MAKING FOR WAR
Anderson did not care for the Buchers and only came two or three
times to Villa Elsa. So Gard did the calling. The elder would
invariably bring out from his table drawer his "bachelor's bride" in
the form of a box of clear Havanas, and the "lecture" would begin
again before, what he said, was the most select audience in
Deutschland.
"Have you heard anything from your spy?" he queried one day.
"No. You don't seriously mean that Rudolph--you assume it's
Rudolph--is watching me?" returned Kirtley, a little disturbed over
the recurrence to this subject. "What am I guilty of? I'm as
innocent as an unborn lamb."
"Certainly you are. But, my dear boy, what's innocence in Germany?
The Secret Police can make an alien like you a lot of trouble about
nothing. You wouldn't believe how systematic they are, and serious
as stuffed owls. Take my advice and don't do things at too loose
ends as we are apt to over home. But if you do get into trouble,
come to me and I will tell you what to say.
"Sometimes they even have one spy spying on another in the home. Of
course the spy system, like the army and navy, belongs to the
Kaiser. All the people have to do is to furnish the men and the
money. It's as Heine said, the royal palaces and so forth are owned
by the princes, but the debts owing for them are assumed by the
public. The Hohenzollerns have the property, the Germans have the
obligations.
"You see, the spy system tends to prevent the Teuton from talking
politics. But he can theorize concerning the State. The State is an
active philosophic concept that holds off the people from discussing
and gossiping about Wilhelm. It does not exist apart from the ruling
family and apart from the bureaucracy which is the ruling family in
action. It takes on their character. The State is a mirage which the
citizen is made to gawk at in the air, thinking he sees something
besides the frowning German sky. It surrounds the Emperor with the
divine halo, removes him up above the rumbling clouds where the
distant views lend enchantment."
There hung about Anderson's talk to-day, as so frequently, a certain
sententious and acidulous manner that, to Gard, evidenced twinges of
rheumatism.
The dialogue fell once more on war. After the demonstration in Villa
Elsa against America, Anderson was gratified by this proof of his
contentions. While Kirtley admitted the force in the argument that
this excited and confident condition of feeling among the common
German people pointed toward hostilities, he could not really
believe that such a horror would break forth upon Europe. There was
the Hague Convention--
"Pooh!" exclaimed Anderson. "What does the Hague Convention signify
in face of the growing armaments? What have you ever seen in
Prussian history to show that Prussia would stop for any agreement
when she was sure of winning?"
"You expect war soon," said Gard. "Why soon? Granted the Germans
want war to carry out their world plans, why should it come before
another generation, for instance?"
"Because the Kaiser is getting along in years. Time does not wait
even for him. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon were young in comparison.
So he is talking a lot about God now and that means war. He wants to
enjoy ruling Europe awhile before he dies. He does not get on with
the Crown Prince and is not greatly interested in leaving all such
glory for him to sport about in. Soon Wilhelm the Deuce will be too
old to take part in a military campaign. He has not many years to
live at his age. He is not a well man. The longer he puts it off,
the shorter will be the triumph he craves."
The talk shifted angles and Anderson was saying after awhile:
"When you have the German statesmen, generals, magnates, press,
professors, theologians, everybody, insisting on the incomparable
virtues of the Germans and never on their failings--on their rights
and privileges and never on their duties to humanity--do you wonder
that the plain people, like your Buchers, think it devolves upon
them to turn foreign lands into waste by the sword in order to
convert them into German countries? It is hard to find in any German
publication a frank and commending acknowledgment that a foreigner
has really completed anything to his credit. If such evidence is too
strong in any case and forces an admission, the foreign inventor or
discoverer is rather made to appear presumptuous in acting before
some German got around to it. The Teutons never think, talk and
write in terms of humanity--only in terms of Germanity. Do you not
begin to see that the Teutons are, in intent, as murderously
fanatical about their greatness as the mad Mullah and his followers
were about their bigotry? The Germans have been educated to these
views since childhood....
"You tell me that Charlemagne took on Christian religion as a prop
to, an ally of, his military power--an aid to the extension of his
rule. Well, then, the Teutons have turned what they call their
Christianity into a warlike worship of themselves. Their preachers
must stand in with the Kaiser. He is to them God on earth. It is the
old story of the throne upheld by the official church."
