacks us, or if we wish to overcome him, we 
will act as our brothers did a hundred years ago ; the eagle 
thus provoked will soar in his flight, will seize the enemy 
in his steel claws and render him harmless. We will then 
remember that the provinces of the ancient German Em- 
pire, the County of Burgundy and a large part of Lorraine, 
are still in the hands of the French; that thousands of 
brother Germans in the Baltic provinces are groaning under 
the Slav yoke. It is a national question of restoring to 
Germany her former possessions. 

BY CHARLES ALTSCHUL 

The Great War has focussed the attention of all Ameri- 
cans upon political and social conditions in foreign coun- 
tries, and has familiarized them with many matters which 
had not occupied their minds before. The feature which 
probably attracts more attention than any other is the dif- 
ference in the respective points of view of the Teutonic 
and of the English-speaking nations, as revealed in all mat- 
ters relating to war and warfare. Character and habits of 
other peoples have been more closely studied than ever be- 
fore, and the aggressive leaders of the group of enemy 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 133 



nations, the Germans, have quite naturally come in for the 
closest scrutiny. 

Accustomed as these leaders have been for many years to 
universal military service, to a large standing army, to offi- 
cers drawn principally from the ranks of the nobility, and 
to marked class distinctions, they have absorbed certain no- 
tions which to us, who have grown up under very different 
conditions, seem like worship of constituted authority and 
the unwarranted surrender of individual responsibility. 

The gradual development of these very notions has 
brought about an inordinate influence of the military group 
in public affairs, which at the present moment is frequently 
referred to and much discussed. It may therefore not be 
amiss to try to throw some side-lights on the subject. 

At the outbreak of the war, the German army was ac- 
knowledged to be the most stupendous military machine im- 
aginable. It was in all its branches efficient, scientifically 
developed, thoroughly up to date, and very ably officered. 
It consisted of a small contingent of professional soldiery 
and of a mass of men made available by universal military 
service, and seemed truly representative of the entire nation. 
To belong to any branch of the service carried, as a matter 
of fact, a certain prestige at home, and the ambition of 
almost all educated men was to be appointed officers of re- 
serve after concluding the regular term of service with the 
colors. 

The disappointment in this country at the receipt of the 
horrifying news about the conduct of this representative 
body of men when the German army broke into Belgium, 
was as great as it was sincere. The stories seemed beyond 
belief ; it was incredible that fathers, sons, brothers, could 
have been so unmindful of their education, of their heritage 
of whole-souled and humane instincts! But the sickening 
and revolting details were confirmed, and repeated from dif- 
ferent districts, until one could no longer resist the con- 
viction that frightfulness was tO' be a feature of German 
campaigning, to be carried out as ruthlessly as the com- 
manding officers saw fit. 

Although fully aware that war conditions usually re- 



134 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



suit in the commission of atrocities by every army — ^because 
all restraint of normal life is removed, and the lack of nor- 
mal surroundings brings about a deplorable abandonment 
of self-control — yet the world stood aghast at this display 
of license and brutality. 

The question very naturally presented itself, whether 
our earlier very favorable impression of the German army 
had been warranted or whether insufficient knowledge had 
driven us to wrong conclusions? What had contemporary 
opinion in Germany been on this very important matter? 
What did the daily press reveal — the best mirror of passing 
impressions everywhere ? 

In a country in which the influence of Governmental 
agencies on the press is as great as we now all know it to be 
in Germany, one cannot expect a frank expression about ari 
institution as closely interwoven with the Government as 
the army is, except in the opposition newspapers. The press 
of Germany, as that of most countries, caters nowadays 
assiduously to the taste of its readers, and devotes much 
space to matters in which its particular public is especially 
interested. On this account, the fullest discussion of condi- 
tions in the army is likely to be found in those newspapers 
which circulate most widely among the masses, from which 
the bulk of the army, the common soldier, is drawn. The 
best source of information for our purposes would there- 
fore seem to be the daily newspaper Vorwdrts, the official 
organ at that time of the Social Democratic party, the party 
which secured about one-third of all the votes cast for the 
Reichstag at the last election before the war — not only so- 
cialistic votes, but those of liberals of every description as 
well, who could in no other manner give expression to their 
anti-Governmental views. 

The trial, in 1 914, of the socialist, Rosa Luxemburg, one 
of the active workers in the field of socialistic propaganda, 
brought to light much information of value in connection 
with what one of the representatives in the Reichstag, 
Schulz, called "the gloomy, barbarous bestiality of mal- 
treating soldiers {Scheiisdligkeiten der Soldatenmisshand- 
lungen) which recalls the Middle Ages." Rosa Luxemburg 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 135 



was tried because, at a public meeting, she had used the 
expression, "It is surely one of those tragedies (Dramen) 
which are enacted in the German barracks day after day, 
but the groans of the participants rarely reach our ears." 

She explained at her trial that she meant by tragedies, 
"Any abuse of a soldier, of course particularly such as 
leads to suicide, desertion, or such as have similar conse- 
quences. Whatever instances of maltreatment are to be 
proved here, are tragedies. ... It can also be proved that 
these incidents of daily occurrence are considered tragedies 
by the witnesses. . . . Was it not a tragedy when a soldier 
in Bautzen threw himself from a fourth story window, and 
was unfortunate enough to miss his goal and was court-mar- 
tialed and sentenced to six months' imprisonment for de- 
sertion?" 

In answering the statement of the public prosecutor to 
the effect that, according to the complaint of the Minister 
of War, defendant had by her remark insulted all the offi- 
cers, non-commissioned officers, and besides, all persons at- 
tached to the Prussian army, her attorneys expressed their 
readiness to prove the correctness of the defendant's state- 
ment. They said : "We do not intend to prove single blows 
and knocks, but innumerable ones. The examination of 
this evidence is startling. We may assert that not one per 
cent, of it has ever reached the public or the courts-martial. 
There is an endless chain of complaints which no one has, 
so far, heard of. Scarcely a witness will speak of two or 
three blows only, but it is always the question of a chain of 
incredible cases of maltreatment stretching over a period 
varying from a month to several years. . , . We have sulx 
mitted hundreds of decisions of courts-martial from the 
year 1907 to 1913, in which alone tens of thousands of 
cases of maltreatment of soldiers have been judicially es- 
tablished." 

When the prosecution of the defendant was first an- 
nounced, an appeal was issued through the Vorwdrts, call- 
ing upon all to come forward and testify whose own ex- 
periences in the army v/ere apt to substantiate the statement 
of the defendant. It is no slight matter in Germany to 



136 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



espouse openly the cause of one who is being prosecuted by 
the Government in a matter as zealously guarded as the 
reputation of the army; nevertheless, when the trial started, 
922 men from all parts of Germany had responded, and 
were ready to testify to something like 30,000 separate in- 
stances of brutal treatment of soldiers. 

Before the trial came to an abrupt end, the attorneys for 
the defendant had stated in court what testimony they were 
prepared to produce in support of the defense, and had men- 
tioned the names of witnesses and the evidence which was 
to be proved by each. These witnesses were not called to 
the stand and did not have the opportunity to testify to 
these facts; the trial was adjourned before that. But the 
statement that they were ready to do so was made in open 
court by the attorneys of Rosa Luxemburg, and their stand- 
ing as Rechtsanwalt — a title conferred on lawyers in Ger- 
many when they have borne themselves faultlessly in fol- 
lowing their profession a certain length of time — is a war- 
ranty of the integrity of their statement. 

It will suffice to select from the mass of material pre- 
sented some particularly striking examples. One witness 
would testify that: 

"He was struck in the face with the fist by Lieutenant 
Erler so that a tooth bled and got loose. He was beaten till 
he was bleeding, but report of the case was not sent higher 
up. Musketeer Hempel shot and killed himself after drill, 
because he had been grossly insulted by a corporal in front 
of the company. A reservist threw himself in front of a 
railroad train, another drowned himself, because they could 
no longer stand the abuse of N.C.O.^ Huebner." 

"Another witnessed maltreatment so severe as to cause 
blood to flow; spitting at soldiers by superiors; cursing 
by officers, one of whom made two soldiers poke the head 
of another, who was bodily and mentally weak, into the 
snow up to his neck. This lieutenant stuck his sword be- 
tween a soldier's hands which were tied behind his back, so 
that when he walked, the point struck the hollow of his 
knee." 

' The letters N. C. O. mean "non-commissioned officer." 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 137 



"A Polish recruit was maltreated so fearfully by a 
N.C.O. that he finally hanged himself. The N.C.O. got the 
soldiers to certify that they had seen nothing." 

"An officer struck him when he did not succeed in an 
exercise which had not been practiced and which was not 
according to regulations. Disgusting invective was used 
and maltreatment practiced by officers. When the adjutant 
took his deposition and he wanted to testify to instances of 
brutality, the adjutant did not want to hear about it and 
said that the soldier had not got enough." 

"Captain von Rock used terribly offensive language. His 
body servant (Bursche) attempted suicide owing to bad 
treatm.ent. A N.C.O. broke two ribs of a soldier who while 
bayoneting dodged a little because he was timid. Neither 
had the courage to file a complaint." 

"Soldiers were struck in the face during instruction. 
Were made to bend their knees while stretching out the rifle, 
until they dropped. Holes in the clothes were intentionally 
-torn open, and the soldiers told jeeringly that they would 
now be worth while mending. Witness saw hundreds of 
times helmets pressed down and the bands which held them 
under the chin pulled so that the soldiers got red in the 
face. Alsatians and Lorrainers particularly were maltreated 
and frequently called 'damned French-heads,' 'French 
skulls,' etc. The N.C.O.'s warned men against complain- 
ing, promising worse treatment for such cases." 

"Witness knew of a case of suicide in consequence of 
maltreatment. Witness himself, after complaining about a 
sergeant, was abused by the captain and got five days' light 
arrest for improper conduct towards a superior." 

"A recruit was so badly abused by a N.C.O., in the 
room, that he cried and said, if that had happened to him 
in civil life he would have smashed the fellow's head; he 
was too much ashamed to tell what had really occurred." 

"A merchant by the name of Schuchardt shot himself in 
1907 on account of abuse. This case was not brought into 
court." 

"Witness received his training from two N.C.O.'s who 
had already been punished for maltreating soldiers. Sev- 



138 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



eral N.C.O.'s maltreated regularly and grossly. Recruits 
were compelled to sweep the rooms of the N.C.O.'s from 
nine till eleven at night with tooth-brushes. One recruit was 
tortured until he went insane and was then dismissed as un- 
fit for the service." 

"Lieutenant Schmidt boxed a soldier's ears, then ordered 
all the men to leave the room, and one heard only groaning 
and cursing. The recruit was injured in such a manner 
that he had to be discharged, and received a pension for in- 
jury in the service." 

They would have continued to present to the court the 
details of their evidence, but before the trial had proceeded 
very far the Minister of War gave notice that he would 
submit to courts-martial all cases that had been mentioned, 
which had not been passed upon by such courts before, and 
were not yet outlawed. This attempt to force before courts- 
martial the witnesses who had volunteered to testify in 
favor of Rosa Luxemburg before a civil court, was looked 
upon as a veiled threat, because these witnesses were more 
likely to be treated as if they themselves were the accused, 
if the military authorities desired to frighten off others from 
testifying. 

At the request of the Government, but against the ve- 
hement protest of the defendant, this interesting trial was 
then adjourned to give the Minister of War an opportunity 
to carry out his plan. The outbreak of the present war, 
soon after the last court proceedings, resulted in the case 
being dropped. 

There is other material available from which to gather 
information concerning the conditions in the German army 
in times of peace. On April 8, 1914, the Vorwdrts pub- 
lished an article on "German Kultur in the Barracks," which 
commences : "When we hear different Prussian Ministers 
of War talking in the Reichstag about the maltreatment of 
soldiers, we might be led to believe that a great improvement 
had taken place with respect to this deep-seated evil in the 
army. However, he who attentively follows the incessant 
flow of instances of cruelty, shudders at the abyss of bru- 
tality which is still yawning. We wish to submit but a small 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 139 



selection from the record of cases of maltreatment which 
have come into court during the last fifteen months; they 
will suffice to put all attempts at whitewashing in their right 
place." 

The details then fully presented cover the cases of eight 
officers and of about fifteen non-commissioned officers. The 
instances of brutality are about the same as mentioned in 
our former list; but these non-commissioned officers seem 
to have outdone those whose records we listened tO' before. 
We hear that — 

"In the fourth squadron of the Regiment Garde-du- 
Corps, two acting corporals and three 'professional regulars' 
maltreated recruits in the most brutal manner with ropes, 
snaffles, horse brushes, the sword, etc. One of the victims 
became temporarily insane. 

"In the Queen Augusta Guard Regiment No. 4, Sergeant 
Waske ordered a grenadier to lie down before a cuspidor and 
then called out 'Drink.' The grenadier drank from it quite 
obediently, which proves that 'servile obedience' {Kadaver- 
gehorsam) is no idle phrase." 

Glancing further through this illuminating file of papers, 
we come across an article by Richard Gadke on "Maltreat- 
ment in the Army," from which a few extracts follow: 
"It is likely that but a tenth part of all the reprehensible 
acts comes to the notice of the superiors, and only at a public 
trial, exposed as by a stroke of lightning, does one see what 
is really going on. It is the system that must be attacked, 
bitterly and relentlessly. The system which has sprung from 
old, bad, and moldering custom, from antiquated views of 
the time of the armies of mercenaries. The nature of our 
entire military organization still resembles that of a troup 
of lansquenets, gathered from the roughest elements of the 
people, rather than an army of the people which draws into 
its fold the flower of our youth for the sole purpose of teach- 
ing them the use of arms and preparing them for a defense 
of the Fatherland. Thus, we reach the idea of purely pas- 
sive, purely suffering obedience; and many a commander 
is still subconsciously controlled by the opinion of Frederick 



I40 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



the Great, that a soldier should fear his superior more than 
the enemy." 

