The Better Germany in War Time Part 22

OUR COMMON HUMANITY.

Here is a letter found on one of the German dead, a man with "a good face, strong and kindly," so wrote the _Daily Mail_ correspondent. "My dearest Heart," runs the letter, "when the little ones have said their prayers and prayed for their dear father, and have gone to bed, I sit and think of thee, my love. I think of all the old days when we were betrothed, and I think of all our happy married life. Oh! Ludwig, beloved of my soul, why should people fight each other? I cannot think that G.o.d would wish it...."

Here in this leafy place Quiet he lies; Cold, with his sightless face Turned to the skies; 'Tis but another dead: All you can say is said.

Carry the body hence; Kings must have slaves; Kings rise to eminence Over men's graves; So this man's eyes are dim.

Cast the earth over him.

What was that white you touched, There by his side?

Paper his hand had clutched Tight ere he died?

Message or wish, maybe?

Smooth out its folds and see.

Ah! That beside the dead Slumbered the pain!

Ah! That the hearts that bled Slept with the slain!

That the grief died. But no!

Death will not have it so.

These words of Austin Dobson were written of a French sergeant in an earlier war, yet they serve equally well for the German soldier in this.

Strange that we leave it to the dead to prove their brotherhood and ours.

Philip Gibbs tells us how in a German dug-out he picked up some letters.

"They were all written to 'dear brother Wilhelm,' from sisters and brothers, sending him their loving greetings, praying that his health might be good, promising to send him gifts of food and yearning for his home-coming." They were anxious, for here had been no news for some time. "Every time the postman comes we hope for a little note from you."

Can any generous heart think of that anxious waiting unmoved? Shall we children of one Life wait till we have wholly darkened each other's homes, and then call our handiwork peace?

But by that time, by the judgment of G.o.d, our eyes will be opened.

We who are bound by the same grief for ever, When all our sons are dead may talk together, Each asking pardon of the other one, For her dead son.[52]

It is we at home who seem to yield only to this dread proof. With the fighters it is often different, as we have seen, and though the stories savour of repet.i.tion, the repet.i.tion is surely worth while. I have aimed here at no literary production, but simply at a collection of facts that may reach the heart. "We sing," said a soldier from Baden, "to the accompaniment of the piano-especially during the interval for dinner.

We have indeed entered into a tacit agreement with the French to stop all fire between 12 and 1 o'clock, so that they and we might not be disturbed when we feed." (_Zeitung am Mittag_, as quoted in the _Daily Chronicle_, November 10, 1914.) "One of our teachers, a lieutenant in the R.F.A., who has been out most of the time, had a few days' leave some weeks ago. He said to the school, a.s.sembled to do him honour, 'Boys, do not believe the stories you read about the Germans in the newspapers. Whatever they may have done at the beginning of the war, the German is a brave and n.o.ble soldier, and after the war we must be friends.'" (From a private letter.) A soldier writes that a diary he kept was blown to bits by a sh.e.l.l. He gave what remained of it to a wounded German who pleaded for it. He had met many German Socialists in the fighting. "It is a blessing to meet such men and amid all the slaughter brought about by our present system, it seems heaven upon earth." (_Labour Leader_, June 24, 1915.)

ARE WE ALWAYS CHIVALROUS?

It will only be making the _amende honorable_ if we do our best now to spread reports of good deeds of the enemy, for in the early stages of the war we deliberately deleted them from messages, and we have certainly done a great deal to conceal them ever since. Writing to the _Times_ in October, 1914, Mr. Herbert Corey, the American correspondent, said: "The _Times_ leader quotes the _Post_ as charging that I 'flatly made the charge that dispatches had been altered for the purpose of hiding the truth and blackening the German character.' I do not recollect this phrase. I did charge that dispatches of German atrocities were permitted to go through unaltered, and that sentences in other dispatches in which credit was given the Germans for courtesy and kindness were deleted. I abide by that statement."

There have been many angry references to unfair German attempts to influence neutral opinion. A letter such as Mr. Corey's makes me able to understand why some neutrals have accused England of the very same unfairness. There is other testimony to the same effect. Mr. Edward Price Bell, London Correspondent of the _Chicago Daily News_, has, in a pamphlet published by Fisher Unwin, indicted the British censors.h.i.+p in the following terms:

I call the censors.h.i.+p chaotic because of the chaos in its administration. I call it political because it has changed or suppressed political cables. I call it discriminatory because there are flagrant instances of its not holding the scales evenly between correspondents and newspapers. I call it unchivalrous because it has been known to elide eulogies of enemy decency and enemy valour. I call it destructive because its function is to destroy; it has no constructive function whatever. I call it in effect anti-British and pro-German because its tendency-one means, of course, its unconscious tendency-often is to elevate the German name for veracity and for courage above the British. I call it ludicrous, because it has censored such matter as Kipling's "Recessional" and Browning's poetry. I call it incompetent because one can perceive no sort of collective efficiency in its work. And because of the sum of these things I give it the final descriptive-"incredible."-_Daily News_, January 7, 1916.

