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THE GERMAN WAR
THE GERMAN WAR
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
AUTHOR OF "THE GREAT BOER WAR," ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIV
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,_
_London and Aylesbury_
PREFACE
These essays, upon different phases of the wonderful world-drama
which has made our lifetime memorable, would be unworthy of
republication were it not that at such a time every smallest thing
which may help to clear up a doubt, to elucidate the justice of our
cause, or to accentuate the desperate need of national effort,
should be thrown into the scale. The longest essay appeared in _The
Fortnightly Review_ and the shorter ones for the most part in _The
Daily Chronicle_. I have left them as written at the time, even
where after-events have caused some modification of my views.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
WINDLESHAM, CROWBOROUGH,
_November 1914._
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 1
II. THE WORLD-WAR CONSPIRACY 32
III. THE DEVIL'S DOCTRINE 41
IV. THE GREAT GERMAN PLOT 55
V. THE "CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY" 65
VI. A POLICY OF MURDER 79
VII. MADNESS 89
VIII. GREAT BRITAIN AND THE NEXT WAR 99
IX. AFTERTHOUGHTS 144
* * * * *
I
THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
This article, stating the British case, was issued as a
recruiting pamphlet in Great Britain, but was used abroad
as a simple explanation which would enable neutrals to
understand the true facts. It was published in full by
fifty leading journals in the United States, and was
translated into Dutch and Danish, 25,000 copies being
distributed in each country.
The causes of the war are only of moment to us, at this stage, in
that we gain more strength in our arms and more iron in our souls by
a knowledge that it is for all that is honourable and sacred for
which we fight. What really concerns us is that we are in a fight
for our national life, that we must fight through to the end, and
that each and all of us must help, in his own fashion, to the last
ounce of his strength, that this end may be victory. That is the
essence of the situation. It is not words and phrases that we need,
but men, men--and always more men. If words can bring the men, then
they are of avail. If not, they may well wait for the times to mend.
But if there is a doubt in the mind of any man as to the justice of
his country's quarrel, then even a writer may find work ready to his
hand.
Let us cast our minds back upon the events which have led up to this
conflict. They may be divided into two separate classes--those which
prepared the general situation, and those which caused the special
quarrel. Each of these I will treat in its turn.
It is a matter of common knowledge, one which a man must be blind
and deaf not to understand, that for many years Germany, intoxicated
by her success in war and by her increase of wealth, has regarded
the British Empire with eyes of jealousy and hatred. It has never
been alleged by those who gave expression to this almost universal
national passion that Great Britain had in any way, either
historically or commercially, done Germany a mischief. Even our most
bitter traducers, when asked to give any definite historical reasons
for their dislike, were compelled to put forward such ludicrous
excuses as that the British had abandoned the Prussian King in the
year 1761, quite oblivious of the fact that the same Prussian King
had abandoned his own allies in the same war under far more damaging
circumstances, acting up to his own motto that no promises are
binding where the vital interests of a State are in question. With
all their malevolence they could give no examples of any ill turn
done by us until their deliberate policy had forced us into
antagonism. On the other hand, a long list of occasions could very
easily be compiled on which we had helped them in some common cause
from the days of Marlborough to those of Blücher. Until the
twentieth century had turned they had no possible cause for
political hatred against us. In commerce our record was even more
clear. Never in any way had we interfered with that great
development of trade which has turned them from one of the poorest
to one of the richest of European States. Our markets were open to
them untaxed, whilst our own manufactures paid 20 per cent. in
Germany. The markets of India, of Egypt, and of every portion of
the Empire which had no self-appointed tariff, were as open to
German goods as to British ones. Nothing could possibly have been
more generous than our commercial treatment. No doubt there was some
grumbling when cheap imitations of our own goods were occasionally
found to oust the originals from their markets. Such a feeling was
but natural and human. But in all matters of commerce, as in all
matters political before the dawn of this century, they have no
shadow of a grievance against us.
And yet they hated us with a most bitter hatred, a hatred which long
antedates the days when we were compelled to take a definite stand
against them. In all sorts of ways this hatred showed itself--in the
diatribes of professors, in the pages of books, in the columns of
the Press. Usually it was a sullen, silent dislike. Sometimes it
would flame up suddenly into bitter utterance, as at the time of the
unseemly dispute around the deathbed of the Emperor's father, or on
the occasion of the Jameson Raid. And yet this bitter antagonism was
in no way reciprocated in this country. If a poll had been taken at
any time up to the end of the century as to which European country
was our natural ally, the vote would have gone overwhelmingly for
Germany. "America first and then Germany" would have been the
verdict of nine men out of ten. But then occurred two events which
steadied the easy-going Briton, and made him look more intently and
with a more questioning gaze at his distant cousin over the water.
Those two events were the Boer War and the building of the German
fleet. The first showed us, to our amazement, the bitter desire
which Germany had to do us some mischief, the second made us realise
that she was forging a weapon with which that desire might be
fulfilled.
