A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR FOR AMERICANS A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR FOR AMERICANS WRITTEN AND COMPILED ^= BY = AN AMERICAN Being the Fourth Edition of "A PRIMER OF THE WAR FOR AMERICANS" REVISED AND ENLARGED J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D., PH.D., LL.D. Fellow of the American College of Surgeons Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania PHILADELPHIA THE JOHN C WINSTON COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1915, by THE JOHN C. WINSTON Co. yf, To THE AMERICAN PBESS Which, as a whole, from the very first days of the war has with courage, fidelity and intelligence resolutely upheld the principles of right, of justice and of democracy and has accurately expressed the sympathy of the vast majority of Americana for the cause of the Allies. r> r PEEFACE Very soon after the beginning of the war its literature was already so voluminous, the statements made by the warring nations were so contradictory, the accusations and counter-accusations were so numerous, the pleas of impas- sioned advocates were so irreconcilable, that a certain be- wilderment and confusion on the part of Americans was almost inevitable. It is greatly to the credit of the intelligence and clear thinking of the nation that, from the day England's "White Book" was laid before the world, this country as a whole with the exception of those Germans living here, who are known as "German-Americans" ranged itself spontane- ously and with practical unanimity on the side of the Allies. But however correct this position was and I believe it was absolutely correct it soon became apparent that not everyone who occupied it could give cogent and convincing reasons for the belief that was in him, or could refute; clearly and logically the opposing arguments and correct the misstatements on which they were often based. As I found this to be my own case I began to set aside, or to note down, as if I were preparing for a lecture, the questions which seemed to me of fundamental importance and the answers that most impressed and satisfied me. Later, for the attempted benefit of my family and of a few friends, and for the further clarification of my own views, I threw these memoranda into the form of a series of questions and answers. In doing this I had then no definite idea of any other use of this material and in now acceding to the suggestion of some friends that the matter thus (vii) viii PREFACE brought together be given wider distribution I should very much like it to be understood that I do not feel that I have any special fitness for the self-imposed task. If I lay the result before readers if I have any outside the small circle for whom it was originally intended, it is only to try to do just for this moment the little that lies in me to help a cause in which I profoundly believe. If the paper has any value it will not be from what I have written, but from the collocation of the opinions of others, each of whom is a recognized authority as to the subject he deals with. Wherever my answers have involved questions of fact I have taken pains to attain accuracy. When they have related to matters of opinion I have endeavored to give the basis for such opinions. I adopted the Socratic method in the beginning because for me, without special training, it was the easiest. I have retained it for the same reason. I beg to add finally that any proceeds that may accrue from the sale of this pamphlet are pledged in advance to the Belgian Belief Fund. J. William White. 1810 8. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. November, 1914. FEEFACE TO THE "TEXT-BOOK" The unexpected attention paid to my compilation and the rapid exhaustion of three editions has led me to add some chapters based on subsequent occurrences and on later writings, and to re-issue the so-called "Primer" in this new and amplified form. I have, however, tried to adhere to my original intent, which was that the book should derive any value it might have, rather from the collation and arrangement, in readable and logical form, of the writings of others, (chiefly of Americans), than from the expression of my own views. This does not mean that I have not confidence in my views or that they are not fixed and decided, but merely that I recognize that there are very many others better qualified to speak authoritatively, and that when their opinions -and mine coincide I am more effectively serving the cause I desire to help, by free quotation than by orig- inal pronouncement. Many of the questions dealt with change from day to day in the form of their presentment to the public, but as to most of them there are underlying principles which can as well be maintained or opposed with reference to one set of facts as to another, just as specific test cases are sub- mitted to a court, so that the decision may thenceforth apply to all similar cases. The effort to keep pace with the rapid march of current events, has precluded careful atten- tion to literary form. Some of the matter dealt with is of necessarily ephemeral character. The desire to present important questions, or questions involving broad prin- ciples, from different aspects, and as approached from dif- (ix) x PREFACE TO THE TEXT-BOOK ferent sides or expressed in different language, has led to some repetition. In spite of this, I venture to hope that as a compilation the book fairly and fully represents intelligent American opinion at this juncture, and that, for a time at least, it may have some value as a work of reference when, among Americans, the questions I have asked and tried to answer come up for discussion. With this idea in mind, I have added an "Index of Names," giving, when it is not given in the text itself, a brief identification of each person men- tioned, so far as it was possible to do so. I have been compelled to omit a few of the German apologists because I could find nothing about them in any "Who's Who/' or in any biographical dictionary, although I included in my search a "Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction/' In this edition are incorporated, in addition to much new matter, portions of a paper written in collaboration with Miss Agnes Repplier ; and a brief address delivered by me before The Contemporary Club of Philadelphia. J. W. W. March, 1915. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. What evidence exists as to the real reason, the funda- mental cause of this war ? 17 CHAPTER II. What is the evidence as to the events immediately leading up to the war in their relation to the culpability of Germany ? 60 CHAPTER III. What has been the attitude of the German Apologists in relation to Belgium since the violation of neutrality ? 75 CHAPTER IV. As time went on has there been reason to modify or to mitigate the almost universal condemna- tion of Germany's treatment of Belgium felt and expressed at the outset in this country ? 99 CHAPTER V. In what estimation does America to-day hold Belgium? 130 CHAPTER VI. Is there any evidence which tends to show why the present time was selected by Germany to Pre- cipitate the war ? 135 (xi) xii CONTENTS CHAPTER VII. PAGE What are the principles represented by the opposing forces in this war ? 138 CHAPTER VIII. In addition to the evidence already presented as to the mental attitude of the average German toward his own race and toward other European races, are there any facts tending to show his real atti- tude toward America ? 156 CHAPTER IX. What is the attitude of German-Americans toward this war and toward the principles involved ? 171 CHAPTER X. What is the extent and what are the aims of the organ- ized German propaganda in America? 190 CHAPTER XI. How much reliance is to be placed upon statements emanating from Germany at this time? 250 CHAPTER XII. What is the truth as to the pre-eminence of German "Kultur" of German civilization, of German achievement in letters, arts and sciences? 313 CHAPTER XIII. What of Russia in this war, and of the "Slav Peril" ? . . 333 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER XIV. pAQE .What are the duties of America at this time? 337 CHAPTEE XV. What are the interests of America at this time?. . . . 350 CHAPTER XVI. What is the effect of the official attitude past and present of this country on (a) Americans, (6) Other peoples ? 364 CHAPTEE XVII. From the confusing and contradictory reports from the fields of war and from other information to be gleaned elsewhere are there any indications that justify an opinion as to the final outcome of the struggle ? ....... 448 CHAPTEE XVIII. What can America do to bring about peace ? 481 CHAPTEE XIX. What, in the light of this war, should be the aim of this and other civilized countries for the future? 495 CHAPTEE XX. What general opinions are justified by the foregoing evidence ? Summary 499 Eeferences 507 Bibliography 515 Index of Names 517 General Index 539 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Facsimile of a page from the Diary of Private Paul Glode '. 120 Facsimile of a Page of "Boiler-Plate" Matrix Sent to American Newspapers by the German Informa- tion Service , 194 CHAPTEE I. What Evidence Exists as to the Real Reason, the Fundamental Cause of This War? a. The most conclusive evidence is to be found in the writings and teachings of prominent and representative Germans during the past forty-three years, i. e., ever since the victory of Germany over France. These writings and teachings demonstrate the deter- mination of Germany to attain "World Power." This determination was the fundamental cause of the war. The writings in question are fairly illustrated by excerpts given below, (p. 30) It should be premised that as soon as these doctrines became widely known to the world outside of Ger- many and exerted their inevitable influence upon public opinion, apologists and repudiators sprang up among the Germans, or the "German-Americans." For example, to take only a few of the latter : Herr Bidder, of the Staats Zeitung, says (1) in reference to certain English writers: "I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that their readings have been confined to Bernhardi and Treitschke, those two German writers who were never part of German intellec- tual life and were both disowned by the German people. "As a matter of fact, Bernhardi is not even read in Germany. Of his works, published by Cotta, only 8,000 copies have been given to the public to date. "The writings of Treitschke, as a historian, are regarded by Germans as brilliant, but Treitschke is remembered by them as a man of intense party feeling who labored under the -spirit of 1870, and was incapable of true sympathy with their racial aspirations." 2 (17) 18 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR All the evidence I have been able to find shows the essential falsity of these statements. Another German-American calls Bernhardi "a retired German general of jingoistic tendencies," and asks for "proof that his book had the approval of the Kaiser. It would seem sufficient reply to him to ask for proof jthat it had his disapproval. In the absence of such proof it is fair to assume, in view of the Kaiser's incessant activities and restless supervision of all things German, and especially of all things military, that at least the book did not greatly displease him. Still another, Professor Jastrow, also repudiates Bernhardi as an exponent of Ger- man thought, but gives no more convincing reasons. The following quotation from a letter of Dr. Jastrow (2) well illustrates the tactics I am considering. After asserting that at first "we" (he professes to be speaking for Americans) threw the sole responsibility of the war upon the Kaiser, he continues : "When doubt arose as to the accuracy of this picture of a modern combination of Machiavelli and Napoleon, we discovered Bernhardi, and found that his influence, or that of the whole party which he represents, was behind it all. Bernhardi fre- quently quoted a man by the name of Treitschke, and, although very few in this country had ever heard of him and scarcely anybody had read him (for his works had not been translated into English), we were willing to take him on faith, and were quite satisfied that his teachings involved the conquest of all of Western Europe and of England for the purpose of spread- ing German 'culture' ; and to this programme we added, of our own accord, the subsequent conquest of the United States." He must, like Miinsterberg (page 182), be writing to impress a peculiarly infantile type of American mind. The effort to belittle, for this purpose, the great Pan- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 19 German historian, by speaking of him as "a man named Treitschke," is particularly characteristic. But his whole argument to the effect that because we "have just discovered" these people, therefore we are wrong in believing that they represent Germany, is scarcely worthy of notice. What does it matter that Americans generally were not familiar with their writings until this shocking war was begun? Of what importance is it that we were in ignorance of their grandiose plans and sinister purposes? What bearing on the real question has the fact that Treitschke had not been translated into English when we first began to take an interest in him ? None whatever. It is not worth while to try to drag that herring across the trail. The question remains : What were their teachings and what reason is there to believe that they greatly influenced German public opinion? As to Dr. Jastrow's final sentence that "we added of our own accord the subsequent conquest of the United States," I beg to refer the reader with at present merely incidental mention of the offensive "we" and "our" to pages 354-56. We are asked to believe that a former member of the German army staff, who, so far as we know, has never been reproved or censured or contradicted by the Kaiser, or by any other member of that staff, who wrote as an expert in both German statesmanship and German strategy, and whose book, published three years ago, forecast with entire accuracy the actions and movements of Germany in the present war, was "disowned by the German people" and did not represent the military caste to which he belonged. It is not possible to believe this or to think that he was 20 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR not in full touch with the scarcely concealed purposes of the "Weltmacht oder Medergang" party. His book was an amazingly frank exposition of those purposes and an ex- travagant and unqualified eulogy of militarism. Dr. Dernburg, with the same obvious object of belittling Bernhardi, speaks repeatedly of two editions only of Bern- hardr's "Germany and the ISText War." The German book lists give six editions within eighteen months. In the opinion of Moltke himself, Bernhardr's father was the "Erste Kenner der Kriegswissenschaft in Deutschland." Sir John French wrote an introduction to the English translation of Bernhardr's work on Cavalry. (3) Before the war Bernhardr's uncontradicted statements were generally accepted as embodying the views of the aristocratic caste, and in the present campaign both the German armies and the German diplomats have, even down to relatively unimportant details, followed with curious exactness his prophetic tactics. As to Treitschke, whom many of the German-American commentators similarly repudiate, he was unquestionably one of their great national historians. Viscount Bryce calls him "the famous Professor of History." His lectures at Berlin were listened to for years by crowded and enthu- siastic audiences, his teachings as to Politik became a gos- pel. Mr. Norman Hapgood (4) says of him : "He, most of all, made intellectual Germany drunk with the idea of her so-called destiny. He taught her that all history led up to the leadership of the Teuton. . . . Germans quote him as no historian is quoted by the English or the French. In interpreting history he is their Bible. Their political thinkers never tire of him." A similar estimate of him is expressed by another writer : A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 21 "Professor von Treitschke's r61e in all this education for war of the German peoples has been that of the man who has pros- tituted history in the interests of armament firms. One of his arguments is that political idealism is dependent on war, and that it is war alone that makes men realize that they belong to a definite political institution, to wit, the German nation; and since the nation really lives on account of its heroes, war is the 'terrible medicine' which prevents heroism disappearing from the ranks of humanity. In his view there can be no hero- ism in peace. It was Professor von Treitschke who really began, even before 1870, the educational campaign of the intel- lectual class, and he has been its most fanatic, as well as its most popular, exponent." (5) Their denial of Treitschke's influence in Germany assumes, as do most of their assertions, a comfortable ignorance on the reader's part. They would have us be- lieve that this great historian, whose seventeen volumes moulded German thought and fired German deeds, was an ordinary professor, listened to with pleasure because of his agreeable oratory, but without any semblance of authority. Treitschke was no orator, no dealer in words. He was not in an American college, talking to boys and girls. High officials, diplomats, distinguished soldiers thronged to hear him ; and on these audiences he impressed his life-long hatred of England, and his vision of Germany, Germany dominated always by his beloved Prussia, as the world power of the future. "I write for Germans, not for for- eigners," he was wont to say; and it would certainly astound any educated German to hear Doctor Dernburg assert (in order to convince Americans of the lamblike qualities of his countrymen) that Treitschke, great and successful upholder of militarism, whose counsels have borne fruit a thousandfold, was merely a pleasant speaker, 22 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "whose conferences were mainly attended on account of his refined rhetoric." Powys in his review (6) of Mimsterberg's book has dealt with this same attempt either to belittle or to ignore these writers. Miinsterberg (7) has adopted the latter plan. "The professor's argument is a disingenuous one. It is disin- genuous in his complete omission a surely very significant omission of any reference to Treitschke or to Bernhardi. I am quite prepared to agree that the military clique in Germany is not alone responsible for this war. No mere clique, no mere war party, could ever succeed in rousing the spirit of a nation as the German nation has been aroused. But this matter of great popular German writers is quite another thing. I am afraid it is only too obvious why Professor Miinsterberg makes no mention of them ! After reading them, it is not very easy to maintain our belief in the purely pacific intentions of a Ger- many untouched by world-ambitions! " 'Germany's pacific and industrious population had only one wish: to develop its agricultural and industrial, its cultural and moral resources. It had no desire to expand its frontiers over a new square foot of land in Europe. The neighbors be- grudged this prosperity of the Fatherland which had been weak and poor and through centuries satisfied with songs and thoughts and dreams. They threatened and threatened by ever- increasing armaments.' So writes Professor Miinsterberg; but unfortunately it has not been Professor Miinsterberg, but much more daring and adventurous geniuses who have been the mouthpieces of the working of fate in the matter of German public opinion. The great Treitschke, a really national histo- rian, and one of enormous genius and power a man in every respect much more remarkable than Miinsterberg's Euckens and Harnacks devoted his whole life to inspiring the German peo- ple with his ideal of offensive war, for the sake of world- domination. "Bernhardi, whose book has done so much to popularize these views, quotes Treitschke on every page." Doctor Dernburg defending the militarism of Bern- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 23 hardi and Treitschke says that it was created as "a dire necessity for the defense of our four frontiers." On the other hand, Gerhart Hauptmann, the most original of contemporary German writers, represents Germany as struggling to burst the "iron band" forged by jealous enemies around her breast, which is an ornate way of saying that she seeks to extend her frontiers, to find a larger "place in the sun." Does that mean "defense?" If not, who speaks for Germany, Hauptmann or Dernburg? They cannot both be right, even though the now despised Bernhardi does say that "The whole realm of human, knowl- edge is concentrated in the German brain." The plain fact is that the longer the war lasts, and the more we read of the blundering diplomacy which preceded it, the perfidy with which it was inaugurated, the lame excuses, the contradictory denials, the insolent approvals of that blistering shame, and the preposterous "appeals" which, in terms of alternate flattery and bullying, have been addressed to the United States, the less we revere that mighty German brain, which, if full of knowledge, is corre- spondingly empty of wisdom- Knowledge is proud that it has learned so much, Wisdom is humble that it knows no more. Dr. Dernburg has recently been more explicit as to Germany's purposes. In an article with the highly imagi- native title of "When Germany Wins" (8), he has formu- lated Germany's peace terms, because "it might be of some interest to Americans to know what Germany would do" under the hypothetical condition indicated in his title. The article, being written for Americans (not for Germans or German- Americans), endeavors to maintain a studied moderation. The old phrase is once 24 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR more employed: "The only thing Germany stands com- mitted to is to hold and maintain its 'place in the sun/ " But the contemplation of the delectable feast that, " When Germany Wins/' will be spread before the conqueror,, brings on an involuntary watering of the mouth that causes a wolf's slaver to betray the temporary occupant of the lamb's clothing. fe As a general rule I would not consider it wise for my country to attempt any territorial aggrandizement in Europe/' "Any rearrangement of the European map that would not follow national lines pretty definitely would be only a source of constant friction hereafter." The italics are mine. The world knows now what to think of German promises,* even when definite, official and solemn. It there- fore also knows how wide a gate is left open by expressions such as "pretty definitely" and "as a general rule." More- over, he is '"speaking only as a private person and cannot voice in any way official sentiment," though he "feels sure" that he is "at one with the best German element." I have elsewhere (pp. 92, 300 et seq.) called attention to the num- ber of myths and of non-existent conditions he and his fel- lows have "felt sure" of. But with all these preliminaries it develops that Dr. Dernburg's ideas of the immediate demands of a victorious Germany are as follows : "I. Germany will not consider it wise to take any European territory, but will make minor corrections of frontiers for mili- tary purposes by occupying such frontier territory as has proven a weak spot in the German armor. "II. Belgium belongs geographically to the German Empire. She commands the mouth of the biggest German stream; Ant- werp is essentially a German port. That Antwerp should not belong to Germany is as much an anomaly as if New Orleans and the Mississippi delta had been excluded from Louisiana, or as if New York had remained English after the War of Inde- pendence. Moreover, Belgium's present plight was her own 'A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 25 fault. She had become the vassal of England and France. Therefore, while 'probably' no attempt would be made to place Belgium within the German Empire alongside Bavaria, Wur- temberg, and Saxony, because of her non-German population, she will be incorporated in the German Customs Union after the Luxemburg pattern. "III. Belgium neutrality having been proved an impossibility, must be abolished. Therefore, the harbors of Belgium must be secured for all time against British or French invasion. "IV. Great Britain having bottled up the North a mare liberuwi must be established. England's theory that the sea is her boundary, and all the sea her territory down to the three- mile limit of other Powers, cannot be tolerated. Consequently, the Channel coasts of England, Holland, Belgium and France must be neutralized, even in times of war, and the American and German doctrine that private property on the high seas should enjoy the same freedom of seizure as private property does on land must be guaranteed by all nations. This condition Herr Dernburg accompanies by an appeal to the United States duly to note that Britain is making commercial war upon Germany. "V. All cables must be neutralized. "VI. All Germany's colonies are to be returned. Germany, in view of her growing population, must get extra territory capable of population by whites. The Monroe Doctrine bars her from America; therefore she must take Morocco, 'if it is really fit for the purpose.' "VII. A free hand must be given to Germany in the develop- ment of her commercial and industrial relations with Turkey, 'without outside interference.' This would mean a recognized sphere of German influence from the Persian Gulf to the Dar- danelles. "VIII. There must be no further development of Japanese influence in Manchuria. "IX. All small nations, such as Finland, Poland, and the Boers in South Africa, if they support Germany, must have the right to frame their own destinies, while Egypt is to be re- turned, if she desires it, to Turkey. "These conditions, Herr Dernberg concludes, would 'fulfill the peaceful aims which Germany has had for the last forty- four years.' They show, in his opinion, that Germany has no wish for world dominion or for any predominance in Europe 26 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR incommensurate with the rights of the 122 millions of Germans and Austrians." As to the Baltic Provinces of Kussia, he says: "Whether these could be added to the German Empire would hinge on the question whether they could be defended." (9) To reiterate, if this statement, cautiously prepared to demonstrate to a neutral power the extreme moderation of Germany's intentions (and at a time when the end is not within sight), is to be given any weight, let Americans imagine for themselves the probable demands of a really victorious Germany. (See pp. 24, 27, 28.) Lest it may still be thought that these are exceptional views, or that they represent only the opinion of a diplomat, I append those of a scientist (Ernst Hseckel). Mr. Villard, (10) before quoting Hseckel, calls attention to the great need for an American Society for the Promulgation of Truth in Germany. He cites various directions in which it could be of use, beginning with the Kaiser's telegram to the King of England on August 1, 1914 (p. 73), "The troops on my frontier are in the act of being stopped by telegraph and telephone from crossing into France." He believes this could not have been publicly known or understood in Germany. He instances the official German despatch which reported the British army as sur- rounded; the ultimata sent to Paris and Petrograd at the most critical of all possible critical moments; the long article in the VossiscJie Zeitung, by Dr. Ludwig Stein, on "The Change of Opinion in America" (in which is claimed a complete reversal of our judgment on the war) ; and the recent speech of Major-General von Eoehl, commanding in Hamburg, who, "speaking under the statue of Kaiser Wil- helm I, said, exactly in the spirit of the great Kaiser's grandson, Wilhelm II, 'We shall not again sheathe our A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 27 sharp and just sword until the last of our enemies recog- nizes that only one people has the right to play a leading part in the political world, and that people is the German people/" He contrasts this with the systematic belittle- ment for Americans of Bernhardr's book and views. He continues : "Our American society for informing Germany could have no more pressing duty than to make German editors understand that Professor Haeckel injures not merely his own high and international repute, but that of all Germany as well, when he calmly sets down this programme as his view of what steps Germany should take to 'reorganize Europe on Teutonic lines' when victory is hers: " '1. The crushing of the English tyranny. "'2. The invasion of Great Britain and the occupation of London. " '3. The division of Belgium ; the largest portion, from Os- tend to Antwerp in the west, to be a confederated German state; the northern part to be given to Holland; the south- eastern part to be given to Luxemburg, which, thus enlarged, becomes also a confederated German State. "'4. A large number of the British colonies and the Congo Free State to go to Germany. " '5. France to surrender to Germany some of her northeast- ern frontier provinces. " '6. Russia to be rendered impotent by the reconstitution, under Austrian auspices, of the kingdom of Poland. " 7. The German provinces of the Baltic to be returned to the German Empire. " '8. Finland, united with Sweden, to become an independent kingdom.' " A Philadelphia paper (11) summarizes, as follows, a pamphlet published in March, entitled the "World War arid Its End," by Eudolf Martin, former German Minister of the Interior. The writer pictures the dismemberment 28 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR of Eussia and France, the absorption of the Balkan States and the domination of England by Germany. "The huge indemnity which the author believes will be demanded by Germany when she dictates peace terms in Lon- don, after two years' fighting, is estimated on the basis of war costs of 30 milliards of marks to be sustained by Germany, Austria and Turkey, in the proportion of 16, 10 and 4, respec- tively. "As Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War made the French pay two-and-one-half times what it cost to conduct the conflict, so, the writer believes, Germany will make the Allies pay similarly at the end of the present war. In addition 75 milliards will be demanded for the support of dependents of those killed. "The writer sees Germany firmly established along the present French coast, in a position to control both London and Paris, and possessed of an air fleet of many thousands of machines and 20,000 air-men. He sees England forced to consent to the construction of a tunnel under the English Channel, equipped with four railway tracks and an automobile roadway, at both ends of which the German forces are in control. "Russia he pictures as completely dismembered, its territory divided up among neighboring powers, its coffers depleted to the point of bankruptcy, its menace to the German Empire forever gone. In the process of dismemberment he predicts the organization of new States. "Sweden, the author believes, will receive Finland; Germany, the Baltic Provinces and Poland; Austria will take the entire south of Russia, including Kiev and Odessa ; Turkey will receive the entire Caucasus, including the government of Saratow ; Rus- sia will have to retire both from the Baltic, the Black and the Caspian Seas. "Serbia is to go to Austria-Hungary; Egypt to Turkey; a part of Arabia to Rumania, provided the latter allies itself sincerely with Germany, Austria and Turkey; and every other State which similarly joins this group will be properly rewarded. "Not only does Alsace-Lorraine remain German, but Belfort is to join it once more as a German possession. Belgium not A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 29 only becomes German, along with the Congo, but is to pay an indemnity of 6*4 milliards of francs within a few years of the close of the war. "Regarding the disposition of the colonial possessions of the Allies the writer goes into little detail, beyond stipulating that England and France must lose Egypt, India, Algiers, Tunis and Morocco as a penalty for inducing their inhabitants to bear arms against Germany. "The Suez Canal the writer sees permanently in the hands of 'our ally, Turkey.' After the conclusion of peace, he hopes, English ships, instead of longer paying tolls into the pocket of the English-owned Suez Canal Company, will have to pay them to 'our ally, Turkey.' "The heavy indemnities proposed, the writer frankly says, are for the purpose of so weakening Germany's enemies that it will be years before they can even contemplate war against her again. They are supplemented by taxation and a military system from the present Belgium to the new Russian border that will strengthen Germany indefinitely. "Though Germany's territory will be greatly increased in Europe, it must be laid down as a basic principle, in the writer's opinion, that the electorate eligible to choose the membership of the controlling Reichstag must be confined to the old bound- aries. "Newly acquired Russian Poland, with its own legislature in Warsaw, may perhaps become an adjunct kingdom, with Prince August William, of Russia, as ruler. The Belgians, he believes, may also form a kingdom and govern themselves. The acquired Baltic provinces, as well as the territory taken from France, can, he thinks, without harm have their own parlia- ments, and live under the direction of an imperial governor general." It would seem that doctrines and ambitions indistin- guishable from those of the now outlawed and repudiated Bernhardi and Treitschke are taught and promulgated by their successors. I have failed to find in the writings of the (German apologists any evidence of ante-bellum repudiation of these 30 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR latter writers, and in the absence of such evidence, and in the light of the collateral proof furnished by the writings of others (quoted below), by the writings even of those who now seek to discredit and to belittle them, and by the circumstances attending the outbreak and conduct of the war, they must be considered as representing the views of at least that part of the German people who were intelli- gent enough to understand them. The quotations follow. I have used some of those employed by Viscount Bryce in a recent article (12), and have added to them from a list of my own almost as striking and conclusive: "War is in itself a good thing. It is a biological necessity of the first importance." "The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessing of war as an indispensable and stimulating law of development must be re- peatedly emphasized." "War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and power. Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimental as soon as they can influence politics." "Efforts directed toward the abolition of war are not only foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must be stigmatized as un- worthy of the human race." "Courts of arbitration are pernicious delusions. The whole idea represents a presumptuous encroachment on natural laws of development, which can only lead to more disastrous conse- quences for humanity generally." "The maintenance of peace never can be or may be the goal of a policy." "Efforts for peace would, if they attained their goal, lead to general degeneration, as happens everywhere in nature where the struggle for existence is eliminated." "Huge armaments are in themselves desirable. They are the most necessary precondition of our national health." "The end all and be all of a State is power, and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face should not meddle with politics." (Quoted from Treitschke's "Politik.") "The State's highest moral duty is to increase its power." A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 31 "The State is justified in making conquests whenever its own advantage seems to require additional territory." "Self-preservation is the State's highest ideal and justifies whatever action it may take if that action be conducive to that end. The State is the sole judge of the morality of its action. It is, in fact, above morality, or, in other words, whatever is necessary is moral. Recognized rights (i. e., treaty rights) are never absolute rights; they are of human origin and, therefore, imperfect and variable. There are conditions in which they do not correspond to the actual truth of things. In this case in- fringement of the right appears morally justified." "In fact, the State is a law unto itself. Weak nations have not the same right to live as powerful and vigorous nations." "Any nation in favor of collective humanity outside the limits of the State and nationality is impossible." "War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regu- lative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow, which excludes every advancement of the race, and, therefore, all real civilization." "Just as increase of population forms, under certain circum- stances, a convincing argument for war, so industrial condi- tions may compel the same result." "Frederick the Great recognized the ennobling effect of war. 'War,' he said, 'opens the most fruitful field to all virtues, for at every moment constancy, pity, magnanimity, heroism and mercy shine forth in it; every moment offers an opportunity to exercise one of these virtues.'" "We can, fortunately, assert the impossibility of efforts after peace ever attaining their ultimate object in a world bristling with arms, where a healthy egotism still directs the policy of most countries. 