And the Kaiser abdicates Part 3

The Socialists had thus seriously weakened the state at two vital points. By their continuous advocacy of a republic and their obstructive tactics they had impaired to a considerable extent the authority of the state, and autocratic government rests upon authority. By their internationalist teachings they had shaken the foundations of patriotism. And there is still another count against them.

Opponents of Socialism accuse its advocates of being enemies of the Christian religion and the church. Socialists declare in reply that Socialism, being a purely economic school of thought, does not concern itself with religious matters in any manner. They point out further that the programs of Socialist parties in all lands expressly declare religion to be a private matter and one about which the party does not concern itself. This is only part of the truth. It is true that Socialism officially regards religion as a private matter, but German Socialism--and the Socialism of other lands as well--is in practice the bitter enemy of the organized church. There is an abundance of evidence to prove this a.s.sertion, but the following quotations will suffice.

August Bebel, one of the founders of German Socialism, said:

"We aim in the domain of politics at Republicanism, in the domain of economics at Socialism, and in the domain of what is today called religion at Atheism."[11]

[11] Quoted by W. H. Dawson in _German Socialism and Ferdinand La.s.salle_, ch. 15.

_Vorwarts_, central organ of German Socialism, wrote on July 1, 1892:

"We would fight churches and preachers even if the preachers and curates were the most conscientious of men."

_Vorwarts_ contrived also to add insult to the statement by using the word _Pfaffen_ for preachers, a word having a contemptuous implication in this sense throughout Northern Germany.

Karl Kautsky, for years one of the intellectual leaders of the Socialist movement in Germany and one of its ablest and most representative publicists, said:[12]

"The one-sided battle against the congregations, as it is being carried on today in France, is merely a pruning of the boughs of the tree, which then merely flourishes all the more strongly.

The ax must be laid to the roots."

[12] Die neue Zeit, 1903, vol. i, p. 506.

_Genosse_ Dr. Erdmann, writing after the war had begun, said:

"We have no occasion to conceal the fact that Social-Democracy is hostile to the church--whether Catholic or Evangelical--and that we present our demands with special decision because we know that we shall thus break the power of the church."[13]

[13] Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1915, vol. i, p. 516.

_Vorwarts_ headlined an Article in January, 1918: "All religious systems are enemies of women." (The Socialists nevertheless had the effrontery during the campaign preceding the election of delegates to the National a.s.sembly at Weimar in January to put out a placard saying: "Women, protect your religion! Vote for the Social-Democratic party of Germany!").

The initial activities of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Hamburg and Brunswick following the revolution were correctly described in a speech made in the National a.s.sembly on March 11, 1919, by Deputy Mumm. He said:

"The revolutionary government in Hamburg has retained the bordells and abolished religious instruction. In Brunswick the school children of the capital, 1,500 in number, were a.s.sembled in the Cathedral by the people's commissioners for an anti-Christian Christmas celebration."

At the same session, Deputy h.e.l.lmann, a member of the Majority (parent) Socialist party, said in a speech in answer to Mumm:

"The church, like all social inst.i.tutions, is subject to constant change, and will eventually disappear."

Quotations like the preceding could be multiplied indefinitely, as could also acts consistent with these anti-religious views. The first Minister of Cults (_Kultusminister_) appointed by the revolutionary government in Prussia was Adolf Hoffmann, a professed atheist, although this ministry has charge of the affairs of the church.

The Socialist literature and press in all countries abound in anti-religious utterances. To quote one is to give a sample of all. The _Social-Demokraten_ of Stockholm, official organ of the Swedish Socialists and reckoned among the sanest, ablest and most conservative of all Social-Democratic press organs, forgets, too, that religion is a private matter. It reports a sermon by Archbishop Soderblom, wherein the speaker declared that the church must have enough expansive force to conquer the ma.s.ses who are now coming to power in various lands, and adds this characteristic comment:

"The Archbishop is a brave man who is not afraid to install a motor in the venerable but antiquated skiff from the Lake of Genesareth. If only the boat will hold him up!"

This att.i.tude of Socialism is comprehensible and logical, for no student of world history can deny that an established church has been in all ages and still is one of the strongest bulwarks of an autocratic state.

