And the Kaiser abdicates: The German Revolution November 1918-August 1919
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Title: And the Kaiser abdicates: The German Revolution November 1918-August 1919
Author: S. Miles Bouton
Translator: Arthur N. Holcombe
William Bennett Munro
Release date: April 29, 2012 [eBook #39563]
Language: English
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Credits: Produced by Odessa Paige Turner, Ernest Schaal, and the
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AND THE KAISER ABDICATES: THE GERMAN REVOLUTION NOVEMBER 1918-AUGUST 1919 ***
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Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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And the Kaiser Abdicates.
PUBLISHED BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
IN MEMORY OF
LIEUTENANT EARL TRUMBULL WILLIAMS
301ST UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY
OF THE CLASS OF 1910 YALE COLLEGE
WHO DIED MAY 7TH 1918
AND THE KAISER
ABDICATES
THE GERMAN REVOLUTION
NOVEMBER 1918--AUGUST 1919
BY S. MILES BOUTON
WITH THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN
COMMONWEALTH TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO AND
ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE
[Illustration]
REVISED EDITION
NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD : OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXXI
COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921 BY
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
_First published October, 1920._
_Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged,_
_September, 1921._
TO THE
HONORABLE IRA NELSON MORRIS
AMERICAN MINISTER TO SWEDEN
THE MAN, THE DIPLOMAT, AND THE LOYAL
FRIEND, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR
Contents.
Chapter I. The Governmental Structure of Germany. 17
Revolutions--Not unknown in Germany--Prussia and the
Hohenzollerns--Frederick the Great--Germany under foreign
domination--The Battle of the brotherhood of man--Lassalle's
national Socialists join the _Internationale_--Germany's
political backwardness--The war of 1870-71--Erection of the
German Empire--Why the Reichstag failed to become a real
parliament--The Emperor's powers as Kaiser and as King of
Prussia.
Chapter II. The German Conception of the State. 31
Individualism repressed for efficiency's sake--Authority the
keynote--The _Beamter_ and his special privileges--Prussian
ideals of duty--Education--The Officer corps as supporters of
the throne--Militarism--Dreams of a _Welt-Imperium_--The fatal
cancer of Socialism.
Chapter III. Internationalism and _Vaterlandslose Gesellen_. 45
The menace of internationalism--Marx and Engels--Socialist
teachings of the brotherhood of man--Lassalle's national
Socialists join the _Internationale_ of Marx, Engels and
Liebknecht--Socialism becomes a political factor--Bismarck's
special laws fail--He tries State Socialism--Kaiser Wilhelm
denounces the Socialists--Labor-union movement a child of
Socialism--German "particularism"--Socialism weakens feelings of
patriotism and undermines the church.
Chapter IV. Germany under the "Hunger-Blockade." 61
Germany's inability to feed and clothe her inhabitants--The war
reduces production--Germany's imports in 1913--Food
conservation--The "turnip-winter"--Everybody goes
hungry--Terrible increase of mortality--Discontent engendered
and increased by suffering--Illegitimate trade in the
necessaries of life--Rations at the front become insufficient.
Chapter V. Internationalism at Work. 75
General enthusiasm at the war's outbreak--Socialists support the
government--Liebknecht denounces the war--Otto Ruehle, Franz
Mehring, Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg--The "Spartacus
Letters"--Extreme Socialists begin to follow Liebknecht--The
first open break in the party--The seceders attack the
war--Liebknecht sent to prison--The Russian Revolution as a
factor--The political strikes of January, 1918--The army
disaffected--Shortage of trained officers.
Chapter VI. Propaganda and Morale. 89
Submarine losses shake sailors' morale--Independent Socialists'
propaganda--Admiral von Cappelle admits serious mutiny at
Wilhelmshafen--Haase, Dittmann and Vogtherr denounced--Lenine
passes through Germany--Russian Bolshevist propaganda in
Germany--Treaty of Brest-Litovsk throws down the
bars--Activities of the Bolshevist Ambassador Joffe--Haase, Cohn
and other Independent Socialists work with him--Joffe expelled
from Germany--Allied propaganda helps weaken German morale at
home and on the fronts--Atrocity stories.
Chapter VII. Germany Requests an Armistice. 107
Chancellor Michaelis resigns and is succeeded by Count
Hertling--Empire honeycombed with sedition--Count Lichnowsky's
memoirs--Another Chancellor crisis--Socialists consent to enter
a coalition government--Bulgaria surrenders--Hertling admits
desperateness of situation--The German front begins to
disintegrate--Prince Max of Baden becomes Chancellor, with the
Socialist Philip Scheidemann as a cabinet member--Max requests
an armistice--Lansing's reply.
Chapter VIII. The Last Days of Imperial Germany. 121
Reforms come too late--The Independent Socialists attack the
government--Liebknecht released from prison and defies the
authorities--The Kaiser makes sweeping surrenders of
powers--Austria-Hungary's defection--Revolution in
Vienna--Socialists demand the Kaiser's abdication--The new
cabinet promises parliamentary reforms.
Chapter IX. A Revolt Which Became a Revolution. 133
Mutiny at Kiel--Troops fire on mutinous sailors--Demands of the
mutineers granted--Noske arrives--The red flag replaces the
imperial standard--Prince Henry's flight--Independent Socialists
and Spartacans seize their opportunity--Soviets erected
throughout Northwestern Germany--Official cowardice at
Swinemuende--Noske becomes Governor of Kiel.
Chapter X. The Revolution Reaches Berlin. 147
Lansing announces that the allied governments accept Wilson's
fourteen points with one reservation--Max appeals to the
people--Hamburg revolutionaries reach Berlin--Government troops
brought to the capital--Independent Socialists meet in the
Reichstag building--The revolution spreads--Majority Socialists
join hands with the revolutionaries--Supposedly loyal troops
mutiny--Revolution.
Chapter XI. The Kaiser Abdicates. 159
Ebert becomes Premier for a day--The German Republic
proclaimed--Liebknecht at the royal palace--Officers hunted down
in the streets--The rape of the _bourgeois_ newspapers by
revolutionaries--The first shooting--Ebert issues a proclamation
and an appeal--A red Sunday--Revolutionary meeting at the Circus
Busch--A six-man cabinet formed--The _Vollzugsrat_--Far-reaching
reforms are decreed.
Chapter XII. "The German Socialistic Republic." 177
The end of the dynasties--The Kaiser flees--Central Soviet
displays moderate tendencies--Wholesale jail-releases--The
police disarmed--_Die neue Freiheit_--A Red Guard is planned,
but meets opposition from the soldiers--Liebknecht organizes the
deserters--Armistice terms a blow to the cabinet--The blockade
is extended.
Chapter XIII. "The New Freedom." 195
Germany's armed forces collapse--Some effects of "the new
freedom"--The Reichstag is declared dissolved--The cabinet's
helplessness--Opposition to a national assembly--Radicals
dominate the _Vollzugsrat_--Charges are made against it--The Red
Soldiers' League--The first bloodshed under the new regime.
Chapter XIV. The Majority Socialists in Control. 209
Front soldiers return--The central congress of Germany's
Soviets--Radicals in an insignificant minority--A new
_Vollzugsrat_ of Majority Socialists appointed--The People's
Marine Division revolts--Independent Socialists leave the
cabinet--The Spartacus League organized--The national
government's authority flouted--Aggressions by Czechs and
Poles--An epidemic of strikes.
Chapter XV. Liebknecht Tries to Overthrow the Government; Is
Arrested and Killed. 225
The first Bolshevist uprising--Prominent Berlin newspapers
seized by the Spartacans--The Independent Socialists'
double-dealing--Capture of the _Vorwaerts_ plant--Ledebour,
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg arrested--Liebknecht and Luxemburg
killed--The Bolsheviki turn their attention to coast cities.
Chapter XVI. The National Assembly. 237
Germany's political parties reorganize--Theodor
Wolff--Composition of the National Assembly--Convenes at
Weimar--Spartacans stage various uprisings--Friedrich Ebert
elected provisional president of the German Republic--Germany's
desperate financial situation--The difference between theory and
practice.
Chapter XVII. The Spartacans Rise Again. 251
Germany still hungering--Promised supplies of food delayed--Gas
and coal shortage--Strikes add to people's sufferings--The
Spartacans plan another uprising--Severe fighting in Berlin--The
radical newspaper _Die rote Fahne_ suppressed--Independent
Socialists go over to the Spartacans--Independent Socialist and
Spartacan Platforms contrasted.
Chapter XVIII. Red or White Internationalism: Which? 265
Radicalism encouraged by Bolshevism's success in Hungary.
Chapter XIX. The Weimar Constitution. 273
History of the new constitution--An advancedly democratic
institution--Important change in constitution on third
reading--The imperial constitution ceases to exist--Two "main
divisions"--Construction of the state--Preambles of old and new
constitutions compared--Fundamental and sweeping
changes--Radical curtailment of states' rights--The
President--The Reichstag, importance assigned to it--The
Reichsrat--Legislative procedure--Referendum and
initiative--Amendments--"Fundamental rights and fundamental
duties of the Germans"--Articles on social and economic
life--Socialist influence becomes unmistakable--Sweeping
socialization made possible--Workmen's council is "anchored" in
the constitution.
The Constitution of the German Commonwealth. 294
Translation by WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO and ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE.
Reprinted by permission of the World Peace Foundation.
Foreword.
The developments leading up to the German Revolution of November, 1918,
and the events marking the course of the revolution itself are still but
imperfectly known or understood in America. For nearly two years
preceding the overthrow of the monarchy, Americans, like the people of
all other countries opposing Germany, were dependent for their direct
information upon the reports of neutral correspondents, and a stringent
censorship prevented these from reporting anything of value regarding
the conditions that were throughout this period gradually making the
German Empire ripe for its fall. To a great extent, indeed, not only
these foreign journalists, but the great mass of the Germans themselves,
had little knowledge of the manner in which the Empire was being
undermined.
During the crucial days of the revolution, up to the complete overthrow
of the central government at Berlin, a sharpened censorship prevented
any valuable direct news from being sent out, and the progress of events
was told to the outside world mainly by travelers, excited soldiers on
the Danish frontier and two or three-day-old German newspapers whose
editors were themselves not only handicapped by the censorship, but also
ignorant of much that had happened and unable to present a clear picture
of events as a whole. When the bars were finally thrown down to enemy
correspondents, the exigencies of daily newspaper work required them to
devote their undivided attention to the events that were then occurring.
Hence the developments preceding and attending the revolution could not
receive that careful consideration and portrayal which is necessary if
they are to be properly understood.
An attempt is made in this book to make clear the factors and events
that made the revolution possible, and to give a broad outline of its
second phase, from the middle of November, 1918, to the ratification by
Germany of the Peace of Versailles. A preliminary description of
Germany's governmental structure, although it may contain nothing new to
readers who know Germany well, could not be omitted. It is requisite for
a comprehension of the strength of the forces and events that finally
overthrew the Kaiser.
Much of the history told deals with matters of which the author has
personal knowledge. He had been for several years before the war
resident in Berlin as an Associated Press correspondent. He was in
Vienna when the Dual Monarchy declared war on Serbia, and in Berlin
during mobilization and the declarations of war on Russia and France. He
was with the German armies on all fronts during the first two years of
the war as correspondent, and was in Berlin two weeks before America
severed diplomatic relations with Germany. The author spent the summer
of 1917 in Russia, and watched the progress of affairs in Germany from
Stockholm and Copenhagen during the winter of 1917-18. He spent the
three months preceding the German Revolution in Copenhagen, in daily
touch with many proved sources of information, and was the first enemy
correspondent to enter Germany after the armistice, going to Berlin on
November 18, 1918. He attended the opening sessions of the National
Assembly at Weimar in February, 1919, and remained in Germany until the
end of March, witnessing both the first and second attempts of the
Spartacans to overthrow the Ebert-Haase government.
The author's aim in writing this book has been to give a truthful and
adequate picture of the matters treated, without any "tendency"
whatever. It is not pretended that the book exhausts the subject. Many
matters which might be of interest, but which would hinder the
straightforward narration of essentials, have been omitted, but it is
believed that nothing essential to a comprehension of the world's
greatest political event has been left out.
A word in conclusion regarding terminology.
_Proletariat_ does not mean, as is popularly supposed in America, merely
the lowest grade of manual laborers. It includes all persons whose work
is "exploited" by others, i. e., who depend for their existence upon
wages or salaries. Thus actors, journalists, clerks, stenographers,
etc., are reckoned as proletarians.
The _bourgeoisie_ includes all persons who live from the income of
investments or from businesses or properties (including real estate)
owned by them. In practice, however, owners of small one-man or
one-family businesses, although belonging to what the French term the
_petite bourgeoisie_, are regarded as proletarians. The nobility,
formerly a class by itself, is now _de facto_ included under the name
_bourgeoisie_, despite the contradiction of terms thus involved.
No effort has been made toward consistency in the spelling of German
names. Where the German form might not be generally understood, the
English form has been used. In the main, however, the German forms have
been retained.
Socialism and Social-Democracy, Socialist and Social-Democrat, have been
used interchangeably throughout. There is no difference of meaning
between the words.
S. MILES BOUTON
Asheville, New York,
November 1, 1919.
CHAPTER I.
The Governmental Structure of Germany.
The peoples of this generation--at least, those of highly civilized and
cultured communities--had little or no familiarity with revolutions and
the history of revolutions before March, 1917, when Tsar Nicholas II was
overthrown. There was and still is something about the very word
"revolution" which is repugnant to all who love ordered and orderly
government. It conjures up pictures of rude violence, of murder, pillage
and wanton destruction. It violates the sentiments of those that respect
the law, for it is by its very nature a negation of the force of
existing laws. It breaks with traditions and is an overcoming of
inertia; and inertia rules powerfully the majority of all peoples.
The average American is comparatively little versed in the history of
other countries. He knows that the United States of America came into
existence by a revolution, but "revolutionary" is for him in this
connection merely an adjective of time used to locate and describe a war
fought between two powers toward the end of the eighteenth century. He
does not realize, or realizes but dimly, the essential kinship of all
revolutions. Nor does he realize that most of the governments existing
today came into being as the result of revolutions, some of them
bloodless, it is true, but all at bottom a revolt against existing laws
and governmental forms. The extortion of the Magna Charta from King John
in 1215 was not the less a revolution because it was the bloodless work
of the English barons. It took two bloody revolutions to establish
France as a republic. All the Balkan states are the products of
revolution. A man need not be old to remember the overthrow of the
monarchy in Brazil; the revolution in Portugal was but yesterday as
historians count time. Only the great wisdom and humanitarianism of the
aged King Oscar II prevented fighting and bloodshed between Sweden and
Norway when Norway announced her intention of breaking away from the
dual kingdom. The list could be extended indefinitely.
The failure to recall or realize these things was one of the factors
responsible for the universal surprise and amazement when the
Hohenzollerns were overthrown. The other factor was the general--and
justified--impression that the government of Germany was one of the
strongest, most ably administered and most homogeneous governments of
the world. And yet Germany, too, or what subsequently became the nucleus
of Germany, had known revolution. It was but seventy years since the
King of Prussia had been forced to stand bareheaded in the presence of
the bodies of the "March patriots," who had given their lives in a
revolt which resulted in a new constitution and far-reaching concessions
to the people.
Even to those who did recall and realize these things, however, the
German revolution came as a shock. The closest observers, men who knew
Germany intimately, doubted to the very last the possibility of
successful revolution there. And yet, viewed in the light of subsequent
happenings, it will be seen how natural, even unavoidable, the
revolution was. It came as the inevitable result of conditions created
by the war and the blockade. It will be the purpose of this book to make
clear the inevitableness of the _debacle_, and to explain the events
that followed it.
For a better understanding of the whole subject a brief explanation of
the structure of Germany's governmental system is in place. This will
serve the double purpose of showing the strength of the system which the
revolution was able to overturn and of dispelling a too general
ignorance regarding it.
The general condemnation of Prussia, the Prussians and the Hohenzollerns
must not be permitted to obscure their merits and deserts. For more than
five hundred years without a break in the male line this dynasty handed
down its inherited rights and produced an array of great administrators
who, within three centuries, raised Prussia to the rank of a first-rate
power.
The kingdom that subsequently became the nucleus for the German Empire
lost fully half its territory by the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, when,
following the reverses in the Napoleonic wars, Germany was formally
dissolved and the Confederation of the Rhine was formed by Napoleon. The
standing army was limited to 42,000 men, and trade with Great Britain
was prohibited. The Confederation obeyed the letter of the military
terms, but evaded its spirit by successively training levies of 42,000
men, and within six years enough trained troops were available to make a
revolt against Napoleonic slavery possible. The French were routed and
cut to pieces at the Battle of the Nations near Leipsic in 1813, and
Prussian Germany was again launched on the road to greatness.
A certain democratic awakening came on the heels of the people's
liberation from foreign domination. It manifested itself particularly in
the universities. The movement became so threatening that a conference
of ministers of the various states was convoked in 1819 to consider
counter-measures. The result was an order disbanding the political
unions of the universities, placing the universities under police
supervision and imposing a censorship upon their activities.
The movement was checked, but not stopped. In 1847 ominous signs of a
popular revolution moved King Frederick William IV of Prussia to summon
the Diet to consider governmental reforms. The chief demand presented by
this Diet was for a popular representation in the government. The King
refused to grant this. A striking commentary upon the political
backwardness of Germany is furnished by the fact that one of the demands
made by a popular convention held in Mannheim in the following year was
for trial by jury, a right granted in England more than six hundred
years earlier by the Magna Charta. Other demands were for the freedom of
the press and popular representation in the government.
The revolution of 1848 in Prussia, while it failed to produce all that
had been hoped for by those responsible for it, nevertheless resulted in
what were for those times far-reaching reforms. A diet was convoked at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. It adopted a constitution establishing some
decided democratic reforms and knit the fabric of the German
confederation more closely together.
The structure of the Confederation was already very substantial, despite
much state particularism and internal friction. An important event in
the direction of a united Germany had been the establishment in 1833 of
the _Zollverein_ or Customs Union. The existence of scores of small
states,[1] each with its own tariffs, currency and posts, had long
hindered economic development. There is a well-known anecdote regarding
a traveler who, believing himself near the end of his day's journey,
after having passed a dozen customs-frontiers, found his way barred by
the customs-officials of another tiny principality. Angered at the
unexpected delay, he refused to submit to another examination of his
effects and another exaction of customs-duties.
[1] There were more than three hundred territorial sovereignties
in Germany when the new constitution of the union was adopted
at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.--There were principalities
of less than one square mile in extent. The particularism
engendered by this state of affairs has always been one of
the greatest handicaps with which federal government in
Germany has had to contend.
"You aren't a country," he said. "You're just a spot. I'll go around
you." And this he did, without being seriously delayed in reaching his
destination.
The growing power of Germany aroused the fear of the French, who
realized what the union of the vital, energetic and industrious German
races would mean. Years of tension culminated in the war of 1870-71. The
result is known. Unprepared for the conflict, the French were crushed,
just as Austria had been crushed four years earlier.
The last external obstacle in the way of German unity and strength had
thus strangely been removed. On January 18, 1871, while the victorious
German armies still stood at the gates of Paris, King William I was
proclaimed German Emperor as Kaiser Wilhelm I.
