point of view, totally different from the calm impersonality of _Blätter
für die Kunst_, stated in its issue of August 15, 1914, that it would
not concern itself with politics, but would contain only literature and
art. And if it finds room in its literary columns for the war poems sent
from the field of battle by the military doctors, Wilhelm Klemm and Hans
Kock, it is in consideration of their value as art, and not for the
vivacity of their patriotic sentiments; for it scoffs mercilessly at
the ridiculous bards of German Chauvinism, at Heinrich Vierordt, the
author of _Deutschland, hasse_, at the criminal poets who stir up hatred
with their false stories, and at Professor Haeckel. The dilettantism of
this review is extreme. Its weekly issues contain translations from the
French of André Gide, Péguy, and Léon Bloy, and reproductions of the
works of Daumier, Delacroix, Cézanne, Matisse, and R. de la Fresnaye:
(cubism flourishes in this Berlin review). The issue of October 24th is
devoted to Péguy, and contains, as frontispiece, Egon Schiele's portrait
of the man, who is honored by Franz Pfemfert, the editor, as "the purest
and most vigorous moral force in French literature of today." Let us
hasten to add, however, that, as is often the case on the other side of
the Rhine, they are carried away by their zeal in deploring his death as
of one of their countrymen, and in proclaiming themselves his heirs. But
the pride which admires is at least superior to the pride which
disparages.
The most important of these young reviews is _Die Weissen Blätter_;
important on account of the variety of questions it deals with, and the
value and number of its contributors, as well as for the
broad-mindedness of its editor--René Schickele. An Alsatian by birth,
he belongs to those who feel most acutely the bitterness of the present
struggle. After an interval of three months _Die Weissen Blätter_, which
almost corresponds to our _Nouvelle Revue Française_, reappeared in
January last with the following declaration, akin to that of the _Revue
des Nations_, at Berne. "_It seems good to us to begin the work of
reconstruction, in the midst of the war, and to aid in preparing for the
victory of the spirit. The community of Europe is at present apparently
destroyed. Is it not the duty of all of us who are not bearing arms, to
live from today onwards according to the dictates of our conscience, as
it will be the duty of every German when once the war is over?_"
By the side of these disinterested manifestoes about actual politics,
appear lengthy historical novels (_Tycho Brahé_ by Max Brod) and
satirical comedies by Carl Sternheim, who continues to scourge the upper
classes of German society, and the capitalists, for _Die Weissen
Blätter_ is open to all questions of the day. But in spite of the actual
differences which must necessarily exist between a German and a French
review, we cannot but point out the frankly hostile attitude of these
writers to all the excesses of Chauvinism. The articles of Max Scheler,
"Europe and the War," show an impartial attitude which is entirely
praiseworthy. The review opens its columns to the loyal Annette Kolb,
who, as the daughter of a German father and of a French mother, suffers
keenly in this conflict between the parts of her nature, and has lately
raised a tempest in Dresden, where in a public lecture she had the
courage to admit her fidelity to both sides, and to express her regret
that Germany should fail to understand France. In the February number,
under the title "Ganz niedrich hängen!" there appeared a violent
repudiation of the _Krieg mit dem Maul_ (the war of tongues); "_If
journalists hope to inspire courage by insulting the enemy, they are
mistaken--we refuse such stimulants. We dare to maintain our opinion,
that the humblest volunteer of the enemy, who from an unreasoned but
exalted sentiment of patriotism, fires upon us from an ambush, knowing
well what he risks, is much superior to those journalists who profit by
the public feeling of the day, and under cover of high-sounding words of
patriotism do not fight the enemy but spit upon him._"
Of all these young writers who are striving to preserve the integrity of
their minds against the force of national passions, the one whose
personality has been most exalted by this tempest, the most eloquent,
courageous, and decided of all is Wilhelm Herzog. He is the editor of
the _Forum_ at Munich, and like our own Péguy, when he began to publish
his _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, he fills almost the whole of his review
with his own burning articles. The enthusiastic biographer of H. von
Kleist, he sees and judges the events of his own time with the eyes of
that indomitable spirit. The German censor attempts in vain to silence
him and to forbid the publication of the lectures of Spitteler and of
Annette Kolb; his indignation and cries of vengeful irony spread even to
us. He attacks bitterly the ninety-three intellectuals who "_fancy they
are all Ajaxes because they bray the loudest_," those politicians of the
school of Haeckel, who make a new division of the world, those patriotic
bards who insult other nations; he attacks Thomas Mann mercilessly,
scoffs at his sophistry, and defends France, the French Army,[33] and
French civilization against him; he points out that the great men of
Germany (Grünwald, Dürer, Bach, and Mozart amongst others) have always
been persecuted, humiliated, and calumniated.[34] In an article entitled
"_Der neue Geist_,"[35] after having scoffed at the banality that has
reappeared in the German theaters, and the literary mediocrity of
patriotic productions, he asked where this "new spirit" may be found,
and this gives him an opportunity to demolish Ostwald and Lasson.