Further on, we find extracts from a book by a retired 
Prussian captain, Hans Pommer, "Twenty Years as Officer 
of Infantry in the Imperial Provinces" (Reichslanden) , who 
says, among other things: "The disciplining of German 
soldiers is still done by coercive measures, which may have 
been warranted under feudal serfdom, but which must be 
considered a mockery of human rights when employed in a 
modern army of the people. 

"I knew a captain who insulted his men in the common- 
est manner and made a habit of striking the man who held 
his horse when he dismounted, who maltreated his body- 
servant (Bursche), and yet no one had the courage to pro- 
ceed against this torturer of soldiers. This captain, who 
should really have been retired from the army, was even 
honored with a command in China. Another captain, who 
closed his career only after having been appointed brigade 
commander, was so blinded when in rage that he did not 
mind riding down three rows of men in order to punish a 
man in the fourth." 

From time to time other news-items and articles have 
appeared in the German press, all reciting similar instances 
of outrage upon the person or dignity of the soldier. The 
cumulative proof of brutality is shown in the relentless and 
unexpected light which Germans themselves have thrown 
upon the conditions in their army in times of peace. If 
Americans had been familiar with these details, they would 
have expected the worst during the stress of a campaign, 
and would have been less unprepared for the unheard of 
barbarities practiced in so many places where the Germans 
set foot. If officers, non-commissioned officers, and pro- 
fessional regulars treat their own recruits in the fashion 
described, in times of peace, what could be expected of 
troops commanded by such ruffians in enemy country, under 
the terrific excitement of combat, and particularly when 
"f rightfulness" is the slogan? It is not contended that all 
German officers are addicted to these practices. There are, 
no doubt, a great many, perhaps a majority among them., 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 141 



who are themselves opposed to such conditions. But the 
system has evidently continued in spite of the more humane, 
and has become so thoroughly ingrained that it showed its 
true colors as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. 

BY CROWN PRINCE FREDERICK WILLIAM 

Tc-day, indeed, we live in a time which points with spe- 
cial satisfaction to the proud height of its culture, which is 
only too willing to boast of its international cosmopolitan- 
ism, and flatters itself with visionary dreams of the possi- 
bility of an everlasting peace throughout the world. This 
view of life is un-Gernmn and does not suit us. The Ger- 
man who loves his people, who believes in the greatness and 
the future of our homeland, and who is unwilling to see its 
position diminished, dare not close his eyes in the indul- 
gence of dreams such as these, he dare not allow himself 
to be lulled into indolent sleep by the lullabies of peace sung 
by the Utopians. 

Germany has behind her since the last great war a period 
of economic prosperity, which has in it something almost 
disconcerting. Comfort has so increased in all circles of 
our people that luxury and claims to a certain style of life 
have undergone a rank development. Now certainly we 
must not thanklessly deny that a wave of economic pros- 
perity brings with it much that is good. But the shady side 
of this too rapid development often manifests itself in a 
painful and threatening manner. Already the appreciation 
of wealth has gained in our country an importance which 
we can only observe with anxiety. 

The old ideals, even the position and the honor of the 
nation, may be sympathetically affected; for peace, peace 
at any price, is necessary for the undisturbed acquisition of 
money. But the study of history teaches us that all those 
States which in the decisive hour have been guided by purely 
commercial considerations have miserably come tO' grief. 
The sympathies of civilized nations are to-day, as in the 
battles of antiquity, still with the sturdy and the hold fight- 
ing armies; they are with the brave combatants who, in the 
words which Lessing puts in the mouth of Tellheim, are 



142 POISONS OF MILITARISM 



soldiers for their country, and fight out of the love which 
they bear to the cause. Certainly diplomatic dexterity can, 
and should, postpone the conflict for a time, and at times dis- 
entangle the difficulties. Certainly all those in authority 
must and will be fully conscious of their enormous respon- 
sibility in the grave hour of decision. They must make it 
clear to their own minds that the gigantic conflagration, 
once enkindled, cannot be so easily or so quickly extin- 
guished. As, however, lightning is an adjustment of the 
tension between two differently charged strata of the at- 
mosphere, so the sword will always be and remain until the 
end of the world the decisive factor. 

Therefore every one, to whom his country is dear, and 
who believes in a great future for our nation, must joyfully 
do his part in the task of seeing that the old military spirit 
of our fathers is not lost, and that it is not sicklied o'er with 
the pale cast of thought. For the sword alone is not decisive, 
but the arm steeled in exercise which bears the sword. Each 
of us must keep himself fit for arms and also' prepared in 
his mind for the great solemn hour when the Emperor calls 
us to the standard — the hour when we no' longer belong to 
ourselves, but to the Fatherland with all the forces of our 
mind and our body ; for all these faculties must be brought to 
the highest exertion, to that "will to victory" which has 
never been without success in history. 

[Later comes this passage:] Our country is obliged 
more than any other country to place all its confidence in 
its good weapons. Set in the center oi Europe, it is badly 
protected by its unfavorable geographic frontiers, and is 
regarded by many nations without affection. Upon the Ger- 
man Empire, therefore, is imposed more emphatically than 
upon any other peoples of the earth the sacred duty of watch- 
ing carefully that its army and its navy be always prepared 
tO' meet any attack from the outside. It is only by reliance 
upon our brazfe sword that we shall be able to maintain that 
place in the sun which belongs to us, and which the world 
does not seem very willing to accord us. 

[The royal author then describes a regimental maneuver 
of the guards on the field at Ddberitz :] The steel helmets 



POISONS OF MILITARISM 143 



glitter in the sunshine; in the galloping exercises every in- 
dividual horseman endeavors to- keep on to the man in front, 
and to keep the right direction — no easy matter when there 
is dust, and the ground is rough. Many a one stumbles, and 
away past him gallops the company of riders. What does 
it matter! When you plane wood, shavings must fall. 
And there the call resounds over the field, clear and quiver- 
ing amid the uproar of the galloping mass, "Front!" The 
reins whirl round, and as if by a stroke of magic, the line 
is formed again, with a front of five impetuous squadrons 
of the guards, — and then comes the signal, "Charge!" Then 
the last ounce is taken out of the horses, and with bodies 
strained forward and with lances in rest with a "hurrah" 
we ride to the attack. For any one who' has taken part in 
such attacks, there is nothing fairer in the world! 

And yet to the true horseman there is one thing which 
appears more beautiful: if all that were the same, but if 
only at the end of the rapid charge the enemy were to ride 
out against us, and the struggle for which we have been 
drilled and trained, the struggle for life and death, were to 
begin. How often during such attacks have I heard the 
yearning call of a comrade riding behind : "Donnewetter! 
if that were only the real thing!" O horseman's spirit! All 
who are true soldiers must know and feel : "Dulce et de- 
corum est pro patria mori." ^ 

*GIad and glorious [or sweet and fitting] it is to die for one's 
country. 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



THE SUBJECT FOREIGN NATIONS WITHIN THE GERMAN 

EMPIRE 



We face here another side of our review, not the sources of the 
German outburst, but the results which would have followed upon her 
success, as these results are revealed in lesser shape by her treatment 
of foreign races previously her subjects. Along the whole eastern 
border of Germany and Austria there extended, for a century, a thou- 
sand mile wide strip of country sometimes called the "Dead Lands of 
Europe," a desert of misery in what Nature meant to be a glorious 
fertility. 

As Germany has never attempted to maintain that she ruled her 
submerged foreign peoples for their own good — except as it was sup- 
posedly good for all peoples to become German or die — the theme need 
scarcely be presented from more than a single viewpoint. Mr. Ernest 
Barker is a recognized British authority upon this theme, a Fellow of 
Oxford University, who has written several works upon the life of 
various conquered peoples. 

Perhaps the War itself has taught the only necessary lesson as to 
Germany's treatment of subject races. The Poles when appealed to for 
aid by both Germany and Russia, and offered equally flattering prom- 
ises by each, preferred positively and even desperately to cast in their 
lot with the old, autocratic, stupid, selfish misgovernment of Russia 
rather than trust themselves to "enlightened Germany." 



'OR the last hundred years a dominant conception among 



1 the Germans has been that of "the folk" {das Volk). 
The folk — they have thought and said — is a being and al- 
most a person ; and as such it has its corresponding attributes 
— its sense of right; its way of speech; its songs, its poetry 
and its music. Law, according to a great German jurist, 
is the organ of folk-right; folk-music, folk-songs, folk- 
poetry — all these are the natural outpourings of the Volks- 
geist; while as for the folk-speech, that is not only the 
medium for the expression, but also' the condition of the 
existence, of these other things. The philosophy of Hegel 

144 



ERNEST BARKER 



BY ERNEST BARKER 




WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



145 



represents in many ways the apotheosis of this German 
idea of the folk. To Hegel the folk, politically organized as 
a state, is the home of a system of social ethics that inspires 
and controls the life of the individual, who finds his peace 
in its will and his duty in filling duly a station in its system. 
"The spirit of a nation controls and entirely dominates from 
within each person," so that "he feels it to be his own very 
being ... he looks upon it as his absolute final aim," and 
"his life is hid with that of his fellows in the common life 
of his people." The "culture" of the folk — the nation or 
people — thus becomes a sacred tradition; and the language 
in which it is enshrined becomes, as it were, the vehicle 
which carries the holy ark of the covenant. 

Imbued with ideas of this order, the Germans have 
shown themselves sedulously careful to maintain the purity 
of their language, seeking to exclude all foreign or "Welsh" 
words, and to express every idea and every concept by 
means of native Germanic words. "This movement," it is 
said, "has grown with the growth of national unity, and a 
powerful society, the Sprachverein, has been recently 
founded, and has published handbooks of native words for 
almost every department of modern life." Thus the lan- 
guage of commerce, of chemistry and of every range of 
thought, is made purely German ; and thus the German lan- 
guage, unlike the English, which has borrowed freely, and 
continues tO' borrow freely, from almost every language that 
ihas been or now is spoken, remains what we may call "self- 
sufficient," and indebted to no other. 

Much may be said, both for and against this cult of 
linguistic purity. A language which refuses to borrow from 
other languages loses that flexibility, subtlety of expres- 
sion and variety of shades of meaning, which an abundance 
of "loan-words" enables a language that borrows such words 
freely to attain; but, on the other hand, linguistic purity 
conduces to a political result, as indeed it is largely based 
on a poHtical motive — a conscious and vivid sense of na- 
tional unity and national uniqueness. 

But whatever may be said of the two ideals — "national- 
ism in language, as against borrowing ; a pure, as opposed 

W., VOIi. I.—/., 



146 WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



tO' a mixed, language" — a new and difficult problem arises, 
when we find the people who use the pure German tongue 
seeking to suppress other tongues that are used within the 
boundaries of German territory — the Polish, the Danish and 
the French. This is a policy which the Germans have more 
and more pursued since they finally attained their own na- 
tional unity in 1870; and it is a policy which cannot but 
seem to most of us illogical and inconsistent. If folk-speech 
is a consecrated thing, because it is the vehicle of folk- 
culture, surely the folk-speech of Poles and Danes and 
Frenchmen can plead a title to existence, and a right to be 
used no less than that of the Germans. To inflict dumbness 
on a people and to mutilate its tongue, at the same time that 
you proclaim the pure sanctity of your own speech, is to 
sin against the spirit of nationality with the same breath 
with which you proclaim it holy. 

Why, then, do' the Germans seek to coerce into the use 
of an alien speech — a speech which is the vehicle of a cul- 
ture that is not their own culture — those peoples who dwell 
in German territory, but do not belong by blood or tradi- 
tion to the German people itself? At bottom, perhaps, the 
reason is an instinctive feeling that the area of German gov- 
ernment should be also the area of German nationality, and 
that, if there are alien elements in the area of German gov- 
ernment, they must be, as it were, chemically changed and 
transmuted until they are unified with and incorporated 
into the area of German nationality. Just as foreign words 
must be purged from the German language, so foreign 
languages must be purged from the German soil; and just 
as it is resolved that foreign words must not be used in Ger- 
man speech, so it is enacted that foreign speech must not 
be used on German soil. 

The analogy here implied and used is not, of course, a 
true or valid analogy. It is one thing for a German who 
speaks German to say that he himself will use no word 
but German, nor does he lose his freedom if he thus abne- 
gates the use of foreign words: it is another thing for a 
German to say that other peoples within the German borders, 
who do not syeak German, shall use no language but Ger- 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 147 



man in schools and courts O'f law and public meetings, and 
these other peoples do lose their freedom when they are 
thus compulsorily deprived of the use of their native lan- 
guage. But the analogy, however untrue, is pressed, as 
we shall see, to its uttermost consequences. 

The instinctive feeling which leads tO' its application is 
corroborated by other instincts. There is the German pas- 
sion for drill and uniformity and PoUsei. Accustomed to 
putting men intO' actual and physical uniform, the German 
Government has drifted, as it were, by a curious extension 
of policy, into the habit of seeking tO' put men into meta- 
phorical and mental uniform. After all, it can be argued, 
the army needs a uniform language of command ; and if the 
army demands linguistic unity, will not linguistic unity 
best suit the needs of the schools, the law-courts, and all 
public intercourse? The administration of education will be 
easier if schools are not bilingual; the administration of 
justice will be simpler if there is only one language for plead- 
ing; the whole of public administration will run on a single 
gear, instead of running on several, if the State addresses 
its subjects, and can always expect tO' be addressed by its 
subjects, in a single language. 

Last, but by no means least, we have tO' remember that 
spirit oi exclusive nationalism which has entered sO' strongly 
and so pervasively into German Ufe. There is the feeling 
that German culture is so- large, so embracing, so universal, 
that it is good for all to use the language which is the key 
to all its treasures. If men are forced to use it, they are, 
after all, being "forced to be free"; and at the cost of a 
little compulsion in their schooldays they are initiated into 
the large freedom of the mind, which will come from a full 
and liberal education in German speech, and, through Ger- 
man speech, in German culture. 

