English, and German, we are all brothers and do not hate one another.
The war-preaching press is envenomed by a minority, a minority vitally
interested in maintaining these hatreds; but our peoples, I know, ask
for peace and liberty and that alone. The real tragedy, to one situated
in the midst of the conflict and able to look down from the high
plateaus of Switzerland into all the hostile camps, is the patent fact
that actually each of the nations is being menaced in its dearest
possessions--in its honor, its independence, its life. Who has brought
these plagues upon them? Brought them to the desperate alternative of
overwhelming their adversary or dying? None other than their
governments, and above all, in my opinion, the three great culprits, the
three rapacious eagles, the three empires, the tortuous policy of the
house of Austria, the ravenous greed of Czarism, the brutality of
Prussia. The worst enemy of each nation is not without, but within its
frontiers, and none has the courage to fight against it. It is the
monster of a hundred heads, the monster named Imperialism, the will to
pride and domination, which seeks to absorb all, or subdue all, or break
all, and will suffer no greatness except itself. For the Western nations
Prussian imperialism is the most dangerous. Its hand uplifted in menace
against Europe has forced us to join in arms against this outcome of a
military and feudal caste, which is the curse not only of the rest of
the world but also of Germany itself, whose thought it has subtly
poisoned. We must destroy this first: but not this alone; the Russian
autocracy too will have its turn. Every nation to a greater or less
extent has an imperialism of its own, and whether it be military,
financial, feudal, republican, social, or intellectual, it is always the
octopus sucking the best blood of Europe. Let the free men of all the
countries of Europe when this war is over take up again the motto of
Voltaire: "_Ecrasons l'infâme!_"
When the war is over! The evil is done now, the torrent let loose and we
cannot force it back into its channel unaided. Moreover crimes have been
committed against right, attacks on the liberties of peoples and on the
sacred treasuries of thought, which must and will be expiated. Europe
cannot pass over unheeded the violence done to the noble Belgian people,
the devastation of Malines and Louvain, sacked by modern Tillys.... But
in the name of heaven let not these crimes be expiated by similar
crimes! Let not the hideous words "vengeance" and "retaliation" be
heard; for a great nation does not revenge itself, it re-establishes
justice. But let those in whose hands lies the execution of justice show
themselves worthy of her to the end.
It is our duty to keep this before them; nor will we be passive and wait
for the fury of this conflict to spend itself. Such conduct would be
unworthy of us who have such a task before us.
Our first duty, then, all over the world, is to insist on the formation
of a moral High Court, a tribunal of consciences, to watch and pass
impartial judgment on any violations of the laws of nations. And since
committees of inquiry formed by belligerents themselves would be always
suspect, the neutral countries of the old and new world must take the
initiative, and form a tribunal such as was suggested by Mr.
Prenant,[14] professor of medicine at Paris, and taken up
enthusiastically by M. Paul Seippel in the _Journal de Genève_.[15]
"They should produce men of some worldly authority, and of proved civic
morality to act as a commission of inquiry, and to follow the armies at
a little distance. Such an organization would complete and solidify the
Hague Court, and prepare indisputable documents for the necessary work
of justice...."
The neutral countries are too much effaced. Confronted by unbridled
force they are inclined to believe that opinion is defeated in advance,
and the majority of thinkers in all countries share their pessimism.
There is a lack of courage here as well as of clear thinking. For just
at this time the power of opinion is immense. The most despotic of
governments, even though marching to victory, trembles before public
opinion and seeks to court it. Nothing shows this more clearly than the
efforts of both parties engaged in war, of their ministers, chancellors,
sovereigns, of the Kaiser himself turned journalist, to justify their
own crimes, and denounce the crimes of their adversary at the invisible
tribunal of humanity. Let this invisible tribunal be seen at last, let
us venture to constitute it. Ye know not your moral power, O ye of
little faith! If there be a risk, will you not take it for the honor of
humanity? What is the value of life when you have saved it at the price
of all that is worth living for?...
_Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas_....
