New York Times Current History The European War, Vol 1, No. 1 Part 36

Sir: I was not invited to join the reply of our distinguished scholars and professors, perhaps because it is so many years since I was the colleague of James Bryce as Professor of Jurisprudence to the Inns of Court. And, indeed, I do not care to bandy recriminations with these German defenders of the attack on civilization by the whole imperial, military, and bureaucratic order. It seems to me waste of time and loss of self-respect to notice these pedants.

The whole German press and the entire academic cla.s.s seem to be banded together as an official bureau in order to spread mendacious insults and spiteful slanders. Not a word comes from them to excuse or deny the defiance of public law and the mockery of public faith by the German Emperor, his Ministers, and his armies. These professors seem to exult in serving the new Attila--rather let us say the new Caligula, for Attila at least was an open soldier and did not skulk under the Red Cross behind barbed wire fences.

We have long known that all German academic and scholastic officials are the creatures of the Government, as obedient to orders as any Drill Sergeant. They seem to have sold their consciences for place. Not a word comes from them even of regret for the ma.s.sacre of civilians on false charges, for the wanton murder of children, for the wholesale rape of women, the showering of bombs upon sleeping towns in sheer cruelty of destruction. The intellectual energies of Kultur seem concentrated on distorting the meaning of our dispatches and the speeches of our statesmen, and in manufacturing for their people and neutrals venomous falsehoods. German Geist today is a huge machine to cram lies upon their own people, and to insinuate lies to the world around. Their system of war is based upon lying at home and abroad, on treachery and terrorism.

They think that murdering a few civilians would terrify France into surrender, and will drive England to betray the Allies. Their poor conscripts are told that we kill and torture prisoners; their monuments at home are bedizened with mock laurels; and neutrals are poisoned with wild inventions.

For years past their public men, have

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADOLF VON HARNACK.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THEODORE NIEMEYER.

_See Page_ 206]

been tricking our politicians, journalists, and professors to accept them as peaceful leaders of a higher civilization--- while all the while their soldiers, diplomats, and spies (the three are really but one cla.s.s) were secretly courting our own royalties and society, studying our naval and military defenses, filling our homes with tens of thousands of reservists having secret orders to spy, to destroy our a.r.s.enals and roads, and even planting out bogus industries and laying concrete bases for cannon, to bombard the open towns of friendly nations. We have been living unsuspectingly with a nation of a.s.sa.s.sins plotting to destroy us. Did these professors of Kultur not know of this elaborate conspiracy of Kaisertum, which unites the stealthy treachery of a Mohawk or a thug to the miracles of modern science? For years past the ideal of Kultur has been to lay down secret mines to destroy their peaceful neighbors. Did these professors of the Fatheland not know this?

Then they are unable to grasp the most obvious facts--the life work of their own masters under their own eyes. And, if they did know it, and must at least know it now, and yet approve and glory in it, they must be beneath contempt. Why argue with such hypocrites?

Not a few of us have known and watched this conspiracy for years. I have preached this ever since the advent of Bismarckism and the new Europe that was formed forty years ago. Not a few of us have foretold not only the tremendous attack on the British Empire designed by German sea power but the precise steps of the war upon France, through Belgium, and to be executed by an overwhelming force of sudden shock in the midst of peace.

For my part, nothing in this war since July 30 has at all surprised me, unless it be the foul cruelty with which Belgian civilians have been treated. Indeed, in January, 1913, I wrote a warning which reads now like a summary of events that have since happened. I was denounced as a senile alarmist by some who are now the loudest in calling to arms.

Alas! too late is their repentance.

May I ask why our eminent academicians and scholars who still profess "friends.h.i.+p and admiration" for their German confreres never even suspected the huge conspiracy of which civilization has been the victim?

Why did they accept the stars and crosses of Caligula-Attila? Why hob-n.o.b with the docile creatures of his chancery, and spread at home and abroad the wors.h.i.+p of Geist and Kultur? Are they fit to instruct us about politics, public law, and international relations, when they were so egregiously mistaken, so blind, so befooled, with regard to the most portentous catastrophe in the memory of living men? I am glad that they see their blindness now--but why this sentimental friendliness for those who hoodwinked them?

