TEUTON POLITICS
It is this Teutonic power of looking far ahead, this profundity of
vision, this mingled comprehensiveness and concentration, and the
marked success with which these qualities have hitherto been exercised
to the lasting detriment of the Entente nations which looked on and
naively applauded, that fill the thoughtful student with misgivings
about the future. True, it may not be too late for effective counter
measures. But two conditions are manifestly essential to the
successful application of any remedy: first, that its necessity should
be felt and realized; and, second, that the scrupulosity which at
present hesitates to apply drastic measures should yield to higher
considerations than those of individual delicacy of sentiment and
over-refined humanitarianism. When an individual abuses laws and
restraints which bind his fellow-men, in order to inflict a deadly
injury on them, it is meet that they should free themselves from those
checks in their dealings with him. For example, it may be
theoretically wrong, after the conclusion of the present struggle, for
our people to bear such a grudge against the individual German as
would exclude him from communion and intercourse with the nations of
the Entente. And this principle would seem to apply with greater force
to those Germans who might be willing to abandon their nationality
and identify their aims, interests and strivings with those of the
nation in which they would fain become incorporated. But when we
reflect that almost every German, whatever his calling, how profound
soever his debt of gratitude to a foreign people, considers himself
first and always a member of his own country, works for its interests
to the detriment of all others, and does not scruple to violate moral
laws and social traditions in order to betray his new friends, we may
well ask in virtue of what precept we should abstain from ostracizing
him from the British Empire. His second nationality is so often a mere
mask to enable him to perpetrate black treason, and it is so openly
thus regarded by his own Government, which upholds and solemnly
sanctions the principle, that it would be inexplicable folly on the
part of the British nation to aid and abet its enemies by admitting
them to the freedom of the community without taking effective
precautions against treason.
And yet there is a large body of men in this country, as in France and
Italy, who condemn the demand for these precautions as un-Christian
and impolitic. Such laxness is the soil in which thrives the upas tree
whose shade has so long darkened the organs of our empire and now
threatens to blight the whole organism.
An all-important feature in the controversy which has arisen over the
naturalization of German subjects is the utterly amoral view of it
which underlies the attitude of the Kaiser's Government. According to
these authorities, whose utterances and acts are decisive and final, a
German, unlike every other subject, may swear allegiance to two
states, of which one is his Fatherland, without being bound by his
oath to the other. Various reasons, including material interests, may,
it is argued, make it desirable that he should acquire citizenship in
a foreign land; and the Kaiser's Government, for the good of the
empire, recognizes this necessity and facilitates the process by a
law. This law, which was enacted in July 1913, authorizes the born
German subject, having first made known his intention and motive, to
swear allegiance to a foreign state without forfeiting, or intending
to forfeit, the rights or escaping from the duties which flow from his
German citizenship. Now this is a privilege which not even the Pope
has ever claimed the faculty of according.
From the point of view of international law this double naturalization
is inadmissible. Every individual in the community of nations is the
subject of a certain state, and only of one, and whenever the
interests of that state run counter to those of any other, he is bound
legally as well as morally to promote the former to the best of his
ability and means. The Teuton doctrine and practice are that Germans
may insinuate themselves into a country, and in the guise of loyal
citizens become conversant with its secrets, and then use them to its
hurt. In the light of this law, which was a custom long before it
became a statute, the number of Germans naturalized in various
countries grew amazingly during the past fifteen years. In France, for
example, where there were only 38,000 foreigners naturalized in the
year 1896 and 65,000 in 1901, the figure reached 90,000 in 1906 and
120,000 five years later. And of these, four-fifths were Germans and
Austrians. Many Germans first became Swiss or British subjects in
order the more easily to acquire the rights of Frenchmen. One in
particular, named Wilhelm Hellpern, first became a Belgian, then as
Willy Hellpern a British subject, and finally, with a view to
obtaining a place on the Board of the Societe Francaise de l'Industrie
Chimique, applied for and received naturalization in France. This
"Willy" Hellpern was a representative of the Central Gesellschaft fuer
chemische Industrie.[46]
[46] Cf. _Hors du Joug allemand_, par Leon Daudet.
When war was declared in 1914 hundreds of Germans applied for papers
of naturalization in Switzerland, and obtained them from various
little Swiss communes which were in sore want of funds. Spies eager to
place their machinations under the protection of Swiss citizenship
found smooth ways to the desired goal. In the single canton of Zurich
demands for naturalization rose from 260 during the nine months ending
in October 1913,[47] to 732 in the corresponding nine months of 1915.
