But when the German soldier boy took this token out of his pocket,
and looked at his license to crime, what effect did it have upon him?
Here is the diary of Eitel Anders. It is believed that he belonged to
the 14th Bavarian regiment. The diary was taken from his body upon the
battle-field, and is similar to hundreds of others. "We crossed the
bridge over the Maas at 11:50 in the morning. We then arrived at the
town of Waendre. When we went out of the town, everything was in ruins.
In one house a whole collection of weapons was found [the Mayor had
ordered the women to bring to his house every weapon that they could
find, that the Germans might have no excuse for saying that any one had
struck their soldiers or fired a gun]. All the inhabitants, without
exception, were brought out and shot. This shooting was heart-breaking,
as they all knelt down and prayed, but praying is no ground for mercy.
A few shots rang out, and they fell back into the green grass and
slept forever. It is real sport." But how did Eitel Anders sleep that
night? We know that Macbeth did not sleep after he murdered Duncan
and Banquo. Did the Kaiser succeed in stultifying conscience in Eitel
Anders? The next day the soldier made another entry;--mark the opening
words: "This morning, in happy mood and high spirits, we passed through
Taturages. But before this we cleaned up the suburb of Mons, and burned
the houses. The inhabitants came out of the houses into the open plain.
Here many heart-breaking scenes occurred. It was really terrible to
watch."
Plainly the soldier's token and the Kaiser's scheme succeeded. Having
stated that he had murdered men, young Eitel Anders sleeps well at
night, and the "next morning in happy mood and high spirits" wakened
to plan fresh crimes. Macbeth had no German soldier's token to help
him sleep at night. Conscience became the whisper of God in his soul.
Sleep forsook his eyes, and slumber his eyelids. Shakespeare's murderer
did not dare trust himself out under the stars that blazed with anger,
but Eitel Anders' sleep was not disturbed by the blood upon his hands,
because he really believed the Kaiser would be able to stand between
him and the Great Day of Judgment.
After General Clauss shot fifteen aged men in the streets of
Gerbéviller, too, that officer rode away with a light heart, quite
free from the remorse that unseated the reason of Macbeth. Plainly
the Kaiser's scheme succeeded. It destroyed conscience in many German
officers and soldiers alike. To-day, the men of Germany without moral
sense or any remorse following their crimes are like a sky that holds
an empty socket where once the summer-making sun had shined. They are
like human bodies out of which the intellect has passed, leaving only
gibbering idiots. The German "Laws of War on Land," their Handbook of
Military Tactics, has organized crime into a science, and killed in men
the spiritual optic nerve. Germany to-day is an intellectual machine,
and her officers and her soldiers at last can commit crimes without
remorse, which proves that they are becoming moral idiots.