PSYCHOLOGY AND CAUSES WHICH PREPARED THE NATION FOR WAR
To the outsider, the Germans seem a fierce and martial nation.
But, in reality, the mass of the Germans, in consenting to the
great sacrifice entailed by their enormous preparations for war,
have been actuated by fear.
This fear dates from the Thirty Years' War, the war which commenced
in 1618 and was terminated in 1648. In 1648, when the Treaty
of Westphalia was concluded, Germany was almost a desert. Its
population had fallen from twenty millions to four millions.
The few remaining people were so starved that cannibalism was
openly practised. In the German States polygamy was legalised,
and was a recognised institution for many years thereafter.
Of thirty-five thousand Bohemian villages, only six thousand
were left standing. In the lower Palatinate only one-tenth of the
population survived; in Württemberg, only one-sixth. Hundreds of
square miles of once fertile country were overgrown with forests
inhabited only by wolves.
A picture of this horrible period is found in the curious novel,
"The Adventurous Simplicissimus," written by Grimmelshausen, and
published in 1669, which describes the adventures of a wise peasant
who finally leaves his native Germany and betakes himself to a desert
island which he refuses to leave when offered an opportunity to
go back to the Fatherland. He answers those who wish to persuade
him to go back with words which seem quite appropriate to-day:
"My God, where do you want to carry me? Here is peace. There is
war. Here I know nothing of the arts of the court, ambitions,
anger, envy, deceit, nor have I cares concerning my clothing and
nourishment.... While I still lived in Europe everything was
(O, woe that I must appear witness to such acts of Christians!)
filled with war, burning, murder, robbery, plundering and the
shame of women and virgins." The Munich weekly, "Simplicissimus,"
whose powerful political cartoons have often startled Europe,
takes its name from this character.
After the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War, Germany was again
and again ravaged by smaller wars, culminating in the Seven Years'
War of Frederick the Great and the humbling of Germany under
the heel of Napoleon. In the wars Of Frederick the Great, one
tenth of the population was killed. Even the great Battle of
the Nations at Leipsic in 1813 did not free Germany from wars,
and in 1866 Prussia and the smaller North German States, with
Italy, defeated Austria, assisted by Bavaria, Hesse-Cassel,
Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, Saxony, Baden, Württemberg and Hanover.
I am convinced that the fear of war induced by a hereditary instinct,
caused the mass of the Germans to become the tools and dupes of
those who played upon this very fear in order to create a military
autocracy. On the other hand, and, especially, in the noble class,
we have in Germany a great number of people who believe in war for
its own sake. In part, these nobles are the descendants of the
Teutonic Knights who conquered the Slav population of Prussia,
and have ever since bound that population to their will.
The Prussian army was created by the father of Frederick the
Great, who went to the most ridiculous extremes in obtaining tall
men at all costs for his force.
The father of Frederick the Great gave the following written
instructions to the two tutors of his son. "Above all let both
tutors exert themselves to the utmost to inspire him with a love
of soldiery and carefully impress upon his mind that, as nothing
can confer honour and fame upon a prince except the sword, the
monarch who seeks not his sole satisfaction in it must ever appear
a contemptible character in the eyes of the world."
Frederick the Great left, by the death of that father who had
once threatened to execute him, at the head of a marvellous army
with a full treasury, finally decided upon war, as he admits in
his own letters, "in order to be talked about," and his desire
to be talked about led to the Seven Years' War.
The short war against Denmark in 1864, against Austria, Bavaria,
etc., in 1866 and against France in 1870, enormously increased
both the pride and prestige of the Prussian army. It must not
be forgotten that at all periods of history it seems as if some
blind instinct had driven the inhabitants of the inhospitable
plains of North Germany to war and to conquest. The Cimbri and
Teutones--the tribes defeated by Marius; Ariovistus, who was
defeated by Julius Caesar; the Goths and the Visi-Goths; the
Franks and the Saxons; all have poured forth from this infertile
country, for the conquest of other lands. The Germans of to-day
express this longing of the North Germans for pleasanter climes
in the phrase in which they demand "a place in the sun."
The nobles of Prussia are always for war. The business men and
manufacturers and shipowners desire an increasing field for their
activities. The German colonies were uninhabitable by Europeans.
