I am most emphatically not one of those who think we ought to take for
granted all the stories we get, often from German sources, of the
condition of things in Germany.
We know enough of German methods to know that for her own purposes she
is capable of flying kites of varying types and shades; and one of the
kites which was very prominently flown in the early days, comparatively
speaking, of the War was the fiction that for her own brutal and illegal
purposes England was "starving German babies" through the medium of her
infamous (in German eyes) blockade.
It mattered nothing to the Germans that in 1871 the blockade of Paris
and the starvation of the civilian people was one of the principal means
by which she enforced the capitulation. The Hun never likes his own
medicine. What was, when applied to France in 1871, a stroke of German
genius, becomes, when applied by the British Fleet to Germany in 1915, a
crime so infamous as to call down all the vengeance of heaven upon the
brutal English.
In German eyes no weapon of war is legitimate if it is applied against
the sacred persons of Germans; on the other hand, any and every device
of the devil becomes a righteous punishment if it is used against
Germany's enemies. Surely never was any people in the world so lacking
in a sense of proportion and common sense! There is no doubt, I think,
that the first "starvation" cries which emanated from Germany were a
cunningly devised plan to work upon the sympathies of neutrals and, in
particular, upon the United States. There are always in every country a
certain number of good, sentimental souls whose hearts are apt to run
away with their heads, who are apt to think or act very much as their
emotions lead them, and are entirely incapable of looking at more than
one side of any question. It was to just these people and, of course,
to the German people in America, that the first frantic "starvation"
appeals were directed. I firmly believe that at that time there was
little or no serious shortage in Germany, and that the outcry that was
raised was merely a ruse to catch the sentimentalists' attention. It
succeeded to a certain extent, and it gave the "hyphenated" section of
the American people an opportunity of which they took full advantage for
renewed girdings against England. But neither then nor at any other
time did it succeed in its real purpose, which was to procure by fair
means or foul a relaxation of the British blockade.
How serious that blockade was to become I do not believe the German
people or the German rulers realised in the early days. I do not
believe they realised that it was possible so completely to cut off
their supplies as to produce anything like grave inconvenience, to say
nothing of actual want. They have learned differently since! There is
a growing volume of testimony from competent observers that the
effectiveness of the British blockade is at last beginning to tell its
story in Germany. The "bread cards," the "butter cards," the meatless
days, the frantic appeals to the German people to give up the grease in
which they love to bathe themselves at their meals, may be, as the
Government pretends, merely a wise conservation of their resources. But
if that is all, this "conservation of energy" is being carried out on a
scale which is rapidly disheartening and discouraging the German people
in every part of the Empire.
The following extract from a Copenhagen paper no doubt puts the case so
high as to be practically a burlesque, but it at least shows that
countries adjoining Germany, and in free communication with her,
understand that the shortage of food and other supplies is far more
serious than the Germans are prepared to admit. A Reuter telegram from
Copenhagen says:
The Labour journal, _Folkets Avis_, publishes a letter from a business
man who has just returned from a six months' round tour of Germany, in
which he describes the conditions there as more desperate than those
in Paris in 1870. The writer is convinced that there is not now a
living cat or dog in the whole of Germany, all having been eaten.
Animal lovers trying to hide their pets have been betrayed by their
neighbours and punished. Storks, swallows, starlings, and all kinds
of wild birds have been systematically killed, and the result, he
declares, will be felt in Scandinavian countries in the coming spring.
All sea fowl have long since been exterminated.
I have not much doubt that this extract gives far too gloomy a picture
if it is intended to represent the condition of the great mass of the
German people; I do not believe, though I should like to, that
starvation has gone so far as this. But it is more than likely--indeed,
I believe it is practically certain--that there is in it a considerable
basis of truth.
We have to remember that owing to the demoralisation of the German
currency by the flood of paper money prices in Germany have gone up to
an enormous extent, while at the same time, owing to the complete
disappearance of her manufacturing and export business, wages have
fallen in all but a few special trades. For this reason a large
percentage of the population is feeling the pinch of want quite apart
from any actual shortage of food in the country, and there may well be a
good deal in the story of the Danish merchant that most of the wild
birds, if not the very dogs and cats, have fallen victims to the
necessity for obtaining food.
It will be convenient if we consider the shortage of necessaries in
Germany under various heads, the first of which is naturally the
deficiency in the food supply, since that is likely to exercise the
profoundest influence on the great mass of the people. On this point we
have abundant evidence, not only from neutrals who have been able to
move more or less freely about Germany, but, still more important, from
English people who have returned after being liberated by exchange or
otherwise.
