German Problems and Personalities Part 1

German Problems and Personalities.

by Charles Sarolea.

INTRODUCTION BY THE LITERARY EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK "TIMES"

Three years ago there was one man in Europe who had a political sight so clear that his words then written seem to-day uncanny in their wisdom.[1]

[1] One of the most eminent American theologians, Bishop Brent, wrote in an article on "Speculation and Prophecy": "In Dr. Sarolea's volume, 'The Anglo-German Problem,' published in 1912, there is a power of precognition so startling that one can understand a sceptic of the twenty-first century raising serious doubts as to whether parts of it were not late interpolation." Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his "Crimes of England" applied to the "Anglo-German Problem" the epithet "almost magical."

This man saw the present war; he saw that Belgium would be invaded by Germany; he saw that the Germans hated England with a profound and bitter hate; that German diplomatic blunders had placed that nation in almost complete isolation in the world; that the Triple Alliance was really only a Dual Alliance, popular feeling in Italy becoming increasingly hostile to Austria and to Prussia; that Germans felt their culture to be superior to the civilization of the rest of the world, and themselves to be a superior race, with the right to rule other peoples; that Prussianism and Junkerism and militarism were in complete control of the German soul; that Germany had ambitions for world empire, a recurrence of "the old Napoleonic dream"; that the danger to European peace lay with Germany and not with England; that Germans believed war to be essentially moral and the mainspring of national progress; that the whole German people had become Bismarckian; that the Germans hoped to obtain by a victory over England that shadowless place in the sun toward which they began to leap when they beat France in 1870.

The seer who thus saw is Dr. Charles Sarolea, who recently came to the United States in the interests of his country, one of the most distinguished of Belgian scholars, a friend of King Albert, holder of Belgian decorations and honours from British learned societies, for the last fourteen years Belgian Consul in Edinburgh, and for the last twenty-one years head of the French and Romance Department at the University of Edinburgh. His vision was set out in "The Anglo-German Problem," written in 1912, now published in an authorized American edition, perhaps the most accurate forecast which has been penned of to-day's conflict, and certainly one of the most exact a.n.a.lyses of the German nation made before the world learned, since last August, to know it as it is-as Sarolea, master delineator of a nation's character, drew it. Clear, sane, calm, logical, strong-such is Dr.

Sarolea's book, with its "rare perspicacity" and "remarkable sense of political realities," in the words of King Albert's appreciation of the work.

Dr. Sarolea, looking at Germany from the British Isles, where he was writing, perceived that "war is actually unavoidable" unless a spiritual miracle was wrought; that Europe was "drifting slowly but steadily toward an awful catastrophe." Why? Because Germany was strong, envious, ambitious, conceited, arrogant, unscrupulous, and dissatisfied. It was in Germany that "the pagan G.o.ds of the Nibelungen are forging their deadly weapons," for Germans believe national superiority is due to military superiority. Dr. Sarolea named as a war year this very year[2] in which we now are when he said:

[2] 1915.

"Believing, as they do, that to-day they are rich and prosperous mainly because in 1870 they beat the French people, why should they not believe and trust that in 1915 they would become even stronger and richer if they succeeded in beating the English?"

And the conflict, when it comes, will be "a political and religious crusade," rather than a mere economic war, for the conflict between England and Germany "is the old conflict between liberalism and despotism, between industrialism and militarism, between progress and reaction, between the ma.s.ses and the cla.s.ses."

So many other important points are made in Dr. Sarolea's closely written book, in which practically every sentence contains a fact, an idea, or a prophecy, that it is not possible in this review to do more than present a few of them in the summary which follows. Though the present tense is used by Dr. Sarolea and the reviewer, it should be constantly remembered that Dr. Sarolea was thinking in 1912, not since August, 1914.

Germany is in "tragic moral isolation." The moral and intellectual influence of German culture is steadily diminis.h.i.+ng. Other nations feel a universal distrust and dislike toward Germany. So great is this antipathy that the Germans imagine there is a malignant conspiracy against them. An upstart nation, suddenly wealthy and powerful, Germany has developed an inordinate self-conceit and self-a.s.sertion. The German glories in being a realist. He thinks only of political power and colonial expansion. Might is the supreme test of right. He constantly emphasizes the indelible character of the German race. Germans are suffering from "acute megalomania." They think the English decadent, the French doomed to premature extinction, the Russians "rotten." Germany is the "reactionary force in international politics."

England believes the building of the German Navy is mainly directed against her, though Germany says she is building to protect her colonies and commerce. Yet it is not reasonably possible so to account for the German fleet.