"But how about all Catholic Germany?" parried Gard. "About one-third
is Catholic."
"True, true. Yet from what I've seen, the German Catholics will be
found fighting for the Protestants when war comes, just as the
Socialists will be found fighting for the Emperor. This is because
the feeling for race and nation is far stronger than for creed or
doctrine. If the Kaiser succeeds in getting control of Europe, he
will take to himself the spiritual and religious headship of the
world and the Pope will become essentially his vassal, for the Pope
will be impotent as against the victorious sword. Hasn't Wilhelm
already assumed to be the head of Mohammedanism?
"And look at it. South Germany, which is Catholic, and Saxony here,
are cramped up in the interior. Their manufacturing interests are
increasing by leaps and bounds. Isn't it natural they should want a
direct outlet to the Atlantic and Mediterranean? Wouldn't these
Saxons be proud to have a piece of real ocean shore to use as their
own?
"Another thing. As the Germans are brutal among themselves, I
predict that, stirred up as they are, they will be brutal like Huns
in this war. You see how they deal with their own women. Imagine
what they will do to foreign women. How do you yourself think your
young military Bucher would act toward Americans if he landed on our
coast with a gun? The German will be like a Hun just as he was in
the treacherous days of Ariovistus and Arminius--the Teutoberger
forest and all that over again. He will red-handedly rebuff
civilizing influences just as he did in those days."
"How do you define Hun?" asked Gard. "The Germans are not Huns by
race."
"No. I said _like_ Huns. I mean by Huns a people who insist on their
tribal sovereign right of conquest by means of ruthless murder and
senseless destruction--wiping out foreign races and property."
One evening the conversation drifted to this theme:
"Is Luther--Protestantism--one of the reasons why Protestant America
is so favorably inclined to Germany?" suggested Kirtley.
"Americans would be surprised to find there is no such thing as
Lutheranism here. A bumptious military cult has usurped its place.
There are no Lutherans in Deutschland--only Evangelicals and
Dissidents. And of course Catholics. If you ask an ordinary Teuton
what Protestantism is, he will scarcely know what you mean
precisely. American Protestantism and German Protestantism are
radically unlike. The one is peaceful and trustful, the other is
warlike and knavish.
"And it seems to me so plain that, besides our religionists, our
American education is playing in with the Kaiser's plans. It tends
to weaken faith in our government. It makes unpatriotic citizens.
Our colleges turn out young men who feel no political duties. We
teach them to look for benefits without responsibilities. How
different with the German universities! Our school histories, too,
nurse active hatred of England, and everywhere with us the main
opinion about the French is fostered that they are immoral and
therefore to be despised. All this works in with the advancement of
German popularity and interests, while at the same time our young
men, like you, are sent here to study. Only the best in Germany is
diligently kept before our people. The worst is never known as you
and I are learning to know it over here."
"So you think," said Gard companionably, "that the Kaiser will set
his fiery ball rolling this spring."
"I put the date at March first." The old man's hands trembled as he
relighted his cigar stub. His voice almost broke.
"I know they think I'm getting in my dotage--brain a little
cracked--and all that. I'm a poor chap possessed of a foolish and
wicked delusion. Mean well, but head rickety. Sometimes I really
think I must be crazy, with all the world against me about the
German danger. They call me Jeremiah and Mother Goose rolled into
one. But, by God, Kirtley, as my soul's immortal, I tell you I'm
right--I'm _right_! The _deluge_ is just ahead!--and nothing being
done to prevent it." He shouted the words till Gard almost shook.
Every time he left Anderson, he would settle back into the lulling
arms of false security, but always a little less assured. How could
the old newspaper man be correct and the rest of mankind be in
error? He used the stock arguments with himself. Granted that the
obese Germans about him on the tram trundling along toward Loschwitz
were talking war and preparing for war. They had been doing so for
forty-three years and no conflict had come. Immense populations of
peace and unpreparedness were growing up who would discourage a
world war--would not permit it. There were increasing millions of
people who had never seen a soldier, never seen a battleship. Would
they want to pay the cost in blood and billions of treasure? It was
unthinkable.
And so everyone was floating on with these comfortable
convictions--floating on toward the imminent cataclysm, smiling
pityingly on the few lugubrious Andersons who were right.