One day in 1913, I was asked by Robert Donald to call on a Canadian
professor who had been engaged in “a statistical survey of Europe,”
whatever that may mean, and might have some interesting information to
give.
When he received me, I found him a little, mild-eyed man, with
gold-rimmed spectacles, behind which I presently discovered the look
of one obsessed by a knowledge of some terrific secret. That was after
he had surprised me by declining to talk about statistics, and asking
abruptly whether I was an honest young man and a good patriot. Upon my
assuring him that I was regarded as respectable by my friends and was
no traitor, he bade me shut the door and listen to something which he
believed it to be his duty to tell, for England’s sake.
What he told me was decidedly alarming. In pursuit of his “statistical
survey of Europe” on behalf of the Canadian and American governments,
he had spent two years or so in Germany. He had been received in a
courteous way by German professors, civil servants, and government
officials, at whose dinner tables he had met German celebrities, and
high officers of the German army. They had talked freely before him
after some time, and there was revealed to him, among all these people,
a bitter, instinctive, relentless, and jealous hatred of England.
They made no secret that the dominant thought in their souls was the
necessity and inevitability of a conflict with Great Britain, in
order to destroy the nation which stood athwart their own destiny as
their greatest commercial competitor, and as the one rival of their
own sea power, upon which the future of Germany was based. For that
conflict they were preparing the mind of their own people by intensive
propaganda and “speeding up” the output of their naval and military
armament. “England,” said my little informant, “is menaced by the most
fearful struggle in history, but seems utterly ignorant of this peril,
which is coming close. Is there no one to warn her people, no one to
open their eyes to this ghastly hatred across the North Sea, preparing
stealthily for their destruction? Will you not tell the truth in your
paper, as I now tell it to you?”
I told him it would be difficult to get such things published, and
still more difficult to get them believed. I had considerable doubt
myself whether he had not exaggerated the intensity of hatred in
Germany, and, in any case, the possibility of their daring to challenge
Great Britain, as long as our fleet maintained its strength and
traditions. But I was disturbed. The little man’s words coincided
with other warnings I had heard, from Lord Roberts, from visitors to
Germany, from Robert Blatchford--to say nothing of W. T. Stead and his
German “spooks.” ... Robert Donald, of _The Daily Chronicle_, laughed
at my report of the conversation. “Utter rubbish!” was his opinion, and
he refused to print a word.
“Go to Germany yourself,” he said, “and write a series of articles
likely to promote friendship between our two peoples and undo the harm
created by newspaper hate-doctors and jingoes. Find out what the mass
of the German people think about this liar talk.”
So I went to Germany, with a number of introductions to prominent
people and friends of England.
It was not the first time I had visited Germany, because the previous
year, I think, I had been to Hamburg with a party of journalists, and
we were received like princes, fêted sumptuously, and treated with an
amazing display of public cordiality. There was private courtesy, too,
most kind and amiable, and I always remember a young poet who took me
to his house and introduced me to his beautiful young wife who, when
I said good-by, gathered some roses from her garden, put them to her
lips, and said, “Take these with my love to England.”
But something had happened in the spirit of Germany since that
time. The first “friend of England” to whom I presented a letter of
introduction was a newspaper editor in Düsseldorf, a man of liberal
principles who had taken a great part in arranging an exchange of
visits between German and British business men. He knew many of the
Liberal politicians in England and could walk into the House of Commons
more easily than I could.
He seemed to be rather flustered when I called upon him and explained
the object of my visit, and he left me alone in his study for a while,
on pretext of speaking to his wife. I think he wanted me to read
his leading article, signed at the foot of the column, in a paper
which he laid deliberately on his desk before me. I puzzled through
its complicated argument in involved German, and through its fog of
rhetoric there emerged a violent tirade against England.
When he came back, I tackled him on the subject.
“I understood that you were an advocate of friendly relations between
our two peoples? That article doesn’t seem to me very friendly or
helpful.”
He flushed a hot color, and said, “My views have undergone a change.
England has behaved abominably.”
The particular abomination which he resented most deeply was the
warning delivered by Lloyd George--of all people in England!--that
Great Britain would support French interests in Morocco, and would
not tolerate German aggression in that region. That was at the time
of the Agadir incident. The British attitude in that affair, said the
Düsseldorf editor, was a clear sign that Great Britain challenged the
right of Germany to develop and expand. That challenge could not be
left unanswered. Either Germany must surrender her liberty and deny
her imperial destiny, at the dictation of Britain, or show that her
power was equal to her aspirations. That, anyhow, was the line of his
argument, which we pursued at great length over pots of lager beer, in
a restaurant where we dined together.
