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Title: Face to Face with Kaiserism
Author: Gerard, James W., 1867-1951
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Face to Face with Kaiserism" ***
FACE TO FACE WITH KAISERISM
by
JAMES W. GERARD
Late Ambassador to the German Imperial Court,
Author of "My Four Years in Germany"
[Illustration]
New York
George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1918,
by George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1918, by The Public Ledger Company
Copyright, Canada, 1918, by The Public Ledger Company
Printed in the United States of America
TO
COLONEL EDWARD M. HOUSE
STATESMAN AND FRIEND
THE AUTHOR
DEDICATES THIS BOOK
[Illustration]
[Illustration: PAPER MONEY USED IN PRISON CAMPS]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PRISON CAMP MONEY CERTIFICATE
ISSUED AT THE PRISON CAMP OF NEUHAMMER]
[Illustration: PAPER MONEY ISSUED AGAINST PROPERTY IN GERMANY.
REALLY A "GREENBACK" OR ALMOST FIAT MONEY]
[Illustration: POSTAGE STAMPS ISSUED AT RUHLEBEN PRISON CAMP.
USED BY PRISONERS WRITING TO EACH OTHER IN THE CAMP.]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION OF THE KAISER'S VISITING
CARD]
[Illustration: THE VISITING CARD OF THE CROWN PRINCE, REPRODUCED
IN FACSIMILE]
[Illustration: THE KAISER AND VON TREUTLER TAKEN IN THE NORWEGIAN
TOWN OF ODDE IN 1910]
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In some measure this book is a continuation of MY FOUR YEARS IN
GERMANY, the narrative here being carried up to the time of my
return home, with some observations on the situation I have found
in the United States.
What I want especially to impress upon the people of the United
States is that we are at war because Germany invaded the United
States--an invasion insidiously conceived and vigorously
prosecuted for years before hostilities began;--that this war is
our war;--that the sanctity of American freedom and of the
American home depend upon what we do _NOW_.
JAMES W. GERARD.
NEW YORK,
APRIL FIRST, 1918.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I PERSONALITY OF THE KAISER AND SOMETHING OF THE KING BUSINESS 13
II WHO DOES THE KAISER'S THINKING AND WHO DECIDED ON THE BREAK
WITH AMERICA? 32
III WHO SANK THE "LUSITANIA"? 42
IV THE KAISER AND "LÈSE-MAJESTÉ" 49
V WHEN THE KAISER THOUGHT WE WERE BLUFFING 55
VI THE INSIDE OF GERMAN DIPLOMACY 73
VII GERMANY'S PLAN TO ATTACK AMERICA 84
VIII GERMANY'S EARLY PLOTS IN MEXICO 111
IX THE KULTUR OF KAISERDOM--THE GERMAN SOUL 129
X THE LITTLE KAISERS 143
XI ROYALTY'S RECREATION 148
XII THE ETERNAL FEMININE 157
XIII HOME LIFE AND "BRUTALITY" OF THE PEOPLE 166
XIV AIMS OF THE AUTOCRACY 174
XV AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--THE KAISER'S VASSAL STATE 196
XVI GERMAN INFLUENCE ON THE NORTHERN NEUTRALS 217
XVII SWITZERLAND--ANOTHER KIND OF NEUTRAL 230
XVIII A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 237
XIX MY INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF SPAIN 251
XX GERMAN SPIES AND THEIR METHODS 263
XXI EN ROUTE HOME--KAISERISM IN AMERICA 273
XXII THAT INTERVIEW WITH THE KAISER 300
XXIII THE FUTURE KAISER--THE CROWN PRINCE AND HIS BROTHERS 312
XXIV WHEN GERMANY WILL BREAK DOWN 323
XXV THE ERRORS OF EFFICIENT GERMANY 340
XXVI PRESIDENT WILSON AND PEACE 346
XXVII AFTER THE WAR, WHAT? 368
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE KAISER AND VON TREUTLER _Frontispiece_
THE IRON CROSS 36
THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY STAFF, BERLIN 50
FACSIMILE OF AN ORDER ISSUED BY COMMANDER OF GERMAN PRISON CAMP
OF DOEBERITZ 78
COVER OF PAMPHLET BY JOHN L. STODDARD 104
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN COURTYARD OF EMBASSY, AUGUST, 1916 126
EXAMPLE OF A COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL OFFERED FOR SALE 152
VIEWS OF A TYPICAL HOLSTEIN COUNTRY HOME 188
MAIN STAIRWAY IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, BERLIN 210
AMBASSADORS SHARP AND GERARD, PARIS, FEBRUARY, 1917 240
THE "INFANTA ISABELLA" 274
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AFTER BANQUET GIVEN AMBASSADOR GERARD ON JANUARY
6TH, 1917 304
THE CROWN PRINCE AND CROWN PRINCESS 316
REPRODUCTION OF ZEPPELIN POST CARD OF PATRIOTIC SENTIMENT 336
ZEPPELIN POST CARD SOLD IN GERMANY 336
FACE TO FACE WITH KAISERISM
CHAPTER I
PERSONALITY OF THE KAISER AND SOMETHING OF THE KING BUSINESS
To the American mind the Kaiser is the personification of
Germany. He is the arch enemy upon whom the world places the
responsibility for this most terrible of all wars. I have sat
face to face with him in the palace at Berlin where, as the
personal representative and envoy of the President of the United
States, I had the honor of expressing the viewpoint of a great
nation. I have seen him in the field as the commanding general of
mighty forces, but I also have seen him in the neutral countries
through which I passed on my return home and in my own beloved
land--in the evidence of intrigue and plotting which this
militaristic monarch has begotten and which is to-day "the
Thing," as President Wilson calls it, which has brought the
American people face to face with kaiserism in the greatest
conflict of all history.
What manner of man is he? What is his character? How much was he
responsible for what has happened--how much his General Staff?
What of the Crown Prince and what of the neutral peoples and
their rulers whom Germany has intimidated and would fain
subjugate if it suited her purpose? These are the questions I
shall attempt to answer out of my experiences in Germany and my
contacts with the rulers of other countries in my journeys to and
from Berlin and Washington.
To illustrate the craft of the Kaiser, I believe I can perform no
better service to Americans than to reveal an incident which has
not hitherto been published. It occurred at the New Year's
reception of 1914 when the Ambassadors of all the foreign
countries represented at the German court, were ranged in a large
room at the Palace. They stood about six feet apart in the order
of their residence in Berlin. The Kaiser and his aides entered
the room, and the Emperor spoke a few minutes to each envoy. He
tarried longest with the Turkish Ambassador and myself, thereby
arousing the curiosity of the other diplomats who suspected that
the Kaiser did more than merely exchange the greetings of the
season. He did.
What the German Emperor said to me interests every American
because it shows his subtlety of purpose. _The Kaiser talked at
length to me about what he called Japan's designs on the United
States. He warned me that Mexico was full of Japanese spies and
an army of Japanese colonels._ He also spoke about France, saying
that he had made every effort to make up with France, that he had
extended his hand to that country but that the French had
refused to meet his overtures, that he was through and would not
try again to heal the breach between France and Germany!
All this was in 1914, six months before the outbreak of the
European War. Little did I know then what the purpose was back of
that conversation, but it is clear now that the Emperor wished to
have the government of the United States persuaded through me
that he was really trying to keep Europe at peace and that the
responsibility for what was going to happen would be on France.
The German is so skilful at intrigue that he seeks even in
advance of an expected offensive to lay the foundation for
self-justification.
But the reference to Japan and alleged hostility against us on
the part of fanciful hordes of Japanese in Mexico made me wonder
at the time. There were many evidences subsequent to that New
Year's Day reception of an attempt to alienate us from Japan. As
a climax to it all, as a clarification of what the Emperor had in
mind, came the famous Zimmermann note, the instructions to the
German Minister in Mexico to align both Japan and Mexico against
us when we entered the war against Germany!
Plotting and intriguing for power and mastery! Such is the
business of absolute rulers.
I believe that had the old Austrian Kaiser lived a little while
longer, the prolongation of his life would have been most
disastrous both for Austria and Hungary. I believe after the
death of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo and after a year of war the
German Emperor and autocracy were brooding over a plan according
to which, on the death of Francis Joseph, the successor should be
allowed to rule only as King or Grand-Duke of Austria, the title
of Emperor of Austria to disappear and German Princes to be
placed upon the thrones of Hungary and of a new kingdom of
Bohemia. These and the king or grand-duke of Austria were to be
subject-monarchs under the German Kaiser, who was thus to revive
an empire, if not greater, at least more powerful, than the
empires of Charlemagne and of Charles the Fifth. Many public
utterances of the German Kaiser show that trend of mind.
Emperor William deliberately wrote and published, for instance,
such a statement as this: "From childhood I have been influenced
by five men, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Theodoric II,
Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Each of these men dreamed a
dream of world empire. They failed. I have dreamed a dream of
German world empire and my mailed fist shall succeed."
Could any declaration of a life's ambition be more explicit? It
seems impossible for human ambition to stand still. Either a man
loses all stimulus of self and becomes as spiritless as a fagged
animal or ambition drives him always on--he is never content with
any success achieved. The millionaire to whom the first million,
when he was a boy, seemed the extreme limit of human wealth and
desire, presses on insatiably with the first million in his
pocket, more restless, more dissatisfied, than the hungry
farmer's boy who first carries his ambitions to the great city.
When these zealous, scheming men gain the power of kingship, they
usually bring disaster to their country. Their subjects find no
compensation in the personal ambitions which hurry a nation into
the miseries of war. Better Charles II, dallying with his
ringletted mistresses, than an Alexander the Great; better Henry
the Fourth of France, the "ever-green gallant," than Frederick
the Great, bathing his people in blood. "Happy nations have no
history."
William the Second, the present German Emperor, might well be
called the Restless Emperor. He is never satisfied to remain more
than a few days in any place or in any occupation. He commands
his armies in person. He has won distinction as a writer and a
public speaker. He is an excellent shot. He has composed music,
written verses, superintended the production of a ballet, painted
a picture; the beautiful Byzantine chapel in the Castle of Posen
shows his genius for architecture; and, clothed in a clergyman's
surplice, he has preached a sermon in Jerusalem. What ruler in
all history has exhibited such extraordinary versatility?
In my conversations with the Emperor I have been struck by his
knowledge of other countries, lands which he had never visited.
He was familiar not only with their manners, customs, industries
and public men, but with their commercial problems. Through his
conversation one can see the keen eye of the Hanseatic trader
looking with eager envy on the trade of a rival merchant. The
Emperor, incidentally, while instinctively commercial, has an
inborn contempt, if not for the law, at least for lawyers. In
October, 1915, for instance, he remarked to me, "This is a
lawyers' war, Asquith and Lloyd George in England, Poincaré and
Briand in France."
In appearance and conversation Emperor William is very manly. His
voice is strong, with a ring in it. He is a good rider. Following
the German custom, he puts on his nightshirt every afternoon
after lunch and sleeps for two hours--for the German is more
devoted to the siesta than the Spaniard or Mexican. The hours of
the Berlin Foreign Office, for example, were from eleven to one
and from four to eight. After a heavy lunch at one o'clock all
the officials took a nap for an hour or two. Also, the hours of
the bank where I did business were from ten to one and from four
till six. This meant that after six o'clock the clerks had to sit
until perhaps eight making up the books for the day.
In 1916, the Olympic games were to have taken place at Berlin,
and in September, 1913, before sailing for Germany, I attended a
luncheon at the New York Athletic Club, given by President Page,
with the members of the German Commission who had come to America
to study athletics and to see what could be done in Germany so
that the Germans could make a good showing at the games in their
own city.
After my arrival in Germany one of the members of this commission
told me that it was impossible, he believed, to organise the
Germans as athletes until German meal and business hours had been
changed. He said that with us in America young men leaving
business at four-thirty, five or five-thirty, had time in which
to exercise before their evening meal, but that in Germany the
young men ate so much at the midday meal that they required their
siesta after it, and that they did not leave their offices until
so late in the evening that exercise and practice were impossible.
On the Emperor's table his wine glasses or rather cups are of
silver. Possibly this is because he has been forbidden by his
physician to drink wine. The Germans maintain the old-fashioned
custom of drinking healths at meals. Some one far down the table
will lift his glass, look at you and smile. You are then expected
to lift your glass and drink with him and then both bow and smile
over the glasses. As the Emperor must reciprocate with every one
present, his champagne and wine are put in silver cups in order
that those drinking wine with him do not see that he consumes no
appreciable quantity of alcoholic liquor on the occasion of each
health drinking. Some people in America may have often wished for
a similar device.
The Emperor is out of uniform only on rare occasions.
Occasionally, when in a foreign country, he has appeared in
civilian dress, as shown in the accompanying photograph, taken in
1910 at the small town of Odde in Norway, where he had landed
from his yacht. He appears to much better advantage in uniform
than in civilian attire. Although uniformed while at sea as an
Admiral, his favourite uniform is really that of the Hussars. In
this picture he is accompanied by Baron von Treutler, Prussian
Minister to Bavaria and Foreign Office representative with the
Kaiser. Von Treutler is a German of the world. I met him at the
Great General Headquarters, at the end of April, 1916, when the
submarine question was being discussed. He came to dinner several
times at the Chancellor's house, undoubtedly reporting back what
was said to the Emperor, and I believe that his voice was against
the resumption of ruthless submarine warfare and in favour of
peace with America. Shortly after this period he fell into
disfavour and went back to occupy his post of Minister in Munich.
In conversation, the Emperor reminds one very much of Roosevelt,
talking with the same energy, the same violence of gesture and of
voice so characteristic of our great ex-President. When the
Emperor talks all his attention is given to you and all his
mental energy is concentrated on the conversation. In this
violence of manner and voice he seems not at all German. The
average German is neither exuberant nor soft-spoken.
His favourite among his ancestors is William of Orange. Once he
attended a fancy-dress ball in costume and make-up copied from
the well-known picture of that Prince. The Emperor is strongly
built and is about five feet nine inches tall. He sits well on
his horse and walks, too, with head erect and shoulders thrown
back--a picture of military precision.
A friend of mine who was present at Kiel with his yacht, in 1910,
tells me that when all the yachts and warships had been assembled
along the long narrow waterway which constitutes that harbour,
with the crews lined up on deck or manning the yards, with bands
crashing and banners floating, the _Hohenzollern_ slowly steamed
into the harbour and passed lazily and majestically through the
waiting ships. Alone on the upper bridge stood the Monarch,
attired in full military uniform, with white coat and tight
breeches, high top boots, shining silver breastplate and silver
helmet, surmounted by an eagle, the dress of the Prussian Guard
Regiment so dear to those who portray romantic and kingly rôles
upon the stage, a figure on whom all eyes were fixed, as splendid
as that of Lohengrin, drawn by his fairy swan, coming to rescue
the unjustly accused Princess. And, alas, the Germans like all
this pomp and splendour. It appeals to something in the German
heart and seems to create a feeling of affection and humility in
the German breast.
When I talked at length one day with President Wilson on my visit
to America in October, 1916, he remarked, half to himself, in
surprise at my tale of war, "Why does all this horror come on the
world? What causes it?" "Mr. President," I answered, "it is the
king business."
I did not mean nominal kings as harmless as those of Spain and
England. I was thinking of the powerful monarchs. A German
republic would never have embarked on this war; a German Congress
would have thought twice before sending their own sons to death
in a deliberate effort to enslave other peoples. In a free
Germany teachers, ministers and professors would not have taught
the necessity of war. What German merchant in a free Germany
would have thought that all the trade of the East, all the riches
of Bagdad and Cairo and Mosul could compensate him for the death
of his first-born or restore the blind eyes to the youngest son
who now crouches, cowering, over the fire, awaiting death? For
there was no trade necessity for this war. I know of no place in
the world where German merchants were not free to trade. The
disclosures of war have shown how German commerce had penetrated
every land, to an extent unknown to the best informed. If the
German merchants wanted this war in order to gain a German
monopoly of the world's trade, then they are rightly suffering
from the results of overweening covetousness.
Experts in insanity say that the Roman Emperors as soon as they
attained the rule of the world were made mad by the possession of
that stupendous power. The sceptre of Emperor William is mighty.
No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or
ruler. But you will say how about our President in time of war?
Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents
have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through the
school of hard knocks. And there are ways of keeping them abreast
of the people.
It is told that hidden from public view, crouched down in the
chariot in which the successful Roman pro-consul or general drove
triumphantly through the crowded streets of Rome, was a slave
celebrated for his impertinence, whose duty it was to make the
one honoured feel that, after all, he was nothing more than an
ordinary mortal blessed with a certain amount of good luck.
Probably as the chariot passed by the forum the slave would say,
after a thunderous burst of applause from the populace: "Do not
take that applause too seriously. That is the T. Quintus Cassius
Association whose chief received a hundred sesterces from your
brother-in-law yesterday, on account, with a promise of a hundred
more in case the Association's cheers seemed loud and sincere."
So in America the press, serious and comic, takes the place of
the humble slave and throws enough cold water on the head of any
temporarily successful American to reduce it to normal proportions.
Besides, the President knows that some day he must return to the
ranks, live again with his neighbours, seek out the threads of a
lost law practice or eke out a livelihood on the Chautauqua
circuit in the discomfort of tiny hotels, travelling in upper
berths instead of private cars and eating on lunch stools in small
stations instead of in the sumptuous surroundings of presidential
luxury. These are sobering prospects.
Kings, on the other hand, come to look on their subjects as toys.
A post-card popular in Austria and Germany showed the old
Emperor, Francis Joseph, seated at a table with a little
great-grand-nephew on his knee, teaching the child to move toy
soldiers about on the boards; and it is unfortunately true that
the same youngster--should the system of the Central Empires be
perpetuated--will be able to move his subjects across the map of
Europe just as he did the toy soldiers on his great-grand-uncle's
table. He will be able to tear men from their work and their
homes, to seize great scientists, great chemists, great
inventors--men who may be on the eve of discoveries or remedies
destined to rid the human race of the scourge of cancer or the
white plague--and send them to death in the marshes of Macedonia
or the fastnesses of the Carpathians because some fellow-king or
emperor has deceived or outwitted him.
In a monarchy all subjects seem the personal property of the
monarch and all expressions of power become personal. This
extends throughout all countries ruled by royalty.
* * * * *
When, for example, a member of the royal family dies, even in
another country, it must be lamented by the court circle of other
lands. Here is the official notice sent to all diplomats and
members of the Imperial German Court on the occasion of the death
of the Queen of Sweden.
"The Court goes into mourning to-day for Her
Majesty the Queen-Mother of Sweden for three weeks
up to and including the 19th of January, 1914.
"Ladies wear black silk dresses, for the first
fourteen days, including January 12th, with black
hair ornaments, black gloves, black fans and
black jewelry; the last eight days with white hair
ornaments, grey gloves, white fans and pearls.
"Gentlemen wear the whole time a black band on the
left sleeve. Civilians wear with the embroidered
coat, during the first fourteen days, including
January 12th, on occasions of Grand Gala, black
buckles and swords with black sheathes. During the
last eight days bright buckles; on occasions of
'Half Gala' gold or silver embroidered trousers of
the color of the uniform and in the one as in the
other case gold or silver embroidered hat with
white plume; with the 'small' uniform, however,
black trousers (or knee-breeches, black silk
stockings, shoes with black bows and the
'three-cornered' hat with black plume). During the
first fourteen days gentlemen wear black woolen
vests and black gloves, in the last eight days
black silk vests and grey gloves.
"Berlin, December 30, 1913.
"The Ober-Ceremonienmeister.
"GRAF A. EULENBURG.
"By command of His Majesty the Emperor, mourning
will be suspended for New Year's Day and the 17th
and 18th of January."
So, it is apparent what a close corporation all the royal
families make and the peoples are simply viewed as the personal
property of the ruling princes. In his telegram which the German
Kaiser wrote to President Wilson on August tenth, observe that
all is personal. The Kaiser says, "I telegraphed to His Majesty
the King, _personally_, but that if, etc., I would employ _my_
troops elsewhere.... His Majesty answered that he thought _my_
offer...." He speaks of the King of the Belgians "having refused
_my_ petition for a free passage." He refers to "_my_ Ambassador
in London."
This telegram shows, on the other hand, another thing,--the great
ability of the Kaiser. Undoubtedly he knew why I was coming to
see him--to present the offer of mediation of President
Wilson--but from our conversation I do not think that he had even
in his mind prepared the answer, which sets forth his position in
entering the war.
He said, "Wait a moment, I shall write something for the
President." Then taking the telegraph blanks lying on the table,
he wrote rapidly and fluently. It was a message in a foreign
language, and, whatever we may think of its content, at any rate
it is clear, concise, consecutive and forceful.
The personal touch runs through that extraordinary series of
telegrams in the famous "Willy-Nicky" correspondence between
Kaiser Wilhelm and the last of the Romanoffs, discovered in
Petrograd by Herman Bernstein. These reveal, moreover, the
surpassing craft of the German Kaiser. He was the master schemer.
Touting for German trade, always for his advantage, he twists the
poor half-wit of the Winter Palace like a piece of straw.
Emperor William was not satisfied with a quiet life as patron of
trade. As he studied the portraits of his ancestors, he felt that
they gazed at him with reproachful eyes, demanded that he add, as
did they, to the domains of the Hohenzollerns, that he return
from war in triumph at the head of a victorious army with the
keys of fallen cities borne before him in conquering march.
One-tenth of Frederick the Great's people fell, but to the
poverty-stricken peasant woman of Prussia, lamenting her husband
and dead sons, did it matter that the rich province of Silesia
had been added to the Prussian Crown? What was it to that broken
mother whether the Silesian peasants acknowledged the Prussian
King or the Austrian Empress? Despots both. And what countless
serfs fell in the wars between the King and the Empress! I once
asked von Jagow when this war would end. He answered, "An old
history of the Seven Years' War concludes, 'The King and the
Empress were tired of war, so they made peace.' That is how this
war will end." Will it? Will it end in a draw, to be resumed when
some king feels the war fever on him? No, this war must end
despots, and with them all wars!
It is all such a matter of personal whim. For instance before
Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany, even the best
informed Germans predicted that King Ferdinand would never join
Germany because of an incident which occurred in the Royal Palace
of Berlin. This is how it happened:
It is the custom for one monarch to make his pals in the King
business officers of his army or navy. Thus the German Emperor
was General Field Marshal and Proprietor of the 34th "William the
first, German Emperor and King of Prussia" Infantry, and of the
7th "William the Second, German Emperor and King of Prussia"
Hussars, in the Austro-Hungarian Army; Chief of the "King
Frederick William III St. Petersburg Life Guards," the 85th
"Viburg" Infantry and the 13th "Narva" Hussars, and the "Grodno"
Hussars of the Guard, in the Russian Army; Field Marshal in British Army;
Hon. Admiral of the British Fleet and Colonel-in-Chief 1st Dragoons;
General in the Swedish Army and Flag Admiral of the Fleet; Hon.
Admiral of the Norwegian and Danish Fleets; Admiral of the
Russian Fleet; Hon. Captain-General in the Spanish Army and Hon.
Colonel of the 11th "Naumancia" Spanish Dragoons; and Hon.
Admiral of the Greek Fleet.
The King of Bulgaria was Chief of the 4th Thuringia Infantry
Regiment No. 72, in the Prussian Army. As per custom, on a visit
to Berlin he donned his uniform of the Thuringian Infantry. He
had put on a little weight, and military unmentionables, be it
known, are notoriously tight. So as he leaned far out of the
Palace window to admire the passing troops, he presented a mark
so tempting that the Emperor, in jovial mood, was impelled to
administer a resounding spank on the sacred seat of the Czar of
all the Balkans. Instead of taking the slap in the same jovial
spirit in which it was given the Czar Ferdinand, a little jealous
of the self-assumed title of Czar, became furiously angry--so
angry that even the old diplomats of the Metternich school
believed for a time that he never would forgive the whack and
even might refuse to join Germany. But Czar Ferdinand, believing
in the military power of Germany, cast his already war-worn
people in the war against the Allies, much to the regret of many
Bulgarian statesmen who, having been educated at Robert College,
near Constantinople, a college founded and maintained by
Americans, and having imbibed somewhat of the American spirit
there, were not over-pleased to think of themselves arrayed
against the United States of America.
But there is no monarch in all Europe who is more wily than Czar
Ferdinand. At a great feast in Bulgaria at which Emperor William
was present, Czar Ferdinand toasted the Emperor in Latin and
alluded to him as "_Miles Gloriosus_"--which all present took to
mean "glorious soldier"; but the exact Latin meaning of
"gloriosus" is "glorious" in its first meaning and "boastful" in
its second, a meaning well known in Berlin where, at the "Little
Theatre," in a series of plays of all ages, the "_Miles
Gloriosus_" of Plautus had just been presented--a boastful,
conceited soldier, the "_Miles Gloriosus_," the chief character
of the comedy.
Nothing illustrates more vividly the belief of the royal families
of the Central Empires in their God-given right to rule the plain
people than those few words of Maximilian written before his
ill-fated expedition to Mexico. Speaking of the Palace at
Caserta, near Naples, he wrote, "The monumental stairway is
worthy of Majesty. What can be finer than to imagine the
sovereign placed at its head, resplendent in the midst of these
marble pillars,--to fancy this monarch, like a God, graciously
permitting the approach of human beings. The crowd surges upward.
The King vouchsafes a gracious glance, but from a very lofty
elevation. All powerful, imperial, he makes one step towards them
with a smile of infinite condescension. Could Charles V, could
Maria Theresa appear thus at the head of this ascending stair,
who would not bow their heads before that majestic, God-given
power?"
What was the condition of the people under Maria Theresa, whom
Maximilian spoke of as possessing a power that, according to him,
was so God-given no one could fail to bow the head before her
majestic presence? The peasants, under her rule, were practically
slaves, as they could not leave the lord's lands nor even marry
without his permission, nor could they bring their children up to
any profession other than that of labourer. In other words, the
children of the slave must remain slaves.
Poor Maximilian! He was a brother of the late Emperor Francis
Joseph and a member of that Kaiserbund and royal system which,
while America was busy with domestic difficulties between the
North and South, sought to wrest from Mexico her liberty. I
wonder if the Mexicans have forgotten the incident and its
implications.
But one-man power always fails in the end. No man, king or
president, whatever he may himself think, has a brain all
powerful and all knowing. There is wisdom in counsel. Too much of
some favourite dish may lead to indigestion and that to bad
judgment at a critical time and disaster. Napoleon III, just
before 1870, was suffering from a wasting disease and so allowed
himself to be ruled by the beautiful, narrow, fascinating,
foolish Spanish Empress whom he gave to the French in a moment of
passion because, as she said to him, "The way to her room lay
through the church door." Colonel Stoffel, the French Military
Attaché to the Berlin Embassy, wrote confidentially report after
report to the Emperor telling him of the immense military
strength of Prussia and of her readiness for immediate war. But
most of these reports were afterwards found unopened in the desk
of the doting, sick and fallen Emperor.
For, after all, however divine the King, Emperor or Kaiser may
consider himself, he is but a vulnerable human being--and no
accident of birth should give even a small number of people on
this earth into the hands of a single mortal.
CHAPTER II
WHO DOES THE KAISER'S THINKING AND WHO DECIDED ON THE BREAK WITH
AMERICA?
Because the German Emperor possesses talents of no mean order,
because of his fiery energy, because of the charm of his
conversation and personality, his ambitions for world conquest
are most dangerous to the peace of the world.
Certainly of all the ruling houses of the world, the
Hohenzollerns have shown themselves the most able, and of the six
sons of the Kaiser there is not one who is unable or unworthy
from the autocratic standpoint to carry on the traditions of the
house. They are all young men who in any field of human endeavour
are more than a match for men of their age, and by reason of
these qualities, so rare in kings and princes, it has been easy
to arouse a great feeling of devotion for the royal house of
Prussia among all classes in Germany, with the possible exception
of the Social Democrats. The other kings and princes of Germany
have been overshadowed, mere puppets in the king business, by the
surpassing talents of the Hohenzollerns, and so the task of those
who, in Germany and out, hope for that evolution towards
liberalism or even democracy which alone can make the nations of
the world feel safe in making peace with Germany, is beset with
numerous difficulties.
Before the war the Emperor turned much of his enterprising talent
into peaceful channels, into the development of commercial and
industrial Germany. No one has a greater respect for wealth and
commercial success than the Emperor. He would have made a
wonderful success as a man of business. He ought to be the
richest person in the Empire, but the militaristic system which
he fostered gave that distinction to another. For the richest
person in Germany before the war was Frau Krupp-Bohlen, daughter
of the late manufacturer of cannon. She inherited control of the
factories and the greater part of the fortune of her father and
was rated at about $75,000,000. It was a contest between Prince
Henckel-Donnersmarck and the Emperor for second place, each being
reputed to possess about sixty to sixty-five million dollars.
Most of the Emperor's wealth is in landed estates, and of these
he has, I believe, about sixty scattered through the Empire. The
Emperor is credited with being a large stockholder in both the
Krupp works and the Hamburg-American Line. What a sensation it
would make in this country were the President to become a large
stockholder in Bethlehem Steel or the Winchester Arms Company!
The earnings of the Krupp's factory since the War have been
immense and doubtless the fortune of the Krupp heiress since then
has more than doubled. The subscriptions to war loans and war
charities, thrown by Frau Krupp-Bohlen and the Krupp directors
as sops to public opinion, are mere nothings to the fat earnings
made by that renowned factory in this war.
And what a sensation, too, would be caused in America if the
Bethlehem Steel Company or the United States Steel Corporation
were to purchase newspapers or take over The Associated Press in
order to control public opinion! Yet the German nation stands by,
apathetic, propagandised to a standstill, stuffed and fed by news
handed them by the Krupps and the alliance of six great
industrial iron and steel companies of western Germany.
* * * * *
A question which interests every inhabitant of the world to-day
is, where does the ultimate power reside in Germany?
Where is the force which controls the country? The Reichstag, of
course, has no real power; the twenty-five ruling princes of
Germany, voting in the Bundesrat through their representatives,
control the Reichstag, and the Chancellor is not responsible to
either but only to the Emperor.
Consider, for a moment, the personality of von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Chancellor of the Empire for eight or nine years. He lacked both
determination and decision. Lovable, good, kind, respected, the
Chancellor, to a surprising degree, was minus that quality which
we call "punch." He never led, but followed. He sought always to
find out first which side of the question seemed likely to
win,--where the majority would stand. Usually he poised himself
on middle ground. He could not have been the ultimate power in
the State.
I have a feeling that the Kaiser himself always felt in some
vague way that his luck lay with America, and I imagine that he
himself was against anything that might lead to a break with this
country. What, then, was the mysterious power which changed, for
instance, the policy of the German Empire towards America and
ordered unrestricted submarine war at the risk of bringing
against the Empire a rich and powerful nation of over a hundred
million population?
The Foreign Office did not have this decision. Its members, made
up of men who had travelled in other countries, who knew the
latent power of America, did not advise this step--with the
exception, however, of Zimmermann, who, carried away by his
sudden elevation, and by the glamour of personal contact with the
Emperor, the Princes and the military chiefs, yielded to the
arguments of military expediency.
The one force in Germany which ultimately decides every great
question, except the fate of its own head, is the Great General
Staff.
On one side of the Königs-Platz, in Berlin, stands the great
building of the Reichstag, floridly decorated, glittering with
gold, surrounded by statues and filled, during the sessions of
the Reichstag, with a crowd of representatives who do not
represent and who, like monkeys in a cage, jibber and debate
questions which they have no power to decide. Across the square
and covering the entire block in a building that resembles in
external appearance a jail, built of dark red brick without
ornament or display, is the home of the Great General Staff. This
institution has its own spies, its own secret service, its own
newspaper censors. Here the picked officers of the German army,
the inheritors of the power of von Moltke, work industriously.
Apart from the people of Germany, they wield the supreme power of
the State and when the Staff decides a matter of foreign policy
or even an internal measure, that decision is final.
The peculiar relations of the Emperor to the Great General Staff
make it possible for him to dismiss in disgrace a head of the
Staff who has failed. But at all times the Kaiser is more or less
controlled in his action by the Staff as a whole and at a time
when the chief of the Great General Staff is successful, the
latter, even on questions of foreign policy, claims the right
then to make a decision which the Emperor may find it difficult
to disregard. This is because in an autocratic government, as in
any other, personality counts for much. Von Tirpitz controlled
all departments of the navy, although only at the head of one.
The Ludendorff-Hindenburg combination, especially if backed by
Mackensen, can bend the will of the Emperor.
[Illustration: THE IRON CROSS. IN THE EXPECTATION OF A SHORT WAR
THOUSANDS OF THESE CROSSES WERE DISTRIBUTED IN THE FIRST MONTHS
OF THE WAR AND THE PRECEDENT THUS ESTABLISHED HAS LED TO THE
GIVING OF PERHAPS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THESE DECORATIONS]
Yet while the head of the Great General Staff may fall, the
system always remains. An unknown, mysterious power it is,
unchanging, and relentless, a power that watches over the German
army with unseen eyes. It seeks always additions to its own ranks
from those young officers who have distinguished themselves by
their talents in the profession of arms. What does it mean to
them?
It is January twenty-seventh, the birthday of the Kaiser in a
German garrison town. The officers of the regiment are assembled
in the mess-hall, the regimental band plays the national air of
Prussia, "Heil Dir im Sieger Kranz" (Hail, thou, in the
conqueror's wreath). (The music is familiar to us because we sing
it to the words of "America." The British sing the air to the
words of "God Save the King." This music was originally written
for Louis XIV.) The health of the Emperor is proposed and drunk
with "Hurrahs" and again "Hurrahs," and then comes a telegram
from Berlin announcing the promotions and decorations granted to
some of the officers of the regiment: the most envied of all is
that younger officer, perhaps the student among them, who
receives the laconic despatch telling him that he is detailed to
the Great General Staff!
Then commences for the young officer a life of almost monastic
devotion. No amusements, no social obligations or entertainments
must interfere in the slightest with his earnest work in that
plain building of mystery which so calmly, and with such mock
modesty, faces the garish home of the Reichstag on the Königs-Platz,
in Berlin.
Who decided on the break with America? It was not the Chancellor,
notoriously opposed; it was not the Foreign Office, nor the
Reichstag, nor the Princes of Germany who decided to brave the
consequences of a rupture with the United States on the submarine
question. It was not the Emperor; but a personality of great
power of persuasion. It was Ludendorff, Quartermaster General,
chief aid and brains to Hindenburg, Chief of the Great General
Staff, who decided upon this step.
Unquestionably a party in the navy, undoubtedly von Tirpitz
himself, backed by the navy and by many naval officers and the
Naval League, advocated the policy and promised all Germany peace
within three months after it was adopted; unquestionably public
opinion made by the Krupps and the League of Six (the great iron
and steel companies), desiring annexation of the coal and iron
lands of France, demanded this as a quick road to peace. But it
was the deciding vote of the Great General Staff that finally
embarked the German nation on this dangerous course.
I do not think the Emperor himself, unless backed by the whole
public opinion of Germany, would dare to withstand the Great
General Staff which he himself creates. They are so much his
devotees that they would overrule him in what they consider his
interest.
Whatever thinking the Emperor does nowadays is more or less on
his own account. There is to-day no shining favourite who has his
ear to the exclusion of others. The last known favourite was
Prince Max Egon von Fürstenberg, a man now about fifty-four years
old, tall, handsome, possessed at one time of great wealth and a
commanding position in Austria as well as Germany, with the
privilege of citizenship in both countries. The Prince in his
capacity as Grand Marshal accompanied the Emperor, walking in
his train as the latter entered the White Hall at a great ball
early in the winter of 1914. The Emperor was stopping at the
Prince's palace in southern Germany at Donnaueschingen when the
affair at Zabern and the cutting down of the lame shoemaker there
shook the political and military foundations of the German
Empire. Prince Max together with Prince Hohenlohe, Duke of Ugest,
embarked, however, on a career of vast speculation in an
association known as the Princes' Trust. They built, for
instance, the great Hotel Esplanade in Berlin, and a hotel of the
same name in Hamburg, and an enormous combined beer restaurant,
theatre and moving picture hall on the Nollendorff Platz in
Berlin. They organised banks, and the name of the princely house
of Fürstenberg appeared as an advertisement for light beer. They
even, through their interest in a department store on the east
end of the Leipziger Strasse, sold pins and stockings and ribbons
to the working classes of Berlin. As this top-heavy structure of
foolish business enterprise tumbled, the favour of Prince Max at
the Imperial Court fell with it. For the Emperor never brooks
failure.
During the present war Von Gontard, related by marriage, I
believe, to brewer Busch in St. Louis; von Treutler, who
represented the Foreign Office; von Falkenhayn, for a while head
of the Great General Staff and Minister of War, and the Prince of
Pless, and von Plessen with several minor adjutants, have
constituted the principal figures in the surroundings of the
Emperor. Falkenhayn fell because of his failure in the attack of
Verdun, ordered by him or for which he was the responsible
commander. Von Treutler probably told the truth; he was against
the breaking of the submarine pledges to America; and Prince
Pless, who remains still in favour, never took a decided stand on
any of these questions. Prince Pless, as Prince Max was, is rich.
His fortune before the war, represented mostly by great landed
estates in Silesia, mines, etc., amounted approximately to thirty
million dollars. His wife is an Englishwoman, once celebrated as
one of the great beauties of London, daughter of Colonel and Mrs.
Cornwallis-West, and sister of the Duchess of Westminster and
Cornwallis-West, formerly married to Lady Randolph Churchill, and
now the husband of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the well-known actress.
And therefore the position of Princess Pless has not been
enviable during this war.
Emperor William does not, like many kings and dictators, confine
himself in his search for general information regarding men and
conditions to the reports of a few persons. He always has been
accessible, seeking even to meet strangers, not merely his own
people but foreigners, thus escaping the penalty of those rulers
who shut themselves up and who have all their information and
thoughts coloured for them by the preferences and desires of
prejudiced counsellors.
The chiefs of the army are always in close touch with the Kaiser,
but he is consulted on army commands and promotions much less
than on civil and even naval promotions.
Always with him is the head of the Civil Cabinet, who advises
with the Emperor on all appointments and promotions on the civil
side of the Government, helping even to make and unmake
Ambassadors and Chancellors. Admiral von Mueller, head of the
Marine Cabinet, is constantly in the Emperor's company. He is a
shrewd, capable, reasonable man; for a long time Admiral von
Mueller was against taking the chance of war with America and
perhaps, even to the end, persisted in this course. After the
fall of von Tirpitz, von Mueller acquired more real power. But in
a sense it is incorrect to speak of the forced retirement of von
Tirpitz as a "fall," because from his retirement he was able to
carry on such a campaign in favour of "ruthless" submarine war
that the mass of the people, Reichstag deputies, the General Staff,
and all came over to his point of view and von Bethmann-Hollweg,
who had brought about his dismissal, was forced officially to adopt
the policy first sponsored by this skilful old sea-dog and politician.
CHAPTER III
WHO SANK THE "LUSITANIA"?
Who is responsible for the sinking of the _Lusitania_, for the
deliberate murder which has always remained deep in the
consciousness of every American, and which at the outset turned
this great nation against Germany?
In the first place there was no mistake--no question of orders
exceeded or disobeyed. Count von Bernstorff frankly, boldly,
defiantly, and impudently advertised to the world, with the
authority of the German Government, that the attempt to sink the
_Lusitania_ would be made. The Foreign Office, no doubt,
acquainted him with the new policy. Von Tirpitz, then actual head
of the Navy Department and virtual head of the whole navy, openly
showed his approval of the act, and threw all his influence in
favor of a continuation of ruthless tactics. But a question which
involved a breach of international law, a possible break with a
friendly power, could not be decided by even the Foreign Office
and Navy together.
The Great General Staff claims a hand in the decision of all
questions of foreign policy which even remotely affect the
conduct of the war. Similarly it was the duty of the Foreign
Office to point out the possible consequences under the rules of
international law; but when the question of submarine warfare was
to be determined, the consultation was usually at the Great
General Headquarters. At these meetings von Tirpitz or the navy
presented their views and the Great General Staff sat with the
Emperor in council, although it was reported in Charleville at
the time of the settlement of May, 1916, that Falkenhayn,
speaking in favour of submarine war, had been rebuked by the
Emperor, and told to stick to military affairs.
All the evidence points to the Emperor himself as the responsible
head who at this time ordered or permitted this form of murder.
The orders were given at a time when the Emperor dominated the
General Staff, not in one of those periods, as outlined in a
previous chapter when the General Staff, as at present, dominated
the Emperor. When I saw the Kaiser in October, 1915, he said that
he would not have sunk the _Lusitania_, that no gentleman would
have killed so many women and children. Yet he never disapproved
the order. Other boats were sunk thereafter in the same manner
and only by chance was the loss of life smaller when the _Arabic_
was torpedoed. It is argued that, had the Emperor considered
beforehand how many non-combatants would be killed, he would not
have given the order to sink that particular boat. But what a
lame excuse! A man is responsible for the natural and logical
results of his own acts. It may be too that Charles IX, when he
ordered, perhaps reluctantly, the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
did not know that so many would be killed, but there can be no
Pilate-washing-of-the-hands,--Emperor William was responsible. He
must bear the blame before the world.
Blood-shed in honorable war is soon forgotten; but the cowardly
stroke by which the Kaiser sought to terrorise America, by which
he sent to a struggling death of agony in the sea, the peaceful
men and women and children passengers of the _Lusitania_, may
ever remain a cold boundary line between Germany and America
unless the German people utter a condemnation of the tragedy that
rings true and repentant.
We want to live at peace with the world when this war is over, to
be able to grasp once more the hands of those now our enemies,
but how can any American clasp in friendship the hand of Germans
who approve this and the many other outrages that have turned the
conscience of the world against Germany?
To Americans in Berlin, the sinking of the _Lusitania_ came like
a lightning stroke. No Bernstorff warnings had prepared us. I
believed I would be recalled immediately. In making preparations
to leave, I sent a secretary to see the head of one of the
largest banks in Germany, a personal friend, to ask him, in case
we should leave, to take for safe-keeping into his bank our
silver, pictures, etc. He said to my secretary, "Tell Judge
Gerard that I will take care of his valuables for him, but tell
him also, that if the _Mauretania_ comes out to-morrow we shall
sink her, too."
That was the attitude of a majority of the business men of
Germany. German casualties at that time had been great so that
the mere loss of human life did not appal as would have been the
case in a country unused to the daily posting of long lists of
dead and wounded. Consequently the one feeling of Germany was of
rejoicing, believing indeed that victory was near, that the
"damned Yankees" would be so scared that they would not dare
travel on British ships, that the submarine war would be a great
success, that France and England deprived of food, steel and
supplies from America soon would be compelled to sue for peace,
especially since the strategically clever, if unlawful, invasion
of France by way of Belgium had driven the French from the best
coal and iron districts of their country.
I do recall that one Imperial Minister, a reasonable individual
whose name I think it best not to mention, expressed in private
his sorrow, not only for the deed itself, but for the mistaken
policy which he saw, even then, would completely turn in the end
the sympathies of America to the Entente Allies. And there were
others,--among the intellectuals, and, especially, among the
merchants of Hamburg and Frankfort who had travelled in the outer
world both on pleasure and business, who realised what a profound
effect the drowning of innocent men, women and children would
have on our peace-loving people.
Many of these men said to me, "The sinking of the _Lusitania_ is
the greatest German defeat of all the war. Its consequences will
be far-reaching; its impression, deep and lasting."
The Teutonic Knights, from whom the ruling class of Prussia is
descended, kept the Slavic population in subjection by a reign of
physical terror. This class believes that to rule one must
terrorise. The Kaiser himself referring to the widespread
indignation caused by German outrages of the present war, has
said: "The German sword will command respect."
Terrorism--"Schrecklichkeit"--has always formed a part, not only
of German military inclination, but of German military policy. I
often said to Germans of the Government, "Are you yourselves
subject to being terrorised? If another nation murdered or
outraged your women, your children, would it cause you to cringe
in submission or would you fight to the last? If you would fight
yourselves, what is there in the history of America which makes
you think that Americans will submit to mere frightfulness; in
what particular do you think Americans are so different from
Germans?" But they shrugged their shoulders.
I have heard that in parts of Germany school children were given
a holiday to celebrate the sinking of the _Lusitania_. I was busy
with preparations, too anxious about the future to devote much
time to the study of the psychology of the Germans in other parts
of Germany at this moment, but with the exception of the one
Cabinet Minister aforementioned, and expressions of regret from
certain merchants and intellectuals, it cannot be denied that a
great wave of exultation swept over Germany. It was felt that
this was a master stroke, that victory was appreciably nearer and
that no power on earth could withstand the brute force of the
Empire.
Mingled with this was a deep hate of all things American
inculcated by the Berlin Government. And we must understand,
therefore, that no trick and no evasion, no brutality will be
untried by Germany in this war. It was against the rules of war
to use poison gas, but first the newspapers of Germany were
carefully filled with official statements saying the British and
French had used this unfair means. Coincidentally with these
reports the German army was trying by this dastardly innovation
to break the British lines. It was not a new procedure. Months
before the _Lusitania_ crime, the newspapers and people had been
poisoned with official statements inflaming the people against
America, particularly for our commerce with the Entente in war
supplies.
It was the right, guaranteed by a treaty to which Germany was a
signatory, of our private individuals to sell munitions and
supplies, but as Prince von Buelow once remarked on December
13th, 1900, in the Reichstag, "I feel no embarrassment in saying
here, publicly, that for Germany, right can never be a determining
consideration."
Indeed the tame professors were let loose and many of them rushed
into government-paid print to prove that, according to law, the
murders of the _Lusitania_ were justified. A German chemist
friend of mine told me that the chemists of Germany were called
on, after poison gas had been met by British and French, to
devise some new and deadly chemical. Flame throwers soon appeared
together with more insidious gases. And it is only because of the
vigilance of other nations that German spies have not succeeded
in sowing the microbes of pestilence in countries arrayed against
lawless Germany.
Remember there is nothing that Kaiserism is not capable of trying
in the hope of victory.
CHAPTER IV
THE KAISER AND "LÈSE-MAJESTÉ"
The talents and ability and agreeable personality of the German
Emperor must not blind us to the fact that he is the centre of
the system which has brought the world to a despair and misery
such as it never has known since the dawn of history. We must
remember that all his utterances disclose the soul of the
conqueror, of a man intensely anxious for earthly fame and a
conspicuous place in the gallery of human events; envious, too,
of the great names of the past, his ears so tuned for admiration
and applause that they fail to hear the great, long drawn wail of
agony that echoes around the world. His eyes are so blinded with
the sheen of his own glory that they do not see the mutilated
corpses, the crime, the pestilence, the hunger, the incalculable
sorrow that sweeps the earth from the jungles of Africa to the
frozen plains of the North, from Siberia to Saskatchewan, from
Texas to Trieste, from Alaska to Afghanistan--everywhere he has
brought the dark angel of mourning to millions upon millions of
desolate homes.
Do you remember that picture of the Conquerors, Cæsar and
Alexander, Attila and Napoleon, Charlemagne and Cambyses, astride
their horses or in chariots in the centre of the picture, dark,
gloomy, menacing? On each side of them, lining a vast plain that
fades in the distance, lie the dead--stiff, cold, grey,
reproachful;--yet all the victims of those conquerors, as well as
all their battalions do not equal the countless number that have
already drenched a forgiving earth with their dying blood in this
war:--victims all of the vain-glorious ambition of a single
mortal--the German Kaiser.
But the despot who sends his subjects to die, as Frederick the
Great said, "in order to be talked about" is not indigenous to
any one particular country. Like conditions produce like results.
The career of Louis XIV, the "Sun King," for instance, whose wars
and extravagances sowed the seeds of the French Revolution, is
epitomised in two phrases uttered by him: "I am the State" and "I
almost had to wait."
After the French Revolution, another despot, the first Napoleon,
not only sought the conquest of the world, but made his ex-waiter
and ex-groom marshals and his washerwomen duchesses ape the
manners and customs of the old régime. Despotism has been
characteristic of many generations but the world had thought
itself rid of the worst offenders.
Royalty still lives to torture and retard civilisation. Its
methods of perpetuation are unchanged from the middle ages. What
is lèse-majesté but a survival of feudalism, a kind of slavery to
inviolable tradition--the immunity of the monarch and his family
from that criticism and freedom of discussion which is the
essence of democracy?
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY STAFF, BERLIN: MR.
GERARD IN THE CENTER]
To commit lèse-majesté, to speak slightingly of royalty in
Germany, is a very serious offence.
I have taken the following examples of decisions in lèse-majesté
cases not from the records of the lower courts, the decisions of
which may be reversed, but from the records of the Imperial
Supreme Court at Leipzig, the highest court in the land.
For instance: The defendant, a speaker at a meeting consisting
chiefly of sympathisers with the socialist cause, made the
following statement in reference to a speech of the Kaiser:
"Under the protection of the highest power of the State the
gauntlet has been flung before the (socialist) Party, the
gauntlet which means a combat for life and death. Well, then, so
far as the insult concerns our Party, we are so far above it,
that the mudslinging--no matter from what direction it may
come--cannot touch us."
The defence pointed out that the defendant "had considered each
word carefully before he had made the speech, and that in doing
so, wanted to avoid any possibility of lèse-majesté."
The Supreme Court held that although the defendant carefully
selected his words and tried to evade prosecution, he must be
adjudged guilty, because his audience could not have misunderstood
the insinuation. The sentence was affirmed.
Dangerous as it is to say anything that can be construed as
derogatory of the authority, of the Kaiser it is equally
dangerous to attack the dead members of the Royal House.
The editor of the _Volkswacht_ had published in his paper an
article entitled "The German Characteristics of the Hohenzollerns"
which the Lower Court interpreted to be a reply to a statement of
the Kaiser, which had referred to a group of people considered
unworthy by him to be called "Germans." Without doubt the editor
was alluding to the Kaiser's speech, made at Koenigsberg to the
newly enlisted army recruits, in which he called the socialists
"vaterlandslose Gesellen," i.e., scoundrels without any country.
The writer, however, discussed "the conduct of the Elector
Joachim of Brandenburg and of his brother Albrecht, Elector of
Mainz, before and during the election of Emperor Charles V."
The defence claimed that the defendant could not be held guilty
of lèse-majesté against the Kaiser since the defendant "criticised
the Kaiser's ancestors and not the Kaiser himself." But the Court
held that it was the intent of the defendant to discredit the
"House of the Hohenzollerns, and that the Kaiser by implication,
being the living head of the Hohenzollern family, was thereby
insulted." The Court further states that the defendant's article
could not be regarded as a scientific or historical contribution
since the _Volkswacht's_ subscribers, consisting chiefly of
workingmen, had neither any understanding of nor interest in
dynastic intrigues of the sixteenth century.
Even those Americans who have expressed themselves freely about
the Kaiser will, after the war is over, be compelled to take
their "cures" in some country other than Germany, for in one
case it was held that an American citizen was rightfully
convicted in Baden of lèse-majesté because of statements made by
him in Switzerland.
The Court held that the judgment of the Lower Court must be
sustained, since the German Imperial Laws have precedence over
any treaties engaged in by the Grand Duchy of Baden and the
United States and "that the fact that the defendant had become a
citizen of the United States does not exempt him from prosecution
in the German Imperial Courts."
In another case a newspaper editor criticised a speech delivered
by the Kaiser before the Reichstag on December 6th, 1898. The
defendant did not refer to the person of the emperor himself, but
simply attacked and ridiculed the propositions and proposals made
by His Imperial Majesty. The defence pointed out that the
Kaiser's speech was not an act of the Kaiser's own personal will,
but only an act of government for which the Imperial Chancellor
should be responsible, and that the defendant was not conscious
of the fact that the criticism contained in his article could be
an insult to the person of the Kaiser.
It was held, however, by the Court that a criticism of the
Kaiser's speech at the opening of the Reichstag is _always_ to be
regarded as a criticism of the Kaiser's person, and that the plea
that the Imperial Chancellor should be responsible for acts of
government of this sort is not sustained.
In other words it is, in Germany, a crime to criticise or
ridicule any proposition uttered by the sacred lips of the
Kaiser.
If the Kaiser announces that two and two make five, jail awaits
the subject who dares to ridicule that novel arithmetical
proposition.
It is because of these convictions for lèse-majesté that the
Berliners, when discussing the Emperor at their favourite table
or "Stammtisch" in the beer halls and cafés, always refer to him
as "Lehmann."
