GERMAN IDEALS AND ORGANIZATION
When wars begin between nations we usually see the leaders of thought
on each side busy developing distrust among their own citizens for the
people against whom they are fighting. In accordance with this fact,
the people of the United States have read a great deal since August,
1914, to make them think very unkindly of Germany.
This chapter is not a plea for the Germans, and I agree that they did
unnecessarily cruel and impossible things in Belgium. It is not to be
denied that they played a most unwise part in the war game, when they
tried to steal a march on France by invading through Belgium, a thing
they were pledged not to do. It pays to keep faith; and when a nation
does not keep faith other nations have no recourse but to treat it as
if it were a pirate. If they do otherwise, the whole game will become
a pirate’s game, and good faith will disappear from international
relations. If Germany may violate Belgium at will, why may she not
violate Switzerland, Holland, or any other state that stands in her
way; and who would not expect her to do it, if no powers faced her that
were willing and able to dispute her will?
It is not improbable that German leaders understood this as well as we
who now pass it under review. They must have made their calculations on
arousing the opposition of the world and proceeded with the expectation
that they would gain so much by their sweep through forbidden Belgium
that they could defy the world. And if things had gone well for them,
the calculation would have been well made. For if Germany had carried
France off her feet and placed her in a position to offer no further
menace during the next ten years, and if she had dealt a similar blow
to Russia, what power could have checked her in the future decade? By
glancing at the situation in Europe today we may see how an intrenched
Germany defies the united and unwhipped world. How much more might she
not have had her way, if the thrust through Belgium had succeeded!
Let us suppose that the game of bad faith had proved successful as
planned, what would have been the result? Probably Great Britain would
have wakened slowly to her peril, but her position was such that she
could have done nothing. Her fleet would have been useless against an
enemy that rules on land. Her army could not have met the combined
Teutonic armies, and she would have had no allies. Meanwhile, Germany
and Austria at their leisure could have digested the Balkans and
drawing Turkey into their net could have established a “Mittel-Europa”
that would have left the rest of the world at their mercy. These were
alluring stakes to play for, and it is not hard to see how a nation
whose leaders have thrown aside the homely motto that “Righteousness
exalteth a nation” would be willing to take a chance in order to obtain
them.
When we think of such things as these we are in danger of concluding
that they represent the real Germany. We look back to that Germany of
the past which we saw in our youth, whose music we have heard all our
lives, whose Goethe we have read, whose scholarship we have built upon,
and whose toys have amused us and our children through many decades
and ask ourselves whether or not we were mistaken in our ideas of
Germany. Are there two Germanies, and if so, which is the true Germany?
Probably the answer is that each is the real Germany manifesting
herself in different moods. Fundamentally we have an intense and
emotional people, swayed in one instance by artistic emotions, in
another by the love of exact research for facts, in another by the
feeling of domesticity, and in still another by the powerful impulse
of a great national egoism. They are a people who can love much,
hate much, play much, sacrifice much, and serve well when called
into service. In their war-maddened mood they have stained a fair
reputation, and they are now trying to think that the stain will not
matter if they can only fight through to victory. But nations are like
men in this that however successful one may become personally he never
gets to be so great that he can afford to carry a tarnished reputation.
Let us turn to the Germany of old and see if we cannot observe the
process by which she came to her present state of mind. While I realize
that it is absolutely necessary for the world to crush her attempt
to rule Europe, I cannot find it in my heart to hate her. She has
risen to such a state of efficiency in social organization and in the
capacity to spread the light of civilization that she commands respect
from thinking foes. It is the duty of the world to chasten the spirit
of arrogance out of her, but to leave her sound and able to deal with
the future in that way in which she is so well fitted to play a strong
and beneficial part. If ever a great people needed the discipline of
disaster to teach them that nations, like men, should do to others as
they wish others to do to them, that nation is the Germany of today. To
understand in what way this splendid state has run away from its past
we shall have to glance at its history in the recent past.
For a point of departure let us take the Seven Years’ War. This
struggle was the result of the ambition of young Frederick, a strong
and unethical king of Prussia. When he came to the throne he found
that a parsimonious father had left him a full treasury, an excellent
army, and a united kingdom, while fate had sent the neighboring state
Austria, a young woman for ruler and an army that was not formidable.
It was a favorable opportunity to seize Silesia, which Prussia
considered necessary to her welfare, and to which she had the flimsiest
pretense of right. The rapacity of Frederick, her king, cannot be
justified on moral grounds, and it threw Europe into commotions for
which nearly a quarter of a century was needed for settlement. The last
phase of this quarter-of-a-century was the Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.
By the time it began Frederick of Prussia was looked upon by his
neighbors as a menace to Europe; and Austria, France, and Russia united
to crush him. He had a friend in Great Britain, who was generally found
among the foes of France. In the great war he waged through seven years
he fought off foes first on one side and then on the other until the
war ended at last with Prussia still unconquered.
