Germany and the Next War Part 18

My view, therefore, is that we must first of all lay the solid foundation without which any successful action against the superior forces of the enemy is unthinkable. Should the coast fortifications fail to do what is expected from them, success is quite impossible.

It is, however, all the more our duty to spare no sacrifices to carry out _both_ objects--the enlargement of the fleet, as well as whatever may still be necessary to the perfecting of our coast defences. Though this latter point calls for the first attention, the great necessity for the navy admits of no doubt. If we do not to-day stake everything on strengthening our fleet, to insure at least the possibility of a successful war, and if we once more allow our probable opponent to gain a start which it will be scarcely possible to make up in the future, we must renounce for many years to come any place among the World Powers.

Under these circ.u.mstances, no one who cherishes German sentiments and German hopes will advocate a policy of renunciation. On the contrary, we must try not only to prosecute simultaneously the fortification of the coast and the development of the fleet, but we must so accelerate the pace of our s.h.i.+p-building that the requirements of the Naval Act will be met by 1914--a result quite possible according to expert opinion.

The difficult plight in which we are to-day, as regards our readiness for war, is due to two causes in the past. It has been produced in the first place because, from love of the pleasures of peace, we have in the long years since the founding of the German Empire neglected to define and strengthen our place among the Powers of Europe, and to win a free hand in world politics, while around us the other Powers were growing more and more threatening. It was, in my opinion, the most serious mistake in German policy that a final settling of accounts with France was not effected at a time when the state of international affairs was favourable and success might confidently have been expected. There has, indeed, been no lack of opportunities. We have only our policy of peace and renunciation to thank for the fact that we are placed in this difficult position, and are confronted by the momentous choice between resigning all claim to world power or disputing this claim against numerically superior enemies. This policy somewhat resembles the supineness for which England has herself to blame, when she refused her a.s.sistance to the Southern States in the American War of Secession, and thus allowed a Power to arise in the form of the United States of North America, which already, although barely fifty years have elapsed, threatens England's own position as a World Power. But the consequences of our peace policy hit us harder than England has suffered under her former American policy. The place of Great Britain as a Great Power is far more secured by her insular position and her command of the seas than ours, which is threatened on all sides by more powerful enemies. It is true that one cannot antic.i.p.ate success in any war with certainty, and there was always the possibility during the past forty years that we might not succeed in conquering France as effectually as we would have wished. This uncertainty is inseparable from every war. Neither in 1866 nor in 1870 could Bismarck foresee the degree of success which would fall to him, but he dared to fight. The greatness of the statesman is shown when at the most favourable moment he has the courage to undertake what is the necessary and, according to human calculation, the best course. Just Fate decides the issue.

The second cause of our present position is to be seen in the fact that we started to build our fleet too late. The chief mistake which we have made is that, after the year 1889, when we roused ourselves to vote the Brandenburg type of s.h.i.+p, we sank back until 1897 into a period of decadence, while complete lack of system prevailed in all matters concerning the fleet. We have also begun far too late to develop systematically our coast defences, so that the most essential duties which spring out of the political situation are unfulfilled, since we have not foreseen this situation nor prepared for it.

This experience must be a lesson to us in the future. We must never let the petty cares and needs of the moment blind us to the broad views which must determine our world policy. We must always adopt in good time those measures which are seen to be necessary for the future, even though they make heavy financial calls on our resources.

This is the point of view that we must keep in mind with regard to our naval armament. Even at the eleventh hour we may make up a little for lost time. It will be a heinous mistake if we do not perform this duty devotedly.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ARMY AND POPULAR EDUCATION

The policy of peace and restraint has brought us to a position in which we can only a.s.sert our place among the Great Powers and secure the conditions of life for the future by the greatest expenditure of treasure and, so far as human conjecture can go, of blood. We shall be compelled, therefore, to adopt, without a moment's delay, special measures which will enable us to be more or less a match for our enemies--I mean accelerated s.h.i.+p-building and rapid increase of the army. We must always bear in mind in the present that we have to provide for the future.

Apart from the requirements of the moment, we must never forget to develop the elements on which not only our military strength, but also the political power of the State ultimately rest. We must maintain the physical and mental health of the nation, and this can only be done if we aim at a progressive development of popular education in the widest sense, corresponding to the external changes in the conditions and demands of existence.

