The Better Germany in War Time Part 19

A GERMAN PRIEST.

From the _Daily News_, February 17, 1916, I take the following story of a German priest:

Then the word came that we were to go for the enemy's first line, and we did. Our artillery started the music, and we made our effort.

Our lads almost lost their reason for the time being, and heedless of sh.e.l.ls and bullets, mounted the first German parapet. We killed many of them, but it is fair to say they didn't give in. They quickly had reinforcements, and we were compelled against heavy odds to yield the trench to the enemy.

Angry fighting continued, and our game now was to lure as many of the Germans towards our lines as possible so that we could mow them down with our guns. On they came, many hundreds of them, and as quickly they fell.

Our fellows got it too, and one little party was absolutely at the mercy of the enemy. Two of our young officers and five men were severely wounded and their position was helpless, for it was impossible to rescue them. Despite our tremendous fire the Germans, with fixed bayonets, tried to reach the party and their intention was obvious. They got within a few yards of the wounded when one of their number sprang in front of them and flashed a crucifix. "Stop," he shouted, and then he knelt down by the side of our men and blessed them. The other Germans immediately withdrew.

Then we managed to reach the wounded and our officer thanked the priest for the brave way in which he had behaved in the face of his own men. "Take me," said the priest. "I am your prisoner."

The officer said he would not do that, but he would see that he returned to the German lines unharmed. The promise was kept, and before they parted the priest, falling on his knees, thanked our officer warmly, adding: "G.o.d bless you and good luck!"

MUTUAL FEARS.

Each side fears the barbarity of the other. "Would it be good military policy," asked a military official, "to encourage any other idea?" "'My comrades were afraid,' said this German sergeant. 'They cried out to me that the Indians would kill their prisoners, and that we should die if we surrendered. But I said, 'That is not true, comrades, and is only a tale. Let us go forward with our hands up.' So in that way we went, and the Indian hors.e.m.e.n closed about us, and I spoke to one of them, asking for mercy for our men, and he was very kind and a gentleman, and we surrendered to him safely.' He was glad to be alive, this man from Wiesbaden. He showed me the portrait of his wife and boy, and cried a little, saying that the German people did not make the war, but had to fight for their country when told to fight, like other men.... He waved his hand back to the woodlands, and remembered the terror of the place from which he had just come. 'Over there it was worse than death.'" Yes, and "If any man were to draw the picture of those things or to tell them more nakedly than I have told them, because now is not the time, nor this the place, no man or woman would dare to speak again of war's 'glory,' or of 'the splendour of war,' or any of those old lying phrases which hide the dreadful truth." (Philip Gibbs in the _Daily Chronicle_, July 18, 1916.)

THE CIVILIAN'S HATE.

Yet, appalling as modern war is, there are things which some soldiers find worse. When I spoke to an old friend of mine about a popular print that disseminates hatred he said, "Whenever I see that paper it makes my blood run cold." Yet in one of the charges which that man had faced only about a quarter of his company came back. That charge was to him less hideous than some newspaper malice-a malice which is so often a matter of business. Since then my friend has given his life, and has left in one heart a desolation that is worse than death. But in that heart there is no hate, only sympathy for all the sorrow, both on this side and the other.

Mr. Frederick Niven tells us the impressions of a wounded soldier who saw the Zeppelin burned at Cuffley. "What stuck in his mind was the roars that occurred when the airs.h.i.+p took fire and began to come sagging and flaming down. 'It reminded me of what I have read of "Thumbs down"

in the arenas of ancient Rome. It was the most terrible thing I have heard in my life. I've heard some cheering at the front, but this was different. Nothing out there had quite the same horrible sound.'" The difference can be explained. "These men," says Mr. Niven, "have seen the procession of the maimed, grey propping khaki, khaki propping grey, all trooping down to the dressing station." (_Daily News_, October 9, 1916.)

And here is a letter from a brave young officer, since killed. "I drifted into the -- Parish Church last evening to hear the organ and the singing. I was pushed into a pew up in the front, and so could not escape until the end of the service. I could have wept when I heard the sermon; it was a dreadful medieval picture of Heaven and h.e.l.l, and a dreadful curse on all the German people as being ready for 'h.e.l.l.' ...

