CHAPTER III

GERMANY

"The Germans are vigorously submissive. They employ philosophical

reasonings to explain what is the least philosophic thing in the world,

respect for force and the fear which transforms that respect into

admiration."--MADAME DE STAËL (1810).

"Greatness and weakness are both inseparable from the race whose powerful

and turbid thought rolls on--the largest stream of music and poetry at

which Europe comes to drink."--ROMAIN ROLLAND (_Jean Christophe_).

§1. _The German State_.--The German Nation is one of the oldest in Europe:

the German State is almost the youngest--of the great States quite the

youngest.

Englishmen sometimes wonder why there are so many Royal princes in

Germany--why it is that when a vacant throne has to be filled, or a husband

to be found for a princess of royal standing, Germany seems to provide

such an inexhaustible choice. The reason is that Germany consisted, until

recently, not of one State but of a multitude of States, each of which had

a court and a dynasty and sovereign prerogatives of its own. In 1789, at

the outbreak of the French Revolution, there were 360 of these States of

every sort and size and variety. Some were Kingdoms, like Prussia, some

were Electorates, like Hanover (under our English George III.), some were

Grand Duchies, some were Bishoprics, some were Free Cities, and some

were simply feudal estates in which, owing to the absence of a central

authority, noble families had risen to the rank of independent powers.

These families were the descendants of those "robber-barons" whose castles

on the Rhine and all over South and West Germany the tourist finds so

picturesque. Prince William of Wied, the first Prince of Albania, is a

member of one of them, and is thus entitled to rank with the royalties of

Europe: the father-in-law of ex-King Manoel of Portugal, the Prince of

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a branch of the Kaiser's own family, is another

familiar recent instance. And every one remembers Prince Albert of

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the husband of Queen Victoria.

In 1789 the possibility of a German National State was so remote that

Germans had not even begun to dream of one. Each little Principality was

jealously tenacious of its local rights, or, as we should say, of its

vested interests, as against the common interests of Germany. Most of

them were narrow and parochial in their outlook; and the others, the

more broad-minded, were not national but cosmopolitan in spirit. To the

tradition of municipal thinking, which had lasted on uninterruptedly in the

Free Cities of Germany from the Middle Ages, Germany owes the excellence of

her municipal government to-day. To the broad and tolerant humanism of

her more enlightened courts, such as Weimar and Brunswick, we owe the

influences that shaped the work of Goethe and of Lessing, two of the

greatest figures in European thought and letters.

Into these peaceful haunts of culture and parochialism Napoleon, with the

armies and the ideas of Revolutionary France, swept like a whirlwind,

breaking up the old settled comfortable life of the cities and countryside.

One of the greatest of German writers, the Jew Heine, has described in a

wonderful passage what the coming of Napoleon meant to the inhabitants of a

little German Principality. It is worth transcribing at some length, for

it gives the whole colour and atmosphere of the old local life in Western

Germany, which has not even yet entirely passed away. The speaker is an old

soldier giving reminiscences of his boyhood:

"Our Elector was a fine gentleman, a great lover of the arts, and himself

very clever with his fingers. He founded the picture gallery at Düsseldorf,

and in the Observatory in that city they still show a very artistic set of

wooden boxes, one inside the other, made by himself in his leisure hours,

of which he had twenty-four every day.

"In those days the Princes were not overworked mortals as they are to-day.

Their crowns sat very firmly on their heads, and at night they just drew

their nightcaps over them, and slept in peace, while peacefully at their

feet slept their peoples; and when these woke up in the morning they said,

'Good morning, Father,' and the Princes replied, 'Good morning, dear

children.'

"But suddenly there came a change. One morning when we woke up in

Düsseldorf and wanted to say, 'Good morning, Father,' we found our Father

gone, and a kind of stupefaction over the whole city. Everybody felt as

though they were going to a funeral, and people crept silently to the

market-place and read a long proclamation on the door of the City Hall. It

was grey weather, and yet thin old tailor Kilian stood in his alpaca coat,

which he kept for indoor use only, and his blue woollen stockings hung down

so that his miserable little bare legs were visible above them and his thin

lips were trembling, while he murmured the words of the proclamation. A

veteran soldier at his side read somewhat louder, and at every few words a

tear trickled down into his honest white beard. I Stood by him and cried

too, and asked him why we were crying. And then he told me: 'The Elector

expresses you his gratitude'--then he went on reading, and at the words

'for your loyal and trusted obedience, and releases you from your duties,'

his tears broke out afresh.... While we were reading, the Elector's arms

were being taken down from the City Hall, the whole place became as

terrifyingly quiet as though there were going to be an eclipse of the sun,

and all the City Councillors went about hanging their heads as though no

one had any more use for them...

"When I woke up next morning, the sun was shining as usual, drums were

beating in the streets, and when I came down to breakfast and said

good-morning to my father I heard how the barber had whispered to him while

he was shaving him that the new Grand Duke Joachim was to receive the

homage of his subjects at the City Hall to-day, that he came of a very good

family and had been given the Emperor Napoleon's sister in marriage, and

had really a very good presence, and wore his fine black hair in curls, and

would shortly enter the city in state and would certainly please all the

ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming continued in the street, and I went and

stood outside the door and watched the French troops marching in, those

glorious happy Frenchmen, who marched through the world with songs and

shining sabres, the gay firm-set faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skins,

the tricolour cockades, the gleaming bayonets, the merry skilful horsemen,

and the huge great drum-major with his silver-embroidered uniform, who

could throw his drum-stick with its gilt button up to the first floor, and

his eyes up even to the girls in the second floor windows. I was pleased

that we were to have soldiers billeted on us--my mother was not--and I

hurried to the market-place. There everything was quite different now. The

world looked as if it had had a new coat of paint. A new coat-of-arms was

hanging on the City Hall, the iron railings on the balcony were covered

with tapestry hangings, French Grenadiers were standing sentry, the old

City Councillors had put on new faces, and were wearing Sunday clothes, and

looked at one another in French and said 'Bon jour,' ladies were looking

out of all the windows, curious bystanders and smart soldiers thronged

the square, and I and the other boys climbed on to the big horse of the

Elector's statue and looked down on the gay crowd."[1]

[Footnote 1: Heine, _Collected Works_, i. 228 (Book _Le Grand_).]

Napoleon and his French soldiers, "marching through the world with songs

and shining sabres," brought the Germans more than this happy thrill of

excitement and a supply of new and more elegant princes. They brought them

that which gave strength to their own right arm--the spirit of Nationality.

"The soul of the German people," says a recent German writer, "has always

lain very deep down, and has seldom come to the surface to become the

spirit of the time and to inspire the movements of the world. Hardly ever

except in times of the deepest adversity has it come to the surface: but

then it has claimed its rights, or rather, discovered its duties."[1]

Napoleon, by humiliating her, laid bare the soul of Germany, as Germany

herself has laid bare the soul of Belgium to-day. His arrogant pretensions

roused the Germans as they had never been roused since the days of the

Reformation; while at the same time his attempts to secure the support of

the bigger German principalities by enlarging them at the expense of the

smaller, simplified the map and laid the foundations of a United Germany.

The thinkers and dreamers of Germany, stung at last into a sense of

political reality, awoke from their dreams of cosmopolitanism and devoted

their powers to the needs of the German nation.

[Footnote 1: Daab's Preface to Paul de Lagarde, _German Faith, German

Fatherland, German Culture_, p. vi. (Jena, 1913).]

The years between 1806 and 1813, between the disastrous battle of Jena

and the overwhelming victory of Leipzig, are the greatest years in German

history. Shaking off the torpor and the prejudices of centuries the German

nation arose and vanquished its oppressors.

But with the twilight of that glorious day the bats returned. The defeat of

Napoleon was not only the defeat of French domination but the defeat of the

French Revolution, and of the principles of Democracy and Nationality which

inspired it. The unity of spirit which the Germans had achieved on the

battlefield they were unable to transform after the victory into a unity of

government or institutions. The Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map

of Europe after the Revolutionary wars, did so, not in accordance with

the principle of nationality or the wishes of the peoples of Europe but

according to what was called "legitimacy," that is to say, the interests

of the princes. There was only one idealist at the Conference, the Russian

Emperor Alexander, and he was put off with empty phrases.