CHAPTER V
WHEN THE KAISER THOUGHT WE WERE BLUFFING
_An Unpublished Diary_
Kaiserdom is an institution with which the American people are
really unacquainted--a complex institution the parallel of which
does not exist elsewhere. How it sought to play double with the
United States is in a general way familiar to Americans, but I
think the record of what happened in the eighteen months
preceding our break with Germany will illustrate exactly the
currents and cross-currents of official opinion which led the
United States to be scrupulously cautious in its course before
entering the war. As I talked with the Emperor or the Chancellor
or the Foreign Minister, I jotted down from time to time notes of
their conversation as well as brief summaries of the information
available to me from other sources. Naturally I cabled to the
Department of State the most significant news, but much of this
was not published because our Government was proceeding
cautiously and did not wish to be embarrassed by publicity of its
negotiations. There is every reason now, however, why the facts
should be known. I am reproducing here the diary I kept from
June, 1915, to the end of January, 1917, when unrestricted
submarine warfare was resumed and our break with Germany came. I
did not have the idea then of ever publishing my memoranda, so my
comments were written without restraint. They show, I am sure,
what the general trend of sentiment was in Germany for and
against submarine warfare and disclose, too, that while the
Emperor was often in the background and seemingly not the most
powerful factor in the situation, it was his system that
dominated Germany, his spirit that bred the lust for military
gain at whatever cost--even the respect of the whole civilised
world. Here are the notes as I penned them at the time:
* * * * *
_June, 1915._ Lincoln never passed through a crisis greater than
that with which the President is contending. He is fighting,
first, for humanity and some decency in war, and, second,
determining whether a European Emperor shall or shall not dictate
the political attitude of certain of our citizens.
It is regrettable to be compelled to think that the German nation
knows no treaty or law except the limit of its own desires.
We are still awaiting the second _Lusitania_ note and I fear that
Germany will never consent to abandon its present hideous method
of submarine war. It is extraordinary to hear Germans of all
classes extoll mere brute force as the only rule of international
life. It is a warning to us to create and increase our fleet and
coast defences.
The Germans not only do not fear war with us, but state frankly
they do not believe we dare to declare it, call us cowardly
bluffers and say our notes are worse than waste paper. Breaking
diplomatic relations means nothing.
Von Wiegand, the newspaper correspondent, is just back from
Przemysl and says the Russians were defeated by woful lack of
artillery and ammunition. Their power for offence is broken for
many months. From the West I hear the French are rather
discouraged.
Germany has ample food and gets all copper, etc., necessary for
war purposes through Sweden in exchange for potash and other
commodities.
An officer of the war ministry, who comes to see me about
prisoners, etc., told me last night that because the French have
kept several hundred Germans as prisoners in Dahomey and other
places in Africa, fifteen thousand French prisoners will be sent
to work in the unhealthy swamps of Holstein. I have cabled the
State Department often about this Dahomey business, transmitting
the request of Germany that these prisoners be sent to Europe.
Germans cannot be beaten on reprisals.
* * * * *
Two or three German-Americans have attacked the President,
Secretary Bryan and our Government, some publicly. I have ordered
their passports taken away and hope to be sustained. To permit
them to continue poisoning the atmosphere would be taken as a
sign of weakness here. No one who abuses his own country, its
government or its Chief is entitled to protection from that
country.
We have the visiting of British prisoners in good shape now, that
prohibition put on our visiting and inspecting the camps was
abolished in March by the "treaty" I arranged between England and
Germany. It was not until March twenty-ninth that we finally got
passes to visit camps under the "treaty." The prisoners say they
are badly treated when they are first captured, but we know only
of their treatment in the camps.
I do not believe all the atrocity stories; but one of our
servants in this house came back from the East front recently and
said the orders were to kill all Cossacks. Our washerwoman
reports that her son was ordered to shoot a woman in Belgium and
I myself have heard an officer calmly describe the shooting of a
seven-year-old Belgian girl child, the excuse being that she had
tried to fire at an officer.
If the _Lusitania_ business settles down, I hope the suggestion
made to me by the authorities here and cabled to the State
Department, will be carried into effect. This was that each
American and Spanish Ambassador, having charge of prisoners in
belligerent countries, should meet in Switzerland and discuss the
whole prison situation. Each Ambassador would be accompanied by
representatives of whatever authorities deal with prisoners (here
the War Ministry) in the country to which he is accredited. To
prevent unseemly discussions the actual talking would be done by
the Ambassadors (coached by those representatives). In addition
to doing away with many misunderstandings and helping the
prisoners, there are great possibilities in such a meeting. We
could all give each other useful "tips" on the caring for
prisoners, inspections, camps, package delivery, mail, etc.
There is plenty of food in Germany now and enough raw materials
to carry on the war. Raw materials for peaceful industries are
needed.
A suggestion--why not start a great government chemical school or
give protection for a certain number of years to dyestuffs,
medicine, chemical, and cyanide material? All these industries
are run here by the trustiest trusts that ever trusted, and by
their methods keep American manufacturers from starting the
business. A Congressman represents one of the best firms, hence
his statements that it is impossible to start such manufactures
in America. Our annual tribute to these trusts is enormous. One
dyestuff company here employs over five hundred chemists. Only
big or protected business can compete. This war has shown that we
should not be dependent on other countries for so many manufactures.
* * * * *
Gifts from America within the last week have been refused in
Saxony.
* * * * *
I fear that Germany will not give up its present method of
submarine war. Each month new and more powerful submarines are
added.
* * * * *
Perhaps it is worth a war to have it decided that the United
States of America is not to be run from Berlin.
Germans in authority feel that our "New Freedom" is against their
ideas and ideals. They hate President Wilson because he embodies
peace and learning rather than war.
* * * * *
In regard to prisoners, Mr. Harte reports prisoners in Russia and
Siberia better treated than was reported.
* * * * *
I hear for the first time of growing dissatisfaction among the
plain people, especially at the great rise in food prices.
Germany is getting everything she wants, however, through Sweden,
including copper, lard, etc. Von Tirpitz and his Press Bureau
were too much for the Chancellor; the latter is not a good
fighter. Zimmermann, if left to himself, would, of course, have
stopped this submarine murder.
I hope the President never gives in on the embargo on arms; if he
ever gives in on that, we might as well hoist the German Eagle on
the Capitol.
* * * * *
_July, 1915._ I think that the firm tone of the President's note
(of June 9, 1915) will make the Germans climb down. There seems a
general disposition to be pleased with the note and an expectation
that matters can be arranged. The great danger is that the
Germans may again get the idea that we do not dare to declare
war. In such case they will again become difficult to handle.
Zimmermann and von Jagow are both quite pleased with the tone of
the note.
They both talk now of keeping Belgium, the excuse being that the
Belgians hate the Germans so that if Belgium again became
independent it would be only an English outpost. Meyer Gerhard,
Bernstorff's special envoy, has arrived and has broken into print
over the sentiment in America. I am afraid he makes it too
peaceful, and, therefore, the Germans will be encouraged to
despise America.
While the authorities here think the idea of freedom of the seas
good, they think the idea of freedom of land too vague. They want
to know exactly what it means and say the seas should be free
because they belong to no one, but that land is the private
property of various nations. They compare the situation to a city
street, where every one is interested in keeping the streets free
but would resent a proposal that private houses also should be
made common meeting ground if not common property. Unfortunately
for Germany and the world, the German armies are winning and this
will be considered a complete vindication of the military and
caste system and everything which now exists. As Cleveland said,
we are confronted by a condition, not a theory. _Germany, unless
beaten, will never directly or indirectly agree to any freedom of
land or disarmament proposal._
* * * * *
The Emperor probably will see me soon. He has been rabid on the
export of arms from the United States to the Allies, but like all
Germans, when they see we cannot be scared into a change of
policy, he is making a nice recovery.
Was told by a friend at the Foreign Office that the German note
would contain a proposition that regular passenger ships should
not be torpedoed without notice, but must carry no cargo other
than passengers' baggage. Have heard Marine Department rather
opposes this, but may favor proposition as to ships inspected and
certified to carry no arms or ammunition. No note until after
July fourth, they say at Foreign Office, on tip from Washington.
(Note--German note was delivered to me July 8, 1915.)
* * * * *
Chancellor and von Jagow have been in Vienna, probably over
Balkan question. The situation there hinges on Bulgaria. Germany
wants a direct strip of territory for itself or Austria to
Constantinople. Thirteen million pounds in gold sent recently by
Germany to Turkey to keep the boys in line. Principal Socialist
paper, the _Vorwaerts_, has been suppressed because it spoke of
peace; reason given is that this kind of talk would encourage
enemies of Germany.
* * * * *
The Germans are becoming more strict, even women now entering
Germany must strip to the skin and take down their back hair. The
wife of Hearst's correspondent here had to submit to this the
other day.
* * * * *
At first, newspaper correspondents had to promise they would not
go to enemy territory, next that they would not go to neutral
territory (after one correspondent went to Denmark and sent out
dispatches about the movement against annexing Belgium). Now the
correspondents must promise not to go home. This is to keep
secret the internal conditions. The women stormed a butter shop
here the other day and our Consul reports, in Chemnitz, quite a
serious food riot. The military were called out and the fire
department turned hose on the crowd.
* * * * *
In Austria, I hear men up to fifty-five are being called to the
colours and even the infirm taken for the army. There are said to
be seven German and five Austrian army corps invading Servia. The
losses of the invaders are reported to be heavy. To date, the
German dead in this war number about seven hundred thousand.
People who offered private hospitals at the beginning of the war
and who were told these were not needed, have been requested to
open them. I was told the remaining civil population of Vouziers,
France (in German hands), had been removed to make room for
German wounded.
* * * * *
The note of July 21, 1915, in which the President said he would
regard the sinking of ships without warning as "deliberately
unfriendly," is received with hostility by press and Government.
Of course, the party of frightfulness has conquered those of
milder views, owing largely to the aggressive newspaper campaign
conducted by von Tirpitz, Reventlow and Company. The Germans
generally are, at present, in rather a waiting attitude, perhaps
anxious to see what our attitude toward England will be--but this
will not affect their submarine policy. The Foreign Office now
claims, I hear, that I am hostile to Germany, but that claim was
to be expected. Of course, I had no more to do with the American
note than they did, but it is impossible to convince them of
that, so I shall not try.
* * * * *
Germany has the Balkan situation well in hand. Roumania can do
nothing in the face of recent Russian defeats and has just
consented to allow grain to be exported to Austria and Germany,
but has, I think, not yet consented to allow the passage of
ammunition to Turkey. The pressure, however, is great. If not
successful, perhaps German troops will invade Servia so as to get
a passage through to Turkey.
A minister from one of the Balkan States told me the situation of
Roumania, Greece and Bulgaria was about the same, each state can
last in war only about three months, so all are trying to gauge
three months before the end and then come in on the winning side.
The Bulgarian Minister of the Public Debt got in here by mistake
the other day, insisting he had an appointment; he _had_ an
appointment with the Treasurer, Helfferich, whose office is
nearby. This shows, perhaps, that Bulgaria is getting money here.
Also the Germans are sending back to Russia, Russians of
revolutionary tendencies, who were prisoners here, with money
and passports in order that they may stir up trouble at home.
The Germans are making a great effort to take Warsaw, even old
Landsturm men are in the fighting line; I think they will get it,
and then they hope to turn two million men and strike a great
blow in France--thus they expect to end the war by October.
* * * * *
I notice now a slight reaction from annexation toward giving up
all or part of Belgium; but I must say I hear very little of
popular dissatisfaction with the war. Everything seems to be
going smoothly; but they are scraping the bottom of the box on
getting men for the army.
* * * * *
It is not pleasant to be hated by so many millions. The Germans
naturally make me the object of their concentrated hate. I
received an anonymous letter in which the kindly writer rejoices
that so many Americans were drowned in the Chicago disaster. This
shows the state of mind.
* * * * *
The Emperor is at the front, "Somewhere in Galicia." They keep
him very much in the background, I think, with the idea of
disabusing the popular mind of the idea that this is "his war."
After all, accidents may happen, and even after a victorious war
there may be a day of reckoning. The Chancellor went to the front
yesterday, probably to see the Emperor about the American
question.
* * * * *
_August, 1915._ I had a conversation last week of one hour and a
half with the Chancellor. He sent for me because I had written
him to take no more trouble about my seeing the Emperor. He
explained, of course, first that he did not know I wanted to see
the Emperor, and second that it was impossible to see the
Emperor. They keep the Emperor well surrounded. _Now_ I do not
want to see him. He is hot against Americans and the matters I
wanted to talk of are all settled--one way. I cabled an
interesting report on the Emperor's conversation re America.
The Chancellor is still wrong in his head; says it was necessary
to invade Belgium, break all international laws, etc. I think,
however, that he was personally against the fierce Dernburg
propaganda in America. I judge that von Tirpitz, through his
press bureau, has egged on the people so that this submarine war
will continue. _An official confessed to me that they had tried
to get England to interfere, together with them, in Mexico, and
Germans "Gott strafe" the Monroe Doctrine in their daily prayers
of hate._
* * * * *
Warsaw, as I predicted officially, long ago, will soon fall.
* * * * *
No great news--we are simply waiting for the inevitable submarine
"accident."
Unless there is a change of sentiment in the Government I think
the submarine commanders will be careful.
The Chancellor talked rather freely but again said it was
impossible to leave Belgium to become an outpost of the English,
but possibly with Germans in possession of the forts, the
railways and with commercial rights in Antwerp it might be
arranged.
There is a faction here led by deputy Bassermann, Stresemann,
Fahrmann, etc., who are attacking the Chancellor. They represent
great industrials who want to annex Belgium, Northern France,
Poland and anything else that can be had, for their own ultimate
advantage. A man named Hirsch is hired by the Krupp firm to
"accelerate" this work. Krupps also pay the expenses of the
"Oversea Service" which is feeding news to America.
A paper against annexation of Belgium has been signed, I am told,
by Dernburg, Prince Hatzfeld and others, and will be presented to
the Chancellor to-day. I believe many are to sign it; but of
those who have signed are Hatzfeld, who is one of the three big
Dukes of Prussia; Prince Henckel-Donnersmarck, who is the second
richest subject in Germany--(85 years old, he was in 1870 first
Governor of Lorraine)--von Harrach, who is a man of great
ability, highly respected, as is also Professor Delbrück.
* * * * *
The Reichstag meets in a few days. The Socialists are holding
daily caucuses, but have not yet decided on any party action.
Undoubtedly they will vote for the new ten milliard loan, with
Liebknecht and a few others dissenting. Probably a split will
also develop in the National Liberal Party; Bassermann and others
have been attacking the Chancellor, but I think other members
will dissent. It is quite probable that there will be a
discussion about the _object_ of the war, and permission will be
asked for public discussion, the Socialists perhaps claiming that
they have consented to a defensive war only, and that now that
the war is on enemy territory peace should be at least discussed.
There may also be talk about the annexation of Belgium and food
prices. The Socialists are greatly incensed at those who are
holding food for high prices.
* * * * *
Personally, I think that Germany now wants peace but does not
want to say so openly.
A relative of a Field Marshal told me to-day that Germany's
killed to date were 600,000 and 200,000 crippled for life.
I must say that the plain people still seem perfectly tame and
ready to continue the war. However, there may also be a protest
in the Reichstag about the treatment by non-commissioned officers
of Landsturm men who have never served but who now, in the
process of scraping the box, are called to the colors.
The Germans hope by a great movement to capture a great part of
the Russian army; probably they will fail. They also entertain
hopes that in such case Sweden will enter Finland and two Balkan
States declare for them. Balkan Ministers here tell me the defeat
of Russia makes it impossible for Roumania to enter, but they
fear an invasion by the Germans. All diplomatic work is now
centred in the Balkans.
* * * * *
Successes in Russia have made the people here very cocky. Hence,
probably, the torpedoing of the _Arabic_. Also great hope of
Bulgaria coming in with Germany; there is no more dissatisfaction
heard over the war. I have as yet received nothing from
Washington regarding the _Arabic_.
* * * * *
I have just spent four half days at Ruhleben, where civilian
Britishers are interned, so as to give every prisoner a chance to
speak to me personally.
* * * * *
There is much talk of creating an independent Poland. The
Reichstag session has developed no opposition.
A fac-simile of that infernal advertisement[A] of the Cleveland
Automatic Tool Company in the _American Machinist_ was laid on
the desk of every member of the Reichstag; and the papers are
full of accounts of great deliveries of war munitions by America,
possibly preparing people for a break. If Bulgaria comes in,
Germany will undoubtedly take a strip in Servia and keep a road
to Constantinople and the East. The new Turkish Ambassador has
just arrived. The old one was not friendly to Enver Bey and so
was bounced; he remains here, however, as he fears if he went to
Turkey he would get some "special" coffee. The hate for Americans
grows daily.
[Footnote A: This was an advertisement in an American newspaper
about machines for the manufacture of particularly deadly shells
and was much used in Germany to show how America was helping the
Entente.]
* * * * *
All rumours are that in the recent council at Posen the
Chancellor, advocating concessions in submarine war, won out over
von Tirpitz. But von Tirpitz will die hard, and there will be
trouble yet, as the Navy will be very angry if the present
methods are abandoned. Members of the Reichstag have telegraphed
backing up the Chancellor; but it is hard for any civilian idea
to prevail against Army or Navy.
Probably the Admiralty will say that the submarine which
torpedoed the _Arabic_ was lost, in order to avoid disgracing an
officer.
If the _Arabic_ question is not complicated with the _Lusitania_
a solution will be easier. The common people have been aroused by
von Tirpitz's press bureau and it will be simpler for the
Chancellor to "back track," taking as an example a case like the
_Arabic_ when the ship was going West and carried no ammunition.
* * * * *
The defeat of the Russians is undoubtedly crushing. Is England
waking up too late? There will be a big offensive soon against
the West lines.
* * * * *
I have heard nothing up to to-day from the State Department re
the _Arabic_, except one cable asking me to request a report.
A correspondent has just been in and says that the General Staff
people threaten to expel him because he went to Copenhagen and
sent out news about the petition to the Chancellor not to annex
Belgium. The Foreign Office had no objection; this shows how the
line is forming between the Chancellor and the Military. All
correspondents to-day say the Germans are trying to dragoon them
into sending only news which the General Staff wants sent, and
the Military have added their censorship to that of the Foreign
Office.
An official told me that Bernstorff, while not exactly exceeding
his instructions in his "_Arabic_ Note" (of Sept. 1, 1915), had
put the matter in a manner they did not approve.
* * * * *
Orders have now, apparently, been given to all German officials
to say that the war will last a long time--at least a year and a
half.
It is expected that Persia will come in under German leadership
and attack India.
* * * * *
Our Military Attaché, Colonel Kuhn, was finally presented to the
Kaiser and had a pleasant chat with him. Colonel Kuhn says all
fighting on the West is with artillery and hand grenades. Rifles
are thrown aside.
Germans have spies "piking off" our Embassies in Paris, London
and Petrograd.
Great airship attacks on London may be expected. In one of the
recent attacks nine thousand eight hundred bombs (fire and
explosive) were dropped. I get this from good authority.
Foreign Office quite elated over their Balkan triumph.
Personally, I think it was one of the most effective bits of
German "diplomacy" in the history of the Empire.
CHAPTER VI
THE INSIDE OF GERMAN DIPLOMACY
_The Diary Continued_
_October, 1915._ There is a tendency here to say Bernstorff went
too far. But this is all for the public, von Jagow told a
correspondent so to-day; but, of course, he did not know about
the note of Austria to Servia either! The Marine people are
positively raging. The paper which Reventlow writes for, the
_Tages Zeitung_, was suppressed yesterday; I hear on account of
an article on this _Arabic_ settlement, but I am not yet sure.
There is talk now of marching to Egypt.
More and more men are being called to colours. But Germany seems
to be able to take care of all fronts. The Emperor is now in the
West. The Foreign Office leads the rejoicing over the Entente's
invasion of Greece and the violation of its neutrality and says
that talk about Belgium is now shown to be _cant_.
Weather is rotten and we shall have a melancholy winter. Feel the
war more--deaths and prices. Six hundred and eighty thousand
killed to October first, and many crippled. Food way up, but they
cannot starve Germany out.
Suppression of the _Tages Zeitung_ means that the Chancellor has
at last exhibited some backbone and will fight von Tirpitz. The
answer of Germany depends on the outcome of this fight. It is
possible that von Falkenhayn and the army party may sustain the
Chancellor as against von Tirpitz. It is quite likely that a sort
of safe conduct will be offered in the note for ships especially
engaged in passenger trade. Much stress will be laid on English
orders to merchant ships to ram submarines.
* * * * *
The Kaiser is at Pless, a castle of Prince of Pless, in Silesia,
near Breslau, where he moved after the attempt of French fliers
to bombard him at Charleville on the West Front. The Germans
probably will have Lemberg in a few days. This may prevent
Roumania coming in. There is talk here of an attempted revolution
in Moscow. There is said to be jealousy of Hindenburg and on
account of this, Mackensen was put forward to be the hero of the
Galician Campaign. Captain Enochs, one of our observers in
Austria, was forced out of Austria because of German pressure and
our other military observers will follow soon.
Many commercial magnates have arrived in town to argue with the
government against war with America; but some are in favor of the
continuance of bitter submarine war, notably one who sees his
Bagdad railway menaced by possible English success in the
Dardanelles.
_November, 1915._ A man who saw Tisza tells me the Serbs inquired
if they could get peace and retain their territories. They were
answered, "No."
It is said that Italy has also felt out for peace, but was
answered that she must deal with Austria alone--and Austria says
that she will not include Italy in any general peace but will
wallop her alone after general peace is made.
* * * * *
I am working hard to get British prisoners properly clothed.
Winter is already here. Efforts to starve Germany will not
succeed. We shall be on meat and butter cards, but that is only a
precaution. The people still are well in hand. Constant rumours
of peace keep them hopeful. Men over forty-five not yet called.
They seem to have plenty of troops. The military are careless of
the public opinion of neutrals; they say they are winning and do
not need good opinion. I am really afraid of war against us after
this war--if Germany wins. We had snow, ice, and cold weather at
the end of October.
There have been uneasy movements among the people in Leipzig, a
great industrial centre, and the _Volkzeitung_, a Socialist paper
there, has been put under permanent preventive censorship.
All these movements start with the question of the price of food.
The Prussian Junkers, however, are really benefited by the war.
They get, even with a high "stop price," three times as much as
formerly for their agricultural products and pay only a small
sum, sixty pfennig daily, for the prisoners of war who now work
their fields. They may, in addition, have to pay the keep of the
prisoners, but that is very small. Camp commanders are allowed
sixty-six pfennig per head per diem.
* * * * *
There is much talk of peace. The shares of the Hamburg-American
Line and the shares of the Hamburg-South American Line have risen
enormously in price from fifty-six to one hundred and forty in
one case. This may be caused by an advantageous sale of some
shares of the Holland-American Line or by promise of a subsidy,
or by hopes of peace.
* * * * *
There is no question but that every man under forty-five that can
drag a rifle has been drafted for the army, with the possible
exception of men working in railways, munitions, etc.
Yesterday I noticed many women working on the roadbed of the
railway.
* * * * *
The new Peruvian Minister is named von der Heyde; his father was
a German.
The Greek Minister still thinks Greece will stay out of the war.
His father is one of the cabinet.
* * * * *
The Germans are very glad to get rid of Brand Whitlock. For some
time they have been looking for an excuse to expel him.
* * * * *
The dyestuff and other chemical manufacturers are getting quite
scared about possible American competition. I hope the Democrats
will give protection to these new industries and will also enact
some "anti-dumping" legislation.
The German cities are adding to the general weight of debt by
incurring large debts for war purposes, such as relief of
soldiers' families, etc.
* * * * *
The former Turkish Ambassador, who is against the Young Turks, is
living here. He is afraid to go back and also the Germans are
keeping him in stock in case the Young Turks go out of power, and
possibly to stir up trouble in Egypt, as his wife is a daughter
of one of the Khedives.
There are lots of suspicious looking Spaniards about, possibly
cooking up an attack on Gibraltar.
Any German peace talk includes payment of a large subsidy by
England, Russia, and France; Italy to be left to Austria to
finish.
The export of gold has now been formally forbidden.
There is no doubt whatever that the population in the conquered
portion of Poland has been for a long time in need of food.
* * * * *
Our Military Attaché, Colonel Kuhn, just back from Servia, says
the Germans have, literally, stacks of ammunition and had begun
preparing last spring for the present attack, even little
mountain wagons and new harness being all ready. Only about six
German corps are there.
The hate against Americans here is deep-seated and bitter. Hans
Winterfeldt, a prominent German banker, with American citizenship,
just came in to tell me that at the annual meeting to-day of the
great Allegemeine Electricitäts Gesellschaft a fight was started
against him because of his American citizenship, and he was not,
therefore, re-elected a director. He thinks of resigning from all
banks, etc., and returning to America.
* * * * *
_December, 1915._ Red Cross Doctor Schmidt just in from Servia
says Belgrade was completely plundered.
Having lots of difficulty getting the Germans to give the English
prisoners clothes.
Hate of Americans worse than ever.
Germans are not resentful when I fight to get things for English
prisoners; they only say they hope our Ambassadors are doing the
same for Germans.
Much disappointment at Dr. Snoddy's mission not yet being
permitted to work in Russia.
* * * * *
Last Tuesday night I ran into quite a peace demonstration, called
by placards the night of the Peace Interpretation in the
Reichstag. Soon disbanded by the police with many arrests. One
man told me that they were tired of a silly war and days without
meat. There has been nothing in the papers about these demonstrations;
of course, each arrest makes an anarchist for life.
It is hard to get butter. The women storm the butter shops and
market.
In a new building (where the Consulate is) they are taking off
the _copper_ roof.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF AN ORDER ISSUED BY COMMANDER OF
GERMAN PRISON CAMP OF DOEBERITZ. MANY CAMP COMMANDERS, WITHOUT
AUTHORITY, UNDERTOOK TO MAKE PRISONERS SUFFER FOR ALLEGED AND
UNPROVED MISDEEDS OF THE BRITISH. I HAD GREAT TROUBLE IN WATCHING
FOR ORDERS OF THIS CHARACTER AND SECURING THEIR ANNULMENT:
ORDER.
The unheard-of and rough treatment, which,
according to reliable information, has been
accorded to civilian prisoners, and particularly
German women and children who remain in England,
has caused the withdrawal of all privileges
formerly granted to English Prisoners of War. On
this account, permission for all kinds of
amusements and games has been cancelled.
The time for bathing has been limited to 10
minutes.
The English Prisoners of War, Mc Lachlan, was shot
dead early on the 7th. August, whilst attempting
to escape.
The English Prisoner of War, Orton, has been
summoned to a Military Trial owing to resistance
agairest to Authority.
Alberti
Oberst und Kommandant
des Gefangenenlagers Döberitz.]
Of a sudden--peace talk. The Chancellor is waiting to address the
Reichstag, waiting to get the sentiment of the members who are
all in Berlin, and then swim with it. Many members, who are not
Socialists, favour peace, and the Chancellor will be forced to
make some sort of a declaration on why they are fighting and for
what.
A Reichstag member told me the Reichstag will say and do things
it did not dream of doing six months ago. There are many quiet
meetings of members going on.
Hindenburg is out with an interview saying it is not yet time for
peace. This is a Government measure to stamp out peace talk among
the Reichstag members.
* * * * *
Am having a hard fight to get the British prisoners properly
clothed for the winter. Of course, the Germans have rather a
difficult time with so many prisoners, but that is no excuse if
men die of cold. The weather is and has been bitterly cold.
Saw von Jagow lately, but only on business and commercial
questions. Zimmermann lunched here to-day. Roeder, of the
_World_, is here making a study of German industrial conditions.
I introduced him to Gutmann, of the Dresdner Bank; Rathenau, head
of the Allegemeine Electricitäts Gesellschaft; Dr. Solf, Colonial
Minister, and others. I think his report will be very sound and
worth reading.
There is no question but that there is a deep-seated hatred of
America here, _which must be reckoned with sooner or later_.
I don't expect things to be easy, but I wish to goodness all
Americans would stay at home.
Greek Minister still thinks Greece will remain neutral.
Probably greatest need of Germany is lubricating oil for
machines, etc. Germans claim to have a copper mine in Servia. I
never heard of one there.
* * * * *
Dr. Ohnesorg, U. S. N., and Osborne back from inspecting camps.
They report bad conditions; they were not allowed (contrary to
our "treaty") to talk out of hearing of camp officers to the
prisoners in Lemburg Camp. These prisoners are 2,000 Irish, and
the reason, of course, for the refusal of the usual permission is
that the Germans, through the notorious Sir Roger Casement, have
been trying to seduce the Irish, and do not want the soldier
prisoners to tell us about it. I have learned, through other
sources, that the Germans seduced about 30 Irish. I told von
Jagow what I had learned and asked what the Germans had done with
these victims--whether they were in the German army or not. He
said, "No, most of them had been sent to Ireland to raise hell
there." I suppose they were landed from submarines.
* * * * *
I think the German press has received orders to step softly on
the von Papen-Boy-ed recall. The greatest danger now lies in
Austria, and over the _Ancona_ note. There is a large body of
manufacturers, ship-owners, etc., here who at the last moment
declare themselves against war with the U. S. A. and use their
influence to that end, but in Austria no such interests exist to
help toward peace. However, pressure from Germany may be brought
to bear.
I think Germany will not send successors to von Papen and Boy-ed
even with safe conduct; whether they will ask the recall of our
attachés is another question not yet decided.
An official tells me confidentially that Rintelen was sent to
America to buy up the product of the Dupont Powder Company, and
that if he did anything else he exceeded his instructions.
Shop people in Berlin with whom I have talked are getting sick of
the war.
I hear rumours that Germany is trying, through its Minister in
China, to come to an understanding with Japan and Russia.
The banks are sending circulars to all safe-deposit box holders,
trying to get them to give up their gold.
An American clergyman has just told me the German church body has
refused to receive an American Church deputation and has written
a very bitter letter.
An official has told me that no new Military Attaché will be sent
to America. The naval people have not yet decided.
* * * * *
I am very glad to hear Colonel House is coming over. There are
many things I want to tell the President but which I do not dare
to commit to paper.
A newspaperman supposed to be of the _New York_ ---- had an
interview with Zimmermann the other day, and Zimmermann sent some
messages by him to the President. I do not know what the
messages are. We all suffer much from amateur diplomats.
* * * * *
Anthony Czarnecki, a very intelligent Chicagoan, an American of
Polish descent, is here representing Victor Lawson and the
_Chicago Daily News_. He informs me that the Spy Nest is
contemplating an attack on the Administration because of the
taking away of Archibald's and others' passports.
* * * * *
My impression is that the Austrians, owing to pressure from here,
will eventually give in on the _Ancona_ business. I think the
present a good time to force the settlement of the _Lusitania_
question.
NOTE. I do not suppose that any Ambassador ever
suffered as much from amateur "super Ambassadors"
as I did.
The German Foreign Office, trying to be modern and
up-to-date at times, paid more attention to the
tales of pro-German American correspondents than
they did to the utterances of President Wilson.
Of course, the Germans succeeded in taking many of
those correspondents in their camp. In the Hotel
---- in Berlin an agent of the German Government
who possessed American citizenship was always
ready to arrange trips to the front or to make an
advance of money to an American correspondent who
would promise to be "good."
Some received cash, some were paid in interviews
with prominent officials, some received both,
before all was continually dangled the blue
ribbon--the hope of an interview with the
Kaiser--and some, thank God, were real Americans
and refused all the offered temptations--news or
money.
An American gentleman who lived for a time at this
hotel has given me a written statement which
throws a light on the activities of certain of
these gentry and which I may some day use. In this
he states how one of these gentlemen claimed that
the Imperial Chancellor always sent for him to
consult him on his attitude towards America and
that he had advised him to make a bold front and
bluff. Hence, perhaps the note of January
thirty-first which suddenly announced the ruthless
submarine war.
I have proof that one of this traitorous gang went
about Berlin personating me. What scheme he was
cooking up I do not know.
Zimmermann was particularly weak in being advised
by one of these shady individuals.
I think the German Government will allow Ford or any of his
angels to come here, but the Peace Ark seems pretty well wrecked.
Provincial and small newspapers are much more bitter against
America than the larger ones.
Von Jagow told me the other day that he thought the feeling here
against America was so bitter that, eventually, war would be
inevitable.
* * * * *
Received following anonymous letter:
"I am enabled to-day to give your Excellency news
of the utmost importance, Germany is at the end of
its forces and the Imperial Government is inclined
to make peace cost what may! One of the most
prominent and influential members of the Reichstag
has assured me, that the general conviction of the
parliament is dominated by the absolute necessity,
to pull back and to strive for peace as soon as
possible. The financial aspect given by Dr.
Helfferich is disastrous, the military situation,
taken in the whole, unsatisfactory and the
confidential information, given by Herr von Jagow
in the committee with regard to the Egyptian
expedition, discouraging if not hopeless. The
Government and particularly Herr von Bethmann wish
for peace, but believe themselves restrained by
public opinion and by the fear of the
Pan-Germanists. It's now the psychological moment
for intervention by the United States and there
can be no doubt, that it should and will be
exercised in favour of humanity, culture and
freedom, in favour of the prevalence of the
Anglo-Saxon race and the future development of the
new world against Prussian barbarity, Imperial
despotism and Teutonic slavery!
22. XII. 1915.
OLD GENTLEMAN."
CHAPTER VII
GERMANY'S PLAN TO ATTACK AMERICA
_The Diary Continued_
_January, 1916._ Many of the intelligent rich are expressing the
fear that after this war the Socialist high price system,
governmental seizure of food, control of raw materials, etc.,
will be continued and also that the owners of large landed
estates will be compelled to subdivide them.
* * * * *
We are getting vague and conflicting reports in the newspapers
here about the sinking of the _Persia_. There seems to be no end
to this business. Perhaps it is best to have the inevitable _come
now_. The hate of America has grown to such an extent under
careful Government stimulus that I am quite sure we will be the
first attacked after the war. Therefore, if it is to come, it had
better come now when we would start with a certain fleet in
command of the seas, making it impossible for agitators,
dynamiters, and spies to be sent to Mexico and South America and
into the U. S. A. through Canada and Mexico. From the highest to
the lowest I get intimations that at the first chance America
will be attacked.
There is still a spirit of confidence in ultimate success, amply
justified, it would seem, by the military situation.
A lot of dyestuffs mysteriously left Germany recently in spite of
the embargo, and got to Holland, billed to America, where it
remains, awaiting a permit from the British. Perhaps the Germans
are getting worried about the possible building-up of the
industry at home. The profits of the German dyestuff "trust" are
certainly great enough to tempt the trust to do anything to keep
the monopoly. Hardly a company pays less than 24 per cent.
dividends.
* * * * *
The Kaiser is still laid up with a boil on his neck.
I am waiting the arrival of Colonel House, who, I suppose, will
be here in ten days or so.
S. S. McClure of the good ship _Nutty_ (Proprietor Ford), Herman
Bernstein and Inez Milholland Boissevain, likewise of the crew,
have been here. Their stories are most amusing. Apparently, now,
the nuttiest have voted to remain a permanent committee at The
Hague; salary (five thousand suggested) to each to be paid by
Ford--with washing and expenses.
* * * * *
The Reichstag, sitting in "Budget Commission," is getting quite
worked up over the censorship and the Socialists are demanding
the freedom of the press.
Yesterday one member said he thought it would do the U. S. A.
good if they knew what the Germans really thought of Americans.
The spy system here is very complete and even the President and
Cabinet at home in America are surrounded. Heydebrand, leader of
the Conservative Party, called the uncrowned King of Prussia,
said yesterday in the Prussian Chamber that "America was among
the worst enemies of Germany." I am convinced that Germany, as
now advised, either will attack America or land in South America,
if successful in this war. Falkenhayn, Chief of the General
Staff, said, referring to America, "It is hard to stop a
victorious army."
* * * * *
I have just returned from three days in Munich. I visited two
prison camps and the American Red Cross Hospital in Munich and
conferred with Archdeacon Nies (of the American Episcopal
Church), who is permitted to visit Bavarian prison camps, talk to
prisoners, and hold services in English. These Bavarian camps are
under Bavarian, not Prussian, rule.
Munich seems lively and contented. I saw great quantities of
soldiers there and at Ingolstadt.
I expect Colonel House about the 26th, and shall be very glad to
see him.
* * * * *
Morgenthau was here for a day. I took him to see von Jagow, where
we talked for an hour. Later, through some Germans, he met
Zimmermann, who asked him if he did not think the German-Americans
in America would rise in rebellion if trouble came between
Germany and America.
Von Jagow was very explicit in saying that Germany had made no
agreement with us about submarine commanders. He said distinctly
that Germany reserved the right to change these orders at any
time. On the general question, he again said that the submarine
was a new weapon and that the rules of international law must be
changed, apparently claiming the right for Germany to change
these rules at will and without the consent of any other power
involved.
Morgenthau sailed Sunday, the sixth, from Copenhagen. The
newspapers to-day and last night print articles to the effect
that the negotiations are taking a more favourable course.
* * * * *
_February, 1916._ I dined last night at von Jagow's. He said I
would get a note to-day which would accept all Bernstorff's
propositions except, as he put it, one word, viz.: Germany will
acknowledge liability for the loss of American lives by the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, but will not acknowledge that the act
of sinking was illegal. He said that international law had to be
changed, that the submarine was a new weapon, and that, anyway,
if a break came with America, that they had a lot of new
submarines here and would make an effective submarine blockade of
England. To-day a cipher from the German Foreign Office came in
to be forwarded to the State Department for Bernstorff, so I
suppose this is what he referred to. Probably the Germans are in
earnest on this proposition. It is now squarely up to the
American people to decide.
Of course, I am very much disturbed at the turn of affairs, but I
am doing nothing except repeating to Lansing what is said to me,
and trying to convince the Germans that we are in earnest.
* * * * *
I was very glad to see Colonel House in Berlin, for many reasons,
and, especially, that the President may get his view of the
situation here. He had long talks with the Chancellor, von Jagow,
and Zimmermann, and also met Dr. Solf, the Colonial Minister; von
Gwinner, head of the Deutsche Bank; Gutmann, of the Dresdner
Bank; and Dr. Rathenau, head of the Allegemeine Electricitäts
Gesellschaft and many corporations, who is now engaged with the
General Staff in providing raw materials for Germany.
I think the Germans are getting short of copper and nickel,
especially the latter. Copper lightning rods of churches have
been taken and an effort was made to take the brass reading desk
in the American Church and the fittings in the Japanese Embassy.
I think from underground rumours that the Germans and the
propagandists will endeavour to embroil us with Japan.
Baroness von Schroeder, a von Tirpitz spy, stated the other day
that Japan would send a note to the United States of America
making demands on the U. S. in regard to the Japanese immigration
question.
There was a well-defined report that Germany would issue a
manifesto stating that enemy merchant ships would be fired on
without notice and this because of orders alleged to have been
found on British ships ordering merchant ships to fire on
submarines at sight.
The Chancellor told me he was ready for peace but that all his
emissaries had met with a cold reception in the Allied countries
of France, England and Russia.
* * * * *
A fight against the Chancellor has been started in the home of
the Junkers--the Prussian Chamber. The powerful liberal papers
are jumping hard on the disturbers and the Chancellor hit back
quite hard. These Junkers are demanding unlimited submarine war
and are stirred up by von Tirpitz. It is one of their last kicks
as soon a real suffrage will have to be introduced in Prussia.
The Chancellor foreshadowed this in opening this Prussian
Chamber; hence the tears!
The visit of Colonel House here was undoubtedly, from this end, a
success; and I am glad that he can give the President a fresh and
impartial view.
* * * * *
March first we go on a milk and butter card regime. I have put
the Polish question (food) up to Zimmermann, and asked informally
whether proper guarantees against the direct or indirect taking
of food and money from Poland will be stopped, if relief is sent;
no answer yet.
* * * * *
In spite of what I was told by certain exalted personages last
autumn, I think that if the war continues much longer the
President will be welcomed as a mediator. In fact, there are a
number of cartoons and articles appearing in the newspapers
which, in tone, are against the President because he does not
insist on peace.
I think that we may soon look for a very strong German attack on
the West Front, an endeavour to break through before the time
when the French and English are contemplating their offensive,
which is probably some time in March.
At or about the same time there will probably be great Zeppelin
attacks on London and on other English centres. It is reported
that in their next offensive the Germans will use a more deadly
form of poison gas.
* * * * *
I had the grippe, went to Partenkirchen for a few days, but the
first night in country air since July, 1914, was too much for me
and filled me with such energy that I tried skiing, fell down and
broke my collar-bone, came to Berlin and can sit at my desk, but
am very uncomfortable.
I think Germany was about to offer to sink no merchant ships
without notice and putting crews, etc., in safety, if England
would disarm merchant ships, but now, since the President's
letter to Stone, both the Chancellor and von Jagow say they are
convinced that America has a secret understanding with England
and that nothing can be arranged.
Captain Persius points out in to-day's _Tageblatt_ that it is not
submarines alone that are now, without notice, going to sink
armed merchant ships, but cruisers, etc., will take a hand.
It is reported that the Kaiser went to Wilhelmshafen to warn
submarine commanders to be careful and that submarines will hunt
in pairs, one standing ready to torpedo while the other warns.
The German losses at Verdun are small as artillery fire
annihilated enemy first. I think an attack will be made now in
another part of the front.
Germany has forbidden the _import_ of many articles of luxury;
this is to keep exchange more normal and keep gold in the
country. This probably will continue after the war.
* * * * *
Some newspaper men just in from Verdun report the Germans saving
men--losses small--going at it with artillery, probably over
1,000 guns, and making a slow and almost irresistible push. Some
military attachés think there may be a strong attack somewhere
else on the front.
This Verdun attack was undoubtedly made to keep Roumania out.
I think the food question here is getting very serious, but
before they are starved out they will starve six million
Belgians, eleven million Russians and Poles and two million
prisoners; so that, after all, this starvation business is not
practical.
* * * * *
There was a Grand Council of War last week at Charleville to
determine whether von Tirpitz's proposition, to start an
unlimited submarine blockade of England, should be started or
not--i.e., sink all ships, enemy and neutral, at sight.
Falkenhayn was for this, the Chancellor against, and von Tirpitz
lost. The decision, of course, was made by the Emperor.
Great advertising efforts are being made on the question of the
Fourth War Loan. It will, of course, be announced as successful.
There are undoubtedly two submarine parties in Germany and there
may be an unlimited blockade of England.
I think Germany, as at present advised, is willing, if merchant
ships are disarmed, to agree to sink no boats whatever without
warning and without putting passengers and crew in safety. The
Admiralty approves of this.
One of the American correspondents publishes an article in the
_Lokal Anzeiger_ on America, in which he makes some statements no
loyal American should make just now.
* * * * *
The "illness" of von Tirpitz is announced. I think it means his
resignation, and have just cabled, although it is possible that
his resignation may never be publicly announced. For one thing,
the Kaiser and army people began to think it was a bad innovation
to have any officer or official appealing to cheap newspapers and
the "man in the street" in a conflict with superior authority.
I heard that at Charleville conference both the Chancellor and
von Jagow said they would resign if von Tirpitz's policy of
unlimited submarine war on England was adopted.
The food question is becoming really acute--the village people
are about starving in some sections and are not as well off as
the people in the big towns; it is the policy to keep the people
in the cities as content as possible in order to prevent riots,
demonstrations, etc.
* * * * *
Some Germans have asked me if the sending of a German "Colonel
House" to America would be agreeable to the President. Probably
the Envoy would be Solf, and he could talk informally to the
President and prominent people. If sent he would require a safe
conduct from England and France.
I hear the submarines now are mostly engaged in mine laying, at
the mouth of the Thames.
* * * * *
Events are beginning to march. At first von Tirpitz's "illness"
was announced, then came his resignation. Yesterday was his
birthday and a demonstration was expected; there were many police
out, but I could see no demonstrators. The row may come in the
Reichstag.
There are two sources of danger; first, a failure at Verdun and
the new food regulations may make people ready to accept
Tirpitz's guarantee that if he is allowed his way the war can be
won and ended. He has a large following already who favour this
plan; second, there are some Reichstag members and others who
think the Tirpitz people can never be reconciled unless there is
a new Chancellor.
The Chancellor sent for me Friday. I think the Chancellor wants
to keep peace with America and also wishes to make a general
peace. He talked, or rather I talked, a little about terms. He
still wants to hang on to Belgium, but I think will give most of
it up; but is fixed for an indemnity from France. The loss of
life here is affecting every one, the Chancellor is a very good
man, and I think honestly desires an honourable peace.
* * * * *
Potatoes are restricted from to-day, 10 pounds per head in 12
days, not much, bacon and lard practically not to be had, butter
only in small quantities and meat out of reach of the poor.
* * * * *
I told the Chancellor I thought a great source of danger to the
good relations of Germany and U. S. A. was in Mexico, that if we
had trouble there, had to raise a large army and rouse the
military spirit at home, the President might find it hard to hold
the people. This struck him as a new view, as most Germans think
that Mexican troubles are to their advantage, and I am sure
Villa's attacks are "made in Germany."
I shall not come home; both the Chancellor and von Jagow have
begged me not to go.
* * * * *
I sent a cable about the possible stirring up of our coloured
people by propagandists. I notice that there are great fires in
many cities of the South.
It is reported that Prussian State Railways were given the banks
as additional security for the last loan, but I do not see how
this could be, as the railways are Prussian and the Loan
Imperial.
Several South American diplomats here think that in case of war
between U. S. and Germany public opinion in their countries will
demand the seizure of the German ships and possible war.
* * * * *
_April, 1916._ I am just off to the Reichstag where the
Chancellor is to speak. I have no news here and none from
America, but it seems to me five boats sunk almost at once will
rather strain things at home. Here they do not want war with
America. Perhaps von Tirpitz before leaving gave these submarine
commanders these orders to sink at sight.
I think the Germans will eventually encircle and take Verdun,
mostly now for moral effect.
Von Jagow will shortly give Conger (_Associated Press_) an
interview disclaiming any intention on Germany's part of
attacking America after the war. "A guilty conscience, etc.," and
"Qui s'excuse, s'accuse."
Every night fifty million Germans cry themselves to sleep because
all Mexico has not risen against us.
Part of Germany goes soon on meat ration. The food question is
becoming acute, but they will last through here.
* * * * *
I think that the Germans would now, in spite of previous
statements by a high authority, welcome the intervention of the
President looking toward peace. Colonel House is so relied on
here that he would be doubly welcome as the bird with the olive
branch.
It looks more and more as if the issue of the campaign would be
peace or war! On this issue the Germans at the last moment will
have to side with the President.
The recent sessions of the Reichstag have been lively. Liebknecht
caused a row on several occasions. Once by interrupting the
Chancellor to imply that the Germans were not free, next to deny
that the Germans had _not_ wished the war, and another time by
calling attention to the attempts of the Germans to induce
Mohammedan and Irish prisoners of war to desert to the German
arms, the Irish being attacked through Sir Roger Casement.
Liebknecht finally enraged the Government by calling out that the
loan subscription was a swindle.
The German-American spies and traitors are hard at work at 48
Potsdammer Strasse and also at the Oversea News Service, a
concern paid for by Krupps. Mr. ----, in addition, gains money by
getting permits for goods to go out of Germany, capitalising his
"pull" as it were. Some of the money for their dirty work is
given them by Roselius of Bremen, proprietor of the "Caffee Hag."
----, a traitor, who also writes against the President, also
works with the gang.
* * * * *
This cry in America that German babies have not sufficient milk
is all rot. One of our doctors has reported on the subject. The
cry is only raised to get a hole in the British blockade.
The Germans are going at Verdun carefully, and an imitation of
each French position or trench they wish to take--planned from
airmen's and spies' reports--is constructed behind the German
lines and the German soldiers practise taking it until they are
judged letter perfect and are put to work to capture the
original.
It is said the Germans have developed a submarine periscope so
small as to be almost invisible, which works up and down so that
only at intervals, for a second or so, does it appear above the
water. Also, it is said the wireless vibrations by means of
copper plates at each end are transmitted through the boat, and
every member of the crew learns the wireless code, and no matter
where working can catch the vibrations.
Note about the _Sussex_ and other four ships just in. I think
Germany is now determined to keep peace with America as the plain
people are convinced that otherwise the war will be lengthened--a
contingency abhorrent to all.
* * * * *
_May, 1916._ I delivered the last American note to von Jagow
to-day. He said they probably would not answer, and then engaged
me in gossipy conversation.
These people want peace and will gladly accept the President as
mediator.
The Pope, they think, will want brokerage--a "Makler Lohn"--as
they call it--concessions for the church, such as the return of
the Jesuits, etc.
If they get good and sick of war here, perhaps they may not feel
like revenge after all--but there is an ever-present danger we
must prepare for.
* * * * *
The fact that I was given detailed instructions as to leaving,
etc.--which they undoubtedly learned, with their wonderful spy
system--helped the _Sussex_ settlement.
The Chancellor and I became great friends as a result of my stay
at the Hauptquartier. The League of Truth gang attacked me
lately. The Government published a certificate in the _Official
Gazette_ to the effect that I was their fair-haired boy,
etc.--very nice of them. I really think they recognise that the
propaganda was an awful failure and want to inaugurate the era of
good feeling.
I did not go to the front at the Hauptquartier as reported. I had
enough to do in Charleville, but did witness the splendid relief
work being done by the Americans who are feeding 2,200,000 of the
population of Northern France. Twenty thousand of the inhabitants
of Lille, Roubaix-Tourcoing, are being sent under circumstances
of great barbarity to work in the fields in small villages. I
spoke to the Chancellor and he promised to remedy this.
Germans say they will take Verdun. A military treaty with Sweden
is reported; a large Swedish Military Commission is now here,
receiving much attention.
While at Charleville, in connection with American work, I asked,
at one village, to see the German Army stores so as to convince
myself that the German Army was not using the stores from
America. I saw that one-half the stores came from _Holland_.
* * * * *
I think the psychological moment is approaching when Colonel
House should appear as the President's White Emissary of Peace.
While the food question here is pressing, the harvest will be
good, if present indications continue. Rye is the principal crop
and this is harvested about July 12th. I think, however, Germany
can last, and in very desperation may try a great offensive which
may break the French lines and change the whole position. The
people here, although tired of war, are well disciplined and will
see this thing through without revolution.
We are rather in calm after the last crisis. The Chancellor sent
for me and said he hoped we would do something to England or
propose a general peace, otherwise his position here will become,
he thinks, rather hard. Delbrück, vice-chancellor, very hostile
to America, is out--failure as Minister of Interior to organise
food supply is the real reason.
* * * * *
Yesterday I had a talk with the Chancellor. The occasion was the
Polish Relief question which I shall now take up direct with
Helfferich, who, as I predicted, is the new Minister of the
Interior and Vice-Chancellor. He is a very business-like man and
did much for the favourable settlement of our last crisis.
The Chancellor seemed rather downcast yesterday, without apparent
cause. He says that Germany from now on will have two months of
hardship on the food question, but that after that things will
be all right. The crops, as I have seen on my shooting place, are
magnificent and the rye harvest will probably begin even before
July 15th.
Mrs. Gerard has just returned from a week in Budapest with her
sister. The Hungarians are once more gay and confident. The
Italians, their hereditary foes, are being driven back, and on
the Russian front there seems to be a sort of tacit truce--no
fighting and visiting in trenches, etc.--terms of great
friendliness.
(This was the beginning of the fraternisation which led, a year
later, to the collapse of Russia.)
* * * * *
At the races here last Sunday there was an absolutely record
crowd and more money bet than on any previous day in German
racing history. The cheaper field and stands were so full of
soldiers that the crowd seemed grey, which goes to show that the
last man is not at the front.
State Socialism makes advances over here. A proposition is now
discussed to compel the young men who are earning large wages to
save a part thereof.
On the _Sussex_ question, I got a colleague to ask about the
punishment of the Commander and to say at the Foreign Office,
after he had once been refused any information, that I had heard
that the people at large in America believed the Commander has
received "Pour le Mérite." Von Jagow said that he was sure that
this was not so, but that he did not know the name of the
Commander, and that it was not "usual" to tell what punishment
had been given. So that I suppose the matter will rest, unless I
get orders to ask formally about the punishment.
The German military people and ruling Junker class are furious at
the settlement with America, and abuse America, the President and
me indiscriminately.
Anything the President says about peace is prominently placed in
the newspapers.
* * * * *
Yesterday in a debate in the Reichstag over the censorship,
member Stresemann, National Liberal (the party which now holds
the balance of power), violently abused President Wilson and said
he was not wanted as a peace-maker. All applauded except the
Socialists--so I think the President had better say nothing more
about peace for the present. What he has said has done much good
and has pleased the Government here, if not the Reichstag.
Although von Jagow is a Junker of Junkers, the Junkers are
against him and claim he is too weak. He may be bounced.
The crops are very fine.
Undoubtedly we shall have another crisis when the extremists here
demand a "reckless" U-boat war because we are doing nothing to
England.
Germany will last through on the food question.
I have heard reports that the Turks are tired of German rule and
almost ready to flop.
I am to meet Prince Buelow, ex-Chancellor, to-morrow and may fish
up something interesting.
The Kaiser has gone to the front, probably Russian. Next war loan
will be 12 milliards.
Helfferich lunched here last Sunday. He speaks English fairly
well. Zimmermann is laid up with the gout.
