Ten Years Near the German Frontier Part 10

'I can better tell you, sir, why your subjects prefer to remain at home:--when they get good land cheap, and when they see the chance of rising beyond their fathers' position in the social scale.'

He began to speak, but etiquette demanded a move. When I met him again he returned to the subject. It was better that he should talk, and he talked well. It became evident to me that there was little good agricultural land in Sweden to give away, and the division between the cla.s.ses was not so impa.s.sable as I had believed. He made that clear.

The Social Democrat in Sweden wants an equal opportunity, no wars to be declared by the governing cla.s.ses, and the abolition of the monarchy. He is not concerned greatly with the Central Powers or the Entente. He was glad to see the Hohenzollerns displaced, but he is German in the sense that he is affiliated with the German Social Democrats who, he believes, were forced to deny their principles temporarily or they would have been thrown to the lions; and as, above all things, he prizes a moderate amount of material comfort for himself and his family, he will not go out of his way to be martyred; but even he was the victim of modified German propaganda; he was too patriotic to accept it all.

Of late, as we know, the Liberal Party has gained strength, and the designs of a small activist military coterie were frustrated by a series of circ.u.mstances, of which the Luxburg revelations were not the least; but the main reason was the coquetting of the Government with Germany, one of the signs of which was that the Allied blockade was not treated as a fact, while the mythical blockade by Germany was accepted as really existing.

Personally, I had respect for Dr. Hammarskjold, the Premier of the conservative cabinet that ruled Sweden in the beginning of the war.

He was formerly a colleague in Copenhagen, and, with the exception of Francis Hagerup, now Norwegian Minister at Stockholm, he is the greatest jurist in Northern Europe. He is a Swede of Swedes, with all the traditions of the over-educated Swede. Neutrality he desired above all things--that is, as long as it could be preserved with honour; but he evidently believed that, for the preservation of this neutrality, it was most necessary to keep on very good terms with Germany. Hammarskjold's point of view was more complicated, more technical than that of Herr Branting, and it is to Herr Branting's raising of the voice of the Swedish nation that a serious difficulty with the Entente was avoided. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to put down Hammarskjold as pro-German, for he is, first of all, pro-Swedish.

Edwin Bjorkman, an expert in Swedish affairs, says, after he has paid the compliments of an honest man to the wretched Prussian conspiracies in Sweden:--

'For this German intriguing against supposedly friendly nations there can be no defence. For the more constructive side of Germany's effort to win Sweden, there is a good deal to be said, not only in defence, but in praise. It was not wholly selfish or hypocritical, and it was directed with an intelligence worthy of emulation. All the best German qualities played a conspicuous and successful part in that effort,--enthusiasm, thoroughness, systematic thinking and acting, intellectual curiosity, adaptability, and a constant linking of national and personal interests.'[7]

[7] _Scribner's Magazine._

Men, like Hammarskjold, were naturally affected by an influence which no other nation condescended to counteract. Besides, as a good Swede, Hammarskjold knew that, in a possible conflict with Germany, Sweden had nothing to expect, in the way of help, from the Allies. The German propaganda had convinced many Swedes that it was England that deprived King Oscar of Norway with the view of isolating Sweden and a.s.sisting Russia's move to the sea.

The late Minister of Foreign Affairs, Herr Wallenberg, was regarded as a friend of the Entente, and was less criticised than any other member of the Government. Many of his financial interests were supposed to be in France, and he has many warm friends in all social circles in that country. He is a man of cosmopolitan experience. He has the reputation of being the best-informed man in Europe on European affairs.

Dr. E. F. Dillon, in one of his very valuable articles said: 'As far back as March 1914, he gave it as his opinion that the friction in the Near East would in a brief s.p.a.ce of time culminate in a European war.' To Dr. Dillon the English-speaking world owes the knowledge of the points of view of certain activists, entirely under German influence, as expressed in _Schwedische Stimmen zum Weltkrieg--Uebersetzt mit einem Vorwart verschen von Dr. Friedrich Steve_. The real t.i.tle is best translated _Sweden's Foreign Policy in the Light of the World War_. It was a plea for war in the interests of Germany, representing those of Germany and Sweden as one. They were anonymous--now that some of them have had a change of mind it is well that their names were withheld. They were evidently pro-Germans of all Swedish political parties. It may not be out of place to say that the papers of Dr. Dillon, such as those printed in the _Contemporary Review_, are doc.u.ments of inestimable diplomatic-social value.

It was the leader of the Socialists, Herr Branting, who helped to make evident that a change had been slowly taking place among the Swedish people. Herr Branting is of a very different type from the generally received idea of what a Socialist is. He would not do on the stage. In fact, like many of the constructive Socialists in Scandinavia, he is rather more like a modern disciple of Thomas Jefferson than of Marx or Bakounine. He knows Europe, and he brings to the cause of democracy in Europe great power, well-digested knowledge, and a tolerance not common in Sweden, where religious sectarianism among the bulk of the people was as great an enemy to political progress as the Prussian propaganda.