The whole service was as artificial as one could imagine-so heartless and so soulless. It made me feel so very sad that, as I said before, I could have wept openly. Do you think that the congregation, a large one, would take in and believe all that they heard from the pulpit? It seems too dreadful!"

AND CIVILIAN KINDNESS.

Yet even civilians, even German civilians, do not always hate.

There is a better Germany, but it is only occasionally that we are allowed glimpses of it now, and we must go usually among unknown people, and read unpopular or comparatively obscure publications if we seek a wider range of vision. In December, 1914, Mrs. Jackson, wife of a golf professional, returned from Germany to Clacton-on-Sea. Her husband had been in the employ of the Cologne Golf Club. "Do you think," she was asked, "the German hatred of England is general?" "No," replied Mrs.

Jackson. "Of course, the Germans hate England fiercely as a nation, but I do not think they do as individuals. Everyone treated us extremely well, although they knew our nationality, and my husband's employers are anxious for him to go back again to them when the war is finished."

"Does Germany know the truth?" "I do not think so. We could not get any British newspapers, and only heard the German side of the question. I was quite thunderstruck when I heard England had joined in, and I am sure the German people were, too. The Germans are confident of victory, and so much is this so that some of my friends did not want me to go back, saying that I should be much safer where I was." I take this report from the _Clacton Graphic_ of February 20, 1915.

Of course, there has been much kindness on this side, and much grat.i.tude for it in Germany, but I confess that some things I have heard from the other side have given me twinges of patriotic jealousy. I should like to feel that my country is always first in generosity. When Chaplain O'Rorke walked unattended and in khaki through the streets of Burg, there was no offensive remark.[42] Three English ladies travelling in Germany in war-time tell me that they never suffered from one unpleasant word. Miss Littlefair tells of some anti-English demonstrations, but of far more kindness, and when her unpopular nationality became known in a railway carriage, there was no change in the friendliness of its occupants.[43] Again, a Canadian Chaplain has been allowed to travel free, and in his uniform, and to visit his men in different camps. He seems to have had no difficulty with the populace. As regards walks on parole, we hear from Crefeld, "There has been no trouble of any kind with the inhabitants."[44]

SOME GERMAN NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER GERMAN COMMENTS.

The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ is one of those German newspapers which has often at least worked for sanity in the national att.i.tude. We may differ from some of its conclusions, but we must admire its stand against the flood of foolish, indiscriminate hate. On February 27, 1915, it asked: "What sense is there in German professors declaring that they will no longer collaborate with this or that scientific inst.i.tution in England?... Salutations such as the celebrated 'G.o.d punish England' are not only fundamentally tasteless and theatrical, but are quite ridiculous.... We are deep in war, and we have to collect all our strength to beat our enemies, and especially to subdue our most dangerous enemy, England; but after the war must follow a peace which shall render possible calm and a.s.sured work. This work must be performed in conjunction with other peoples which we cannot exterminate." ...

(Quoted in the _Times_, March 2, 1915.) On April 11, 1915, there appeared another telling little article, "English and German, according to Professor Sombart." The article is quietly ironical over Professor Sombart, who brings us before the court on the old charge, that we are a nation of shopkeepers. "The traders' spirit, that is Englishdom." I confess that as an Englishman I have always felt there was an uncomfortable amount of truth in this sneer. We are surely a somewhat stodgy, money-making people with far too little receptivity for new ideas. "I have long thought and preached," wrote Lord Haldane in the _Nation_ of August 7, 1915, "that the real problem in this country is the development of thought and ideas." Dr. Drill does not in his review concern himself with this charge. He remarks in pa.s.sing that it is quite possible for a tradesman to be a hero and for a minister of war to be a tradesman, and then goes on to point out the futile absurdity of all such general charges. He cites an amusing attack on German culture by a lecturer at Bedford College. "We smile over his attack," says Dr. Drill.

