regard to the horrors of modern war, they are imbecilities to which we
can make a statistical answer. Statistics prove that two years of
peace cost Germany more violent deaths (suicides, accidents, murders)
than the whole war of 1870-71 cost us--that war without
parallel.[29]--D.B.B., p. 206.
304. Sentimental maunderings about humanity and peace were bringing us
face to face with the danger that cosmopolitanism might overshadow
Germanism, and that the Nobel Prize might actually be offered to our
Kaiser.--EXCELLENZ v. WROCHEM, at meeting of Pan-German League,
Augsburg, September, 1912. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 72.
_See also Nos. 217, 244, 253, 314, 316, 317, 319._
=Militarism Exultant.=
(AFTER JULY, 1914.)
305. I have lived for forty-five years mainly in the society of
Germans, and thirty years exclusively in German countries ... and my
testimony is this: _in the whole of Germany there has not been for the
past forty-three years a single man who has wished for war--not one_.
Whoever denies this, lies.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 11.
305a. It is only in war that we find the action of true heroism, the
realization of which on earth is the care of militarism. That is why
war appears to us, who are filled with militarism, as in itself a holy
thing, as the holiest thing on earth.--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p.
88.
306. Every age requires its war, lest civilization stagnate.--O.A.H.
SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 116.
307.
Bestir you, my comrades! To horse, to horse!
And away to the field and to freedom....[30]
Truly a splendid song. It thrills through all our muscles, and makes
us feel as though we ourselves would like once more to take our share
in a joyous fight.--PROF. U. v. WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORF, pt. I., p. 4.
_Compare No. 241._
308. Anti-militarism was enraptured. What we had laboriously built up
through the cultivation of the warlike spirit sank to ruins.... God be
eternally praised! The great masses of the people would have nothing
to say to these doctrines of the evil of war.... It appeared as clear
as daylight that we had always been right, and that the warlike
spirit, that deepest and purest joy of the great heart of our people,
was unshaken and unchanged. The warlike spirit, the love of war and
the craving for battle, was no imaginary characteristic of our
people--no, and a thousand times no!--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 7.
309. The tempest of patriotic exaltation is sweeping through the
German land, and Treitschke's solemn pronouncement as to war being a
fountain of health for the people has all of a sudden risen into
renewed estimation. The war has swept the tedious patience-game of the
diplomats off the table and set the brazen dice of the battlefield
rolling in its stead.--F. v. LISZT, E.M.S., "Geleitwort," p. 1.
310. Our long years of peace, full of honest, but, alas! also of
dishonest, work, had brought us no blessing. We breathed again when
the war came.--H. v. WOLZOGEN, G.Z.K., p. 61.
311. Over the blood of the fallen glows the flame of poetic
enthusiasm. A war without dead and wounded is a life without work,
without aim and without hope.--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 7.
_Compare Nos. 250, 254._
312. When the summons to war rang out, in thousands and thousands of
families people searched the Holy Scriptures, to know what was God's
message for the event of war; and the dear Bible-Book, which never
leaves us in the lurch, brought to the searcher strength, counsel and
consolation. The Old Testament, under-valued by many, now became, all
of a sudden, the book for everyday reading.--PASTOR M. HENNIG,
D.K.U.W., p. 5.
313. The order in which the nations take rank cannot be determined in
time of peace, by standards of reason, not only because the majority
of overfed ruminants would always keep the Lion encaged, but because
only in war can the Lion prove his lionlikeness to others, and--what
is still more important--to himself.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 3.
314. [Materialism and millionairism were playing havoc in Germany.] At
last the spectre of materialism penetrated into the palaces of the
dynastic leaders of our people, and from that day began the preaching
of the blessings of everlasting peace. At the same time there began a
hateful campaign of slander against all true patriots, against all
ethical champions of war (_Ethiker des Krieges_.)--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W.,
p. 6.
315. The laurels of this bloodless victory [the victory of the war
spirit] belong to that part of the German teaching profession which
has remained true to its patriotic duties!--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 8.
316. Though clever writers sometimes speak of the Kaiser's romantic
proclivities, his earnest searching of the Scriptures has brought him
to such a sober way of thinking that he has steered clear of all
Utopias, and has not allowed himself to be led astray by the empty
dreams of pacifist enthusiasm.--PASTOR M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W., p. 16.
