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diff --git a/41272-8.txt b/41272-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f040816..0000000 --- a/41272-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1778 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speaking of Prussians, by Irvin S. Cobb - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Speaking of Prussians - -Author: Irvin S. Cobb - -Release Date: November 2, 2012 [EBook #41272] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Paul Clark and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - Transcriber's Note: - - Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as - possible. - - "Reverend Herr Doktor Konsistorialat D. Vorwerk" has been changed to - "Reverend Herr Doktor Konsistorialrat D. Vorwerk" - - Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. - - - - -"Speaking of Prussians--" - - - - -BY IRVIN S. COBB - - -FICTION - - THOSE TIMES AND THESE - LOCAL COLOR - OLD JUDGE PRIEST - FIBBLE, D. D. - BACK HOME - THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM - - -WIT AND HUMOR - - "SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS----" - EUROPE REVISED - ROUGHING IT DE LUXE - COBB'S BILL OF FARE - COBB'S ANATOMY - - -MISCELLANY - - "SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS----" - PATHS OF GLORY - - - GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - NEW YORK - -[Illustration: TURNING THE EAGLE LOOSE] - - - - - "_Speaking of Prussians----_" - - _By_ - - _Irvin S. Cobb_ - - _Author of - "Back Home," "Europe Revised," - "Speaking of Operations----", Etc._ - - [Illustration] - - _New York - George H. Doran Company_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, - - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - DEDICATED - BY PERMISSION - TO - WOODROW WILSON - PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - - - - -"_Speaking of Prussians--_" - - - - -I - - -I believe it to be my patriotic duty as an American citizen to write -what I am writing, and after it is written to endeavour to give to it as -wide a circulation in the United States as it is possible to find. In -making this statement, though, I am not setting myself up as a teacher -or a preacher; neither am I going upon the assumption that, because I am -a fairly frequent contributor to American magazines, people will be the -readier or should be the readier to read what I have to say. - -Aside from a natural desire to do my own little bit, my chief reason is -this: Largely by chance and by accident, I happened to be one of four or -five American newspaper men who witnessed at first hand the German -invasion of Belgium and one of three who, a little later, witnessed -some of the results of the Germanic subjugation of the northern part of -France. I was inside Germany at the time the rush upon Paris was checked -and the retreat from the Marne took place, thereby having opportunity to -take cognisance of the feelings and sentiments and the impulses which -controlled the German populace in a period of victory and in a period of -reversals. - -I am in the advantageous position, therefore, of being able to recount -as an eyewitness--and, as I hope, an honest one--something of what war -means in its effects upon the civilian populace of a country caught -unawares and in a measure unprepared; and, more than that, what war -particularly and especially means when it is waged under the direction -of officers trained in the Prussian school. - -Having seen these things, I hate war with all my heart. I am sure that I -hate it with a hatred deeper than the hate of you, reader, who never saw -its actual workings and its garnered fruitage. For, you see, I saw the -physical side of it; and, having seen it, I want to tell you that I -have no words with which halfway adequately to describe it for you, so -that you may have in your mind the pictures I have in mine. It is the -most obscene, the most hideous, the most brutal, the most malignant--and -sometimes the most necessary--spectacle, I veritably believe, that ever -the eye of mortal man has rested on since the world began, and I do hate -it. - -But if war had to come--war for the preservation of our national honour -and our national integrity; war for the defence of our flag and our -people and our soil; war for the preservation of the principles of -representative government among the nations of the earth--I would rather -that it came now than that it came later. I have a child. I would rather -that child, in her maturity, might be assured of living in a peace -guaranteed by the sacrifices and the devotion of the men and women of -this generation, than that her father should live on in a precarious -peace, bought and paid for with cowardice and national dishonour. - - - - -II - - -A few days before war was declared, an antimilitarist mass meeting was -held in New York. It was variously addressed by a number of well-known -gentlemen regarding whose purity of motive there could be no question, -but regarding whose judgment a great majority of us have an opinion that -cannot be printed without the use of asterisks. And it was attended by a -very large representation of peace-loving citizens, including a numerous -contingent of those peculiar patriots who, for the past two years, have -been so very distressed if any suggestion of hostilities with the -Central Powers was offered, but so agreeably reconciled if a break with -the Allies, or any one of them, seemed a contingency. - -It may have been only a coincidence, but it struck some of us as a -significant fact that, from the time of the dismissal of Count Von -Bernstorff onward, the average pro-peace meeting was pretty sure to -resolve itself into something rather closely resembling a pro-German -demonstration before the evening was over. Persons who hissed the name -of our President behaved with respectful decorum when mention was made -of a certain Kaiser. - -However, I am not now concerned with these weird Americans, some of whom -part their Americanism in the middle with a hyphen. Some of them were in -jail before this little book was printed. I am thinking now of those -national advocates of the policy of the turned cheek; those professional -pacificists; those wavers of the olive branch--who addressed this -particular meeting and similar meetings that preceded it--little -brothers to the worm and the sheep and the guinea pig, all of them--who -preached not defence, but submission; not a firm stand, but a complete -surrender; not action, but words, words, words. - - - - -III - - -Every right-thinking man, I take it, believes in universal peace and -realises, too, that we shall have universal peace in that fair day when -three human attributes, now reasonably common among individuals and -among nations, have been eliminated out of this world, these three being -greed, jealousy and evil temper. Every sane American hopes for the time -of universal disarmament, and meantime indulges in one mental -reservation: He wants all the nations to put aside their arms; but he -hopes his own nation will be the last to put aside hers. But not every -American--thanks be to God!--has in these months and years of our -campaign for preparedness favoured leaving his country in a state where -she might be likened to a large, fat, rich, flabby oyster, without any -shell, in a sea full of potential or actual enemies, all clawed, all -toothed, all hungry. The oyster may be the more popular, but it is the -hard-shelled crab that makes the best life-insurance risk. - -And when I read the utterances of those conscientious gentlemen, who -could not be brought to bear the idea of going to war with any nation -for any reason, I wished with all my soul they might have stood with me -in Belgium on that August day, when I and the rest of the party to which -I belonged saw the German legions come pouring down, a cloud of smoke by -day and a pillar of fire by night, with terror riding before them as -their herald, and death and destruction and devastation in the tracks -their war-shod feet left upon a smiling and a fecund little land. -Because I am firmly of the opinion that their sentiments would then have -undergone the same instantaneous transformation which the feelings of -each member of my group underwent. - -Speaking for myself, I confess that, until that summer day of the year -1914, I had thought--such infrequent times as I gave the subject any -thought at all--that for us to spend our money on heavy guns and an -augmented navy, for us to dream of compulsory military training and a -larger standing army, would be the concentrated essence of economic and -national folly. - -I remember when Colonel Roosevelt--then, I believe, President -Roosevelt--delivered himself of the doctrine of the Big Stick, I, being -a good Democrat, regarded him as an incendiary who would provoke the -ill will of great Powers, which had for us only kindly feeling, by the -shaking in their faces of an armed fist. I remember I had said to -myself, as, no doubt, most Americans had said to themselves: - -"We are a peaceful nation; not concerned