him dear, the abandonment of his country in the hour of danger. In
touching terms he expresses his love for the motherland (which he
contrasts with Europe, his fatherland), his love for Germany and for all
that he owes it. He tore himself away only because there was no other
means of working for the liberation of his country. While he remained in
Germany, he could do nothing; for years of tribulation had been the
proof. Right was shackled. Germany was no longer a Rechtsstaat.
Oppression was universal; and, still worse, it was anonymous. The power
of the sword, irresponsible, was supreme. Parliament no longer existed.
The press no longer existed. The chancellor, the emperor himself, were
subject to the mysterious "Unknown who rules Germany." Nicolai tells us
that he had long waited for others better qualified than himself to
speak. He had waited in vain. Fear, corruption, lack of determination,
stifled all attempts at revolt. The soul of Germany was dumb.--Even he,
Nicolai, would perhaps have held his peace to the end, constrained to
silence by the sentiment of chivalrous loyalty which influences everyone
in time of war, had he not been driven to extremities, had he not been
brought to bay, by the unknown power. After everything had been taken
from him, after he had been despoiled of his honours, of his official
position, of the comforts and even the necessaries of life, those in
authority wished to wrest from him the one thing that still remained,
his right to obey, his convictions. This was too much, and he fled. "I
was compelled to leave the German empire; I left, because I believe
myself to be a good German."
To enable us to understand his decision, he describes for us the four
years of daily struggle which had been his lot in Germany before he made
up his mind to leave.--Notwithstanding his views on the war, when it
actually broke out he put himself at the disposal of the military
authorities, but only as a civilian medical man (vertraglich
verpflichteter Zivilarzt). He was appointed principal medical officer in
the new Tempelhof hospital, a post which permitted him to continue his
public lectures at the university of Berlin. But in October, 1914, in
conjunction with Professor W. Foerster, Professor A. Einstein, and Dr.
Buek, he issued a protest, couched in very strong terms, against the
notorious manifesto of the 93. Punishment did not tarry. He was at once
relieved of his post, and was appointed medical assistant at the
isolation hospital in the little fortress of Graudenz. Being under no
illusions as to the reasons for this arbitrary and absurd measure, he
devoted his spare time to the preparation of his book, _The Biology of
War_. Now came the sinking of the Lusitania, which was a terrible shock
to Nicolai, affecting him as if he had been struck with a whip. At
dinner with a few of his comrades, he declared that the violation of
Belgian neutrality, the use of poison gas, and the torpedoing of
merchantmen, were not merely immoral actions, but were acts of
incredible stupidity, which would sooner or later ruin the German
empire. One of those present, his colleague Dr. Knoll, could find
nothing better to do than to inform against him. Anew dismissed from his
post, Nicolai was sent in disgrace to one of the most out-of-the-way
corners of Germany. He protested in the name of justice. He appealed to
the emperor. The latter, he was given to understand, wrote on the margin
of the report of his case: "Der Mann ist ein Idealist, man soll ihn
gewähren lassen!" (The man is an idealist. Let him alone!)
He was sent back to Berlin in the winter of 1915-16, with instructions
to be on his good behaviour. Ignoring these instructions, immediately
after his return to the university he began a course of lectures upon
"War as an evolutionary Factor in human History." The lectures were
promptly prohibited, and Nicolai was sent to Danzig, where he was
strictly forbidden to speak or write on political topics. Nicolai took
exception to this order, on the ground that he was a civilian. Thereupon
an attempt was made to administer to him the oath of loyalty and
obedience. He refused. Summoned before a court-martial, and warned of
the consequences of refusal, he persisted. He was thereupon reduced to
the ranks, and for two and a half years was engaged in futile clerical
work as a private in the army medical corps. Nevertheless, he finished
his book, and it went to press in Germany. The first two hundred pages
had been set up when an information against it was lodged by the chief
clerk of a great submarine dockyard, who said indignantly, "We earn our
money arduously in the war, and this fellow is writing in favour of
peace!" Nicolai was arrested and his manuscript was seized. After a
lengthy trial, he was sentenced to five months' imprisonment. The
newspapers were forbidden to mention his name. The "Danziger Zeitung"
was suspended for having published an account of the trial. His troubles
began afresh immediately he came out of prison. The commandant of
Eilenburg wished to force Nicolai to accept combatant service. Nicolai
refused, and was given twenty-four hours to think the matter over. He
thought of Socrates, and of the Greek philosopher's obedience to his
country's laws, bad though they were. But he thought also of Luther, who
fled to the Wartburg to finish his work. And Nicolai left that night.
