WHO PAYS?
To the traveller passing from the devastated regions of France to
the hills and valleys of the Rhineland, there is something almost
scandalous in the impression of wealth and solidity conveyed by the
latter country. “These people have not suffered in the war at all,”
said an English woman in Cologne to me indignantly; “look at the
worldwide misery they have provoked; look at the state of France, and
then see how lightly the Germans themselves have escaped: everything
intact and their country untouched.”
But has Germany really escaped so lightly? Untouched her country may
be; intact in one vital particular it certainly is not. Bricks and
mortar can in time be replaced, shell holes can be filled in, and the
plough pass again over the devastated fields. But at a date when the
material destruction of France will be, let us hope, to a large extent
repaired, Germany will still be paying for the sins of her rulers
in the bodies of a generation a large proportion of which will be
enfeebled and diseased. It is an insidious form of payment, lacking in
obviousness or dramatic quality. But its ultimate thoroughness ought
to satisfy even the moralists who demand that an entity called Germany
should be punished, quite irrespective of the guilt or innocence of
the actual person on whom the punishment falls.
* * * * *
A mile or more below the Hohenzollern bridge, where four kings of
Prussia on their bronze horses survey a world fashioned now on other
lines than those contemplated by Prussian arrogance, the Rhine flows
along a ribbon of green strand which serves as a recreation ground for
the children of the district. Here on a summer evening we sometimes
walk and watch young Germany at play: children of all ages bathing,
paddling, shouting, laughing, amusing themselves in a hundred different
ways, while their parents sit in little groups, the women sewing or
knitting, the men with their pipes.
Children abound in Germany. They swarm in droves in every direction.
Surely, you say, these hunger stories must have been exaggerated!
The rising generation does not appear to be much affected, judging
by its numbers. To the casual observer there seems to be very little
amiss with these Rhineland children. My first impression was that they
compared favourably with many children in our own industrial centres.
The German working-classes are self-respecting folk, and however
slender their resources in food and clothing during the war, they made
the most of them. Also it must be remembered the Rhineland is one of
the richest provinces, agriculturally no less than commercially, in the
Empire, and that the British Occupation had resulted in nine months of
adequate feeding before I saw Cologne.
Nevertheless, after a time I found myself modifying my first favourable
impression. The clothes of the poorest children are neat and tidy.
But large numbers of the children, trim though their appearance, are
pinched and pasty-faced. Under the short skirts bare legs are seen
often thin and rickety. Little by little my attention was arrested by
two facts: first, that these crowds of children were all apparently
very much of an age; secondly, that the proportion of babies to
children seemed extraordinarily small. Below the age of two and a half
to three the juvenile population comes to an abrupt halt. After a time,
intrigued during my walks by the relative absence of babies, I took to
counting perambulators or babies in arms. The numbers were strikingly
small. Motoring through Bonn one Sunday afternoon in 1919 when the
family life of the town had turned out into the streets and gardens, I
counted six babies in all. The explanation is simple. Statistics show
that there has been a rise in the death rate of German children between
two and six of over 49 per cent. during the years 1913-1917. Among
school children from six to fifteen the death rate rose 55 per cent. in
1918 as compared with 1913. As for the older children, their apparent
uniformity of age is largely due to arrested development. Many of them
are much older than they seem. Of course there is no general rule.
Some children look astonishingly well and plump if others are thin and
pasty-faced.
Coming home one evening along the banks of the river, we passed two
typical working-class families, each supplied with a perambulator. One
held the fattest and rosiest baby imaginable. I admired Heinrich, and
was told he was nine months old--born at the time of the Armistice.
