The Better Germany in War Time Part 26

FROM AN AMERICAN LADY.

The following is an extract from a valuable letter by Madeline G. Doty, an American, which appeared in the _Nation_ of June 12, 1915:

My most revolutionary talk was with a gray-haired mother of grown children, in a secluded corner of a quiet restaurant. A burning flame this woman. Her face stamped with world suffering, her eyes the tragic eyes of a Jane Addams. In a whisper she uttered the great heresy: 'German salvation lies in Germany's defeat. If Germany wins when so many of her progressive young men have been slain, the people will be utterly crushed in the grip of the mailed fist.'

With this companion I discussed the collapse of the Social Democrats in the hour of crisis, the triumph of nationalism over internationalism. She attributes it to military training.

During the period of service a man becomes a thing.

Automatically, he acquires habits of obedience, is reduced to an unquestioning machine. Mechanically, when the call came, the Social Democrats, with the others, fell into line. But with time has come thought. Also knowledge-knowledge that, in the first instance, Germany's war was not one of self-defence. But it is too late to rebel. Most of the Social Democrats are at the front. From month to month they have put off protest as unwise.

Only Liebknecht has made himself heard. Now he has been caught up in the iron hand, and sent to battle. But women are not bound by the spell of militarism. While the Government rejoiced at the submission of its Socialist men, the women grew active.

Organising a party of their own, they fought bravely. Last fall Rosa Luxembourg dashed into the street and addressed a regiment of soldiers. 'Don't go to war, don't shoot your brothers,' she cried. For this offence she was sent to prison for a year.

To-day she lies in solitary confinement. But her suffering only inspires the others. In March 750 women walked to the Reichstag.

At the entrance they halted. As the members entered they shouted, 'We will have no more war; we will have peace.' Quickly the police dispersed them, and the order went forth that no newspaper should print one word of the protest. Still the women work on. On April 8, an International Socialist Woman's Congress was held at Berne, Switzerland. Ten nations were represented, including all the belligerents.

The task of peace propaganda in Germany is gigantic. Neither by letter nor by Press can news be spread. Both are censored. The work must be carried on by spoken word pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. The courage of the little band of women I had met was stupendous. Through them I learned to love Germany. So my life in Berlin became a double one. I ate and slept, and was unregenerate in one part of the town, and only really lived when I escaped from respectability and, strange contradiction of terms, became a criminal fighting for peace.

But wherever I was, one fact grew omnipresent. Germany was magnificently organised. Here lay the country's power and her weakness. Her power because it made Germany a unit. There were no weak links in the chain. Her weakness, because it robbed her people of individuality, made them cogs in a machine.

"Germany no longer cares whom she hurts," runs another pa.s.sage in this letter; "like an unloved child at bay she means, to smash and kill. The pity of it! Never was there a more generous, soft-hearted, kindly people. Germany, the land of the Christmas tree and folk songs, and hearthsides and gay childish laughter, turned into a relentless fighting machine! But each individual is a cog firmly fixed in the machine, which will go ever on as long as the ruling power turns the crank."[73]

TWO SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

"If I were not firmly convinced that even this war will help to establish the Kingdom of G.o.d I could hardly endure it. But I believe that after pa.s.sing through this h.e.l.l humanity will come to itself and learn to believe in the reign of human brotherhood.... I cannot tell you the moral suffering I go through. These butcheries are utter madness. I cannot forget for a moment that our enemies are men, and consequently our brothers." So wrote a young German soldier student quoted by Mr.

Jerome K. Jerome.

