you and accept. It is good to take one's stand with those free souls who
resist the unrestrained fury of national passions. In this hideous
struggle, with which the conflicting peoples are rending Europe, let us
at least preserve our flag, and rally round that. We must re-create
European opinion. That is our first duty. Among these millions who are
only conscious of being Germans, Austrians, Frenchmen, Russians,
English, etc., let us strive to be _men_, who, rising above the selfish
aims of short-lived nations, do not lose sight of the interests of
civilization as a whole--that civilization which each race mistakenly
identifies with its own, to destroy that of the others. I wish your
noble country,[26] which has always preserved its political and moral
independence among the great surrounding states, could become the hearth
of this ideal Europe we believe in--the hearth round which shall gather
all those who seek to rebuild her.
Everywhere there are men who think thus though they are unknown one to
another. Let us get to know them. Let us bring together each and all.
Here I would introduce to you two important groups, one from the North
and one from the South--the Catalonian thinkers who have formed the
society of _Amis de l'Unité Morale de l'Europe_ at Barcelona--I send you
their fine appeal: and the _Union of Democratic Control_ founded in
London and inspired by indignation against this European war, and by the
firm determination to render it impossible for the diplomatists and
militarists to inaugurate another. I am having the programmes and the
first publications sent to you. This Union, whose general Council
contains members of Parliament, and authors like Norman Angell, Israel
Zangwill, and Vernon Lee, has already formed twenty branches in towns in
Great Britain.
Let us try and unite permanently all such organizations, though each has
its racial characteristics and peculiarities, for all aim at
re-establishing the peace of Europe as best they may. With them let us
take stock of our united resources. Then we can act.
* * * * *
What shall we do? Try to put an end to the struggle? It is no use
thinking of that now. The brute is loose; and the Governments have
succeeded so well in spreading hatred and violence abroad that even if
they wished they could not bring it back again into control. The damage
is irreparable. It is possible that the neutral countries of Europe and
the United States of America may decide one day to interfere, and
endeavor to put an end to a war which, if it continued indefinitely,
would threaten to ruin them as well as the belligerents. But I do not
know what one must expect from this too tardy intervention.
In any case I see another outlet for our activity. Let the war be what
it may--we can no longer intervene; but at least we must try to make the
scourge productive of as little evil and as much good as possible. And
in order to do this we must get public opinion all the world over to see
to it that the peace of the future shall be just, that the greed of the
conqueror (whoever that may be) and the intrigues of diplomacy, do not
make it the seed of a new war of revenge; and that the moral crimes
committed in the past are not repeated or allowed to stain yet darker
the record of humanity. That is why I hold the first article of the
Union of Democratic Control as a sacred principle: "No Province shall be
transferred from one Government to another without the consent by
plebiscite of the population of such province." We must oppose those
odious maxims which have weighed too long on the populations they
enslave and which quite recently Professor Lasson dared to repeat as a
threat for the future, in his cynical Catechism of Force (_Das
Kulturideal und der Krieg_).[27]
And this principle must be proposed and adopted at once without any
delay. If we waited to announce it until--the war being over--the
congress of the Powers were assembled, we should be suspected of wishing
to make justice serve the interest of the conquered. It is now, when the
forces of the two sides are equal, that we must establish this
primordial right which soars over all the armies.
From this principle we can deduce an immediate application. Since the
whole of Europe is disorganized let us profit by it to set in order
this untidy house! For a long time injustices have been accumulating.
The moment of settling the general account will be an opportunity of
rectifying them. The duty of all of us who feel for the brotherhood of
mankind is to stand for the rights of the small nations. There are some
in both camps: Schleswig, Alsace, Lorraine, Poland, the Baltic nations,
Armenia, the Jewish people. At the beginning of the war Russia made some
generous promises. We have registered them in our minds; let her not
forget them! We are as determined about Poland, torn by the claws of
three imperial eagles, as we are about Belgium crucified. We remember
all. It is because our fathers, obsessed by their narrow realism and by
selfish fears, let the rights of the people of Eastern Europe be
violated, that today the West is shattered, and the sword hangs over the
small nations, over you, my friends, as over the country which is
befriending me, Switzerland. Whoever harms one of us harms all the
others. Let us unite! Above all race questions, which are for the most
part a mask behind which pride crouches and the interests of the
financial or aristocratic classes dissemble, there is a law of humanity,
eternal and universal, of which we are all the servants and guardians;
it is that of the right of a people to rule themselves. And he who
violates shall be the enemy of all.
