My Four Years in Germany Part 2

He may then become district attorney in a small town, then clerk of a larger court, possibly attached to the police presidency of a large city; he may then become a minor judge, etc., until finally he becomes a judge of one of the higher courts or an over-president of a province. Practically the only elective officers who have any power are members of the Reichstag and the Prussian Legislature, and there, as I have shown, the power is very small.

Mayors and City Councillors are elected in Prussia, but have little power; and are elected by the vicious system of circle voting.

Time and again during the course of the Great War when I made some complaint or request affecting the interests of one of the various nations I represented, I was met in the Foreign Office by the statement, "We can do nothing with the military. Please read Bismarck's memoirs and you will see what difficulty he had with the military." Undoubtedly, owing to the fact that the Chancellor seldom took strong ground, the influence which both the army and navy claimed in dictating the policy of the Empire was greatly increased.

Roughly speaking there are three great political divisions or parties in the German Reichstag. To the right of the presiding officer sit the Conservatives. Most of these are members from the Prussian Junker or squire cla.s.s. They are strong for the rights of the crown and against any extension of the suffrage in Prussia or anywhere else. They form probably the most important body of conservatives now existing in any country in the world. Their leader, Heydebrand, is known as the uncrowned king of Prussia. On the left side the Social Democrats sit. As they evidently oppose the kingship and favour a republic, no Social Democratic member has ever been called into the government. They represent the great industrial populations of Germany. Roughly, they const.i.tute about one-third of the Reichstag, and would sit there in greater numbers if Germany were again redistricted so that proper representation were given to the cities, to which there has been a great rush of population since the time when the Reichstag districts were originally const.i.tuted.

In the centre, and holding the balance of power, sit the members of the Centrum or Catholic body. Among them are many priests. It is noteworthy that in this war Roman Catholic opinion in neutral countries, like Spain, inclines to the side of Germany; while in Germany, to protect their religious liberties, the Catholic population vote as Catholics to send Catholic members to the Reichstag, and these sit and vote as Catholics alone.

Germans high in rank in the government often told me that no part of conquered Poland would ever be incorporated in Prussia or the Empire, because it was not desirable to add to the Roman Catholic population; that they had troubles enough with the Catholics now in Germany and had no desire to add to their numbers. This, and the desire to lure the Poles into the creation of a national army which could be utilised by the German machine, were the reasons for the creation by Germany (with the a.s.sent of Austria) of the new country of Poland.

This Catholic party is the result in Germany of the _Kulturkampf_ or War for Civilisation, as it was called by Bismarck, a contest dating from 1870 between the State in Germany and the Roman Catholic Church.

Prussia has always been the centre of Protestantism in Germany, although there are many Roman Catholics in the Rhine Provinces of Prussia, and in that part of Prussia inhabited princ.i.p.ally by Poles, originally part of the Kingdom of Poland.

Baden and Bavaria, the two princ.i.p.al South German States, and others are Catholic. In 1870, on the withdrawal of the French garrison from Rome, the Temporal Power of the Pope ended, and Bismarck, though appealed to by Catholics, took no interest in the defence of the Papacy. The conflict between the Roman Catholics and the Government in Germany was precipitated by the promulgation by the Vatican Council, in 1870, of the Dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope.

A certain number of German pastors and bishops refused to subscribe to the new dogma. In the conflict that ensued these pastors and bishops were backed by the government. The religious orders were suppressed, civil marriage made compulsory and the State a.s.sumed new powers not only in the appointment but even in the education of the Catholic priests. The Jesuits were expelled from Germany in 1872. These measures, generally known as the May Laws, because pa.s.sed in May, 1873, 1874 and 1875, led to the creation and strengthening of the Centrum or Catholic party. For a long period many churches were vacant in Prussia. Finally, owing to the growth of the Centrum, Bismarck gave in. The May Laws were rescinded in 1886 and the religious orders, the Jesuits excepted, were permitted to return in 1887. Civil marriage, however, remained obligatory in Prussia.

