The Mind and Mood of Germany to-Day
I
ARE the German people, or only their rulers, the responsible authors of this war? Since I returned to England early in 1916, I have been asked no other question so frequently as this. My answer throughout has been that the military caste and the Junkers— landed aristocracy — are primarily responsible, but that Germans of every class must share the general responsibility. If I state the broad grounds on which I base that conclusion, it may assist the reader to estimate the existing state of public opinion in Germany.
In England and France a good deal has been written to fix the guilt upon some single group of German propagandists. Writers and historians like Nietzsche, Treitschke, and Bernhardi; a military autocracy dominated by an ambitious war-lord; university professors; industrial magnates seeking to remedy an economic situation which was heading for financial collapse; the manipulators of a press that systematically perverted public opinion — upon one or another of these groups of exponents of German ideals the responsibility for the cataclysm has been almost universally fixed by newspapers and publicists in the Allied countries.
But no one section of the German people should be singled out in this way as the sole cause of the war, though each has contributed some influence to the general result. The most aggressive imperialists could not have united the German people against the rest of Europe without a moral pretext acceptable to the whole nation. This pretext has been found in the German world-mission, which the militant autocracy and the intellectuals have preached for a quarter of a century; and the ever-growing political and economic influence of Germany lent support to this missionary idea. The two channels through which especially official Germany has worked to win the popular imagination to a policy of expansion, have been the press and the nation’s educational institutions.
It would require much space to record in detail the efforts of the German press to foster a national self-assertiveness and the idea of a world-mission. But, like the barracks and the school, the German press and its propaganda are part of a system. All alike are used to stencil-plate the collective mind. A free press in a country lacking free political institutions is impossible. To lose sight of this fact and at the same time to assert that the German newspapers have been the chief offenders in misrepresenting British and French feeling toward Germany, or in precipitating one international crisis after another, betrays some confusion of thought regarding the nature of Germanism and the very real type of culture for which it stands.
The Greater Germany gospel found its most active apostles in the schoolmasters and university professors. History in the German schools has always been taught on lines calculated to inspire respect for the national heritage as determined by the Prussian tradition. Deutschland über Alles, known to every boy and girl, I have frequently heard sung in the schools. The school-books all breathe an ardent nationalism. I also recollect vividly other books, widely read by the youth of both sexes, which present the potentialities of Germanism in glowing colors, and contrast Germany’s cultural achievement with that of ‘decadent’ nations, to the disparagement of the latter. The university professors have done more than any other body of men in the empire to sow the seed of an aggressive Deutschtum in adolescent Germany. Their influence on public opinion has been particularly sinister, because, not only military officers, but thousands of students from the commercial middle class spend their most impressionable years in the atmosphere of the university.
The influence of the press and of the country’s educational institutions issues from a system whose effects are felt in every reach of Germanism and its Kultur. What is this system? What do writers and politicians in Great Britain and France mean when they speak of ‘the Prussianized Germany of today’? It is essential that those who would understand the deeper causes of the war should face these questions. It is misspent energy to rehearse to the average person in Great Britain and the United States the philosophy of the State preached by Treitschke, because he will always doubt whether this philosophy corresponds to a living reality. The nature of Prussianism is best brought home by concrete experience.
In the winter of 1910 I spent a few days on the skirts of the Lüneberg Heath, and watched the process of a hard, resistant soil being slowly reclaimed. I realized, as I had never done from any textbook, what Prussia owes to nature and what to discipline. A visit to the Lüneberg Heath reveals a little world in actual transformation. Its features are stamped on the whole nation to-day. During my sojourn of seven and a half years in Germany, most of it in the north, I often tried to put my finger on some one quality that might be said to characterize the Prussian spirit, but was always baffled.
We are sometimes told that the idea underlying Prussianism is the creation of an efficient machine. So it is; but such a statement in itself explains little. No military caste or bureaucracy ever created the German national spirit out of nothing. Innate qualities, quite as much as the ‘enlightened despotism’ of personal government, determine the character of the German people, the most scientific people in the world. Germany to-day is the Prussia of the Lüneberg Heath reinforced by science. The German states have been united by and under this Prussia, whose ‘ German mission’ has expanded into a world-mission. The European powers have all been missionaries in the course of their history, and there is no reason in the nature of things why the German should not feel the quickening pulses of the same spirit. But in 1917 a nation which remains ‘an army possessing a country,’ and whose political morality is the Realpolitik of a Bismarck, will find no common ground of coöperation with other nations. In this fact we find the true significance of Germany’s moral isolation in the world.