R. R.
_De Amsterdammer Weekblad voor Nederland_, January
24, 1915.
XII. OUR NEIGHBOR THE ENEMY
_March 15, 1915._
While the war tempest rages, uprooting the strongest souls and dragging
them along in its furious cyclone, I continue my humble pilgrimage,
trying to discover beneath the ruins the rare hearts who have remained
faithful to the old ideal of human fraternity. What a sad joy I have in
collecting and helping them!
I know that each of their efforts--like mine--that each of their words
of love, rouses and turns against them the hostility of the two hostile
camps. The combatants, pitted against each other, agree in hating those
who refuse to hate. Europe is like a besieged town. Fever is raging.
Whoever will not rave like the rest is suspected. And in these hurried
times when justice cannot wait to study evidence, every suspect is a
traitor. Whoever insists, in the midst of war, on defending peace among
men knows that he risks his own peace, his reputation, his friends, for
his belief. But of what value is a belief for which no risks are run?
Certainly it is put to the test in these days, when every day brings the
echo of violence, injustice, and new cruelties. But was it not still
more tried when it was entrusted to the fishermen of Judea by him whom
humanity pretends to honor still--with its lips more than with its
heart? The rivers of blood, the burnt towns, all the atrocities of
thought and action, will never efface in our tortured souls the luminous
track of the Galilean barque, nor the deep vibrations of the great
voices which from across the centuries proclaim reason as man's true
home. You choose to forget them, and to say (like many writers of today)
that this war will begin a new era in the history of mankind, a reversal
of former values, and that from it alone will future progress be dated.
That is always the language of passion. Passion passes away. Reason
remains--reason and love. Let us continue to search for their young
shoots amidst the bloody ruins.
I feel the same joy when I find the fragile and valiant flowers of human
pity piercing the icy crust of hatred that covers Europe, as we feel in
these chilly March days when we see the first flowers appear above the
soil. They show that the warmth of life persists below the surface of
the earth, that fraternal love persists below the surface of the
nations, and that soon nothing will prevent it rising again.
I have on several occasions shown how the neutral countries have become
the refuge of this European spirit, which seems driven from the
belligerent countries by the armies of the pen, more savage than the
others because they risk nothing. The efforts made in Holland or in
Spain to save the moral unity of Europe, the burning charity and
untiring help that Switzerland lavishes on prisoners, on wounded, on
victims of both sides, are a great comfort to oppressed souls, who in
every country are suffocating in the atmosphere of hatred forced on
them, and who look for purer air. But I find still more beautiful and
touching the signs of fraternal aid between friends and enemies in
belligerent countries, however rare and feeble they may be.
If there are two countries between which the present war seems specially
to have created an abyss of hatred and misunderstanding, they are
England and Germany. The writers and publicists of Germany, whose orders
are to profess for France rather sympathy and compassion than
animosity, and who are even constrained to distinguish between the
people and the Government of Russia, have vowed eternal hatred against
England. _Hasse England_ has become their _Delenda Carthago_. The most
moderate declare that the struggle cannot be ended except by the
destruction of the _Seeherrschaft_ (naval supremacy) of Britain. And
Great Britain is not less determined to continue the conflict until
German militarism has been totally eradicated. Yet it is precisely
between these two nations that the noblest bonds of mutual assistance
for the misfortunes of the enemy have been formed and maintained.
Two days after the declaration of war there was founded in London by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and by well known persons, such as J.