with dreams of conquest. We -have the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans for our protection. We are not -going to make war on anybody else. Nobody else is going to make war on -us. War is going out of fashion all over the planet. A passion for peace -is coming to be the fashion of the world. The lion and the lamb lie down -together." - -Well, the lion and the lamb did lie down together--over there in Europe; -and when the lion rose, a raging lion, he had the mangled carcass of the -lamb beneath his bloodied paws. And it was on the day when I first saw -the lion, with his jaws adrip, coming down the highroads, typified in -half a million fighting men--men whose sole business in life was to -fight, and who knew their business as no other people ever have known -it--that in one flash of time I decided I wanted my country to quit -being lamb-like, not because the lion was a pleasing figure before mine -eyes, but because for the first time I realised that, so long as there -are lions, sooner or later must come oppression and annihilation for the -nation which persists in being one of the lambs. - -As though it happened yesterday, instead of thirty months ago, I can -recreate in my mind the physical and the mental stage settings of that -moment. I can shut my eyes and see the German firing squad shooting two -Belgian civilians against a brick wall. I can smell the odours of the -burning houses. Yes, and the smell of the burning flesh of the dead men -who were in those houses. I can hear the sound of the footsteps of the -fleeing villagers and the rumble of the tread of the invaders going by -so countlessly, so confidently, so triumphantly, so magnificently -disciplined and so faultlessly equipped. - -Most of all, I can see the eyes and the faces of sundry German officers -with whom I spoke. And when I do this I see their eyes shining with joy -and their faces transfigured as though by a splendid vision; and I can -hear them--not proclaiming the justice of their cause; not seeking -excuse for the reprisals they had ordered; not, save for a few -exceptions among them, deploring the unutterable misery and suffering -their invasion of Belgium had wrought; not concerned with the ethical -rights of helpless and innocent noncombatants--but proud and swollen -with the thought that, at every onward step, ruthlessness and -determination and being ready had brought to them victory, conquest, -spoils of war. Why, these men were like beings from another world--a -world of whose existence we, on this side of the water, had never -dreamed. - -And it was then I promised myself, if I had the luck to get back home -again with a whole skin and a tongue in my head and a pen in my hand, I -would in my humble way preach preparedness for America; not preparedness -with a view necessarily of making war upon any one else, but -preparedness with a view essentially of keeping any one else from making -war upon us without counting the risks beforehand. - -In my own humble and personal way I have been preaching it. In my own -humble and personal way I am preaching it right this minute. And if my -present narrative is so very personal it is because I know that the -personal illustration is the best possible illustration, and that one -may drive home his point by telling the things he himself has seen and -felt better than by dealing with the impressions and the facts which -have come to him at secondhand. - -Also, it seems to me, since the break came, that now I am free to use -weapons which I did not feel I had the right to use before that break -did come. Before, I was a newspaper reporter, engaged in describing what -I saw and what I heard--not what I suspected and what I feared. Before, -I was a neutral citizen of a neutral country. - -I am not a neutral any more. I am an American! My country has clashed -with a foreign Power, and the enemy of my country is my enemy and -deserving of no more consideration at my hands than he deserves at the -hands of my country. Moreover, I aim to try to show, as we go along, -that any consideration of mercy or charity or magnanimity which we might -show him would be misinterpreted. Being what he is he would not -understand it. He would consider it as an evidence of weakness upon our -part. It is what he would not show us, and if opportunity comes will not -show us, any more than he showed it to Belgium or to France, or to Edith -Cavell, or to those women and those babies on the _Lusitania_. - -He did not make war cruel--it already was that; but he has kept it -cruel. War with him is not an emotional pastime; not a time for -hysterical lip service to his flag; not a time for fuss and feathers. -And, most of all, it is to him not a time for any display of mawkish, -maudlin forbearance to his foe; but, instead, it is a deadly serious, -deadly terrible business, to the successful prosecution of which he and -his rulers, and his government, and his whole system of life have been -earnestly and sincerely dedicated through a generation of preparation, -mental as well as physical. - - - - -IV - - -When I think back on those first stages--and in some respects the most -tragic stages--of the great war, I do not see it as a thing of pomp and -glory, of splendid panorama, pitched on a more impressive scale than any -movement ever was in all the history of mankind. I do not, in -retrospect, see the sunlight glinting on the long, unending, weaving -lanes of bayonets; or the troops pouring in grey streams, like molten -quicksilver, along all those dusty highroads of Northern Europe; or the -big guns belching; or the artillery horses going galloping into -action; or the trenches; or the camps; or the hospitals; or the -battlefields. I see it as it is reflected in certain little, detached -pictures--small-focused, and incidental to the great horror of which -they were an unconsidered part--but which, to me, typify, most fitly of -all, what war means when waged by the rote and rule of Prussian -militarism upon the civilian populace of an invaded country. - -I see again the little red-bearded priest of Louvain who met us on the -day we first entered that town; who took us out of the panic of the -street where the inhabitants fluttered about in aimless terror, like -frightened fowl in a barnyard; and who led the way for us through a -little wooden gateway, set in the face of a high brick wall. It was as -though we were in another world then, instead of the little world of -panic and distress we had just quit. About a neglected tennis court grew -a row of pear trees, and under a laden grape arbour at the back sat four -more priests, all in rusty black gowns. They got up from where they sat -and came and spoke to us, and took us into a little cellar room, where -they gave us a bottle of their homemade wine to drink and handfuls of -their ripened pears to eat, and tried to point out to us, on a map, -where they thought the oncoming Germans might be, none of us knowing -that already uhlan scouts were entering the next street but one. As we -were leaving, the eldest priest took me by the coat lapels and, with his -kind, faded old eyes brimming and his gentle old face quivering, he -said to me in broken English: - -"My son, it is not right that war should come to Belgium. We had no part -in the quarrel of these, our great neighbours. My son, we are not a bad -people here--do not believe them should they tell you so. For I tell you -we are a good people. We are a very good people. All the week my people -work very hard, and on Sunday they go to church; and then perhaps they -go for a walk in the fields. And that, to them, is all they know of -life. - -"My son," he said, "you come from a great country--you come from the -greatest of all the countries. Surely your country, which is so great -and so strong, will not let my little country perish from off the face -of the earth?" - -Because we had no answer for him we went away. And when, six weeks -later, I returned to ruined and devastated Louvain, I picked my way -through the hideous wreckage of the streets to the little monastery -again. Behold! the brick wall was a broken heap of wrecked, charred -masonwork; and the pear trees were naked stumps, which stood up out of -a clay waste; and the little cellar room, where we ate our pears and -drank our wine, was a hole in the ground now, full of ill-smelling -rubbish and fouled water, with the rotted and bloated corpse of a dead -horse floating in the water, poisoning the air with the promise of -pestilence. And the priests who once had lived there were gone; and none -in all that town knew where they had gone. - -Always, too, when thinking of the war, I think of the refugees I saw, -but mostly of those I saw after Antwerp had fallen in the early days of -October and I was skirting Holland on my way back out of Germany to the -English Channel. I had seen enough refugees before then, God knows!