If hard and valiant fighting and solicitude for the welfare of his
country could redeem the error of the invasion of Silesia the Seven
Years’ War would relieve Frederick, whom posterity calls “Frederick
the Great,” of all odium on account of the thoughtless way in which
he began his wars. Unlike the present kaiser, he began a long reign
rashly and ended it wisely. Administrative reforms and a policy of
peace with his neighbors made his last years a period of happiness for
Prussia.
But Silesia fixed a firm hold on the Prussian imagination. Long
justified as an act necessary to the safety of the Fatherland, and
therefore permissible, it has given sanction for the idea that wrong
may be done that good shall result, if only the state is to be
benefitted. It is a false doctrine, and it can do nothing but lead to
wars. Nations are under the same obligations to do right as individuals.
The next phase of German history which has interest for us in
connection with this study is that which lies between the years 1806
and 1813. It was a period of deep humiliation at the hands of Napoleon.
The small states were huddled together in a Confederation which was, in
fact, a tool of the Emperor of France, and Prussia lay like a trembling
and crushed thing in his hand. No living man who hates Germany for the
deeds of the present war could wish her a worse fate than Napoleon
inflicted on her after the battle of Jena in 1806. He insulted the
king, burdened the people with requisitions, and limited their armies.
It was the acme of national shame for the nation that is now so strong.
The cause of these woes was the lack of organization, and perhaps
Napoleon did the nation a service when he beat the Prussians into a
realization of it. No nation is so poor that it has not reformers who
see in what way its evils may be corrected. In the days that preceded
the calamities of which I speak Prussia had her prophets crying to deaf
men. Misfortune opened the ears of the rulers so that the prophets
might be heard. Reforms were adopted out of which has grown the Germany
of today. They all looked toward the unification of national energy,
whatever its form; but they are expressed in three notable ways:
universal military service, the correction of waste energy in civil
life, and the inculcation of the spirit of obedience to authority. On
these principles chiefly a new Germany was built.
We have said a great deal recently about crushing the German military
system. Probably we do not know just what we mean in saying this. At
least, it was not always our habit to decry the system. Many a time we
have spoken with admiration of the reforms of Scharnhorst, of the glory
of Leipzig and of the services of Blücher at Waterloo. If we stop to
think we shall see that our real objection is the purpose for which the
German military system has been used. And it seems that if it is to be
broken into pieces it must be opposed with a stronger system built on a
similar plan.
The next period that expresses Germany’s peculiar spirit is the era of
Bismarck, 1862 to 1890. It was the time of the cult of iron. Bismarck
was the “Iron Chancellor,” the nation offered its enemies “blood and
iron.” Iron cannon, iron words, and iron laws became the ideals of the
people. Statesmen, historians, poets, editors, professors, and all
other patriots began to worship according to the rite of the new cult.
And iron entered into the blood of the Germans.
To carry out Bismarck’s policy it was necessary to break down a
promising liberal movement that seemed on the point of giving Prussia
responsible government. It was his faith that a united Germany must
hew her way into the position of great power in Europe, and in order
to have a state that could do this there must be a strong central
authority, able to direct all the resources of the state to the
desired end. The large number of small nobles had long ago formed the
celebrated Junker autocracy, a body with like ideals. He gave their
restless energy a more definite political and military object, and made
them take places as parts of his great state machine.
He had his reward. In 1866 he fought a decisive war against Prussia’s
old enemy, Austria, and won it so quickly that even the Prussians were
astonished. In 1870-1871 he threw the state against France in a war
that left the land of Napoleon as completely at his feet as Prussia had
been at the feet of the Corsican. And then in the moment of exultation
over the victory he founded the German empire by uniting with Prussia
the numerous smaller German states. There is much to support the
suggestion that a similar stroke is held in reserve to create a
Mittel-Europa of Germany and Austria-Hungary as a final glory of the
present war, if Germany shows herself able to carry off the victory.
Bismarck’s ambition for Germany was to hold a position of arbiter in
Continental affairs. He felt that this was the best way to make his
country safe from hostile combinations, and it met his ideal of the
dignity to which Germany ought to attain. He achieved his desire in
the Three Emperors’ League and the Triple Alliance. Predominance in
influence was the height of his ambition. The conquest of new lands,
and the support of industry and trade by a policy of territorial
expansion, were not within his plans. He was a man of an older
generation to whom a predominance among the Great Powers was better
than chasing the rainbow of world empire.
In 1888 died Wilhelm I, the king whom Bismarck made Emperor. He was
an honest man who loved the simple and sound Germany in which he
was reared. At this time the leading men of 1871 were passing from
power and a group was coming on the scene who were young men in the
intoxicating times of Sedan and Metz. A new emperor came to the throne,
possessing great energy and the capacity of forming vast plans. He was
eleven years old when the empire was proclaimed at Versailles, the age
at which ordinary boys begin to wake from the dreams of childhood.
