THE KAISER'S ENVY
Two thousand years ago an invading monarch, Julius Caesar, in his
_Commentaries_ said that the Belgians were the best fighting men that he
had met; and the reason was that they inhabited the best country he had
visited.
Part of the ground is mountainous and in some places it rises sheer in
the air for a thousand feet in solid rock and makes a formidable
position for a stronghold or fortress.
In other places it rolls away from the eye for miles in beautiful
valleys and fertile plains. The view reminds one of a great ocean on a
calm and peaceful day. A fertile country, made doubly so by the
ingenuity and industry of its inhabitants. The people of this remarkable
land have constructed reservoirs and dug canals, erecting dykes and
curious windmills, so that like Holland, her nearest neighbor, Belgium
has irrigated her fields and made her water supply regular, and
therefore her crops are certain.
The traveler as he passes through on foot or on the meandering tramways
is pleasantly surprised to see the abundance of the verdure and
heaviness of the grain in the fields and is often amused to see the
little carts go by loaded high with produce, drawn to market by the
stout family dog, or, as is more often the case, two. These faithful
friends display amazing strength and willingness and when hitched up
will pull almost like a horse. Dairying is an important product in
Belgium, and great cans of milk are loaded on these carts and the
thirsty one can buy a pint for a penny or two and drink it as he stands
upon the street by the cart, while the family dog is lying down under
it.
The spectacle of the peasant folk thus hauling about their wares is very
picturesque. A man or woman following a dog-cart and often times lending
a hand to help push the load, is a very ordinary scene in the streets of
that little country of one hundred miles square, but its prosperity and
beauty present a peculiar fascination to anyone who has seen it. The
German Emperor had seen it, and that was why he had attacked it.
Covetousness, that strange quality, appears to be a part of the make-up
of the human mind. The devil apparently injected this fatal poison into
the veins of man. Most people hold it partially under control, but some
give free reign to it and allow it to become the ruling power in their
lives. The Kaiser, reared in an artificial atmosphere, has not been able
to resist this temptation, and so in his life it has been given
unbounded sway; and, what is worse, through many patient years he has
inoculated other men with the virus and under its influence built up a
great machine for military conquest.
He has always dreamed of world empire. He once said, "I have been raised
upon the lives of Alexander, Theodoric, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and
Napoleon. These men all dreamed of world empire. They failed. I have
dreamed of world empire, and by the might of the mailed fist I shall not
fail." He and the clique of men whom he has gathered about him possess a
marvelous amount of persistence and thoroughness, feeling also a
superiority over other peoples, and they have depended upon might to
bring them victory.
Some delusion inherited from his ancestors and cultivated by his
intimate friends caused the Kaiser, even when a very young man, to
believe that he had a God-given right to possess anything that he could
acquire, either by fair means or foul, and he has never taken any pains
to control or diminish the conviction. As a matter of fact, on the
contrary, he studiously cultivated and nursed it until it came to be the
absorbing ambition of his life. When he came to the throne thirty years
ago he announced himself as "Earth's supreme war lord." And because his
empire continued to grow and develop rapidly, he seemed to take it that
the forces of the universe were backing him up and that the Creator was
with him and had given him special dispensation to manage the universe.
In the beginning, doubtless, his conceptions had been more vague and
abstract, but as time went on they became definite and concrete. He had
seen the happy and prosperous lands of Belgium and France to the west,
and he had wanted them. This settled the matter. It might shock the
world and cost a terrific price, but that was incidental. Let others
"pay the piper," he would reap the gain. His philosophy of "Might makes
Right" cleverly disseminated through the empire, has caused many of his
people to believe in it.
When one examines for a moment this conception which these German people
have been taught, it makes their attitude more understandable, although
no more excusable. For a generation or more they have been taught the
"blood and iron philosophy." The crime is to be laid at the door of the
leaders and the thinkers, and the great men of the nation. These have
been false teachers, and "when the blind lead the blind, both fall into
the ditch." They have inculcated a system of thinking, into the minds of
large numbers of people, which leads them to believe that they are
especially designed to dominate the world. Any means which they may
employ to attain, establish, and maintain their supremacy are
justifiable.
Even the professors in the schools and the theologians, as well, will
unblushingly defend this position and justify German crime. As a result
of this doctrine--see Belgium and northern France! Belgium, a murdered
country, a ravished people, justice outraged, homes violated, churches
desecrated, altars battered down, black hell turned loose, and all
"justified" by the German contention. Ninety-three of the leading
professors in the university, men to whom the world looked for light,
but unfortunately men whose salaries might be cut off by the Kaiser at
an hour's notice, defended this outrage, saying that Belgium was not
wronged. It is safe to assume that the Kaiser requested the statement.
Barbarian savages centuries ago defended the same identical argument
that might is the right of the stronger. The nation's leaders, such as
Bismarck and Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, and the Kaiser himself
have advocated this doctrine. Emperor William once told his troops to
make themselves as terrible as Attila, the Hun. They have not forgotten
this, for in Belgium they executed his command in a grimly literal
sense.