German Problems and Personalities Part 15

Like most of the men who have built up the Prussian power; like Stein, who came from Na.s.sau; like Moltke, who came from Denmark; like Treitschke, who came from Saxony, Prince von Bulow is not a Prussian.

Like Blucher, his family originates from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg, that strange paradise of a medieval and feudal Junkerthum. But, like most of the naturalized servants of the Hohenzollern, von Bulow proved even more Prussian than any native of Pomerania or Brandenburg. The son of one of Bismarck's trusted lieutenants, he always remained a loyal pupil of the Iron Chancellor.

It is significant that the first visit which Bulow paid on his accession to power was a visit to the fallen statesman. He was brought up on Bismarckian traditions and ideals. He is not a creative genius like the hermit of Friedrichsruhe. He has been accused of being a trimmer, but he was a trimmer like the great Lord Burleigh, always keeping in mind the final goal to be reached. He had to work with different materials and under conditions entirely different from those which prevailed under Bismarck. He had to embark on a _Weltpolitik_, whereas Bismarck was content with a Continental policy. He had to initiate the colonial and naval policy of William, while Bismarck systematically kept clear of colonial ventures. But as far as circ.u.mstances permitted, the "new course" of Bulow was but the continuation of the old course of Bismarck. Like Bismarck, he fought the Socialists. Like Bismarck, he in turn fought and conciliated the Clericals. Like Bismarck, he enforced in Poland the inexorable policy of expropriation and appropriation. Like Bismarck, he remained true to the Austrian alliance. Like Bismarck, he tried to work in close co-operation with Russia, and tried to build up again the reactionary alliance of the three Central Empires. And in these many difficult tasks, which had become much more difficult even than in the 'seventies or 'eighties, Bulow was as little hampered as his predecessor by any moral principles or scruples. He proved even more Machiavellian than his predecessor, adhering as steadfastly to the same implacable realism.

IV.

But, if Prince von Bulow has revealed the same aims and is imbued with the same political philosophy as Bismarck, he has tried to attain his end by very different means. He has none of the cynical sincerity of his master. Bismarck carried into diplomacy the directness and brutality of the soldier. Bulow introduced into politics the tortuous practices of Italy. He reminds one of Cavour much more than of the master-builder of German unity. Whilst Bismarck won his spurs in the emba.s.sies of Germany and Russia, Bulow received his main training as Amba.s.sador in Latin countries. He served for five years in Paris. In Bucharest he imbibed the Byzantine influences of the East. He spent six years in the Eternal City, which for three thousand years has been the centre of statecraft, and which even to-day remains the best training-school of diplomacy. His marriage with an Italian Princess is another indication of the natural affinities of his temperament, and an additional proof that he const.i.tutionally preferred the subtle methods of Rome to the more brutal methods of Brandenburg. Bismarck was always using threats which he had no intention of carrying out.

Bulow is equally fond of using promises which he is as little disposed to fulfil. Bismarck was always showing the mailed fist. Bulow prefers to show the velvet glove. Bismarck wielded the sword of the berserker.

Bulow prefers the rapier of the fencer. Bismarck was stern, irascible, uncontrolled, t.i.tanic, and his whole career was one long and hard struggle against bitter enemies. Bulow was ever amiable, courteous, smiling, suave, patient, elusive. He managed equally to conciliate the Kaiser and Bismarck, Herr Harden and the _Kolnische Volkszeitung_, the Catholics and the Jews, the industrials and the agrarians. When the hour of disfavour came, Bismarck retired with his mastiffs among the pine-woods of Lauenburg, nursing his rancour and revenge. Bulow retired with quiet and graceful dignity among the statues and the flowers of the Villa Malta.

V.

In no other aspect of his versatile career did Prince von Bulow show more resourcefulness than in his skilful handling of the Press. He was the first German statesman who knew how to discipline and to exploit public opinion in the interests of Imperial policy. It is true that already Bismarck had made frequent use of the Press as an instrument of government, as is abundantly shown by his close a.s.sociation with Lothar Bucher, with his famulus Moritz Busch, and with Maximilian Harden. But Bismarck, whilst using the journalists, profoundly despised them, with the result that "Bismarck's Reptile Press" became a byword in Europe. Under Bulow's regime the humble pressman rose to influence and affluence and basked in Ministerial favour. With the a.s.sistance of Mr. Hammann, Prince von Bulow made the Berlin Press Bureau a sinister power in Europe as well as in Germany; for the Chancellor was as anxious to conciliate the foreign journalist as the German. M. Huret sang his praises in the _Figaro_. Even the arch-Germanophobe Monsieur Andre Tardieu was coaxed into writing a whole volume of panegyric on the irresistible Chancellor. Before the caprice of his Imperial master sent him into premature retirement, Bulow had succeeded in marshalling all the intellectual forces of the German Empire. Whilst Bismarck had frittered away his energies quarrelling with von Virchow, with Windhorst, and with the professors of the National Liberal party, Bulow had managed to make the shining luminaries of the Universities, the Harnacks, the Schmollers, and the Dernburgs, into the most enthusiastic advocates of his policy.