* * * * *
In the Reichstag debate yesterday, Stresemann, applauded by all
except Socialists, said that Germany threw away Wilson as a
peace-maker. However, the Government is pleased with President's
peace talk, as it keeps the people from thinking of food and
U-boat crises.
U-boat question will come up again, when Pan-Germanists and
Conservatives demand a reckless U-boat war because we have done
nothing against England.
Harden's paper has been confiscated again.
* * * * *
_June, 1916._ I am sorry to lose Ruddock, who is sent to Belgium,
but it is a good appointment, as his knowledge of German and
relations here will help matters.
The debates in the Reichstag have been quite interesting
yesterday and the day before. The Chancellor, irritated by the
anonymous attacks on him in pamphlets, etc., made a fine defence.
In the course of the debate allusions were made to President
Wilson and the U-boat question. The U-boat question may break
loose again any day.
I do not think that either Austria or Germany wishes President
Wilson to lay down any peace conditions. There may possibly be a
Congress after the Peace Congress, but meanwhile all parties
here feel that America has nothing to do with peace conditions.
America can bring the parties together, but that is all. The
speech about the rights of small peoples has, I hear, made the
Austrians furious, as Austria is made up of many nationalities
and the Germans say that if the rights of small peoples and
peoples choosing their own sovereignty is to be discussed, the
Irish question, the Indian question and the Boer question, the
Egyptian question and many others involving the Entente Allies
must be discussed. I think that generally there is a big change
in public opinion and the Germans are beginning to realise that
the President is for peace with Germany.
The Germans expect that by September preparations will be
finished and that the Suez Canal will be cannonaded, bombed and
mined so that it will dry up, and then the Indian-Afghan troubles
will begin.
* * * * *
_June, 1916._ The President's peace talks carried over the
dangerous moment after the submarine submission. Von Jagow told
me that because of debates in Reichstag the President must not
think he is not welcome as mediator.
Crops look well.
The break on Austro-Russian front is reported to have been caused
by wholesale desertions of Ruthenian troops to Russians.
The editor of the _National Zeitung_, responsible for the fake
interview with me, has been "fired" from that paper which has
published a notice to that effect.
* * * * *
Grand Admiral von Koester made a speech implying that reckless
submarine war should be taken up and England thus defeated. He is
retired, but is head of the Navy League, a concern backed by the
Government, possessing a million members and much political
influence.
Apropos of hyphenated Americans, a friend tells me that when he
was secretary here some years ago, a certain Congressman tried
for six years to get presented at Court, insisting that he be
presented as a "German-American." The Kaiser turned him down,
saying he knew no such thing as a "German-American," and the
Congressman finally consented to be presented as an American.
* * * * *
The U-boat question will come up again, say in three months,
unless we get in serious trouble in Mexico, when it will come up
sooner.
Edwin Emerson has been sent out of the country, I think to serve
in the Turkish Army in some capacity, perhaps paymaster or some
such job.
The Foreign Office continues to protect these American
mud-slingers--such as the "League of Truth" which is run by a
German named Marten, posing as an American and a dentist
(American citizen) named Mueller--these circulate a pamphlet
entitled, "What Shall We Do With Wilson," etc., and are the gang
who insulted the American flag by putting it wrapped in mourning
on a wreath on the statue of Frederick the Great with a
placard, "Wilson and his Press do not represent America."
[Illustration: COVER OF THE PAMPHLET FEROCIOUSLY ABUSIVE OF
PRESIDENT WILSON. ISSUED BY THE EX-TRAVEL LECTURER, JOHN L.
STODDARD]
What shall we do
with Wilson?
by
John L. Stoddard.
Meran. Tyrol 1916
Printing-office F. Pleticha, Meran, Tyrol.
* * * * *
Letters, codes, etc., for Bernstorff and individuals are sent to
America as follows: the letters are photographed on a reduced
scale so that a letter a foot square appears as an inch and a
half square. These little prints are put in the layers of a shoe
heel of a travelling American or elsewhere, book cover, hat band,
etc., and then rephotographed and enlarged in America. Also
messengers travel steerage and put things in the mattress of a
fellow passenger and go back to the ship after landing in New
York and collect the stuff.
A German friend, just returned from Austria, says the feeling
there against America is very strong on account of the Dumba
incident.
Yesterday I was told by a German that the German army had
aeroplanes which develop 300 H. P., and would soon have some of
1000 H. P.
* * * * *
_July, 1916._ Every one in this Embassy is getting to the
breaking point. Nerves do not last forever, and the strain of
living in a hostile country is great. The Germans, too, are on
edge. They are going to take away our privilege of speaking to
prisoners alone; this because they think I learned of the
shooting of the second Irishman at Limburg from prisoners. As a
matter of fact I did not, but cannot, of course, say how I did
learn.
The Russian prisoners are being slowly starved, the French and
English get packages from home.
There are rumors that a Bavarian regiment which was ordered a
second time to take a position, which the Prussians lost at
Verdun, refused and was ordered to be decimated, and that then
the Crown Prince of Bavaria threatened to march all the Bavarian
troops home unless the order to decimate was rescinded. I do not
believe the rumour, but its circulation and other events such as
the refusal of the Bavarians lately to adopt a common postage
stamp, shows there is a little irritation growing between Prussia
and Bavaria. For years before the war the Bavarian Comic papers
cartooned the Prussians, common and royal, but like every other
movement nothing will result.
* * * * *
There is much underground work for the resumption of reckless
submarine war going on, all part of a campaign to upset the
Chancellor. Von Bülow, Ex-Chancellor, is working hard. He,
however, since his row with the Emperor over the "Telegraph"
interview, which he passed as correct, will never be accepted by
His Majesty. Nevertheless, he is becoming a focal point for
opposition.
The Chancellor and his party are very timid about attacks. For
instance, they will do nothing against Emerson, Mueller and that
crew, which insults indiscriminately our flag, our President, the
Chancellor, Zimmermann and me, because, as Zimmermann frankly
told me, they are afraid of attacks. Mueller on the 4th of July
hung out the American flag in mourning and circulated copies of
the Declaration of Independence charged with a bloody hand and a
black cross. I have filed in vain affidavits with the Foreign
Office, by people who say he has threatened to shoot me at sight.
* * * * *
The Germans seem to fear the Russian attacks more than the
English and French. They claim to have the measure of the
English, and not to fear their offensive.
Dr. John R. Mott has been here. He made a great impression. I had
him at lunch with the Chancellor, Zimmermann, and officials of
the prisoner department and War Ministry.
Mass feeding of the people has begun. They pay a few pfennigs per
meal.
I have heard rumours lately of actual dissatisfaction among
soldiers at front and of many being transferred, but this unrest
also will have no definite result.
Constant rain lately will damage the harvest and rot the potatoes
to some extent. Nevertheless, as I have often said, the Germans
will last. Holland has allowed more food in lately.
* * * * *
The long confinement will make many prisoners insane. Many old
men at Ruhleben, living six in a horse's stall or in dim hay
lofts, simply turn their faces to the wall and refuse even to
complain.
The statement in the American papers that our National Guard
could not mobilise for Mexico because of lack of sleeping cars
caused much ridicule here, where they go to the front in cattle
cars.
* * * * *
_July, 1916._ A committee called the National Committee for an
Honourable Peace has been formed. Prince Wedel is at the head.
Most of the people are friends of the Chancellor. One is an
editor of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ which is the Chancellor's
organ. On August 1st, fifty speakers, of this Committee will
begin to speak, probably the opposition will come into their
meetings and try to speak or break up the meetings.
The _Lokal Anzeiger_, also a government organ, prints an
editorial to the effect that Germany may take up ruthless
submarine war again. Great numbers of U-boats are being built and
in September operations will be on a big scale, though the
Chancellor will try to keep them to cruiser warfare.
The prisoner question on all sides is growing acute. The Germans
sent me a note to-day threatening stern reprisals if the alleged
bad treatment of their prisoners in Russia does not stop.
We can no longer talk to prisoners alone. Von Jagow told me that
after the visit of Madam Sasenoff, or Samsenoff, to a Russian
prisoners' camp, there was a riot, but the real reason is that
the Germans have much to conceal. The prison food now is a
starvation ration.
* * * * *
The Alliance of the Six, really an organization fostered by big
iron business in Westphalia, is very active for annexation. This
wants to get the French iron mines and coal, and so control the
iron business of the Continent and perhaps Europe.
A man from Syria passed through here recently and gave me most
interesting accounts of the state of affairs there. The Turks are
oppressing the Arabians and the revolt of the Grand Sheriff of
Mecca may have great effects in this war. This man says that the
English are building two railroads from Suez into the desert and
the Germo-Turks are building toward the canal from the North. For
the Canal attack there are, at present, principally Austrian
troops assembled. The Turks are beginning to take Greeks from the
Coast cities into the interior of Asia Minor and are oppressing
the Syrian Arabian cities, such as Beirut, where thousands are
dying of starvation. At the Islahje-Aleppo R. R., 30 Turkish
soldiers a day die from cholera. The Germans, by their precautions,
escape. He passed 147 German auto trucks in the Cilician
mountains bound for Bagdad. Also saw the British prisoners from
Kut el Amara, who are dying of dysentery, being compelled to walk
in the hot sun from Kut. He thinks the English and the Grand
Sheriff will transfer the title of head of the religion from the
Sultan at Constantinople to either the Sultan of Egypt or some
new Sultan to be established as an Arabian Sultan, perhaps at
Bagdad if the Russians and English take it, or at Mecca, and he
considers this movement of Arabians against Turks may assume
great proportions.
* * * * *
There is still talk here of a resumption of reckless submarine
war which question is complicated and involved in the eternal
efforts of the Conservatives to get the Chancellor out.
The recognition of the "merchant submarine" has made a very good
impression here.
The plain people are eager for peace but those interested in
carrying on the war have the upper hand.
The harvest is good, and is now being gathered.
A number of navy and (which is significant) army officers visited
von Tirpitz, lately in his Black Forest Retreat and gave him a
testimonial.
There is prospect that what is called here a "Burg Frieden"
(Peace of the City) will be declared between the Chancellor and
the principal Conservative newspapers.
One of the American correspondents back from Verdun says that a
corps commander said his corps took no prisoners.
I think many of the Hungarians are for peace. I get this from
Andrassy's son-in-law who is also a member of the lower house.
Tisza, however, is still in full control.
Prince Leopold's (he is a brother-in-law of the Kaiser) stags
have destroyed vegetables of the plain people (as in the days of
William Rufus) and people dare write letters, and Liberal papers
dare publish them complaining of these depredations.
CHAPTER VIII
GERMANY'S EARLY PLOTS IN MEXICO
_The Diary Concluded_
_August, 1916._ Count Andrassy, leader of the opposition to Tisza
in Hungary, has been here for some time. He lunched with us one
day and I had a talk with him in German. Andrassy is rather old
and tired. Andrassy's father, the Prime Minister, was originally
a great friend of Germany.
It is possible that Andrassy through German influence may be made
Minister of Foreign Affairs instead of Burian. This is to be the
first step in a German coup d'état to take place on the death of
Francis Joseph--the throne successor to be given Austria alone,
and Prince Eitel Fritz, the Kaiser's favourite son, to be King of
Hungary with possibly a Czech kingdom in Bohemia.
Andrassy had an audience with the Kaiser here. Andrassy is
apparently friendly with America and is also for peace.
_Von Tirpitz is out with a statement practically demanding war
with America._ I am surprised that the newspapers are allowed to
publish it. Very likely it will not be permitted to go out but it
ought to be known in America.
Germany probably will come out with a strong note about Poland,
refusing help and saying harvest is sufficient. This is not true
as to food for babies who cannot live on rye and wheat, but need
condensed milk.
The treatment of prisoners is going from bad to worse. The
Chancellor and Foreign Office can do nothing against the military
party.
Hoover, Professor Kellog, and I are all very much discouraged
about Polish and other relief questions. The Germans are getting
more and more disagreeable about these matters, even though they
are for the benefit of Germany. Warwick Greene, of the Rockefeller
Foundation, being a new arrival is more hopeful, but that will
soon wear off.
The Germans are getting a blacklist of their own. One Barthmann,
an American, who sells American shoes in Germany, wanted to get
his pass stamped to go to America, and permission to come back,
and was told that would only be done if the Chamber of Commerce
(Handels-Kammer) consents; you see the connection--no American
goods for Germany.
The Jews here are almost on the edge of being "pogrommed." There
is a great prejudice against them, especially in naval and
military circles, because they have been industrious and have
made money. Officers openly talk of repudiating the War Loan
which they say would only mean a loss for the Jews.
The Germans say they have new and horrible inventions which will
end the war soon.
* * * * *
I supposed that because I had some acquaintance with German
watering places and German-Americans I knew a little about
Germany. I was wrong. No casual traveller ever gets to know the
military caste nor do the members of that caste travel except on
"business."
The members of the military caste live like Spartans and are
consoled by the fact that they rule the country and look down on
the merchant class. They feel that they have created modern
industrial Germany. The military caste (of which the naval and
all government bureaus are branches) has organised the nation for
war with the efficiency of the managers of a great American
corporation. The government is an absolutism. No Jew can become
an officer. Officers of crack regiments do not go to the homes of
persons in any kind of business. A business man is called a
"Kaufmann," as we speak of a house painter. Some tame professors
are paid by the State to give an impression of "Kultur."
* * * * *
This war is now a war for conquest or money. All people tell me
that we must have "pay for so much blood." "If we don't keep
Belgium there will be a revolution. Who is to pay for the War?" A
Socialist who referred yesterday in the Reichstag to the Kaiser's
speech of the beginning of the war which stated this was not a
war to get territory, was well sat upon. Even the Socialists are
all for war against Italy.
* * * * *
None of the German colonies is fit for Europeans. _Germany last
year proposed joint intervention in Mexico to England._ If
successful Germany will try to get a foothold in the Western
Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine is like a red rag to a bull to
every German.
* * * * *
Relations with members of the Government here are quite agreeable
but there is not an effective government at present. The
Chancellor will take no decisive action and leaves matters to
department heads who fight with other department heads. The
Emperor saw fit to follow the traditions of 1870 and go to the
field taking the Chancellor and heads of many departments with
him, hence great governmental confusion, but this does not affect
military organisation. He is bored by the Chancellor, a good man,
but of no action or decision. Von Falkenhayn is the Emperor's
favourite. He is the chief of the General Staff. Von Tirpitz and
von Mueller (also naval) have great weight. The Kaiser is thus
surrounded by military influences.
* * * * *
Saw summaries of the news published by the General Staff and
given to the Emperor to read. He gets only German-American news
from America and no bad news from anywhere. On the _Lusitania_
case there is a disposition to think, because we were not warlike
over Mexico, we will stand anything. _The Kaiser will not see me
because of the delivery of arms by Americans to the Allies and
has so stated._
There is no shortage of food supply. I was told yesterday they
did not need our Polish Relief Committee for German Poland as
Germany can take care of this alone. The hate of Americans is
intense. But this hate can be turned off and on by the Government.
The people believe everything they see in the papers. The
monetary situation is not bad. All the money for war supplies has
been spent in Germany, except perhaps for a few horses, etc.,
from Scandinavia.
* * * * *
The Chancellor and von Jagow have been in Vienna. Von Jagow told
me only on current business, but this was a diplomatic statement.
I believe they went to settle the fate of Poland. I hear Prussia
wants an independent Poland and Austria wants to make it part of
the Austrian Empire. In any event I think Prussia will secure the
organising of the army which will soon be raised. A prominent
Pole told me two days ago that the peasants were coddled by
Russia, whose motto in Poland was "divide et impera," and that
they will violently resent being drafted into the Prussian army.
* * * * *
The bitter attacks on the Chancellor continue. At a recent
meeting in Bavaria resolutions were passed that the first
objective of the war was to get rid of the Chancellor and the
second to "clean out the Anglophile Foreign Office," which
prevented Germany from resorting to "reckless" methods for the
swift winning of the war.
As a son-in-law of a high official told me to-day, the break
between the military and navy on one side and the Civil
Government on the other has widened almost into civil war. The
same man told me that the Kaiser has lately become quite
apathetic and lets events take their course.
* * * * *
One of my attachés has broken down completely, cries when spoken
to; living in a fiercely hostile atmosphere is not agreeable and
I wonder how long the rest of us can hold out.
The harvest is very good, but does not provide fat, and as yet,
meat. But the starving out business I have always said was an
"iridescent" dream.
New men, 80,000 in this vicinity alone, are being called to the
colours.
Every one here is getting more on razor edge, prisoners are
treated more roughly and get worse food. Bavaria is getting
restless and dissatisfied, this will not amount to anything
definite but is a sign of the times.
I went to Herringsdorff for a few days of swimming. At a concert
in the evening a man recited a poem he said he had written about
"having bled enough." He was vehemently applauded. Quite a
contrast to the days when the best actors in Germany were not
ashamed to spout the "HYMN OF HATE"!
The military people use the censorship even against papers
friendly to the Chancellor and Germans certainly can hate each
other as thoroughly and scientifically as they do most other
nations. Dr. Alonzo Taylor thinks that in peace times some one
fed this nation too much meat.
The newspapers are preparing the people for the entry of
Roumania.
* * * * *
Professor ----, a school friend of Tisza's and Burian's who was
recently in Austria, saw Burian and says Burian is ready and even
anxious to make an arbitration treaty with America and also send
an Ambassador in Dumba's place to Washington. This is out of my
jurisdiction. He says that to-morrow or next day there will be an
interpellation in the Hungarian Chamber about sending an
Ambassador to America.
The National Liberals probably will unite with the Conservatives
and demand a strong hold on Belgium, if not actual possession of
that country, as one of the objects of the war.
This Union of National Liberals and Conservatives is dangerous
and may mean a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.
* * * * *
The entry of Roumania took every one by surprise. Beldiman, the
Roumanian Minister here, was visiting the reigning Prince of
Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, brother of the Roumanian King, and
apparently knew nothing of the danger of a break.
To-day Hindenburg is named Chief of the General Staff, and his
Chief of Staff, Ludendorff, is made Quartermaster General,
Falkenhayn, former Chief of Staff is bounced without even the
excuse of a diplomatic illness. This is all a great concession to
popular opinion. I do not know where Hindenburg stands with
reference to America, but have heard that he is a reasonable man.
Of course, here the Army has as much to say in foreign affairs as
the Foreign Office, if not more. When I was at the Great General
Headquarters, Falkenhayn, although I knew him, did not call on
me, and dodged me. He did not even appear at the Kaiser's table
when I lunched there. From all this I judge he was against
America on the submarine question. I also have heard that when
Helfferich was talking before the Kaiser, in favour of peace with
America, Falkenhayn interrupted him, but was told by the Kaiser
to "stick to his last" or words to that effect.
These people here are now nervous and unstrung and actually
believe that America will now enter the war against them. It is
impossible to conceive of the general breakdown of nerves among
this people.
* * * * *
_I have heard lately of men as old as 47 being taken for the
Army._
* * * * *
Zimmermann has now gone on a vacation, his place being
temporarily filled by von Treutler, Prussian Minister to Bavaria,
who since the commencement of the war has been with the Kaiser. I
judge this means the Kaiser is looking personally into matters
at the Foreign Office. Von Treutler is, I think, against the
resumption of reckless submarine war. He is lunching with me
to-day. He is rather the type of intelligent-man-of-the-world and
sportsman, and has little of the Prussian desire to "imponieren"
by putting his voice two octaves lower and glaring at one like an
enraged bullfrog.
Dr. William Bayard Hale, of Mexican fame, who is in Berlin
representing the Hearst papers, has become very thick with
officials here. Von Jagow and Zimmermann are much impressed by
him.
* * * * *
The Germans may hate the President, but there are in America
hundreds of thousands of Czechs from Bohemia, Poles from Poland,
Slovaks, Ruthenians, Croatians and Slavs from Hungary, Roumanians,
Italians, Greeks, Russians, Scotch, Belgians, and French who HATE
the Germans.
* * * * *
I believe the Germans want an excuse to resume reckless submarine
war and an American correspondent has taken the job of making bad
feeling to justify such a course.
* * * * *
_September, 1916._ As these people get desperate the submarine
question gets deeper and deeper under their skin. I really think
that it is only a question of time.
Of course, from what I learn here Greece is sure to come in and
this is expected here.
As the Consul General at Hamburg has reported, serious riots
have occurred there, two by the poor classes, mostly women, and
one by students. The crowd shouted "Down with the Kaiser," called
for an end of the war, calling for unlimited submarine war
against England.
The hate of Americans grows daily, if indeed it is possible to be
greater.
* * * * *
Ira Nelson Morris, American Minister to Sweden, was here. He and
his wife are charming people. He is very popular in Sweden. Elkus
is also here on his way to Constantinople. If any one can "get
away" with that difficult post he can. I took Elkus to see von
Jagow and had him at lunch with von Treutler, the man in
Zimmermann's place. I talked with Elkus to von Jagow about Syrian
Relief. A Syrian, whose name I cannot give away, says the Turkish
Government reported to our Embassy in Turkey that the harvest in
Syria was the best in years, whereas, in truth this year's
harvest, on account of drought and last year's on account of
locusts, are the worst in 35 years. Missionaries have told me
that Syrians are starving.
* * * * *
A fact for the Russian born--Germany does not recognise the
American citizenship or naturalisation of a person born in
Russia.
* * * * *
Yesterday there was a conference of all party leaders at the
Chancellor's. I understand nothing was said about America or
submarine question. I doubt this. The Press here and certain
other agencies are trying to convince America that all is
peaceful, but Baron Mumm two days ago told Elkus, in this house,
that the ruthless submarine war undoubtedly would be resumed.
* * * * *
In general conversation with von Jagow, recently, he said that
the offensive on the Somme could not continue without the great
supply of shells from America. He also said that recently a
German submarine submerged in the Channel had to allow 41 ships
to pass, and that he was sure that each ship was full of
ammunition and soldiers but probably had some protecting American
angels on board, and, therefore, the submarine did not torpedo
without warning. He seemed quite bitter.
* * * * *
The wife of an American newspaper correspondent was recently
attacked in the street. Of course, the husband will not cable
this to America. Two stenographers from this Embassy were
recently slapped on coming out of a theatre because they were
speaking English.
* * * * *
Reventlow's paper was recently suppressed and Reventlow forbidden
to write without special permission. This is a good sign from the
Chancellor.
Dr. Hale was recently given a special trip to the West front, and
allowed to talk to the Crown Prince, etc.
* * * * *
_December, 1916._ The Germans are simply delighted with the
President's peace note. Only a few cranks or conservative papers
are against it.
I saw Zimmermann the day after my arrival. He was most friendly
and said he hoped he and I would be able, as usual, to settle
everything in a friendly manner.
Yesterday he lunched here and gave me the German reply after
lunch. He told me at the first talk that he, the Chancellor,
Hindenburg and Ludendorff were all working together. Most people
here say that Hindenburg and Ludendorff are at present the real
rulers of Germany. Zimmermann remarked that there was no danger
from "reckless" submarine war.
Zimmermann said he regretted the sending of the Belgians to
Germany but it was hard now to go back on what they had done. I
have some hope that a retreat may be arranged--possibly by
sending the Belgians back gradually and saying nothing about it.
* * * * *
The American Chamber of Commerce are to give a big dinner January
sixth to welcome me back. Zimmermann and von Gwinner, head of
Deutsche Bank, have agreed to speak and many prominent Germans
have accepted.
The Press department of the Foreign Office has been reorganised
by Zimmermann, and Hammann, the former head, fired. The new head
is Major Deutelmoser, formerly of the General Staff, a personal
friend of mine.
* * * * *
The Emperor is at Potsdam and consulted with Zimmermann, General
von Kessel, etc., as to the reply to the President's peace note.
Berlin is much more melancholy than when I left. General von
Kessel came to our American Colony Christmas tree for poor Berlin
children. It was very pathetic. One little kid got up and prayed
for peace and every one wept. I hope to get to see Ludendorff and
Hindenburg soon and see how they feel toward America.
* * * * *
I went to Ruhleben, the British civilian camp, yesterday to tell
the prisoners that all over 45 go home. It was quite a Christmas
gift as 700 there are over that age. (Note: don't think this
agreement of Germany and England ever went into effect!)
* * * * *
_January, 1917._ Germany wants a peace conference in order to
make a separate peace on good terms to them with France and
Russia, then hopes to finish England by submarines, then later
take the scalp of Japan, Russia and France separately. The Allies
ought to remember what Ben Franklin said about hanging together
or separately. I get the above scheme from very good authority.
* * * * *
The weather is most depressing; dark, and rain every day. All
hands seem cross. Zimmermann, I think, finds it much more
difficult to be the responsible first than the criticising
second. It is not as easy as it looked to him.
The Kaiser stated the other day that he did not expect peace now,
that the English would try a great offensive in the spring and
would fail.
_Herbert Hoover writes me that the Germans are violating all
their pledges in Belgium._ He expects a year of great difficulties.
I hear this confirmed on best authority and that even the German
official who is supposed to see that food is not sent from
Belgium to Germany in violation of Germany's pledges sends out
butter to his family; that there is an absolute reign of terror
in Belgium, sudden and arbitrary arrests, etc. I think the
Germans want to see all foreign diplomats out of Bucharest and
Brussels and the charges against Voypicka should be considered in
that light.
* * * * *
The greatest danger from submarine war is that unthinking persons
in the U. S. may start a crusade against the President's policy,
encourage the Germans in the belief that we are divided and lead
them to resume reckless acts in that belief. The continuance of a
strong front is the very best way to keep the peace.
Both Zimmermann and the Chancellor asked me about Bernstorff, and
returning good for evil, I said that he was O. K., on very good
terms with the Government, well liked (_sic_) and that no one
could do better!
A friend just returned from a week's visit in Hungary reports a
great desire for peace. Persons who, a year ago, said that the
President could have nothing to do with peace or negotiations,
now say he is the only possible mediator. This comes from high
government circles there.
The historic crown of St. Stephen was much too large for the
King, but the little crown prince made a great hit with the
populace.
* * * * *
An Armenian woman came through here the other day. Her husband
had been captured or killed and her tale of the treatment of the
Armenians by the Turks was heartrending.
* * * * *
Everything points to a coming crisis in the matter of food, how
serious it will be even the officials themselves do not know, as
there is much concealed food and much smuggling over the various
frontiers.
In some parts of Germany, the country police or gendarmes are
searching the farm houses thrice weekly.
I have secured permission to visit and inspect the enslaved
Belgians, have named as inspectors all members of our staff
speaking French, but as yet have not received passes.
* * * * *
Here is a copy of a letter I have just received from a German:
"The hypocrisy of the German Government is really
disgusting! It is a well-known matter of fact,
that by hints and approbation, nay even by express
orders of the German military authorities the
troops in France and Belgium have been stimulated
to give no quarter at all in the case of British
adversaries, and that in Russia even whole
regiments and brigades have been annihilated by
grapeshot, although the poor wretches delivered
themselves on mercy and raised their hands, to
prove their submission. Both the Prussian and the
Bavarian crown-prince have expressly ordered to
make no prisoners, to spare ammunition and to
despatch the surviving by steel and bayonet. Has
the order been forgotten, issued by the Kaiser in
the beginning of the German China-Expedition, to
deal with the Chinese like the Huns, to destroy
and annihilate every human creature both men and
women and even innocent children!
Quis Aulerit Gracchos de seditione quaerentes?
Unus pro multis.
P. S.
The war would be decided and peace restored as
soon as the U. S. A. Government would intervene in
favour of humanity, liberty and civilisation. Down
with the Prussian Tyranny!"
* * * * *
The Germans will do nothing about Belgium. The deportations were
a military measure, demanded by Ludendorff, who constantly fears
a British landing on the Belgian coast.
* * * * *
A man who called on von Tirpitz recently was told by von Tirpitz
that he, von Tirpitz, was watched like a spy and all his letters
opened. Von Tirpitz said that Hindenburg was the real ruler of
Germany, that anything Bethmann said was censored by Hindenburg
and that Hindenburg was now against reckless submarine war but
that any substantial defeats in the field would make him change
his mind. Von Tirpitz said that the Kaiser was losing his mind
and spent all his time praying, and learning Hebrew.
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN COURTYARD OF EMBASSY, AUGUST,
1916
_Left to right_--Lanier Winslow; Albert B. Ruddock; Percival
Dodge; Grafton Minot; von Gwinner, head of the great Deutsche
Bank; Surgeon Ohnesorg, U. S. N.; Ernest Bicknell of Red Cross;
Ambassador Gerard; Mr. Wilmeth of Treas. Dept.; Assistant
Secretary of War Breckenridge; Roland Harvey; Charles Russell;
Hugo Ballin, head of Hamburg-American Line; Major Ryan and First
Secretary Grew.]
The food situation grows worse. Potato cards must now be
presented in restaurants and hotels. I doubt if potatoes can last
beyond April. There is food in Roumania but much will go to the
troops; Austrians and Turks: the railways are so used by troops,
etc., that it is doubtful if any food from there can reach
Germany for months.
* * * * *
All apartment houses in Berlin are closed at nine, and lights in
halls extinguished. Theatres close at ten and movies also. There
is want of coal due to lack of transportation.
* * * * *
The President's address to the Senate yesterday (Jan. 22, 1917)
is splendid. I don't know yet how it will be taken here. If it is
published it will give the German people something to consider.
* * * * *
Postcards showing Zeppelins in the act of murdering the sleeping
babies of an enemy city are distributed here with pride.
All Germans of my acquaintance have impressed on me lately the
renewed danger of submarine warfare. The American correspondents
are not allowed to send out the hate of America speeches and
articles. Cyril Brown of the _World_ says that last week fifty
per cent of the matter he sent was cut out by censor here.
The new U-boat campaign will go along the armed merchantman lines
and an endeavour will be made to force or get us in some way to
recognise that an armed merchantman is the same as a warship
and, therefore, may be fired on without notice. It is the old
story, but more subtly presented.
* * * * *
Food situation more and more serious, riots lately in two markets
in Berlin.
Have not yet received passes to see the Belgians.
Undoubtedly Ludendorff is the real dictator of Germany to-day.
What he thinks about America may be judged from the circumstances
before Colonel Kuhn's recall.
* * * * *
The nearer I get to the situation the more I consider the
President's peace note an exceedingly wise move. It has made it
very difficult for the terrorists here to start anything which
will bring Germany into conflict with the U. S.
_The Chancellor, Zimmermann, Stumm, have all ridiculed the idea
that Germany will go back on her "Sussex" pledges; but if she
does, then the peace note makes it easier for America to enter
the war on the Allies' side with a clear conscience and the
knowledge on the part of the people at home that the President
did everything possible to keep us out of the mess._
CHAPTER IX
THE KULTUR OF KAISERDOM--THE GERMAN SOUL
The older I grow the more it seems to me that all men are alike
and that they have been alike at all periods of history, capable
of the same development and differing only because of environment.
I do not believe, for example, that any mystery is concealed
behind the faces of the peoples of the East. Once I asked
Soughimoura, my colleague in Berlin, Ambassador of Japan, whether
the Japanese were as much subject to nerves as western peoples.
He answered in the affirmative but said they were taught from
infancy to control their nerves. I asked him how, and he said the
principle of the system was deep abdominal breathing with a slow
release of the breath as soon as nervousness came on. Japanese
wrestlers practised this, he added, and when a man took deep
breaths it was almost impossible to throw him.
Of course, social life and customs change with climate. But
education is the most powerful factor of all. The Aztecs of
Mexico offered human sacrifices, but the letter of the Aztec
mother to her daughter, giving advice and counsel, mentioned by
Prescott in his history, might have been written by a New
England mother to-day. Somewhere in the world is a savage eating
human flesh, persuaded that in so doing he is acting in
accordance with the tenets of his religion.
These are the extremes.
But the German or rather the Prussian, has been moulded into the
extraordinary person that he is to-day by a slow process of
education extending through several generations. At Marienburg,
on the Baltic shore of Germany, stands the ancient castle of the
Teutonic Knights recently restored by the German Kaiser. The
Knights at one time conquered and occupied much of the territory
that is now modern Prussia. A military religious order, they
attracted adventurers from all lands and their descendants
constitute many of the noble families of Prussia. It is this
tradition of conquest for gain that still animates the ruling
class of Prussia and therefore all Germany.
Later through the middle ages and as the central power of the
Emperor grew weaker and weaker, what is to-day Germany became a
nest of dukedoms and principalities. Before the French Revolution
these numbered hundreds. After the Thirty Years' War which
ravaged Germany from 1615 to 1645 extreme poverty was often
conspicuous at these petty courts. War was an industry and the
poor German peasants were frequently bartered as slaves to the
war-god, as the Hessians were sold by their ruler to the British
in our War of the Revolution. The Germans were then the
mercenaries of Europe, savages skilled in war, without mercy
towards the towns unfortunate enough to be given to their
pillage. There is no more horrible event in all history than that
of the sack of Rome by the German mercenaries in the year 1527.
Under General George von Frundsberg, who joined forces with the
recreant constable Bourbon of France and the Spaniards, these
lawless Germans invaded the fertile plains of Italy and took Rome
by assault.
The most awful outrages were perpetrated. Prelates were tortured
after being paraded through the streets of the Eternal City,
dressed in their sacred pontificals and mounted on donkeys.
Altars were defiled, sacred images broken, vestments and services
and works of art taken from the plundered churches and sacred
relics insulted, broken and scattered. For nine months the orgy
continued, the inhabitants being tortured by these German
soldiers in their effort to find hidden treasure. In fact
conditions in Belgium to-day had their counterpart centuries ago
in the treatment of Roman Catholic Priests and the people of
Rome.
The great change in the feeling of the country towards Prussia
since the latter's conquest of the rest of Germany in 1866, is
still exemplified by one quotation from Goethe. He said, "The
Prussian was born a brute and civilisation will make him
ferocious." We all have seen how prophetic was this sentence.
Skilled in chemistry, in science, well educated, made rich by
manufacturing and foreign commerce, the Prussians of to-day have
shown themselves far more bloody, far more cruel than the German
lansquenet of the middle ages who sold himself, his two handed
sword, his military experience and his long lance to the highest
bidder.
Tacitus tells of how the ancient Germans when drawn up in battle
array used to sing a sort of war song to terrify their enemies.
It was Goethe incidentally who remarked "Amerika, du hast es
besser." (America, you are better off.) The poet who died in 1832
foresaw, indeed, the coming power of the free democracy across
the seas.
It was interesting to note the psychological development of the
Germans during the war. For the very short time while war hung in
the balance there was a period almost of rejoicing, among the
singing crowds in the streets--a universal release of tension
after forty years' preparation for war.
Next came the busy period of mobilisation and then, as the German
armies swept through Belgium and France, stronghold and fortress
falling before them, there came a period of intense exaltation, a
period when the most reasonable Germans, the light of success and
conquest in their eyes, declared German Kultur would now be
imposed on the whole world.
The battle of the Marne ended this period of rejoicing and,
through the winter of 1914-1915, when it became apparent that
Germany would not win by a sudden assault, the temper of the
people began to change to an attitude of depression.
It has been at all times the policy of the German autocracy to
keep the people of Germany from amusing themselves. I know of no
class in Germany which really enjoys life. The Counts and Junkers
have their country estates. Life on these estates, which are
administered solely for profit, is not like country life in
England or America. The houses are plain and, for the most part,
without the conveniences of bath rooms and heating to which we
are accustomed in America. Very few automobiles are owned in
Germany. There are practically no small country houses or
bungalows, although at a few of the sea places rich Jews have
villas.
The wealthy merchant takes his vacation in summer at Carlsbad or
Kissingen or in some other resort where his physical constitution,
disorganised by over-eating and over-drinking, can be regulated
somewhat. Many Germans take their families to Switzerland where
the German of all ages with knapsack and Alpine stick is a
familiar sight.
Earnestness is the watchword. For should the people once get a
taste of pleasure they might decide that the earth offered fairer
possibilities than life in the barracks or the admiring
contemplation of fat and complacent grand dukes and princes.
Much of this sycophancy is due to the poverty of the educated
classes. Salaries paid to officials are ridiculously small. The
German workingmen both in wages and living are on a lower scale
than those of other western nations with the possible exception
of Russia, Italy and the Balkan States. The professional and
business classes earn very little. The reason for the superiority
of the German in the chemical industry is because a chemist, a
graduate of the university, can be hired for less than the salary
of an American chauffeur.
And this earnestness of life was insisted upon even to a greater
degree by the autocracy with the opening of war. The playing of
dance music brought a visit from the police. The theatres at
first were closed but later opened. Only plays of a serious or
patriotic nature were originally permitted. Dancing was tabooed,
but in the winter of 1915-16 Reinhardt was allowed to produce a
ballet of a severely classical nature and at the opera performances
the ponderous ballet girls were permitted to cavort as usual.
I saw no signs of any great religious revival, no greater
attendance at the churches. Perhaps this was because I was in the
Protestant part of Germany where the church is under the direct
control of the government and where the people feel that in
attending church they are only attending an extra drill, a drill
where they will be told of the glories of the autocracy and the
necessity of obedience. In fact, religion may be said to have
failed in Germany and many state-paid preachers launched sermons
of hate from their state-owned pulpits.
Always fond of the drama and opera I was a constant attendant at
theatres in Berlin. The best known manager in Berlin is
Reinhardt, who has under his control the Deutsches Theatre with
its annex, the Kammerspiel and also the People's Theatre on the
Bülow Platz. I made the acquaintance of Mr. Reinhardt and his
charming wife who takes part in many of his productions. I dined
with them in their picturesque house on the Kupfer Graben. In the
Deutsches Theatre the great revolving stage makes change of scene
easy so that Reinhardt is enabled to present Shakespeare, a great
favourite in Germany, in a most picturesque manner. He manages to
lend even to the most solemn tragedy little touches that add
greatly to the interest and keep the attention fixed.
For instance in his production of "Macbeth," when Lady Macbeth
comes in, in the sleep-walking scene, rubbing her hands and
saying, "What, will these hands ne'er be clean?" the actress
taking this part in Berlin gave a very distinct and loud snore
between every three or four words: thus most effectively
reminding the audience that she was asleep.
As the war continued the taste of the Germans turned to sombre,
tragical and almost sinister plays. Only a death on the stage
seemed to bring a ray of animation to the stolid bovine faces of
the audience. In my last winter in Berlin the hit of the season
was "Erdgeist," a play by Wedekind, whose "Spring's Awakening,"
given in New York in the spring of 1917, horrified and disgusted
the most hardened Broadway theatregoers. The principal female
rôle was played by a Servian actress, Maria Orska--very much on
the type of Nazimova. In this play, presented to crowded
audiences, only one of the four acts was without a death.
Another favourite during war-time, played at Reinhardt's
theatre, was "Maria Magdalena." The characters were the father,
mother, son and daughter of a German family in a small town and
two young men in love with the daughter. In the first act the
police arrest the son for theft, giving the mother such a shock
that she dies of apoplexy on the stage. In the second act, the
two lovers have a duel and one is killed. In the third act, the
surviving lover commits suicide, and, in the fourth act, the
daughter jumps down the well. The curtain descends leaving only
the old man and the cat alive and the impression is given that if
the curtain were ten seconds later either the cat would get the
old man or the old man would get the cat!
The mysterious play of Peer Gynt was given in two theatres during
each winter of the war. All of Ibsen's dramas played to crowded
houses. Reinhardt, during the last winter I was in Berlin,
produced Strindberg's "Ghost Sonata," in quite a wonderful way.
The play was horrible and grewsome enough, but as produced by
him, it gave a strong man nightmare for days afterwards.
The German soul, indeed, seems to turn not towards light and gay
and graceful things, but towards bloodshed and grewsomeness,
ghosts and mystery--effect doubtless of the long, dark, bitter
nights and gray days that overshadow these northern lands.
I think the only time I lost my temper in Germany was when a
seemingly reasonable and polite gentleman from the Foreign Office
sitting by my desk one day, in 1916, remarked how splendid it
was that Germany had nearly two million prisoners of war and that
these would go back to their homes imbued with an intense
admiration of German Kultur.
I said that I believed that the two million prisoners of war who
had been insulted and underfed and beaten and forced to work as
slaves in factories and mines and on farms would go back to their
homes with such a hatred of all things German that it would not
be safe for Germans to travel in countries from which these
prisoners came, that other nations had their own Kultur with
which they were perfectly satisfied and which they did not wish
to change for any made-in-Germany brand!
Certain Germans have prated much of German "Kultur," have boasted
of imposing this "Kultur" on the world by force of arms. What is
this German "Kultur"? A certain efficiency of government obtained
by keeping the majority of the people out of all voice in
governmental affairs, a certain low cost of manufactured products
or of carrying charges in the shipping trades made possible by
enslaving the workmen who toil long hours for small wages--a
certain superiority in chemical production because trained
chemists, willing to work at one semi-mechanical task, can be
hired for less than a Fifth Avenue butler is paid in America, and
a certain pre-eminence in military affairs reached by subjecting
the mass of the people to the brutal, boorish, non-commissioned
officers and the galling yoke of a militaristic system.
Subtract the German Jews and in the lines of real culture there
would be little of the real thing left in Germany. Gutmann,
Bleichroeder, von Swabach, Friedlander-Fuld, Rathenau, Simon,
Warburg in finance; Borchardt and others in surgery, and almost
the whole medical profession; the Meyers, the Ehrlichs,
Bamberger, Hugo Schiff, Newburger, Bertheim, Paul Jacobson, in
chemistry and research; Mendelssohn, and others, in music;
Harden, Theodor Wolf, Georg Bernhard and Professor Stein in
journalism.
But why continue--about the only men not Jews prominent in the
intellectual, artistic, financial, or commercial life of Germany
are the pastors of the Lutheran Churches. And the Jews have won
their way to the front in almost a generation. Still refused
commissions in the standing army (except for about 114 since the
war), still compelled to renounce their religion before being
eligible for nobility or a court function, still practically
excluded from university professorships, considered socially
inferior, the Jews of Germany until a few years ago lived under
disabilities that had survived from the Middle Ages. They were
not allowed to bear Christian names. The marriages of Jews and
Christians were forbidden. Jews could not own houses and lands.
They were not permitted to engage in agriculture and could not
become members of the guilds or unions of handicraftsmen. When a
Jew travelled he was compelled to pay a tax in each province
through which he passed. Jews attending the fair at Frankfort on
the Oder were compelled to pay a head tax, and were admitted to
Leipzig and Dresden on condition that they might be expelled at
any time. Berlin Jews were compelled to buy annually a certain
quantity of porcelain, derisively called "Jew's porcelain" from
the Royal manufactory and to sell it abroad. When a Jew married
he had to get permission and an annual impost was paid on each
member of the family, while only one son could remain at home,
and the others were forced to seek their fortune abroad. The Jews
could worship in their own way, in some states, provided they
used only two small rooms and made no noise.
The reproach that the Jew is not a producer, but is a mere
middleman, taking a profit as goods pass from hand to hand, is
handed down from the time when Jews were forbidden by law to
become producers and, therefore, were compelled to become traders
and middlemen, barred from the guilds and from engaging in the
cultivation of the soil.
* * * * *
The German newspaper in size is much smaller than ours. If you
take an ordinary American newspaper and fold it in half, the fold
appearing horizontally across the middle of the page and then
turn it so that the longer sides are upright, you get an idea of
the size. There are no editorials in German newspapers, but
articles, usually only one a day, on some political or scientific
subject, one contributed by a professor or some one else
supposedly not connected with the newspaper.
The editor of the German newspaper in his desire to poison and
colour the news to suit his own views does not rely upon an
editorial, but inserts little paragraphs and sentences in the
news columns. For instance, a note of President Wilson's might be
printed and after a paragraph of that, a statement something like
this will be inserted in parentheses. "This statement comes well
from the old hyprocrite whose country has been supplying arms and
ammunition to the enemies of Germany. The Editor." A few sentences
more or a paragraph of the note and another interlineation of this
kind. Small newspapers have a news service furnished free by the
government, thus enabling the latter to colour the news to suit
itself. It is characteristic of Germany and shows how void of
amusement the life of an average citizen is and how the country
is divided into castes, that there is no so-called society or
personal news in the columns of the daily newspaper.
You never see in a German newspaper accounts common even to our
small town newspapers, of how Mrs. Snooks gave a tea or how Mrs.
Jones, of Toledo, is visiting Mrs. Judge Bascom for Thanksgiving.
If a prince or duke comes to a German town a simple statement is
printed that he is staying at such and such a hotel.
German newspapers, as a rule, are very pronounced in their views,
either distinctly Conservative or Liberal or Socialist or Roman
Catholic. The _Berliner Tageblatt_ is nearest our idea of a great
independent, metropolitan, daily newspaper. Other newspapers
represent a class and many of them are owned by particular
interests such as the Krupps and other manufacturers or munition
makers.
There is little that is sensational in the German newspaper. I
remember on one occasion that two women murderers were beheaded
in accordance with German law. Imagine how such an occurrence
would have been "played up" in the American newspapers, with
pictures, perhaps, of the executioner and his sword, with
articles from poets and women's organisations, with appeals for
pardon and talk of brainstorms and the other hysterical
concomitants of murder trials in the United States. But in the
German newspapers a little paragraph, not exceeding ten lines,
simply related the fact that these two women, condemned for
murdering such and such a person, had been executed in the
strangely medieval manner--their heads cut off on the scaffold by
a public executioner.
The German newspapers in reporting police court and other
judicial proceedings often omit names and it is possible in
Berlin for a man to prosecute a blackmailer without having his
own name in print.
When a German victory was announced flags were displayed, but as
the war progressed so many victories announced turned out to be
nothing wonderful or decisive that little attention was paid to
the vain-glorious flaunting of German triumphs. Following an old
custom ten or fifteen trumpeters climbed the tower of Rathhaus or
City Hall and there quite characteristically blew to the four
quarters of Heaven; but again as these official and brazen
blowings were not always followed by the confirmation in fact,
trumpetings were gradually discontinued.
The Germans cleverly kept back the announcement of certain
successes in order to offset reverses. For instance, on a day
when it was necessary to tell the people of a German retreat the
newspapers would have great headlines across the front of the
first page announcing the sinking of a British cruiser (sunk,
perhaps, a month before) and then hidden in a corner would be a
minimised announcement of a German defeat.
To us in Germany there was at the time no battle of the Marne. So
gradually was the news of the retreat of the German forces broken
to the people that to-day the masses do not realise that the fate
of the world was settled at the Marne!
CHAPTER X
THE LITTLE KAISERS
As the king idea seems inseparably connected with war there is no
country in the world where kings and princes have been held in
such great account as in the Central Empires.
I believe there are only two Christian kings in the world--the
kings of Italy and of Montenegro--who are not by blood related to
some German or Austrian royalty.
For remember that while we think of Germany as ruled by the
Kaiser and while it is his will that is certainly imposed upon
the whole of that territory which does not exist politically or
even geographically but which we call Germany, there are houses
of royalty in it almost as numerous as our big corporations.
There are the three kings of Bavaria, Würtemburg and Saxony,
grand dukes and dukes, and princes, all of them taking themselves
very seriously and all of them residing in their own domains;
jealously keeping away from the Emperor's court and jealously
guarding every remnant of rule which the constitution of the
German Empire has bequeathed to them.
Once I asked one of these princelings what his older brother, the
reigning prince, did with his time in the small provincial town
which is the capital of the principality. The brother looked at
me with real surprise in his eyes and answered, "Why he reigns!"
Before the constitution of the German Empire, many of these
poverty-stricken little courts were centres of kindly amusement,
even of intellectual life.
The court of the Grand Duke Charles-Augustus, of
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach at Weimar where Goethe resided and where he
was entrusted with responsible state duties, was renowned in
Europe as a literary centre.
Many of these princelings, however ridiculous their courts may
have seemed, exercised despotic power. To-day the inhabitants of
the two Mecklenburg duchies are protected by neither constitution
nor bill of rights. The grand duke's power is absolute and he can
behead at will any one of his subjects in the market-place or
torture him to death in the dungeons of the castle and is
responsible to God alone.
Here is an example from history. George Louis, Duke of
Brunswick-Luneburg-Celle, married his mistress, a Huguenot girl
called Eleanore d'Olbreuze. They had one daughter, Sophia
Dorothea, who married the Elector of Hanover, who was also George
I of England. Sophia Dorothea was supposed to have been involved
in a love affair with a Swedish Count, Philip Konigsmarck.
Konigsmarck was murdered by order of George I, and Sophia
Dorothea incarcerated in Ahlden where she died in 1726.
Konigsmarck's sister went to Saxony to beg the aid of the Saxon
King, Augustus the Strong. She failed to get news of her brother,
but became one of the mistresses of Augustus the Strong and the
mother of the celebrated Marshal Saxe. I say one of the
"mistresses" of Augustus the Strong because he boasted that he
was the father of 365 illegitimate children!
The daughter of Sophia Dorothea was the mother of Frederick the
Great and his brothers, and therefore, an ancestor of the present
German Kaiser. Any one writing about her in a disparaging manner
is subject to be imprisoned, under the decisions of the Imperial
Supreme Court, for "lèse-majesté" or injuring the person of the
present monarch in daring to slander his ancestors. And, I
suppose, any one referring to Augustus the Strong may be shut up
in Dresden for insulting a predecessor of the present King.
Every year the nobles of the Central Empires hold a convention at
Frankfort, where the means are discussed by which their
privileges may be preserved. No newspaper prints an account of
this Convention of the highest Caste.
The German peasants, as far as I have seen, are not so much under
the dominion of feudal tradition as are the peasants in Austria
and Hungary.
I was shooting once with a Hungarian Count who stationed me in
one corner of a field to await the partridges, which driven by
the beaters were expected to fly over my head and as I stood
waiting for the beaters to take up their positions two peasant
girls walked past me. One of them, to my surprise, caught hold of
my hand, which she kissed with true feudal devotion. As a guest
of the Count I was presumably of the noble class and therefore
entitled by custom and right to this mark of subjugation. And it
became quite a task in walking through the halls of the castle to
dodge the servants, all of whom seemed anxious to imprint on me
the kiss of homage.
Thackeray in the "Fitzboodle Confessions" gives a most amusing
account of life in one of these small, sleepy, German courts and
relates how he left Pumpernickel hurriedly, by night, after the
court ball where he had discovered not only that his German
fiancée had eaten too much, but that she had a taste for bad
oysters.
All of these small kings and princes are jealous of the King of
Prussia and of his position of German Emperor and show their
jealousy by avoiding Berlin.
In October, 1913, when in London on my way to Germany, I met the
young Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz in the Ritz Hotel where
he was dining with an English earl and his beautiful wife. As I
happened to have a box for the Gaiety Theatre, we all went there
together and paid a visit to George Grossmith behind the scenes
and talked with Emmy Wehlen, the Austrian actress, who was
appearing in the comic opera then running. But in all the time
that I was in Germany I never once saw or heard of the young
Grand Duke who rules the subjects of his duchy with autocratic
rule without even the semblance of a constitution.
Formerly our minister used to be accredited to some of these
courts and, on inquiring informally through a friend, I learned
that the American Minister is still accredited to Bavaria on the
records of the Bavarian Foreign Office, no letters of recall ever
having been presented. The fact that the American Ambassador is
accredited to none of these courts is a distinct disadvantage
because without letters of credence he does not come into contact
with any of the twenty-four rulers of Germany who control the
Bundesrat in which their representatives sit, voting as they are
told by the kings, grand dukes and princes. A number of these
kings and princelings, combining in the Bundesrat, can outvote
the powerful king of Prussia. But they don't dare!
CHAPTER XI
ROYALTY'S RECREATION
I had a shooting estate about twenty miles from Berlin, one that
I could reach by automobile in forty-five minutes from the door
of the Embassy. Because of the strict German game laws I had
better shooting there than within two hundred miles of large
cities in America.
There seemed to be something to shoot there almost every day of
the year. On the sixteenth of May the season opened for male
roe--a very small deer. About the first of August the ducks,
which breed in northern Germany, can be shot. These were mallards
and there were about two thousand or more on a lake on my
preserve. We usually shot them by digging blinds in the oat
fields, shooting them after sunset as they flew from the lake to
feed in the newly harvested grain. The season for Hungarian
partridge opened on August 20th. These were shot over dogs in the
stubble and in the potato fields. After a few weeks partridges
became very wild and we then shot them with a kite. When we had
put up a covey out of range and marked where they went down in a
potato patch or field, perhaps of lucern or clover, a small boy
would fly a kite made in the form of a hawk over the field. This
kept the partridges from flying and they would lie while the dogs
pointed until we put them up.
By October 1st pheasants could be shot; English pheasants become
wild. These roosted in the trees at night and so escaped the
plentiful foxes. Later on came shooting at long ranges, after
they had collected in bands, of the female roedeer and also the
hare shooting. Rabbits were shot at all times, and in November
and December and January on foggy days it was not difficult to
get a wild goose.