I encountered the same argument, and more violent hostility, from a
high ecclesiastic in Berlin, who was a great friend of the Kaiser’s and
formerly a professed lover of England. He was a tall, thin, handsome
man, who spoke English perfectly, but was not very civil to me.
Presently, as we talked of the relations between our two nations, he
paced up and down the room with evident emotion, with suppressed rage,
indeed, which broke at last through his restraint.
“English policy,” he said, “cuts directly across our legitimate German
rights. England is trying to hem in Germany, to hamper her at every
turn, to humiliate her in every part of the world, and to prevent her
economic development. During recent days she has not hesitated to
affront us very deeply and deliberately. It is intolerable!”
He spoke of an “inevitable war” with startling candor, and when I said
something about the duty of all Christian men, especially of a priest
like himself, to prevent such an unbelievable horror, he asked harshly
whether I had come to insult him, and touched the bell for my dismissal.
Such conversations were alarming. Yet I did not believe that they
represented the general opinion of the great mass of German people.
I was only able to get glimpses here and there in Düsseldorf and
Frankfort, Hanover, Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden of middle-class and
working-class thought, but wherever I was able to test it in casual
conversation with business men, railway porters, laborers, hotel
waiters, and so on, with whom I exchanged ideas in my very crude
German, or their remarkably good English (in the case of commercial men
and waiters), I found utter incredulity regarding the possibility of
war between England and Germany, and a contempt of the sword-rattling
and “shining armor” of the Kaiser and the military caste.
I was, for instance, in a company of commercial men at _Abendessen_
in a hotel at Leipzig, when the topic of conversation was the Zabern
affair, in which Lieutenant von Förstner had drawn his sword upon
civilians--and a cripple--who had jeered at him for swaggering down
the sidewalk like a popinjay. The Crown Prince had sent him a telegram
of approbation for his defense of his uniform and caste. But, one and
all, the commercial men with whom I sat expressed their loathing of
this military arrogance, and were indignant with those who defended its
absurdity. I remember the German who sat next to me had been a designer
in a porcelain factory in the English potteries for many years. With
him I talked quietly of the chance of war between England and Germany.
“What is the real feeling of the ordinary folk in Germany?” I asked. He
answered with what I am certain was absolute sincerity--though he was
wrong, as history proved. He told me that, outside the military caste,
there was no war feeling in Germany, and that the idea of a conflict
with England was abhorrent and unbelievable to the German people. “If
there were to be war with England,” he said, “we should weep at the
greatest tragedy that could befall mankind.”
There were many people I met who held that view, without hypocrisy, and
their sincerity at that time is not disproved because when the tocsin
of war was sounded, the fever of hate took possession of them.
It was Edward Bernstein, the leader of the Socialists, who warned me of
the instability of the pacifist faith professed by German democrats.
“If war breaks out,” he said, “German Socialists will march as one man
against any enemy of the Fatherland. Although theoretically they are
against war, neither they nor any other Socialists have reached a plane
of development which would give them the strength to resist loyalty to
the Flag and the old code of patriotism, when once their nation was
involved, right or wrong.”
I tried to get the ideas of German youth on the subject of war with
England, and I had an excellent opportunity and an illuminating
conversation with the students of Leipzig University. A group of these
young men, who spoke excellent English, allowed me to question them,
and were highly amused and interested.
“Do you hate England?” I asked.
There was a rousing chorus of “Yes!”
“Why do you hate England?”
One young man acted as spokesman for the others, who signified their
assent from time to time. The first reason for hatred of England, he
said, was because when a German boy was shown the map of the world and
when he asked what all the red “splodges” on it signified, he was told
that all that territory belonged to England. That aroused his natural
envy. Later in life, said this young man, he understood by historical
reading that England had built up the British Empire by a series of
wars, explorations, and commercial adventures which gave her a just
claim to possession. They had no quarrel with that. They recognized
the strength and greatness of the English people in the past. But
now they saw that England was no longer great. She was decadent and
inefficient. Her day was done. They hated her now as a worn-out old
monster who still tried to grab and hold, and prevent other races
from developing their genius, but had no military power with which to
defend their possessions. England was playing a game of bluff. Germany,
conscious of her newborn greatness, her immense industrial genius,
her vital strength, needing elbow room and free spaces of the earth,
would not allow a degenerate people to stand across her path. Germany
hated England for her arrogance, masking weakness, and her hypocritical
professions of friendship, which concealed envy and fear.
