New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 20

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

The numerous pamphlets which German writers are now distributing in the United States, and the many letters about the European war which Americans are now receiving from German and German-American friends, are convincing thoughtful people in this country that American public opinion has some weight with the German Government and people, or, at least, some interest for them; but that the reasons which determine American sympathy with the Allies, rather than with Germany and Austria-Hungary, are not understood in Germany, and are not always appreciated by persons of German birth who have lived long in the United States.

It would be a serious mistake to suppose that Americans feel any hostility or jealousy toward Germany, or fail to recognize the immense obligations under which she has placed all the rest of the world, although they now feel that the German Nation has been going wrong in theoretical and practical politics for more than a hundred years, and is today reaping the consequences of her own wrong-thinking and wrong-doing.

There are many important matters concerning which American sympathy is strongly with Germany: (1) The unification of Germany, which Bismarck and his co-workers accomplished, naturally commended itself to Americans, whose own country is a firm federation of many more or less different States, containing more or less different peoples; while most Americans did not approve Bismarck's methods and means, they cordially approved his accomplishment of German unification; (2) Americans have felt unqualified admiration for the commercial and financial growth of Germany during the past forty years, believing it to be primarily the fruit of well-directed industry and enterprise; (3) all educated Americans feel strong grat.i.tude to the German Nation for its extraordinary achievements in letters, science, and education within the last hundred years. Jealousy of Germany in these matters is absolutely foreign to American thought, and that any external power or influence should undertake to restrict or impair German progress in these respects would seem to all Americans intolerable, and, indeed incredible; (4) all Americans who have had any experience in Governmental or educational administration recognize the fact, that German administration--both in peace and in war--is the most efficient in the world, and for that efficiency they feel nothing but respect and admiration, unless the efficiency requires an inexpedient suppression or restriction of individual liberty; (5) Americans sympathize with a unanimous popular sentiment in favor of a war which the people believe to be essential to the greatness, and even the safety, of their country--a sentiment which prompts to family and property sacrifices very distressing at the moment, and irremediable in the future; and they believe that the German people today are inspired by just such an overwhelming sentiment.

How is it, then, that, with all these strong American feelings tending to make them sympathize with the German people in good times or bad, in peace or in war, the whole weight of American opinion is on the side of the Allies in the present war? The reasons are to be found, of course, in the political and social history of the American people, and in its Governmental philosophy and practice today. These reasons have come out of the past, and are intrenched in all the present ideals and practices of the American Commonwealth. They inevitably lead Americans to object strongly and irrevocably to certain German national practices of great moment, practices which are outgrowths of Prussian theories, and experiences that have come to prevail in Germany during the past hundred years. In the hope that American public opinion about the European war may be a little better understood abroad it seems worth while to enumerate those German practices which do not conform to American standards in the conduct of public affairs:

(a) Americans object to the committal of a nation to grave measures of foreign policy by a permanent Executive--Czar, Kaiser, or King--advised in secret by professional diplomatists who consider themselves the personal representatives of their respective sovereigns. The American people have no permanent Executive, and the profession of diplomacy hardly exists among them. In the conduct of their national affairs they utterly distrust secrecy, and are accustomed to demand and secure the utmost publicity.

(b) They object to placing in any ruler's hands the power to order mobilization or declare war in advance of deliberate consultation with a representative a.s.sembly, and of co-operative action thereby. The fact that German mobilization was ordered three days in advance of the meeting of the Reichstag confounds all American ideas and practices about the rights of the people and the proper limits of Executive authority.

(c) The secrecy of European diplomatic intercourse and of international understandings and terms of alliance in Europe is in the view of ordinary Americans not only inexpedient, but dangerous and unjustifiable. Under the Const.i.tution of the United States no treaty negotiated by the President and his Cabinet is valid until it has been publicly discussed and ratified by the Senate. During this discussion the people can make their voice heard through the press, the telegraph, and the telephone.