'God will see to it,' says Treitschke, 'that war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race.' " "We ought to know that there is no such thing as eternal peace; we ought to have always in our minds that saying of Moltke's 'perpetual peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream. But war is a link in the divine system of the uni- verse.'" (13) "The German nation has been called the nation of poets and thinkers, and it may be proud of the name. To-day it may 32 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR again be called the nation of masterful combatants, as which it originally appeared in history." (14) These quotations could be largely added to, but as their authors are generals, philosophers,, theologians., and princes, they seem representative enough to show the spirit that, whatever may have been its numerical or geographical extent, actuated and inspired that portion of the German people who had the power last midsummer to commit the entire nation to a gigantic war, with "Deutschland liber Alles" and "Weltmacht oder Medergang" as its battle cries. Every student of Nature recognizes and deplores the cruelty inseparable from the struggle for existence under- lying the great biological law of the survival of the fittest. But it has remained for these spokesmen of Germany to apply it to civilized nations, without essential change or modification, eliminating all considerations of morality, of altruism, of kindliness to the weak or helpless, of every- thing, in fact, which serves to distinguish us from our fellow animals. There is little enough at the best, but Bernhardi's "biological necessity" of war, like the "neces- sity" to overrun Belgium of the German Chancellor, is simply a barefaced return to the ethics of the tiger or, in its coldbloodedness, of the crocodile. It was amusing, though irritating, to find an American (Professor Jastrow), (15) in face of the above evidence and much more that is similar, crying to the American people: "Let us be fair and recognize that the spirit of militarism is strong in all of the warring nations." and then going on, with the tendency that most of our "German-American" disputants have clumsily shown, to A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 33 belittle while attempting to conciliate the country of their adoption, to say: "Even we are not entirely free of it, for does not Theodore Roosevelt voice a widely prevailingTaentiment when he advocates warfare as essential to the full strength of the nation ?" The answer to which is, of course, that Colonel Roosevelt never "voiced" or otherwise favored any such sentiment, and that no sensible person ever believed it to be widely prevalent in this country (p. 240). The distinction between the advocacy of sufficient arma- ments to ensure respectful treatment from military or naval bullies and the advocacy of "warfare" is so patent that the misstatement implies a confusion of thought that should much lessen -the value if it had any of the author's labored but superficial impartiality. The real animus invariably crops out in all these "German-Amer- ican" writers, and, in the present case, the "appeal for fair- ness and moderation" contains the statement that it was a "privilege" "To see a great united people rising to fight, not for ag- grandizement, for ports on the Atlantic Ocean, or for colonies, or eager for conquest of any kind, but struggling solely for their existence to preserve the fruits of their labors of the last thirty years." The "appeal" also describes the readiness of "Germany" "to promise the integrity of France and even of the French Colonies if England would remain neutral." (The italics are mine.) It does not mention the fact that this sugges- tion was made by Prince Lichnowski (the German Ambas- sador in London) on his individual initiative and without authority from his government; or that on July 29th the 34 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR German Chancellor, when asked about the French colonies, had declined to commit himself (English White Book, No. 85) ; or that at about that time Germany had failed to say that it was "prepared to engage to respect the neutrality of Belgium so long as no other power violates it," although France had given an unequivocal promise to that effect. Nor does it allude to the English reason for refusal to accept the informal suggestion, namely, "that France with- out losing territory might be so crushed .as to lose her posi- tion as a Great Power and become subordinate to German policy/' As to Nietzsche, the German apologists place a touching reliance upon American ignorance when they say that be- cause the word superman or overman was used by Goethe before it was used by Nietzsche, therefore we might with equal justice trace Germany's war spirit to the one phil- osopher as to the other. If they see no difference between the philosophy of Goethe and the philosophy of Nietzsche; between Goethe's Olympian overman rising spiritually and intellectually above the foibles of humanity, and Nietzsche's bully trampling down whatever is not strong enough to resist; between the balance of perfect sanity and the fren- zied revolt which precedes madness, they must be in a state of curious mental confusion. But they need not assume that their readers are equally confused. "Germany," says that too ardent upholder, Dr. Dernburg, "has waged no war of any kind, has never acquired a territory in all her life except by treaty." Good, peaceful, friendly, gentle nation ! Even the little rudenesses common to less virtuous folk are foreign to her soul. "She never was aggressive to anybody." And how she has been misjudged ! We, in America, thought she had annexed Hanover, appropriated Schleswig-Holstein, divided up Poland, swallowed Silesia whole, taken by force Alsace and Lorraine. We thought she was even now an- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 35 nouncing through her War Lord the incorporation of Bel- gium into Germany's "glorious provinces" (p. 58). How came we to be so deceived? Doctor Dernburg asks sarcastically, (16) "Do Americans believe all the 'official news' which the Bussians are sending continuously from the seat of war as to their enormous successes ?" Assuming that we do not, he then asks why we believe the "White Books/' which he describes as "written for the purpose" of making out a nation's case." The comparison of British and Belgian "books" with a newspaper report would be absurd. They are plain, chron- ological, complete records of all the diplomatic documents bearing upon the war. But perhaps Doctor Dernburg is thinking of the German "White Book," which James M. Beck has characterized as disclosing "the suppression of documents of vital importance," and which has necessarily made no more impression on Americans than did that amazing pamphlet issued by a number of German; State- owned teachers and scholars, and called "The Truth About Germany" (p. 251). These gentlemen may be the reposi- tories of "the whole realm of human knowledge/' Who shall gainsay it? But wisdom failed them in their need. They committed the fatal error of making their misstate- ments ludicrous. This has been a digression, but it will serve as an example of the "fairness and moderation" of the Miinsterbergs and Franckes, the Bidders and Jagemanns, the Alberts and von Machs, the Hilprechts, Jastrows, and Dernburgs. b. But Question 1 is not yet fully answered. Can any collateral evidence of the determination to attain to "World Power" "be found in the estimation in which, Germans hold their country and themselves? I think it can. A little book with the crude title of "Germany's Swelled 36 A TEXT-BOOK OF TEE WAR Head/' written by Emil Keich, a Hungarian, I believe, and published in London, in 1907, contains much interesting, sometimes amusing, information on this subject. The writer quotes various authors in support of the statement that when the Kaiser speaks or writes of Greater Germany he "in all sincerity means two-thirds of Europe. He means that the German Empire of the near future will, and by right of Eace ought to, comprise two-thirds of Europe." He adds that this idea may appear too childish for serious consideration, says that in all countries there have been single eccentrics who have absurdly overrated the significance and importance of their nation, and that such persons do not prove very much as to the state of mind of the majority of a people. But he insists that "That which, in other countries never rises beyond a mere oddity is, in contemporary Germany, a vast wave of national thought. In the Fatherland, as has long been remarked by many an observing traveler or scholar, the writers, teachers, journalists and scholars of the day have an infinitely greater influence on the people than similar brain-workers ever wield in England." He then quotes from "The Foundations of the XlXth Century," a book which he says was warmly and publicly approved by the Kaiser, and which sold largely in Germany and gave rise to a mass of controversial literature. The author, Chamberlain by name, says : "By Germans, I mean the various populations of Northern Europe, who appear in history as Kelts, Germans, Slavs, and from whom, mostly in inextricable confusion, the peoples of modern Europe are sprung. That they came originally from a single family is certain, but the German, in the narrower Tacitean sense, has kept himself so pre-eminent among his kins- men, intellectually, morally and physically, that we are justified A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 37 in applying his name to the whole family. The German is the soul of our culture. The Europe of to-day, spread far over the globe, exhibits the brilliant result of an infinitely varied rami- fication. What binds us into one is the Germanic blood. . . . Only Germans sit on European thrones. What has happened is only prolegomena. . . . True history begins from the moment when the German, with mighty hand, seizes the inheri- tance of antiquity." Eeich quotes further from the work of Ludwig Wolt- man, "Die Germanen und die Renaissance in Italien" (1905), in which the effort is made to prove that Ben- venuto Cellini, Michaelangelo, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giovanni Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci and Eaff aelle, were all of German birth or ancestry. He admits that this may be merely mis- placed erudition, or "stuff and twaddle." His point is that it is characteristic, that it is taken seriously in Germany, and that it was gravely noticed in some of the oldest and most respectable German reviews. He quotes again the author of the "Foundations of the XIX Century/* who says, apropos of the overrunning of the Holy Eoman Em- pire by the Germans : "We can regret only one thing that the German did not, everywhere his conquering arm preyed, exterminate more com- pletely," and that consequently the Latins "gradually recovered wide territories from the only quickening influence of pure blood and unbroken youth, in fact, from the control of the highest talent." Elsewhere the same writer laments that Italy "is lost, irredeemably lost, because it lacks the inner driving power, the greatness of soul which would fit its talent. This power conies from Race alone. Italy had it as long as it pos- sessed Germans." Reich says that Friedrich Lange, erstwhile editor of the Tagliche Rundschau, has gone so far as to invent and preach a species of "German religion" (Deutsche Religion), 38 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR and from many pulpits it has been announced that "the German people is the elect of God, and its enemies are the enemies of the Lord." He quotes from the "Vorwarts" an extract from an oration by the theologian, Lezius : "Solomon has said: 'Do not be too good; do not be too just.' The Polish press should be simply annihilated. All Polish so- cieties should be suppressed, without the slightest apology being made for such a measure. This summary procedure should be likewise applied to the French and Banish press, as well as to the societies of Alsace, Lorraine and Schleswig- Holstein. Especially should no consideration whatever be shown to anything relating to the Poles. The Constitution should be altered with regard to the latter. The Poles should be looked upon as helots. They should be allowed but three privileges: to pay taxes, serve in the army, and shut their jaws" (sic). He (Keich) supports his views by the statement of the Russian novelist, Dostoiewski, who writes : "Chauvinism, pride, and an unlimited confidence in their own strength have intoxicated the Germans since the war (1870). This people, that has so rarely been a conqueror and has so often been conquered, had all of a sudden beaten the nation that had humiliated all the other nations. ... On the other hand, the fact that Germany, but yesterday all parceled out, has been able in so short a time to develop so strong a po- litical organization, might well lead the Germans to believe that they are about to enter on a new phase of brilliant develop- ment. This conviction has resulted in making the German not only Chauvinistic and conceited, but nighty as well; it is not only the Teutonic grocer and shoemaker now who are over- confident, but professors, eminent scientists, and even the min- isters themselves as well." "No wonder that the arrogance of the 'Elect Ones of God* comes out at every possible and impossible occasion. When Bismarck was asked what he would do should some one hun- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 39 dred thousand British soldiers be landed on the north coast of Germany in case of a war with Great Britain, France and Germany, he replied: *I should have them arrested by the police.' " He continues : "Can one wonder, under such circumstances, that the Kaiser a few years* ago, at the celebration of the two hundredth anni- versary of the foundation of the Kingdom of Prussia, ex- claimed: 'Nothing must be settled in this world without the intervention of Germany and of the German Emperor.' " He might have added the following : "Only one is master of this country. That is I. Who op- poses me I shall crush to pieces. . . . Sic volo, sio jubeo. . . . We Hohenzollerns take our crown from God alone, and to God alone we are responsible in the fulfilment of our duty. . . . Suprema lex regis voluntas" (17) J. Ellis Barker. (18) He might also have quoted Professor Kudolf Eucken, of the University of Jena, a leader of German ethical thought : "To us more than any other nation is intrusted the true structure of human existence; as an intellectual people we have, irrespective of creeds, worked for soul depth in religion, for sci- entific thoroughness. . . . All this constitutes possessions of which mankind cannot be deprived; possessions, the loss of which would make life and effort purposeless to mankind." (19) Eucken has not since changed his mind. In January, 1915, he writes: (20) "This war is not only a struggle between certain nations, but also between certain forms of culture. We are fighting for the maintenance and spreading of the special form of culture which 40 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR our nature has implanted and the whole course of our history has developed in us "Thus it is that we have raised religion, philosophy, educa- tion, music and poetry to lofty heights. We have achieved such great things in the world because we put our soul into our work. Because we did not seek externals, but ourselves, in culture, it became for us a matter of deepest earnest "Mankind at this point needs German methods. However much our opponents may rail against us just now, they will eventually be forced to make use of us for their spiritual pres- ervation." The Berlin Deutsche Tageszeitung urges the necessity of forcing the German language on the whole world. "It is a crying necessity," the Berlin paper says, "that Ger- man should replace English as the world language. Should the English language be victorious and become the world lan- guage the culture of mankind will stand before a closed door and the death knell will sound for civilization." After talking of the "moral decay" of Great Britain and the "fearful brutalizing influences and complete animaliza- tion of the human species" in "every land where the English language is spoken" the Deutsche Tageszeitung continues : "Here we have the reason why it is necessary for the Ger- man, and with him the German language, to conquer. And the victory once won, be it now or be it one hundred years hence, there remains a task for the German than which none is more important, that of forcing the German tongue on the world. On all men, not those belonging to the more cultured races only, but on men of all colors and nationalities, the German language acts as a blessing which, coming direct from the hand of God, sinks into the heart like a precious balm and en- nobles it. "English, the bastard tongue of the canting island pirates, A TEXT-BOOK OF -THE WAS 41 must be swept from the place it has usurped and forced back into the remotest corners of Britain until it has returned to its original elements of an insignificant pirate dialect." The feelings which this last amiable suggestion excited in the minds of Americans have nowhere been better ex- pressed than by Miss Eepplier (21), who, after remarking that every nation holds its own speech infinitely dear, and believes it to be infinitely superior to the speech of other and less favored countries, continues : "Conquering races have recognized the supreme importance of forcing their tongue upon the conquered, who, in their turn, have rebelled with bitterness against this finality of defeat. For centuries Ireland has striven to preserve a language which has no longer a vital part to play. Alsace has cherished with pathetic pride and tenderness the speech she was bidden to forego. Thirty years after the surrender of Strasburg a visitor could hear no word save French in the cafes and the streets. If the rules were rigid, the defiance was invincible. German for the schools, French for the home. German for officials, French for the family. German for protection, French for pleasure. German for the stern realities of life, French for the mad hope which never wholly died. "Some months ago a Berlin newspaper, in happy anticipation of 'der Tag,' pealed forth a prophetic note of triumph for the German tongue. Not conquered provinces alone, we were as- sured, but the whole wide world of civilization was destined to use this speech and be the better for it. 'On men of all colors and nationalities the German language acts as a blessing, which, coming direct from the hand of God, sinks into the heart like a precious balm and ennobles it.' "One wonders if German text and German script are included in the gift of a too partial Providence, and if we are 'rejecting grace' by trying to elude them. One wonders apprehensively whether, since German is the tongue beloved of Heaven, we shall all have to speak it when we go there. Here on earth this 'precious balm* acts like an irritant upon men and women who are not devout enough to recognize a blessing when it is poured on them. I once spent a summer in Bavaria with a young 42 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR American girl who never forgave the Bavarians for speaking their own language. Every time she heard the hated gutturals, she would wrinkle her pretty nose and say: 'It ought to be forbidden by law.' "As for English, 'the bastard tongue of canting island pirates/ its day has well-nigh run. Prussia, we are warned, will force it back into the remotest corners of Britain, 'until it has returned to its original elements of an insignificant pirate dialect.' The fact that corrupt variations of this dialect are stammered fitfully by 8,000,000 of people in Canada and 97,000,000 of people in the United States, need not be taken into account. We know that nothing is impossible to heaven; and if the 'precious balm' of German is going to be spilled into our hearts, we must resign ourselves to our mercies. The jargon of Shakespeare, the broken utterances of Milton, and Keats, and Wordsworth, ^will, in the happy years to come, be deciphered by droning philologists, who may supply a key to certain simple passages or shake despairing heads over these rude relics of piracy, these pages 'full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing/ " Major-General von Disfurth (retired), in an article con- tributed to the Hamburg Naehricliten, writes as follows : "No object whatever can be served by taking any notice of the accusations of barbarity leveled against Germany by her foreign critics. We owe no explanations to anyone. Whatever act is committed by our troops for the purpose of discouraging, defeating and destroying the enemy is a brave act and fully justified. Germany stands the supreme arbiter of her own methods. It is no consequence whatever if all the monuments ever created, all the pictures ever painted, all the buildings ever erected by the great architects of the world be destroyed, if by their destruction we promoted Germany's victory. War is war. The ugliest stone placed to mark the burial of a German grena- dier is a more glorious monument than all the cathedrals of Europe put together. They call us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their abuse. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 43 "For my part, I hope that in this war we have merited the title, 'barbarians.' Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease to talk of the Cathedral of Rheims, and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. Our troops must achieve victory. What else matters ?" I am not certain that, in spite of the crude brutality of this statement, it is not to be preferred to the oily hypocrisy of some of the other German defenders. For example, in an address at New Bochelle, in this country, Dr. Dernburg is reported (22) to have said: "We Germans love the French and Belgians, who were forced into the war." The American paper which quotes this goes on sarcastically : "This explains why the British are fighting so desperately. "Judging from the experiences of France and Belgium, only a rugged and husky nation can survive German affection. After the first demonstration of German love toward Belgium, Great Britain naturally decided that it was better to fight. Otherwise the Germans might take a notion to love the British, too. "Certainly, if the Germans love the French and Belgians, as Doctor Dernburg says, the British can hardly be blamed for pre- ferring German hatred, as giving them at least a fighting chance.' 5 ' Professor von Leyen, writing in the Frankfurter Zeitung, says: (23) "There are the neutral nations. Most of them side in sym- pathy with the English, Russians, and French. Most of them entertain hostile feelings against Germany. We do not need them. They are not necessary to our happiness nor to our more material interests. Let us ban them from our houses and our tables. Let us make them feel that we despise them. They must understand that they are condemned to be left out in the cold just because they do not merit German approval. 44 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Germany must and will stand alone. The Germans are the salt of earth; they will fulfill their destiny, which is to rule the world and to control other nations for the benefit of mankind." Professor Adolph Lasson, a German Privy Councillor and Professor of Philosophy in Berlin University, writes : "A man who is not a German knows nothing of Germany. We are morally and intellectually superior beyond all com- parison as are our organizations and our institutions." As to the facts bearing upon this preposterous over- valuation of German achievement, I shall have something to say later, but now my object is to present a small portion of the existing evidence as to the state of mind which, pervading all Germany, did so much to bring on the war. John Jay Chapman deals trenchantly with the subject of Germany's mental condition: (24) "A perception of their insanity began to dawn on us in the first days of the war, when the Imperial Chancellor propounded his novel theories as to the binding character of treaties. These German doctrines chilled us. They prevented us from sympa- thizing with the magnificent display of German patriotism which accompanied the crime against Belgium. Soon after this the Teutonic philosophy of extermination was further re- vealed to us in the orders of the commanders, in the actual con- duct of the troops, and also in the books about Germany which we all began to read at this period. "We now discovered that the literature of Pan-Teutonism, which, up to this time, we had taken to be a sort of bad joke, was a very serious matter representing as it did Unreason En- throned. "Pan-Teutonism had been teaching that Germany must save mankind through bloodshed. In a private person such a belief A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 45 would lead to his incarceration; but so many books are pub- lished nowadays, and everyone is so inured to extravagant argu- ments, that no one objects to Unreason in a book. There is a kind of squint of insanity of the malice of the neurotic in- valid which accompanies the text in much Pan-German litera- ture. The author passes from obvious truths to obvious con- tradictions without knowing that he has made a transition. The author, moreover, is more sure he is right than a sane man ever is; and when he wishes to be impressive he runs into mega- lomania. These characteristics of a madman, ( 1 ) unconscious passage from reason to unreason, (2) certitude, and (3) mega- lomania, are to be found in all the German war literature. Strangely enough, the turn of phrase and tone of mind are alike in the writings of the learned and of the vulgar. The war spirit speaks in a war tongue. Both the literati of Germany and the man-in-the-street in Germany blaze with passion and vociferate with conviction. To them their phrases are full of sacred truth; to them religion and piety, patriotism, profound thought, and holy inspiration live in the words they utter. "To my mind, there is immense psychological interest in these exhibitions of pure, unadulterated patriotism. Their sin- cerity penetrates us; but the idea they convey is zero. Their message is, indeed, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Such is the message of any mere race patriotism, of any patriotism which obliges the rest of the world to be subdued before it can receive the benefits of the pretended dispensation. Zero is the substance and the sym- bol of race patriotism. All the piety and enthusiasm with which it is offered to the world, all the gunboats and bloodshed which herald it are powerless to raise the intellectual value of this emotion above the zero point." Prof. Ostwald, a Nobel prize winner (as a chemist), and a well-known erman scientist, says (25) that the most profound cause of the war "lies in the fear entertained by our enemies of the power, un- precedented in history, with which Germany has put into practice her great ideal of social efficiency an ideal which 46 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Germany by this very war proposes to realize in the future more completely than ever before. They talk of German mili- tarism; it is possible, I admit, that the hostility which Ger- many is finding to-day in all parts of the world was created by the development of German militarism; but it is just that militarism which constitutes one of the most significant ex- pressions of the German power of organization or social effi- ciency. Germany, thanks to her genius for organization or social efficiency, has attained a stage of civilization far higher than that of all other peoples. This war will in the future com- pel these other peoples to participate, under the form of Ger- man social efficiency, in a civilization higher than their own. Among our enemies the Russians, in brief, are still in the period of the undisciplined tribe, while the French and the English have only attained the degree of cultural development which we ourselves left behind fifty years ago. Their stage of culture is that of individualism; but above that stage lies the stage of organization or social efficiency, and it is this stage which Germany has reached to-day." Treitschke said, years ago : "Then when the German flag flies over and protects this vast Empire, to whom will belong the sceptre of the universe? What nation will impose its wishes on the other enfeebled and decadent peoples? Will it not be Germany that will have the mission to ensure the peace of the world? Russia, that im- mense colossus, still in process of formation, and with feet of clay, will be absorbed in its home and economic difficulties. England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will, without any doubt, see her colonies detach themselves from her and exhaust themselves in fruitless struggles. France, given over to internal dissensions and the strife of parties, will sink into hopeless decadence. As to Italy, she will have her work cut out to ensure a crust of bread to her children. . . . The future belongs to Germany, to which Austria will attach herself if she wishes to survive." .Reich, who quotes this, gives many other quotations to A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 47 support his main thesis, judgment on which I must now leave to my readers. It was as follows, and it must be re- membered that it was written more than seven years ago : "The actions of a nation like the Germans are, in the first place, influenced by their state of mind; and, given that that state of mind in Germany is now one bordering on absolute megalomania, or the most morbid form of self-conceit and swelled-headedness, it is safe to conclude that their actions, too, will soon assume forms of the most daring self-assertiveness and aggression." (26) In some directions the ignorance of the German writers shared, as later events showed, by the German diplomats is astounding. General Bernhardi's knowledge of current history may be estimated by the fact that he assumes (1) that trade rivalry makes a war probable between Great Britain and the United States, (2) that he believes the Indian princes and people likely to revolt against Britain should she be involved in war, and (3) that he expects her self-governing Colonies to take such an opportunity of severing their connection with her ! "General Bernhardi invoked History, the ultimate court of appeal. He appeals to Caesar. To Caesar let him go. Die Weltgeschicte ist das Weltgericht World history is the World tribune. "History declares that no nation, however great, is entitled to try to impose its type of civilization on others. No race, not even the Teutonic or the Anglo-Saxon, is entitled to claim the leadership of humanity. Each people has in its time contributed something that was distinctively its own, and the world is far richer thereby than if any one race, however gifted, had established a permanent ascendancy. "The world advances not, as the Bernhardi school suppose, only or even mainly by fighting. It advances mainly by think- 48 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR ing, and by a process of reciprocal teaching and learning; by a continuous and unconscious co-operation of all its strongest and finest minds. "Each race Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, Iberian, Sla- vonic has something to give, each something to learn; and when their blood is blent the mixed stock may combine the gifts of both. "The most progressive races have been those who combined willingness to learn with a strength which enabled them to receive without loss to their own quality, retaining their primal vigour, but entering into the labours of others, as the Teutons who settled within the dominions of Rome profited by the les- sons of the old civilization." (27) John Jay Chapman, in his admirable and useful collec- tion of the utterances of representative Germans ("Deutsch- land iiber Alles"), which he has compiled, analyzed and illuminated by pertinent and often eloquent comment, deals with this subject of German megalomania, so fully and interestingly that I may dismiss it with his remarks in his chapter on "The Genesis of Madness :" "I will cite a few grotesque expressions from Bernhardi, because they could not have been used by a man who knew what the struggle for liberty of opinion in Western Europe had consisted in: 'There is no nation which knows how to unite so harmoniously ( as the German does ) the freedom of the intel- lectual and the restraint of the practical life on the path of free and natural development.' These be fine words ; but just where the ' freedom of the intellectual' should end, and the 'restraint of the practical' should begin in each case this is the question that has puzzled the world, and sent the martyrs to the pyre and the statesmen to the scaffold. Again: 'This independence of the individual within the Umits marked out "by the interests of the State forms the necessary complement of the wide exten- sion of the central power, and assures an ample scope to a liberal development of all our social conditions.' This is the chatter of a parrot. "So also is the following statement of what education ought A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 49 to teach. 'The State should teach that the mind which thinks only of itself perishes in feeble susceptibility, but that moral worth grows up only in the love of the Fatherland and for the State, which is the haven of every faith and the home of justice and honourable freedom of purpose.' I have italicized the words which show the feebleness of the German intellect in these fields of thought. "The following argument could hardly have been put forth seriously in any country where argument was an instrument of government; Count von Bernstorff insisted that Germany had not utilized the Belgian route because it was the quickest and easiest into France, but had gone through Belgium only because she was forced to act on the defensive. Germany knew that some day France was going to invade Belgium; but France could wait; Germany could not wait. Thus it was really France that began the war. "A man who had spent his youth in the debating club would not have presented such a case as this to the world; but in a tyranny there is no distinction between dogma and argument. The official view is propounded and that is enough. "Bernhardi's books will always be valuable as the best short explanation of the war. They give the mind of fhe Teuton in 1914. They have done more towards explaining the disease which is now ravaging the German intellect than all the rest of German literature taken together. Moreover, Bern- hardi's books will always have a specific psychopathic interest. The future student will handle them with curiosity, saying: 'Sixty-four million people once, and for a short time, believed these things.' "The keynote of the German creed is as follows : War is the natural state of man, and 'evokes the noblest activities of human nature.' 'The brutal incidents inseparable from every war vanish completely in the idealism of the main results.' These beliefs, it should be noticed, give respectability to the German designs against France. They lend the light of con- science and religion to a crime, and invoke a great principle to cover a piece of private vengeance. The Germans, being a highly bookish and sophisticated people, require good motives for bloodshed. The Holy Ghost is therefore summoned. The sin of feebleness is, it appears, 'the political sin against the Holy Ghost.' 4 50 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "In order to make it seem probable that the Germans will win in their war, the French and English are depicted as decrepit, outworn peoples, degenerate Romans, etc., whereas the Germans are the young blood of the world. Tl^e British play out-of-door games, a sure sign of effeminacy; whereas the Germans sing, and play on the violin sure proofs of manly endowment. The Germans are a 'chosen people' and the great men of the past have all been Germans.. The most learned au- thor of this school proves that Christ and Dante were Teutonic characters. All of these crotchets have been believed in by the illuminati of Germany, by her professors and doctors, poets, priests, and leaders of thought. Why have they been thus believed? Because they have been handed out by the govern- mental central authority, by the source of opinion. Folly, blasphemy, or nonsense, when sanctioned by the Government, becomes to the Germans religion. Is it not strange that this nation, endowed with all the talents but one, has been done to death by the lack of that small linch-pin political common sense? Their sin has found them out. Their one weakness has ruined all the fabric of their strength. "In Germany the State appoints the professors in the uni- versities; and thus during the last thirty years of military ascendancy, only militants have ' been appointed. There has been no future for learned men unless they favored militarism. And nevertheless a certain ancient prestige hung about the skirts of learning which the government sought to use when the war broke out. The Kaiser, therefore, fired off all the guns of culture in a sort of parlour salute, in which incense was used instead of gun-powder. There is probably not a name of note in German letters which is not to be found at the bottom of a war-cry, or of a cry for blood and vengeance. The sav- agery of these literary tricoteuses, which has so shocked the world, comes from their indorsement of whatever is being done by the military. Thus, one reads in one column of a newspaper that the Germans have deported into Germany forty-five hundred French boys between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, drawing them from Noyon and other French towns under Ger- man occupation. One thinks of how the parents of these boys must feel; one wonders what century one is living in; one recalls the words of Bismarck, that the Prussians must 'bleed France white.' One remembers Bernhardi's remarks that France A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 51 must be so weakened that she can 'never cross our path again/ In another column of the same paper there is a passionate threnody of the poet Wolfkehl, saying that 'the war came from God'; that its purpose is 'to save the European soul,' and that its horrors are necessary. Of all these horrors the words of the poet are the worst. "This war has been made by the intellectuals ; the philosophy of it is a study-bred thing, like the new German bomb-shells. That philosophy of destruction, which lies beneath both the siege-guns and the pamphlets, is a tissue of super-sophistica- tions, by which the old-time and gross passions of murder, theft, lust, hatred, and a certain nameless cruelty (which is new to the world and worse than all the rest), have been let loose on those nations which happen to live next to Germany. The hell of an insane sophistication "burns behind this war in the German universities; and the hell of murdered women and children walk before it through Belgium. This war and its lit- erature are all one thing. We must watch both of them to get a vision of modern Germany. When we see the total populations of cities fleeing before the advance of the German Army in Belgium, we must examine the creed of the learned Teuton. "Crack open a bit of Germany anywhere. Doctor Lenard, Professor of Physics at Heidelberg, thinks that Westminster Abbey and the tomb of Shakespeare ought to be destroyed. The brain of a people is ignited and is burning up with the rest of the Teutonic combustibles. We can not put out either of them, but must let them crackle and give out blast after blast, till the panic is over. Then we shall be able to look about us and find out how much is left of the German intelligence. "To recapitulate: Germany has gone mad through dwelling on her imaginary wrongs. This came about because of the lack of political training in Germany, which left the citizen at the mercy of Government officials for his private opinions. The learned and eloquent classes thus became the tools of a military organization. The result has been an era of panic and destructive insanity of which this war is a sign." While opinions differ as to the personal responsibility of the Kaiser ,for this war, it seems to me that he so fully typifies in his own character, actions and behavior, the 52 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR megalomania of the nation that it is nothing less than absurd to describe him as reluctantly pushed into the war arid as struggling until the last moment for peace. The Kaiser is in all probability a neuropsychopathic, said to have a chronic and recurring infection of the middle ear (a not unknown cause of grave cerebral disease), and evincing many symptoms of the condition known as para- noia, in which there are usually present more or less definite systematized delusions, the other mental processes remain- ing approximately normal. If in such case the insane premises of the paranoiac are admitted, his conclusions will often legitimately follow. If the Kaiser is Kaiser by Divine decree, by the direct appointment of God, as he has repeatedly asserted, he cannot be blamed for thinking, as he has often shown that he does think, that whatever he does is right. But is it possible in the year 1915 that a quite sane person can believe, as the Kaiser surely does believe, that he is God's special appointee appointed to rule over and guide the destinies of sixty millions of people ? I have no doubt the Miinsterbergs will have some answer to that question that will to them be psychologically satisfying. But I defy them to answer it to the satisfaction of the American people. That this mental condition is compatible with unusual ability, with a high degree of personal charm, with the efficient performance of work and discharge of duties out- side the sphere of delusion, has been repeatedly and abun- dantly shown and is a matter of everyday experience with alienists. The history of the world also presents many examples of individuals not entirely sane, like Joan of Arc, who were able greatly to influence, largely through their profound belief in themselves and their cause, the course of human events. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 53 "The Kaiser does not believe in representative government for Germany. He does not believe in democracy, at least not for Germany. Neither did Bismarck. Bismarck doubtless believed a good deal in Bismarck, partly as the agent of the Almighty, partly as Bismarck, director of the German people. Government of Germany by Bismarck through his Kaiser was representative government of a sort, for Bismarck, in a way, was representative. The Kaiser does not believe in that. He dis- charged Bismarck at once. He believes in government by the Kaiser as the agent divinely appointed to govern the German people. He is not responsible to the German people for what he does, but to the Almighty. He believes he must believe that he is competent to judge what is right for Germany and that when he does it he has God for his ally." (28) One of the best illustrations of the "delirium of gran- deur" with which the Kaiser appears to be afflicted (and with which on account of its frequency in ordinary luna- tics all medical men are familiar) is given in this very belief in his Divine vicegerency and in his constant and familiar references to God in his speeches, letters and telegrams. The Dean of American letters,, Mr. William D. Howells, has dealt so eloquently with this phase and other phases of the Kaiser's character (29) that I shall let him continue this answer to the second portion of Question 1 believing that the Kaiser represents in an exaggerated form (due probably to disease), the megalomania of the nation, and believing also that what Mr. Howells writes of him repre- sents with equal truth the estimate of him held to-day by the large majority of Americans. "As early as August 22nd the censorship of war news allowed us to learn that 'the Kaiser had ordered the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Church throughout Germany to include the following prayer in the liturgy at all public services during the war: 'Almighty and merciful God of the armies, we beseech 54 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR in humility for Thy Almighty aid for our German fatherland. Bless the entire German war force. Lead us to victory and give us Thy grace that we may show ourselves to be Christians toward our enemies. As well, let us soon arrive at peace which will everlastingly safeguard our free and independent Germany.' "This carefully worded supplication must have been instantly rushed to the Throne of Grace, to the Father of Mercies, to Him without whose knowledge not even a sparrow falls to the ground, and the response might seem to have been instant, for we read that on the 25th the Kaiser wired his daughter-in-law, the Crown Princess: " 'I rejoice with thee over the first victory of Wilhelm. God has been on his side and has most brilliantly supported him. To Him be thanks and honor. I remit to Wilhelm the Iron Cross of the second and first class. . . . God protect and succor my boys. Also in the future God be with thee and all wives. '(Signed) PAPA WILHELM.' "But in some respects this was apparently asking too much. In spite of the flattering recognition of His support of the Crown Prince. He seems to have thought it enough to be only with the Crown Princess 'in the future.' He evidently could not be bothered to look after 'all wives,' for we read that the wives of unarmed peasants and citizens were driven, with their children, from their homes in a country which Papa Wilhelm was wasting with fire and sword through a violation of its rights as a neutral nation and of his own word solemnly given, and went wandering beggared through their native land. Other wives were slain at their hearthstones by Papa Wilhelm's artil- lery, or torn to pieces in their beds by bombs dropped from Papa Wilhelm's dirigibles flying over sleeping towns. "So far as 'all wives' were concerned, the Helper of the widow and the orphan was not so constant as Papa Wilhelm desired, though Papa Wilhelm had especially commended them to His care. Yet Papa Wilhelm did not lose heart, for in a tele- gram of the 27th we find him declaring from his headquarters on the Main, 'Confidence in the irresistible might of our heroic army and unshakable belief in the help of a living God, together with the consciousness that we are fighting for a A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 55 worthy cause, should give us faith in an early delivery of Germany from its enemies.' "It may be that the Supreme Being, the 'living God' as the first of living men here handsomely calls Him, was perhaps not really so very hand-in-glove with the Kaiser. It may be that He did not 'brilliantly support' the Crown Prince in battle, and that it was solely 'the invincible might of his heroic army' which gave the Kaiser early victory. For Papa Wilhelm had been training them in their work of multiple murder for forty years, incessantly, relentlessly, at the cost of the best years of their youth, of their freedom, of whatever makes life sweet and dear. To perfect the pitiless machine into which he turned a kindly people he spared no means known to the art of the oppressor; he sacrificed to this end truth and honor and the love of men ; he substituted the terror of Use majeste for patri- otic loyalty; he made revenge and hate the prime motives of the nation which he welded into an adamantine mass, to be hurled, when the time came, against another nation which he had schooled them, in the uttermost cruelty of fear, to abhor. In this work he signed promises which trusting nations took for treaties with all the sacred and solemn guarantees, but which his ministers called 'scraps of paper' when the convenient time came. He made their commanders the terror of the men, and he perpetuated among the officers of his army the code of the duel ; Ijy his will the law of the sword became supreme against the law of the land in any question between soldiers and civil- ians. He turned the tide of civilization from its flow toward peace and goodwill, and drove its stream back among the morasses of the past, where it was choked with the corpses of the immemorial dead, the embers of their homes, and the ruins of their altars, so, that when the time came to destroy a peace- ful city his soldiers were as ready to do his will as they were to drive the wedge of their bodies through the enemy's lines and to fall in heaps that stayed their advance. "There is no means of telling just yet what the effect of his prayers has been with the Heavenly Father, or whether in the event they will avail against the prayers of the Belgians, the French, the English, and the Russians, beseeching the same God for victory against him. Who, indeed, always excepting the German Emperor, may declare what dwells in the will of the Almighty, or what His purpose is? Will He continue His bril- 56 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR liant support of the Crown Prince, or will He lift up His coun- tenance and make it to shine upon the peoples who have, humanly speaking, been cruelly outraged in all that is dear to civilized men, whose lands have been overrun by invading armies, whose cities have been burned, whose fields have been laid waste, whose wives and little ones have been driven beg- gars into the wilderness which wanton invasion has made of their country? At the actual writing it seems as if the Creator of heaven and earth may have thought twice concerning His imperial protege, and ceased to 'bless the whole German force.' Part of this force is now retracing its bleeding steps, slowly indeed, and perhaps not finally; its retreat may be merely the recoil of the wild beast for another spring upon ita prey; but as yet it does not seem so, and humanity may begin to breathe again. No one except the Kaiser may guess at the unfathomable counsels of the Ancient of Days." After describing the state of public feeling in Germany, and the generally accepted and applauded plans for her aggrandizement, another writer says of the Kaiser : "The German Emperor's speeches visualize the ideas of the man who has the final power to say how this public sentiment and these plans shall be used; and very clearly they prove that the Kaiser feels no responsibility to any person, to any moral code, or to any ethical ideal. He is the final arbiter. "That the Emperor William II has always anticipated the world-war which is now waging is more than proved by the extracts from His Majesty's speeches. His very first official act upon coming to the throne was to issue an edict to the German army, and it was not until some days after that he issued a proclamation 'To my people.' To him the soldier is far more important than the civilian. Votes and elections count for nothing. "The German Emperor's speeches are voluminous. They have appeared in Germany in various forms and run to several volumes. The selections here given have not been deliberately picked out for the purpose of showing that the Kaiser has assumed the leadership of the war mania movement. It would A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 57 have been impossible to have made any selection which would not have pointed in the same direction. The idea of war is ever in His- Majesty's mind, even when he is addressing himslf to purely pacific matters. The dove of peace is always mated with the German eagle. Hfe Majesty cannot unveil a civic 1 monument without referring to the military glory of his ancestors. He cannot address an educational conference without emphasizing that in his opinion' the best kind of educa- tion is that which leads the youth of Germany to contemplate the military achievements* of their forefathers. He cannot pay a compliment to the ruler of another State without at the same time referring to the bravery and chivalry of the other mon- arch's military forces. He cannot even preach a sermon without referring to the military exploits of the ancient Hebrews; and he cannot even pray without calling upon the Lord of Hosts to lead the German army to victory." (30) The Kaiser set on foot the decoration of the "A venue of Victory" at Berlin, drew up the general plan, and person- ally selected the artists who sculptured the various groups. At a dinner to which these artists were invited, the Kaiser said: "As I proclaimed on a former occasion, I, too, regard it as my mission, in conformity with the ideas of my parents, to stretch my hand over my German people and its rising genera- tion; to foster the beautiful; to develop art in the life of the people ; but only in. fixed lines and within those strictly defined limits which are to be found in the sense of mankind for beauty and haraipny." (January, 1902.) (31) "The great ideals have become for us Germans a permanent possession, while other nations have more or less lost them. The German? nation is now the only people left which is called upon in the first place to protect and cultivate and promote these great ideals . . . ." (32) Speaking at a banquet of the Provincial Diet of Bran- denburg, in February, 1892, the Kaiser said: 58 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "The firm conviction of your sympathy in my labours gives me renewed strength to persist in my work, and to press for- ward on the path which Heaven has laid out for me. I am helped thereto by my feeling of responsibility to the Ruler of All, and the firm* conviction- that He, our ally of Rossbach and Dennewitz, will not leave me in the lurch. He has given Him- self such endless trouble with our old Mark and with our House that we can assume that He has not done this for nothing. "The august figure of our great Emperor William the First, who has passed from among us, is always present with us, together with his mighty deeds. How were these accomplished ? Through the unshakable belief held by my grandfather in the mission intrusted to him by God, which he combined with an untiring zeal for duty. He was supported by the Mark and entire German Fatherland. Amid these traditions I have grown up and in them I was reared by him. I also have the same belief." (At the annual dinner of the Diet of Brandenberg, March, 1893.) (33) "May the might of Germany become as firm and as powerful as 'was once that of the Roman world-empire, so that in the future 'I am a German citizen' may be uttered with the same pride as was the ancient 'Civis Romanus sum." (Saltzburg, 1900.) (34) It seems unnecessary to multiply evidence that the Kaiser has a form of megalomania that amounts to disease, or that he, unfortunately, in this respect, represents with fair accuracy, the present frame of mind probably only temporary of the German nation. But I shall add one additional bit of testimony, just at hand. It may be untrustworthy, but it has the earmarks of genuineness. An order issued by "Papa Wilhelm" to his troops in East Prussia is said (35) to read in part as follows: "Thanks to the valor of my heroes, France has been severely punished. Belgium, which interfered with our attack, has been added to the glorious provinces of Germany. From the course A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 59 of military events you know that the punitive expedition into Russia has also been a brilliant success. "My heroes, the hour of trial has riow come for you and for the whole of Germany. If Germany is dear to you if your families are dear to you if your culture, your faith, your nation, your Emperor, are dear to you, you will offer the enemy worthy resistance." I ask the reader to note the crescendo from "Germany"' through "families," "culture," "faith," and the "nation" up to the "Emperor!" Also the announced addition of Belgium to the "glorious provinces of Germany." The Kaiser may not have written this, but, if he didn't, the author takes rank with Chatterton. There is a "con- densed novel" in those paragraphs worthy of Bret Harte or Leacock. But, after all, the question of the exact mental condi- tion of the Kaiser is not of fundamental importance. His power is unquestioned, his leadership indisputable. He stands to-day before the world as the embodiment of the spirit of the school of the Bernhardis and Treitschkes. He is the apotheosis of the Miinsterberg idea of an Emperor as "the symbol of the State." The world believes that had he so willed this war would not have occurred. Whether his will to -war was, how- ever indefensible -and brutal, a sanely reasoned determina- tion, or the irresistible impulse of a mental defective the world may never know. As I have said, now it is not im- portant. CHAPTEE II. What is the Evidence as to the Events Immediately Leading up to the War in Their Relation to the Culpability of Germany? As I was trying to formulate my ideas in reply to this question, there appeared in the public press (36) a most illuminating and convincing article from the pen of one of the leaders of the American Bar, Mr. James M. Beck. He propounds, at the outset, three questions : Was Austria justified in declaring war against Servia? Was Germany justified in declaring war against Russia and France ? Was England justified in declaring war against Germany ? He reviews in a masterly manner all .the official and documentary evidence now before the world, and assumes that it is to be presented to a "Supreme Court of Civiliza- tion" for consideration and judgment. In reply to the last of these questions he cites the solemn treaty of 1839, whereby Prussia, France, England, Austria and Eussia "became the guarantors" of the "perpetual neutrality" of Belgium, which treaty was reaffirmed by Count Bismarck, then Chancellor of the German Empire, on July 22, 1870, and even more recently (1913) by the German Secretary of State, who said in the Reichstag : "The neutrality of Belgium is determined by international conventions, wnd Germany is resolved to respect these convert tions" To confirm this solemn assurance, the Minister of War added in the same debate : (60) A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 61 "Belgium does not play any part in the justification of the German scheme of military reorganization. The scheme is justified by the position of matters in the East. Germany will not lose sight of the fact that Belgium neutrality is guaranteed by international treaties" A year later, on July 31, 1914, Herr von Buelow, the German Minister at Brussels, assured the Belgian Depart- ment of State that he knew of a declaration which the German Chancellor had made in 1911 to the effect "that Germany had no intention of violating our (Belgium's) neutrality," and "that he was certain that the sentiments to which expression was given at that time had not changed" (See Belgian "Gray Book," ISFos. 11 and 12.) Mr. Beck says it seems unnecessary to discuss the wanton disregard of these solemn obligations and protestations, when the present Chancellor of the German Empire, in his speech to the Eeichstag and to the world on August 4, 1914, frankly admitted that the action of the German military machine in invading Belgium was a wrong. He said : "We are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxemburg and perhaps are already on Belgian soil. Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international law. . . . The wrong / speak openly that we are committing we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened as we are threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions, can only have one thought how he is to hack his way through." Mr. Beck might have added that by this same treaty Belgium had pledged herself to resist any violation of her neutrality, and that it was not only her right but her duty to bar the way to the march of Germany's legions across the land. Mr. Beck continues as to the German Chancellor's 62 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "defence" by saying that it is not even a plea of confession and avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of the world. It has one merit that it does not add to the crime the aggravation of hypocrisy. It virtually rests the case of Germany upon the Gospel of Treitschke and Bernhardi, which was taught far more effectively by Machiavelli in his treatise, "The Prince," wherein he glorified the policy of Cesare Borgia in trampling the weaker States of Italy under foot by ruthless terrorism, unbridled ferocity and the basest deception. The wanton destruction of Belgium is simply Borgiaism amplified ten thousand fold by the mechanical resources of modern war. As to this point, Mr. Beck concludes that unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of barbarism; unless the law of the world is in fact only the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the cannon; unless mankind after uncounted centuries has made no real advance in political morality beyond that of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany fails to show a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Germany's contention that a treaty of peace is "a scrap of paper," to be disregarded at will when required by the selfish interests of one contracting party, is the negation of all that civilization stands for. "Belgium has been crucified in the face of the world. Its innocence of any offense, until it was attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of neutrality will 'plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of its taking off.' On that issue the Supreme Court could have no ground for doubt or hesita- tion. Its judgment would be speedy and inexorable." Mr. Beck then goes on to discuss the evidence offered to the public in the British and German "White Papers" and the "Russian Orange Paper," and asks what verdict an A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 63 impartial and dispassionate court would render upon the issues thus raised and the evidence thus submitted. He eays: "Primarily such a court would be deeply impressed, not only by what the record as thus made up discloses, but also "by the significant omissions of documents known to ~be in existence. "The official defense of England and Russia does not appa- rently show any failure on the part of either to submit all of the documents in their possession, "but the German 'White Paper 9 on its face discloses the suppression of documents of vital importance, while Austria has as yet -failed to submit any of the documentary evidence in its possession. "We know from the German 'White Paper' even if we did not conclude as a matter of irresistible inference that many important communications passed in this crisis between Germany and Austria, and it is probable that some communica- tions must also have passed between those two countries and Italy. Italy, despite its embarrassing position, owes to the world the duty of a full disclosure. What such disclosure would probably show is indicated by her deliberate conclusion that her allies had commenced an aggressive war, which released her from any obligation under the Triple Alliance." His conclusion as to this point is that until Germany is willing to put in evidence the most important documents in its possession, it must not be surprised that the world, remembering Bismarck's garbling of the Ems dispatch, which precipitated the Franco-Prussian war, will be incred- ulous as to the sincerity of Germany's mediatory efforts. He then reviews the entire diplomatic correspondence, as published, repeatedly calling attention to the absence of im- portant documents from the German and Austrian records. He finds that those two nations were guilty, not only of con- cealment or suppression of portions of the record, while Germany was pretending to lay its case unreservedly before the world, but that they were "diplomatic pettifoggers" who took a "colossal snap judgment"; that the German 64 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Secretary of State was guilty of a "plain evasion" ; the Ger- man Imperial Chancellor of a "pitiful and insincere quibble"; of "hypocrisy," of "arrogance" and "unreason- ableness." Of one contention of the German Secretary of State, that Austria might act in disregard of Germany's wish in a matter of common concern, he says : "This strains human credulity to the breaking point. Did the German Secretary of State keep up a straight face when he uttered this sardonic pleasantry? It may be the duty of a diplomat to lie on occasion, but is it ever necessary to utter such a stupid falsehood? The German Secretary of State sar- donically added in the same conversation, that he was not sure that the effort for peace had not hastened the declaration of war; as though the declaration of war against Servia had not been planned and expected from the first." Mr. Beck does not fail to call attention to the fact that "In reaching its conclusion our imaginary court would pay little attention to mere professions of a desire for peace. . . ." "No war in modern times has been begun without the aggressor pretending that his nation wished nothing but peace, and invoking Divine aid for its murderous policy. To para- phrase the words of Lady Teazle on a noted occasion, when Sir Joseph Surface talked much 6f 'honor/ it might be as well in such instances to leave the name of God out of the question." The Judgment of the Court he says would be unhesitat- ingly as follows : "1. That Germany and Austria in a time of profound peace secretly concerted together to impose their will upon Europe and upon Servia in a matter affecting the balance of power in Europe. Whether in so doing they intended to precipitate a European war to determine the mastery of Europe is not satisfactorily established, although their whole course of conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made war almost inevitable by A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 65 (a) issuing an ultimatum that was grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to any grievance that Austria had, and (b) in giving to Servia, and Europe, insufficient time to consider the rights and obligations of all interested nations. "2. That Germany had at all times the power to compel Austria to preserve a reasonable and conciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted that influence. On the contrary, she certainly abetted, and possibly instigated, Austria in its unreasonable course. "3. That England, France, Italy and Russia at all times sincerely worked for peace, and for this purpose not only over- looked the original misconduct of Austria, but made every reasonable concession in the hope of preserving peace. "4. That Austria, having mobilized its army, Russia was reasonably justified in mobilizing its forces. Such act of mobilization was the right of any sovereign State, and as long as the Russian armies did not cross the border or take any aggressive action no other nation had any just right to com- plain, each having the same right to make .similar preparations. "5. That Germany, in abruptly declaring war against Russia for failure to demobilize when the other Powers had offered to make any reasonable concession and peace parleys were still in progress, precipitated the war." He adds that "The German nation has been plunged into this abyss by its scheming statesmen and its self-centered and highly neurotic Kaiser, who in the twentieth century sincerely believes that he is the proxy of Almighty God on earth, and therefore infal- lible." Since his article appeared, another labored defence of Germany has been sent to America, and, fathered by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, at one time the German Colonial Sec- retary, and said to be "now Germany's most conspicuous advocate in the United States," has been given to the American press. It still further illustrates many of the 66 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR points already made. For example, it speaks again of the mythical French attack upon Germany across Belgium, resting the assertion "upon absolutely unimpeachable infor- mation," which it does not give. Such attempts as have been made to sustain this eleventh-hour defence are, so far as I have seen, like many of those in the German "White Paper," based on similarly vague and unsupported state- ments. The whole effort in this last lengthy and involved document is to try to show that Eussia is "responsible for the war," that England "was fully cognizant of this fact," and that the latter^s "claim that she entered this war solely as the protector of small nations is a fable." So far as I know, no such claim has been made by Eng- land. The word "solely" is interpolated to make the Ger- man case stronger. In fact, in the reply by the English professors and men of science to the learned men of Ger- many responsible for "The Truth About Germany" (page 251), the former say with emphasis: "Great Britain, together with France, Russia, Prussia and Austria, had solemnly guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. In the preservation of this neutrality our deepest sentiments and our most vital interests are alike involved. Its violation would not only shatter the independence of Belgium itself; it would undermine the whole basis which renders possible the neutrality of any State and the very existence of such States as are weaker, much weaker, than their neighbors. We acted in 1914 just as we acted m 1870." But if the claim had been made, it would have had greater inherent probability and would be far more strongly upheld and substantiated by the admitted facts than is this last absurd effort to represent Germany as resisting "with quiet politeness" a demand, "as a price of British neutrality" to consent to her own "humiliation" and "retirement from the position of a Great Power." A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 67 Is it likely that a nation or two nations obviously, as events have shown, unprepared for immediate war would have made such a demand upon the greatest military power the world has ever seen, at a time when, as events have also shown, she was ready to the last apparently petty detail to challenge, if need be, United Europe ? Does not every intelligent person in the world know that her early successes, on the offensive, were due to this very prepared- ness, which her opponents could at the time but feebly imitate ? And since then, in her remarkable defensive cam- paign, was not her temporary safety assured by these same preparations, so complete last August that it is scarcely conceivable that they could have been bettered by or through delay? But even in this paper the same clumsy confusion between "Might" and "Eight," which has put Germany on the defensive before the civilized world is once more shown. I wish I had space to quote in full that part of this "Eeview of Official War-Papers." It speaks of the "heavy heart" with which Germany, "following the law of self- preservation," "decided to violate the neutrality of Bel- gium." It says that after England had informed the Belgians as by solemn contract and by every law of honor and decency she was bound to do that she would support them in case "Germany applied pressure to induce them to depart from neutrality" England's own words "Belgian fanaticism broke loose against Germany." Can Americans read with any patience the German expressions of ex post facto regret the hypocritical assump- tion that they are discharging a sacred duty ? "By nobody," says the Kolmsche Zeitung (close to the Berlin authorities), "is the fate of Belgium, the burning down of every building, the destruction of Louvain, so deeply deplored as by 68 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR the German people and our brave troops, who felt bound to carry out to the bitter end the chastisement they were compelled to inflict." Every burglar who, caught red-handed and resisted, * added murder to his other crimes, might with equal force "deeply deplore" the "necessity" that "compelled" him to "inflict chastisement." It is nauseating. And through it all outcrops at all sorts of malapropos times their insufferable self -appreciation. "We, however," says the Berlin Tageszeitung, "do not need to regard the public opinion of the world. In the last instance the German people, united with the Emperor, are alone com- petent to decide the correctness of Germany's course." The plea of "necessity" constantly recurs in the German apologiae, and was symbolized and summarized by Gerhart Hauptmann, the German dramatist, in his reply to an appeal from the Frenchman, Romain Holland, author of "Jean Christophe": "Our jealous enemies forged an iron ring around our breast and we knew our breast had to expand, that it had to split asunder this ring, or else we had to cease breathing." Translated into plain English, dear reader, this is as if your neighbor Schmidt, his family having somewhat outgrown the modest residence in which he began house- keeping, had called God to witness that in the Holy name of Family it was necessary for him to take your house and that of his other neighbor Claretie (and some of your out- lying farms), and that it was also necessary (under God's guidance) to get at you through the property of a third A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 69 neighbor, Vandervelde, which property, as the latter objected and resisted, it was further necessary to burn and destroy together with many of Vandervelde's children and his wife. In reply to these various German attempts to establish the righteousness of their cause by the plea of necessity for more room, and to their charges that Great Britain, having all she needs, is meanly and falsely trying to shut out the Teutons, Mr. Powys writes: (37) "How are we to suppose that Anglo-Saxon authorities would answer the charge of hypocrisy and disingenuousness ? I fancy they would claim at any rate we may now be allowed to claim for them that, quite obviously, the events of the past cannot be changed. By whatever means the Anglo-Saxon got possession of so vast a portion of the world's surface, he has got possession of it, and now holds it firmly. His apologists would doubtless add that not only does he hold it firmly, but he holds it wisely and liberally; he holds 1 it, in fact, with as much regard for the liberty and local traditions of the peoples involved as is compatible with holding it at all. But the fact that the events of the past have enabled him to secure all these spoils ought not to be made a reason for the perpetual con- tinuation of the struggle. He has secured them. That is the end of it. If the Germans had been equally favored by oppor- tunity and chance they would have secured them. But as things are now, the past cannot be changed. And evolution must go forward. And such evolution, forcing life up to a different sort of struggle upon a different sort of plane, must be allowed free play for new valuations and new moral stand- ards," Chesterton has well summed up the German ethics. They have been told by their politicians that all arrange- ments dissolve before "necessity." That is the importance of the German Chancellor's phrase, excusing and explaining the violation of the neutrality of Belgium: "We are now 70 A TEXT -BO OK OF THE WAR in a state of necessity and necessity knows no law," He did not allege some special excuse in the case of Belgium, which might make it an exception to the rule. He dis- tinctly argued, as on a principle applicable to other cases, that victory was a necessity and honor was a scrap of paper. "The Prussians had made a new discovery," says Chesterton, "in international politics that it may often be convenient to make a promise and yet curiously inconvenient to keep it. . . They, therefore, promised England a promise on con- dition that she broke a promise and on the implied condition that the new promise might be broken as easily as the old one." This, after all, well summarizes an important part of the German "diplomacy " To return to Mr. Beck's paper, I beg to say finally that I have quoted some of his conclusions without his argu- ments, because, while the latter were incapable of satis- factory condensation, within my limits, I wanted to call particular attention to the impression made on the highly trained mind of one representative American by the docu- ments on which the German and German-American special pleaders largely rest their case. The responsiblity for the war seems likely to be a per- ennial subject of discussion, but every new fact disclosed tends to fix it more and more clearly upon Germany. Eecently (38), the former Premier of Italy, Giovanni Giolitti, in a speech to the Italian Parliament, revealed an episode of a year ago last August which had a bearing on the present war. He said that : "In August, 1913, Austria notified the Italian Government by telegram that she intended to make war on Servia; and at that time, in response to Austria's inquiry about Italy's atti- tude, he, as Prime Minister, and the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Marquis di San Giuliano, agreed in telling Austria A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 71 that, as such a war would be a war of aggression and not of defense, Italy would not be bound by the Triple Alliance to aid Austria, and w r ould therefore remain neutral. 'It is neces- sary to declare this to Austria in the most formal manner/ said Signor Giolitti to the Foreign Minister at that time, 'hoping that Germany will act to dissuade Austria from a very dangerous adventure. 3 This interpretation of the Triple Alli- ance, Signor Giolitti explained to the Italian Parliament, was accepted by Germany and Austria. The statement is not only important as confirming the general opinion expressed before the war that Italy would not aid the other two members of the Triple Alliance in aggressive warfare, but is also significant as evidence of Austria's and Germany's plans that will help to sustain the verdict already reached by neutral peoples concern- ing the responsibility for this war." Here again it seems fruitless to continue to adduce evi- dence it would be only cumulative. To Americans who care to pursue it further I would recommend two works : Mr. Beck's "The Evidence in the Case" and Dr. Dillon's "A Scrap of Paper, the Inner History of German Diplo- macy " In the former, Mr. Beck has summed up in his usual masterly way the morals of the situation and has drawn an illuminating comparison between what might happen to us and what has happened to Belgium. "If, however, there had been no Hague Convention and no Treaty of 1839, and if Germany, England and France had never entered into reciprocal obligations in the event of war to respect Belgium's neutrality, nevertheless upon the broadest considera- tions of international law the invasion without its consent would be without any justification whatever. "It is a fundamental axiom of international law that each nation is the sole and exclusive judge of the conditions under which it will permit an alien to cross its frontiers. Its terri- tory is sacro-sanct. No nation can invade the territory of another without its consent. To do so by compulsion is an act 72 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR of war. Each nation's land is its castle of asylum and defense. This fundamental right of Belgium should not be confused or obscured by balancing the subordinate equities between France, Germany and England with respect to their formal treaty obli- gations. "Belgium's case has thus been weakened in the forum of public opinion by too insistent reference to the special treaties. The right of Belgium and of its citizens as individuals, to be secure in their possessions rests upon the sure foundation of inalienable right and is guarded by the immutable principle of moral law, 'Thou shalt not steal.' It was well said by Alex- ander Hamilton : " 'The sacred rights of man are not to be searched for in old parchments and musty records; they are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of Divinity itself and can never be erased by mortal power.' "This truth can be illustrated by an imaginary instance. Let us suppose that the armies of the Kaiser had made the progress which they so confidently anticipated, and had not simply cap- tured Paris, but had also invaded England, and that, in an attempt to crush the British Empire, the German General Staff planned an invasion of Canada. Let us further suppose that Germany thereupon served upon the United States such an arrogant demand as it made upon Belgium, requiring the United States to permit it to land an army in New York, with the accompanying assurance that neither its territory nor inde- pendence would be injured, and that Germany would gener- ously reimburse it for any damage. "Let us further suppose and it is not a very fanciful sup- position that the United States would reply to the German demand that under no circumstances should a German force be landed in New York or its territory be used as a base of hos- tile operations against Canada. To carry out the analogy in all its details, let us then suppose that the German fleet should land an army in the city of New York, arrest its Mayor, and check the first attempt of its outraged inhabitants to defend the city by demolishing the Cathedral, the Metropolitan Art Gallery, the City Hall and other structures, and shooting down remorselessly large numbers of citizens, because a few non-com- batants had not accepted the invasion with due humility. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 73 "Although Germany had not entered into any treaty to re- spect the territory of the United States, no one would seriously contend that Germany would be justified in such an invasion." And in still another American book (39), Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard calls attention to a point which has hith- erto escaped most of the controversialists : "It would also not be amiss for those Germans who ponder over the failure of the neutral nations to sympathize with Ger- many, to read once more the telegram of the Kaiser to the King of England, of August 1, 1914, in which the Kaiser says: 'The troops on my frontier are in the act of being stopped by telegraph and telephone from crossing into France. 9 The sig- nificance of this to American readers lies in the Kaiser's astounding admission that mobilization against France meant immediate invasion of France before any declaration of war. Had this fact been publicly known or really understood in Germany, it ought surely to have prevented the repeated asser- tions that France began the war by sending her aviators over German territory, by the entrance of armed patrols, a sudden attack in Lorraine, etc. For it is evident from the Kaiser's own words that long-prepared orders to invade French soil sent some of his troops onto it the instant the first order to mobilize appeared. Whether those troops did any damage or not, or reached French territory or not, before war was declared, is unimportant. The intent to rush right onto French soil before peace was officially ended is here admitted. It is thoroughly in keeping with the conversation of General von Moltke, in May, 1913, reported by the French ambassador to Berlin, that 'we (the Germans) must begin war without waiting, in order brutally to crush all resistance.' This has been denied in Ger- many, but it is in keeping with, the attitude of leading mili- tarists, and was, perhaps, one of the bits of evidence that led Italy to reject outright Germany's claim that Italy must come to her aid because she had been attacked. At any rate, the German propagandists who seek to conquer hostile American opinion must find some way of getting around the Kaiser's despatch. Its revelation of what German mobilization really 74 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR meant does, however, in some degree explain why it was that the Kaiser and his military associates were so alarmed by the mere fact of Russian mobilization," CHAPTEE III. What Has Been the Attitude of the German Apologists In Relation to Belgium Since the Violation of Neutrality? Professor Weber, of Kiel, said to be "very close to Prince Henry of Prussia and the Hohenzollern family, writes to an American friend :" (40) "It has been proved with certainty that Belgium had already entered into agreements with France long before the war to permit the passage of hostile troops through Belgium, perhaps even to take the field with them against us. "By this means Belgium had already surrendered her neu- trality and had actually taken a stand with our enemies. That we with one bold blow should dare to take the Belgium fortress is, therefore, easy to understand. We have been far too lenient in that we wished to give back to the Belgians their land un- harmed after the fall of Liege. "Since the Belgians were so deceived as not to accept this magnanimous offer, they must bitterly atone for it." As usual, nothing worthy of being called "proof" has been adduced in support of this statement, and admiration for the "magnanimity" which led Germany to offer to give back to the Belgians their own land must be withheld. Dr. Herman Hilprecht says that the Belgian Government "stubbornly declined the German proposition" to allow the latter to violate the treaty of neutrality and then attempts to justify fully and without reservation the subse- quent over-running of Belgium and the pillage and destruc- tion of Lou vain. (41) Much precisely similar testimony might be adduced, (75) 76 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR chiefly from German- American sources, and would amply suffice to show the mistake of the American writer who said: (42) "The government of Germany has announced that "the occu- pation of Belgium is now virtually complete'; and the people of the empire are celebrating the achievement with pride and exultation. Thus is closed one of the bloodiest chapters in the war and one of the darkest chapters in the records of inter- national dishonor. "No matter what horrors may await the world in the un- folding of the dreadful conflict, none can exceed in poignant tragedy the fate of this devoted people. From the time of Caesar the bravery and the dauntless independence of the Bel- gians have been celebrated by historians and sung by poets. And now these high qualities have inspired a supreme demon- stration of heroism and sacrifice which makes all humanity the debtor of the martyred nation. "This is the one phase of the war which can be discussed almost without raising controversy. Upon the issues of Prus- sian policy, French hatred, British jealousy and Russian plot- ting, advocates on either side wax furiously eloquent and raise questions which their opponents are taxed to answer. "But upon the hideous wrong perpetrated upon Belgium, the most ruthless devotee of militarism, the most fanatical expo- nent of imperialistic destiny and the rights of 'culture,' must take refuge in silence or falter out feeble extenuation. The facts of history, the records of diplomacy and the principles of international justice converge here to denounce an act unpar- alleled in its cruelty and perfidy." Unfortunately, since this was written, the imperialistic and "cultured" fanatics have shown that they have no idea of taking refuge in silence, but fatuously believe that they can impose upon a thinking and reasoning world a view that it has already contemptuously and with practical unanimity rejected. The same writer gives a brief outline of the case (from A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR W a slightly different standpoint from that of Mr. Beck), brings it down to date, and continues: "This [the treaty of 1839, etc., see pp. 80-82] was the record upon which Belgium stood when the troops 6f the Kaiser crossed her frontiers on August 2 last. The German govern- ment, having already violated the territory of Luxemburg, de- manded passage for its forces through the country whose in- tegrity it was sworn to honor and protect. With unblushing effrontery it called this demand a request for 'friendly neu- trality,' and declared that in case of opposition Germany would 'consider Belgium as an enemy.' "There was here a double crime. Germany not only foreswore her own covenant, but undertook to penalize Belgium for ob- serving that country's solemn obligation; for, of course, consent by Belgium to the free passage of the Kaiser's forces would have been a repudiation of the treaty by Belgium and tanta- mount to an act of war against France. "Apologists for the invasion have attempted to set up two defences. The first is that France was preparing to violate the treaty, and that Germany simply forestalled her. Fortu- nately, there are records which utterly disprove this pretense. After Germany's ultimatum, France offered the services of five army corps to Belgium to defend her neutrality. The answer was: " 'We are sincerely grateful to the French government for offering eventual support. In the actual circumstances, how- ever, we do not propose to appeal to the guarantee of the Powers. The Belgian government will decide later on the action which they may think it necessary to take.' "Belgium preferred to make her first appeal to Germany's sense of honor, and, when that failed, to the heroic resistance of a wronged people. And France was so ill-prepared for the invasion which Germany says she plotted that ten days elapsed before she had her forces in the neutral territory. "The second excuse offered in ex post facto palliation of the offense is that in the Belgian archives Germany has found des- patches showing that in 1906 the British military attache and the Belgian General Staff discussed tentatively plans for landing a British force to defend Belgian neutrality if it were attacked 78 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR It shows the desperate nature of the German case when this incident is cited to justify a brutal invasion. "The arrangement for giving help to Belgium, if needed, was discussed at the time Germany had thrust herself to the verge of war with France over Morocco; and the proposal of Great Britain to defend the neutrality of Belgium, as she was bound to do, was as creditable as Germany's violation of that neu- trality was dishonorable. "All the eloquence and sophistries of the professors, poets, and psychologists advocating the German cause cannot remove the black stain of this deed. The facts are irrefutable, and the proof of guilt inexorable." Doctor Bernhard Dernburg lias made perhaps the most elaborate of the arguments in defense of the violation of Belgium's neutrality. He begins with a series of counter- charges, as follows : England has broken treaties. England has encouraged Portugal to break "a treaty of peace and amity" with Germany. England has "solicited" the sever- ing of the Triple Alliance, i. e., has tried to prevent Italy from fighting by the side of her bitter and hereditary enemy, Austria. Japan broke a Japanese-Chinese treaty. Finally, the United States Supreme Court said in 1889 that, under certain circumstances, treaty stipulations might, in the interest of the country, be disregarded. This judgment was handed down when the Chinese were excluded from the United States. Much has happened in the quarter of a century since 1889, but there was not then, and is not now, any just basis of comparison between a modification or abrogation of a treaty concerning immigration, and the brutal rape and pillage of a whole country because of its insistence upon the most elementary of human rights. The fundamental point seems to be this : A treaty between two or more countries concerning matters of internal administration may be the subject of change under A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 79 changed conditions, or may be abrogated, and such change or abrogation may or may not be considered a casus belli. Furthermore, such a treaty may have to be broken in time of war under the law of imperative necessity (now appealed to by the Germans), and the degree of wrong involved in such infraction can be determined only by the circum- stances of the particular case. But a treaty concerning "neutrality" in which the interests of five nations are involved, and by which, long in advance of war, each signatory binds itself not to acquire any advantage dependent upon the non-observance of such neutrality in time of war, is obviously made with particular reference to war and to war conditions. The nation that disregards such a treaty, that repudiates for its own interests such an obligation, is, as Mr. Fraley has said (p. 90), like the person who cheats at cards. It should be regarded as outside the pale of civilized inter- course. Doctor Dernburg's further claim as to Belgium is that the Treaty of 1839, which secured Belgium's independence, was no longer binding, because in 1870 new treaties were negotiated between England and France, and England and the North German Federation (August 9 and 26, 1870), guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality "for the duration of the war and for one year thereafter." Accordingly, he says, the treaty between Belgium and the North German Fed- eration came to an end in May, 1872. This matter is of vital importance in the argument. If Doctor Dernburg's claim is admitted, it would afford a technical excuse for Germany's treatment of Belgium. I do not believe that in the opinion of this country, or of the world, a dozen such technical excuses would suffice to win for Germany a pardon for her ruthless invasion. But the claim, of course, required examination on its merits. Fur- 80 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR thermore, it afforded a test of Doctor Dernburg's veracity, which I was glad to apply. It is,, therefore, of twofold significance. It will be well to repeat here Doctor Dernburg's exact language: (43) "When the war broke out there was no enforceable treaty in existence to which Germany was a party. Originally, in 1839, a treaty was concluded, providing for such neutrality. In 1866 France demanded of Prussia the right to take possession of Belgium, and the written French offer was made known by Bismarck in July, 1870. Then England demanded and obtained separate treaties with France, and with the North German Fed- eration, to the effect that they should respect Belgium's neu- trality, and such treaties were signed on the 9th and 26th of August, 1870, respectively. According to them both countries guaranteed Belgium's neutrality for the duration of the war and for one year thereafter. The war came to an end with the Frankfurt peace in 1871, and the treaty between Belgium and the North German Federation expired in May, 1872." Before examining into the truthfulness and force of this presentation of the case,, it would be well to notice that Doctor Dernburg proceeded in his attempt to sustain it by rewriting for the German Chancellor his speech of August 4, 1914, in which the Chancellor said to the Eeichstag that the invasion of Belgium was "contrary to the dictates of international law," and was "wrong." The fatal frankness of these words compelled their dexterous apologist to trans- late them afresh into modified terms for the benefit of Americans. As softened for our ears, they read thus : "The neutrality of Belgium could not be respected, and we were sincerely sorry that Belgium, a country that, in fact, had nothing to do with the question at issue, and might wish to stay neutral, had to be overrun." If Doctor Dernburg has the only correct report of this A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 81 celebrated and incriminating speech, why has he withheld it until now, in order to confide it tardily to a waiting world? I asked: What do the words "perpetual neutrality" mean in the Treaty of 1839 ? When was that treaty abro- gated? Surely Doctor Dernburg knows that the negotia- tion of new treaties does not necessarily mean the abroga- tion of existing ones. Bismarck himself recognized this fact when, on July 22, 1870, he wrote to the Belgian Min- ister in Berlin: "In confirmation of my verbal assurances, I have the honor to give in writing a declaration which, in view of the treaties in force, is quite superfluous, that the Confederation of the North and its Allies will respect the neutrality of Belgium, on the understanding, of course, that it is respected by the other belligerent." I argued that if no treaty had been in existence since May, 1872 (which is the idea Doctor Dernburg is endeavor- ing to convey), why did the German Secretary of State say in the Eeichstag in 1913, "The neutrality of Belgium is determined by international conventions, and Germany is resolved to respect these conventions"? Why did the German Minister of War say in the same debate: "Germany will not lose sight of the fact that Belgium's neutrality is guaranteed by international treaties"? Why, on July 31, 1914, did the German Minister at Brus- sels assure "the Belgian Department of State that he knew of a declaration which the German Chancellor had made in 1911 to the effect "that Germany had no intention of violating our" (Belgium's) "neutrality" and "that he was certain that the sentiments to which expression was given at that time had not changed" ? 