German Culture Past and Present Part 8

At Koniggratz the Prussian army was victorious over the Austrians, and henceforth the hegemony of Central Europe was decided in favour of Prussia. Austria, under the Treaty of Prague (August 20, 1866), was completely excluded from the new organization of German States, in which Prussia--i.e. Bismarck--was to have a free hand. The result was the foundation of the North German Confederation, under the leadership of Prussia. It was to have a common Parliament, elected by universal suffrage and meeting in Berlin. The army, the diplomatic representation, the control of the postal and telegraphic services, were to be under the sole control of the Prussian Government. The North German Confederation comprised the northern and central States of Germany. The southern States--Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, etc.--although not included, had been forced into a practical alliance with Prussia by treaties. The Customs Union was extended until it embraced nearly the whole of Germany. Prussian aggression in Luxemburg produced a crisis with France in 1867, though the growing tension between Prussia and France was tided over on this occasion. But Bismarck only bided his time.

The occasion was furnished him by the question of the succession to the Spanish throne, in July 1870. By means of a falsified telegram Bismarck precipitated war, in which Prussia was joined by all the States of Germany. The subsequent course of events is matter of recent history. The establishment of the new Prusso-German empire by the crowning of Wilhelm I at Versailles, with the empire made hereditary in the Hohenzollern family, completed the work of Bismarck and the setting of the Prussian jack-boot on the necks of the German peoples.

The Prussian military and bureaucratic systems were now extended to all Germany--in other words, the rest of the German peoples were made virtually the va.s.sals and slaves of the Prussian monarch. This time the King of Prussia received the Imperial crown at the hands of the kings, princes, and other hereditary rulers of the various German States. Bismarck was graciously pleased to bestow unity and internal peace--a Prussian peace--upon Germany on condition of its abas.e.m.e.nt before the Prussian corporal's stick and police-truncheon. Such was the united Germany of Bismarck. Germany meant for Bismarck and his followers Prussia, and Prussia meant their own Junker and military caste, under the t.i.tular headship of the Hohenzollern.

Yet, strange to say, the peoples of Germany willingly consented, under the influence of the intoxication of a successful war, to have their independence bartered away to Prussia by their rulers. In this united Germany of Bismarck--a Germany united under Prussian despotism--they navely saw the realization of the dream of their thinkers and poets since the time of the Napoleonic wars--which had become more than ever an inspiration from 1848 onwards--of an ideal unity of all German-speaking peoples as a national whole. It is unquestionable that many of these thinkers and poets would have been horrified at the Prus...o...b..smarckian "unity" of "blood and iron," It was not for this, they would have said, that they had laboured and suffered.

As a conclusion to the present chapter I venture to give a short summary of the internal, and especially of the economic, development of Prussia since the Franco-German War from an article which appeared in the _English Review_ for December 1914, by Mr. H.M. Hyndman and the present writer:--

"From 1871 onwards Prussianized Germany, by far the best-educated, and industrially and commercially the most progressive, country in Europe, with the enormous advantage of her central position, was, consciously and unconsciously, making ready for her next advance. The policy of a good understanding with Russia, maintained for many years, to such an extent that, in foreign affairs, Berlin and St. Petersburg were almost one city, enabled Germany to feel secure against France, while she was devoting herself to the extension of her rural and urban powers of production. Never at any time did she neglect to keep her army in a posture of offence. All can now see the meaning of this.

"Militarism is in no sense necessarily economic. But the strength of Germany for war was rapidly increased by her success in peace. From the date of the great financial crisis of 1874, and the consequent reorganization of her entire banking system, Germany entered upon that determined and well-thought-out attempt to attain pre-eminence in the trade and commerce of the world of which we have not yet seen the end.

