Germany and the Germans Part 19

The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners, physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a country b.u.mpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is almost unbelievable.

The truth is that most of us suffer from lack of discipline, and the intelligent men of every nation will one day insist that, if the state is to meddle in insurance and other matters, it must logically, and for its own salvation, demand compulsory service; not necessarily for war, but for social and economic peace within its own boundaries. It is a political absurdity that you may tax individuals to provide against accident and sickness to themselves, but that you may not tax individuals by compulsory service to provide against accident and sickness to the state. There can be nothing but ultimate confusion where the state pays a man if he is ill, pays him if he is hurt, pays him when he is old, and yet does not force him to keep well, and thus avoid accident and a pauper's old age by obliging him to submit to two or three years' sound physical training. Whether the training is done with a gun or without it matters little. Most men of our breed like to know how to kill things, so that a gun would probably be an inducement.

The more one knows of the severe demands upon the officers of the German army and of their small pay, the more one realizes that if they are not angels there must be some further explanation of their willingness to undertake the profession. First of all, the Emperor is a soldier and wears at all times the soldier's uniform. Further, he gives from his private purse a small allowance monthly to the poorer officers of the guard regiments. A German officer receives consideration on all sides, whether it be in a shop, a railway-carriage, a drawing-room, or at court.

To a certain extent his uniform is a dowry; he expects and often gets a good marriage portion in return for his shoulder-straps and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons; and in every case it gives him a recognized social position, in a country where the social lines are drawn far more strictly than in any other country outside of Austria and India. This constant wearing of the sword is no new thing. Tacitus, who would have been an uncompromising advocate of compulsory service had he lived in our time, writes: "A German transacts no business, public or private, without being completely armed. The right of carrying arms is a.s.sumed by no person whatever till the state has declared him duly qualified."

It is the recognized occupation of the n.o.bility, and, in very many families, a tradition. In the army of Saxony, on January 1, 1911, out of every hundred officers of the war ministry, of the general commands, and of the higher staff, 44.33 per cent. were n.o.blemen; of the officers of the infantry, 26.19 were n.o.blemen; of the cavalry, 60.92 were n.o.blemen; and of the officers of the entire army, all arms, 24.98 were n.o.blemen.

It is worth chronicling in this connection, for the benefit of those who wish a real insight into German social life, that few people discriminate between the old n.o.bility, or men who take their t.i.tles from the possession of land and their descendants, and the new and morbidly disliked n.o.bility, who have bought or gained their patents of n.o.bility, as is done often enough in England, by profuse contributions to charity or to semi-political and cultural undertakings favored by the court, or by direct contributions to party funds, by valuable services rendered, or by mere length of service. This new n.o.bility, anxious about their status, satisfied to have arrived, jealous of rivals, are the dead weight which ties Germany fast to bureaucratic government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke, indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck, the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad manners of the state servants.

The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial, tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This new n.o.bility, created because it is carefully charitable, or serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a n.o.bility of office-holders, and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the office; while the older n.o.bility, which made Germany, despises the office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by, and comes from, this army of the new n.o.bility.

Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of n.o.bility were given them with their office, a t.i.tled bureaucracy, in short. Let us prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor's grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister of education; the secretary of state's father was plain Herr Kiderlein-Wachter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann; the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbruck; of finance, Herr Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was recently enn.o.bled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these officials of the empire is of the old n.o.bility!

Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for education, von Trott zu Solz; and for the interior, von Dallwitz, are of the old n.o.bility; but the other 7 ministers are not. Of the 12 Oberprasidenten, men who rule the provinces, 6 are n.o.blemen; of the 37 Regierungsprasidenten, 14 are of the n.o.bility, 23 are not. This should dispose finally of the frequently heard a.s.sertion that Germany and Prussia are ruled by a small group of the landed n.o.bility and that there is no way open to the talents. It is fair to say that a very small and intimate court group do have a certain influence in naming the candidates for these posts, but they are too wily to keep these positions for themselves.

I suppose we all like, in a childish way, to wear placards of our prowess in the form of orders and decorations, but the evening attire of this bureaucratic n.o.bility often looks as though there had been a ceramic eruption, a sort of measles of decorations. Men's b.r.e.a.s.t.s are covered with medals, stars, porcelain plaques, and their necks are hung with ribbons with a dangling medallion, all distributed from the patriarchal imperial Christmas-tree for every conceivable service from cleaning the streets to preaching properly on the imperial yacht. Men collect them as they would stamps or b.u.t.terflies, and some of them must be very expert.

