The system of student life in Germany with its duelling, its
associations into Korps, its festivals, and its rabid tenacity to
tradition, has frequently been pronounced ridiculous by European and
American writers, though it does not appear that those who laugh at it
have entered into Korps life themselves, even when they have resided
during a considerable time at a German University. There is, however,
much to be said in favour of its existence in the only country where it
has taken root as a permanent institution; and since it is necessary to
follow Greif’s history from the time when he was still a student, some
explanation of a matter generally little understood may not be out of
place at this point.
Every one knows that a German University has no resemblance, even in
principle, with what English-speaking people generally understand by the
word University. The students do not live in communities, nor in any set
of buildings appropriated for their dwelling. The University, so far as
its habitation is concerned, means only the lecture-rooms. Instructors
and pupils live where they please and as they please, according to their
individual fortune or pleasure. The students are differently situated
from other members of society in one respect. They are not amenable
to the police for any ordinary offence, but in such cases are brought
before the University authorities, and are liable to be confined in the
University prison, attending the lectures belonging to their course,
during the period of their detention, for which purpose they are let out
and shut up again at stated hours. This corresponds to some extent with
the English system of ‘gating.’
A very large body of young men, of various ages, find themselves almost
entirely their own masters, at an age when the English undergraduate
is bound to be at home at twelve o’clock, to attend chapel and hall
dinners, besides fulfilling the obligations imposed by a regular course
of study. They live in lodgings, free of any supervision whatever, they
eat where and when they please, if they do not choose to hear lectures
there is no one to oblige them to do so, for they are supposed to
possess enough common sense to know that the loss is theirs if they fail
at their examinations. It is natural that under these circumstances they
should form associations among themselves. In every University there
will be a certain number of students from each of the country’s
principal provinces. Fellow-countrymen will generally be drawn together
when they are forced to live under similar conditions in one place. To
this instinct may be traced the origin of Korps, and, generally, of all
associations that wear colours, except the so-called Teutonia, which
is probably the oldest of all, and which was originally a political
institution having for its object the promotion of liberal ideas
together with the unity of Germany. There are Korps of the same name,
but the two are always quite distinct and their colours are generally
different.
There are three classes of associations. The Burschenschaften, or
fellowships, the Landsmannschaften, or fellow-countrymen’s unions, and
the Korps. The latter word is French, and was formerly spelt ‘Corps’; as
no better word could be found, or introduced, the German initial letter
is used to distinguish the meaning when used in this sense. Besides
these three classes of acknowledged associations, all wearing colours,
and recognised by the University, there are usually a number of
subordinate ones, termed contemptuously ‘Blasen,’ which may be
translated ‘bubbles,’ a designation given on account of their supposed
instability.
Although admission to these unions is generally, and probably always,
obtained by ballot, they are not clubs in any ordinary sense of the
word. Each has a habitation or lodge, called a Kneipe, or drinking-hall,
and a fencing-room, or a share in the use of one, but there is no set of
apartments corresponding to a club, nor intended for the same manifold
purposes. The organisation and object of the union require no such
conveniences.
The Korps rank highest in estimation and are generally the most
exclusive. In a country where caste prejudice has attained to such
gigantic proportions as it has in Germany, its effects are felt very
early in life; and in Universities where every advantage of education is
placed within easy reach of the very poorest, a course of lectures for
a term often costing but one pound sterling, it is impossible that there
should not be circles formed, in a regular scale, by young men whose
fortunes are more or less alike. Upon these social and financial
distinctions the Korps have grown to be what they are.
Every Korps has three orders of members, and three regular officers,
to each of whom, is assigned one department in the management of the
associations. The orders consist of two regular and one irregular. The
lowest and least important, is considered irregular, and those who
are not admitted further have no claim to anything but a place in the
drinking-hall, and the protection of the regular Korps. They may be men
of any age, but are generally students who are prevented from fighting
by some physical defect, or by the serious objection of their parents,
without whose consent no one is supposed to be admitted to the full
fellowship of the union.
