Chapter 28
*Treitschke Versus Bluntschli.*
In January, 1869, I was sent to Heidelberg by the Minister of Public Instruction, Victor Duruy, to study the organization of German universities. Germany was for me the land of metaphysics, music, and poetry. I was greatly astonished to find that outside of the lecture courses the only thing discussed was the war which Prussia was about to make on France. Invited to a soiree, I heard it whispered behind me, _Vielleicht ist er ein franzosischer Spion_--"Perhaps he is a French spy." Such were the words as I caught them. At the beer garden a student seated himself near me. He said to me, "We are going to war with you. We shall take Alsace and Lorraine." That night I could see from my window, looking out on the Neckar, the students clad in their club costumes floating down the river on an illuminated raft singing the famous song in honor of Blucher, who "taught the Welches the way of the Germans."
And at the university itself the lectures of Treitschke, attended by excited crowds, were heated harangues against the French, inciting to hatred and to war. Seeing that nothing was thought of but the preparation for war, I came back at the Easter vacation of 1869 convinced that hostilities would ensue. I returned to Heidelberg some time later and became acquainted with other persons, other centres of ideas. I understood then that opinion in Germany was divided between two opposite doctrines. The general aspiration was for the unity of Germany, but there was no agreement as to the way of conceiving and realizing this unity. The thesis of Treitschke was, _Freiheit durch Einheit_, "liberty through unity," that is to say, unity first, unity before all; liberty later, when circ.u.mstances should permit. And to realize at once this unity, which really was the only thing that mattered, the enrollment of all Germany under the command of Prussia for a war against France.
Now the formula of Treitschke was opposed by that of Bluntschli, _Einheit durch Freiheit_--"Unity through liberty." This doctrine, which counted at that time some eminent advocates, aimed first to safeguard the independence and unity of the German States and then to establish between them on that basis a federated union. And as it contemplated in the heart of Germany a union without hegemony, so it conceived of German unity as something to be realized without harm to other nations, and especially without harm to France. It was to be a free Germany in a free world.
Germany at that epoch was at the parting of the ways. Should she follow a tendency still living in many and n.o.ble minds or should she abandon it entirely, to march head down in the ways in which Prussia had entangled her? That was the question. The party of war, the party of unity as a means of attacking and despoiling France, the Prussian party, gained the day. And its success rendered its preponderance definitive. Since then those who have undertaken to remain faithful to an ideal of liberty and humanity have been annihilated.
Is it still possible that Germany may some day regain the parting of the ways where she was before 1870 and this time take the other road, the road of the Leibnitzes, the Kants, the Bluntschlis, which leads first to the liberty of individuals and of peoples and afterward--- and only afterward--a form of harmony where the rights of all are equally respected? A word of the Scotch professor, William Knight, comes back to my memory at this moment: "The best things have to die and be reborn."
The Germany which the world respected and admired, the Germany of Leibnitz, appears indeed dead. Can it be reborn?
Accept, I beg, my dear Director, the a.s.surance of my cordial devotion.
EMILE BOUTROUX.
*The German Religion of Duty*
*By Gabriele Reuter.*[B]
On various occasions in the past I have been reproached by my friends for not showing the proper spirit of patriotism.
I have merely smiled at their criticism, for it was my opinion that true patriotism does not consist of flowery speeches and a.s.sertions, but in the effort dutifully to accomplish that for which one is best qualified.
It seemed to me that I was truly showing my love for the Fatherland by writing my books to the best of my ability.
But the source of this reproach was very evident to me. The cause could be traced to a quality which I share with many of my compatriots. It must, in truth, be called a particularly characteristic trait. This is a very earnest desire for and love of justice, which is not satisfied simply to "recognize," but endeavors thoroughly to understand the material and spiritual points of view of the other nations in order to show them the proper appreciation.
It is natural to develop affection for that which one earnestly desires to understand.
Many Germans have had the experience that they have rather overzealously commenced by weighing the good of a foreign people in the balance with the good of their own, and with well-nigh fanatic honesty they have ended by acknowledging their own shortcomings compared to the merits and advantages of the foreign nation. There have been instances when some foreigner has drawn our attention to this or that particular weakness and immediately innumerable of my countrymen a.s.sented, saying, "Certainly it is true, the criticism is just, matters are probably even worse than they have been represented."
Many of us, and I acknowledge I am one of the many, have developed a form of ascetic mania for self-abas.e.m.e.nt, a desire for truth which knows no limits in the dissection of its own condition and the disclosure of social and personal shortcomings and disadvantages. This tendency may be easily discerned in much of the German literature of the past twenty years; also, in my books.