[Illustration: Germany of 1815.]

For Germany the result of the Conference was the reestablishment, in

smaller numbers and with larger units of territory, of the old undemocratic

principalities, and of a Confederation embodying their dynastic interests.

Several of the larger States, such as Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, and

Hanover, which Napoleon had raised to the status of kingdoms, were

confirmed in their new dignities, and the kingdom of Prussia, the largest

of them all, acquired, out of the debris of the old Archbishopric of

Cologne and other small ecclesiastical and temporal States, the important

provinces of Westphalia and the Rhineland, which have made possible for

her the industrial growth of the last half century. Cologne, Düsseldorf,

Elberfeld, Essen, and other great industrial centres of Western Germany

will next year be celebrating the centenary of their Prussian connection.

But the chief State in the Confederation and its undisputed head was

Austria, which had for centuries enjoyed the prestige of supremacy over the

German States; and it was the Austrian statesman Metternich who was mainly

responsible for the Vienna settlement.

The German Confederation of 1815-1866 went far outside the boundaries of

modern Germany. It included lands belonging to three non-German monarchs.

The King of Holland was a member of it in virtue of the Dutch provinces of

Limburg and Luxemburg; the King of Denmark for the Duchies of Schleswig and

Holstein; and the Emperor of Austria (who, then as now, ruled over Hungary,

Austrian Poland, and the Southern Slav provinces) for Bohemia, Moravia, and

German-speaking Austria up to and beyond Vienna. The Confederation was in

fact in no sense a national State, and was never intended to be so. It was

a loosely knit assortment of principalities and free cities. Germany

was still broken up and divided in a manner almost inconceivable to the

inhabitants of an old-established unity like Great Britain or France. At

least five different kinds of money, for instance, were in use in the

different States of the Confederation, and, as stamp-collectors know, the

postal system was bewildering in its complexity. More important was

the deep gulf between different parts of the country due to religious

divisions. The Reformation, which left England with a National Church, left

Germany hopelessly divided; and the division between the Protestants in the

north and east, and the Catholics in the west and south, is still, half

a century after the establishment of the United Empire, a source of

difficulty.

Yet the Confederation has one undeniable achievement to its credit. It

paved the way for German unity by facilitating the Zollverein, or Customs

Union, which was extended between 1830 and 1844 to practically all the

German States except those under Austrian rule. But the far-reaching

importance of this development was not at that time appreciated. Western

Europe was tired after the great Napoleonic struggle and was not in a mood

for big designs. To all outward appearance Germany seemed to have relapsed,

after the thrill and glamour of the Wars of Liberation, into the stuffy

atmosphere of the old eighteenth century life. Only a very patient, a very

docile, and a very philosophic and law-abiding people would have endured

such an anti-climax; and it is these qualities, together with a certain

clumsiness and helplessness due to their complete inexperience of the

responsibilities of a larger citizenship, which go far to explain the

subsequent history of Germany.

But in the evil days after the Congress of Vienna the _idea_ of German

unity lived on, and formed a constant theme of discussion and speculation,

like the idea of the unity of Poland and of the Southern Slavs in the

present generation. The stirring memories of the Great Revolution were like

a constant refrain at the back of men's minds all through that dreary time.

In 1830, when the French established a Liberal Monarchy and the Belgians

freed themselves from the unwelcome supremacy of Holland, there was much

excitement throughout Germany. But nothing serious occurred until 1848,

when the Liberal and Nationalist movement, which had been gathering force

throughout the educated classes of Western Europe for a generation, at

length came to a head. The whole of Germany was in a ferment, a strong

Republican movement manifested itself, and in almost every one of the many

capital cities there was a rising with a demand for a free constitution

and parliamentary government, and for the consolidation of German national

unity in accordance with the same democratic ideals. The princes had no

alternative but to give way, and, as a result, local Constitutions were

granted, and a national Parliament was summoned to meet at Frankfurt, to

draw up a national German Constitution on democratic lines.

The task before the Frankfurt Parliament was similar to that which has

confronted British statesmen several times during the last century, in

framing the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the

Union of South Africa--the task of welding a number of separate State

governments with the free consent of their populations into a homogeneous

and democratic central authority. But in the case of an old and still

largely feudal country like Germany the task was infinitely more difficult,

for it could not be successful without a levelling-up of the political

ideals of the backward States, such as Prussia, and the elimination of many

ancient associations and dynastic interests. The Frankfurt Constitution did

actually come into being, and it was nobly planned. It guaranteed to every

German citizen the rights of civil liberty, equality before the law, and

responsible parliamentary government, both central and local. But the mind

of the German nation was not yet equal to its new responsibilities. The

Frankfurt Parliament, like the first Russian Duma, was out of touch with

realities; it wasted precious time on the discussion of abstract questions

of principle, and failed to meet the practical needs of the moment.

While it sat and talked, the enthusiasm which had created it gradually

evaporated. Meanwhile the more reactionary States, and the princes whose

prerogatives were endangered, became more and more openly hostile. All

through 1849 the Parliament was losing members by defection, and by the end

of the year its influence had sunk to vanishing point.

The movement which collapsed thus ignominiously was not a popular agitation

in the English sense of the term: like other movements of its generation it

sprang, not from the people but from the well-to-do, and its strength lay

among the professional and educated classes. The Frankfurt Parliament was

a predominantly middle-class assembly: lawyers and professors, always an

important element in German national life, were strongly represented in

it and largely responsible for its failure. Its collapse was a bitter

disappointment, and drove many of its leaders into exile abroad, more

particularly to the United States, where some of them, such as Carl

Schurz, lived to play a noteworthy part under more democratic political

institutions.

After the failure of the Frankfurt Constitution it slowly became clear to

far-sighted Germans that there was only one way in which German unity could

come about. If, unlike the separate provinces of Canada and South Africa,

the German States would not voluntarily sink their identity in a larger

whole, unity could only come through their acceptance of the supremacy of

one of the existing States.

There were only two possible candidates for the supremacy, Austria and

Prussia. Austria was still, at that time, as she had been for centuries,

in a position of undisputed headship. But her German policy was always

hampered because she had also to consider her non-German subjects.

Prussia, a younger and more homogeneous State, with a better organised

administration and a better disciplined people, was preparing to assert

herself. In 1862, at a moment when liberalism was gathering strength in

Prussia, Count Bismarck became chief Minister of the Prussian Crown and

the dominating force in Prussian policy. Bismarck was a Conservative and a

reactionary, wholly out of sympathy with the ideals of 1848. His immediate

object was to secure the supremacy of Prussia among the German States.

In the very first months of his leadership he made it clear, in a famous

sentence, by what methods he hoped to achieve his end. "The great questions

are to be settled," he told the Prussian Diet, with a scornful hit at the

Confederation, "not by speeches and majority resolutions, but by blood and

iron."

He was not long in translating words into action. In 1864 the King of

Denmark died, and difficulties at once arose as to the succession to the

Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which still belonged to the German

Confederation. Austria and Prussia intervened jointly in the name of the

Confederation, and, as a result, the Duchies were separated from Denmark,

Schleswig being administered by Austria and Holstein by Prussia. The object

of this rather clumsy plan, which originated with Bismarck, was to create

difficulties which would enable him to pick a quarrel with Austria. In 1866

this manoeuvre proved successful. Bismarck goaded Austria into war and

succeeded, after a six weeks' campaign, in expelling her from the German

State system, following this up by rounding off her own dominions with the

annexation of a number of the smaller pro-Austrian States, amongst them the

kingdom of Hanover. His victory also had the effect of completely checking

the growing agitation for the establishment of responsible government in

Prussia.[1]

[Footnote 1: On this point see Bismarck's _Recollections_, and the good

short account in Powicke's _Bismarck_.]

Having made Prussia supreme in Germany, Bismarck was now in a position

to solve the problem of German unity. He resolved to employ the same

well-tried method. In 1870 the somewhat high-handed manner of Napoleon III.

made it possible for him to bring about a war between the German States

and France, in which Germany, under Prussian leadership, was completely

victorious. In the flush of their success, after the capture of Paris in

January 1871, the lesser States of Germany agreed to enter into a Federal

Union under Prussian supremacy and to accept the King of Prussia as its

head, with the title of Emperor.