The second order consists of novices, who are designated by the name of
‘foxes.’ The appellation is probably derived from the custom of
playing a kind of game, at the opening of the term, which is called the
fox-hunt, and in which the novices, riding astride of chairs, are made
to run the gauntlet through the ‘fellows’ who are armed with blackened
corks, and who, without moving from their places, attempt to smudge
the faces of the youngsters as they hop past. These ‘foxes’ are young
students who have just joined, and who are not admitted to the rank
of fellows until they have fought a certain number of times. They are
raised to the higher dignity after a ballot, at which they are not
present, and the term of probation generally lasts six months, or one
term.
The fellows, or Burschen, are full-fledged Korps students, eligible to
become officers. The officers are three, and are called respectively
the first, second and third, ‘in charge.’ The first is the chief, who
presides at formal meetings and in the drinking-hall, where the Korps
assembles officially on two evenings of the week. He also represents the
Korps at the weekly meetings of all the representatives. The second
in charge manages all affairs relative to fighting, and is personally
responsible to the association for all formalities relating to the
duels of its members. If any fellow, or novice, has challenged, or been
challenged by, any one else, he must immediately report the affair to
the second in charge, who arranges the meeting for him, and warns him,
at least twelve hours beforehand, of the time appointed. The third in
charge is secretary and treasurer; he keeps the minutes of all meetings,
collects the dues from the members, pays the bills, and is responsible
for the financial department and correspondence.
In well-conducted Korps, and there are many such, the president
considers himself morally bound to see that all the members attend their
lectures regularly. That the associations are not generally mere idle,
riotous bands of students, is sufficiently shown by the fact that almost
every prominent man in German public life has belonged to one of them,
from the great chancellor downwards. Generally speaking, too, each
novice is considered to be personally under the charge of one of the
fellows, whose duty it is to keep him out of trouble and to see that he
is not idle. It will be seen that the system of organisation is
good, and that in reality it has a strong military element, like most
organisations which find favour in Germany.
But if it is military it is also militant, and it is the fact that
fighting is one of its chief objects, which has caused it to be so much
abused by foreigners. It is necessary in the first place to understand
the conditions of the sanguinary battles between the Korps, and the
points by which they are distinguished from the more serious affairs
which are occasionally settled by appeal to arms.
The ordinary student’s duel is not a dangerous affair, though it is
often far more serious than is commonly supposed. The weapon used is a
long, light rapier, square at the point, two-edged and sharpened like a
razor down the whole length of the front, and to about nine inches from
the point at the back. The hilt is a roomy basket of iron, though in
some Universities a bell-hilted sword is used, and in that case the
guard is similar to the first position in sabre fencing or single stick.
The blade is very pliable and not highly tempered, so that in unskilful
hands it is apt to bend and become useless.
The law requires that the combatants should both wear an iron protection
over the eyes, lest the loss of sight should render the student useless
for military service. To protect life also, a heavy silk scarf bandage
is placed round the throat, completely protecting the jugular vein and
the carotid artery. The right arm, which in this peculiar fencing is
used to parry the cut in tierce, is also protected by bandages, and the
body is covered by a leathern cuirass, heavily padded, from the middle
of the breast to the knees. It will be seen that the whole head,
excepting the eyes, is exposed, as well as the chest and shoulders.
Thrusting is forbidden as well as the cut in second, below guard, but
the latter is permitted when either of the combatants is left-handed,
owing to the difference of the position.
Novices’ duels consist generally of fifteen rounds, the first being
merely a formal salute. The fellows fight during fifteen minutes, unless
one of them is severely wounded before the end of the time. An umpire
has a stop-watch in his hand, and only the exact time of actual fencing
is reckoned, which is rather a delicate and troublesome matter. Speaking
is not allowed. If both combatants are good fencers and cautious it
sometimes happens that neither is touched, but as many as thirty slight
wounds are occasionally inflicted on both sides. A surgeon is always
present and decides when a wound is too severe to allow of further
fighting. This usually occurs when a large artery is cut, or a splinter
raised upon a bone.