The officers and the officials who are recognized as giving their services as a family tradition, as a patriotic service, or out of sheer love of the profession of arms, are rather liked than disliked, and give a tone and set a standard for all the rest. Both these officers and their men are respected. Of no German soldier could it be written:

"I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls."

On the contrary, every effort is made to keep the army pleased with itself and proud of itself. The chancellor of the empire is always given military rank; officers are not allowed to marry unless they have, or acquire by marriage, a suitable income; the dignity of the officer is upheld and his pride catered to; officers are made to feel that they are the darlings of the Fatherland by everybody from the Emperor down.

This artificial stimulant goes far to keep them contented, and the fact that the scale of comfortable living in Germany was twenty years ago far below, and is even now not equal to, that of the equivalent cla.s.ses with us makes the task easier. They have not been taught to want the things we want, and are still satisfied with less. And back of and behind it all is the feeling among the leaders, that the army furnishes no small amount of the patriotic cement necessary to hold Germany together. Ulysses lashed himself to the mast as he pa.s.sed the sirens of luxury and leisure, and for the German Ulysses the army supplies the cords. It is not the foreign student of German life alone who notices that the Germans, even now, seem to be tribal rather than national. The best friends of Germany in Germany also recognize this weakness, comment upon it, and favor every possible expedient to overcome it.

I admit frankly my admiration for this Spartan three quarters of a million of soldiers and sailors, and their officers. It offers a splendid example of patriotism, of disregard for the weakening comforts, luxuries, and fussy pleasures that absorb too much of our vitality; and of disdain for the material successes, which in their selfish rivalry, breed the very industrial distresses which are now our problems. At least here is a large professional body whose aims, whose way of living, and whose earnings prove that there can be a social hierarchy not dependent upon money. It is one of the finest lessons Germany has to teach, and long may she teach it.

That is distinctly the side of the army that I know and approve without reserve. Of its value as a fighting force it would be ridiculous, in my case, to write. I have read and heard scores of criticisms and comments from many sources, and they range from those who claim that the German army is unbeatable, even if attacked from all sides, to those who maintain that it is already stale and mechanical.

The war of 1866, when Prussia represented Germany, lasted thirty-five days; the war against Denmark lasted six months and twelve days; the war against France lasted six months and nine days. Thirty-six German cavalry regiments did not lose a man during the whole campaign of 1870-1871; and the Sixth Army Corps was hardly under fire. There has been no long, practical, and therefore decisive test of the army. Of the transport and commissary services during the French war, when Germany toward the end of it had 630,000 men in the field, certainly we, with the deplorable mismanagement and scandal of our Spanish war, and the British with the investigations after the Egyptian campaign fresh in memory, have nothing to say, except that it was wholly admirable and beyond the breath of suspicion of greed, thievery, or political chicanery. There was no rotten leather, and no poisoned beef.

Officers, too, in the French war, were called upon to do their duty and to obey, and no individual brilliancy which interfered with the general plan was condoned or pardoned, no matter how highly placed the relatives or how influential the connections of the offender. A distinguished general, after a successful and heroic victory, who had been tempted into a b.l.o.o.d.y battle against orders, was called before his superiors, told that the first lesson the soldier had to learn was obedience, and sent home! A brother of the chief of staff went into the war a captain and came back a captain!

I am wondering what our underpaid, unnoticed regulars in the army and navy would have to say, were they free to speak, of the conduct of our last martial escapade with Spain, by our press and by our politicians.

There would be no stories of the German kind, I am sure, and no single record of an influential civilian who did not get all the glory that he deserved. My impulsive countrymen are always manufacturing heroes and saviors, but fortunately the crosses upon which they crucify them are erected almost as fast as the crowns are nicely fitted and comfortable, so that there is little danger of permanent tyranny. What Richelieu said of the French applies to some extent to ourselves: "Le propre du caractere francais c'est que, ne se tenant pas fermement au bien, il ne s'attache non plus longtemps au mal."