Not even yet, however, did he quit Germany, for he wished to make a last
appeal to the justice of his country. He wrote to the minister for war,
relating the infractions of law to which he had been exposed, and asking
for protection against the arbitrary proceedings of the military
authorities. While awaiting an answer, he took refuge with friends,
first in Munich, then in Grunewald near Berlin. But no answer was
received. He had, therefore, to expatriate himself. We know how he
crossed the frontier, "in an aeroplane, two miles above the earth amid
clouds formed by bursting shrapnel."[89] At dawn after Saint John's
night, he saw the distant gleam of the sea of freedom. He reached
Copenhagen. For the last time he addressed himself to the German
government, offering to return upon guarantees that his rights should be
respected, and that he should be reinstated. After eight weeks, he was
declared to be a deserter. A raid was made upon his house in Berlin, and
upon the houses of some of his friends. His goods were sequestrated. A
demand was made for his extradition, upon the charge of stealing an
aeroplane.--Then it was that, resuming freedom of speech, Nicolai wrote
his "Open Letter" to the "Unknown" despot.
* * * * *
What particularly strikes me in this narrative is, in the first place,
the man's invincible tenacity, the way in which he stands upon his right
as upon a fortress--"eine feste Burg." ...But I am also greatly
impressed by the secret aid which was furnished him by so many of his
compatriots.
People are astonished to-day at the sudden collapse of the German
colossus. A hundred different reasons are given. We are told that the
army is ravaged by epidemic disease; that the morale of the Germans has
been undermined by bolshevist propaganda; and so on. These influences
have played their part. But another cause has been forgotten. It is that
the entire edifice, despite its imposing front, has been mined. Behind
the façade of passive obedience, widespread disillusionment prevails.
Nothing is more striking in Nicolai's story (notwithstanding all his
precautions lest anything he may say should betray his friends to the
vengeance of the authorities) than the way in which he has again and
again been supported and encouraged by the devotion or by the tacit
complicity of those with whom he came into contact. "Men of science,
working men, rankers, and officers," he writes, "begged me to say what
they did not dare to utter themselves." When he was arrested and when
his book was seized, the manuscript was rescued and was smuggled into
Switzerland. By whom? By an official German courier!--When, having fled
from his post, he wished to leave Germany, and when, in the first
instance, he thought of getting out of the country on foot, he was
arrested a hundred yards short of the frontier and was taken before an
elderly captain. "When he asked me my name, and I said, 'I am Professor
Nicolai,' he looked at me long and quizzically. I am doubtful whether he
knew that I was being hunted, but I have the impression that he did
know.... He advised me, in friendly fashion, not again to attempt
crossing the frontier by night, for the frontier patrols were
accompanied by bloodhounds--then he let me go."--Seeing no other way of
escape than by the air route, Nicolai turned--to whom? To an officer in
the flying corps, asking the loan of an aeroplane, for a journey to
Holland or Switzerland. The officer, without turning a hair, replied
that the thing could be done, and that if Nicolai should decide to make
his way to Denmark (which would be much easier) they could start with a
whole air-squadron. In the end, as we know, there was no squadron; but
two aeroplanes and a number of officers participated in the flight from
Neurippin to Copenhagen.--Many similar incidents, though perhaps less
striking than those quoted, serve to show the dissolution of the bonds
between the citizens and the state. The publication of Nicolai's book in
Switzerland, and the subsequent clandestine circulation in Germany of
one hundred copies, brought him into relationships with persons
belonging to all parties in Germany, and enabled him to realise how deep
and passionate was the feeling of hatred diffused throughout all strata
of the population. He adds: "I am convinced that Germany and the world
would be liberated to-morrow, if only all the Germans were to say to-day
without reserve that which, at the bottom of their hearts, they wish and
ardently desire."