The designation as "German Emperor" should be noted, because it is
significant of the manner of union of the German Empire. The aged
monarch was insistent that the title should be "Emperor of Germany." To
this the sovereigns of the other German states objected, as carrying the
implication of their own subjection. Between "German Emperor" or
"Emperor in Germany" and "Emperor of Germany," they pointed out, there
was a wide difference. "German Emperor" implied merely that the holder
of that title was _primus inter pares_, merely the first among equals,
the presiding officer of an aggregation of sovereigns of equal rank who
had conferred this dignity upon him, just as a diet, by electing one of
its number chairman, confers upon him no superiority of rank, but merely
designates him to conduct their deliberations. These sovereigns'
jealousy of their own prerogatives had at first led them to consider
vesting the imperial honors alternately with the Prussian and Bavarian
King, but this idea was abandoned as impracticable. At the urgent
representations of Bismarck the aged King consented, with tears in his
eyes, it is said, to accept the designation of German Emperor.
The German Empire as thus formed consisted of twenty-five states and the
_Reichsland_ of Alsace-Lorraine, which was administered by a viceroy
appointed by the King of Prussia. The empire was a federated union of
states much on the pattern of the United States of America, but the
federative character was not completely carried out because of the
particularism of certain states. The Bavarians, whose customs of life,
easy-going ways, and even dialects are more akin to those of the German
Austrians than of the Prussians,[2] exacted far-reaching concessions as
the price of their entrance into the empire. They retained their own
domestic tariff-imposts, their own army establishment, currency,
railways, posts, telegraphs and other things. Certain other states also
reserved a number of rights which ought, for the formation of a perfect
federative union, to have been conferred upon the central authority. On
the whole, however, these reservations proved less of a handicap than
might have been expected.
[2] The Bavarians have from early days disliked the Prussians
heartily. _Saupreuss'_ (sow-Prussian) and other even less
elegant epithets were in common use against the natives of
the dominant state. It must in fairness be admitted that this
dislike was the natural feeling of the less efficient
Bavarian against the efficient and energetic Prussian.
The Imperial German Constitution adopted at this time was in many ways a
remarkable document. It cleverly combined democratic and absolutist
features. The democratic features were worked out with a wonderful
psychological instinct. In the hands of almost any people except the
Germans or Slavs the democratic side of this instrument would have
eventually become the predominant one. That it did not is a tribute to
the astuteness of Bismarck and of the men who, under his influence,
drafted the constitution.
The German Parliament or _Reichsrat_ was composed of two houses, the
_Bundesrat_, or Federal Council, and the _Reichstag_, or Imperial Diet.
The Federal Council was designed as the anchor of absolutism. It was
composed of fifty-eight members, of whom seventeen came from Prussia,
six from Bavaria, and four each from Saxony and Wuerttemberg. The larger
of the other states had two or three each, and seventeen states had but
one each. In 1911 three members were granted to Alsace-Lorraine by a
constitution given at that time to the _Reichsland_. The members of the
Federal Council were the direct representatives of their respective
sovereigns, by whom they were designated, and not of the people of the
respective states. Naturally they took their instructions from their
sovereigns. Nearly all legislative measures except bills for raising
revenue had to originate in the Federal Council, and its concurrence
with the Reichstag was requisite for the enactment of laws. A further
absolutist feature of the constitution was the provision that fourteen
votes could block an amendment to the constitution. In other words,
Prussia with her seventeen members could prevent any change not desired
by her governing class.
The Reichstag, the second chamber of the parliament, was a truly
democratic institution. Let us say rather that it could have become a
democratic institution. Why it did not do so will be discussed later. It
consisted of 397 members, who were elected by the most unlimited
suffrage prevailing at that time in all Europe. It is but recently,
indeed within the last five years, that as universal and free a suffrage
has been adopted by other European countries, and there are still many
which impose limitations unknown to the German Constitution. Every male
subject who had attained the age of twenty-five years and who had not
lost his civil rights through the commission of crime, or who was not a
delinquent taxpayer or in receipt of aid from the state or his community
as a pauper, was entitled to vote. The vote was secret and direct, and
the members of the Reichstag were responsible only to their constituents
and not subject to instructions from any governmental body or person.
They were elected for a term of three years,[3] but their mandates could
be terminated at any time by the Kaiser, to whom was reserved the right
to dissolve the Reichstag. If he dissolved it, however, he was compelled
to order another election within a definitely stated period.
[3] This was later altered to five years.
One very real power was vested in the Reichstag. It had full control of
the empire's purse strings. Bills for raising revenue and all measures
making appropriations had to originate in this chamber, and its assent
was required to their enactment. The reason for its failure to exercise
this control resolutely must be sought in the history of the German
people, in their inertia where active participation in governmental
matters is concerned, and in those psychological characteristics which
Bismarck so well comprehended and upon which he so confidently counted.
No people on earth had had a more terrible or continuous struggle for
existence than the various tribes that later amalgamated to form the
nucleus for the German Empire. Their history is a record of almost
continuous warfare, going back to the days of Julius Caesar. In the first
years of the Christian era the Germans under Arminius (Hermann) crushed
the Romans of Varus's legions in the Teutoburg Forest, and the land was
racked by war up to most modern times. Most of its able-bodied men were
exterminated during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).[4] This almost
constant preoccupation in war had a twofold result: it intensified the
struggle for existence of the common man and kept him from devoting
either his thoughts or energies to problems of government, and it
strengthened the powers of a comparatively small ruling-class, who alone
possessed any culture and education and whose efforts were naturally
directed to keeping their serfs in the subjection of ignorance. These
conditions prevailed until well into the last century.
[4] The population of Germany dropped from twenty to less than
seven millions during this war.
The conditions can best be appreciated by a comparison with the
conditions existing in England at the same time. England, too, had had
her wars, but her soil was but rarely ravaged by foreign invaders, and
never to the extent in which Germany repeatedly suffered. Parliamentary
government of a sort had existed more than three centuries in England
before it reached Germany. A milder climate than that of North Germany
made the struggle for the bare necessaries of life less strenuous, and
gave opportunity to a greater proportion of the people to consider other
things than the mere securing of enough to eat and drink. They began to
think politically centuries before political affairs ceased to rest
entirely in the hands of the nobility of Germany.
The Germans of the lower and middle classes--in other words, the vast
majority of the whole people--were thus both without political training
and without even the inclination to think independently along political
lines. Some advance had, it is true, been made along these lines since
the Napoleonic wars, but the events of 1871 nevertheless found the great
mass of the people without political tutelage or experience. People even
more politically inclined would have found themselves handicapped by
this lack of training, and the German--particularly the Southern
German--is not politically inclined. This will be discussed more fully
in the chapters dealing with the course of events following the
revolution of 1918. It will be sufficient to point out here the German's
inclination to abstract reasoning, to philosophizing and to a certain
mysticism; his love of music and fine arts generally, his undeniable
devotion to the grosser creature-comforts, eating and drinking, and his
tendency not to worry greatly about governmental or other impersonal
affairs provided he be kept well fed and amused. It is, in brief, the
spirit to which the Roman emperors catered with the _panem et
circenses_, and which manifests itself strikingly in the German
character. The result of all this was a marked inertia which
characterized German political life up to recent years. Even when a
limited political awakening came it was chiefly the work of German-Jews,
not of Germans of the old stock.
These, then, were the conditions that prevented the democratic features
of the Imperial Constitution from acquiring that prominence and
importance which they would have acquired among a different people. The
Kaiser could dissolve the Reichstag at will. Why, then, bother oneself
about opposing the things desired by the Kaiser and his brother princes?
It merely meant going to the trouble of a new election, and if that
Reichstag should prove recalcitrant also, it could in its turn be
dissolved. Apparently it never occurred to the mass of the Germans that
the Kaiser could not go on indefinitely dissolving a representative body
which insisted upon carrying out the people's will. The Reichstag, being
on the whole neither much wiser nor more determined than the people that
elected it, accepted this view of the situation. Occasionally it showed
a bit of spirit, notably when it adopted a vote of censure against the
government in the matter of the Zabern affair in 1913. On the whole,
however, it accepted meekly the role that caused it to be termed, and
justly, a "debating club." And this was precisely the role that had been
planned for it by the drafters of the constitution.
In justice to the Reichstag, however, one thing should be pointed out.
When the German Empire was formed the country was still predominantly an
agricultural land. The election districts were on the whole justly
erected, and no one section of the country had a markedly
disproportionate number of representatives. It was not long, however,
before the flight to the cities began in Germany as in other countries,
and at the beginning of the present century the greater part of
Germany's population lived in the cities. The result was speedily seen
in the constitution of the Reichstag, since no redistricting was ever
made since the original districting of 1871. Greater Berlin, with a
population around four million, elected but six representatives to the
Reichstag. In other words, there were some 660,000 inhabitants for every
delegate. The agricultural districts, however, and especially those of
Northern Germany--East Elbia, as it is termed--continued to elect the
same number of representatives as at the beginning to represent a
population which had increased but little or not at all. There were
districts in East and West Prussia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania
and Posen where fewer than ten thousand voters were able to send a
representative to the Reichstag.
The result was the natural one. Throughout the world conservatism has
its headquarters on the farms. The farmers cling longest to the old
order of things, they free themselves the most slowly from tradition,
they are least susceptible to sociological and socialistic ideas and, in
so far as they own their own land, they are among the strongest
supporters of vested property-rights. In no other country was this more
the case than in Germany, and especially in the districts mentioned,
where large estates predominate and whence have come for two hundred
years the most energetic, faithful and blindly loyal servants of their
sovereign. The cities, on the other hand, and particularly the larger
cities are the strongholds of new ideas. They are in particular the
breeding-places of Socialism and Communism. Five of the six Reichstag
members elected from Greater Berlin in 1912 were Social-Democrats, and
the sixth was a Progressive with advanced democratic ideas.
With the shifting population and the consequent distortion of the
election districts, a tremendous advantage accrued to the rural
communities; in other words, the forces opposed to democratic reforms
and in favor of maintaining and even increasing the powers of the King
and Emperor steadily increased proportionately their representation in
the Reichstag at the expense of the friends of democracy. At the
Reichstag election of 1912 the Socialists cast roundly thirty-five per
cent of the total popular vote. Handicapped by the unjust districting,
however, they were able to elect only 110 delegates, whereas their
proportion of the total vote entitled them to 139. The Progressives,
most of whose strength also lay in the cities, likewise received fewer
members than their total vote entitled them to have. Under a fair
districting these two parties would together have had nearly a clear
majority of the Reichstag. There is reason to believe that the whole
course of history of the last years would have been altered had Germany
honestly reformed her Reichstag election districts ten years ago. On
such small things does the fate of nations often rest.
The Kaiser, as the president of the empire, was authorized to "represent
the empire internationally." He named the diplomatic representatives to
foreign courts and countries and to the Vatican. He was empowered to
make treaties, and to declare defensive warfare provided the enemy had
actually invaded German territory. He could not declare an offensive war
without the consent of the Federal Council, nor a defensive war unless
the invasion mentioned had taken place. He was commander-in-chief of the
navy, and of the Prussian army and the armies of the other federal
states except of Saxony and Bavaria, which maintained their own military
establishments. He appointed--in theory--all federal officials and
officers of the army and navy. On the whole, however, his powers as
German Emperor were strictly limited and hardly went beyond the powers
of the ruler of any constitutional monarchy.
It was as King of Prussia, however, that he really exercised the
greatest power, and thus vicariously strengthened his powers in the
empire at large. The parliamentary system of Prussia was archaic and
designed to make impossible any really democratic government or a too
severe limitation upon the powers of the King. It was, like the Imperial
Parliament, made up of two chambers, a House of Lords and a Diet. The
upper chamber, the House of Lords, was composed of men appointed by the
King, either for a fixed term or for life. It goes without saying that
all these men were strong supporters of the monarchic system and
outspoken enemies of democracy. No legislation could be enacted against
their will. The composition of the Diet, moreover, was such that the
House of Lords had until very recent years little to fear in the way of
democratic legislation. It was elected by the so-called three-class
system, under which a wealthy man frequently had greater voting power
than his five hundred employees together. The ballot moreover was
indirect, the delegates being elected by a complicated system of
electors. In addition to all this, the ballot was open, not secret. This
placed a powerful weapon in the hands of the employing classes generally
and of the great estate-owners particularly. The polling-places in rural
districts were generally located on land belonging to one of these
estates, and the election officials were either the estate-owners
themselves or men dependent on them. In these circumstances it took a
brave man to vote otherwise than his employer desired, and there was no
way of concealing for whom or what party he had voted. Bismarck himself,
reactionary and conservative as he was, once termed the Prussian
three-class voting-system "the most iniquitous of all franchise
systems."
Around this a fight had waged for several years before the revolution.
The Kaiser, as King of Prussia, flatly promised, in his address from the
throne in 1908, that the system should be reformed. It is a matter of
simple justice to record that he made the promise in good faith and
tried to see that it was kept. His efforts along this line were thwarted
by a small clique of men who were determined "to protect the King
against himself," and who, lacking even the modicum of political
prescience possessed by the Kaiser-King, failed to see that if they did
not make a concession willingly they would eventually be forced to make
a concession of much greater extent. From year to year measures to
reform the three-class system were introduced, only to be killed by the
House of Lords. Under the stress of the closing days of the war such a
measure was perfected and would have become a law had not the revolution
intervened. But it came too late, just as did scores of other reforms
undertaken in the eleventh hour.
And thus, while the Kaiser's power as German Emperor was sharply
limited, he enjoyed powers as King of Prussia which in some degree
approached absolutism. The dominance of Prussia in the empire, while it
could not transfer these powers to the Emperor _de jure_, did
unquestionably effect to some degree a _de facto_ transfer, which, while
it did not in the long run have a very actual or injurious internal
effect, nevertheless played a no inconsiderable part in the outside
world and was responsible for a general feeling that Germany was in
effect an absolute monarchy. German apologists have maintained that
Wilhelm II had less actual power as German Emperor than that possessed
by the President of the United States. This statement is undoubtedly
true, but with an important limitation and qualification. The
President's great powers are transitory and cannot--or in practice do
not--extend more than eight years at the most. His exercise of those
powers is governed and restrained during the first four years by his
desire to be re-elected; during the second four years he must also use
his powers in such a way that a democratic people will not revenge
itself at the next election upon the President's party. But the Kaiser
and King was subject to no such limitation. He ruled for life, and a
dissatisfied people could not take the succession away from the
Hohenzollerns except by revolution. And nobody expected or talked of
revolution. The only real control over abuses of power rested with a
Reichstag which, as has already been explained, was too faithful a
reflex of a non-political and inert constituency to make this control of
more than mild academic interest.
CHAPTER II.
The German Conception of the State.
We have seen how the whole manner of life and the traditions of the
Germans were obstacles to their political development. Mention has also
been made of their peculiar tendency toward abstract philosophic habits
of thought, which are not only inexplicable by the manner of the
people's long-continued struggle for existence, but seem indeed to
prevail in defiance of it.
In addition to this powerful factor there existed another set of factors
which worked with wonderful effectiveness toward the same end--the
crippling of independent and practical political thinking. This was the
conception of the state held by the ruling-classes of Germany and their
manner of imposing this conception upon the people. It may briefly be
put thus: the people existed for the sake of the state, not the state
for the sake of the people. The state was the central and great idea;
whatever weakened its authority or power was of evil. It could grant
free play to individualism only in those things that could not affect
the state directly, such as music and the fine arts, and to abstract
philosophy and literature--particularly the drama--as long as they
avoided dangerous political topics. Its keynote was authority and the
subjection of the individual to the welfare of the state.
The tendency of this system to make for efficiency so far as the actual
brute power of a state is concerned cannot be denied in the light of the
events of the World War. We have seen how in America itself, the
stronghold of political and religious liberty, individualism was sternly
repressed and even slight offenses against the authority of the state
were punished by prison sentences of a barbarous severity unknown in any
civilized country of Europe. We have seen the churches, reinterpreting
the principles of the New Testament, and the schools, rewriting history
to supposed good ends, both enlisted in this repression of individualism
for the sake of increasing the efficiency of the state at a time when
the highest efficiency was required.
But the distinction between such conditions here and the pre-war
conditions in Germany is that they obtained, although in milder form, in
Germany in peace times as well. And the Anglo-Saxon conception of the
state is as of a thing existing for the sake of the people and with no
possible interests that cannot be served by the democratic and
individualistic development of its people. Between this conception and
the conception held by Germany's rulers there is a wide and
irreconcilable difference.
Apart, however, from any consideration of the merits of the German
system, it must be admitted that the world has never seen another such
intelligent application of principles of statecraft to the end sought to
be attained. That the system eventually collapsed was not due to its
internal faults, but to abnormal and unforeseeable events. The extent of
its collapse, however, was directly due to the structure of the system
itself.
It has already been pointed out that authority was the keynote of the
German system. This authority, embodied in school and church, began to
mold the plastic mind of the German child as early as the age of six.
"The Emperor is the father of his country and loves his children like a
father; we owe him the obedience due to a father," taught the school.
"Submit yourselves unto authority," said the church, using Paul's words
to serve the ends of the state. The child came from school and church to
his military service and found authority enthroned there. He had to obey
the orders of every _Vorgesetzter_ (superior in authority) from field
marshal down to corporal. He found that, in the absence of officers or
non-commissioned officers, he must submit himself to the authority of
the _Stubenaeltester_, the senior soldier in the same room with him.
Insubordination was punished rigorously.
Precept, example and punishment were but a part of a system calculated
to make discipline and submission to authority advisable and profitable.
The penalties prescribed by the German penal and military codes for
infractions of the laws were far less severe than the penalties
prescribed in the code of any American state, but conviction was
followed by a consequence of great moment in Germany: the man who was
_vorbestraft_, that is, who had been punished for any transgression,
found himself automatically excluded from any opportunity to become a
_Beamter_, or government official.
The system of punishment had always as its chief purpose the laying of
emphasis upon duty, and this was often arrived at in an indirect way.
For example, the soldier who failed to keep his valuables in the locker
provided for him in his barracks and who lost them by theft, was
punished for his own negligence.
No other country in the world employed so large a proportion of its
total population in the administration of government, and in no other
country was the system so cleverly calculated to make government office
attractive to the average man. The salaries were not larger than those
earned by men of the same class in non-official employments, but
employment under the government offered in addition both material and
moral advantages. The chief material advantage was the right to retire
after a specified number of years of service on liberal pension. The
moral advantages rested in the dignity of government service and in the
special protection afforded government servants. A carefully graded
scale of titles made its appeal to personal vanity. This has frequently
been described as particularly German, but it was, in the last analysis,
merely human. There are comparatively few men in any country, not
excluding America, who are totally indifferent to titles, and there is
at least one state whose fondness for them has become a stock subject
for all American humorists. What was, however, particularly German was
the astuteness with which the ruling-classes of Germany had turned this
human weakness to account as an asset of government, and also the extent
to which it had been developed, especially downward. Mr. Smith, who
cleans the streets of an American city, would not be especially
gratified to be addressed as Mr. Street-Cleaner, but his German
colleague felt a glow of pride at hearing the address "Herr
Street-Cleaner Schmidt," and this feeling was a very real asset to his
government. It was the same at the other end of the scale. The
government councillor was the more faithful and energetic in his
devotion to the government's work because he knew that by faithfulness
and energy he would eventually become a "privy government councillor"
and the next step would be to "real privy government councillor, with
the predicate 'Your Excellency'." And since wives bore the titles of
their husbands, the appeal was doubly strong.