The greatest danger to England is not invasion of the British Isles, but invasion of Belgium and France. These countries are the "Achilles heel of the British Empire." The German strategic railways on the Belgian frontiers show that Germany is far more likely to invade Belgium than England, Belgium again becoming the c.o.c.kpit of Europe.

Germany feels that she has grievances against England; thus her hatred. She thinks England has checked her commercial expansion. But this is not true, for English Free Trade has been one of the most important contributory causes of German prosperity.

Germany thinks England has arrested her colonial expansion; Germany says every other great nation but herself has been permitted to build up a colonial empire; thus she is prevented from attaining her natural growth. But this is not true. England could not have checked her colonial aspirations, because Germany had no colonial aspirations until recently. When Germany did start to seek colonies, she met everywhere conflicting claims of England, but this was because England was already in possession, having begun her colonial policy years before Germany entered the race. Bismarck was largely responsible for Germany's now having so small a colonial territory.

Germany thinks she has another grievance-that England has hemmed her in with a ring of enemies. But Germany is friendless because of her mistakes. Bismarck alienated the Russians for ever in 1878 at the Treaty of Berlin, making a Franco-Russian understanding unavoidable.

The Kruger telegram of 1896, the outburst of anti-British feeling during the Boer War, the German naval programme, opened England's eyes to her danger; thus was England forced to seek France and Russia.

The Kaiser is intensely religious, claiming to be "the anointed of the Lord." Yet he is a materialist, an opportunist, and mainly trusts to brute force. The navy is his creation. He brandishes the sword, saying he loves peace. Napoleon III. used to express his love for peace, yet brought on the most disastrous war of French history; Nicholas II.

started as the peacemaker of Europe, yet brought about the bloodiest war in Russian history. "Are the Kaiser's pacific protests as futile, are his sympathies as shallow, as those of a Napoleon or a Nicholas?"

Dr. Sarolea closes his book thus:

"We can only hope that England, which to-day more than any other country-more, even, than republican France-represents the ideals of a pacific and industrial democracy, may never be called upon to a.s.sert her supremacy in armed conflict, and to safeguard those ideals against a wanton attack on the part of the most formidable and most systematic military power the world has ever seen."

CHAPTER I

AN AMERICAN PREFACE[3]

[3] Preface written for the American Edition of the "Anglo-German Problem," published by Putnam.

I.

The book of which a new and popular edition is now presented to the American public has very little in common with the thousand and one war publications which are distracting the attention of a bewildered and satiated reader. It was not compiled in feverish haste since the war began. It was written years before the war, and represents the outcome of two decades of study and travel in Germany.

The volume was first published in 1912 to dispel the false sense of security which was blinding European opinion to the imminent perils ahead, to warn Britain of the appalling catastrophe towards which all nations were drifting, and to give an accurate estimate of the forces which were making for war. I attempted to prove that Germany and not Britain or France or Russia was the storm-centre of international politics. I attempted to prove that the differences between Germany and Britain were not due to substantial grievances, but that those grievances were purely imaginary; that such catch-phrases as taking Germany's place in the sun were entirely misleading, and that both the grievances and the catch-phrases were merely diverting the public mind from the one real issue at stake, the clash and conflict between two irreconcilable political creeds-the Imperialism of Great Britain, granting equal rights to all, based on Free Trade, and aiming at a federation of self-governing communities; and the Imperialism of Germany, based on despotism and antagonism and aiming at the military ascendancy of one Power over subject races.

I further attempted to show how the German people were in the grip of the Prussian military machine, of a reactionary bureaucracy, and of a Prussian feudal Junkerthum; how behind that military machine and that feudal Junkerthum there were even more formidable moral and spiritual forces at work; how the whole German nation were under the spell of a false political creed; how the Universities, the Churches, the Press, were all possessed with the same exclusive nationalism; and how, being misled by its spiritual leaders, the whole nation was honestly and intensely convinced that in the near future the German Empire must challenge the world in order to establish its supremacy over the Continent of Europe.

II.

_Habent sua fata libelli!_ Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic" was refused by the ill.u.s.trious house of Murray. The now historical "Foundations" of Chamberlain were rejected for twenty years by English publishers, until the translation brought a little fortune to Mr. John Lane. Without in the least suggesting a comparison with those famous works, I only want to point out that the "Anglo-German Problem" has pa.s.sed through as strange literary vicissitudes. A book written by a sympathetic and devoted student of German literature, and who for twenty years had been working for the diffusion of German culture, was denounced as anti-German. A book inspired from the first page to the last with pacific and democratic ideals was denounced as a militarist and mischievous production. A temperate judicial a.n.a.lysis was dubbed as alarmist and sensational and bracketed with the scaremongerings of the Yellow Press. The radical _Daily News_ of London dismissed my volume with a contemptuous notice. The Edinburgh reviewer of the _Scotsman_ pompously declared that such a book could do no good.

To-day both the Press and the public have made ample if belated amends for the unjust treatment meted out to the "Anglo-German Problem" on its first appearance. His Majesty King Albert has emphasized the prophetic character of the book, and has paid it the high compliment of recommending it to members of his Government. University statesmen like President Butler, eminent lawyers like Mr. James Beck, ill.u.s.trious philosophers like Professor Bergson, have testified to its fairness, its moderation, and its political insight. Almost unnoticed on its publication in 1912, the "Anglo-German Problem" is to-day one of the three books on the war most widely read throughout the British Empire, and is being translated into the French, Dutch, and Spanish languages.

III.

Not only have the principles and general conclusions propounded in the "Anglo-German Problem" received signal confirmation from recent events, but the forecasts and antic.i.p.ations have been verified in every detail. It is the common fate of war books to become very quickly out of date. After four years, there is not one paragraph which has been contradicted by actual fact. Even the chapter on the Baghdad Railway, written in 1906 and published as a separate pamphlet nine years ago, remains substantially correct. One of the leading magnates of Wall Street wrote to me: "Events have not only unfolded themselves in the way you antic.i.p.ated, but they have happened for the identical reasons which you indicated." I pointed out the fatal peril of the Austrian-Serbian differences and of the _Drang nach Osten_ policy, and it is those Serbian-Austrian differences which have precipitated the war. I prophesied that the invasion of Belgium and not the invasion of England was the contingency to be dreaded, and Belgium has become the main theatre of military operations. I emphasized that the conflict was one of fundamental moral and political ideals rather than of economic interests, and the war has developed into a religious crusade. I prophesied that the war would be long and cruel, and it has proved the most ruthless war of modern times.

All the forces which I prophesied would make for war have made for war: the reactionary policy of the Junkerthum, the internal troubles, the personality of the Kaiser, the propaganda of the Press and of the Universities. Similarly, the forces which were expected to make for peace, and which I prophesied would _not_ make for peace, have failed to work for peace. Few publicists antic.i.p.ated that the millions of German Social Democrats would behave as timid henchmen of the Prussian Junker, and my friend Vandervelde, leader of the International Social Democracy and now Belgian Minister of State, indignantly repudiated my reflections on his German comrades. Alas! the Gospel according to St.

Marx has been as ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The Social Democracy which called itself the International (with a capital I) has proved selfishly nationalist, and the ma.s.ses which had not the courage to fight for their rights under Kaiser Bebel are now slaughtering their French and English brethren, and are meekly enlisted in the legions of Kaiser William.

The "Anglo-German Problem," written by a writer of Belgian origin who foresaw the catastrophe threatening his native country, will be followed up shortly by another book on the "Reconstruction of Belgium." Belgium has been not only the champion of European freedom; she has also been the innocent victim of the old order. It is only in the fitness of things that after the war Belgium shall become the keystone of the new International Order. The whole of Europe is ultimately responsible for the Belgian tragedy. The whole of Europe must therefore be interested in and pledged to the restoration of Belgium and to the liberation of the Belgian people, now crushed and bleeding under the heel of the Teutonic invader.

CHAPTER II

MY FORECASTS OF 1906 AND 1912[4]

[4] This chapter is entirely made up of extracts taken from my pamphlet, "The Baghdad Railway," _published in_ 1906, and from my book, "The Anglo-German Problem," published in 1912.

I.-WE ARE DRIFTING INTO WAR.

"Europe is drifting slowly but steadily towards an awful catastrophe, which, if it does happen, will throw back civilization for the coming generation, as the war of 1870 threw back civilization for the generation which followed and which inherited its dire legacy of evil.

For the last ten years two great Western Powers and two kindred races have become increasingly estranged, and have been engaging in military preparations which are taxing to the utmost the resources of the people, and are paralyzing social and political reform in both countries. A combination of many causes, moral and political, has bred suspicion and distrust, and the fallacious a.s.sumption of conflicting interests has turned suspicion into hatred. Only a year ago England and Germany stood on the brink of war. If, after the _coup_ of Agadir, Germany had persisted in her policy, the conflagration would have ensued, the storm would have burst out. The war-cloud has temporarily lifted, but it has not pa.s.sed away. The danger is as acute as it was, because the causes which produced the recent outburst are still with us, and the malignant pa.s.sions are gathering strength with each pa.s.sing day.

This formidable evil is threatening England, but it does not originate in England, and England cannot be held responsible for it. The period of aggressive Imperialism has pa.s.sed away. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in so far as they once represented the old bellicose Imperialism, to-day are exploded forces. The English people were never more peacefully inclined, and Liberals and Tories are united in their desire for a pacific solution of the present difficulties.