Thus, at length, Germany became a National State, with a national

constitution. The term Empire is misleading, for to English ears it

suggests the government of dependencies. Germany is not an Empire in that

sense: she is a Federation, like the United States and Switzerland, of

independent States which have agreed to merge some of their prerogatives,

notably the conduct of foreign affairs and of defence, in a central

authority. Since some of these independent States were, and still are,

monarchies, a higher title had to be provided for the Chief of the

Federation. An ace, as it were, was needed to trump the kings. After much

deliberation the title Emperor was agreed upon; but it is noteworthy that

the Kaiser is not "the Emperor of Germany": he bears the more non-committal

title of "German Emperor."

The German Imperial Constitution, devised by Bismarck in 1871, falls far

short of the Frankfurt experiment of 1848. It does indeed provide for

the creation of a Reichstag, or Imperial Parliament, elected by all

male citizens over twenty-five. But the Reichstag can neither initiate

legislation nor secure the appointment or dismissal of Ministers. In

the absence of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, which is the

mainspring of our English Constitutional system, the Reichstag might be

described as little more than an advisory body armed with the power of

veto. Like the English Parliament in the days of Charles I.'s ship-money,

the Reichstag could in the last resort refuse supplies, and so bring the

machinery of government to a standstill. But this situation has never yet

arisen or seemed likely to arise. The Government has ridden the Reichstag

with a strong hand, turning awkward corners by concessions to the various

groups in turn, and the Reichstag has responded to this treatment. Bismarck

"took his majorities where he could get them"; and Prince Bülow's book

contains some illuminating pages about the clever methods which that

statesman adopted to "manage" his Parliaments.

Above the Reichstag is the Bundesrat or Federal Council, on which all the

Federated States are represented, Prussia having seventeen members as

against forty-two from the other States. The Bundesrat sits in secret; its

members are selected by the different State Governments and vote according

to instructions received. All Bills originate in the Bundesrat before they

are submitted to the Reichstag, and are re-submitted to the Bundesrat, to

be passed or vetoed, after alteration in the Reichstag. The twenty-six

members of the German Federation represented in the Bundesrat comprise four

kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony), a number of Grand

Duchies and smaller ducal States, three Free Cities (Hamburg, Lübeck, and

Bremen), and the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine. All these (except

the last named) preserve their own local Parliaments and institutions, and

the second largest, Bavaria, even preserves in peace-time, like the British

self-governing Dominions, her own military organisation and has also her

own postal system. But Prussia in size, influence, and military strength

is by far the most important, and for practical purposes her power

preponderates over that of all the other States combined. The real control

of legislation naturally lies with the State which controls two-fifths

of the votes in the Bundesrat, where legislation is initiated and can

be vetoed; it is wielded by the Kaiser, as King of Prussia, and by his

Imperial Chancellor, President of the Bundesrat and always a Prussian

Minister. The Imperial Chancellor, who is the only Imperial Minister, is

chosen by the Kaiser and is responsible to him alone: he countersigns all

the Kaiser's orders and edicts, and has the function, it may be added, of

explaining away his indiscretions.

It is inevitable, under these circumstances, that the policy and

legislation of the central government should largely reflect Prussian views

and ideals. On the other hand, the temper of the rest of Germany must

always be kept in mind. As Prince Büllow, the late Imperial Chancellor,

says: "If the Empire is governed without reference to Prussia, ill-will

towards the Empire will grow in that country. If Prussia is governed

without reference to the Empire, then there is the danger that mistrust and

dislike of the leading State will gain ground in non-Prussian Germany....

The art of governing in our country will always have to be directed chiefly

towards maintaining the harmony between Germany and Prussia, in the spirit

as well as in the letter."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, pp. 191-192.]

Why should the government of Germany be such an "art"? And why should there

be any difficulty in maintaining a harmonious spirit between Prussia and

non-Prussian Germany? To answer these questions we must widen the scope of

our inquiry. So far we have considered only the growth and development

of the German State. It is now time to turn from the German State to the

German people.

§2. _The Real Germany_.--The difficulty of establishing German Unity

has lain in the fact that there have really always been two Germanies,

different in history, in temper, in ideals, and in their stages of

development in civilisation. There has been Prussia, or North-Eastern

Germany; and there has been the real Germany, the Germany of the South and

West. It is only since 1870, and especially within the reign of the present

Kaiser, that, through education and common experience; the two have become

fused into one; but even now, beneath the uniform surface of German life

and public opinion, there is a great inner distinction.

Let us take what we have called the real Germany first. This Germany, the

Germany of the Rhine country, of Frankfurt and Heidelberg and Cologne and

Nüremberg, is the Germany which so many Englishmen know and admire. This

Germany is an integral part of the civilisation of Western Europe, and is

closely akin to ourselves. It has grown and developed alongside with France

and the Netherlands and England, sharing in all the great spiritual and

social movements of the West. It has passed, with them, through the Middle

Ages, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, and the long struggle

against the domination of France. Its famous cities with their Cathedrals

and Town Halls breathe the same proud, free, municipal spirit as those of

their great neighbours in the Netherlands, Ghent, Antwerp, Louvain, Bruges,

Ypres and the rest. Its scholars and teachers, poets, painters, and

musicians, from Luther to Goethe, have made their special German

contribution to the civilised life of the West--a contribution as great and

as unique as that of Renaissance Italy or Elizabethan England. Its people

are very similar in character to their neighbours of kindred stock. As

industrious as the Dutch, as persevering as the Scotch, as steady and

good-hearted as the English, good workers, good citizens, devoted in their

family relations, they have found it easy to live at peace and on a good

understanding with their neighbours, and when they have migrated abroad,

they have by common confession made the best of settlers, both in the

United States and in the British Dominions.

Yet they have developed certain characteristic qualities in their social

and political life, which distinguish them sharply from their western

neighbours. History, which has deprived them, until recently, of a wider

citizenship, has left them timid, docile, dreamy and unpractical in just

that sphere of action where Englishmen have learnt for centuries to think

and to act for themselves. Patriotism with Englishmen is an instinct. We

do not much care to wave flags or make speeches or sing songs about it: we

assume it as the permanent background of our national life and our national

consciousness. With the Germans this is not so. In Germany, partly owing

to German history, partly owing to the constitution of the German mind,

patriotism is not an instinct but an _idea_. Now ideas do not grow up in

men's minds by a natural process. They have to be implanted. The Germans

have needed to be _taught_ to be patriotic. The makers of German patriotism

a century ago were teachers and philosophers. They did not simply appeal to

their patriotic instincts, as Englishmen would have done: they argued the

point and _proved_ that Germany was worth fighting for: they founded a

school of patriotic German philosophy. There are few more curious documents

in history, or more instructive for the light they shed on future

events, than the famous _Speeches to the German Nation_ addressed to his

fellow-countrymen by the philosopher Fichte in 1808, when his country was

under the heel of Napoleon. They are not speeches at all, but philosophical

lucubrations, discussing in abstract terms the whole subject of the nature

of patriotism and of Germany's right to exist as a nation. One argument,

for instance, on which he lays great stress, is that Germany is marked out

to be a great political power because of the peculiar excellence of the

German language, which he shows to his satisfaction to be superior to

French, Italian, and other Latin languages. Again, he points out that there

is no word in the German language for "character" (_Karakter_), a word

borrowed from the Greek; the reason is, he explains, that there is no need

for one, because to have character and to be German are the same thing--a

curious foretaste of the German arrogance of to-day. Yet these speeches,

which, issued in England at such a crisis, would have found no readers,

reverberated through Germany and helped to create the self-confident spirit

which freed her from the invader. Then, as now, under the inspiration of

ideas which they had accepted from professors and philosophers, Germans

fought for the German language and for German culture. But whereas in 1814

they fought to preserve them, in 1914 they are fighting to impose them.