We are most of us old enough to remember the torrent of calumny and
insult which was showered upon us in the day of our temporary
distress by the nation to whom we had so often been a friend and an
ally. It is true that other nations treated us little better, and
yet their treatment hurt us less. The difference as it struck men at
the time may be summarised in this passage from a British writer of
the period.
"But it was very different with Germany," he says. "Again and again
in the world's history we have been the friends and the allies of
these people. It was so in the days of Marlborough, in those of the
Great Frederick, and in those of Napoleon. When we could not help
them with men we helped them with money. Our fleet has crushed their
enemies. And now, for the first time in history, we have had a
chance of seeing who were our friends in Europe, and nowhere have we
met more hatred and more slander than from the German Press and the
German people. Their most respectable journals have not hesitated to
represent the British troops--troops every bit as humane and as
highly disciplined as their own--not only as committing outrages on
person and property, but even as murdering women and children.
"At first this unexpected phenomenon merely surprised the British
people, then it pained them, and finally, after two years of it, it
has roused a deep, enduring anger in their minds."
He goes on to say, "The continued attacks upon us have left an
enduring feeling of resentment, which will not and should not die
away in this generation. It is not too much to say that five years
ago a complete defeat of Germany in a European war would have
certainly caused British intervention. Public sentiment and racial
affinity would never have allowed us to see her really go to the
wall. And now it is certain that in our lifetime no British guinea
and no soldier's life would under any circumstances be spent for
such an end. That is one strange result of the Boer War, and in the
long run it is possible that it may prove not the least important."
Such was the prevailing mood of the nation when they perceived
Germany, under the lead of her Emperor, following up her expressions
of enmity by starting with restless energy to build up a formidable
fleet, adding programme to programme, out of all possible proportion
to the German commerce to be defended or to the German coastline
exposed to attack. Already vainglorious boasts were made that
Germany was the successor to Britain upon the seas. "The Admiral of
the Atlantic greets the Admiral of the Pacific," said the Kaiser in
a message to the Czar. What was Britain to do under this growing
menace? So long as she was isolated the diplomacy of Germany might
form some naval coalition against her. She took the steps which were
necessary for her own safety, and without forming an alliance she
composed her differences with France and Russia and drew closer the
friendship which united her with her old rival across the Channel.
The first-fruit of the new German fleet was the _entente cordiale_.
We had found our enemy. It was necessary that we should find our
friends. Thus we were driven into our present combination.
And now we had to justify our friendship. For the first time we were
compelled to openly oppose Germany in the deep and dangerous game of
world politics. They wished to see if our understanding was a
reality or a sham. Could they drive a wedge between us by showing
that we were a fair-weather friend whom any stress would alienate.
Twice they tried it, once in 1906 when they bullied France into a
conference at Algeciras, but found that Britain was firm at her
side, and again in 1911 when in a time of profound peace they
stirred up trouble by sending a gunboat to Agadir, and pushed
matters to the very edge of war. But no threats induced Britain to
be false to her mutual insurance with France. Now for the third and
most fatal time they have demanded that we forswear ourselves and
break our own bond lest a worse thing befall us. Blind and foolish,
did they not know by past experience that we would keep our promise
given? In their madness they have wrought an irremediable evil to
themselves, to us, and to all Europe.
I have shown that we have in very truth never injured nor desired to
injure Germany in commerce, nor have we opposed her politically
until her own deliberate actions drove us into the camp of her
opponents. But it may well be asked why then did they dislike us,
and why did they weave hostile plots against us? It was that, as it
seemed to them, and as indeed it actually may have been, we
independently of our own wills stood between Germany and that world
empire of which she dreamed. This was caused by circumstances over
which we had no control and which we could not modify if we had
wished to do so. Britain, through her maritime power and the energy
of her merchants and people, had become a great world power when
Germany was still unformed. Thus, when she had grown to her full
stature she found that the choice places of the world and those most
fitted for the spread of a transplanted European race were already
filled up. It was not a matter which we could help, nor could we
alter it, since Canada, Australia, and South Africa would not, even
if we could be imagined to have wished it, be transferred to German
rule. And yet the Germans chafed, and if we can put ourselves in
their places we may admit that it was galling that the surplus of
their manhood should go to build up the strength of an alien and
possibly a rival State. So far we could see their grievance, or
rather their misfortune, since no one was in truth to blame in the
matter. Had their needs been openly and reasonably expressed, and
had the two States moved in concord in the matter, it is difficult
to think that no helpful solution of any kind could have been
found.