While it is the duty of the State to guide her citizens to the highest moral and mental development, on the other hand the elements of strength, rooted in the people, react upon the efficiency of the State.

Only when supported by the strong, unanimous will of the nation can the State achieve really great results; she is therefore doubly interested in promoting the physical and mental growth of the nation. Her duty and her justification consist in this endeavour, for she draws from the fulfilment of this duty the strength and capacity to be in the highest sense true to it.

It is, under present conditions, expedient also from the merely military standpoint to provide not only for the healthy physical development of our growing youth, but also to raise its intellectual level. For while the demands which modern war makes have increased in every direction, the term of service has been shortened in order to make enlistment in very great numbers possible. Thus the full consummation of military training cannot be attained unless recruits enter the army well equipped physically and mentally, and bringing with them patriotic sentiments worthy of the honourable profession of arms.

We have already shown in a previous chapter how important it is to raise the culture of the officers and non-commissioned officers to the best of our power, in order to secure not only a greater and more independent individual efficiency, but also a deeper and more lasting influence on the men; but this influence of the superiors must always remain limited if it cannot count on finding in the men a receptive and intelligent material. This fact is especially clear when we grasp the claims which modern war will make on the individual fighter. In order to meet these demands fully, the people must be properly educated.

Each individual must, in modern warfare, display a large measure of independent judgment, calm grasp of the facts, and bold resolution. In the open methods of fighting, the infantryman, after his appointed duty has been a.s.signed him, is to a great degree thrown on his own resources; he may often have to take over the command of his own section if the losses among his superiors are heavy. The artilleryman will have to work his gun single-handed when the section leaders and gun captains have fallen victims to the shrapnel fire; the patrols and despatch-riders are often left to themselves in the middle of the enemy's country; and the sapper, who is working against a counter-mine, will often find himself unexpectedly face to face with the enemy, and has no resource left beyond his own professional knowledge and determination.

But not only are higher claims made on the independent responsibility of the individual in modern warfare, but the strain on the physique will probably be far greater in the future than in previous wars. This change is due partly to the large size of the armies, partly to the greater efficiency of the firearms. All movements in large ma.s.ses are more exacting in themselves than similar movements in small detachments, since they are never carried out so smoothly. The shelter and food of great ma.s.ses can never be so good as with smaller bodies; the depth of the marching columns, which increases with the ma.s.ses, adds to the difficulties of any movements--abbreviated rest at night, irregular hours for meals, unusual times for marching, etc. The increased range of modern firearms extends the actual fighting zone, and, in combination with the larger fronts, necessitates wide detours whenever the troops attempt enveloping movements or other changes of position on the battlefield.

In the face of these higher demands, the amount of work done in the army has been enormously increased. The State, however, has done little to prepare our young men better for military service, while tendencies are making themselves felt in the life of the people which exercise a very detrimental influence on their education. I specially refer to the ever-growing encroachments of a social-democratic, anti-patriotic feeling, and, hand-in-hand with this, the flocking of the population into the large towns, which is unfavourable to physical development.

This result is clearly shown by the enlistment statistics. At the present day, out of all the German-born military units, over 6.14 per cent. come from the large towns, 7.37 per cent, from the medium-sized towns, 22.34 per cent. from the small or country towns, and 64.15 per cent. from the rural districts; while the distribution of the population between town and country is quite different. According to the census of 1905, the rural population amounted to 42.5 per cent., the small or country towns to 25.5 per cent., the medium-sized towns to 12.9 per cent., and the large towns to 19.1 per cent. of the entire number of inhabitants. The proportion has probably changed since that year still more unfavourably for the rural population, while the large towns have increased in population. These figures clearly show the physical deterioration of the town population, and signify a danger to our national life, not merely in respect of physique, but in the intellect and compact unity of the nation. The rural population forms part and parcel of the army. A thousand bonds unite the troops and the families of their members, so far as they come from the country; everyone who studies the inner life of our army is aware of this. The interest felt in the soldier's life is intense. It is the same spirit, transmitted from one to another. The relation of the army to the population of the great cities which send a small and ever-diminis.h.i.+ng fraction of their sons into the army is quite different. A certain opposition exists between the population of the great cities and the country-folk, who, from a military point of view, form the backbone of the nation.