From 1878, when the German High Commissioner, von Rouleaux, stigmatized the exhibits of his countrymen as 'cheap and nasty,'

special efforts were made to use the excellent education and admirable powers of organization of Germany in this field. The Government rendered official and financial help in both agriculture and manufacture. Scientific training, good and cheap before, was made cheaper and better each year. Railways were used not to foster foreign compet.i.tion, as in Great Britain, by excessive rates of home freight, but to give the greatest possible advantage to German industry in every department. In more than one rural district the railways were worked at an apparent loss in order to foster home production, from which the nation derived far greater advantage than such apparent sacrifice entailed. The same system of State help was extended to shipping until the great German liners, one of which, indeed, was actually subsidized by England, were more than holding their own with the oldest and most celebrated British companies.

"Protection, alike in agriculture and in manufacture, bound the whole empire together in essentially Imperial bonds. Right or wrong in theory--which it is not here necessary to discuss--there can be no doubt whatever that this policy entirely changed the face of Germany, and rendered her our most formidable compet.i.tor in every market.

Emigration, which had been proceeding on a vast scale, almost entirely ceased. The savings banks were overflowing with deposits. The position of the workers was greatly improved. Not only were German Colonies secured in Africa and Asia, which were more trouble than they were worth, but very profitable commerce with our own Colonies and Dependencies was growing by leaps and bounds, at the expense of the out-of-date but self-satisfied commercialists of Old England. Hence arose a trade rivalry, against which we could not hope to contend successfully in the long run, except by a complete revolution in our methods of education and business, to which neither the Government nor the dominant cla.s.s would consent.

"This remarkable advance in Germany, also, was accompanied by the establishment of a system of banking, specially directed to the expansion of national industry and commerce, a system which was clever enough to use French acc.u.mulations, borrowed at a low rate of interest, through the German Jews who so largely controlled French financial inst.i.tutions, in order still further to extend their own trade. It was an admirably organized attempt to conquer the world-market for commodities, in which the Government, the banks, the manufacturers and the shipowners all worked for the common cause.

Meanwhile, both French and English financiers carefully played the game of their business opponents, and the great English banks devoted their attention chiefly to fostering speculation on the Stock Exchange--a policy of which the Germans took advantage, just before the outbreak of war, to an extent not by any means as yet fully understood.

"Thus, at the beginning of the present year, in spite of the withdrawal, since the Agadir affair, of very large amounts of French capital from the German market, Germany had attained to such a position that only the United States stood on a higher plane in regard to its future in the world of compet.i.tive commerce. And this great and increasing economic strength was, for war purposes, at the disposal of the Prussian militarists, if they succeeded in getting the upper hand in politics and foreign affairs."

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Works on the Thirty Years' War are numerous. Many scholarly and exhaustive treatises on various aspects of the subject are, as might be expected, to be found in German. For general popular reading Schiller's excellent piece of literary hack work (translated in Bonn's Library) may still be consulted, but perhaps the best short general history of the war with its entanglement of events is that by the late Professor S.R.

Gardiner, of Oxford, which forms one of the volumes of Messrs. Longman, Green & Co.'s series ent.i.tled "Epochs of Modern History."

CHAPTER X

MODERN GERMAN CULTURE

It is important to distinguish between the meaning of the German term "Kultur" and that commonly expressed in English by the word "culture."

The word "Kultur" in modern German is simply equivalent to our word "civilization," whereas the word "culture" in English has a special meaning, to wit, that of intellectual attainments. In this chapter we are chiefly concerned with the latter sense of the word.

Germany had a rich popular literature during the Middle Ages from the redaction of the _Nibelungenlied_ under Charles the Great onwards.

Prominent among this popular literature were the love-songs of the Minnesingers, the epics drawn from mediaeval traditionary versions of the legend of Troy, of the career of _Alexander the Great_, and, to come to more recent times, to legends of _Charles the Great and his Court_, of _Arthur and the Holy Grail_, the _Nibelungenlied_ in its present form, and _Gudrun_. The "beast-epic," as it was called, was also a favourite theme, especially in the form of _Reynard the Fox_.