But the German method of approaching the problem has never been to
ask sympathy and co-operation, but to picture us as a degenerate
race from whom anything might be gained by playing upon our imagined
weakness and cowardice. A nation which attends quietly to its own
sober business must, according to their mediæval notions, be a
nation of decadent poltroons. If we fight our battles by means of
free volunteers instead of enforced conscripts, then the military
spirit must be dead amongst us. Perhaps, even in this short
campaign, they have added this delusion also to the dust-bin of
their many errors. But such was their absurd self-deception about
the most virile of European races. Did we propose disarmament, then
it was not humanitarianism but cowardice that prompted us, and their
answer was to enlarge their programme. Did we suggest a
navy-building holiday, it was but a cloak for our weakness, and an
incitement that they should redouble their efforts. Our decay had
become a part of their national faith. At first the wish may have
been the father to the thought, but soon under the reiterated
assertions of their crazy professors the proposition became
indisputable. Bernhardi in his book upon the next war cannot conceal
the contempt in which he has learned to hold us. Niebuhr long ago
had prophesied the coming fall of Britain, and every year was
believed to bring it nearer and to make it more certain. To these
jaundiced eyes all seemed yellow, when the yellowness lay only in
themselves. Our army, our navy, our Colonies, all were equally
rotten. "Old England, old, indeed, and corrupt, rotten through and
through." One blow and the vast sham would fly to pieces, and from
those pieces the victor could choose his reward. Listen to Professor
Treitschke, a man who, above all others, has been the evil genius of
his country, and has done most to push it towards this abyss: "A
thing that is wholly a sham," he cried, in allusion to our Empire,
"cannot, in this universe of ours, endure for ever. It may endure
for a day, but its doom is certain." Were ever words more true when
applied to the narrow bureaucracy and swaggering Junkerdom of
Prussia, the most artificial and ossified sham that ever our days
have seen? See which will crack first, our democracy or this, now
that both have been plunged into the furnace together. The day of
God's testing has come, and we shall see which can best abide it.
I have tried to show that we are in no way to blame for the
hostility which has grown up between us. So far as it had any solid
cause at all it has arisen from fixed factors, which could no more
be changed by us than the geographical position which has laid us
right across their exit to the oceans of the world. That this
deeply-rooted national sentiment, which for ever regarded us as the
Carthage to which they were destined to play the part of Rome,
would, sooner or later, have brought about war between us, is, in my
opinion, beyond all doubt. But it was planned to come at the moment
which was least favourable for Britain. "Even English attempts at a
_rapprochement_ must not blind us to the real situation," says
Bernhardi. "We may, at most, use them to delay the necessary and
inevitable war until we may fairly imagine we have some prospect of
success." A more shameless sentence was never penned, and one
stands marvelling which is the more grotesque--the cynicism of the
sentiment, or the folly which gave such a warning to the victim. For
be it remembered that Bernhardi's words are to be taken very
seriously, for they are not the ravings of some Pan-German
monomaniac, but the considered views of the foremost military writer
of Germany, one who is in touch with those inner circles whose
opinions are the springs of national policy. "Our last and greatest
reckoning is to be with Great Britain," said the bitter Treitschke.
Sooner or later the shock was to come. Germany sat brooding over the
chessboard of the world waiting for the opening which should assure
a winning game.
It was clear that she should take her enemies separately rather than
together. If Britain were attacked, it was almost certain that
France and Russia would stand by her side. But if, on the contrary,
the quarrel could be made with these two Powers, and especially with
Russia, in the first instance, then it was by no means so certain
that Great Britain would be drawn into the struggle. Public opinion
has to be strongly moved before our country can fight, and public
opinion under a Liberal Government might well be divided upon the
subject of Russia. Therefore, if the quarrel could be so arranged as
to seem to be entirely one between Teuton and Slav there was a good
chance that Britain would remain undecided until the swift German
sword had done its work. Then, with the grim acquiescence of our
deserted Allies, the still bloody sword would be turned upon
ourselves, and that great final reckoning would have come.
Such was the plan, and fortune favoured it. A brutal murder had, not
for the first time, put Servia into a position where a State may be
blamed for the sins of individuals. An ultimatum was launched so
phrased that it was impossible for any State to accept it as it
stood and yet remain an independent State. At the first sign of
argument or remonstrance the Austrian army marched upon Belgrade.
Russia, which had been already humiliated in 1908 by the forcible
annexation of Bosnia, could not possibly submit a second time to the
Caudine Forks. She laid her hand upon her sword-hilt. Germany
sprang to the side of her Ally. France ranged herself with Russia.
Like a thunderclap the war of the nations had begun.