"_Where is it to be found? In the Hochschulen? Have we not read that
incredibly clumsy_ (unwahrscheinlich plumpen) _appeal of the 99
professors? Have we not appreciated the statements of that double
centenarian_ (des zweihundertjährige Mummelgreises) _mummy Lasson? When
I was studying philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of
Berlin, the theatre in which he lectured was a place of amusement_
(Lachkabinett) _for us--nothing more. And today people take him
seriously! English, French, and Italian papers print his senile
babblings against Holland, as typical of the_ Stimmung _of the German
intellectuals. The wrong that these privy councillors and professors
have done us with their Aufklärungsarbeit can hardly be measured. They
have isolated themselves from humanity by their inability to realize the
feelings of others._"
In opposition to these false representatives of a nation, these cultured
gossips and political adventurers, he extols the silent ones, the great
mass of the people of all nations who suffer in silence; and he joins
with them in "the invisible community of sorrow."
"_One who is suffering and knows that his sorrow is shared by millions
of other beings, will bear it calmly; he will accept it willingly even,
because he knows that he is enriched thereby, made stronger, more
tender, more humane._"[36]
And he quotes the words of old Meister Eckehart: "_Suffering is the
fastest steed that will bear you to perfection._"
* * * * *
At the close of this summary review of the young writers of the war, a
place must be found for those whom the war has crushed--they counted
amongst the best. Ernst Stadler was an enthusiastic admirer of French
art and of the French spirit. He translated Francis Jammes, and on the
eve of his death, in November, he was writing to Stefan Zweig from the
trenches about the poems of Verlaine, which he was translating. The
unfortunate George Trakl, the poet of melancholy, was made lieutenant of
a sanitary column in Galicia, and the sight of so much suffering drove
him to despair and death. And there are many hidden tragedies, still
unrevealed. When they are made known, humanity will tremble in
contemplating its handiwork.
I reflected, as doubtless many of my French readers have also done, in
reading through these German writings inspired by the war--writings
through which from time to time there passes a mighty breath of revolt
and sorrow--that our young writers are not writing "literature." Instead
of books they give us deeds, and their letters. And in re-reading some
of their letters I thought that ours had chosen the better part. It is
not for me now to point out the position that this heroic correspondence
will occupy, not only in our history but also in our literature. Into it
the flower of our youth has put all its life, its faith and its genius:
and for some of those letters I would give many of the finest lines of
the noblest poems. Whatever be the result of this war, and the opinion
as to its value later, it will be recognized that France has written on
paper, mud-stained and often blotted with blood, some of its sublimest
pages. Assuredly this war touches us more nearly than it does our
adversaries, for who of us would have the heart to write a play or a
novel whilst his country is in danger and his brothers dying?