--men -and women and children, old men and old women and little children and -babies in arms, fleeing by the lights of their own burning houses over -rainy, wind-swept, muddy roads; vast caravans of homeless misery, whose -members marched on and on until they dropped from exhaustion. And when -they had rested a while at the miry roadside, with no beds beneath them -but the earth and no shelters above them but the black umbrellas to -which they clung, they got up and went on again, with no destination in -view and no goal ahead; but only knowing, I suppose, that what might lie -in front of them could not be worse than what they left behind them. But -never--until after Antwerp--did there seem to be so many of them, and -never did their plight seem so pitiable. Over every road that ran up out -of Belgium into Holland--and that in this populous corner of Europe -meant a road every little while--they poured all day in thick, jostling, -unending, unbroken streams. I marked how the sides of every wayside -building along the Dutch frontier was scrawled over with the names of -hundreds of refugees, who already had passed that way; and, along with -their names, the names of their own people, from whom they were -separated in the haste and terror of flight, and who--by one chance in a -thousand--might come that way and read what was there written, and -follow on. - -This was the larger picture. Now for a small corner of the canvas: I -remember a squalid little cowshed in a little Dutch town on the border, -just before dusk of a wet, raw autumnal night. Under the dripping eaves -of that cowshed stood an old man--a very old man. He must have been all -of eighty. His garments were sopping wet, and all that he owned now of -this world's goods rested at his feet, tied up in the rags of an old red -tablecloth. In one withered, trembling old hand he held a box of -matches, and in the other a piece of chalk. With one hand he scratched -match after match; and with the other, on the wall of that little -cowshed, he wrote, over and over and over again, his name; and beneath -it the name of the old wife from whom he was separated--doubtlessly -forever. - -Possibly these things might have come to pass in any war, whether or not -Germans were concerned in making that war; probably they should be -included among the inevitable by-products of the institution called -warfare. That, however, did not make them the less sorrowful. - - - - -V - - -The point I am trying to make is this: That, seeing such sights, and a -thousand more like them, I could picture the same things--and a thousand -worse things--happening in my own country. With better reason, I to-day -can picture them as happening in my own country; and in all fairness I -go further than that and say that I can conceive them as being all the -more likely to happen should the invading forces come at us under that -design of a black vulture which is known as the Imperial Prussian Eagle. -Given similar conditions and similar opportunities, and I can see -Holyoke, Massachusetts, or Charleston, South Carolina, razed in smoking -ruins, as Louvain or as Dinant was. I can see the mayor of Baltimore -being put to death by drum-head court-martial because some inflamed -civilian of his town fired from a cottage window at a Pomeranian -grenadier. I can see in Pennsylvania congressmen and judges and -clergymen and G. A. R. veterans held as hostages and as potential -victims of the firing squad, in case some son or some grandson of old -John Burns, of Gettysburg, not regularly enrolled, takes up his shotgun -in defence of his homestead. I can see a price put on the head of some -modern Molly Pitcher, and a military prison waiting for some latter-day -Barbara Frietchie. For we must remember that what we Americans call -patriots the anointed War Lord calls _franc-tireurs_, meaning -bushwhackers. - -I do not believe I personally can be charged with an evinced bias -against the German Army, as based on what I saw of its operations in the -opening months of the war. Because I had an admiration for the courage -and the fortitude of the German common soldier, and because I expressed -that admiration, I was charged with being pro-German by persons who -seemingly did not understand or want to understand that a spectator may -admire the individual without in the least sympathising with the causes -which sent him into the field. And at a time when this country was -filled with stories of barbarities committed upon Belgian civilians by -German soldiers--stories of the mutilating of babies, of the raping of -women, of the torturing of old men--I was one of five experienced -newspapermen who, all of our own free will and not under duress or -coercion, signed a statement in which we severally and jointly stated -that, in our experiences when travelling with or immediately behind the -German columns through upward of a hundred miles of Belgian territory, -we had been unable to discover good evidence of a single one of these -alleged atrocities. Nor did we. - -What I tried to point out at the time--in the fall of 1914--and what I -would point out again in justice to those who now are our enemies, is -that identically the same accounts of atrocities which were told in -England and in America as having been perpetrated by Germans upon -Belgians and Frenchmen, were simultaneously repeated in Germany as -having been perpetrated by Belgians and Frenchmen upon German nuns and -German wounded; and were just as firmly believed in Germany as in -America and Britain, and had, as I veritably believe, just as little -foundation of fact in one quarter as in the other quarters. - -Indeed, I am willing to go still further and say, because of the -rigorous discipline by which the German common soldier is bound, that in -the German occupation of hostile territory opportunities for the -individual brute or the individual degenerate to commit excesses against -the individual victim were greatly reduced. Of course there must have -been sporadic instances of hideous acts--there always have been where -men went to war; but I have never been able to bring myself to believe -that such acts could have been a part of a systematic or organised -campaign of frightfulness. There was plenty of the frightfulness without -these added horrors. - -But I was an eyewitness to crimes which, measured by the standards of -humanity and civilisation, impressed me as worse than any individual -excess, any individual outrage, could ever have been or can ever be; -because these crimes indubitably were instigated on a wholesale basis by -order of officers of rank, and must have been carried out under their -personal supervision, direction and approval. Briefly, what I saw was -this: I saw wide areas of Belgium and France in which not a penny's -worth of wanton destruction had been permitted to occur, in which the -ripe pears hung untouched upon the garden walls; and I saw other wide -areas where scarcely one stone had been left to stand upon another; -where the fields were ravaged; where the male villagers had been shot in -squads; where the miserable survivors had been left to den in holes, -like wild beasts. - -Taking the physical evidence offered before our own eyes, and -buttressing it with the statements made to us, not only by natives but -by German soldiers and German officers, we could reach but one -conclusion, which was that here, in such-and-such a place, those in -command had said to the troops: "Spare this town and these people!" And -there they had said: "Waste this town and shoot these people!" And -here the troops had discriminately spared, and there they had -indiscriminately wasted, in exact accordance with the word of their -superiors. - - - - -VI - - -Doubtlessly you read the published extracts from diaries taken off the -bodies of killed or captured German soldiers in the first year of the -war. Didn't you often read where this soldier or that, setting down his -own private thoughts, had lamented at having been required to put his -hand to the task of killing and destroying? But, from this same source, -did you ever get evidence that any soldier had actually revolted against -this campaign of cruelty, and had refused to burn the homes of helpless -civilians or to slay unresisting noncombatants? You did not, and for a -very good reason: Because that rebellious soldier would never have lived -long enough to write down the record of his humanity--he would have been -shot dead by the revolver of his own captain or his own lieutenant. - -I saw German soldiers marching through a wrecked and ravished -countryside, singing their German songs about the home place, and the -Christmas tree, and the Rhine maiden--creatures so full of sentiment -that they had no room in their souls for sympathy. And, by the same -token, I saw German soldiers dividing their rations with hungry -Belgians. They divided their rations with these famished ones because it -was not _verboten_--because there was no order to the contrary. Had -there been an order to the contrary, those poor women and those scrawny -children might have starved, and no German soldier, whatever his private -feelings, would have dared offer to them a crust of bread or a bone of -beef. Of that I am very sure. - -And it seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, a