Just as patriotism in Germany is wholly different from what it is in

England, so also is democracy, and all those elements in the national life

which feed and sustain it. British democracy does not depend upon our

popular franchise or on any legal rights or enactments. It depends upon the

free spirit and self-respect of the British people. We have been accustomed

for centuries to the unrestrained discussion of public affairs; and we

treat our governors as being in fact, as they are in name, our "ministers"

or servants. There is a force called public opinion which, slow though it

may be to assert itself, British statesmen have been taught by experience

to respect. It is as true of British as it is of American democracy that

"you can fool half the people all the time; and you can fool all the people

half the time; but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But the

German people, as a people, lacks this irreplaceable heritage of political

self-respect. It has never yet dared to tread the path of democracy without

leading strings. It has not yet learned to think for itself in politics,

or formed the habit of free discussion and practical criticism of public

affairs. This is the vital fact which must be borne in mind in all

comparisons between German and British democracy. The Germans have a

Parliament, elected by Universal Male Suffrage. But this Parliament is

powerless to control policy, because the nation behind it does not give it

sufficient support. It is because of the absence of the driving force of a

public opinion in Germany that the German people submit complacently to the

infringements on political liberty which form part of the normal _régime_

of German life--the domineering arrogance of officers and officials,

the restraints upon the Press and the shameless manufacture of news

and inspiration of opinion from official sources, the control of the

Universities, the schools, and the public services by the State in the

interest of "orthodox" political opinions, and the ridiculous laws which

have sent editors and cartoonists to prison in scores for criticising the

behaviour and utterances of the Emperor or the Crown Prince. In England and

in America underground attempts are sometimes made to injure the careers of

men whose opinions are considered "dangerous" by those who employ them.

In Germany such interference with freedom of political thought is not the

exception: it has become the rule. No man can make a successful career

in the public service (and education is a public service) unless he is

considered politically "orthodox" (_gesinnungstüchtig_); and orthodoxy does

not simply mean abstention from damaging criticism or dangerous opinions:

it means, in practice, deference to the opinions of those who "know

better," that is, to the clique of Prussian generals and bureaucrats who,

together with the Kaiser, control the policy of the country.

British readers who do not know Germany may think the foregoing indictment

of German political incapacity severe. It is not so severe as Prince

Büllow's. The portion of the late Imperial Chancellor's book which deals

with domestic policy opens with these crushing sentences: "The history of

our home policy, with the exception of a few bright spots, is a history of

political mistakes. Despite the abundance of merits and great qualities

with which the German nation is endowed, political talent has been denied

it.... We are not a political people." A page or two later he goes even

further and quotes with approval a dictum that the Germans are

"political donkeys." That a modern statesman should think this of his

fellow-countrymen is remarkable enough; that he should say it outright is

a still more remarkable proof of his unshakeable belief in their

submissiveness. Therein lies the whole tragedy of the present situation.

The German people, so kindly and, alas! so docile, is suffering, not for

its sins, but for its deficiencies; not for its own characteristic acts or

natural ambitions, but for what it has too tamely allowed others, Prussian

statesmen and soldiers, with alien ideals and an alien temper, to foist

upon it, until it has become an integral part of its natural life and

consciousness. Germany has been indoctrinated and Prussianised not only

into acquiescence, but into sympathy with the policy of its rulers.

§3. _Prussia_.--This brings us to the consideration of the second and more

powerful of the two Germanies--namely, Prussia. In order to understand

Prussia and the Prussian spirit we must plunge ourselves into an atmosphere

wholly different from that of the Germany that has just been described. The

very names of the two countries mark the measure of the difference. Germany

means the country of the Germans, as England means the country of the

English. But the name Prussia commemorates the subjugation and extinction

by German conquerors and crusaders from the west of the Prussians or

Bo-Russians, a tribe akin to the Letts and Lithuanians. The old Duchy of

Prussia, which now forms the provinces of East and West Prussia at the

extreme North-East of the present German Empire, consisted of heathen lands

colonised or conquered, between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, by

a great religious and military organisation known as the "Knights of the

Teutonic Order." While Southern and Western Germany was passing, with the

rest of Western Europe, through the transition between mediaeval and modern

Europe, what is now North-Eastern Germany was still in a wholly primitive

stage of development, and the Knights of the Teutonic Order, with crusading

fervour, were spreading Christianity and German "culture" by force of

arms, converting or repelling the Slavonic population and settling German

colonists in the territory thus reclaimed for civilisation. The great

British admirer of Prussia, Thomas Carlyle, in the first volume of his

_Frederick the Great_, gives a vivid account of their activities in their

forts or "burgs" of wood and stone, and helps us to realise what memories

lie behind the struggle between German and Slav to-day, and why the word

"Petersburg" has become so odious to the Russians as the name of their

capital. "The Teutsch Ritters build a Burg for headquarters, spread

themselves this way and that, and begin their great task. The Prussians

were a fierce fighting people, fanatically anti-Christian: the Teutsch

Ritters had a perilous never-resting time of it.... They built and burnt

innumerable stockades for and against: built wooden Forts which are now

stone Towns. They fought much and prevalently, galloped desperately to and

fro, ever on the alert. How many Burgs of wood and stone they built in

different parts, what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody, boggy

places they had, no man counted; their life, read in Dryasdust's newest

chaotic Books (which are of endless length, among other ill qualities) is

like a dim nightmare of unintelligible marching and fighting: one feels

as if the mere amount of galloping they had would have carried the Order

several times round the Globe.... But always some preaching, by zealous

monks, accompanies the chivalrous fighting. And colonists come in from

Germany; trickling in, or at times streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers

terms to the beaten Heathen; terms not of tolerant nature, but which will

be punctually kept by Ritterdom." Here we see the strange stern, medieval,

crusading atmosphere which lies behind the unpleasant combinations, so

familiar to us to-day in France and Belgium, of Uhlans and religion, of

culture and violence, of "Germanisation" and devastation. When we hear the

German professors of to-day preaching of the spread of German culture by

the German arms, and when we feel disgust at the exaggerated religious

phraseology which pervades the Kaiser's oratory and seems to accord so ill

with his policy and ambitions, we must remember the peculiar origins of the

Prussian State and how comparatively recent those origins are. "I have once

before had occasion," said the Kaiser at Marienburg in East Prussia on June

5, 1902, "to say in this place how Marienburg, this unique Eastern bulwark,

the point of departure for the culture of the lands east of the Vistula,

will always be a symbol for our German mission. There is work for us

again to-day. Polish arrogance wishes to lay hands on Germanism, and I am

constrained to call my people to the defence of its national possessions.

Here in Marienburg I proclaim that I expect all the brothers of the Order

of St. John to be at my service when I call upon them to protect German

ways and German customs." The Kaiser's crusading appeals are not

hypocritical or consciously insincere: they are simply many centuries out

of date--a grotesque medley of medieval romanticism and royal megalomania.

What was possible for the warrior knights in North-East Germany five or six

centuries ago is a tragic absurdity and an outrageous crime to-day among

a spirited and sensitive people like the Poles--still more so in a highly

civilised national State such as Belgium or France. It is an absurdity that

only a theatrical monarch could conceive and a crime that only a military

autocracy could attempt to enforce.

In the sixteenth century the Reformation, spreading throughout the North of

Europe, undermined the basis of the Teutonic Order. The Grand Master of

the time transformed himself into a Lutheran Prince holding the hereditary

Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the King of the neighbouring Slavonic

State of Poland. In 1611 the Duchy was amalgamated with the territory of

Brandenburg farther west, and in 1647 the enlarged Prussian territories

won their emancipation from Poland. Prussia now became a distinct State,

essentially German in character (as opposed to the Poles and Lithuanians on

its Eastern border), but still remaining for a time outside the community

of the other German States.

The union between Prussia and Brandenburg had brought Prussia under the

rule of the House of Hohenzollern, which, although originally a South

German family, had borne rule in Brandenburg since 1415. Under the

Hohenzollerns Prussia rapidly increased in territory and influence until in

1701 the ruler of the day, the grandfather of Frederick the Great, took on

himself the title of King. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia's career of

conquest and aggrandisement continued. Seizing a convenient opportunity, he

invaded and annexed the Austrian province of Silesia, and later joined with

Austria and Russia in promoting the shameful Partition of Poland. The old

conquering and "civilising" policy of the Teutonic Knights was continued,

but under new conditions and in a brutal and cynical spirit which rendered

it impossible of success. "The surest means of giving this oppressed nation

better ideas and morals," wrote Frederick the Great, in words quoted

with approval by Prince Bülow, "will always be gradually to get them to

intermarry with Germans, even if at first it is only two or three of them

in every village." This spirit in Prussian policy may have extinguished the

ancient Prussians, but it has not yet begun to Germanise the Poles, and has

gone far to de-Germanise the Alsatians. But it explains the utterances and

justifies the sincerity of those who believe that to-day, as in the early

days of her history, Prussia is fighting on behalf of "culture."