Similarly, the links between the army and the large towns have loosened, and large sections of the population in the great cities are absolutely hostile to the service.

It is in the direct interests of the State to raise the physical health of the town population by all imaginable means, not only in order to enable more soldiers to be enlisted, but to bring the beneficial effect of military training more extensively to bear on the town population, and so to help to make our social conditions more healthy. Nothing promotes unity of spirit and sentiment like the comrades.h.i.+p of military service.

So far as I can judge, it is not factory work alone in itself which exercises a detrimental effect on the physical development and, owing to its monotony, on the mental development also, but the general conditions of life, inseparable from such work, are prejudicial. Apart from many forms of employment in factories which are directly injurious to health, the factors which stunt physical development may be found in the housing conditions, in the pleasure-seeking town life, and in alcoholism. This latter vice is far more prevalent in the large cities than in the rural districts, and, in combination with the other influences of the great city, produces far more harmful results.

It is therefore the unmistakable duty of the State, first, to fight alcoholism with every weapon, if necessary by relentlessly taxing all kinds of alcoholic drinks, and by strictly limiting the right to sell them; secondly, most emphatic encouragement must be given to all efforts to improve the housing conditions of the working population, and to withdraw the youth of the towns from the ruinous influences of a life of amus.e.m.e.nts. In Munich, Bavarian officers have recently made a praiseworthy attempt to occupy the leisure time of the young men past the age of attendance at school with health-producing military exercises. The young men's clubs which Field-Marshal v.d. Goltz is trying to establish aim at similar objects. Such undertakings ought to be vigorously carried out in every large town, and supported by the State, from purely physical as well as social considerations. The gymnastic instruction in the schools and gymnastic clubs has an undoubtedly beneficial effect on physical development, and deserves every encouragement; finally, on these grounds, as well as all others, the system of universal service should have been made an effective reality. It is literally amazing to notice the excellent effect of military service on the physical development of the recruits. The authorities in charge of the reserves should have been instructed to make the population of the great cities serve in larger numbers than hitherto.

On the other hand, a warning must, in my opinion, be issued against two tendencies: first, against the continual curtailing of the working hours for factory hands and artisans; and, secondly, against crediting sport with an exaggerated value for the national health. As already pointed out, it is usually not the work itself, but the circ.u.mstances attendant on working together in large numbers that are prejudicial.

The wish to shorten the working hours on principle, except to a moderate degree, unless any exceptionally unfavourable conditions of work are present, is, in my opinion, an immoral endeavour, and a complete miscomprehension of the real value of work. It is in itself the greatest blessing which man knows, and ill betide the nation which regards it no longer as a moral duty, but as the necessary means of earning a livelihood and paying for amus.e.m.e.nts. Strenuous labour alone produces men and characters, and those nations who have been compelled to win their living in a continuous struggle against a rude climate have often achieved the greatest exploits, and shown the greatest vitality.

So long as the Dutch steeled their strength by unremitting conflict with the sea, so long as they fought for religious liberty against the Spanish supremacy, they were a nation of historical importance; now, when they live mainly for money-making and enjoyment, and lead a politically neutral existence, without great ambitions or great wars, their importance has sunk low, and will not rise again until they take a part in the struggle of the civilized nations. In Germany that stock which was destined to bring back our country from degradation to historical importance did not grow up on the fertile banks of the Rhine or the Danube, but on the sterile sands of the March.

We must preserve the stern, industrious, old-Prussian feeling, and carry the rest of Germany with us to Kant's conception of life; we must continuously steel our strength by great political and economic endeavours, and must not be content with what we have already attained, or abandon ourselves to the indolent pursuit of pleasure; thus only we shall remain healthy in mind and body, and able to keep our place in the world.