During and after the Franco-German war there was no cheap heroism, no feminine excitability producing litters of heroes; no s...o...b..ring, osculatory advertising; no press undertaking the duties of a general staff, which in our Spanish war almost completely clouded the real heroism and patriotism that were in evidence. There were no newspaper-made heroes, hastening back to exchange cheap military glory for votes and delicious notoriety. For all of which, gentlemen, let us thank G.o.d, and give praise where it is due.

The army, too, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that are so rapidly taking place in Germany, from an agricultural to a manufacturing nation. Of every 100 recruits that presented themselves there were pa.s.sed as fit, in 1902, for the First Army Corps, of those from the country 72.76; of those from the towns 63.88; in 1910 these figures had fallen to 67.24 and 53.66. In the Second Army Corps the recruits pa.s.sed as fit, from the towns, had fallen from 60.74 in 1902 to 50.42 in 1910. In the Fifth Army Corps, of recruits from the towns the percentage of those pa.s.sed fell from 60.07 to 46.13. In the Sixth Army Corps the percentage fell from 50.14 to 43.83. In the Sixteenth Army Corps from 67.50 to 58.80. In the Eighteenth Army Corps the recruits from the towns pa.s.sed as fit had fallen from 60.46 in 1902 to 46.58 in 1910. The average for the whole empire, of those from the towns pa.s.sed as fit, had fallen from 53.52 in 1902 to 47.87 in 1910.

The First Army Corps has its head-quarters at Konigsberg, and recruits from that neighborhood; the Second Army Corps has its head-quarters at Stettin, and recruits from Pomerania; the Fifth Army Corps has its headquarters at Posen, and recruits from Posen and Lower Silesia; the Sixth Army Corps has its head-quarters at Breslau, and recruits from Silesia; the Sixteenth Army Corps has its headquarters at Metz, and recruits from Lorraine; the Eighteenth Army Corps has its head-quarters at Frankfurt-am-Main, and recruits from that neighborhood.

These figures are enough to make my point, without giving the statistics for all the twenty-three corps, which is, that in spite of the precautions taken, the German recruit, especially from the towns, in whatever part of the country, is losing vigor and stamina.

Even this hard-and-fast arrangement of a bureaucratic government with a military backbone does not solve all the problems. When one sees, however, the German school-boy, and the German recruit during the first weeks of his training, in the barracks and out, and I have watched thousands of them, and then looks over this same material after two or three years of training, it is hard to believe that they are the same, and that even these hard-working officers have been able to bring about such a change.

Of the charges of brutality and severity I only know what the statistics tell me, that in an army of over 600,000 men there were some 500 cases brought to the notice of the superior officers last year. In 1911 there were 12,919 convictions for crimes and misdemeanors and 578 desertions. Of the 32,711 common soldiers in the Saxon army in 1911, 30 committed suicide; in 1909, 29; in 1905, 24; in 1901, 36; that is to say, roughly, one man per thousand. Of the why and wherefore I cannot say, but Saxony is a peculiarly overpopulated section of Germany, and the population is overdriven; and the German everywhere is a dreamy creature compared with us, of less toughness of fibre either morally or physically, and no doubt, here and there, under-exercising and over-thinking make the world seem to be a mad place and impossible to live in. Indeed, it is no place to live in for the best of us if we take it, or ourselves, too seriously. The German army is an educated army, as is no other army in the world, and there are the diseases peculiar to education to combat. A mediocre ability to think, and a limited intellectual experience, coupled with a craving for miscellaneous reading, breed new microbes almost as fast as science discovers remedies for the old ones.

Bismarck's words, "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland," meant to him, and mean to-day, far more than that the army is necessary for defence. It is the best all-round democratic university in the world; it is a necessary antidote for the physical lethargy of the German race; it is essential to discipline; it is a cement for holding Germany together; it gives a much-worried and many-times-beaten people confidence; the poverty of the great bulk of its officers keeps the level of social expenditure on a sensible scale; it offers a brilliant example, in a material age, of men scorning ease for the service of their country; it keeps the peace in Europe; and until there is a second coming, of a Christ of pity, and patience, and peace, it is as good a subst.i.tute for that far-off divine event as puzzled man has to offer.

It is silly and superficial to look upon the German army only as a menace, only as a cloud of provocations in glittering uniforms, only as a helmeted frown with a turned-up moustache. It is not, and I make no such claim for it, an army or an officers' corps of Puritans or of self-sacrificing saints, but it does partake of the dreamy, idealistic German nature, as does every other inst.i.tution in Germany. Though, as a whole, it is a fighting machine, the various parts of it are not imbued with that spirit alone. The uneasy pessimism of the dreamer, which distrusts the comfortable solutions of the business-like politicians, and leaders, in their own and in other countries, is as noticeable in the army as in all other departments of German life.