The following letter is from the _Vossische Zeitung_. A soldier's young sister had written asking him to "kill a lot of Russians" and "to gain a new victory in order to cheer us up." "'Kill a lot of Russians.' You have not seen them lying about-those poor dead, with their singularly solemn faces.... You have not seen the battle which preceded, and the bad wounds which so many of my friends got in trying to kill a lot of them. You do not think of the fact that those dead men had parents, brothers, and sisters whom they loved. And you have not seen the harrowing destruction of the villages and towns-how the poor, hunted-down population is running away, leaving everything they had behind them to be consumed by the flames.... And then, remember, we are not fighting in order to cheer you up-we are not lying about in the open-air day and night, starved and suffering from wounds and homesickness, in order that you at home may be cheerful at the tea or beer table. We are fighting and bearing this terrible wretchedness in order that you may he spared the horrors of war, and that Germany's future may be bright." That is, I believe, what the enormous majority of Germany's soldiers are fighting for. Soldiers on both sides have similar and quite reconcilable aims; but government is too complex to express the simple will of the people. In every country, it seems to me, anti-militarist opinion only needs its chance. I was struck by the frequency with which such an opinion cropped up when I was travelling a few weeks in Germany not long before the war. On the top of the Belchen I encountered it in talking to a native of Wurtemberg. Again in a walk with a young German to the Feldberg; again in a book-shop at Freiburg; again in chance railway talk with a very well-educated German on my way to Berlin. In Berlin itself a giant Westphalian accosted me, as he wanted to make the acquaintance of "one of these terrible fellows who mean to smash up Germany." His political ideal consisted in the belief that England and Germany, understanding each other, could keep the peace of the world.

ALBERT KLEIN.

Dr. Albert Klein, of Giessen, who was killed in the Champagne in February, felt compelled to side with his Government, as so many do in times of crisis. To that extent his was a biased judgment. It is a bias that one has seen possessing almost everywhere the n.o.blest souls. But Klein could write thus:

When I read all this inflated stuff in the papers-written by men guiltily conscious of being very safe in their offices at home-to the effect that every soldier is a hero, I feel positively disgusted. Heroism is far too rare to form a basis for a national army. What is needed to make and keep that a coherent whole is that men must respect their leaders and fear them more than the enemy, and that leaders must be conscientious, true to their duty, well informed, resourceful and self-controlled. Thank G.o.d, there is plenty of the good old discipline yet. But these fine fellows come along, concoct a mess of New Year reflections and Centenary speeches and boldly declaim about the German spirit that is to heal mankind. They pick up all the filth of the foreign Press and fling it back with threefold interest. It is just because I am so pa.s.sionately devoted to all that the n.o.blest Germans have done for the civilisation of the world that I do not desire to see us burdened with a task we cannot accomplish.

If Germany's contribution to the world's civilisation is the highest we can strive for, we must seek afresh to live in peace and concord with the other nations. Then we shall cease calling every Englishman a hypocrite and every Frenchman empty-headed, quite apart from the daily proofs we get of their military ability. Oh, my dear friends, believe me, the man on the spot who sees and experiences all this, does not talk so complacently of death and sacrifice and victory, as those who, far from the front, ring the bells, make fine speeches and write the papers.

He resigns himself to the bitter necessity of suffering and death when the hour comes, and he knows and sees how many, too many sacrifices have already been made, knows it is time, high time that all this devastation ceased, not only on our side, but on the other side, too.

It is just in seeing all this suffering that we feel a new bond of sympathy (and you, my dear ones, would feel just the same, yes, I know, you feel it already) uniting us with the enemy.

If, as I hardly dare to hope, I return from this murderous war, it will be one of my most welcome duties to steep my mind in the culture of those that now oppose us. I mean to build up on a broader basis the aim and purpose of my life, namely, historical and philosophical meditation on culture in its highest form.

Last night I was strangely moved, having an opportunity of seeing a convoy of prisoners and speaking to one of them, a colleague, a cla.s.sical philologist from Vigeac. Such a frank, intelligent man, with an excellent military training, as indeed were all the company with him! He told me how terrible it had been to endure the firing of our machine-guns (demoralisant, he called it)-and showed me clearly the utter senselessness of war. How we should like to be friends with people so like us in education, habits of life, thought and interest.

We soon got into conversation about a book on Rousseau and began a regular argument, like two old philologists. He saw the ribbon in my b.u.t.ton-hole and when he heard it was the Iron Cross he said: "Felicitations!" His sparkling interest in the striped ribbon seemed to me so characteristic of a Southern Frenchman and very touching.

How alike we are in worth and merit! How untrue all these tales told by our papers of the French being broken and spent! Just as untrue as all that the _Temps_ writes about us. And all he said, this French colleague of mine, betrayed so much independent thought and respect for German mind and character. Why should we, fated to be friends, always be divided? I was deeply troubled, and sat there for a long time lost in thought, but all my brooding brought me no solution.

