message of fellowship from English people to German people. There was
some surprise, some tendency to view the message as Utopian, but always
a cordial acknowledgment and a real goodwill. Dr. Siegmund Schulze was
most heartily in sympathy. "He feels that the ultimate hope of peace
lies in the increasing use of arbitration." "One very sweet-spirited
elderly gentleman in Berlin said that when he prayed things looked
different--he seemed to see things through God's eyes--but as a man he
had to fight." "At Stuttgart and Frankfurt I found the peace people more
thoroughgoing in their sentiments." The secretary of the Stuttgart
Peace Society said: "The armed peace of Europe is an exploded idea. As
long as we have armies we shall use them. We must educate the people to
realise this, and to work for disarmament."
_Lichtstrahlen_ was originally founded as an independent monthly
periodical by a Socialist, Julian Borchardt. The periodical was
unofficial and had a difficult struggle for existence. This was before
the war. When the war broke out the editor took as strong a line against
it as the censor allowed. The circulation rose so much that Borchardt
was able to convert the monthly into a weekly. Rosa Luxembourg and Frank
Mehring, greatly daring, started the _Internationale_ with the object of
rebuilding the International Labour and Socialist movement during the
war. The review was instantly suppressed, but was reprinted afterwards
at Berne. Among the contributors is the well-known Clara Zetkin. She
refers enthusiastically to the Christmas message sent by British women
to the women of Germany and other belligerent countries. (_Labour
Leader_, June 17, 1915.) Marie Engelmann, of Dresden, has protested with
equal strength.
FROM AN AMERICAN LADY.
The following is an extract from a valuable letter by Madeline G. Doty,
an American, which appeared in the _Nation_ of June 12, 1915:
My most revolutionary talk was with a gray-haired mother of
grown children, in a secluded corner of a quiet restaurant. A
burning flame this woman. Her face stamped with world suffering,
her eyes the tragic eyes of a Jane Addams. In a whisper she
uttered the great heresy: 'German salvation lies in Germany's
defeat. If Germany wins when so many of her progressive young
men have been slain, the people will be utterly crushed in the
grip of the mailed fist.'
With this companion I discussed the collapse of the Social
Democrats in the hour of crisis, the triumph of nationalism
over internationalism. She attributes it to military training.
During the period of service a man becomes a thing.
Automatically, he acquires habits of obedience, is reduced to an
unquestioning machine. Mechanically, when the call came, the
Social Democrats, with the others, fell into line. But with time
has come thought. Also knowledge--knowledge that, in the first
instance, Germany's war was not one of self-defence. But it is
too late to rebel. Most of the Social Democrats are at the
front. From month to month they have put off protest as unwise.
Only Liebknecht has made himself heard. Now he has been caught
up in the iron hand, and sent to battle. But women are not bound
by the spell of militarism. While the Government rejoiced at the
submission of its Socialist men, the women grew active.
Organising a party of their own, they fought bravely. Last fall
Rosa Luxembourg dashed into the street and addressed a regiment
of soldiers. 'Don't go to war, don't shoot your brothers,' she
cried. For this offence she was sent to prison for a year.
To-day she lies in solitary confinement. But her suffering only
inspires the others. In March 750 women walked to the Reichstag.
At the entrance they halted. As the members entered they
shouted, 'We will have no more war; we will have peace.' Quickly
the police dispersed them, and the order went forth that no
newspaper should print one word of the protest. Still the women
work on. On April 8, an International Socialist Woman's Congress
was held at Berne, Switzerland. Ten nations were represented,
including all the belligerents.
The task of peace propaganda in Germany is gigantic. Neither by
letter nor by Press can news be spread. Both are censored. The
work must be carried on by spoken word passed from mouth to
mouth. The courage of the little band of women I had met was
stupendous. Through them I learned to love Germany. So my life
in Berlin became a double one. I ate and slept, and was
unregenerate in one part of the town, and only really lived when
I escaped from respectability and, strange contradiction of
terms, became a criminal fighting for peace.