From such dreams Wilhelm II passed to dreams of imperial glory. The
idea of bigness of authority that he thus formed has remained with him
to this day. Add the effects of an impulsive disposition and an unusual
amount of confidence in himself and you will account for the peculiar
gloss spread over a character that is strong and otherwise wholesome.
Early in his reign he gave ground for alarm by several acts that are
hardly to be described in a less severe word than “bumptious.” He
dismissed Bismarck from the Chancellorship, seemingly for no other
reason than that he wished a chancellor who would be more obedient to
the imperial will, and he uttered many sentiments which caused sober
men to wonder what kind of emperor he was going to be. But as the years
passed it was noticed that all his aberrations fell short of disaster,
and as he was very energetic and devoted to efficiency in civil and
military matters the world came at last to regard him with real esteem.
When the present war began the kaiser became its leader, as was his
duty and privilege. Opinion in hostile countries pronounced him the
agent responsible for its outbreak. Around his striking personality
have collected many stories of dark complexion. At this time it is not
possible to test their accuracy, but it is safe to say that many of
them are chiefly assumption. On the other hand, it is undoubted that he
is now a firm friend of the military party, and that he supports the
autocracy in its purpose to carry the war to the bitter end. He has
been a diligent war lord and he has shown a willingness to share the
sacrifices of the people. Stories of apparent reliability that have
come out of Germany in recent months imply that he has steadily gained
in popularity during the conflict, while most of the other members of
his family have lost.
If it is important to clear thinking to see the kaiser in an impartial
light, it is equally necessary to understand the German _Kultur_. This
term is used in Germany to indicate the mass of ideas and habits of
thought of a people. It applies to art and industry, to religion and
war, to whatever the human mind directs. From the German’s standpoint
we have a _Kultur_ of our own. We have no corresponding term, nor
concept, and we cannot realize all he means in using the term if we do
not put ourselves in his place. Now it is true that the German has won
great success in intellectual ways. Scholarship, scientific invention,
the application of art to industry, and well planned efficiency in
social organization are his in a large degree. He is proud of his
achievements; and when the war began he felt that it was the German
mission to give this _Kultur_ to other peoples. From his standpoint, a
Germanized world would be a world made happy. It was an honest opinion,
and it went far to support his desire for expansion.
The Germans are a docile people with respect to their superiors,
and this trait is a condition of their _Kultur_. It is traditional
in Germany for the peasant to obey his lord, the lord to obey his
over-lord, and the over-lord to obey his ruler. To the kaiser look
all the people in a sense which no citizen of the United States can
understand without using a fair amount of imagination. The lords and
over-lords constitute the _Junkers_, who in the modern military system
make up the officer class. A high sense of authority runs through the
whole population, the upper classes knowing how to give orders and the
lower classes knowing how to take them.
Before the battle of Jena, 1806, the Prussian army was made up of
peasants forced to serve under the nobles, who took the offices.
Townsmen were excluded from the army. The peasant’s forced service
lasted twenty years. The system was as inefficient as it was unequal,
and a commission was appointed to reform it. The result was the modern
system of universal service, put into complete operation in 1813. After
a hundred years it is possible to see some of the effects of the system
on the ideals of the people. It has taught them to work together in
their places, formed habits of promptness and cleanliness, and lessened
the provincialism of the lower classes. It has been a great training
school in nationalism, preserving the love of country and instilling in
the minds of the masses a warm devotion to the military traditions of
the nation.
It has also produced results of a questionable value. By fostering
the military spirit it has developed a desire for war, on the same
principle that a boy in possession of a sharp hatchet has a strong
impulse to hack away at his neighbor’s shrubbery. It is probable
that the temptation to use a great and superior army was a vital fact
in bringing on the present war. Furthermore, the wide-spread habit
of docility leaves a people without self-assertion and enables their
rulers to impose upon them. As to the influence of universal service in
promoting militarism, that has been frequently mentioned.
On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that not all states that
have had universal military training have been saddled with these
evils. France, for example, has had universal training without becoming
obsessed with the passion for war and without the loss of popular
individualism. It seems well to say that universal training itself does
not produce the evils sometimes attributed to it. In Germany, at least,
it seems that it was the purpose for which the army existed, and not
the army itself, that developed militarism and brought other unhappy
effects.
Probably the German army before the war was the most efficient great
human machine then in existence. There was less waste in it and less
graft than in any other army. Since the army included all the men of
the empire at some stage or other of their existence, it was a great
training school in organization. Its effects on German history are
hardly to be exaggerated.