82 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Why on August 4, 1914, did the German Foreign Secre- tary, after wiring the Ambassador in London of a mythical French attack across Belgium, go on to say : "Germany had consequently to disregard Belgian neutrality"? How foolish! He should have communicated with Dernburg, and learned that Belgian neutrality died of inanition in May, 1872. What were we to think of Imperial Chancellors and Foreign Secretaries who were unfamiliar with so im- portant a fact, known all the while by an ex-colonial secre- tary? But these were theoretical arguments. It seemed worth while to look into the facts. Doctor Dernburg had incau- tiously, it seems supplied the dates. The Nouveau Recueil General de Traites (Vol. XIX, 1874, pp. 591-593) gives the text of the treaties Doctor Dernburg quotes. They were, as he says, signed on August 9, and ratified on August 26, 1870. The expressions used in the treaty between Prussia and Great Britain, and in that between France and Great Britain are identical. Both treaties are "to maintain the independence and the neu- trality of Belgium." In both the penultimate article (Article 3) is the one quoted by Doctor Dernburg. It reads as follows : "Art. 3. This treaty shall be binding on the High Contract- ing Parties during the continuance of the present war between North German Confederation and France, and for 12 months after the ratification of any treaty of peace concluded between those parties- ; and on the expiration of that time the independ- ence and neutrality of Belgium will, so far as the High Con- tracting Parties are respectively concerned, continue to rest as heretofore on the first article of the Quintuple Treaty of the 19th of April, 1839." I have italicised the part deliberately omitted by Doctor A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 83 Dernburg, a part not even separated from the rest of the article by a period ; a part at least as essential and as im- portant to the full significance of the agreement as the part he quoted ; but a part which, unfortunately for Doctor Dernburg, absolutely destroyed and nullified his contention that, because of the one-year clause, no treaty obligation in the case of Belgium has existed since 1872. He has left himself no room to deny his purpose because in the very next sentence he says : "Why the new treaties, if the old one held good? The Im- perial Chancellor has been continuously misrepresented as ad- mitting that in the case of Belgium a treaty obligation was broken." We have already seen that to bolster up this contention that the Chancellor had been "misrepresented" he has rewritten the Chancellor's speech. But that he should venture to publish that part of an article of a treaty which, taken from its context, seemed to support his argument, and suppress the portion the last half of the same para- graph which absolutely invalidated his argument, was, we confess, a surprise. Is it possible henceforth to place any reliance upon the statements of a writer who is capable of so glaringly mis- quoting an official document? He might as well have rewritten Article III of that treaty to suit the purposes of his argument, just as he does seem to have rewritten the Chancellor's speech, and Germany's message to our State Department (vide infra) . Doctor Dernberg has provided for himself a back 'door of retreat in reply to any such frontal attack, by saying that "when the war broke out, there was no enforceable treaty in existence." This is, alas, only too true, but it is about the only scintilla of truth in his whole misleading, sophis- 84 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE "WAR tical, disingenuous and untrustworthy argument. As its writer elects to call himself a "guest" of this country on whose invitation he neglects to say the dictates of hospi- tality prevent me from applying to his statements a more fitting and more concise term. Dernburg took occasion at the same time to reiterate the old, old boast as to the glories of German civilization, which the events of the last few months should silence for- ever on men's tongues. What is civilization ? Is it, as Doctor Dernburg seems to think, a matter of technical schools and electrical apparatus? Is it making cheaper stockings than the rest of the world ? Assuredly, no ! It is primarily a matter of conduct. It is an understanding of honor and of integrity. It is a recognition of the rights of others. The Eoman civilization was not a mere matter of good roads, good bridges and good aqueducts, though these things were built well. It did not rest on conquest or on commerce. "What Eome gave and secured," says Mr. Chamberlain, "was a life morally worthy of man." Ger- many's campaign in Belgium and the more that is said in defense of this great wrong, the blacker does it appear is an affront to honor, a deathblow to integrity, a denial of just rights. It is a triumphant exposition of brute force ; of a life morally worthy of no man. It is a rejection of civili- zation, and of all that civilization implies. It is an abrupt return to savage and elemental conditions. What wonder that, knowing themselves forsworn, the Germans should strive to cast the guilt of their perfidy on Belgium's shoulders ! What wonder that, knowing them- selves to be unprincipled aggressors, they should have the hardihood to say that Belgium plotted against the peace of Europe ! There is no hatred so deep as that which we bear to the man we have wronged. There is no sight so bitter to a nation's eyes as the unstained honor of another A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 85 nation it has dishonorably despoiled. As long as history is taught, the tale of Germany's broken word and Belgium's brave resistance will be told the world. As long as men stay men, they will loathe the oppressor and revere the indomitable courage of the oppressed. As long as truth stays truth, the blot on Germany's escutcheon will remain uneffaced and uneffaceable. Germany's present attitude toward Belgium has> in fact, excited throughout the whole civilized world feelings of the deepest contempt and aversion. The situation has nowhere, in the entire literature of the war, been more clearly and incisively dealt with than in the following editorial from a Philadelphia paper. (44) I quote it entire: "If Prof. Hugo Minister berg had not laid aside his avocation as eulogist of Germany's war policy, we should like to put to him a question in psychology. As a loyal German and an expert in the science mentioned, he might be able to explain why Ger- man statesmen and writers are so indignant against the Bel- gians; so rancorously hostile to them; so contemptuous toward their heroism and misery. "German impatience with France and aversion toward Russia we can understand, and German loathing for Great Britain is an indulgence of which no impartial person would be willing to deprive a nation to which it gives such exquisite satisfaction. The author of the famous 'Hymn of Hate' against England has just received from the Kaiser the decoration of the Red Eagle of the Fourth Class; and everyone will agree that it is a well- deserved honor, selected with discrimination. "But Belgium was not a powerful rival, like France; nor a 'menace to Teutonic civilization,' like Russia; nor a colossal obstruction to German world empire, like England. She was peaceful, orderly, neutral, innocent of aggressive designs, asking only to be let alone. Even in her anguish she is "silent and un- complaining. "That the vials of German wrath and contumely should be poured out upon Belgium is rather puzzling, until one recalls the proverbial teaching that it is a human failing to hate most 86 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR those whom we have injured. It may be the ruins of Lou vain, the rich tribute of war levies and the spectacle of a nation haunted by famine that incite German resentment. "We have already noted the persistent effort to undermine the world's admiration for Belgium's grave sacrifice. Her con- sultation with an English military attache as to possible meas- ures of defense, to be adopted 'only after violation of our neu- trality by Germany/ has been denounced as a betrayal, an 'abandoment of neutrality/ by the Belgian government, justly punished by invasion. "But there is a more personal phase of the controversy which must appeal to many observers. This is the campaign of de- traction directed against the Belgians themselves. Recently a German- American publication, the Fatherland, criticised the American people for sending relief ships to the starving non- combatants, on the ground that this was assisting the enemies of Germany. "The instinct of chivalry toward a brave foe seems to be one of the features of war that have disappeared with the march of efficiency. The Belgians are denounced for having resisted invasion ; their king, despite his gallantry and devotion, is ridi- culed as a deluded conspirator and assailed as the betrayer of his people. "Sixteen years ago, with three lives between him and inheri- tance of the crown, Albert, of Belgium, lived for several months in the United States, studying American principles of govern- ment and his vocation of engineering. A book which he then wrote disclosed his intense admiration for liberal institutions; and these convictions he carried with him when unexpected deaths raised him to the throne. His simplicity of life, his democratic bearing and his tireless devotion to the economic advancement of Belgium made him a singularly useful and be- loved ruler. "During the war he has shown himself such a king as even democracy may honor. His determination to sacrifice his throne rather than the honor of his country evoked world-wide admiration, for he showed that he did not hesitate to pay his part of the price. "From the beginning he has shared the dangers of his troops, and to-day is as homeless as the poorest of his subjects. In the lefense of Brussels and Antwerp he was daily in the trenches, A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 87 and now is in active command of the remnant of his army, which with supreme courage is blocking the path of the Ger- mans to Dunkirk and Calais. "It is of this leader, whose heroism has been one of the most gallant spectacles of the war, that the Hanoverscher Anzeiger, an influential German newspaper, says: " 'King Albert, who is now stubbornly defending the last few square miles of his country, will some day give to a future Shakespeare material for a tragedy. It will be the tragedy of a ruler who wanted to make his little nation great and pros- perous and happy, and who was shamelessly betrayed by his friends, in whose honesty and fairness he had trusted.' "This reads like a confession of Germany's treaty violation; but it appears that those who 'shamelessly betrayed' Belgium were not the Germans, but the French and English. The paper continues : " 'Albert trusted perfidious Albion; he steered his little vessel into the wake of the French ship of state, not knowing that this proud ship was being steered by foreign pilots in for- eign pay into a fateful, ruinous undertow.' "And then follows a column of savage sneering in this vein: " 'Albert, of the house of Coburg, whose scions are justly famed for their sagacity, did not develop after his kin's tradi- tion. He proved a dilettante on the throne, for did he not light- heartedly sacrifice Belgium's neutrality the most sacred palla- dium of all small nations to vague promises? . . . " 'King Albert, unlike his uncle (King Leopold), was always eager to become popular, and could be sure to win the approval and good will of his people by conducting his policies a la mode de Paris. More significant of an intimate Belgian leaning to- ward the western countries, however, was his ambition to make his country a sea power. " 'Albert always had been interested in questions of technique, commerce and social economy. It was his intention to continue the colonial policy begun by Leopold II and to develop it, though in a different direction.' "If the war 'had taken a different turn,' says an astute Ger- man critic, 'then Belgium would have become a sort of second Portugal, a vassal State, and the great British Empire would have made her feel every day that she owed her existence only to England's mercy.' As it is, of course, she enjoys her present 88 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR felicity, and is conscious that she owes it, to Germany's magna- nimity. "It is, however, the democracy of the Belgian king that moat exasperates the Teutonic mind: " 'He and his people are now suffering the consequences of his ignorance. He made the fatal mistake of considering himself wiser than his uncle was. He played the crowned bourgeois. He catered to the scholars, artists and engineers. He always emphasized his democratic sentiments, which were very popular in Belgium, for that country is much behind in sociological aspect. . '. . . " 'In his ignorance, Albert, the dilettante, lent himself as the tool of the British war-makers and of the French revenge-criers. His Coburger cousin, George of England, has tapped him, and Albert may thank George for the fate into which he stumbled blindly.' "With such sentiments do the leaders of German thought ex- press their conception of international affairs and reveal them- selves upon questions of government and morality. The un- happy truth is that Prussianized Germany is utterly incapable of appreciating the Belgian spirit or the Belgian king; of understanding in the remotest degree the soul of this nation she has struck down and the admiration it has stirred throughout the world. "Despite all her worship of militarism and the cult of glory, Germany could not feel the thrill of these lines by an Aus- tralian : " 'In that Valhalla where the heroes go, A careful sentinel paced to and fro Before the gate, burned black with battle smoke, Whose echoes to the tread of armed men woke ; Where up the fiery stairs, whose steps are spears, Came the pale heroes of the blood-stained years. " 'There were lean Caesars from the gory fields, With heart that only to a sword thrust yields; And there were generals decked in pride of rank, Red scabbard swinging from the weary flank; And slender youths who were the sons of kings, And barons with their sixteen quarterings. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 89 " 'And while the nobles went with haughty air, The courteous sentinel questioned, "Who goes there ?" And as each came, full lustily he cried His string of titles ere he passed inside. " 'And presently there was a little man, A silent mover in the regal van. His hand still grasped his rifle, and his eyes Seemed blinded with the light from Paradise. His was a humble guise, a modest air The sentinel hailed him sharply, "Who goes there ?" " 'There were no gauds tacked to that simple name, But every naked blade leaped out like flame, And every blue-blooded warrior bowed his head "I am a Belgian"; this was all he said.' "Germany cries out against her 'ring of enemies. 5 Which of them does she imagine is the most dangerous? Is it Russia, with her unnumbered hordes; France, with her intrepid armies; England, with her mighty fleet? "More powerful than any of these is that little nation she has crushed under her weight and now despises and maligns. It is the crime against Belgium that will rob a German triumph of honor or fill a German defeat with bitterness and humilia- tion. For the judgment of humanity is sure, and it will be as stern as that delivered of old against him who wronged the helpless: f lt were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the The evidence as to the criminal and altogether inde- fensible position in which Germany finds herself in regard to Belgium is overwhelming. She has forfeited the respect of the civilized world. Her "promises" and "pledges" and "guarantees" will, as long as the present ruling class is in power, be regarded with contempt or derision by other nations. So far as the Belgian question relates to America, however, I have nowhere seen the issue better expressed than 90 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR by Mr. Joseph C. Fraley, of Philadelphia, who, in a bro- chure entitled "How and Why a War Lord Wages War" (which all Americans should read), says: "We know that the one hope of stopping wars, is to supply a world-wide sanction for the support of international laws and morals. We have nothing to do with the reasons which led certain powers to engage that Belgian territory should be neu- tral in time of war. We have everything to do with this par- ticular instance of treaty breaking, in that it constitutes a new departure, a crime against all neutrals. Treaties made for peace conditions are obviously liable to be broken in war, but a treaty made with special reference to war, belongs to that class of obligations whose infringement is like cheating at cards. The offender gets no second chance." And yet it takes a German- American (Jastrow) to say that the historian of the future will, in analyzing the causes of the war, regard the neutrality of Belgium "as a very minor factor, perhaps entirely negligible" ! Doctor Dernburg says : "England takes the position that, in case France had used Belgium as a stepping stone, England would have gone to war against France for break- ing the Belgian neutrality. This is a remarkable proposi- tion." It is remarkable, but only as offering an absolute demonstration, incomprehensible to the German mind, of England's unswerving intention to live up to her treaty obligations. In August, 1870, as we have seen, on the instance of Lord Granville, Germany and France entered into an iden- tical treaty with Great Britain to the effect that if either belligerent violated Belgian territory, Great Britain would co-operate with the others for the defense of it. This treaty was most strictly construed during the Franco-Prus- sian war. It may seem "remarkable" to Doctor Dernburg that a A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 91 nation should live up to such an obligation; but whatever our own record may have been, however we may have sinned in the past, we hope that the time will never come when it will seem remarkable to Americans to keep our plighted word. On July 31, 1914, Sir Edward Grey telegraphed to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin : "I said to the German Ambassador this morning that if Ger- many could get any reasonable proposal put forward which made it clear that Germany and Austria were striving to pre- serve European peace, and that Russia and France would be unreasonable if they rejected it, I would support it at St. Peters- burg and Paris, and go to the length of saying that if Russia and France would not accept it, His Majesty's Government would have nothing more to do with the consequences; but, otherwise, I told the German Ambassador that if France be- came involved we should be drawn in." (British White Paper, No. 111.) The following day Grey telegraphed Goschen : "I told the German Ambassador to-day that the reply of the German Government with regard to the neutrality of Belgium was a matter of very great regret, because the neutrality of Belgium affected feeling in this country. If Germany could see her way to give the same assurance as that which had been given by France, it would materially contribute to relieve anxiety and tension here. On the other hand, if there were a violation of the neutrality of Belgium by one combatant while the other respected it, it would be extremely difficult to restrain public feeling in this country." (British White Paper, No. 123.) To combat these official and categorical statements, what does Doctor Dernburg offer? "On July 30/> he tells us, "the Belgian Charge d' Affaires at St. Petersburg wrote to 92 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR his Government and the authenticity of this letter cannot be impeached that the Eussian war party got the upper hand upon England's assurance that she would stand in with Prance." Here is a letter, said to be written by a Belgian Charge d'Affaires, at St. Petersburg,, on July 30. The letter is not given. It does not appear in the official "Diplomatic Correspondence of the War/' published by the Belgian Government. Its existence rests on an unsup- ported statement; but its authenticity "cannot be impeached." Are the American people, to whom this appeal is ad- dressed, satisfied to accept it as authentic on such evidence ? I do not think so. A little later, after a repetition of what is, as I have already said, the most contemptible and unworthy of all the arguments put forward by German apologists, the attempt to make Belgium herself responsible for the out- rages committed against her (p. 124), a sarcastic effort to say she is "not the 'poor' little country" that is being pic- tured to the Americans, Doctor Dernburg proceeds : "The Imperial Chancellor said that he had proofs that the French were to invade Germany by way of Belgium. Proof there is. French soldiers and French guns, in spite of all the denials made by the French Ambassador at Washington, were in Lige and Namur before the 30th of July. Certainly this proof is only in private letters, but it comes from absolutely unimpeachable people." What would the Germans and "German-Americans" do without a few phrases, a few stock sentences worn thin in their hard service ? Doctor Hilprecht publicly accuses the Allies of frightful cruelties on the basis of "official and absolutely trustworthy other information." Examination A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 93 shows that the "official information" is lacking, also the "trustworthiness." The German Foreign Secretary telegraphs the German Ambassador in London (August 4, 1914) (No. 157, British White Paper) : "Please impress upon Sir Edward Grey that the German army could not be exposed to French attack across Belgium, which was planned according to absolutely unimpeachable information/' information, of course, un- given. And now Doctor Bernburg comes along with his unim- peachable authenticity and his "absolutely unimpeachable people." Doctor Dernburg reiterated his "assurances" that "no matter what happens, the Monroe Doctrine will not be violated by Germany either in North America, or in South America." He had, of course, no authority to give such assurance. He neglected to repeat his former published statement that, by sending Canadian troops to the war, "Canada had placed herself beyond the pale of American protection," a statement confirmed by the inept von Bern- storff, the German Ambassador in this country, who also said that a German invasion of Canada would not violate the Monroe Doctrine. Doctor Dernburg did, however, accuse Canada of "a wilful breach of the Monroe Doctrine" by going to war, "thereby exposing the American Continent to a counter-attack from Europe, and risking to disarrange the present equilibrium." Can casuistry be more finely spun? Canada, an integral part of the British Empire, sends troops to aid in protecting England from the gra^e peril threatened by an autocratic military Power; and "thereby" violates a doctrine, the very essence of which was the pro- tection of this entire hemisphere from the possibility of any 94: A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR such autocratic military Power reaching over the sea to attack our all but defenseless shores. I must regretfully admit that to a certain sort of "legal" mind this theory of the non-violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the invasion of Canada is technically satis- fying (vide newspaper reports of a speech of ex-President Taft, November, 1914). But I would ask Americans gener- ally to refuse to accept without grave and justified sus- picion any such assurances as those given by von Bernstorff and Dernburg, and also to consider seriously whether they would desire to remain neutral for twenty-four hours after the bombardment of Quebec, or the occupancy of Toronto or Montreal. I think I know the answer. As the New York World observed: "Should German troops ever invade Canada, the application of the Monroe Doctrine to the specific case will be defined in Washington, not in Berlin" It may be added that unofficial "assurances/' however "unimpeachable," were officially modified to "intentions" almost at once by our own State Department, which an- nounced that the instructions of Germany to von Bernstorff were to deny that Germany intends to seek expansion in South America. So the "assurance" becomes an "intent," and the "intent" does not include North America. Doctor Dernburg, more garrulous than his Government, endeavors to soothe our justifiable apprehension. "I am in the posi- tion to state," he says blandly, "that immediately after the outbreak of the war, by one of the first mails that reached the United States, the German Government, sent of its own free initiative, a solemn declaration to the Department of State that, whatever happened, she would fully respect the Monroe Doctrine." This would be more reassuring, first, A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 95 if Germany had so declared,, and, next, if Germany's word were at par. But what difference does it make to us whether she swears allegiance to the Monroe Doctrine, or threatens its annihilation ? We are no safer, and no more endangered, in the one case than in the other. But when Doctor Dernburg permits himself to say that "we" meaning we Germans "have no ambitions of en- largement in Europe or in America"; when he adds with touching simplicity: "We do not believe in incorporating in our empire any parts of nations that are not of our own language and race/' Americans may be pardoned for asking how he reconciles this admirable disinterestedness with the words of the Kaiser addressed to his troops in East Prussia, which began, "Thanks to the valor of my heroes, France has been severely punished. Belgium, which interfered with our attack, lias been added to the glorious provinces of Germany." Dernburg and the Kaiser ought to keep in closer touch if they want to influence America. The Kaiser's order appeared in our press on November 13, 1914. And yet on August 4, 1914, the German Foreign Secretary telegraphed the German Ambassador in London: "Please dispel any mistrust that may subsist on the part of the British Government with regard to our intentions., by re- peating most positively formal assurance that even in the case of armed conflict with Belgium, Germany will, under no pre- tense whatever, annex Belgian territory. Sincerity of this declaration is borne out by the fact that we solemnly pledged our word to Holland strictly to respect her neutrality. It is obvious that we could not profitably annex Belgian territory without making at the same time territorial acquisitions at expense of Holland. (British White Paper, No. 157.)" We wonder if the attention of Holland has been called 96 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR to the Kaiser's order, as read in conjunction with the Sec- retary's admirable telegram! When it is, they should be read together with the opinion of the Kaiser's Professor of Philosophy at Berlin, Dr. Lasson: (45) "We Germans have little esteem and less respect and sym- pathy for the Holland of the present day. Holland in its isola- tion sinks more and more into the dull narrow-mindedness that is the mark of small sects. Without its hold on Germany it would have long ago disappeared. God be praised that the Dutch are not our friends." More recently (January, 1915), von Bethmann-Hollweg has felt it necessary to go back to the "scrap of paper" interview of August 4th, and re-interpret it, chiefly for the benefit of Americans. I have dealt with this elsewhere (p. 300), but it seems worth while to record the impression this effort has made upon an American editor: (46) "More important, but no more candid, is the recent defense put forth by the Imperial Chancellor, Doctor von Bethmann- Hollweg. This statesman's courageous admission at the open- ing of the war that Germany was committing 'a great wrong' because of 'necessity* has been the one noble utterance of his Government during the conflict. He now rejects, however, the esteem which his frank and generous statement Avon and joins the chorus of detraction against Belgium. "As the originator of the 'scrap of paper* doctrine regarding treaties, the Chancellor had attained a world-wide eminence which he resents. After six months' cogitation, he has de- cided that he has been a victim of misunderstanding, and that his historic phrase, far from being a cynical repudiation of international honor, was, in reality, an indictment of British hypocrisy and Belgian perfidy. He repeats the charge that Bel- gium had 'abandoned her neutrality' by consulting with Britain as to resisting the long-threatened violation by Germany, and says: A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 9? " 'England drew the sword only because she believed her own interests demanded it. Just for Belgian neutrality she would never have entered the war. That is what I meant when I told Sir Edward Goschen that among the reasons which had impelled England to go into the war, the Belgian neutrality treaty had for her only the value of "a scrap of paper." ' "We do not know the nature of the doctoral degree which the Chancellor holds, but in view of his defense we sincerely hope it is not a doctorate of laws. His attempt to erase the 'scrap of paper' stigma from the Government which assassinated Belgian nationality and stamp it upon the country which went to war in defense of that cause challenges admiration for its audacity rather than its wisdom. "We by no means subscribe to the theory that Great Britain's foreign policy is purely altruistic, or that she is pouring out her blood and treasure solely for the sake of plundered Belgium. Nor is this fantastic idea suggested by Britain herself. If Belgian had lain several hundred miles distant instead of across a narrow channel, and if a Germanized Belgium had not meant, as Germany boasted, 'a knife at the throat of England,' the British Government and people would possibly not have con- strued their guarantee of Belgium's neutrality to require resort to arms. "But even in that case it would have been Germany, not Eng- land, that made the treaty f a scrap of paper,' while, as the matter stands, Great Britain is incontestably in the position of upholding her part in the treaty at tremendous cost, while Germany as clearly has violated her part for her own advantage. "The fundamental inspiration of England, of course, is self- interest or self-preservation the identical purpose which Ger- many pleads. But it cannot be denied that she is promoting that cause by defending a cruelly wronged nation and the sanctity of international obligations, while Germany, under the same plea, has forsworn her word and committed a monstrous assault. "It is really astonishing that a statesman of high attainments should offer such a defense as that of Doctor von Bethmann- Hollweg. If it was an act of necessity, even of virtue, for Ger- many to violate the treaty for self-protection, it is quite out of the question for impartial observers to find guilty the country which observed and defended the treaty for the same reason. 7 98 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "'England ought really to cease harping on this theme of Belgian neutrality/ says the exasperated Chancellor. He does not yet realize that that chord vibrates to the finger of hu- manity and that the note of its condemnation will resound through all time." CHAPTER IV. As Time Went on, Has There Been Reason to Modify or to Mitigate the Almost Universal Condemnation of Ger- many's Treatment of Belgium, Felt and Expressed at the Outset in This Country? I purposely abstain from making in this connection any definite accusation as to the individual "atrocities" ascribed to the Germans by the French and Belgians, because the evidence, even when it has been taken under oath, with names, places, dates, and details (as is the case with that offered to the world by the Belgian Commission), is met by denials, also under oath, and by virulent countercharges. It is also met, most ineffectively and almost absurdly, by the repeated publication of statements by some American newspaper correspondents who, I am sure with entire truthfulness, declare that, having been in the countries of the combatants, they saw no cases of such atrocities and could obtain no convincing evidence that they ever took place. This is interesting but unimportant. If the fact that certain persons, even those living continuously at or near the scene of a crime, and not merely visiting it with the escort and protection of the suspected criminals, had not seen the crime committed, and could get no reliable evidence that it had been committed, were allowed to weigh in Courts of Justice against the testimony of eye- witnesses who had seen it, there would be a general and world-wide jail delivery. Six reputable witnesses of a murder, a rape, a burglary, or an arson (and the Belgium case has the ear-marks of all (99) 100 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR four) should outweigh six million who would swear that not having been there they did not see it, and that they were later unable to obtain evidence satisfactory to them- selves that the murder, rape, burglary, or arson, had occurred. The entire question is one of the credibility of certain witnesses and of the weight to be given to collateral circumstances that have a bearing upon the case. Taking the latter first, should not the following extracts from Ger- man official orders be regarded as having a direct relation to the matter? EXTRACT FROM A PROCLAMATION TO THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CITY OF LIEGE. "August 22d, 1914. "The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having de- clared their peaceful intentions, have made a surprise attack on our troops. "It is with my consent that the Commander-in-Chief has or- dered the whole town to be burned and that about one hundred people have been shot. "I bring this fact to the knowledge of the city of Liege, so that citizens of Liege may realize the fate with which they are menaced if they adopt a similar attitude. "The General Commanding in Chief. "(Signed) VON BULOW." NOTICE POSTED AT NAMUR, AUGUST THE 25TH, 1914. (1) "French and Belgian soldiers must be surrendered as prisoners of war at the prison before 4 o'clock. Citizens who do not obey will be condemned to enforced labor for life in Germany. "A rigorous inspection of houses will begin at 4 o'clock. Every soldier found will be immediately shot. (2) "Arms, powder, dynamite, must be surrendered at 4 o'clock. Penalty: death by shooting. "The citizens who know where a store of arms is located must A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAP .101 inform the Burgomaster, under penalty of enforced labor for life. (3) "Each street will be occupied by a German guard, who will take ten hostages in each street, whom they will keep in custody. "If any outrage is committed in the street, the ten hostages will be shot. "The Commandant of the City. "(Signed) VON BULOW." Namur, 25th August, 1914. ( Imprimerie Chantraine. ) LETTER ADDRESSED ON AUGUST 27TH, 1914, BY LIEU- TENANT-GENERAL VON NIEBER TO THE BURGOMASTR OF WAVRE. "On August 22d, 1914, the General Commanding the 2d Army, Herr von Bulow, imposed upon the city of Wavre a war levy of three million francs, to be paid before September 1st, as expia- tion for its unqualified behavior (contrary to the Law of Nations and the usages of war) in making a surprise! attack on the German troops "I draw the attention of the City to the fact that in no case can it count on further delay, as the civil population of the City has put itself outside the Law of Nations by firing on the German soldiers. "The City of Wavre will be burned and destroyed if the levy is not paid in due time, without regard for anyone; the innocent will suffer with the guilty." PROCLAMATION POSTED AT GRIVEGNEE, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1914. "(1) Before the 6th of September, 1914, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, all arms', munitions, explosives and fireworks which are still in the hands of the citizens, must be surrendered at the Chateau des Bruyeres. Those who do not obey will render themselves liable to the death penalty. They will be shot on the spot, or given military execution, unless they can prove their innocence. 108 "A -TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "(5) In order to be sure that this permission is not abused, the Burgomasters of Beyne-Heusay and of Grivegnee shall im- mediately draw up a list of persons who shall be held as hostages,* at the fort of Fleron, in 24-hour shifts ; on September 6th, for the first time, from 6 o'clock in the evening until mid- day, September 7th. *"The life of these hostages will depend upon the population of the aforesaid communes remaining pacific under all circum- stances. 