drilling if we lived on an island as you do? We would not think of it.
We would speedily dispatch a blood-thirsty butcher, like your Lord
Kitchener, from our island to our most unhealthy colony. We could not
even reconcile our worthy Dr. Karl Peters, who had dealt a little
unscrupulously with a few negro women, with our conceptions of culture,
and had to pass him over to you! But the thought shall not come to me or
to us, as it does to your Prime Ministers, to pose as angels of light, a
fact about which you have yourself told your compatriots the bitter
truth to our great joy. We admit having injured Belgium's neutrality,
but we have only done it because of dire necessity, because we could not
otherwise reach France and take up the fight against two sides forced
upon us. Belgium's independence and freedom, which is suddenly of the
utmost importance to your King and your Ministers, we have not touched.
Even after the expeditious capture of Liége we asked Belgium for the
second time: "Let us pass quickly through your country. We will make
good every damage, and will not take away a square foot of your country!
Do destroyers of liberty and Huns and vandals, or whatever other
defamatory names your English papers now heap upon us, who at the time
of Beethoven and Schopenhauer formed the Areopagus of culture, conduct
themselves in such a way? Does not one of your living spirits in England
cry aloud at the reprehensible alliance which your Government has made
over your heads with Russia and Japan? On the most shameful day in
English history, on the day when Mongolian Japan gave the German people
her ultimatum at the instigation of your politicians, on this, I repeat
it, most shameful day in the entire English history, I believed that the
great dead in Westminster Abbey would rise from their graves horrified
at the shameful deed which their grandsons and great-grandsons imposed
upon old England.
*The Land of Shakespeare.*
We Germans venerated the old England almost as a fatherland. We have
recognized, understood, and studied Shakespeare, whom you, Bernard Shaw,
so dislike, more than any other people, even more than the English
nation itself. Lord Byron received more benefits from Goethe alone than
from all of England put together. Newton, Darwin, and Adam Smith found
in Germany their best supporters and interpreters. The dramatic writers
of latter-day England, most worthy of mention, from Oscar Wilde to you,
Galsworthy and Knoblauch, are recognized by us and their plays performed
numberless times. We have always endeavored to understand the English
character. "Nowhere did we feel so much at home as in Germany," all your
compatriots will tell you who have been guests here.
In "gratitude" for this our merchants were persecuted for years by your
merchants, because of a wild hatred for Germans, which, by the way, had
a most disagreeable effect upon the races of other colors. In
"gratitude," with but few exceptions which we will not forget, we are
now abused and belittled by your press before all of Europe and America
as if we were assassins, vagabonds, enemies of culture and murderers,
far worse than the Russians. As thanks for that you have entered upon a
war against us, for which even Sir Edward Grey could not at first give a
good reason until the injury of Belgium neutrality luckily came to his
assistance.
Our people are, therefore, now rightly embittered against England
because through your groundless participation you have made more
difficult the war against Russia and France, for which one alone, the
Czar of Russia, bears the blame. But despite this great bitterness they
would never approve the demolition of your country and your nation,
because of their respect for your great past and your share in the
development of culture in Europe. You, however, joined an alliance as a
third great power, whose only purpose is our dissolution and
destruction. Merely for reasons of justice and of moral courage a Pitt,
a Burke, a Disraeli would have withdrawn their participation in such an
alliance, which--Oh, heroic deed--falls upon the Germans by threes, no,
by fours or fives. Your present-day statesmen, wholly unworthy of
representing a people with your past and your inheritance, incite the
Mongolians and blacks against us, your brother nation. They steal and
permit our small and insufficiently protected colonies to be stolen and
no not care a jot for all considerations of Europeans' culture and
morals.
*An Unnatural Russian Alliance.*
England, once the home and the refuge for all free spirits from the days
of the Inquisition, from Rousseau until Freiligrath and Karl Marx,
England has allied herself with Russia--the prison and the horror of all
friends of liberty! Hear ye, hear ye illustrious dead, who lived and
struggled for the freedom and the greatest possible joy of mankind, and
shake in your tombs with disgust and with horror! But you living ones,
and you, Bernard Shaw, the foremost of all English artists, do
everything in your power to break this terrible alliance and make it
powerless for England. Much more lies in the balance for her than is
understood by your present nearsighted politicians, who have in mind
only the momentary advantages. The destruction of the German power is
not the only thing in question here; no, it concerns a great part of
civilized Europe in regard to the suspension of their hard-won political
liberty; and England, the people of the Magna Charta, the first free
Constitution, can never be a party to that. That is why we call to you,
Bernard Shaw, in the name of Europe, and ask you for your voice in the
struggle.
