WHY AMERICA ENTERED THE WAR.
THE IRON HAND OF PRUSSIANISM--THE ARROGANT HOHENZOLLERN
ATTITUDE--SECRETARY LANE TELLS WHY WE FIGHT--BROKEN PLEDGES--LAWS
VIOLATED--PRUSSIANISM THE CHILD OF BARBARITY--GERMANY'S PLANS FOR A
WORLD EMPIRE.
Not merely to prevent Germany from opening avenues of commerce to the
seas nor to throttle the ambitions of the Kaiser was America drawn into
the vortex of war with France, England, Russia, Belgium, Italy and other
nations; but that the iron hand of Prussianism, as exemplified in the
conduct of the German Government, might be lifted from the shoulders of
men, and the world given that measure of peace and security which modern
civilization demands.
Germany by her ruthless submarine warfare brought desolation to many
American homes. She sank without a pang of conscience the great
transatlantic steamship Lusitania, and, while pretending friendship for
the United States and pleading no intent to disregard American rights,
broke her own pledges and repeated her overt acts, ignoring
international law and the rights of all neutrals at sea.
She began her outlawry by the invasion of Belgium, which was followed by
conduct on the part of the German forces which clearly marked them
descendants of the "wolf tribes" of feudal days, fighting with the motto
before them of, "To the victor belong the spoils."
But all of Germany's diabolical acts involving the peace and security of
America and American citizens might have been the subject of
international adjudication but for the arrogance of the ruling forces of
the Teutons. In a broad sense, Prussianism is credited with
responsibility for the devastating war and for the policy which drew
America into the conflict.
The country, led by President Woodrow Wilson, who temporized to an
extent that for a time made him the subject of bitter criticism, found
that war was being forced upon it by an autocratic and ambitious German
Government--that of the Hohenzollern dynasty--which possessed an insane
ambition to dominate the earth, leaving to America no alternative but to
borrow the piratical terrorism of Imperialistic Germany, with temporary
abandonment of its own constitutional free government, and join the
Allies to defend it.
In the sense which Prussianism or militarism is here used it denotes a
mental attitude or view. It is a condition of mind which is partisan,
exaggerated and egotistical, and is developed by environment and
training. Just as the professional spirit in any other occupation leads
to an exhibition of exaggerated importance, the despotic doctrine of
militarism assumes superiority over rational motives and deliberations.
Everything must be sacrificed to perpetuate and maintain the honor and
prestige of the military.
WHAT MILITARISM IS.
What that militarism is and what it has done to America, and to the
whole world, is best summed up in the words of Secretary Lane, of the
Department of the Interior, at Washington, who in an address before the
Home Club of the Department on June 4, 1917, just when America was
beginning to send forces to Europe, said:
"America is at war in self-defense and because she could not keep out;
she is at war to save herself with the rest of the world from the nation
that has linked itself with the Turk and adopted the methods of Mahomet,
setting itself to make the world bow before policies backed by the
organized and scientific military system.
"Why are we fighting Germany? The brief answer is that ours is a war of
self-defense. We did not wish to fight Germany. She made the attack upon
us; not on our shores, but on our ships, our lives, our rights, our
future. For two years and more we held to a neutrality that made us
apologists for things which outraged man's common sense of fair play and
humanity.
"At each new offense--the invasion of Belgium, the killing of civilian
Belgians, the attacks on Scarborough and other defenseless towns, the
laying of mines in neutral waters, the fencing off of the seas--and on
and on through the months, we said:
"'This is war--archaic, uncivilized war, but war. All rules have been
thrown away; all nobility; man has come down to the primitive brute. And
while we cannot justify, we cannot intervene. It is not our war.'
IN WAR TO DEFEND RIGHTS.
"Then why are we in? Because we could not keep out. The invasion of
Belgium, which opened the war, led to the invasion of the United States
by slow, steady, logical steps. Our sympathies evolved into a conviction
of self-interest. Our love of fair play ripened into alarm at our own
peril.