One and all are agreed that the German people are suffering from an
actual shortage of food. It is not merely a question of prices, though
these are far higher than they are in England, and the wealthy folk are
still able to get almost all they want. There is, we are assured on
evidence which it is practically impossible to ignore, a very serious
shortage of many commodities of everyday use, the lack of which is
severely felt, as, owing to the very high prices ruling, they are almost
entirely beyond the reach of the people at large.
Now, in considering the question of the food supplies of Germany, it is
important to remember that in normal times Germany imports some forty
per cent, of the fodder used for feeding her sheep and cattle, and it is
the scarcity of fodder that has produced the present shortage of meat.
That such a shortage exists we know from the ordinances made by the
German Government providing for two, three, and even four meatless days
per week for everyone in Germany. In the early days of the War,
confident that the struggle would be a short one, the Germans took no
special pains to keep up their supply of cattle. It was only after the
battle of Flanders that they discovered their mistake, and that the
question of the supply of meat was destined to be critical.
Then came the panic legislation which led to the slaughtering of swine
on an enormous scale. It was decided to devote all the available fodder
to the feeding of cattle, since these would be the most difficult to
replace after the War. Pigs were killed _en masse_, orders being given
that the flesh was to be tinned to form a reserve. But it was soon
found that even this was not sufficient to save the situation. Owing to
the growing stringency of the blockade fodder for the cattle began to
give out, and then it was decided to fatten pigs. In consequence the
slaughter of cattle has increased enormously, and hence arises the
growing shortage of milk, butter, and cheese.
Now whatever may be the leakages in the British blockade, it is quite
certain that only the barest fraction of Germany's former imports is
getting through; nothing can reach her directly oversea, and our trade
agreements with neutral nations to prevent reshipment, even if they are
not all that we could desire, are certainly having a very great effect.
And it is certain that, despite smuggling on an unprecedented scale,
Germany is very far from getting anything like all that she imperatively
requires. The pinch is there, and it is growing, and that it is growing
rapidly is shown by the increasing violence of the German threats
against England and her incessant announcements that she is really
getting ready for some new "frightfulness" that shall put all her
previous efforts completely into the shade. We hear and note, but we
are in no wise terrified.
Frantic efforts are being made by the Germans to purchase and import
cattle food of all descriptions, and in addition such fats as butter,
lard, and margarine, the shortage of which has produced an enormous
effect throughout the Empire. It is our business to see that she fails;
and with our Navy given a free hand, I am confident that we can do so.
We know how serious the shortage of bread has become; we know that no
German can purchase bread without a "bread card," and that the amount he
can purchase is severely restricted. We know that he is ordered not to
eat meat on certain days of the week. We know, too, that in various
towns, even in Berlin itself, the maddened people have already broken
out into "bread riots," and that their mutinous gatherings have been
dispersed by the police. Not even the well-drilled German will consent
to go on indefinitely on an empty stomach. There have been cavalry
charges in some towns, there have been violent riots in many, people
have pillaged shops; "in fact," says the German writer of a letter found
on a prisoner, "we have a war at home as well as abroad."
Another letter sent from Munich to "cheer up" a prisoner at Oleron says,
"Wherever we go, and wherever we may be, we see nothing and hear nothing
except misery and poverty." A letter from Greiben contains similar
lamentations, and adds, "With all our strength we have accomplished
nothing, and we shall soon be ruined."
Germany's chief imports at present, secured, of course, by devious ways
since she is unable to import anything directly, are cotton, wool,
copper, lead, paraffin, rubber, nickel, oils, wheat, rye, and barley.
These are all of vital necessity to her continued existence, not merely
to her successful conduct of the War. With the food shortage growing
day by day, she must import even larger and larger quantities, and
unless she can do so the end is inevitable; a point must come at which
German moral will simply go to pieces. Our blockade is hastening that
moment. None the less, we have to remember that starvation alone will
not bring Germany to subjection; she will always obtain and grow
supplies to a certain extent, probably enough to stave off actual
starvation on a scale which would induce her to sue for peace. We have
to complete the process of attrition, valuable as it is, by force of
arms, and only a decisive military defeat will put an end to German aims
and ambitions. That is a cardinal fact of which we must never lose
sight.
There is hardly an article of food or drink for which the German
chemists have not succeeded in finding more or less satisfactory
substitutes. Bread is one of the best known instances. The German
"kriegs-brod" or "war bread," though it is nothing like so palatable or
so nourishing as ordinary bread, is yet sufficient to sustain life,
though there is reason to think it sets up digestive disorders.
Similarly, a glance at the German papers will show dozens of
advertisements offering substitutes for endless other articles of diet.