The hares were shot in cold weather, after the snow was on the
ground, by walking in line of ten or fifteen beaters with two or
three guns at intervals along the line and later, when the hares
were very wild and the weather very cold, by what is called by
the Germans "kessel-jagd" or kettle-hunt. For this hunt the head
keeper would collect a number of beaters, as many as a hundred,
from the neighboring towns and villages, mostly small boys and
old men. On the great, flat plain the keeper would send out his
beaters to the right and the left, walking in a straight line at
about twenty-yard intervals. After each side had gone perhaps
half a mile they would then turn at right angles, walk a mile,
and then turn at right angles until the two lines met, so that
perhaps a square mile of territory would be enclosed by the
beaters with the ten to fifteen men with guns at intervals in the
line. When the square had been formed the head keeper blew a
blast on his bugle and all turned and walked slowly towards the
centre and the hares were shot as they attempted to break through
the line.
On one day just before I left Germany, I and members of the
Embassy shot more than two hundred hares on one of these hunts.
The German hare is an enormous animal with dark meat, almost
impossible to distinguish from venison.
After these hare drives, besides, of course, paying the beaters
their regular wages, I used to hold a lottery, giving a number of
these hares as prizes or distributing hares to the magnates of
the village, such as the pastor, the school teacher, the
policeman and the postmaster.
When we were shooting in the summer and autumn the peasants were
working in the fields and one had to be very careful in shooting
roebuck with a high-powered rifle. It is customary to hunt
roebuck on these flat plains from a carriage. In this way a
bullet, travelling at a downward angle, if the buck is missed,
strikes the ground within a short distance. If one were to shoot
lying down, kneeling or standing, the danger to peasants in the
fields would be very great. The pheasants were sometimes shot
over dogs, but usually as the beaters drove small woods. A
pheasant driven and flying high makes a difficult mark. One
getting up before the dogs is almost too easy a shot.
We shot the rabbits by using ferrets, little animals like weasels
wearing little muzzles and bells upon their necks. In the woods
where the rabbits had their holes four or five ferrets would be
put in the rabbits' holes and it was quite difficult to shoot
rabbits as they came out like lightning, dodging among the trees.
In the early spring the "birkhahns" were shot, a variety of black
and white grouse. There were some blinds or little huts of twigs
erected near places where the ground was beaten hard and on these
open, beaten spots early in the morning the "birkhahns" waltz,
doing a peculiar backward and forward dance in some way connected
with their marriage ceremonies. There were also on this estate
numbers, at times, of a curious bird found only in Spain,
Roumania, Asia Minor, and these plains of the Mark of Brandenburg,
a large bustard called by the Germans "trappe." These birds were
very shy and hard to approach. Although I had several shots at
them with a rifle at four or five hundred yards I did not succeed
in getting one.
In talking with the Chancellor he almost always opened the
conversation by asking if I had yet killed a "trappe." As a rule
the German uses for shooting deer and roebuck a German Mauser
military rifle, but with the barrel cut down and a sporting stock
with pistol grip added. On this there is a powerful telescope.
Many Germans carry a "ziel-stock," a long walking stick from the
bottom of which a tripod can be protruded and near the top a sort
of handle piece of metal about as big as a little finger. When
the German sportsman has sighted a roebuck he plants his aiming
stick in the ground, rests the rifle on the side projection,
carefully adjusts his telescope, sets the hair trigger on his
rifle and finally touches the trigger.
At the commencement of the war the Duke of Ratibor collected all
these sporting rifles with telescopes and sent them to the front.
These were of the same calibre as the military rifles and took
the military cartridge, so they proved enormously useful for
sniping purposes.
Going one day to a proof establishment to try a gun I opened by
mistake a door which led to a great room where thousands of
German military rifles were being fitted with telescopes. These
telescopes have crossed wires, like those in a surveyor's
instrument, and it is only necessary in aiming to fix the centre
of the crossed wires on the game and pull the trigger. A clever
arrangement enables the wires to be elevated for distant
shooting.
So great is the discipline of the German people that game on
these estates is seldom, if ever, touched by the peasants. There
is no free shooting in Germany. The shooting rights of every inch
of land are in possession of some one and the tens of thousands
of game keepers constantly killing the crows, hawks, foxes and
other birds and animals that destroy eggs and game make the game
plentiful. The keeper has the right by law to shoot any stray dog
or cat found a hundred yards from a village. I paid the head
keeper a certain sum per month and in addition he received a
premium called "shot money" for each bird or roebuck shot. He
also received a premium for each fox or crow or hawk he
destroyed, bringing, on the first of the month, the beaks and
claws of the hawks, etc., to prove his claim. Foxes are very
plentiful in Germany and in one winter on this estate, only
twenty miles from Berlin, the keeper trapped or killed twelve
foxes.
[Illustration: EXAMPLE OF THE COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL OFFERED FOR
SALE. ON THE OBVERSE IS THE PORTRAIT OF THE CROWN PRINCE. ON THE
REVERSE IS "YOUNG SIEGFRIED" ATTACKING A CHIMERA-LIKE MONSTER
WITH FOUR HEADS: A BEAR FOR RUSSIA, A UNICORN FOR ENGLAND, A LION
FOR BELGIUM, AND A COCK FOR FRANCE]
The Emperor is very fond of fox shooting. Foxes are driven out of
the forest past his shooting stand by beaters and one of the
reasons why Prince Fürstenberg was such a favourite of the
Emperor was that he provided him with splendid fox shooting,
although it is whispered that he bought foxes in boxes in all
parts of Germany and had them turned loose for the Emperor's
benefit.
In the more thickly forested portions of Germany deer as well as
roedeer are shot and in many districts wild boar. In Poland and
in a few estates in Germany on the eastern border, moose, called
elk (elch in German), are to be had. These, however, have very
poor horns.
Talking to the keepers and beaters on this shooting estate gave
me a very good idea of the hardships suffered in rural Germany,
of the way in which the people in the farming districts are kept
down by the lords of the manor and by the government, and it was
from this village and the neighbouring town that I got some idea
of the number of men called to arms in Germany.
By a custom dating from the devastating wars of the Middle Ages
there are practically no farms in Germany, but inhabitants of the
agricultural districts are collected in villages and the few
farms have, characteristically, a military name. They are called
"vorwerk" or outposts. In the village on my estate there are
almost exactly six hundred inhabitants, men, women and children,
and of these at the time I left Germany one hundred and ten had
been called to the Colours. In the neighbouring town of
Mittenwalde, of almost three thousand inhabitants, over five
hundred had joined the army. At the commencement of the war the
population of the German Empire was about 72,000,000, or
something over, and applying these same proportions it will be
seen what a vast army was created.
In the industrial districts where men are required for munition
work perhaps not as great a proportion has been called. The name
of the village on my estate was Gross Machnow, the road from
Berlin to Dresden ran through it and only a few miles east was
the shooting place of Wusterhausen where the favourite shooting
box of the father of Frederick the Great was and where he was
accustomed to hold his so-called tobacco parliament, when, with
his cronies, over beer and long pipes, the affairs of the nation
were discussed with great freedom.
The horse races in Germany are excellent. There are several
tracks about Berlin. The Hoppegarten, devoted almost exclusively
to flat racing; the Grunewald, the large popular track nearest to
Berlin where both steeplechases and other races are held; and
Karlshorst, devoted exclusively to steeplechasing and hurdle
racing.
The jockey club of Berlin is the Union Club, which owns the
Hoppegarten track. Its officers are men of the highest honour and
in no country in the world are the races run more honestly, more
"on the level," than in Germany.
Nothing makes for mutual international understanding more than
sport. Even during the most bitter crises between Germany and
America I felt that I could go absolutely alone to the crowded
race tracks and, while I know the Germans differed emphatically
with the American views of the war, the gentlemen in charge of
the races and the members of the Union Club treated me with the
kindest consideration and the most graceful courtesy.
* * * * *
I am sorry that I never attended any of the Court hunts which
took place in the vicinity of Potsdam. A pack of hounds is kept
there and boars hunted. The etiquette is very strict and no one,
not presented at court, can appear at these hunts. As I did not
have an opportunity to present my letters of credence until a
month or more after my arrival in Berlin in the autumn of 1913,
the winter rains had set in before I was eligible for the hunts
and in addition I had not taken the precaution to order the
necessary costumes.
* * * * *
The first time that a man appears at one of these hunts he must
wear a tall silk hat, a double-breasted red coat, with tails like
a dress coat, white breeches and top boots. After he has once
made his appearance in this costume he may, thereafter,
substitute for it a red frock hunting coat, white breeches and
top boots and a velvet hunting cap, the same shape as the caps
worn by the jockies. There are no jumps on these hunts. When the
boar has been brought to bay by the dogs, the right to despatch
him with a long hunting knife is reserved for the most distinguished
man present. If a royalty is present at one of these hunts he
distributes small sprigs of oak leaves to every one at the hunt,
cherished ever after as valued souvenirs.
When I first arrived at Berlin, having brought horses with me
from America, I used to ride every morning in the Tiergarten.
Because so many Germans are in the army, riding is a very
favourite sport and in peace times the Tiergarten is crowded with
Berliners. Most of the riding was done between seven and ten in
the morning. The early rising is compensated for, however, by the
siesta after lunch, a universal custom.
Shooting is almost more of a ceremony than a sport. The letters
exchanged between Emperor William and Czar Nicholas, lately
discovered in the Winter Palace, show what a large part shooting
played in their correspondence. One or the other is continually
wishing the other "Weidmanns-Heil," which is the German
expression for "good luck" as applied to shooting. All royalties
must ride and keep in practice, especially because of military
service. Indeed, all the sports of the Kaiser and his people
converge toward a common object--military efficiency and war.
CHAPTER XII
THE ETERNAL FEMININE
Even the women, many of whom are honorary colonels to regiments,
must keep in trim for the great parade days of autumn and spring.
Many of these female colonels appear in uniform, riding at the
head of their regiments. They sit on side saddles, however, and
wear skirts corresponding somewhat in colour with the uniform
coat and helmet of the regiment of which they are the honorary
proprietors.
German female royalties are rather inclined to set an example of
quietness in dress. They seldom wear the latest fashion and never
follow the exaggerated modes of Paris. Even their figures are of
the old-fashioned variety--pinched at the waist. While in the
Tiergarten in the morning I saw many good horses, but only one
fashionably cut riding habit. Many of the others must have been
at least twenty years old, as the sleeves were of the Leg of
Mutton style, fashionable, I believe, about that number of years
ago.
Many German noblewomen shoot and are quite as good shots as their
husbands. I was quite surprised once on a shooting party to meet
an elderly princess whose grey hair was in short curls and who
wore a coat and waistcoat like a man's. She shot with great skill
and smoked long Havana cigars!
When German women get out of the country they very quickly
imitate foreign fashions and extravagances of dress. The Czarina
of Russia, for example, a German Princess, is very fond of
fashions, and a friend of mine who had three audiences with her
during the war tells me that on the occasion of his first
audience she was dressed in black and received him in a room
where yellow flowers were massed. On the second occasion she was
in grey and the flowers were pink. At the third audience her
dress was purple and the flowers were of lilac and white.
There is one good thing about the king and aristocratic system.
The position of women in the social scale is fixed by the
husband's rank. There is, therefore, none of that striving, that
vying with each other, which so often exhausts the nerves of the
American woman and the purse of the husband. The German women
give their time and attention to the "Four K's" that, in a
German's eyes, should bound a woman's world, "Kaiser, Kinder,
Kirche, Kuche" (Emperor, children, church and kitchen).
The successful business man of New York or Chicago or San
Francisco is surprised to find how docile and domestic the German
woman is--no foolish extravagance, but a real devotion to husband
and home, a real mother to her many children. She matches that
short epitaph of the Roman matron--"She spun wool; she kept the
house."
When I came to Germany I found, on studying the language, that
there was no word in German corresponding to "efficient." I soon
learned that this is because everything done in Germany is done
efficiently, and there is no need to differentiate one act from
another in terms of efficiency. But the German man could not be
as efficient as he undoubtedly is, without the whole-hearted
devotion of the German woman.
German girls are given a good, strong, sound education. They
learn languages, not smatterings of them. They are accomplished
musicians. Domestic science they learn from their mothers. They
are splendid swimmers, hockey players, riders and skaters.
During our first winter in Berlin we spent many afternoons at the
Ice Palace in the Lutherstrasse, an indoor ice rink much larger
than the one in the Freidrichstrasse, the Admirals Palast, where
the ice ballets are given and the graceful Charlotte used to
appear. The skating club of the Lutherstrasse was under the
patronage of the Crown Prince and was one of the very few meeting
places of Berlin society. The women were taught to waltz by male
instructors and the men by several young women--blonde skaters
from East Prussia. I tried to improve my skating and spent many
hours making painful "Bogens" or circles under the efficient eyes
of a little East Prussia instructress. Afternoon tea was served
during the interval of skating and one afternoon a week was
specially reserved for the Club members.
One of my young secretaries used to go occasionally to Wannsee,
near Berlin, to play hockey with a German friend; as the young
men were nearly all in the war, girls made up the majority of
each team. My secretary reported that those German girls were as
strong, as enduring and as skilful as the average young man.
Girls of the working classes, instead of flirting or turkey
trotting at night, make a practice of going to the Turnvereins,
to exercise in the gymnasiums there. If the members of the German
lower classes only had the opportunity to rise in life what would
they not accomplish! So many of them are very ambitious,
persistent, earnest and thrifty.
Of course, female suffrage in Germany or anything approaching it
is very distant. First of all, the men must win a real ballot for
themselves in Prussia, a real representation in the Reichstag. In
the Germany of to-day, a woman with feminist aspirations is
looked on as the men of the official class look on a Social
Democrat, something hardly to be endured. And this is in spite of
the fact that the nations to the North, in Scandinavia, freed
women even before America did.
The most beautiful woman in Berlin society is Countess
Oppersdorff--the mother of thirteen children. She is not German,
but was born a Polish Princess Radziwill.
The chief lady of the Imperial Court is Countess Brockdorff. She
is rather stern in appearance and manner, and rumour has it that
she was appointed to keep the good-natured, easy-going Empress
to the strict line of German court etiquette, to see that the
Empress, rather democratic in inclination, did not stray away
from the traditional rigidity of the Prussian royal house.
Countess Brockdorff is a most able woman. I grew to have not only
a great respect, but almost an affection for her. At court
functions she usually wears a mantilla as a distinguished mark
and several orders and decorations. We had three women friends
from America with us in Berlin whom we presented at Court. All
were married, but only the husband of one of them could leave his
work and visit Germany. The two other husbands, in accordance
with the good American custom, were at work in America. Countess
Brockdorff spoke to the lady whose husband was with her, saying
to her, "I am glad to see that your husband is with you," an
implied rebuke to the other ladies and an exhibition of that
failure to understand other nations so characteristic of highly
placed Germans. With us, of course, a good-natured American
husband, wedded as much to his business as to his wife, permits
his wife to travel abroad without him and neither he nor she is
reproved in America because of this.
Among the other ladies attendant on the Empress are Fräulein von
Gersdorff, whose cousin is a lawyer practising in New York, and
Countess Keller. There are other ladies and a number of maids of
honour and all of them are overworked, acting as secretaries,
answering letters and attending various charitable and other
functions, either with the Empress or representing her. One of
the charming maids of honour, Countess Bassewitz, was married
during the war to Prince Oscar, the Kaiser's fifth son. This
marriage was morganatic, that is, the lady does not take the
name, rank and title of her husband. In this case another title
was given her, that of Countess Ruppin, and her sons will be
known as Counts Ruppin, but will not be Princes of Prussia.
There is much misunderstanding in America as to these morganatic
marriages. By the rules of many royal and princely houses, a
member of the house cannot marry a woman not of equal rank and
give her his name, titles and rank. But the marriage is in all
other respects perfectly legal. The ceremony is performed in
accordance with Prussian law, before a civil magistrate and also
in a church, and should the husband attempt to marry again he
would be guilty of bigamy.
I gave away the bride at one of these morganatic marriages, when
Prince Christian of Hesse married Miss Elizabeth Reid-Rogers, a
daughter of Richard Reid Rogers, a lawyer of New York. Prince
Christian has an extremely remote chance of ever coming to the
throne of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, but nevertheless and because
of the rules of the House of Hesse-Barchfeld, he cannot give his
rank and title to a wife, not of equal birth. The head of the
House, therefore, the Grand Duke of Hesse, conferred the title of
Baroness Barchfeld in her own right on the bride, and her
children will be known as Barons and Baronesses Barchfeld.
When Prince Christian and his wife go out to dinner in Berlin, he
is given his rank at the table as a member of a royal house, but
his wife is treated on a parity with the wives of all officers
holding commissions of equal grade with her husband in the army.
As her husband is a Lieutenant, she ranks merely as a Lieutenant's
wife. On the same day that Miss Rogers and Prince Christian were
wedded, Miss Cecilia May of Baltimore married Lieutenant Vom
Rath. I acted as one of Miss May's witnesses at the Standesamt,
where the civil marriage was performed, while the religious
marriage took place in our Embassy. Lieutenant Vom Rath is the
son of one of the proprietors of the great dye works manufactories
known as Lucius-Meister-Farbewerke at Hoehst, near Frankfurt a. M.,
where salvarsan and many other medicines used in America are
manufactured, as well as dyestuffs and chemicals.
In my earlier book I described presentations at the Royal
Prussian Court in Berlin, especially the great court called the
"Schleppencour," because of the long trains or Schleppe worn by
the women. All the little kingdoms and principalities of the
German Empire have somewhat the same ceremonies. In Dresden, the
capital of Saxony, a peculiar custom is followed. The King and
Queen sit at a table at one end of the room playing cards and the
members of the court and distinguished strangers file into the
room, pass by the card table in single file and drop deep
courtesies and make bows to the seated royalties, who, as a
rule, do not even take the trouble to glance at those engaged in
this servile tribute to small royalty. I suppose that the excuse
for this is that it is an old custom. But so is serfdom!
There are in Germany many so-called mediatised families,
so-called because at one time they possessed royal rank and
rights over small bits of territory before Napoleon changed the
map of Europe and wiped out so many small principalities.
At the Congress of Vienna these families who lost their right of
rule, in part compensation, were given the right to marry either
royalties or commoners; so that the marriage of a Prince of
Prussia with a daughter of one of these mediatised houses would
not be morganatic. The girl would take the full rank of her
husband and the children would inherit any rights, including the
rights to the throne possessed by him.
Thus the beautiful young Countess Platen, shortly before we left
Berlin, was married to von Stumm, the very able Under Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs. While she became on her marriage
Baroness von Stumm, nevertheless, if she had married the son of
the Kaiser, she would have taken his rank and her children would
have inherited all rights and titles possessed by their father.
This is because the Platens, although bearing only the title of
Counts, are a mediatised family.
It is noteworthy that in Berlin women of that blonde type with
regular features, which we believe is the German type, are very
rare. This type is to be found perfected in Scandinavia,
although a few specimens exist in Germany. Looking over a Berlin
theatre I have often noticed the predominance of brown and black
hair.
There is always some one higher up to whom German women must
curtsy. All women, whatever their husband's rank, must curtsy to
a Royal Prince. Unmarried girls curtsy to married women and kiss
their hands. Men, on meeting women, always kiss their hands.
Berlin is certainly the gossip headquarters of the world. Some
years ago the whole town was invaded by a mania for anonymous
letter writing, and when the smoke had cleared away few were left
with unriddled reputations.
It is the fashion of the present court, however, to be very
puritanical. No such little affairs are going on publicly, as
have occurred in the annals of the Hohenzollern family. For even
the old Emperor William, grandfather of the present Kaiser, had
numerous love affairs. The tree is still pointed out near the
Tiergarten where he met Princess Radziwill every day.
And the Chancellor's palace was once the home of another royal
"friend."
The Foreign Office was at one time the home of the Italian
dancer, La Barberini, the only woman who ever for a time enslaved
Frederick the Great. I discussed affairs of state with von Jagow
and Zimmermann in the very room where she gave her supper
parties.
CHAPTER XIII
HOME LIFE AND "BRUTALITY" OF THE PEOPLE
The apartments of Berlin are designed for outward show for which
the Berliners have a weakness. They have great reception and
dining-rooms called "representation rooms," but very little
comfort or space in the sleeping quarters.
It is impossible to think of dropping in suddenly on a Berliner
for a meal. The dinners are always for as many people as the
rooms will hold and are served by a caterer.
Only two very distinguished guests may be invited. The host and
hostess sit opposite each other at the sides of the table, with
the guests tapering off in rank to right and left of them, the
ends of the tables being filled up with aides and secretaries.
When a great man is invited his aide or secretary must be asked
also. These come usually without their wives.
After dinner men and women leave the table together and smoke in
the other rooms of the house, going from group to group. And,
although perhaps ten kinds of wine are served during dinner, as
soon as the guests leave the dining-room, servants make their
appearance with trays of glasses of light and dark beer and
continue to offer beer during the remainder of the evening.
The Germans talk much of food and spend a greater part of their
income on food than any other nation. They take much interest in
table furnishings, china, etc., and invariably turn over the
plates to see the marks on the under side.
Whipped cream is an essential to many German dishes, and in the
season a Berliner will commit any crime to obtain some plover's
eggs.
The weiss bier of Berlin, served in wide goblets, is rather going
out of fashion. It often is drunk mixed with raspberry juice.
The restaurants of Berlin are not gay, like those of Paris. There
is, however, a rather rough night life created for foreign
consumption. I did not take in any of these night restaurants and
dancing cabarets, warned by the case of an Ambassador from ----
who was reproved by von Jagow for visiting the "Palais de Danse."
In peace time few automobiles are to be seen on the Berlin
streets. There are many millionaires in the city, but the old
habits of German thrift persist.
The modern architecture of Germany is repulsive. The man who
builds a new house seems to want to get something resembling as
nearly as possible a family vault. Ihne, court architect and
Imperial favourite, has produced, however, some beautiful
buildings, notably the new library in Berlin.
Munich pretends to be more of a centre of art and music than
Berlin. Artists have their headquarters there, but the disciples
of the awful "art nouveau" and kindred "arts" have produced many
horrors in striving for new effects.
The opera in Munich is better than in Berlin. One of the Bavarian
Princes plays a fiddle in the orchestra in the Royal Opera House.
The Berlin hospitals are better than ours, except for the caste
system which prevails even there, and there are first, second and
third class wards.
The underground road is built at about the same depth as the New
York subway. There are two classes, second and third; there are
no guards on the trains, only the motorman in the first car. The
passengers open the side doors themselves and these are shut
either by passengers or station guards. Accidents are rare, all
showing the innate discipline of the people. The charge is by
distance. You buy a ticket for five or eight stations and give up
the ticket as you go out of the station. If you have travelled
farther than the distance called for by your ticket you must make
the additional payment. This requires that each ticket be
inspected separately when taken up.
The tramways have different routes. These routes are shown by
signs and by numbers displayed on the car. Women motormen in the
war period caused many accidents.
For those Germans who cannot afford to ride or shoot, walking is
the principal recreation. There are a few golf courses in the
German Empire, mostly patronised by foreigners and American
dentists.
Military training is always in view and the use of the knapsack
on walking tours is universal, even school children carry their
books to school in knapsacks and so become accustomed, at an
early age, to carry this part of the soldier's burden.
Occasionally, in summer, bands of girls or boys are to be seen on
walking tours. In addition to the usual knapsack, they carry
guitars or mandolins. These young people are known as "Wander
vogel" (wandering birds), and sing as they walk. But they don't
sing very loud. They might break some regulation.
Outside of the large cities and even in the cities vacant lots
are occupied by "arbour colonies" (lauben colonie)--tiny little
houses of wood erected by city workingmen and surrounded by
little gardens of vegetables and flowers. Here the city workman
spends Sunday and often the twilight hours and the night in
summer time. Of course, these are possible only in a country
where the workingman is in a distinct social class and where he
is compelled to be content with the amusements and occupations of
that class alone.
There is no baseball or substitute for it--the clerks get their
diversion in a country excursion or at the free bath on the Wann
or Muggel Lake.
These "free baths," so-called, are stretches of sandy lake shore
where the populace resort in hot weather, undressing with the
indifference of animals on the beach, men and women all mixed
together, the men wearing only little bathing trunks and the
women scanty one-piece bathing suits. There is a bathing tent
where two cents is charged for the privilege of undressing, but
most prefer the open beach. Few swim or go in the water, but the
majority lie about the beach, often sleeping in affectionate
embrace, all without exciting any comment or ridicule.
The boy scout movement was taken up enthusiastically in Germany
with the cheerful support of the military caste, who look on the
activity as a welcome adjunct to military training. The boys
certainly are given a dose of real drill. On one occasion I saw a
boy company at drill march straight into the Havel river, no
command to halt having been given at the river bank!
The workingmen of Germany are more brutal than those of England,
France and America, but this is because of the low wages they
receive, and because they feel the weight of the caste system.
In a speech in December, 1917, I said that a revolution in
Germany would come after the war and that a fellow Ambassador in
Berlin had said to me that because of the great brutality of the
workingmen in Germany this uprising would make the French
Revolution look like a Methodist Sunday School picnic. A
newspaper reported me as saying this on my own authority and
added that I had said the Germans were the most "bestial" people
on earth.
I only want to be responsible for what I actually say. I did not
call the Germans "bestial," although unfortunately it is a fact
that many officers of the army and others have been guilty of a
brutality which has helped turn the face of the world from the
whole German people.
Not all the Germans are brutal. I received many letters revealing
evidence to the contrary.
Here is the protest of a German soldier, an eye-witness of the
slaughter of Russian soldiers in the Masurian lakes and swamps:
"It was frightful, heart-rending, as these masses
of human beings were driven to destruction. Above
the terrible thunder of the cannon could be heard
the heart-rending cries of the Russians: 'Oh,
Prussians! Oh, Prussians!' But there was no mercy.
Our Captain had ordered: 'The whole lot must die;
so rapid fire.'
"As I have heard, five men and one officer on our
side went mad from those heart-rending cries. But
most of my comrades and the officers joked as the
unarmed and helpless Russians shrieked for mercy
when they were being suffocated in the swamps and
shot down. The order was: 'Close up and at it
harder!'
"For days afterward those heart-rending yells
followed me, and I dare not think of them or I
shall go mad. There is no God, there is no
morality and no ethics any more. There are no
human beings any more, but only beasts. Down with
militarism!"
This was the experience of a Prussian soldier. At present
wounded; Berlin, October 22, 1914.
"If you are a truth-loving man, please receive
these lines, from a common Prussian soldier."
Here is the testimony of another German soldier on the East
front:
"Russian Poland, Dec. 18, 1914.
"In the name of Christianity I send you these
words. My conscience forces me as a Christian
German soldier to inform you of these lines.
"Wounded Russians are killed with the bayonet
according to orders, and Russians who have
surrendered are often shot down in masses
according to orders in spite of their
heart-rending prayers.
"In the hope that you, as the representative of a
Christian State, will protest against this, I sign
myself, '_A German Soldier and Christian._'
"I would give my name and regiment, but these
words could get me court-martialed for divulging
military secrets."
The following letter is from a soldier on the Western Front:
"To the American Government, Washington, U. S. A.:
"Englishmen who have surrendered are shot down in
small groups. With the French one is more
considerate. I ask whether men let themselves be
taken prisoner in order to be disarmed and shot
down afterward? Is that chivalry in battle?
"It is no longer a secret among the people; one
hears everywhere that few prisoners are taken;
they are shot down in small groups. They say
naïvely, 'We don't want any unnecessary mouths to
feed. Where there is no one to enter complaint,
there is no judge.' Is there, then, no power in
the world which can put an end to these murders
and rescue the victims? Where is Christianity?
Where is right? Might is right.
_"A Soldier and Man Who Is No Barbarian."_
The first two letters refer to the battle of the Masurian Lakes,
when the troops of Hindenburg, in checking the invading
Russians, indulged in a needless slaughter of prisoners.
I heard in Berlin of many cases of insanity of both German
officers and men who were driven insane by the scenes of
slaughter at this battle and especially by the great cry of
horror and despair uttered by the poor Russians as they were shot
down in cold blood or driven to a living death in the lakes and
marshes.
An American newspaper said this could not be true, asking why did
I not publish the letters in my first book. But my first book did
not contain all I have to relate, and the letters in question
were sent by me to the State Department early in the war, and
were not at hand on the publication of my other series.
But speaking of anonymous letters, shortly before I left Germany
I received a package containing a necklace of diamonds and pearls
with a letter, which, translated, reads as follows:
"The enclosed jewelry was found in the fully
destroyed house of Monsieur Guesnet of 36 Rue de
Bassano, Paris. It is requested that this jewelry,
which is his property, be returned to him."
The package was addressed to the Embassy of the United States. I
took it with me on leaving Germany and restored it to the family
of the owner in Paris. The Guesnet country house lay within the
German lines and the sending of the jewelry to me shows
conscience somewhere in the German army.
CHAPTER XIV
AIMS OF THE AUTOCRACY
I have shown how the Kaiser is imbued with a desire of conquest,
how, as he himself states, he dreamed a dream of world empire in
which his mailed fist should be imposed upon all the countries of
the earth.
But the Kaiser alone could not have driven Germany into war. His
system could.
The head of one of the great banks of Germany told me in the
first few weeks of the war that the Kaiser, when called upon at
the last moment to sign the order for mobilisation by the General
Staff, hesitated and did so only after the officers of the
General Staff had threatened to break their swords over their
knees.
If this story is true, what a pity that the Kaiser did not allow
the officers to break their swords! What would have happened?
Would the military have seized the power and deposed the Kaiser,
putting the Crown Prince in his place? I believe it might have
happened had he refused to sign the order. The Kaiser, after
leaving Kiel, attended a council at Potsdam where war was decided
upon, and I really doubt whether at the last moment he did not
shrink before the awful responsibility or hesitate to sign the
mobilisation order.
The immediate cause of Germany's going to war was the feeling on
the part of the autocracy that the people would not much longer
bear the yoke of militarism. That this fear had justification was
shown by the enormous vote of lack of confidence in the Reichstag
after the Zabern affair. At all costs the autocracy must be
preserved, and if in addition the world could be conquered, so
much the better.
With modern improvements on the outside the heart of the
government of Germany is that of the Middle Ages. The nobles as a
rule are poor, the returns from their landed estates small, and,
in peace times, the army general, the Prussian noble, and the
Prussian official is overshadowed in display and expenditure by
the rich merchant.
Army officers, nobles and governing class felt this and believed
that war would restore what they regarded as the natural
equilibrium of the country, the officers, the officials and the
nobles at the top and the merchant class back in its place below.
With war, retired generals living on small pensions in dingy
towns once more became personages, rushing about the country in
automobiles attended by brilliant staffs and holding almost the
power of life and death. His lands worked by prisoners at six
cents a day, and their products sold at five times the original
price with no new taxes on either land or incomes, the Prussian
Junker is enjoying the war.
And this autocracy can make no peace which is not a "German
peace," which does not mean that the Emperor and the generals can
ride through the Brandenburger Thor to celebrate the conclusion
of what may be thought a victorious war.
For the plain people of Germany, while they can make no
revolution now, on returning to their homes maimed and broken
after four years in the trenches, will revolt at last, if a peace
has been concluded which does not spell success for Germany. They
will say to their government,--to the autocracy,--"We had no
political power. We left everything in your hands. We had nothing
to say either about the declaration of this war or its conduct.
In return for our submission you promised efficiency and you
promised us more, the conquest of the world. You have failed and
we are going to overthrow you."
It is the knowledge of this that makes the Emperor and the
autocracy ready to take any chance, anxious to continue the war
in the hope that some lucky stroke, either of arms or of
propaganda, will turn the scale in their favour, because they
know that any peace that is not a German peace will mean the end
of autocracy and probably of the Hohenzollerns.
And all the while the people are told that the war is a defensive
war, although the German armies fight far in enemy territory in
France, in Russia, in Italy, in Serbia, and in Roumania. They
always are told, too, that it is Germany who is desirous of
making peace and that the Allies refuse.
Last summer (1917) when an interview I had with the Chancellor in
which he named the peace terms of the autocracy was published,
the interview was repudiated by the Chancellor, who stated that
these terms were not his. I am sure that they are not his and
were not his, but I am equally sure that they are the terms and
were the terms of the autocracy of Prussia as stated by him.
Shortly after this the newspapers confirmed part of these terms,
telling of the talk in Germany of the guarantees to be exacted in
case Belgium was surrendered by the Germans, which guarantees
amounted to the absolute control of that unfortunate country and
"rectification of the frontiers" demanded by Germany on the
Eastern Front.
Outside of Germany the propagandist and the pacifist and other
agents of the Central Empires have proclaimed that this war is
not a war of conquest or aggression.
But the evidence is to the contrary.
Kaiser and pastors, Reichstag members and generals, orators and
journalists, have all at different times during the war declared
themselves in favour of conquest.
And it is extraordinary as showing the masterful manner in which
the poor German people are led astray that most of the men making
these declarations for annexation are able at the same time to
cry that Germany is fighting a defensive war and is prevented
from making peace only by the wicked Allies.
The King of Bavaria, speaking early in 1915 at a banquet, said,
"I rejoice because we can at last have a reckoning with our
enemies and because at last we can obtain a direct outlet from
the Rhine to the sea. Ten months have gone by. Much blood has
been poured out. But it shall not be poured in vain, for the
fruit of the war shall be a strengthening of the German Empire
and _the extension of its boundaries_, so far as this is
necessary in order that we may be assured against future
attacks."
Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg, who is the gentleman who slapped
his chest and cried out to me on one occasion that Germany would
never forget the export of arms and ammunition to her enemies by
America and that some day Germany would have her revenge,
declared also in 1915 that the war would give Germany not only a
mighty African Colonial Empire but a sufficiency of strongholds
on earth for their navy, commerce, coaling and wireless stations.
The Kaiser, himself, speaking in July, 1915, in his call to the
German people issued from the Great General Headquarters, said
"that Germany would fight until peace came, a peace which offered
the necessary military, political and commercial guarantees for
the future."
Vice-President Paasche of the Reichstag, in April at Kreuznach,
said, "We are not allowed to speak about conditions of peace. But
the wish must be given expression that lives in the heart of
every German that we will not give up enemy land conquered with
so much German blood."
A sentiment also expressed in April, 1915, by the National
Liberal Reichstag member, Wachhorst de Wente, was to this effect:
"Our fatherland must be larger. We must not allow it to be taken
from us. Otherwise we will have obtained nothing except victory.
We desire also to have the reward of victory. We will not give
back all."
Von Heydebrand, the Conservative Leader, the uncrowned King of
Prussia, as he is called, demanded as a condition of peace "a
stronger and larger Germany."
Naturally, the Conservative leaders are for conquest and
annexation. Numerous articles in the Centrist Cologne _Volkzeitung_
were published protesting against giving Belgium her independence
again. In April, 1916, this newspaper approved the statement of
Leader Spahn of the Centrum party that the war must not end
without "tangible results," and also the statement of Stresemann,
another member of the Reichstag: "We demand and expect a larger
Germany." In February, 1916, _Germania_, the Berlin organ of the
Catholic party, demanded also a tangible prize of war as one of
the conditions of peace.
Countless examples can be given from speeches in the Reichstag
and from leaders and newspapers of virtually all parties in
Germany, showing this desire for conquest, showing that Germany
will not be content to go back to the situation before the war.
Even Maximilian Harden, who is respected all over the world
because of his fearlessness and reason, has written since the war
in favour of a greater Germany, thus:
"We wage the war from the rock of conviction that
Germany after its deeds has a right to demand
broader room on the earth and greater
possibilities of action and these things we must
attain."
Dr. Spahn, to-day the leader of the Centrum party, answering in
December, 1915, Scheidemann, who had argued against annexation,
and speaking in the name of 254 members of the Reichstag
representing the citizens' parties said:
"We wait in complete union, with calm
determination, and let me add, with trust in God,
the hour which makes possible peace negotiations,
in which forever the military, commercial,
financial and political interests of Germany must,
in all circumstances and by all means, be
protected, including the widening of territories
necessary to this end."
Ludendorff is now perhaps the man of most weight and influence,
barring no one, in all Germany. When only Chief of Staff of the
East Army he wrote: "The Power of Middle Europe will be
strengthened, that of the Great Russians pushed back towards the
East, from whence it came, at a time not very distant."
These quotations simply show that the great majority of
Germans--those outside the social democratic party--of the
Germans, indeed, who rule the country, conduct its commerce, and
officer its army and navy--all have been infected with a
dangerous microbe of Pan-Germanism and of world-conquest.
Every one who professes a knowledge of German life and character,
every one who writes of the origin of the war, talks of
Treitschke, Nietzsche and Bernhardi.
Nothing made the Germans angrier than to find in foreign
newspapers that on this triumvirate was placed the burden of the
responsibility for the war. And I agree with the complaining
Germans. Bernhardi, who, during the war, was given a command
behind the fighting front at Posen, was not considered a skilful
general by the military or a great or even popular writer by the
people.
How many people in our country or in France or in England are
influenced by the lectures or writings of one college professor?
And yet, according to many out of Germany, Treitschke, the deaf
professor of Heidelberg, is the one man who transmuted the soul
of Germany and incited the Empire to a cruel war.
In America you can find any brand of professor, from a professor
in a Virginia College who recently boasted that he would not
subscribe to American Liberty war bonds, but would send the money
to the Socialist, pacifist candidate for Mayor of New York, to
the Professor in the University of Chicago who based his claim to
fame on the fact that he had never been kissed. What professor of
history has had any great political influence beyond his own
college?
And it is equally absurd to think of a Prussian Junker, sitting
by the fire in the evening, deeply absorbed in the philosophy of
Nietzsche. All Germans, as a matter of fact, through pride of
conquest in 1864, 1866 and 1870 and great industrial success,
had come to believe themselves to be supermen delegated by Heaven
to win the world. Treitschke and Nietzsche were simply affected
in their writings by this universal poison of overweening vanity.
They but reflected the fashion of the day in thinking; they did
not lead the nation's thought. Nietzsche himself wrote in one of
his letters shortly before his death which occurred in 1900,
"Although I am in my forty-fifth year and have written fifteen
books, I am alone in Germany. There has not been a single
moderately respectful review of one of my books."
I never found a German of the ruling class who had read anything
written by Treitschke, Nietzsche or Bernhardi.
Tannenberg had more readers and a greater following, although he,
of course, expresses only the aspirations of the Pan-Germans. But
he presents concrete positions which any one can understand.
For instance, the German merchant looking at Tannenberg's book
and seeing the map of South America coloured with almost
universal German domination, smiles and approves, for he thinks
German trade will swallow that rich continent and clever laws and
regulations will exclude the imports of all other nations.
In some aspects Tannenberg foresaw what is happening to-day when
he says, "The Finns have been waiting a long time to detach
themselves from the Great Russians, their hereditary enemies."
But in the main, in his sketch of the war to which he looked
forward, he failed to predict accurately the attitude of the
world. His predictions represent many of the dead hopes of the
Pan-Germans, those Germans who believe it is the right and duty
of Germany to conquer all.
Prophesying war between Germany on one side and France and Russia
on the other, Tannenberg believed that more confusion and
resistance to war than actually occurred would come in Bohemia
and Poland following the order for mobilisation in the Slav parts
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He mistakenly wrote also that
Japan would declare war on Russia, a belief shared by the
torchlight paraders of Berlin in August, 1914.
Tannenberg thought Italy would declare war on France. He was
wrong in his confidence that France was decadent, wrong in
believing that England and the United States would only talk but
would not fight, yet right in his belief that revolution would
break out in Russia. In fact, I think that for years after the
Franco-Russian Alliance, Germany was preparing a Russian
revolution to break out on whatever day the Russian troops were
ordered to their colours. He says that France will be so
thoroughly defeated that the "war ought not to leave her more
than eyes to cry with."
I am afraid that while many eyes will cry in France, through the
breadth of Germany there will be but few homes where eyes will
not weep over the casualties of war, for which cruel, crazy
dreamers of world empire, like Tannenberg, are largely responsible.
For Tannenberg's dream, the dream of the autocracy and of the
Pan-Germanists, is to give to Germany most of South America, a
great part of Africa, of Asia, the great islands north of
Australia, including those of the Dutch; with Holland and Belgium
part of the German Empire as well as the Baltic provinces, and a
share of the French colonies to be divided with England.
The share of the United States for standing by and agreeing to
the robbery was to be, according to Tannenberg, a protectorate
over Mexico and Central America.
Mexicans who were offered Texas and New Mexico by Zimmermann
should read this Pan-Germanistic book in which all of Mexico is
generously bestowed on us.
And I wish that Tannenberg's book could be read by every public
man in South America--that South America in which the Argentine,
Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, the southern parts of Brazil and
Bolivia are, according to Tannenberg, to come under the
protectorate of Germany. Latin-American publicists should inquire
from the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina how long it is
before a "protectorate" is transmuted into a conquered country.
Tannenberg does speak for a great party in Germany. The
children's school books show German "colonies" in Southern
Brazil.
As Sainte Beuve said, there is a fashion in intellect. The German
to-day is essentially practical, cold, cynical, and calculating.
The poetry and the Christmas trees, the sentiment and sentimentality,
remain like the architectural monuments of a vanished race, mere
reminders of the kindlier Germany that once was, the Germany of
our first impressions, the Germany that many once loved. But that
Germany has long since disappeared, buried beneath the spiked
helmets of Prussianism, and another intellect is in vogue.
That older, kindlier Germany was the nation tempered and softened
by the suffering of the Napoleonic wars. After the battle of
Jena, where Napoleon rubbed the face of Prussia in the mud of
defeat, there came on Germany that period of privation which left
its impress so deeply on the German as to make thrift his first
characteristic. A spirit of lofty, self-sacrificing patriotism
imbued the whole people. Young girls cut off their long golden
hair to be sold for the Fatherland. Jewels were given by all who
possessed them. "Gold gab ich für Eisen" (I gave gold for iron)
became a saying based on the readiness with which the rich made
sacrifices to the cause of country. And with this patriotism, and
with this penury, came into every home a more intimate family
life, a greater earnestness, a deeper religious sentiment, a
turning towards the idealistic side of life; but all was changed
by the successful wars of Prussia that gave Prussia the
leadership, the right to rule Germany. Then, with the end of the
Franco-Prussian war, came a period of material prosperity, the
rush of the population to the cities, and the building of great
manufactories, of enormous shipping interests, of powerful
banking institutions, of trusts and combinations which marked the
Germany of 1914.
The fashion in intellect had changed, and the grasping,
successful Prussian of 1914 was far removed from the ruined,
chastened Prussian of 1810.
Nations, like individuals, change in character with the stress of
life. From 1810, the period of a sorrowing Germany, to 1914 is
one hundred and four years. The same number of years subtracted
from the year 1796, when our new Republic was firmly established,
and when George Washington made his noble farewell address,
brings us to 1692, when nineteen persons were legally hanged,
charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts, and when in that State
Giles Cory perished under the awful torture, judicially applied,
known as the "peine forte et dure."
It is quite true that weak voices against annexations have been
heard.
Dernburg and Professor Hans Delbrück (the latter not to be
confused with the disgraced, pig-slaughtering, ex-Vice-Chancellor),
in their petition against the annexation of Belgium, showed a
most reasonable spirit, and signing this petition with them were
many of the great men and great minds of Germany. But their
movement was a failure in Germany itself. Their campaign of
reason could make no headway against the "League of Six"--the six
great iron and steel companies of the West, who, with their paid
lansquenets of the press and hired accelerators of public
opinion, clamour for annexation so that they may rivet the chains
of their industrial monopoly on the whole continent of Europe.
The Conservatives and Junkers, on the other hand, favour
annexations to the East; especially do they eye greedily the
Baltic provinces where great estates are in the hands of
landowners of German blood. What a reinforcement to the
conservative cause would these Junkers of the Baltic be and, in
the Conservative view, if there are to be annexations in the West
which would increase the number of industrial subjects and,
undoubtedly social democrats, there must be a balancing accession
of agricultural interest on the Eastern frontier.
The only cloud in the serene blue sky of Junker hopes is the fact
that annexations in Poland would add to the number of Roman
Catholics and, therefore, to the power of the Centrum or Roman
Catholic party. Hence the desire to make of Poland an independent
kingdom, but one controlled by the Central Empires.
The Poles are more at ease, having been given more liberty, under
Austrian than under Prussian rule, and hence the tendency is to
put Poland under Austrian rule. The Prussians do not object to
this because it does not matter whether Prussia controls Poland
directly or through Prussia's control of Austria, now, alas, only
too apparent.
But the principal aim of the nobles and the landed aristocracy of
Germany, followed by their host of office-holders and dependents,
is to keep the "graft," to hold the offices, civil and military,
filled so long by these old Prussian families.
The von Lachnows, to imagine a typical Junker family, hold one
thousand acres of land in Brandenburg. The head of the house,
Baron von Lachnow, was Minister to Sweden. After having held as a
young man a position of Secretary of Legation, he left the
diplomatic service to fight with his old regiment, the Gleiwitz
Hussars, through the Franco-Prussian War. He then returned to the
diplomatic service in which he finally attained the rank of
Minister to Sweden. He now lives on his estate of Lachnow, with a
pension as ex-minister. On great occasions he appears at the
Royal Palace, resplendent in uniform, wearing the Orders of the
Red Eagle and Prussian Crown with the Cross of the Johannis
Order. His total income from pensions and estate is about ten
thousand dollars a year. The oldest son, Baron Karl Friederich,
after serving in his father's regiment, resigned and entered the
diplomatic service and is now second secretary of the legation in
Buenos Aires. He married there the daughter of a rich cattle
owner. The second son, Baron Johann, is now Police President of
the city of Schelsau, after having been district attorney in an
industrial district where he distinguishes himself by his
prosecution of the social democrats. He married the daughter of
the rich manufacturing proprietor Schulz, who sells, wholesale,
little statuettes on the Ritterstrasse in Berlin. Baron August is
in the army, detailed to the General Staff and with a great
future before him. Baron Max is now out of a job. While on his
vacation the colony, in which he was secretary to the Governor,
was captured by the British, and so at the outbreak of the war he
assumed his old uniform of First Lieutenant in the Gleiwitz
Hussars and was given command of the prison camp at Schluttenberg,
where he has won distinction for his severity with British
prisoners. Baron Ernst is in the navy. This is considered rather
a come-down by the family, as the navy, unlike the army, is not
aristocratic. He has great hopes of marrying the only daughter of
Von Blitz, who owns a splendid estate in Silesia. One of the
daughters, Hilda, is married to Count Wenharp, owner of a
beautiful estate in Pomerania, and the other to Hochlst, who is
judge of the law court in Holstein and who owns the Rittergut (or
manor) of Klein Spassberg, near Kiel.
[Illustration: VIEWS OF A TYPICAL HOLSTEIN COUNTRY HOME OWNED BY
A JUNKER COUNTRY NOBLEMAN]
The estate of Lachnow is perfectly flat ground. The road to
Brandenburg runs through the estate and village, the houses of
which front directly on the road. This road in the village is
paved with rough cobblestones. The house of the von Lachnows
almost touches the road, from which it is separated by an old
stone wall. One side is on a square, cobblestoned courtyard,
formed by the great barns, stables and sheds which surround the
other three sides of the square. The house and all the barns are
built of rough stone. The house is built on the plan of a piece
of Castile soap, walls and roof and nothing more. Inside there
are a dining-room, two parlours and an office-den for the master,
upstairs bedrooms, opening on a long hall; no bathrooms, no
conveniences, even the water is brought in by the maids from the
well in the centre of the court. The furniture is old and plain.
The family does not keep an automobile, but two horses draw a
dog cart to the station and take the family on visits to the
neighbouring aristocracy. The driver is the sexton of the village
church on these occasions. On the two sides of the house away
from the main road and the square of barns there is a park of
about ten acres. Here are a few evergreens and gravel paths and a
pond where some enormous carp excite the wonder of the village
children.
Baroness Lachnow is renowned for her devotion to the four K's. No
one has a better stock of household linen, all made by her, her
daughters and her maids, in the whole Mark. She superintends
every household detail and holds the keys to closets and wine
cellar.
Of course, the family does not associate with the schoolmaster
and the Lutheran minister of the village, but they speak very
kindly to them and the Baron once interested himself in obtaining
a long service decoration for the schoolmaster.
The von Lachnows live on their estate the year round, except for
two weeks in February when they go to Berlin to a cheap hotel and
attend one of the court balls. The Baroness never spends more
than three hundred and fifty dollars a year on her clothes,
although when in Sweden, as a Minister's wife she spent more. The
Baron and Baroness sometimes condescend to dine with the
father-in-law of their son, a manufactory proprietor, at his
handsome apartment on the Kurfuerstendamm in Berlin, but Schultz,
in spite of his four million marks and growing business, is made
to feel the wide gulf that separates him from the nobility.
Baron Lachnow farms his own estate. His farm superintendent is
von Treslow, once an officer in the Gleiwitz Hussars, who was
compelled to resign because of a crippled arm, badly broken in a
steeplechase. This taciturn, soured individual, on the outbreak
of war, was given a place as commander of a village way station
near the West Front, where his cruelties to the French inhabitants
will long be remembered.
Food is very simple. The family drink beer except on great
occasions, but the Baron drinks Moselle at the midday meal and a
red wine in the evening. The recreation is shooting and visits to
the neighbours.
Such a visit is a great event, arranged by letter beforehand. The
von Lachnows drive to visit the von Seltows eighteen miles away.
They arrive in time for lunch, when much wine is drunk. After
this the women gossip over their fancy work and the men visit the
stable, discuss crop prices and inspect the host's collection of
horse flesh. The family photographs are inspected and Count
Reventlow's latest article abusing the Americans is discussed and
the belief suggested that a democratic people without King or
Kaiser or nobility cannot be organised for war. The Social
Democrats are condemned and the story gleefully told of how the
son of von Seltow cut down a Social Democrat who was slow in
getting out of his way.
I can understand the feelings of the von Lachnows, the imaginary,
typical Prussian family of the ruling class which I have
pictured for you. If Germany should be democratised, what place
would be left for them? The offices of the government thrown open
to all classes in fair elections, places in the army and navy and
diplomacy open to competition in great academies like West Point
and Annapolis. Deprived of the aroma of power given now by
diplomatic or military place and noble birth in the caste system,
the sons and daughters could no longer make rich marriages with
the sons and daughters of the rich business men and manufacturers.
No more would the civil offices of Prussia be open only to
appointments among the noble or Junker class.
I do not blame the von Lachnows because they fight tooth and nail
for the retention of their old privileges--because they endeavour
to hold the common people in a serfdom almost as complete as that
of the Dark Ages. The dawn of constitutional government will be
their twilight, the twilight of the Gods of militarism, of
privilege, and of caste. Prussian autocracy made the war in a
last desperate endeavour to bribe the people into continued
submission.
The only excuse for the existence of the Prussian ruling class
to-day, as much out of place as chain armour or robber barons, is
its supposed honesty and efficiency; but no class which has
brought this war on the German people can be described as
competent; no sane governing class would have plunged into
disastrous war a country that by peaceful penetration, by thrift
and manufacture, and financial and commercial ability was in
process of acquiring much of the wealth of the world.
The _first_ aim of German autocracy is to keep its own political
position at home.
_Second_--To obtain as much of the territory of other nations, as
great an influence in unconquered lands, as possible.
_Third_--To make peace now, but only if that peace is a German
peace, a peace which can be called and advertised and proclaimed
as a German victory.
More particularly, Germany now looks to the East. In the
so-called Baltic provinces of Russia the lands to a great extent
are owned by Russian subjects of German blood. The peasants are
poor, servile, without education or property, an ideal field for
the advance of autocracy. It is hoped to either annex these
provinces boldly or to establish protectorates, which, sooner or
later, at an opportune moment, will fall into German hands--just
as Austria gained the consent of Europe to a protectorate over
Bosnia and Herzegovina and then suddenly added them to the
domains of the Hapsburgs.
The German propagandists have long been working on the people of
that part of Russia known as the Ukraine. If the Ukraine can be
made a separate protectorate or a semi-independent state, some
day it will be easily absorbed. The autocracy has the same hope
about Lithuania, at one time semi-independent. There, too, the
propagandists have worked on Lithuania--all these provinces, of
course, differing slightly from the races surrounding and all
with a semi-independent history, as, for instance, Courland.
But all these races should think twice before they accept a
momentary independence, if that autonomy is to lead them under
the Prussian yoke. Whether that yoke is easy to bear or not is
best answered by the Danes, Alsatians, Poles and Lorrainers who
have been forcibly incorporated in the Kingdom of Prussia.
But greatest prize of all is the commercial control of Russia
which the autocracy hopes to win for its merchant class. Time and
again I was told in Germany that a separate peace with Russia was
near and that the exploitation of Russia by the enterprising
German merchants, in a short time, would repay Germany for all
the losses of the war.
Would it not seem extraordinary if the language of business and
commerce of the United States were French? But to-day in Russia
and for years back the language of commercial business intercourse
has been German. A great beginning, a great foundation it is for
the eventual control, not only of the business, but the political
structure of Russia. If the Germans at war with Russia have been
able to split, revolutionise and divide it and put their
representatives in control, what will they not be able to
accomplish when peace shall bring them full liberty to circulate
freely in that rich but ignorant country.