"We talked in the language and in the spirit of good faith and
sincerity, as honest men should talk, until we discovered that our talk
was construed as cowardice. And Mexico was called upon to cow us.
"We talked as men would talk who cared alone for peace and the
advancement of their own material interests, until we discovered that we
were thought to be a nation of mere moneymakers, devoid of all
character--until, indeed, we were told that we could not walk the
highways of the world without permission of a Prussian soldier, that our
ships might not sail without wearing a striped uniform of humiliation
upon a narrow path of national subservience.
"We talked as men talk who hope for honest agreement, not for war, until
we found that the treaty torn to pieces at Liege was but the symbol of a
policy that made agreements worthless against a purpose that knew no
word but success.
"And so we came into this war for ourselves. It is a war to save
America, to preserve self-respect, to justify our right to live as we
have lived, not as some one else wishes us to live. In the name of
freedom we challenge with ships and men, money and an undaunted spirit,
that word 'verboten' which Germany has written upon the sea and upon the
land.
"For America is not the name of so much territory. It is a living
spirit, born in travail, grown in the rough school of bitter
experiences, a living spirit which has purpose and pride and conscience,
knows why it wishes to live and to what end, knows how it comes to be
respected of the world, and hopes to retain that respect by living on
with the light of Lincoln's love of man as its old and new testaments.
AMERICA MUST LIVE.
"It is more precious that this America should live than that we
Americans should live. And this America as we now see has been
challenged from the first of this war by the strong arm of a power that
has no sympathy with our purpose, and will not hesitate to destroy us if
the law that we respect, the rights that are to us sacred, or the spirit
that we have, stand across her set will to make this world bow before
her policies, backed by her organized and scientific military system.
The world of Christ--a neglected but not a rejected Christ--has come
again face to face with the world of Mahomet, who willed to win by
force.
"With this background of history and in this sense, then, we fight
Germany:
"Because of Belgium--invaded, outraged, enslaved, impoverished Belgium.
We cannot forget Liege, Louvain and Cardinal Mercier. Translated into
terms of American history these names stand for Bunker Hill, Lexington
and Patrick Henry.
"Because of France--invaded, desecrated France, a million of whose
heroic sons have died to save the land of Lafayette. Glorious, golden
France, the preserver of the arts, the land of noble spirit. The first
land to follow our lead into republican liberty.
"Because of England--from whom came the laws, traditions, standards of
life and inherent love of liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon
civilization. We defeated her once upon the land and once upon sea. But
Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Canada are free because of what we
did. And they are with us in the fight for the freedom of the seas.
"Because of Russia--new Russia. She must not be overwhelmed now. Not
now, surely, when she is just born into freedom. Her peasants must have
their chance; they must go to school to Washington, to Jefferson and to
Lincoln, until they know their way about in this new, strange world, of
government by the popular will; and
"Because of other peoples, with their rising hope that the world may be
freed from government by the soldier.
GERMANY'S CRIMES AGAINST US.
"We are fighting Germany because she sought to terrorize us and then to
fool us. We could not believe that Germany would do what she said she
would do upon the seas.
"We still hear the piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea
where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never asked forgiveness
of the world.
"We saw the Sussex sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neutral
nations.
"We saw ship after ship sent to the bottom--ships of mercy bound out of
America for the Belgian starving; ships carrying the Red Cross and laden
with the wounded of all nations; ships carrying food and clothing to
friendly, harmless, terrorized peoples; ships flying the Stars and
Stripes--sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, manned by
American seamen, murdered against all law, without warning.
"We believed Germany's promise that she would respect the neutral flag
and the rights of neutrals, and we held our anger and outrage in check.
But now we see that she was holding us off with fair promises until she
could build her huge fleet of submarines. For when spring came she blew
her promise into the air, just as at the beginning she had torn up that
'scrap of paper.' Then we saw clearly that there was but one law for
Germany, her will to rule.
"We are fighting Germany because she violated our confidence. Paid
German spies filled our cities. Officials of her Government, received as
the guests of this nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize, defying
our law and the law of nations.