The _Beamter_ enjoyed furthermore special protection under the law.
To call an ordinary person "idiot," for example, was a _Beleidigung_
or insult, but the same term applied to a _Beamter_ became
_Beamtenbeleidigung_, or "insult to an official," and involved a
much sharper punishment, and this punishment increased with the
dignity of the person insulted until the person of the Kaiser was
reached, an insult to whom was _Majestaetsbeleidigung_, an insult to
majesty, or _lese majeste_, as the French term it. Prosecutions for
_Majestaetsbeleidigung_ were not frequent, but the law was
occasionally invoked. One of the last prosecutions for this offense
occurred in 1913, when a man who had demonstratively turned a
picture of the Kaiser toward the wall in the presence of a large
gathering was sent to jail for four months.
Personal vanity was further exploited by a system of orders, decorations
and civil-service medals. This system originated from an ancient custom
which, with increasing travel, had become onerous. Royalty was
everywhere expected to tip servants only with gold, and since the
smallest gold coin was the equivalent of the American $2.50-piece, this
constituted a severe financial tax on the poorer ruler of small
principalities, who traveled much. One of these petty rulers conceived
the bright idea of creating a system of bronze orders or medallions and
substituting these inexpensive decorations for tips. The event justified
his expectations; they were esteemed more highly than cash tips by
people whose vanity was flattered at receiving a "decoration" from
royalty. Eventually all states and the Empire adopted them. On fete days
railway station-masters could be recognized on the streets by their
numerous decorations. The railway-engineer, the mail-carrier, the
janitor in a government office--all these men knew that so many years of
loyal service meant recognition in the form of some sort of decoration
for the coat-lapel, and these, in the stratum of society in which they
moved, were just as highly regarded as was the Red Eagle or Hohenzollern
House Order in higher classes of society. There is no room whatever for
doubt that these things, whose actual cost was negligible, played a
large part in securing faithful and devoted service to the government
and compensated largely--and especially in the case of higher
officials--for somewhat niggardly salaries. A prominent English
statesman, visiting Berlin some years before the war, expressed to the
writer his regret that England had not built up a similar system, which,
in his opinion, was a powerful factor in securing a cheap and good
administration of public affairs. Like the system of titles, it took
advantage of a weakness not merely German, but human. Instances of the
refusal of foreign orders and decorations by Americans are rare.
All these things, then, were factors of almost inestimable value in
building up a strong governmental machine. At bottom, however, the
whole structure rested upon another factor which should receive
ungrudging admiration and recognition, regardless of one's attitude
toward Germany or its governing classes. This was the strong sense of
duty inculcated in every German, man or woman, from lowest to highest.
Self-denial, a Spartan simplicity, faithfulness in the discharge of
one's obligations--these were the characteristics that set their seal
upon the average German. In some of the larger cities, and notably in
Berlin, the Spartan ideals of life had been somewhat abandoned in the
years preceding the war, but elsewhere they persisted, and nowhere to a
greater extent than among the ruling-classes of Prussia, the so-called
_Junker_. Former Ambassador Gerard has paid a deserved tribute to this
class,[5] and the universal condemnation visited upon them by democratic
peoples cannot justify a refusal to give them their due.
[5] "There is no leisure class among the Junkers. They are all
workers, patriotic, honest and devoted to the Emperor and the
Fatherland. If it is possible that government by one class is
to be suffered, then the Prussian Junkers have proved
themselves more fit for rule than any class in history. Their
virtues are Spartan, their minds narrow but incorruptible,
and their bravery and patriotism undoubted. One can but
admire them and their stern, virtues." James W. Gerard, _My
Four Years in Germany_, p. 123.
This uncompromising devotion to duty had its roots in old Prussian
history. Frederick William I, father of Frederick the Great, threatened
his son with death if he were found derelict in what the stern old man
regarded as the duty of a future ruler.
The whole rule of Frederick the Great was marked by a rigid sense of
duty. He termed himself "the first servant of the state," and no servant
worked harder or allowed himself less leisure or fewer bodily comforts.
It was this monarch who, told of a brave act of sacrifice by one of his
officers, refused to consider it as anything calling for special
recognition. _Er hat nur seine verdammte Pflicht und Schuldigkeit getan_
(he did only his accursed duty), said the King. This saying became the
formula that characterized the attitude of the Prussian-German _Beamten_
in their relations to the state. Whatever was (or was represented as)
their "accursed duty" must be done, regardless of personal
considerations or rewards.
In the catalogue of virtues enumerated we have one important group of
prerequisites to efficient government. There remain two things:
intelligence and education. The first can be dismissed briefly. The
average of intelligence in all civilized countries is probably much the
same. There would not be much difference in native capacity and ability
between the best thousand of a million Germans or of a million men of
any other race. In respect of education and training, however, German
officials as a whole were at least the equal of any body of government
servants anywhere in the world and the superior of most. In the first
place, educational qualifications were definitely laid down for every
category of officials. Nor were these qualifications determined, as in
the American civil-service, by an examination. The candidate must have
attended school and taken the prescribed course for a term of years,
varying with the importance of the government career to which he
aspired.
This insured the possession of adequate educational qualifications of
civil servants, and there was another thing of first importance in the
building up of a strong and efficient civil-service. The "spoils system"
in connection with public office was absolutely unknown in Germany. The
idea that appointments to the government's service should depend upon
the political faith of the appointee was one that never occurred to any
German. If it had occurred to him it would have been immediately
dismissed as inconsistent with the best administration of the
government's affairs, as, indeed, it is. The only partisan
qualification, or rather limitation, upon eligibility to public office
was that members of the Social-Democratic party were ineligible, and
that government employees might not become members of that party. From
the standpoint of the ruling-classes this was natural. It was more; it
was requisite. For the German Socialists were the avowed and
uncompromising enemies of the existing government; they were advocates
of a republic; they were the outspoken enemies of all authority except
the authority of their own class, for which they assumed to be the only
legitimate spokesmen, and they were, like Socialists the world over,
internationalists first and patriots second. No government could be
expected to help its bitterest opponents to power by giving places of
honor and profit to their representatives.
The tenure of government officials, except, of course, that of
ministers, was for life. Promotion was by merit, not by influence. The
result was an efficiency which is generally admitted. The municipal
administration of German cities in particular became the model for the
world. The system withstood the practical test; it worked. The Chief
Burgomaster of Greater Berlin is a man whose whole life-training has
been devoted to the administration of cities. Beginning in a subordinate
position in a small city, he became eventually its burgomaster (mayor),
then mayor of a larger city, and so on until he was called to take
charge of the administration of the empire's largest city. His career is
typical of the German pre-revolutionary methods of choosing public
servants, and the same principle was applied in every department of the
government's service.
From the purposely brief sketch of German officialdom's characteristics
and efficiency which has been presented it will be apparent that such a
system was a powerful weapon in the hands of any ruling-class. Its
efficiency might reasonably be expected to crush any revolution in the
bud, and the loyalty of the men composing it might equally be expected
to maintain to the last their allegiance to the classes that represented
authority, with its supreme fount in the person of the ruler himself.
That these expectations were not fulfilled would seem to testify to the
inherent and irresistible strength of the revolution that upset it. We
shall see later, however, that it was a different class of men with whom
the revolution had to cope. Against the spirit of German officialdom of
ante-bellum days revolution would have raised its head in vain.
The authority of the German state had another and even more powerful
weapon than the _Beamtentum_. This was the military establishment and
the officer-corps. Upon this in the first instance the throne of the
Hohenzollerns was supported.
Enlightened democracy discovered centuries ago that a large standing
army may easily become the tool of absolutism and the enemy of free
institutions. This discovery found expression in England in the
consistent refusal of Parliament to create an army in permanence. The
laws establishing the English army had to be renewed periodically, so
that it was possible at any time for the representatives of the people
to draw the teeth of the military force if an attempt should be made to
use that force for tyrannical ends. But the Germans, as has already been
explained, lacked democratic training and perceptions. Germany was
moreover in a uniquely dangerous position. No other great power had such
an unfavorable geographical situation. On the west was France, and there
were thousands of Germans who had been told by their fathers the story
of the Napoleonic slavery. On the east was Russia, stronghold of
absolutism, with inexhaustible natural resources and a population more
than twice Germany's. Great Britain commanded the seas, and Germany had
to import or starve.
It cannot fairly be doubted that, placed in a similar situation, the
most pacific nation would have armed itself to the teeth. But--and this
is all-important--it is difficult to imagine that such other nation
would have become militaristic.
The stock answer of German apologists to the accusations regarding
"militarism" as exemplified in Prussia-Germany has been the assertion
that France spent more money _per capita_ on her military establishment
than did Germany. This statement is true, but those making it overlooked
the real nature of the charge against them. They did not realize that
militarism, as the world saw it in their country, was not concrete, but
abstract; it was, in brief, a state of mind. It could have existed
equally well if the army had been but a quarter as large, and it did not
exist in France, which, in proportion to her population, had a larger
army than Germany. It exalted the profession of arms above all else; it
divided the people into two classes, military and civilians. Its spirit
was illustrated strikingly by the fact that when Wilhelm II ascended the
throne, his first act was to issue a proclamation to the army, but it
was not until three days later that his proclamation to the people was
issued. Militarism gave the youngest lieutenant at court precedence over
venerable high civilian officials.
The spirit of militarism permeated even to the remotest corners of daily
activity in all walks of life. The gatekeeper at a railway crossing must
stand at attention, with his red flag held in a prescribed manner, while
the train is passing. A Berlin mail-carrier was punished for saluting a
superior with his left hand, instead of with the right. A street-car
conductor was fined for driving his car between two wagons of a military
transport. This was in peace times, and the transport was conveying hay.
That the passengers in the car would otherwise have had to lose much
time was of no consequence; nothing could be permitted to interfere with
anything hallowed by connection with the military establishment. When
Herr von Bethmann Hollweg was appointed Imperial Chancellor it was
necessary to give him military rank, since he had never held it. He was
created a general, for it could not be suffered that a mere civilian
should occupy the highest post in the empire next to the Kaiser. The
Kaiser rarely showed himself in public in civilian attire.
It was but natural that the members of the officer-corps held an exalted
opinion of their own worth and dignity. Militarism is everywhere tarred
with the same stick, and army officers, if freed from effective civil
control, exhibit in all lands the same tendency to arbitrariness and to
a scorn and contempt for mere civilians. Such release from control is
seen in other lands, however, only in time of war, whereas it was a
permanently existing state of affairs in Germany. It worked more
powerfully there than would have been the case anywhere else, for all
the country's traditions and history were of a nature to exalt military
service. Ravaged by war for centuries, Germany's greatness had been
built up by the genius of her army leaders and the bravery and loyalty
of her soldiers. Hundreds of folksongs and poems known to every German
child glorified war and its heroes. The youthful Theodor Koerner, writing
his _Gebet vor der Schlacht_ (Prayer before the Battle) by the light of
the bivouac-fires a few hours before the battle in which he was killed,
makes a picture that must appeal even to persons who abhor war. How much
greater, then, must its appeal have been to a military folk!
The German officer was encouraged to consider himself of better clay
than the ordinary civilian. His "honor" was more delicate than the honor
of women. It was no infrequent occurrence for an officer, willing to
right by marriage a woman whom he had wronged, to be refused permission
either because she did not have a dowry corresponding to his rank, or
because she was of a lower social class. Duelling among officers was
encouraged, and to step on an officer's foot, or even to stare too
fixedly at him _(fixieren)_ was an insult calling for a duel. An
officer's credit was good everywhere. His word was as readily accepted
as a civilian's bond, and honesty requires that it be said that his
trust was rarely misplaced. His exaggerated ideas of honor led
frequently to an arrogant conduct toward civilians, and occasionally to
assaults upon offenders, which in a few instances took the form of a
summary sabering of the unfortunate victim.[6]
[6] Some travelers and a certain class of correspondents have
unduly exaggerated the conditions referred to. They have
pictured murders of this sort as of frequent occurrence, and,
if they could be believed, German officers made it a custom
to require women in the street cars to surrender their seats
to them. In many years' residence in Germany the author
learned of but two cases of the murder of civilians by
officers, and he never saw a display of rudeness toward a
woman. The German officer almost invariably responded in kind
to courtesy, but he did expect and require deference from
civilians.
The crassest of the outward, non-political manifestations of militarism
in recent years was the Zabern affair. A young lieutenant had sabered a
crippled shoemaker for a real or fancied offense against military rules.
The townspeople made a demonstration against the officer, and the
colonel commanding the regiment stationed at Zabern locked a number of
the civilians in the cellar of the barracks and kept them there all
night. This was too much even for a docile German Reichstag, and an
excited debate was followed by the passing of a vote of censure on a
government which, through the mouths of its Chancellor and War Minister,
had justified the colonel's actions. The colonel and the lieutenant were
convicted upon trial and adequate sentences were imposed upon them, but
the convictions were significantly set aside upon appeal and both
escaped punishment. It was in connection with this affair that the
German Crown Prince earned the censure of the soberer German elements by
sending an encouraging telegram to the arbitrary colonel.
Militarism, in the aspects discussed, was a purely internal affair and
concerned only the German people themselves. But there was another
aspect, and it was this that made it a menace to the peace of the world
and to true democracy.
The very possession of an admirable weapon is a constant temptation to
use it. This temptation becomes stronger in proportion as it springs
with inclination. The Germans of the last fifty years were not a
bellicose people. They had suffered too greatly from wars within the
recollection of millions of men and women still living. On the other
hand, they were familiar with war and the thought of it did not invoke
the same repugnant fears and apprehensions as among less sorely tested
peoples. The mothers of every generation except the youngest knew what
it meant to see husbands, sons and brothers don the King's coat and
march away behind blaring bands; they knew the anxiety of waiting for
news after the battle, and the grief that comes with the announcement of
a loved one's death, and they considered it dimly, if they philosophized
about it at all, as one of the things that must be and against which it
were unavailing to contend. But the officers as a whole were bellicose.
The reasons are multifold. It is inherent in the profession that
officers generally are inclined to desire war, if for no other reason,
than because it means opportunities for advancement and high honors.
Beyond this, the German officer's training and traditions taught him
that war was in itself a glorious thing.
In trying to understand the influences that dominated the government of
Germany in its relations to foreign countries it must be clearly
realized and remembered that the real rulers of Germany came from the
caste that had for nearly two centuries furnished the majority of the
members of the officer-corps. The Emperor-King, assuming to rule by the
grace of God, in reality ruled by the grace of the old nobility and
landed gentry of Prussia, from whose ranks he sprang. This had been
aptly expressed eighty years earlier by the poet Chamisso, in whose
_Nachtwaechterlied_ appear the lines:
_Und der Koenig absolut,_
_Wenn er unseren Willen tut!_
(Let the King be absolute so long as he does our will.) It was
inevitable that the views of this class should determine the views of
government, and the only remarkable thing about the situation was that
some of the men who, by the indirect mandate of this caste, were
responsible for the conduct of the government, were less bellicose and
more pacific than their mandate-givers. There were some men who,
infected with the virus of militarism, dreamed of the _Welt-Imperium_,
the eventual domination of the world by Germany, to be attained by
peaceful methods if possible, but under the threatening shadow of the
empire's mighty military machine, which could be used if necessary. Yet
even in their own caste they formed a minority.
Such, in brief outline, was Germany--an empire built on the bayonets of
the world's greatest and most efficient army and administered by tens of
thousands of loyal and efficient civil servants. How was it possible
that it could be overthrown?
In the last analysis it was not overthrown; it was destroyed from within
by a cancer that had been eating at its vitals for eighty years. And the
seeds of this cancer, by the strange irony of fate, were sown in Germany
and cultivated by Germans.
The cancer was Socialism, or Social-Democracy, as it is termed in
Germany.
CHAPTER III.
Internationalism and Vaterlandslose Gesellen.
The concluding statement in the previous chapter must by no means be
taken as a general arraignment of Socialism, and it requires careful
explanation. Indiscriminately to attack Socialism in all its economic
aspects testifies rather to mental hardihood than to an understanding of
these aspects. A school of political thought which has so powerfully
affected the polity of all civilized nations in the last fifty years and
has put its impress upon the statutes of those countries cannot be
lightly dismissed nor condemned without qualification.
Citizens of the recently allied countries will be likely also to see
merit in Socialism because of the very fact that, in one of its aspects,
it played a large part in overthrowing an enemy government. Let this be
clearly set down and understood at the very beginning: the aspects of
Socialism that made the German governmental system ripe for fall were
and are inimical not only to the governmental systems of all states, but
to the very idea of the state itself.
More: The men responsible for the _debacle_ in Germany--and in
Russia--regard the United States as the chief stronghold of capitalism
and of the privilege of plutocracy, and the upsetting of this country's
government would be hailed by them with as great rejoicing as were their
victories on the continent.
The aspect of Socialism that makes it a menace to current theories of
government is "internationalism"--its doctrine that the scriptural
teaching that all men are brothers must become of general application,
and the negation of patriotism and the elimination of state boundaries
which that doctrine logically and necessarily implies. And this doctrine
was "made in Germany."
The basic idea of Socialism goes back to the eighteenth century, but its
name was first formulated and applied by the Englishman Robert Owen in
1835. Essentially this school of political thought maintains that land
and capital generally--the "instruments of production"--should become
the property of the state or society. "The alpha and omega of Socialism
is the transformation of private competing aggregations of capital into
a united collective capital."[7] Ethically Socialism is merely New
Testament Christianity, but, as will be seen later, it is in effect
outspokenly material, irreligious and even actively anti-religious.
[7] _Die Quintessenz des Sozialismus_, by Schaeffle.
Socialism received its first clear and intelligent formulation at the
hands of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both Germans, although Marx was
of Jewish descent. In 1847 these two men reorganized under the name
"Communist League" a society of Socialists already in existence in
London. The "Manifesto of the Communist League" issued by these two men
in 1848 was the first real proclamation of a Socialism with outspoken
revolutionary and international aims. It demanded that the
laboring-classes should, after seizure of political might, "by despotic
interference with the property rights and methods of production of the
_bourgeoisie_, little by little take from them all capital and
centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.
e., in the hands of the proletariat organized as the ruling-class." Marx
and Engels recommended therefore the expropriation of real estate, the
confiscation of the property of all emigrants and the centralization in
the hands of the state of all means of credit (banks) and
transportation.