most dangerous thing -for all the peoples of the earth, and a most evil thing, that into the -world should come a scheme of military government so hellishly contrived -and so exactly directed that, by the flirt of a colonel's thumb, a -thousand men may, at will, be transformed from kindly, courageous, manly -soldiers into relentless, ruthless executioners and incendiaries; and, -by another flirt of that supreme and arrogant thumb, be converted back -again into decent men. - - - - -VII - - -In peace the mental docility of the German, his willingness to accept an -order unquestioningly and mechanically to obey it, may be a virtue, as -we reckon racial traits of a people among their virtues; in war this -same trait becomes a vice. In peace it makes him yet more peaceful; in -war it gives to his manner of waging war an added sinister menace. - -It is that very menace which must confront the American troopers who may -be sent abroad for service. It is that very menace which must confront -our people at home in the event that the enemy shall get near enough to -our coasts to bombard our shore cities, or should he succeed in landing -an expeditionary force upon American soil. - -When I first came back from the war front I marvelled that sensible -persons so often asked me what sort of people the Germans were, as -though Germans were a stranger race, like Patagonians or the South Sea -Islanders, living in some remote and untravelled corner of the globe. I -felt like telling them that Germans in Germany were like the Germans -they knew in America--in the main, God-fearing, orderly, hard-working, -self-respecting citizens. But through these intervening months I have -changed my mind; to-day I should make a different answer. I would say, -to him who asked that question now, that the same tractability of -temperament which, under the easy-going, flexible workings of our -American plan of living makes the German-born American so readily -conform to his physical and metaphysical surroundings here, and makes -his progeny so soon to amalgamate with our fused and conglomerated -stock, has the effect, in his Fatherland, of all the more easily and all -the more firmly filling his mind and shaping his deeds in conformity -with the exact and rigorous demands of the Prussianism that has been -shackled upon him since his empire ceased to be a group of petty -states. - -We have got to remember, then, that the Germany with which we have -broken is not the Germany of Heine and Goethe and Haeckel and Beethoven; -not the Germany which gave us Steuben in the Revolutionary War, and -Sigel and Schurz in the Civil War; not the Germany of the chivalrous, -lovable Saxon, or yet of the music-loving, home-loving Bavarian; not the -Germany which was the birthplace of the kindly, honourable, industrious, -patriotic German-speaking neighbour round the corner from you--but the -fanatical, tyrannical, power-mad, blood-and-iron Prussianised Germany of -Bismarck and Von Bernhardi, of the Crown Prince and the Junkers--that -passionate Prussianised Germany which for forty years through the -instrumentality of its ruling classes--not necessarily its Kaiser, but -its real ruling classes--has been jealously striving to pervert every -native ounce of its scientific and its inventive and its creative genius -out of the paths of progress and civilisation and to jam it into the -grooves of the greatest autocratic machine, the greatest organism for -killing off human beings, the greatest engine of misbegotten and -misdirected efficiency that was ever created in the world. Because we -have an admiration for one of these two Germanys is no more a reason why -we should abate our indignation and our detestation for the other -Germany than that because a man loves a cheery blaze upon his -hearthstone he should refuse to fight a forest fire. - -We have got to remember another thing. If our oversea observations of -this war abroad have taught us anything, they should have taught us that -the German Army--and when I say army I mean in this case, not its men -but its officers, since in the German Army the officers are essentially -the brain and the power and the motive force directing the unthinking, -blindly obedient mass beneath them--that the German Army is not an army -of good sportsmen. And that, I take it, is an even more important -consideration upon the field of battle than it is upon the athletic -field. As the saying goes, the Germans don't play the game. It is as -inconceivable to imagine German officers going in for baseball or -football or cricket as it is to imagine American volunteers marching the -goose step or to imagine Englishmen relishing the cut-and-dried -calisthenics of a _Turnverein._ - -The Germans are not an outdoor race; they are not given to playing -outdoor sports and abiding by the rules of those sports, as Englishmen -and as Americans are. And in war--that biggest of all outdoor games--it -stands proved against them that they do not play according to the rules, -except they be rules of their own making. It may be argued that the -French are not an outdoor race or a sport-loving race, as we conceive -sports. But, on the other hand, the Frenchman is essentially romantic -and essentially dramatic, and, whether in war or in victory afterward, -he is likely to exhibit the magnanimous and the generous virtues rather -than the cruel and the unkindly ones, because, as we all know, it is -easier to dramatise one's good impulses than one's evil ones. - -Now the German, as has recently been shown, is neither dramatic nor -sportsmanlike. He is a greedy winner and he is a bad loser--a most -remarkably bad loser. Good sportsmen would not have broken Belgium into -bloody bits because Belgium stood between them and their goal; good -sportsmen would not have sung the Hymn of Hate, or made "_Gott Strafe -England!_" their battle cry; good sportsmen would not have shot Edith -Cavell or sunk the _Lusitania_. Good sportsmen would not have packed the -helpless men and boys of a conquered and a prostrate land off as -captives into an enforced servitude worse than African slavery; would -not wantonly have wasted La Fère and Chauny and Ham, and a hundred other -French towns, as they did in March and April of this year, for no -conceivable reason than that they must surrender these towns back into -the hand of the enemy; would not have cut down the little orchard trees -nor shovelled dung into the drinking wells; would not, while ostensibly -at peace with us, have plotted to destroy our industrial plants and to -plant the seeds of sedition among our foreign-born citizens, and to -dismember our country, parceling it out between a brown race in Mexico -and a yellow race in Japan. Good sports do not do these things, and -Germany did all of them. That means something. - - - - -VIII - - -Having spread the gospel of force for so long, Prussianised Germany can -understand but one counter-argument--force. We must give her back blow -for blow--a harder blow in return for each blow she gives us. "Thrice is -he armed that hath his quarrel just"; and our quarrel is just. All the -same, to make war successfully we must make it with a whole heart. We -must hold it to be a holy war; we must preach a jihad, remembering -always, now that the Chinese Empire is a republic, now that Russia by -revolution has thrown off the chains of autocracy, that we are fighting -not only to punish the enemy for wrongs inflicted and insults -overpatiently endured; not only to make the seas free to honest -commerce; not only for the protection of our flag and our ships and the -lives of our people at home and abroad--but along with England, -France--yes, and Russia--are fighting for the preservation of the -principles of constitutional and representative government against those -few remaining crowned heads who hold by the divine right of kings, and -who believe that man was created not a self-governing creature but a -vassal. - -Merely because we are willing to give of our wealth and our granaries -and our steel mills, we cannot expect to have an honourable share in -this war, and to share as an equal in its final settlement. We must risk -something more precious than money; something more needful than -munitions; we must risk our manhood. We cannot expect England's navy to -stand between us and harm for our coasts, and France's worn battalions -to bear the brunt of the trench work. - -Knowing nothing of military expediency, I yet believe that, for the -moral effect upon the world and for our own position, when the time for -making peace comes it would be better for us, rather than the securing -of our own soil against attack or invasion, that an American flag should -wave over American troops in Flanders; that a Texas cow-puncher should -lead a forlorn hope in France; that a Connecticut clockmaker should -invent a device which will blunt the fangs of that stinging adder of the -sea, the U-boat, and--who knows?