The most influential man in Sweden, Herr Branting, was obliged to renew his formal adhesion to the Lutheran Church, which he had renounced, to hold office. The strength of Herr Branting's position, which has lately immensely increased, may be surmised from the fact that, in 1914, the Radicals gave 462,621 votes as against 268,631.

The Government would have been wise to have heeded this warning in time; but the men who had engineered the Activist movement, who had worked the Swedish folk up to their demand for stronger defences and a greater army and navy, seemed to think that Sweden was still to be governed from the top.

The Swedes are not the kind of people who can be led hither and thither by bread and the circus. They know how to amuse themselves without the a.s.sistance of their Government and to earn their bread, too; but when the Government, through its presumably pro-German policy, seemed to be responsible for the curtailment of the necessities of life, they turned on their leaders and read the riot act to them. Sweden boldly defied Pan-Germanism.

A great day in Sweden was April 21st, 1917. It was a turning point in the nation's destiny. The people took matters in their own hands.

Hjalmar Branting had forced the Swartz-Lindman Cabinet into a corner; no more secret understandings, no more disregard of the feelings of the voters who felt that, to help their nation intelligently, they must know what was going on. Appeals to Charles XII. or the shade of Gustavus Adolphus no longer counted. What Germany liked or disliked was of no moment to Branting.

On the first of May we were all anxious in Denmark. Our Minister at Stockholm, Mr. Ira Nelson Morris, understood the situation; he expected no great outbreak as a result of Branting's action in the Rigstag, revealing the existence of a secret intrigue to raise, on the part of the Government, a guard of civilians to protect the 'privileged cla.s.ses,' as the Socialists called them, against disturbances on the part of the proletariat. Branting gave a guarantee that no tumult among the people should take place.

Nevertheless, the German propaganda kept at work; the people were not to be trusted. On May 1st, the party in power protected the palace with machine guns and packed its environs with troops. It was a rather indiscreet thing to do, since Branting had given his word for peace, providing that the pro-German protectorate did not make war.

On May 1st at least fifty thousand of the working cla.s.ses, 'the unprivileged cla.s.ses,' made their demonstration in procession quietly and solemnly. In the provinces, on the same day, half a million Swedes sympathetically joined in this protest against the pro-German att.i.tude of the Government.

When we entered the war the ruling cla.s.ses declared, either privately or publicly, that we had made a 'mistake'; they hinted that Germany would make us see this mistake--this out of no malevolence to America as America, but simply from a complete lack of sympathy with our ideals. It must be remembered that an aristocracy, a bureaucracy without privileges is as anomalous as a British Duke without estate.

The French Revolution was a protest, as we all know, against vested privileges. When Madame Roland, the intellectual representative of a great cla.s.s, was expected to dine with the servants at a n.o.ble woman's house, a long nail was driven into the coffin of privilege.

In Sweden the fight is on against the privileges which the higher cla.s.ses in Sweden have expected Germany to help them conserve.

On October 19th a new cabinet was formed; the people demanded a Government which would be neutral. This was the result of the election in September. On this result--the first real step in the Swedish nation toward political democracy--they stand to-day.

Unrestrained or uninfluenced by Prussia, the cla.s.ses of Sweden who love their privileges, will accept the situation. The death-blow to the landed aristocracy will doubtless be the suppression of the majorats and the conversion of the entailed estates into cash. This seems to be one of the fundamental intentions of the new order. The cla.s.ses who look to Germany as their model and mentor are now non-existent--naturally!

Germany allowed to the upper cla.s.ses in Sweden no intellectual contact with the democracies of the world. The world news dripped into Sweden carefully expurgated. Her suspicions of Russia were kept alive as we have seen; the good feeling which existed in Denmark towards Sweden (due to the help the Swedish troops had given when they were quartered at Glorup, near Odense, in readiness to meet the Prussian attack in 1848) had been gradually undermined. While Sweden owed much of her suspicions of the other two countries to German influence as well as her fears of Russia, Denmark was confronted with a real danger.

Whatever progress Sweden has made towards democracy is not due to intelligent propaganda on the part of America or England. It needed a war to teach the Foreign Offices that diplomatic representatives have greater duties than to be merely 'correct' and obey technical orders.

German propaganda had little influence in Norway, but German methods have been used to an almost unbelievable extent in the attempt to lower the morale of this self-respecting and independent people. The German propaganda could get little hold on a nation that cared only to be sufficient for itself in an entirely legitimate way. The Norwegian can neither be laughed, argued, nor coerced out of an opinion that he believes to be founded on a principle, and he looks on all questions from the point of view of a free man thinking his own thoughts.