There is no doubt that people often _fear_ to tell of German good deeds.

An acquaintance of mine told me that his boy got decorated for bringing in a badly wounded comrade from near the German trenches. A little shamefacedly my informant went on: "I don't mind telling _you_, but I _shouldn't like it to be known generally here_, that I know the Germans act well sometimes. My boy wrote he would have had no chance, but he heard the Germans give the order to cease fire." My informant evidently feared the neighbours would call him pro-German if he told this to them, but he thought he might venture to tell a pacifist.[53]

One notices this fear sometimes in rather amusing ways. In a railway compartment with me were a loud-mouthed patriotic woman "war-worker" and a mere soldier back from the front. I'm afraid I got a little at loggerheads with the war-worker, who adopted in argument a kind of furious grin which revealed a formidable row of teeth that in my mind-picture of her have become symbolically almost gigantic. I turned for relief to the mere soldier, and while the train was moving we had a pleasant dip into soldier philosophy. "I've come to the conclusion that there's good and bad everywhere," he said. "I've known bad Germans, and I've known Germans to look after our wounded as well as a British Tommy could look after his chum." There was more to this effect, but whenever the train stopped and our voices became audible to others, we were silent. The fear of that row of teeth was, I think in both our hearts, and I could see the mere soldier looking timid before them.

Fair play to the enemy's character is a concession not quite so easy to the average Englishman as he supposes. "The Anglo-Saxon race has never been remarkable for magnanimity towards a fallen foe." Just now, when we are inclined to be almost afraid of the excess of chivalry which possesses us, there may be useful corrective in these words of Lieutenant-General Sir William Butler, K.C.B. There has been much searching of old history books of late to find out what was said in the days of Tacitus against the Germans.[54] (What Tacitus said in their favour is not considered.) Perhaps on the other side there are investigators searching their history books for ancient opinions of the English. "Strike well these English," said Duke William to his Normans, "show no weakness towards these English, for they will have no pity for you. Neither the coward for running well, nor the bold man for fighting well will be better liked by the English, nor will any be more spared on either account." Butler approved this verdict. We shall not readily agree with him. Yet he did not speak without cause: he had known an English general kick the dead body of an African King, who "was a soldier every inch of him," and he had known the colonists spit upon an African chief brought bound and helpless through Natal. ("Far Out," p.

131.) I believe myself there is a great and ready generosity in the hearts of the English people, but he must surely be a man invariably on the "correct" side who has not more than once come across the official Englishman who could be a bully to those in his power.

SOME BRITISH OPINIONS.

"I am disgusted by the accounts I see in the papers of the inferiority of Germans as soldiers. Don't believe one word of it. They are quite splendid in every way. Their courage, efficiency, organisation, equipment and leading are all of the very best, and never surpa.s.sed by any troops ever raised. They come on in ma.s.ses against our trenches and machine guns, and come time after time, and they are never quiescent, but always on the offensive. I am full of admiration for them, and so are all who know anything about them. It is a pity that such fine soldiers should have behaved so badly in Belgium and here; they have behaved badly, there is no doubt about it, but nothing like what is said of them-any way in parts I have been through." These words from a General Officer commanding a brigade occur in a letter published in the _Times_ of November 19, 1914. Yet these "quite splendid" fighters are the men of whom a learned professor appointed by the Government has written that they are "rotten to the core." There is some discrepancy here. "They are great workers, these Germans," wrote Philip Gibbs (_Daily Chronicle_, July 5, 1916), "and wonderful soldiers."