Herein lies the force of his protest. It is not the protest of one
individual, but that of an entire nation. Nicolai is merely the
spokesman.
Thus, having told his tale, he turns to the people, he turns to those
who inspired him to speak. By a sudden transformation, the "Unknown" to
whom he addresses his "Open Letter"--derjenige Unbekannte, der die Macht
hat--is no longer the military authority. Sovereign power seems already
to have passed into the hands of the real master, the German people. He
invites the German people to enter into a union with the other peoples.
In the tone of an inspired evangelist, he reminds the German people of
its true destiny, its spiritual mission, a thousandfold more important
than any empty victory. To all the peoples of Europe, he points out the
duty of the hour, the pressing task: to achieve the unity of Europe and
the organisation of the world.
"Come, then, kindred spirits!... I am a free man, freed from everything
in the world, free from the state [staatenlos], ein deutscher Weltbürger
[a German citizen of the world].... I have peace! [Ich habe Frieden]....
Come! Cry aloud what you already know and feel!... We do not wish to
_make_ peace; we simply wish to realise that we _have_ peace...."
Reiterating his cry of October, 1914, the Call to Europeans[90] which
he, in conjunction with his friends Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Foerster,
and Otto Buek, issued as a counterblast to the insane utterances of the
93, he reaffirms his act of faith in the spirit of Europe, one and
brotherly; and he launches his appeal to all the free spirits, to those
whom Goethe long ago termed: "Good Europeans."
_October 20, 1918._
"Wissen und Leben," Zurich, November, 1918.
XXIV
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT WILSON
MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT,
The peoples are breaking their chains. The hour foreseen by you and
desired by you is at hand. May it not come in vain! From one end of
Europe to the other, there is rising among the peoples the will to
resume control of their destinies, and to unite, that they may form a
regenerated Europe. Across the frontiers, they are holding out their
hands to one another for a friendly clasp. But between them there still
remain abysses of mistrust and misunderstanding. These abysses must be
bridged. We must break the fetters of ancient destiny which shackle
these peoples to nationalist wars; which have compelled them, century
after century, to rush blindly upon one another for their mutual
destruction. Unaided, they cannot break their chains. They are calling
for help. But whither can they turn for help?
You alone, Monsieur le Président, among all those whose dread duty it
now is to guide the policy of the nations, you alone enjoy a world-wide
moral authority. You inspire universal confidence. Answer the appeal of
these passionate hopes! Take the hands which are stretched forth, help
them to clasp one another. Help these peoples, groping in the dark, to
find their way, to establish the new charter of freedom and union whose
principles they are seeking earnestly but confusedly.
Reflect: Europe is in danger of falling back into the circles of hell
through which she has been toiling for more than four years, drenching
the soil with her blood. In all lands, the peoples have lost confidence
in the ruling classes. At this hour, you are the only one who can speak
to all alike--to the common people and to the bourgeoisies of the
nations. You alone can be sure of an attentive hearing. None but you can
act as mediator to-day (and will even you still be able to act as
mediator to-morrow?). Should this mediator fail to appear, the human
masses, disarrayed and unbalanced, will almost inevitably break forth
into excesses. The common people will welter in bloody chaos, while the
parties of traditional order will fly to bloody reaction. Class wars,
racial wars, wars between the nations of yesterday, wars between the
nations which have just been formed, blind social convulsions, with no
further aim than the gratification of the hatreds, the envies, the crazy
dreams of an hour of life looking forward to no morrow....