German propaganda, during the war, took the form of coercion. The ordinary influences brought to bear on Sweden would not be effective in Norway. Socialism seemed to be less destructive to the existing order of things in Norway than it was in Sweden, because it had fewer obstacles to overcome. It was against the Pan-German idea that the three Scandinavian countries should form the Northern Confederation dreamed of by Baron Carlson Bonde and others. When the late King Oscar of Sweden came under German influence--through all the traditions of his family he should have been French--he began to give the Norwegian causes of offence, and his att.i.tude intensified their growing hatred of all privileges founded on birth, hereditary office, or a.s.sumption of superiority founded on extraneous circ.u.mstances. As we know, the form of Lutheranism accepted in Norway has little effect on the political life of the people, who, as a rule, are attached to their special form of Protestantism because of traditions (part of this tradition is hatred of Rome, as it is supposed to represent imperial principles) and because it leaves them free to choose from the Bible what suits them best. It is a mistake to imagine, as some sociologists have, that the Lutheran Church in Norway inclined the Norwegians to sympathy with German ideas. I have never, as yet, met a Norwegian who seemed to a.s.sociate his religion with Germany or to imagine that he owed any regard to that country because 'the light,'

as he sometimes calls it, came to him through that German of Germans, Martin Luther. In his mind, as far as I could see, there seemed to be two kinds of Lutheranism--the German kind and the Norwegian kind. I am speaking now of the people of average education--who would dare to use the phrase 'lower cla.s.ses' in speaking of the Norwegians as we use it of the Swedes or the English?

An 'average education' means in Norway a high degree of knowledge of what the Norwegian considers essential.

This shows that racial differences are much more potent than religious beliefs; and yet, in considering the problems of the world to-day, it would be vain to leave religious affairs out of the question, worse than vain--foolish. The Crown Prince of Germany, having studied the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, knew this; the Kaiser, knowing Machiavelli, understood it too well. Lutheranism in Norway is not a political factor owing to the peculiar temperament of the people; therefore, Germany could not make use of it. With the intellectual cla.s.ses, the independent thinkers, it has ceased to be a factor at all. Ibsen, who was in soul a mystic, is accused of leaning towards German philosophies even by some of his own countrymen; but there was never a more individualistic man than he.

In my conversation with learned and intellectual Norwegians, I discovered no leaning whatever to autocratic ideals. They were only aristocrats in the intellectual sense.

'Even our upper cla.s.ses,' said a Swede, an ardent admirer of the ideas of the Liberal Swede, Count Hamilton, 'are changing. You ought to know our people as you know the Danes. A nation as plastic as ours, capable of breaking its traditions by making a king of Marshal Bernadotte, a person not "born" has great capacities for adaptation; and this is the reason why my country will not be divided between Germanised aristocrats and a Socialistic proletariat.'

This, after all, represents the essential att.i.tude of the best in Sweden. That German ideals were propagated and well received by the ruling cla.s.ses is true, but, to generalise about any country, simply because of the att.i.tude of the persons one meets in society, is a mistake that would lead a diplomatic representative into all manner of difficulties.

To a.s.sume that Sweden could have been governed as Germany was governed, because German is the fas.h.i.+onable language among the aristocracy and the intellectuals, or because Sweden is Lutheran, or because the university and military education is founded on German methods, is too misleading. The Swedish folk are not the kind that would tamely submit to the drastic rule of the autocratic Hohenzollern.

The German att.i.tude toward Norway was frankly antagonistic. There was no power there to persuade the citizens of that country that all kultur should come from above. The Norwegian is a democrat at heart.

He believes, with reason, in the industrial future of his country; he understands what may be done with his inexhaustible supply of 'white coal'; he knows the value of the process for seizing the nitrates from the air. When he heard that supplies of potash had been discovered in Spain, a distinguished Norwegian said: 'Poor Spain! The Prussians will seize it now; but we should be willing to meet all the Prussian fury if we could discover potash in Norway!'

It is an open secret that Norway, at the time of her separation from Sweden, would have preferred a republican form of government. The Powers, England and Russia and Germany, would not hear of this, and the Norwegians consented to a very limited monarchy. German or Russian princes were out of the question, and Prince Charles of Denmark, now King Haakon, who had married the Princess Maud of Great Britain and Ireland, was chosen. King Edward VII. was pleased with this arrangement; he had no special objection to the cutting down of monarchical prerogatives, provided the hereditary principle was maintained, and the marriage strengthened the English influence in Norway. As King Haakon and Queen Maud have a son--Prince Olav--the Norwegians are content, especially as King Haakon knows well how to hold his place with tact, sympathy, and discretion.