Where Nature herself does not compel hard toil, or where with growing wealth wide sections of the people are inclined to follow a life of pleasure rather than of work, society and the State must vie in taking care that work does not become play, or play work. It is work, regarded as a duty, that forges men, not fanciful play. Sport, which is spreading more and more amongst us too, must always remain a means of recreation, not an end in itself, if it is to be justified at all. We must never forget this. Hard, laborious work has made Germany great; in England, on the contrary, sport has succeeded in maintaining the physical health of the nation; but by becoming exaggerated and by usurping the place of serious work it has greatly injured the English nation. The English nation, under the influence of growing wealth, a lower standard of labour efficiency--which, indeed, is the avowed object of the English trades unions--and of the security of its military position, has more and more become a nation of gentlemen at ease and of sportsmen, and it may well be asked whether, under these conditions, England will show herself competent for the great duties which she has taken on herself in the future. If, further, the political rivalry with the great and ambitious republic in America be removed by an Arbitration Treaty, this circ.u.mstance might easily become the boundary-stone where the roads to progress and to decadence divide, in spite of all sports which develop physique.

The physical healthiness of a nation has no permanent value, unless it comes from work and goes hand-in-hand with spiritual development; while, if the latter is subordinated to material and physical considerations, the result must be injurious in the long-run.

We must not therefore be content to educate up for the army a physically healthy set of young men by elevating the social conditions and the whole method of life of our people, but we must also endeavour to promote their spiritual development in every way. The means for doing so is the school. Military education under the present-day conditions, which are continually becoming more severe, can only realize its aims satisfactorily if a groundwork has been laid for it in the schools, and an improved preliminary training has been given to the raw material.

The national school is not sufficient for this requirement. The general regulations which settle the national school system in Prussia date from the year 1872, and are thus forty years old, and do not take account of the modern development which has been so rapid of late years. It is only natural that a fundamental opposition exists between them and the essentials of military education. Present-day military education requires complete individualization and a conscious development of manly feeling; in the national school everything is based on teaching in cla.s.ses, and there is no distinction between the s.e.xes. This is directly prescribed by the rules.

In the army the recruits are taught under the superintendence of the superiors by specially detached officers and selected experienced non-commissioned officers; and even instruction is given them in quite small sections; while each one receives individual attention from the non-commissioned officers of his section and the higher superior officers. In a school, on the contrary, the master is expected to teach as many as eighty scholars at a time; in a school with two teachers as many as 120 children are divided into two cla.s.ses. A separation of the s.e.xes is only recommended in a school of several cla.s.ses. As a rule, therefore, the instruction is given in common. It is certain that, under such conditions, no insight into the personality of the individual is possible. All that is achieved is to impart more or less mechanically and inefficiently a certain amount of information in some branch of knowledge, without any consideration of the special dispositions of boys and girls, still less of individuals.

Such a national school can obviously offer no preparation for a military education. The principles which regulate the teaching in the two places are quite different. That is seen in the whole tendency of the instruction.

The military education aims at training the moral personality to independent thought and action, and at the same time rousing patriotic feelings among the men. Instruction in a sense of duty and in our national history thus takes a foremost place by the side of professional teaching. Great attention is given to educate each individual in logical reasoning and in the clear expression of his thoughts.

In the national school these views are completely relegated to the background--not, of course, as a matter of intention and theory, but as the practical result of the conditions. The chief stress in such a school is laid on formal religious instruction, and on imparting some facility in reading, writing, and ciphering. The so-called _Realign_ (history, geography, natural history, natural science) fall quite into the background. Only six out of thirty hours of instruction weekly are devoted to all the _Realien_ in the middle and upper standards; in the lower standards they are ignored altogether, while four to five hours are a.s.signed to religious instruction in every standard. There is no idea of any deliberate encouragement of patriotism. Not a word in the General Regulations suggests that any weight is to be attached to this; and while over two pages are filled with details of the methods of religious instruction, history, which is especially valuable for the development of patriotic sentiments, is dismissed in ten lines. As for influencing the character and the reasoning faculties of the scholars to any extent worth mentioning, the system of large cla.s.ses puts it altogether out of the question.