In another branch of literature we have collections of laws dating from the thirteenth century and known respectively from the country of their origin as the _Sachsenspiegel_ and the _Schwabenspiegel_. Again, at a later date, followed the productions of the Meistersingers, and especially of Hans Sachs, of Nurnberg. Then, again, we have the prose literature of the mystics, Eckhart, Tauler, and their followers.

Towards the close of the mediaeval period we find an immense number of national ballads, of chap-books, not to mention the Pa.s.sion Plays or the polemical theological writings of the time leading up to the Reformation. Luther's works, more especially his translation of the Bible, powerfully helped to fix German as a literary language. The Reformation period, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was rich in prose literature of every description--in fact, the output of serious German writing continued unabated until well into the seventeenth century. But the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany from end to end, completely swept away the earlier literary culture of the nation. In fact, the event in question forms a dividing line between the earlier and the modern culture of Germany. In prose literature, the latter half of the seventeenth century, Germany has only one work to show, though that is indeed a remarkable one--namely, Grimmelshausen's _Simplicissimus_, a romantic fiction under the guise of an autobiography of wild and weird adventure for the most part concerned with the Thirty Years' War.

The rebirth of German literature in its modern form began early in the eighteenth century. Leibnitz wrote in Latin and French, and his culture was mainly French. His follower, Christian Wolf, however, first used the German language for philosophical writing. But in poetry, Klopstock and Wieland, and, in serious prose, Lessing and Herder, led the way to the great period of German literature. In this period the name of Goethe holds the field, alike in prose and poetry.

Goethe was born in 1749, and hence it was the last quarter of the century which saw him reach his zenith. Next to Goethe comes his younger contemporary, Schiller. It is impossible here to go even briefly into the achievements of the bearers of these great names.

They may be truly regarded in many important respects as the founders of modern German culture. Around them sprang up a whole galaxy of smaller men, and the close of the eighteenth century showed a literary activity in Germany exceeding any that had gone before.

Turning to philosophy, it is enough to mention the immortal name of Immanuel Kant as the founder of modern German philosophic thought and the first of a line of eminent thinkers extending to wellnigh the middle of the nineteenth century. The names of Fichte, Sch.e.l.ling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and others will at once occur to the reader.

Contemporaneously with the great rise of modern German literature there was a unique development in music, beginning with Sebastian Bach and continuing through the great cla.s.sical school, the leading names in which are Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, etc. The middle period of the nineteenth century showed a further development in prose literature, producing some of the greatest historians and critics the world has seen. At this time, too, Germany began to take the lead in science. The names of Virchow, Helmholtz, Hackel, out of a score of others, all of the first rank, are familiar to every person of education in the present and past generation. The same period has been signalized by the great post-cla.s.sical development in music, as ill.u.s.trated by the works of Schumann, Brahms, and, above all, by the towering fame of Richard Wagner.

From the last quarter of the eighteenth century onwards it may truly be said of Germany that education is not only more generally diffused than in any other country of Europe, but (as a recent writer has expressed it) "is cultivated with an earnest and systematic devotion not met with to an equal extent among other nations." The present writer can well remember some years ago, when at the railway station at Breisach (Baden) waiting one evening for the last train to take him to Colmar, he seated himself at the table of the small station restaurant at which three tradesmen, "the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker" of the place were drinking their beer. Broaching to them the subject of the history of the town, he found the butcher quite prepared to discuss with the baker and the candlestick-maker the policy of Charles the Bold and Louis XI as regards the possession of the district, as though it might have been a matter of last night's debate in the House or of the latest horse-race. Where would you find this popular culture in any other country?

Germany possesses 20 universities, 16 polytechnic educational inst.i.tutes, about 800 higher schools (gymnasia), and nearly 60,000 elementary schools. Every town of any importance throughout the German States is liberally provided in the matter of libraries, museums, and art collections, while its special inst.i.tutions, music schools, etc., are famous throughout the world. The German theatre is well known for its thoroughness. Every, even moderately sized, German town has its theatre, which includes also opera, in which a high scale of all-round artistic excellence is attained, hardly equalled in any other country.

In fact, it is not too much to say that for long Germany was foremost in the vanguard of educational, intellectual, and artistic progress.