Prussia remains to-day, what she has been for the last two centuries, an

aggressive military monarchy. "Prussia attained her greatness," says Prince

Bülow, "as a country of soldiers and officials, and as such she was able

to accomplish the work of German union; to this day she is still, in all

essentials, a State of soldiers and officials." Power rests in the hands

of the monarch and of a bureaucracy of military and civil officials,

responsible to him alone, and traditionally and fanatically loyal to the

monarch who is, before all things, their War Lord.

The Prussian outlook is so foreign to Western habits of thought that it is

well that we should try to understand it at its best. Prussia proper has

not been rich, like the rest of Germany, in poets and imaginative writers;

but she is fortunate to-day in possessing in the greatest living Greek

scholar, Professor von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, a man who by birth and

breeding is able to put the highest interpretation upon the aims and spirit

of the Prussian State. To Wilamowitz Prussia is not only nearer and dearer

than Athens. She is better, and more advanced. At the close of a wonderful

address on "the glory of the Athenian Empire," in which he has employed all

the resources of his wide learning to paint a picture of Ancient Greece

at her best, Wilamowitz breaks into this impassioned peroration: "But one

element in life, the best of all, ye lacked, noble burghers of Athens.

Your sages tell us of that highest love which, freed from all bodily

entanglements, spends itself on institutions, on laws, on ideas. We

Prussians, a rough, much-enduring tribe of Northerners, may be compacted

of harder stuff; but we believe that love is on a higher level when the

fullest devotion to an institution and an idea is inseparably linked with

an entirely personal devotion to a human being; and at least we know how

warm such a love can make a loyal heart. When our children have scarce

learned to fold their hands before God, we set a picture before them, we

teach them to recognise the noble features; we tell them, 'This is our good

King.' Our young men, when they are of age to bear arms, look with joy and

pride on the trim garb of war, and say, 'I go in the King's coat.' And when

the nation assembles to a common political celebration, the occasion is no

Feast of the Constitution, no Day of the Bastille, no Panathenaic Festival.

It is then that we bow in reverence and loyalty before him who has allowed

us to see with our own eyes that for which our Fathers dreamed and

yearned, before him who ever extends the bounds of the Kingdom in Freedom,

Prosperity, and Righteousness, before his Majesty the Emperor and King."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Speeches and Lectures_, 3rd edition, Berlin, 1913, p. 65. The

"good King" referred to is the old Emperor William, as the address dates

from 1877.]

Here, far better expressed than in the Kaiser's speeches, we see the spirit

of the Prussian Junker at its best. It is narrow, old-fashioned, and, to

democratic ears, almost grotesque. Yet, if it survives uncorrupted by the

dangers to which progress always exposes a military caste, it will not be

easy either to crush by defeat or to transform by humiliation.

It is among the old Prussian nobility and the large landed proprietors

in the original Prussian provinces, who have come to be known as the

"Junkers," that this spirit prevails. They stand for the old stern

repressive military discipline and unchanging Conservatism in its extremest

form, regarding with well-founded suspicion and misgiving symptoms of

development in any direction whatsoever. No party in Germany acquiesced

more unwillingly in the changes necessitated by her commercial and

industrial development. Even their militarism stopped short at the

Army, and it required a substantial increase in the protective tariff

safeguarding their agricultural interests to purchase their reluctant

adhesion to the Kaiser's policy of naval expansion. Even now the German

Navy, the pride of the commercial and industrial classes throughout the

German Empire, is regarded by them with uneasy suspicion as a parvenu

service, in which the old Prussian influences count for less in promotion

than technical skill and practical efficiency.

The institutions of the Prussian State represent the spirit of its ruling

caste. If the German Empire is not democratic, Prussia lags far behind it.

The electoral system in use for the Prussian Lower House is too complicated

to explain here. Its injustice may be gauged from the fact that in 1900

the Social Democrats, who actually polled a majority of the votes, secured

seven seats out of nearly 400. The whole spirit and practice of the

Government is inimical to inborn British conceptions of civil liberty and

personal rights. There is one law and code of conduct for officers and

another for civilians, and woe betide the civilian who resists the military

pretensions. The incidents at Zabern in Alsace in 1913 are still fresh

in public memory, reinforced by evidence of a similar spirit in German

military proclamations in France and Belgium. But it is important to

realise that these incidents are not exceptional outbursts but common

Prussian practice, upheld, as the sequel to the Zabern events proved, by

the highest authority.

Prussia, and through Prussia Germany, is in effect ruled in accordance with

the wishes of the official caste: and short of a popular rising nothing but

defeat can dethrone it. "Any one who has any familiarity at all with our

officers and generals," says an authoritative German writer, in words that

we may hope will be prophetic, "knows that it would take another Sedan,

inflicted on us instead of by us, before they would acquiesce in the

control of the Army by the German Parliament."[1] No clearer statement

could be given as to where the real power lies in Germany, and how stern

will be the task of displacing it.

[Footnote 1: Professor Delbrück (who succeeded to the chair of history

in Berlin held so long by Treitschke), in a book published early in 1914

(_Government and the Popular Will_, p. 136).]

The foreign policy of Prussia has reflected the same domineering spirit.

Its object has been the increase of its power and territory by conquest or

cunning: and by the successful prosecution of this policy it has extended

Prussian authority and Prussian influence over a large part of Western

Germany. The best way of illustrating this will be to quote a passage from

the _Recollections of Prince Bismarck,_ who directed Prussian policy from

1862 to 1890. In 1864 trouble arose as to the succession to the Duchies of

Schleswig and Holstein on the Danish border. Prussia had no claim whatever

to the Duchies; but she coveted Holstein because it would give her a

Western sea-board, with the results that we all know. Bismarck describes

the arguments which he used to persuade his Royal Master to assert

his claim. "I reminded him," he writes, "that each of his immediate

predecessors had won an addition to the Monarchy": he then went through the

history of the six previous reigns, and ended by encouraging King

William to be worthy of his ancestors. His advice, as we have seen, was

successfully adopted.

[Illustration: PRUSSIA SINCE THE ACCESSION OF FREDERICK THE GREAT]

The conquest of France in 1870, by means of the military power of Germany

under Prussian leadership, made Prussia supreme in Germany, and the German

army supreme in Central Europe. The Treaty of Frankfurt in May 1871, by

which the new French Republic ceded to the German Empire the two French

provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, marked the opening of a new epoch in

European history, the period of the Armed Peace, which ended in 1914. It

marked also the opening of a new epoch in Germany, some features of which

we must now examine.

§4. _Germany since 1870_.--German history from 1871 to 1914 falls into two

well-defined periods. During the first period, from 1871 to 1888, Germany

was ruled by her Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bismarck. But the accession of

the present Kaiser led to a change, not in the letter, but in the spirit of

the new constitution, and since 1890, when William II. "dropped the pilot"

and selected a more amenable successor, the real control of policy has lain

with the Emperor.

The relations between Prince Bismarck and the old Emperor, who was over

ninety when he died in 1888, form a touching passage in modern history.

Although his grandson has publicly claimed for him a peculiar measure of

divine inspiration, his strength lay in his implicit confidence in his

great minister. Bismarck's attitude to him, as described in his _Memoirs_,

is rather like that of an old family retainer who has earned by long and

faithful service the right to assert his views and to pit his judgment

against his master's. His one formidable antagonist was the Empress; and

long experience, he tells us, enabled him to judge whether difficulties in

persuading the old Kaiser to adopt a given line of policy were due to

his own judgment or conceived "in the interests of domestic peace." The

faithful servant had his own appropriate methods of winning his way in

either case.

But with the new Kaiser the old minister's astuteness availed nothing,

and the story of Bismarck's curt dismissal, after thirty-eight years

of continuous service, from the post which he had created for himself,

illustrates the danger of framing a constitution to meet a particular

temporary situation. Bismarck, put out of action by his own machinery,

retired growling to his country seat, and lived to see the reversal of his

foreign policy and the exposure of Germany, through the Franco-Russian

Alliance, to the one danger he always dreaded, an attack on both flanks.