VI.

There are few more bewildering subjects to the student of politics than the many concatenations of events which brought about the present world catastrophe. If that fateful interview had not been published in the _Daily Telegraph_, there would have been no political hurricane in Germany. If there had been no hurricane, Prince von Bulow would not have fallen from power. If Prince von Bulow had not fallen from power, there would probably have been no world war. It is certain that Bulow's retirement from office in 1909 was a disaster to the German Empire. It is equally certain that his return to office in 1914 and his peace mission to Italy was an ominous danger to Europe. And it is also certain that he will be even more dangerous to Europe in the eventful days to come when he will be called back to office, and be once more the leader and spokesman of German policy. In the future Congress which will liquidate the world war Bulow will be the greatest a.s.set of the enemy. In the Congress of Berlin Bismarck, towering like a giant, dictated his policy to subservient Europe. The day of German hegemony is past, and no German plenipotentiary will be able again to impose his will by the same methods. But the resources of diplomacy will be all the more necessary to the German Empire in the future settlement, and of the art of diplomacy Bulow is perhaps the greatest master that the world has seen since the days of Talleyrand. It is highly doubtful whether there is any statesman amongst the Allies who possesses to the same extent those special characteristics which will win victory in the international arena. If high moral ideals and perfect political integrity were the qualities most valuable to the diplomatist, Viscount Grey and Mr. Balfour would be more than a match for Prince von Bulow; but if an intimate knowledge of the European chess-board and of the psychology of European politics, if infinite wit, if nimbleness and ingenuity, are the qualities which are likely to decide the issue, Prince von Bulow will prove indeed a formidable opponent. It is almost inevitable that the European Powers shall enter the future Congress with different aims and with divergent policies.

And one needs be no prophet to predict that it will be Bulow's object to play off one Power against another; even as for twenty years he played off one party against another in the Reichstag, so he will play off Serbia against Italy, and Italy against France, and Russia against England. In those unavoidable conflicting interests of the belligerent Powers Bulow will seek his opportunity. It will be for the Allies to foresee and to forestall the danger. Let the Allies enter the Congress with a clearly defined and settled policy. Let them compose their differences before they meet their opponents. Then, but only then, will there be no scope for the uncanny virtuosity of Prince von Bulow.

Only on those terms will Viscount Grey and Jules Cambon and Sasonov defeat the manuvres of the Italianized Prussian Machiavelli and frustrate the hopes of "Bernhard the Lucky."

CHAPTER XVI

THE SILENCE OF HERR VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG

I.

Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg is to-day the most tragic figure amongst the statesmen of Europe. For three years he has borne a crushing burden, a burden which even Bismarck, the man of blood, was unable to bear in the piping days of peace; a burden from which the Iron Chancellor had to seek periodical liberation amidst the heather and the pine-forests of his native Brandenburg. As Prime Minister of Prussia, as Chancellor of the German Empire, as Foreign Secretary of the Teutonic Alliance, he has to keep a firm grip of all the threads, both of internal and of external policy. Distracted between Catholics and Protestants, between agrarians and industrials, between Germany and Austria, he has been made responsible for all the blunders of his subordinates. A rich man, and the scion of an historic house, he has led the life of a galley-slave; an honest man, he has been doomed to perpetual prevarication; a humane man, he has had to condone every atrocity; an independent man, he must cringe before his master; a peaceful man, he must submit to the continuation of insensate slaughter; a highly gifted intellectual, he has had to pursue a policy of insane stupidity. Twenty-five years ago a professor of the University of Munich, Dr. Quidde, compared the Kaiser to Caligula. The a.n.a.logy between William and Caligula or Nero points to another a.n.a.logy, that between Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg and Seneca, the ill-fated counsellor of the Caesars. Read in the _Annals_ of Tacitus the speech of Seneca to Nero, and you will perhaps understand the position of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in the Imperial Palace of Potsdam.

II.

The internal political crisis in Germany, which started at the beginning of last autumn, has come to a head because the Chancellor will not speak out. There was a time when political crises in Germany were due, not to the silence of the German rulers, but to their utterances and indiscretions. In recent months the Kaiser, the man of the three hundred uniforms and of the three thousand speeches, has committed no such indiscretions as marked his reign from his ascent to the throne; he has been almost as reticent as his unhappy father, who did not speak because he had cancer in the throat. And now the silver-tongued von Bethmann-Hollweg has also discovered the political virtue of silence. The people have been loudly clamouring for a few words of comfort, but above the thunder of the distant guns we only hear the scribblers of a servile Press, who are beating the air with their croakings.