All his life the glittering Emperor and his generals had planned
and thought of war; and the Crown Prince, surrounded by his
remarkable collection of relics and reminders of Napoleon, dreamed
only of taking the lead in a successful war of conquest. Early in
the winter of 1913-14, the Crown Prince showed his collection of
Napoleana to a beautiful American woman of my acquaintance, and
said that he hoped war would occur while his father was alive,
but, if not, he would start a war the moment he came to the throne.
Since writing the above, the American woman who had this conversation
with the Crown Prince wrote out for me the exact conversation
in her own words, as follows: "I had given him Norman Angell's
book, 'The Great Illusion,' which seeks to prove that war is
unprofitable. He (the Crown Prince) said that whether war was
profitable or not, when he came to the throne there would be war,
if not before, just for the fun of it. On a previous occasion
he had said that the plan was to attack and conquer France, then
England, and after that my country (the United States of America);
Russia was also to be conquered, and Germany would be master of
the world."
The extraordinary collection of relics, statues, busts, souvenirs,
etc., of the first Napoleon, collected by the Crown Prince, which
he was showing at the time of the first of these conversations
to this American lady, shows the trend of his mind and that all
his admiration is centred upon Napoleon, the man who sought the
mastery of the world, and who is thought by admirers like the
Crown Prince to have failed only because of slight mistakes which
they feel, in his place, they would not have made.
If the Germans' long preparations for war were to bear any fruit,
countless facts pointed to the summer of 1914 as the time when the
army should strike that great and sudden blow at the liberties
of the world.
It was in June, 1914, that the improved Kiel Canal was reopened,
enabling the greatest warships to pass from the Baltic to the
North Sea.
In the Zeppelins the Germans had arms not possessed by any other
country and with which they undoubtedly believed that they could
do much more damage to England than was the case after the actual
outbreak of hostilities. They had paid great attention to the
development of the submarine. Their aeroplanes were superior to
those of other nations. They believed that in the use of poison
gas, which was prepared before the outbreak of the war, they had
a prize that would absolutely demoralise their enemy. They had
their flame throwers and the heavy artillery and howitzers which
reduced the redoubtable forts of Liege and Namur to fragments
within a few hours, and which made the holding of any fortresses
impossible.
On their side, by the imposition of a heavy tax called the
_Wehrbeitrag_ or supplementary defence tax, they had, in
1913, increased their army by a number of army corps. On the
other hand, the law for three years' military service voted in
France had not yet gone into effect, nor had the law for universal
military service voted by the Belgian Chambers. Undoubtedly the
Germans based great hopes upon the Bagdad railway which was to
carry their influence to the East, and even threatened the rule
of England in Egypt and India. Undoubtedly there was talk, too,
of a Slav railroad to run from the Danube to the Adriatic which
would cut off Germany from access to the Southern Sea. Francis
Deloisi, the Frenchman, in his book published before the great
war, called "De la Guerre des Balkans à la Guerre Européenne,"
says, "In a word, the present war (Balkan) is the work of Russia,
and the Danube Asiatic railway is a Russian project. If it succeeds,
a continuous barrier of Slav peoples will bar the way to the
Mediterranean of the path of Austro-German expansion from the
Black Sea to the Adriatic. But here again the Romanoffs confront
the Hapsburgs, the Austro-Serb conflict becomes the Austro-Russian
conflict, two great groups are formed, and the Balkan conflict
becomes the European conflict."
Another reason for an immediate war was the loan by France to
Russia made on condition that additional strategic railways were
to be constructed by the Russians in Poland. Although this money
had been received, the railways had not been constructed at the
time of the opening of the Great War. Speaking of this situation,
the Russian General Kuropatkin, in his report for the year 1900,
said, "We must cherish no illusions as to the possibility of an
easy victory over the Austrian army," and he then went on to say,
"Austria had eight railways to transport troops to the Russian
frontier while Russia had only four; and, while Germany had seventeen
such railways running to the German-Russian frontier, the Russians
had only five." Kuropatkin further said, "The differences are too
enormous and leave our neighbours a superiority which cannot be
overcome by the numbers of our troops, or their courage."
