THE GERMAN POSITION
An Aggressive Germany--The Logic of It--The War Party Supreme--A War for
Business--What Confronts Germany--Her Finish.
A mighty nation surrounded and besieged, yet still fighting on foreign
soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not
alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a
reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means
only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national
existence into which the German people have been led under the present
emperor, that theory which teaches:--
"War and courage have done more great things than Charity."
"What is good? All that increases the feeling of power; the will to
power."
"The weak and debauched must perish, and should be helped to perish."
This is the philosophy, the teaching and the language of Nietzsche and on
it Treitschke and Bernhardi founded their war propaganda.
When Emperor William II ascended the throne and became the "All Highest
War Lord," he found himself at the head of two great Germanys: a military
Germany arising from the Prussian conquest of France in 1870, by which
more than thirty states had been welded into a compact unity of military
order, commercial tariffs, railroad transportation, and national finance;
and an industrial Germany forging ahead in the commercialism of the earth
at a pace exceeded by no other nation.
Bismarck and Von Moltke had made a Germany for defense. The railways did
not flow to the ocean for the interchange of commerce. They ran
primarily east and west to the Russian and French frontiers for military
reasons; but never for attack, always for defense. It was expected that
France would revive and again seek to try issues with Germany. In this
she might possibly be assisted by Russia. Hence the German plans were
for defense against these two countries.
As Germany developed in industry, the military caste receded relatively.
Bankers, merchants, shippers, and traders came to the front. Railways
bent the traffic of the country to the sea, and harbors and ports of
commerce grew with rapid strides.
"What a wonderful business man is the German Emperor!" said the world.
"He advertises Germany all over the earth by the spiked helmet and the
rattle of his sword, but never war seeks he." The world must now revise
this opinion.
German unity gave rise to German efficiency and German thoroughness, and
to a demand for a larger German unity. The whole German-speaking race
must be put together and bound together. Germany must expand over the
seas, in colonial empire, and by tariffs of her own making. This meant
that the Germans must have dominion on sea as well as land. Alliances
must first be cemented with Austria and her neighboring states. Italy
must be dragged into a triple alliance; and the small Balkan States must
be tied up with Austria, that through an alliance with Turkey, Germany
might reach not only the Mediterranean but the waters of the Pacific.
This must happen before the great try-out for the mastery of the seas.
Now, the central point in the study of Germany under the present Kaiser
is the naval programme for over-seas conquest, which was originated
entirely by the present Kaiser. It was he and no other who aimed to turn
defensive Germany into aggressive Germany. He has been the author from
the beginning of the entire naval programme.
Such a plan must take cunning and strategy covering years. It must
proclaim peace to the world but rouse all the fighting blood of the
German-speaking race. The spirit for world-conquest must be stimulated
in all literature and art, in education, and commerce; with the
individual and the family. The danger of Germany must be pointed out.
The greatness and rightfulness of her ambitions in the world must be
brought forward and educated into the blood of every growing German.
While to the outside world steadily proclaiming peace, the Kaiser was as
steadily inculcating war and the principles of war into every avenue of
German thought and philosophy.
The Germans are nothing if not logical and scientific. They must
therefore find a reason in philosophy and in the facts of history for
their national programme. Those who found these reasons and logically
set them forth were hailed as the great philosophers and educators of
Germany. The logic was simple. It was that all history and all progress
had been made by war; that peace-loving races decayed, and finally
perished, and their places were rightfully taken by the younger, braver,
sturdier, and hardier fighting races.
"Let your superiority be an acceptance of hardship." "Die at the right
time." "Be hard." "What is happiness? The feeling that power
increases, that resistance is being overcome." Nietzsche thus talked the
principles of this philosophy; a something entirely apart from the
principles of the Christian religion, but an absolutely philosophical,
modern paganism; a worship of power, the assertions of one's individual
and national self--"The Will to Power."
Treitschke taught it to the youth of Germany as applied to war,--not the
necessity for defense but the justice and the righteousness of aggressive
warfare. The Emperor and his court hailed these teachings with great
acclaim. Chamberlain, an Englishman, printed a book to show that all
good things were German; that the great Italian art-workers were German;
that Christ himself was of German origin.
The teachings of Christ were repudiated by Germany, but His greatness in
world leadership must be claimed for Germany. Had not all the poets
given Him the German countenance and complexion, even light hair and blue
eyes? The German Emperor bought presentation copies of this book by the
thousand.
If you think the picture is over-drawn, get a copy of Chamberlain's
"Foundations of the Nineteenth-Century Civilization."
There are those who acclaim that all these teachings were never meant for
war; that the Germans, outside of Prussia, being a phlegmatic,
home-loving, non-military people, needed to have their patriotism
stimulated with "war talk" and national ambitions.
Now there are those who see that it was all part of a cunning propaganda
for a world-conquest; that Germany was cultivated industrially and
financially to give base for military operations.
But most carefully have the business men of Germany been excluded from
the war councils. I asked one of the best-informed men in the diplomatic
cycles of Europe, whose business all his life has been to travel from
country to country studying the languages, thought, and customs of all
people, west of Asia and north of Africa: "Are the German bankers and
business men to have no say in Berlin as to peace and war or the military
policy of the empire?" His response was emphatic: "Not one word; they
would no more be allowed expression of opinion in the inner councils of
military Germany than would a rank foreigner from the farthest part of
the earth. Still in Germany is the business of trade apart from the
business of government."
