Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 10

"Because of England--from whom came the laws, traditions, standards of life and inherent love of liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon civilization. We defeated her once upon the land and once upon sea. But Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Canada are free because of what we did. And they are with us in the fight for the freedom of the seas.

"Because of Russia--new Russia. She must not be overwhelmed now. Not now, surely, when she is just born into freedom. Her peasants must have their chance; they must go to school to Was.h.i.+ngton, to Jefferson and to Lincoln, until they know their way about in this new, strange world, of government by the popular will; and

"Because of other peoples, with their rising hope that the world may be freed from government by the soldier.

GERMANY'S CRIMES AGAINST US.

"We are fighting Germany because she sought to terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not believe that Germany would do what she said she would do upon the seas.

"We still hear the piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never asked forgiveness of the world.

"We saw the Suss.e.x sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neutral nations.

"We saw s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p sent to the bottom--s.h.i.+ps of mercy bound out of America for the Belgian starving; s.h.i.+ps carrying the Red Cross and laden with the wounded of all nations; s.h.i.+ps carrying food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terrorized peoples; s.h.i.+ps flying the Stars and Stripes--sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from sh.o.r.e, manned by American seamen, murdered against all law, without warning.

"We believed Germany's promise that she would respect the neutral flag and the rights of neutrals, and we held our anger and outrage in check.

But now we see that she was holding us off with fair promises until she could build her huge fleet of submarines. For when spring came she blew her promise into the air, just as at the beginning she had torn up that 'sc.r.a.p of paper.' Then we saw clearly that there was but one law for Germany, her will to rule.

"We are fighting Germany because she violated our confidence. Paid German spies filled our cities. Officials of her Government, received as the guests of this nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize, defying our law and the law of nations.

"We are fighting Germany because while we were yet her friends--the only great power that still held hands off--she sent the Zimmermann note calling to her aid Mexico, our southern neighbor, and hoping to lure j.a.pan, our western neighbor, into war against this nation of peace.

GOVERNMENT THAT HAS NO CONSCIENCE.

"The nation that would do these things proclaims the gospel that government has no conscience. And this doctrine cannot live, or else democracy must die! For the nations of the world must keep faith. There can be no living for us in a world where the State has no conscience, no reverence for the things of the spirit, no respect for international law, no mercy for those who fall before its force. What an unordered world! Anarchy! The anarchy of the rival wolf packs!

"We are fighting Germany because in this war feudalism is making its last stand against oncoming democracy. We see it now. This is a war against an old spirit, an ancient, outworn spirit. It is a war against feudalism--the right of the castle on the hill to rule the village below. It is a war of democracy--the right of all to be their own masters. Let Germany be feudal if she will! But she must not spread her system over a world that has outgrown it. Feudalism plus science, thirteenth century plus twentieth; this is the religion of the mistaken Germany that has linked itself with the Turk; that has, too, adopted the method of Mahomet: 'The State has no conscience,' 'the State can do no wrong.' With the spirit of the fanatic, she believes this gospel and that it is her duty to spread it by force.

"With poison gas that makes living a h.e.l.l, with submarines that sneak through the seas to slyly murder non-combatants, with dirigibles that bombard men and women while they sleep, with a perfected system of terrorization that the modern world first heard of when German troops entered China, German feudalism is making war upon mankind.

LIVE IN HAUNTED TERROR.

"Let this old spirit of evil have its way and no man will live in America without paying toll to it, in manhood and in money. This spirit might demand Canada from a defeated, navyless England, and then our dream of peace on the north would be at an end. We would live, as France has lived for forty years, in haunting terror.

"America speaks for the world in fighting Germany. Mark on a map those countries which are Germany's allies, and you will mark but four, running from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria to Turkey. All the other nations, the whole globe around, are in arms against her or are unable to move. There is deep meaning in this.

"We fight with the world for an honest world, in which nations keep their word; for a world in which nations do not live by swagger or by threat; for a world in which men think of the ways in which they can conquer the common cruelties of nature instead of inventing more horrible cruelties to inflict upon the spirit and body of man; for a world in which the ambition or the philosophy of a few shall not make miserable all mankind; for a world in which the man is held more precious than the machine, the system or the State."