--perhaps scotch the poison snake -altogether. - -Maybe it is true that, in our mistaken forbearance, we have failed and -come short. Maybe we have endured too long and too patiently; we can -atone for all that. But---- - -Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. - - - - -IX - - -I am coming now to what seems to me to be the most important -consideration of all. In this war upon which we have entered our chief -enemy is a nation firmly committed to the belief that whatever it may do -is most agreeable in the sight of God. It is firmly committed to the -belief that the acts of its Kaiser, its Crown Prince, its government, -its statesmen, its generals and its armies are done in accordance with -the will and the purposes of God. And, by the same token, it is -committed, with equal firmness, to the conviction that the designs and -the deeds of all the nations and all the peoples opposed to their nation -must perforce be obnoxious to God. By the processes of their own -peculiar theology--a theology which blossomed and began to bear its -fruit after the war started, but for which the seed had been sown long -before--God is not Our God but Their God. He is not the common creator -of mankind, but a special Creator of Teutons. He is a German God. For -you to say this would sound in American ears like sacrilege. For me to -write it down here smacks of blasphemy and impiety. But to the -German--in Germany--it is sound religion, founded upon the Gospels and -the Creed, proven in the Scriptures, abundantly justified in the -performances and the intentions of an anointed and a sanctified few -millions among all the unnumbered millions who breed upon the earth. - -Now here, by way of a beginning, is the proof of it. This proof is to be -found in a collection of original poems published by a German pastor, -the Reverend Herr Doktor Konsistorialrat D. Vorwerk. In the first -edition of his book there occurred a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, of -which the following are the last three petitions and the close: - - "Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and - tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each - bullet and each blow which misses its mark! Lead us not into the - temptation of letting our wrath be too tame in carrying out Thy - divine judgment! Deliver us and our Ally from the infernal Enemy - and his servants on earth. Thine is the kingdom, The German Land; - may we, by aid of Thy steel-clad hand, achieve the power and the - glory." - -From subsequent editions of the work of Pastor Vorwerk this prayer was -omitted. It is said to have been denounced as blasphemous by a -religious journal, published in Germany--but not in Berlin. But -evidently no one within the German Empire, either in authority or out of -it, found any fault with the worthy pastor's sentiment that the -Germans, above all other races--except possibly the Turks, who -appear to have been taken into the Heavenly fold by a special -dispensation--are particularly favoured and endowed of God, and -enjoy His extraordinary--one might almost be tempted to say His -private--guardianship, love and care. For in varying forms this -fetishism is expressed in scores of places. Consider this example, which -cannot have lost much of its original force in translation: - - "How can it be that Germany is surrounded by nothing but enemies - and has not a single friend? Is not this Germany's own fault? No! - Do you not know that Prince of Hades, whose name is Envy, and who - unites scoundrels and sunders heroes? Let us, therefore, rejoice - that Envy has thus risen up against us; it only shows that God has - exalted and richly blessed us. Think of Him who was hanged on the - Cross and seemed forsaken of God, and had to tread in such - loneliness His path to victory! My German people, even if thy road - be strewn with thorns and beset by enemies, press onward, filled - with defiance and confidence. The heavenly ladder is still - standing. Thou and thy God, ye are the majority!" - -I have quoted these extracts from the printed and circulated book of an -ordained and reputable German clergyman, and presumably also a popular -and respected German clergyman, because I honestly believe them to be -not the individual mouthings of an isolated fanatic, but the voice of an -enormous number of his fellow countrymen, expressing a conviction that -has come to be common among them since August, 1914. - -I believe, further, that they should be quoted because knowledge of them -will the better help our own people here in the United States to -understand the temper of a vast group of our enemies; will help us to -understand the motives behind some of the forms of hostility and -reprisal that undoubtedly they are going to attempt to inflict upon the -United States; help us, I hope, to understand that, upon our part, in -waging this war an over-measure of forbearance, a mistaken charity, or a -faith in the virtue of his fair promises is only wasted when it is -visited upon an adversary who, for his part, is upborne by the perverted -spiritualism and the degenerated self-idolatry of a Mad Mullah. It is -all very well to pour oil on troubled waters; it is foolishness to pour -it on wildfire. - - - - -X - - -In this same connection it may not be amiss for us to consider the -predominant and predominating viewpoints of another and an equally -formidable group of the foemen. In October, 1913, nearly a year before -Germany started the World War, one of the recognised leaders of the -association who called themselves "Young Germany" wrote in the official -organ, the accepted mouthpiece of the Junker set and the Crown Prince's -favoured adherents, a remarkable statement--that is, it would have been -a remarkable statement coming from any other source than the source from -whence it did come. It read as follows: - - "War is the noblest and holiest expression of human activity. For - us, too, the great glad hour of battle will strike. Still and deep - in the German heart must live the joy of battle and the longing for - it. Let us ridicule to the uttermost the old women in breeches who - fear war and deplore it as cruel or revolting. War is beautiful.... - When here on earth a battle is won by German arms and the faithful - dead ascend to heaven, a Potsdam lance corporal will call the guard - to the door and 'Old Fritz,' springing from his golden throne, will - give the command to present arms. That is the heaven of Young - Germany!" - -The likening of Heaven to a place of eternal beatitude, populated by -German soldiers, with a Potsdam lance corporal succeeding Saint Peter at -the gate, and "Old Fritz"--Frederick the Great--in sole and triumphant -occupancy of the Golden Throne, where, according to the conceptions of -the most Christian races, The Almighty sits, is a picture requiring no -comment. - -It speaks for itself. Also it speaks for the paranoia of militant -Prussianism. - -I think I am in position to tell something of the growth of these -sentiments among the Germans. As I stated on almost the first page of -this little book, it fell to my lot to be on German soil in September -and October of that first year of the Great War, before there was any -prospect of our entering it as a belligerent Power, and when the -civilian populace, having been exalted by the series of unbroken -victories that had marked the first stage of hostilities for the German -forces, east and west, was suffering from the depressions occasioned by -the defeat before Paris, the retreat from the Marne back to the Aisne, -and finally by the growing fear that Italy, instead of coming into the -conflict as an ally of the two Teutonic Empires, might, if she became -an active combatant at all, cast in her lot with France and with -England. - -It was from civilians that I got a sense of the intellectual motive -powers behind the mass of civilians in Rhenish Prussia. It was from them -that I learned something of the real German meaning of the German word -_Kultur_. In view of recent and present developments on our side of the -ocean, culminating in our entry into the war, I am constrained to -believe I may perhaps, in my own small way, contribute to American -readers some slight measure of appreciation of what that _Kultur_ means -and may mean as applied to other and lesser nations by its creators, -protagonists and proud proprietors. - -I heard nothing of _Kultur_ from the German military men with whom I had -theretofore come into contact in Belgium and in Northern France, and -whom I still was meeting daily both in their social and in their -official capacities. So far as one might judge by their language and -their behaviour they, almost without an exception, were heartily at war -for a hearty love of war--the officers, I mean. To them the war--the -successful prosecution of it, regardless of the cost; the immediate -glory, and the final ascendancy over all Europe and Asia of the German -arms--was everything. With them nothing else counted but that--except, -of course, the ultimate humbling of Great Britain in the dust. Seemingly -the woful side of the situation, the losses and the sufferings and the -horrors, concerned them not a whit. War for war's sake; that was their -religion; never