The dominant idea of the Socialism of this period was that set forth by
Marx in his book, _Das Kapital_, which became the textbook of the
movement. It was, in brief, that all wealth is produced by labor, and
that the surplus above the amount necessary for the bare existence of
the laborers is appropriated by the capitalists. Marx's admirers have
often endeavored to show that the communism advocated by him in these
first years was not the violent communism that has eventuated in the
last years in Bolshevism and kindred movements under other names. The
question is of only academic interest, in view of the fact that Marx
himself later realized that existing institutions could not so easily be
overturned as he had hoped and believed in 1848. Engels had also come to
a realization of the same fact, and in 1872, when the two men prepared a
new edition of the Manifesto of twenty-four years earlier, they admitted
frankly:
"The practical application of these principles will always and
everywhere depend upon historically existing conditions, and we
therefore lay no especial stress upon the revolutionary measures
proposed. In the face of the tremendous development of industry
and of the organization of the laboring-classes accompanying
this development, as well as in view of practical experience,
this program is already in part antiquated. The Commune (of 1871
in Paris) has supplied the proof that the laboring-class cannot
simply take possession of the machinery of state and set it in
motion for its own purposes."
This awakening, however, came, as has been pointed out, nearly a quarter
of a century after the founding of a Socialist kindergarten which openly
taught revolution. In its first years this kindergarten concerned itself
only with national (German) matters, and was only indirectly a menace to
other countries by its tendency to awaken a spirit of unrest among the
laboring-classes and to set an example which might prove contagious. In
1864, however, the _Internationale_ was founded with the cooperation of
Marx and Engels, and Socialism became a movement which directly
concerned all the states of the world.
This development of Socialism was logical and natural, for its creed was
essentially and in its origins international. It had originated in
England in the days of the inhuman exploitation of labor, and especially
child-labor, by conscienceless and greedy capitalists. It had been tried
out in France. Prominent among its advocates were many Russians, notably
Michael Bakunin, who later became an anarchist. Perhaps the majority of
its advocates on the continent were Jews or of Jewish descent, for no
other race has ever been so truly international and so little bound by
state lines. The _Internationale_ had been in the air for years before
it was actually organized; that organization was delayed for sixteen
years by no means indicates that the idea was new in 1864.
The basic idea of the _Internationale_ has already been referred to. It
accepted as a working-creed the biblical doctrine that God "hath made of
one blood all nations of men," but it disregarded the further
declaration in the same verse of the Scriptures that He "hath determined
the bounds of their habitation." The Socialist creed teaches the
brotherhood of man and the equality of all men irrespective of race,
color or belief. The inescapable corollary of this creed is that
patriotism, understood as unreasoning devotion to the real or supposed
interests of the state, cannot be encouraged or even suffered. And this
standpoint necessarily involves further the eventual obliteration of the
state itself, for any state's chief reason for existence in a
non-altruistic world is the securing of special privileges, benefits,
advantages and protection for its own citizens, without consideration
for the inhabitants of other states. If this exercise of its power be
prohibited, the state's reason for existence is greatly diminished.
Indeed, it can have virtually only a social mission left, and a social
mission pure and simple cannot inspire a high degree of patriotism.
Many non-Socialist thinkers have perceived the antithesis between the
doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man and the particularism of
national patriotism. Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson wrote: "Patriotism is a stage
of transition." This doctrine may come as a shock to the average reader,
yet it is undoubtedly a prophetic and accurate statement of what will
some day be generally accepted. Thoughtfully considered, the idea will
be found less shocking than it at first appears. Neither Bjoernson nor
any other non-Socialist contemplates the abandonment of patriotism and
state lines except by natural development. The world, in other words, is
in a transitional stage, and when this transition shall have been
completed it will find a world where the egoism of national patriotism
has made way for the altruism of internationalism. And this will have
been accomplished without violent revolutionary changes, but merely by a
natural and peaceful evolutionary development.
Against such a development, if it come in the manner described and
anticipated, nobody can properly protest. But the Socialists of the
international school--and this is what makes international Socialism a
menace to all governments and gradually but surely undermined the German
state--will not wait upon the slow processes of transition. Upon peoples
for whom the flags of their respective countries are still emblems of
interests transcending any conceivable interests of peoples outside
their own state boundaries, emblems of an idea which must be
unquestioningly and unthinkingly accepted and against which no dictates
of the brotherhood of other men or the welfare of other human beings
have any claim to consideration, the Socialists would impose over night
their idea of a world without artificial state lines, and would
substitute the red flag for those emblems which the majority of all
mankind still reverence and adore. It requires no profound thinking to
realize that such a change must be preceded by a long period of
preparation if anarchy of production and distribution is to be avoided.
To impose the rule of an international proletariat under the present
social conditions means chaos. The world has seen this exemplified in
Russia, and yet Russia, where the social structure was comparatively
simple and industry neither complex nor widely developed, was the
country where, if anywhere today, such an experiment might have
succeeded.
Socialist leaders, including even the internationalists, have perceived
this. The murdered Jaures saw it clearly. But in the very nature of
things, the vast majority of the adherents of these doctrines are not
profound thinkers. Socialism naturally recruits itself from the lower
classes, and it is no disparagement to these to say that they are the
least educated. Even in states where the higher institutions of learning
are free--and there are very few such places--the ability of the poor
man's son to attend them is limited by the necessity resting upon him to
make his own living or to contribute to the support of his family. The
tenets of national Socialism naturally appeal to the young man, who
feels that he and his fellows are being exploited by those who own the
"instruments of production," and who sees himself barred from the
educational advantages which wealth gives. From the acceptance of the
economic tenets of national Socialism to advocacy of internationalism is
but a small step, easy to take for one who, in joining the Socialist
party, finds himself the associate of men who address him as "comrade"
and who look forward to a day when all men, white, black or yellow,
shall also be comrades under one flag and enlisted in one cause--the
cause of common humanity. These men realize no more than himself the
fact that existing social conditions are the result of historical
development and that they cannot be violently and artificially altered
without destroying the delicate balance of the whole machine. And since
this is the state of mind of the majority of the "comrades," even the
wisest leaders can apply the brakes only with great moderation, for the
leader who lags too far behind the majority of his party ceases to be a
leader and finds his place taken by less intelligent or less scrupulous
men.
Ferdinand Lassalle, the brilliant but erratic young man who organized
the first Socialist party in Germany, was a national Socialist. His
party grew slowly at first, and in 1864, when he died, it had but
4,600 members. In 1863 Marx aided by August Bebel and Wilhelm
Liebknecht,[8] formed the rival Confederation of German Unions upon an
internationalistic basis. This organization joined the _Internationale_
at its congress in Nuremburg in 1868. The parties of Marx and Lassalle
maintained their separate identities until 1875, when they effected a
fusion at a congress in Gotha. The Marx adherents numbered at that time
about 9,000 men and the Lassalle adherents some 15,000, but the latter
had already virtually accepted the doctrines of international Socialism
and the _Internationale_, and the German Socialists had until the
breaking out of the World War maintained their place as the apostles and
leaders of internationalism.
[8] Called "the elder Liebknecht" to distinguish him from his son
Karl Liebknecht, who was killed while under arrest in Berlin
in the winter of 1919.
Socialism first showed itself as a political factor in Germany in 1867,
when five Socialists were elected to the North German Diet. Two
_Genossen_[9] were sent to the first Reichstag in 1871, with a popular
vote of 120,000, and six years later nearly a half million red votes
were polled and twelve Socialists took their seats in the Reichstag. The
voting-strength of the party in Berlin alone increased from 6,700 in
1871 to 57,500 in 1877, or almost ninefold.
[9] _Genosse_, comrade, is the term by which all German-speaking
Socialists address each other.
A propaganda of tremendous extent and extreme ability was carried on. No
_bourgeois_ German politician except Bismarck ever had such a keen
appreciation of the power of the printed word as did those responsible
for Socialism's missionary work. Daily newspapers, weekly periodicals
and monthly magazines were established, and German Socialism was soon in
possession of the most extensive and best conducted Socialist press in
the world. The result was two-fold: the press contributed mightily to
the spreading of its party's doctrines and at the same time furnished a
school in which were educated the majority of the party leaders.
Probably three quarters of the men who afterward became prominent in the
party owed their rise and, to a great extent, their general education to
their service on the editorial staffs of their party's press. By
intelligent reports and special Articles on news of interest to all
members of the _Internationale_, whether German, French, English, or of
what nationality they might be, this press made itself indispensable to
the leaders of that movement all over the world, and contributed greatly
to influencing the ideas of the Socialists of other lands.
Bismarck's clear political vision saw the menace in a movement which
openly aimed at the establishment of a German republic and at the
eventual overthrow of all _bourgeois_ governments and the elimination of
local patriotism and state lines. In 1878 he secured from the Reichstag
the enactment of the famous _Ausnahmegesetze_ or special laws, directed
against the Socialists. They forbade Socialist publications and
literature in general, prohibited the holding of Socialist meetings or
the making of speeches by adherents of the party. Even the circulation
of Socialist literature was prohibited. The _Ausnahmegesetze_ legalized
as an imperial measure the treatment that had already been meted out to
Socialists in various states of the Empire. Following the Gotha congress
in 1875, fifty-one delegates to the congress were sent to prison.
Wilhelm Liebknecht received a sentence of three years and eight months
and Bebel of two years and eleven months. In Saxony, from 1870 to 1875,
fifty Socialists underwent prison sentences aggregating more than forty
years.
But Socialism throve on oppression. In politics, as in religion, the
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It would be praising any
statesman of the '80's too highly to say that he had learned that ideas
cannot be combated with brute force, for the rulers of the world have
not yet learned it. But Bismarck did perceive that, to give any promise
of success, opposition to Socialism must be based upon constructive
statesmanship. To many of the party's demands no objection could be made
by intelligent society. And so, in the address from the throne in 1881,
an extended program of state socialism was presented. With the enactment
of this program into law Germany took the first important step ahead
along the road of state Socialism, and all her legislation for the next
thirty years was profoundly influenced by socialistic thought, in part
because of a recognition of the wisdom of some of Socialism's tenets, in
part because of a desire to draw the party's teeth by depriving it of
campaign material.
More than a decade earlier the Catholic Church in Germany had recognized
the threatening danger and sought to counteract it by the organization
of Catholic labor unions. It succeeded much better in its purpose than
did the government, which is not to be wondered at, since the temporal
affairs of the church have always been administered more intelligently
than have the state affairs of any of the world's governments. For many
years Socialism made comparatively small gains in Roman Catholic
districts. A similar effort by the Lutheran (State) Church in 1878
accomplished little, and Bismarck's state Socialism also accomplished
little to stop the spread of Socialist doctrines.
Kaiser Wilhelm II early realized the menace to the state of these
enemies of patriotism and of all _bourgeois_ states. In a much quoted
speech he termed the Socialists _vaterlandslose Gesellen_ (fellows
without a Fatherland). The designation stung all German Socialists, who,
ready as they were in theory to disavow all attachment to any state, did
not relish this kind of public denunciation by their monarch. The word
_Gesellen_, too, when used in this sense has an unpleasant connotation.
The Socialists, whose political tenets necessarily made them opponents
of royalty and monarchism everywhere, were particularly embittered
against a Kaiser whose contempt for them was so openly expressed. Their
press, which consistently referred to him baldly as "Wilhelm II" sailed
as closely into the wind of _lese majeste_ as possible, and sometimes
too closely. Leading Socialist papers had their special _Sitzredacteur_,
or "sitting-editor," whose sole function consisted in "sitting out" jail
sentences for insulting the Kaiser or other persons in authority. Police
officials, taking their keynote from the Kaiser, prosecuted and
persecuted Socialists relentlessly and unintelligently. Funeral
processions were stopped to permit policemen to remove red streamers and
ribbons from bouquets on the coffins, and graves were similarly
desecrated if the friends or mourners had ventured to bind their floral
offerings with the red of revolutionary Socialism. The laws authorizing
police supervision of all public meetings were relentlessly enforced
against Socialists, and their gatherings were dissolved by the
police-official present at the least suggestion of criticism of the
authorities. There was no practical remedy against this abuse of power.
An appeal to the courts was possible, but a decision in June that a
meeting in the preceding January had been illegally dissolved did not
greatly help matters. Socialist meetings could not be held in halls
belonging to a government or municipality, and the Socialists often or
perhaps generally found it impossible to secure meeting-places in
districts where the Conservatives or National Liberals were in control.
Federal, state and municipal employees were forbidden to subscribe for
Socialist publications, or to belong to that party.
The extent of these persecutions is indicated by a report made to the
Socialist congress at Halle in 1890, shortly after the _Ausnahmegesetze_
had expired by limitation, after a vain attempt had been made to get the
Reichstag to reenact them. In the twelve years that the law had been in
operation, 155 journals and 1,200 books and pamphlets had been
prohibited; 900 members of the party had been banished from Germany
without trial; 1,500 had been arrested on various charges and 300 of
these punished for violations of the law.
The _Ausnahmegesetze_ failed of their purpose just as completely as did
the Six Acts[10] of 1820 in England. Even in 1878, the very year these
laws were enacted, the Socialists polled more votes than ever before. In
1890 their total popular vote in the Empire was 1,427,000, which was
larger than the vote cast for any other single party. They should have
had eighty members in that year's Reichstag, but the shift in population
and consequent disproportionateness of the election districts kept the
number of Socialist deputies down to thirty-seven. At the Reichstag
election of 1893 their popular vote was 1,800,000, with forty-four
deputies.
[10] These acts were passed by Parliament after the Manchester
Riots of 1819: to prevent seditious meetings for a discussion
of subjects connected with church or state; to subject cheap
periodical pamphlets on political subjects to a duty; to give
magistrates the power of entering houses, for the purpose of
seizing arms believed to be collected for unlawful purposes.
It may be seriously questioned whether Bismarck's unfortunate
legislation did not actually operate to increase the Socialists'
strength. Certain it is that it intensified the feeling of bitterness
against the government, by men whose very creed compelled them to regard
as their natural enemy even the most beneficent _bourgeois_ government,
and who saw themselves stamped as Pariahs. This feeling found expression
at the party's congress in 1880 at Wyden, when a sentence of the program
declaring that the party's aim should be furthered "by every lawful
means" was changed to read, "by every means." It must in fairness be
recorded, however, that the revolutionary threat of this change appeared
to have no effect on the subsequent attitude of the party leaders or
their followers. The record of German Socialism is remarkably free from
violence and sabotage, and the revolution of 1918 was, as we shall see,
the work of men of a different stamp from the elder Liebknecht and the
sturdy and honest Bebel.
Two great factors in the growth of Socialism in Germany remain to be
described. These were, first, the peculiar tendency of the Teutonic
mind, already mentioned, to abstract philosophical thought, without
regard to practicalities, and, second, the accident that the labor-union
movement in Germany was a child of party-Socialism.
Socialism, in the last analysis, is nearer to New Testament Christianity
than is any other politico-economic creed, and the professions and
habits of thought of nearly all men in enlightened countries are
determined or at least powerfully influenced by the precepts of Christ,
no matter how far their practices may depart from these precepts. Few
even of those most strongly opposed to Socialism oppose it on ethical
grounds. Their opposition is based on the conviction that it is
unworkable and impracticable; that it fails to take into consideration
the real mainsprings of human action and conduct as society is today
constituted. In an ideally altruistic society, they admit, it would be
feasible, but, again, such a society would have no need of it. In other
words, the fundamental objection is the objection of the practical man.
Whether his objection is insuperable it is no part of the purpose of the
writer to discuss. What it is desired to make plain is that Socialism
appeals strongly to the dreamer, the closet-philosopher who concerns
himself with abstract ethical questions without regard to their
practicality or practicability as applied to the economic life of an
imperfect society. And there are more men of this type in Germany than
in any other country.
Loosely and inefficiently organized labor unions had existed in Germany
before the birth of the Socialist movement, but they existed
independently of each other and played but a limited role. The first
labor organization of national scope came on May 23, 1863, at Leipsic,
when Lassalle was instrumental in founding _Der allgemeine deutsche
Arbeiterverein_ (National German Workmen's Union). Organized labor, thus
definitely committed to Socialism, remained Socialist. To become a
member of a labor union in Germany--or generally anywhere on the
continent--means becoming an enrolled member of the Socialist party at
the same time. The only non-Socialist labor organizations in Germany
were the Catholic Hirsch-Duncker unions, organized at the instance of
the Roman Catholic Church to prevent the spread of Socialism. These were
boycotted by all Socialists, who termed them the "yellow unions," and
regarded them as union workmen in America regard non-union workers. It
goes without saying that a political party which automatically enrolls
in its membership all workmen who join a labor union cannot help
becoming powerful.
That international Socialism is inimical to nationalism and patriotism
has already been pointed out, but a word remains to be said on this
subject with reference to specific German conditions. We have already
seen how the Germany of the beginning of the nineteenth century was a
loose aggregation of more than three hundred dynasties, most of which
were petty principalities. The heritage of that time was a narrowly
limited state patriotism which the Germans termed _Particularismus_, or
particularism. Let the American reader assume that the State of Texas
had originally consisted of three hundred separate states, each with its
own government, and with customs and dialects varying greatly in the
north and south. Assume further that, after seventy years filled with
warfare and political strife, these states had been re-formed into
twenty-six states, with the ruler of the most powerful at the head of
the new federation, and that several of the twenty-six states had
reserved control over their posts, telegraphs, railways and customs as
the price for joining the federation. Even then he will have but a hazy
picture of the handicaps with which the Imperial German Government had
to contend.
Particularism was to the last the curse and weakness of the German
Empire. The Prussian regarded himself first as a Prussian and only in
second place as a German. The Bavarian was more deeply thrilled by the
white-and-blue banner of his state than by the black-white-red of the
Empire. The republican Hamburger thanked the Providence that did not
require him to live across the Elbe in the city of Altona, which was
Prussian, and the inhabitants of the former kingdoms, duchies and
principalities of Western Germany that became a part of Prussia during
the decades preceding the formation of the Empire regularly referred to
themselves as _Muss-Preussen_, that is, "must-Prussians," or Prussians
by compulsion.
The attempt to stretch this narrowly localized patriotism to make it
cover the whole Empire could not but result in a seriously diluted
product, which offered a favorable culture-medium for the bacillus of
internationalism. And in any event, to apply the standards of
abstract ethical reasoning to patriotism is fatal. The result may be
to leave a residue of traditional and racial attachment to one's
state, but that is not sufficient, in the present stage of human
society, for the maintenance of a strong government. Patriotism of
the my-country-right-or-wrong type must, like revealed religion, be
accepted on faith. German patriotism was never of this extreme type,
and in attacking it the Socialists made greater headway than would
have been the case in most countries.
The Socialists had thus seriously weakened the state at two vital
points. By their continuous advocacy of a republic and their obstructive
tactics they had impaired to a considerable extent the authority of the
state, and autocratic government rests upon authority. By their
internationalist teachings they had shaken the foundations of
patriotism. And there is still another count against them.
Opponents of Socialism accuse its advocates of being enemies of the
Christian religion and the church. Socialists declare in reply that
Socialism, being a purely economic school of thought, does not concern
itself with religious matters in any manner. They point out further that
the programs of Socialist parties in all lands expressly declare
religion to be a private matter and one about which the party does not
concern itself. This is only part of the truth. It is true that
Socialism officially regards religion as a private matter, but German
Socialism--and the Socialism of other lands as well--is in practice the
bitter enemy of the organized church. There is an abundance of evidence
to prove this assertion, but the following quotations will suffice.