While the allotment of subjects to the hours available for instruction is thus very one-sided, the system on which instruction is given, especially in religious matters, is also unsatisfactory. Beginning with the lower standard onwards (that is to say, the children of six years), stories not only from the New Testament, but also from the Old Testament are drummed into the heads of the scholars. Similarly every Sat.u.r.day the portions of Scripture appointed for the next Sunday are read out and explained to all the children. Instruction in the Catechism begins also in the lower standard, from the age of six onwards; the children must learn some twenty hymns by heart, besides various prayers. It is a significant fact that it has been found necessary expressly to forbid "the memorizing of the General Confession and other parts of the liturgical service," as "also the learning by heart of the Pericopes."

On the other hand, the inst.i.tution of Public Wors.h.i.+p is to be explained to the children. This ill.u.s.trates the spirit in which this instruction has to be imparted according to the regulations.

It is really amazing to read these regulations. The object of Evangelical religious instruction is to introduce the children "to the comprehension of the Holy Scriptures and to the creed of the congregation," in order that they "may be enabled to read the Scriptures independently and to take an active part both in the life and the religious wors.h.i.+p of the congregation." Requirements are laid down which entirely abandon the task of making the subject suitable to the comprehension of children from six to fourteen years of age, and presuppose a range of ideas totally beyond their age. Not a word, however, suggests that the real meaning of religion--its influence, that is, on the moral conduct of man--should be adequately brought into prominence. The teacher is not urged by a single syllable to impress religious ideas on the receptive child-mind; the whole course of instruction, in conformity with regulations, deals with a formal religiosity, which is quite out of touch with practical life, and if not deliberately, at least in result, renounces any attempt at moral influence. A real feeling for religion is seldom the fruit of such instruction; the children, as a rule, are glad after their Confirmation to have done with this unspiritual religious teaching, and so they remain, when their schooling is over, permanently strangers to the religious inner life, which the instruction never awakened in them. Nor does the instruction for Confirmation do much to alter that, for it is usually conceived in the same spirit.

All other subjects which might raise heart and spirit and present to the young minds some high ideals--more especially our own country's history--are most shamefully neglected in favour of this sort of instruction; and yet a truly religious and patriotic spirit is of inestimable value for life, and, above all, for the soldier. It is the more regrettable that instruction in the national school, as fixed by the regulations, and as given in practice in a still duller form, is totally unfitted to raise such feelings, and thus to do some real service to the country. It is quite refres.h.i.+ng to read in the new regulations for middle schools of February 10,1910, that by religious instruction the "moral and religious tendencies of the child" should be awakened and strengthened, and that the teaching of history should aim at exciting an "intelligent appreciation of the greatness of the fatherland."

The method of religious instruction which is adopted in the national school is, in my opinion, hopelessly perverted. Religious instruction can only become fruitful and profitable when a certain intellectual growth has started and the child possesses some conscious will. To make it the basis of intellectual growth, as was evidently intended in the national schools, has never been a success; for it ought not to be directed at the understanding and logical faculties, but at the mystical intuitions of the soul, and, if it is begun too early, it has a confusing effect on the development of the mental faculties. Even the missionary who wishes to achieve real results tries to educate his pupils by work and secular instruction before he attempts to impart to them subtle religious ideas. Yet every Sat.u.r.day the appointed pa.s.sages of Scripture (the Pericopes) are explained to six-year-old children.

Religious instruction proper ought to begin in the middle standard. Up to that point the teacher should be content, from the religious standpoint, to work on the child's imagination and feelings with the simplest ideas of the Deity, but in other respects to endeavour to awaken and encourage the intellectual life, and make it able to grasp loftier conceptions. The national school stands in total contradiction to this intellectual development. This is in conformity to regulations, for the same children who read the Bible independently are only to be led to "an approximate comprehension of those phenomena which are daily around them." In the course of eight years they learn a smattering of reading, writing, and ciphering.[A] It is significant of the knowledge of our national history which the school imparts that out of sixty-three recruits of one company to whom the question was put who Bismarck was, not a single one could answer. That the scholars acquire even a general idea of their duties to the country and the State is quite out of the question. It is impossible to rouse the affection and fancy of the children by instruction in history, because the two s.e.xes are taught in common. One thing appeals to the heart of boys, another to those of girls; and, although I consider it important that patriotic feelings should be inculcated among girls, since as mothers they will transmit them to the family, still the girls must be influenced in a different way from the boys. When the instruction is common to both, the treatment of the subject by the teacher remains neutral and colourless. It is quite incomprehensible how such great results are expected in the religious field when so little has been achieved in every other field.