Surely this should open their eyes to the mountains of pretentious clouds on which the claims of Kultur rest. I am myself a student of German learning, and quite aware of the enormous industry, subtlety, and ingenuity of German scholars.h.i.+p. We owe deep grat.i.tude to the older race of the Savignys, Rankes, Mommsens. Since 1851 I have been five times in Germany on different occasions down to 1900. I read and speak the language, and twice I lived in Germany for months together, even in the house of a distinguished man of science. I study their theology, their sociology, economics, history, and their cla.s.sics. I am quite aware of the supremacy of German scholars in ancient literature, in many branches of science, in the record of the past in art, manners, and civilization.

But to have edited a Greek play or to have discovered a new explosive, a new comet, another microbe, does not qualify a savant to dogmatize on international morals and the hegemony of the world. Sixty years ago in Leipzig the editor of a famous journal undertook to prove to me that Shakespeare was a German. Our poet, he said, was the grandest output of the Teutonic mind; nine-tenths of the Teutonic mind was German-argal, Shakespeare was a German, Q.E.D.

With the vast acc.u.mulation of solid knowledge of provable facts there is too often in the German mind a sudden bounding up into a cloudland of crude and unproved guesswork. In the logic of Kultur there seems to be a huge gap in the reasoning of the middle terms. A savant unearths a ma.n.u.script in Syria, which he deciphers with marvelous industry, learning, and ingenuity. Straightway he cries, "Eureka, behold the original Gospel--the true Gospel!" and he proceeds to turn Christianity upside down. He may have experimented on cultures of microbes for a generation; and then he calls on earth and heaven to acknowledge the mystery of the self-creation of the universe. We hear much of Treitschke today--no doubt a man of genius with a gift for research--but what ferocious pyrotechnics were poured forth by this apostle of mendacious swagger. And as to Nietzsche, he was antic.i.p.ated by Shakespeare in Timon--a diseased cynic--

henceforth hated be Of Timon, man and all humanity.

They seem to think that to have put the critics right about a few lines in Sophocles, or to have discovered a new chemical dye, dispenses the German Superman from being bound to humanity, truthfulness, and honor.

Charge them with the mutilation of little girls and the violation of nuns in Belgium, and they reply: Yes! but think of Kant and Hegel! It is treason to philosophy, they say, that a man who has translated Schopenhauer should condemn Germans for burning Malines and making captive women a screen for troops in battle. Kultur, it seems, has its own "higher law," which its professors expound to the decadent nations of Europe.

Let us hold no parley with these arrogant sophists. Let all intellectual commerce be suspended until these official professors have unlearned the infernal code of "military necessity" and "world policy" which, to the indignation of the civilized world, they are ordered by the Vicegerent of G.o.d at Potsdam to teach to the great Teutonic Super-race. Yours, &c.,

FREDERIC HARRISON.

Bath, Oct. 29.

*The Reply From France*

*By M. Yves Guyot and Prof. Bellet.*

_The following is the text of an open lettert addressed by M. Yves Guyot, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal des Economistes, and M.

Bellet, Professor at the Schools of Political Science and Commercial Studies, to Prof. Brentano of the University of Munich, the communication being a reply to the recent German Appeal to Civilized Nations on the subject of the war_:

PARIS, Oct. 15, 1914.

_To Prof. Brentano of the University of Munich_:

Very Learned Professor and Colleague: On reading the Appeal to Civilized Nations, (among which France is evidently not included,) which has just been sent forth by ninety-three persons declaring themselves to be representatives of German science and art, we were not surprised to find Prof. Schmoller's signature. He had already shown his hatred for France by refusing to a.s.sist at the gatherings organized, a little more than two years ago, to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Paris Society of Political Economy, (gatherings at which we were happy to enjoy your presence and that of your colleague, Mr. Lotz.) In his Rector's speech at the Berlin University, in 1897, he declared that German science had no other object than to celebrate the imperial messages of 1880 and 1890; and he pointed out that every disciple of Adam Smith who was not willing to make it a servant of that policy "should resign his seat." But we felt painful surprise when, at the foot of the said factum, we found your name side by side with his.

You and the other representatives of German science and art accuse France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Russia of falsehood. Would you have submitted, on the part of one of your pupils, to so grave an imputation, so lightly bandied? Admitting you to be in absolute ignorance of the doc.u.ments published since the war declaration, you have certainly been acquainted with the ultimatum p.r.o.nounced by Austria to Servia. It must have struck you with surprise; for it stands as a unique diplomatic doc.u.ment in all history. Did you not ask yourselves whether the demands of Austria did not go beyond all bounds, seeing that they insisted on the abdication of an independent State? You learned that, in spite of Servia's humble reply, because it contained a reservation, immediately, without discussion, the Amba.s.sador of Austria-Hungary left Belgrade, and that the following day Austria declared war. You do not ignore the steps taken by Great Britain and France, the demand for delay made by Russia, and the reply of the German Chancellor "that none should intervene between Austria and Servia." He elegantly qualified the att.i.tude thus adopted as "localizing the conflict."