So far all had worked well for German plans. Those of the British
public who were familiar with the past and could look into the future
might be well aware that our interests were firmly bound with those
of France, and that if our faggots were not tied together they would
assuredly be snapped each in its turn. But the unsavoury
assassination which had been so cleverly chosen as the starting-point
of the war bulked large in the eyes of our people, and, setting
self-interest to one side, the greater part of the public might well
have hesitated to enter into a quarrel where the cause seemed remote
and the issues ill-defined. What was it to us if a Slav or a Teuton
collected the harbour dues of Salonica! So the question might have
presented itself to the average man who in the long run is the ruler
of this country and the autocrat of its destinies. In spite of all
the wisdom of our statesmen, it is doubtful if on such a quarrel we
could have gained that national momentum which might carry us to
victory. But at that very moment Germany took a step which removed
the last doubt from the most cautious of us and left us in a position
where we must either draw our sword or stand for ever dishonoured and
humiliated before the world. The action demanded of us was such a
compound of cowardice and treachery that we ask ourselves in dismay
what can we ever have done that could make others for one instant
imagine us to be capable of so dastardly a course? Yet that it was
really supposed that we could do it, and that it was not merely put
forward as an excuse for drawing us into war, is shown by the anger
and consternation of the Kaiser and his Chancellor when we drew back
from what the British Prime Minister has described as "an infamous
proposal." One has only to read our Ambassador's description of his
interview with the German Chancellor after our decision was
announced, "so evidently overcome by the news of our action," to see
that through some extraordinary mental aberration the German rulers
did actually believe that a vital treaty with Britain's signature
upon it could be regarded by this country as a mere "scrap of paper."
What was this treaty which it was proposed so lightly to set aside?
It was the guarantee of the neutrality of Belgium signed in 1839
(confirmed verbally and in writing by Bismarck in 1870), by Prussia,
France, and Britain, each of whom pledged their word to observe and
to enforce it. On the strength of it Belgium had relied for her
security amidst her formidable neighbours. On the strength of it
also France had lavished all her defences upon her eastern frontier,
and left her northern exposed to attack. Britain had guaranteed the
treaty, and Britain could be relied upon. Now, on the first occasion
of testing the value of her word it was supposed that she would
regard the treaty as a worthless scrap of paper, and stand by
unmoved while the little State which had trusted her was flooded by
the armies of the invader. It was unthinkable, and yet the wisest
brains of Germany seem to have persuaded themselves that we had sunk
to such depths of cowardly indolence that even this might go
through. Surely they also have been hypnotised by those foolish
dreams of Britain's degeneration, from which they will have so
terrible an awakening.
As a matter of fact, the General Staff had got ahead of the
diplomatists, and the German columns were already over the border
while the point was being debated at Berlin. There was no retreat
from the position which had been taken up. "It is to us a vital
matter of strategy and is beyond argument," said the German soldier.
"It is to us a vital matter of honour and is beyond argument,"
answered the British statesman. The die was cast. No compromise was
possible. Would Britain keep her word or would she not? That was the
sole question at issue. And what answer save one could any Briton
give to it? "I do not believe," said our Prime Minister, "that any
nation ever entered into a great controversy with a clearer
conscience and stronger conviction that she is fighting, not for
aggression, not for the maintenance of her own selfish interest, but
in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the
civilisation of the world." So he spoke, and History will endorse
his words, for we surely have our quarrel just.
So much for the events which have led us to war. Now for a moment
let us glance at what we may have to hope for, what we may have to
fear, and above all what we must each of us do that we win through
to a lasting peace.
What have we to gain if we win? That we have nothing material to
gain, no colonies which we covet, no possessions of any sort that we
desire, is the final proof that the war has not been provoked by us.
No nation would deliberately go out of its way to wage so hazardous
and costly a struggle when there is no prize for victory. But one
enormous indirect benefit we will gain if we can make Germany a
peaceful and harmless State. We will surely break her naval power
and take such steps that it shall not be a menace to us any more. It
was this naval power, with its rapid increase, and the need that we
should ever, as Mr. Churchill has so well expressed it, be ready at
our average moment to meet an attack at their chosen moment--it was
this which has piled up our war estimates during the last ten years
until they have bowed us down. With such enormous sums spent upon
ships and guns, great masses of capital were diverted from the
ordinary channels of trade, while an even more serious result was
that our programmes of social reform had to be curtailed from want
of the money which could finance them. Let the menace of that
lurking fleet be withdrawn--the nightmare of those thousand hammers
working day and night in forging engines for our destruction, and
our estimates will once again be those of a civilised Christian
country, while our vast capital will be turned from measures of
self-protection to those of self-improvement. Should our victory be
complete, there is little which Germany can yield to us save the
removal of that shadow which has darkened us so long. But our
children and our children's children will never, if we do our work
well now, look across the North Sea with the sombre thoughts which
have so long been ours, while their lives will be brightened and
elevated by money which we, in our darker days, have had to spend
upon our ships and our guns.