It is a splendid thing that this serious time has also aroused the
poets, the thinkers and artists as political and diplomatic advisers,
and we should not let ourselves be crowded out of this profession, for
which, thanks to our minds, we are not less fitted than the high-brow
Lords and Counts. Men of our guild from Thucydides and Herodotus to
Petrarch and Rubens, and our Humboldt and your Beaconsfield have ever
shown themselves to be good intermediaries and peace advocates. And
that, believe me, Bernard Shaw, is of more importance to our people, as
well as to our Kaiser, who for over twenty-five years has avoided war
like a poison, than all other bloody laurels. Here's to a decent,
honorable and "eternal" peace.
HERBERT EULENBERG.
*British Authors Defend England's War*
_One of the most interesting documents brought forth about the war
was issued Sept. 17 in London. It was signed by fifty-three of the
leading British writers. Herewith are presented the text of their
defense of England and their autograph signatures in facsimile._
The undersigned writers, comprising among them men of the most divergent
political and social views, some of them having been for years ardent
champions of good-will toward Germany, and many of them extreme
advocates of peace, are nevertheless agreed that Great Britain could not
without dishonor have refused to take part in the present war. No one
can read the full diplomatic correspondence published in the "White
Paper" without seeing that the British representatives were throughout
laboring whole-heartedly to preserve the peace of Europe, and that their
conciliatory efforts were cordially received by both France and Russia.
When these efforts failed Great Britain had still no direct quarrel with
any power. She was eventually compelled to take up arms because,
together with France, Germany, and Austria, she had solemnly pledged
herself to maintain the neutrality of Belgium. As soon as danger to that
neutrality arose she questioned both France and Germany as to their
intentions. France immediately renewed her pledge not to violate Belgian
neutrality; Germany refused to answer, and soon made all answer needless
by her actions. Without even the pretense of a grievance against Belgium
she made war on the weak and unoffending country she had undertaken to
protect, and has since carried out her invasion with a calculated and
ingenious ferocity which has raised questions other and no less grave
than that of the willful disregard of treaties.
When Belgium in her dire need appealed to Great Britain to carry out her
pledge, that country's course was clear. She had either to break faith,
letting the sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nations count
for nothing before the threat of naked force, or she had to fight. She
did not hesitate, and we trust she will not lay down arms till Belgium's
integrity is restored and her wrongs redressed.
The treaty with Belgium made our duty clear, but many of us feel that,
even if Belgium had not been involved, it would have been impossible for
Great Britain to stand aside while France was dragged into war and
destroyed. To permit the ruin of France would be a crime against liberty
and civilization. Even those of us who question the wisdom of a policy
of Continental ententes or alliances refuse to see France struck down by
a foul blow dealt in violation of a treaty.
We observe that various German apologists, official and semi-official,
admit that their country had been false to its pledged word, and dwell
almost with pride on the "frightfulness" of the examples by which it has
sought to spread terror in Belgium, but they excuse all these
proceedings by a strange and novel plea. German culture and civilization
are so superior to those of other nations that all steps taken to assert
them are more than justified, and the destiny of Germany to be the
dominating force in Europe and the world is so manifest that ordinary
rules of morality do not hold in her case, but actions are good or bad
simply as they help or hinder the accomplishment of that destiny.
These views, inculcated upon the present generation of Germans by many
celebrated historians and teachers, seem to us both dangerous and
insane. Many of us have dear friends in Germany, many of us regard
German culture with the highest respect and gratitude; but we cannot
admit that any nation has the right by brute force to impose its culture
upon other nations, nor that the iron military bureaucracy of Prussia
represents a higher form of human society than the free Constitutions of
Western Europe.