In the end, all classes in Russia will demand a strong
government, and if no military dictator, no Russian Napoleon has
taken in his hands the reins of government, then the German
Kaiser will stand by ready to whisper to the torn people of
Russia, as Napoleon III did to the French, "My Empire is Peace!"
But even if Germany evacuates France and restores the complete
independence of Belgium, even if no territories are gained to the
East, or protectorates or independent states carved from the body
of Russia to be a later prey of Germany, Germany will have
won--if from Bremen to Bagdad German influence or actual German
rule is predominant in Middle Europe, the Great Central State,
where the cotton of Mesopotamia, and the coal and iron of
Westphalia, the copper of Servia, the oil and grain of Roumania
all will contribute to the manufacturer of Germany, who, in turn,
will sell his goods in that vast territory. And best of all in
autocratic view, the man power of the Central Empires will be so
increased that at a propitious moment, in a characteristic sudden
assault, the armies of the Central Empires will invade and
conquer Palestine, Egypt and India, and take what they will in
Africa and Asia, while British, Japanese, and American and French
navies impotently rage in useless control of the high seas.
CHAPTER XV
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--THE KAISER'S VASSAL STATE
Few people in America perhaps realise how completely
Austria-Hungary is under the domination of Germany and Kaiserism.
There are those who think that the hand of the Vienna Government
was forced by Berlin when the ultimatum to Serbia was answered so
reasonably by the little country to the south, but there can be
no doubt that Austria has been ever since under the yoke of the
German General Staff.
And because the first break, the first glimpse of reasonable
peace will in turn be forced on Germany by sorely tried
Austria-Hungary, bent by war and bowed by debt, it is well to
study a little the races and assess the influences of that
unfortunate land.
My wife's sister married a Hungarian Count, a member of the
Hungarian House of Lords, and I have met many of the political
leaders and magnates of that country on my trips there.
The Germans of Austria are handsomer, more attractive but far
less efficient than their bloody brethren from the cold,
wind-swept plains of Prussia. They have acquired a slight touch
of the Oriental and something of the mañana (to-morrow) of the
Spaniards, a heritage, perhaps, of the days when Spain and
Austria were so closely connected by Hapsburg rule.
In the presence of an Austrian one feels his charm instead of the
aggressive personality which is Prussian. Undoubtedly the
Prussians counted on the good nature of the southern Germans,
Hungarians, Poles and Slavs in their insidious campaign to make
these peoples, practically, if not in name, subject and tributary
to Prussian rule. The Prussian propagandist has brought them face
to face with a new Kaiserism.
Shortly after the war a great number of Austrian professors of
German blood issued a manifesto demanding closer union with
Germany--a prelude to the plots being hatched in Berlin against
Hapsburg rule.
The Court of Austria is quite different from that of Berlin; no
modern ideas during the reign of Francis Joseph disturbed his
medieval outlook.
The beautiful Empress of Austria, who was assassinated by an
anarchist in Switzerland, was probably insane. At any rate, for
many years she lived apart from the Emperor, devoted to hunting
and horses, going often as far as Ireland for her favourite sport
and seldom appearing in Vienna. Francis Joseph, however, was
consoled by an ex-actress, Frau Kathie Schratt, whom he visited
daily and who occupied a position in Vienna almost as powerful as
that of the mistresses of Louis XIV. Even in this very war when
Frau Schratt established a hospital, she was photographed in the
centre of a group of women all occupied at this hospital and all
holding the highest rank at the Austrian Court. The instant the
old Emperor died, however, her power, influence and prestige
disappeared and I imagine that her titled and high born helpers
were not long in deserting the hospital wards over which she had
presided.
That extraordinary Empire known as the Austrian Hungarian Dual
Monarchy is less an Empire or a Kingdom or a State than the
personal property of the Hapsburgs, whose hereditary talent for
the acquisition of land is recorded on the map of Europe to-day.
For centuries this royal family by treaty, by intrigue, by war,
purchase and marriage has been adding to its dominions, bringing
under its personal rule races who do not understand each other's
language and who differ widely in customs, intellectual
attainments and religion.
The last acquisition of territory by the house of Hapsburg was in
the year 1908, when the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office boldly
declared that Bosnia and Herzegovina, placed under the protectorate
of Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, had been
annexed to the Empire. The German Kaiser, standing by like a
watching accomplice while the burglary was in progress,
threatened a general European war if any nations protested.
At a time when Prussia was a struggling state, Austria was the
dominant power in Central Europe, but the one battle of Sadowa in
1866 settled for ever the question of supremacy and the German
States like Bavaria, Saxony, Würtemburg, etc., which stood with
Austria in that war, after receiving a sound beating, ranged
themselves on the side of the victor and, in 1870, joined in
acclaiming the King of Prussia as the First German Emperor.
That event settled the question of leadership in Central Europe
and the dream of the Emperor Frederick who died about the time of
the discovery of America. It was he who wrote the famous anagram
on the vowels A, E, I, O, U.
ustria st mperare rbi niverso
A E I O U
lles rdreich st esterreich nterthan
"It is the fate of Austria to rule the world."
In upper and lower Austria, so-called, there are about twelve
million German Austrians. This territory is comparatively small
and in it lies the city of Vienna. To the north and northeast lie
Bohemia and Moravia, the country of the Tchechs or Szechs of
Slavic blood. These people together number about six million.
Prague is the capital of Bohemia, while in Moravia there is no
great city. For centuries these peoples have been oppressed by
the Austrians and in the Hussite rebellion the lands of Bohemia
and Moravia were parcelled out to the Austrian nobles as well as
to the warlike adventurers who had joined the Austrian armies.
With extraordinary obstinacy and patriotism these peoples cling
to their old language and customs. They have suffered much
during this war and many tales are told of the shooting of all of
the officers of Tchech regiments and the execution of every tenth
man among the privates.
It is a bit of poetic justice that the town of Bethlehem in
Pennsylvania, where my friend Schwab is making so much war
material to be used against the Central Powers, was founded by
fugitives, who, rebelling against oppression, left Moravia in
search of liberty.
North of the Carpathians lies Galicia, a Polish country, with
Lemberg and Krakow as its capitals, and in the eastern part the
Ruthenians, a race identical with the Russians. These Ruthenians
number upwards of four million.
It is a peculiar fact that in the curious Dual Monarchy each race
oppresses some other. The Ruthenians complain that they are
oppressed by the Poles. The kingdom of Hungary lies to the east
of Austria containing in its twenty million inhabitants about ten
million Magyars, who are the dominant race and who in turn rule
over a population of one and one-half million Ruthenians, two and
one-half million Slovacks or Tchecks, three million Roumanians in
the southeastern portion and about three million of the race now
known as Jugo-Slavs. Of these Jugo-Slavs about two million are in
that part of the Dual Monarchy under Austrian rule. These are the
principal divisions of peoples. A Slavish race differing somewhat
from the others is in the mountains to the east of Hungary where
much fighting has taken place in the last war known as Boukovina.
In the southeastern part of Hungary there is a German speaking
country, known as Siebenburgen, where live the descendants of a
German colony planted about two centuries ago.
In Styria, in the mountainous districts of Austria to the west of
Hungary, lives a race differing again from all the others, a
mountain race supposed to be eaters of arsenic, a drug which they
believe gives them a good complexion and stamina for mountain
climbing. It is said that the bodies of these arsenic eaters
remain undecomposed for a long time. And from this part of the
world comes the curious superstition of the existence of human
vampires.
Slovenes, and Jews, Carinthians and inhabitants of Carniola, Serbs
living like Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italians in Trieste
and the Trient--all make up the strange Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
The union between Austria and Hungary is a personal union. The
Emperor of Austria is King of Hungary. Only in four particulars
are the Empire and the Kingdom united, namely, a joint administration
of the army and navy, of diplomatic affairs and of such finances
as are connected with joint expenditures for these purposes.
In 1848 Hungary sought to break away from Austria. Kossuth
heroically led the Hungarians against their Austrian masters,
only to be beaten in the end because of the advent of the
Russians, because one autocrat came to the aid of another.
Since then, by superior political talents and taste for intrigue,
the Magyars have not only held the Slovaks, Roumanians, etc., of
their own country in political subjection, but have held much of
the power in the Dual Monarchy. Their danger lies, however, in
the predominance of German influence; and some day the gay,
easy-going, pleasant Hungarians may awake to find the Prussian
Eitel Fritz seated on their throne and to learn what Prussian
efficiency means when applied to those whom Germans consider an
inferior people.
The twelve million Austrian Germans differ much in character from
the Prussians. They are far more polite, far more agreeable, far
more fond of amusement of all kinds. Indeed it is because of
their pleasant personal characteristics that so many other
nations have been content to remain under their rule. In no city
of the world is the mass of the population as fond of pleasure as
in Vienna. The best light operas come from that city. Vienna is
the original home of the waltz. The "Blue Danube" was composed on
the shores of the river which flows through the Austrian capital.
The dominant religion of the German Empire is Protestant, but in
the Dual Monarchy it is Roman Catholic among the ruling Germans
in Austria and Magyars in Hungary.
In Austria and in Hungary most of the land is held in great
estates. The peasants, as in Germany, sometimes own a few strips
of land near their miserable villages. Possession of land is
necessary to the standing of any noble. In Hungary, for example,
no noble sits in the house of Magnates or House of Lords unless
he is the owner of a certain amount of land.
Once across the Hungarian border, one sees the people taking a
certain delight in refusing to understand German. The names of
the railway stations are in Hungarian, and the uniforms of
station officials, conductors, etc., differ from those in
Austria. Every effort is made by the population to emphasise the
fact that Hungary is an independent kingdom, joined to Austria by
personal rule alone.
There is no melting pot in this part of the world. In the Lower
House of the Hungarian parliament sit forty-three Croatian
delegates, Croatia being that part of southwestern Hungary near
the Adriatic where the inhabitants are of Slav blood. By the
Hungarian constitution those delegates have the right to speak in
the Hungarian parliament in their own language and so from time
to time a Croatian delegate arises in his place and delivers an
ambitious harangue in Croatian, understood by no one except his
fellow delegates who already know what he intends to talk about.
This is only one example of how these peoples cling tenaciously
to their language and national rights.
It is possible to find in Hungary an Hungarian village, a German
village, a Slav village and a Roumanian village, all within a
short distance of each other. Men from each of these villages
after one month in the United States throw aside their national
costume and buy their clothes in the same Bowery shop, eat the
same food and send their children to the same public school not
only without protest, but with eagerness, whereas, in Hungary,
not one of the inhabitants of these different villages would
think of abandoning his national traits to learn the language of
his German neighbours.
Because commands are given in German in the armies of the Dual
Monarchy all the male population, at least during the term of
their military service, have been compelled to learn some German.
But this they forget as soon as possible when they return from
their period of military service.
Many members of these races go to America and after working there
a short time amass enough money to return to Austria-Hungary and
purchase a small piece of land,--the ambition of every one born
of the soil.
One of the sons of Prince Lichtenstein told me that a friend who
was running for the Hungarian Lower House in a district of
Hungary largely inhabited by Slavs, spoke in Hungarian and,
finding that his audience did not understand him, tried German.
Finally, when matters had come to a standstill, some one in the
back of the room called out to him, asking if he spoke English.
The candidate answered that he did. Whereupon the crowd told him
to speak English which nearly all understood, and so the
Hungarian, a candidate for parliament in Hungary, was forced, in
order to be understood, to address his Hungarian electors in the
language which they had learned in America.
Franz Ferdinand, whose murder at Sarajevo was used by the Central
Powers as a pretext for a war determined on long before that
time, was the heir to the throne of the late Francis Joseph. He
was a romantic character. He visited frequently at the house of
Archduchess Isabella, where Countess Chotek, of a Bohemian noble
family, was a lady in waiting. Franz Ferdinand fell violently in
love with the fair Bohemian, and in his desire to marry, enlisted
the aid of Koloman Szell, Premier of Hungary. Szell told friends
how Franz Ferdinand loved mystery and how, when he wanted to talk
to him about marriage plans, instead of meeting somewhere openly
in Vienna, would arrange that Szell's train should stop in the
open fields. Szell, on alighting and following directions, would
find Franz Ferdinand hiding behind a designated haystack.
In a country where one royal family not only rules but owns the
land, this attempt of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then heir to the
throne, and mad with love, to marry Countess Sophie Chotek, lady
in waiting to Archduchess Isabella, caused a palace revolution.
By the aid of Szell he at last succeeded in carrying out the
marriage. But this was only after he and his wife had been
required to submit to the most humiliating conditions and
subscribe to a marriage contract or promise which was not only
enacted thereafter as a statute in Hungary, but was formally put
on record by the Austrian parliament.
In this declaration, Franz Ferdinand declared it to be "his firm
and resolute resolve to marry Countess Sophie Chotek, that he had
sought, in accordance with the laws of the house, to obtain
consent of the Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, the Emperor
and King, Francis Joseph I, gloriously reigning, that the most
serene, supreme head of the Arch house had deigned graciously to
grant this permission and that Franz Ferdinand, however
(describing himself as 'We'), recognise the house laws and
declare them binding on Us particularly with regard to this
marriage declaration, that our Marriage with Countess Chotek is
not a marriage of equal birth, but a morganatic one and is to be
considered as such for all time, and that in consequence neither
our wife nor our issue or descendants is entitled to possess or
claim those rights, titles, armorial bearings and privileges that
belong to wives of equal birth and to children of archdukes or
marriages of equal birth." Franz Ferdinand, further, recognised
that his children from this marriage would have no right to
succeed to the throne in the kingdoms and lands of Austria nor,
consequently, to the lands of the Hungarian Crown and that they
were excluded from the order of succession.
He further agreed and promised not only for himself but for his
wife and children, that none of them would ever attempt to revoke
this declaration.
The old Emperor gave the wife of Franz Ferdinand the title of
Princess Hohenberg and later raised her to the rank of duchess
which, in the Central Empires, is a higher rank than that of
princess. She was also created a Serene Highness after the birth
of her third child, Prince Ernest, in 1904. The first child,
Princess Sophie, was born in 1901, and the second, Prince
Maximilian Charles, in 1902.
In spite of the rank thus granted to her, the Duchess of
Hohenberg was frequently slighted by Archdukes and Archduchesses
of the House of Hapsburg, and when the present Emperor, the
Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, married Princess Zita of
Bourbon-Parma, in 1911, and this marriage was followed by the
birth of a son, on November 20, 1912, it was plain to Franz
Ferdinand and his wife that the hostility of the old Emperor and
the other members of the House of Hapsburg, aided by events, had
succeeded in definitely excluding his children by Countess Sophie
from the throne.
These slights to his wife, so marked as to cause the publication
of articles inspired by himself in a newspaper devoted to his
interests, and the birth of the heir to Carl, must have had a
profound influence on melancholy Franz Ferdinand.
In all Europe there was one monarch clever enough to take
advantage of the situation, to win Franz Ferdinand to him by the
honours he paid to the Duchess of Hohenberg,--the German Emperor.
Kaiser Wilhelm invited the pair to Potsdam and there both were
made to feel that in one court, at least, the honours due to a
wife of equal birth were paid to the ex-Countess Sophie. This
Potsdam visit was in 1909, and I believe that, thereafter, the
German Emperor and Franz Ferdinand met on other occasions.
In the chapter on Emperor Wilhelm, I have stated the belief
prevalent, even in Germany, that he intended as his first step
towards his openly expressed ambition for world dominion, to make
himself, on the death of Francis Joseph, Emperor of a Great
Continental Empire in which the German Princes, his sons, should
occupy the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia, the heir of the House
of Austria to rule as king or grand duke of Austria with possibly
another German ruled kingdom touching the sea on the south.
There are some who believe that when the Kaiser, accompanied by
von Tirpitz, visited Franz Ferdinand at Konopisht in June, 1914,
before the Kiel week, that a great conspiracy was entered into,
in which it was arranged that a great Central Empire should be
created with one of the sons of the Duchess of Hohenberg on the
throne of Bohemia and the other provided for by some newly carved
out kingdom made from Bosnia, or a portion of Serbia. And it may
have been part of this plot that Eitel Fritz and other sons of
the Kaiser should be provided with thrones derived from Balkan
territory.
It will be remembered that as Franz Ferdinand and his wife fell
under the assassin's bullet at Sarajevo he called out: "Sophie,
live for our children!" His devotion to his wife and to their
children was extraordinary. He was continually sparing from his
income so that on his death his sons would have a large sum of
money, saved from the income of estates which they could not
inherit.
It is hard to believe that such a crime against the House of
Hapsburg and against his own country was contemplated from the
inside of royalty. But one event seems a confirmation of this
theory. The dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were buried with
such lack of honour, almost with such contempt, as to lead to the
belief that the head of the House of Hapsburg, Emperor Francis
Joseph himself, without whose directions the Chamberlain, Count
Montenuovo, would not have dared to act, discovered his heir in
some act against the laws or fortunes of the Imperial House.
For the funeral arrangements were such, that the Austrian and
Hungarian aristocracy were moved to protest and as a result a
belated order was issued directing that the troops of the Vienna
Garrison should take part in the funeral ceremonies. About one
hundred and fifty members of the leading families of Hungary and
Austria, without invitation, entered the funeral procession and
followed the bodies to the railway station. The _London Times_
correspondent called attention to this in cables to his newspaper
at the time.
Personally, I do not incline to this view, but I do believe that
at Konopisht the war of 1914 was finally agreed on. Too many bits
of evidence point to this and from something said to me at Kiel
by a very high personage, before the assassinations at Sarajevo,
I would have guessed that war was coming, had it not been
impossible for me to believe that the world was to be plunged
into war simply because the German people were restless under the
rule of the autocracy.
When the murders occurred at Sarajevo, all plans had been laid
for war and the death of Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of
Hohenberg merely gave another excuse to begin hostilities, after
Austria, in the Council of Potsdam, had ratified all the
arrangements made by the Emperor Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand for
the European war. Undoubtedly the German Emperor used his
influence with Franz Ferdinand and his wife in order to secure
the former's aid in dragging Austria into the war,--a war begun
to win the dominion of the world.
How many in America have heard the name of Sophie Chotek? Yet the
ambitions of this woman have done much to send to war the
splendid youths who from all the ends of the earth gather in
France to fight the fight of freedom.
The clever German Emperor, playing upon her ambitions, induced
the gloomy, hated Franz Ferdinand to consent to the world war,
and matters had gone so far that even the death of the Archduke
Franz Ferdinand could not change the situation nor turn the war
party of Hungary and Austria from their programme of blood.
Eighty-four years of age, the old Francis Joseph could only offer
a weak defence to the martial insistence of Tisza, Premier of
Hungary, and his able understrapper, Forgotsch, who represented
him in the Foreign Office at Vienna and who undoubtedly is the
man who drafted the forty-eight hour ultimatum to Servia.
[Illustration: MAIN STAIRWAY IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, BERLIN]
Berliners say that although the German Emperor gave the Duchess
of Hohenberg all the honours due to the wife of an Austrian
Archduke, heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, he was
careful not to bring her claims in direct conflict with any
Prussian female Royalty and that on the first visit of Franz
Ferdinand and his wife to Potsdam, when the doors of the banquet
room were thrown open, it was seen that the Kaiser had skilfully
placed all the guests at small tables, sitting at one with the
Empress and his two guests. In this way he prevented a conflict
of precedence and a possible scene with some Prussian royal
princess.
After one of these Potsdam visits, the Austrian government
appropriated three hundred millions for new Skoda cannon and a
great and unexpected increase of the navy was voted. In Austria
itself it was seen that the German influence was dragging
Austria-Hungary nearer and nearer to war.
Ferdinand disliked the Hungarians and in turn was hated by them.
If he had attained the throne of the Empire, as his children
could not inherit, he would have endeavoured first to remove that
obstacle, but if he had not succeeded he intended, as I have
said, either to restore the kingdom of Bohemia and place his son,
child of a Bohemian mother, on the newly created throne, or
create, possibly from conquered lands, another kingdom over which
his heir could reign.
The Magyars, the real Hungarian ruling race, are most skilful
politicians. Their elections often are corrupt and all the tricks
of the politician are in use in Hungary.
In many families political talent seems hereditary. Tisza, the
Premier of Hungary for the period for some time before the war,
was the son of Tisza, who was Premier of Hungary about the year
1875. Kossuth, son of the great Kossuth, has been active in
politics. The father of Count Julius Andrassy was Premier about
1866 and favoured Germany, a policy which has been inherited by
his son. One of the sons-in-law of Count Andrassy's wife, Marquis
Pallavicini, came to America to act as best man when my wife's
sister married Count Sigray.
Andrassy came to Berlin during the war where I had several long
talks with him. The one desire of Hungarians and Austrians alike
is for peace, but surrounded by the armies of their German
masters, they have lost their independence of action, a bitter
blow to the Magyars, who are not fond of the Germans.
Count Stephen Tisza is an obstinate and able man, so many sided
that it is related of him that he fought a duel, rode a
steeplechase and made a great speech in Parliament, all in one
day.
Duelling is still a custom in Hungary, Austria and Germany. Once
when I was in Hungary I took supper with a Count who had been
second in a duel that day. One young Magnate was at a restaurant
with an actress who wore a wide brimmed hat. Another young
Magnate of his acquaintance looked under the hat brim to see who
the girl was. Result: a duel with sabres in a riding school. On
this occasion, as the insult was not deadly, the use of sharp
points was forbidden. The duel was stopped after one young
Magnate received a cut on the forehead.
Stephen Tisza, on first taking office, was permitted by the old
Emperor to obtain some apparent concessions for Hungary in order
to make his premiership popular. It was arranged that Hungarian
flags should be carried by Hungarian regiments, and that the
officers of those regiments all should be Hungarians, but German
was to be used as the military language and language of command
even in the Hungarian regiments.
As soon as Tisza became premier for the first time, Count Apponyi
left the Liberal party and lately Count Julius Andrassy and his
wife's sons-in-law, Count Karoli and Marquis Pallavicini, have
been in violent opposition to Tisza, Pallavicini even fighting a
duel with the Prime Minister.
In a country where the majority of the inhabitants are Roman
Catholics it is rather strange that Tisza and his father, both
strong Protestants, should have attained the Premiership. The
father of Count Stephen Tisza was even more obstinate than his
son and greatly oppressed the Slovaks and Roumanians within the
borders of Hungary.
A great responsibility lies at the door of Stephen Tisza. He
allowed the Germans to use him in bringing on the world war.
Doubtless he believed that Russia and the Powers would not move,
that Austria-Hungary could seize or invade Serbia, while Germany
terrorised the world as in 1908 when Bosnia and Herzegovina were
added to the Imperial dominions. But his failure to read the
intentions of Russia and the other Powers is no excuse for the
calamity he brought on Hungary and the world, no excuse for the
fact that his country is now overwhelmed by Kaiserism, its armies
surrounded by the armies of Germany and its very independence
threatened by the subtle influence and intrigues of the master
intriguer of the world,--the German Kaiser.
The franchise in Austria and in Hungary is like that given
grudgingly to the Prussian, a mere ghost of suffrage. Autocracy
rules. In Hungary, particularly the Magyars, seeking to keep the
political power in their hands, oppose a broadening of the
franchise. Tisza has always been against any letting down of the
bars, but when the young and brilliant Count Esterhazy was made
Premier, many looked for a change--a change which has, however,
not yet come.
The new Emperor Carl at first seemed to exhibit Liberal
tendencies, but only for a moment.
The events in Russia will have a grave effect in Austria-Hungary.
More than a million Russians are prisoners in the Dual Monarchy,
nearly a million of whose subjects are in Russia--and of these at
least fifty thousand Czechs are fighting the Austrians and
Germans in the ranks of the Roumanian army. Many more will refuse
to leave Russia, but the coming back of one-half, after having
witnessed the winning of liberty by the Russians, will influence
their countrymen in no small degree. Just as the French soldiers
under Lafayette and Rochambeau, after helping us gain our
independence, returned from the free fields of America to a
France where the burdens of the plain people were almost
unendurable and brought on the great French Revolution, the
soldiers and prisoners who return to Prussia and to Austria-Hungary
from the strange scenes of the Russian Revolution may, perhaps,
leaven the inert slave masses of the Central Empires with a
spirit of revolt for liberty.
We should institute a great propaganda from the Italian front.
For instance, I have been told by a man who has been on that
front, a man who should know, that if a few American troops were
sent there and signs erected stating "Come over and surrender to
the Americans, you will be taken to America well fed and paid a
dollar per day when you volunteer to work," there would be a
great rush of Austro-Hungarian troops eager to be taken prisoner.
The losses of Austria and Hungary have been enormous--men up to
fifty-five have been drafted for the army, and the troops have
often suffered defeat and the horrors of retreat at the hands of
Russians, Serbians, and Italians.
And all the time the iron hand of the German Kaiser grasps more
and more of the power. Cheerless prospect it is for the once gay
Hungarians, the once happy Austrians, if to financial ruin and
the killing of the flower of their youth is to be added the iron
horror of Prussian domination.
Our citizens of Austrian and especially of Hungarian descent have
been loyal to their new flag. And our great President with
enlightened wisdom has eased the enemy alien regulations so as to
favour those born in the Dual Monarchy. America will never
forget the loyalty, ungrudgingly given by those of her people
born under the double eagle of the Hapsburgs.
In my many visits to Hungary I grew to like and admire the
Hungarians. Natural in manners, hospitable, polite, there is
something in them that wins Americans. How different the open
hospitality and friendliness in Budapest from the stern, cold
formality of the Prussian capital!
And with all friends of Hungary I hope that that country will
soon throw off the trance of Prussianism, which has led the Dual
Monarchy into a Dance of Death.
CHAPTER XVI
GERMAN INFLUENCE ON THE NORTHERN NEUTRALS
Just as I had the opportunity to study conditions in Austria, so
also I came in contact with the politics and diplomacy of the
nations contiguous to Germany on the north.
My grandfather, Benjamin F. Angel, was American Minister to
Sweden and Norway and on leaving received from the King the Order
of St. Olaf. I have always taken a deep interest in Scandinavian
affairs and it behooves the American people to regard closely
what is happening nowadays in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The outbreak of the European War in 1914 served to bring the
three northern nations close together. Their Kings met in
conference and a peace monument was erected on the boundary of
Norway and Sweden as if to proclaim to the world that in spite of
their recent separation, Norway and Sweden were sister countries.
The people of these three countries are of the same blood and
their languages are somewhat similar. Norwegian and Danish
written are practically the same. But there is quite a difference
in pronunciation. Swedish is more like German and the pronunciation
is not as difficult to learn as that of Norwegian and Danish. In
Norway, there are older dialects, differing from Danish, and
there has lately been a great movement in favour of a more national
language. Many Norwegians regard the official Danish-Norwegian as a
reminder of old subjection to Denmark and not at all fitted for
the new independent Norwegian kingdom. The new national language
is called "Landsmaal."
Sweden and Norway were both under one king from 1814 to 1905. In
that year after a peaceful secession, Prince Charles of Denmark,
the son of the King of Denmark, was made the King of Norway, with
the title of Haakon VII. Although both have kings, Denmark and
Norway may be termed democratic countries.
Copenhagen is lively since the war. The population of Denmark is
only 2,500,000 and the whole country is only 14,829 square miles,
which means an area about the size of Maryland. The country was
once larger but in 1864 Prussia went to war with Denmark and,
finally, after the war with Austria in 1866, added to the Crown
of Prussia the two Danish duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. As
the city and port of Kiel were included in this territory
annexed, it is easy to see why the Germans engaged in this
enterprise against Denmark.
Denmark possesses the Faro Islands which lie far to north of
Scotland, the great island of Iceland and Greenland, relics of
the times when the Viking ships brought such terror to the other
countries of Europe, that the Litany used to read: "From plague,
pestilence and famine, from battle and murder, from sudden death
and from the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us."
In Christiania we saw on our trip out two graceful Viking ships
dug out of the clay shores of the coast in a state of fair
preservation--one of them a Princess's ship on which it was easy
to imagine some blonde princess of the North, her long braids of
golden hair flying in the wind, urging on her Scandinavian
oarsmen.
The Danes are a sturdy race, the women more independent than
those of other countries. On the _Frederick VIII_, when we sailed
from Denmark, September 28, 1916, for the United States, were two
handsome girls, nineteen and twenty-one years of age, the
daughters of the proprietor of the largest department store in
Copenhagen. They were going to America to find employment in
department stores in the different cities of the country,
travelling entirely alone, and expected to return to Denmark
after a year's experience in America with many new ideas of
management and advertising for their father in Copenhagen. These
girls were wonderfully educated, speaking in addition to Danish,
French, German and English with hardly a trace of accent. They
lived a short distance out of Copenhagen and told me that every
morning of the year they jumped into the sea at six-thirty in the
morning, something that I should not care to do even in August in
that cold northern land.
Danish farmers learned early that in order to be prosperous they
must practise intensive farming. I believe that Denmark, which
even before the war enjoyed a high degree of prosperity, is the
only country in the world where there are pig sties steam-heated
and electric lighted while the farmer himself does not have these
luxuries.
Our farmers have much to learn from the farmers of Denmark both
in agricultural methods and in co-operation for the marketing of
products. The reclamation of the Danish moors in Jutland has made
surprising progress: it is in Jutland that a park has been
preserved in its primeval state--the Danish-American Park, bought
with money subscribed by Danish emigrants to America who
prospered in their adopted land.
Ever since the conquest of Denmark by Germany, there has been a
deep hatred of all things German in Denmark on account of the
treatment of those Danes, numbering between one hundred and two
hundred thousand, who were living in Schleswig and Holstein and
were unfortunate enough to be turned over as property to the King
of Prussia.
I found the Danes agreeable people. Of the same race as the
Germans, living like them in the dark North, this difference in
behaviour is perhaps accounted for by the fact that the Danes are
free, while the Germans are oppressed by the weight of an ever
present autocracy.
While the Danish people hate the Germans, officially Denmark is
careful to conceal this hate and even, apparently, to lean
towards the German side, through fear of the German troops, which
could easily overrun Denmark in thirty hours.
Denmark, during the war, received oil cake from America, which
was fed to cattle later sold to Germany. A great tonnage of fish
has also been sent from Denmark to Germany while salt and potash
have been imported. There is no question but that supplies of all
kinds and in great quantities have found their way across the
Danish border.
And the Danes have prospered enormously since the war. Many
people have become millionaires through the sale of food and
other supplies to the Germans. A great deal of this food supply
was sent in the form of canned meat, popularly known as goulash,
and so to-day whenever an automobile passes on a Danish road, the
small boys call out "goulash Baron," in the belief that the
occupant is a new-made millionaire, enriched by trade with
Germany.
It is hard for us to realise how far north the Scandinavian
countries lie. Christiania, the capital of Norway and in its
southern part, is in the same latitude as the south point of
Greenland; and is it not difficult to imagine a modern city
situated in Greenland?
In Christiania it is not fairly daylight in December until ten in
the morning and dark early in the afternoon. The ample water
power of Norway and Sweden furnishes electric light, a godsend in
the short dreary winter days.
* * * * *
Norway, in many respects, is one of the most advanced countries
in the world. Having been ruled by Denmark for four hundred
years, it was united to Sweden by the Treaty of Kiel, in 1814,
with the approval of all the Powers, but against the inclinations
of the Norwegians, who knew that they were given to Sweden to
compensate that country for the loss of Finland, annexed to Russia.
The ambitious Bernadotte arranged to govern Norway as king of
that country, which was theoretically to retain its independence
and be united to Sweden only through the personal rule of the one
monarch.
At this time, the Norwegian Constitution provided that no more
personal privileges should be granted and since then the progress
of Norway towards a real democracy has been rapid. It was the
conflict over the right demanded by the Norwegians to establish a
separate consular service that led to the dissolution of the
union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, Norway voting for
separation 368,211 to 184.
There are now no nobles in Norway. Shortly after the union it was
decided that those who had titles of nobility could hold them for
life, but that their descendants could not inherit.
Legislation for the protection of child workers, women, for
insurance, etc., is of an advanced character. For instance, no
child under fourteen is permitted to work and no woman for six
weeks after her confinement--women receiving full sick benefit
pay during this period. Many of the railways are state owned.
Norway is a land of little farms, the shipping and fishing
industries occupy many men, but with the exception of the water
power driven nitrate plants, on the coast, and the wood-pulp
factories, there is little manufacturing.
The mass of the people are with the Allies. Last winter, when it
was proposed that a German concert troupe should play and sing in
Christiania, the people threatened to burn the theatre if the
performance was permitted.
But, as in Sweden, the German propagandists are at work in
Norway. Here again, unless we present our case, the people may be
turned from the Allies.
King Gustavus V, who occupies to-day the throne of Sweden, has a
German wife. All the sympathies of the court, which copies the
little courts of Germany, of the aristocracy and of the army are
strongly with Germany.
In Sweden, although the king has not much more power than the
kings of Denmark and Norway, there is an aristocracy which
inclines to imitate the manners of the German aristocracy and to
seize, if possible, the privileges enjoyed by that body. The
officers in the army in Sweden are devoted to German ideals and,
since the war, great bodies of them have been invited to Germany,
where there has been much ado over them.
The people, however, do not sympathise with Germany, knowing what
the triumph of Germany means for them and how the court and the
army and the aristocracy would be thereby encouraged to put the
Swedish people in what the Germans would call "their place."
The Swedes fear the domination of Germany and the domination of
an aristocracy and army imbued with German ideas. They know that
if Germany wins, the king business will take on a new lease of
life. The ground was ripe for the Allies but the German
propaganda, cleverly managed, spending money without stint, is
gradually bringing the people to a point where, if the blockade
is tightened, they may consent to Sweden's entering the war as an
ally of the Central empires.
In spite of the dislike of the people for the German cause, I
think that the aristocracy and the court and the army would have
forced Sweden into the war but for one thing. After some months
of war, an arrangement was made whereby the so-called "heavily
wounded" were exchanged with prisoners between Russia and
Germany. The German who was a prisoner of the Russians and had
lost an arm or a leg, was sent home. These wounded prisoners on
their way to their home countries, were compelled to travel the
whole length of Sweden and it was the sight of these poor stumps
of humanity, as the trains stopped at the various stations in
Sweden, that kept the Swedish people out of war. Many pictures of
them printed in the Swedish papers caused profound dismay in
Sweden and developed an inexpressible abhorrence of war.
Since hostilities commenced, on the other hand, the Government,
army and aristocracy of Sweden not only have been consistently
opposed to the Allies, but of the utmost service to Germany.
Swedish iron ore goes into German cannon and makes the best
steel for aeroplane engines, and the imports into Sweden from
America of foods and fats from America increased one thousand per
cent almost immediately. These imports, with great quantities of
copper and other supplies, found their way to Germany to the
great profit incidentally of Swedish business men. For the plain
people of Sweden the cost of living increased without a
corresponding increase in salaries and wages, so that the new
prosperity was confined to the "goulash barons."
There is no question but that, just as in Argentina, the Swedish
diplomatic pouch was in all countries at the service of Germany,
and that the orders to the German spies in Russia were sent by
this means. In fact, it is believed German prisoners in Russia
found their way to Petrograd, there to participate in revolution
and counter-revolution under orders sent through the Swedish
officials.
Smuggling is winked at and at Lullia on the Swedish coast near
the head of the Gulf of Bothnia great quantities of rubber, block
tin and oil arrive from Russian Uleaborg across the gulf.
The French wanted to send a consul to Lullia, but their request
was refused, doubtless because the Swedish authorities did not
care to have any official foreigners see this traffic.
Cleverest of all has been the work of the German financial
agents. Warburg, the Hamburg banker, is attached to the German
legation in Stockholm. So skilfully has he managed his task, that
Swedish firms and Swedish banks have been induced to take German
paper money, commercial paper and securities instead of gold, in
return for copper, rubber, tin, food, fats, wool and supplies and
in this way the Swedish business men, by the touch of self-interest,
have been made to favour Germany.
I confess that it is hard to bring about, but as each nation has
the right to choose with whom its citizens shall do business, we
must mercilessly blacklist those firms which assist Germany by
accepting, in lieu of the gold which would thus be drained from
Germany, what amounts to the promise of Germany to pay if
successful in war.
The Queen of Sweden, herself a German and an admirer of the
German Emperor, has great influence over her husband and the
Court.
At a time when she was visiting her family in Karlsruhe (for she
is a Princess of Baden) a reprisal attack made by Allied
aeroplanes narrowly missed the royal palace and, consequently,
the Queen. This has added to her prejudice against the Allies.
The Crown Princess of Sweden was a Princess of Connaught, the
sister of "Princess Pat," but she does not dare take any stand
against the anti-ally propaganda.
I am sure that President Wilson appreciates the gravity of the
situation and that means are being taken to place our position
not only before the Swedish people but those of Swedish birth and
descent in the United States whose influence should be brought to
bear on their friends and relatives in the old country.
The crew of every Swedish ship that lands here should be given
our viewpoint; every Swede who returns to Sweden should go as a
missionary--we must not permit Sweden, whose people are bound to
us by ties of blood and friendship, by the hospitality which we
offered to every Swedish immigrant, to be ranged among our
enemies by the German-admiring aristocrats of Sweden who by
birth, training and education are opposed to democracy, who hope,
if Germany wins, to gain as great an ascendancy in the government
as the Prussian Junkers possess in Germany.
* * * * *
The Finns who occupy that part of Russia nearest to Sweden have
quite a sympathy for the Swedes, Finland having been at one time
a part of Sweden. The races, however, are not the same. The Finns
are a Mongolian race and certain similarities of language make it
plain that the Finns and the Hungarians came from the same
mysterious place of origin somewhere in the great mountains and
highlands of Central Asia.
Three languages, three influences, fight for mastery in Finland.
The official Russian, the language of the government; Finnish,
now receiving a new lease of life; and Swedish, the language of
those who once conquered and held Finland, and who so imposed
their civilisation on the more ignorant Finns, that to-day
Swedish is the language of the more prosperous classes and of
most of the business men.
The women of Finland received the suffrage in 1906, all voting
who are over twenty-four and who have been for five years
citizens of Finland. Many women thereafter were elected to the
Finnish parliament.
In two Scandinavian countries the women vote. Norway was the
first sovereign state of Europe to give full citizenship rights
to women. In 1913, all Norwegian women of twenty-five and
citizens for five years were put on a voting equality with men,
and the only positions under the national government for which
women are not eligible are in the army and navy, the diplomatic
and consular service and the Supreme Court.
The Danish women received the full franchise in 1915, but in
aristocratic Sweden only the women paying income taxes have
rights in the communal councils.
In 1908, in Norway, a law was passed providing that women doing
the work of men shall receive equal pay.
Military service in all three northern nations is universal and
compulsory.
Possibly on a "tip" from Berlin to a fellow autocrat, there
occurred in February, 1914, an extraordinary political event,
arranged and "accelerated" by the Government, when thirty
thousand farmers, meeting in Stockholm for the purpose, marched
in procession to the Royal Castle to address the King and tell
him that they were ready to bear any extra taxes imposed for the
purpose of providing for national defence.
Russia was the power particularly feared by Sweden who thought
she desired to annex a part of Northern Sweden and Norway in
order to get an outlet to the sea on the Norwegian coast.
But recent events in Russia have ended this fear and the only
question for the Swedes is the same, one with which the whole
world is faced--Kaiserism or Democracy.
Sven Hedin, the explorer, who was the leader in this movement for
national defence, has appeared as a German propagandist so
violent as to have become popular with the Germans. It is hard to
understand why so intelligent a man should range himself on the
side of autocracy. Now that the Russian danger, if danger there
was, is past it is to be hoped that this celebrated man will be
found in the ranks of those opposed to the autocracy which
ordered the murders of many Swedish seamen.
Norway, although it has often met the submarine of the Kaiser,
which, defying all law, has sent to death so many Norwegian
sailors and fishermen, suffers also from German propaganda and a
certain self interest because of the forty-five million kronen
sale of fish this last year to German buyers.
Germany works, too, in Denmark with the Socialists and deliveries
of coal are used to obtain food from that country.
The jolly, free, brave Scandinavians are naturally opposed to all
that Pan-Germanism and German rule means. It is necessary for us,
especially our citizens of Scandinavian descent, not to lose this
initial advantage.
CHAPTER XVII
SWITZERLAND--ANOTHER KIND OF NEUTRAL
Free Switzerland! You cannot imagine the feeling of relief I
experienced as I passed from the lands of the Hohenzollerns and
Hapsburgs to a free republic.
It was February 11, 1917. To go into the railroad station
restaurant and order an omelette and fried potatoes without a
food card and with chocolate on the side seemed in itself a
return to liberty.
Our Minister, Mr. Stovall, gave us a dinner and evening reception
so that we could meet all the notables and we lunched with the
French Ambassador (for France maintains an Embassy in Switzerland)
and dined with the British Minister, Sir Horace Rumbold, a very
able gentleman who had been Chancellor of the British Embassy in
Berlin before the war.
As war had not yet been declared between Germany and the United
States the correspondents of German newspapers waylaid me. Some
seemed to think that in spite of the insulting blow given us by
Germany, we nevertheless, scared to whiteness by the U-boat
ultimatum, would lend all our energies to bring about a German
peace.
I received a letter from one of the editors of a Swiss newspaper
published in Berne, probably inspired by the German Legation
there, asking me if President Wilson, in spite of the break in
relations, would not continue his work for peace.
We all know that Switzerland is a republic but even those of us
who have travelled there, probably because we were on a holiday,
gave little thought to the Swiss political system. Indeed before
this war we cared little about the government of any country
except our own.
The present constitution of Switzerland was adopted in 1848 and
in many particulars is modelled after that of the United States.
There are the same three great Federal powers, the Federal
Assembly, representing the legislative branch, the Federal
Council, representing the executive branch, and the Federal
Court, representing the judicial branch.
The lower Chamber is made up of representatives elected directly
by the people, and the other Chamber of members elected, as in
our Senate, two by each canton or state. The Bundesrat or Federal
Council which has all the executive powers, is elected by the
Federal Assembly and it is the Chairman of this body who is known
as the President of Switzerland. In reality he does not possess
the powers of our President, but it is the Bundesrat as a whole
which exercises the powers. Each member of this Council is
minister or head of some separate department, such as Military,
Justice and Police, Foreign Affairs, Posts and Railways, etc. The
Swiss Cantons have much power, and there is a distinct jealousy
by each canton of states' rights.
It is in Switzerland that we encounter two little friends,
sponsored by William Jennings Bryan--the Initiative and
Referendum--means by which the Swiss people are given a direct
voice in their government. By the Initiative a certain number of
voters may propose new legislation and when the requisite number
sign a petition the proposed law must then be submitted to
popular vote. This rule applies both in the separate cantons and
in the Republic as a whole.
The Referendum, more often used, provides that if the requisite
number of signers be obtained any law passed by a cantonal
legislative body or by the Federal Assembly shall be submitted to
the voters. In certain cantons the Referendum is obligatory and
every law is thus submitted to the people. In practice the
Referendum has acted as a check to advanced legislation.
The Swiss have reason to fear the designs of Prussia. As late as
1856, Prussia and Switzerland were on the edge of war. Prior to
1815 Neuchâtel acknowledged the King of Prussia as its overlord;
the Congress of Vienna, however, included this territory in the
Swiss Confederation as one of the Swiss Cantons. But Prussia, in
spite of this formal arrangement, with its usual disregard of
treaties, continued to claim Neuchâtel.
In 1848 the revolutionary influence resulted in more democratic
rule in Neuchâtel but the Prussian propagandist of that day was
at work and, in 1856, Count Pourtales' plot was discovered and
several hundred prisoners seized by the Swiss government. All
but a score were released. Frederick William IV of Prussia
demanded their instant pardon and release and ordered the
mobilisation of his army but, finally, through the intervention
of Napoleon III, the affair was settled, the prisoners released
by way of France, and the Prussian King renounced all rights over
Neuchâtel.
The Kulturkampf of Bismarck, his contest against the Roman
Catholics, had its echoes in Switzerland and it probably was due
also to German influence that until 1866 full freedom was
withheld from the Jews.
The Red Cross had its origin in Switzerland and the Geneva
Conventions have done much to bring about the adoption of better
rules of war. The Geneva Cross is the badge of international
charity and help.
Switzerland always has opened her doors to the politically
oppressed. Over ten thousand revolutionists from Baden took
refuge in Switzerland in 1848. Austria, in 1853, as a reprisal
for the alleged actions of Italians in Switzerland in conspiring
against Austria, drove thousands of Swiss citizens from that part
of Italy occupied by Austria. Also in the Franco-Prussian war the
French General Bourbaki and his army of nearly one hundred
thousand men sought an asylum in Switzerland.
The army of Switzerland is a true citizen army--an army of
universal service--and it is due to the existence of this force
that Switzerland remains an independent state in the midst of
Europe.
To stand apart in Europe is the very essence of life for
Switzerland. It is regrettable therefore that German money and
German propaganda and some sympathy for Germany among the
officers of the army should have touched the fine flower of Swiss
neutrality. A triumphant Prussia and a free Switzerland cannot
exist in the same Europe.
In Switzerland, it is in the military that we find the greatest
sympathy for Germany. In 1915, Swiss officers were discovered
working out the ciphers of other nations for the benefit of the
German armies and the punishment given, at the ensuing Court
Martial, was not only incommensurate with the offence, but was a
plain indication of the early sympathies of the Chiefs of the
Swiss Staff.
The food question between the United States and Switzerland
requires delicate handling. We like the Swiss and do not wish
them to suffer, but the Swiss must understand that our food is
our own and that we do not propose it shall go to nourish Germans
or that it shall take the place, in Switzerland, of Swiss food
sold by the Swiss to our enemies.
The President of Switzerland related to me the difficult position
in which Switzerland found herself. Iron and coal, necessary to
the industries of Switzerland, to keep the population warm and to
cook the food, came, he said, from Germany, while food was
shipped to the French Mediterranean port of Cette from America
and the Argentine, and transported across part of France to
Switzerland, so that since the war Switzerland, as the President
explained, has been dancing about; first on one side, then on the
other, in the attempt to get food through France and coal and
iron through Germany.
Everything in the office of the President was the extreme of
republican simplicity. He questioned me about the situation in
Germany, especially from the food standpoint. And I learned of
the difficulties of the Swiss. It must not be forgotten that in
Switzerland about seventy per cent of the people speak German,
twenty-three per cent, French, and seven per cent, Italian. Many
of the German-speaking Swiss, of course, sympathise with Germany.
They are the farmers, dairymen, etc., but in French-Switzerland,
in the neighbourhood of Geneva and Lausanne, the industrial
population sides with the Allies. Millions of the delicate fuses
used on shells have been manufactured in that part of Switzerland
for the Entente. In retaliation for this the Germans boycotted
Swiss watches.
The usual German-paid propaganda newspapers operate in the
principal towns. The army officers are the first to be influenced.
It is the same in Switzerland as with the officers of many armies,
solely because of the past reputation of the German military machine.
We and the civil authorities of South America must not forget
that Japan copied German military methods, that the armies of
Argentina and Chili have been trained, for years, by German
officers sent there on temporary leave of absence from the German
army.
Von Below, a German officer in Berlin who had been in the
Argentine, used to make merry over the Argentine soldiers and
said that they objected to drilling when it rained. I do not
believe this officer, but I should like to have the brave
Argentine officers hear his jokes and gibes.
We left, after three or four days in Berne, on the evening train,
for the French frontier. In the train corridors, outside the
compartments, spies stood staring at us, spies pretending to read
newspapers came into each compartment; police spies, betrayed by
heavy boots; general staff spies, betrayed by a military
stiffness; women spies; spies assorted and special. And these
gentry had followed me all over Berne--for in the neutral
countries of Europe as well as the belligerents are we constantly
reminded of the insidious methods of Kaiserism.
CHAPTER XVIII
A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE
At Pontarlier, on the French frontier, a special train was
waiting for my party and into this train a German-American
inserted himself after first mixing his baggage with mine. I went
through the train and this enterprising gentleman and another
German-American were detained for some days at Pontarlier. One of
them, later, on reaching Spain, reported immediately to the head
of the German secret service there, thus justifying my suspicions.
Fortunately when he subsequently arrived in Spain we had already
sailed, so that if he bore any sinister message from Berlin to
the German agents in Spain to hinder our voyage, he was too late.
The night trip to Paris was uneventful. At the Gare St. Lazare we
were met by our Ambassador, Mr. Sharp, with several of his staff
and a representative of the French Foreign Office.
Paris was indeed a changed Paris since I had last seen it in
October of 1913. The pavement in the Place Vendôme, in front of
the Hotel Ritz, where we stopped, was full of holes, but
taxicabs, almost as extinct as the dodo in Berlin, rushed merrily
through the crowded streets. The boulevards were lively, full of
soldiers looking far more cheery, far more snappy, than the heavy
footed German soldiers who so painfully tramped down Unter den
Linden. Many soldiers were to be seen without an arm or leg,
something impossible in Germany where, especially in Berlin, it
has been the policy of the Government to conceal those maimed by
war from the people at home. Although constantly walking the
streets of Berlin I never saw a German soldier without an arm or
leg. Once motoring near Berlin I came upon a lonely country house
where, through the iron rails of the surrounding park, numbers of
maimed soldiers peered out, prisoners of the autocratic
government which dared not show its victims to the people.
At night in Paris the taxicabs and autos rushed dangerously
through streets darkened to baffle the Zeppelins. In the hotel
there was little heat, only wood fires in one's room. In the
homes a single electric light bulb was permitted for each room;
violation of this rule meant loss of electric light from that
apartment for three weeks.
In the Ritz Restaurant there were lights on the table only. And
the gloomy dining room, where a few Americans and British
officers and their families conversed in whispers, resembled but
little the gay resort so often filled, before the war, with
American millionaires. Olivier, the head waiter, appeared only at
night, absent during the day on war duties. No lights, no music,
it is hard to think of Paris without these, Paris which calls
itself the "Ville Lumière"--the City of Light.
On our first Sunday in Paris a grand concert was held in the
Trocadero--a great government owned auditorium on the banks of
the Seine,--under Canadian auspices. When Ambassador Sharp and I
entered the centre box the vast audience rose and cheered--a new
sensation for me to be so welcomed after my war-years in Berlin,
where I had been harried and growled at, the representative of a
hated people, of a people at once envied for their wealth, hated
because they had dared to keep their rights and treaties and sell
goods to the enemies of Germany, and despised because the Germans
believed them too rich and cowardly, too fat and degenerate, to
fight in the great war for the mastery of the world.
Lord Esher called on me at the hotel and invited me on behalf of
Field Marshal Haig, to visit the British line. I am sorry that I
did not have time to accept this invitation, especially as in
Germany I had not even heard the distant firing of cannon.
The Great General Headquarters at Charleville-Mézières where I
had visited Emperor William at the end of April, 1916, was only
about seventy kilometres from the battle front near Rheims. I was
naturally anxious to inspect, if not the front trenches, at least
the vicinity of the front, but the army officers attached to the
German Foreign Office, who had accompanied me, informed me that
the Chancellor had telephoned all the Generals in the vicinity to
ask permission for me to visit the lines but that not one of them
would permit me to visit his sector. This was a fairly certain
indication that sooner or later the hate for America must lead
to war or that the U-boat settlement made at the time was only a
stop gap until the increased number of submarines would enable
Germany to commence ruthless U-boat war once more in defiance of
law and humanity, and with a greater hope of military success.
Compared to Berlin, Paris seemed a land of abundance. In the
restaurants, however, the customer was limited to two courses,
but with the privilege of a second helping.
I called on Lord Bertie, the British Ambassador, to ask him to
convey my acknowledgments to the Honourable Arthur James Balfour,
from whom I had received a most complimentary communication. I
found him in the beautiful home of the British Embassy on the Rue
St. Honoré, a house so cold for want of coal that I was compelled
to make my visit short for fear of pneumonia.
With Mrs. Gerard we lunched with our friends from Berlin, Jules
Cambon, a former French Ambassador there, and his family, at the
La Rue restaurant, opposite the Madelaine. Cambon seemed as game
as ever, but fatigued.
Briand, who was then Premier, invited me to breakfast at the
Minister of Foreign Affairs. The other guests included our
Ambassador, Mr. Sharp, Cambon and the Ambassadors of Britain,
Italy, Russia and Japan and several distinguished Frenchmen.
[Illustration: AMBASSADORS WILLIAM G. SHARP AND JAMES W. GERARD
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN PARIS, FEBRUARY, 1917]
I did not sit next to Briand as I ranked after the Ambassadors
accredited to France, but after lunch I sat alone with him
before the fire in one of the large and beautiful salons and
there we had a long talk, as, naturally, he wanted to know about
the situation in Germany. He impressed me as a strong man, with
the vigour of an orator, a man of temperament, a man endowed by
nature to become a leader of the French--as the French were
before the war.