Several cases of fraud were discovered during this rapid process of
transforming foreign into Swiss citizens: one of the most salient
being that of Friedrich Wilhelm Frank, a German who had taken out his
naturalization papers in England and then decided to shake off his
acquired British citizenship for that of the Helvetian Republic. As
Frank had not been resident in Switzerland during the two years
required by the law of that country he applied and paid for a false
certificate of residence, and in this way achieved his object. But the
trick was finally discovered and the naturalization cancelled.
[47] The number for the entire year was 350.
We may protest as vigorously as we will against this infamous
troth-mongering which is destructive of international relations, and
indirectly of social intercourse, but no responsible government can
afford to ignore the necessity of guarding against its consequences.
For it is no ephemeral manifestation of temperament, nor the passing
whim of a political party or a class. The law of double citizenship,
coupled with a plenary indulgence for treason and perjury in the cause
of the Fatherland, is but the solemn consecration of a principle which
was long practised and is warmly approved by the entire German people.
The Berlin Government publicly invoked it during the latter half of
the year 1915, under circumstances which remove doubts on this score.
On one and the same day in August that year all German official and
non-official journals published a notice, which ran as follows: "It is
alleged that in neutral countries, and particularly in the United
States of America, men of German _extraction_" (the word _citizenship_
is not used, but _extraction_), "are employed as workmen, engineers or
in other capacities in the production of war munitions for our
enemies. All those who thus reinforce the military strength of our
foes, thereby make the prosecution of the war more difficult for
Germany, and not only burden themselves with a heavy load of moral
turpitude, but also expose themselves--and many of them are seemingly
unaware of this--to the operation of the German laws which punish high
treason."
In other words, subjects of, say the American Republic, who were born
there of German parents or grandparents and never acknowledged any
other government nor possessed the citizenship of any other country,
become guilty of high treason if they dare to avail themselves of the
plenitude of the rights which that citizenship confers. They may not
work for firms which supply the Allies because their fathers, or it
may be only their grandfathers, happened to be Germans. The moral
duties of German subjects still lie heavy on them, and they must
execute the Kaiser's will to-day on pain of being dealt with as
traitors to the Fatherland.
Monstrous principles and revolting procedure of this kind are
calculated to kindle a blaze of indignation in people who realize
their effects and set value on the boons of civilization or
Christianity. They are among the many new ideas which Kultur has
contributed to the stock of weapons destructive of modern society. One
might term them the asphyxiating gases of German international
politics. In keeping with these teachings and practices were the theft
of foreign passports by the German Government which handed them over
to spies, as in the case of Lody, who was executed in London in the
early part of the war. Thus the binding force of moral and of human
law is dissolved whenever it clashes with German national, military,
or commercial interests. This dogma lies at the roots of Kultur.
By the time war was declared, Germany had stretched forth her
tentacles into various lands and was draining the life-juices of many
peoples. Her footing in Italy, Russia, Belgium and France was firm.
Observant students of international politics fancied they could
determine the approximate date when, if the then rate of progress were
maintained, Germany's overlordship over Europe would be definitely
established and all armed conflicts on the Continent become
thenceforth meaningless. They were all the more puzzled at what they
set down as the egregious folly of jeopardizing the precious fruits of
forty years' well-sustained labours by precipitating a tremendous
conflict of doubtful issue. But besides the sudden temptation to
utilize a conjuncture of exceptionally favourable promise, the leaders
of the Teutonic nations felt moved to appeal to arms by certain slow,
but steady, currents which threatened to change the situation to
Germany's detriment in the space of another few years.
With the remoter causes of the Kaiser's fatal resolve, we are not now
concerned. It may suffice to know that they were numerous and that the
trend of their operation had been for a few months unmistakable. Time,
which was working wonders for the Teuton in one direction, was raising
up redoubtable enemies against him in another. For one thing Russia
was becoming transfigured. The dry bones of the nation which the
Germans often declared was good only as ethnic manure had had life and
a soul breathed into them by the great agrarian reform of which the
credit belongs to Witte and Stolypin. The latter statesman in a series
of conversations had in 1906 opened his mind to me on the subject, and
frankly avowed that the Government, having gone astray in its estimate
of the Russian peasants who turned out to be revolutionary and
anarchistic, was resolved to render them conservative by giving them
land and an interest in the maintenance of law and order. That, he
informed me, was the aim and origin of the agrarian law, and I
expounded the theory, its working and its anticipated consequences,
in a series of articles published at the time.[48]
[48] In the _Daily Telegraph_.