And the end not in sight yet, the end of this war, that for six months has been gorging itself with human life and prosperity and happiness! The same feeling amongst us and amongst them!

Always the same picture! We are so much alike, we achieve the same, we suffer the same, just because we happen to be such bitter enemies.-(From the _International Review_.)

The following is another extract given by M. Romain Rolland. It is taken from the letter of a German soldier to a Swiss professor:

The longing for peace is intense with us. At least with all those who are at the front, forced to kill and to be killed. The newspapers say that it is not possible to stem the war-like pa.s.sion of the soldiers. They lie, knowingly or unknowingly. Our pastors deny that this pa.s.sion is abating. You cannot think how indignant we are at such nonsense. Let them hold their tongues and not speak of things they do not understand. Or, rather, let them come here, not as chaplains in the rear, but in the line of fire, with arms in their hands. Perhaps then they will perceive the inner change which is going on in thousands of us. In the eyes of these parsons a man who has no pa.s.sion for war is unworthy of his age. But it seems to me that we who are faithfully doing our duty without enthusiasm for the war, and hating it from the bottom of our souls, are finer heroes than the others. They speak of a Holy War. I know of no Holy War. I only know one war, and that is the sum of everything that is inhuman, impious, and beastly in man, a visitation of G.o.d and a call to repentance to the people who rushed into it, or allowed themselves to be drawn into it. G.o.d has plunged men into this h.e.l.l in order to teach them to love Heaven. As for the German people, the war seems to be a chastis.e.m.e.nt and a call to contrition-addressed first of all to our German Church.

GERMANY IN PEACE TIME.

Enough has been cited to give a glimpse of the better Germany in the time of this war. Let us remember, too, what she has been in peace.

"After all, in our saner moments we all of us know that the Germans are a great people, with a great part in the world to play. Their boasts about their 'culture' are not idle boasts, and, when one comes to think of it, it is rather important to have in our midst a people that _cares_ to boast about its culture. The Englishman is more given to complaining than boasting, and when he does boast it is certainly not about culture.

As it seems to me, the Germans excel in two things-simple tenderness of sentiment and the work of patient observation. I am aware that it has for a considerable time been the mode in England to slight German literature. Personally, I consider this one of those temporary poses to which superior persons are liable. Leave out all the great names if you will-Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and the rest-and we still have the folk-songs. A nation that can produce those folk-songs has got unusual gifts for the world. And, of course, we envy the Germans their music. Of all the contemptible utterances that this war has produced (and it has produced a good many) none has been worse than the silly blathering against German music just because it is German. What have Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner got to do with the politics of the present war? Leaving the arts aside, it is quite certain that in any region where careful observation and painstaking thought are required, no one can afford to neglect Germany. Recently I was looking through May's 'Guide to the Roman Pottery in the York Museum.' Among the names of those dealing with the subject of Roman pottery I suppose the best known are those of Dechelette and Dragendorff-the one French, the other German. Among the other references I found fourteen to German publications and four to English, one of the latter being merely a museum catalogue. No one can study philosophy without continual reference to German thought. Even in a subject so English as the study of Shakespeare the work of Gervinus is fundamental, and from the time of Lessing to that of Ten Brink there has been a succession of German commentators. Those of us who have worked at all at science know only too well what we owe to Germany there. It has, indeed, been at times painful to compare the ma.s.s of the German output with the comparatively thin stream of English work. Of course, there has been splendid English research, but as a people we are not lovers of knowledge, and we are specially loath to apply it. Again and again our scientific papers have been filled with diatribes against our English neglect of science, and the diatribes were needed. I remember asking a British firm of repute to construct for me a resistance 'bridge' of a simple kind. I explained the whole purpose of the apparatus, but when it came back to me the resistance wire was soldered down in two places to broad bands of bra.s.s.