But for us, the artists and poets, priests and thinkers of all
countries, remains another task. Even in time of war it remains a crime
for finer spirits to compromise the integrity of their thought; it is
shameful to see it serving the passion of a puerile, monstrous policy of
race, a policy scientifically absurd--since no country possesses a race
wholly pure. Such a policy, as Renan points out in his beautiful letter
to Strauss,[16] "_can only lead to zoological wars, wars of
extermination, similar to those in which various species of rodents and
carnivorous beasts fight for their existence. This would be the end of
that fertile admixture called humanity, composed as it is of such
various necessary elements._" Humanity is a symphony of great collective
souls; and he who understands and loves it only by destroying a part of
those elements, proves himself a barbarian and shows his idea of harmony
to be no better than the idea of order another held in Warsaw.
For the finer spirits of Europe there are two dwelling-places: our
earthly fatherland, and that other City of God. Of the one we are the
guests, of the other the builders. To the one let us give our lives and
our faithful hearts; but neither family, friend, nor fatherland, nor
aught that we love has power over the spirit. The spirit is the light.
It is our duty to lift it above tempests, and thrust aside the clouds
which threaten to obscure it; to build higher and stronger, dominating
the injustice and hatred of nations, the walls of that city wherein the
souls of the whole world may assemble.
I feel here how the generous heart of Switzerland is thrilled, divided
between sympathies for the various nations, and lamenting that it cannot
choose freely between them, nor even express them. I understand its
torment; but I know that this is salutary. I hope it will rise thence to
that superior joy of a harmony of races, which may be a noble example
for the rest of Europe. It is the duty of Switzerland now to stand in
the midst of the tempest, like an island of justice and of peace, where,
as in the great monasteries of the early Middle Ages, the spirit may
find a refuge from unbridled force; where the fainting swimmers of all
nations, those who are weary of hatred, may persist, in spite of all the
wrongs they have seen and suffered, in loving all men as their brothers.
I know that such thoughts have little chance of being heard today. Young
Europe, burning with the fever of battle, will smile with disdain and
show its fangs like a young wolf. But when the access of fever has spent
itself, wounded and less proud of its voracious heroism, it will come to
itself again.
Moreover I do not speak to convince it. I speak but to solace my
conscience ... and I know that at the same time I shall solace the
hearts of thousands of others who, in all countries, cannot or dare not
speak themselves.
_Journal de Genève_, September 15, 1914.
IV. THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS: PANGERMANISM, PANSLAVISM
I do not hold the doctrine expounded by a certain saintly king, that it
is useless to enter into discussion with heretics--and we regard all
those who do not agree with our opinions as heretics nowadays--but that
it is sufficient to brain them. I feel the need of understanding my
enemy's reasons. I am unwilling to believe in unfairness. Doubtless my
enemy is as passionately sincere as I am. Why, then, should we not
attempt to understand each other? For such an understanding, though it
will not suppress the conflict, may perhaps suppress our hatred; and it
is hatred more than anything else that I regard as my enemy.
However much I may feel that the motives actuating the various
combatants are not equally worthy, I have yet come to the conviction,
after reading the papers and letters which, during the last two months,
have arrived in Geneva from every country, that the ardor of patriotic
faith is everywhere the same, and that each of the nations engaged in
this mighty struggle believes itself to be the champion of liberty
against barbarism. But liberty and barbarism do not mean the same thing
to both sides.
Barbarous despotism, the worst enemy to liberty, is exemplified for us
Frenchmen, Englishmen, men of the West, in Prussian Imperialism; and I
venture to think that the register of its methods is plainly set forth
in the devastated route from Liège to Senlis, passing by way of Louvain,
Malines, and Rheims. For Germany, the monster ("_Ungeheuer_," as the
aged Wundt calls it), which threatens civilization is Russia, and the
bitterest reproach which the Germans hurl against France is our alliance
with the Empire of the Czar. I have received many letters reproaching us
with this. In the Munich review, _Das Forum_, I read only yesterday an
article by Wilhelm Herzog challenging me to explain my position with
regard to Russia. Let us consider the question, then. I ask nothing
better. By this means we shall be able to weigh the German danger and
the Russian danger in the balance, and thus show which of the two seems
the more threatening to us. Of the actual events of the present war
between Germany and Russia I will say nothing. All the information we
have comes from Russian or German sources, equally unreliable. To judge
by them it would appear that the same ferocity exists in both camps. The
Germans in Kalish were worthy companions of the Cossacks in Grodtken and
Zorothowo.--It is of the German spirit and of the Russian spirit that I
wish to speak here, for this is the important thing and of this we have
more definite knowledge.