These, then, are some of the reasons why the period be- 
tween the end of the Franco-Prussian war and the begin- 
ning of the present war is filled with examples of linguistic 
oppression in the German Empire. That oppression takes 
four main forms. First and foremost, it affects the school ; 
and since religious instruction is part of the work of the 



148 WOE TO THE CONQUERED 1 



school, it affects religious instruction, and tends to result 
in something perilously akin to religious persecution. Sec- 
ondly, it affects the law-court, the post-office and all the 
organs of public administration. Thirdly, it affects public 
meetings : and finally — and most striking of all — under de- 
crees like that of April, 1899, which required teachers in 
Posen to disuse Polish in the family circle, and under police 
action such as that which entails domiciliary visits for the 
seizure of Polish literature, it affects the home itself. 

Much of the oppression is based on administrative or- 
ders, such as the orders of the Minister of Education, 
which make the use of German compulsory in schools; 
some of it is based on administrative action by the police; 
but part of it is based on direct legislation by the German 
Reichstag itself, and oppression of this kind cannot be 
ascribed to "bureaucratic" methods, but must necessarily be 
referred to the deliberate will of the German people itself, 
as expressed by its representatives. It is a law of the 
Reichstag of 1908 which regulates the use of languages 
other than German in public meetings. Under Article 12 
of that law — the law of associations — the use of German is 
made compulsory in public meetings, except at election 
times. An exception is made for those districts in which 
more than 60 per cent, of the population do not speak Ger- 
man ; but even this exception is to disappear at the end of 
twenty years from the passing of the Act. A Polish dep- 
uty, therefore, must speak to his constituents in German, 
except at election times — or unless the district in which he 
is speaking is one which contains more than 60 per cent, 
of inhabitants who do not speak German. 

It is necessary, in order to comprehend the methods and 
the results of linguistic oppression in the German Empire, 
to study separately the three main areas of such oppression 
— Prussian Poland, Danish Schleswig and Alsace-Lorraine. 
The methods used, and the results attained, were indeed 
much the same in all the three areas ; and the law of 1908 
applied to them all equally. But the three areas differ in 
some respects ; and the methods and results of linguistic op- 
pression, so far as it is based on administrative action, 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 149 



which in its nature varies from one area to another, have 
also shown a number of differences. 

In this connection it must be remembered that the Poles 
and the Danes in the German Empire are subjects of Prus- 
sia, and as such were governed by the Prussian Ministry ; 
while the people of Alsace-Lorraine were not included in 
Prussia, their country being a federal territory (Reichsland) 
governed by the federal authority. Another difference, 
which is also important, is that the Poles are distinct from 
the Germans of Prussia both in religion and language ; the 
Danes differ in language, but not in religion ; while the ma- 
jority of the people of Alsace-Lorraine differ in religion 
(being Roman Catholics), but not in language — speaking, 
as they do, a German dialect. 

In 181 5 Frederic William III., in a rescript to his Polish 
subjects, promised to respect their nationality and to give 
their language an equal position with German in public 
meetings. Down to 1870 the promise was on the whole ob- 
served. Between 1830 and 1841, it is true, a governor of 
the province of Posen, Flottwell by name, pursued a policy 
of Germanization, founding schools to encourage German 
culture, and buying land from Polish owners tO' sell it again 
to Germans. But his policy was not extreme: the Poles 
remained loyal subjects of Prussia; and they fought for 
Prussia in the war against Austria in 1866 and the war 
against France in 1870. Almost immediately after 1870, 
however, Bismarck began a campaign against the Poles. In 
1872 he embarked on a struggle with the Roman Catholic 
Church, which is the Church of the Poles. "The beginning 
of the struggle," he says in his "Reflections and Remi- 
niscences," "was decided for me preponderantly by its Polish 
side" ; and he refers to statistics which "proved the rapid 
progress of the Polish nationality at the expense of the Ger- 
mans," and to official reports which showed that "there were 
whole villages in Posen and West Prussia containing thou- 
sands of Germans who through the influence of the Catholic 
section had been educated according to Polish ideas, and 
were officially described as Poles, though in the previous 
generation they were officially Germans." To meet this sit- 



ISO WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 

uation, a law of 1872 deprived the clergy of the right of 
inspecting schools which they had hitherto enjoyed, and 
gave the work to Government officials. Next year, 1873, 
an administrative order required that the German language 
alone should be employed in schools, except for religious 
instruction — though even for this purpose German might 
be used, if the pupils were sufficiently advanced to under- 
stand the language. 

The war thus begun in the schools was continued and 
extended in succeeding years. A further step was attempted 
in 1883, when the provincial Government of Posen ordered 
that religious instruction should be given in German, if 
half the students in a school were of German birth. The 
Prussian Minister of Education at the time disapproved of 
the order, and it was rescinded; but a later Minister, Dr. 
Studt, reversed the action of his predecessor, and since the 
beginning of this century the principle of the order of 1883 
has been enforced, the alleged grounds being "the awk- 
wardness of a bilingual system of education, and still more 
the persistent efforts of the Poles to make their privileged 
position a means of racial isolation," By thus enforcing on 
Polish children religious instruction given in a language 
other than their own, the Prussian Government practically 
turned linguistic oppression into religious persecution; and, 
indeed, as the confession of Bismarck, quoted above, suffi- 
ciently illustrates, the anti-Polish policy of the Government 
was from the first also anti-CathoUc in its motives. 

Besides interfering with religious instruction, the Prus- 
sian Government also interfered with the life of the family. 
A decree of 1899, already mentioned above, required teach- 
ers — German teachers who had married Polish wives — to 
cease to use the Polish language in their homes. Children 
who' are deaf-mutes are instructed in German — with the re- 
sult that they cannot converse with their father and mother, 
their sisters and brothers. The possession of Polish books 
dealing with Polish history and literature renders a pupil 
liable to exclusion from secondary schools. Domiciliary 
visits by the police are the inevitable result of this rule ; and 
such visits, in their turn, inevitably result in "incidents" and 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



misery. At Thorn, for instance, a town in West Prussia, 
the police suspected a secret society of schoolboys. They 
visited the homes of a number of boys attending one of the 
schools, which they thought to be the center of the "con- 
spiracy," and in six of the homes they found historical and 
religious books printed in Polish, which were immediately 
confiscated. Sixty of the boys were charged with belonging 
to an illegal society, and brought to trial. That there was 
a society among the boys, and that the object of the society 
was to study Polish history and literature (subjects ex- 
cluded from the curriculum of the schools), was not denied; 
that there was any "conspiracy," or any "illegal" intention, 
was not and could not be proved. None the less, a number 
of the boys were expelled from the town and the district — ■ 
only to be aided, by a sum of £i,ooo raised by Polish, 
students in Switzerland, tO' pursue their studies at Lem- 
berg and Cracow, in Austrian Poland, where the Govern- 
ment was not so impossibly rigorous. 

Under conditions such as these, school life becomes a 
burden and a torment. The German schoolmaster becomes 
a rigorous martinet : the Polish schoolboy becomes a sullen 
rebel : the school becomes a battleground. Children are 
punished by the police for misdemeanors committed in 
school : one pupil may be confined in a house of correction 
for not giving his answers in German during a lesson on 
the catechism ; another may be condemned to four months' 
imprisonment for lese-majeste, because he has spoken "trea- 
sonably" about current politics. While children are pun- 
ished, parents are fined. A French author, writing in 19 lo, 
estimates the total of the fines up to that date at a sum of 
$50,000. The result of the whole system is truancy en 
masse and a system of school-strikes. A series of such 
strikes began in 1906, and lasted into the spring of 1907. 
They began in Posen, but they extended as far as Breslau 
in Silesia. In October, 1906, there were 40,000 children 
on strike, and in the course of 1907 as many as 60,000. 
The Government replied with a heavy hand, by wholesale 
dismissals, imprisonments and fines. For "incitement" to 
school-strikes 35 priests were sentenced to periods of im- 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



prisonment amounting in the aggregate to 20 months, and 
to fines amounting to $1,500; 1,450 parents were fined 
$4,500 for the non-attendance of their children at school; 
other persons were sentenced to terms of imprisonment 
amounting in the aggregate tO' 6^ years for offenses con- 
nected with the school-strikes. 

So far of the schools. Linguistic oppression, however, 
has also invaded other areas than that of the school. In 
1870 Polish was still used in the law courts and Govern- 
ment offices : a Pole might still address the Government in 
Polish, and still be answered in Polish. That has all been 
changed. German is now the only language of justice and 
administration; and just before the war, in 1913, Prussian 
postmen were refusing to transmit or deliver letters ad- 
dressed in Polish. Persons with Polish names are pressed 
or forced to change them to a German form ; a Pole called 
Szulc or Szuman may be fined if he fails to write himself 
Schultz or Schumann. Villages and streets have been rebap- 
tized in German ; over 2,000 streets, it is said, have been thus 
renamed in the dominant language. Shop signs must be in 
German; the very inscriptions on tomb-stones must be in 
German ; railway book-stalls must not sell Polish papers. A 
Polish deputy, speaking in the Prussian Parliament not long 
ago, could say : "No Pole can plead his own cause before the 
courts in his mother tongue, and should he wish to employ it 
before the administrative authorities, he is not heard. Im- 
memorial names are summarily abolished. Family names are 
distorted by the authorities. Every class meeting is held 
under police surveillance, and oj>en-air meetings are pro- 
hibited altogether, Polish theatrical performances are for the 
most part forbidden or stopped." 

The interference of the Government with public meetings 
and with the drama — it should also be added, with the Press 
— is an interference with freedom of thought and its expres- 
sion only second, if indeed it is second, to interference with 
freedom of education. The law of 1908 on public meetings 
has already been mentioned. Polish drama was everywhere 
prohibited, except, it is said, in the town of Posen during the 
winter ; and Polish amateurs could not produce a Polish play, 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 153 



because a translation had to be presented to the police in order 
that their consent be obtained — a consent which always ar- 
rived too late. Polish papers were subject to rigorous super- 
vision, and their editors often found their way to prison, 
though this, it should be added, is a fate not unknown to 
editors of German papers. The result of this repression was 
intellectual stagnation. It is hard for the things of the mind 
to flourish under a censorship of this order; and the intellec- 
tual life of the Poles migrated steadily from Prussian Po- 
land to the milder air of Austrian Poland. 

Yet, in spite of all oppression, the unconquerable spirit of 
the Poles has striven to maintain its life and vigor. Volun- 
tary effort and voluntary associations — which have played a 
great part in Poland, particularly in the economic sphere, but 
also, and with almost equal vigor, in the intellectual — have 
been directed to the preservation of the national life. The 
"Sokol" associations of the Poles, for social and educational 
purposes, are numerous; in 19 14 there were said to be as 
many as 1,000, each with a membership of about 100. The 
congress of Sokols at Posen in 1905 decided to organize 
courses of lectures and conferences on literary and historical 
subjects. If Polish culture was excluded from the official 
schools, it was thus fostered by the voluntary agency of edu- 
cational associations, which correspond, in their way, to our 
own "Workers' Educational Association" ; and as long as 
these associations were active, Polish speech and Polish cul- 
ture could not die. The Polish Press, whatever the surveil- 
lance to which it was subject, continued to exist; its chief 
organ was said to have a circulation of 70,000. Popular 
libraries are also flourishing; they disseminate the national 
literature, and serve, along with the Press, as an instrument 
of national education. 

On the whole, the German policy of linguistic oppression 
failed to attain its object in Prussian Poland, Indirectly it 
even benefited the Poles. Taught to be bilingual, they have 
found their gift of tongues to be economically valuable, and 
they have been successful competitors for business with 
German rivals, who only knew and could only use a single 
language. This is an undesigned mercy, which can hardly 



154 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 



excuse those who have been its involuntary donors. It won 
the Prussian Government no gratitude ; while the design and 
the execution of its linguistic policy turned the Poles, loyal 
subjects of Prussia fifty years ago, into the ways of passive 
resistance and resolute, if quiet, defiance. A race which was, 
and might have continued to be, loyal, if it had been left free 
to speak and to use its own language, lost its loyalty when it 
was commanded to speak and to use an alien language as a 
sign of loyalty. 

The perverse policy of the German Government naturally 
had perverse results. Intended to Germanize the Poles, it 
made them more Polish. Intended to incorporate them in 
German culture, it has driven them back on the ardent culti- 
vation of their own. Intended to create loyalty, it destroyed 
loyalty. Intended to strengthen Germanism, it strengthened 
the Poles at the expense of the Germans. 

"The Polish language," wrote a German professor in 
1914, "gains not only in the country districts, but also in the 
towns, and even in the town of Posen. The Polish middle 
class grows, while the German decreases." But it is always 
SO'. He who sows dragons' teeth can only reap a crop of 
armed and defiant warriors. 

Such is the treatment of their language that has been 
meted out to the 3,500,000 Poles in Prussia. That treat- 
ment was the model which the Germans followed in dealing 
with the Danes of Northern Schleswig. At first sight it is 
curious that they should have done so. There are only some 
150,000 Danes in Northern Schleswig; and it could hardly 
have threatened German culture if they had continued to use 
their own language freely. The Danes, again, are Protes- 
tant, like the majority of the Germans of Prussia; and one 
might have expected to find a natural bond of religious sym- 
pathy between Prussia and the Danes, such as could not exist 
between Prussia and the Catholic Poles. 

But the Prussian passion for uniformity and rule tri- 
umphed over these differences ; and the Danes, in spite of 
the differences of their position, were treated on parallel 
lines with the Poles. "To conquer the school is to conquer 
the future," s-aid Bismarck ; and on that line, as we have seen, 



WOE TO THE CONQUERED! 155 



he acted in dealing with the Poles, It is exactly on the same 
line that the Prussian Government acted towards the Danes. 