In his denunciations of the Imperial German Government President Wilson and his advisers have indicted the House of Hohenzollern, of which Emperor Wilhelm is the head, and which has developed the unbending military spirit which has resulted in Germany being counted an outcast among the nations of the world.

America, it must be noted, has no antipathy for the Germans as a race, but modern civilization opposes that form of Government which has permitted the cruel characteristics of the "wolf tribes" of feudal times to be carried down through the generations, and capitalized by the Imperial powers to bring terror to the hearts of all who do not bow to the iron hand of the Kaiser and his ilk.

GERMANY A WARLIKE RACE.

The thing from which this Prussianism--this militarism--grew is easily traceable down the German ages. The very first appearance of the Germans in history is as a warlike race. The earliest German literature is composed of folk tales about war heroes--their ideals and manly virtues.

And this ideal in one form or another, under varying circ.u.mstances and conditions, persisted throughout the centuries.

It is not merely that military service has been compulsory in Germany, but that almost everything else has been subjugated to the development of the army. While Germany has given to the world a generous quota of scientists, industrial geniuses, musicians and poets, the whole race is imbued with the warlike spirit and its influence is manifest in every phase of national life. Practically all that is best in the nation in the way of efficiency has been inspired or may be traced to the military discipline to which the people have been subjected for years. They have been created human machines, trained to obey orders and to perform the services to which they are a.s.signed without protest and without question.

The history of Germany began with Henry, the Fowler, about A.D. 929, who was essentially the first sovereign. He developed the system of margraves or wardens to guard the frontiers of the kingdom, fortified his towns and required every ninth man to take up arms for his country.

Robbers were forced to become soldiers or be hanged, and as lawlessness was rampant there was no dearth of material to fill up the ranks of the army.

The margraves, or military leaders under them, grew in importance and influence until the offices tended to become hereditary. Gradually the country was divided into princ.i.p.alities, each of which maintained a force of arms. This limited form of military rule maintained for several centuries of troublesome times, or until about 1412, when Emperor Sigismund appointed Burgrave Frederick, of Nuremberg, "Stratt-halter,"

or vice-regent.

BIRTH OF THE MILITARY SPIRIT.

This appointment marked the establishment of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg, and, in fine, fixes the birth of the military spirit in Germany.

Other princes of the German Reich maintained armies, but the Hohenzollerns were destined to imprint upon the nation the military ideal. In the beginning history says that Burgrave Frederick tried all the arts of peace, but it was only with the army of Franks and some artillery that he was able to batter down the castles of the robber lords and bring order into Brandenburg.

Thomas Carlyle gives a list of twelve electors who strove in turn to consolidate the power of Prussia, so that when Frederick the Great became King of Prussia he found much of the work done. Among the rulers of these strenuous days to whom the Kaiser Wilhelm may point as having handed down to him the warlike spirit are Kurfuerst Joachim I, of Brandenburg (1529), who introduced Roman law and established a supreme court for all the provinces at Berlin; Kurfuerst Joachim II, of Brandenburg (1542), whom history describes as an unscrupulous despot, fond of luxury and display, and who changed his religion because it was an advantage politically for him to do so; Margrave Georg Frederick von Ansbach (1564), who caused the eyes of sixty peasants to be bored out upon winning the Peasants' war, and Kurfuerst Frederick William der Grosse, of Brandenburg (1652), known as the "Great Elector," a fighter, who had two clearly defined aims: to build up agriculture and maintain a big army.

For years the Hohenzollerns and their aides were fighting unfriendly neighbors and quarrelsome princes, and when after the lapse of time the Thirty Years' War finally turned Germany into a field of blood, the Great Elector emerged from the strife with the support of about 25,000 well drilled soldiers, and freed his country from foreign foes.

HELD EUROPE AT HIS MERCY.

