German Problems and Personalities Part 13

And the solution of the autonomy of Alsace-Lorraine would be in the interests of all parties concerned, as well as of European civilization. France and Germany would be delivered from a nightmare which for forty-four years has paralyzed their activities. One hundred and ten millions of the two most progressive nations of the Continent would cease to oppose each other in every quarter of the globe.

Alsace-Lorraine would cease to be the festering wound on the open frontier of the two countries, but would once more discharge her historical function of being the connecting link between Latin and Teutonic peoples.

And the whole of Europe would be delivered from the crus.h.i.+ng burden of military expenditure. Hundreds of millions at present wasted on armaments would be devoted to productive purposes. Commerce and industry would receive an impetus which in one generation would renew the face of Europe. Reaction would collapse with the disappearance of military predominance, and European Governments could devote themselves whole-heartedly to the anxious problems clamouring for a solution, and to the momentous tasks of popular education and social reform which are waiting to be accomplished.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRAGIC ISOLATION OF GERMANY: AN INTERVIEW WITH A CONTINENTAL STATESMAN

A few months ago[23] it was my good fortune to discuss the international situation with Monsieur Emile Ollivier, the veteran statesman, the Napoleonic Prime Minister with the light heart whose name will ever be identified, and identified unjustly, with a disastrous war. A few days ago it was again my privilege to discuss the European situation with another Continental statesman whose name will for ever be identified with the cause of peace. I am not at liberty to disclose the ident.i.ty of the ill.u.s.trious speaker. Suffice it to say that he is a statesman whose every word compels attention all over the world and imposes respect, a man of infinite wit, of penetrating intellect, and whose commanding personality has on more than one occasion directed the course of world politics, and has helped to save Europe from an impending catastrophe. For more than an hour the speaker discussed with me, if an almost uninterrupted monologue may be called a discussion, the anxious problems of modern Germany. Without reticence or afterthought, he gave me the benefit of his mature wisdom and of a lifelong experience.

[23] Written in the spring of 1914.

I.

You ask me to give you the key of the international situation. That key is in Germany, or rather in Berlin. For Prussia controls Germany, and will more and more control it in the future.

The Germans are nervous and uneasy, and that is why they ceaselessly increase their armaments. They are nervous because the whole European situation has been radically changed, to their detriment. The whole balance of power has been upset by the results of the Balkan War. They are nervous because they are tragically isolated. Germany has no friends, no allies, and has therefore to defend herself on two, or rather on three, fronts. She has to defend herself at once against France, against Russia, and against England.

It is true that the Triple Alliance still subsists. But it subsists only in name. For Germany can count neither on Italy nor on Austria.

She cannot count on Italy. For Italy is a hopeless coquette, and she transfers her erratic affections wherever her interest leads her. Nor can Germany count on Austria. No longer can Austria be called the "loyal secundant." For Austria has ceased to be controlled by her Teutonic population. She is at the mercy of the Slavs, both inside and outside of her empire. She is abandoned by Roumania, who is seeking the support of Russia. She is detested by the Serbians, who have the best organized army in the Balkans. It would have been the vital interest of Austria to win over Serbia, and it would have been so easy to win her over. An equitable treaty of commerce, the concession of a port on the Adriatic, and Serbia would have become the ally of Austria. Serbia was prepared to forget the shameful policy hitherto pursued by Austria. All that was required was some give-and-take, some fairness.

II.

But that sense of fairness, of international equity, is exactly what both Prussia and Austria are so lamentably deficient in. The Austrians, like the Prussians, may be individually most pleasant.

Politically and collectively they are consistently disagreeable. They never seem to understand the first principle of diplomacy-namely, that no treaty can be of any permanent value which is only advantageous to one side.

And then there is the utter tactlessness of the Germans. It is partly explainable by their belief in force. When you believe in force you do not trouble to persuade or conciliate. It is also partly explainable by the absence in Prussia of an old tradition of refinement and culture. As Bismarck once said cynically and frankly to Thiers: "Mon cher ami! Nous autres Prussiens, nous sommes encore des barbares" (We Prussians, we are still barbarians).