But wherever I was, one fact grew omnipresent. Germany was
magnificently organised. Here lay the country's power and her
weakness. Her power because it made Germany a unit. There were
no weak links in the chain. Her weakness, because it robbed her
people of individuality, made them cogs in a machine.
"Germany no longer cares whom she hurts," runs another passage in this
letter; "like an unloved child at bay she means, to smash and kill. The
pity of it! Never was there a more generous, soft-hearted, kindly
people. Germany, the land of the Christmas tree and folk songs, and
hearthsides and gay childish laughter, turned into a relentless fighting
machine! But each individual is a cog firmly fixed in the machine, which
will go ever on as long as the ruling power turns the crank."[73]
TWO SOLDIERS' LETTERS.
"If I were not firmly convinced that even this war will help to
establish the Kingdom of God I could hardly endure it. But I believe
that after passing through this hell humanity will come to itself and
learn to believe in the reign of human brotherhood.... I cannot tell you
the moral suffering I go through. These butcheries are utter madness. I
cannot forget for a moment that our enemies are men, and consequently
our brothers." So wrote a young German soldier student quoted by Mr.
Jerome K. Jerome.
The following letter is from the _Vossische Zeitung_. A soldier's young
sister had written asking him to "kill a lot of Russians" and "to gain a
new victory in order to cheer us up." "'Kill a lot of Russians.' You
have not seen them lying about--those poor dead, with their singularly
solemn faces.... You have not seen the battle which preceded, and the
bad wounds which so many of my friends got in trying to kill a lot of
them. You do not think of the fact that those dead men had parents,
brothers, and sisters whom they loved. And you have not seen the
harrowing destruction of the villages and towns--how the poor,
hunted-down population is running away, leaving everything they had
behind them to be consumed by the flames.... And then, remember, we are
not fighting in order to cheer you up--we are not lying about in the
open-air day and night, starved and suffering from wounds and
homesickness, in order that you at home may be cheerful at the tea or
beer table. We are fighting and bearing this terrible wretchedness in
order that you may he spared the horrors of war, and that Germany's
future may be bright." That is, I believe, what the enormous majority of
Germany's soldiers are fighting for. Soldiers on both sides have similar
and quite reconcilable aims; but government is too complex to express
the simple will of the people. In every country, it seems to me,
anti-militarist opinion only needs its chance. I was struck by the
frequency with which such an opinion cropped up when I was travelling a
few weeks in Germany not long before the war. On the top of the Belchen
I encountered it in talking to a native of Würtemberg. Again in a walk
with a young German to the Feldberg; again in a book-shop at Freiburg;
again in chance railway talk with a very well-educated German on my way
to Berlin. In Berlin itself a giant Westphalian accosted me, as he
wanted to make the acquaintance of "one of these terrible fellows who
mean to smash up Germany." His political ideal consisted in the belief
that England and Germany, understanding each other, could keep the peace
of the world.
ALBERT KLEIN.
Dr. Albert Klein, of Giessen, who was killed in the Champagne in
February, felt compelled to side with his Government, as so many do in
times of crisis. To that extent his was a biased judgment. It is a bias
that one has seen possessing almost everywhere the noblest souls. But
Klein could write thus:
When I read all this inflated stuff in the papers--written by
men guiltily conscious of being very safe in their offices at
home--to the effect that every soldier is a hero, I feel
positively disgusted. Heroism is far too rare to form a basis
for a national army. What is needed to make and keep that a
coherent whole is that men must respect their leaders and fear
them more than the enemy, and that leaders must be
conscientious, true to their duty, well informed, resourceful
and self-controlled. Thank God, there is plenty of the good old
discipline yet. But these fine fellows come along, concoct a
mess of New Year reflections and Centenary speeches and boldly
declaim about the German spirit that is to heal mankind. They
pick up all the filth of the foreign Press and fling it back
with threefold interest. It is just because I am so passionately
devoted to all that the noblest Germans have done for the
civilisation of the world that I do not desire to see us
burdened with a task we cannot accomplish.