317. We have no knowledge of pacifist utterances of representative
Germans of any time. The wretched book of the aged Kant, on "Perpetual
Peace" ... is the only inglorious exception. Such utterances would
indeed amount to a sin against the holy spirit of Germanism, which,
from the depths of its heroism, cannot possibly arrive at any view
other than a high appreciation of war.--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p.
93.
318. One or other of the English swashbucklers has recently said that
the Allies are not fighting against the Germany of Beethoven and
Goethe, but against the Germany of Bismarck, of which they have had
too much.... But Faust and the Ninth Symphony strongly resemble the
mighty works of the great artsmith, Bismarck.--K. ENGELBRECHT,
D.D.D.K., p. 61.
319. How far our classic age ... was removed from a depreciation and
rejection of war is shown by the attitude assumed by a spirit so
pathetically calm and aloof as Jean Paul, who nevertheless called war
the strengthening iron cure of humanity, and maintained, indeed, that
this held good more for the side which suffers than for that which
wins. The fever caused by the wounds of war was, in his opinion,
better than the jail fever of a loathsome peace.--PROF. W. SOMBART,
H.U.H., p. 94.
320. It is monstrous that even high spiritual dignitaries can be
found, in our days, to tell their adherents that war is a misfortune,
and that such utterances can actually be printed by the official
press.--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 7.
321. Just imagine our humanity of to-day--I mean, of course, our
German humanity--without its military education. Non-German humanity
gives us some idea of what that would mean!--H. v. WOLZOGEN, G.Z.K.,
p. 60.
322. If we are to carry on the warlike education of our people--and we
are resolved to do so--then we by that very fact affirm our constant
readiness again to enter upon a war, as soon as our honour, our inward
or outward growth, or the expansive tendencies rooted in the inmost
nature of our people, demand it.--PASTOR D. BAUMGARTEN, D.R.S.Z., No.
24, p. 17.
323. The incomparably greater efficiency of army administration, even
in questions of civil life, has everywhere made a deep impression
during the present war, and has opened the eyes of many. One has
constantly heard people exclaim: "Oh, it could only continue after the
war!"--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, P.I., p. 116.
324. Oh, that Germany would learn from this war to send out soldiers
only--Generals and ex-officers of the General Staff--as German
diplomatists, ambassadors and consuls!--K.L.A. SCHMIDT, D.E.E., p. 17.
325. We must not look for permanent peace as a result of this war.
Heaven defend Germany from that.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 19.
_See also Nos. 91, 192a, 195, 217._
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Down to this point Burckhardt is condensing a paragraph from Ernst
v. Lasaulx, "Philosophie der Geschichte," 1856 p. 85.
[27] Quoted in original.
[28] Written in 1885.
[29] Klaus Wagner (_Krieg_, p. 223) has a long statistical argument to
the same effect. He says that 41,000 men lost their lives in 1870-71,
and estimates on this basis that, in a repetition of that war, the
Germany of his own time (1906) would lose only one man in every 1,600
of her population. The confident assumption that the next war could be
nothing but 1870 over again underlies all German speculation on the
subject.
[30] From Schiller's _Wallensteins Lager_.
IV
RUTHLESSNESS
IV
RUTHLESSNESS
(BEFORE THE WAR.)
326. War is an act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy,
to accomplish our will.... Insignificant limitations, hardly worthy of
mention, which it imposes on itself, under the name of the law of
nations, accompany this violence without notably enfeebling
it.--GENERAL C v. CLAUSEWITZ, V.K., Vol. i., p. 4.
327. I warn you against pity: from it will one day arise a heavy cloud
for men. Verily, I am weatherwise!--FR. NIETZSCHE, Z. _Of the
Pitiful._
328. The Germans let the primitive Prussian tribes decide whether they
should be put to the sword or thoroughly Germanized. Cruel as these
processes of transformation may be, they are a blessing for humanity.
It makes for health that the nobler race should absorb the inferior
stock.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i, p. 121.