"And all through life I see a cross, Where sons of G.o.d yield up their breath; There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death, There is no vision but by faith; Nor glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame."

There have been many, and there are still, soldiers who hold that creed. There are not a few of them in Germany.

IX GERMAN PROBLEMS

A great nation like Germany must have characteristics, anxieties, problems, and responsibilities, some of which are peculiar to itself.

The individual must be of small importance who has not problems and burdens of his own arising from his environment, position, work, and his personal relations with other men; as well as problems of temper, temperament, health, education, and traditions peculiar to himself.

Wise men recognize two things about every other man: that he has his own problems, and that no one else thoroughly understands either another man's handicaps or his advantages; and that the only way to judge him is not to go behind the returns, but to note how he lives with these same problems. They are there, there is no doubt about that; the question is, does he smile or scowl? does he work away toward a solution, or allow himself to be swamped by them? do they dominate him, or he them? has he that sun of life, vitality, sufficient to burn away the fog, or does he live and die in a moist, semi-impenetrable fog, in which he flounders timidly and rather aimlessly about, always rather discouraged, rather in the dark, and lamentably damp in person and in spirits? The only fair test of a man's life is his living of it, and the same is true of a nation.

Of Germany's history, traditions, and temperament I have written. No one can fail to note the chief characteristics: their gregariousness, their melancholic and subjective way of looking at life, their pa.s.sion for music. It is more what they think, than what they do or see, that gives them pleasure. They agree with Erasmus, that "it is a foolish error to believe that happiness is dependent upon things; it is dependent entirely upon one's opinion of them." The indefinite has no terrors for them, they delight indeed in the indefinable. They have done little in great sculpture and architecture, or the founding and ruling of colonies, as compared with their supreme achievements in music, in philosophy, in lyric poetry.

The art of music, which moves one greatly toward nothing in particular; which supplies sounds but not a language for the mysteries of feeling; which easily carries a sensitive soul away from its sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons, than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing bra.s.s, an anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and women hymn themselves home to G.o.d, only to lose Him when they leave the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any useful weapon; which with drums and bra.s.s can send any lout to heroism without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its devotees--who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must needs not apologize?--this art flourishes in Germany not without reason, and not for nothing.

In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year, sometimes more, in advance.

In the beautiful Golden Hall of the castle of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, at Schwerin, I have attended a concert given by the Grand Duke's own orchestra, where the selections were all compositions of former leaders or members of the orchestra, dating back over a period of two hundred years. For centuries in this particular grand duchy music and the theatre, supported and guided by the sovereign, have offered a school of entertainment and instruction to the people. At this present writing, special trains are run to Schwerin from the surrounding country districts, and the people for miles around subscribe for their seats for the whole winter, and attend the theatre and certain concerts as regularly as children go to school. It sounds oddly to the ears of an American to hear criticism to the effect, that there are more high-cla.s.s music and more cla.s.sical plays than the people have either time or money for. Here is a population which is actually overindulging in culture. We complain of too little; here they complain of too much. It makes one wonder whether any of the problems of social life are satisfactorily soluble; whether indeed it be not true that even the virtues carried to an extreme do not become vices. Philanthropy in more than one city in America is spending time, money, and energy to bring about this very enthusiasm for music and the more intellectual arts which, it is maintained, here in Schwerin at least, has gone too far.

These problems are not so easy of solution as the ignorant and the inexperienced think. Imagine the inhabitants of Hoboken, New Jersey; of Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts; of Kalamazoo, Michigan; of b.l.o.o.d.y Gulch, Idaho, spending too much time and money listening to the music of Palestrina and Bach, or to the plays of Shakespeare; and yet what money and energy would not be spent by certain enthusiasts for the arts did they think such a result possible! And, after all, it might prove not a blessing, but a danger.