Consider, on the other hand, what we should suffer if we were to
lose. All the troubles of the last ten years would be with us still,
but in a greatly exaggerated form. A larger and stronger Germany
would dominate Europe and would overshadow our lives. Her coast-line
would be increased, her ports would face our own, her coaling
stations would be in every sea, and her great army, greater then
than ever, would be within striking distance of our shores. To avoid
sinking for ever into the condition of a dependant, we should be
compelled to have recourse to rigid compulsory service, and our
diminished revenues would be all turned to the needs of
self-defence. Such would be the miserable condition in which we
should hand on to our children that free and glorious empire which
we inherited in all the fulness of its richness and its splendour
from those strong fathers who have built it up. What peace of mind,
what self-respect could be left for us in the remainder of our
lives? The weight of dishonour would lie always upon our hearts. And
yet this will be surely our fate and our future if we do not nerve
our souls and brace our arms for victory. No regrets will avail, no
excuses will help, no after-thoughts can profit us. It is
now--_now_--even in these weeks and months that are passing that the
final reckoning is being taken, and when once the sum is made up no
further effort can change it. What are our lives or our labours, our
fortunes or even our families, when compared with the life or death
of the great mother of us all? We are but the leaves of the tree.
What matter if we flutter down to-day or to-morrow, so long as the
great trunk stands and the burrowing roots are firm? Happy the man
who can die with the thought that in this greatest crisis of all he
has served his country to the uttermost; but who would bear the
thoughts of him who lives on with the memory that he has shirked his
duty and failed his country at the moment of her need?
There is a settled and assured future if we win. There is darkness
and trouble if we lose. But if we take a broader sweep and trace the
meanings of this contest as they affect others than ourselves, then
ever greater, more glorious are the issues for which we fight. For
the whole world stands at a turning-point of its history, and one or
other of two opposite principles, the rule of the soldier or the
rule of the citizen, must now prevail. In this sense we fight for
the masses of the German people, as some day they will understand,
to free them from that formidable military caste which has used and
abused them, spending their bodies in an unjust war and poisoning
their minds by every device which could inflame them against those
who wish nothing save to live at peace with them. We fight for the
strong, deep Germany of old, the Germany of music and of philosophy,
against this monstrous modern aberration the Germany of blood and of
iron, the Germany from which, instead of the old things of beauty,
there come to us only the rant of scolding professors with their
final reckonings, their Welt-politik, and their Godless theories of
the Superman who stands above morality and to whom all humanity
shall be subservient. Instead of the world-inspiring phrases of a
Goethe or a Schiller, what are the words in the last decade which
have been quoted across the sea? Are they not always the
ever-recurring words of wrath from one ill-balanced man? "Strike
them with the mailed fist." "Leave such a name behind you as Attila
and his Huns." "Turn your weapons even upon your own flesh and blood
at my command." These are the messages which have come from this
perversion of a nation's soul.
But the matter lies deep. The Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs have
used their peoples as a great landowner might use the serfs upon his
estate. It was, and is, their openly expressed theory that they were
in their position by the grace of God, that they owed no reckoning
to any man, and that kingdom and folk were committed for better or
worse to their charge. Round this theory of the dark ages there
gathered all the forces of the many Courts of the Empire, all the
nobility who make so huge a class in Germanic countries, all the
vast army to whom strict discipline and obedience were the breath of
life, all the office-holders of the State, all the purveyors of
warlike stores. These and their like were the natural setting to
such a central idea. Court influence largely controlled the
teaching at schools and universities, and so the growing twig could
be bent. But all these forces together could not have upheld so
dangerous and unnatural a theory had it not been for the influence
of a servile Press.
How that Press was managed, how the thoughts of the people could be
turned to the right or the left with the same precision as a platoon
of Grenadiers, has been shown clearly enough in the Memoirs of
Bismarck. Public opinion was poisoned at its very roots. The average
citizen lived in a false atmosphere where everything was distorted
to his vision. He saw his Kaiser, not as an essentially weak and
impetuous man with a dangerous entourage who were ever at his ear,
but as Germany personified, an angel with a flaming sword, beating
back envious assailants from the beloved Fatherland. He saw his
neighbours not as peaceful nations who had no possible desire to
attack him, but, on the contrary, lived in constant fear of him, but
as a band of envious and truculent conspirators who could only be
kept in order by the sudden stamp of the jackboot and the menacing
clatter of the sabre. He insensibly imbibed the Nietzsche doctrine
that the immorality of the Superman may be as colossal as his
strength and that the slave-evangel of Christianity was superseded
by a sterner law. Thus when he saw acts which his reason must have
told him were indefensible, he was still narcotised by this
conception of some new standard of right. He saw his Kaiser at the
time of a petty humiliation to Great Britain sending a telegram of
congratulation to the man who had inflicted this rebuff. Could that
be approved by reason? At a time when all Europe was shuddering over
the Armenian massacres he saw this same Kaiser paying a
complimentary visit to the Sultan whose hands were still wet with
the blood of murdered Christians. Could that be reconciled with what
is right? A little later he saw the Kaiser once again pushing
himself into Mediterranean politics, where no direct German interest
lay, and endeavouring to tangle up the French developments in
Northern Africa by provocative personal appearances at Morocco, and,
later, by sending a gunboat to intrude upon a scene of action which
had already by the Treaty of Algeciras been allotted to France.