Is there a single member among those who signed the doc.u.ment of Intellectuals who has been able to believe--have you been able to believe, Mr. Brentano, with your quick and perspicacious mind?--that this reply from Berlin did not imply war as a fatal consequence; for any nation accepting it was certain to be treated in future, by Germany, as the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy treated Servia? How, then, knowing the initial pretext of the war, are you able to realize that there was no other relation between this cause and the effect produced than the will of those who made use of it to provoke either a dishonoring humiliation for the countries accepting such a situation, or a general conflagration? How, then, do you, and the signatories of your appeal, dare to state: "It is not true that Germany provoked the war"? You dare to speak of proofs taken from authentic doc.u.ments. Those published by Great Britain, Russia, and Belgium are known. All agree; and they give clear proof that the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was p.r.o.nounced with full complicity of the Berlin Chancellery. They prove, moreover, that the German Amba.s.sador at Petrograd, fearing a withdrawal on the part of Hungary, precipitated events while your Emperor kept himself out of the way. Meanwhile, your General Staff had, in underhanded manner, mobilized a portion of its troops, by individual call, while in France we waited, unable to imagine that the German Government had resolved to engage in European war without motives. In the pocketbooks of your reservists have been found forms calling them to the army long before the end of July.

Our friend and colleague, Courcelle-Seneuil, has seen the military book of a German living in Switzerland, at Bex, containing this call.

*Bismarckian Loyalty.*

Correspondence of official nature has been stopped at the Cape, which should have reached in full time officers of the German Navy, warning them to prepare for mid-July. Such advance taken by your troops has rendered the task the more difficult for ours. We were very simple, for we believed in the affirmations of your statesmen. You state that these are loyal war methods; so be it. That belongs to the diplomatic rules of loyalty bequeathed by Bismarck to his successors. But to attempt to carry on this falsehood, you have no longer the excuse of its utility.

It is clear to all, except, it seems, the representatives of science and art in Germany, who are sufficiently devoid of perspicacity to ignore it.

They affirm, moreover, that Germany has not violated the neutrality of Belgium; she merely contented herself with "taking the first step."

Beyond the authentic proofs which have been published, we would draw your attention to an undeniable fact. Trusting in the treaty which guaranteed Belgium neutrality--and at the foot of which figured Germany's signature--in the promise made a short while ago to the King of the Belgians by your Emperor, we unfortunately left our northern frontier unguarded. You must be aware, professor, that the English did not move until Belgian soil had been effectively violated. It is true that we knew the plan of campaign set forth by Gen. Bernhardi, but we navely believed that, whatever might be the opinion of a General, the Chancellor of the Empire would consider a treaty bearing the imperial signature as something more than a mere "bit of paper." Germany has also been untrue to her signature by violating the treaty of neutrality of Luxembourg. You forgot to state that there also you only "took the first step." Your appeal echoes the German papers, which declare that it was the Belgians, and particularly the women, who "began against your troops." An American paper replied by stating that if it was the Belgian women who attacked German soldiers on Belgian soil, what were the soldiers doing there? The truth is that your troops, obeying their officers, as is proved by papers which have been seized and which you would find quoted in the report presented by the Belgian Commission to President Wilson, have executed orders which seem inspired by the ferocious inscriptions of a.s.syrian Kings, no doubt exhumed on the Bagdad railway line; and you think it quite natural that ma.s.sacre and arson should have been perpetrated at Louvain because the civil population fired on your soldiers; but an inquiry made together with the representatives of the United States (whom you deign to consider sufficiently to ask them to represent your defenses) proved that the civil population was unarmed. If you today approve of the burning of the Louvain Library, have you until now approved of the destruction of the library at Alexandria? It is true there was no Deutsch Kultur there. The result of German culture as regards military matters is to place your soldiers on a stratum of civilization anterior to that of the Vandals, who, when taking Hippone, spared the library.