Meetings are generally arranged for novices, as soon as they have
learned to handle the rapier, whether they have had any quarrel or not,
and such encounters rarely lead to any result worth mentioning. The
intention is to accustom the student to fighting for its own sake, and
he must submit to the conditions or leave the Korps with ignominy. He
learns to fence with coolness and judgment, in a way that could never
be learned on the fencing ground with masks and blunted weapons, and he
acquires from the first the habit of facing an armed man with little but
his own blade to protect him.
It must be remembered that duelling is a social institution in Germany.
It is not necessary here to enter into a discussion of the merits of the
system; it is enough to recall the late Emperor’s speech in regard to
it, in which he declared that he would punish any officer who fought a
duel, but would dismiss from the army any one who refused to do so.
The first clause of this apparent paradox restrains the practice
from becoming an abuse or a general evil; the second imposes it as a
necessity in serious cases. The penalty consists in a longer or shorter
period of arrest, fixed within certain limits, and in case of the death
of one of the combatants the survivor is confined in a fortress for
three years, provided that the duel has taken place with the consent of
the superior officers of the regiment sitting officially as a council of
honour, and that the encounter has been conducted in accordance with the
requirements of the law. Any informality is most severely visited. The
regimental council takes charge of the officer’s reputation, and if it
declares that there need be no meeting, honour is satisfied. In private
life any individual may appeal to the decision of a court of honour
chosen by himself and his adversary, and such decisions are considered
final. But if any person refuses either to fight or to appeal to such
arbitration, he is mercilessly excluded from all polite society wherever
the facts are known. The customs of the country being of this nature,
the existence of fighting associations among students can be both
explained and defended. That some other nations consider the practice of
duelling as altogether barbarous and antiquated, has nothing to do with
the case in hand. An individual cannot change the conditions of the
society in which he is obliged to live, and must either conform to them
or be excluded from intercourse with his fellows. To learn to fight is,
in Germany, as necessary as learning to eat decently is in England, and
the schools of fighting are the Korps and other University unions. As a
direct consequence, they are also schools of life, and in some degree
of etiquette. A man learns there exactly what sort of language is
courteous, what words may be spoken without giving offence, and in what
an insult really consists. By this means a vast amount of trouble is
saved for society, and a uniform standard of behaviour is secured which
is universally respected and adhered to by all who call themselves
gentlemen. The council of the Korps represents the council of the
regiment, or the social court of honour appealed to by civilians. The
conversation of the members with each other, though familiar in
the extreme, is regulated by rigid rules. The slightest approach to
discourtesy between members of the same Korps must be followed by an
instant apology, the refusal of which entails the immediate ejection of
the offender with ignominy, and what is more, the announcement of the
fact by circular letter within the month to every Korps student in every
one of the numerous Universities of the empire. A dishonourable action
of any kind is visited in the same way. The publicity of such a scandal
is enormous. Seven or eight thousand young men are simultaneously
informed that one of their number is disgraced, and at the end of the
year all those older men who have been Korps students in their youth,
are also informed of the fact. This amounts to warning some thirty
or forty thousand gentlemen, chiefly in the higher ranks of society,
against an individual, who, in one circumstance or another, is
almost certain to be brought into contact with some of them. Such an
institution cannot be laughed at, and its censure is no joke.