From the very dawn of organized government, centuries before the Christian era, the priesthood, where it did not actually govern, has powerfully upheld the arm of civil authority and property rights. Even in democratic England it teaches the child to "be content in the station whereto it has pleased G.o.d to call me," and is thus a factor in upholding the cla.s.s distinctions against which Socialism's whole campaign is directed. In opposing the church as an inst.i.tution Social-Democracy is thus merely true to its cardinal tenets. If the power of the church be destroyed or materially weakened, a serious blow is dealt to the government which that church supported. People who, at the command of the church, have been unquestioningly rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, begin to ask themselves: "But what things are Caesar's?" And when the people begin seriously to consider this question, autocracy is doomed.

The effect of the Socialist campaign against the church began to make itself felt a decade or more before the war began. Withdrawals from the church became so frequent that the government was seriously concerned.

The number of those who termed themselves _Dissident_ (dissenter) or _religionslos_ (without any religion) increased rapidly. Clergymen preached the doctrines of Christ to empty benches; _religionslose Genossen_ preached the doctrines of cla.s.s warfare and disloyalty to state to Socialist audiences that filled their meeting-places.

Thus the cancer ate its way into the vitals of the Empire.

CHAPTER IV.

Germany under the "Hunger-Blockade."

The men whose duty it was to take every measure to increase Germany's preparedness for war and her ability to carry on an extended conflict had long realized that the Empire had one very vulnerable point. This was her inability to feed and clothe her inhabitants and her consequent dependence on imports of foodstuffs and raw materials.

Germany in the days of her greatness occupied so large a place in the sun that one is p.r.o.ne to forget that this mighty empire was erected on an area much less than that of the State of Texas. Texas, with 262,290 square miles, was 53,666 square miles greater than the whole German Empire. And Germany's population was two-thirds that of the entire United States! Germany was, moreover, comparatively poor in natural resources. The March (Province) Brandenburg, in which Berlin is situated, is little more than a sandheap, and there are other sections whose soil is poor and infertile. Nor was it, like America, virgin soil; on the contrary, it had been cultivated for centuries.

Driven by stern necessity, the Germans became the most intelligent and successful farmers of the world. Their average yields of all crops per acre exceeded those of any other country, and were from one and a half to two times as large as the average yield in the United States. The German farmer raised two and one half times more potatoes per acre than the average for the United States. He was aided by an adequate supply of cheap farm labor and by unlimited supplies of potash at low prices, since Germany, among her few important natural resources, possessed a virtual monopoly of the world's potash supply.

Try as they would, however, the German farmers could not feed and clothe more than about forty of Germany's nearly seventy millions. Even this was a tremendous accomplishment, which can be the better appreciated if one attempts to picture the State of Texas feeding and clothing four of every ten inhabitants of the United States. Strenuous efforts were made by the German Government to increase this proportion. Moorlands were reclaimed and extensive projects for such reclamation were being prepared when the war came. The odds were too great, however, and the steady s.h.i.+ft of population toward the cities made it increasingly difficult to cultivate all the available land and likewise increased the amount of food required, since there is an inevitable wastage in transportation. What this s.h.i.+ft of population amounted to is indicated by the fact that whereas the aggregate population of the rural districts in 1871 was 63.9 per cent of the total population, it was but 40 per cent in 1910. During the same period the percentage of the total population living in cities of 100,000 population or over had increased from 4.8 to 21.3.

In the most favorable circ.u.mstances about three-sevenths of the food needed by Germany must be imported. The government had realized that a war on two fronts would involve a partial blockade, but neither the German Government nor any other government did or could foresee that a war would come which would completely encircle Germany in effect and make an absolute blockade possible. Even if this had been realized it would have made no essential difference, for it must always have remained impossible for Germany to become self-supporting.

Another factor increased the difficulties of provisioning the people.

The war, by taking hundreds of able-bodied men and the best horses from the farms, made it from the beginning impossible to farm as intensively as under normal conditions, and resulted even in the second summer of the war in a greatly reduced acreage of important crops. Livestock, depleted greatly by slaughtering and by lack of fodder, no longer produced as much manure as formerly, and one of the main secrets of the intelligent farming-methods of the Germans was the lavish use of fertilizer. And thus, at a time when even the maximum production would have been insufficient, a production far below the normal average was being secured.