But I will make no comparisons between the two nations. For the present
the essential thing is to show that even in Germany there are certain
finer minds who are fighting against the spirit which we hate--the
spirit of grasping imperialism and inhuman pride, of military caste and
the megalomania of pedants. They are but a minority--we have no
illusions about that--and we ought to redouble our efforts on that
account to vanquish the common enemy. Why then should we trouble to make
these generous but feeble voices heard? Because their merit is the
greater for being so little heeded; because it is the duty of those who
are fighting for justice to render justice in their turn to all those
men, even when they dwell in a country in which the state represents the
violation of right by _Faustrecht_, who are defending with us the spirit
of liberty.
_Journal de Genève_, April 19, 1915.
XV. THE MURDER OF THE ÉLITE
The phrase is not new-coined today;[37] but the fact is. Never in any
period, have we seen humanity throwing into the bloody arena all its
intellectual and moral reserves, its priests, its thinkers, its
scholars, its artists, the whole future of the spirit--wasting its
geniuses as food for cannon.
A great thing, doubtless, when the struggle is great, when a people
fights for an eternal cause, the fervor of which fires the whole nation,
from the smallest to the greatest; when it fuses all the egoisms,
purifies desire, and out of many souls makes one unanimous soul. But if
the cause be suspect or if it is tainted (as we judge that of our
adversaries to be), what will be the situation of a moral élite which
has preserved the sad and lofty privilege of perceiving at least a part
of the truth, and which must nevertheless fight and die and kill for a
faith which it doubts?
Those passionate natures that are intoxicated by fighting or are
voluntarily blinded by the necessities of action are not troubled by
these questions. For them the enemy is a single mass; nothing else
exists for them but this, for they have to break it; it is their
function and their duty. And to each his special duty. But if minorities
do not exist for such men, they do exist for us who, since we are not
fighting, have the liberty and the duty to see every aspect of the
case--we who form part of the eternal minority, the minority which has
been, is, and always will be eternally oppressed. It is for us to hear
and to proclaim these moral sufferings! Plenty of others repeat or
invent the jubilant echoes of the struggle. May other voices be raised
to give the tragic accents of the fight and its sacred horror!
I shall take my examples from the enemy camp, for several reasons:
because the German cause being from the first tainted with injustice,
the sufferings of the few who are just, and the still fewer who have
spiritual perceptions are greater there than elsewhere; because these
evidences appear openly in publications whose boldness the German
censorship has not perceived; because I bow with respect to the heroic
discipline of silence which France in fighting imposes on her
sufferings. (Would to God that this silence were not broken by those
who, trying to deny these sufferings, profane the grandeur of the
sacrifice by the revolting levity of their silly jests in newspapers
which are without either gravity or dignity.)
* * * * *
I have shown in the last chapter that a part of the intellectual youth
of Germany was far from sharing the war-madness of its elders. I cited
certain energetic reproofs delivered by these young writers to the
theorists of imperialism. And these writers are not, as one might think
from an article in the _Temps_ (though I gladly pay a tribute to its
honesty), merely a small group as narrow as that of our symbolists. They
count among them writers who appeal to a large public and who do not set
out in any way (except for the group of Stefan George) to write for a
_select few_--they wish to write for all. I stated, too, that the
boldest review of all, Wilhelm Herzog's _Forum_, was read in the German
trenches and received approbation thence.
But what is more astonishing, this spirit of criticism has possessed
some of the combatants and even made its appearance among German
officers. In the November-December number of the _Friedens-Warte_,
published in Berlin, Vienna, and Leipzig, by Dr. Alfred H. Fried, there
occurs "An appeal to the Germanic peoples," addressed, at the end of
October, by Baron Marschall von Biberstein, Landrat of Prussia and
captain in the 1st Foot Guards reserve. This article was written in a
trench north of Arras, where on the 11th of November, Biberstein was
killed. He expresses unreservedly his horror of the war and his ardent
desire that it may be the last: "_That is the conviction of those at the
front who are witnesses of the unspeakable horrors of modern warfare._"
Even more praiseworthy is Biberstein's frankness when he decides to
begin a confession and a _mea culpa_ for the sins of Germany. "_The war
has opened my eyes_," he says, "_to our terrible unlovableness
(Unbeliebtheit). Everything has its cause; we must have given cause for
this hatred; and even in part have justified it.... Let us hope that it
will not be the least of the advantages of this war that Germany will
turn round on herself, will search out and recognize her faults and
correct them._" Unfortunately even this article is spoiled by Germanic
pride which, desiring a world peace, sets out to impose it on the world.
