One of the leading American financiers and noted
philanthropist; founder of Jewish Theological Seminary and of
Semitic Museum at Harvard University; a native of Germany and
member of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., bankers.
By Edward Marshall.
American as I am in every fibre, and in accord as I feel with every
interest of the country of my adoption, I cannot find myself in
agreement with what appears to be, to a considerable extent, American
opinion as to the origin and responsibility for the deplorable conflict
in which almost all of Europe has become involved.
For many reasons my personal sympathies are with Germany. I cannot feel
convinced that she has been the real aggressor; I believe that war was
forced upon her, almost as if by prearrangement among the nations with
whom she now contends; I cannot but believe that they had become jealous
and envious of her rapid and unprecedented peaceful development and had
concluded that the moment had arrived when all was favorable for a union
against her.
Although I left Germany half a century ago, I would think as little of
arraying myself against her, the country of my birth, in this the moment
of her struggle for existence, as of arraying myself against my parents.
But while I steadfastly believe this war to have been forced upon
Germany against her will, I also believe that circumstances which were
stronger than the Governments of England and France, her present
enemies, were necessary to overcome an equally definite reluctance upon
their part.
In other words, I cannot wholly blame the English Government, or the
French Government, any more than I can wholly blame the German
Government.
Let us see how the great tragedy came about. It is safe to pass rapidly
over the Servian-Bosnian-Herzegovinian-Austro-Hungarian complication
which served as the immediate precipitant of hostilities. It has been
detailed repeatedly in THE TIMES and other American publications.
It had reached a point at which the Austro-Hungarian Government felt
compelled to take extreme measures by means of which to safeguard the
integrity of the empire.
The firm but fatal ultimatum to Servia followed, the reply to which,
suffice it to say, was unsatisfactory to Austria, who could not accept
the suggestion of an investigation into the circumstances attending the
assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand through a commission or court on
which she was not represented.
Like Maine Case.
The situation really was analogous to that which existed between the
United States and Spain when the Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor. In
order to fix the responsibility for this dastardly affair we then
similarly demanded an investigation by Spain, to be carried out with the
assistance of representatives of this Government. Spain, too, then
offered to conduct an investigation, but she peremptorily declined to
allow us to take part in it.
This attitude on her part quickly brought about our declaration of war
against her. It is important that Americans should realize the
similarity in the two situations and the likeness of the Austrian action
of 1914 to that which our own Government took in 1898.
As soon as Austria had rejected as unsatisfactory Servia's reply to her
ultimatum she prepared to undertake a punitive armed expedition against
Servia, and Russia at once declared that she would rank herself as
Servia's protector.
Indeed, without any further parley, and to give effect to this threat,
Russia immediately mobilized her army. Since then it has been averred
that this mobilization had been in progress for several weeks previous
to Servia's rejection of the Austrian ultimatum.
This made it obligatory upon Germany to go to Austria's aid, under the
provisions of their treaty of alliance, although she was well aware that
such an action would bring France into the conflict under the terms of
her alliance with Russia. Indeed, an unsatisfactory reply had been
received from France as to the latter's intentions, but Germany
endeavored to secure at least an assurance of England's neutrality. This
proved to be impossible.
How the German Government could indulge for a moment in the hope that in
a war with Russia and France on the one side and Germany and Austria on
the other, England could be induced to remain neutral passes
comprehension, but that it did believe this seems a certainty.
The English Government, no doubt, correctly felt that without the aid of
its immense resources, and particularly without the operations of its
great navy against Germany and Austria, the latter nations would find it
not so very difficult a task to dispose of both Russia and France.
English statesmen very promptly must have become alive to the
probability that a Germany which had subdued Russia and France, and thus
had made itself master of the Continent, would be unlikely long to
tolerate a continuance of England's world leadership.
So, even if the neutrality of Belgium had not been violated, other
reasons would have been found by England for joining France and Russia
in the war against Germany, for England would not risk, without any
effort to protect them, the loss of her continued domination of the
high seas and her undisputed possession of her vast colonial empire.