"May we not be afraid that educated Englishmen do the same about Professor Sombart?" The review tears the book to tatters, and the reviewer sums up the opinion of the thoughtful by declaring that the publication of such a piece of writing at this time of crisis is altogether scandalous. The course of journalists during this war has so often been down steep places that we are refreshed whenever we come, either in England or in Germany, upon so brave a stand for a sane view of the enemy. Karl Bleibtreu (as quoted in the _Daily News_, July 8, 1915) writes in the _Kolnische Zeitung_, "Such foolish effusions as that of Professor Sombart's 'Traders and Heroes,' revealing no conception of the more profound movements of the soul, must be regarded as an error.

The true perception is here blurred by a confusion of the British private character, which is worthy in every way of the highest respect, with the State policy which is dominated by a national megalomania." We are told that Bleibtreu abuses France. Well, we have known rather distinguished Englishmen abuse France, too. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ has spoken of "the really heroic bravery" of the Black Watch. The _Kolnische Zeitung_ reproduced a spirited article from the Austrian _Danzers Armee Zeitung_ in which that paper said the generous thing about Serbian, Belgian and Russian armies alike. This article also was a protest against the lower tone which has prevailed by no means only amongst the newspapers printed in German. The Serbians are spoken of as "an enemy who can hardly be surpa.s.sed in keenness and untiring energy."

No one has any right, the article says, to abuse the Belgians who had a right to fight and who fought very well, notwithstanding the notoriously unmilitary character of their country. Of the Russians we are told, "We must admit that these armies are well led, excellently equipped, and splendidly armed.... There have been individual cases of disregard of the Red Cross, and one hears of occasional plunderings, but, as regards the majority, it is an honourable and chivalrous enemy that is facing us." The love of fair play is after all not confined to Englishmen, or to the opponents of Germany.

The _Daily News_ of March 26, 1918, quotes from the _Kolnische Zeitung_, which writes of the British enemy as "defending himself with extraordinary determination and bravery.... Our men speak in terms of the highest praise of the att.i.tude of the enemy. The Englishman is an extremely brave soldier." I confess I should be glad to read tributes of like generosity in certain popular newspapers on this side. The _Deutsche Tageszeitung_ is also quoted as saying that the British defended every one of their points of support determinedly and bravely, giving way only step by step. Again, von Ludendorff (March 27) is quoted as saying: "The English use and distribute their machine guns very cleverly," and there is something out of keeping with the attributed Ludendorff character in the remark: "The district over which the offensive has pa.s.sed is pitiable."

On April 4, 1918, the _Daily News_ contained the following under the heading, "A Respectful Greeting sent per balloon by the Germans":

In a dispatch from the front Reuter's special correspondent says there is a certain sporting element in the German army, and relates the following incident:

During the thick of the first clash a small balloon came floating down to where our men were making a splendid resistance. On being captured it was found to be carrying the following message: "Good old 51st! Sticking it still! Good luck!"

The 51st, which is one of the three first divisions to be named in official communiques for magnificently opposing the enemy hordes, is known to be regarded by the Germans as one of our most formidable corps.

On April 15 we read of Armentieres: "A Berlin semi-official statement says that despite the ever-increasing pressure of the enveloping troops the town held out extraordinarily bravely. Only when, by a flank onslaught of the German troops, envelopment to the west of the town was almost completed, did the remnant of the brave garrison surrender."

And here is a letter from an Englishwoman in Germany (_Nation_, May 15, 1915): "'Gott strafe England' is a 'Spruch' in great use here, and is to be had on rubber stamps.... School children are taught it.... This is a fact, but all the better-thinking people deplore it, and I wonder whether, if it is ever recorded in history, it will also be recorded that the Kaiser has now strictly forbidden it. It will die, but gradually. It is the idea of some silly loud-mouthed a.s.s, and the people, like sheep, followed it." Professor Wrangel, a German authority on pedagogy, urges the avoidance of instilling hatred into the young, and he tells us that the Bavarian Government has instructed its teachers to avoid in their lessons all language insulting to the enemy. (_Daily Chronicle_, June 19, 1915.) In July, 1915, the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ published a long article on the situation in England, written by a neutral observer. The London _Daily News_ describes it as giving "on the whole a fair and conscientious presentation of facts." The article points out that the average Englishman regards the war as a war of defence (just as the average German does). The article warmly praises England for the way in which it won the loyalty of the Boer Republics.