329. Much that is dreadful and inhuman in history, much that one
hardly likes to believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the one
who commands and the one who carries out are different persons--the
former does not behold the sight, therefore does not experience the
strong impression on the imagination; the latter obeys a superior and
therefore feels no responsibility.--FR. NIETZSCHE, H.T.H., section
101.
330. The warrior has need of passion. It must not ... be regarded as a
necessary evil; nor condemned as a regrettable consequence of physical
contact; nor must we seek to restrain it and curb it as a savage and
brutal force.--GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R., Vol. XIII., p. 122.
331. One must ... resist all sentimental weakness: life is _in its
essence_ appropriation, injury, the overpowering of whatever is
foreign to us and weaker than ourselves, suppression, hardness, the
forcing upon others of our own forms, the incorporation of others,
or, at the very least and mildest, their exploitation.--FR. NIETZSCHE,
B.G.E., section 259.
332. We may depend upon the re-Germanizing of Alsace, but not of
Livonia and Kurland. There no other course is open to us but to keep
the subject race in as uncivilized a condition as possible, and thus
prevent them from becoming a danger to their handful of
conquerors.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i, p. 122.
333. A morality of the ruling class [has for] its principle that one
has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a
lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one ...
and in any case "beyond good and evil."--FR. NIETZSCHE, B.G.E.,
section 260.
334. The "argument of war" permits every belligerent State to have
recourse to all means which enable it to attain the object of the war;
still, practice has taught the advisability of allowing in one's own
interest the introduction of a limitation in the use of certain
methods of war, and a total renunciation of the use of others.... If
in the following work the expression "the law of war" is used, it must
be understood that by it is meant only ... a limitation of arbitrary
behaviour which custom and conventionality, human friendliness and a
calculating egoism have erected, but for the observance of which there
exists no express sanction, but only "the fear of reprisals"
decides.--G.W.B., pp. 52, 53.
335. A new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other
be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in
the way of occult, terrible and benevolent [!] beings might look pale
and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before our eyes.... The
conditions which one would have partly to create and partly to utilize
for their genesis [include] a transvaluation of values, under the new
pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a
heart transformed to brass, so as to bear the weight of such
responsibility.--FR. NIETZSCHE, B.G.E., section 203.
336. Since the tendency of thought of the last century was dominated
essentially by humanitarian considerations which not infrequently
degenerated into sentimentality and weak emotionalism, there have not
been wanting attempts to influence the development of the usages of
war in a way which was in fundamental contradiction with the nature of
war and its object. Attempts of this kind will also not be wanting in
the future, the more so as these agitations have found a kind of moral
recognition in some provisions of the Geneva Convention and the
Brussels and Hague Conferences.... The danger can only be met by a
thorough study of war itself. By steeping himself in military history
an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive
humanitarian notions, it will teach him that certain severities are
indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity very
often lies in a ruthless application of them.--G.W.B., pp. 54, 55.
337. Those very men who are so strictly kept within bounds by good
manners ... who, in their behaviour to one another, show themselves so
inventive in consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride and
friendship--those very men are to the outside world, to things foreign
and to foreign countries, little better than so many uncaged beasts of
prey. Here they enjoy liberty from all social restraint ... and become
rejoicing monsters, who perhaps go on their way, after a hideous
sequence of murder, conflagration, violation, torture, with as much
gaiety and equanimity as if they had merely taken part in some student
gambols.... Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks
unmistakably the beast of prey, the _blond beast_, lustfully roving in
search of booty and victory.--FR. NIETZSCHE, G.M., i., II.
338. However much it may ruffle human feeling to compel a man to do
harm to his own Fatherland, and indirectly to fight his own troops,
none the less no army operating in an enemy's country will altogether
renounce this expedient.--G.W.B., p. 117.
339. A still more severe measure is the compulsion of the inhabitants
to furnish information about their own army, its strategy, its
resources, and its military secrets. The majority of writers of all
nations are unanimous in their condemnation of this measure.
Nevertheless it cannot be entirely dispensed with; doubtless it will
be applied with regret, but the argument of war will frequently make
it necessary.--G.W.B., p. 118.
