Part 14

GERMAN PUBLIC OPINION IN 1913 WITH REGARD TO THE IMPENDING WAR.

The Report on this subject given in the French Yellow Book (Section 5) throws much light on the attitude of the various classes in Germany. In favour of peace (it says) are "the large mass of workmen, artisans, and peasants, who are peaceful by instinct"; a considerable number of non-military nobility, and of "manufacturers, merchants, and financiers of minor importance, to whom even a victorious war would bring bankruptcy"; also a vast number of those who are continually in a state of "suppressed revolt against Prussian policy," like the "Government and ruling classes of the great southern States, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemburg," and so forth.

On the other hand, in favour of war are the great, mainly Prussian, war party, consisting of the military aristocracy and nobility "who see with terror the democratization of Germany and the growing force of the Socialist party"; "others who consider war as necessary for economic reasons found in over-population and over-production, the need of markets and outlets"; the great bourgeoisie, "which also has its reasons of a social nature--the upper middle class being no less affected than the nobility by the democratization of Germany ... and, finally, the gun and armour-plate manufacturers, the great merchants who clamour for greater markets, and the bankers who speculate on the Golden Age and the indemnity of war. These, too, think that war would be good business."

The whole paper is too long for extensive citation here, but is well worth reading.

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POLITICAL IGNORANCE IN GERMANY.

"On Tuesday last at the Union Society Mr. Dudley Ward, late Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle and other English papers, and Fellow of St. John's College, dealt with 'The War from the German Point of View.' Mr. Ward's profound knowledge of Germany, especially since 1911, and his obvious attempt to review recent events with impartiality, was a revelation to Cambridge, and a very large audience showed its enthusiastic appreciation of his ability and his frankness.

"Mr. Ward emphasized particularly the astonishing political ignorance of the German people as a whole, an ignorance quite unintelligible to any one unacquainted with their Press and their political institutions. Public opinion, as he said, counts for little in Germany, and the Government can generally guide it into any direction it may please, and this fact is essential to the understanding of the events--diplomatic events--which led to the declaration of war."--From the "Cambridge Magazine," December 5, 1914.

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"One of the political phenomena of America has always been the indifference of the German to active participation in politics. Efforts to persuade him to organize with any political party have never succeeded except in isolated cases. The German-American has been regarded as an independent politically. Until Europe's conflict raised concealed characteristics to the surface the German-American's indifference to politics had not been looked upon as a serious matter."--From article by Alt. John Herbert in the London "Daily News," December, 1914.

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GERMANY'S PURPOSE.

According to Herr Maximilien Harden's article in "Die Zukunft," as reproduced in the "New York Times," December, 1914.

"Not as weak-willed blunderers have we under-taken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experience. We do not stand, and shall not place ourselves, before the Court of Europe. Our power shall create new law in Europe. Germany strikes. If it conquers new realms for its genius, the priesthood of all the gods will sing songs of praise to the good war.

"We are at the beginning of a war the development and duration of which are incalculable, and in which up to date no foe has been brought to his knees. We wage the war in order to free enslaved peoples, and thereafter to comfort ourselves with the unselfish and useless consciousness of our own righteousness. We wage it from the lofty point of view and with the conviction that Germany, as a result of her achievements and in proportion to them, is justified in asking, and must obtain, wider room on earth for development and for working out the possibilities that are in her."

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ENGLAND'S PERFIDY.

From the Manifesto of Professors Haeckel and Eucken, September, 1914.

"What is happening to-day surpasses every instance from the past; this last example will be permanently characterized in the annals of the world as the indelible shame of England. Great Britain is fighting for a Slavic, semi-Asiatic Power against Teutonism; she is fighting, not only in the ranks of barbarism but also on the side of wrong and injustice, for let it not be forgotten that Russia began the war, because she refused to permit adequate expiation for a miserable assassination; but the blame for extending the limits of the present conflict to the proportions of a world-war, through which the sum of human culture is threatened, rests upon England.

"And the reason for all this? Because England was envious of Germany's greatness, because she was bound to hinder further expansion of the German sphere at any cost! There cannot be the least doubt that England was determined from the start to break in upon Germany's great conflict for national existence, to cast as many stones as possible in Germany's path, and to block her every effort toward adequate expansion. England lay in wait until the favourable opportunity for inflicting a lasting injury upon Germany should come, and promptly seized upon the unavoidable German invasion of Belgian territory as a pretext for draping her own brutal national egotism in a mantle of decency.

"Or is there in the whole world a person so simple as to believe that England would have declared war upon France, had the latter Power invaded Belgium? In that event, England would have shed hypocritical tears over the necessary violation of international law, while concealing a laughing face behind the mask. The most repulsive thing in the whole business is this hypocritical Pharisaism; it merits only contempt.

"History shows that such sentiments as these, far from guiding nations upward, lead them along the downward path. But we of this present time have fixed our faith firm as a rock upon our righteous cause, and upon the superior power and the inflexible will for victory that abide in the German nation. Nevertheless the deplorable fact remains, that the boundless egotism already mentioned has for that span of the future discernible to us destroyed the collaboration of the two nations which was so full of promise for the intellectual uplift of humanity. But the other party has willed it so. Upon England alone rests the monstrous guilt and the responsibility in the eye of world-history."

"ERNST HAECKEL.

"RUDOLF EUCKEN."

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FROM THE MANIFESTO OF PROFESSOR EUCKEN.

"Let us hope that our German weapons will show the Englishmen that they were entirely wrong in their reckoning; but first let us point out the wide discrepancy between their motives and ours.

"With them it is self-seeking, envy, calculation; with us the conviction that we are fighting for the holiest possessions of our people, for right and justice."