This, of course, altered the resistance and rendered the apparatus useless. A rudimentary knowledge of electricity would have made such a mistake impossible. Contrast this with the following: When I was a student a lecturer wished to prepare a rather rare compound for some work of his. We both tried for long to prepare a specimen, but failed, probably because the temperature of our furnace was not high enough. We then sent to a German firm of manufacturing chemists, and they prepared it for us at once. I remarked recently to an English scientific chemist, 'No English firm would have done that.' 'Well, if you had pressed them,'

he replied, 'they would have sent over to -- (a German firm) and then put their own label on the bottle.' A 'chemist' in too many of our works has too often been a lad who has picked up some routine knowledge, but who has no more scientific equipment than a farm labourer. Contrast this with the state of things at the _Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik_, where as many as _sixty_ trained chemists are employed.

"I have often thought of these things when I have heard manufacturers bewailing German compet.i.tion. The war has produced many strange intellectual somersaults, and it is curious to notice how many Free Traders are now eager for the destruction, not temporarily, but permanently, of German trade. A few months ago they would have preached in season and out on the advantage to England of receiving cheap goods, they would have extolled German scientific methods, and they would (with every right) have pointed out that a customer who buys forty million pounds' worth of our goods is scarcely one whom we should wish to destroy. All these facts remain absolutely unaltered by the war. All that has happened is that a half-ashamed jealousy is no longer ashamed, and is masquerading as patriotism so successful as to have misled the majority of our countrymen-for a time. The day of reckoning will come, and we shall not then find it any better than previously to buy dear goods to please the manufacturers. Moreover, our men of business will not have learned scientific methods by the end of the war. A publisher's circular that I recently received appealed, on patriotic grounds, for the purchase of a book on applied science. I am not very cynical, but I confess that I distrust these trade appeals to patriotism. The true patriot does not advertise his patriotism in order to make money. In this case the work was well known and important, but it was interesting to observe that almost every one of the contributors was German, and that the rest were German-Swiss. Surely, in spite of its horror, there are many things in this contest to make the G.o.ds laugh."[74]

BRITISH RECOGNITION.

It is pleasant to find recognition of Germany's commercial deserts among British commercial men. The annual conference of the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers' a.s.sociation was opened at the Town Hall, Manchester, on May 24, 1915. Sir William Mather, who was unanimously elected president, referred to Germany as follows:

The position of Germany in the world of commerce had been attained as the result of years of patient and persistent organisation, of close application to business, of exhaustive and careful research work, and full appreciation of the requirements and necessities of the markets for which she was catering, and a determination to meet those requirements in strict accordance with the wishes and needs of her potential customers. Behind all the efforts had been lavish financial support by the German Government, and the pledging of national credit for individual and private enterprise.

The position secured by Germany as a result of her persistent application of these methods was not to be seriously challenged, nor would she be deprived of her hold upon it by anything other than the use by Englishmen of the same skill, the same elasticity, the same persistence, and the same efficiency in every branch of commerce.

Commercial travellers, as one of the most important parts of the mechanism, must, if the desired result be obtained, make themselves fully efficient for their part in the work. They had been perhaps, as vocal as any section of the community as to the necessity and possibility of extending English trade, but it was much to be regretted that when opportunities were given and facilities provided, more particularly for the younger men to equip themselves for the work which had to be done in extending British commerce abroad, the response was extremely inadequate.-(_Daily Telegraph_, May 25, 1915.)

As regards chemical research there also fortunately remain those who still ungrudgingly admit our enormous indebtedness to Germany. In March, 1915, Professor Percy Frankland, F.R.S., addressed the Birmingham Section of the Society of Chemical Industry on "The Chemical Industries of Germany." With true and chivalrous courtesy, Professor Frankland, in a footnote to his printed address, writes: "The author has much pleasure in acknowledging the a.s.sistance he has received from the valuable compilation by Professor Lepsius of Berlin, 'Deutschlands Chem.

Industrie, 1888-1913,' and from that by Dr. Duisberg, of Elberfeld, 'Wissenschaft und Technik,' 1911." I believe such courtesy is more characteristically British than the lack of it sometimes shown by others. The following quotations from Professor Frankland's address are of interest:

INDUSTRIES DEPENDENT ON SYNTHETIC ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

... During the major part of the [past] 60 years the great bulk of the discoveries in this domain have been made in Germany.