Allen-Baker, M.P., the Right-Hon. W. H. Dickinson, M.P., Lord and Lady
Courtney of Penwith, the _Emergency Committee for the Assistance of
Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians in Distress_. This work, which
affects a large part of England, consists in paying the repatriation
expenses of destitute civilians, of accompanying German women and girls
on their return journey, of securing hospitality in families for poor
Germans and finding work for them. By the end of December almost £10,000
had been spent in this way. Several sub-committees visit Prisoners'
Camps, facilitate correspondence between the belligerent nations, or
undertake, for Christmas, to convey to interned alien enemies more than
20,000 parcels and 200 Christmas trees. Another English society, already
in existence before the war, the _Society of Friends of Foreigners in
Distress_, regularly looks after 1,800 German and Austrian families.
Finally, the Central Bureau (London) of the International Union of Women
Suffrage Societies has rendered great service to foreigners, paying for
the return journey of between seven and eight thousand women.
In Germany there has been founded at Berlin a similar Bureau for giving
information and assistance to Germans abroad, and to foreigners in
Germany (_Auskunfts-und Hilfsstelle für Deutsche im Ausland und
Ausländer in Deutschland_). Amongst its members may be noted
aristocratic names, and persons well known in the religious and academic
world: Frau Marie von Bülow-Moerlins, Helene Græfin Harrach, Nora
Freiin von Schleinitz, Professors W. Foerster, D. Baumgarten, Paul
Natorp, Martin Rade, Siegmund-Schultze, etc. At its head is a lady of
deep religious feeling, Dr. Elisabeth Rotten. As will be readily
imagined, an undertaking of this kind has not failed to evoke suspicion
and opposition in nationalist quarters. But it has emerged successful,
and persists; and here are the terms in which it justifies its high
mission against the ravings of German Chauvinism:
"Since the beginning of the war we have recognized the obligation to
interest ourselves in the welfare of foreigners stranded in Germany.
Efforts such as ours are as unpopular in our country as in other
countries. At a time when the whole German people is engaged in
resisting the enemy, it seems superfluous to render to those who belong
to foreign countries more than minimum services to which they are
legally entitled. But it is not only the thought of our kinsmen abroad
which urges us to this work, it is our own desire to render friendly
service (_Freundendienste_) to those who, through no fault of their own,
are in difficulties because of the war. Even in war time, our neighbor
is he who is in need of our help; and love for one's enemy
(_Feindesliebe_) remains a sign whereby those who retain their faith in
the Lord may recognize one another....
"We have been able to reassure German families as to the lot of their
members in enemy countries, and in return to vouch to foreigners for the
fact that their friends in our country will be able to rely on us for
assistance if they need it. We have been able to help as neighbors
(_Naechstendienste_) innocent enemies, in whom we see human brothers and
sisters. Above and beyond this practical aid, we find consolation and
comfort in being able freely to hearken, even in such times as these, to
the voice of humanity, and to the command 'love thy neighbor.' The
tragedy which bursts over the earth on every side, which fills all our
being with a religious respect for human suffering, but also stirs our
love and self-sacrifice, enlarges our hearts and leaves no room except
for feelings of affirmation and benevolent action.
"Our desire to help and to alleviate suffering knows no frontiers. This
need is all the more urgent when we find in the sufferings of others the
traits of what we ourselves also suffer. What unites men goes deeper
into our being than what separates them. That we can tend the wounds
that we are constrained to deal, and that the same is the case in the
enemy's country, gives promise of the brighter days which will come. In
the midst of the tempest which destroys all around us so many things
which we consider worthy of eternal existence, the possibility of such
action strengthens our courage and gives us hope that new bridges will
be rebuilt, on which the men who now find themselves separated, will
once more be closely united in a common effort."
I dedicate these noble words to my friends amongst the people of France,
who have so often, by letter or by message, declared to me their
sympathy for such thoughts and their unchanging faith in humanity. I
dedicate them to all in France who, even in these days, by their justice
and goodness contribute to make their country loved, as much as she
makes herself admired by her arms--to those who assure her of the name
which I read with emotion on a postcard written yesterday, on his way to
Geneva, by a badly wounded German who had been repatriated: the name of
_gutes Frankreich_, "good France," or, as our tender-hearted old writers
used to say, "_Douce_ France."