"An officer of the _Sydney_ gave a quite enthusiastic account of the officers of the _Emden_. 'Vitthoef, the torpedo lieutenant, was a thoroughly nice fellow. Lieutenant Schal was also a good fellow and half English. It quite shook them when they found that the captain had asked that there be no cheering on entering Colombo, but we certainly did not want cheering with rows of badly wounded men (almost all German) laid out in cots on the quarter deck. Captain von Muller is a very fine fellow.... The day he was leaving the s.h.i.+p at Colombo, he came up to me on the quarter-deck and thanked me in connection with the rescue of the wounded, shook hands and saluted, which was very nice and polite of him.... Prince Hohenzollern was a decent enough fellow. In fact, we seemed to agree that it was our job to knock one another out, but there was no malice in it.' This is the ideal fighting, 'with no malice in it.' It has been achieved by many English and Germans, and that gives hope for the future. Let us make the most, not the least, of what points towards a better understanding.... At the beginning of November 'Eye-Witness' records how English prisoners had been sheltered by the Germans in cellars to protect them from the bombardment of their own side. An Anglo-Indian tells of a wounded havildar who was noticed by a German officer. 'The German officer spoke to him in Hindustani, asking him the number of his regiment, and where he came from. He bound up his wounds, gave him a drink, and brought him a bundle of straw to support his head. This will be remembered to the credit side of our German account.'

"A wounded officer addressed some students at one of our universities.

He protested humorously that he was not a 'pro-German,' and then spoke up for a fair view of the enemy. When he was being carried into hospital, he noticed an anti-aircraft gun just outside the hospital.

This struck him as, to say the least, unwise. He expected the hospital to be sh.e.l.led, and this occurred. He did not blame the Germans. On another occasion a farm near the firing line was used for first aid. It was not obviously a hospital and was fired on. The Commanding Officer sent a note to Von Kluck to explain matters, and the farm was never after exposed to fire.[55] He had seen a church damaged by German sh.e.l.l fire, but this was one which he had himself seen used by the French for observation purposes.[56] The same officer uttered a warning against believing all that was in the 'Tommies' letters. At one time when he was censoring letters, one pa.s.sed through his hands from a Tommy only just arrived in France, and never in the firing line. He described an immense battle in which the English did wonders and he himself had marvellous duties to perform. As far as the military situation was concerned the letter was quite harmless, so it was allowed to go through. It was something like the intelligence to the publication of which the Press Bureau 'does not object.'"[57][58]

In her book, "My War Experiences on Two Continents," Miss Macnaughten writes of the Germans: "Individually, I always like them, and it is useless to say I don't. They are all polite and grateful, and I thought to-day, when the prisoners were surrounded by a gaping crowd, that they bore themselves very well." (p. 127). Again, "I found one young German with both hands smashed. He was not ill enough to have a bed, of course, but sat with his head fallen forward trying to sleep on a chair. I fed him with porridge and milk out of a little bowl, and when he had finished half of it he said, 'I won't have any more. I am afraid there will be none for the others.'" (p. 37.) Unfortunately, Miss Macnaughten too readily accepted war stories. She writes of "country houses" where he heard German prisoners here lived in luxury, "and they say girls are allowed to come and play lawn tennis with them." The humour of this will be apparent to any who have visited internment camps. Lawn tennis was, however, possible at some camps, both here and in Germany-there were seven courts at Ruhleben. Some of the atrocity stories many of us will recognise as not so reliable as Miss Macnaughten supposed. It is her personal experiences which are important, and, like the Scotchman[59]

(whom she quotes) she has, not hatred, but respect, for the Germans whom she herself meets.

THE EASE OF ACCUSATION.

Again and again, everywhere, we find readiness to accept stories against the enemy on very slender evidence. At the time of the loss of our three cruisers I saw in one of the better newspapers a large heading, "German Treachery. Fighting under the Dutch Flag." I looked down the columns for evidence. No mention of such a circ.u.mstance in the official report, none in the letter from the chief correspondent; but at last I found that some one at Harwich had "heard of" such an incident. We must remember that only cool and clear intellects are likely at such a time to give an accurate account of facts. Between others mutual recrimination may readily arise. An officer on H.M.A.S. _Sydney_ wrote after the attack on the _Emden_: "It was very interesting talking to some of the German officers afterwards. On the first day they were on board one said to me, 'You fire on the white flag.' I at once took the matter up, and the torpedo-lieutenant and an engineer (of the _Emden_) both said emphatically, 'No, that is not so; you did not fire on the white flag.'

But we did not leave it at that. One of us went to the captain, and he got from Captain von Muller an a.s.surance that we had done nothing of the kind, and that he intended to a.s.semble his officers and tell them so."

Note how readily on the other side, amongst those less responsible or less cool-headed, a tale may grow up against _us_. Let us observe in considering tales against them the same caution that we should wish them to exercise in considering tales against us.[60]

TROOPS IN OCCUPATION.