mind what had gone before; never mind what might come -after. To make war terribly and successfully, to make it with -frightfulness and with a frightful speed, was their sole aim. - -Never did I hear them, or any one of them, openly invoking the aid of -the Creator. They were content with the tools forged for their hands by -their military overlords. As for the men in the ranks, if they did any -thinking on their own account it was not visible upon the surface. Their -business was to use their bodies, not their heads; their trade to obey -orders. They knew that business and they followed that trade. And -already poor little wasted Belgium stood a smoking, bloody monument to -their thorough, painstaking and most efficient craftsmanship. - -Nor, except among the green troops which had not yet been under fire, -was there any expressed hatred, either with officers or men, for the -opposing soldiers. During our experiences in the battle lines, and -directly behind the battle lines, in the weeks immediately preceding -the time of which I purpose to write, we had aimed at a plan of -ascertaining, with perfect accuracy, whether the German forces we -encountered had seen any service except theoretical service. If we ran -across a command whose members spoke contemptuously of the French or the -English or the Belgian soldiers, we might make sure in our own minds -that here were men who had yet to come to grips at close range with -their enemy. - -On the other hand, troops who actually had seen hard fighting rarely -failed to evince a sincere respect, and in some instances a sort of -reluctant admiration, for the courage and the steadfastness of their -adversaries. They were convinced--and that I suppose was only -natural--of the superiority of the German soldiers, man for man, over -the soldiers of any other nation; but they had been cured of the earlier -delusion that most of the stalwart heroes were to be found on the one -side and most of the weaklings and cravens on the other. - -Likewise the hot furnaces of battle had smelted much of the hate out of -their hearts. The slag was gone; what remained was the right metal of -soldierliness. I imagine this has been true in a greater or less degree -of all so-called civilised wars where brave and resolute men have fought -against brave and resolute men. Certainly I know it to have been true of -the first periods of this present war. - - - - -XI - - -But fifty or a hundred miles away on German soil, among the home-biding -populace, was a different story. It was there I found out about -_Kultur_. It was there I first began to realise that, not content with -assuming a direct and intimate partnership with Providence, civilian -Germany was taking Providence under its patronage, was remodelling its -conceptions of Deity to be purely and solely a German Deity. - -That more or less ribald jingle called "Me und Gott!" aimed at the -Kaiser and frequently repeated in this country a few years before, had, -in the face of what we now beheld, altogether lost the force of its -one-time humorous application. As we appraised the prevalent sentiment, -it had, in the sober, serious consciousness of otherwise sane men and -women, become the truth and less than the truth. - -Any Christian race, going to war in what it esteems to be a righteous -cause, prays to God to bless its campaigns with victory and to sustain -its arms with fortitude. It had remained for this Christian race to -assume that the God to whom they addressed their petitions was their own -peculiar God, and that His Kingdom on Earth was Germany and Germany -only; and that His chosen people now and forevermore would be Germans -and Germans only. - -This is not a wild statement. Trustworthy evidence in support of it -will presently be offered. - -We met some weirdly interesting persons during our enforced sojourn -there in Aix la Chapelle in September and October of that year. There -was, for example, the invalided officer who never spoke of England or -the English that he did not grind his teeth together audibly. I have -never yet been able to decide whether this was a bit of theatricalism -designed to make more forcible than the words he uttered his detestation -for the country which, most of all, had balked Germany in her designs -upon France and upon the mastery of the seas--a sort of dental -punctuation for his spoken anathemas, as it were--or whether it was an -involuntary expression of his feelings. In either event he grated his -teeth very loudly, very frequently and very effectively. - -There was the young German petty officer, also on sick leave, who told -me with great earnestness and professed to believe the truth of it that -two captured English surgeons had been summarily executed because in -their surgical kits had been found instruments especially designed for -the purpose of gouging out the eyes of wounded and helpless Germans. - -And there was the spectacled scientist-author-spy, who dropped in on two -of us one morning at the hotel where we were quartered, and who -thereafter favoured us at close intervals with many hours of his -company. It was from this person more than from any other that I -acquired what I believed to be a fairly adequate conception of the views -held then and thereafter and now by an overwhelming majority of educated -Prussians, trained in the Prussian school of thought and propaganda. - -I cannot now recall this person's name, though I knew it well at the -time; but I do recall his appearance. He was tall and slender, with red -hair; a lean, keen intellectual face; and a pair of weak, pale-blue -eyes, looking out through heavy convex glasses. He spoke English, French -and Danish with fluency. He had been a world traveller and had written -books on the subject of travel, which he showed us. He had been an -inventor of electrical devices and had written at least one book on the -subject of electric-lighting development. He had been an amateur -photographer of some note evidently, and had written rather extensively -on that subject. - -His present employment was not so easily discerned, though it was quite -plain that, like nearly every intelligent civilian in that part of -Germany, he was engaged upon some service more or less closely related -to the military and governmental activities of the empire. He wore the -brassard of the Red Cross on his arm, it is true, but apparently had -nothing really to do with hospital or ambulance work. And he had at his -disposal a military automobile, in which he made frequent and more or -less extended excursions into the occupied territory of France and -Belgium. - -After one or two visits from him we decided that, by some higher -authority, he had been assigned to the dual task of ascertaining our own -views regarding Germany's part in the conflict and of influencing our -minds if possible to accept the views he and his class held. He may -have had an even more important mission; we thought sometimes that he -perhaps was doing a little espionage work, either on his own account or -under orders, because he began to seek our company about the time we -noted a cessation of clumsy activities on the part of those two -preposterously mysterious sleuths of the German Secret Service who, -until then, had been watching us pretty closely. - -Be this as it may, he manifested a gentlemanly but persistent curiosity -regarding our observations and regarding the articles which he knew we -were writing for American consumption. And meantime he lost no -opportunity of preaching into our ears the theories and the dogmas of -his Prussianized _Kultur_. - -I remember that, on almost his first call upon us, either my companion -or myself remarked upon the united and the whole-hearted devotion the -civilian populace of the province, from the youngest to the oldest, -exhibited for the German cause. Instantly his posture changed. From the -polite interviewer he turned into the zealot who preaches a holy cause. -His lensed eyes became pallid blue sparks; and he said: - -"Surely--and why not? For forty-odd years we have been educating our -people to believe that only through war and through conquest could our -nation achieve its place in the sun--elbowroom for its industrial and -its spiritual development. Germany is a giant--the giant of the universe -and she must have breathing space; and only by the swallowing up of -smaller states can she get that breathing space. Almost at the mother's -breast we teach our babies that. Do you know, my friends, what the first -question is, in the first primer of geography, which German children -hear when they enter school? - -"No? Then I will tell you. The first question is 'What is Germany?' And -the answer is 'My Fatherland--a country entirely surrounded by Enemies!' - -"So you see, gentlemen, we start at the cradle and at the kindergarten -to teach our young people what it means to live with Russia on one side -of them and with France and Belgium and Britain on the other. They -cannot forget for one instant the task that lies before them. Their -educators--parents, teachers, pastors, military instructors, officials -of every rank and every grade--never let them forget it." - - - - -XII - - -Even more illuminating were his views with regard to the position of -Germany in Europe before the war began. He admitted that for years, by -the neighbour-peoples, Germany had been feared and distrusted. This, he -insisted, was not Germany's fault, but a fear and a distrust born of -envy and malice among deteriorated and decaying nations for a land -which, so far as Europe, at least, was concerned, was the mother of all -the virtues and all the great benevolent impulses of the century. He -denied that Germany had ever been overbearing or threatening; denied -that anything except jealousy could lie at the back of the general -suspicion directed against Prussia, not only by aliens but--before the -war began--by Bavaria and by Saxony as well. - -"Germany," he said to me one day, "has earned the right to rule this -Hemisphere; and Germany is going to rule it! When we have conquered our -enemies, as conquer them we shall--when we have implanted among them our -own German culture, our own German institutions and our own German form -of government, which surely we also shall do--they will, in succeeding -generations, be the better and the happier for it. They will come to -know, then, that the guns of our fleets and the rifles of our soldiers -brought them blessings in disguise. Out of their present sufferings and -their future humiliations will spring up the benefits of German -civilisation. - -"At first they may not want to accept our German civilisation. They will -have to accept it--at the point of the bayonet if necessary. If it is -required that these petty lesser states should be exterminated -altogether, we shall not hesitate before that task either. They are -decadents, dying now of dry rot and degeneracy; better that they should -be dead altogether than that the spread of German _Kultur_ through the -world should be checked or diverted from its course. We shall teach the -world that the individual exists for the good of the state, rather than -that the state exists for the individual." - -To the miseries that had been inflicted upon Belgium, and which he -himself had had opportunity to view at first hand, he gave no heed--this -scholarly pundit-preacher of the tenets of Prussianism. With a wave of -his hand he dismissed the question of the rights and wrongs of the -German invasion of Belgium. He wasted no sympathy upon Louvain, sacked -and pillaged and burned, or upon Dinant, razed to the ground for the -most part, and with seven hundred of its male inhabitants put to death -on one slaughter-day in punitive punishment for acts of guerrilla -warfare alleged to have been committed by civilians against Germans -coming upon them in uniform. - -Yet I do not think that, in most of the relations of life, he was a -cruel or even an unkind man. He merely saw Belgium through glasses made -in Germany. He explained his attitude substantially after this fashion, -as I now recall the sense and the phrasing of his words: - -"What difference does it make to posterity that we have had to destroy a -few hotbeds of ignorance and shoot a few thousand undisciplined, -uneducated, turbulent persons? What difference though we may have to -continue to destroy yet more Belgian towns and shoot yet more Belgian -civilians? Ultimately the results of our operations are bound to redound -to the greater glory of the Greater German Empire, which means European -civilisation. - -"My friend, do you know that nearly a quarter of the inhabitants of -Belgium are illiterates, as you would put it in English--_Unalphabets_, -as we Germans say? Well, that is true--a quarter of them can neither -read nor write. In Germany only a fractional part of one per cent of our -people are illiterate to that extent. We have taken Belgium by force of -arms and we are never going to give it up. Already it is a province of -the German Empire. - -"When our lawgivers have followed our soldiers across the expanded -frontiers of our Empire; when we have made the German language the -language of annexed Belgium; when we have introduced our incomparably -superior methods into all departments of Belgian life; when we have -taught all the Belgians to speak the German tongue, and have required of -them that they do speak it--then these Belgians, as Germans, will be -better off than ever they could have been as Belgians. Never fear; we -shall know how to handle them. - -"With Alsace and Lorraine we were too mild for their own good. With -Belgium we shall be stern; but we shall be just. It is the predestined -fate of Belgium that she should become a German possession and a German -territory. Geography and destiny both point the way for us, and we -Germans never turn from the duties intrusted to us by our God and our -Kaiser! We mean to teach these lesser peoples before we are through that -the individual exists for the good of the State, not, as some of them -profess to believe, that the State exists for the good of the -individual." - - - - -XIII - - -It never seemed to occur to him that Belgians or Frenchmen or Dutchmen -might personally prefer to keep on being Belgians or Frenchmen or -Dutchmen, and might have some rights in the matter; indeed might prefer -to die rather than live under a system intolerable to human beings -reared outside the scope of Prussian influence. So far as I might judge, -this never occurred to any of the less eloquent but equally ardent -defenders of this peculiar brand of _Kultur_ with whom I talked during -that fall in the Rhineland country. - -We must have been blind then, my companion and I--yes, and deaf too; for -we diagnosed this bigotry as evidences of an egomania, probably confined -to a few hundreds or a few thousands among the German-speaking peoples. -In the light of what has happened since we all know that the disease -affected a whole nation, and was a disease of which, as yet, the -frequent upsettings of their original programme and the absolute -certainty that the programme itself can never be carried out until -Europe and America both are graveyards have not to any very noticeable -extent served to operate as a cure. - -In those early, optimistic days these paranoiacs conceived of a world -that should sometime be altogether Prussianised. Their vision was not -bounded by the seas about their own Continent; it extended to other -Continents, our own included. That dream is over and done with. What -they have yet to learn--and they will only be taught it at the muzzle of -guns--is that a civilisation cannot endure when it is half Prussian and -half free. It is my understanding that this country, along with ten or -twelve others, is now committed to the task of enforcing this lesson -upon the consciousness of the only confederation of enemies to a -representative form of government now left upon either hemisphere. - - - - -XIV - - -A prophet is nearly always a bore. He is apt to be tiresome when -expounding his predictions, and likely to become a common nuisance -should his predictions come true. Indeed, the I-told-you-so person is -oftentimes a worse pest than the I-am-now-telling-you-so individual. I -have no desire to assume either rôle; but here lately I have not been -able to restrain my satisfaction at finding, as I believed, that two of -my own private convictions are about to be justified by the accomplished -fact. As a result of all that I saw and heard in the war zone, more than -two years and a half ago, I made up my mind to the probable consummation -of these contingencies--namely: - -FIRST: That, despite her earlier successes, despite all her preparedness -and all her efficiency and all her valour, Germany eventually would be -defeated as the Southern Confederacy was defeated--by being bled white -and starved thin. - -SECOND: That when to Germany's rulers this prospect became certain they -would with deliberate intent embroil the United States in the conflict -as an avowed and declared enemy, in order that the men who drove Germany -to the slaughter might save their faces before their own people, at the -front and at home, by saying to them in effect: "We were strong enough -to beat all Europe and all Asia; we were not strong enough to beat the -supreme Power of the New World too; we, with our allies, could not -withstand the combined forces of the whole earth." - -Though Germany is still very far, one imagines, from the point of -complete exhaustion, it is not to be denied that she is bleeding white -and starving thin. And, as all fair-minded patriotic men on this side of -the ocean agree, she did, by a persistent campaign of aggressions -against our flag, and by murdering our people on the high seas, and by -plotting against our industries and our national integrity, finally -force us into the war. - -Having been forced into the war, as we are, it is well that our people -should know to the fullest possible degree not only what they are -fighting for--the preservation of democracy in the world, for one -thing--but that likewise they should know and in that knowledge -recognise the danger to us, of the mental forces