11 (6) I will designate from the lists submitted to me the per- sons who will be detained as hostages from noon of one day to noon of the next day. If the substitute does not arrive in time, the hostage will remain another 24 hours. After this second period of 24 hours, the hostage incurs the penalty of death if the substitution is not made "(10) Anyone knowing of the location of a store of more than one hundred litres of petroleum, benzine, benzol, or other similar liquids in the aforesaid communes, and who does not report same to the military commander on the spot, incurs the penalty of death, provided there is no doubt about the quantity and the location of the store. Quantities of 100 litres are alone referred to "(11) Anyone who does not instantly obey the command of 'hands up,' becomes guilty (sic) of the death-penalty. . . . NOTICE POSTED AT BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 5TH, 1914, AND PRESUMABLY IN MOST OF THE COMMUNES IN THE COUNTRY. "On the evening of September 25th, the railway and tele- graph lines were destroyed on the Lovenjoul-Vertryck line. "Consequently, the two above-mentioned places, on the morn- ing of September 30th, had to give an account and to furnish hostages. "In the future, the communities in the vicinity of a place where such things happen (no matter whether or not they are accomplices) will be punished without mercy. "To this end, hostages have been taken from all places in the vicinity of railroad lines menaced by such attacks, and at A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 103 the first attempt to destroy the railroad tracks or the telegraph or telephone wires, they will be immediately shot. "Furthermore, all troops in charge of the protection of the railroad lines have received orders to shoot any person ap- proaching, t in a suspicious manner, the railroad tracks or the telegraph or telephone lines. "The Governor General of Belgium, "(Signed) BARON VON DEB GOLTZ, "Field Marshal." NOTICE POSTED AT BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 1ST, 1914. "A legally constituted Court Martial has pronounced, the 28th of October, 1914, the following condemnations: " ( 1 ) Upon Policeman De Ryckere for attacking, in the exer- cise of his legal functions, an agent vested with German au- thority, for wilfully inflicting bodily injury on two occasions, in concert with other persons, for facilitating the escape of a prisoner, on one occasion, and for attacking a German soldier Five years imprisonment. "The city of Brussels, excluding suburbs, has been punished, for the crime committed by its policeman, De Ryckere, against a German soldier by an additional fine of five million francs. "The Governor of Brussels, "(Signed) BABON VON LUETWITZ, "General." EXTRACT FROM THE SIXTH REPORT OF THE BELGIAN COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. "After such proclamations., who will be surprised at the mur- ders, burnings, pillage and destruction committed by the Ger- man army wherever they have met with resistance? "If a German corps, or patrolling party, is received at the entrance to a village by a volley from soldiers of the regular troops who are afterwards forced to retire, the whole population is held responsible. The civilians are accused of having fired or having co-operated in the defense, and without inquiry, the 104 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR place is given over to pillage and flames, a part of the inhabi- tants are massacred "The odious acts which have been committed in all parts of the country have a general character, throwing the responsi- bility upon the whole German army. It is simply the appli- cation of a preconceived system, the carrying out of instruc- tions, which have made of the enemy's troops in Belgium 'a horde of barbarians and a band of incendiaries.' " A very extraordinary instance of German prevision has been brought to light by Prof. Eaymond Weeks. (47) It is to be read in conjunction with the military, orders quoted above and with the American and German evidence as to atrocities given below. It constitutes, perhaps, the most unique of all possible additions to the "Complete Letter Writer." Professor Weeks says: "The German military authorities are said to have foreseen everything. They even foresaw the need of denying atrocities, as is evinced by a manual called The Military Interpreter, second edition, Berlin, 1906; publisher, A. Bath. The author is Captain von Scharfenort, an official of the Military Depart- ment. This manual, among many useful formulae, offers a model letter of protest against an accusation of atrocities. This suggestive document is entitled, 'Letter to the Commander- in-Chief of the Hostile Army/ and commences thus : " 'In a circular letter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs you have reproached the German troops with numerous violations of international custom. " 'According to you, German troops have been guilty of acts of hostility against ambulances; they are said to have made prisoner, M. A., in the midst of an ambulance corps organized by him; they are accused of having made use of explosive bullets, of having compelled peasants in the vicinity of S. to dig trenches under fire; they are accused of having attempted to transport provision and munition trains and caissons by protecting them with the conventional sign of Geneva; finally, a physician who was caring for a wounded Prussian soldier is said to have been killed by him. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 105 "'Although I was quite sure, a priori, that these accusa- tions were false, I was unwilling to rest content with simply assuring you that such things were impossible, and I made an inquiry to discover whether something might have happened which could have been transformed, by reporters unworthy of credence or filled with malevolence, into the monstrosities which were laid at our door.' "After stating that the inquiry offered great difficulties because of the vagueness of the accusations, he continues : " 'It is exact that M. A. was arrested, and that he had been occupied in caring for the wounded, but his arrest did not take place in the midst of an ambulance corps. It was moti- vated by the suspicion that the above-mentioned person was in communication with the garrison of S., and his arrest, as also his imprisonment which followed, took place with all of the consideration due to his situation and to his honorability. As to the duration of his detention, the military investigation alone can decide. As for all the other affirmations, I must declare them to be fabrications. Out of regard for the Powers which adhered to the Convention of Geneva and the declaration of St. Petersburg of November 29 (11 December), 1868, I add here and I affirm that the said-mentioned convention has been observed by the German troops in the most scrupulous manner,' etc. " 'Yes,' Professor Weeks adds, 'the German military authori- ties foresaw everything except that some of their soldiers' diaries would be captured.' " The strongest a priori argument against belief in Ger- nan atrocities rests upon the inherent improbability that men such as the Germans we have all known, and most of whom we have liked, could be so transformed by war as to be guilty of even a tithe of the hideous and bestial out- rages said to have been perpetrated by them. But are they the Germans we have known ? Is it safe to argue from Philip sober to Philip drunk ? It is said that they were under iron discipline. Perhaps they were; but if that discipline openly and brazenly included a policy of 106 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR terrorism of the civilian populations of conquered terri- tory, it is itself an argument for the plaintiffs. A system that could in time of peace condone the Zabern infamy, as between individuals, could conceivably in time of war condone the asserted Belgian atrocities., as between nations. Military mouthpieces say (unrebuked, so far as I know), that "any act" committed by their troops for the purpose of "discouraging, defeating and destroying the enemy is a brave act." General von Disfurth is said to have said: (p. 42) "I hope that in this war we have merited the title barbarians." As to the asserted physical impossibility that some of the alleged occurrences could have taken place, I may speak with more confidence, from expert knowledge. The accomplished lady who writes for an American paper under the nom-de-plume of "Sallie Wistar" asked my opinion of the statement of a correspondent, who said : (48) "It is unworthy of our people to accept such tales with- out proof. A moment's thought ought to convince any intelligent mind that a child, whose hands had been hacked off by the sword, could not have survived such an experi- ence, unless, indeed, the most skilled surgical treatment were immediately administered on the spot. ... It would require overwhelming proof to convince reasonable minds that any hapless, innocent Belgian child ever had its hands lopped off by the kindly Germans." I replied : "Your correspondent is mistaken in supposing that no child whose hands had been cut off could survive hemorrhage, fever, and shock unless skilled surgical aid be at once administered. The records of every accident and emergency hospital in the world would contradict this. "The proportion of children who would die after such mutilation would vary with the amount of hemorrhage, the degree of fever, or the extent of shock. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 10? "But accepting the current descriptions as approximately correct, hemorrhage might be trifling, as it is apt to be after blunt wounds and crushes; fever would be absent if the wound remained, as it might remain, uninfected, and shock would be present to greater or less degree in accord with the elements of bleeding, pain and fright. Shock might be relatively trifling and need not in any case be necessarily fatal. "In some of the reported cases it seemed evident that the removal of the hand or hands had been a sequel to the wounds received, and, as might be expected, not an im- mediate and instantaneous severance by a sweep of a sabre. The latter would require a degree of expertness scarcely to be expected even from one of the War Lord's 'heroes/ "To sum up, nothing that I have seen as to the alleged German atrocities is surgically impossible of belief." Perhaps the most astounding position taken by German- Americans as to Germany's behavior toward Belgium is to be found in an article called "War Hypocrisy Unveiled" in which the author (Albert B. Henschel), a member of the New York Bar (49), in reply to the suggestion that Germany might invade this country to attack Canada, says : "In place of this most unfair analogy let us suppose that your house was afire, with the only means of escape over your neighbor's roof. Would you dally over the question of the 'neu- trality' of your neighbor's house considering that his home is his castle? or would you simply go over his roof and save yourself and your family? "But what did the Germans do? Did they rush helter skelter into Belgium without so much as saying, 'By your leave?' "No. To the honor and dignity of human nature be it said that in that time of imminent peril they did what no other nation has ever done, they delayed sufficiently when every mo- ment was precious to ask permission of Belgium and to give 108 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR assurance that her integrity and independence would be pro- tected and reparation made for all losses. The future historian will refer to this act of Germany as a manifestation of a most sublime sense of justice, original and unique in the annals of the world. "When this offer was refused Germany did what any other European nation would have done in the first place. She went into Belgium to save herself from destruction. "There is no doubt that Belgium had the right to refuse permission and to resist invasion. But, when she made her choice, which involved war with Germany, she cannot complain of the war thus invited/' There is one point as to which many Americans will agree with him. Germany's act considered as "a manifesta- tion of a most sublime sense of justice" is, beyond all cavil, "original and unique in the annals of the world." I wish every American who desires to reach a just con- clusion as to the question of "atrocities" could find time and opportunity to read "German Atrocities in France," a translation of the official report of the French Commis- sion the reports of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry (quoted above) ; "The Innocence of Belgium, established by the Military Documents Published by Germany"; and "Lies Crimes Allemands, d'apres les Temoignages Alle- mands," by Joseph Bedier, Professor at the College de France. He would then be in possession of the affirmative side of the question and could judge for himself what weight to give to the denials. There is some evidence, however, which a book prepared by an American, for Americans, should contain. It has been summarized by Dr. Morton Prince in articles that appeared in February (50), and have been reprinted with the caption "The American Versus the German Viewpoint of the War." Dr. Prince reviews a series of articles by A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 109 Dr. von Maeh, in which, under the heading, "The German Viewpoint," he gives pictures of German army life in order to show that a prophecy of the elder Moltke's has been fulfilled and that because universal service has brought "the educated classes" into the army "a more humane way of waging war" has resulted. Dr. von Mach quotes from an account written by Professor von Hart- mann, now serving as a lieutenant in the German army. He calls his first "picture," a "French Lesson at the Front. Place A Stubble Field in Belgium. Time Autumn, 1914." He depicts groups of the "splendid fellows from the country" who have lighted their pipes after breakfast and are "singing the beautiful home and soldier songs," which "often soften, for the time being, even the hardest hearts of warriors." Then they have a lesson in French! Another "picture" shows them marching to the front, sing- ing Koerner's "Prayer During Battle," beginning "Father I Call to Thee." Dr. von Mach adds: "Whatever selfish train of thought the individual soldier or officer had been following fell into insignificance before the grand concep- tion of God and man." ' Dr. Prince then presents his pictures, from the Ameri- can viewpoint. He says: "Dr. von Mach has given his pictures as drawn by an eye witness, Professor Hartmann, a German. Let me, too, draw some pictures, and let me, too, take my pictures from an eye witness in Belgium; but he shall be a neutral witness, an American, Mr. E. Alexander Powell, who had unusual oppor- tunities to observe what he describes in his book, recently pub- lished, 'Fighting in Flanders.' He was one of the few corre- spondents on the firing line. . . . "I cite this account because I wish to disregard all ex parte testimony. All the Belgian accounts are those of interested witnesses. We shall see the war waged in Belgium not from 110 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR the Belgian or the German viewpoint, but from the American viewpoint." He calls his picture "A German Lesson at the Front." Place Aerschot. Time August, 1914." He says that to understand the picture we must remember that orders had been deliberately given to bum and pillage Aerschot by the German commander after the German troops had entered the town. This, the commander himself told Mr. Powell, was in retaliation for the shooting of the chief of staff by a boy, 15 years of age, the son of the burgomaster. "What followed," Mr. Powell was given to understand the exe- cution of the burgomaster, his son and several score of the leading townsmen, the giving over of the women to a lust- mad soldiery, the sacking of the houses, and the final burn- ing of the town "was the punishment which would al- ways be meted out to towns whose inhabitants attacked German soldiers." This is what Mr. Powell saw : "In many parts of the world I have seen many terrible and revolting things, but nothing so ghastly, so horrifying as Aer schot. Quite two-thirds of the houses had been burned, and showed unmistakable signs of having been sacked by a mad- dened soldiery before they were burned. "Everywhere were the ghastly evidences. Doors had been smashed in with rifle-butts and boot heels; windows had been broken ; pictures had been torn from the walls ; mattresses had been ripped open with bayonets in search of valuables ; drawers had been emptied upon the floors ; the outer walls of the houses were spattered with blood and pock-marked with bullets; the sidewalks were slippery with broken bottles; the streets were strewn with women's clothing. "It needed no one to tell us the details of that orgy of blood and lust. The story was so plainly written that anyone could read it." . . . "Piecing together the stories told by those who did survive A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 111 that night of horror, we know that scores of townspeople were shot down in cold blood, and that, when the firing squads could not do the work of slaughter fast enough, the victims were lined up and a machine gun was turned upon them. "We know that young girls were dragged fiom their homes and stripped naked and violated by soldiers many soldiers in the public square in the presence of officers. "We know that both men and women were unspeakably mutilated, that children were bayoneted, that dwellings were ransacked and looted, and that finally, as though to destroy the evidences of their horrid work, soldiers went from house to house with torches, methodically setting fire to them." It may be observed here that there seems good reason to believe that, in many instances, the houses which were spared by the German soldiery, in accordance with direc- tions chalked upon their doors or shutters "giite Leute- Mcht zu pliindern" were those occupied by the German spies, known as "fixed agents." Germany is thought to spend $3,900,000 a year on this branch of her spy system; and at the outbreak of the present war the number of "fixed" spies, i. e., spies permanently residing in a coun- try, were in France alone over 15,000. (51) The reason given by the Germans for the outrages at Aerschot that the 15-year-old son of the burgomaster shot a German officer is not denied. The Germans say that it was part of a pre-arranged plan. The Belgians say that the boy was acting in defence of his sister's honor. No one now knows certainly which story was true. But, as Dr. Prince says: "There must have been some reason, or perhaps the boy was a fanatic, or half-witted. Surely no sane man, and surely no man holding the responsible position of burgomaster, would give a dinner party to German officers and arrange to have his own son shoot one of them, knowing that there was no escape 112 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR from the consequences of such an act committed in his own home. "But accept either story you like, what do you think of the commanding officer, of the mode of conducting war, that exe- cutes several score of the leading townsmen, that shoots down women and children, that gives over the women to the soldiery, that orders the sacking of the houses and, finally, the burning down of the town, house by house, because a boy shot an officer ? "Is this the German idea of a 'humane way of waging war?' "If you think this mode quite justified, let me tell you how it impressed an American, one, remember, accustomed to the sights of war in many lands: "'It was with a feeling of repulsion amounting almost to nausea that we left what had once been Aerschot behind us.' " The second scene, from the American viewpoint, is staged at Louvain. Time same. Mr. Powell says it was: "Another scene of destruction and desolation." He describes the charred skeletons of the handsome buildings and says : "The fronts of many of the houses were smeared with crimson stains." He continues : "In comparison to its size, the Germans had wrought more widespread destruction in Louvain than did the earthquake and fire combined in San Francisco. "The looting had evidently been unrestrained. The roads for miles in either direction were littered with furniture and bedding and clothing. Such articles as the soldiers could not carry away they wantonly destroyed. Hangings had been torn down, pictures on the walls had been smashed, the contents of drawers and trunks had been emptied into the streets, literally everything breakable had been broken. This is not from hear- say, remember, / saw it icdth my own ~eyes. And the amazing feature of it all was that among the Germans there seemed to be no feeling of regret, no sense of shame. Officers in immacu- late uniforms strolled about among the ruins, chatting and laughing and smoking." A TEXT-BOOK OF TEE WAR 113 The orgy of blood and destruction had lasted two days. "Several American correspondents, among them Mr. Richard Harding Davis, who were being taken by train from Brussels to Germany, and who were held for some hours in the station at Louvain during the first night's massacre, have vividly de- scribed the horrors which they witnessed from their car win- dow. On the second day, Mr. Hugh S. Gibson, secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, accompanied by the Swedish and Mexican charge's, drove over to Louvain in a taxicab. Mr. Gibson told me that the Germans had dragged chairs and a dining-table from a nearby house into the middle of the square in front of the station and that some officers, already consid- erably the worse for drink, insisted that three diplomatists join them in a bottle of wine. And this while the city was burning and rifles were cracking, and the dead bodies of men and women lay sprawled in the streets!" Dr. Prince adds, addressing Dr. von Mach: "Indeed, their 'beautiful home and soldier songs, 5 as you say, had softened their hearts, but the scene is a different one, isn't it? "But we have the same happy soldiers, 'lounging, talking and laughing,' just as your professor describes them, and smoking and drinking (though it is beer and wine instead of coffee) and 'everybody is elated,' just as you say. "But the Belgian townspeople, what of them ? Do the happy soldiers see them? I don't know." Louvain was not destroyed by bombardment or -in the heat of battle. The Germans had entered it unopposed and had been in undisputed possession for several days. Mr. Powell had an interview with the commanding gen- eral, von Boehn, which as Dr. Prince says, is destined to become classic: "It had been sought by the general, who had expressed a wish to have an opportunity to talk with Mr. Powell, to give 114 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR him the German version of the treatment of the Belgian civil population for the enlightenment of the American public. Mr. Powell was accordingly invited to dine with the general. Here is more of the conversation as given by the former as 'nearly verbatim' as he could remember it. "'But why wreak your vengeance on women and children?' I asked. " 'None have been killed/ the general asserted positively. "'I as sorry to contradict you, General/ I asserted, with equal positiveness, 'but I have myself seen their bodies. So has Mr. Gibson, the secretary of the American legation in Brussels, who was present during the destruction of Louvain.' " 'Of course/ replied General von Boehn, 'there is always danger of women and children being killed during street right- ing if they insist on coming into the streets. It is unfortunate, but it is war!' " 'But how about a woman's body I saw with the hands and feet cut off? How about the white-haired man and his son whom I helped to bury outside of Sempst who had been killed merely because a retreating Belgian soldier had shot a German soldier outside their house? "'There were 22 bayonet wounds in the old man's face. I counted them. How about the little girl, two years old, who was shot while in her mother's arms by an Uhlan and whose funeral I attended at Heyst-op-den-Berg? How about the old man near Vilvorde who was hung by his hands from the rafters of his house and roasted to death by a bonfire being built under him?' "The general seemed taken aback by the exactness of my in- formation." I have not space to quote further from Dr. Prince, but I hope all Americans who may read this will remember that the evidence given above is that of Americans, of "neutrals/' not of French, or Belgians, or British, or Kussians. I would ask them to read also the description of his own mental attitude given by Mr. Powell: (52) "An American, I went to Belgium at the beginning of the A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 115 war with an open mind. I had few, if any, prejudices. I knew the English, the French, the Belgians, the Germans equally well. I had friends in all four countries and many happy rec- ollections of days I had spent in each. When I left Antwerp, after the German occupation, I was as pro- Belgian as though I had been born under the red-black-and-yellow banner. I had seen a country, one of the loveliest and most peaceable in Europe, invaded by a ruthless and brutal soldiery; I had seen its towns and cities blackened by fire and broken by shell; I had seen its churches and its historic monuments destroyed; I had seen its highways crowded with hunted, homeless fugitives; I had seen its fertile fields strewn with the corpses of what had once been the manhood of the nation ; I had seen its women left husbandless and its children fatherless; I had seen what was once a Garden of the Lord turned into a land of desolation ; and I had seen its people a people whom I, like the rest of the world, had always thought of as pleasure-loving, inefficient, easygoing I had seen this people, I say, aroused, resourceful, unafraid, and fighting, fighting, fighting. Do you wonder that they captured my imagination, that they won my admiration? I am pro-Belgian ; I admit it frankly. I should be ashamed to be anything else." I believe that, in the light of the testimony given by a writer, who, having originally been as nearly impartial as one may be to-day, and by the other fair-minded Amer- icans also quoted, the vast majority of my fellow-country- men will agree with Dr. Prince when he thus, apostrophizes some of the more conspicuous German apologists : "No, Dr. von Mach, you and your fellow propagandists, Dr. Dernburg and Dr. Munsterberg, Dr. Albert and others, appeal in vain to the American people. You do not know the true full-blooded American of the twentieth century. Americans are governed by feelings of humanity, of pity, of mercy, of fair play. "Those are the ideals of our national conscience. Americans believe in a government for the people and by the people, not in a government by an autocratic military caste, without pity, without mercy, without regard for the rights of mankind. 116 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "If I read the signs of public opinion aright, if I correctly understand American ideals of human rights, Germany stands condemned by American opinion. America cares nothing for the 'necessities of war/ whether argued as an excuse for crimes against humanity by a German General Staff in 1914, or a 'Spanish Butcher' in Cuba in 1898; she cares nothing for fine- spun specious arguments as to why Germany was not to blame for the invasion of Belgium. She sees only a peaceful, unof- fending nation defending her inalienable rights to her own soil. And she sees the inhabitants, for this offense, shot down, and their houses, one by one, put to the torch; she sees tens of thousands of homes desolate, and hundreds of thousands of in- habitants driven into exile, or starving and dependent upon American charity all this, mind you, not as a sporadic in- stance in one city, but repeatedly, day by day, in many cities and towns; and not as unavoidable accidents from the shelling of the enemy in battle, but deliberately and systematically and unnecessarily, after the capture and occupation of the city, for the sole purpose of revenge, to overcome resistance by terrorism, as officially proclaimed and officially justified. It is for these reasons, if for no others, that Germany appeals in vain to American sympathy." I have thus far cited only Americans, no Allies. But it may be permitted to offer evidence supplied by the Ger- mans themselves. In addition to the general orders above quoted (p. 100 etseq.), which are almost sufficiently damn- ing, we have many involuntary individual confessions in the shape of diaries found on German prisoners. There are large numbers of these and the Marquis de Dampierre is preparing a minute and exhaustive report upon them. In the meanwhile Prof. Joseph Bedier, of the College de France, has published a pamphlet which contains a selec- tion from those which first came to hand, with, in each instance, a photographic, reproduction of the leaf or leaves quoted from. Nothing could be more direct and definite than this testimony. It is impossible to imagine it to have A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 117 been forged or in any way tampered with. The extracts, which are quoted below, are in every case those of which the original German is photographically reproduced. (53) I translate a few only. Paul Spielmann (of Company I, Eeserve Battalion, In- fantry Brigade) describes a night surprise at a village near Blamont. He says : "The inhabitants have fled by way of the village. It was hor- rible. Blood is glued against all the houses; and as to the faces of the dead, they were hideous. They were buried at once, to the number of sixty; among them many old women, some old men, and a pregnant woman, all frightful to see; and three children who were cuddled up one against the other but were all dead. The altar and the arches of the church were demolished. "These people had telephoned to the enemy! And this morn- ing, September 2d, the survivors have been expelled; and I saw four little boys carrying on two sticks a cradle with a baby of five to six months. It is frightful to look at everything is delivered to pillage. ... I saw also a mother with her two little ones, one of them with a great wound of the head, the other with an eyeball burst." Private Hassemer (of the Eighth Corps) wrote: "3-9-1914 At Sommepy (Marne) Horrible carnage The village burned to the ground ; the French thrown into the burn- ing houses; civilians and all burned together." Lieutenant Kietzmann (Second Company of the First Battalion of the Forty-ninth Eegiment of Infantry) writes under date of August 18th : "Near Diest lies the little village of Schaffen. About fifty civilians were hidden in the church tower and thence opened fire on our troops with a mitrailleuse all the civilians were shot." 118 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR This does not sound quite so "atrocious/' given a state of war. But an interesting sidelight on this execution of "civilians" is thrown on this scrap of diary by a paragraph in the first report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry. It says: "Killed at Schaffen, August 18th . . . among others . . . the wife of Francois Luyckz, aged 45 years, with her little daughter, aged 12. They were discovered in a drain &nd were shot. The daughter, aged 9, of Jean Ooyen, was shot. Andre" Willem, sexton, was tied to a tree and burned alive." This, to be sure, is Belgian testimony. But, taken in conjunction with Lieutenant Kietzmann's diary, it seems fair to conclude that some unpleasant things happened at Schaffen on August 18th last. A Saxon officer (178th Eegiment, Twelfth Army Corps, First Corps of Saxony) writes, to his everlasting credit (unfortunately his name was not on his diary) : "August 26. The attractive village of Gue*-d'Hossus (Ar- dennes), although it seemed to me itwocent, was delivered to the flames. I am told that a cyclist had fallen from his wheel, his gun going off by accident, then some one had fired in his direction. Therefore all the male inhabitants have simply been thrown into the flames. It is to be hoped that such atrocities (Scheusslichkeiten) will not be repeated." Philipp , a private (of Kamenz, in Saxony, First Company, First Battalion, 178th Eegiment), on August 23d wrote: "At ten o'clock this evening the battalion entered a village that had been burned, lying to the north of Dinant. The sight made one shudder. At the entrance to the village lay about fifty villagers, shot for having from ambush fired upon our troops. In the course of the night many others, to the number A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 119 of more than two hundred were shot. Women and children were forced to hold lamps in their hands and thus assist at this horrible spectacle. Afterwards we ate our rice among the cadavers, as we had not eaten since morning." Private Schlauter (Third Battery., Fourth Kegiment of Field Artillery) wrote, August 25th: "In Belgium. ... of the citizens about 300 were shot. The survivors were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at that time! But there was nothing else to do." Professor Bedier also gives three facsimiles of portions of an article by Under-Officer Klemt, published in the Jauersclies Tageblatt, October 18, 1914. It is entitled: "A Day of Honor for Our Eegiment, 24 September, 1914." His description refers to an incident which occurred near the little village of Hannonville, when, after a skirmish, his soldiers came upon some wounded Frenchmen lying in a little depression. He says they killed them by clubbing them or running them through. He goes on : "At my side I hear some peculiar crackings; they are blows from a gun~buit with which a soldier of our 154th is striking the bald head of a Frenchman; very wisely he is using for this work a French gun, for fear of breaking his own. The men with especially sensitive souls do the wounded Frenchmen the honor -of finishing them with a bullet; but the others hack and hew as hard as they can. Our adversaries had fought courageously . . . but whether they were wounded slightly or gravely our brave fellows saved for their Fatherland the expensive care which it would have been obliged to give to so many enemies." The accuracy of Klemt's narrative was attested by his 120 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR superior, Lieutenant von JSTiem. The eloquent author of the article asserts that His Boyal Highness, Prince Oskar of Prussia, when he heard of the exploits of the 154th, said that it, and a grenadier regiment that made up the brigade, were worthy of the name "Konigsbrigade !" I can spare room for the reproduction of only one of the original pages of these diaries. (See opposite page.) I have selected my quotations almost at random. There are many more to be found in Prof. Bedier's pam- phlet and a much larger number that, as I have said, will be published later in fac-simile, after study and arrange- ment by an expert cartographer. It may be that someone who takes the trouble to read them will remain unconvinced. They seem to me conclu- sive, -but may not seem so to everyone. But, I may ask then, what is the indisputable German record as to Belgium? Thousands of civilians have been killed; tens of thou- sands have been rendered homeless and are living on charity; many miles of Belgian territory have been occu- pied by German invaders; the stories of Aerschot, Ter- monde, Louvain, Liege, Namur, Eheims are known to all; fines of millions of francs have been levied as a punish- ment for resistance to a brutal breach of neutrality. Is it, after all, worth while to seek for evidence of other atroci- ties? These are known to, and have been condemned by the whole civilized world. As David Starr Jordan has well expressed it: (54) "To 'hack a way through* civilization is the sum of outrages, by whomsoever committed, or whatever the details of the method by which it is accomplished. To consider excuses or apologies for details is in some degree to condone the real offense. *^^ | FROM THE DIARY OF PRIVATE PAUL GLODE. GERMAN TEXT. See facsimile on reverse side. "[Von der Wut der Soldaten kann man sich ein Bild machen, Avenn man die zerstorten] Dorfer sieht. Kein Haus 1st mehr ganz. Alles essbare Avird von einzelnen Soldaten requiriert. Mehrere Haufen Menschen sah man, die standrechtlich erschossen Avurden. Kleine Schweinchen liefen umher und such ten ihre Mutter. Hunde lagen an der Kette und hatten nichts zu fressen und zu saufen und liber ihnen brannten die Hauser. "Neben der gerechten Wut der Soldaten schreitet aber auch purer Vandalismus. In ganz leeren Dorfer setzen sie den roten Hahn ganz Willkiirlich auf die Hauser. Mir tun die Leute leit. Wenn sie auch unfaire Waffen gebrauchen, so A^erteidigen sie doch nur ihr Vaterland. Die Grausamkeiten die veriibt Avurden und noch AA^erden von seiten der Biirger Averden wust geracht. "Verstummelungen der Verwundeten sind an Tagesordnung." TRANSLATION. "August 12, 1914. In Belgium. One gets an idea of the mad- ness of our soldiers Avhen one sees the demolished villages. Not a single house intact. Everything eatable has been taken by the soldiery. I saw many heaps of human beings who had been sentenced and executed. Little pigs ran around among them, seeking their mothers. Dogs, without food or Avater, were chained among the burning houses. Sheer A^andalism Avas present as well as just anger. To A'illages already absolutely abandoned our soldiers arbitrarily applied the incendiary torch ("den roten Hahn," "the Red Cock"). The inhabitants made one sorry. If they did employ unfair weapons they AA'ere after all defending Ili-rir Fatherland. The atrocities that those villagers commit or have committed are avenged in a barbarous manner. " The mutilation of the wounded is a daily routine." "[From the diary of Private Paul Glode, of the 9th Battalion of Pioneers (9th Corps) ]." A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 131 "The huge fact of the crushing of Belgium submerges all details. Our thought is expressed in these words of Emerson: 'What you are speaks so loudly we cannot hear what you say.' " An American paper (55) has well summed up this aspect of the matter. It says that even if we made the acquittal of the German private soldier as broad and sweep- ing as it could be made, there have, nevertheless, been atrocities, aside from those attributed to the individual, atrocities committed by the German Government. It con- tinues : "The German Government sowed the North Sea with mines and blew up harmless trawlers coming from the Scandinavian countries and Holland. The German Government sent airships over Antwerp, Paris, Warsaw, and many undefended and un- fortified towns and villages in France, Belgium, and Poland, and scattered death and destruction impartially on home, shop, and farm. The German Government dispatched , warships to the coast of England and killed women and children in Whitby, Hartlepool, Scarborough, and Yarmouth. The German Govern- ment revived the mediaeval custom of holding hostages and killing them if the population from which they came committed any infraction of the rules of war. The German Government held cities for ransom. The German Government has now com- pleted its record of atrocities by declaring a war zone around England and putting the ships of every neutral nation on notice that if they venture into that zone they may be sunk with all on board! "These are the real atrocities. What difference does it make that exuberant liars in the early days of the war may have ascribed to the German private a ferocity that was not his? Probably he did not cut off the hands of Belgian women; prob- ably he did not spear French babies on his bayonet. But his superior officers had given him a lesson in ruthless brutality, in reversion to barbarity, to seek a parallel for which we should have to go to the Indian raids on the Colonies, and if he omitted to follow that suggestion it is vastly to his credit. The atroci- ties, if by that word we mean individual cruelty, may be dis- 122 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR missed; but how is the German, Government going to make its defense at the bar of the civilized world when it is arraigned on the charge of ordering atrocities on a vaster scale than it would ever enter into the mind of a private soldier, however, depraved he might be, to conceive? "There is an active German propaganda in this country. Its agents are tireless. But there is an agency far more powerful at work in behalf of the cause for which England and France and Russia are fighting. It is the wireless telegraph station at Sayville, which receives and gives out the official reports and declarations of the German Government." A book (56), which Professor J. H. Morgan has just translated, the notorious "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege^ or "German War Book/' issued by the German General Staff, for the instruction of officers, is in itself alomst suf- ficient evidence of their inhuman and barbarous methods. "It asserts the rules of war as they are understood by the Prussian military school, justifying by rote all those practices which have amazed the world at Aerschot, Rheims, and Louvain. The German General Staff, clause by clause, destroys in these pages every safeguard which through centuries of civilizing effort has been erected to soften the rigour of war so far as this may be done consistently with war's purpose. The pro- fession of arms is stripped of all honour. Under the terms of these German regulations the practice of war is not possible to an honorable man. The German officer is required to terrify the helpless into betraying their own people, to murder prisoners, to retain women and children under fire, to levy blackmail upon surrendered cities, to compel the civilian enemy to prepare works for the destruction of his country, to suborn incendiaries and assassins. Upon all these matters the German War-Book is explicit. . . . We will take two instances illustrating the German idea of war. On marching into the enemy-country the German officer is instructed to require from the inhabitants the services of native guides to enable him the more easily to locate and destroy the defenders. Should these unwilling guides lead the invader A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 123 astray they must necessarily be shot. The guide, we are told, 'owed obedience to the power in occupation.' He has been guilty of 'passive disobedience* by neglecting to locate his comrades in order that they might be destroyed: 'The leaders of the troops cannot do otherwise than punish the offender with death, since only by harsh measures of defense and intimidation can the repetition of such offences be prevented.' It does not seem to occur to the German War Staff that pro- ceedings which require that civilians shall be shot for refusing to betray their country are in the least blameworthy. Our second instance restores the practices of war as they were understood in the Middle Ages. It has always been held by the historians as a blot upon the fame of a great English King that four hundred years ago the women and children of a French town were refused a free passage through the lines. The Kriegsbrauch of modern Germany allows and glorifies an act which four centuries ago was felt to be needlessly inhuman. It is laid down in the German War-Book that the defender of a fortress must not be allowed to strengthen himself by sending away to a place of safety the women, children, old people, and wounded. To allow helpless non-combatants to pass through one's lines is 'in fundamental conflict with the principles of war.' Will not these women, children, old people, and wounded gravely embarrass the defenders? May not their slaughter by shot and shell induce the garrison to surrender a little sooner? 