It is one of the tragedies of the history of German educa- 
tion that the school, instead of being used as an end in itself, 
should have been used as a means to political objects. This is 
the real meaning of Bismarck's saying; and it has been the 
real motive of much of the educational policy of the Prussian 
Government. Dr. Studt (the Prussian Minister of Educa- 
tion who was responsible for the order that religious instruc- 
tion should be given to the Poles in German if half of the 
pupils of a school were of German birth) is reported to have 
said in 1907, in visiting North Schleswig, "Teachers should 
always remember that it is their mission to educate children 
by inculcating the sentiments of loyalty and love tO' the Ger- 
man fatherland." To import a political motive intO' educa- 
tion is fatal tO' a free and liberal education ; and when that 
political motive results in the use of compulsion, and the 
drilling of a non-German population in German speech and 
history and culture, it is fatal to any sort of education at all. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



WHY FRANCE AND GERMANY CONTINUED 
IRRECONCILABLE 

CHARLES HAZEN THE OFFICIAL PROTEST OF ALSACE 
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE WILLIAM DAVIS 

Even more complete than the German government's failure with the 
Danes and Poles was its failure to satisfy the people of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. Indeed from the time of the seizure of these lands by the newly 
created German Empire in 1871, their people were so ill-treated that 
the "Crime of Alsace" remained an ever-festering sore in European 
statecraft. 

The question as to the original State ownership of Alsace and the 
German-speaking portion of Lorraine is of no importance whatever. 
From ancient Roman days the ownership of the west bank of the Rhine 
has been in constant dispute between Teuton and Gaul. Moreover no 
region in the world possessed any permanent nationality so long as, 
under the feudal system of medieval times, kings and dukes disposed 
of their States as private inheritances, splitting them up at will and 
presenting them as personal gifts to one another. 

The people of Alsace only acquired a real nationality of their own 
in that red birth-hour of Europe's Democracy, the French Revolution. 
Then at last the awakened Alsatians ceased to belong to some king by 
his "divine right"; they came into the peoples' "divine right" of Na- 
tionality. Passionately they declared themselves French. And there- 
after they were French. They sealed their love and loyalty in the blood 
of a hundred battlefields. In face of this great rich patriotism of the 
people, no argument pleading that a German emperor or duke of old 
once held Alsace as part of his inheritance, has any meaning for the 
modern world. 

In 1871 the German Empire seized this French land by force, in 
defiance of the desperate protests of the Alsatians. That was the orig- 
inal crime. But time heals all ancient wrongs, and a wiser Germany 
might have at length won the affections of the Alsatians. She did not 
do so. For over forty years they remained Democrats and Frenchmen, 
and were persecuted as such. 

The conditions of the seizure of Alsace by Germany are here de- 
scribed by America's foremost authority on European history. Pro- 
fessor Hazen of Columbia University. The persecution that followed 
in the Prussian military effort to force Alsace to become German is 
given in the words of Professor Davis of the University of Minnesota, 
quoted from his book, "The Roots of the War." On a them.e which 
has so long vexed Europe we can get our clearest view from un- 
prejudiced American scholars. The extreme German view is voiced 
by Treitschke, the foremost advocate of progress by conquest. As 
Professor of History in Berlin in the iSgo's and favorite historical 
lecturer to the Court, he established the view of ofi&cial Germany. 



156 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



157 



BY CHARLES HAZEN * 

THE Treaty of Frankfort, which closed the Franco-Ger- 
man War of 1870, transferred to Germany from France 
a territory nearly as large as the States of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island, 5,600 square miles, 1,700 villages, towns and 
cities, and 1,600,000 human beings, the consent of not one 
of whom was either asked or given. 

What reasons did the Germans give for this momentous 
act, this violent mutilation of a neighbor, this subjection of a 
million six hundred thousand of its citizens to an aHen rule? 
Many different arguments were urged by many different 
kinds of people. Poets, historians, editors gave one set of 
reasons, economists another, military men and Bismarck still 
a different one. It was the opinions and the determination of 
the military men and of Bismarck that really counted and 
were decisive. Nevertheless the latter were entirely willing 
that the German masses should be influenced by considera- 
tions less harsh and materialistic, provided only they were 
influenced in the same direction and toward the same end. 
Virtue in their opinion had its place in the world of thought 
and action, only virtue should never become a fetish. This 
danger has thus far been successfully avoided in Germany. 

The argument that presented the fairest exterior, and 
that influenced the great popular classes of Germany, justi- 
fying this forcible annexation against their will of a protest- 
ing people, was that after all these people had once been Ger- 
mans, and were Germans still in all essentials, and that, as 
soon as they found themselves once more in the German 
family, the false and perverted ideas that the French regime 
had inculcated in them would drop away, and the "long-lost 
brothers" would thus be liberated not only in body but in soul 
from an intolerable and unworthy thraldom to the foreigner. 
It was widely asserted that the Alsatians were real Germans 
at heart despite the attempts of the French to make them 
French, and that annexation, as soon as it was an accom- 

* Reproduced from the Unpopular Review by kind permission of 
Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. 



158 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



plished fact and, therefore, safe, would be greeted by them 
with unfeigned satisfaction and joy. 

This was the argument of Germany's historical rights, an 
argument which can be clearly presented only if given at 
length, a task from which we are precluded here. Alsace and 
Lorraine had once been included within the boundaries of 
the Holy Roman Empire. Therefore, they should be in- 
cluded within the new German Empire. But so had Holland 
and so had Switzerland been parts of the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, but had long been independent, and were entirely satis- 
fied with their independence, and were highly resolved to 
maintain it, as their history and their constant attitude amply 
demonstrated. Was this a reason for Germany's resuming 
them ? Nowadays the Pan-Germanists believe that Germany 
should do this very thing, but in 1870 the reason was not 
considered applicable to them, though it was considered per- 
tinent and adequate to^ the case of Alsace-Lorraine. The 
Germans said that the annexation of Alsace to France was 
the work of a robber-king, Louis XIV., who had torn it from 
Germany ; and that Germany, now that she had the power, 
had also the duty to take back the stolen goods. We have no 
desire to enter upon a defense of Louis XIV. His political 
morality was not fundamentally superior to that of the pres- 
ent ex-Emperor of Germany. But he lived in the seventeenth 
century, while William II. lives in the twentieth. 

Moreover it is altogether too summary a statement to say 
that Louis XIV. simply seized Alsace-Lorraine by an unjust 
and wanton use of force. To say, as Count von Hertling 
does, that they were snatched by a robber king is an undue 
simplification of history. The process of annexation began 
in 1552 with the acquisition of Metz, Toul and Verdun, in 
return, it should never be forgotten, for services to the 
Protestants of Germany in their war against Charles V., bent 
upon the extermination of Protestantism. A part was se- 
cured by violence and usurpation during the succeeding 
period. A century later, in 1766, Lorraine was incorporated 
in France by an entirely natural and peaceful process, the 
extinction of the reigning house by death, and the passage by 
inheritance of the country to the related House of Bourbon. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



159 



Mulhouse voluntarily and unanimously sought incorporation 
in France in 1798. 

Thus Alsace and Lorraine became French. The process 
covered therefore a period of two hundred and forty-six 
years. One thing is certain, the robber king did not reign or 
live that long. German historical exegesis is sometimes too 
curt. 

Having acquired Alsace and Lorraine, France did some- 
thing which Germany did not do after 187 1. She ruled them 
well and humanely. She gave them the maximum of liberty. 
She left them largely alone, trusting to time and not tO' com- 
pulsion to reveal to them the advantage of the French con- 
nection. Gradually and quietly, without friction or injustice 
or heart-burning, the Alsatians and Lorrainers found them- 
selves more comfortable, more prosperous, more peaceful 
than they had ever been. And when the French Revolution 
came, with its attractive, captivating message of liberty and 
equality, with its powerful attack upon a despotic past, upon 
feudalism and tyranny in social and political customs and in- 
stitutions, when the tonic and invigorating spirit of the new 
era of democracy swept over France it found no' more en- 
thusiastic adherents than in Alsace and Lorraine. By a pro- 
found intellectual and spiritual sympathy, by a complete 
community of interests and convictions, those provinces be- 
came French through and through in every fiber of their 
being. The evidence of this complete and willing and joyous 
absorption of Alsace-Lorraine in the life of France is over- 
whelming. 

The Napoleonic period continued the work of consolida- 
tion and inner fusion. Alsace and Lorraine were swallowed 
up, like all the other provinces of Old France, in the general 
history of the country. They took an honorable, whole- 
hearted and distinguished part in the long series of Napo- 
leonic wars. By every token a people could give, they were 
completely and proudly French. 

On the Arc de Triomphe in Paris are inscribed the names 
of twenty-eight Alsatian and Lorraine generals, among 
others, Kellermann and Kleber, Lefebvre and Rapp, Custine 
and Marshal Ney. The careers and characters of these men 



i6o 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



were the common talk of the Alsatian fireside and of the 
camp. They were the heroes of the people, adding imperish- 
able luster to the history of Alsace and Lorraine, their native 
lands. 

In the face of evidence like this, it was sheer and jejune 
nonsense to claim, as many of the Germans did, that the 
people of these provinces were Germans, long-lost brothers, 
waiting to be delivered from bondage. Some of them knew 
that this was nonsense, though they would not admit it or 
would only half concede the facts. Heinrich von Sybel, 
friend of Bismarck, and historian of the Founding of the 
German Empire, made at the time a brief for Germany's 
right to the provinces, basing it on ancient possession, yet 
he said this in 1871 : 

"We know, indeed, that the Lorrainers since 1766, the 
Alsatians since 1801, have become good Frenchmen, and to- 
day, oppose, by a large majority, the reunion with their 
Fatherland. For such an attitude, we do not deny, we feel 
respect. The inhabitants were born and brought up in 
the great French commonwealth ; they would be men desti- 
tute of common feeling and patriotism if, notwithstanding 
their German speech, they did not consider themselves French 
to-day. But we trust to the power of Nature; water can 
be diverted for a time into artificial channels, but with the 
removal of the dam will flow with the full stream. If to-day 
the inhabitants find the French more sympathetic than the 
Germans, soon they will find themselves among their own 
kind in Germany. In Germany they will find the best gifts 
of the French State, the consciousness and security of a 
mighty commonwealth, a sound harvest of science and art, 
a wide market for their industry, and a progressive parlia- 
mentary life.' They will have lower taxes, greater religious 
freedom, numerous schools, and in the army will meet the 
sons of the educated class." 

It may be said in passing that the Alsatians and Lorrainers 
have not found their own kind in Germany since they were 
forced to become subjects of the Empire, nor have they par- 
ticipated in a particularly progressive parliamentary life, nor 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



i6i 



has their service in the German army been to their taste or 
advantage. 

Other reasons in justification of their seizure of Alsace- 
Lorraine were urged by the Germans, and have been reiter- 
ated ever since. Ethnology has been invoked. Skulls in 
Alsace are of the German type. Ethnic unity should be repre- 
sented by political unity. To which it may be replied that 
in Alsace are also abundantly found skulls that are of the 
Celtic type. Moreover if Germany has the right to annex 
this country by reason of ethnic affinity, by what right does 
she hold unwilling Polish people, who are racially utterly 
dissimilar, Slavs not Teutons ? Evidently what is sauce for 
the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander. This eth- 
nological argument is not serious, nor is the other one that, 
as the Alsatians largely speak German, they are Germans 
and belong in the German Empire. Yet this argument has 
seemed to a good many superficial people to have weight. 
Are those who speak a given language justified in forcibly 
annexing others who speak it? In Switzerland three lan- 
guages are spoken, and the one most widely spoken is Ger- 
man. Would the Germans be justified in annexing the larger 
part of Switzerland, France in annexing the French cantons, 
Italy the Italian? 

If the map of Europe is to be based on the linguistic theory 
of one language, one people, it will have to be redrawn from 
top to bottom and from end to end, and will when com- 
pleted along the new line present a surprising and shocking 
appearance. For in nearly every existing state of Europe 
more than one language is in use ; in the British Isles, Gaelic, 
Welsh, English; in France, Breton, Basque, Provencal, 
Italian, French; in Finland, Swedish, Russian, Finnish; in 
Austria-Hungary at least ten different languages ; in Russia 
a considerable number. 

Moreover, one is tempted to ask if the fact that the people 
of the United States speak English would give England title 
to our country which, it will be recalled, once belonged to the 
British Empire. If the German Empire, created in 1871, 
has the right to "resume" what had belonged to the Holy 
Roman Empire, which died in 1806, it is difficult to deny sim- 

W., VOL. I.— 11. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



ilar privileges to the British Empire, which has never died, 
but has had a continuous history. And those privileges 
should also be extended to Spain, which once ruled most of 
Central and South America, where Spanish is still spoken. 
Evidently Count von Hertling's linguistic statesmanship 
leaves out of account some rather important historical fac- 
tors necessary to the picture of the contemporary world. It 
is not a panacea for the ills of the world ; it is a quack medi- 
cine, liberally advertised, and the honesty of whose proprietor 
is not absolutely above reproach. 

But the Germans had still other arguments. In annexing 
Alsace-Lorraine, in drawing the western boundary as they 
did, they said that they were but establishing the "natural" 
boundary. In other words the Vosges, being mountains, are 
a natural obstacle of importance, therefore, a fit frontier, 
while the Rhine, being a river, is not one. Concerning this 
it may be said that the Vosges mountains are not Alps, and 
that the Rhine was considered a boundary by Julius Caesar, 
and has always been and will always be a formidable ditch 
to cross in the face of an enemy controlling the other side. 
Moreover, in 187 1, the Germans were not bound by the 
theory when it didn't suit them. They pushed their line west 
of the Vosges whenever they saw a sufficient advantage in so 
doing. 

