Face to Face with Kaiserism Part 33

Gradually the splendid peace message of our President (Jan. 8, 1918) will sink into the consciousness of the German people.

There are liberal and reasonable men among them striving for peace and for disarmament.

In January of 1917, just at the moment when the military autocracy brought on war with America by their sudden announcement of ruthless submarine warfare, the liberals of Germany were preparing to co-operate with our President in the efforts that he was then making for peace.

A Socialist member of the Reichstag, a man whose name is known throughout the world, wrote at that time two articles to be used in the effort for peace, and I print them in order that those outside of Germany may obtain a glimpse of the mind of one of the leading Socialists of that country. These articles have never before been published.

I feel that now when we are at war with Germany perhaps it would cause embarra.s.sment to this man should I publish his name. In a country where a man may be sent to jail for speaking without respect of some act of the Kaiser's ancestors, committed more than four hundred years ago, it is dangerous for any German to put his name to utterances which might not march with the wishes of despotic Germany.

It has always been the desire of the Kaiser's government to draw the Allies into a peace conference with the hope of detaching some of the Allies from their combination. Perhaps these articles, although written by a Socialist, were part of a clever governmental peace propaganda to which the majority Socialists so readily lent themselves during the year 1917. But on the other hand I think these articles represent the sincere real expression of the writer who is still a member of the Minority or Haase faction of the German Socialist Party. Though written a year ago they discuss points still unsolved and which must come before the peace conference that settles the war:

HOW AMERICA CAN HELP EUROPE.

BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG

The immediate reply of the Central Powers to President Wilson's note (Dec., 1916) has been a polite refusal to indicate, beyond some generalities open to the blame of ambiguity, in a clear way what their demands of peace would be. It has been followed by their note to the neutrals of the 11th of January, which also avoids giving a distinct delineation of their demands. The Central Powers maintain that only a peace conference of the belligerents themselves would be the proper place to bring forth the respective peace conditions, and they state they would produce theirs when once the conference has met. Putting aside every insinuation of motives one cannot help being reminded by this of the att.i.tude of the Central Powers during the fateful twelve days of July-August, 1914, when they refused any outside mediation and insisted on direct conversations between Russia and Austria, whilst the punitive military expedition of the latter against Servia had to take its course. In so far their suggestion would not augur well for the execution.

The Entente Allies, on their side, have been somewhat more explicit. Their answer to President Wilson includes the delineation of demands that certainly are open to criticism, but just for this call for a reply or even compel it. At the time these lines are written only newspaper comments have so far come forward, and it is not necessary to dwell upon these. Nor does it seem appropriate to antic.i.p.ate the reply of the Chancellor, which in some form or other will surely be given in the course of the next weeks. What matters is that there is a programme given for discussion and we are able to scrutinise its nature and bearing.

The demands explicitly or implicitly contained in the note of the Allies can be summarised under five heads, viz.:

1. Rest.i.tution of occupied territory to its former political community,

2. Reparation for inflicted material and moral wrongs,

3. Territorial changes motivated by alleged

a. rights of nationality,

b. need for freeing suppressed or protecting consistently maltreated nationalities,

4. Reform of International Law,

5. National and international treaties for the protection of inland and maritime boundaries.

Of these the demands under 1 and 2 are certainly in their principle quite reasonable, and if it comes to actual and exact formulation are apt to lead to a fair agreement.

The demands under 3 are partly on principle also un.o.bjectionable, whilst some, as e.g., the cession of the Polish provinces of Prussia to a Polish state under Russian tutelage or the cession of the European vilayets of Turkey to Russia or some newly created community under Russian tutelage, can hardly be supported by reasonable argument in the face of the fact that they could only be carried out by dictation after a complete and crus.h.i.+ng victory of the Allies over the Central Powers. That is to say, after a prolonged war more murderous and more embittered than that behind us.

It is to be expected that public discussion will in regard to demands of this nature create an opinion resulting in their reduction if not disappearance. What is reasonable in them falls either under number 3, letter "a," or under numbers 4 and 5.

Now as regards the demands under 4 and 5, the settlement of most of them belongs rightly to an International Conference of all the nations. In their good and efficient regulation all are interested. They are also of the greatest concern to the future of mankind as a whole. The demands or questions can as regards their general character also be divided under three other heads, viz.:

Firstly, questions of justice to nations or nationalities as political or sociological ent.i.ties,

Secondly, questions of the most expedient settlement of disputes between individual Powers or groups of such where no fundamental principles of nationality or similar rights are concerned, and

Thirdly, questions which concern all the nations through their common interest in general security and protection against the disturbance of international peace and traffic.