"We are fighting Germany because while we were yet her friends--the only
great power that still held hands off--she sent the Zimmermann note
calling to her aid Mexico, our southern neighbor, and hoping to lure
Japan, our western neighbor, into war against this nation of peace.
GOVERNMENT THAT HAS NO CONSCIENCE.
"The nation that would do these things proclaims the gospel that
government has no conscience. And this doctrine cannot live, or else
democracy must die! For the nations of the world must keep faith. There
can be no living for us in a world where the State has no conscience, no
reverence for the things of the spirit, no respect for international
law, no mercy for those who fall before its force. What an unordered
world! Anarchy! The anarchy of the rival wolf packs!
"We are fighting Germany because in this war feudalism is making its
last stand against oncoming democracy. We see it now. This is a war
against an old spirit, an ancient, outworn spirit. It is a war against
feudalism--the right of the castle on the hill to rule the village
below. It is a war of democracy--the right of all to be their own
masters. Let Germany be feudal if she will! But she must not spread her
system over a world that has outgrown it. Feudalism plus science,
thirteenth century plus twentieth; this is the religion of the mistaken
Germany that has linked itself with the Turk; that has, too, adopted the
method of Mahomet: 'The State has no conscience,' 'the State can do no
wrong.' With the spirit of the fanatic, she believes this gospel and
that it is her duty to spread it by force.
"With poison gas that makes living a hell, with submarines that sneak
through the seas to slyly murder non-combatants, with dirigibles that
bombard men and women while they sleep, with a perfected system of
terrorization that the modern world first heard of when German troops
entered China, German feudalism is making war upon mankind.
LIVE IN HAUNTED TERROR.
"Let this old spirit of evil have its way and no man will live in
America without paying toll to it, in manhood and in money. This spirit
might demand Canada from a defeated, navyless England, and then our
dream of peace on the north would be at an end. We would live, as France
has lived for forty years, in haunting terror.
"America speaks for the world in fighting Germany. Mark on a map those
countries which are Germany's allies, and you will mark but four,
running from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria to Turkey. All the
other nations, the whole globe around, are in arms against her or are
unable to move. There is deep meaning in this.
"We fight with the world for an honest world, in which nations keep
their word; for a world in which nations do not live by swagger or by
threat; for a world in which men think of the ways in which they can
conquer the common cruelties of nature instead of inventing more
horrible cruelties to inflict upon the spirit and body of man; for a
world in which the ambition or the philosophy of a few shall not make
miserable all mankind; for a world in which the man is held more
precious than the machine, the system or the State."
In his denunciations of the Imperial German Government President Wilson
and his advisers have indicted the House of Hohenzollern, of which
Emperor Wilhelm is the head, and which has developed the unbending
military spirit which has resulted in Germany being counted an outcast
among the nations of the world.
America, it must be noted, has no antipathy for the Germans as a race,
but modern civilization opposes that form of Government which has
permitted the cruel characteristics of the "wolf tribes" of feudal times
to be carried down through the generations, and capitalized by the
Imperial powers to bring terror to the hearts of all who do not bow to
the iron hand of the Kaiser and his ilk.
GERMANY A WARLIKE RACE.
The thing from which this Prussianism--this militarism--grew is easily
traceable down the German ages. The very first appearance of the Germans
in history is as a warlike race. The earliest German literature is
composed of folk tales about war heroes--their ideals and manly virtues.
And this ideal in one form or another, under varying circumstances and
conditions, persisted throughout the centuries.
It is not merely that military service has been compulsory in Germany,
but that almost everything else has been subjugated to the development
of the army. While Germany has given to the world a generous quota of
scientists, industrial geniuses, musicians and poets, the whole race is
imbued with the warlike spirit and its influence is manifest in every
phase of national life. Practically all that is best in the nation in
the way of efficiency has been inspired or may be traced to the military
discipline to which the people have been subjected for years. They have
been created human machines, trained to obey orders and to perform the
services to which they are assigned without protest and without
question.