The incidents of the past three years have made Germany much more than a name to the man in the street in every other European country. The German intellectuals, in the manifesto issued at the beginning of the war, complained bitterly of the misrepresentation by enemy nations of German ideals and German Kultur. Since August, 1914, there is nothing else that Germans of all classes have proclaimed so persistently as that they are misunderstood by other nations. There is much truth in their contention. Germany has deliberately declared a ‘cultural’ blockade of the rest of humanity, and at the moment of writing nearly the whole world is at war with her. The British press declares that the other nations are combined against Prussian militarism. Rather are they combined against the Kultur embodied in the collective will of the German state, and of which militarism is only one factor.
The Germans admit that they are disliked by the rest of the world, but this dislike they attribute to their superior virtues. From their point of view this explanation is substantially correct. No other people possesses so high a degree of organizing ability and plodding application to work.
‘What other people can bring the nations together, and enable them to realize their intimate union, like the German? ’ These words occur in a leaflet, Deutschlands Weltberuf (Germany’s World-Mission) which was scattered broadcast over Germany during 1915. ‘We are fighting for Germanism’ was the burden of the cry to which I listened in Berlin in the great summer days of August, 1914. I listened attentively, for it confirmed opinions already formed as to why Germany was the central figure in those European crises which succeeded oneanother with dramatic suddenness for over a decade. On the strength of the qualities inherent in this Deutschtum Germans base a claim to ‘organize’ Europe, though up to the present they have not been able to ‘organize’ Alsace and Lorraine.
II
For three years the press in England and France has been assiduously collecting passages from the speeches of prominent Germans, and from official publications, concerning Germanism and its ideals. A large proportion of these Germans are either university professors or members of some such organization as the Pan-German Union. The passages reflect faithfully enough what is in the minds of most of the intellectuals, and they are valuable as indicating the conditions which a victorious Germany would impose upon the world. But Germanism did not suddenly develop its nature in 1914, and the ambitions wrapped up in it are not entirely due to artificial stimulus. To ascertain the real sentiments of Germans in regard to the war, one must come in contact also with the classes not professionally interested in continually prodding the country to a conscious anticipation of the march of events.
Amid the turbulent unrest of international politics in the critical period 1909-1916, I read all sections of the German press, approached men of all political parties, intellectuals, average members of the middle-class trading community, and even the proletariat, to see if I could probe the sense of imperialism in the German mind. I could not avoid the conclusion that Germans of all classes and parties were actuated by ambitions which could be satisfied only at the expense of some other power. How far did they honestly think that Great Britain was jealous of their growing commerce, or that France was smarting for revenge? Was the alarm at Russian designs genuine or feigned?
To answer these questions one must have a real insight into the German national character, and must also understand the conditions in which the imperialism of the present generation has been nurtured. The world was being rapidly industrialized, Asia was awake. all territory in the temperate zone had been appropriated, Germany’s population was increasing at the rate of over 800,000 a year, and the interests represented by alliances were being more and more consolidated every day. Germany’s economic progress alone has not effected the radical moral change which some writers see in the transformation of the country from an agricultural to an industrial community; but it has had an unmistakable influence on the growth of German imperialism, Rudolf Eucken had once — it seems a long time ago now — sounded a clarion call to Germany and Europe to return to a spiritual view of life. To-day he proclaims jubilantly that the real Germany, the great Germany, has always been a nation of inventors and conquerors in the world of matter; that the true Deutschland was that of the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, and that this was no land of dreamers and poets.