Like Germany's present rulers, Bismarck was not a scrupulous man; but

unlike them he was shrewd and far-sighted, and understood the statesmen and

the peoples with whom he had to deal. The main object of his foreign policy

was to preserve the prestige of the German army as the chief instrument of

power in Central Europe, and to allow the new Germany, after three wars in

seven years, time to develop in peace and to consolidate her position as

one of the Great Powers.

The situation was not an easy one; for Germany's rapid rise to power,

and the methods by which she had acquired it, had not made her popular.

Bismarck's foreign policy was defensive throughout, and he pursued it along

two lines. He sought to strengthen Germany by alliances, and to weaken her

rivals by embroiling them with one another. The great fruit of his policy

was the formation, completed in 1882, of the Triple Alliance between

Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

There was nothing sentimental about the Triple Alliance. The Italians hate

the Austrians, whom they drove out of Venice as recently as 1866, while

neither the German Austrians nor the other races in the Dual Monarchy have

any love lost for the Prussians. But Bismarck decided that this combination

was the safest in Germany's interest: so he set to work to play upon

Austria's fear of Russia, and to embroil Italy with France in North Africa;

and his manoeuvres were duly rewarded.

But this was not sufficient. Faced with the implacable hostility of France,

on account of the lost provinces, Bismarck saw danger of trouble from a

French Coalition with the two remaining Great Powers, Britain and Russia.

Bismarck never liked England; but he never made his successors' mistake of

despising her. He cultivated good relations, but he rejected the idea of an

alliance, because, as he said, "the English constitution is not compatible

with treaties of assured continuity." In other words, he fought shy of

British democracy, which he felt to be an incalculable factor. This threw

him back upon Russia.

The relations between the German and the Russian peoples have never been

cordial. But between the reactionary bureaucracies of the Prussian and

Russian governments there was a strong bond of mutual interest, which

Bismarck exploited to the full. Both had popular movements to hold in

check, both had stolen goods to guard in the shape of their Polish

possessions, and both had an interest in the preservation of reactionary

institutions. The influence of Prussia upon Russia, and of the efficient,

highly-organised, relentless Prussian machine upon the arbitrary,

tyrannical, but far less efficient and inhuman bureaucracy of Russia, has

been wholly sinister[1], both for Russia and for Europe. Bismarck's object,

of course, was not so much to keep down the Russian revolutionaries as to

check the aspirations of the Panslavists, whose designs for the liberation

of the Slav nationalities, as we now see them unfolding, threaten the

stability both of Prussia and of Austria-Hungary.

[Footnote 1: The same remark applies to the influence of Germany on

Turkey.]

Throughout the 'eighties Bismarck succeeded in keeping on foot a secret

understanding with Russia. How deeply he had implanted the necessity of

this policy in the mind of William I. is brought home by the fact that it

was the thought uppermost in the old man's mind as he lay on his deathbed.

"Never lose touch with the Tsar," whispered the old man to his grandson,

when he was almost too weak to speak. "There is no cause for quarrel."

The old Emperor died in 1888. In 1890 the young Emperor "dropped the

pilot." In the same year Russia refused to renew her secret treaty. In 1891

the first Franco-Russian Treaty was signed, and the diplomatic supremacy

of Europe passed from the Triple Alliance to be shared between the two

opposing groups with which we have been familiar in recent years.

The disappearance of Prince Bismarck marked the beginning of a new phase in

German policy and in German life. The younger generation, which had come

to maturity, like the Kaiser, since 1870, had never known the old divided

Germany, or realised the difficulties of her statesmen. Every one wondered

what use the young Kaiser would make of the great Army bequeathed to him.

He was believed to be a firebrand. Few believed that, imbued with Prussian

traditions, he would keep the peace for twenty-five years; fewer still

that, when he broke it, Germany would have the second Navy in the world.

But we are not now concerned with the baffling personality of the Kaiser

himself. What is important for us here is the general attitude of mind

among the German public of the Kaiser's generation, which has rendered

possible the prosecution of the cherished ideas of their ruler.

The school of thought which has been steadily gaining force, under official

encouragement, during the last twenty-five years is best summed up in

the popular watchwords, "Germany's place in the sun" and "World-Policy"

(_Weltpolitik_). These phrases embody, for Germans, who always tend to be

abstract in their thinking, not only a practical policy, but a philosophy

of human society and government.

This is not the place in which to analyse in detail the outlook upon life

(_Weltanschauung_) of the man in the street in modern Germany. It is a

confused and patchwork philosophy, drawn, consciously or unconsciously,

from many quarters--from the old cosmopolitan tradition of German culture,

dating from Goethe and Leasing; from the brave and arrogant claims

of Fichte and the prophets and poets of the Napoleonic era; from the

far-reaching influence of Hegel and his idealisation of the Prussian State;

from the reaction to "realism" in politics after 1848; from the prestige

of Bismarck and the deep impression made by the apparent success of his

methods and principles; from the gifted Prussian historians, Treitschke and

Sybel, who set their own interpretation upon Bismarck's work and imprinted

it, by speech and pen, upon the mind of the German nation; and from a

hasty interpretation of the theories of writers like Nietzsche and

Thomas Carlyle, with their exaltation of "heroes" and "supermen," their

encouragements to "live dangerously," their admiration for will-power

as against reason and feeling, and their tirades against legal shams,

"ballot-box democracy," and flabby humanitarianism.

The practical object of the policy of _Weltpolitik_ can be simply stated.

It is to extend to the other continents, and to the world as a whole,

the power and the prestige secured for Germany in Europe by the work of

Bismarck. "When Germany had won a mighty position on a level with the older

Great Powers," says Prince Bülow, "the path of international politics

lay open to her ... In the Emperor William II. the nation found a

clear-sighted, strong-willed guide who led them along the new road."

Some such expansion of German influence was inevitable from the facts of

her economic development since 1871. The population of the Empire, which

in 1871 was 41,000,000, has now risen to 65,000,000. The resources of the

country, the neglect of which during the days of disunion had forced

so many Germans to emigrate for a livelihood, have been rapidly and

scientifically developed. Already in the 'eighties "Made in Germany" had

become a familiar talisman, and, before the outbreak of the present war,

Germany ranked with the United States as the second greatest commercial

power in the world.

Simultaneously, of course, there has been a great change in the

distribution of the population. In the year 1850 65 per cent, and in 1870

47 per cent of the working population were engaged in agriculture. By 1912

the proportion had sunk to 28.6 per cent.

It was inevitable also that Germany should share with the other Great

Powers in the work of colonial government. The adjustment of the relations

between the advanced and backward races of mankind is the greatest

political task of our age; it is a responsibility shared jointly between

all the civilised States, and when in the 'eighties and 'nineties the vast

regions of Africa were partitioned amongst them, Germany, late in the

field, asserted her claims and received her share in the responsibility.

Rapid economic development and a colonial empire--what was there in these

to cause hostility between Germany and Great Britain? The United States

have passed through a similar development and have accepted a similar

extension of responsibility far outside their own continent. America is a

great, a growing, and a self-respecting Power; yet Americans see no ground

for that inevitable conflict of interests between their country and Great

Britain which forms the theme of so many German books, from Prince Bülow's

candid self-revelations down to less responsible writers like Bernhardi.

The explanation lies in the nature of German thought and ambitions. When

Germans speak of "a place in the sun," they are not thinking of the spread

of German trade, the success of German adventure or enterprise, or of

the achievements of Germans in distant lands. They are thinking of the

extension of the German State. British influence beyond the seas has been

built up during the last four centuries by the character and achievements

of British pioneers. Downing Street has seldom helped, often hindered, and

generally only ratified the accomplished facts of British settlement and

influence. That is not the Prussian theory or the Prussian method. It is

for the State to win the territory, and then to set the people to work

there, on lines laid down from above. The individual Englishman, when

he goes out to colonise, carries England with him, as a part of his

personality. Not so the German, at least on the Prussian theory. "The _rare

case_ supervened," says Prince Bülow,[1] of an instance typical of the

building up of the British Empire, "that the establishment of State rule

_followed and did not precede_ the tasks of colonising and civilisation."