Whatever the world destiny of Germany may be, we in Great Britain are
ourselves conscious of a destiny and a duty. That destiny and duty,
alike for us and for all the English-speaking race, call upon us to
uphold the rule of common justice between civilized peoples, to defend
the rights of small nations, and to maintain the free and law-abiding
ideals of Western Europe against the rule of "Blood and Iron" and the
domination of the whole Continent by a military caste.
For these reasons and others the undersigned feel bound to support the
cause of the Allies with all their strength, with a full conviction of
its righteousness, and with a deep sense of its vital import to the
future of the world.
[Illustration: Signatures]
[Illustration: Signatures]
*WHO'S WHO AMONG THE SIGNERS.*
WILLIAM ARCHER, dramatic critic and editor of Ibsen's works, author of
"Life of Macready," "Real Conversations," "The Great Analysis," and
(with Granville Barker) "A National Theatre."
H. GRANVILLE BARKER, actor, dramatist, and manager, shares with his wife
management of the Kingsway Theatre, London; author of "The Voysey
Inheritance," and (with Laurence Housman) "Prunella."
SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, creator of "Sentimental Tommy" and "Peter
Pan," famous for his sympathetic studies of Scotch life and his
fantastic comedies.
HILAIRE BELLOC, best known as a writer on history, politics, and
economics; a recognized authority on the French Revolution.
ARNOLD BENNETT, author of many popular realistic studies of English
provincial life, including "Clayhanger" and "Hilda Lessways."
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, chiefly known for "From a College Window,"
"Beside Still Waters," and other volumes of essays.
EDWARD FREDERIC BENSON, brother of the preceding, author of many novels
of modern life, including "Dodo."
VERY REV. MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BENSON, the youngest of the three famous
Benson brothers. Besides numerous devotional and theological works,
Monsignor Benson has written several widely appreciated historical
novels.
LAWRENCE BINYON, author of many lyrics and poetic dramas, Assistant
Keeper in the British Museum, in charge of Oriental Prints and Drawings.
ANDREW CECIL BRADLEY, critic, sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford
University, author of a standard work on Shakespeare.
ROBERT BRIDGES, Poet-Laureate. Prominent as a physician before his
poetry brought him the high honor he now enjoys.
HALL CAINE, one of the most popular of contemporary novelists.
R.C. CARTON, dramatist, author of "Lord and Lady Algy" and "A White
Elephant."
CHARLES HADDON CHAMBERS, dramatist, author of "John a Dreams," part
author of "The Fatal Card."
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON, essayist, novelist, poet; defender of orthodox
thought by unorthodox methods.
HUBERT HENRY DAVIES, dramatist, author of "The Mollusc" and "A Single
Man."
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, creator of "Sherlock Holmes."
HERBERT ALBERT LAURENS FISHER, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University,
author of "The Mediaeval Empire," "Napoleon Bonaparte," and other
historical works.
JOHN GALSWORTHY, a novelist and dramatist who has come into great
prominence during the last five years, his plays, "Strife" and
"Justice," and his novel, "The Dark Flower," being widely known.
ANSTEY GUTHRIE, (F. ANSTEY,) author of "The Brass Bottle," "The Talking
Horse," and other fantastic and humorous tales.
SIR HENRY RIDER HAGGARD, author of many widely read romances, among them
being "She."
THOMAS HARDY, generally considered to be the greatest living English
novelist.
JANE ELLEN HARRISON, sometime Fellow and Lecturer at Newnham College,
Cambridge University; writer of many standard works on classical
religion, literature, and life.
ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS, (ANTHONY HOPE,) author of popular historical
romance and sketches of modern society, including "The Prisoner of
Zenda."
MAURICE HEWLETT, poet and romantic novelist, author of "Earthworks Out
of Tuscany" and other mediaeval tales.
ROBERT HICHENS, novelist, author of "The Garden of Allah," "Bella
Donna," and other stories.
JEROME K. JEROME, humorist, famous for "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow"
and the "Three Men" series, and for his play "The Passing of the Third
Floor Back."
HENRY ARTHUR JONES, dramatist, author of "The Silver King," "The
Hypocrites," and other plays.
RUDYARD KIPLING needs no introduction to people who read the English
language.
