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German Problems and Personalities
BY
CHARLES SAROLEA
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1917
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: Charles Sarolea]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. AN AMERICAN PREFACE 7
II. MY FORECASTS OF 1906 AND 1912 12
III. THE CURSE OF THE HOHENZOLLERN 53
IV. THE GERMAN WAR-TRIUMVIRATE 85
(i.) Nietzsche.
(ii.) Montaigne and Nietzsche.
(iii.) Treitschke.
(iv.) Bernhardi.
V. FREDERICK THE GREAT 136
VI. THE APOTHEOSIS OF GOETHE 142
VII. THE SERVICE OF THE CITY IN GERMANY 148
VIII. THE NEGLECT OF GERMAN 159
IX. MECKLENBURG, THE PARADISE OF PRUSSIAN JUNKERTHUM 164
X. THE GERMAN RACE HERESY AND THE WAR 169
XI. A SLUMP IN GERMAN THEOLOGY 183
XII. THE GERMAN ENIGMA 189
XIII. THE TRAGIC ISOLATION OF GERMANY 196
XIV. RUSSIA AND GERMANY 203
XV. THE PEACEMAKER OF GERMANY: PRINCE VON BÜLOW 218
XVI. THE SILENCE OF HERR VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG 226
XVII. THE COMING REVOLUTION IN GERMANY 231
XVIII. VIA PACIS 248
APPENDIX: THE PRIVATE MORALITY OF THE PRUSSIAN KINGS 255
GERMAN PROBLEMS AND PERSONALITIES
INTRODUCTION BY THE LITERARY EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK "TIMES"
Three years ago there was one man in Europe who had a political sight
so clear that his words then written seem to-day uncanny in their
wisdom.[1]
[1] One of the most eminent American theologians, Bishop
Brent, wrote in an article on "Speculation and Prophecy": "In
Dr. Sarolea's volume, 'The Anglo-German Problem,' published
in 1912, there is a power of precognition so startling that
one can understand a sceptic of the twenty-first century
raising serious doubts as to whether parts of it were not
late interpolation." Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his
"Crimes of England" applied to the "Anglo-German Problem" the
epithet "almost magical."
This man saw the present war; he saw that Belgium would be invaded by
Germany; he saw that the Germans hated England with a profound and
bitter hate; that German diplomatic blunders had placed that nation in
almost complete isolation in the world; that the Triple Alliance was
really only a Dual Alliance, popular feeling in Italy becoming
increasingly hostile to Austria and to Prussia; that Germans felt
their culture to be superior to the civilization of the rest of the
world, and themselves to be a superior race, with the right to rule
other peoples; that Prussianism and Junkerism and militarism were in
complete control of the German soul; that Germany had ambitions for
world empire, a recurrence of "the old Napoleonic dream"; that the
danger to European peace lay with Germany and not with England; that
Germans believed war to be essentially moral and the mainspring of
national progress; that the whole German people had become
Bismarckian; that the Germans hoped to obtain by a victory over
England that shadowless place in the sun toward which they began to
leap when they beat France in 1870.
The seer who thus saw is Dr. Charles Sarolea, who recently came to the
United States in the interests of his country, one of the most
distinguished of Belgian scholars, a friend of King Albert, holder of
Belgian decorations and honours from British learned societies, for
the last fourteen years Belgian Consul in Edinburgh, and for the last
twenty-one years head of the French and Romance Department at the
University of Edinburgh. His vision was set out in "The Anglo-German
Problem," written in 1912, now published in an authorized American
edition, perhaps the most accurate forecast which has been penned of
to-day's conflict, and certainly one of the most exact analyses of the
German nation made before the world learned, since last August, to
know it as it is--as Sarolea, master delineator of a nation's
character, drew it. Clear, sane, calm, logical, strong--such is Dr.
Sarolea's book, with its "rare perspicacity" and "remarkable sense of
political realities," in the words of King Albert's appreciation of
the work.
Dr. Sarolea, looking at Germany from the British Isles, where he was
writing, perceived that "war is actually unavoidable" unless a
spiritual miracle was wrought; that Europe was "drifting slowly but
steadily toward an awful catastrophe." Why? Because Germany was
strong, envious, ambitious, conceited, arrogant, unscrupulous, and
dissatisfied. It was in Germany that "the pagan gods of the Nibelungen
are forging their deadly weapons," for Germans believe national
superiority is due to military superiority. Dr. Sarolea named as a war
year this very year[2] in which we now are when he said:
[2] 1915.
"Believing, as they do, that to-day they are rich and prosperous
mainly because in 1870 they beat the French people, why should they
not believe and trust that in 1915 they would become even stronger and
richer if they succeeded in beating the English?"