Ever since the _Kulturkampf_ the Centrum has held the balance of power in Germany, acting sometimes with the Conservatives and sometimes with the Social Democrats.

In addition to these three great parties, there are minor parties and groups which sometimes act with one party and sometimes with another, the National Liberals, for example, and the Progressives.

Since the war certain members of the National Liberal party were most bitter in a.s.sailing President Wilson and the United States.

In the demand for ruthless submarine war they acted with the Conservatives. There are also Polish, Hanoverian, Danish and Alsatian members of the Reichstag.

There are three great race questions in Germany. First of all, that of Alsace-Lorraine. It is unnecessary to go at length into this well-known question. In the chapter on the affair at Zabern, something will be seen of the att.i.tude of the troops toward the civil population. At the outbreak of the war several of the deputies, sitting in the Reichstag as members from Alsace-Lorraine, crossed the frontier and joined the French army.

If there is one talent which the Germans superlatively lack, it is that of ruling over other peoples and inducing other people to become part of their nation.

It is now a long time since portions of the Kingdom of Poland, by various part.i.tions of that kingdom, were incorporated with Prussia, but the Polish question is more alive to-day than at the time of the last part.i.tion.

The Poles are of a livelier race than the Germans, are Roman Catholics and always retain their dream of a reconst.i.tuted and independent Kingdom of Poland.

It is hard to conceive that Poland was at one time perhaps the most powerful kingdom of Europe, with a population numbering twenty millions and extending from the Baltic to the Carpathians and the Black Sea, including in its territory the basins of the Warta, Vistula, Dwina, Dnieper and Upper Dniester, and that it had under its dominion besides Poles proper and the Baltic Slavs, the Lithuanians, the White Russians and the Little Russians or Ruthenians.

The Polish aristocracy was absolutely incapable of governing its own country, which fell an easy prey to the intrigues of Frederick the Great and the two Empresses, Maria Theresa of Austria and Catherine of Russia. The last part.i.tion of Poland was in the year 1795.

Posen, at one time one of the capitals of the old kingdom of Poland, is the intellectual centre of that part of Poland which has been incorporated into Prussia. For years Prussia has alternately cajoled and oppressed the Poles, and has made every endeavour to replace the Polish inhabitants with German colonists. A commission has been established which buys estates from Poles and sells them to Germans. This commission has the power of condemning the lands of Poles, taking these lands from them by force, compensating them at a rate determined by the commission and settling Germans on the lands so seized. This commission has its headquarters in Posen. The result has not been successful.

All the country side surrounding Posen and the city itself are divided into two factions. By going to one hotel or the other you announce that you are pro-German or pro-Polish. Poles will not deal in shops kept by Germans or in shops unless the signs are in Polish.

The sons of Germans who have settled in Poland under the protection of the commission often marry Polish women. The invariable result of these mixed marriages is that the children are Catholics and Poles. Polish deputies voting as Poles sit in the Prussian legislature and in the Reichstag, and if a portion of the old Kingdom of Poland is made a separate country at the end of this war, it will have the effect of making the Poles in Prussia more restless and more aggressive than ever.

In order to win the sympathies of the Poles, the Emperor caused a royal castle to be built within recent years in the city of Posen, and appointed a popular Polish gentleman who had served in the Prussian army and was attached to the Emperor, the Count Hutten-Czapski, as its lord-warden. In this castle was a very beautiful Byzantine chapel built from designs especially selected by the Emperor. In January, 1914, we went with Allison Armour and the Ca.s.satts, Mrs. Wiltsee and Mrs. Whitehouse on a trip to Posen to see this chapel.

Some of our German friends tried to play a joke on us by telling us that the best hotel was the hotel patronised by the Poles. To have gone there would have been to declare ourselves anti-German and pro-Polish, but we were warned in time. The castle has a large throne room and ball-room; in the hall is a stuffed aurochs killed by the Emperor. The aurochs is a species of buffalo greatly resembling those which used to roam our western prairies. The breed has been preserved on certain great estates in eastern Germany and in the hunting forests of the Czar in the neighbourhood of Warsaw.