August Bebel, one of the founders of German Socialism, said:
"We aim in the domain of politics at Republicanism, in the
domain of economics at Socialism, and in the domain of what is
today called religion at Atheism."[11]
[11] Quoted by W. H. Dawson in _German Socialism and Ferdinand
Lassalle_, ch. 15.
_Vorwaerts_, central organ of German Socialism, wrote on July 1, 1892:
"We would fight churches and preachers even if the preachers and
curates were the most conscientious of men."
_Vorwaerts_ contrived also to add insult to the statement by using the
word _Pfaffen_ for preachers, a word having a contemptuous implication
in this sense throughout Northern Germany.
Karl Kautsky, for years one of the intellectual leaders of the Socialist
movement in Germany and one of its ablest and most representative
publicists, said:[12]
"The one-sided battle against the congregations, as it is being
carried on today in France, is merely a pruning of the boughs of
the tree, which then merely flourishes all the more strongly.
The ax must be laid to the roots."
[12] Die neue Zeit, 1903, vol. i, p. 506.
_Genosse_ Dr. Erdmann, writing after the war had begun, said:
"We have no occasion to conceal the fact that Social-Democracy
is hostile to the church--whether Catholic or Evangelical--and
that we present our demands with special decision because we
know that we shall thus break the power of the church."[13]
[13] Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1915, vol. i, p. 516.
_Vorwaerts_ headlined an Article in January, 1918: "All religious systems
are enemies of women." (The Socialists nevertheless had the effrontery
during the campaign preceding the election of delegates to the National
Assembly at Weimar in January to put out a placard saying: "Women,
protect your religion! Vote for the Social-Democratic party of
Germany!").
The initial activities of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in
Hamburg and Brunswick following the revolution were correctly described
in a speech made in the National Assembly on March 11, 1919, by Deputy
Mumm. He said:
"The revolutionary government in Hamburg has retained the
bordells and abolished religious instruction. In Brunswick the
school children of the capital, 1,500 in number, were assembled
in the Cathedral by the people's commissioners for an
anti-Christian Christmas celebration."
At the same session, Deputy Hellmann, a member of the Majority (parent)
Socialist party, said in a speech in answer to Mumm:
"The church, like all social institutions, is subject to
constant change, and will eventually disappear."
Quotations like the preceding could be multiplied indefinitely, as could
also acts consistent with these anti-religious views. The first Minister
of Cults (_Kultusminister_) appointed by the revolutionary government in
Prussia was Adolf Hoffmann, a professed atheist, although this ministry
has charge of the affairs of the church.
The Socialist literature and press in all countries abound in
anti-religious utterances. To quote one is to give a sample of all. The
_Social-Demokraten_ of Stockholm, official organ of the Swedish
Socialists and reckoned among the sanest, ablest and most conservative
of all Social-Democratic press organs, forgets, too, that religion is a
private matter. It reports a sermon by Archbishop Soederblom, wherein the
speaker declared that the church must have enough expansive force to
conquer the masses who are now coming to power in various lands, and
adds this characteristic comment:
"The Archbishop is a brave man who is not afraid to install a
motor in the venerable but antiquated skiff from the Lake of
Genesareth. If only the boat will hold him up!"
This attitude of Socialism is comprehensible and logical, for no student
of world history can deny that an established church has been in all
ages and still is one of the strongest bulwarks of an autocratic state.
From the very dawn of organized government, centuries before the
Christian era, the priesthood, where it did not actually govern, has
powerfully upheld the arm of civil authority and property rights. Even
in democratic England it teaches the child to "be content in the station
whereto it has pleased God to call me," and is thus a factor in
upholding the class distinctions against which Socialism's whole
campaign is directed. In opposing the church as an institution
Social-Democracy is thus merely true to its cardinal tenets. If the
power of the church be destroyed or materially weakened, a serious blow
is dealt to the government which that church supported. People who, at
the command of the church, have been unquestioningly rendering unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, begin to ask themselves: "But what
things are Caesar's?" And when the people begin seriously to consider
this question, autocracy is doomed.
The effect of the Socialist campaign against the church began to make
itself felt a decade or more before the war began. Withdrawals from the
church became so frequent that the government was seriously concerned.
The number of those who termed themselves _Dissident_ (dissenter) or
_religionslos_ (without any religion) increased rapidly. Clergymen
preached the doctrines of Christ to empty benches; _religionslose
Genossen_ preached the doctrines of class warfare and disloyalty to
state to Socialist audiences that filled their meeting-places.
Thus the cancer ate its way into the vitals of the Empire.
CHAPTER IV.
Germany under the "Hunger-Blockade."
The men whose duty it was to take every measure to increase Germany's
preparedness for war and her ability to carry on an extended conflict
had long realized that the Empire had one very vulnerable point. This
was her inability to feed and clothe her inhabitants and her consequent
dependence on imports of foodstuffs and raw materials.
Germany in the days of her greatness occupied so large a place in the
sun that one is prone to forget that this mighty empire was erected on
an area much less than that of the State of Texas. Texas, with 262,290
square miles, was 53,666 square miles greater than the whole German
Empire. And Germany's population was two-thirds that of the entire
United States! Germany was, moreover, comparatively poor in natural
resources. The March (Province) Brandenburg, in which Berlin is
situated, is little more than a sandheap, and there are other sections
whose soil is poor and infertile. Nor was it, like America, virgin soil;
on the contrary, it had been cultivated for centuries.
Driven by stern necessity, the Germans became the most intelligent and
successful farmers of the world. Their average yields of all crops per
acre exceeded those of any other country, and were from one and a half
to two times as large as the average yield in the United States. The
German farmer raised two and one half times more potatoes per acre than
the average for the United States. He was aided by an adequate supply of
cheap farm labor and by unlimited supplies of potash at low prices,
since Germany, among her few important natural resources, possessed a
virtual monopoly of the world's potash supply.
Try as they would, however, the German farmers could not feed and clothe
more than about forty of Germany's nearly seventy millions. Even this
was a tremendous accomplishment, which can be the better appreciated if
one attempts to picture the State of Texas feeding and clothing four of
every ten inhabitants of the United States. Strenuous efforts were made
by the German Government to increase this proportion. Moorlands were
reclaimed and extensive projects for such reclamation were being
prepared when the war came. The odds were too great, however, and the
steady shift of population toward the cities made it increasingly
difficult to cultivate all the available land and likewise increased the
amount of food required, since there is an inevitable wastage in
transportation. What this shift of population amounted to is indicated
by the fact that whereas the aggregate population of the rural districts
in 1871 was 63.9 per cent of the total population, it was but 40 per
cent in 1910. During the same period the percentage of the total
population living in cities of 100,000 population or over had increased
from 4.8 to 21.3.
In the most favorable circumstances about three-sevenths of the food
needed by Germany must be imported. The government had realized that a
war on two fronts would involve a partial blockade, but neither the
German Government nor any other government did or could foresee that a
war would come which would completely encircle Germany in effect and
make an absolute blockade possible. Even if this had been realized it
would have made no essential difference, for it must always have
remained impossible for Germany to become self-supporting.
Another factor increased the difficulties of provisioning the people.
The war, by taking hundreds of able-bodied men and the best horses from
the farms, made it from the beginning impossible to farm as intensively
as under normal conditions, and resulted even in the second summer of
the war in a greatly reduced acreage of important crops. Livestock,
depleted greatly by slaughtering and by lack of fodder, no longer
produced as much manure as formerly, and one of the main secrets of the
intelligent farming-methods of the Germans was the lavish use of
fertilizer. And thus, at a time when even the maximum production would
have been insufficient, a production far below the normal average was
being secured.
Germany's dependence on importations is shown by the import statistics
for 1913. The figures are in millions of marks.
Cereals 1037.
Eggs 188.2
Fruits 148.8
Fish 135.9
Wheaten products 130.3
Animal fats 118.9
Butter 118.7
Rice 103.9
Southern fruits 101.2
Meats 81.4
Live animals 291.6
Coffee 219.7
Cacao 67.1
It will be observed that the importations of cereals (bread-stuffs and
maize) alone amounted to roughly $260,000,000, without the further item
of "wheaten products" for $32,500,000.
Fodder for animals was also imported in large quantities. The figures
for cereals include large amounts of Indian corn, and oilcakes were also
imported in the same year to the value of more than $29,600,000.
Germany was no more able to clothe and shoe her inhabitants than she was
to feed them. Further imports for 1913 were (in millions of marks):
Cotton 664.1
Wool 511.7
Hides and skins 672.4
Cotton yarn 116.2
Flax and hemp 114.4
Woolen yarn 108.
Imports of chemicals and drugs exceeded $105,000,000; of copper,
$86,000,000; of rubber and gutta-percha, $36,500,000; of leaf-tobacco,
$43,500,000; of jute, $23,500,000; of petroleum, $17,400,000.
Of foodstuffs, Germany exported only sugar and vegetable oils in any
considerable quantities. The primarily industrial character of the
country was evidenced by her exportations of manufactures, which
amounted in 1913 to a total of $1,598,950,000, and even to make these
exportations possible she had imported raw materials aggregating more
than $1,250,000,000.
The war came, and Germany was speedily thrown on her own resources. In
the first months various neutrals, including the United States,
succeeded in sending some foodstuffs and raw materials into the
beleaguered land, but the blockade rapidly tightened until only the
Scandinavian countries, Holland, and Switzerland could not be reached
directly by it. Sweden, with a production insufficient for her own
needs, soon found it necessary to stop all exports to Germany except of
certain so-called "compensation articles," consisting chiefly of paper
pulp and iron ore. A continuance of these exports was necessary, since
Germany required payment in wares for articles which Sweden needed and
could not secure elsewhere. The same was true of the other neutral
countries mentioned. Denmark continued to the last to export foodstuffs
to Germany, but she exported the same quantity of these wares to
England. All the exports of foodstuffs and raw materials from all the
neutrals during the war were but a drop in the bucket compared with the
vast needs of a people of seventy millions waging war, and they played a
negligible part in its course.
Although the German Government was confident that the war would last but
a few months, its first food-conservation order followed on the heels of
the mobilization. The government took over all supplies of breadstuffs
and established a weekly ration of four metric pounds per person (about
seventy ounces). Other similar measures followed fast. Meat was
rationed, the weekly allowance varying from six to nine ounces in
different parts of the Empire.[14] The Germans were not great
meat-eaters, except in the cities. The average peasant ate meat on
Sundays, and only occasionally in the middle of the week, and the ration
fixed would have been adequate but for one thing. This was the
disappearance of fats, particularly lard, from the market. The Germans
consumed great quantities of fats, which took the place of meat to a
large extent. They now found themselves limited to two ounces of butter,
lard, and margarine together per week. Pork, bacon, and ham were
unobtainable, and the other meats which made up the weekly ration were
lean and stringy, for there were no longer American oilcakes and maize
for the cattle, and the government had forbidden the use of potatoes,
rye or wheat as fodder. There had been some twenty-four million swine in
Germany at the outbreak of the war. There were but four million left at
the end. Cattle were butchered indiscriminately because there was no
fodder, and the survivors, undernourished, gave less and poorer meat per
unit than normally.
[14] This allowance had dropped to less than five ounces in
Prussia in the last months of the war.
How great a part milk pays in the feeding of any people is not generally
realized. In the United States recent estimates are that milk in its
various forms makes up no less than nineteen per cent of the entire food
consumed. The percentage was doubtless much greater in Germany, where,
as in all European countries, much more cheese is eaten per capita than
in America. What the German farmer calls _Kraftfutter_, such
concentrated fodder as oilcakes, maize-meal, etc., had to be imported,
since none of these things were produced in Germany. The annual average
of such importations in the years just preceding the war reached more
than five million metric tons, and these importations were virtually all
cut off before the end of 1917.
The result was that the supply of milk fell off by nearly one half. Only
very young children, invalids, women in childbed and the aged were
permitted to have any milk at all, and that only in insufficient
quantities and of low grade. The city of Chemnitz boasted of the fact
that it had been able at all times to supply a quarter of a liter (less
than half a pint!) daily to every child under eight. That this should be
considered worth boasting about indicates dimly what the conditions must
have been elsewhere.
The value of eggs as protein-furnishing food is well known, but even
here Germany was dependent upon other countries--chiefly Russia--for
two-fifths of her entire consumption. Available imports dropped to a
tenth of the pre-war figures, and the domestic production fell off
greatly, the hens having been killed for food and also because of lack
of fodder.
Restriction followed upon restriction, and every change was for the
worse. The _Kriegsbrot_ (war bread) was directed to be made with twenty
per cent of potatoes or potato flour and rye. Barley flour was later
added. Wheat and rye are ordinarily milled out around 70 to 75 per cent,
but were now milled to 94 per cent. The bread-ration was reduced. The
sugar-ration was set at 1-3/4 pounds monthly. American housewives
thought themselves severely restricted when sugar was sold in pound
packages and they could buy as much heavy molasses, corn syrups and
maple syrup as they desired, but the 1-3/4-pound allowance of the German
housewife represented the sum total of all sweets available per month.
By the autumn of 1916 conditions had become all but desperate. It is
difficult for one who has not experienced it personally to realize what
it means to subsist without rice, cereals such as macaroni, oatmeal, or
butter, lard or oil (for two ounces of these articles are little better
than none); to be limited to one egg each three weeks, or to five pounds
of potatoes weekly; to have no milk for kitchen use, and even no spices;
to steep basswood blossoms as a substitute for tea and use dandelion
roots or roasted acorns as coffee for which there is neither milk nor
sugar, and only a limited supply of saccharine. Germany had been a
country of many and cheap varieties of cheese, and these took the place
of meat to a great extent. Cheese disappeared entirely in August, 1916,
and could not again be had.
In common with most European peoples, the Germans had eaten great
quantities of fish, both fresh and salted or smoked. The bulk of the
salted and smoked fish had come from Scandinavia and England, and the
blockade cut off this supply. The North Sea was in the war-zone, and the
German fishermen could not venture out to the good fishing-grounds. The
German fishermen of the Baltic had, like their North Seacoast brethren,
been called to the colors in great numbers. Their nets could not be
repaired or renewed because there was no linen available. Fresh fish
disappeared from view, and supplies of preserved fish diminished so
greatly that it was possible to secure a small portion only every third
or fourth week. Even this trifling ration could not always be
maintained.
No German will ever forget the terrible _Kohlruebenwinter_ (turnip
winter) of 1916-17. It took its name from the fact that potatoes were
for many weeks unobtainable, and the only substitute that could be had
was coarse fodder-turnips. The lack of potatoes and other vegetables
increased the consumption of bread, and even in the case of the
better-situated families the ration was insufficient. The writer has
seen his own children come into the house from their play, hungry and
asking for a slice of bread, and go back to their games with a piece of
turnip because there was no bread to give them. The situation of hard
manual laborers was naturally even worse.
The turnip-winter was one of unusual severity, and it was marked by a
serious shortage of fuel. Thus the sufferings from the cold were added
to the pangs of hunger. There was furthermore already an insufficiency
of warm clothing.Articles of wear were strictly rationed, and the
children of the poorer classes were inadequately clad.
The minimum number of calories necessary for the nourishment of the
average individual is, according to dietetic authorities, 3,000, and
even this falls some 300 short of a full ration. Yet as early as
December, 1916, the caloric value of the complete rations of the German
was 1,344, and, if the indigestibility and monotony of the fare be taken
into account, even less. To be continuously hungry, to rise from the
table hungry, to go to bed hungry, was the universal experience of all
but the very well-to-do. Not only was the food grossly insufficient in
quantity and of poor quality, but the deadly monotony of the daily fare
also contributed to break down the strength and, eventually, the very
morale of the people. No fats being available, it was impossible to fry
anything. From day to day the Germans sat down to boiled potatoes,
boiled turnips and boiled cabbage, with an occasional piece of stringy
boiled beef or mutton, and with the coarse and indigestible
_Kriegsbrot_, in which fodder-turnips had by this time been substituted
for potatoes. The quantity of even such food was limited.
A little fruit would have varied this diet and been of great dietetic
value, but there was no fruit. _Wo bleibt das Obst_ (what has become of
the fruit?) cried the people, voicing unconsciously the demands of their
bodies. The government, which had imported $62,500,000 worth of fruit in
1913, could do nothing. The comparatively few apples raised in Germany
were mixed with pumpkins and carrots to make what was by courtesy called
marmalade, and most of this went to the front, which also secured most
of the smaller fruits. A two-pound can of preserved vegetables or fruits
was sold to each family--not person--at Christmas time. This had to
suffice for the year.
A delegation of women called on the mayor of Schoeneberg, one of the
municipalities of Greater Berlin, and declared that they and their
families were hungry and must have more to eat.
"You will not be permitted to starve, but you must hunger," said the
mayor.[15]
[15] The mayor's statement contains in German a play on words:
_Ihr sollt nicht verhungern, aber hungern muesst Ihr_.
The other privations attendant upon hunger also played a great part in
breaking down the spirit of the people. In order to secure even the
official food-pittance, it was necessary to stand in queues for hours at
a time. The trifling allowance of soap consisted of a substitute made
largely of saponaceous clay. Starch was unobtainable, and there is a
deep significance in the saying, "to take the starch out of one." The
enormous consumption of tobacco at the front caused a serious shortage
at home, and this added another straw to the burdens of the male part of
the population. The shortage of cereals brought in its wake a dilution
of the once famous German beer until it was little but colored and
charged water, without any nourishment whatever.
The physical effects of undernutrition and malnutrition made themselves
felt in a manner which brought them home to every man. Working-capacity
dropped to half the normal, or even less. Mortality increased by leaps
and bounds, particularly among the children and the aged. The death rate
of children from 1 to 5 years of age increased 50 per cent; that of
children from 5 to 15 by 55 per cent. In 1917 alone this increased death
rate among children from 1 to 15 years meant an excess of deaths over
the normal of more than 50,000 in the whole Empire. In the year 1913,
40,374 deaths from tuberculosis were reported in German municipalities
of 15,000 inhabitants or more. The same municipalities reported 41,800
deaths from tuberculosis in the first six months of 1918, an increase of
more than 100 per cent. In Berlin alone the death rate for all causes
jumped from 13.48 per thousand for the first eight months of 1913 to
20.05 for the first eight months of 1918.
According to a report laid before the United Medical Societies in Berlin
on December 18, 1918, the "hunger blockade" was responsible for 763,000
deaths in the Empire. These figures are doubtless largely based on
speculation and probably too high, but one need not be a physician to
know that years of malnutrition and undernutrition, especially in the
case of children and the aged, mean a greatly increased death rate and
particularly a great increase of tuberculosis. In addition to the excess
deaths alleged by the German authorities to be directly due to the
blockade, there were nearly 150,000 deaths from Spanish influenza in
1918. These have not been reckoned among the 763,000, but it must be
assumed that many would have withstood the attack had they not been
weakened by the privations of the four war-years.
The enthusiasm that had carried the people through the beginnings of
their privations cooled gradually. No moral sentiments, even the most
exalted, can prevail against hunger. Starving men will fight or steal to
get a crust of bread, just as a drowning man clutches at a straw. There
have been men in history whose patriotism or devotion to an idea has
withstood the test of torture and starvation, but that these are the
exception is shown by the fact that history has seen fit to record their
deeds. The average man is not made of such stern stuff. _Mens sana in
corpore sano_ means plainly that there can be no healthy mind without a
healthy body. Hungry men and women who see their children die for want
of food naturally feel a bitter resentment which must find an object.