If Germany's contribution to the world's civilisation is the
highest we can strive for, we must seek afresh to live in peace
and concord with the other nations. Then we shall cease calling
every Englishman a hypocrite and every Frenchman empty-headed,
quite apart from the daily proofs we get of their military
ability. Oh, my dear friends, believe me, the man on the spot
who sees and experiences all this, does not talk so complacently
of death and sacrifice and victory, as those who, far from the
front, ring the bells, make fine speeches and write the papers.
He resigns himself to the bitter necessity of suffering and
death when the hour comes, and he knows and sees how many, too
many sacrifices have already been made, knows it is time, high
time that all this devastation ceased, not only on our side, but
on the other side, too.
It is just in seeing all this suffering that we feel a new bond
of sympathy (and you, my dear ones, would feel just the same,
yes, I know, you feel it already) uniting us with the enemy.
If, as I hardly dare to hope, I return from this murderous war,
it will be one of my most welcome duties to steep my mind in the
culture of those that now oppose us. I mean to build up on a
broader basis the aim and purpose of my life, namely, historical
and philosophical meditation on culture in its highest form.
Last night I was strangely moved, having an opportunity of
seeing a convoy of prisoners and speaking to one of them, a
colleague, a classical philologist from Vigeac. Such a frank,
intelligent man, with an excellent military training, as indeed
were all the company with him! He told me how terrible it had
been to endure the firing of our machine-guns (démoralisant, he
called it)--and showed me clearly the utter senselessness of
war. How we should like to be friends with people so like us in
education, habits of life, thought and interest.
We soon got into conversation about a book on Rousseau and
began a regular argument, like two old philologists. He saw the
ribbon in my button-hole and when he heard it was the Iron Cross
he said: "Félicitations!" His sparkling interest in the striped
ribbon seemed to me so characteristic of a Southern Frenchman
and very touching.
How alike we are in worth and merit! How untrue all these tales
told by our papers of the French being broken and spent! Just as
untrue as all that the _Temps_ writes about us. And all he said,
this French colleague of mine, betrayed so much independent
thought and respect for German mind and character. Why should
we, fated to be friends, always be divided? I was deeply
troubled, and sat there for a long time lost in thought, but all
my brooding brought me no solution.
And the end not in sight yet, the end of this war, that for six
months has been gorging itself with human life and prosperity
and happiness! The same feeling amongst us and amongst them!
Always the same picture! We are so much alike, we achieve the
same, we suffer the same, just because we happen to be such
bitter enemies.--(From the _International Review_.)
The following is another extract given by M. Romain Rolland. It is taken
from the letter of a German soldier to a Swiss professor:
The longing for peace is intense with us. At least with all
those who are at the front, forced to kill and to be killed. The
newspapers say that it is not possible to stem the war-like
passion of the soldiers. They lie, knowingly or unknowingly. Our
pastors deny that this passion is abating. You cannot think how
indignant we are at such nonsense. Let them hold their tongues
and not speak of things they do not understand. Or, rather, let
them come here, not as chaplains in the rear, but in the line of
fire, with arms in their hands. Perhaps then they will perceive
the inner change which is going on in thousands of us. In the
eyes of these parsons a man who has no passion for war is
unworthy of his age. But it seems to me that we who are
faithfully doing our duty without enthusiasm for the war, and
hating it from the bottom of our souls, are finer heroes than
the others. They speak of a Holy War. I know of no Holy War. I
only know one war, and that is the sum of everything that is
inhuman, impious, and beastly in man, a visitation of God and a
call to repentance to the people who rushed into it, or allowed
themselves to be drawn into it. God has plunged men into this
Hell in order to teach them to love Heaven. As for the German
people, the war seems to be a chastisement and a call to
contrition--addressed first of all to our German Church.
GERMANY IN PEACE TIME.
Enough has been cited to give a glimpse of the better Germany in the
time of this war. Let us remember, too, what she has been in peace.