'The very presence of such persons,' says the German book of war, 'may accelerate the surrender of the place in certain circumstanes, and it would therefore be foolish of a besieger to renounce voluntarily his advantage."' As The Outlook said about the raid on Scarborough: (57) "The victims were not soldiers, but civilians, and to a large extent women and children. What military advantage commen- surate with the effort and risk can come from such a raid is hard to say, but one great disadvantage has resulted. Germany is making a great effort to secure the approval of American sentiment. Such a raid as this nullifies the arguments of Ger- man representatives. Americans are not won by exploits that 124 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE FAB end in the killing of women and babies; and all the reasoning in the world will not conceal the fact that the raid on Scar- borough was an exploit of this kind." But the question that heads this chapter can hardly be adequately answered by consideration only of the atrocities of war. There are other forms of "atrocity," diplomatic and controversial for example. The best instance,, because at this writing the most recent and most conspicuous, is the effort which Germany and the German apologists are making to shift the respon- sibility for the Belgian outrage to the shoulders of the Belgians themselves. This added German crime, this contemptible attempt to make it appear to the American people that Belgium has herself been "guilty" and "criminal" and is merely receiving just chastisement, is so significant that I do not want the opinion I have expressed to seem to be only a personal one. The matter is adequately dealt with by one of our American paper. (58) It begins: "It is an evidence, we suppose, of that admirable efficiency which marks the Teutonic character that Germany is still making relentless war upon Belgium not only against the army, but against the people; not only to destroy the nation's independence, but to blast the good name it has won by heroic sacrifice. "Were it not for the testimony of Louvain and of the huge war levies extorted from the famine-stricken country, it would be incredible that a civilized government should deliberately seek to traduce a people whom it had already wronged and robbed. Not satisfied with bloody conquest, Germany is determined to strip her victim even of honor would brand her as guilty of broken faith, the very offense to which Germany herself has officially confessed. The persistence of this campaign makes A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 125 it necessary to keep the record straight before the American people. "The present attack started a couple of months ago with the announcement that the invaders, rummaging through government papers in Brussels, had found documents proving that 'Belgium violated her own neutrality' in 1906 by agreeing to the landing of British troops in case of war. "For weeks this odious charge was trumpeted to the world, with all the offensive comment that enmity could invent. Having exhausted the resources of unsupported slander, Germany has at last published the documents, with an adroit elucidation by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, special publicity agent of Germany in this country." The editorial then cites the facts as to the violation of the treaty of Belgium and says that, as to them, there is no controversy, as the German Government had confessed its own guilt and pleaded "military necessity." The out- burst of condemnation that followed its crime, however, caused this attitude to be abandoned, and the so-called "secret documents" provided a pretense for completing the crushing of Belgium, by denouncing her as a dishonorable plotter against Germany's security. "Nothing more revolting in its cold-blooded injustice was ever perpetrated in international controversy," the editorial continues, "but the studied effort to heap insult upon injury will make Belgium's case more than ever the cause of civilization." It then tells the story of the "secret documents," which need not here be set forth (see pp. 263-76), the charge which was falsely and maliciously founded upon them, and goes on : "When one thinks of the ruined cities and famine-haunted people of Belgium, of the sufferings endured by that nation to keep inviolate its pledged word, it is difficult to characterize adequately the malignant craft of this charge. 126 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "The very documents produced in its support, confidential as they were, recorded in plain terms Belgium's absolute deter- mination to stand by her obligations of neutrality not only against Germany, but against France or England or any other country and they as plainly reveal Germany as the sole menace to that neutrality, just as the event proved. "Yet Doctor Dernburg, who is of course the chief protagonist in this country, has the audacity to cite these memoranda as evidence of what he calls Belgium's 'guilt'! In the hope, no doubt, that Americans would read his preface and ignore the documents themselves, he delibrately suppresses paragraphs which prove Belgium's scrupulous insistence upon her neu- trality and Great Britain's steady recognition thereof. " 'Plans had been concerted/ he says, 'to invade Belgium, in 1906.' Here he accuses the British of plotting and the Belgians of consenting to a violation of the treaty of neutrality. He says, further: " 'The imperial Chancellor has declared that there was irref- utable proof that if Germany did not march through Belgium her enemies would. This proof, as now being produced, is of the strongest character.' "Doctor Dernburg makes his outrageous charge in the face of the following explicit passages in the papers: '"Colonel Barnardiston (the British attache*) referred to the anxieties of the General Staff of his country with regard to the general political situation and because of the possibility that war may soon break out. In case Belgium should be attacked, the sending of about 100,000 troops was provided for. . . . The landing of the English troops would take place on the French coast in the vicinity of Dunkirk and Calais. The entry of the English into Belgium would take place only after the violation of our neutrality by Germany.' "These provisos, carefully avoided by the German publicity agent, prove that the projected British 'invasion' was to take place only in the event of and following a German invasion. The arrangement was as creditable to Great Britain a guar- antor of the neutrality treaty as the unprovoked assault last August by Germany was dishonorable. The 'guilt' of Belgium consisted in consulting the neighbors as to what should be done in case of an expected incursion by a burglar. "The event shows that the precaution was eminently justified, A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 127 and that Britain's offense lay not in plans of aggression, but in unpreparedness to fulfill her obligations to defend the neutrality she had guaranteed. "Exactly the same condition applies to the 1912 memorandum. Belgium therein gave notice that even to save her territory she would not yield to a British landing made without her consent. And that landing, also, was to be made only in case Germany had first forsworn her pledged word and had violated the neutrality for which she was in part responsible. "A third Dernburg paragraph almost answers itself. The government that would speak of the 'guilt of Belgian* all but forfeits its place in the family of nations. "Germany's intention to invade Belgium instantly on the outbreak of war had been proclaimed and advertised and boasted for years in the published works of her military strate- gists. If Belgium had not 'concerted plans' with Britain and France to defend herself, she would have been guilty of supreme folly; and if Great Britain had not prepared for action to follow a German assault upon Belgium, she would have been false to her pledged word. "The complaint that Belgium did not 'approach' Germany in the same manner is surely the very acme of irony, for she had already received notice that Germany would tear up the 'scrap of paper' to which her imperial pledge had been given, and would invoke 'necessity, which knows no law.' "But abstract arguments and documentary evidence alike can be put aside when the world examines the actual events. No advocacy can explain away the facts that Belgium was true to her neutrality; that France did not violate it; that Great Britain did not, and that Germany did; that German armies had been for some time overrunning Belgium before a French or British detachment set foot on the violated territory. " 'Only our prompt action at Liege,' says Doctor Dernburg, with astounding hardihood, 'prevented the English landing and invading Belgium.' Evidently he thinks Americans never saw a map of Belgium ; the taking of Liege could not possibly inter- fere with a British invasion as a fact, the city has been held by the Germans for months, yet the landing of British troops has never been interfered with. "Equally deceptive is the generality that 'all Belgium's fortresses are on the eastern frontier.' Namur is near the 128 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR border of France, and could not possibly menace a German army unless that army had penetrated one-third way across Belgium. "Doctor Dernburg is more himself when he frankly states that 'the Belgian people had been told at the beginning of the war that Germany demanded that the Belgian force should fight with the Germans against the French and English.' This was the true German conception of neutrality and of the 'scrap of paper' to which her imperial word was attached. "We have given this much space to a renewed discussion of the Belgian question because it is, to Americans, the vital issue of the war. It embraces rights and principles which are fundamental to every nation's security and the very per- manence of civilization. And most neutrals , will give small heed to German pleas about 'Russian barbarism.' 'French revenge' or 'British greed' while the corpse of Belgium's mur- dered nationality appeals for justice. "The violation of that country was a moral, a legal and an international offense for which there can be no excuse and no palliation. It was a barbarous wrong, a defiance to civilization, an act of perfidy without parallel in history; because it was committed in an age when the obligations of honor and decency are stronger than at any other period of human development. "There are issues of the war the responsibility for which must be shared with Germany by other countries. But concern- ing Belgium her guilt is unique and undivided. And it will grow more odious with every effort she makes to shift it to her victim, though she produces documents enough to choke the Kiel canal." I do not apologize for the space I have given here and elsewhere to the case of Belgium vs. Germany. It is not only to Americans "the vital issue of the war 53 as regards things past. It is also of supreme importance in all its relations; in the cold-blooded perpetration of the crime, in the barefaced avowal that it ivas a crime, in the deceit- ful withdrawal of that avowal when the outraged moral sense of the world was realized, in the clumsy, blundering efforts to explain it away, in the barbarous atrocities that A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 129 followed it, and finally in this last contemptible attempt by the juggling of documents, the glossing over of essential sentences, the actual suppression of important paragraphs, to make it seem to the American people, that Belgium, if she is, by ill fate, destined to disappear from the face of the earth, does so as a shameful suicide instead of as the victim of a brutal international murder. The question at the head of this chapter is most cer- tainly and unhesitatingly to be answered in the negative. CHAPTEE V. In What Estimation Does America To-day Hold Belgium? If time had permitted that the opportunity be offered there would have been a thousand American contributions to the tribute paid to the King of Belgium, known as "King Albert's Book/ 5 Colonel Koosevelt, for example, who is as well known to all peoples of the world as any living Ameri- can, and as much respected, does not appear as a contribu- tor. But he has, characteristically and unequivocally ex- pressed his views in his book, just published: (59) "Luxembourg made no resistance. It is now practically incorporated in Germany. Other nations have almost forgotten its existence and not the slightest attention has been paid to its fate; simply because it did not fight; simply because it trusted solely to peaceful measures and to the treaties which were supposed to guarantee it against harm. The eyes of the world, however, are on Belgium because the Belgians have fought hard and gallantly for all that makes life best worth having to honorable men and women. In consequence, Belgium has been trampled under foot. At this moment not only her men but her women and children are enduring misery BO dreadful that it is hard for us who live at peace to visualize it to ourselves." ****** "When once Belgium was invaded, every circumstance of national honor and interest forced England to act precisely as she did act. She could not have held up her head among nations had she acted otherwise. In particular, she is entitled to the praise of all true lovers of peace, for it is only by action such as she took that neutrality treaties and treaties guar- anteeing the rights of small powers will ever be given any value. The actions of Sir Edward Grey as he guided Britain's (130) A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 131 foreign policy showed adherence to lofty standards of right combined with firmness of courage under great strain." ****** "There is one nation, however, as to which there is no room for difference of opinion, whether we consider her wrongs or the justice of her actions. It seems to me impossible that any man can fail to feel the deepest sympathy with a nation which is absolutely guiltless of any wrongdoing, which has given proof of high valor, and yet which has suffered terribly, and which, if there is any meaning in the words 'right' and 'wrong,' has suffered wrongfully. Belgium is not in the smallest degree responsible for any of the conditions that during the last half century have been at work to impress a certain fatalistic stamp upon those actions of Austria, Russia, Germany, and France which have rendered this war inevitable. No European nation has had anything whatever to fear from Belgium. There was not the smallest danger of her making any aggressive movement, not even the slightest aggressive movement, against any of her neighbors. Her population was mainly industrial and was absorbed in peaceful business. Her people were thrifty, hard-working, highly civilized, and in no way aggressive. She owed her national existence to the desire to create an abso- lutely neutral State. Her neutrality had been solemnly guaran- teed by the great Powers, including Germany as well as England and France. "Suddenly, and out of a clear sky, her territory was invaded by an overwhelming German army." "The Germans are in Belgium from no fault of the Belgians, but purely because the Germans deemed it to their vital interest to violate Belgium's rights. Therefore the ultimate responsi- bility for what has occurred at Louvain, and what has occurred and is occurring in Brussels rests upon Germany and in no way upon Belgium. The invasion could have been averted by no action of Belgium that was consistent with her honor and self- respect. The Belgians would have been less than men had they not defended themselves and their country." . . . "The prime fact as regards Belgium is that Belgium was an entirely peaceful and genuinely neutral power which had been guilty of no offence whatever. What has befallen her is due to the further fact that a great, highly civilized military power 132 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR deemed that its own vital interests rendered imperative the in- fliction of this suffering on an inoffensive although valiant and patriotic little nation." These writings of Colonel Eoosevelt represent the opin- ion the fixed} unalterable, intense and practically unani- mous opinion of all Americans, except that portion of the German-Americans that has been allowed to represent or misrepresent them in public. This opinion is no less well set forth by the following distinguished Americans who contributed to "King Albert's Book." "Under the gallant lead of the heroic Belgian King, his downtrodden and afflicted people have been fighting for liberty, and to maintain the plighted faith of nations, which guaran- teed it to them. Those who were guilty of an awful breach of faith, confessed their crime while in the act of committing it, and pleaded necessity to absolve them from all law, a plea which the whole civilized world refuses to accept. "For their bold stand for right and duty, the Belgians, guiltless of all offense, have been overwhelmed by numbers, trampled in the dust, and reduced to starvation, their homes destroyed, their whole country devastated and converted into a human slaughter-house. "In this sad plight, they have deserved and are receiving the sympathy and the helping hand of people of every civilized nation in this hour of their dire distress. "I am glad to know that my countrymen are sending material relief to the sufferers, and with it the hearts of our people go out to them and their brave king, in human sympathy, un- feigned and unrestrained. "As neutrals, by international law and by our own law, our hands are tied and will remain so. But our hearts go whither they list." Hon. Joseph H. Choate. "BELGIUM "Ruined? Destroyed? Ah, no; though blood in rivers ran Down all her ancient streets; though treasures manifold Love-wrought, time-mellowed, and beyond the price of gold Are lost, yet Belgium's star shines still in God's vast plan. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 133 ''Rarely have kings been great, since kingdoms first began; Rarely have great kings been great men, when all was told. But, by the lighted torch in mailed hands, behold Immortal Belgium's immortal king, and man." Ella Wheeler Wilcox. "La Belgique ne regrette rien" "Not with her ruined silver spires, Not with her cities shamed and rent, Perish the imperishable fires That shape the homestead from the tent. "Wherever men are staunch and free, There shall she keep her fearless state, And, homeless, to great nations be The home of all that makes them great." Edith Wharton. "The proposed tribute is part of the debt of honor and rever- ence which is due from the whole world to that most nobly heroic people and the prince who has shown himself worthy of them. The tragedy of their great little land is of a pathos matchless in the history of the past; and in the future when, as we all hope, the military spirit of Germany shall be brought low, I believe the Germans themselves will share our horror of the ruin they have wrought among its homes and shrines. William Dean Howells. "Belgium is rare; Belgium is unique. Among men arises on rare occasions a great man, a man of cosmic import; among nations on rare occasions arises a great nation, a nation of cosmic import. Such a nation is Belgium. Such is the place Belgium attained in a day by one mad, magnificent, heroic leap into the azure. As long as the world rolls and men live, that long will Belgium be remembered. All the human world owes, and will owe, Belgium a debt of gratitude such as was never earned by any nation in the history of nations. It is a mag- nificent debt, a proud debt that all the nations of men will sacredly acknowledge." Jack London. "We have experienced so many emotions in America in. the course of this terrible war that it would be difficult, had not Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium, to assert definitely 134 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR what has been our dominant sensation. But, as it is, I think I can safely speak for my countrymen, and state that nothing has so horrified us and aroused our indignation and sympathies as the cruel fate of this valiant little country. "Above all, no chapter of the war, as yet presented to us, has so excited our admiration as well as our profound respect. We are the only country, owing to our geographical position as well as to our facilities, that has been able to look at all sides of the European imbroglio from the beginning; and propaganda has made no impression whatever upon us. We have had the opportunity to make up our minds, and wholly out of order as this would appear in certain quarters, we be- lieve ourselves to be quite equal to this feat without exterior assistance. We know, among many other things, that the magnificent resistance at Liege upset all the long-matured plans of the German War Office, and that had Belgium proved either weak or ignoble, the history of the war would be very different reading to-day. "I venture to say that every town in the United States, big and little, has its Belgian Relief Society, even if it does not spread beyond the dimensions of the weekly sewing circle ; and that the most consistent democrat in/ the country takes off his hat to King Albert of Belgium. The Americans are always alert to recognize a MAN, and are capable of being quite in- , different to the niche presented to him by destiny. What he does in that niche is the point. If the result of this upheaval is a great European Republic (I refer, of course, to the Con- tinent) , I feel positive that if the people of the United States of America were allowed to vote, the popular candidate would be King Albert of Belgium." Gertrude Atherton. This chapter might, by extracts from current American literature, be almost indefinitely prolonged. But quite sufficient additional American testimony will be found in Chapters III, IV, X and XI, and indeed, throughout the book, to justify the statement that everywhere in America to-day the words "I am a Belgian" would, as in the Aus- tralian's thrilling war poem (p. 88), bring instant evi- dence of deep sympathy and profound respect. CHAPTEK VI. Is There Any Evidence Which Tends to Show Why the Present Time Was Selected by Germany to Precipitate the War? Professor Usher, the author of "Pan-Germanism" (where much interesting matter corroborative of the state- ments of Emil Reich, as to Germany's megalomania, may be found presented in a more dignified way), has best answered this question in an article on "The Reasons Behind the War." (60) In the first place, Austria for centuries has dreamed of dominating southeastern Europe, of ruling the Balkans, of possessing a seacoast on the Adriatic and ^Egean. Only the control of Servia can give her fully and unreservedly what she desires. Moreover, under Servians leadership, once she had recovered from her great losses in men and resources during the Balkan wars, a strong Slav state might have been established in control of all Austria's present approaches to the Adriatic. Her motives seem plain, and she was in precisely the position, after the mur- der of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand, to serve as a catVpaw for her "ally" and master. But why did the latter push her relentlessly into war at this time, when ample repara- tion was offered and further amends were easily procurable, as the evidence shows beyond all question? The Anglo- Irish difficulties, the Canadian-Hindu troubles, the sensa- tional disclosures in the French Chamber as to the bad condition of the army, the alleged deficiencies in the French areoplane squadrons, the only partial recovery of (135) 136 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Kussia from the effects of the Japanese war,, the exhaustion of the Balkan States themselves from their recent wars, even the preoccupation of the United States with troubles in Mexico, all seemed to preclude the chance of a general interference. Professor Usher continues : "If such interference took place and a general European war resulted, there had not been in twenty years anything like as favorable an opportunity for the Triple Alliance or one as disadvantageous for the Triple Entente. The stake was so immense, the results of success would be so stupendous, so out of proportion, in the case of the Triple Alliance, with what they might lose, that the issue of war might even be courted with some assurance. . . . "The schemes of the Pan-Germanists indeed reach to the creation of a vast confederation of states. . . . reaching 'from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean/ as one of their slogans has it. . "Of this great scheme (supposing it to be, as many claim, the veritable policy of the Triple Alliance) the undisputed possession of the Balkans by the Triple Alliance is the most important single factor. . . . "As to a general assault upon the Triple Entente the Triple Alliance has long seen two obvious methods, both in the opinion of many, likely to be successful; the one, a long waiting game where the rapid growth of the population in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and the decline of the rate of growth in France, England, and Russia, would in time give the Alliance a real preponderance in numbers; the other, a short quick blow at some moment when the Triple Alliance could bring all its strength to bear and when the Triple Entente could not. The former meant, not improbably, many years of waiting, and in those years much might happen. "Thoroughly alive to the situation, the Triple Entente had already under execution the preliminaries of so vast an increase of offensive force, and showed such a determination to main- tain a naval and military preponderance, that there would be no alternative but waiting, once these schemes were perfected. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 137 The French, and particularly the Russian, army was to be increased, not only in size, but in efficiency and equipment; and an influential minority in England, with apparent popular support, was agitating conscription. The English navy was to be much increased in fighting force by manning at war strength in the near future a much larger proportion of ships than ever before. Chiefest of all, the Russians were building in the Baltic a really formidable fleet, capable of contesting the Baltic with Germany and of threatening the rear of the German fleet in the Atlantic to such an extent that united fleet action in the North Sea would become an impossibility. "If they [the Triple Alliance] were to fight at all, they must fight now. Next summer might be too late. Now the actual offensive force of their rivals was proportionately less than it might be again for ten years, and their difficulties at home were collectively and individually greater than any of the three has seen for a generation. "So far as the fulfillment of the schemes of Pan-Germanism was concerned, the moment was more than opportune and might not return." Professor Usher seems to me to have sufficiently an- swered Question VI. CHAPTEE VII. What Are the Principles Represented by the Opposing Forces in This War? A. They are absolutism and militarism on the one hand and democratic liberty and representative government on the other. For a century a transference of political power from military despots to popular assemblies has been going on in Western Europe. In Eussia and the Far East the same gradual shift of forces has been taking place. France and Portugal are republics. England is democratic. Japan has abandoned feudalism for democracy. China is an experimental republic. Eussia has her Duma. Servia has fought for self-government. The people of Italy have shown their real sentiments by keeping her from fighting against the Allies. Belgium has a growing and intelligent democratic minority of its population. At this critical tide in the affairs of the world the inmost feelings of the peoples involved, the beliefs and aspirations that are a living part of their very being are apt to dominate and often though I admit, not invariably determine their action. What is the alignment? On one side Germany with whose ideals and purposes we are familiar Austria, not a real nation, but an arti- ficial conglomeration of heterogeneous peoples, the mere tool of Germany, and Turkey, now, as always, the type of a corrupt fanatic Oriental despotism. On the other, France, England, Belgium, Servia, Portugal, Eussia, Japan. (138) A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 139 And ranged on their side, so far as sympathy goes, are the democratic neutral powers, Denmark, Norway, Hol- land, Italy and the United States. The Outlook, which has admirably summed up the foregoing facts, says editorially: (61) "When in a chemical experiment certain molecules by a natural attraction combine, that fact shows that they have something in common. When, in such a war as this, France, England, Belgium, Portugal, Japan and Russia combine, that fact shows that these various peoples have something in com- mon. We believe that something in common is a passionate desire for democratic liberty. "The victory of Germany can be no other than a victory for militarism; the victory of the Allies no other than a victory for permanent peace. If Germany wins she must maintain her armaments, if not increase them; for power obtained by force can be maintained only by force. If Germany is defeated, a diminution of her armaments as a condition of peace may well be demanded by the Allied Powers." Dr. Dernburg has, with great pains, tried to portray for the benefit of Americans, a Germany which will excite their admiration. He sneers (62) at Chesterton, Caine, Wells, Doyle and Bennett as "writers of fiction/' If any one of them ever wrote a story or a novel less convincing than the "official" and "unimpeachable" documents of Ger- many and its representatives during this present war, we have failed to see it. As a writer of "fiction," Doctor Dernburg is himself entitled, in everything but interest and plausibility, to rank with any one of them. His ver- sions of the Chancellor's speech to the Eeichstag, and of Germany's "solemn declaration" to our Department of State, would alone suffice to class him with Hall Caine. "Germany," he asserts, "has no special grudge against any- body/' He forgets his Goethe : "Em echter deutscher Mann 140 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR mag keinen Franzen leiden. Doch ihre Weine trinkt er gern." "Grudge" crops out of every sentence of his paper ; grudge against England, grudge against France, grudge against "poor little" Belgium (it is Ms sneer we quote), and against Eussia. If the United States escape such obvious ill will, this may be due to his extraordinary sense of "obligation as a guest." At least, as we have seen, he intimates that we have von Bernhardis in this country, and that he would shame us by naming them if he were free to do so ! The Germany described by Doctor Dernburg is one which few Americans will recognize. Grudgeless, "fighting morally for her freedom and her existence," "modest," wanting merely her oft-claimed "place under the sun"; "out for conquest on a peaceful line/' "the line where the higher culture wins"; a "democracy," "directed by the most liberal ballot law that exists, even more liberal than the one in use in the United States." Only the last of these statements deserves passing mention, and this because it might delude some American who had not time to inform himself. The "democracy" so eulogized is no more a democracy In our sense, or in the French sense, or in the English sense (despite the monarchical form of the British government) than it is a Court of Archangels. As Mr. Mencken says, it is not "a democracy in the American sense, or anything colorably resembling it. It was founded upon no romantic theory that all men were natural equals." Nietzsche re- served Brotherhood for "shopkeepers, cows, women and Englishmen." It is a "democracy" in which the vote of one Prussian Junker is equal in political effect to the votes of many men of lower class. It is a "democracy" with 3,000,000 officials for 14,000,- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 141 000 electors, or, roughly speaking, "one policeman to every five adults" (Price Collier). It is a "democracy" in which, as Sarolea said in 1912, every part of the empire has theoretically a proportional share in the administration, while Prussia really enjoys the ultimate political and financial control. It is a "democracy" which Professor McElroy entitles a "half Slavonic military despotism, calling its war chief the 'anointed of the Lord/ and to maintain and extend which the Germans are giving their lives." It is a "democracy" with an "Overlord" who can seriously say: (Bremen, 1897) "If we have been able to accomplish what has been accom- plished, it is due above all things to the fact that our house" (the Hohenzollerns) "possesses a tradition by virtue of which we consider that we have been appointed by God to preserve and direct for their own welfare the people over whom He has given us power." And still later, only four years ago: (1910, Konigsberg) "It was in this spot that my grandfather, in his own right placed the royal crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that it was bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by parliaments, and meetings, and decisions of the people. He thus regarded himself as the chosen instrument of Heaven, and as such carried out his duties as a ruler and lord. I consider myself such an instrument of Heaven, and shall go my way without regard to the views and opinions of the day." Prince Henry of Prussia, the Kaiser's brother, declared that he was actuated by one single motive: "A desire to proclaim to the nations the gospel of Your Majesty's sacred person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will listen and those who will not." 142 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR This German "democracy" is blessed with a Parliament, concerning which so well informed a writer as Collier can say: "Why should the press or society take this assembly very seriously, when as the most important measure of which they are capable they can vote to have themselves dismissed by declining to pass supply bills, and when, as has happened four times in their history, they return chastened, tame, and amenable to the wishes of their master?" Mr. Collier affirms that after forty odd years the Germans are still without real representative govern- ment. It is a "democracy" in which the battle cry is "World power or perish" ; in which there is an Overlord who says : "Only one is master of this country. That is I. Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces" ; in which for a genera- tion the toast of the ruling class has been "Der Tag," "The Day," when they should be let loose by their masters to work havoc and destruction ; the day for which the masses, the people, the "electors," had been more or less unwillingly preparing, and on which, as a reward for their toil and energy and self-sacrifice, they were allowed to become "cannon fodder" for the glory of the War Lord. This question of the democracy of Germany has a por- tentous significance from another viewpoint. As to one of the theoretical results of the war, by many still widely believed in and hoped for, viz., that after the German people realized the failure of the initial campaign and came to see the inner causes and springs of the hopeless war in which they are engaged, they would wrest authority from the hands of those who had misused it and found a New Germany, an American paper (63) has admirably expressed the unfortunate truth. Its editorial historical summary is so enlightening at this juncture that I quote it almost in full, although I am not in accord as to one A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 143 point, viz., the "absolute unit/' of the German people 'see pp. 461-71). "One of the earliest predictions made concerning the war was that it would result in a revolution in Germany; that imperial- ism, militarism and autocracy would be submerged beneath the tides of an awakened democracy. "It was a plausible theory, and still has its hopeful support- ers. They will be likely to reject the opinion expressed in the Pall Matt Gazette: " 'The New York Times speculates on the possibility of a G'erman revolution under the impetus of disaster. Prophecy is hazardous, but nothing in German history discloses either the initiative or the capacity to bring such a movement to fruition. Germany has always had her political shape and her political thought imposed upon her by strong wills and strong hands.' "Many who are familiar with world history will resent so harsh a sneer. They know that the very cradle of human lib- erty was in the historic land of Germany. . . . "It would seem the limit of absurdity and injustice to say that the German people of modern times are incapable of free- ing themselves from autocracy. "But the singular fact is that history declares the theory, up to this time, to be true. For three centuries the peoples of all the earth except the Germans have been struggling toward democracy. Literally, every nation worthy of the name ex- cepting Germany has had its revolts and revolutions, its over- turning of dynasties and tyrannical governments. The German people alone have been satisfied. They have warred with everybody but their rulers. Emperors, kings, petty princes and grand dukes by the score, by the hundred, have maintained their sway over contented populations. The house of Hohenzollern, now ruling the empire, has reigned over Bran- denburg and Prussia in unbroken line for exactly 500 years. There is not another royal family, probably, which can boast such uninterrupted domination. . . . "Glancing at the record of the last 300 years, we find that every other country in Europe, all of America and half of Asia have had their great, impulsive movements toward democracy, but that in Germany the liberal institutions which do exist 144 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE "WAR have been handed down by an autocracy which thereby has perpetuated its own power. 