Comparing the two armies, he said, "The invasion of Russia by
German troops is more probable than the invasion of Germany by
Russian troops"; and, "Our Western frontier, in the event of
a European war, would be in such danger as it never has known
in all the history of Russia."
Agitation by workmen in Russia was believed in Germany to be
the beginning of a revolution. Illuminating figures may be seen
in the gold purchase of the German Imperial Bank: in 1911,
174,000,000 marks; in 1912, 173,000,000 marks; but in 1913,
317,000,000 marks.
There was a belief in Germany that the French nation was degenerate
and corrupt and unprepared for war. This belief became conviction
when, in the debates of the French Senate, Senator Humbert, early
in 1914, publicly exposed what he claimed to be the weakness
and unpreparedness of France.
Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador in London, certainly
reported to his government that England did not wish to enter
the war. He claims now that he did not mean that England would
not fight at all events, but undoubtedly the German Foreign Office
believed that England would remain out of the war. The raising of
the Ulster army by Sir Edward Carson, one of the most gigantic
political bluffs in all history, which had no more revolutionary
or military significance than a torchlight parade during one of
our presidential campaigns, was reported by the German spies
as a real and serious revolutionary movement; and, of course, it
was believed by the Germans that Ireland would rise in general
rebellion the moment that war was declared. In the summer of
1914 Russia was believed to be on the edge of revolution.
As I have said in a previous chapter, the movement against
militarism, culminating in the extraordinary vote in the Reichstag
against the government at the time of the Zabern Affair, warned
the government and military people that the mass of Germans were
coming to their senses and were preparing to shake off the bogy of
militarism and fear, which had roosted so long on their shoulders
like a Prussian old-man-of-the-sea. The Pan-Germans and the
Annexationists were hot for war. The people alive could recall
only three wars, the war against Denmark in 1864, which was settled
in a few days and added the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to
the Prussian crown, and the war of 1866 in which Bavaria, Baden,
Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Saxony were defeated, when the
Austrian kingdom of Hanover disappeared and the territories of
Hesse-Cassel and Nassau, and the free city of Frankfort were
added to Prussia. This war, from its declaration to the battle
of Königgratz in which the Austrians were completely defeated,
lasted only two weeks. In 1870 France was defeated within a month
and a half after the opening of hostilities; so that the Kaiser
was implicitly believed when, on the first day of the war, he
appeared on the balcony of the palace and told the crowds who
were keen for war, that "before the leaves have fallen from the
trees you will be back in your homes." The army and all Germany
believed him and believed, too, that a few short weeks would
see the destruction of France and the consequent seizure of her
rich colonies; that Russia could then be struck a good quick
blow before she could concentrate her army and resources; that
England would remain neutral; and that Germany would consequently
become, if not the actual owner, at least the dictator of the
world. Some one has since said that the Emperor must have meant
pine trees.
Working ever in the dark, either owning or influencing newspapers,
the great munition and arms factory of the Krupp's insidiously
poisoned the minds of the people with the microbe of war.
Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador to London, called upon
me often after the outbreak of the war, and insisted that he
had correctly reported the sentiments of England in saying that
England did not want war. After his return to Germany the Germans
quite unfairly treated him as a man who had failed and seemed
to blame him because England had taken the only possible course
open to her and ranged herself on the side of France and Russia.
The dedication at Leipzig, in the year 1913, of the great monument
to celebrate what is called the "War of Liberation," and the
victory of Leipzig in the War of the Nations, 1813, had undoubtedly
kindled a martial spirit in Germany. To my mind, the course which
really determined the Emperor and the ruling class for war was
the attitude of the whole people in the Zabern Affair and their
evident and growing dislike of militarism. The fact that the
Socialists, at the close of the session of the Reichstag, boldly
remained in the Chamber and refused to rise or to cheer the name
of the Emperor indicated a new spirit of resistance to autocracy;
and autocracy saw that if it was to keep its hold upon Germany
it must lead the nation into a short and successful war.
This is no new trick of a ruling and aristocratic class. From
the days when the patricians of Rome forced the people into war
whenever the people showed a disposition to demand their rights,
autocracies have always turned to war as the best antidote against
the spirit of democracy.