"After all, in our saner moments we all of us know that the Germans are
a great people, with a great part in the world to play. Their boasts
about their 'culture' are not idle boasts, and, when one comes to think
of it, it is rather important to have in our midst a people that _cares_
to boast about its culture. The Englishman is more given to complaining
than boasting, and when he does boast it is certainly not about culture.
As it seems to me, the Germans excel in two things--simple tenderness of
sentiment and the work of patient observation. I am aware that it has
for a considerable time been the mode in England to slight German
literature. Personally, I consider this one of those temporary poses to
which superior persons are liable. Leave out all the great names if you
will--Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and the rest--and we still have the
folk-songs. A nation that can produce those folk-songs has got unusual
gifts for the world. And, of course, we envy the Germans their music. Of
all the contemptible utterances that this war has produced (and it has
produced a good many) none has been worse than the silly blathering
against German music just because it is German. What have Beethoven,
Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner got to do with the politics of the
present war? Leaving the arts aside, it is quite certain that in any
region where careful observation and painstaking thought are required,
no one can afford to neglect Germany. Recently I was looking through
May's 'Guide to the Roman Pottery in the York Museum.' Among the names
of those dealing with the subject of Roman pottery I suppose the best
known are those of Déchelette and Dragendorff--the one French, the other
German. Among the other references I found fourteen to German
publications and four to English, one of the latter being merely a
museum catalogue. No one can study philosophy without continual
reference to German thought. Even in a subject so English as the study
of Shakespeare the work of Gervinus is fundamental, and from the time of
Lessing to that of Ten Brink there has been a succession of German
commentators. Those of us who have worked at all at science know only
too well what we owe to Germany there. It has, indeed, been at times
painful to compare the mass of the German output with the comparatively
thin stream of English work. Of course, there has been splendid English
research, but as a people we are not lovers of knowledge, and we are
specially loath to apply it. Again and again our scientific papers have
been filled with diatribes against our English neglect of science, and
the diatribes were needed. I remember asking a British firm of repute to
construct for me a resistance 'bridge' of a simple kind. I explained the
whole purpose of the apparatus, but when it came back to me the
resistance wire was soldered down in two places to broad bands of brass.
This, of course, altered the resistance and rendered the apparatus
useless. A rudimentary knowledge of electricity would have made such a
mistake impossible. Contrast this with the following: When I was a
student a lecturer wished to prepare a rather rare compound for some
work of his. We both tried for long to prepare a specimen, but failed,
probably because the temperature of our furnace was not high enough. We
then sent to a German firm of manufacturing chemists, and they prepared
it for us at once. I remarked recently to an English scientific chemist,
'No English firm would have done that.' 'Well, if you had pressed them,'
he replied, 'they would have sent over to ---- (a German firm) and then
put their own label on the bottle.' A 'chemist' in too many of our works
has too often been a lad who has picked up some routine knowledge, but
who has no more scientific equipment than a farm labourer. Contrast this
with the state of things at the _Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik_, where
as many as _sixty_ trained chemists are employed.
"I have often thought of these things when I have heard manufacturers
bewailing German competition. The war has produced many strange
intellectual somersaults, and it is curious to notice how many Free
Traders are now eager for the destruction, not temporarily, but
permanently, of German trade. A few months ago they would have preached
in season and out on the advantage to England of receiving cheap goods,
they would have extolled German scientific methods, and they would (with
every right) have pointed out that a customer who buys forty million
pounds' worth of our goods is scarcely one whom we should wish to
destroy. All these facts remain absolutely unaltered by the war. All
that has happened is that a half-ashamed jealousy is no longer ashamed,
and is masquerading as patriotism so successful as to have misled the
majority of our countrymen--for a time. The day of reckoning will come,
and we shall not then find it any better than previously to buy dear
goods to please the manufacturers. Moreover, our men of business will
not have learned scientific methods by the end of the war. A publisher's
circular that I recently received appealed, on patriotic grounds, for
the purchase of a book on applied science. I am not very cynical, but I
confess that I distrust these trade appeals to patriotism. The true
patriot does not advertise his patriotism in order to make money. In
this case the work was well known and important, but it was interesting
to observe that almost every one of the contributors was German, and
that the rest were German-Swiss. Surely, in spite of its horror, there
are many things in this contest to make the gods laugh."[74]
BRITISH RECOGNITION.