Lord Esher, at the request of General Lyautey, then at the head
of the military force of France, took me to see that General. I
had to wait for him some time, as he was appearing before a
committee of the Chamber of the Senate. His inability to agree
with the Chamber caused his resignation not long afterwards.
I was struck in France by the fact that the leaders, civil,
military and naval, seemed older than those in similar positions
in other countries.
The present Premier, Clemenceau, is an example of this fondness
of the French for government by old men. Clemenceau is seventy-six
years old, but is a vigorous fighter.
Mrs. Gerard and I lunched with Gabriel Hanotaux and his
attractive wife at their home. Cambon was there, and Ribot, since
become Premier of France, a good old man; also the Secretary of
the Navy and several learned French philosophers and members of
the Academy and one of the heads of the Credit Lyonnais, perhaps
the greatest financial institution of France.
War, war--who could talk of anything else? Hanotaux said that in
our time we had been unusually fortunate, unusually free from
war, that there was underneath France, underneath even the fair
city of Paris, under the smiling sunlit fields, another France, a
France of caves and catacombs, excavated by the poor people, the
plain people who, during the One Hundred Years' War, had sought
in marching armies, the far-riding plunderers and the depths of
the earth refuge from the harassing, camp followers, the roving
bands of "White Companies," the robber barons who, English and
French, Gascon and Norman, harried the lands of France.
I said that I had heard the statement made, and there seemed no
reason to doubt it, that since the birth of Christ the world has
only in one year out of every thirteen enjoyed a rest from war.
Mr. Fabre-Luce, Vice-President of the Credit Lyonnais, told us of
an interesting book written by a Russian and published before the
war which predicted much that has happened in this war with
almost the foresight of a Cassandra. I was so impressed that I
secured a copy.
This book, "The Future War," by Ivan Stanislavovich Bloch,
counsellor of the Russian Empire, and published in 1892, had so
great an effect on the Czar of Russia that it was the reading of
it which impelled him to call the Peace Conference at The Hague.
In the course of his book the author explains that it is
impossible for the Powers to continue longer in the path of
armaments and that they ought to look each other in the face and
demand where these great armaments and this extension of forces
are conducting them. He writes:
"How can one believe it possible to solve
international questions by means of the veritable
cataclysm which will constitute, with the present
means of destruction, war waged between the five
great Powers, by ten millions of soldiers?... In
this war explosives so powerful will be employed
that every grouping of troops on the flat country
or even under the protection of fortifications
will become almost impossible and that, therefore,
the preparations of this character made in
expectation of the war will become useless....
"The future war will see the use of a great
quantity of new aids to war, bicycles, pigeons,
telegraph, telephones, optical instruments and
photographic instruments for the purpose of
mapping from a great distance the positions
occupied by the enemy and means to observe the
movements of the enemy such as observing ladders,
balloons and so on....
"In the future war every body of troops holding
itself on the defensive or found taking the
offensive, when it is not the question of sudden
assault, will have to fortify itself in a chosen
position and the war will be confined principally
to the form of a series of combats in which the
possession of fortified positions will be
disputed, and in which the assailant will have to
meet the accessory defensives in the neighbourhood
of the fortifications such as barricades, barbed
wire, etc., the destruction of these objects
costing many victims.... The infantry, when on the
defensive, will dig itself in. The conduct of the
war will depend, in a large measure, on the
artillery."
According to our author, who foresaw "No Man's Land" between the
two opposing forces, "there will be formed a certain zone
absolutely impassable in consequence of the terrible fire with
which it will be inundated from a short distance from each side."
Bloch adds: "This war will last a long time and entire nations
will be seen in arms or rather the flower of each nation. Germany
will begin the war by throwing itself on France and then, using
the many German railroads, will turn against Russia. By virtue of
its military force Germany will take the initiative of operations
and will make the war on the two fronts."
His prophetic eye saw even the submarine war of the future. "It
will happen, possibly, that the future war will produce engines
of war completely unknown and unexpected up to the present time;
in any event one can foresee the advent in a short time of
submarines destined to carry below even ironclads, torpedoes
powerful enough to wreck the strongest ships."
He quotes the opinions of Jomini, who says that future armies
will not be composed of troops recruited voluntarily but of
entire nations called by a law to arms and who will not fight for
a change of frontier but for their existence. Jomini states "that
this state of affairs will bring us back to the third and the
fourth centuries, calling to our minds those shocks of immense
peoples who disputed among themselves the European continent,"
and "that if a new legislation and a new international law do not
come to put an end to these risings of whole peoples that it is
impossible to foresee where the ravages of future war will stop.
It will become a scourge more terrible than ever, because the
population of civilised nations will be cut down, while in the
interior of each nation the normal economic life will be
arrested, communications interrupted and if the war is prolonged
financial crises will come with a fearful rise in the price of
everything and famine with all its consequences."
Bloch, in depicting the future war, says that "in 1870, the
struggle was between two Powers, while in the war of the future
at least five great nations will take part without speaking of
the intervention of Turkey and England.... The comparing of the
coming war with any war of the past is impossible because the
increase in the effective fighting forces has been of a rapidity
so unexampled and this increase brings with it so great an
augmentation of expenditures and of victims that the future war
will have the character of a struggle for the existence of
nations.... It is true that the war of 1870 gave us something of
an example of this character. That was a war without mercy,
brought on by secular hate, a war of revenge on the part of the
Germans because of the ancient victories of the French, a war
where volunteers were shot and villages burned and where unheard
of exactions were imposed on the conquered whom the conqueror
sought to wrong and weaken for a long period of time. A new war
in Central Europe will be a second edition of the same struggle
but by how much will it not surpass the former wars by its
magnitude and by its length and by the means of destruction
employed."
Does not Bloch give a better prediction of this war than the
often quoted Bernhardi?
The table conversation at Hanotaux's was in French; few Frenchmen
and hardly any public men in France speak English.
At this lunch, Ribot, since Premier, said to me, "In men, in
fighting, we can hold out, but we must have help on the credit
side."
How much more than credit have we sent since to help beloved,
beleaguered France!
My interview with President Poincaré of France was set for
five-thirty in the Elysée Palace. I had to wait some minutes in
an ante-room, hung with splendid tapestries, where the secretary
in charge introduced me to Deschanel, the Secrétaire perpétuel of
the Academie Française, with whom I had a few minutes' talk.
The President sat in a small, beautifully decorated room in this
historical Elysée Palace. A small fire burned in the grate, a bit
of grateful warmth in almost coalless Paris. He, too, plied me
with questions, but not as closely as others, about the land I
had left behind. He spoke of a great gift of money made by James
Stillman, a fund to help the families of members of the Legion of
Honour.
Poincaré is a man of fifty-seven, wears a small beard growing
grey, and is a little under medium height (of this country) and
has much the manner of an American lawyer. What a contrast those
polite, agreeable Frenchmen were to the stiff, formal, overbearing
Germans. There are "well born" Germans with charming international
manners and the lower classes in Germany have kindly, natural
manners, but the manners of the minor members of the merchant
class and of the lesser officials is rude to boorishness.
And here I want to say a word about the democracy of my own
countrymen. Before the war and during it we entertained countless
Americans in the Embassy; all sorts and under a variety of
conditions, Jew and Gentile, business men and students,
travellers and musicians. They carried themselves with ease,
whatever the occasion. I was proud of them always and of our
system of education that had given them such pleasant equality.
After my arrival in Berlin a magnificent darkey, named George
Washington Bronson, called in search of a job. Over six feet four
and well built, I thought he would make an impressive appearance
opening carriage doors or taking hats in the hall. So I engaged
him. But he did not get on well with the other servants, and his
discharge followed. Great consternation was caused shortly
afterwards at our Lincoln day reception when Mrs. Gerard and the
ladies of the Embassy were receiving the American Colony, by the
report that George Washington, dressed up to the nines,
accompanied by a coloured friend, presenting the appearance of a
new red buggy, was on his way up stairs. I decided that on
Lincoln's birthday all were welcome; so George Washington and his
friend, resplendent, received the same greeting accorded all
Americans and the manners of George Washington excelled those of
a Grand Duke. But although one could see his mouth water, he did
not approach the table where our local Ruggles presided over the
refreshments. There was "that" about Ruggles' eye which told
George Washington he would have to "go to the mat" before his
former superior officer would serve him with champagne.
The cold in Paris was bitter, biting into the very bones, and all
classes of the population suffered intensely from the lack of
coal. In the theatres, for instance, there was absolutely no
heat. Theatrical performances were permitted in each theatre
three times a week. Evening dress was prohibited. I went to the
Folies Bergères, arriving so late that the crowded house had
warmed itself and it was possible to stay until the end in spite
of the want of ventilation.
At one of the theatres I arrived early, but the cold was so
bitter that even sitting in fur overcoat and with my hat on I was
so chilled I had to leave after twenty minutes. This play was a
_revue_, the actresses appearing in the scanty costumes peculiar
to that form of entertainment, but the cold was of such intensity
that they had added their street furs, presenting a curiously
comical effect.
I spoke to many of the soldiers in the streets. All were animated
by a new spirit in France, an obstinate calm, a determination to
see this thing through, to end forever the fear of Prussian
invasion which for so many years had impended. If any sign of
weakness was apparent it was among the financiers; not among the
poor and the men of the trenches.
At the railway station I talked with a blue-clad French soldier,
calm, witty, but determined. He said, "My family comes from the
East of France, my great grandfather was killed by the Prussians
in 1814, my grandfather was shot in his garden by the Prussians
in 1870, my father died of grief, in 1916, because my two sisters
in Lille fell into Prussian hands and were taken as their slaves
with all that that means. I have decided that we must end this
horror once and for all, so that my children can cultivate their
little fields without this constant haunting fear of the invading
Prussian."
We left Paris on the evening train for the Spanish border.
Newspaper men taking flashlights and "poilus" in uniform crowded
the station platform as the train with our still numerous party
pulled out.
How France has disappointed German expectations! France to-day is
not the France that calls out, "We are betrayed," and runs away
after the failure of its first assault. France to-day is a calm
France that seeks out its traitors, and deliberately punishes
them, that organises with an efficiency we once thought a
Prussian monopoly, a France that bleeds but fights on, a France
that, standing with its back to its beloved, sunny fields, with
many of her dearest sons dead, facing the Kaiser across No Man's
Land, cries boldly, bravely to the world, the war cry of Verdun,
"They shall not pass!"
But even while war goes on, even while the French poilus hold
fast the long battle line, the French people are beset within by
agents of the Kaiser. Face to face they are with the secret
agents, the spies, the informers, the buyers of newspapers and of
public men, the traffickers in honour who, behind French
citizenship or neutral passports, seek to divide France, to make
the soldier at the front feel that he is betrayed by traitors at
home, to render the French distrustful and suspicious of each
other and thus to strike as mortal a blow at the French defence
as was attempted at Verdun.
Bolo Pasha and all his tribe slip past trench and barbed wire and
do more damage than a German army corps to the cause of Liberty.
CHAPTER XIX
MY INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF SPAIN
Neutrals--how obsolete the word seems!
Yet there are some nations in Europe which will remain neutral no
matter how great the hardship. How much this is due to inherent
weaknesses of government, fears that the people may acquire too
much of the infectious spirit of liberalism that war brings and
thereby overthrow royalty, is hard to judge. But I must say that
Kaiserism has omitted no word or act to impress upon the royalty
of those countries, which might otherwise be inclined to aid the
entente, the advantages to them of keeping out of the war unless
they become allies of Germany.
You will meet Kaiserism in Spain and the other neutral countries
of Europe as much as you will in Austria or Bulgaria or Turkey. I
do not mean that Spain, for instance, is by any means an ally of
Germany, but I do mean that the German propagandist has had free
rein.
I shall never forget the fact that the King of Spain, during my
talk with him, remarked: "Remember that while I am King of Spain,
I am also an Austrian Archduke."
And not only is the King of Spain by descent and in the right of
his father an Archduke of Austria but his mother was an Austrian
Princess of the House of Hapsburg. Study, for the moment, the
genealogy of the King and Queen of Spain and you will see how
royalty is inter-related in this war.
The Queen of Spain was brought up at the court of the late Queen
Victoria of England and is a Battenberg princess. In 1823,
Alexander, Prince of Hesse and the Rhine, took in morganatic
marriage a Countess von Hauke. He made her Countess of Battenberg
and in 1858 she was given the title by the ruler of Hesse, of
Princess Battenberg, her children and their descendants to take
the same title. One of these Battenbergs, descendants of Countess
von Hauke, married Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria, and the
daughter of the marriage is the present Queen of Spain, who just
before her marriage to Alfonso was created a Royal Highness by
King Edward VII. Queen Victoria Eugenia has become quite Spanish.
With a mantilla on her head, she attends bull fights and is very
popular.
The father of Alfonso XIII, Alfonso XII, was very intimate with
the German Court. In 1883, he visited the old Emperor William I
in Germany and accepted the colonelcy of a Uhlan regiment then in
garrison in Strassburg, one of the towns taken from France in
1870. On his return journey he stopped in Paris and was the
object of a popular demonstration so violent that the President
of France and his ministers called in a body to apologise.
Shortly thereafter the Crown Prince (later Emperor) Friedrich
paid a visit to Spain and an intimacy was maintained between the
two courts.
It is the inclination of those in the king business to keep
together and a tradition of Prussia that fellow Kings must be
sustained and, if possible, maintained against democracy. That's
why the Kaiser finds reciprocal sympathy in Spain.
Our popular Ambassador, Mr. Willard, and his staff, with a
representative of the Spanish Foreign Office, met us at the
station at Madrid on my arrival from Paris.
Madrid is a handsome city, comparatively modern. From its highest
point the great Royal Palace dominates the capital and from the
palace the royal park stretches unbroken to the Guadarrama
mountains sixty miles away.
In many respects Spain seems a land upside down. We arrived at
Madrid just at the close of the Carnival season. Masked balls
began at three in the afternoon and many theatres not until ten
or even eleven at night. Madrid sleeps late. The rich people get
up only in time for lunch. The streets are full of noise and
people until four in the morning, the sellers of lottery tickets
making special efforts to swell the volume of night sounds.
My visit to the King of Spain was at eleven in the morning.
Ambassador Willard went with me. As we entered the palace and
waited at the foot of an elevator, the car descended and one of
the little Princes of Spain, about eight years old, dressed in a
sailor suit, stepped out. Evidently he had been trained in royal
urbanity for he immediately came up to us, shook hands and said,
"Buenos dias."
And as we strolled down a long corridor where Palace guards in
high boots and cocked hats stood guard with halberds in their
hands another little Prince, about eleven, also in a sailor suit,
came out of a room and walked ahead of us; behind followed two
nuns, walking side by side at a respectful distance. As he
appeared in the corridor one of the guards stamped his halberd on
the floor, calling out in Spanish, "Turn out the guard--the
Infant of Spain." And in the guardroom at the end of the corridor
the guards, forming in line, clashing their arms, did honour to
the baby Prince.
Ambassador Willard and I waited in the great, splendid room of
the Palace. Inside, priests and officers, ladies, officials,
diplomats, were waiting to present petitions or pay homage to
their King. Outside in the court yard, the guard was being
changed, infantry, cavalry and artillery all being represented. A
tuneful band played during the ceremony of guard mount, which was
witnessed by crowds of poor folk who are permitted to enter the
Palace precincts as spectators.
While waiting I was presented to the Archbishop of Toledo, head
of the Spanish Church, resplendent in his gorgeous ecclesiastical
robes. Finally a court official came and said that I was to go
into the King alone; that Mr. Willard was to see him later.
I found King Alfonso in a small room about twenty by fourteen
feet. He wore a brown business suit, a soft shirt and soft
collar fastened by a gold safety pin--quite the style of dress of
an American collegian. He is tall and well built.
The King speaks perfect English--without a trace of accent. After
we had talked a few moments, I noted the difference between
Teuton and Latin, the vast abyss which separates the polite and
courteous Spaniard, thinking of others, anxious to be hospitable,
and the rough, conceited, aggressive Junker of Germany. How often
have I found that we ourselves, although good hearted and easy
going, in comparison with our friends in South and Central
America, do not measure up to the standards of Castilian
courtesy.
Some one knocked at the door and King Alfonso rose and answered.
He returned with odd looking implements in his hands which I soon
discovered to be an enormous silver cocktail shaker and two
goblets. After a dexterous shake, the King poured out two large
cocktails, saying, "I understand that you American gentlemen
always drink in the morning."
I had not had a cocktail for years and if I had endeavoured to
assimilate the drink so royally prepared for me I should have
been in no condition to continue the conversation. I think King
Alfonso himself was quite relieved when, after a sip, I put my
cocktail behind a statue. I noticed that he camouflaged his in a
similar manner.
Unfortunately, as Maximilian Harden said, the Germans think of us
as a land of dollars, trusts and corruption; and other nations
think of us as devotees of the cocktail and of poker. Their
school boys dream of fighting Indians in Pittsburg and hunting
buffalo in the deserts of the Bronx.
The characteristic of Alfonso which impresses one immediately is
that of extreme manliness. He has a sense of humour that will
save him from many a mishap in his difficult post. He has a wide
knowledge of men and affairs and, above all, as the Spaniards
would put it, is _muy español_ (very Spanish), not only in
appearance but in his way of looking at things, a Spaniard of the
best type, a Spaniard possessing industry and ambition and
bravery, a Spaniard, in fact, of the days when Spain was supreme
in the world. His favourite sport is polo, which he plays very
well. Indeed, the game, which requires dash, quickness of
thought, nerve and good riding, is particularly suited to the
Spanish character. The King showed at the time of the anarchistic
outbreaks, that he was a brave man. Yet he must be careful at all
times to remember that he is a constitutional king, that in a
country like Spain leadership is dangerous, that he should always
rather stand aside, let the representatives of the nation decide,
thus taking no definite position himself. A king who abandons the
council table to shoot pigeons or play polo is often acting with
far more wisdom than a constitutional ruler who attempts by the
use of his strong personality and lofty position to force upon
his councillors a course which the majority of them do not
recommend.
The Spaniards are politically an exacting people. But it is to
be hoped that they will not turn the heavy artillery of their
criticism upon a king who serves them so gracefully and well.
The king has a natural desire to take a prominent part in the
negotiations for peace, but here again is dangerous ground for
him. He should be given a part, if possible, in the preliminaries
of peace, but while I believe that he sympathises with one of the
Entente countries, the Allies are forced to recognise the fact of
which he himself reminded me, that he is not only King of Spain,
but Archduke of one of the Central Empires, the son of an
Austrian Archduchess.
The king told me that he was most desirous that American capital
should become interested in the development of Spain. He did not
tell me the reason for this desire but perhaps he fears that if
German capital should take a great part in the development of
industrial Spain that the tentacles of the German propaganda and
spy system which go hand in hand with her commercial invaders
would wrap themselves around the commercial, social and political
life of Spain.
Perhaps King Alfonso, when he wishes capital other than German to
become interested in Spain, is thinking of the occurrences of
1885, when Spain and Germany so nearly clashed. In that year the
crew of a German warship hoisted the flag of the German Empire on
the island of Yap, one of the Carolina group, an island long
claimed by Spain. The act so stirred the people of Spain that a
great meeting was held in Madrid, attended by over one hundred
thousand people. Later the mob attacked the German Embassy and
Consulate, tore down the shield and flag staff of the Consulate
and burned them in the principal square of Madrid. In the end,
Spain was compelled to humbly apologise to Germany for the insult
to the German Ambassador.
Some years before the war the King sent to this country a special
emissary to interest American capital in Spain. Means of
transportation are very meagre. Great mineral districts are as
yet undeveloped and many other opportunities for foreign capital
present themselves.
I asked the Spaniards why Spain was not developed by Spanish
capital and they told me that the rich put all their money in
government bonds and lived as gaily as possible on the interest.
Our own Government, whether Democratic or Republican, must always
be careful to see that taxes are not so high as to prevent the
naturally enterprising American from risking part of his capital
in new ventures and such protection must be given to American
citizens that they will continue to try their luck at business in
foreign countries for the immediate benefit, of course, of
themselves, but also for the commercial supremacy of the United
States.
The American who goes to Mexico and there develops a railroad or
a plantation, a commercial business, a bank or a mine, is not
only adding to the wealth of Mexico, but any money which he makes
after paying his due share of taxes there, is brought back by him
to the United States, is subject to taxation, and by just so
much not only lightens the tax burden of other Americans, but
adds to the power in trade of the whole country.
A business man who is taxed too much on any profits that he makes
will, like the Spaniard, invest his capital in Government bonds.
He will stop taking up new enterprises because if he loses no one
compensates him for his loss, while if he wins most of his profit
is taken in taxes by the State.
I do not think that the Spanish harbour any spirit of revenge
against us because of the events of the Spanish-American war.
There was nothing in that war to arouse particular resentment. No
one used poison gas, or enslaved women or cut off the hands of
babies. On our side, at least, there was an intense admiration
for the splendid, chivalrous bravery of our enemies. Spain was,
in reality, benefited by the loss of Cuba and the Philippines; in
fact, they were practically lost to her before we entered the
war. Thinking Spaniards believe the war with America benefited
Spain; and the lower classes rejoice because their sons and
husbands are not forced to serve in the Spanish Army in the
fever-laden swamps of the tropics.
On the war Spain is hopelessly divided: Conservative, against
Conservative; Liberal, against Liberal. The usual German
propaganda is furiously at work, all the paraphernalia, bought
newspapers--bribes. Roman Catholic prejudice against former
French Governments is a great stumbling block in the way of the
Allies in Spain, for that country became the refuge of many
orders and priests driven from France. Many of the Spanish
Catholics still resent the action of previous French Governments
towards the Catholic Church.
But whatever may be the faults of the French Government in this
particular, whether it or the teaching orders went too far--the
Roman Catholics of Spain sooner or later will realise that, after
all, the bulk of the French and Italian and Belgian people are
their co-religionists, and they will recall the attempts of
Bismarck to master the Roman Catholics of Germany and to bind its
priests to the will of the Imperial Government, attempts recent
enough to keep the Catholics of Germany still organised in the
political party which they created in the dark days of Bismarck's
"war for Civilisation," as he dared call his contest with the
great Roman Catholic Church.
Spanish and other Catholics throughout the world will remember
this and will remember, too, that from every valley of the
Protestant section of the German Empire the eye can see a
"Bismarck Thurm," or Bismarck Memorial Tower, erected on some
commanding height by the admirers of the dead Iron Chancellor.
I believe that after the war the Roman Catholic Church in France
and Belgium will be on a healthier, sounder basis, that it will
have more and more influence with the people, that it will be
more popular and respected than before, unless some act on the
part of the Pope should lead the French and Belgians to believe
that he favours Germany. Priests are not exempt from military
service in France and these Abbés, fighting, dying, suffering
wounds and privation, working cheek to cheek with the soldiers of
France, will do much to bring about the change. I met a number of
these priest-warriors in the prison camps of Germany. They are
doing a great work and have earned the respect and love of their
countrymen--their fellow prisoners.
Several of these soldier Abbés were prisoners in Dyrotz, near
Berlin, and I remember how they were looked up to by all the
soldiers. What a consolation were these noble warriors who fought
a two-fold winning fight--for their country and their faith.
Spain has suffered much from the war. In the northeast part
called Catalonia are located the manufacturing industries of
Spain, cloth weaving, cotton spinning, etc. In Barcelona, the
principal industrial town, are many manufacturing industries. If
these plants cannot obtain raw materials or a market for their
finished products, then industrial depression ensues and
thousands are thrown out of employment.
So in the north, where iron ore is produced, the submarine
blockade of England, chief buyer of iron ore and the seller of
coal, has made itself felt in every province; and in the south,
the land of sun and gypsies, oranges and vines, the want of sea
and land transportation, the diminished exports of wine and
fruits to other countries have brought many of the inhabitants to
the verge of ruin.
In the coast cities sailors and longshoremen are out of
employment, and this condition--these hundreds of thousands
without work through disturbance of industry,--has ripened the
field for the German propagandist and agent who threatens the
King with revolution, should he incline to the Allies.
In no country of the world has the German agent been so bold and
no neutral government has been more forcibly reminded in its
policy and conduct of the fact that it is always face to face
with Kaiserism.
CHAPTER XX
GERMAN SPIES AND THEIR METHODS
German spies who looked like "movie" detectives hung about and
followed us on the journey from Berlin to Switzerland, France and
Spain. There were even suspicious characters among the Americans
with German accent who came on our special train from Germany to
Switzerland.
Berne is now the champion spy centre of the world. Switzerland, a
neutral country, bordering on Germany, France, Italy and Austria,
is the happy hunting ground and outfitting point for myriads of
spies employed by the nations at war. The Germans, however, use
more spies than all the other nations together.
Bismarck said that there are male nations and female nations, and
that Germany was a male nation--certainly the German has less of
that heaven-sent feminine quality of intuition than other
peoples. The autocrat, never mingling with the plain people of
all walks of life, finds the spy a necessity.
Spy spies on spy--autocracy produces bureaucracy where men rise
and fall not by the votes of their fellow citizens but by back
stairs intrigue. The German office-holder fears the spies of his
rivals. I often said to Germans holding high office during the
war, "This strain is breaking you down,--all day in your office.
Take an afternoon off and come shooting with me." The invariable
answer was, "I cannot--the others would learn it from their spies
and would spread the report that I neglect business!"
While in Spain I met the then Premier, Count Romanones, a man of
great talent and impressive personality. He told me of the
finding of a quantity of high explosives, marked by a little
buoy, in one of the secluded bays of the coast. And that day a
German had been arrested who had mysteriously appeared at a
Spanish port dressed as a workman. The workman took a first class
passage to Madrid, went to the best hotel and bought a complete
outfit of fine clothes. Undoubtedly the high explosive as well as
the mysterious German had been landed from a German submarine.
Whether the explosive was destined as a depot for submarines or
was to help overturn the Spanish government was hard to guess,
but Count Romanones was worried over the activity of the German
agents in Spain.
It has been very easy for German agents in America to communicate
with Germany through this submarine post from Spain to Germany,
the letters from America being sent to Cuba and thence on Spanish
boats to Spain.
At all times since the war the Germans have had a submarine post
running direct from Germany to Spain. Shortly after our arrival
in Spain Mrs. Gerard received mysteriously a letter written by a
friend of hers, a German Baroness, in Berlin. This letter had
undoubtedly been sent through the very efficient German spy
system.
Sometime in 1915 a German soldier, in uniform, speaking perfect
English, called one day at the Embassy. He said that his name was
Bode and that he had at one time worked for my father-in-law, the
late Marcus Daly. Of course, we had no means of verifying his
statements and Mrs. Gerard did not remember any one of that name
or recall Bode personally. He said that he was fighting on the
East front and that he had a temporary leave of absence. I gave
him some money and later we sent him packages of food and tobacco
to the front, but never received any acknowledgment.
In Madrid one of my assistants, Frank Hall, while walking through
the street, ran across Bode, who was fashionably attired. His
calling cards stated that he was a mining engineer from Los
Angeles, California. He told Hall a most extraordinary fairy
story, saying that he had been captured by the Russians on the
East front and sent to Siberia, that from Siberia he had escaped
to China and from there he had gradually worked his way back to
America and thence to Spain.
Of course, without any definite information on the subject it is
impossible to say exactly what he was doing in Spain. But I am
sure that it is far more likely he had landed from a German
submarine on the coast of Spain and that he was posing as an
American mining engineer for a particular purpose.
I told certain people in Spain about Bode and of his intention to
visit the mining districts of Spain where numbers of men are
employed. Bode must have suspected that I had given information
about him, for Hall and I received several postcards of a
threatening character, evidently from him.
My cables to and from the State Department passed through our
legation at Copenhagen, and, of course, if the Germans knew our
cipher these messages were read by them. On special occasions I
made use of a super-cipher the key to which I kept in a safe in
my bedroom and which only one secretary could use. The files of
cipher cables sent and received were kept in a large safe in the
Embassy. But before leaving Germany, knowing the Germans as I
did, and particularly what they had done in other countries and
to other diplomats, knowing how easy it would be for them to
burglarise the safe after we left, when the Spaniards and Dutch
were out of the building at night, I tossed all these despatches
as well as the code books into a big furnace fire. Commander
Gherardi and Secretary Hugh Wilson stood by and personally saw
that the last scrap was burned. Of course, copies of all the
cables are in the State Department.
German spies are adepts at opening bags, steaming letters--all
the old tricks. The easiest way to baffle them is to write
nothing that cannot be published to the world.
For a long time after the beginning of war I was too busy to
write the weekly report of official gossip usually sent home by
diplomats. I suppose the Germans searched our courier bags for
such a report vainly. Anyway, its absence finally got on the
nerves of Zimmermann so much that one day he blurted out, "Don't
you ever write reports to your Government?"
Sealed letters are opened by spies as follows:
[Illustration]
by inserting a pencil or small round object in the envelope,
steamed a little, if necessary; the envelope is opened at the end
flap and the contents pulled out without disturbing the seal, the
contents are then read, put in their place again, the end flap
re-inserted, a little gum used and the envelope is as intact as
before.
The only safe way to seal an envelope is thus:
[Illustration]
Even then a clever spy can open the letter, read the contents and
seal it again. This is done by cutting through the seals with a
hot razor--the divided seals are then united by pressing the hot
razor against each side of the cut and then pressing the two
parts of the cut seal together. This is, however, a very delicate
operation and doesn't always work.
From the outbreak of war we sent and received our official mail
through England, and couriers carried it between Berlin and
London through Holland via Flushing and Tilbury.
On account of the great volume of correspondence between
Ambassador Page and myself on the affairs of German prisoners in
England and English prisoners in Germany, there were many pouches
every week. These were leather mail bags opened only by duplicate
keys kept in London and Berlin and, for the American mail, in
Berlin and Washington. Our couriers did their best to keep the
numerous bags in their sight during the long journey but on many
occasions our couriers were separated, I am sure with malicious
purpose, from their bags by the German railway authorities and on
some occasions the bags not recovered for days.
Undoubtedly at this time the Germans opened and looked over the
contents of the bags. Later in the war our courier while on a
Dutch mail boat, running between Flushing and England, was twice
captured with the boat by a German warship and taken into
Zeebrugge. Undoubtedly here, too, the bags were secretly opened
and our uncoded despatches and letters read.
German spies were most annoying in Havana and one of them, a
large dark man, followed me about at a distance of only six feet,
with his eyes glued on the small bag which I carried from a thick
strap hanging around my shoulder. I brought it from Germany in
that way. I never let it out of my hands or sight.
What was in that bag? Among other things were the original
telegrams written by the Kaiser in his own handwriting,
facsimiles of which appear in my earlier book, "My Four Years in
Germany," and the treaty which the Germans tried to get me to
sign while they held me as a prisoner. Under the terms they
proposed the German ships interned in America were to have the
right in case of war, to sail for Germany under a safe conduct to
be obtained from the Allies by the United States. Somewhat of a
treaty! And quite a new, bright and original thought by some one
in the Foreign Office or German Admiralty. There were also in
this mysterious bag many other matters of interest that may some
day see the light.
* * * * *
Poisonous propaganda and spying are the twin offspring of
Kaiserism.
There is in Mexico, for instance, one force that never
sleeps,--the German propaganda. It is the same method as that
used by the Teutons in every country, the purchase or rental of
newspaper properties, bribing public men and officers of the army
and the insidious use of Germans who are engaged in commerce.
This propaganda is backed by enormous sums of money appropriated
by the German government which directs how all its officers and
agents, high and low, shall participate in the campaign.
In the long run a paid propaganda always fails. It is like paying
money to blackmailers. The blackmailer who has once received
money becomes so insatiable that even the Bank of England will
not satisfy him in the end. Sometimes the newspapers which are
not bought, but are equally corrupt, become vehement in their
denunciation of the country making the propaganda in the hope of
being bought and in the hope that their bribe money will be in
proportion to their hostility. Corrupted public men who are not
bribed often become sternly virtuous and denunciatory with a
similar hope. Those who have received the wages of shame, on the
other hand, become more insistent in their demands, crying,
"Give! Give!" like the daughter of the horse-leech.
The blows of war must be struck quickly. Delays are dangerous and
the temporary paralysis of one country by propaganda may mean the
loss of the war. The United States has been at a great disadvantage
because our officials have not had the authority, the means or
the money to fight the German propaganda with effective educational
campaigns, both offensive and defensive.
Bernstorff in this country disposed of enormous sums for the
purpose of moulding American public opinion. I, in Berlin, was
without one cent with which to place America's side before the
German people. It is a conflict of two systems. In Berlin I did
not even have money to pay private detectives and on the rare
occasions when I used them as, for instance to find out who was
connected with the so-called American organisation, the League of
Truth, which was engaged in a violent propaganda against America
inside Germany, I was obliged to bear the expense personally.
South of the Rio Grande the Germans are working against us, doing
their best to prejudice the Mexicans against the United States,
playing upon old hatreds and creating new ones and, in the
meantime, by their purchase of properties and of mines creating a
situation that will constitute for us in the future a most
difficult and dangerous problem.
The Germans cannot understand why we do not take advantage of
conditions in Mexico in order to conquer and hold that unfortunate
country. They could not believe that we were actuated by a spirit
of idealism and that we were patiently suffering much in order
really to help Mexico. They could not believe that we were
waiting in order to convince not only Mexico but the other States
of Central America and the great friendly republics of South
America, that it was not our policy to use the dissensions and
weakness of our neighbours to gain territory.
On one occasion before the war I and several other Ambassadors
were dining with the Kaiser and after dinner the conversation
turned to the strange sights to be seen in America. One of the
Ambassadors, I think it was Cambon, said that he had seen in
America whole houses being moved along the roads, something of a
novelty to European eyes where the houses, constructed of brick
and stone, cannot be transported from place to place like our
wooden frame house. The Emperor jokingly remarked: "Yes, I am
sure that the Americans are moving their houses. They are moving
them down towards the Mexican border."
CHAPTER XXI
EN ROUTE HOME--KAISERISM IN AMERICA
Our party was so numerous that we were compelled to charter a
special train to take us from Madrid to La Coruña, the port in
the extreme northwestern corner of Spain from which the _Infanta
Isabela_ was to sail.
Just before the train started, a Spanish gentleman from the
Foreign Office, who had courteously come to see us off, said to
me, "Do you know you have a Duke as engineer?" "The Duke of
Saragossa is going to take out your train." So we ran forward to
the engine and I shook hands with the Duke who was in blue
overalls.
This Duke of Saragossa, Grandee of Spain, often drives the engine
of the King's train. Why he engineered our train I do not know,
unless it was because of the rumours that German agents would try
to stop my journey home.
At any rate the Duke proved a most competent engineer, guiding us
with velvet touch through the steep inclines and sharp turns of
the Guadarrama mountains. At Venta de Baños his turn at the
engine ended and on my invitation he came to dine with us in the
dining car. He proved a most charming gentleman, speaking English
well. He said that his great ambition was to visit America and
see the big locomotives and the pretty girls. At dinner he was,
of course, dressed in his overalls and carried out the professional
touch by using clean cotton waste instead of a pocket handkerchief.
Arrived at La Coruña in the morning, carriages sent by the
Spanish government met us and the Mayor and the other officials
were most polite. The Mayor accompanied us on board ship next
day, giving to Mrs. Gerard a beautiful basket of flowers entwined
with ribbons of the colours of the City of La Coruña.
We found the _Infanta Isabela_ a clean splendid ship--her Captain
competent and kind. I cheerfully recommend her to any who wish a
safe voyage across the Atlantic during the war.
My stay in Havana was brief and I was soon en route northward
from Key West.
As our train came north through Florida there were crowds and
bands at the stations and at St. Augustine my eyes were delighted
by the sight of Frank Munsey and Ex-Senator Chauncey Depew.
At the station in Washington Secretary McAdoo met me. What a
splendid record of achievement is his since the war, and now with
the burden of all the railways in the country added to that of
finance I suppose in no country at war has one man so successfully
undertaken such gigantic tasks.
President Wilson was ill in bed but next day got up on purpose to
hear my report. I was with him for over an hour.
[Illustration: THE "INFANTA ISABELLA," ON WHICH AMBASSADOR GERARD
RETURNED FROM EUROPE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN HAVANA HARBOR,
MARCH, 1917]
The following day I arrived in New York, being met in Jersey
City by a committee headed by the celebrated lawyer, John B.
Stanchfield; Clarence Mackay, Herbert Swope (whose splendid
articles in the _New York World_ were the first warnings to
America and other countries respecting the ruthless submarine
warfare), United States Marshal Thomas D. McCarthy, State Senator
Foley, James J. Hoey,--a faithful trio of good friends who saw me
off for Denmark only a few months before. I was escorted to the
City Hall where I was welcomed by the Mayor. In a speech on the
steps of the City Hall I said:
"We are standing to-day very near the brink of
war, but I want to assure you that if we should be
drawn into the conflict it will be only after our
President has exhausted every means consistent
with upholding the honour and dignity of the
United States to keep us from war. I left Berlin
with a clear conscience, because I felt that
during all my stay there I had omitted nothing to
make for friendly relations and peace between the
two nations.
"I am very glad to-day to see on the list of this
Reception Committee the names of people of German
descent. It is but natural that citizens of German
descent in the beginning of the war should have
had a sentimental feeling toward Germany, that
they should have looked back through rose-coloured
glasses on that land which, however, they left
because they did not have equality of opportunity.
We read to-day in the newspapers for the first
time that there is a prospect that after the war
the Germans will be given an equal share in their
own government. I believe that in our hour of
trial we can rely upon the loyalty of our citizens
of German descent, and if they would follow me I
would not be afraid to go out with a regiment of
them and without any fear of being shot from
behind.
* * * * *
"The nation that stands opposite to us to-day has
probably no less than 12,000,000 men under arms. I
have seen the Germans take more prisoners in one
afternoon than there are men in the entire United
States Army.
"Does it not seem to you ridiculous that the two
States of New York and New Jersey should have more
chauffeurs in them than there are soldiers in our
army? My companions from the Twelfth Regiment that
have honoured me by coming here to-day, and more
men like them throughout the country, have done
what they can. But they can't do it all. There
must be a public sentiment if we are to maintain
ourselves as a nation. If we had a million men
under arms to-day we should not be near the edge
of war.
"Gentlemen, I have tried in Berlin to be, as the
Mayor has told you, an American Ambassador, and I
thank you because you, an audience of patriotic
Americans, by your presence here set your seal of
approval upon my conduct during the last two and a
half years."
I have never been able to understand why so many people did not
sooner realise what Kaiserism meant for us. But now, at last, the
nation understands that we must fight on until this menace of
military autocracy has vanished and that not until then will the
world enjoy a lasting peace.
Almost as soon as I was settled in New York I was drafted.
Drafted by a public curiosity which insisted on knowing
something about Germany and the war.
And so for me began a new life--that of a public speaker--I spoke
first in New York at a lunch at the Chamber of Commerce--war had
not then been declared and I was compelled to be careful--for
even then there seemed a fear of Germany, a foolish desire to
surrender all manhood to a fat neutrality.
On April 2nd came President Wilson's message demanding war. I was
in the opera house that night. Between the acts extras appeared.
I telephoned Swope of the _World_ who confirmed the news. While I
was receiving this information one of the directors of the
Metropolitan Opera Company came in the room. I told him what had
happened and asked if he was not going to do something--order the
news read from the stage--for example, and the "Star Spangled
Banner" played. He said, "No, the opera company is neutral."
I returned to the box where I was sitting and stepping to the
front called on the house to cheer President Wilson. There was,
for a moment, surprise at such unconventional action, but the
whole house soon broke into cheers.
Conventionalism was gone.
The opera was DeKoven's "Canterbury Pilgrims" and a few minutes
after the curtain rose on the last act Frau Ober, a German
singer, who was taking one of the principal parts, keeled over in
a faint,--rage, perhaps, that the Yankees were at last daring to
cheer, to assert themselves against the Kaiser!
As I spoke in Albany, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Trenton and Boston, in
Philadelphia, Providence and many times in New York and other
places, I noted always an eagerness to learn about Germany, the
war and foreign affairs. We Americans had travelled, but not with
our eyes open--"seeing, we saw not."
The first great, great question we faced was that of universal
service for the war--or the selective draft--again how farsighted
our President then proved himself. What would be our situation
now if we had tried to go to war under the volunteer system? This
question once solved, our President led us with a breadth of
vision, an efficiency, and on a scale commensurate with the size
of the undertaking in which we at last had become partners.
Perhaps we are a little over indulgent, however, in the treatment
of the German enemy alien within our gates. No American singer or
musician could travel about Germany at will, unwatched by the
police, collecting money from Americans to be used in propaganda,
or things much worse, against America. Americans in Germany are
compelled to report twice daily to the police and cannot leave
their homes at night. November 17, 1917--seven months after we
went to war with Germany--I met Hugo Schmidt, a director of the
Deutsche Bank, riding in Central Park. He lived at the German
Club, saw whom he liked and only reported to the police when he
changed his residence. In January 1918, he was finally interned.
Long before our break with Germany, American consuls and
officials were insulted in the street and in opera houses because
they made use of their own language, not at all because they were
taken for British for every one knew that all British had been
interned.
The wife of our naval attaché attended a reception presided over
by a German admiral's wife. She was presented to this high
personage by the wife of a German naval officer, who, in making
the presentation, spoke in English. The admiral's wife rebuked
both the wife of our attaché and the officer's wife for daring to
talk English. I am thankful to say that Mrs. Gherardi immediately
left the house to receive later the officially ordered apologies
of the admiral's wife.
And while Americans did not dare use their own language in Berlin
in time of peace between the two countries yet after the outbreak
of war, newspapers in the United States, printed in German, owned
by Germans and German sympathisers, dared to attack America and
her President.
The autocracy always hope to divide us, to make of us a Russia,
torn by Maximalists and Minimalists, by Militarists and
Bolsheviki and, consequently, impotent for war.
In travelling through the United States in August and September
of 1917, although I was on private business, I made speeches in
many cities, such as Minneapolis, and Helena, Billings, Butte and
Missoula in Montana, Spokane, Seattle and Tacoma in Washington,
Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and surrounding country, Los
Angeles, San Diego and Pasadena and then Milwaukee, Chicago and
Cleveland. In all this territory I found great enthusiasm, great
patriotism and a sincere desire to learn about Germany and the
war. But I found everywhere also the trail of Germany's poisonous
propaganda.
The great majority of our citizens of German-American descent
have been splendidly loyal to their country in this crisis of its
history. But the fact must be faced that there are those who, for
some unknown reason, still sympathise with the German Kaiser in
his war of aggression.
More unfortunately there are politicians in America who seek the
votes of those disaffected, and approach treason in doing so. In
all the history of sordid politics, there is nothing more
nauseating than the effort of these cheap politicians thus to
gratify their personal ambitions.
Their shameful identity is known to all. A generation from now
their own descendants will be applying to the courts for a change
of name.
If, when the test comes, it is found that the votes of these
disaffected citizens count for something in our elections, we
must find some means to disenfranchise them rather than have our
low politicians outbidding each other within the law in order to
get these votes.
Have we not had examples enough from Russia of what the slimy
bribe and the snaky propaganda can do?
In Chicago, where one Thompson is Mayor, there is a censorship of
moving picture films. The chief censor is Major Funkhouser. When
I was in Los Angeles, at the end of September, like all strangers
there, I visited movie-land to see the pictures made.
At the house of my college chum, Dr. Walter J. Barlow, I met the
beautiful and celebrated Mary Pickford.
In conversation she told me about Major Funkhouser, and how he
had refused an exhibition permit for one of her films called "The
Little American." Curious to see the film rejected by Chicago
officialdom, I asked Miss Pickford if she would have it run off
for my benefit. I could see nothing in the film that could hurt
the susceptibilities of any except the Germans with whom we are
now engaged in war!
Later the Fox Film Company informed me that their film called
"The Spy" and which deals with the adventures of an American who
is supposed to go to Germany to get a list of German spies and
agents in America, was refused the right of exhibition in Chicago
by this same Major Funkhouser. In this case the Fox Company
appealed in the courts and obtained from Judge Alschuler an
injunction preventing any one from interfering with the
exhibition of this film. The decision of Judge Alschuler was
affirmed on appeal.
And yet the mass of the people in Chicago are splendidly
patriotic as the record of Chicago for enlistment and Red Cross
and Liberty Loan shows.
When I spoke in the great Medinah Temple under the auspices of
the Hamilton Club, on October twenty-second, I was able to show
to the audience two German text-books used in the Chicago public
schools, stamped with the royal arms of Prussia. The books had
been approved by Ella Flagg Young, Superintendent of Schools, in
1914.
These books were furnished me by my friend, Anthony Czarnecki of
the _Chicago Daily News_ whom I first met in Berlin where he came
to do most excellent work for his paper. In one of these books is
printed the German patriotic song, The Watch on the Rhine ("Die
Wacht am Rhein"). What a howl there would have been if some
public school superintendent had selected for the schools under
her jurisdiction a text-book of English literature with the royal
arms of England stamped on the cover and "Rule Britannia"
prominently displayed inside!
These text-books were cleverly compiled to impress children at a
youthful age with a favourable idea of kings and emperors. In one
of these was an anecdote about Frederick the Great and a miller,
and in another, one about the Emperor Charlemagne and the
scholar, of course, making Frederick and Charlemagne appear as
good kindly people, and giving the impression that all kings and
emperors are beneficent beings. But no word is there in these
books quoting the present German Emperor's statement in which he
puts Frederick in the same class as the four other bloody
conquerors of history, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Theodoric and
Napoleon, and says that where they failed in their dreams of
world conquest, his mailed fist will succeed. Why was not
Frederick the Great's statement printed in these books, his
admission that he engaged upon the Seven Years' War "in order to
be talked about"?
These books contained quotations from Goethe. Why did they not
contain Goethe's statement, "Amerika, du hast es besser."?
(America, you are better off). Or his prophecy about the
Prussians, "The Prussian was born a brute, and civilisation will
make him ferocious."
The only foreign language taught in the grammar schools of
Chicago is German. Parents are compelled to sign a statement in
which they answer the question as to whether they wish their
children to be taught German or not.
See how subtle this is! Doubtless if a Teuton parent answers that
he does not desire to have his children taught German the paid
agents of the German propaganda stir up feeling against these
Germans who have dared to refuse to have their children taught
the language of the fatherland.
And when a parent has once elected that his children shall be
taught German, not the principal of the school, not the district
superintendent, but only the head of all the Chicago school
system, on the application of the parent, can excuse the child,
during his or her school course, from further study of German.
Worst of all, however, is the Chicago official school speller, a
book printed under the direction and compiled by the school
authorities of Chicago. In this speller there is just one piece
of reading matter and that a fulsome eulogy of the present German
Emperor.
This is an account of an alleged incident of the Kaiser's school
days and the author concludes that the facts set forth (probably
untrue) show that the Kaiser as a boy had the "root of a fine
character in him," possessed "that chivalrous sense of fair play
which is the nearest thing to a religion" in boys of that age and
hated "meanness and favouritism." The Chicago Board of Education
end the eulogy by stating, "There is in him a fundamental bent
toward what is clean, manly and aboveboard."
"Chivalrous sense of fair play and hates meanness!" "Fundamental bent
toward what is clean, manly and aboveboard!" How about the enslavement
of women and girls in France, the use of poison gas, the deportations
of the Belgians, the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the killing of
women and babies by Zeppelins and submarines.--Sickening!
A number of the books used in the public schools of New York have
so much in them favourable to kings and emperors, have so much of
German patriotism and fatherland, that the hand of the propagandist
must have had something to do with the adoption of these books.
Of course, it is only in the books of the advanced courses that
propaganda appears. It is not possible, however clever the
author, to incorporate much propaganda in simple exercises, or in
such sentences as "Have you seen the sister of my cousin's
wife?" or "The bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account
of the rain."
But the following extracts from books used in the public schools
of New York should not be without interest to those who know that
the impressions given to persons under the age of sixteen or
seventeen are the impressions that often persist through life.
For instance in the "Deutscher Lehrgang, First Year," by E.
Prokosch of the University of Texas, "Die Wacht am Rhein" is
printed with music.
I should be very much surprised to hear that the "Star Spangled
Banner," with music, had ever been printed in any school book in
Germany.
On page 109, of this book, there is an article in German
entitled, "The German Constitution." It begins with the sentence,
"The German Empire is a union State like the United States of
America." How far the German Empire is from the United States of
America in political liberty can be answered by any German
immigrant or Jewish merchant who has voted under the circle
system or been denied access to court because of his religion!
The second paragraph commences with the sentence, "The German
Kaiser is not monarch of the Empire. He only is President of the
Union." I am quite sure that if the Kaiser ever saw this sentence
he would very soon convince the author that he was something more
than the President. The article continues:
"He is the over-commander of the army. Through him is war
declared and peace made, but he can declare war only with the
consent of the Bundesrath."
The Bundesrath had nothing to say about the commencement of this
war. They never voted on the question. The German Constitution,
as a matter of fact, gives the Kaiser the right to declare war
himself, providing that the war is a defensive war. In 1914, the
Kaiser first announced, without presenting any evidence, that
Germany had been attacked, and then declared war on the strength
of this statement, never since substantiated.
The text book writer adds: "The people are represented in the
Reichstag as the American people are represented in Congress." If
the American people were represented in Congress under the same
unfair representation from which the German people suffer, there
would soon be a revolution in this country. The districts which
elect members to the Reichstag have not been changed since 1872,
so that millions of Germans are not represented at all in the
Reichstag.
"Professor" Prokosch remarks: "The Bundesrath is like the Senate
of the United States. It is composed of representatives of the
particular States."
Of course, the only _difference_ is that our Senators are elected
by the people and the members of the Bundesrath are appointed by
the ruling kings and princes of the German states and vote
exactly as they are told by these rulers.
This is only to show how carelessly, if not maliciously,
Professor E. Prokosch of the University of Texas and his helper,
C. M. Purin of the State Normal School at Milwaukee, have handled
the German Constitution, doubtless to give the impression to
school children in America that the German empire instead of
being a despotic autocracy, is ruled in very much the same manner
as our own republic.
Frederick the Great, who admitted that he went to war "in order
to be talked about," who boasted that he had only one cook and a
hundred spies, who was one of the most tyrannical kings of all
history, has a whole book dedicated to him for use in the Public
Schools of New York. Frederick Betz, head of the Department of
Modern Languages in the East High School of Rochester, New York,
is the author of a book called, "About a Great King and Others."
The author in the preface states that the anecdotes which he
prints do not narrate the story of the lives of these famous
Germans, but, nevertheless, give glimpses of what they did and
may help to show why the Germans held them in such high esteem.
The book contains four anecdotes about King Frederick William I,
the father of Frederick the Great, a villainous king who was
prevented from executing his own son only by the protests of the
other kings of Europe.
Then follow forty-nine anecdotes about Frederick the Great, all
of them, of course, revealing him as a good king and a popular
character; eight anecdotes about Beethoven, Mozart, Schiller, and
Lessing, and the remainder of the book is made up of one
anecdote about Queen Louise, one about Field Marshal Blücher,
eighteen anecdotes about Bismarck, three about the Emperor
William I, and three about the present Emperor.
The booklet entitled "German Poems for Memorizing," with music to
some of the poems, edited by Oscar Burkhard, Assistant Professor
of German in the University of Minnesota, contains a number of
German patriotic poems and prints the "Wacht am Rhein" twice,
once in the text and once with music. "Deutschland über Alles" is
printed twice in the same way.
I should like to be present at the trial in the secret court in
Germany of a schoolmaster who dared to teach his pupils to sing
the "Star Spangled Banner" or the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Prokosch and Purin seem to be popular with the Board of
Education, for they are represented by another book called
"Conversation and Reading Book," which is full of stories and
patriotic anecdotes. Charlemagne, Barbarossa and Frederick the
Great are all exhibited as great men to be emulated. There is a
picture of the coronation of Charlemagne which represents the
Pope about to place the iron crown on Charlemagne's head while
the Deity, attended by seraphim and cherubim, floating on clouds
overhead, lends his presence to the ceremony; only another
example of how the Prussians believe that God is the tribal Deity
of their nation who takes a personal interest in all their
ceremonies and wars.
A long article appears in these books entitled, "The Germans in
the United States." It implies that William Penn had no success
until he called in Dr. Daniel Pastorius of Frankfort. Among the
bits of history set forth the author alleges that, in 1760, there
were more than a hundred thousand Germans in Pennsylvania, and
that on account of their importance in this State it was proposed
to make German the official language, the proposition being
beaten by only one vote! The article says further: "The only
reason why the contentious Puritans succeeded in making English
the language of the country and in impressing their character on
its politics was because the German immigrants were poor,
downtrodden people."
But it is when we come to the description of the War of the
Revolution and other wars that the authors really turn loose. We
learn that Washington's bodyguard was composed of Germans and
that Baron von Steuben apparently reorganised the American army,
so that Washington moved Congress to name General von Steuben,
Inspector General, and to make his position almost independent.
The writers say that the siege of Yorktown and surrender of the
English army was in a great part the work of Steuben.