The history of Germany began with Henry, the Fowler, about A.D. 929,
who was essentially the first sovereign. He developed the system of
margraves or wardens to guard the frontiers of the kingdom, fortified
his towns and required every ninth man to take up arms for his country.
Robbers were forced to become soldiers or be hanged, and as lawlessness
was rampant there was no dearth of material to fill up the ranks of the
army.
The margraves, or military leaders under them, grew in importance and
influence until the offices tended to become hereditary. Gradually the
country was divided into principalities, each of which maintained a
force of arms. This limited form of military rule maintained for several
centuries of troublesome times, or until about 1412, when Emperor
Sigismund appointed Burgrave Frederick, of Nuremberg, "Stratt-halter,"
or vice-regent.
BIRTH OF THE MILITARY SPIRIT.
This appointment marked the establishment of the Hohenzollerns in
Brandenburg, and, in fine, fixes the birth of the military spirit in
Germany.
Other princes of the German Reich maintained armies, but the
Hohenzollerns were destined to imprint upon the nation the military
ideal. In the beginning history says that Burgrave Frederick tried all
the arts of peace, but it was only with the army of Franks and some
artillery that he was able to batter down the castles of the robber
lords and bring order into Brandenburg.
Thomas Carlyle gives a list of twelve electors who strove in turn to
consolidate the power of Prussia, so that when Frederick the Great
became King of Prussia he found much of the work done. Among the rulers
of these strenuous days to whom the Kaiser Wilhelm may point as having
handed down to him the warlike spirit are Kurfuerst Joachim I, of
Brandenburg (1529), who introduced Roman law and established a supreme
court for all the provinces at Berlin; Kurfuerst Joachim II, of
Brandenburg (1542), whom history describes as an unscrupulous despot,
fond of luxury and display, and who changed his religion because it was
an advantage politically for him to do so; Margrave Georg Frederick von
Ansbach (1564), who caused the eyes of sixty peasants to be bored out
upon winning the Peasants' war, and Kurfuerst Frederick William der
Grosse, of Brandenburg (1652), known as the "Great Elector," a fighter,
who had two clearly defined aims: to build up agriculture and maintain a
big army.
For years the Hohenzollerns and their aides were fighting unfriendly
neighbors and quarrelsome princes, and when after the lapse of time the
Thirty Years' War finally turned Germany into a field of blood, the
Great Elector emerged from the strife with the support of about 25,000
well drilled soldiers, and freed his country from foreign foes.
HELD EUROPE AT HIS MERCY.
The establishment of the power of the Junkers--the autocrats of
Prussianism--is credited to Frederick the Great, who was the great
drillmaster who organized the Prussian army on lines of efficiency and
economy. It is related that Frederick, afterward "The Great," was taken
from his women teachers at the age of seven years and subjected to rigid
military discipline. He commanded a company of cadets, composed of the
sons of nobles who were compelled to drill for him, and at the age of
fourteen he was a captain in the Potsdam Guards, and when, in 1740, he
became king, he took the army and held all Europe at his mercy. His
successor, Frederick William II, was incapable, and the French
revolution found Germany in a state of discord.
When Frederick William III acceded to the throne in 1797 he started to
reorganize the army. Frederick William I had divided the country into
districts, or cantons, and here began the system of compulsory military
training. All males born were enrolled and liable to service when of
age. The army was recruited by districts and every district had its
regiment, though later exemptions were allowed. Under Frederick William
III, Scharnhorst, a Hanoverian, was the military reorganizer, and he
began the work with the slogan "All dwellers of the State are born
defenders of the same."
Instead of depending for its development on king, the army was directed
by genius of best men developed by the system. After the formation of
the German Empire in 1871, which placed the king of Prussia at its head,
the Constitution of the German Empire made every German a member of the
active army for seven years. Service with colors three years and with
the reserve four. In 1875 there were eighteen army corps, of which
twelve were Prussian. The strength by law in 1874 was 400,000.
PEACE STRENGTH INCREASED.