How could an honest German whose mind was undebauched by a
controlled Press justify such an interference as that? He is or
should be aware that in annexing Bosnia, Austria was tearing up a
treaty without the consent of the other signatories, and that his
own country was supporting and probably inciting her ally to this
public breach of faith. Could he honestly think that this was right?
And, finally, he must know, for his own Chancellor has publicly
proclaimed it, that the Invasion of Belgium was a breach of
international right, and that Germany, or rather, Prussia, had
perjured herself upon the day that the first of her soldiers passed
over the frontier. How can he explain all this to himself save on a
theory that might is right, that no moral law applies to the
Superman, and that so long as one hews one's way through the rest
can matter little? To such a point of degradation have public morals
been brought by the infernal teachings of Prussian military
philosophy, dating back as far as Frederick the Second, but
intensified by the exhortations of Press and professors during our
own times. The mind of the average kindly German citizen has been
debauched and yet again debauched until it needed just such a world
crisis as this to startle him at last from his obsession and show
him his position and that of his country in its true relation with
humanity and progress.
Thus I say that for the German who stands outside the ruling classes
our victory would bring a lasting relief, and some hope that in the
future his destiny should be controlled by his own judgment and not
by the passions or interests of those against whom he has at present
no appeal. A system which has brought disaster to Germany and chaos
to all Europe can never, one would think, be resumed, and amid the
debris of his Empire the German may pick up that precious jewel of
personal freedom which is above the splendour of foreign conquest. A
Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern may find his true place as the servant
rather than the master of a nation. But apart from Germany, look at
the effects which our victory must have over the whole wide world.
Everywhere it will mean the triumph of reasoned democracy, of
public debate, of ordered freedom in which every man is an active
unit in the system of his own government; whilst our defeat would
stand for a victory to a privileged class, the thrusting down of the
civilian by the arrogance and intolerance of militarism, and the
subjection of all that is human and progressive to all that is
cruel, narrow, and reactionary.
This is the stake for which we play, and the world will lose or gain
as well as we. You may well come, you democratic over-sea men of our
blood, to rally round us now, for all that you cherish, all that is
bred in your very bones, is that for which we fight. And you, lovers
of Freedom in every land, we claim at least your prayers and your
wishes, for if our sword be broken you will be the poorer. But fear
not, for our sword will not be broken, nor shall it ever drop from
our hands until this matter is for ever set in order. If every ally
we have upon earth were to go down in blood and ruin, still would we
fight through to the appointed end. Defeat shall not daunt us.
Inconclusive victory shall not turn us from our purpose. The grind
of poverty and the weariness of hopes deferred shall not blunt the
edge of our resolve. With God's help we shall go to the end, and
when that goal is reached it is our prayer that a new era shall come
as our reward, an era in which, by common action of State with
State, mutual hatreds and strivings shall be appeased, land shall no
longer be estranged from land, and huge armies and fleets will be
nightmares of the past. Thus, as ever, the throes of evil may give
birth to good. Till then our task stands clear before us--a task
that will ask for all we have in strength and resolution. Have you
who read this played your part to the highest? If not, do it now, or
stand for ever shamed.
* * * * *
II
THE WORLD-WAR CONSPIRACY
It is instructive and interesting now,[1] before fresh great events
and a new situation obliterate the old impressions, to put it on
record how things seemed to some of us before the blow fell. A
mental position often seems incredible when looked back to from some
new standpoint.
[1] August 20, 1914.
I am one of those who were obstinate in refusing to recognise
Germany's intentions. I argued, I wrote, I joined the Anglo-German
Friendship Society; I did everything I could for the faith that was
in me. But early last year my views underwent a complete change, and
I realised that I had been wrong, and that the thing which seemed
too crazy and too wicked to be true actually was true. I recorded my
conversion at the time in an article entitled "Great Britain and
the Next War" in the _Fortnightly_ of March, and reading over that
article I find a good deal which fits very closely to the present
situation. Forecasts are dangerous, but there is not much there
which I would wish to withdraw. What brought about my change of view
was reading Bernhardi's book on Germany and the next war.
Up to then I had imagined that all this sabre-rattling was a sort of
boyish exuberance on the part of a robust young nation which had a
fancy to clank about the world in jackboots. Some of it also came,
as it seemed to me, from a perfectly natural jealousy, and some as
the result of the preaching of those extraordinary professors whose
idiotic diatribes have done so much to poison the minds of Young
Germany. This was clear enough. But I could not believe that there
was a conspiracy hatching for a world-war, in which the command of
the sea would be challenged as well as that of the land. No motive
seemed to me to exist for so monstrous an upheaval, and no prize to
await Germany, if she won, which could at all balance her enormous
risks if she lost. Besides, one imagined that civilisation and
Christianity did stand for something, and that it was inconceivable
that a nation with pretensions to either the one or the other could
at this date of the world's history lend itself to a cold-blooded,
barbarous conspiracy by which it built up its strength for a number
of years with the intention of falling at a fitting moment upon its
neighbours, without any cause of quarrel save a general desire for
aggrandisement.