'There has never been in that country a successful revolution, and no apparent desire for one. The history of Germany is a history of great sovereigns, great generals, great writers and philosophers; but there is in it no great liberator. The birth- place of religious and intellectual freedom, the cradle of the race that has carried democracy to the ends of the earth, it has itself never known political freedom. It can commemorate the glories of a Leipsic and a Sadowa, but not of a Lexington or a Yorktown. "The power of the Hohenzollern dynasty was really founded by the GTeat Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg ( 1640- 1688), whose son Frederick was first King of Prussia (1701- 1713), and was succeeded by Frederick William I (1713-1740). Let us see what Europe was doing while the first of these sovereigns was creating a State, the second feebly living out his term and the third was winning immortality by collecting regi- ments of giant grenadiers. "In 1640 Portugal threw off the yoke of Spain, which it had worn for sixty years. Two years later came the great civil war in England, which was to last until, seven years later, a despotic king was put to death by the people whose rights he had invaded. "In 1688 the British spirit of freedom, inherited from Teu- tonic ancestors, drove the last of the wayward Stuarts from the throne. It was this revolution which reduced the power of the State in behalf of individual liberty and self-government, and not the French revolution, which extended the power of the State by destroying aristocratic privileges, that was the true forerunner of the American revolution. But it had no echo, then or at any other time, in Germany. "Passing over one of Poland's many revolts in 1706 she forced her Saxon king to abdicate we glance at the reign of Frederick the Great (1740-1786). Russia had a dynastic revo- lution, the reactionary Peter III being dethroned by Catherine II, whose vigorous sway introduced Western civilization, pro- moted commerce, founded schools and granted religious liberty. In 1772 the people of Sweden, led by Gustavus III, crushed the power of the arrogant nobles and established constitutionalism. "The enlightened despotism of Frederick lifted Prussia to the .1 TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 145 rank of the first military power in Europe. He performed prodigies for the material and intellectual advancement of the kingdom; but its people gave no response to the epoch-making summons of the American revolution. In the year he died the patient Dutch dethroned an aristocratic monarch. "The reigns of Frederick William II, III and IV covered three-quarters of a century, 1786-1861. Yet only once during this, perhaps the most restless period in the history of politics, did the people of Prussia and the other German States reveal signs of discontent with the rigorous rule imposed upon them, "In 1787 Belgium freed herself from Austria and set up a republic, although three years later she accepted the old system, modified by a constitution. A little later came the cataclysm of the French revolution; and while it caused some aspirations in Germany toward freedom, its excesses were so alarming that German armies were sent to support the doomed autocracy in France. , "Napoleon simply used the German States as counters in his titanic game of empire. He shuffled them as though they had been cards; squeezed the 300 of them into 38; bestowed crowns as though they were tips. The very brutality of his iron sway resulted finally in arousing a martial spirit, and it was Prus- sian valor that at the last rose up and smote his empire to dust. "Yet it is to be noted that the German people were still faith- ful to their royal leaders. In 1795 Poland had risen under Kosciusko, and the Netherlands had established the Batavian republic, which lasted as long as that of France. Two years later Switzerland had also followed the inspiration of the great revolution. In 1809 Sweden deposed an unsatisfactory mon- arch; in 1813 the Netherlands expelled the French and restored the house of Orange, and in 1814 Napoleon was overthrown; but during all this time the inhabitants of the German States re- mained unmoved. "It was a time of tremendous literary activity; but among all the great writers Goethe, Kant, Schiller, Fichte, Richter and a score of others though the world was racked with the birth-pangs of democracy, there was none to inspire his country- men with aspirations toward political liberty. Some of the German sovereigns 1 were absolutists, some granted constitu- tions; but the mass of the people remained indifferent. The few who declaimed about freedom did nothing else to achieve it, 10 146 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "Between 1822 and 1830 Greece revived the glories of her ancient valor and won her independence from the Turk. The last-named year saw the Poles drive out the Russians, Belgium win her independence from Holland and France dismiss the last of the Bourbons. Spain indulged in a civil war in 1834, and two years later forced her sovereign to swear to maintain a violated constitution. In 1843 Greece extorted a constitution likewise from her Bavarian king. The stormiest year of the nineteenth century was 1848, with revolutions in France, Italy, Hungary and elsewhere. Then, for the first and only time, the German people revealed a vigor- ous sense of political independence. While France was de- throning Louis Philippe and setting up the second republic, Bavaria forced the abdication of her king, Baden produced a feeble revolt and Berlin a few days of barricades in the streets. The end of it all was the exile of the liberal leaders some of whom became great Americans and the establishment in Prus- sia and other States of constitutions which were merely tinged with democracy. "A little later began the era of Bismarck, creator of the German empire. Its rise has been one of the wonders of the world ; but no one, least of all intelligent Germans themselves, will pretend thai it is democratic. "In 1852 France returned to the imperial idea. In 1860 Garibaldi began the struggle which unified Italy. In 1862 Greece deposed her Bavarian sovereign and gave the crown to a Danish prince. In 1868 Japan abolished feudalism and adopted Western ideas. Between 1868 and 1874 the Spaniards changed their government three times. And 1871 saw the es- tablishment of the French republic, that has proved its vigor against the vast armies of imperial Germany. The twentieth century, young as it is, has seen movements toward democracy in the Balkan States, in Russia, in Portugal, in Turkey and in China, two of these having become republics. But throughout all this period the German people have re- mained the willing subjects of a highly efficient but uncompro- mising autocracy. . . . "Germany takes her greatest pride to-day, not in the valor of her troops, but in the absolute unity of her people. There is not one of them who by a word or breath will admit that a single act of the autocracy, from Austria's criminal ultimatum A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 147 to the extortion of blackmail from starving Belgium, has failed in the remotest degree in justice. "From the standpoint of patriotism this is admirable; from the standpoint of civilization it is ominous. Three-fourths of the world condemns the conflict as a needless and brutal crime of misgovernment; yet in the whole German people there is no voice raised in behalf of humanity or in condemnation of the false and barbarous philosophy that exalts militarism and pro- vokes aggressive conquest. "There could hardly be more striking evidences of that habit of docility which yields veneration to autocratic power and sacrifices liberty to attain a machine-made efficiency. "The world's debt to Germany is vast; to her it owes music, philosophy, religious and intellectual emancipation. But as a nation she remains insensible to political freedom. "In this day of democracy the absolute surrender of indi- vidualism to an autocratic State, so that among a whole people there is not a single variation of thought or utterance upon the mightiest and most complex problem that ever confronted the world, is a painful spectacle, from which humanity will derive no inspiration and to which it will pay no admiring tribute." The following acute summary (64) of the German views, ideals, ambitions and purposes of to-day sets forth at the same time the over-weening confidence and prepos- terous self-satisfaction of the German leaders : "The objects of Prussia's ambition an ambition shared by every anemic bespectacled clerk and able-bodied tram conductor in the Fatherland are 'cultural/ and the means of achieving them are heavy guns, quick-firers, and millions of ruthless war- riors. Real German culture in all its manifestations scien- tific, artistic, philosophical, musical, commercial, and military, accepts and champions the new principle and the fresh ideas which are to regenerate the effete social organisms of to-day. According to the theory underlying this grandiose national en- terprise, the forces of Christianity are spent. New ichor for the dry veins of decrepit Europe is stored up in German phil- osophy and poetry. Mediaeval art has exhausted the traditional forms, but Teutonism is ready to furnish it with new ones. Music is almost a creation of German genius. Commerce was 148 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR stagnating in the ruts of old-world use and wont until German enterprise created new markets for it, and infused a new spirit into its trading community. Applied science owes more to German research and ingenuity than to the efforts of all the world besides. And the race thus highly gifted is deserving of a field worthy of its world-regenerating labors. At present it is cooped up in Central Europe with an absurdly small coast-line. Its surplus population has, for lack of colonies, to be dumped down on foreign shores, where it is>lost forever to the Fatherland. For this degrading position, which can no longer be tolerated, there is but one remedy: expansion. But to be effectual it must be expansion combined with Germani- zation. And the only means of accomplishing this end is for Germany to hack her way through the decrepit ethnic masses that obstruct her path and to impose her higher civilization on the natives. Poland was the first vile body on which this ex- periment was tried, and it has been found, and authoritatively announced, that the Slavs are but ethnic manure, useful to fer- tilize the seed-fields of Teutonic culture, but good for little else. The Latin races, too, are degenerates who live on memo- ries and thrive on tolerance. Beef-eating Britons are the in- carnation of base hypocrisy and crass self-indulgence, and their empire, like a hollow tree, still stands only because no storm has yet assailed it. To set youthful, healthy, idealistic Ger- many in the high places now occupied by those inert masses that once were progressive nations, is but to adjust obsolete conditions to the pressing requirements of the present time to execute the wise decrees of a just God. And in order to bring this task to a satisfactory issue, militarism must reign as the paramount power before culture can ascend the throne. Militarism is a necessity, and unreasoning obedience the condi- tion of its success." In a most excellent article Dr. Ellis Oberholtzer, of Philadelphia (65), reviews a portion of the same field, and shows the absolute domination of Germany by Prus- sia, the Hohenzollerns, the aristocracy and the multi-mil- lionaires. He calls attention to the Dreiklassen system, by which all the voters in a district are divided into three A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 149. classes according to their taxable wealth, and goes on: "Thus in the first class the very wealthy elected one-third of the members of a kind of electoral college, those in the second class, the less wealthy, elected a third, while the masses of the people, bundled into a class by themselves, chose another third. . . . "In this system no change has been made, though the consti- tution was promulgated more than sixty years ago. In Essen, when I lived in Germany, Herr Krupp, the gunmaker, and Bismarck, who owned some property in that town, formed one class, a score or more lesser magnates another class. Their influence and power were as two to one against the thousands of workingmen and small tradesmen thrown together into the third class." He says that there are districts in East Prussia in which 95 or even 99 per cent, of the people cast but one-third of the votes for a member of the Prussian Diet. He brings the matter home to us by saying that it is as if Pennsyl- vania had a king, "by the grace of God," who was also Emperor of the United States. He would choose his own ministers from a land-holding aristocracy. The Senate or upper house of legislature would be a House of Lords with the selection of whom the people would have nothing to do. The House of Eepresentatives would be made up of mem- bers chosen from time to time by the rich men in each district of the State. The government could not be changed except by consent of the king and of an hereditary noble hierarchy surrounding the throne. "In this," he says "do popular government and the parliamentary system consist in Prussia, which is two-thirds of the German Empire in population and three-thirds in the domination and control of German affairs." He speaks of the absence of anything corresponding to what we know as "freedom of speech" or "liberty of the press," and continues: 150 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "But an American or English editor could not patiently write for newspapers held in such restraint and exerting so little in- fluence upon public opinion. It is necessary for the publisher to carry a copy of every issue to the police station before the presses run off the edition and to print in plain view the name of a verantwortliclie redacteur, or responsible, answerable editor. This man, in tho case of some of the Socialist papers, has been hired for the use. He goes to jail; another who takes his place follows him into durance vile, while the actual editor still continues daily to take his flings at the government. And not all the editors who have been imprisoned in these forty years have been Socialists. The more moderate radicals have sometimes been visited by the police to be withdrawn for a time from the sunshine. "What makes the way of the journalist particularly difficult, although the general libel laws are harsh, is the unverletzliclw, or inviolable character of the Kaiser, and he is holy twice over, once because he is the German Emperor and again because he is the King of Prussia. He is so much in the German scheme of government by force of law, and by his assumption of preroga- tives (through the exercise of many of the chancellor's powers since the dismissal of Bismarck), and his general meddling in all manner of questions by his pronunciamentos which he issues as a vicegerent of God, that free political discussion in the press is out of the question. A great excellency of the English democracy is found in the open and unceasing debate of the merits of public men. The one great public man in Ger- many is removed from the province of debate, unless it should be in the line of adulation. "The press has never reached any degree of respectable public influence in Germany. When it finally escaped actual daily censorship it found itself at the mercy of Bismarck, who used a so-called Guelph fund, belonging to the Duke of Cumberland, in the Prussian Treasury. He seized the income to bribe the press. With advertisements and subsidies, by withholding in- formation from one paper and giving it to another, by prose- cuting an editor who attacked him as chancellor and sparing another who lashed the enemies of Prussian policy, by feeding the 'reptiles,' as men called them, because they crawled at his feet, he made the freedom of the press the travesty it has al- ways been. The newspaper as an organ of public opinion has not A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 151 succeeded in raising itself to a much greater height since the passing of Bismarck's extraordinary regime. "If the laws relating to Use majeste fail, the police authori- ties can turn to the famous clause in the penal code relating to Grower Unfug, the committing of a gross nuisance. This term covers a multitude of sins the objectionable yelping of dogs, the indecent public exposure of the human person and, by test in the courts of justice, the misbehavior of newspaper editors, touching subjects of government. So much for the liberty of the press in Germany. "But the seat and center of the monarch's power is in the army. He is its absolute head. Under its influence at one time or another comes every male German fit to carry a gun. The recruit is put under drill sergeants, always chosen from the noble junker or monarchical classes, and trained for a term of years to military efficiency and implicit obedience of his com- manders. These soldiers are set down among the people in fortresses and barracks in every part of the empire. Not a town or agricultural district which is not under the constant surveillance of the army; not a road in the remotest parts of the empire which is untraversed by the troops, or a gawky peasant who is permitted to forget that war any day may be- come the business of his life. Here William II, imperator et rex, is omnipotent. "The Socialists appeared in strength soon after the Empire was formed. 'We will give them all the Socialism they want/ said Bismarck, and the present Emperor has continued the policy. Rules and regulations cover the movements of the in- dividual from the cradle to the grave in every relationship of life. Great bureaus have been established to govern, cajole, protect and sustain the population. "Hundredsi of thousands of men, organized with almost sol- dierly order, stand under noble personages, named by the Kaiser and the princes around him, to the great all-comprehending civil service. If there were 'free institutions' anywhere in this German land they would sink under the weight of the universal military organization and the bureaucracy created by State So- cialism. "Can it be supposed that thia great system will soon be changed ? Can we conceive of the people rising up to change it ? Is there desire to sweep it away ? I have never heard a German 152 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR outside of the ranks of militant Socialism express a wish for anything better than what he has. The typical old-line Prus- sian, who thanks God that he is not as other men, has become the typical German. He would have more seaports, more colo- nies and the like of that, but as for being rid of compulsory military service, or a king, or a bureaucratic system it is not much on his mind. 'Your America is corrupt,' he will tell you. 'Of course, you do not have an army. Yours is a new country, without enemies'. Democracy has failed wherever it has been tried.' "This is heard with more or less patience. What is depress- ing is to see the entire vaunted university system arrayed on the side of the Prussianized military Germany. There was a day in 1837, when seven men Gervinus, Bahlmann, the two brothers Grimm among the number walked out of Gottingen for their political opinions; another day, in 1848, when Pro- fessor Kinkel, at Bonn, shouldered a musket, led his students out to fight for republican institutions', and rotted in a prison at Spandau, until one of those students, young Carl Schurz, by bribing a keeper, lowered the poet and sage on a rope and hur- ried him in the night to a schooner at Rostock, by which means they together escaped to England. "But the boldest man in our day has been Von Seydel at Munich, the Calhoun of Germany, who contended that the Empire under the Constitution is a Staatenbund instead of a Bundesstaat, and that Bavaria can secede from the Union, in the manner of South Carolina, whenever she has a mind to do so. About all of this nobody cares a rap. He would not have carried a gun to make so much come to pass. Every country university professor has before his eyes the blandishments of a well-rewarded post in Berlin, and this* keeps- him soundly Hohenzollern in his sympathies. Treitschke, Wagner and Dam- bach were, in my day as a student at Berlin, the types of men representing German scholarship in the political and economic sciences. They were Bismarck's own body servants. "There is a great potential rumbling of unrest, but it has re- mained as pointless as it is strong, because of the rigor of the political system and a military domination of the people of a character never before seen in any country under the sun. There have been the loudest demands in recent years in Prussia for direct equal manhood suffrage. The demonstrations have A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 153 been as violent as the laws will allow. Some Social Democrats have found their way into the Landtag, in spite of the seem- ingly impossible obstacles to be overcome, in expression of the popular dissatisfaction, but the Government has yielded not one jot or tittle to the spirit of democratic progress. "In 1890, at the end of the Bismarck regime, the Social Demo- crats polled 1,427,298 votes (nearly 20 out of 100) and they elected 35 members of the Reichstag. Such advancement has there been that in 1907 they held 53 seats, and five years later, in 1912, 110, a total since somewhat increased in bye-elections. Out of more than 12,000,000 voters a third, or over 4,000,000, were Social Democrats. The Radicals polled 1,500,000 votes and the National Liberals 1,600,000, a total for the left, or opposition parties, of approximately 7,500,000, for which by a just apportionment, they would have 260 instead of less than 200 seats in a house of 397 members. "This Social Democratic uprising means something, but the Government is so amazingly constituted that the party is with- out any power to influence public policy. And now the Kaiser and his military men raise a cry of invasion from Russia, re- kindle the fires of hate for England and France and these So- cialists (with few exceptions) throw off their hats and go off to war behind the Prussian 'vons' and 'zus,' who direct the greatest military autocracy which mankind has ever seen. "Revolution in Germany, of which a good deal is said, is probably as far distant as ever; though possibly the way may be prepared for changes if the Allies shall win in this war. One of the most important works on the subject of government is President A. Lawrence Lowell's "Governments and Parties in Continental Europe." He is of the opinion that there is no real wish for popular government in Germany, unless it be in the South, where the principles of the French Revolution made themselves felt in the 18th century, and no genius to institute it, conduct it and enjoy it. Just this lesson did the young lib- eral enthusiast, Carl Schurz, learn in 1848. 'The people,' says he in his Reminiscences, 'although highly developed in science, philosophy, literature and art, had always lived under a severe guardianship in all political matters. They had never been out of leading strings. They had never received or known the teachings which spring from the feeling of responsibility in free political action. The affairs of Government lay outside 154 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR of the customs and habits of their lives.' (Reminiscences, vol- ume I, page 124.) May not these judgments apply just as truly to the Germans of this present day? "It may be a fact, as another respectable writer has said, that they are discontented because they have 'outgrown their insti- tutions'; that the aim of a great body of them is 'unfettered representative government.' I, for one, basing my opinion on observations during a long residence in their midst, cannot think that they have very much less political liberty than they deserve, or are fitted to exercise. That people which needs what is better usually finds the way to attain it. The proof or dis- proof of our theories may be at hand, possibly, in the course of, or at the end of this great present war. . . . "These then are the 'free institution si* of Prussia and of all Germany. They belong to that period in England which pre- ceded the Revolution of 1688, that period in France preceding the fall of the Bastille. The German would fain believe that in these few past months he has extended the sphere of his influ- ence into Belgium and a portion of France. He had before proven his character as a ruler of captured lands in the un- happy provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. England and the rest of the world will fairly conclude that it is his design to impose these sentiments and systems upon other parts of the earth's surface, if he shall be the victor in this war. The German frau will throw up her hands several times in a day and ex- claim, 'Gott bewahre!' It is 'Gott bewahre' now for the non- Prussian world and the great cause of popular government. Shall democracy live on this planet, after two or three cen- turies of growth and development, or shall it be written by the historian of the future that in the first years of the twentieth century it went down before kaisers and princes and praetors, directing obedient legions armed to the teeth ?" With this convincing and enlightening testimony as to the real principles represented by Germany in this war, and this final reply to Doctor Dernburg*s false description of Germany's "democracy" and of her ballot-law, "more liberal than the one in use in the United States/' I must close this chapter. I wish I could get every intelligent A TEXT-BOOK OP THE WAR 155 German-American in this country to read it, not, of course, for what I have written, but for what I have quoted. I think many of them, whatever their views as to the relative merits of the two systems of government, would find, as I do, something humorous in calling "democratic" a system under which civilians could be arrested by an army officer for "intending to laugh." And yet that occurred as recently as December, 1913, and was proved at the trial resulting from the shameful, and now historic, Zabern occurrence, when, with other outrages, a helpless cripple was stabbed in the back. The Court, acting in this "democ- racy," acquitted the colonel in command "beeause^he did not know that he had acted illegally." (66) CHAPTEE VIII. In Addition to the Evidence Already Presented as to the Mental Attitude of the Average German Toward His Own Race and Toward Other European Races, Are There Any Facts Tending to Show His Real Attitude Toward America? If in answering this I begin by coming back again to Bernhardi and Treitschke, it is because I believe it has been shown that, in spite of eleventh-hour denials, they truly represent the Germany of 1914 the Germany of this war. How much of the mistaken "devotion" of the German nation at this time is due to their teachings and to those of their class it is impossible to state dogmatically. But that they have greatly influenced their compatriots there can be no doubt. Let us see what these "Pan Germanists" have to say to their fellow-countrymen about America. Bernhardi says (67) that in our efforts at The Hague Congresses and, more recently in our attempts to conclude treaties for the estab- lishment of Arbitration Courts, we have not pacific ideals as the real motive of our actions, but "usually employ the need of peace as a cloak under which to promote" our own political aims. He goes on : "We can hardly assume that a real love of peace prompts these efforts. This is shown by the fact that precisely those Powers which, as 1 the weaker, are exposed to aggression, and therefore were in the greatest need of international protection, have been completely passed over in the American proposals for Arbitration Courts. It must consequently be assumed that very matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans, with (We) A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 157 their commercial instinctsi, to take such steps, and induced perfidious Albion to accede to the proposals. We may suppose that England intended to protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, but that America wished to have a free hand in order to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America without hindrance, and to carry out her plans regarding the Panama Canal in the exclusive interests of America. Both countries certainly entertained the hope of gaining advantage over the other signatory of the treaty, and of winning the lion's share for themselves. Theorists and fanatics imagine that they see in the efforts of President Taft a great step forward on the path to perpetual peace, and enthusiastically agree with him. Even the Minister for Foreign Affairsi in England, with well- affected idealism, termed the procedure of the United States an era in the history of mankind." . "The United States of America, e. g., in June, 1911, cham- pioned the ideas of universal peace in order to be able to devote their undisturbed attention to money-making and the enjoy- ment of wealth, and to save the three hundred million dollars which they spend on their army and navy." .... "In America, Elihu Root, formerly Secretary of State, de- clared in 1908 that the High Court of International Justice established by the second Hague Conference would be able to pronounce definite and binding decisions by virtue of the pres- sure brought to bear by public opinion. The present leaders of the American peace movement seem to share this idea. With a childlike self-consciousness, they appear to believe that public opinion must represent the view which the American plutocrats think most profitable to themselves." . "While, on the one side, she [America] insists on the Monroe Doctrine, on the other she stretches out her own arms towards Asia and Africa, in order to find bases for her fleets. The United States aims at the economic and, where possible, the political command of the American continent, and at naval supremacy in the Pacific." So much for Bernhardi. Treitschke says: (68) 158 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "To civilization at large, the Anglicising of the German- Americans means a heavy loss. . . . Among Germans there can no longer be any question that the civilization of mankind (Gesittung der Menscheit) suffers every time a German is transformed into a Yankee." Delbriick says : (69) "It seems extremely questionable that, under the prevailing loose political conditions and extraordinarily easy changes from one party to another, the United States should be in a po- sition to attain to a permanent military status at all. Their momentary proud position need deceive no one. The Americana have not yet stood any really severe test." No wonder that the Bidders and Miinsterbergs and Hil- prechts and Jastrows seek to belittle Bernhardi and Treitschke and their teachings as a preliminary to the con- ciliation of America. But I fear that the transformation of the representative of "Kultur" into the despised Yankee takes place much less frequently than we had supposed. The reason it does not occur oftener is not far to seek, if one recognizes that our German- Americans are still un- der the influence of the "Fatherland." There can be no doubt that German and American polit- ical ideals are absolutely divergent. They have already come into conflict over South America, the Panama Canal and the Philippines. Calwer, a German socialist, says that preliminary to a socialistic economic organization of the world, "Capitalism must first bring the world under sub- jection," and adds: "It follows that capital including German capital as well- must first go forth and subdue the world with the means and weapons which are at its disposal," i. e., with fire and sword. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 159 The same sort of thing crops out wherever their bureau- crats write. Herr Schlettwein, a Government Colonist and an expert on colonial matters, when asked to instruct the Reichstag on the principles of colonization, said : "In colonial politics we stand at the parting of the ways on the one side healthy egoism ... on the other exag- gerated humanitarianism. The Herreros must be compelled to work t and to work without compensation, and in return for their food only. Forced labor for years is only a just punishment, and at the same time it is the best method of training them." How long would an American governmental employe remain in public life after expressing that sentiment to Congress ? The German ideal is far remote from American ideals. Mr. E. S. Martin says: (70) "It is good in Krupps and chemistry, in manufacture, in trade, in civic government, in the regulation of life for the pro- motion of average comfort. It is bad in art. It is not notable in the higher forms of literature. And as to the great point of making nobler types of men has it done it? The Germans are notably efficient, but are they creative? are they inventive? and are they nobler than other men? They have told us that democratic France was decadent; that democratic England was a pretense and an empty shell; that Russia was barbarous. They said nothing about Belgium. There ought to be a Nobel prize for nobility. If there were, would it go to Germany? One sees in Germany immense efficiency, courage, aggressiveness, capacity to suffer, but where, so far, has she been noble? In Belgium? At Louvain? At Rheims? "Her specialty is fighting, but man for man she can't handle the Belgians or the new French, and her superiority to the Russians is* dubious, while as for the English, they are but a handful so far in this war, but it has been a handful for Germany. "No; get them out of their shops and laboratories and the 160 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR current Germans don't seeni to be of an egregious nobility. The Belgians can give them odds in it, and they seem to have noth- ing on the lately decadent French. They must be learning a wonderful lot about the qualities of other people, and perhaps they are revising their self-esteem." They learn slowly. Months of war and the all but uni- versal condemnation of the civilized world have not shaken their confidence in their governmental methods, nor their admiration for themselves. In December Dr. Franz Junge wrote: (71) "But it is a reflection upon the intelligence of trained ob- servers, native as well as foreign, to spea.k seriously of the effectiveness of popular government in practice. Nor is it con- sistent with the rule of reason, which governs the destinies of the United States, to introduce moral considerations of abstract justice into the settling of international disputes, with which the waging of war has never had anything to do. . . . "Now, if the absence of adequate rule in America offers so feeble a guarantee against the complete reversal of the funda- mental principles of government from individualism to col- lectivism, and from democracy to plutocracy not to speak of corruption in its various forms; if the enlightened people of America, working as they do under the most favorable auspices of heredity and environment, with all their political liberties, have been unable to preserve their economic independence, how can it be surprising that the German people hesitate to commit their country to the same policy of laissez fairef . . . "Why, after all, should the German people abandon their political system, which has proved successful to the Common- wealth, and adopt American institutions, which are notorious for the contrast or discrepancy between recognized political principles and actual political life?" And (Ibid) Dr. Ervin Acel continues: "I have kept myself from a discussion of the ethical questions involved in the stand taken by America. Germany did right A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 161 or did wrong; it does not matter which. But, however that may be, the very interests of the United States require a vic- torious Germany and a humbled Japan and England. There- fore the American policy is a mistake, in view of the future, and a blunder in policy is more unpardonable than crime. "As to Europe, every century has its caryatid which carries the weight of its culture. There was a time when the world's culture found its highest expression among the Greeks, among the Romans, among the French. Now we see this high-water mark of learning among the Germans. Her philosophers, engi- neers, scholars, merchants, all e marche en la tete de la civilisa- tion': they lead the army of civilization." Such colossal conceit would be unworthy even of ridicule were it not that both articles unintentionally, and there- fere the more significantly, betray a conception of inter- national morals which, if carried into effect in personal activities, would disqualify both writers for ordinary deal- ings with, their fellow citizens, at least in this country. The Outlook deals with the matter editorially as follows : "A passage from each of these two articles will suffice to indicate to our readers how marked is the difference between their point of view and the point of view of The Out- look. . . . The Outlook believes that it does matter a great deal whether a country does right or does wrong, and that it is in accord with the rule of reason to introduce moral considera- tions into the settling of international disputes." An article in a recent number of a magazine of high standing (72), should be called to the attention of Amer- icans. There are many living who could prove or disprove its statements, for which, especially as it is signed by a nom^de-plume, I can assume no responsibility. They are, however, so in accord with much of the recent German arid German-American behavior that they seem more credible 11 162 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR to-day than ever before. The article begins with the asser- tion that: ''Germany has consistently followed a twofold policy toward the United States. Always reckoning with the possibility of a collision with England, she has endeavoured to be on good terms with the United States, counting upon their support in case of a great war. At the same time, German statesmen have seen in the Great Republic an economic and political danger and, while ostensibly maintaining excellent relations with the United States, they have stealthily endeavoured to weaken them by various ways, and especially by creating enmity between them and England. In leading German circles it has been an article of faith that the United States and England are natural enemies; that both countries bitterly remember the War of Independence and the quarrels which succeeded it. It has been an article of faith in Germany that Canada was coveted by all Americans; that the existence of that great English Dominion in North America was an ever-present cause of friction between the two Anglo-Saxon States; that the Americans would take Canada as soon as England was involved in a really serious war." It continues by citing Prince Bismarck's views as to the Monroe Doctrine, views which there is much reason to believe are those of official Germany to-day. They appeared in the Hamburger NachricMen on February 9, 1896 : "Some German newspapers continue discussing the so-called 'Monroe Doctrine/ in consequence of the events which have taken place in South America. We axe of opinion that that doctrine, and the way in which it is now advanced by the American Republic, is an incredible impertinence (eine unglau- lliche Unverschamtheit) towards the rest of the world. The Monroe Doctrine is merely an act of violence, based upon great strength, towards all American States and towards those Euro- pean States which possess interests in America." A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 163 The author reviews the Samoan incident, and says of the Manila Bay controversy : "During the Spanish- American War Germany endeavoured to acquire the Philippines. While other countries had sent only a few ships to the Philippine Islands, Germany had, without any obvious reason, despatched there her Pacific Squadron a force equal to that commanded by Admiral Dewey. The Ger- man Admiral Diedrichs endeavoured to foil Admiral Dewey's operations, and the relations between the German and Amer- ican fleets became so strained that a battle between the two was avoided only by the intervention of the English Commander, who backed up his American colleague." (p. 180) He continues: "In 1907, Mr. Emil Witte, a former Press attache at the German Embassy in Washington, published at Leipzig a book on his experiences at the Washington Embassy. For some reason or other, that book, which contains disclosures m'ost damaging to the German Government, has remained practically unknown. It is so scarce a book that it seems possible that the German Government bought up and destroyed all the copies it could lay hands on. The following extracts from Mr. Witte's disclosures throw a powerful light upon Germany's diplomatic methods, and upon her American policy. Mr. Witte was, in spring 1898, one of the editors of the Deutsche Zeitung of Vienna. At that time the Spanish- American War broke out, and practically the whole of the German and Austrian Press took the part of Spain and violently attacked the United States in accordance with official directions." (See pp. 216-17-18) He follows with a number of extracts from Mr. Witte's book, "Experiences at a German Embassy: Ten Years of German-American Diplomacy," by Emil Witte, late Coun- cillor of Legation, Leipzig, 1907: 164 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "The public learns from these pages for the first time the truth, and the whole truth, about German- American relations, the true state of which has been disguised and misrepresented on both sides of the ocean by a powerful and corrupt Press. . . ." "'These Americans are, after all, incredibly simple. They swallow any bait greedily as long as it is sufficiently sugared and placed before them with a friendly smile.' I heard this phrase frequently from an intimate friend of Herr von Holleben, the German Ambassador 'at Washington, at the time when I had the honour to be attached to the German Embassy at Wash- ington in order to attend to Press matters. That phrase is characteristic of the view which prevailed among German dip- lomats towards the statesmen of the New World. These views have led to very gross errors. After a number of serious inci- dents, such as the Dewey-Diedrichs episode in the Bay of Manila, the unfortunate Samoa affair, the Coghlan affair, and the Venezuela imbroglio, the diplomats at Berlin suddenly remembered the old historic friendship which united Prussia and the United States since the time of Frederick the Great, and they assured the Americans that the great Republic pos- sessed no more faithful and sincere friend than the German Emperor. In order to give a practical demonstration of that historical friendship to the world in general and to the United States in particular, the American journey of Prince Henry was announced. . . ." "The Prince arrived, and he convinced himself and was able to report to his Imperial brother that he was in a country where one-third of the population was of German birth or of German descent, and was firmly resolved to stand faithfully at Germany's side under all circumstances. He convinced him- self of the truth of the statement, which Dr. von Holleben had made to a journalist at a time when German- American relations were in a critical state, that a war between Germany and the United States would assume the character of a civil utivr." . . . "Dr. A. von Mumm admitted to me at Washington that Germany was responsible for the unhappy Dewey-Diedrichs incident at Manila." . . A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 165 "The anti-German attitude of the American Press which was noticeable at the time when I entered upon my duties ( January, 1899) was not unjustified. I was selected as Press attache to the German Emahssy in America, to make up for the sins which the German Press had committed in its blind desire to please the men at the Wilhelmstrasse." . . . "When I entered upon my duties, I received the general instruction to do everything in my power to silence the journals hostile to Germany, and to convert them from determined enemies of Germany into friends and admirers of the Emperor. Besides, it was my duty to create the belief in American public opinion that the true enemy of the United States was not Germany, but England. . . . Thus I began my work." Further extracts are of great interest at this moment to every American who is striving intelligently to reach a fair conclusion as to the genuine German attitude toward our country. "The German-American Ambassador played a very delicate and dangerous part in the German- American movement. Mr. John J. Lentz, of Columbus, Ohio, a member of Congress, told me : 'Please tell the Ambassador to keep the German- American movement progressing with energy. 