340. That the lambs should bear a grudge against the great birds of
prey is in no way surprising; but that is no reason why we should
blame the great birds of prey for picking up the lambs.... To demand
of strength that it should _not_ manifest itself as strength, that it
should _not_ be a will for overcoming, for overthrowing, for mastery,
a thirst for enemies, for struggles and triumphs, is as absurd as to
demand of weakness that it should manifest itself as strength.--FR.
NIETZSCHE, G.M., i., 13.
341. It is a gratuitous illusion to suppose that modern war does not
demand far more brutality, far more violence, and an action far more
general than was formerly the case.--GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R., Vol.
xiv., p. 89.
342. The enemy State must not be spared the want and wretchedness of
war; these are particularly useful in shattering its energy and
subduing its will.--GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R., Vol. xiii., p. 459.
343. We ... believe that [man's] Will to Life had to be intensified
into unconditional Will to Power; we hold that hardness, violence,
slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism,
arts of temptation and devilry of all kinds; that everything evil,
terrible, tyrannical, wild-beast-like and serpent-like in man
contributes to the elevation of the species just as much as its
opposite--and in saying this we do not even say enough.--FR.
NIETZSCHE, B.G.E., section 44.
344. Even if there were no question of vengeance, even if we were not
demanding reparation for ancient wrongs ... the crime (_Frevel_) of
opposing the development of Germany is so great that the most
trenchant measures are scarcely a sufficient punishment for
it!--D.B.B., p. 214.
345. Whoever enters upon a war in future, will do well to look only to
his own interests, and pay no heed to any so-called international law.
He will do well to act without consideration and without scruple, and
this holds good in the case of a war with England.[31]--D.B.B., p.
214.
346. Hatred, delight in mischief, rapacity and ambition, and whatever
else is called evil, belong to the marvellous economy of the
conservation of the race.--FR. NIETZSCHE, J.W., section 1.
347. Individual persons may be harshly dealt with when an example
is made of them, intended to serve as a warning.... Whenever a
national war breaks out, terrorism becomes a necessary military
principle.--GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R., Vol. XIII, p. 462.
348. Terrorism is seen to be a relatively gentle procedure, useful to
keep in a state of obedience the masses of the people.--GENERAL V.
HARTMANN, D.R., Vol. XIII, p. 462.
349. To protect oneself against attack and injuries from the
inhabitants, and to employ ruthlessly the necessary means of defence
and intimidation is obviously not only a right but a duty of the staff
of the army.--G.W.B., p. 120.
350. The more pitiless is the _væ victis_, the greater is the security
of the ensuing peace. In the days of old, conquered peoples were
completely annihilated. To-day this is _physically_ impracticable, but
one can imagine conditions which should approach very closely to total
destruction.--D.B.B., p. 214.
_Compare Nos. 196, 197._
351. International law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the
crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the
like) to the prejudice of the enemy.--G.W.B., p. 85.
352. In reality the evil impulses are just in as high a degree
expedient, indispensable, and conservative of the species as the
good--only, their function is different.--FR. NIETZSCHE, J.W., section
4.
353. If the [small] nations in question have nothing Germanic in them,
and are therefore foreign to our Kultur, the question at once arises:
Do they stand in the way of our expansion, or do they not? In the
latter case, let them develop as their nature prescribes; in the
former case, it would be folly to spare them, for they would be like a
wedge in our flesh, which we refrained from extracting only for their
own sake. If we found ourselves forced to break up the historical form
of the nation, in order to separate its racial elements, taking what
belongs to our race[32] and rejecting what is foreign to it, we ought
not therefore to have any moral scruples or to think ourselves
inhuman. (In this connection I refer the reader to my later chapter on
humanity[33]).--J.L. REIMER, E.P.D., p. 130.
354. Article 40 of the Declaration of Brussels requires that
requisitions ... shall bear a direct relation to the capacity and
resources of a country, and, indeed, the justification for this
condition would be willingly recognized by every one in theory, but it
will scarcely ever be observed in practice. In cases of necessity, the
needs of an army will alone decide.--G.W.B., p. 134.
355. In spite of his delight in mere success, in spite of his
recklessness in the choice of men and methods, in spite of all the
harshness and brutality which his nature must acquire, the true
statesman displays a disinterestedness which cannot fail to
impress.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 58.