III.

Why this ominous, obstinate, sphinx-like silence of the Chancellor, more pregnant with meaning than the most eloquent speeches? It would be so easy for so resourceful a man to utter a few oracular sentences, a few ambiguous phrases, a few patriotic trumpet-calls. Was not the last great speech which he delivered in the Reichstag covered with frantic applause? But the days are past for ambiguous utterances, however patriotic, however oracular. The Chancellor knows that any clear, outspoken utterance on the peace aims of the German Government would seal the doom of the Government; he knows that any statement of terms would reveal the glaring discrepancy between those terms and the solemn promises so often made to the German people. The people still pa.s.sionately believe in the promises and a.s.surance of an early and final victory. Only such a belief is still sustaining the drooping spirits of the nation, only such an a.s.surance enables them to submit to the starvation of their women and children, to their tragic isolation in a hostile world, to the appalling sacrifices on the battlefield.

IV.

And now the conspiracy of lies and the conspiracy of silence is about to be exposed. The inexorable truth must be proclaimed. The German present is dark, but the future is desperate. The U-boat campaign has failed, the hope of a separate peace with Russia has vanished, the menace of America is drawing near. Greater exertions and more appalling sacrifices are needed, and yet all the motives for further sacrifices have vanished. The rulers were fighting for conquest and plunder. But it is now obvious that there can be no conquest nor plunder. The German people were misled into the belief that they were struggling in self-defence against the "Slav peril," but since the Ides of March in Petrograd the Russian bugbear has disappeared. They were misled into the belief that they were struggling for liberty. But the Germans are now the only people still deprived of political liberty. Even the much-despised Slav has ceased to be a slave. The only slaves in Europe to-day are the subjects of the Hohenzollern.

V.

This German war has been described as a tragedy of Prussian craft and graft, and the Teuton rulers have been denounced rightly for their cruelty and brutality. But posterity would be more inclined to see in this war a tragedy of German virtue. For the virtues of the German have been more terrible than his vices. For this catastrophe has been possible, not because the German people are so wicked, but because they have been so good, because they have practised too well the "three" theological virtues of blind faith, pa.s.sive obedience, and inexhaustible patience; because they have been so pathetically loyal to their misrulers; because they have shown the sentimentality of a woman and the credulity of a child. The German Michel has been the political Peter Pan of Europe, the boy that won't grow up. He has been the boy that has been let loose and has lit the match to the powder magazine. He has been the incurable romanticist who has continued to believe in fairy-tales in a world of stern realities. And now this child-like faith in fairy-tales has been dispelled by disaster. The vision of a holy German Empire, of the pomp and circ.u.mstance of war, its glory and glamour, is shattered. The spell is broken. The German Michel is awakening from his dreams. Walhalla is shaken to its foundation. Tor is ready with his hammer. Revolution is knocking at the door!

CHAPTER XVII

THE COMING REVOLUTION IN GERMANY

I.

Both French and British publicists have remained strangely silent and reticent on the problem and prospects of a revolution in Germany. It may be that they are afraid to conjure up the ghost of political rebellion, lest that ghost might cause havoc in other countries than Germany. It may also be that they are unwilling to tackle a very complex and delicate question. Yet the more we consider the problem, the more central, the more vital it will appear. German policy, German diplomacy, German strategy, are now entirely dominated by the dread of a social upheaval. Measures which might seem to be dictated solely by military considerations are in reality imposed by the necessity of deceiving and distracting public opinion and of striking the popular imagination.