Some of the Poles told me that at the first attempt to give a court ball in this new castle the Polish population in the streets threw ink through the carriage windows on the dresses of the ladies going to the ball and thus made it a failure. The chapel of the castle is very beautiful and is a great credit to the Emperor's taste as an architect.

While being shown through the Emperor's private apartments in this castle, I noticed a saddle on a sort of elevated stool in front of a desk. I asked the guide what this was for: he told me that the Emperor, when working, always sits in a saddle.

In Posen, in a book-store, the proprietor brought out for me a number of books caricaturing the German rule of Alsace-Lorraine.

It is curious that a community of interests should make a market for these books in Polish Posen.

Although not so well advertised, the Polish question is as acute as that of Alsace-Lorraine.

After its successful war in 1866 against Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Hanover, etc., Prussia became possessed of the two duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, which are to the south of Denmark on the Jutland Peninsula. Here, strangely enough, there is a Danish question. A number of Danes inhabit these duchies and have been irritated by the Prussian officials and officers into preserving their national feeling intact ever since 1866. Galling restrictions have been made, the very existence of which intensifies the hatred and prevents the a.s.similation of these Danes. For instance, Amundsen, the Arctic explorer, was forbidden to lecture in Danish in these duchies during the winter of 1913-14, and there were regulations enforced preventing more than a certain number of these Danish people from a.s.sembling in a hotel, as well as regulations against the employment of Danish servants.

In 1866, after its successful war, Prussia wiped out the old kingdom of Hanover and drove its king into exile in Austria.

To-day there is still a party of protest against this aggression.

The Kaiser believes, however, that the ghost of the claim of the Kings of Hanover was laid when he married his only daughter to the heir of the House of Hanover and gave the young pair the vacant Duchy of Brunswick. That this young man will inherit the great Guelph treasure was no drawback to the match in the eyes of those in Berlin.

There is a hatred of Prussia in other parts of Germany, but coupled with so much fear that it will never take practical shape. In Bavaria, for example, even the comic newspapers have for years ridiculed the Prussians and the House of Hohenzollern. The smashing defeat by Prussia of Austria and the allied German States, Bavaria, Saxony, Hesse, Hanover, etc., in 1866, and the growth of Prussianism since then in all of these countries, keep the people from any overt act. It is a question, perhaps, as to how these countries, especially Bavaria, would act in case of the utter defeat of Germany. But at present they must be counted on only as faithful servants, in a military way, of the German Emperor.

Montesquieu, the author of the "Esprit des Lois," says, "All law comes from the soil," and it has been claimed that residence in the hot climate of the tropics in some measure changes Anglo-Saxon character. It is, therefore, always well in judging national character to know something of the physical characteristics and climate of the country which a nation inhabits.

The heart of modern Germany is the great north central plain which comprises practically all of the original kingdom of Prussia, stretching northward from the Saxon and Hartz mountains to the North and Baltic seas. It is from this dreary and infertile plain that for many centuries conquering military races have poured over Europe. The climate is not so cold in winter as that of the northern part of the United States. There is much rain and the winter skies are so dark that the absence of the sun must have some effect upon the character of the people. The Saxons inhabit a more mountainous country; Wurttemberg and Baden are hilly; Bavaria is a land of beauty, diversified with lovely lakes and mountains. The soft outlines of the vine-covered hills of the Rhine Valley have long been the admiration of travellers.

The inhabitants of Prussia were originally not Germanic, but rather Slavish in type; and, indeed, to-day in the forest of the River Spree, on which Berlin is situated, and only about fifty miles from that city, there still dwell descendants of the original Wendish inhabitants of the country who speak the Wendish language. The wet-nurses, whose picturesque dress is so noticeable on the streets of Berlin, all come from this Wendish colony, which has been preserved through the many wars that have swept over this part of Germany because of the refuge afforded in the swamps and forests of this district.

The inhabitants of the Rhine Valley drink wine instead of beer.