But even a Korps student’s life is not made up merely of fighting
and study. There is a very jovial side to it, and if its jollity is
sometimes made the subject of reproach this is due to the fact that the
few thoroughly lazy students are of necessity the very ones who are most
seen. It cannot be denied that beer plays a considerable part in
the life of German students. It is also an important element in the
existence of the nation. German beer, however, is not English ale, any
more than it is to be confounded with the nauseous concoctions sold
under its name in other countries. German beer is protected by law, and
unoppressed by taxation. To adulterate it is a crime, an attempt to tax
it would bring about a convulsion of the empire. Its use, in quantities
that amaze the understanding, does not appear to have made Germans
cowards in war, nor laggards in commerce; still less does it seem to
have stupefied the national intellect, or dulled the Teutonic keenness
in the race of nations. The first military power in the world drinks
as much beer as all the rest of the universe together, and probably
a little more. The commercial nation that undersells Englishmen in
England, Frenchmen in France, Italians in Italy and Turks in Turkey,
consumes more malt liquor than they drink of all other liquors.
The intellectual race that has produced Kant, Goethe and Helmholtz,
Bismarck, Moltke, Mommsen, and Richard Wagner in a century, swallows
Homeric draughts of beer at breakfast, dinner and supper. That other
nations do not follow their example, and laugh at their potations is of
little consequence. Even if the Germans do not to some extent owe their
national characteristics to their national drink, it cannot be asserted
with any show of reason that beer has swamped their intelligence, damped
their military ardour or drowned their commercial genius. Beer is the
natural irrigator of conservative principles and intellectual progress.
A little of it is good, much is better, and too much of it can never
produce delirium tremens. Can more be said of any potable concoction
manufactured by humanity for its daily use?
The Korps student drinks beer, therefore, and as though he felt a sort
of religious reverence for the drink of his fathers, he has invented
laws and rules for the ceremony, from which no departure is allowable.
Every meeting of the Korps begins and ends with a ‘Salamander.’ At the
president’s word the glasses or stone jugs are moved rhythmically upon
the oaken board. Another word of command, and each student empties
his beaker. Then the vessels are rattled on the table, while he slowly
counts three, with the precision of a military drum, then struck sharply
again three times, so that they touch the table all together, and the
meeting is opened or closed, as the case may be. The same ceremony is
performed when the health of any one is drunk by the whole Korps. The
principle is that on peaceful occasions the drinking-cup takes the place
of the rapier, and is used for saluting and for combat, as the sword is
used in the duel. To give as much as is received is the object of both.
As much as one student drinks to another’s health, so much must the
others drink in return. If two fall out in a discussion, the one may
challenge the other to a beer duel. The weapons are full glasses, there
is an umpire who gives the word, and he who empties his glass the first
is the conqueror. The president can order any one to drink a certain
quantity _pro poena_, as a penalty for breaking a known rule, and the
fellows have the same privilege in regard to the novices.
There is another element, and a very important one, in the conduct of
the jovial meetings. Singing is a traditional and indispensable business
at every regular Kneipe. Every student has a standard song-book at
his place, containing both the words and music. As singing at sight is
taught in every common school throughout the country, the result is not
so cacophonous as might be expected. The voices are young, fresh and
manly, the tunes full of life and of an easy nature, the verses simple
and often grand, for they are selected from the writings of celebrated
poets. The spirit of the poetry is generally patriotic or fraternal,
always essentially national. The whole effect is fine and elevating, and
those who have sat as young men at the table of a numerous Korps do not
easily forget the sensations evoked by the strains in which they have
joined. Song holds a large place in German life, and an essentially
good one. As a means of strengthening popular patriotism no one has
ever denied its efficacy, and as a mere pastime it is probably the most
pacific and harmless that could be named. It may even be believed that
the capacity and willingness among young men to amuse themselves with
chorus singing indicates to some extent a national love of law and
order. Italians are soloists, in music and in principles. Germans are
born chorus singers, and their great men do not sing themselves, but
conduct the singing of others.
The University of which Greif was a student, and which shall be called
for convenience Schwarzburg, was one of the oldest in the country.