The individual is really always the symbol of the whole, and the thoughts and feelings of one person are but the expression of strong forces in national life and culture. It was not want of patriotism, but an unbounded love for the universality of European culture which drove us, drove many thousand people with German souls, to reach out over the boundaries of our own Fatherland for intellectual conquests, for permeation and coalescence with all the world's riches, goodness, and beauty.
We loved the others; and believing ourselves among friends we were candid and disclosed our weaknesses.
*Germans Trusted Too Well.*
We permitted criticism and criticised ourselves, because we were convinced that those others had our welfare at heart, and also because we were
Confiding and harmless as children, we were blind to the enigmatical hatred which has to an appalling extent developed all around us. This hate which has been nourished systematically and with satanic cleverness probably originated in a slight feeling of jealousy, and the tendency of my countrymen to criticise each other led our enemies to believe that they might look for internal discord in the Fatherland and that our humiliation could therefore be more easily accomplished.
If we had recognized the danger in time, we might have prevented this hatred, to which they at the beginning were hardly p.r.o.ne, from taking root in the souls of nations. But only very few among us were aware of it and they received little credence from the others. There were times when each one of us sensed the antipathy which we encountered beyond the boundary lines of our own country. But we never realized how deeply it had taken root and how widely it had spread. We loved our enemies! We loved this French nation for its high development of etiquette, language, and taste; a culture which seemed well adapted to serve as a complement to our own. How much misery France might have been spared had she but understood this unfortunate love of the German people for the "Hereditary Enemy!"
We loved the deep, mystically religious soul of the Russians in their anguished struggles for freedom! How many Germans have looked upon Tolstoy as a new savior!
Above all, though, the German admired the Englishman, in the role of the "royal merchant," the far-seeing colonizer, the master of the seas.
Without envy Germany gave England credit for all these qualities. And when during the Boer war voices were raised to warn against the English character, even then to most of us our Anglo-Saxon cousin remained the "Gentleman beyond reproach."
Then there is the great German love for Holland, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries; here we may find the Germanic race less adulterated than in our own country. Scandinavian poets have become our poets and we are as proud of the works of the Swedish artist as we are of those of our people.
We gaze with delight upon the proud, blonde grace of the Norse maid; the more gentle and pliant manners of the Swedes and Danes arouse our admiration; and we dearly love their beautiful fjords and forests of beech and birch.
*Love Changed to Suspicion.*
Many of us wonder today how much of all this love we, in the days to come, will be able to rescue from the debris. "Has the world gone mad that it has ceased to believe in our sincerity?" This at present is the cry of many, many thousand German men and women. Do we deserve to have our love requited with hate? And to find in the countries which declare themselves neutral, distrust, reserve, and, in fact, doubt of our honest intentions? Sad, dull despair has taken possession of the hearts of our best men and women. It is not because they tremble for the fate of the loved ones who have been compelled to go to the front and not because there is any fear as to the outcome of this war. Not one among us doubts the ultimate triumph of Germany. We also know that we must pay a terrible toll for this victory with the blood of our sons, fathers and husbands.
Equally as much as they mourn the loss of our young manhood many of our best citizens deplore the hatred which has spread over the face of the globe, hate which has torn asunder what was believed to have been a firmly woven net of a common European culture. That which we with ardent souls have labored to create is being devastated by ruthless force.
The following story of the non-commissioned German officer is typical or symbolical of many. He, while the bullets of the inhabitants of Louvain fell around him, rescued the priceless old paintings from the burning Church of St. Peter, simply because he was an art-historian and knew and loved each of the masterpieces. And well we all understand the feelings which mastered him during those moments of horror.
He would probably think and say, "I have but done my duty."
And now we have arrived at the point which gives rise to the greatest amount of antipathy. Our opponents declare we are endowed with great ability--they say they must acknowledge that. But how can a race of stiff, dry, duty-performing beings awaken love? The German must lose all claim to individual freedom and independence of thought in consequence of the training which he receives. When he is a child he commences it in a military subordination in the school, he continues it in the barracks, and later, when he enters a vocational life, under the stern leaders.h.i.+p of his superiors. He becomes, our critics continue, simply a disagreeable pedantic tool of the all-powerful "drill." This atmosphere of "drill," or in other words this stern hard military spirit, envelops him, accompanies him as guardian from the cradle to the grave, and makes of him an unbearable companion for all the more refined, gentle, and amiable nations. Yes, our opponents often declare that they are waging war not only against Germany, but against this pedantic, military, tyrannical sense of duty, which they call the "Prussian spirit." It shall once and for all, they a.s.sert, be eradicated from the world.