Whatever the prenatal conditions of the mother, the baby had not
suffered. But the other child--a little girl of eighteen months--its
memory haunts me still. A tiny shrivelled face looked up at me under
the bravery of a blue-and-white bonnet; tragic haunting eyes set in an
emaciated body. My mind harked back, as I looked, to the devastated
areas and to the cruel sufferings and losses of France. But here, on
the frail body of this unhappy German child, war had set its seal as
unmistakably as among the crater holes and shattered buildings of the
line. Conqueror and conquered we looked at each other, till I the
conqueror could look no more. Do any robust spirits still survive, I
wonder, who take the view that an occasional war is a good thing--that
it freshens every one up and makes for briskness and efficiency? Is it
possible, after all we have endured and are still enduring, that large
numbers of people in a mood of helpless fatalism are already talking
about “the next war”; while many of them are actively encouraging
policies and popular sentiments, the logical outcome of which is a
future conflict even more ghastly than the last one?
Meanwhile, the martyred child life of Europe cries to heaven against
this theory. The sufferings of the Central Empires in this respect have
been heaviest. “Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin.” Germany, in pulling
down the pillars of Europe, has involved all this for her own people.
But why, one asks, should the heaviest toll be paid by those who have
least measure of responsibility? Why should the Junkers and horrid
old gentlemen covered with decorations, who made the war, be living
comfortably on their estates while the children of the working-classes
have perished? It is the natural instinct of every decent person to
shield a child from suffering, and as I watch the boys and girls
playing on the banks of the Rhine, the whole question of the war
takes on an aspect from which every vestige of glamour and chivalry
and romance has vanished. These merry children at their games: it is
on them that the hand of Britain’s sea-power, however unwittingly,
has rested in its heaviest form. The British people would repudiate
with anger any idea of making war on children. But war has a horrible
vitality of its own and goes its own way, moulding men more than it is
moulded by them. These things follow inexorably from the very character
of modern warfare, which is no more a struggle between armies, but
between nations. Noncombatants have ceased to exist, and those who make
wars must reckon on babies as cannon fodder.
So long as there are wars, the weapon of the blockade is inevitable.
We were fighting for our lives and had no choice but to use it. The
German submarine campaign was directed to the starvation of England,
and bitterly though they complain of our blockade, their own minds
were set on identical ends so far as we were concerned. But blockade
means infant mortality on an appalling scale, and if statesmen and
militarists are indifferent to such things, it is to be hoped the
democracies of the world will view matters differently. So far as
Germany is concerned it is through her children she is hit.
The Occupied Areas have suffered the least of any in Germany. Yet even
in this relatively favoured land the state of affairs is bad enough.
In Bonn, for some reason, things seem to have been worse than in
Cologne. I shall never forget the feeling of utter helplessness with
which I saw a group of rickety-looking Bonn children staring hungrily
into the windows of a chocolate shop. We took them in and gave them
sweets; there were no cakes or buns to be had, and bread is rationed.
Poor children, they gathered round us in a state of frantic excitement
when we produced slabs of chocolate. The fatuity of our own action was
miserably apparent. For these children were only typical of hundreds
of thousands of cases all over Europe, and even so their circumstances
were far better than what obtains in many other countries. Children,
of course, cannot grow up and be healthy without milk, and milk is
unobtainable in the towns. The municipality doles out a limited supply
to invalids, nursing mothers, and babies, but children above a certain
age never see fresh milk, and tinned milk is too expensive a luxury
to figure in the daily dietary of the working-classes. Most German
children have nothing but “ersatz” coffee to drink in its unqualified
nastiness. The distribution of food on fair lines has proved a great
failure in Germany, and the prolonged malnourishment of the children is
likely to have consequences of the gravest character.
A shattered house, a ruined village tell their own very obvious tale.
Physical deterioration is a subtle thing far less easy to recognize or
to estimate. It is only little by little that one realises the state of
affairs produced by the blockade and the degree to which the morale of
the whole nation has been undermined by starvation. It is true that the
Germans cling desperately to what sorry comfort they can derive from
the theory that their armies in the field were never defeated--that
they were brought down at the last by hunger. They still assure you
their armies were magnificent--never were there such soldiers. But
towards the end rations failed, and morale broke through stories of
starvation at home. “We had not plenty of bully beef like you,” said
a German soldier to us; “you did not get letters saying your wife and
children had nothing to eat. We could have gone on fighting if we
had had food.” He spoke with that curious lack of resentment which is
a constant puzzle among these people. Consistent and growing hunger
spread over a term of years is not a pleasant experience. Germany,
unlike France, has been spared the horrors of the invader on her soil.