Heir of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, take up the cause, not of
a party, not of a single people, but of all! Summon the representatives
of the peoples to the Congress of Mankind! Preside over it with the full
authority which you hold in virtue of your lofty moral consciousness and
in virtue of the great future of America! Speak, speak to all! The world
hungers for a voice which will overleap the frontiers of nations and of
classes. Be the arbiter of the free peoples! Thus may the future hail
you by the name of Reconciler!
ROMAIN ROLLAND.
VILLENEUVE, _November 9, 1918._
"Le Populaire," Paris, November 18, 1918.
* * * * *
A few days later (December 4, 1918), "Le Populaire" published a
letter from Romain Rolland to Jean Longuet, wherein Romain Rolland
laid bare his most intimate thought and gave the reasons for his
attitude towards Wilson. The letter was reprinted by "L'Humanité"
in the issue of December 14, 1918, a special "Wilson Number."
I am no Wilsonian. I see all too plainly that the president's message,
as clever as it is generous, aims (in good faith) at realising
throughout the world the ideal of the bourgeois republic of the
Franco-American type.
This is a conservative ideal and it no longer satisfies me.
Nevertheless, despite our personal predilections and our reserves for
the future, I believe that the best thing we can do for the moment is to
support the action of President Wilson. He alone will be able to curb
the greedy appetites, the ambitions, and the fierce instincts, which
will seat themselves at the peace banquet. Through his action alone is
there any chance of bringing about a modus vivendi in Europe, one which
provisionally at least shall be fairly just. This great bourgeois
embodies what is purest, most disinterested, most humane, in the
mentality of his class.[91] No one is better fitted than he to act as
Arbiter.
R. R.
_June, 1919._
XXV
AGAINST VICTORIOUS BISMARCKISM
"Le Populaire" asked Romain Rolland to write an article on the
occasion of President Wilson's arrival in France. Romain Rolland,
who was ill at the time, wrote from Villeneuve as follows.
THURSDAY, _December 12, 1918._
DEAR LONGUET,
Your letter of the 6th inst. did not reach me until to-day, of course
after being opened by the military censorship. It finds me in bed, where
I have been for a fortnight, suffering from an obstinate attack of
influenza. It is therefore impossible for me to write the article you
want.
All that I will say is that, during the last fortnight, the news from
France has often made me more uneasy than my fever. The Allies believe
themselves victorious. In my view (if they fail to pull themselves
together) they are vanquished, beaten, infected, by Bismarckism.
Unless there is an extensive turn in events, I foresee a century of
hatreds, of new wars of revenge, and the destruction of European
civilisation. Let me add that the destruction of European civilisation
is hardly to be regretted if the victorious nations prove thus incapable
of guiding their destinies.
It is my hope that, amid the intoxicating but deceptive triumphs of the
present, they may regain the consciousness of their crushing
responsibilities towards the future! It is my hope that they will
remember that every one of their mistakes or their sins of omission
will have to be paid for by their children and their children's
children!
Excuse these lines, scribbled by a convalescent, and believe me, my dear
Longuet,
Yours as always,
ROMAIN ROLLAND.
"Le Populaire," Paris, December 21, 1918.
XXVI
DECLARATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE MIND
Brain workers, comrades, scattered throughout the world, kept apart for
five years by the armies, the censorship and the mutual hatred of the
warring nations, now that barriers are falling and frontiers are being
reopened, we issue to you a call to reconstitute our brotherly union,
but to make of it a new union more firmly founded and more strongly
built than that which previously existed.
The war has disordered our ranks. Most of the intellectuals placed their
science, their art, their reason, at the service of the governments. We
do not wish to formulate any accusations, to launch any reproaches. We
know the weakness of the individual mind and the elemental strength of
great collective currents. The latter, in a moment, swept the former
away, for nothing had been prepared to help in the work of resistance.
Let this experience, at least, be a lesson to us for the future!