Down to the year 1861 the Russian serfs had been mostly bound to the
soil. They were emancipated by Alexander II., who ordered each
landowner to make over to the serfs as much of his landed property as
was being actually cultivated by these. Wherever this amount seemed
too extensive for the support of a family it was whittled down and the
residue left with the landlord. Each of the various lots thus
expropriated was given not to an individual, nor to a family, but to
the village community. Each field was cut into as many strips as there
were farms, and each farm had the use of one. Every year the peasants
had to pay a certain sum to the landlord until the land was wholly
redeemed, and liability for these payments, like the possession of the
land, was common. Hence the drunkards and the lazy paid little or
nothing. It was the community which decided when the sowing and when
the reaping should take place. The results of this system were
baneful. And little by little the more enterprising peasants who had
no motive to improve the value of the land which they were allowed for
a time to cultivate, migrated to the towns and joined the growing army
of working men.
How long this state of things would have continued, if these immediate
consequences had formed the only objection to it, is uncertain. But
the Revolution of 1905-6 rendered it wholly untenable. The peasantry,
on whom the Tsar and the Government counted for support, readily
followed the lead of every anarchist and revolutionary who dangled the
promise of free land before their eyes, and gutted or burned the
manors of the landlords. With no conception of the sacredness, nor,
indeed, of the nature of property, they seized what they could by
force, and were gravely disappointed when it was re-taken from them by
law. Stolypin's scheme, as he himself propounded it to me, was to
enable the peasant to acquire the land he tilled, and not merely the
scattered strips, but a compact farm capable of supporting himself and
his family. And the system of collective liability for payments to the
State was abolished, together with that of collective land-ownership.
This was in truth a genial reform, and the business-like way in which
it was carried out did credit to the late Minister and the people.
Even now it is far from completed, but already there are about six
million peasant farms cut out and allotted. In European Russia
approximately as many more remain to be apportioned. The effects of
this innovation were rapid and encouraging. The value of the land rose
enormously in consequence of the intenser culture and the increased
yield. Under the old arrangement Russia's harvest of cereals was
barely enough to feed the population inadequately, to supply seed and
to enable a limited amount of produce to be exported. And as this
limited amount was in practice often exceeded, the food supply of the
peasantry was cut down in proportion. At present all this has changed
for the better and changed to a greater extent than the outside world
realizes. One of the consequences of this betterment, coupled with the
decrease of drunkenness, is the greater purchasing power of the
peasant and the growth of his requirements. So beneficial and evident
were the effects of this reform, that some patriotic Russians gladly
saw their Government go to the very extreme of pliancy towards Germany
rather than run the risk of a war and the danger of a break in this
remarkable career of national regeneration. The process was noted and
gauged by the Germans, who awakened to the fact that, in a few years
more, the legend of Ilya Murometz would be exemplified in latter-day
Russia, and a Colossus arise among the nations, which would hinder the
tide of Teutondom from inundating Europe for all time.
Other considerations of a more pressing character weighed with the
statesmen of the Wilhelmstrasse, whose survey of the international
situation was, at any rate, comprehensive. Renascent Russia, for
example, was, as we saw, resolved to withdraw from the German Empire
the one-sided advantages accorded by the Commercial Treaty. And as
this question would in any case become acute within two years, that
date was one of the time-limits of the European war, and I ventured to
designate it as such to two of the most prominent statesmen of the
Entente in the month of March 1914. They both went so far as to say
that my anticipation was extremely probable.[49]
[49] Count Witte went farther and fixed the end of 1915 as
the date.
However this may be, Germany, who works out her destinies by
preventive wars, and therefore never leaves the initiative to her
enemies or rivals, precipitated a conflict which would, she believed,
break out in any case within a couple of years, and for which no more
auspicious moment could be chosen than the end of July 1914, after the
Kiel Canal had been made navigable for her largest battleships and
the harvest ingathered.
The year and month of the historic event had been fixed by her leaders
a considerable time in advance, as we now know from incontrovertible
evidence. So, too, had the choice of method, which was in harmony with
the usual formula, that Germany is never the apparent aggressor, and
that it is her enemies who must be made to appear the partisans of
preventive war.
The principle was thus laid down by Bismarck when he altered King
Wilhelm's historic telegram from Ems: "Success essentially depends
upon the impression which the genesis of the war makes on ourselves
and others. It is important that we should be the party attacked."[50]
[50] _Bismarck: His Reflections and Reminiscences._
Finally, the very day was determined--and almost on the very eve it
was changed to the following day.
In connection with the date and the method I have a curious tale to
unfold which has never yet been recounted in western Europe. The
incident in some respects bears an unmistakable resemblance to the
story of Bismarck's forgery of the Ems telegram and is well worth
relating[51] and remembering. The main features are as follows.
[51] My authority for the story is the principal observer,
who was also an actor in a part of this subsidiary little
drama: A. I. Markoff, who at that time represented the
semi-official Russian Telegraph Agency, as its head
correspondent in Berlin. He himself told me the story in
Stockholm and authorized me to make it known.