Norway is naturally friendly to the United States and England, and, in spite of the Kaiser's regular summer visits, it was never at all friendly to him. The treatment of Norway, when the Germans found that the Norwegians were openly against their methods, was ruthless. The plot of the German military party against the capital of Norway, which meant the blowing up of a part of the city, has been hinted at, but not yet fully revealed. The reports of the attempt to introduce bombs in the shape of coals into the holds of Norwegian s.h.i.+ps bound to America were well founded, and the misery and wretchedness inflicted on the families of Norwegian sailors by the U-boat 'horribleness' has made the German name detested in Norway. After the crime of the _Lusitania_, the German Minister was publicly hissed in Christiania.

Remaining neutral, Norwegian business men kept up such trade with the belligerents as the U-boat on one side and the embargo on the other permitted. War and business seem to have no scruples, and the Norwegian merchant, like most of ours, before we joined the Allies, felt it his duty to try to send what he could into Germany. The British Minister at Christiania, the British Admiralty, and a patriotic group of Norwegians did their utmost in limiting this, and, when the United States entered the war, they were ably seconded by the American Minister, Mr. Schmedeman. The Norwegians, in spite of all dangers, kept their boats running, and they were shocked when the United States tightened the embargo, with a strangle grip.

The Norwegian press openly said that we, the friend of the little nations, had proved faithless, and pointed to their record as friends of democracy. The American Minister, in the midst of the storm, did an unusual thing; he published the text of the prepared agreement, which Nansen had sent to Was.h.i.+ngton to negotiate. There was a time, before this, when the name of our country, formerly so beloved and revered, was execrated among the Norwegians. Mr. Schmedeman's quick insight calmed a storm which arose from disappointment at the stringent demands of a nation they had hitherto considered as their best friend. This constant friends.h.i.+p for us was shown on all occasions in Copenhagen by Dr. Francis Hagerup and Dr. John Irgens, two of the most respected diplomatists in Europe. Dr. Hagerup's reputation is widely spread in this country.

No human being could be imagined as a greater ant.i.thesis to the Prussians than the Norwegians; the Norwegian is in love with liberty; he is an idealistic individual; it is difficult, too, to believe that the Norwegian, the Swede and the Dane are of the same race. The Norwegian is as obstinate as a Lowland Scot and as practical; he is a born politician; he calls a spade a spade, and he is not noted for that great exterior polish which distinguishes the Swede and the Dane of the educated cla.s.ses. A Norwegian gentleman will have good manners, but he is never 'mannered.' For frankness, which sometimes pa.s.ses for honesty, the Norwegian of the lower cla.s.ses is unequalled.

This has given the Norwegian a reputation for rudeness which he really does not deserve. He is no more rude than a child who looks you in the eye and gives his opinion of your personal appearance without fear or favour; it does not imply that he is unkind. There is a story of a Norwegian s.h.i.+powner, who, asked to dine with King Haakon, found that a business engagement was more attractive, so he telephoned: 'h.e.l.lo, Mr. King, I can't come to dinner!'

A Norwegian told me, with withering scorn, the 'stupid comment' of an 'ignorant Swede' on the Norwegian character: 'You have no Niagara Falls in Sweden, no great city like Chicago, no Red Indians!' He had said, 'We have finer cataracts than your Niagara Falls, a magnificent city, Stockholm, the Paris of Scandinavia, and many Red Indians, but _we_ call them Norwegians!'

One summer day, two well-mounted German officers, probably attending the Kaiser or making arrangements for his usual yachting trip to Norway, came along a country road. They were splendid looking creatures, voluminously cloaked--a wind was blowing--helmets glittering. Our car had stopped on a side road; something was wrong.

A peasant, manipulating two great pine stems on a low, two-wheeled cart, had barred the main road, and, as the noontide had come, sat down to eat his breakfast. One of the officers haughtily commanded him to clear the way, expecting evidently a frightened obedience. The peasant put his hands in his pockets and said,--'Mr. Man, I will move my logs when I can. First, I must eat my breakfast, you can jump your horses over my logs; why not? Jump!'

The officer made a movement to draw his revolver; the Norwegian only laughed.

'Besides,' he said, 'there is a wheel half off my cart; I cannot move it quickly.'

The language of the officers was terrifying. Finally, they were compelled to jump. Neither the sun glittering on the fierce eagles nor the curses of the officers moved this amiable man; he drank peacefully from his bottle of schnapps and munched his black bread and sausage as if their great persons had never crossed his path, or, rather, he theirs.

Neither art, literature nor music has been Germanised in Norway. Art, of later years, has been touched by the French ultra-impressionists.

There is no humble home in the mountains that does not know Grieg.

And why? When you know Grieg and know Norway, you know that Grieg is Norway.

Norway is the land of the free and the home of the brave. There was no fear that German ideas would control it, and the Prussians knew this. What is good in German methods of education the Norwegians adopt, but they first make them Norwegian.

CHAPTER VII