(d) The reliance on military force as the foundation of true national greatness seems to thinking Americans erroneous, and in the long run degrading to a Christian nation. They conceive that the United States may fairly be called a great nation; but that its greatness is due to intellectual and moral forces acting through adequate material forces and expressed in education, public health and order, agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce, and the resulting general well-being of the people. It has never in all its history organized what could be called a standing or a conscripted army; and, until twenty years ago, its navy was very small, considering the length of its sea coasts. There is nothing in the history of the American people to make them believe that the true greatness of nations depends on military power.

Object to Extension by Force.

(e) They object to the extension of national territory by force, contrary to the wishes of the population concerned. This objection is the inevitable result of democratic inst.i.tutions; and the American people have been faithful to this democratic opinion under circ.u.mstances of considerable difficulty--as, for example, in withdrawing from Cuba, the rich island which had been occupied by American troops during the short war with Spain, (1898,) and in the refusing to intervene by force in Mexico for the protection of American investors, when that contiguous country was distracted by factional fighting. This objection applies to long-past acts of the German Government an well as to its proceedings in the present war--as, for example, to the taking of Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, as well as to the projected occupation of Belgium.

(f) Americans object strenuously to the violation of treaties between nations on the allegation of military necessity or for any other reason whatever. They believe that the progress of civilization will depend in future on the general acceptance of the sanct.i.ty of contracts or solemn agreements between nations and on the development by common consent of international law. The neutralization treaties, the arbitration treaties, The Hague Conferences, and some of the serious attempts at mediation, although none of them go far enough, and many of them have been rudely violated on occasion, ill.u.s.trate a strong tendency in the civilized parts of the world to prevent international wars by means of agreements deliberately made in time of peace. The United States has proposed and made more of these agreements than any other power, has adhered to them, and profited by them. Under one such agreement, made nearly a hundred years ago, Canada and the United States have avoided forts and armaments against each other, although they have had serious differences of opinion and clashes of interests, and the frontier is 3,000 miles long and for the most part without natural barriers.

Cherishing the hope that the peace of Europe and the rights of its peoples may be secured through solemn compacts, (which should include the establishment of a permanent international judicial tribunal, supported by an international force,) Americans see, in the treatment by the German Government of the Belgian neutralization treaty as nothing but a piece of paper which might be torn up on the ground of military necessity, evidence of the adoption by Germany of a retrograde policy of the most alarming sort. That single act on the part of Germany--the violation of the neutral territory of Belgium--would have determined American opinion in favor of the Allies, if it had stood alone by itself--the reason being that American hopes for the peace and order of the world are based on the sanct.i.ty of treaties.

(g) American public opinion, however, has been greatly shocked in other ways by the German conduct of the war. The American common people see no justification for the dropping of bombs, to which no specific aim can be given, into cities and towns chiefly inhabited by non-combatants, the burning or blowing up of large portions of unfortified towns and cities, the destruction of precious monuments and treasuries of art, the strewing of floating mines through the North Sea, the exacting of ransoms from cities and towns under threat of destroying them, and the holding of unarmed citizens as hostages for the peaceable behavior of a large population under threat of summary execution of the hostages in case of any disorder. All these seem to Americans unnecessary, inexpedient, and unjustifiable methods of warfare, sure to breed hatred and contempt toward the nation that uses them, and therefore to make it difficult for future generations to maintain peace and order in Europe.

They cannot help imagining the losses civilization would suffer if the Russians should ever carry into Western Europe the kind of war which the Germans are now waging in Belgium and France. They have supposed that war was to be waged in this century only against public, armed forces and their supplies and shelters.

These opinions and prepossessions on the part of the American people have obviously grown out of the ideals which the early English colonists carried with them to the American wilderness in the seventeenth century, out of the long fighting and public discussion which preceded the adoption of the Const.i.tution of the United States in the eighteenth century, and out of the peculiar experiences of the free Commonwealths which make up the United States, as they have spread across the almost uninhabited continent during the past 125 years.