I think that other historians might have something to say on this
subject. The authors fail to tell that Baron von Steuben, a
soldier of fortune, who sold his services to the highest bidder,
was hired to join the American army by a Frenchman, Beaumarchais,
who sympathised with the United States.
Attention is also called to the fact that 190,000 Germans fought
against the South and the authors observe in conclusion:
"If to-day the United States of America is a power
of world political importance, if its industry,
agriculture and commerce betoken a powerful danger
commercially over the old Europe, so have they to
thank the political power and the methodical
perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon immigrants from
England as well as the industry, the bravery and
the cheerfulness of the Germans who have placed
themselves politically in the service of the Anglo
Saxons."
It is noteworthy that of the four books I have set forth as
examples, three apparently have been produced since the
commencement of the World War.
Does not all this show the hand of the German propaganda--the
same hand which sends from Berlin every year a large sum of money
to the German colonists in the southern states of Brazil in order
that the German schools may be maintained there, German ideas
inculcated and the population prevented from losing its German
identity?
From the time of the visit of Prince Henry to this country the
German system of propaganda has been at work smoothing out
traditional differences and feuds between Germans and doing its
best to make Germans from Bavaria, Saxony and Hanover and
Württemberg, and Hesse forget that their countries were conquered
by the Prussians in 1866.
When Prince Henry was here on his trip through the country he
spent very little time with Americans. He was chiefly occupied
with German-Americans and German-American Societies.
Prince Henry's visit to the United States in 1902 was primarily
to attend the christening of the racing yacht of the Emperor
which was being built in this country. One of the members of his
suite was von Tirpitz, then secretary of state of the German
Navy. After having been officially received by President
Roosevelt he visited Annapolis, Brooklyn Navy Yard and West Point
and then toured the middle west stopping at twenty cities between
New York and St. Louis. During the entire trip he continually
asked questions of all the delegates sent with him by the U. S.
Government, such as for instance facts about the shops at
Altoona, the coal mines, farms, factories and handsome women!
At every station he was met by the Mayor of the city and the
German Societies, and greeted with German music. The Deutscher
Kriege Verein, a German Society consisting of military veterans,
always had a place of honour in the celebrations. In many cities
the German-American citizens gave the Prince albums or souvenirs
in which were engraved pretty pledges of devotion to the
Fatherland. For instance in Chicago, the German Roman Catholic
Society presented the following address: "The German Roman
Catholic Staats-Verband of Illinois begs your Royal Highness to
permit it to express its great joy for your visit to the United
States and to assure your Royal Highness of its respect and
regard."
"We extend to your Royal Highness our heartiest
greeting as the illustrious guest of this country
and _the envoy of the wise and noble ruler of our
Fatherland_, whom the world recognises and
respects as prince of peace and as the
representative of a great and mighty nation that
by its own power has united its people and
achieved its present prominent position among
nations of the earth.
"May the Almighty grant that the visit of your
Royal Highness bear a rich fruit, that rulers and
their people may join together and thereby promote
peace, harmony and good-will throughout the world!
May God grant this prayer!"
Everywhere the Prince went he was surrounded by German-American
and German influences. In St. Louis, where the Prince spent about
three and a half hours, the German-Americans gave him a great
reception in the Grand Hall and lunch at the St. Louis Club which
was attended by many Germans. In Chicago, a reception was given
after the Mayor's banquet, in the First Regiment Armory, and
attended by ten thousand Germans. The following day in Chicago he
went to a large luncheon at the Germania Club. In Milwaukee the
officers of the Deutscher Kriegebund gave a reception at the
Exposition where ten thousand German-Americans cheered the
Prince, and also a luncheon at the Hotel Pfister where many
German-American officials were invited.
The speeches throughout had the same tone, those of the
German-Americans expressing their respect for the Fatherland and
those of the Prince spurring on loyalty in the hearts of the
German-Americans. The Prince's speech in the Armory in Chicago is
quite typical. In reply to a speech made by a German-American,
the Prince said:
_"You have left your Fatherland, but if you still have some love
for the Fatherland then I ask you to give three cheers for the
one who has sent me here as the representative of Prussia to
bring this greeting--the German Emperor and King of Prussia."_
In another speech which the Prince began with "Mr. Chairman and
Fellow-Germans," he said: "I would like to say that the Germans
in this country have done a great deal for the literature and
science of this country and I hope they will continue in this
good work." The whole attitude of the Prince seemed to be one of
benevolence to his "Fellow-Germans" and personal interest in
them. Wherever the Prince discovered a German wearing the Iron
Cross in the crowd, he would ask an aide to bring the man up to
him so that he could shake hands and converse with him.
Talking with Prince Henry one day before the war he told me he
regretted that on his trip to America he had seen so little of
the Americans. He said: "You know the Ambassador kept me always
with the Germans and German Societies." I suppose the poor Prince
did not himself know what was the real object of his visit. But
undoubtedly his shrewd trip manager and the clever propagandists
who accompanied him knew only too well.
It is hard to understand why any German-Americans should take
sides with German autocracy. There are many merchants of
Frankfort and Hamburg and Bremen and the great industrial towns
of Germany who do not approve of the cruelties practised in this
war and many of these will leave Germany as soon as peace is
concluded.
Any one had a right to sympathise, to side with Germany, before
our entrance into the war. But now what the lawyers call "the
time of repentance" has gone by, there is no middle course and
every citizen must declare himself American or be thought a
traitor.
It is hard to understand what the pro-Germans in our country
want. They left Germany because of a lack of opportunity there,
because of their dislike for military service under Prussian
conditions, because of the caste system which kept them under the
heel of autocracy and because here every avenue of business, and
social and political advancement is thrown wide open for them and
their children. And I am quite sure that if one of these
prosperous Germans were deprived of the money that he has won
here, given back the rags and wooden shoes in which he landed and
told that he was on his way to Germany, no wild animal in all the
mountains and swamps of the United States would scratch and bite
and kick and squawk more vigorously than he would. These
German-Americans do not want to be sent back to their Kaiser and
their fatherland!
Certainly we Americans will not stop the war nor surrender our
rights nor invite the invasion of our shores because of their
stubborn devotion to a country which they were so glad to
abandon. We must appeal to their sons and their daughters--to
those who have become part and parcel of our nation, to see that
these obstinate old codgers do not persist in an attitude which
may end in creating a prejudice against those of German descent
in America.
Those of us who are of Scotch or Irish or English descent can
urge this with greater insistence because our ancestors were much
nearer, in 1766, to the English fatherland, than German-Americans
are to the German Empire and these ancestors did not hesitate in
that year to turn against Great Britain on a mere question of
commerce--did not hesitate again, in 1812, to face Great Britain
in arms on a question of sea rights; and on account of this we
expect all those of German-American descent to stand unreservedly
by their adopted country,--forced into war by an autocracy that
not only murdered our women and children in defiance of
international law and common humanity but which threatens, if
successful in this war, to invade our shores.
Do these stubborn German-Americans think that if a German force
should occupy America their position would be any better than
that of the other citizens of this country, that they would be
put to rule over the rest of us and allowed to save their goods
and houses from the indemnities that would be put upon this
nation in case of our defeat?
Let me tell them one thing and that is, if by any remote
possibility the Germans did gain a foothold in this country
through the aid of those of German descent here, before we, of
other descent in this country submitted to German rule we would
attend to every traitor!
We did not lure any citizens of foreign nations to our shores.
They came here to escape serfdom and starvation and forced
military service in an army where they could never be officers.
We sent them no excursion tickets when they came here as
half-starved peasants. We opened to them the doors of hospitality
and of opportunity, and we do not propose that they shall pay us
like the frozen snake in Æsop's fables.
Some of our finest citizens came from Germany in 1848 after the
failure of the revolution against autocracy. Where do you think
that General Siegel and Carl Schurz would stand if they were
alive to-day?
The daughter of General Siegel has answered in giving her son, on
whom she was dependent, to the army of the United States, saying,
"His grandfather fought under Lincoln for liberty and he must
take his place to-day in the great fight for freedom."
We are too good-natured, too soft, too easy in this country. Our
great ex-President, that splendid American and patriot, Theodore
Roosevelt, said not long ago of one of our United States
Senators, if that Senator were a German and acted in Germany the
way he acted in America as an American he would be put at digging
a trench. I do not like to differ with Theodore Roosevelt, but
from my knowledge of German conditions during this war, I know
that if this Senator acted as a German in Germany as he has been
acting as an American in America, he would not be put by the
Germans at digging a trench but that with the ten bullets of a
firing squad in his chest he would be filling one!
Are these Germans in America imbued with the belief that the
German Kaiser has been sent by heaven to rule the German Empire
and bend the world under German "Kultur"? President Wilson, in
one of his notes in 1916, referred to the German government as
"the mouthpiece of the people." A German conservative newspaper,
I think the _Tages Zeitung_, commenting upon this said that "the
German Emperor is not our 'mouthpiece' but our truly beloved
Emperor sent to us by God."
Does the German-American ever stop to consider how the
Hohenzollerns obtained possession of the Mark of Brandenburg, the
basis of modern Prussia? Five hundred years ago the Hohenzollerns
were Counts of Nuremberg, then as now a rich trading city.
Sigismund III wanted ready money and this was advanced by the
Hohenzollerns, Counts of Nuremberg, on the security of the mark
of Brandenburg pledged as collateral to the loan which totalled
only $100,000. Later the Counts of Nuremberg foreclosed their
mortgage and took possession of the Mark of Brandenburg and have
held it ever since.
Does a German-American in this country who has placed a mortgage
on his house think when he fails to pay the interest or
principal of the mortgage that the man who has sold him out was
sent by God?
This calls to mind one of the great failures of the war--the
failure of religion in the German Empire. I attended a great
service, in the Protestant cathedral of Berlin, held to celebrate
the five hundredth anniversary of the occasion when the first
Hohenzollern, having foreclosed his mortgage, entered into
possession of Brandenburg. The Emperor sat in an elevated gallery
and across the great cathedral Dr. Dryander, the Court preacher,
mounted the pulpit to deliver an eulogy on the Hohenzollern rule
and the Hohenzollerns.
What an opportunity then if Dr. Dryander, lifting an accusing
finger, had spoken of the rivers of innocent blood sacrificed to
the Prussian Moloch of conquest, if he had demanded in the name
of Christianity that the barbarities of Prussian rule should
cease, that the Belgian workingmen, dragged from their homes to
manufacture shells to be used against their own brothers, sons
and fathers in Prussian factories, should be sent back; if he had
demanded that the twenty thousand women and girls driven into
worse than slavery from Lille and Tourcoing and Roubaix in the
North of France should be given their freedom once more; if he
had spoken of the whole nation of the Armenians, of the Syrians,
of the Jews, massacred by the Turks while the German Generals in
command of the Turkish armies stood by; if he had denounced the
invasion of Belgium, the breaking of treaties, the starvation of
Poland, the horrors of poisoned gas and the cruelties exercised
upon those of the opposing armies unfortunate enough to become
prisoners of the Germans.
But no, Dr. Dryander droned on. No pastor in Germany has dared to
risk his state-paid salary to stand up for Christianity and the
right.
The Prussians cannot get away from the belief that they have a
sort of personal God who takes a direct and kindly interest in
their destinies, especially in the ordering of their bloody
battles. Countless sermons were preached through Germany during
the war, but the most ridiculous was that of a Protestant pastor
in Berlin early in the war. He announced the title of his sermon
as, "Is God neutral?", and in his fourteenthly proved to his own
satisfaction, that the Deity, abandoning neutrality, had declared
Himself unequivocally for the success of German arms!
CHAPTER XXII
THAT INTERVIEW WITH THE KAISER
After the appearance, in August, 1917, in the _Philadelphia
Public Ledger_ and other newspapers in America and the _Telegraph_
in England of the message of the Kaiser to President Wilson, the
official _North German Gazette_, evidently unaware of the fact
that the original message of the Kaiser in his own hand was in my
possession, published the following:
"The _London Daily Telegraph_ publishes from the
memoirs of former Ambassador Gerard a telegram
that His Majesty the Kaiser is alleged to have
sent to President Wilson on August 10, 1914, and
in which the events before the participation of
England in the present war are set forth.
"We are, in these circumstances, in the position
TO GIVE THE ASSURANCE THAT A TELEGRAM OF THE
KAISER OF THIS NATURE DOES NOT EXIST.
"It is correct that an audience was granted to
Ambassador Gerard on August 10, 1914, in order to
give the opportunity to spread before His Majesty
the peace mediation offer of President Wilson.
"The personal message of President Wilson to the
Kaiser runs as follows: 'As official head of one
of the Powers which signed the Hague Convention, I
feel according to Article III of this Convention
it is my right and my duty to declare to you in
the spirit of the truest friendship that I would
welcome every opportunity to act in the interest
of the peace of Europe whether now or at another
more fitting time....'
"This proposition came at a time when the opposing
armies had already crossed the frontiers and when
it seemed out of the question to halt the march of
events.
"His Majesty could, therefore, only transmit to
the President his thanks for the mediation offered
and to add thereto that it was too early for the
mediation of a neutral Power, but that later the
friendly proposition of President Wilson could be
taken up again.
"His Majesty, the Emperor, then talked for some
time with the American Ambassador and set forth to
him separately the events which led to the
outbreak of the war. Particularly did the Kaiser
call attention to the equivocal and unloyal
position of England which had destroyed the hope
of a peaceful issue.
"The setting forth by Ambassador Gerard in his
memoirs seems to be a contradiction of this
conversation.
"If the press of enemy countries sees revelations
in this that only shows that they are not
acquainted with the German White Book which sets
forth these events.
"Possibly, during the interviews, the Emperor
wrote down notes for the Ambassador, in order that
the latter should not send anything incorrect to
Washington. In this case we have to do only with
certain notes to aid the memory of the Ambassador,
not with a communication of the Emperor to
President Wilson."
The _Tageblatt_ reprinted this lame and silly explanation in its
issue of August 13, 1917, and complained that, although its
correspondent at the Hague sent, on August 7, 1917, this part of
my first book in a telegram, only on August 11, did the
Government permit the delivery to the _Tageblatt_ of this story
from the correspondent. Then the newspaper despatch had to be
submitted to the Censorship officials who only released it for
publication at midnight. The _Tageblatt_ says, "The form of the
explanation which has now appeared in the _North German Gazette_
can hardly be called very happy. What does this mean--'possibly
during the interview the Kaiser wrote down notes for the
Ambassador in order that the latter should not send anything
incorrect to Washington'? Now, after a week the occurrence must
have been fathomed and it was not necessary to make use of a
'possibly.' Could Mr. Gerard consider these 'notes' in the
handwriting of the Emperor as a draft for a telegram? And do
these notes read, as a telegram of the Emperor to Wilson--as Mr.
Gerard repeats them?"
Does not the _Tageblatt_ article give a glimpse not only of how
the newspapers of Germany are hampered and censored, but of the
positively glorious incompetency of the Government officials who
denied the existence of an original document in the Kaiser's own
hand which the most elementary inquiries in their own circle
would have disclosed not only was in existence but in my
possession?
The redoubtable Reventlow writing in the Conservative _Tages
Zeitung_ commented as follows:
"Kaiser William had possibly for his answer
written down notes and given them to Gerard, but
these were only helps for Gerard's memory and it
was not a question of a direct communication of
the German Kaiser to the President. In accordance
with the Gerard reports it now seems that
nevertheless the Ambassador telegraphed the
Imperial notes immediately and literally to
Washington. Mr. Gerard has, therefore, again in
this respect lied, which is not surprising."
Reventlow, of course, had not then seen the facsimile of the
Kaiser's telegram which is headed in his own hand "To the
President, personally."
Later the other German newspapers took the Foreign Office to task
for making such a weak denial of an incontrovertible fact. And
note the charming parliamentary language of dear old Reventlow!
The article, which appeared in the _Tages Zeitung_ of August 14th
last, is interesting because Reventlow is without doubt the
oracle and mouthpiece of the Prussian Conservatives. He continues
to attack me in this article but much of the attack is in reality
praise, and, as we say in expressive slang, "every knock is a
boost." The article continues:
"It is very desirable to know if the former
Chancellor was present at the audience; it is
regrettably not inconceivable, but is a new proof
of the incompetence of the Chancellor, that he did
not, according to his duty, inform his Imperial
Lord of the political personality and character of
a man like Gerard.
"In the U-boat crisis Mr. Gerard had been able to
play a quite decisive part. He was like Mr. von
Bethmann-Hollweg entirely of the view that the
German Empire must give in to the demands of the
United States and constantly showed himself
wonderfully informed about what step each inner
circle would for the moment take.
"The influence of Mr. Gerard is all the more a
shameful and heavy reproach for the official
leadership of Mr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, since this
American Ambassador, while an intriguer, was not a
personality.
"But when Gerard said anything, wished anything or
threatened anything, that imported always a
fear-exciting event, and he was finally sly enough
to seize and use this halo to the limit. That a
man like Gerard has been able through all these
years to win and keep such a position and such an
influence over German affairs is without example."
But I must really put aside the halo which Reventlow so
graciously hands me. While I was informed of what was going on, I
certainly did my best to persuade Bethmann-Hollweg and von Jagow
and Zimmermann as well as the Emperor and numberless others from
defying America. If von Bethmann-Hollweg and any of the others
were against ruthless submarine war, seeing that to adopt any
other policy would bring America into this war, then they took
this position because it seemed to them best for their country
and history will prove them right.
Reventlow says further:
"In the winter of 1916-17 one dreamed already of
loans and imports from the United States during
the peace negotiations. Mr. Gerard came back from
America with alms for the wounded and the result
of his sublime patience and of the sublime
patience of Mr. von Bethmann-Hollweg was
pictured by the Gerard celebration in Berlin.
"Then came the decision for ruthless submarine
war. The first time in his ambassadorial service
was Mr. Gerard surprised and the men who
entertained him were also surprised for they
dreamed of and wished for quite other things. It
is incorrect, if it has been stated, that at the
time of the Gerard celebration ruthless submarine
war had already been agreed on. That came later."
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AFTER THE BANQUET GIVEN
AMBASSADOR GERARD IN BERLIN ON JANUARY 6TH, 1917. PROBABLY THE
ORDERS FOR THE RESUMPTION OF "RECKLESS" SUBMARINE WAR HAD BEEN
GIVEN WHEN THIS LOVE-FEAST TOOK PLACE.
_Sitting, left to right_--Von Wermuth, Mayor of Berlin;
Ambassador Gerard; Zimmermann; Von Sydow, Minister of Commerce.
_Standing, left to right_--Unknown; Consul General Lay; Commander
Gherardi, U. S. N.; First Secretary Grew; Unknown; Count
Montgelas; Solf, Colonial Minister; General Friedrich, in charge
of prisoners of war; Isaac Wolf, President of American Association of
Commerce and Trade; John B. Jackson, former Minister to Cuba.]
But I did know that ruthless submarine war was coming, knew of
the orders given, and this is proved not only by my reports which
are still secret, but by what I told not only many people in
America but several editors who with my full approval published
articles showing this belief.
I am obliged to Reventlow for what he says of me. I admire him as
a powerful writer for whose ability I have a deep respect and
perhaps if I were a Prussian Junker I would follow him as blindly
and confidently as do the army and navy officers, the nobles,
great and small, and the land-holding squires of Prussia, to whom
his writings are as seductive as the pipings of the Pied Piper to
the townsfolk of Hamlin.
Reventlow's charge of lying was made in the line of his duty as a
Prussian Junker, according to the best traditions of Prussian
government and diplomacy but it is so thoroughly disproved and
the authenticity of the Kaiser's telegram so universally admitted
in Germany, even in official circles there, that I feel only
sorrow for a Prussian nobleman and Junker and editor compelled by
the exigencies of his position to make so ridiculous a statement.
I think that the Germans just now are beginning to realise that I
always told them the truth and treated them fairly, a procedure,
I admit, far more disconcerting and disturbing to them than the
most subtle wiles and moves of the old diplomacy.
Von Bethmann denied that the peace terms as set forth in my book
were his (he did not deny that they are the terms of the Junkers)
and criticised me for "unethically" publishing an account of my
experiences in Germany. This is what he said:
"In his published report of this particular
conversation Mr. Gerard attributed utterances to
me which may have been made in other quarters in
Germany and to which he frequently referred in the
progress of our conversation but which were not my
own. This applies especially to those references
to Germany's alleged intentions to seize Liége and
Namur, and of Germany's plans to take possession
of the Belgian ports, the railways and to
establish military and commercial dominion over
that country.
"I never unfolded such German war aims to Mr.
Gerard. In the course of my several conversations
with him as also in our discussion last January I
invariably referred to my Reichstag speeches in
which I stated that Germany would exact positive
guarantees that Belgian territory and politics
would not in the future be exploited as a menacing
factor against us. I did not make any statement as
to the nature of these guarantees.
"In the progress of our conversation Mr. Gerard
suggested that the realisation of far-reaching
aspirations in Belgium would give King Albert
merely a sham authority and asked whether it
would not be better for Germany to forego such
plans and instead of them endeavour to acquire
Liége which Mr. Gerard thought possible of
achievement.
"Perhaps this suggestion was a bait intended to
provoke a reply from me. If so, the attempt
failed. In all my discussions with the Ambassador
on this subject I referred to my public utterances
in which I emphasised that I was endeavouring to
procure a peace that would permit us to live in
cordial and neighbourly relations with Belgium.
"Mr. Gerard's memory would seem also to have
served him faultily when he wrote down what was
said about Russia. He dealt but superficially with
Germany's eastern war aims, observing that the
United States' interest in this direction was very
limited and that Germany undoubtedly would have a
free hand there. For Roumania and Serbia he also
revealed very slender sympathy. Mr. Gerard did not
obtain out of my mouth any of the statements
concerning these countries which he attributes to
me.
"When diplomats undertake to exploit their
official career for journalistic purposes they are
very apt to be misled into putting into mouths of
foreign statesmen utterances which either are the
creation of an ample imagination or are based on
faulty memory. Discussion of political opinions is
bound to be transitory and fleeting.
"You Americans are impetuous people. You do not
seem to permit even your retiring diplomats to
observe the traditional silences nor have you the
patience to abide the post mortem publication of
their memoirs. Sir Edward Goschen (former British
Ambassador to Germany and Austria) or Jules Cambon
(former French Ambassador to Germany, the United
States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard
in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history
and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former
Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine
might startle us with a diary of his Washington
experiences.
"In Europe, however, it was seen that publication
of such matters was best postponed by common
consent to a later period when judgments are both
calm and more mature. Mr. Gerard, however, may
hold the special license conferred by shirtsleeve
diplomacy, as you call it, and I shall not dispute
his prerogatives. But he must not give his
imagination the free rein."
And this was my answer: published in the _New York Times_ for
September 2, 1917:
"Dr. Hollweg apparently did not have the exact
copy of my articles for if he had read them he
would have seen clearly that I said the peace
terms described were the German peace terms and
not the opinions of the Chancellor. Dr. Hollweg
said he himself was subject to the rule of the
military party of Germany and could not follow his
own desires.
"In the second place, Dr. Hollweg admits that the
German government intended to exact guarantees
from Belgium and makes the admission himself after
the interview in which he so sharply criticises
me.
"Thirdly, I ask if those terms as cited are not
the German peace terms, then what are the German
peace terms?
"Dr. Hollweg gives nothing different from these
and so it might be assumed they are the German
terms after all. I consider it a matter of great
regret that the German government put Dr. Hollweg
out of office and I feel that personally he is
bitterly opposed to the ruthless submarine warfare
of the German government and that he only
refrained from resigning his office out of
deference to the wishes of Emperor Wilhelm.
"I presume he was put out because his ideals were
too liberal for the German authorities to endure.
This liberality is shown in the interview. I am
sorry to take issue with Dr. Hollweg on this
subject because I have a great admiration for him
and I think he is a fine old fellow.
"The old-time diplomacy, which Dr. Hollweg
advocated, has succeeded in plunging almost the
whole world into the bloodiest war of history.
When the people of a nation know what is going on
in the seats of government such wars cannot
happen.
"I do not believe in backstairs diplomacy any more
than Dr. Hollweg. I believe the people of a nation
are entitled to know what is going on. This German
diplomacy may be all right in a monarchy of the
most limited type but it will not go at all in a
modern democracy.
"As to the ethics of publishing my memoirs now, I
pass over the obvious repartee that to hear a
German speak of ethics borders on the ludicrous
and especially the man who openly in the Reichstag
announced that necessity knows no law and that the
German troops were at that moment deliberately
violating the neutrality of Belgium.
"But I believe that the old style diplomacy in the
dark caused this war. Of course, it is hard for a
German ex-official to conceive that the people
have a right to be enlightened about this awful
calamity. But I hope one of the results of this
war will be the end of backstairs diplomacy. When
the Germans with the Chancellor's approval
violated the usage of all nations and times and
kept me as a hostage after I had demanded my
passports, I think to talk of ethics comes with a
bad grace from the German side."
Understand that Bethmann-Hollweg is not a bad man, but for one
who openly announced that necessity knows no law and defended the
invasion of Belgium, failed to stop the cruelties of the prison
camps and gave official, if not private, consent to the murder of
women and babies not only on the high seas but in undefended
towns, to talk of ethics because I dared to tell the world what
was happening in Germany is more than ridiculous. It verges on
the ludicrous--but why attack poor Bethmann? Opportunity knocked
at his door, but the want of a backbone prevented his becoming a
great figure.
History will laud him for opposing ruthless submarine war so
long, but will blame him for weakly yielding in the end. As for
the "ethics," I have been careful to give only official
conversations with the Emperor, interesting as the others are,
and never shall disclose my private conversations with Bethmann,
von Jagow, Zimmermann and others, including my talks with
Bethmann and Zimmermann on the day I left Germany, because it was
understood that these conversations should never be disclosed
whatever happened.
And as time goes on more and more do I believe that history will
vindicate von Jagow and teach the Emperor and the people of
Germany that a faithful and skilful servant should never be
sacrificed to the intrigues of a few gossiping politicians. It is
part of the strength of President Wilson that he backs up his
officials and refuses to listen even to widespread popular
clamour for their heads. It was the business of von Jagow to
conduct the Foreign policy of Germany, but the intriguers
demanded his removal because he was too occupied to waste time
talking to amateur politicians, and because his voice did not
charm the Reichstag.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FUTURE KAISER--THE CROWN PRINCE AND HIS BROTHERS
In a country where the supreme power swings between the Emperor
and the impersonal General Staff, all are interested, since even
an Emperor is mortal, in learning something about the heir who
succeeds in case of death. And we who face with the rest of the
world the forces of Kaiserism desire to know about this heir.
The Crown Prince is about five feet nine, blond and slim. In
fact, one of his weaknesses is his pride in an undeniably small
waist which he pinches and his characteristic pose is with one
foot thrown forward and one hand at the waist, elbow out and
waist pressed in. He is well built, his face much better looking
than his photographs show, nose rather long and eyes very keen
and observing. Possessed of a great youthfulness of manner and a
boyish liveliness and interest in life, his traits are somewhat
American rather than German. He is a good sportsman and excels at
many sports, is proud of his trophies but not afraid to meet
other men in contest for them.
His manners are open and engaging and because of this he is very
popular in Germany. Unlike his father on whom a pretty woman
makes no impression whatever, he is a great admirer of female
beauty, so much so that when he is playing tennis, for example,
if there is a good looking girl watching he can hardly keep his
eye on the game. This weakness for the feminine has been the
foundation for countless stories linking his name with that of
various women, in all countries and of all classes of life, but
personally, I think these rumours are untrue and that he is fond
of his lovely wife, who is not in the least disturbed by his
frank and open admiration of other members of the fair sex. A
brood of strong, good-looking children have been born to the
Crown Prince and Crown Princess.
A Prince so fond of a good time, one who loves dancing and
racing, hunting and shooting, with a shrewd eye and cool head,
might make an ideal king, but the one dark shadow in the
background is the Crown Prince's real love for war. From his seat
in the Royal Box in the Reichstag, he has applauded violently and
ostentatiously utterances looking toward war: he had made himself
the head of the war party, and the Militarists look to him as
their chief. The great danger is that if this war ends in the
defeat of Germany without the democratisation of Germany then the
Crown Prince will lead the party of revenge, of preparation for
war, and if the war ends in what the Germans can call a success
or ends in a draw (which means German success) then the Crown
Prince and the Militarists, crying that the military system has
been justified, will seek new excuses to enter once more on a
war of conquest. All paths or speculations turn to one gate; if
the German people continue slavishly to leave the power to drive
them into war in the hands of the Crown Prince, or the Emperor,
or the General Staff, there will be no prospect of such a world
peace as can justify a universal disarmament. Absolute monarchs
and Emperors and Crown Princes and their attendant nobles, all
spell war. They are the products of war and they can only
continue to rule if the desire for war animates their people.
While the Crown Prince has not set himself in direct opposition
to his father or at any rate taken a part in public affairs with
the view either to force his father's hand or take a dominant
political part, nevertheless he has allowed no occasion to pass
when he could encourage the army and war party even if this
brought him into conflict with the policy of the Emperor, and so
there have been periods of coolness between the Emperor and the
Crown Prince son.
Thus after one scene in the Reichstag when the Crown Prince
applauded those in favour of aggression it was reported that he
was banished to Dantzig. At any rate during the winter of 1913-14
the Crown Prince and his family were at Dantzig, the headquarters
of the regiment he commands, the famous "Death's Head Hussars."
Some say that it is a tradition in the Hohenzollern family for
the Crown Prince to appear to oppose the King. Then, when the
King dies, the Crown Prince enjoys a certain popularity in the
first years of his rule from those who have been against the
Government, and by the time this popularity has waned the new
ruler is firmly seated on the throne.
The Crown Prince, born in 1882, will be thirty-five in May next.
His military education began long before he was ten years old. In
accordance with Hohenzollern custom, on his tenth birthday, he
became an officer of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards and on this
birthday was introduced to the other officers and took part in a
regimental dinner. Before this great event he had learned enough
of military drill and usages to carry himself as an officer.
In 1895, he and his brother Eitel entered as cadets at Ploen in
Schwerin, where they were subjected to very strict discipline.
After leaving Ploen the Crown Prince entered Bonn University, and
there became a member of the "Borussia" student corps.
I never heard that he took part in the corps duels. His face is
not scarred, so I imagine as heir to the throne he was excused
from a custom in which other corps members are compelled by
public sentiment to take part. From photographs I have seen and
from what I have heard I believe that the Crown Prince entered
cheerfully into the student life of the place and lived on terms
of college equality with his brothers of the "Borussia" corps.
These corps members, however, hold themselves aloof from other
students.
The Crown Prince attended the Technical High School of
Charlottenburg, that large building just across the canal which
separates Berlin from Charlottenburg. Here he gained some
knowledge of machinery, chemistry, etc. In 1909, he went to work
in the Ministry of the Interior, where he learned something of
government administration, how to manage the constabulary and
their activities,--something quite necessary for an absolute
ruler in a country where every citizen's acts is noted in the
copy books of the police.
Meantime, his military activities continued. He was gradually
promoted and finally, in 1911, became Colonel in command of the
Dantzig Black Hussars. This regiment owes its black uniform and
white death's heads to the thrift of Friedrich II who utilised
the black funeral hangings at the elaborate funeral of his father
to make uniforms for this regiment. It has been in existence
about 175 years. The white death's heads and bones which appeared
in the funeral trappings were used to make ornaments for the
front of the regimental headgear.
While stationed at Dantzig the Prince was taught agriculture so
as to understand the needs of the Prussian Junkers. He even
studied the methods of brewing beer in the Dantzig brewery. His
education has been strenuous. He has not been coddled or spoiled
and is far better fitted for the battle of life than most
graduates of our colleges.
The father of the Crown Princess was a Grand Duke of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin and her mother a Russian Grand Duchess. In
appearance the Crown Princess is very attractive, her face rather
Russian, with an expression of good nature and cleverness.
Although the Crown Prince is tall (about five feet ten), the
Crown Princess overtops him, and on occasions when they appear
together she wears shoes with very low heels and keeps her head
bowed.
[Illustration: THE CROWN PRINCE AND CROWN PRINCESS. FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN THEIR PALACE ON THE NIGHT OF A FANCY DRESS
BALL. THE CROWN PRINCESS IS IN RUSSIAN COSTUME, AND THE CROWN
PRINCE WEARS A UNIFORM OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO OF HIS REGIMENT,
THE DEATH'S HEAD HUSSARS]
The marriage took place in 1905 and was undoubtedly a love match,
the young couple having met in 1904 and become devotedly attached
to each other.
There is only one defect in the character of the Crown Prince and
that is his fondness for war, his regard for war not as a horror,
but as a necessity, an honourable and desirable state.
I have long been apprehensive that when he came to the throne the
world might again be hurried into a universal conflict and that
vast military preparations would burden every State.
The Crown Prince and I often talked over shooting in various
parts of the world. He wishes to see America and especially to
kill game in Alaska where the heavily horned heads and enormous
bears make such magnificent trophies. When I told him once how my
friend, Paul Rainey, had killed seventy-four lions in Africa he
could talk of nothing else at that interview.
The Crown Prince has been pictured as a libertine and a pillager.
His face has been caricatured so often that people have the
cartooned impression of him and believe him to be a sort of
monstrous idiot.
On the contrary, he is a good sport, a clever man, a charming
companion, but the shadow of military ambition hangs over all
and I doubt if the effect of his infernal military education,
commencing when he was a child, can be entirely removed.
If some day he learns the idiocy of war, if he recognises that
the world has progressed, and allows the people some share in
their own government, he will make a splendid constitutional
ruler of Prussia and the German Empire.
Should the German people fail to take unto themselves the
war-making power, they will, before long, be decimated again for
the amusement of the Crown Prince, or as he once put it, "for his
fun."
The favourite son of the Kaiser is presumed to be Prince Eitel
Friedrich. A large, fat, healthy, good natured young man, married
to the daughter of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, a rather pretty
but discontented looking Princess. It is said of him that he has
shown not only great bravery in this war but real military
capacity. Ridiculous scandals have been circulated about him in
Berlin, but this is only the usual gossip circulated about
persons in prominent positions.
Adalbert, the sailor Prince, is now married to a German Princess.
He is the best looking of the Kaiser's sons, possessing all the
charm, and vivacity of manners of the Crown Prince, but is
without that Prince's absurd ideas about the necessity of war.
Any one of those three sons of the Kaiser can give yards to any
other young Royalty in Germany and win easily in capacity for
administration and the King business.
Certainly if the German people insist on being ruled by some one
and on being occasionally dragged out to be shot or maimed in an
unnecessary war, they could not find more capable rulers than the
Hohenzollerns.
Prince August Wilhelm is of a milder character. He, of course,
wears the uniform of an officer, but has entered the civil
service of the government. He is now a landrat or government
official, and some day will be given charge of one of the
provinces of Prussia such as Silesia or Posen. He is married to
his first cousin, a niece of the Empress, the Princess Alexandria
Victoria, daughter of H. H. Frederick Ferdinand, Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. They have one son, a
fine healthy specimen. The August Wilhelms live very simply in a
palace in the Wilhelmstrasse, very plainly furnished. They are
fond of amusements, riding, theatres and dancing. August Wilhelm
has none of that desire of war so characteristic of the Crown
Prince.
Of Princes Oscar and Joachim, little is known. Oscar, during the
war, married Countess Bassewitz, who has been a Maid of Honour in
the Palace. The marriage was of course morganatic, and on
marrying the young Countess was given the title of Countess
Ruppin. Her children will be Count and Countess Ruppin and cannot
inherit in any contingency, the Kingdom of Prussia.
Adalbert had no resting place in Berlin, but perhaps now that he
is married a palace may be assigned to him. Eitel Fritz and his
wife occupy the Bellevue Château between the Tiergarten and the
River Spree. His wife is childless.
The Kaiser, the Crown Prince or some of the numerous Princes of
Prussia are always rushing about the streets in motors, each one
heralded by a blast on the cornet. Beside the chauffeur on each
royal motor sits a horn player who plays the particular few notes
of music assigned to that Prince. The Kaiser's call goes well to
the words fitted to it by the Berliners, "celeri salade" (celery
salad) and has quite a cheerful sound.
On days of an outdoor function the streets ring with these calls
as the royal automobiles whizz back and forth. It is forbidden by
law for any one other than royalty to announce his coming by more
than one note on a Gabriel horn, or other device. I do not know whether
out of town or suburban royalties from Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Strelitz,
Lippe, etc., are allowed this privilege when in Berlin; I think
not, and that is perhaps one reason why they so consistently shun
the capital of Prussia.
When the Kaiser motors to Potsdam he usually sits in one of three
motors which travel very fast, one behind the other. I do not
know whether this is by design or not, but of course, it makes an
attempt on his life more difficult.
I used one of the Kaiser's motors in occupied France--a large
Mercedes, run by a skilful driver at a great rate of speed.
The Crown Prince is especially fond of horses and if he succeeds
to the throne will undoubtedly keep up the Royal stable or
Marstall. This is situated on the bank of the Spree across the
square from the Royal Schloss in Berlin. There are kept the
carriages of state, those sent to bring Ambassadors to the Palace
when they first present their letters, two hundred splendid
saddle and driving horses, with modern carriages, four-in-hand
coaches, dog carts, etc. Most of the Foreign Ambassadors use
state carriages for great occasions, with bewigged coachmen and
standing footmen. I think Ambassador White was the last American
who indulged in the luxury of a state carriage. As a plain dress
suit did not exactly fit with a Cinderella coach, I went to
functions, such as the Emperor's birthday reception, in a large
automobile, retaining only of the former state the necessary body
huntsman who acted as footman on these occasions and who wore a
livery of hunting green, a cocked hat, with red, white and blue
plumes and a long hunting dagger in his belt.
Out of consideration for the feelings of others I retained the
porter in his old finery, a Berlin institution. At state dinners
the porter of a Royalty or Ambassador stands at the house
entrance, clad in a long coat, wearing a silver belt diagonally
across his chest, and crowned by an enormous cocked hat worn
sideways. The porter carries also a great silver headed staff,
like a drum major's baton, and when guests of particular
importance arrive he pounds this stick three times on the
pavement.
It used to amuse the Berlin crowd lining Unter den Linden to see
the Ambassadors and Ministers leave the Palace or Cathedral on
the Kaiser's birthday, New Year's day, etc., to see the state
carriages of the other Ambassadors overtaken by the modern
automobile from America.
The Berlin lower classes are renowned for their dry wit and they
find much to amuse them in the tasteless statues and monuments of
Berlin.
In the square outside our house was a statue of one of Friedrich
the Great's generals which seemed to afford the boys great fun.
The General is shown in the act of reflectively feeling his chin
and by chance is gazing uncertainly at the barber shop of the
neighbouring hotel Kaiserhof.
Nobody knows, of course, whether the present Crown Prince will
succeed Emperor William--nobody knows the fortunes of war or the
fate that this war has in store for the Hohenzollerns but while I
personally like the Crown Prince, admire his skill in sports, his
amiable ways, his smiles to the crowd, I know also of his crazy
belief in war. And so long as a ruler persists in this, he is as
dangerous to the peace of the world as a man with a plague to the
health of a small community.
CHAPTER XXIV
WHEN GERMANY WILL BREAK DOWN
I remember a picture exhibited in the Academy at London, some
years ago, representing a custom of the wars of the Middle Ages.
A great fortress besieged, frowns down on the plain under the
cold moonlight. From its towering walls the useless mouths are
thrust forth--if refused food by the enemy, to die--the children,
the maimed, the old, the halt, the blind, all those who cannot
help in the defence, who consume food needed to strengthen the
weakened garrison.
Every country of the world to-day is in a state of siege, is
conserving food and materials, but not yet has Germany sent forth
her useless mouths, to Holland, to Scandinavia and to Switzerland,
a sign that not yet is the pinch of hunger in the Empire imperative.
Since I arrived in America in March, 1917, I have been like
Cassandra, the prophetess fated to be right, but never believed.
I said then Germany would never break because of starvation, or
fail because of revolution, and that her man-power was great.
We have not made sacrifices enough in this war, there are too
many useless mouths. I believe that there are in the States of
New York and Pennsylvania alone 175,000 professional chauffeurs,
a great number of them employed on automobiles not used for
business or trucking. And then think of the thousands of skilled
mechanics employed in garages and factories repairing and making
mere pleasure vehicles. If all these chauffeurs (nearly all with
some knowledge of machinery) and mechanics were put at work
building ships or making rifles there would be no loss to the
country, but certain overfed women and their poodles would have
to walk, greatly to the advantage of their health and figures.
Private automobiles disappeared very quickly in Germany. At first
a man who could not reach his business in any other way was
allowed to use his own automobile but even these soon went out of
commission and then bicycles were forbidden except for rides to
and from business, work or school. A few ramshackle taxicabs
still survive in Berlin at the railway stations, driven by benzol
instead of gasoline and shod with spring tires. No one can keep a
taxi waiting, it is subject when waiting to be commandeered by
the first comer.
Gradually as we realise the gravity of the conflict our lives
will become more earnest and luxuries will be given up to meet
the changed condition. There must be a committee who will tide
over the workers in luxury industries and help them to learn new
war trades. This was done in Germany by the great organisation of
the Woman's Service. Already Fifth Avenue dressmakers have
dismissed many of their workers, who, being without resources,
should receive assistance and advice until they have learned
other trades.
Our farmers are entitled to cheaper labour. Why should not enemy
aliens work our farms? We do not propose to make the Austrian and
German and Hungarian women agricultural slaves as the Germans
made the Russian women caught by the war within the borders of
Germany, nor have we the right, I believe, to force civilian
prisoners to work. But we can give these civilian men instead of
meat twice a day, now given them, the same food which the Germans
give their prisoners, until the enemy aliens volunteer to work in
our fields. They should, of course, work as in Germany under
guard. They should be used also in mines, factories, etc. The
sooner we use every ounce of war energy, the sooner we shall beat
Germany and obtain a lasting peace.
Eventually forced by the hopelessness of the economic situation,
the nerve of Germany will break. There is a suicide point in the
German character. The German has been sustained since the war by
victories somewhere. No defeats were brought home to the German
people. Viewed from inside the German Empire what are the loss of
a few villages on the West front or even of distant colonies
compared to the conquest of Belgium, of the richest part of
France, of thousands of square miles of Russia, of Roumania,
Montenegro and Serbia? With the exception of a very small bit of
Alsace the war is being fought far from German territory. The
German can swagger down the streets of the capitals of his
enemies, in Brussels, Belgrade, Bucharest, Warsaw and Cettinje
and Prussian greed exacts tribute from rich cities from Lille on
the West to Wilna far within the frontiers of Russia.
Our President has never faltered. He will convince the Germans at
last that we are unfaltering, in the war, that nothing can swerve
us from our goal,--the destruction of the autocracy which looks
on war as good and seeks the dominion of the earth. When the
Germans grasp that, then will come the suicide point.
There is nothing in the war for the German who is not a noble or
a junker, an officer or an official. German victory will only
bend the collar of caste and servitude, low wages and militarism
tighter on the German neck. Sooner or later the deceived German
will discover this; revolution will not come during the war, but
after it, unless it closes with a German peace, or unless in
anticipation of revolt, rights are granted to the people.
We cannot stop, we cannot bear the burden of the debts of this
war and at the same time burden ourselves with future military
preparation to meet a confident conquering Germany ready to carry
the sword into South America. Whatever the sacrifice, we must go
on.
And for each country and for the Allies as a whole there is one
word, Unity.
When all had signed our Declaration of Independence, Benjamin
Franklin said, "And now we must all hang together or we all
shall hang separately."
Russia has, for the moment, failed and unless she recovers
herself she will pay the penalty by submission to German rule.
Is there a defect in the Russian character? Is persistency
lacking? In 1760, the Russian troops had taken Berlin. If Russia
had gone on strongly with the war, the power of Frederick the
Great might have been broken. But apparently the Russian troops
simply turned around and went back to Russia. In 1854, in the
Crimean War, after a long siege and bitter losses, the French,
Turks, English and Sardinians succeeded in taking one Russian
city, Sebastopol, in the extreme southern part of Russia. With
this exception, Russian territory was intact and yet the Czar
Alexander II, shortly after the death of Nicholas, begged for
peace. As a result the Black Sea was made for a time neutral and
no state could have warships or arsenals on it with the exception
of small gunboats for police purposes.
In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish war, when the Russian troops
were in sight of the minarets of Constantinople, the Russians
allowed themselves to be bluffed by the diplomats of Europe from
obtaining the fruits of victory.
Secretly or openly, Germany will propose to the world to take her
pay from the skin of the Bear, from the conquered territories of
Russia which remain in her possession. The inhabitants of those
territories would have to become the slaves of Prussia as did
the inhabitants of Belgium and Northern France. Prussians of
Russia paid the agitators to talk about peace without indemnities.
Germany, since the first days of the war, has been taking
indemnities not only in money, but in property and in labour from
the conquered countries. Belgium alone has been compelled to pay
a tribute of forty-million francs a month (lately sixty million)
to her conquerors and vast sums have been exacted from Lille and
other conquered cities. Property, including machinery, has been
seized and transported to Germany in the effort, not only to
obtain a temporary advantage, but to destroy forever factories
that compete with German manufacturers.
Especially do the German autocrats hope to obtain the so-called
Baltic provinces as a spoil of war. Of Courland, Livonia and
Esthonia now largely occupied by the German invaders, Courland
and Livonia were originally possessions of the Teutonic Knights,
then became a part of Poland and finally passed to Russia. The
three provinces were governed semi-independently, until 1876,
when they became in all respects an integral part of the Russian
Empire. The land in the provinces is held by great landowners,
mostly of German blood--and the mass of the population belongs to
the Lutheran Church. The peasants have been kept down by the
lords of the soil, whose sympathies turn to Germany.
In 1913-1914 I met in Berlin several landlords from these
provinces who acted in Berlin and were treated in Berlin like
Germans, although subjects of the Russian Czar. So backward were
these provinces in liberty under their German landlords that it
was not until 1848 that the infamous "right of the lord" (_droit
du Seigneur_ or _Jus primæ noctae_) was abolished.
What Tannenberg has to say about Courland, Livonia and Esthonia
is well worth studying. He writes:
"The most precious portions for us of the Russian
heritage are the German Baltic provinces,
Courland, Livonia, Esthonia.
"To the north in Esthonia and in the northern part
of Livonia live the Esthonians. In the South, the
Livonians of the Lithuanian branch. Esthonians and
Livonians are Lutherans and form the principal
part of the population. There are 250,000 Germans.
But the civilisation is German and gives to the
whole country a German stamp. In the rural
districts, the great landlords, the ministers of
the Gospel and the school masters are German. In
the cities the middle classes are Germans. But the
workingmen are Esthonians or Livonians. The
Russians are only represented in the large cities
by officials.
"It was in the middle of the twelfth century that
the first German settlements were made at the
mouth of the Dina. In 1201, Riga was founded, and,
in 1202, the Order of the Knights of the Sword. In
1237 this Order was united with the powerful Order
of the Teutonic Knights. There was no thought then
of the Muscovites. From Marienburg to Riga it is
five hundred kilometres, from Koenigsburg to Riga,
three hundred and fifty, to Moscow eight hundred
and fifty. Moscow was then going through a very
difficult period. In 1225, the battle of the
Kalka took place which put an end to the power of
the great Russian Princes.
"From Riga to Kalka, Dantzig, Stettin and Lubeck,
there was sea communication. The all powerful
merchant marine of the Hanseatic League was at its
height...."
Tannenberg describes how these provinces finally became part of
Russia and adds:
"Courland, Livonia and Esthonia became the model
provinces of the whole Empire. The German nobility
furnished Russia with its generals and its high
officials: the University of Dorpat was founded
and was the model of the high schools created
later in Russia.... The University of Dorpat
exchanged its professors with the other German
high schools of the Russian Empire. The students
of the Baltic provinces passed several terms in
the German Universities of the South and East of
Germany and then returned to Dorpat to undergo
their examinations to enter in the service of the
Baltic or Russian State.
"One encounters constantly in our literature
allusions to the Baltic provinces. Kant, the
philosopher of pure reason, published his work at
Riga.... In the time of Goethe students from
Courland and Livonia visited the great of Weimar.
Richard Wagner commenced at Riga his theatrical
and musical career."
Tannenberg speaks of the revolution after the defeat by the
Japanese of the Russian troops in these provinces when the
castles of the German Barons were besieged by the people and
says, "The cry of indignation resounded through all Germany. A
military German intervention was generally expected. Against all
expectation nothing of the kind happened." ... "When the Russian
Government finally got control the Russian troops treated the
rebels mildly and it was finally the sparkling on the horizon of
five million German bayonets that hastened matters so well that
superficially, at least, order was re-established."
Speaking on the annexation of those provinces to Germany he says:
"There is no money to be seized in the East but
there is something which is of more value than
cash and that is lands, lands of colonisation for
new German peasants." And he points out that the
Baltic provinces are about the same size as
Bavaria and Württemberg, but in Bavaria and
Württemberg there are eight and a half millions of
inhabitants while the Baltic provinces support a
little over two millions.
"The Baltic provinces have always occupied an
important place in the thought and sentiments of
the German people. The public as a whole does not
inquire if it's true that only fifteen per cent of
the population is German. For the public they are
simply the German provinces of the Baltic and the
German people are right, because since seven
hundred years the proprietors of the land there
are Germans and the civilisation has always been
German."
Should Germany be allowed to seize these provinces, to increase
her population and man power enormously, a second great war like
this one will not be far off and Russia, deprived of what Peter
the Great called "His window on the Baltic," will lose her place
as an European Power.
The Germans will endeavour, during any peace negotiations, to
keep their troops there in the hope that they will be permitted
to occupy these provinces or that, if a vote should be taken to
determine to which country the inhabitants wish to be annexed,
the latter would be coerced through the German landlords, and by
the use of money and terror made to appear as desirous of
annexation to Germany.
Prince Münster, who had been in this section during the war, told
me once how easy it was to observe that the more prosperous
sections of the population were German and how anxious these
people were to become Germans. In this case I think he was right
to the extent that the feudal landlords of the Baltic provinces
believe that as Prussian Junkers they would have a greater chance
to continue to oppress the people than as Russian citizens,
especially citizens of a new Russian republic.
The Allies must guard against any move which can add to the man
power of the Central Powers, and this reason alone is sufficient
reason never to permit the Arabs and Syrians, who have been so
oppressed by the Turks, to suffer again under the rule of the
Young Turks.
The world must not be disturbed again by Prussian dreams of world
conquest, nor must Jerusalem and the Holy Land, towards which the
eyes of all Christians have turned for twenty centuries, be
voluntarily given back to the Turks.
To allow the Germans access to Bagdad is to invite trouble--a
second attempt of the Kaiser to don the turban and proclaim a
Holy War in the interest of the fat merchants of Hamburg and
Frankfort.
If this were an old time war, when sly diplomats sat at a green
table, exchanging territories and peoples like poker chips, we
might consent to the partition and destruction of Russia as most
natural. But this war is between two systems, and wars either
will be continued or cease hereafter. We who hope for the end of
war cannot permit Germany to add to her man power any part of the
rapidly multiplying population of that great territory which we
now call Russia.
It is probable that Russia will go through the stages of the
great French Revolution. We have had already the revolution made
by the whole nation, Duma, army, and the control of the
respectable moderate Republicans. The period of the Jacobins, the
extremists, has come, too, and we must in the end expect the
appearance of the military leader, a strong man who will bring
order. That is what will happen, for Russia cannot remain a
nation under the control of any government which cheerfully
consents to dismemberment of her territory. Perhaps Trotzky will
be clever enough to transform himself into a patriotic militant
leader, if not, then he will not long remain at the head.
All these movements of lesser so-called nationalities are
fostered by Prussian propagandists.
The region of the Ukraine, in Southern Russia, is supposed to be
clamouring for freedom and independent existence. Long before
the Russian revolution, I and all the diplomats of Germany were
flooded with newspapers, pamphlets and literature about the
longing of the Ukraine--all as plainly issued by the Germans as
if they had been stamped with the Royal arms of Prussia and the
seal of the General Staff.
The Lithuanians, too, stir uneasily. There is, perhaps, more in
their claim; they request the world not to confuse them with the
Poles and they protest against incorporation with Poland. But
should a number of little states be created, sliced from the map
of Russia, they would enjoy but a short independence before
falling, one by one, into the maw of Prussia.
Every one sympathises with the Poles and hopes for the
establishment of a really free and independent Poland, and not a
Poland under the rule or protection of either Austria or Germany.
It will be a great experiment, because in the past the great
state of Poland, one of the greatest in Europe, was broken
because of the incapacity of the Poles to rule themselves. Their
armies showed great bravery, the Polish cavalry, winged like
angels, terrified enemy cavalry horses and charged often to
victory; but the Polish aristocrats, camped with thousands of
retainers at the place where the King was elected, sat patiently
waiting for the highest bidder before giving their votes.