Organic chemistry is, perhaps, the branch of science which more perfectly suits the German mind and temperament. It involves the possession of those qualities in which Germans are so pre-eminent-the capacity for taking an infinitude of pains, the capacity to antic.i.p.ate difficulties and organise means to circ.u.mvent them.... It is in the possession of such schools of research, both in the universities and in the chemical factories, that Germany has by two generations the lead of all other countries in the world.... The chemical manufacturers in this country have, with some notable exceptions, failed to establish anything worthy of the name of research laboratories in connection with their works.... Whereas the artificial colour industry started in England, that of artificial drugs is entirely of German origin, and may be said to begin with the discovery by Liebig of chloroform in 1831, and of chloral hydrate in 1832.... The composition of the personnel who carry on these German colour works is at the bottom of their success.

Take the works of Messrs. Meister, Lucius, und Bruning as an example. In 1913, the composition was as follows: Workmen, 7,680; managers, 374; expert chemists, 307; technologists, 74; commercial staff, 611. Contrast with the above the fact that the six English factories now producing dyestuffs employ altogether only 35 chemists, whilst evidence of their relative activities is again furnished by the circ.u.mstance that between 1886 and 1900 the English firms took out only 86 patents, whereas the six princ.i.p.al German firms were responsible for 948 during the same period. Having shown that these German coal-tar colour manufacturers are without rivals from the commercial point of view, I feel it to be my duty to point out also that their industry is carried on under conditions of labour which are highly creditable to the management.

Professor Frankland goes on to urge that we should at least pay heed to "the warnings repeated _ad nauseam_ by the chemical profession during a whole generation." Those warnings told us of the stupidity and peril of neglecting science. It is not mere commercialism but science that is needed. The help of science, it may be added, will never be gained unless devotion is paid to it for its own sake, and not simply as a means to money. That reward is too far off for mere commercialism. Adolf Baeyer synthesised indigo in 1880, but it cost 17 years of laborious investigation and the investment of nearly 1,000,000 of capital before that synthesis could be made a commercial success. So long a chase is not carried out by those who are thinking only of the prize. The hunt itself must interest them. That, I personally fear, is where we in Britain (and especially in England) are somewhat lacking.

Two other points in Professor Frankland's address I would draw attention to. In emphasising the need of scientific men on the directorates he asks: "What does not the firm of Messrs. Brunner, Mond and Co., for example, owe to the late Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S.?" Just so. Dr. Ludwig Mond was a German. He came to this country and brought with him his energy, enterprise, and his very exceptional scientific endowments. With Mr. J. J. Brunner he was thus able to found what became the largest alkali works in the kingdom, and undoubtedly one of the most scientific and enterprising works we have. Incidentally it is worth mentioning that the firm of Brunner, Mond and Co. was one of the first to introduce the eight hours day. There are people about (a few of whom ought to know better) asking for the exclusion of the German in the future. I would venture to suggest that we might well exchange very many English people of such limited brain capacity for one Ludwig Mond. To shut the door to men is to shut the doors to talent, and talent produces its best by cross-fertilisation.

I may at this point insert an ill.u.s.tration communicated to me privately.

My informant said: "When I was a very young man I determined to try to save a business which was falling in ruin. My project was strongly opposed by my friends, but I determined to carry it out. The works which I took over were then employing 150 men. There was a great lack of scientific training, and _this_ I saw was the chief cause of disaster.

So I began sending my men to Germany to be trained. The Germans have always, at their State-supported universities, welcomed the foreigner and given him their best knowledge. My men brought that knowledge back to England. The result was that by the time I withdrew from active work we were employing about three thousand men. The Germans had thus given work to nearly three thousand Englishmen. People should remember facts of this kind when they talk of Germans coming here and 'taking the bread out of our mouths.'"

The wife of an interned man struggled to keep his business. She was, however, ruined. "Serve you right," she was told, "coming here and taking the bread out of our people's mouths." What a strange idea of humanity! What are "our people"? If a Scotsman settles in London is he "taking the bread out of our people's mouths'"? We forget that the foreigner is very often an enormous accession to a State. The Norman conquerors who organised us, the Flemings who improved our weaving, the Huguenots who gave new ideas to our commerce, the Germans who brought us scientific method have all been amongst the makers of England.

Exclusiveness is a constricting cord that strangles progress. Exchange of commodities is, we know, the life of trade, and exchange of men and ideas is the life of more than trade.