Both the Allies and the Central Powers agree to the idea of settling these latter questions in a better way than before; i.e., by an International League of the Nations to enforce peace. But both want the creation of this League to be settled after the war. It can, however, with good reason be upheld that there is in this a fault against logic which would have to be paid dearly by them as well as by the neutral world. Both base a number of their demands on the necessity of protecting themselves against renewed onslaughts by their opponents. Now such protection might be a necessary thing under the present state of an International Law which has been outraged and partly been made inane by themselves and has partly turned out not to meet the conditions of modern warfare as they result from the modern weapons of destruction. But it would be made unnecessary or its requirements be greatly reduced if the League of the Nations, such as is in principle accepted by them, did already exist or had its rules and regulations already laid down in detail. Is it reasonable to allow this contradiction to cause now innumerable deaths and mutilations of human beings and unbounded destruction of material wealth instead of seeking means to dissolve it as early as possible? Ought not all our wits be exerted to find this earlier solution?

There are within the means of the neutrals, if acting together, two ways to bring the war to an earlier end than that to be expected from the free decision of the belligerents. The one is to drop all considerations of neutrality such as at present regarded and, without directly supporting the one section to the detriment of the other, withdraw from both of them all supplies in food, raw material, half and wholly manufactured goods, not minding which section would by this be more damaged than its opponents. In fact, it would most likely be a decidedly unneutral measure against the one section which now benefits more than the other by these supplies, and because of this and from other reasons there is little probability that it would find general acceptance. The other way is to reduce the justification of the continuation of the war by minimising the objects for which it is led in the belief of the great ma.s.ses of the people engaged as much as in the eyes of the outside world.

Both belligerents, to say it again, put in the first line of their requirements security against renewed attacks, protection against the continuation of the insecurity of peace. Both admit that the proposed League of the Nations has become a necessity; both admit that it might indeed protect mankind against new wars and a state of incessantly endangered peace. Why then wait and let the disaster go on instead of proceeding at once to lay the foundation of this League?

The step is not so impossible as it might appear.

Supposing one neutral state took the matter in hand and, after having ascertained the consent of the other neutrals or at least a majority of them--which it is almost sure to obtain--would invite all the nations, the belligerents included, to a conference or a congress at a neutral place for the discussion and the arrangement of the principles and rules of the proposed League of the Nations. Would the belligerent nations refuse to send their delegates to such a conference? Could they do it without damaging their case before the world of the neutrals and the ma.s.ses of their own people? It is most improbable that they would do such a thing. And even if they did they would not by this put the conference to naught. It would be there and would give palpable substance to an idea which until now lived, in spite of great and most ingenuous work spent on it, politically only in the sphere of lofty speculation or projects.

And the conference could do more. Starting from the maxim which finds such impressive accentuation in President Wilson's note that war in general must not, and the present war in particular can not, be regarded as the private affair of the individual states that engage in it, the conference could also take into consideration some questions of consequence connected with the present war. It could, e.g., whilst laying the foundations for the security of countries against wilful attacks lay down opinions about the just settlement of disputed questions of nationality and the liberation of nations or part of such from allegiance to a state or empire of different or mixed nationalities. It seems to become a necessity to make clear whether a Power or coalition of such can be justified to put in the list of their war aims the liberation of nationalities without sufficient proof that the latter all want to sever their connection with the state or empire to which they just belong.

The Tcheques in Austria and the Finns in Russia strive for their full autonomy within these empires, but they have very little shown of a desire to become a separate state. An opinion that wars for abstruse benefits never asked for can under no circ.u.mstances be regarded as liberation wars would wrong n.o.body because it would apply to all, but it may contribute much to have designs given up which otherwise would uselessly cause bloodshed and prolonged enmities.

The conference would also be justified in taking measures to procure an impartial expert opinion on the origin and the legal conduct of the war and the general principles of national and international right involved.

If the conference would invite neutral experts in international law of general renown to investigate the questions indicated above and draw up reports it would not by this offend in the smallest degree against the requirements of impartiality. But the reports could, if based on careful examination and considerately worded, contribute very much to soften the excited minds in the countries engaged and facilitate the preliminaries of a genuine peace.

There are, no doubt, all sorts of objections that could be raised against this suggestion. But they can be met satisfactorily if the matter is taken up in earnest and with practical mind. The princ.i.p.al difficulty to overcome is _time_; no time must be wasted by research in far-fetched details. It is a comparatively short list of pertinent questions which would have to be answered, and the materials of their examination are already at hand in the declarations and doc.u.mentary publications of the different governments themselves which want to be verified by juxtaposition with the corresponding publications of the other side and to be scrutinised upon their intrinsic significance.

Works of conscientious legists and historians that could serve as specimens are not missing. But they are occasioned by private enterprise and express opinions not always in the measured language that would alone fit the purpose here in view.

This purpose is to direct the minds of the greatest possible number of people in the affected countries to such way of regarding the questions of the war and to such comprehension of the feeling of the other side as are the necessary conditions of a sane and sober appreciation of the nature and the possibilities of a reasonable peace. The present feeling in these sections of the public which form public opinion in this country as in England and in France, is as full of bitterness as can be. A cure is badly wanted, but it does not proceed automatically. Weariness of the war is there, but it is counteracted partly by the manifold incidents of the war itself, by the appet.i.tes it has awakened, by the mutual distrust it has created.