All this, I say, I could not bring myself to believe. But I read
Bernhardi's book, and then I could not help believing. I wrote an
article in the hope that others who had been as blind as myself
might also come to see the truth. For who was Bernhardi? He was one
of the most noted officers in the German army. And here was a book
addressed to his own fellow-countrymen, in which these sentiments
were set forth. You could not set such a document aside and treat it
as of no account. As I said at the time, "We should be mad if we did
not take very serious notice of the warning."
But the strange thing is that there should have been a warning.
There is a quaint simplicity in the German mind, which has shown
itself again and again in the recent events. But this is surely the
supreme example of it. One would imagine that the idea that the book
could be translated and read by his intended victims had never
occurred to the author. As a famous soldier, it is impossible to
believe that he was not in touch with the General Staff, and he
outlines a policy which has some reason, therefore, to be looked
upon as an official one. It is as bright a performance as if some
one on Lord Roberts's staff had written a description of the
Paardeberg flank march and sent it to Cronje some weeks before it
was carried out. And yet it was not an isolated example, for Von
Edelsheim, who actually belongs to this amazing General Staff,
published a shorter sketch, setting forth how his country would deal
with the United States--an essay which is an extraordinary example
of bombastic ignorance. Such indiscretions can only be explained as
manifestations of an inflated national arrogance, which has blown
itself up into a conviction that Germany was so sure of winning
that it mattered little whether her opponents were upon their guard
or not.
But Bernhardi's programme, as outlined in his book, is actually
being carried through. The whole weight of the attack was to be
thrown upon France. Russia was to be held back during her slow
mobilisation, and then the victorious legions from Paris were to
thunder across in their countless troop trains from the western to
the eastern firing-line. Britain was to be cajoled into keeping
aloof until her fate was ripe. Then her fleet was to be whittled
down by submarines, mines, and torpedo-boats until the numbers were
more equal, when the main German fleet, coming from under the forts
of Wilhelmshaven, should strike for the conquest of the sea. Such
were the plans, and dire the fate of the conquered. They were in
accordance with the German semi-official paper, which cried on the
day before the declaration of war: "We shall win--and when we do,
'Vae victis!'" With France it was to be a final account. Our own
fate would be little better. It needs a righteous anger to wage war
to the full, and we can feel it when we think of the long-drawn
plot against us, and of the fate which defeat would bring.
However favourable the general trend of events, we can hardly hope
to escape some bad hours during this war. The Germans are a great
and brave people, with a fine record in warlike history. They will
not go down without leaving their mark deep upon the Allies. We must
not take the opening successes too seriously, or allow ourselves to
have the edge taken off our resolution by the idea that things will
necessarily go well with us. On land and sea vast efforts and
occasional disappointments will await us. But it will not be long.
It is, as it seems to me, absolutely impossible that it should be
long. The temper of the times will not brook slow measures, nor will
the enormous financial strain upon Germany be tolerated
indefinitely. How dangerous is prophecy, and these very words may
come back to mock me; but I cannot myself see how it can be over in
less than six months, or how it could extend for more than twelve.
If it should happen that the military affairs of Germany are as
rotten as her diplomacy, then it certainly should not last long.
That, no doubt, is too much to expect, but there are many degrees of
incapacity which are short of that extreme limit. For of that, at
least, there can be no dispute. What has come from all this crazy
science of Real-politik and Welt-politik and the rest of it? Simply
that wherever it was possible to lose the trick Germany and her
partner have done so. An alliance with Italy so loose that it was
useless, a Mediterranean understanding with Austria so vague that it
only operated after it had become of no service to the German
cruisers, the drawing of Servia, Montenegro, and, finally, of
Belgium, into the field against them, the dealing with England in
the one fashion which must unite our ranks and cut the ground from
under the feet of any party which might cause dissension--these are
the results of the Wilhelmstrasse combinations, with Potsdam
embellishments. Was there ever so colossal a muddle? Is there any
one point which could have been worse handled? And then as a
by-product the universal distrust and anger which such policy has
aroused in the neutral countries--yes, it really is a thing
complete.
But the German soldier may prove himself as good as ever. That he
will be as brave as ever I have no doubt at all. That he will be as
hardy as ever is less likely, as the population of the Fatherland
has drifted largely from fields to factories, and as the standard of
comfort, and even luxury, have greatly increased. The Westphalian
artisan of William is very different material from the Brandenburg
peasant of Frederick, even as the short-service soldier of 1914 is
very different from the ten-year man of 1750. I should expect to see
the German as good, but no better than his neighbours. But the whole
issue of this campaign depends, from his point of view, upon his
being better. He has to win against superior numbers. He must not
only win, but win quickly. If an equilibrium were established, the
strangulation from England must bring victory to the Allies. It is a
great deal that the Kaiser has asked from his men.