In 1881 the established peace strength was increased by thirty-four
battalions of infantry, forty batteries of field artillery and other
forces, and in 1886 Bismarck, recognizing the power of Prussianism and
its military influence, was compelled to dissolve the Reichstag, but
after the election in 1887 thirty-one other battalions and twenty-four
batteries were added. Two complete army corps were added in 1890, and in
1893 the color service, or length of time when reservists were subject
to duty under colors only, was decreased by two years, bringing the
peace strength up to more than half a million and the reservists up to
4,000,000. Step by step the strength of the military force was increased
until after the adoption of the law of 1913, when provision was made for
699 battalions of infantry; 633 batteries of field artillery; 44
battalions of engineers; 55 battalions of garrison artillery; 31
battalions of communications and 26 battalions of train troops--a grand
total of 870,000 actually in service in peace strength.
The German Empire is composed of twenty-six states--Prussia, Bavaria,
Wurttemberg, Baden, Saxony, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Schwerin,
Mecklenburg-Sterlitz, Oldenburg, Brunswick, Saxe-Weimer-Eisnach,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Waldeck, Lippe,
Schaumburg-Lippe, Reuss (elder line), Reuss (younger line), Anhalt,
Schwarz-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sonderhausen, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck
and Reichsland--the Alsace-Lorraine. The area is less than that of the
State of Texas while the population according to the most recent
statistics is about 65,000,000.
Every male person between the ages of eighteen and forty-five is liable
for military service. Reservists under the rules in force when the war
started were subject to two musters annually and two periods of training
not to exceed eight weeks in duration.
EGOTISTICAL AND EXAGGERATED UTTERANCES.
That the present Emperor is imbued with the harsh military spirit of his
ancestors is illustrated by his many egotistical and exaggerated
utterances. In dedicating the monument of Prince Frederick Charles at
Frankfurt-on-the-Oder in 1891, he is quoted as having said:
"We would rather sacrifice our eighteen army corps and our 42,000,000
inhabitants on the field of battle than surrender a single stone of what
my father and Prince Frederick gained." The thrills which such
expressions arouse are born of an inveterate emotional habit, and are
responsible for the obliquity of view and conduct which has made Germany
an outcast among civilized nations.
But Germany was not satisfied with what she had obtained by her
crusading. Developments of the war prove conclusively that the Kaiser
has followed out the blood and iron politico-economic methods of
Bismarck for the development of Prussian power and that while at times
Germany has been reported to be maneuvering for peace, her peace moves
have in reality been war moves, and that a truce would only give the
Imperial Government time in which to further Prussianize and prepare
for a greater world war the territory to the southeast which she has
conquered under the guise of a friendly alliance.
It will be recalled that President Wilson declared that "America must
fight until the world is made safe for democracy." This declaration
refers immediately to the plans which Germany had developed for its
conquest. Based upon reports received by agents of the United States, of
England, of France and other countries, Germany aimed to form a
consolidation of an impregnable military and economic unit stretching
from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, cutting Europe permanently in
half, controlling the Dardanelles, the Agean and the Baltic, and
eventually forming the backbone of a Prussian world empire.
LEAGUE AT WORK SINCE 1911.
In her southeastern conquests, it is apparent, Germany followed almost
in toto the long established plan of the Pan-German League, whose
propaganda had been regarded outside of Germany as the harmless activity
of extremists, too radical to be taken seriously. Coupled with this
plan, as an instrument of economic consolidation, the German officials
used with only slight modification the system of customs union expansion
which aided Prussia in former years to extend her domination over the
other German States now making up the empire.
As early as 1911 the Pan-German League is said to have circulated a
definite propaganda of conquest, with printed appeals containing maps of
a greater Germany, whose sway from Hamburg to Constantinople and then
southeastward through Asiatic Turkey was marked out by boundaries very
coincident with the military lines held today, under German officers, by
the troops of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. Adhesion of
the German Government itself to such a plan was not suspected by the
other Powers, although the propagandists were permitted to continue
their activities unhindered and to spread their appeals in a country of
strict press supervision. How closely the German Government did adhere
to the plan in reality has been demonstrated clearly by the course of
the war.