Witnesses from Brussels and from Ghent have spoken well of the personal behaviour of both soldiers and officers. A neutral correspondent writes in the _Times_ of January 28, 1915:

"On the whole it cannot be said that the behaviour of the German officers and soldiers towards the population of Ghent is bad.

When the German troops entered the city, strict injunctions were given them to refrain from pillaging, and to pay for everything they bought in the shops, very much to the disgust of many...."

Mr. Gabriel Mourey has written an account of his custody of the Palais de Compiegne during the invasion. The _Times_ review of this book is so interesting that I propose to give some extracts from it:

First the palace served as the general headquarters of the British Army during the last stage of the strategic retreat to the Marne; and in the closing days of August, M. Mourey looked out of his window to see Generals French and Joffre walking up and down the terrace in consultation, while in the park English soldiers were shaving themselves calmly before little pieces of broken mirror. In a night they had left Compiegne, blowing up the Louis XV. bridge ("utterly improved," and therefore no great loss). On the next day came the Uhlans, by no means so terrible as they had been painted.... Von Kluck was to make his headquarters there for a day, and the first announcement of the doubtful honour was brought by an engineer lieutenant, who came to make a wireless installation on the palace roof. He was very quick, but he found time to inform the conservator that his name was Maurin, that it was a French name. He repeated it many times, "C'est un nom francais," and he was plainly proud of it.

Then came Von Kluck himself, asking in polite and excellent French that he might be shown over the palace. Of him M. Mourey draws a by no means unattractive picture, urbane yet reserved, with real admiration for the treasures of the Palace, discreetly murmuring "Je sais" at the close of every explanation, not offensively, but as though some long forgotten memory had returned to him, making his frequent "Kolossal" sound in his conductor's ears as gently as the continual "Very nice" of the British Officer, and, his visit over, promising that respect should be paid to the monument of Imperial France.

But Von Kluck could not stay. He was followed by Von Marwitz, no less polite, no less sympathetic to M. Mourey's natural fears, and generous enough to write and sign a proclamation forbidding his troops to lay their hand upon the palace. He, too, went his way. Von Kluck's Quartermaster-General seized the opportunity of making a private levy of 5,000f. upon the town before he sped like Gehazi after his master's chariot. Then ensued the brief reign of lesser men, stupid, brutal, bl.u.s.tering, bullying, insulting, because they feared a civilisation which they could not understand.

I think we know such men, and many privates know such men, elsewhere than in the German army. Germany may have cultivated them in greater numbers-that is highly probable-but they are rife everywhere, and under favourable circ.u.mstances they thrive exceedingly.

Their insolent arrogance culminated in a certain aide-de-camp, who arrived post-haste to say that the Palace must be instantly made ready to receive an Excellence _par excellence_. A man of imagination this aide-de-camp, for when at his command M. Mourey showed him over the palace and pointed out the gaps in the collections made by the soldiers' pilfery, he said with an all-explanatory air, "But why didn't you get souvenirs ready for the officers?" The Excellence whom this right Brandenburger heralded was no less than the Kaiser himself, and M. Mourey is convinced that it is to the Imperial intention that the safety of Compiegne is owing. It may be: but we prefer to think that honourable foes such as Von Kluck and Von Marwitz had their share in the unusual consummation.[61]

"The Irish Nuns at Ypres" gives an account of their experiences by a member of the Community. In a review (May 27, 1915), the _Times_ Literary Supplement says:

For us in England it is hard to realise the feeling of sickening anxiety with which, on October 7, these defenceless ladies witnessed the arrival in Ypres of the devastators of Belgium. On this occasion, apart from a certain amount of looting, the Germans behaved "pretty civilly," and the Abbey had nothing to complain of but want of bread.

Another French account of the invaders in Northern France is given by Gabriele and Margerita Yerta, "Six Women and the Invasion." Their experiences were variable. "It is clear," writes a reviewer in the _Nation_, "that Herr Major, and 'Barlu,' and 'Crafleux' and the two 'model Prussians,' who replenished the house with coal and provisions, and offered the ladies game they had shot, only sinned by their over-gallantry. But things changed for the worse with the coming of a hundred Death's Head Hussars and Lieutenant von Bernhausen.... Nothing very outrageous is recorded, but there was dragooning, inquisition, drunkenness. Bernhausen's reign lasted two months." As to outrages on women, Madame Yerta writes: "To be sure there were rapes, but, thanks be to G.o.d, these were few, and they took place at the beginning of the invasion.... I must confess that many a woman was the victim of her own imprudence." The book is, naturally, fiercely anti-German, its facts are, however, those of any war story.