You, my German friends--for those of you who were my friends in the past
remain my friends in spite of fanatical demands from both sides that we
should break off all relations--know how much I love the Germany of the
past, and all that I owe to it. Not less than you, yourselves, I am the
son of Beethoven, of Leibnitz, and of Goethe. But what do I owe to the
Germany of today, or what does Europe owe to it? What art have you
produced since the monumental work of Wagner, which marks the end of an
epoch and belongs to the past? What new and original thought can you
boast of since the death of Nietzsche, whose magnificent madness has
left its traces upon you though we are unscathed by it? Where have we
sought our spiritual food for the last forty years, when our own fertile
soil no longer yielded sufficient for our needs? Who but the Russian
writers have been our guides? What German writer can you set up against
Tolstoi and Dostoievsky, those giants of poetic genius and moral
grandeur? These are the men who have moulded my soul, and in defending
the nation from which they sprang, I am but paying a debt which I owe to
that nation as well as to themselves. Even if the contempt for Prussian
Imperialism were not innate in me as a Latin, I should have learned it
from them. Twenty years ago Tolstoi expressed his contempt for your
Kaiser. In music, Germany, so proud of its ancient glory, has only the
successors of Wagner, neurotic jugglers with orchestral effects, like
Richard Strauss, but not a single sober and virile work of the quality
of _Boris Godunov_. No German musician has opened up new roads. A single
page of Moussorgsky or Strawinsky shows more originality, more potential
greatness than the complete scores of Mahler and Reger. In our
Universities, in our hospitals and Pasteur Institutes, Russian students
and scholars work side by side with our own, and Russian
revolutionaries who have taken refuge in Paris mingle their aspirations
with those of our socialists.
The crimes of Czarism are continually on your lips. We, too, denounce
these crimes; for Czarism is our enemy, and what I wrote but recently, I
repeat now. But it is likewise the enemy of the intellectual élite of
Russia itself. This cannot be said of your intellectuals, who are so
slavishly obedient to the commands of your rulers. A few days ago I
received that amazing "Address to the Civilized Nations" with which the
Imperial army-corps of German intellectuals bombarded Europe; meanwhile
the army-corps of German Commerce (_Bureau des Deutschen Handelstages_)
shelled the markets of the world with circulars ornamented by the figure
of Mercury, the god of lies. This mobilization of the forces of the pen
and of the caduceus, with which in good truth no other country could
compete, has given us additional reason to fear the Empire's powers of
organization, no reason to respect it more. "Civilized Nations" read,
not without amazement, that Address, the truth of which was vouched for
by the names of the most distinguished scientists, thinkers, and artists
in Germany--by Behring, Ostwald, Roentgen, Eucken, Haeckel, Wundt,
Dehmel, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Hildebrand, Klinger, Liebermann,
Humperdinck, Weingartner, etc.--by painters and philosophers, musicians,
theologians, chemists, economists, poets, and the professors of twenty
universities. They learned, not without surprise, that "it is not true
that Germany provoked the war,--it is not true that Germany criminally
violated the neutrality of Belgium,--it is not true that Germany used
violence against the life or the belongings of a single Belgian citizen
without being forced to do so,--it is not true that Germany destroyed
Louvain" (destroyed it? no indeed, she saved it!),--"it is not true that
Germany----" It is not true that day is day and night is night! I
confess that I could not read to the end without that feeling of
embarrassment which I felt as a child, when I heard an elderly man whom
I respected make false statements. I turned aside my eyes and blushed
for him. Thank God! the crimes of Czarism never found a defender amongst
the great artists, scholars, and thinkers of Russia. Are not Kropotkin,
Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, and Gorki, the greatest names in its literature,
the very ones who denounced its crimes!