The experience and the situation of modern Germany have been utterly different. Germany was divided for centuries into discordant parts, had ambitious and martial neighbors, and often felt the weight of their attacks. Out of war came accessions of territory for Prussia, and at last German unity. The reliance of intelligent and patriotic Germany on military force as the basis of national greatness is a natural result of its experiences. Americans, however, believe that this reliance is unsound both theoretically and practically. The wars in Europe since 1870-71, the many threatenings of war, and the present catastrophe seem to Americans to demonstrate that no amount of military preparedness on the part of the nations of Europe can possibly keep the peace of the Continent, or indeed prevent frequent explosions of destructive warfare.

They think, too, that preparation for war on the part of Germany better than any of her neighbors can make will not keep her at peace or protect her from invasion, even if this better preparation include advantages of detail which have been successfully kept secret. All the nations which surround Germany are capable of developing a strong fighting spirit; and all the countries of Europe, except England and Russia, possess the means of quickly a.s.sembling and getting into action great bodies of men.

In other words, all the European States are capable of developing a pa.s.sionate patriotism, and all possess the railroads, roads, conveyances, telegraphs, and telephones which make rapid mobilization possible. No perfection of military forces, and no amount of previous study of feasible campaigns against neighbors, can give peaceful security to Germany in the present condition of the great European States. In the actual development of weapons and munitions, and of the art of quick intrenching, the attacking force in battle on land is at a great disadvantage in comparison with the force on the defensive. That means indecisive battles and ultimately an indecisive war, unless each party is resolved to push the war to the utter exhaustion and humiliation of the other--a long process which involves incalculable losses and wastes and endless miseries. Americans have always before them the memory of their four years' civil war, which, although resolutely prosecuted on both sides, could not be brought to a close until the resources of the Southern States in men and material were exhausted. In that dreadful process the whole capital of the Southern States was wiped out.

But One Possible Issue.

Now that the sudden attack on Paris has failed, and adequate time has been secured to summon the slower-moving forces of Russia and England, and these two resolute and persistent peoples have decided to use all their spiritual and material forces in co-operation with France against Germany, thoughtful Americans can see but one possible issue of the struggle, whether it be long or short, namely, the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary in their present undertakings, and the abandonment by both peoples of the doctrine that their salvation depends on militarism and the maintenance of autocratic Executives intrusted with the power and the means to make sudden war. They believe that no human being should ever be trusted with such power. The alternative is, of course, genuine const.i.tutional government, with the military power subject to the civil power.

The American people grieve over the fruitless sacrifices of life, property, and the natural human joys which the German people are making to a wrong and impossible ideal of national power and welfare. The sacrifices which Germany is imposing on the Allies are fearfully heavy, but there is reason to hope that these will not be fruitless, for out of them may come great gains for liberty and peace in Europe.

All experienced readers on this side of the Atlantic are well aware that nine-tenths of all the reports they get about the war come from English and French sources, and this knowledge makes them careful not to form judgments about details until the events and deeds tell their own story.

They cannot even tell to which side victory inclines in a long, far-extended battle until recognizable changes in the positions of the combatants show what the successes or failures must have been. The English and French win some advantage so far as the formation of public opinion in this country is concerned, because those two Governments send hither official reports on current events more frequently than the German Government does, and with more corroborative details. The amount of secrecy with which the campaign is surrounded on both sides is, however, a new and unwelcome experience for both the English and the American public.

German Ignorance of Events.

The pamphlets by German publicists and men of letters which are now coming to this country, and the various similar publications written here, seem to indicate that the German public is still kept by its Government in ignorance about the real antecedents of the war and about many of the incidents and aspects of the portentous combat. These doc.u.ments seem to Americans to contain a large amount of misinformation about the attack of Austria-Hungary on Servia, the diplomatic negotiations and the correspondence between the sovereigns which immediately preceded the war, and the state of mind of the Belgian and English peoples. American believers in the good sense and good feeling of the common people naturally imagine, when an awful calamity befalls a nation, that the people cannot have been warned of its approach, else they would have avoided it. In this case they fear that the Emperor, the Chancellery, and the General Staff have themselves been misinformed in important respects, have made serious miscalculations which they are proposing to conceal as long as possible, and are not taking the common people into their confidence. American sympathies are with the German people in their sufferings and losses, but not with their rulers, or with the military cla.s.s, or with the professors and men of letters who have been teaching for more than a generation that might makes right.