Germany has passed far beyond the stage of paying homage to her dreamers and poets. The vast developments of technical science are leaving a characteristically ‘real’ mark, not only on the intellectuals, but on the common people. The men who shape industrial policy have left no stone unturned to stimulate a consciousness of the growing power of Germany, and to strengthen the hands of the class that directs imperial policy. One of the curious paradoxes in the internal economy of Germany to-day is that a situation has been created which has brought Junkers and commercial magnates into close coöperation. The former refer to the latter contemptuously as Schlotbarone (factory kings), and yet they are united in their enthusiastic support of imperialism. What the university professors have been for the pure intellectuals, captains of industry have been for the middle class and the masses. Their joint influence has tended to infect the nation with a restless impulse, accompanied by a strange fatalism, to shape things anew at whatever cost, materially and spiritually. Drang nach Osten (pressing to the east) and Weltpolitik are the catchwords that seized the popular mind, and one gorgeous tableau succeeded another as the manipulators of the lime-light pointed the missionaries on to new vistas of power.
In any attempt to arrive at the mind and mood of Germany to-day there is that definite groundwork to start from. For Germans Deutschtum is a sentiment for which it is not easy to find a parallel elsewhere. The fatherland is not the same thing to a German that la patrie is to a Frenchman. It is something less and also something more. The German’s patriotism is something very real, but it differs widely from the Englishman’s. The Germans are members of a state, in a peculiar signification of the term, and their sense of duty means duty to the institutions in which Germanism finds expression. In the vanguard of the world’s material and intellectual progress, yet Germans lack the will to freedom. Time after time, before and since the war began, Germans have said to me, ‘You acquired a fifth of the earth’s surface without even enforcing general military service.’ That is one of the strangest paradoxes to the German mind.
I have also frequently heard German Socialists exclaim, ‘We don’t want mere political freedom; the masses have that in England and are no better off!’ In the last resort this expresses the whole disease of Germany.
The despotism which holds sway has sunk into the soul of the people. It is a despotism of a peculiar kind, scientific and full of energy; it is a spirit pulsing through the life-blood of a nation. Its existence is a menace to liberty everywhere, for such a spirit must grow, and it can do so only in accordance with the laws of its growth. The idea which had captivated the imagination of the whole German people had to prove its right to survive.
‘What is the war all about?’ From the outset the average German was able to give an infinitely more intelligent answer to that question than the average Englishman. In Berlin, amid the exultation born of the early successes in the present struggle, I was able to gauge how determinately the vision of a greater Germany had gathered shape. The noisy national jubilation which I witnessed caused me no surprise, for I had long noted the existence of certain mental and moral influences which were producing a deleterious effect, not only on the national culture, but also on personal character. The daily discussion of the terms Germany would impose upon a stricken world, of huge indemnities, and the eager scanning of blue-and-green maps redistributing territory, were the natural fruit of those influences.
This state of mind was in marked contrast with the later emphasis on the ‘purely defensive’ character of the struggle. At the outbreak of the war Maximilian Harden said that it was ‘a high and holy experience.’ It was then. The people had not had time to forget the preparation of the preceding twenty-five years. Since the war began I have heard Russia, France, and England, each in turn, denounced by Germans as the hereditary enemy of Germany. There is an illuminating symptom of soul in this fact. In July, 1914, Germans were listening to impassioned appeals to defend their Kultur against an unprovoked attack by a semi-Asiatic power. At the beginning of 1917 the German press and public were proclaiming vehemently that England alone stood in the way of peace. Last July, when M. Ribot, the French premier, made the positive statement that the French people would never consider any peace terms which did not include the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine, France again became the hereditary enemy and instigator of all the evil influences that led up to the conflagration. Less than a month later we find the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Kölnische Zeitung, which represent official Germany more faithfully than any other section of the press, declaring that, if the European nations are to be saved from perpetual strife, their only hope is to combine against the ‘Anglo-American menace.’
If we accept at their face-value the assertions of the German press and the utterances of German statesmen, we can only conclude that, at the beginning of the fourth year of war, we are confronted by an enemy as full as ever of overweening Prussian confidence. Press and politician here do not reflect the view of more thoughtful Germans, but the Allies will be preparing a cruel disappointment for themselves if they underrate the determination of the German people, or look for a speedy collapse of German morale. So long as no German territory is ravaged, Germans will endure severe discomfort, and the strain of war-weariness on the national temper will not cause a complete moral breakdown.