But no mistake could be greater than to imagine that the war she
provoked has proved a frolic for her, while all the rest of the world
suffered.
A Report by Professor Starling and two British colleagues, on “Food and
Agricultural Conditions in Germany,” gives the results of an official
inquiry made by the British Government as to food and health questions
in the spring of 1919. The Report shows an increased number of deaths
among the civilian population, from 1915 to 1918, of more than
three-quarters of a million persons as compared with normal pre-war
estimates. In plain language, three-quarters of a million people have
died from starvation or the consequences of underfeeding. In the last
year of the war the civilian death rate was up 37 per cent. The infant
and child mortality figures quoted above are taken from this Report.
To the number of deaths must be added the very much larger proportion
of children and adults who survive with constitutions permanently
impaired. Discoursing learnedly of the number of calories required
to keep a normal man in normal health, Professor Starling shows that
the Germans were living on just half the necessary amount. There were
great inequalities between town and country, owing to the reluctance of
the country districts to surrender the food they produced. The urban
populations, of course, suffered most.
The three British investigators give a sorry account of the children
they examined in the schools, hospitals, public kitchens. Some
people may say that the fewer German babies in the world the better.
I feel certain, however, that no theoretical holder of that view
would act upon it when brought face to face with some of these
hollow-eyed children you see in the streets. Professor Starling and
his colleagues visited Berlin and Upper Silesia, as well as the
Occupied Territories. Everywhere they found the same condition of
mental and moral prostration, of apathy, and lowered vitality. Disease
has flourished, of course, in the wake of starvation. The statistics
of consumption show an alarming increase in the percentage of people
attacked. Enfeebled bodies, young and old, cannot resist the inroads
of infectious complaints. Matters grow steadily worse as the eastern
frontiers are approached. Beyond, in Poland and Russia, a state of
affairs exists about which most people, happily for themselves, have
not sufficient imagination to form a clear picture.
German conditions have not sunk to levels of misery so profound as
those which exist elsewhere, but they are bad enough to afford a useful
standard as to the situation in Austria, Russia, and other countries.
That luxury and great extravagance exist side by side with dire want
and starvation is a feature of the fatal coil which is throttling
the economic life of Europe. Thoughtless travellers are often misled
by a superficial appearance of prosperity in the main streets of big
towns. Newspaper correspondents seek from time to time to decry the
existing misery by giving accounts of the gay life in some cities and
the excellent food obtainable at a price in large restaurants. The
fact that food of such a kind can be had does not prove the unreality
of starvation. All that it proves is a complete breakdown in rationing,
and failures in distribution operating most unfairly in favour of the
rich. The good dinner paid for at a fancy price is only a link in the
chain. At the other end are families whose destitution is the greater
because the inefficiency of control has made the serving of such a
dinner possible.
When the history of the war comes to be written, the question of food
production and distribution in Germany will prove a suggestive no less
than a tragic page. The German machine, admirable for carrying out a
carefully devised military policy, was useless for meeting unforeseen
contingencies which call for public spirit rather than for regulation.
The failure to grapple with the food question was complete. German
officialism seems to have collapsed helplessly before the problem
of distribution and rationing. Though fresh milk is unobtainable
in Cologne to-day--except the special supplies rationed by the
municipality--it can be had in the country ten miles out. Considerable
efforts were made during the war to provide a limited amount of milk
for children and nursing mothers. But with better distribution the
supplies available might have gone much further. The Government of a
country cannot have it both ways, as the Prussian autocrats found to
their cost. It cannot at one and the same time exact and obtain docile
obedience to a machine and simultaneously develop that free spirit of
public co-operation which was the salvation of England during the war.
In our own country public opinion rose to the occasion with a will. All
classes worked together to make rationing a success, and the brilliant
improvisations of the Ministry of Food carried the nation over a
crisis of unparalleled magnitude in a manner highly creditable to every
one concerned.