That the above is an over-coloured statement as regards the importance of Germany for wellnigh a century and a half past in the history of human culture, in the sense of intellectual progress in its widest meaning, I venture to think that no one competent to judge will allege. Is then, it may be asked, the railing of public opinion and the Press of Great Britain and other countries outside Germany and Austria, against the Germany of the present day, and the jeers at the term "German culture" wholly unjustified and the result of national or anti-German prejudice? That there has been much foolish vituperative abuse of the whole German nation and of everything German indiscriminately in the Press of this and some other countries is undoubtedly true. But, however, our acknowledgment of this fact will not justify us in refusing to recognize the truth which finds expression in what very often looks like mere foolish vilification.

The truth in question will be apparent on a consideration of the change that has come over the German people and German culture since the war of 1870 and the foundation of the modern German Empire. The material and economic side of this change has been already indicated in a short summary in the quotation which closes the last chapter. But these changes, or advances if you will, on the material side, have been accompanied by a moral and material degeneration which has been only very partially counteracted at present by a movement which, though initiated before the period named, has only attained its great development, and hence influenced the national character, since the date in question.

It is a striking fact that in the last forty-four years--the period of the new German Empire--there has been a dearth of originality in all directions. In the earlier part of the period in question the survivors from the pre-Imperial time continued their work in their several departments, but no new men of the same rank as themselves have arisen, either alongside of them or later to take their places.

The one or two that might be adduced as partial exceptions to what has been above said only prove the rule. We have had, it is true, a mult.i.tude of men, more or less clever _epigoni_, but little else.

Again, it is, I think, impossible to deny that a mechanical hardness and brutality have come over the national character which entirely belie its former traits. It is a matter of common observation that in the last generation the German middle cla.s.s has become noticeably coa.r.s.ened, vulgarized, and blatant.

Again, although I am very far from wishing to attribute the crimes and horrors committed by the German army during the present war to the whole German nation, or even to the _rank and file_ of those composing the army, yet there is no doubt that some blame must be apportioned at least to the latter. The contrast is striking between the conduct of the German troops during the present war and that of 1870, when they could declare that they were out "to fight French soldiers and not French citizens." Such were the military ethics of bygone generations of German soldiers. They certainly do not apply to the German army of to-day. The popularity of such writers as Von Treitschke and Bernhardi, respecting which so much has been written, is indeed significant of a vast change in German moral conceptions. The practical influence of Nietzsche, who--with his corybantic whirl of criticism on all things in heaven above and on the earth beneath, a criticism not always coherent with itself--can hardly be termed a German Chauvinist in any intelligible sense, has, I think, been much exaggerated. The importance of his theories, considered as an ingredient in modern German Chauvinism, is not so considerable, I should imagine, as is sometimes thought.

We come now to the movement already alluded to as a set-off and, within certain boundaries at least, a counteractive of the degeneracy exhibited in the German character since the foundation of the present Imperial system. The rise and rapid growth of the Social Democratic movement is perhaps the most striking fact in the recent history of Germany. The same may be said, of course, of the growth of Socialism everywhere during the same period. But in Germany it has for a generation past, or even more, occupied an exceptional position, alike as regards the rapidity of its increase, its direct influence on the ma.s.ses, and its party organization. Modern Socialism, as a party doctrine, is, moreover, a product of the best period of nineteenth-century German thought and literature. Its three great theoretical protagonists, Marx, Engels, and their younger contemporary, La.s.salle, all issued from the great Hegelian movement of the first half of the nineteenth century. Their propagandist activity, literary and otherwise, was in the German language. The a.n.a.lysis of the present capitalist system, forming the foundation of the demand for the communization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, as resulting in a _human_ society as opposed to a _cla.s.s_ society, and ultimately in the extinction of national barriers in a world-federation of socialized humanity--these principles were first appreciated, as a world-ideal, by the proletariat of Germany, and they have unquestionably raised that proletariat to an intellectual rank as yet equalled by no other working-cla.s.s in the world.