They begin to ask themselves whether, after all, these sacrifices have
been necessary, and to what end they have served.
The first answer to the question, What has compelled these sacrifices
was, of course, for everybody, The war. But who is responsible for The
War? Germany's enemies, answered a part of the people.
But there were two categories of Germans whose answer was another. On
the one side were a few independent thinkers who had decided that
Germany herself bore at least a large share of the responsibility; on
the other side were those who had been taught by their leaders that all
wars are the work of the capitalistic classes, and that existing
governments everywhere are obstacles to the coming of a true universal
brotherhood of man. These doctrines had been forgotten by even the
Socialist leaders in the enthusiasm of the opening days of the struggle,
but they had merely lain dormant, and now, as a result of sufferings and
revolutionary propaganda by radical Socialists, they awakened. And in
awakening they spread to a class which had heretofore been comparatively
free from their contagion.
Socialism, and more especially that radical Socialism which finds its
expression in Bolshevism, Communism and similar emanations, is
especially the product of discontent, and discontent is engendered by
suffering. The whole German people had suffered terribly, but two
categories of one mighty class had undergone the greatest hardships.
These were the _Unterbeamten_ and the _Mittelbeamten_, the government
employees of the lowest and the middle classes. This was the common
experience of all belligerent countries except the United States, which
never even remotely realized anything of what the hardships of war mean.
Wages of the laboring classes generally kept pace with the increasing
prices of the necessaries of life, and in many instances outstripped
them. But the government, whose necessities were thus exploited by the
makers of ammunition, the owners of small machine-shops and the hundreds
of other categories of workers whose product was required for the
conduct of the war, could not--or at least did not--grant corresponding
increases of salary to its civil servants. The result was a curious
social shift, particularly observable in the restaurants and resorts of
the better class, whose clientele, even in the second year of the war,
had come to be made up chiefly of men and women whose bearing and dress
showed them to be manual workers. The slender remuneration of the
_Beamten_ had fallen so far behind the cost of living that they could
neither frequent these resorts nor yet secure more than a bare minimum
of necessaries. The result was that thousands of these loyal men and
women, rendered desperate by their sufferings, began in their turn to
ponder the doctrines which they had heard, but rejected in more
prosperous times. Thus was the ground further prepared for the coming of
the revolution.
There was yet another factor which played a great part in increasing the
discontent of the masses. Not even the genius of the German Government
for organization could assure an equitable distribution of available
foodstuffs. Except where the supply could be seized or controlled at the
source, as in the case of breadstuffs and one or two other products, the
rationing system broke down. The result of the government's inability to
get control of necessaries of life was the so-called _Schleichhandel_,
literally "sneak trade," the illegitimate dealing in rationed wares.
Heavy penalties were imposed for this trade, applicable alike to buyer
and seller, and many prosecutions were conducted, but to no avail. The
extent of the practice is indicated by a remark made by the
police-president of a large German city, who declared that if every
person who had violated the law regarding illegitimate trade in
foodstuffs were to be arrested, the whole German people would find
itself in jail.
It has often been declared that money would buy anything in Germany
throughout the war. This statement is exaggerated, but it is a fact that
the well-to-do could at all times secure most of the necessaries and
some of the luxuries of life. But the prices were naturally so high as
to be out of the reach of the great mass of the people. Butter cost as
much as $8 a pound in this illegitimate trade, meat about the same, eggs
40 to 50 cents apiece, and other articles in proportion. The poorer
people--and this, in any country, means the great majority--could not
pay these prices. Themselves forced to go hungry and see their children
hunger while the wealthy _bourgeoisie_ had a comparative abundance, they
were further embittered against war and against all governments
responsible for war, including their own.
The German soldiers at the front had fared well by German standards. In
the third year of the war the writer saw at the front vast stores of
ham, bacon, beans, peas, lentils and other wares that had not been
available to the civil population since the war began. Soldiers home on
furlough complained of being continuously hungry and returned to the
lines gladly because of the adequate rations there.
With the coming of the fourth year, however, conditions began to grow
bad even at the front, and the winter of 1917-18 brought a marked
decrease of rations, both in quantity and quality. Cavalrymen and
soldiers belonging to munition or work columns ate the potatoes issued
for their horses. They ground in their coffee-mills their horses' scant
rations of barley and made pancakes. A high military official who took
part in the drive for the English Channel that started in March, 1918,
assured the writer that the chief reason for the failure to reach the
objective was that the German soldiers stopped to eat the provisions
found in the enemy camps, and could not be made to resume the advance
until they had satisfied their hunger and assured themselves that none
of the captured stores had been overlooked. Ludendorff, hearing of this,
is said to have declared: "Then it's all over." This, while probably
untrue, would have been a justified and prophetic summing-up of the
situation.
Not only were the soldiers hungry by this time, but they were
insufficiently clad. Their boots were without soles, and they had
neither socks nor the _Fusslappen_ (bandages) which most of them
preferred to wear instead of socks. A shirt issued from the military
stores in the summer of 1918 to a German soldier-friend of the writer
was a woman's ribbed shirt, cut low in the neck and gathered with a
ribbon.
The military reverses of this summer thus found a soldiery hungry and
ill-clad, dispirited by complaints from their home-folk of increasing
privations, and, as we shall see in the following chapter, subjected to
a revolutionary propaganda of enormous extent by radical German
Socialists and by the enemy.
CHAPTER V.
Internationalism at Work.
No people ever entered upon a war with more enthusiasm or a firmer
conviction of the justice of their cause than did the Germans. Beset for
generations on all sides by potential enemies, they had lived under the
constant threat of impending war, and the events of the first days of
August, 1914, were hailed as that "end of terror" (_ein Ende mit
Schrecken_) which, according to an old proverb, was preferable to
"terror without end" (_Schrecken ohne Ende_). The teachings of
internationalism were forgotten for the moment even by the Socialists.
The veteran August Bebel, one of the founders of German Socialism, had
never been able entirely to overcome an inborn feeling of nationalism,
and had said in one famous speech in the Reichstag that it was
conceivable that a situation could arise where even he would shoulder
_die alte Buechse_ (the old musket) and go to the front to defend the
Fatherland.
Such a situation seemed even to the extremest internationalists to have
arisen. At the memorable meeting in the White Hall of the royal palace
in Berlin on August 4, 1914, the Socialist members of the Reichstag were
present and joined the members of the _bourgeois_ parties in swearing to
support the Fatherland. The Kaiser retracted his reference to
_vaterlandslose Gesellen_. "I no longer know any parties," he said. "I
know only Germans." Hugo Haase, one of the Socialist leaders and one of
the small group of men whose efforts later brought about the German
revolution and the downfall of the empire and dynasty, was carried away
like his colleagues by the enthusiasm of the moment. He promised in
advance the support of his party to the empire's war measures, and when,
a few hours later, the first war-appropriation measure, carrying five
billion marks, was laid before the deputies, the Socialists voted for it
without a dissenting voice, and later joined for the first time in their
history in the _Kaiserhoch_, the expression of loyalty to monarch and
country with which sessions of the Reichstag were always closed.
Nothing could testify more strongly to the universal belief that Germany
was called upon to fight a defensive and just war. For not only had the
Socialist teachings, as we have seen, denounced all warfare as in the
interests of capital alone, but their party in the Reichstag included
one man whose anti-war convictions had already resulted in his being
punished for their expression. This was Dr. Karl Liebknecht, who had
been tried at the Supreme Court in Leipsic in 1907 on a charge of high
treason for publishing an anti-military pamphlet, convicted of a lesser
degree of treason and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Haase
himself had bitterly attacked militarism and war in a speech in the
Reichstag in April, 1913, in opposition to the government's military
bills, and only his parliamentary immunity protected him from sharing
Liebknecht's fate. One of the strongest defenders of the war in Bavaria
was Kurt Eisner, already an intellectual Bolshevist and Communist, who
had been compelled earlier to leave the editorial staff of the
_Vorwaerts_ because of his far-going radicalism and dreamy
impracticality.
All these men were subsequently bitterly attacked by Socialists of
enemy lands for their surrender of principles. The feeling that
dictated these attacks is comprehensible, but adherents of the
my-country-right-or-wrong brand of patriotism are precluded from making
such attacks. It cannot be permitted to any one to blow hot and cold at
the same time. He may not say: "I shall defend my country right or
wrong, but you may defend yours only if it is right." To state the
proposition thus baldly is to destroy it. Unquestioning patriotism is
applicable everywhere or nowhere, and its supporters cannot logically
condemn its manifestation by the German Socialists in the opening months
of the World War.
The first defection in the ranks of the Socialists came in the second
war session of the Reichstag in December, 1914, when Liebknecht, alone
among all the members of the house, refused to vote for the government's
war-credit of five billion marks. Amid scenes of indignant excitement he
tried to denounce the war as imperialistic and capitalistic, but was not
permitted to finish his remarks.
There has been observable throughout the allied countries and
particularly in America a distinct tendency to regard Liebknecht as a
hero and a man of great ability and moral courage. But he was neither
the one nor the other. He was a man of great energy which was
exclusively devoted to destroying, and without any constructive ability
whatever, and what was regarded as moral courage in him was rather the
indifferent recklessness of fanaticism combined with great egotism and
personal vanity. Liebknecht's career was in a great degree determined by
his feeling that he was destined to carry on the work and fulfil the
mission of his father, Wilhelm Liebknecht, the friend of Marx, Bebel and
Engels, and one of the founders of the Socialist party in Germany. But
he lacked his father's mental ability, commonsense and balance, and the
result was that he became the _enfant terrible_ of his party at an age
when the designation applied almost literally.
Educated as a lawyer, the younger Liebknecht devoted himself almost
exclusively to politics and to writing on political subjects. Last
elected to the Reichstag from the Potsdam district in 1912, he
distinguished himself in April, 1913, by a speech in which he charged
the Krupp directors with corrupting officials and military officers. He
also named the Kaiser and Crown Prince in his speech. The result was an
investigation and trial of the army officers involved. In making these
charges Liebknecht performed a patriotic service, but even here his
personal vanity asserted itself. Before making the speech he sent word
to the newspapers that he would have something interesting to say, and
requested a full attendance of reporters. He delayed his speech after
the announced time because the press-gallery was not yet full.
A consistent enemy of war, he attacked the international armament
industry in a speech in the Reichstag on May 10, 1914. In the following
month he charged the Prussian authorities with trafficking in titles.
But in all the record of his public activities--and he was forty-three
years old when the war broke out--one will search in vain for any
constructive work or for any evidence of statesmanlike qualities.
Liebknecht visited America in 1910. When he returned to Germany he
attacked America in both speeches and writings as the most imperialistic
and capitalistic of all countries. He declared that in no European
country would the police dare handle citizens as they did in America,
and asserted that the American Constitution is "not worth the paper it
is written upon." In Berlin on December 17, 1918, he said to the writer:
"The war has proved that your constitution is no better today
than it was when I expressed my opinion of it nine years ago.
Your people have been helpless in the face of it and were drawn
into war just like the other belligerents. The National Assembly
(Weimar) now planned will bequeath to us a charter equally as
worthless. The workingmen are opposed to the perpetuation of
private ownership."
In the face of this, it must be assumed that American glorification of
Liebknecht rests upon ignorance of the man and of what principles he
supported.
For a few months after the beginning of the war Liebknecht stood almost
alone in his opposition. As late as September, 1914, we see Haase
heading a mission of Socialists to Italy to induce her to be faithful to
her pledges under the Triple Alliance and to come into the war on
Germany's side, or, failing that, at least to remain neutral. Haase, who
was a middle-aged Koenigsberg (East Prussia) lawyer, had for some years
been one of the prominent leaders of the Social-Democratic party and was
at this time one of the chairmen of the party's executive committee. He
was later to play one of the chief roles in bringing about the
revolution, but even in December, 1914, he was still a defender of the
war, although already insistent that it must not end in annexations or
the oppression of other peoples. It was not until a whole year had
passed that he finally definitely threw in his lot with those seeking to
weaken the government at home and eventually destroy it.
The real undermining work, however, had begun earlier. Several men and
at least two women were responsible for it at this stage. The men
included Liebknecht, Otto Ruehle, a former school teacher from Pirna
(Saxony), and now a member of the Reichstag, and Franz Mehring. Ruehle, a
personal friend of Liebknecht, broke with his party at the end of 1914
and devoted himself to underground propaganda with an openly
revolutionary aim, chiefly among the sailors of the High Seas fleet.
Mehring was a venerable Socialist author of the common idealistic,
non-practical variety, with extreme communistic and international views,
and enjoyed great respect in his party and even among non-Socialist
economists. The two women referred to were Clara Zetkin, a radical
suffragette of familiar type, and Rosa Luxemburg.
The Luxemburg woman was, like so many others directly concerned in the
German revolution, of Jewish blood. By birth in Russian Poland a Russian
subject, she secured German citizenship in 1870 by marrying a _Genosse_,
a certain Dr. Luebeck, at Dresden. She left him on the same day. Frau
Luxemburg had been trained in the school of Russian Socialism of the
type that produced Lenin and Trotzky. She was a woman of unusual
ability--perhaps the brainiest member of the revolutionary group in
Germany, male or female--and possessed marked oratorical talent and
great personal magnetism. Like all internationalists and especially the
Jewish internationalists, she regarded war against capitalistic and
imperialistic governments, that is to say, against all _bourgeois_
governments, as a holy war. Speaking Russian, Polish and German equally
well and inflamed by what she considered a holy mission, she was a
source of danger to any government whose hospitality she was enjoying.
She became early an intimate of Liebknecht and the little group of
radicals that gathered around him, and her contribution to the overthrow
of the German Empire can hardly be overestimated.
The first of the anti-war propaganda articles whose surreptitious
circulation later became so common were the so-called "Spartacus
Letters," which began appearing in the summer of 1915. There had been
formed during the revolution of 1848 a democratic organization calling
itself the "Spartacus Union." The name came from that Roman gladiator
who led a slave uprising in the last century of the pre-Christian era.
This name was adopted by the authors of these letters to characterize
the movement as a revolt of slaves against imperialism. The authorship
of the letters was clearly composite and is not definitely known, but
they were popularly ascribed to Liebknecht. His style marks some of
them, but others point to Frau Luxemburg, and it is probable that at
least these two and possibly other persons collaborated in them. They
opposed the war, which they termed an imperialistic war of aggression,
and summoned their readers to employ all possible obstructive tactics
against it. Revolution was not mentioned in so many words, but the
tendency was naturally revolutionary.
Despite all efforts of the authorities, these letters and other anti-war
literature continued to circulate secretly. In November, 1915,
Liebknecht, Frau Luxemburg, Mehring and Frau Zetkin gave out a
manifesto, which was published in Switzerland, in which they declared
that their views regarding the war differed from those of the rest of
the Socialists, but could not be expressed in Germany under martial law.
The manifesto was so worded that prosecution thereon could hardly have
been sustained. The Swiss newspapers circulated freely in Germany, and
the manifesto was not without its effect. The Socialist party saw itself
compelled on February 2, 1915, to expel Liebknecht from the party. This
step, although doubtless unavoidable, proved to be the first move toward
the eventual split in the party. There were already many Socialists who,
although out of sympathy with the attitude of their party, had
nevertheless hesitated to break with it. Many of these, including most
of Liebknecht's personal followers, soon followed him voluntarily, and
the allegiance of thousands of others to the old party was seriously
weakened.
Outwardly, however, what was eventually to become a revolutionary
movement made no headway during the spring and summer of 1915. The
shortage of food, although making itself felt, had not yet brought
general suffering. The German armies had won many brilliant victories
and suffered no marked reverse. Mackensen's invasion of Galicia in May
and June revived the spirits of the whole nation, in which, as among all
other belligerent nations, a certain war-weariness had already begun to
manifest itself.
The open break in the Socialist party first became apparent at the
session of the Reichstag on December 21, 1915. The government had asked
for a further war-credit of ten billion marks. Haase had a week earlier
drawn up a manifesto against the war, but the newspapers had been
forbidden to print it. At this Reichstag session he employed his
parliamentary prerogatives to get this manifesto before the people in
the form of a speech attacking the war as one of aggression, and
announced that he would vote against the credit asked. Fourteen other
members of his party voted with him. The German people's solid war-front
had been broken.
The motives of most of those who thus began the revolt against the
government and who were later responsible for the revolution are easy to
determine. Many were honest fanatics, and some of these, chief among
them Liebknecht, carried their fanaticism to a degree calling for the
serious consideration of alienists. Others again were moved by purely
selfish considerations, and some of them had criminal records. Haase
presented and still presents a riddle even for those who know him well.
Judged by his speeches alone, he appears in the light of an honest
internationalist, striving to further the welfare of his own and all
other peoples. Judged by his conduct, and particularly his conduct in
the months following the revolution, he appears in the light of a
political desperado whose acts are dictated by narrow personal
considerations. He was particularly fitted for leadership of the
government's opponents by the absence from his makeup of the blind
fanaticism that characterized the majority of these, and by an utter
unscrupulousness in his methods. He was free also from that fear of
inconsistency which has been called the vice of small minds.
The questions growing out of the manner of conducting the submarine
warfare became acute in the first months of 1916. The government was
determined to prevent any open debate on this subject in the Reichstag,
and the deputies of all parties bowed to the government's will. Haase
and his little group of malcontents, however, refused to submit. They
carried their opposition to the authority of their own party to such an
extent that a party caucus decided upon their exclusion. The caucus vote
was followed on the same day--March 24, 1916--by the formal secession
from the party of Haase and seventeen other members, who constituted
themselves as a separate party under the designation of "Socialist
Working Society" (_Arbeitsgemeinschaft_). The seceders included, among
others, Georg Ledebour, Wilhelm Dittmann, Dr. Oskar Cohn, Emil Barth,
Ernst Daeumig and Eduard Bernstein. Liebknecht, who had been excluded
from the party a year earlier, allied himself to the new group. All its
members were internationalists.
The formation of the new party furnished a rallying point for all
radical Socialists and also for the discontented generally, and the
numbers of these were increasing daily. Under the protection of their
parliamentary immunity these members were able to carry on a more
outspoken and effective agitation against the war. Haase, Ledebour and
other members of the group issued a manifesto in June, 1916, wherein it
was declared that the people were starving and that the only replies
made by the government to their protests took the form of a severe
application of martial law. "The blockade should have been foreseen,"
said the manifesto. "It is not the blockade that is a crime; the war is
a crime. The consolation that the harvest will be good is a deliberate
deception. All the food in the occupied territories has been
requisitioned, and people are dying of starvation in Poland and Serbia."
The manifesto concluded with an appeal to the men and women of the
laboring-classes to raise their voices against the continuance of the
war.
The underground propaganda against the war and the government assumed
greater proportions, and encouraged the revolutionaries in the
Reichstag. Grown bold, Haase announced that a pacifist meeting would be
held in Berlin on August 30. It was prohibited by the police. Sporadic
strikes began. Ruehle had staged the first avowedly political strike at
Leipsic on May Day. It failed, but set an example which was followed in
other parts of the empire.