9 The Ambassador replied, when I gave him the message, that 'it was not unexpected.' I had met Mr. Lentz previously in the house of Herr von Stern- burg, and I met him frequently at the Embassy. As he was a member of the Committee for Military Affairs, and was there- fore acquainted with the most secret information, his inter- course with us was not approved of by American people." . . . "The vast majority of the German newspapers appearing in the United States could not conveniently exist if they did not save the wages of journalists and compositors by relying upon the factories which produce stereotyped matter. The producers of the stereotyped matter which is sent out to the German-American papers can make a living only by copying matter which has appeared in the German and Austrian journals and periodicals. They reprint part of their contents, cast plates, and sell these at a very low price to the German- American Press. The New Yorker Stoats Zeitung asserts that 166 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR it is the only German newspaper in America which pays its contributors for belletristical contributions, but its payments are more than modest. The very difficult struggle for exist- ence forces the German- American newspapers to play a very humiliating part." . . . "Without doubting for a moment the often-asserted loyalty to the United States expressed by the members of the German Soldiers' Societies in the United States*, and without dwelling on the reasons why they have been officially distinguished by the German Government by sending them flags, decorations, gracious letters, etc., it must be frankly stated that the rela- tions between official Germany and the emigrant subjects of the Emperor, whether they have become citizens of the Republic or not, may lead to serious complications between Germany and the United States, as an exponent of learning, that he is now infesting this neutral country as a passionate alien, seeking to inflame partisans of Germany. It is particularly sad to see so distinguished a victim of the epi- demic furor professoritis. "It appears from the Berlin professor's remarks at the Ter- race Garden last Thursday night that his engagement to lecture at Harvard was cancelled because the president of that uni- versity, having read the address to be delivered, decided that 'it would violate the spirit of neutrality which this country is trying to maintain/ which Professor Meyer is resolved that it shall not maintain. It is easy to believe that Professor Meyer cannot keep King George's head out of his remarks; but he conceives that freedom of speech has been trampled upon at Cambridge : " 'I could not live or breathe in an atmosphere so close and dense as that which seems to prevail at Harvard. Free utter- ance between man and man has always been the breath of my nostrils.' "No considerations of propriety or politeness or respect for a neutral country occur to him. He assumes that academic freedom is violated because he cannot inject his political venom into a literary speech. "How much freedom of speech would he enjoy at Berlin. if he tried to incite an audience, say of Poles and Jews, to ally themselves against a Government friendly to the German Em- pire, against, say, 'the blood-stained flag of Austria'? What would the Prussian police have had to say to such a demonstra- tion as that of Terrace Garden? "He must have breathed asthmatically at this Clan-na-Gael- Germau-American riot, where a reporter was prodded divers times with a sheathed sabre by a lieutenant of Irish Volunteers for not rising with due observance and reverence when the * Wacht am Rhein,' apparently the new American anthem, was struck up. "There's 'freedom* for you. In Berlin the sabre would not have been sheathed." It is a source of contentment that the vast majority of the press and a similar proportion of the Intelligent people A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 193 in whose hands the destinies of America will ultimately rest have remained unshaken in their belief in the justice and right of the cause of the Allies, which belief they reached within a fortnight of the opening of the war. That they have thus steadfastly believed., in spite of the absence of any inspiring and steadying leadership from the present national Administration, and in the face of so widespread, vigorous, artful and unscrupulous a pro-German and anti- British campaign, is a legitimate cause of pride, and of confidence in the underlying common-sense of the Amer- ican people. Nevertheless, some of us have felt anxious as to the possible effect upon the millions who, somewhat removed from the main currents and counter-currents of world- thought, have been day by day, or week by week, bombarded with German sophisms and German sermons, German half- truths, and German falsehoods. There are in the United States great numbers of news- papers that may, without derogation, be called "provincial" or "country." As a rule, they are a source of strength and a means of education. Their editors are often the leaders of thought in their respective communities. Their teachings, while, of course, varying widely as to political questions, and representing opposite sides of political controversies, are, as a rule, devoted to the fundamental principles of true Democracy, as we understand it in America. Their owners or proprietors, who are often the editors themselves, are compelled to be satisfied with very moderate financial returns for their labors. They are, to an extent, like teachers and professors, obliged to find in certain collateral advantages the dignity of their profession, the influence they can exert, the social position they acquire a counter- balancing recompense for their meagre earnings. 13 194 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR To these papers have been sent, by the thousands, pages of matter technically known as "patent insides"- already put in journalistic form, together with papier- mache moulds (from which type may be easily and inex- pensively cast) the so-called "boiler-plate" all abso- lutely without cost to the papers, but with the fixed proviso that the stuff thus sent shall be used "entire or not at all." A facsimile of one page of such proffered material, actually sent to a Philadelphia paper, is herewith given together with its translation. For the arguments which the Germans based on this and other documents found at the same time, and the replies thereto see p. 124. What the effect may be ultimately upon the hundreds of thousands of persons thus reached no one now can accu- rately determine. The resulting change of view, if there were any, would be slow in manifesting itself. But the possibility of such change cannot be denied or ignored, and it is a grave question whether the Allies, or their friends here, are wise in regarding this persistent and continuous effort as entirely negligible. I am not unmindful of the advice of Charles Francis Adams to his English Friends, and to England, (96) "As respects the war and the attitude of Great Britain, the situation is very clearly understood in America, and the cur- rent of public opinion isi all one way, and in your favor. You can safely leave the course of events and the trend of opinion to the representative Germans in this country, including more especially the Ambassador at Washington, von Bernstorff, who strikes me as being utterly unfit for his position. He has done the German cause immense harm, and brought himself into great discredit. This, by indiscreet and unnecessary talking. The man apparently does not realize that foreign nations do FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF "BOILER-PLATE" MATRIX SENT TO AMERICAN NEWSPAPER BY THE "GERMAN INFORMATION SERVICE." (over) GERMAN CIRCULAR LETTER. With the matrix (or "mats") goes in each case a circular letter. In this instance it was as follows : "To THE EDITORS The mats inclosed are facsimiles of papers found among the documents of the Belgian General Staff at Brus- sels, referring to arrangement between the English military attaches and the Belgian Minister of War regarding British intervention in Belgium. "They are accompanied by proofs of translations of the docu- ments and by the explanatory remarks of Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, Privy Councillor of the German Empire and former German Min- ister to the Colonies. ''The mats and articles must be used in their entirety, or not at all. "GERMAN INFORMATION SERVICE." TRANSLATION OF FACSIMILE SENT THEREWITH. "Confidential: "The British Military Attache asked to see General Jungbluth. The two gentlemen met on April 23rd. "Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges told the General that England had at her disposal an army which could be sent to the Continent, composed of six divisions of infantry and eight brigades of cavalry together 160,000 troops. She had also everything which i.s necessary for her to defend her insular territory. Everything is ready. "At the time of the recent events, the British Government would have immediately effected a disembarkment in Belgium (ches nous), even if we had not asked for assistance. "The General objected that for that our consent was necessary. "The Military Attache answered that he knew this, but that since we were not able to prevent the Germans from passing through our country England would have landed her troops in Belgium under all circumstances (en tout ('hit it was read by millions of people in America and in Europe. 'The Forces of Evil* which were seeking and are seeking to sow discord between America and Japan were known to Marquis Komura as they are known to his successors and to the Government of Japan. It is with 222 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR these forces of evil that the friends of Japan have been at death grips for the last six years. It was to these German 'Forces of Evil' that the Marquis Komura issued his notable warning when he spoke across the table as courteous host to welcome guest and as good friend to good friend. It was an earnest warning to America of which, alas! but few took sufficient cognizance. But it was noted in Berlin. . . . "The error of indifference and of 'laissez fa/ire* has had ex- tremely grave results. Germany and its agents, in Japan and in America were startled, and kept silence for a time. The warning was heard and there was a marked inactivity among the mercenaries hired to sow discord and make a casus belli if possible between Japan and America. But the one warning was insufficient and soon 'The Forces of Evil' took heart of grace again. . . . "For years the German 'Forces of Evil' in Japan, in China, in America and in Europe have intrigued and lied with the one end in view. 'Discord, discord and war/ has been the slogan of the German 'Forces of Evil.' Their agents have been our own neighbors and our friends our own familiars and our guests. They have spied and lied and slandered in the press, in the home and in the club. They have bought men's souls and honor. They have paid well the prostitutes who wore the garb of de- cency and were received into our homes as of our own. In Japan and in China for the last six years this subornation of treachery has continued at a heavy cost to the treasury in Berlin, it is true, but alas ! at still heavier cost to Japan and to America. "Even to-day while Japan is treating the Germans resident here and non-combatant with a remarkable leniency, the Ger- man agents of 'The Forces of Evil' are at work. 'Discord, dis- cord and war' is still their slogan. "In America the agents of these same 'Forces of Evil' are desperately working to the same end. "True 'Forces of Evil' are the Germans that have been all- pervading for the last ten years in America and for the last five in Japan. There are signs of an awakening in America and there, is some hope that simultaneously both Japan and her good neighbor across the Pacific will awake to a realization of the extent of the havoc being wrought to good repute and neighbor- liness by the German 'Forces of Evil.' A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 223 An extract from a letter to me written by a prominent and influential American residing in Yokohama is evidence that the feeling and suspicion expressed in this editorial are not confined to newspaper offices : "On the outbreak of the war with Russia, a friend of mine, coming down from Miyanoshita, saw at all the railway stations between there and Yokohama the people of the towns and sur- rounding villages gathered together to watch their troop trains going to the front. In the little hoods of all the little babies he saw crossed miniature Japanese and United States flags ! . . . " The association of our flag with theirs was the spontaneous outburst from the hearts of the multitude. In the hour of utmost peril to their national existence it was their all-time friends they thought of! To whom is it due that in the space of less than nine years after this demonstration each country has been made to look on the other as an enemy to be looked out for? To whom can be traced all the reprehensible, senseless agitation in California against the Japanese the 'Yellow Peril'? "See the name of the reptile in the enclosed clipping! Not to speak of the fiendish work of the same kind done elsewhere to us, what more do we want for a casus belli? How long, O Lord, will we stand for this sort of thing? "(Yokohama, Japan.)" The clipping which he enclosed was the following: [Asahi Service.] "New York, Jan. 15. Secretary Schareriberg, of the Federated Labor Party in California, brought before the State Legislature on January 15th a draft bill depriving Japanese from the right to lease land. As the Government party of the committee of the Legislature are opposed to the introduction of anti- Japanese bills, his bill will probably be killed in committee." The Outlook (110) severely criticises an attempt of Admiral von Tirpitz, who in an interview spoke of Japan's 224 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR intention to make China a vassal and then militarize it, adding, "Then it will be time for America to look out." He also declared that Germany will "never abandon the white race." The Outlook continues : "The use of the words 'white man* in connection with Asia is the crux of the whole difficulty. It stands for an ingrained sense of racial superiority and is the expression of a racial inso- lence which must be extirpated root and branch ; it is a gratui- tous and insulting reflection on the character, history, and ability of the great races in the East. Any attempts to stir up American feeling against Japan is distinctly a violation, if not of the rules of war, at least of the rules of honor. To poison the wells of national feeling is just as discreditable as to poison the wells from which men drink." It says elsewhere: (111) "The country does not yet understand that it is in danger of too readily accepting as truth propaganda in the interest of Germany and inimical to Japan ; that its ignorance of Japanese sentiment and opinion is being used by rumor-mongers un- friendly to both Japan and America. Since Japan's participa- tion in the war Americans have been warned many times from German sources to beware of Japan. Recently, indeed, a writer defending the Austro-German cause in the pages of The Outlook went so far as to point out the peril to which this country was exposed from an invasion from Canada led by Great Britain and supported by Japanese and Indian troops! This is an in- stance of the extent to which the Teutonic hostility to Japan may be carried. Many similar tales are being told in this country." At this writing the pro-German and anti-British propa- ganda is going on as vigorously, as unscrupulously, but I think, as unsuccessfully as ever. They are, I believe, making more enemies than converts. They are arousing antagonism instead of sympathy, and distrust and suspi- A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 225 cion in place of confidence. I cannot see that they have made the least impression on the country outside of their fellow German-Americans, although, as I have said, (p. 194), it is difficult to estimate what effect, if any, their campaign through the country newspapers will have. In my judgment the vast majority of non-German Americans agree with the editorial opinion well expressed under the caption: "Advice to German- Americans" : (112) "Representative Bartholdt and his associates are doing Ger- many no good, and they are doing themselves much harm, by their pernicious pro-German propaganda. "When they threaten to carry Germany's case to the polls and make the German cause an issue in American politics, they are playing with dynamite. The American people will not tolerate such a campaign of alienism, and the chief suffere'rs will be the so-called German- Americans who plot it. "Germany is the only country engaged in this war which has officially undertaken to manipulate American opinion. It is the only belligerent which maintains a lobby in the United States to incite public sentiment against other belligerents with which we are friendly. The only foreign element in this country which is assailing the President of the United States and seek- ing to bulldoze the Government of the United States is the German element, and that sort of thing can be easily overdone. "When the representatives of German- American societies pub- licly pledge themselves in effect to oppose all candidates for office who will not sacrifice American interests to German in- terests, they are straining American patience to the breaking point. "Long after this war is over Mr. Bartholdt and his associates will have to live in this country. Few of them will voluntarily return to Germany to help pay the cost of the conflict. Their real interests are all in the United States, and the sooner they reconcile themselves to being Americans the better. "This country once had an alien law on its statute books. It might be very reluctant to enact a similar statute, but every 15 226 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR day such German-Americans as Richard Bartholdt are breaking down this reluctance." The whole subject of the German-American propaganda has been reviewed, summarized and commented upon by the Philadelphia paper, whose editorials I have so often quoted. It contains in logical and readable form a synop- sis of the history and present condition of the movement, and it expresses clearly and forcibly current representative American opinions. (113) "When President Wilson issued his famous admonition to his countrymen to be 'neutral even in thought/ it was generally recognized as futile, if not foolish and unpatriotic. It served no good purpose to advocate a course that could be followed only by persons mentally unsexed or paralyzed. Every intelli- gent American has, and should have, opinions on the war. "Those who regard it as a conflict in behalf of the sanctity of treaty obligations, the security of small nations and the de- fense of democratic principles against autocracy and militarism should have decided views and should be able to support them with evidence. "No less is it legitimate for Americans to hold opinions directly opposed to these. Those who are German or Austrian or Turkish, in blood or sympathy, have a perfect right to de- clare that these countries were unjustly attacked; that they are fighting for the highest ideals, and that militarism and autocratic institutions are necessary to the development of an efficient civilization. "American newspapers have done right in discussing these questions with the utmost freedom and in opening their col- umns to the advocates of both sides. The supporters of Ger- many have violated no obligation of citizenship in upholding her cause and condemning her enemies. Pro-German meetings, with cheers for the Kaiser and the singing of German songs, have revealed a curious devotion to un-American theories of government, but otherwise have not been objectionable. "But all these rights have been conceded upon the assumption that the issue is between one group of belligerents and another. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 227 It was taken for granted that no American citizen, however strong his sympathies for his fatherland, would falter in loyalty to this country or would put the interests of a foreign nation above those of America. "In the early days of the war, while the German advance on Paris was under way, there were few signs of divided alle- giance. But when the German retreat began there was a change, and it soon became clear that these citizens were ready to take sides, not only as between the belligerents, but as be- tween one belligerent and the United States. "The first evidence of this spirit was bitter denunciation of American newspapers for 'lying reports'; the news of the Ger- man retreat was assailed as a malicious invention, and the papers were accused of selling their columns for British gold. Then came savage criticism of American public opinion as ig- norant and prejudiced. "Later President Wilson and Secretary Bryan fell under dis- pleasure as exponents of a neutrality that favored the Allies. This was particularly absurd, since the administration was so rigidly neutral that it failed even to register a diplomatic pro- test when international agreements to which it was a party were shamelessly violated. "From this attitude developed a demand that the United States take the grossly unneutral action of forbidding the export of munitions of war, the only nations to be affected being those fighting Germany. Gradually the propaganda be- came marked by abuse and intimidation of public officials, and finally has taken shape in the formation of an organization which purposes to make the German cause an issue in the in- ternal politics of this country. "The National German- American League, formed at a secret meeting in Washington on January 30th, declares its aim is to 're-establish a genuine American neutrality and to uphold it free from commercial, financial or political subservience to for- eign powers.' The statement would have more force if it were not for the fact that the promoters are all passionate advocates of Germany, while every act urged would involve an American move against Germany's enemies. "When Congressman Bartholdt, Doctor Hexamer and the other 'neutrals' demand f a free and open sea for the United States and unrestricted traffic in non-contraband goods/ they 228 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR mean that this government should attempt to nullify the Allies' control of the sea and should insist upon delivering cargoes to Germany. "When they 'favor, as a strictly American policy, the imme- diate enactment of legislation prohibiting the export of arms and munitions of war,' they mean it as a strictly German policy, since it would directly favor Germany and directly injure her opponents, and would amount to active intervention in the war. "When they urge 'establishment of an American merchant marine' they have in mind the purchase by the United States Government of $40,000,000 worth of German ships which took refuge in American ports to escape the consequences of the war ; and they advise this course regardless of the fact, as stated by Senator Root, that the government 'would buy a quarrel with every ship.' But the real purpose of the organization is made clear in the final paragraph of the statement of principles : " 'We pledge ourselves, individually and collectively, to sup- port only such candidates for public office, irrespective of party, who will place American interests above those of any other country and who will aid in eliminating all undue foreign in- fluences from official life.' "This declaration against 'foreign influences,' from men w r hose activity in government circles on behalf of a foreign power has been an offense and a scandal, is rather ludicrous. But that does not save the movement from being unpatriotic, mischievous and dangerous. "The theory has been that this country was a 'melting pot' for the incoming members of all races; that in the crucible of its free institutions old patriotic instincts and prejudices would be fused into an Americanism that would ring true at every test. For the first time that belief has been tinged with doubt. For the first time we face the possibility that instead of a united nation, made up of loyal men of many bloods, this may become a people made up of groups of foreigners, whose first allegiance is not to the land which gave them shelter, but that which gave them or their fathers birth. "Already the poisonous propaganda has been carried to ex- traordinary lengths. Its promoters are not satisfied with giving sentimental and moral support to one of the belligerents, as is their right, but they are endeavoring to foment American hatred A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 229 toward the others and to force this government into menacing controversies abroad. "They not only denounce the Allies, but they decry America, assail its government and traduce its people. A well-known German- American of Philadelphia wrote recently to the Kol- nische Zeitung that he was 'not proud' of this country, and that its flag should be stamped with the dollar mark as a symbol of national hypocrisy. The Cologne Gazette has printed a two- column article from its correspondent on this side, declaring that German- Americans are 'in danger of their lives' because of the 'bigotry and fanaticism' of Americans. "The 'neutrality' meetings, as we have seen in Philadelphia, are neither neutral, nor American, nor German-American, but wholly German. The limit of sarcasm now is the phrase, 'as neutral as Pennypacker.' They even denounce the sending of food -to the starving Belgians as an act unfriendly to their be- loved fatherland and a violation of neutrality. "Their activity in Washington is wholly in behalf of Ger- many; and we have seen the astonishing spectacle of members of the American Congress calling at the embassy of a foreign power to discuss legislation designed for the exclusive benefit of that power. Every action they propose would compromise American neutrality and endanger American peace and pros- perity. All too plainly they have adopted the view urged upon all good Germans by Professor Adolph Lasson, of the University of Berlin: ** 'A foreigner is an enemy until he proves that he is not. One cannot rest neutral in relationship to German and the German people. Either one must consider Germany as the most perfect political creation that history has known, or one must approve her destruction.' "The national design is foreshadowed by action taken a few days ago by the German-American Society of Passaic, N. J., which 'aims to support all endeavors in the interest of German- ism,' and issues this appeal: " 'Come, all of you, German societies, German men and Ger- man women, so that, united offensively and defensively, with weapons of the spirit, we may help our beloved Germany on- ward. . . . We ask your speedy decision, in order to per- mit of an effective participation and lead in the spring cam- paign of 1915.' 230 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "Such open repudiation of the first principles of American citizenship is startling enough, in view of the oath which every naturalized German must take, that: " 'He absolutely and entirely renounces and abjures all alle- giance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and particularly to Wilhelm II, German Emperor, of whom he was before a subject.' "But the spirit becomes understandable when it is recalled that the German Government encourages Germans to remain Germans wherever they go. It allows any one of German blood to become a citizen of Germany, even though he has never seen Germany and has no intention of taking up his residence there; and, since January 1, 1914, German emigrants have had the privilege of dual citizenship. The law effective from that date provides : " 'German citizenship is not lost by one who, before acquiring foreign citizenship, has secured, on application, the written con- sent of the competent authorities of his home State to retain his citizenship/ "The leaders of German thought have seduously taught that Germans leaving the fatherland should remain faithful to the empire and serve its interests before all others. During the Spanish- American war Die Qrensboten, the most influential political weekly in Germany, declared editorially : " 'The number of Germans in the United States amounts to millions, but many of them have lost their native language or' their native names. Nevertheless, German blood flows in their veins; and it is only required to gather them together under their former nationality in order to bring them back into the lap of their mother Germania. "'We have to consider that more than 3,000,000 Germans live as foreigners in the United States who are not personally interested in that country. A skillful German national policy should be able to manipulate that German multitude against the shameless American war speculators.' "Von Treitschke, the noted historian, warned his country- men: "To civilization at large the Anglicizing of the German- Americans means a heavy loss. . . . Among Germans there can no longer be any question that the civilization of mankind A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 231 suffers every time a German is transformed into a Yankee. "And the incomparably frank Von Bernhardi writes: " 'The isolated groups of Germans abroad greatly benefit our trade, since by preference they obtain their goods from Ger- many. But they may also be useful to us politically, as we dis- cover in America.' "How far they are ready to go in being politically useful to Germany, Americans are now discovering. Of all the nations at war, Germany is the only one that maintains an organized literary and press bureau in this country; and of all our naturalized aliens, German-Americans alone have undertaken to make the war a political issue, to shape the policies of the government in the interest of a foreign power and to intimidate American officials in the performance of their duty. "Happily, there are some of them whose conception of their duty as Americans is higher than this. There is no more val- iant advocate of Germany against the Allies than Dr. Kuno Francke, of the faculty of Harvard, where he is head of the Germanic museum. But while his sympathies and convictions are with the empire, his honor is pledged to the United States ; and his fine sense of patriotism should be inspiring to all of us. Declining to join in the pro-German political movement, he writes : " 'My sympathies are wholly and fervently on the German side. But they cannot make me forget what seem to me my duties as an American citizen. I believe it would be against my duties as an American citizen if I were to take part in a propaganda the purpose of which will be thought to be to force our government into a hostile attitude toward England. . . . As a man of German blood, I might welcome the help which would accrue to Germany by such a conflict. But as an Ameri- can citizen I cannot possibly support such a policy.' . . . " 'Let us refrain from political organizations which would set Germans in this country apart as a class by themselves. It would foster hatred instead of sympathy; and only by gaining the sympathy of the majority of the American people can we German-Americans help the cause of our mother country.' "The movement is deplorable in every aspect. The German- Americans who are attempting to separate themselves from their countrymen should realize that, while their sympathies 232 A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR may properly lie with a foreign nation against its foreign ene- mies, their interest and their loyalty lie with America, and that a German defeat would be for them far less a calamity than their segregation from the rest of the American people." An analysis of this German-American movement, which is worthy of the most careful attention from every Ameri- can citizen and which appeared (114) directly upon the announcement of its plans and purposes, is further evi- dence as to the way in which genuine Americans should and do regard it: "There has been organized in Washington a league for the ' re-establishment of real American neutrality, and to uphold it free from commercial, financial, and political subservience to foreign Powers.' The initial meeting of the new organization was presided over by a Congressman from Missouri, and three of his colleagues gave approval to the purpose of the meeting by their presence. What the league stands for is shown by the following resolution which it adopted as its platform: " 'Resolved, That we, citizens of the United States, agree to effect a National organization the objects and purposes of which may be stated as follows: " *1. In order to insure the possession of an independent news service we favor an American cable controlled by the Govern- ment of the United States. " '2. We demand a free and open sea for the commerce of the United States and unrestricted traffic in non-contraband goods as defined by law. " % We favor as a strictly American policy the immediate enactment of legislation prohibiting the export of arms, ammu- nition, and munitions of war. " '4. We favor the establishment of an American merchant marine; and " '5. We pledge ourselves individually and collectively to support only such candidates for public office, irrespective of party, who will place American interests above those of any other country, and who will aid in eliminating all undue for- eign influence from official life.' A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 233 "Since this league seeks to justify its existence by claiming to be an American institution for the promotion of neutrality, it will be fair to judge it according to the standard of its pro- fessed ideals. Is it American? Is it neutral? "An American citizen might very properly, so far as interna- tional relations are concerned, plead for Government ownership of the cables just as he might plead for Government ownership of the railways. The wisdom of such a plea as an argument for neutrality in war time is entirely another matter, and since the introduction of wireless telegraphy seems particularly irrele- vant. "The second article quoted above contains two misstatements of law and fact. American commerce in American bottoms is as free to-day as commerce can be in time of world war. American commerce in foreign bottoms, due to the preponderance of the English navy, is very much freer than it would be were the sea forces of the Powers at war evenly balanced in strength. Furthermore, by no international law has the question of con- traband been given the exact seal of legal definition. Precedent, custom, and the needs of nations at war furnish the only exist- ing rules for contraband. To meet an emergency as it arose the United States, in a military order, once included in the pro- scribed list escaped slaves. To meet another emergency, Ger- many or England has an equal right, or rather a better right, to prevent the importation of copper or picric acid or gasoline by an enemy country. Naturally, this right is dependent upon the possession of power to enforce it. "The third proposition put forward by the League would in- deed deserve to be ranked as a 'strictly American project/ for it is absolutely without precedent in international law or custom. Article VII of Convention 4, adopted at The Hague in 1907, specifically affirms the right of citizens in neutral nations to sell arms and ammunition to any belligerent. If so well-estab- lished a principle of international law is to be altered at all, it must be done in time of peace. To alter it now would in itself be a highly unneutral act in so far as it deprived any belligerent of a military advantage secured by sacrifice of treasure and life. . . . "If this programme is, as it ought to be, judged by its inevi- table effect, two things stand out very clearly: 234: A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR "LA definitely unneutral project is brought forward under the specious guise of promoting neutrality. "2. Under a pretense of removing one foreign influence from American life it is proposed to throw the Government frankly under the influence of another, and this proposal is backed by a threat to employ racial politics in the domestic affairs of the American nation. "This programme has apparently received the support of many respectable and intelligent German-Americans. The measure of its failure will be the measure by which American citizens of German birth succeed in understanding and realizing their duties toward the spirit of the American nation." Further evidence as to the German-American attitude is to be found in some of my own recent experiences. As soon as the first edition of this little book appeared I began to receive, by mail, abusive communications ; most of them were anonymous ; the large majority gave internal evidence of Teutonic authorship. The names, real or fictitious, ap- pended to a small number of them, were in all but a few instances, German in type. The personal abuse arid the personal threats are of too little importance to inflict upon my readers, except where they have more general significance; moreover, they were often too vulgar to be printable. The interesting feature was in the frequent recurrence of sentences like these : "If your plan should succeed, and America intervenes, you will find that you will have more on your hands than you an- ticipate. There mtvy even be mobilization!" ". . . the intelligent portion of our people, including the millions of German- Americans and Irish- Americans, will know how to stop the desire of our Anglo-phile jingoes to drag this country into war." "You re-hash what your venomous and lying press has printed and re-printed since the beginning of the war. . . . The A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 235. American press has given voice to English statements from the beginning; has reported German atrocities which were really Belgian atrocities." "You are fomenting discord and rebellion. You are helping to bring on civil war." "We will show you before long what a liar you are and will give you something to remember tis by." "Don't forget, when the time oomes, that there are millions of us in this country, and that one man fighting within the in- trenchments is worth ten in the open field." These will serve as samples. They are exceedingly un- important, but illustrate a certain phase of German-Amer- ican activities. Of course, some of them were amusing. - One excited German-American, after calling me ''infa- mous," "treasonable," "abominable," and "shameless," says that I "am violating in open-faced manner" (as if I were a Waterbury watch) "the neutrality of the United States." He continues : "Professor White will yet hear more of his handicraft." He adds: (115) "I heard from good authority that Professor White is the closest friend of Sir Treuves, the physician of King George, and visits him rather frequently. Now, may I ask Professor White what it was worth to him to be persuaded by his friends, George and Sir Treuves, to stir up the Americans by false and lying statements? May I ask what was the price?" This precious document was signed K. Hentschel. I do not intend to tell him the price. That is a secret between Sir Treuves and me. It must not be forgotten that the German-Americans, who hold meetings and pass resolutions of sympathy with "the Fatherland," also continue to try to palliate and ex- plain away the outrage upon Belgium. They profess at one and the same time loyalty to the Kaiser and Germany, 236 A TEXT-BOOK k OF THE WAR and to the country of their adoption; to the apotheosis of militarism and officialism and to real Democracy; to the German Eagle and the Stars and Stripes. Congressmen (with German names) try to introduce legislation to pre- vent this country shipping supplies of any sort "to any belligerent" this while the Allies control the seas. But when the obvious effect of their preposterous attempt to help Germany is exposed, and they are held up to ridicule, they rend the air with protestations of devotion to "one country and one flag." They all remind me of the woman described in the old song of the lumberjacks : "There was a woman in our town In our town she did dwell. She loved her husband tenderly And another man twicet as well." Two of the leading citizens of Philadelphia have ex- pressed their views as to one phase of the German- Amer- ican propaganda, the organization of so-called "neutrality leagues" throughout the country. In response to an invitation to be a vice-president of a meeting of the "American Neutrality League," the Epis- copal Bishop of Pennsylvania wrote: (116) "From information which has come to me lately, both in Washington and here, I have learned that most of the agitation at present being made to prevent the shipping of war materials from this country to belligerent nations, is being made, not really in the interest of neutrality, but in hostility to the allied nations, and with the hope of helping Germany and Austria in their campaign. Is the proposed meeting here fairly chargeable with the same purpose? and if not, is there any available evi- dence to the contrary with which you can provide me? "As an American citizen, pledged to uphold American ideals, I am altogether against Germany and Austria in this war, on A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 237 the ground that they are threatening, and would destroy, as far as they have opportunity, those political and personal liber- ties and rights which we Americans have made the foundations of our Government. "Feeling as I do, you will readily understand that I cannot have part in any meeting or movement which has for its real object, whether or not explicitly avowed, the support of a cause to which I personally am resolutely opposed. "Very sincerely yours, "P. M. RHINELANDEB, "Bishop of Pennsylvania." The ex-Attorney General of Pennsylvania declined the same invitation as follows: Noting that the meeting was for the purpose, among other things, of advocating the pas- sage of laws to prevent the shipping of munitions of war to any belligerent nation, he continues: (117) "Inasmuch as no munitions of war can be shipped to Ger- many, would it not be more appropriate if the purpose of the meeting was stated to be the passage of laws to prevent the shipment to either England or France of munitions of war? It is true that such laws might be construed as unfriendly acts to both England and France, but what difference would that make if thereby aid and comfort could be given to the Germans, who are making such a magnificent fight for the perpetuation of the principles of representative democratic government? "Personally I have no patience with talk about a neutrality that will give aid or comfort to a Germany which is repre- sented by the Hohenzollern family, who have more than once broken their plighted word to give the German people a form of representative government which would have enabled them to be heard and be a ruling force in the nation. Do you for one moment suppose that this most unrighteous war would ever have been begun if the German masses had been consulted ? If you do, you are blind to the Social Democratic forces in Germany, which are a growing menace to Hohenzollern absolu- tism. In my opinion the continually increasing strength of the 238 A. TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR Social Democratic party in Germany was one of the causes of this war. "Irrespective of this view, however, is there any reason why a body of American citizens should unite in a public meeting under the guise of neutrals to urge the passage of laws that can only injure England and France and aid Germany, the destroyer of Louvain and the Cathedral of Rheims ? "Very truly yours, (Signed) "M. HAMPTON TODD." On the evening of the "neutrality" meeting, which these gentlemen declined to attend, "Die Wacht am Bhein" and "Deutschland iiber Alles," were sung by the assembled crowd ! Sometimes a concrete example of one's individual experi- ence serves better to bring home the realization of a general situation than do many impersonal arguments. For this reason I reprint here part of a communication I sent to a Philadelphia paper, (118), which it published under the caption: " American Irritation at German Apologists." "One of the causes of the existing and wide-spread irritation on the part of Americans toward some of the German- American apologists is illustrated in letters from Professor Morris Jas- trow, Jr., and Mr. George Haven Putnam to the New York Evening Post (December 19, 1914) in reference to the transla- tion, or mistranslation of 'Deutschland iiber Alles,' the now famous German war song. "Mr. Putnam in a 'Foreword' to an American edition of Treitschke's Essays' alluded to 'Deutschland iiber Alles' as implying the supremacy of Germans over all other peoples. "Doctor Jastrow says that every German schoolboy knows that the proper translation is 'above everything else, Germany/ and adds that 'the subsequent lines of the song clearly show that the phrase expresses the same sentiment as 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee.' He further discloses his own sentiments by A TEXT-BOOK OF THE WAR 239 remarking that 'at present, to be sure, it would be more appro- priate for the Germans to sing 'Alles fiber Deutschland.' "Mr. Putnam in reply says that 'the interpretation given it in the past years has been, as Professor Jastrow