Nevertheless a change has come over the mood of the people. All sections of the press are acting in concert to keep alive the notion that a peace securing Germany’s interests may be expected in a comparatively short time. After Dr. Bethmann Hollweg’s last speech in the Reichstag, the leading Socialist organ, Vorwärts, requested the government to state definitely what it was fighting for. Since Dr. Michaelis succeeded him in the office of Chancellor, other Socialist organs have made the same request. The German Socialists know well enough the answer to their own question, which would never have been asked if the military programme had not miscarried. Their attitude to the Socialist mind outside Germany is now engrossing attention at home and abroad, as it did in August, 1914, when the ‘Internationalists’ voted the war credits, and Dr. Bethmann Hollweg acclaimed the unity of the nation. No Socialist conferences at Stockholm or elsewhere can reverse this vote or alter a syllable of the speeches delivered.
Germany, still intrenched in what she professes to believe are impregnable positions in Belgium, says that she is willing to negotiate. This does not mean that the German’s patriotism has lost its fervor, but that he is looking at the debit and credit side of the situation and sees that he cannot now reap from it the full harvest of his imperialist policy. The British attitude toward the war at the present stage is entirely different. In England I note nothing that corresponds to the cries ‘ Wir müssen siegen’ (we must win), to which I had to listen during several months in Berlin. After three years of conflict there is simply a fixed resolution to ‘see the thing through,’ which contrasts strongly with the peace talk in Germany and the depression which all neutral observers agree has settled upon a section of the people there.
For some months there has been a good deal of speculation in the English press on the possibility of revolution, and on the outlook for responsible parliamentary government, in Germany. Only a combination of military defeat and starvation seems to me likely to cause a violent upheaval that would affect the foundation of the political structure. Every man and woman are so fitted into the German system that it can collapse only as a whole. Herr Scheidemann, the leader of the majority Socialists, whose recent utterances have evoked expressions of strong disapproval from non-German Socialists everywhere, said practically the same thing in July, 1917: ‘The destruction of the Prussian military machine means our destruction as well.’
All parties and all sections of the press are evidently united in the effort to convey the impression of confident outlook. The domestic distraction in Russia and the military situation on the Eastern front resulting therefrom have given the moulders of public opinion a welcome respite; but this is to some extent counteracted by the British and French offensive in Flanders. The newspapers, in any case subject to strict censorship, put the most favorable interpretation on these events. But what is the reality behind press and politician? The internal condition of Germany and the mood of the people have for at least eighteen months been the subject of rumors and reports in the English press. Had these been at all trustworthy, Germany should have collapsed some time ago. The German press, on the other hand, is assuring the people that the war is making serious inroads upon both the material resources and the morale of all the Allies, and that the ruthless submarine warfare must ultimately bring Great Britain to her knees. One outstanding item of interest in the recent revelations of Mr. James W. Gerard, late American Ambassador in Berlin, is the statement that official Germany accepted this view, and down to the last moment refused to believe that the United States would go to war over the question. Meanwhile the British offensive is proceeding somewhat more vigorously than when the submarine campaign was decided upon.
The Pope’s appeal on August 17 marks another stage in the movement of German opinion. I fully expect further peace proposals, either direct from the Kaiser or through the Pope, within the next few months. But, apart from this indication of the national temper, outsiders wall not perceive any weakening of morale until it becomes evident to Germans of all classes that the military machine can no longer bear the strain. Only then will the German people agree to the recession of Alsace and Lorraine to France. This will leave the ruling minority face to face with an embittered populace. For the hopes raised have towered so high, the efforts to realize them have been so stupendous, that final failure means nothing short of national demoralization. But I do not think that a general revolution would result. One fact is worth noting. The German press for at least three months has been eagerly discussing constitutional questions, and the Prussian government has already promised to abolish the three-class electoral system and to substitute one based on a much more liberal franchise. This concession, however, is a widely different thing from the democratization of Germany.