It is pleasant to find recognition of Germany's commercial deserts among
British commercial men. The annual conference of the United Kingdom
Commercial Travellers' Association was opened at the Town Hall,
Manchester, on May 24, 1915. Sir William Mather, who was unanimously
elected president, referred to Germany as follows:
The position of Germany in the world of commerce had been
attained as the result of years of patient and persistent
organisation, of close application to business, of exhaustive
and careful research work, and full appreciation of the
requirements and necessities of the markets for which she was
catering, and a determination to meet those requirements in
strict accordance with the wishes and needs of her potential
customers. Behind all the efforts had been lavish financial
support by the German Government, and the pledging of national
credit for individual and private enterprise.
The position secured by Germany as a result of her persistent
application of these methods was not to be seriously challenged,
nor would she be deprived of her hold upon it by anything other
than the use by Englishmen of the same skill, the same
elasticity, the same persistence, and the same efficiency in
every branch of commerce.
Commercial travellers, as one of the most important parts of the
mechanism, must, if the desired result be obtained, make
themselves fully efficient for their part in the work. They had
been perhaps, as vocal as any section of the community as to the
necessity and possibility of extending English trade, but it was
much to be regretted that when opportunities were given and
facilities provided, more particularly for the younger men to
equip themselves for the work which had to be done in extending
British commerce abroad, the response was extremely
inadequate.--(_Daily Telegraph_, May 25, 1915.)
As regards chemical research there also fortunately remain those who
still ungrudgingly admit our enormous indebtedness to Germany. In March,
1915, Professor Percy Frankland, F.R.S., addressed the Birmingham
Section of the Society of Chemical Industry on "The Chemical Industries
of Germany." With true and chivalrous courtesy, Professor Frankland, in
a footnote to his printed address, writes: "The author has much pleasure
in acknowledging the assistance he has received from the valuable
compilation by Professor Lepsius of Berlin, 'Deutschlands Chem.
Industrie, 1888-1913,' and from that by Dr. Duisberg, of Elberfeld,
'Wissenschaft und Technik,' 1911." I believe such courtesy is more
characteristically British than the lack of it sometimes shown by
others. The following quotations from Professor Frankland's address are
of interest:
INDUSTRIES DEPENDENT ON SYNTHETIC ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.
... During the major part of the [past] 60 years the great bulk
of the discoveries in this domain have been made in Germany.
Organic chemistry is, perhaps, the branch of science which more
perfectly suits the German mind and temperament. It involves the
possession of those qualities in which Germans are so
pre-eminent--the capacity for taking an infinitude of pains, the
capacity to anticipate difficulties and organise means to
circumvent them.... It is in the possession of such schools of
research, both in the universities and in the chemical
factories, that Germany has by two generations the lead of all
other countries in the world.... The chemical manufacturers in
this country have, with some notable exceptions, failed to
establish anything worthy of the name of research laboratories
in connection with their works.... Whereas the artificial colour
industry started in England, that of artificial drugs is
entirely of German origin, and may be said to begin with the
discovery by Liebig of chloroform in 1831, and of chloral
hydrate in 1832.... The composition of the personnel who carry
on these German colour works is at the bottom of their success.
Take the works of Messrs. Meister, Lucius, und Brüning as an
example. In 1913, the composition was as follows: Workmen,
7,680; managers, 374; expert chemists, 307; technologists, 74;
commercial staff, 611. Contrast with the above the fact that the
six English factories now producing dyestuffs employ altogether
only 35 chemists, whilst evidence of their relative activities
is again furnished by the circumstance that between 1886 and
1900 the English firms took out only 86 patents, whereas the six
principal German firms were responsible for 948 during the same
period. Having shown that these German coal-tar colour
manufacturers are without rivals from the commercial point of
view, I feel it to be my duty to point out also that their
industry is carried on under conditions of labour which are
highly creditable to the management.