Germany Fighting for Life.
I am not defending the violation of Belgian neutrality. This,
undeniably, was a most unjustifiable action, in spite of German claims
that she was forced into it by the necessities of the situation. But I
am explaining that, even had it not occurred, still England would have
gone to war.
That was the situation.
Germany is now fighting for her very existence, and I, who am not
without knowledge of German conditions, am convinced that never has
there been a war more wholly that of a whole people than is this present
conflict, as far as Germany is concerned.
Any one who has been in even superficial touch with German public
opinion and individual feeling in any part of the empire, since the war
began, must know that there is hardly a man, woman, or child throughout
the empire who would hesitate if called upon to sacrifice possessions or
life in order to insure victory to the Fatherland. Seventy million
people who are animated by unanimous sentiment of this sort cannot be
crushed, probably not subdued.
And England is confronted by the certainty that her world leadership is
the stake for which she is fighting; that her defeat would mean the end
of the vast dominance which she has exercised throughout the world,
since the time of the Armada, through the power of her great navy.
Is it not apparent, therefore, that these nations, if left to
themselves, inevitably must continue the war until one side or the
other, or both, shall become exhausted--an eventuation which may be
postponed not for mere months but for years?
In our own civil war Grant for almost two years stood within a hundred
or a hundred and fifty miles of Richmond, the heart of the Confederacy,
and was not able to sufficiently subdue Lee's forces to enable him to
get possession of the city until the complete exhaustion of the
Confederacy's resources in men and money had been accomplished.
[Illustration: VISCOUNT JAMES BRYCE
_(Photo from George G. Bain.)_
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[Illustration: DR. BERNHARD DERNBURG
_(Photo by Campbell Studios.)_
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[Illustration: DAVID STARR JORDAN
_See Page 502_]
[Illustration: JOHN GRIER HIBBEN
_(Photo by McManus.)_
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While that situation may not offer a true parallel in all respects to
that in which we find the belligerent forces in the present European
war, it nevertheless may be taken as a precedent proving that frontal
encounters of powerful opponents generally do not yield final results
until actual exhaustion compels one side or the other to abandon hope.
Such an exhaustion hardly can be expected within measurable time on the
part of either one or the other of the combatants in the existing
European conflict, and this means the probable continuation for a long
period of the merciless slaughter which has marked the last few months.
We hold up our hands in horror at the stories of human sacrifices in the
early ages when, after all, these were, perhaps, less brutal and less
appalling than the wholesale slaughter of the flower of these warring
peoples of which we now read almost daily.
As I see the situation there really are only three contestants in the
war--England, Russia, and Germany. France, Belgium, and Austria are
important auxiliaries, but they are playing to a certain extent
secondary rôles.
England's real object is the utter defeat of Germany--nothing more nor
less than that--and if this is accomplished England will have control of
Europe. It must be remembered that the English Government and English
people frequently have asserted that they would not be satisfied with
mere defeat of Germany's armed forces, but that her power must be
permanently paralyzed.
If England should accomplish this, with Germany, its army and its navy,
thus wholly out of the way, no one would be left for England to fear in
future upon the high seas.
That might be the chief significance of England's complete victory, and
its complete significance would be that every nation in the world would
have to do the British bidding, for should any one refuse she could
completely destroy its commerce and shut off its overseas supplies.
In the cases of most nations overseas supplies include material vital
to the continuance of life and happiness; to every nation, in these days
of a developed and habitual foreign trade, overseas supplies are
actually essential, even when they do not necessarily include meats and
wheat and other foodstuffs.
The effect upon the United States of such an English victory would be
most disastrous.
The alliance between England and Japan is likely to be permanent. That
is something which Americans cannot afford to forget for a moment.
England needs Japan in the Far East, especially as an ally in case of
need, which at some time is certain to arrive, against Russia; and Japan
for many reasons needs the strength of English backing, without which
her financial and political situation soon would become most dangerous,
if not collapse.