In the _Montag_ (the Monday edition of the Berlin _Lokalanzeiger_) Herr E. Zimmermann stoutly defended actions of both neutrals and enemies that the more biased in Germany had condemned. "Reproach levelled against America for supplying war material to our enemies is unjust. Germany herself, at the Hague Conference, caused the rejection of the proposal to prohibit the supply of war material to belligerents by neutral countries. Only the prohibition of supply of war material by the Governments of neutral States exists, while private industry is free to act as it likes. So far America, as a State, has supplied no war material." In his att.i.tude towards America, says Herr Zimmermann, the Imperial Chancellor "need take no notice of those ferocious heroes who take care to keep themselves at a distance from the hail of bullets in safe retreat...." We know something of those ferocious heroes on this side too.

Again, "I cannot share in the political sentimentality which represents England's attempt to starve us into submission as an exceedingly mean thing. I cannot share in it because it would have been a pleasure to me if I could apply with success the same war tactics to England. We must not forget that it is not really a question of actually starving to death tens of millions of men and women, but only of constraining them to lay down their arms."

Sir Edwin Pears writes in the _Sunday Times_ of October 10, 1915:

The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ has been allowed to publish a statement which not unfairly represents the situation. It says that the Greek crisis raises the question: "Who is the stronger?

The King with the General Staff and the great part of the Army, or Venizelos and the Cabinet who embody the will of the country as represented in the Chamber?"

This is a singularly fair and frank statement of the facts of the crisis, as they at first presented themselves. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ is no doubt distinguished for the reasonableness of its outlook, but I think that anyone reading the better German newspapers must (in the days when they were available) have felt a little p.r.i.c.k of wounded pride when he compared them with our own. The _Kolnische Zeitung_ is, for instance, like all belligerent newspapers, ridiculously biased; but in the earlier days, when I was able to see it, I did not find gross misrepresentation or absurd hate. The "not very tasteful 'Gott strafe England'" has given the English a new word, one writer remarks (Sept. 21, 1915). Naturally, American testimony favourable to Germany is exclusively quoted, just as in this country we quoted exclusively that favourable to the Entente.

And some s.p.a.ce was given to the utterances of such men as Sven Hedin and Bjorn Bjornson, who, as neutral observers, had formed a high opinion of the way that German character was meeting the crisis. There was not, however, so much of the curious sanctimonious malice which has disfigured some of the well-known English papers.[45]

SCHOOL-BOOKS.

If children are to be told of the war at all, the central duty of any teacher should surely be to avoid stimulating those feelings of hatred which might obscure the chances of future peace. On the whole, the German school-books I have before me seem to fulfil this duty, or at least to aim at fulfilling it.[46] There are, of course, many stories of the achievements and the courage of the German soldiers. All peoples have dwelt on physical courage in too primitive a way. But these books scarcely encourage hate. A letter from France tells how German soldiers tried to help the starving people. The writer is very obviously sincere.

"In one village near our fortifications the people were crying with hunger. It was woeful. I gave them all the bread I had. The children were always asking for more, and kissed our hands. That moved us all greatly. Naturally we told the Commandant." As a result, twelve women were allowed to pa.s.s through the lines blindfolded to fetch food from --. This story is not one to encourage hate, and again and again there are stories of German sympathy with the enemy.

A sad account of incidents of the Russian invasion begins: "Of course, not all Russians are barbarians, most of the misdeeds are due to the Cossacks." (I could not help on reading this calling to mind some of the wilder anti-German outbursts. An official in a rather responsible position said to me that he could not see "a single redeeming feature in any one of them." It was a childish outburst, but childishness in a position of authority becomes cruelty.) A story one German school-book tells of a wounded Belgian sounds only the note of pity, and there is a wonderful little picture of a wounded German's suspicion of a wounded Russian. The story is finely told, but I cannot reproduce it all here.