It must be admitted, however, that with the colossal growth of the Social Democratic party in Germany in numbers and the introduction into it of elements from various quarters, a certain deterioration, one may hope and believe only temporary, has become apparent in its quality. This applies, at least, to certain sections of the party. A sordid practicalism has made itself felt, due to a feverish desire to play an important role in the detail of current politics. Personal ambition and the mechanical working of the party system have also had their evil influence in the movement in recent years. Nevertheless, we have reason to believe that the core of the party is as sound and as true to principle as ever it was, and that on the restoration of international peace this will be seen to be the case. What interests us, however, specially, at the moment of writing, is the lamentable, yet undeniable, fact that German Social Democracy has, on this occasion, disastrously failed to prevent the outbreak of war, notwithstanding the vigour of its efforts to do so during the last week of July; and still more that it has failed up to date to stem the rising flood of militarism and jingoism in the German people. That before many months are over the scales will fall from the eyes of the ma.s.ses of Germany I am convinced, and not less that a revolutionary movement in Germany will be one of the signs that will herald the dawn of a better day for Germany and for Europe. But meanwhile we must hold our countenances in patience.

If we inquire the cause of the degeneracy we have been considering in the German character since the war of 1870 and the creation of the new empire--apart from those economic causes of change common to all countries in modern civilization--the answer of those who have followed the history of the period can hardly fail to be--Bismarck and Prussia. We have already seen in the short historical sketch given in the last chapter how the robber hand of Prussia, in violation of all national treaty rights, had gradually succeeded in annexing wellnigh all the neighbouring German territories. But, notwithstanding this, the greater part of Germany still remained outside the Prussian monarchy. The policy of Bismarck was first of all to cripple the rival claimant for the hegemony of Central Europe, Austria. Her complete subjugation being unfeasible, she had to be shut up rigorously to her immediate dominions on the eastern side of Central Europe, in order to leave the path clear for Bismarck, by war or subterfuge, to absorb, under a system of nominally va.s.sal States, the whole of the rest of Germany into the system of the Prussian monarchy.

Now, as we know, from its very foundation the Hohenzollern-Prussian monarchy has always been a more or less veiled despotism, based on working through a military and bureaucratic oligarchy. The army has been the dominant factor of the Prussian State from the beginning of the eighteenth century onwards. Prussia has been from the beginning of its monarchy the land of the drill-sergeant and the barracks. It is this system which the Junker Bismarck has riveted on the whole German people, with what results we now see. Badenese, Wurtembergers, Franconians, Hanoverians, the citizens of the former free cities no less than the already absorbed Westphalians, Thuringians, Silesians, Mecklenburgers, were speedily all reduced to being the slaves of the Prussian military system and of the Prussian military caste. The nave German peoples, as already pointed out, accepted this Prussian domination as the realization of their time-honoured patriotic ideal of German unity.

The fact of their subservience was emphasized in every way. The law of _lese-majeste_ (_majestatsbeleidigung_), by which all criticism of the despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward and a cur, and the Legislature which pa.s.ses it as a house, not of representative citizens, or even subjects for that matter, but of representative _slaves_. It must not be forgotten that the law in question strikes not only at public expressions of opinion in the press or on the platform, but at the most private criticism made in the presence of a friend in one's own room. The depths of undignified and craven meanness to which a monarch is reduced by being thus protected from criticism by the police-truncheon and the gaoler struck me especially as ill.u.s.trated by the following incident which happened some years ago: Shortly after the accession of the present Kaiser, a conjurer was giving his entertainment in a Swiss town. For one of the tricks he was going to exhibit he had occasion to ask the audience to send him up the names of a few public men on folded pieces of paper.