Such a permanent alliance would have this consequence upon us, that
without even the probability of difficulties with either England or
Japan--and, personally, I do not believe that such a probability need be
feared--we nevertheless year after year would be compelled to
increasingly prepare for what may be defined as the disagreeable
possibility of the eventuation of a disagreeable possibility.
Certainly we should be under the necessity of notably and, therefore,
very expensively, increasing our naval armament; we should be under the
necessity of large expenditures for coast defense.
Corollary military cost would be enormous and burdensome. The
preparation which would be imposed on us as a necessity by such a
permanent alliance would be sufficiently extensive and expensive to
burden our people heavily and handicap our national progress.
It might involve, perhaps, even a greater hardship in our case than
militarism has involved in Germany. It is improbable that the average
American realizes the part which absence of such burdens has played in
our national development so far; it would be difficult for the average
American who has not studied the whole subject carefully to estimate
accurately the part which the imposition of such a burden would be sure
to play in our future.
We have been measurably a free people. If we were under the necessity of
supporting vast military and naval establishments we should be that no
longer, no matter how completely we adhered to our democratic political
system and ideals. It is not Kings, but what they do, which burdens
countries, and the most burdensome, act of any King is to load his
country up with non-productive, threatening, and expensive war
machinery.
The Real Peril.
I fear that the American people as a whole have visualized only
slightly, if at all, the real peril involved in this contingency; but I
cannot feel otherwise than sure that soon they must awake to the great
danger that militarism and navalism may be imposed upon them through no
fault of their own.
American impulses trend away from armament toward peaceful development
along industrial lines, but even now political leaders in Washington
begin to see what may be coming. The propositions which already have
been made for considerable increases in our naval and military forces
may be regarded as only the forerunners of what is to be expected later.
My sympathies and interests, in other words my patriotic sentiments, are
definitely American. I must repeat that I am of German origin, and that
as regards the present struggle I am pro-German, yet it would be
impossible for me to say that I am anti-English, although I am
anti-Russian for reasons that are obvious.
I already have expressed the belief that the complete humiliation of
England would be disastrous to us. Now, it seems to me that if Germany
should be completely successful, if she should be able to wear out the
Allies, break down France, hold Russia in check, and cripple or even
invade England, (which many German leaders actually believe can be done,
incredible as it may seem to us,) Germany would acquire a position such
as never has been held by any nation since the beginning of history. Not
even the power of the Roman Empire would approach it.
The advance which has marked the development of every means of
communication, transportation, manufacturing, &c., since Rome's day
would give Germany, in the case of such an eventuation, a power which
would have been inconceivable to the most ambitious Roman Emperor. It
would make her a menace not only to her immediate neighbors, but to the
entire globe.
Could she be trusted with such power? Notwithstanding my personal
sympathies, which I have taken pains to clearly outline, I must admit
that I cannot think so. The German character is not only self-reliant,
which is admirable, but it readily becomes domineering, particularly
when in the ascendency.
In the rôle of a world conqueror Germany would become a world
dictator--would indulge in a domination which would be almost unbearable
to every other nation. Particularly would this be the case in respect to
her relations with the United States, a nation with which she always has
had and always must have intimate trade and commercial relations.
Should Germany make England impotent and France powerless we should
become more or less dependent upon German good-will, and it is highly
probable, indeed I regard it as a certainty, that before long, in such
an event, the Monroe Doctrine would cease to exercise any important
influence on world events. It would become a thing of the past--a "scrap
of paper."
You see that while I am not neutral to the extreme, while I fervently
hope and pray that Germany may not be wrecked and that she may emerge
from the war with full ability to maintain her own, I cannot believe
that it would be good for her or good for the world in general if she
found herself absolutely and incontrovertibly victorious at the end of
the great struggle. In other words, I wish Germany to be victorious, but
I do not wish her to be too victorious.
This brings us definitely to the question as to what can be done to stop
this war. Its continuance is infinitely costly of men and treasure; its
prosecution to the bitter end would mean complete disaster for one
contestant and only less complete destruction for the other, and it
would give to the victor, no matter what his sufferings and losses might
have been, a power dangerous to the entire world.
