THE SILENCE OF HERR VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG
I.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg is to-day the most tragic figure amongst the
statesmen of Europe. For three years he has borne a crushing burden, a
burden which even Bismarck, the man of blood, was unable to bear in
the piping days of peace; a burden from which the Iron Chancellor had
to seek periodical liberation amidst the heather and the pine-forests
of his native Brandenburg. As Prime Minister of Prussia, as Chancellor
of the German Empire, as Foreign Secretary of the Teutonic Alliance,
he has to keep a firm grip of all the threads, both of internal and of
external policy. Distracted between Catholics and Protestants, between
agrarians and industrials, between Germany and Austria, he has been
made responsible for all the blunders of his subordinates. A rich man,
and the scion of an historic house, he has led the life of a
galley-slave; an honest man, he has been doomed to perpetual
prevarication; a humane man, he has had to condone every atrocity; an
independent man, he must cringe before his master; a peaceful man, he
must submit to the continuation of insensate slaughter; a highly
gifted intellectual, he has had to pursue a policy of insane
stupidity. Twenty-five years ago a professor of the University of
Munich, Dr. Quidde, compared the Kaiser to Caligula. The analogy
between William and Caligula or Nero points to another analogy, that
between Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg and Seneca, the ill-fated counsellor
of the Cæsars. Read in the _Annals_ of Tacitus the speech of Seneca to
Nero, and you will perhaps understand the position of Herr von
Bethmann-Hollweg in the Imperial Palace of Potsdam.
II.
The internal political crisis in Germany, which started at the
beginning of last autumn, has come to a head because the Chancellor
will not speak out. There was a time when political crises in Germany
were due, not to the silence of the German rulers, but to their
utterances and indiscretions. In recent months the Kaiser, the man of
the three hundred uniforms and of the three thousand speeches, has
committed no such indiscretions as marked his reign from his ascent to
the throne; he has been almost as reticent as his unhappy father, who
did not speak because he had cancer in the throat. And now the
silver-tongued von Bethmann-Hollweg has also discovered the political
virtue of silence. The people have been loudly clamouring for a few
words of comfort, but above the thunder of the distant guns we only
hear the scribblers of a servile Press, who are beating the air with
their croakings.
III.
Why this ominous, obstinate, sphinx-like silence of the Chancellor,
more pregnant with meaning than the most eloquent speeches? It would
be so easy for so resourceful a man to utter a few oracular sentences,
a few ambiguous phrases, a few patriotic trumpet-calls. Was not the
last great speech which he delivered in the Reichstag covered with
frantic applause? But the days are past for ambiguous utterances,
however patriotic, however oracular. The Chancellor knows that any
clear, outspoken utterance on the peace aims of the German Government
would seal the doom of the Government; he knows that any statement of
terms would reveal the glaring discrepancy between those terms and the
solemn promises so often made to the German people. The people still
passionately believe in the promises and assurance of an early and
final victory. Only such a belief is still sustaining the drooping
spirits of the nation, only such an assurance enables them to submit
to the starvation of their women and children, to their tragic
isolation in a hostile world, to the appalling sacrifices on the
battlefield.
IV.
And now the conspiracy of lies and the conspiracy of silence is about
to be exposed. The inexorable truth must be proclaimed. The German
present is dark, but the future is desperate. The U-boat campaign has
failed, the hope of a separate peace with Russia has vanished, the
menace of America is drawing near. Greater exertions and more
appalling sacrifices are needed, and yet all the motives for further
sacrifices have vanished. The rulers were fighting for conquest and
plunder. But it is now obvious that there can be no conquest nor
plunder. The German people were misled into the belief that they were
struggling in self-defence against the "Slav peril," but since the
Ides of March in Petrograd the Russian bugbear has disappeared. They
were misled into the belief that they were struggling for liberty. But
the Germans are now the only people still deprived of political
liberty. Even the much-despised Slav has ceased to be a slave. The
only slaves in Europe to-day are the subjects of the Hohenzollern.
V.
This German war has been described as a tragedy of Prussian craft and
graft, and the Teuton rulers have been denounced rightly for their
cruelty and brutality. But posterity would be more inclined to see in
this war a tragedy of German virtue. For the virtues of the German
have been more terrible than his vices. For this catastrophe has been
possible, not because the German people are so wicked, but because
they have been so good, because they have practised too well the
"three" theological virtues of blind faith, passive obedience, and
inexhaustible patience; because they have been so pathetically loyal
to their misrulers; because they have shown the sentimentality of a
woman and the credulity of a child. The German Michel has been the
political Peter Pan of Europe, the boy that won't grow up. He has
been the boy that has been let loose and has lit the match to the
powder magazine. He has been the incurable romanticist who has
continued to believe in fairy-tales in a world of stern realities. And
now this child-like faith in fairy-tales has been dispelled by
disaster. The vision of a holy German Empire, of the pomp and
circumstance of war, its glory and glamour, is shattered. The spell is
broken. The German Michel is awakening from his dreams. Walhalla is
shaken to its foundation. Tor is ready with his hammer. Revolution is
knocking at the door!