Liebknecht, who had been mustered into the army and was hence subject to
military regulations, was arrested on May Day in Berlin for carrying on
an anti-war and anti-government agitation among the workingmen. On trial
he was sentenced to thirty months' imprisonment and to dishonorable
dismissal from the army. This was the signal for widespread strikes of
protest in various cities. There was serious rioting in Berlin on July
1st, and grave disorders also occurred at Stuttgart, Leipsic and other
cities. Liebknecht appealed from the conviction and the appellate court
raised the sentence to four years and one month, with loss of civil
rights for six years. This caused a recrudescence of July's
demonstrations, for a sentence of this severity was most unusual in
Germany. Liebknecht's personal followers and party friends swore
vengeance, and many others who had theretofore kept themselves apart
from a movement with which they secretly sympathized were rendered more
susceptible to radical anti-war propaganda.
The autumn of 1916 brought the government's so-called
_Hilfsdienstgesetz_, or Auxiliary Service Law, intended to apply
military rules of enrollment and discipline to the carrying out of
necessary work at home, such as wood-cutting, railway-building, etc.
This law produced widespread dissatisfaction, and Haase, by attacking it
in the Reichstag, increased his popularity and poured more oil upon the
flames of discontent. In March, 1917, he declared openly in the
Reichstag that Germany could not win the war and that peace must be made
at once.
The Russian revolution of this month was a factor whose influence and
consequences in Germany can hardly be exaggerated. Not even the wildest
dreamer had dared to believe that a revolution could be successfully
carried through in war-time while the government had millions of loyal
troops at its disposal. That it not only did succeed, but that many of
the Tsar's formerly most loyal officers, as, for example, Brussiloff,
immediately joined the revolutionaries, exerted a powerful effect. And
thus, while Germans loyal to their government hailed the revolution as
the downfall of a powerful enemy, the masses, starving through this
terrible _Kohlruebenwinter_, cold, miserable, dispirited by the bloody
sacrifices from which few families had been exempt, infected
unconsciously by the doctrines of international Socialism and skillfully
propagandized by radical agitators, began to wonder whether, after all,
their salvation did not lie along the route taken by the Russians.
The radical Socialists who had left the old party in 1916 organized as
the Independent Socialist Party of Germany at a convention held in Gotha
in April, 1917. Eighteen men had left the party a year earlier, but one
hundred and forty-eight delegates, including fifteen Reichstag deputies,
attended the convention. Haase and Ledebour were chosen chairmen of the
executive committee, and a plan of opposition to the further conduct of
the war was worked out. Party newspaper organs were established, and
some existing Socialist publications espoused the cause of the new
party. Revolution could naturally be no part of their open policy, and
there may have been many members of the party who did not realize what
the logical and inevitable consequences of their actions were. The
leaders, however, were by this time definitely and deliberately working
for the overthrow of the government, although it may be doubted whether
even they realized what would be the extent of the _debacle_ when it
should come.
Reference has already been made to strikes in various parts of the
empire. These had been, up to 1918, chiefly due to dissatisfaction
over material things--hunger (the strong undercurrent of all
dissatisfaction), inadequate clothing, low wages, long hours, etc. They
were encouraged and often manipulated by radical Socialists who
perceived their importance as a weapon against the government, and were
to that extent political, but the first great strike with revolution as
its definite aim was staged in Berlin and Essen at the end of January,
1918. The strength of the Independent Socialists and of the more radical
adherents of Liebknecht, Ledebour, Rosa Luxemburg and others of the same
stamp, while it had increased but slowly in the rural districts and the
small towns, had by this time reached great proportions in the capital
and generally in the industrial sections of Westphalia. Two great
munition plants in Berlin employing nearly a hundred thousand workers
were almost solidly Independent Socialist in profession and Bolshevist
in fact. The infection had reached the great plants in and around Essen
in almost equal degree. A great part of these malcontents was made up of
youths who, in their early teens when the war broke out, had for more
than three years been released from parental restraint owing to the
absence of their soldier-fathers and who had at the same time been
earning wages that were a temptation to lead a disordered life. They
were fertile ground for the seeds of propaganda whose sowing the
authorities were unable to stop, or even materially to check. Even
Liebknecht, from his cell, had been able to get revolutionary
communications sent out to his followers.
The January strike assumed large proportions, and so confident were the
Berlin strikers of the strength of their position that they addressed an
"ultimatum" to the government. This ultimatum demanded a speedy peace
without annexations or indemnities; the participation of workingmen's
delegates of all countries in the peace negotiations; reorganization of
the food-rationing system; abolishing of the state of siege, and freedom
of assembly and of the press; the release of all political prisoners;
the democratization of state institutions, and equal suffrage for women.
The strikers appointed a workmen's council to direct their campaign, and
this council chose an "action commission," of which Haase was a member.
The authorities, in part unable and in part unwilling to make the
concessions demanded, took determined steps to put down the strike.
Their chief weapon was one that had been used repeatedly, and, as events
proved, too often and too freely. This weapon was the so-called
_Strafversetzungen_, or punitive transfers into the front-army. The
great part of the strikers were men subject to military duty who had
been especially reclaimed and kept at work in indispensable industries
at home. They were, however, subject to military law and discipline, and
the imminent threat of being sent to the front in case of
insubordination had prevented many strikes that would otherwise have
come, and the carrying into effect of this threat had broken many
revolts in factories. Thousands of these men, who had been drawing high
wages and receiving extra allowances of food, were promptly sent into
the trenches.
Every such _Strafversetzung_ was worse than a lost battle in its effect.
The victims became missionaries of revolution, filled with a burning
hatred for the government that had pulled them from their comfortable
beds and safe occupations and thrown them into the hail of death and the
hardships of the front. They carried the gospel of discontent, rebellion
and internationalism among men who had theretofore been as sedulously
guarded against such propaganda as possible. The morale of the soldiery
was for a time restored by the successes following the offensive of
March, 1918, and it never broke entirely, even during the terrible days
of the long retreat before the victorious Allied armies, but it was
badly shaken, and the wild looting that followed the armistice was
chiefly due to the fellows of baser sort who were at the front because
they had been sent thither for punishment.
Yet another factor played an important part in increasing discontent at
the front. One can say, without fear of intelligent contradiction, that
no other country ever possessed as highly trained and efficient officers
as Germany at the outbreak of the war. There were martinets among them,
and the discipline was at best strict, but the first article of their
creed was to look after the welfare of the men committed to their
charge. Drawn from the best families and with generations of
officer-ancestors behind them, they were inspired by both family and
class pride which forbade them to spare themselves in the service of the
Fatherland. The mortality in the officer-corps was enormous. About forty
per cent of the original officers of career were killed, and a majority
of the rest incapacitated. The result was a shortage of trained men
which made itself severely felt in the last year of the war. Youths of
eighteen and nineteen, fresh from the schools and hastily trained, were
made lieutenants and placed in command of men old enough to be their
fathers. The wine of authority mounted to boyish heads. Scores of
elderly German soldiers have declared to the writer independently of
each other that the overbearing manners, arbitrary orders and arrogance
of these youths aroused the resentment of even the most loyal men and
increased inestimably the discontent already prevailing at the front.
CHAPTER VI.
Propaganda and Morale.
Even before the anti-war and revolutionary propaganda had attained great
proportions there were indications that all was not well in one branch
of the empire's armed forces. Rumblings of discontent began to come from
the navy early in the second year of the war, and in the summer of 1916
there was a serious outbreak of rioting at Kiel. Its gravity was not at
first realized, because Kiel, even in peace times, had been a turbulent
and riotous city. But a few months later the rioting broke out again,
and in the early summer of 1917 there came a menacing strike of sailors
and shipyard and dock laborers at Wilhelmshaven. This was mainly a
wage-movement, coupled with a demand for more food, but it had political
consequences of a serious nature.
The first displays of mutinous spirit among the men of the fleet were
not so much due to revolutionary and radical Socialist propaganda as to
a spontaneous internal dissatisfaction with the conditions of the
service itself. No continuously extensive use of the submarines had been
made up to the middle of the winter of 1916. There had been spurts of
activity with this weapon, but no sustained effort. By March, 1916,
however, many U-boats were being sent out. At first they were manned by
volunteers, and there had been a surplus of volunteers, for the men of
the submarine crews received special food, more pay, liberal furloughs
and the Iron Cross after the third trip. Within a year, however,
conditions changed decidedly. The percentage of U-boats lost is not yet
known, but the men of the fleet reckoned that a submarine rarely
survived its tenth trip. The Admiralty naturally published no accounts
of boats that failed to come back, and this added a new terror to this
branch of the service.
Volunteers were no longer to be had. The result was that drafts were
resorted to, at the first from the men of the High Seas fleet, and later
from the land forces. Such a draft came to be considered as equivalent
to a death-sentence.[16] Disaffection increased in the fleet. The
Independent Socialists were prompt to discover and take advantage of
these conditions. The sailors were plied with propaganda, oral and
written. The character of this propaganda was not generally known until
October 9, 1917, when the Minister of Marine, Admiral von Capelle,
speaking in the Reichstag, informed the astonished nation that a serious
mutiny had occurred in the fleet two months earlier, and that it had
been necessary to execute some of the ringleaders and imprison a number
of others.
[16] The heavy losses among army aviators had brought about a
similar state of affairs at this time in the army. Volunteers
for the fighting planes ceased offering themselves, and a
resort to forced service became necessary.
Von Capelle's disclosures came as answer to an interpellation by the
Independent Socialist deputies regarding pan-German propaganda at the
front and the prohibition of the circulation of twenty-three Socialist
newspapers among the men of the ships. The Independent Wilhelm Dittmann
made a long speech supporting the interpellation, and voiced a bitter
complaint over the fact that pan-German agitation was permitted at the
front and among the fleet, while the Independent Socialist propaganda
was forbidden. Dr. Michaelis, the Imperial Chancellor, made a brief
response, in which he announced that Admiral von Capelle would answer
the Independents. "I will merely say one thing," he said, "and that is
that Deputy Dittmann is the last man in the world who has a right to
talk about agitation in the army and navy."
Michaelis referred then to a complaint by Dittmann that he (Michaelis)
had not been true to his promise, made upon assuming office, to treat
all parties alike. "Dittmann has forgotten to add the qualification
which I made at that time," said the Chancellor. "I said all parties
that do not threaten the existence of the empire or follow aims
dangerous to the state. The party of the Independent Social-Democrats
stands on the other side of that line so far as I am concerned."
This was the first open declaration by the government of war on the
party of Haase, Dittmann, et al. The Majority Socialists--as the members
of the old or parent organization were now termed--joined in the tumult
raised by their seceding brethren. When the storm had laid itself,
Admiral von Capelle made his sensational disclosures. He said:
"It is unfortunately a fact that the Russian revolution has
turned the heads of a few persons on board our fleet and caused
them to entertain matured revolutionary ideas. The mad plan of
these few men was to secure accomplices on all ships and to
subvert the whole fleet, all members of the crews, to open
mutiny, in order, by force if necessary, to paralyze the fleet
and compel peace.
"It is a fact that these men have entered into relations with
the Independent Socialist Party. It has been formally
established by the evidence that the ringleader presented his
plans to Deputies Dittmann, Haase and Vogtherr in the
caucus-room of the Independent Socialists here in the Reichstag
building, and that it received the approval of these men.
"It is true that these deputies pointed out the extreme danger
of the proposed action and warned the conspirators to observe
the greatest caution, but they promised their whole-hearted
support through the furnishing of agitation material designed to
incite the fleet to mutiny."
Von Capelle's speech was interrupted at this point by cries of
indignation from the parties of the right and center, and by abusive
remarks directed against the speaker from the Socialists of both
factions. When the presiding-officer had succeeded in restoring a
semblance of order, the Admiral continued:
"In view of this situation it was my first duty to prevent with
all possible means at my disposal the circulation of the
incitatory literature among the fleet.
"I do not care at this time to go into details concerning the
further happenings in the fleet. Some few men who had forgotten
honor and duty committed grave crimes and have undergone the
punishment which they deserved. I will only add here that the
rumors in circulation, which have naturally come also to my
ears, are exaggerated beyond all measure. The preparedness of
the fleet for battle has not been brought in question for a
single moment, and it shall and will not be."
The three deputies named by von Capelle defended themselves in speeches
which, judged even on their merits and without reference to the
personalities and records of the men making them, did not ring quite
true or carry complete conviction. In the light of the previous and
subsequent conduct of the trio and of the occurrences of November, 1918,
their shifty and evasive character is apparent. We have already learned
something of Haase's activities, and the other two were among his ablest
and most energetic lieutenants. Dittmann, virtually a Communist and
pronounced internationalist, was later arrested for pro-revolutionary
activities. Erwin Vogtherr, the third member of the group, had from the
very beginning been one of the most perniciously active of all
revolutionary propagandists and agitators. He had been for some time the
editor of _Der Atheist_ (The Atheist), and was of that uncompromising
type of atheists who consider it necessary to keep their hats on in
church to show their disbelief in a Creator.
Haase, in his reply to the charges against him, admitted that the
mutineers' ringleader had had a conference with him, Dittmann and
Vogtherr. But this, he declared, was nothing out of the ordinary, since
it was both his custom and his duty to receive the men who came to him
from both army and navy to complain of conditions. The sailor referred
to by Admiral von Capelle had visited him during the summer and
complained bitterly about the conditions which he and his colleagues
were compelled to endure. Haase continued:
"He declared further that the sailors, and especially those of
lengthy service, felt keenly the lack of mental stimulus, that
great numbers of them had subscribed to Independent Socialist
publications, were reading them zealously and receiving stimulus
from them. It was their intention to educate themselves further
and to devote themselves to political discussions in meetings on
land. To this end they desired to have literature. Although, as
has been shown in the last days, political discussions have been
carried on under full steam, even officially, I called this
sailor's attention to the fact that what was in itself
permissible, might, under the peculiar conditions under which we
lived, become dangerous, and I warned him to be cautious. This
much is correct."
Haase denied that the sailor had submitted any revolutionary plan to him
or his colleagues, and challenged Admiral von Capelle to produce his
evidence.
It is difficult for one who, like the writer, has a thorough
acquaintance with the Independent Socialist publications, to take
seriously the statement that they were desired merely for "mental
stimulus" by sailors who wished to "educate themselves further." The
plain tendency of all these publications, disguised as cleverly as it
might be in an attempt to escape confiscation of the issue or
prosecution for treason, was revolutionary. A certain degree of
venomousness, scurrility and abuse of _bourgeois_ opponents has always
characterized all but a few Socialist publications in all lands, and the
Independent Socialist press far outdid the organs of the old party in
this respect. It preached internationalism and flouted patriotism; it
ridiculed all existing authority; it glorified the Russian revolution in
a manner calculated to induce imitation by its readers, and, following
the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in November, 1917, it published
regularly the reports of the _Isvestia_ and other Bolshevik organs, with
laudatory editorial comment. The man who "educated himself further" by a
reading of the Independent Socialist publications was educating himself
for revolution and for nothing else.
Vogtherr set up a straw man in his reply and demolished it to the
complete satisfaction of himself and his brother Socialists, including,
strangely enough, also the Majority Socialists, who, despite the fact
that the Independent Socialist press had classified them with
_bourgeoisie_ and attacked them even more bitterly, on this occasion
exhibited solidarity of feeling with their more radical colleagues.
Vogtherr declared that von Capelle had charged the Independents with
having worked out a plan for revolution in the fleet. This alleged
charge he denied. He spoke with a certain pathos of the oppressed
sailors who recognized in the Independents their real friends and
naturally came to them instead of going to deputies in whom they had no
confidence. He, too, demanded that the Minister of Marine produce his
proof. Vogtherr, like Haase before him, devoted a part of his speech to
a general attack on von Capelle and Michaelis, plainly the attempt of a
practical politician to confuse the issue.
Dittmann spoke briefly along the lines followed by Haase and Vogtherr.
He had, he said, carefully warned his sailor-visitors to keep within
safe bounds. He refused to permit either Admiral von Capelle or
Chancellor Michaelis to restrict his rights as Reichstag deputy to
receive visitors and hear their complaints. Dittmann cleverly enlisted
further the sympathy of the Majority Socialists by pointing out that
several of their publications had also come under the ban of the
Admiralty.
Von Capelle responded to the challenge of the trio to produce his
evidence. He read the following testimony, given at the court-martial by
one of the lieutenants of the mutineers' ringleader, a man named Sachse.
This witness testified:
"I, too, made a personal visit to Deputy Dittmann in the
Reichstag after Reichpietsch (the ringleader) had visited him. I
introduced myself by saying that I came from Reichpietsch and
that I came in the same matter. Dittmann indicated that he knew
what I meant. He was glad to see me and said: 'We must go ahead
in the same way, but we must use great caution.'
"Regarding his conference with the members of the party
Reichpietsch told me the following: He had not been with
Dittmann alone, but there had been a kind of a party conference,
participated in by Dittmann, Vogtherr and Haase. Reichpietsch
communicated to them the plan and the results thus far attained
by the organization, which, according to his declaration, was
very enthusiastic about the matter.
"After discussion of the details of the organization, the
deputies told Reichpietsch that this was a prohibited and
punishable undertaking and a very daring one, and he must be
very careful. So far as they were concerned, they would support
his agitation in every manner, and especially through pamphlets
and other literature."
Admiral von Capelle further read from the testimony of the ringleader,
Reichpietsch, who, after reading Sachse's testimony, had said under
oath:
"Insofar as this testimony concerns me it is correct. That is to
say, what I told Sachse was a true report of what had happened
in Berlin."
Friedrich (Fritz) Ebert, the Majority Socialist leader who later became
the first president of the German Republic, defended the Independent
Socialists and declared that the government had offered no evidence to
substantiate its accusations against Haase, Dittmann and Vogtherr.
Deputy Naumann of the Progressive party also defended them indirectly,
and both he and Deputy Trimborn of the Center (Clerical party) protested
against any effort to place a Reichstag party outside the pale.
In view of the revolutionary activities of the Independent Socialists
even before that date and of the occurrences of the succeeding year,
which culminated in the overthrow of the government, this attitude of
supposedly loyal and patriotic parties of the Reichstag appears at first
sight astonishing and almost inexplicable. There were, however, two
reasons (in the case of the Majority Socialists three reasons) for it.
Neither the _bourgeois_ parties nor the Majority Socialists had any
conception of the extent of the revolutionary propaganda being carried
on by the Independents and their more radical accomplices. As we shall
see later, even the old party Socialists were completely taken by
surprise when the actual revolution came, and revolution was almost an
accomplished fact in Berlin, six days after it had begun in Kiel, before
they awakened to what was happening. Hence the accusations against their
colleagues of another party appeared to the three parties of the
anti-annexationist wing of the Reichstag as a blow directed against all
opponents of the pan-German program of the parties of the Right.