The establishment of the power of the Junkers--the autocrats of Prussianism--is credited to Frederick the Great, who was the great drillmaster who organized the Prussian army on lines of efficiency and economy. It is related that Frederick, afterward "The Great," was taken from his women teachers at the age of seven years and subjected to rigid military discipline. He commanded a company of cadets, composed of the sons of n.o.bles who were compelled to drill for him, and at the age of fourteen he was a captain in the Potsdam Guards, and when, in 1740, he became king, he took the army and held all Europe at his mercy. His successor, Frederick William II, was incapable, and the French revolution found Germany in a state of discord.

When Frederick William III acceded to the throne in 1797 he started to reorganize the army. Frederick William I had divided the country into districts, or cantons, and here began the system of compulsory military training. All males born were enrolled and liable to service when of age. The army was recruited by districts and every district had its regiment, though later exemptions were allowed. Under Frederick William III, Scharnhorst, a Hanoverian, was the military reorganizer, and he began the work with the slogan "All dwellers of the State are born defenders of the same."

Instead of depending for its development on king, the army was directed by genius of best men developed by the system. After the formation of the German Empire in 1871, which placed the king of Prussia at its head, the Const.i.tution of the German Empire made every German a member of the active army for seven years. Service with colors three years and with the reserve four. In 1875 there were eighteen army corps, of which twelve were Prussian. The strength by law in 1874 was 400,000.

PEACE STRENGTH INCREASED.

In 1881 the established peace strength was increased by thirty-four battalions of infantry, forty batteries of field artillery and other forces, and in 1886 Bismarck, recognizing the power of Prussianism and its military influence, was compelled to dissolve the Reichstag, but after the election in 1887 thirty-one other battalions and twenty-four batteries were added. Two complete army corps were added in 1890, and in 1893 the color service, or length of time when reservists were subject to duty under colors only, was decreased by two years, bringing the peace strength up to more than half a million and the reservists up to 4,000,000. Step by step the strength of the military force was increased until after the adoption of the law of 1913, when provision was made for 699 battalions of infantry; 633 batteries of field artillery; 44 battalions of engineers; 55 battalions of garrison artillery; 31 battalions of communications and 26 battalions of train troops--a grand total of 870,000 actually in service in peace strength.

The German Empire is composed of twenty-six states--Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden, Saxony, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Sterlitz, Oldenburg, Brunswick, Saxe-Weimer-Eisnach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Waldeck, Lippe, Schaumburg-Lippe, Reuss (elder line), Reuss (younger line), Anhalt, Schwarz-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sonderhausen, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck and Reichsland--the Alsace-Lorraine. The area is less than that of the State of Texas while the population according to the most recent statistics is about 65,000,000.

Every male person between the ages of eighteen and forty-five is liable for military service. Reservists under the rules in force when the war started were subject to two musters annually and two periods of training not to exceed eight weeks in duration.

EGOTISTICAL AND EXAGGERATED UTTERANCES.

That the present Emperor is imbued with the harsh military spirit of his ancestors is ill.u.s.trated by his many egotistical and exaggerated utterances. In dedicating the monument of Prince Frederick Charles at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder in 1891, he is quoted as having said:

"We would rather sacrifice our eighteen army corps and our 42,000,000 inhabitants on the field of battle than surrender a single stone of what my father and Prince Frederick gained." The thrills which such expressions arouse are born of an inveterate emotional habit, and are responsible for the obliquity of view and conduct which has made Germany an outcast among civilized nations.

But Germany was not satisfied with what she had obtained by her crusading. Developments of the war prove conclusively that the Kaiser has followed out the blood and iron politico-economic methods of Bismarck for the development of Prussian power and that while at times Germany has been reported to be maneuvering for peace, her peace moves have in reality been war moves, and that a truce would only give the Imperial Government time in which to further Prussianize and prepare for a greater world war the territory to the southeast which she has conquered under the guise of a friendly alliance.

It will be recalled that President Wilson declared that "America must fight until the world is made safe for democracy." This declaration refers immediately to the plans which Germany had developed for its conquest. Based upon reports received by agents of the United States, of England, of France and other countries, Germany aimed to form a consolidation of an impregnable military and economic unit stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, cutting Europe permanently in half, controlling the Dardanelles, the Agean and the Baltic, and eventually forming the backbone of a Prussian world empire.