And the conflict, when it comes, will be "a political and religious
crusade," rather than a mere economic war, for the conflict between
England and Germany "is the old conflict between liberalism and
despotism, between industrialism and militarism, between progress and
reaction, between the masses and the classes."
So many other important points are made in Dr. Sarolea's closely
written book, in which practically every sentence contains a fact, an
idea, or a prophecy, that it is not possible in this review to do more
than present a few of them in the summary which follows. Though the
present tense is used by Dr. Sarolea and the reviewer, it should be
constantly remembered that Dr. Sarolea was thinking in 1912, not since
August, 1914.
Germany is in "tragic moral isolation." The moral and intellectual
influence of German culture is steadily diminishing. Other nations
feel a universal distrust and dislike toward Germany. So great is
this antipathy that the Germans imagine there is a malignant
conspiracy against them. An upstart nation, suddenly wealthy and
powerful, Germany has developed an inordinate self-conceit and
self-assertion. The German glories in being a realist. He thinks only
of political power and colonial expansion. Might is the supreme test
of right. He constantly emphasizes the indelible character of the
German race. Germans are suffering from "acute megalomania." They
think the English decadent, the French doomed to premature extinction,
the Russians "rotten." Germany is the "reactionary force in
international politics."
England believes the building of the German Navy is mainly directed
against her, though Germany says she is building to protect her
colonies and commerce. Yet it is not reasonably possible so to account
for the German fleet.
The greatest danger to England is not invasion of the British Isles,
but invasion of Belgium and France. These countries are the "Achilles
heel of the British Empire." The German strategic railways on the
Belgian frontiers show that Germany is far more likely to invade
Belgium than England, Belgium again becoming the cockpit of Europe.
Germany feels that she has grievances against England; thus her
hatred. She thinks England has checked her commercial expansion. But
this is not true, for English Free Trade has been one of the most
important contributory causes of German prosperity.
Germany thinks England has arrested her colonial expansion; Germany
says every other great nation but herself has been permitted to build
up a colonial empire; thus she is prevented from attaining her natural
growth. But this is not true. England could not have checked her
colonial aspirations, because Germany had no colonial aspirations
until recently. When Germany did start to seek colonies, she met
everywhere conflicting claims of England, but this was because England
was already in possession, having begun her colonial policy years
before Germany entered the race. Bismarck was largely responsible for
Germany's now having so small a colonial territory.
Germany thinks she has another grievance--that England has hemmed her
in with a ring of enemies. But Germany is friendless because of her
mistakes. Bismarck alienated the Russians for ever in 1878 at the
Treaty of Berlin, making a Franco-Russian understanding unavoidable.
The Kruger telegram of 1896, the outburst of anti-British feeling
during the Boer War, the German naval programme, opened England's eyes
to her danger; thus was England forced to seek France and Russia.
The Kaiser is intensely religious, claiming to be "the anointed of the
Lord." Yet he is a materialist, an opportunist, and mainly trusts to
brute force. The navy is his creation. He brandishes the sword, saying
he loves peace. Napoleon III. used to express his love for peace, yet
brought on the most disastrous war of French history; Nicholas II.
started as the peacemaker of Europe, yet brought about the bloodiest
war in Russian history. "Are the Kaiser's pacific protests as futile,
are his sympathies as shallow, as those of a Napoleon or a Nicholas?"
Dr. Sarolea closes his book thus:
"We can only hope that England, which to-day more than any other
country--more, even, than republican France--represents the ideals of
a pacific and industrial democracy, may never be called upon to assert
her supremacy in armed conflict, and to safeguard those ideals against
a wanton attack on the part of the most formidable and most systematic
military power the world has ever seen."
CHAPTER I
AN AMERICAN PREFACE[3]
[3] Preface written for the American Edition of the
"Anglo-German Problem," published by Putnam.
I.
The book of which a new and popular edition is now presented to the
American public has very little in common with the thousand and one
war publications which are distracting the attention of a bewildered
and satiated reader. It was not compiled in feverish haste since the
war began. It was written years before the war, and represents the
outcome of two decades of study and travel in Germany.
The volume was first published in 1912 to dispel the false sense of
security which was blinding European opinion to the imminent perils
ahead, to warn Britain of the appalling catastrophe towards which all
nations were drifting, and to give an accurate estimate of the forces
which were making for war. I attempted to prove that Germany and not
Britain or France or Russia was the storm-centre of international
politics. I attempted to prove that the differences between Germany
and Britain were not due to substantial grievances, but that those
grievances were purely imaginary; that such catch-phrases as taking
Germany's place in the sun were entirely misleading, and that both
the grievances and the catch-phrases were merely diverting the public
mind from the one real issue at stake, the clash and conflict between
two irreconcilable political creeds--the Imperialism of Great Britain,
granting equal rights to all, based on Free Trade, and aiming at a
federation of self-governing communities; and the Imperialism of
Germany, based on despotism and antagonism and aiming at the military
ascendancy of one Power over subject races.