That short phrase contains the fundamental fallacy which for fifty years has been poisoning the springs of German thought and German policy on public affairs.

Dread of the Muscovite does not seem to Americans a reasonable explanation of the present actions of Germany and Austria-Hungary, except so far as irrational panic can be said to be an explanation.

Against possible, though not probable, Russian aggression, a firm defensive alliance of all Western Europe would be a much better protection than the single might of Germany. It were easy to imagine also two new "buffer" States--a reconstructed Poland and a Balkan Confederation. As to French "revenge," it is the inevitable and praiseworthy consequence of Germany's treatment of France in 1870-71.

The great success of Germany in expanding her commerce during the last thirty years makes it hard for Americans to understand the hot indignation of the Germans against the British because of whatever ineffective opposition Great Britain may have offered to that expansion.

No amount of commercial selfishness on the part of insular England can justify Germany in attempting to seize supreme power in Europe and thence, perhaps, in the world.

Finally, Americans hope and expect that there will be no such fatal issue of the present struggle as the destruction or ruin of the German Nation. On the contrary, they believe that Germany will be freer, happier, and greater than ever when once she has got rid of the monstrous Bismarck policies and the Emperor's archaic conception of his function, and has enjoyed twenty years of real peace. Your obedient servant,

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Asticou, Me., Sept. 28, 1914.

Dr. Dernburg's Reply to the Third Letter

Late German Secretary of State for the Colonies; lived for several years in the United States as member of the banking firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., New York.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Prof. Eliot is conferring a great favor on the exponents of the German side in the present struggle in explaining to them what he thinks of the so-called anti-German feeling in the United States. I am sure his views will be read also in Germany with a great deal of attention, although he will certainly not remain unchallenged in nearly all essential points.

The compliment that Prof. Eliot pays to the German people as a whole must be specially appreciated, the more so as it comes from a scientist whose great authority is equally recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

The anti-German feeling, according to Prof. Eliot, takes its source from the American objection to the committal of a nation to grave mistakes by a permanent Executive. But then, with the exception of France, all the warring nations have permanent Executives, professional diplomatists; all their affairs are conducted in secret, and all their rulers have the power, including the President of France, to embroil their nations in war. The German Emperor is in this respect certainly more restricted than the other heads of State, and I have not read that the declaration of war has been expressly sanctioned by the English Parliament, and certainly the mobilization of the English fleet that took place in July, and the mobilization of the Russian Army that took place at the same time, have not even been brought to the knowledge of the respective Parliaments. When, therefore, the same conditions prevail in all the warring States, how can they be made the reason for such an anti-German feeling?

The same objection holds good with the American antipathy against the power of rulers to order mobilization or declare war in advance without consultation of Parliament, to which I have only to say that the English fleet was mobilized without consulting the English Parliament, while in Germany the Bundesrat, the representatives of the Federal States, as well as of the Federal Diets, has been duly consulted. I may add that also the party leaders of the Reichstag, which could not be convoked earlier than two days after the declaration of the war, have been continuously informed and consulted.

Against the next paragraph, where Prof. Eliot complains of the secrecy of European diplomacy and of international treaties and understandings, the same objection must be made. The state described here as particular to Germany prevails in all European countries, and neither the treaty of the Russian-French alliance, nor the arrangements of the Triple Entente have ever been submitted to the French or British Parliaments. As regards the American att.i.tude toward armaments, I purposely refrain from adducing the American example into my argument, much as I could show that with a very large part of the American Nation the idea of defending the American coast against any invader and the maintenance of a strong Pan-American policy, if need be by arms, is just as fixed a tenet as the German idea that the Fatherland should be held safe from invasion or destruction by the will and the strength of its people. England has always held the same, if not through her army so through her navy, and so did the rest of Europe; and there is no argument to be gotten from that for an anti-German feeling.