All this was said, at greater length, with admirable good humor and no
touch of personal discourtesy. But it made me thoughtful and uneasy.
The boy was doubtless exaggerating a point of view, but if such talk
were taking place in German universities, it boded no good for the
peace of the world.
I returned to England, perplexed, and not convinced, one way or the
other. As far as I could read the riddle of Germany, public opinion
was divided by two opposing views. The military caste, the old Junker
crowd, and their satellites, ecclesiastical and official, with,
probably the Civil Service, were beating up the spirit of aggression,
and playing for war. The great middle class, and the German people in
the mass, desired only to get on with their work, to develop their
commerce, and to enjoy a peaceful home life in increasing comfort.
The question of future peace or war lay with the view which would
prevail. I believed that, without unnecessary provocation on the part
of England, rather with generous and friendly relations, the peaceful
disposition of the German people would prevail over the military caste
and its intensive propaganda....
I was wrong, and the articles I wrote in an analytical but friendly
spirit were worse than useless, though I am still convinced that the
German people as a whole did not want war, until their rulers persuaded
them that the Fatherland was in danger, called to their patriotism, and
let loose all the primitive emotions, sentiments, ideals, passions, and
cruelties which stir the hearts of peoples, when war is declared.
After that visit to Germany, I went several times to Ireland, and
although there seemed to be no link between these two missions, I
am certain now that in the mind of German agents, politicians, and
military strategists, the situation in Ireland was not left out of
account in their estimate of war chances. With labor “unrest” from the
Clyde to Tonypandy, with suffragette outrages revealing a weakness and
lack of virility (from the German point of view) in English manhood,
and with Ireland on the edge of civil war which would involve great
numbers of British troops, England was losing her power of attack and
defense. So as we know, German agents, like the Baron von Zedlitz, were
writing home in their reports.
Sir Edward Carson, afterward Lord Carson, with F. E. Smith, afterward
Lord Birkenhead (so does England reward her rebels!) were arranging a
bloody civil war in Ireland, which, but for a Great War, would have
spread to England, without let or hindrance from the British government.
When the Home Rule Bill, under Asquith’s premiership, was nearing its
last stages, Carson raised an army of Ulstermen and invited every
Protestant and Unionist to take a solemn oath in a holy league and
covenant to resist Home Rule to the very death. I was an eyewitness
of many remarkable and historic scenes when “King Carson,” as he was
called in irony by Irish Home Rulers, inspected his troops, made a
triumphal progress through Ulster, stirring up old fires of racial and
religious hatred.
There was a good deal of play-acting about all this, and Carson was
melodramatic in all his speeches and gestures, with a touch of Irving
in the rendering of his pose as a grim and resolute patriot and leader
of Protestant forces, but there was real passion behind it all, and
the sincerity of fanaticism. If it came to the ordeal of battle, these
young farmers and shopkeepers who paraded in battalions before Carson
and his lieutenants, marching with good discipline, a strong and
sturdy type of manhood, would fight with the courage and ruthlessness
of men inspired by hatred and bigotry.
The British government pooh-poohed Carson’s “army” and described it as
an unarmed rabble. But a very brief inquiry convinced me that large
quantities of arms were being imported into Belfast and distributed
through Ulster. There was hardly a pretense at secrecy, and the Great
Western Railway authorities showed me boxes bearing large red labels
with the word “Firearms” boldly printed thereon. The proprietor of one
of the Belfast hotels led me down into his cellars and showed me cases
of rifles stacked as high as the ceiling. He told me they came from
Germany. I went round to the gunsmith shops, and I was told that they
were selling cheap revolvers “like hot cakes.” There was hardly a man
in Ulster who had not got a firearm of some kind or other. “It’s good
for business,” said one of the gunsmiths, laughing candidly, “but one
of these days the things will go off, and there will be the devil to
pay. Why the British government allows it is beyond understanding.”
The British government did not acknowledge the truth of it. I made a
detailed report of my investigations to Robert Donald, who passed it
on to Winston Churchill, and his comment was the incredulous remark,
“Gibbs has had his leg pulled.” But it was Churchill’s leg that was
pulled, very badly, and he must have had a nasty shock when there were
full descriptive reports of a gun-running exploit, done with perfect
impunity, by the conspiracy of Ulster officers and leaders, military
advisers, and men of all classes, down to the jarveys of the jaunting
cars. Carson had armed his troops--with German rifles and ammunition.