First of all, let us point out the disasters that have resulted from the
almost complete abdication of intelligence throughout the world, and
from its voluntary enslavement to the unchained forces. Thinkers,
artists, have added an incalculable quantity of envenomed hate to the
plague which devours the flesh and the spirit of Europe. In the arsenal
of their knowledge, their memory, their imagination, they have sought
reasons for hatred, reasons old and new, reasons historical, scientific,
logical, and poetical. They have worked to destroy mutual understanding
and mutual love among men. So doing, they have disfigured, defiled,
debased, degraded Thought, of which they were the representatives. They
have made it an instrument of the passions; and (unwittingly, perchance)
they have made it a tool of the selfish interests of a political or
social clique, of a state, a country, or a class. Now, when, from the
fierce conflict in which the nations have been at grips, the victors and
the vanquished emerge equally stricken, impoverished, and at the bottom
of their hearts (though they will not admit it) utterly ashamed of their
access of mania--now, Thought, which has been entangled in their
struggles, emerges, like them, fallen from her high estate.
Arise! Let us free the mind from these compromises, from these unworthy
alliances, from these veiled slaveries! Mind is no one's servitor. It is
we who are the servitors of mind. We have no other master. We exist to
bear its light, to defend its light, to rally round it all the strayed
sheep of mankind. Our role, our duty, is to be a centre of stability, to
point out the pole star, amid the whirlwind of passions in the night.
Among these passions of pride and mutual destruction, we make no choice;
we reject them all. Truth only do we honour; truth that is free,
frontierless, limitless; truth that knows nought of the prejudices of
race or caste. Not that we lack interest in humanity. For humanity we
work, but for humanity as a whole. We know nothing of peoples. We know
the People, unique and universal; the People which suffers, which
struggles, which falls and rises to its feet once more, and which
continues to advance along the rough road drenched with its sweat and
its blood; the People, all men, all alike our brothers. In order that
they may, like ourselves, realise this brotherhood, we raise above their
blind struggles the Ark of the Covenant--Mind which is free, one and
manifold, eternal.
R. R.
VILLENEUVE, _Spring, 1919._
[This manifesto was published in "L'Humanité," June 26, 1919.]
By the end of 1919, the following signatures had been received to the
above declaration.
Addams, Jane (U.S.A.).
Alain [Chartier] (France).
Alexandre, Raoul (on the staff of "L'Humanité," France).
Arco, G. von (Germany).
Arcos, René (France).
Barbusse, Henri (France).
Baudouin, Charles (editor of "Le Carmel," France).
Bazalgette, Léon (France).
Bernaert, Edouard (France).
Besnard, Lucien (France).
Bignami, Enrico (editor of "Coenobium," Italy).
Biriukov, Paul (Russia).
Bloch, Ernest (Switzerland).
Bloch, Jean-Richard (France).
Bodin, Louise (editor of "La Voix des Femmes," France).
Bracco, Roberto (Italy).
Brooks, Van Wyck (U.S.A.).
Brouwer, L. J. (Holland).
Buchet, Samuel (France).
Burnet, E. (of the Pasteur Institute, France).
Carpenter, Edward (England).
Chateaubriant, A. de (France).
Chenevière, Georges (France).
Colin, Paul (editor of "L'Art Libre," Belgium).
Coomaraswamy, Ananda (Hindustan).
Costa, Benedicto (Brazil).
Croce, Benedetto (Italy).
Crucy, François (on the staff of "L'Humanité," France).
Desanges, Paul (on the staff of "La Forge," France).
Desprès, Fernand (France).
Dickinson, G. Lowes (England).
Donvalis, Georges (Greece).
Doyen, Albert (France).
Duhamel, Georges (France).
Dujardin, Edouard (editor of "Cahiers Idéalistes," France).
Dunois, Amédée (on the staff of "L'Humanité, France).
Dupin, Gustave (France).
Dy, Melot du (Belgium).
Eder, Robert (Switzerland).