The world may now see that the business of Germany was war from the
beginning under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that Germany was to be made great
on land and sea by the sword of war hacking the way for German commerce,
German tariffs, and German commercialism. The old feudal idea of trade
expanded and supported by a war lord has been the idea of Germany since
the pilot, Bismarck, was dropped by the young Emperor from the ship of
state. War for aggression, war for business, war for German expansion,
has been the scheme. That these plans were interrupted and the war
precipitated sooner than expected was most fortunate for American
civilization and all civilization, west of Germany.
It was the Kaiser who changed the terms of Austria's ultimatum to Servia,
making them impossible of fulfillment, and then cunningly slipped away on
a water-trip with the fastest German cruiser behind him, that he might
come rushing back and cry, "Peace, peace!" while he fenced off every
peace proposal from effectively reaching Austria. Servia was willing to
agree to every demand of Austria except that which involved a change in
her constitutional government, with which she could not comply in the
allotted time; but even this she was willing to discuss. The Kaiser gave
Russia twelve hours to demobilize, and then declared war on her five days
before Russia even withdrew her minister from Vienna.
While the Germans have gone to war to possess the land and dominate the
business of their neighbors, they have not gone to war as savage tribes,
seeking blood and human sacrifice as an end in itself.
I have not dealt with German atrocities in Belgium or France. War is
atrocious, and you cannot move millions of men to the slaughter of their
fellow men without revealing a certain percentage of crimes kindred to
murder.
In due time, all the atrocities of this war may be shown up in
photographs which have been taken. The Carnegie Peace Foundation is
circulating photographs showing the atrocities in the Bulgarian wars. It
might be much more timely for them to circulate photographs showing the
horrors and atrocities of human sacrifice in this most audacious war.
Previous chapters have shown how German diplomacy slipped, how the German
secret service had gathered the facts of the military, financial, and
political weaknesses of Russia, Great Britain, and France, yet with no
ability to value properly the spirit of the peoples behind this military
unpreparedness. Germany has been described as "System without Soul." It
remains only to show the relative weaknesses of Germany, and why she
cannot win this war.
The Allies can reach round the world for men, war-supplies, and financial
assistance. Germany can get no more men, no more gold, no more outside
war-supplies. She must manufacture and be self-sustaining.
In the first six months of the war Germany has raised a loan of
4,400,000,000 marks, or about 1,100,000,000 dollars, promptly and
patriotically taken by her people.
But international bankers inform me that every dollar of this and fifty
percent more was gone before January 1, 1915. This is also indicated by
the expansion of her paper money and her efforts to maintain the gold
basis under that paper.
As this is regarded as a life-and-death struggle for Germany, the jewelry
in the Empire must go into the melting-pot.
I can well credit the reports of copper household utensils and building
materials going into the melting-pot for the copper of war.
And of rubber, for which there is no substitute, I hear that above three
dollars a pound is being bid in Germany, or about four times the price in
the United States.
Still, the scarcity of gold, copper, gasolene, or rubber, or all
combined, might not force Germany to sue for peace.
What I give a final verdict on is the tremendous human sacrifice that is
exhausting both Austria and Germany. I do say from good sources that in
the first twenty weeks of the war the German casualties--wounded,
prisoners, missing, and killed--were above 1,700,000, while Austrian
casualties are now approaching a million and a half.
In the first six months of the year Germany and Austria will have
suffered not less than three million casualties. Of course, more than
half these people are wounded, who may go back to the firing line. But
the three hundred thousand and more dead will never go back; and many
vitally wounded and many cripples will be hereafter useless in peace or
war; and the prisoners that are exchanged with France through Geneva are
under pledge and mutual government agreement not to take up arms again.
I have also more confidence in the Russian position, numbers, supplies,
and strategy than is generally possessed in America.
We hear in the press reports of generals at the head of the armies in
Russia and France. We do not hear of the wonderful younger generals that
war is developing, and who are coming forward more rapidly there than
from any similar developments under the bureaucracy of Germany.
The two greatest military strategists the war has developed are not in
Germany or England. They are in Russia and France, and their names have
not yet crossed the Atlantic in the press reports.
However long Germany may fight on, offensively or defensively, her
retreat must begin this year. Then the world will be increasingly
interested in the terms of peace.
Balfour, the English statesman, says privately, "I know the people look
for the dismemberment of Germany, and some look for her destruction, but
this is not the intelligent opinion or intelligent desire. Germany is an
indispensable part of the world's industrial, commercial, financial, and
political organization. To destroy Germany would be a world loss." The
opinion of eminent political and financial people in England is that
Germany can never repair the total damage she may inflict. So far as
England is concerned, next after the destruction of Germany's war-power,
giving insurance of a European peace, comes first the indemnification of
every financial loss that Belgium suffers. This is now estimated at from
$1,500,000,000 to $2,500,000,000.
What there will be left over in the way of Germany's ability to pay,
aside from the Kiel Canal, Alsace and Lorraine, and German Poland, is
problematical.
To have Germany able to pay even a part of the damage she is inflicting
upon the world, she must be put back upon her industrial feet.
Therefore, I have declared, when asked about this matter, that in the end
England would be found the best friend of Germany. But conquered and
destroyed must be the Prussian war-machine of aggression, or crumbles the
art and industry of republican France and the democracy of English
speech, thought, and government.