I further attempted to show how the German people were in the grip of
the Prussian military machine, of a reactionary bureaucracy, and of a
Prussian feudal Junkerthum; how behind that military machine and that
feudal Junkerthum there were even more formidable moral and spiritual
forces at work; how the whole German nation were under the spell of a
false political creed; how the Universities, the Churches, the Press,
were all possessed with the same exclusive nationalism; and how, being
misled by its spiritual leaders, the whole nation was honestly and
intensely convinced that in the near future the German Empire must
challenge the world in order to establish its supremacy over the
Continent of Europe.
II.
_Habent sua fata libelli!_ Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic" was
refused by the illustrious house of Murray. The now historical
"Foundations" of Chamberlain were rejected for twenty years by English
publishers, until the translation brought a little fortune to Mr. John
Lane. Without in the least suggesting a comparison with those famous
works, I only want to point out that the "Anglo-German Problem" has
passed through as strange literary vicissitudes. A book written by a
sympathetic and devoted student of German literature, and who for
twenty years had been working for the diffusion of German culture, was
denounced as anti-German. A book inspired from the first page to the
last with pacific and democratic ideals was denounced as a militarist
and mischievous production. A temperate judicial analysis was dubbed
as alarmist and sensational and bracketed with the scaremongerings of
the Yellow Press. The radical _Daily News_ of London dismissed my
volume with a contemptuous notice. The Edinburgh reviewer of the
_Scotsman_ pompously declared that such a book could do no good.
To-day both the Press and the public have made ample if belated amends
for the unjust treatment meted out to the "Anglo-German Problem" on
its first appearance. His Majesty King Albert has emphasized the
prophetic character of the book, and has paid it the high compliment
of recommending it to members of his Government. University statesmen
like President Butler, eminent lawyers like Mr. James Beck,
illustrious philosophers like Professor Bergson, have testified to its
fairness, its moderation, and its political insight. Almost unnoticed
on its publication in 1912, the "Anglo-German Problem" is to-day one
of the three books on the war most widely read throughout the British
Empire, and is being translated into the French, Dutch, and Spanish
languages.
III.
Not only have the principles and general conclusions propounded in the
"Anglo-German Problem" received signal confirmation from recent
events, but the forecasts and anticipations have been verified in
every detail. It is the common fate of war books to become very
quickly out of date. After four years, there is not one paragraph
which has been contradicted by actual fact. Even the chapter on the
Baghdad Railway, written in 1906 and published as a separate pamphlet
nine years ago, remains substantially correct. One of the leading
magnates of Wall Street wrote to me: "Events have not only unfolded
themselves in the way you anticipated, but they have happened for the
identical reasons which you indicated." I pointed out the fatal peril
of the Austrian-Serbian differences and of the _Drang nach Osten_
policy, and it is those Serbian-Austrian differences which have
precipitated the war. I prophesied that the invasion of Belgium and
not the invasion of England was the contingency to be dreaded, and
Belgium has become the main theatre of military operations. I
emphasized that the conflict was one of fundamental moral and
political ideals rather than of economic interests, and the war has
developed into a religious crusade. I prophesied that the war would be
long and cruel, and it has proved the most ruthless war of modern
times.
All the forces which I prophesied would make for war have made for
war: the reactionary policy of the Junkerthum, the internal troubles,
the personality of the Kaiser, the propaganda of the Press and of the
Universities. Similarly, the forces which were expected to make for
peace, and which I prophesied would _not_ make for peace, have failed
to work for peace. Few publicists anticipated that the millions of
German Social Democrats would behave as timid henchmen of the Prussian
Junker, and my friend Vandervelde, leader of the International Social
Democracy and now Belgian Minister of State, indignantly repudiated my
reflections on his German comrades. Alas! the Gospel according to St.
Marx has been as ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The
Social Democracy which called itself the International (with a capital
I) has proved selfishly nationalist, and the masses which had not the
courage to fight for their rights under Kaiser Bebel are now
slaughtering their French and English brethren, and are meekly
enlisted in the legions of Kaiser William.
The "Anglo-German Problem," written by a writer of Belgian origin who
foresaw the catastrophe threatening his native country, will be
followed up shortly by another book on the "Reconstruction of
Belgium." Belgium has been not only the champion of European freedom;
she has also been the innocent victim of the old order. It is only in
the fitness of things that after the war Belgium shall become the
keystone of the new International Order. The whole of Europe is
ultimately responsible for the Belgian tragedy. The whole of Europe
must therefore be interested in and pledged to the restoration of
Belgium and to the liberation of the Belgian people, now crushed and
bleeding under the heel of the Teutonic invader.