Was schiert uns Russe und Franzos'?
Schuss wider Schuss und Stoss um Stoss,
Wir lieben sie nicht,
Wir hassen sie nicht,
Wir schützen Weichsel und Wasgaupass,
Wir haben nur einen einzigen Hass,
Wir lieben vereint, wir hassen vereint,
Wir haben nur einen einzigen Feind:
Denn ihr alle wisst, denn ihr alle wisst,
Er sitzt geduckt hinter der grauen Flut,
Voll Neid, voll Wut, voll Schläue, voll List,
Durch Wasser getrennt, die sind dicker als Blut.
Wir wollen treten in ein Gericht,
Einen Schwur zu schwören, Gesicht in Gesicht.
Einen Schwur von Erz, den verbläst kein Wind,
Einen Schwur für Kind und für Kindeskind,
Vernehmt das Wort, sagt nach das Wort,
Es wälzt sich durch ganz Deutschland fort:
Wir wollen nicht lassen von unserem Hass,
Wir haben alle nur einen Hass,
Wir lieben vereint, wir hassen vereint,
Wir haben alle nur einen Feind:
_ENGLAND!_
In der Bordkajüte, im Feiersaal,
Sassen Schiffsoffiziere beim Liebesmahl,
Wie ein Säbelhieb, wie ein Segelschwung,
Einer riss grüssend empor den Trunk,
Knapp hinknallend wie Ruderschlag,
Drei Worte sprach er: "Auf den Tag!"
Wem galt das Glas?
Sie hatten alle nur einen Hass.
Wer war gemeint?
Sie hatten alle nur einen Feind:
_ENGLAND!_
Nimm du die Völker der Erde in Sold,
Baue Wälle aus Barren von Gold,
Bedecke die Meerflut mit Bug bei Bug,
Du rechnetest klug, doch nicht klug genug.
Was schiert uns Russe und Franzos'!
Schuss wider Schuss, und Stoss um Stoss.
Wir kämpfen den Kampf mit Bronze und Stahl
Und schliessen Frieden irgend einmal,
Dich werden wir Hassen mit langem Hass,
Wir werden nicht lassen von unserem Hass,
Hass zu Wasser und Hass zu Land,
Hass des Hauptes und Hass der Hand,
Hass der Hämmer und Hass der Kronen,
Drosselnder Hass von siebzig Millionen,
Sie lieben vereint, sie hassen vereint,
Sie alle haben nur einen Feind:
_ENGLAND!_
[Following is a translation of the song by Barbara Henderson, appearing
in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Oct. 15, 1914:]
French and Russian, they matter not,
A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot!
We love them not, we hate them not,
We hold the Weichsel and Vosges gate.
We have but one and only hate,
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone.
He is known to you all, he is known to you all,
He crouches behind the dark gray flood,
Full of envy, of rage, of craft, of gall,
Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood.
Come, let us stand at the Judgment Place,
An oath to swear to, face to face,
An oath of bronze no wind can shake,
An oath for our sons and their sons to take.
Come, hear the word, repeat the word,
Throughout the Fatherland make it heard.
We will never forego our hate,
We have all but a single hate,
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
In the Captain's Mess, in the banquet hall,
Sat feasting the officers, one and all,
Like a sabre blow, like the swing of a sail,
One seized his glass and held high to hail;
Sharp-snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play,
Spoke three words only: "To the Day!"
Whose glass this fate?
They had all but a single hate.
Who was thus known?
They had one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
Take you the folk of the Earth in pay,
With bars of gold your ramparts lay,
Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow,
Ye reckon well, but not well enough now.
French and Russian, they matter not,
A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot,
We fight the battle with bronze and steel,
And the time that is coming Peace will seal.
You we will hate with a lasting hate,
We will never forego our hate,
Hate by water and hate by land,
Hate of the head and hate of the hand,
Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,
Hate of seventy millions choking down.
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe and one alone--
_ENGLAND!_
This poem, according to the Tägliche Rundschau, has already had the fate
of every folksong--the version of it that was circulated among the
Bavarian troops lacks the middle stanza and has in other ways also been
"sung to pieces." But it has also been worked over artistically. The
Chemnitz Director of Church Music, Prof. Mayerhoff, has set the "Chant
of Hate Against England" to music for male voices. The song was rendered
publicly at a great meeting in a concert in the Alberthalle at Leipsic,
and was taken up in roaring chorus by the audience. The composer himself
accompanied his composition on the piano.
As can be seen, therefore, the popularity of the song and its sentiment is
by no means confined to Bavaria. It extends throughout the entire empire.
Of hundreds of voices in the press, let us mention only one. Councilor of
Justice Eschenbach of Berlin, in the Neue Gesellschaftliche Korrespondenz
writes:
To honor our immortal heroes of Tsing-tau, and for the eternal
shame and reproach of the scoundrel nations, Japan and
England, I propose the following: Let the entire German press
scorn in the next fourteen days to permit the words
"Englishmen" or "Japanese" to appear in its columns and before
the eyes of our people and of the entire civilized world; but
instead, and invariably, let the word "Mörder" (murderers) be
used for "Englishmen" and the word "Raubmörder" (highway
assassins) for "Japanese." For no other name will there be
hereafter among us for these greatest scoundrels of history.