These various reasons for the annexation of Alsace-Lor- 
raine were not the real ones that determined the action of the 
Government. They were simply so much food for gudgeon, 
so much dust for the eyes of excessive innocence. Military 
reasons were the primary reasons for the famous act. The 
boundary was determined largely by the military men. They 
wished Metz, and they took it, because, as Moltke said, it 
was the equivalent of an army of a hundred thousand men, 
though it was west of the linguistic boundary, and as French 
as Bordeaux itself. 

The Germans took Alsace because it would be, as Bis- 
marck said, an admirable glacis, a military zone behind 
which is a fortress, in fact a powerful first line fortification. 
It was on the ground of military necessity, in other words of 
military advantage, that Germany made the annexations of 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



163 



1 87 1. Bismarck, there is abundant reason to believe, took no 
stock in the other arguments to which we have alluded — that 
of language, that of the natural frontier, that of historical 
right. These theories might be valuable, as they had an 
influence over the popular mind. Over his own mind they 
apparently had none. In 1867 he expressed in an interview 
the following opinion : "Suppose," he said, "France entirely 
conquered, and a Prussian garrison in Paris; what are we 
to do with our victory ? We could not even decently take 
Alsace, for the Alsatians are become Frenchmen and wish to 
remain so." But by October, 1870, after the Prussian vic- 
tories of August and September, he sang a different tune. 
"Germany," he then said, "wants peace and will make war 
until she gets it, let the consequences be ever sO' lamentable 
from a humane point of view. . . . This peace will be se- 
cured by a line of fortresses between Strassburg and Metz, 
as well as by those two towns, which will protect Germany 
against the dread of a second attack by France." At the end 
of the following January, after the capitulation of Paris, his 
words were as follows : "As you see, we are keeping Metz ; 
but I confess I do not like that part of the arrangement. 
Strassburg is German in speech and will be so^ in heart ten 
years hence, Metz, however, is French, and will be a hotbed 
of disaffection for a long time to come." 

Military reasons then were the primary reasons for the 
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Another reason, powerful 
with the government, was the economic advantage to be de- 
rived. Germany wished the coal and iron mines of these 
provinces. She had begun the process of acquiring such 
lands at the expense of France in 181 5 after the overthrow 
of Napoleon. She carried it much farther in 187 1. It is to 
the annexation of 1871 that she is indebted for much of her 
industrial strength to-day, the basis of her political power 
and of her vaulting ambition. In 1913, out of 28,000,000 
tons of iron ore extracted from German soil, 21,000,000 
came from the mines of annexed Lorraine. To the rapes of 
1815 and 1871, Germany owes much, as she is very well 
aware. The French, having lost their mines, subsequently 



164 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



discovered others in the part of Lorraine left to them in 
1 87 1, in the valley of the Briey. 

In 1913, owing to the expansion of her industries, Ger- 
many was obliged to import from abroad 14,000,000 tons of 
iron ore. This is almost the exact amount annually extracted 
from the mines of Briey, which Germany seized at the be- 
ginning of the present war. 

But there is another angle from which this famous trans- 
action must be contemplated, the point of view of those most 
immediately concerned. In February, 187 1, before even the 
negotiations for peace between France and Germany began, 
the people of Alsace-Lorraine protested against what they 
saw was coming. Their representatives in the French Na- 
tional Assembly solemnly declared "the immutable will of 
Alsace and Lorraine to remain French territory," asserted 
that France could not agree to the cession of Alsace and 
Lorraine, that the French people did not have the right to 
accept such a mutilation, that France might "experience the 
blows of force, but could not sanction its decrees," that 
Europe could "neither permit nor ratify the abandonment of 
Alsace and Lorraine," that it could not allow "the seizure of 
a people as a common herd" nor permit a peace which would 
be "a legitimate and permanent provocation to war." The 
conclusion of this protest was as follows : "Wherefore we 
call our fellow-citizens of France and the governments and 
peoples of the entire world to witness in advance that we 
hold to be null and void every act and treaty, vote or plebis- 
cite, which would consent to the abandonment, in favor of 
the foreigner, of all or of any part of our provinces of Alsace 
and Lorraine." 

Two weeks later, on March i, 1871, immediately after the 
ratification of the preliminaries of peace by the National As- 
sembly, the representatives of the sacrificed provinces again 
solemnly protested against outraged right. This famous pro- 
test, whose passion and whose pathos have since moved all 
right-thinking men for two generations and ought to arrest 
and fiix the attention of the world to-day, should be read in 
full. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



165 



THE PROTEST OF 187I 

The representatives of Alsace and Lorraine submitted to 
the Assembly, before peace negotiations were begun, a dec- 
laration affirming in the most formal way, in the name of the 
two provinces, their will and their right to remain French. 

Handed over, in contempt of all justice and by an odious 
abuse of force, to the domination of foreigners, we now have 
a final duty to perform. 

We declare once more null and void a compact which dis- 
poses of us without our consent. 

Henceforth and forever each and every one of us will be 
completely justified in demanding our rights in whatever 
way and manner our consciences may approve. 

At the moment of leaving the chamber where our dignity 
no longer permits us to sit and in spite of the bitterness of our 
grief, the supreme thought which we find at the bottom of 
our hearts is a thought of gratitude to those who, for six 
months, have not ceased to fight in our defense, and our un- 
alterable attachment to France from which we are torn by 
violence. 

We shall follow you with our wishes and we shall await 
with entire confidence in the future, the resumption by a re- 
generated France of the course of her great destiny. 

Your brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, now cut ofif from 
the common family, will preserve for France, absent from 
their hearths, a filial affection until the day when she shall 
resume her rightful place there once more. 

BY HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE 

In view of our obligation to secure the peace of the 
world, who will venture to object that the people of Alsace 
and Lorraine do not want to belong to us? The doctrine 
of the right of all the branches of the German race to de- 
cide on their own destinies, the plausible solution of demo- 
gogues without a fatherland, shivers to pieces in presence 
of the sacred necessity of these great days. These terri- 
tories are ours by the right of the sword, and we shall 



i66 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



dispose of them in virtue of a higher right — the right of 
the German nation, which will not permit its lost children 
to remain strangers to the German Empire. We Germans 
who know Germany and France know better than these 
unfortunates themselves what is good for the people of 
Alsace, who have remained under the misleading influence 
of their French connection outside the sympathies of new 
Germany. Against their will we shall restore them to 
their true selves. . . . Before the nineteenth century 
closes, the world will recognize that the spirits of Erwin 
von Steinbach and Sebastian Brandt are still alive, and 
that we were only obeying the dictates of national honor 
when we made little account of the preferences of the 
people who live in Alsace today. 

BY WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS ^ 

Unfortunately the conquerors of 1871 had never learned 
the sage proverb : "The more haste, the less speed." If loyal 
subjects of the Kaiser could have been made by ministerial 
edicts from Berlin, the Alsatians would have been instantly 
contented and happy: but they were not Brandenburgers. 
Their lands had been trampled over by invading armies: 
their homes had often been desolated : Strassburg had been 
ruthlessly bombarded: while up and down the whole land 
they were still mourning their dead. On the 30th of Sep- 
tember, 1872, the new government, however, enforced its 
edict compelling all the people to decide whether they wished 
to be Germans or Frenchmen. If Germans they must submit 
to the new regime. If Frenchmen they must prepare speedily 
to quit the land of their fathers wherein they were now 
counted as alien interlopers. As a result, at the very least 
45,000 persons (in the main among the most intelligent and 
promising young men in the land) deliberately took the sor- 
rowful road to exile. In 19 14 these men, gray-headed now, 
were to see visions, dream dreams, and say moving things to 
the soldiers of France. Almost simultaneously the teaching 
of the French language in elementary schools was forbidden. 

° Copyright, 1918. Reprinted by the kind permission of The Cen- 
tuiy Co. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



In the city of Strassburg, where the Marseillaise had first 
been flung upon the air, it was prohibited to learn its lan- 
guage, save as a "foreign tongue" for advanced pupils, like 
English, Italian and Russian. Under French occupation 
a certain mongrel type of German had always been spoken 
in the Alsatian villages. The French had never troubled 
about this. It had not prevented the Alsatians from being 
zealous patriots. Now, by a natural reaction, many a 
Teuton-speaking Alsatian prided himself on chattering also 
a little bad French. 

But what drove the annexed population to peculiar wrath, 
was the almost instant enforcement of the German military 
conscription. Their slain brethren in the French uniform 
were hardly cold and buried before the youth of the two 
provinces were commanded tO' don the spiked helmet and 
follow the Prussian drill-sergeant. Vain were protests. In 
1 87 1 a deputation of citizens went up to Berlin to expostu- 
late. Bismarck told them brusquely, "Prussia had an im- 
mense experience of the results produced by wearing the 
Prussian uniform. Get the King's coat on a man's back and 
let him wear it for three years, and you have made not only 
a good soldier but a good 'burgher' [for Germany] out of 
him." "Yes," retorted Klein, leader of the deputation, "but 
you must get the coat on first and that is what you can never 
do !" Twelve thousand Alsatian young men at that time fled 
from their homeland merely to escape the Kaiser's livery, and 
entered the French army. The rest submitted outwardly, but 
with a sullen spirit that made them of most dubious value as 
soldiers. The new regime might introduce an admirable 
legal system and build many new railroads, — all this counted 
for nothing beside the tyranny of the drill-master. 

The conquerors had in fact adopted a relentless policy of 
"thorough," and held to it with native tenacity. Under the 
French regime, whatever the Paris government, the Alsa- 
tians had enjoyed pretty complete local autonomy. The 
French prefect had usually been a lax, good-natured func- 
tionary, only meddling in serious cases. The government 
had no doubt been haphazard, unscientific, somewhat ineffi- 
cient — and popular. Now everything was changed. A 



i68 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



swarm of officials with all the Prussian characteristics, plus 
even greater rigidity — thanks to feeling themselves on the 
defensive and to being charged with the propagation of 
Kultur — was turned loose on the land with autocratic pow- 
ers. Down to 1879 the two provinces were ruled practically 
by a military dictator sent from Berlin. In that year an 
attempt was made to set up a simulacrum of constitutional 
rule. The provinces were henceforth to be a "Reichsland," 
a dominion held by all the Empire in common, not by Prussia 
merely, but with the Kaiser appointing the governor-general 
and otherwise exercising pretty complete sway. There were 
to be a local elective diet and other forms of political "free- 
dom," but the powers of the governor-general and his coun- 
cil (appointed by the crown) were such that the voters could 
do little more than register public protests by their ballots 
at one governmental act after another. The Berlin rulers did 
indeed make a serious attempt to conciliate local opinion by 
sending down for once a really humane and enlightened 
governor, Baron von Manteuffel. His intentions were good, 
and he tried sincerely to let the Alsatians preserve their self- 
respect. "I do not ask for your sympathy," he declared, "but 
I advise you to look on the union of Alsace-Lorraine to the 
German Empire as definitive." 

Von Manteuffel won the personal good will of the people 
he was sent to govern. But his very condescension raised 
against him enemies at home. He was accused by his fellow 
Germans of "negotiating with the enemy" because he adopted 
mild measures; and the horde of lesser officials who had 
swarmed into the new province, greedy adventurers ("car- 
pet-baggers" Americans would call them), anxious only to 
seize on every public post, tyrannize and grow fat, denounced 
him as little better than a traitor. In 1887 he died. The 
Alsatians mourned him, but he had not convinced them their 
new masters were anything but despots. At many an elec- 
tion the deputies Alsace-Lorraine sent up to the Reichstag 
were violent "protesters" against the new regime, and the 
friction grew rather than diminished. It was under Man- 
teuffel that the Bishop of Metz was awarded the Prussian 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



169 



Order of the Crown, which he repaid by expressing his regret 
at this unwelcome honor in a public letter to the governor. 

When Manteuffel died, the small-fry officials felt that 
their time was come. Kindness had failed ; "proper sever- 
ity" should now teach these returned but ungrateful sons of 
the Fatherland, the provincials, to appreciate their blessings. 
What happened soon after is thus summed up by Paul 
Hymans, a native Alsatian, — born in 1874 after the annexa- 
tion, and witness to many things. "Within a few months 
Alsace was subjected to every kind of German brutality. 
Deputies were expelled and Alsatian societies were dissolved. 
Political prosecutions took place on every side, for offenses 
such as seditious cries or emblems, membership in the 
'League of Patriots,' high treason, etc. To guard the Alsa- 
tians against 'intimidation' by their French relatives, in- 
tercourse with persons beyond the frontier was made im- 
possible by a regulation prescribing the use of passports." 
There was even a report that Bismarck wished there would 
be an insurrection in the hope of crushing disafifection once 
for all in blood. 

The natives were too wise for such folly. They offered 
the passive resistance which is always so exasperating to 
a government which demands inward submission as well as 
external obedience. Of course all important government 
offices were retained by Germans from across the Rhine. 
Emigrants were sent in from Prussia to take the farms of 
the exiles who had gone to France, just as other colonists 
had been sent into the Polish lands. The newcomers nat- 
urally were treated as pariahs by the natives. Their social 
relations were miserable. A Prussian came to Alsace as a 
stationmaster. Being a domestic soul, he desired a wife; 
no Alsatian girl would marry him. He was obliged to send 
to Berlin for a consort to share his home and responsibili- 
ties. In all, about 300,000 Germans thus settled in the 
Reichsland ; but they remained a mere army of occupation 
among the 1,550,000 odd natives who longed to see them 
go. They were only so many untactful provocatives to fric- 
tion and a new disloyalty. 

After William II. had ousted Bismarck, there was a par- 



170 ALSACE-LORRAINE 



tial relaxation of the worst of the regime of petty officials 
that had followed Manteuffel. William, however, by his 
speeches gave small encouragement to the hopes of the Al- 
satians for a revocation of the deed of 1871. "We would 
rather," said he in an oration, "sacrifice our eighteen army 
corps and our 42,000,000 inhabitants on the field of battle 
than surrender a single stone my father and [his generals] 
. . . have gained." 