R. R.
I take this opportunity of recommending to my French readers the
publication of Mme. Arthur Spitzer (Geneva): _Le Paquet du prisonnier de
guerre_. It has contributors in Paris, and was founded in November "to
bring comfort in their misery to such French, Belgians, and English
prisoners as cannot be assisted by their families." It begs all who wish
to send a parcel to a relation or friend who has been taken prisoner, to
send with it, when possible, a similar consignment for some other
prisoner--one of their fellow countrymen without relations, friends, or
resources. May this noble thought of solidarity be extended later, in
more humane times, so that whoever helps a prisoner belonging to his own
country may be willing at the same time to help an enemy prisoner!
R. R.
_Journal de Genève_, March 15, 1915.
XIII. A LETTER TO SVENSKA DAGBLADET OF STOCKHOLM[28]
The European thought of tomorrow is with the armies. The furious
intellectuals in one camp and the other who insult one another do not
represent it at all. The voice of the peoples who will return from the
war, after having experienced the terrible reality, will send back into
the silence of obscurity these men who have revealed themselves as
unworthy to be spiritual guides of the human race. Amongst those who
thus retire more than one St. Peter will then hear the cock crow, and
will weep saying, "Lord, I have denied thee!"
The destinies of humanity will rise superior to those of all the
nations. Nothing will be able to prevent the reforming of the bonds
between the thought of the hostile nations. Whatever nation should stand
aside would commit suicide. For by means of these bonds the tide of life
is kept in motion.
But they have never been completely broken, even at the height of the
war. The war has even had the sad advantage of grouping together
throughout the universe the minds who reject national hatred. It has
tempered their strength, it has welded their wills into a solid block.
Those are mistaken who think that the ideals of a free human fraternity
are at present stifled! They are but silent under the gag of military
(and civil) dictation which reigns throughout Europe. But the gag will
fall, and they will burst forth with explosive force. I am agonized by
the sufferings of millions of innocent victims, sacrificed today on the
field of battle, but I have no anxiety for the future unity of European
society. It will be realized anew. The war of today is its baptism of
blood.
R. R.
_April 10, 1915._
XIV. WAR LITERATURE
The intellectuals on both sides have been much in evidence since the
beginning of the war; they have, indeed, brought so much violence and
passion to bear upon it, that it might almost be called their war!
It seems to me, however, that attention has not been sufficiently drawn
to the fact that, with a few exceptions, it is only the voice of the
older generation that has been heard--the voice of Academicians, and
Professoren, of distinguished members of the press and the universities,
of poets of established reputations, and the doyens of literature, art,
and science.
As far as France is concerned, the explanation of this is simple: nearly
all those up to the age of forty-eight who are able to bear arms are now
acting instead of talking. In Germany the situation is rather different,
since for various reasons, which I shall not attempt to elucidate, much
of the literary youth of the nation has remained at home, and continues
to publish books. Even those who are at the front contrive to send
articles and poems to the Reviews (for the passion for writing dies hard
in Germany).
It seems to me to be of importance to ascertain what spiritual currents
are influencing the young intellectuals of Germany.[29]
* * * * *
It has been pointed out that in all countries the extremest views have
been expressed by writers who have already passed _el mezzo del
cammino_. We shall attempt to find the reason for this at some later
date. At present we are content again to verify this fact in the case of
German writers. Almost all the celebrated and acknowledged poets, all
those who were rich in years and in honor, were swept off their feet at
the beginning of the war. And this fact is all the more curious because
some of them had been up to that time the apostles of peace, of pity,
and of humanitarianism. Dehmel, the enemy of war, the friend of all men,
who said that he did not know to which of the ten nationalities he owed
his intellect, is now writing Battle Songs (_Schlachtenlieder_), and
Songs of the Flag (_Fahnenlieder_), apostrophizing the enemy, praising
and dealing death. (At the age of fifty-one he is learning to bear arms,
and has enlisted against the Russians.) Gerhart Hauptmann, whom Fritz
von Unruh calls "the poet of brotherly love," has shaken off his
neurasthenia, and bids men "mow down the grass which drips with blood."