Thereby care will be taken both for the present throughout the
world as far as the German language is heard and the results
of the German spirit are known, and also for future
historians, that the proper point of view shall be given
throughout eternity for the condemnation of these murderous
gangs accursed of God.
How different is the attitude of the Germans toward the French!
From a trench on the Aisne the following was written to the Heidelberger
Zeitung:
Four hundred meters from where we lie, likewise intrenched,
lie these wretched Englishmen, toward whom our people feel a
holy fury, while they regard the battle with the Frenchmen, on
the other hand, rather as a member of a university student
corps regards an honorable duel. I, too, am entirely of that
view.
The well-known psychologist, Prof. W. Hellpach of Karlsruhe, writes to
the Berliner Tageblatt from the field:
The German soldier, too, does not hate the French people.
Indeed, no one hates it. That is one of the most amazing
phenomena of this war--our inner relation to France. Daily and
hourly we hear words of disgust concerning the Russians, see
gestures of hatred against the Britons--but toward France
there is expressed amid all purely warlike antagonism a sort
of sympathy resembling almost a smiling love for a naughty
child which one feels obliged to punish because it has been
guilty of stupid but very serious misbehavior.
We must force France to its knees--perhaps more completely
than any of our other foes--but every one seems to hope that
after this, after this last lesson, France will come to her
senses and conclude a real peace with her German neighbor.
Even among the common men in our ranks there has developed
almost plant like a certain realization of a common duty of
these two nations, a feeling of certain virtues which they,
complementing one another, can preserve only by co-operation.
But for the cultured ones among us, the idea of a hereditary
feud has given way to a clear consciousness that there is a
middle European Continental culture, supported by German,
Austrian, and French genius in common, and that the
preservation, development, and continuation thereof as against
a hasty and superficial Anglization must be the task of the
future. All, all now learn through experience that this matter
with France is a woe of civilization (kulturjammer), and that
now at last it is going to change, that it could change, if--
In the same newspaper the Berlin National Economist, Prof. Werner
Sombart, writes:
Against France we probably experience the least aversion or
hatred. At bottom we have really nothing "against the
Frenchmen," but they have a great deal against us. But we find
them, in spite of their fanatical hatred of the Germans (which
we honor and respect) chivalrous antagonists, who in their
wrath of battle are certainly quite our peers; and in them, we
find, there is far more force and will for victory than we
were in the beginning wont to believe. They die for their
fatherland, and their final reason for fighting is after all
an ideal one, the faith in the glory and greatness of a
super-individual, the self-sacrifice to a whole that is higher
than the personal. Thus, at least, does that France stand
opposed to us, that is fighting for its existence in the
trenches along the Aisne.
With the rabble that shouts "à bas la guerre" in Paris, we
need reckon just as little as with the rather doubtful
citizens that constitute the immediate Government of France
and whose heroism seems to show great rents these days. Yes,
for the heroic race of Frenchmen we feel almost a sort of
pity, as with a noble wild game of the forest, wounded unto
death. And this pity finds expression in wistful sympathy when
we think of the quixotic strain in this wrestling with an
overwhelming foe, when we see the childlike faith with which
the people have grasped at every unplausible hope of rescue
from its anguish of death and still grasps at it, as a
drowning man grasps at a wisp of straw. Don Quixote still
remains the "noble knight" for whom--if he appears in the age
of firearms--we still fire three salvos of honor over his
grave.
And then, when we mention the word "France," there arise all
the memories of the imperishable cultural values which its
people have given to us. I believe that there are many, very
many among us, who in their hearts hope that there may once
again be something like a co-operative understanding and
journeying together of Germans and Frenchmen, even if in a
distant future which the youngest among us will probably not
live to see--an agreement which through a union of German and
French elements of culture will promise vast achievements for
the purposes of humanity. In the last analysis--for that has
in these very days been more frequently expressed--these two
nations belong together; they are of equal worth, of equal
spirit, of equal fineness, and yet so different that they can
give each other infinitely much.
Just as has the hate against England, so has this friendship for France
found poetic expression. In the Hamburger Kriegsblatt we read a poem by
Wilhelm Höhne, the final stanza of which reads:
Ma pauvre France! Wann siehst du es ein
Dass all deine Bündnisse Trug und Schein?
Was meinst du, wärst du mit dem vereint,
Der dich niederringt heute--ein ehrlicher Feind!
Auf "Deutsche Treue" da könntest du zählen!
Mit uns im Bund könnt'st der Welt du befehlen.
Dem Briten, dem Russen, dem Asiaten!
Deutschland hat nie einen Freund verraten!
(Translation.)
Ma pauvre France, when wilt thou see
That all thy allies are cheating thee?
What, though if thou with him wouldst go
Who now overwhelms thee--an honest foe!
On German faith thou couldst reckon sure;
With us, thou couldst rule the world secure,
The Briton, the Russian, the Asian, bend.
Germany has never betrayed a friend!
[Illustration: decoration]