A new generation was growing* up in Alsace-Lorraine : 
young men and women to whom French days were a story 
for their elders, but the new generation was not being won 
for the German regime. Unfortunately for their loyalty the 
Alsatians as a race had a keen sense of humor. It was 
not always possible for them to take their Prussian pre- 
ceptors with sufficient seriousness. In 1895 occurred a 
typical incident at Detwiller, a village near Zabern. A cer- 
tain peasant had a fine white cock with a lordly red crest. 
The owner most treasonably dyed the bird's tail blue — 
making him the veritable emblem and colors of France. 
This overt act was promptly denounced by the emperor's 
loyal police. They ordered the peasant to slaughter his 
sedition-teaching fowl. The man refused. The police 
saber then avenged the outraged fatherland : and so the 
feathered traitor perished. The Paris papers made merry 
over the tale: and diplomats more gravely observed that 
the incident had completely effaced all the efforts of the 
Kaiser to cultivate "good relations" with France at the 
opening of the Kiel Canal and the visit there of some French 
warships.^ 

From the beginning of the third emperor's reign down 
to the eve of the great conflict matters did not better them- 
* German self-seriousness and lack of humor produced weird results 
sometimes in Alsace. A German Protestant clergyman visited an Alsa- 
tian pastor's family. He tried hard to persuade his clerical friend to 
speak German in his household. The other replied that "his wife 
insisted on speaking French." The visiting cleric vainly argued that 
it was weak and cowardly to be thus dominated by a woman. Finding 
his efforts unsuccessful, he sent his friend a treatise "On the Biological 
Imbecility of Woman" {"Vber den biologtschen-Schwachsinn des 
Weibes"). The Pan-German congress, to which he formally reported 
this deplorable case of demi-treason, duly applauded his patriotic en- 
deavors. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



171 



selves. Sometimes it was a case of petty persecution, some- 
times of grievous invasion of ordinary human rights 

Finally in 191 1 the German authorities conferred on 
their Reichsland a moderately complete autonomy with a 
real local constitution, putting it somewhat on a par with 
the other German states, although the governor-general was 
still sent down from Berlin and there were other unpleasant 
evidences of servitude. This long-delayed benevolence pro- 
duced no lucky results. The newly elected "Landtag" 
promptly showed its disaffection by cutting down the gov- 
ernor-general's salary, and refusing to vote the annual al- 
lowance for the Emperor's hunting trips to Alsace, when 
he had deigned to chase a few stags and flush some par- 
tridges in the game preserves of this part of his dominions. 
The Prussians promptly retaliated in 19 12 by canceling the 
orders for locomotives for their state railways which had 
been given to an Alsatian concern. That same year the 
"All-Highest" visited Strassburg and flung his imperial 
warning at the Mayor. "Listen ! Up to now you have only 
known the good side of me; you might be able tO' learn the 
other side of me. Things cannot continue as they are: if 
this situation lasts, we will suppress your Constitution and 
annex you to Prussia!" 

The Social Democrats all over the empire of course 
danced with glee at this threat. Their spokesman in the 
Reichstag declared that here was a confession, on the very 
highest authority, "that annexation to Prussia is the heavi- 
est punishment one can threaten to impose upon a people for 
resistance against Germany. It is punishment like hard 
labor in the penitentiary, with loss of civil rights!" The 
Landtag, however, was not suitably intimidated. It an- 
swered the Kaiser by two resolutions : ( i ) that their new 
constitution was not to be altered save by the will of the Al- 
satians themselves; (2) that the Reichsland should have a 
national flag. Neither of these suggestions of course was 
acceptable at Berlin, and so the stress continued. 

In 191 3 came the notorious Zabern incident. Zabern 
was a pleasant little city in Alsace. In its garrison was the 
91st Prussian infantry, and among the officers thereof 



172 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



was a youthful lieutenant of the true junker school, a certain 
noble Baron von Forstner of some twenty years of age, 
who took his honors very seriously. School children and 
factory lads seem to have called names at him, and he, in 
addressing his men, seems to have retaliated by styling the 
Alsatian recruits Wackes, a local title of derogation. There 
was another story that he had promised his men a ten- 
mark piece if one of them brought down a Social Democrat, 
provided it came to shooting. The reports of von Forstner's 
crude remarks spread; the town papers grew caustic and 
the colonel of the garrison, von Reuter, warned the local 
civil magistrate, Director Mahler, to restore order (there 
having been small demonstrations) or he would do so him- 
self. On November 29, 1913, Mahler having refused to 
object to lawful proceedings, when a civilian crowd gath- 
ered in front of the barracks, von Reuter directed a subal- 
tern to order it to go home. The angry burghers refused, 
whereupon the mihtary charged out and arrested some 
fifteen civilians, including three high judges and the state 
prosecuting attorney himself who chanced to get caught in 
the throng. These four dignitaries were speedily released ; 
the other civilians were held in durance vile over night 
and then released. 

This clash of burgher and soldier produced wrath 
throughout Germany ; von Reuter was already hated by the 
liberals as an exponent of extreme junker theories. He 
was tried for violating the law which forbade the soldiery 
to interfere in civilian matters, but was promptly acquitted 
by his military court on a technicality. The wrath of the 
liberals was great, and it was shared by many level-headed 
conservatives. The Governor-General of Alsace himself 
felt constrained to resign as a protest at this usurpation of 
civilian functions — but an order from the Emperor com- 
manding the military henceforth to keep within their au- 
thority caused him to withdraw his action. 

Very quickly, however, Zabern and the noble lieutenant, 
Baron von Forstner, again gave business for the telegraph. 
This highborn gentleman had not been wisely withdrawn 
to another garrison town less acquainted with his manner- 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



173 



isms. He fell into an undignified altercation with a lame 
shoemaker of the neighborhood. Very probably the clown 
presumed upon his physical weakness and made unflattering 
remarks. Von Forstner, not feeling that his opponent's 
infirmity should be any protection, drew his saber and 
wounded the cripple. Once more there was uproar. Von 
Forstner was promptly tried by court martial. In a lower 
court he was convicted and sentenced to one year in cus- 
tody ; a higher tribunal, however, promptly took up the case 
on appeal and acquitted the lieutenant "for self-defense" ! * 
Von Forstner had thus vindicated his "honor," so dear 
to every Prussian officer, by repaying revilings with a blow 
from the noble's weapon, but in the Reichstag civilian wrath 
boiled over. The defense of the government advanced by 
Bethmann-Hollweg was feeble and evasive; and oil was 
poured on the flames by the arrogance of the war minister, 
who spoke also, and said bluntly that von Forstner might 
have been overanxious to protect himself, but that such a 
"courageous young officer" was an asset to the nation. The 
chancellor was of course not so much to blame as the mili- 
tary officials, and behind them the Kaiser, their chief, whO' 
had allowed the folly of a subaltern workman, and the 
"lewd fellows of the baser sort" in an Alsatian town, to 
make a great national issue. But it was easier to bait 
Bethmann-Hollweg than William of Hohenzollern and the 
War Office. The Reichstag, on the 6th of December, 1913, 
passed a vote of censure upon the government, 393 to 54, 
only the ever-faithful Conservatives voting in behalf of 
the military. 

Had this vote of censure been carried in almost any 
other European parliament, the Prime Minister and all his 
subordinates would have resigned immediately. As it was, 
Bethmann-Hollweg, holding his office not by parliamentary 
majorities but by the good favor of the Kaiser and the 
military, smiled blandly and continued with the next items 
on the government program. Only the socialists were bold 
* The crippled shoemaker was held by two soldiers while their lieu- 
tenant slashed him. Afterwards a pocket knife was discovered in the 
civilian's pocket. It was against this that the officer defended himself. 



174 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



enough to insist that he should quit office. The "National 
Liberals" and the "Centrum," although they had voted for 
the censure, were unwilling to force the issue. The Reich- 
stag had simply expressed the opinion of a pretentious, offi- 
cially recognized debating club. 

Nevertheless the incident had sent panic through the 
junkers and the princely gentlemen in the Potsdam pal- 
aces. Doubtless they cursed von Forstner and von Renter 
roundly in private as "blockheads" and "asses" even while 
they publicly defended them. The rift between the civilians 
and the military had been advertised too clearly. 

The Zabem incident, in other words, taught the junkers, 
the Pan-German propagandists, and their allies, the great 
manufacturers who were clutching at world trade, that 
despite the great material prosperity they had brought the 
Empire, despite the careful drilling of public opinion, their 
position was getting precarious. It doubtless had its effect 
upon their august personal head, the God-crowned Em- 
peror and King. Its whole effect surely was to get them all 
to quicken their efforts, already promising fearful success, 
to ease the home situation by a foreign war. 

In that same year (191 3) the situation became so bad 
that Alsatian conscripts who had lately, as a special favor, 
been allowed to render their army service near their home 
towns as were the rest of their fellow citizens, were now 
ordered to perform their terms in the army at a distance 
from their native state.^ 

Nineteen hundred and fourteen saw increased friction, 
with the poet-artist, Jacob Waltz, one of the most distin- 
guished literary men in Alsace, under prosecution for trea- 
son because of satires upon the German administration in 
the form of books for children. For this crime he was 
tried before the Imperial Supreme Court at Leipzig, ac- 
quitted on the more serious charge, but sentenced to one 
year's imprisonment "for insulting the police and inciting 
to disorder," He fled to France, and very soon thereafter 

•During three sojourns in Germany the author was assured that the 
Alsatian conscripts could not be trusted in battle on the Western front. 
In 1914 I understand they were actually mobilized against Russia. 



ALSACE-LORRAINE 



175 



the Great War began, at the outbreak of which several 
prominent Alsatians either escaped over the border or 
were imprisoned for the attempt. 

When the European conflict commenced it was clear 
enough that the German attempt to assimilate Alsace had 
failed utterly. "In Alsace-Lorraine we are in an enemy's 
country," a Prussian statesman is quoted as saying: and 
the Kaiser's forces were sent through the country with a 
healthy anxiety lest the first defeat make the whole region 
blaze up in revolt behind them. Many of the "needful se- 
verities" the Germans inflicted on Belgium were explained 
as being absolutely unavoidable, because the experience of 
Alsace-Lorraine had demonstrated that a policy of "le- 
niency" was useless for a conquered population. The fact 
of course was, as an American writer has well put it, that 
"begotten as the Prussian system had been under conditions 
where iron discipline was a requisite for success, thoroughly 
convinced of its own efficiency, it knew no law but that of 
force, and failed in those peaceful contests where victory 
must be won by conciliation." 

However, the issue of the lost provinces had still larger 
bearings, important for all the world. A calm-minded 
Frenchman stated the issue as seen by his nation thus : "It 
is produced by an irreconcilable opposition between two con- 
flicting conceptions of right; sovereignty of government by 
right of conquest — the principle of the German monarchy; 
sovereignty of the people, whence arises the right of every 
population to determine its nationality — the principle of 
French democracy." 

In 1884 the "International Peace League," one of those 
multifarious and pathetically ineffective peace societies 
which were covering the earth, met at Geneva and passed 
this resolution : "The conquest and forcible annexation of 
Alsace-Lorraine constitutes the chief obstacle to [lasting] 
peace, and the true cause of the enormous armaments." 
This statement was still true with only a slight exaggeration 
in 19 14. If Germany had been sure of the loyalty of her 
Reichsland and on reasonably good terms with France, Ar- 
mageddon could hardly have come to pass as it actually did. 



AUSTRIA FINDS DANGER IN THE BALKANS 



GROWTH OF A NATIONAL SPIRIT AMONG THE SERBS 

CONSTANTIN DUMBA G. M. TREVELYAN 

Let us look now, in briefer fashion, to the racial problems of Aus- 
tria, her treatment of her vassal peoples, her resistance to the every- 
where rising tide of Nationalism and Democracy, and her consequent 
difficulties with Serbia and with Russia. 

Some clever maker of phrases may in some far future day dismiss 
the Great War as "the war about pigs." From one narrow viewpoint, 
that is what it was. Serbia's main product for export, her main source 
of national wealth, was the humble pig. But since the little mountain 
land was persistently barred from access to the sea, her export of pigs 
was largely dependent on the goodwill of her neighbors. Her eastern 
neighbor, Bulgaria, raised pigs also and naturally sought to bar the 
Serbian product in that direction. Hence for many years Serbia's chief 
commercial outlet for her pigs was through Austria. The Austrian 
government, after annexing Bosnia in 1909, declared war on the Ser- 
bian pig. He was barred from entry into Austria. Thus Serbia faced 
economic destruction. So serious was the situation that King Peter of 
Serbia and his councilors solemnly considered the necessity of sur- 
render, of placing their land under Austria's government and so re- 
opening the market. Instead they fought the two Balkan wars against 
Turkey and Bulgaria, and emerged triumphant, thinking that now 
surely they had won a seaport, a means of exit for the pigs. But 
Austria, and also Italy, in the peace treaty of 1913 in the Balkans, the 
Treaty of Bucharest, barred Serbia from the sea. Thus Austria still 
held her little rival in economic slavery. What wonder that the Ser- 
bian hatred for Austria overleaped diplomatic bounds! 

This of course was only one phase of the Balkan quarrels ; but Aus- 
tria dealt with all problems in the same spirit. She took the calmly 
Teutonic attitude that her rights, her wishes, must override all others. 
What matter if Serbia perished, so long as Austria expanded. This 
faith is well expressed by Dr. Dumba, the Austrian Ambassador to the 
United States in 1914. In offering to explain the situation to Amer- 
icans, Dr. Dumba sees the Balkan troubles solely as a crafty diplomatic 
struggle between Austria and Russia. He assumes as an axiom that 
some great Power will of course devour the little Balkan States and 
only exerts himself to show how wickedly Russia works and how nobly 
Austria conducts what he calmly calls her "natural expansion toward 
the east." That phrase in fact has long been the catchword of Aus- 
trian policy, the "Drang nach Oest," the "Summons toward the East," 
the "Call of the Orient." 

