Nor did the theologians, publicists, and authors of Germany show a more
sensitive conscience than her statesmen. One of the theologians was
Adolf Harnack, professor of Church History in Berlin and intimate
acquaintance of the Kaiser. Not long before the war he published a
book entitled “What is Christianity?” which began with the words, “John
Stuart Mill used to say humanity could not be too often reminded that
there was once a man named Socrates. That is true, but still more
important it is to remind mankind that a man of the name of Jesus Christ
once lived among them.” On this text the Book proceeded to enforce the
practical application of Christ’s teaching to the modern world, and
particularly to propound his doctrine of the wickedness and futility
of violence, which led the author to the conclusion that it was “not
necessary for justice to use force in order to remain justice.”
Somewhat later Professor Harnack came to this country to attend, if I
remember rightly, a World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, and the
memory of him which abides in our northern capital is that of a high
priest and prophet of the new golden age that was dawning on the
world--the age of universal brotherhood and peace. But no sooner had
war come within the zone of Germany than this man signed (if he did
not write) a manifesto of German theologians which told “evangelical
Christians abroad” that the German “sword was bright and keen,” that
Germany was taking up arms to establish the justice of her cause and
that ever through the storm and horror of the coming conflict the German
people, with a calm conscience, would kneel and pray: “Hallowed be Thy
name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
“WE SHALL NEVER MASSACRE BELGIAN WOMEN”
One of the writers who performed the same kind of moral somersault was
Gerhart Hauptmann, author of a Socialist drama called “The Weavers,”
and, rumour says, protégé (what frightful irony!) of the Crown Prince,
Hauptmann knew well (none better) that a vast proportion of the human
family live perpetually on the borderland of want, and that of all who
suffer by war the poor suffer most. Yet he wrote (and a degenerate son
of the great Norwegian liberator, Bjôrnsen, published) a letter, in
which, after telling the poor of his people that “heaven alone knew”
why their enemies were assailing them, he called on them (in effect) to
avenge unnameable atrocities, which he alleged, without a particle of
proof, had been committed on innocent Germans living abroad, and then
said, in allusion to Mr. Maeterlinck, “I can assure him that, although
‘barbarous Germans,’ we shall never be so cowardly as to massacre or
martyr the Belgian women and children.” This was written in August 1914,
at the very hour, as the world now knows, when the German soldiers in
Liège were shooting, bayoneting, and burning alive old men and little
children, raping nuns in their convents and young girls in the open
streets. But the invisible powers of evil have no mercy on their
instruments after they have worked their will, and Time has turned them
into objects of contempt.
Nor were the German people themselves, any more than their
master-spirits and spokesmen, spared the shame of their duplicity
in those early days of August 1914. A large group of them, including
commercial and professional men, drew up a long address to the neutral
countries, in which they said that down to the eleventh hour they had
“never dreamt of war,” never thought of depriving other nations of light
and air or of thrusting anybody from his place. And yet the ink of their
protest was not yet dry when they gave themselves the lie by showing
that down to the last detail of preparation they had everything ready
for the forthcoming struggle.
Englishmen who were in Berlin and Cologne on July 81, and August 1
(before any of the nations had declared war on Germany), could see what
was happening, though no telegrams or newspapers had yet made known the
news. A tingling atmosphere of joyous expectation in the streets; the
cafés and beer-gardens crowded with civilians in soldiers’ uniforms;
orchestras striking up patriotic anthems; excited groups singing
“Deutschland über Alles,” or rising to their feet and jingling glasses;
then the lights put out, and a general rush made for the railway
stations--everybody equipped, and knowing his duty and his destination.