The town in which it was situated possessed in a high degree the
associations and the architectural features which throw a mediaeval
shadow over many northern cities, causing even the encroaching
paint-brush of modern progress to move in old-fashioned lines of subdued
colour. In northern lands antiquity is not associated with the presence
of dirt, as it is in the south. Nuremberg does not look modern because
its streets are clean and there are no beggars, nor does the ancient
seat of the Teutonic Knights at Marienburg look like a hotel because its
lofty corridors and graceful halls, with their cross vaults springing
from central columns, are carefully swept and free from dust. It would
be interesting to examine the causes which produce this odd artistic
phenomenon. In Italy the process of cleansing is destroying altogether
the associations of antiquity and the artistic beauty which once charmed
the traveller. Heidelberg, Nuremberg, and most places in Germany seem
to have gained rather than lost in outward appearance by the advance of
civilisation. Possibly, the Germans of to-day resemble their ancestors
of the fourteenth century more closely than a modern Florentine
resembles Lorenzo De’ Medici. Possibly, in Germany such restorations
as are necessary are executed with a keener perception of beauty in the
model. Possibly, too, German conservatism, Gothic, thoughtful, stern,
expresses itself in all it does; even as the Italian’s queer love of
change and fetish worship of what, in other lands, was called progress
thirty years ago, shows itself in all his visible works. Architecture
exhibits a nation’s feeling far more exactly than literature or any
other branch of art or science. People may, or may not, read the books
that fill the market, and nobody cares whether they do or not except the
author and the publisher. But people must live in houses of some sort,
and, if they are rich enough to choose, they will not live in houses
they do not like, nor worship in temples of which the architecture
irritates their nerves. Now architects are placed in the same position
towards the house builders of the nation, in which authors stand towards
the reading public. If people are conservative, and like old-fashioned
buildings, the architect must satisfy his customer’s love of tradition,
just as the professional writer must write what is wanted, or starve.
The difference in the result is that houses last some time whereas books
do not.
Greif was deeply attached to the University town. He had spent many
happy hours within its walls, and had passed through many exciting
moments of his young life amidst its high, narrow streets and ancient
buildings. Such a place naturally exercised a greater influence over him
than over most men of his age. Born and bred in the heart of the
Black Forest, brought up in the house that had sheltered his race for
centuries, he would have felt uneasy and out of his element if he had
been all at once transported to a modern capital. But in Schwarzburg he
felt that he was at home. The huge cathedral with its spires and arches
and rich fretwork of dark stone, seemed to him the model of what all
cathedrals should be. The swift river that ran between overhanging
buildings, and beneath old bridges that were carved with armorial
bearings and decorated with the rare ironwork of cunning smiths, famous
long ago, bore in its breast the legends of his own forest home, and was
impersonated in many a verse he had learned to sing with his comrades.
The shady nooks and corners, the turns in the crooked streets, the dark
archways of old inns, the swinging signs with their rich deep colour and
Gothic characters, the projecting balconies, glazed with round bull’s
eyes of blown glass set in heavy lead, the marvellously wrought
weathercocks of iron and gold on the corners of the houses, every
outward detail of the time-honoured and time-mellowed town spoke to his
heart in accents he not only understood but loved. Even the modern
note did not jar upon him. There were few officers in the streets, few
soldiers in bright uniforms. Occasionally a troop of white cuirassiers
rode slowly through the main thoroughfare, looking more like mediaeval
knights than Prussian soldiers. Their enormous stature, their bronzed
faces, their snow-white dress and gleaming corslets, the stately, solemn
tramp of their great horses, their straight broad blades without curve
or bend erect at their sides, all made them utterly unlike the ordinary
soldiery of present times, and rendered their appearance perfectly
harmonious with their surroundings. Even the students in their long
boots and coloured caps did not look modern, as they strolled along in
knots of three and four from the University to the mess at dinner-time,
or thronged the pavements of the high street towards evening, when the
purple light was on the cathedral spires and the shadows were deepening
below.