How shall it end? We do not want its end to mean a new European map.
Anything of the sort would include the seed of another European war, to
be fought out later and at even greater probable cost, with all the
world-disturbance implied in such an eventuation.
What the United States should desire and does desire is an understanding
between these nations, of just what they are fighting for, which I
almost believe they no longer know themselves, and a conference between
them now, a pause to think, which at least may help toward stimulating
each side to make concessions, before the ultimate of damage has been
done.
Such a conference might be called even without any interval in warfare
and induced without definite outside intervention from ourselves or any
one else. I believe it not to be beyond the bounds of possibility that
if this course could be brought about importantly enough, a way out of
this brutal struggle and carnage might be discovered even now, and I
know I am not alone in this belief.
The situation is unprecedented. No congress such as in former times more
than once has settled wars and brought about peace by the give-and-take
process could be of avail in the existing circumstances. Something far
higher than such a conference is needed. This peace must not be
temporary. It must mark not the ending of this war alone but the ending
of all war.
Some means must be devised and generally agreed to which, after the
re-establishment of peace, will do away with jealousies among European
nations, so that the continual increase of armament on land and sea no
longer will be necessary, and humanity will be freed from its tremendous
burden.
It is not at present possible to point out any concrete means by which
these things may be accomplished, but it is not impossible that, when
reason shall be returned to the Governments now at war, they themselves
may suggest to one another plans and ways and means how this may be
effectuated.
Toward this end America may help tremendously, and herein lies, it seems
to me, the greatest opportunity ever offered by events to the American
press.
Let the newspapers of America stop futile philosophizing upon the merits
and demerits of each case, let them measurably cease their comment upon
what each side has accomplished or failed to accomplish during the
tragic four months which have traced their bloody mark on history.
Let them begin to stimulate public opinion in favor of a rational
adjustment of the points at issue--such an adjustment as will leave each
contestant unhumiliated and intact, such an adjustment as will avoid, as
far as may be possible, the complete defeat of any one, such an
adjustment as will do what can be done toward righting wrongs already
wrought, and such an adjustment as will let the world return as soon as
may be to the paths of peace, productiveness, prosperity, and happiness.
In suggesting that America should regard this effort as an obligation I
am assuming for this country no rights which are not properly hers. We,
a nation of a hundred million people, laboring constantly for peace and
human progress, have a right to make our voice heard, and if we raise it
properly it will find listeners among those who can help toward the
accomplishment of what we seek. But if we would make it heard we must be
earnest, be honest, and be ceaseless in the reiteration of our demand.
Have we not the right to insist that the interests of neutral nations,
of whom, with our South American cousins, (for the better intercourse
with whom we have just spent several hundred millions upon the
construction of the Panama Canal,) we form so large a percentage, shall
before long be given some consideration by the nations whose great
quarrel is harming us incalculably?
Americans Should Speak Out.
The interruption of our economic development already has become marked
and the war's baneful influence upon moral conditions in our midst shows
itself through constantly increasing unemployment and, as a logical
consequence of that, the rapid filling of our eleemosynary and penal
institutions. May we not reasonably demand that this shall speedily be
brought to an end?
It probably is true that under the rules of the game the President of
the United States cannot offer his good offices again to the
belligerents without first being invited by one or the other side to do
this, but the people of the United States have a voice even more
powerful than his; if that of the people of South America should be
joined with it, and if the combined sound should be made unquestionably
apparent to the warring nations, it could not pass unheeded.
Public opinion in the United States should firmly seek to impress upon
the warring nations the conviction that nothing can secure a lasting
peace except assurance of conditions under which not mighty armies
and tremendous navies are held to be the factors through which
trade expansion and the conquest of the markets of the world are
to be obtained, but that this can be accomplished better and more
lastingly through rigid adherence to the qualities and methods which
generally make for success in commercial or any other peaceful
competition--fairness, thorough efficiency, and hard work.
The concentrated power of the American press and people would be
tremendous. I am sure that, in this instance, it is possible to
concentrate it for righteousness and the future good of all humanity.