It might be objected that one can hardly expect a number of even neutral experts to come to a concerted opinion on these points. But it would be of little consequence if the experts, instead of agreeing on a common report, would publish majority and minority reports. What matters is that opinions of qualified experts are at all drawn up and published, so that discussion is as much as possible free from the effects of the biased speeches of interested statesmen and other politicians and their press. The report or reports would also be of use when an armistice at least had been agreed upon and a conference for the conclusion of a peace is sitting. And even if the work of the invited experts should take more time than the conclusion of the peace itself, the reports might still be of considerable value. For what matters is not only that a peace is come to but also that the nations should afterward possess authoritative impartial opinions on the main questions of consequence connected with the origin and the conduct of the war. For such opinions would educate the poisoned minds to an objective and argumentative discussion of the means to prevent a repet.i.tion of the present disaster.

Only those who live in the affected countries can be aware how great the need is for providing the general public with unbiased authoritative expositions of these questions.

Finally the conference could and should also discuss in a pertinent way the question of _disarmament_. This question has to-day reached a stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is now a question of commanding necessity, one can justly say of life and death of the reached stage of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical expositions will in regard to it now suffice. We must have practical proposals, proposals of a scheme to put disarmament into practice and proposals of the means to induce the different states to accept the scheme and to carry it out.

It is a big and pretentious programme here suggested, the first to be decided by breaks with the old principle of non-interference in state affairs. But the times are so exceptional that extraordinary measures cannot be shunned. If one sees two lads fight each other with their fists or even sticks one may well say, "Let them first fight it out and then we shall see to bring them to reason." But if they stand on board a s.h.i.+p and, mad with rage, and, without interruption and unremittingly, throw incendiary matter at each other you would rather stop them before the s.h.i.+p is in flames. Under other conditions it might be the right thing to convoke a conference to be held after the war is over. As it is now, reason would demand not to adjourn the term to that juncture.

This is not the place to adjudicate responsibilities. Suffice it to say that the present aspect of the conflict is the worst since its beginnings and threatens aggravations of its horrors.

Of all the neutrals none is more predestined to take the initiative in this grave matter than the United States of America, by their great power, by their geographical position, by the ethnological composition of their citizens and last, but not least, by their historical traditions they before all are called to act. The small European nations are already, as it were, too much under the fire around them to be so free in their action as is the government of the giant republic on the western hemisphere. But that they would with the greatest readiness join in the convocation of a conference for the settlement of at least the two first of the described subjects is sure beyond any doubt.

The leader in the arrangement of this conference is, in my opinion, the least objectionable, and at the same time it is the most promising help that in the present appallingly entangled situation America can give Europe. The Old World is poisoned. The virus of the most irrational hatred of its component sections against each other, inoculated into them by all sorts of false leaders of opinion, eats deeper and deeper and threatens to mortify all the roots of a wholesome life. May the United States of America help a disunited Europe to find the way out of the deadly miasmatic jungle into which it has lost itself.

THE HELPLESSNESS OF EUROPE

BY ---- ----, MEMBER OF THE REICHSTAG

Europe is in the position of a wanderer who has gone astray into a swamp. In vain he labours to regain firm ground. The more frantically he struggles the surer he is to become submerged.

Like an infant child he is unable to help himself.

Help must come from people outside the swamp.

We are now in the third year of the biggest, the most fratricidal and the most hopeless war the world has ever seen. It is hopeless in so far as on the one side none of the two coalitions is likely to be in a visible time as much the victor over the other that it can dictate it its own terms, and as on the other side there is no common basis to be seen for a sensible compromise. It is not the extravagance of demands that forms an insuperable barrier for peace. Extravagant terms of peace have indeed been formulated by unauthorised persons or groups but they have nowhere received the sanctioning stamp of the responsible governments. The latter prefer rather to s.h.i.+ne by the moderation of their demands, at least as far as territory is concerned. But it is just this apparent moderation that makes peace such an almost insoluble problem.

Far behind this moderation in regard to territorial demands looms the desire to destroy the opponents' chances of political predominance.

The war is, for the present at least, in the first instance a struggle about the supremacy in Europe. And this perhaps more in a negative sense than otherwise. Jingoes are, of course, everywhere in high and low quarters, but it is very doubtful whether one of the responsible heads of the belligerent nations pursues for himself or his nation seriously and consistently what might be called the mastery of Europe. All are, however, dead against the idea that this mastery might pa.s.s into the other camp. Comparatively easy as it is to settle a dispute on questions of territory by arbitration or to work out schemes for compromise in regard to such, so difficult or almost impossible it would be to arbitrate on a question of actual supremacy or to settle it by compromise.

Particularly in the camp of the Allies is the possibility lest Germany might emerge out of the war the actual arbiter of Europe conceived as an unbearable thought. None of the allied Powers, neither England nor France and not even Russia, Italy being in this respect quite out of question, has during the last decades shown a disposition or a pretence to play up to such a part.