Greif loved it all, and to some extent his affection was returned. He
was certainly the most popular student who had ever trod the stones of
Schwarzburg, as he was by nature one of the most thoroughly German. He
had his quarrels, no doubt, but the way he settled them only served to
increase his reputation. He was pointed out as the man of forty duels,
who had never received a serious wound, and it was said to his credit
that he never wantonly provoked any man, and that his victories had been
chiefly gained over adversaries from neighbouring Universities. He was
looked upon as the natural representative of Schwarzburg in all great
affairs, and when he presided, in the turn of his Korps, over one of the
periodical festivities, his appearance was the occasion for a general
ovation. The feeling that he was to be warmly welcomed was pleasant to
Greif as he got out upon the platform and shook hands with a dozen who
awaited him, but the remembrance that this was probably his last return
as a student among his comrades gave him a passing sensation of sadness.
He was approaching the end of a very happy period in his life, and
though there was much happiness in the future, he was young enough to
regret what he must leave so soon. Few men know what it is to be
the central figure at a great University, and those who have been so
fortunate know well enough how painful is the leavetaking and how hard
the last goodbye to the scene of their triumphs. That moment had not yet
come for Greif, but he could not help seeing how very near it was.
The students led him home to his lodgings over the river, and installed
themselves as they could, all smoking and talking at once, while he
opened his boxes and disposed some of his belongings in their
places. They told him all the news, with the vivacity of men who have
twenty-four hours the start of a friend. The Rhine Korps had increased
its numbers considerably and seemed already inclined to show its teeth
to the Westphalia Korps. The Saxon Korps had lost one of their best
fighters, who had suddenly gone to another University. Hardly any of the
Prussian Korps had arrived, and it was doubtful whether they could renew
the lease of their old drinking-hall. They themselves--their yellow caps
showed that they were Swabians--were already on the look-out for new
‘foxes’ to enlist, and believed that they had secured a couple of
excellent novices. The fencing-master of the Prussians had declared his
intention of fighting a pitched battle--sabres and no bandages--with the
fencing-master of the Rhiners. It was to be hoped that neither would be
badly hurt, as they were both good teachers and worth their salaries.
There was a new waiting-girl at the Stamm-Kneipe where they dined, and
of course all the foxes would fall in love. They, the fellows, would
of course not think of such a thing. It would be quite beneath their
dignity. As for the professors, all those who were not favourites grew
older and older and duller and duller. One of the oldest and dullest had
been married in the summer to a girl of eighteen, a crying shame which
ought to be visited by some demonstration. Why should a professor marry?
Was not Heine right, and were not some kinds of professors cumberers of
the earth, as Achilles called himself when Patroclus had been killed?
Horrible creatures all those whom the Swabians disliked! The professor
of Roman law looked more like a disappointed hyaena than ever, and as
for his colleague, the professor of Greek philosophy, he had begun by
looking like Socrates, when he was born, and time had done its work with
its usual efficacy. Would not Greif be ready soon? It was supper-time.
Greif was thinking of the vanity of human sentiment. A few hours earlier
he had been oppressed by one of the most melancholy moods that had ever
afflicted him. Now, as he stood still for a moment, looking through the
open window at the stars as they began to shine out above the cathedral
spire across the river, he felt as though ten years had passed since he
had driven down through the forest. Only the image of Hilda remained,
and seemed to drown in light the gloomy forebodings that had so much
distressed him. As for Hilda’s own warning, it had been nothing but the
result of her sorrow at parting. And since parting there must be, he
would enjoy to the full what was left of this happy student life, with
its changing hours of study and feasting, of poetry, and fighting, and
song that almost mingled with the clash of steel.
‘Are you ready?’ asked the students in chorus.
Greif set his yellow cap upon his close-cut golden hair.
‘Yes--come on! Vivat, floreat, crescat Suabia! The last semester shall
be a merry one!’
And away they went, crowding down the narrow staircase, laughing,
jesting, and humming snatches of tunes as they burst out into the quiet
shadowy street below.