WILLIAM J. LOCKE, author of "The Morals of Marcus," "Septimus," and "The
Beloved Vagabond," which have been made into successful plays.
EDWARD VERRAL LUCAS, associate editor of Punch and editor of several
popular anthologies, author of "A Wanderer in Holland."
JOHN WILLIAM MACKAIL, Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, author
and editor of many volumes dealing with ancient Greek and Roman
literature.
JOHN MASEFIELD, known chiefly for his long poems of life among the
British poor.
ALFRED EDWARD WOODLEY MASON, writer of romantic novels, of which "The
Four Feathers" and "The Turnstile" are perhaps the best known, and of
several popular dramas.
GILBERT MURRAY, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University since
1908, editor and translator of Greek classics, perhaps the greatest
Greek scholar now living.
HENRY NEWBOLT, "laureate of the British Navy," author of "Drake's Drum"
and many other songs.
BARRY PAIN, author of "Eliza" and other novels and short stories of
adventure, of many well-known parodies and poems.
SIR GILBERT PARKER, of Canadian birth, poet and author of romantic
novels, including "The Judgment House," and "The Right of Way."
EDEN PHILLPOTTS, realistic novelist, noted for his exact portraits of
the English rustic, author of "Down Dartmoor Way."
SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO, one of the most popular of living dramatists.
His plays include "Sweet Lavender" and "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray."
SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge
University, poet, novelist, and writer of short stories.
SIR OWEN SEAMAN, since 1906 editor of Punch, writer of parodies and
light verse.
GEORGE R. SIMS, journalist, poet, and author of many popular dramas,
including "The Lights of London," "Two Little Vagabonds," and "Harbour
Lights."
MAY SINCLAIR, writer of novels dealing with modern moral problems, "The
Divine Fire" and "The Combined Maze" being best known.
FLORA ANNIE STEEL, author of "Tales from the Punjab," "On the Face of
the Waters," "A Prince of Dreamers," and other novels and short stories,
most of which deal with life in India.
ALFRED SUTRO, dramatist, author of "The Walls of Jericho," "The
Barrier," and other plays of modern society."
GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge;
author of "England Under the Stuarts," and other historical and
biographical works.
RT. HON. GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, historian, biographer of Macaulay, and
author of a four-volume work on the American Revolution.
HUMPHRY WARD, journalist and author, sometime Fellow of Brasenose
College, editor of several biographical and historical works.
MARY A. WARD, (Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD,) best known of contemporary women
novelists; her first success was "Robert Elsmere."
H.G. WELLS, novelist, author of "Tono Bungay" and "Ann Veronica."
MARGARET L. WOODS, poet; her "Wild Justice" and "The Invader" have
placed her in the front rank.
ISRAEL ZANGWILL, novelist, poet, dramatist, interpreter of the modern
Jewish spirit.
*The Fourth of August--Europe at War*
*By H.G. Wells.*
_Copyright_, 1914, _by The New York Times Company_.
Europe is at war!
The monstrous vanity that was begotten by the easy victories of '70 and
'71 has challenged the world, and Germany prepares to reap the harvest
Bismarck sowed. That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe,
that has arrested civilization and darkened the hopes of mankind for
forty years. German imperialism, German militarism, has struck its
inevitable blow. The victory of Germany will mean the permanent
enthronement of the War God over all human affairs. The defeat of
Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth.
To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present
conflict than the defeat, the utter discrediting of the German legend,
the ending for good and all of the blood and iron superstition, of
Krupp, flag-wagging Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal, sham
efficiency that centres in Berlin. Never was war so righteous as war
against Germany now. Never has any State in the world so clamored for
punishment.
But be it remembered that Europe's quarrel is with the German State, not
with the German people; with a system, and not with a race. The older
tradition of Germany is a pacific and civilizing tradition. The
temperament of the mass of German people is kindly, sane, and amiable.