Herein it recalls in some respects the bellicose pacifism of the too
celebrated Ostwald.
But another officer (of whom I spoke in my last chapter) the poet Fritz
von Unruh, first Lieutenant of Uhlans on the western front, has written
dramatic scenes in verse and prose. These have appeared recently under
the title _Before the Decision (Vor der Entscheidung)_. It is a dramatic
poem in which the author has noted his own impressions and his moral
transformations. The hero, who like himself, is an officer of Uhlans,
passes through various centers of the war and remains everywhere a
stranger; his soul is detached from murderous passions, he sees the
abominable reality until his sufferings from it amount to agony. The two
scenes reproduced by the _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ show us a muddy and
bloodstained trench, where German soldiers, like beasts in a
slaughter-house, die or await death with bitter words--and officers
getting drunk on champagne around a 42mm. mortar, laughing and getting
excited till they fall beneath the weight of sleep and fatigue.
From the first scene I take these terrible words of one of those who
wait in the trenches under fire of the machine guns, a _Dreissigjæhriger_
(man of thirty).
In my village they are laughing--they drink to each victory. They
slaughter us like butcher's cattle--and they say "It's war!" When
it is over, they are no fools, they will feast us for three years.
But the first cripple won't be grey headed before they will laugh
at his white hairs.
And the Uhlan, possessed by horror in the midst of the massacre, falls
on his knees and prays:
Thou who gavest life and takest it--how shall I recognize Thee? (In
these trenches strewn with mutilated bodies) I find Thee not. Does
the piercing cry of these thousands suffocated in the terrible
embrace of Death reach not up to Thee? Or is it lost in frozen
space? For whom does Thy Springtime blossom? For whom is the
splendor of Thy suns? For whom, O God? I ask it of thee in the name
of all those whose mouths are closed by courage and by fear in face
of the horror of Thy darkness: What heat is left within me? What
light of truth? Can this massacre be Thy will? Is it indeed Thy
will?
(_He loses consciousness and falls._)
A pain less lyrical, less ecstatic, more simple, more reflective, and
nearer to ourselves marks the sequence of _Feldpostbriefe_ of Dr. Albert
Klein, teacher in the Oberrealschule at Giessen and Lieutenant of the
Landwehr, killed on the 12th of February in Champagne.[38] Passing over
what are, perhaps, the most striking pages from the point of view of
artistic quality and power of thought, I will only give two extracts
from these letters which are likely to be of special interest to French
readers.
The first describes for us with an unusual frankness the moral condition
of the German army:
Brave, without care for his own life! Who is there among us that is
that? We all know too well our own worth and our own possibilities;
we are in the flower of our age: force is in our arms and in our
souls; and as no one willingly dies, no one is brave (_tapfer_) in
the usual sense of the word: or at least such are very rare. It is
just because bravery is so rare in life, it is just for that that
we expend so much religion, poetry, and thought (and this begins
already at school), in celebrating as the highest fate death for
one's fatherland, until it attains its climax in the false heroism
which makes such a sensation about us in newspapers and speeches
and which is so cheap--and also in the true heroism of a small
number who do risk themselves and lead on the others.... We do our
duty, we do what we _ought_; but it is a passive virtue.... When I
read in the papers the scribblings of those who have a bad
conscience because they are safely in the rear--when I read this
talk which makes every soldier into a hero, I feel hurt. Heroism
is a rare growth, and you cannot build on it a citizen army. To
keep such an army together the men must respect their superiors,
and even fear them more than the enemy. And the superiors must be
conscientious, do their duty well, know their business thoroughly,
decide rapidly, and have control of their nerves. When we read the
praises which those behind the line write of us, we blush. Thank
God, old-fashioned, robust shame is not dead in us.... Ah! my dear
friends, those who are here don't speak so complacently of death,
of disease, of sacrifice, and of victory as do those who behind the
line ring the bells, make speeches, and write newspapers. The men
here accustom themselves as best they may to the bitter necessity
of suffering and of death if fate wills; but they know and see that
many noble sacrifices, innumerable, innumerable sacrifices have
already been made, and that already for a long while we shall have
had more than enough of destruction on our side as well as the
other. It is precisely when one has to look suffering in the face
as I have that a tie begins to be formed that unites one to those
over there, on the other side (and one that unites you too with
them, my friends! Yes, surely you feel it too, don't you?) If I
come back from here (which I scarcely hope for any more) my dearest
duty will be to soak myself in the study and the thoughts of those
who have been our enemies. I wish to reconstruct my nature on a
wider basis.... And I believe that it will be easier after this war
than after any other to be a human being.