The second reason was psychological and to be found in the atmosphere of
the day's session. It had started, as already reported, with the
discussion of an interpellation regarding pan-German propaganda at the
front and in the fleet. The anti-Chauvinist majority of the Reichstag
had earlier found its way together in a _bloc_ composed of the
Progressives, Clericals and Majority Socialists, and had adopted, on
July 19, 1917, a resolution, in the main the work of Mathias Erzberger
of the Clericals, calling for a peace without annexations or
indemnities, and reserving the right of self-determination to all
nations. Equally with the Independent Socialists, this _bloc_ had been
stirred to indignation by the shameless manner in which the high civil
and military authorities not only permitted the advocates of an
imperialistic and annexationist peace to carry on their propaganda among
the soldiers and sailors, but even encouraged and actively assisted in
that work. Not only all Socialist publications, but even many
_bourgeois_ papers of the stamp of the Berlin _Tageblatt_ were
absolutely forbidden by the commanders of many troop units, and the
soldiers were compelled to listen to speeches by members of the
pan-German _Vaterlandspartei_ (Fatherland Party) and similar
organizations. Ignorant of the extent and nature of the Independent
Socialists' efforts to undermine authority, the _bloc_ parties saw in
Admiral von Capelle's charges only another manifestation of the spirit
against which their own fight was directed. That, in these
circumstances, they should defend the Independents was but natural.
The third reason affecting the course of the Majority Socialists has
already been referred to in passing. This was the feeling of party
solidarity, which still existed despite the fact that the Independents
had had their own party organization for some six months. Most of the
prominent men in both Socialist parties had worked together in a common
cause for many years, and while, in the heat of purely partisan
conflicts this was sometimes forgotten for the moment, it nevertheless
united the two factions when, as now, the attack came from the extreme
Right.
Complete details of the mutiny of this summer have never been given out.
According to the best reports available, it started on the battleship
_Westfalen_ at Wilhelmshaven and included altogether four vessels, one
of which was the _Nuernberg_. The captain of the _Nuernberg_ is said to
have been thrown overboard. Rumor and enemy report made the most of the
affair and undoubtedly exaggerated it greatly, but there can be no doubt
that it was serious and that the morale of the fleet was greatly
affected by it. Some of the ring-leaders--how many it is not known--were
executed, and a considerable number were imprisoned for long terms. The
extent and severity of the sentences added fuel to the discontent
already prevailing throughout the fleet. The men's fighting spirit sank
as their revolutionary spirit rose. Von Capelle's boast that the fleet's
preparedness for battle "shall and will not be brought in question for a
moment" was a vain boast. The fleet was already rotten at the core.
Ironic fate had led the men who directed the affairs of the German
Empire to forge one of the weapons with which it was later to be
destroyed. On April 9, 1917, Nicholas Lenine, with thirty-two fanatical
followers, had been brought from Switzerland through Germany in a sealed
car and sent into Russia to sow the seeds of Bolshevism. How the plan
succeeded is only too well known. November brought the overthrow of the
Kerensky government. Released from the necessity of the intensive
pre-revolutionary propaganda at home, the Bolsheviki turned their
attention to imperialistic Germany. Their missionaries, liberally
equipped with corruption funds, entered Germany by secret routes and
worked with Germans in sympathy with their cause, notably Liebknecht.
Foremost among their propagandists was a man who called himself Radek.
His real name was Sobelsohn, a Jew from Austrian Galicia. Expelled from
his labor union before the war for robbing a _Genosse_, he had settled
in Bremen and was even then the guiding spirit in the most radical and
rabid circles. After the Russian Bolshevik revolution he quickly took up
the severed threads of his former connections. He was intimate with all
the Independent Socialist leaders already named, and with many others. A
man of acknowledged organizing and propagandizing ability, he
contributed markedly to making Germany ripe for revolution.
All the gates were thrown down to Bolshevism following the treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, when Joffe, the Bolshevik Ambassador, was permitted to
come to Berlin and establish himself in the palace of the former
Imperial Russian Embassy in _Unter den Linden_. He brought a staff of
men and women whose sole duty it was to carry on Bolshevist propaganda
against the government to which he was accredited. Leading Independent
Socialists were frequent visitors at the embassy, and Haase, at an
elaborate banquet held there in May, 1918, responded to the toast, "The
Red International."
Closest to Joffe of all Germans was Dr. Oskar Cohn, one of the founders
of the Independent Socialist Party. Cohn, who is a Berlin lawyer,
possesses that curious combination of characteristics so often
encountered in extreme Socialism. In his private life of undoubted
probity, he rejoiced at an opportunity to accept and distribute money
given by a foreign government to overthrow the government of his own
Fatherland. Mild-mannered and an opponent of force, he made the cause of
Liebknecht's murderous Spartacans his own. Scholarly and of deep
learning, he associated freely with the dregs of the population, with
thieves and murderers, in furtherance of the cause of the international
proletariat. He became the legal adviser of Joffe and one of the main
distributors of the Bolsheviki's corruption fund.
The political police were at all times cognizant of the revolutionary
propaganda that was being carried on, but they were greatly hampered in
their work by a limitation which had been imposed in 1917 upon the
so-called _Schutzhaft_, literally "protective arrest." This had been
freely used against suspected persons from the beginning of the war, and
hundreds had sat in jail for weeks in what was equivalent to a sentence
of imprisonment, without having had an opportunity to hear what the
charge against them was. The abuse of this right became so glaring that
it was provided in 1917 that arrested persons could not be detained
without a definite crime being charged against them. The police made a
long report on Joffe's activities in June, 1918, and the authorities,
with some hesitation, placed the matter before the "Ambassador." He lied
bravely, declaring that he cherished no plans against the integrity of
the German Empire and that his large staff existed solely to carry on
the legitimate business of the embassy.
The authorities, unconvinced, maintained a watch on the activities of
the Russians. They were particularly suspicious of the unusual number of
diplomatic couriers passing between Berlin and Petrograd. Their number
was said to reach nearly four hundred. The press began to voice these
suspicions. Joffe, with a fine show of indignation, declared that it
"was beneath his dignity" to take any notice of them. The tenuity of
Herr Joffe's dignity and the value of his word became apparent on
November 5, 1918, in the revolution week, when a box in the luggage of a
courier arriving from Russia was--"accidentally," as the official report
put it--broken open at the railway station. Its contents proved to be
Bolshevik propaganda literature inciting the Germans to institute a
reign of terror against the _bourgeoisie_, to murder the oppressors of
the proletariat and to overthrow the government. One of these appeals
came from the Spartacan _Internationale_ and contained a carefully
worked-out program for instituting a reign of terror.
Even the _Vorwaerts_, which had been reluctant to credit the charges
against _Genosse_ Joffe, was now compelled to admit that he had lied and
misused his diplomatic privileges. Joffe, still denying his guilt, was
escorted from the embassy in the middle of the following night by an
armed guard and placed aboard a special train for Moscow, with the whole
staff of the embassy and of the Rosta Telegraph Agency, ostensibly a
news agency, but really an institution for carrying on Bolshevik
propaganda. Once safe in Russia, Joffe admitted his activities in
Germany and gloried in them. In a wireless message sent on December 8,
1918, he said the Bolshevik literature had been circulated "through the
good offices of the Independent Socialists." He declared further that a
much greater number of weapons than had been alleged had been handed
over to the Independent Barth, together with "several hundred thousand
roubles." He added:
"I claim for myself the honor of having devoted all my powers to
the success of the German revolution through my activities,
which were carried on in agreement with the Independent
Socialist ministers Haase and Barth and with others."
Following the publication of this wireless message, Cohn also issued an
explanation of his activities in connection with Joffe. He said:
"Is any particular explanation or justification needed to make
it clear that I gladly accepted the funds which the Russian
comrades sent me by the hand of Comrade Joffe for the purposes
of the German revolution? Comrade Joffe gave me the money in the
night of November 5th. This had nothing to do with the money
which he had previously given me for the purchase of weapons. I
used the money for the purpose intended, namely, the spreading
of the revolutionary idea, and regret only that circumstances
made it impossible for me to use all of it in this manner."
Bolshevik centers had been organized all over Germany when the
revolution came. On the same day Joffe was expelled, the police in
Duesseldorf closed a Bolshevik nest which was ostensibly conducted as a
news agency. It was but one of scores of similar centers of revolution.
The revolutionary propaganda being carried on inside the empire was
powerfully aided and supplemented by the activities of Germany's enemies
along the same lines. No detailed report of the extent of this branch of
warfare is yet available, but it was, in the words of one of Germany's
leading generals in a talk with the writer, "devilishly clever and
effective." From the air, through secret channels, through traitors at
home, the German soldier or sailor was worked upon. He was told truths
about the forces against him that had been suppressed by the German
censors. The folly of longer trying to oppose the whole world was
pointed out, and every possible weakness in the German character was
cunningly exploited. The good effect of this propaganda cannot be
doubted.
Testimony regarding the part played by enemy propaganda in bringing
about the final collapse of Germany has been given by one of the men
best qualified to know the facts. In an article in _Everybody's
Magazine_ for February, 1919, George Creel, chairman of the American
Committee on Public Information, gives full credit to the work of the
American soldiers, but declares that, in the last analysis, Germany was
defeated by publicity. The military collapse of Germany was due to "a
disintegration of morale both on the firing line and among the civilian
population." It was the telling of the truth to the Germans by their
enemies that finally caused the _debacle_ at a time when the German Army
"was well equipped with supplies and ammunitions, and behind it still
stretched line after line almost impregnable by reason of natural
strength and military science."[17]
[17] German assertions that their armies were never defeated in a
military sense regularly arouse and will long continue to
arouse anger and scornful indignation among their enemies,
yet here we have official testimony to support their
contentions. It is no detraction from the valor and military
successes of the Allies to assert again that if the German
troops had not been weakened physically by starvation and
morally by enemy propaganda, they could have carried on the
war for many months more.
The propaganda literature was prepared by historians, journalists and
advertising specialists, and even some psychologists were enlisted to
help in its writing. Germany's borders, however, were so carefully
guarded that it was difficult to get the matter into the country. Mr.
Creel relates interestingly how this was done. Aeroplanes were employed
to some extent, but these were so badly needed for fighting purposes
that not enough could be obtained for distribution of propaganda
literature.
"The French introduced a rifle-grenade that carried pamphlets about six
hundred feet in a favoring wind, and a seventy-five millimeter shell
that carried four or five miles. The British developed a six-inch gun
that carried ten or twelve miles and scattered several thousand leaflets
from each shell. The Italians used rockets for close work on the front,
each rocket carrying forty or fifty leaflets. The obvious smash at
German morale was through America's aim and swift war-progress, and for
this reason the Allies used the President's speeches and our military
facts freely and sometimes exclusively.
"To reach further behind the lines, all fronts used paper balloons
filled with coal-gas. They would remain in the air a minimum of twenty
hours, so as to make a trip of six hundred miles in a thirty-mile wind.
On a Belgian fete-day such balloons carried four hundred thousand
greetings into Belgium, and some flew clear across Belgium. Fabric
balloons, carrying seventeen or eighteen pounds of leaflets, were also
employed, but with all the balloons the uncertainty of the wind made the
work haphazard.
"The attempt was made to fly kites over the trenches and drop leaflets
from traveling containers that were run up the kite-wire, but this
method could be used only on fronts where aeroplanes were not active,
because the wires were a menace to the planes. The paper used in the
leaflets was chemically treated so that they would not spoil if they lay
out in the rain.
"An American invention that gave promise of supplanting all others was a
balloon that carried a tin container holding about ten thousand
pamphlets. A clock attachment governed the climb of the balloon, it had
a sailing range of from six to eight hundred miles, and the mechanism
could be set in such a manner as to have the pamphlets dropped in a
bunch or one at a time at regular intervals, the whole business blowing
up conclusively with the descent of the last printed 'bullet'."
Similar methods were used against Austria-Hungary, writes Mr. Creel, and
did much to shatter their feelings of allegiance to Germany. A proof of
the effectiveness of the propaganda came when an order from the German
General Staff was found, "establishing death as a penalty for all those
seen picking up our matter or found with it in their possession.
Austria-Hungary had earlier given orders to shoot or imprison all
soldiers or citizens guilty of the abominable crime of reading 'printed
lies' against the government."
Indirectly, too, the Germans were subjected to Allied propaganda
throughout the war. In one matter the German Government's attitude was
more democratic and ethically defensible than the attitude of its
enemies. It is discouraging to the abstract moralist to find that this
worked out to the detriment of those adopting the more admirable course.
Of all belligerent countries, Germany was the only one that permitted
the free circulation and sale within its borders of the enemy press.
Leading French and English editors were able with much difficulty to
secure copies of some German papers, and occasionally the large press
associations and some of the leading newspapers in America were
permitted to see a few ancient copies, but nowhere could they be had by
the private citizen, nor even read with safety in public places by those
entitled to have them. There was never a time in Berlin, from the first
declaration of war to the armistice, when the leading American, French,
English, Italian and Russian papers could not be bought openly at a
dozen newsstands or hotels, and the same was true generally throughout
Germany.
The well-disciplined Germans at first rejected as lies all reports in
these papers differing from the official German versions of the same
happenings. Many kept this attitude to the last, but even these began
after a while, in common with the less sturdy believers, to be morally
shaken by the cumulative evidence of the worldwide unpopularity of the
Germans and to be dismayed by the tone of the enemy toward everything
that they had heretofore held holy. The average German stoically endured
for a long time to be called "Hun," but, in homely phrase, it got on his
nerves after a while. The wild atrocity stories also played their part.
All intelligent readers of history know that tremendous exaggerations of
such reports have always accompanied all wars. Before the present war
the Associated Press, the world's greatest newsgathering agency, barred
war-atrocity stories from its reports because experience had
demonstrated that these were often--perhaps generally--untrue and almost
always exaggerated. When the enemy press converted the German army's
_Kadaververwertungs-Anstalt_ (Carcass Utilization Factory) into a Corpse
Utilization Factory (_Leichenverwertungs-Anstalt_) and declared that
bodies of fallen German soldiers were being rendered out for the fat,
the Germans were at first indignant and angry. This feeling changed to
one of consternation and eventual depression when they learned from the
enemy newspapers that the story was universally believed. In the course
of the long war, the constant repetition of atrocity reports, both true
and false, had a cumulative depressive effect which seriously shook the
morale of all but the sturdiest of the people and was one of the factors
inducing the general feeling of hopelessness that made the final
_debacle_ so complete. That everybody knew some of the reports to be
true was an aggravation of their effect. A great part, perhaps, indeed,
the greater part of all Germans condemned bitterly the Belgian
deportations, just as the best minds of the nation condemned the new
_Schrecklichkeit_ of the U-boat warfare, but they were helpless so long
as their government was under the iron thumb of the military caste, and
their helplessness increased their despair when they saw the opinion of
the world embittered against their nation.
There is plenty of German testimony to show how effective this enemy
propaganda was. Siegfried Heckscher, Reichstag member and chief of the
publicity department of the Hamburg-America Line, writing at the end of
September, pointed out the need of a German propaganda ministry to
counteract the attacks being made on Germany by the propaganda work
under the direction of Lord Northcliffe.
"The German practice of silence in the face of all the pronouncements of
enemy statesmen cannot be borne any longer," said Herr Heckscher.
"Anybody who watches the effect of the Northcliffe propaganda in foreign
countries and in Germany can have only one opinion--that this silence is
equivalent to a failure of German statesmanship.
"With masterly skill every single speech of the English leaders is
adapted not only to its effect in England, but also to its influence on
public opinion among the neutrals and also, and especially, in Germany.
* * * * Hundreds of thousands of Germans, reading a pronouncement by the
President of the United States, ask themselves bitterly what the German
Government will say. Thus there is formed a cloud of discontent and dark
doubt, which, thanks to this Northcliffe propaganda, spreads itself more
and more over the German people. * * * *
"We try to protect our country from enemy espionage and from the work of
agents and scoundrels, but with open eyes we leave it defenseless while
a stream of poisonous speeches is poured over its people.
"It will not, of course, do for enemy pronouncements of importance to be
withheld from our people, but it is as necessary for our people as their
daily bread that the Anglo-Franco-American influence should be met by
the German view, and that the justice and greatness of the German cause
and of the German idea should be brought into the clear, full light of
day. Nor is defense sufficient. We must also aggressively champion our
cause in the forum of the civilized world.
"I repeat what I have said for years, that Reuter and the English news
propaganda are mightier than the English fleet and more dangerous than
the English army."
The _Koelnische Volkszeitung_ echoed the demand for a propaganda
ministry. It wrote:
"As our good name has been stolen from us and made despicable
throughout the world, one of our peace demands must be that our
enemies publicly and officially confess that they have
circulated nothing but lies and slanders. * * * The greatest
need of the moment is a campaign of enlightenment, organized by
all the competent authorities, to hammer into German heads that,
if further sacrifices and efforts are required of us, it is not
the caprice of a few dozen people in Germany nor German
obstinacy, but the enemy's impulse to destroy, that imposes them
on people at home and at the front."
CHAPTER VII.
Germany Requests an Armistice.
Dr. Michaelis, unequal to his task, laid down the Imperial
Chancellorship. His successor was Count Hertling, Minister-President of
Bavaria. The decision to appoint this man Imperial Chancellor may have
been influenced largely by a desire to strengthen the bonds between
Prussia and the next largest German state. It is possible also that
Hertling's intimate relations with the Papal Court were taken into
consideration, but the choice was a striking commentary on the dearth of
good chancellorship material in Germany. Count Hertling's age alone
unfitted him to bear the terrible burdens of this post, for he was well
along in the seventies, and not strong physically. He had distinguished
himself as an educator and as a writer on certain topics, especially
Roman Catholic Church history, and had a record of honorable and
faithful service as a member of the Bavarian Government. In his role as
statesman he had exhibited perhaps a little more than average ability,
but never those qualities which the responsible head of a great state
should possess.
A monarchist by birth and conviction, Count Hertling was particularly
unfitted for the chancellorship at a time when the nation-wide demand
for democratic reforms of government was increasing in strength every
moment. In assuming his post he declared that he was fully cognizant of
the strength and justice of the demand for an increased share of
participation by the people in the government, and he pledged himself to
use his best efforts to see that this demand was met. There is no reason
to doubt the honesty of his intentions, but it was too much to expect
that an aged Conservative of the old school should so easily shake off
old notions or even realize adequately what the great mass of the people
meant when they cried out for a change of system. Probably no man could
have carried out the task confronting the Chancellor; that Count
Hertling would fail was inevitable.
The empire was honeycombed with sedition when the military reverses of
the summer began. These reverses, disastrous enough in themselves, were
greatly magnified by faint-hearted or malicious rumor. The military
commander in the Marches (Brandenburg) issued a decree on September 9th
providing for a year's imprisonment or a fine of 1,500 marks for persons
spreading false rumors. The decree applied not only to rumors of
defeats, but also to reports exaggerating the enemy's strength, casting
doubts on the ability of the German armies to withstand the attack or
bringing in question the soundness of the empire's economic situation.
Reports of serious dissensions in Austria-Hungary came at the same time
to add to the general depression. The Vienna _Arbeiterzeitung_ said:
"In questions regarding food we are compelled to negotiate with
Hungary as if we were negotiating with a foreign power. The
harvest is the best since the war began, but the Hungarians are
ruthlessly starving the Austrians, although there is plenty for
us all."
The Austro-Hungarian Government saw the trend of events. Premier Baron
Burian told Berlin that the Dual Monarchy could not keep up the struggle
much longer. The people, he said, were starving, and disloyalty and
treachery
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