Germany's dependence on importations is shown by the import statistics for 1913. The figures are in millions of marks.

Cereals 1037.

Eggs 188.2 Fruits 148.8 Fish 135.9 Wheaten products 130.3 Animal fats 118.9 b.u.t.ter 118.7 Rice 103.9 Southern fruits 101.2 Meats 81.4 Live animals 291.6 Coffee 219.7 Cacao 67.1

It will be observed that the importations of cereals (bread-stuffs and maize) alone amounted to roughly $260,000,000, without the further item of "wheaten products" for $32,500,000.

Fodder for animals was also imported in large quant.i.ties. The figures for cereals include large amounts of Indian corn, and oilcakes were also imported in the same year to the value of more than $29,600,000.

Germany was no more able to clothe and shoe her inhabitants than she was to feed them. Further imports for 1913 were (in millions of marks):

Cotton 664.1 Wool 511.7 Hides and skins 672.4 Cotton yarn 116.2 Flax and hemp 114.4 Woolen yarn 108.

Imports of chemicals and drugs exceeded $105,000,000; of copper, $86,000,000; of rubber and gutta-percha, $36,500,000; of leaf-tobacco, $43,500,000; of jute, $23,500,000; of petroleum, $17,400,000.

Of foodstuffs, Germany exported only sugar and vegetable oils in any considerable quant.i.ties. The primarily industrial character of the country was evidenced by her exportations of manufactures, which amounted in 1913 to a total of $1,598,950,000, and even to make these exportations possible she had imported raw materials aggregating more than $1,250,000,000.

The war came, and Germany was speedily thrown on her own resources. In the first months various neutrals, including the United States, succeeded in sending some foodstuffs and raw materials into the beleaguered land, but the blockade rapidly tightened until only the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and Switzerland could not be reached directly by it. Sweden, with a production insufficient for her own needs, soon found it necessary to stop all exports to Germany except of certain so-called "compensation articles," consisting chiefly of paper pulp and iron ore. A continuance of these exports was necessary, since Germany required payment in wares for articles which Sweden needed and could not secure elsewhere. The same was true of the other neutral countries mentioned. Denmark continued to the last to export foodstuffs to Germany, but she exported the same quant.i.ty of these wares to England. All the exports of foodstuffs and raw materials from all the neutrals during the war were but a drop in the bucket compared with the vast needs of a people of seventy millions waging war, and they played a negligible part in its course.

Although the German Government was confident that the war would last but a few months, its first food-conservation order followed on the heels of the mobilization. The government took over all supplies of breadstuffs and established a weekly ration of four metric pounds per person (about seventy ounces). Other similar measures followed fast. Meat was rationed, the weekly allowance varying from six to nine ounces in different parts of the Empire.[14] The Germans were not great meat-eaters, except in the cities. The average peasant ate meat on Sundays, and only occasionally in the middle of the week, and the ration fixed would have been adequate but for one thing. This was the disappearance of fats, particularly lard, from the market. The Germans consumed great quant.i.ties of fats, which took the place of meat to a large extent. They now found themselves limited to two ounces of b.u.t.ter, lard, and margarine together per week. Pork, bacon, and ham were un.o.btainable, and the other meats which made up the weekly ration were lean and stringy, for there were no longer American oilcakes and maize for the cattle, and the government had forbidden the use of potatoes, rye or wheat as fodder. There had been some twenty-four million swine in Germany at the outbreak of the war. There were but four million left at the end. Cattle were butchered indiscriminately because there was no fodder, and the survivors, undernourished, gave less and poorer meat per unit than normally.

[14] This allowance had dropped to less than five ounces in Prussia in the last months of the war.

How great a part milk pays in the feeding of any people is not generally realized. In the United States recent estimates are that milk in its various forms makes up no less than nineteen per cent of the entire food consumed. The percentage was doubtless much greater in Germany, where, as in all European countries, much more cheese is eaten per capita than in America. What the German farmer calls _Kraftfutter_, such concentrated fodder as oilcakes, maize-meal, etc., had to be imported, since none of these things were produced in Germany. The annual average of such importations in the years just preceding the war reached more than five million metric tons, and these importations were virtually all cut off before the end of 1917.