*A Religious Feeling of Duty.*
Far be it from me to deny that my country people, male and female, do indeed possess an unusually strong sense of duty. This is combined with a desire for justice which is so often looked upon by outsiders as a lack of patriotic pride, and with an honesty which easily makes the German appear so clumsy and awkward. These three characteristics belong indissolubly together and one is not to be thought of without the other.
The spirit from which the German sense of duty arises is what the foreigner so often misunderstands in us. He generally confuses sense of duty with blind obedience. But this sense of duty does not originate from a need for submission or from a mental dependence. No, it rests on a deep philosophical reason and arises from the mental recognition of ethical and national necessity. That is why it can exist side by side with the most extreme individualism, which also belongs to the peculiarities of the character of our people. The Germans have always been a nation of thinkers. Not only the scholar, also the simple worker, the laborer, the modest mother take a deep pleasure in forming their philosophy of life and the world. Side by side with the loud triumph of our industry goes this quieter existence, which has been rather pushed into the background in the last decades, but has not, therefore, ceased to exist. And the further the belief in miracles stepped into the background, the more the belief in duty acquired a warm religious tinge.
The loud complaints about the vanis.h.i.+ng of the sense of duty among the young, which has so often been voiced by public opinion, only prove how strongly this ethical force was governing people's minds. Every seeming diminution of it was felt to be a disastrous endangerment of the knowledge of the people. We have perhaps acted childishly and foolishly toward other nations by too great confidence. But in the consciousness of the entire German Nation the ominous feeling was living and working with mighty power, that only if every one of us devotes his entire strength to the post a.s.signed to him, and works until the exhaustion of his last mental and physical power, only then can we as a national whole retain our high level and, surrounded by dangers on all sides, create sufficient room for ourselves to breathe and live.
*The Military and the Socialists.*
Two mighty organizations exist among us which were opposed to each other until recently--the military and the Social Democratic. The world sees with amazement the perfection which has been reached by the military organization of our army. Its achievements have only become possible through the above-mentioned philosophical conception of the sense of duty which raises it far above any systematic obedience and lets it appear in the light of religious ideal. Duty becomes in these serious and energetic minds a voluntary adaptation to a carefully organized whole with the knowledge that to serve this whole at the same time produces the highest achievement of the individual personality. The Social Democratic organization, opposed though it is to the military organization, is also composed of Germans and is, therefore, directed by the same basic principles as the military organization, although for entirely different purposes. For this one reason it was almost a matter of course that the Social Democrats offered their services for the war at the moment when they recognized that it had become of imperious necessity to set aside personal wishes and ideals and to put in the foreground only the duty of the defense of their country. The idea of our opponents, that they would find a support in the Socialists of our country, rested on a complete misunderstanding of the German character.
A foreign woman wrote to me in the days of the mobilization: "I do not understand the German enthusiasm for war--how it is possible that one can become enthusiastic about murder!" The woman only saw the exterior and superficial phase of things.
In its endeavor to unite itself with the world the German soul had suddenly come upon the wildest hatred * * * numerous high ideals of culture fell to ruin within a few hours. Deeply wounded, it was hurled back into its most personal possessions. Here it found itself face to face with tasks which far surpa.s.sed anything demanded heretofore of it as fulfillment of duty. And now there came to pa.s.s a wonder which will be unforgettable for every one who lived through this period. Everything dry, petty, pedantic, connected with German ways, which had often made many of us impatient with ourselves, was suddenly swept away by the storm of these days.
A gigantic wave of fiery hot feeling pa.s.sed through our country flaming up like a beautiful sacrificial pyre. It was no longer a duty to offer one's self and one's life--it was supreme bliss. That might easily sound like a hollow phrase. But there is a proof, which is more genuine than words, than songs, and cheers. That is the expression in the faces of the people, their uncontrolled spontaneous movements. I saw the eyes light up of an old woman who had sent four sons into battle and exclaimed: "It is glorious to be allowed to give the Fatherland so much!" I saw the controlled calm in the features of sorrowing mothers who knew that their only sons had fallen. But the expression in the faces of many wounded who were already returning home gripped me the most. They had lived through the horror of the battle, their feet had waded through blood, their young bodies were horribly maimed. I saw this strangely serene, quietly friendly expression in the young faces. They were men who had sacrificed their ego. They were great patient conquerors of selfishness. And with what tenderness, what goodness are they surrounded, to lighten their lot, to give them joy. How the general sentiment is often expressed in the gesture of a single person--you did that for us--how can we sufficiently requite you?
A stream of love is flowing through our Fatherland and is uniting all hearts. The un.o.btrusive mother "duty" gave birth to the genial child "feeling." She bestowed on it her strong vitality so that it can defy a world of hatred--and conquer it.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Gabriele Reuter is one of the foremost German woman authors.