They are more lively in their disposition than the Prussians, Saxons and Bavarians, who are of a heavy and phlegmatic nature.

The Bavarians are noted for their prowess as beer drinkers, and it is not at all unusual for prosperous burghers of Munich to dispose of thirty large gla.s.ses of beer in a day; hence the cures which exist all over Germany and where the average German business man spends part, at least, of his annual vacation.

In peace times the Germans are heavy eaters. As some one says, "It is not true that the Germans eat all the time, but they eat all the time except during seven periods of the day when they take their meals." And it is a fact that prosperous merchants of Berlin, before the war, had seven meals a day; first breakfast at a comfortably early hour; second breakfast at about eleven, of perhaps a gla.s.s of milk or perhaps a gla.s.s of beer and sandwiches; a very heavy lunch of four or five courses with wine and beer; coffee and cakes at three; tea and sandwiches or sandwiches and beer at about five; a strong dinner with several kinds of wines at about seven or seven-thirty; and a substantial supper before going to bed.

The Germans are wonderful judges of wines, and, at any formal dinner, use as many as eight varieties. The best wine is pa.s.sed in gla.s.ses on trays, and the guests are not expected, of course, to take this wine unless they actually desire to drink it. I know one American woman who was stopping at a Prince's castle in Hungary and who, on the first night, allowed the butler to fill her gla.s.ses with wine which she did not drink. The second evening the butler pa.s.sed her sternly by, and she was offered no more wine during her stay in the castle.

Many of the doctors who were with me thought that the heavy eating and large consumption of wine and beer had unfavourably affected the German national character, and had made the people more aggressive and irritable and consequently readier for war. The influence of diet on national character should not be under-estimated. Meat-eating nations have always ruled vegetarians.

CHAPTER III

DIPLOMATIC WORK OF FIRST WINTER IN BERLIN

During this first winter in Berlin, I spent each morning in the Emba.s.sy office, and, if I had any business at the Foreign Office, called there about five o'clock in the afternoon. It was the custom that all Amba.s.sadors should call on Tuesday afternoons at the Foreign Office, going in to see the Foreign Minister in the order of their arrival in the waiting-room, and to have a short talk with him about current diplomatic affairs.

In the previous chapter I have given a detailed account of the ceremonies of court life, because a knowledge of this life is essential to a grasp of the spirit which animates those ruling the destinies of the German Empire.

My first winter, however, was not all cakes and ale. There were several interesting bits of diplomatic work. First, we were then engaged in our conflict with Huerta, the Dictator of Mexico, and it was part of my work to secure from Germany promises that she would not recognise this Mexican President.

I also spent a great deal of time in endeavouring to get the German Government to take part officially in the San Francisco Fair, but, so far as I could make out, Great Britain, probably at the instance of Germany, seemed to have entered into some sort of agreement, or at any rate a tacit understanding, that neither country would partic.i.p.ate officially in this Exposition.

After the lamentable failure of the Jamestown Exposition, the countries of Europe were certainly not to be blamed for not spending their money in aid of a similar enterprise. But I believe that the att.i.tude of Germany had a deeper significance, and that certain, at least, of the German statesmen had contemplated a _rapprochement_ with Great Britain and a mutual spanking of America and its Monroe Doctrine by these two great powers.

Later I was informed, by a man high in the German Foreign Office, that Germany had proposed to Great Britain a joint intervention in Mexico, an invasion which would have put an end forever to the Monroe Doctrine, of course to be followed by the forceful colonisation of Central and South America by European Powers. I was told that Great Britain refused. But whether this proposition and refusal in fact were made, can be learned from the archives of the British Foreign Office.

During this period of trouble with Mexico, the German Press, almost without exception, and especially that part of it controlled by the Government and by the Conservatives or Junkers, was most bitter in its att.i.tude towards America.

The reason for this was the underlying hatred of an autocracy for a successful democracy, envy of the wealth, liberty and commercial success of America, and a deep and strong resentment against the Monroe Doctrine which prevented Germany from using her powerful fleet and great military force to seize a foothold in the Western hemisphere.