And the King once elected, the Polish diet accomplished nothing,
because any noble who voted against a proposition could defeat
it. This was the so-called "liberum veto" so fatal to Poland.
Katharine of Russia, that clever, wise, dissolute but great
German Princess, placing a puppet favourite on the Polish throne,
insisted on the retention of the "liberum veto" in the Polish
Constitution, because she knew that by the mere existence of this
asinine institution Poland could be counted on to commit suicide
for the benefit of the watching spoilers, Russia, Prussia and
Austria.
But a new, real Poland would not be governed by its aristocracy,
and under a democratic government the splendid Polish race could
be trusted to work out successfully their political salvation.
Should the strong man fail to appear in Russia and the Bolsheviki
continue to rule, then the confusion of Russia may not prove an
immediate help to Germany.
In the first place, no one now works in Russia; the population
will be in want of food and will not have any great surplus to
export; and it will be a long time before Germany can draw any
material help from the Steppes of incompetency. Had Russia
immediately settled down to a new form of government, the case
might have been different, but now Germany or some power in
Russia must first organise that vast country for production under
new conditions before Germany can begin to profit from the
withdrawal of Russia from the war except, perhaps, in that
important factor--the release of German troops from the Eastern
frontier. But as time passes the Germans may use food from
Russia to bribe northern neutral nations into an alliance with
the Central Empires.
Revolutions are contagious. In 1848, the movement started in
France spread all over Europe. The burdened horse on the road
evinces a tendency to get out of hand at the mere sight of
another horse cavorting about a pasture. The Germans are in
blinders and driven by heavy hand, but forgotten as liberty is in
Germany, the German Michael, the peasant chained to the soil, the
hard-driven, poorly paid worker of the cities, at least, will
exhibit a spirit of uneasiness, when across the line he sees
Ivan, the Russian moujik, capering about, free from restraint and
running things at his own sweet will. The yoke fits tight to
Michael's neck, the German Kaiser drives hard from his All
Highest Place; but no Emperor seemed more secure than the head of
the Romanoffs, and the very fact that the chains of the yoke seem
so strong may make the driven cattle all the more ready to toss
the yoke aside when knowledge of power comes to the lower castes
of Germany and Austria.
* * * * *
On the question of war Prussia is a civilisation as different
from that of France, Great Britain and America as is China.
Ministers of the Gospel, professors, poets, writers, teach war;
the necessity, the glory, the nobility of war. Long before
Nietzsche wrote and Treitschke taught war as a part of the
Prussian creed the teachings of these mad philosophers expressed
an indigenous feeling in Germany. It is not some abstract
belief to be studied. It is a vital, burning, ever-present
question which affects deeply, intimately, every man in this
world. For until the Prussians are made weary of this belief and
converted to a milder life, there is no woman in any corner of
the earth, however remote, who may not have to see her son or
husband go out to die in the fight against Prussian aggression,
who may not, if this fight fails, be dragged away with her
daughters to become slaves or endure that which is far worse than
slavery.
[Illustration: REPRODUCTION OF A POST CARD CELEBRATING THE
PROWESS OF THE ZEPPELIN, SOLD IN GERMANY]
[Illustration: ZEPPELIN POST CARD OF PATRIOTIC SENTIMENT SOLD IN
GERMANY POPULARIZING THE AIR RAID ON DEFENSELESS CITIES]
If the Prussian people themselves cling to their Gods of War, if
Kaiser and Crown Prince fulfil their ideals, if the Prussian
leave the reins in the hands of these warlike task masters and
refuse to join the other peoples in stamping out the devil of
war, then the conflict must go on, go on until the Germans get
their stomachs full of war, until they forget their easy
victories of the last century, until their leaders learn that war
as a national industry does not pay, until their wealth and their
trade has disappeared, until their sons are maimed and killed and
their land laid waste, until the blinders fall from their eyes
and they sicken of Emperor and Crown Prince, of the almost
countless Kings and Grand Dukes and Princes, Generals and
Admirals, Court Marshals and Chamberlains and Majors and
Adjutants, Captains and Lieutenants, who now, like fat, green,
distended flies, feed on the blood of Germany. What is there in
war for any one but those men of froth at the top? It is this
infernal king business that is responsible; so much of the king
tradition is bound up with war that a king with power feels that
he is untrue to the traditions of his ancestors if he fails at
some period of his career to give the court painters and the
court poets and the court historians a chance to portray him as a
successful warrior.
The British air minister recently announced that reprisal raids
were to be made on German towns. Who is not sorry for the poor
people who may suffer, but the war must be brought home to them.
They have made no protest while Zeppelins killed babies and women
and children in the "fortress" of London. The "fortress" of
London, indeed! First the Germans attack an open town, contrary
to every rule, and then, when guns are mounted to ward off future
attacks, the Germans christen the town a "fortress" and claim the
right to continue this slaughter of non-combatants.
Postcards were sold and eagerly bought all over Germany showing
the Zeppelins bombing towns. When some German father sits by the
hospital bed of his dying daughter, who sobs out her life torn
with a fatal wound, let him tack one of these postcards over the
bed and in looking on it remember that "he who lives by the sword
shall perish by the sword," that it was at the command of the
Kaiser and the Crown Prince when they thought only the German
Zeppelins could make a successful air raid that these massacres
were ordered and that the German people at the time yelled their
approval of deliberate dastardly murder.
"Te Deum" has been always the favourite psalm sung in cathedrals
for all Christian conquerors, but neither psalms nor the paid
pastor's praises of the Emperor will satisfy the German people,
who have made awful sacrifices for intangible victories.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ERRORS OF EFFICIENT GERMANY
The Yankee finding himself, like Mark Twain's hero, suddenly
transported back to King Arthur's Court is landed in a surprising
and unknown world. But one of King Arthur's knights brought to
life at the court of the present German Emperor aside from steam,
electricity, gun powder, telegraph and telephones would find the
system as despotic as in the days when the enchanter, Merlin,
wove his spells and the sword Excalibur appeared from the depths
of the magic lake. But while the system is as royal and as
despotic as in King Arthur's day, while the king and his military
nobles look down on the merchants and the toilers and the plain
people, no knights ride forth intent upon good deeds, to protect
the poor or avenge the wrongs of the innocent.
It was the cold realists of the General Staff who battered down
the defences of Belgium and the forts of France, destroyed the
monuments of art and levied a tax of sixty million francs a month
upon a little country deprived of its means to produce wealth,
took the food from the inhabitants, shipped the machinery and raw
material into Germany, deported the men and insulted the women
and drove whole populations from their homes to work as slaves
for the conquerors.
But while they can plan military successes in the first rush of
assault on the chessboard of Europe they have failed to
understand other nations--failed even to learn the lessons of
history. They did not know that in every land, in every walk of
life, there are men who will "reject a bribe and who will die for
an idea."
Imagine a German Staff officer reporting in Berlin that over a
hundred thousand Alsatians were armed and organised and that they
threatened, unless certain proposed legislation uniting them, for
example, with Baden, was withdrawn, to resist forcibly any
attempt to incorporate them in that Grand Duchy. Would not this
look to a German officer like real revolution and nothing else?
And when, in addition, there came news of the landing of arms for
the Nationalists in Ireland and of the organisation of the
Nationalist army, the Germans, without knowledge of the
psychology of other peoples, believed that Great Britain had her
hands full and that the moment had come when they could go to war
and leave Great Britain out of all calculations. So studying only
the German mind, believing that all peoples in national character
are like the Germans, the Great General Staff, the greatest
military aggregation the world has ever seen, failed lamentably,
whenever the human element became the factor in the situation.
Its military successes have been marvellous; its judgments of
mankind ridiculous. Its errors of judgment may be arranged as
follows:
_Error Number One._
Italy was in alliance with Germany and Austria, although there
was no greater hate before the war than that between Italians and
Austrians; and the Great General Staff believed that Italy would
remain in this unnatural alliance, would fight in order to give
the Germans and the German-Austrians the domination of Europe.
The victory of the Central Empires would have placed Italy under
that Austrian influence from which in her struggle for freedom
under the leadership of Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel she
had liberated herself.
Prince Buelow, who early in his career romantically married a
charming Italian of good family, was sent to Rome to keep Italy
neutral. But he failed.
_Error Number Two._
Germany's belief that because of the Carson movement Great
Britain was immobilised and could take no part in the war.
_Error Number Three._
The theory cherished especially in military circles that because
the Japanese army had been trained by Prussians Japan would join
Germany. Indeed, at the moment when the Japanese were packing
their trunks and preparing to leave their Embassy, a German crowd
with flags and torches was assembled in front cheering Japan,
the latest ally of the Entente.
_Error Number Four._
The belief by the General Staff that the British Colonies would
render no assistance to the mother country.
In the first days after England entered the war many German
statesmen said to me, "Of course, now Canada will be incorporated
in the United States." The Germans believed that the practical
thing, for the moment, for the Canadians was to avoid war, to
disavow all their obligations and ties of blood and permit
Britain to be destroyed. The General Staff thought that because
the world did not have actual proof of the German designs of
world conquest, because that design had not been publicly
proclaimed, that no people or nation would either know or
understand the vast enterprise of conquest on which Prussian
autocracy had embarked.
_Error Number Five._
The unexpected resistance of the Belgians.
The German armies were held only a few days, yet the delay of
those few days changed the fortunes of the world.
_Error Number Six._
The splendid stand of France which was a complete surprise to the
Great General Staff. They believed that France was degenerate,
torn by scandals, and that a sudden assault would land the
German army in Paris. In this connection it was another great
error for the Germans to have sought Paris, important from a
sentimental but not a military point of view. They might better
have occupied first the north coast of France, and from there
could have conducted the German submarine campaign with deadly
effect.
_Error Number Seven._
We have seen what a shell the Russian Empire was, but in July,
1914, the Great General Staff believed that Russia was on the
edge of a revolution. Barricades had been erected in the streets
of Petrograd and the Staff believed that the revolution, which
has since divided Russia, was in the making. Instead of this the
Russian Empire lasted for nearly three years and the Russian
troops and generals inflicted many a hard blow not only on the
Austrians but on the German forces.
_Error Number Eight._
Germany was confident that the United States had been so
propagandised, so covered by bribes, by paid newspapers, that the
export of supplies to the Allies could be prevented. Another
error was the barbarity shown in the sinking of the _Lusitania_
by which it was sought to terrorise Americans into withholding
from England and France the privileges of international law, and
of the definite treaty of The Hague in 1907, in which Germany had
joined and which gave to private individuals the right to supply
munitions of war to any belligerent.
_Error Number Nine._
Thinking that the Emperor, by posing as a Mohammedan in the East,
could with the aid of the Turks stir all Mohammedans to a Holy
War.
The Germans laboured with the Mohammedan soldiers captured by
them. I saw many fine looking old Sheiks from the desert entering
the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Eastern world was filled with
German spies. But the Holy War was a failure, and the hope that
the races of Asia and Africa would rise in favour of Germany was
not borne out by events. The men of the East are wise, the rulers
of India are enlightened and were not silly enough to place
themselves voluntarily under the harsh rule of Prussia.
_Error Number Ten._
The belief that President Wilson had been elected with an
absolute mandate to keep the peace at all costs, the Germans
declared for unrestricted submarine warfare, expecting a craven
neutrality from the United States.
CHAPTER XXVI
PRESIDENT WILSON AND PEACE
Once the Kaiser said to me, "I wish I had as much power as your
President. He has far more power than I have."
What would the Kaiser say of the power and prestige now enjoyed
by the President of the United States?
At first blush it seems almost ridiculous for us to rush to war
shouting against autocracy while the man with the greatest power
the world has ever seen announces to the world that we fight "to
make the world safe for Democracy."
Charles I must turn enviously in his grave when his spirit sees
the obedient Parliament of Washington; and a line of fallen
Kings, from Charles to Nicky Romanoff, must wish that they had
had the opportunity to attend lectures at Princeton University
where our President, Woodrow Wilson, once held forth on the
science of government.
But it is characteristic of the high intelligence of our people
that we have recognised that war to be waged effectively must be
directed by one head. We know that after the war we shall be able
to recover all the powers delegated to the President. We have
gained by our temporary surrender all the efficiency of
autocracy and risked none of its dangers, and have simply
followed the custom of the free German tribes which elected a
leader for war and gave him a power never given the chiefs in
time of peace.
How much more enduring is our Government! Since the war the
government cabinets of England have twice changed radically, that
of France five times, and Italy very frequently indeed. Few
realise that our Constitution is the oldest in the world to-day.
Since its adoption the government of every land in some material
particular has changed many times, France, for instance, from
King and Republic, then to citizen kingship, then to Republic,
then to Empire, and finally to Republic. In England the form has
remained the same, but the power passed, in 1830, with the
passage of the Reform Bill, from nobles to commoners, as great a
revolution as any in France.
And I admire the very inaccessibility of President Wilson. He
does not waste time on non-essentials, on useless polite
conversation or pointless discussion. This may add to his enemies
but makes for efficiency.
When I saw the President on one occasion about German affairs we
talked for four and a quarter hours without intermission. In that
period he extracted from me all the information he required at
the time. He is a wonderful man to have at the head of our nation
in war or peace.
Gradually the splendid peace message of our President (Jan. 8,
1918) will sink into the consciousness of the German people.
There are liberal and reasonable men among them striving for
peace and for disarmament.
In January of 1917, just at the moment when the military
autocracy brought on war with America by their sudden announcement
of ruthless submarine warfare, the liberals of Germany were
preparing to co-operate with our President in the efforts that he
was then making for peace.
A Socialist member of the Reichstag, a man whose name is known
throughout the world, wrote at that time two articles to be used
in the effort for peace, and I print them in order that those
outside of Germany may obtain a glimpse of the mind of one of the
leading Socialists of that country. These articles have never
before been published.
I feel that now when we are at war with Germany perhaps it would
cause embarrassment to this man should I publish his name. In a
country where a man may be sent to jail for speaking without
respect of some act of the Kaiser's ancestors, committed more
than four hundred years ago, it is dangerous for any German to
put his name to utterances which might not march with the wishes
of despotic Germany.
It has always been the desire of the Kaiser's government to draw
the Allies into a peace conference with the hope of detaching
some of the Allies from their combination. Perhaps these
articles, although written by a Socialist, were part of a clever
governmental peace propaganda to which the majority Socialists
so readily lent themselves during the year 1917. But on the other
hand I think these articles represent the sincere real expression
of the writer who is still a member of the Minority or Haase
faction of the German Socialist Party. Though written a year ago
they discuss points still unsolved and which must come before the
peace conference that settles the war:
HOW AMERICA CAN HELP EUROPE.
BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG
The immediate reply of the Central Powers to
President Wilson's note (Dec., 1916) has been a
polite refusal to indicate, beyond some
generalities open to the blame of ambiguity, in a
clear way what their demands of peace would be. It
has been followed by their note to the neutrals of
the 11th of January, which also avoids giving a
distinct delineation of their demands. The Central
Powers maintain that only a peace conference of
the belligerents themselves would be the proper
place to bring forth the respective peace
conditions, and they state they would produce
theirs when once the conference has met. Putting
aside every insinuation of motives one cannot help
being reminded by this of the attitude of the
Central Powers during the fateful twelve days of
July-August, 1914, when they refused any outside
mediation and insisted on direct conversations
between Russia and Austria, whilst the punitive
military expedition of the latter against Servia
had to take its course. In so far their suggestion
would not augur well for the execution.
The Entente Allies, on their side, have been
somewhat more explicit. Their answer to President
Wilson includes the delineation of demands that
certainly are open to criticism, but just for this
call for a reply or even compel it. At the time
these lines are written only newspaper comments
have so far come forward, and it is not necessary
to dwell upon these. Nor does it seem appropriate
to anticipate the reply of the Chancellor, which
in some form or other will surely be given in the
course of the next weeks. What matters is that
there is a programme given for discussion and we
are able to scrutinise its nature and bearing.
The demands explicitly or implicitly contained in
the note of the Allies can be summarised under
five heads, viz.:
1. Restitution of occupied territory to its former
political community,
2. Reparation for inflicted material and moral
wrongs,
3. Territorial changes motivated by alleged
a. rights of nationality,
b. need for freeing suppressed or protecting
consistently maltreated nationalities,
4. Reform of International Law,
5. National and international treaties for the
protection of inland and maritime boundaries.
Of these the demands under 1 and 2 are certainly
in their principle quite reasonable, and if it
comes to actual and exact formulation are apt to
lead to a fair agreement.
The demands under 3 are partly on principle also
unobjectionable, whilst some, as e.g., the cession
of the Polish provinces of Prussia to a Polish
state under Russian tutelage or the cession of the
European vilayets of Turkey to Russia or some
newly created community under Russian tutelage,
can hardly be supported by reasonable argument in
the face of the fact that they could only be
carried out by dictation after a complete and
crushing victory of the Allies over the Central
Powers. That is to say, after a prolonged war more
murderous and more embittered than that behind us.
It is to be expected that public discussion will
in regard to demands of this nature create an
opinion resulting in their reduction if not
disappearance. What is reasonable in them falls
either under number 3, letter "a," or under
numbers 4 and 5.
Now as regards the demands under 4 and 5, the
settlement of most of them belongs rightly to an
International Conference of all the nations. In
their good and efficient regulation all are
interested. They are also of the greatest concern
to the future of mankind as a whole. The demands
or questions can as regards their general
character also be divided under three other heads,
viz.:
Firstly, questions of justice to nations or
nationalities as political or sociological
entities,
Secondly, questions of the most expedient
settlement of disputes between individual Powers
or groups of such where no fundamental principles
of nationality or similar rights are concerned,
and
Thirdly, questions which concern all the nations
through their common interest in general security
and protection against the disturbance of
international peace and traffic.
Both the Allies and the Central Powers agree to
the idea of settling these latter questions in a
better way than before; i.e., by an International
League of the Nations to enforce peace. But both
want the creation of this League to be settled
after the war. It can, however, with good reason
be upheld that there is in this a fault against
logic which would have to be paid dearly by them
as well as by the neutral world. Both base a
number of their demands on the necessity of
protecting themselves against renewed onslaughts
by their opponents. Now such protection might be a
necessary thing under the present state of an
International Law which has been outraged and
partly been made inane by themselves and has
partly turned out not to meet the conditions of
modern warfare as they result from the modern
weapons of destruction. But it would be made
unnecessary or its requirements be greatly reduced
if the League of the Nations, such as is in
principle accepted by them, did already exist or
had its rules and regulations already laid down in
detail. Is it reasonable to allow this
contradiction to cause now innumerable deaths and
mutilations of human beings and unbounded
destruction of material wealth instead of seeking
means to dissolve it as early as possible? Ought
not all our wits be exerted to find this earlier
solution?
There are within the means of the neutrals, if
acting together, two ways to bring the war to an
earlier end than that to be expected from the free
decision of the belligerents. The one is to drop
all considerations of neutrality such as at
present regarded and, without directly supporting
the one section to the detriment of the other,
withdraw from both of them all supplies in food,
raw material, half and wholly manufactured goods,
not minding which section would by this be more
damaged than its opponents. In fact, it would most
likely be a decidedly unneutral measure against
the one section which now benefits more than the
other by these supplies, and because of this and
from other reasons there is little probability
that it would find general acceptance. The other
way is to reduce the justification of the
continuation of the war by minimising the objects
for which it is led in the belief of the great
masses of the people engaged as much as in the
eyes of the outside world.
Both belligerents, to say it again, put in the
first line of their requirements security against
renewed attacks, protection against the
continuation of the insecurity of peace. Both
admit that the proposed League of the Nations has
become a necessity; both admit that it might
indeed protect mankind against new wars and a
state of incessantly endangered peace. Why then
wait and let the disaster go on instead of
proceeding at once to lay the foundation of this
League?
The step is not so impossible as it might appear.
Supposing one neutral state took the matter in
hand and, after having ascertained the consent of
the other neutrals or at least a majority of
them--which it is almost sure to obtain--would
invite all the nations, the belligerents included,
to a conference or a congress at a neutral place
for the discussion and the arrangement of the
principles and rules of the proposed League of the
Nations. Would the belligerent nations refuse to
send their delegates to such a conference? Could
they do it without damaging their case before the
world of the neutrals and the masses of their own
people? It is most improbable that they would do
such a thing. And even if they did they would not
by this put the conference to naught. It would be
there and would give palpable substance to an idea
which until now lived, in spite of great and most
ingenuous work spent on it, politically only in
the sphere of lofty speculation or projects.
And the conference could do more. Starting from
the maxim which finds such impressive accentuation
in President Wilson's note that war in general
must not, and the present war in particular can
not, be regarded as the private affair of the
individual states that engage in it, the
conference could also take into consideration some
questions of consequence connected with the
present war. It could, e.g., whilst laying the
foundations for the security of countries against
wilful attacks lay down opinions about the just
settlement of disputed questions of nationality
and the liberation of nations or part of such from
allegiance to a state or empire of different or
mixed nationalities. It seems to become a
necessity to make clear whether a Power or
coalition of such can be justified to put in the
list of their war aims the liberation of
nationalities without sufficient proof that the
latter all want to sever their connection with the
state or empire to which they just belong.
The Tcheques in Austria and the Finns in Russia
strive for their full autonomy within these
empires, but they have very little shown of a
desire to become a separate state. An opinion that
wars for abstruse benefits never asked for can
under no circumstances be regarded as liberation
wars would wrong nobody because it would apply to
all, but it may contribute much to have designs
given up which otherwise would uselessly cause
bloodshed and prolonged enmities.
The conference would also be justified in taking
measures to procure an impartial expert opinion on
the origin and the legal conduct of the war and
the general principles of national and
international right involved.
If the conference would invite neutral experts in
international law of general renown to investigate
the questions indicated above and draw up reports
it would not by this offend in the smallest degree
against the requirements of impartiality. But the
reports could, if based on careful examination and
considerately worded, contribute very much to
soften the excited minds in the countries engaged
and facilitate the preliminaries of a genuine
peace.
There are, no doubt, all sorts of objections that
could be raised against this suggestion. But they
can be met satisfactorily if the matter is taken
up in earnest and with practical mind. The
principal difficulty to overcome is _time_; no
time must be wasted by research in far-fetched
details. It is a comparatively short list of
pertinent questions which would have to be
answered, and the materials of their examination
are already at hand in the declarations and
documentary publications of the different
governments themselves which want to be verified
by juxtaposition with the corresponding
publications of the other side and to be
scrutinised upon their intrinsic significance.
Works of conscientious legists and historians that
could serve as specimens are not missing. But they
are occasioned by private enterprise and express
opinions not always in the measured language that
would alone fit the purpose here in view.
This purpose is to direct the minds of the
greatest possible number of people in the affected
countries to such way of regarding the questions
of the war and to such comprehension of the
feeling of the other side as are the necessary
conditions of a sane and sober appreciation of the
nature and the possibilities of a reasonable
peace. The present feeling in these sections of
the public which form public opinion in this
country as in England and in France, is as full of
bitterness as can be. A cure is badly wanted, but
it does not proceed automatically. Weariness of
the war is there, but it is counteracted partly by
the manifold incidents of the war itself, by the
appetites it has awakened, by the mutual distrust
it has created.
It might be objected that one can hardly expect a
number of even neutral experts to come to a
concerted opinion on these points. But it would be
of little consequence if the experts, instead of
agreeing on a common report, would publish
majority and minority reports. What matters is
that opinions of qualified experts are at all
drawn up and published, so that discussion is as
much as possible free from the effects of the
biased speeches of interested statesmen and other
politicians and their press. The report or reports
would also be of use when an armistice at least
had been agreed upon and a conference for the
conclusion of a peace is sitting. And even if the
work of the invited experts should take more time
than the conclusion of the peace itself, the
reports might still be of considerable value. For
what matters is not only that a peace is come to
but also that the nations should afterward possess
authoritative impartial opinions on the main
questions of consequence connected with the origin
and the conduct of the war. For such opinions
would educate the poisoned minds to an objective
and argumentative discussion of the means to
prevent a repetition of the present disaster.
Only those who live in the affected countries can
be aware how great the need is for providing the
general public with unbiased authoritative
expositions of these questions.
Finally the conference could and should also
discuss in a pertinent way the question of
_disarmament_. This question has to-day reached a
stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is
now a question of commanding necessity, one can
justly say of life and death of the reached stage
of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical
expositions will in regard to it now suffice. We
must have practical proposals, proposals of a
scheme to put disarmament into practice and
proposals of the means to induce the different
states to accept the scheme and to carry it out.
It is a big and pretentious programme here
suggested, the first to be decided by breaks with
the old principle of non-interference in state
affairs. But the times are so exceptional that
extraordinary measures cannot be shunned. If one
sees two lads fight each other with their fists or
even sticks one may well say, "Let them first
fight it out and then we shall see to bring them
to reason." But if they stand on board a ship and,
mad with rage, and, without interruption and
unremittingly, throw incendiary matter at each
other you would rather stop them before the ship
is in flames. Under other conditions it might be
the right thing to convoke a conference to be held
after the war is over. As it is now, reason would
demand not to adjourn the term to that juncture.
This is not the place to adjudicate
responsibilities. Suffice it to say that the
present aspect of the conflict is the worst since
its beginnings and threatens aggravations of its
horrors.
Of all the neutrals none is more predestined to
take the initiative in this grave matter than the
United States of America, by their great power, by
their geographical position, by the ethnological
composition of their citizens and last, but not
least, by their historical traditions they before
all are called to act. The small European nations
are already, as it were, too much under the fire
around them to be so free in their action as is
the government of the giant republic on the
western hemisphere. But that they would with the
greatest readiness join in the convocation of a
conference for the settlement of at least the two
first of the described subjects is sure beyond any
doubt.
The leader in the arrangement of this conference
is, in my opinion, the least objectionable, and at
the same time it is the most promising help that
in the present appallingly entangled situation
America can give Europe. The Old World is
poisoned. The virus of the most irrational hatred
of its component sections against each other,
inoculated into them by all sorts of false
leaders of opinion, eats deeper and deeper and
threatens to mortify all the roots of a wholesome
life. May the United States of America help a
disunited Europe to find the way out of the deadly
miasmatic jungle into which it has lost itself.
THE HELPLESSNESS OF EUROPE
BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG
Europe is in the position of a wanderer who has
gone astray into a swamp. In vain he labours to
regain firm ground. The more frantically he
struggles the surer he is to become submerged.
Like an infant child he is unable to help himself.
Help must come from people outside the swamp.
We are now in the third year of the biggest, the
most fratricidal and the most hopeless war the
world has ever seen. It is hopeless in so far as
on the one side none of the two coalitions is
likely to be in a visible time as much the victor
over the other that it can dictate it its own
terms, and as on the other side there is no common
basis to be seen for a sensible compromise. It is
not the extravagance of demands that forms an
insuperable barrier for peace. Extravagant terms
of peace have indeed been formulated by
unauthorised persons or groups but they have
nowhere received the sanctioning stamp of the
responsible governments. The latter prefer rather
to shine by the moderation of their demands, at
least as far as territory is concerned. But it is
just this apparent moderation that makes peace
such an almost insoluble problem.
Far behind this moderation in regard to
territorial demands looms the desire to destroy
the opponents' chances of political predominance.
The war is, for the present at least, in the
first instance a struggle about the supremacy in
Europe. And this perhaps more in a negative sense
than otherwise. Jingoes are, of course, everywhere
in high and low quarters, but it is very doubtful
whether one of the responsible heads of the
belligerent nations pursues for himself or his
nation seriously and consistently what might be
called the mastery of Europe. All are, however,
dead against the idea that this mastery might pass
into the other camp. Comparatively easy as it is
to settle a dispute on questions of territory by
arbitration or to work out schemes for compromise
in regard to such, so difficult or almost
impossible it would be to arbitrate on a question
of actual supremacy or to settle it by compromise.
Particularly in the camp of the Allies is the
possibility lest Germany might emerge out of the
war the actual arbiter of Europe conceived as an
unbearable thought. None of the allied Powers,
neither England nor France and not even Russia,
Italy being in this respect quite out of question,
has during the last decades shown a disposition or
a pretence to play up to such a part.
But Germany is suspected of nourishing ideas of
this kind, and utterances of some of their
prominent men, _occasional sayings of the Kaiser
included_, tend to give substance to this
suspicion. In vain Germans object that their
country has all the 44 years since 1870 kept the
peace in Europe. We have done the same, would the
others reply, and we have not, as Germany has
done, again and again threatened war when things
did not run according to her wishes or humours.
_Germany has in fact abstained from actual peace
breaking. But she was regarded and has not a
little done to acquire the fame, as the latent or
virtual disturbing element in European politics._
This view in regard to political Germany has
greatly been enhanced through many of her actions
during the present war. It is natural enough,
though not particularly edifying, that in a war
each party ascribes all the guilt thereof to the
opponents and poses as the innocent who
maliciously was surprised when not dreaming of any
harm. But the cantankerous way in which almost the
whole political and intellectual Germany has
handled this question and has treated it as a
crime not to take in every respect the German view
of the case and of all the details of warfare has
strengthened the feeling that this nation has come
to regard itself as a sort of high judge of
Europe. People were reminded of that
ill-considered harangue to German soldiers at the
time of the China expedition when they were
entreated to act towards the Chinese like the Huns
under Attila. _This and the eagerness to crush by
overwhelming power every small nation that
ventures to take sides with the Allies as well as
the proclaiming of rights for submarines and
Zeppelins upon her own authority--these and
similar measures have only been too suited to
nourish the conception that Germany places herself
in the rôle of the scourge of God._
How this feeling reacts upon political thought is
illustrated by a conversation a German socialist
has had in the summer of 1915 on neutral ground
with a French socialist politician of no jingoish
leanings at all on the possibilities of peace.
Even if Germany declared herself ready to
relinquish Belgium and to return to France every
inch of ground occupied, his countrymen would not
accept peace from her, explained the Frenchman.
And on the question, "Why not?" he replied
passionately: "Because it would be the German
peace; because it would yet leave Germany the all
powerful of Europe; because it would make us
depend upon the whims and tempers of that
conceited military nation."
"But are you going to bleed yourself to death?"
was the next question, and the reply, uttered in a
voice where sadness mingled with determination,
was:
"Yes, rather be ruined!"
This is a specimen of the feeling created by the
present war, and I am afraid the sentiment has not
abated a whit yet. Germans have done a good deal
in attempts to detach the French from the English.
They have told them that they are only the poor
seduced tools of the base and egotistic
Britishers, that Germans did not bear them any
malice, that they rather pitied them and would
fain be ready to come to terms with them. But
declarations of this sort proved only how little
the French mentality was understood this side of
the Vosges. The French nation is too much
impressed by the memory of her great past and the
part played by her in European politics to stand
being pitied and patted like children of tender
age. It will be respected as an equal who acts
with the full knowledge of the state of things and
is too much given to political reflection to
accept willingly any view of the war that visibly
is coloured by the interest of Germany in the
dissension between the two great Powers of Western
Europe. The anti-German feeling runs still very
high in France; her leading papers excel without
any exception in extremely harsh language against
everything German, and the great mass of those who
in former years had propagated the idea of a
Franco-German understanding are now dead against
it.
A similar feeling has step by step got hold of the
British nation. From not being very popular at its
beginning in England, the war has come to be
regarded as a greater national concern than any of
its predecessors. The frantic if not hysterical
outbursts of hatred against England in Germany
when the former decided to stand by France in the
war were at first not taken too seriously. But by
and by the unceasing utterances of spite have,
together with the known acts of German aerial and
submarine warfare, deeply reacted on the British
mind. The feeling is now general that England has
never before had an enemy so full of hatred
against her, so ardently desirous of causing her
irreparable harm as she now has in present day
Germany.
Even such socialist papers as the _New Statesman_,
which before the war had no anti-German bias at
all, have arrived at the same conclusion
concerning what may be called a German peace as
the French socialist politician whose opinions
were given above characterised it. In an article
called "The Case for the Allies," and especially
addressed to Americans, the _New Statesman_
explains in its number of December 30th that peace
with an unbeaten Germany would mean "Mittel Europa
from the Baltic to the Black Sea," that nothing
would prevent its expansion through the Balkans to
El Arish and Bagdad, that throughout this vast
area the authority, if not the suzerainty, of
Berlin would be acknowledged and that the small
European States north and northwest of Germany
would without any resistance--by the mere force of
things--come to be subjected to the dictate of
Germany. In the words of the _New Statesman_, as
the result of an inconclusive peace, "militarism
would be more firmly established than ever by the
record of its marvellous success and by the
manifest need for a military organisation
proportionate to so vast an expansion."
Is this feeling justified? Does it appreciate
facts at their exact value? _There is undoubtedly
an influential section in Germany which entertains
feelings of this kind._ It has its adherents
particularly in naval circles and amongst the
intellectuals of the nation and in a considerable
degree also in the financial world. These sections
hate in England partly the happy possessor of what
in their opinion ought by right to belong to the
German race and partly the power without which
German expansion would meet with no resistance
worth speaking of by European nations. _This
section of anti-English on principle or by deeply
rooted hatred, influential as it is, is, however,
not the whole nation._ It has only now the hold of
her mind because it has succeeded in instilling
into her the belief that England is the secret
manufacturer of the present war, that she is the
selfish fermenter of hatred in Europe, the
scheming brewer of strife on the Continent.
England has become to the average German mind a
real nightmare, a sort of a Frankenstein or any
such spookish monster, and as she now, by the
vicissitudes of the war, has indeed become the
most dangerous of Germany's opponents it is not
possible to educate people from the inside to a
more rational view of her part in this war and in
European politics altogether.
There you have the greatest hindrances to peace in
Europe. I did not mention Russia. But the war
between Germany, inclusive of Austria-Hungary, and
Russia is of quite a different nature. It is more
of a war of the older order. It has, of course,
also evoked a good deal of hatred. But on the
whole it is as wars go, more of an objective
nature. There are material differences on which it
would not be impossible to compromise. But there
is no such deeply-seated irrational opposition,
which now sets Germans and English and French and
Germans against each other. The war between the
Central Powers and Russia is, comparatively
speaking, an accident in the political history of
Europe. _The war between England, France and
Germany is a catastrophe in European civilisation.
As a war it is most irrational, and just because
of its absurdity it is so utterly difficult to
find a solution for it, and there is little hope
that unless some outside force intervenes, it may
end otherwise than by absolute general
exhaustion._
Things would be otherwise if there were reasonable
hopes of a concerted action on the part of the
international union of the socialist parties. But
such hopes, if they ever could be entertained,
have by now become a thing of the past. In the
three countries named the majority of the leaders
of organised labour have taken sides in the war
alongside of their governments and have by this
more or less given up independency and lost the
confidence of their former comrades in the
opposite camp. Distrust, which in general has so
much contributed to bring about this war, prevails
also in the ranks of the socialists in regard to
the leaders of the movement on the other side of
the frontier. Minorities everywhere work for a
greater independency as a step to a better
international understanding. But they have as yet
nowhere succeeded in winning the majority of the
movement over to their views and policy, and even
if they did, all sorts of hindrances would by the
governments be put in the way of these Socialists
to assemble internationally in sufficient number
for work of this nature.
Nor is it to be expected that revolts of the
discontented masses will be vast enough to force
the governments into peace negotiations against
their will. The possibilities of centralised
governments against revolutionary upheavals as
long as these remain locally isolated, which in
the face of the enormous extent of the section of
the globe directly drawn into the war is most
probable, are too great to let these movements
have a great chance of changing the policy of the
rulers. This would only happen when at least some
of these classes or parties which at present
support the war come round to their opinion, of
which very few signs are at present to be seen.
The work of small minorities everywhere, the war
has got hold of the minds of the millions in all
countries and has filled nations against nations
with such distrust and spite as in the history of
civilised mankind never before have been
witnessed.
How little we are justified to expect peace from
the action of these socialists who stand by
governments in the war is, as far as my own
country is concerned, shown by the fact that the
big meetings now (and, I am willing to admit, it
is the intention of the initiators to hold them in
favour of peace) led by the leaders of the
majority of the social-democratic party, such as
Messrs. Scheidemann, David, Ebert and others, turn
out in practice as meetings in support of the
policy of the government in regard to the question
of war and peace. In order to defend their own
political attitude the speakers are compelled to
shift the responsibility for the war and its
continuation wholly on the shoulders of the
governments of the opposite countries and their
supporters, and by this they increase in the mind
of their hearers the conviction that nothing short
of a defeat of these countries will bring the war
to a desirable end. In England the majority of the
Labour Party and a considerable number of the best
known socialist leaders and in France the most
influential leaders of socialist party support
also the war policy of their respective
governments in all principal issues. The well
meant and praiseworthy attempts to convene a full
International Socialist Congress for the purpose
of settling these differences by finding a common
line of action are, I am sorry to say, under the
circumstances most likely to prove abortive. _They
will founder on the self-contradiction that the
Socialists of the Entente countries argue that
their governments hate the idea of German
militarism coming out unbeaten and unreduced out
of this war which in their opinion was provoked by
it, whilst the leaders of the German Socialists in
power would rather see this same militarism which
they in former years have so violently attacked
and denounced, come out victorious than have it
interfered with by outside influence._
In short, sections of the socialist movement will
assist other forces in the action for peace, but
the movement as a whole is incapable to act in the
matter as a force of compelling strength.
Help must in the main come from outside.
Consequently President Wilson's action in his note
to the belligerents of December 20th would have
been the right thing, even if it had offended in
some way against the rules of diplomatic
procedure. Under so exceptional circumstances as
these occasioned by the present war extraordinary
steps are certainly justified and breaches of
etiquette of little significance. But the note was
faultless in this respect, and it can moreover be
said that in no way did it endanger legitimate
interests of the one or the other section of the
belligerents. It offends only in spirit against
Cain's word, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and in
distinct words against the conception that war is
a private affair of states may it ever so much
interfere with the material and moral welfare of
other nations.
The step has not at once succeeded. But it has
opened the way; nay, it has forced the door open
for discussion in a fashion that nobody will be
strong enough to shut it again. True, the Central
Powers have by their offer of peace negotiations
forestalled the note by a week. But this offer
would have come to naught without Mr. Wilson's
action. Harsh as the reply of the Allies is to the
offer, it would most likely have been put in much
more negating terms had not the American note
caused the Entente Allies to avoid a blunt "No"
and content themselves with raising objections and
interjecting accusations. By this they have
willy-nilly provoked a debate and instead of
shutting the door kept it well open.
People may call this a small success. In fact it
is a beginning, and for the first as such
sufficient. The question is now what shall the
next step be and how can the debate be directed to
positive proposals?
Of course, as these articles were given by this Socialist-Author
for publication any one is at liberty to reproduce them.
In conducting the peace negotiations, President Wilson will have
the benefit of the services of Colonel House, the one man who, I
believe, is best fitted to protect the interests of America and
of humanity at such a conference. I, of course, saw Colonel House
during the war in Berlin and in America and I consider that no
man alive is his superior in either knowledge of the whole
situation or in ability to cope with the trained diplomats of
Europe. Human nature is much the same and the gentle mannered
Texan who has been so successful in American politics will not
fail when representing us at the table of Peace.
CHAPTER XXVII
AFTER THE WAR, WHAT?
No one but a fortune teller or professional seer dares to predict
the condition of the world after this war. Only mere suggestions
can be thrown out, shadows of prophecy as to what may come.
Will the tide of emigration turn from Europe and the United
States to other countries or will people of German birth and
descent leave America to return to the Fatherland after the war?
I made it my business after I had learned German to talk to many
of the plain people in Berlin and elsewhere, to get their views.
I found that the common soldiers, especially those representing
the class of skilled workingmen in the industrial centres were
almost unanimous in saying that after the war and at the first
opportunity they intended to leave Germany, to turn from a
country capable of perpetrating this calamity on the world, a
country where they have been subject not alone to military
service but to a cruel and oppressive caste system of discipline.
I believe that Germany will enact laws against emigration and
that there will be zones of espionage on all German frontiers
designed to watch and keep back such Germans as may seek to
escape to other countries.
In Austria even more stringent laws will be necessary to keep the
unmarried males from leaving.
I know that experts of the United States Government believe at
least three millions of Slovaks, Greeks, etc., will leave America
after the war, taking with them the money they have earned, for
investment in new opportunities in the Old Country.
With this view I cannot agree. The soil of the European continent
is too poor, wages too small, hours too long, and distaste for
the military and caste systems too great, to tempt those who have
tasted the equality and the freedom of America. Why to-day an
ordinary coal miner in Pennsylvania can earn $5,000 a year--a sum
greater than the pay of a Prussian or Austrian general! Why
should this miner go back to insult and slavery?
The greatest problem of Germany comes after the war--when these
millions of men, trained for four years or more to murder, shall
return. It will be hard for them to settle down to regular work,
impossible for them to submit again to the iron discipline of
German civil life. Will they not, as Bloch predicts, possibly,
re-enact the horrors of the French Commune, or even those of the
French Revolution?
It is hard to understand why Prussian autocracy does not freely
offer what it will be compelled to give after the war--equal
suffrage in Prussia, fair representation in the Reichstag--a
government responsible to the Reichstag. Is it not better for the
Emperor to offer this--following Bismarck's saying that "in
Prussia the revolutions are made by the rulers."
And who of all rulers in history seemed to sit more securely on
his throne than Nicholas who is now learning from his keepers
what a Czar really is?
The Emperor said to me once, "Is it not wonderful how the German
people bear their sufferings in this war?" I said I thought it
was wonderful. It is that and more,--it is almost a miracle--that
a whole nation can so nearly approach this delirium.
The autocratic idea survives in Germany--on November 22, 1917,
the Conservative Union of the Province of Brandenburg unanimously
adopted the following resolution.
"The Prussian State, fundamentally a people of its Princes, is
the foundation on which the German Empire rests.
"Not sovereignty of the people but Kingship by Divine Right is
its corner stone.
"We implore our deputies to do their best to prevent the Kingship
being debased into a sham Kingship and being replaced by that
sovereignty of the people by means of the alteration of the
Prussian franchise."
After reading this can any one wonder that the Kaiser believes he
is called by God to rule the Germans?
"Kingship by Divine Right"--is quite a development of a Kingship
that originated in foreclosure proceedings, when Prussia was
taken for a debt by the crafty, rich Hohenzollern Burgraf of
Nuremberg.
Is it any wonder that the Kaiser once said to me during the war,
"Everything seems to be going my way--don't you think God is
helping me?"
* * * * *
The efforts of those in charge of the German propaganda to sow
dissensions among the Allies are more than awkward.
For some time after the landing in force of the British troops in
France, the newspapers of Germany were filled with cartoons
representing the British refusing to leave Calais; and now that
America has entered the war even so intelligent a philosopher as
Chancellor Hertling speaks as follows:
"If those who hold power in France forcibly
repress every suggestion of peace, and try to
rouse fresh will for war by a show of assurance of
victory, in spite of the frightful sacrifices the
war has cost the country, and must cost still
further, it is because they are sustained by the
hope of help from America. In this hope they
patiently tolerate the Americans also making
themselves at home in France, turning Bordeaux
into a great American harbour with immense loading
and unloading wharves, and cutting down the
forests of the Gironde in order to build a camp in
the neighbourhood of Bordeaux for the expected
army. French workmen tolerate in their factories
the competition of American workmen, with whom
they are not in sympathy, and the owners allow
them to look into the secrets of their business,
all so that the new Ally may help to take the
revenge on the hated Germans."
Misguided old Philosopher!
The most stupid peasant of the Bordeaux country does not believe
that the Americans have come to France in order to occupy
permanently a section of that sandy, barren scrub pine desert
which stretches to the south of Bordeaux.
* * * * *
And President Wilson and his cabinet, Lloyd George and the
statesmen of France and Italy, Portugal and Russia must be on
their guard--Wolff's agency is at work, spreading poisonous
propaganda. Here is an excerpt that speaks for itself:
"The Imperial and Royal Propaganda Department, Section of Foreign
Affairs, calls the editor's attention to the practice of the
enemy press in caricaturing the Kaiser, the Crown Prince,
Hindenburg and alleged German militarism, with the evident
intention of an odius anti-German propaganda. It would,
therefore, be important from the patriotic point of view for the
daily newspapers also to occupy themselves by means of caricatures
with the principal events of the day.
"The idea of such propaganda has been conceived by the supreme
military command. And it is therefore desirable that all should
conform to it. The official cinema has been ordered by the
supreme command to enter into direct communication with the daily
press, and many leading newspapers have hastened to express
their readiness to insert these patriotic caricatures, for the
drawing of which the service of the best artists in Munich and
Berlin have been secured. These caricatures will regard chiefly
the heads of state of the Entente powers, their political leaders
and those who make no mystery of their hatred for Germany. The
blocks will be supplied free of expense."
* * * * *
German employers will never be able to grind down their workmen
as before the war. The men who have fought in the trenches will
return with a new feeling of independence, a new spirit of revolt
against the caste prejudices, a disinclination to do the same
work in the same hours and for the same wages.
My tailor in Berlin told me that several of his men who had
returned after being discharged from the army because of some
physical disability or wounds took an entirely different attitude
and that one of them, for example, had said to him: "Do not think
that I have come back to work as before. I have the Iron Cross, I
have helped to save Germany. I am a hero and I do not propose
again to be your industrial slave."
That is the new spirit which after the war will animate the
deceived, hitherto down-trodden lower classes of Germany.
In our own country, the balance of political power may be held by
the soldiers who are enlisted in the war and who, like the G. A. R.'s
after our Civil War, may doubtless organise not only for protection
but for political purposes. And this great restless body of returned
troops, veterans of wars beyond the seas, may change our whole
foreign policy in ways of which we do not dream. We shall be a
more warlike nation, less patient to bear insult, more ready for
war, unless this war ends all wars.
* * * * *
The war after the war, in trade and commerce, may be long and
bitter. The rivers of Germany are lined with ships of seven or
eight thousand tons, many of them built or completed since the
war, and Germany designs as her first play in this commercial war
to seize the carrying trade of the world. The German exporter has
lost his trade for years. Alliances have already been made in
great industries, such as the dyestuff industry, in preparation
for a sudden and sustained attack upon that new industry in
America. Prices will be cut to far below the cost of production
in order that the new industry of America fighting single handed
against the single head German trust may be driven from the
field. The German Government will take a practical hand in this
contest and only the combination of American manufacturers and
the erection of a tariff wall of defence can prevent the
Americans, if each fights single handed and for his own end, from
falling before the united, efficient and bitter assault of German
trade rivals.
The war has brought new power and new responsibility to women.
Armed with the franchise they will demand not only equal rights
but equal pay. In Great Britain alone, before the war, there
were less than five hundred thousand women workers where now
over five million carry the burden even of the war industries of
the country.
Unless the war ends with a victory so decisive for the Allies
that an era of universal peace shall dawn for the world, each
nation will constitute itself an armed camp fearing always that
the German, with his lust for war and conquest, will again
terrorise the world by a sudden assault.
And a necessary sequence of this preparation for war will be the
desire of each nation to be self-sufficient--to produce within
itself those materials indispensable for the waging of war.
Capital will be wasted because each nation will store up
quantities of these materials necessary to war which it is
compelled to import from other countries.
For instance, Germany will always carry great stocks of grain and
of fats, of copper and cotton and wool, all of the materials for
the lack of which she suffered during the present war.
In my first book, I touched on the change in the industrial
system that will be brought about by the socialised buying and
selling introduced first by Germany and which must be copied by
the other nations if they desire to compete on equal terms with
that country. In Germany for several years after the war at
least, and perhaps as a permanent regulation, the purchase of all
luxuries outside of Germany will be forbidden because of the
desire to keep German gold and credits at home.
Germans have even stated to me that they do not fear in a trade
way any prejudice created against them in other countries by
their actions during this war. They say that a man always will
buy where he can buy the cheapest, and that however much a
merchant may hate the Germans after the war, if he can buy the
goods he wants for his use from Germany at a cheaper rate than
anywhere else, he will forget his prejudices in the interest of
his pocketbook.
This is a question which each reader will have to solve for
himself. Personally, I believe that in England, in France, and in
America, too, if the war should last a long time, the prejudice
against German trickery and brutality in war will become so great
that many a merchant will prefer to lose a little money than deal
with German sellers. However, the appeal of the pocketbook is
always so earnest and so insistent that the Germans may be right
in the view that financial considerations will weigh down the
balance as against the prejudice engendered in this struggle. And
if there comes a change of government in Germany, if the
Hohenzollerns no longer control, or if in a liberalised Germany
the ministers are responsible to a popular parliament, while
kings sink to the political position of the kings of Great
Britain or of Spain, then the commercial prejudice certainly will
not last long. The boycott of Germany for fifty years suggested
by the American Chamber of Commerce is a most powerful weapon.
And why, if wars are to continue after this one, should we
contribute to German trade profits and consequently to German
preparations for another war? The nations of the Allies must
reckon, too, with the bitter, bitter hate felt for them by the
whole German people--and only one who has been in Germany since
the war can realise its intensity.
One great factor in forcing a change of government will be the
desire of the individual German after the war to say that the
government of his country existing then is not the government
that ordered the shooting of Edith Cavell, the enslavement of the
women and girls of northern France, the deportation of the
Belgian workingmen, the horrors of the prison camps, the burning
of Louvain and all the other countless barbarities and cruelties
ordered by the German military commanders.
Imagine after this war in some distant island, perhaps, a
Frenchman, an Englishman, an American, a Portuguese, an Italian
all seated at the dining table of a little hotel. A German comes
in and seeks to join them. Will he be treated on an equality?
Will he be taken into their society? Or will he be treated as a
leper and a pariah?
The Germans will wish to be in a position to say: "Why,
gentlemen, I was against all these cruelties. I was against the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, and the murder of its women and
children. I was against the starving of Poland and the slaughter
of the Armenians and the crucifixion of prisoners, and we Germans
have thrown out the government that was responsible for these
horrors."
Stronger than any other consideration will be the desire of the
German to repudiate these acts which have made the Germany of
to-day a Cain among the nations,--an outcast branded with the
mark of shame.
The Russian author Bloch whom I have quoted, says, referring to
the future war:
"Behind all conflicts of interest between nations
statesmen must balance the chances of success of
their nation, promised by the recourse to arms,
against the terrible miseries of the victims
caused by war as well as the social peril which
can be the consequence of war.
"They who ask themselves when it will be possible
to propose to the people of any nation after the
war a compensation for its enormous sacrifices,
forget that the conquered will be so exhausted
that there will be no question of being able to
draw from a conquered nation the least pecuniary
indemnity. All that can be imposed on the
conquered will be the abandonment of some rags of
frontier territory.
"In these conditions, up to what point can calm be
counted on to reign among the millions of men
called to the colours, when in their ranks there
is not more than a handful of old officers and
when the command will be in the hands of those
newly promoted from among the non-commissioned
officers? That is to say, men belonging to the
working classes. Will these workingmen surrender
their arms in the states of Central Europe where
the propaganda has spread already among the
masses?
"Will they allow themselves to be disarmed after
the war and could there not come events more
horrible than those which signalised the rapid
triumph of the Commune of Paris?"
Just as to-day it is not isolated armies but whole peoples in
arms that are opposed, so in the war of commerce after the war
not single producers and exporters, corporations or individuals,
but whole nations will meet in the markets of the world.
Germany has favoured trusts--controlling prices and unfair
competition--and we shall encounter in buying and in selling the
whole German nation ranked behind their Central Buying Company in
buying and their Kartels in selling.
Isolated firms and individuals cannot on our side cope with such
an offensive--but we are hampered in effectiveness by the
so-called Sherman law--a law from which England is free.
The war will produce great and sudden alterations and President
Wilson in meeting new problems has pursued a progressive course;
witness his support of the Webb law, which enables our manufacturers
to combine in export trade.
Every sign points to a new era in business--an era in which the
Government will permit--even encourage--enlightened business
combinations.
The railroads of the country in the efficient hands of McAdoo
have already bettered service, and the rights of the Savings
Banks and of other holders of the securities of each road have
been secured.
We must, on the one hand, permit the abolition of ruinous
competition and on the other safeguard the public from high
prices, and the smaller firms and corporations from the unfair
competition of a powerful rival.
Great changes are coming in the social structure of the world. We
are on the threshold of a great readjustment. Whatever else our
entrance into the war may accomplish, let us hope that it will
have made of us a nation with the throb of a single patriotism
and the steady pulse of an energetic efficiency that shall not
merely seek in honest rivalry to compete with other nations but
in an enlightened and helpful way shall strive truly to heal a
wounded civilisation in the God-given days of peace.
[Illustration: EXACT SIZE REPRODUCTION OF A PAGE OF THE FAMOUS
"DIE ZUKUNFT" PUBLISHED BY MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, THE ONE UNCENSORED
EDITOR OF GERMANY]
[Illustration: COVER OF PROGRAM OF SERVICE IN PROTESTANT
CATHEDRAL, BERLIN, IN CELEBRATION OF THE FIVE-HUNDREDTH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE LORDSHIP OF HOHENZOLLERNS IN
BRANDENBURG-PRUSSIA]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Face to Face with Kaiserism" ***
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