The State itself, on this theory, has a civilising mission of expansion

towards which it directs the activities of its citizens.

[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, 1st ed., p. 249.]

Under the influence of ideas such as these, Germany, since the accession of

William II., has built a Navy second to that of Great Britain alone.

What was the purpose of the building of the German Navy? The German

official answer is that its purpose was the protection of German trade. "We

are now vulnerable at sea," says Prince Bülow. "We have entrusted millions

to the ocean, and with these millions, the weal and woe of many of our

countrymen. If we had not in good time provided protection for them ...

we should have been exposed to the danger of having one day to look on

defencelessly while we were deprived of them. We should have been placed in

the position of being unable to employ and support a considerable number of

our millions of inhabitants at home. The result would have been an

economic crisis which might easily attain the proportions of a national

catastrophe."

These words may yet prove prophetic. But the catastrophe will not be the

result of Germany's lack of a Navy; it will be the result of challenging

the naval supremacy of Great Britain.

Prince Bülow's argument assumes, as a basis, the hostility of Great

Britain. This assumption, as we know, was unjustified; and its persistence

in the German mind can only be set down to an uneasy conscience. The hard

fact of the matter is that it is impossible for Germany or for any other

Power successfully to defend her foreign trade in case of war with Great

Britain. No other Power thinks it necessary to attempt to do so, for no

other Power has reason to desire or to foresee a naval conflict with Great

Britain.

Ever since 1493, when the Pope divided the monopoly of traffic on the ocean

between Spain and Portugal, and English mariners flouted his edict,

Great Britain has stood for the policy of the Open Sea, and there is no

likelihood of our abandoning it. The German official theory of the purpose

of their Navy, with its suspicious attitude towards British sea-power, was,

in effect, a bid for supremacy, inspired by the same ideas which made

the German army, under Bismarck, supreme in Central Europe. The Kaiser's

speeches on naval matters, notably his famous declaration that "our future

is on the water," provide an official confirmation, if one were needed, of

the real nature of Germany's naval ambitions.

But what right, it may be asked, has Great Britain to this naval supremacy?

Why should we, more than any other Power, claim one of the elements for our

own? Has not Germany some reason to be jealous? Why should we not allow

her, together with ourselves, "a place on the Ocean"?

The answer to this lies in the character of the British Empire. One quarter

of the human race live under the Union Jack, scattered throughout the

oceans and controlled from a small island in the Western seas. For Great

Britain, alone among the States of the world, naval supremacy, and nothing

less, is a daily and hourly necessity. India realised this truth recently

in a flash when, after generations of silent protection by British

sea-power, German shells fell one night at Madras. Any Power that

challenges the naval supremacy of Great Britain is quarrelling, not with

the British Government or the British people, but with the facts of

history, of geography, and of the political evolution of the world. The

British Empire has not been built up, like the German, by the work of

statesmen and thinkers; it is not the result, as Germans think, of

far-seeing national policy or persistent ambition and "greed." It has

slowly taken shape, during the last four centuries, since intercourse was

opened up by sea between the different races of mankind, in accordance with

the needs of the world as a whole. Its collapse, at the hands of Germany or

any other Power, would not mean the substitution of a non-British Empire

for a British. It would inaugurate a period of chaos in all five continents

of the world.

The rulers and people of Germany, who counted on the "decadence" of Great

Britain and the disintegration of her unorganised Empire, did not realise

these simple facts. Their lack of perception was due partly to their

political inexperience; but a deeper reason for it lies in their wholly

false estimate as to what "world-policy" and "world-empire" mean. Trained

in the Prussian school, they thought of them, like soldiers, in terms of

conquest, glory, and prestige. That way lies Napoleonism. None of the great

Powers is wholly free from blame on this score. But until Germans realise,

as the other Powers are slowly realising, that the true basis of Empire is

not a love of glory but a sense of responsibility towards backward peoples,

it will be hard to readmit them into the comity of the Great Powers. Only

a sense of common purposes and ideals, and of joint responsibility for

world-problems, can make the Concert of Europe a reality.

Such is the general attitude of mind among the German public of the younger

generation. Let us now turn to the effect of this new outlook upon the

political parties and groupings.

The chief result has been the extinction in Germany, as a political force,

of the great liberal movement of the mid-nineteenth century which in

England, France, and other Western countries has grown and developed during

the last generation along lines corresponding to the needs of the new

century. The younger generation of middle-class Germans, indoctrinated

with "orthodox" and "national" opinions at school and on military service,

eschew the ideals which attracted their fathers and grandfathers in 1848;

and, although so-called "liberal," "free-thinking," and Radical parties

still exist, they have steadily been growing more militarist. Militarism in

its new guise, bound up with ideas of industrial and commercial expansion,

is far more attractive to them than in the form of the Prussian Army. The

Emperor's Navy Bills were from the first more popular in commercial and

industrial circles than with the old Prussian Conservatives. But as the

years went on the Kaiser succeeded in converting both the Junkers to his

Navy Bills and the middle classes to his Army Bills, so that by 1913, when

he demanded the "great national sacrifice" of a levy of 50 million pounds

by a tax, not on income, but on property, there was no difficulty whatever

about "managing" the Reichstag. "The Army Bill of 1913," says Prince Bülow,

"met with such a willing reception from all parties as had never been

accorded to any requisition for armaments on land and sea.... So far as man

can tell, every necessary and justifiable Army and Navy Bill will always be

able to count on a safe Parliamentary majority."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, p. 169.]

Prince Bülow's "safe Parliamentary majority" means, of course, a majority

sufficient to outvote the Social Democrats, with whom every German

Government has to reckon as a permanent opposition.

So far we have left the Social Democrats out of the picture. It was

necessary to do this, in discussing German policy and the relation between

the German Government and Reichstag opinion; for the German Government

itself habitually leaves them out of the picture. Hitherto in Germany, so

far as opinion on political questions has mattered at all, it is upper-and

middle-class opinion that has counted, as it counted in England up to fifty

years ago. To the German Government and to the ordinary educated German

the Social Democratic party, though it numbers in its voting ranks over 4

million German workmen and others, does not represent German opinion at

all: it represents something un-German and anti-German--a public enemy.

Between the Social Democrats and the rest of society a great gulf is fixed,

across which no intercourse is possible: as the pioneers who attempted to

introduce the Workers' Educational Association into Germany found, such

intercourse is forbidden from either direction. The Social Democrats are

the "Red Danger," "men who," in the Kaiser's words, are "the enemies of

Empire and Fatherland," and "unworthy" (except, of course, in war-time)

"to bear the name of Germans." We must go back a hundred years in English

history to realise the depth of the animosity between the Social Democratic

party and the rest of German society. "The word Radical," says an English

historian, "conveyed a very different meaning in 1816 to what it does

now.... The hands of the Radicals were supposed to be against every man,

and every man's hand was against them. Scott, when he talks of rebels in

arms, always styles them Radicals. 'Radicalism is a spirit,' wrote the

Vicar of Harrow in 1820, 'of which the first elements are a rejection of

Scripture, and a contempt of all the institutions of your country, and

of which the results, unless averted by a merciful Providence, must be

anarchy, atheism, and universal ruin.'"[1] The Vicar of Harrow in 1820 very

fairly sums up the substance of innumerable German speeches, pamphlets, and

election addresses in 1912 on the subject of the Social Democrats.

[Footnote 1: Spencer Walpole, _History of England_, vol. i. p. 348.]

How is this extraordinary position maintained? How is it possible that in a

modern, largely industrial community, the representatives of working-class

opinion should be regarded as public enemies?

The chief reason lies, of course, in the fact that the German Empire is not

a democracy and is not governed by ministers responsible to Parliament. The

immense numbers and rapid growth of the Social Democrats have therefore not

really been a menace to the Government. In fact, it has even been held in

some quarters that it has been to the interest of the German Government,

which is based on the Prussian military caste, to manoeuvre the Social

Democrats into an extreme position and then to hold them up as a terrible

example of what democracy means. "This," they can tell the German people,

"is the alternative to Prussian rule." A dangerous policy, it may be

argued, for the Social Democrats may some day secure a majority in the

Reichstag. The Prussian answer to this is that, without a redistribution

of seats, this is barely conceivable; and that, were it to take place,

the Reichstag would promptly be dissolved for new elections on a narrower

franchise. Bismarck himself contemplated this course, and his successors

would not shrink from it.