Franz Wedekind is pouring out invectives against Czarism, Lissauer
against England. Arno Holz is raving deliriously. Petzold desires to be
in every bullet that enters an enemy's heart; whilst Richard Nordhausen
has written an Ode to a Howitzer.[30]
At first the younger writers as well were possessed with the same
madness for war; but, in contact with the sufferings they endured and
inflicted, it quickly disappeared. Fritz von Unruh enlisted as a Uhlan,
and left for the front, crying "Paris, Paris is our goal!" Since the
Battle of the Aisne, in September, he has written "Der Lamm": "_Lamb of
God, I have seen thy look of suffering. Give us peace and rest; lead us
back to the heaven of love, and give us back our dead_." Rudolf
Leonhard sang of war at the beginning, and is still fighting; on
re-reading his poems shortly afterwards, he wrote on the front page:
"_These were written during the madness of the first weeks. That madness
has spent itself, and only our strength is left. We shall again win
control over ourselves and love one another._" Poets, hitherto unknown,
are revealed by the cry of compassion wrung from their anguished hearts.
To Andrea Fram, who has remained at home, it is a grief that he does not
suffer, whilst thousands of others suffer and die. "_All thy love, and
all thy agony, in spite of thy ardent desire, avail not to soothe the
last hour of a single man who is dying yonder._" Upon Ludwig Marck each
minute weighs like a nightmare:--
Menschen in Not....
Brüder dir tot....
Krieg ist im Land....
The poet who writes under the pseudonym of Dr. Owlglass proposed a new
ideal for Germany, on the seventieth anniversary of the birth of
Nietzsche (October 15th): not the superman, but at least--man. And Franz
Werfel realizes this ideal in poems thrilling with a mournful humanity,
which takes part in the sacrament of misery and death:
"_We are bound together not only by our common words and deeds, but
still more by the dying glance, the last hours, the mortal anguish of
the breaking heart. And whether you bow down before the tyrant, or gaze
trembling into the beloved's countenance, or mark down your enemy with
pitiless glance, think of the eye that will grow dim, of the failing
breath, the parched lips and clenched hands, the final solitude, and the
brow that grows moist in the last agony.... Be kind.... Tenderness is
wisdom, kindness is reason[31].... We are strangers all upon this
earth, and die but to be reunited._"[32]
But the one German poet who has written the serenest and loftiest words,
and preserved in the midst of this demoniacal war an attitude worthy of
Goethe, is Hermann Hesse. He continues to live at Berne, and, sheltered
there from the moral contagion, he has deliberately kept aloof from the
combat. All will remember his noble article in the _Neue Zürcher
Zeitung_ of November 3rd, "_O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!_" in which he
implored the artists and thinkers of Europe "to save what little peace"
might yet be saved, and not to join with their pens in destroying the
future of Europe. Since then he has written some beautiful poems, one
of which, an Invocation to Peace, is inspired with deep feeling and
classical simplicity, and will find its way to many an oppressed heart.
Jeder hat's gehabt
Keiner hat's geschätzt.
Jeden hat der süsse Quell gelabt.
O wie klingt der Name Friede jetzt!
Klingt so fern und zag,
Klingt so tränenschwer,
Keiner weiss und kennt den Tag,
Jeder sehnt ihn vol Verlangen her....
("Each one possessed it, but no one prized it. Like a cool spring it
refreshed us all. What a sound the word Peace has for us now!
"Distant it sounds, and fearful, and heavy with tears. No one knows or
can name the day for which all sigh with such longing.")
* * * * *
The attitude of the younger reviews is curious: for whereas the older,
traditional reviews (those which correspond to our _Revue des Deux
Mondes_ or our _Revue de Paris_) are more or less affected by military
fervor--thus, for instance, the _Neue Rundschau_, which printed Thomas
Mann's notorious vagaries on Culture and Civilization (_Gedanken im
Kriege_)--many of the younger ones affect a haughty detachment from
actual events.
That impassive publication, _Blätter für die Kunst_, over which broods
the invisible personality of Stefan George, published at the end of 1914
a volume of poems of 156 pages, which did not contain a single line
referring to the war. A note at the end affirms that the points of view
of the various authors have not changed on account of recent events, and
anticipates the objection that "this is not the time for poetry," by the
saying of Jean Paul: "No period has so much need of poetry, as the one
which thinks it can do without it."