The Prussian, therefore, in diplomacy is a blunderer and a bully. He has the art of making himself unpleasant. And he seems to enjoy doing so. It is significant that the Germans are the only people who have coined a special word to express the pleasure felt by inflicting pain. The curious and expressive German word _Schadenfreude_ cannot be translated into any other language.

III.

And that is why in politics the Germans fail to make friends. They are feared by all nations. They are respected by some. They are loved by none.

And they fail to make friends at home quite as lamentably as abroad.

They fail to win over the nations living under their own German laws.

They are making such inconceivable blunders as the expropriation of the Poles and the colonization scheme of Posen. It is a striking fact that with the single possible exception of the Galicians-who fear Russia even more than they detest Austria-there is not a single non-German-speaking people either in the German Empire or in the Austrian Empire who has accepted the rule of the Teuton. Alsatian and Dane, Pole and Tchech, Croatian and Roumanian-all the subject races are equally disaffected. They may disagree in everything, but they agree in their opposition to Teutonic rule.

What a tragedy this German world empire of the twentieth century! Once Germany was made up of little cities and great Universities. To-day she is made up of big cities and impotent Universities. Where are the spiritual and artistic glories of the past? The moral and intellectual influence of Germany has reached its lowest ebb.

IV.

It is this striking isolation of Germany which compels her to arm. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that this very isolation is making for peace. n.o.body either in Europe or Germany wants war.

Neither the Emperor nor his Ministers want war. War is too great a risk. It is too much of a gamble. In warfare it is always the unexpected that happens. War may be the national industry of Prussia.

But it is the most _speculative_ of all industries.

At the same time, whilst we are all wis.h.i.+ng for peace, we must ever be on our guard. With the militarist tendencies of a bureaucratic and despotic State, with the economic pressure of an increasing population, one is always at the mercy of an incident. Twenty-five years ago the Schnaebele incident brought Europe to the verge of war.

Similar frontier incidents in this age of aeroplanes can happen any day. They did happen yesterday. They did not lead to serious consequences. They might lead to fatal consequences to-morrow. They might be magnified by a sensational Press and by bellicose partisans such as the Pan-Germanists. The Pan-Germanists may be only a small minority to-day, but they are noisy, and they are just the kind of people ever looking out for just such "unpleasant incidents."

Yes, let us be on our guard! Let us not trust to a false sense of security, and let us not put our trust in politics and politicians.

Politics are so petty, and politicians so impotent. How many so-called statesmen are there to-day who have the courage of their convictions, and who would not be carried away by the impulses and emotions of the moment?

V.

Such were the weighty words of the European statesman. They were uttered without animus and without pa.s.sion. They were uttered with the serene detachment of the philosopher and of the experienced man of the world. And they express the deliberate opinions of a confirmed pacifist. And they express the substantial truth.

It would be well if our German friends would ponder and meditate those sober and sobering utterances. It would be well if they would try and give their own explanation of their tragic isolation and of their universal political unpopularity. It would be well if they in turn would ask themselves why political Germany is left without a friend in the wide world? As Maximilian Harden once said: "Uns lebt kein Freund auf der weiten Welt." Might not the result of such sobering reflections be to induce the Germans to turn over a new leaf? Might it not help to precipitate the downfall of a medieval military bureaucracy? And might it not help to falsify the ominous prophecy of our European statesman that Prussia will more and more control the politics of the German Empire?

We loved the glorious Germany of the past. Let the Germany of to-morrow make herself again as cordially liked as she is feared to-day. But let her understand that no nation will allow herself to be bullied into sympathy. Sympathy must be spontaneous. In the words of one of her greatest thinkers: "Die Liebe ist wie der Glaube, man kann sie nicht erzwingen" (Love is like Faith. You cannot secure it by force).

CHAPTER XIV

RUSSIA AND GERMANY

I.

The complicated and contradictory relations between Russia and Germany can be summed up very briefly. On the one hand, there existed before the war the closest intercourse between the Russian and the German Courts, and that close intercourse extended to the army, to the bureaucracy, to the Universities, to the industrial and commercial cla.s.ses. On the other hand, the Russian and the German people are mutually repelled. There is a temperamental antagonism between the two nations, between the dour disciplined Prussian and the easygoing disciplined Russian. In the province of ideas, of art and literature, French influence is dominant amongst the intellectual and in the upper cla.s.ses, but as literature counts for very little, and as trade and industry, as the bureaucracy and the Court, count for a very great deal, and as all these social and political forces. .h.i.therto were almost entirely controlled by the Germans, it may be said that before the war German influence was supreme in the Russian Empire.

II.

Until Peter the Great, the Romanov Family was a national dynasty. It had remained national from sheer necessity, as no European Court would have cared to intermarry with Tatar and Barbarian Princes. Even at the end of Peter the Great's reign the prestige of Russia had scarcely a.s.serted itself in the politics of the West. Peter the Great expressed a keen desire to pay a visit to the Court of Louis XIV. He was politely given to understand that his visit would not be acceptable, even as a poor relation will be told that his visit is not welcome to a kinsman in exalted position. After the death of Louis, the Tsar again asked to be received at Versailles. This time his overtures were accepted, but even at the Court of the Regent his visit caused the greatest embarra.s.sment to the masters of ceremonies. The situation was a tragi-comic one. French etiquette could not decide whether the Tatar Prince was to receive the honours which belong of right only to the ruler of a civilized people.

For the first time in modern Russian history, Peter the Great's daughter, Anne, married a German Prince in 1725. With that year begins that close dynastic alliance with the German Courts which has lasted until our own day. Germany has been carrying on a most thriving export trade of Princes and Princesses with almost every European monarchy-an export trade of which she is reaping the enormous political advantages in the present crisis. But in Russia alone she has obtained a monopoly of this royal export trade. _All the Russian Tsars have married German Princesses._ For one hundred and fifty years the rule suffered no exception until Alexander II. married a daughter of the Danish Dynasty, which itself is in reality the German Dynasty of Oldenburg.

I need not emphasize the supreme importance of those close family relations between the Courts of Russia and Germany, _and especially between the Courts of Russia and Prussia_. It is the peculiarity of an autocratic government that the smallest causes are productive of the greatest consequences, and amongst those smaller causes none are likely to produce more far-reaching results than the personal likes and dislikes of the ruler and his family. In the Empire of the Tsars the sympathies of the ruler and of the Imperial family for a hundred and fifty years have generally been German. Women have no less influence in Russia than in other countries, and as every Russian Princess has, for a hundred and fifty years, been German in origin, German by training, German by pride of birth, German by prejudice, the Teutonic influences have necessarily been supreme in the Russian Court. Nor must we forget that every German Princess coming to Petrograd would bring with her a numerous suite of ladies-in-waiting and Court officials, so that the German Court colony was automatically increasing. Indeed, it is no mere chance that the capital, the military harbour, and the chief Imperial residences should all have German names-Kronstadt, Oranienbaum, Schluessenburg, Petersburg, and Peterhof. Peterhof has been the Russian Potsdam. Petersburg has been the outpost of Germany in the Russian Empire, the _feste Burg_ of Prussia until the eve of the war.

III.

From what has been said, it is obvious that the national Romanov Dynasty, founded in 1613 by Michael Romanov, Patriarch of all the Russias, ceased to be a Romanov Dynasty at the death of Empress Elizabeth in 1761. With Peter III. it is a German Dynasty which ascends the throne. Peter III., son of a Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, is a Romanov in the proportion of one-half; Paul, son of a Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, in the proportion of one-fourth; Alexander I. and Nicholas I., sons of a Princess of Wurtemberg, in the proportion of one-eighth; Alexander II., son of a Princess of Hohenzollern, to the extent of one-sixteenth; Alexander III., son of a Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Hesse-Darmstadt, to the extent of one thirty-second; and the late ruler, Nicholas II., who married a Princess of the House of Oldenburg, to the extent of one sixty-fourth. One sixty-fourth of the blood of the late Tsar is Russian Romanov blood. In the proportion of sixty-three sixty-fourths it is the blood of Holstein, of Anhalt, of Oldenburg, of Hesse, of Wurtemberg, of Hohenzollern, which flows through the veins of the late Emperor of all the Russias.

IV.