In Paris, if one of us pa.s.sing, on Friday, Oct. 9, in the Rue d'Edimbourg, to an office of the Societe d'Economie Politique, situated at No. 14, had pa.s.sed near to that address, he might have been murdered by a bomb thrown from one of your Taubes on the civil population of a town whose bombarding had not been notified. Another Taube caused, through the throwing of a bomb, a fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

You cannot, to excuse such an a.s.sault, invoke the pretext put forward to excuse the destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims. No observer could have caught sight of a German soldier from the top of the towers.

*Barbarian Soldiery.*

Your co-signatories and you express indignation because the civilized world describes your soldiers as barbarians. Do you therefore consider such deeds as those specified to be a high expression of civilization?

And here is the dilemma: either you are in ignorance of these deeds, then you are indeed very careless, or you approve of them, in which case you must make the defense of them enter into your works on right and ethics. In doing so you would only be following the theories of your military authors who have insisted on the necessity of striking terror into the hearts of the civil population, in order that it may weigh on its Government and its army so strongly that they may be forced to ask for peace. But those of your colleagues who profess psychology must, if they have approved such a theory, confess today that they made a great mistake; for such deeds, far from forcing the people to cowardly action, awaken indignation in all hearts and fire the courage of our soldiers.

Nevertheless, your military authors have not stated that theft was a means of a.s.suring victory. And yet the Crown Prince, your Emperor of tomorrow, gathered together at the castle of the Count of Baye articles in precious metals, belonging to a collection, which he had carefully packed up and sent off. Some of your officers' trunks have been found stuffed with goods which would const.i.tute the stock of a second-hand clothes seller. Do you and your co-signatories include in German science and art the science and art of housebreaking? Are the law professors and the economists willing to defend such a manner of acquiring property?

And, if so, what becomes of your penal code?

You and your co-signatories affirm that the present struggle is directed against "German culture." If such culture teaches that the rights of men include contempt of treaties, contempt of private property, contempt of the lives of non-combatants, you cannot be surprised that the other nations show no desire to preserve it for your benefit and their detriment.

It is not by arms but by arguments and facts that economists like us, faithful to the teachings of the physiocrats and of Adam Smith, have sought to protect ourselves against it. On the eve of the war, at the inauguration of Turgot's Monument, we set forth his ideas of liberty and humanity in opposition to the German realpolitik. We hope that the present events will cure those among our professors whom it had contaminated, and that they will cease to const.i.tute themselves accomplices of that, form of Pan-Germanism which they introduced to public opinion and to our legislation. The acts of your diplomatists and of your Generals, and the approbation given them by you and other representatives of German science, are a terrible demonstration, but conclusive, of the dangers and vanity of German culture. You are its true destroyers.

*Militarism and Civilization.*

"Without our miltarism," say you, "our civilization would have been annihilated long ago." And you invoke the inheritance of Goethe, Beethoven, Kant. But Goethe, born in the free city of Frankfort, lived at the Court of Charles Augustus, which was a liberal and artistic centre ever threatened by Prussia. But Beethoven was of Flemish origin, and lived in Holland until the age of twenty-four, spending the rest of his life in Vienna, and he has nothing in common with Prussian militarism, so redoubtable for Austria. But Kant, if he was born and lived at Konisberg, the true capital of the Prussian Kingdom, welcomed the French Revolution, and when he died in 1804 it was not Prussian militarism which had recommended his writings to the world.

But the solidarity which you establish between German militarism and German culture, of which you and your colleagues claim to be the representatives, is a proof of the confusion of German conceptions.

To present Goethe, Beethoven, and Kant to the world you surround them with bayonets. In the same manner every tradesman and every merchant throughout Germany has got into the habit of saying: "I have four million bayonets behind me!" Your Emperor said to some tradesmen who complained of bad business: "I must travel!" And he went to Constantinople; he went to Tangier, after the speech at Bremen. In every one of his words, in each of his gestures, he affirmed the subordination of economic civilization to military civilization. He considered that it was his duty to open up markets and a.s.sert the value of German products with cannon and sword. Hence his formidable armaments, his perpetual threats which held all nations in a constant state of anxiety.

There is the deep and true cause of the war. And it is due entirely to your Emperor and his environment. We readily understand that the greater number of "representatives of German science and art" who signed the appeal are incapable of fathoming this fact; but this is not your case, you who denounced the abuses and consequences of German protectionism, and we remember that at the Antwerp Congress you agreed with us in recognizing its aggressive nature.