Eeckhoud, Georges (Belgium).
Eeden, Frederick van (Holland).
Einstein, Albert (Germany).
Eslander, J. F. (Belgium).
Fiévez, Joseph (France).
Foerster, W. (Germany).
Forel, Auguste (Switzerland).
Frank, Leonhard (Germany).
Frank, Waldo (U.S.A.).
Fried, A. H. (German-Austria).
Fry, R. (England).
George, Waldemar (on the staff of "La Forge," France).
Georges-Bazille, G. (editor of "Cahiers Britanniques et
Américains," France).
Gerlach, H. von (Germany).
Goll, Ivan (Germany).
Hamon, Augustin (France).
Heidenstam, Verner von (Sweden).
Hellens, Franz (Belgium).
Herzog, Wilhelm (Germany).
Hesse, Hermann (Germany).
Hier, Frederick P. (U.S.A.).
Hilbert, David (Germany).
Hofer, Charles (Switzerland).
Holmes, John Haynes (U.S.A.).
Huebsch, B. W. (U.S.A.).
Jouve, P. J. (France).
Kapteyn, J. C. (Holland).
Key, Ellen (Sweden).
Khnopff, Georges (Belgium).
Kollwitz, Käte (Germany).
Labouré, A. M. (France).
Lagerlöf, Selma (Sweden).
Laisant, C. A. (France).
Latzko, Andreas (Hungary).
Lefebvre, Raymond (France).
Lehmann, Max (Germany).
Lindhagen, Carl (Sweden).
Liveright, Horace B. (U.S.A.).
Lopez-Pico, M. (Spain).
Lucci, Arnaldo (Italy).
Mann, Heinrich (Germany).
Martinet, Marcel (France).
Maseras, Alfons (Spain).
Masereel, Frans (Belgium).
Masson, Émile (France).
Masters, Edgar Lee (U.S.A.).
Matisse, Georges (France).
Matisse, Madeline (France).
Mercereau, Alexandre (France).
Mériga, Lue (editor of "La Forge," France).
Mesnil, Jacques (Belgium).
Michaelis, Sophus (Denmark).
Moissi, A. (Germany).
Morhardt, Mathias (France).
Natorp, Paul (Germany).
Nearing, Scott (U.S.A.).
Nicolai, Georg Friedrich (Germany).
Nithack-Stahn (Germany).
Ors, Eugenio d' (Spain).
Paasche, H. (Germany).
Picard, Edmond (Belgium).
Pierre, A. (on the staff of "L'Humanité," France).
Prenant, A. (France).
Ragaz (Switzerland).
Reuillard, Gabriel (France).
Rolland, Romain (France).
Romains, Jules (France).
Roorda van Eysinga, H. (Switzerland).
Roussel, Nelly (France).
Rubakin, Nicholas (Russia).
Rusiecka, M. de (Poland).
Russell, Bertrand (England).
Ryner, Han (France).
Schirardin, (professor in Metz, France).
Schneider, Edouard (France).
Schoen, Edouard (professor in Metz, France).
Schultz, P. (professor in Metz, France).
Sévérine (France).
Signac, Paul (France).
Sinclair, Upton (U.S.A.).
Sorel, Robert (France).
Stieglitz, Alfred (U.S.A.).
Stocker, Helene (Germany).
Suchenno, Jean (France).
Tagore, Rabindranath (Hindustan).
Thiessou, Gaston (France).
Uhry, Jules (on the staff of "L'Humanité," France).
Unruh, Fritz von (Germany).
Vaillant-Couturier, Paul (France).
Velde, Henry van de (Belgium).
Vildrac, Charles (France).
Villard, Oswald Garrison (U.S.A.).
Viskovatov, L. de (Russia).
Wacker (professor at Metz, France).
Wehberg, H. (Germany).
Werfel, Franz (Germany).
Werth, Léon (France).
Yannios (Greece).
Zangwill, Israel (England).
Zweig, Stefan (German-Austria).