No Seizure of Schleswig-Holstein.

Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that, even if one goes back as far as Prof. Eliot wishes to go. Mr. Eliot is absolutely mistaken as to the history of the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein into Prussia. Schleswig-Holstein was a Dual-Dukedom that never belonged to Denmark, but having as its Duke the King of Denmark as long as he belonged to the elder line of the House of Oldenburg. This elder line was extinct when King Christian VIII. died without male issue. His successor wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms into Denmark. Then the people stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the German Federation, to which it had always belonged, and there it is now, of its own free will. The natural dividing line between Denmark and Germany, however, is the River Eider.

There are about 30,000 Danes south of the Eider, who have been absorbed against their will, a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble.

Alsace-Lorraine Originally German.

As to Alsace-Lorraine, the facts are known to be that it had belonged to Germany until it had been taken, against the will of the people, by France under Louis XIV., and it was returned to Germany as a matter of right, more than three-quarters of the population being of German descent and speaking the German language.

But let me ask in return, Mr. Eliot, when did ever in her political career England consult the will of the people when she took a country?

Can he say that, when England tore the treaty of Majuba Hill, like a "sc.r.a.p of paper," and made war on the Boers? Did she consult the people of Cyprus in 1878? Does he know of any plebiscite in India? Has she consulted the Persians, or has France consulted the people of Morocco, or of Indo-China, Italy the people of Tripoli? Since Germany has not acted here in any other way forty years ago than all the other nations, why does Dr. Eliot consider the American people justified in taking anti-German views for reasons of such an old date, while he forgives the nations of the party he favors for much more recent infringement of his rule?

"Americans object to the violation of treaties." So do the Germans. We have always kept our treaties, and mean to do so in the future. The fact with Belgium is that her neutrality was very one-sided; that, as can be proved, as early as the 25th of June, Liege was full of French soldiers, that Belgian fortifications were all directed against Germany, and that for years past it was the Belgian press that outdid the French press in attacks against Germany. But I can give Mr. Eliot here some authority that he has so far not challenged. When Sir Edward Grey presented the English case in the House of Commons on the 3d of August he declared that the British att.i.tude was laid down by the British Government in 1870, and he verbally cited Mr. Gladstone's speech, in which he said he could not subscribe to the a.s.sertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee was binding on every party, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. He called that a.s.sertion a "stringent and impracticable" view of the guarantee and the whole treaty a "complicated question." So Mr. Gladstone, and with him Sir Edward Grey, has held the Belgian neutrality treaty not binding on every party, when it was against the interest which the particular situation dictated, when the war broke out. It was the interest of Great Britain to maintain the treaty, and that is why she acted. It was against German interest to maintain the treaty, and that is why she broke it. That is the British and not the German theory, and I could very well rest my case here. My theory is with the German Chancellor, that I greatly regret the necessity of violating the Belgian neutrality, after Belgium had chosen to repel the German overtures for a free pa.s.sage.

It is quite certain that the breach of the Belgian neutrality by Germany was used in Great Britain as a powerful instrument to influence the public sentiment. Every war must be borne by national unity, and it is the duty of the nation's leaders to secure such unity by all practicable means. But has it been forgotten that the att.i.tude of Sir Edward Grey caused such excellent men as Lord Morley, John Burns, and Sir John Trevelyan to leave the Cabinet, where they were looked upon as the best and most liberal members of the ruling combination? Bernard Shaw says of Great Britain that she has never been at a loss for an effective moral att.i.tude. Such an att.i.tude is a powerful weapon in diplomatical and actual warfare, and it must be resorted to, if the necessity arises. But that cannot blind us to the fact that the British Government allowed the political interest to be the paramount consideration in this Belgian neutrality matter. The German interest for not acting on the guarantee was just as strong as the English to act for it.

The proof is found in the English "White Paper." I cite the famous reprint of THE TIMES, (Dispatch No. 148 of Aug. 2 to Paris.) Here Sir Edward Grey says: "We were considering ... whether we should declare violation of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli."