German Problems and Personalities Part 8

XVIII.-THE MONARCHY AS THE IDEAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

War is the essential activity of the State. But in order to be strong in war, unity and concentration are essential; they are the conditions of victory. That unity may, no doubt, be achieved under any form of government. It may be achieved under a republic, as it was during the wars of the French Revolution. It may be achieved under an aristocracy, as in the case of Great Britain, which is a monarchy only in name, which, in reality, is a Parliamentary oligarchy, and which is always waging some guerilla in some outlying post of empire. But the fact remains that unity can be best achieved under a monarchic form of government, which concentrates all powers into the hands of the responsible monarch. That is why monarchy is the best form of government.

XIX.-THE ARISTOCRACY AS THE MAINSTAY OF THE MONARCHIC STATE.

A loyal military aristocracy like the Junkers is the mainstay of a national monarchy. An aristocratic const.i.tution of the State is in conformity with the nature of things. Not only all military activities but all social and economic life depends on the distinction of cla.s.ses, on the existence of different grades corresponding to a difference in natural endowment, in social service. The equality of man not only is an unattainable ideal, it is also an undesirable and a mischievous ideal. Suppress inequality and distinctions and honours and you suppress the main stimulus of human endeavour; you suppress that rich differentiation of social life, that generous rivalry, that n.o.ble ambition, which are the conditions of all intensive human activity.

XX.-THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY DOGMA OF EQUALITY.

The greatest danger, therefore, to the monarchic and aristocratic const.i.tution of the State arises from the insidious advance of the French revolutionary dogma of equality. The spirit of envy is undermining the social hierarchy in every country. That mean spirit of democratic envy is as old as the democratic inst.i.tution itself.

Ostracism in the n.o.bler elements of the community is as characteristic of the Greek democracy as of the French. All democracies have resented that Aristides should be called the "Just." So far it is only the Prussian State which has escaped from the poisonous doctrine of Rousseau. But even in Prussia the progress of the Gospel according to Saint Marx is a disquieting symptom. To defend the prerogatives of the Junkers against the a.s.saults of the Social Democracy must therefore be one of the main political concerns of a patriotic Prussian.

XXI.-THE PLEA FOR PROTESTANTISM.

It may be said that Protestantism is so closely identified with modern German history that it may almost be considered as the Germanic form of Christianity. Certainly Prussia is an essentially Protestant State.

From the beginning it has grown from the secularization of Church property, when a Hohenzollern Grand Master, following the advice of Luther, took the bold step of confiscating the demesnes of the Teutonic Order. But it is not only Prussia that has grown and prospered through Protestantism. The Protestant form of Christianity in whatever form is essential to the very existence of the modern State. For no State can exist unless the spiritual power be subordinated to the temporal power. The Protestant Church must needs accept that subordination because Protestantism must necessarily result in a diversity of rival and powerless sects, and therefore, if it be true that Protestantism is necessary for the State, the State is even more necessary to Protestantism. The old dictum, _Cujus regio, illius religio_, holds good of Prussia. The spiritual allegiance follows the temporal allegiance. The State alone can secure for those different Churches that peace and toleration without which religious war becomes a chronic evil. Toleration and the peaceful coexistence of many Churches under the protection of the State have been for centuries the boast and glory of the Prussian State.

Catholicism does not accept that necessary subordination. The German State of the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire of the Hohenstaufen, perished because of the conflict with the Papacy. The modern Teutonic State, the Holy German Empire of the Habsburg, has equally perished through clericalism. Catholicism is an international power, and the State must be national. Catholicism is encroaching and threatening the national State, and the State must remain independent and supreme; therefore Catholicism, ultramontanism, clericalism, are absolutely incompatible with the modern State.

XXII.-THE NECESSITY OF GREAT POWERS.

Inasmuch as power is the main attribute of the State, it follows that only those States which are sufficiently strong in population, in territory, and in financial resources, have a right to exist. There is a definite limit below which a State cannot fulfil its mission nor defend its existence. We must not be deceived by the example of such States as Athens, Venice, Holland, and Florence, which, although apparently small in territory, yet played an important part in political history. Those States were only small in outward appearance; in reality they were either the centres of a vast political system, like Athens and Florence, or the centres of a vast colonial empire, like Venice and Holland. Moreover, in modern times, the whole relations and proportions of States have undergone a fundamental change. Everything is on a larger scale, and there is an almost general tendency in modern times for all national States to expand and to absorb into themselves the smaller neighbouring States. It may almost be said that modern history is made up mainly of the conflicts between five or six leading States. Contemporary Europe had resulted in the unstable equilibrium of the five dominant Powers of Britain, Russia, Austria, France, and Germany. Europe has almost consolidated into a pentarchy.

XXIII.-THE ANOMALY OF THE SMALL STATE.

If it be true that the national State almost inevitably must develop into a great Power, conversely it is no less true that small States are an anomaly. Treitschke never ceased to rail at the monstrosity of petty States, at what he calls, with supreme contempt, the "_Kleinstaaterei_." Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, are not really States. They are only artificial and temporary structures. Holland will one day be merged into the German Empire and recover its pristine glory.

The smallness of the State produces a corresponding meanness of spirit, a narrowness of outlook. Small States are entirely absorbed by their petty economic interests and party dissensions. They only exist as the parasites of the larger States, who ensure their prosperity and security and bear all the brunt of maintaining law and order in Europe.

But worse even than the small States is the neutral State. A neutral State in political life is as much a monstrosity as a neutral s.e.xless animal in the natural world. A State like Belgium is only the parasite of the larger neighbouring States. Treitschke never mentions Belgium without an outburst of contempt. The country of Memlinck and van Eyck, of Rubens and van Dyck, the country whose people in the present war have borne the first onslaught of all the Teutonic hosts, are never mentioned by Treitschke except with a sneer.

In no other part of his political system does Treitschke show more sublime disregard of all those political facts which do not fit in with his theories. No other part more conclusively proves how the tyrannical dogma of Prussian nationalism can blind even a profound and clear-sighted thinker to the most vital historical realities. It must be apparent _a priori_ to any student of politics that the life of small communities must gain in concentration and intensity what it loses in scope and extent. And it must be obvious that small States have played a much more conspicuous part than the most powerful empires. The city of Dante, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, has done more for culture than all the might and majesty of the Hohenzollern.

Humanity is indebted to one small State-Palestine-for its religion.

To another small State-Greece-humanity owes the beginning of all art and the foundations of politics. To other small States-Holland and Scotland-modern Europe is indebted for its political freedom. And are not the German people themselves indebted for the glories of their literature to the contemptible cities of Jena and Weimar?

XXIV.

We have explained the main tenets of the Treitschkean creed. Even after this exhaustive a.n.a.lysis it will be difficult for an English reader to understand how such a system, if we divest it of its rhetoric, of its fervid and impa.s.sioned style, and of a wealth of historical ill.u.s.tration, which has been able to ransack every country and every age, could ever have inspired a policy and could have hypnotized so completely a highly intelligent and gifted race.

Our incomprehension is partly due to that strange disbelief in the power of ideas to which we already referred, which remains such a marked trait of the British people, even as it was a marked trait of the Roman people, and which is perhaps characteristic of all nations who are pre-eminent in action, in colonization and empire-building.

This disbelief partly explains why we have revealed such strange impotence in fighting our spiritual battles. Our Churches have remained silent and inarticulate. Our statesmen have seldom risen above sentimental plat.i.tudes. No trumpet voice has vindicated our ideas to the world. Our writers, with a few notable exceptions, such as Mr. Gilbert Chesterton and Mr. Wells, have seldom risen above trite truisms. This war has not even produced a masterpiece such as Burke's "Thoughts on the French Revolution."

But our incomprehension is due even more to our ignorance of the strange and devious workings of the German mind. Even to-day few authors understand the reasons which render the German people so responsive and so docile to the most extravagant doctrines and systems. The British are a political people; and a political people only accepts theories in so far as they can be verified, interpreted, and corrected by experience, only in so far as they can be tested by the fire of discussion. The German people, as even Prince von Bulow is compelled to admit, have remained an essentially unpolitical people. They still are under the yoke of countless princelings. There still exist sovereign potentates of Lippe and Waldeck, of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. The Germans have acquired none of the habits and traditions of free government. But, most important of all, their religion has acted in the same direction as their politics. They are described by Treitschke as the typical Protestant nation; but the misfortune of German Protestantism has been that it has never "protested." Through the fusion and confusion of Church and State the Germans have sold their spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage.

Their spiritual life has been almost entirely divorced from action. It has been centred in the intellect and in the emotions. It has moved in a world of abstraction and dreams.

And thus both their politics and their religion have made them a prey to visionaries and sentimentalists, to unscrupulous journalists like Harden and Reventlow, to unbalanced poets like Nietzsche, to political professors, and to fanatic doctrinaires. Of those academic politicians and fanatic doctrinaires, Treitschke has probably been the most dangerous and the most ill.u.s.trious representative. He will ever remain a memorable example of the power for evil which may be wielded by a n.o.ble and pa.s.sionate temperament untrained in and unrestrained by the realities of political life, who sees the State from the alt.i.tude of the professional tripod. The war will have helped to break the spell of the political professor, but the spell will continue to act until all the spiritual forces of Germany, until the Press and the Universities and the Churches, are emanc.i.p.ated from the intrusion of the State, until the German democracy reveals both the spirit and conquers the power to achieve its own salvation.

IV.-GENERAL VON BERNHARDI.[15]

[15] These pages were published in 1912.

As a rule the deliberate military policy of a nation remains the secret of diplomacy and the afterthought of statecraft. As for the military feeling and the military spirit, so far as they exist amongst the people, they generally remain subconscious, unreasoned, and instinctive. It is therefore a piece of rare good fortune to the student of contemporary history when the designs of statesmen are carefully thought out and revealed by one who has authority to speak, and when the instinct of the ma.s.ses is explained and made explicit by one who has the gift of lucid statement, of philosophical interpretation, and psychological insight. It is precisely those qualities and characteristics that give importance and significance to the recent book of General von Bernhardi on "Germany and the Coming War." The author is a distinguished representative of that Prussian Junkerthum which forms the mainstay of the military party and which rules the German Empire. He therefore speaks from the inside. And his previous works have earned him a high reputation as an exponent of the science of war, and have worthily maintained the traditions of Clausewitz and von der Goltz. Nor are these the only qualifications of the author. General von Bernhardi's new book possesses other qualities which ent.i.tle him to a respectful hearing. He writes with absolute candour and sincerity; his tone is unexceptionable; he is earnest and dignified; he is moderate and temperate; he is judicial rather than controversial. Although the author believes, of course, that Germany stands in the forefront of civilization and has a monopoly of the highest culture, yet his book is singularly free from the one great blemish which defaces most German books on international politics-namely, systematic depreciation of the foreigner. Von Bernhardi does not a.s.sume that France is played out or that England is effete. He is too well read in military history not to realize that to belittle the strength or malign the character of an enemy is one of the most fruitful causes of disaster.

Altogether we could not have a better guide to the study of the present international situation from the purely German point of view, nor could we find another book which gives us more undisguisedly the "mentality," the prejudices and prejudgments and opinions of the ruling cla.s.ses. And it is a characteristically German trait that no less than one-third of the work should be given to the philosophy and ethics of the subject. General von Bernhardi surveys the field from the vantage-ground of first principles, and his book is a convincing proof of a truth which we have expressed elsewhere that in Prussia war is not looked upon as an accident, but as a law of nature; and not only as a law of nature, but as the law of man, or if not as the law of man, certainly as the law of the "German superman." It is not enough to say that war has been the national industry of Prussia. It forms an essential part of the philosophy of life, the _Weltanschauung_ of every patriotic Prussian. Bernhardi believes in the morality, one might almost say in the sanct.i.ty, of war. To him war is not a necessary evil, but, on the contrary, the source of every moral good.

To him it is pacificism which is an immoral doctrine, because it is the doctrine of the materialist, who believes that enjoyment is the chief end of life. It is the militarist who is the true idealist because he a.s.sumes that humanity can only achieve its mission through struggle and strife, through sacrifice and heroism. It is true that Bernhardi ignores the greatest of Prussian philosophers, whose immortal plea in favour of perpetual peace is dismissed as the work of his dotage. But if he dismisses Kant, he adduces instead a formidable array of thinkers and poets in support of his militarist thesis; Schiller and Goethe, Hegel and Herac.l.i.tus, in turn are summoned as authorities. Even the Gospels are distorted to convey a militarist meaning, for the author quotes them to remind us that it is the warlike and not the meek that shall inherit the earth. But Bernhardi's chief authorities are the historian of the super-race, the Anglophobe Treitschke, and the philosopher of the superman, Nietzsche. Nine out of ten quotations are taken from the political treatises of the famous Berlin professor, and the whole spirit of Bernhardi's book is summed up in the motto borrowed from Zarathustra and inscribed on the front page of the volume:

"War and courage have achieved more great things than the love of our neighbour. It is not your sympathy, but your bravery, which has. .h.i.therto saved the s.h.i.+pwrecked of existence.

"'What is good?' you ask. To be brave is good."[16]

[16] Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra," First Part, 10th Speech.

It is no less characteristic of contemporary German political philosophy that from beginning to end Bernhardi maintains consciously, deliberately, a purely national att.i.tude, and that he does not even attempt to rise to a higher and wider point of view. Indeed, the main issue and cardinal problem, the relation of nationality to humanity, the conflict between the duties we owe to the one and the duties we owe to the other, is contemptuously relegated to a footnote (p. 19).