The second fragment is the account of a touching encounter with a French
prisoner:
Yesterday evening I was strangely touched. I happened to see a
convoy of prisoners and I talked to one of them, a colleague of
mine, Professor of classical philology in the college of F----.
Such an open-minded, intelligent man, and with such a fine military
bearing, like all his fellows, although they had just been through
a terrible experience of machine-gun fire.... It was a proof to me
of the senselessness of the war. I thought how much one would have
liked to be the friend of these men, who are so near us in their
education, their mode of life, the circle of their thought and
their interest. We started talking about a book on Rousseau and we
began to dispute like old philologists.... How much we are alike in
force and worth! And how little truth there is in what our papers
tell us of the shaken and exhausted conditions of the French
troops! As true, or rather as untrue, as what the French newspapers
write about us.... My French colleague showed in his remarks such a
balanced mind and such understanding and admiration of German
thought! To think that we were made so clearly to be friends and
that we had to be separated! I was altogether overcome, and sat
down crushed by it. I thought and thought and could not escape my
mood by any sophistry. No end, no end to war, which for nearly six
months now has swallowed in its gulf men, fortunes, and happiness!
And this feeling is the same with us as with the other side. It is
always the same picture: we do the same thing, we suffer the same
thing, we are the same thing. And it is precisely for this reason
that we are so bitterly at enmity....
The same accent of troubled anguish, together with a despair which at
moments nearly reaches to madness, and at others breathes a religious
fervor, are seen in the letters of a German soldier to a teacher in
German Switzerland. (We have known of these at the Prisoners' Agency for
three or four months and they were published in _Foi et Vie_ of April
15th.[39] They have been passed over in silence, so we shall persist in
calling attention to them, for they thoroughly deserve it). In these
letters, which cover from the second fortnight of August to the end of
December, we see from the 25th of August onwards the evidence of a
desire for peace among the German soldiers.
We all, even those who were hottest for the fight at the beginning,
want nothing now but peace, our officers just as much as
ourselves.... Convinced as we are of the necessity to conquer,
warlike enthusiasm does not exist among us; we fulfil our duty, but
the sacrifice is hard. We suffer in our souls.... I cannot tell you
the sufferings I endure....
September 20th. A friend writes to me: "On the 20th to 25th of
August I took part in big battles; since then I suffer morally even
to complete exhaustion, both physical and spiritual. My soul finds
no repose.... This war will show us how much of the beast still
survives in man, and this revelation will cause us to make a great
step out of animalism: if not, it is all up with us!"
November 28th. (_A splendid passage where one almost hears the
voice of Tolstoi._) What are all the torments of war compared to
the thoughts that obsess us night and day? When I am on some hill
from which my view commands the plain, this is the idea which
ceaselessly tortures me: down there in the valley the war rages;
those brown lines which furrow the landscape are full of men who
are facing one another as enemies. And up there on the hill
opposite you there is, perhaps, a man who, like you, is
contemplating the woods and the blue sky and perhaps ruminating the
same thoughts as you, his enemy! This continual proximity might
make one mad! And one is tempted to envy one's comrades who can
kill time in sleeping and playing cards.