operating behind the -military arm of our national enemy. - -I think they should know that in the minds of these self-idolaters, who -have laid claim to Creator and to creation as their own ordained -possessions, we shall stand in no different light than the Belgians -stand, or the Serbians, or the Poles, or the people of Northern France. -Upon us, if the chance is vouchsafed them, they would visit a heaping -measure of the same wrath they poured on those invaded and broken -nations of Europe, showing to Americans no more mercy than they showed -to them. - -I deem it my duty, therefore, to write what already I have written in -this little book, and, before closing it, to append certain quotations, -as particularly illuminating evidences of the besetting mania that has -been fastened upon the brains of an otherwise rational race of our -fellow beings through two generations of crafty implanting and fostering -by greater maniacs, wearing crowns and shoulder straps, and--yes, the -livery of Our Lord and Master. - -For the quotations from the poetic utterances of the Reverend Doctor -Vorwerk, which appeared in preceding paragraphs of this article, the -writer is indebted to a documentation compiled from authentic German -sources by a Dane, the Reverend J. P. Bang, D. D., professor of theology -at the University of Copenhagen, a famous Lutheran institution, under -the title of _Hurrah and Hallelujah_--which, incidentally, was a title -borrowed from the published poetic works of this same Doctor Vorwerk. -Doctor Bang's symposium has lately been published in English by the -American publisher, Doran, with an introduction by "Ralph Connor," the -Canadian novelist, otherwise Major Charles W. Gordon, of the Canadian -Overseas Forces. - - - - -XV - - -Had Doctor Bang set forth as his own views, as a neutral, the amazing -utterances which make up the bulk of his compilation, no one here or -abroad would have believed that he described a true condition. But he -was smarter than that. He was mainly content to repeat literal -translations of indubitable prayers, poems, sermons, addresses--written -and spoken statements of contemporary German clergymen, German -professors and German statesmen. - -In further support of the point which I have been striving to make I -mean to take the liberty here of adding a few more extracts from the -first American edition of _Hurrah and Hallelujah_, in each instance -giving credit to the original German author of the same. - -For instance, the Reverend Doctor Vorwerk, who appears to specialise in -prayers, begins one invocation with this sentence, which is especially -interesting in that the good pastor couples the Cherubim, the Seraphim, -and--guess what?--the Zeppelins in the same breath: - - "Thou Who dwellest high above Cherubim, Seraphim and Zeppelins; - Thou Who art enthroned as a God of Thunder in the midst of - lightning from the clouds, and lightning from sword and cannon, - send thunder, lightning, hail and tempest hurtling upon our enemy; - bestow upon us his banners; hurl him down into the dark burial - pits!" - -Another poet, Franz Philippi by name, in a widely circulated work called -_World-Germany_, delivers himself in part as follows: - - "Formerly German thought was shut up in her corner; but now the - world shall have its coat cut according to German measure and, as - far as our swords flash and German blood flows, the circle of the - earth shall come under the tutelage of German activity." - -Herr J. Suze, a prose writer, says with the emphasis of profound -conviction: - - "The Germans are first before the Throne of God--Thou couldst not - place the golden crown of victory in purer hands." - -On November 13, 1914, according to Doctor Bang, a German theological -professor preached an address which the _Berliner Lokal Anzeiger_ -reproduced, with favourable editorial comment. Here is a typical -paragraph from this sermon: - - "The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is 'the - German God.' Not the national God such as the lower nations - worship, but 'Our God,' Who is not ashamed of belonging to us, the - peculiar acquirement of our heart." - -The Reverend H. Francke is a pastor in the city of Liegnitz. From his -pulpit he delivered a series of so-called war sermons, which afterward, -at the request of the members of his flock, were printed in a book, the -cover of which was ornamented with the Iron Cross. And we find the -Reverend Francke adding his voice to the chorus thus: - - "Germany is precisely--who would venture to deny it?--the - representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of - the most chastened Christianity." - -The Reverend Walter Lehmann, pastor at the town of Hamberge, in -Holstein, went a trifle further. When he got out his book of war sermons -he published it under the title _About the German God_; and therein, -among other things, he said: - - "This means that we go forth to war as Christians, precisely as - Christians, as we Germans understand Christianity; it means that we - have God on our side.... Can the Russians, the French, the - Serbians, the English, say this? No; not one of them. Only we - Germans can say it.... If God is for us who can be against us? It - is enough for us to be a part of God.... A - nation"--Germany--"which is God's seed corn for the future.... - Germany is the centre of God's plans for the world.... That - glorious feat of arms forty-four years ago"--the Battle of - Sedan--"gives us courage to believe that the German soul is the - world's soul; that God and Germany belong to one another." - -These are the concluding words of the Reverend Lehmann's book _About the -German God_: - - "Oh, that the German God may permeate the world! Oh, that the - eternal victory may blossom before the God of the German soul!" - -It will not do to slight the Herr Pastor Job Rump, lic., Doctor, of -Berlin. Hearken a moment to a word or two from one of Doctor Rump's -published pamphlets: - - "A corrupt world, fettered in monstrous sin, shall, by the will of - God, be healed by the German nature.... Ye"--the Germans--"are the - chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the - peculiar people." - -A learned and no doubt a pious professor, Herr G. Roethe, is credited -with this modest claim: - - "While other nations are born, ripen and grow old, the Germans - alone possess the gift of rejuvenescence." - -And so on and so forth, for two hundred and thirty-four pages of _Hurrah -and Hallelujah_. The run of the contents is quite up to sample. None of -us can object to these reverend gentlemen seeking to walk with God; what -we do object to is their undertaking to lead Him. - - - - -XVI - - -So far as I can tell, Doctor Bang has not overlooked a single bet. He -makes out a complete case; and, what is more, in so doing he relies -not upon his own conclusions, but upon the avowed utterances of -distinguished German savants, clergymen and versifiers. - -These, then, are the spoken thoughts of civilian leaders of our enemy. -If the leaders believe these things their followers must also believe -them; must believe, with the Reverend Lehmann and the Reverend Vorwerk, -that God is a German God, and should properly be so addressed by a -worshipper upon his knees, since one prayer begins "O German God!"; must -believe, with Von Bernhardi--who spoke of "the miserable life of all -small states"--that "to allow to the weak the same right of existence as -to the strong, vigorous nation means presumptuous encroachment upon the -natural laws of development"; and with Treitschke, that "the small -nations have no right to existence and ought to be swallowed up"; and -with Lasson, that "It is moral, inasmuch as it is reasonable, that the -small states, in spite of treaties, should become the prey of the -strongest"; and must believe that to Prussia was appointed the task of -curing the whole world, America included, of what--according to the -Prussian ideal--ails it. - -It is the nation which believes these things, and which has striven in -this war to practice what its teachers preached, that we now are called -upon to fight. If we remember this as we go along it will help us to -understand some of the things the enemy will seek to do unto us; and -should help him to understand some of the things we mean to do unto him. - -Indeed, there is hope of his being able some day to understand that we -entered this war not against a people or a nation so much as we entered -it against an idea, a disease, a form of paranoia, a form of rabies, a -form of mania which has turned men into blasphemous and murderous mad -dogs, running amuck and slavering in the highways of the world. - -What would any intelligent American do if a mad dog entered the street -where he lived, even though that dog, before it went mad, had been a -kind and docile creature? And what is he going to do in the existing -situation? - -The same answer does for both questions. Because there is only one -answer. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Speaking of Prussians, by Irvin S. 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