Disaster to the German Army, if it is unaccompanied by any such
memorable wrong as dismemberment or intolerable indignity, will mean the
restoration of the greatest people in Europe to the fellowship of
Western nations. The role of England in this huge struggle is plain as
daylight. We have to fight. If only on account of the Luxemburg outrage,
we have to fight. If we do not fight, England will cease to be a country
to be proud of; it will be a dirt-bath to escape from. But it is
inconceivable that we should not fight. And having fought, then in the
hour of victory it will be for us to save the liberated Germans from
vindictive treatment, to secure for this great people their right, as
one united German-speaking State, to a place in the sun.
First we have to save ourselves and Europe, and then we have to stand
between German on the one hand and the Cossack and revenge on the other.
For my own part, I do not doubt that Germany and Austria are doomed to
defeat in this war. It may not be catastrophic defeat, though even that
is possible, but it is defeat. There is no destiny in the stars and
every sign is false if this is not so.
They have provoked an overwhelming combination of enemies. They have
underrated France. They are hampered by a bad social and military
tradition. The German is not naturally a good soldier; he is orderly and
obedient, but he is not nimble nor quick-witted; since his sole
considerable military achievement, his not very lengthy march to Paris
in '70 and '71, the conditions of modern warfare have been almost
completely revolutionized and in a direction that subordinates the
massed fighting of unintelligent men to the rapid initiative of
individualized soldiers. And, on the other hand, since those years of
disaster, the Frenchman has learned the lesson of humility; he is
prepared now sombrely for a sombre struggle; his is the gravity that
precedes astonishing victories. In the air, in the open field, with guns
and machines, it is doubtful if any one fully realizes the superiority
of his quality to the German. This sudden attack may take him aback for
a week or so, though I doubt even that, but in the end I think he will
hold his own; even without us he will hold his own, and with us then I
venture to prophesy that within three months from now his tricolor will
be over the Rhine. And even suppose his line gets broken by the first
rush. Even then I do not see how the Germans are to get to Paris or
anywhere near Paris. I do not see how against the strength of the modern
defensive and the stinging power of an intelligent enemy in retreat, of
which we had a little foretaste in South Africa, the exploit of Sedan
can be repeated. A retiring German army, on the other hand, will be far
less formidable than a retiring French army, because it has less "devil"
in it, because it is made up of men taught to obey in masses, because
its intelligence is concentrated in its aristocratic officers, because
it is dismayed when it breaks ranks. The German Army is everything the
conscriptionists dreamed of making our people; it is, in fact, an army
about twenty years behind the requirements of contemporary conditions.
On the eastern frontier the issue is more doubtful because of the
uncertainty of Russian things. The peculiar military strength of Russia,
a strength it was not able to display in Manchuria, lies in its vast
resources of mounted men. A set invasion of Prussia may be a matter of
many weeks, but the raiding possibilities in Eastern Germany are
enormous. It is difficult to guess how far the Russian attack will be
guided by intelligence, and how far Russia will blunder, but Russia will
have to blunder very disastrously indeed before she can be put upon the
defensive. A Russian raid is far more likely to threaten Berlin than a
German to reach Paris.
Meanwhile there is the struggle on the sea. In that I am prepared for
some rude shocks. The Germans have devoted an amount of energy to the
creation of an aggressive navy that would have been spent more wisely in
consolidating their European position. It is probably a thoroughly good
navy and ship for ship the equal of our own. But the same lack of
invention, the same relative uncreativeness that has kept the German
behind the Frenchman in things aerial has made him, regardless of his
shallow seas, follow our lead in naval matters, and if we have erred,
and I believe we have erred, in overrating the importance of the big
battleship, the German has at least very obligingly fallen in with our
error. The safest, most effective place for the German fleet at the
present time is the Baltic Sea. On this side of the Kiel Canal, unless I
overrate the powers of the waterplane, there is no safe harbor for it.
If it goes into port anywhere that port can be ruined, and the
bottled-up ships can be destroyed at leisure by aerial bombs. So that if
they are on this side of the Kiel Canal they must keep the sea and
fight, if we let them, before their coal runs short. Battle in the open
sea in this case is their only chance. They will fight against odds, and
with every prospect of a smashing, albeit we shall certainly have to pay
for that victory in ships and men. In the Baltic we shall not be able to
get at them without the participation of Denmark, and they may have a
considerable use against Russia. But in the end even there mine and
aeroplane and destroyer should do their work.