Following the footsteps of Bismarck, who used the Franco-Prussian war
alliance to bring Baden, Bavaria and Wurttemburg into the German
confederacy and then into the German Empire, Emperor William chose war
as the means of establishing the broad pathway to the southeast which
was essential for realization of the dream of a great Germany.
VERGE OF DISSOLUTION.
The subjugation of Austria-Hungary, which would have presented a
different task under ordinary conditions, became in these circumstances
comparatively very simple. A polyglot combination of States, having
little in common and apparently held together only by the decaying
genius of the aged Emperor Franz Joseph, the dual monarchy was regarded
everywhere as on the verge of dissolution. Her helplessness before
Russia's army became apparent early in the war, and the eagerness with
which Germany seized the opportunity thus presented is pointed to as
emphasizing the far-sightedness of the German plans.
Austria-Hungary's submission is declared to be complete, both in a
military and economic sense. The German officers commanding her armies,
abetted by industrial agents, scattered throughout the country by
Germany, hold the Austrian and Hungarian population in a union which
neither the hardships of war, the death of the Emperor nor the
inspiration of the outside influences, such as the Russian revolution,
can break.
Bulgaria's declaration of war on the side of Germany was actuated by a
German diplomatic coup, which in itself is regarded now as further
evidence that a clear road through to the Dardanelles was considered in
Berlin as a primary and imperative purpose of the war.
In the case of Turkey, German domination is even more complete than in
Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Not only have German officers led in
defending Turkish territory and in eradicating inharmonious elements,
such as the Armenians and Syrians, but German industrial organizations
have taken a firm grip on Turkish industry and a large delegation of
German professors have been spreading German kultur among the
population.
The developments threw a new light on many events before the war. Among
them the long-unexplained declaration of Emperor William at Damascus in
1898 that all Mohammedans might confidently regard the German Emperor as
"their friend forever." There also is a complete understanding now of
Germany's eagerness to obtain, in 1899, a concession for the Bagdad
railroad, an artery of communication now indispensable to the German
operations.
These are the things and conditions to which the Allies referred when in
replying to one of President Wilson's peace notes they declared that war
must accomplish the "liberation of Italians, of Slavs, of Rumanians and
of Tzecho-Slovacs from foreign domination; the enfranchisement of
populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turk; the expulsion
from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, and the restoration of Servia,
Montenegro and Rumania."
America entered the war to fight for Democracy. On the surface the
United States pledged itself to protect its ships and make secure the
lives of its citizens on the highways of the world, but the principles
for which the manhood of the country were called to fight have been
summarized as follows:
That the nations of the world shall co-operate and not compete. The
paradox of history is that every struggle leads to firmer unity. Wars
cemented France, unified the British Empire, consolidated the American
Union.
That national armaments be limited to purposes of internal police, no
nation be allowed to have a force sufficient to be a menace to general
peace, and a League of Peace be formed which shall have at its hand
sufficient armed power to compel order among the States.
That nations be governed by the people that compose them, and for the
benefit of those people, and not of a ruling class.
That every nation be governed with an eye to the welfare of the whole
world as well as to its own prosperity or glory, and patriotism properly
subjected to humanity.
That the power of government be dissociated from advancing the profits
of capital, and made always to mean the welfare of labor.
That security of life, freedom of worship and opinion, and liberty of
movement be assured to all men everywhere.
That no munitions or instruments of death be manufactured except under
control of the International Council of the World.
That the seas be free to all.
That tariffs be adjusted with a view to the general welfare and not as
measures of national rivalry.
That railways, telegraph, and telephone lines, and all other common and
necessary means of intercommunication be eventually nationalized.
That every human being in a country be conscripted to devote a certain
part of his or her life to national service.
That both labor unions and combinations of capital be under strict
government control, so that no irresponsible group may conspire against
the commonwealth.
That every child receive training to equip him or her for self-support
and intelligent citizenship.
That woman shall enjoy every right of citizenship.
That the civil shall always have precedence over the military authority.
And that the right of free speech, of a free press, and of assembly
shall remain inviolate.