Whenever or wherever you are in the company of Germans you notice their pleasure and their keen interest in the subjective, rather than in the objective side of life. It is from within out that they are stirred, not as we are, by outside things working upon us. They are still the dreaming, drinking, singing, impulsive Germans of Tacitus.

t.i.tus Livius, Plutarch, and Machiavelli, all maintained that the successive invasions of the Germans into Italy were for the sake of the wine to be found there. Plutarch writes that "the Gauls were introduced to the Italian wine by a Tuscan named Arron, and so excited were they by the desire for more that, taking their wives and children with them, they journeyed across the Alps to conquer the land of such good vintages, looking upon other countries as sterile and savage by comparison. Even if this be not history, it is an impression; and at any rate, from that day to this the Germans have agreed with the dictum of Aulus Gellius: "Prandium autem abstemium, in quo nihil vini potatur, canium dicitur: quoniam canis vino caret." When the Roman historian first came into contact with them he notes, that their bread was lighter than other bread, because "they use the foam from their beer as yeast."

Tacitus writes of them: "The Germans abound with rude strains of verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the country, are called 'Bards.'"

I visited a private stable in Bavaria, as well ordered and as well kept as any private stable in America or in England, and the head coachman was a reader of poetry; and though he had received numerous offers of higher wages in the city, declined them, giving as one reason that the view from the window of his room could not be equalled elsewhere! Where can one find a stable-man in our country who reads Sh.e.l.ley or Edgar Allan Poe, or who ever heard of William James and Pragmatism? I may be doing an injustice to the stable-men of Boston, but I doubt it.

There are scores of pages of notes to my hand, recounting similar if not such startling examples of the German temperament among high and low. Musical, melancholic, gregarious, subjective, these are their true characteristics, but the superficial among us do not see these things because they are hidden behind the great army, the new navy and mercantile marine, the factories, the increased commercial values, the strenuous agricultural and industrial pushing ahead of the last thirty years. But they are there, they represent the German temperament, they are the internal character of Germania, always to be taken into account in judging her, or in wondering why she does this or that, or why she does it in this or that way.

"As imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name."

This is what the purely subjective mind is ever doing, and when it is carried too far it is insanity. The individual no longer sees things as they are, but he sees others and himself in strange, horrible, or ludicrous shapes.

Barring j.a.pan, I suppose Germany yields more easily to the temptation of the subjective malady of suicide than any other country. In Saxony, for example, the rate was lately 39.2 per 100,000 of the population, in England and Wales 7.5. During the five years ending with 1908 there were for every 100 suicides among males in the United States 136 in Germany, and for every 100 suicides of females 125 in Germany. In Vienna, and for racial purposes this is Germany, 1,558 persons killed themselves in 1912. Children committing suicide because they have failed in their examinations is not uncommon in Germany; in America and in England the teachers are more likely to succ.u.mb than the children. We do not commit suicide in America from any sense of shame at our intellectual shortcomings--what a decimating of the population there would be if we did!--it is more apt to be caused by ill health consequent upon a straining chase for dollars. In Prussia during the five years, 1902-1907, divorce increased from 17.7 to 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and suicide from 20 to 30.7.

If the observer does not take this difference of temperament into account, he does not realize how new and strange it is to find Germany these days, making its first and strongest impression upon the outsider by its industrial progress. The more intelligent men in Germany are beginning to see the dangers to real progress in such feverish devotion to industry, and to recognize that the life of the population is absorbed too largely by science, finance, and commerce.

To see so much of the intelligence of the nation exercising itself in material researches, to see such undue fervor in calculations of self- interest, does not leave an enlivening impression. Such an ideal of life is paltry in itself and involves grave dangers in the future. It is a long stride in the wrong direction since Hegel wrote of Germany as "the guardian of the sacred fire of intellect."

Out of this temperament has grown the self-consciousness, the uneasy vanity, the "touchiness" which has made Germany of late years the despair of the diplomats all over the world. She has become a chameleon-like menace to peace everywhere in the world. What she wants, what will offend her dignity, when she will feel hurt, what amount of consideration will suffice, when she will change color to match a changed situation, and in what color she will choose to hide her plans or to make manifest her demands, no man knows. She will not see things as they are, but always as an exhalation from her own mind.

As one of her own poets has written: "Deutschland ist Hamlet."

At this present moment she does not see either England or America as they are, quite peaceably disposed toward her but she sees them, and persists in seeing them, as they would be were Germany in their place.

She is forever looking into a mirror instead of through the open window. "The mailed fist," "the rattling of the sabre," "the friend in shining armor," "querelle allemande," are all phrases born in Germany in the last thirty years.