What is the real feeling of the average man in Germany in regard to the sinking of hospital ships, the destruction of cathedrals and universities, airraids on defenseless towns, and similar acts? I am often asked this question, In the first place, the people are misled by press and politician, and official reports can always justify any procedure intended to advance the national cause. Germany is not entirely singular in this respect. But that is not the real explanation of the everyday German’s attitude toward ‘frightfulness.’ Here, as in all the other factors which go to make up Germanism, we trace the influence of the Prussian system. ‘Frightfulness’ of some kind or other has characterized the whole history of the Prussian state, and it is to-day accepted as a matter of course by the man in the street. Krieg ist krieg (war is war) has been the usual excuse for the outrages of the past three years. The question so often asked in England, Is the German conscience dead? points to an inability to grasp the implications of that conscience. Deutsch-land über Alles has long been the expression of the conscience of Germany,
III
Doubtless many others besides myself are wondering what the new Germany will be like, whether the old ties can ever be renewed, and if hate and revenge are ultimately to give way to goodwill. Germany cannot live for all time on the gospel of hate, even though her poets may find therein a source of inspiration; but there will be no real conversion until Germans of all classes have learned by bitter experience that ‘strongest feet may slip in blood.’ No service will be rendered to the cause of freedom or to the international idea by closing our eyes to the fact that the moral issue between Germany and our-
selves is clear and definite. The time-spirit that underlies the events of the past eight years brought the sojourner in Germany into conscious contact with a form of Realpolitik which was the resultant of many factors — of influences of tradition, race, and economic progress. Throughout this period four dominant facts seem to me to characterize the attitude of the German people as a whole toward the new imperialism. (1) A large proportion of the people clearly foresaw that German policy and aspiration would rouse the whole world to active opposition. (2) The present generation kept its gaze fixed on the deeds and methods by which its predecessors achieved unity and power. (3) Germans of every party resolutely set their face against every effort to reducecompetition inarmament. (4) German intellectuals and educationalists are well satisfied with the results of their teaching as exemplified in Germany’s conduct of the war. Probably few people have arrived at precise views as to what Germany’s ultimate position may be, and in the vast range of issues involved in the present struggle the answers to all after-the-war questions must turn on speculation. Assuming that the Prussian military machine is destroyed, one may look for some developments in the direction of responsible parliamentary government. An industrialized community, although its members may be educated along very special lines, cannot remain forever in the bonds of a semi-feudal political system. But I do not expect the collapse of Prussian militarism to destroy German unity. Such a result would not make for permanent peace in Europe. For the Germans, as for every other people, salvation can come only from within, and they must themselves be masters in their own house. But the Allies are deeply interested in the future of Germany’s domestic affairs. If Prussianism is to be the supreme influence in them, it is difficult to see how any guaranties for security can prevent imperialism, race-consciousness, and the wall to dominate others, from again becoming factors in an aggressive world-mission. That is why it is essential for the peace of Europe that the German military machine be reduced to impotence by material force.
With regard to the general European situation to follow the war three conclusions seem to suggest themselves. (1) International law may tend to solidify into real law. (2) The rights of smaller nationalities and languages will be more respected. (3) Some of the Allies may decide upon a commercial policy that will have far-reaching effects on Germany’s future economic position.
The question of security comes first in any discussion of peace terms. The German press to-day is insistently demanding that these terms shall give ample guaranties for the future. With equal insistence the Allies are demanding the same thing, and the more obstinately as they acquire a truer conception of German ideals. These guaranties will be settled by deeds. ‘There is no longer any international law.’ If this statement, made by the Kaiser to Mr. Gerard in 1916, is to hold for the future also, and the competition in armaments is to continue as before, there can be no durable peace in Europe.
The opening years of the twentieth century saw a stream of sentiment throughout the greater part of Christendom tending to substitute the reign of law for anarchy in inter-state relations. This tendency Germany consistently counteracted — sowing difficulties at every Hague conference, resolutely setting every obstacle in the pathway to international arbitration, and at home impressing on public opinion the necessity of resisting the principle of arbitration as a danger to her imperial interests. Germany’s clamor for a ‘place in the sun’ has been mainly responsible for the present war, but her whole colonial policy has been simply a part of her Weltpolitik. The German press is now insisting that the German colonies must be restored, and that it is Germany’s destiny to become a greater colonial power than ever after the war. Dr. Solf, German Imperial Secretary for the Colonies, said in April last: ’Germany must have the territories back, and make them into welldeveloped colonies properly capable of resistance.’ But at the end of 1913 the total number of Germans in German colonies — parts of which are quite suitable for white settlement — was only 24,389, and officials and soldiers formed a large percentage even of this number. These colonies were little more than points of vantage for an attack on near-by territory, or drilling grounds for native troops. The future must guarantee Great Britain’s vast oversea dominions against any aggression from ‘colonies’ of this description.