I have said that military organization alone was not sufficient to make
the modern Germany. It was also necessary to give the nation a definite
national purpose, and this was the task of its intellectual leaders.
The purpose itself was expressed in the idea of German nationality.
By a bold stretch of fancy every part of Europe that had once been
ruled by Germans, that spoke the German language, or that could be
considered as a part that ought to speak that language was fixed upon
as territory to be brought within the authority of the Fatherland.
It was in accordance with this principle that Schleswig-Holstein was
taken from Denmark in 1864 and Alsace-Lorraine in 1871. Here the
march of annexation paused. Bismarck was too wise to carry the theory
to an extreme; but a growing number of writers and speakers in the
empire took up the idea and kept it before the people with winning
persistence. It is thus that Pan-Germanism has come to be one of the
great facts in German public opinion. By preaching race unity with
patriotic zeal the intellectual leaders have established a powerful
propaganda of expansion.
Of the men most prominently associated with this movement especial
attention must be given to Heinrich von Treitschke, for years professor
of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Berlin, whose
remarkable influence reached all classes of people. He was a handsome
man with an open face that invited admiration without appearing to
care whether it was given or not. When he spoke the auditor heard “a
raucous, half-strangled, uneasy voice” and noticed that his movements
were mechanical and his utterances were without regard to the pauses
that usually stand for commas and periods, while his pleasant facial
expression had no apparent relation to what he was saying. The
explanation was that he was so deaf that he did not hear himself speak.
That such a speaker could fire the heart of a nation is evidence that
he was filled with unusual earnestness and sympathy.
He had great love of country, and if he exalted royalty and strong
government it was because he thought that Germany would reach her
highest authority through them. It was no selfish or incompetent king
that he worshiped, but one that lived righteously and sought diligently
to promote the interest of the people. He held that the nobility should
serve as thoroughly as the common men. Strong government in his idea
did not mean privilege, as ordinarily understood, but vital energy in
all the organs of administration, efficiently directed by a will that
was not hampered by the contrarywise tugging of individual opinions.
Treitschke’s penetrating eloquence was heard throughout the land.
Editors, preachers of religion, schoolmasters, authors, members of
the legislative assemblies, high officials, and even ministers of
state came to his class-room and went away to carry his ideas into
other channels. He inspired the men who did the actual thinking for
the nation. All his efforts were expended for what he considered the
enhancement of Germany’s position among nations.
In giving him his due we must not overlook his faults. He was narrow
in his ideas of international relations. His exaltation of Germany
would have left other nations at her mercy. He seems to have had small
respect for the principle of live-and-let-live among states. As much as
any one in his country he was responsible for the idea that the British
are a pack of hypocrites, offering inferior races the Bible with one
hand and opium with the other. That they had not a good record with
respect to the opium trade is true, but it was sheer narrowness to make
it the chief characteristic of a people who have done a great work in
behalf of the backward races.
Although Treitschke wrote many pamphlets on topics of current interest,
all bearing upon what he considered the destiny of Germany, he was
preëminently a historian. It was by telling the story of Germany since
the revival of national feeling after the battle of Jena that he wished
to serve best the generation in which he lived. For him it was the
historian to whom was committed the task of making the citizen realize
what place he had in the nation’s complex of duties and hopes.
He came upon the scene when history had become fixed upon the basis of
accuracy and detached research. Men like Leopold von Ranke had insisted
that history should deal with the cold exploitation of universal laws.
For them Treitschke was a bad historian, and they used their influence
to prevent his appointment at the University of Berlin. He was a
Chauvinist, undoubtedly, and his _History of Germany in the Nineteenth
Century_ is a highly colored picture of what he conceived the reader
should know about the history of his country. It is a work written to
arouse the enthusiasm of the people for their country, rather than
to instruct them in the universal laws of human development; and it
would be a sad day for the world if all history were written as he
wrote this. But it was a powerful appeal to national pride and energy.
It played a great part in the formation of the Germany with which
we are concerned in this chapter, the striving, self-confident, and
aspiring empire that set for itself the task of dominating the European
continent.
This chapter is not written to reconcile American readers to the German
side of the controversy that now engages the attention of all men. I
wish to enable the reader to have a clear view of the people with whom
we fight. It is they with whom we must deal in building up the system
out of which the future is to be constructed again; and we shall not
know how to deal with them if we do not see their point of view and
know what they are thinking about.
If in some of their ideals they are superior to other peoples, and if
their organization of individuals into the state has some elements
of strength not found in other systems, it is not for us to seek to
destroy the advantage they have won. It would be better for us to adopt
their good points, in order that we might the more surely defeat them
on the field of battle. Having won the victory we desire, we should
certainly not seek to destroy that which we cannot replace. Live and
let live, a principle which Germans have ignored in some important
respects, must be recognized after the military ambition of Germany is
broken, if we are to have an enduring peace.