And there is his much-vaunted military organisation. An American
friend of mine, who had means of forming an opinion, remarked to
me, "Yes, it is a huge and smooth-running machine, with delicate
adjustments. Like all such machines, if a few cogwheels stuck the
whole might racket itself to pieces." A cogwheel stuck at Liége,
another may stick before long, and it all depends on how the machine
can adjust itself. The lesson of history is ominous. The Prussians
of Jena and Auerstadt were men who had been swollen up by the
tradition of Frederick's prowess. Yet in a single day their defeat
was so great and their power of recuperation so slight that they
were utterly dispersed, and their country for seven years ceased to
exist as a factor in European politics. They have always been great
winners. They have not always been great in adversity. How will they
now stand this test if it should come their way?
* * * * *
III
THE DEVIL'S DOCTRINE
I have been interesting and exasperating myself, during a most
untimely illness,[2] by working through a part of the literature of
German Imperial Expansion. I know that it is only a part, and yet
when I look at this array--Treitschke and Bernhardi, Schiemann and
Hasse, Bley, Sybel, "Gross-Deutschland" and "Germania Triumphans"--it
represents a considerable body of thought. And it is the literature
of the devil. Not one kindly sentiment, not one generous expression,
is to be found within it. It is informed with passionate cupidity for
the writer's country and unreasoning, indiscriminate hatred and
jealousy towards everything outside it--above all, towards the
British Empire. How could such a literature fail to bring about a
world-coalition against the country which produced it! Were there no
Germans who foresaw so obvious a result? The whole tendency of the
doctrine is that Germany should, artichoke fashion, dismember the
world. Not a word is said as to the world suddenly turning and
dismembering her. But was not that the only protection against such
monstrous teaching as these books contain?
[2] September 10, 1914.
You may object that these Imperialists were but a group of
monomaniacs and did not represent the nation. But the evidence is
the other way. They represented that part of the nation which counts
in international politics--they represented the Kaiser and his
circle, Von Tirpitz and the Navy men, Krupp, von Bohlen and the
armour-plated gang, the universities where such doctrines were
openly preached, the Army, the Junkers--all the noisy, aggressive
elements whose voice has sounded of late years as the voice of
Germany. All were infected by the same virus of madness which has
compelled Europe to get them once for all into a strait-jacket.
The actual policy of State was conducted on the very lines of these
teachings, where the devilish doctrine that war should be for ever
lurking in a statesman's thoughts, that he should be prepared to
pounce upon a neighbour should it be in a state of weakness, and that
no treaty or moral consideration should stay his hand, is repeated
again and again as the very basis of all state-craft. At the time of
the Agadir crisis we have the German Minister of Foreign Affairs
openly admitting that he took the view of the fanatical Pan-Germans.
"I am as good a Pan-German as you," said Kiderlen-Waechter to the
representative of the League. Each was as good or as bad as the
other, for all were filled with the same heady, pernicious stuff
which has brought Europe to chaos.
Where, now, is that "deep, patient Germany" of which Carlyle wrote?
Was ever a nation's soul so perverted, so fallen from grace! Read
this mass of bombast--learned bombast of professors, vulgar bombast
of Lokal-Anzeigers and the like, but always bombast. Wade through
the prophetic books with their assumption that Britain must perish
and Germany succeed her; consult the scolding articles and
lectures, so narrow, ungenerous, and boastful in their tone, so
utterly wanting in the deeper historical knowledge or true reading
of a rival's character; see the insane Pan-German maps, with their
partitions of Europe for the year 1915 or thereabouts; study the
lectures of the crazy professors, with their absurd assumption of
accurate knowledge and their extraordinary knack of getting every
fact as wrong as it could possibly be--take all this together, and
then say whether any nation has ever in this world been so foolishly
and utterly misled as have the Germans.
I have alluded to their knack of getting everything wrong. It is
perfectly miraculous. One would not have thought it possible that
people could be _always_ wrong. So blinded have they been by hate
that everything was distorted. Never even by accident did they
stumble upon the truth. Let us take a list of their confident
assertions--things so self-evident that they were taken for granted
by the average journalist:
"The British Army was worthless; its presence on the Continent,
even if it could come, was immaterial.
"Britain herself was absolutely decadent.
"Britain's commerce could be ruined by the German cruisers.
"The United States would fall upon us if we were in trouble.
"Canada and Australia were longing to break away from the Empire.
"India loathed us.
"The Boers were eager to reconquer South Africa.
"The Empire was an artificial collection of States which must
fly to pieces at the first shock."