These substitutes are very interesting; whether they are satisfying is
another question, and one which we can leave the beleaguered Germans to
find out for themselves. "Acorn coffee," "artificial fats," "artificial
honeys," wooden instead of leather shoes, "German tea" (whatever that
may be), "egg substitute," "wood meal," sausage substitutes with "more
than the nutritive qualities of beef"--these are only a few picked at
random. No more convincing testimony to the value and effectiveness of
the British blockade could be asked for. These are not the
announcements of the German Government, intended to deceive, but the
advertisements of business men who have to pay good solid German cash--
or it may be notes!--for them. They speak more eloquently than any
comment of ours could do.
A good deal of surprise has been expressed that, in view of the
undoubted shortage of many necessities in Germany, there has been no
apparent falling-off in the equipment or supplies of the German Army.
In reality this is not a matter that need disturb our judgment on the
general question. We have to remember that Germany is organised on a
military basis, and that the militarist party, who most decidedly hold
the upper hand, will see to it that as long as there is a pound of food
in the country it will not be the Army that will go short. In every
department of German life everything is subordinated to the demands of
the Army, and no one can question that this is the correct policy. Any
serious shortage or discontent in the Army would bring the military
structure crashing to the ground, and there can be no doubt that the
shortage which exists will have to go much farther before its effects
are felt in the field. It will come, beyond doubt, but it is more than
likely that shortage of men will make itself felt first.
The views of Abbe Wetterle on this point are worth quoting. He was
before the War Deputy for Alsace in the Reichstag. When war broke out
he escaped to France, and has lived there since. He considers that the
Central Empires are already beaten.
"Germany is at the end of her tether, that is the truth," he says.
"She can no longer obtain credit, and the value of the mark is falling
every day. After having mobilised ten million valid and invalid
soldiers, Germany, whose losses number three and a half millions, and
whose auxiliary services behind her lines require 1,700,000 men, can
no longer fill the gaps in her Army, and her battle-line grows in
extent every day. Famine stares her population in the face. By
February or March at latest the lack of food will be severely felt.
Riots have already taken place in her large cities, and they will
gradually multiply and become more violent. Lack of men, lack of
money, lack of food--such is the danger which threatens Germany."
Now we know very well that the German newspapers are controlled by the
Government to an extent which is unknown in any other country in the
world; not even the British censorship has such drastic powers. The
columns of the German papers are therefore about the last place in which
we should expect to find any inkling of the real situation as it exists
in Germany to-day. It is the Government order that everything shall be
painted _couleur de rose_. Yet even the German Press is becoming
restive under the strain, and is beginning to say things which a very
short time ago would have been impossible. Here is a telling extract
from the Socialist paper _Vorwarts_, one of the few of the German
journals which has risked a good deal in its insistence upon letting out
at least some of the truth. It says:
In a few weeks the sowing and preparing of the fields for the new
harvest will have begun, and upon that harvest everything will depend.
The coming harvest is of immeasurable importance for the German
people. Fantastic speculations as to great imports of foodstuffs from
the Orient have now become silent. Germany depends during the
duration of the War upon her own production of food... It is evident
now that our much-praised organisation of our economic system is in no
way so good as enthusiastic amateurs would like us to believe.
This is not exactly the language of a conquering nation whose Chancellor
declares that she has sufficient for all her needs, but I have no doubt
that it represents the real situation and reflects the prevailing
anxiety much more accurately than Dr Helfferich's boasting speeches,
which are undoubtedly meant for foreign consumption.
It is not merely in the matter of food supply that Germans are face to
face with conditions which are giving her leading men cause "furiously
to think." It is true it is what makes the most immediate impression on
the public at large. But there are men in Germany who realise that
there is a world to be faced when the War is over, and that as the days
slip by Germany slips into a worse and worse position for meeting the
conditions she will have to confront after the declaration of peace. I
will first deal very briefly with some of the social aspects of
Germany's present condition.
Germany's terrific losses in killed and maimed men, coupled with the
terrible drop in the birth-rate, which has fallen far lower than it did
in the Franco-Prussian War, are causing the gravest anxiety among the
German economic thinkers. Next to the fall in the birth-rate, the rate
of mortality among newly-born children is causing alarm; and when we
remember how admirable are the German arrangements for the preservation
of infant life, we can realise that very grave causes must be at work to
account for the existing state of things. That those causes are
connected in some degree with the efficacy of the blockade is probable,
but a greater contributory cause has been the general distress caused by
the War, and the failure of the municipal authorities to provide the
necessary relief.
The pensions payable to the widows of German soldiers who have died in
action are very small; distress and misery have entered the families
where there are many children, and many of those are succumbing to the
prevailing lack of food. To such a pitch has Germany been brought by
the insane ambition of her rulers!