This pedantic school has wandered far indeed from the ideal that Frederick the Great set up. He declared that the duty of the State was "to educate the young generation to independent thinking and self-devoted love of country."

[Footnote A: Recently a boy was discharged from a well-known national school as an exceptionally good scholar, and was sent as well qualified to the office of a Head Forester. He showed that he could not copy correctly, to say nothing of writing by himself.]

Our national school of to-day needs, then, searching and thorough reform if it is to be a preparatory school, not only for military education, but for life generally. It sends children out into the world with undeveloped reasoning faculties, and equipped with the barest elements of knowledge, and thus makes them not only void of self-reliance, but easy victims of all the corrupting influences of social life. As a matter of fact, the mind and reasoning faculties of the national schoolboy are developed for the first time by his course of instruction as a recruit.

It is obviously not my business to indicate the paths to such a reform.

I will only suggest the points which seem to me the most important from the standpoint of a citizen and a soldier.

First and foremost, the instruction must be more individual. The number of teachers, accordingly, must be increased, and that of scholars diminished. It is worth while considering in this connection the feasibility of beginning school instruction at the age of eight years.

Then all teaching must be directed, more than at present, to the object of developing the children's minds, and formal religious instruction should only begin in due harmony with intellectual progress. Finally, the _Realien,_ especially the history of our own country, should claim more attention, and patriotic feelings should be encouraged in every way; while in religious instruction the moral influence of religion should be more prominent than the formal contents. The training of the national school teacher must be placed on a new basis. At present it absolutely corresponds to the one-sided and limited standpoint of the school itself, and does not enable the teachers to develop the minds and feelings of their pupils. It must be reckoned a distinct disadvantage for the upgrowing generation that all instruction ends at the age of fourteen, so that, precisely at the period of development in which the reasoning powers are forming, the children are thrown back on themselves and on any chance influences. In the interval between school life and military service the young people not only forget all that they learnt, perhaps with apt.i.tude, in the national school, but they unthinkingly adopt distorted views of life, and in many ways become brutalized from a lack of counteracting ideals.

A compulsory continuation school is therefore an absolute necessity of the age. It is also urgently required from the military standpoint. Such a school, to be fruitful in results, must endeavour, not only to prevent the scholar from forgetting what he once learnt, and to qualify him for a special branch of work, but, above all, to develop his patriotism and sense of citizens.h.i.+p. To do this, it is necessary to explain to him the relation of the State to the individual, and to explain, by reference to our national history, how the individual can only prosper by devotion to the State. The duties of the individual to the State should be placed in the foreground. This instruction must be inspired by the spirit which animated Schleiermacher's sermons in the blackest hour of Prussia, and culminated in the doctrine that all the value of the man lies in the strength and purity of his will, in his free devotion to the great whole; that property and life are only trusts, which must be employed for higher ideals; that the mind, which thinks only of itself, perishes in feeble susceptibility, but that true moral worth grows up only in the love for the fatherland and for the State, which is a haven for every faith, and a home of justice and honourable freedom of purpose.

Only if national education works in this sense will it train up men to fill our armies who have been adequately prepared for the school of arms, and bring with them the true soldierly spirit from which great deeds spring. What can be effected by the spirit of a nation we have learnt from the history of the War of Liberation, that never-failing source of patriotic sentiment, which should form the backbone and centre of history-teaching in the national and the continuation schools.

We can study it also by an example from most recent history, in the Russo-j.a.panese War. "The education of the whole j.a.panese people, beginning at home and continued at school, was based on a patriotic and warlike spirit. That education, combined with the rapidly acquired successes in culture and warfare, aroused in the j.a.panese a marvellous confidence in their own strength. They served with pride in the ranks of the army, and dreamed of heroic deeds.... All the thoughts of the nation were turned towards the coming struggle, while in the course of several years they had spent their last farthing in the creation of a powerful army and a strong fleet."[B] This was the spirit that led the j.a.panese to victory. "The day when the young j.a.panese enlisted was observed as a festival in his family."[B]