356. Verily, ye good and just; much in you is laughable, and most of
all your fear of what hath hitherto been called "devil"! ... I guess
that you will call my Superman "devil"!--FR. NIETZSCHE, Z. _Of Manly
Prudence_.
(AFTER JULY, 1914.)
357. Our troops are assured of their mission; and they recognize
clearly, too, that the truest compassion lies in taking the sternest
measures, in order to bring the war itself to an early close.--PASTOR
G. TRAUB, D.K.U.S., p. 6.
358. How much further would Germany have got in Alsace-Lorraine, if it
had modelled its policy on Cromwell's treatment of Ulster, and had not
been misled by weak humanitarianism!--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 93.
359. In the midst of this bewildering uproar, the soul again learns
the truth of the old doctrine: it is the whole man that matters, and
not his individual acts; it is the soul that gives value to the deeds,
not the deeds to the soul.--PASTOR G. TRAUB, D.K.U.S., p. 6.
_Compare Nietzsche, passim._
360. We are not only compelled to accept the war that is forced upon
us ... but are even compelled to carry on this war with a cruelty, a
ruthlessness, an employment of every imaginable device, unknown in any
previous war.--PASTOR D. BAUMGARTEN, D.R.S.Z., No. 24, p. 7.
361. Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of
his heart the sinking of the _Lusitania_--whoever cannot conquer his
sense of the gigantic cruelty (_ungeheure Grausamkeit_) to unnumbered
perfectly innocent victims ... and give himself up to honest delight
at this victorious exploit of German defensive power--him we judge to
be no true German.--PASTOR D. BAUMGARTEN, D.R.S.Z., No. 24, p. 7.[34]
_See also No. 423._
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Observe that these two utterances are not shrieks of the war
frenzy, but are the reflections of a German patriot in the year of
grace 1900.
[32] The author does not explain how Germanic elements are to be
discovered in peoples which he has assumed to have nothing Germanic in
them.
[33] This chapter is an ingenious disquisition to prove that humanity
may be all very well for inferior races, but that Germanism cannot be
hampered by its restraints.
[34] This and the previous extract are taken from an address on the
Sermon on the Mount!
V
MACHIAVELISM
V
MACHIAVELISM
=Mendacity and Faithlessness.=
(BEFORE THE WAR.)
362. A stock of inherited conceptions of integrity and morality is a
necessity for government.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 317.
363. When one really meditates a war, one must say no word about it;
one must envelop one's designs in a profound mystery; then, suddenly
and without warning, one leaps like a thief in the night--as the
Japanese destroyers leapt upon the unsuspecting Port Arthur, as
Frederick II. threw himself upon Silesia.[35]--A. WIRTH, U.A.P., p.
36.
364. The brilliant Florentine was the first to infuse into politics
the great idea that the State is Power. The consequences of this
thought are far-reaching. It is the truth, and those who dare not face
it had better leave politics alone.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p.
85.
365. As real might can alone guarantee the endurance of peace and
security, and as war is the best test of real might, war contains the
promise of future peace. But it must if possible [_womöglich_] be a
righteous and honourable war, something in the nature of a war of
defence.--J. BURCKHARDT, W.B., p. 164.
366. It was Machiavelli who first laid down the maxim that when the
State's salvation is at stake there must be no enquiry into the purity
of the means employed; only let the State be secured and no one will
condemn them.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 83.
367. The relations between two States must often be termed a latent
war, which is provisionally being waged in peaceful rivalry. Such a
position justifies the employment of hostile methods, cunning and
deception, just as war itself does.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p.
49.
368. The statesman has no right to warm his hands with smug
self-laudation at the smoking ruins of his Fatherland, and comfort
himself by saying, "I have never lied"; this is the monkish type of
virtue.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol i., p. 104.
369. Belligerent States are always and exclusively in a pure state of
nature, in which there cannot possibly be any question or right [or
law].--E. v. HARTMANN, quoted by EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 12.
370. How markedly Bismarck's grand frankness in large matters stands
out amidst all his craft in single instances.[36]--H. V. TREITSCHKE,
P., Vol. i., p. 90.