In view of later history, there must have been some gentlemen of Ulster
whose consciences were twinged by those dealings with Germany, and by
allusions made in the heat of political speeches to their preference
for the German Emperor rather than a Home-rule House of Parliament in
Dublin.
Religious fanaticism was at the back of it all in the minds of the
rank and file. Catholic laborers were chased out of the shipyards
by their Protestant fellow workers, and hardly a day passed without
brutal assaults on them, as was proved by the list of patients in the
hospitals suffering from bashed heads and bruised bodies. I saw with my
own eyes gangs of Ulster Protestants fall upon Catholic citizens and
kick them senseless. Needless to say, there was retaliation when the
chance came, and woe betide any Ulsterman who ventured alone through
the Catholic quarter.
The mediæval malignancy of this vendetta was revealed to me among a
thousand other proofs by a draper’s assistant in a shop down the Royal
Avenue. I was buying a collar stud or something, and recognizing me as
an Englishman, he began to talk politics.
“If they try to put Home Rule over us,” he said, “I shall fight. I’m a
pretty good shot, and if a Catholic shows his head, I’ll plug him.”
He pulled out a rifle, which he kept concealed behind some bundles of
linen, and told me he spent his Saturday afternoons in target practice.
“What do you think of this? Good shooting, eh?”
He pulled out a handful of pennies and showed me how at so many paces
(I forget the range) he had plugged the head of His Majesty, King
George V. It seemed to me a queer way of proving his loyalty to the
British crown and Constitution.
Carson’s way of loyalty was no less strange. By what method of
logic this great lawyer could justify, as a proof of loyalty and
patriotism, his raising of armed forces to resist an Act of Parliament
passed by the King with the consent of the people, passes my simple
understanding. I can understand rebellion against the law and
the Crown, for Liberty’s sake, or for passion’s sake, or for the
destruction of civilization, or for the enforcement of any kind of
villainy. But I cannot understand rebellion against the law and the
Crown in order to prove one’s passionate loyalty to the law, and one’s
ardent devotion to the King.
Nor can I understand how those who condemn the “direct action” of
Labor in the way of general strikes and other methods of demanding
“rights” (as Lords Carson and Birkenhead and Londonderry condemned such
revolutionary threats), can uphold as splendid heroism the menace of
bloody civil war by a minority which refused to accept the verdict of
the government and peoples of Great Britain and Ireland.
Sir Edward Carson was an honest man, a great gentleman in his manner,
a great lawyer in repute, but his blind bigotry, some dark passion
in him, made him adopt a line of action which has caused much blood
to flow in Ireland and made one of the blackest chapters in modern
history. For it was the raising of the Ulster Volunteers which led to
the raising of the Irish Republican Army, and the armed resistance to
Home Rule which led to Sinn Fein, and a thousand murders. It might have
led, and very nearly led to civil war in England as well as in Ireland.
When the British Officers in the Curragh Camp refused to lead their
troops to disarm Ulster, and resigned their commissions rather than
fulfil such an order, the shadow of civil war crept rather close, and
there were politicians in England who were ready to risk it, as when
Winston Churchill raised the cry, “The Army versus the People.”
But another shadow was creeping over Europe, and fell with a chill
horror upon the heart of England, when, as it were out of the blue sky
of a summer in 1914, there came the menace of a war which would call
many great nations to arms, and deluge the fields of Europe in the
blood of youth. Ireland--suffragettes--industrial unrest, how trivial
and foolish even were such internal squabbles when civilization itself
was challenged by this abomination!
In June of 1914--June!--there was a great banquet given in London to
the editors of German newspapers, where I renewed acquaintance with
a number of men whom I had met the previous year in Germany. Lord
Burnham, of _The Daily Telegraph_, presided over the gathering, and
made an eloquent speech, affirming the unbreakable ties of friendship
between our two peoples. There were many eloquent speeches by other
British journalists, expressing their admiration for German character,
science, art, and social progress. A distinguished dramatic critic was
emotional at the thought of the old kinship of the German and English
peoples. The German editors responded with equal cordiality, with
surpassing eloquence of admiration for English liberty, literature,
and life. There was much handshaking, raising of glasses, drinking of
toasts.... It was two months before August of 1914.