Let us admit at once that our food problem did not approach that of the
Germans in difficulty. For one thing, the problem of distribution was
largely solved for us by the fact that we relied mainly on imported
supplies on which the Food authorities could lay their hands at the
ports. In Germany, on the contrary, 85 per cent. of the food was
produced within her own borders. Self-producers firmly determined
to be self-consumers are not easy to deal with. Then again, though
there was shortage and inconvenience, we were never really hungry.
Greedy and selfish people exist among all classes and nations, and
we had our share of both. But making the largest allowance for the
greater difficulties of the Germans, the moral is, I think, striking
as regards the spirit which a free people can show in a time of stress
as against the dragooned temper of a military nation. Military rules
could not deal with the food question. In a matter which necessarily
was independent of sabre-rattling, no pressure of an independent public
opinion seems to have filled the gap.
The struggle between town and country to get possession of the food
supplies was severe. Every German is full of complaints about the
selfishness of the country people. Not only did they keep enough
food for themselves--which, after all, was natural--but they lived
in plenty while the towns starved. It may be said broadly that there
was no hunger or any particular suffering among the people on the
land. Among the industrial classes, estimated at from twenty-eight to
thirty millions of the population, the suffering on the other hand
was severe. But even to this rule there were many exceptions. Wealth,
always a weapon of dominant value, is of supreme importance when hunger
is abroad, and this weapon was used mercilessly by the prosperous
classes. The working-classes who were earning large wages were in many
cases able to pay for additional food; the people who bit the dust were
primarily the minor professional and official classes.
Among the words added to the German vocabulary by the war is that of
Schleichhandel--illicit trading. Schleichhandel permeated the whole
national life. The Schleichhändlers--the little brothers of the
Schiebers or profiteers--were rampant. The Schiebers and other wealthy
families had Schleichhändlers in their pay whose business it was to
find them food. From highest to lowest the same spirit obtained. All
accounts agree as to the extraordinarily demoralising consequences of
illicit trading on the morale of the race. Professor Starling states
that, had the existing food supplies been distributed on a fair and
equitable basis, there would have been enough to go round, and the
effects of the blockade might to a large extent have been countered.
If the attempt was made, it failed lamentably. The terrible winter
of 1916-1917, known as the “swede winter”--owing to the failure of
potatoes--will never be forgotten by the present generation of Germans.
Matters have improved somewhat during the year 1919-1920. But the
prices of food and necessaries of life are still so high that, despite
the considerable rise in wages, many working-people cannot afford to
pay for adequate nourishment. The present food shortage is still great
and, owing to the absence of feeding stuffs and manures, stock and
land have both deteriorated. Supplies remain, therefore, at a level
far below that of pre-war production, a circumstance aggravated by the
world shortage and the financial chaos of the country.
Three special consequences have resulted from this state of affairs.
There has been, in the first place, an extraordinary embitterment
of feeling between town and country; the urban classes bear the
agriculturists a deep grudge for the part they played in the war and
the prosperity they acquired by exploiting their neighbours.
Secondly, there has been a great intensification of class hatred as
between rich and poor. The ordinary German artisan or shopkeeper speaks
with intense bitterness of the upper classes. They were selfish, they
were hard, they were greedy, they did nothing for the poor, they lived
in comfort while others starved. The well-to-do classes apparently
were shameless at grabbing at all they could get. The average German
does not believe any rich person could or would act otherwise. Talking
to Germans about our respective war shortages, I have mentioned more
than once that I had various friends in England who, having farms and
producing food, kept their own households on the rationed allowance
and sent the rest to market. The look of absolute incredulity on their
faces made me realise they thought I was pitching a fine but wholly
preposterous tale to the credit of my own country. It was obvious
they did not believe a word I said. The behaviour of the German upper
classes in this time of testing has had, and is likely to have, very
considerable reactions on the political situation. That the Junkers
and militarists have brought this particular form of discredit on
themselves is all to the good. It will tell heavily against such
doubtful chances as exist of their achieving even a measure of
political rehabilitation.
