Face to Face with Kaiserism Part 32

CHAPTER XXV

THE ERRORS OF EFFICIENT GERMANY

The Yankee finding himself, like Mark Twain's hero, suddenly transported back to King Arthur's Court is landed in a surprising and unknown world. But one of King Arthur's knights brought to life at the court of the present German Emperor aside from steam, electricity, gun powder, telegraph and telephones would find the system as despotic as in the days when the enchanter, Merlin, wove his spells and the sword Excalibur appeared from the depths of the magic lake. But while the system is as royal and as despotic as in King Arthur's day, while the king and his military n.o.bles look down on the merchants and the toilers and the plain people, no knights ride forth intent upon good deeds, to protect the poor or avenge the wrongs of the innocent.

It was the cold realists of the General Staff who battered down the defences of Belgium and the forts of France, destroyed the monuments of art and levied a tax of sixty million francs a month upon a little country deprived of its means to produce wealth, took the food from the inhabitants, shipped the machinery and raw material into Germany, deported the men and insulted the women and drove whole populations from their homes to work as slaves for the conquerors.

But while they can plan military successes in the first rush of a.s.sault on the chessboard of Europe they have failed to understand other nations--failed even to learn the lessons of history. They did not know that in every land, in every walk of life, there are men who will "reject a bribe and who will die for an idea."

Imagine a German Staff officer reporting in Berlin that over a hundred thousand Alsatians were armed and organised and that they threatened, unless certain proposed legislation uniting them, for example, with Baden, was withdrawn, to resist forcibly any attempt to incorporate them in that Grand Duchy. Would not this look to a German officer like real revolution and nothing else?

And when, in addition, there came news of the landing of arms for the Nationalists in Ireland and of the organisation of the Nationalist army, the Germans, without knowledge of the psychology of other peoples, believed that Great Britain had her hands full and that the moment had come when they could go to war and leave Great Britain out of all calculations. So studying only the German mind, believing that all peoples in national character are like the Germans, the Great General Staff, the greatest military aggregation the world has ever seen, failed lamentably, whenever the human element became the factor in the situation.

Its military successes have been marvellous; its judgments of mankind ridiculous. Its errors of judgment may be arranged as follows:

_Error Number One._

Italy was in alliance with Germany and Austria, although there was no greater hate before the war than that between Italians and Austrians; and the Great General Staff believed that Italy would remain in this unnatural alliance, would fight in order to give the Germans and the German-Austrians the domination of Europe.

The victory of the Central Empires would have placed Italy under that Austrian influence from which in her struggle for freedom under the leadership of Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel she had liberated herself.

Prince Buelow, who early in his career romantically married a charming Italian of good family, was sent to Rome to keep Italy neutral. But he failed.

_Error Number Two._

Germany's belief that because of the Carson movement Great Britain was immobilised and could take no part in the war.

_Error Number Three._

The theory cherished especially in military circles that because the j.a.panese army had been trained by Prussians j.a.pan would join Germany. Indeed, at the moment when the j.a.panese were packing their trunks and preparing to leave their Emba.s.sy, a German crowd with flags and torches was a.s.sembled in front cheering j.a.pan, the latest ally of the Entente.

_Error Number Four._

The belief by the General Staff that the British Colonies would render no a.s.sistance to the mother country.

In the first days after England entered the war many German statesmen said to me, "Of course, now Canada will be incorporated in the United States." The Germans believed that the practical thing, for the moment, for the Canadians was to avoid war, to disavow all their obligations and ties of blood and permit Britain to be destroyed. The General Staff thought that because the world did not have actual proof of the German designs of world conquest, because that design had not been publicly proclaimed, that no people or nation would either know or understand the vast enterprise of conquest on which Prussian autocracy had embarked.

_Error Number Five._

The unexpected resistance of the Belgians.

The German armies were held only a few days, yet the delay of those few days changed the fortunes of the world.

_Error Number Six._

The splendid stand of France which was a complete surprise to the Great General Staff. They believed that France was degenerate, torn by scandals, and that a sudden a.s.sault would land the German army in Paris. In this connection it was another great error for the Germans to have sought Paris, important from a sentimental but not a military point of view. They might better have occupied first the north coast of France, and from there could have conducted the German submarine campaign with deadly effect.

_Error Number Seven._

We have seen what a sh.e.l.l the Russian Empire was, but in July, 1914, the Great General Staff believed that Russia was on the edge of a revolution. Barricades had been erected in the streets of Petrograd and the Staff believed that the revolution, which has since divided Russia, was in the making. Instead of this the Russian Empire lasted for nearly three years and the Russian troops and generals inflicted many a hard blow not only on the Austrians but on the German forces.

_Error Number Eight._

Germany was confident that the United States had been so propagandised, so covered by bribes, by paid newspapers, that the export of supplies to the Allies could be prevented. Another error was the barbarity shown in the sinking of the _Lusitania_ by which it was sought to terrorise Americans into withholding from England and France the privileges of international law, and of the definite treaty of The Hague in 1907, in which Germany had joined and which gave to private individuals the right to supply munitions of war to any belligerent.

_Error Number Nine._

Thinking that the Emperor, by posing as a Mohammedan in the East, could with the aid of the Turks stir all Mohammedans to a Holy War.

The Germans laboured with the Mohammedan soldiers captured by them. I saw many fine looking old Sheiks from the desert entering the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Eastern world was filled with German spies. But the Holy War was a failure, and the hope that the races of Asia and Africa would rise in favour of Germany was not borne out by events. The men of the East are wise, the rulers of India are enlightened and were not silly enough to place themselves voluntarily under the harsh rule of Prussia.

_Error Number Ten._

The belief that President Wilson had been elected with an absolute mandate to keep the peace at all costs, the Germans declared for unrestricted submarine warfare, expecting a craven neutrality from the United States.

CHAPTER XXVI

PRESIDENT WILSON AND PEACE

Once the Kaiser said to me, "I wish I had as much power as your President. He has far more power than I have."

What would the Kaiser say of the power and prestige now enjoyed by the President of the United States?

At first blush it seems almost ridiculous for us to rush to war shouting against autocracy while the man with the greatest power the world has ever seen announces to the world that we fight "to make the world safe for Democracy."

Charles I must turn enviously in his grave when his spirit sees the obedient Parliament of Washington; and a line of fallen Kings, from Charles to Nicky Romanoff, must wish that they had had the opportunity to attend lectures at Princeton University where our President, Woodrow Wilson, once held forth on the science of government.

But it is characteristic of the high intelligence of our people that we have recognised that war to be waged effectively must be directed by one head. We know that after the war we shall be able to recover all the powers delegated to the President. We have gained by our temporary surrender all the efficiency of autocracy and risked none of its dangers, and have simply followed the custom of the free German tribes which elected a leader for war and gave him a power never given the chiefs in time of peace.

How much more enduring is our Government! Since the war the government cabinets of England have twice changed radically, that of France five times, and Italy very frequently indeed. Few realise that our Const.i.tution is the oldest in the world to-day.

Since its adoption the government of every land in some material particular has changed many times, France, for instance, from King and Republic, then to citizen kingship, then to Republic, then to Empire, and finally to Republic. In England the form has remained the same, but the power pa.s.sed, in 1830, with the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill, from n.o.bles to commoners, as great a revolution as any in France.

And I admire the very inaccessibility of President Wilson. He does not waste time on non-essentials, on useless polite conversation or pointless discussion. This may add to his enemies but makes for efficiency.

When I saw the President on one occasion about German affairs we talked for four and a quarter hours without intermission. In that period he extracted from me all the information he required at the time. He is a wonderful man to have at the head of our nation in war or peace.