His reception of the names written down was accompanied by the "patter" proper to his profession. On coming to the name of Kaiser Wilhelm II he ventured the remark, "Ah! I'd rather it had been the poor man just dead" (meaning the Emperor Frederick), "for I'm afraid this one's not much good." Will it be believed that the whole diplomatic machinery was set on foot to induce the Swiss Government to prosecute the unfortunate entertainer, abortively of course, since it could not have been legally done? Surely the head of a State who could allow his Government to descend to such contemptible pettiness must be devoid of all sense of common self-respect, not to say personal dignity. And this is the fellow who claims to be hardly second in importance to his "dear old G.o.d"! In this connection it is only fair to recall the very different behaviour of King Edward VII when an Irish paper published not a mere criticism but an unquestionably libellous article reflecting on his private character. The police seized the copies of the paper and were prepared to take steps to prosecute, when the late King interfered and stopped even the confiscation of the paper. The least monarchical of us must, I think, admit that here we have a good ill.u.s.tration of the distinction between a man sure of his reputation and a cur nervously alarmed for his.

This severe law of _lese-majeste_ in Bismarck's Prusso-German Empire is only an ill.u.s.tration of the way in which the German people have been made to grovel before the Prussian jack-boot. The Prussification of Germany in matters military and in matters bureaucratic has gone on apace since 1870. Prussia, it is not too much to say, has. .h.i.therto consisted in a nation of slaves and tyrants and nothing else. It is the Prussian governing cla.s.s which has everywhere and in all departments "set the pace" since the empire was established. No man known to hold opinions divergent from those agreeable to the interests of the Prussian governing cla.s.s can hope for employment, be it the most humble, in any department of the public service. This is particularly noticeable in its effects in the matter of education. The inculcation of the brutal and blatant jingoism of Von Treitschke at the universities by professors eager for approval in high places has already been sufficiently animadverted upon in more than one work on modern Germany. The defeat of Prusso-German militarism will be an even greater gain to all that is best in Germany herself than it will be to Europe as a whole.

_Delenda est Prussia_, understanding thereby not, of course, the inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity, Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all means let there be--a federation of all the German peoples with its capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether, but certainly as const.i.tuted at present. Who knows but that a united States of Germany may then prove the first step towards a united States of Europe?

But it is not alone to the political reconstruction of Germany or of Europe that those who take an optimistic view of the issue of the present European war look hopefully. The whole economic system of modern capitalism will have received a shock from which the beginnings of vast changes may date. Apart from this, however, the avowed aim of the war, the destruction of Prussian militarism and, indirectly, the weakening of military power throughout the world, should have immediate and important consequences. The brutalities and crimes committed in Belgium and the North of France at the instigation of the military heads of this Prusso-German army do but indicate exaggerations of the military spirit and att.i.tude generally. Von Hindenburg is not the first who has given utterance to the devilish excuse for military crime and brutality that it is "more humane in the end, since it shortens war." To refute this transparent fallacy is scarcely necessary, since every historical student knows that military excesses and inhumanity do not shorten but prolong war by raising indignation and inflaming pa.s.sions. The longest connected war known to history--the Thirty Years' War--is generally acknowledged to have been signalized by the greatest and most continuous inhumanity of any on record. But whether military crime has the effect claimed for it or not, we may fain hope that public opinion in Europe will insist upon giving the "humane" commanders who "mercifully" endeavour to "shorten"

war by drastic methods of this sort a severe lesson. A few such treated to the utmost penalties the ordinary criminal law prescribes to the crimes of arson, murder, and robbery would teach them and their like that war, if waged at all nowadays, must be waged decently and not "shortened" by such devices as those in question.

If the present war with all its horrible carnage issues, even if only in the beginning of those changes which some of us believe must necessarily result from it--changes economical, political, and moral--then indeed it will not have been waged in vain. With the great intellectual powers of the Germanic people devoted, not to the organization of military power and of national domination, but to furthering the realization of a higher human society; with the determination on the part of the best elements among every European people to work together internationally with each other, and not least with the new Germany, to this end, and the great European war of 1914 will be looked back upon by future generations as the greatest world-historic example of the proverbial evil out of which good, and a lasting and inestimable good, has come for Europe and the world.

UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS WOKING AND LONDON.