And this obsession of an impending revolution is fully justified. To the outside view the war may seem above all a conflict of nations, involving a reconstruction of the map of Europe, raising international issues and resulting in a new international order. But in reality the conflict is concerned with national and internal issues, and it must result in a new national order. If this war has not been fought in vain, if we are to achieve the objects for which we entered it, if we are ultimately to crush German militarism, which is only a vague and confusing synonym for German reaction, then it inexorably follows that the war must end in a German revolution. The road to peace must indeed pa.s.s through Berlin, but that Berlin will have ceased to be the Berlin of the Junkers-it must be the insurrectionary Berlin of 1848. Just as there can be no real war of attrition in the struggle between Germany and Europe, so there can be no war of attrition in the struggle between the German people and despotism. As there could be no compromise or surrender of principles before, there can be no compromise and no surrender after. On the conclusion of peace, it must come to a final trial of strength between the rulers and their subjects, between the ma.s.ses and the cla.s.ses. The issues must be fought out in a decisive battle. Even though we achieve a crushing military victory, militarism would not be crushed if the Hohenzollern were still able to command the allegiance of a still patient and pa.s.sive German people: just as Napoleonic militarism was not crushed at Waterloo and revived in 1849, because Napoleon still retained the allegiance of the French people. It is inconceivable that the German reactionaries will abdicate of their own free will. It is equally inconceivable that the reaction will develop slowly and gradually into a free democratic government, as von Bethmann-Hollweg would make us believe in the historic speech of February 27. No doubt this war has hastened on the day of retribution. And the pathos of the war lies in this, that it has been a vicarious sacrifice, and that millions of Frenchmen and Britons have died to prepare the liberation of a nation of slaves. _But ultimately it is the German people themselves who must work out their own salvation._ They will have to turn against their oppressors some of that combativeness, of that fanaticism, of that idealism, which hitherto they have only directed against their European brethren.

II.

I stated at the outset that publicists have maintained a conspiracy of silence on the coming German revolution, because they were afraid to conjure up a sinister spectre, and because they are repelled by a difficult and delicate subject. But there may be another and a more plausible reason for their silence-namely, that most people simply cannot believe in the very possibility of a German revolution. And if you press them to state their definite reasons for such a belief, you will probably find that all the arguments given can ultimately be brought under the four following headings:

1. Militarism and reaction are too deeply rooted in Germany. The reactionary forces are far too strong to leave any chance to a successful revolution.

2. A revolution is impossible under modern conditions of warfare. A few machine-guns, a few crack regiments of the Kaiser's bodyguard, would at once drench the rebellion in rivers of blood.

3. The Social Democrats, the so-called "revolutionary party," have themselves repudiated revolutionary methods.

4. The German temperament has not the initiative, the resilience, which are the prime conditions of a successful revolution. The whole German historical tradition is against any revolutionary solution, and any radical reform must be imposed from outside.

Let us carefully and dispa.s.sionately examine each of those arguments.

III.

In the first place we are told that Prussian reaction is too strong, and that for the German people to attack the Hohenzollern stronghold would be as hopeless as for a madman or a prisoner to break down the walls of his prison or cell. The prisoner would only break his head, and the madman would only get himself put into a "strait-waistcoat."

The German rebel is confronted by the impregnable structure of a solid and efficient Government, a Government based on the prestige of the past, and surrounded by the glamour of triumphant victories achieved in great national wars.

The argument might have been valid after 1863 and 1870, when the Catholics fought the battle of Liberalism and when the Social Democrats fought the battle of democracy against Bismarck. But the argument ceases to be valid to-day. For this is not a national war for the Germans. When the conspiracy of lies and the conspiracy of silence come to an end, when the diplomatic intrigues, when the pan-Germanic plot, are revealed in their naked and hideous horror, it will be clear, even to the blindest and dullest German mind, that this war was waged neither in defence of national existence nor in defence of national interests. It began primarily as a war against Russia, who for a hundred and fifty years was the close ally of Prussia. It began as a war against the Russian people, who were by far the best customers for German industries. It developed into a war against England, who, like Russia, was for one hundred and fifty years the ally of Germany, who fought on many a battlefield with the Germans, who never on any single battlefield fought against Germany.

Neither can this war be described as a national war for the German people, nor has it resulted in a German victory. Here, also, when the conspiracy of silence is broken, the net result of the war will prove to be universal ruin, bankruptcy, millions of cripples walking the streets of every German city, the loss of the goodwill of the world.

"Tout est perdu sauf l'honneur," said the French King after the disaster of Pavia. "Everything is lost, even honour," will be the verdict of the German people after the war.

In so far, therefore, as Prussian reaction was. .h.i.therto based on the glamour of victory, that glamour is dispelled. The Hohenzollerns were supposed to be the unsurpa.s.sed pract.i.tioners of _Realpolitik_. They have only proved reckless and romantic visionaries. The Prussian Government was supposed to be a marvellously efficient instrument. Its efficiency has mainly shown itself in wanton destruction. The Prussian Government was supposed to be the perfect type of a stable government. Its work of five hundred years has been destroyed in three years. The Germans had sold their birthright to the Hohenzollern for a mess of pottage. They have lost their birthright, but they have not secured the pottage. The German people had entered into tacit contract. The rulers have broken the contract. The German people were ready to surrender their personal liberty for the advantages which the contract gave them. They preferred the security of despotism to the risks of liberty. But the German people have discovered that the security was illusory, that the advantages were negative, and that the risks of despotism are infinitely greater than the perils of liberty.

IV.