Orphans in Germany now number 800,000, Many of these orphans must for
years remain a tax upon the State; they will be _bouches inutiles_ until
they reach the wage-earning age, and they will provide after the War,
just as they are providing at present, a problem which will tax
Germany's economic and administrative resources to the uttermost.
Another problem with which the Germans will have to deal is the
appalling increase in crime. In spite of the fact that a great
proportion of the men of the country are serving with the Army, the
statistics of crime make appalling reading, and offences of all kinds
are especially numerous among children. The juvenile Hun behaves as a
Hun to the manner born once he is removed from the stern parental
control which in times of peace keeps him within what, for Germany, are
reasonable bounds. And even in times of peace the figures of juvenile
crime in Germany are terrible. In the year 1912 the following crimes
were committed in Germany by boys between the ages of twelve and
eighteen:
Criminal assaults, 952.
Murder and manslaughter, 107.
Bodily injuries, 8978.
Damages to property, 2938.
These figures _for boys alone_ are far more than the entire total of
such crimes ever committed in England. For instance, the yearly average
of crimes of malicious and felonious wounding in England for the ten
years 1900-1910 was 1,262; in Germany for the ten years 1897-1907 it was
172,153. And the population of Germany may be taken at 65,000,000, with
that of England at 45,000,000. These statistics give us some idea of
the real character of the nation which holds itself up as the apostle of
"kultur" to the rest of the world, and shows us what blessings we might
expect under Teutonic rule.
It is naturally very difficult to get thoroughly reliable information as
to the exact condition of things in Germany. Most of the "neutrals"
whose stories appear in the English Press appear to be rather too apt to
say the things which they think will best please English readers. None
the less, their stories cannot all be invented, and we have valuable
corroboration of many of them in the shape of reports published by
neutral observers in the neutral Press--especially in countries where
the prevailing sympathy tends to be pro-German--and from our own people
who have returned from Germany.
A particularly valuable example of the former comes from Copenhagen.
Dr Halvdan Koht, one of the foremost Norwegian historians, is known for
his distinctly pro-German leanings. Yet, after a prolonged stay in
Germany, he draws in the Christiania newspaper _Social Demokraien_ a
decidedly dismal picture of German life and of the state of public
feeling in Germany. "The people are tired of the War" is his
conclusion. It is true the whole country considers that Germany is
safe, but the whole country has arrived at the conclusion that its
adversaries, especially Great Britain, cannot be crushed. The fact that
Great Britain is still in full possession of all her territories, that
she cannot be attacked on land, and is less affected by the War than
Germany is rapidly dawning on the whole people. Moreover, it is being
realised that, in spite of her immense military strength, Germany will
never be able to enforce a definite decision in her favour. Dr Koht
interviewed a number of people of all classes on this subject, and all
expressed similar views and heartfelt weariness of the War.
On this subject I might also quote the view expressed by a lady who
reached England recently, one of the first batch of the so-called
"reprisal women" who, the Berlin authorities have decided, are eating
too much meat and butter, and must therefore be sent home. "Germans are
suffering agonies," this lady said, "especially the poor people. They
know, in spite of the lying Press, that their sufferings are merely
beginning, and they are preparing themselves for more suffering until
their rulers are forced to realise that the limits of endurance have
been reached, and then sue for peace." The Germans, she added, "are
ready to bear the financial losses and the appalling losses in men, but
life on rations is simply driving them insane. The bread cards at first
amused them like children, as one more opportunity of obeying orders, of
which they are so fond. Now they have butter cards, fat cards, and, in
some places, petroleum cards."
I do not think we can disregard all the evidence that is rapidly
accumulating as to the widespread distress in Germany to-day. And I do
not think that that distress is likely to decrease. We have it on the
authority of Mr Asquith that the tightening of the blockade is
proceeding, and the tighter we pull the strangling knot which the
British Navy has drawn round the German neck, the sooner we shall return
to the days of peace.
But, in the words of Lord Headley, "When Germany wobbles we must hit as
hard as possible in the right place and in the right way. But let us
make sure of our own set purpose and fixed resolve, that now that we
have made up our minds, there shall be no indications of wobbling on our
part." That, I think, expresses the judgment of the nation as a whole.
We do not want to sit down in the hope that the "war of attrition" will
do our business for us. It is "the long push, the strong push, and the
push all together" of Britain and her Allies which alone will bring us
to a triumphant success. The "war of attrition" is helping to bring
nearer the day when the great push will be possible, but of itself alone
it will never compel victory over an enemy who--it would be foolish to
think otherwise--will fight to the last gasp.