An English person brought in contact with these melancholy facts can
only reflect with legitimate pride on the different spirit shown in
our own country. No aristocracy in Europe has come through the war
with credit so high as that of the British upper classes. From the
throne downwards, men and women alike, they pulled their weight in the
boat as good citizens, bore their full share of death and suffering,
and contributed an adequate quota to the united effort of the nation.
I have found no evidence in Germany of that mutual goodwill between
classes which was a hopeful and encouraging feature in our own land.
German life in this, as in many other respects, has to be reconstituted
from the foundations upwards.
The third outstanding social reaction of the war is the degree to which
ordinary standards of honesty and fair dealing have broken down between
man and man. The food shortage, and the cheating to which it led,
appears to have entered largely into the matter. Thoughtful Germans
deplore the moral debacle which has overtaken the country. Profiteering
has been quite shameless. The “Schiebers” have exploited a disastrous
economic situation, and many large fortunes were made during the war.
The strange paradox of extremes of wealth and poverty goes on side by
side. Even the official classes have shown themselves on occasions as
selfish as the landowners and the profiteers, and no less unscrupulous
in exploiting the advantages of their position. So late as August
1920 ugly charges were brought by the Socialists against the Mayor of
Cologne and other City Fathers with reference to the milk and butter
supply of the town. The facts which came to light proved that there
had been, at the very lowest, culpable slackness in administration
and gross favouritism in the distribution of available supplies. City
councillors had milk while sick children had none. The anger created by
these revelations is easily understood.
While corruption permeates the upper and middle levels, robbery and
crime are widespread among the working-classes. Thieving has become
a normal quantity in daily life; crimes of all kinds are common.
Official figures were published in Cologne during July 1920, showing
the large increase in criminality throughout the district as compared
with the previous year. Serious crimes had increased by 45 per cent.,
housebreaking 44 per cent., robberies in shops, warehouses, etc., 95
per cent., minor robberies 85 per cent. Every man’s hand is against
his neighbour; suspicion and fear poison the whole spirit of communal
life. Hunger, and the general sense of demoralisation born of defeat
and downfall, are responsible in the main for the increase in petty
thefts. Railway wagons and warehouses containing food are robbed
systematically. War is not a good school for enforcing the catechismal
injunction about keeping your hands from picking and stealing. An
invading army takes what it wants where it can find it, and the habit
once acquired is not easily lost.
Every class of society in Germany to-day feels that, bad as things
are, much worse probably has yet to come. A sentiment akin to despair
is widespread. The business community, confronted with an economic
situation quite hopeless in its outlook, give way in many cases to
helpless fatalism about the future. Restraints are thrown off, and
despair expresses itself frequently in wild extravagance. With the
sword of an indefinite indemnity hanging over them, wealthy Germans
feel that a spell of riotous living in which their capital disappears
is preferable to handing over the latter to their enemies. The
working-people, confronted not only with food shortage, but with the
abnormal cost of clothing and other necessaries, grow more and more
restless. All this is a dangerous temper, not only hostile to economic
and social recovery, but a premium on revolution. If Allied policy
is directed to creating this temper, then it must be congratulated
on a success not always conspicuous as regards its efforts in other
fields. The policy pursued, however, has its dangers. A hungry country,
balancing the possible advantages of revolution, can pay no indemnity
nor make reparation for damage done. One or two axioms in this matter
are self-evident. If Germany is to pay her indemnity, she must work;
she cannot work unless food and raw materials are forthcoming in
adequate quantities; with her finances in ruins she cannot begin to
reorganise them unless told what definite charges she has to meet;
if she is to carry out her obligations, she must have a stable
government which commands confidence at home and is treated with some
consideration abroad. It is quite easy to pursue a policy which will
make the fulfilment of all or any of these conditions impossible.
But how far a deepening of the present confusion will serve the ends
of the Allies, let alone promote the cause of peace, is a mark of
interrogation hung in menacing fashion to-day over the welter of
Europe.