For a more sympathetic view of the Serbians themselves, it has 

176 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 177 



seemed better to offer not a Serbian writer but a more impartial state- 
ment by a well-known British essayist who dwelt for a time in Serbia. 
It should be remembered that Britain was not, at the outbreak of the 
War, pro-Serbian. She would never have fought for Serbia, but was 
inclined officially to approve of punishing her for "disturbing the peace 
of Europe" — even though that peace was to Serbia but a form of death. 

c. F. H. 

BY CONSTANTIN THEODOR DUMBA 

THE war between Austria-Hungary and Russia may well 
be said tO' be the outcome of conflicting civilizations 
and conflicting aims. The controversy between the Dual 
Monarchy and the Serbian Kingdom is only an incident in 
the greater struggle between German civilization, as repre- 
sented by Austria-Hungary, and Russian aspirations on the 
southern frontier of the Dual Monarchy. To a proper un- 
derstanding of the conflicting trend of these two forces — 
Austria-Hungary and Russia — a realization of the respec- 
tive interests of the two Powers in the Near East is essential. 

Our interest in the Near East is economic, and not at all 
nationalistic, Russia's interest is solely sentimental or na- 
tionalistic. The Monarchy was the dominant trade factor 
in the Balkan States. Russia has no trade worth mention- 
ing, either in Serbia or in any other Balkan State. The 
Gagarin line of steamers on the Danube, which Russia main- 
tained at great cost, carried hardly any freight to Belgrade, 
except supplies for the Russian minister in the Serbian 
capital. Austria-Hungary sent merchants and commercial 
travelers into the Balkan States. Russia, on the other 
hand, sent priests, consuls, agitators, and apostles of the 
Slavic idea. 

The natural expansion of the German Empire of Austria 
toward the Near East began after the permanent expulsion 
of the Turkish hordes by the victories of Prince Eugene of 
Savoy. Parallel with the Austrian expansion southeastward 
went the Russian advance toward the Black Sea. In an 
effort to avert a clash in this parallel but gradually con- 
centering expansion. Emperor Joseph and Empress Catha- 
rine met late in the eighteenth century — 1787 — in the Cri- 
mea, and reached an agreement for the dismemberment of 

w., VOL. I.— 12. 



178 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



Turkey. Under this project of monarchs, the western part 
of the Ottoman Empire, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, now 
the bone of contention between the Monarchy on the one 
hand and Russia and Serbia on the other, was apportioned 
to Austria. To Russia's share were allotted the regions 
now known as Rumania and Bulgaria. It was at this period 
that the Russian dream of the possession of Constantinople, 
first broached in the form of a mythical will of Peter the 
Great, began to assume reality as a governing principle of 
Russian policy in southeastern Europe. 

In the nineteenth century, Metternich, in vain, tried his 
conservative policy for the maintenance of the territorial 
integrity of Turkey. The Monarchy's championship of 
Turkey as a permanent territorial and political entity in Eu- 
rope failed because of Russia's persistent aggressions. At 
the Congress of Berlin, in 1878, which adjusted the bounda- 
ries of the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War, 
Count Andrassy abandoned this policy of Prince Metternich. 
Under the treaty negotiated in Berlin, the independence of 
the kingdoms of Serbia and Rumania was recognized and 
the tributary principality of Bulgaria was created. In these 
arrangements the principle of nationality was the predomi- 
nant consideration. Count Andrassy's chief interest in 
the proceedings of the Congress on behalf of Austria-Hun- 
gary was commercial, as Russia's was sentimental or na- 
tionalistic. 

Andrassy sought to secure an outlet for our industrial 
products. This attitude was in accord with Austria's previ- 
ous dealings with Balkan peoples. He first concluded a com- 
mercial treaty with Rumania before it was an independent 
kingdom. Accordingly, one of the clauses which were in- 
corporated into the Treaty of Berlin at Austria's behest 
placed Serbia under the obligation to reach a commercial un- 
derstanding with the Dual Monarchy. But even this obliga- 
tion Serbia carried out only under great pressure from 
Vienna. 

Another outcome of the Congress of Berlin — and a 
fateful one, as now appears — was the mandate of the Powers 
for the occupation of the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 179 



by Austria-Hungary for purposes of pacification and ad- 
ministration. 

The relations between the Monarchy and Serbia in the 
first years of the new order of things were satisfactory and 
harmonious. Hand in hand with the economic dependence 
of Serbia upon Austria-Hungary as the main and almost 
exclusive outlet for Serbian commerce, went a political in- 
timacy between King Milan's administration and the Gov- 
ernment at Vienna. But against this friendly relation the 
Radical Russophile party carried on an energetic campaign. 
This campaign was supported at much cost by Russia, 
which conferred scholarships upon hundreds of Serbian 
students in Russian universities, and educated many Ser- 
bian officers in Russian military colleges. In addition to 
these cultural efiforts of the Russian Government, the so- 
called Slavic Benevolent Society in Moscow and St. Peters- 
burg always stood ready with ample funds to give material 
support to all poor Serbs who' should show a desire to avail 
themselves of the educational facilities of the Russian Em- 
pire. Such were the mild beginnings of the Russian propa- 
ganda in Serbia, which was destined to lead to a tragic 
climax in Serajevo a few years later. 

After the assassination of King Alexander, son of King 
Milan, and Queen Draga in June, 1903, the Russophile Rad- 
ical party, under Nikola Pashitch, the present premier, came 
into complete and almost undisputed control in Belgrade. 
Under King Peter, the successor of King Alexander, the 
Russian minister at Belgrade assumed the role of a sort of 
viceroy. Russian dominance over Serbian affairs was espe- 
cially conspicuous under the late Baron Hartwig, who was 
at the head of the Russian legation in the Serbian capital 
during the two Balkan wars and until his death in 19 14. 

Under the influences set at work by Russia, the attitude 
of Serbia toward Austria-Hungary underwent a complete 
reversal. As Austro-Hungarian minister to Serbia before 
1903, I often discussed with the king or his ministers the 
destiny of Serbia. 

They all seemed to take it for granted that the door to 
the west had been closed to the Serbian nation by the Austro- 



i8o AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and only 
the door to the south — in Macedonia — was open. Serbia had 
given up the dream of a Serbian expansion at the expense 
of the Monarchy, and was considering conquests to the 
south, in Old Serbia. Accordingly, the activities of the 
nationalistic societies under the department of propaganda 
at the Serbian Foreign Office were cultural. They took the 
form of the establishment of schools and churches in Mace- 
donia for the spread of the national ideal, very often at the 
expense of the Bulgarians. This purely educational cam- 
paign lasted until the sudden end of the reign of Alexander. 
Under King Peter began the propaganda of action which 
was destined to have a tragic counterpart in the assassi- 
nation of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort 
in Serajevo. 

Bands of raiders, or comitadjis, were organized, armed 
with bombs and rifles, and sent into the debatable territory 
of Macedonia to convince Bulgarians and other nationali- 
ties that they were really good Serbs. These methods, 
until the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an- 
nounced by Austria in 1908, were applied only to Mace- 
donia. After that event, the activities of the propaganda 
under the inspiration of Russia were transferred to Aus- 
trian and Hungarian territory. 

The active interest of Russia in the newly annexed lands 
came in the wake of two rebuffs for Russian arms and 
Russian diplomacy. During Russia's struggle with Japan, 
the Monarchy had maintained the friendliest relations with 
Russia, in the hope that the colossus of the North would 
succeed in retaining its outlet in the Far East. With the 
triumph of Japan in Manchuria, Russia swung back to a 
keen revival of interest in the affairs of the Near East. But 
the second disappointment — this time a failure for Russian 
diplomacy — was to come. 

It is the custom to speak of the annexation of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina as having been carried out by Austria to the 
accompaniment of profound secrecy. Such is not the case. 
The Monarchy, before the formal act, had exchanged several 
friendly notes on the subject with Russia. It is not gen- 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS i8i 



erally known that Russia had even given her conditional 
approval of the plan of annexation in advance of its exe- 
cution. At a conference in the Castle of Buchlau, in Mo- 
ravia, in the autumn of 1908, Baron von Aehrenthal, the 
Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had ob- 
tained the consent of Iswolski, his Russian colleague, to 
the prospective step. In return for Russia's friendly atti- 
tude in the matter, von Aehrenthal pledged to the Russian 
Foreign Minister Austria-Hungary's consent to the open- 
ing of the Straits of Constantinople to the Russian fleets. 

When Iswolski, on continuing his trip, presented this 
plan to the British Foreign Office, he was quickly convinced 
that the agreed-upon quid pro quo was impracticable. Then 
began the opposition of Russia to the annexation by Austria- 
Hungary of the country which had been rescued from an- 
archy and placed upon the road to progress by Austrian 
arms and statesmanship, and in which Austria-Hungary had 
expended vast sums for essential improvements. This op- 
position was voiced by the Russian press in a series of vio- 
lent utterances and by Serbia in a campaign of incendiary 
and indecent attack upon the Dual Monarchy. Serbia's de- 
fiant attitude lasted from October, 1908, until the follow- 
ing March. Austria-Hungary was then compelled to pro- 
ceed at great cost to a partial mobilization as a defensive 
measure. 

In point of fact, the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina 
was neither a stealthy nor an unforeseen event. On the 
eve of the opening of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, Aus- 
tria, like England, had set down conditions for its neutral- 
ity in the coming conflict. The Monarchy, among other 
considerations, stipulated the acquisition of control in Bos- 
nia, and Great Britain the inviolability of the Straits of 
Constantinople. Both these conditions Russia sought to 
evade after the defeat of Turkey. England enforced the 
performance of Russia's promises by the dramatic appear- 
ance of its fleet in Besika Bay ; the Monarchy obtained the 
performance of Russia's part of the bargain with the Dual 
Monarchy at the hands of the Congress of Berlin. 

Despite the double assent which Russia had given to our 



i82 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



control in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia picked out the Bos- 
nian issue as the key-note of a wide appeal to all Slavic 
nations as an example of the "Austrian peril." Russia is 
extremely reactionary in its domestic policies and extremely 
revolutionary in its foreign policies. The character of the 
Russian agitation carried on in the Austrian Slavic prov- 
inces may well be designated as revolutionary. The courts 
in Hungary only recently finished consideration of a char- 
acteristic method of Russian propaganda on Hungarian ter- 
ritory. Several Ruthenians, whom the Russians call Malo- 
russi — "Little Russians" — were convicted of high treason 
under the cover of religion. The chief witness for the de- 
fense was the Pan-Slavist leader Bobrinski, a member of 
the Russian Duma, who had come from Russia to appear 
before the court under a pledge of immunity. It was shown 
in the course of the testimony that a swarm of Bobrinski's 
paid agents had agitated among the Austrian and Hun- 
garian Ruthenians, ostensibly in an effort to detach them 
from the United Orthodox to the Russian Orthodox Church, 
but actually in an attempt to develop anti-Austrian sentiment 
among these "lost children" of Russia. Bobrinski's guilt of 
the charge of plotting against the peace of a friendly State 
was proved with sufficient conclusiveness, but it was im- 
possible to convict him because of the promise of immunity 
under which he had consented to appear on Hungarian soil. 

The trial and the disclosures which it brought about 
created a profound feeling of resentment throughout Aus- 
tria and Hungary. The Hungarian Government had caught 
Bobrinski — and behind Bobrinski something that loomed 
like a menacing cloud up in the North. 

Any approach to the hard methods of Kaulbars would 
not be endured with patience by any great Power. Kaul- 
bars, with his Russian diplomatic entourage, terrorized Bul- 
garia during the period of uncertainty that followed the 
abduction, on the 9th of August, 1886 (old calendar), of 
Prince Alexander, by Russian agents, from his bed in the 
palace. With Alexander out of the way, Kaulbars, assum- 
ing the' powers of a viceroy under suspended constitutional 
guarantees, attempted to browbeat and intimidate the Bui- 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 183 



garian regency, and actually made a deliberate and sys- 
tematic attempt to promote a revolution against the Gov- 
ernment, by informing the people, in fiery proclamation and 
by a series of speeches throughout the country, that the 
Government had incurred the displeasure of the Czar, and 
that, therefore, Bulgaria would sufifer untold evils unless it 
quickly compelled its rulers to obey the mandate of Alex- 
ander III. 

The extraordinary methods of Kaulbars and his masters 
at St. Petersburg produced such a strong wave of indigna- 
tion in Vienna that the Monarchy at that early stage was 
brought to the brink of war against Russia in defense of 
the independence of Bulgaria. 

The strings that led from Prague, the capital of Bohemia, 
to St. Petersburg and Moscow, the center of the Pan- 
Slavistic movement, were estimated as ominous and signifi- 
cant symptoms. The frequent pilgrimages of prominent 
Slavic leaders — like Kramar and Klofac, the Czechs, to St. 
Petersburg or Belgrade, and the numerous Sokol congresses 
and conferences, within and outside of the limits of the 
Monarchy, were outward signs of the intense character of 
a determined and dangerous agitation. 