Another reason why it has been possible for the Government to ignore the

Social Democrats has been the absence of a practical alternative programme

on the part of the Social Democrats themselves. "If I had to make out a

school report for the Social Democratic Movement," said Prince Bülow in

the Reichstag on one occasion, "I should say, 'Criticism, agitation,

discipline, and self-sacrifice, I. _a_; positive achievements, lucidity of

programme, V. _b._'" The taunt is not undeserved. The Socialist Movement

in Germany has suffered, like so many German movements, through a rigid

adherence to logical theories. Under the leadership of old revolutionary

thinkers like Bebel it has failed to adapt itself to the facts of modern

German life. The vague phrases of its republican programme, survivals from

a past epoch of European thought, have attracted to it a large mass of

inarticulate discontent which it has never been able to weld into a party

of practical reformers. In the municipal sphere and in the field of Trade

Unionism, under the education of responsibility, German Socialism can show

great achievements; but in national policy it has been as helpless as the

rest of the German nation.

What effect, it will be asked, is the war of 1914 likely to have on the

German working-class movement? In 1848 middle-class Germany made its stand

for democracy. May we hope for a similar and more successful movement,

in the direction of Western ideals and methods of government, from

working-class Germany as a result of 1914?

It is a tempting prophecy; but the outlook is not propitious. Germany,

Prussian and South German, noble, bourgeois, and working class, has rallied

round the Emperor in this crisis of national history, as the brutal and

cynical directors of German policy calculated that she would. For the

Social Democratic Movement the war comes with a peculiar appeal. It is a

war against Russia, a country about which the German workman knows little

and understands less, but which he considers to be the home of a reaction

far blacker than that of his own country. A war of aggression against

the Western Powers would have found the Social Democrats divided. By

representing Russia as the aggressor and the Western Powers as the

shameless allies of the "Mongol," German diplomacy, more successful within

than without, made certain of enlisting Socialist support.

Moreover, the Socialists too have to pass through a natural reaction from

their refusal to recognise the forces of Nationality--from Utopian dreams

of international action by the peoples across the barriers of separate

governments. For the first time in the history of the party, German

Socialism has been allowed to be patriotic. It is an exhilarating and

heartening experience, and it is certain to leave an indelible mark upon

the spirit of the movement. The great party organisation, hitherto confined

to the sterile work of agitation, is being used to cope with the many

problems created by the war; and this work, rather than revolutionary

agitation, is likely to occupy it for some time to come.

A veil has fallen upon Germany: German books and papers are stopped at our

ports: we cannot know through what thoughts the German nation is passing.

But as we look with the mind's eye across the North Sea, past devastated

Belgium to the populous towns of industrial Germany, we see a people

skilful, highly instructed, and mechanically intelligent, yet equally

devoid either of personal initiative or of great and inspiring leadership.

Two generations of Prussian education have left German public life

practically empty of names of more than local reputation. Great changes are

needed--a change of institutions and a change of spirit; yet whence this

will come we cannot divine. Only, as democrats, we can say with confidence

that if the true spirit of the German people is to be liberated from its

long imprisonment, its freedom must be won, not from without, but from

within. Not Europe but only the Germans can make Germany herself again.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

1. GERMAN HISTORY

BRYCE. _Holy Roman Empire_. (Deals with mediaeval Germany, but also

contains a most interesting final chapter on Germany in the Nineteenth

Century, written in 1873.) 1904. (7s. 6d.)

CARLYLE. _Frederick the Great_, vol. i. (Best account in English of the

earlier history of Prussia.) (2s. 6d.)

H.A.L. FISHER. _Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany_. 1903. (12s. 6d.)

(Germany in the Napoleonic era.)

SEELEY. _Life of Stein_. 1878. 3 vols. (30s.) (The standard work in English

on reorganisation of Prussia after Napoleon.)

BISMARCK. _Reflections and Reminiscences_. (The guiding mind in Germany,

1862-1888.) 2 vols. 1898. (Can only be bought second-hand.)

HEADLAM. _Life of Bismarck_. 1899. (6s.) (Heroes of the Nations.)

HOLLAND. _Germany to the Present Day_. 1913. (2s. net.) A useful short

history if supplemented by other books.

POWICKE. _Bismarck_. 1914. (6d.) (People's Books.) (Excellent.) The two

great modern German historians are Treitschke and Sybel, for whom see

Gooch's _History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century_, pp. 140-53.

Treitschke's history is not available in English: Sybel's has been

translated under the title, _The Founding of the German Empire by William

I._ vols., New York, 1890-1891.

2. GERMANY UNDER WILLIAM II.

BÜLOW. _Imperial Germany_. 1914. (2s. net.) (The mind of the German

Government.)

SAUNDERS. _The Last of the Huns_. 1914. (1s. net.) (In spite of its

objectionable title this volume, by the late correspondent of the _Times_

in Berlin, is written with fairness and lucidity, and contains much

valuable information.)

HENRI LICHTENBERGER. _Germany and its Evolution in Modern Times._ 1913.

(10s. 6d net.) (Translated from the French: suggestive, especially on

economic questions and on the movements of German thought.)

W.H. DAWSON. _The Evolution of Modern Germany_. 1908. (5s. net.) (The best

general account of modern Germany in English.)

C. TOWER. _Germany of To-day._ 1913. Home University Library. (Is.) (Good.)

C. SAROLEA. _The Anglo-German Problem_. (2s.) (A useful popular account of

German political conditions and German policy.)

_Board of Education Special Reports_, vols. iii. and ix. (3s. 3d. and 2s.

7d.) Articles by Dr. M.E. Sadler on German Education.

_Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe_. (Imperial Chancellor, 1894-1900.) 2 vols.

1906. (24s. net.)

The Britannica War Books. _Germany_. (2s. 6d. net.) By W. Alison Phillips

and J.W. Headlam. (A somewhat carelessly abridged reprint from the standard

article in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.)

3. GENERAL BOOKS

H.S. CHAMBERLAIN. _The foundations of the Nineteenth Century_. English

translation. 2 vols. 1910. (25s. net.) (This book had an immense vogue in

Germany, and was particularly recommended by the Kaiser to his subjects.

It is full of interesting, if ill-founded, generalisations tending to

emphasise the importance of Race and to glorify the German race.)

THOMAS. _German Literature_. (6s.)

ROBERTSON. _German Literature_. 1914. Home University Library. (1s.)

HERFORD AND OTHERS. _Germany in the Nineteenth Century_. Manchester. 1912.

(2s. 6d.) Essays on different aspects of German development.

BERNHARDT. _Germany and the Next War_. 1912. (2s. net.) (The philosophy and

aims of Gorman militarism worked out.)

CRAMB. _Germany and England_. 1914. (2s. 6d. net.) (An account of

Treitschke and his school of thought: interesting for the light it throws

on German misconceptions about Great Britain.)

TREITSCHKE. _Selections from his Lectures on Politics_. 1914.

Translated by A.L. Gowans. (2s. net.)

The writings of the following German professors will be found interesting

if procurable: Oncken, Meinecke (both contributors to the _Cambridge Modern

History_), Delbrück, Sombart, Erich Marcks (see his lectures on Germany in

_Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_, edited by Kirkpatrick,

Cambridge, 1900, 4s. 6d.), Schiemann, Lamprecht, Schmoller, and F. von

Liszt.

_Note_.--Such considered German writings as have come to hand since the

outbreak of the war show little tendency to cope with the real facts of the

situation, or even to seek to understand them. They seem to indicate two

developments in German opinion.

(1) A great consolidation of German national unity (except, of course, in

Poland and Alsace-Lorraine).

(2) A tendency to forgo the consideration of the immediate issues and to

hark back in thought to 1870 or even to the Wars of Liberation. It

is difficult to judge of a nation in arms from the writings of its

stay-at-homes; but no one can read recent articles by the leaders of German

thought without feeling that the Germans are still, before all things and

incurably, "the people of poets and philosophers," and that, by a tragic

irony, it is the best and most characteristic qualities of the race which

are sustaining and will continue to sustain it in the conflict in which its

dreams have involved it.