The Russian is in pain and thirst, the wounded German hesitates between suspicion and pity, but pity gets the upper hand, and he crawls with his water bottle to the Russian. Later, as he lies helpless, his fears are aroused by seeing the Russian fumble with something in his breast. Is it a revolver? The wounded German, overstrained with suffering, waits in terror, but the Russian dies before his hand can bring out what it sought. When the stretcher bearers come the German asks the leader to look for the revolver which he feared the Russian was trying to get out.

The leader goes to look. He brings back what the Russian's dying hand was seeking. No revolver, but the portrait of his mother. This rebuke of hatred and suspicion would live in a child's mind for long.

The effects of the anti-German outbursts can be traced even in these books. When an officer finds the Sisters of a nunnery in want, his ready help is accompanied by the words: "This little kindness is the act of German barbarians, who refuse all thanks. As long as we are here, each barbarian soldier will give up a little, so that you may have their savings every three days, and then you will have plenty.... Enjoy it, and be as happy as you can."

BELGIUM AND WAR AIMS.

Professor Martin-Rade of Marburg University is a Protestant Liberal Theologian and a man well known in his own country on account of his literary and political activities. He writes as follows in the _Christliche Welt_, a widely-circulated magazine of which he is the editor: "I can only deplore the manner in which the Chancellor in his speech ... has treated the question of neutral countries, for there was no need for him to have recourse to the proverb, 'Necessity knows no law.' With that proverb I cannot convince these who behold in the existence of neutral States a triumph of the rights of man. That is why it is a pity-for which it is hard indeed to make reparation-that the German Empire should not have abstained altogether, at the very outset, from the sin ... which it has committed against Belgium. Whoever accuses my view of being unpatriotic I challenge, by whatever test he likes, to show that he loves his Fatherland better than I do." (From a letter in the _Nation_, November 28, 1914.)

Again, as early as December, 1914, at a meeting of the Socialist Party in the Reichstag a resolution was proposed in favour of (_a_) the evacuation of Belgium, and (_b_) the setting up of plebiscites in Schleswig and Alsace-Lorraine to determine the future government of those districts. It was defeated, but twenty four members voted for it.

(_Nation_, January 23, 1915.) To estimate the full value of this we must try to envisage the state of mind of a nation at war. This is notoriously difficult. We cannot picture our _own_ state of mind, because it is obviously impossible at one and the same time to be intensely moved and to picture this emotion without emotional bias. And our bias renders us perhaps equally incapable of envisaging the mind of the enemy. It will be necessary therefore somewhat wilfully to exaggerate an a.n.a.logy in order to see how Germans may feel. Let us conceive, then, twenty-four members of the House of Commons proposing (in the midst of the war) (_a_) the raising of all blockade restrictions against neutrals, the evacuation of all neutral territories (whether Grecian or Persian), and (_b_) the setting up of plebiscites in Ireland, India and Egypt, to determine the future governments of those districts.

I can imagine somewhat heated or contemptuous treatment of this comparison. Just so: the Germans are heated too, and they no longer see clearly. And we must never forget that they have had long training in obedience to government. There are not wanting English politicians who would like to see similar training introduced here. It leads however to the hypnotic response of which Colonel Maude has written interestingly in his "War and the World's Life." The Government in Germany called for the defence of the Fatherland, the Government declared the invasion of Belgium as unavoidable. The hypnotic response followed, but at least twenty-four members of the national legislature woke from the trance and _thought_. I have attempted in my comparison only to suggest how much independence, how much cutting of bonds and attachments that thought required. I press the a.n.a.logy no further. What is noticeable is that this thought, voiced so early and unmistakably, has been gaining wider and wider utterance. It appears that in December, 1914, Herr Haase, speaking in the Reichstag for the Social Democrats, declared that the party were unanimously of opinion that the facts which had come to light since the beginning of the war were not sufficient evidence for them to adopt the Imperial Chancellor's view that the violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg and Belgium was justified by military reasons.

The party had come to the conclusion and had agreed that the violation of Luxemburg and Belgium must be regarded as a violation of justice. The above declaration seems to have been suppressed in the German papers. It reached the _Labour Leader_ from Holland.

AGAINST ANNEXATION.