The Government of the Dual Monarchy has been taught 
by experience that the Serbian Kingdom is the torpedo 
which Russia has launched at the body of the Monarchy. 
That is why the Austro-Hungarian Government, in its 
dealings with Serbia after the crime of Serajevo, found no 
alternative to insistent and uncompromising action. Any 
quibbling, any half-measures in repressing such intolerable 
activities as have characterized the Russo-Serbian propa- 
ganda on Austrian territory, would have perpetuated the 
peril and made the situation worse than it was. It would 
have been tantamount to abdication by the Monarchy of its 
sovereignty on its own soil. And such an abdication we 
are not yet prepared to make. It must vindicate its sov- 
ereignty and insure order within its boundaries, even at the 
risk of incurring the accusation of undue aggressiveness 
from those who do not realize that the patience of the Dual 
Monarchy has been long and its desire for peace constant. 



i84 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



BY G. M. TREVELYAN 

Prior to the outbreak of war singularly little was known 
in Western Europe about the Serbians and their quarrel with 
Austria-Hungary, and that little was chiefly derived from 
Austrian and Hungarian sources. Everything that there is 
to say against the Russian Government — and there is much 
to say against it — has for years past been told to England 
and America. But the wrongs of the nationalities of Aus- 
tria-Hungary were little known to the general public over 
here. The fact that these suffering races were branches of 
the "Slav" family prevented them from getting a fair hear- 
ing before the world. 

The prejudice against "Slav" peoples was a remarkable 
obsession which the events of the war have served to re- 
move. Because one Slav government, namely, the Russian 
Government, was a bad government (though, in fact, no 
worse than the Hungarian or the German in its treatment 
of subject races), therefore all Slav peoples were regarded 
as barbarians. It seemed quite natural that seven million 
"barbarous" South Slavs should be subjected to the rule of 
"cultured" Germans from Vienna and "chivalrous" Mag- 
yars from Buda-Pest. And if the Serbians over the border 
showed any desire to liberate their brothers of Bosnia and 
Croatia, they obtained none of the sympathy which the 
Piedmontese had obtained sixty years before, when they 
made themselves equally obnoxious tO' Austria on behalf of 
their brother Italians. 

The present world-war was in its origin a "punitive ex- 
pedition" against the Serbians for having the impudence 
to sympathize with their brother Serbs and Croats in Aus- 
tria-Hungary. The expedition was to have been made in 
August, 1913, as Signor Giolitti revealed to the world, but 
owing to Italy's refusal to join the German Powers in a 
war of aggression it was postponed for a year until the 
murder of the Archduke by Austrian subjects seemed a fit- 
ting opportunity to wipe Serbia off the diplomatic map.^ 

^ The idea that the Serbian Government was connected with the mur- 
der was put forward without proof by Count Forgach, the Austrian 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 185 



The "punitive expedition" began by "chivalrous" Hungari- 
ans murdering two to three thousand men, women and chil- 
dren of the "barbarous" Slavs near Shabatz and Losnitza. 
They burnt a large number of the "barbarian" women and 
children alive, and gouged out the eyes of others.^ The 
Serbians have not taken any reprisals; and although they 
captured 60,000 Austrian prisoners, those prisoners when 
questioned made no complaints of their treatment. The Aus- 
trian wounded were treated on an absolute equality with 
the Serbian, in the Serbian hospitals. In this war Slav "bar- 
barism" shows up very well against German "culture" and 
Magyar "chivalry." The case for keeping the South Slavs 
of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia subject to Aus- 
trians and Magyars on the ground of inferior civilization 
was always a fraud, and has now been thoroughly exposed. 

All the nationalist movements inside Austria-Hungary 
had been growing with great rapidity during the last half- 
dozen years before the war, especially the movement draw- 
ing the Croats towards the Serbs, who speak the same lan- 
guage, and are only divided from them in religion. The 
reign of terror that existed in these provinces during the 
war made it utterly impossible that the Austro-Hungarian 
rule could continue in the Slav and Rumanian provinces, 
except as the rule of the sword. 

Some people ask why, if the subject races of Austria- 
Hungary were thus alienated from the Government, they 
did not rise in insurrection. The answer is because all the 
young men were taken into the army by the modern sys- 
tem of military slavery, and all the leaders were in prison or 
exile. If that had been done in Italy and throughout Eu- 
rope in March, 1848, there would have been no year of revo- 
lutions. The modern militarist organization made revolu- 

Under-Secretary of State, who had been convicted in 1909 of having 
documents forged with a view to securing the judicial murder of South 
Slav leaders. The counter suggestion that the Austrian police connived 
at the murder of the Archduke is far more probable, if the very- 
peculiar circumstances of the murder are closely studied. — Author's 
Note. 

' See the official Memorandum and Report. Also the evidence of 
Dr. Reiss, of the University of Lausanne, given in lectures in London 
and in the Revue de Paris. 



1 



i86 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



tions impossible; for it is young men who rise in revolt, 
and it was the young men who were drafted into the army, 
where the races kept watch over each other, and military 
discipline rendered mutiny the most hazardous and desperate 
act. 

Yet even so Austria's great military weakness in this war 
was caused by the hatred of her subject populations, and the 
secret disloyalty of her soldier slaves. Large portions of 
her army were guarding other portions, or garrisoning dis- 
affected districts. When they take the field, the unwilling 
conscripts fight well for a while — they can do no less unless 
they are ready to be shot — but they take the first oppor- 
tunity to surrender. That is why the Serbians soon had 
60,000 prisoners, most of whom, so far as I could judge 
by their words and conduct, were only anxious not to be 
caught by the Austrians and made to fight again. 

It is because she is not a nation that Austria-Hungary 
is so weak in war. From the opening of the year 191 5 she 
was practically occupied by Kaiser William's troops. It 
was the North Germans and Bavarians who came and saved 
Hungary, after the great defeat in Serbia in 1914; other- 
wise Hungary and probably Austria too would have been 
torn to pieces by an invasion of Russians and Rumanians 
coming over the Carpathian passes, which would probably 
have led to an Italian invasion as well. Hungary became 
a vassal State, protected by Germany. 

It is a mistake to think of Austria and Hungary, either 
singly or together, as a "nation" in the sense in which Rus- 
sia, Germany, France and England are nations. If we think 
so, we fail to understand one of the root causes of the pres- 
ent war. And when people suggest the restoration of the 
state of things before the war as the basis for a permanent 
peace, they forget Austria-Hungary. The Empire of Vi- 
enna and Buda-Pest was an anachronism, dependent for 
support upon the Prussian arms. It was the domination of 
two races, the Austrian-Germans and the Magyars, over 
half a dozen other races. And in one respect at least it 
was worse than the Old Turk rule of Abdul Hamid. The 
Old Turks, villainous as their rule was, left cultural, lin- 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 187 



guistic, and scholastic liberty to the subject races whom they 
pillaged and oppressed. They did not care what dirt the 
infidel ate in his own schools and churches. They had no 
wish to turn the Greek or the Bulgarian into a Turk. But 
the Magyars tried to suppress the language, schools, anJ 
culture of the subject races. The Magyars are vassals of 
the Prussian Kaiser by natural afifinity. German victory 
would mean, in East and West alike, the continued attempt 
to suppress the cultural development of the smaller races. 

Indeed, the present war arose quite as much out of the 
question of Austria-Hungary and its subject nationalities as 
it did out of the German ambition to dominate Europe. 
Even German love of domination would not alone have suf- 
ficed to set the whole world on fire, had not German Culture 
been in alliance with a force equally regardless of the rights 
of others, the determination of the Magyars of Hungary 
to "Magyarize" the Rumanians, Slovaks, and Croats who 
dwelt within the borders of their State. In theory the law 
of 1868 gave cultural liberty to the Slavs in Hungary, but 
in practice this law was a dead letter. The whole Govern- 
ment machinery was used to oppress any man who wished 
to remain a Slav or Rumanian, or to bring up his children 
as such. The policy of the Hungarian Premier, Count 
Tisza, represents this "will to oppress" on the part of the 
Magyars. The Magyars numbered only 45 per cent, of the 
population of Hungary. And Count Tisza's policy was not 
even the policy of the Magyar nation, but of the Magyar 
oligarchy who deprived even their own race of all political 
power. 

This Magyar oligarchy was for years past the dominant 
force in the Austro-Hungarian partnership. Buda-Pest, 
knowing well what it wanted, had been able to dictate to 
the vacillating statesmanship of Vienna, which had occa- 
sional hankerings after a more Liberal treatment of the 
subject peoples. When the old Emperor Francis Joseph 
wanted to introduce universal suffrage throughout his wide 
dominions he was prevented by the Magyar politicians, who 
saw in it the doom of their race ascendancy. Their treat- 
ment of the subject races of Hungary became worse of re- 



i88 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKAN'S 



cent years. In 19 12 they abolished the Constitution of Croa- 
tia, and seized the funds and charters of the Orthodox Serb 
Church in Hungary. This steadily increasing oppression of 
the South Slavs was unfortunately of more account in world 
politics than the more liberal treatment of the Poles of Ga- 
licia, to whom the Austrians allowed more liberty than was 
enjoyed in either Prussian or Russian Poland. 

The reason why the domestic system of the Magyars in 
Hungary proved so fatal to all Europe is not far to seek ; 
this internal tyranny involved an aggressive foreign policy 
in the Balkans and towards Russia. For the tyranny exer- 
cised over the Croatian South Slavs in Hungary involved 
as a corollary the repression of the Serbian South Slavs in 
Bosnia (the Province abutting on Serbia, which is ruled by 
Austria and Hungary jointly). And the repression in Bos- 
nia in turn necessitated a hostile attitude on the part of 
Austria-Hungary towards Serbia. For Serbia and Bosnia 
were in reality one country divided in half — a free half to 
the east, and an enslaved half to the west of the Drina 
river. Since oppression was the order of the day, the op- 
pressed peoples naturally looked across the Drina to their 
brothers of free Serbia, especially after Serbia had shown 
herself redoubtable in war against the Turks and the Bul- 
gars in 19 12-13. For the same reason it became more than 
ever essential to the Austrians to prevent the further de- 
velopment of Serbia, after her victory over the Turks, lest 
she should become the liberator of the South Slavs. Hence 
the fatal policy of Austria in making it a casus belli for all 
Europe if Serbia got a single port on the Adriatic. By 
Austrian decree the Serbians were condemned tO' remain for- 
ever a bucolic, inland people, with no seaport, though half 
the eastern Adriatic coast is inhabited by their co-nationals, 
the South Slavs. Austria had "tied Serbia up in a sack," 
as the Serbs say. 

This artificial seclusion from the sea was the bane of 
Serbia. The Austrians cut her off from civilization and 
then called her uncivilized. She was prevented from enjoy- 
ing commercial and intellectual communication with the 
great European world, except by way of her enemy, Austria. 



AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 189 



She was shut in on all sides. No one visited Serbia, no 
one helped her to develop her resources, no one knew what 
manner of men inhabited her land. It was assumed that 
they were all "regicides," dirty, idle keepers of pigs, as their 
enemies, the Viennese, reported. And, as so often happens, 
it was only their recent success in war which at length 
caused the world to remark the qualities which they have 
alv^^ays displayed in peace. As one of the few Englishmen 
who visited Serbia both before and during the present war, 
I should like to record what the Serbians are really like. 

The Serbians have the virtues and the limitations of a 
peasant democracy. Eighty-six per cent, of the population 
belongs to the class of peasant proprietors, cultivating their 
own farms. There is no class of landlords taking rents. 
There is no feudalism, no squirearchy, and as yet no im- 
portant mercantile or industrial classes — no "middle class" 
or "working men." There are yeomen, and nothing else. 
The contrast is strange, as compared to neighboring Hun- 
gary, where the Magyars, one of the most feudal of all Eu- 
ropean races, sacrifice the wealth and happiness of the cul- 
tivating peasant to the landlord patrician, who carries off 
everything politically, socially, and economically. Serbia, 
on the other hand, is democratic and equalitarian, far more 
so than either America or England. There are no class 
questions, because there is practically only one class. Pa- 
triotism is the sole political feeling of the average Serbian, 
because there is no "social problem" and consequently there 
can be no vital politics except foreign politics. It is due to 
the independent manliness of the free yeoman, and to the 
absence of all class division, that the Serbian army won 
redoubtable victories in the field over the larger forces 
that Austria-Hungary sent into Serbia on their errand of 
murder, pillage, and destruction. If ever there was a pure 
victory of freemen over slaves who had been sent by the 
tyrant to destroy them, it was the Serbian victory in 1914. 
A few talks with the poor Austrian prisoners, only too re- 
joiced to be out of the fighting and uninterested in the issues 
of the war, were enough to show why they had been beaten 



190 AUSTRIA IN THE BALKANS 



by the sturdy peasant-soldiers of Serbia, united in one 
mood of heroism and devotion. 

There are, however, defects as well as merits in this 
very pure form of Democracy. There is no adequate class 
of men to lead the people. The administrators, politicians, 
and army officers are all peasants at one or two removes 
from the soil. The leading class is an improvisation. There 
is no inherited tradition of leadership and administration 
as in the class of gentlemen or merchants in the countries 
with which we are familiar. It has followed that, while 
the peasants have been living excellent and happy lives on 
their farms, the improvised politicians whom they elected 
as their political stewards have often made a terrible mess 
of Serbian politics. The regicide of 1903, a vile way of 
ending an intolerable state of things, was the culminating 
point of this mismanagement. Since then things have im- 
proved rapidly, especially since 1908, when the Austrian 
annexation of Bosnia aroused Serbians to a sense of reality, 
and caused a real moral and national revival. In 19 14 we 
had in Serbia the rule of the excellent M. Pashitch, who 
is about as likely as Mr. Asquith to have had a hand in the 
murder of the Archduke Ferdinand. 

Of course, not all Serbian administration is up to the 
standard of M. Pashitch. The standard of civil adminis- 
tration in Serbia is still very low, because, as I have said, 
there is no class with administrative traditions. This mat- 
ters the less in ordinary times in Serbia, because the ad- 
ministrative needs of a simple peasant community are com- 
paratively small. But when the Serbians had to administer 
a large part of Macedonia, won from the Turk and kept 
from the Bulgar in recent wars, the want of administrative 
experience was more serious. In Macedonia they had to 
govern not only fellow Serbs, but people of different races 
and religions, Greek, Albanian, Turk, Vlach, Bulgar, and 
Macedonian Slav. It is here that the