Russian domination has often been cruelly heavy for the smaller
nationalities which it has swallowed up. But how comes it then, Germans,
that the Poles prefer it to yours? Do you imagine that Europe is
ignorant of the monstrous way in which you are exterminating the Polish
race? Do you think that we do not receive the confidences of those
Baltic nations who, having to choose between two conquerors, prefer the
Russian because he is the more humane? Read the following letter which I
received but lately from a Lett, who, though he has suffered severely at
the hands of the Russians, yet sides ardently with them against you. My
German friends, you are either strangely ignorant of the state of mind
of the nations which surround you, or you think us extremely simple and
ill-informed. Your imperialism, beneath its veneer of civilization,
seems to me no less ferocious than Czarism towards everything that
ventures to oppose its avaricious desire for universal dominion. But
whereas immense and mysterious Russia, overflowing with young and
revolutionary forces, gives us hope of a coming renewal, your Germany
bases its systematic harshness on a culture too antiquated and
scholastic to allow of any hope of amendment. If I had any such
hope--and I once had it, my friends--you have taken great pains to rob
me of it, you, artists and scholars, who drew up that address in which
you pride yourself on your complete unity with Prussian Imperialism.
Know once for all that there is nothing more overwhelming for us Latins,
nothing more difficult to endure, than your militarization of the
intellect. If, by some awful fate, this spirit were triumphant, I should
leave Europe for ever. To live here would be intolerable to me.
Here, then, are some extracts from the interesting letter which I have
received from a representative of those little nationalities which are
being disputed between Russia and Germany. They desire to maintain their
independence, but find themselves obliged to choose between these two
nations, and choose Russia. It is good to hear them speak. We are too
much inclined to listen only to the Great Powers who are now at war. Let
us think of those little barques which the great vessels draw in their
wake. Let us share for a moment the agony with which these little
nationalities, forgotten by the egotism of Europe, await the final issue
of a struggle which will decide their fate. Let England and France heed
those beseeching eyes which are turned towards them; let young Russia,
herself so eager for liberty, help generously to shed its benefits
abroad.
_October 10, 1914._
* * * * *
LETTER TO ROMAIN ROLLAND
_30th September, 1914._
SIR:--I desire to thank you for your article, "Above the Battle."...
Although by my education I am more akin to the civilizations of Germany
and Russia than to the civilization of France, yet I respect the French
spirit more, for I am convinced, more than ever today, that it will
furnish the greatly needed solution of the problems of national rights
and liberty.
In your article you quote the words of one of your friends, a soldier
and a writer, who says that the French are fighting not only to defend
their own country but to save the _liberty of the world_. You can hardly
imagine how such words re-echo in the hearts of oppressed nations, what
streams of sympathy are today converging from all corners of Europe upon
France, what hopes depend upon your victory.
And yet many doubts have been expressed with regard to these French and
English assertions because both nations have allied themselves with
Russia, whose policy is contrary to the ideas of right and liberty; and
Germany herself maintains that it is precisely those ideas for which she
is fighting against Russia.
It would be interesting to discover what German writers and professors
really mean when they speak of a Holy War against Russia. Do they wish
to assist Russian revolutionaries to dethrone the Czar?--Every
revolutionary party would refuse indignantly to accept assistance from
Prussian militarism. Do they wish to set free the neighboring countries,
such as Poland, which are oppressed by Russia, by incorporating them
with the German Empire?--It is well known that the Poles who are German
subjects have suffered much more ignoble treatment than the Russian
Poles, though even they have every reason to complain.