Since Herr Friedrich Naumann published his Mitteleuropa, advocating a close economic union of Germany and Austria, and stumped the Austrian Empire in support of his scheme, the press of the two Central Powers has given much space to a discussion of the possibility of their being able, at the end of the war, to form a great Middle Europe state. The destiny of the national groups which make up the Dual Monarchy will have a most important bearing on the future of Europe. The reduction of Serbia to the condition of an Austrian vassal state, and the retention in forced allegiance of millions of Czechs and Jugo-Slavs, constituted the first step in the policy of Drang nach Osten. Only those who have come into contact with these subject Slavs know how heavily the Austrian and Hungarian yoke has lain upon them. If the Danubian monarchy is to be left in a position to use these small nationalities for imperial purposes, the CentralEurope idea of the Pan-Germanists and the Balkan problem will remain as ever-present sources of new conflict in Europe, and the North Sea to the Persian Gulf project will follow in a more menacing form than ever.
Our own line of diplomacy in regard to the Near East has not always been either consistent or clear-sighted. But as the war proceeds, one of Germany’s main objectives becomes plainer and plainer to the everyday Briton. Whatever else Germany and Austria may have hoped to gain, they certainly aimed at incorporating Serbia in the Central Europe ‘block’ as a preliminary to the complete control of Asiatic Turkey. An essential condition of lasting peace is the satisfaction of the national aspirations of the Slavs of southeastern Europe, who for nearly a century have striven to shake off the yoke fitted on their necks by diplomatists.
It is, however, the economic outlook that is causing the deepest concern in the general mind of Germany to-day. The utterances of statesmen and the tone of the press make this transparently clear. Germany’s finances are in a desperate plight, and a debt is being piled up which will have a crushing effect for several decades. In April, 1916, Herr Sydow, the Prussian Minister for Commerce, declared that after the war ‘ Germany must have access to the markets of the world if she is to live.’ Dr. Michaelis, the late Imperial Chancellor, said, on July 19,1917, that peace terms would have to ‘provide a safeguard that the league in arms of our opponents shall not develop into an economic offensive alliance against us.’ Herr Ballin said, shortly after the outbreak of war, that the conflict was really to prevent the establishment of a preferential tariff within the British Empire. These utterances are significant.
I dissent altogether from the view that this war is due solely to a clash, or anticipated clash, of economic interests. But time after time before the war I noted how any approach to British imperial unity, and especially to agreement on a preferential trade policy, sent a shiver of apprehension through all politicians in Germany as well as through those interested in trade and commerce. In England Germany has found an open market, and throughout the rest of the world her trade has enjoyed most-favored-nation treatment. Germans are clamoring for ‘freedom of the seas.’ But in normal times there was no desire, on the part of Great Britain or any other nation, to exclude them from the highways of the world’s traffic. On the contrary, German shipping enjoyed the most-favored-nation treatment in every port of the British Empire, and in some of them had secured almost a monopoly. But German traders, shipping agents, and settlers abroad, some of them naturalized citizens of their adopted country, were not satisfied with these very substantial results. They have for several decades been carrying on a policy of organized ‘peaceful penetration.’ Some of their methods of commercial infiltration were legitimate. Some were not. Many of these Germans were apostles of Deutschtum, and used the rights and privileges accorded them to secure control of products and industries of direct national or military importance, and to exercise political influence.
In France, Italy, Russia, and the whole British Empire, there is a strong feeling against leaving the way open for a revival of this subtle form of aggression. The Germans themselves seem to be aware of the existence of this feeling, and there are many among them who dread its possible consequences to themselves.