To Bernhardi a nation is not a means to an end, a necessary organ of universal humanity, and therefore subordinate to humanity. A nation is an end in itself. It is the ultimate reality. And the preservation and the increase of the power of the State is the ultimate criterion of all right. "My country, right or wrong," is the General's whole system of moral philosophy. Yet, curiously enough, Bernhardi speaks of Germany as the apostle, not only of a national culture, but of universal culture, as the champion of civilization, and he indulges in the usual plat.i.tudes on this fertile subject. And he does not even realize that in so doing he is guilty of a glaring contradiction; he does not realize that once he adopts this standpoint of universal culture, he introduces an argument and a.s.sumes a position which are above and outside nationalism. For either the German nation is self-sufficient, and all culture is centred in and absorbed in Germany, in which case Prussian nationalism would be historically and philosophically justified; or culture is something higher and more comprehensive and less exclusive, in which case national aims must be estimated and appraised with reference to a higher aim, and a national policy must be judged according as it furthers or runs counter to the universal ideals of humanity.

General von Bernhardi starts his survey of the international situation with the axiom that Germany imperatively wants new markets for her industry and new territory for her sixty-five millions of people. In so doing, he only reiterates the usual a.s.sumption of German political writers. And he also resembles the majority of his fellow-publicists in this respect, that he does not tell us what exactly are the territories that Germany covets, or how they are to be obtained, or how the possession of tropical or subtropical colonies can solve the problem of her population. But he differs from his predecessors in that he clearly realizes and expresses, without ambiguity or equivocation, that the a.s.sertion of her claims must involve the establishment of German supremacy, and he admits that those claims are incompatible with the antiquated doctrine of the balance of power.

And von Bernhardi also clearly realizes that, as other nations will refuse to accept German supremacy and to surrender those fertile territories which Germany needs, German expansion can only be achieved as the result of a conflict-briefly, that war is unavoidable and inevitable.

CHAPTER V

FREDERICK THE GREAT: THE FATHER OF PRUSSIAN MILITARISM

I.

Amongst the many discoveries brought about by the war of the nations, an educated British public has suddenly discovered the unsuspected existence of Heinrich von Treitschke. And not only have we discovered the national Prussian historian-we have also unwittingly discovered Prussian history. We have certainly had revealed to us for the first time its secret and hidden meaning. We are only just beginning to realize that for nearly two hundred years it is Prussia, and not Russia, which has been the evil influence in European politics.

Prussia has not been a natural political growth. She has been an artificial creation of statesmen. She has been pre-eminently the predatory State. She has never taken the sword to defend a disinterested idea. The ravisher of Silesia, of Schleswig-Holstein, of Alsace-Lorraine, the murderer of Poland, she has never expanded except at the expense of her neighbours. She has corrupted the German soul; she has been the mainstay of reaction and militarism in Central Europe. She has been the bond of that freemasonry of despotism, of that Triple Alliance of the three empires which subsisted until the fall of Bismarck, which has been for generations the nightmare of European Liberals.

II.

In attempting to reread modern history in the light of that new interpretation of Prussian history, we are naturally driven to ask ourselves who is primarily responsible for that sinister influence which Prussia has exercised for the last two centuries. To the unprejudiced student there can be no doubt that the one man primarily responsible is Frederick the Great, the master-builder of Prussian militarism and Prussian statecraft. He it is who has been poisoning the wells; he it is who first conceived of the State as a barracks; he it is who has "Potsdamized" the Continent and transformed Europe into a military camp. Strangely enough, all civilized nations to-day have proclaimed Prussia accursed. Yet we continue to hero-wors.h.i.+p the man who made Prussia what she is. A halo still surrounds the Mephistophelian figure which incarnates the Hohenzollern spirit. A legend has gathered round the philosopher of Sans Souci. A combination of circ.u.mstances has caused writers almost unanimously to extol his merits and to ignore his crimes. British historians naturally favour the ally of the Seven Years' War. Russian and Austrian writers are indulgent to the accomplice of the part.i.tion of Poland. Anti-clerical writers glorify the Atheist. Military writers extol the soldier.

Political writers extol the statesman. But the most adequate explanation of the Frederician legend is the circ.u.mstance that public opinion has been systematically mobilized in favour of Frederick the Great by the great French leaders of the eighteenth century, the dispensers of European fame.

It was not for nothing that Frederick the Great for forty years courted the good graces of Voltaire d'Alembert. He knew full well that Voltaire would prove to him a most admirable publicity agent. And never was publicity agent secured at a lower cost. Those literary influences have continued to our own day to perpetuate the legend of Frederick. Nearly a hundred years after Rossbach Frederick had the strange good fortune to captivate the wayward genius of Carlyle. It is difficult to understand how Carlyle, who all through life hesitated between the Christian Puritanism of John Knox and the Olympian paganism of Goethe, could have been fascinated by the Potsdam cynic.

We can only seek for an explanation in the deeply rooted anti-French and pro-German prejudices of Carlyle. Frederick was the arch-enemy of France, and that fact was sufficient to attract the sympathies of Teufelsdrockh. It is Carlyle's Gallophobia which has inspired one of the most mischievous masterpieces of English literature.