The Baltic provinces of Russia alone remain, and here the Germans have
for centuries had their pioneers among the large landowners and the
merchants in the bigger towns. These, no doubt, Russian subjects but of
German nationality, would welcome the German armies with enthusiasm. But
they form only a caste of nobles and of the wealthy middle-classes,
numbering at most a few thousands, whereas the bulk of the population,
the Lettish and Esthonian nations, would regard the absorption of these
provinces into Germany as the worst of calamities. We know well what
German domination means. I am a Lett and can speak with authority, for I
know the deepest feelings and hopes of my own countrymen.
The Letts are akin to the Lithuanians. They inhabit Courland, Livonia,
and a part of the province of Vitebsk. Their intellectual center is
Riga. There are colonies of them in all the principal towns of Russia.
Last year the _Annales des Nationalités_ of Paris devoted two numbers to
these two sister nations. Owing to the geographical situation of their
country, which is only too desirable, they had the misfortune to be
under the yoke of the Germans, before they were under the yoke of the
Russians. To understand how much they suffered under the former it will
be sufficient to say that, in comparison with the Germans, we think of
the Russians as our liberators. By sheer force the Germans kept us for
centuries in a state equivalent to slavery. Only fifty years ago the
Russian Government set us free from this bondage; but, at the same
time, it committed the grave injustice of leaving all our land in the
hands of German proprietors. Nevertheless, within the last twenty or
thirty years, we have succeeded in reclaiming from the Germans a part at
least of our land, and in reaching a considerable level of culture,
thanks to which, we are considered, together with the Esthonians and the
Finns, as the most advanced people in the Russian Empire.
German papers often accuse us of ingratitude, and reproach us with our
lack of appreciation of the advantages of the culture which they boast
of having brought us. We listen to such accusations with a bitter smile,
and in writing the word _Kulturträger_ (bearer of civilization) add an
exclamation mark afterwards, for the behavior of the Germans has brought
the expression into contempt. We have acquired our culture in spite of
their opposition, and against their will. _Even today it is the German
representatives in the Russian Duma who veto the occasional suggestions
on the part of the Government to make reforms in the Baltic provinces._
These provinces are administered in a manner that differs, and differs
for the worse, from that adopted in the other provinces of Russia. We
still submit to laws and regulations which no longer exist in other
parts of Europe--laws which were made in the feudal ages and have been
rigorously maintained amongst us, thanks to the exertions of the big
German landowners, who are always sure of a hearing at the Imperial
Court of St. Petersburg.
Formerly, when we were striving in vain to reconcile our sympathy and
admiration for German thought and art with the narrow, haughty, and
cruel spirit of its representatives amongst us, we explained it all by
saying that the Germans in our provinces were of a peculiar type, and
had little in common with other Germans. But the crimes of which they
have been guilty in Belgium and in France show us our mistake. Germans
are the same everywhere in the work of conquest and domination--wholly
without humanitarian scruples. In Germany, as in Russia, there are two
distinct tendencies--the one, provoked by the ideas of Pangermanism and
Panslavism, is to seek national glory on the field of battle and in the
oppression of the personalities of other nations; the other is to
achieve the same end in the peaceful realms of thought and artistic
creation. Just as the culture of which Goethe was typical has nothing
in common with Prussian militarism, so Tolstoi may be considered as the
representative of that other Russia which is so different from the one
represented by the Russian Government of today. Certainly the gulf
between these two tendencies is less deep in Germany than in Russia, and
this is due to the immense size of Russia, which contains vast numbers
of poor and ignorant human beings whom the Russian Government oppresses
with the utmost brutality. _But it is entirely unjust always to allude
to the Russians as barbarians; and the Germans who invariably make use
of this word when they speak of Russia have less right than any one to
do so._ No one who knows the intellectual world of Germany and Russia
will venture to say that the former is much superior to the latter--they
are simply different. _And I would add that the one fact which makes us
feel more drawn to the intellectual world of Russia than to that of the
Germany of today, is that it would never be capable of justifying and
approving the brutal conduct of its Government, as the German
intellectuals are doing now. It has often been constrained to keep
silence, but it has never raised its voice in defense of a guilty
Government._